Here’s another Norwegian group for you, because can you really have too many? No! This group is harder to classify due to them knowing how to play ten million different instruments, but some… poppy/folky/cabaret? Sure! It is also sung in English, which is helpful to judge the quality of the lyrics. In this case, amazing lyrics, along with amazing music, amazing singing, and just other general amazingness. Amazing! Amazing! Thanks to Doug for the suggestion on this one!
If there is one thing in this world, it is good food. A few more options down the line, however, good cabaret music eventually comes up. Not the needlessly dark tripe that seems to have riddled the genre, but the stuff that does what cabaret is supposed to do… y’know, entertain people. Perhaps I am a traditionalist in that regard, or perhaps I am just tired of listening to over-hyped crap. Either way, Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat are on the good side of cabaret music. Despite having a song entitled, well, I Hate Cabaret, their songs are nothing short of enjoyable. One caveat is that all their songs are not cabaret songs – Shake Your Dance Stick, for instance, sounds electro. I suppose it isn’t blasphemous for cabaret bands to play different kinds of music, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen to them! Both of these songs are great, and you probably don’t have to be a particularly discerning cabaret fan to agree.
From Take That!
I Hate Cabaret – (MP3, 3.3 MB)
Little Death – (MP3, 3.2 MB)
It is interesting to see what one learns about themselves from their music blogs. I have learned that try as I might, and no matter how much good music gets thrown my way, I will still sit on it much like a toilet after too many burritos. Now that that pleasant image is in your mind, I would like to introduce you to New York’s Says She’s Ms. Blat. They play cabaret music in the style it was always (or at least originally) intended to be: entertaining! Between their spirited and sexy vocalist/keyboardist Lottie and drummer Bret, they’ve made an album that’s never too dark and never too light, not to mention never boring! Everything is properly balanced, and the lyrics are as sassy as you might expect (especially on their song Poseurs.) All in all, an album so well-done that you can’t believe they haven’t been signed to a label. It makes me wish I had one, to say the least.
And here’s videos of So Long! (If I Had More Money) and Not Sorry, some of the many standouts of the album.
Once again, I am redefining the very, erm, definition of lazy. It’s not that there’s a lack of excellent music, either. Perhaps now that I’ve joined MOG, a music blog network, I will be more regularly shamed into writing something. Amber Lee & The Anomalies has what she terms “neo-folkloric accordion charm,” and I am not about to disagree! Her debut album, Estuaries, is indeed full of such charm. Songs like Not As The Crow Flies and It’s Me stretches the limit of upbeat accordion music. That does not mean it’s always happy music, of course; the music on Only The Girls reminds me of the darker moments of The Tiger Lillies’ album The Sea, and well, you just can’t expect songs called Whaler’s Wife or Beautiful Decay to be too cheerful. Her vocals keep anything from getting too dark, though. Listen to her song Time Master below, it’s the opening track of her album and one of my favorites.
From Estuaries
Time Master – (MP3, 3 MB)
For some reason, blogging’s become a higher priority for me lately. Partly because I’ve got more music, partly because we’ve got an adoring fanbase of 1 person, but either way, this posting frenzy won’t last (it never does), so enjoy it while it does! Reverend Glasseye is kind of a musical enigma in that you can’t really pigeonhole them too well, they sound like too many different things at once. Part gypsy, part cabaret, part punk, part “insert genre,” it’s amazing how they can pull it all together into genuinely enjoyable music. I can’t believe that it’s taken me this long to realize that 17 Lashes is a freaking amazing song, and my favorite of the good Reverend’s. I’ll give you 17 lashes to the face if you don’t like it!
From Our Lady Of The Broken Spine
17 Lashes – (MP3, 8.7 MB)
King Of Men – (MP3, 4.4 MB)
From Black River Falls
Seven Little Girls – (MP3, 6.4 MB)
Three Ton Chain – (MP3, 2.9 MB)
After uploading some songs by The Tiger Lillies for our still #1 fan (not that there is a whole lot of contest), I decided, why not write a dang post about them? I mentioned them in my best-of-’06 post, and the bastards already have another album, this time with a 30-person orchestra. I have yet to hear more than a few tracks off that particular album, but they have more than 15 other albums, which is nearly as insane as me having them. Either way, if you enjoy accordions, falsettos, and hilarious and/or offensive songs, you will love this band. And good news for American fans: they will be playing in both Washington and California in October/November. You can find exact dates here.
