May 2011
52 posts
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Illogical Time Concerns - Deciio
If this is a bedroom production, we’re being fooled. There is something so grand and flourishing about ‘Deciio’ that gives it this glossy, well-produced façade. Vocals bellow beneath a thick Earth’s crust of warped synths as robotic percussion conflicts with a bolt of floating guitars. Like one of The Longcut’s songs perhaps, it’s a building,...
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Incoming// Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread
Drag City June 21st - US
Ty Segall - You Make the Sun Fry
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May Album Pick: Death Cab For Cutie - Codes And...
Fun fact: ‘Codes and Keys’ actually contains a song called ‘Stay Young, Go Dancing’. Older fans of Death Cab for Cutie could be forgiven for thinking that they’re listening to a completely different band. Last time out, on 2008’s ‘Narrow Stairs’, the band swapped their bright melancholy for something approaching genuine despair; and this in its...
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Incoming /// Copy Haho - S/T
1. Factory Floor 2. Earthquake 3. Wrong Direction 4. Waiting For Something To Happen 5. A Winter On The Run 6. Demons And Gods 7. Dying Breed 8. Pestle And Mortar 9. The Be Good 10. When It Gets Dark 11. Accent Changed
June 20th via Slow Learner
Dying Breed by copyhaho
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Thomas Collins - Neverending
I saw the bugs swarming around me in the bathroom light yesterday evening as a sign: summer is slowly seeping its way back into the country. I feel hot, sticky and uncomfortable again, yet revitalised at the same time. Any other time of the year, I might not go near Thomas Collins’ sweet, chillwave-indebted sound of summer but it couldn’t seem like a more apt thing to listen to this...
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Pillars and Tongues - The Making Graceful
[Premiered on NPIP] A perplexing array of instruments filter through the cracks in the walls, joining arms and become a solitary wave of almost wistful, flowing noise. ‘The Making Graceful’ sounds pagan-like; how music would have been made when we had castles for skyscrapers and rituals for the internet. Its six minutes rush by in no time at all because you’re given so much to...
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May Album Pick: Friendly Fires - Pala
XL It’d be foolish to judge the success of Pala from the very first week it enters the charts. The 2009 self-titled debut made the slightest of dents when it first emerged, before taking a life of its own in its ideal setting: Music festivals. Friendly Fires are veterans of this sun-kissed environment; jostling from one side of the stage to the other, sporting confidence amongst their...
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United Fruit: Wrecking Ball
Is it just me, or has 2011 been really good for noise-rock so far? In any case, it’s about to get better. Glasgow’s United Fruit are gearing up to release their debut album ‘Fault Lines’ next week. It’s quite a loud listen, but beneath all the clattering drums and overdriven guitars there are nine very good and extremely enjoyable songs. ‘Wrecking Ball’...
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MFM008 - Music Fan's Mic Podcast - 25/05/2011
Hosted by: Jamie Milton
These songs are so good they should be protected by a super injunction, so only a select few of us can bathe in their glory. Let’s be honest, though: Everyone’s heard Bon Iver’s new’un by this point.
Justin Vernon joins seven other tracks pipped from others blogs, other ‘casts, to make up MFM008. Featured this week: Magical Mistakes,...
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Entrepreneurs: Fuck Tactics
One of the strangest singles of the year, and also one of the best, now gets an equally-as-strange video to go along with it. We’re not exactly sure what’s going on in Entrepreneurs’s video for ‘Fuck Tactics’, but it definitely looks like much fun was had in the process of making it.
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May Album Pick: Maybeshewill - I Was Here For A...
I have tried to write this up twice now, and both times Tumblr crashed when I got around halfway through the review. Tumblr is obviously having trouble handling this album, and I’m not surprised. If any other band had made ‘I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone’, people would be wondering whether it would be possible for them to better it. With Maybeshewill, however, the...
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Goodluck Jonathan: Broken Heart
Broken Heart from Goodluck Jonathan on Vimeo.
The wheels are firmly in motion for this Brighton band, and they’ve returned with an absolute cracker of a lead single to prove it. ‘Broken Heart’ (out next week) is the first song taken from Goodluck Jonathan’s forthcoming debut album ‘This Is Our Way Out’. Why are we stressing that it’s the album? There...
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Brontide: Sans Souci (Illuminé)
Brontide - Sans Souci (Illuminé) from BeatCast on Vimeo.
While we’re on the subject of Brontide, here’s a performance of the entire record from start to finish. Do yourself a favour and watch it, you’ll thank us later.
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May Album Pick: Brontide - Sans Souci
Say hello to perhaps the most aptly-titled album of 2011. ‘Sans souci’ is the French for ‘without worry’, and it serves as a testament to how astonishingly confident the debut album from Brontide is. Its three members, Tim Hancock, William Bowerman and Nathan Fairweather, have created something that will surely go down as one of the best, if not the best, post-rock albums...
