Monday, June 21, 2010

Mister Fusty Releases Connect EP for Charity

Connect EP by Mister Fusty

Today one of my favorite pop artists Mister Fusty (the pseudonym of musician Rob Gibson from Whitley Bay, England) is releasing their latest 5 track EP. I got to have a listen to the album ahead of time and I've been anxiously waiting until today to release this review. Not only are the songs great, but the EP can be purchased for $5 from his Soundcloud page (which can be found at the bottom of this article) and all sales of the EP will go to two charities, Cancer Research UK and The World Society for the Protection of Animals.

Rob explains, "My wife ran the Race For Life last year, and hopes to do it again this year and I thought it would be a nice idea to get people who listen to Mister Fusty to sponsor her by way of this EP. For non-UK Fusty listeners I decided to give the other half of the money to an international charity as well, the World Society for the Protection of Animals. My musical exploits are a hobby and labour of love really, so any money from sales that come my way I'm happy to pass them on to a good cause."

Mister Fusty considers Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach and The Beatles as influences for his sound and this is evident in his compositions and production techniques, but he also uses the computer to achieve some of the effects used by newer artists like Stereolab, The High Llamas and Air. In other words, it's a mixing pot of every great artist of the last century.

With such a great list of influences its no wonder that Mister Fusty's 5th release oozes such class. Each song on the EP reveals Rob Gibson's mastery in his home studio. Each song sounds fantastic and is mixed perfectly. I know that Mister Fusty's last album, Over The Rocky Mountains, was mastered by Jimmy Ether, but there is no indication that anyone other than Rob Gibson worked on this album and it sounds fantastic!

Each track relies heavily on electronic and synthetic instruments for the backing tracks, (with the exception of Peacock Teardrop, which features some great guitar playing) and has Rob himnself singing lead on every track (except Uptown Connection), often doubling his voice to make great vocal harmonies like on Your Stupid Plan. He also applied a considerable amount of reverb, which is completely in fashion right now, but it certainly isn't overdone, in fact, the reverb on this album sounds really great and helps the synth instruments to sound more life-like.

Mister Fusty's Connect EP is another instant classic; the best album I've heard since EXPO's She Sells Seashells. But come to find out, Mister Fusty and EXPO are colleagues! I recommend that any fan of pop music go buy Mister Fusty's Connect EP now and help fight cancer, animal abuse and bad music. It's really a win, win, win!


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Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Man From Another Place's First Video

Hello everyone,

The greatest thing that I listened to last year was The Loneliest Cowboy EP, the debut release from The Man From Another Place; brain-child of Scottish composer Daniel Hirst. I really love The Loneliest Cowboy EP so much that I listen to it for inspiration when it comes time for me to start recording my own music. It really is like every band that I love combined into one simple package. It has the compositional skill of a Heavy Blinkers song with the catchiness of a Beach Boys tune, without any vocals, which, in my opinion leaves room for you to ponder on the meaning of the songs with just your own imagination as reference.

The video stars Ron Smith and Abbra Smallwood and is directed by Justin Hannah, a director from Lexington, KY. The description of the video reads "Alone in the darkness, a man is haunted by a memory, warm, shimmering and beautiful". I couldn't agree more, so I am happy to share his first of what I know will be several, music videos. =]



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