Dark Night of The Soul

Danger Mouse, Mark Linkous and David Lynch?  Ooooo.

The Horrors | Primary Colours

As promised, here’s a preview of the new album:

Ramadanman/Untold

Really rather good.

Maybe even better.

Download a mottled mix by Untold here.

The Horrors.

They’re an easy band to dislike, The Horrors.  Where do you start – the NME imposed scenester status, the twat-by-association friendships, the ‘controversial’ video and ‘dangerous’ live shows?  Or just the fact that they’re so terribly posh.

But here’s the thing.  While all of that is true, they have one overwhelming redeeming feature.  They’re really, really good.

Forced into a tiny tent by the wrath of God at Glastonbury a couple of years ago I ended up seeing them by accident.  I went from ‘Oh Christ, it’s this lot’ to dancing like a loon in the space of two and a half songs, and have been drawing the contempt of record shop staff ever since.  (Seriously, a guy in Fopp tutted at me for buying Strange House.)

New single Sea Within A Sea is eight minutes of Neu! influenced synth drone to alight the dance floor of your local hipster disco, and is free to download from their official site.  The album is out on the fourth of May and will be stealable from the usual sources anytime now.  They’re touring now.  Go see, make your own mind up.

They’ve still got stupid hair, mind.

Maskinen

Sorry it’s been a while, dear readers.  Busy month.  In order to make up for my prolonged absence, I’ve got a new find to share with you.   Maskinen – a Swedish band who describe themselves as Techno/Hip-Hop/Showtunes. 

They’re currently in Sao Paolo recording their debut, with some high profile collaborations promised.  More as I know it. 

Official website (in Swedish).

Embracing Technology, Part Two.

I’ve created a playlist on Spotify for some of the stuff I talk about on here.  Here it is.  I’ll keep adding to it when it’s relevant, but I’ve left it collaborative so youse can send me recomendations.  And Rick Astley songs, you crazy intertubes kids…

Embracing technology.

I resisted most social networking sites for as long as it was practical – setting up and closing down myspace and bebo sites respectively.  I thought I was being well ahead of the pack setting up a Twitter feed:

Follow me here.

Turns out I’m a bit of a bandwagon jumper – apparently Stephen Fry was gibbering on about it recently so every middle-class QI watching pseudo intellectual in the country has signed up.  In my defense it was the serendipity of finding an article about it in the Morning Star that made the decision for me.

I’ll link the blog to it once someone more cleverer than me tells me how to… anyone? 

Big Ned.

Every January, the music magazines and broadsheet pull-outs run the obligatory ‘who’s going to make it big this year’ article.  Most of the time they’re completely identical to one another, and the crushing inevitability of Little Boots and Florence and The Machine dominating the festival season this year is as depressing as it is manufactured.

I was over visiting my folks the other day, and had a flick through the local paper while I was there.  To give this some context; the front page was a story about the debate raging over the hanging baskets.  That’s how we roll in my ‘hood boyeee.  Of course the teenager writing the music pages had compiled a 2009 list, only being a local paper he was only allowed to mention bands from within a fifteen mile radius.

One of these was Big Ned.  They produce doom-laden two chord Americana (which is an oddly popular sub-genre round these parts.  One day when I’m feeling a bit more verbose I’ll expand upon that in a Paul Morley-esque manner.) and have a single out on the Optimo record label – so will presumably be playing there sometime soon.  They’re surprisingly good.  Have a gander at their mySpace, or on the Optimo website.

Benzi – Sky High Mixtape.

 

 

 

Free Kanye West mixtape, approved by Yeezy himself and features Kid ‘Number Six in every who’s going to be big 2009 list just behind La Roux’ Cudi. 

Download here.

Where did this thing of calling it a mixtape come from anyway?  Oh, we’re so fucking retro and iwonic like its a hand-spliced C90.  It’s an mp3 people.  Don’t be afraid of technology.  That only leads to Ocean Colour Scene.

The RPM Project.

So, I’ve signed up to this thing.  The challenge is to record an entire album in the month of February – sounds like it could be good fun!  Sign up here.  As they say:

Anyone can come up with an excuse to say “no,” so don’t!

My cunning rock star pseudonym is Christopher Queen, by the way.