2010 is approaching soon. Twelve new months full of brand new music, from old veterans, young bands and complete upcomers. Just to go up-to-date on what’s happening with the artists that pleasure Flint’s tastebuds, it’s time to give a little checkaround to 2010’s possible offers by artists I’m intrigued about. Rumours, confirmed news, it’s all here.

Not keen on the artists I display? Give a sly prod at the other writers, maybe they’ll reveal their musical stalking results as well?

After the cut, a big list of various names.

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Merry early Christmas!

Viola’s December giveaway, a self-proclaimed sequel to their 2004 Christmas single, oozes the sort of wonderful warmth and magical happiness only Christmastime can bring. When the depressed verses switch to the ridiculously, almost tongue-in-cheek lovely choruses where soft drum machines tap-tap-tap along and bells and sprinkles fill the air, the duo manages to perfectly capture the wonderful fluffy feeling of the gorgeous season.

This Year Will Be Different also marks the end of Viola’s 2009 music club. Come January 2010 and we’ll be treated to a whole new year of wonderful little Violabits. I’ll remind you!

MP3: This Year It Will Be Different

It is a good day for people who enjoy good songs and have access to the internet, as two bands about to drop albums next year have now done the fashionable thing and released a free digital sample song from their forthcoming longplayers. And, quite frankly, it’s rather easy to assume that one who likes one of the songs will also like the other one.

Apparatjik is a supergroup (as they will be undoubtedly called) consisting of the ethereally wailing Mew frontman Jonas Bjerre, the cool and silent Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman, Magne Furuholmen of the recently retired A-Ha and a fourth guy who’s details I can’t find anywhere. Together they’ve formed something that’s bound to release something highly intriguing come 2010 and the unannounced release date for the debut album. The guys have released a freebie download called Electric Eye and while it may not be the most obvious sampler song with its eclectically changing nine-minute marathon nature, it definitely perks up the interest.

Bjerre’s vocals naturally bring forth the Mew comparisons because his fairytale lullabying is such an integral part of the Danish prog-pop group, but the music doesn’t have much anything to do with Mew. During the song’s nine minutes the song flicks from synthpop to bombastic guitar rock and somehow bridges the two with a bit that melts them to naturally and organically together. Bjerre takes a fair chunk of the lead vocals but another voice enters the scene halfway through (is that Berryman?) just in time as if to intentionally distant Apparatjik from Bjerre’s day job.

It’s also a very excellent song and if you give this cryptic site your email address, you too can hear it.

In another part of Europe, Husky Rescue are preparing for their third long player Ship of Light that’s due to be released January 25th. The Finnish nature-loving chillout-groove poppers seem to be taking a step into a new direction with the lead single We Shall Burn Bright – gone are the slow pace and ambient soundscapes that practically turn the beauty of Finnish summer nights and winter days into music. Instead We Shall Burn Bright thrusts forward with an almost frenetic pace (in this band’s standards), sounding like a soundtrack for an escape out of a burning forest. Jagged guitar lines, hyperactive organ stabs, layered vocals and melancholy horns bring forth an air of majestic desparation.

Not only is it a brilliant song in itself, but it makes one really interested about the third album. Head onto the band’s official website for another email exhange and give it a gander yr’self.

2010 will be very intriguing.

This is the problem with grassroots bands who do not yet have a proper label (major or indie) backing: you get those moments where you begin to wonder if the band even exists anymore because there’s no stable, easy information source.

The Finnish band Prologue released their official debut release, The Stars Are Holes in the Sky EP in 2005. Two years later the Ghost Writing single followed, showing how in those two years the band had managed to add some stellar new sounds to their music. The world was preparing itself for a killer debut album and then… radio silence. The official website is down, the Myspace page has had no updates since 2007 (the last login is a few days ago but that seems to be the case with every single Myspace page so it’s not really reliable). No pieces of news, no articles in Finnish music sites, nothing. It’s like the band simply disappeared.

With good luck we’ll soon be hearing news about a debut album that the band has been preparing for all this time in perfect peace and silence, but as it is now we can’t say for sure. The old material is all we’ve got.

