Review: 'Pig Safari' by CC33

I mostly do music blogging just for my own amusement, as there's not that many actual perks to it. Unlike those who blog about food or fashion or whatever, you don't really get that much material profit out of it - you have to be pretty well-known in order to receive exclusive invitations or free concert tickets or stuff like that. However, every once in a while I do get e-mails with free music downloads etc. in them, and some months ago I even got my first promo CD in the mail so that's always pretty nice. The CD in question was called Pig Safari by the Finnish electro-rock outfit CC33.

You might recognise the band as it has been featured on my blog before, first in the Song of the Week section, then in my blog post about Finnish indie music. Generally, as you might've noticed by now, i don't tend to write about Finnish music that often (despite being a Finn myself) but there's always the occasional exceptions to that rule that are just too interesting to ignore. The Jyväskylä-based group CC33 is one of those.

Review: 'Do It Again' EP by Röyksopp & Robyn

After Röyksopp and Robyn announced that they'd be touring together and recording new material, I could imagine hordes of fans of quality pop music went absolutely bonkers. I for one did. The duo had collaborated twice before, with amazing results: both "The Girl and the Robot" and "None of Dem" were brilliant slices of glacial, bewitching Scandinavian pop. Expectations were building up.

Only to be further stirred by the lead single (and title track of the EP) "Do It Again" that premiered two months ago. It's every bit as anthemic as you'd expect from a collaboration between these two, with a simple but driving beat and accessible sing-along lyrics. And the bridge amps up the song on yet another level. While an infectious dance floor filler, there's actually some definite darkness to it - the lyrics describe an unhealthy relationship which the storyteller finds herself unable to resist and is helplessly drawn to, like a moth to a flame: "Don't care what they say, it hurts so good / I don't wanna stop, I know I should / But let's do it again, one more time".

Review: 'No Mythologies To Follow' by MØ

If you've been following my blog lately, you've probably figured out that I like the Danish indie pop songstress MØ quite a bit. So, it's about time I took a proper look at her debut LP No Mythologies To Follow. Without further ado, let's get down to it!

The original version of the album comprises twelve tracks, while the deluxe edition (which is the one available on Spotify) features four bonus tunes plus four alternative versions of the new album tracks, one remix, and her Spice Girls cover "Say You'll Be There". With even the ordinary version clocking at 44 minutes, the deluxe edition is clearly quite the package.

Before the album came out, I was concerned with one particular fact: out of the 12 tracks on the initial version of the album, six ("Pilgrim", "Waste of Time", "Never Wanna Know", "XXX 88", "Glass", "Maiden") had been already released in advance in one format or another, four as (then) stand-alone singles. Now, they're all killer tunes for sure, but with the album relying so heavily on 'older' (=previously heard) material, the new stuff has to be extremely good to be on a par. So, the first time I put the record on, I was really nervous - how will the record fare as an entity?

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Mantaray' by Siouxsie

(Alright, I know I promised to write this two weeks ago but things happen. Anyhow, here it is now - let's get on with it!)

2007 marked an unusual year for Siouxsie Sioux - for the first time during her nearly 30-year career, she was going solo. The album, titled Mantaray, wasn't actually the first project she had done under solo moniker, though: three years prior, she had embarked on the Dreamshow tour (with her then-partner and one half of The Creatures, Budgie) where she performed songs from both of the bands she had fronted, The Creatures and The Banshees. A DVD of the show was released afterwards, topping the UK music DVD charts upon its release. The duo of Siouxsie and Budgie also included several songs from their previous (and unfortunately, last) Creatures studio album Hái! (accompanied by Leonard Eto, who played on the album) and billing the tour as a Siouxsie tour was most likely merely a way to incorporate Banshees songs into the setlist.

