Julian Lennon’s polar pick this week: Julie Peel

Self-taught multi-instrumentalist Julie Peel is preparing to unleash her debut full-length album, Near the Sun, September 2009 on American Laundromat Records. Previously featured on ALR compilations including Just Like Heaven (a tribute to the Cure), Gigantic (a tribute to Kim Deal), Dig for Fire (a tribute to the Pixies), and Cinnamon Girls (a tribute to Neil Young), this will be Julie’s first solo full-length release. She counts Aimee Mann, Beth Orton, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell among her influences, and their impact is not hard to discern on Near the Sun. Julie’s lo-fi, guitar-driven pop recalls the likes of Ida, Anna Ternheim, Caithlin de Marrais, and Mirah, but bears her own distinctive indie sensibility and style.

Born in Cannes, Julie was raised between France and Canada, and sings entirely in English on this album. As a child, she tended toward self-determination. “At 5,” she explains, “I would take my bike and go for long rides in the countryside… Sometimes I would go fishing by myself.” Though her mother worried, Julie always came home “like it’s normal a 5-6 year old kid would go out all day so far away.” That independent spirit is evident throughout Near the Sun, which Julie recorded, mixed, and produced on her own. She plays most of the instruments as well, though she is also joined on bass, cello, and upright bass by Cyrille Catois (who she met in 2005 and has worked with consistently ever since) and on drums by Andreas Dahlbäck (drummer and producer for Anna Ternheim).

Spontaneity was key in the creation of this album, as evidenced by tracks such as ‘Innocence.’ “I composed it and wrote the lyrics in under an hour, and recorded it very quickly right after,” she reveals. “… I guess this song is what represents me the most.” The swell of the cello under her honest, melancholy lyrics turn this stand-out track from simple to understandably sophisticated. “Most of the tracks were first takes,” Julie notes, which manifests itself in a sense of both immediacy and intimacy throughout the album. The undeniably catchy track ‘Living in a Movie,’ replete with irresistible hand-claps, seems sent straight from the soundtrack to a film by Michel Gondry or Sofia Coppola. A sweet and somehow cinematic tune that demonstrates Julie’s capability to craft pop songs at once familiar and dream-like, deceptively minimal, ‘Living in a Movie’ is just one of the songs off Near the Sun that compels repeated listens.

Though her contributions to the ALR compilations were noteworthy in their own right, this collection of original material bears testimony to Julie Peel’s own dynamic pop sensibilities. Keep an eye out for Near the Sun, and look for her hitting the road across the US later in 2009.

Get a FREE MP3 of Julie Peel’s tracks “Unfold”

Get a FREE Ringtone of Julie Peel’s “Living In A Movie”

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Featured Exclusive this week: Tal M. Klein (@talmklein)

Aniligital Music presents Slow Down, a slo-mo slammer of an EP featuring a Tal M. Klein collaboration with Anthony Mansfield (Hector Works) and another with Irregular Disco Workers (Cloned In The Vatican).

First up is “Ciao Bella (Lento Sul Lido).” Here Irregular Disco Workers and TMK dial up a real beauty of a beach track influenced by those late night watchings of Emmanuelle movies with the acid lines of last night’s rave still ringing in the ears.

Next, “Polk Street Stumblin’ (Hey You)” is a pre-AM/TM Anthony and Tal collaboration found in a hidden folder called “gem” in Aniligital’s old studio file cabinet. This “Disco Villain”-era slow disco/jazz fusion track of sleazy proportions is reminiscent of many nights spent stumbling away from a forlorn bar in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district with creatures of the night shouting “hey you!” at the heels of those who pass them by.

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Julian Lennon’s polar pick this week: Nightmares on Wax (@nightmaresonwax)

It is no exaggeration to say that Nightmares on Wax’s work is synonymous with a place in time. It is a place individual to those who have savoured his popular brand of sun-drenched dubbed out soul, where fragments of hazy memories, halcyon days and past snapshots encapsulate a generation’s sofa sojourning.

