Montage Populaire’s demo is an inventive, eclectic affair. A DIY gem, swinging from frisky indie pop (Break up the band) to the Super Furries / Roxy Musicisms of the track we have for you to download. It’s all good though - really excellent mish-mash songwriting a la Fiery Furnaces with no irritating bits.
This past weekend brought the second festival of 2009 for Another Form of Relief. It was a local festival, but one that I never intended on going to given it’s ludicrous £125 ticket cost. Seemingly others thought the same, given ticket sales struggled to such a degree that they were giving £250 of tickets away with £10 items via a clothing store. So, one Kangaroo Poo beach towel later and I had guestlist access to two days of live music. Not too shabby.
Junior year of college I assembled a mighty mixtape of Welsh pop music for a final paper in a British Contemporary Culture class. Bands like McLusky, Super Furry Animals and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci cozied up next to Tom Jones and Charlotte Church. I published it on iTunes and no one but my parents downloaded it. They loved it! Had I heard the 60s psych pop of El Goodo at the time however, they would have easily had a home on said mixtape. But not just because they're Welsh—below are some of the most well-crafted throwback jams I've heard in ages.
I was happy to hear that Super Furry Animals are coming back with another new album. These guys have made solid music for years now, and I see no reason why their new album should be any different. Today I received an email from Rough Trade Records, and it appears this new album will be available even sooner than I thought- Monday! Here’s what they said:
SFA’s brand new album Dark Days/Light Years will be performed in its entirety on Monday March 16th,
at Noon PST/3pm EST/8pm UK time in an exclusive ‘once only screening’ gigcast hosted at superfurry.com
filmed in conjunction with MusicBox, Cardiff, and graduate filmmakers from Central
St Martins College, London.The album is available to buy immediately as a download from the start of the gig on Monday!
They’ve also provided a song as a preview titled “Inaugural Trams,” which I’ve put below. As expected, it’s another great, yet quirky, pop song to add to the collection. Now I have a reason to look forward to Monday…
When I saw Los Campesinos! at the Paradise a few months ago, singers Gareth and Aleksandra walked right past me, and I remember thinking “how can they let those children in here!” Like the excellent Eastern Lane, or The Wombats (who recently passed through TTs), Los Campesinos! show us that the young have taken over (again).
RECORD BREAKER: Today’s entry begins in myth and ends in reality. It’s a story that starts about a decade ago… I once heard a story that Super Furry Animals were deeply annoyed that their 1999 release, Guerrilla, wasn’t supported strongly enough by their label. According to the popular myth - the band had believed that with the proper push, that record was sure to rocket them to superstardom. As it turned out, the record earned them loyal fans but not the global audience they sought.
As the story goes - Super Furry Animals became a bit disillusioned with the music industry ( - certainly cynical with the business side of things.) This led them to record their next release (and the first free of their contract with Creation), Mwng, entirely in Welsh. Super-creative, but hardly radio-friendly.
Photos from a recent FOE gig - a friend of our friends Hold Your Horse Is - she’s gonna be big!!! Read the gig review after the jump.
Shots of North Carolina’s folk-rocking Avett Brothers’ stop in Glasgow - 22.08.11
Read the review of the gig here.
Take a look at the acts and art on offer at this year’s Latitude Festival in Suffolk. Included are the likes of Fight Like Apes, Lykke Li, Sea of Bees and Seasick Steve. Photos from our own...
Good time with Bad Guys. Photos from the May 29th gig at the Old Blue Last. Read the review by the Bad Guy himself, Stuart London after the jump.
Artrocker.com exclusive: for fans of White Lies and Crocodiles we’ve got some fresh pictures from their UK show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier this month, courtesy of Alessandro...
Follow us on
twitter here