Celebrity Playlist: Maybeshewill

At this moment, the emotionally pummelling DIY arthouse post-hardcore electronically foundated post-rock powerhouse collective Maybeshewill are finishing off work on their third album, due some time in late spring/early summer and featuring guest spots for members of Her Name Is Calla. Before then they release a new single on 7th March, titled Critical Distance and sounding and looking like this:

Maybeshewill - Critical Distance from Robot Needs Home on Vimeo.

Before even that they start a European tour tomorrow, the UK leg of which is listed under the Playlist. And before any of the above, in fact logically in the recent past, we held guitarist John Helps down and got some preferred songs out of him.


Jeniferever - The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky
This song pretty much defines the phrase 'unbearably pretty', the whole EP is great, but the first two tracks in particular are astonishing.

Youthmovies - If You'd Seen A Battlefield
We've been recording the drums for our new record in the same studio Youthmovies recorded this album. Their earlier EPs are so unusual that they kinda blew my mind when I first heard them - really influenced the way I thought about music. The album is much more accessible, but still pretty unusual.

Portishead - Glory Box
Dummy is one of the first albums that's still lodged in my consciousness that I remember listening to on loop as a teenager - it was tough to choose anything off it as a stand out track, but this is as good as any.

Adebisi Shank - International Dreambeat
This is a firm van favourite at the moment - It's just a ridiculous amount of fun.

Blakfish - Jeremy Kyle Is A Marked Man
Of all the songs by all the noisy British post-hardcore bands over the past five years or so, this one is far and away the best - just an incredible idea from start to finish, brilliant melodies and an insatiable sense of urgency.

Reuben - Stuck In My Throat
Me and Jim (Maybeshewill's drummer) totally bonded over Reuben, and I think they've been a big influence on a lot of the bands, certainly from around Leicester, that we sort of align ourselves with. They had tonnes of personality which was perhaps a bit distracting on later albums, but Racecar Is Racecar Backwards is perfect from start to finish.

Mew - Am I Wry? No
Everything Mew have released sounds absolutely incredible, and the only time I've managed to see them they were almost unbelievable. This is perhaps a cop out choice of track, but it is undeniably brilliant.

Jetplane Landing - There Is No Real Courage Unless There Is Real Danger
These guys were a big influence on me musically and from a DIY perspective - Andrew Ferris runs his own label (Smalltown America) which has released some of our favourite bands, but that aside this is an incredible song from a great album.

You Slut! - Mybloodyjesusexploreronfire
I don't think there's been an instrumental band that's bettered this song. Four minutes of magic.

Peter Wyeth - Spring
I promised myself I wouldn't pick anything from Leicester for this, but this, and pretty much everything Pete touches to be honest, is brilliant.



Those dates:
24/2 Southampton Joiners
25/2 Cardiff Buffalo Bar
26/2 Nottingham Rock City
27/2 Manchester Moho Live
28/2 Sheffield O2 Academy
1/3 Glasgow Stereo
2/3 Newcastle O2 Academy
3/3 Camden Barfly

Celebrity Playlist: Let's Buy Happiness

It takes a band with big, forefronted ideas to justify Sundays/Cocteaus comparisons, and Newcastle's Let's Buy Happiness are that band judging by their first couple of singles, all crystalline chiming guitars and clarion vocals, "iceberg monoliths in a sea of calm without stillness" as we called them in the year preview. These are their forthcoming live dates:

25/2 Leeds Cockpit 3
26/2 Newcastle Riverside
1/3 Glasgow Captain's Rest
3 Sheffield Plug (with Frankie & the Heartstrings for that Topman CTRL thing)
9/3 London Old Blue Last
10/3 Bristol Start The Bus (free!)
11/3 Brighton Hope
12/3 Southampton Unit

This, should you need reminding, is their new single, out on the 28th and produced by them Heartstrings' Mick Ross:

Fast Fast by letsbuyhappiness

And these are their songs:

Radiohead - Videotape
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Death Cab For Cutie - Brothers On A Hotel Bed
Bright Eyes - Lua
Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
Field Music - In Context
Minus The Bear - Absinthe Party At The Fly Honey Warehouse
Animal Collective - Grass
Four Tet - Hands
Ray Lamontagne - Jolene

Celebrity Playlist: Fixers

Fixers are from Oxford and know about Arthur Russell and experimental beats, thus they're part of the burgeoning Blessing Force collective. Taking cues from Brian Wilson harmonic acid surf and freak-psychedelic ethereality while still approachable enough to have done a Jo Whiley session, from tomorrow they're involved in the BF#1 two day takeover of a warehouse space (Old Book Binders, Oxford) into an installation-cum-happening and gig area also featuring the likes of Jonquil, Pet Moon, Rhosyn, Chad Valley, Ute and Sisterland, and on the 21st issue a 7" that sounds like this. Their Playlist is as spacily eclectic as expected, including one band Google seems to know less about than last.fm.

