Wednesday 29 February 2012

Bitterish Allsorts




Some more soon-to-be-releasers with some free downloads thrown in amongst the pigeon's, heading up the tempo's from the start, track listing below. 


1) Who Made Who - Below The Cherry Moon
2) Marco Resmann & App - All I Can Think About
2) Before Dark - Baby (Brenmar Remix)
3) Zkosta - Trigger Step
4) Oliver Huntemann - Wahnfried feat Ane Trolle
5) The Weeknd - Same Old Song (Paper Diamond Remix)
6) The Jane Doze - Replacement Ros
7) Akira Kiteshi - Teraohm 
8) Etienne De Crecy - Am I Wrong (The Shoes "Slo-Mo," Remix)
9) Cursa - Deep Response 
10) Bazil - Infrastructure 
11) Fostec - Bon Voyage 
12 Rebel Cause - What Lies Within
13) Shabaz Places - Swerve (Signal Path Remix)

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Frontier SoundCloud Selections




The artist known simply as Arnet with a track know simply as Magnus kicking off our SoundCloud selections this week, just one of the many delights to be found via the medium of SoundCloud. Excuse my ignorance but I can only assume he’s rapping in German, was liking it more for the melodic beat than anything else.






Free download for you now dance fans and like last week, it’s time to crank up your speaker, especially that sub, to the max. All the way from Tornoto Canada, introducing the greatly named Crass Mix. This one is a remix of a Seba tune called Painted Skies and along with some more original compositions is available for download on the Crass Mix SoundCloud page, a link to this and all other tracks on the Frontier Sounds show page



In the immortal words of Danny Dyer we have a “naughty,” cover of Nancy Sanatra’s Bang Bang, not a whisper on the original or even the hugely enjoyable Audio Bullies cover but like vegetarian food, dinner with in laws and horridly twee, badly written, emotionally manipulating Hugh-Grant-playing-a-posh-English-fop films by Richard Curtis, your willing to enjoy them once in a while. 



To my selection of the week and another free download, this time from Ilkley moor inhabitants The Swing Movement.  

Monday 27 February 2012

Frontier Sounds Singles Selections




The wonderfully lo-fi Dirty White, the title track of Sisterland’s latest EP and sounding like it’s been recorded using the fella’s microwave, if that microwave was the smuggest microwave in world! The microwave is pleased with itself because after years of heating poorly prepared potatoes and stinking Iceland ready meals, which inevitably explode, spilling their gloopy residue all over it’s innards, it has been lovingly cleaned and restored by a musical mad man, who coats it with lashings of Mr Muscle and uses it solely for the purpose of recording lo-fi pop perfection.


Maia - Living In The Alligator from Maia on Vimeo.


A bit of folk-pop from Maia and Living In The Aligator. When I was looking for a source to embed, I came across the video and to my delight discovered that Daily Frontier’s very own George Powell appears to be moonlighting as the bands banjo player; I had always suspected. Watch and catch a glimpse of this notoriously reclusive celebrity yourself.  





Free download now From Dave Earnhardt Jr Jr, just visit their Facebook page, like them and it's all yours. Speaking of Facebook likes, congratulations to Radio Frontier for smashing through the 2,000 mark last week. If you haven’t done so already then do so now, and tell a fiend to tell a friend to tell a friend.




Now normally I don’t find cross-dressing funny, not that it freaks me out or disgusts me; it just isn’t funny. I’ve only done it once myself and I was bullied into it by some drunk Australian’s on a boat, where escape was no option and I feared they might throw me over board if I objected. However, this song by The Magnetic Fields is all about cross dressing and is funny, as funny as it is tragic. A brilliant song about a man who discovers the only woman he’s ever truly loved is his best mate in drag. 

Friday 24 February 2012

NME, Brits and Kanye bashing, who's with me?


