Blog: SoundsXP

Here's a garage-pop hymn to prescription medication from US duo Crushed Out , it's called 'Push Down & Twist'

• Crushed Out - Push Down & Twist

The EPs collected here are from an enormously entertaining series of releases from Front & Follow records; the artists involved were invited to make whatever music they pleased as long as they in some way used a collective pool of sound sources made available to all of them. The results are, in no particular order: frightening, amusing, exciting, and beautiful. When considered as a whole, given the number of artists and groups taking part, ‘Collision/Detection’ is an album of unlikely consistency of quality. Every contribution is worthy of its place and exists as a [...]

No text

• The Fresh & Onlys - Long Slow Dance

Internet Forever have released another single from their acclaimed debut album. You can download 'White Light Collision' for free via their website .

This is a great psych/garage/pop tune by London duo Love L.U.V. . It's called 'In My Daydreams'. In My Daydreams by Love L.U.V.

Mexico's Martin Thulin is an experimental producer and songwriter who's also the vocalist in Los Fancy-Free. 'Guns Down' is taken from his latest solo album 'I'd Rather Be Transparent Than A Shadow In The Dark' and you can download it free by heading here .

• martinthulin - Guns Down

Mysterious New York surf group Aaron & The Burrs recently released their second album, the creatively titled 'II', and the whole thing is free from Bandcamp. Here's a quick taster called 'Forward To Hell'. Forward to Hell by Aaron & the Burrs

The National have returned with ‘Trouble Will Find Me’; an album that insinuates with a softness and subtlety that causes it to crawl under the skin. Unfolding languidly, it moves like a slowly diminishing hangover; the moments of pace when they arrive are exhilarating: the driving post-punk bass line of ‘Graceless’, the glorious rush of ‘Sea of Love’, the loping gallop of ‘Humiliation’. The musical arrangements throughout are brilliantly supple. Songs ebb and flow rather than dip the listener in artificial grandiosity. Their power resides in a slow accumulation of detail and an [...]

No text

This sounds just like a Vampire Weekend record. That is, it’s influenced by Paul Simon and modern r’n’b, it has knowing lyrics that read like a Sunday supplement, and it’s played with a preppy zing. The cover features a picture of a cloud-shrouded New York City and the band seem to be creating their own mythology of the Columbia-educated smart guys who are men of letters as well as men of the people, synthesising soft-rock, reggae and classical music with Bret Easton Ellis langauge. If you liked the first two records, you’ll love this; if not, there’s [...]

Hjaltalín's new single ‘Crack In A Stone’(from forthcoming album Enter 4) demonstrates how their orchestral pop has evolved to incorporate modern pop, techno and classical features, producing a compelling strangeness that’s hard to ignore. It starts minimally, driven mostly by bass and odd synthy whoops, while Högni Egilsson groans expressively; then it explodes with electric life, all dramatic hooks and angular flourishes, that would make the perfect musical accompaniment to an evening's shamanic dancing in some snowed-in Reykjavik village hall. It’s backed by a version of Beyonce’s [...]

There's been some great music coming from Eastern Europe lately, and this split EP featuring Finnish post-rock/experimental/jazz trio Virta and Ukraine-based dreampoppers Ummagma only serves to reinforce the diversity of sounds being created in that vast region. Beginning with Virta's two tracks, the EP gets off to a mellow and unusual start. 'Tales From The Deep Waters' is a about as understated as post-rock can get, but that's only half the story. This sound may be there as the base for the song, the foundations if you like, but it's the brass that takes the lead, [...]

• Ummagma - River Town
• Virta - Traffic

Here's some excellent indiepop from up and coming Oxford band ArtClassSink , it's called 'Face The Day' and it's ace!

• ArtClassSink - Face the Day

No text

Soft Hearted Scientists are Nathan Hall, Dylan Line, Paul Jones and Michael Bailey. (Sometimes they let their genius producer, Frank Naughton drum for them) With five albums under their belt, the latest being ‘False Lights’, I felt it was time to probe the thoughts of this "kitchen sink psychedelia’ outfit who use gnomes as weapons against objectionable rock bands. I caught up with Nathan via facebook messaging. How hip are we? SoundsXP: So you’re from Wales but are you all still living there? If so did you feel the earth move the other day? (This [...]

South-Westerners PJP Band have just put out their debut album '...And So It Goes' to some pretty rave reviews. Here's the garage/psych of single 'Vicious Luck'.

• Jam X Management - The PJP Band - Vicious Luck

Here's another track from No Middle Name , the solo project of David Bailey from The Title Sequence. It's called 'Feels Like The '90s Again' and is a jangly psych-pop tune from his forthcoming debut album.

• Mollusc Records - No Middle Name - Feels Like The 90's Again

The Janskys - polychromatic flux Sheffield’s Janskys have form in well-crafted heartfelt Americana. This latest offering very much starts off in that vein - After the Flood offering a dreamy, pared down take on Joshua Tree-era U2. The next few songs also meander nicely along, the sort of earnest, jangly country rockers that sound good out of doors, pint in hand, on a sunny afternoon. As the record presses on though they start to [...]

They Might Be Giants - but they're probably tiny, tiny robots. Some musicians trade on change and reinvention. Some simply get really, really good at the thing that they do. They Might Be Giants have spent 30 years on the latter course and it’s all to the good. As a parent of small children I owe them plenty for making kid’s records that are way more than bearable when demanded [...]

From their new EP 'Song Of The Month', this is Detroit band Warhorses with some heavy psych that sounds like the MC5 covering something from the early Factory Records catalogue. It's called 'Rumble Seat'. Free Electronic Press Kits template from ReverbNation.com