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Here's a small, twinkly piece of Christmas beauty - Karla Adolphe's version of Do You Hear What I Hear. This is one of the Christmas songs that hasn't been done to death, probably because it's not an easy one to sing well. Which makes Karla's version even more brilliant:
If you like Karla Adolphe's voice, there's a whole album's worth of free download magic at her website.
According to their website, attempting to sum up Wildhoney with an easy blog tag is impossible. But on that page, they mention the Swirlies so that's good enough reason to sample them, don't you think?
Hmm. That didn't come out sounding as close to The Manchurian Candidate as it sounded like when I said it with a mouth full of banana.
An email, then, from a band in America, called Candidate, politely introducing themselves:
We've been compared to an assortment of bands: U2, The Cure, Radiohead, The Replacements and even Coldplay. (As a self-proclaimed rock mathematician, I stand by the statement that our lyrics at least are one billion times better than Coldplay's).What do you get if you multiple "they was all yellow" by a billion?
This week's audio-visual treat for the weekend is a spot of TempestRock from London, in the shape of Bo Ningen.
That's their single Koroshitai Kimochi, which came out on a ten inch single around this time last year.
What do we know of them? There are four of them - Taigen, Kohhei, Yuki, Mon-chan. The Guardian loves 'em, as does Loud & Quiet. And they sound like pissed-off fractals trying to control their anger. Which is ace, obviously.
There's a debut album, also called Bo Ningen, out in a month's time.
Buy
Download Koroshitai Kimochi EP
Free download of Koroshitai Kimochi track via NME.com
Download Bo Ningen LP
Bo Ningen online
Bo Ningen on Last FM
Bo Ningen on MySpace
More to come across the weekend
Maguro
Live at The Rest Is Noise
Nonsense live
Skibunny want to give you an mp3 in return for an email address. The track is Ooh Ah, and it works very well indeed.
The email harvesting machine they're using doesn't work quite so well, and is apparently too full to eat any more emails, but you can still get the track.
Robert Lloyd recommended this lot to Marc Riley, Marc Riley put 'em on his show on Thursday night, and now we're going to pass on some of the glory.
They're variously described as the best all-girl band from Manchester ever and Everett True's perfect band, and those two points sort of give you a good starting place if you're trying to imagine what they sound like.
But don't imagine, listen:
That would be Hotpants No Chance, from the first proper release, It's A Heatwave.
Buy
... which you can buy, if you like.
Hotpants Romance online
Official site
Hotpants MySpace
Hotpants on Facebook
More Hotpants to come...
I Think I Need A New Heart
Shake
Emails
I think we've all agreed we'll just pretend that ITV haven't attempted to destroy one of the few remaining pieces of heritage they've left by remaking The Prisoner, right? (God, ITV, eh? They'll be inserting CGI ghosts into Coronation Street next, eh? Oh.)
So, let's embrace a sort-of remake we can all get behind:
This is Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling - a name, I suspect, they will come in time to resent as much as Mr and Mrs Kerr's son Wayne resented his. Never mind, though, as what they're doing is both interesting and lovely. They've embarked on a 17 strong song cycle which turns each episode of the The Prisoner into a nowavepop song.
Songs, in fact, like this:
UPDATE: JULY 2015: That widget appears to have failed at some point. Here's a YouTube embed instead:
He might be irritating beyond belief, but you can't really fault Jack White's ears. He got Jonneine Zapata along to warm up audiences for The Raconteurs a short while back, and you can see why. She's heading off to the studio with Steve Albini next, which is another good sign.
Meanwhile, she's got an album to promote, Cast The Demons Out, and this is, in part, what it sounds like: Good Looking.
There's something about being crunchy and ethereal at the same time that can be very different to pull off without turning into pomp-period The Cult, but I think she nails it.
What would it sound like if Visage were working with the Pet Shop Boys? A bit like this, possibly - Kids Of 88 doing Just A Little Bit. It's a pity the video veers into the wet-dreamy:
Not the Gina G song, then.
They're from New Zealand, which might be why we've been waiting two years for a follow-up to their debut single. It's a long way to walk.
[Touch the Kids of 88 on Facebook]
There's not so much a debt to Siouxsie and Banshees here as a large, secured borrowing item on the balance sheet, but this is not a Bad Thing.
In fact, none of this is a Bad Thing. What this is is Nite Nite, doing a track called Black Noise. Even if you don't like the song - in which case, by the way, you're wrong - you'll love the boots:
Nite Nite are on MySpace, and they're currently repromoting album How To Touch The Moon.
