Espers make post-rock FOR ELVES. They don’t know this, presumably, because as is readily apparent from – well, from everything about them, really – they live in the depths of a haunted forest and couldn’t possibly have an idea what post-rock is.

Despite the limitations of living in such an environment, though, Espers have managed to get their mystical pan pipes, carved drums and electric guitars (wait, what?) together to record a third album proper, III.

The distinction from their previous efforts is palpable and yet difficult to precisely pin down. In comparison to the sparse melancholy air of their debut album, Espers, and the claustrophobic grandiosity of its successor, II, Espers’ latest offering seems almost… jaunty. Such an assessment seems...

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It’s clear from the title alone that The Shaky Hands’ Let It Die is a record of lament, and of letting go – or learning to. If the title weren’t enough, the lyrics paint a rather obvious picture: “You’re always leaving, your pain remaining/ Here you are, and there’s no explaining” from ‘Don’t Fail Me Now,’ and “You’re all I have, there’s no else’/ Is what you wrote, put it on my shelf/ Where are you now and why couldn’t you wait?/ I wanna look you in the eyes, I wanna set it straight” from ‘Gonna Hold You Tonight.’

If only the music was as remarkable as some of these couplets. The frustrating truth of Let It Die isn’t that the songwriting is bad, it’s just monotonous. The band is best when it decides to move away from its original, tried-and-true...

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When the names of the artists involved in the New Moon Soundtrack started to filter out over a month ago, it was obvious that Alexandra Patsavas, the music supervisor for the film, was trying to attract an entirely new audience than the one that is so feverishly dedicated to Stephanie Meyer’s books. I find it fascinating to think about a 13 year old girl getting introduced to the majesty of Bon Iver, the haunting melodies of Grizzly Bear, or even the utter brilliance of Thom Yorke through their contributions to this soundtrack. However, it’s ultimately a shame that a majority of the songs chosen for the album don’t necessarily reflect these stellar artist’s best work. A lot of these tracks sound like castoffs that didn’t quite make the cut on far superior...

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It’s been a good five years since we last heard from Austrian experimental trio Radian, purveying processed electronics and avant funk in 2004’s cool as a cucumber Juxtaposition. In the postrock firmament of Vienna, however, they’ve hardly been at rest. Drummer Martin Brandlmayr, keyboardist Stefan Németh, and bassist John Norman have been indefatigable culture workers, tending to solo material, other bands, label business (Németh’s own Mosz Records) and the odd video art project. Brandlmayr, in his work with Autistic Daughters and Polwechsel among others, has solidified a reputation as one the finest, most relentlessly precise percussionists around.

With so much musicianship and production chops at Radian’s disposal, one’s first impression upon hearing the harsh, cut...

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Self proclaimed as “the world’s finest purveyor of indie pop” Labrador Records rarely take a step wrong in their releases. Sambassadeur, one of their most loved acts (along with Suburban Kids With Biblical Names and The Mary Onettes) are back with their first single since 2007’s ‘Final Say’, which just so happens to be one of the greatest pop songs of the 21st Century (my words not theirs. If you don’t believe me, download the mp3 at the bottom of this post!).

‘Days’ does not disappoint one iota. Admittedly, there’s no real progression sound -wise from their last album Migration – the band opting to use the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” approach. Which is no bad thing, because if Sambassadeur...

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In the past twelve months, you’d think someone would have thought to tell Morrissey that there’s been a recession on; instead, he’s gone about releasing five albums – all, to some degree, redundant. His Greatest Hits barely lived up to its generic title – comprised almost exclusively of his recent singles, with ‘Suedehead’ and ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’ thrown in almost as an afterthought, while “re-presentations” of two of his most maligned records, Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted, hacked at history with varying degrees of artistic success. In amongst all of this, the release of Years of Refusal, an actual studio album, was almost lost; a wildly uneven record, it mixed some of his best new-era material (see: the first two tracks) with much of his worst...

