Gulf - Tell Me Again

Luscious, dripping 'verb, twinkling psych-indie-disco-pop, tinged with melancholia as should be. Undeniable Tame Impala similarities but cleaner, more purposeful and Liverpudlian.

Axes - Junior

"Aww Maaam! I think my Paul Simon Graceland tape got chewed up."

Super-math from London's Axes twiddles, jerks, trips and surprises until all involved are thoroughly exhausted.


'Junior' is on second long-player from Axes available November out of Big Scary Monsters.

Nice vid too.

Rubblebucket - Carousel Ride

Kooky, laconic pop delivered with a mute trumpet and a resigned sigh.

These Brooklyn tales spun across a kind of chaotic grandeur, quintet Rubblebucket have been shaking scenes on the East Coast for some time and more recently over in Europe during Summer 2014 including a spot at Glasto.

Fizzy Blood - January Sun

Of course there is the Josh Homme ghost in this machine with the heavy riffs and kooky, detuned fretplay. Notably though, this feisty foursome from Leeds punch without the pomp and peyote-in-the-salad-bowl than the Californians. They square up with globules of UK punk and the muscle of US hardcore.

Bear’s Den - Elysium

Beautiful lullaby guitar makes way for the omnipresent brass as Andrew Davie calmly walks through all the big questions. There's a horizon-sized width to all of the Den's recordings and it's no wonder that Mumford enjoyed their support last Summer in what was to become a special year for the band.

The Districts - Rocking Chair

Starting out from a reclining kind of psych, where the Travis is picked lying prone on an American Midwest, sunny Sunday afternoon porch. The track builds with resounding guitar, splashes and half-grizzled vox.
Ending with some whoo-hoos too and we all like a good whoo-hoo don't we?

Sean McGowan - Come Unstuck

Sean McGowan is not a Pogue, he makes this quite clear at the start of his live sets.  What he is though is the lovechild of Mike Skinner and Billy Bragg, raised in the late noughties with an acoustic guitar and a snarl. 

Lyrics that express the frustration of young modern life and the importance of mates "having your back", which are spat out in a staccato rush of anger and bite.  He means it.  And that means a lot. 

Alvvays - Archie, Marry Me

With a bitter-sweet tale of a certain age, this Toronto five swings and sways along with late Eighties slacker-rock slouching. The heavy-eyelid vox from Molly Rankin is cute with style and laced with shrewd syllables whilst chiming, coarse-grained guitar and rhythm fills the space behind.

Woahnows - Life in Reverse

If, after the play button is pressed below, you feel like you could be running through sunshine-confetti-filled party popper mayhem, congratulations, you've just been married to the Woahnows.

Bishop Allen - Start Again

Indie-rock with a slice of 90s guitar lemon and four cubes of x-tronica ice.
Straight-forward, wind-in-your-hair songwriting studded with some antique synth rhinestone loveliness. Worth your attention. Especially if MGMT is too weird for you.

Movie - Ads (video)

Love the band, love the song, now love the video.

Enjoy. And why not read our track review as well.

Mixtape: May 2014

Well here we are then,

It gives us great pleasure to, once more, curate a mixtape with the majority of artists and tracks featured on the blog in May 2014.

Young Night - Picasso

Quirkiness jig-jags about on board a Terry Gilliam cartoon ship that set sail from Brisbane to Brighton.
A Vampire Weekend comparison is expected but not done coldly. These guys roll their own smart, bright pop-psych with some Oz spring sunshine sneaked through UK Customs.

Astronauts - Skydive

Earnest chord changes with harp-like picking, bowed accompaniment, unobtrusive electro perc and close, quiet, immediate vocals speed along abeam through the mountains of a wintered North-Eastern America.

Dan Carney's experience from his Dark Captain days of how to produce a 'sound' is apparent.

Hero Fisher - No Ceremony

'No Ceremony' pumps, fizzes and builds underneath the direct, smoky lyric, tethered and collared until the closing wig-out finally wigs out.

There's the fuzz and growl of Hole but without the Love affectations. There's Patti Smith punk, Beth Gibbons sultry, and with a poetic soul, Fisher appreciates how folk music and punk music intersect and mirror.