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Wintercoats - Delicate Position (Ft. Sea Oleena)
The guitars in ‘Delicate Position’ are plucked in such a way that you’re forgiven for mistaking them for another instrument. Surely a guitar, even one with strings made of silk, couldn’t produce a sound as soft and harmless as this. The song rarely shuffles beyond its initial comfort; tones are hushed and whisper-like; Sea Oleena’s breath-like vocals adding a form...
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Friends - Friend Crush (Phone Tag Remix)
The foot-shuffling, sun-ravished ‘Friend Crush’ gets a spiritual awaking: waves of reverb-heavy guitars are replaced by empty spaces; a focused song structure makes way for electronic dominance. The chorus line of “I wanna ask your advice on a weekday, I wanna plan something nice for the weekend” becomes morphed, twisted and nigh-on robotic. Talk about a transformation...
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King Post Kitsch - Don't You Touch My Fucking...
Well, this came completely out of left-field. Charlie Ward, otherwise known as King Post Kitsch, is back, and he’s been busy. His project is now a fully-fledged band, an album, called ‘The Party’s Over’, is done, and it’s on June 13th via Song, By Toad Records, home to, for instance, Meursault and The Japanese War Effort - he’s in good company. The lead single...
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Oh Minnows: Another Volunteer // Entrepreneurs...
Were you as disappointed to see Semifinalists split two years ago as we were? If that’s the case, you’ll definitely approve of this. Oh Minnows is Chris Steele-Nicholson’s new project. In the same year that his old band folded, he released an EP, ‘Might’, which, since we were offered the chance to catch up on it, is rather good and points towards the debut album...
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Friends Electric - Fireworks
The new Friends Electric single would seem to owe a little to Delphic - you’d be forgiven for thinking the Manchester band had already returned. There’s nothing wrong with that (at least not in our opinion, as we loved Acolyte), but what makes it even better is that the video for ‘Fireworks’ is a beautifully-shot affair that adds rather a lot to the atmosphere-laden...
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Dansx - Many Colours
We put Dansx’s ‘I’m Seeing Gold’ as the opening track on the latest podcast and it’s received by far the most positive response out of not only the other songs on this podcast, but also all those that appeared on the previous ‘cast too. ‘Many Colours’ continues Brian Dansx’s sparking form, richly-applying a sweeping vocal sample , helping to...
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Telepathe - Throw Away This
“You can’t think about it too much” is the opening line. If anything, Telepathe have been criticised for doing the exact opposite: Over-thinking. Some distance from the Sitek-produced ‘Dance Mother’, ‘Throw Away This’ quite actively disposes of the kaleidescopic synths and walls of sound that provided a backdrop. This new face, exposed on the first...
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PEPEPIANO - Flesh Rails
‘Flesh Rails’ weaves between a straightforward pop melody, one that’d hit the heady heights of Top of the Pops a decade ago, and the kind of dipping, multi-faceted dubstep James Blake put his name to in the “good ol’ days” of EP’s. The above artwork says it all really; an imaginative gem that’s not for the faint hearted, right up there with the best...
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Steve Adey
‘Just Wait Till I Get You Home’ breathes down your very spine; you picture yourself taking one final step in a barren field, before collapsing onto the hard floor, glancing upwards at the edges of the clouds. Steve Adey’s message, as demonstrated by the title, is one of ultimate hope and anticipation but its sparse, sedated feel fills you with the kind of dread that only the...
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Givers - Up Up Up
This Lousiana-based five-piece have a moniker that suggests plenty of generosity, and rather appropriately have released their debut single as a free download. You can grab it below; but this begs the question, what exactly have Givers given us with ‘Up Up Up’? Well, it’s a taster of their album, ‘In Light’, which arrives on the 4th of July. Once again, this is...
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Jesse Ruins - Sofija
Jesse Ruins is a Japanese artist, representing the kind of dreamy, synth-laden sound the majority of bloggable American and European acts clutch hold of. But what contemporaries manage, Jesse Ruins does better. A cassette was released earlier on in the year and ‘Sofija’ backs up its warm response with a warm, subdued melody that ever so sneakily evolves in an instant, into a fierce,...
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Beat Connection - In The Water
The percussion feels like the grains of sand sticking to your wet feet, the vocals splashing across the track like the waves spilling onto the shore. I don’t think you’re likely to find a more apt music video for a track all year. The acid-trip, watercolour visuals meet this certified summer anthem of this year and last, like the meeting of a pair of best friends. [JM]
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MFM007 - Music Fan's Mic Podcast - 17-05-2011
Hosted by: Jamie Milton If you’re still feeling heavy and worn from this year’s Great Escape Festival, this might kick-start you back into something of a proper gear. Featuring, amongst others, is our highlight of the festival, Christian AIDS, who sit alongside an almighty, cultured opener, titled ‘I’m Seeing Gold’ by Dansx. It’s a little heavy on the...
