Lulu & The Lampshades – Feet To The Sky

The duo that are Heloise and Luisa form Lulu & The Lampshades and this is their debut single. Feet To the Sky skips along like The Divine Comedy’s National Express powering some kook pop, like Regina Spektor. Its very cool and quirky but you can’t help feel we’re being spoilt in this genre at the moment. It ebbs and flows and tinkles like some out there nursery rhyme. Rose Tint is more of the same, entirely laudable but nothing to get me incredibly excited.

Feet To The Sky is released by Voga Parochia digitally on October 18th and on 7" on October 26th

Lulu & The Lampshades myspace is here

The Humdrum Express – The New Doctor Who EP

The one man Humdrum Express steams into town with a new EP. The rickety sound of the title track harks back to the days of C86, but one of the clattering lesser lights like McCarthy. This is intended as a compliment, and a refreshing change from the others influenced by that era, who are fey to a fault. Message Board Hooligan appropriately manoeuvres through the shadows deftly, delivering a minimal haunting chorus. The snot nosed Dumbing Down For The Masses is a scatter punk broadside at modern celebrity culture, despatched in two minutes, about the attention span of people today. Finally Carry On Curmudgeon is an excursion into dub lite expertly done. The New Doctor Who EP shows an artist broadening his repertoire further and getting better with age.

The New Doctor Who EP is out now and available to buy here
The Humdrum Express myspace is here

Golden Silvers – Please Venus

In which Golden Silvers follow their True Romance album by picking up the torch dropped by the Super Furry Animals, delivering a superbly languid piece of sunshine liquid funk. There are squiggles of other wordly synth, Beatles harmonies and less is more victory. Lily The Lover is where electro pop meets stuttering industrial and Christmas tunes. Rather odd, but nicely affecting and a great anti-chorus. Locked Up My Head is straight forward disco funk, with a pulsing beat. You still can’t help but be reminded of Gruff Rhys, but that’s mainly the vocals. Queen Of The 21st Century is fun, harmonic leftfield pop, a buoyant tune showing Golden Silvers more straight forwardly melodic side.

The EP is out now. Golden Silvers myspace is here

Dear Landlord – Our Wings Are Fluttering In The Nest

Dear Landlord is primarily Michael Docherty, based in Oxford, plus a rotating cast of assembled players. Snowdrift is more like the pleasurable rinky dink of old, mainly because a much rougher version appeared on the last EP. This one is much more restrained but much better for it, with a sly nod to Kanye West at the end. I often find myself reminded of the rambunctious old Dylan when he kicks free when I listen to Dear Landlord. Maybe this is the inherent folk stylings, the bunches of instruments melding into one gorgeous whole. Identical Hearts is a measured thing, initially reminiscent of the Go-Betweens studied but unaffected cool. It’s a marked move on from the frantic tunes of the previous EP, even when the trumpet makes the melody throw its head back and arc upwards in triumph. It’s a slow burning beauty. Steve Goodman sounds like a fleshed out Lonnie Donegan to start with, before stretching out into probably the most happy and best track here. It’s joyous, yelling and sounds like a wheeling band at the best hoe down in the world.

The EP is out now and available from the band, here

Basement Jaxx – Scars

This is certainly the album of the guest artist. This may be true of previous Basement Jaxx albums, but I’m coming in fresh to their long players, and can’t be bothered to look back. Kelis and Chipmunk crop up on the opening title track, a weird pulsating thing that sounds like some otherwordly Guinness advert soundtrack. Raindrops is the cracking lead single that you’ve probably heard already, a euphoric rush of a chorus, tinkling and raving it to the sky, a festival anthem if ever there was one. She’s No Good is a decent funky number featuring the vocal talents of Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed, but is really one of his numbers with them assisting. Saga features Santigold for some average ska and Sam Sparro pops by to flex his vocal chords on a pumping dance tune. Twerk features Yo Majesty and is a hip-hop meets dance thing, squelchy and with bits of Maniac in it. There’s a little too much going on, but it’s a fun effort. Day Of The Sunflowers is as wonderfully ice cool robotic electro pop as you’d expect of a tune featuring Yoko Ono, while What’s A Girl Gotta Do is the Muppet Show theme versus latter period Noisettes. After a couple of nondescript noodles we finish with the afro funk cool groove of Gimme Somethin’ True. Scars is as eclectic as ever, with a few targets hit dead centre.

