VHS Or Beta version 2.0.

Somewhere along the line since the amazing 2004 debut Night On Fire, Kentucky's VHS Or Beta lost their guitarist of 10 years Zeke Buck, who parted ways to join Matthew Johnson in a new outfit called People Noise, exchancing the experimental dance funk for massive riffs and walls of feedback. Fair enough.

This however hasn't stopped the progress of the band, now a 3-piece, as they have just finished their third studio album Bring On The Comets, set for an August release in the US. Whilst new tracks such as forthcoming single 'Can't Believe a Single Word', and album teaser 'Burn It All Down' (both of which have been posted on the bands myspace page) have elements which herald back to the sound which they are most well known for, they also signal a departure towards a more minimal vibe, most obviously caused by the lack of Buck's trademark layered guitar noise. Yet despite this major change in the band's dynamic, they move on positively, as vocalist and guitarist Craig Pfunder discusses on their blog:

"We wanted to achieve a sort of minimalism we hadn't considered before. Not to say the record is minimal, but rather we focused on the songs first and labored to make big songs that have memorable melodies. That was a key focus."

'Burn It All Down' is my pick of the first two tracks to emerge, all flangered guitars, a riff not to disimilar to Boy Kill Boy's 'Suzie', with hints of syth and piano flourishing the verses, before a memorable chorus which calls back to 'Night on Fire', a highlight of the first record. VHS Or Beta are back, and it would appear they are far from an outdated format.

VHS Or Beta will release Bring On The Comets on August 28th via Astralwerks, there debut is available now.

mp3: VHS Or Beta - Burn It All Down
mp3: VHS Or Beta - Night On Fire

Messages from down under.

Sometimes I forget to check my e-mails. It's one of those things I'm not great at. Most of the time it's only messages from myspace or paypal, or the odd bit of spam, so you can imagine my surprise and joy when I log in to Hotmail and find I've had some exciting messages from fun people telling me about fun music.

Even more fun is that a couple of these had come from Australia. That's 10583 miles!

Firstly was Sydney's Lions At Your Door, who sound like they mean business. Imagine The Gossip, but Beth has ditched Kate Moss and has spent a bit of time in NY with Karen O... and listened to a healthy amount of The Rapture together. It sounds too good to be true, I know, but it's all real. Their signature tune, 'LAYD', is the dance-punk calling card that you must hear.

mp3: Lions At Your Door - LAYD

And as if that wasn't enough, then there was 7 Day Weekend, who I just love for existing. Or something along those lines. According to the spokesperson for their label, Love is My Velocity, the 4-piece take their inspiration from and sing about "boys, pizza, parties and leisure wear". It's very fun and cutesy. The four girls all met at art school (where else?) and take pride in giving their gigs themes, allowing them the chance to dress up in a whole host of outfits including pirates, clowns and mimes. Latest track, 'Hot Property', sees the girls sing about wanting to get down low in your bungalow, all tongue- in-cheek of course, whilst 'Party Monster' is perfect fluoro-electro-pop... and it has hand claps. Hand claps = a selling point.

mp3: 7 Day Weekend - Hot Property
mp3: 7 Day Weekend - Party Monster

Perks of the job? Yeah, I guess so.

Goin' back to my roots

Deep down I am a black man. I have always believed this. There are certain ‘facts’ that unscrupulous types would disseminate in an attempt to disprove this. My mother grew up Chiswick and my father in Kew and, yes, they are both themselves white. I was not adopted and to the untrained eye I do appear to be ‘caucasian’.

DO NOT BE DECEIVED!

I have been trained to feel the funk, to have soul, to be down! Essentially I was raised on Blues and Soul and very little else. Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Otis Reading, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Wilson Picket, BB King were played throughout my childhood and to this day, I say that they have had a lasting effect. Later on I moved to Funk, Disco and Hip-Hop and its this Music of Black Origin (oh yes!) that has always been my first love.

This all means that despite Graham and Ellie being uber trendy electro-trash-hip-hop-pop-rock lovers I’m going to have to add a slice of my own musical heritage as a black man. However to appease you blog-browsing music elites I’ve chosen 7 rarer tracks so this post doesn’t feel too much like the end of an Ally McBeal episode.

Al Green - Love and Happiness

The Reverend Al Green should be known to many of you but this song is far and away one of his best but never seems to get as much recognition as Lets Stay Together, Tired Of Being Alone et all. Besides being light years better than most of his other work Love and Happiness is straight up Al Green; electric organ, punctuating horns and a voice that many have said could recite the phonebook and still sound amazing. Trivia time: This is Nick Hornby’s favourite ever track – and he knows a little about music methinks.

Felice Taylor - I Can Feel Your Love

I Can Feel Your Love by Felice Taylor is a song that I’ve been waiting to appear in some KFC/Baileys advert for the last two years since a friend put it on a mix-cd for me and when you hear you’ll understand why. The track is immediate uplifting soul straight out of 1967, produced and written by a pre-stardom Barry White. Taylor didn’t do too well in the US but had some small success in the UK, sadly though she’s not a name that gets talked about much these days, (that is until she gets used for a advert which is inevitable says I).

Francine King - Two Fools (feat. Sax Kari)

Some songs just end up in my laptop and I have no idea how they get there but praise the Lord that they are there. Francine King’s Two Fools featuring Sax Kari is definitely one of those songs. I can find so little information about this lady, she seems to be a soul singer from Mobile, Alabama but its New Orleans’s Sax Kari, who plays guitar on this hook-happy, cymbal-splashing, funk-ridden track, seems to be the driving force behind the outfit, only hooking up with King to do this one track. Sax Kari seems to be another unsung hero, a prolific writer and big band leader; he was signed to States and later Chess records. Not heard much else of his but this song alone is a warm blanket of early Funky Soul with comforting crackles of vinyl and loose-living lyrics of the South.

Parliament - Come In Out of the Rain

I cannot say enough about Parliament. If you think you don’t know them you probably do. Sampled by anyone who’s anyone these guys, under the leadership of the weird and wonderful George Clinton, are the most spectacular pioneers of the funk. Under the guises of Parliament, Funkadelic, Parliament Funkadelic, P-Funk, P-Funk All Stars they have produced some of the most seminal albums of the genre and took funk to a more experimental, political and generally more engaging level than other exponents like James Brown ever did. This track Come in Out of the Rain is from one of their earlier albums Osmium (but only on a very rare pressing worth thousands today!) and its one of my favourite ever protests songs. It should knock the socks off anyone with ears basically. I doubt this will be the last time Parliament/Funkadelic will be posted by me on here but if you can’t wait for more buy Funkadelic’s 1971 album, Maggot Brain, TODAY!

Gil Scott-Heron - The Bottle
Gil Scott-Heron - Lady Day and John Coltrane
Gil Scott-Heron - Pieces of a Man

GIL SCOTT-HERON!!! Shouted by James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem 6 minutes and 17 seconds into I’m Losing My Edge, from their self titled album of 2005, when Murphy is listing some of the coolest underground acts ever to have existed. A tentative link to what this blog is usually concerned with but frankly it doesn’t need one, this could be a blog about German industrial metal or Buddhist prayer chants and I think there’d always be a case to put some Gil Scott-Heron in there. Introduced to me by my friend Dom about 4 years ago (for which I am eternally grateful) there was no denying this guy is amazing. Gill Scott mixes poetry, jazz, soul and funk beautifully and effortlessly. Considered a racist in the 70s by many of the whites in the music industry due to his outspoken and uncompromising political views he never crossed over into the mainstream sadly but I think its clear its not what he wanted. DAMN! I’m listening to some Gil Scott right now I can’t just give you one track so you’re getting three and here’s a video of his best known poem The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

I feel like I’ve got something out of my system. I can continue blogging about fey indie bands from Montreal and Sweden now and not feel like I’ve overlooked my past. Time will tell if I'll be returning to my roots.

One love.

