The great wanted

We've said it before, but if you're not following our Twitter you're really missing out on a lot of good stuff. And a lot of facetious toss, obviously, but there's good stuff in there too.

Case in point: Chromewaves have a new Lucky Soul track, the unrepossessingly titled Whoa Billy! Winehouse and her globe-straddling bleating about the Shangri-Las as funnelled into soap opera pretty much strangled the girl group revival as potential commercial giant at an infant age, but not only is the new Camera Obscura album amazing but these six men and woman of Greenwich and their sophisticated Motown heartbreak pop greatness has stood up very well to the rigours of second album syndrome, even with the Kelly Marie bloops at 2:15-2:22. Word is the album is pencilled in for June, again on their own Ruffa Lane and a month before they play Indietracks. Andrew Laidlaw has namedropped the Isley Brothers, Neil Young and Wichita Lineman in precising the album. He also revealed on their blog "This time we've tried to be a lot more direct, I've tried to write much better songs and everyone's playing has improved ten-fold." Well, it's as good a musical ambition as any.

Case in point II: Grizzly Bear are giving away Cheerleader. Unlike the rest of the blogosphere we've not downloaded that Veckatimest (the clipboard's going to become very familiar with that name over the next twelve months - it's out 25th May) low quality leak yet because a) it's immoral and more importantly b) Grizzly Bear's music, with its layers and subtleties, is somewhat ill fitting with the notion of mp3 sound compression. Cheerleader is spectral, quietly impassioned, haunted, subtly glorifying and just generally TWO MONTHS AWAY???!-making. There's no way we're going to get on Warp's promo list, after all.