March 2011
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March 2011, In Reviews
88% - Elbow - Build A Rocket, Boys! 88% - The Chapman Family - Burn Your Town 86% - Vessels - Helioscope 85% - Noah and the Whale - Last Night On Earth 83% - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Belong 80% - The Weeknd - House Of Balloons 80% - Cold War Kids - Mine Is Yours 78% - Craft Spells - Idle labor 77% - Dum Dum Girls - He Gets Me High EP 76% - Wild Palms - Until Spring 75% - Drugg -...
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Quick Fix: The Weeknd - House Of Balloons
Whether through intention or sheer luck, The Weeknd are the statuette of every Pitchfork-reading, mp3-seeking, 16-25 year old’s wet dream. The Beach House samples, the R n’ B design (a rarity if we’re comparing them to other acts adored by hipsters); they’ve managed to combine lauded samples with a sprinkling of originality. At the same time however, they’ve set...
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WatchAudiovisuals// Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean MFM HQ has been slightly taken aback by Fleet Foxes’ second record. It might, just about, be better than their breakthrough self-titled 2008 debut. That wasn’t at all expected. ‘Grown Ocean’ is the album’s euphoric closing track, the moment that confirms to us that we’ve just listened to a very special album.
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WatchAudiovisuals// PJ Harvey - Written On The Forehead
Watch this in full screen. The Middle Eastern protests have unfolded before our very eyes over the past four months; they’ve helped deinfe a new chapter in world history. Seamus Murphy blends images of our bland, routine train journeys with the life-changing revolutions taking place elsewhere in the world. It paints a quite distinct picture...
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WatchAudiovisuals// Pete and the Pirates in the studio Perhaps this hints at how ‘One Thousand Pictures’ will sound, perhaps it doesn’t. Not least it portrays the recording of Pete and the Pirates’ second album to be a free, easy-going experience, it also hints somewhat at a fast-paced, get-up-and-dance sound with ‘United’ as its backing track, which’d be much...
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WatchAudiovisuals// Dum Dum Girls - He Gets Me High Taken from this EP, right here, this title-track is an absolutely gorgeous, swooning number. The visuals are something of an acid-trip, fluorescent flowers and Dee Dee and co. swaying in a field.
Dum Dum Girls - He Gets Me High by subpop
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Craft Spells: Idle Labor
It’s refreshing to hear an album that wins you over without seeming to even try. It’s also quite rare, which is why we should be thankful that ‘Idle Labor’, the debut album from Justin Vallesteros’s project, Craft Spells, has finally arrived. Brevity and melody are used to superlative effect on an album that runs to only thirty-five minutes.
Indeed, the only...
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Words With...Body Language
Body Language have a 7” out right now and it’s wonderful. We caught up with the band around a month or so ago, for a feature with This Is Fake DIY. I asked them the dreaded “brooklyn music scene” question and talked about their fantastic musical resume and all future plans. [JM]...
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Facebook x MFM
VS.
If you’ve ever enjoyed any of our articles, any of the songs we’ve posted, you are duly obliged to “like” us on facebook. It’ll mean a lot to us and we promise we’ll continue to post good stuff. If all goes to plan, very soon we’ll have a multitude of interviews with the best new acts, plus our very first podcast (!). Now get liking. Visit our...
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Vessels: Helioscope
scribed for DIY Issue #1
There are those who would say that it takes a miracle to survive as a band if you aren’t already established and happen to hail from Leeds. This sentiment, whilst not entirely true, certainly holds some weight. Look at the amount of acts from there who folded before they could get to their second album. Grammatics pulled the plug last year; This Et Al called time...
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WatchAudiovisuals// Tuneyards - Bizness
The track of the year so far (it’s not even a debate) gets a surprisingly high-budget video. It begins with a class of schoolchildren bashing their desks in time to ‘w h o k i l l’s first single (makes me think this is how Matilda should have ended) before the erratic spirits are replaced with adults, one of which is Merrill Garbus. The video...
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Cage the Elephant - Thank You, Happy Birthday
scribed for This Is Fake DIY Magazine
The problem with making rock music is that you’re often left with the burden of sticking to one, specific sound. Take Kings Of Leon for example who, upon moving from inventive, roots-heavy Rockabilly rock towards the lights of a stadium, managed to alienate half of their original fan-base (whilst picking up millions of new recruits, it ought to be noted). ...
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Drugg: Shackled EP
The only shackles evident on Drugg’s debut EP are contained in the title. Otherwise there is a wonderfully inventive approach taken that will delight fans of forward-thinking pop. They’ll find much to love here, because at its heart, ‘Shackled’ is comprised of three excellent pop songs, each one as good as the last.
It’s highly unlikely that the listener will...
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Albums for the sunshine: 23rd March 2011
The weather’s dealt us a nice hand today - sun for the entirety of the daytime and some much welcomed warmth for what seems like the first time in 2011. I’ve my fake ray bans in hand, a good book at the ready and a couple of beers in the fridge; all’s needed is a soundtrack. Here’s three albums that’ll compliment my day and hopefully yours (sorry to everyone that...
