At the start of December, Shinies were unheard of outside their own living room. They recorded their track Spent Youth and seemed to almost accidentally capture a sound that captured the imagination of every blog around. A whirlwind month later, and they had their debut single recorded – by Rory Atwell, no less – and a 7″ slated for release by Dirty Bingo. Shola/Pillow Talk comes out on April 16th, and you can hear the former now, seductively hinting at a love of The Cribs layered with smatterings of shoegaze.
For those not au fait with what Duck Tapes is here we go: we get an artist to put some tracks on a tape, decorate it, and sell it on. Oh, and we only really tend to make one copy of it, ever. And we’re bringing it all to an end.
As the final ever release on the label, it’s only fit that it ends with an artist that we’ve been after for a long time. Jolan is one of the most sickeningly talented people that you’re ever likely to meet, and seems to write hundreds of songs a week before burrowing them away like some kind of squirrel, never to see the light of day again. His album 15 Bygones came out recently, and has been committed to one solitary tape to commemorate the death of this lattle, home-spun label. Our hope is that this will convince Jolan to let the world listen to a couple more of his weird pop music, that we’ll have a few more jams like Perpetual Birthday to enjoy – the video of which you can catch below, created to celebrate the release of this solitary tape:
You can stream the album in full below, and of course, purchase the cassette from here. Once it is gone, it is gone.
Temple Songs will be supporting Hooded Fang on Monday 7th May at The Castle Hotel. Tickets here
First new Hourglass Sea of 2012, and it has been worth the wait. Bradford’s prodigal son comes back with a two track single – one original, one him remixing, and it is everything that we’ve come to demand from a man who seems to be without peer, very possibly in a literal sense. Brilliantly tagged as ‘popstep’, Hourglass does his usual samples and guitar thing to make tracks both giddily neon and recklessly ambitious. Sample for yourself below.
Following on from their extremely successful launch at the back end of 2011, Work Them returns to KRAAK Gallery on February 3rd. Marking itself as an “ALT DISCO DEDICATED TO FUTURE CLASSICS, CURRENT GROOVERS AND RECORDS THAT STILL SOUND FRESH AS ANY”, the latest incarnation sees the creator of one of the albums of 2011 perform, with patten playing Manchester for the first time. Just as Gold Panda seemed to be working on a different level to his peers back in 2010, there is no-one coming anywhere close to what patten is making now:
Drinking and dancing will be going on into the night, soundtracked by all sorts of things – some of which should be on this exclusive mix, made by John Thorp from the Work Them team. Tickets are £4 advance, available here http://www.wegottickets.com/event/148260
The first edition of Melodic’s compilation came out back in the heady days of Summer 2011 – and though a follow up was quickly planned, they’ve thankfully taken stock and allowed the new music scene to grow a few exciting bright new hopes in the meantime. Volume arguably features a stronger line-up than it’s predecessor, as well as having a few genuine coups – an exclusive new Bos Angeles recording being one, an unheard track from one of the greatest bands to have emerged from Manchester in the past 12 months from G R E A T W A V E S as well as assorted excellence from the likes of Larry Gus, Death Masks and So Many Wizards. Enough words: have a listen. Best New Compilation.
Bleeding Knees Club
1st January
A duo make up of two dudes from Australia’s Gold Coast, the songs they make are unmistakably brash, but in a playful way, like a hateful puppy
Hourglass Sea
January 4th
The work of Dean Bentley, this is a project that sounds like Solar Bears being played on the wrong speed setting, a hyperactive mass of noise that doesn’t quite seem certain where it’s going.
Fear of Men
January 12th
It’s lush, and feels gloriously analogue – a texture to the noise going deeper than the grit of their lo-fi recordings. It’s a sound that meanders, a hazy stumble through a dozen half remembered pop songs.
Bos Angeles
April 9th
Coming from Boscombe (near Bournemouth, apparently), the shadow that Los Angeles casts runs through from their name into their sound, broad strokes of the surf-rock aethetic translated into naval gazing beauty.
The Bell Peppers
May 2nd
Whilst everyone else had their eyes transfixed on the Royal Wedding (wasn’t her dress amazing? didn’t Pippa look great? and they kissed twice!) The Bell Peppers were in the process of uploading their languid, sweltering surf rock stylings to bandcamp
Regal Safari
May 16th
A darkness lurking throughout, the pressure slowly building throughout with the briefest glimpses of light offered intermittently
AC SLATER (now YOOFS)
17th September
They bring to mind sitting in terrible student houses and drinking budget whiskey with people that you don’t really know, just to feel alive.
Female Band
17th October
It’s a bit of a hipster thing to say you enjoyed Bethany Cosentino’s work back when she was making weirdo noise and having about 5 people listen to her tracks, but there was something mystically charming about those days, something that London’s Female Band manages to capture in these 4 minutes
Spectral Park
21st November
Maybe if The Horrors had done their drug cocktails a bit differently and had a slightly different music selection to soundtrack their comedown, this could’ve been one of the b-sides for Skying.
Shinies
4th December
You’ve got to appreciate a band who obey the first rule of appealing to the hipster crowd (which happens to be having a naked babe in your artwork) whilst making a racket that seems blissfully unaware of the hype it will create.
Weird stuff from Streatham Hill’s very own Sam Genders. Pop music done through a few degrees of separation,it’s slightly overwhelming in parts – as the preview clip below illustrates. He’s playing The Lexington with Patterns on January 18th, which means you can experience .
Fear of Men are probably this blog’s favourite new band of 2011. They’ve just put together a new set of demos, had them committed to cassette and have them up for sale. They’re called the Alice Munro demos and the video for Doldrums from the release can be seen above. There have been enough words written about Fear of Men elsewhere on these pages, but here are a few more that you can take your pick from: wonderful, excellent, beautiful, dreamy, excellence, enchanting, awe-inspiring, sublime. In truth, that handful of superlatives don’t even come close, either.
This one has been in waiting for longer than anybody cares to remember – but finally, Comfortable on a Tightrope have gotten their acts together, got the tracks sent off to whatever far flung pressing plant they’ve chosen and taken delivery of their vinyl babies. Nissenmondai are from Japan, Waiters come from these parts, and here are the tracks
NISENNENMONDAI – soundtrack 4 for Nobetsumakunashi
Really weird stuff, as you’d probably expect. Let it charm you, as it probably will anyway
Bleeding Knees Club
