“Women, Wine, and Snuff”
GIVE me women, wine, and snuff
Untill I cry out “hold, enough!”
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection:
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be
My beloved Trinity.
by John Keats
( Posthumous and fugitive Poems – Circa 1820)
In listening to the music of Ed Harcourt one easily comes to the conclusion that if he and Keats were in a room together, during those final years, this type of poem/work that might have been discussed and drank over. John Keats is one of my favorite poets/writers and I would quickly associate him with soul searching music of Ed Harcourt. I have put a song below, that I find is ALWAYS on my IPOD playlist, in some form or another. It’s the kind of music that ‘riddles my phantasms’.
I first stumbled across Ed Harcourt’s music like 4 years ago and you know when you are a kid and find something that you think is like the most important find since Lewis and Clark found the Pacific coast and lived to make it back east side to tell about it. Like when I used to find 4 leaf clovers I would rush inside and tell my mom, my sister, I would begin the preserving process because it meant I was now ‘lucky’ and now close to finding that pot of ‘gold’ (still waiting on those two swags to hit), but as least I found Ed Harcourt’s music. I remember having to tell almost all of my friends, even my MySpace friends who were like ‘what is that song?’
Be sure to click menu and watch in ‘extended view’ to get a better viewing experience:
Ed Harcourt – Until Tomorrow Then Official Music Video
Below is a look at what is new with Ed. Not to knock the guy, because he does perform with a variety of other bands and appears on the occasional compilation, but Ed Harcourt the musical act had not put anything in 3 years until the May 5th EP. As part of an interesting marketing ploy for the new album, Russian Roulette, his label is distributing usb file holders whose top comes off and has the music stored in it.
As described by Harcourt himself about the album is,
“Six chambers, six songs, one bullet, no wrongs.”
Still one can’t help, but wonder what an album that takes 4 years to record will sound like? If it is anything like Russian Roulette then what you get is something less gruff and somber than his usual swill, but captivating none the less (see the video to the right and the other at the bottom for some indication as both are from Russian Roulette). As talk of a new full length LP rumbles the various magazines and eZines, Harcourt has supposedly titled the 2010 album “Lustre”.
Ed Harcourt is a rare find, like Tom Waits, like Jeff Buckley, like few others, he pushes the limits of music and sounds both vocally and instrumentally until the brink of what often turns out to be greatness.
He is in so many ways like Tom Waits, a true musician’s compliment, because he usually is caught playing the piano, playing an accordian, a drum kit, a tin can, a collector of instruments like Waits willing to play anything. When asked by Laist what the strangest instrument he played on the “Russian Roulette” EP was, Ed remarked,
Probably the musical saw. It’s the instrument from Jack Nitzsche’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestsoundtrack where it comes in and you hear that haunting sound—like a theremin—something weeping, but almost absurd at the same time. It’s a lot of fun, but very difficult to play
And when asked what are some other strange instruments in his collection of the musically eccentric he replied,
I have a thing called a Marxophone which is a weird hammer dulcimer, and I’ve got an Optigan, which is an amazing instrument. It’s sort of a Mellotron played with weird string and rhythm samples.
So while his love of sound making variations does inspire a connection to Tom Waits, as mentioned above, it is however Ed’s vocal leanings that are something a bit more soft sounding and traditionally harmonious or to put it plainly – he’s got a much better voice.
So if Ed Harcourt is someone that if you have heard of already, you’re pretty cool and if you are hearing him for the first time you’re pretty cool too and lucky, like finding several quad leafed clovers in a single search.
To hear tracks off the new EP check out the links below. To hear tracks off of previous albums click the player or the songs induvidually above, as they are under the album that you can find them on. If they are something you might want to own, you can download them below as well:
His official website is: http://www.edharcourt.com/
His MySpace is http://www.myspace.com/60667424
His songs-videos-links off of LastFM: http://www.last.fm/music/Ed+Harcourt
- Maplewood EP (13 November 2000)
- Here Be Monsters (25 June 2001) Sweden #28
- From Every Sphere (17 February 2003) UK #39, Sweden #6, Norway #25, France #103
- Strangers (13 September 2004) UK #57, Sweden #7, France #130
- Elephant’s Graveyard (Digital download only album with B-sides and rarities) (8 August 2005)
- The Beautiful Lie (5 June 2006) Sweden #31
03 – You Only Call Me When You’re Drunk
04 – The Last Cigarette
08 – Until Tomorrow Then
- Until Tomorrow Then: The Best of Ed Harcourt (15 October 2007)
- Russian Roulette EP (5 May 2009)
Song Downloads
Be sure to click menu and watch in ‘extended view’ to get a better viewing experience:
So what is this stuff about bitrates and remastering? Well, non-standard bit rates up to 640 kbit/s can be achieved with the LAME encoder and the freeformat option, although few MP3 playerscan play those files. According to the ISO standard, decoders are only required to be able to decode streams up to 320 kbit/s.The files as a result are slightly larger but thanks to our work and remastering and a few other tweaks we give you the best possible audio that even the mp3 you get off the CD does not give you. A CD will give you 128 kbit/s, we attempt to give you from 128kbit/s to 320 kbit/s whenever possible. The sound quality is more than double, that is all that means. We also hope you respect our rules and regulations and do not in any way shape or form attempt to sell, reuse w/o prior consent and be sure to credit your sources, us if you link to us. We would really appreciate it.
Ed Harcourt 320Bitrate Remastered - Samples - by RPMusic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf.
