The Norwegian maestro of disco, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, teams up again with Christabelle (also known as Solale), and together they craft a masterful 10-song pop album. They have worked together since 2001, and begun working on the album before 2008’s epic Where You Go I Go To.Even though Lindstrøm is famous for his retro futuristic space disco, it never sounds like he’s working within a format. Real Life Is No Cool lacks the long masturbatory jams, and is tighter and more formal than his last few releases. The album is filled with new-wave pop melodies and piano house keys. It’s sharp and chunky with heavy stomping basslines and wobbly arpeggiated synths. Wrapped in a warm and organic analog production, it’s as dreamy as its title suggests.Christabelle has a sexy and whispering voice, and when she sings on top of Lindstrøm’s production, it sounds like they’re having a cosmic jam. Among the many stand-out tracks is “Keep it Up,” which has an ’80s Prince and Peter Gabriel sound. “Baby Can’t Stop” should be known to most blog hunters out there in various remixes, but the original is an amazing pop song which echoes Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and Miami Sound Machine’s “Rhythm is Gonna Get You.” “Let’s Practice” is Christabelle and Lindstrøm’s Moroder/Summer moment, and never has such a reference sounded so good. With “Never Say Never” they also make room for a psychedelic trip, to a point where you check if there’s something wrong with your stereo.Like Chromeo, Lindstrøm masters ’80s funk and it’s often tongue-in-cheek. But it never sounds ironic. An album packed with so many references, could be used as a curriculum for modern disco music. This is easily an early contender for the best album of 2010, and one of the best electronic albums ever to come out of Scandinavia.
On February 16, singer/songwriter Josh Rouse will release El Turista, an album that finds him singing originals and covers in English and Spanish. The record draws on music from Cuba, Brazil, Spain, Venezuela, and more, and will be released on Rouse’s own Bedroom Classics label via Nettwerk.According to a press release: “Rouse mingles original tunes about life in Spain – and away from it – with a Civil War-era traditional American song (’Cotton Eye Joe’), that he heard Nina Simone sing, and two songs popularized by Bola de Nieve, considered ‘the Louis Armstrong of Cuba.’”“I know it’s kind of funny, this Midwestern guy doing Brazilian songs in Spanish,” says Rouse, who was born and raised in Paxton, Nebraska. He describes one track, the instrumental “Bienvenido,” as “originally sound[ing] like Nick Drake, but turned into Vince-Guaraldi-on-the-Mediterranean.”El Turista is the followup to 2007’s critically acclaimed Country Mouse, City Mouse. A Josh Rouse anthology, The Best of the Rykodisc Years, was released in 2008.Rouse will launch a U.S. tour in support of El Turista, with dates to be announced soon. Fans can get a sneak peak of the album by downloading the digital-only EP Valenca, which is out now. The new EP features the title track (which will also appear on the album), two out-takes from the album sessions (”Magdalena” and “Easy Street”) and an instrumental “Fiesta Morena” (pulled from a recent update on his Bedroom Classics Closet Archives site).El Turista Track List:1. Bienvenido2. Duerme3. Lemon Tree4. Sweet Elaine5. Mesie Julian6. I Will Live On Islands7. Valencia8. Cotton Eye Joe9. Las Voces10. Don’t Act Tough
There isn’t just one reason why Manchester has been the UK’s premier city for producing killer pop and rock music for the last 35 years. Its strong sense of civic pride, ever-thriving club scene and sharp sense of self-awareness have been bolstered by its essential involvement in post-punk, indie, acid house and Britpop over the years. And while the ties that bind Delphic’s limpid house/minimal rock hybrid to the Afrobeat/ACR-like funk of Egyptian hip hop to the steady-as-she-goes indie of The Courteeners are merely conceptual, it is good to see focus return to the UK’s new music foundry again.
Another act who should have her name shouted from the top of the Arndale Centre but has no stylistic links to ‘New Manchester’ as such, is LoneLady. Known to her family as Julie Campbell, she was born on Manchester’s glamorously unglamorous Eastern Axis toward Prestwich and Salford (the birth corridor of The Fall and Joy Division), but despite London-centric taste-makers declaring the time right and the random act of her birth declaring the place right, she is defiantly her own woman. She even seems slightly at odds to her record label Warp; not, as has been suggested, because she plays guitar (the Sheffield label has long been home to acts such as and Gravenhurst) or because she’s a girl (Mira Calix and Leila might have something to say about this), but because she has such a peculiarly American sound.
