Black Black Hills certainly grabbed attention with their street performance at TGE.

A Suffolk’n’Cool special from Brighton on the south coast of England. We’re here for three days of independent music as artists from around the world showcase their talents to audiences comprising about half and half music biz folks and real music fans.  Join me for The Great Escape.

Minus the makeup – Blek (Mumbai, India)

Blek is a 3-member power pop band from Mumbai, India comprising of Rishi Bradoo (Guitar/Vocals), Jared Juan Creado (Bass/Vocals) and Varoon Aiyer (Drums).

Blek were one of 5 winners of the Ray-Ban Never Hide Sounds, a nationwide talent hunt for best emerging artists in 2011.

The band released their debut EP “Hexes + Drama & Other Reasons for Evacuation” as a free download (available on ennui.BOMB Records : www.ennuidotbomb.com ) early last year and has since been one of the most buzzing acts on the Indian indie circuit. Backed with super reviews for the EP from all quarters, Blek has gigged extensively covering most of the country. They plan on releasing their next EP this summer supported by a multi-city tour of India.

Their appearance on the Komedia Studio Bar stage was an unexpected surprise which Codger. Grumbler and I stumbled upon totally by chance. I picked up a sampler album of Indian rock music which has some absolute gems – so we’ll be hearing more on Suffolk ’n’ Cool and, I suspect on PC Podcast.

www.facebook.com/BLEKMUSIC

http://soundcloud.com/blek

http://nh7.in/blek/ (excellent video of live performance here)

http://musicfellas.com/blek

Ethereral – Hjaltalin (Reykjavík, Iceland)

We had a track from Hjaltalin last week so I was keen to catch their set at Above Audio.

Afterwards I spoke with songwriter, guitarist with Hjaltalin, Högni Egilsson

Letter to (…) – Hjaltalin

The band comprises some excellent musicians: Axel Haraldsson, Guðmundur Óskar, Guðmundsson, Hjörtur Ingvi Jóhannsson, Högni Egilsson and Rebekka Bryndís Björnsdóttir singing together beautifully along with Sigríður Thorlacius and Viktor Orri Árnason.

www.facebook.com/hjaltalinband

www.hjaltalinmusic.com

Far From My Arms – Black Black Hills (Brighton, UK)

A great set to stumble upon totally by chance. Mark S Aaron’s voice caught my ear along with some really interesting percussion on a solid bass. That certainly does it for me.

The band’s brooding, dynamic energy has already begun to capture people’s interest and support: Their track A Drowning was recently selected for the Radio 1 playlist

www.blackblackhills.com/

www.facebook.com/blackblackhills

One More Tear – Echo and the Empress (Adelaide, South Australia)

The first set of the Great Escape kicked things of at The Haunt – one of around 30 venues used for TGE. This is a great little space with a balcony from which you can look almost straight down onto the stage. Just as long as you’re in the first three rows!

Their first TGE and they were first on – so no pressure for Skye and Beth then! They went on to play three packed shows during the festival and have certainly done themselves proud on their first visit dates in the UK. I’m looking forward to catching them again next time.

www.facebook.com/echoandtheempress

www.echoandtheempress.com

Scientists  and Cynthia – Velociraptor (Brisbane, Australia)

Velociraptor played sets at both The Haunt and the Aussie BBQ at Concorde 2.

Their 10 person line-up impresses both the eyes and the ears with drums (no seat), bass and keyboards plus seven or so guitars and almost everyone singing.

Certainly an endearing riot of a performance which should not be missed.

Main singer Jeremy Neale played a solo set in the hushed galleries of Brighton museum on Saturday evening which was a magical contract to the full band sets.

www.facebook.com/velociraptorband

You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man – The Beards (Adelaide, South Australia)

To close out the Aussie segment from The Great Escape a band that can only be described as “niche”. The Beards have an album called Having A Beard Is The New Not Having A Beard featuring thirteen tracks, every one on the subject of, and indeed, in praise of, er … beards.

They are (allegedly):

Johann Beardraven

John Beardman Jr

Nathaniel Beard

Facey McStubblington

What they really are is a group of highly skilled musicians with a beautifully developed sense of the absurd and, in Chelsea Sinnott, one of the hardest working and best fun mangers around.

On their current tour they’ve already wowed LA, SXSW, Canadian Music Week, Bearded Theory and Byron’s Bay Bluesfest. They are in the UK for a few more days so you may be able to catch their unashamedly totalitarian beard-rock shows at:

Wed 22nd May Deaf Institute, Manchester, England.
www.aeglive.co.uk/artists/the-beards

Thurs 23rd May The Louisianna, Bristol, England
http://aeglive.seetickets.com/event/the-beards/the-louisiana/698437/?src=AEGLIVEUK_LOUISIANA_BEARDS_230513

Fri 24th May Leadmill, Sheffield, England.
www.aeglive.co.uk/artists/the-beards

Sun 26th May Scrumpstock Festival, Somerset, England.
www.scrumpstock.co.uk/shop

Then they are back into Western Australia, Victoria and NSW throughout June. If you can’t get to a show, Do check out their videos on their various web presences:

thebeardsblog.wordpress.com/

A Session at The Barn this week with Funke and the Two Tone Baby.   [Artwork: Ieuan Edwards]

What a talented guy (and really good company too). He’s been playing for a while and his distinctive style has developed over the past 5 years into something that seriously impressed the Suffolk ‘n’ Cool team.

He’s recently started on a UK tour that will take in both city and smaller town venues. Details are on his Facebook page for now but the main site will come into it’s own any time now.

As of June 3 his debut album “Battles will be available from all the usual download stores including Amazon and iTunes. Best for Dan though is if you buy direct from him through his Bandcamp page.

Please bear in mind that Suffolk’n'Cool goes out as a relatively low bitrate mp3 so you’ll get much better sound off the CD or commercial high quality download.

While we were recording the session, we shot some simple video.

Here’s the title track from Funke’s album, Battles.

and here’s the final song in the session Bella’s Kiss.

See Dan’s own videos and find out all about Funke and the Two Tone Baby at:

funkeandthetwotonebaby.co.uk

www.facebook.com/funkeandthetwotonebaby

@funke2tonebaby

SnC recording engineer: Jeremy Gugenheim

An Escape queue to get in! Lots of Aussie bands on this week’s show. Most at TGE next week.

Music from almost opposite ends of the earth this week. We have the second of our Icelandic features and from round the other side and almost as far down, a bunch of tracks from Aussie bands that will be showcasing at The Great Escape next week. There’s quite a variety.

We also have news of what may be the sad demise of The Rolling Stones as their current US tour looks rather shaky.

Easy Lad – The Upskirts (Sydney, Australia)

Sydney four-­piece The Upskirts are a hard band to pin down. With two 5-track EP’s under their belts they have dabbled in psychedelic textures and reverberated surf – rock guitar riffs, frenzied post-punk idiocy and garage pop grooves.

What is left is an eclectic amalgam of rock music, and a band that is excited rather than ambivalent about the music they play.

Their live shows are a swoon of highs and lows with an unmistakable dynamic energy that has turned heads and raised eyebrows.

Having played countless shows across bars, rooftops, backyards and courtyards in Sydney and up and down the east coast, The Upskirts have an exciting year ahead in 2013.

They’re here in the UK for their first overseas tour as well as playing at the Great Escape in Brighton next week.

With plans to head back into the studio again very soon, it can only be expected that the band will continue to surprise, so do yourself a favour, buy a record, see a show and disregard your expectations.

SUNDAY 12th MAY @ THE AUSSIE BBQ at CARGO, SHOREDITCH 4:30pm

WEDNESDAY 15th MAY @ DUBLIN CASTLE, CAMDEN 8:00pm

THURSDAY 16th MAY @ THE HAUNT, BRIGHTON 1:15pm

SATURDAY 18th MAY @ STICKY MIKE’S FROG BAR, BRIGHTON (Official Great Escape Showcase) 6:45pm

www.facebook.com/TheUpskirts

War Hero – Biggi Hilmars (Iceland)

Blending classical, electronic, ambient, avant-garde and pop influences, Biggi Hilmars has developed a distinctive, haunting, provocative, original music style, for which he is becoming so sought-after.