Yes, sometimes all it takes is to hide the word 'glitter' somewhere in your name.
Meet Uber Glitterati: a boy, a girl, a keyboard. They come from Belfast, they know which bits of the 1980s weren't rancid, and beyond that, you don't need much further introduction. Oh, apart from this:
Uber Glitterati - Mail It Overnight by Uber Glitterati
You can pledge to have and/or give them babies over on MySpace.
This is the sort of promotional email that I like:
We're Oreaganomics.
The attached song Self Assembled Martyr is from our new ep Apathy Is A Girl With A Penis 2nd Version
Do what you want to it.
It's that kinda song.
So if Sleater-Kinney spent too long hanging out with David Byrne, you might end up with something a bit like Reverse Dotty. I'm thinking this is effecting an introduction, but they've been going since 2007, and are currently plotting their third album for this summer. So it's more catching up.
Let's start at the start, shall we? Pregnancy-rejecting, pizza-themed fun with Egg Room from the first album:
Reverse Dotty on the internets
ReverseDotty.com - official site
Reverse Dotty on Last FM
Reverse Dotty on MySpace
Reverse Dotty on Facebook
Reverse Dotty on Twitter
Buy Reverse Dotty
Reverse Dotty downloads on Amazon
More to come...
OMD - half-live
Break It Off - half-live
Master Sr - mp3
Not to be confused with the XX Teens, or X, come to that, this is South London's XX, who won enthusiastic support from Jude Rogers in yesterday's Guardian. Their debut album arrives on Monday, but why a couple of days before deciding if the idea of Interpol being licked by Liz Fraser is a concept you wish to embrace? (It is, by the way.)
This is the video for Crystalised:
XX etc...
The XX MySpace
Official site
Buy
If you visit the official site, by the way, you can swap your email address for a free download
The XX - debut album
The XX - debut album in mp3 format
More videos to come
Basic Space [Pariah Remix]
Basic Space - basic edition
Some of you will wish to move on to the next post pretty sharpish, as what we have here is a slice of the sort of thing that used to keep American AM networks going during the 1970s, before they realised it was cheaper to just stick a right-wing blowhard in a studio and occasionally throw the words "there is a lesbian in town" or "it's not right for a six year old to have a rifle" at him.
And, we're assured, there's nothing ironic going on here.
So this is a band called Free Energy. And a track called Free Energy. You can download the mp3 here; you might have to imagine the eight-track for yourself.
Thanks to Faronheit for introducing us to Tiny Vipers. Or Jesy Fortino as the police would call her if they ever needed to, say, pursue her for an unpaid parking ticket or something.
"There's plenty of death and sickness and ghosts that haunt this record" promises Faronheit. Which, cheerily, is a great way of introducing Dreamer, a free-to-you mp3. Enjoy, if that's the word.
There's nothing like a shiny new band to kick off the day. Although Care Bears On Fire aren't that new, really. They're young - almost so young they're probably too young to remember Michael Jackson - but have still somehow managed to be going since 2004 which would suggest they started when they were about four or something.
You might think "oh, they look like they're going to sound like The Donnas" and, while chiding you for doing the book/cover thing, I can't say you'd be entirely wrong. But don't say that like it's a bad thing.
Download Superteen mp3
Befriend them on MySpace
Some Russian shoegaze - that's not a dirty word - from Pinkshinyultrablast. Imagine if, after Rachel Goswell had done the woo-woo on that Chapterhouse, she'd somehow become infected with that band's approach and then cross-infected Slowdive. Actually, don't imagine. Watch this instead:
Their PR materials describe them as "Two Parts French Pop, One Part London Chanteuse", and given that their album title is inspired by Ferris Bueller's Day Off, you'll probably already have Cocosuma down as being a Saint Etienne-type affair.
And you'd be right. But that, of course, is no bad thing.
They've even recently swapped out their lead singer - Kacey out, Amanda in - much as the Saints did when they drafted Sarah Cracknell in. And that worked out well enough.
To be fair, although we're filing them under 'shiny new bands', they've actually managed to clock up four albums over eight years, and even lead the single for the new album came out back in 2007. It's more like they're having a more concerted attempt at getting people to notice. And round here, it's sort of working, at least.
Here's an example of what they do; this is Charlotte's On Fire:
If you like smartened-up lo-fi, you'll like the Pet Ghost Project. Oh, you will. Don't take our word for it, as they're giving away an album's worth of stuff for free, and if you want to be convinced before you make space on your hard drive, try They Built A City In My Country Mind mp3 first.
