Weekly News Roundup - 05/05/13 - Ft. Sigur Rós, Fleetwood Mac, Wolf Alice

It's been a pretty bitchin' week for music y'all.

Fleetwood Mac has released a new EP - you can stream it via NPR right here.

She & Him are streaming their new album 'Volume 3' right now, over on NPR, before it's release on 7 May.



Tamp Impala did a pretty excellent cover of OutKast's 'Prototype'.

Sigur Rós are soundtracking an episode of the Simpson on 19 May - intriguing...

From the Sigur Rós website:

in the episode, entitled “the saga of carl,” homer, moe, lenny, and carl team up to buy a winning lottery ticket, but after carl snags the ticket and flees to his home country of iceland, the guys head there in hot pursuit. the band’s music scores homer’s visit to iceland, marking an unprecedented musical collaboration between the show and a band; with this episode, sigur rós have written and performed more original music for the simpsons than any other outside band in the show’s history.
says simpsons creator matt groening, “i’m a longtime fan of sigur rós, and we’re honored to bring their icelandic, ambient moods to our goofy cartoon show.”

Youth Lagoon and CocoRosie will be co-headlinging the Barbican on 20 July. Dead excited about this already! The Barbican's website states:

"American duo CocoRosie returns with a powerfully poetic blend of organic and electronic in their fifth studio album, Tales Of A GrassWidow (City Slang), produced in association withValgeir Sigurðsson (Bjork, Nico Muhly). 

Expanding on the woozy psychedelia of his 2010 debut The Year of Hibernation, Trevor Powers aka Youth Lagoon presents Wondrous Bughouse (Fat Possum) – an album which stems from an increasing fascination with 'where the spiritual meets the physical world."

Spectrals streams ‘A Heartbeat Behind’ from his new album Sob Story which will drop via Wichita on 17 June:

Wolf Alice are streaming their new single 'Bros'  which is set for release on May 20th via Chess Club Records.

Thursday Top 3 @ 3:33 - April Fools special

Thinking about April fools has made me nostalgic. I'm remembering the days when the cheekiest member of SNH spent weeks planning his next epic prank to play on unsuspecting people at work. And also the days when he got pranked himself.

Highlights included:

- Texting a manager's phone with a scary message from HR telling her she was being reprimanded for looking at 'inappropriate material'.
- Doctoring emails to convince a (very fragile) guy that he'd been caught out slagging off managers and was getting fired. On his birthday. The day after just being dumped.
- Rigging the vote in the 'best hair' competition, at the yearly awards, so a bald, angry manager won.
- Emailing fellow SNH member to offer to buy the guitar case he was selling on the work noticeboard. 


Anyway buddy - this Top 3 is for you. Lucky you finally quit your job, although it's far less entertaining without you!

Pavement - 'From Pacific Trim'

Deerhunter - 'He Would Have Laughed'

Tame Impala - 'Mind Mischief'

New Band of the Week - 11/03/13 - Au.ra

Aussie two-piece Au.ra play psychedelic pop, not too dissimilar to DIIV or the rather more obvious comparison here, Tame Impala. The bedroom-band's sound is atmospheric; tinged with blissed out, floaty guitars, and grungy reverb.

Have a listen:

SNH EoY - Top Albums of 2012

Gosh - this has been tricky! I find myself engulfed in so much new and diverse sound sometimes that when someone asks me "Hey dude, have you got any new music recommendations?" I freeze in this sort of incredulous, slightly panicky way as if they'd just asked me to empty an Olympic pool one H20 particle at a time. It sadly takes me a little longer than most to figure out I can just give them a bucket and hope I've thrown in a few droplets they can soak in. Anyway, here's our bucket - from all of us here, our top albums of the year - in no particular order:

James: "'Alleujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!" - Godspeed You! Black Emperor

2012 saw the overdue and welcome return of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. In epic and confident style, Godspeed have stormed back into our ears with a record of menace, beauty, swagger and strangeness. They remain masters of getting the absolute most out of each musical idea, without the music ever feel like it's drifting or outstaying its welcome. Which is impressive for an album composed of four tracks, two at the twenty and two at the six minute mark. It's also a reassurance for this conservative that there are still bands willing to assert the primacy of the album in a musical landscape of individual tracks and Youtube clips.

