For The Record: June

Lots and lots of good albums released this month. Here are my picks of the best...

The Drums - The Drums
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today (album of the month)
Delorean - Subiza
Drake - Thank Me Later
Kele - The Boxer
Pulled Apart By Horses - Pulled Apart By Horses
Perfume Genius - Perfume Genius
The Morning Benders - Big Echo
Scissor Sisters - Night Work

Also reccomended: Rusko, Robyn, Ratatat, We Are Scientists, Fol Chen, The Mynabirds, Islet, Giggs, Happy Birthday, Tobacco.

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Clash: Issue 51

Out now is the new issue of Clash. Make sure you get it as not only does it have my reviews of Kele Okereke, The Drums and Rusko's new albums but you can admire Yannis's beard from the comfort of your own home.

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Camden Crawl: Saturday

The success of a festival that operates on fans skipping from venue to venue hinges on the weather so the tropical storms across North London does not get the Camden Crawl off to a great start. With the venues smelling more like wet dog than old beer the search for the Next Big Thing can begin.

First up on the Saturday is Best Coast. Like so many lo-fi slacker pop bands from the USA you half suspect that Beth Cosentino might be too stoned too deliver a killer performance but any doubts are cast away halfway through a rousing, and appropriate, Sun Was High (So Was I). Playing to a packed out crowd, seemingly more interested in the dry warmth of The Jazz Café than shimmering grunge anthems Best Coast plow through a series of tracks lined up to appear on their debut album. Where many bands tend to hide dark and morose lyrics in amongst happy melodies Best Coast switch it up and sing about love and romance in a downbeat way. The results are utterly charming with Cosentino coming off like Dolly Parton going surfing on the wondrous ‘Our Deal’. ‘When I’m With You’ is Best Coasts finest moment however and earns the rapturous applause it so dearly deserves.



Queuing at the Camden Crawl is as inevitable as eating McDonalds on the street and seeing Pete Doherty (who was spotted on the Sunday). Easily the biggest queue we see all weekend is for The Drums who continue to impress and confuse in equal measures. Playing to a packed out Blues Kitchen they whip up the crowd into a frenzy unseen across many of the other bands playing who are all too keen to be coy. Understated is not in The Drums vocabulary though and as Jonathan Pierce struts across the stage it’s hard to deny that this band of starry eyes could become huge. With songs as good as ‘Best Friend’ and Forever and Ever Amen’ the indie kids of Camden are rubbing their hands almost as much as Morrissey and The Cure's royalty collectors.

Poor scheduling means an hours wait for a final band on Saturday however when the clock strikes twelve and Summer Camp take to the Jazz Café stage all worries are forgotten. With ‘Ghost Train’ a permanent fixture on 6Music there are plenty of well wishers here to see one of the bands very early performances and they don’t leave disappointed. Far chirpier than their demos suggest, Summer Camp own the stage painting the crowd in sepia tones with their wistful pop beauty. Like a motivational speaker for the young at heart, lead singer Elizabeth provides pretty vocals whilst her band mates Jeremy Warmsley directs the music admirably. If Camden Crawl is for anything then it is seeing the best new bands first. With Summer Camp we might just have spotted something great indeed.

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VIDEO: The Drums- Best Friend

I still don't quite know how to take The Drums. Since I first heard this song it's grown on me a lot but there is still a sneaking suspicion that something great is lacking. I have heard about half of their forthcoming debut album and it's definitely shaping up to be a sound track for the Summer.

The Drums are a band who live and die on melody and hooks. Once they get you then there is no escaping them, from 'I Felt Stupid' to this new single the band have the knack of getting into your brain well and truly down. I caught two songs at their NME show in Brixton and they played as if they were headlining. I can see them being like The Killers, one great song (I Wanna Go Surfing is their Mr Brightside) but having a string of similarly great tracks to back it up. Sure, they're over styled to the point of ridicule and have a dodgy past but in a scene overrun with boring lift music and bands so new you can't blink lest they spawn an offshoot to whet bloggers appetites it's nice to see a band of four guys strumming guitars and breaking hearts.

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NME Awards Tour @ Brixton Academy

Fitting four bands into four hours is always going to be a challenge and teamed with Saturday evening traffic in London means that much of The Drums set is missed by Gigwise. We do however manage to catch the final two songs of their show including a rousing version of ‘Let’s Go Surfing’. Despite doing little to argue against the theory that they have only got one truly great song The Drums certainly look the part. Lead singer Jonathan Pierce commands the stage like a man who has been doing this for far longer than this bands tender years and set closer ‘Best Friend’ sees the band finishing as if they are headliners. You suspect that in a years time they will have the stature to match their ambition.

