MP3: The Shortwave Set - No Social [mp3 removed]

“ev-ery-one knows
that a dog
dressed in clothes is still a dog”

A pop-song that I listen to ten times in a row & turn up a bit louder each time is one worthy of being shared. It’s simple and so effective, recorded on a shoestring budget, yet they’ve got Dangermouse (Mr Grey Album and half of Gnarls Barkley) and Van Dyke Parks (responsible for the orchestration, arrangement and production for artists from Joanna Newsom to the Beach Boys) involved, so you know this a few thousand yards past “fluke”. Very rarely will I hear and track and share it immediately. But this song fits so perfectly; it’s just joyous. Hello Spring. Hello Summer.

myspace.com/theshortwaveset

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[photo credit]

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Spilt Milk - Let’s Get Married

They wield the glockenspiel, rather than playing it; and it gives the song a second wind and a comfortable breeziness. Spilt Milk, “Folk / Tropical / Surf“, theatrically reconstruct the fall of indie-pop nations and tribes of times past; the performers hear anew words and music they have heard so often in the past and start to improvise. Let’s Get Married results somewhere towards the culmination of Act II. I relish anything bigger, or more complex because I think there is a lot going on here, and something much grander waited to be told and performed.

myspace.com/spiltmilkspiltmilkspiltmilk

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Hong Kong and Guilford residents won the Frightened Rabbit album competition. “The Midnight Organ Fight” is out today. Pitchfork: 8.1/10.0 | Drowned in Sound: 9/10 | NME: 8/10. You can download title track “The Modern Leper” from a previous post of mine and buy/listen to it at Fat Cat Records.

Back then I said “so much is so much bigger, but big enough to hold it’s own weight… it doesn’t droop or get lost, and it doesn’t seems lazily nostalgic. There is no lazyness but a vertically inclined indie-pop energy and depth.” It was a Track of the Month back in January.

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
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Every couple of weeks or so I round-up the best new British music that blogs all around the world are listening to and sharing. So get tuned-up and refill/refresh your oil for a fun packed/ relaxed weekend.

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Do you want some anthemic indie rock to relight your olympic torch this Weekend?
Shake Your Fist - one of the finest mp3 blogs out there - discuss NBGL faves Frightened Rabbit, and says they’ve “traded their small-scale art songs for broad mural-scope anthems with dramatic instrumental builds… I’m a little leery about a few Coldplay-falsetto moments, but there are plenty of awesome, ultra-catchy tracks.” Sounds good to me.

Do you want an slow, slumbering and fruitful weekend?
Sian Alice Group over at 5 Songs, where they simply say “Best enjoyed by candlelight with headphones on.” Pitchfork provide the detail: “psychedelic rock, pastoral folk, and piano-lounge balladry into analog-synthtronica, free-jazz breakdowns, pounding Afro-tech grooves, and avant-classical composition.”

Or do you want to be motivated and dream big this weekend?
The White Noise Revisted shares something fantastic; that is if you can stomach it during a weekend-wind-down. “What it might sound like if Underworld’s Karl Hyde got stuck in a malfunctioning power station that was playing host to a titanic lightsabre battle, as a mournful, folky vocal is enveloped by a cacophony of glitch. Marvellous.” Fine words sir, you have convinced me, and my weekend will be all the better having heard The Marcia Blaine School For Girls this evening. I want this kind of a weekend.

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I recently shared a mixtape with you. Some of my music blogger friends kindly did the same after various insistences: here are their mixes of their favourite songs, and the sort of songs they write about.

Gorilla Vs Bear | Motel De Moka |The Torture Garden | MarathonPacks | EarFarm | Music For Ants.

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In Nothing But Green Lights news: I’ve redesigned the site. Those of you reading the RSS won’t notice the cleaner layout, the extended links section to the very best mp3 bloggers, and the section which I like the most: “Best New Music” on the far right. Cats In Paris are currently hold the title. It’s an honour that will rarely be awarded more than once a month. Below that feature is a randomised display of some of the “best new music alumni”: awesomeness from the archives. Refresh! It changes!

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Have a great weekend folks.

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
3 Comments »

CATS IN PARIS:
MP3: Foxes

Dystopic, spirraling, and about as close as “hardcore/ experimental/ folk” could get to indie-pop. No teasing: the drums ride up front, whilst electronics and bleeps keep everyone awake all through the night. Foxes has chapters you race through, fluidity that unsettles you, a rhythmic anger powered through the proper channels and god-damned interestingness (an elusive beast).

Best of April? It’s very very likely.

myspace.com/catsinparis

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The competition for a couple of copies of Frightened Rabbit’s album is open until Saturday, along with the Nothing But Green Lights Mixtape which features Frightened Rabbit, and Cats In Paris’ track “Terrapins”. That track which will appear as a b-side to Foxes when unleashed on April 16th.

You can always let me know what you think of the music featured here by leaving a comment: let’s have a talk.

Photo credit: Gbaku

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
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Mux Tape - a website that allows you to create a 12 track mix-tape - inspired me to create The Nothing But Green Lights Mixtape.

So if you are new here, or you just aren’t sure, these musicians - this music - represents the direction I wander down on Nothing But Green Lights :: The mp3 blog dedicated to new British music.

Tracklisting:

Jonquil - Lions
The Rollercoaster Project - What Happened
Let’s Wrestle - I won’t lie to you
Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper [mp3]
Held By Hands - Trading On Past Treasures
Buttonhead - Kitson / Lucerne
Johnny Foreigner - Champagne Girls I have known
Sleeping States - Under A Capricorn Sky
Puzzle - Weekend
The Matinee Orchestra - Hide & Seek
Cats in Paris - Terrapins
Misophone - The Sea has Spoken

Listen to the mixtape now. or download a zip file of the mix tape

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Fat Cat Records have given me a couple of copies of Frightened Rabbit’s “The Midnight Organ Fight” to give away. I’d recommend checking them out on their U.K tour which starts tonight in Manchester, before hitting 16 more towns and cities during April.

To win, leave a comment specifying your location in the world and let me known how the weather is where you are. I’ll send one album to a lucky UK reader, and one further abroad. If you really like or really don’t like any of the tracks on the tape, let me know that too.

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I’ve spent the last few days looking at few hundred of myspace pages. Seriously. Hundreds. There’s lots of good stuff to come in the next few weeks…

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Update: Thinking about it, I’d love my favourite — and highly recommended — music and mp3 blogs to define the direction they take and the sort of music they write about through a 12 track mixtape. In fact, all blogs should do this. It’s too easy to get lost in the mp3 blog world, a mixtape might help those you are guiding understand.

Tags: UK Music by Mike Smith
29 Comments »