Monkton Versus Plankton

2 November 09

Plankton: Is this the most underrated album of 2009?

Timber Timbre by Timber Timbre

Not to go around pulling unnecessary punches - after all, For Emma… was a great record - but in the face of Timber Timbre’s self-titled, Bon Iver’s cabin heartache feels decidedly tame. While Justin Vernon was warming up by the fire, Taylor Kirk (aka Timber Timbre) was contracting a deadly fever. It’s here, committed to tape, a distinct earthen charm that we’ve heard in various forms before, but rarely as haunting or distinguished as this.

There are definite sonic comparisons to be made with Antony Hegarty and M. Ward; the vocal timbre of the former, an intentioned timber (a shared methodology perhaps) with the latter. Another strong root to the record is the gritty blues territory originally outlined by The Animals, an influence worn very much on the sleeve at times (see the lyrics of Until The Night Is Over, or the organ solo in Trouble Comes Knocking). The various shades really add up - Timber Timbre is an intoxicating record peering in upon itself with a gentle but fearful stare, and it deserves more attention than popular opinion has, thus far, been inclined to give.

MP3: ‘Demon Host’ - Timber Timbre
MP3: ‘No Bold Villain’ - Timber Timbre

You can find the album on Amazon and Spotify.

Plankton x

28 October 09

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Monkton: Love Lust

My instincts may be off the mark here, have been known to be, but I suspect the man’s gifts are most likely ensnared in the towering majesty of that superb quiff - admittedly not a hypothesis worth testing with an all-over shave, but food for thought nevertheless. Or just pure drivel. What can be said is that King Charles is dextrously disheveled, hastily verbose, the very idea and antithesis of Englishness. Quaint and psychedelic is a double act I’m new to - incidentally also what makes KC’s slant on Devendra Banhart really worth digesting. Where Banhart would perhaps be within his element reeling out a genre-bending screenplay, this troubadour-cum-groover could actually be a contender for kicking back and ‘finally writing that novel’, rambling and fancifying his way through the sentimental tropes of a comfortably schooled Beat poet. Of course, all this - the hair, the ready-made Banhart comparison, the Englishness - is fodder compared to the promisingly rich rhythms and fervid reasoning of ‘Love Lust’. All being said, I am curious indeed for the advent of something whole - the top to toe album to place King Charles among his subjects. And for that, I suppose we will just have to excitedly wait.

MP3: ‘Love Lust’ - King Charles

Monkton x

25 October 09

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Monkton: Swim Until You Can't See Land

Re - Plankton: Happy Birthday

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the aquatic microbe is right! Oh how we were condemned as fools for imagining this day would ever come! Today Monkton vs Plankton is one year old! Consider all naysayers well and truly smoted. But truth be told, smoting is not our forte - in fact we’re rather fond of saying nice things about nice things - and so in the vein of free love I give you the upcoming new single from Frightened Rabbit, making like a rabbit in torchlight in their spanking new video:

One of 2008’s most beloved, most belogged records, The Midnight Organ Fight was already gracing the year’s hit-lists when MvP was but a glint in the milkman’s eye (long story) - so we might see their new single as a well earned dose of nostalgia, a salute to the kind of melody making that got us blogging in the first place. And dare I say there is something sweetly nostalgic about ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’? A retrospective tribute to TMOF’s phenomenal success maybe - the album who’s spirited take on paranoia and self-reproach became so widely celebrated, feverishly shared for the chiming ring of its visceral anthems and stirring interiority. It’s this collective call to arms that marks a change in tone - Hutchison even seamlessly slips from the singular ‘I’ to the second-person inclusive ‘you’ in the chorus - “So I swim until you can’t see land / Swim until you can’t see land” - repeated like a mantra for the troubled minds of a stiflingly self-reflexive generation. No one ever quite heals in this game, but the sharing of personal aches pains has a formidable affect - positivity glows through the song’s rippling guitar and swaying choir, regimenting the otherwise brooding subject matter, ceremoniously dispossessed. I can’t help recall the moment Frightened Rabbit first slipped into the deep blue -

MP3: ‘Floating in the Forth’ - Frightened Rabbit

“I’ll float away down the forth into the sea, I steer myself through chopping waves”

**
The great Wikipedia in the sky tells me that we’re not due another album until 2010, so this is one to savour for a wee while and a hint of things to come. Preorder the single here and if you’ve gotify le Spotify you can listen to The Midnight Organ Fight here. Happy Daylight Savings Day!

Monkton x

Posted: 12:05 PM

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Plankton: Happy Birthday

Who’d have thunk it - it’s a whole year since Monkton Vs Plankton sprung from great blogging below. And a lot has happened in just twelve months; there’s been banter, there’s been bombast, and some extraordinary music along the way (remember that sensational Patrick Watson show?) - we were even one of the chosen few to hear the notorious Merriweather Post Pavillion before anyone else.

But what does it all really mean? It means it’s BIRTHDAY PLAYLIST TIME. Here’s a modest collection I’d like to call Swede-ophilia (which wasn’t supposed to sound creepy, but it really does. We just like Swedish music. Is that such a crime?)

Track 1: ‘Julie (Remix)’ by Jens Lekman (pictured below)
Track 2: ‘En Hand I Himlen’ by Jonathan Johansson
Track 3: ‘A Young Summer’s Youth’ by Joel Alme

Jens, Jonathan and Joel are all masters of the nostalgic impulse. Their music carries a deep historical tension, as if bucking the time continuum from the moment of conception, whether its the reassuring Merrittesque croon of Lekman or Joel Alme’s undeniable instinct for heartfelt reminiscence (“I’m glad that I found you, on that last summer’s day”). With that sentiment in mind, here’s to a year gone by…

Plankton x

22 October 09

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Monkton: Good manors

You best bag yourself a place at the edge your seat: Local Natives are poised to give us a tour through Gorilla Manor and I’ve a notion it’s a real contender for this year’s best animal/house themed record - dare I say one of this year’s best LPs full stop. Yes sir, that’s two of the most sought-after appointments on the music calendar. Indubitably.

The lazy writer in me would probably draw comparisons with The Dodos, Fleet Foxes, Bowerbirds - but now, that would be far toooooo lazy - best tell you that Gorilla Manor is a table-thrashing, folk freaking, alt popping wild rumpus of a debut. From the stirring clicky-clackyness of ‘Airplanes’ to the stomp pomp of ‘Camera Talk’, Local Natives marry the innate drive we all have to hit things with sticks with an equally primal propensity to love / be heartbroken and basically ache ourselves to sleep. Brimming with colour and energy, Gorilla Manor will woo you with its sheer tactility, unbridled emotion and infectiously redolent sense of fun. It hits the shelves on November 2nd - so I suggest you grab your sleeping bag and brave the autumn night air in that 10-day queue. Or you could just pre-order it. Your call.

MP3: ‘Shape Shifter’ - Local Natives

Monkton x

12 October 09

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Plankton: Óh, lafur...

To complete today’s Nordic hat-trick, I present the compelling campfire-esque flicker of Ljósið by Ólafur Arnalds.

Beautiful stuff.

Plankton x

Posted: 12:54 AM

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Plankton: Thom, Thomas & The Tallest

You could say I’ve had a long day. I blame bad plumbing; a single burst water main, and suddenly my half hour bus journey home became an epic two hour slog. Here’s a distilled soundtrack from my travels -

MP3: Hearing Damage by Thom Yorke

Welcome to October 2009: Twilight is EVERYWHERE. Thom Yorke has written a song for the new movie, and there was a thirty year old man (at my best estimate) reading Twilight next to me on the bus. Since when was this permissible?

- I will allow it, but only on the grounds that, for all the cinematic sins under the sun, Hearing Damage is a beautiful brute, and probably the best of Yorke’s recent releases.

MP3: Cecilia by Thomas Dybdahl

Bless his cotton Norwegian socks. This track is an oldie, but most certainly a goodie, and has been running through my head all day long. Here I am - flesh and bones. There’s a refrain you can hang your hat on.

And finally, MP3: I Won’t Be Found by The Tallest Man On Earth

…from his brand new, fresh-off-the-press Daytrotter session. The world’s shortest tallest man takes to the piano for a fresh take of I Won’t Be Found, warming every heart this side of Sweden in the process. Maybe we’ll hear more of him behind the keys in his next record? I, for one, wouldn’t complain.

Plankton x

9 October 09

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Plankton: RE: I wish I wish

What a strange feeling to be confronted with on a Thursday evening; watching Monkton’s video I couldn’t quite shake it - a very definite déjà vu - and it’s clear to me now; I know that wishbone. We go way back.

An unusual claim, admittedly, but should you need proof, here is the aforementioned ‘bone, in a trailer for its very own biopic:

The man responsible for Machine With Wishbone (the thing, not the movie) is mechanic-cum-existentialist Arthur Ganson. His work is wonderfully mundane - see his machine that lives to bathe itself in grease, or his chairs, dancing a slow ballet, stuck in an eternal explosive drift - so it’s a pleasant surprise to see his (endearingly daft) machinery pseudosampled for the greater good.

Plankton x

8 October 09

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Monkton: I wish I wish

It really speaks for the capacity and confusion of the human heart that I seriously feel for the wishbone here. But then I have been known to swoon at the ickle feet of all things miniature. Stirring stuff from Dead Man’s Bones…

Monkton x

7 October 09

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Monkton: Family matters

This being a family blog it seems only too appropriate to stand in solidarity with brotherly/sisterly ventures all abouts. And not in the Meg White / Jack White are-they-aren’t-they-will-they-won’t-they sense - we’re talking true blood music. The sounds that come out when siblings aren’t bickering like Wainrights - the primordial sound of the same gene pool bubbling and yodeling its way into the heart of the family-worshipping masses. And maybe, just maybe, the occasional stroppy teenager will feel a pang too (even if it’s hard to detect under the clammer of heavy sighs and slamming doors).

And who could this longwinded introduction be in dedication to?

First Aid Kit - ‘Hard Believer’

Aside from larking about in galleries, it seems these sisters have been mis-spending their youth honing their harmonies and limbering up on their life lessons. A blessing really, since their combined grace is almost certainly equal to one wise and sentimental thirty-something, with the added charm of a quirky, carnivalesque sort of sisterhood. The single is out now - and you can hear more of First Aid Kit on Spotify if you are so inclined - I’ve yet to investigate further than this song myself, but have my fingers crossed for more of the same.

Monkton x