Just a quick note on the Shit awards, as anyone who hasn’t been living under a radio free rock will have no doubt heard about little else the last few days. That’s because coverage is what radio brings to the party, providing the free promotion for the music industries biggest annual sales junket; it’s the equivalent to them agreeing to make the desert in exchange for an invite. An invite to one of the more meaningless events in the self-important, ego inflating, pompous get-togethers, that allows famous people with low self esteem to pat each other on the back and agree on just how bloody great they are, that is the cringe worthy awards show circuit.

The Brit awards is nothing more than a well packaged marketing exercise, strategically set at a time historically bad for record sales, allowing labels to squeeze that final bit of juice from the biggest selling artists of the year, benefiting from the free promo that the media provides and repacking albums under ‘Brit Awards Winner,’ tag lines. What a surprise then to see Adele (who deserves all the success actually, especially considering she’s signed to the reasonably respectable XL) and Ed ‘Shit Lyric,’ Sheeran (my current favourite; ‘I’m going to paint you by numbers/and colour you in/if things go right we can frame it/and put you on the wall.’) walking away with the majority of the awards.

Even more revealing was Lana Del Rey winning the International Breakthrough Award. What a shock to see music executives, label bosses and members of the music press voting for her (they vote on all awards throughout The Brits process), especially considering they are the very same bunch who almost universally panned her debut album. It can’t be anything to do with the album being a huge commercial success despite this and the industry seeing an opportunity to capitalise on it further; I guess they just had the album on repeat for a month and realised they liked it.

In short, The Brit awards is an embarrassment to British music and Britain as a whole, unless Seb Coe has decided to make this combination of celebrity arse licking and sadly ingenious marketing a new sport for the Olympics, in which case, we’re going to redeem ourselves slightly and win gold. 



Again a wee little mix with some of the best soon to be released electronic records I've heard this week, special note to the Hubwar and Nekochan remix of Miaow by Habstrackt and BadJokes which I think is the finest 140 record I have ever heard. 

1)   Losing My Mind (DGRC Remix) – Summer Camp
2)   Genesis (Farrar Remix) – Grimes
3)   Spore – Ramona Falls
4)   Everything To Me (Bronze whale Remix) – Lips
5)   Pelennor Fields – Existance
6)   Miaow (Hubwar & Nekochan remix) – Habstrakt & Bad Jokes
7)   Miles Apart (Concepts) – Existance
8)   Heaven (Rebel Sketchy Remix) – Emeli Sande
9)   Voider (Rutile & Retraflex Remix) – Rregula
10) Hush Ya Gums – Major Look) Comicon - Boss Kite



Very much enjoying the warbling bass that sneaks in and out of your peripheral with great effect.




Such a moving old world, arabic beat in this one that invokes nostalgia for the protagonists up brining, an upbringing that was necessarily pleasant or privileged but a upbringing that is looked upon with fondness of because it has made them who they are today.



A harmlessly pleasant new band, Binko Swink.



Signed to the grand daddy of the experimental, Giles Peterson's label, this is in truth far from experimental in that it is so sound musically, building magnificently into an insufficient postage paid envelope of sound.



Fresh off the heals of his own collaboration with The Black Keys on BlakRoc, Damon Dash is releasing this live instrument album featuring Curren$y collaborating with a number of blues/rock artists, on his own BluRoc Records label. Originally recorded back in 2010, just after BlakRoc was released, the album is called The Muscle Car Chronicles and demonstrates just how many rappers are influenced by this sound, a sound which has arguably influenced most forms of modern music.




These two wiper snappers are prolific at the moment, this time collaborating with rising urban voice Jessie Ware.





Yeah I can do punk rock when it’s done properly, not like that shouty shite the likes of Cerebal Ballzy. I saw them recently supporting The Horrors and through the 15 minuets of garbage that was their set (almost as long as their debut album, seriously anyone who paid full price for all 19 minutes of their ‘music,’ is a mug) I learnt two things. 1) I am officially old. Gone are the days of downing two or three pre gig beers and pushing my way to the front, worming my way past sweaty dreadlocks and slipping through leather jackets, not caring for the converse glad feet I was treading on. Once at the bar that divided screaming fan boy from screaming fan boy with guitar, I would remain come rain or shine, piss or sweat, punch or warm-pint-in-the-back-of-the-head, with my neck craned and mouth agowp in God like appreciation, counting the number of times a member of the band might have registered my existence.

