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Another Girl Another Planet

Thoroughly pretentious, thoroughly enjoyable 90s PXL-Vision hipster indiefest.


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4th Jun 2015

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Trailer Park: Trouble With The Curve

After his supposed retirement/hiatus Clint Eastwood is back in front of the camera, being directed by someone else for the first time since In The Line of Fire. Looks alright too.

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10th Aug 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Promo Promo: Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man In The Universe

OK, as far as promo videos go, this is just a picture of Bobby Womack in an astronaut suit - but then again, it's BOBBY WOMACK IN AN ASTRONAUT SUIT. Damon Albarn produced album out on XL in June

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4th May 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

Song Of the day: Jai Paul - Jasmine

sleepy new tune from Jai Paul, out on XL, the long-awaited follow-up to BTSU

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31st Mar 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Trailer Park: Prometheus (again)

Looks epic. Makes you realise no one has done good sci-fi with decent actors and a script for a while... Only downside so far is Luther's dodgy Texan accent.

Totally different vibe international trailer here. Another IMAX trailer here. Viral clue here. Ridley & Lindelof Q&A here.

Via AICN, who note the similarity to the original Alien trailer.

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18th Mar 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

MPFree: Bobby Womack

Following on from their work with Gil Scott Heron, XL are releasing a new Bobby Womack album, with Damon Albarn and label boss Richard Russell here's a taster: Please Forgive My Heart

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9th Mar 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Promo Promo: LCD Soundsystem vs Franz Ferdinand

Promo up for LCD Soundsystem's cover of Franz Ferdinand's Live Alone. Must have been payback for that All My Friends version Franz Ferdinand put out.

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20th Dec 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Dischord on Spotify

Attention skate-punkers. Ever wondered what that obscure Fugazi track on the 20 Years of Dischord compilation is? (It's good!) Or whether the second Evens album was any better than the first? (No!) Dischord now have their extensive catalogue on Spotify, giving you easy access to Fugazi, Minor Threat, French Toast, Dag Nasty and dozens of others ...so you can listen for yourself.

Some personal recommendations: Egg Hunt and Embrace (both awesome post-Minor Threat, pre-Fugazi Ian Mackaye bands)

Open In Spotify

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19th Apr 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Promo Promo: Tyler The Creator - Yonkers

new bug-eating vid from the latest XL signing

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24th Feb 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Cruise Missile To Go

An enterprising Russian company seems to be attempting to solve the age-old problem of how to conveniently move your cruise missiles around without the unwieldy bulk of an aircraft carrier. Their solution is a not-quite-pocket-sized shipping container - catchily titled the 'Club-K'.

It's not too clear how far in development this is, but it's far enough along to warrant the handy graphic simulation that the company have produced (above). No big worry though, Venezuela and Iran are the only countries to have so far professed an interest.

Maybe we need to get Jack Bauer of of retirement already.

Via Telegraph via NYTimes

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30th Apr 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

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2010! New Decade! New Stuff!

yup, another random set of arbitrarily assigned numbers has rolled over and so it's time to look forwards and get excited about some new stuff...

Gil Scott Heron - I'm New Here as you'll see from the video above, the mighty Gil Scott Heron is back with an excellent set of new songs for XL (including a Smog cover on the title track!). Voice like a mountain.

Midlake - The Courage Of Others More melancholia, stripped-down, low-key folkrock from the Midlakers. Think this is going to find its way into a lot of chimp top tens at the end of the year.

Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back can't wait to hear what he's done with Paul Simon's Boy In The Bubble

Herbert - One One/One Pig/One Club A trilogy of new albums from the Accidentalista - one's a solo effort ("hot like a house on fire!"), one's made up from a pig and one's from a night in a club - think it's going to be 3/3 for this lot, and he's also producing albums for Eska, Rowdy Superstar and Barbara Panther

Vampire Weekend - Contra more songs about punctuation and fonts? who could resist? 

Beach House - Teen Dream nice'n'woozy Flaming Lipsy rock

Washed Out - not sure what's coming out when exactly, but this Polaroidy valium pop is great

Nurse Jackie BBC2, Monday 4 Jan - Edie Falco returns as a junkie nurse, looks v good

Glee E4 11 Jan - v campy high school musical, but it's a lot of fun too. Don't! Stop! Beleeeeiving!

