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Some notes, embeds and downloads on and of things we think you should be aware of:

Despite being an Edinburgh band on Song, By Toad Records with a remarkable sound and an unwieldly set-up we've somehow never mentioned Jesus H. Foxx before. A seven piece with three guitarists, two drummers and a full time cornet player - the last band we can think of who had a full time cornet player was iLiKETRAiNS, and he did all their backdrop slides and animated videos so it wasn't like his presence wasn't necessary at the time, although saying that he's left now, and this bit isn't supposed to be about iLiKETRAiNS anyway - their EP Matter, which came out in September, is like a refugee from the US avant-indie-Americana stable, a little Yo La Tengo, quite a bit Talking Heads, laidback oddness of Pavement, unpredictable air of Deerhoof, tongue of Broken Social Scene and eye of Acorn. While it's all boundless harmony and rhythmically offbeat driven joy there's often something a little uncomfortable about how they put it all together from track to track without losing the central thread, which is of course a very good and promising thing.

Jesus H. Foxx - I'm Half The Man You Were

We've written a bit about Nosferatu D2's still intimidatingly good album but nothing yet about Audio Antihero's other release, Benjamin Shaw's splendidly titled EP I Got The Pox, The Pox Is What I Got. An abstract beast, its "six and a half songs of nausea, noise, love, desperation, hope and hilarious anecdote" defiantly lo-fi values cloak some soul baring singer-songwriterliness as if essayed at the end of a very long and uncomfortably active night, quavering voice cracking all over the place as he sends his emotions through the mother of all wringers, throwing everything off course with electronic layers, noises off and the inscrutability of his lyrical worldview. Mark Linkous would be a useful comparison point, Jeff Mangum shredded raw another, maybe Vic Chesnutt (RIP) for the brutal openness and feeling everything is merely hanging on in there. An mp3 of Thanks For All The Biscuits is available from that shop link, the whole thing is being streamed here, while This Is Fake DIY (in whose we once received a promo) are sharing a new song of his. This is as lively as it gets:




And as we've mentioned Nosferatu D2, Audio Antihero have made available a good quality bootleg of their last gig, supporting Los Campesinos! and Sky Larkin at London The Spitz in March 2007.

Buenos Aires are a band we've featured before but never properly written about, so let's sort that out right now. A youthful Leicester outfit who played in 2009 with Maybeshewill (whose Robot Needs Home Records sideline they're signed to), Tubelord, Post War Years, Blakfish, Sucioperro and the late Tired Irie, they betray the full-on melodic intensity of Glassjaw, Reuben and early Biffy Clyro to the righteous fury of a Million Dead and textural post-hardcore invention of a Minus The Bear. Their latest set of demos are heartily recommended.

We're going to have to keep some sort of count of how many new tracks by His Clancyness - for latecomers, the stylistically diverse song scraps project of Jonathan Clancy, the Ottawa-raised Bologna resident who also fronts A Classic Education - eke out into the blogosphere over 2010 after the steady stream that littered last year. This is the first; alongside it, watch his live session for Neu Magazine and hear his telephone conversation with the similarly minded London-via-Turin type Banjo Or Freakout here.

His Clancyness - Mistify The Ocean

Plenty of new videos are coming out into the open with the start of the new year, as you'd expect, and they promise much for the months ahead. Leicester/Leeds' dark emotionally expansive post-pastoralists Her Name Is Calla have a new album, The Quiet Lamb, in March, and a single, Long Grass, out on 10" now (we think), which sounds like this and, when played live in an appropriately reverby alcove, like this:



Class Of 2010 star and future STN Presents appearee Stairs To Korea's All Of Your Friends is out on Monday, is predictably ace, and looks and sounds like this:



...and while we don't have it yet, something which we'd forcibly comment on if outright begging wasn't so frowned on in blog circles, Field Music's third album, the indecisively titled Field Music (Measure), is getting some great word of mouth. The first single is Them That Do Nothing: