TV. It’s a big rectangle with light coming from it, but that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter, is that our favourite Psychedelic Furs/The Chameleons tribute influenced act recently performed on it, for one man charisma vacuum Carson Daly, no less. Rather, they did less performing for him and more performing for a packed audience at the El Rey Theatre in L.A. Carson just sort of stands in an abandoned bowling alley, desperately clutching at his plastic sphere in what can only be described as one horrifically lonely man, desperately clinging to his dreams as everything else shuts down around him. Performance wise, The Horrors do that thing where they look down a lot, letting the perpetually leaning Faris Badwan take up all the limelight so they can get busy building those lovely textures in the background and looking cool. They played “I Can See Through You” and a few very brief moments of the sprawling “Endless Blue” before they get ruthlessly cut off by the end credits a couple of minutes in. You can see both of them below, in the order previously mentioned.

Alec

It seems like it was only last year the Jarman brothers found their usually abrasive brand of pop punk pleasantly neutered, thanks to newer older member Johnny Marr’s jaunty janglings. It seems like it was only last year because… well it was. ALOT can happen however within the relatively short space of time that is roughly 365 days, I for instance have started taking 2 sugars in my tea instead of 1. I’m a fucking new person I tell you. For the Wakefield trio though, the new year brought with it a whole host of new ideologies so drastic, the band have somehow warped the space time continuum, aging backwards in some Nothern equivalent of Benjamin Button both in their appearance and sound. First of all Marr is out. Not out in a he’s been secretly meeting up with Moz in seedy hotel rooms the width and breadth of the country in some disgustingly middle aged yet nostagically romantic sense. You’ll have to wait for my Smiths fanfic ”These Things Take Time…And A Room At Travelodge Just Off The M62” for that. He’s just not playing, or pulling this psychotic pose with them anymore. Secondly gone are the measured twinkly soundscapes found on Ignore The Ignorant, in a regression that could seem contrived if it came from anybody else. Or at least that’s the impression given from the above new track, played live for the first time at Japans unfortunatley named Clockenflap festivel (hurr). Chugging its way into The Cribs repertoire as a vintage bridge to their scrappy punk past, Anna hints that the trio are channeling the same aesthetic that they were before they were even considered New Fellas. Gritty scuzz punk guitars and tumbling rolling drums thunder under Gary’s cries of ”And I was only asking, what I knew was right”, framing him as much of a naive romantic as when they were singing ”And I’m learning how to fight
kissing you goodnight, but I still can’t really tell you why I’m blue”. With talks of a double album, a 15 minute track and production by Albini, I don’t think I can put into words how excited I am/you should be for this.

I guess this will have to do.

JT

I came into this post meaning to describe to you in a tediously pointless fashion, the nature and sound of the above track but I’m afraid I got sidetracked by the ambiguous title. Just what is it in Jack White’s cushy Coca Cola funded, Bond Theme branded life that’s putting a halt to his love? Could it be a metaphor for his (sort of) recent break up with long time  musical partner/lady-wife/incestuous lover Meg White? The dull aching pound of his heartbeat yearning to be unified once again with the monotonous high school talent show thud of her drumming? His slow realisation that the metronome with a pair of novelty fake tits superglued to it clicking away in his rehearsal room just isn’t the same, warping his perception of right and utterly, despicably, it must be against my human rights bad so much he blindly walks into a collaboration with Insane Clown Possy. It’s okay Jack, it happens to the best of us. Or does the title refer to that time J-dog caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror mid orgasm and his penis retracted back up into him like a ghostly turtle, terrified at the Tim Burton tinged horror of it all? I guess the only way to find out is to actually listen to the track, something I STILL haven’t done yet. Huh you’d think I was writing for a blog or something.

PREDICTION: Jack’s psuedo scat vocals on Love Interruption sound like The Crazy Cat Lady from The Simpsons with a sinus infection, under which booms some overly under produced hip hop skiffle drumming, scuzzy gutter punk guitars, and a nasally solo that sounds as if an immature sound technician is unplugging his effects pedals at random intervals.

CONCLUSION AFTER LISTENING: I’m a moron.

JT

A long time ago (2009), in a land far away (France), SoKo got all upset with everything, everybody, and every sound she produced, then ran off to go make some more films over in her homeland. It wasn’t all that fun, mostly because I found myself with distressingly low quality recordings of her work and no sign of an album in sight (she shelved it, as discussed here). So what did we, fans of cutesy idiosyncratic folk pop do? Uh, well, nothing. Actually. Just moaned a bit on the internet and carried on with our lives, like any sane human being would do. Not to say we didn’t lose our shit in a incredibly subdued way in August when she broke the news of her forthcoming début album, “I Thought I Was An Alien“, because we absolutely did. No, we’re a crazy bunch, sometimes we put two sugars in our tea. Splendid news, then, because we’ve got an entirely new video for the lovely “First Love Never Die”. Which features some lovely children frolicking around lovely places being all lovely and that, as directed by Soko & Matthew Gray Gubler. You can see it above.

