Archive for April 4th, 2012

04
Apr
12

Treefiddy Review: Pepe Deluxe – Queen Of The Wave

220px-PepeDeluxe_WikiThe Down Lizzo:

Regular readers of this site will know that once in awhile I delve into some truly weird, obscure shit when it comes to music.

I do this because when you listen to truck loads of new music constantly, sooner or later it all starts to sound the same and you need something to act as a defibrillator for your brain.

Enter Pepe Deluxe who I found courtesy of the killer music app I mentioned this morning – “Band Of The Day” http://www.bandofthedayapp.com/ (get it now, thank me later).

This Finnish band dropped their fourth studio album Queen Of The Wave at the end of January and it’s more eccentric than your buddy’s weirdo uncle who wore foil hats and got arrested every other week for painting his balls green and running naked through the zoo.

 

Queen Of The Wave is a concept album that blends psychedelic funk, 50s surf rock, soul, trip-hop and opera with a couple of Victorian harpsichords, Tesla Coil synths and Mellotron waterphones thrown in there for good measure.

“Refreshingly batshit” is the term that comes to mind…

Sick Tracks:

“A Day And A Night” was the song that got me into Pepe Deluxe. The bassline is sicker than a TB-ridden vagrant and, with the possible exception of the uncalled for arpeggio bridge halfway through the song, it’s kept pretty lean and mean throughout.

“Go Supersonic” is also pretty easily accessible and moves dextrously from a somewhat frantic Victorian-era verse into full-on Austin Powers 70s Tokyo girl-group, catchy-as-hell chorous.

 

 

The album opener “Queenswave” is also a great track. Faux synth bird calls are layered over a meaty bassline which is backed up with some nice, punchy drums. It’s atmospheric stuff and sets the tone nicely for the sheer musical indulgence to follow.

I also liked the slimey opening riffs of “Grave Prophecy” and the haunting sparsity of “In The Cave”, which is played on the largest instrument known to man, the Great Stalacpipe Organ. Built across 3.5 acres of Virginia’s Luray Caverns in the early ‘50s, this instrument delayed the release of the album by two years because the organ had to renovated.

 

 

They wanted to play it on the album that badly.

How batshit is that?

Should You Give A Shit?

At the risk of having my credibility as a music reviewer utterly destroyed, I’m going to say yes, you should give a shit.

They might be a bit bonkers when it comes to the way they arrange the tracks on Queen Of The Wave and they do have a tendency to go balls-to-the wall when it comes to dialling up the theatricality of their music, but there’s no denying that the production of this album is on a level I’ve seldom, if ever, heard before.

It’s ambitious, it’s gaudy, it’s complex, it’s bizarre and it isn’t for everyone, but it’s also a lot of fun and, because it’s so complex, it offers something different with every listen.

Here’s “A Day And A Night” to give you a little taste:

 

 

Final Verdict: 7/10

-ST

04
Apr
12

Brilliant App For Music Lovers

mzl.skszqkpl.175x175-75If there’s anything that having an iPad and frequenting the app store almost daily has taught me, it’s the value of the “Staff Favourites” section.

It’s there that I discovered this radass music app called “Band Of The Day” that is free to download and is literally changing my life every time I use it.

The app is brilliant in its simplicity – it’s like an advent calendar full of cool bands with a new one uploaded every day to sink your teeth into and trust me, these are not your run-of-the-mill bands everyone knows already. In the entire month of March there was one band I’d heard of.

Selecting a band brings up a menu of options where you can access reviews of their latest album, bios of the band, Q&As (sometimes), a list of all their albums and videos and a player that streams some of their tracks.

 

 

With some bands the player is limited to three or four tracks, but in some cases there are eight or more tracks to listen to which, considering it doesn’t cost a cent, is pretty damn sweet.

The first time I fired the app up I lost myself for a good hour or so, trawling March’s bands and finding some very cool shit.

The “Buzz” option in the menu is also really sick – it pulls all the recent Tweets mentioning the band you’re listening to so you can see how may mentions they’ve been getting and what people are saying.

 

 

You can of course tweet and post to Facebook straight from the app as well to share new bands with your networks.

The only issue I’ve had using the app has to do with my ropey 3G connection which results in songs stopping while they buffer, but otherwise I literally cannot find fault with this killer app.

-ST