17 May 2016

Held over from last week because I had a raging sore throat that was definitely not radio friendly.

Bent Shapes - What We Do Is Public
Perky stuff from these Bostonians. Wolves Of Want is the album.

Meilyr Jones - Strange/Emotional
Bowie-esque. This guy is going places. The album, his debut as a solo artist, is 2013 and very highly rated.

Red Cabin - Follow Me Home
The solo project of Jonathan Foster of Long Island who has songs that don't fit the idiom of his other band, Snowday.

Featured album: Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - Angles
Beat That My Heart Skipped
Letter From God To Man
The 2007 debut from these two left a big impression. There's lyrical intelligence and banging beats and it's great. One of those that I keep going back to.

Parquet Courts - Dust
Always nice to get new stuff from these - a band that could only possibly come from New York. Human Performance is the new LP.

Martha - Goldman's Detective Agency
More sunshiney pop from Durham town Pity Me. The LP Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart is out in July.

Lower Slaughter - Hands
Raucous stuff from Brighton, the title track off their EP which came out in February.

Mugstar - Time Machine
Gorgeous krautrocky stuff from Liverpool. This is off the album Magnetic Seasons which came out in March.

The Coathangers - Down Down
More than a little element of psych about this. They're from Atlanta and the LP Nosebleed Weekend came out on February 29.

Black Mountain - Florian Saucer Attack
The Jagjaguwar label is normally a reliable badge of quality and this is from them. IV is the Vancouver band's first LP since 2010.

Featured album
Thou Shalt Always Kill
This had been doing the rounds a lot before it's release. I remember it on YouTube from way back before seeing it on a pub jukebox in York just before the LP came out. It's a modern classic.

The Dandelion Set - Judy Switched Off The TV
Bizarre and sublime, this is from their debut LP A Thousand Strands 1975-2015 and featuring the vocals of Alan Moore, writer of V For Vendetta and Watchmen.

Malcolm Middleton - Steps
Another new one from the LP Summer of '13. Which is great. More than a hint of Gary Numan about this one.

NZCA Lines - Two Hearts
These have been played plenty, but I got a new appreciation for their art after seeing them support Teleman. The LP Infinite Summer came out in January. It's good.

Krywald and Farrer - Spoon-Billed Sandpiper
A club banger to finish from this London duo. The EP Top Pocket Persies came out in March.

Here's your YouTube playlist:



and it's Soundcloud cousin:



More next week.

Pick of the year

In the absence of any air time until January 7, I've put together a selection of some of my favourite tracks from 2013. It's not definitive, I'm not claiming any authority and neither is it in any particular order. It's simply 21 tracks I've enjoyed this last year.
I haven't only enjoyed 21 tracks all year, obviously, but I had to stop somewhere and that just happens to be the number at which I stopped. Anyway, here you go:


Listen, enjoy, share if you like. Tell me what I'm missing, if you really want.
Merry festivities.

1 October 2013

Settling into Tuesdays now...

Future Of The Left - The Male Gaze
Probably the most important album of the year is the new one from Future Of The Left. It comes out in a couple of weeks and it's called 'How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident'. Get it.

Razmataz Lorry Excitement - Skin
New from Kev Dosdale, Newcastle producer who operates as Razmataz Lorry Excitement and here has Natasha Hawes on vocals. This is out on the 21st of this month. One that I wanted to play last week but ran out of time for.


Parquet Courts - You've Got Me Wondering Now
New from these, who we've had before and hail from Brooklyn. This is off the EP 'Tally The Things You Broke' which came out last....  no, not last month. It's October now isn't it. It came out in August.

Cover Version Corner
Velvet Underground/Toy - What Goes On
Not played any Toy for a while and this is as good a reason as any to rectify that. That was recorded in February. Before that, off the album 'The Velvet Underground' in 1969. Toy have really brought that up to date while also fitting it into their own idiom.

Bill Callahan - Expanding Dub
An interesting chap - from Maryland but spent part of his formative years in Knaresborough. His latest album is 'Dream River' and this is a dub version of the track Javelin Unlanding which features on that. Quite fabulous.

Four Tet - Parallel Jalebi
From the new album 'Beautiful Rewind'. That's Kieran Hebden's seventh studio album in his Four Tet guise.

Moodoïd - De Folie Pure
We played these Parisian funsters last week and it went down so well, we're doing it again. From the EP 'Moodoïd', that's got a lot going on in it. In a good way.

