Guitar pop/indie rock music has yet to grace these pages in 2007, but Frightened Rabbit seem like a great way to start what will undoubtedly be a great year for British guitar pop in 2007. Unlike contemporaries The View, and Kaiser Chiefs, Frightened Rabbit offers interesting guitar music that takes me further than the pavement, the pub down the road, the club in town or a wet nation stuck between guilt, dispassionateness, and nonchalant-ority. They aren’t stuck somewhere, it’s seems that they’d rather wander around lost than get stuck in the same place for too long - doing the same thing with the same people that you somehow made friends with.

Frightened Rabbit just expand exponentially throughout “The Greys” constantly feeding pure guitar and rhythmic energy into the mix which I have to fully comprehend, and it’s something you can hear working through their others songs. Though the song has a depressing subject matter it has the wonderful quality of making me walk faster when it pops up on my ipod, making me walk with my head a little higher. Or maybe that’s just me delighting in my own enlightenment. I somewhat doubt it. They have 4 more songs to hear on their myspace page that I like too. They are currently playing dates in the U.S.

MP3: Frightened Rabbit - The Greys

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also:

Slow Club - my favourite unsigned bands of the moment have finally put up some new tracks on their myspace, both of which are excellent pop songs with a certain folksiness that allows me and my housemates to “suffer” them on repeat dozens of times. Listen to their songs, and see if they are playing your town in the coming weeks - they put on a good shown. Slow Club trivia - half of the band, Charles, has a certain penchant for catapults. Which is fine by me.

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I have recorded a new “Take Your Medicine” Podcast! 11 tracks by artists from around the world, some of the tracks are by British artists I’ve spoken about on this site recently, but the podcast offers a much wider range of genres, and tracks. Subscribe to the podcast in Itunes, or go the TYM home page to download the single mp3 file and whack it on your mp3 player. NME called me one of the “New saviours of Radio”. To be honest - I’m trying to destroy radio with a massive sledgehammer, and chuck NME in a blender. But the publicity was nice. And it was of course very encouraging as well.

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Basia Bulat - I was so glad to hear this girl is from London… I couldn’t wait to write a post and share the music. But being a UK music blog this wasn’t possible. She’s infact from London, Ontaria, Canada, North America, Other Side of the Atlantic. Not Britain. So sticking to the strict regimen of the blog (British music only) - I’ll allow Sean and Said the Gramphone to explain why she’s soo (sic) good. He’s probably done a better job at writing about her than I could manage anyway. “a voice that is above all exciting to listen to, with so much volleying through it. Like sticking your head into the thick of fireworks, of northern lights, feelings flashing full in your face.” Go, read, and hear Basia Bulat .

Tags: Folk, UK Music by Mike Smith
2 Comments »

MP3: Future of the Left - The Lord Hates A Coward

Stream only: Future of the Left - Fingers become thumbs!

‘Lord hates a coward’ is a song that will put a knife to your throat until you agree to make them a cup of tea… they don’t want to do you any harm - they just want tea - but they will make a loud noise and a lot of fuss until they get it. Tea you say? Well I think Future of the Left are pretty good chaps, not pretentious to write and record loud and overdriven songs - they don’t seem all that bothered about how we percieve. They want to have things go their way. In this instance I think of tea.

The fantastic Ex-Mclusky and incredible Ex-Jarcrew team members come together in an strangely inevitable fashion to produce the inevitably exceptional music. The linkage of these two mega-forces forces creates a rather loud and unashamed indie/punk loud noise maker with lyrics more aggressive than insightful as this rough demo version of their current single ‘The Lord Hates A Coward‘ shows…

And then ‘Fingers become thumbs’… that’s vintage Mcluskyism with a big fat bow on it… throttling riffs you don’t want to get on the wrong side of and I guarantee these are the sort of songs that will translate into a damn energetic live show. ‘Fingers become thumbs’ is the other half of their 7″ single out 29th January, at Itunes and other digital retailers now.

Photo: David M McNeil

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Also:

Sky Larkin’s single “One Of Two” has been made single of the week on BBC 6Music. Well worth checking out @ myspace. It will be one of the best singles of the year.

