50 quid bloke

Have you managed to get hold of a copy of Paris Motel’s 071 ep?

I read about it, surprisingly in the NME (I say surprisingly, because it’s very calm for their tastes). Paris Motel is really Amy May and 071 is five tracks that everyone should get hold of.
It’s an utterly blissful bit of acoustic loveliness, that manages to avoid the dangers of being too Laura Veirs (ie whispy nonsense) or too Dido (you know exactly what I mean).

You can buy a copy here (and get a couple of sample downloads). Actually, I thought it was a download - and ended up ordering it twice. But, I feel that’s the very least I could do for her.

Of course, She/ they can be found on MySpace.

I haven’t read a better evaluation of it yet than Andrew Collins’ piece in Word magazine this month. Titled: ‘How Arctic Monkeys saved my life’, it’s basically a description of how they have turned him - a middle-aged, seen-it-all music hack - into a stammering fan again.

Anyway - the album’s out today. But, not on iTunes until tomorrow, I assume. If anyone finds an album review that gives it less than full marks…do tell. I haven’t seen one yet.

Hurray...

So, yes, we love her from Rilo Kiley; and yes, she was brilliant with Postal Service. Now she’s done an album with the Watson Twins ( Amazon
- but not released yet, I think). Have managed to sniff out a few tracks - and there’s some stuff on, as ever, myspace, and it’s smart, strong country stuff, with the Watson Twins doing the loveliest of harmonies. Yes - I’ll be buying the whole album.

As part of my new tunes regime, I’m dabbling in places I’d normally leave well alone: like the new Mary J Blige album. Can I recommend one track: Gonna Breakthrough (iTunes) as a bit of contrast to all those noise young boys with guitars. I recognise the sample on it, but can’t name it for the life of me: clearly a sign of my age.

Anything from the Brendon Benson/ Jack White band, The Raconteurs? Hasnt’ someone stolen their demos and leaked them onto the net or something?

This year is going to be all about tunes for me. Or ‘tracks’ as the NME calls them. I’m getting slightly bored of buying/ downloading albums - I never quite get round to listening to them. From now on, it’s tracks first - and albums only if I really love it; or if I think the band needs the support (very magnanimous of me, I know)

Yes, I’m buying the NME again: a dead cert sign of a mid-life crisis if ever there was one. Actually, they’re more geared up to the whole ‘tracks/tunes’ thing than most. I like the way they do a ‘10 tracks from this weeks albums’ thing (which is similar to the way the Obs Music Magazine does ‘download tracks’ from each album they review.

That said, they do have an annoying habit of reviewing stuff before it’s released, or available on download anywhere, saying: ‘Now on Radio 1′. What? Tune into Radio1? I’m having a middle age crisis - but not a complete meltdown.

Anyway, some stuff I like from my latest NME-fuelled tune mining. All in all it’s a complete new wave frenzy at the moment. Everything sounds like it’s straight out of 1979/80. And no, that’s not a complaint. If the label Britpop hadn’t been pinched, someone would be inventing it right now.

Black Cab Casino: Sweets and Lead this is a demo on myspace, and it’s really quite nice power pop. Remarkably easy to listen to - which probably means they’ll go nowhere.

DirtyPrettyThings: Bang Bang Your Dead a video of the new single from Carl Barat’s new band. Not completely dissimilar to Brendon Benson, actually, which is probably sacrilege, but intended as praise. Punchy power pop - and thankfully less of an aural mess than babyshambles.

The Kooks: You don’t love me. I’d never heard of them, this fits completely into the new wave thing. Jaunty, choppy stuff. They had a single out called Eddies Gun that you can get on iTunes this is only on vinyl (why?) and maxi cd (why?).

Arctic Monkeys: When The Sun Goes Down: The new single from this year’s sweethearts, not out yet, but you can hear it on MySpace. Pretty much head and shoulders above everything else. Actually, I don’t think it’s quite as smart/ brilliant as some of their other stuff. And, as it’s clear that this is going to be played on the very rare occassions that I go out: could someone please tell me how to dance to it? Again, I quite like the b-side - which, i think it dancing shoes.

Bromheads jacket: What if’s maybe : I mentioned this before, but only just got round to listening to it. It’s like the arctic monkey after four double expressos. I can’t quite work out whether that’s a good thing, or just fast noisy nonsense.

The Long Blondes: Separated by Motorways (iTunes) actually - I’m not completely in love with this, but I thought I’d put it in as they’re very cool at the moment and I don’t want to look like I’m falling behind. I like the b-side: Big infatuation.

Brain food from Dan Hill over at City of Sound. To be honest, I’ve only just skimmed it - but it looks well worth a read (or at least a re-skim). [via Tom]

Alexis Petridis reviews  Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine and rather likes it (in a four star kind of way). Personally, I’m not convinced it was quite worth all the bother (it was neither bad enough to scrap, or good enough to fight for, IMHO)- but it’s nice to have her back.

My laptop harddrive was nearly full up with music. I want to keep some on there, but I also want to have an external hard drive with my full music collection on.

How can I possibly do this? Libra to the rescue - a lovely bit of software (Mac and PC) that lets you have more than one iTunes Library and switch between them with remarkable ease. Why didn’t someone tell me about this earlier?

Oh - and for Mac/ iPod Users, this might come in handy as well.