Winter Gloves @ The LoPub

Montreal rockers Winter Gloves are coming back to town on November 27 to play at the LoPub; a great pub with great atmosphere. It’s not a bad place to see live music, but don’t expect to see the band unless you stand up and get right up-close. It obviously was not designed for concerts. Also, it’s definitely not in the best area of town, but probably not the worse either.

The lead singer and writer of all the songs in the album About a Girl is the very talented Charles F. who wrote, recorded, and co-produced the EP. He then recorded the first full length album with his band in a week.

Some of the band’s influences include Radiohead, and Broadcast just to name a couple. Charles is also a big fan of the album Soft Airplane by Chad VanGaalen (who also happens to be coming to town, and is another must see). Video below.

If you are a fan of synth-rock this is must see band. Below is a video of their song Let Me Drive which is an absolute work of art. The first step to creating the video was to get a shot of each band member playing their instrument; basically a regular video. The film was then digitized and each frame was then printed on flipbooks. Someone then held these flipbooks in-front of the camera, and well, flipped the pages. All this was then synchronized with the music and Charls F's voice. I hope you appreciate all the hard work that went into it.
Cheers!

If you like the band, listen to episode 5 of My Portable Device where I interview Charles F.

Winter Gloves - Let Me Drive





Want more? Here's their MySpace

The Ancient Astronauts - We Are To Answer

Artist: The Ancient Astronauts
Album: We Are To Answer
Released: June 9, 2009
Label: ESL Records
Stars: 4.0
Skippable Tracks: 0
Must-listen/purchase Track: Rising high



Miguel listens to hip-hop?????? Well, sometimes. What really inspired me to write this blog post was that I saw a young gentleman sporting a shirt that said I miss hip-hop Which immediately made me make a weird face at him. He probably thought he was being very clever and hip, but he failed. Why? Because hip-hop is not dead! Dude is simply not looking hard enough. And THAT is the bottom line. If you love music, you don't wait for it to come to you, you seek it. Because you love it.

As promised on episode 15 of My Portable device, I’m posting the name of that one song that I never announced. I really could not think of the name of it at the time.

The Ancient Astronauts consists of a couple of German producers named Tom Strauch and Ingo Moll who recently teamed up with ESL Records, founded by Thievery Corporation. So with that said, the album does have some of the same elements as a Thievery album, without making it a duplicate. Of course the band was allowed to work creatively with their own ideas, and claim that they did not feel pressure to create something that they did not feel comfortable with.

This album is a lot more varied than a Thievery album, including some downtempo type of electronic music, but also reggae, soul, dub, and hip-hop. It’s definitely some good background music, but also contains a few punches. For this reason, it earns a solid 4 stars. I know I haven’t given out too many low scores, but I’m sure I will very soon.

Check out the single below, it’s free, and legal thanks to the folks at AOL. So without further ado, here it is! Thanks for listening to My Portable Device, and thanks for checking my blog.

This album also features other MCs such as:

Bootie Brown and Imani from The Pharcyde, Azeem, Tippa Irie, Bajka, Phat Old Mamas, Ulf Stricker, Raashan Ahmad and Entropik, and a few more.

Ancient Astronauts - Rising High

Ancient Astronauts MySpace

My Portable Device EP16

The first prime-time show of My Portable Device.


A recent suggestion was that I should post the play-list on the blog along with the podcast. I hope this doesn't discourage people from listening to the podcast. Not that it's bad. I would like to think that its good, but who knows.


Play-list:

Cat Empire - Hello
Citizen Cope - Let the Drummer Kick
Books Feat. Jose Gonzalez - Cello Song
Jack Peñate - Pull My Heart Way
Codename:The Sharks - Set Your Sights (CAN>WPG)
Bahamas-Already Yours (CAN)
Shins - Turn On Me
Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms (CAN)
Mew - Introducing Palace Players
The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa
The Eels - My Timing is Off
Margot and the Nuclear So and So's - As Tall As Cliffs
Maccaco - Fresh
Castledoor - Skipping Stones
The Films - Blitzkrieg Bop
Muse - Starlight

Jack Peñate - Everything Is New

Artist: Jack Peñate
Album: Everything Is New
Released: June 22, 2009
Label: XL Recordings
Stars: 4.0
Skippable Tracks: 0
Must-listen/purchase Track: Pull My Heart Away




Has Jack Peñate given up on plaid? From what I can tell…no. He’s still wearing the same-old plaid shirts buttoned all the way up to the collar. The only thing that has changed is his music style.

Jack Peñate is a U.K. Pop-rocker who just released his second full-length album. The Brit rock-star with a Spanish name released his first album in 2006. Most the songs on Matinée are heavy on the upstrokes and have a Pop-rock style to them. He received great feedback and it reached the number one spot on the U.K.’s independent album charts.

Peñate’s second album is certainly very different from its predecessor, and to me, that’s a good thing. I’m glad to see that he’s decided to explore another side of his creative mind. According to an interview done at Absolute Radio, he never felt the need to re-visit the same sound, and for that, I commend him. An artist should be able to express themselves however they want, and not have to cater to a specific audience. Go independent labels!

After hearing his first single, I expected the album to be a dancing-good-time. And it is, but there is also a couple of very creative Indie-rock kind of tracks on it. The album begins with my favorite song, Pull My Heart Away, one of those Indie songs I’m talking about. The second song switches the mood to a Pop sound which continues until the last couple of tracks where he throws in another two rock songs.

Peñate uses a lot of sound layering and continues to sing about his favorite subjects: Death and love.

Must listen/purchase track


First sigle


Old track

My Portable Device EP15

The come-back show

My Portable has now moved to prime-time: 11PM Mondays on 101.5 FM.
Here is episode 15, which aired a couple of weeks ago, and is finally available for download.

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Artist: Andrew Bird
Album: Noble Beast
Released: January 20, 2009
Label: Fat Possum, Bella Union Records
Stars: 4.0
Skippable Tracks: 1
Must-listen/purchase Track: Tenuousness

Alright, time to step it up a notch! I'm going to have to start using proper grammar and spelling. This blog might actually get read now. We'll see how that goes.


Andrew Bird is a singer-songwriter from Chicago, who has just released his sixth studio album - Noble Beast. The whole feel of the album is very Folk Rock, and at times Indie Rock. Since he purposefully tries to keep listeners on their feet, some tracks don't find their direction until a minute or two into it. Think of a folk song, a pinch of Thom Yorke, some violin, a hint of glockenspiel, a tune that you might hear in a Western film, mix, and you have a song from Noble Beast.

The album is full of great ballads,rock tunes, and songs with many twists and turns. Over-all sound would be mellow, and something you should not listen to while operating some kind of heavy machinery.

I only found one track that I would choose not to listen to as a stand-alone track (Nomenclature), but if you are listening to the album from start to finish, the track just blends in. It simply had too many twists and no climax. This is followed by Ouo a 20 second track of nothingness, but thankfully he picks it up with the next track.

Overall, this album has its brilliant moments, and deserves a high rating. Check out his MySpace, or preview and purchase the album at eMusic.

Must-listen/purchase track: