
Killbeat It's like a battle of east meets west, with central-southeast-ish (or simply the centre of the universe, if you will) as the battleground. Representing the west coast, wry roots-rocker and 2009 Verge XM artist of the year , Dan Mangan from Vancouver and his new album Nice, Nice, Very Nice</i . From the east, PEI power-poppers extraordinaire and 2008 Polaris Prize shortlisters, Two Hours Traffic and their latest record Territory . Their battleground? The record stores [...]

Lucy Hamblin Ridiculous webhosting issues persist, so this one will be kept reasonably brief - who knows how long this window of opportunity of my site being up will remain. I've actually been told that the issues that've plagued the site for the past week or so have been resolved and am hoping that's the case, but if'n you find that things are unbearably slow or down altogether, swing by my Twitter for all sorts of colourful cursing. While downloadable/streamable/watcha ble online sessions are becoming much more commonplace, MySpace Transmissions is setting [...]

[Photo: Jonathan Taggart ] It seems like in the last month or so I've been hearing (reading, actually) a lot about this Dan Mangan character. People (other music bloggers) have been saying really nice things, like, for example, "[i]t's hard to believe that this new collection of stellar songs won't help him leave each tour stop with countless new fans in his corner" . So, step one for me was to check out some of the free mp3s from his new record Nice, Nice, Very Nice . [...]
Sep 29, 2009, 3:15pm
MBV

Jonathan Taggart Saying I was a bit award-ed out following last week's Polaris Prize gala would be something of an understatement, so the ceremonies for the Verge XM Awards the following night were largely ignored around these parts. But that doesn't mean the results weren't of interest - okay, Alexisonfire winning album of the year was of zero interest, but the declaration of Vancouver's Dan Mangan as artist of the year certainly drew a double-take. This response had nothing to do with Mangan or [...]

Jonathan Taggart Saying I was a bit award-ed out following last week's Polaris Prize gala would be something of an understatement, so the ceremonies for the Verge XM Awards the following night were largely ignored around these parts. But that doesn't mean the results weren't of interest - okay, Alexisonfire winning album of the year was of zero interest, but the declaration of Vancouver's Dan Mangan as artist of the year certainly drew a double-take. This response had nothing to do with Mangan or [...]

SIDE A 1. Miles Benjamin Robinson - The Sound 2. Old Canes - Little Bird Courage 3. Dan Mangan - Robots 4. Basia Bulat - Gold Rush 5. Monsters Of Folk - Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.) 6. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Higher Than The Stars 7. Sandbox Astronomy - Lost Languages SIDE [...]
Super 45 forma parte del Music Alliance Pact (MAP), una iniciativa de The Pop Cop que reune canciones destacadas de músicos locales de 33 países, una vez al mes. A continuación podrán disfrutar de todos los temas y un link para descargar todo el compilado CHILE: Super 45 Picnic Kibun - Drop Your Panties Si pudiéramos definir a Picnic Kibun en una sola palabra, [...]

Today's Radio Dick is shot straight from the hip from a busy guy in Cleveland. In the world of high school education, nothing spells "important" like the magical and enchanting homecoming dance. In American education, not one single night of the entire school year involves so much preparation for such little return profit. Kids spend hours determining hairstyles, attire, dates and venue decorations, all for an anticlimactic three hour rumble in the school cafeteria. Sometimes it's important for me to think backwards and try my hardest to remember what it was like being a teenager. This always fails miserably, and [...]
So here's this month's international digest, a day late, but there's good reason for that. Unlike previous months when I've been casting around for who to include, this month I didn't have any doubt. Beth Jeans Houghton. Not only because she's ace and because she did a recent Seven Songs ...

Okay, what is this? Has anyone been noticing what's going on? They're attacking us! Attacking us with songs and bombarding us with good music all over the place! Teasing us with their myriads of new or soon-to-be-released albums! What do Los Campesinos, The National, Islands, Johnny Foreigner, Land of Talk and that dude from TV On the Radio have in common? Yep, you guessed it: they all have a new album out soon and are shamelessly offering preview-songs from it to get us interested. The sheer amount of bands I love releasing new material in the next three months scares [...]