The Beach Boys - Cuddle Up
Arvo Part - Spiegel Im Spiegel
Blossoming Aquatic Meadows - zZzleepy Dress
Bruce Haack - African Lullaby
Drexciya - Aqua Worm Hole
Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSound
Arthur Russell - Let's Go Swimming
Kate Bush - Rubberband Girl
Iijima Mari - BLUEBERRY JAM
Wham! - Battlestations

Celebrity Playlist: The Go! Team

Ian Parton, to be exact, cut, splice and overlay master of the garage pep rally beat collage that is the Go! Team. The Team's third album Rolling Blackouts is out next Monday and sounds in precis like this...



...but ahead of that they put out a 7" yesterday with Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast on vocals, which sounds like this...

The Go! Team - Buy Nothing Day by thegoteam

...and around all that, Parton gave us ten recommendations:

The Cake - Baby That's Me
The Shaggs - My Cutie
Paddy Kingsland - Take Another Look (download)
Papa M - Up North Kids
Stereo Total - Supercool
Vince Guaraldi - Linus and Lucy
Sonic Youth - Genetic
Serge Gainsbourg - Initials B.B.
Solex - Solex All Licketysplit
Camera Obscura - If Looks Could Kill

Celebrity Playlist: Jen Long

So to reviving an idea that briefly ran in the days we could sync it with Muxtape when that was something anyone could compile streaming playlists with before the usual authorities got in the way. Celebrity Playlist is simplicity itself - someone we like lists ten songs they like. Our first candidate for 2011 is Cardiff's renaissance woman Jen Long - writer, promoter, DJ, blogger and as of last week the new host of Radio 1's BBC Introducing In Wales, from midnight on Sundays (streamed live on the site if you're outside the Principality). This is what she came up with for us:


Sonic Youth – Drunken Butterfly
This is my favourite Sonic Youth song of all time. Apparently the lyrics are all taken from Heart songs and song titles but I still think it’s great. I think it’s just how violent the guitars are when the drums break and how throaty Gordon’s voice is. This song is so amazing I got a bit of it tattooed on my arm. I’m such a loser.

Fol Chen – Cable TV
I can’t remember the first time I heard this song, but I pretty much listened to it on repeat for about seven months thereafter. I love the ping ping ping ping ping melody, and the lyrics are super sweet. Fol Chen are such heart-melters.

Kanye West – Monster
Yeah, so I’ve been listening to this song non-stop since December. It’s amazing. The beat, the production, the moment when everything drops out under Jay Z, oh, and that Minaj verse. Yes.

Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights
When I was in school we had an English lesson where the teacher played us Alanis Morissette’s Ironic since we were learning about irony. Which is kind of ironic, because none of it’s ironic, you get me?

Anyway, we had a different, far cooler teacher the year after who played us Kate Bush when we were reading Wuthering Heights. I loved it so much I learnt to play it on guitar and then I got made to perform it for GCSE students to try and convince them to do A Levels.

I say ‘got made’...

ISN’T IT JUST THE GREATEST SONG THOUGH?

The National – City Middle
Also in my English class at school, we studied A Streetcar Named Desire and I kind of really loved it and had a bit of a book crush on Tennessee Williams. I love the line in this song that goes ‘I think I’m like Tennessee Williams I wait for the click, I wait but it doesn’t kick in’. Like, love it enough to get it tattooed on myself (such a loser).

I love The National, they’re epic and desperate and majestic and beautiful and emptily hopeful. I feel like this song kind of embodies that.

The Smiths – How Soon Is Now
When I was a kid I remember watching The Craft and there was this song in it that was also the theme tune for Charmed, but a different version. It intrigued me a bit, mostly because I had nothing better to do with my weekends. I first heard The Smiths when I saw the video for this track on MTV2 and then everything kind of clicked into place.

