Midlake - Bamnan and Slivercork

Bamnan and Silvercork is the first studio album recorder by the US rock band Midlake.

Out in 2004, the album mixes together warm acoustic sounds with electronica and low-fidelity keyboard sounds. We really like the world and the ambiance they managed to create; hipnotic, warm, trippy and little melancholic... We really invite you to listen to it in its entire version. Sorry we haven't found the full album on Youtube but all other songs are easy to find from the link.

 

 

Unless the album scores well on all all website reviews we have found, we have read  some though coments on which really we don't agree.  Apparently surprised by the low-fidelity sound style, some reviewers said that they seemed to be obsessed by the early psychedelic pop days of 1966-1967, that it looked like album was produced by some students in a garage and that they were trying to reproduce the  Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band  album with toy instruments on a portable cassette recorder, that is, with even more impressionistic lyrics...

We believe that the sounds is carefully chosen and balanced, that there are a lot of interesting texture out there, and the arrangements are well done. It is great to discover that the band has a jazz formation: they all come from the University of North Texas College of Music where they made their studies together.  Their initial work – under the name "The Cornbread All-Stars" — consisted of funk/jazz explorations heavily influenced by Herbie Hancock. They then turned to Indie rock influenced apparently influenced by Radiohead and  Jethro Tull and Grandaddy.

Others Intertesting Midlake EP and Albums

There are previous EP which are interesting 

• Milkmaid Grand Army is the debut release by the US band Midlake. The EP was originally released in 2001 by the band in a limited edition of 1,000 before they signed to Bella Union.
  

Listen to "Paper Grown"

http://bit.ly/1onYyAc

• Trials of Van Occupanther is the second album and is a departure from their low-fidelity, psychedelic pop-influenced debut.The Trials of Van Occupanther jumps with both feet into the '70s of Laurel Canyon troubadours and soft rock balladeers.The first thing you notice on the album is the stunning vocal harmonies
  They might be stuck in the '70s, but they make it sound like the best place on earth. It is also an excellent we recomend you to listen to.

Others albums

We didn´t appreciate so much the third album The Courage of Others. 

We find it really depresive and not as interesting as Trials of Van Occupanther.

 We didn´t like to read that Tim Smith the band's leader decided to leave the band. He was not happy about the last album project which recording in Studio an album intended to be called " Seven Long Suns" he fellt that it was lifeless and unemotional like the two last year productions. and decide to leave the band and is working on a new project named Harp.

In the meanwhile the band put the guitarist Eric Pulido has leadsinger and recorder in 6 months a new album named Antiphon, with influences from Pink Floyd and Fleet Foxes. The album is more the result of a band collaboration than a lead singer production. It is great even if we liked the Tim Smith stamp.

 How did we discover the band?

Years ago! As Skateboarder being born in the 80's, many of our basic references in music come from some skateboarding video tapes and we one day, discovered the "Stereo Skateboards - Way Out East!"  A fantastic 8 & 16mm motion picture featuring a 3 week skateboarding trip to London, Paris and New York.

"Way Out East! - Stereo Skateboards"

 

it was released in 2004, on the same year than the album Bamnan and Slivercork by skateboarder Jason Lee. The video is impressive, the music is really good, in balance to the Midlake album, there are some great soul and funk tracks and the skateboarding sessions are pure and relate a real spirit. 

At this time Jason Lee also produced the video clip "Balloon Maker" for the band and he never stopped supporting Midlake since then.

"Ballon Maker"

Jason Lee...did you recognized him? He is also an actor and we are pretty sure that you have seen some of his appearances on TV series My Name is Earl or less probable but possible Alvin and the Chipmunks.   

Like many other skaters, he is a very interesting guy plent of talent.

The skateboarding company he created was kind of another world. Chris Patras, the co -founder said  "We both kinda had similar music tastes and interests. We weren't, like, drinking beer, we were drinking wine—you know? ... Stereo was, kinda, a manifestation of our, sort of, aesthetic. We both got, sorta, I guess, like, disillusioned with ... things, it was just like a no-brainer, you know, like, why don't we start our own deal? Our concept wasn't fully developed. It was just like, "Oh yeah, we want, like, a retro skate brand!", you know?' 

The Skateboarding Music Culture

If you know a little bit about skateboarding or if you are patient enough you can take a look to this website. http://www.skateboardmusic.com/. It features almost all the Skateboarding Video Tape with their soundtracks and there are really good music to discover here!

La Musica en Verite / Author: @Manudehemptinne