The Weekly Froth! With Jan Ken Po, Eli Escobar and New Build

Jan Ken Po - Unlimited Man

By Stef Siepel

The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

‘Colour Wheel’ by Jan Ken Po (Max Essa)

No he didn’t! Max Essa just released an album as Jan Ken Po, putting the bass lines at the center of attention and providing an album that keeps on rolling and rolling on. This is the album closer, and it is simply spectacular. It has a major bass line – like all the other songs on the album – that really keeps the song going, and this is mixed with sounds I connote to genre films. Some clever use of guitar and piano to give it a good vibe and to add some variety to the song (which you also get via that strip away of the bass at around 2:30, after which you get a build-up with the natural conclusion of the return of the bassline at around 3:30). In the mean time, all those extra sounds never conflict with the main sound, and thats ace. Such continuity, such flow: first surprise album of the year in what will hopefully be an ace 2012. … Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth! With John Talabot, The Rapture and Roxy Music

John Talabot - Fin

By Stef Siepel

The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the Week: ‘So Will Be Now…’ by John Talabot feat. Pional

Love the start with those vocals, and love how quickly he adds to it with the fingersnapping and a beat. Really gets it all going (and gets me going at that). This track is off of John Talabot’s new album, and he gets a bit of help here from Pional. Really like those echoey sounds that are thrown in there, and the kind of deeper beat that comes in after a minute or so. It all fits so well together, and it just keeps on rolling. After two+ minutes he dials it down for a moment, with the fingersnapping being one of the few sounds audible next to the vocals. That’s ace. After three minutes it delves in a bit deeper, and quickly the beat returns again. Nearing the end it gets some different sounds going eliciting different moods. Seriously, if this wasn’t on my to-watch-list before, it sure is now. Just an amazing track that keeps on giving and giving. All the sounds work really well together, and I love that voice and how it meshes so well with the rest of the song. February 2012, watch out for this album. … Continue Reading

Muso’s Guide’s Favourite 50 of 2011 – 10-1

We’ve spent the last two days unveiling numbers 50-11 in our top 50 songs of 2011, and now the time has come to unveil what Muso’s Guide’s hefty panel of writers nominated as their top 10 songs released this year. It’s been a pretty diverse selection thus far, and the top end of the chart is no different. … Continue Reading

Muso’s Guide’s Favourite 50 of 2011: 20-11

Yesterday we posted numbers 50-21 in our Favourite Songs of the year countdown, and we’re edging ever closer to the Top 10. Today sees us revealing the bottom half of our top 20, which can be enjoyed below, in tantalising reverse order of course. … Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth! With Whomadewho, Matthew Dear and Nite Jewel

Whomadewho - Inside World

By Stef Siepel

The weekly froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy. After this will be a slight Holiday break, but don’t worry, come January we’ll be back with this one in a hurry. Happy holidays everybody and have a little fun, do a little dance, and get down tonight.

Track of the week: ‘Inside World’ by WhoMadeWho

WhoMadeWho are going to follow up Knee Deep with a new album next year, and if this is any indication it is going to be awesome. First the rougher sounds, the volume up, and then born out of that this great rhythm comes along with those fabulous vocals. I really love their vocals, I’ve always believed that one of the band’s strengths, and they do have an ear for finding that catchy rhythm and going with it. It is a short one at 3:37, and it fluently rolls right on through to the end. I think this is an amazing track by the lads, who are positively genius in a live setting. Recorded, I find them to be hit and miss a bit, but when they hit, they hit it out of the park, and this to me is a good example of that. So can’t wait for that new album, if only because that means they’ll be doing the rounds again and you can’t miss that opportunity. … Continue Reading

Muso’s Guide’s Favourite 50 of 2011: 50-21

Last week we unveiled our top 50 albums of the year, but as regular Muso’s readers will know, we get just as excitable about the good old song as we do about full length albums. So with that in mind, over the next three days we’re going to be unveiling which songs our writers have voted their top picks of the year. Enormous thanks are due to Mitchell Sterling who did us proud in fulfilling his annual chore sifted through the emails from the Muso’s Guide staff, compiling them into something resembling a logical order. … Continue Reading

