Emmy The Great in Liverpool

After the weird rap night, I wake up on my laptop with two new albums in iTunes, a ticket to a show and a train ticket to get to that show. The albums are from Emmy The Great and the ticket for the show is the same in Liverpool. Time to go, this train leaves in two hours and the departing station is across town. What have I done, who the hell poisoned me and why is there a fork in my hand?

Next things next, the great city of Liverpool, known for that one band, funny accents, and being cold and wet. It's an unusual place where speaking understandable English is optional, but I'm not noticing so much as I'm in a rush to get to the Liverpool Guild of Students where the gig has already started. In some hall half the size of a basketball court is a quiet group of young Brits watching the last song from the opening act, Stealing Sheep, who are gypsying around with their harmoniously hippie voices on an uncommonly large stage. There's an empty bar to the left (there's booze everywhere over here) and I'm relieved I didn't miss the main course. It's a three hour train, I missed the first one by stupidness mistake and I'm anxious.

Emma-Lee Moss is more of an emanating force from a far away magical planet than an actual real-life person. That sounds like a huge over-exaggeration for such a small-framed, half-Chinese, half-English twenty-something with a wispy voice and an affinity for 90s rock music, but as it pertains to a commanding presence on stage, turning mortals into drones with wide-open paralyzed mouths, then it's just something you'll have to experience for yourself to understand.

From the moment she floats on stage, alone with her big gold necklace and freshly-paid-for Iron Maiden t-shirt, the crowd is entranced. I stare at the muscles in her thighs (I think she's a runner) just under her black skorts ('cause I'm a perv, you know that) as she pulls up her customized acoustic guitar and begins to sing like an angel. She has an Irish folk singer feel to her, but it's less country and more something else.

In fact, her first album, First Love, plays almost entirely like a folk album aside from a few progressive electrons. That's when people started to notice her east of the states, but something tells me with the newly edged-up record, Virtue, all will change for the bigger and better. It's a more well-rounded and put-together taste of dark and magical flavors occasionally dipping into melodic drones and distant pulses that take my weird mind into Fantasyland. Not a far cry, really, with her lyrics singing of fairy tales and dinosaur sex. It's deeper than it sounds.

The rest of the band comes out in this mostly sold out gig and they jam with Grace in front of what is still a quiet crowd. For some reason, even in this small place and high stage, they've filled the floor with chairs. You can either sit in one or stand by the bar in the back. I sit to be close, but I hate the idea of all that energy being strapped to a seat. The crowds in England are reserved anyway and when I look around, I'm the only soul bobbing my head. They're not bored, they've just been zombified by her spell and into it. Their wooing cheers in the relenting breaks say so. I guess I'm supposed to stare into her eyes more and not so much at her legs to get the full effect.

She occasionally jingles what looks like a dream catcher with bells and crucifixes attached to it to ward off the demons. Song after another, this is hypnotic and blissful. Em to The G are an incredible live performance and while they can be mellow, there's plenty of opportunity for foot tapping. All is taking me to a distant place and I'm thinking about the empty seat next to me where someone I know should be. Then suddenly my buzz is jolted loose by a cover of Weezer's "Island In The Sun" (RIP Mikey Welsh) and I might as well be in a Sonic drive-thru. I don't figure out this decision until later when Google tells me Emma is a huge fan. Her choice, but it doesn't seem to suit her voice or sound and I'm left with curious eyes. She could've at least chosen "Crab," instead.

Luckily, she and the band don't end there and continue on with more velvet vocal volume and my space world starts to sneak back again. In between songs, Emma tests the crowd with some throw-away one-liners you have to be listening to to catch. She's a funny girl, gifted in voice, smart with her writing, and ain't too shabby in the looks department, neitha'. I'm thinking this is one of the best shows I've seen in a while and, later on, I confirm that with my sober memories. Will I see her/them live again? Yes. Liverpool? No.

Catch ETG's upcoming Christmas thing with Tim Wheeler from Ash (whom she's rumored to be dating. Pffffsssshhhhtt). It's called Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler present This Is Christmas and the first track sounds like, well, Ash.

Photo stolen from Facebook. LaZers added by ES out of necessity.

