Yesterday saw the release of the shortlist to win a coveted slot on the Glastonbury main stage. For those of you who don't know the full format, basically 40 music blogs were chosen to judge the entries this year, which numbered around 8,000. BIYL were honoured to be chosen as a judge! We were asked to pick a shortlist of three from 170 artists sent to us. I remember feeling pretty daunted looking at the list initially, but about five acts into the list I hit upon Louise & The Pins. It was one of those musical [...]
Arctic Monkeys release their fourth album, entitled ‘Suck It and See' on Monday the 6 th of June 2011. ‘ Suck It and See’ features 12 new Arctic Monkeys’ songs and was produced by James Ford at the legendary Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. The album was engineered by James Brown and mixed by Craig Silvey. The album will be available on CD (WIG258CD), vinyl (WIG258LP) and via digital download (WIG258D). The tracklisting for ‘ Suck It and See ’ is as follows: 1. She’s Thunderstorms 2. Black Treacle 3. Brick by [...]
I know I'm Mr dark and moody, so it's not often I move into the world of pop. Today I was introduced to Scandinavian songstress Nottee, along the lines of maybe early St. Etienne. Nottee first came to the fore back in the latter part of 2009 with her Fleetwood Mac-inspired pop. Since then she has been honing her craft, finding her production sound and been tipped by NME, Mixmag and Dazed. The key ingredient in her musical progression was in the shape of Henning Fürst (ex.The Tough Alliance) and the first results of that collaboration are released to [...]
Last week I was asked to do a podcast takeover by the folks at Mudhut. Having checked out their podcasts before, I knew the standard was pretty high. I'm always a little bit dubious about doing these things; for a start how do I start to pick just a few tracks from the many artists we feature on the site? Sure, there are one or two that just had to be on there like The Joy Formidable and Pete Lawrie. I hope that I have given a fair representation of the site & more importantly an insight to why I [...]
We seem to have made great strides in the last year, and it was an honour to be picked as one of the judges for the 2011 Glastonbury ETC. This is the first year it's been judged this way, and although I would of loved to have checked out all the nearly 8,000 artists, we were sent a list of 163 to plough through. Many times it seemed a thankless task, as I listened to artists that didn't float my boat, but in the interests of the competition and fairness to the artists I can say hand [...]
Sometime around late January I realized I was completely and utterly bored with my music archive. To shake things up I'm trying an experiment: for the remainder of 2011 I will only listen to music released in 2011. This is an account of the year. This Week's Purchases Wounded Rhymes Lykke Li Buy It The week's best is Lykke Li. This particular release inspired a [...]
I have loved Caitlin Rose since the first time I heard her cover of the Stones' 'Dead Flowers'. You might also recall that her debut album featured in my top 10 last year. I'm pleased to say she has announced some more UK dates, and will be joined by Treetop Flyers, another band I introduced to the site last year. If you enjoy a slice of Americana and Country, then this is a match made in heaven! I only wish there was a date close to me. Caitlin Rose UK headline tour [...]
The other day I got myself embroiled in quite a heated discussion when a cohort of mine said he was sick of the Mumfordisation of music. That was a new term to me; it rather rankled as not only do I think Mumford & Son's have been a breath of fresh air and paid their dues through Communion, they give back to the grass roots of music. At this point, I have lost count of the amount of great artists that have taken off via the Communion compilation album released last March. You might wonder what this [...]
Keath's Best of February Okay, so I've been doing my "Only Listen to Music Released in 2011 in 20113 experiment for a full month (though I've only been blogging about it for 2 weeks), and I thought it would be nice to recap the month. Best Album of February Dynamite Steps by The Twilight Singers . What I said : While not as vicious an exorcism as 1965 was, Dulli hasn't lost his knack [...]
Sometime around late January I realized I was completely and utterly bored with my music archive. To shake things up I'm trying an experiment: for the remainder of 2011 I will only listen to music released in 2011. This is an account of the year. This Week's Purchases The King Of Limbs Radiohead Buy It To insider's chagrin and outsider's delight, the biggest release of the [...]