This time, however, she's really going solo, as in 2007 she announced that she and Budgie had divorced. The subsequent absence of Budgie on the record is a major change - this was the first Siouxsie album since 1979's Join Hands that doesn't feature his work. Siouxsie had previously done amazing records in both of her groups with thriving artistic chemistry, so how does she fare solo?

Review: 'Nightclubbing' (2014 reissue) by Grace Jones

In 1981, Grace Jones released her fifth studio album Nightclubbing. Along with its predecessor, Warm Leatherette (1980), it represented a new musical direction for Jones: after her first three albums - the disco trilogy of Portfolio (1977), Fame (1978) and Muse (1979) - she reinvented herself as a new wave icon, known for her striking androgynous image and signature flattop hairstyle. The visual transformation was done with her then-boyfriend Jean-Paul Goude who started directing her music videos and designing the artwork for her albums. Music-wise, she teamed up with Sly & Robbie to create music that could be described as reggae-influenced new wave. In a sense, the reinvention can be seen as a return to her Jamaican roots after the disco years that represented the 'New York' side of her life.

Nightclubbing is the second album of her 'Compass Point trilogy', recorded at the Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. Similarly to Warm Leatherette, the album consisted of various cover versions with reggae-influenced arrangements. However, there's more original material on Nightclubbing: three songs out of nine are co-written by Jones ("Pull Up To The Bumper", "Art Groupie", "Feel Up"), one by Marianne Faithfull and Grace Jones collaborator Barry Reynolds ("I've Done It Again"), and while the Sting-penned "Demolition Man" was later cover by his own band The Police, it premiered as a Grace Jones song on this record. Innovative and fresh-sounding, the LP went on to become perhaps the most iconic Grace Jones record to date, achieving a cult status in pop music, not least for its visual aspects.

Review: 'Ray of Light' by Madonna

Madonna has been one of the most controversial characters in the world of popular culture. Carving a career out of shocking the public, the Queen of Pop has picked up religious symbols and used them in ways that have upset the conservative time after time. Some have criticised her of trivialising sacred imagery with her antics whereas others have praised her for her boldness to break taboos. Like it or not, she has been one of the most iconic pop heroines ever since the birth of pop culture. She's been like a chameleon, reinventing herself again and again with envelope-pushing audacity. And arguably, none of her transformations has been quite as remarkable as the one that was marked by the 1998 album Ray of Light.

The album was quite a departure from Madonna's previous work: it features a range of more alternative and electronic music influences from techno to trip-hop and was recorded without a live band. Thematically it's a highly spiritual record, drawing from Madonna's conversion to Kabbalah and her interest in oriental religions, which on paper sounds like it could be pretentious and forced - this was the woman who had previously sung about material girls and virgins touched for the very first time, after all. Fortunately, the new and, in hindsight, pretty unexpected direction works beautifully, most significantly due to William Orbit's superb production and Madonna's vocals that show more depth and emotional range than before. The vocal lessons she took for Evita certainly paid off.

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Hái!' by The Creatures

After releasing their fantastic 1999 album Anima Animus, there was a lot going on for Siouxsie and Budgie aka The Creatures. The duo released not one but two live recordings (titled Zulu and Sequins In The Sun) exclusively via their official fan club Gifthorse while also releasing a remix album Hybrids which featured remixes of their Anima Animus era tracks done by other artists. Furthermore, they released a compilation album that brought together their 1998 EP Eraser Cut and several B-sides from this era. Then, in 2002, Universal Music released a remastered compilation album of some of the Banshees' greatest hits (The Best of Siouxsie and the Banshees); subsequently, the core trio of the Banshees (Siouxsie, Severin & Budgie) plus guitarist Knox Chandler - who had played both with the Banshees (as their last guitarist) and The Creatures - reunited for the critically praised brief Seven Year Itch tour. A live album The Seven Year Itch was compiled of two of these gigs and released both as a CD and a DVD.

