Posts Tagged ‘C Duncan’

It’s only just over a year since C Duncan released his swooning, Mercury-nominated debut ‘Architect’. The Glaswegian folk artist’s second album sounds more experimental: on lead single ‘Wanted To Want It Too’ he’s delving into synth territory. The Glaswegian sound architect may be inspired by ’60s sci-fi TV classic “The Twilight Zone”, but the sleeve art depicts the stairway from the flat in which he both lives and records. These however both seem peculiarly apt, as ‘The Midnight Sun’ has an uncanny knack for summoning the otherworldly in the everyday. Whilst his choral vocal passages and electronic soundscapes may summon a pastoral kind of chill, his melodic nous and songwriting skill memorably anchor the moody atmospherics, offering an eerie and affecting work likely to offer succour to fans of James Blake and The Blue Nile both.

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Julia Jacklin –  Don’t Let The Kids Win

Julia Jacklin highly anticipated debut album, ‘Don’t Let The Kids Win’, is released via Transgressive Records. Hailing from the Australian Blue Mountains, Julia Jacklin is a guitarist and singer like no other. Her music courses with the aching current of alt-country and indie-folk, augmented by her undeniable calling cards: her rich, distinctive voice, and her playful, observational wit. For the past several years Jacklin has lived in a garage in Glebe (a suburb of Sydney), working a day job on a factory production line making essential oils, all the while finding time to hone her craft – to examine her turns of phrase, to observe the stretching of her friendship circles, to wonder who she was and who she might become. And now, as Jacklin quits her factory job to focus solely on a music career, the future she had once imagined is becoming her present day reality. For fans of Margo Price, Mazzy Star and Lana Del Ray.

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Hiss Golden Messenger  –  Heart Like A Levee

The writing of the songs that became ‘Heart Like a Levee’ started in a hotel room in Washington DC in January of 2015 during a powerful storm that darkened the East Coast. At that time I was feeling – more acutely than I had ever felt before – wrenched apart by my responsibilities to my family and to my music. Forgetting, momentarily, that for me, each exists only with the other. How could I forget? Though maybe my lapse was reasonable: I had just quit my job, the most recent and last, in a series of dead-end gigs stretching back 20 years, with the vow that my children would understand their father as a man in love with his world and the inventor of his own days. They would be rare in that regard. And then – driven by monthly bills and pure fear – I left for another tour, carrying a load of guilt that I could just barely lift. But in that snowy hotel room I found the refrain that became my compass: I was a dreamer, babe, when I set out on the road; but did I say I could find my way home? M.C. Taylor Available CD – Digipak with poster style insert. 11 Tracks.2CD – Deluxe 2CD is Digipak / Softpak with obi wrap and poster style insert. Includes the 8 Track ‘Vestapol’. 19 Tracks total.LP – 11 Tracks with Download.2LP – Deluxe 2LP in Gatefold Sleeve poster plus obi wrap and Download. Includes the 8 Track ‘Vestapol‘. 19 Tracks total.

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Goat Girl  –  Country Sleaze / Scum

Limited to just 500 Copies on Rough Trade Records. The debut single by teenage South London four piece Goat Girl. Goat Girl head up an emerging set of groups from South London who have been inspired by the burgeoning local circuit there. Goat Girl are a special band. Songs that use subtlety as their main ingredient while remaining disarmingly fierce at every turn. Lyrics that mean everything despite being written down in the most simplistic and non-aggressive way possible… they are an anomaly in the UK music scene as 2016 draws to a draggy close: four people playing guitars, bass and drums who have the ability to make you feel //alive// again. Goat Girl release two songs on Rough Trade, each one a caustic commentary on the England they’ve grown up in: Country Sleaze is a brooding two-chord time capsule that sounds like it’s been beamed over from a Seattle divebar in 1989. Both tracks were recorded purposefully quickly in a no-nonsense north London studio a few weeks ago with fast-rising producer Margo Broom

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C Duncan – The Midnight Sun

Glasgow’s prodigious talent C Duncan released his critically acclaimed and Mercury Prize nominated debut full-length ‘Architect’ last July, wrapping up an extremely successful first year with a headline tour and stunning sell-out performance at Union Chapel. Follow up ‘The Midnight Sun’ sees the bedroom producer return with a more expansive and experimental second offering, blending electronic elements and sweeping synth sounds with his signature layered vocals and dreamy instrumentation.

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Babeheaven  –  Moving On

Babeheaven return with their second single on Handsome Dad and limited to just 250 Copies. It’s a beautifully immersive slice of ethereal trip-hop. Pinned together with lead vocalist Nancy Andersen’s shimmering voice, it’s another smooth triumph for the London based five piece. As time passes, it feels kinda like they’re morphing into this generation’s Portishead.

