Jarvis

wow. it's been seriously ages since i updated this. whoops. i'll try and put something half decent on here then.

first off.

jarvis.

he is a legend, and he lives just round the corner from my house.
he has a new album. it's pretty good.

jarvis - i will kill again

also, i am winning the jarvis 4-1

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zongamin.

thank god. you know when you have a song that you know you know stuck in your head, but you can't quite place it? i have had this for nearly a year with this insanely catchy song, which i finally realised today was zongamin, when it played on a compilation i had on my itunes. i should have figured this out a long time ago, but it's not that easy when the main hook is a beat that just goes d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-ddah...d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d duh.

zongamin - bongo song

now i just need to remember who did that other one, duh-duh-d-duh duh duh duh duh duh

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swan lake.

supergroup alert! i've had this ages now and it's still nearly as awesome as any band which is made up of dan bejar (destroyer), carey mercer (frog eyes) and spencer krug (sunset rubdown) (see previous entries) would expectedly be, and this is one of the best tracks from it

swan lake - a venue called rubela

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klaxons.

since i last posted klaxons have got massive. earlier this year they were playing at tatty bogles to a crowd that could fit in my bedroom (in fairness tatty b's isn't much bigger than my bedroom) and last week they played at koko to one of the biggest crowds i've seen there. weird that. this cover of grace's disco classic has long been one of the highlights of their live set

klaxons - not over yet

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wolf eyes.

i've written about wolf eyes before so i won't repeat myself, but essentially they have a new album and it's as insanely noisy as ever. if you missed them live last time, be sure to check out barden's on december 7, if you dare

wolf eyes - rusted mange

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lcd soundsystem.

james murphy was comissioned by nike to do a 'running track', and this is the result. while the hipster in me is slightly perturbed by the seeming selling out nature of this collaboration, i can't deny the greatness of the music...i might even take up running for it

lcd soundsystem - 45:33

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the long blondes.

while i still can't shrug the niggling feeling that i should be embarassed about liking them, the long blondes can't seem to put a foot wrong. the album is great, and this, one of the 'newer' i.e. one i hadn't heard on previous singles is one of the best things they've done yet.

the long blondes - you could have both

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and now, the 'wow i can't belive it's been so long since i last posted that i haven't even written about that yet' part

scissors for lefty

i first heard this song at the beginning of this year as a demo, and it hasn't aged a day, it's easliy one of my favourite singles from the year. i didn't have an mp3 for ages, but now i do, and i'm giving it to you

scissors for lefty - mama your boys will find a home

the low miffs

are great. i am missed them play on tuesday because i went to see mates of state, who admittedly i love, but i still feel somewhat agreived.

the low miffs - this is the new

adam green

adam green, moldy peaches, you know all that already. somehow i overlooked this gem of a bruce springsteen cover bside from ages ago, which was recently brought back to my attention.

adam green - born to run

some time between my last post and this one it was my birthday, and one present i received was a dvd documentary of the seminal 90s hardcore outfit refused. this really is one from back in the day.

refused - new noise

and moving away from that section of old stuff but sticking with the hardcore theme, converge has a new album and it's aimmense

converge - hellbound

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aand finally

FOALS are the best band around at the moment. go and see them live. i don't have any mpthrees. go to their myspace instead.

foalsspace

kids on holiday

wowow. it's been a long time since i posted.

i've been here

it was quite nice

here's a bunch of stuff i listened to a fair bit while i was away



the new camera obscura album is pure twee pop greatness.

camera obscura - lloyd i'm ready to be heartbroken

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i'd been listening to newer voxtrot songs more recently and had forgotten how great this older one is

voxtrot - the start of something

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this is from the being john malkovich soundtrack, and is absolute genius. although if you haven't seen the film it admittedly might not make much sense.

john malkovich soundtrack - malkovich masterpiece remix

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whether he's the new neutral milk hotel is neither here or there in my opinion, i just like the songs

beirut - postcards from italy

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i was minorly disappointed with 'the letting go' i have to admit, but there are some beautiful songs on there, especially this last track

bonnie prince billy - untitled

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in case you thought i was going soft, here's some proper scenecore nintendisco

crystal castles - xxzxczx me
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the fact that i quite strongly dislike a LOT of the tracks sampled on the girl talk album, there's something about the way they're mashed together that somehow makes it alright

girl talk - bounce that

AND



this is the stand out track from one of the best records this year. so good.

