Hallow's Eve 2009

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Video: Noviembre (Live) - Bell Orchestre

For post-rock / instrumental music fans, one of the hidden loves in the chilly city of Montréal is Bell Orchestre. Their unique twist on instrumental music, often forgoing the use of rock aesthetics often found in other instrumental artists, puts a nice spin on their sound. If you're a good fan of Bell Orchestre, you'll already have their debut album, Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light. And if you're a punctual fan of Bell Orchestre, you would've been one of the first who went out and got their latest release, As Seen Through Windows, not to mention their remix album, Who Designs Nature How?.

But if you're a real fan, you know all about the unofficial Bell Orchestre demo. Here's a brief history for those out of the know: Bell Orchestre originally recorded Recording a Tape... at the same time as their sister band, The Arcade Fire, was recording and releasing the one and only Funeral. Bell Orchestre delayed the release of Recording a Tape... until 2005, when they made their official debut. But in secret, Bell Orchestre already had a debut album. Circulating around the internet and via secret hand-to-hand exchanges, there exists a rare demo of otherwise unreleased Bell Orchestre material, all professionally recorded, never properly publicly spoken about.

I'll leave the mystery of searching for the self-titled, unreleased album up to you. But just as a tease, this is one of my favourite live Bell Orchestre performances that circles the internet. It's their performance of "Noviembre," off their unreleased album. The climax is particularly fabulous. When you're done with this video, don't forget to peruse Bell Orchestre's Myspace, or wander over to their official website to find out the latest.

The Get Up Kids on Daytrotter

There are quite a lot of bands that we tend to forget about. Bands that take their leave of the stage or the spotlight, and fade into the abyssal black beyond musical venues. For whatever reason, some bands just disappear out of our collective consciousness. But one of the most glorious feelings is when one of these glorious ensembles return to their instruments once more and begin strumming on our memories held on our heartstrings, playing on our love for when we eagerly related their next note back in the day.

The Get Up Kids, 90s emo rock superstars, eventually announced their break-up back in 2005. Though members of The Get Up Kids had moved on to other projects such as The New Amsterdams and Reggie & The Full Effect, the affect that this band had on their fans was long withstanding beyond the break up of the band. Then, quite suddenly, The Get Up Kids announced thier shocking reunion at the end of last year!

Presently the blokes are in the studio, working on a brand new record to christen their reunion properly! But in the mean time, it seems like the boys dropped in at Futureappletree Studio 1 to record a session with the Daytrotter crew! Featuring two old The Get Up Kid favourites, as well two exclusive, unreleased tracks, you can check out The Get Up Kid's Daytrotter performance right now! I suggest you do it ASAP! But when you're done there, feel free to drop by The Get Up Kid's Myspace page, and make sure you stay informed on the latest and greatest from this reunited band.

The Eigenharp

Music nerds and band geeks all over the world, REJOICE! There is a new instrument to meet the world that you're going to have to embed within your vocabularly.

The Eigenharp! Ah yes, this... peculiarly named instrument is the latest and greatest in musical-electronic engineering. What IS an Eigenharp? Well, I could get all technical, but I'll save you the trouble. The nickname for this curiosity that has spawned on the internet is "The Any Instrument" Instrument. Obviously, this is on account as the Eigenharp is capable of reproducing the sounds of a large amount of different instruments within one object, including clarinet, synthesizer, drums, and many more.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8295813.stm

The BBC did a cover story that shows you a quick run down of how it works, as well as lets the students who have begun mastering this odd instrument to play you a song. Okay... so they play Moby, but it sounds REALLY COOL. You guys won't be disappointed. You'll also want to see them play The James Bond Theme. View the BBC link before you watch this lower video though. And enjoy!

Video: Hotel Song (Regina Spektor) Cover

I love covers. I make that very much apparent in my frequent praising of the ability of musicians playing the music of other musicians. It was once, quite some time ago, that I featured a delightful darling from deep in the heart of Mexico, putting her own twist on Panic At The Disco's "Build God, Then We'll Talk." No big stage, no big band, just a guitar, a camera, and subsequently, a YouTube video.

Once more, I take you to another wonderful young lady putting her own twist on some of our favourite artists' music. Meet Irma, hailing from Cameroon in West Africa. With her acoustic guitar, and a computer to help with some back-up vocals, she offers us a taste of Russian-American singer-songwriter Regina Spektor, in Irma's cover of "Hotel Song." It's quite delightful. If you enjoy it, definitely wander over to Irma's YouTube to catch more covers by her.

Live From The Basement: Radiohead

The skies are gray, the weather is chilly and cold, and the streets always seem to be thoroughly soaked with the rain that intermittently blankets the landscape. That's how North Texas has been throughout the past week. It's on these days when I get contemplative, and I must say, when I get contemplative, I certainly get imaginative. And with the porcelain skies lingering overhead, dropping their pitter pattering rain on the roofs, I can't help but dream of the UK. It certainly doesn't help that I've been consuming myself with my recently purchased copy of series 1-3 of Skins - the only cityscape embedded on my vision being Bristol - but that's a story for another day.

The Biritish Isles are known for their unique style of music, and possibly one of the most famous/notorious/interesting ensembles to hail from the United Kingdom's contemporary music culture is Radiohead. With their intense musical numbers ranging from fast and loud, to deep and nearly silent, their take on music sets them apart from their peers, giving them few comparisons in style to other potentially related artists; their style is truly separate from the whole.

