I really dig Efterklang. They’re a seven piece hailing from Denmark with a lush sound that shimmers with layers of vocals, horns, strings, drums, pianos and electronic treatments all bundled together into a colourfully orchestrated sound. It’s bright, enjoyable and unmistakably Scandinavian.

Their newly released video for Mirador just got featured on YouTube. While it’s garnered a stream of comments to the effect of “what the hell?”, it’s a nice little animated piece and complements their sound nicely:

Mirador comes off their newly released album Parades. I also recommend their mini-album released earlier this year entitled Under Giant Trees.

Somewhere around the traps, you may have had the pleasure of hearing the explosive sounds of oddball sample pastiche as brought to life by the loving hands of a dude named Faux Pas. Actually, his real name is Tim Shiel. But I digress…

(If you have not heard the sounds of Faux Pas, there is still yet hope. Go get an mp3 then get another mp3 then watch a video. Then go listen to the rest of the tracks on last.fm)

Last night, Tim stayed up too late and decided he’d send an e-mail to his mailing list. That had interesting consequences, as can be witnessed in this fragment:

RECIPE FOR “CHANGES EP” COCKTAIL: take two parts of hot new ‘faux pas’ action, ie 2 new faux pas tracks. take three remixes deserving of declaratory greatness (for example, i declare these remixes to be great). take one part of music completely played in reverse. combine parts in brain, fry up in the computer and serve on shiny disc, or on floppy disc. or on flying disc, like in the california games.

And that’s pretty much how crazy the whole e-mail was.

After reading Tim’s cascade of alphabet soup, I suddenly had a revelatory thought which ran along the lines of: “holy cow! Tim said ‘EP’ and ‘new faux pas tracks’ and ‘remixes’ and… that means good!”

And behold, it is good news. Tim’s new Changes EP (note: no “Ch-Ch”) has just been released, and it bundles three remixes (two of which have received jubilant attention from our own FBI Radio and Melbourne’s RRR) and two brand new tracks. Three of the tracks are now available to stream on the Faux Pas Myspace so you really have no excuse to remain ignorant save for your feeble laziness which doesn’t even permit you to go check out quality music from a quality independent muso.

So don’t delay! Head over to Tim’s new website and explore the goodness.

Now to go find my credit card…

It surprises me that I’ve not talked about U2 on this blog in what seems like years, seeing they’re probably the band that’s enjoyed the longest period of obsessive fandom from me (much to the horror of many of my friends – their loss, I say).

Maybe this lack of posting is due to my lack of excitement about their last 2 albums – or maybe it’s the fact that the only news that seems to be surfacing lately are either a. Bono’s meetings with various world leaders or b. bizarre experiments between U2 and world music which – as much as I’d like to be optimistic – is not my concept of a match made in heaven. I’m always happy to be proved wrong here, so I’ll keep one eye warily on the proceedings…

Right, after that ramble: Interscope (and Island Records before them) must deserve an award for possessing the largest amount of restraint out of any of the bigger record labels out there, as it seems that lately a remaster is one of the first things that a label will resort to to squeeze money out of a ridiculously successful album (next to best ofs, which I guess is where U2′s label have jumped the shark). However, unlike some back catalogues that receive altogether too much attention in this regard (hello Pink Floyd), U2′s catalogue has actually been begging to be remastered for some time, or so I’ve felt anyway.

Well, it’s finally happening. Predictably, it’s The Joshua Tree that’s getting the first remaster/repackaging job but it’s raised my hopes that the same would happen to their other recordings. Now, The Joshua Tree isn’t my favourite album (that would be Achtung Baby), but it’s far from my least. What I would be most keen to hear remastered, however, would be their earliest albums. Particularly Boy.

So anyway, this new package: what have we got? According to the Pitchfork scoop, there’s a second disc of B-sides and rarities to be had (which is good, as I never got a chance to collect the singles and EPs from the 80s, being too preoccupied with their 90s stuff). There’s also a DVD that will be a part of the deluxe edition, containing a full ’87 tour concert and a documentary. Unfortunately, I would be keen to get the 2LP vinyl, which is a pain in the neck as in order to get the DVD I’d probably going to have to get both the vinyl package and the deluxe CD edition. Decisions. I doubt I’ll get both.

