Belle and Sebastian Ticket Giveaway!!!

Belle & SebastianThis Friday is one of my favorite days of the year guys. It’s Belle and Sebastian Day!!! Well, not nationally, but personally.  The Glaswegian band has long been one of my favorite all time bands, which was reaffirmed with their latest release, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance.  They’ll be bringing their wonderful version of pop music to the stage this Friday at ACL Live Moody Theatre…and we’ve got one pair of tickets to giveaway to a lucky winner. Trust me, you’ll want to see Stuart dancing all upon the stage…plus Wild Moccasins will be opening, so you win.  Try to win below, but if you want guaranteed tickets, but them HERE.

In order to win, leave a comment with your favorite Belle and Sebastian song or album (if you say Storytelling you’re not winning!). We’ll select a winner by Thursday at Noon, and you’ll be notified of your pair of tickets.

[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/05.-The-Cat-with-the-Cream.mp3]

How I Have Not Heard of the Leisure Society

lsI troll the Internet constantly, always trying to find something that most folks haven’t hit on yet.  So how did I miss the Leisure Society.  My ears hear them as purveyors of orchestral pop, with just a slight dash of twee in there.  They remind me of a land where Efterklang meets Belle & Sebastian, with really great production. The song below has some sweet horn work, so if this is to your liking, then you’ll probably enjoy The Fine Art of Hanging On, which was just released by Full Time Hobby.

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Belle and Sebastian – Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance

yoRating: ★★★★☆

“If I had a camera I’d snap you now cause there’s beauty in every stumble—” our wise sage Stuart Murdoch recounts in the heart of opener “Nobody’s Empire,” both easing and stirring our antsy minds as we ask the question: will our favorite Glaswegians knock it out of the park once again or will we be forced to find the beauty in the stumble?

The album opens with the track from which I just quoted from, and this opener has everything to appease your Belle and Sebastian pop sensibilities. From the beginning, the band doles out the whimsy you’ve come to expect: the whole song revolves around the sing-songy melody as Stuart spins you a nostalgic tale of looking back and you just want to sing along. It seems as though he is revisiting those gloomy times that served as the setting for albums like If You’re Feeling Sinister. Now, far away from that darkness he is able to look back with wise eyes and celebrate them—which seems to be the spirit of this album from the very start.

Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance is long and sprawling, stretching farther than an hour in length, and in this time you’ll find there are a wide variety of tracks that Belle and Sebastian add to their vast catalogue. The band goes down the synth pop road with songs like “The Party Line” and “Enter Sylvia Plath,” both of which see the band at their most electronic and straying from soft-spoken whimsical pop and their bluesy rock and into something new. However, through these numbers you still have the finesse that this band brings always: the songs are orchestrations far from strewn together haphazardly.

Where this album really shines, though, is on the subtler numbers that you don’t even reach until after the midpoint of the album: I’m looking at you “The Everlasting Muse.” This band is the best at storytelling, and so naturally “The Everlasting Muse” is a winding tale of an elusive and mysterious lady. Instrumentally, this track is one of the most interesting tracks this band has crafted, and they utilize all their skills with such ease and control. The song begins quietly with a grooving bass line, small drumbeats, Stuart’s soft vocals, little nuanced piano and synth parts, and electric guitar all simmering together in harmony. Then the whole thing flips on itself into the chorus, which is a bombastic and swaying, polka-esque spin, complete with handclaps and violin. But then the band switches back to a kicked up version of the verse, and now Stuart is complimented with Sarah Martin’s breathy vocals and Stevie Jackson’s electric guitar licks intensify. They try to tell you that “beauty crumbles with the years,” right before they jump into a glorious instrumental bridge/segue with horns before launching into the masterful end of the song where everyone comes together to sing and contribute and you have a little trouble believing what they tell you.

Somehow, Belle and Sebastian haven’t stumbled or lost any of their beauty. Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance marks their ninth studio album and yet another graceful step in their dance of a career. These Glaswegian heroes make music that glides through genres, but still remains quintessentially the wistful pop we fell in love with almost twenty years ago: “The music is for us.”

 

Yesterday’s Hits

We here at ATH like to bring you tunes that you may not hear elsewhere, spending lots of time scouring the internet for the best jams so that you don’t have to. However, that doesn’t mean we still don’t like to report on some of those bigger name bands we already know and love. So in this new feature we’ll group together some of the tracks that blew up in internetland yesterday and give you the necessary details so you can stay hip and fresh. We also rated the tunes with our special scale so you know which is the best new shit. So listen up kids.

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Belle and Sebastian Grace Us With “Nobody’s Empire”

1524251_10152547823483500_3663750487855854875_oOk, so we have loved Glasgow’s Belle and Sebastian for a long time, so you’ll forgive us if this video is old news to you via the buzz that is bound to stir around it in internet land. Regardless, this new video for track “Nobody’s Empire,” which features fan submitted footage, also allows us to listen to another new track from the band’s forthcoming 9th studio LP, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. This new LP is slated to come out January 20th of next year, and you can bet that we here have our calendar’s marked and are beyond ready to scoop this up… especially after listening to this new track below, which has Stuart Murdoch spinning longwinded tales in his lyrics once again. Watch it below, get excited, and preorder the album.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgb8am3NQU0[/youtube]

ACL Recap & Photos: Day 1

ACLWeekend one of ACL is now over, so naturally it’s time to reflect on what went down during the 3 day festival.  Today we’ll be focusing on Friday of the first weekend and offering our thoughts on bands that played along with the general atmosphere.  Each ATH member will share their opinion and we’ll also get some fancy photos from our man B.Gray.

Follow the jump for photos and recaps.
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New Pop Number from Stevie Jackson

If you read this pages, you’re probably aware of how much I love Belle and Sebastian, so I will always buy into a side-project.  But, Stevie Jackson is making it really easy, as his first single from I Can’t Get No Stevie Jackson is an old school pop gem–the sort you and your parents will both rave about.  He’s releasing the album via B&S’s Banchory Recordings on July 3rd, and you can expect something lush and clever coming your way.  This track just goes to show you that while Stuart Murdoch may man the helm, there’s plenty of great songwriters hiding in the wings of my favorite pop group.

[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Where_Do_All_The_Good_Girls_Go.mp3]

Download:Stevie Jackson – Where Do All the Good Girls Go [MP3]

Allo Darlin – Europe

Rating: ★★★★☆

Allo Darlin are a four piece indie/twee pop band that hail from London, and if you haven’t gotten to know their dazzlingly sweet tunes, then it is time you started. Their self-titled first album was released back in 2010, but if you want to get to know the sweet and groovy tunes of this band then look no further, Europe is an excellent place to start.        

On opener “Neil Armstrong,” it’s easy to see the similiarities of Allo Darlin’ to other indie-pop legends. The vocals of Elizabeth Morris share the discreet power that Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell has perfected and the delicate guitars reminisce of that of Belle and Sebastian. Though this band is not simply a culmination of other groups, they have their own flair as well. The ukulele that is ever-present on this first song is an aspect that gives this group the playfulness that such a genre begs for. For a first track, it’s a pretty good representation of this band’s style; gentle pop that still manages to bubble in sunshine.

Later on, you have an even softer, but no less equally delightful tune in “Tallulah,” where Elizabeth Morris and her uke step away from things. The result is a plain and simple tasty song, whose simplicity is what makes it as Morris sings a tale of a summer past. Sure, you’re missing the other jangling elements that Allo Darlin’ have become masters of, but it’s a lovely little break from the bright pop and a side trip to a more grounded sound. It’s a good reminder that this band can do a little more than all sunshine all the time.

However, it’s clear that what this band does best is easily music that bathes you in light. On the very next song after “Talulah,” they jump right back into their warmth with “The Letter.” The guitar feels further up in the mix of things on this song, at times dueling with Morris’ vocals for the lead of the song. Meanwhile the drums roll steady on, with the prominent cymbal crash to complete the overall bright atmosphere. That being said, Allo Darlin’ isn’t that easily pegged with the label of cheery pop songs. No, if you listen to the intricate lyrics that Morris spouts out, you’ll find that not all that she has to say matches the surface level observation of peppy.

Like the bands aforementioned, and essentially any band that is really worth listening to, there is more to be found here than can be acquired on first listen. After some time spent traveling around Europe, you’ll find that it was worth the trip.

Brown Recluse – Evening Tapestry

Rating: ★★½☆☆

Despite the creepy implications of their name, Brown Recluse is far from such dark arachnid qualities in their music. Instead they rely on pop, and at that, psychedelic pop laden with airy vocals and crisp instruments. Ironically, many happy and jubilant sounds are produced from this band on Evening Tapestry.

Starting off with “Hobble To Your Tomb,” Brown Recluse begins on a high note. As one of the more interesting numbers on this album, it serves its pertinent job of making me want to see where this band is going to go for the rest of the album. It builds gradually, with short spurts of organ-like synth, and stop and go styling. The horn work at the end creates such promise. Seriously who doesn’t love horn work? However, the song doesn’t really go anywhere; much like the rest of the songs as a whole.

 While this album is chalk full of groovy pop tunes, it just won’t make the transition between good and great to me. Perhaps it is the blandness of the lead vocals; they suit the music, but at the same time there isn’t that disparity that allows for some noticeable separation of instruments and singing. It doesn’t command your attention, but lets you wander a little ways off, and it’s easy to get distracted from the tunes that are brightly playing away. The same goes for the shortness in each of the songs, which, sadly, but inevitably causes them all to sound similar.

Despite it’s one-note-nature, Evening Tapestry still has its moments. Such moments occur on numbers like “Impressions of a City Morning,” that starts with some quick, yet soft drums, and follows with the jingle-jangle of a tambourine. At some points during this number, I get the feeling of some old Belle and Sebastian song, chalked full of that story-telling diction and delicate vocal qualities that Stuart Murdoch does so well. Another stand out comes on “Monday Moon,” that relies on jangly guitars and the slight wail of some funky synthesizer to spin a poppy tune.

To be honest, most of the songs on this album are likable; there just isn’t enough variety in general to warrant excellence or even longevity. As I listen to this over and over, I just can’t latch onto hardly any of the songs. They run their course and then are done, becoming forgettable. Instead of falling in love with Brown Recluse, I feel more so like being their friend; I’m not quite ready to spend all my time with them, but hanging out every once and a while could be alright.

Evening Tapestry is out now on Slumberland Records.

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