1.Okkervil river- Listening to Otis Redding at home During Christmas

Listening to Ottis Redding at home during Christmas

2.Fleet Foxes- White Winter Hymnal

White winter hymnal

3.Beck Winter- Lady

Winter Lady

4.Neko Case Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis (Tom Waits Cover)

Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis

5.Emmy and the Great and Lightspeed Champion- Christmas in Prison

Christmas in prison

6.Jack white- Christmas time is almost over

Christmas Time is almost over

7.Au Revoir Simone- Fallen Snow

Fallen Snow

8.Belle and Sebastian- Fox in the snow

Fox in the snow

9.Sufjan Stevens- That was the worst christmas ever

That was the worst Christmas Ever

10.Camera Obscura- Happy New Year

Happy new year

11.Band Of Horse-The End’s not near

The ends not near

Lightspeed Champion has returned with his second album, Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You.

The follow-up to 2008’s Falling Off The Lavender Bridge is an epic collection of twelve pop songs, two instrumental intermissions and one piano étude, set for release on 29^th January 2010.

Lightspeed’s early leaning towards American country dressings is traded here for a palette that draws on classical music and even musical theatre. Producer and mixer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley) assembles the eclectic grab-bag of influences: joltingly ‘70s guitar and synth sounds, classical piano, Greek choruses shouting reprisals, and at least one ukelele-driven moment.

All tracks on Life is Sweet! Nice To Meet You were written and arranged by Dev Hynes.

Watch a sneak preview of the video for forthcoming single Marlene (25^th January 2010) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWHUHxKbTEU

Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You will be available on CD, vinyl, and via digital download. The tracklisting is as follows:

1 – Dead Head Blues                                     9 – Madame Van Damme

2 – Marlene                                                     10 – Smooth Day (At The Library)

3 – There’s Nothing Underwater                                 11 – Intermission 2

4 – Intermission                                                           12 – Sweetheart

5 – Faculty Of Fears                                       13 – Etude Op.3 ‘Goodnight Michalek’

6 – The Big Guns Of Highsmith                                 14 – Middle Of The Dark

7 – Romart                                                      15 – A Bridge And A Goodbye

8 – I Don’t Want To Wake Up Alone

This is not good. IT’S FUCKING BRILLIANT and makes me happy in the face and belly.

Dev..I fucking love you and please do a UK tour soon. When the album comes out? Yes? GOOD! The album is out next year, and we all know it’s going to be one of the best albums of 2010. Easily.

Lightspeed Champion-Marlene.

Basement Jaxx

Vuelven los Basement Jaxx: Ricardo Fernández Barrueco confirmó la edición de su nuevo disco llamado ‘Scars’, que se editará este año con fecha a confirmar y que contará con una invitada de lujo:  Yoko Ono.

El dúo, creador de exitosos temas bailables como “‘Rendez-Vous”, contará con la presencia de la viuda de John Lennon, y además participarán en el disco otros nombres conocidos como Santogold, Lightspeed Champion y Yo! Majest.

Nos recuerda Ricardo Fernández que los Basement Jaxx se estarán presentando en el Bilbao BBK Live 2009, festival que se realizará los próximos días 9, 10 y 11 de diciembre en Kobetamendi, Bilbao.

Update: Even after being blackmailed, my journalistic integrity is kept by announcing the winner and their comment:

Because my younger sister said that she’d stop listening to Lady Gaga for two months if I win this shirt.
Please.
Save me.

Well done Erika.

———————————

Look! It’s my first competition!

I wear far too much topman than I care to admit and I was delighted when their CTRL team contacted me. Topman CTRL is an awesome feature, where bands are selected to edit the CTRL blog and curate a live show. They’ve had Lightspeed Champion and Gallows (off the top my head), so they already have a pretty good list of some of my favourite bands. To get to the point, it’s Passion Pit (who I saw recently) this month and they offered me to give away one of the awesome T-Shirts pictured below. And if you have time you can catch their choices for a live show (Little Comets, Airship and Biycle Thieves) in Liverpool, for only five pounds.

To win, leave a comment telling me why you are most deserving of this t-shirt. Whether it’s funny, emotional or stupid, I will decide the best one.

