mixtape maestro (2.0)

There’s an uncomfortable oddness brewing about Scottish pop newcomer Alex Gardner (the newest act to emerge from the Xenomania House of Hits) and his debut single “I’m Not Mad” that we just can’t shake.

Maybe it’s because the eighteen-year-old’s young Elvis looks present him more as a tween silver screen superstar from some Twilight/ Harry Potter-like franchise than an up-and-coming singer-songwriter. Maybe it’s because we can’t wrap her minds around the idea that his esophagus would produce such a stiff, semi-soulful-leaning, husk-hued voice (think a high-school-aged Rick Astley), or maybe it’s just that said voice never quite manages to perfectly gel with the subdued electro-pop fizz of the single, possibly adding to the record never quite taking off the way it initially hints.

Despite this melange of head-scratchingness surrounding it, or perhaps, because of it, “Mad”, a slightly confusing narrative based around classic soapy love games, manages to stick in your head, repeated listenings eventually elevating it’s overall flatness to sublime pop levels.

Check out both the Xenomania-helmed version and an acoustic take on “I’m Not Mad” below and cop the single through iTunes.

Atlanta-born Cody ChesnuTT made quite an impression eight years ago when he unleashed his rave-reviewed double-LP debut, the lo-fi funk/ rock/ soul/ pop homemade brew The Headphone Masterpiece, especially after one of the album’s tracks, “The Seed”, was re-spun by The Roots a year later, emerging as one of the hip hop band/ current late-night TV highlight’s most beloved creations ever (that would be “The Seed (2.0)”). Frustratingly though, he’s since failed to really follow through on all that initial momentum, making the curious decision to cruelly tease fans in the eons since with a couple of sporadically released one-off singles rather than the full-length follow-up they truly desired.

Perhaps as an attempt to keep from completely falling off the edge of our memories, ChesnuTT has returned with a new “tease” in the form of the recently released “Come Back Like Spring”, a far-too brief (it clocks in at just under two minutes) acoustic concoction that beautifully captures his excitement for the new season’s arrival.

Softly crooning atop soothing guitar pluckings and his own delicately layered harmonies, ChesnuTT brings a smile to your face as he vividly illustrates the perfect day unfolding around him, noting the scent of “Honeysuckle on the wind” and the sounds of lawnmowers revving up down the block. Not even the stings of nibbling ants and mosquitoes or the threat of pollen to his allergies can ruin the moment, nor his upbeat mood.

Disappointingly, just as one has been overtaken by a similar sense of bliss through the song’s gentle soul sway, Cody rudely snatches it all away, fading out the song after a single serving of it’s chorus.

Damn C.C., the least you could do after all this waiting we’ve had to endure is entertain us with an entire song. Oh well, guess that means we’ll have to give “Come Back” double the multiple re-spins to achieve satisfaction, while keeping our fingers and toes crossed that it’s out-of-nowhere arrival is an early preview of some soon-to-drop sophomore album.

Grab the track, and a bonus (Cody’s original “The Seed”), below.

DL: “Come Back Like Spring” (alt)

BONUS DL: “The Seed” (alt)

With most of the appeal of Ellie Goulding‘s current UK smash “Starry Eyed” lying in the sonic dramatics of producer Starsmith‘s slathering of dance-tronica sparkle, we didn’t think there would be anything remotely interesting about a stripped-down version of the tune that completely does away with his toilings…that is, until we heard this acoustic take Ellie brought to the BBC Live Lounge studios last week.

Aiding in quieting critical murmurs that she’s somewhat of an inconsequential vocalist, Goulding takes hostage of your full attention from the first moment she opens her mouth here and never lets go, exposing striking, quiver-and-rasp nuances in her child-like coo that could be barely heard underneath all of the studio version’s production pizazz.

We get why her industry backers would want to push Ellie as the “new La Roux” for the moment (with electro-pop being all hot and whatever right now), but hearing her in folksy singer-songwriter mode here as us thinking it’s a style she should be relying on more for future albums.

Lights, Goulding’s debut, drops in March.

DL: “Starry Eyed (Acoustic ‘Live Lounge’ Performance)” (alt)

On Still Standing At Your Back Door, the debut full-length from nineteen-year-old Swedish twins Taxi Taxi!, sisters Miriam and Johanna Berhan go far out of their way to present themselves as old souls.

