I've had rather a lot to do of late, and now i'm starting to feel a bit guilty about not posting up a few things that I have meant to have posted up. Unfortunately I still have rather a lot to do. So no fucking round with pictures today. Text & tunes.
I'm liking Yuksek more with every record & remix he produces... and his first single since I triple dosed you in October is another cracker. 'Composer' comes backed with mixes from Surkin and Vicarious Bliss, but i don't feel that either improve on the original.
YUKSEK - COMPOSER
REMOVED BY REQUEST
I was sure i'd mentioned his poppier side-project Klanguage before as well, but now i'm not so sure. There are several great tracks from last year's eponymous album, but try on the irresistible 'All This Time' for size. Sounds like it could be soundtracking a hip American teen movie. 'Priceless Things' is possibly more brilliant. Scope it out.
KLANGUAGE - ALL THIS TIME (Hot)
REMOVED BY REQUEST Fluokids have sensibly posted up a couple of Yuksek remixes in the last week. So grab 'em while you can.
Another fast rising name in the world of Euro distorto-tech is Cajuan... straight outta Germany ya! His last single pricked up some ears thanks to a Digitalism remix, and this new one 'Raven' seems to have pricked up some more thanks to a remix by Joakim and lots of play by all those DJs that seem to be forever listed together... normally before or after Erol Alkan. Raven should be available from today in all the usual places.
CAJUAN - RAVEN (CAJUAN'S MOOG RAVE MIX)
CAJUAN - DANCE NOT DANCE (DIGITALISM REMIX)
REMOVED BY REQUEST Along much the same lines is this slamming new Felix Da Housecat remix of 'For Sale' by 'Buy Now'. I don't really know these chaps Steve Angello & Sebastian Ingrosso, except that every time I hear Pete Tong spewing out of the radio (which isn't very often) he seems to be mentioning their names. Not a huge recommendation I know, however this Felix da Housecat remix manages to inflict just enough Chicago jack onto what I presume was originally pretty mainstream euro-cheese.
It's getting chilly at last. Thank god. Maybe at last some of those small furry woodland creatures can get some kip for a couple of months.
I've been meaning for a while to check out Emperor Machine... the Krauty side project of Chicken Lips' Andrew Meecham. And what better time than with this hot and quite brilliant new remix of The Knife's 'Marble House'.
Dragging The Knife down into a K-Hole, via a dark smoke filled room, I can imagine some of the frequencies displayed here could cause some serious rearrangement of your internal organs. A dark, throbbing bass is mixed in with some shimmering analogue synths turned to 'italo'. This really makes the original sound tinny and weak in comparison. A huge pulsating sound.
From the Special K to the Amphetaminas... here's the new single from Baile Funk dons Bonde do Role. 'Gasolina' comes with a superb set of mixes, and I was about to post up the 'Buraka Som Sistema' version only to find that Casper has beaten me to it. Well to be honest the vocal version on the record is much better than the dub that you'll find on Fluokids, so keep your ears peeled for it all the same.
So rather than post that again, it wasn't difficult for me to decide to post this Radioclit verision instead. East London's crunky answer to 2 Many DJs have done a superb job here, and give it the essential baile funk treatment by dropping a very familiar riff half way through. This mix veers dangerously close to bouncy euro-rave at times, but in these skilled fingers the danger is only that you could have too much fun.
I'll have some hot disco bombs for you tomorrow... unless I go out that is. Adventures Close to Home are hitting the Old Blue Last tomorrow night with the aforementioned Buraka Som Sistema. So that's looking tempting right now.
Well I had better mention Wycombe's heroic exit from the cup last night at the hands of Chelsea. The world's richest club played extremely well - and had to - and in the end the return of Shevchenko, Cech, Lampard, Carvalho & Drogba made the difference for them. Gifting them their first goal was our death knell, but we never gave up. We fought; we passed; we came close; we roared like lions; and gave it everything we had. At work today people were full of consoling words, however I needed no consolation. We played magnificently in both games, and though we lost 4-0 on the night we have the memories of Charlton and Donacaster and Fulham. And Stamford Bridge. And a team who played far above themselves and got within touching difference of the most astonishing appearance in a major final that I can think of.
Well done lads.
