Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes

Lykke Li's sparkling sophomore album, Wounded Rhymes, has been made available for streaming in full over on Hype Machine.

The album's first single, Get Some, came as something of a surprise. With its pounding tribal beats and sexually-charged lyrics, it marked a clear shift from the lovelorn balladry of her debut. The tribal drums and harder sound are found throughout Wounded Rhymes, but lyrically, many tracks find Lykke in a more despondent mindset.

As their titles suggest tracks like Unrequited Love, Rich Kid Blues and Sadness Is A Blessing aren't exactly happy clappy affairs. I Know Places, meanwhile, is a downbeat highlight, with Lykke trilling earnestly over gentle strumming.

It's not all doom and gloom, however, and scattered among the ballads are more defiant tracks like call-to-arms Youth Knows No Pain and current single I Follow Rivers. Jerome, meanwhile, is a menacing lovesong with lyrics like “I'm screaming at nothing, Jerome. You've got me or nothing, Jerome.”

Wounded Rhymes is an accomplished album that should assert Lykke Li's place in indie-pop royalty and a welcome alternative to the identikit over-produced output of many of her contemporaries.

Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes (Hype Machine Album Exclusive) by LykkeLi

Ehmmm...

My video for TRTE, where I rave about Janelle Monae, is currently up on their site and will be for the next 24 hours. Check it out here

As you'll hear, in between me saying 'ehm' a lot, I managed to mispronounce the name of the abum. My bad. The studio lights got the better of me, I'm afraid. Apols, Janelle.

Meanwhile, The Red Radar site is beginning to get into full swing. My contribution, about how I inadvertently wound up in local band Bipolar Empire's music video for their new song is up here. Reckon you can do better? Well, I believe they're still on the lookout for contributors...

Party Ben - This Tightrope's Made For Walking (Janelle Monae vs Nancy Sinatra)

Galway Goes Green

I've always been a major fan of the Heineken Green Spheres gigs, which have seen a host of top class international talent play free gigs in various locations around Ireland over the past two years.

Previous events have seen Miike Snow and Digitalism in Carlow, Foals and White Lies in Dublin, Passion Pit in Cork and Goldfrapp in Louth. Now comes Galway's turn and, on the 3rd of 4th of March, it will play host to a double whammy of gigs featuring Cut Copy, The Go! Team, and Holy Ghost.

Mercury nominees The Go! Team plus yet to be confirmed support will play Galway’s Black Box on March 3rd with Cut Copy, in their only Irish show of the current tour, joined by New York’s Holy Ghost! in Radisson’s Live Lounge on March 4th.

Christ, the exclamation marks are running rampage at this event.

As ever, tickets for the event are free. Simply log on to the Heineken Music website here for a chance for you and a friend to win tickets.

Cut Copy - Take Me Over (Flight Facilities Remix)



The Go! Team - Apollo Throwdown (Star Slinger Remix)



Holy Ghost! - Do It Again

Stuck On Repeat: Sting In The Tail Edition

Plastic Operator - Singing All The Time (The Sanfernando Sound Remix)



Ellie Goulding - Lights (Wired Dubstep Remix)



Sleigh Bells - Tell 'Em (Diplo Remix)



Oh Land - White Nights (Twin Shadow Remix)



Labyrinth Ear - Navy Light (4am Remix)



Clare Maguire - The Last Dance (Chase & Status Remix)



Kanye West - Monster (Kingdom's Nicki-centric Edit)

Sorry This Is Forever

Paper Crows are an exciting new London duo who I posted about towards the end of last year. Their debut single 'Stand Alight' was the source of mild blogospheric hysteria and they're now following this up with a double A-side release next month.

Fingertips is a gorgeous slow-burner with singer Emma's vocals underpinned by a foreboding military beat but it's Follow The Leader that really tickles my fancy, thanks to the brooding post-dub influences, melodramatic lyrics and flourishes of strings. Game, set and match.

Paper Crows - Fingertips by Sainted PR

Paper Crows - Follow The Leader by Sainted PR

Just Another Hurricane

Hot on the heels of Strictly Pleasure, comes another pop gem from Dublin pop prince James O' Neill, aka Bitches With Wolves.

Hurricane bears similarly high-end production to its predecessor and, with rumours abound of an even better track called 'Hercules' on the way, dare I speculate that an album might materialise this year?

Hurricane by Bitches With Wolves music

Diamond Standard

Two new tracks from Marina & The Failures, I mean Marina & The Diamonds, have surfaced. Living Dead and Sex Yeah were initially thought to be demos from last year's The Family Jewels but, if Marina's self-sympathetic tweets are anything to go by, they are more likely demos of tracks from the follow-up album due later this year.

Both tracks are pretty great so it's understandable that she's upset they've leaked. At least she has this mesmerising performance of Shampain from RTE's current series of 'Other Voices' to be happy about, eh?



Marina and the Diamonds - Living Dead

Marina and the Diamonds - Sex Yeah

Red Alert

Last Thursday, I ambled along to the Digital Socket Awards, a brilliant event organised by a number of Irish music bloggers. It was nice to put names and faces to a number of my favourite Irish bloggers and wonderful to see bloggers collaborating on a project that brings people together.

For this reason, it was a fitting setting for the launch of TRTE's new initiative, Red Radar. This new site is bringing together some of Ireland's most enthusiastic music and fashion bloggers under one URL. I'm delighted to have done a couple of pieces for the site, particularly considering some of my favourite online writers are involved, including Conor, Catherine, Angela and Louise.

Be sure to check out the site here and watch it grow over the next few weeks.

I Don't Notice A Change

Remember circa 1996 when the question on everybody's lips was 'Who's your favourite Spice Girl?" Well, 15 years later (man, I'm old), I'm posing an equally divisive dilemma: Who's your favourite member of The xx?

Initially I thought mine was silky-voiced Oliver Sim, who I've always thought I would like to voice my inner monologue. Then Jamie Smith's remixes of Florence and the Machine and Adele led me to believe that in fact he was the brains of the operation.

Now comes Romy Madley Croft's rather impressive bid to hog the limelight in the form of her eerie collaboration with Creep on 'Days'.



CREEP (featuring Romy Madley Croft) - Days (Deadboy Remix) by hannahrad

CREEP featuring Romy xx - Days (Azari III Remix) by Hypetrak

At least I know it's not Baria.

I Don't Know About My Dreams

James Blake's eponymous debut is already well on its way to being one of this year's essential albums. Although a tad too 'leftfield' to receive much in the way of radio airplay here in Ireland, it's gonna be interesting to see what impact his mesmering post-dub soundscapes have on the music world this year.

New single 'The Wilhelm Scream' now comes flanked by this visual delight:

James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream from Alexander Brown on Vimeo.

James Blake - Lindesfarne (live on BBC Radio 1) by MSFRQZ

James Blake - Limit To Your Love by TheDropFather