I Blame Coco - How Did All These People Get in My Room

Your ska, pop-hit for the pending DOOM of autumn. I’m glad this song will never be tinged with summer memories, it’s more than just hot, and does more than pop with humidity–it’s an indoors sort of tune, but r&b gives you much room and groove for dancing. The tune where a big cup of tea is the preferred hangover cure: not a picnics in the park or lunch-time hair of the dog. But it still parties, doesn’t yawn, runs to the door in the rain.

Download at myspace.com/iblamecoco

Hat & cap-tip to Rosecrans Baldwin.

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Magic Arm covers Serge Gainsbourg as a B-side for his forthcoming single. Magic Arm was featured NBGL back at the start of 2007.

MP3: Magic Arm - The Ballad Of Melody Nelson

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Slow Club’s new EP is out today. I just bought it, and so should you. Go and check out Slow Club at myspace, or touring around the UK and Europe this autumn.

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Somethings that I love: Live music, folk music, cider. Something I’ll be doing in November: tour blogging every night of the Magners Irish Sessions Tour featuring Irish folk musicians. Offers of fellow cider-drinkers, lodgings are welcome. The ’secret’ launch gig is on Monday 8th in London.

http://www.myspace.commagnersirishsessions

Photo credit: Good_Day

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What would you prefer: One long entry a week, or this sort of entry split & spread through-out the week?

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Pens
MP3: Freddie

Chugging through garage distortion, and a steamy haze of treble and tonal riffs. For fans of Times New Viking. Anticipate a great live show.

http://www.myspace.com/penspenspenis

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Sky Larkin
MP3: Molten

Sky Larkin, alongside Los Campesinos and Slow Club, have been one of the new British bands I’ve been following for a few years, always enjoying their live show, and their new material. Since 2006 then they’ve played with Broken Social Scene, finished school, and churned out tunes that just about replaced a Sleater-Kinney shaped hole, a theme continued with Molten. Now they’ve signed to Wichita Records, recorded an album in the States and will being play dates in the U.S, and tour with Conor Oberst in Europe.

http://www.myspace.com/skylarkinskylarkin

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New British music elsewhere:

New Los Camps at Pitchfork. “some rougher guitars and abrupt time changes that might’ve been jarring on the album, it’s not bad at all for an outtake.”

New Slow Club over at their myspace in prep for a new EP release. Slow Club are all of my best-friends’ favourite band, and mine.

Said The Gramophone shares ‘Y’all is a fantasy islands: “it’s the guitar-line that marks your brain, colours your day, sends you humming a scale to yourself while you wait in line at the fruit-stand” YIAFI are from Scotland.

Chris over at Gorilla Vs Bear also digs Arch M, posting the track I didn’t, but it is as just as good as ‘Cat Grave’ which I wrote about last week. Chris says “it plays out like the theme to an all-too-short ethereal dream sequence.”

New Franz Ferdinand isn’t all that. Move along.

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The Morning News have relaunched their cultural coverage, ‘Digest,’ in a blog format.

I will be writing two or three blog entries each week for their ‘listening’ category. Recently I have written about the music of Burial (and my adventures in NYC), Shugo Tokumaru and James Blackshaw; entries will be appearing throughout the week.

So go and read the Digest Blog if you want to keep informed, enjoy superb writing and find about about some fantastic books in the ‘reading’ section–one of the blog’s strongest point.

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You can should email me at mike@nothingbutgreenlights.net with new British music and freelance work which I am now available to take.

[Photo credit: Onnufry and Michael Ronquillo]

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Spolkestra
MP3: Soil

Pop music mined in the Broken Social Scene vein. Scottish-folkster speed-jazz? Sure. It’s paced for the marathon, and glides in and out of caves in search of brass and freshly cut grass to roll around in.

The new album, being recorded in India (apparently) will (apparently) feature contributions from Final Fantasy, Deerhunter, Jarvis Cocker in 2009. Expect big things.

myspace.com/scotlandpagans

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Arch M
MP3: Cat Grave

Is this what dubstep did to Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys’ legacy? Dragged the summer out so that it lasts seven seasons? All the plants will die! Lofi-pop from that seventh season.