Born in 1978 in Reykjavik, the London based composer and artist has already made an impact on the film and tv scene composing for international films such as IDFA and Edda Oscar Awards nominee ‘Future of Hope’ (2010) and ‘Heaven on Earth’ (2009) by award winning director Deepa Mehta and most recently his music was featured on Ridley Scott’s ‘Life in A Day’ movie trailer.

Biggi fronts the band Ampop, which has written award-winning albums ‘My Delusions’ (2006), ‘Sail to the Moon’ (2007) and a string of hits ‘My Delusions’, ‘Gets Me Down’ in his homeland.

Brought up listening to artists such as Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Electric Light Orchestra, Depeche Mode, Brian Eno and The Beatles (to name but few), his interest in classical music was never far away. In his late 20´s after moving to London he started working with classical musicians, which lit his interest in writing classical music.

Here’s a live performance from the ‘All We Can Be‘ debut album release concert at Frikirkjan Church, Reykjavik on October 4th.

www.biggihilmars.com

@biggihilmars

Crack in a Stone – Hjaltalin (Reykjavik, Iceland)

Great news for UK fans of the cinematic and splendid Icelandic group Hjaltalin – they are heading to dear old Blighty for a run of dates in May!

The group kick things off at the Social in central London on May 14th, before playing the Hoxton Bar And Grill on the following night. They then hotfoot it down to sunny (possibly) Brighton to play Above Audio on 16th and the Brighthelm Centre on 17th. For further up to the minute details, swing by the band’s Facebook page.

www.facebook.com/hjaltalinband

www.hjaltalinmusic.com

One More Tear – Echo and the Empress (Adelaide, Australia)

Meet Echo and the Empress, a South Australian based musical collaboration of two sisters and 4 piece live on stage. In May 2012 their song Balloon was announced as the winner in the Pop Category for the 12th Annual International Independent Music Awards. After their big win, the girls were invited to play Gorgeous Festival in late 2012 alongside other great Australian musicians such as Missy Higgins and Dan Sultan. This is where UK’s highly regarded festival booker, Martin Elbourne, saw the girls and invited them to perform at the UK’s Great Escape Festival next week. They also joined the line up for Liverpool sound city and are set for Live at Leeds.

As their performance journey continues, Sam and Elise join the girls on stage with percussion and bass that adorn the simple E&E sounds with vitality. After launching their debut self-titled album on the 31st March at The Promethean in South Australia, the girls have now released a new single One More Tear.

You can hear more music at their site and catch them live, just as I’m intending to do at TGE:

9 May Underbelly, 5 Bywell Pl London W1T 3DN, 8pm

14 May Talking Heads in Southampton  7:30pm

16 May The Great Escape Festival @ Digital at 6.30pm

17 May The Great Escape Festival @ The Hope at 12.30pm

www.echoandtheempress.com

It’s not been a good week for the Stones

Tickets for their show at Staples Centre in LA were going very slowly last week only the day before you could get blocks of 8 seats together, whole sections of the venue were very patchily sold. Thousands of seats available, but then they were charging up to $600 per seat and you had to buy at least 2 seats.

Then they caved in – thousands of seats were discounted to $85 and, of course the venue sold out with quesues around the block. Just like it used to be when concert tickets cost under $10.

Sales for further dates on their 50^th anniversary tour are also weak – at those vastly inflated prices.

Then, to whip up a bit of interest they release video on their own official YouTube channel that is utterly laughable, as Bob Lefsetz said a couple of days ago, “This is The Stones. A band that can’t even play “The Last Time” as well as you did in middle school.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLRD1R8GNgY

Watch the video, if you can, and then take a look at the comments.

It’s just so very sad, seeing a once great band descend into mediocrity and greed.

But it gets worse – they need to really promote the hell out of the rest of the tour. But please, not like this:

“Mick’s Message to the Bay Area”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY1iShruBXg

To put the icing on the cake, they are just releasing ‘Brussels Affair‘ mega-package, which includes a once-rare recording of the Stones playing Brussels in 1973 (on vinyl), a tour lithograph, a Seiko lip-and-tongue watch, vintage packaging, even a book with Jagger’s signature. It’s an edition limited to 1,727 copies so it will probably sell out – in every sense.

The base price starts at $750, with the minimum shipping and tax putting the price tag at $845.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to ticket prices. Perhaps this will signal the beginning of a return to sanity.

Oh Innocence – Dune (Melbourne, Australia)

Having worked within the confines of various musical genres over the years as a professional musician, Dune had found herself increasingly dissatisfied with toeing the line. “I needed to isolate and go deeper into my own psyche, a place that was not always comfortable,” she says. “I realised the only way I would have the freedom to do what I wanted was to build my own studio, which I did last year with my husband, and then record and release my music independently.

Dune has a love of the lineage of electronica. “Some of the tracks definitely echo the music being made around the time I was born,” she says. “My dad was active in the experimental electronic movement in the UK in the 1970s, and a lot of the synths I was using, like the Roland Jupiter 8, were his old gear from that time.”

The results are a fusion of tribal beats, eastern scales and an occasional mosey into the avant-garde. While Dune is best known for her vocal portfolio, she’s also a skilled keyboard player, evidenced by the adept nods to synth pioneers like Brian Eno and Gary Numan. Pangs of distorted reverb and analogue delay shimmer throughout the songs, which are broken down to their key components and never overplayed. It’s a restraint that belies her years spent at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Jade MacRae – vocals, keyboards and other stuff

Luke Hodgson – bass and winning shirts

Leigh Fisher – drums and samples and good vibes

www.facebook.com/ThisIsDUNE

@ThisIsDune

www.thisisdune.tumblr.com

Sounds Australia

“As the weather gets hotter in the Northern hemisphere, so too do the opportunities for Australian artists to showcase their talents to the world. The UK is first cab off the rank, with Sounds Australia presenting The Aussie BBQ in London on May 12 at Cargo with 12 bands for a huge 12 hours… plus the obligatory BBQ feast.

We then return to Brighton for The Great Escape, with 20 Australian artists hitting the seaside town to no doubt dazzle and delight international delegates and local fans alike.

Come May 21, we head to the even warmer climes of Singapore, where nine Australian artists will showcase at Music Matters, “Asia’s #1 celebration of music discovery”, including a keynote performance from Gurrumul and The Aussie BBQ showcase.

May is also the time for Aussie artists get applications in for local and international showcasing opportunities later in the year.

Reeperbahn Festival takes place in Hamburg, Germany from 25-28 September and application are open until July 1.

CMJ Music Marathon happens in New York City 15-19 October and applications to play close June 26.

Amsterdam Dance Event, taking place in The Netherlands 16-20 October, also has an application form to showcase (no closing date advertised).

Back home, and Brisbane’s BIGSOUND Live applications have just been extended to May 20. Apply here for the chance to showcase to local and international delegates between 11-13 September.

Keep an eye on Sounds Australia’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for updates on the action as it happens, and don’t forget to download the smartphone app for Android and iPhone for artist and industry profiles, video, audio and contact details.”

www.soundsaustralia.com.au

Desert – Messrs (Adelaide, Australia)

Messrs’ story officially begins in 2011, but their heritage goes way back. Having played together in various musical guises over the years, the band’s five members – Josh Moore on vocals, Justin Walker on guitar, Chad Hooper on drums and brothers Craig and Shane Lock on bass and synth respectively – took a long time to finally feel comfortable in their creative shoes.

Eschewing their skittish, scatty indie punk stylings of their earlier days, Messrs re-emerged a much more honed and focused unit in 2011.

Having toured extensively, playing festivals such as The Great Escape (UK), The Big Day Out (AUS) and Parklife (AUS) and supporting the likes of Phoenix, Neon Indian and Kele, Messrs eventually got around to putting out their debut EP in late 2012. Welcome To Nowhere dropped last November to immediate acclaim, reaching the Top 40 in the Australian iTunes Albums Chart. The EP’s lead single “Desert” also made a massive impact, racking up nearly 60,000 Vimeo views to date.

They’re not at TGE this year but someone’s got to entertain the folks back home. They’re playing the Grace Darling in Adelaide in Friday night.

www.soundcloud.com/messrs

www.facebook.com/messrsband

@Messrsband

Arstidir make a welcome appearance to kick off our Icelandic season.

Some rather “musical” tunes on this week’s SnC and the start of a short Icelandic season celebrating a flavour of the remarkable music which that tiny island has to offer.

