Pile-Up on this lot

Do you spend sleepless nights wondering what your favourite records would sound like if you stuck your finger on them so they slowed down and shuddered? No? Well for those of you who do, toss and turn no longer because Dinosaur Pile-Up is your Pull Tiger Tail record in jerky-slow motion. It’s your Ben Kweller [...]

O Fracas @ Buffalo Bar 22/04/08

A guy with a peacock feather wedged in his afro is having a dance-off with a blonde girl next to a huddle of tipsy office workers who are proceeding to steal the percussion instruments from the stage. As far as gigs go, this one is pretty surreal, and Leeds four-piece O Fracas have no intention [...]

Esser @ Astoria 2 12/04/08

“Esser is a person not a band,” proclaims his Myspace. Well, Esser is also a flurry of electronic beats and East End rhythm. Esser is your new favourite toy and he’s not ready to be put down yet. This 23-year-old, jerky-tempoed Essex boy started out on the Butlins circuit aged 11 and drummed in the [...]

Johnny Foreigner @ Koko 11/04/08

On the market as a shiny (glistening with sweat anyway) new manic-punk trio, Johnny Foreigner should be America’s latest gift to the music industry. After all, they play with the confidence that all American’s carry and they’ve got that trademark American whine. But they’re from Birmingham – the home of reggae-popsters UB40 and metal thrashers Black [...]

The Teenagers @ Bush Hall 07/04/08

Take caution when approaching three Parisian guys who write about the dreams of men in stained raincoats and were signed before they played their first show. Teenagers stem from a drunken joke in 2005, except someone forgot to draw the line and as a result they’re playing to a couple of hundred, er, teenagers under [...]

el Guincho @ Madame Jojo’s – 01/04/08

What you bare witness to at an el Guincho show is an absolute mind-fuck. Don’t go expecting to form an opinion of each track. Expect to either love it or hate it, because if there’s one thing about this Spaniard, it’s that live, his songs don’t have an end or beginning. His set is one [...]

A temperate State…

The Maple State are set to release their new download-only single, ‘Temperate Lives’, through High Voltage Sounds. You can treat your ears to the barking harmonics from April 28, but if you can’t wait that long you can watch them multiply like musical clones in the video for the single below…

Greg Counsell ‘States the facts

What do you get when you put five Manchurians in a room and pump through some American Football, The Format and Hot Rod Circuit on a continuous loop? Well, five distressed Manchurians no doubt, but perhaps if you’re lucky you’ll get The Maple State. Made up of Greg and Christian Counsell, William Pearson, Richard Higginbottom [...]

Primary 1 – Rhythmic disco juice on tap

 

Where better to start 2008 than a blockade in central London with hundreds of strangers, trying to bribe your way in to a night club? Well, inside obviously, watching Joe Flory, better known under his pseudonym Primary 1, grease the walls with his mind-boggling hipster funk. A newly graduated film student, Flory has traded his [...]

Psychedelic Dreams of the Jelly Fox

Defaced by lashings of red paint that stem from his face in long tentacles, a model rests at the top of the stairs. “These shoes are my wives,” he remarks. “Anyone who mocks them will suffer in unusual ways.” The goings on inside Noel Fielding’s head splashed out onto paper, or china plates, or whatever [...]