YRRS From: New Milton/Christchurch, New Zealand What is pop music? In it's purest form it's a shortened form of popular music which tends to equal common denominator music that is designed to appeal to a mass market. It has also come to denote a certain type of catchy, upbeat music that lodges itself in your brain and refuses to leave. It's the sort of tune that milkmen whistle while leaving your daily pint of milk on your doorstep. [...]
Wooden Shjips From: San Francisco, United States In the age of the re-invention it may sound like sacrilege to admit that I've never been a lover of remixes. Ruining an otherwise serviceable track by adding loads of unnecessary bells and whistles is not my idea of art or entertainment. There are also far too many remixes which are little more than mutton donning lamb's clothing which has never been a good look. So I approached San Franciscan wierdos Wooden Shjips' three track ep [...]
Bare Mutants From: Chicago, United States The Pony's Jered Gummere must have a form of musical ADHD, he's been in so many bands he makes Jack White look lazy. The Muggles, Defilers, Real Cool Killers, Guilty Pleasures and The Ponys. He collects bands like other less diligent souls collect records. Inside My Head by Gummere's latest venture Bare Mutants is cooler than fuck fuzzy punk that sounds like the Jesus & Mary Chain at their best. [...]
Drag Your Heels From: London, United Kingdom Drag Your Heels (first featured on the Devil's blog in January 2011 Drag Queens , and featured in one of my weekly round ups in November The Devil's Weekly Round Up 6th November 2011 ) are finally getting the attention that they deserve. They're playing HMV Next Big Thing (don't forget you heard about them here first !) this Sunday 12th Feb at Barfly. You can find out more about the event and the [...]
Urchins From: St Helens, United Kingdom It's not clear if St Helen psych rockers Urchins are still in existence or on some form of lengthy sabbatical. They haven't logged into their myspace site since August (not that unusual these days I know), their last Soundcloud upload was 9 months ago, their facebook page hasn't been updated since September and there hasn't been a tweet from them since 2009! All of which is slightly ironic (are you [...]
This week's round up of the tracks I haven't had the space to post... Range Rover From: San Diego, United States Mind from San Diego teens Range Rover is distorted and a little fuzzy round the edges. Go Try [...]
SULK From: London, United Kingdom Madchester returns. Yes The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays and The Inspiral Carpets are back. All we need now is a Charlatans album and the rebirth of Northside (well maybe not) and we could host our own version of the musical antiques roadshow. Londoners SULK have clearly been reading the runes. They may have been born within the sound [...]
Howler From: Minneapolis, United States In 1961 Decca Records told the Beatles that guitar groups were on their way out. With only one genuine honest to goodness guitar band making it to the BBC's influential Sound of 2012 final 15 long list it would appear that they were a mere 50 years out. If the BBC are to be believed all that's left to do is order the coffin, draft the obituary for the Times and dust down the black suit and tie. But hold on a moment [...]
Filthy Boy From: London, United Kingdom With two Morrisseys in their ranks you might be expecting Filthy Boy to be a gang of gladioli twirling miserabilists and you'd be half right. With lyrics like "You look as pretty through the window magnificently kneeling between those men" these boys behaving badly share the young Mozzer's love of the dubiously erotic double entrendre. But there's a playfulness about Filthy Boy that owes more to Momus or the Divine Comedy than [...]
Catgut From: Norway or Scotland or England take your pick One of my favourite tracks posted last year was Pete Wylie's vitriolic The Day Margaret Thatcher Dies so in the interests of political balance here's Scottish troubadour Catgut's elegaic The Death Of Gordon Brown . While you're at it check out the incredible Black Seas & Belly Aches which sounds like a lo-fi acoustic Beck [...]
Dead Wolf Club From: London, United Kingdom January is a good time to take a listen to the self titled debut album from Dead Wolf Club . It's quiet/loud dynamic is just the thing to shake you out of your post festive torpor. It sounds like a missive from a deserted island where they've sealed themselves off from the rest of the world with nothing but well worn copies of the collected works of Liars, The Pixies and the early albums of Idlewild to keep them company. [...]
Modeselektor Evil Twin An early condidate for video of the year. Modeselektor - Evil Twin from MIAOU on Vimeo . Band of Skulls Bruises Band Of Skulls - Bruises Official Video from Joseph Connor on Vimeo . Angus & Julia Stone I'm Not Yours Another early contender for video of the [...]
This week's round up of the tracks I haven't had the space to post... Black Marble From: Brooklyn, New York, United States With their synth driven post punk Black Marble sound like they've been created from recently uncovered instructions on how to create the perfect Factory Records band. Go Try [...]
Cue Fanfare From: Bristol, United Kingdom With a name taken from a track off Swoon and chord squences and rhythm changes last heard at a Paddy McAloon retrospective Cue Fanfare couldn't betray their influences more if they took out a slot in the X Factor Final advertising break and spent 5 minutes shouting I Love Prefab Sprout. The Moth and Leda & The Swan wouldn't sound out of place on Steve McQueen [...]
Bewilder From: Southampton, United Kingdom There are a bewildering range of musical genres with new ones seemingly coined each day. It's perhaps fitting therefore that Southampton band Bewilder's music twists and turns between post rock, math rock and ambient rock with the dexterity of a double jointed snake covered in engine oil. They also have a collection of the best song titles this side of a Morrissey note pad. [...]
Trumpets of Death From: Leeds, United Kingdom Regular readers will know how much I love off the wall reworkings of classic songs. Hell my favourite track from last year was King Q4's stunning re-imagining of Shocking Blue's Love Buzz . So as you might expect I fell head over heels in love with Trumpet of Death's oddball cover of The Crystal's He Hit Me It Felt Like A Kiss [...]
Termites From: Bristol, United Kingdom Termites is a gang of four multi-instrumentalists with a fine line in art rock so uniquely British it was probably raised on bangers and mash. It sounds like they've been holed up in the Redcliffe Caves with only the Young Knives debut album and the collected works of XTC to keep them company. There [...]
Bogus Pipeline From: Cambridge, United Kingdom According to wikipedia the bogus pipeline is a technique used by social psychologists to reduce false answers when attempting to collect self-report data. It's also the name chosen by Russell Taysom the male half of Cambridge artrockers Micropenis (first featured on the blog back in 2008 Small But Perfectly Formed ). It'll look much better on a badge and t-shirt than his previous band and googling it is a lot [...]
Foxes! From: Brighton, United Kingdom Who would have thought that a cassette tape (yes it was that long ago) given away free with a weekly music inkie (the NME since you ask) would still hang like the proverbial albatross around the necks of any band daring enough to jangle rather than rock? Any vaguely twee band with cute, usually but not predominantly, female vocals are casually dismissed with the accusation that they're little more than C86 revivalists. If they can body swerve that they open themselves up to [...]
Biggs The Drop Gang Colours Fancy Restaurant gang colours - fancy restaurant from samuel craven on Vimeo . Mr Fogg Stay Out Of The Sun Alright Alright Bingo Bango
The Devil Has The Best Tuna
Miike Snow – Paddling Out (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)
Lana Del Rey covers Lovecat magazine!
