Monday, March 23, 2009
Album of the Week
This is the first track from I am Kloots 'Play Moolah Rouge' filmed while recording the album..
for those that wish to partake in our album therapy group discussion - all of the tracks are in Dropbox.. in the folder : album of the week.
if you haven't been invited yet.. it means tincanman doesn't like you, or you haven't told him your e-mail address..
Email this address to be added.
"I think I Am Kloot's I Am Kloot Play Moolah Rouge (Skinny Dog) is the only true rock'n'roll record released this year. You've got true, earnest, honest songwriting with the power of the Stooges.''
- Guy Garvey, Elbow
(Nov 2008 Guardian asked this year's most talked-about acts to reveal their favourite releases of the past year)
Here are a few tracks...
Chaperoned
Down at the Front
And here's a link to the album on Spotify.
Thank you and we can all look forward to the response to the album.
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20 comments:
I don't know if I can add a link to your post.
I've listened to this album half a dozen times over the past month, but not start to finish and always while doing something else. A few tunes have stuck with me; it's a very listenable album.
One thing that struck me right off was that it seems to drift a bit, and at times the songs sound like they were plucked off someone else's album (a BoDeans here, a Mountain Goats there, even a Willie Nelson.
Not bad lineage, I guess, but does I Am Kloot found its own voice yet?
I've just finished my first listen-through.
Only Role In Town, Down At The Front, and the MAGNIFICENT Chaperoned are copying to my mp3 player as I type.
It may well be that tin has hit the nail on the head though - exactly where IS I Am Kloot's place in the musical world?
I don't want this to turn into the aural equivalent of a wine-tasting, but I spotted some Shack, quite a taste of Calexico, and hints of Bond Theme Aspiration, all obviously bottled in the rundown red brick warehouse down the road from Doves' place!
Definitely whetted my appetite for another drink of Natural History, but maybe tomorrow, or I'll end up with an even bigger headache!!
G'night all.
DsD, I also like Chaperoned, but I lose interest partway through.
Not so with Down at the Front, and what so far is my favorite track, Ferris Wheel.
I'd throw away Suddenly Strange, perhaps One Man Brawl, and probably At the Sea.
nite all
sorry tin, I thought you might have the skeleton keys to the club house.. steenb and blimpy can edit all the post - I think - so, if anyone needs a link to dropbox, just shout on here and we'll work it out.
now I'm going to put the album on my ipod for work tomorrow and come back with opinions fully formed- yeah right!.
now if only we could get Maddy and Dorian to chirp up.. Rob being busy with class issues and all that.
Saneshane, You're more eloquent than me, so I don't have anything to add. But I can add a link, if Tincanman emails it to me. Haven't had a chance to listen yet, but I'm very intrigued.
Isn't it funny how nearly impossible it is to listen to anything new without trying to compare it to something else. I've tried and tried, and I just can't do it!
here i am! hello everyone, have just sent a quick email to tincanman to attempt to join in on dropbox, if it's not beyond my pathetically limited computer abilities (inabilities wld be more appropriate word), baby ben is - touchwood - sleeping fairly well now, so i foresee getting some time to myself in the soonish future, at least on nursery days, and want to join in the fun. crikey, tcm has already sent me a dropbox invite! must go now bec taking ben for his first trip to a pizza restaurant (they do sourdough bases, i think he'll really go for them...) but more later... hope you're all very well though, oh and nearly forgot i have now listened to the whole mamas and papas cd and it's just brilliant, i play guess the recommender when i listen, most of them have me flummoxed, huge thanks to person who suggested pretenders' kid, never heard it before and i think it might be my favourite song on there. remember talking heads stay up late from when i covered for dorian on babies week, what a cheeky song. ok i'm late, bye! xx
I shall admit to being ignorant of Dropbox.
Can someone enlighten me please.
You don't 100% need it for this because you can listen on spotify, but you are more than welcome.
It is a means for RR regulars to share their favorite songs. If you nominate something, you drop it in and everyone else can give it a listen.
You will have to email rr@tincanland.com to get an invite if you want to join.
Hey Maddy.. hope the pizza went okay.. hey every one.. step back.. I'm going to be typing for quite some time.. it should give me 10 or 11 listens to the album....
Oh dear, this is going to be tuff for me, but here goes… I don’t really like doing critiques of albums as a whole on here.. Recommending songs and setting up play lists is one thing.. thinking my opinion is worth a jot is something else entirely.
But sod that.. in for a penny in for a pounding as they say…..
So this is the forth studio album (a Peel session set is also available) they’ve been going for a decade, I got a single called ‘86 TVs’ years ago that came from their first album ‘Natural History’ great it was… (not good enough for a TV listing on RR..) but good enough for me to think that these had a distinctive voice that I feel is completely their own -unlike some people.
So play Moolah Rouge then.. I did when I got it and have re- visited it since this thread was suggested..
a few times in the car through the I-pod and shit speakers – the older rougher albums stand up to this better.
Once on spotify- they put an AD between ‘Runaways’ and ‘Down at the Front’ I feel these songs are connected so wont be buying the Phone, but I will get some spot removing cream.
And all evening on the stereo…
I got the album and first song ‘One Man Brawl’ just made me laugh as a title alone, Bramwell (song writer) has a reputation of being able to start an argument in a single cell – but the song itself suggests an inability to escape from yourself, along side the great chugga chugga train style flowing escape music, the contradiction just works.
‘Chaperoned’ and ‘Ferris wheel’ slow you back down with faded old style glamour; antique language and an innocent wonder at the world that’s perplexing (we speak through satellites- how does that work?)
‘Ferris Wheel’ gets bonus points because the ms loves it on one of her birthday compilations.
I think ‘Hey little Bird’ is pants.. Nursery rhyme obvious clichéd imagery, if only he’d do a Billy Idol impression of hey little sister instead to relieve my boredom I’d be happier.- just my opinion mind!
As I said before ‘Runaways’ and ‘Down at the Front’ are all the seaside towns I’ve lived in and escaped from, it’s in black and white the wind is howling around our up-turned coat collars.. and we are in Love.. for a minute, for ever, who knows, who cares… down at the front also gets the double meaning of watching bands and that escapism.. “I’ll meet you down at the front” the dreams and sadness of needing to run and find your fantasy of happiness.
(yes - I do listen to words and music visually)
‘Someone like you’ is a throwaway pop song (my version of such things) it’s okay, but I like my I Am Kloot a bit more twisted.
I like ‘Suddenly strange’ stop starting and cracked vocal is fine, but not enough to get in RRs Light.. grrrrr.
Now ‘The only role in town’ is just beautiful, nothing unique, just timeless.. sentimental without being syrupy .. it could be a Christmas song that isn’t derivative or a pastiche.. or I’m basically a soft get.. your choice.
‘At the sea’ I like three quarters of but preferred how I heard it first
“Fortune hasn’t robbed me blind Bucharest the corners of my mind” I then realised it must be “book end the corners of my mind” then read the lyrics.
Too polished to be my favourite I am Kloot album.. but great imagery – on most tracks- nothing really unique musically.. but they are a rock band.. it’s not what they are there for.. it works for the songs.
What they really need is a Spill Over view – best of.
Hope I’ve not been too obnoxious.
Now - bring on something I don’t know.
wow shane
well done
will go back over the album again tomorrow now that i know what the songs are about lol
seriously thanks - hearing an album through someone else's ears is always interesting. helps my own ideas of it form/reform
No, I'm Kloot!
For me they are a band (or singer songwriter + 2) that bang out some good tunes & interesting lyrics - sometimes at the same time. Not quite yet able to sustain over a full album for me. Still, not bad for a former tv presenter.
Haven't had time to listen yet - also, some idiot unplugged the headphones and now the sound's off again - just wanted to thank s(h)ane for that amazing post!
shoey Sir... I AM KLOOT.
This album of the week thing is a Good Thing - and I'm enjoying what I've heard so far. My problem is that it usually takes me four or five listens of an album to get to know it well enough to make any intelligent/perceptive comments - and if it doesn't grab me after two or three listens I usually give up. So by the time I've absorbed this sufficiently you lot will have moved on to fresher fields and I'll be like the bloke in the Two Ronnies sketch answering the question before last ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq8ZnQ95cKk
Evening all.
I've been listening to this a lot today, and have decided I was being a little unfair on IAK yesterday. So what if they're a sum of obvious influences? At times John Bramwell does mix them with an excellent turn of phrase to wonderfully good effect.
Having relistened to Natural History, I'd put more of the songs from this album on a Spill OverView compilation than from NH.
As well as the three I praised yesterday, One Man Brawl and Someone Like You are growing on me too.
To complete the set I'll be listening to the eponymous LP again tomorrow ...
I'm with Toffeeboy, it usually takes me quite a few listens to know how I feel, and it's hard to have time to listen to a whole album. I like listening to a whole album, though, so this is a wonderful way to ensure that I do. I listened once, liked a few songs, heard a few influences, (Peter Bjorn & John?). But it was Saneshane's description that made me want to go and listen again, and helped me to pay attention to the tracks, so thanks for that. You could have a career as a music writer.
That's a wonderful summary Shane, beautifully written.
I suspect I might be able to get closer to IAK if they were playing in a pub where I'd sought refuge at the end of an emotionally exhausting day, but just hearing it impersonally on Dropbox on a cold Thursday evening in March really only underlines the fact that I hardly ever listen to this sort of thing.
However I have another, totally different music in my head now based on what you wrote above, which I simply must look out and play...
Thanks everyone...
Doing this, listening so closely mirrors a lot of the comments here and up above in Shoeys post...
I think it has become slightly overwhelming the amount of music that having dropbox has thrown up, also the impersonal nature of it (I liked my play count on boxtr- just to know I wasn't wasting all of our time!)
also listening through the spill playlists, because knowing who has posted them, gives me a surprise or a familiar feeling - big-up Front 242 coming from steen- for instance.
and this is what the spill is.. such disparate tastes giving each other a go.. because the poster is passionate.
It has certainly broadened my horizons- and I felt my taste was very eclectic already.
final points about I am Kloot - I've listen to this album for a while so easier for me to relate to it.. they will one day have a great 'Best of' they've not sustained over any of their albums.
nilpferd- not an album that I would have recommended to you- I purged myself on 'AN ENGLAND STORY' from dancehall to grime: 25 years of the MC in the UK- as a juxtaposition along with some Electronicbody Music.. less conventional musically.
AND THEIR SONG 'Great Escape' is perfect for class- completely forgot about it!
(and DsD and nilpferd I'm almost there with things to post to you - away this weekend- then I'll send stuff, hope it's worth the wait!)
No rush, Shane, it's always a delight to get stuff from you, regardless of how the comment I've just made (on Shoey's thread) sounds.
I didn't get round to the I Am Kloot album today because a slightly weird thing happened. I went to choose it [digitally] whilst attempting some pathetically small bloke version of multi-tasking. Without paying much attention my screen pointer obviously missed I Am Kloot, and hit the Isis folder instead. By the time I realised what I was listening to I was completely immersed in the beauty of the In The Fishtank session they did with Aereogramme. I can't stop playing it!
So a further thank you heads south from Yorkshire to Norfolk for the inadvertent reminder of another almost-forgotten band in the DsD music collection.
Oh, and yes, when it eventually does appear, I Am Kloot's Greatest (Not)Hits LP will be a gem.
Finally, almost off-topic, does anyone have the current Guy Garvey fave album from The Leisure Society (? I think)? I've seen two reviews offering stratospherically high praise, but know nothing about it/them.
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