Also, we’ve some news about one of the long-established music streaming services – perhaps a precursor to some big shifts to the listening landscape.

I left the barn door open whilst recording this morning – the birds of Suffolk obviously want to be heard too!

Mind My Halo – Irontom (LA, CA, USA)

IRONTOM emerged at the beginning of the year with an intent on forging a presence for themselves on the Los Angeles music scene. The music exhibits a variety of styles and sounds on top of a classic sensibility for song writing. With Harry Hayes: Vocals, Zach Irons: Guitar, Daniel Saslow: Keyboards, Dylan Williams: Drums and Dane Sandborg: Bass, the personalities of each of the five musicians combine to form an undeniably powerful and energetic sound.

IRONTOM recently released their debut EP, The Loose EP, on October 17th, 2012. Produced by Alain Johannes (Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Chris Cornell). Listen to The Loose EP to hear the range and diversity of the band. The music is effects-heavy, detailed in its parts and harmonies, and honest in its message.

www.irontomband.com

www.facebook.com/irontomband

@irontomband

Look at the Light – Sin Fang (Iceland)

It’s been only three years since Iceland’s new king of lo-fi layered lushness, Sindri Már Sigfússon, began his official recording career. “Summer Echoes”, the new and second album of his solo-project Sin Fang (he dropped the “Bous”) is now already his 4th album release (including 2 records of his other musical outlet Seabear) since 2007. The album oscillates wildly unearthing glimpses of familiarity – vintage Flying Nun here, Paw Tracks there and a Belle and Sebastian pop nous – while retaining the own stark originality of this uber-talented artist and producer.

www.heysinfang.com

“AOL Music is shutting down. We all just got laid off.”

Last year, Digital Music News broke news of the brutal gutting and dismantling of Yahoo Music.  Turns out that wasn’t an isolated incident: according to numerous tweets and emails surfacing ahead of last weekend.

AOL is now shutting down AOL Music and its subsidiary properties immediately.  Staffers were getting laid off on Friday, according to preliminary (and unconfirmed) details.

AOL’s official PR pontiff has yet to confirm the carnage, but here’s a tweet directly from the inside.  (Actually, it was quickly deleted, and snapped from the trash by @lorilewis).

That’s Spinner, an early internet radio pioneer transformed into an editorial, aficionado-aimed music site by AOL.   Now, it’s just one of several properties getting terminated.  At present, it remains unclear if any properties will remain, though it looks like AOL Radio, powered by Slacker, will survive.

As of yesterday Spinner appears to be operating normally.

http://music.aol.com

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Human – Valente (Los Angeles, CA, USA)

The son of an American jazz singer and an Italian opera and theatre director, Valente was born in Rome. Growing up around his parents’ work and his sisters’ punk and new wave records, he began to write music while attending Catholic priest boarding school in Switzerland. Despite his Latin teacher’s prediction that he’d end up as a used car salesman, Valente moved to Los Angeles to study bass playing and film scoring.

After releasing a few songs on Myspace, the word quickly spread. Valente caught the attention of a wide array of fellow musicians and producers. Among these was Marc Collin, the renowned producer behind Nouvelle Vague who offered Valente to record an album in Paris called Two For The Road along side Katrine Ottosen.

Today, Valente splits his time between Europe, Asia and America working on several projects as both producer and artist. He has worked with several artists as both an artist and producer, including Nouvelle Vague, Avi Buffalo, Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes), Angela McCluskey, and others. His latest album, Music for Rooftops was written while traveling through New York, Tokyo, and Paris, among other cities, and developed in Los Angeles. Music for Rooftops has been available for almost a week.

www.vforvalente.com/

@VforVALENTE

Whisky in the Jar – The O’Marleys (Exeter, Devon, UK)

A brand new version of Whiskey in the Jar from those Devon purveyors of fine reggae, rock, folk and traditional Irish tunes that mix into the sound of The O’Marleys. Taking influences from Romany music, The Upsetters, Bob Marley and Moving Hearts, it creates a heady and exciting soundscape.

In the rhythm section there is the wild yet subtle Bodhran playing of Mike Nangle and the heavy relentless electric bass of James King, complimented with electric percussion. On the top line is premier fiddle player Mac Moulton who plunges from Irish set dances into the jazz style of Stephan Grappelli with surprising ease. At the centre of the band is the rather mysterious 12 string guitarist, John Fitzsimons. His playing is a startling combination of cross rhythms/ jazz chords and counter melodies that produce completely original arrangements of the songs. With a background on the London music scene he brings many diverse influences to the band. Lead singer Mike Nangle hails from the theatrical tradition and adds rasping drama to the songs. Three members of the band sing (and make strange noises), creating rich vocal patterns and harmonies.

Their 2010 album, The Rising of the Moon, (their second) is on Idleday Records. It is available for download from iTunes, Amazon and Tesco online. You tube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHmQSFLosV0

They’ve got a few festival dates – (mostly beer festivals) coming up and a new album due out in July. Check their site for details.

www.myspace.com/theomarley39s

Crabgrass – Manzanita Falls (San Francisco, CA, USA)

Formed in the fall of 2011, Manzanita Falls is a four-piece indie-rock group from San Francisco Bay Area. They started out small, playing local shows while developing their distinctive sound. Influenced by bands like The National, Wilco, and The Frames, their sound is comfortably familiar and also uniquely Manzanita Falls.

Originally slated to be released in November of 2012, their debut album, Vinyl Ghost was delayed after the band went through a near-fatal car accident in Abilene, TX that left drummer, Matt Coit, with a fractured neck.

Vinyl Ghost is available now, and the band are currently touring the west coast in support of the album.

5.1.13 Elko, Nevada @ DLC Gallery and Wine Bar

5.2.13 Las Vegas, Nevada @ Favorites

5.3.13 Los Angeles, CA @ Tribal Café

5.4.13 San Luis Obispo, California @ The Frog and the Peach

www.manzanitafalls.com

@ManzanitaFalls

Ljóð í sand (Sakaris Neighties Remix) – Árstíðir (Reykjavík, Iceland)

Árstíðir is a vocal­-based acoustic band from Reykjavík. The six members sing, string, play piano, and pick guitars.

Over the four years since Árstíðir’s formation the band has released two full-length records and a remix EP praised by trendsetting music critics, had two number one hits on Icelandic radio, made several TV appearances in Iceland, Sweden, Russia, Germany, and the Czech Republic, and played sold out venues all over Europe. In January 2013 Árstíðir won the prestigious 21st Eiserner Eversteiner European Folk Music Award.

Árstíðir’s arresting six-part vocal harmonies and lush instrumentation set them apart, effusing a warm tide of resonant acoustic and baritone guitars, virtuosic piano, and melismatic strings. The result is an uncommonly wide spectrum of sound, driven by the members’ exceptional vocal range.

Consequently, Árstíðir’s music is a rare composition of the clear-cut and the complex. Their songs are easy to fall in love with, yet mixed with diverse influences such as progressive rock, indie, classical chamber music, and Icelandic folk music.

Árstíðir are:

Daníel Auðundsson – Guitar & vocals

Gunnar Már Jakobsson – Guitar & vocals

Ragnar Ólafsson – Baritone guitar & vocals

Jón Elísson – Piano & vocals

Hallgrímur Jónas Jensson – Cello & vocals

Karl Aldinsteinn Pestka – Violin & vocals

Website: www.arstidir.com

If you’re interested in the music they would select as the best of Iceland – check out their Soundcloud playlist

www.arstidir.com/

Sleight of Hand – Paper Diamond (Boulder, CO, USA)

Another single from Boulder based – genre defying Paper Diamond’s forthcoming EP ‘Paragon‘ set to be released April 16th 2013. Paragon will feature a range of production, instrumentation, and collaborators all weaved into Paper Diamond’s signature style.

While “genre-defying” is an overused word, Paper Diamond is one of the few producers who truly pulls it off, seamlessly weaving together genres as diverse as electro, trap, funk, dubstep, house, moombahton and hip-hop, all with a whiff of ganja smoke floating through it.

