Fancy A Bit Of Fun?

Bat For Lashes are encouraging all of their fans to log on to their MySpace page and try mixing their very own version of "Pearl's Dream", one of the best songs on their new album "Two Suns".

It's certainly unique, and users will be able to save their own little mix and send it to their friends to show off their handy mixing work. Don't like the beats? Ditch them. Not keen on Natasha's layered vocals? Bin it. Want more of the freaky little electro skit at the beginning? Make it run through the whole song, baby!

Ah Natasha! What a fine idea indeed. For those of you who haven't heard the song, here it is:

Now think about your remixes!

We Are The People: They Are The Band!

Oh peeps! Having listened to the Empire of the Sun album repeatedly over the last, oh, four or so months, it has become apparent that their latest single "We Are The People" is officially one of the songs of the decade.

Yeah yeah, I know you're sitting there thinking that there are billions of better songs but hey, this is my humble opinion - at first you sit there and its simple guitar riff and psychedelic singing wash over you in an amiable way and then after ten or so plays you start smiling. And the smile is more of a beam that you can't contain but have to in case people start staring at you more than ever.

It's a summer song: even the video screams warmth and tropical bliss but then I woudn't expect anything less from a band who like to dress up in wild headdresses and dance around in tribal jewellery while wearing lovely blue chinese suits (who are MGMT kidding? They're nowhere near as far out as these guys!) Ah, if Sleepy Jackson and Pnau are really on hold then it's good news. I want more from Empire of the Sun. I want it now and I want them to tour next week!!

Ahem this video takes a while to get going: it's like a weird narrative but my Spanish has deteriorated badly so please: someone tell me what they're saying!!

Sounds Of The Universe

Oh, what's happened?! All quiet in the Depeche Mode camp? Certainly not! After all, they've had years of bust ups and additctions and have created blindingly good records through it all. So what? Are we going to get a happy, lovey-dovey, oh-so-corrupted version of the Mode now that they've settled down? Like bells we are.

I will stand by this record, which is ten thousand tmies better than their last attempt, "Playing The Angel" (though in all fairness "Lilian" was quite a good song). It's rockier, more ambitious, and has a slight turn towards their old days. Slight. Not too much. Gone are the bleeps and blops (well, mostly) and in come the melodies and the sexy guitars once again. Yay! It's a return to form.

Opener "In Chains" makes use of some slightly stripped down beats and a lovely electronic-warped guitar, using Dave Gahan's voice as its main force. And what a force it is on this record - it seems there's some new vigor and life inside him and this is shown on their first single "Wrong" in which he powers through unstoppably against fragmented melodies and lets the darkness flow. But a lot of this could be down to Martin L. Gore's songwriting. I'll let Gahan have the credit for "Come Back" which is one of the most effective songs on the album.

We still have gentler moments of evil on "Little Soul" and the short instrumental break "Spacewalker" which hold different parts of the album together nicely. Personally, the final third of this thirteen-track album is the best. "Miles Away/ The Truth Is" is, whisper it quietly, almost like a pop song (eek!) and is probably one of the most accessible offerings here. But I still love it more than their darker musings. Strange, isn't it? "Jezebel" serves as an interlude between this and the storming closer "Corrupt" which just has to be THE best closer to a record I've heard so far this year, and it'll take a lot to beat its rock-infused malevolence.

But I don't understand how "Peace" made the final cut of the record. At just over an hour long, they could have afforded to cut out this part. You can see the idea behind it, with the almost choral layering of voices, but the bitty electronica doesn't quite sit right in-between "In Sympathy" and "Come Back". Is it just me or this section just a little unnecessary? Part of me just doesn't want to sit through four minutes of "Peace" before getting to "Come Back", I want to skip through it!!

But despite this black mark in the middle of the record, Depeche Mode have made a much more engaging and pleasing record than their latest attempts. They wanted it to be the "Violator for the 21st Century". Have they done it? Well, it'll always be hard to match "Violator" but you aren't gonna get any closer than this!!

Two Suns

You know, I actually didn't know what exactly to expect with Natasha Khan's second album. Her band Bat For Lashes' first album was filled with understated magic and mysticism that only really broke free from simple piano and harpsichord ditties on a few tracks - not that it stopped me from declaring it as one of my albums of 2007.

Two years later and we are presented with the equally hypnotic "Two Suns", a conceptual album that sees our Ms. Khan expanding her sound quite significantly. Having only ever heard "Daniel" and "Moon and Moon" before buying the album I wondered if it was all going to be low-key electronica and yet more piano musings. But no, opener "Glass" sort of blows that out of the water. It seems Natasha has a soft spot for tribal beats and ringing percussion mixed with dark guitars and her own amazing vocal range. And I DO love her vocal range.