Towns - Too Tired

Perennially phasing guitar, August-evening-in-the-90s hazy vox and the overall chug-chug-zjuzj produce a pleasing baggy kind of psych, a jangly kind of drone from these Bristol gazers of shoe.

Catfish And The Bottlemen - Fallout

The Bottlemen return with fan favourite 'Fallout' and after continued support across BBC Radio 1 and on the eve of headline UK and US tours and festivals squared, 2014 is sure to be exciting for the boys from North Wales.

'Fallout' builds on CATB's pour-your-heart-out, punchy, potent indie guitar par excellence.

Invisible Hands - Just

First of all, the track first brought about mental images of young men in tweed suits clapping their hands. No idea why and not seen as a bad thing.

Anyway, what does it sound like?
Loud and joyful, pummelling and shaking, close to anthemic, power-indie stomper.
If you ever go surfing in Leeds, this should definitely be playing on your waterproof CD Walkman.
(Note to young readers: Despite the last comment, it is never a good idea to enter water wearing any electronic device. Whether in Leeds or not.)

Cerebral Ballzy - Lonely As America

As when trying to close an over-filled suitcase, Cerebral Ballzy's latest bonkers-ness 'Lonely As America' has best-of-genre paraphernalia spilling out of every chord change (out pops the deodorant of punk and there goes the rolled-up socks of hardcore).

Hockeysmith - Hesitate (Video)

Video for 'Hesitate' from the excellent Hockeysmith is now available.
Read our track review and get on board.

Coasts - See How

Once more, Coasts reach up their fashionably-clad arms, pull off choice ingredients from the shelves of their indie kitchen and add them to this latest mixing bowl of goodness.
In goes Bastille and Bombay Bicycle, adding a splash or two of The 1975 but, stop, they're not following a recipe. It's not copycat. It's natural and a brave concoction they can call their own. Soon enough, legions of fans will also call it their own too.

Wired To Follow - Unix Epoch

This particular track 'Unix Epoch' was recently selected by the good and righteous listeners at Fresh On The Net.

A track as fragile as holding a bubble and played as if those that created it held their instruments by their fingertips. The diminuendo makes your breathing almost stop before reaching back up for air with a searing synth and sand-splashed cymbals.
It should be a personal soundtrack to the beginning of something. Or maybe the end.


Redolent of post-rockers, Explosions In The Sky and Mogwai, but brings along for ride, Warp Records-like electronica.

Coasts - Golden City

Coasts unleash this mighty slice of pop setting our little worlds alight and the knees of nu-disco DJs a-trembling.
Snippety-snippets of Italian house piano and a pseudo-breakbeat hold fast on this call-to-arms indie-EDM crossover.

Blur - Bank Holiday (Glastonbury 1994)

Nearly twenty years ago, a young Damon Albarn was on the NME stage at Glastonbury.
Britpop had begun and the UK music scene was feeling tangible change.

As it's Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK today, here's a spot of 'Bank Holiday' from the era-defining album, 'Parklife'.

Three Days Dark - The Breaks

Blues-psych delivered with detail in that hot, sticky tempo. 'The Breaks' crawls like the lizard king across hot sand but no poetic pretensions, just straight, Dan Auerbach-like drawl.
There's some of the same peyote-sprinkled rock-and-roll that Alex Turner found in dusty inter-state America. There's Sixties Brit-jangle too...

Hockeysmith - Hesitate

Hockeysmith return with a strangulating, industrial pounder bittersweet with the rather unsettling, duelling vox.
Like finding Trent Reznor's younger twin sisters in your wardrobe, this is what electro-indie sounds like when the band haven't slept for two days. Real class.

Mixtape: April 2014

Hello you,

As in previous months, it gives us great pleasure to curate a mixtape with the majority of artists and tracks featured on the blog in April 2014...

Cheerleader - Perfect Vision

Picture a released balloon soaring up into a perfect, cloudless sky. What colour do you imagine it to be? If it's red, you've passed. Ten points for you.
Now picture more summery goings-on. Slo-mo water fights, legs hanging out of convertibles, you know the sort of thing. Now click the link below.

Bernard + Edith - Spell On U

A glitchy groove sits glaring at you from the back of the room as the track title is looped in incantation.

