Bloc Party Should Never Enter A Recording Studio Again

I saw Bloc Party live two years ago headlining Osheaga. Before that, I had heard their breakthrough album ‘Silent Alarm’ - the apparent inspiration for the Knife's 'Silent Shout' released a year later -, but my friends and I didn’t really understand why they were generating so much hype. After having realized that the group of people I was with had gone back home, I miraculously made my way between 50 000 people and succeeded to get just before the stage.

And I was happily surprised, because even if Bloc Party’s songs aren’t as catchy and well-produced as the songs of Interpol or Arctic Monkeys who were playing earlier that day, this band made sure that the amps were at 10 and that the metronome was above 160 BPM. In top of that, the singer was on fire, the crowd was responding very well and their show was finally one of the highlights of the day.

I don’t recommend you to buy the album they released late last year, but I do recommend you to go to their show tonight at Metropolis. There are still some tickets available and it will cost you 43$ with the fees and the taxes. I think it’s worth the money, cause you’ll probably remember this show for a long time. You may also be interested by the opening band, who was featured earlier this week on Les Oiseaux Exotiques. Below is a song from their new album that is probably gonna make your feet dance when they play it tonight.

Mediafire: Bloc Party - One Month Off (232 kbps) 

Holy Fuck, I'm Happy Up Here When You Do That Stuff

What a nice thing to take a song that was good before and make it good again! Some may say it's stealing, but hey, think practical, you wouldn't listen to the old song anyway. And that's true for anything in life. Cause people were doing stuff before and most of the times, their work could easily be modified to fit our times and be very useful again. Even if it's in our blood, we shouldn't try to do everything by ourselves.

Anyway, Röyksopp were wiser than most of us and they thought that one part of a Parliament song from 1976 called 'Do That Stuff' - pay attention at the 0:36 and 2:44 marks - could be an interesting idea to develop into a song. They released it today as the first single of their new album that is going to be out in exactly a week. It's called 'Happy Up Here', and even if it's less poetic than 'Eple' from Melody A.M., it's still a very good song. 

Although released today, the song had already leaked two months ago and a few remixes have appeared since then, including a very good re-interpretation by Holy Fuck. They transformed the song completely and made another musical gem out of it, without the feel-good aspect. That's the version you will be able to download today on your favorite music blog.

Mediafire: Röyksopp - Happy Up Here (Holy Fuck Re-Interpretation) [192 kbps]

'Let's get married and have a band'

Arcade Fire made people say that Montreal was the new Seattle. But even with all the good music these guys produced, the team of Les Oiseaux Exotiques - meaning me - would argue the best song this town has produce recently is by Wolf Parade and is called 'I'll Believe in Anything' - merci Jess. In top of that, this band's first album was a really good, almost perfect pop album.

But they have changed: Spencer Krug is turning more and more progressive while Dan Broeckner is turning more and more post-punk. As shown by their second album, that's hardly compatible. If I were them, I would just kill Wolf Parade before it gets more difficult. I guess they still have to earn their living with Wolf Parade so they can get as creative as they want with their respective side projects: Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs. But they should think about it, if they're interested in becoming Stone Roses-like legends.

Anyway, as for now, the side projects are doing really well, as proved again by the release on Tuesday of the second Handsome Furs album. I had some trouble choosing which song from it to upload. I first thought of a very nice track called '(White City)', but it's a bit short at 1:29, so I then thought of 'Thy Will Be Done', which really could have been produced by Martin Hannett, but then again, I don't know, so I finally set my choice on the track of the album that sounds the more like a Wolf Parade song, i.e. the closer 'Radio Kaliningrad'. Listen to that guitar riff, that's fucking beautiful.

Mediafire: Handsome Furs - Radio Kaliningrad (192 kbps) 

That's D.I.Y.

On Christmas Day, while you were at your grandparents' house, I was in Nicaragua and I had one of the weirdest experience of my life. Some friends had told me about a punk show that was going to happen in the most infamous bar of Leon, so I found a couple of people who were also interested, took the cab to a dangerous part of town, and arrived to a strange place called 'El Tunnel' with the dirtiest toilet in the world, much worst than the one in Trainspotting. 

There were four locals bands, and, even if they were more emos than punks, they totally rocked the place. I don't remember a lot of things, because I was already drunk when I got there, and got even drunker because the beer there is so cheap, but when I saw this video of the Black Lips live in Tijuana, it brought me back some souvenirs of the crazy ambience that was there.

Talking about the Black Lips, these guys released an album late in February and the single 'Short Fuse' was released on Monday. It's a very good song, not as immediate as the very cool 'Veni Vidi Vici' or the very crazy 'O Katrina' from their breakthrough album 'Good Bad Not Evil', but once you get accustomed to their weird style that they call 'Flower Punk', it's very enjoyable. After having India set on fire in January, they are now touring USA until the beginning of May and I hope they're gonna come to Montreal just in time for my birthday.

Mediafire: The Black Lips - Short Fuse (192 kbps) 

Us, Here, Now

I really need to say one thing. Fuck! This day was absolutely unproductive. That's why I decided to create this blog. Actually, that's why I created it today, but I wanted to do this for a long time. I had even created the page a few months ago, but i got lazy after the first post. But now it's fucking official. Les oiseaux exotiques has started for good. 

There's a few rules my subconscious will write just now: most of the posts will be about music because that's something i know a shit about; i will write at least one post every two days to keep it fresh; i will write mostly in english, because I feel like it; i will try to make it look good when i can convince some artistic friend to jump in the project; the motto of this blog will be: us, here, now.

I hope you guys will enjoy it.