Life on Mars? is one of David Bowie’s best and most moving songs. Appeared for the first time on the album Hunky Dory from 1973, BBC Radio 2 later called “a cross between a Broadway musical and a Salvador Dalí painting”. The attached version is a recorded performance of David Bowie together with Arcade Fire (featured last week) at Fashion Rocks on 8th September, 2005 in New York. [click to continue…]
For this Monday’s Tune I’ve chosen to include the song “Halfway Home” by TV on the Radio, who were featured on Monday’s Tune last year.
The song is from the album ‘Dear Science’ which was named the best album of 2008 by Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Spin Magazine, Consequence of Sound, MTV, Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork Media’s readers poll, and was ranked 7th in Q Magazine’s list of the 50 best albums of 2008, where it was described as “art rock with a human face”. [click to continue…]
And today, to continue the story from last week, but sans politics, here are The Apples – an Israeli jazz band who’s members are from Haifa, Tel Aviv and New York. [click to continue…]
Its seems that Monday’s Tune has become a bi-weekly event, instead of every week. I will try to return to normality soon…
Today’s featured tune is by one of my favourite team of musicians, The Cinematic Orchestra, a British-based jazz and electronic outfit, created in the late 1990s by Jason Swinscoe.
Today’s track is called “Man With The Movie Camera”, from the 2002 album Every Day, released by Ninja Tune [independent record label]. The song was later reworked and was part of a 2003 soundtrack album by The Cinematic Orchestra to a re-released version of the 1929 silent documentary film, Man with a Movie Camera, by Russian director Dziga Vertov.
Man with a Movie Camera movie poster
About the band members, In addition to Swinscoe [from Wikipedia]:
the band includes former DJ Food member Patrick Carpenter on turntables, Luke Flowers (drums), Tom Chant (Saxophone), Nick Ramm (piano), Stuart McCallum (guitar) and Phil France (double bass). Former members include Jamie Coleman (trumpet), T. Daniel Howard (drums), and Alex James (piano). The most recent addition to the band is Mancunian guitarist Stuart McCallum.
The following video is an edited version of Vertov’s film, released as a music video for the song:
TV on the Radio -- Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
The first Monday’s Tune of 2008… with hopes for great sounds this year.
TV on the Radio is a Brooklyn based avant-garde rock band formed in 2001. Their music spans genres as diverse as indie-rock, electro, trip-hop, free jazz, doo-wop and soul.
Today’s song is “Staring at the Sun”, appeared in TVOTR’s first LP Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes.