It was however made clear that the reunion was only meant to be temporary and less than 24 hours after the final Banshees gig, Siouxsie and Budgie were already in the studio recording new material for a forthcoming Creatures album. Fulfilling a long-time dream, the duo collaborated with ex-Kodo drummer Leonard Eto. The album was recorded in two parts: the main percussion was recorded as a spontaneous between Budgie and Eto drum duet - that's right, all the drumming you hear on the album is improvised! - and the rest of the material was added after The Creatures had returned to Europe.

Review: 'Immunity' by Jon Hopkins

I don't usually listen to a lot of instrumental music. I suppose I put a lot of emphasis on the singer's voice and the lyrics, too. However, every now and then you just stumble upon music that's too good to pass, no matter whether it represents your usual music taste or not. Remember when I told you guys about the list that I keep of bands and artists that I should check out? The British electronic wizard Jon Hopkins used to be one of the names on that list and, well, I'm extremely pleased that I gave his latest record a spin. The album, titled Immunity and released last year, was actually met with wide critical acclaim and was even nominated for the Mercury Prize for best album. It did ultimately lose to another electronic album though, namely James Blake's Overgrown.

So the record is mainly instrumental, with only occasional appearances of human vocals. Sampling dreamy electronic instruments and sounds taken from everyday life actions, Hopkins uses his synths like an artist would use paintbrushes to paint an enchanting urban panorama that's simultaneously vivid and soothing. The individual songs can be somewhat lengthy - the longest track on the album, "Sun Harmonics", clocks at nearly 12 minutes - but while the beats and the synth riffs are repetitive, they're still not boring. Instead, Hopkins succeeds in crafting atmospheric pieces that profit from the power of repetition.

Review: 'Bosnian Rainbows' by Bosnian Rainbows

I tend to keep a list of bands and albums I should check out. Sometimes those bands stay on that list for embarrassingly long times before I actually get myself to check them out. Bosnian Rainbows is one of those bands. A couple of weeks ago I did finally decide to give their self-titled debut LP a spin and well, it was love at first listen.

Bosnian Rainbows is an American alt-rock group that was formed after the less-than-amicable breakup of The Mars Volta. Originally starting as a continuation of Omar Rodríguez-López's side project, the line-up - consisting of previous The Mars Volta members Rodríguez-López and Deantoni Parks, singer Teri Gender from the Mexican punk group Le Butcherettes and keyboardist Nicci Kasper - soon became a band of its own. They released their first album, the eponymous Bosnian Rainbows last summer, and they've already finished their second album as well. Unlike the first LP, the second one will be in Spanish though. This mixture of styles makes an interesting cocktail of sound: whereas The Mars Volta's music is highly progressive - even a bit too progressive for my personal liking - Bosnian Rainbows' music is more straightforward in the sense that the songs are shorter and more to-the-point, as pointed out by Rodríguez-López himself. Also, while The Mars Volta is renown for its experimental prog rock and Le Butcherettes played garage-y punk rock, Bosnian Rainbows can best be described as post-punk, interestingly enough.

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Anima Animus' by The Creatures

After Siouxsie and the Banshees split up in 1996, The Creatures (Siouxsie and Budgie's another band) were already composing material for a new record. The album, titled Anima Animus, is Siouxsie's first LP since 1995's The Rapture and comprises ten tracks. Leftover songs from the recording sessions saw the light of day either as B-sides for single releases or on Eraser Cut, an EP that heralded the actual album release.

The Eraser Cut served as a teaser of what was to come: while Budgie's percussion is still the driving force here, gone is the tribal feel of their previous LPs Boomerang and especially the highly experimental Feast. The Creatures had come up with a new sound that was less about exotica and more about electronica. Indeed, their new material was a fascinating blend of ominous synths and acoustic instruments, although Budgie's trademark marimbas still make occasional appearances. Another new element in a way was Siouxsie's voice: as seen in the live clips from the Banshees' shows during the mid-1990s, Siouxsie was occasionally struggling when performing their older material since her singing voice had started to show signs of change, deepening and lowering in register. These songs, however, were written for Siouxsie's changed vocal range so they showcase new sides of her distinctive voice.