"Glass" also shows Khan's love of metaphorical lyrics, singing about things that on the surface are incomprehensible ramblings. But hey, look! There's actually some deep meaning in there! "A thousand crystal towers"? Yes, definitely a metaphor. But let's not linger on her songwriting prowess and instead focus on the rest of the album.

The first five songs are written under Khan's own name but the second half of the album are ung by her alias Pearl, and the songs become increasingly interlinked. See how in "Pearl's Dream" there is a reference to "Good Love Town", the subject of the next song? Nifty stuff. Pearl's songs are undoubtedly bleaker in many ways, but they provide some of the more magical moments on the album. "Pearl's Dream" is perhaps Khan's best pop moment to date, while on "Two Planets" she seems to invoke the spirit of Bjork, yelping and echoing over layers and layers of drums and beats - very "Earth Intruders". In the first half of the record is "Sleep Alone", which looks like it's going to be the next single. It's understated, like a more upbeat version of her first ever single "Trophy" and includes some lovely sweeping vocals and little bursts of electro that give it a tougher edge.

Ah, Natasha. This album will bring you (and has brought you) commercial success. I like an album that shows evolution and progress, rather than a regression or much of the same. And "Two Suns" does that - it's a much more beefed up version of "Fur and Gold" and is intricately clever, using combinations of the powerful and the simple. Buy it - you won't regret it.

Attention Peeps!

Geocities is closing down so consequently I'm shutting down my site there that was dedicated solely to the radio station.

This means that all news about Jamjarsuperstar Radio will be directed here instead of there - I'm already putting playlists up at the minute but I think there should be some other bits and bobs about it that I'll post up too.

For those of you who haven't checked out the station, give it a go and the playlist is below!

Playlist Update

Hiya, so I've just updated the playlist for the radio station with some new stuff on there, and here it is:

Athlete - You Got The Style
Basement Jaxx - Romeo
Bat For Lashes - Pearl's Dream
Beck - The New Pollution
Bjork - Crying
Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance
Cajun Dance Party - The Colourful Life
Camille - Kfir
Chairlift - Evident Utensil
CSS - Move
Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Depeche Mode - World In My Eyes
Editors - Fingers In The Factories
Empire of the Sun - We Are The People
Feeder - Seven Days In The Sun
Friendly Fires - Paris
Goldfrapp - Caravan Girl
Grace Jones - Williams' Blood
Hot Chip - And I Was A Boy From School
Howling Bells - Digital Hearts
Ida Maria - Oh My God
Interpol - PDA
Kate Bush - Moving
Ladyhawke - Better Than Sunday
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Lykke Li - I'm Good, I'm Gone
M.I.A. - Sunshowers
Martina Topley Bird - April Grove
MGMT - Kids
Mystery Jets - Hideaway
Neon Neon - I Told Her On Alderaan
Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains
PJ Harvey - Highway 61 Revisited
Roisin Murphy - If We're In Love
Royksopp - The Girl And The Robot
Santogold - I'm A Lady
The Long Blondes - The Couples
The Raconteurs - Attention
The Rapture - Get Myself Into It
The Go! Team - The Wrath of Marcie
British Sea Power - Waving Flags
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy

Happy NRSD!

Today is National Record Shop Day in the UK - so to all of those independent record stores across the country, congratulations!

But is NRSD masking a very depressing truth? The very depressing truth that aside from not buying many physical records these days, we're just not buying as much music as we used to altogether?

The members of The Pirate Bay were sentenced and ordered to pay millions in damages yesterday, but their story is testament to the fact that no-one wants to pay money for their music any more. Sites are now offering free access to music that hasn't even been released yet and it's going to cost the industry badly if more sites like The Pirate Bay aren't put to trial (and let's not forget that this problem spreads into film and TV too - "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" has recently become the most illegally downloaded film of all time and it hasn't even had a cinema release here yet!)

Aside from illegal downloading, sites like iTunes are making sure that people are only buying singles from albums rather than investing some money in the whole works of a band or artist. Elbow frontman Guy Garvey was particularly furious about this after the release of "The Seldom Seen Kid", saying that he wants people to listen to the whole album and see it as a musical journey rather than spending 79p on "Grounds For Divorce" just because it was played on Radio 1 a few times. It makes you wonder whether artists are just going to release nothing but singles in a few years - Ash has already taken that road, and it wouldn't be surprising if many others followed behind.

Add to this the threat from websites like Amazon and Play - they'll send you CDs and offer you downloads at a fraction of the cost of any record shop with free postage and packaging. The technological age is probably having a particularly adverse effect on stores, so many will probably have to use their own websites to keep afloat.

It all adds up to a pretty depressing outlook for our independent record stores - the only one I can really think of in my area recently closed down (presumably because there was a lack of interest). My most local HMV store has reduced its music section by around 70% and is overloaded with DVDs and games - it's obvious what people want, I suppose.

Well, I don't really want to end on a very gloomy note so I'll just say congratulations again - have some cake, enjoy the company of fellow survivors.