Saturday 7 March 2009

Dose 10...Acoustics

1)Blood Red Heart by Le Days



While checking out the trailer for the upcoming Swedish climbing film, "Sends", I heard an amazing background track. It was delicate, intimate, and just a bit dark. It emoted pain, regret, and frustration. In essence, it was the perfect pairing. After hunting down the track (which would have been much easier if I had waited until the end of the video), I found out that it was by the small Swedish artist Le Days. Daniel Hedin, the front man, acoustic guitarist, singer, and songwriter, is relatively unknown. Aside from the fact that the band has put out no LP's, has no information on its Myspace, and doesn't even have a biography section on its website, Hedin remains even more enigmatic by alluding to the fact that he has actually been creating music since 2003. Rest assured, your music will soon find its following. For you Pixies fans, Hedin's melancholy acoustic tunes are reminiscent of a sombered down "Surfer Rosa". For everyone else, the modest and introverted tone of Hedin's music is great for those moments of solitude and self-reflection.

Because there are no LP's I'll hook up some Youtube links...

Blood Red Heart

Hot Spot


2)Undertaker by M. Ward



On Transfiguration of Vincent (2003), Ward attempts to make sense of the death of close friend Vincent O'Brien. The immediate intimacy of the album's subject matter at once makes you close to Ward and able to empathize with his grief. Ironically, Ward sets the tone for this album with a certain lightheartedness which "transforms plain grief into a celebration of the essentially absurd, precarious nature of life." On "Undertaker", he opens with a shivering harmonica verbrato and a guitar tuned to the spirit of Jack Johnson. Throughout the track, Ward describes the high's and low's of love...original huh? What differentiates Ward's portrait from that of his colleagues (namely every musician to agree "love hurts") is his relative equanimity. Ward gives us a descriptive account of love, in the strictest sense. "Love is so good, when you're treated like you should be," he sanguinly warbles. This sentiment is decisively contrasted with the halcyon recitation, "Oh but if you're gonna leave, better call the undertaker, take me under"...

Here

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