BONUS: Oh, Matthew Gray Gubler, where do I know that name? Oh, wait.

“I Thought I Was An Alien” is being released on 20th of February

Alec

Grand high wizard of the 4th distortion pedal, J Mascis, is going back in time. Initially, to grab as many Dinosaur Jr songs as he can without encountering his younger self and therefore creating a universe ending paradox; and then ultimately drag them, screaming, back to where it all started, the 1980′s.  Whilst there, he’ll partake in the popular 1980′s passtime of ruining fashion, architecture and David Bowie’s career, not to mention re-recording those Dinosaur Jr. tracks in the style of recently fashionable 1980′s synth pop. It’s part of a scheme by The Electronic Anthology Project to presumably deconstruct a bands entrenched stylistic tropes and offer up well known songs in a new light, or something. It’s due to be released on that holiest of days, Record Store Day 2012 (April 21st) on purple vinyl, limited to 500 copies, thus giving Yuck roughly three months to sell their guitars, buy synthesizers and begin the hideous cycle all over again.

Alec

Continuing the fine tradition of bands performing in places where they shouldn’t really be performing, Wild Beasts recently took to a freight elevator in Copenhagen in one final bid to one up every other band on the planet. Whilst there, they embarked on a journey not only to play gorgeously stripped down versions of both “Bed Of Nails” & “Reach A Bit Further” but also to hide their immense sadness behind walls of beige clothing, circular glasses, stupid hats and beards. All of which can be seen in the video’s both above and below courtesy of They Shoot Music (they actually do, you know)

Alec

Whoa-ho-ho there, where do you think you’re going? Step back, spend some time, there’s no rush. Now, a little birdy told me you’ve been ignoring old uncle Yorke, not responding to his texts and refusing to acknowledge his numerous, increasingly desperate voice mails. So what is it? Is it his eye? It’s probably his eye. It is a pretty strange eye, I’ll give you that. Although, it’s not like he’s without his plus points, though. Radiohead do have at least five 9+/10 records, as well as being a pretty formidable bleepy musician in his own right. So please, find some time in your busy, busy schedule to listen to his two latest solo efforts, titled “Stuck Together” and “Twist” respectively. Both of them fit rather comfortably into his cannon of sub-Flying Lotus efforts, which is a bit like saying they’re sub-totally brilliant, in this case, they’re just great. So, you know, get to it.

/information: Both tracks came from a swanky fashion event for equally swanky clothing label Rag & Bone, which means you can’t lay your grubby little mitts on them outside of those YouTube videos directly above. Oh, and that atrocity of an image? Courtesy of DeviantArt, remind yourself never to visit that website.

Alec

Alec

The year of our lord, 2011. Full of music, it were. You probably remember some of it, the fine folks at last.fm do too. They’ve been busy collecting our listening habits in a way which is absolutely not part of a larger plot, one which ultimately leads to our collective mortal demise. So what do the Terminators of the future have to look forward to? Well, judging from their published 2011 statistics, the robot apocalypse will be sound tracked by warbling chubby chubster Adele, who scooped the top spot with a cool 818,395 listeners,  followed not so closely by faux avant-garde mistress Lady Gaga with 460,356 listeners to her name. Who else made the list? Read on, weary traveler.

1 – Adele

2 – Lady Gaga

3 – Foster the People

4 – Britney Spears

5 – Natalia Kills

6 – J. Cole

7 – The Strokes

8 – Foo Fighters

9 – Radiohead

10 – Avril Lavigne

11 – Christina Perri

12 – Fleet Foxes

13 – Coldplay

14 – Incubus

15 – Bon Iver

16 – James Blake

17 – The Vaccines

18 – Beyoncé

19 – Diddy – Dirty Money

20 – The Naked and Famous

Of course, that’s just the tip of the dimly interesting iceberg, you can sort it all by country or genre, which is nice. Alternatively, they’ve got a sexy little infograph showing the biggest news stories of 2011′s musical calender and their effects on musical habits.

Your journey to the center of procrastination starts here

If you were lucky enough to go see LCD’s final euphoric sendoff live, and you happen to be at Sundance 2012 to see this film, you are by far my least favourite human being on the planet. Honestly.

Official website.

Alec