That old material is our treat today, its autumnal sounds wonderfully fitting the current season (even if your current habitat might not have multicolour leaves falling out of trees, covering the world in bittersweet beauty). Prologue circa The Stars Are Holes in the Sky EP owes a great deal of its sound to the classic 90’s-00’s scene of Britpop, the cuddly melodies of late-90’s Travis and the warm intimacy of Parachutes-era Coldplay being the most suiting examples. Wonderful melodies float slowly in a gentle breeze, the close atmosphere being just as important as the hooks when it comes to songwriting. The title track is the stand-out moment of the EP instantly captivating the listener into its brightly sparkling melodies and wonderful, wonderful chorus. “Serpentine” and “Is It People?” are the other shining examples of why the EP is an excellent debut release: the spacey, bedroom warmth of the sound is instantly appealing, soothing the mind and relaxing the body as the melodic hooks swivel around.

The Ghost Writing single on the other hand presented us the title track which took a little step away from the EP’s intimate feel and set its sight towards more different atmospheric routes. Rather than piano dominating the band’s sound, a hazy organ is in its place; rather than the rhythm section slowly grooving its way along and backing the melodies, it’s now up and energised, the speedy drumbeat providing a strong rhythm to the song. Most strikingly the huddled-up, private feel of the music is gone and replaced with a grand anthemic boost. When the backing vocal choir sings along in unison to the rising, massive-sounding outro, it’s like a whole different band – one that’s stepped away from the training space and ready to conquer stadiums.

And now… now we have no idea. Only time will tell if Ghost Writing will get sudden continuation and how different the band sounds then, but it’s bound to be something good.

Listen to Ghost Writing via the band’s MySpace (as well as some of the other songs)

Download Stars Are Holes in the Sky EP from here

One of the trends of the now-soon-ending decade has been The Electronic Sidestep. Throughout the decade guitar-based bands have been saying things such as “we got bored of guitars” or “we wanted to try something new” or even “we really dig that Aphex Twin dude so we just kinda got inspired”, and each year there’s been yet another notch in the wood for rock bands leaving their guitars behind and either started to focuse more on keyboards while decreasing the amount of their traditional instruments, or going as far as ditching the rock essence alltogether and beginning to twiddle the synthesizer knobs. It’s not a bad thing either. Sound expansion is always good and while there’s always going to be fans who can’t take it that their precious guitaring is now stripped away, it’s good to let the band reign free creatively. The result may sometimes be a miss – sure you got the electronic backing but did you do anything actually interesting with it? – but there’s always the chance of something great.

Kent released Tillbaka till samtiden in 2007. It seemed like their electronic sidestep moment. Synthesizers and keyboards were in full blast but you could still tell they were a rock band – the latter half of the album especially saw several moments where the band went back towards their more usual route. It was a fantastic album and stands as one of my favourites of the band, but I always knew in my heart that I shouldn’t get too used to the new sound. While the band had been hiding synthetic influences behind their guitar rock for years and years, now finally letting them come to full bloom, the nature of Electronic Sidesteps are that they are just that, sidesteps. Discography oddities that will become an awkward interview moment for the following years, becoming a cult love affair for the fans. Tillbaka was excellent, but it was still only a sidestep.

Well, that’s what we thought at the time.

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One of those cases where the artist themselves describe the song much more adequately than any random blogger ever can:

“The song has 9 parts but not a single one of them repeats the same vocal melody. Furthermore, the instrumentation is built with the idea that once an instrument enters the picture, it has to stay in until the end of the song, building layer after layer after layer of intertwining melodies and harmonies.”

More lovely melancholy moodiness from the lovely Finnish duo, perfect fit for this miserable rainy month.

MP3: No Connection

In a world where most grassroots bands tend to get shrugged off by this rather picky bastard, Squirrelhouse is one of those names that I’ve put in the back of my head. The debut SPQR is, whilst not flawless, a very enjoyable piece of music (and one worth getting a proper review someday when I stop being lazy) and the band has some really great stylistic assets in their arsenal that lifts them a step above so many other groups.

The Texas band is now preparing to release their second album to the world, with no details announced bar a vague 2010 release date. A preview song, or a single or something, however has appeared. The new song titled Apocalypso carries all the Squirrelhouse trademarks that makes them so lovely: the lively, grooved-out bass that finds it seemingly impossible to ever stop moving around, a regular horn section backing the music and reminding us why more bands should use horns more often, a guitar that may not do anything technically impressive but manages to find the biggest hooks from its subtle patterns, as well as Paul Hanninen’s voice naturally. Apocalypso has an excellent uplifting stroll to it that would make it worth a listen all in itself but when about halfway through the song breaks down into a slow, nigh-anthemic instrumental portion gloriously led by the jubilant horn, the song’s real magic is unveiled. And then it jumps again into the upbeat stroll as if nothing ever happened.

