The first refeatured artist since Thoughts for Tonight began is going to be… Organ Morgan. I reviewed his brilliant Avalanches-esque debut, the Cocaine Afternoon E.P. last year. This weekend he was kind enough to tweet about his new mixtape. I’ve been in a bit of a mixtape frenzy of late, having spent numerous hours streaming Mr. Scruff’s various five to eight hour sets from his Soundcloud, so the chance to see Matthew Mayes’ first under the Organ Morgan guise was met with much approval.

While DJing electronic music obviously requires considerable talent – knowing when to drop a certain tune, reading the crowd, and the technical knowledge to seamlessly mix hours in front of a club – it still doesn’t show off a record collection in the ways that other DJs can. Organ Morgan’s Garden Party Mixtape takes you on a four hour tour into the musical mind of Matthew Mayes. Loosely this mixtape does what it says on a tin, and if this was being played to you at a casual, sun soaked Garden Party you’d be thrilled, but there’s an eclecticism in play that pushes past the mixtape’s name. The result is euphoric and melancholic, happy and sad, drunk and sober, dancey and relaxed, up and down, and all mixed together subtlety with perfect timing.

From the electronic jitterings of Nathan Fake and Four Tet, to the sample-laden inspirational Avalanches, the chilled out nostalgia of Royksopp to the folk of Yeasayer, the girlpop Shangri-Las to the soulful smoothings of Tina Britt. The mixtape is relaxed, it’s calm, but it’s fused with an energy, and a commendable balance and pace that, unlike so many other mixtapes of this length, keeps you listening throughout.

The song selection will be familiar to many, certainly not all of it, but for the most part the likes of The XX, Gold Panda, Passion Pit, and The Go! Team will be recognisable. This is not to say it is not without its surprises; mid-way through I hear the psych-fuelled “What’s In It For Me?” by Avi Buffalo, and an hour later the afrobeat Amadou & Mariam segues into the chirpy pop of The Go! Team perfectly. I discovered a lot of good new (and old) music that I didn’t know or remember before, mixed together with three more hours of music I loved.

The Garden Party mixtape avoids the temptations to flood the listener with hours worth of rare and unheard of soul and jazz records; wonderful no doubt, but you’re always left dying to hear something you know as well. Instead it opts to educate and please, and where it educates it does so within the boundaries of what you will almost certainly like and love.

This mixtape reiterates that Matthew Mayes has got brilliant taste. His producer releases gets to chop and sample thirty songs to four minutes, but this mix allows for an expansion that is perfectly welcomed as well. Organ Morgan impresses again.

Download the Garden Party Mixtape (link via sendspace)

Click “Read More” to see the full tracklisting for the mix.

(more…)

The Good Natured a.k.a. Sarah McIntosh is just about to have a remix of one of her electropop songs featured on the latest Kitsune Maison Compilation. Over the Easter holidays she uploaded a Cure cover to her Myspace for fans, just a bedroom demo, but alluring nonetheless. We caught up with her for a quick Q+A.

It’s been just over a year since The Guardian named you their New Band of the Day, how have things come along for you, since February last year? 
After I was named Guardian New Band of the Day, I had to take a break from music to focus on my A levels, as getting good grades was really important to me. After that I picked it up again. I am still doing much the same, gigging and writing lots, but I have had time to develop my sound and find my own direction, which I am really pleased about.

What’s your recording process at the moment; equipment, software, etc?
It depends who I am working with. My demos are all done on Cubase which I have at home, but when I work with producers its usually Logic or Protools

Your electro-pop has prompted allusions to the likes of Kate Nash, Bat For Lashes, Lady Gaga, and Lily Allen. How do you feel about these links? 
I really like Bat For Lashes and Lady Gaga is an amazing writer and performer. To be honest I don’t really think much about comparisons; I just do my own thing.

The music press has a tendency to immediately correlate female artists with one another on the basis of sex, what are your thoughts on this?
Yeah there is, I actually think every female artist out there at the moment is very different and unique in their own way, it is shallow to group them all together because of gender.

Am I right in understanding you’re also at University? What are you studying?
No, I differed my studies in order to put maximum time into my own music, hoping it will pay off!

