Listen Before You Buy

The Neighbourhood have lived up to their stellar promise, with one of the most satisfying eighteen minutes of music you’re likely to hear this year. If you miss “I’m Sorry…” well, you’ll be sorry.

When last we heard from Tiger Waves, they were thick in the process of recording and gradually releasing itnew material. Now, after being fed various delectable appetizers, the wait is over, the meal has been laid out and they seem to be coming closer than ever before to finding the balance between escapism and weightiness.

More than any other Dr. Dog album, “Be The Void” seems more like a collection of songs than a coherent album, but not in a bad way: these songs are absolutely killer.

With a range of influences from The Beatles to Radiohead, Emma Grace are the kind of pair us non-musical types look at in envy as they both play multiple instruments and sing. Oh, and create great indie songs like “Stuck In The Air”.

I’ve dug through crates for months in hopes of finding a song like “Don’t Let Me Get Lonely.”

Listen to and download “Velvet Sea” below, a new song from The Vliets.

The first release of 2012 is this new free lullaby EP from our album of the year winners 1,2,3!

Footage of David Bowie performing on Top of The Pops in 1973 has been unearthed, after going unseen for 38 years!

Don’t judge a book by its cover. It’s a good life lesson, that – however clichéd it might be. It’s worth bearing in mind when you first encounter My Plastic Sun. Sure, their EP cover might feature a bunch of awkwardly posed Barbie dolls, but Aqua they are not. As it happens, I have a [...]

If you’re the sort of person who reads this blog regularly, you probably know where Radiohead got their name from; but can you tell where Dallas boys The Vliets (pronounced like “vleets”) got theirs? If this seems like a very obvious question to you, then congratulations: you officially have some serious musical chops. If not, I wouldn’t [...]

I feel I should preface this review by admitting that I’ve been a Kanye West fan ever since I heard “Jesus Walks”, and while I don’t admire Jay-Z‘s musical prowess quite as much as that of his protege, I have mad respect for him as a rap legend. Both of them brought their A-game to the table this [...]

This post is a “QuickPick”.  QuickPicks are my attempt at getting all of the music that’s sent to me that I like (or just music I like but have no words for because it’s so awesome), out into the dubya dots. Any time I get sent music that I like I “star” it in Gmail [...]

You may never have heard of Ride, but chances are you’ve heard of Death Cab For Cutie, so let me give a little insight as to who the former are. In the late 80′s and early 90′s there was burgeoning Indie scene in the UK, specifically London and Manchester that were churning out talent like [...]

A quick update on the music news for the week before I get started: The Righteous Brothers‘ cover of “Unchained Melody” is on jukeboxes everywhere; anticipation for The Beatles‘ up-coming album “Help!” is reaching fever pitch; and The Ronettes‘ latest, “Is This What I Get For Loving You?”, has flopped, rather embarrassingly. That’s right: it’s [...]

Continuing in the noble tradition of Danger Mouse and his “Grey Album” come Cecil Otter and Swiss Andy – a.k.a. Wugazi. There’s no prizes for guessing who they like to mash up: The Wu-Tang Clan and Fugazi. The result of their prodigious tinkering, “13 Chambers”, has finally dropped – and it’s pretty much every bit [...]

When was the last time you used a pay phone? Seriously, think about it. Putting change into a phone attached to a pole, or in a booth on the street. Pretty antiquated, right? It’s telling that the cover image on Death Cab for Cutie’s seventh album is a key from a pay phone, suggesting an [...]