Tom Tom Club

I first heard The Hundred in the Hands on a Warp Records sampler a year or so ago and was a little bemused. The track being showcased, whilst pretty good, was more reminiscent of Silent Alarm-era Bloc Party with its spiky guitars than the inventive electronica Warp is famous for. More recent tracks that have appeared on the This Desert EP have displayed more of the Warp electronic trademarks however, particularly Tom Tom, which has just earned itself a video. The song mainly comprises some cool riddims, plus a twinkly keyboard line and the occasional stab of guitar. The vocals, courtesy of Eleanore Everdell, are sweet like the lyrics, but fairly unremarkable. The video is also a pretty standard affair, comprising those two great promo staples, a large cavernous space (usually a warehouse or abandoned car park) and abstract projections. The band members also look like they just stepped out of an American Apparel catalogue, but then again, that's not alway a bad thing (amiright??)



The Hundred in the Hands may be just another Brooklyn band, and they have no real distinctions, but there's something about them that i find endearing, perhaps just the fact that they write good tunes. Even if they at first appear out of place on the Warp roster, there's enough about them to justify their place on it.

Buy the EP from Warp now!
Then you can go to their Myspace

New Wav(v)e(s)

Do you remember the lo-fi, no-fi, oh,hi! noise pop of Wavves? You should, as it was pretty good and his last album was only out last year. 

His next one, King of the Beach, is out this August, and there's a taster of what to expect from the tracks Cool Jumper and Mickey Mouse. Both were first heard last summer, but have been resurrected, providing an indication of the greater precision and clarity that Nathan Williams has brought to his music, aided by Zach Hill. The drumming of Hill provides a much needed backbone to the songs, now more vital than ever when each track clocks in at over five minutes.

Wavves may have garnered more headlines last year for his offstage antics (mental breakdown and Black Lips bust-ups for instance) than for his music, but hopefully this year will see the balance redressed.

I'll be checking him out live myself at The 1234 on July 24th, i may even report back.

Here's the Wavves Myspace

The Creator's Project- Peaches

The Creator's Project have made a video about sexy songstress Peaches chatting about shit, such as her collaboration with the one and only Iggy Pop. Check it out here

Nika+Rory

Today has been beautiful, a day for sitting in parks and slowly broiling in true British fashion. I'm currently sitting in my room, looking out my window at the sun setting in a cloudless sky.
It's only fitting therefore, that I give you some tasty dramatic goth pop, none of that nostalgic lo-fi chillwave stuff, that's so passe, man.


All y'all regular readers may remember I'm a fan of Zola Jesus, and this song represents the fruits of a collaboration with one of her touring bandmates, a collaboration appropriately called Nika + Rory (appropriate cos that's their names).
Main track, I'm Not Going Anywhere, is most akin to Zola's other output, maintaining the high drama, but with added disco beats. Other songs prove a little more intriguing however, the auto-tuned vocals and massive synths of LA Suxxx, along with Do You Wanna Be, coming off like tunes worthy of the likes of Rhianna, especially the latter of these two tracks.
An intriguing prospect all round, and well worth a listen, and hopefully these early releases will blossom into a proper full length a some point.

Here's an MP3 of the track.

This is their Myspace. All their tunes are massive by the way.

Spinning and scratching

ROLL UP ROLL UP NEW ARCADE FIRE INTERACTIVE TRACK PREVIEW FUN
check it out now.


If this were the format for the whole album, it can't help but be amazing. Imagine if you could spin and scratch the track like you can here on your obligatory ipod wheel. wowzers.

The tracks are called The Suburb and Month of May and they're out on June 1st, which comes just after the month of may for all you calendar fans.

(if you haven't figured it out by the way yet, you can drag around the vinyl)

FM... Awesome!

I remember hearing a song by Icelanders FM Belfast like, literally years ago and thought it was really good, but then never saw anything about them afterwards. Now, thanks to Stereogum, i've been reconnected, this time with the video to their new single, Underwear.
It's suitably weird, in a way that most things are that come from that Arctic island, lyrics about running up the hill in your underwear seemingly forgetting that it's fucking freezing up there most of the year.
Along with the weird, there's also a good dose of melancholy as they describe living in a place where they "count the days until nothing", a place where everyone "keeps off the grass". I don't advise a trip to Cambridge anytime soon.
It's got a cool video that shows a selection of people dancing in slow motion, matching the elegiac beats of the song.


This is the band's Myspace

Pretty rad

Everything about the new Scissor Sister's single, Invisible Light, is more '80s than the '80s themselves. It's like stepping onto the dancefloor of Studio 54 and boogying with both George Michael and Ronald Reagan. At the same time. Whilst setting a high score at Pac Man. They were the days.
Seriously though, it's well cool, as most things are that involve a Sir Ian Mckellan spoken-word interlude.
Here it is, in all its ass-clenching glory.


Invisible Light will be on the new album, Night Work, released on June 29th on Universal.

Nice one guys!

It seems the point of many music blogs, of which this is one, is to provide new music, or dig up old stuff that might otherwise be forgotten. I fear this is something I haven't really been doing, so I thought I'd make a little playlist of some newer songs that you hopefully haven't heard of before, but probably have cos you're all so far ahead of the curve it hurts.
I make no justifications for any of the songs other than that I like them, but you don't have to, in fact I'll let you not like up to three of them- choose carefully.