How did the Zebra and Snake Remix come about, and what’s it like to have one of your songs remixed? Is there anyone you’d like to work with, in terms of remixes, in the future?
Dan, my PR guy, also does press for Zebra and Snake, so it came about through him. Its great to have one of your songs remixed and really interesting to see which elements remixers pick up on in the song. Not really sure about who I would like to remix me in the future – I haven’t thought about it too much!

How do you feel about being being on the new Kitsuné Maison compilation?
Its really great, it will be great to get the exposure from it , they are a brilliant label.

Why the choice of Lovesong as a Cure cover?
Ha, I don’t really know. I did that cover on Easter Day whilst eating lots of chocolate, its not very good quality but it was a bit of fun and I am really glad people like it. I think its a beautiful song, so I guess thats why I chose it.

Finally, what are you most looking forward to in 2010?
Playing festivals in the summer, as I have never done that before, so I am really excited about it. Most of all though, I am excited about releasing “Your Body Is A Machine” as my single and showing people the video.

Thanks to The Good Natured for the track and Q+A.

Lovesong (Cure Cover)

In an interview I read recently with Mount Kimbie they commented on the fact that “electronic music doesn’t really lend itself to albums.” This, certainly, is something that I feel plagues a lot of electronic producers; too used to producing singles, or tracks for DJs to spin in clubs, the process of an album, seems to lose momentum. In fact, despite my love for electronic music, the number of whole albums that I see could stand up against non-electronic counterparts is depressingly thin.

It may be the sheer nature of electronic music; it is meant to be heard through a soundsystem where the bass vibrates throughs, the high-frequencies shake you, and the melodies warm you. But I do not believe that the electronic full-length is forever doomed to such a fate.

Bonobo’s latest album ‘Black Sands’, is my all means an album, a full-length, a record of mood, rather than a collection of songs strung together. The downtempo, trip-hop Simon Green has returned. His previous albums often lent themselves to criticism of being a tad too close to the lounge side of chill-out, but fears of the same this time around will quickly be diminished.

Black Sands is still downtempo, it is still relaxing, you can most definitely still chill out to it; but there’s a new dimension here that he left from his first records. All In Forms warms you like nothing he’s done before, Animals breathes jazz influences like label-mate Mr. Scruff does, and El Toro has one of the best brass sections an electronic song has seen in the past decade. His landscapes are lucid, and they merge together perfectly.

‘Black Sands’, like the best jazz records, moves as a lulling progression, up until that penultimate track, and then the title-track slows the pace; rebuilding, replaying, and re-evoking all emotion that’s just flooded your ears for the best part of an hour. The collaborations with Andreya Triana have been creating quite the storm, and rightly so, her effortless vocal is perfectly at home, especially on Eyesdown, and Stay the Same. The album’s real highlights lie elsewhere though. Whether it be the Prelude into Kiara that plays beautiful eastern-influenced strings with dirty bass that Bonobo seems too scared to have given away in the past, the wonderful Zero 7-esque Kong, or We Could Forever that has a chopped, distorted guitar sample that reminds you of Brian Eno & John Cale’s Spinning Away.

The most refreshing thing about ‘Black Sands’ is how perfectly it works as an album, and this is far more evident than in his previous releases. This record will lose you on a journey that only the best triphop can do, and by the time the Black Sands‘ final guitars are fading out, you’ll be left nothing but breathless.

Kiara
Black Sands

In the two years since Laura Marling released her debut album Alas, I Cannot Swim, the British ‘new-folk’ scene has slowly passed. The insurgence that came with the likes of Noah and the Whale, Johnny Flynn, Peggy Sue, and Jesse Quin & The Mets, set a hopeful precedence for what was to come in British folk. In many respects we were catching up slowly American equivalents that had existed for years before, but alas, the folk scene seemed to gather its fifteen minutes of fame, before withdrawing silently to the murky shadows.