Brutalist guitar plucking, stripped of nearly all effects, combined with odd staccato bursts of percussion and unobtrusively simple drum lines is all LoneLady (as the name suggests) needs by way of accompaniment. The nakedness of the music suggests a confessional nature, an intimacy that may make some feel uncomfortable. Yet ‘If Not Now’ and ‘Intuition’ are not the uncomfortable, accusatory howl of Hole but the tense, nuanced, psychological drama of 4AD art rockers Throwing Muses. Elsewhere the rock’n’soulfulness of ‘Early The Haste Comes’ combines with a loose disco backline that resembles pre-fame Gossip.
This is not to say that there isn’t a link to Mancunia’s musical past in LoneLady’s output. If she inhabits the same sphere of any other performer from those rainy climes, it is that of Linder Sterling, the post-punk musician and artist who fronted the underrated Ludus. Sterling, who not only designed the iconic cover to ‘Orgasm Addict’ by the Buzzcocks but has the pleasure of being Morrissey’s best friend, combined glass-cold vocals with a coolly analytical and unromantic lyrical style over jerky new wave guitars in a similar way. But as much as Ludus may have been an influence, we should celebrate LoneLady as the arrival of a fresh and invigorating voice whose talent transcends time and place and influence.
The road to hell is lined with the burnt-out husks of groups who tried to fuse rock and dance. This alchemist’s quest has thrown up some atrocities over the last 20-odd years – older readers will shake their heads sorrowfully when the name of is mentioned, and none but the most mentally impaired will want to rush to the defence of Hadouken!. The main problem has been an inability of certain bands to see going dance as anything more complex than whacking a massive breakbeat and a fat acid bassline on to a guitar track. The bottom line is this: rock groups who treat house music as a wacky cousin are always destined to fumble the ball when they attempt to “go dance”. So perhaps it’s inevitable that historically some of the most satisfying experiments in this field have come from the other side of the tracks, as it were; from Underworld incorporating Karl Hyde’s Dylan-esque lyrics and fluid acid guitar to The Chemical Brothers’ obvious debt to John Bonham. Taking close note of this have been Delphic, who have avoided all the hallmarks of a cheesy crossover album and produced a cohesive and impressive debut. ‘Doubt’ is one of many highlights applying the light touch of Underworld circa 1996 to the kind of chiming New Order guitar work that wouldn’t be out of place on ‘Technique’, and the track ‘Halcyon’ pays obvious homage to rave pioneers Orbital. While there are a couple of tracks here that are close to filler, Delphic have proved that they are adept at This Kind Of Thing, which is cause for celebration alone.
In existence little over a year, the London quartet's striking debut single "Over Time", and a run of dates with Good Shoes at the end of last year served notice that WILD PALMS are serious contenders with a brace of diverse influences that include - but not limited to - CAN, BEEFHEART, SONIC YOUTH, TV ON THE RADIO, BILLY CHILDISH, LIQUID LIQUID, NEU!, NEW ORDER and TALKING HEADS.Says singer Lou Hill of the new partnership: "We just feel very happy with our situation and glad that we are signing with a label like One Little Indian whose stance on the music business seems to be completely in-line with our philosophy. The most attractive aspect of One Little Indian is that they allow us complete creative control, something that if we were not given I think it would be completely detrimental to us as people and as a band. One Little Indian were very enthusiastic from the very start and I hope we can repay that interest. We have the security of 3 albums and are being given the time and space to evolve and develop, which we are looking forward to eagerly. Here's to a very fruitful relationship."The band have been in the studio with Gareth Jones (GRIZZLY BEAR, CLINIC, INTERPOL, WIRE, DEPECHE MODE) working on fresh material for a September album release - expect to hear new single 'Deep Dive' soon.
New York City haze-pop trio the Depreciation Guild-- led by Pains of Being Pure at Heart drummer Kurt Feldman and featuring Pains touring guitarist Christoph Hochheim-- are ready to bliss out with more ocean-wave guitars on their second album, Spirit Youth, due May 18 on Kanine.
Tunng have a new album on the way, being released on March 1 and being called And Then We Saw Land. They've also a new single, and video for a track off it. Specifically 'Hustle'. Watch that here.
