Super Furry Animals’ Dark Days/Light Years – our LIVE reaction!

Super Furry Animals

Over here at Muso’s Towers/Mansions/Palazio/Galleria, your Reviews/Features Editor is sitting on the edge of her chaise longue awaiting the Super Furries’ gig webcast. Novel, isn’t it? Yes, yes it is.

Gruff Rhys et al are premiering their new album Dark Days/Light Years by playing it live in its entirety to a virginal audience. And we (i.e. ‘I’) are (am) going to be offering you our (my) reactions to each of the tracks as they hit our (my) reflexes!

Said tracklist looks like this:

… Continue Reading

Win a copy of Bishop Allen’s Grr… and a pair of tickets to see them live!

Bishop Allen - Grr...

We’ve got a copy of Bishop Allen‘s Grr… and a pair of tickets to see them at any of their upcoming May dates to give away to one very lucky winner.

Said album reminds us of a load of things we love: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Voxtrot, Sebadoh, hell even a bit of Pavement chucked in for extra measure. All with added universality. Yes, even more of that. … Continue Reading

The beauty of words

Iconography for my imaginary band, The Dictionary Hearts

I have a massive series of questions eating away at my brain, beginning with something akin to this:
Why can’t every frontman have the same aptitude as Grant McLennan, Mark Kozelek, Edwyn Collins, Lawrence Hayward, Stephen Malkmus or Luke Haines?

And what would happen if they did? Would a person like myself find anything to whine about? Or would such a person fall down to the floor in a heap of near-apocalyptic consumption because of the myriad triggers stemming from these lyricists’ anthologies?

Let’s see what I’m on about:

This is ‘Grey Streets’ by Felt. It contains the following amazingness:
“Grey streets and streets of grey/
Patrolled by knights from the invading day/
Closing eyelids stutter and tumble and turn away/
Makeshift memories they collide for another stay”

It’s a way with words. It’s not necessarily what any of these lyricists are saying, it’s the way they elucidate on something. The passion. … Continue Reading

Franz Ferdinand – Hammersmith Apollo, London

Franz Ferdinand

Monday March 9, 2009 … Continue Reading

Exclusive: Glasvegas reveal nothing about new material

A rare shot featuring James Allan's unmasked eyes in view

Glasvegas (well, a besunglassed James and his cousin Rab) popped into the Absolute Radio Zoo recently to play some songs to a tiny crowd (including lucky us) of around 25, and had a little bit of a chat with drivetime DJ Geoff Lloyd in the process.

Having been shimmying up and down the country with Florence and the Machine and White Lies as part of the NME tour, the experience seemed to disorientate the brothers Allan a tad. They appear completely unrehearsed and spontaneously choose which tracks to play. It’s unusually anachronistic, in a forward-thinking sort of way. Now there’s a sentence… … Continue Reading

Inspecific ramblings

 

Semiotics invisible to the general public

Here’s a delightfully abrupt stream of consciousness:

Why do we keep listening to the same songs over and over again? Why is this repetition unusually innovative? … Continue Reading

Win one of ten Jem goody bags!

A selection of Jem-themed freebies

Remember Jem? All tropical and piña colada-evoking, she sold over a million copies of debut album Finally Woken not all that long ago.

Well she’s back now, with a brand new album – the lead track ‘It’s Amazing’ is one you may have heard if you went out and saw the Sex And The City film. The new album is produced by Jeff Bass, man behind Eminem and 50 Cent amongst others – with a little help from Greg Kurstin (The Bird and The Bee, Kylie Minogue).

We’ve got ten goody bags to giveaway to ten lucky winners, containing containing the bag itself, playing cards and a signed copy of the new album Down To Earth. All you have to do is answer this very simple question: … Continue Reading

Sellaband announces first band to play ArenaFest 2009

Bulletproof Messenger

BulletProof Messenger have been announced by SellaBand (blogged about by Sellaband artist Daniel Ward-Murphy here) as the first band to perform at ArenaFest 2009. ArenaFest is a multi-platform project taking in live music, dating, gaming and sports – and ba.

BulletProof Messenger released their album Arm Yourself this January, and had previously played with Incubus (remember them, from your mid-teens?); they were selected by XM Satellite Radio as one of the top unsigned acts across the USA.

… Continue Reading

We LOVE We Were Promised Jetpacks

We Were Promised Jetpacks

Every so often, a new band gets thrown your way without the precursing hype setting them up for a fall; We Were Promised Jetpacks played London’s Borderline last week, and they’ve set themselves up as that band. That new band to hear recordings from, to see repeatedly, to follow on Google Blog search; hell, to see if anyone else is as prematurely fanatical about.

Raucous yet head down, visually close to shoegaze yet with massively enormously loud choruses, this four-piece are an enticing set of contrasts. And predictably, they’re from Scotland. Must be something in the Loch. … Continue Reading

We’re giving away two pairs of tickets to secretsundaze & friends!

secretsundaze & friends

We have two pairs of tickets to give away to secretsundaze & friends at London’s Scala on February 21.

Is it more information you’re after? Try this: … Continue Reading