You know it never occurred to me that Meursault’s band name would prove so tricky to spell, but first the BBC and now Mojo magazine have managed to spell it incorrectly, and both in different ways. When they were played on Gideon Coe last week they were on the track listing as Meuersault, and now their brilliant review in this month’s Mojo starts with them being referred to as Mersault. God knows how that’s going to affect any of our potential sales, but I hope we don’t have too many people give on looking for a band that might not drop easily out of a Google search. I’ve written a page on the label site with both misspellings in the URL and the title, which is about all I can think of.
Anyway, what a fucking great review eh? Well done lads. The album can be pre-ordered here, in advance of a 15th December release date, or bought at the Song, by Toad Christmas Party next Friday at the Bowery.
Aaron Schroeder – Hooray For You
This sunny little indie-pop gem came to me completely and utterly out of the blue. Compared to Billy Bragg and Belle & Sebastian, what I hear more than anything else is Brendan Benson, although with some of the power take out of the pop and hugely satisfying sense of gentle contemplation filling the gaps.
This is by and large a really gorgeous record of perfectly assembled pop songs, and Aaron has interspersed the the roll-along country-tinged songs of Sunday afternoon bliss with some more bittersweet melodies of regret and disappointment which bring perfect balance to the album. A little like Benson himself it is easy to listen to this and dismiss it as just another album of hummable power pop, but that would be a mistake. Ultimately he isn’t breaking any musical boundaries, but he writes absolutely spot-on songs – perfectly paced, every one sticks in your head, and I could barely think of a bad time to listen to this.
It’s officially released some time in early September I think, but you can pre-order a copy here and I thoroughly recommend it. Honestly, there’s not a duff song on the whole thing, and it all hangs together perfectly. This is nothing that will shake the foundations of your universe, but I promise it will leave it a better place.
Aaron Schroeder – What We Don’t Know[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/AaronSchroeder-WhatWeDontKnow.mp3]
Aaron Schroeder – Emmylou[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/AaronSchroeder-Emmylou.mp3]
website | myspace | pre-order the album from his site (official release sometime in September)