The Big Pink are a band seemingly designed to play in as big a venue as possible. Their sound has become gargantuan following support slots with Muse and Pixies and tonight they play Brixton for the third time in under a year. Guitarist Robbie Furze channels his past in digital hardcore bands to great effect as he attacks his mirrored guitar with an aggression normally reserved for enemies not friends. ‘Too Young To Love’ rumbles and rolls the band into vision, through the smoke and haze they then run through a series of industrial lullabies for the hard of hearing. Playing to a somewhat subdued crowd the band do their best to kick start the evening but perhaps the serrated edges and muscular nature of the band seems to jar with an audience here to see three clean cut indie pop bands. Not to be deterred however, The Big Pink hit out with a snarling rendition of ‘Velvet’ before garnering a cheer of recognition for the ubiquitous ‘Dominos’. Furze ends the set in the crowd having propelled himself skywards during the closing moments of the set. Tonight might not have been the victory lap they expected but The Big Pink are quickly establishing themselves as one of this country’s finest live bands.

Bombay Bicycle Club were always going to struggle to match the sonic girth of The Big Pink but what they lack in muscle they make up for in popularity. Cheered like heroes from their first steps onstage these four young men from London have developed slowly and surely into a heart warming and well loved band. It’s not hard to see why either. Their music is a gentle mix of folk ditties and more upbeat indie disco numbers like ‘Magnet’ and ‘Dust On The Ground’. Singer Jack Steadman’s deep and rich baritone is the bands greatest strength and they play to it well. What is most remarkable about tonight’s performance however is just how popular the band are. Perhaps an oversight on our part but with an album met with relatively small fanfare and not appearing to be a band with a definitive song BBC appeared to be a good band but one lost in a tide of newer acts and bigger bands. It’s nice to be proven wrong however and the young audience here have clearly taken the band to their hearts. As ‘Always Like This’ brings a triumphant set to a close the band can look back on this show as a pivotal career moment.

When you record an album with Arcade Fire’s producer and purposely decide to add some meat to your skinny frame then you need to make it pay in large venues like this. The Maccabees more than step up to the gauntlet tonight, proving that they have stepped up mentally as well as in their recorded output. Opening with ‘William Powers’ the band are in a jubilant mood from the off and play through a hit flecked set with an infectious energy. Lead singer Orlando has shed his shy skin of their formative years and now leads his band perfectly, bashful but in control. His voice soars on ’Can You Give It’ and ’All In Your Rows’ but it is first album cut ’Precious Time’ which excels the most tonight. With this being the final night of this tour there are a few treats in store, chiefly being the appearance of Edwyn Collins. Performing his Orange Juice classic ‘Rip It Up’ is clearly a touching moment for the band and it shows in their shyness around the great man. It’s still a triumphant moment however and one all involved will remember fondly. The set ends with the traditional stage invasion by all the bands involved as the brass band fan their goodbye to the sounds of ‘Love You Better’. You get the feeling those gathered tonight could not cherish The Maccabees any more if they tried.

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The Drums - 'Best Friend'

Hmmm, every new release from these four Florida boys is getting slightly weaker each time isn't it? I mean this isn't a bad song but it's meant to be the big single to justify all the hype and well... it just doesn't sound that definitive. Yet. As anyone with the Summertime EP will attest, this bands songs lodge themselves firmly in the brain and cling on for dear life.

The question still remains though, has everyone put their eggs into a one hit wonder basket?

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Singles Of The Year 25-11

Same as yesterday, top 10 to follow shortly.

11. Yeah Yeah Yeah’s- Heads Will Roll
12. White Denim- Regina Holding Hands
13. Thom Yorke- Hearing Damage
14. The Drums- Let’s Go Surfing
15. Joy Orbison- Hyph Mngo
16. Metric- Sick Muse
17. Julian Casablancas- 11th Dimension
18. Lost Knives- Solstice
19. Pulled Apart By Horses- I Punched A Lion In The Throat
20. Grizzly Bear- Two Weeks
21. Everything Everything- Photoshop Handsome
22. HEALTH- Die Slow
23. Bon Iver- Blood Bank
24. Sky Larkin- Beeline
25. Favours For Sailors- I Dreamt That You Loved Me In Your Dreams

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BBC Sound of 2010

The BBC has published it's famous and influential 'Sound Of...' poll results today and I was asked to take part for the first time.

Tragically, in what can only be described as a huge over sight, only one of my 3 tips made it onto the long listed 15 but y'know- I'll live.

For the record I voted for Everything Everything, Frankie and The Heartstrings and Pulled Apart By Horses on the grounds that I believe they are three bands who will play amazing gigs, make brilliant music and offer something new in 2010.

The final 15 is a mixed bag that only a panel of over 150 names could conjure up. There are the safe bets like Marina, Ellie, Delphic and The Drums lining up alongside breaths of fresh air like Giggs, Joy Orbison and Gold Panda.

2010 is a much harder year to predict than 2009 (Florence, La Roux, GaGa, White Lies) was and it seems to me to be a year set to be shaped by bands on their 2nd or 3rd albums. However if I were a betting man (and I never will be as my Fantasy Football action tells me I'm an awful predictor) then I'd offer that the BBC Sound of 2010 poll will finish as follows.

