Friday, April 26, 2024

New sounds: 26/4/24

The Accident Group - Go Away (Please Come Back)
There's a handful of bands with what could loosely be described as lyrically comic intent at the moment, a few good, a lot more "we already have Art Brut at home". Manchester's The Accident Group, named after a failed personal injury claims company and describing themselves as "on a constant quest to write the ultimate pop song, forever waylaid by rock 'n' roll", seem like they're going to fit into the former category, or more precisely the limited/liminal space between Thank, early Sports Team and some band who released one 7" in 1981 featured on a Cherry Red compilation.



Laughing - Bruised
Classic power-pop shapes that would keep Evan Dando even more awake at night and apply a suntan (despite being from Montreal) to Songs From Northern Britain-era Teenage Fanclub.



The rest we've either written about recently or you already know of, so scooting along...

Les Savy Fav - World Got Great


ME REX - Canada Water


mui zyu - the rules of what an earthling can be


Nilufer Yanya - Like I Say (I runaway)


Tuesday, April 23, 2024

New sounds in digest: 23/4/24

Not much time to write blurbs due to work, other sites and being full of cold, so you'll have to do without the descriptions for now, just accept that in their own ways these are all great:

Autocamper - Blanche


Belle And Sebastian – What Happened To You, Son?


Fat Dog - Running


Lambrini Girls - Body Of Mine


Loma - How It Starts


Mammoth Penguins - Flyers


Thursday, April 04, 2024

New sounds: 4/4/24

Arab Strap - Strawberry Moon
Well, here we go again with another chance to remind you that on 10th May the world will contain an album entitled 'i’m totally fine with it don’t give a fuck anymore'. The third single tries to synthesise two of their main mods of expression at once, cheap drum machine and churning fuzz like Suicide fronted by the temporal opposite of Alan Vega turning into Buckfast-at-literal-dawn club beats, while Aidan sees the moon's waxing and waning as a constant in a time of personal turmoil.



Les Savy Fav - Limo Scene
Speaking of exciting self-questioning returns with new albums out on May 10th by bands originating in the 90s with heavily bearded individualist vocalists, the taut, tense third single from OUI LSF could have come off studio album height Let's Stay Friends. Tim Harrington claims it's about "abducted by the spirit of music past while out looking for the grave of Turner ‘Rocky’ Wilson Jr. — Rocky was bassist for the doo-wop band The Rivingtons. He made up ‘Pappa-Oom-Mow-Mow’ that the Trashmen took and uses for ‘Surfin Bird’."



The Lovely Eggs - Memory Man
Hey, Holly and David are back! Somehow it's been four years between albums, their seventh Eggsistentialism, co-produced and mixed by Dave Fridmann, due 17th May and preceded by a single right in the decaying dayglo centre of their psychedelic wheelhouse, swirling around a Krauty electronic undertow not least with bass bin-bothering robot noises.



Mike Lindsay & Anna B Savage - table
Lindsay of Tunng and LUMP and Savage of Savage's second released collaboration foe the former's 'supershapes - volume 1' out 14th June is based around the imagined history of and around a vintage dining table, wallpapered in arrythmic beats decorated with woodwind and Savage's resonant voice, even when required to declaim the words "errant gravy", before free saxes come in to pepper and disturb the course.



Murder Club - Crybaby
And so the thematic three-track Night Out EP by the breakout stars of this year's Leicester Indiepop Alldayer is complete, following the previously featured joy in ruff-wearing sparkliness of Pictures Of Myself (the before) and Shots?! (the very much during) with the brokenhearted synth-disco last dance at end of the night.



The Pill - Bale Of Hay
You wait years for one... well, not wait because nobody outside reach of Ventnor was actively doing so, but it's odd how over the last two or three years there's been a sudden stream of bands coming across the water from Isle Of Wight. The latest are a duo, Lily and Lottie by name (plus a semi-secret drummer, obviously), who like all the best bands sound like the most fun. Indeed, with their scrappy, self-aware brassiness to the max backroom punk-pop rhythmic'n'riffy hooky-go-luckiness they fit perfectly into that Nu-Glitter Scene idea we talked at length to ourselves about two years to the week ago. The debut single is less than two minutes long and concerns being too pale and blonde and that being alright by her. It's obviously brilliant, though don't then expect us to wear their 'BIMBO BUTTHOLE TITS' T-shirt in polite company.



Two-Man Giant Squid - I Was A DJ In 2015
They're a Brooklyn post-punk band but don't hold that against them. They've already released two albums in each of the last two years, their third trailed with what we can best describe as Cheekface on DFA Records, arpeggiating, aereated electro plus pointedly sardonic jabs at the EDM scene.