The Music Court

Have you ever gathered a few friends in one place to play some tunes? Well, Emanuel Lundgren, an uber-talented Swedish singer/songwriter, collected 29 of his closest friends to help record a few tracks back in 2005, and many of them have never left.

I’m From Barcelona, a menagerie of musicians based in Jönköping, Sweden, has been cranking out harmonious pop music since its inception a decade ago, and although the coterie of band members has swooned from the twenties to 19 current musicians, the band has not lost any of its jovial luster, and, as its recent release suggests, it has no plans for growing up.

Growing Up is For Trees, the band’s fifth studio album and first since Forever Today,which was released in 2011, is a 10-track affair featuring a diverse selection of music that will latch onto the ears of pop music lovers. Much in the vein of artists like Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and even The Polyphonic Spree, I’m From Barcelona employs a wide range of instruments and sounds – from clapping to trumpets. The album’s premier track (below) is an excellent example of what I’m From Barcelona does particularly well. Instead of the wall of sound approach that many big collectives prefer to employ, I’m From Barcelona instead diversifies its musical approach, pairing a full range of vocals that stagger through the song with a consistent rhythm from guitar and percussion. The number of musicians simply leads to a fuller sound and more multifaceted vocal play. The band is so capable; it knows when to drop to fewer musicians and when to bring it all together as it does at the end of the piece in a hard-hitting collection of instruments and vocals. Oh yeah, the video is also pretty cool.

Other tracks to listen to on the new album are “Benjamin” and “Departure,” two songs that feature an agglutination of voices that is powerful and calls back to the band’s initial tracks back on its first few albums. “Benjamin” features a vocal call-back paired with an awesome pre-chorus breakdown that has horns, harmonies, and pretty much everything good in the music world.

In short, you should listen to this album. It is an organized frenzy of fun frisson that is fresh and full. It’s an alliteration of awesome music.

Check out more about the band on its website, Facebook, or Twitter.

When I went to go see the Moody Blues for the first time this past Friday, I quickly learned two important things about the band. One, as the dearth of parking at the NYCB Theater at Westbury – a theater that one does not often have difficulty finding parking at – suggested, the Moody Blues are pretty popular. Perhaps this speaks to the shows I usually see at the former tent in Westbury, but I have never seen the house more crowded than it was on Friday. Second, and most importantly, the Moody Blues effortlessly demonstrates the adage that you’re only as old as you feel; the band is lithe and youthful featuring potent instrumentation and billowy vocals. A product of additional band members? Sure, that does not hurt; however, Graeme Edge, John Lodge, Justin Hayward are just as ardent and inspired by music as I assume they were in 1967 when the uber-successful, gold record Days of Future Passed was released. And isn’t that just amazing? The band, which is celebrating its 51st anniversary this year, is still running on high and does not show any signs of stopping.

So, as stated in the last paragraph, my father and I stepped into a jam-packed theater with a mixed crowd of mostly older women and men, who, when the Moody Blues walked down onto the revolving stage, all erupted and transformed into their younger selves. Sometimes when you see a classic band – and trust me I’ve seen a whole lot – the crowd of older individuals who grew up with the band, well, kind-of reflect their age. Terrible for me to say, but true. On the contrary in this show, the crowd reflected the Moody Blues, who played each song with intensity and soaked up the applause like a sponge, growing in size until almost spilling out with joy on songs like “Question,” “Nights in White Satin” and “Ride My See-Saw,” which the band concluded the night with. This was almost magical, a weird ethereal ambiance that lasted for the entire show and then faded as people left – if only for one brief concert, people were able to transform into their youthful selves and party with the Moody Blues – dancing with the tunes, yelling laudations at the band, and, in general, having fun, which the Moody Blues was doing as well!

The Moody Blues are a forerunner of the classical music blend of progressive rock, a style in-part pioneered by the Blues, mixed with contemporaries like The Beatles, Procol Harum, and The Beach Boys (not too shabby). The airy, spacey sounds of “Nights in White Satin,” which blends orchestral sounds (part Mellotron, part London Festival Orchestra) with rock – and a wonderful poem (“Late Lament”), which was penned by Edge and read by keyboardist Mike Pinder, inspired so many progressive rock bands – Pink Floyd and King Crimson to name two. The band’s seminal 1967 album is always cited as one of the most influential albums of the 60s. The Moody Blues’ musical success ranges throughout the 70s and the 80s, where the band released “Your Wildest Dreams” in 1986 and “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” in 1988. It is pretty impressive that the Moody Blues had hits in three decades, as not many bands can say that they had this success.

All in all, the concert was a lot of fun and it was a joy experiencing The Moody Blues’ transcendent music with a jam-packed theater of fans of great music!

Matt and Kim has always been known for wacky antics and effervescent pop music. New Glow, Matt and Kim’s fifth full-length will not be any different; the Brooklyn duo who met while attending Pratt Institute is keeping power pop alive.

“Hey Now”,  which features a minimalistic video of the duo dancing maniacally with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background, is a testament to the genre of percussion-laden, horn-heavy pop. Matt and Kim has a penchant for creating opening notes that latch on to a listener’s ears like super glue. If you are a fan of vocal-heavy pop, you just cannot turn the song off and before you know it the song has already repeated 4-5 times. The tracks are short and effective.

Is Matt and Kim for everyone. No, no band is for everyone. However, an attribute I have always respected about the band is its knowledge of who it is. Matt and Kim may change up the notes, but the duo is never going to explore the unfamiliar realm of not creating fun, jocular tracks that listeners can sing along to easily.

The video is just … so … happy! It’s tough to watch it without smiling. That innate joyousness in the music is infectious. Do I love all power poppy music? No. But Matt and Kim has some special quality to the music that makes me want to listen constantly. In “Hey Now,” it is a mix between the segmented vocal chanting, clickity percussion, and the chanted lyric. The song is anthemic, a piece that could easily be the concluding track of a Broadway play or movie … where everything ends well of course. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the new album, which I’m sure will be muy divertido.