Of course, my awkward 10-in-the-morning rambles are a very bad way to judge anything so listen to it yr’self, either via the mp3 at the bottom of this post or watch the cutely clipshowey video embedded below.

MP3: Apocalypso

MySpace

Alex James Church is a nutter.

When Stanislaus was released and I was all madly in love with it, I figured it would be an amazing taster from the new Sea Wolf album. Turns out it wasn’t, it was just a session bonus track that won’t be included on the album. Which brings us to today’s question, why on earth not?

That said, it’s not like White Water, White Bloom is without high points of its own, even if we’re not getting the brilliant sophomore breakthrough we were expecting.

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A few weeks or so ago the melancholy Swedish guitar rockers Kent dropped a miniature bombshell in announcing that they’re about to release their eight full-length early next month, and the announcement was accompanied by the lead single. No one saw it coming, but there was much rejoical. I was one of the happy people and I was already rushing to post about it here but then a little light bulb appeared briefly over my head. Kent may have the rather affectionate nickname of “Sweden’s biggest rock band” and they’re very, very well known around the Scandinavia/Nordic area, but outside Northern Europe their exposure is… less so. Partially this is because they sing in Swedish and thus aren’t much of a huge export, and partially it’s because after two failed attempts at internationalising by making English versions of the albums the band simply gave up and stopped being fussy about it (thankfully, considering how wrong the two English albums sound). And based on a healthy amount of guess work, I’d wager that most of our regular readers (we truly thank you for your continued support and interest!) aren’t from that relatively small area.

So let’s bang out another retrospective and just find out why exactly we’re supposed to be excited about the new album.

Kent formed in 1990 under the name Coca Cola Kids, and after two more name changes as well as some line-up juggling they finally arrived to the short, simple and very well working four-letter name they work under now in 1993, and with the main line-up in tow: Joakim Berg offering both some guitaring as well as his lovely vocal work, Sami Sirviö on lead guitars, Martin Sköld on bass, and Markus Mustonen on drums, as well as Martin Roos on yet another guitar. The band records a demo, gets a record contract and in 1994 enter the studio to begin work on their debut album. And so the story begins…

(and my humblest apologies for some very bad youtubing in this article. The band’s being a tit and not only saying no to allowing their official uploads to be embedded, but the same goes to most fan videos of any good quality. So no fancy embeds, just some ordinary links)

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Guillemots are pretty super-awesome, aren’t they? I’m glad we’re in agreement. While the band’s currently recording their third guaranteed-to-be-pretty-awesome album, the cute bastard mad genius frontman Fyfe Dangerfield is in the process of doing his own solo album debut. The reported name is “Fly Yellow Moon” and what minimal signs there are speculatingly point towards a 2010 release date, perhaps even early on in the year.

Why bring this rumour-mongering up? Because there’s a leak. Or a “leak”. Mr Dangerfield is being rather coy. The song is called “She Needs Me” and those who are aware of what sorts of things Fyfe likes to contribute to Guillemots have a fairly good idea what the song will be like. It’s life-affirmingly upbeat, it’s wonderfully sunshineypoppy, and most importantly it’s got a combination of funky bass, gorgeously e-bowing guitar parts, horn awesomeness and BIG string sections. BIG. It’s one big joyous pop song that’s sure to put one’s private dancing shoes on and make the said listener dance and sing along in his private quarters like a silly loon completely in love with music.

Oh yes.

On the other hand there’s also the reported lead single for the album, “Faster Than the Setting Sun” that’s also making tours in the internetospace after being aired in a radio show. It’s just as epic as “She Needs Me” but rather than being a wonderfully sunshiney piece of lovegroove, it’s a sky-soaring, dove-tailing anthem that bursts into all sorts of vibrant colour and orgasmic sound as it progresses and eventually climaxes into a gigantic outro. In other words, it’s effin fantastic.

Click the viddy after the cut for Sun, click the mp3 linky similarly after the cut for She.

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