One thing that's great about Scottish shoegaze band The Twilight Sad is that its opening tracks kick ass: The drums of "Reflection of the Television", off 2009's Forget the Night Ahead, starts its slow dirge; the aching beauty of the acoustic/electric slide guitar sounds on "Cold Days from the Birdhouse" from the band's 2007 debut, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters , make you melt right away; and on its latest, No One Can Ever Know , lead track "Alphabet" sounds like a possessed monosynth booting up. No doubt, The Twilight Sad knows how to [...]
Click here to view the embedded video. Pure British Rock. Spector creates a sound that can only be born from the British Isles. If comparisons are needed think of them as a slightly less dark Franz Ferdinand and a bit darker Killers. Spector Official Spector Facebook
RM Hubbert was once a member of Glasgow post-rockers El Hombre Trajeado, a band formed back in 1995 and a mainstay of a wonderful scene at that time in Glasgow that included Mogwai, Ganger and The Delgados to name but three. I had just started university in the city and the depth and variety of music was incredible, I felt privileged to be immersed in something so new and exciting. El Hombre's music was restless and inventive, edgy and funky, but they never quite got a hold of the record-buying public's imagination and despite support slots for [...]
Florida's Isles wear their chillwave influences on their sleeves on their debut track National Seashore . Taking inspiration from the tribal-like percussion of Washed Out and the echo-laden vocals of Neon Indian , National Seashore is an epic first outing. Gloriously addictive and vibrant in texture, Isles may only have one track to their name so far, but it certainly marks them out as a one to watch for 2012. National Seashore (Demo) by Isles
Last year, we had the great fortune to discover Icelandic singer/songwriter Snorri Helgason , whose latest album, Winter Sun , is a stunningly beautiful mix of folky melodies, retro vocal stylings and ambient textures, and features masterful production by Sindri Már Sigfússon (Seabear, Sin Fang) and contributions by other notable Icelandic musicians including Sóley Stefánsdóttir (Sóley), Guðmundur Óskar Guðmundsson (Hjaltalín), and Sigurlaug Gísladóttir (Múm, Mr. Silla). We've since featured Snorri in our podcasting ( here ), hosted him during our broadcast at Reykjavik's KEX Hostel during Iceland Airwaves ( here ), and invited him back to Seattle for [...]
Another year, another Brit Awards . The 2012 awards are already shaping up to be quite something, recognising British talent that has emerged and excelled itself once more. The nominations have already been annouced, with each category demonstrating the wealth of diverstiy in musical talent we have on the British Isles. Not only that, but we have the 2012 awards seeing the return of the incredibly Blur , to recieve their Outstanding Contribution To British Music Award. I don't know about you, but at MUZU.TV , we're very excited. Here's the nominations for the [...]
Oh, what a difference two years can make. Back during the winter of 2009, San Francisco natives Girls and New Jersey's Real Estate graced the stage of the intimate, 500 capacity Bowery Ballroom. Since then, they've each followed up their stellar debut LPs with equally, if not more, compelling sophomore efforts. Nevertheless, it was still hard to fathom walking into the enormous 3,000 capacity Terminal 5 Saturday night to find it full to the point of overcrowding a whole 45 minutes before Real Estate even took the stage. The fact that neither Girls nor Real Estate [...]
"Golden Isles" new off Portland band Grandparents' FUMES is GREAT. Sure it's a little bit derivative (see if you can pick some of the influences out yourself.) but any of that derivative-ness (derivaty?) is of things we really like. It's jangly, but it's also sort of surreal sounding, it's poppy (there are some excellent melodies from chorus to verse) but it's also dark. Get familiar below. Golden Isles by Grandparents Grandparents ( Facebook ) Rating 8.6
Award-winning electronic dance music producer and artist Maya Jane Coles (She Is Danger, et al.) is...
Recommended Show: SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 2012 MIDNIGHT MASSES @ UNION POOL 484 Union Ave Brooklyn, NY 11211 $5, 9PM It's been a while since we've heard of shows from Midnight Masses . It's good to see the band is still active and ready to perform live! Tonight they play at Union Pool! Lifetime @ Europa Workout @ Brooklyn Bowl Dive @ Tribeca Grand Hotel Brad Mehldau @ Village Vanguard Edwin McCain @ Highline Ballroom Jonas [...]
REM announced that they'd split up, PJ Harvey deservedly wins the Mercury Prize for Let England Shake and protestors occupy Wall Street before the movemenr crosses the Atlantic to occupy space outside a symbol of the globalised capitalist world, a church (erm you sure you got that right ed?) . The musical delights that found their way into my ears included the out there 7 Day Weekend, the brilliant John Knox Sex Club and the difficult to pronounce mnemotechnic. MP3 - 7 Day [...]
