PJ Harvey
Finally, a new PJ Harvey album.
The Hope Six Demolition Project comes out in mid-April, her first since her Mercury Prize winning 2011 album Let England Shake.
“The Wheel” is the first single.
“The Wheel”
James Blake
James Blake, the soulful electronic musician, just won the prestigious Mercury Music Prize for his album Overgrown.
The award is given annually to an artist from the United Kingdom or Ireland.
“Retrograde” was the first single.
∆, Alt-J
∆, pronounced in this case Alt-J, just won the Mercury Music Prize.
The award is given annually to the best album from the UK and Ireland.
(The band’s name derives from pressing Alt-J on a Mac keyboard to achieve the Delta symbol. Delta is used to denote “change” in mathematical equations. )
“Fitzpleasure” is from An Awesome Wave, Alt-J’s winning debut.
Laura Marling
Laura Marling’s third album, A Creature I Don’t Know, has just been released.
Her two previous albums, Alas, I Cannot Swim and I Speak Because I Can, were both nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize.
And this exquisite singer/songwriter is only 21 years old.
Hear “Devil’s Spoke” from I Speak Because I Can from a previous podcast here.
“The Muse” is the first track on her new album.
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Friendly Fires
Friendly Fires, England’s dance band with an edge, just released their second album, Pala.
Their first album, eponymously titled, was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2009.
Pala is a fictional utopian island in Aldous Huxley’s novel Island.
The discovery of the “Blue Cassette” and the stirrings of a long lost voice is from the new album.
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Gorillaz cover the xx
The inspired songwriting of this year’s Mercury Music Prize winner the xx has engendered covers of their songs by a wide diversity of artists from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (heard here in a previous post) to Shakira. Now we have a lovely acoustic version of “Crystalised” by Gorillaz.
Songs reinterpreted take on new meaning as we hear lyrics in a new voice and new light. Damon Albarn’s somber vocal adds a touch of pensive sadness to the Song of the Day.
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“Crystalised” by Gorillaz
Antony & the Johnsons: Free download
Swanlights is the fourth studio album from Antony & the Johnsons. Another former Mercury Music Prize winner, Antony has one of the most distinctive voices in all of music. His plaintive operatic timbre is instantly recognizable with a melancholy forlorn that is painfully alone but evocatively engaging. “The Spirit Was Gone” is a free download from the album and is the Song of the Day.
(The video can be seen in the YouTube tab in the upper right. Antony pays tribute to Kazuo Ohno, a pioneer of butoh, a Japanese dance form.)
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“The Spirit Was Gone” by Antony & the Johnsons
Badly Drawn Boy: Free download
Former Mercury Music Prize winner, singer/songwriter Badly Drawn Boy, has just released It’s What I’m Thinking Pt.1 – Photographing Snowflakes, his seventh studio album. On his website he is offering a free download of a four song EP – demos of some of the songs on the new album. Here is “In Safe Hands”, one such demo, where you can hear a raw stripped version of what eventually became a beautifully produced song.
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“In Safe Hands (Demo)” by Badly Drawn Boy