Quite a few festival dates coming up over the summer:

5/24-5/26 Chillicothe, IL –  Summer Camp Music Festival

5/25-5/27 Detroit, MI – Movement Festival

6/7-6/9 New York, NY – Governor’s Ball Music Festival

6/8-6/9 Baltimore, MD –  Moonrise Festival

6/13-6/16 Manchester, TN –  Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival

7/11-7/13 Mariahville, NY – Camp Bisco

7/11-7/15 Temecula, CA – Lightning in a Bottle

Grab Sleight of Hand here

www.paper-diamond.com

@paperdiamond

Voodoo Tapes, opening the upcoming season from Aquietbump. Relax and pull down the sub crossover freq.

Voodoo Tapes is strongly intertwined with the southern Italian net label A Quiet Bump, and it’s great to have him on the show this week.

We’ve news of some SummerStage performances in New York and, of course, some of the more interesting of the current crop of truly independent artists. Welcome to your breath of fresh musical air, straight from the east coast of England.

Black and White – Erica Glyn (NYC, USA)

OK. I know it’s only a couple of weeks since I played The Animal by Erica Glyn but there you go, I’m playing another one already!

Erica’s vampy, garage-pop lures listeners into “a world of the unusual and strange”, a landscape of pulsating beats, surging synthesizers, elegantly volcanic melodies, and dark, poetic lyrics. Her passion and drive for her own development exploded in her 2012 full-length release, STATIC.

Like all her work, the album was written, recorded and produced solely by Erica, with contributions from a collection of well-respected artists and special mixes by multiple Grammy award-winning master music-maker and friend, Chris Lord-Alge.

ericaglyn.com

@EricaGlyn

Scratching for Light – Peg Simone (NYC, USA)

The tracks on 2013’s Witch Tree Road hover in unidentified terrain: black and white photographs of someone else’s dead relatives; mildewed cellars splintered with the shards of discolored Mason jars; moth-eaten, unopened steamer trunks; upturned, spinning wheels of midnight Oldsmobile fatalities; sepia-toned text from newspaper insulation, rendered illegible by time and flour-paste glue; drunken cruelty; ageless suffering; subterranean wrath.

Throughout, Peg’s voice is a torrid whisper, punctuated by gasps that abandon the listener to solitary contemplation, to wonder whether she’s celebrating or mourning; praying or seducing. Such are the transformative powers of a blues sorceress.

pegsimone.com

@pegsimone

Good Luck (And All That Stuff) – We Are The West (LA, CA, USA)

Hey Peter,

Thanks for playing The Hammer on your very cool show.

I also liked what you had to say about acoustical spaces and the music they are either built for or shape.  When we were based in New York, we put on concerts in an abandoned convent (we worked out a deal with the priest whose church owned the building), and last year we put together a tour of nontraditional venues that included a mineshaft, a wind-carved desert amphitheater, an old silent movie theater, and an impound tow lot.

Each space seems to invite a different approach.

And you’re right: those vocals on The Hammer were done back at the underground parking garage, after our initial sessions in the barn.

Our first EP, released last spring, was recorded entirely in the parking garage where we do our monthly Underground Series. I’ll attach one of the tunes, Good Luck (and all that stuff).

We just returned from a trip out to New Mexico to track the third EP, which we’re hoping to have ready in a month or two.

Thanks again,

Brett

You can download their music from iTunes

The Underground Series takes place the Saturday before each full moon in the underground car park of an office building in Santa Monica. The next is on May 18 when Bananimal will be special guests.

wearethewest.com

@wearethewest

Open Up My Heart – Marla Mase (New York City, NY, USA)

In September New York CIty writer/performer/producer/singer/songwriter performed this piece in China, where she was invited by the Friends of the UN to perform for UN GLOBAL PEACE DAY in Linzhou City. She was given an honorary, “Messenger of Peace” award for her visionary work as a songwriter and performing artist. She writes songs, plays, monologues, short stories, erotica, blogs, and poems. She is known for her gutsy, sexy, raw performance style and her intelligent lyrics.

SummerStage 2013 have just booked Marla’s multi-media performance concert SPEAK for two dates: June 15 and August 17 at 8pm in Herbert Von King Park, New York.

As she says, “I’m working with an amazing group of artists: dancers, actresses, film/videographers and of course the Tomás Doncker Band. I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

Also, she was written up in the Huffington Post a couple of days ago. Check out the article

Here’s the video for Piece of Peace

 marlamase.com

@marlamase

Also appearing at Summerstage are Marseille favourites of mine IAM

Fête De La Musique:

IAM WITH SPECIAL GUEST RAKIM

6.21.2013 | 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm | Central Park

Les Files D’attente – Law’ (Paris, France)

Law’ is a singer from France. This is from her first solo album, Sans gêne ni oxygène produced by The Dada Weatherman.

Find it for free download on Jamendo

www.law-officiel.com

Mixed Rituals feat. Breakstarr e Sonakine – Voodoo Tapes (Napoli)

Voodoo Tapes: pseudonym of Giovanni Roma (aka Blob). It began in 2011 for an irresistible impulse to perform digital dub vibrations. There is no other reason why this project was born over the trance of bass, hi-hat and spring reverb.

Available on the always refreshing AQUIETBUMP, a net label based in Irpinia, a middleland mountain and rural region of southern Italy. AQBMP  produces multimedia focused on dub, digital roots, downbeat, and deep, lowend frequencies. Founded in 2005 by Paolo Picone and Carmine Minichiello, with a later involvement into the staff of Giovanni Roma, Raffaele Gargiulo and Leo Giso. What started out as a collective with a few musicians and their side projects has now become AQUIETBUMP the label.

www.aquietbump.com/release/aqbmp031-voodoo-tapes-mixed-rituals

@aquietbump

Distance – Melissa Bel (Burlington, Ontario, Canada)

Melissa Bel, a Canadian singer/songwriter performs on stage like she’s playing host to the blues spectres of 1940s Chicago. Her powerful voice bursts out of a petit, fresh-faced 23yr old delivering notes strong enough to carry the heavy feel of her music while maintaining an air of elegance.

For her sophomore album, “Distance”, Melissa pours her heart out into six songs that are expected to bring her name and music into homes across North America and Europe. “Distance” which reached number one on Montreal’s Jazz and Blues charts, includes a stirring rendition of Bill Withers’ 1971 classic ” Ain’t No Sunshine.”

Melissa recently opened for Juno award winning artist Matthew Good in a couple of London shows. Dammit!

melissa-bel.com/

www.facebook.com/melissabelmusic

@melissabelmusic

Touch – Brighton MA (Chicago, IL, USA)

Indie-rockers Brighton MA have come into their own through refining their signature bursting emotionality with concise song structures and expansive dynamics on their sophomore album, “Oh Lost.” In an era of hyper stimulation, the arresting clarity of the Chicago-based quartet’s latest reminds us to not lose sight of the simple beauty of life.

Brighton MA formed in 2006 when Kerstein and drummer Sam Koentopp left The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir and hooked up with arranger/guitarist Jim Tuerk, later adding guitarist Joe Darnaby and bassist Jon Ozaksut. The band has been applauded for their innate lysergic folkie, noise-pop aesthetic and bold vulnerability, garnering favorable comparison to The Walkmen, The Flaming Lips and Bob Dylan. They’ve shared stages with Spoon, The Arcade Fire and Old 97’s

On the lead track “Touch” singer-songwriter Matt Kerstein recalls how in youth we’re more emotionally available and attuned to the wonder of life. He sings with tender weariness: “Kids like us trying to live off the Touch.” Kerstein notes: “Everyone related and felt those lyrics so they could just focus on the music around the words.” Besides being a conceptual touchstone, the track marked an aesthetic one as Brighton MA hit upon a punchier approach to song arrangement. “That was a turning point because of its general simplicity. It was one of the first tunes in a fresh batch after the last album. It developed quickly and we kept it simple with driving immediacy.”

Produced by Brian Deck (Iron & Wine, Modest Mouse)

www.brightonma.net

@Brightonma

Whitehorse are among the diversity of artists this week. Watch out for them live.

A pleasing variety of tracks on this week’s show … again reflecting the best of independent music from around the world in in this week’s show specifically from LA, Nova Scotia, Ontario, San Francisco, New York, Lyon, Edinburgh and Marseille.

That Voice – Cosmic Suckerpunch (LA. CA. USA)

The current single from their new EP Breathe.

