Going back, going forward
Findlay Brown - Don't You Know I Love You
I'll confess, I've been keeping this guy under wraps, hiding his songs in my iTunes for a few months now. I got the demos from a good friend in the UK, who asked me to listen to them and see what I thought. Well, I think it is great actually - really beautiful music that sounds as though it could have been made in 1965. At times Findlay comes across like a British Simon & Garfunkle, and at others Rubber Soul-era Beatles. At the same time, his music seems just as fitting and fresh as anything folks are making in the folk/psych world today. As a matter of fact, I wish more of the current folk "scene" sounded like this, and less like Devendra, whose older work I like, but more recent stuff I just don't get. Maybe its something about Findlay's British-ness... some unique property that the brit folk singers have and most American's don't, that makes it stand out? I'll have to think about that a little more.
Anyway, the arrangements sound fairly straight forward, with his guitar playing and great vocals at the forefront, but on more attentive listening, the layers open up a bit, where the songs ebb and flow, swelling, not unlike the ocean, which makes sense, as a number of the song titles reference the sea. The 'solo acoustic' songs were recorded in the bedroom of his producer, Simon Lord, formerly the singer with psych-rockers Simian ("Ah ha!" you say "there's a Simian connection here?" now you're seeing some of the MFR underground network at play).
Well, now his first record was finally released, just this week: a 7" and a CD single for "Losing The Will To Survive," and "I Will (Ghost Ship)" on the b-side - the CD single also features this song, but I thought it would be good to put it up here, since it is so engaging. The singles are out on All Good Things records, and you can download it from iTunes (in the UK only - not sure if/when it will come here), and TuneTribe where it is single of the week, and you can buy the physical record on 7" and CD from Pure Groove and Rough Trade in London, and Piccadilly Records in Manchester.
You can also hear the 7" tracks, and another one, on his Myspace page - it is some pretty pre-summer magic, so give it a listen. He'll have a second 7" out towards the end of the summer, so keep your ears peeled for that one as well. Also listed on the Myspace page are upcoming dates, mostly in London soon, but he's also playing a couple of festivals later in the summer.
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ALSO: For those of you who enjoyed when I posted a track by the band Flying, their full-length album (much of which was recorded to tape out on Cape Cod last summer/fall), titled Just-one-second-ago-broken Eggshell was just released by Mill Pond Records, and to celebrate, they're having a CD release party at Cake Shop - details are: this Friday (May 12) with the MFR alumni the Subjects, and Ponies in the Surf, as well as some other special guests.
If you'd like to go to the show for free, I've got two passes, so the first two peeps to email me - blair (at) music.for-robots.com - will get on the band's guestlist!
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AND on the opposite end of the spectrum from these two, Erol Alkan, producer, remixer, and DJ extraordinaire (of Trash and Bugged Out!) will be melting everyone's faces off - mine included - tonight at Don Hill's (511 Greenwich at Spring St.), as the special guest of Fixed! and Night Time - be there or be square!