Is yours a shower or a grower?

Your preference that is? Do you like yours to impress straight away or do you prefer it to grow to be fully appreciated. I’m definitely a fan of growers when it comes to my music – yes, music! I wonder at the amount of bands and albums and songs that I have dismissed after only one or two listens that could have become all time favourites had I just been prepared to give a little more time.

“BARR is really good”. This is what I’ve been saying to people when I’ve been giving them mix-cds. “Forget everything else, track nine, Half of Two Times Two, love it!” I feel obliged to give it special mention as it is definitely, for me, a grower and I would hate for anyone to not give it the time it deserves and, in my opinion, needs to be fallen in love with. But how do you define a grower? It is not simple because I believe there are many different types.

They can be ‘slow burners’ – you’ve been listening to a highly recommended album for a few days now, perhaps not giving it your undivided attention, you may not even realise it is mind blowing till a break in a song or a chorus. You sit up, not sure where this has come from. You re-start the track and listen to it fully and it slowly dawns of you that you’re listening to something really special.

They can be ‘leapers’ – albums that you listened to a few months, maybe a few years back and you enjoyed it but to no great extent. Leap forward to today, bored of what you’ve been hearing over and over again recently you go back and delve into your shelves for something you’ve not heard for a while. You replay the album and like a fine wine its matured into something wonderful. I’m not sure if in the dormant period the music has made a concerted effort to get better or in the time between listens subconsciously your brain has made sense of it all and has been awaiting the chance to listen again properly.

They can be ‘clickers’ – you’ve listen to a few songs by some group for a day or two just before you’re about to give up and consider it for recycling suddenly everything falls into place and all the stuff Pitchfork or that blog or what your mate has been saying makes sense. “This band is awesome!” A treasured favourite is born.

This is what BARR (Brendan Fowler) was. When first recommended to me, I didn’t think much of him, then another friend recommended him and I said I’d listen again. After a friend, with whom I had previously agreed BARR was nothing special, turned around to me and say he’d been converted I went back and was determined to discover what the fuss was about.

CLICK! The stripped down production with spoken word delivery at first seemed too bare but now beautiful. CLICK! Initially Fowler’s voice felt monotone and inexpressive but now subtle yet acerbic. CLICK! I got what he was actually talking about and who he was talking to, this opened up all his songs and his style became so much easier to understand. I think he has to be seen live to fully grasp what he’s about. Having now fallen in love with him I have to say his album Summary, one of my favourite albums this year (cover below), is definitely worth getting and giving it a few listens to – or however long it takes.

1. First
2 The Song Is The Single
3. Summary
4. Complete Consumption Of Us Both
5. Untitled
6 Half of Two Times Two
7. Was I? Are You?
8. Piled On Piles On Head
9. Context Ender

The best thing about a grower is you feel that you’ve really earned it. With the music not immediately brilliant and the time needed to be given to fully appreciate how good it really is you feel like you’ve come away with something both you and the artist have put effort into making and it this creates connection between yourselves. For me it creates one of the strongest relationships with a band I can have.

I played it to a friend and she loved it straight away. She totally missed the point.

Commercial breakdown #1: Dogs Die in Hot Cars

I was thinking earlier about how that every now and again there is an advert on TV, and I'll be sitting there thinking "I know this tune...". Well, welcome to the first commercial break. Basically it's a means for me to post some stuff I wouldnt normally post, and say a little about it.

First up is the now sadly defunkt Dogs Die in Hot Cars. The group only released one album, an ep and several singles in their short career, but albeit a brief stint in the spotlight, one of their unlikeliest tracks has become unknowingly their most well know by accompanying the commercials for popular high street chemist, Boots. Taken from the Man Bites Man EP, 'Nobody Teaches Life Anything' was always one of my favourite DDiHC tracks despite being just over a minute long and instrumental. I can remember the first time I heard Boots use the track several years back, which has since been re-recorded by unknown forces (perhaps the band??) into different variations depending on season, such as the Christmassy version which accompanied the 3 for 2 promotions.