With the exception of Mumford and Sons’ stunning debut Sigh No More, we’ve been left stranded. You’d be forgiven for forgetting about dear Laura Marling, and certainly forgiven for expecting a followup to her debut. So when I Speak Because I Can was announced, a certain level of scepticism loomed in the air. Considering her rather twee, albeit beautifully sounding debut, knowledge that the followup would depict her breakup with Noah & The Whale’s Charlie Fink, furthered that scepticism and worry, for only in February did she step out of her teenage years.

I Speak Because I Can can make for uneasy listening at first, though not as sceptics may have thought, through embarrassing journal-like lyricism, but instead through the genuine upset, bitterness, and pride that she conveys in her lyrics.
“The love of your life lives but lies no more/And where she lay a flower grows,” she sings on Devil’s Spoke; this certainly won’t be an album demanding pity by an stretch of the imagination, and by the time we reach Blackberry Stone, she sings “And I am Laura now, and Laura still/And you did always say that one day I would suffer/You did always say that people get their pay/You did always say that I was going places/And that you wouldn’t have it any other way.” Like Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, the pain, anger, and sweetness of their love, is ours for voyeuristic listening, its no surprise this is uneasy listening at first.

Compared with her debut, the musical eclecticism on I Speak Because I Can is a bricolage. Songs such as Goodbye England (Covered in Snow), and Blackberry Stone, still perfectly display just how beautiful and strong her voice is, over dainty acoustic guitar, but the haunting What He Wrote, dichotic dynamics of I Speak Because I Can, or most obviously, feverish, dare I say, folk-rock of Devil’s Spoke really show what this twenty year-old folk singer is capable of.

I Speak Because I Can is a beautiful and disarming second album. Any fears of immature ramblings of love lost are quickly dispelled, and certainly it makes Noah and the Whale’s breakup album seem like bitter, almost odious complaining. Even in her darkest moments, the beauty in Laura Marling’s songwriting and voice transcends. A truly great album by anyone’s standards, let alone by someone whom last Christmas was still just a teenager.

Blackberry Stone
What He Wrote

So where have I been? I was wondering if I would still be able to log in or not, but sure enough here I am. Not to bore you with my personal life (for if you wanted that you could read something else) but I moved around New Year, and since then have been largely without internet. Yet fear not, ‘Thoughts for Tonight’ has returned.

The past few weeks with internet have been playing catchup very quickly with everything I missed since I went offline; and this mostly a huge influx of new music. I’ve recently had to conduct an interview for a dubstep duo that I was worried I wouldn’t like. Yet as soon as I listened to their first E.P., I knew there was something new going on here. This new strain of dubstep, has been called a pastiche of 2step, ambient, IDM, techno, electronica, minimal, nu-jazz and almost any other genre under the sun. Resident Advisor noted in certain circles they just call it “-step,” though what circles that is I don’t really wish to know. The London-based duo are called Mount Kimbie.

The track that I’m bringing to you is a remix they’ve done for British indie group Foals; a group that Hadouken would have fervently mocked in That Boy, That Girl. Foals seem to have changed direction slightly with the track:Spanish Sahara, at least if this is anything to go by, and the rather beautiful melancholy that the song brings is wonderfully paired with the Mount Kimbie remix; dark, haunting, and really rather emotive. The remix doesn’t rely on the climaxes that the Foals original does, it delivers its beauty in a much more subtle light, and it suits the song wonderfully.

I had many plans for what Thoughts for Tonight should return with, and this was really chosen at last minute, but its completely overtaken my listening habits of late, and so I was left with little other choice.

Foals – Spanish Sahara (Mount Kimbie Remix)

5. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
November 2009.

I did nothing but praise this album when it was released not that long ago. I still believe they’re one of Britain’s best ‘new-folk’ exports.

It is unfortunate that this album has seen such a lukewarm response; reviews where good have been with their downfalls, though in general have been as hit and miss as the band’s fanbase. They evolved from a West London scene, whose other counterparts had started to release deadening singles, yet when you hear the dynamic breaks in Mumford & Sons’ ‘Little Lion Man’, ‘White Blank Page’ or ‘Winter Winds’, then you know you’re dealing with something entirely different.

Little Lion Man

4. Matt Tolfrey & Gavin Herlihy – I Just Can’t (Take It)
April 2009. Cocoon Recordings

Considering quite how permeated with techno and house, my listening preferences are, you’d be surprised to learn that this only escalated to this extent in 2009.