Emmy The Great // North
Emmy The Great // Sylvia
Weezer // Crab

City and Colour

Have I posted about Dallas Green before?

I should have. 2009's Bring Me Your Love was one of those albums I played in my car, at my desk, in my flat, for my friends, for my cats, tried to learn the chords, put some of the lyrics on the "about me" section on the Facebook. Even if it's emotive, heavy on the sentimentalness did bring down my street cred.
Don't judge, you've done it too wombat.

As the alias City (Dallas) and Colour (Green), the frontman of post-hardcore Alexisonfire plays melodic, largely acoustic folk music that airs this side of vulnerable. His third album Little Hell, released earlier this month, was both recorded and mixed on tape at Catherine North Studios in Hamilton, Ontario. Canadian analog, I dig.

While a solid handful of tracks seem ripe for the One Tree Hill picking, the dusky brothel video shot for the first single, inspired by his wife's frequent night terrors, might say otherwise.



City and Colour // Fragile Bird
City and Colour // Hope For Now

Under the Covers Monday: Bob Dylan & Magnet f. Gemma Hayes

Oh hay lil sweet sweets.

I have returned, relatively bronzed and properly drawly.
Or more so drawly than I was, which will thrill my best girlfriends who like to get me tipsy and encourage the use of "y'all" at any provided opportunity.

Hearing this over the loudspeaker at the Charleston airport, wedding-hungover and beach-depressed, was a petite saving grace of leaving Sullivan's Island. Doesn't hurt that it's one of the straightsultriest songs on the flockin' planet.

Magnet f. Gemma Hayes // Lay Lady Lay
Bob Dylan // Lay Lady Lay

Elizabeth and the Catapult

A little sexy push and pull for your dark-pop affinity. Don't you worry about it.

Elizabeth and The Catapult // Go Away My Lover

The Weeknd

My deep-rooted, nostalgic love for early-90's R&B is springing some new green. The genre's dark cascade towards growling sex cynicism and clenched maxillary muscles is just what I plan to keep ducking into.

The Weeknd, known up until now for those who can find them {him?} as XO, is 20 year-old Torontonian Abel Tesfaye. Doesn't take long to figure out the kind of night you're gonna have after listening to his sensuously violent, don't-let-mom-hear-this-on-your-mixtape lyrics. Sink your teeth into the shoulder of TW's House of Balloons download here. Don't miss Beach House samplings with How To Dress Well leanings, and previous release "What You Need."

The Weeknd // Wicked Games.

imma imma monstah

fakeout.

Kanye West's latest installment in universal pop takeover, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, is goddamn massive. Literally. Most tracks are extended to and beyond the 5minute mark. Compared to the auto-tuned cold, minimalistic 808's & Heartbreak, Fantasy has about 90gabillion layers of music production. Brass, electric guitar distortion, tabernacle chorale groups - all intended to max out whatever vessel you're in to aural capacity.

Yeah, a number of the tracks could've been edited down.
Sure, the majority of lyrics focus on graphic sex or Jesus.
Yes, West can be a sonovabitch. But he is a talented sonovabitch, so I bought the eff into this album and dance as much as my seatbelt will allow while playing "Lost in the World" on my commute. Just how I live my life.

Kanye West (f. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Manaj & Bon Iver) // Monster

Jenny & Johnny, Isobel & Mark

She & Him and Pete & Scarlett and Sonny & Cher and over it. Almost over it.


Jenny (Lewis) and Johnny (Rice) are (I'm) Having Fun Now, k? They are creatively young and prolifically in love and no amount of winking on Match.com will yield these kind of results. These two are genetically enabled to make you reluctantly bounce along to their surf rock homage towards kitten kisses and California. Doesn't matter if the reviews keep the indie-darling of Rilo Kiley close while casting Jonathan to the gum-stained curb. I happen to like his vocals just fine. Clearly - as it seems I played his single "So Sweet" 24 times in college. Ew. Here's winking at you, Johnny.


Hawk is the third album from the whiskey and chambord pairing of Isobel Campbell (Belle & Sebastien) and Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees). Campbell produced, arranged and wrote all but two songs, heavily showcasing Lanegan's smoky rasp with her wispy coos skimming in the background. The odd birds still have some sexy time tension to talk about with 70's soul retro cuts, exploring past the familiar badlands of dusty-country-rock stomping grounds.