Scars is released by XL Recordings on September 21st
Basement Jaxx website is here

Golden Glow – Adore Me

Uh-oh, here’s someone else who wants to be Joy Division. In this case it is Golden Glow, who are one Pierre Hall. Adore Me is a decent little tune, but one that wants too much to be someone else for it not to annoy a little, especially as the vocals don’t live up to the music. The Cure is a disappointing trudge through the eighties alternative style, although Streetlighter is better, this time aping early New Order awkwardness. Hopefully next time the influences will be absorbed into something new, not just reproduced.

Adore Me is out now for free download at Spanner Records website, here
Golden Glow myspace is here

Secret Rivals – Break Song / Get Famous

The first thing in a while from to be sent to me from the Oxford underground, Break Song is Secret Rivals debut offering. It summons up the Wedding Present’s flailing guitars, yelped backing vocals and at times sounds like a frenzied version of Lost In The Supermarket by The Clash. It’s a shame it’s fairly badly recorded, but the spirit sees it through. Flip side Get Famous sounds like Bis taking on the Huggy Bear manifesto. It’s the better of the two tracks because it suits the lo-fi recording and careers wonderfully all over the shop.

The single is out now and available as a free download from the band's myspace page here

Olafur Arnalds – Found Songs

This is a collection of 7 songs composed in 7 days and previously issued as free downloads via Twitter. Erla’s Waltz is a maudlin piano piece that ebbs and flows gently. Raein plods by, sounding very like Chopin, or so I’m told by my wife. Romance passes by, in the twinkling of an eye, while Allt vard hljott is an arcing sumptuousness of strings, like the sadness of the princess locked in the tower. Lost Song is another maudlin beauty, although there is a certain amount of repetition creeping in now amongst the songs. Faun is a tip toeing medieval elegy, as downbeat as normal, but different in tone. Ljosid finishes things off in predictable, but lovely fashion. If you’re an Olafur fan, there’s much to love here.

Found Songs is out now on Erased Tapes
Olafur Arnalds myspace is here

Richmond Fontaine – We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River

As Richmond Fontaine reach their eighth album, the quality shows no signs in letting up. The lead and title track is languid and world weary, managing to sound even more brow beaten than Lambchop. Despite this it has a certain self assuredness albeit with a sombre lyrical tone. It’s always upbeat despite sounding downbeat in the worse of times before giving in and being finally broken by a specific incident. The rollicking come back letter of You Can Move Back Here would entice even the most hardy of souls back home, and the gentle slightly Mexican military waltz of The Boyfriends is a tale of a lady’s male companions that pass in the night. It’s another of Willy’s wonderful mini stories in a song. The Pull is a gentle and sombre tale of a poor guy, an alcoholic, then a boxer, who couldn’t cope with things taken away from him, no matter how harmful they were to him. He moves from one thing to the next, a gorgeous twinkling tune charting his undulating, mainly downward progress. Watch Out is a delicate near instrumental, tugging on your heart strings with merely a divine tune and the only words “watch out or your heart will be nothing but scars”. 43 is a rambling and rolling song that sounds like storm clouds gathering, the perfect music for a song about broken lives and broken homes. Lonnie is a staggering and brooding thing about a retch of a man while Ruby & Lou is a mumbly and downbeat thing, maudlin strings tugging on your heart. Past the intricate twinkling instrumental Walking Back To Our Place At 3 A.M. we get to the tumultuous and stormy Two Alone. A Letter To The Patron Saint Of Nurses bring things right down, a spoken word musing on more lives and a fitting end to another great Richmond Fontaine album.

We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River is out now on Decor Records
Richmond Fontaine myspace is here

David Gibb – The Oxfordshire Brigade

David Gibb is very much a young man’s Frank Turner, but with a much more trad folk edge. He’s an 18 year old hailing from Derbyshire with talent beyond his years. We like the multi vocalled euphoric choruses, the string laden breaks and the breakneck tune. It’s spirited and upbeat and tells the tale of a boy and an angel falling in love in a small place in Oxfordshire, which means that its lyrically far more interesting than half the stuff nowadays. Very good stuff indeed.