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White Lies  – Friends

After three consecutive Top 5 albums, White Lies release their fourth album ‘Friends’. With ‘Friends’, White Lies haven’t so much abandoned their trademark synth-rock sound as given it a spring clean by exploring new sounds. For many reasons, it felt like a fresh start. The trio were temporarily without a label after a bout of record company reorganisation. Rather than re-sign straight away, they decided to start ‘Friends’ under their own steam without the pressure of a deadline or a budget, or even the guidance of a producer. Whatever sound each song suggested, White Lies went with it. Hence, when ‘Hold Back Your Love’ and ‘Is My Love Enough’ sparkled with disco grooves, they embraced it. When the beautiful ballad ‘Don’t Fall’ jettisoned their signature sound entirely, leaving only frontman Harry McVeigh’s sumptuous, sonorous vocals to connect it to White Lies of old, they stuck with it. Similarly, when the triumphant ‘Summer Didn’t Change A Thing’ harked back to the arena-ready rock of their debut, they didn’t mind. The changing nature of relationships is a recurring theme throughout the album. ‘Friends’ was recorded in Bryan Ferry’s private studio in London’s Olympia and was self-produced by the band. White Lies enlisted the help of an expert team including Grammy Award-winning engineer James Brown (Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys), David Wrench (Caribou, FKA twigs) on mixing duties and long-term collaborator Ed Buller who contributed additional production.

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Happyness – Tunnel Vision On Your Part

The harmony-packed single Anna, Lisa Calls appears here as the opener to Happyness’ Tunnel Vision On Your Part EP, with the band saying; “This is our first phone call song and our 5th song in E major. We wrote it one day in the studio in June and recorded it straight away – I think we were going for a kind of Traveling Wilburys thing. Also we felt like we hadn’t put a synth in a song for a while, so there’s a synth.” The EP, which also includes single SB’s Truck – a track penned by the band in homage to Samuel Beckett, who famously used to give the beloved, late, 80’s wrestler André The Giant lifts to school in his truck, owing to him being too large for his dad’s car – also provides a rare direct glimpse into the band’s influences as they offer their own interpretation of Club Gaga’s Friend Of The Revolution. Originally featuring on their Suburban Lake album, it’s a record that Happyness hold up as one of their favourites of all time, saying “Most (if not the whole) of the record is findable on YouTube. There were a few different songwriters in the band – but this one’s by the great Peter Fancher.”

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Lush – Lollapalooza Festival, Miami Fl August 22, 1992

Numbered Limited edition of 349 copies on White and Red splatter vinyl. Following the release of 1992’s Spooky, produced by Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins fame, Lush brought their first wave shoegaze sound to the US for their second stateside tour, as part of the Lollapalooza tour, which that year included Red Hot Chili Peppers Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Pearl Jam

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Lou Reed – The RCA / Arista Albums Collection

A limited edition 12″x12″ deluxe box set library, Lou Reed – The RCA and Arista Album Collection is the ultimate tribute to an essential epoch in Lou Reed’s career as a transformative figure in American music. This definitive anthology contains 16 full-length albums on 17 compact discs in addition to an 80-page hard-bound book featuring memorabilia from Lou Reed’s personal archives, rarely seen photos and artwork, interviews with Lou conducted during his years as a recording artist for RCA and Arista and evocative in- depth liner notes – written by Lou’s longtime friend and the collection’s co- producer Hal Willner – chronicling Lou Reed’s involvement with the making of Lou Reed – The RCA and Arista Album Collection. The collectible deluxe box set also contains – suitable for framing – five 8″x10″ prints and a facsimile reproduction of a rare RCA promotional poster (598mm x 572mm, folds to 299mm x 286mm). The set includes

1. Lou Reed (April 1972)
2. Transformer (November 1972)
3. Berlin (July 1973)
4. Rock n Roll Animal (live – February 1974)
5. Sally Can’t Dance (August 1974)
6. Metal Machine Music (July 1975)
7. Coney Island Baby (December 1975)
8. Rock and Roll Heart (October 1976)
9. Street Hassle (February 1978)
10. Lou Reed Live Take No Prisoners (2 CDs – November 1978) 11. The Bells (April 1979)
12. Growing Up in Public (April 1980)
13. The Blue Mask (February 1982)
14. Legendary Hearts (March 1983)
15. New Sensations (April 1984)
16. Mistrial (June 1986

C Duncan - Monolith Cocktail review

The glorious antithesis of the contemporary hunger for fast culture and fatuous fleeting music consumption, Glasgow’s C Duncan is a throwback in many ways both vocally and musically. A former student of the city’s renowned Royal Conservatoire, the classicist with a penchant for pop has married the choral harmonies of the Baroque and Gaelic with the hazy afterglow of 60s groups such as Harpers Bizarre and The Beach Boys, then added veiled whispers of Talk Talk, The Cocteau Twins and (stay with me on this one) Sting to craft something magical. Impressive not just on record but pulling it off live with his extended trio touring band (seriously, one of the best performances and talents we’ve ever had the pleasure to witness), Duncan’s soothing venerated tones and musicianship are encapsulating.