Dan Mangan It's been almost four years since Vancouver folk troubadour Dan Mangan released the nuanced and brilliant, Postcards and Dreaming , so the news of his brand new full length album was greeted with much excitement around Bumpershine HQ. Nice, Nice, Very Nice , hit the shelves in Canada on August 11 and I'm pleased to say, it was well worth the wait. On NNVN , Dan once again shows he can write songs with clever [...]

Existe cierto vicio entre los melómanos de esta época, muchos de ellos quedamos insatisfechos o cansados de una misma fuente musical, definitivamente hay mucho mas afuera, y es ese grito independiente el que cada mes inspira este proyecto, 33 canciones totalmente liberadas que de alguna manera representan la pieza clave a la verdadera revolución musical, este mes se nos une Colombia y Turquía, ¡Bienvenidos! Para esta edición contamos con la participación de la banda más prometedora y jodidamente interesante del momento, me refiero a los Plug-Plug , luego de ese demencial inicio que marcaron con Trinitron, ellos [...]

Once more, here is September's edition of the Music Alliance Pact . For those of you who don't know about MAP, it's a collection of music blogs from around the world who band together once a month to shed light on up-and-comers from their home countries. It's sort of like the WTO without the human rights violations. This month we've welcomed two new countries: Colombia and Turkey . This edition showcases 33 tracks from bands around the world. Once again I've gone ahead and highlighted some of [...]

The Music Alliance Pact is a collective of 33 of the world's top music blogs and webzines from 33 countries spanning six continents. Every month, each of these 33 sites picks one hot local song that gets posted on all these great blogs and zines. Here's what SPIN magazine had to say about MAP Not only does it give readers a broader look at the open and expansive world of music, but it reassures that we're on a good path in discovering music and culture - albeit globally - as it comes direct from [...]
hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts this month - it should pick up from now, i promise! anyway, one thing that's constant is the music alliance pact , which brings you the best music from around the world, handpicked by the best international music blogs. and as always, our local music ambassador brian koh brings us his recommendation of the month, MUON , with his trademark metallic beats and some rather haunting material including sheep that you'd rather not count before you sleep. enjoy! ARGENTINA: [...]
ARGENTINA: Zonaindie Matilda - Vanidad Matilda is an electro-pop duo based in Rosario (one of Argentina's largest cities), consisting of Juan Manuel Godoy and Ignacio Espumado. Vanidad is the opening track from Para Ser Movimiento, their second album, which was recently praised by Mexican pop star Julieta Venegas on her Twitter page. It was released by the Planeta X label in a physical format and as a free Creative Commons licensed download [...]

Every month, MAP (Music Alliance Pact) asks 33 music bloggers (now taking entries from Turkey and Colombia) across the world to share a track from their home country that they think you should hear. My Irish pick this month: Belfast's rockin' Nakatomi Towers . ARGENTINA: Zonaindie Matilda - Vanidad Matilda are an electro-pop duo based in Rosario (one of Argentina's largest [...]

(music alliance pact logo created by eardrums, based on a stock photo from stock.xchng user coscurro ) It's that time of the month again, Music Alliance Pact-time. Every month on the 15th, music blogs from all over the world work together to create a huge blog-post with music from all the MAP-members' countries. Each blog present a favourite from their own country, and all the band-presentations are presented in one big post in all the MAP-blogs on the same day, - the 15th. This is the September-edition of the Music Alliance [...]
Mais um dia 15 e mais uma edição do Music Alliance Pact com a representação já de trinta e três países. Os representantes de Portugal, este mês, são uma banda de Lisboa, os Iconoclasts, constituídos pelo Diogo Carneiro, Pipa Marinho, Vitor Azevedo, Sérgio Dinis, Ricardo Ramos e Pedro Coelho são uma banda com uma infinidade de inspirações mas sem alguma vez soarem a fotocópias de outros projectos.

4,213,562,663 (that's 4.2 billion) people live in the countries represented by the Music Alliance Pact, which unites in perfect harmony once a month to bring you the greatest new music from around the world by the people who know their scene best. For our 12th monthly MAP post we welcome the additions of Colombia and Turkey, as well as a new representative for Mexico. As Scotland's representatives, The Pop Cop's pick for September 2009 are THE XCERTS , who have kindly agreed to let us make arguably [...]