I realise some people may find it rather sad that I have taken so much notice of the Boots adverts, but it's a great little piece of music. For those of you interested in Dogs Die in Hot Cars I highly recommend their LP, Please Describe Yourself, which is unashamedly packed with indie pop gems, such as 'I Love You 'Cause I Have To' and the amazing 'Pastimes & Lifestyles', which I have included below.

Dogs Die in Hot Cars' Please Describe Yourself is available on V2 records.

mp3: Dogs Die in Hot Cars - Nobody Teaches Life Anything
mp3: Dogs Die in Hot Cars - I Love You 'Cause I Have To
mp3: Dogs Die in Hot Cars - Pastimes and Lifestyles (EP version)

Kate Nash is a victim.

"A victim of what?" I hear you shout.

Well, I was listening to the radio the other morning in the car and I heard a certain radio presenter compare Kate Nash to Lily Allen (yes, fair enough), Amy Winehouse (ermm..) and Sandy Thom (WTF!?). I know they are only doing their job and trying to broaden peoples musical knowledge/interest, but I thought that was a terrible comparison to make. Comparing 'Foundations' to 'I wish I was a Punk-rocker' is like comparing Fugazi to Busted. Well, maybe that's going too far, but I was annoyed at this.

19 year old Nash is from London and after releasing only a couple of singles she has kicked up quite a storm. Whilst many have compared her to Allen, she has more in common with another London singer-songwriter, Jamie T. Current single 'Foundations' tells the tale of a relationship which has turned sour, but in which the lover doesn't want to let go of what she has regardless. It's sweet and heartfelt, and certainly going to be one of the hits at festivals which Nash is playing a plenty. Also, as a little bonus here's 'Birds', the b-side from 'Caroline's a Victim', her limited debut single on Moshi Moshi, of which there are 1000 copies on 7" vinyl only. This was one of the first tracks I'd heard by her and I remember that Tori thought it was funny when I sang it. I could add 'Caroline's a Victim'... well I don't know, hit me up if you haven't heard it, it's a clasic.

The single, 'Foundations', is available now on Fiction records, and her album is expected for release in September.

mp3: Kate Nash - Foundations
mp3: Kate Nash - Birds

Thinking about life.

I was just looking out of the window and I realised how perfect the colour of the sky actually is. My PC is set up in front of my bedroom window so as I sit typing I can watch the sky change and trace the clouds move across it. Since I cut down the conifer in March I've been able to see more of it (which is great) and I was just thinking how huge the sky actually is. There are hardly any clouds, and what clouds there are seem so far away and small, hanging there in an expanse of blue. It's so different than winter sky, when it seems to shrink and clouds loom really close down, making everything seem a little bit claustrophobic. Anyway, am I getting a bit deep? Maybe, I don't know. Today has been a bit of a strange day, and it had made me just think a bit too much.

On the subject of thinking about life, here's a band I stumbled over towards the end of last year, Montreal's Think About Life. I remember first hearing 'What the Future Might Be' and being enthralled. Their sound is hard to pin-point, as the band themselves concur in their biography on the Alien8 website:

"The sounds range from manic to troubled to tender to silly, exploding every emotion at once into a thousand pieces at the bottom of a canyon. TAL reassembles this raw material into a worldview rooted in thunder-storms, roller-coasters, clowns, sea-beasts, romance, fireworks, massive sphinxes, basketball championships, chivalric knighthoods, snowmen, children, videos, hamlets, and sunglasses."

Quite an interesting mix of influences I'm sure you will agree. The band is the resulting work of multi-instrumentalist and key figure on the Montreal scene, Graham Van Pelt who, joined by the Donkey Heart Quartet's Martin Cesar on vocals, and Matt Shane on programming and drum duties (and also responsible for all the TAL artwork, whic is amazing), have together created an album that is both fun and refreshing, danceable and heartfelt.

A new song can be heard on their myspace page, which is strangely reminiscent of Modest Mouse, and with a new EP due out in the summer, it would seem that the sky's the limit for the boys. Check out 'What the Future Might Be' and another highlight from the record, 'Money' below.