Update: just to clarify, it looks like the 2LP is actually the album spread across two records (4 sides), which is a bit bizarre as the original was only on a single disc…

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And in semi-related news: I had half an eye open with interest when Sean reminded us that Underworld (yep, they’re still around) were releasing a new record called Oblivion With Bells. I was keen to hear it after their various under-the-radar experiments of the last few years, and as it turns out, it’s really solid. Some fans will be disappointed to hear it’s not exactly as chock full of clubber anthems as some of their earlier work (and yes, it does contain more of their frequently lampooned hip-hop-esque tunes) but I’m really enjoying it.

What’s all this got to do with U2? Larry Mullen Jr. guests on one of the albums tracks called Boy, Boy, Boy. It rocks.

Remember the story behind the kids on 15 Step that Nigel Godrich dropped a hint on a couple of days ago? He was kind enough to repond to a private message asking for extra info on the story.

I asked: “is that really true? a failed plan to record clapping inspired the ‘yayys’?”

Nigel responded:

Well.. yes. The clapping was cute but not quite good enough and I thought while we had them all in a room what can be more enchanting than getting a bunch of happy kids to shout ‘yeah!’ no one is immune to a childs charm.

I may not have got to Battles‘ recent show at the Gaelic due to unfortunate circumstances, but these videos captured from the band’s performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival will keep me happy until I see them when they come back for the Big Day Out next year.

In a word: whoa! They show performances of Atlas and Leyendecker and they’re absolutely mind boggling.

So, the new Radiohead album eh? I completely love it, and it only improves with each listen. I’m still a little startled (but becoming less so) at how direct the sound of this album is – to a point that I don’t think Radiohead have been before. But this isn’t a review, so I’ll stop there.

Anyway, the reason for this post is an idle moment on the At Ease message board, around a thread that concerned the kids yelling “YAYY!” on the In Rainbows opener, 15 Step. For those that don’t know, these kids were recorded at the Matrix Music School, which they wrote about on their web site. Looking at the photos, you can tell they’re attempting to get the kids to clap, but no real clapping (that I can hear) is on the track.

I idly speculated as to how such a random sample might have found its way into the track by way of this mock-story:

Colin: “I know! Let’s get authentic handclaps recorded by a classroom of children!”
Band: “Cool!”
Nigel: “OK Colin, let’s go”
(later that day)
Colin: (mutters under breath) “Nige mate, this is a disaster. These kids can’t clap for nuts!”
Nigel: “What the bloody hell are we going to do? These kids think they’re going to be on the next Radiohead album”
Colin: “Uhhh… let’s just tell them it’s not going to happen”
(this is done, with predictable anguish expressed by classroom)
Nigel: “Good thing I was still recording! THAT was worth it!”
Colin: “Do we tell them they might make it after all?”
Nigel: “Nahhhhhh…”

Now, obviously I entirely made this up. I was just wondering how they managed to come up with the idea for something like that.

It seems I wasn’t too far off however, as Nigel Bloomin’ Godrich himself (no kidding! black swan, for those in the know!) responded with the following two words:

almost true..

Now – waitaminute… this wasn’t orginally intended? Were the band initially at the school to record handclaps, but couldn’t for some reason? Was this some kind of way to make good of their time spent recording the kids?

I am in complete shock

(I laughed for two minutes straight before I clicked on the blog post from Jonny in my RSS reader. I thought with a name like ‘In Rainbows’, it must have been a joke)

UPDATE: Now that I’ve recovered, here’s the deal:

The album is being released digitally on October 10. They will then be a shipping a “discbox” on December 3 that contains 2 CDs and 2 LPs (vinyl, yanno?).

Yes that’s right: a double album.

The tracklisting is as follows:

CD 1 and Vinyl

1. 15 Step
2. Bodysnatchers
3. Nude
4. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
5. All I Need
6. Faust Arp
7. Reckoner
8. House of Cards
9. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
10. Videotape

CD 2 and Vinyl

1. Mk 1
2. Down is the New Up
3. Go Slowly
4. Mk 2
5. Last Flowers
6. Up on the Ladder
7. Bangers and Mash
8. 4 Minute Warning