Blog: Bad Fotography

VISITOR . Formerly Cobra Dukes, (aka What She Wants before that) this London duo belt out euphoric, almost camp, stadium power pop anthems to perfection - a feat that I dont think even the Killers can come close to, so people should stop namedropping Brandon Flowers' band. Still, they are so Girls Aloud ! The boy version. In a super good way. Synth heavy like the Presets with big vocal pop vibes like Frankmusik . Los Feeling is produced by one of Australia's finest purveyors of synth pop, Diamond [...]

Where were you in 2007? Still living with/off your parents. Meanwhile somewhere across the ocean, the brunette turned to the peroxide bottle and Agyness Deyn stepped out from the shell of her former self. Australia: suntans, the Van She, Cut Copy and Modular Records. Home & Away and Kylie. The waves ripping at the cliffs on the Gold Coast and in Sydney, they sing to teenagersintokyo . All lightness, synths, soothing girl-voices on a backdrop of pop beats. Isabella and the man with the beard now lives in a lighthouse overlooking the harbour, watched by Jeanette [...]

The past two weeks have been filled with nothing but mediocrity, apprehension, boredom and anxiety. The occassional uplift comes from the presence of good friends, but as we sit and damage our livers further with more alcohol, you said to me: "You act like you're 19, but you've gotta realise that you're 23 now! Grow up!" Do I act like I'm 19? Fuck you. In between all this, I realise that I've talked about Magic Wands to you before, somewhere, outerspace. There is a crescent key that locks a hole in the door. Somewhere [...]

Joey Youngman aka Wolfgang Gartner have been dropping the kind of tech-y electro house since way before Justice reigned supreme. Very much in the same vein as other artists with similar sounding names: Kavinsky , SebastiAn , et al but sadly, without the much deserved hype. You wouldn't normally want to hype up a DJ that doesn't look the part - alas, electro is a very fashion focused scene, and with a DJ that looks like any normal middle-aged guy buying the sunday papers at the newsagent's round the corner from your house, hype in this [...]

Reverb. Distort. Sensual Harassment . What do you say to a band with a name like that, hmm? If you're a freak for catchy bass hooks and distorted synths like me then the only thing you can say "Yes!" NYC's Sensual Harassment have just released their new single and they want us to have a taste of it. Far from being a reptilian-humanoid alliance of charles-manson-esque proportions, Sensual Harassment is actually a band, who carves out lush, distorted 80's synth pop waves over robotic chanting vocals and fuzzy guitars locked on overdrive. Mmmm yeahhhh.... [...]

Canadians do it better. Montreal's Clues are doing an European Tour in October, the dates of which are at the end of this post. To the newly introduced, Clues do quirky indie pop - something like watching Hallam Foe with chipper, janglier-guitars Say Hi To Your Mom soundtrack, except with a strange collection of instruments thrown in the mix: a kind of weird piano, horns at times, bleepy plinky electronics and layered drumbeats. Sometimes erratic, sometimes sedated. Its the sound of frustration and disappointment on a rainy day when you've just got ready to get out [...]

Do you like hipster hip hop? Or is it just something about skinny middle-class white boys trying to string sentences and squeak them out quickly enough that appeals to you? If so, then perhaps, Juiceboxxx is for you. Something like the male version of Kid Sister, Juiceboxxx is trying to do 100 miles per hour but could only manage about 30 miles, bless him. We tried not to cringe. At least Kid Sister raps . Maybe its because rap is supposed to be all attitude, edginess and genuine-ness and Juiceboxxx is anything but. [...]

MOAARRRR BASS today! What up, folks. Right now I'm delving deep into my need for more bass. This time I'm talkin AC Slater ( Trouble & Bass / Party like Us / Palms Out Sounds ) : still doing the rounds on the hype charts with his brand of fidget house with BIG BIG bass: its a constant mash-up of bassline, deep wobbly-wobbly and some distinctive hints of rave thrown in the mix, which is expected from a DJ who emerged from the Hardcore / Rave scene in the late 90s. [...]

• SKisM - Idiocracy Vol.1

Duuurty tunes right here. Ultrecht fidget boys, Dem Slackers have been poppin nasty wobbly fidget for quite awhile now but while we were all crazed with the italian fidget mob duo Crookers at that time, Dem Slackers soldiered on with their own brand of fidget: Glitch-y house thrown in with thudding warbling basslines, plus a little bit of Bmore and a little bit of crunk keepin things nice and sweet. The April 2009 Wearhouse Music released Joker EP totally killed: crazy bass drops on the down low, wobbling into electro [...]