Radiohead is intensely known for both their mysterious attitudes - if the release of In Rainbows doesn't speak numbers about this, what does? - and their epic live performances. The difficulty of seeing Radiohead live is that it's quite cumbersome, as these self-proclaimed environmentalists simply don't tour very often. And when they do tour, they seem to make their tours as short as possible, seeing that they don't particularly like hurting the planet just by gallivanting to country after country impressing their drooling fans. When these tours are underway, tickets seem to disappear out of thin air as soon as they go on public sale, and it's almost a distinct privilege to attend such Radiohead affairs, even though the blokes successfully book some pretty amazing venues.

As a result, though their performances certainly are awesome and in high demand, seeing Radiohead perform live is still a mystery to many. Certainly, there are plenty of grainy, gaudy, low quality videos on YouTube. But how can a mere YouTube video give one a similar experience to actually attend a Radiohead concert? VH1 sought to try and become the bridge to this awesome event. Their series Live From The Basement features exclusive filmed performances of plenty of bands live.

And Radiohead is now one of the many eclectic line ups now notched on the series' belt. Radiohead's grandiose performance on VH1's Live From The Basement is quite the fabulous show, stretching a good 45 minutes, as the boys play songs off their latest release In Rainbows. If have haven't seen a Radiohead performance in person (this includes me), I can only recommend that this performance would be an excellent way to attempt to comprehend such a vastly wondrous sight.

Live From The Basement: Radiohead [In Rainbows] can be found in its full television-version entirety on YouTube, at this lovely little video that AustinBrock posted for all us greedy listeners. You can watch all 45 minutes in high definition right here on Voilà!, or right off of YouTube, in the privacy and comfortable space of your own home. Pop some popcorn, and immerse yourself! But bear to mind, this is only the performances released on television. If by the end of this length video you find yourself simply craving more of the wondrous British blokes, mosey on over to YouTube and search "radiohead live from the basement" to find a slew of other videos from the same performance that were not part of the television version of this performance. Oh, and of course, enjoy.

The Black Cabs of The United States

It's been touted, it's been promised. The notorious Black Cab Sessions have promised and promised and promised the chance for us to catch them in their iconic English cabbies in a sojourn throughout the states! It's been long coming, but that time is now.

Finally, the Black Cab Sessions are revealing their treasure trove of American performances! Two adventures - with one trip to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, as well as a big intercontinental love affair with the London natives in New York City - have resulted in a grand total of FIFTY PERFORMANCES. Oh yes, 50 performances from some of your most favourite artists!

The Black Cab Sessions only has four of this massive repertoire of new videos to debut over the next... who knows how long. But those videos already posted are fabulous: Ed Harcourt and Graham Coxon doing an improvisational song together, Little Boots electro performance, The Virgins - a good friend of Lookbook.nu - breaking it down in the backseat, and some of friends of Voilà!, Champagne Champagne, featuring Mark Gajadhar of The Blood Brothers and his two mates with a pair of the finest hip hop flows this side of the Atlantic. Wander over to the the Black Cab Sessions, and check out the awesome United States performances right away!

Video: "Pop The Glock" - Uffie

Still busy, readers and friends. Not to mention midterms are creeping around the corner like some eerie sort of creepstalker on Facebook. I'm plenty busy, but I think I can nip in for a moment to drop some info on an old intrigue of the Voilà! feature articles.

Uffie, that crazy, raucous, wild party girl of a musician is notorious for her... well, her odd bit of sexy notoriety. She has no album - only some EPs that can hardly be called EPs, two tracks a piece - a mere pittance of tracks that randomly seem to circulate the internet from blog to blog. But Uffie is famous for her international performances, and major collaborations, including her part in "TTHHEE PPAARRTTYY" by the French electro band Justice, as well as her slew of photoshoots that leave little to the imagination when it comes to her figure.

But finally, it seems Uffie's musical repertoire is getting a bit more solidified and organized. Not only is her debut record, Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans, but Uffie is getting her act together by filming her first music video! Featuring one of her early tracks, "Pop The Glock," this video in the setting of a hipster party scene. Fun times, and sexy people, with some electro-hop can equal to fun times.

If you're intrigued, check out Uffie's new video for "Pop The Glock" on Voilà!, right here! Or if you're in the mood for some exploration around the interblag, mosey on over to Voilà!'s feature article on Uffie, or straight to Uffie's Myspace. A shout out goes to Heather René on the Lookbook.nu forums, for giving me the scoop on this news. Also, don't forget to dance while listening; it's necessary!

Uffie "Pop The Glock"
by edbangerrecords

Yo La Tengo sur La Blogotheque!

O curse you busyness. Curse coursework. My greatest apologies for the lack of updates, dear reader. I have suddenly found myself swamped in my coursework than I know what to do with. And somehow, between fixing up annotated bibliographies and poring through novels for class, I find myself with a lack of opportunity. And alas, it seems some of the other writers for Voilà! are also too busy, so those contributors have been removed for now until they're willing to contribute an article.

The good thing for you, my good reader, is that makes more room for you on the Voilà! team! If you've ever been intrigued in writing some articles about your favourite bands on a public space like this, feel free to leave a comment or send an email to (chris.voilamusic[at]gmail[dot]com), and we can arrange you to join our humble team here. We'd love to see your submissions!

But onto the big topic of the day, being news involving one of the most iconic indie bands on the music scene, Yo La Tengo. Oh yes, those legendary musical soldiers soldier on with their amazing, fun I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass attitude of rock music. As it turns out, the ensemble found themselves in Paris recently, and recorded with the team from La Blogotheque with some lighthearted performances with the environment of Paris as their venue. Well what are you waiting for? Head to La Blogotheque ASAP and check out Yo La Tengo's performances.