Valentine's gifts

Sorry if they seem to come up more often than not here, but there is a good reason now... Guillemots have a new EP, Of The Night, available here for free, with a new song by each band member. This includes Bad Boyfriend, two minutes of frightningly good electro-pop 'originally intended as a cash pony for the Black Eyed Peas' surrounded by 7 minutes of stuff which is, well, just plain frightening, and Aristazabal's gorgeous lead vocal debut By The Water.

Be warned that these are only currently available in WMA format with unusually horrid restrictions preventing you doing anything with the files but listening on the computer, although this should hopefully be resolved soon!

Well, crap

The series of Teenage Cancer Trust gigs at the Albert Hall for this year have been announced, including The Cure, Goldfrapp, Judas Priest and Razorlight.



Most enticing, though, is the date on 29th March, featuring Bloc Party, Biffy Clyro (who now haven't released anything for a whole year - is it a record?) and Mystery Jets. I like all of them a lot but the closest that I have come to seeing any of them so far was Russell Lissack's guest spot at Stars in December when he stood so far off to the side of the stage that I couldn't see him most of the time anyway.

Only problem is that I already have tickets for my favourite new band Guillemots on that day. But they are playing two days at King's College, so, my campaign to find someone who has tickets for Guillemots on the 30th March and wants to swap starts here! Any takers?

Ah, indie in-jokes, how I love thee

Wild Horses, B-side to The Research's new single Lonely Hearts Still Beat The Same is frankly rather ruined by being sung far more terribly than usual, but it does include the line:

'She said that she had a brother who listened to ¡Forward Russia!, I thought she had everything'

Science + music = confusion

Recent research into the influence that others have on people's music tastes (they found that when their test subjects could see that songs by unknown bands were widely downloaded already they were more likely to do so themselves - well duh, and that they were likely to rate them higher as well - hmm) has produced a range of different interpretations from 'people like what they're told to' to 'this is why crap like Britney is successful' to 'this is good news for new bands trying to get noticed on the internet'.

They do tend to have something in common, though.

And just as Smash Hits finishes, too

Popworld is to end, or rather is to lose Simon Amstell (and Miquita Oliver), but it's difficult to see much difference. Only a relatively ort time after I discovered its unique way with humour too.

Mysterious ways

The most puzzling thing about U2's multiple Grammy wins (they stopped Coldplay from winning anything etc. etc.) is not that they won so many, but that they didn't do so last year, when they only won awards for Vertigo, depite their album being released before the 2005 nominations. Was this a deliberate move to avoid having to actually leave them out this year?
Meanwhile 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb' is also in the running for a Brit for Best International Album for the second year running, making its November release look like a brilliant move.

edit: I've been usefully informed (as I probably should have researched anyway) that the deadline for nominations is a while before they are announced and happened to fall between the single and album releases. Which just favours the idea of it being brilliant marketing I guess.

Good news

It looks like Iko's album 'I Am Zero' (#7 in my Favourite albums of 2005) will finally get a proper UK release soon. With added bonus tracks too!

The Picture Show (05/02)

Pink - Stupid Girls
Pink returns with a scattergun attack on as many people as possible in a bid to get noticed. The song is a bit of the mess but the video veers between funny and embarrassing impressively. From the album 'I'm Not Dead' which is the subject of Popjustice's latest album art masterclass.



Mystery Jets - The Boy Who Ran Away
Mystery Jets release the final single before debut album 'Making Dens', this time owing more than usual to The Futureheads.



Polysics - Mr. Roboto
This one is not new at all, but demands viewing anyway. Japanese electro-rock complete with dancing/fighting Transformers, this is the really funny video this week.

Something awful

Well, the songs that is, as Talent In A Previous Life's 100 Actual Worst Records Ever gets underway in earnest. I expect to like many of them, but it will be as fun as ever regardless.