[Empire of the Sun - Standing on The Shore] Ridiculously amazing video. This is a bit late, I know. But I just cannot get over them right now. First heard this band on French commercial radio 2 weeks ago and I was like, "Who IS this? I need to know who this is!" The DJ was speaking in French and everything got lost in translation, I thought it was some kind of French version of a very camp Strokes. But they aren't! Empire of [...]

[Delphic - This Momentary] Such a brilliant video, presumably shot in somewhere like Ukraine, where masses of pre-war abandoned buildings still remain intact. Delphic 's This Momentary makes an apt soundtrack - tense high treble bass build-up and then dissipates. Certainly Manchester's answer to a less annoying the Whip , more eloquent and then some. ( Remember how banal Trash , by the Whip was? ) Two Door [...]

Ok, I'm going to spread some pre- Warehouse Project '09 love, starting with the enigmatic Daedelus . Alfred Darlington aka Daedelus Digitalis born Alfred Weisberg-Roberts, flips experimental electronic music with the fervour and savvy of a skilled craftsman, much in the same way as his pseudonym suggests. Its hard to really pin down a genre on this man's music but I can tell you that it switches from experimental randomness to Glitch-y, almost dubstep heights and when paired with his dandy threads, it seems really uncanny - in the coolest possible way. Imagine something like a [...]

[ NOTE: This post was removed by Blogger almost 36hours AFTER and DESPITE the fact that I've already edited it to remove a sampler track that was previously included. So I've had to re-post this again because I love this band so much and I need people to check them out - they're just too ace to be deleted. This band deserves more hype. Spread the love for Lovvers, guys! By the way - Lovvers are playing in Leeds at Nation of Shopkeepers on the 19th of August!! [...]

Ah. This is brilliant. The glorious, glorious noise and mess of it all. On the Wichita label, Lovvers echo the energy of bands coming out of the Smell with wobbly jangly guitars and that incredibly low-fi, barely audible fuzzy vocals, you'd think they really did emerge from the Smell. But they didn't. And yeah they've played an extensive circuit round the UK at shows with the usual suspects: No Age , Mika Miko etc and also you'd probably be hard pressed to not even mention Wavves when writing about this band [...]

A few months back I was engrossed in the sudden enthusiasm for minimal with the likes of Renaissance Man , Vincent Manganaro etc. Cant help wondering where was the nice and slow, soulful sounds of Anton Zap then? This is real deep house coming out from the belly of Russia and to some, deep house is and should be the new minimal. Best known for his skillful blending of vintage detroit techno with throbbing down-tempo beats, strings, minimal piano stabs and droning athmospherics, Anton held a residency at the notable Moscow club [...]

Guess who's gonna be at Warehouse Project 2009 ?!! Featuring the creme of the crop in dubstep, dub and DnB, this night is going to be, as the name suggests, one hell of a thrasher. I'm really psyched about seeing Modeselektor back to back with Skream , Gaslamp Killer and Rusko - this is going to be too wild. But lets talk about Joker and his team here for a sec. UK dubstep is again well represented, this time with Joker and the Purple Wow crew. This Bristol lot have [...]

This song is fucking EPIC. I first saw this video on Wolfing Hour 's blog about a few weeks back and its not something that can be easily forgotten. It's got an early 90s brit-rock feel to it and I cant help conjuring up The Verve in my head. Yeah its almost got that Richard Ashcroft-y vocals. The Big Pink 's wailing pleading vocals and the crashing wall of sound, noise, feedback pulls me at the heart strings so much that it reminds me so [...]

CLASSIXX !! I am right now feeding my love for new disco beats while I'm still a sucker for it. Classixx is to me what Aeroplane is to Friendly Fires : most noted for their absolutely lush remix of Phoenix 's Litsztomania - they took it to a whole new level with their gorgeous, almost astral rework of that tune. Its kinda a shame that Phoenix never really caught on here in the UK, come to think of it now. Anyway back to this LA duo: Tyler Blake and Michael David, brought together by their love [...]

I'm kinda wondering what Yuksek - this Wolverine-faced and classically trained electro-house dj - is up to these days, other than the usual tour schedule. My recent peek into that Lacoste Red! Collection Extra Ball track he did with Amanda Blank was a bit of a disappointment - yeah its a typical Yuksek banger, predictable, nothing new. Even that Always More remix he did for AutoKratz didn't quite cut it for me. Started feeling maybe he'd probably be well over his peak by now. [...]

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