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Micachu & The Shapes - Chopped & Screwed
scribed for This Is Fake DIY The eccentric talent of Mica Levi was refined and bred at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she studied composition. And this surprises a lot of people when you tell them, mainly because her debut album under the ‘Shapes’ moniker suggested very little restraint or any other common characteristic of your composer-by-numbers. Levi, you see, is anything but...
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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Belong
Let’s hear it for a reinvention. When we last ran into The Pains of Being Pure At Heart last June (with two new songs that didn’t end up on the record), they sounded like a band content to let the first stage of their career play out in the best way possible, with songs that admittedly were not a great leap forward from the stuff on their self-titled debut but hinted at a forthcoming...
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First Listen: Jamie Woon - mirrorwriting
The date: Monday, April 18th 2011
The producer: Self-produced
The songs - 01. Night Air: The song that launched him into the public eye last year, ‘Night Air’ is the perfect introduction to Woon’s brand of pop-soul and his introspective lyrical style: ‘Night air has the strangest flavour / Space to breathe it, time to savour.’
02. Street: Propelled by an...
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The Son(s) – The Son(s)
scribed for The Line Of Best Fit
Anonymity is a troublesome thing: many acts who hide their faces from press photos, keeping their mouths firmly zipped in interviews, actually end up becoming less interesting. Because nearly every other bedroom-band likes to remain relatively mysterious, they all end up appearing vaguely similar. Electronic artists, granted, manage to achieve success through...
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mpfree// Leverage Models - Tonight When I Burn
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The Vaccines - What Did You Expect From The...
scribed for Music OMH
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why The Vaccines are under such a weight of severe, loose-tongued criticism. Perhaps it’s the gradually-increasing cynicism towards ‘Sound of [insert year]’ polls, the fairly routine process of appearing on Later… with Jools Holland and automatically being labelled as a certainty for success. Critics -...
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Elbow: build a rocket boys!
What is this ‘Mercury curse’ bullshit that’s been tossed around? Sure, Klaxons went and destroyed their careers with the trainwreck ‘Surfing the Void’, and well, has Speech Debelle caused even so much as a ripple in the two years since she won the gong for ‘Speech Therapy’? (It’s a rhetorical question.) If you look at the winners’ list from...
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Jamie Woon: Lady Luck
I’ll start with a slight clarification: Jamie Woon is wrong when he declares, ‘Lady Luck ain’t playin’ on my side.’ His luck is definitely in, and the rising star, who’s gearing up to unleash his debut album ‘Mirrorwriting’, (which has been shoved back a week to April 18th) has unveiled something that indicates he clearly has his sights set on big...
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First Listen: Glasvegas - EUPHORIC///...
The date - Monday, April 4th 2011 The producer - Flood
The songs - 01. Pain, Pain, Never Again: Spoken-word piece written in the aftermath of James Allan’s 2009 meltdown. Sure to turn the heads of those who thought they had the band sussed.
02. The World Is Yours: The first indication of a shift in sound. Keyboards feature heavily and the Spector-esque ‘wall of sound’...
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Auction: Statues
Croydon-based newcomers Auction are no strangers to making music in unusual surroundings: the very thing that went a long way towards the band choosing that particular moniker was that most of their activity (writing, rehearsing and recording) took place in an auction house. They’re not properly signed; this song, their debut single, is out on Westfest Records on April 18th. So I get to...
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Stream: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
It’s new, it’s different and it’s rather excellent. Please say hello to the stream of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s new album, ‘Belong’, available to hear ahead of its March 28th release.
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Wild Palms: Until Spring
Wild Palms have pulled off something it’s rather difficult to do: they’ve made a disjointed album that works very well despite all the different approaches taken, throwing all their various influences into the pot, stirring it a little, adding a bit of their own ingredients and creating an impressive concoction in the process.
Has anyone else spotted the irony in this album being...
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Words With: Wild Palms
To coincide with the release of Wild Palms’ rather good debut album ‘Until Spring’, the review for which is on its way very soon indeed, Gareth O’Malley fired over a few questions for the band to answer, about the record and what the coming year holds for them. Lou Hill took answering duties. Here’s how it went.
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MFM: Hello guys! So, what’s the mood...
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Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
scribed for MusicOMH There are parallels between Lykke Li’s andYeasayer’s first and second albums. Both split their audience into two camps: one camp hails the existence of the year’s best pop record, while the other squirms slightly, keeps their head down and quietly admits that they just don’t get it.
Both sophomore albums are made up of energetic, instant pop songs,...
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Words With...Echo Lake
questions: Jamie Milton answers: Linda Echo Lake
Echo Lake made a bit of viral fuss last month, bringing out the audiovisual companion of ‘Young Silence’, turning tens of thousands of heads in the process. That topped a spiralling, endless supply of blog-love and a gradual build of support from all corners. Here, we tracked down one/fifth of the band, vocalist Linda, to talk about...