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But rather then use the grand and extended orchestral tools and acoustic spaces of classical music, Duncan methodically and intricately layers his ethereal, and sometimes transcendental, songs in his bedroom studio. Precise, purposeful and planned to the latter, each note, chime, melodic suffused wave and example of interplay is meticulously placed. Architect is then, perhaps one of the most finely crafted albums of late. Yet, most impressive of all is Duncan’s ability to make this precision sound so dreamily and amorphously lush and drifting.’

It’s one thing to have your profile raised by a Mercury Music Prize nomination, it’s another thing entirely to be able to present an album with the subtle complexity of Architect, and the undoubted quality of Chris Duncan’s music will also last longer than any industry accolade. The strength is found in its depth, the layers of vocal harmonies and instrumentation create an entirely unique sound out of recognisable parts, something we can relate to and enjoy like it’s the first time every time.”

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Musician born and raised in Glasgow, On his breathtaking debut album Architect, The 26-year-old Glaswegian composer Christopher Duncan sings, “I’ll take you everywhere I go… I’ll take you everywhere I know. It’s all so wonderful.” That’s exactly what the Mercury Prize-nominated multi-instrumentalist does over the course of 49 minutes, and it’s anything but hyperbole to declare that “wonderful” is quite the understatement. From delicate, pastoral dream pop to intimate, electronic-tinged folk, Duncan’s luxuriant vocal harmonies and intricate compositions dazzle with ingenuity. For over a year the singer-songwriter isolated himself within his bedroom studio as he crafted the album’s 12 songs. Unencumbered by time constraints or the influence of outside producers, Duncan painstakingly layers guitars, synths, handclaps, found objects and vocal lines on top one another. The resulting product is astonishing, not simply because of how disarmingly beautiful it all is, but more that the record is the result of one man’s labor of love, not the work of an entire studio full of musicians. These songs breathe with life. Timeless, genre-defiant, and endlessly inventive, Architect is as accomplished a debut as any.

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Garden is the latest dreamy pop sound from Scottish multi-instrumentalist C-Duncan (the C stands for Christopher!). Drenched in 60’s style, with crisp guitars and swirling vocals it is another string to the performer’s already strong bow. After appearing at several major festivals this summer.

Since its release back in May, it has already enjoyed strong coverage across the blogosphere and music magazines as well as enjoying being play listed on BBC 6 music. The ethereal and psychedelic multi-layers of the track were all performed by C-Duncan, a trait that his debut record Architect carries.

Signed to Fat Cat Records, he produced the whole of his album in his home studio – even producing the artwork for the release himself. Having been surrounded by music his entire life (both his parents were classical musicians) he’s used that to create an incredible sounding album that mixes Lo-Fi, charming folk with contemporary dream pop. Architect was released on July 17th and is available for download now.

C. DUNCAN – ” And I “

Posted: December 20, 2014 in MUSIC
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From the city of Glasgow.C Duncan (vocals, music). Christopher to his parents, who are both classical musicians – has made a record that includes a good few contenders for the seasonal top spot. Breathtakingly hushed, quasi-hymns .Duncan is a composer and musician based in Glasgow with a degree in composition from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland – not to mention a part-time visual artist – who has had music placed on various TV programs, most recently Waterloo Road on BBC1. He has also had his pieces performed by the likes of the Icebreaker ensemble and the Sirens of Titan choir. And he has just completed a debut album for FatCat Records, which will be due out in 2015, that will blow you away with its awed atmosphere and reverential sense of rapture.

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For, the lead track,  It opens with whistling and guitar, and instantly conjures the wintry and desolate soundscape. “And I” – but doesn’t appear to be on the album, is from another realm of anguished beauty. “Here in my lonely room,” he sings, his voice exquisite and unearthly boyish and suffused with sorrow. He harmonises with himself,  The notes he plucks on his guitar are so affecting, he seems to be in touch with a sadness that passes all understanding. there is a track called “Silence and Air”, featuring a fuller, lusher arrangement, with ghostly voices and strings, even some more handclaps. It’s breathy, breathtaking sort of thing.