Gil Scott-Heron has come a long way since the Seventies spirit of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’. Forty years on, he’s back, and touring with the self-analytical, poetic and redemptive, ‘I’m New Here’. Scott-Heron offers up the wisdom of his growing years in vocals that are deeper, darker and more resonant than ever. These days he’s more melancholic than anarchic. ‘I’m New Here’ is intense and thought-provoking and rather beautiful – just not what you’d expect from ‘the godfather of rap’.
Gil Scott-Heron plays at Somerset House tonight as part of ‘The Summer Series’. ‘I’m New Here’ (Rough Trade) is out now.
Chelsea Leyland, the lithe blonde British actress who played at Twin’s New York launch party, shares her soundtrack for summer:
1. Richard Hell- Blank Generation
2. The Clash- Bank Robber
3. David Bowie- Never Known a Girl Like You Before
4. Florence and The Machine- Girl With one Eye
5. Prince- Cream
6. Jamie T- Sheila
7. Shelly Thunder- Kuff
8. Pantera- Cemetary Gates
9. Notorious BIG- Ten Crack Commandments
10. The Cramps- Human Fly
Twin headed down to the Scala last week to catch up with Au Revoir Simone – the Brooklyn trio that puts out inimitably cool and wistful electronic pop. The ladies were in town for a rare London gig to celebrate their third album – Night Light – which is released next month on the ever hip label, Moshi Moshi.
We like quirky names – tell us where you got yours…
Annie: It’s from the movie Peewee’s Big Adventure. There’s a waitress in the movie called Simone who helps Peewee follow his dreams. So she inspires Peewee to go find his bike and he inspires her to leave her small town in Texas where she’s been waiting tables. And it’s something that they say when she’s leaving for Paris.
How would you describe your music?
Erika: I used to say lo-fi electro pop or keyboard pop, but I feel like with our new album we’ve entered this new…can we just say dream crystal?
Heather: I like it.
Annie: I don’t like it…
Erika: Nothing’s appropriate anymore…we’ve evolved so much.
Annie: I would say it’s all electronic music that doesn’t sound electronic…
Ok, so where do you get your influences from?
Annie: There is this band from Brighton called Electrelane and they have a way of making songs be simple but sound really big and beautiful.
Heather: And Stereolab – they have these amazing electronic soundscapes and
they’re warm too.
Erika: And we just played a show in Paris with Air, where we were all on stage together and we learned ten of their songs and they learnt five of ours and we did some covers. That was really cool, I feel we can relate to the way they write – they’re really attentive to the sounds, having several relationships with the sounds.
What’s the music scene like in Brooklyn?
Annie: It’s fun, its supportive, it’s collaborative – networking is so easy because everyone is so creative…almost everybody in our neighbourhood is a graphic designer or a photographer or video director, so there’s a really multi-talented support network.
Who are your favourite designers?
Annie: Oh there’s this designer called Rachel Antonoff, she’s new.
Annie: Yes she’s amazing.
Heather: We all like Philip Lim.
Erika: And there’s this website from New York called Refinary29.com that we all like. They have a great blend – not thinking about labels and designers. For me it’s just about finding rad stuff. We get to travel so much, this year I got to collect dresses from a beach shop in Singapore and amazing pieces from India.
So tell us, if we go to Brooklyn, what boutiques should we visit?
Erika: There’s this incredible one over on the Lower East Side called The Reformation and it’s this girl who had a clothing line called ‘Love by YaYa’ and she takes for example 80s silk pieces and cuts them to make them more contemporary.
Heather: Bird is really good; there are a lot of stores on the Lower East Side
We blame Coco for helping to make teeny tiny red shorts, yesterday’s eye make-up and ox-blood DM’s ubiquitous with this summer’s teen style. It’s just a shame we can’t all rock this look as effortlessly as she does. Ok, so we at Twin were as sceptical as the next lady about Sumner’s rock progeny roots – but her nonchalant attitude, husky vocal timbre and clever hook-up with Robyn on the sensational track ‘Caeser’ have won us over. If you can’t wait for Coco’s forthcoming debut album, ‘The Constant’ – then check out her re-working of Neil Young’s, ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’. Put together with Fyfe Dangerfield of the Guillemots, here Sumner follows in the footsteps of Saint Etienne who covered the classic brilliantly in 1990.