Review: 'Ruby Blue' by Róisín Murphy

Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody! In order to celebrate this special day, I will be reviewing the debut solo album of my favourite Irish person, Róisín Murphy! As you might have figured out by now, I'm a big fan of her music - her 2007 album Overpowered got four and a half stars out of five in my review of it. Once I was actually on this huge party cruise and I met this Irish girl. Having previously had a drink or two, I went to her and asked if she knew what was the best thing to come from Ireland. "Um, Guinness...?" she suggested carefully. "Nope, that'd be Róisín Murphy. She's so freaking amazing", I said. She looked confused, uttered "Good for you", and left. Alright then. But seriously, if I were Irish, I'd consider her as nothing short of national treasure!

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Eraser Cut' by The Creatures

Siouxsie and the Banshees' recording career came to an end with 1995' The Rapture with the band splitting up the following year. As a result, Siouxsie and Budgie's side project The Creatures became the duo's full-time band. The two actually started recording new Creatures material before the Banshees split up so even if the latter hadn't disbanded, a hiatus would've been coming, similar to when The Creatures recorded their previous LPs Feast and Boomerang.

During these sessions the duo recorded a lot of tracks and not all made it to their upcoming album, Anima Animus. Some songs were released as B-sides for following single releases, while the rest were treated with an EP release. The EP, titled Eraser Cut (an anagram of 'Creatures') was released in 1998 and consisted of four tracks. Preceding the album whose recording sessions they were taken from, the songs provided their listeners a taster of what was to come. 

Siouxsie Sunday: 'The Rapture' by Siouxsie and the Banshees

This Sunday, the album that will be reviewed is Siouxsie and the Banshees' 1995 record The Rapture. Released 19 years after the group was founded, The Rapture was the last LP they recorded before disbanding the following year. So this is it then - the very last Siouxsie and the Banshees studio album. (Although there's plenty of remaining Siouxsie recordings so fear not, it's far from over just yet.)

After releasing Superstition in 1991, the Banshees headlined the first Lollapalooza festival and were then asked to record a song for Tim Burton's Batman Returns. The outcome was the fantastic stand-alone single "Face To Face" that was co-orchestrated by Danny Elfman. A year after that, in 1993, the group started to record material for a new album. They then took a break from the recording process to play several festivals abroad, performing some of their newer songs as well even though they remained unreleased. The following year, Siouxsie also duetted with Morrissey on an incredible, heart-rending cover or Timi Yuro's "Interlude". The band felt that the album wasn't quite ready yet so they collaborated with The Velvet Underground pioneer John Cale to finish it. Two songs were dropped from the initial version of the album and ended up as B-sides for a later single release ("Black Sun", "Hang Me High") while a bunch of new songs were recorded with Cale. The completed album The Rapture finally saw the light of day in early 1995.

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Superstition' by Siouxsie and the Banshees

The year is 1991, and the Banshees get back together after taking an extended break to record a new album. It had been three years since 1988's brilliant Peepshow, which was the longest recording gap of their career so far. Meanwhile, Siouxsie and Budgie had worked together as The Creatures, recording another excellent LP Boomerang. The late 1980s had indeed been a creatively successful era for both groups, and Superstition saw them experimenting once again with new elements. This particular album, however, become probably their most polarising one - the new direction they were experimenting with, you see, was pop music.

Uh-oh, we're dealing with that dreaded moment when your cool and alternative favourite band does the unthinkable and goes pop. Sells out. When our favourite artists or groups release new music and it's not what we expect from them, we're often admittedly upset or at least not positively surprised. We've all been there. Nonetheless, sometimes we let our own initial reactions blur our judgement which is never a good thing. And now that I look back at Superstition - or 'the pink album', as the SATB fans tend to call it - it's by no means as lacking as many make it to be.