Interview: Sondre Lerche – “It’s a ritual of loneliness and it’s very frustrating and ultimately very rewarding, so I’ll stick with it”

Sondre Lerche

Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche has been releasing albums now for over a decade – since 2001′s Faces Down, he’s released six albums plus a soundtrack for the film Dan In Real Life. Earlier this year, he released his latest, self-titled LP. He recently took some time to answer questions from our very own Charlotte Gay – he discussed the musicians who helped him bring his newest record to fruition, early inspirations and his song-writing process. … Continue Reading

Albums Of 2011: 10-1

PJ Harvey

Welcome to the fifth and final part of our albums of the year countdown – for the rest of the week, we’ll be bringing you our favourite albums of 2011, as voted for by our writers. Earlier this week, we revealed 50-41, 40-31, 30-21 and 20-11. We’ll bring you our favourite songs of the year next week. All in all, 24 lists were totted up by Mitchell Stirling, and votes were cast by Tom Bolton, Paul Brown, Sam Cleeve, Jane Corcoran, Lucy Dearlove, Rosie Duffield, Ben Dufton, Paul Faller, Stephen Ferdinando, Paul Gettings, Alex Kavanagh, Dannii Leivers, Steve McGillivray, Kenny McMurtrie, Jim Merrett, Greg Salter, Natalie Shaw, Andrew Schagen, Harley Sherman, Stef Siepel, Mitchell Stirling, Stephanie Stevens-Wade, Antonio Tzikas, and Russell Warfield. This list, and everything else that we do, would not have been possible without them and all our other writers – thank you! … Continue Reading

Albums Of 2011: 20-11

Tune-Yards

Welcome to the fourth part of our albums of the year countdown – for the rest of the week, we’ll be bringing you our favourite albums of 2011, as voted for by our writers. Earlier this week, we revealed 50-41, 40-31 and 30-21 – check in tomorrow when we’ll finish with 10-1. We’ll bring you our favourite songs of the year next week. All in all, 24 lists were totted up by Mitchell Stirling, and votes were cast by Tom Bolton, Paul Brown, Sam Cleeve, Jane Corcoran, Lucy Dearlove, Rosie Duffield, Ben Dufton, Paul Faller, Stephen Ferdinando, Paul Gettings, Alex Kavanagh, Dannii Leivers, Steve McGillivray, Kenny McMurtrie, Jim Merrett, Greg Salter, Natalie Shaw, Andrew Schagen, Harley Sherman, Stef Siepel, Mitchell Stirling, Stephanie Stevens-Wade, Antonio Tzikas, and Russell Warfield. This list, and everything else that we do, would not have been possible without them and all our other writers – thank you! … Continue Reading

Albums Of 2011: 30-21

Clams Casino

Welcome to the third part of our albums of the year countdown – for the rest of the week, we’ll be bringing you our favourite albums of 2011, as voted for by our writers. Earlier this week, we revealed 50-41 and 40-31 – check in each day this week for 10 more albums, with 10-1 announced on Friday. We’ll bring you our favourite songs of the year in the following week. All in all, 24 lists were totted up by Mitchell Stirling, and votes were cast by Tom Bolton, Paul Brown, Sam Cleeve, Jane Corcoran, Lucy Dearlove, Rosie Duffield, Ben Dufton, Paul Faller, Stephen Ferdinando, Paul Gettings, Alex Kavanagh, Dannii Leivers, Steve McGillivray, Kenny McMurtrie, Jim Merrett, Greg Salter, Natalie Shaw, Andrew Schagen, Harley Sherman, Stef Siepel, Mitchell Stirling, Stephanie Stevens-Wade, Antonio Tzikas, and Russell Warfield. This list, and everything else that we do, would not have been possible without them and all our other writers – thank you! … Continue Reading