The Housecast Sessions

Yes folks, a bit later in the year than planned but series 7 of the Housecast Sessions will be coming to a set of speakers near you very soon! The master }Moose mixer of fine house will be spinning his decks for your aural pleasure with the latest and greatest deep, progressive, tech and vocal house (plus all the rest that takes his fancy).

Weather permitting we expect the }Moose to dust his needles and oil his decks in the next couple of weeks…. Watch This Space!

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Now then music lovers, we’ve a special treat in store for you this week, a Nu-Jazz vocal special featuring some of the best acts of the genre. There’s great new tracks from the likes of Koop, Radio Utopia, The Room Orchestra, Sarah Jane Morris plus loads more. So get yourself ready for a relaxing and chilled out Sunday afternoon with DJ }Moose. Tune in at 3pm UK time, and remember to send your tweets to @dj_moose during the show for a shout out.

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The Abergavenny-born singer will mostly polarise opinion.

BBC Review by Lou Thomas

In pop terms Marina Diamandis is rather unusual. Not because she lacks the genuine weirdness and fearless invention of Micachu (although she does), or the songwriting ability of Florence Welch (although she does). No. She’s strange because she appears to have based her entire singing style on the odd rhythms and insane lurches of Sparks’ This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both Of Us.

In small doses Marina can be magnificent. Her first major label single, Mowgli’s Road, includes insane lyrics about cutlery (“Ten silver spoons coming after me”), the beats and pacing of Green Day’s Hitchin’ a Ride, and Tori Amos-ish baroque soundscapes and wild animal noises. It’s as much Lord of the Flies as The Jungle Book. Guilty is just as interesting: bursts of harpsichord, beats more at home on aBurial record, looped background vocal motifs and perhaps Marina’s best vocal performance on the album. And recent single Hollywood may sound as bombastic and ridiculous as Arnie driving a Humvee through a plate glass window, but it’s superbly enjoyable.

The consistently diverting changes in style across the album are fine – the wonky 80s shoulder-pad pop of The Outsider is nothing like anything else here, for example. But over 13 songs of Sparks-voice and many similar staccato piano riffs listeners may feel bludgeoned by Marina and her slightly overbearing presence. On Oh No! she sings, “Don’t do love, don’t do friends / I’m only after success, don’t need a relationship.” Then there’s the opener, Are You Satisfied: “It’s not my problem / is my problem / that I never am happy / my problem is my problem on how fast I will succeed.” Ambition and talent is useful, but a having a massive ego and being friendless is not. Hopefully she’s just singing in character.

Judging by the auspicious critical and commercial reception to Hollywood, there will be many who find a great deal to love about Marina and her whacky voice; but there will be just as many who despise her. A tiny minority may be indifferent, but like Mika, the male act whose songs sound most like those on The Family Jewels, the Abergavenny-born singer will mostly polarise opinion.

The Family Jewels on iTunes

BBC Website

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…For Housecast 65 LIVE

And what a cracking afternoon of music we have lined up for you. Special guest DJ Alex will be joining DJ }Moose at the decks for an hour and a half of down right funky electro house tunes. We’ve got some Fatboy Slim, Beatchuggers, Front Fork Wheeler, Dolly Lombardo, CHEW LiPS, Denzal Park and Greentech for you, plus loads more classic and brand new electro tracks to get you going. Plus of course the usual inane banter you can expect when messieurs Alex and }Moose get together with a few beers on a Sunday afternoon….

Tune in to Funkational Radio at 2 o’clock UK time (15:00 CET, 13:00 UTC) on Easter Sunday, 04 April to join the party, and remember to send your tweets to @dj_moose if you want a shout out to your posse. Keep it real folks, we’re makin’ da music real!

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London trio take electro-pop to new places

BBC Review by Camilla Pia

Last year both Little Boots and La Roux carved their mugs into the musical rockery, and as we write, 2010 is predicted to belong to Ellie Goulding. So you could be forgiven for feeling a little shoulder shruggy about British born lady-led electro-pop. Haven’t we heard quite enough for now?

Chew Lips say no. And it’s impossible to argue with a debut like Unicorn. Stripped of all the superficial polish and glitzy sheen that so often equips haters with all the ammunition they need to call this genre throwaway, the band have crafted a truly unique, low-key and yet utterly captivating sound. The ten tracks are based around varying combinations of fluttering synths, big basslines, pianos, guitars, beats and strings; all intricately arranged to showcase the real standout element of this record – lead singer Tigs’ sumptuous vocals.

It’s a corker of a voice; the type that makes you want to skip with joy when it soars and then drags the heart over hot coals in its more melancholy renderings. As such Gold Key, with its sweetly sung talk of tied hands and playing with guns, takes on an even more sinister quality, Karen’s incredibly catchy melody has huge impact driven by Tigs’ very capable lung power, and stark ballads Piano Song and Too Much Talking are downright catch-your-breath sad.

