exotica

Polarsets have an EP, rejoice.

It lives up to their classic tropical pop sound fusing heavy synth based melodies and african drum beats which alll makes for a pretty fresh sounding collection of summer songs. Oh and of course the signature highest almost squeaky, yet somehow soothing, vocal is rather something.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/43467263" iframe="true" /]

It's due for release on 18th June but you can listen to it all here.

And i recommend you listen to some of their older stuff too because it is quite frankly brilliant, an example of this is the slightly more dancey Leave Argentina below...

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/2331043" iframe="true" /]

More Polarsets here.

Buy their music here.

Even more new music for your ears

So still no gigs, this blog's name is slowly losing it's meaning. However it's now actually less than a month until I finally see Spector and I've just discovered Gabriel Bruce is supporting, making it just that bit more worth the wait.

In the mean time.....

Zulu Winter

So they only formed last year but they seem to be grabbing people's attentions, including mine. They're an London hailing five piece playing synthy with indie guitars & falsetto vocals over the top. Recent single We Should Be Swimming starts of classically indie guitar & drum filled with short sharp vocals then transforms into almost melancholic dance music with the occassional jangle of guitar thrown in for good measure.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCVGxH5fEo0]

They've also got a got another 2 singles, Never Leave/Let's Move Back To Front  & Silver Tongue, both worth checking out, and a few odd songs floating around on Youtube, presumably off the forthcoming album, Language, drops 14th May.

More Zulu Winter here and here.

And if you like them a lot, you can pre order the album here.

Dance a la Plage

Yet another Oxford indie quartet appears in the form of Dance a la Plage, citing inspirations as the likes of Foals, Little Comets & Two Door Cinema Club, they've lived up to the sounds very well as from the minute you press play on their tracks high, fast guitar riffs erupt, the kind that you will find impossible to get out of your head, giving a youthful sound suiting the name "dance to the beach" perfectly.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/43545565" iframe="true" /]

They are yet to release any music but are already well on their way supporting bands such as Kowalski & Pegasus Bridge and getting significant airplay from BBC Introducing stations with 2 tracks off their forthcoming debut EP, Matilda (below) & Priorities, both again incredibly catchy.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/25681987" iframe="true" /]

More Dance a la Plage here.

Theme Park

Even more London based alternative indie type music is here. This time much less guitar and relaxed synths with concentration on the   tropical type drums, the kind Vampire Weekend would envy, and mature vocals, reminiscent of Fixers but much, much calmer.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/26355935" iframe="true" /]

They have 2 rather brilliant singles which you can buy here.

More Theme Park here.


Deadlovers

Finally Deadlovers, despite what the name may suggest they are not death preaching hardcore metal, but an alternative guitar rock-pop three piece from Dartford inspired by the likes of The Coral, The Jam and Talking Heads.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/37026156" iframe="true" /]

Latest single, Kerb Your Libido, has clear guitar inspired by The Beach Boys and is a rather good little pop song.

They have many tracks on their soundcloud but there doesn't seem to be any online for download, though vinyls are here.

More Deadlovers here.

You should also check out Two Wounded Birds if you like them.....

Laughing In The Afterglow.....

I am seeing The Crookes in a month or so and they released a brilliant single on Monday called Afterglow.


i have noticed just a second ago they tagged the video for it as "indie" "guitar" "pop" "sex" . They have basically reviewed their own song completely accurately there.It is indeed a very happy, indie, guitar fueled song complete with "OH OH OH OH"s that make up summer in a song.


The B side Honey is equally brilliant. though it starts off very un-Crookes and you will want to turn it off then it bursts into this once again amazing indie guitar pop and is almost as good as the single itself.
They are currently working on their latest album that is set for release later this year but also have 2 rather brilliant albums from 2008 & 2011 that everybody should listen to because they are perfect.

This has been a completely unbiased review of The Crookes and their music.

Buy Afterglow here.
More on The Crookes here.
Listen to their albums & then buy them here.

nu tunes

so yes. still no gigs. I am seeing The Cure at Reading on the same day as Crystal Castles and already freaking out so i guess that counts. Oh and Spector in May, but here is another blog about some other good music that isn't live but ( i have yet to think of a reasonable end to this sentence).

PartyClub.

I came accross one of their tracks on an unsigned mixtape i acquired from somewhere a few days ago and it has been playing over and over and over with no breaks. The first thing you hear is the undeniably cliche "indie bounce" guitar riffs that Two Door Cinema Club would be jealous of then the vocal comes in, somewhat similar to Yannis Philippakis of Foals and another singer that you will hear as soon as you listen but i can't for the life of think who, almost a hint of Jack Steadman in there too for good measure. The song then descends into typical indie madness with genius lyrical rhymes such as "happiness ain't second best" , they could've tried a bit harder on that one...

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/21277708" iframe="true" /]

They only currently have 4 songs on their soundcloud that I am aware of but they are all fantastic synthy guitar fueled songs about happiness and all the other kind of stuff you'd expect. Just a really good indie band.

Caan 

I've known of Caan for a while and it has come to my attention I've never wrote about him.

Caan is a one man act hailing  from Camden consisting of former Ou Est Le Swimming Pool member Caan Capan making haunting, mellow synth pop. He only currently has 2 singles but seems to be attracting a lot of attention, particularly from debut single Now Hear This My Friends, a sparse  yet powerful piano-vocal based song about standing up and fighting oppression with occasional shimmers of  distant synth.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/17636158" iframe="true" /]

The second single, Every Little Thing, dropped today through Camouflauge Recordings. A much more electronic song in every sense, much more synth and a longing vocal with lyrics much less stance than the previous single but still clearly meaningful.

Cupid, draw back your bow....

i don't have much to say but Gabriel Bruce was brought to my attention in an english class the other day and i can't stop listening to this song and suggest that any capable being that happens to read this blog does the same.