Bloc Party’s ‘Silent Alarm’ drew me further into British ‘indie’ in late 2004, and Matt Tolfrey & Gavin Herlihy’s “I Just Can’t (Take It)” did the same for tech.house. I have always been a sucker for buildups; and the 5 minute long wait until the bassline hums in, is exasperating, and then the vocal kicks in: ‘Just can’t take it, just can’t take it, just can’t take it.” This, for me is the best of the best.

Just Can’t (Take It)

3. George Pringle – Salon Des Refuses
September 2009

It was 2009 that first saw George Pringle get more major-radio airplay, a review in the British music press, and the long-awaited release of her, essentially, self-recorded album.

Her electronic beats breath and evolve from Winter; “Spring is never a good time,” she muses. Strangely, this album feels like a final chapter; her ending to a lifetime of experience. Indeed with ‘We Could Have Been Heroes’, ‘S.W.10′ and ‘Bonjour Tristesse’, a rather epic, apocalyptic state of the world seems to be unravelled and envisioned; the dulcet tone of her music embodies it, and her lyrics, and poetic delivery, can’t help but annotate along the way.

We Could Have Been Heroes

2. Bloc Party – Signs
May 2009.

Before the wave of disappointment that swept over us when ‘One More Chance’ was released, Bloc Party released the crossover Intimacy/Intimacy Remixed single ‘Signs’.

The original, and its iTunes exclusive, piano-led, Gossip Girl-featured masterpiece, were two of the best tracks of last year. Bloc Party love their remixes, and 2009 saw Kele Okereke fall further in love with house and techno (note the band’s advent into the electronic), yet this doesn’t always combine well. While the first two Bloc Party ‘remixed’ albums featured hours worth of fun; they still lacked something that would ever throw the releases outside of indie clubs and pubs, all-nation wide. Yet Armand Van Helden’s electro-house bass-riproaring assault changed all that. Not since Soulwax’s remix of MGMT’s Kids has the world seen such a great crossover remix; and not since Aphex Twin’s ‘Come To Daddy’ have we seen such a great music video (at least according to Spin’s Peter Gaston).

Signs (Armad Van Helden Remix)

1. Florence and the Machine – Lungs.
June 2009.
The choice of Britain’s best 2009 release was easy to make; an artist masked in criticism from the musical and culture elite, her record is an undeniably beautiful pop record.

2009 saw a reinvention of sorts for Florence and the Machine. I welcomed her extraction from the nauseating attempts at punk that she made last year, and as she transcended Kiss with a Fist with musical and emotional capability, she became the most refreshing female voice in British music. Whether its with the (comparatively) upbeat, string crescendos of ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)’, the amorous screams of jazzy ‘Girl With One Eye’, or on the unmistaken genius of ‘Howl’, Florence Welch captivates her listener with exaggerated dynamics, euphoric builds, and melodies that leave you wincing in their aftermath. Her songwriting, orchestration, and structure blends her influences better than many would ever hope for, and her cover of ‘You Got The Love’ seems unanimously to be one of the best covers of the year. This album easily clinches the top spot over any release, and Britain should be proud to have her as an export of 2009.

Howl

15-11 :: Continuing the countdown, the final five come next weekend.

10. Daniel Fridholm – Daniel Fridholm May 2009. Unreleased

Some may remember Daniel Fridholm’s praising review earlier this year. Since then popular, Record of the Year-nomiated blog ‘Cosmic Disco’ has also ran features articles, and 2010 should be seeing more material.

‘I Need Green’ is a synthpop masterpiece that feels as at home under December’s darkened skies and drunken nights, as it does; picnics in the fleeting days of British summer. The middle eight would fail to get anyone popping shoulders, or shaking hips. Still a fantastic album.

LISTEN: I Need Green

9. Peter Doherty – Sheepskin Tearaway March 2009.

About four years ago I went to see some rather banal, rather dull comedy with an ex-girlfriend. A video montage begins and it is soundtracked by a beautiful guitar track that I recognized instantly. Years before that, running parallel to The Libertines, Peter Doherty had sat and recorded his own sessions in hotel rooms, in crack dens, in taxis, in pubs, and at home; demos that formed narratives throughout his life. Sheepskin Tearaway, was the song I recognized, and its inclusion instantly made me smile.