So I suspect you're here for some music rather than tales of a division 4 football team in the league cup. So allow me to oblige with some quality stuff.
Now I'm hardly sticking my neck out suggesting that both of these are heading for big things this year. Seems that anyone who has heard Los Campesinos! demo 'Hold On Now Youngster' has fallen under its spell... I can't remember a band without a proper single having this much blog coverage before. I feel a bit lame coming onto the blog bandwagon so late, however i've been loving this ever since Mike Nothing But Green Lights introduced me to it 6 months ago. And his infectious love for the band has verged on the fantatical ever since. No doubt helping them to be voted by bloggers as the second hottest British band of 2006.
So how could all this be acheived on the back of a demo? Well one listen to 'You! Me! Dancing!' and all will be revealed. It's exilarating singalong fun... and sure to be an indie disco staple for years. Joyful shouted lyrics, a chorus that will never leave your head, and a great spoken section... as featured on many a pop classic. 'and I always get confused because in supermarkets they turn the lights off when they want you to leave, but in discos they turn them on' LOS CAMPESINOS! - YOU! ME! DANCING!
'It started with a mixx' is almost as good, and 'Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks' is excellent as well. I'm looking forward to hearing their forthcoming debut single, and I've also been trying & trying to find tickets for this gig, which sees Los Campesinos! come from down from Cardiff to The London. But i've had no luck so far. Anyone know where I can buy 'em?
So my second attempt to clamber onto a long departed bandwagon is with Mr Jamie T. Again i've been hearing him around for ages but haven't totally fallen for his undeniable charms. But he now has an album out - 'Panic Prevention' - which has given me the chance to give him a bit more time.
I'm sure if you've heard singles 'Calm Down Dearest', 'If You Got The Money' or 'Sheila' you're well aware of the shtick... guitar strumming indie troubadour with a strangely accented half-singing style. The indie Streets if you will.
To be honest although I like the singles, i'm still a bit bemused as to how he's become such a sensation with the nation's indie kids. One new track th0ugh that I did really enjoy from the album was this one, 'Salvador'. Seems that it may have been his debut single, but it's new to me. And makes me think there's maybe something in this unassuming looking chap.
Typically ska-tinged, the song sets out it's stall from the off... 'From here to Salvador, the ladies dance To fill us reckless sons with passions of the heart'. Yes it's about drinking, dancing, girls, bright lights... I love the driving bassline, and the ooh aaah's. And I love some of the lyrics.. ''Twirls around and I fall about, in giggles and laugher, oh I’m plastered, can’t damn help it I’m sorry love'.
JAMIE T - SALVADOR The album's out on Monday, and though at the moment it's got a bit of a way to go to get into my heart, it's certainly going the right way.
This week I have mainly been listening to a great new label from Leeds - I Can Count music.
Their first label compilation is remarkable in that I hadn't heard of one of the bands on it, yet the whole thing is graced with an uncommon quality and an unflinching touch of pop goodness.
You could loosely describe all the tracks as electronic pop music, but there are quite a range of styles on offer here... from the frenzied Gameboy beats of David Sugar, to the Zero 7-esque Mica. The gentle indie pop of Grand Prix '86 to the West London broken beats of Deckshufflers and the French house leanings of Pea Green Boat.
It's hard to pick out favourites, but here are some of them:
Project: New City are from Chapel Allerton in Leeds (I only mention that as my mate Ant lives there...), and have a speaker-filling sound with beautiful lush melodies. This track came in at #95 on the Popjustice chart of last year.. which is some kind of guarantee of pop excellence!
Probably my favourite track from the album is this one by Glasgow's Nut Bros.... with it's slightly 80's sounding riffs reminiscent of a Whatever We Want re-edit. Somehow it sounds very familar, but also slightly out of its time. Very hummable.
and finally here's the track by Deckshufflers. It sounds kind of like a drum 'n' bass track by Alex Reece but with most of the beats removed. Well yes, that's broken beat isn't it? I dunno, all these genres do my head in. It's got beats; low as fuck bass; sweetly sung vocals and a bit of schwing.
I hope they don't mind me posting up so many tracks, but hopefully it may encourage you to buy the compilation from their website. There are eighteen great tracks, there are only 500 made and it only costs a fiver. Deal or no deal?
