Blog: The Line Of Best Fit

Photos by  Jason Williamson

Glasgow three-piece, Sparrow and the Workshop , aired the second single from the  Murderopolis  LP last month. Powered by a stomping, brazen guitar riff and Jill O'Sullivan's searching vine-like vocals, 'The Faster You Spin' is as stylish and sinewy as alt-rock off cuts come.  The accompanying visuals are decidedly more sleazy: documenting the antics of a gaggle of call girls - or rather some middle aged men dressed up and donning politicians masks - as they spend a night fighting, flicking the V's at one another and failing to secure [...]

Smith Westerns give yet another example of how guitar pop should be done, with their new song '3am Spiritual'. Taken from forthcoming album Soft Will '3am Spiritual' sees the Chicago teens arguably reach the peak of their powers, so far, with swaying melodies and an undercurrent of soft drums carrying the track before grand synths take hold. There's something communal and romantically nostalgic about this song, and if all that wasn't enough, the real kicker comes with the keyboard, guitar noodling breakdown lifted, straight from the best [...]

• Smith Westerns - "3am Spiritual" (Official Audio)

Attention spans, huh? Boring! There’s a certain type of indiepop collective that sees fit to adopt a ‘kitchen sink’ approach to instrumentation and arrangement, as likely to draw from the cutesiest of fey pop as it is to draw from what The Waterboys dubbed ‘the big music’. You know the types: Bearsuit . Architecture In Helsinki . Los Campesinos! Bands who’ll veer from lo-fi jauntiness to mini- Arcade Fires to nonsensical electro within the space of a single verse. To that list you can add Kill Rock Stars’ own [...]

The bi-annual  Independent Label Market is set to return to London's Spitalfields Market this July for this summer's edition of their music celebratory event. The fourth instalment of the day set up to celebrate the UK's best indie labels, this round of the day will take place on Saturday 13 July. Regulars in having a stall, Bella Union, XL, Domino and more will be joined by the likes of Matador and 4AD, appearing at Independent Label Market for the first time. Each label will be cutting out the middle man and offering a series of [...]

For somebody so adamant on his music being taken as art, Kanye West does go a strange way about it. It's now emerged that he's been working with the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith , on some new material. It turns out that Kanye headhunted the former rapper, now more of an actor, to return to the music world. "I've been messing around with Kanye, we went to the studio a couple times," he recently told  Hip Hollywood . "I might get the bug. [...]

Oxford band Trophy Wife have some good news and some bad news for you. The good first, as it kind of leads into the bad: they've released their debut album online. But don't get too excited, as they're breaking up too. The 11-track self-titled effort is available via Bandcamp as a name-your-price download, with the band releasing a statement on Facebook  saying that it's the "right time" for them to split and "make new music" separately. Before they do part, however, [...]

Reformed post-hardcore legends,  At The Drive-In  have announced that they’ll give seminal LP,  Relationship of Command , another reissue outing. The band initially re-released a limited number of coloured vinyl on Record Store Day back in April, but now they'll offer up a full repressing via Transgressive on 5 August. You can pre-order it now here . It's the latest in a series of reissues from the recently reunited group, following  Acrobatic Tenement' s repressing earlier this year.

Ok, on the basis that 2013 has already been a shriek-worthily good year for new music, you may think you have no room for Yet Another Potentially Favourite Popstar in your life but – and we mean this in the politest of ways – think again, for you may have inadvertently overlooked Tove Lo . Harnessing the heritage of umpteen Swedish musical geniuses before her and adding an extra edgy twist of her own, Lo magics up pop that gets sufficiently naughty to hook you in but [...]

Reportedly working on a new album currently, Cloud Nothings are set to return across the pond for a European stint this summer. With their new material, premiered at their SXSW appearance , sounding "noisier" than previous record Attack On Memory , it's likely that they'll take this upcoming opportunity to showcase some of the tracks. The band will stop off in Germany, Italy and other EU countries, as well as Visions Festival in London on 10 August. Check out the full schedule [...]

David Bowie, Is Tropical et al have already proven this year that the art of a good music video isn't dead. Also up there with them, busy ploughing away at resurrecting the long-lost art form, are London fourpiece Wolf Alice . But instead of angering Catholic groups or depicting French teenagers masturbating over video game characters  like the others, Wolf Alice show that their secret for thoroughly watchable video treatments is the simple mantra of "Seem to have fun yourself, and viewers will likewise follow suit". [...]

