News - page 4

The New Pornographers announce new album "Brill Bruisers", stream title track

Hey, I didn’t get the memo, email, fax, owl or raven announcing the release of Brill Bruisers, a new album from The New Pornographers set for release on August 26th (on Matador). No bother, since...

A band played a cover version tonight. An underwhelming audio recording exists.

They have papier-mâché heads, and insist that you wear black tie to their gigs. Now Arcade Fire can also strike a line through playing a song by The Smiths on their bucket list, because that’s...

Empathy Test sign record deal, new EP on the way...

As a huge fan of Empathy Test’s debut EP Losing Touch, released in February this year, I was pretty excited to hear the news this week that the duo had signed to...

Free Download: Public Service Broadcasting - Elfstedentocht Parts 1 & 2

Although I didn’t get round to writing a full review of it, Inform - Educate - Entertain was this writer’s album of the year for 2013, and Public Service Broadcasting made my

Free download: Kramies - The Folklore Sessions

Dutch-American singer and song-writer Kramies has already released two hypnotic dream pop EPs for the Hidden Shoals label; now he’s taken tracks from both The European and The Wooden Heart to create an acoustic EP...

Wilsen - Magnolia

Magnolia is a quite lovely piece of glistening dream pop from Wilsen. Flecks of guitar float by on the breeze of 24-year-old London native Tamsin Wilson vocals, with bandmates Johnny Simon Jr and Drew Arndt...

Julianna Barwick - Meet You At Midnight

I get slightly concerned when I see a quote from Sam Calagione, head of the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery on the soundcloud entry for this track:

Ramesh - 1111

Out of nowhere comes the first single from Ramesh, formerly lead singer of the sadly now defunct Voxtrot. Unsurprisingly, and very much in the traditional fashion for a lead singer breaking out...

Wolf Alice - Storms

Apparently, while I wasn’t paying attention to what’s trending, Wolf Alice were busy being the most blogged about UK artist of 2013. I guess that’s the sort of thing I’d have noticed had I spent...

Empathy Test - Losing Touch EP

Empathy Test are two lifelong friends - singer and songwriter Isaac Howlett, and digital composer Adam Relf. United by a love of Science Fiction, together they’ve created an EP of mesmerising and immaculate synth pop,...

School of Language - Dress Up

I’m sure this stop motion video is referencing something, I just can’t figure out what. Directed by Andy Martin for Dress Up from the new album Old Fears by School of Language, it’s a brilliant...

Warpaint - Disco//Very - Keep It Healthy

Annoying / cool / annoying / cool / annoying / cool / annoying / cool

Mark Morriss - Space Cadet

Look! It’s that Mark Morriss from The Bluetones, whose début album back in 1996 got me as excited as a very excited young music fan with its brilliant hooks and singalongability. He has a newish...

Kramies - Clocks Were All Broken

I’ve been meaning to write about this track for days, but time has its own ways…

Woman's Hour announce debut album "Conversations"

April 1st has been forever redeemed by the news that Woman’s Hour have spent the winter completing their debut album Conversations. And as if that wasn’t enough to make you breathless they’ve also made the...

Tomas Barford - True to You

The melancholy tones of Gruff Rhys and the precise electronica of Tomas Barfod make for ideal companions in this Record Store Day release, out later this month on Secretly Canadian. And not to sound like...

Record Store Day 2014

'A selection of tracks that will be available on Record Store Day this year: 19/04/2014'

Fanfarlo - Cell Song

Unperturbed by my continuing failure to review their (spoiler alert!) wonderful Let's Go Extinct, Fanfarlo have pressed on manfully, releasing another video from the album, this time for Cell Song.

Mumm-Ra - Lizzy Lu

When I wrote about Mumm-Ra’s fabulous track She’s Got You High last summer I mentioned that the band were recording again, having split up after releasing just a single album,...

Friendly Fires & The Asphodells - Before Your Eyes

This is a slippery one, and no mistake. I’ve been listening to it for about three-quarters of an hour now, and I every time I get to the delicious outro the rest of the song...