The Oxfordshire Brigade is released on Fuse Records on September 21st
David Gibb myspace is here

Searching For The Now vol. 6

Here we find The School covering Left Banke’s Suddenly, Liz’s exquisite voice wending its way along a sweet sashaying tune. It’s still very sixties and knowingly beautiful, landing somewhere between BMX Bandits and an Australian soap theme, but managing to be the right side of the brilliant/rubbish line. George Washington Brown sees the return of Kenickie’s Johnny X, and End Of The… is rather like his old band covered in swathes of stadium filling power pop and fizzing synth noises. Twin Towers isn’t quite as good, but becomes progressively more catchy as it goes on, being reminiscent of Velvet Crush or Redd Kross but with a touch more of the subtle.

Searching For The Now vol. 6 is out now on Slumberland Records

Searching For The Now vol. 5

Following on from their wonderful debut album, Liechtenstein release something new from the more twee end of their cannon. This Must Be Heaven is all rushing guitar and angelic girly vocals. It’s essentially Talulah Gosh, but pretty darn good so we’ll let them away with it. Better stuff however, can be found on said album, Survival Strategies In A Modern World. The Faintest Ideas get two tracks, the first of which, You're Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You’ve Been Lying On, is really more a wave of feedback burying a decent tune. I’m guessing from trying to tune the feedback out that it might be something like early Wedding Present, but its too overwhelming to be sure. Feedback and effects have their place, just not here. The band should have a little more confidence in their tunes. Oddly enough, Procrastination Of Every Day Tasks proves this point. There is a little of The Weddoes in there, maybe some of The Bodines gorgeous pop craft, but mainly it’s a sweet little song with a tough edge lurking in there.

Searching For The Now vol. 5 is out now on Slumberland Records

The Wookies – Sparks

The Wookies new EP is a weird and wonderful beast. In The Forest has a chanted opening, some hacking guitar that eventually settles down and is overlapped by a mantra. There are some groovy blues riffs as the tune takes off; it’s a rabble rousing thing that reminds me of a dark version of The Jam. How Good Does It Feel? is a bumptious, beery sing along, surfing some effervescent keyboards. It slows down to a noodly jazzy thing, which just has the feeling of making it overlong. Doomsday is a weird thing, all mysteriously brooding and medieval, like Muse with a bit more class and less histrionics. There are chanted lyrics and twinkly bits that intersperse the song wonderfully. Daylight cuts swathes of drama through a rumbling gothic landscape, the low bass swaggering as the singer goes psychotic, into a living nightmare. Cool stuff indeed.

Sparks is released on Broken Tail Records on September 21st
The Wookies myspace is here

Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring – How I Wasted My Youth

The album opens with the sly bosa nova of Take Your Own Good Advice, a sultry little number that slithers away in a psychedelic atmosphere. Old single A Question Of Trust is an achingly beautiful pop song, with strung out heartfelt vocals, which is swiftly followed by another in the form of New Favourite Band. The twinkling Interlude provides a rather lovely diversion while Record Breaker is another whimsical ditty, more an angelic sigh than a song, delightfully understated and gorgeous. By the choral Fire Eyes you realise they might be onto a very English version of Fleet Foxes, the same blissful vibe, but coming from a different musical angle. I Saw The Lights Go Out is a jaunty little number, while A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away is a headrush of smiley indie pop. My Big Test starts a little heavier, then the careful croon comes in and it saunters around spreading goodwill and casual cool. Finally we reach The End, a Richard Hawley style maudlin mantra and a great end to a rather fine album.

How I Wasted My Youth is released on 10th August jointly by Strange Torpedo Records and Marketstall Records
Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring myspace is here

The Champagne Socialists – Blue Genes

This is the single on which The Royal We and Bricolage, Glasgow and LA collide. Blue Genes may have the ramshackle clattering charm of The Shop Assistants, but the vocals are buried deep in the mix and decidedly murky. Admittedly this wasn’t necessarily a strong point of the Shop Assistants, but somehow it distracts and detracts too much from the song here. It’s a darn shame, because there’s a good song in there somewhere. The Young Runaways suffers similar problems, there’s some sublime pop going on here, somewhere between sixties girl pop and C86. Better next time not to record the vocalist with her head down the toilet though.

Blue Genes is out now on Slumberland Records
The Champagne Socialists myspace is here