For George Eveyln, the man behind Nightmares on Wax, did indeed create some defining moments in the 90’s. Firstly there was his involvement in writing two of the U.K.’s early rave classics Dexterous and Aftermath (with then writing partner Kevin Harper from the Nightmares A Word of Science album). George then went alone and in ’95 bought us Smoker’s Delight, a downbeat opus and the archetype 90’s stoner album (not surprisingly, he was a one time high judge of the Cannibus Cup in Amsterdam). The effect of Smokers Delight was palpable as it is considered one of the main catalysts in the explosion of the chill out / down tempo genre today. Read More

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Featured Exclusive this week: Ekala (@EkalaMusic)

EKALA tries to make sense of it all with her new 10 song, down tempo artist album, ‘THE SPIRIT OF CONTRADICTION’, featuring “TRAIN OF THOUGHTS”, “I’LL BE WILD” and “MALI”.

Check it out on Beatport

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Julian Lennon’s polar pick this week: Wild Honey

Melancholic hip-hop goodness from the school of Gummy Soul and dreamy pop for the horn rim jockeys from Algodón Egipcio – it doesn’t get much hipper than this.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: we are head over heels with Wild Honey. How could we not? His album “Epic Handshakes And A Bear Hug”, apart from sporting a rather fantastic title, is a delicious slice of intimate, folk-tinged pop taking influences from anything from The Zombies to Michel Legrand and Disney soundtracks. Take “Gold Leaf”, for instance: a quirky, sweet and lo-fi bossa nova ditty with gorgeous boy-girl vocals. It could come straight from that “The Party” soundtrack. If Hrundi V. Bakshi could sing, that is. And “Kings Of Tomorrow” is just like opening the window on a Sunday morning and the day comes running at you shrieking with joy, arms stretched out ready to hug you and jump around like children at a garden party.

On this here 7”, Amerigo Gazaway, the man from the utterly fantastic Gummy Soul collective and one of Kanye West’s new favourite producers, slows “Gold Leaf” down, emphasises Anita Steinberg’s vocal and gets rid of the Carioca influence, and almost all of the instrumentation, for that matter, in favour of a more melancholic vibe, with a simple but effective hip-hop beat and some sweet keyboards. On the flipside, dream-pop boy wonder Cheky, a.k.a. Algodón Egipcio (Lefse Records), turns “Kings Of Tomorrow” into a gliding, then slightly euphoric piece of synthy goodness with Robin Guthrie-like guitars, which will have your inner hipster wave their horn-rimmed glasses in the air like they just don’t care.

On Wild Honey:

Behind Wild Honey we find Guillermo Farré (the bassist of the Madrid group the Mittens) with his solo endeavour. In his work as composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist, he has released two EPs (“The House By The Sea” in the beginning of 2008 and “Diamond Mountain” in 2010), and an LP (“Epic Handshakes and a Bear Hug”) released on vinyl in October of 2009, reissued on CD and digital by Lovemonk in 2010. At present, Guillermo is recording his new album, on which Stereolab’s Tim Gane makes his debut as a producer! Due out this autumn on Lovemonk.

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Featured Exclusive this week: Beaumont

Beaumont steps up for the next release on Hotflush, with his ‘Never Love Me EP’. The young Scottish producer Michael Rintoul, otherwise known as Beaumont, created a slice of hypnotic R&B dream pop on last year’s ‘Blush Reponse EP’. It was described by inimitable Brighton-based blog 20jazzfunkgreats as having produced, “by a strike of genius and inspiration”, the authentic soundtrack to “a really cool Z-series 80s thriller”. This time round, the vocal work on the title track is reduced to a barely intelligible processed warble, which provides the scaffolding that supports the sparse drums, synth washes and plucked melody.

‘Uptown’ begins with Carpenter-esque keys of dread, but is quickly drenched in a warm shower of shimmering keys that tussles with the shuffling half-beat. The ‘Rendez-Vouz’ could be on Mars, cosmic winds billowing, until a snaking bassline throbs into sight, Beaumont’s impeccably programmed drums playing off against the tense synths. “Star cross’d lovers” indeed upon the EP’s closer, ‘Verona Beach’, the tidal back and forth grounding, the sound of the sun setting on a Miami Vice beach, but disturbed into syncopated sense.

The bonus track ‘Adrift’, pushes off onto a different kind of aural quest, lost in an ocean of sweeping sound, with only the skittering snares behind your sail, and the uncertainty of the key changes to steer your fate.