But it’s not all just smiles and sobs. Propelling Chew Lips is a sonic expertise and wizardry that would leave even the most technically minded musician scratching their noggin in an attempt to get to the bottom of the band’s dynamic This is where tracks like Slick, Eight and Play Together come in; all three baffling displays of savvy songwriting and subtle arrangement complete with well-timed starts, stops and instrumental breakdowns

And all too quickly it’s over, and you’ll want to go right back to the start again. Because Unicorn is that rarest of things: a record imbued with genuine talent and emotion which wipes the floor with the majority of its makers’ contemporaries, while calling to mind the classic vocals of Karen Carpenter and the pioneering spirit of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Quite startling.

Unicorn on iTunes

BBC Website

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Free of anything in the slightest bit terrible, Head First is amazing stuff.

BBC Review by Ian Wade

Poor Goldfrapp. For the last decade they’ve been making extremely listenable music, from the austere chill of 2000’s debut Felt Mountain, via the Black Forest electro-Weimar wolf porn of 2003’s Black Cherry, to the retro-futuristic electro disco glitter of Supernature in 2005 – but it’s always seemed as though Alison and Will have been the ones to hold open a door for others. Of the far-out females with either vintage headdresses and/or an interest in keyboards or harps to have emerged in the last five years, at least 85% can be found with some ‘Frapp influence in their musical DNA.

On their fifth album, the duo has put away the maypole and mummery of 2008’s folk-flavoured Seventh Tree, and rummaged through the box marked big synths, lasers, jumpsuits and all things shiny. And the results are all-out pop, gloriously so. Not that they haven’t expressed this side before, as the big choruses and winning hooks of the likes of Ooh La La, Caravan Girl, Strict Machine and A&E have shown in the past, but here they maintain the quality throughout a full album. Opener Rocket is a fine continuation of the above lineage. It couldn’t be more 80s if it arrived sweaty from a Jane Fonda workout, dressed in a neon legwarmers and a fashionably ripped Van Halen t-shirt. If it doesn’t knock the top ten for six, that’ll be a mystery for future generations to mull.

The album’s 80s qualities are particularly reminiscent of the turn of said decade – the stupendous Believer, with its stadium-sized chorus, appears like a turbo-charged Fleetwood Mac, and while Alive initially echoes The Feeling, it soon expands into a broader wonder evocative of ELO’s most-imperial phase. Even the title-track seems to take every horrible shoulder pad-recalling sound imaginable from a synth before dabbling in late ABBA fare. It’s not all fright-wigs, though – closer Voicething channels Stockhausen’s Stimmung to delightful effect, and a foxy frisson permeates Shiny and Warm. In fact, shiny and warm sums the whole album up.

At an economic 38 minutes and free of anything in the slightest bit terrible, you should welcome Head First like the first sun of spring, know it inside out by the time the band are slaying festival crowds mid-summer and possibly buying copies to give to close friends and family at Christmas. The word’s overused, but this album deserves it: amazing.

Head First on iTunes

BBC Website

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Funkational Radio is now broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week! With beefy new servers you can get down to some great funk and house music from DJ }Moose and the Funkational collective any time of the day or night wherever you are! Back to back house music with regular live shows of the latest and greatest dance music on the scene. Check it out from Shoutcast.Com or these links and enjoy…

Funkational Radio is an Ad-Free station

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And what a show we have lined up for you, house lovers… some serious cochlea crunching progressive house tunes that will make you wanna move! There’s some exclusive brand new releases in store, including tracks from Lenny Fontana, Joey Beltram, Ron Ravolta, the fabulous DJ DLG featuring Giorgio Moroder, and an amazing new track from Joss Dominguez.

Tune in LIVE at 3 o’clock UK time and treat yourself to an hour and a half of the best in progressive house, mixed live by the man himself, DJ }Moose. Remember, if you can’t make the live show then catch it here or on iTunes later on Sunday. See you then!

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Now playing on Funkational Radio… ALL the Housecasts back 2 back! Yes, tune in to Funkational and for the next three and a half days you’ll hear all DJ }Moose’s Housecast Sessions from number 1, way back in October 2006 right up to Housecast 63 broadcast last week. Funkational Radio is now online 24/7 and still completely advert free! Tune in to Funkational Radio using these links, or you can tune in from Shoutcast Radio. If you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch then download the Shoutcast Radio app and tune in on the go!

On Thursday following the Housecast Sessions you’ll hear all DJ }Moose’s mixes from the archives, taking us up until Sunday 14 March and Housecast 64 LIVE with the possibility of special guest appearances… watch this space!

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Sunday 28 February, Housecast 63 is coming to you LIVE on Funkational Radio (tuning in details HERE). There’s some cracking new tracks lined up for you including Gramaphonedzie, a Carl Craig remix of Hot Chip One Life Stand, the XX remix of Florence’s “You’ve Got The Love” and a remix of Goldfrapp’s forthcoming single “Rocket”, all in all a fantastic line up of all new house and dance toons!

If you’re on Twitter then join in the show live with your comments to @dj_moose – a truly interactive Housecast experience for the first time!

Make sure you tune in live @ 3 o’clock UK time (UTC), but if you can’t you can catch up with the aural fun from Sunday evening here or on iTunes. See you then!

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