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With the New York tag, normally comes visions of black leather jackets and black skinny jeans; trend-setters abandoning guitars for synths in a quest for cool. Sidestepping this assembled throng of scene chasers, Brooklyn based The Silent League have their hearts in an entirely different New York; a musically historic up-state New York: the Catskill Mountains. Spiritual home to The Band and name checked by the likes of Beck and Mercury Rev.

Over the last five years, the collective — lead by Justin Russo, who at the time of the band’s formation was playing keyboards for Mercury Rev — has been periodically forming, releasing records (their second, Of Stars and Other Somebodies, never receiving a release in North America), playing a few shows and then disappearing again....

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As you should know by now, TLOBF are rather smitten with Vancouver songsmith Dan Mangan. We are pleased to say Dan will be hitting the UK next week in support of his Nice, Nice, Very Nice album. To celebrate this and encourage you to attend the shows we bring you his latest video, directed by Mike Lewis and featuring fellow Vancouverites Said The Whale.

You can catch Dan on tour from next week:

Mon 9th Nov Pure Groove in-store LONDON (w Kae Sun) (7pm) FREE SHOW
Mon 9th Nov Wilmington Arms LONDON
Tue 10th Nov Sanctuary Cafe BRIGHTON
Weds 11th Nov The Windmill LONDON (w Kae Sun)
Thurs 12th Nov Slaughtered Lamb LONDON (w One Little Plane + RG Shiels)
Fri 13th Nov The Landsdown BRISTOL (w Jack Cheshire + Stanton Delaplane)
Sat...

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The much loved Vetiver return to return this month with new single “More Of This”. The new single will be released on limited edition 12” vinyl on Monday 30th November and will be backed Andy Cabic’s (the brain behind Vetiver) very own remix of “More of This” – a jam that takes the original, strips it to the bone and then soaks it in some lazy ass African and Hawaiian rhythms. Ends up sounding like a cut from the latest Phoenix record – which is obviously a very good thing indeed. Download the remix below…

Vetiver will play Jazz Café, London on Thursday 10th December with Bees and Fruit Bats.

mp3:> Vetiver: ‘More Of This More Of This (Neighbors RMX)’

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Pascal Babare may only be nineteen years of age, but with this record he manages to blow away a lot of the preconceptions that comes with being a young, solo musician. Whilst contemporaries happily strum along to half-stolen melodies at unsigned nights, the young Australian has managed to forge a genre almost completely all of his own making. Sitting elegantly somewhere between shoegaze, new-millennium folk and traditional singer-songwriters, Thunderclap Spring is an inspired work that often borders on genius.

His influences are clearly diverse and spectacular, with the droning hint of My Bloody Valentine or Slow Dive popping up throughout. It’s probably most comparable to some of Conor ‘Bright Eyes’ Oberst’s earlier, slower works in that they are lyrically vivid, managing to...

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Despite a Mercury Music Prize nomination, two number one albums and two platinum records, Editors have rarely found favour with alternative music critics. As an isolated case, it’s possibly understandable – the influences in their work are anything less than subtle and their sound has admittedly diluted over time, but when set alongside feted acts like Kasabian and the practically self-parodic Franz Ferdinand, they seem to have done very little wrong in comparison. A great deal of dislike for the band seems to come from singer Tom Smith’s relationship with Edith Bowman, which, again, is an argument it’s easy to see both sides of – their liaison should be entirely inconsequential to listeners’ appreciation of their music, but on the other hand, it grates like ragged nails down...

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Wesley Eisold, the man at the centre of dark synth band Cold Cave isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. In fact, snippets from interviews could easily smack of parody; the Guardian quotes him as saying “I couldn’t understand why people were wearing watches, because they seemed like hourglasses of death, keeping track of how much time was running out.” He also finds it “all so disheartening what we hope to find when we leave our houses” and that being normal is like “being numb to everything.” It’d sound daft—like a sulky goth schoolboy all grown up—if Eisold wasn’t very serious indeed, and a fascinating character.

As well as running Heartworm Press, a small publishing house, Cold Cave is Eisold’s latest project, following on from hardcore groups...