tv on the radio - wolf like me

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PLUS a couple things i've been 'digging' since i got back

apparently there was a big hoo-har while i was away about pitchfork illegally leaking the new album. it's definitely worth getting excited about anyway.

joanna newsom - emily

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if you ever pay any attention to what i write on here, you should have heard the new frog eyes album. so instead of posting something from that, here is a live songs from a session they did for daytrotter.

frog eyes - bushels

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AAND

last but definitely not least

this is sick. i've been listening to it non stop. the album as a whole is a weird one, quite different from echoes, way more upbeat, probably will be equally as good once i get used to it. this song is just too awesome though. must be the next single.

the rapture - Whoo! Alright-Yeah...Uh Huh

do you suffer from mental

Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster @ White Heat

Probably the biggest night ever at white heat, and one of my personally most anticipated ones. Having never seen them, despite being quite the fan (particularly of the first album), the oppurtunity to see them at white heat was quite amazing. They didn't disappoint. Their unique goth/psychobilly hybrid music is a slightly unusual one for the white heat crowd, but they went down incredibly, with Guy McKnight's intense frontman persona transfixing the room. I'd forgotten how much I liked them. And I love it when seeing a band does that to you.

eighties matchbox b-line disaster - i could be an angle

Here Lies Liars Drum

Another rediscovery of sorts this week, in as much as it's possible for the latest album from one of my favourite bands to really be 'rediscovered', drum's not dead is back on heavy rotation again. If anything, what was already probably my favourite album of the year so far has got better after a brief hiatus (in which I've been listening to they threw us all in a trench and they were wrong so we drowned instead). I have new favourite songs. And I'm empathising more with the Drum character's vibe now too (previously I was way more pro mt. heart attack). Some people still don't get liars, despite all my efforts...a common critque of this album is that it 'sounds like red indians', probably something to do with the tribal drumming and yelping...but I don't understand - they're quite right in their observations of course, but surely that's a good thing?

liars - drum and the uncomfortable can

Zoo Zoo

I've posted loads about xiu xiu before so all I'm gonna say is that this is from his new ep of covers and it's really good.

xiu xiu - don't cha (pussycat dolls)

refinance your mortgage

Islands at Barden's Boudoir

Not only is Islands album one of the best this year but The Unicorns were one of the best bands of the last few years and there was no way I was going to miss Islands at Barden's last night. And I'm glad I didn't. It was an amazing gig - the band in their all white outfits packed out the small stage and put on such an entertaining show that I'd even almost forgotten the hour plus wait between the support band in a venue hotter than it is when you get sweat rain from the ceiling in 333. Nick Diamonds even told a pirate joke, recited lyrics from that sandi thom thing I always see on billboards and talked about jamie oliver.

islands - volcanoes

extra!

the unicorns - jellybones (demo)

I realised today that (I'm fairly sure) Islands is the 3rd band (not counting support bands) I've seen in a row that has a saxophone.

Actually I just realised that's not true. But 3 is still quite a lot within the space of a month or so. So here are some mp3s by such bands.

love is all - felt tip




the rapture - get myself into it


rumble strips - hate me you do

Good Shoes

Good shoes don't have saxophones but I've never posted them before I just saw the video for new single all in my head and I think it's quite cool so I'm posting it:

and here's the mp3 as well, just because

good shoes - all in my head

SunnO)))

I don't think this could be more unrelated to the catchy indiepop I've posted above but I just got this bootleg of a SunnO))) gig and wanted to post a track from it. Genuinely the most frightening gig experience of my life, this recording can't go any where near acheiving the atmosphere of the show, but you could try - play the song so ridiculously loud it feels like your house is going to fall down from the vibrations, fill the air with dry ice and goths and then get three satanic looking men in hooded capes who look like they are there to bring the apocolypse to stand in the room with you. Then half way through have a man who might well actually be the devil come and scream at you.

sunnO))) - orthodox caveman (live)

The Horrors

Slightly less scary than sunnO))) (but not all that much less; Faris is both one of the tallest and skinniest people I've ever met and he has a mean stare) is the new Horrors video by the legend that is Chris Cunningham, who was actually at that sunnO))) gig...so how's that for circularity?