Grace/Wasteland was met to murky reception this year. Peter Doherty has the potential to be his best when he records alone, and Grace/Wasteland was a nice dip into an ocean that would keep him afloat. This album version is polished there is intentionally added reverb, rather than that achieved reverberating from his hollowed squat-walls of earlier days and his voice sounds fragile, yet with a pop edge that mothers could love him everywhere. This album only signals what is to come.

LISTEN:  Sheepskin Tearaway

8. The High Wire – Leave Me In Love Dec 2009. Grandpa Stan

The High Wire are a band who have been quietly bettering themselves and gaining recognition throughout the year.

Leave Me In Love, like a lot of their most recent material, fuses a sound akin to the americana-indiepop of Fleet Foxes, and a pop-psychedelia in a distant vein to Animal Collective. Yet with a lofi British edge to it, still breeding in the afterglow of 2008′s new folk revival. If this is progression of our strain of the genre, then I welcome it wholeheartedly.

LISTEN: Leave Me In Love

7.  Example – Watch the Sun Come Up Sep 2009.

One of the greatest tragedies this year was Example’s release date for Watch The Sun Come Up; released in a month that, retrospectively was admittedly one of our hottest of the year, ‘Watch the Sun Come Up’s September release just felt overdue. Example had written the hit of the summer, it was just four months too late.

With Balearic piano, and electro-house beats, Example’s white-rapping deep croon fits the music perfectly; who’d have known this was that rapper we loved, who use to rap over The Rolling Stones, Harry Nilsson, and Lily Allen back in the day. Equally as good, and certainly the biggest track he’s ever done.

LISTEN: Watch The Sun Come Up

6.  Jamie T – Sticks N Stones June 2009. Pacemaker Records

Working in Wimbledon this summer, a lot of songs are both synonymous both to working and summer; the tracks from the ‘Sticks ‘N’ Stones’ E.P. rest reassuredly in both those lists.

While his album delivery in 2009 was a letdown as a followup to 2007′s classic “Panic Prevention,” this little E.P. released just weeks before served as more than enough for fans. Fast-paced punk-inspired hiphop, reggae-inspired pop, and even the mellowed-out, featured here in just four tracks. ‘St. Christopher’ was the perfect for the lows, and ‘Sticks N Stones’ was perfect for the highs; triumphant E.P.

LISTEN: Sticks ‘N’ Stones

Considering its the year I decided to pen ‘Thoughts for Tonight’; the self-indulging, British, rant about what’s good on this side of ‘the pond’, it was an incredibly disheartening task coming up with an end of year list. Yet, after much careful deliberation, many re-listens and such extensive hair-pulling, that it looks like I’ve had my fingers in an electrical socket; I’ve come up with a list of the best British releases of the year, for your consumption and pleasure.

15. Emmy The Great – First Love [from First Love]
Feb 2009. Close Harbour Records

Emmy The Great is perhaps a risky first choice for a wholly British music end of year list; firstly she wasn’t born, or brought up, in the U.K., instead she comes from Hong Kong. Her inclusion however, comes from her very obvious involvement with the British music scene, around this time last year, and then at the beginning of 2009.

‘First Love’ is synonymous with the twee new/anti-folk scene that London gave birth to last year. The album is alluring and beautiful throughout, and certainly showed a diversity that perhaps, Laura Marling, was never quite capable of. The Guardian criticised Emmy for being “understated,” “winsome,” and “ultra-wordy;” three complaints I shall not be sharing with them. Her lyricism is draped in remorse, heartbreak and surprisingly non-conceited use of pop culture reference. Winter is returning, and as it does, Emmy The Great seems natural for the time of the year.

LISTEN :: First Love

14. Geddes & Alex Jones – Tubular [from The Paper Weight E.P.]
June 2009. Murmur

This collaboration was one of the best electronic dance music collaborations of the year. And if I was to be rating, reviewing, or listing record labels as well, then Murmur would definitely clinch the top spot.