Yeah, their songwriting relies heavily on teenybopper-isms like puppy love and first heartaches, and you won’t ever mistake their squeaky harmonies as originating from some older and wiser female duo, but that’s the extent of any connection that could be made to America’s same-aged, Disney-backed tween-pop brigade. Instead of cheapened R&B-lite or pop-rock aural assaults, the Berhan sibs would rather surround their voices in beautifully earthen, acousti-folk settings. Their “girl-loves-boy” narratives? Over-dramatized poetics (most penned around the age of fifteen) about romantic addictions to boys with “troubled souls” (“Ripest Fruit”) and how snuggling close with the one you love brings about fantasies of marriage and kids (“More Childish Than In A Long Time”).

This strain for a beyond-our-years maturity in both musical and lyrical forms helps establish Still Standing as an ideal winter-time listen for listeners of all different ages, but interestingly enough, it’s true standout moment arises when Taxi Taxi! act more their age, as they do on the merry “Old Big Trees”, a summer camp sing-along-structured ditty featuring tender oom-pah strummings and the girls’ cutesy doe-eyed-meets-goth attempt at convincing some boy of the great couple they could make.

“Bachelor, oh bachelor,” they coo in girlish unison, “Maybe my skeleton would look quite beautiful beside yours”. All together now: Awww…

DL: “Old Big Trees” (alt)

Just as we had finally started to come around to the seemingly bizarro reality of Pearl Jam being the cats behind this past summer’s irresistibly catchy rocker “The Fixer” (and don’t act like you didn’t have a hard time pairing the band with the feel-good single either), the grunge godfathers go and throw us another mind-jumbling curveball by including an actual LOVE BALLAD on their newest release, Backspacer. And by love ballad, we don’t mean a depressing romantic lament that would have fit in line with everything we’ve come to expect from PJ after all these years; no, with the beautifully folksy “Just Breathe”, they’ve created something that could perfectly soundtrack the walk down the aisle of your wedding!!!

Supported by a lightly orchestrated, country-tinged frame of tender acoustic guitar flickerings and cinematic strings (yes, strings!!) that prettily nail a rustic-like serenity, Eddie Vedder’s hardened growl is leavened with vulnerability as he pauses for a moment of self-reflection at the mid-life point. Realizing how fortunate he is to be able to “count on both hands the ones I love” when others have to settle for one or none at all, he’s moved to pull his lover to the side to announce his appreciation for her presence in his life.

How amazing it is to hear this mucho masculine-sounding man’s man get in touch with his sensitive side, his apologizing for any previous lack of clarity concerning his feelings for her (“Did I say that I need you?/ Did I say that I want you?/ Oh, if I didn’t I’m a fool, you see/ No one knows this more than me/ And I come clean, ah…”), touching pleas for her to “Stay with me…” and lump-in-throat-evoking final couplet of “Hold me ’til I die/ Meet me on the other side” all enough to mist up anyone’s eyes.

Find out about Backspacer‘s purchasing info via the band’s website.

“Just Breathe”:

“The Fixer”:

While best known for their wildly inventive exercises in hard rock, metal, prog and pop-rock sounds (as well as a seemingly glue-stuck “like Foo Fighters” tag) that have slowly helped push them further and further into the UK mainstream view, Scottish alt-rockers Biffy Clyro have also proved over the years to be reliable in delivering some really fascinating cover songs.

From Rihanna’s “Umbrella” to Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” to Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” and The Killers’ “When You Were Young”, Clyro’s re-imaginings haven’t always bettered the originals, but in their (sometimes polarizing) attempts to recast these familiar nuggets, the results were never un-interesting either. So when the news dropped that the Biffy boys were gonna hit the Live Lounge studios, we were excited beyond imagination to hear what cover song they would try out next. When we found out it was going to be the slinky Ciara/ Justin Timberlake duet “Love Sex Magic” though, that excitement was multiplied times ten. Their last venture into American R&B (the aforementioned “Umbrella”) managed to be a winner…but what in the hell were they gonna do with this under-performing FutureSex/ LoveSounds leftover? Answer: Fill our hearts with glee!!

Rather than give it an extreme “rawk” makeover as they had sometimes handled their covers in the past, Biffy (thankfully) opt to go a more straightforward route this time, reinterpreting the original’s funk groove via some surprisingly groove-able singular guitar picking, and providing vocal performances that, while definitely awkward in that square-ish “non-soulful European white boys” kind of way, pull out some charmingly goofball, falsetto-aided male harmonies.

If you dug the Klaxons doing “No Diggity” or Hot Chip taking on Snoop or giving us their best R. Kelly imitation, you’ll likely admire this.