Jenny & Johnny // Big Wave

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan // Come Undone

The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger

Put on your new pants and move out to France.

Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl want to make sure your ear catches totally boss lyrical efforts on Acoustic Sessions, October release. These two are so pretty with a band name so stealth it makes me mildly ill.

Usually an electronic amorous pair, the nine track album features just what's needed - guitar, piano, vibraphone - to exacerbate their trippy hippie pop pysch folk feeling. That is the most ridiculous genre listing ever. We're making up a word for it right now. We're calling it MACRAME SYNTH. Fruit snack on that.

The Ghost of Saber Tooth Tigers // Jardin du Luxembourg

My Gold Mask

Back in the day - which was a Wednesday, mind you - Nick Armondo was strumming his acoustic in the den of his Chicago flat. A few rooms over, ladyfriend Gretta Rochelle started belting along with a depth of vibrato he wasn't familiar with since their days in punk rock outfit Bang!Bang!
"That's neat," he mused. "wonder what else we could do with that."

A few more den sessions and they found a practice studio to expand their bojanglin'. It wasn't a 4-star space, heck there was even a tom tom and kick drum leftover from the last tenants. Rochelle, no percussionist, ambled over and figured out how to attach the pedal and tap out a 4-beat before adding her pipes. ::wtf wunderkind:: Armando got apeshit on his nylon-stringed electroacoustic, and so My Gold Mask came to be.

Finding inspiration in lucha libre masks (they've always wanted a gold one),
their pug (who doesn't?)
and well..each other (but Mates of State they are NOT),
MGM's January release A Thousand Voices EP has them pounding out east-Indian influenced cadencies outside of their comfort zone. They perform as a duo, Rochelle's vocals ranging from rasps to operatics, Armando's guitar distorted to sound as un-guitar-like as he can get it.

"Violet Eyes" - provocative, dissonant, nostalgic for more noir times - has her prowling through the lyrics over his ectoplasmic riffs. You'll want for ripped stockings and an EMF meter.

My Gold Mask // Violet Eyes

Lykke Li - continued

Recently reminded how much I adore this lil gal.

A fair-haired fairy from Stockholm - who happened to winter in Nepal and pad about Lisbon and Morroco before recording her first album in Brooklyn - Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson has gained notoriety since her 2008 release.

Rumor is "Little Bit" was inspired from a three-year previous relationship. Just enough to break your heart, change your life.
And instill the confidence to tell the world just what position you'll keep your legs until your lover returns. Bold, Ly. Bold.

Classified as sugarplum sweet neon lilac soul, her recent cover of Roberta Flack's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" reminds that table sugar has a similar hue to bleached bones.

Lykke Li // Tonight
Lykke Li // Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

The Dead Weather

It's hard not to become a little obsessed with The Dead Weather.

a. they're a supergroup. A supergroup which could, admittedly, kick Monsters of Folk's ass
b. Alison Mosshart is a ravenhaired banshee. And dead sexy.
c. Jack White, who's hair may be cooler than Alison's, is rock's Renaissance man. A jack of all a trades, a master of every f*ckin' think he touches.
d. If you get to have jam sessions with Dean Fertita and Jack Lawrence that turn into random albums, you get to wear the Fonz jacket.
e. Horehound is an herb that may help ease nausea and it's not just the band trying to be cheeky. Get your mind out of the gutter, you creep.
f. they were the last band to come on before Pearl Jam Sunday night, which means it's the last band I remember with true clarity. Whoopsies!

So yeah I sweat them like I sweat after pull-up number three (oh, the embarassment) but I don't giveah what. Now I'm gonna go dye my hair black and loll around on hardwood floors smokin' cigs so Jack White can ring me up to play kazoo and life can mean something.

The Dead Weather // So Far From Your Weapon
The Dead Weather // New Pony

Kings of Leon + Lykke Li

I’m not a big fan of remixes, but when you add in/replace vocals from Lykke Li, it’s kind of hard to go wrong. This plays out more like a modern electronic version of Grease anyway. Just go with me on this one.

Knocked Up (Lykke Li vs. Rodeo Remix)