The Paper Weight E.P. is a soulful serving of microhouse from two of London’s best DJs: Geddes, and Alex Jones. The E.P. closes with a hypnotic remix from Dutch DJ Lauhaus to round up one of the best electronic releases of the summer. While here the pairing’s production is great, where Geddes, and indeed Alex Jones, truly shine though is with their DJ-ing, and the former’s ability to throw the best party in London.

LISTEN :: Tubular

13. Codeine Velvet Club – Vanity Kills [from Vanity Kills]
November 2009. Island

As I stated in my recent column, CVC really are one of the most exciting new bands in Britain. And all it takes is a throwback forty years through music.

“Vanity Kills” sounds like film noir. The rock ‘n’ roll boy-girl exchanges, jaggedy guitars, and sexy ‘la da da dah”s from Lou Hickey warm you instantly; and the song’s ability to create the vision of whiskey-drenched evenings in a cabaret club is really quite impressive.

LISTEN :: Vanity Kills

12. Imogen Heap – First Train Home [from Ellipse]
August 2009. Megaphonic

Imogen Heap returned this year with the rather nice surprise of ‘Canvas’; a track that blew me away and stayed on loop for days on end.

Ellipse, unlike her previous albums, felt more coherent in terms of narrative, her soulful and eery electronic diversity is better displayed, and she’s captured euphoric bliss, contrasting the heartbreak of before. Its cliche to say an artist matures with each album. Yet there has been so much regression in music this year, that hearing Imogen Heap’s lyrical, and certainly, musical progression is welcoming. “First Train Home” beautifully introduces the album.

LISTEN :: First Train Home

11. Nathan Fake – Basic Mountain [from Hard Islands]
May 2009. Border Community

A return from Nathan Fake, after what feels like an entire decade, sees the East Anglian producer return closer to his live techno mixes, than previous productions dictate.

His debut was blissful electronica for people who found beauty in machinery. 2009′s followup in “Hard Islands” showed the record-buying world the techier side to Nathan Fake. Personal album favourite ‘Basic Mountain’ fuses together discordant pitch bends, lofi drums, and euphoric melodies; it really is a true blend of his countryside electronica, and city techno.

LISTEN :: Basic Mountain

To be underwhelmed by The Fratellis was an easy task to accomplish; their catchy but lifeless pop melodies, senses-dulling guitar hooks, and lyrics such as “I was good, she was hot/Stealing everything she got,” didn’t do them any favours outside of the British mainstream. When I woke up today (Friday), I finally got round to sorting through a selection of promos I’ve been sent recently. Incredibly unprofessionally, I proceeded to listen to them in order of best cover art, and Codeine Velvet Club‘s cover for ‘Vanity Kills’, struck me straight away.

The second thing that struck me was the name; Codeine Velvet Club. Whenever I hear ‘velvet’, one of my first connotations is with the Velvet Underground, and the prefixing ‘Codeine’ linked me, straight away to the 60s recreational popularity of cough medicine abuse on stage; when codeine was still an active and more prominent ingredient. The only song that graces the promo here is ‘Vanity Kills’, a catchy and effortlessly smooth, pop classic that breathes cabaret and jazz, as much any high society gal of the 60s could have mustered.

My surprise here comes from the partnering of the vocals; the boy hooks come from Jon Lawler (frontman of the aforementioned, Fratellis), while female credit lies with the jazz princess Lou Hickey. Her creative spark for a wonderful jazz melody and signature groove, is truly awakened by Lawler’s ability to craft masterful pop music.

It would have been a huge shame if Vanity Kills was the only track they penned together; here we have a collaboration that brings out the best that each songwriter could achieve, a pastiche that far outstretches anything that either have accomplished in the past. A brilliant partnership has been formed here, and its one draped in a glamour, romantic seediness, and undoubtable, sexual oompf that frankly is missing from today’s pop music. Codeine Velvet Club are one of the most exciting new groups in Britain, and more so than anyone else of recent years, provide the most refreshing, nostalgic, throwback to the 60s girl/boy pop we’ve seen.

Vanity Kills