[gig reviews] Owen Pallett at Teatro Maria Matos, 11th March 2010

A great musician, that currently got the media attention due to his latest release (entitled "Heartland"), Owen Pallett is Final Fantasy. He had to change the well-known musical project's name to his own name since it had copyright issues (the game Final Fantasy didn't allow him to keep going with that name).
I got the chance (for only 5 euros!!) to see him perform at Teatro Municipal Maria Matos (located in Lisbon, Portugal).
He had a great setlist ranging from Heartland themes to old ones (like "This lamb sells condos").
I filmed almost the entire concert by the way. I still haven't had enough time to post all the videos, but here are some: part 1, part 2, part 4, part 5, part 9.
Here are some photos of the gig I found on another portuguese music blog.

Brian Wilson "Smile"

"Smile, sometimes typeset with the idiosyncratic partial capitalization SMiLE, is a solo album by Brian Wilson, with lyrics by Van Dyke Parks released on 28 September 2004 on CD and two-disc vinyl. Wilson, Parks and Darian Sahanaja completed the legendary unfinished album project, started in 1966 for Wilson's former band, The Beach Boys. It was released in September 2004 with back-up from members of his touring band, including three members of Wondermints."
This album has more to say than just what wiki introduces to the viewer, this time. It has inspired so many artists. Take in count, ranging into a more experimental background, Animal Collective and Panda Bear or even John Maus. Its clear that many synth-based artists produce melodies nowadays that assure us that SMiLE's impact on popular music culture is remarkable. Brian Wilson's melodramatic pop tunes are so catchy and are a synesthesia of happiness and sadness, that can't be described by these words I'm currently typing. Like it's often said, an image is worth more than 1000 words. These songs are worth more than 1000 images.
A transcendental baroque pop masterpiece, a beautiful alienating psychedelic pop work is what this "SMiLE" is.
It received high critical acclaim from music critics: earned a 97 on Metacritic; All Music's review is pretty good, giving this album 4.5 stars out of 5; Drowned in Sound gave it 10 out of 10 stars; Pitchfork gave it 9 out of 10 stars; Rolling Stone gave it 5 out of 5 stars; Robert Christgau (a great american rock music critic) gave it an A+; Tiny Mix Tapes gave it 5 out of 5 stars. Great reviews, huh? Smile hit #13 in the US during a chart stay of 17 weeks. It reached #7 in the UK, going gold (100,000).
The label that was lucky enough to release this record was Nonesuch.

The track list is the following:

1. "Our Prayer/Gee" (Brian Wilson/William Davis and Morris Levy) - 2:09
2. "Heroes and Villains" - 4:53
3. "Roll Plymouth Rock" - 3:48
4. "Barnyard" - 0:58
5. "Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine" (Haven Gillespie and Beasley Smith/Jimmie Davis) - 1:04
6. "Cabin Essence" - 3:27
7. "Wonderful" - 2:07
8. "Song for Children" - 2:16
9. "Child Is Father of the Man" - 2:18
10. "Surf's Up" - 4:07
11. "I'm in Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop" (Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks/Johnny Mercer and Sadie Vimmerstedt/Brian Wilson) - 1:56
12. "Vega-Tables" - 2:19
13. "On a Holiday" - 2:36
14. "Wind Chimes" - 2:54
15. "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (Brian Wilson) - 2:27
16. "In Blue Hawaii" - 3:00
17. "Good Vibrations" (Tony Asher, Mike Love, and Brian Wilson) - 4:36

My favourite songs are: "Good Vibrations" (I don't know if you've heard Psychic TV's cover, which is also pretty mad good), "Surf's Up" and "Cabin Essence".
Some instruments that Brian used to convert this album to a real masterpiece are: keyboards, power drill, whistles, hammer, wood winds, harmonicas, some sound fx, celery, guitars, leg-slap, semi-conductor, mallets, drums, saws, cello, violin, trombone, flute, clarinet, saxophone, bass trombone and [above all] Brian Wilson's vocals.
If you find this album really appealing, you should take a look at this website, a great source of info for this work.
Get this album right here.

Brian Wilson, the man.

Like I usually do after reviewing some albums, I'll put below a song that's included in the subject at hand. This time, it's "Good Vibrations":


By the way, this time I'll add an extra bonus, since you can hear more songs from the album by clicking on them: "Surf's Up", "Wonderful", "Song for Children", "Child is the Father of the Man", "On a Holiday", "Mrs O'Leary's Cow", "Cabin Essence", "Old Master Painter / You Are My Sunshine".

[upcoming bands] Dum Dum Girls

Basically there's just one consistent member in this band and she calls herself "Dee Dee" I believe. It's lo-fi pop.
Nevertheless, it sure is good. Dum Dum girls... They've even signed to Sub Pop. You can tell this is an upcoming band. They've played in the Woodsist fest in Brooklyn, NY, or whatever that fest was. Dee Dee assumes a wannabe gothic style (no offense intended here) - which I quite adore, I must say. Their discography currently consists of: an EP entitled Yours alone (on Captured Tracks label), a 7" named "Long hair", a 4-way split and there'll be soon available a cassette comp on Art Fag label.
See how this lo-fi pop is appealing - direct yourself to their myspace. They've been compared to bands like Black Tambourine and Shop Assistants.

I'll put a video here for you to heart them ("Hey Sis" song):