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The History of Apple Pie - Tug
If anyone was expecting me to say that this band are ‘as American as apple pie’, well then you’re shit out of luck, because this five-piece are actually from London. They have a debut single on the way; this isn’t it. ‘Tug’ serves as a mere appetite-whetter for what is to come. Wait, did I say mere? Let me correct that: ‘brilliant’ would be a more...
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Us Baby Bear Bones
Brighton is still firmly on the agenda since this year’s The Great Escape. Yards away from anywhere you stood would stand a bar or local venue, songs amplified to bounce of the corner of any street you stepped onto. And yet throughout it all you’d see local people and tourists oblivious that the festival was going on, such is Brighton’s constant sense of wonderful culture. ...
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WatchSTREAM/// Friendly Fires - Pala
Set to be the soundtrack to a great many people’s summer, the new album from Friendly Fires sees them going all-out pop. The hooks on this record are pound-for-pound stronger than on their debut, the choruses almost impossibly euphoric… put it altogether and you have the sound of a band who realise that their time has come.
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Mono Stereo - Girl, I Love You / Dark Side
If this doesn’t turn out to be the most blatant case of musical Jekyll-and-Hyde this year, hats will be eaten. Mono Stereo have made sounding like two completely different bands into something of an art form. Hailing from Sweden, the group’s latest single is a double A-side and would seem to hint at their forthcoming debut album, ‘Who Built the Pyramids?’ being diverse,...
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Cashier No. 9 - Lost At Sea
Welcome to the sound of the summer: the Northern Irish quintet Cashier No. 9. The Belfast bliss-poppers are all set to go with their debut album, entitled ‘To the Death of Fun’, due out on June 20th on Bella Union. It’s going to be a cracker. In fact, I was all but convinced of this even before I heard the free album taster ‘Lost At Sea’, but now I’ve had my...
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MFM006 - Music Fan's Mic Podcast - 11-05-2011-...
Hosted by: Jamie Milton
Download (32.24MB)
Whilst the young among us are getting angst-y about the Tories favouring rich people for university places and whilst the slightly older amongst us are getting more cynical by the day, it seems an entirely good thing that festival season is kicking in. The Great Escape is Britain’s own SXSW, a “showcase” where music experts, new...
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The Great Escape 2011: A Spotify Playlist
So this week I decided to ditch all sensible revision schedules, hike off from university and catch a train to a place I once called home: Brighton. Naturally, MFM decided to make a Spotify Playlist to celebrate the almighty Great Escape Festival. This was, of course, done without checking the official website for said festival. Had we checked, we’d have seen that the organisers themselves...
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May Album Pick: Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
[Bella Union] The climax of praise heaped upon Fleet Foxes’ debut album seemed fraught with doom. Everyone, even those lavishing the compliments, seemed poised to turn their heads and implement one of the most damning backlashes any band’s even been subjected to. This was because the ‘Sun Giant’ EP and the subsequent album, whilst being care-free, escapist and for want of...
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New Music: Buck UK - Once
Another late-night, sobering-up sort of tune; one for the coldest, darkest nights walking back from the club with only a few lit-up pizza chain signs to help you see your way. Buck UK’s minimal electronica is immediately alluring for its sheer lusciousness, the way in which the faintly-applied synthetics grab you with such purpose and intensity. [JM]
Once V2 by Buck UK
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Galapagoose (above) combines with some equally...
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MFM005 - Music Fan's Mic Podcast - 04/05/2011
Hosted by: Jamie Milton The 5th Music Fan’s Mic Podcast has arrived. A mere few weeks ago, we plucked our heads out of the hedge and went for it. I decided to put my fairly monotonous tones to the test, stretching my ears to find some new musical discoveries, placing eight tracks a week into one, healthy podcast. So far, that’s worked a treat. We’ve an unprecedented amount...
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New Music: Youth Lagoon - Montana
Trevor Powers continues as his delicate, thoroughly exciting self with the newly unveiled ‘Montana’. Following quickly on the heels of ‘July’ and ‘Cannons’, both stunningly beautiful efforts in themselves, this effort is piano-led, shining a solitary light upon Powers’ deftly applied, emotionally-swept vocals. A very isolated-sounding effort but not one...
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New Music: Washed Out - Eyes Be Closed
disconaivete:
INCOMING// Washed Out - Within and Without
Eyes Be Closed
Echoes
Amor Fati
Soft
Far Away
Before
You and I
Within and Without
A Dedication
Washed Out - Eyes Be Closed