Liam Frost at Water Rats (31/01/06)

There is something about one man with an acoustic guitar standing in front of a crowd and playing to absolute rapturous silence which can make almost any song sound stunning. After a self-effacing and awkward introduction Liam Frost (whose Mancunian-accented vocals have a bite which brings to mind I Am Kloot numerous times) begins by achieving this with his very first song, Shall We Dance?, which possesses an intense, dramatic swing to it far beyond the Fretwells and Tunstalls of this world, despite occasional assaults of unneeded harmonica (which dog a few other songs tonight too).
Rather than attempt this feat for a whole set, he brings out a five-piece band, The Slowdown Family, who seem very professional and accomplished but for a couple of songs seem to undermine Frost's efforts by being a little too assured for his songs of insecurity. As the set goes on he visibly grows in confidence, sharing jokes with the crowd and band members, and their endearing alt-folk comes into its own, with a thunderous finale of The Mourners Of St. Paul's as he brings out an electric guitar for the first time particlalrly impressive.
The serious problem which makes them appear enjoyable but inessential though is that of overfamiliarity. Not only are folky singer-songwriters so common but direct influences are all too apparent - three seperate songs are too close to Bright Eyes' 'I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning' for comfort.

In some ways support band Lisa Brown don't step too far from their main stated influences either - New Order and Doves are much in evidence - but turn them into such sweet, glittery pop that not even an awful sound setup and a short set can do much to stop them. What's That Sound is more forceful than on record but still pure disco fun and new songs are uniformly even better than old. Hopefully they'll play a headlining date down here soon.

New shin porn; Decemberists spoon

For London-area fans of US indie-pop unable or unwilling to get to Camber Sands for ATP, Koko in Camden is clearly the place to be this May, as Spoon, The New Pornographers, The Decemberists and The Shins all play warm up shows there within a week of each other (the firs two in a two-for-the-price-of-one type thing!)

Covers all round

First, Starsailor cover Sugababes' Push The Button (it's at the bottom)
Then Arctic Monkeys cover Girls Aloud's Love Machine.
Next Sugababes will release a cover of Arctic Monkeys' I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

With any luck we will see the Girls Aloud cover of Four To The Floor within months!*

*note: this won't actually happen.

Four Day Hombre at Islington Bar Academy (26/01/06)

It's been a long road for Four Day Hombre - not just in the sense that this is the end of their tour (and they seem visibly relieved) but also that it has been five years since they released their first EP. A month before their debut album release in the tiny, packed, Bar Academy, playing upstairs from Taking Back Sunday, it's fairly obvious why everything might finally right for them now.
Rather than suffering from being worn out, they seem relaxed and confident and are gently witty between songs in front of a very appreciative, if none too animated, crowd. And what songs they are - it's easy at first to make obvious comparisons with Radiohead, Elbow (in the excellent rolling trip-hop-like beats especially) and even Coldplay (Simon Wainwright's sparingly employed falsetto) but they are expansive beyond any of them, with almost all songs seeming to take on a life of their own, flowing gracefully and inventively to places unrecognisable from where they begin and never quite allowing you to get a firm grasp on them.
Extremely fine singles The First Word Is The Hardest (here ended via a mutation into a very pretty cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill) and 1000 Bulbs don't even stand out as highlights and while throughout one fault is a lack of anything instantly memorable, in the encore they even prove to have a more immediate side which will be more likely to win over new fans too.

Now It's Off

January always seems to be a big month for bands losing members or splitting, and now sadly joining others including Ash, British Sea Power, Minuteman and the 22-20s are Grandaddy.

After a number of very small scale releases like 'Complex Party Come Along Theories' which barely made it out of their home in (can't-believe-it's-a-real-town-name) Modesto, California, they released fitfully brilliant full-scale debut album 'Under The Western Freeway' in 1997. It featured the mix of bloopy keyboards, beautifully fragile songs and obsessions with isolation, technology and its decay (see lost spaceman narrative Everything Beautiful Is Far Away) which were later to come together perfectly for 2000's widely adored 'The Sophtware Slump', beginning and closing with defining moments He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot and So You'll Aim Towards The Sky. It was a very hard album to live up to, and 2003's 'Sumday' recieved a mixed reaction, having some fine moments but losing a lot of the depth and individuality of the past. They will release a final album, 'The Return Of The Fambly Cat' in May, but will not tour again.

