2007年 01月 10日 水曜日 01:54

I just listened to the "early release" :P of Sondre Lerche's latest album Phantom Punch. I was surprised to see a version of Johnny Johnny Ooh Ooh there (and then surprised not to see Hoisting the Flag since it's also a very beautiful song from Two Way Monologue EP).

The version's called John, Let Me Go and I must say I prefer the old one. This one's also very nice, the guitar/voice only first part of the chorus is great, but the hole song just pales before the first version, an incredible sample of SL's "music power" (yeah, I just invented that).

About the album, I gotta say it was everything I expected to be (rockier, jollier, lighter and more upbeat than the other albums), maybe a little punkier. This may not be a great feature to me but it does make the spectre of genres and styles he plays wider, and that's always good when introducing him to new listeners. Only Tragic Mirror is hint a of the past.

I'll probably write more about the album when it's officially release (for no other reason that I don't want to now). But if I may say something weird, some song are ver J-poppy (i.e. Say It All).

In a related issue, in my quest of searching for Sondre Lerche's similar artist (the real kind ones, not last.fm's) I found Jeremy Warmsley. Well, actually it was by "accident", it was on a great indie fan made compilation I found
here where I also discovered Phoenix and The Spinto Band.

Anyway, I thought it had some vocal stuff very similar to SL's singing, specially in songs I Promise and Dirty Blue Jeans. And regardless the similarity to Sondre Lerche or the lack of it this english guy released a very nice album (2006's The Art of Fiction) really worth listening. My favorite tracks, after the ones I mentioned, are I Believe in the Way You Move, I Knew That Her Face Was a Lie and 5 Verses.

If someone finds another artist similar to Sondre Lerche please let me now (the quest is now official, join me and others in this adventure).

By the way (?), here's a list of Sondre Lerche's recomended songs from his website (I just put them here so I can check them out automatically):

Night By Night
Waterfront Gang War
Consolation Prizes
I'm Thru With Love
Wild And Free
You Don't Have To Camp Around
Kodachrome
Leipzig
When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty
Ice Cream Blues
Mustang Cor de Sangue
Touched
Beginning To See The Light
Stupid As The Sun
There's A Lull In My Life
Dreamboat Annie
Crosseyed And Painless
Sweet Trinidad
Under Control
Green Up Time
Crazy Eyes Go Blind
Angels Of Ashes
Iemanja
Clean Money
Marble Arch
New Broadway
Falling And Laughing
Long Distance Call
That Teenage Feeling
Zopf: b: In a Sydney Motel
Não Foi Nada
Chinese Translation
Waterfront Gang War
The Night Belongs To Mona
Venus
Airwaves
Dreamboat Annie
We Are The Sleepyheads
Milagre Dos Peixes
Apostolic
All My Better Days
Dim Sum moon
Viver, Viver
Romance on The Train
Marble Arch
Ize Of The World
Miles Davis
Crescent Moon
Poor Old Soul (Part One)

And for the big ending, here's Sondre playing Johhny Ooh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIl-xkWJtV0