wears the trousers magazine


fursaxa: kobold moon /// sharron kraus: the fox’s wedding /// tau emerald: travellers two (2008)
July 21, 2008, 10:51 pm
Filed under: album, review | Tags: , , , , ,

  

Fursaxa
Kobold Moon •••
Sylph 

Sharron Kraus
The Fox’s Wedding ••••
Durtro/Jnana 

Tau Emerald
Travellers Two •••½
Important

I have no doubt at all that you, dear reader, are looking at that triple header with a smile on your face, gasping at the sheer audacity and grinning at ambition that isn’t just naked, it’s naked with balloons tied to its rude bits and sprinting across the Lord’s turf while being projected onto the side of the Houses of Parliament at state opening, buttocks streaming through the windows and glinting off the Queen’s crown, blinding the mindless puppets pretending to run the country…what’s that? The screens? Of course, nurse, sorry about that.

Connections and collaborations, interactions and entanglements: Fursaxa is Tara Burke and she and Sharron Kraus are Tau Emerald, hence today’s three-way tag tussle. Fursaxa produce what might be best described as folk music, albeit of a distinctly dark and eerie vein, while Kraus – not to be confused with bluegrass heroine Alison – purveys creepy, moonlit music that falls most easily into the folk category. So dark folk + folky darkness = the bleeding obvious? Well, let’s see.

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russian red: i love your glasses (2008)
July 21, 2008, 10:20 pm
Filed under: album, review | Tags: , , ,

Russian Red
I Love Your Glasses ••••½
Eureka/PIAS

Little is known outside of her native Spain of Lourdes Hernández. With the recent release of her debut album I Love Your Glasses on Spanish label Eureka Records, that is likely to change. Choosing (quite astutely) to sing in English, the songstress who performs under the moniker Russian Red has drawn comparisons with Joanna Newsom and Feist, among others, and it will be a wonder if she isn’t pulled in to be the next voice of car and iPod commercials across the globe.

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trouser shorts: tori amos, regina spektor and more

Tori Amos will be conducting a live video webchat on her website on July 23rd, ahead of the release of ‘Comic Book Tattoo’, a 400-page anthology of comic strips based on writers’ and artists’ interpretations of her lyrics. The chat starts at 4pm PST, which is 8am (oops!) midnight UK time. Tori is currently in California promoting the anthology with an appearance at this year’s Comic-Con. Read all about ‘Comic Book Tattoo’ over at Spinner.

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Regina Spektor has recorded a duet with piano man Ben Folds who releases his new album, Way To Normal, on September 29th. The song, ‘You Don’t Know Me’ will be the album’s first single so we can expect to hear it soon! Folds, of course, has recently worked with Dresden Dolls singer Amanda Palmer, producing her debut solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, out September 15th.

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