AAARGGH! real mosters!

can't go out, can't stay in

Back in the dizzy heights of norwich.
Working. Looking for flats.
It's been a long time - shouldn't have left you.
So here's quite a lot of songs.

you already know how good whitey is
whitey - can't go out, can't stay in

yeah i know all thermals songs sound the same, but it's good. this is from their new album.
the thermals - pillar of salt

i don't know anything about this, other than it is one of the best things i've heard in ages. like animal collective on acid. actually not quite, but it's always fun to say things are like things on acid.
annuals - brother

the best dubstep album this year.
burial - distant lights

death from above 1979 remix/electronica project is all the rage on the net right now
metric - monster hospital (mstrkrft remix)

early 90s rave is clearly back in, so it's time to dig out all your old dance compilations
s'express - theme from s'express

they way they sample the 'daaaaah dah dah dah' bit in this at the beginning makes it sound just like one of those julee cruise songs from a david lynch film
architecture in helsinki - do the whirlwind (hot chip remix)

shut up i am dreaming is still one of my favourite releases from this year - and this earlier album snakes got a leg which i acquired contains many of the original 'raw' versions of a few of the songs. oh, krugy.
sunset rubdown - stadiums and shrines

latchmere by the macabees is one of the catchiest songs i've heard all year
and this is the video for it which i've just seen now i have sky again
i love the colours and shoddy stop motion. it's awesome.

catsup

I've been busy all this week with this which you should come and see which is why I've not posted in ages
but last night's shenanigans were worth digressing for

Viva Cake

London's funnest fifties cabaret club, with free roller waitress served tea, cake, and lessons in lindy hop is well worth a visit

http://www.myspace.com/vivacakbitches

which was followed by
Klaxons

Flying off on an outfit dilemma causing tangent was the Klaxons rave in hoxton square. In a disused gym with ventilation rates well below the CIBSE recommended air changes per hour fresh air requirements, klaxons played their ravenous pop tunes. Well barley.

klaxons - 4 horsemen of 2012
klaxons - atlantis to interzone

Bonus mosh part 2

download these wickedbad songs

les parisiennes - L'Argent ne Fait Pas le Bonheur
the faces - ooh la la

matinee at the oyster house

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti + Belong @ Luminaire

I'd read a bit about Ariel Pink's gigs before, so I had some idea about what to expect from the L.A. lo-fi popsmith, but really nothing can quite capture the essence of his performance - words like 'shambolic' and 'crap' spring to mind, but do nothing to explain the goodness of the gig...it wasn't bad, it was just rubbish - in a good way. See?

Anyway before Ariel, car park records' Belong performed their sonic soundscapes. I've written about this band before, sounding somewhere near the distortion-soaked melodies of my bloody valentine or fennesz, the ocean of sound that is their records translates well to a live setting, though admittedly without adding a whole lot (or taking away) from the recorded sounds. Still, the effect of the sonic tide of overdriven reverb washing over you is quite amazing. They had some fairly awesome video art on show to look at too, if you got bored of seeing a guitarist strum the same rhythm continuously throughout or watching the electronicist (i think i made up a new word) push buttons and turn dials. I'm actually quite interested in watching that, but it was cool to be able to appreciate the video at the same time.

Ariel Pink set up just as I hoped he would - a small cassette 8 track on top of some crates, two keyboards and a bass guitar. All the lights were turned away from the stage, and he spent most of the evening firing a smoke machine, until he was asked to stop by the sound engineer because the smoke alarm was going to go off. He also had bottles of bubble mix which was occasionally blown. Ariel then proceeded through his set of fucked up lo fi pop, singing along karaoke style to a backing track played on cassette tapes in the 8-track, which would be abruptly ejected at the end of each song and clunkily exchanged for the next one. In addition to the backing track was the sleaze bass played a classic 80s cool dude in oversized black shades who had his flies undone all show, and a female keyboardist who occasionally played melodies but quite often just cranked up loads of effects and jabbed the keys to create feedback. Ariel hardly stood still all gig, pacing up and down the stage with his girl's hair all in his face, fluctuating between nervous paranoid wreck and a fabulous fifties crooner. The whole thing was done with such an amazing unprofessionalism that you can't help but find it hilarious to watch, Ariel would sometimes not seem to know what he wanted to play next, choosing one tape from his stash but then changing his mind just before he'd play it, and the keyboardist quite frequently looked afraid of her instrument. They played an amazing set, and when two songs from the end, without leaving the stage, Ariel announces 'this is the encore by the way', you wished he'd bought another couple of tapes to play.

ariel pink - immune to emotion (from worn copy)

ariel pink - house arrest (from house arrest)

ariel pink - for kate i wait (from the doldrums)