Coco’s own limited release is due out any moment now on the Luv Luv Luv label. Watch it here… Or better still, see her in the flesh – I Blame Coco are playing tonight at The Flowerpot in London.
It’s hard to imagine luminous skinned, flame-haired beauty Karen Elson being bullied at school. But now the model, and mother of White Stripes Jack White’s children, is having the last laugh. The title of her brilliant blues-inspired new album stems from her school time nickname, ‘The Ghost Who Walks’. Haunting and atmospheric – with a lyrical dexterity that’s comparable to a fledgling Nick Cave – Elson shows the vocal strength and timbre of Cat Power, or an Americana PJ Harvey, as she moves between murder ballad to lonesome lament.
Her transition from model to musician is definitely a family affair – produced by her husband, her band mates include The Dead Weather’s Jack Lawrence and Meg White’s husband, Jackson Smith (son of Patti). It’s not far from the circus-like vaudeville group, Citizens Band that she was once a part of. Ultimately, there’s no doubt that Elson is both beautiful and talented – for which we love and salute her – but she’s also so incredibly lucky. What other musician could hope to launch their music career post-thirty? The people of Oldham must be dead proud.
‘The Ghost Who Walks’ released on Third Man/XL records, out now. www.karenelson.com
Hailed as folk music’s answer to Lady Gaga, 19-year-old Geordie songstress Beth Jeans Houghton usually performs wearing a peroxide wig and a metallic bra. As the story goes, three years ago she emerged from the crowd at Green Man festival after Devendra Banhart asked for a member of the audience to get up and sing a song. Since then, Houghton has been fine tuning her sweet, breathy vocals on winsome tunes such as, I Will Return, I Promise.
An album is now on its way, and Houghton has already supported Bon Iver, Mystery Jets and King Creosote. This month she takes centre stage, touring the UK with her band, Hooves of Destiny. While her look maybe brash and glam, don’t be fooled. Behind the quirky facade lurks a well of gentle folk tunes full of mandolin and magic.
Remember that perfect car journey cassette tape? Or lovingly writing out a track list for the boy you liked? Mixtapes were the way we shared our music love. Sadly, the days of the comforting clunk and click of a cassette player are as long gone as those crushes.
Spotify and others have tried to revive the art of the mix through shared play lists and the like – but somehow it’s not quite the same. Luckily we have discovered The Mixtape Club – who have found a way to bring back the magic of the compilation. It began with burning mixes onto CD’s for friends while at art college, fast-forward a few years and Micah Panama and Brian Thomas, who live in San Francisco and Brooklyn respectively, have created their own website dedicate to the mix.
“We started the site with a simple mantra: ‘The Mixtape Club is an organization dedicated to the art of the mixtape’,” says Panama.
Each month they invite ten designers and friends to submit ten tracks along with an original artwork album cover. The mixes are available for that month only and then they do it all over again.
“A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do,” says Panama.
This month’s mix brings together tunes from Animal Collective and Sébastien Tellier to Madeleine Peyroux and A Tribe Called Quest. Amongst the cover art is a dreamy barren wood photograph taken by designer Yuri Angela Chung, as well as a DIY paintbox style thumb picture by Driko Moto. Who said MP3s have no soul?
It’s no surprise that this long-haired, leggy beauty counts Jane Birkin and Lou Doillon as her style icons – she looks as if she’s part of their French family. But actually American singer-songwriter Diane Birch is the daughter of a Seventh-day Adventist preacher. Often seen sporting a wide-brimmed black hat, heavy fringe and a mix of vintage clothing which drapes over her 6ft frame, we are currently doting on Birch’s bohemian look. And her voice is as beautiful on the ear as her looks are on the eye.
Diane Birch’s album ‘Bible Belt’ is out now on S-Curve Records. www.dianebirch.com
Right about now, no one does girlie, kooky and indie better than Zooey Deschanel. With those big doe eyes – and a just retro enough wardrobe – her pretty look and ethereal sound, courtesy of She & Him Volume Two, makes her our summer pin-up du jour. Zooey we heart you!