The first single on the label is by Grand Prix '86.... coming straight outta Chunky Norwich and representing the more indie side of the label.
Grand Prix '86 has a special resonanance for me. In my youth (i.e. when it was good) I used to be a bit of a Formula 1 nut, and for my twelfth birthday that year I pleaded and pleaded that all I wanted to do was to go to the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. The treat of a lifetime!
To say it was slightly anti-climactic would be putting it mildly. Notwithstanding the three hour traffic jam to get into the circuit. Having spent a kings ransom on getting down there and gaining admission, there was nothing left in the pot to get a grandstand seat or a spot on a bend. So we stood on a straight, at about the fastest spot on the track, and watched these noisy coloured shapes fly past our eyes for two hours. I seem to recall it was raining as well, however my brain may have added that to the memory to reflect it's overall gloom and disappointment!
Apparently Nigel Mansell won an absolutely thrilling race. But fucked if we could tell what was going on. In fact it was only when he drove past and waved at the end that we had any idea who was even winning. I was never quite as interested in motor sport after that. You can watch the video for the single ('Everybody's Dancing') here:
So yes, all in all I think this is a label worth looking out for. Also, a quick browse of the website will reveal a mini cornocopia of treats on sale....
Tetris cushions:
Lightning earrings:
O Fracas Maracas:
(OK, they're not so great, but it's just good to say 'O Fracas Maracas')
Funky T-Shirts with ninjas and fangs and lightningbolts:
Sometimes you just need something that goes 'whoomp' round your head. Something hard & uncompromising. Something like this new jam from Ed Banger.
Krazy Baldhead is probably Ed Banger's least celebrated artist, having just released one not very inspiring single on the label so far, and has remained entirely free of all the buzz around the label's other artists. The new one, 'Crazy Motherfuckas', is another faintly uninspiring piece of glitch-hop, featuring vocals by TES (remember the amazing 'New New York'?)... but then you hit the remix on side B!
Midfield General (AKA Damian Francis Harris, boss of Skint Records... and not, of course, the Watford midfield general!) has come up with the goods, and while the track starts off good enough, with a relentless hard beat & some cut up vocals; it really blows up half way through when the unmistakable riff from Beltram's 'Energy Flash' comes in - underpinned by what sounds like some old acid noises from Richie Hawtin.
In fact here's the classic Richie Hawtin track I was thinking of as well while listening to this. Tune!!!! And a classic from The Orbit (THE best club.... ever. RIP.). There's also of course a link with the title of this, and the 'Ecstacy, Ecstacy' refrain of the Beltram original.
Ah, well last night was better than I could have hoped! Our team (assembled for £80,000) played Chelsea's (costing £120,000,000) off the pitch for all but a fifteen minute spell in the first half. The ground was packed to the rafters and rocking. Every player performed out of their skin. And as the Independent pointed out, if the tie "had finished on this pitch, there would have surely been only one outcome". Chelski were really holding on by the end of the game. I also enjoyed the Independent's other report, which managed to mention Mao's Long March, and the downfall of Slobodan Milosovic!
You can savour Jermaine Easter's equalizer here:
So to celebrate i've got some really great music this evening.
The first I was going to put up in my Trash post the other day, but I ran out of time. Why? Well it sounds to me like a Trash anthem in the making.
The Violets certainly look the part, have a reputation for steaming live shows, and on the evidence of this scorching single have the songs to match.
Loosely based on Hitchcock's Marnie, and propelled by a primal drum beat and driving bass, it's really Alexis' banshee-like vocals on the chorus that set the track apart. I have a lot to get through, so let's just say it's rocking!
The single is released in February on Angular Records - the label that brought us Klaxons & The Long Blondes. I'm going to see them live next week so i'll let you know then whether The Violets will be headed to the same giddy stratospheres.
Now this is good.... the latest thing to become stuck in my CD player is 4 tracks from The Hussy's, drawn from their first two (sold out) EPs. How these have kept off the radar I really don't know... this is some of the best pop music you'll ever hear.
Like a cross between The Pipettes and Long Blondes, but more irresistible than both, the track i've fallen for the most is 'Napoleon'.
'I've got electric hair, and I get bullied by the kind of people who get bullied elsewhere'. Yes, our heroine is turning into Napoleon Dynamite.
But doesn't she sound thrilled about it! From the opening riff you'll be drawn in; and if you're anything like me you'll be singing along by the second chorus. It's irresistibly catchy, sing-a-long stuff. As you know, becoming Napoleon Dynamite is nothing to be ashamed of. He dances like a bitch!
I find it incredible that despite the amount I love that song, the other three on the CD are almost as good! I don't generally post two tracks, I really have to share at least one more.
This is exactly what I was talking about the other day when I was bemoaning obtuse lyrics... a life summed up in a line.
"We expected great things from you, but you let us down"
Listen to the other two songs - 'Tiger' and 'Marty' on their myspace. They're real good also.
Something else i've really enjoyed is a single by Fanfarlo on the Club Fandango label. It's a bit more low key than the blasts of pop joy above, but very nice all the same. Some Super Furry Animals horns (think 'Northern Lites') nicely augment what sounds like a jolly nice song, but might well be about a serial killer.
In my 'trunk' (we all know it's a boot) I have two hubcaps, that I have been meaning to 'one day' reattach for about 3 years; a pair of wellies left over from Glastonbury; an empty bottle of Brandy and an assortment of burnt out lightbulbs.
It's no exaggeration to say that tonight is one of the biggest nights of my short life. The mighty Blues (that's Wycombe Wanderers of course) take on the wealthy Chelsea in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final. Win this.... and we're in the final! And in Europe!
Obviously the chances are that we'll get spanked 6-0, and the fact that the semi is over two legs has taken care of most of my hopes & dreams. Even if we beat them 2-0 tonight, there is slim chance that we'll hold on at Stamford Bridge.
But as the saying goes, 'It's a funny old game'.
Much depends, I feel, on whether our underappreciated centre back collossus Will Antwi plays.. he's currently recovering from an injury. Already Mourinho has showed his fear and cowardice by preventing our midfielder Antony Grant from playing - he's on loan from Chelsea for the season but has been instrumental in our reaching this stage. In the league he's been a bit hit & miss but has really shone in the cup games.
Elsewhere, perhaps our Argentinian midfield wizard Sergio Torres, whose heroic status far outweighs his actual acheivements so far, came on as sub on Saturday in his first game back after a lengthy injury. Perhaps he will be the man hoisted on the shoulders come 9:45pm and gracing the front pages tomorrow morning ?
At the other end, Tommy Mooney is getting on in years, but still has the class to do something special. And Jermaine Easter is most likely to poach a goal, having scored in every round so far.
I must admit i had another sleepless night last night, as i'm getting quite excited about the game now. In truth though, my hopes are restricted to two things. First, that we score a goal. Second, that the club don't use the occasion to hand out thousands of fucking air tubes. Which will not only turn the atmosphere from a ferocious cauldron of noise into clacking cacophony, but they take more effort and make less noise than putting the palms of your hands together. It also makes the stadium look like it's hosting a netball tournament.
Look at the Horror of this picture from the play-off's last season. It makes my eyes bleed.
Elsewhere on t'interweb, there's decent articles in the Independent, Times and Guardian... who all mainly highlight the needle points of the evening: firstly that Mooney's premiership career only lasted 4 minutes before Chelsea defender Marcel Desailly put him out of action for 7 months with a terrible tackle; and also that tonights ref Steve Bennett ludicrously sent off our now Assistant Manager Steve 'Brownie' Brown in our FA Cup Quarter Final in 2001..... for removing his shirt in memory of his sick son.
Fansite SMBU has a typically deranged match preview:
We are victims of cliche, newspapers trotting out lines about Lambert's Champions League medal being sold to men who paved the driveway and how Ivor Beeks' brown coat has done more to heal racial divides in Europe than anything else. Steve Brown has been interviewed and has managed to avoid saying that referee Steve Bennett is a hulking great sex pest with a whistle where a truck driver's pride and joy should be. Even the stories about Sergio Torres peeling the eyelids off animals so that Boots could test a new range of shampoo has been revived, with the midfield icon recounting his childhood in Argentina where his peasant father used to charge tourists to draw pictures of the Belgrano in brick dust.
Meanwhile every Chelsea player is a billionaire and their urine flows upwards towards the international space station, and there is a special branch of Catholicism for each of their pretty little heads.