The Matablog has announced that on May 4, Matador will release the fifth album from the indie-power-pop supergroup the New Pornographers, titled Together.In addition to the core lineup of A.C. Newman (who wrote nine of the album's songs), Dan Bejar (who wrote three), Neko Case, John Collins, Kurt Dahle, Kathryn Calder, Todd Fancey, and Blaine Thurier, Together also features contributions from Beirut's Zach Condon, St. Vincent's Annie Clark, Okkervil River's Will Sheff, and the horn section from the Dap-Kings.
Tracklisting :
1. Moves 2. The Crash Years 3. Your Hands (Together) 4. Silver Jenny Dollar 5. Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk 6. My Shepherd 7. If You Can’t See My Mirrors 8. Up In The Dark 9. Valkyrie In The Roller Disco 10. A Bite Out Of My Bed 11. Daughters Of Sorrow 12. We End Up Together
Here's an audioclip of the single Your Hands (Together):
South Carolina: a perma-tanned paradise along the USA’s East Coast known for grabbing more sun than you could shake a Cornetto at. This, and soon-to-be famous for being the epicentre of a burgeoning musical movement, will make you want to flick a ‘V’ at spring cleaning, don some sunglasses and head to your nearest patch of sand.In case you didn’t receive the memo, blog or smoke signals, the past year was not a lame duck for musical innovation. Old mother music actually gave miraculous birth to a blissfully laidback ‘new’ genre which is the proverbial fat kid at a buffet, feasting on all manner of influences and still wanting more. Call it glo-fi, chillwave, hypnagogic pop or… well, pretty much anything you like as it happens, as, with each new blog, another writer flings a name toward the vacuum of chic hoping it’ll stick.Regardless of what it may or may not be called, the music is hazy, sun-drenched ’80s synth-pop produced on enough tapes to keep the cassette industry afloat for another decade. Toro Y Moi (aka Chaz Bundick) is a glo-fi pioneer, and this record is one of two releases from the 23-year-old this year. Chaz has dipped his toe in numerous musical ventures in the past, with an alt.rock band and French house project both notable bedpost notches, but it’s here he’s truly found his sound, making many a blogger moist in the process.We’ve been here before with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it musical revolutions (helloo, new rave). But, unlike the cancer of ear-bleedingly awful bands that popped out of the Day-Glo hype balloon thinking they could ‘do a Klaxons’ a few years back, Toro Y Moi is in very good company. Other riders of the chillwave include the mesmerising electronic coma that is Memory Tapes, Neon Indian and the laidback hum of Washed Out. ‘Causers Of This’ infects your mind with pure psychedelia, splicing such conflicting sounds as soul, freak folk, hip-hop and electronica, and the result hits you like Animal Collective on a comedown, or Ariel Pink with Seasonal Affective Disorder. Although a mere 33 minutes, ‘Causers...’ is a woozy kaleidoscopic voyage, sending you in and out of consciousness with each splendidly shoddy lo-fi recording. Opener ‘Blessa’ is feather-light dream-pop which hypnotises your ears into complete submission, whereas soulful vocals blend with hip-hop beats in ‘Fax Shadow’, proving Toro Y Moi as quite the chameleon. ‘Talamak’ is the record at its most energetic, as the anaesthetic starts to wear off for a psychoactive dance-off between body and mind.Drowsy though it may be, we’re far from tired of this starry-eyed one-man band – let’s just hope he and his wonderfully vague scene are still around after our own inevitably wet and weary summer.
Chicago indiepop band Very Truly Yours describe themselves as “end-of-summer-going-into-winter pop.” They site such bands as Yo La Tengo, Heavenly, Camera Obscura and The Aislers Set as influences.The band’s hometown newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times said the following:Cute in that “Danger! Kimya Dawson/’Juno’ soundtrack” way, guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Kristine Capua, guitarist Lisle Mitnik (aka Fireflies), bassist Dan Hyatt and drummer Andy Rogers redeem themselves from falling on the wrong side of twee via the undeniable appeal of the gentle, romantic and lilting melodies of songs such as “Every Little Word” and “Homesick.”Very Truly Yours release their debut album Things You used To say on Skywriting Records on March 23rd.