Sophie: "Bloom" - Beach House

I think for me, this year has been all about getting into albums I bought last year but didn’t get around to listening to.  But from 2012’s selection, I enjoyed releases from Chromatics, Lower Dens, Sleigh Bells, Perfume Genius and First Aid Kit. As for the winner, it has to be Beach House’s "Bloom": mainly because three of my absolute favourite songs to come out of this year are ‘On the Sea’,  ‘Myth’ and ‘Wild’; for them to be all on one record is a pretty triumphant achievement.

The soundscape they create is particularly evocative – the vocals derive lonely warmth – there is distance and isolation in there too, as well as a feeling of lucid buoyancy. Weirdly their music always reminds me of water – I think that’s because when I first listened to "Teen Dream", I was in, well, I guess you could call it a rainforest, driving towards Melbourne during the 2010 floods. Our car was on the brink of running out of petrol, our roof was leaking and we were coasting down hills, sploshing through massive puddles, to try and pick up enough speed to get home. Similarly, I first listened to “Bloom” in spring this year, and again, the record acted as my ‘friends together, lost in the wilderness, trying to get where they’re meant to be going’ soundtrack. No floods this time though – just a lot of good times with a backdrop of miserable British rain…

Alwin: "3D Opera Whale" - Buttonhead

Can't quite believe a record like this can get made and barely make it into mainstream consciousness. It's a wonderful concoction of pop melodies, soaring and intricate arrangements, creativity, beautiful vocals and fun. People, give this record a listen, and see why I won't stop banging on about them.

Miranda: "Lonerism" - Tame Impala

Psychedelic Rock has to be one of my favourite music genres. The subliminal lyrics of languid social philosophy, embedded into that distinguishable "swimming in the sky' feeling; I love that shit. Lonerism is every bit the heaving bass vibrations across light headed waves of vox and riffs, and Tame Impala's sophomore album fairs nicely as the second chapter to their highly acclaimed 2010 debut "Inner Speaker". (Kevin Parker is genius; the milieu surrounding everything he's touched in the Australian music scene of late is defining a new standard and identity of music in the country - check out Canyons, Pond and Melodies Echo Chamber). Opening with the Sergeant Pepper's-esque 'Be Above It', they once again allow you to fall far down their sonic chasm into peaceful solitary, so the album title could not be more suited. There is a defiant freshness to the production that removes this album from playing too close to the 70's core. It's a road trip for feet or bikes, and rolling around in the grass (a completely underrated past time).

 'Apocolypse Dreams', 'Elephant' and 'Why Won't They Talk To Me?' are important tracks, but the flow of the whole album relies intrinsically on the next track, as any good psych rock albums should. Tame Impala are truly one of the best bands to have ever emerged from Australia, and a front runner for the genre in my mind. I unabashedly love these guys.

Runners Up: M. Ward - A Wasteland Companion, Heaven - The Walkmen, Thee Oh Sees - Putrifiers II.

Duncan: "Celebration Rock" -  Japandroids 

"Celebration Rock" may not be my most played album of 2012, but it’s the one that that I turn to time and time again to give me a lift – and to wake me up in the morning.

How the ‘droids’s still have audible voices after all that perpetual shouting and ‘woahing’ is one of life’s many mysteries; they must have larynxes like little knotty tree stumps by now.

"Post-Nothing" was a tough act to follow, and thankfully the band managed to resist over-embellishment on their second album. It remains warm and fragile, but also the music of a band that have grown in confidence, and aside from limited overdubs, the production on the record remains faithful to the band’s live two man set up, fusing fuzzy and thick guitar rush, with frenzied punk drumming and vocal opining.