And while they are deified and Wycombe are patronised, there is precious little comment about how the Premiership champions use techniques such as blood spinning, a practice that would get you thrown out of the Olympic Games or the Tour de France. They march into battle with oxygen flowing through their skulls and if a wolf is sighted in the woods behind the ground tomorrow night, then it will have no chance against the eternally youthful Pensioners, as they are filled with liquid nitrogen, with NASA's finest.
We are filled with nothing more than hope and the whispers of our minds as the famous young ground hosts what can only be a disappointment, surely.
And it was well worth the aftershock of being out till 4 in the morning on a Monday night. All sorts of special guests were rumoured, but instead we got, as it should have been, 3 hours of Erol. Although despite the celebratory atmostphere, until that point the main thought of the evening was how bloody busy it was. Fortunately we were near the front of the queue, so didn't have TOO much of a nightmare outside - but apparently plenty of people waited 3 hours & didn't get in. Leading unsurprisingly to a few tempers getting frayed. The queue at the bar inside was bad enough for it to start getting rowdy though... seven deep the whole way along with seemingly no-one serving. Swigging from a bottle of vino was the only option...
There were Mexican Wrestlers and celebrities
who like most of us, were waiting for Erol to take to the decks (when not queuing at the bar!)
And when he did the place went nuts! From the off there was stage diving from the dj booth; crowd surfing; furious moshing; and hit after hit after hit.
Erol planned to play a kind of 'Greatest Hits of Trash' set - so every tune was greeted with increasing levels of whooping and hollering and leaping about. 'Comfortably Numb'; 'Music' by Madonna; Justice; Klaxons; 'Take me Out' in original and Erol remix forms; Erol's DFA 1979 remix; The Strokes; White Stripes; Missy Eliott; 'Sunglasses at Night'; 'Rocker'... well you get the idea. Here's some I hadn't heard for a while: the Violent Femmes in particular took me back to my days in student Indie clubs in Leeds! And what a tune that Radio Slave mix of Paul McCartney is...
So since we last spoke I have received my Ghosts 7" (a very limited affair that i'm hoping may one day make me rich), and I have listened to Cold War Kids. Both have been slightly underwhelming experiences, but likewise both are not entirely without merit.
In fact the Ghosts single is imprinting itself on my brain more and more with each listen. And I will gladly admit that I like it a lot. I'm a sucker for a good pop tune, and that is what this is. The double trouble is this: 1: I keep thinking 'it's not as good as The Feeling'. A sobering realisation. 2: When I listen to it, it keeps seguing into 'Ordinary World' by Duran Duran in my head. And a apparition of Simon le Bon's plastic face and 'i'm still trendy, honest' hair in the middle of a record is the aural equivalent of your mum popping into your head in the middle of a shag. Not just a turn off, but a pull out the plug & rip all the fuses from the fusebox.
Words like 'soaring', 'melodic', and 'annoyingly catchy' would describe this well. You will like it, but you may feel a little cheap and dirty for doing so.
You can listen to 5 more of their songs here. I predict that 'The World is Outside' will be pumping out of many radios this year.
I was expecting Cold War Kids to be not how I expected. But then I listened to them, and they turned out to be exactly as I expected. Which in truth I had expected after all.
Yeah they're an earnest sounding American indie band, of the type that get all the blogs in a lather, but really say nothing to me about my life. Watching the 'Top 25 Rock & Roll Hellraisers' on the telly last night, as I did, just brings into the focus the lack of charisma of all these bands. I mean if I went out on the piss with these guys, what would we do? What would we talk about? What trouble would we get in to? I've listened to the album twice and I don't have much idea and don't have much sense about them at all. I imagine they'd be nice blokes, and they'd probably sneer at some pop music playing in the corner of the pub, while politely declining a swig from a bottle of brandy i'd offered under the table as they have a flight the next morning.
Having said this, they have managed to coax at least some tunes and fun from their earnest fingers and tonsils. And i'm particularly keen on this one, 'Hang Me Up To Dry'. What's it all about? Fucked if i know. It's got a great riff running through it though.
In fact i'm being a bit unfair to the band. There's a lot of good stuff on the album... but I just feel that much as in this country our Indie music seems to be in the main infected by some kind of reverance to the Libertines, there seems to be far too much homogeny and far too little risk taking in American indie music. I've heard so much plodding, slightly country-tinged Americana with indecipherable lyrics and not much ambition past getting a support slot on a Sufjan Stevens tour.