Flip side of recent hammer-swing single 'Poppy' from these Mancunian blues-tronica witch-doctors.

Trampolene - Alcohol Kiss (video)

Trampolene release a new video for explosive single 'Alcohol Kiss'.
Before you line up the tequila on the bar, why not read our track review of 'Alcohol Kiss' from last month?

The Boy I Used To Be - Friday Morning

Tambourine-shaking, hazy morning sunshine, shuffling-psych, lo-fi fuzz from Portsmouth's Edward Perry.

Whilst Perry gazes at his shoes with fingertips poised at the laptop keyboard, we gaze at the dancing shadows of Clint Boon, Beck and Mark 'Eels' Everett being cast on the Mancunian cellar-club wall.

Promising debut.

Glass Ankle - One Of Them

Starting out with a little guitar riff, Ankle maestro Greg Jackson trills out his semi-falsetto spinning a tale of lust in the bakery aisle and pulls off some lovely, easy-sounding pop.

The track builds into a full-on indie-shuffler and suggests Jackson is a card-carrying Nineties muso.
Seriously 'One Of Them' would not sound out of place as an album track on Blur's 'Parklife'. There's Verve and, indeed, verve abound here too.
Finally, congrats must go out for the couplet rhyming 'Hovis' and 'pelvis'.

You - In Halves

Suppose David Lynch dreams of an ex-lover's spectre appearing in a moonlit graveyard.
Here comes the soundtrack. Distant, breathy vocals over minor keys and eerie, airy synths float white and silver above the ground. Brr. There's a suitably unsettling, kooky video that accompanies this track too...

Stillwave - Modes Of Transport

An Interpol with extra crunch produce a tantalising four-minute punch.

New-wave executed knowingly by this Dutch trio laying more disconsolate rails ahead for the Joy Division Midnight Express...

Free Swim - Meal For One

A quite remarkable commentary of modern life, box sets and Ian McShane.

Maui - Fine Kind Of Idle

Cartwheeling, piquant pop with a just-been-slapped grin on its face.

With fuzzy-funk bass that just doesn't give up and pleasing quantities of guitar-based sunshine jangle these surf-psych wunderkinds would settle very nicely into your summer holiday playlist.

Maui are Harry, Sam, Charlie and Mark from darkest London and according to Harry Maui, they just wanna have fun. Well, why not indeed!

Polymath - La Unión De Roku & Demipenteract

Astounding math-rockmanship from this trio of Brighton wizards.

Pulses of asymmetry ripple, jingle, phase, pop and jive towards you leaving you lost counting beats with numbers that probably don't exist.

If you feel the need to listen again, search for some live footage via their FB page. It's all the more impressive when you see actual humans creating the waves of sound...

The New Hellfire Club - WeAreNotWhatWeAre

Northampton psych outfit, The NHC, impressed us last month with 'Brahma Kamal' and now they are sharing their new tripped-out video for the upcoming single 'WeAreNotWhatWeAre'...

Movie - Ads

A neat slice of twisting, bounce-along, Eighties FM-flavoured rock-art supplied with fresh, candid observations from new indie-funking-abouts, Movie.

Three London art-school buddies fronted by Korean, Theo Spark, follow on from their Franz-a-like, schlock-horror-pop tickler single, 'Mr Fist' released last month...

Pool - Harm

German indie-funksters, Pool, who count three in their team, peddle their hi-hat-troubling, disco-bass sound while Alex Kapranos and friends stand at the back of the room and nod approvingly in time...

Echo Trails - Hazy Horizons

This London/Cambridge collective lays a varnish of gypsy-folk over a Doors-y halluci-rock.
Baltic viola, imagined flamenco handclaps and footstamps, fronted by the purposeful female lead of Dimitra Tzanakaki who, probably with a wild look in her eye, swoons and sails her vocal over the hypnotic, swirling accompaniment...

Kongos - I'm Only Joking

Thumping, riding alt-glam brothers with hair and guitars flapping wildly in the wind.

They have Greek roots and there's a Eastern Mediterranean vibe that really makes this single stand out. Also apparent is

Yellow Ostrich - Cosmos (album)

Alex Schaff has been reading Carl Sagan's Cosmos since the last 2012 release by NYC alt-rockers, Yellow Ostrich. 