I can't believe it's already mid-December and already time for top 10s of 2011. This year has been a complete blur. In putting this post together, I completely forgot about so much music that came out this year. I'm sure it's no surprise that I've reformatted this list numerous times. I have left out some previous top 10 favorites (Digitalism, Washed Out, Korallreven, among others) as their records all kind of lost their spark for me. Top honors this year goes to "Weathering" by Epic45 . I absolutely adore this record! On first [...]
From the moors of Lancashire to the cobbled streets of Edinburgh – via a foggy Cambridge kitchen and Oxford's oldest building – Weald , the debut album from Rob St. John , has travelled far. Having seemingly absorbed the character of the locations in which it was written and recorded it is a dense, slow-burning record, monstrous and delicate in equal measures. It is also one of the best albums of the year. GoldFlakePaint caught up with Rob as he returned from playing a few shows in Europe to [...]
As with many of our more folk-oriented Covered In Folk subjects, I discovered the work of Dougie MacLean through two primary sources: through my father, who handed me one of his albums over a decade ago, and through label-watching, after discovering the same poignant song twice over, in separate female voices, and realizing that neither of them had written it. The song in question is Caledonia , the Latin name for Scotland, and as its matronymic title implies, though it treats its subject as an anthropomorphised object of desire, its lyrics truly [...]
Cakecast? Yes, the Cakecast, because I turn thirty-six today, and in the absence of a real cake and in honour of the fact that I have a gig tonight at the Wee Red and will hence be working, I decided that at least a picture of some cake was in order. I don't worry about age particularly, but I have to confess that thirty-six sounds suspiciously more like 'nearly forty' than it does like 'thirty-something'. Curse you time and your unrelentingly linear nature! Anyhow, as I said, tonight we have Gummy Stumps , Weird Era [...]
Who knew Dublin has a Jazz Scene? One of the bands playing the 'Jazz Is ..... Festival' in Dublin is the wonderful Mob Fandango: Mob Fandango - Ghetto Life by RisingStars Taken direct from the Press Release: Jazz Is…mini-festival - presented by the Prime Collective 22-26 November in Dublin City Centre [...]
Click here to view the embedded video. Little Comets first smacked me up side my head with their track ' Isles ', which the video for showed a beautifully disturbing and nearly completely accurate look at the unglamorous side of life in the British Isles. 'Worry', unlike 'Isles', is full of carefree rolling guitar riffs and overflowing with infectious raw energy, with an almost reggae quality that is forcing me to sway and bob around in my chair. (while sitting in a coffee shop this can garner a few looks TRUST [...]
'Any other names?' Fox asked. 'One or two are probably still a bit cracked – living as hermits in the Western Isles and writing anarchist blogs. Most of them probably found that as they got older, they became the sort of person they'd previously despised.' 'The establishment, in other words?' 'These were bright people, in the main.' 'Even the ones scooping up handfuls of anthrax from Gruinard?' 'Even them,' Professor Martin said, sounding sleepy from all the wine. 'It's all changed now, though, hasn't it? Nationalism has entered the mainstream. [...]
Solid Steel Radio Show 4/11/2011 Part 1 + 2 - DJ Moneyshot by Ninja Tune With the British Isles celebrating Bonfire Night, (the occasion of a failed attempt to blow the timbers off the House of Lords, and explode King James I), our very own DJ Moneyshot observes this historic date with a themed mixtape fit to bursting with incendiary songs celebrating civil unrest. Before the Rozzers turn up we get an hour of punk, rock, beats, reggae, DnB, dubstep and hip-hop with tracks from Reso, The Ruts, Outkast, Foreigner, [...]
At the heart of the Celtic Connections festival is the vibrant folk and traditional music scene, with some of the UK and Ireland's finest musicians set to raise the roof this January 2012. Celtic Connections 2012 runs from Thursday 19th January – Sunday 5th February and comprises 300 concerts, ceilidhs, talks, workshops, free events and late night sessions taking place over 18 days in 20 venues across Glasgow. Artists include Blazin' Fiddles, Shooglenifty, Salsa Celtica, Breabach, The Simon Bradley Trio, The Wrigley Sisters, Babelfish, Skipinnish, Paul McKenna, Ailie Robertson's Traditional Spirits, Niteworks, Rua MacMillan and The Bevvy Sisters, [...]
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Check Out: Chairlift and Kool A.D. cover Beyoncé
[Listen/Watch] – Chairlift – “Party” (Beyoncé Cover, ft. Kool A.D. From Das Racist)
French Graffiti Artists Videojack “N*ggas In Paris”
Video: Chiddy Bang – “By Your Side”
