dandy warhols - 'sad vacation'

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Proving they've still got what it takes, here's the latest from a band you may just have forgotten about.

morrissey - 'i know it's gonna happen someday'

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I'm not so sure, Stephen.

tevo howard - 'monument ep'

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Ben Watts has been raving about this EP and I can see why. It's so simple yet so intricate and damned infectious.

it's never over till it's over

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I hope you've all had a great evening. This is some smile therapy for me. I was really looking forward to tonight, I got back from work quite late, put on my glad rags and met friends only to bump into an ex with her new boyfriend. I wish them well but it completely put a downer on everything for me, so I'm home and listening to some music and trying very hard not to mope. 


Let's see if this works. I love quirky techno tunes and I've currently got this as a favourite on my iPod. Living alone and commuting for up to 25 hours a week means I spend a lot of time wrapped in my own thoughts. I have never quite reconciled myself to the fact that I'm 43. My mind wanders as I listen to music and I imagine playing on the left-wing for Brighton and England footie teams or retracing Che Guevera's route that he took across South America in the Motorcycle Diaries or getting a complete arm tattooed with a Japanese art sleeve or even forming a band and writing a killer song that means something to someone somewhere. Alas, I haven't the time, talent nor funds for the road trip or band and I'm too scared of needles for the mid-file crisis tattoo. As for the football, absolutely no chance even if I were 17 forever and practiced for eternity. Plus I have absolutely no desire to be famous. 


Why am I telling you all this? I have no idea but minimal techno in particular and tunes like this that gives me space to dream and it puts a smile on my face. And you know what? I'm a very lucky bloke. Sleep well and let's hope Brighton get 3 points tomorrow.

the friday feeling

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Are you feeling it? Here's a few random tracks that popped up on my iPod this morning.

Black Grass - 'Toys'

 Beach House - 'Norway'

Lamb - 'Stronger'

international map of metal bands

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Whoever designed this has far too much time on their hands but it is a fantastic all the same. It's a map of countries showing the density (sic) of heavy metal bands per head of population. Unsurprisingly, North Europe and especially Scandinavia come out on top.   (Click on the picture for a better view of the map)

Perhaps it's the long, dark winters or the love of leather and long hair. Who knows for sure but it is a great excuse for playing a classic metal track: Van Halen - 'Ain't Talkin' About Love'. For those about to rawk, we salute you!

soul clap - 'the clapping song'

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Featuring Baby and the Fam. This is a lot of fun, I hope you enjoy the tune and especially the video as much as I do. 

marian - 'pictures'

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I like deliberately languid dance music. For me, Bakerman wrote the template for this with the perfectly titled 'Laid Back' and this is very similar in delivery and format. I bought Marian's album last year but have only really got around to listening to it. Not all the songs are this ice cool but it's great background or driving music. In fact, I really ought to make my own driving mix-tape one day. The term needs reclaiming from the likes of the Top Gear Father's Day compilation. Damn it, I'm starting a pressure group : 'Dads For Musical Justice'. 

robag wruhme - 'isolée'

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dedicated to thomas and gabriel

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Graphics (feat Mt Kimbie) - 'Baybes (Dub)'

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In case you were wondering where Mt Kimbie had gone of late then I can happily tell you they are alive and well as this collaboration will attest. It's definitely a grower.

tame impala - 'the bold arrow of time'

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I rediscovered how good this album is on the long train journey home tonight. It's quite trippy in a Flaming Lips At War With the Mystics kind of way. The guitars scrunch, there's echo, distortion and feedback aplenty and what starts out as casual background music became a full on, all senses diverted to ears experience. This is one of the stand out tracks for me but I think the video below is a different production as it sounds fuller than my album version.

it's a right old 808 state

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How cool is this? It's a series of posters detailing the drum patterns for programming an 808 machine for classic dance tracks. Just check them out here. 