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Boomerang' by The Creatures

After Siouxsie and the Banshees had released their 1988 masterpiece Peepshow and finished with the subsequent promotion tour, the band decided to take a break. This, of course, was not to say that they'd take a complete year-off from the music biz, but rather simply signified another resurfacing of Siouxsie and Budgie's experimental side project The Creatures.

Ever since The Creatures came to be, it was clear that the project was never intended to rival the Banshees, but rather just provide the duo with a means to fulfil their more experimental side. (The Creatures did find their own success: their debut EP Wild Things, Feast single "Miss The Girl" and stand-alone single "Right Now" peaked at #24, #21 and #14 in the UK singles chart - with the latter staying in the charts for 10 weeks! - while Feast itself peaked at #17 in the UK album charts.) So apparently even the eccentricity of the Banshees wasn't enough for the two of them! That's how the project came to be in the first place: their debut EP was inspired by a leftover demo from the Juju sessions. While Juju was arguably a rather tribal album, the demo track "But Not Them" took the tribal feel to another level, consisting merely of vocals accompanied by percussion.

Boomerang was The Creatures' first LP since 1983's Feast, a tropical experiment characterised by the duo's distinctive percussion-driven sound. While Feast was written and recorded in Hawaii, which was reflected in the soundscape of the album, for the creating process of Boomerang they rented a stone barn in Andalusia, Spain. Stylistically there was a lot of development in the duo's sound: both the range of the instruments they used and the influences they drew from broadened. They incorporated brass arrangements (in the vein of "Right Now") and experimented with exotica with amazing results. Fun fact: the artwork for the album was photographed by Anton Corbijn (who's done everyone from David Bowie and Depeche Mode to Björk and U2) and while he became famous for his black-and-white photography, the Boomerang era pictures he took of The Creatures marked the first time he chose to photograph artists in colour.

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Peepshow' by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Another Sunday, another Siouxsie album, eh? The year is 1988, and after releasing the cover album Through The Looking Glass the year before, Siouxsie and the Banshees hit the studio, this time with original material. Subsequently they released their 9th studio album, Peepshow. The band's constant evolution and development was further fuelled with changes in the line-up: after Through The Looking Glass, the core trio of the Banshees (Siouxsie, Severin, Budgie) decided to continue working as a trio, and guitarist John Valentine Carruthers was to go, becoming yet another ex-Banshee guitarist. 

However, by the time they started recording the album, the line-up had once again expanded, this time to a five-piece: they recruited ex-Specimen guitarist Jon Klein and multi-intrumentalist Martin McCarrick. The latter had already actually worked with the Banshees on two occasions, having done the string arrangements for both 1984's The Thorn EP and the group's previous album Through The Looking Glass. Now however, he would join the group as a full-time member, staying with the Banshees till the rest of their career and becoming the longest-serving Banshee after the obvious exception of Siouxsie/Severin/Budgie.

Review: 'What's The Time Mr Wolf?' by Noisettes

This morning I arrived in London. I left for a trip all by myself which is something I had never done before. (Well, assuming that moving alone to a whole another country doesn't count.) I love this city so much and then again, why wouldn't I - London is basically the Mecca of modern-day pop music. I find it so amusing to just walk about, spotting things and names previously familiar from various songs and movies. And whenever I'm in London, one particular album hits heavy rotation in my brain.

That album, as you might guess by the picture above, is What's The Time Mr Wolf? by Noisettes. Past few years haven't been too favourable for rock music, and the charts and the mainstream consciousness have been dominated by electronic-influenced dance-pop music. It was all different in the mid- to late-2000s - there were new rock bands (and especially, so-called indie rock bands) popping up like mushrooms to the extent that music journalists started to describe a lot of new guitar-oriented indie music as 'landfill indie'. Indeed, considering that there were so many new similar bands being founded all around the world (and especially in the UK), many of them had a hard time trying to differentiate themselves from the others. Magazines and websites such as NME were filled with bands that far too often sounded far too similar. Fortunately, there were exceptions out there too, and (along with Band of Skulls) one of my favourite bands to emerge from the mid-2000s indie rock scene was Noisettes.

