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Special Amanda Palmer-less music post
Mar. 11th, 2020 08:13 amThis is a music post inspired by Amanda Palmer, with no Amanda Palmer music in it. She's been on a long world tour for her new There Will Be No Intermission album (https://nointermission.amandapalmer.net/ - includes naked AFP image). And while spending a couple months in Australia she also put out a bushfire relief charity album (yes, really) called Forty-Five Degrees after the Midnight Oil song "Beds Are Burning" - see the first music link below for more.
She also spent time as "artist in residence" for the popular Australian station Double J. I've listened to their sister station from time to time through the Triple-J app. Double J tends to be more rock; Triple J tends to be more offbeat stuff. Back in the days of MTV's "120 Minutes" (does anyone else remember that?) Triple-J's playlists had a lot of overlap with 120 Minutes.
Artist in residence means Palmer did two-hour DJ stints once a week, talking and spinning tunes. Some of her own stuff, of course, but lots of other things. I thereby bring you four tracks plucked from those sets, none of them by AFP herself.
https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/track/beds-are-burning-with-missy-higgins
Missing Higgins' cover of "Beds Are Burning" is very different from the original and yet the same. Midnight Oil agreed to the cover being done only if none of the lyrics were changed. I have several memories of this song, not least of which is seeing Midnight Oil do it live in a theater in Austin TX in the summer when the AC simply couldn't cope. Unsurprisingly, this song is making something of a comeback of relevance in the wake of this year's fire disasters and the cover hits me directly in the feels.
Missy Higgins (https://www.missyhiggins.com/) is a phenom in Australia, though not much known in the US. She's had three number one albums there and several hit singles. Worth checking out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEng0wral6M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaKwHQclJEY
Montaigne (http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/) is... fucking AMAZING. I haven't heard a voice this powerful since Hannah Reid of London Grammar. The first link, "Don't Break Me" is the one AFP played in her DJ set and it's closest to my usual styles, being nearly a vocal trance track. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a full vocal trance remix drop soon. But holy cow listen to how her voice punches and sustains. It's going to be her Eurovision entry. OK, you say (if you are me) but that's a studio production. Right, then, let's go to live.
The second link is her live on The Set (hey, there's Triple-J again!) doing "Ready". And yeah, that's her vocal punch. She's seated, ferpetessake! I can only imagine what she'd do if she really cut loose. She's also still really young so I expect we'll see her talents develop over time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbMwTqkKSps
This - "when the party's over" - is the Billie Eilish track I was searching for when I reviewed her Bond theme a few weeks ago. The video is disturbing, as you would expect from an anguished post-breakup song. It's intimate and breathy, and yes it's emo AF. But that's her and her style. I still like "all the good girls go to hell" best, but that's more cabaret-punk than emo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcOWQ1rym8
Ani Difranco has been cited by AFP as an inspiration for some time. In her set she talks about how Ani was a feminist touchpoint during a certain musical period where there weren't many like her. Palmer notes with gratitude how many doors Ani opened for later women, including Palmer, to go through. Despite being raised in a folkie household, Ani just sort of bounced off me. I'll always have a place in my heart for Joan Baez and Malvina Reynolds - I used to sing "Little Boxes" to my kids at bedtimes - but the chick-singer-with-guitar thing just never got me as an adult.
This, "Self Evident", is not that. This is angry slam political post-911 song-poetry. There is jazz and rhyming and anger and consciousness of the "whole human family". It's a very political creation centered on a defining political moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPyl2tOaKxM
And finally to end on a much lighter note, we bring you Fascinating Aida's "Cheap Flights" (with subtitles, which helped me pick up one or two things I'd missed in the first couple listen-throughs). The song is topical and the performance is fun to watch. Fascinating Aida reminds me a lot of Arrogant Worms, whom I've loved for some time. While this is no "Bulbous Bouffant" (Vestibules) it's a quick pick-me-up with ladies saying "feck" a lot.
She also spent time as "artist in residence" for the popular Australian station Double J. I've listened to their sister station from time to time through the Triple-J app. Double J tends to be more rock; Triple J tends to be more offbeat stuff. Back in the days of MTV's "120 Minutes" (does anyone else remember that?) Triple-J's playlists had a lot of overlap with 120 Minutes.
Artist in residence means Palmer did two-hour DJ stints once a week, talking and spinning tunes. Some of her own stuff, of course, but lots of other things. I thereby bring you four tracks plucked from those sets, none of them by AFP herself.
https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/track/beds-are-burning-with-missy-higgins
Missing Higgins' cover of "Beds Are Burning" is very different from the original and yet the same. Midnight Oil agreed to the cover being done only if none of the lyrics were changed. I have several memories of this song, not least of which is seeing Midnight Oil do it live in a theater in Austin TX in the summer when the AC simply couldn't cope. Unsurprisingly, this song is making something of a comeback of relevance in the wake of this year's fire disasters and the cover hits me directly in the feels.
Missy Higgins (https://www.missyhiggins.com/) is a phenom in Australia, though not much known in the US. She's had three number one albums there and several hit singles. Worth checking out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEng0wral6M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaKwHQclJEY
Montaigne (http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/) is... fucking AMAZING. I haven't heard a voice this powerful since Hannah Reid of London Grammar. The first link, "Don't Break Me" is the one AFP played in her DJ set and it's closest to my usual styles, being nearly a vocal trance track. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a full vocal trance remix drop soon. But holy cow listen to how her voice punches and sustains. It's going to be her Eurovision entry. OK, you say (if you are me) but that's a studio production. Right, then, let's go to live.
The second link is her live on The Set (hey, there's Triple-J again!) doing "Ready". And yeah, that's her vocal punch. She's seated, ferpetessake! I can only imagine what she'd do if she really cut loose. She's also still really young so I expect we'll see her talents develop over time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbMwTqkKSps
This - "when the party's over" - is the Billie Eilish track I was searching for when I reviewed her Bond theme a few weeks ago. The video is disturbing, as you would expect from an anguished post-breakup song. It's intimate and breathy, and yes it's emo AF. But that's her and her style. I still like "all the good girls go to hell" best, but that's more cabaret-punk than emo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcOWQ1rym8
Ani Difranco has been cited by AFP as an inspiration for some time. In her set she talks about how Ani was a feminist touchpoint during a certain musical period where there weren't many like her. Palmer notes with gratitude how many doors Ani opened for later women, including Palmer, to go through. Despite being raised in a folkie household, Ani just sort of bounced off me. I'll always have a place in my heart for Joan Baez and Malvina Reynolds - I used to sing "Little Boxes" to my kids at bedtimes - but the chick-singer-with-guitar thing just never got me as an adult.
This, "Self Evident", is not that. This is angry slam political post-911 song-poetry. There is jazz and rhyming and anger and consciousness of the "whole human family". It's a very political creation centered on a defining political moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPyl2tOaKxM
And finally to end on a much lighter note, we bring you Fascinating Aida's "Cheap Flights" (with subtitles, which helped me pick up one or two things I'd missed in the first couple listen-throughs). The song is topical and the performance is fun to watch. Fascinating Aida reminds me a lot of Arrogant Worms, whom I've loved for some time. While this is no "Bulbous Bouffant" (Vestibules) it's a quick pick-me-up with ladies saying "feck" a lot.