Evidently he has been appreciating the big-scheme of things and where he fits into this little Universe of ours. In contrast to previous albums, this seems to have helped settle the played-out themes and moods and that perhaps he's now a narrator looking into his own state and his relationship with others.

The other full-time half of the Ostrich, Michael Tapper, spent a month on the Pacific Ocean sleeping under the same stars that Schaff was dreaming about. 

The experience of space around you when felt with and without loneliness threads through this album...

Tilly Dalglish - Painted Faces

From a cathedral chorus emerges Tilly's gentle, charming mandolin and her breathy, sweet voice, like that of Vashti Bunyan, sings a crushing ballad.

Dalglish picks up

The Amazing Snakeheads - Here It Comes Again

A bad trip powered by knuckleduster hands and 800 brake horsepower bass.
The Glaswegian scuzz-rock shamans deliver on their promises on debut album 'Amphetamine Ballads'.

More quality from the pedigree stables of the eminent Domino records.
Single and debut album out 14 April 2014. Performing in a venue near you April and May.

10Tigers - Owned

The drums push the vox along. The guitar chases the bass. A band in motion clamouring for air.

It is lo-fi in its literal sense but that seems deliberate and increases the immediacy.

There's a song and a message right here too. The rests in the vocal line letting the music

Waste - Blow

Exactly three minutes of exacting balls-out rock, sounding more Rancho De La Luna than Stevenage.

Waste sound like a gang. Phased, grunge guitar from Max and Josh's pile-driver bass coolly hang back as Jak Melvin's tale of lust swaggers off after that girl towards the door.

These guys have studied their genre hard,

The Derevolutions - Now You Know My Name

Tick-tock, head-tock, clockwork pop ridden by a cutesy-pie indie chanteuse.
Brass and whistling tends not to enamour the indie-crowd but this technicolour, dancefloor filler will undoubtedly bring them

Billionaire - Tammy Paints Pictures/Trustees

Billionaire is the creation of London Whitechapel's John Sterry. The very English observations "condemning the idolisation of the rich and famous" sit comfortably over some quite gentlemanly, minimal accompaniment.

You may have heard Sterry before, fronting indie-popsters Gaoler's Daughter. Now on his own, he says he imposed "strict limitations" on himself, restricting the sound he could create. 'Tammy...' with the

Marmozets - Why Do You Hate Me?

Sinew-tearing, visceral and confrontational but this isn't another teen-punk sensation.
Two sets of siblings (3 x MacIntyres and 2 x Bottomleys) have been recording and playing live as Marmozets since 2011 and this single really cuts through.
With howl-growling lyrical insight, an all-knowing guitar complement, stop-start time changes and a hard-ass work ethic,

Trampolene - Alcohol Kiss

GND favourites, Trampolene, ask us to climb aboard and strap into their pop-punk-rocket and as we smile-grimace our way into orbit, we see the band's obscurity disappearing away beneath us. We come back down to Earth again though, only to run around to back of the queue to press play again.

Mixtape: March 2014

In like a lion and out like a lamb, here's the artists and tracks reviewed during March 2014 over at Getting Near Dawn.




It's a great time of year for music bloggers and March 2014 has surfaced a bumper crop of new music.
This month, we have covered

LaDiDa - Dance

Bouncing, twitchy, rock n vamp, Doo-Wop New Wave from this Gothenburg-based polished-punk four-piece. We have a weakness for a melodica here at GND (the result of a wasted teenage) so when baby-doll punk, Bea LaDiDa, fires it up between her demonic grins, you can't help but

The New Hellfire Club - Brahma Kamal

The band tagline promises 'melancholia' and 'psychedelia' which conjures up fuzzed-out, empty pill-jar Mary Chain. While those influences are evident, actually the songcraft and production is pop-fresh and clean. This combo can only be a good thing for the radio playlisters.
'Brahma Kamal' is reminiscent of early 90's Primal Scream, the skittering, indie-shuffle, wood-block drums, delayed guitar-noodling and Americanised sneering vocals with call-and-answer backing. Don't think you've got the band nailed down though.
Check out the