1. Ellie Goulding
2. The Drums
3. Marina and The Diamonds
4. Everything Everything
5. Hurts

What do you make of the poll? Any names that are sadly missing? Who are your tips for 2010? I'll be publishing 2 slightly different tips lists in the next week or so. Keep 'em peeeled.

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Kitsune Maison 8

French label and fashion house Kitsune have spent the best part of this decade curating their own compilations that have acted as a sort of ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ for hipsters. Now onto their eighth collection the name is a brand and recognised as breaking the biggest names in electro-pop and providing a launch pad for those looking to cross over into the mainstream.

On the strength of this effort however Kitsune might be losing their cultural cache quicker than the electro-blog-house they bore, bred and helped mutate. Forgoing their previous tactic of mixing the tracks for the listener this array of tracks feels superfluous and tacky. The album certainly does have some plusses though, no doubt about it. From Memory Tapes trippy sand dune inertia on ‘Bicycle’ through to Midnight Juggernaughts charming refusal to let go of the techno threshold Kitsune show that they still know how to string together the best sequence of party jams this side of Berlin. They also show their keen eye for a future star too with guest spots from label starlets Two Door Cinema Club and Delphic. The Molineux remix of Two Door’s ‘I Can Talk’ takes the peppy sugar rush of the original and makes it a intercontinental strut with melodies interspersing hooks and a killer breakdown. Delphic meanwhile still sound a bit like Keane going on Stars In Their Eyes as New Order but as long as they write songs as good as ‘This Momentary’ success won’t elude them for long. Finally the whistling Ayrian poster boys of The Drums purse their lips and blow all over ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ which rides the wave between infuriating and undeniable perfectly.

That’s the good though, the bad is so much worse. It’s the sort of thing a Nathan Barley reference toting naysayer would hold up as an example as all that is wrong with Warehouse parties and Hype Machine overkill. From Crystal Fighters to Heartsrevolution by way of Le Corps Mince De Francoise there is more filler in ‘Volume 8’ than a typical ageing Hollywood star. There is something so cheap and disposable to this music when it is done badly that by three quarters of the way through this hour long record you actually start to become a bit depressed. Much of the reason 2009 has been dominated by acts such as La Roux and the ride of Urban Pop like N-Dubz is that indie guitar bands over spent themselves and pushed people to breaking point. In much the same way Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight acted as a back breaking straw for commercial indie this lacklustre Kitsune outing reflects the demise in a musical style that has dominated the underground for years. From Klaxons to Simian Mobile Disco so many have benefited from the rise of Kitsune that a fall was inevitable and collections like this show why the appetite for dub and bass acts like Joy Orbison and Gold Panda has risen to mouth watering levels recently.

If this is the best Kitsune have then they may well need to go back to the drawing board and start over. If it isn’t then why didn’t we get to hear it instead of being left with this rag-tag bunch of club kid hangers on?

5/10

DrownedinSound.com

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The Drums in a Courtyard

The Drums did a live session for The Fly. Watch it now.

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September- Blog Highlights

The best links from the previous 30 days.

Introducing The Drums, The Antlers and The Morning Benders.

I met up with The Cribs (Inc. Johnny Marr)

Brand New discuss illegally downloading their own album.

Julian Casablancas debuted his solo material with '11th Dimension'

Editors have 'done a Horrors' on their third album. Track by track guide here.

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Introducing... The Drums

As the heat and relaxation of Summer gives way to the bluster and leaves of Autumn you may well be in need of one last hurrah, a final sunshine fling to wave the season goodbye. If you want a band who conjure up images of beaches, iced drinks and devil may care attitude then look no further than The Drums.

Describing themselves as “Just chasing that perfect song” the band consists of childhood friends Jon and Jacob who met at a Summer Camp in their youth and have remained friends ever since. Lining alongside the duo are family members and friends, together they make gloriously upbeat, melodic pop songs that suggest fizzy fun and aching smiles but a light dusting of the exterior reveal the songs, such as the underground hit 'Let's Go Surfing', to be bittersweet laments of lost love and heartbreak.

This method of mis-direction was a deliberate move however explains guitarist Jon, “I think we're all pretty miserable people so the lyrics just tend to come out that way, but we're also tired of hearing everyone complain about how miserable they are so we try to disguise a bit.” before adding “We took what we love about music and wrapped it up in a way that we didn't think anyone had ever done before. So it's sort of like we were so tired of everyone being unique we wanted to make something more familiar. ”

The results are a brilliant mini-album 'Summertime' due out in October. Featuring an array of fast-paced and exciting melodic explosion such as 'Saddest Summer' or the excellently titled 'Don't Be A Jerk Johnny' the EP is a fine introduction to the juxtapositions and contradictions that fuel The Drums sound. The band play their first UK date this weekend in London before returning in October for a more extended jaunt.

Originally on Gigwise.com

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