Masters in France

Wales could be congratulated on getting their first football team into the Premiership in the form of Swansea City yesterday. I don't know if it's a big deal with any Welsh people other than Swansea fans. (I only really know one Welsh guy, and he is from Swansea)



Well I had to start the post somehow, and now for continuity let me introduce Masters in France from Bangor, Wales. The first time I heard about them was their ridiculously catchy song Little Girl maybe some time last year even, but for some reason I never posted it on here. Well I'm here to right that wrong now. Sing along with me now: "We're burning up, we're burning up!"



As I never want to let this blog be super-lite and easy/quick to open on t'internet I might as well stick more videos on here, so here's the slightly heavier track Mad Hatter and its video that did its best to freak me out.



The boys have got a new single out now on itunes and the likes. Here's A.I (Artificial Inches)

A.I. (Artificial Inches) by mastersinfrance

When Saints Go Machine

I'm writing this post for three reasons.

#1

Denmark's When Saints Go Machine have got the best band name I've heard in something like forever. If you're wondering why and thinking "well he's easily pleased", it's because I think it's an excellent wordplay on When the Saints Go Marching In, the first song I ever had to learn on the recorder at school as a wee bairn. It still brings back loads of memories, not sure if they're good or bad ones though. My recorder version did use to sound shit.

#2

Titled Scandinavia's very own Yeasayer (by me), When Saints Go Machine play a kind of artsy-fartsy brand of experimental pop which I'd imagine would appeal to fans of TV on the Radio and the above mentioned Yeasayer, but with that added Scandinavian feel to their music.



They're having a busy year, what with touring around Europe, releasing the Fail Forever EP in January and now they've got their full length album Konkylie out later this month on !K7.
These guys are set to have a huge year, and this is the video of their new single Add Ends.



This is also off the new Konkylie album
Kelly by When Saints Go Machine

#3

The super prolific Nicolas Jaar has done an amazing remix for Fail Forever. Vibing somewhere out there in the dense post-dubstep jungle mixed with some haunting piano, strings and what seem to be calypso drums. Ace!

Download it here:
When Saints Go Machine - Fail Forever (Nicolas Jaar remix) (mp3)

or here:
http://soundcloud.com/when-saints-go-machine/fail-forever-nicolas-jaar

Daughter

Elena Tonra who goes by the name Daughter has been getting a lot of coverage all over the internet and radio world and I think it's time she has the dubious honour and privilege of being on AndygoesdowntoChinatown which is obviously the place to be seen and heard.

Anyhoo, her new His Young Heart EP and especially its opening song Landfill are up there in my top-300 list of things that could make me weep like a little girl if only I wasn't so damn strong/tough/emotionally repressed.

Her earnest and hearfelt songs just give me the shudders whenever I hear them. Now either I keep listening to her in cold rooms or her acoustic folk tunes are actually affecting me in some kind of way (I once read in Mojo/Rolling Stone/Men's Health/Vanity Fair that good music might make you feel something. They were probably referring to Bon Jovi, but I reckon Daughter works better for me. A lot better.)

Daughter - Landfill (taken from the 'His Young Heart' EP) by ohDaughter

You can listen and buy the digital version on her bandcamp page
http://ohdaughter.bandcamp.com/

RIP Gil Scott-Heron

The legendary icon Gil Scott-Heron passed away yesterday. Rest in peace Gil.

Is Tropical - The Greeks (new video)

Crazy disturbing video for Is Tropical's new single The Greeks. Had me laughing like a drunk at a beer festival. Kids will be kids, eh?



Go on. Download the song from here

Satellite Stories - Family (new tune)

A couple of my mates absolutely love the band Satellite Stories so I know at least a few people'll be all like "yeah, guys let's play this on repeat at every party we ever go to" now that the band have released their new song Family. But you know what? Family's such a summery energetic dance pop number that it shouldn't just exclusively be those couple of guys loving it. It should be most if not all of us.

The band are from Oulu which is way up north in Finland and from what I've heard (my sister lived there for a year) there's not much to be positive about up there in the bleak harsh coldness. So the fact that these guys make such optimistic sounding cheery pop songs is quite a merit.

