Holy Canada! Let's Have Some Fun!

So here's the deal. I'm going to let you in on a secret.. psst.. you should probably know about this band.. they're named Malajube.. and they are amazing!

That said, I stumbled upon the masterpiece of Malajube in the fall of 2006 when they released their second album, Trompe L'oeil. If I used a CD player it would have been melted at this point by over play. Malajube, like many recent bands of great prowess hail from the greater state of Canada. Montréal to be exact. Malajube sing entirely in French, but despite the fact that I can understand a total of.. six maybe seven words, they are action packed and full of fun. In interviews, I've read how they can (and do) speak fluent English, but given that they were so affected by anglophone American music during their youth, they wanted to grant the same experience for us non-francophonies.

It's difficult to equate Malajube's musicianship to anything in particular, considering that every other song brings a new monster of noise and melody, so I refuse to try. But the range is from catchy but entirely novel pop songs (Montréal -40°C, Pâte Filo) ominous and thundering choruses (Casse-Cou, Fille À Plumes) to piano led upbeat saloon sing alongs (Ton Plat Favori) and ridiculous electronic songs (La Russe).

Their lyrics could be god awful and possibly be promoting some of the most vile degrading shit you've ever heard, but I'm entirely ignorant to them. (An online translator told me they were singing about "ejaculate", but you can't trust those things!) The interesting thing about non-anglophone music (for me) is that the experience is more that of instrumental songs. The melodies of Malajube's vocalists come off as complementary innovative instruments. I find myself screaming along in my own French gibberish like a little kid, whose ear is too slow to make out the lyrics to the songs playing on the radio.

The real nail in the coffin for me was listening to Malajube while staying in Paris in January. At this point in time I had developed such an appreciation for the French language I was ecstatic to be able to connect with something that the culture which was blowing my mind at the same time would probably appreciate.

So here's the rub. Malajube. They're playing a FREE show at the Prospect Park Band Shell in Brooklyn on June 30th, my birthday! I would kill to see them. That may mean I have to kill everyone I invited to my party.. we'll see.

Here's their really well done music video for Montréal -40°C

And their website. http://www.malajube.com

Enjoy!

Hop Along {with}, Queen Ansleis

take everything you've ever thought about girls with guitars and throw it out the window. i think i can confidently say that if you were to listen to only one of the bands i've written about in the last few months...i would recommend Hop Along, Queen Ansleis. in a world where seemingly every female songwriter is a genetic splice of sarah mclaughlan, jewel, and ani defranco; Hop Along's Francis Quinlan is a mutation that Darwin would hold to his heart and praise as the paragon of natural selection.

brash as it may seem, these opinions come from hearing only 6 of her songs. 4 on her myspace, and 2 more on her pure volume site. The 2005 release "Freshman Year" is on my list of things to buy, along with one of Chris Eaton's novels (check out Dave's post on Rock Plaza Central), a new tire (to replace my slashed one, those bastards) and pay a parking ticket, most likely all purchased in that order.

Whereas the gene pool of Mclaughlan-DiFranco monsters jump up and down the vocal registers to show how pretty and versatile their female voices are, Quinlan puts them all to shame without really trying to. sometimes she whelps, other times its almost a cry, and here and there she hops octaves into a beatiful falsetto; often times all of those and more jammed into one 3 minute song, creating a consistently up-tempo melody and showing her exceptional talent. yet in no way will you think she does it as a fanfare of her skills. the songs are humble and fragile, they might shatter into pieces if you stop listening, yet they burst out of the speakers with energy and excitment about her seemingly infinitely loving family, bonzai trees and spinach.

while frances' voice is a dominant force in the songs, often times with 4 or 5 distinct vocal tracks all happening at once, its not the only noteworthy sound going on. her brothers and friends contribute to the recordings on banjos, drums and kitchen utensil percussion creating a delightful sound that i envision can only come from a warm, sunlit room where you can see the dust particles in the air and everything in there has been placed in its location for some specific reason, which may or may not make itself known and that doesn't really matter.

maybe i'll do a follow-up post once i get the album. but if not, go to her myspace and copy down her address in brooklyn and send her $10 and wait as the days crawl by like a millipeed with a blister on every foot until it gets to you. there's only one song available for download, which i will post at the bottom, the others you will have to stream from her myspace and purevolume.

i fall in love with her all over again everytime a new verse starts.

i'm only posting one mp3 out of lack of having anymore than one, but my suggested tracks would be "Of My Brothers..." off her myspace and "Bruno is Orange" on her purevolume.


mp3: the bonzai tree u bought 4 me


www.myspace.com/hopalongqueenansleis

www.purevolume.com/hopalongqueenansleis