Friday, 30 July 2010

Round up 2

Attention All Departments, the new single by The Winter Olympics is a monster of a song, a pulsating electro, snarling rock beast. It’s ridiculously over the top, especially the vocals, but it has grandiosity its hard not to love. It hunts you down and as you cower in the corner expecting to be beaten, drags you onto the dancefloor. Flipside They Launched A Probe is more bombastic stuff, like a coy indie band having their soul possessed by hard rockers.

Amadou & Mariam release the wonderfully joyous Africa as a download single; accompanied by some fairly pointless and not very different remixes by Bob Sinclar and Radioclit.

The oddly named Life & Times Of have their debut single out as a free download. Ballet falls somewhere between Radiohead and Wild Beasts and on first listens struggles to find its own identity. Greasy Magpie flounders moodily in its own dark corner of the world without achieving much.

For a band formed like so many nowadays under the influence of C86, Young Michelin have taken those inspirations and made something rather lovely, rather than merely aping their forebears. It is chirpy indie pop with a decidedly electro feel, and features words sung in the band’s native tongue of French. Indie poppers of the world get behind Young Michelin. They’ve released one of the best EPs (EP Eponynm) of the year and a decidedly simple and joyous pleasure.

Slumberland have reissued Sound Of The Westway, the sole album from the Swiss all girl group from the eighties, Chin Chin. Pretty much all you need to know if that it’s a shambling delight, and will please fans of The Shop Assistants and The Flatmates.

Finally Fraction Discs release the latest single from Twig. It’s a lush rickety splendour, both Hourglass and Scattered Dreams reminiscent of Edwyn Collins finer solo stuff, with the emphasis on the vocal similarity.


The Winter Olympics single is out now on Office Rock Records

Amadou & Mariam single is out now on Because Music

The Life&Times Of single is out for free download on August 2nd from their website

Chin Chin's album is out now on Slumberland Records

Twig's single is out now on Fraction Discs

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