Boing Boing tv's London music correspondent Russell Porter caught up with Plant and Krauss backstage at the Mercury Prize, an annual award for the best album from the UK or Ireland.
Rachel and Becky Unthank are sisters, and Russell caught up with them at this year's Nationwide Mercury Prize, where they are up for high honors.
In his "best albums of 2007" review, Paul Morley of Observer Music Magazine described the band's work as "tough as it is gentle, as ancient as it is modern, and as coldly desolate as it is achingly intimate. They might not end up being the best-selling British all-girl group of all time, but they're well on their way to being the most charismatic and imaginative."
The girls are currently on tour throughout the United States and Europe. Their 2007 album The Bairns is lovely, and you can pick it up at Amazon, iTunes, and elsewhere around the web.
"Britain is overflowing with new ideas and imagination, especially when it comes to music," says our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter in today's BBtv episode. Russell is reporting in from the 2008 edition of the Nationwide Mercury Prize, where up-and-coming artists get a chance at instastardom, alongside established headliners like Radiohead or Coldplay. After a brief introduction to the history of this prize (about 3:00 minutes in), Russell introduces us today to the alt-folksy sounds of 19-year-old British singer-songwriter Laura Marling.
Below, a beautiful animated video for the song she performs live during our BBtv ep -- "Ghosts," directed by James Copeman. The song appears on Marling's newly released "Alas I Cannot Swim." Her album is offered in a really cool box set with original artwork.
I blogged about Beardyman in 2007 when this crazy cooking video hit the 'tubes.
If you're in the mood for still more of him doing his thing, below is a popular YouTube video in which Beardyman shows up at some stuffy academic conference, and poses as a lecturer before breaking out into beats.
Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Booker Little, Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, Johnny Hodges, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Steve Coleman, Branford Marsalis, Ray Brown, Jimmy Garrison, Bob Hurst, Ron Carter, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Ben Riley, Thelonious Monk, Jason Moran, Wynton Kelly, Keith Jarrat, Herbie Hancock, Ali Farka Toure, Oumou Sangare and to many others to list.Previous PORTER REPORT episodes on BBtv:
Transgressive was founded by two 20-year-old music fans who wanted to create a company that was "ethically sound and would release the best records in the world." Bands represented include The Young Knives (featured in previous BBtv episodes with Russell Porter, part 1, part 2), The Subways, Ladyfuzz, Jeremy Warmsley, and the Noisettes. Snip from the Transgressive manifesto:
It would be a label not linked to a style or genre, but one which would be represented by a logo that would be simply a stamp of quality on each perfect disk.Previous PORTER REPORT episodes on BBtv:After a couple of pints in a Holborn boozer (not too far away from where Andy Gill would later record the classic debut LP from the Young Knives – although neither of the Trans twins knew it at the time) they had planned the first three releases and strove to grow the label to the stage where they could fund and make records that otherwise would not be released, and build a community of like minded people who could realise that anything is possible…
Transgressive was founded by two 20-year-old music fans who wanted to create a company that was "ethically sound and would release the best records in the world." Bands represented include The Young Knives (featured in previous BBtv episodes with Russell Porter, part 1, part 2), The Subways, Ladyfuzz, Jeremy Warmsley, and the Noisettes. Snip from the Transgressive manifesto:
It would be a label not linked to a style or genre, but one which would be represented by a logo that would be simply a stamp of quality on each perfect disk.Previous PORTER REPORT episodes on BBtv:After a couple of pints in a Holborn boozer (not too far away from where Andy Gill would later record the classic debut LP from the Young Knives – although neither of the Trans twins knew it at the time) they had planned the first three releases and strove to grow the label to the stage where they could fund and make records that otherwise would not be released, and build a community of like minded people who could realise that anything is possible…
Today, part two of his exclusive two-part interview for Boing Boing tv with the soulful Brit singer-songwriter Alice Russell, whose musical influences include Chaka Khan, Jill Scott, Aretha Franklin, and Minnie Riperton. Here's the Brighton beauty's Wikipedia entry (with a decent discography); here's her MySpace page with tons of music clips, and gig dates.
Previous PORTER REPORT episodes on BBtv:
Today, part one of his exclusive interview for Boing Boing tv with the soulful Brit singer-songwriter Alice Russell, whose musical influences include Chaka Khan, Jill Scott, Aretha Franklin, and Minnie Riperton. Here's the Brighton beauty's Wikipedia entry (with a decent discography); here's her MySpace page with tons of music clips, and gig dates.
Previous PORTER REPORT episodes on BBtv:
Today, part two of his exclusive interview for Boing Boing tv with the rap / IDM / hiphop / house / genre-bending artist Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton, who hails from Edmonton, Canada.
Cadence Weapon, who is 22 years old, is touring Europe and US throughout the summer. Dates are listed -- where else? -- on his MySpace, along with various blinky things. His newest record Afterparty Babies was just released on Epitaph, and is, as the kids say, fierce.
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