drwex | Entries tagged with clint mansell

This all got delayed by the amusing investigative music work of earlier this week. Sorry if I haven't done as much research on these as I might.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Bombay_Bicycle_Club/track/Lamplight
Bombay Bicycle Club (http://www.myspace.com/bombaybicycleclub) are a bit hard to classify. They've got a bit of the post-modern, not-emo three-guys-making-indie-alternative-music sound to them but they do a good job of sounding like themselves and not someone else. They've just won the big NME award in the UK for Best New Band (despite having been around since 2007) so I expect we'll hear more of them this side of the pond. Their sound is definitely electronic, and more ambient than a lot of rock or club acts.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Kele/track/Everything_You_Wanted_RAC_Remix
Also in the interesting-and-hard-to-classify-indie-rock camp is Kele (http://www.myspace.com/iamkele), who used to front for Bloc Party. His bio says he's of Nigerian descent and that might be some of the rhythms I'm hearing that seem to be trying to break through the standard 3/4 and 4/4 signatures of most of his stuff. It's a little hard to tell because it's overlayered with a lot of electronica. The second track trends very directly toward electro-house mixing, and I was amused by the obvious nod to The Who.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Tracey_Thorn/track/Why_Does_The_Wind_Morgan_Geist_Remix
Tracey Thorn (http://traceythorn.com/) has a very Annie Lennox-like sound going, mixed with some club sensibilities. I'm not 100% sold on her yet. The blend of styles is interesting but I'm not sure it works as well as going in one direction or the other all the way would work. She gets bonus points for being not-your-usual-chicksinga-with-guitar though.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/The_Like/track/Release_Me_Viking_Remix
The Like are kind of what you'd get if you re-invented The Bangles with a lot more twisted lyric sensibilities. This is not pop so much as it is using pop musical confections to deliver a more demented package. As with most of today's group I'm not utterly blown away with them but I'm bopping along to this remix off and on this week so I figure I'll pass it on.

http://hypem.com/track/1139119/Milt+Mortez-Astoria
I'm trying to remember who pointed me to this one and if it was you please remind me. Miltz Mortez (http://www.myspace.com/miltmortez) is a tribal-house producer from Canada. This track is one of the few full-length things from him I can find. Much of it is, like his MySpace page, just snippets. He is obviously drawing heavily on tribal influences, but they seem much more North American to me than the more common African. The rhythms and bird-like flute sounds remind me of the Native American drum circles I've listened to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWkSjlyw0Zs
Tip of the hat back to

sunstealer for this one. In response to a meme fitting a song to me or finding something I'd enjoy he pointed me to this. Now if you've read my musical blogging at all you can pretty well guess that anything Paul Oakenfold remixes is going to get my thumbs-up. This track, which was popularized as "Requiem for a Dream" is both ethereal and lovely and sinister bass creepy all at once. Clint Mansell's story is worth noting here - some of you (Pygment I'm looking at you) will be interested to know that his musical career more or less consisted of being the front man for P.W.E.I. Somehow he got hooked up with Darren Aronofsky (Wikipedia claims they were friends) to score the cult-hit movie π and then he also did the score for Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream which is how this track came to have that misnomer. In fact it's called "Lux Aeterna".

More odd trivia: the trailer for "Requiem" was initially released with Moby's "Everloving" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUD7m3MZOt4) and I remember first hearing Lux Aeterna mis-ascribed to Moby. The songs are quite similar in feel, I'll grant you.