She & Him Volume Two is out now on P-Vine, Double Six and Merge Records, produced by M. Ward. www.sheandhim.com
After instigating MySpace rumours that they were a group of Swedish kids, nostalgia poppers Summer Camp finally revealed their true identity-singer-songwriter Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey, aka the editor of Platform magazine.
Mystery solved, this week the pair have just put out their blissful spectral pop track Ghost Train on Moshi Moshi records. The secrecy surrounding their collaboration, which is fuelled by a mutual love of John Cusack films and Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club, has injected some refreshing enigmatic charm into the hit-parade.
Check out the montage video featuring shots from a 1969 film titled ‘Last Summer’, featuring a young Barbara Hershey, pre Beaches fame.
Yes, Laura Marling is one of the most quietly exciting British artists to have come to the fore in recent years. We look forward to letting her music wash over us on balmy summer nights, but it’s the artwork for her limited edition new album, I Sing Because I Can, that really makes our hearts beat faster in our tiny chests. Invest now.
American rock band, OK Go, are in danger of becoming better-known for their videos than for their songs. The latest, This Too Shall Pass, took several months, around 60 people and more than 60 takes to realise. The result is an insanely good chain reaction filmed in a single shot. Put together in a two storey warehouse in Echo Park, L.A, the chain reaction machine was designed and built by the band, with the help of members of Syyn Labs.
Geek facts: The wooden tracks that guide the metal balls at the beginning of the video had to be waxed after each take to prevent dust from slowing them down, and the angle of the board had to be at a precise incline of 3.4 degrees.
The video has already had over 2 million hits on YouTube. See it for yourself.
LoneLady, AKA Julie Campbell is a self-styled writer, vocalist and super-tight guitarist. Recorded in a ramshackle studio in one of Manchester’s crumbling mills, her debut album ‘Nerve Up’ invokes the ghosts of Joy Division, Wire and The Fall. Though her inspirations are dark and dour, her post-punk tunes are positively popping.
‘Nerve Up’ is out on 22nd February on Warp Records.
At 21 years old Keaton Henson has already had his own line at Topshop, produced artwork for band Dananananaykroyd and exhibited his illustrations from LA to London. Yet it’s music that’s his real passion. For a while he’s been making money from his illustration work with the aim of putting together an album.
Now – he’s only gone and done it. Last week Keaton released four music videos to a satisfying smattering of success. Shot on Super 8 and co-directed by his close friends, the videos beautifully mirror his soft-spoken, melodic voice as he tells stories of unrequited love. Some tracks are more sinister – in ‘Party Song’ the young Keaton confesses to wanting to kill the boyfriend of the girl he adores. Yet his naïve charm means you’ll be smitten nonetheless.
At 13, Charlotte Gainsbourg made her musical debut with her father, Serge, on a record intriguingly titled, ‘Lemon Incest’. 24 years later comes a moving, and rather magical, album, ‘IRM’, made with Beck. Tellingly, the title is the French abbreviation for MRI, and explores the after effects of the cerebral hemorrhage that Gainsbourg experienced after a water-skiing accident in 2007. But far from being dour, the resulting album is an evocative mix of industrial clank, beating electronica and ethereal Gallic pop. We’re enchanted.
Twin’s cultural connoisseur in Paris, actor and DJ Joana Preiss shares her top ten tracks with us…
1/ Harry Crews : Naked In Garden Hills
2/ Lizzy Mercier Descloux : Torso Corso / Fire
3/ Joan La Barbara : Three Voices (Morton Feldman) / The Wonderful Widow (John Cage )
4/ Teenage Jesus and the Jerks : Everything
5/ Anna Karina : Ma Ligne De Chance (Pierrot Le Fou)
6/ Diamanda Galas : Gloomy Sunday
7/ Gina X : Nice Mover
8/ Lydia Lunch (and Rowland S.Howard) : Some Velvet Morning
9/ Millie Small : My Boy Lollipop
10/ Laurie Anderson : Born, Never Asked / O Superman (live version with David Bowie)
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