There’s a reason L.A. has become synonymous with making your dreams come true. Hollywood and the Sunset Strip having been cranking out stars for more than a century, whether purposefully or coincidentally, and new discoveries come every day. Take the case of Ari Welkom, discovered as an actor before teaming up with guitarist Fabien Hameline on a movie set. The two realized their shared interests and respected talents could lead to a different kind of artistic avenue, and they first formed the musical act Ghost Robot in 2009. While that moniker’s cuteness dried up pretty quick, they eventually recruited drummer Adam Timmerman and bassist Sebastian Hameline, Fabien’s twin brother, for the full line up of what is now Cosmic Suckerpunch.

At first holed up and honing their chops in coffeehouses and small clubs, the band’s popularity grew in the city of angels and they soon graduated to historic venues like The Viper Room and the House of Blues.

The group plays up a sparkling tongue-in-cheek science fiction vibe throughout their otherwise straightforward music, with themes like robot love and time machines popping up regularly and Welkom often adopting a Ziggy Stardust like swagger when he endearingly croons and stutter-starts his lyrics.

For me the whole thing has a retro freshness about it that I find quite endearing.

www.cosmicsuckerpunch.com

www.facebook.com/cosmicsuckerpunch/

@csuckerpunch

Tendrils – Paper Beat Scissors (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)

What a treat to have a brand new EP from Tim Crabtree (aka Paper Beat Scissors) not just to play on the show but, I promise you, to listen to for the pure pleasure.

Tim sent the tracks over last night and at first listen to this live recording of Tendrils it was apparent that he was really exploring (and making masterful use of) the acoustic of St Matthew’s Church in Halifax. Recorded during the Halifax Jazz Festival, the EP is now available on 7″ vinyl.

The show included collaborations with NY-based contemporary classical group Clogs, sometime-members of, and regular collaborators with the National.

A-side Tendrils, a haunting contemplation on what lies just below the surface, finds new life with the added instrumentation of oboe, violin, steel drum and guitar, and features support vocals by My Brightest Diamond.

B-side, Onwards is a previously unreleased song performed with a chamber ensemble of Gina Burgess (violin), Devin Wesley (oboe) and Anna Plaskett (french horn). Building on the success of the critically-acclaimed self-titled album, Tim Crabtree sounds as unique and focused as ever in these new sound environments.

Paper Beat Scissors will be touring throughout Europe in support of this release, also available digitally as a 7-song EP.

European Tour Dates

May 8: York, UK - City Screen Basement Bar

May 12: Bristol, UK - the Canteen

May 13: London, UK - the Slaughtered Lamb

May 14: Paris, FR - le Pop In

May 15: Paris, FR - Galerie Goutte de Terre

May 16: Liege, BE - l’Aquilone

May 17: Dusseldorf, DE - Brause

May 19: Munich, DE - Theatron Pfingstfestival

May 20: Graz, AU - Scherbe

May 21: Innsbruck, AU - Die Baeckerei

May 23: Prague, CZ - Dejvická Klubovna

May 24: Berlin, DE - Cafe Myxa

May 25: Eppstein, DE - Burg Eppstein Folk Festival

May 26: Koln, DE - Lichtung

May 28: Braunschweig, DE - Nexus

May 29: Weimar, DE - House show

May 30: Mainz, DE - Haus Mainusch

May 31: Mannheim, DE - Maifeld Derby Festival

www.paperbeatscissors.com

@paperbeats

Devil’s Got A Gun – Whitehorse (Hamilton, Ontario)

With The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss, Whitehorse makes good on the promise of the their self-titled debut, which officially brought their solo careers together. They made their entrance as a band in August 2011, with an 8-song collection that played to their strengths with equal parts blues-stomp and ballad, seedy tale and sweet nothing. The new album “freewheels between blues, folk and rockabilly with audible enthusiasm for experimenting with new sonic directions.

Melissa McClelland is known for bringing bloody-knuckled tales of bad apples to life. She often shares the stage with Sarah McLachlan as touring partner and backing vocalist. Victoria Day, Melissa’s latest solo album, cemented her status as an “uncommonly talented” artist in Canada, says national daily newspaper, The Globe and Mail.

Luke Doucet is known for his scorching work on his signature Gretsch White Falcon. As noted in Guitar Player Magazine, “whenever and wherever Luke Doucet hits the stage, he wrestles every last ounce of Neil Young-battles-Brian Setzer twang out of his gleaming cream-and-gold companion.” Doucet’s most recent solo release, Steel City Trawler, attracted four-star reviews across the board, as well as a Juno nomination.

Individually, they have been recognized with awards and nominations from the Juno Awards, Polaris, Canadian Folk Music and Independent Music Awards. So with two strong solo careers, why Whitehorse? The theme of tempting fate appears again when considering how much the stakes have been raised: “We’re kind of breaking one of the cardinal rules. We’re getting away with murder. This isn’t supposed to work. It’s supposed to end in a hail of bullets and tears,” Doucet has said.

They are on the road right now with upcoming dates:

4.24.13 Tempe, AZ @ Sail Inn

4.25.13 San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar

4.27.13 Los Angeles, CA @ Hotel Cafe

4.29.13 San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord

5.1.13 Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern

5.2.13 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge

The title of The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss comes from a Wonder Woman comic glued to the table in a diner in Vancouver, BC.

www.whitehorsemusic.ca

www.facebook.com/WeAreWhitehorse

@wearewhitehorse

I Want My Life Back – Big Orange Fluff (San Francisco, CA, USA)

San Francisco Bay natives Big Orange Fluff’s debut EP is called Thirty Years Disinterred. Formed in 2012 Big Orange Fluff draws on a wide variety of influences, including The Beatles, Wilco, Jeff Buckley, Smashing Pumpkins, and Eric Johnson. Jeremy Gekov wrote, recorded and mixed the songs at his well equipped home studio over a six month period.

Jeremy said of the song-writing process “It has been a labor of love, to co-exist with each song from concept, through maturing versions, and finally finished piece.”

“I would start each song thinking, this is going to be a simple song, just guitar and vocals, maybe some drums, but after recording the first layers I would go back and add other textures like cello, keyboards or vocal harmonies, while still trying to leave space in the song,” Jeremy said.

Jeremy’s sister Vera Gekov also shares vocal duties on two songs. Jeremy explained “I remember when we were kids, and I couldn’t stand her singing all the time, but either she got better, or my taste improved, because we work well together now.”

San Francisco Bay Area talent is featured prominently on the EP. Rebecca Roudman plays cello on two songs, bringing cozy warmth to the music, and longtime friend Justin Huff plays drums. Muralist Max Ehrman did the cover art for the album.

www.bigorangefluff.com/

If Isis – Peg+Agathe (NYC and Lyon, France)

A really interesting, mesmerising piece from Peg Simone and Agathe who collaborate between NYC and Lyon as Peg explains:

“She and I were both artists on Radium/Table of the Elements and talked about collaborating a couple of years ago during the Table of the Elements Festival which was held in Brooklyn. She lives in Lyon, France so we did this by sending tracks back and forth. More to come at some point. I’ve cc’d her on this so you can contact her if you like. Be sure to check out her work, it’s beautiful.”

Agathe has a new album called Dangerous Days. You’ll find it at

www.agathemaxmusic.com/bonjour-tout-le-monde/

Peg herself also has an intriguing album out right now, Witch Tree Road is available for listening and download from her site. We’ll have track from that next week.

pegsimone.com

The Witch is dead … and almost buried

If you’re taking any notice of the sycophantic dribblings coming from all the main-stream broadcasters in the UK (and possibly seeping overseas too), you’d think that the nation is standing with heads bowed at the demise of the Wicked Witch. Don’t you believe it. Despite the almost universal uptake of rose-tinted shades by people with either vested interests in supporting Thatcherism (mostly because they did very nicely out of it thank you), there are lot of us who just want to go on record and say that the £10m funeral show that she had planned is not in our name. Nor, I suspect in the names of many of the servicvemen and women being required to honour a politician who many will despise.

I take back my criticism of the BBC whose refusal to play the number 2 song in last week’s chart show was a masterclass in hyping the whole thing up. Their explanation of why they wouldn’t play the track lasted way longer than the track itself, which, if they’d just have played it might have raised the odd eyebrow but not much else.

She’s gone, but her cronies are still active. Be afraid, very afraid. No, actually, that’s how they keep us under control, by creating fear. Don’t be afraid, let us rejoice, have a bit of a party and stand up for the memory of those, well away from her leafy suburban constituency, who she consigned to poverty, depression and social decay. Such as the people of the former mining town of Spennymoor, County Durham here in the UK.