Satellite Stories - Family by satellitestories

By the way this is the song that they're playing on repeat at parties at the moment:

Satellite Stories - Helsinki Art Scene by satellitestories

I don't get invites to these parties anymore because I just want to listen to the greats like Rachmaninov, Verdi and Puccini on repeat. I guess some people call me "the most boring person in the room". I guess I'm just getting old.

My day in youtube embeds

Today ladies and gentlemen I've mostly been listening to classical music. Long days at uni and I want to stay über-relaxed

No new breaking tunes here today then. Just a bunch of pretty nice things from a bunch of dead guys (except for Schubert who I'm keeping alive in a shoebox... Oh the sharp and humorous wit of my brain. Sorry.)

Been very fond of this one today.



This is always a winner



Tchaikovsky's concerto is banging.



Getting on my dancing shoes. Get ready for that final crescendo



Soon my friends I'll be back with new music, because frankly there's a lot of good stuff I want to post on here. Forgive my slight lapse in obscure-new-band-posting awesomeness and feel the love of the above dead guys.

I Am Harlequin

This just came in, and thankfully so! This is I Am Harlequin, the brainchild of German-born but London-based Anne Frier. Ahead of her up and coming debut album, she's released the single Marianne and you my good people need to hear this.

Marianne is an wonderfully eccentric pop number, filled with interesting tempo switches and really showing off Anne's captivating vocal style. Something there in that little area between Kate Bush and Florence + The Machine (you know that little area, everyone's always talking about it.)

I am Harlequin - Marianne by AndygoesdowntoChinatown

"She would eat men up like sushi dishes on a conveyor belt in order to get her way. In the song, she convinces the main character to fall in love with her. He then falls prey to her game-playing and abuse" - Anne Frier on the inspiration for Marianne.

I used to go out with a Marianne...
Am I the dude in the song? Am I a sushi dish on a conveyor belt? Did she get her way with me? Who knows... But after reading that I'm starting to feel pretty used.

Right anyway I Am Harlequin is playing some bigger gigs in the near future.

May 29th - Brighton - Brighton Festival (Brighton Dome) (WHY OH WHY CRUEL WORLD?! I'M NOT THERE ANYMORE)
June 18th - Kent - GoGo Festival (Headcorn Aerodrome)
June 18th - London - The Big Mix Festival

August 13th - Newquay - Boardmasters Festival

August 27th - Leicestershire - Strawberry Fields Festival

If in the vicinity check her out.

T-bone out.

Pharaohs - Photosynthesis

If you're wondering what else to do today other than check out the new acts that have been added to Flow Festival's line up you could do worse than to listen to Pharaohs (not to be confused with Fair Ohs) and their up and coming album Photosynthesis. It's energetic and frantic and they're branding themselves mathpop, whatever that means, anyway the album's title track Photosynthesis is a stormer.



Perhaps even more in my mould however is the magical reworking of the track by Cats Hero which is sounding absolutely amazing!

Pharaohs - Photosynthesis (Cats Hero Remix) by Cats Hero

Listen to a preview of Pharaohs' Photosynthesis album on Soundcloud and download the title track at http://www.pharaohstheband.com

Be their first single as good as it is, they haven't yet gone and surpassed Fair Ohs as my favourite band that sound like the word Pharaohs, but then again that would take a lot of doing.

That's my little blog-break over and it's time to get back to what I do best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08YWhLTjlfo

James Vincent McMorrow

I remember recently chatting to some people and they asked me "so what kind of music does James Vincent McMorrow play?" to which I replied "very lady-friendly singer-songwriter stuff".
A few weeks on and a load more listens to his album Early in the Morning and I'm still standing behind that comment, but it turns out that James Vincent McMorrow or Javi McMozzy as he's known everywhere (in my head) is also very Thomas-friendly singer-songwriter stuff.

In fact Early in the Morning is getting to be my almost-summer theme album, as well as my going-to-bed theme album and my waking-up-in-the-morning theme album.

So what if he's got a similar vocal texture to a certain other James (Morrison, or Jamoz)? The world needs chart-friendly guitar playing singing men, or women (Hey, I'm not here to discriminate) especially when their songs are so incredibly gorgeous as these ones are.





[picture]

Mount Kimbie - Carbonated EP

The world's not over yet. I'm genuinely surprised that the apocalypse didn't happen this time around. I guess 2012 is what it's all about.