Vocally, Its like Nick Cave & Johnny Cash had a child, Musically it's like Nick Cave's organ.

Sleep Paralysis

Along with this there is a rather dreary (in the best possible way) cover of Sam Cooke for free download on his soundcloud.

Also he has supported Spector on several dates due to being friends withFred Macpherson *fingers crossed he does in May too* and NME seem to be raving about him so it all seems pretty good to me.

In theory I respect your right to exist...

just musing over general recent musicalness.

Firstly, if a bit late, i have to say something about Queen 'reforming'. I don't care how good he is, at the end of the day, Adam Lambert won a reality tv contest, he is not worthy of replacing Freddie Mercury, nobody is. Also you can hardly call it reforming when only 2 of the original members are actually in the band. It just seems so unexplainably uncool (and let's face it- i may have not been technically alive, but Queen used to be damn cool), and at Sonisphere of all places. It is one of those things that will not cease to confuse me, i mean i know we're in the recession but, are they really that desperate for money?

That said, they must be because Brian May is featuring on Dappy's latest track, with a name like Dappy, i don't need to continue.

ew indeed.

While on the subject of reunions, the fact Johnny Marr seems to be warming to the idea of reforming The Smiths makes me physically wince.

I know it was said jokingly, but there seems to be some underlying truth, and the idea of them turning into something like bloody Bon Jovi or Guns 'n' Roses that constantly reform and play reunion tours and change their members constantly kills me. I get the feeling if they reunite this wouldn't happen but y'know it could. Also just them reuniting would kill the legacy & the whole mystique a bit, no? Maybe it's just me being a smiths obsessee but I genuinely cannot bare to think of a reunion at all.

On a nicer note, Hodgy Beats posted a free Untitled EP up on oddfuture.com and it's rather good.

Admittedly i haven't listened to it completely fully yet but what I have is considerably better than most of Tyler, The Creator 's releases ~COME AT ME, HIPSTERS~

It just sounds more, well, professional I guess, It's the kind of rap I like, no incessant swearing (Azealia Banks), the lyrics actually have meaning and the beats are actually more thought through than the computer generated dance music used normally (Many). The professional side definetely shows through the extensive list of the producer's on the album, including Oscar winning Juicy J and The Alchemist on several tracks respectively. It feels like he's almost trying to hide behind the schoolboyness of OFWGKTA so by releasing this, even in the quietest way possible, he's clearly trying to show the seriousness & talent to his rapping, which is always a great thing....you should go download it...

"consider me invisible and one mentally fucked individal"

There was probably more I had to write about but this blog is long enough for the moment...yet another update soon....

NME Awards Tour, 23~-02~12

So i went to the NME Awards Tour a few days ago and it was rather good.

Despite getting there 15 minutes before doors then being cornered by The Sunday Times for an interview which I later discovered we will have to pay to see due to their ridiculous website, we got second row which wasn't too shabby at all.

First up was Azealia Banks, due to the fact i absolutely disgust her musically, DJ Cosmo was the highlight of her set, complete with his dancing and Super Mari-esque hat. The only good part of her singing was a brief cover of Amy Winehouse's Valerie, proof she has talent, just chooses to hide it under awful,awful rapping (this highlights everything that is wrong with the music industry, in the sense that you have to hide real talent with swearing in order to be recognised, just sad really).After a thankfully short set where she repeatedly swore and "nigga"''d  over relatively decent dance music, she played the ever awful 212, some "kunts" got "eated" and she  swanned offstage unawares to my hatred for her due to the masking woos from the completely smashed half of the crowd. Disappointing as I expected.

  

Then, after the shortest switch between bands ever, kudos to the techies for that,  came Tribes, the complete other end of the stratosphere to what came before.They kicked off the set with an energetic Whenever , crashed through hits such as Sappho and Girlfriend effortlessly before returning to the debut EP for a beautifully acoustic Coming Of Age before playing When My Day Comes and ever brilliant We Were Children and fleeing the stage. Short but, ever so, sweet and just as brilliant as you would expect them to be from the album, there are big things ahead for Tribes this year, i can feel it.

Penultimately, Metronomy graced the stage with their prescence, after briefly catching their set at Reading, i was looking forward to seeing their improved live show and it was fantastic. They eased into the set with the spaced out Some Written which seemed appropriate, almost a mute introduction of the band through the brilliant lighting ( again, kudos to the techies on their set) before thundering through much of the latest album. They played a fair few off 2008's Nights Out  too which was a brilliant addition to the set, though i have to admit at this point, i did zone out quite a bit and almost fainted several times due to lack of water and the complete idiots behind me trying to get to my space (there were many elbows in the kidneys on my part but they won at the end of Two Door's set). Regardless it was a faultless set, Oscar Cash can certainly dance, my friends.

Then of course came the mighty Two Door Cinema Club, this was the fourth time i'd seen them and, wow, they certainly know how to put on a show. The setlist was pretty standard, starting off with the thunderous Cigarettes In The Theatre before crusading through much of Tourist History with the odd B-Side such as Costume Party and later songs This Is Moon and Handshake, both signs that the new album (drops July) is going to be something equally as good as the debut. They then left the stage after an incredibly energetic version of What You Know leaving the crowd in awe  and cries of "TDCC!"

These cries were met with a generous encore of latest song Sleep Alone (yet another awesome representative of the forthcoming album), Come Back Home and of course I Can Talk , complete with innovative AH OH AH AH OH lights, Go Squib!

Then they ran offstage and that was that, an incredible night of 3 fantastic acts and 1 well..um, interesting shall we say? act, NME tours are great things.

And i got a poster of Noel Gallagher at the end, can't say fairer than that, can you?