The Mines of Spennymoor – The Deadly Winters (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Releasing their debut album in 2011, The Deadly Winters are steadily ploughing a fresh furrow into the term alt-folk, and honing their live performances into something quite magical.

Picking up play on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio Scotland, Jim Gellatly’s Weekly Podcast, Amazing Radio and numerous internet stations and Podcasts from the UK to Australia, the band are steadily raising people’s awareness of how Folk-Music can still advance with the times.

Live, the band have supported The Staves as well as appearances at Celtic Connections, Perthshire Amber (Dougie MacLean Festival), The House Music Folk Festival (Kinlochard) and The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

There’s a video of that track in the shownotes.

www.thedeadlywinters.com

www.facebook.com/deadlywinters

@Deadlywinters

Are You Steady – SHAN A SHAN (Marseille, France)

No information available on Jamendo just this tremendous album of French dub and another from 2010 that I’ve not had a chance to listen to yet.

You could try listening on this Jamendo player – although it may well not work on i devices. There are direct links to the albums on Jamendo below.

www.jamendo.com/en/list/a97120/dub-creation-vol.1

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/371308/shan-a-shan

Bluestep – Grammatik (NYC)

This spring Lowtemp put out its first full-length release, Gramatik’s new album The Age of Reason.  Gramatik elaborates on the epic LP title, which was “inspired by a stand-up segment by comedian George Carlin. He made a joke on the fact that he was Catholic until he reached the age of reason. I also firmly believe that there comes a time in a human life when you reach the so-called ‘age of reason’ and realize that there are so many irrational beliefs, shameless contradictions and illogical restrictions inflicted upon society. Some people reach it sooner, others later, but a majority unfortunately never do. [Through my music] I’d like to guide more people to reach the age of reason sooner. Maybe. Or, hopefully at least unite the ones that feel the same way.”

The Age of Reason Tour kicks off April 2013 with dates in St. Louis, Urbana, Madison, NYC, Austin, and more.

The first single off The Age Of Reason, “Bluestep” is a signature Gramatik style genre clash.

“Lately I’ve been really into combining the vibes of raw 50′s and 60′s Blues with all kinds of EDM genres and one of the results is Bluestep. It’s a dynamic mixture of Blues and Dubstep, a plethora of screaming guitar, howling vocals and big bass, capturing the raw energies of both music worlds in a hopefully cohesive, possibly outrageous picture.”

Age of reason or reason enough, the revolution begins now.

The single is currently available as a free mp3 download and as a 24bit file which weighs in at an impressive 74MB from:

https://soundcloud.com/gramatik/bluestep

www.gramatik.net/

@gramatik

Import/Export make a welcome debut on the show this week.

A somewhat eclectic mix this week with fresh tracks from Lancashire, LA, Haifa, NYC, Seattle and Margate. We’ve got news of a really interesting little festival in upstate New York, a correction from Erk and a campaign to get a song to the top of the UK charts this week.

Liberty Girl – Heifervescent (Lancashire, UK)

Heifervescent is essentially the solo project of Andy Doran, writing, performing and producing each track. The music has often been classed as beautiful yet sullen soundscapes, laying strong simple melodies and chiming guitars onto a bed of ambient string and hypnotic electronic arrangements. This has certainly been the case of the latest offering Little Egg and 2005′s Pondlife Fiasco featuring the most downloaded Heifervescent track – Deep Sea Diver.

Liberty GIrl is taken from the forthcoming album Wake Up Sheepyhead, available from May 1st from iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby and many other outlets.

www.heifervescent.com

@heifervescent

Azmari Man – Tomas Doncker (NYC, NY, USA)

A prime mover on New York’s downtown “No Wave” scene in the early 1980s, Tomas Doncker cut his teeth as a guitarist with such genre-busting groups as James Chance & The Contortions, Defunkt, J. Walter Negro & The Loose Jointz and many more. Eventually he went international, touring and recording in Japan with jazz pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, and producing studio and songwriting sessions with Boosty Collins, Yoko Ono, jazz saxophonist Sadao Watanabe and Grammy-winning producer Prince Charles Alexander, to name just a few.

His latest work as a singer/songwriter and producer embraces a broader musical vision that he likes to call “global soul,” drawing influences from numerous sources, including East and West Africa and the Caribbean. Small World is the flagship release on his own label, True Groove Records (distributed by Sony/RED), and will be followed by Power of the Trinity, a meditation on the legacy of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, featuring legendary bassist/producer Bill Laswell, Ethiopian singer Ejigayehu “Gigi” Shibabaw, Senegalese percussionist Aiyb Dieng, saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum, electro-dub specialist Dr.Israel, and a host of New York’s finest jazz, funk and rock musicians.

www.tomasdoncker.net/

Man Near the Surface of the Earth – Détective (Los Angeles)

Named after the Jean-Luc Godard film, Los-Angeles based garage pop outfit Détective was formed in March 2012 by James Greer (ex-Guided By Voices, Roi, Complete Portion Contol, etc.), Guylaine Vivarat, an active member of the LA music scene (Useless Keys, 2 Hearts & Chemicals) and Chris Dunn from Chicago (the city).Détective has thus far released two EPs, Very Fallen World and Basket of Masks. A full length album, However Strange, was released in late August on cassette by Burger Records to coincide with a national tour opening for Guided By Voices in September. The group is currently working on an ambitious double album with Steve Kille of Dead Meadow, which they had hoped to release by March but, you know how these thing go.

www.detectivemusic.com

@detectiverock

Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is Dead - Klaus Nomi (NYC)

In 1982 NYC-based eccentric Nomi recorded this song from The Wizard of Oz which works well as a commentary on Margaret Thatcher’s politics. We’ve been waiting a long time.

The see/hear the whole track on YouTube:

There is also a campaign to get the original version by Judy Garland (from The Wizard of Oz) to the top of the singles charts. As of this afternoon, it is at number 2.

OK, it may seem a bit childish but there has to be something to counter the pathetic sycophancy of most of the UK media and the assumption that in these times when cuts in public spending are disproportionately affecting poorer people, that spending £8m on security for a grand ceremonial funeral is OK. I bet it won’t get into ra=otation on the BBC music channels

It’s on iTunes and Amazon

BTW, just so you know, I don’t want a ceremonial funeral – I just want to be scattered. Don’t bother with cremation, I’m sure farmer Mark has a suitable muck-spreader.

Squirm – Marla Mase (Manhattan, NY, USA)

A track from the very recent Marla Mase album Speak (de Luxe edition) which I’m delighted to say I brought back from a meet-up with Marla and Tomás Doncker at one of the London shows in her current European tour.

The live show was stunning, perhaps even a bit too stunning for the young Islington set but hell, can these guys rock!

This song, Squirm ended the set with Tomas giving his guitar a very thorough workout and Marla “squirming” on the floor.

April 12: From Dusk to Dawn, (London, UK)

April 14: Farnhammaltings.com (Surrey, UK) — live showcase

marlamase.com

Sparks – 3421 (Haifa, Israel)

Working and playing since 2009, 3421 is a live dubstep, bass and glitch duo based in Haifa – the northern capital of Israel. They use an acoustic drum set, 3 synthesizers and vocals to create the sound and flow of a DJ set. Their tunes are played tightly and mixed throughout the show, preserving the energy of a live performance. They use no computers or loops, but rely solely on the fusion of skills and instruments.

Their skill as performers mean they have been at the core of the local underground scene for the past 8 years, and they combine a vast mix of electronic genres – dub, dubstep, electro, hip hop, glitch, heavy bass, breaks and jungle.

www.3421live.com

Day Glow Whore – IMPORT/EXPORT (Seattle, WA, USA)

IMPORT/EXPORT will be announcing a west coast tour in the upcoming weeks in support of their new album Dayglow Whore.

In addition to multi-colored vinyl, Dayglow Whore is also available via a generative art iPhone/iPad app on iTunes. The iPad app generates over 92 million morphing images of fine art by Katrina Yakovich and photos taken by each band member that would take over 43 years to view (no, that’s not a typo). The iPhone version features over 655 years worth of viewing set to the soundtrack of Dayglow Whore. Both were designed by IMPORT/EXPORT keyboardist Vince Tafoya with programming assistance by Kory Twaites.

