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.