The tracklisting is: 1. I’d Write You a Song 2. Homesick 3. Puddles 4. Sorry to Say It 5. Dear 6. Things You Used to Say 7. Your Funeral 8. The Ballad of Growing Up 9. Love is Hard 10. To See You Here
Here's an audioclip of the track Things You Used To Say :
Pantha Du Prince releases his 3rd album Black Noise, his first album for Rough Trade.On his new album, Pantha Du Prince, who lives in Berlin and Paris, claims: music slumbers in all matter; any sound, even silence, is already music. The mission, then, must be to render audible what is unheard and unheard of: black noise, a frequency that is inaudible to man. Black noise often presages natural disasters, earthquakes or floods; only some animals perceive this “calm before the storm.” Black noise is something archaic and earthy. The music on Black Noise balances precariously on the slippery threshold between art and nature, between techno and folklore, which lends it a certain spectral and intangible aspect.Black Noise also features a couple of special guests – Noah Lennox of Animal Collective sings on “Stick to my side” and Tyler Pope of !!! and LCD Soundsystem plays bass on “The Splendour”
“When taken in all its sprawling glory, the record is intense and rewarding, and when it stops the silence becomes grandoise – if you let it Black Noise might just change the way you listen to the world. – 9/10 – Drownedinsound.com
“…Evokes those moments when we experience nature not cerebrally, but sensually, creating music that crackles like static in a sky burdened with storm (The Splendour), then glitters like a rain-soaked landscape illuminated by sun (Welt am Draht).” – 4/5 – The Guardian
Here's an audioclip of album track Stick To My Side feat. Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) :
Wild Nothing is the solo project of Virginia born Jack Tatum, who’s music is the product of an unhealthy obsession with nostalgia. Equal parts teenage wasteland and inexplicable regret, his songs are the kind that could only be made by the young at heart. Unlike the current herd of one-man bedroom bands, Tatum creates complex textural environments that aim for something higher. Melodies that yearn to stay with you. Warped interpretations of Johnny Marr’s guitar work and The Cure’s careful synth arrangements. Dreamy, catchy, and intriguing. Here’s to missing your youth.
The Summer Holiday EP is available to download now from iTunes. The album Gemini will be released this spring.
File next to Harrys Gym, The Radio Dept, the Wake, Trembling Blue Stars
Sweden’s Club 8 will release a new album “The People’s Record” on Labrador March 18. According to the press-release “The band has travelled to Brazil for inspiration, bought records made in the 70’s in Western Africa, used a percussion player from Cuba and hooked up with producer Jari Haapalainen (The Concretes, Camera Obscura, Ed Harcourt). The result is unique mix of Swedish pop melodies and African rhythms”.
Tracklisting:
1. Western hospitality 2. Isn’t that great? 3. Shape up! 4. Dancing with the mentally ill 5. My pessimistic heart 6. Back to A 7. Like me 8. Be mad, get ill, be still 9. We’re all going to die 10. The people speak
Here's an audio clip of the single Western Hospitality:
Mark E. Smith-led cult and generally pretty 'mazing band The Fall are to release something like their 98th studio album in April, their first since 2008's Imperial Wax Solvent. Your Future, Our Clutter hits the shelves on April 26 through Domino, and is the band's first album for them, having jumped about labels for the last few records.The album will be released on the usual trio of formats - double LP, CD and download.
Full album tracklist is below: 1. O.F.Y.C. Showcase 2. Bury Pts. 1 + 3 3. Mexico Wax Solvent 4. Cowboy George 5. Hot Cake 6. Y.F.O.C / Slippy Floor 7. Chino 8. Funnel Of Love 9. Weather Report 2
Last week indie-synth-pop duo MGMT revealed a few details about their upcoming album, the follow-up to 2008's SMASH HIT Oracular Spectacular. They told us it was to be called Congratulations, and would be released on April 13.What they didn't show us, however, was the album cover art. Well, now they have. It's a bit 'wacky', and well, the drawing itself reminds me of Sonic The Hedgehog and the colour scheme is has more than a bit about it from that GOD AWFUL Bubsy 3D, which was, in all honesty, the biggest abomination of a computer game ever released.The cover was designed by Anthony Ausgang.
Death in Plains is the brainchild of Enrico Boccioletti from Pesaro, Italy. Yet with a name loosely derived from SNES game Super Mario World, and a sound that joins Fuck Buttons to Jesus and Mary Chain via MGMT, he is as universal an artist as they come. Death in Plains great debut single “Over and Above” is a summer echo, the sound of the belief that everything might just be ok, at least until the end of the song.
