Porlolo – Meadows
I only found this band recently, and I am absolutely delighted with this album. Delight is probably the right word for the music as well, which simply leaks loveliness into your life as if it had an infinite supply to spread around. It’s somewhat fitting that the last song should be called Charm School too, seeing as that is a lesson Porlolo could teach you in their sleep.
Porlolo have quite a lot in common with the likes of Laura Viers and other thoughtful, slightly introverted acoustic campfire ladies. That’s a slightly glib stereotype, but particularly in the vocals I can hear a real ‘type’ here, I just can’t quite figure out how best to describe it.
A month or so ago, when I first wrote about them, I posted two song which I didn’t realise were actually from this album, although Turning on Heels went by a different name back then. The feel of the record is a little different from the vibe you’d pick up from just those two songs though. There’s more hush, more tension, more cinema in the record, and less folky prettiniess. Reverbed guitar undercurrents growl away at the back of songs like I Don’t Know, bringing just a little crunchiness to an album that is otherwise delivered with a very light touch indeed.
This kind of stain on such an immaculately lovely fascia gives the album a bit of depth which I rather like. Definitely worth investigating.
Porlolo – Turning on Heels
Porlolo – I Know, I Know
MySpace | More mp3s | Buy the album from CDBaby (it’s not live yet, but hopefully will be in the next couple of days).
Ghostkeeper & the Children of the Great Northern Muskeg
I honestly didn’t get this album the first few times through, and now I have no idea how that could have happened. The hooks, delightful little tunes lapsing into growly guitar, it’s all spot on. Maybe I was just having a dopey week – it does happen, you know.
This reminds me an awful lot of a less strident version of Ravens & Chimes’ brilliant Reichenbach Falls last year, albeit without the ringing piano. The guitar rhythms are slightly awkward, the whole presentation slipping from the melodic to the vaguely off key and abrupt, and then backagain without much warning.
It’s almost like they’re a band that could write a perfect pop song if they wanted, but they just chose to baffle everyone by smuggling it into their lives under the disguise of an album of discordant indie. It shouldn’t take long to grow on you, but it may start quite low on your radar. First time through it just didn’t sound very good, but once I’d separated the sound from the standard difficult indie guitar album and the hooks from the standard radio pop and started to understand quite how brilliantly the two are put together then it really started to climb swiftly in my affections until suddenly I realised that I’d decided that it really is superb.
And what do they do once the growl of the guitar and the slide of the music threatens to get a little much? They slip in a gorgeous splash of drummer Sarah Houle’s gorgeous vocals or breezy harmonies, just to set you neatly back off balance once again. It’s excellent; Mrs. Toad will hate it, but I think it’s great!
Ghostkeeper – Cruisin’ the Chev
Ghostkeeper – Afternoon Girl
