The death of the music industry

Time for another of our irregular posts where we sort through the pile of CDs and folders of mp3s passed on to or sourced by us and dig out the stuff that stands out and we imagine you'd like to hear...

Broken Records appeared on the Weekly Sweep a while back, following a tip by Song, By Toad who chanced across them at the T In The Park T-Break heats in their native Edinburgh in May. Although at least on here we neglected to immediately go any further with them even though we were still listening to their mp3s, they're starting to build some low level interest, including a recent Marc Riley 6 Music session. A seven piece who include a cellist and violinist/accordionist in their number, they claim understandable influences from Bright Eyes, the Waterboys and Calexico, allied to a very post-Arcade Fire choral determination and a more Americana'd take on Zach Condon's small-scale folk-orchestral charging ambition. Given this is just how their demo sounds and they're less than a year old, you'll be hearing a lot more from them in the months to come.

Broken Records - A Good Reason

Their debut EP Arcs Across The City may not be released until November 26th but Johnny Foreigner have been quietly stirring no small amount of interest in certain circles. Taking Chicago post-hardcore as their starting point, the Birmingham trio rocket through Sonic Youth, Pavement, Q And Not U and Prolapse and come out sounding like the most urgent math-scuzz possible. Keep a very close eye out.

Johnny Foreigner - The End And Everything After

The Somnambulants are a duo, formed in Brooklyn, now based in San Francisco, who set out to be an electro act without actually bowing to electro writing orthodoxy, working off pop or blues constructions instead. After supports for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Au Revoir Simone among others debut album Paper Trail, released in America in August, comes out retro but not deliberately so, taking as much from David Byrne as there is of the definite New Order and Ladytron in the mix.

The Somnambulants - Take It On

Finally, pop, and we're honoured to discover that we're now a fact citation source on Wikipedia. The catalyst is our interview last year with Gwenno of the Pipettes, whose low-key solo side project, which she describes as "Ace Of Base produced by The Postal Service", we've brought up a couple of times before. With time off band business she bought a cheap keyboard from a charity shop, recorded seven tracks with it and put them on YouSendIt as a mini-album called U & I, which despite the reduced setting retains a charm and elan of its own and again demonstrates that quite apart from her band's big concept she has something going for herself.

Gwenno - On TV


Tomorrow, another music post which might well lead to our first ever polite request for a mp3 removal because we can't check and aren't sure the US label are allowing the track to go online yet. Excitement!