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And it’s delightful. Continuing this week’s accidental Mexican theme,here is the proper video for my No 1 track of 2008. Shot on location in the towns of Garcia, Xilitla, and the Icamole Desert in Mexico. Here are the EOTS boys throwing shapes and looking silly as all sorts of Día de los Muertos malarkey happens around them.
And this is what proper popstars should do. Huzzah!
Happy weekend.
Sam La More Remix of Walking on a Dream.
The Beeb do this every year and the acts they tip do tend to go on to success. Last year Adele topped the poll followed by Duffy, The Ting Tings and Glasvegas. See?
So, I’m practically vomiting with excitement to learn that Empire Of The Sun have made the longlist for 2009. The band are very popular round these parts and have been for some time since Walking On A Dream appeared in August. Follow up single We Are The People may be my top track of the year (working on the list at the mo, have patience as Gary Barlow might say).
Of course if they win, and become super famous, I’ll totally go off them and say “I knew them when they were nothing” and cry a little into my pillow every night until the next Prefab Sprout album comes out.
Anyway, here is a suitably deranged interview they did with Auntie Beeb. And best of luck!
‘We Are The People’ is making a strong bid to be my track of 2008, and now the remixes are starting to appear. This one, by Ted & Francis, is not as dancefloor-friendly as some of the remixes of ‘Walking On A Dream’, but it ain’t bad. It underuses the heartbreaking refrain from the original, which, given the weird structure of the original, is understandable.
Download ‘We Are the People (Ted & Francis Remix)’ by Empire of the Sun [mediafire link]
I ordered the CD from CDWow (couldn’t resist buying it again even after getting via iTunes – I’m such a sucker.)
UPDATE: CDWow seem to be selling the album for €1.99 at the moment – that has to be a mistake! Grab it quick! Looks like that ship has sailed!
- If any of our students are reading – and we love you very much and all that – please don’t come near me for the next week and a half unless it’s mind-crushingly urgent (e.g. Sarah Palin has mistaken you for a moose and has started shooting at you from her helicopter). ktnxbai
Speaking of work, our experimental little groovy website is up for Best Third Level Site Award this weekend in the Irish Web Awards. One is rather chuffed as we are up against the entire sites of TCD, UCD, QUB, Limerick IT and IT Blanchardstown. We are the first ones in the Uni to go down the youtube, twitter, flickr, delicious, blog route (and we kinda did it under the radar cos we’ve mavricks. “Oh hai, Communications Officer! Didn’t see you there! Oh, that interactive thing? I’ve no idea where that came from…”) 
The Empire Of The Sun album is in iTunes. And it’s iTunes Plus. I had to have it, even though I will stump up for the CD at some stage. It also appears to be magnificent. (Apart from a track called ‘Breakdown’, which is a bit crap)- Abba’s The Visitors is also magnificent.
Conor, even you would enjoy the melodic misery. - I’m being utterly useless at packing for my move to London. So far, I’ve managed to rip some old CDs and then put them into a box. This is not very helpful.
- Speaking of London, I’ve been wasting time working on my playlist for the Nov 1st DJ engagement. Is it overly ambitious to try remixing Ebony & Ivory? In a bhangra style?
- I can’t do well when I think you’re gonna leave, but you know I try. Are you gonna leave me now? Can’t you be believin’ now?
They are totally spoiling us with the release of another track from the forthcoming album. This delicious track - yes, it’s really good – is called We Are The People and it’s in the iTunes Store for the princely sum of 99 of your European cents. It’s wistful, hooky and very Sleepy Jackson. Buy!
I am now officially Quite Excited Indeed about this album.
Luke Steel from the Sleepy Jackson meets Nick Littlemore from Pnau/Teenagers to form Empire of the Sun.
If that means nothing to you, then you simply must not have heard Personality – One Was a Spider One Was a Bird, the hugely ambitious and OTT album by the Australian Steel (and whoever he hadn’t ejected from his band at the time). It’s crammed with melodies, violins, multtracked voices and at times is at risk of collapsing inwards under the Spectoresque weight of its production.
Sleeve of Personality
Not one for the 128kbps torrent mp3. Buy the CD and rip her high, high, HIGH.
It came out in 2006 and I bought it in Fopp in London (RIP) purely because of the cover and a faint memory of a decent review. Over the next few months (and years), it became my favourite album of the 2000’s.
Anyway, Steel is back with Empire of the Sun, and the first single is the rather jaunty Walking on a Dream. There is a recognisable Sleepy vibe about it which bodes well for the forthcoming album.
In the video, Mssrs Steel and Littlemore cavort about Shanghai in a colourful and amusing fashion. I do like a popstar who makes the effort to dress up and risks looking like a bit of a tit.
Over at the site for the track (no artist site yet?), you can download the Sam la More mix (cosmic disco, mmm yes). [EDIT: That download isn't working (times out quickly) but look what hypem found....]
“I’m just thrilled, Father!”
Bonus Vid: Devil Was In My Yard by The Sleepy Jackson. Bonkers.