Arch M’s EP is free to download. myspace slash archm

Recent driving to the beach music that was successful and forced the sun out, as Arch M did.

Miracle Fortress
Throw Me The Statue
Quiet Village

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The Great British Tune-Up: What the rest of music blog world are saying about UK music…

Johnny Foreigner gets props in the Said The Gramophone mailbag: “Like instd of thnkng of witty twee songtitls they focusd on BEING AWSOME.”

Emperor Machine: “the sound of headless horsemen advancing through the avenues of London menacing like a squad of Victorian nazgul leaving a trail of jinxed traffic lights on their wake to eventually arrive at their final destination”: 20 Jazz Funk Greats share the psychedelic… something.

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip played one of my gigs of the year, they take their show to North America for 20 dates this autumn. Go and listen to “Look for the Women” for rapping with Art Brut smarts and hip-hop BEATS.

Also:
MP3: Bat For Lashes - A Forest (from Perfect As Cats: a tribute to The Cure)

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Sleepingdog is Belgian, not British. Justification for posting non-British music: Belgium won’t be a country soon says New York Times. Don’t worry. No problem. We’ll take you in Belgium, but you must bring all of your musicians and beer with you. We’ll pay for the ferry.

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Photo credit: Theointarifa

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Hands on Heads
MP3: New Fiction

Hands on Heads have a split record out with The Sticks. The latter have clipped riffs, and guitar-wailing blues, but our current charge prefer something a little less low-key. Don’t take a breath or you’ll be get left behind: swim across the river, beat the obstacle course and run down the mountain. But God’s sake–don’t stop. Hands on Heads play with speed and dice with death in this tune balancing complete freedom and a unidirectional force: it sou: but when every word can be heard and this tempo is completely neccessary then that’s fine by me.

myspace.com/handsonheads

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Amongst finish dozens of things, visiting many places, saying goodbyes, hellos, I have written a couple of pieces for The Mornings News. The two mp3 digests feature music released in the last few weeks.

You can listen to a muxtape of the 10 tracks I choose, rather than downloading every track. And then read the reviews of Poni Hoax, the Hold Steady, Dr. Dog, Julie Doiron, and Broken Social Scene from 23rd July. And then you could always read the reviews of Beck, Bodies of Water, Paavoharju, the Flemish doing Abba, and Micah P. Hinson that I wrote for the 9th July edition.

Keep tuned to The Morning News for my writing. Every weekday I contribute to the headlines section: you don’t need to watch the news or read the papers when you can read Headlines.

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Mogwai are back. And Mogwai are good! The Sun Smells Too Loud can be heard over at The Listening Post: Guitar magic for the summer’s sunrises.

Slow, stark and bassy dub-step album preview over at Gorilla Vs Bear from the streets of London: digital bleeps and laser noise reverberates and echoes: it’s hardly comforting, but it’s ripe for still and hot nights.

The Crimea used a few blogs (including this one), to distribute exclusive b-sides after being dropped from their label, and giving their album away for free. It doesn’t seem to have done them any harm as they head out on a 10-date US tour, Brooklyn Vegan tell us.

I was recently in Brooklyn and was privileged enough to attend a Palms Out Sounds rooftop party. The finest purveyor of remixes, P.O.S is one of the best mp3 blogs out there, and they are all awesome people, who also have a label. Because that’s what mp3 blogs do: let music fans release records, and let people who had never done it before (Mr Palms Out) go around the world DJing. They share a lot of UK music, so if you want to dance: check them out.

Posting has been a little bit light as I spent a long time last weekend/ week putting together the mp3 digest for The Morning News: Go and see what I had to say about recent releases by Beck, Bodies of Water, Paavoharju, a Flemish Abba cover, and the fantastic Micah P. Hinson. MP3s of all the tracks are available.

Photo credit: Fortphoto

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