1. Cults - Go Outside
2. Terror Bird - Cemeteries
3. Jai Paul - BTSTU
4. Heavy Times - No Plans
5. Active Child - Voice of an Old Friend (Summer Camp Bedford Falls Remix) 
6. Male Bonding - Franklin
7. White Ring - IxC999
8. oOoOO - Hearts
9. Dominique Young Unique - Show My Ass (Jay Haze Remix)

I've also been re-listening to this album again. It's possibly my favourite-ever album, especially when listened to whilst reading the accompanying notes, yeah, that's right, I read liner notes.

There are loads of great tracks on there, but this one is well cool.
Good bit o' spoken word. Menacing.
Bongwater - His Old Look

Super duper

Give this a spin. Iss well nice.

Dandelion Gum by Black Moth Super Rainbow

Was out ages ago, well, 2007 or something.

I'm from Bury

I wish Mark E Smith was my granddad.

Connect with this

School of Seven Bells' debut album Alpinisms was one of my favourite discoveries of last year and easily passed its subjection to repeated spins. Good news yesterday then when I heard the first song off their second (if I was cool I'd say "sophomore") album, Disconnect From Desire. It's a title that pretty much perfectly evokes SVIIB's (I am cool enough for acronyms however) sound, their dream pop sound and abstract lyrics providing a disconnection from reality, or just from desire, whatever.
The new track is called Babelonia, and you can download it by signing up to their mailing list, which you can do here. It follows on from where Alpinisms  left off, the beautiful vocals and harmonies of the Deheza twins backed by chiming guitars, bells and drums which, when they all come together, produce quite the cacophony- a sonic cathedral even??.

Disconnect From Desire is released on 13th July via Vagrant.
Here's their Myspace!

Kele- Tenderoni

A few months ago I went to a club night where Kele Okereke of Bloc Party was doing a DJ set,  a vain attempt to see/listen to something different to the usual provincial club fodder I am perennially subjected to. As Bloc Party frontman, he'd demonstrated a wide appreciation of music, from the Gang of Four aping post-punk of Silent Alarm (still one of my favourite albums) to the more electro-minded Intimacy. I therefore felt pretty justified in hoping for an interesting and eclectic set, but i was left disappointed and disillusioned. What Kele served up was simply another load of provincial club fodder, the likes of Dizzee Rascal and Wiley getting a few spins for example, all going down pretty well on the dancefloor as you can imagine, leaving me playing the disgruntled snob in the corner. I couldn't decide whether this was what Kele really wanted to play, or whether it was a case of pleasing the crowd.

Kele Okereke- Tenderoni

With the release of Kele's first single as a solo artist, it seems this question has been answered. Tenderoni is a pretty brazen electro banger, the most noticeable aspect of which are the big meaty synths that instantly evoke the likes of Wiley's Wearing My Rolex and Dizzee's Bonkers. The vocals prove the only real difference, Kele's distinctive delivery nicely buried in the mix before coming to the fore during the euphoric rush of the chorus.
It may seem a far cry from the spindly guitar lines of Silent Alarm, but there were signs that this was the direction Kele would be heading in, particularly the one-off single Flux, all oscillating bass and soaring, piercing synth-lines.
It's not really a track I'd go back to, but it's not especially bad, i just can't help but feel that nothing has topped that debut release, and perhaps never will, with every further attempt seemingly becoming further removed in both style and quality.

Tenderoni will be released on 14th June, with the full album, The Boxer, appearing the week later on Wichita. Interestingly, it's produced by Hudson Mohawke and XXXChange, both well worth checking out/following in their own right.

Daddy! Come Back!

The ubiquitous 'they' say that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but in this instance premature judgements are proved valid, with Usher's single, Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home) proving to be as amazing as its cover art would suggest. This is more than artwork for the sake of aesthetics however, acting also as a clear statement of beliefs and values, demonstrating the importance of family over the trappings of our modern, capitalist society, with its mansions, designer labels and swanky cars all relegated to the background. This is emphasised by the knowingly all-too-perfect, shiny veneer, a sweet satirical swipe against our airbrushed world. As mentioned, the song is also extremely good, and can be read as a subtle undermining of the usual bravado and misogyny of hip-hop, case in point being these lines:

"And girl tonight we'll gonna do a lot of sexin',
 Can't nobody do your body like this no"

In this cruel, increasingly secular world, where not even the Pope is above suspicion, it is to people like Usher that we turn, their oeuvre both art and moral compass. Further evidence comes in the blasphemy-dodging single OMG, 'oh my gosh" serving as the curse of preference for both Usher and fellow force for good, Will.I.Am. I sadly know little of Usher's previous work and don't know if he has always displayed such a fine moral core, but it seems he is taking his role as child-prodigy-mentor seriously, proving a suitable role model to Justin Bieber. Sadly little Justin seems to have gone off message, implying in his sing Baby that the way to win a girl back is through her inevitable fondness for material possessions, proclaiming that he will "buy you anything, I'll buy you any ring". Oh Justin, what would Usher say...(nice rhyme though)

I'm very bored by the way