2009 29 Oct

Music Follows The Seasons

It seems it is not only the evenings which have been getting dark and gloomy recently, music has been following suit. As the autumnal months draw a curtain over the the spangly guitars and vocal harmonies epitomised by the likes of golden silvers and the “surf pop” summer, the ever present recession mixed with the fall into winter seem to be having a huge effect on the music world.

Alternative and Indie wise the XX have taken things by storm, read some phenomenal single reviews for their sparse and lonely debut “XX” fairly miserable stuff but absolutely brilliant and in my opinion has to be one of the albums of the year. But it’s not just the new kids on the block getting dark, with both The Macabbees and Wild Beasts returning with an exceptionally gloomy sound and Noah and the wale is all boo’s and tears.

And it is not just the indie genre which, lets face it has had its fair share of darker moments, following in this trend, other music genres are getting pretty dismal too. Hip hop and grime are pretty big at the moment with chipmunk at the number 2 spot in the album charts and the success of Jamie T’s new album, I think Giggs is one to watch, pretty low in tone and quite pessimistic but going to be pretty big I think. Also been some pretty good dark electronica, a great example being Fever ray, the girl from the knife, has released a great solo album, again miserable but amazing. Now, moving on to dub step, pretty dark genre in itself, eagerly anticipating the new Burial album but there’s also a couple of new artists knocking around producing some great tracks, like emalkay, on caspa’s label dub police, especially the song when “I look at you”..amazing but so so cold.

Deviating slightly from the music, the dark and gloomy vibe has also stamped its claim on the TV and film world, with dark vampire themes popping up everywhere. Twilight has taken the cinema by storm and has an equally brilliant soundtrack boasting a huge array of big names and unsurprisingly gloomy undertones.

Back to music, and whilst I’ve been keeping up to date with blogs and forums, my music references of choice, recently I’ve also rediscovered my love for indie music magazines with a lot of magazines now offering online copies, and a growing number of free magazines like The Fly to be picked up in music venues. With loads of music magazines also doing a fair amount of competitions for gig tickets and music equipment, I can’t think of a better way to combat the wintery recession riddled blues than winning a couple of them.

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