Instead, I stood at the back refusing to take my coat off, sipping a bitter that I had actually gone to the effort of pouring into a glass and complaining about the racket. In my defence though I will turn to point number 2). No one was enjoying the racket. People were pretending to enjoy it, sure, but they were just manifestations of my younger self, cementing their position at the front during the support in anticipation of the main event. Through a mixture of not wanting to be rude and through fear of a band notorious for on stage fighting, they had to feign enjoyment, with a look on their faces that said, ‘I know The NME says this is the tits but this really ain’t music.’ The problem with Cerebel Ballzy ironically is their actually really talented musicians; it was a tight racket. The issue with this lies in the understanding of punk itself. I always saw punk as an organic expression of anger, designed to shake the walls of parliament and draw out the politicians (who’ve come out to ‘see what all the noise is about,’), delivered by a group disconcerted with society, making up for their lack of musical talent through the depth of their passion. I just don’t buy into Cerebal Balazy and their carefully crafted, well-constructed attempts to sound loud and ‘counter-culture’. No one was buying it on the night either, not even the spotty youth I had chaperoned to the gig.



Annoyingly to counteract my point above, The NME are the ones who recommended Zulu to me, however true to form, in good time they will editorially turn on Zulu, once again exposing themselves as the faddish, spineless, spittle spouting morons that they are. 



True “punk,” fans will say that this isn’t proper “punk,” as they don’t sound “punk,” enough but this is as about as much “punk,” as I can put up with so if you don’t like it you can “punk,” off. Now that’s a punk attitude.



Love the name, love both these artists, love all the sounds and most importantly, love the track.



Love the strings, love the melody, love the voice that sounds like Tracy Chapman singing through a gory flute like instrument made from the vocal chords of every member of Fleetwood Mac.





This is the heartbreak of a woman who has just opened a copy of Hello magazine to see former love of her life, I dunno, for the sake of this story, lets say, Kanye West, sitting dead centre of the front row at London fashion week, grinning like a banker on bonus day, a glass of pink bubbly in his hand, a mink coat draped suspiciously over his lap and a pair of fly-eye sunglass to put on when ‘the lights get too bright.’ As she painfully looks at this image of him “admiring the fashion,” she thinks back with longing to all the good times they spent together. Like the time she egged him into running on stage and abusing Taylor Swift, even helping to write his ‘oh so sincere,’ apology, giggling all the time at the use of words that neither of them really knew the meanings of. All the times she snuggled him when he got stroppy, sulking with him and agreeing that the use of Britney video instead of his to open the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards was due to his skin not being right and nothing to do with the song and video being absolute shite. Oh and that time she dressed him up as a sacrificed Jesus for the cover of Rolling Stone, crown of thorns and all, how they laughed. Oh what sorrow to having lost out in love to the world's greatest man; this song is that sorrow.

No joke, when researching this story to make it more factual and less liabless, I typed ‘the stupid things that Kanye West has done,’ into Google and this is what came up first; http://thestupidthingskanyewesthasdone.blogspot.com.



This one off her fourth coming, follow-up album.




Free download of this atmospheric little number from The Swing Movement, available from their SoundCloud.



SiSi Bak Bak is rumoured to be Tom Yorke of Radiohead fame, makes sense as SBTRKT did a remix on their King Of Limbs Remix album. Lots of atmosphere in this and enough has been done to make it almost unrecognisable from the original.



Love this Sweede's voice, especially as the heartbreak whips it into a beautiful fever. Lots more on her SoundCloud.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Frontier SoundCloud Selections



The gorgeous vocal work of Sarah Kelleher there with Sugar C, a song with a monotonous but pleasantly hypnotic feel to it. As in tune with the theme of the show, that is available from her SoundCloud page, www.soundcloud.com/sarahhann, with two ns, confusing considering her surname is Kelleher and she also goes by the name of Missfit Mod. 