Review: 'Prism' by Katy Perry

2013 was quite a competitive year on the pop music front. While in my opinion the year was a bit lacking album-wise, there were several contenders for the best pop record of the year. Three candidates rose above others, at least what it came to public attention: Miley Cyrus's Bangerz, Lady Gaga's Artpop, and Katy Perry's Prism. As it tends to go, music journalists were more than enthusiastic to pit these three against each others, which wasn't helped by the fact that they were all released within a month.

To tell you the truth, I'm not really a big fan of any of them, and find the idea of media pitting female celebrities against each others as nothing more than lazy journalism (catfights equal 'shocking' headlines). There was one thing that did capture my attention, however: whereas both Cyrus and Gaga relied heavily on shock value in their promotional campaigns (seriously, they've taken desperate attention seeking to a whole new stratosphere), Perry's album promotion appeared much more moderate: gone was the in-your-face provocativeness of "I Kissed A Girl" and the muffin-shaped bras. Rather than opting for the candy-coloured rubber dresses of her past, she toned it all down this time, setting herself above the pointless exaggeration and let the music do the talking - hats off for that. In addition, "Roar" was admittedly one of the catchiest pop singles last year (I even chose it for my 'Best of 2013' list) so I wanted to see what the fuzz was all about. And boy was I pleasantly surprised!

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Through The Looking Glass' by Siouxsie and the Banshees

The Tinderbox writing and recording sessions had taken a lot of time and effort - almost the whole of 1985 - so the band decided to take another route with their next LP. Thus, they ended up recording 1987's Through The Looking Glass, an album solely consisting of cover versions of pre-existing songs. That's right, a cover album. Now, the thing about cover albums is that they can end up being extremely boring: it's songs you've already heard before, and usually not that radically reworked either. Furthermore, going exclusively for covers can be a rather lazy option too (hey, you don't need to write anything yourself, when you're relying on great songs already made popular).

However, Siouxsie and the Banshees were not your average band - when they did covers, they nailed it. They had already recorded and released a bunch of covers, ranging from two Beatles covers, both from the latter's eponymous 1968 album ("Helter Skelter" appeared on their debut LP The Scream and "Dear Prudence" was included in the US version of Hyæna) to additional singles B-sides. They were not a lazy group of musicians either, often revamping the songs beyond recognition, making them distinctively Banshees-y songs in the process. "Helter Skelter" for instance was remade into a full-fledged post-punk stomper whereas the dreamy "Dear Prudence" became a blissful pop gem in the Banshees' hands. So, they had already successfully done some sporadic covers, but how would they fare with a whole 10-track collection of them?

Review: 'Fixin To Thrill' by Dragonette

In 2007, an album was released that in my eyes is one of the best electro-pop albums that I've ever heard. That album is called Galore and it's by the Canadian pop marvels Dragonette. It was such a near-perfect album that I gave it five stars in my review. However, with a phenomenal debut come huge expectations - how are you going to come up with a follow-up to such a solid album? It can't be easy, can it.

Yet, "It's easy / hard as it seems" sings frontwoman Martina Sorbara on "Easy", and it kind of answers my question as well. Released in 2009, Fixin To Thrill is the group's second album and marks a slight departure from their initial, straight-forward pop-rock style. It's not like they abandon pop music here either, but they do embrace a more electronic-oriented, even indie-like soundscape on the record. Fixin To Thrill also sees a change in Sorbara's persona: whereas on Galore she represented an archetypal sultry pop vixen, here she adopts a bolder and occasionally even juvenile character, which is also reflected in the music videos and the way they portray her.