“The philosophy behind IMPORT/EXPORT is to release and perform multimedia experiences. We played with the idea of converging old recording concepts like using tape and new technologies like digital apps because our fans will want to experience both,” comments bassist and front man Chris Cullman.

importexportband.com
www.facebook.com/IMPORTEXPORTBAND

Erk puts me straight. So it seems Wagga Wagga sounds funny but the city of Wogga Wogga is just fine? Huh, Aussies eh?

Love Knock on Wood – Elephant 12 (UK & Canada)

Elephant 12 is back in action with their raw brand of Rock n’ Roll at it’s best. Hailing from the United Kingdom and Canada, respectively, the band brings their own brand of heavy hitting Indie Rock laced with a tinge of Hip Hop to the mix; truly a brilliant experience. Making waves with the singles “Holiday,” and “Renegade,” late last year, Elephant 12 have just released Sold Out, their new stunning EP that will stop you dead in your tracks, and have you dancing around the room at the same time. The standout single, “Love Knock on Wood,” is filled with incredibly catchy harmonies, enthusiastic handclaps, and laced with punchy guitars that will draw you in immediately.

Jerome Cooke’s unique vocal styling is one that you will not soon forget. His voice provides the perfect blend of Rap with a tinge of Jazz in the background, and a dash of Indie on the side. Truly a captivating sound.

Elephant 12 is known for making their own brand of unapologetic punk rock with Electro and Indie Hip Hop undertones, which bring a whole new outlook to an often predictable music scene.

Check out their site, that track and more are available for free download.

Elephant12.com

@elephanttwelve

Move Festival (Albany NY)

Albany ranks as the nation’s 9th largest breeding ground for new music and is the location for this year’s MOVE Festival for the second year running.  For those that couldn’t afford the price of a ticket to Austin last month, MOVE Music Festival is the alternative.  Move is an indie music festival that premiered last spring and is completely focused on spotlighting diverse and emerging talent, much akin to the early days of SXSW.  It takes place on Saturday, April 27.

SXSW grew from 700 attendees in 1987 to over 300,000 in 2012 and even beyond that this year. In the same way that SXSW started out as an organic stage for showcasing and promoting indie music and film, and encouraging progressive dialogue within those industries, MOVE is attempting to do the same.

General admission wristbands cost $15 plus shipping and handling. Check out the Pledge Drive where you can pledge for early access & discounted packages to MOVE 2013!

movemusicfest.com

Battles – Funke and the Two-Tone Baby (Margate, Kent, UK)

The riveting Funke and the Two-Tone Baby has a new single coming out in a few weeks, and we have a preview. There’s also a rather fine video for the same track here.

If plans come together Dan (aka. Funke) will be here at the Barn to record a live session and interview for us in a few weeks.

His next serious tour runs throughout May. Do get to at least one of these dates if you have half a chance:

May 2 – Maidstone Fringe Festival 2013

May 3 – Woodnestock 2013, Wingham

May 4 – Man Of Kent, Sweeps Festival 2013

May 5 – The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury

May 6 – The Crown, Sweeps Festival 2013

May 7 – Hidden Away Music, Wimbledon, London

May 10 – Session at the Barn, Suffolk (Oh – that’s us)

May 11 – The Emperor, Cambridge

May 12 – The Boathouse, Cambridge

May 16 – Ort Art Café, Birmingham

May 18 – Haffod Hotel, Devils Bridge

May 19 – 10 Feet Tall, Cardiff

May 21 – The Prince Albert, Stroud

May 22 – Café Rene, Gloucester

May 23 – The Beehive, Swindon

May 24 – The Winchester Gate, Salisbury

May 26 – Hobo Fest, Honeystreet

May 28 – Malt Cross, Nottingham

May 29 – The Old Roan, Liverpool

May 30 – The Verve, Leeds

www.funkeandthetwotonebaby.co.uk

Emporers open the show in fine style this week and not a v-neck T-shirt in sight!

A diverse selection of music this week and a lot of it. Tracks from Australia to Iceland and LA to France. There’s also some surprising news on the effect of piracy on legitimate music sales.

Plastic Guns - Emperors (Perth, Western Australia)

Emperors’ debut album Stay Frosty has arrived with a bang. Widespread Australian airplay, US iTunes Single of the Week AND Rock Song Of The Year for Be Ready When I Say Go and tour supporting Everclear have been some of the highlights since Stay Frosty’s April 2012 release.

Stay Frosty is noisy pop at it’s best, played by a band unashamedly stuck in their own bubble of musical influences and unlikely to become the darlings of Pitchfork anytime soon. No song titles are spelled incorrectly or without vowels, and there are no traces of synthesizers or keys. There is no content which should inspire reviewers to use genre names such as “chill wave” and “glitch hop”, nor any music written whilst wearing a v-neck t-shirt.

Emperors first made their mark on the Australian music landscape in 2010 when they were ‘Unearthed’ by national alternative radio station Triple J shortly after forming. This led to a slot at the Big Day Out, a Rolling Stone feature and the release of the EP Sam. Along the way there’s been Australian tours and support slots with Manic Street Preachers, The Big Pink, Silversun Pickups, Ladyhawke and many more.

They’re a hard working band touring this month with Grinspoon and Kingswood:

April 5 @ Prince of Wales, Bunbury (WA) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 6 @ Capitol, Perth (WA) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 11 @ Waves, Wollongong (NSW) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 12 @ Capital, Wagga Wagga (NSW) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 13 @ ANU Bar, Canberra (ACT) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 14 @ New Albury Hotel, Albury (NSW) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 17 @ Entrance Leagues Club, Beateau Bay (NSW) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 18 @ Panthers, Newcastle (NSW) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 19 @ Hoey Moey, Coffs Harbour (NSW) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 21 @ Cooly, Gold Coast (QLD) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 24 @ Bended Elbow, Geelong (VIC) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 25 Pier Live, Frankston (VIC) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 26 @ Inferno, Traralgon (VIC) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

April 27 @ Ferntree Gully Hotel, Ferntree Gully (VIC) w/ Grinspoon & Kingswood

www.facebook.com/emperorsnewband

www.twitter.com/emperorsnewband

The Backbone - Lay Low (Iceland)

LAY LOW is the alter-ego of Icelandic singer/songwriter Lovísa Elísabet Sigrúnardóttir.

Born in London to a Sri Lankan father and Icelandic mother, LAY LOW’s musical abilities stretch as far as her geographical heritage. Starting out as a pianist and bass guitar player; she has jammed on keyboards and synthesizers with Benny Crespo’s Gang, found her voice in blues folk and a little honky tonk bop collaborating with producers such as Liam Watson. Although her new material is taking on a new trip hop twist, LAY LOW’s distinct musical journey can still be felt at its roots, producing a honed yet experimental sound that is all her own.

LAY LOW came about in 2006, after Lovísa was contacted by a local label that picked up on a raw demo that she had uploaded onto MySpace. Not one to waste an opportunity, LAY LOW’s debut album ‘Please Don’t Hate Me’ was released that same year. An intoxicating take on classic Americana sounds, the record topped the Icelandic charts and became the bestselling original album in the country, winning no less than 3 Icelandic Music Awards.

laylow.is/

@lovisalaylow

Piracy Has Zero Impact on Legit Purchasing, European Study Concludes…

This is one of the biggest debates in music right now, and it goes far beyond morality and artist rights.  Because what if pirates are simply buying more stuff?

What then?

That’s actually the conclusion of a new study just published by the European Commission’s influential Joint Research Centre, one that involved more than 16,000 participants across five EU countries.  And at a top level, the survey, conducted by the Centre’s Institute for Prospective Studies, found very little cannibalization between illegal and legal.  ”Perhaps surprisingly, our results present no evidence of digital music sales displacement,” the report concludes.

“Our results suggest that internet users do not view illegal downloading as a substitute to legal digital music.”

So, they wouldn’t be buying, anyway?  Pretty much.  ”In other words, music consumers are found to substitute legal music consumption for illegal music consumption, but much of what is consumed illegally would not have been purchased if piracy was not available.”

“This means that although there is trespassing of private property rights (copyrights), there is unlikely to be much harm done on digital music revenues.”

Source: www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130318study

Sky is the Limit - SaReGaMa

SaReGaMa is the pseudonym of Serge, an independent sound artist, muasti-instrumentalist, composer and producer.

