younghusband

For anyone in London’s environs without any plans tomorrow night there are far worse things that you could be doing with your hard earned cash and time than nipping down to the Old Blue Last and checking out new young hopefuls younghusband. Laconic yet light-hearted, driven yet nonchalant, they come across as an amalgamation of tropes, moods and sounds that range from Echo and the Bunnymen to My Bloody Valentine to The Stone Roses to Deerhunter. Definitely one to keep your eye on in future.

Image is from Michele Abeles’ brilliant series Caught In A Secret History. Check out more of his work here.

Add Void’s Ten from 2010#5

Apologies for the long time coming on this mix. Christmas and New Year took a heavy toll on wallets, waistlines and wi-fi connectivity (struggled a bit to keep the alliteration in that), but now we’re back on board the blog bus (whereas that badboy just rolled off the tongue) so saddle up for our remaining six end of year mixes. And please don’t point out that it’s 2011, everyone else has done theirs and that we should be moving on. It’s not helpful. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The last couple of years have seen a dramatic shift in the sound-boards of what we can loosely term ‘indie’ bands. After increasingly weak offerings from the hopefuls of five or six years ago, the jangly, danceable, pseudo-post-punk style has either totally died away or become mollified into radio-friendly, sing-along indie-cum-pop, played as Gaga respite on Mainstream FM. Recently though, the influences of Sonic Youth, Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine and Neu! have become far more prevalent and trends are now veering towards scuzz, dirge, noise and a much more laconic aesthetic. So, without further ado, here’s a selection of some of the best tracks from 2010 that we feel can be loosely categorised in this way. Heads down, eyes shut, enjoy.

Click here to get the tracklisting and to download the mix for keeps.

Photo is from Walker Evans’s Polaroid series, probably some of the most beautiful photographs ever taken. You can find more of them, along with A LOT of other REALLY incredible images at the astoundingly good site, American Suburb X.

Accidental Misogyny

Women played at Cargo last night. They were pretty good. Had that thing where they sound like loads of people but at the same time like none of them. It would now be possible, and it’s often the done thing, to reel off a list of influences or similarities or whatever they are. But when it’s not conducive to conveying their sound or effect it just becomes an academic exercise in proving that the author knows various reference points and therefore has some kind of authority on the subject. Which, in this case, he doesn’t. So where to go from here?

I had a few drinks with friends before the gig and then I had some at the venue before and during the show and I enjoyed the gig and felt elated and saw on the way out that they were selling t-shirts and it’s always nice to get a band t-shirt, not necessarily out of support for the band or as a statement of your cultural preferences, more so that they are quite often interestingly designed, one-off pieces and so I had a look over the ones on sale and they had this one with a blocky, quasi pop art abstract screen print design and I thought, sweet, I’ll have that so I did but when I got it home I realised that it contained the titles of the band and their new album so I now own a t-shirt that says WOMEN – PUBLIC STRAIN and I look like I’ve bought a ‘comedy’ misogynistic t-shirt from Toplad or shit-college-humour.com or wherever else peddles the kind of crap t-shirts that say things like I HEART DRUNK GIRLS or I LOVE EVERY BONE IN A WOMAN’S BODY (ESPECIALLY MINE) or THE MAN (with an arrow pointing upwards), THE LEGEND (with an arrow pointing downwards). I’m not one of those. Honest.

Here are some tracks of theirs. See if you like.

Hunted

New Deerhunter track’s been released as a freebie/thank you for people who did flyering for them round various US cities. Nice gesture, huh? As you’d expect though, this has quickly appeared online so the rest of us who weren’t fortunate to hear about the offer (or who just couldn’t be bothered) still get to listen. Enjoy.