One Degree of Separation
La Femme - Sur La Planche
Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip feat. Flux Pavilion - Gold Teeth
OK, this one is tenuous. Keeping the French vibe going, first we had La Femme from April's 'Psycho Tropical Berlin' album which is excellent. Second, from the forthcoming new long player from Messrs le Sac and Pip 'Repent, Replenish, Repeat' comes their second advance release. They've always got something to say that's worth listening to and some heavy beats into the bargain. Thanks to Sunday Best records for sending me a radio edit that I could actually play on the radio.
The link? Well the La Femme record does include a line 'sur la planche, dans le sac' - on the plate, in the bag. It's good enough for me.

Les Jupes - Hold Me Down
Back on a French kick - ish. Canadian, this time, from Winnipeg. This is off an EP called 'Negative Space'.

Arcade Fire - Reflektor
And sticking on a Canadian kick - honestly, it sometimes appears like I haven't just thrown this together - the new one from these, the title track from their new album which comes out on the 28th of the month.

And that'll do us for this week. All that's bundled up for you in a YouTube playlist here bar the Razmataz Lorry Excitement track which you can find above. Back again same time next week.

22 July 2013

Bit cooler today and everything is working fine.

Drenge - Face Like A Skull
John: Show favourites, this is their new single. They suddenly gained national notoriety when namechecked in Tom Watson MP's letter of resignation from his post as Labour's election strategist. Not unwelcome publicity, but they seemed quite bemused by it all.
Carolyn: Yes, it was more about how he was urging Ed Miliband to make sure he had time for the wider pursuits in life. Either way, good band, good feel to it all and more power to them.

Warren Peace - FRANKLYSTVN
John: That's a couple of records in one from Warren Borg and Buddy Peace with some philosophising on love and life from one of our favourite artists Scroobius Pip.
Carolyn: And why not?
John: I guess we pronounce it 'frankly Steven'.

Silver Arm - Dead Tongues
John: Another band that came to my attention via Twitter. 'Listen to this if you like', they said, 'or if not, just imagine a horse with a machine gun ripping your face off'. Which is fair enough I suppose. I don't know a lot about them - they're from down south somewhere - but I like their energy and attitude.



Cover Version Corner
Small Faces/Ride - That Man
John: Same song, one stripped back and bare, the other massively produced and engineered within an inch of it's life. The original is off 1967's 'From The Beginning' while Ride's is off a compilation called 'Long Agos And Worlds Apart: A Tribute To The Small Faces' which came out in 1995. While trying to find out more about that record, I searched online for 'ride that man'. My advice - don't.
Carolyn: Ah. Yeah. Good point. Don't try that at home everyone.
John: Or do while you still can. Don't do it at work though. Four pages...

Hot Vestry - Commiserations
John: Also in the Drenge envelope a bit, these are from Macclesfield and it's off an EP called 'Tell Me How It's Done'. I like that a lot.
Carolyn: The ending drags out a bit. Otherwise, yeah.

The Vaccines - Melody Calling
John: New from these and a bit different to normal. Nice and summery though. Now you like these - how does that stack up?
Carolyn: I want a big chorus to sing along to. I can't sing that in the car.
John: Oh. No.

NYPC - Hard Knocks
John: NYPC is the new name for New Young Pony Club. The first half of the show was guitar-dominated, so it's time to electronicify it up a bit. That's new and is released on August 12.
Carolyn: It went a bit weird towards the end, but yeah, not bad.

Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft - Vershwenden Deine Jugend
John: More electronica, this time from 1981 and Dusseldorf. It means 'wasting our youth' and is off the album 'Gold Und Liebe'. I play that because we played a record by Gesaffelstein recently and these are an influence. You can see the lineage and that these things go in cycles. This sort of thing is back.

The Clean - Diamond Shine
John: From Dunedin in New Zealand, this is off their 1990 debut album 'Vehicle'. Always worth a revisit.

One Degree of Separation
The Altered Hours - Sweet Jelly Roll
Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather For Ducks
John: I play that Lemon Jelly track in an ironic sense of our recent weather. That's off the 2002 album 'Lost Horizons' which we've probably done to death on the show now. Last time they featured in this section, it was a lemon link. This time, it's the jelly. 'Sweet Jelly Roll' is the EP from Cork psych-rockers The Altered Hours and that came out in April.

Daughn Gibson - You Don't Fade
John: An interesting character. A former trucker from Pennsyvania, the album is 'Me, Moan' and it came out last month.
Carolyn: So not Dawn? I figured it was a bloke. That's a rich and interesting voice.

Pixies - Debaser
John: From way back in 1989 - where does the time go? - and the album 'Doolittle'. We play that as it contains oblique references to the Bunuel film Un Chien Andalou and we have Andalucian visitors in town on Wednesday when Town play Real Betis. Tenuous? Anyway, we'll be covering that game later in the week.

Here's all that in a YouTube playlist for you apart from the Warren Peace track. Links in the heading for that section. There's also a better, studio, version of the Drenge record up there too.