LOVE IT ON TUESDAY: PASSION PIT

Download: Passion Pit - Little Secrets Buy it on

For those who don’t follow the musical actuality, I can tell you Passion Pit is considered by many the most exciting new band of the year. With their EP Chunk Of Change, they brought to the world the music all the hipsters were waiting for, a melodic and exciting indie rock that also sounds like soft electro. One of the best examples of this is their amazing single Sleepyhead, that got hundreds of remixes and that is already considered an indie classic. You won’t be surprised that their debut LP Manners, released today, is one of the most anticipated album of the year.

Unfortunately, what was meant to happen happened: their new album is a bit of a disappointment. What is sad about this is that it’s not a question of work or talent, but more like a question of timing. Let me explain myself with the example of Justice. They got known gradually with We Are Your Friends in 2006 and when they were already in the spotlight, they hit the homerun with D.A.N.C.E. almost exactly year later. People were not only amazed, but surprised too, and when they heard the whole album, it was too much, they jizzed in their pants.

Passion Pit had to make something better than Sleepyhead, and though they nearly succeeded with The Reeling and especially Little Secrets, they fell short. And the album? There are as many good tracks on this 11-tracks LP as on their 6-tracks EP (meaning 6). It's kinda ridiculous cause if I would hear this sound for the first time, I’d probably write something like: ‘Wow this band is very promising, I will check them out in the future’. But that didn't happen and now I'm disappointed. So please do me a favour if you're unfamiliar with the band: listen to Manners first and then to Chunk Of Change. The order will be restored.

Edmonton?

I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a sound engineer a few hours ago. During the conversation, I happened to ask him what were the weirdest artists he had worked with and one of his answers was the Edmonton-based dance rock band Shout Out Out Out. He didn’t know they were playing tonight at La Sala Rossa, but I guess he would probably prefer to enjoy their weirdness while seeing them live than to endure it while working for them. These guys released their second album called Reintegration Time last month. It's fucked up!

With Smalltown DJs and The Cansecos at Sala Rossa tonight, 15$

Download Bad Choices Buy it on 

Les Oiseaux Exotiques Interviews... Starfucker

Starfucker was playing at Il Motore last Sunday. I had my last exam the next morning, but I knew I’d regret it if I missed their show... and I had scheduled an interview with them so I would have been stupid not to go.

They played one of the best show I had seen in a long time. It was a scandal that there were so few people though, but Simian Mobile Disco and Bell Orchestre were playing at the same time, so it was just a bad time I guess.

They released a self-titled album last November, and it’s so great that I decided to officially give it a 10. If you all buy it, they promised they’re gonna come back to Montreal to play a house party where you’ll all be invited. What are you waiting for? It's right here: 

... and their mini-album Jupiter will be out on May 5.

Thanks to Catherine for the great camera work, to Eve for the cool pictures and to my sister for having nice friends such as them… and for chronometring the interview.

LOVE IT ON TUESDAY: DEPECHE MODE

As you already know, at Les Oiseaux Exotiques, we’re always trying to offer a more interesting product. Did I say that word? I think I did. So here’s the point: on every Tuesday, there are like hundreds of albums coming out in the US and Canada. To help you sort out which one you should hear, we’ll start a new tradition here on Tuesday, which will consist of writing a full review of what other blogs call the album of the week. You’ll be able to easily find the reviews of the past weeks under the label LOVE IT ON TUESDAY, cause that’s exactly what’s gonna happen: you’ll love it on Tuesday.

Kraftwerk were playing with machines way before them, but Depeche Mode could be said to be the first band to make electro-pop - compared to the electro-prog of Kraftwerk - without making crappy disco. Now you’ll tell me that Just Can’t Get Enough is pretty close to being disco. True, but think about their later stuff, like Personal Jesus, Enjoy The Silence and Black Celebration: it's definitely pop, but it's too bad ass to be disco. And believe me, these electro dudes that fill our Top 25 Most Plays, like Boys Noize, Crystal Castles and even Justice sometimes, all owe a lot to these guys.

To be honest, you won’t be able to find anything comparable to Personal Jesus on Sounds of the Universe, but you’ll be fucking surprised how these guys totally own most of nowadays’ bands even after 29 years of existence. First, they managed to sound like 2009 rather than like 1984 and second, they haven’t lost their touch in making scary dance music. Wrong, the first single, will not only scare the shit out of you, but would also make you dance like hell if played very late in a club. There’s also Fragile Tension, probably the best song of the album with the distinctive guitar sound, In Sympathy, that could be a Crystal Castles song if it wasn’t for the voice, and the closer Corrupt, that sounds like 2099, a minute before the earth explodes.

