MP3: The Matinee Orchestra - Hide And Seek

“Hide and Seek” is a fantastic way to start February. Forget the showers! Don’t cower! The spring is coming. Expect it! “Hide and Seek” is also big sounds and samples delivered this morning through a soaking shower of lost, organic and journeying acoustic instruments looking for a place to roost (but enjoying a pre-dusk flight. As much as birds enjoy flight; Which I think they do, Very much). Or maybe: Sesame Street go an a field trip to Iceland*, enjoying the landscape and becoming very human for a moment.

* Yes, Sigur Ros comparisons are welcome here - here, the richness and atmosphere are well translated to a whisper and an echo.

myspace.com/matineeorchestra

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As mentioned a couple of days ago, I’ve been nominated for an NME award: “Best Music Blog”. I forget to say that it’s down to a public vote. You can vote for me at NME.com. (You need to be registered to vote. Registration is free. Voting is not compulsory for your continued enjoyment of this site.)

No news of an awards ceremony invite yet, I guess they just send a helicopter on the night to pick up nominees.

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Photo credit: Omarrun @ Flickr.

Tags: Best of NBGL, Folk, Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London by Mike Smith
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MP3: Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper

A couple of months months ago I wrote about Frightened Rabbit and said they have “a folky wisdom and an air of confidence that streams in through the windows, freshly blown out by tornadoes and hurricanes… Frightened Rabbits feel like renewal… pop songs that quickly turn melancholy into bright sunshine“.

Now: 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. Jump! Into that Scottish Loch! In the middle of the hottest Scottish summer! It’ll cure you! Track of the Month.

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This is a track from “Midnight Organ Fight” out April 1st on Fat Cat. They are playing some British, then Italian shows before heading out to South By South West in Texas.

myspace.com/frightenedrabbit

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Also:

Recently I’ve been enjoying Justice’s Fabric Mix, which Fabric rejected. It’s disco, it’s self-indulgent and it’s idiosyncratic. They gave it away for as a Christmas mix.

I stopped doing a podcast recently to concentrate on this site. Luckily for you, “Not Your Usual Bollocks” music podcast is still going strong.

Breaking news:

It seems I have been nominated for an NME award (Best Music Blog) alongside The Hype Machine (a music blog aggragator operated by a very nice guy), The Modern Age (A blog about music, pop culture, the Strokes, puppies, Jack White, and cute boys.), Spinner (AOL music site), and Stereogum (the worlds most popular music blog: it used to have a slight Britney fetish).

If you haven’t been here before, check out my round-up of the best music featured on this site in 2007 to get a feel for things.

Nothing But Green Lights is based in the UK, solely features U.K music, and it is operated by one guy. I have permission to give all of the mp3s I feature away - so don’t feel guilty about taking as many as you like.

Tags: Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Johnny Foreigner - Champagne Girls I have known

Sparingly chaotic, grim-Midlands inspired indie/fresh-sunnyside-rock recorded in New York.* It’s just as reckless as it is massive and malleable. Indie-pop music with exuberance: words fall vertically and then level off with horizontal direction. Guitars go intra-dimensational (sic): or maybe there is just a lot of them repeated often. Either way: an awesome live band? They’d better be. Because if so they’ll set Britain alight.** Exciting.

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(*: Maybe at this point I’d have added the following two paragraphs. After thinking twice I’ll probably remove them.)

That divine creator built a planet-wide-metropolis that probably follows all the old rules, extending all the way round and back again, spread thinly. A population breathing a little too slowly, thinking a little too much about the big questions gets too lethargic without distraction.Resultant intra-city conflict forces the Divine Creator to push and pull all of the city, it’s staircases, benches, bricks and lakes into one great skyscraper.

Resulting vertigo begins the dramatic rush to colonise the lower levels (1454-1456) … few venture higher… Johnny Foreigner represent the sort of pioneer that isn’t an introverted nor god-fearing: but a climber brimming with colourful imagination, someone who just enjoys the climb, doesn’t care to look up nor down, but just swings on the ropes (sometimes for days), and looks where his eyes tell him, not where his brains thinks he’ll find images that please. Infinite energy can take you far, but you don’t appreciate this: (that’s why 173 seconds of songs is nice)

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**JF are currently on a rather large tour of the U.K.***

myspace.com/johnnyforeigner

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***: Have fun guys: You deserve it.

Tags: Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Holland Buffalo - Optimistic
(Place, 4:19mins, 128 kbps)

And eyeing the cosmos… the stars the same each night… and I am the cosmos… and all the stars pay them no mind.

The Harvey Girls, a couple of American musicians, play with texture, fire, and pop music. I’ve loved their work in the past. They’ve recently been making music with label buddy Feedle. Whereas The Harvey Girls are all big smiles and bear hugs, Feedle takes the scenic route without telling anyone, music that doesn’t look you in the eye until final scene - even then you might not realise. But this Sheffield, UK based musician still throbs with a passion, and has an electronic simplicity and distance.

Together, it gets a little more complicated. Feedle provides depth, noise and a landscape of infinite, technicolour possibility to “Optimistic”. The Harvey Girls encourage the song along and they watch it grow. The Harvey Girls tell you to be small, find someone and live, Feedle says be intricate and appreciative. Together they sing a song of optimistism and minute cosmic drift.

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Hear even more including “Electricity” at myspace.com/hollandbuffalo

You can support the artist and download the whole 4 track EP @ Amie Street. Amie Street offers a new model of buying music. Tracks start at a really low price and as they become popular and recommended by members, they increase in price, but stay under 98 cents. Holland Buffalo’s EP will currently set you back less about $1.

Tags: Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
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MP3: The Rollercoaster Project - What Happened

Anthemaic drone digs amongst the diamonds, snow and leaves and finds some soil. For a moment metallic drills of synths driven by a rising tide of electricity give way to all those working to get down on their hands and knees and dig - it’s the most comfortable way - and in a panic it seems like the fastest. There cold hands find the soil, and the Rollercoaster Projects finds a voice. And they celebrate.

I’ve been really enjoying (digging?) The Rollercoaster Project’s electronica for years, Dreamboat Records recently featured this new track ‘What Happened’ on their 2008 sampler.

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There are plans for a 2008 Rollercoaster Project release, and on the strength of this, and on the back of other similar U.K electro-drone sounds/projects new in 2008 (Fuck buttons, and Banjo or Freakout) Rollercoaster Project might just be the most accessible and grandest of them all. But they all sounded pretty damned fucked up and shaken this way and that and smoothed out.

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Ah-ha! I see you there! Writing whilst I write! Sean at Said The Gramphone similtaneously contextualises The Rollercoaster Project within an utterly apocalyptic scene of Soviet Particle accelerators and questions like “PURE PROTON BEAM” CAPITALISED for emphasis. If you don’t already read Said The Gramophone, do.

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Candians droners Stars of the Lid realised one of my favourite albums of 2007 “And Their Refinement of The Decline” is fantastic on triple vinyl. It’s very different and much more minimal and stretched out than Rollercoaster Project, it weighs it at over 2 hours. Awesome & hard to comprehend.

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Photos by Adele Booysen, Tunnelbug respectivly.

Tags: Best of NBGL, Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
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