"Million Young‘s hypnagogic, late night, loping pop loops bloom in the shadows of delirious dream territories; Mike Diaz’s aching, arching, always overhead vocals floating lonely above an effervescent, imagined coastal paradise of found tribal drum snippets, syrupy synth rushing and brilliantly colourful, drawn-out circular guitars that just absolutely refuse to fade or break, shading braincells in never-lived nostalgia; making stomachs shift with strange sickness in a beautiful, unshakeable way." - Transparent Blog
Not only have the Kendal/Leeds quartet Wild Beasts produced a masterpiece in Two Dancers, but the videos for all of the singles thus far have been their visual equal in terms of arty brilliance. First there was 'Hooting & Howling' underwater, then the black-eyed, cloaked culty weirdness of 'All The King's Men' and now, the third single from the album, 'We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues'.
Jaunty-jerky rockers of a North-Eastern persuasion The Futureheads have revealed the album title for their fourth full-length.The record, the follow-up to 2008's Number 17 album This Is Not The World, which received generally positive reviews, will be called The Chaos and will be released through their own label, Nul, on April 26.
Watch their new video 'Heartbeat Song', which is also the lead single from The Chaos.
Brookyln musical duo and possible buzz-band of 2008 MGMT have confirmed that their new record, Congratulations, will be released on April 13, as well as revealing the tracklisting for the nine-track follow-up to Oracular Spectacular.
The songs line-up as below: 1. It's Working 2. Song for Dan Treacy 3. Someone's Missing 4. Flash Delirium 5. I Found a Whistle 6. Siberian Breaks 7. Brian Eno 8. Lady Dada's Nightmare 9. Congratulations
Multi-talented Simon Green, alis Bonobo will return in March with a new full-length LP, entitled Black Sands, and a full European tour to boot, with no fewer than nine UK dates, including one in Bracknell, of all places.Black Sands will be released through Ninja Tune on March 29, and will be preceded by a single, 'Eyesdown' on March 8. It also represents Bonobo's first full-length since 2006's Time To Come, which is a gap too large for our liking. As a build-up to the single, and the album, there's a free mp3 preview of the track available to anyone with a computer and internet connection.
Tracklisting: 1. Kiara Prelude 2. Kiara 3. Kong 4. Eyesdown 5. El Toro 6. We Could Forever 7. The Keeper 8. All In Forms 9. Wonder When 10. Animals 11. Black Sands
Not many bands' sixth albums could be described as bold, brave, fresh, adventurous or representing a new creative peak. But Groove Armada's brilliant Black Light is all of those things and more. Twelve years into a career as purveyors of top drawer dance music, Andy Cato and Tom Findlay have completely reinvented their sound, with thrilling results. This, folks, is not just Groove Armada. This is the new, re-focused and re-energised Groove Armada (with a glitterball-shaped cherry on top)."We could've knocked out an album of ragga-influenced house bangers and a couple of chill out tunes, and that would've been a much easier life," explains Andy. "But we needed a new challenge. Neither of us was interested in just repeating ourselves." Instead, the music-obsessed duo took inspiration from the new breed of acts they were booking for their award-winning London festival, Lovebox. "Bands like the Friendly Fires, Klaxons, Passion Pit, LCD Soundsystem, Ladyhawke and MGMT," says Tom. "They're the ones really leading the charge, making genuinely exciting, dance-informed music. And that sound really pushed us back towards people like Bowie, Gary Numan, New Order, Fleetwood Mac and Roxy Music." When the duo got together in Findlay's basement studio in north London to start work on a new album, it was clear they were thinking along similar lines. "We didn't really sit down with a plan," says Tom. "We just started making the noises we wanted to make and this whole electro-driven, rock-tinged, song-based thing started to come out."The very first song they made for the album was Warsaw, a dark, juddering, electro-rock monster that's one of several Black Light tracks to feature vocals from Empire of the Sun's Nick Littlemore ("The most creative mind I've met for 10 years," says Andy). The track quickly became an online hit when it was offered as a free sneak preview of the band's new sound in September 2009. A comment on one music blog summed up the mood: "Brilliant track – like going to eat a Kitkat and finding it’s entirely made of chocolate. Not what I was expecting but a lovely surprise."Feeling similarly inspired by their creation, Andy and Tom used it as the driving force for Black Light. For the next 14 months, they could be found spending 19 hour days hunched over mixing desks, instruments and computers, either in Tom's London studio or in Andy's, at his rural French home (nicknamed "Chateau Cato" by Pete Tong). "It certainly wasn't an easy record to make," says Tom. "I was really more of a beats and bleeps person until now, so I did feel massively removed from our comfort zone."But the duo did have their live experience to call on. As Andy points out, "Groove Armada are in a unique position where, after all these years of experimentation, we can deliver live dance music with a band better than pretty much anyone". The ecstatic masses who saw them closing the Other Stage at Glastonbury in 2008, or the tens of thousands who've bounced along to sold out shows across the planet, will certainly attest to that. It's why Groove Armada remain one of dance music's biggest live draws.Thus, in a break with GA tradition, their band was brought into the studio early in the making of the Black Light, helping to bring authenticity to their new song-based sound. Andy and Tom also began their tortuous quest to find the guest vocalists who would eventually work with them on the album, scouring their music collections, trawling the internet and asking for tips from friends (and friends of friends). Big names and undiscovered hopefuls alike were tried, tested and honed, discarded or brought into the Black Light pack. "It wasn't about reputation, it was about who could help us make the very best songs possible," says Andy.Nick Littlemore was recruited after the duo remembered seeing his band PNAU playing live in Australia. "I loved that show," says Tom. "He's just got an amazing vibe; part Jim Morrison, part Nick Cave. He's a great lyricist too." "We tracked him down and, happily, he was up for getting together with us during some time off from Empire of the Sun," adds Andy. "He just works beyond the rulebook. His ideas are amazing". As well as Warsaw, Littlemore's vocals drive the delicate, ethereal Fall Silent; the brooding, menacing Not Forgotten; and the emotion-heavy, 80s-tinged pop polemic that is Cards To Your Heart.For another of Black Light's main contributors, the duo turned to SaintSaviour, the livewire frontwoman of electro-popsters RGBs who'd supported them on a previous UK tour. With the RGBs having gone their separate ways, SaintSaviour was free to become a major part of the new Groove Armada sound. "She's amazing in a lot of ways," says Andy. "An incredibly talented vocalist and song-writer, and as hard working as we are. She's also turned out to be a brilliant frontwoman for our new live show. I honestly think she's the best performer of her generation."The singer has lent her crystalline vocals to the album's first single, the gorgeous, regret-tinged I Won't Kneel, as well the the defiant, punk-funk duet Paper Romance, on which she shares vocals with Ben from fast-rising dance-poppers Fenech Soler. St Saviour also appears on the deliciously driving, electro-skank Time and Space alongside Jess Larrabee from underground Brooklyn rockers She Keeps Bees, a band GA discovered on MySpace."We've never actually met Jess," says Andy, "but we got really into her albums and started emailing tracks for her to add vocals to. Her music usually has more of a White Stripes kind of vibe. But her mum was a dancer at Studio 54, so I think she got really into the disco flavour and she absolutely nailed it." As well as Time and Space, Larabee lends her voice to the album's gorgeous mellow gem, Just For Tonight ("basically it's a female justification of a one night stand," explains Andy), as well supplying some New York attitude to the spiky, rocked-up Look Me In The Eye Sister (a track the Yeah Yeah Yeahs would kill for).But the vocalists are not confined to indie upstarts. No, the yearning voice you'll hear on the stirring house lullaby History belongs to pop superstar Will Young, a friend of Andy's since they bonded on nights out in Ibiza. And, having had Roxy Music's Love Is A Drug on repeat for much of the recording session, it seemed only right to get the legendary Bryan Ferry to supply his first ever guest vocal to the softly intense Shameless. "That track is totally worth the posh dinners we had to buy to persuade him," grins Tom.Of course, Groove Armada are well aware that Black Light is a record which will challenge their fans. That was the whole point. "You have to keep things interesting," says Tom. "I don't want to become the Cliff Richard of dance."That said, they were both incredibly nervous about debuting their new sound in their headline slot at this year's Lovebox. "I remember standing with Andy in the dressing room, waiting to go on stage," says Tom. "I just said to him, 'This is either going to be the end of everything or the start of something amazing'."It turned out to be the latter. Spurred on by an astonishingly assured performance from SaintSaviour, the band were triumphant. "The reaction to the songs was just incredible," says Andy. "After all the work, the stress and the tension of making this record, it literally brought tears to my eyes. It just completely went off." So much so that Groove Armada were later nominated for the Best Headliner slot at the UK Festival Awards, despite playing a set made up almost entirely of songs the crowd had never heard before."It's amazing to make a record at this point in your career that you're viscerally excited about," says Tom. "But that's honestly how I feel." Andy is quick to agree. "I think even people who've hated everything we've ever made before could absolutely love this record. I'm incredibly proud of it. If I could leave just one album of ours behind, there is absolutely no question as to which one it would be."