DL: “Love Sex Magic (‘Live Lounge’ Ciara Cover)” (alt)

After all that “backing boy musicians are angry because female lead gets all the attention” drama that nearly split the group apart (a brush-up on No Doubt’s history should have really been a requisite project for these kids) and a detour into the dark and vampiry on the Evanescence-esque Twlight single “Decode”, how refreshing what is to hear Paramore kick off their upcoming junior set brand new eyes with “Ignorance”, a return to the irresistably peppy/ catchy pop-rock formula that made them the breakout act of 2007.

Yeah, it might not sport an immediately cherishable, greater-than-great hook of a “Misery Business” or “Crushcrushcrush”, but you can’t deny the sugary addictiveness of all it’s guitar thrash, heavy bass chug and rapid fire drum work nor the charismatic force known as Hayley Williams snarl-wailing her heart out atop it all.

Last week, the band entered the Live Lounge studios for a two-song live gig and, as they’ve proven with acoustic readings of a lot of their previous material, Paramore made “Ignorance” sound just as good, if not better. With the urgent intensity of the original’s thunderous rawk rage nicely re-imagined through some quickly-flitting acoustic guitar pickings and Williams commiting a more restrained vocal performance heightened by hoarsened peaks, the song manages to grasp an even stronger emotional wallop, as if the inter-band strife documented in the razor sharp lyrics is a currently festering issue rather than a tribulation of the past.

Catch the performances of both “Ignorance” and, yes, yet another amazing female-led cover of Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” below.

brand new eyes drops September 29th.

DL: “Ignorance (‘Live Lounge’ Acoustic Version)” (alt)

DL: “Use Somebody (‘Live Lounge’ Kings of Leon Cover)” (alt)

Damn the Hot 100, you know you’ve got a bonafide pop hit when there’s a slew of teenagers and twenty-somethings posting bedroom-set, acoustic cover versions of your song all over YouTube.

These guitar-clutching hopefuls’ latest obsession: Drake’s inescapable “Best I Ever Had” of course, and while most do a good job recreating Drizzy’s smash into a strum-a-long puppy love lullabye, our top favorite would have to be the version delivered by the young trio of Donna, Anna & Ruby. Part Beach Boys surf ballad, part late ’90′s teen pop confection (anybody else get a lil’ LFO “Summer Girls” vibe from the rap verses?), we could see this precocious cover become a hit on it’s own easily.

To quote their best (added) line: They had us “like The Roots and Erykah Ba-du” from the first guitar pluck.

DL: “Best I Ever Had (Drake Cover)” (alt)

As an added treat, check out this nicely keyboard-bedazzled remix of the original “Best I Ever Had” by French producers The Twins:

DL: “Best I Ever Had (The Twins Remix)” (alt)

An indie-folk singer-songwriter who, at one point, fronted Sufjan Stevens former band Marzuki, Shannon Stephens released her self-titled debut album waaay back in 2000 before deciding to take a lenghty hiatus away from the music biz to enjoy some domestic bliss.

Now, after re-entering the minds of undie-leaning music fans thanks to Bonnie “Prince” Billy covering her “I’ll Be Glad” on last year’s Lie Down In The Light, Stephens is set to make her return as a solo artist with The Breadwinner, backed by Sufjan’s Asthmatic Kitty label.

Pre-album release freebie “In Summer In The Heat” serves as a nice re-introduction (or, perhaps to most, introduction) to the songstress, a pleasantly plucked acoustic-based ballad that beautifully illustrates a summers’ night scene where she’s wrapped in the sweaty arms of a lover.

Her intimate vocals brushing the ear like the most seductive whisper, Stephens captures your undivided attention as she unveils each detail of this very moment from the airplanes flying above to the murmuring voices and automobile noises on the streets below. But it’s her plea for daylight not to “come and spoil this” and take away this “strange paralysis” that proves to be the ultimate kicker, perfectly nailing the sigh-inducing sensuality of a great romance novel.

Grab this blissful tease of a cut below and make sure to snatch up The Breadwinner when it drops on September 8th (Pre-order here).

DL: “In Summer In The Heat” (alt)

Here’s something you live music lovers might want to bookmark: Amsterdam Acoustics is a new site recently launched by “three film and music lovers” that captures up-and-coming indie bands performing stripped-down sessions while backed by the Netherlands capital’s quaint outdoor settings.

One of the first acts to be featured? None other than the previously MM-supported UK boy/ girl duo The xx, who contribute an addicting acoustic rendition of their current single, “Crystalised”.

Catch their performance below, and make sure to keep checking out Amsterdam Acoustics for future postings.

Amsterdam Acoustics – The xx : crystalised from Mokummercials on Vimeo.