I went online to download the guitar tab and I kid you not, at the top of the page it read ‘Dear Jennifer, I’ve been trying to figure this tab out for a while…’ It was almost like fate.

Amy Adams – That’s How You Know
I think this is in the forefront of my mind right now because Enchanted was on TV over Christmas, but I LOVE this song. I always get really annoyed because there are not enough songs in films anymore. Maybe I’m just getting old, but the Mary Poppins soundtrack is amazing, and don’t get me started on The Sound of Music.

Anyway, I loved Enchanted and if you don’t feel a tug inside your chest when the chorus soars in this song then you, my friend, are dead inside.

Deftones – My Own Summer
Welcome to the greatest opening riff of all time. Every time I hear the sound of that snare popping, something in my mind snaps and I’m fourteen again, moshing in my bedroom alone to Around The Fur.

I spent well over a year wearing nothing but my Deftones hoodie, with the hood up, even in summer. They called me ‘hood girl’ in my local record shop. I miss that hulk of black cotton.

Andrew WK – Party Hard
Imagine if you saw the world through his eyes. Just imagine.

Death From Above 1979 – Romantic Rights
If I’m drunk in a disco and this song comes on then you had better get out of the way… because I am going to dance like a complete loser and you really won’t want people to think you’re associated with me, basically.

Getting involved

Not that this sudden PR attempt to adjudge how much of our audience actually cares is in any way connected to our missing out on a nomination in Record Of The Day's industry awards' Best Blog category - three of the nominees don't exist any more! - but...

A little while ago we came up with the idea of Celebrity Muxtape, basically a bog standard 'compile us a mixtape, oh really good musician type' feature but with the additional extra that we'd then slave away and compile a proper streaming Muxtape with their suggestions on. Then after we'd published four the RIAA shut Muxtape down, and while we attempted to continue with Celebrity Playlist the truth finally caught up with us. We've kept a log of everyone we've kindly asked via email or Myspace message to compile us a playlist/Muxtape - and not huge names by any means - and the number we've had no response to is now exactly treble the number that we've actually managed to publish. One band leader promised us a list imminently and then presumably got overtaken by other things, having been constantly on tour since. One manager told us his client would jump at the chance and would pass on our request when they were back from holiday, and we never heard from either again. One really exciting possibility we still have fingers crossed for having recently been back in touch with their label (hi, Annette). The rest just never responded.

Bar the pending nature of this latter case, Celebrity Playlist is therefore dead.

But what musical guest feature to replace it with? Interviews... well, you've seen what we're like at them, and besides there's a thousand and one competing publications on that score. Our initial thought was one of those musical upbringing questionnaires (first single bought, song for a rainy day, that sort of thing), but the other site we write for is also planning a regular feature along those lines and they have better contacts and far, far more readers, so we're helping out on that instead. Attempts to resurrect Songs To Learn And Sing have all failed, as tempting as it is just to go back to that - after all, writing about one song is easier than writing about twelve. So we're throwing the floor open - any suggestions for something to pitch to artists we like from the new year onwards?

Celebrity Playlist #5: Gossamer Albatross

And so, part one of two of our Playlist preview of This Ain't No Picnic, which due to response times and so forth comes in the week following Smalltown America's weekender, arrives in the shape of Gossamer Albatross, the Hereford largely teenage collective whose baroque folk has been much admired here for a while and will be so by more people when their debut 7" is out on October 27th. This is the music that made them:

(from Lewis)
This Ain't Vegas - Short Term Long Term
Absolutely one of my favourite songs ever. The drums, bass and guitar are so muscular but it’s counteracted by the singers vulnerable and uncertain lyrics. Every drum fill, bass note, guitar strum and vocal strain is needed. The chord sequence in the chorus is also insanely good. It gives me goosebumps.

Bright Eyes - Bowl Of Oranges
It’s perfect apart from the couple of minutes of noise at the end. His lyrics are the bomb and this song is one of the best examples of amazing lyrics coupled with a beautiful little melody. “And every time you feel like crying, I'm gonna try and make you laugh!” Yes Conor!

Death Cab For Cutie - A Movie Script Ending
Possibly my favourite Death Cab song. I’m a massive Death Cab nerd and love just about everything they’ve ever released. Ben Gibbard is a genius and along with Conor, John and Sufjan make up my favourite song writers.