Straight from the mouth of Domino Records themselves

‘We are very excited to announce that Lightspeed Champion has returned with his second album, Life is Sweet! Nice To Meet You. The follow-up to 2008’s Falling Off The Lavender Bridge is an epic collection of twelve pop songs, two instrumental intermissions and one piano étude, set for release on 1^st Feb.

As announced previously, the first single will be Marlene (out25th Jan).

Lightspeed’s early leaning towards American country dressings is traded here for a palette that draws on classical music and even musical theatre.

Producer and mixer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley) assembles the eclectic grab-bag of influences: joltingly ‘70s guitar and synth sounds, classical piano, Greek choruses shouting reprisals, and at least one ukelele-driven moment.

All tracks on Life is Sweet! Nice To Meet You were written and arranged by Dev Hynes.’

Love it. Consider yourself updated.

Temón de los Basement Jaxx con la voz del cantautor británico Lighspeed Champion. El tema esta en su disco Scars y el video está dirigido por Tomek Ducki.

Post by: Stylean

Ya echaba menos a este chico, que cautivo pocos corazones un Sábado 21 de Julio de 2007, cuando tuve el privilegio de verlo en directo, su flok melódico multinstrumentista gusta hasta al mas soso, pero la cuestion es que no sabemos nada de él desde su debut hace 2 años, donde sorprendió al mundo y fue nominado a mejor disco del año por su “Falling Of The Lavender Bridge”.

Ahora tenemos noticias del negrito del gorro pomposo con que su segundo disco vera la luz el 1 de Febrero del 2010 bajo el nombre “Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You” , el disco ha sido producido por Ben Allen, que ya trabajo con Animla Collective o Gnarls Barkley.

El primer single recibe el titulo de “Marlane” y aparecerá en tiendas 6 días antes, el 25 de Enero, pero también Hyves nos deja el TrackList que compone el disco, que es el siguiente:

‘Dead Head Blues’
‘Marlene’
‘There’s Nothing Underwater’
‘Intermission’
‘Faculty Of Fears’
‘The Big Guns Of Highsmith’
‘Romart’
‘I Don’t Want To Wake Up Alone’
‘Madame Van Damme’
‘Smooth Day (At The Library)’
‘Intermission 2′
‘Sweetheart’
‘Etude Op.3′
‘Goodnight Michalek”
‘Middle Of The Dark’
‘A Bridge And A Goodbye’

Dev Hynes aka Lightspeed Champion och skallen bakom det avsomnade Test Icicles kommer med en ny skiva den 16 februari, Life is sweet! Nice to meet you. Om den ens är i närheten så bra som Falling of Lavender Bridge så kommer den att leta sig sig upp på års bästa listan för 2010 för min del. Postar en video från första skivan.

Mer info om Life is Sweet! Nice to meet you på Domino
Lightspeed Champion på Myspace

Devonte Hynes, aka Lightspeed Champion has announced that a one off single, Marlene will be reeased on January 25th. No audio has been released yet, but I have a live version I’m gonna post a live version I have been rockin’ for the past few months and it’s MEGA. And I’m gonna throw in a couple of other tracks from the same gig, where Dev played a few new songs and had crazy new intro’s for old ones. The audio quality is great, too. Enjoy.

PS. I totally love the Pinkerton-esq single artwork. It’s purty.

Lightspeed Champion – Marlene (Live)

Lightspeed Champion – Happy Birthday (Live)

Lightspeed Champion – Galaxy Of The Lost (Live)

Dancing Bears, check. Lightspeed Champion, check. Big beats, check.
All of the above = a tune that’s catchy as hell.

This almost made it in as this Weekend’s Tunage, but it’s a bit early in the week and couldn’t wait to post it.

First came across the song on good old Hype Machine. I’m not a huge fan of Basement Jaxx (aside from the classic “Where’s You Head At?”), but have been listening to this track a lot over the last two weeks.

Love the animation & art direction on this video – it was directed by Tom Ducki, and this isnt the first time he’s done stuff for Basement Jaxx. Judging from the animation work on his portfolio site, he’s one to watch.

Basement Jaxx have teamed up with Lightspeed Champion to produce a new song to add to their  collection.  My Turn isn’t one of their best songs (to put it nicely) I mean I can’t decide if I like it or not but the fact of the matter is, the video is awesome! Dancing bears, awesome colours, what more do you want from a video? Check out the video below and leave some comments because I’m really keen to know what you guys think about it!

You either love it or you hate it.

-Ari.

Love his voice… great song!

New video from Basement Jaxx featuring Lightspeed Champion

This girl.

finally some new good shoes! after pretty much hibernating for all of 2008, the mordeners have returned to the studio to record album number 2 (due for a january 2010 release). since their debut, think before you speak, bassist joel cox has left the band and been replaced with a fellow by the name of will church. interesting fact! before joining good shoes, church played in a band called vincent vincent and the villians, of which the frontman’s name was actually vincent vincent!

‘the way my heart beats’ was recently offered as a free download from goodshoes.co.uk and is the first taste of the new material… new material? well, its not really anything new, it’s the same jolly, bouncy, indie rock that made think before you speak one of the funnest albums of 2007. so while it wont send you into any kind of what-happened-to-arctic-monkeys shock, it does set the stage for another nice little indie pop album.

listen:

good shoes – the way my heart beats

lightspeed champion – never meant to hurt you (good shoes cover)

Basement Jaxx's fully-collaborative fourth album ultimately disappoints

PREVIEW: DOWNLOAD Basement Jaxx’s “Raindrops” MP3
WE GIVE IT: 12/20 Watts

When UK eletronic/house sensations Basement Jaxx announced the details of their latest record, Scars, the media replied with cautious optimism. Among those contributing to their first record since 2006 were names such as Santigold, Lightspeed Champion, Sam Sparro and even Yoko Ono. Lead single “Raindrops” furthered the excitement, as a dance-heavy, enthusiastic track, seemingly made for radio success. If the rest of Scars was anything like this song, it was sure to be pop gold.

Except it wasn’t like that. If anything, “Raindrops” will depress the listener after Scars ends. “Raindrops” only presents a glimmer of what is left of the group’s once-fleeting potential. After the song’s emphatic ecstasy, there are but few small victories amongst a collection of songs possibly too ambitious for its own good.

And it all comes down to a lack of execution, and perhaps a lack of foresight as well. Once Basement Jaxx contracted all of these notable artists to appear, it’s as if they had no idea what to do with them. On “Saga,” Santigold sounds like she is simply remixing one of her own tracks. Ono’s “Day of the Sunflowers (March On)” comes off more as an overly-peppy march, than the pleasant call to action it may have been intended as. Even the always-interesting Dev Hynes of Lightspeed Champion enters a dud, with the awkward, anti-pop “My Turn.”

There are still some bright spots however, albeit very slight. Among them, the title track and intro, “Scars,” paints itself as a grandiose R&B and pop hybrid, with an almost-suffocating amount of energy. “A Possibility,” the album’s least pop-oriented number, mixes doo-wop and a flurry of electronic noise into an intriguing, yet unorthodox love ballad.

When fans wait three years for an album, they usually expect a lot from an artist. Be it artistic growth, or a newfound experimental streak, something must be new, engaging or different in order to hold their attention. Unfortunately, Basement Jaxx miss the mark. They confused cunning with collaboration, and the results (mostly) ebbed between average and mediocre.

– John Cassillo

So my freshman-year hallmate, in his perpetual quest to derail all of my efforts to ever know what the fuck was going on with him (was he on drugs? Was he being ironic? Did he wear that one sweater all the time because it was the only one he could afford, or was he making some kind of statement about consumerism?), dumped an entire flash drive’s worth of music on me during spring semester of freshman year, even though I only asked for Bob Marley. I still haven’t sorted through all of it, mostly because I had never heard of most of the bands, and I couldn’t quite figure out if this was actually the music he listened to, or if this, too, was being done in irony.

I recently rediscovered Lightspeed Champion buried in the depths of my iTunes, who also initially confused the fuck out of me. Why is this Kanye-esque guy strumming an acoustic guitar and playing what can only be described as twee pop, and why is he from Britain? And also, what the fuck is up with his hair?

See what I mean?

After my bewilderment passed, I discovered that the music was actually pretty damn catchy.

Lightspeed Champion – Everyone I Know is Listening to Crunk

“Sometimes, in the cold night, my phone rings…it’s not you” is my new favorite line to bust out at random.  I can’t wait for car singing again, but I won’t be seeing the Sube until December, and my license is expired. Oh, well.

And then there’s this one:

Lightspeed Champion – Let the Bitches Die

This is what I’m doing instead of reading literary criticism. That’s right. Thank me later.