Of course, this album also gets his share of cheesiness, with Peace, Perfect and Jezebel, but these three songs are cheesy in a good way you know, like in a funny gentle way. And they're just weak compared to rest, that's just catchy without being cheesy. When old bands try to reproduce the past – U2 can tell you about it – the result is usually pretty bad, but Depeche Mode did not seem interested to make a Personal Jesus # 2, and they got something interesting with Sounds of the Universe. There may be no instant classic on it, but we can definitely put it on top of our old band's best album of the year list.

Jesus Please Help Us

The Bruins just blew the Habs away last night. If they win two more, we can say goodbye to our rich lazy bastards who will be on a plane to their respective homes in Russia, Finland or anywhere far from Montreal. That's why we must be happy that there are still many people who actually care about their fans and that some of them are in town tonight. The veteran producers Simian Mobile Disco will be practicing their magic at Metropolis. Our own Bell Orchestre – the string section of Arcade Fire - will reproduce the weird sound of their new record at La Tulipe. But the ‘aubaine’ of the night is definitely Starfucker, who will be rocking Il Motore for the ridiculous sum of 10$. Apparently, they’re pretty amazing live and I’m looking forward to see them. By the way, I’m really sorry that I missed three days of posting and I hope you’ll accept these three excellent tracks as an excuse.

Download Simian Mobile Disco - Sleep Deprivation Buy it on 

Download Bell Orchestre - Throw It On A Fire Buy it on 

Download Starfucker - Isabella of Castile Buy it on 

... And The Grand Prix Goes To...

Everything else being equal, if you’re from the UK, it’s probably much easier to make it in music than if you’re from anywhere else. If, in top of that, you’re from a small town in the middle of England called Castle Donington, it’s not even a challenge anymore. This town, except being famous for its race track that will be home of the Formula One British Grand Prix next year, is also the home of the Download Festival, three days of more or less heavy metal music in the middle of June. It’s pretty good for a town of 7000 people, isn’t?

Late of the Pier is the band that comes from Castle Donington and they’re playing at Les Saints tonight. These guys were first known to me for Broken, an excellent song that appeared in a cool Fairy Lights mix on Kitsune Maison 5 in February last year. I haven’t heard their debut album that they released later in August, but from the songs that I’ve heard that are on it, such as The Bears are Coming, Space and the Woods, Focker and Heartbeat, I’m pretty sure it’s not bad.

Their music can be called, like so many bands, indie electronic, but they're different in that they also like to experiment with sounds and rythms, like they did with the African percussion in The Bears Are Coming or with the few 7/8 bars in the bridge of Broken. It's always good when bands experiment, as long as we can still call it music. With Late of the Pier, not only you can still call it music, but you’ll even be able to dance, if not to trash, on it. That’s probably what I’m gonna do tonight. See you there.

Download: Late of the Pier - Broken (Fairy Lights Mix)

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Tonight was supposed to be a crazy party night, but for some reasons, I ended up watching In Bruges in the basement of a friend. It's not a bad movie: it's funny, the girl's hot and there are some unexpected events. Then, I got in the night bus and it was full of stupid 'Français de France' singing 'Fernande' really loud. When they got out, they said 'Merci Madames et Messieurs. Au Revoir.' and some people in the bus said 'Merci'. Bravo! Now, they'll think we like it and they'll do it again.

So here I am at 5:30 AM writing on this blog cause I want to talk to you about a cool new band from Montreal called Hexes & Ohs. They are playing a benefit concert for the Leukemia Foundation tonight at Foufounes Électriques. I thought they merited some free publicity, so I interviewed lead singer Edmund last Thursday. We talked about many things, although it's kinda hard for me to summarize it, because I'm getting really tired now. You can read it all HERE.

Download : Hexes and Ohs - Head Over Heels (Tears for Fears Cover)

Good News For The Redhead Community

A lot of singers sing pretty much the same. I think the reason is that there’s a kinda Celine Dion ideal that’s intoxicating the singing classes of the world. And the ones who don’t follow this ideal, such as our friend Bono who was featured on this blog yesterday for saying something I totally agree with, most of the times, it’s because they just never entered a singing class.