Anyway the brilliant Mount Kimbie are releasing their Carbonated EP next month. Carbonated is a track off the duo's "super-duper" album Crooks and Lovers from last year and the new EP features remixes of the track by Airhead and Peter van Hoesen plus new unreleased tracks Flux and Baves Chords. Very much something to get excited about if you're an excessive fanboy like me.

Listen to/download Baves Chords below.

and here's a radio rip of Flux (via Listen Before You Buy)
Mount Kimbie - Flux

End of the world stuff + Fixers - Crystals D/R/U/G/S remix

Before the world ends via rapture-time I wanted to share with you guys this little conspiracy theory I concocted in my head last night. As any normal person would/should be doing on a friday night I was putting together life's little pieces in true Tom Hanks style.

Here goes:

So you guys know football right? Some people call it soccer (but I don't call them people). And you know how they play it in England right? So let's look at the bottom of the Premiership table and the teams in danger of getting relegated:

Blackburn
Wolves
Birmingham
------------
Blackpool
Wigan
West Ham

Notice anything? That's right 3 teams beginning with B and three teams beginning with W.
Stick 'em all together and they look like this B3W. OR if you were to twist the 3 you'd get BmW = BMW (like cars)

OMG! coincidence, I think not.

This can only mean either of two things. Either it's a sign that BMW are going bankrupt "getting relegated" or it's a sign that I should shut the hell up.

Thanks for your time. I'll get my coat.

Oh but before I go, I wanted to share the new D/R/U/G/S remix of Oxford's Fixers' song Crystals. I like to think that as I saw both acts at TGE last week, that they got together and did this remix for me. So, um, thanks guys.

Crystals (D R U G S remix) by Fixers.

This is what it used to sound like:

Double Denim records

It was my birthday a while ago and so while I was down in Brighton last week, my top man J from Dangerdance popped down to join in the Great Escape festivities. Obviously he mainly came down to Brighton to drop off my b-day presents.

These were the incredibly sought after Burial, Four Tet & Thom Yorke collaboration 12" Ego/Mirror and a heap of ace 7" records from Double Denim Records.

In fact they're so ace I thought I'd stick them on here so you lot can get "down and groovy" with me.

Starslinger split with Hard Mix. One side soul-sampling instrumental (see yesterday), other side chillwave at its finest. Both sides brilliant.

DD003 A1: Star Slinger // Remedy by Double Denim Records

DD003 A1: Hard Mix // Eye Contact by Double Denim Records


I've gone on and on about Blackbird Blackbird on here, but in addition to his two songs Pure and So Sorry Girl there's the B-side by Paopao whom I'd never heard of.
Liberia is a pretty belting tune:

DD001 B1: PaoPao // Liberia (feat. Prizes) by Double Denim Records



Then I got Body Language's 7" of which B-side Social Studies is possibly one of the catchiest pop tunes I've heard in ages.

DD004 B1: Body Language // Social Studies by Double Denim Records

All these records are sold out so if you liked them, well unlucky.

But fear not!

Every now and then Double Denim are looking for help round the office. As payment you might get a stack of records. So if you're around the London area and fancy labouring for music you could do worse than follow them on Twitter and maybe be the first to hear about these kind of things. You could even be lucky enough to grab a copy of the up 'n' coming Christian AIDS 7". Not a bad thing IMO.

DD005 A1: Christian AIDS // Stay + by Double Denim Records

Band of the day: Vanilla

Evoking the spirit of Dilla. Making sweet tasty hip-hop instrumentals in the vein of Madlib and more recently Starslinger comes Oxford, UK based producer Vanilla who has just recently released his new High Life LP.

It's 27 tracks of pure soul-sampling genius. No over-the-top added extras, just exactly what's needed to create those ultimate chill-vibes (I so desperately need after last weekend's depravity).

Now I've said before on here that my knowledge of Hip-Hop is miniscule. I probably know about as much about hip-hop culture as Muse probably know about the physics involved in an actual neutron star collision but I'm gonna go ahead and say that High Life is definitely something for fans of Dilla's Donuts.