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Julian Lennon’s polar pick this week: Morcheeba

Morcheeba is set to release their seventh and latest album “Blood Like Lemonade” through PIAS records. Blood Like Lemonade sees the band return to form, with it being their first album since 2003 to feature Skye on vocals.

Paul Godfrey says: ’This is the record we should have made after Big Calm but we had to travel treacherous terrains to get back to our natural habitat.’ Skye adds: ‘Friends have been asking, “What does the new Morcheeba record sound like?” My answer? “It sounds like Morcheeba” Of course!’

Some background on the track, “Even Though” is the lines about “the hidden dangers” and being “cast adrift in space” reflect worries about humanity. That was inspired by reading interviews with astronauts – they’d get into space and look back at the world, and couldn’t understand why people were still fighting with each other, and why we were destroying our own planet, that was so beautiful from a distance. The heavy breathing sound is an astronaut breathing in his helmet. He doesn’t have long to live, and at the end his breathing stops. He’s basically just trying to send a message that we should all get along.

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Featured Exclusive this week: Flunk

As of April 2012, Norwegian ‘folktronica’ band Flunk are celebrating the ten year anniversary of the release of their acclaimed debut album “For Sleepyheads Only”. The band’s career has blossomed since those beginnings, with numerous singles, follow-up albums, and live performances worldwide. Before moving to their next step, Flunk has chosen to commemorate this decade-long achievement with
The Songs We Sing - Best Of 2002-2012, a collection that not only gathers sixteen highlights from the band’s career but also pairs this with twelve excellent remixes of their original tracks.

This sampler features some of the best remixes found within Flunk’s The Songs We Sing collection. Cosmic Norwegian paratrooper Rune Lindbæk makes an appearance with his spacey, four-on-the-floorKlubb Kebab Dub of “Kebab Shop 3 AM.” AstroJazz remake “If We Kiss” into a breezy, latin-rhythm’ed soundscape complete with melodica melodies and echoey vocal snippets. UK electronic dream-pop act Blue States take Flunk’s languid cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday” and create a dense but gorgeous downtempo interpretation that just builds and builds. Beatservice artist Kohib is on hand to remix “Common Sense” as a pared-down electronic groover that bubbles with flowing synth lines and a liquid nu-disco beat, only overshadowed by the evocative vocal of singer Anja Øyen Vister. In closing, this sampler includes “See Thru You,” a superb original cut from Flunk with an atmospheric downtempo crawl that recalls acts like Zero 7 and Air.

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Julian Lennon’s polar pick this week: Belleruche

It all started some time ago, before Modest & Fabulous were even a flicker of confusion in the back of Kathrin’s mind, and they were playing very weird sets using guitars and turntables in some of Londons less renowned establishments… Someone, for some reason, offered them a real gig. In a real venue. On a Tuesday. So they needed a name, Belleruche.

It just so happened that Fabulous was working in an establishment where idle browsing through the internet was a welcome relief to staring at the walls. It was whilst engaged in this practice that he stumbled across a website…

And what a website. A tribute to one of the finest canine creations to walk on 4 legs. Who had sadly passed away in his native land of New Zealand some years previously, probably whilst wearing a barrel around his neck. A dog of such renown and stature that when the time came to meet his maker it was felt that some sort of lasting digital tribute should be made.

Modest & Fabulous had a brief discussion, and came to the same conclusion.

Dead dogs don’t sue.

Bellerucheis comprised of Kathrin deBoer who’s voice carries the soul of the wind off the cape mixed with the grit of illegal Polynesian rum bars. Ricky Fabulous who clutches a false identity and a forty-year-old guitar and Dj Modest who created a soundsystem and played unlawful hiphop parties in strange woodlands to farmers.

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Featured Exclusive this week: Ryan KP & Anthony Hicks

In the fall of 2011, Ryan KP and Anthony Hicks teamed up to deliver us an amazing release titled, “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” which was put out on the label, UTC Wired.
UTC has produced some amazing gems in chillout and Ryan Khazai-Poul and Anthony Hicks add to the already deep roster that includes the likes of Eddie Silverton, Marga Sol and Guts just to name a few.

The full album can be purchased at iTunesand is worth the pick up as it offers up some chunky lounge flavors and solid chill vocal journeys.

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