From Die Weberischen
Lending Song – (MP3, 2.9 MB)
From Punch And Judy
Mummy Loved Me – (MP3, 3.9 MB)
From Bad Blood Blasphemy
Swing ’em High – (MP3, 3.1 MB)
From Shockheaded Peter, A Junk Opera
Bully Boys – (MP3, 3.3 MB)
I’m not entirely sure when I first heard Hannah Fury, but it was probably after whoring through last.fm looking for good cabaret singers a few months ago. She stands out from most cabaret due to her music being much sparser, with many of her songs featuring just her voice and piano (and even then, quite minimally). This isn’t the ideal season for this sort of music, but I like to think that good music is worth listening to any time of the year. She’s got a new album coming out later this year as well, and I’ll post a song from that when it does.
From The Thing That Feels
Meathook – (MP3, 2.1 MB)
From Soul Poison
The Necklace Of Marie Antoinette – (MP3, 3.2 MB)
Scars – (MP3, 4.3 MB)
I’m not entirely sure where I heard of Abigail Grush, but she’s another good singer making strange music from Portland. She goes more places musically than you usually hear on a single album, which is a good thing if you have diverse tastes. Mine are probably not as diverse as necessary to fully enjoy her music, but her newest album, Through Being Mean, has some good, fairly accessible songs, and none of them are bad. Only In My Dreams is something of a cabaret-pop song with violins, and my favorite on the album for both the jazzy singing and this lyric: “But when I’m asleep, I insist that you exist only in my dreams.” It seems I am becoming a sappy bastard in my old age! Another standout is Avoidance Techniques which is also something of a cabaret-pop song, but with a lot of guitars as well, and then a saxophone kicks in at the end. It’s not as overwhelmingly strange as it might sound, though. You can download the rest of the album on her webpage, too.
From Through Being Mean
Only In My Dreams – (MP3, 4.3 MB)
Avoidance Techniques – (MP3, 6.8 MB)
Vermillion Lies is a circus-cabaret group out of… California? That amuses me to no end, but the music is as authentic as you’re going to find anywhere (perhaps there is hope for the West Coast after all). The band’s headed by two sisters, both of whom are quite capable singers. I’m not sure which sister sings No Good, but her voice sounded exactly like Katharine Whalen’s, the lady who sang for the Squirrel Nut Zippers; this can only be a good thing. While the singing is different on their other songs, it’s still good enough that they can make the lyric “It’s true you are my fish filet” sound sexy. Words to melt any man’s heart, I suppose. If that wasn’t enough, their guitarist has also worked with Tom Waits and The Tiger Lillies. There aren’t many bands that can say that, and none that seem as strange as a circus-cabaret group from California.
From Seperated By Birth
No Good – (MP3, 3 MB)
Circus Apocalypse – (MP3, 3.3 MB)
Circus Fish – (MP3, 2.4 MB)
HUMANWINE (all caps, no gaps!) is an incredibly awesome cabaret group out of Boston, which is unfortunate for me as I am nowhere near Boston. That’s my only beef with good cabaret bands; they are all from the East Coast, while I am from the West. Fie! It seems that whenever I bring up this band, the only people who seem to have heard of them are those who know they’ve opened for The Dresden Dolls. While that’s entirely true, that shouldn’t be their claim to fame when their music is so damn good. Oh well. They’re kicking off the Fighting Naked tour on Tuesday, which doesn’t get any closer to me than Missouri… fie, again! And for those of you near Philly, another one of my cabaret favorites, Nicki Jaine, is playing with them at their first stop. I need to move…
From Rivolta Silenziosa
Rivolta Silenziosa – (MP3, 4.5 MB)
