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

Franklin - Dirty Silver

If Josh Homme was forced to play for food at the bottom of a Glaswegian well, we wouldn't be far off. As captive Homme recalls the Seventies and delivers dirty-lick-after-dirty-riff back up to his captors, he is thrown back down big, ole, splashy drums and trembling bass making

The Acid - Creeper

As you're undergoing a brain-wash interrogation by his robot assistants, Ry X mumbles in your inner-ear so no-one else can hear while the Battle For Synth Planet rages on around you.

Desert Mountain Tribe - Take A Ride

As if these three Londonites created the sound by looking at their band and track name, this could be the imagined music that Native Americans listened to whilst riding into battle.
Chugging, hoodoo-rock rhythm with

Bridie Jackson And The Arbour - We Talked Again

Not just the pining, spectral voice, not only the baroque pinboard instrumentation, not simply the train-track movement of the dynamic sections, there's a feeling that you're hearing something special. Music written and performed with a deep understanding of what's required to move listeners in 2014. It doesn't sound like it's written for an advert either.
This could be

Paul Orwell - Like I Did Before

Found this guy via his Twitter post to a 1967 Bolan track which immediately got our attention.
Listening to 'Like I Did Before' for the first time, like your Nan's mantlepiece, everything is absolutely unchanged and in the right place since the Sixties; the whirling Hammond and plucked Hohner all soaked in valve and crunchy reverb. However there's something new.
The lyrics

Flyte – We Are The Rain

Right little gem this is. Showers of sunny synth, disco bass and three-part Wilson-esque harmonies coupled with the light and flightiness of lyric.
Indie-rock bands are increasingly adopting this optimistic vibe but there's still plenty of room on blogs and playlists right now.
Expect to hear more

High Hazels - Summer Rain

Four Yorkshire lads go around to Arthur Lee's house and they circle-sit on his Paisley lounge rug. They're all wearing Johnny Effin' Marr t-shirts (even Lee) and outside, the sunshine makes cats stretch.
With a warbling folkie-croon and guitar that refuses to pastiche, 'Summer Rain' can safely provide

Jord Allen - Remembered

Jord could be an early Alex Turner after the Young Monkey takes his nose out of the poetry book and gets up in your face with a swaggering, Mancunian arrogance.
Rootsy, ballsy, full of himself, a local hero in the making. Don't think it's all style and no substance though. He knows full well how to structure a punchy, garage-rock tune and turn a phrase that rewards another listen.
Be sure he'll be

Liars - Mess On A Mission

Iggy Pop sermonises as he plays on his Atari home games console...whilst jogging on the Devil's treadmill.

Gregory Pepper And His Problems - Anything Is Passable

If you had the luck to stumble upon Brian Wilson's hidden sound-check, stream-of-consciousness recordings you'd be made up (and probably somewhat richer). Well, you haven't. However you can now listen to Canadian Gregory Pepper bestow his

Flashes - To Catch A Ghost

Taken from their eponymous second album, the Cornish band-of-five package and deliver an impact song with "To Catch A Ghost".
It's more of an indie-jangle affair than its album stable-mates but still retains more than enough fringe-dangling mooch. Imagine, Two Door Alex fiddling with a free trial of Ableton with his fuzz pedal stuck on whilst Peter Kember stares at him from outside the window.
It's pretty clear there's enough talent and some varied influences amongst the band which can only be good thing. The track selection offered

Bernard + Edith - Poppy

A sleek, stylish Sleigh Bells or a minor key darkening of AlunaGeorge? Whatever. This track will sound great everywhere.
Edith's voice has a blues-jazz edge which stands out sultrily from her soon-to-be peers. The groove behind

The New Union - NOW

Image: Facebook The New Union

Brighton new hit-makers, The New Union, release 'NOW' on Monday 17 March into the open, yet fickle, arms of light-indie fan hordes. With simple, driving guitar, riffy pia-pia-piano and a sticky-weed chorus hook, it's

The Cadbury Sisters - Milk

Image: Facebook Cadbury Sisters

The sisters (yes - they are a relation of the great chocolatiers) are moving away from the stripped-away harmonies of last year's Barefoot EP into much more pop-friendly territory.
I can't help but mentioning Haim in this same paragraph. Although the overall sound contrasts, there is still the love of strong, melodic tunes from those Nineteen Eighties à la Fleetwood Mac.
Today the words,

Wooden Arms - Tide / December

Cl-indie-assical or just clindie ® if you like.
'December' conjures up car adverts where the mechanical star climbs its way up through an Alpine forest finally reaching a brightly-lit log cabin with

Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer - Hip-Hop Was To Blame After All

It's pointless writing a review of this. Just take a listen.