R Kelly - Ignition
Me and Ben (our bass player) were singing this song in the pub last night to the utter dismay of all our friends. It was awesome. This song always puts me in a good mood. Sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. It’s the freakin weekend baby I’m about to have me some fun!

50 Cent - Candy Shop
Really fucking dirty beats. They’re my favourite. This song is awesome.

(from Geena)
Coco Rosie - Werewolf
I absolutely adore this song, with its haunting father/lover parallels set against an achingly beautiful backdrop. Lyrics are a very important part of music for me, and without sounding like some arty prick I love this song even more for its parallels with Plath's 'Daddy', which is one of my favourite poems.

Tunng - Bullets
I find Bullets so bittersweet, and love the irony of searching for insight through religion, through pain just to forget and repeat old mistakes.

The Microphones - I Felt Your Heart
This song makes me tear up in the most fantastic way. Despite being only 1:56 long, Elvrum manages to squash, sit on and tie my heart into a figure-of-eight knot within the duration of this song.

Aphex Twin - Avril 14th
It's sounds so simple, and sends me into this dream-like state. I just think the piano sounds beautiful.

Final Fantasy - The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead
Best thing I've seen live to date, literally grinned ear to ear from start to finish. The string arrangement at 2:00 is just to die for.

Belle and Sebastian - A Summer Wasting
About two of the best things, summer holidays and spending it with friends. I think the mistake 'seven years of river walk ways' instead of seven weeks is deliberate because the song is about the wasted summer holiday that was seven weeks. Its like when The Beatles recorded the wrong name in their song Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da but left it as it was as recording can be so time consuming and expensive.

(And one from Reuben)
Yeasayer - 2080
Couldn't really say what I like about it exactly, the harmonies are perfect, I think I just like the way they use such a ridiculously diverse set of influences and still manage to make it sound amazing!

Celebrity Playlist - the bloodening

So since we liked Celebrity Muxtape as it took most of the work off us but Muxtape is pretty much killed off by The Man now, we've been forced into a change of plan.

So please welcome Celebrity Playlist - the same format, twelve songs picked by people we like of the music that made them, as before, except just the words. We probably won't get a new one in before next week's pre-End Of The Road holiday - or ever, if our run of response walls of silence to this continue - so here's examples of what we've had so far:

Jeremy Warmsley
A Classic Education
Sky Larkin
MJ Hibbett

Celebrity Muxtape #4: MJ Hibbett

MJ Hibbett had a viral hit before the term had been popularised with Hey Hey 16k, is a major advocate of the ukelele, was Steve Lamacq's Euro 2004 correspondent, got called "a national institution" by The Word and will in August be at the Edinburgh Fringe performing My Exciting Life In ROCK!, an autobiographial account of his career with musical illustration, with a single called It Only Works Because You're Here out before then. We love him, so we asked him what he loves, and he told us.

MJ Hibbett's Muxtape

I've had a bit of a think and I thought I'd do a "My Exciting Life In ROCK" THEMED muxtape, based on the life-cycle of being in a band. THUS:

Art Brut - Formed A Band
When I first saw them Eddie Argos used this song to tell the ENTIRE audience to go out TONIGHT and form their own band. If I hadn’t already got one I would have done so IMMEDIATELY!

The Beatles - You Never Give Me Your Money
This is Macca trying to persuade the other Fabs to go out on the road and do some tiny gigs again, because it would be FUN. They disagreed – miserable sods.

Half Man Half Biscuit - Running Order Squabble Fest
This is EXACTLY what being in a band is like after the first three gigs, and is thus why most bands split up soon afterwards!

The Wave Pictures - Just Like A Drummer
I went to seem them a few weeks ago and was AMAZED by how amazING they were – even better live than on record, as the live version of EVERY song was augmented by TREMENDOUS guitar solos.

Belle & Sebastian - This Is Just A Modern Rock Song
Songs about being in a band are usually about the exciting bits at the start, the crazy bits towards the end, or sitting around in a hotel room feeling fed up. There’s hardly ANY about the bit about sixth months in when you wonder whether you should pack it in or carry on plugging away because “we're not terrific but we're competent.”