So go ahead and download Vanilla's High Life LP for no money whatsover:
(Download link)

or if you need more convincing, listen to these:

Way We Were (From new beat tape 'High Life' available now!) by Vanilla

Closer (From new beat tape 'High Life' available now!) by Vanilla

Return to form for Bon Iver

So by now you may have heard of Bon Iver's (or Justin Vernon's) glorious return to form with his new single Calgary. It's not as if he's been doing nothing since 2007's For Emma, Forever Ago and 2009's Blood Bank EP as Gayngs' Related album from last year proves. But now it's just him on his own again.



With Calgary it seems Vernon has taken a leaf out of How To Dress Well's book of reverbed kind of R&B style vocals which probably originally took a leaf out of Bon Iver's book of awesomeness.

Like he's just showing who's boss. And that's what he is.

Download Calgary from here:
http://www.boniver.org/

Great Escape 2011

I'm a professional blogger. When I set out to do coverage of something, I do it with such a level of professional dedication it's unreal. The same applied for The Great Escape 2011 in Brighton last weekend. I even hired a personal assistant and took her with me to Brighton to do all the photographing whilst I could focus on saying all the important and relevant stuff about the bands and all their this-and-thatness.

We'd have been fine if we were still living in the stone age. A camera with film that needs developing (in this day and age!) and a mobile phone without the internet or angry birds.
My photographer is still developing the film and will then scan the photos onto a computer and then have them with you sometime next year.

In the mean time you can look at this.

May or may not be Miami Horror (hard to tell)

All in all The Great Escape yet again fulfilled its promise of being "Europe's leading festival for new music" with so much going on every night with official Great Escape gigs, alternative escape gigs, various street gigs and loads of late night dancing.

Highlights included Denmark's Oh Land's friday night gig at Digital.
All dubstep wobble, pounding beats, ridiculously catchy tunes and possibly the most visually stunning show (woman) I've ever seen.
They were filming her gig but I haven't found it anywhere yet so here's an older live video. I think we were treated to a more intense performance



French band We Were Evergreen stepped in to replace Niki and the Dove and charmed the entire audience with their cute and quirky songs.

Their genuine upbeat goofyness translates so well from live set to video

I was so looking forward to Cults that I thought I'd end up super disappointed, but nay! Their set at Horatio's on the Palace Pier was every bit as entertaining as it could have been. You Know What I Mean live was just a different class of awesomeness.



Seams, Becoming Real, D/R/U/G/S, Miami Horror and Fantastic Mr. Fox took care of our need to dance. SBTRKT would've done nicely too, had we seen more than the last 3 minutes of his set. (Biggest regret?)

Ghostpoet and Braids took care of two of my favourite albums of the year so far.

Josh T. Pearson was simply amazing and Villagers sang his young little heart out.



Lewis Floyd Henry was a one man blues band but definitely not a novelty act. Definitely NOT a novelty act. Gritty, dirty and downright insane songs.



Honorable mentions go out to PVT (whose album Church With No Magic is amazing) who championed technical difficulties and started the festival off with a bang.
Brother and Bones should appeal to most Pearl Jam fans and played an entertaining and energetic set somewhere in a basement.
Here Comes The Storm by Brother and Bones

The Minutes from Ireland played a raucous gig in a tattoo shop where they were giving away free booze. Sounds perfect eh?
Black Keys by The Minutes

It wasn't all just giggles and booze though. Throughout the weekend there were some forgettable moments.

Hotly tipped Fixers managed to create an unlistenable wall of sound. Which was a shame because they do have some ace tunes.

Hype duo Big Deal who're signed to Moshi Moshi made me ask: "What is the Big Deal?!"
If I were giving away prizes for the most uninspiring and static performance of the weekend, they'd have won it hands down.

Erika M. Anderson's band EMA's live performance did in no way reflect the same intensity and dark groove as on her recordings. She seemed less like a Karen O-esque sex kitten and more like a tired puppy.

So that's it for this years Great Escape. It's becoming a tradition to do it every year so if anyone from Finland (or anywhere really) wants to join me on a big old adventure next year, then message me and let's do it!

I'm shooting off to Brighton today for a bit of R&R. Gonna be sweet but won't be updating the blog for a while. I'm going to try to do some kind of coverage of The Great Escape on here and on twitter, but I haven't got one of those fancy i android phones so the frequency and quality of my coverage might be, as they say, naff.

My meticulously planned festival schedule is pretty much embedded in my head as I set off on my great adventure. With an ambitious plan to see more than 5 bands over 3 days I wonder if I've set my hopes and expectations way too high. With some overlappings and expected queing, some sacrifices have to be made. The biggest one being who to check out

Kyla La Grange



or

Ghostpoet

These are the tough decisions in life.

Happy Mummy's day tomoz

Tomorrow is International European St. Mum's day and seeing as I'm taking my mum out shark fishing tomorrow I won't be able to post on this here bloggy thingy. Instead I'm now going to use it as a channel to send out my love to every mama in the world. Especially the hot mamas.

It doesn't matter how your kids turned out, the main thing is that you've been hot enough/at the right place at the right time to have had someone make sexy sex with you. (Doesn't include assisted reproduction)

So shout out to all you madrecitas

Kyla La Grange

I love this girl's voice!

She sounds something like Bonnie Tyler's and Stevie Nicks' alleged love-child. And by listening to her songs she's got similar influences too.

I might be slightly late jumping on this bandwagon, as I haven't been following her tunes since she started making music at the tender age of about 2 months (or really young anyway) but seeing as she's got her album coming out sometime later this year I think now is a good enough time as any to get all super excited

It's somehow possible to download her new song Vampire Smile from her website:
http://www.kylalagrange.com/
but it took some wanking about because of its Quicktime format and my ineptitude.

An easier option is to get downloads of Walk Through Walls (her first single btw.) and Courage via here:

Kyla La Grange - Walk Through Walls by Stayloose

Kyla La Grange - Courage (free download) by Stayloose

Fair Ohs - Everything Is Dancing

Oh super happy moments of joyous news.

My favourite band (there I said it) Fair Ohs are releasing an actual full length album! After having them down as the kind of band who are just up for releasing a onslaught of seemingly never-ending awesome 7"s they've started up their own record label Honey High Records to release their debut album Everything Is Dancing.

This is what it looks like:

And this is what the title track and its video sounds/looks like:
(Christian Bale gone anti-The Machinist)

Everything Is Dancing from Fair Ohs on Vimeo.

Fair Ohs and their blend of "tropical punk" are exactly the right band to get you bang on track for that perfect summer you've always wanted but never had because of rain/traffic jams/lost dogs/broken TV remotes/morning breath/scientology/Cristiano Ronaldo/bicycles with gears/Hugh Grant/mosquitos/alcohol poisoning/Andy Murray.

Everything Is Dancing ships June 6th and you can get it here:
http://fairohs.bigcartel.com

If my little pitch wasn't enough then listen to these jangly motherflippers!

Hey Lizzy by fairohs

Almost Island (7" Version) by fairohs

Jewellers

The guys from Jewellers got in touch via Soundcloud and its, for me, still relatively complex mysterious system of following, sharing, liking, and messaging.
People who aren't following me are sharing stuff with me, but I can't share stuff with people I follow but have to message them about liking me. That isn't how it works, but then again I don't know how it works.
The good thing is that people still keep sending me stuff to listen to. As long as that happens, I'll love whatever social media it happens to happen through.

Anyway Jewellers make electronic music that's not too far from the chillwave-scene, or very far from various Boards Of Canada enthusiasts either. On their new album Sleep Education Jewellers make it clear they're more than comfortable in the murky depths of samples and loops.
Using guitars like Mount Kimbie, using mallets like Seams and using vocals that have got to be from some obscure 90's R&B tracks. All in all just making ace tunes.


Tape by Jewellers

Forward Life by Jewellers
Oh yeah about those R&B vocals... This one sounds more like it could be CocoRosie.

The best thing about Sleep Education is that it's a free download.
http://jewellers.bandcamp.com/

Things to get excited about

Two new albums to get all light-headed about. Two new albums from two bands who've previously released music that even still makes me feel fuzzy inside. Ladies and gentlemen. I (and a few others before me) present Gang Gang Dance's new album Eye Contact and Wild Beasts' new album Smother both available for pre-emptive listening. Get in there while it's still hot. And yes, my friends, it is hot. Hot like a granny's purse after scoring that elusive B-I-N-G-O. Hot damn.




So what were your thoughts?




This is the way to listen to Wild Beasts' album Smother. I don't know much about 3VOOR12 as a website but this works, so give it a go.