SOIWT knows about as much about club soul as it does Finnish achilles specialists: a little more every day, but really, the square root of sod all divided by bugger nothing. Nevertheless, such rock-focused ignorance hasn’t stopped your feckless blogger from stumbling on the latest belter from London MC and producer Donaeo. Riot Music has a hint of reggae about it, and a nice finger-jabbing intensity. The Shy FX mix attached is excellent, but it’s worth checking out Skream!’s more ripped-up take, too.
Monday Music – 15 March 2010
Complete with a new, de-cheesified name, here’s the weekly collection of five songs that’ve made me happy in the past seven days:
Cults – Go Outside
Cults started making blogwaves last week after posting three songs on their Bandcamp page. DI Pitchfork duly investigated, and found out they were a boy-girl NYC duo. They might not have a MySpace page, but the pair [...]
Smoke Fairies
Do you have some memories you keep locked in a box in your brain, only dwelling on them in soft, damp-eyed moments of vulnerability? The music of Smoke Fairies - aka the London duo of Jessica Davies and Katherine Blamire – is imbued with that same spirituality and raw intensity: theirs are aching, beautiful tunes that threaten to explode like fireworks such is the [...]
The Heartbreaks come to London
Manchester fourpiece The Heartbreaks are playing a couple of London shows as March turns to April, giving SOIWT all the excuse to need to flag them up. They play atmospheric, pretty rock-pop songs that encourage eye-closing and giddy feelings. Each one’s fast, but never overly intense or complicated; the most notable touch is Matthew’s expressive vocals, capable of both [...]
Victoria & Jacob
You know that interlude between being asleep and waking up? If an alarm clock has its way this fuzzy period lasts only a few seconds, but otherwise it can stretch for minutes – a bleary, confused and cosy episode where you try and cling to your dreams. And here’s the perfect soundtrack for those slow mornings: Victoria & Jacob’s blissful chill-out pop, combining electronic ripples and [...]
The Do or Dies
When you look at it from afar, life’s a blurry series of disparate moments, random paces, ups and downs, drama after drama, with the occasional moment of peace, of blessed content. The Do or Dies‘ Maps & Plans is much like that: it’s various sections eventually leading to a blissful, dreamy crest, but they only last so [...]
Yuck – Georgia
What is it with beguiling, surname-less women and besotted upcoming London bands? First Al Cool & The Stranger Wines perved on lost love Celine, and now here’s Yuck (with members from Hiroshima and New Jersey as well as London) trying to empathise with a lady called Georgia. They do so via a slice of bouncy punk that’s like a giddy wave of euphoria you know is only temporary, like a [...]
Proud’s Save 6 Music night
While desperately sad at the imminent closure of BBC 6 Music (everyone seems to be handling BBC Asian’s demise much better) – and the absence of a Sunday night spent listening to weird and wonderful Mexican flute rock or Japanese tango, of a radio station daring enough to play daring new music, and of non-cringeworthy live sets [...]
Did Lovebox get cool?
That’s the question on the chapped lips of Londoners at the moment, and it’s so urgent an issue than SOIWT is going to address it right bloody now.
Y’see, once upon a time Lovebox was a Victoria Park festival one relied on for chart-friendly dance music (Mylo), middling indie bands whose better days had long passed (Super Furry [...]
Hot New Music – 8 March 2010
My weekly collection of randomly chosen tracks – some new, some less so – is about all I’ve managed for the past fortnight. Apologies for the relative quietness; all should be livelier as of now. Here’s this Monday’s quintet:
Weird Tapes – The Walking Dead
A old song from when Dayve Hawke – a man who is to SOIWT’s ear [...]