So when a singer shows up with an original voice that also sounds like a trained voice, he/she’s got lots of chances to make it to the top. Of course, the songwriting is equally important, but if you’re a pretty girl, it’s not very hard to find someone who’ll write good songs for you. And yeah, even if you’re not aware that in French, when you put a ‘la’ before, ‘redhead’ is ‘rousse’ - not ‘roux’ . Please write that down.

When their single Quicksand got released as the second track on Kitsune Maison 6 last november, things could only get started for La Roux. And they did : two weeks ago, their single ‘In It For The Kill’ got to #11 in the UK. I'm happy about that, cause these two songs are super good synth-pop songs. There’s a lot of bands who are pros at ripping off the 80s, but La Roux is in a class of its own, cause they actually sound like the 80s. She's playing tonight at Les Saints.

Download : La Roux – In It For The Kill (Radio Edit)

'Smoke Mushrooms' in Norwegian

The new Röyksopp is out today. That’s a pretty important release, but... wait a minute, ‘What the hell is Röyksopp?’ Well, they’re from Bergen in Norway who has seen the Bergen Wave around 2000. They have released in the past two critically and commercially approved albums: ‘Melody A.M.’in 2001 and ‘The Understanding’ in 2005. Their best known singles include ‘Eple’, ‘Remind Me’, ‘Only For This Moment’, ‘What Else Is There’ (featuring Karin Dreijer of The Knife) and the first single from ‘Junior’, ‘Happy Up Here’, which is the major blog sensation since the beggining of the year.

All this looks very good, but if you would ask the critic in me what I think about them, I would answer this: ‘Their style is somewhere between Euro-pop and IDM, and if they appeal to both connoisseurs and large public, good for them. They found a pretty good way to achieve this by disguising their electronic experiments in pop music, but what a real pop amateur like me wonders while listening to their first two albums is: where are the songs?’

I guess they evolved, cause there are actual songs on 'Junior' and pretty good ones too. To name a few: ‘The Girl and The Robot’ (featuring Robyn), 'Vision One’ (featuring Anneli Dreckner) and ‘You Don’t Have a Clue’ (featuring Anneli Dreckner again). This album is mostly good, sometimes great, and it’s probably their best effort so far. Waiting for the follow-up of ‘Junior’, ‘Senior’– I’m not joking -, that’s gonna be released later this year, take a listen to the rythmic use of bass guitar and the child-like voice of Lykke Li on the Air pastiche ‘Miss It So Much’.

Mediafire: Röyksopp - Miss It So Much (192 kbps)

The Chick From The Knife Releases Album

Let’s be serious : Sweden is heaven on earth. I once asked a Swedish girl if it was true and she laughed at me. But I know, and we know, and she knows: Sweden IS heaven. They study for free in Upsala, they get rich in Stockholm and they make beautiful music in Gothenburg. Look at this list of artists or bands that come from there : Air France, The Embassy, The Honeydrips, Jens Lekman, The Knife, Love Is All, Sally Shapiro, Studio, The Tough Alliance. That’s quite empressing for a town named Gothenburg. Please check them out cause they're all excellent and their music seems to come directly from where they’re from : heaven...

... except The Knife. I don't know where their music comes from, but it's probably a really strange place. We all know them for their breakthrough single ‘Heartbeats’, but they also made two excellent albums: 'Deep Cuts' in 2003 and 'Silent Shout' in 2006, which are filled by excellent dark electro pop songs, like ‘Pass This On’ - don't start jerking off guys , it's a drag queen - ‘You Take My Breath Away’ and ‘Marble House’. When you listen to their music and see them with their bird masks, you imagine cold and weird descendants of Vikings, but they actually look like two very cool brother and sister. Sadly for us, they took a three year break in 2007, in order pursue their own solo projects: DJ Coolof for Olof and Fever Ray for Karin.

And here's the point of this post: Fever Ray released the physical version - it was available digitally since January - of her self-titled album yesterday. There are already two videos: one for the first single 'If I Had a Heart' and one for 'When I Grow Up'. The album is overall very dark and very ambient, but it's great from track 1 to track 10. I've uploaded for you the song that was playing all day on my iTunes and, as a bonus, a happy makeover of 'When I Grow Up' by fellow Gothenburger Dan Lissvik from Studio that you can listen to cheer up afterwards.

Mediafire: Fever Ray - Dry and Dusty (320 kbps) [removed after request]

Mediafire: Fever Ray - When I Grow Up (D. Lissvik remix) [192 kbps] [removed after request]

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]