The Best Albums Of The Decade: #11 - A New Chance

MP3: The Tough Alliance - Something Special

#11 - The Tough Alliance - A New Chance
Sincerely Yours 2007

Matt On A New Chance:

Cementing 21st Century pop music, TTA mixes the gorgeous Islamic prayer songs with pitch-shifted samples over the course of the this record. Combine those elements with their own musical prowess and the knack for a damn fine melody, and you assume that in Göteborg it's always summer.

Sorta like a dream? No, better.

MP3: Air France - Collapsing At Your Doorstep

It's interesting how an iPod can change the way I take in records. I've had one for years, but over Christmas I got one of the newer, fancier models which has caused me to put anything on it I can find. Imported are cds from the library, promo cds I'd normally never touch, zip files in the email or digital vinyl downloads. I've found I need it all, in order to have an impressive and proper music library.

Doing this causes a lot of albums to get over looked. I am a compulsive music shuffler when it comes to iPods, getting off on the thrill of hearing 2 songs that don't normally go together yet somehow they work or having some music I loved in high school or something that I hadn't appreciated in quite sometime pop up. The biggest joy of all is hearing a song you've never heard before come on and change your life completely.

I bet you can see where this is going now. It was Wednesday night and I was driving to the grocery store to buy some feel better food for my girlfriend who had been sick all day long. I'm feeling a little lonely yet concerned and paying hardly any attention to anything except the road ahead of me. Then it happens: "Collapsing At Your Doorstep" by Air France comes on and it is total game changer. It's hard to believe that something so perfect has been lying dormant on this machine for so long now. Of course, with the song being so good, I had to listen to the record from the start in hopes that the entire opus is up to that caliber. Good news: it is.

Air France is a group I've been aware of for some time and I remember hearing a song from them on a blog once and liking it, which is why I grabbed the record when I saw it, but I never got to listening to it. Shame on me. Besides the fact that they're from Sweden and on the phenomenally radical Sincerely Yours label, the reason to pay attention to them is that they're fucking great. It's everything bands try to be nowadays: sparse and artificial while sounding completely full and organic all the while making use of killer samples. Who knows if they're trying very hard or not, but it comes off so natural that it requires a deep breath and your full attention. So give it, completely.

Can't wait for the next one guys, though I am happy to take "No Way Down" in for the year ahead.

The Tough Alliance

MP3: The Tough Alliance - Neo Violence

NOTE: Today's blog comes from Matt Giordano, who seemed like he may have been kidnapped. He wasn't. Fuck yeah.

It's been taking me a while to figure out what to guest-post with next, and really what to follow Joey's great posts with. So, I've just decided to contribute a song I have been listening to a lot lately, and it's coincidentally from one of the best albums I have heard thus far in the year to date. I really have no idea what the single is from this album, but this track really could be one, if it is not already. After The Tough Alliance had escaped their ambitions last year, they have now returned for a New Chance, and that what this track is from. Enjoy.

{buy the tough alliance releases from parasol}