Little Dusty - Swimmer

Exquisite finger-picked patterns from Sam and Dave's guitars dancing around each other reminiscent of Jansch and Renbourn. Meanwhile, Nicola's rather unique voice calls out modern tales of love. There's a curiosity and innocence in the voice and even though there is some Joanna Newsom in the phrasing, there's just as much Lauren Mayberry.
There's a warmth and earthiness throughout their recordings and they evidently have a strong trad-folk backbone. However they're not caught

Ben Boden - Mona Lisa Smile

I don't normally write about pop per se (except for the kind of pop that is now 'pop' because it wasn't originally 'pop'. Bleurgh.) However, after Ben contacted us, I put this post up today, mainly because I love a good juxtaposition (see last post).
Singer-songwriter Ben Boden appeared on Northampton's BBC Introducing last year and has been working hard in London since. The track shows off his delicate voice that has reassuring flaws and communicates his earnest balladry well. It seems to root from a simple voice and busking guitar song but

GHXST - Dead Town

Have you seen the movie 'Melancholia'? Well, NY boom-and-gloomsters, GHXST, return with a track that could feasibly soundtrack a planet slowly colliding with the one you're on. It's also what grunge sounded like when you were half-conscious. Jolly stuff.

Ninetails - An Aria

Yes, there's soft layered vocals and the synth-glock of prog but there's more than just an 'Eighties in the American sunshine' reboot here. They evidently know the musical world that they create in now, perfectly.
They concoct bizarre, glimmering, colourful soundscapes but not in a forced, psychedelic way. Check the full 60 seconds of fading outro complete with mariachi trumpet. This fact alone will tell you that Ninetails are bold and brassy enough to be different and should certainly cut through the noise this year.
'An Aria' is taken from their mini-album 'Quiet Confidence'. Why not head over to their FB page now?

Oh Boy! - Love & Other Difficulties

Turning from the bar, you've tripped over your own foot. Embarrassed and smiling, you're stumbling forwards whilst trying to hold your tray of lagers steady. Well done - you haven't spilt a drop (except Dave's lemonade has lost its straw).
This latest track from these Northampton rascals has oodles of grr and is just bloody good fun! New EP 'EP#1' available around about...now.

Carina Nebula - Blossom

The duo, Buddy Miller and Sol Murphy have only been making music together "influenced [by] punk and 60s garage", as Carina Nebula, since November 2013 but seem to know their genre well. It won't harm their potential either, living in Liverpool, the Psych Capital of The World (Northern Hemisphere). Surely the very paving slabs they walk everyday must ooze the stuff that makes guitar bands produce this fuzz and swirl.
Their first full offering 'Blossom' has a slow metronome riff that elicits appropriate amounts of motion sickness and the elevator-shaft vocals pine away between periods of clanging guitar that diverge away from the normal mid-range psych-fuzz heard of late.
Incidentally, whether intentional or not, the recording seems to pop and wobble a bit (or it's something I've had for lunch). I guess they're still honing their production skills.
All said, they have a sound ready for a good live show so we'll watch out for that. In summary - less shoegaze, more stargaze (sorry).
Carina Nebula are planning to release a four-track EP by May 2014.

The 150 Friends' Club - Hoonanaparka

Fresh, bright, madcap and spiked with sit-up-and-listen, the four Londoners made it on to FOTN's Listening Post last week. The back story reported by Charlene Lebrun at FreshAndBold contains the astonishing, "screw-you" phenomenon of allowing ad agencies to use and, of course, pay for the band's anti-ad agency music. Well, they certainly have a healthy urge to aggravate, some killer song-writing chops and an entertaining Twitter feed. What more does an emerging band need in 2014? They will also certainly test music writers' apostrophe skills (which can only be a good thing). A mini-album will be available to the Internets on 1 March.

Contranym - Lovely Joan

I first heard this saucy trad-folk tale reproduced by Martin Carthy on his debut album and now, of all the places, it rears its (maiden) head again on the Fresh On The Net Listening Post. This time, however, it is sang and fiddled, laid over some bizarre beats. This is 'trad-step' apparently and, seriously, it is not for everyone. However still worth a post just to share as an oddity and I would hope that this pairing of Ian Thistlethwaite and FK:Dup would agree.

Osca - Indicator

Singer's voice resembles Chris Martin's and the ivory-stabbing noodlings add to the similarity. Fortunately, the band also demonstrate the ability to design a cracking ballad. A poor man's Coldplay or rising shoulder-to-shoulder with Of Monsters And Men? One thing for sure, their sound is a popular recipe and should really appeal to the masses.

We Are Catchers - Tap Tap Tap

You're waking up on a beach viewing the scene around you through the Instagram Toaster filter.
Later on that evening, you fall into a high-ceiling pub with a Joanna pushed up against the wall. It's being played loudly, everyone's singing along, children are dancing and even the doorman is smiling.
Liverpudlian Peter Jackson puts his fingers on the keys, lays down the Wilson Brothers' harmonies and soaks us in these good vibrations. Beware of the chorus hook!
This 7" single is out via Domino on March 17th followed by an album on March 24th.
http://www.dominorecordco.com/uk/news/05-02-14/we-are-catchers-debut-album-announced-for-march-24th/

SURF - Sugar

The opening chord of this track has a sun-like warmth and musically, as well as in name, SURF capture the brighter, summer days coming up ahead of this first release. Held together strongly with more of that guitar, breezy bass and playful drums, there's oodles of Two Door Cinema Club here and that push-pop indie style will undoubtedly appeal. Not sure if the world has moved on too much for them but still definitely one to watch.