Hazy tunes for a simmered down Sunday afternoon. This playlist features Holiday Murray's (Cape Town) brand new track "Jirey", Small Black's (Brooklyn)"Search Party", Prada's (Cape Town) Lagos, BlackBird BlackBird's (San Francisco) Pure and Cymbals' (London) "idon'tknowwhyyoubother". All the tracks from this mix are either from new upcoming bands or taken from albums released this year. So give them some cyber love. Download each track individually or grab the entire mix here.
Neave is an electro-distorto-pop practitioner based in London town. Influences include (Low era) Bowie, Depeche Mode, 70's Eno, Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, Justice and David Lynch.
For the past two years he's been gigging around London and Berlin building up a strong following in the process.
Click on the down pointing arrow on the right (on the SoundCloud widget) to download the track.
The chaps from Satellite Stories introduce themselves as four satellite heroes from the planet of summery breeze. They draw strong influences from Bangor's Two Door Cinema Club, Liverpool's Wombats and Brooklyn's Vampire Weekend. This is the kind of stuff you'd want to soundtrack your summer holiday. Satellite stories make feel good, happy music, that leaves you wanting more. They're just a few short weeks away from releasing another exclusive track to their followers. So get to know them before they become commercial property.
Location: Oulu, Finland Members: Weather-Satellite (vocals/guitar), TV-Satellite (guitar), Search and Rescue-Satellite (bass/vocals),
Navigation-Satellite (drums)
This is reminiscent of those lazy summer days where the heat forces you to sit inside watching day time TV and feeling lame because mom always taught you to ignore Super Mario and get some fresh air.
It's been 4 weeks and I'm still hooked on this EP (released early September this year). And every time I sit down to write something about it, or try to formulate a reason for why it's a must have, I go blank. But all I know is that I'm crushing on this band Summer Camp real hard. So instead of boring you with a review, I'll leave you with the stats and if so inclined, you can befriend them on facebook or myspace or their blog. And while you're at it download some of their tunes below.
Location: UK Members: Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey Label: Moshi Moshi Sounds Like: Polaroid-pop Band Page: myspace / facebook / blog
It's got vim. It's got vigour. And it's infused with the right amount of new wave and synthpop flavours from the 80's. Enter Detachments' self entitled album. Released in September this year, produced by James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco, and features additional production from Andrew Weatheralland DFA’s (Deutsch - Amerikanische Freundschaft) Tim Goldsworthy.
Dear Client is a four piece band who physically bare the resemblance of a gracefully toned down version of Kings of Leon, with less American and more South African. And I am going to try and ignore the fact that their music, identity and nationality are quite unlike their moniker and simply review their sound they introduce to the world on "Dear Client", their self-entitled EP.
Opener "Foreplay" begins worryingly with a far too familiar guitar and drum jangle, that makes you go "Uhm... I've heard that before", but the track is rescued by Braam's schmindie vocals, who in my opinion has that x-factor thing to it, that says: "I'm far too cool to bother with this whole being in a signed band thing, lets jam!!"
Then comes "Come On Over" the EP's pinnacle, the track that got me interested in the band initially. It starts out with a modest guitar jangle that builds up to a thrashing drum entrance placing the track in a falling tomtom rhythm mode that could easily soundtrack any blissed out modern romance (picture a scene from One Tree Hill). Despite lyrics and all, this track has that "open door policy, you're all welcome" feel to it, just "Come On Over"!
The remainder of the tracks "Dear Client", "Sky is Falling", "Something a Miss" and "Wake Up Slow" does not disappoint either. All the songs flow into each other, and although each track has it's own undertoned individual drive, the EP hangs perfectly together as a whole. Make no mistake, it is evident that Dear Client is still an inexperienced group of guys finding a musical flooring, albeit doing so with extremely rare panache and talent. This EP reflects a band that has found an initial sound to start with, something to built upon with more experience, maturity and time. I hope this sparks more young musicians and artists to try something unique, purely taking stimulation from previous scenes rather than a simple bash and rehash mimicry.
Location: Stellenbosch, Western Cape Members: Braam (rythm guitar and keys), Tinus (lead guitar and backing vocals), Frank (backing vocals), Rudick (drums) Label: Unsigned Band Page: facebook
Here's two new previously unrecorded tracks from the live session for ImprintThisOnYourMind, both of which will feature in a different form on the début album due in 2011.
Big Wave Riders is a four piece band from Helsinki, Finland. They started playing together about 5 months ago, but all the members have been making music for a long time now, in different projects. They describe their sound as new wave slash garage slash shoegaze. Their music is inspired by waves, echoes and experimental rhythms with a touch of electronics ("Republic of the Average" is evident of this).
Currently they're unsigned, but there has been discussions with labels. They're planning on releasing an ep soon and by the sounds of the two tracks below, I'd gladly want more.
Members: Teppo (vocals and guitar), Aleksi (bass), Anssi (guitar and keyboard), Pete (drums) Location: Helsinki, Finland