John Otway - Geneve
The Life On The Road Song usually goes “I am lonely and I miss my girlfriend, boo hoo” and is usually DREARY but Otway, being Otway, manages to make it charming, also heartbreaking. Before I even started doing gigs Otway gave me the best advice EVER. He was sitting in the front bar of The Princess Charlotte and I asked him why he was sitting with the punters rather than in his dressing room. “If I sit backstage I’ll be all on my own”, he said. “If I come out here people buy me beer and tell me I’m great.”

Billy Bragg - Waiting For The Great Leap Forward
Another Life On The Road Song, but Mr Bragg uses it as a METAPHOR for… well, everything. Also featuring: FANTASTIC FADEOUT.

The Divine Comedy - The Booklovers
For some people TOURING and recording is so DULL they are “forced” to take heroin. Me, I take a pile of BOOKS and the latest issue of “Puzzler” magazine.

Suede - The Big Time
Talking of which – SUEDE!

The Boo Radleys - High As Monkeys
People, correctly, laud Giant Steps as one of the best albums of the 90’s but actually I think Kingsize is even BETTER. Not many people hold this opinion because not many people BOUGHT it, but still: Brett, cheer up, THIS is how you should be doing it!

Wings - Rockshow
Macca at the height of his POMP in Wings, inventing stadium ROCK, not giving a toss what anybody thought of him and, clearly, having a FABULOUS time!

Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Boom Shake The Room
The big finish! I play this song at the end of my show because a) it’s brilliant and b) EVERYONE knows the words. Every time I play it I see audience members ASTONISHED to find themselves singing along, it’s GRATE!

Celebrity Muxtape #3: Sky Larkin

Next up to provide a selection of personal collection treats are a Leeds trio we featured in detail nearly a year and a half ago, since when they've brought out a second excellent single and recently returned from Seattle, where they've been recording their debut album with John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Death Cab For Cutie). They are and remain Sky Larkin, and these are their twelve. No notes to accompany this one, save to say that Nestor picked the first four, Katie takes up the middle and Doug does the last four:

Nestor:
Death From Above 1979 - Turn It Out
The Knife - Hannah's Conscious
Metric - Hustle Rose
Burial - Distant Lights

Katie:
Kate Bush - Rubberband Girl
The Blow - True Affection
Garnet Mimms - As Long As I Have You
Napoleon IIIrd - Hit Schmooze For Me

Doug:
Why? - Crushed Bones
At The Drive-In - Picket Fence Cartel
Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene
Joni Mitchell - Carey


Sky Larkin's Muxtape

Celebrity Muxtape #2: A Classic Education

The second STN favourite to take part in our playlist of the stars feature is the Bologna-based band whose carefully constructed huge sweeping anthemry came to our attention at the turn of the year, and we instantly made space for them on our year in preview Covermount and have followed their progress carefully since. They've actually worked with the aforeMuxtaped Jeremy Warmsley and have just released a fine debut EP, available through their website and Myspace. With all that in mind we asked Jonathan, Paul and Luca to tell us some of their favourite songs:


A Classic Education's Muxtape

Gastr Del Sol - The Seasons Reverse
Jonathan: It just opened up a new way of feeling music for me. I was really a kid and coudn't understand what was going on in the song. It is such a great pop song, the lyrics are perfect for it. And when the fireworks go off at the end and you hear the children talking... well, lets just say i've imagined that scene so many times.

Smog - I Feel Like The Mother Of The World
Paul: It could continue for hours... this song and Bill Callahan's voice never tire me. That piano starts getting stuck in your head and never leaves.

Glasvegas – It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry
Luca: I need to listen to this song at least once a day! I just heard it even a second ago.

Mike Watt - Tuff Gnarl
Paul: It was written by Sonic Youth but here it is played by the best bass player in the world...in the history of rock and roll Watt's sound and his thumb work is what should be remembered, and not all those glam rock guitar solos! Plus you have Carla Bozulich on vocals here!

Elbow - Red
Luca: For the drums coming back in around 2:50... it's the beauty of despair.

Echo & The Bunnymen - Nocturnal Me
Jonathan: Sometimes when you hear this now you can't help but thinking, geez, it was maybe a little overblown and can easily sound funny with those grandiose lyrics. Other days though it's just what you need to get you back on track and feel invincible. Nature over everything!

Johnny Cash - Hurt
Luca: Because just like Trent Reznor said while he was listening to it, "I didn't think I had written such a beautiful song".