Stornoway is a British alternative indie pop band from the Cowley area of Oxford that consists of singer and guitarist Brian Briggs; singer, guitarist, cellist and keyboardist Jon Ouin; singer, guitarist and bassist Oliver Steadman; and drummer Robert Steadman. The band is usually joined by trumpeter Adam Briggs and violinist Rahul Satija. Named after the Hebridean town on the Isle of Lewis, which appears on all UK televised weather reports and shipping forecasts, the group incorporates string instruments and keyboards, supported by a typical pop backline of guitar, drums, and bass guitar.
The band released their first single "Zorbing" in July 2009. Their second single "Unfaithful" was released on 28 September 2009 on CD, 7" vinyl and iTunes digital download. The launch concert for this single was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on 21 September. Their debut tour took place from 16 to 30 October culminating in a concert at Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre, accompanied by the Oxford Millennium Orchestra.
Stornoway played sets at a number of UK summer festivals in 2009, including Glastonbury festival 2009, and wrote a series of articles about their experiences for the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
On September 1, 2009, they played a secret free concert at Tate Modern, London, being introduced by Sara Cox and supported by Reverend and The Makers The event was to celebrate the launch of the new climate change campaign 10:10.
Stornoway appeared on Later... with Jools Holland in November 2009, along with Sting, Norah Jones, Jay-Z and Foo Fighters.
In December 2009, Stornoway were announced as entrants onto the longlist of the BBC's Sound of 2010 competition having been selected by a panel of some 165 UK-based 'tastemakers'.
REVIEWS :
'A breath of fresh air. Come join the lovely revolution.' NME
'A passionate singer makes his case and a violin holds the line, wiry, visceral guitar parts ensure the song lodges in the brain. 4/5' 'Unfaithful' review, THE MIRROR
'No-one ever said this would be problem free" sings Brian Briggs, yet this makes for two stirring singles out of two. Briggs' vocals wander around a vast range, guitars build to an exultant scream, the strings soar with a rare grace. The best new band around. 9/10' 'Unfaithful' review, PLANET SOUND
'Songs such as 'Unfaithful' and 'Zorbing' have them in danger of shaking off their 'best-kept secret' tag in the near future. 4/5' ARTROCKER
'Maybe it needs a bunch of degrees to write songs this amazing. It doesn't require anything other than working ears to realise how special they are. 5/5' THE NEWS OF THE WORLD
'Magical, majestic songs. 4/5' Live review, THE SUNDAY TIMES
'My favourite single of the year' 'Zorbing' review, THE GUARDIAN
'Stornoway's sound is like shifting sand: a mixture of acoustic pastorals, pop balladry and folkedelia. Tomorrow, Glastonbury. Next week, the world. 4/5' THE INDEPENDENT
'It is that rare thing, a pop song so devoid of cynicism and so bathed in sun-dappled melody it is impossible not to love' 'Zorbing' review, DROWNED IN SOUND
Toro Y Moi has featured on pretty much every 'Who's gonna be big in 2010?' list you can think of, from NME to The Guardian, Pitchfork and Time Out. Toro Y Moi (aka Columbia, South Carolina's Chaz Bundick, who's half-Filipino) is the sound the world has been waiting for. This multi-cultural juggernaut gathers up the best musical elements from around the globe - r&b, indie rock, electronic dance and psychedelica and creates something amazing. It's perfect post-club music, blissed out slow-burning landscapes, subtle rolling beats, layers of leftfield soothing synths and wobbly, soulful vocals. the album references everyone from Eno to the Beach Boys, Prince to J Dilla and Talking Heads or as one journalist put it - "it's kind of how Animal Collective would sound if they spent a year listening to old soul and Motown records before laying down their new LP". Recommended if you like Daft Punk, Animal Collective, My Bloody Valentine, Janet Jackson. Includes "Blessa", "Talamak" and more.
.jpg)