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Never heard of The Mississippi Sheiks? Me neither. Turns out they influenced plenty of people you do know though, like Muddy Waters for instance, who would walk ten miles to hear them play. With a love for this sort of thing but no expert knowledge, this release only caught my eye when I noticed that they were the writers of the standard ‘Sitting On Top Of The World’ way back in 1930, and that song had come to my attention when hearing the magnificent Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs play it twice (separately) in the same afternoon at a festival a few years back. Everyone including Dylan, Frank Sinatra, and Jack White has had a go at it since. Over the following five years of the early thirties, the Sheiks (named after the Rudolph Valentino film) cut nearly 100 singles and notably...

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The “future of rock n roll” so says our man behind the lens Valerio Berdini. Check out these stunning shots from Japandroids recent Camden Barfly show. For more black & white goodness, head on over to Live On 35mm.

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Four Tet has announced plans to release his heavily anticipated new album.

Entitled There Is Love In You, it’ll see the light of day on January 25th 2010. It’s Kieran Hebden’s first full length album in over four years and is his fifth LP to date.

Tracklisting:
1 – Angel Echoes
2 – Love Cry
3 – Circling
4 – Pablo’s Heart
5 – Sing
6 – This Unfolds
7 – Reversing
8 – Plastic People
9 – She Just Likes To Fight

Four Tet will be performing live in London at the Dome on Friday 12th February 2010, with Joy Orbison as support. Further shows are to take place in March – full dates are as follows:

February
12 London – Dome (with Joy Orbison as support)

March
11...

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If you were to first listen to the oddly-titled album This Is For The White In Your Eyes without knowing that rather than a choir, it was by a Dane called Jannis Makrigiannis and a few chums, you could quite easily think it was sung by some huge group of robe-clad, solemn Scandinavian types. The multitracking on Makrigiannis’ voice, combined with the cavernous, echo-heavy production, gives this record an almost hymnal, religious sanctity. To use a crude and hateful band mashup metaphor, Choir of Young Believers are like ELO meeting Fleet Foxes in a cathedral – this is sometimes stoic, but frequently sweeping music, its guitars pushed into the background, serving mostly as support for gushing, flowing waves of strings and similarly orchestral arrangements.

When This Is For The...

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American-Swedish brother-sister duo Dag för Dag follow up their Shooting From The Shadows EP with the release of their debut album Boo (due March 1st), preceded by single ‘Animal’ which is released December 7th.

The album was recorded in two seperate sessions in the States and Sweden. Five songs were produced by Secretly Canadian recording artist Richard Swift, with the remaining seven songs produced by the band alongside Johannes Berglund. Download ‘Animal’ below – it’s a sweet track, sounds like a rabid Arcade Fire.

mp3:> Dag För Dag: ‘Animal’

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Daniel Johnston adds another chapter to his already relevant artistic legend with the release of his latest album Is And Always Was. Already a cult icon, Johnston became an unlikely American pop phenomenon in 1981 with the release of Songs of Pain. These unique, lo-fi recordings provided the basis for nearly three decades of tales of unrequited love, cosmic mishaps and existential torment.

However, the most noticeable thing about Is And Always Was is that the lo-fi production values which made Johnston so accessibly authentic have been stripped away and replaced by the knob-twiddling of musician and producer Jason Falkner, best known for his work with Beck, Air and Paul McCartney.

Daniel Johnston loyalists might find themselves a little taken back by the shine and polish which surrounds...

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Vampire Weekend have announced details of UK tour in February next year in support of their forthcoming sophomore album Contra. The album is due on Jan 11th via XL.

February
07 Cambridge – Corn Exchange
08 Manchester – Apollo
09 Leeds – O2 Academy
10 Birmingham – O2 Academy
11 Newcastle – O2 Academy
13 Glasgow – Barrowlands
14 Edinburgh – Picture House
16 London – Brixton O2 Academy

If you’re on O2 you can get Priority Tickets to see Vampire Weekend at O2 venues next February. Tickets on sale now. Terms apply.

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Morning all – yes, we’re a bit late on the dates for these, but I’ve been unwell. And, well, you never know, someone might not have seen them!

So, everyone’s favourite indie-punk popsters Los Campesinos! have announced a UK tour for Feb off the back of their highly anticipated new album Romance Is Boring.