The love of life, wide-eyed charm and poetic lyricism that Japandroids have managed to squish into "Celebration Rock" eight lean party rock songs make this record vital and warm. In less wily hands this may have been another dumb power-chorded album for emo-pop-punkers, but there is always a poignancy and intelligence  lurking amidst the feedback. Best of all; there are no flabby moments indicative of a band trying overstretch themselves – we just got more of the same... but better.

In a year which saw further interbreeding between genres and hybridity between electronic and guitar-bands, and a fuzzing up of boundaries, there is something oddly compelling about the simplicity of this project. And when Japandroids let loose, they manage to sound like a band twice the size.

SNH EoY - Top Tracks of 2012

Music, and our love of it, is what brings us as a group together - at the moment, technically, only two of us live in London right now (sorry Fallon). This is our first collective series of posts that we've all contributed to; the internet is an awesome beast! Anyway - from all of us, here are our top five tracks of the year - and what a year it's been! 

Duncan: Chromatics – ‘Back From The Grave’ from the album ‘Kill for Love’

Chromatics perfectly toed the line between electro apocalypse and dreamy pop on ‘Kill for Love’ – without a doubt one of the best records of the year – and ‘Back From The Grave’ encapsulates all that was great about their music. I resist calling it a stand out track, because the whole kit and caboodle was mind-blowing. This songs drips with atmosphere and a finely tuned interplay between bleeps and twangs... oh, and when Jewel sings “and babies are born and monsters are born” you could be watching the opening credits of the best 80s time-travel horror film that was never made. Stunning.

James: Tame Impala - 'Elephant' from the album 'Lonerism'

There's something joyous about this track from Tame Impala's Lonerism, also a contender for album of the year. Like fellow pop-progressives Battles and Of Montreal, the refreshing thing about Kevin Parker's experiments is how fun they are. There's nothing po-faced about it, just an instantly catchy melody, head-nodding pulse and gleefully grandiose synthesiser that heists the track mid-way through and won't give it back.

Miranda: How To Dress Well - '& It Was U' from the album 'Total Loss' 

Here comes fun!! 

What a tune! This song has been at the top of my morning wake up playlist since it's release in September. Despite largely shying away from the resurgence of R&B this year* (which those trend ethnographers could smell a mile off), I couldn't help but get drawn into the extraordinary intimacy of this new singer - the guy's had a pretty tumultuous life which he as unabashedly expresses through his blog and in interviews; he gives his songs vulnerability through a raw simplicity that strikes me as a lot more real then say, The XX. Plus, he used to practice his singing/pitch to Michael Jackson song in his car, so for an old MJ obsessive, mega street cred there. once the stomp kicks in, I DARE you not to dance. 

Totally striped down, totally jammin'.... it's a great outlook for the day, neigh, year ahead! 

*Ok, ok I may have tickets to see Jessie Ware in 2013..

Alwin: M83 - 'Midnight City' - from the album 'Hurry Up We're Dreaming' (even though it came out in 2011!)

Easily, and most definitely Midnight City by M83 (yes, even though it came out in 2011!). Crossover hit of the year and my soundtrack to all the fun moments in 2012. It has awesome harmonies in the verse, a screaming monkey for an intro, an acceptable sax solo and its pure fun. 

Sophie: Cloud Nothings - 'Stay Useless' from the album 'Attack on Memory'

Cloud Nothings' epic anthem ‘Stay Useless’ has totally summed up my manic year in its entirety.  I’ve just been far too busy to just stand still, do nothing and just well, stay useless. The propellant dynamic of the song as pretty much caused an opposite effect – listening to this track is like taking twenty hits of espresso in one go and there is no way anyone would chill out after that.  It’s always guaranteed to put a smile on my dial, and for that, it’s a winner. 

Memory Tapes remix Tame Impala's 'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards'

Tame Impala have roped in Memory Tapes to remix their rad psychedelic track 'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards'. 

It's due for release on vinyl and digital on 17 December via Modular. You can listen below: