Video Villain Video

Video Villain are Marie France and Lucy Catherwood and this is their debut single ‘Fearless’, to be released for download on February 21.

Self-made, self-released… they even made the video. Summarised by the band themselves, the track is “about coming through a difficult time in your life and realizing you are better for it, basically embracing change.”

Charged with electricity and taking influences far and wide, from Nine Inch Nails and Aphex Twin to Beethoven and Wendy Carlos, ‘Fearless’ is 5 minutes and 31 seconds of intense, bass driven, electronic rock hedonism. The almost occult-like video has already been rumbling in the depths of the web for a few weeks and can be seen here:

Vid for Johnny Foreigner's 'Harriet, By Proxy' released to the wide world

Everyone's favourite Birmingham indie-rock trio, Johnny Foreigner, uploaded their new video as a fan exclusive last week but have now released it to the rest of us:



12" and CD versions of the release are available from their website and from Alcopop! directly.

The Good Suns new single - video

The Good Suns excel at producing beautifully crafted, old time pop gems reminiscent of the back to basics hook laden pop that drives the likes of Girls and Surfer Blood, combined with the infectious melodies of Burt Bacharach and early Beatles.

February 14 sees their début release in the shape of double A-side single 'Shadow'/'At Last I’m Bored'. Both tracks epitomise much of the above. 'Shadow', their roof raising set closer, is an ode to departed and dear friends, whilst 'At Last I’m Bored' is an ideal showcase for their trademark infectious harmonies. It delivers more with each listen.

Check the video for 'Shadow' here:

The Good Suns - Shadow from unthank on Vimeo.

Disappears return with a new video

To mark the release of their second album 'Guider' Chicago's Disappears, makers of one of our fave albums of 2010, have released a video for the leading track 'Superstition':

Japanese Voyeurs hit the road with headline tour

After touring with Young Guns and playing various shows with the likes of Rolo Tomassi and The Ghost Of a Thousand over Christmas, our favourite grunge revivalists Japanese Voyeurs kick off 2011 with a headline tour, leading into the Rock Sound Exposure tour with Dinosaur Pile-Up and The Xcerts:

FEBRUARY
3rd Middlesborough, The Crown
4th Hull, Adelphi
5th Dundee, Hustlers
6th Aberdeen, Tunnels
7th Inverness, Mad Hatters
9th Liverpool, Shipping Forecast
10th Stoke, Sugarmill
11th Wakefield, Escobar
12th Exeter, Freakscene @ Pheonix
14th Bath, Moles
17th Bedford, Esquires +
18th Bournemouth, Champions +
19th Brighton, Audio +
20th Tunbridge, Forum +
22nd Cambridge, Haymakers +
23rd Birmingham, O2 Academy 3 +
24th London, Relentless Garage +
25th Bristol, O2 +
27th Glasgow, King Tuts +
28th Newcastle, O2 Academy 2 +

MARCH
2nd Leeds, Cockpit 2 +
3rd Manchester, Roadhouse +
4th York, Duchess +
5th Southampton, Joiners +

*on tour with Young Guns. Tickets available from here
+Rock Sound Exposure tour w/Dinosaur Pile Up and The Xcerts. Tickets available from here.

The Get Up Kids album teasers

Influential Kansas City five piece, The Get Up Kids, return in February 2011 with a new studio album, ‘There Are Rules’ – the band’s fifth full-length collection, and the first on their own Quality Hill Records imprint.

Seven years after what looked to be their final album ‘Guilt Show’, with the group disbanding a year later in 2005 after 10 years of constant touring, The Get Up Kids returned to the studio in 2009, sparked by a spur-of-the-moment decision to start writing songs together again, made while they were rehearsing to promote the tenth anniversary edition of their breakout album ‘Something to Write Home About’.

The first fruits of these new recordings was ‘Simple Science’, released in April 2010 and now comes an eagerly anticipated new album.

Check out these two tracks to get a hint of what to expect:

AUTOMATIC (PROMO)-THE GET UP KIDS from PAT VAMOS on Vimeo.

Untitled from PAT VAMOS on Vimeo.

The Skull Defekts give away 'Fragrant Nimbus' mp3

For their new album Swedish riff-mongers The Skull Defekts have been joined by the legend that is Daniel Higgs and, let me tell you, it's a powerful combination. The resultant album, 'Peer Amid', is out on February 21 through Thrill Jockey and to whet your appetite they are giving away the track 'Fragrant Nimbus' absolutely free!

Download the track here.

Cut Copy return with new album, UK shows & free download

Melbourne’s finest electro popsters Cut Copy are set to return with new album ‘Zonoscope’, released via Modular Recordings on the February 07 in the UK. As part of an extensive world tour, Cut Copy have also announced some UK shows in March:

Thurs 3 March – Glasgow - Death Disco Special @ The Arches
Fri 4 March – Galway – Raddison (free outdoor festival)
Sat 5 March – Manchester – Now Wave @ Gorilla
Sun 6 March – London - The Forum

As a taster of what is to come on the new album Cut Copy are giving away the track ‘Where I’m Going’, click to download here.

'Crush' by Pendulum...

...sounds like a terrible way to die but is actually the new single from everybody's favourite dance / rock crossover bunnies, which was out on Monday (January 17) through Earstorm / Warner Bros. Records.

Taken from their #1 album ‘Immersion’, ‘Crush’ explodes with a rush of visceral pounding beats, a grinding metallic riff and a soaring hook provided by Rob Swire’s atmospheric vocals.

Check the rather splendid video here:

The Unlikely Return Of Liam Dullaghan

The story behind the gestation of Liam Dullaghan's first solo album is truly amazing, tinged with tragedy but ultimately redemptive.

After scoring a minor classic with his former band The Havenots' second album, 'Never Say Good Night', back in 2005 an ill-fated trip to Chicago to record the follow up ultimately left Dullaghan homeless. Returning to the UK out of love with the whole business of making music, he sold all of his guitars, moved into his parents’ garage and didn’t pen a song for years. Work was fixing radios at a local hospital.

A chance encounter with producer / multi-instrumentalist Lee Russell to re-awaken Dullaghan's creative urges. Recorded over 3 years in an old converted Wesleyan chapel that Russell uses as a studio, 'Making History' builds on the promise hinted at in his earlier work whilst broadening his sonic palette. Amid the buzzing mellotrons of the album's opener 'Radio Verona' comes a warning for star crossed lovers ("hey Romeo, don't say i never told you so"). The lead single, the brilliantly titled 'I’m Just Fucked Without You', kicks up a country-rock-dust-storm while 'Choirs Of Angels' is a shuffling whisper of a pop song about falling in love with a girl from Desborough.

With a back story like that, you've just got to check out what this record sounds like, haven't you? The album is out on Signal/Noise on April 03, check back here for further details closer to the time.

Awesome animated video for 'The Wave' by Amplifier

We are happy to present the video for ‘The Wave’, the breathtaking new animated video from Amplifier. Taken from their forthcoming double disk concept album ‘The Octopus’ (released January 31), ‘The Wave’ is both an audio and now visual delight, taking the symbolism that runs through the band’s music and animating it to full effect.



If you like the track you can cut out and keep it here:

Free MP3 from Sic Alps

More goodies for you! Sic Alps are giving away a free MP3 of the track "Do You Want To Give $$", as a taster of their forthcoming album 'Napa Asylum' which is due on Drag City, January 24.

Get the track here.

If you don't know Sic Alps, they make modern psychedelic music, laden with lo-fi reverb, and create gorgeously moody, spooky pop songs with themes of reincarnation, magic and schizophrenia.

Free MP3 - Thank You

Baltimore's no-wave, krautrock, post-punk trio Thank You are offering up a free MP3 for the track "1-2-3 Bad" from their forthcoming album 'Golden Worry' produced by Chris Coady (Beach House, Gang Gang Dance). Get it here. The album is out on Thrill Jockey on January 24.

The return of Dananananaykroyd

Great news! The rather brilliant Dananananaykroyd are back with a new album and a tour to boot.

It doesn't have a title yet but was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Ross Robinson, famed for his work on At The Drive-in's seminal 'Relationship of Command', plus cult classics by Slipknot, The Blood Brothers, Korn and last year's acclaimed Klaxons record. The album is currently being mixed on Venice Beach, California - nice work if you can get it!

The record will be out in the Spring, but in the meantime the boys have some live dates to premier the new material:

FEBRUARY
25 Middlesbrough Uncle Albert’s
26 Dundee Doghouse
27 Aberdeen Café Drummond

MARCH
1 Cambridge Haymakers
2 Southampton Joiners
3 Bath Moles
4 Sheffield Harley
5 Liverpool Shipping Forecast

New single from Fujiya & Miyagi

Brighton's Fujiya & Miyagi release new single ‘YoYo’ plus it's highly entertaining accompanying video today. This is the first single from forthcoming new album ‘Ventriloquizzing’, out 17th January through Full Time Hobby.

In line with Fujiya & Miyagi’s dark new direction, ‘YoYo’ is a sinister sting of flesh-creeping funk with crunching feedback, insistent bass and half-whispered vocals. Check out the highly entertaining video below:

The Son(s)

I love a band with a bit of a backstory, a bit of mystique and The Son(s) (the parenthetical nature of the name becomes apparent if you read on) are just such a thing.

The Son(s) were three men in a band, in Edinburgh. One Son went to London, and made his fortune in the movies. Another Son went to Oxford and lives in a small commune there.
The last Son eventually went back to the North East of Scotland and wrote and recorded a self titled album of beautiful songs combining silky textured vocals with a guitar sound infused with Americana to create a sound that combines elements of Iron & Wine and Grizzly Bear with a liberal helping of The Beach Boys.

'Radar' is the first single to be pulled from this collection and is out on January 17, see it's somewhat disturbing video below:



If you like this, the album will be available in March.

Penguins Kill Polar Bears UK Tour

Penguins Kill Polar Bears are all set to embark on a UK tour over February and March 2011 to mark the release of their second EP, Vessels & Veins, which is out February 21st via Mountain Halo Records.

The lads kick off the tour on 24th February at Mad Hatters in Inverness before they celebrate the launch of their EP at Sneaky Pete's in Edinburgh on 26th February.

Vessels & Veins is a sweeping four track masterpiece, showcasing a band that are as comfortable with experimentation as they are tried and true rock formulae. Each track explodes into action, with walls of reverb-laden guitars layered over the top of throbbing percussion, and offset by lead singer Ben Proudlock's raw vocals. Their live show is sure to be a thrilling experience.

To hear a track from the album - "Lungs" - you can stream and download it from the Soundcloud player below:

Penguins Kill Polar Bears - Lungs by abadgeoffriendship

Why Music Needs HMV

First, let's just have some perspective. HMV's announcement today is a long way from saying they are going out of business. All they have said is that profits (and remember that is still profits, not losses) will be at the lower end of expectation and that they are going to close a tranche of loss making or less profitable stores. This is prudency. If Wooloworths' had had that kind of foresight, they might still be in business. But let's imagine if they did go out of business...

HMV is something of a quandary. To some it is a vital source of music and entertainment and for those not blessed with living in a major conurbation having easy access to a plethora of independent stores (which is pretty much anywhere outside of London these days) it is very possibly the only source of non-X factor style plastic pop. For others; mostly the beard-stroking, glasses wearing Indie boys of this world (of whom I am a card carrying member), HMV is a staid behemoth that represents all that is wrong with music and would quite happily see it collapse.

Of course, as with everything in life, it's not quite a simple as that. Scratch below the surface of music retail and you will find a complex ecosystem where every part relies on every other part and to remove an entity as large as HMV would potentially bring the whole thing to a crashing stop.

Currently, 2% of UK CD sales happen in an independent record shop. I'll repeat that, 2%! Almost nothing, in fact. In contrast, in the run up to Christmas something like 45% of all CDs were sold in an HMV. Even if the Indies stepped up and doubled or trebled their output (which, by the way, they do not have the infrastructure capacity to do) this would not be anything like enough to sustain the music industry as we know it so very quickly you would see the Independent labels, distribution networks and manufacturers that sustain the Indie stores start to disappear as their main source of income is removed.

I know of at least one boss of an Indie label who thanks God for HMV on a monthly basis as that cheque he gets from them sustains the rest of his business. The fact is, independent music retail makes very little money if any at all, why else have something like 70% of Indie stores disappeared over the last 10 years?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Indie record stores. There's nothing quite like the atmosphere they generate, the thrill on stumbling upon your new favourite record by a band you've never heard of and all that but I wouldn't be the music fan that I am today if it wasn't for Virgin, Our Price & HMV and to pretend that Indies would be able to carry on regardless without HMV is naive at best and one eyed, stupid snobbery at worst.

I grew up in Milton Keynes (stop sniggering there at the back). There were no Indie record stores, I had to travel to Northampton or Bedford to find any and even those have probably gone now, and that is a scenario repeated around a vast proportion of this country. The twelve year old me would never have had the nerve to go in to an Indie store anyway. The fact is most kids buy records, if they buy them at all these days, from big stores and without those the next generation will only know the spawn of Cowell thrust at them by TV 'talent' shows.

We have lost so many of our specialist retailers from the high street in the last decade, to lose HMV would make Tesco, Sainsbury and Amazon the only places for the majority of people to buy music and that would be sad indeed.

I'll leave you with a quote from the great sage Bonnie 'Prince' Billy on Pitchfork today that the seems particularly salient right now:
"Making records is commerce, and it's about fooling yourself as a writer and a performer and fooling the audience into not thinking about it and accepting it. It's like when you walk down the street, and you say, "Look at that girl's ass, it's so great." You're ignoring also the fact that she farts and shits out of that ass. It's the same kind of thing."

Gizeh Records News

Two bits of great news from our friends at Gizeh Records:
First up, they are having a January sale to clear the decks of some of their older releases and there are some right old bargains going; the Worriedaboutsatan, Glissando & Her Name Is Calla albums all for just £2 to name but a few. Go grab yourselves some great music.

Secondly, they've developed a new service aimed at those of us who are more ardent about their output than most. The subscriber deluxe service offers:

First option on all new Gizeh releases and pre-orders before they are available to anyone else.
Exclusive member only releases.
A subscriber only section of the Gizeh website with exclusive content.
Exclusive pre-release listening links.
Special discount rates for the Gizeh online shop.
Details of new releases and tour dates before they are officially announced.
Other exciting things we haven't yet thought of.

It's free to sign up and if you do so before January 11 you will be sent a pre-release listening link to be able to hear Conquering Animal Sound's new album 'Kammerspiel' in full, a whole month before it is released. Sign up here.

Great innovation from one of our favourite labels.