And to accompany this object of beauty is a rather lovely edit of the tune itself.

silicon ballet

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I've been listening to this Belgian 10-piece (or so the rumours go) and specifically their new EP 'Utopia' for the last hour or so and it's lush orchestration has scored very favourably. I like this band a lot; maybe it's just me but they sound a bit like Squeeze and for an English band that's quite a feat let alone a foreign band. The highlight for me is 'Sunglasses' which is also the debut track. It's so perfectly melodic I think I'll treat myself to another listen.

my bloody valentine

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Exciting news from the Wire: My Bloody Valentine are set to rerelease their albums Isn’t Anything and Loveless, plus a collection of EPs, in remastered form. EPs 1988–1991 includes Feed Me With Your Kiss, You Made Me Realise, Glider and Tremolo, plus seven unreleased tracks. 

Loveless was scheduled for release back in 2008 but never appeared in the shops and so it's a welcome treat to read about its long overdue arrival in the shops. Apparently this will all be happening in May (although I think I may just keep the champagne on ice until I actually have a copy in my grubby little mits. This is called 'No More Sorry' and is from 'Isn't Anything'.

ólafur arnalds - allt varð hljótt

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He goes from strength to strength, this time it's the score to one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year so far, The Hunger Games.

sigur rós - 'ekki múkk'

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This is hot off the press. Red-hot, in fact. It's called Ekki múkk and is from their new album 'Valtari'. It bears all the hallmarks of a Sigur Ros number - it's sublime, it's understated and each listen is opening up new things to discover. I've given it 4 or 5 goes already and it's been like a game of pass the parcel with each listen revealing a new prize.

violet - y.o.u.

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This is Pixie Geldof's band's new single. Please leave your preconceptions at the door, this is a really excellent song. 'Languidly splendid' is how I shall refer to it from hereon in.

heather hammers

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I was sent a lovely Twitter message from Ms Hammers recently asking me to check out her music but unbeknownst to her I already had listened to a few songs and was looking for a suitable point to share her album on my blog. That time is now and I hope you enjoy her tunes as much as I do. She has a lovely minimalist approach to her music which isn't quite folk, certainly not Americana but far too cerebral to be dismissed as pop. Guitar and ukelele seem to be her preferred musical weapons of choice but the clear winner would always be her voice. There's shades of a more mainstream sounding Jenny Lewis or an American Laura Marling or, dare I say it, Hope Sandoval's shy younger sister but let's not deal in trite comparisons here; she's definitely her own woman.

I like the almost 50s feel she brings to her slower ballads and the lo-fi production allows her a more expansive approach, her voice taking the listener to places that would be twinned with the Minnesota towns of the Garrison Keiller radio shows. To some she would be too small town, too twee but I think her songwriting is perfect especially when she deals with the subject of love, 'She'll Never Love You' being a particularly good example of this. Maybe I've been listening to too much Icelandic folk of late but tracks such as 'Modest Little House', 'Sailor', 'The Letter' sound like they might have been written by Ólöf Arnalds. Compare and contrast those three tracks with 'Crazy Car' by Arnalds. I hope Ms Hammers takes this as the huge compliment that it's intended to be. 

You can download the entire album for $8 which works out at £5, give or take a few pence. I'm going to write to her and ask if she has CDs too. My preferred medium is the kind you can pick up and touch. I find electronic media lacks something for me, somewhat ironic when describing such ethereal music but I'm nothing if not a mass of contradictions. I know good music when I hear it however; you can too, below.

pink floyd - if

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Pink Floyd played a huge part in my formative years in giving me the confidence to explore music outside of the constraints of 3 minute pop. The one album that really left a huge impression on me was Atom Heart Mother, it still does in fact. The other albums can seem a little dated or maybe it's that I don't need them in my life as much anymore but A.H.M. is still a welcome guest in this household. It has the melancholy but less of the cynicism of the later albums and is without doubt the "warmest" too. Does that make sense? Here they are in 1970 playing an acoustic version of 'If'. The introduction is by John Peel who refers to them as 'The Pink Floyd'; they dropped the prefixing determinant shortly after. A little known fact is that the song was only really intended as a filler but as is often with these things is actually my favourite from the album.