A New Weird World?

Earlier in 2009 I was involved in putting together the virtual compilation album Crumby Lovers: A New Weird UK Sampler (Yeah yeah, we know can you please just STOP going on about it?). Well, anyway, it featured tracks that were a kind of quirky lo-fi pop that may or may not necessarily have done justice to the (now a little hackneyed) term ‘new weird’ but, honestly, I don’t really care. Anyway, that album was restricted to UK based acts and in this article I’d like to share some of the other amazing acts, broadly in that category (I said BROADLY) that I also discovered from around the world:

Papa Topo (Spain)
In the song Cancion Para Jordi: The clunk of the tape recorder and some scrabbling around implies that this is going to be pure lo-fi, a suspicion consolidated further by the tinkle of what sounds like a toy xylophone and the fragile vocals of the youthful Adrià Arbona. But what’s that? A casio organ? And a piano? As the track gradually builds through its lilting verse-chous refrain it elaborates its lo-fi premise and the colourful music box orchestra transports the listener to distant place, brimming with innocence and sadness until, suddenly, we’re back again with just Adrià’s fading vocal and the hissing of tape... Their myspace suggests that they seem to be going places since I first stumbled upon them and sadly this track isn’t free a download anymore, so here’s another one that is: Oso Panda

Jeffrey Martin (Illinois, USA)
The song His Heart Can’t Freeze imparts a rare sense of melancholy that is wholly uncontrived. You often here the phrases like “raw, honest stripped-down song-writing” and it’s usually rubbish, but with Jeffrey Martin’s songs you feel that this description can genuinely be applied. He does not seem concerned about who his audience is or what they might think, the songs just exist on their own terms. And because of this I find the music has reached my heart in a way that I wouldn’t have expected.

Le Fils des Trois Mousquetaires (Belgium)
Marilyn has already sung the praises of this lo-fi Belgian with talent to spare and cover art to die for in her article here. Sixt is, for me, ninety-six seconds of awesome.

Alex Roc and the Penitents (Spain)
A “homemade folk band” whose first release, Big White Room, was apparently “recorded in a 3 m2 room in Budapest”. You gotta love it for that alone. Love is Gonna Make Us is my favourite.

Rum Tum Tiddles (France)
Based in France but with an English singer, We Could Be Pirates is acoustic lo-fi with a chorus promoting popping plosives to an extreme level. In keeping with its theme, it has a shanty-pop feel that, whilst very ‘twee’, is just short of annoying. Instead it manages to evoke a quirky charm that perfectly sustains its two and half minutes.

David McAfee (Pennsylvania, USA)
I don’t know much about David McAfee, except that I like him. His MySpace states “My only good song is called 'the lion', and perhaps soon I'll write more like it.” Well here’s hoping. It’s not true though, I like his ‘quiet songs’, but The Lion is certainly a stand-out piece and I entreat you to listen.