>> Johnnie Cluney, usally found drawing to represent the DayTrotter sessions does some illustrations for mp3 blog “Said The Gramphone”. Some other blogs use pictures instead of words. The first is 1.618 and the second being Nevver - the tagline being One image One mp3.

>> Ash return will some new material played live in New York. It is their first live performance since band-member Charlotte Hatherly left. They are currently busy recording the material in Manhattan.

>> Strip your Itunes Music Store bought files of their Digital Rights Management so you can play them on any mp3 player/ burn as many copies of them as you like using MyFairTunes software. The way I see it, just because they can limit the ways you can listen to overpriced music that you’ve payed for doesn’t mean they should.

>> On a sweltering Texas tour stop, Barry Hyde of the Futureheads sits down and unravels the band’s re-tooled commitment to harmony, label incompetence, and the band’s latest post-punk reinterpretation, the excellent News and Tributes LP. Interview in podcast/mp3 + PDF format @ IndieInterviews.com

>> And finally, almost precisely timed with me joining the Ipod cult, The Observer decides they just aren’t cool any more.

The iPod, the digital music player beloved of everyone from Coldplay’s Chris Martin to President George Bush, is in danger of losing its sheen. Sales are declining at an unprecedented rate. Industry experts talk of a ‘backlash’ and of the iPod ‘wilting away before our eyes’. Most disastrously, Apple’s signature pocket device with white earphones may simply have become too common to be cool.

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Marc at the Wooster Collective street art blog writes of his particular memories of 9/11 and how it led to what he can only describe as a hyper awareness - and the beginning of a beautiful project to document and share what so many people miss.

And it was at this time, in the days immediately after September 11, that we discovered ephemeral art. Until then we had no idea what street art was. But the attacks of September 11th had made us hyper-aware of our surroundings. We began exploring Lower Manhattan like never before. We were now seeing the city in a completely different way, with new eyes and a new heart [Link]

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Bleach Light

PLAY:

Consider a more spaced Thom Yorke or perhaps Damon Albarn (or even Clap Your Hands say Yeah - at a stretch) at their most civilised, finding muse not in awkward people or cityscapes but in colourful shapes, indie-pop music, “yamaha portasounds, noisy french toys, powercuts, giant musical clichés, dials, europe, doorbells, electronical warnings”. Kotki Dwa find inspiration in all of this and also, rather strangely in the anthropomorphic tendencies of plugs and Poland. It’s tangented and indie-pop that would face-plant if subjected to a three-minute power chord indie-rock whitewash. Very promising music from a band who reside in Bristol, Aylesbury and Leeds, they probably having trouble telling people their band name, and will be subjected to the remix treatment the moment they break (out(of Murdochs myspace prison)).

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If anyone wants to take some pictures of some traffic lights on green for addition to my randomized banner image that’d be greatly appreciated and the best will be handsomely rewarded.

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
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Jeremy Warmsley is a fantastic British musician who occasionally plays live with Emmy the Great. His music has range and reach, it’ll reach down inside you, it’ll sharpen your eyesight and it’ll elevate you way above the smog/seagull line. You might notice off kilter electronica running brisk and impatient rings around, but never interupting, J.W’s harmonies.

Mr Warmsley creates some fantastic pop songs and uses electronic accompaniment in a folky, familiar-to-some, and simply warm way that doesn’t make me feel cold, alone, or tense. So that’s folktronica I suppose.

Mp3: Jonathan And The Oak Tree

His debut album, The Art Of Fiction, is out on October 9th. It has already been called the best solo album not even released this year yet by the Drowned in Sound team. They’ve got another track by him, and more new musical niceties, on their brand new podcast. Jeremy has a single available now on Itunes.

Tags: Folk, UK Music by Mike Smith
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>> Playlouder are mad with Kasabain. Kasabian are mad with everyone.

>> The Catbird Seat creates a fantastic “Handy Music Blogger best of 2006″ list cheat sheet” in anticipation of scores of very similar charts appearing on scores of very similar music blogs writing about very similar things. I don’t think Belle and Sebestian will end the year as high as postion three. No doubt we can rely on incredibly thorough and statistically minded music blog Good Hodgkins to do pie charts, averages and scatter graphs revealing all the averages.

>> Bloc Party: The Ballet: Wayne Eagling, ENB artistic director, said: “We are striving to broaden the perceptions of ballet and nurture new talent. By working with musicians, fashion designers and new technology to create truly exciting and innovative new work, we hope to see ballet breaking through to a wider audience.

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
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You don’t wake up before everyone else in a cold room (floaty electronica), but you slowly come around to find yourself gliding across the top a lake on a foggy morning (ambient folktronica). The tronica bit emphasises the digital noises. I think. Although I may have got this band completly wrong - it all sounds pretty natural and organic. Phelan Sheppard have music out on the Leaf Label and “Water Clock” is a lush, intrepid, acoustic, and adventurous sideways glance one way to see the snow falling, and the other reveals you wanting to step out of your routine, go down a street you’ve noticed but never explored, to a city you’ve always ignored and to a park you’ve avoided.

mp3: Water Clock

Phelan Sheppard’s album is available now. David Sheppard is one half of Ellis Island Sound who I spoke about back in May on old-blog-now-podcast site “Take Your Mecicine”. Click to download Ellis Island track “Bontempi Rain Effect“.

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
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