Little Comets are pretty much a cut above the dirge of current indie bands doing the rounds right now. The debut album 'In Search Of The Elusive Little Comets' was just released, and the supporting tour hit Norwich last week. A packed Art's Centre seemed to mostly consist of college girls. Local support The Cads failed to cut much appeal. I would love to be able to say otherwise, but their tired imitation of Vampire Weekend left me scampering for the sanctuary of the bar! Main tour support was in the form [...]
Today we have a cover song double feature! Bat For Lashes and Friendly Fires were both recently approached to perform a cover of Depeche Mode's 'Strangelove' for a perfume campaign. Normally, this would be a source of cynicism or snark for bloggers & music fans, but I don't really have a problem with it. It's easy to toss off a term like sellout and never look back, but I can't fault artists for adapting to the new marketplace. It seems a lot of interesting collaborations are being birthed from things like this, including last year's 'Eyes of Mars' with Franz [...]
It's not often that I plug anyone's promotion, after all as a site that does not run any advertising I guess these are the sort of things we should be charging for. Bearing that in mind, you might ask why I'm breaking with tradition. Annie, who runs Wombat Wombat, is one of the few people that run promotions with no hidden agenda. These shows are always well organised and often showcase artists way ahead of the curve, as well as supporting the cream of local talent. This basically [...]
Mark has been throwing these together thus far, and even though we're both going down the same list of possible recommendations for the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition, I figured I would write up on a few bands that managed to catch my eye. After all, even though Mark and I will have to come to a unanimous decision for our submissions, our tastes to diverge from time to time. It's like we're two different people or something! First up we have The Amarylas , a band name I have pronounced differently [...]
Sometime around late January I realized I was completely and utterly bored with my music archive. To shake things up I'm trying an experiment: for the remainder of 2011 I will only listen to music released in 2011. This is an account of the year. This Week's Purchases Dynamite Steps The Twilight Singers Buy It Hey, have you heard the new Afghan Whigs [...]
Today it dawned on me that we are nearly halfway through our allotted time to pick three artists from the 160 we have been entrusted to judge for the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition. I'll admit, at times I have grimaced, but not as often as I expected to; the competition standard is much higher than I imagined it would be. There are certain artists that we have written about in the past that I wish were on our list, but the random nature at least means that the judging is going to be totally fair. When I first [...]
Yes, I'm going to talk about this! Oh I know, everyone else that matters has already had their say, but it's become something of a tradition for me to cover The Grammys. I actually fell asleep during last year's ceremony, so you may wonder why I'd bother watching. It's likely because I'm a glutton for punishment, or perhaps more accurately, a sucker for tradition. Even if I know awards shows are piles of crap I'm still going to join in and give it a shot. IT'S TRADITION!! I'm happy I did join in on Sunday eve, as this [...]
Having already covered The Joy Formidable album launch, my intention was not to post a review of this gig; however, circumstances dictate otherwise. From all the photos I had seen, the venue looked spectacular. Having spoken with TJF, I know it was a gig they were looking forward to. The idea and concept of playing what looked to me a still fully-functional church building was a great one. Cambridge with its great road network and student population, coupled with a tradition of being sympathetic to the arts, really trails similar-sized cities in terms of decent venues. Maybe [...]
Blancmange - Blanc Burn 9/10 There was a time when I would wax lyrical about how in 1982, I interviewed Blancmange just as they broke the UK singles chart. You know those were the days when you actually had to sell records to make the Top 40! Little did I realize that nearly thirty years on that they would be releasing a new album; even less that I would be reviewing it. After all, much like the band I took a long hiatus. [...]
Sometimes, bands pass you by. There are so many out there that even for the most fastidious of us it's bound to happen! This London trio bring something that's a cut above the run of the mill alternative scene. The band released a debut album back in late 2009 called Suite (s) , but not being privy to it I can't tell you how much the selected tracks were reworked for the subsequent Cut(s) EP. The one thing I can tell you is that 'Teenage Eyes' - lifted from the EP dropping via Wirebird Records on 28th [...]
Battery In Your Leg
HAERTS – All The Days
iTunes Leaks Kanye West’s Yeezus tracklisting??
PREVIEW: Hyperbits – Karekare (Original Mix)
Stream: Disclosure – When A Fire Starts To Burn