My turn-your-sub-up-to-the-max-moment of the week now with some future garage from Habstrackt and BadJokes, French I believe and about to blow your ears wide open. If this is your style of music check out the drum and bass, dub step mix I posted up on the blog last week, full of some exclusive and yet unreleased material as well as the one I did this week as well. 



My next track is taken from a band whose sound reminds me of later day, Jack White influenced Echo and The Bunny Men. All tracks by Brighton based Hollowmoon are available for free from their SoundCloud. I mentioned Jack white before, his new solo material released for the first time under his own name is sounding very good indeed.  




If you head over to www.tomwilliamsandtheboat.com and join their mailing list, then this gorgeous little single is all yours. Be patient, this song is clever, keeping you entranced with those strings yet denying you something, denying you a glimpse of a final destination, like a hill blocking a finishing line during a marathon. Suddenly you reach the summit and the chorus appears more wonderful than you could ever have imagined. Past the finishing tape are swarms of fans you never new you had, scantly clad cheerleaders all suggesting that your in there, champers, one of those novelty sized cheques and loads and loads of euphoric noise. This is My Bones by Tom Williams and The Boat. 

Monday 20 February 2012

Frontier Singles Selections




That was the sound of the government were they stupid enough, which they probably are, to let Prince Harry become commander of the Armed Forces. His first move would be to hire Lady Gaga to do all the Chorography, asking Goldie after his appearance on that show to conduct the wind section on the condition that the band were made up from members of the junior apprentice and Take Me Out and that they do right obscure, LED influenced versions of Kate Bush songs.   



Also out this week is this single from one of my favorite albums of last year, the eponymous New Look. Teen Need is a beautiful, melodic but minimalistic ode to trying to get your end away, the lusty impatience of youth condensed into this wonderful three and half minute pop song. 


The Apples - Powder / Thang by Outpost Music PR


Also out this week is a double A side from Israeli, post funk nine piece The Apples. It’s ambient dub step, cross bred with some angry funk and hip-hop. 




Grandaddy of funk also has a release this week.



My single of week is what I like to think of as a reincarnation of the B52’s, with this wonderfully captivating single Tendons In The Night which, much like the video, is an uncomfortably sexy experience, akin to watching a gratuitous sex scene with your granny. 

Thursday 16 February 2012

The Year Is Hotting Up


Thought I'd begin with a little mini-mix featuring a few of the decent dub step and drum and bass tracks either out now or forthcoming as really, the music does a better job of describing itself than I can (although certain exceptional numbers get further mention below). Download and use as some motivation music for a run or something, track listing below.


1) Comicon - Boss Kite
2) Drinky - Pixelord 
3) Queen Anne's Revenge - Tha New Team 
4) Grunge - Proxima 
5) Tomorrow's Always Better - Fau & Dream 
6) Back Foot - (8th Note Remix) - HeavyFeet & Nate James 
7) Under Construction - Brazed feat Blacked Out
8) Sleeperz (Cause 4 Concern Remix) - Bangta Rights 
9) No Rest - Facture & FD
10) Starfixer (Electro Soul System Smack My Borsch Remix) - Pryzma
11) Hurt Me- Soul Intent
12) The Great Red Spot - Pryzma 



The beginning of this song is like an electric guitar, scratching the wooden lining of it's guitar case in which it has been buried alive. Finally, through some sonic force, it breaks free, delighted to finds it's other band members waiting, mopping up tears by it's gravestone. With a second chance at life our friend the guitar takes a new positive but realistic look at life, making it it's mission to describe the capacity of humans to underuse their lives through the medium of work. 


Charming piece of electro pop from Christopher Norman, available for free download here http://music.misternorman.com/track/connect-me. It is literally the love song written from one IT geek to another, which makes it all the more romantic. 


Wowza, I think these two are actually twins, 'No one gets me/like you get me,' seems all the more poniant therefore in this delightfully jaunty little ode to love. I like to think that they have some kind of telepathic connection that allows them to write songs as gleeful as this without any form of direct communication. I also like to think that they swap instruments like they swap clothes at live shows to mess with peoples heads; 'Which one's the lead singer? arhhhhhhh!'




Taken from the debut album which is out this spring and based on the crazy weather these days (the poor daffodils thought it was spring at Christmas), god knows when thats meant to be anymore. 


Download Rae Spoon Ghost Of A Boy

Weirdly beautiful track from the girl child, man boy (have a look on Youtube see what you think) Rae Spoon; excellent production and soulful vocals make it extremely captivating.




I just find this track so relaxing yet compelling. It is the sound of the pets of the future, instead of winning real fish at the fair you get robo-fish, who swim about their robo-tank performing mysterious tasks and blowing bubbles, changing colour and direction to suit their environment. The best thing is they're solar powered, you only need light to feed them so they live forever and unlike real fish they're intelligent, learning from experience un till one day, they trick you into putting your hand in the robo-bowl, which furnishes them the DNA they need to clone their own human army and take over the world. 



Out soon on Secretly Canadian, which has to be one of the best label names ever, probably even funnier (or inconvenient) if your signed to them and American. Lush little love song though. 




Also out on the same label is this track which sounds ever so familiar, like I've mentioned it before, or been on a gondola in Venice, but I've never been to Venice, what does it remind me of? Is it a more sludgy version of the organ from Sissor Sisters Laura? Who knows but whatever it is, it makes the track all the more alluring. 



The awesome, London four some Veronica Falls, seen by those inclined to exaggeration and apocalyptic sentiment to be the saving grace of British guitar music.


Free download, free-fa-free download. Free download, free-fa-free download from, errrm, somewhere online. The almost jungle like bongos on this give the track a unique rhythm, taken from the forthcoming album Summer Bodies out in May. This is what Uncle Dugs, Brian May and the Beach Boys would sound like if they got stranded on a desert island and after weeks of sunburn and isolation went a bit Lord of The Flies and tribal. 

Hopefully there will be a widget above which will allow you not only to listen to this outstanding track but download it by signing up to the mailing list, which you won't regret doing because based on this your gonna wanna know everything about Ramona Falls. Every single part of this track is stunning, if I had to have a track of the week this would clearly be it. 






Some Italian drum and bass for those, like me, who are missing the Sardinian festival sunshine. 



If you don't like this then your officially dead inside or on your way out. This is the solo side project of Cut Copy bassist Ben Browning, giving those of us stuck in a stay-at-home depression the lift we need to take off those three week old tracky Bs, contemplate a shower, spray on some deodorant, put on those wacky pink socks and leave the house; only to return twenty minutes later realising the solitude has given you acute agoraphobia.

So I ain't even afraid to admit that one of my favourite films is Forgetting Sarah Marshel, a big part of that being a fascination in the puppet, Dracula opera that the lead is trying to write. This little number could be ripped straight from the second act of that opera,  encompassing that ever so important 'gothic Neil Diamond,' sound and I can just picture those little puppets and their gapping red, sock mouths every time I hear it. 



As soon as Usher opened his mouth I was inclined to say 'gay,' and I will argue with gusto that I'm not using gay here as a pejorative term, rather I am using the word, a word with an astonishing evolutionary past in terms of transition of meaning, in it's now colloquially correct context. Gay has in recent times and for people of my generation, transformed from a derogatory term into a word that denotes something to be lame; this is not a comment about homosexuals nor is there a connection to homophobia and if there is, it lies solely in the mind of the interpreter.  


Anyways I thought this was gay but as I listened to it further, I released it is was far from lame, although it's walking a very thin tight rope. 





Be rude not to mention old Shaza, whose latest album recorded during a period of homelessness and nights on floors and sofa's, is being extremely well received for the reason that it seems to incapsulate the forlorn bleakness of that period with such beauty. In the words of Michael Slater, 'sumptuous.'