Sometimes I want more than to just nod my head in reverent appreciation... i want to sing along, jump around and think "Yeah, that's exactly it" after catching some deceptively simple lyric.
It seems that since Oasis burst on the scene over here, it's been quite possible for indie boys to have massive mainstream success ... and as a result bands in general seem to have a belief that they can do so. And perhaps this is why tunes & lyrics seem to be written with a wider audience in mind. This isn't always a good thing by any means... but to be honest i'd rather listen to Razorlight and think "god i hate these cunts" than listen to something that i've forgotten about as soon as the song is finished.
I know in this case i'm not really comparing like with like, but I tend to get two kinds of things through my door. If it's got an American stamp, it'll be a turgid but worthy album that sounds kind of like Cold War Kids. If it's got a British postmark it could sound like absolutely anything, but it will most likely be fun and interesting and tuneful. And it'll also be a single, so I won't have to sit through an hour of it to work out if it's any good or not!
I know there are plenty of exceptions (The Gossip, Scissor Sisters spring to mind), but I just feel that this particular furrow is not one that I feel needs to be ploughed any deeper.
I can't think of an easy way to segue between that little rant and this little piece of joy. So all I can ask is that you check out this amazing video by DJ Scotch Egg. In fact, i command you to watch it. I won't let my pathetic descriptions spoil the fun. You have eyes.
You may notice it's by the same guys who did the South Central video. Clever boys.
I was fully expecting Mika to be there at #1... I mentioned a few weeks ago that he's clearly destined for stardom, and since then most of the press have been raving about him. Since then i've heard his album (Life in Cartoon Motion) in full, and while it doesn't consistently reach the heights i'd hoped for, Mika's got charisma in spades and i'm quite curious as to what will happen to him this year. He's definitely a pop star, but how much he'll enter the nation's hearts remains to be seen.
This was the song he closed the show with in December. Once again you'll need to get in touch with your gay side to truly apprecitate it.... but you're gonna have to work pretty hard to resist the pop brilliance at work here. The word 'fabulous' (dahling) is the one that's settled in the front of my cranium.
The Twang, at #2, are another of these 'we're better than the Stone Roses us' Northern bands. They don't seem to exist much outside their myspace page at the moment, and yeah they sound OK in a Kasabian kinda way. I guess Cloudy Room is the one most worth a listen....and for my foreign guests I should probably explain that 'Gianluca' refers to 'Gianluca Vialli'. Who was a footballer. Vialli rhymes with 'Charlie'. See?
I think I can probably skip the Klaxons. I may have talked about them once or thrice.
Sadie Ama, at #4, is 19. And reminisces about when she "was so young she didn't even understand about the whole music industry". She's Shola Ama's sister, and will probably infest the airwaves with slick but soulless R&B all year. I couldn't find much to get excited about on her myspace. It all sounds fucking dreary (and surprisingly poorly produced) to be honest.
However rather Sadie than 'Enter Shikari'. You think a cross between trance and heavy metal sounds good? I don't. It doesn't.
Then we have 'Air Traffic'. Now I worked for quite some time at the company here that looks after Air Traffic Control. So I half expected the band 'Air Traffic' to be a bunch of engineer misfits with wirey hair and a smell of potato peelings. But no, they're a well-groomed and presumably deodorised outfit, with not a leaky biro in sight.
This excellent single shows them veering towards Coldplay / Keane territory with the piano lead and soaring chorus. But no, I think that does them a disservice. I'm put in mind of Guillemots as well... great hooks, a great tune and not afraid to rock out when it matters.
Actually this is very good indeed... check it out. There's also a video here if you want to see what they look like.
OK. I give in. I'm going to have to listen to Cold War Kids aren't I. I'm usually suspicious of blog hype coming from the States, after discovering that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! were shite. But yeah. I will have to investigate. If someone could recommend me a couple of songs i'd be grateful.
Right, where are we? 8. Good. Nearly there!
Well i've heard this Just Jack chap quite a bit on the wireless recently. He's got a song called 'Stars in Their Eyes' where he sings Mike Skinner-like over some house beats. I don't like it much to be honest... but why don't you take a look for yourself. I suspect it'll be top ten in a couple of weeks, as Radio 1 have been giving it a lot of play.