Other blogs: Chris @ Gorilla Vs Bear and Shane @ Torture Garden can’t recommended the (not British) Deerhoof track +91 enough … it sounds like marching in an elephant parade in Tokyo on Valium. mp3: +91. Tres bien. Estupendo! Track of the month! Maybe… that’s enough superlatives for one post.

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New site design. A little less writing on the music from now on and more posting/info - I don’t like reading blogs with loads of writing on one songs so I’ll try and cut down.

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
7 Comments »

I try not to dish out too much hate. In fact negative reviews are not what I try to do here. But I feel this instance warrants it.

Why “New Rave” is unneccessary, and fiction on a scale never seen before in the popular music press (or: NME needs more readers. Manufacturing a scene will solve that problem for a while (Or if we say it enough and throw enough money at it, it must be true))

If on the main page click below to read the post in it’s entirety …. it’s that long…

[Read more →]

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
18 Comments »

“So tie my shoes before I wake, cut me loose and just watch me quake”

Schuman the Human. For fans of upbeat country, nothern soul and British folk and songs played so close you can feel the artists breath on your face. Not because this is intimate, nor necessarily heartfelt - but simply because that’s how it’d work best. Schuman (Mark Foster) has got himself down to the Toerag Studios, the famed analogue recording studio, and he’s brought down “the former child progeny of ‘Boney M’ ubermeister Frank Farrian” Chilli Gold. ‘Tow the Line’ is a song I didn’t expect to find this earlier in the year; surprising, complex and most importantly speeding up all the way to the end. And the reprise about half way through with them both standing side by side, singing together then harmonising is a pretty special way to sing a protest song. What are they protesting against? Maybe lack of things to protest against. Or the constant passage of Father time.

‘Oh How Happy’ on the other hand is a banjo-led pop song. Pretty simple, perfect for sing-alongs. The sort of song that’d blow away all sort of Northern-Soul-Coral/Zutons-types.

MP3: Schuman The Human - Tow that Line

MP3: Schuman The Human - Oh How Happy

On January 15th you can head over and buy the 11 track album for £3!!! Another Spoilt Victorian Child digital release - high quality mp3’s, artwork, £3. Very cheap, very enjoyable. The album is a damn good way to start the year - the sort of album that helps work through winter, stick to resolutions and make you realise rain isn’t all that bad. I think. Though that may be attributable to the 30 minutes of sun-shine the wonderful country of Devon got today. Or maybe it’s just the optimism I hear and the fun they’ve clearly had recording the album…

Tags: Folk, UK Music by Mike Smith
5 Comments »

I’m presuming Noah and the Whale to be part of some sort of London gang that includes Emmy the Great, Movern Callar, Johnny Flynn, Jeremy Warmsley and other London based musicians I’ve spoken about in the last year, who all have a spring in their step and a guitar to strum wistfully. I expect they have secret handshake and some sort of plan to take control of the Underground network that has already been sketched out on blueprints but the do they have a plan B? I’m guessing music and folk plays an important part of it.

But that’s wishful thinking. I’m also going to wishfully think that some of these scamps get some success a la Jeremy Warmsley’s much lauded debut album…. perhaps Noah and the Whale will offer it? Or maybe a compilation CD can be released that actually has some relevence to a tangible group of people making similar music together linked geographically and socially instead of by an awful magazine who can’t write and are thus forced to create scenes instead of seeking them out. (That’s a reference to the NEW RAVE REVOLUTION (that will not be televised because it means nothing) that would be dead had NME sugar-daddys IPC media not keep throwing fivers in the vain hope of sparking off the Libertines NEW ROCK REVOLUTION MARK II)

So we come to Noah and the Whale. Indie-Folk the distinctly English way - a recognisable Englishness that you probably won’t see on the television - but they sound like the people I know - or want to know. And not in the “yeh! People who sing like we talk and live in run down urban places and go to dance clubs and Look good on the Dancefloor“. Rock + Daggers pulls out a violin to give us the essential folk lift and thus give the artists the element of surprise. You can just see a packed room of 50 people dancing with their head down to the floor or up to stars. And that’s what I want: music that works on a small scale, music that flaps about the room… finds a resting place… and offers you some advice, a story of sunshine shining on your shoes and the quintessential snare drum-age.

MP3: Noah and The Whale - Rock And Daggers

PLAY:

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Happy New Year O’blog Reader! There is much good stuff to come this year… there’s nothing but green lights from here….

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
4 Comments »