Mentioned here before, this is the single to be released from her debut, self titled, Ninja Tune released album out last year. Shows the importance of recording your own samples, would love to know how she makes those dirty, low bass lines. 


Burial - Loner from Miguel Bidarra on Vimeo.

Hold the press, taken from Burial's latest EP, Kindred, available as of a few days ago from http://www.hyperdub.net/releases/view/149/HDB059. Wow, just wow. 

Wednesday 15 February 2012

Frontier February Albums Episode 2

As featured on www.radiofrontier.ch.



Written over a 14 month period in a time when Sharon Van Etten was often without a home, instead relying on the charity and comfort of friends floors. In what promises to be an album full of sacrifice and heartfelt emotion and beautiful arrangements, Tramp is already released and ready for purchase; this is In Line. 



Also out this month is a not so Dodgy sounding release from Dodgy and Stand Upright In A Cool Place. This is the really soulful and melodic What Became Of You. 



My next selection is taken from the follow up or as they call it in the US, the Sopmore album, from husband and Wife duo Tennis. What makes this release most exciting of all is Patrick Carney on production, the drummer behind the phenomenon that is the Black Keys, a band in my opinion that can do no wrong; see the Blacroc project as proof of this. Dreaming is taken from forthcoming Young and Old which was released on valentines day.



Finally to another album to which I am reaching high levels of excitement, like a school girl hearing One Direction are making a surprise appearance at her graduation dance. This is the truly beautiful Lafaye, taken from the School Of Seven Bells album Ghostory out on the 28th, pre order it now, this is wonderful. 

High Tempo mini-mix


A little mid week lift I hope via a mini-mix featuring some of my favourite dub step and drum and bass releases out now or forthcoming. 

1) Comicon - Boss Kite
2) Drinky - Pixelord 
3) Queen Anne's Revenge - Tha New Team 
4) Grunge - Proxima 
5) Tomorrow's Always Better - Fau & Dream 
6) Back Foot - (8th Note Remix) - HeavyFeet & Nate James 
7) Under Construction - Brazed feat Blacked Out
8) Sleeperz (Cause 4 Concern Remix) - Bangta Rights 
9) No Rest - Facture & FD
10) Starfixer (Electro Soul System Smack My Borsch Remix) - Pryzma
11) Hurt Me- Soul Intent
12) The Great Red Spot - Pryzma 

Monday 13 February 2012

Frontier February Albums Episode 1



As featured on www.radiofrontier.ch 



Out this month on Thirty Tiger is Young Man in America, confusingly from a woman named Anais Mitchell. Her debut album Hadestown was a folk opera that was received, especially in the UK, to much critical acclaim. With a natural talent for story telling through song this will be hit with traditional folk fans although I don’t think anyone can resist the beauty of her voice and subtly of her compositions. This is a cut from Young Man in America released on the 28th called Shepherd. 



Made as a ‘response to all the adrenaline, aggression and anger he felt traveling the world, it's a spectrum of his creativity and a testimony of how one man's passion and determination is often misunderstood as anger,’ Muzzle is another follow up album this time from Gonjasufi. This is the haunting Nickles and Dimes.



Also released this month on Sub Pop is Animal Joy from Shearwater. Although they may be unheard of this is in fact their eighth album release but this one takes a slightly different tack, have a listen to You As You Were, taken from Animal Joy. 



Finally to what I think will be my album of the month and a possible contender for album of the year already, this is one of those albums that has reverted me to child at Christmas status, petulant in not wanting to wait till the 21st for this hotly anticipated album Visions, from Canadian producer Grimes. 

Thursday 9 February 2012

Some Weekend Listening



Free download this one from Big K.R.I.T, that sultry sax adding some nice juxtaposition in the composition; yeah I can rhyme too dawg.




A gorgeous record being released on this hotly anticipated record Ghostory, out at the end of the month. Also out this month which is gaining similarly high levels of excitement is Visions from new love of my life and future wife Grimes. For snippets from albums out this month stay locked in here for two specials I'm doing for Radio Frontier addressing this very issue. 




