Islet & Gentle Friendly @ The Lexington

There’s an absolutely storming gig coming up in a couple of weeks, courtesy of the wonderful people at ATP. They’ve managed to get probably the two most exciting, interesting and genre-defying up-and-coming bands currently playing in the UK both onto the same bill. Top marks chaps.

To see why we like them so much here’s a short selection of their more recent tracks (as well as a few older videos, just because we think they’re great). Hopefully you’ll feel the same way too. And hopefully we’ll see you at the Lexington on the 16th of November.

ISLET:

GENTLE FRIENDLY (including three track from their brand new EP):

Image is by Adria Canameras.

Wooden Shjips – Lazy Bones

Agh. Check out this bat-shit-mental pop collage/analogue distortion video by Black Dice (reminiscent of the brain-melting set they put on at ATP in May this year; memories I’d forgotten I had). The song is called Lazy Bones and is taken from Wooden Shjips’ absolutely brilliant recent album West, out now on Thrill Jockey.

Image is by Sam Falls.

Omar S – High School Graffiti

Possibly one of my favourite moments of this year was at the Animal Collective-curated ATP festival back in May. The first two days seemed to sweep past in a maelstrom of bright lights, penetrative noise, intense consumption and repeatedly losing everyone I was with – basically a bit of a heady blur. But then near the end of the second night something cleared; the fog lifted, the waves parted and the way ahead was revealed to me in all its glittering glory. The stunning simplicity of Omar S’ particular brand of Detroit House came as an absolutely perfect mini-antidote to the excesses of what had gone before, and the hour spent dancing with all my mates in a room with sticky carpets, usually dedicated to Chesney Hawkes and Bon Jovi, was a particularly fine moment indeed. I also got to meet Liz Harris, aka Grouper, which was great (love you Liz!).

Now, thanks to the lovely chaps at Scion Audio, you can partake in some of my remembered merriment too. All for the modest sum of zero pounds and zero pence. That’s right, it’s free!

DOWNLOAD HERE

Image is a sculptural installation by John Isaacs. JFGH.

Entropy

ATP have recently put together a youtube playlist of videos by all the bands that are playing at the Animal Collective curated festival at Minehead this May. It’s a pretty great line-up and there are a lot of really nice videos on there, not to mention this one, by Finnish electronic experimenter, Vladislav Delay:

This reminded me of a series of films currently on exhibit at the the fantastic online film gallery, Animate Projects, entitled Lapse. As well as being a set of mysterious and mesmerising films, the project comes at a symbolic moment in time, as the cleaver of Conservative cuts has recently fallen onto Animate Projects’ digital neck, leaving them to soon lapse into obscurity. And so it seems, unlike the manipulated reality of Vladislav’s reforming ice cubes, we are all doomed to entropy…

Image is by our old fave Walker Evans.

Follow my videos on vodpod

Deradoorian – High Road (Tanlines Remix)

Not content with being in a wildly successful, genre-defying, chamber pop sextet, Dirty Projectors’ Angel Deradoorian has decided that she’d like to have a go at being a solo artist too. The results haven’t always hit the heights of her collaborative endeavours, but the recent re-release of her 2009 EP, Mind Raft, has seen a couple of remixes added to the five tracks that received a roundly muted response upon their original release last May.

One of these remixes has thrown up an absolute gem; Tanlines taking the soaring vocals and close harmonising, that have become a hallmark of Deradoorian’s work with the DPs, and giving it an 80s R&B rework, complete with haunting synths and a razor sharp analogue drum machine line.

The result is a masterful example of a slow burning pop song, more emotive and driving than its original and hopefully a combination we’ll be treated to again.