Ghosts are on tour with Air Traffic over the next couple of months. Tipped for super stardom by several sources, they're a classic pop-rock group a la The Feeling. More about them when my copy of their single drops through the letterbox early next week, but they seem to have the gift of pop in abundance. Check the songs on their myspace for evidence. Your toes will be a-tapping.
Finally (woo!) we have Rumble Strips. I'll direct you to the Daily Growl for the music, rather than stealing the tracks & claiming them as my own! They sound a rowdy bunch, and I was going to compare them to Dexy's Midnight Runners (Hate Me You Do in particular) until I read on the aforementioned Daily Growl about "inevitable Dexy’s Midnight Runners comparisons". Damned inevitability.
Anyway if you like the sound or look or both of them, then both tracks are worth a listen. 'Hate Me You Do' being best of the pair. There's more on their myspace of course, but 'My Oh My' is the only one that really caught my attention.
I've mentioned Brighton's South Central here once or twice before, and their new remix - of fellow South Coasters The Maccabees is equally hot. If you listened to their remixes, or indeed their single, you'll recognise many of the sounds they've utilised, but right now this is probably my favourite of the lot.
It starts off very similar to their Metronomy remix, before exploding into a glitchy bass-heavy wall of sound. Gimme Indie Rock!
I don't know when (or if) the record is out i'm afraid, but it also contains a great Filthy Dukes remix. So it's well worth looking out for.
I've just noticed also that they have a mix to download.... available right here. I've not listened myself yet - so let's enjoy the journey together.
The Maccabees themselves have been fighting their way onto my stereo lately. Their best track is indeed the original of 'X-Ray'. However i'm liking 'First Love' a lot as well. I believe it smashed into the Top 40 last year at, er, number 40! And it's a good song. So I feel it's been lacking in blog-love.
Agreed you will find within a little bit of Bloc Party, a dash of Libertines and even a dribble of Kooks (oops!). But i'm finding this has a little more unpredictability, danceability and frankly listenablility than all the above. And the lyrics are pretty sharp too.
I suspect both bands will be rocking your stereos in '07, but i'm particularly excited to hear some new South Central stuff. According to an email I received they seem to be either signed to or affiliated to XL Recordings now... "Young Turks will be following it up with a 12" by South Central, 'Castle Of Heroes'. The single sees the infamous remixers of Shitdisco, Maccabees and Metronomy take their cues from Irish poet WB Yeats and make a twisted, psychedelic electro noise tune that looks set to make a few dancefloors in 2007 rock to 19th century poetry for the first time...erm, ever??"
I was hoping to write a bit more, but instead I think i'll just give you my hastily constructed top ten singles / albums of last year so we can at last say good riddance to '06 and instead grasp '07 in a warm, sweaty embrace.
Albums
1: Hot Chip - The Warning 2: Metronomy - Pip Paine (Pay Back the £5000 You Owe) 3: Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent Things 4: Lily Allen - Alright, Still 5: Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not 6: Moshi Moshi Records - Can You Hear Me Clearly? 7: iLiKETRAiNS - Progress Reform 8: The Knife - Silent Shout 9: The Long Blondes - Someone to Drive You Home 10: White Rose Movement - Kick 11: Various Production - The World is Gone 12: CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy 13: Squarepusher - Hello, Everything 14: Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit 15: AFX - Chosen Lords
Singles
1: Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks 2: Datarock - Fa Fa Fa 3: Hot Chip - No Fit State 4: The Rapture - wAYUH 5: Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow 6: CSS - Let's Make Love (and listen Death From Above) 7: Guillemots - Trains to Brazil 8: The Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control 9: The Horrors - Death at The Chapel 10: Quiet Village Project - Circus of Horrors
Cover Versions
1: Friendly Fires - Your Love 2: Klaxons - Not Over Yet 3: Bromheads Jacket - When You Wasn't Famous 4: The Come-Ons - I Feel Love 5: Dangerous Dan & Nicky Van She - Around The World
And in lieu of MP3's, here for DIY purposes & for a few days only, is my christmas card CD thingy for this (sorry, last) year (although you would only have got one if I saw you on New Year's Eve!)