See you at the Cambridge date, which happens to be the Birthday of one of our local Promoters, Green Mind. Marvellous.

FEBRUARY
11 Wrexham Central Station 14+
12 Liverpool EVOL 14+
13 York Fibbers 14+
15 Aberdeen Tunnels 14+
16 Dundee Dog House 14+
17 Edinburgh Bongo 18+
18 Derby The Venue 14+
19 Leicester Musician 14+
21 Cambridge Junction 14+
22 Norwich Arts Centre 14+
23 Brighton Audio- New Slang 16+
24 Portsmouth...

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By 1989, Motley Crüe had slowly built their fanbase to the point where Dr. Feelgood could open at number one on the Billboard chart and, in a way, the album marks the last high point of hair metal, two years after Appetite for Destruction, two years before Nevermind and Vince Neil leaving with the band’s last shot at relevance. Or at least that’s how it looks from 2009. Hair metal, a genre rivaled only by R&B of the 2000’s (with the possible exception of R. Kelly, whose peacocking has a self-awareness about it that makes him more Mick Jagger than Bret Michaels) for replacing the traditional role of genuine emotion in music for self-congratulation while pretending not to, is pop music at its most vapid and narcissistic. It might feel like the moment that the jocks took over rock...

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At the end of November, the UK Festival Awards will name 2009’s victors in what will be a rare instance of the results of democracy being categorically wrong. There is no dispute about which is the best festival in the country, or even the world – nothing can touch All Tomorrow’s Parties. Held at either Minehead’s Butlins or Camber Sands’ Pontins since 1999, bands such as Mogwai, Sleater-Kinney and Slint have curated the line-up, and next May, the newly reformed Pavement will take the helm. Over the past decade, “All Tomorrow’s People” – from renowned cinematographer Vincent Moon to fans – have been lovingly documenting the escapades of spectators and bands alike, brought together in a heartwarming keepsake film from Warp.

Click here to view the embedded...

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Following the news last week of the release of The Courage Of Others, the highly anticipated new album from Midlake and indeed some very intimate shows which sold out (unsurprisingly) very quickly, the band have just announced a full UK and European tour next February.

Tuesday 2 February: France, PARIS, Nouveau Casino
Wednesday 3 February: Germany, KOLN, Luxor
Thursday 4 February: Germany, HAMBURG, Knust
Friday 5 February: Denmark, COPENHAGEN, Amager Bio
Saturday 6 February: Norway, OSLO, Rockefeller Music Hall
Sunday 7 February: Sweden, STOCKHOLM, Debaser
Tuesday 9 February: Germany, BERLIN, Lido
Wednesday 10 February: Holland, AMSTERDAM, Paradiso
Thursday 11 February: Belgium, BRUSSELLS, AB Box
Friday 12 February: UK, BRISTOL, Anson Rooms
Sunday 14...

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Ahhh… more good news for this Tuesday morning.

Swedish teenagers Klara and Johanna Söderberg (19), AKA First Aid Kit, have confirmed details of their debut album, The Big Black and The Blue (that’s the cover art up there), which will be released by Wichita Recordings on 25th January 2010.

You can read our recent interview with the girls here.

Tracklisting:
01. In The Morning
02. Hard Believer
03. Sailor Song
04. Waltz For Richard
05. Heavy Storm
06. Ghost Town
07. Josefin
08. A Window Opens
09. Winter is All Over You
10. I Met Up With The King
11. Wills Of The River

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Some good news to brighten up a dull Tuesday morning.

One of our favourite acts on TLOBF are readying a new album for next year.

Spoon have announced plans to release their seventh album, Transference, on January 26 in North America via Merge and January 25 in Europe via Anti-.

The record features 11 songs produced by the band, including recent single “Got Nuffin”.

Transference:
01 Before Destruction
02 Is Love Forever?
03 The Mystery Zone
04 Who Makes Your Money
05 Written in Reverse
06 I Saw the Light
07 Trouble Comes Running
08 Goodnight Laura
09 Out Go the Lights
10 Got Nuffin
11 Nobody Gets Me But You

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...

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