If you thought Daft Punk had been busy lately enlisting collaborators for their new album, just wait until you see how prolific one of those feature stars, Todd Edwards , has been recently. Random Access Memories cameo-maker and New Jersey producer, Edwards has unveiled a new Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1. Within the two hour-long mix are remixes, edits and reworkings of tracks by Daft Punk themselves, Jessie Ware, Disclosure, Rudimental and even David Bowie. [...]

• edc-nyc-2013-livesets - Todd Edwards (of Daft Punk) - Essential Mix (BBC Radio1) - 18-May-2013

R&B frontrunner, The-Dream is set to release his new album IV Play  next week . Terrible pun in the title aside, the record is available for streaming right now. The stream, via Youtube, caps off a busy couple of days for the musician, having appeared on Jay Leno last night with Kelly Rowland, running through their collaborative track 'Where Have You Been'. Watch the U.S TV performance below, with the album stream here . [...]

Manchester band Kult Country released their debut 73 'Slow Burn' / 'Amongst The Dead Forever' in April and now one side of that record has its own video. Since carving out a name for themselves with their arduously crafted shoegaze swamp, Kult Country have found themselves on the bill for likes of Beacons this summer. The new release is a doubleheader of loud, gloomy, reverb heavy ambling with crunchy guitars and drawn out cries. During 'Slowbun' in particular, there's a point at which it's easy [...]

1 Stag & Dagger Glasgow Photographer: Matthew McAndrew 2 Fatherson - O2 ABC Photographer: Matthew McAndrew 3 Sean Nicholas Savage - Broadcast Photographer: Matthew McAndrew 4 Phosphorescent - O2 ABC Photographer: Matthew McAndrew 5 [...]

Hot Chip member and man behind one of the best, if not the best, dancefloor fillers in the past few years, Joe Goddard returns with another sublime team-up. Following on from his solo outing with Valentina in the form of the aforementioned 'Gabriel', Goddard has unleashed this new number 'She Burns', with folk singer and arranger Mara Carlyle . Bubbling under the surface with post-dub bass bursts and swirls, the producer perfectly compliments Carlyle's emphatic tones. [...]

• Greco-Roman - Joe Goddard Feat. Mara Carlyle - She Burns

Lo-fi, green screen action provides suitably heart-warming visuals to match Wolf Alice 's tale of nostalgic tale of friendship. 'Bros', their most uplifting track to date, is packed with twinkling riffs and whimsical words, so it makes sense to marry the sound with improvised, let your hair down, revelry. Roll back the years and jump around with these new fun-filled visuals from the real North London favourites.

A new retrospective release has been announced by The Clash  bassist Paul Simonon, who has compiled a boombox-shaped boxset from the punk band called  The Clash Sound System . The collection will feature the band's first five studio albums -  The Clash  (1977),  Give ‘Em Enough Rope  (1978),  London Calling (1979),  Sandinista!  (1980) and  Combat Rock  (1982) - all remastered, three rarities CDs, a DVD of unseen footage by Julien Temple and Don Letts, plus fanzines, posters, stickers, badges and more alike goodies. “Remastering’s a really amazing [...]

Alt-pop musician,  Waxahatchee (aka Katie Crutchfield) has teamed up with sister, former P.S. Eliot bandmate and current Swearin' singer Allison Crutchfield for a cover of Grimes track 'Oblivion'. The pair recorded their rendition of the Visions single for fashion blogger/wonderkid Tavi Gevinson's Rookie Mag , as part of its theme song feature. "This song has been a staple in our house for a while. We were sort of late to the Grimes game," says Katie. "I kind of rejected her music at first [...]

• ROOKIEMAG - Oblivion-Katie and Allison Crutchfield

Not ones adverse to movie scores, post-rock outfit Explosions In The Sky follow up their 2004  Friday Night Lights  soundtrack with another for a new movie by Pineapple Express / Eastbound & Down director David Gordon Green . The movie, Prince Avalanche , features Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch and will hit cinemas from 9 August. The soundtrack, however, will precede it on 6 August via Temporary Residence. The tracklist is as below, followed by the artwork. 1 [...]