The Modern Lovers - I'm Straight
Jonathan: Wow, the arrogance that comes out of the words. I can feel the voice just right beside me, sweat dripping down. It's just the pure rock and roll song. "I'm straight and i want to take his place!"

Scott Walker - It's Raining Today
Jonathan: This song opens Scott 3 and it just spooks me out. Already the cover of the record is something that just gives me nightmares, but this song... The violins on the right channel just float in the air for the whole song and give it this phantom like atmosphere. The voice..what a voice. You're melted in a second.

Brian Eno - By This River
Paul: It's so simple and touching that you have to hear it once every 5/6 years so that you can rediscover it each time. It helps reminding us that you can be minimal and "leave it to the basics" when you are writing a song.

Celebrity Muxtape #1: Jeremy Warmsley

Another new series, hopefully maintained more often than our other onrunning series. The concept is simple - we ask one of our favourite artists to list twelve songs, often with some elucidation, and then we stick them on a Muxtape for all to share in. We begin with the first person we interviewed for STN, here caught just after his well received The Boat Song/Temptation double A-sided single and ahead of the September release of his second album - Jeremy Warmsley.

Jeremy Warmsley's Muxtape

Flaming Lips - Race For The Prize
Perfect drumming and one of Wayne Coyne's greatest lyrics make this a prog-pop classic.

Toto - Africa
Surely one of the greatest cheesy pop songs of all time? And an overlooked influence on today's post-soft movement (Feist, Hot Chip, etc). Plus the lyric "sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti", presumably thrown in at the last minute to secure some hip, mystical cred.

XTC - Jason And The Argonauts
From their great album, English Settlement, this song bewilders and bewitches with its cyclical guitar part. Check out the 80s flange in the weird middle section.

Arab Strap - Hey! Fever
One of the first "indie" songs I ever fell in love with, this remains a firm favourite. "And I used my best shampoo on my pubes, just in case..." The barbershop quartet outro is an eccentrically brilliant touch, but the girl singing faux-soul melismas definitely grates.

Billie Holiday - Life Begins When You're In Love
Not much to be said about this perfect nugget of '20s pop.

Les Paul - How High The Moon
The man who invented multitracking shows what can be done with it. Every sound on this weirdly beautiful record was made with his 6-string or with his wife's voice but it sounds like four times as many musicians.

Little Anthony & The Imperials - Goin' Out of My Head
Tom Waits mentions this group in his Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis off Blue Valentine ("...and I still have that record by Little Anthony and the Imperials - but someone stole my record player, now how'd you like that?") and sings snatches from the song in some live performances (like the oustanding Cold Beer On A Warm Night from a late 70s Sydney radio session). None of which prepares for the outsdanding production and performance on this forgotten 60s classic.

Of Montreal - Voltaic Crusher/Undrum To Muted Da
Observe the lyrics... "I'm a flaw, I'm a mistake... oh God, please don't be a bastard..." In the hands of anyone else (Nine Inch Nails, for instance) this would be accompanied by some sort of dirge. Instead, this bounces along on its own self-satisfied merriment, synths parping away. Great. From their Icons, Abstract Thee EP.

Thom Yorke - Atoms For Peace (Four Tet Remix)
I think Thom Yorke and Four Tet should make a record together. If it was all like this and Four Tet's Skattrbrain remix (from Radiohead's Com Lag EP) it would probably be the best thing either has ever done. This has a drum performance from Steve Reid, which is a welcome addition. (Although mysteriously uncredited on the sleeve).

New Order - Thieves Like Us
I hate New Order. They're so bad. Yet so good. How anyone can make good the lyric "Love is the cure for every evil/Love is the air that supports the eagle" is beyond me but they definitely manage it.

The Microphones - I Want Wind To Blow
If you don't know this band, you need to hear their The Glow, Part II and Mt Eerie albums IMMEDIATELY! Put your headphones on and you're away. Essential.

Kate Bush - Brazil
With orchestral arrangements from Michael Kamen, this beautiful, unique take on a lovely standard was taped for Terry Gilliam's great film of the same name. This version is probably wholly responsible for the song's rehabilitation in this decade, with covers from the likes of Beirut and Arcade Fire surfacing recently.

Jeremy is playing every date of July's Transgressive Hot Summer tour. Check local press for details.