This will forthwith be a best of the month feature. But today I present the best music of one of the wettest Summers on record here in the UK. Click the dates to read the original post and to download or stream the music.

You may notice a lot of music from the last few weeks - I’ve been trying hard to up the quality of the music, of the writing, and to post every couple of days, which I hope is paying off in the amount of music you enjoy from NBGL.

29th August: Genod Droog: … a fanfare, lush whispered vocals washing down a river of electronic rapids and churned up Massive-Attack like whitewater.

20th August: Tunng: ..frail but determined guitar gets reinforced, found sounds and electronic flourishes become distant echoes, and you’d expect them to become lost again before you have the time to appreciate

15th August: Buttonhead: …folk that is a triumph of brightness… at moments frantic, melodies become epic and evolutionary, shedding shards of rainbows and sorrowful laments.

3rd August: After Christmas: … Their indie-pop acquired energy is a little too much for you… Or alternately… Like your Grandaddy kicking you in The Shins for insulting his newly aquired Flaming Lips, which he went to great effort to come by.

26th July: Sleeping States: Tremoring psch-folk… perhaps awaking after a long nights sleep… like the dream memories that wash out of you, before retreating back in on itself, bringing you back to the world of us.

26th June: Windmill: pop songs with grand proportions and grand gestures… songs that are sung down to the floor when the sun is out, or upwards when the sky begins to fall, always bringing to mind expansive landscapes and wide open spaces.

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And news from the Nothing But Green Lights alumni:

Slow Club are recording a new video for their new single and are set to tour the U.K with Mercury Music Prize nominated and NBGL featuree Fionn Regan.

Sleeping States‘ album is out on Tome Records on 10th September. I’m excited.

The fantastic Magic Arm plays a show in London supporting Emma Pollock who has an album out on 4AD in September.

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{credit: Image 1 + Image 2.}

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Genod Droog - Breuddwyd Oer (feat. Gwyneth Glyn)

Can you for a moment imagine cowboy-era John Wayne riding the long road home on an old, gnarled, but dependable rainbow unicorn? Genod Droog debut welsh-language music on Nothing But Green Lights today. It brings with it a fanfare, lush whispered vocals washing down a river of electronic rapids and churned up Massive-Attack like whitewater. Genod Droog maintain the Spaghetti Westerns spirit by being pioneers in a field that has hardly been explored, leaving the safety and comfort of conventionalism in the British music scene and opting instead for a sound that has it’s eyes firmly fixed on the horizon.

Their sound is further described as: “Sesame Street skipping rhymes progressing onto cheerleading chants … the tragic parts from the Lassie soundtrack”

http://www.myspace.com/genoddroog

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image from flickr

Tags: Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Blue States - The Electric Complement

This sounds pretty grand to me. Blue States, the longest serving Memphis Industries representatives might as well have thrown their keyboards, devices and extension cords out of the window because he has created something that sounds magical, crafted and stitched together by hand, something out of this world in the “Huh…” rather than the “wow.” sort of sense. A brief moment of grand progressive instrumental electronica. It sounds momental, lost, and creative. Like a fleeting story of disrupted equilibrium, eventual gratification, the death of a hero. It sounds like two minutes when it is in fact four.

http://www.bluestates.com/. Album out 27th/28th on my side/ their side of the vast ocean (which we will one day have the sense to build a bridge across.)

Tags: Johnny 5 Is Alive, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Tunng - Take

Frail but determined guitar gets reinforced, found sounds and electronic flourishes become distant echoes, and you’d expect them to become lost again before you have the time to appreciate them. Every time a problem confronts them, I imagine Tunng to forming a huddle and rallying to the sounds “oh woah oh”. Voices overlap, maintaining melody through sparse desert plains filled with sounds of who knows what.

It’s progressive and in the summer time, even if the rain is ceaseless, this is just the sort folk music that is a subtle reminder that the world continues to spin, even if you are just stood there in the sun, or rain. It wakes you up, just a little.

http://myspace.com/thisistunng

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The band’s 3rd album which this track is take from is out on 27th of August and they are playing dates in Europe, Britain, and most corners of the U.S this Autumn.

Tags: Folk, Johnny 5 Is Alive by Mike Smith
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MP3: Instruments - Watching the clock at the alpine disco

“We are just a group of people… ” “Sounds Like… kiddie molotov cocktails on a starved stomach… pavement… death from above 1979 … bright eyes”.

“Watching the clock at the Alpine Disco” is simple and effective but not in the slap-dash, or ill-conceived and got lucky sense; it’s crafted and restrained, yet there is real substance behind all of this, and a real identity. In the first scene setting minute the band have the luxury of building anticipation all ready for the curtain raise, I couldn’t do anything except sit back and wait for the moment - you decide when you think that moment is. I expect good things.

London | Unsigned | myspace.com/instrumentsmakemusic

Tags: Not London, UK Music, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
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