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.