Foxygen - Shuggie

Foxygen are an American indie rock duo formed in Westlake Village, California by Jonathan Rado and Sam France.  Both aged just 22 years old, it appears they have raided their parents' record collections for influences and have taken bits from everyone and everywhere to create something rather wonderful. 

Shuggie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7NKPvosj0A&feature=relmfu is currently available free to download and is a taster of what is to come when they release their album, We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, early in 2013. 

Shuggie, and a couple of other tracks I have listened to by the duo, are a delightful mishmash of styles, genres and tempos that can sound confusing at first but with repeated listenings, can be quite liberating.  They don't quite fit into any pigeonhole and yet you can hear shades of almost anyone in there.  For example, they have been likened at times to retro 60s French pop, The Kinks, Bowie, Lou Reed and The Monkees... don't believe it?  Well, listen for yourself.   My guess is that we will all hear something different in there. 

Foxygen are certainly interesting.  Whether they can hold it all together for a full album remains to be seen but for now, I have popped this little gem onto my iPod and look forward to it brightening my day. 

The Family Rain - Trust Me... I'm a Genius

So who are The Family Rain?  Well, they are three brothers, but they don't sound anything like the Beach Boys or the Bee Gees.  The sound they make is powerful, grip-you-by-the-ears type pop.  Take this track for instance, Trust Me... I'm A Genius  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DXYzrsJAJQE  which is all fuzzy guitars and screechy vocals (for which I'm a bit of a sucker).  They hail from Bath... and that's about all I can tell you because there isn't much out there on the world wide web... except to mention that they were recently on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch (no, I didn't catch that either) and played in the Swn Festival during October.  This single came out on 19th November and there is also mention of an album, hopefully completed by February, so I will be keeping a lookout for that. 

So to end that meagre posting may I suggest you just listen to the song itself.  Which at 2 minutes 12 seconds isn't going to take too long.  Unless, like me, you decide to play it twice.

Tracks played Week 2 - 19 November 2012

The Music Truffler has been very busy with other jobs recently so apologies for not updating you with new bands and musicians as often as I should.  Expect a few posts this week though as I get back into the swing of things.

Meanwhile, here is a list of the tracks played during the show aired week commencing 19th November 2012.

1.  The Heavy - What Makes A Good Man
2.  Robert Vincent - Riot's Cry
3.  The Dead Trees - Word Gone Global
4.  Hooded Fang - Tosta Mista
5.  Michael Kiwanuka - Tell Me A Tale
6.  Massive Attack featuring Terry Callier - Live With Me
7.  Donald Fagen - Miss Marlene
8.  Focus - Father Bacchus
9.  The Jayhawks - Hide Your Colours
10.  Ronnie Parry - Trust & Money
11.  The Zombies - Show Me The Way
12.  Phantom Limb - Harder Than Stone

The Music Truffler Radio Show

The Music Truffler now has it's own radio show on Radio Clwyd http://www.radioclwyd.co.uk/RadioClwyd/Home2.html   You can listen in online and also via the Radio Clwyd Facebook page or from the link at the bottom of this blog page.

The pilot show ran all this week between 8 and 9pm.  I have listed the songs featured below.  The aim of the programme is to play new/recently new songs and rarely played oldies.  And just generally good music!  We will have a regular spot where we feature local musicians (North Wales and Merseyside) but we are also open to new artists from further afield so please contact me if you would like to be featured in future shows.

The list of artists and songs in the pilot show was as follows:

Things Will Change - Treetop Flyers
Black Dirt - The Midnight Ramble
Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes
Buffalo Crow - Zervas & Pepper
First Time Ever - Broadcaster featuring Peggy Seeger
Quatre Main - dEUS
Turn Your Heart Around - Colin Blunstone
Somebody Like You - AM & Shawn Lee
I Wanna Go To Marz - John Grant
Surf's Up - The Beach Boys
Born Alone - Wilco
Madness - Muse

Hope you can listen in!

Robert Vincent - Riot's Cry

Robert Vincent, at the time of writing, has just released Riot's Cry http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e2ja1KUZMlY,  a wonderful 3min 45seconds of jangly guitar and strangled vocals that sounds, well, oh so Liverpool... and I love it!

Liverpool is blessed at the moment in having so many good artists around.  Wander into many of the small bars and cafes on any evening and you can see a fantastic range of singer-songwriters, musicians and bands.  I haven't seen Robert play live yet, but I may just go to Leaf on Bold Street on 29th November when he is on with the wonderful Dave O'Grady and White Bicycles.

Robert has been described by Q magazine as being a "searingly honest Liverpool singer-songwriter whose mix of folk, rock and country is like a Mersey Van Morrison or a Scouse Springsteen".  I'm not sure about that description but I'm certainly eager to hear more.  Thankfully I won't have long to wait.  He has an album due for release early in the new year called Life In Easy Steps which is also the title of his next single,

Says Robert "I’ve done the whole thing of trying to be what people want me to be.  And in the end I just thought I’ve had enough of this. The songs I’ve written now, some of them sound like Johnny Cash and some of them like 50s rock’n’roll – but they’re what I wanted to write. And the funny thing is, the more honest I am the better people like it."

You can hear more of Robert's work on http://soundcloud.com/robertvincentmusic, including sessions on BBC London and BBC 5 Live.


http://robertvincentmusic.com/