Forthcoming on the Physmatics label is this filthy little roller from Bangta Rights, really liking this one and what i'm liking even more is the even filthier remix by Cause 4 Concern on the flip, which exaggerates that ridiculous, ripping bass noise even more, sounding like Death with a raspy dry cough. One of the most enjoyable drum and bass records I've heard in a while. 


Speaking of drum and bass here is an interesting interview with Amit who discusses how Abelton Live can help him creatively to finish those elusive unfinished tracks.


http://www.kmag.co.uk/editorial/news/amit-plans-exit-ep.html



Soundtrack to a bunch of Brownies sitting on a bright orange liferaft after surviving the crash of a cruise ship (ooooh topical) on which they were performing free corn rubdowns for the elderly. After managing to scrabble to the liferaft at the expense of all those feet they help to sooth and the life of their Big Bear, or whatever the Brownie leader is called, they then had to endure a Perfect Storm style night in which they vomitted out any remaining fear and hope within them and lost all touch with reality. In the beauty and calm of the sun lit morning they sit slumped at the edges of the raft thinking of faces back home, soon to have their own faces fried to a crisp by sun burn and set to endure a slow painful death from dehydration and sun stroke.



The organ piano combo in this one reminds me of those shite, eighties safety videos teachers used to show you in school to waste some lesson time; come on it obvious that you shouldn't put your face in a band saw, saying that, there were some people in my class capable of such stupidity. So i'm not sure whether low budget, poor production values is a reason to like a track but it does have a grip on me, like those videos did, maybe because like back then, I knew this was better than listening to something boring and you were secretly, kinda hoping, someone would put their tongue in a pilar drill. 


A kooky little remix by Salva of this Shlohmo track, full of surprises and always keeping you guessing which makes a nice change.




I know I featured this a few weeks ago but the EP got a full release on Tuesday and can be brought for the meagre sum of two pound fifty from their band camp, bargain. 




Might have mentioned these before as well but again, a cracking track from an exciting band.


  This is what it would sound like if you poured a potent cocktail of ketamin, acid and weedkiller into the tea of an organ player and then asked him to compose some music for that horrid moment when people with nothing better to do are going to stand on the likely rain swept banks of the river thames, waving their union jacks like happy fascists at a dosing Queen, acting as if she is still relevant and pretending like her jubilee celebrations are not a complete waste of money in a time of extreme austerity. 




Available for free download as of this week, this is ABSORB, a grime artist from County Durham who raps over some grime infused dub step beats.



The lyrics in this are fantastic considering that every line has to rhyme with 'drag,' and the concept of the one and only true love of you life being your best mate in drag is as tragic as it is funny. 




Something a bit spooky in case you though I was slacking; this sounds like the BFG tripped when he was making his way home from his rounds and all the glass bottles containing children's nightmares smashed and mingled into one, united vision of terror. 





Some more throw back to the sixties stuff now from Woodpigeon aka Mark Hamilton from Vienna Austria. Think the main appeal of this track is it's title because the track couldn't be less of a resemblance to a guy I know called Paulo, who despite being a talented producer himself would be better represented by long, girlish, giggly synths symbolising his long wandering arms and some filthy dull bass, a nod to his favoured state of mind and love of bland food.  




Quickly listen to this beautiful track before the instrumental version is used in an advert designed to convince you that banking with RBS and pouring money the way of it's highest earners will buy you and your family eternal happiness, a rewarding and fulfilled lifestyle and immortality. Think the contrast of their voices works really well, cemented together with those beautiful strings.  




Some excellently produced grime-come-dub step again here from a band called Tha New Team, it builds up with an array of teasing samples that layer upon each other, punctuating that enticing, booming sub bass before it drops and becomes truly irrassitable. This is a newly formed band made up from iDj iRaise (one half of Tha Trickaz), Senbei (of Banzai Lab) and vocals from Dirtyphonics MC, Youthstar.