For those yet to listen, Tote's Umbrellas have a few songs to download although it's biased a little towards the newer stuff.

And twice in a couple of weeks seemed funny

Pete Doherty arrested for second time today

We're off to see Four Day Hombre now, review to come in next couple of days, maybe even with photos.

The Feeling at Metro (23/01/06)

'Our manager told us to make sure we say that you can text to get a live download of this song sent to you!'

The Feeling's lack of any pretence that it isn't a business that they're involved in could at a stretch be seen as refreshing. Coupled with a polite and likable but resolutely uncharismatic presence though, it means that any magic here has to come completely from their songs.

Luckily for them debut single Fill My Little World (introduced with a reassurance that it will be rereleased some time) is exactly the kind of joyous blast of a song that would forgive far worse, and already sounds like it can barely be contained in the tiny cramped Metro. They even have two or three more songs (I Love It When You Call Me and Join With Us for instance) which are practically its match, packed with enough brilliant hooks and harmonies to make you forget not only any notions of cool but also lingering thoughts that they sound a bit like The Darkness with the metal taken out.

When they slow things down though, as on next single Sewn, these begin to take hold and while never unpleasant, it's unremarkable stuff, and clearly not making much of an impression - when they leave there isn't even enough noise to inspire an encore, and while this might in part be down to people being busy pointing out to their friends that Sophie Ellis-Bextor is in the front of the crowd or singer Dan Gillespie's complaints of illness, it does suggest a band who aren't quite yet the complete article being pushed forwards regardless.

Pop stars

Every time that you think it's not going to get any more extreme, it does. Yesterday alone: 118,501 Arctic Monkeys albums sold.
Interestingly this also brings to light the current holder of the record for biggest first week sales of a debut album (over 300,000). It's this one:

The Picture Show (21/01)

Especially as our digital TV offers a service for watching videos on demand and is impressively often and thoroughly updated, I find myself getting my first impressions of a lot of new songs complete with their videos. This feature will highlight a few of them each week.
(Apologies for any format problems with the online versions)


Delays - Valentine
First up is Delays, with the first single from new album 'You See Colours'. It follows on well from the hypnotic electro-pop-rock of stopgap release Lost In A Melody, but the video is quite something else. Stunningly hideous may be the best way to describe it, but it has to be seen to be believed.



The Research - Lonely Hearts Still Beat The Same
Rather cuter all round is this Catchphrase-featuring video, for the fourth single from forthcoming debut 'Breaking Up'. Awww.



Four Day Hombre - The First Word Is The Hardest
Finally, a video which is one of the most peculiarly powerful I've seen for ages - it doesn't make much sense, is a little pretentious and spends too long showing the singer, yet it somehow still leaves me dumbstruck and adds a lot to the (already impressive) song too.

A bit of an advert

Next Monday, moved a week from its original planned date, Domino will release an album by a band who just six months ago were almost completely unknown to the general public and are now getting ridiculous levels of attention. The band in question take any number of common British guitar band clichés and influences and somehow manage to revitalise them all into something special, completely new and of their own, aided by a lyricist who effortlessly turns the mundanities of everyday life into witty and thrilling songs.
You may already have seen adverts for the album, but it looks like this.

Whilst we're on Domino, another band of theirs have just done a Girls Aloud cover which works quite well, at least until they start laughing:

Arctic Monkeys - Love Machine

For a load more radio session goodies try AltShiftMusic's recent post.

And the midweek answer is...

Probably. Arctic Monkeys are not far ahead of Notorious BIG at number one and while it should be likely for them to be overtaken, that's what everyone said last time.
Meanwhile Belle & Sebastian might just get their biggest yet with Funny Little Frog, and in the album charts Hard-Fi are just beating Editors to number one with their similarly 6-month old (and heavily reduced in many places) album.
This leaves them with a little bit of a dilemna, having already reached the desperately re-releasing old singles stage of their album campaign before finally being widely noticed - do they fail to take any more advantage of an upsurge in interest or carry on releasing yet more singles, putting off a second album even further and risking alienating longer-term fans?

Better Do Better it is.