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3rd Jan 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Gil-Scott Heron

Suitably mysterious website up for Gil-Scott Heron's forthcoming new album - I'm New Here - out next year on XL.

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15th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Monsters of Folk Folks On Tour

The Monsters of Folk (AKA Jim James, Bright Eyes & M. Ward) are heading out on tour to support their forthcoming album - and that will include European dates. Tickets on sale July 27th.

2009 Europe

11-12 Stockholm, Philadelphia Church
11-14 Berlin, Huxleys Neue Welt
11-15 Copenhagen, Vega
11-17 London, Troxy
11-18 Paris, Elysee Montmartre
11-19 Koln, E-Werk
11-21 The Hague, Crossing Border
11-22 Antwerp, Crossing Border

 

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24th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Horrors

Primary Colours

XL Recordings

What The Horrors first album Strange House alluded to and what Primary Colours only serves to confirm is that The Horrors are in essence a pastiche band - begging, borrowing and stealing from rock n roll’s history and then repackaging and re-releasing. Re-invention should not be considered a criticism, but you could easily have expected Primary Colours to be more of the same, a method Oasis have been executing for well over 15 years. In fact, Primary Colours is very different to its predecessor, slower, measured - and where Strange House took the Goth punk of The Cramps and blended it with the sixties psychedelic weirdness of acts such as Screaming Lord Such, the influences running through this LP are altogether different.

On hearing the introduction of opening track Mirror Image, your first reaction may be that you’ve been given the wrong album. Where are the gothic organ sounds and sixties surf bass-lines? Here you’ll hear phasing, pitch-bending distortion; and may assume you have been handed a lost My Bloody Valentine album in error. Vocalist Farris Badawan’s first appearance confirms it’s the right record - but even then his performance resembles Brett Anderson with slightly larger testicles; gone is the aggressive scowl that dominates Strange House. Unfortunately this doesn’t end with the first track and while the My Bloody Valentine motif runs through most of the album, this is unfortunately no Loveless. More like a cheap market version of MBV, doing remixes of other bands: The Cure on Mirror Image, The Psychedelic Furs on Primary Colours, or Siouxsie and the Banshees on I Can’t Control Myself.

What is lacking from Primary Colours is the energy, the aggression, the uncontained vocals and the simple but effective musicianship of Strange House. No band has an obligation to be defined by genre and it would be wrong to demand it (although I‘m tempted to say any band employing the Madchester drum break employed in Do You Remember has no right to call themselves The Horrors, EMF yes, The Charlatans maybe, The Horrors no). What disappoints most is, while they were never going to be the most original band, they were at least unique. Strange House wasn’t perfect, but it was different and refreshing, best of all it sounded like the antithesis to the entire rolling basslined, high-keyed anthems that were and are still dominating the current music scene. If Strange House was The Horrors as mavericks, this is The Horrors falling back into line - if Brandon Flowers sung Scarlet Fields, it could easily be a Killers track (remixed by the counterfeit My Bloody Valentine of course).

This is not to make Primary Colours sound like an obituary, because there are some undoubted highlights. New Ice Age, despite the over production retains its energy, I Only Think Of You is strong enough to survive the Boards Of Canada treatment and the production on I Can’t Control Myself works well. Best of all is Sea Within A Sea, the epic 8 minute closer which starts like Joy Division’s No Love Lost and ends like Portisheads The Rip (unsurprising, as Portishead’s Geoff Barrow co-produces the album).

Where Strange House compelled you to throw yourself into the mosh pit, Primary Colours encourages you to stand at the back and listen with your arms firmly folded. Some may consider this progress but it could easily alienate many existing fans. It will probably get 9/10 from the NME and be described as The Horrors ‘maturing’, if that’s true it’s them reaching adolescence, talented but unsure, full of doubt and overly influenced by their friends. Somewhere there’s a great band trying to get out, but this album leaves you confused as to whether they’re a studio or live band. At some point they’re going to have to make that decision.

 

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27th Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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