Think About Life's self-titled debut is available now on Alien8 recordings.

mp3: Think About Life - What The Future Might Be
mp3: Think About Life - Money

The Little Ones uncovered.

I've known of the Little Ones for awhile, Bay Radio having been sent several singles and their ep during the year, however I never really gave the Californian 5-piece a chance. This changed the other day upon hearing their latest single 'Lovers Who Uncover' from their Sing Song EP, and I must admit I fell in love with it. The track sounds really sad, a lamentation of love, all delayed guitars, pulsing bass and drifting keyboards. They kinda make me think of the Maccabees, but put through an American filter. I think it's something to do with that 'sad' sound that makes you want to sigh and watch clouds drift past your window. Simply put, it's beautiful, and I am pretty sure it's going to be one of my songs of the summer, and most likely the year. The video, directed by Terri Timely is also well worth checking out, if only to see the band performing in a shipping container.



Having been listening to the track I've remembered that this isn't my first encounter with this track, and that I had come accross a remix back in February. In what's becoming a reoccuring theme in my posts, I've included the Crystal Castles remix which I had not been to excited by when I first heard it. However, now having heard the Little Ones original, and having listened to the remix a few times I would class it as a bit of a grower. It's not on the same level as that Liars remix posted a few weeks ago: all trademark CC 8-bit flourishes and driving synths, but its a good listen for anyone who likes either bands.

The Little Ones Sing Song EP is available now on Astralwerks.

mp3: The Little Ones - Lovers Who Uncover
mp3: The Little Ones - Lovers Who Uncover (Crystal Castles remix)

pack it up, pack it in, let me begin...

Ah yes, here be the first post by me, so lets skip the tedious introductions - my name's ellie and I'm going to be your tour operator for today...

Plenty to get through here, should be packing (get kicked out of uni accommodation tomorrow morning) hence why I'm playing on the internet - I'm currently following that ancient student mantra - 'procrastination is everything'. Have spent the past few hours absorbed in the wonderful world of ArePeopleReal, brainchild of those lovely boys the Broken Hooker Deejays.

Simply put, they reel in the likes of Skulljuice, Les Petits Pilous and Duke Dumont and get them to do mixes, all wrapped up with a BHD mix, and an odd computerised voice for commentary. It means I have to use the oh so hated I-tunes to get them (last time it timed out on me every few minutes or so) but they're most certainly worth it. Have yet to find a word that can convey just how good these mixes are, but this comes rather close... FFBM!!!!!*

So now I've got that off my chest (have been ranting to anything with ears about the love I have for those podcasts of late) I'll continue; Dj Mehdi and DatA have also been hustling the airwaves today, with both Lucky Boy and Morphosis burning up in a synth disco, just how I like it. Vitalic also deserve a mentioning, last week a mate gave me Ok Cowboy (remember that?! all the way back in 2005 - when I had only just surfaced from the world of indie doom!?) and it's safe to say I think I'm a little hooked. Here's Repair Machines; reminisce if you you loved it the first time round, or (if you're like me) listen and prepare to fall in love instead.

Dj Mehdi - Lucky Boy

DatA - Morphosis

Vitalic - Repair Machines

Went on a bit of a music blog spree yesterday, and as my brother was with me thought I'd show him what the internet is really for. He's fallen in love with Uffie (not so surprising really) and I've become rather smitten by this little track...

Feist - Gatekeeper (Pocketknife's Faded Beach Towel Remix)

Feist also appear on the new Kitsune Maison compilation, I've listened to it a few times now, and I have to admit, I do prefer the third one, but that's not to say this one's not got it's moments - namely in Numero's Hit Pop... candyfloss colours on foreign promenades.

Numero - Hit Pop

Think I'll leave you now, as the realisation of just how much I've got to pack has just smacked me in the face. It's going to be a late one.

More will follow soon... ellie love.

p.s for those who were wondering, FFBM = full fucking bore mate.