Sa, Re, Ga and Ma are the first 4 notes of a seven notes octave in Indian music, equivalent to  Do, Re, Mi, Fa in Western music.

“I had a big passion for music but not enough means to afford musical instruments, so I learned how to build them. Most of the instruments I have are homemade. The instruments I play today are : keyboard, guitar, different kinds of ethnic flutes, didgeridoo, percussions, kalimba and jews harp.

His first album was published on Jamendo in 2007 and since then he’s been listed there among the top artists and his albums have hit number one several times. His work is featured in various large scale projects around the world and he’s a member of the excellent Triplexity whose music has been featured on SnC quite a few times.

There’s a very succinct description of the track on Jamendo:

“Trip-Hop styled composition with classic and modern influences. Dirty drums and aggressive synth lines get along the jazzy piano, funky guitar, dreamy vocals and trumpets.”

Take a look a the video below of SaReGaMa playing Kalimba solo for Lotus -  and note how many views it has had. Remarkable.

saregama-music.blogspot.co.uk/

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/4812/saregama

They can’t tell me nothing - Paper Diamond (Boulder, CO, USA)

“They Can’t Tell Me Nothing” is the first single from Boulder based – genre defying Paper Diamond’s forthcoming EP ‘Paragon‘ set to be released April 16th 2013. Paragon will feature a range of production, instrumentation, and collaborators all weaved into Paper Diamond’s signature style.

While “genre-defying” is an overused word, Paper Diamond is one of the few producers who truly pulls it off, seamlessly weaving together genres as diverse as electro, trap, funk, dubstep, house, moombahton and hip-hop, all with a whiff of ganja smoke floating through it.

Paper Diamond continues his nationwide tour with Excision. The remaining tour dates are:

4/04 – Norfolk, VA @ NorVa

4/05 – Richmond, VA @ The National

4/06 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE

www.paper-diamond.com

@paperdiamond

The Animal - Erica Glyn (NYC, USA)

New York City based artist/producer, Erica Glyn, is an amplifying force in the music industry. From her self-made creations to her songwriting/production work, she’s becoming a well-known entity and making fans across the globe. She produces a unique and intriguing sound, mixing elements of trip-hop, rocktronica and a splash of psychedelic rock with her captivating vocals and commanding lyrics. Erica leans towards the unconventional, experimenting with instrumentation and tonal effects, which garner her comparisons to boundary-pushing powerhouses like Florence Welch and Fiona Apple.

Erica’s vampy, garage-pop lures listeners into “a world of the unusual and strange”, a landscape of pulsating beats, surging synthesizers, elegantly volcanic melodies, and dark, poetic lyrics. Her passion and drive for her own development exploded in her 2012 full-length release, STATIC.

Like all her work, the album was written, recorded and produced solely by Erica, with contributions from a collection of well-respected artists and special mixes by multiple Grammy award-winning master music-maker and friend, Chris Lord-Alge.

ericaglyn.com

@EricaGlyn

The Hammer - We Are The West (Los Angeles, CA, USA)

We Are The West uses sound and space to create an experience that is welcoming and honest.  The Los Angeles-based duo has recorded in storm drains, performed on sheep farms, and now hosts a concert series in the underground parking garage of an office building the Saturday night before each full moon. This February they release the second in a four part album of recordings, handcrafted with love and care in a barn in Western New York during the summer months.  ’The Hammer’ is the opening track.

www.wearethewest.com

@wearethewest

Fill Yourself - Mia Dyson (Melbourne, Australia)

You are Mia Dyson and you’ve worked your ass off the past decade to be heard on the Australian continent. That work has paid off. People know your name. Writers gush about your whisky-tinged voice and liken you to Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan and the Boss. You’ve headlined shows, played the festivals, cut three records and received plenty of radio play. You’ve been nominated four times for an ARIA, winning one. You’ve toured with Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, and Stevie Nicks.

But there is this dream you’ve had since you were a child listening to your parents’ vinyl collection and reading E Annie Proulx. Get to America. Tour across the States playing music, soak into the American culture and ultimately, make a lasting record.

So you sharpen your teeth and sink into that dream.

Well, Mia Dyson, welcome to America. It’s 2009 and nobody knows your name.

In the next three years you’ll separate from your long-time partner, you’ll go broke, lose your band and your management will try to change your name and sell you out to reality television.

And what is your response to it all?

You make the most gutsy and revealing album of your life. You reclaim the helm of your career, building a community of players and friends, touring the vast cities and big sky country you’ve heard achingly described in your favorite songs, revelling in America the way you dreamed of it.

“The Moment” is the kind of album America meant for Mia Dyson to make all along and Australia has responded with a standing ovation. Released in the fall of 2012 in Australia, “The Moment” has captured the hearts of new fans and connected her more deeply with her existing supporters. Dyson toured the country, playing to capacity crowds and nabbed her fifth ARIA nomination  – this time for Best Blues/Roots album.

Now it’s back to America.

With the wind at her back from a trip home, Mia returns to the US this spring to release “The Moment” in the states on April 23, 2013. An album release tour will put her in front of audiences on both coasts, and the work of holding up her artistic mirror to a mythic land of musical  opportunity will begin again.

miadyson.com

@miadysonmusic

Don’t Let Me Dubbbb - King Dubby (Angers, France)

“Montez les basses !!!!!!

Ici point de fioritures, du dub du dub et encore du dub

dans la plus pure tradition tubby’esque.

Si vous scotchez sur les echos interminables, les réverbes

qui claquent comme des coups de tonnerre et autres phasers

alors ces albums sont faits pour vous.

Play Loud”

So there you have it.

http://kingdubby.hautetfort.com/

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/1025/king-dubby

More dub with Pete Cogle at The Dub Zone

August - The Hollows (Brooklyn, NY, USA)

The Hollows are a group of multi-instrumentalists; a freewheeling hootenany of a band. A veritable junkyard of mandolins, banjos, guitars, accordions, horns, harmonicas, and various other musical doodads are in constant rotation. With no frontman (or six frontmen), everyone writes and arranges material, creating a diverse and uniquely blended sound. The live show is a high-octane, unpredictable barn-burner. Check out the music video for August off their self-titled EP – it’s playing in the shownotes.

The formation of The Hollows was a very gradual process. Erik Saxvik (Illinois), David Paarlberg (New Jersey), Jeffrey Kurtze (Indiana), and Daniel Kwiatkowski (Michigan) all studied theatre together in college during the mid-2000s.  The four friends would spend many a night playing music in living rooms, bonding over their love of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits and all things strange and spooky; but it wasn’t until the foursome relocated to New York City and met Rob Morrison (North Carolina) and Justin Aaronson (the only native New Yorker) that The Hollows sextet was finally complete.

After receiving high praise such as The Deli Magazine’s Artist of The Month, TimeOut NY’s Critic’s Pick, and rave reviews from The Huffington Post, CBS Radio, My Old Kentucky Blog, Relix, The Wild Honey Pie and more, The Hollows show no sign of slowing down in 2013 with the release of the album Neverending Show on April 23.

04/4 – New York, NY @ Rockwood Music Hall  (Stage 2)

4/23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Bowl – Album Release Show

5/17- Brooklyn, NY @ Littlefield w/ The Future Laureates, The Third Wheel Band, The Woes

www.thehollowsonline.com

@thehollows

Sundayers bring a touch of spring sunshine – but aren’t we ready for full on summer NOW please!

The sun came out today, just for a little while but it created a yearning for proper summer. This is probably reflected in this weeks all European, indeed all Jamendo mix.

Just for a change I’ve included a couple of tracks from each of three artists, two of whom have brand new albums for us.

Para Mi – Sundayers (Madrid, Spain)

The Sundayers have been producing this musical explosion since 2005. The result is a powerful brass section, solid percussion and drums, warm female vocals and attitude, lots of great attitude.

With 10 members, this Spanish band has carved out a niche in its own right within the Spanish reggae and ska scene. After releasing two albums, performing dozens of shows across Spain, they have created a creative and unique show that is hard to forget. This, and countless awards, has allowed them to open borders, such as that of Germany, where they have enjoyed a great success in last summer’s tour.

In october the band began the recording of their third album, „Impulsos”

“Impulsos” are the passion what led us to create and polish every song you can listen right now. Those who have made us go crazy for two years giving flavor to each chord. Those who have pushed us to share these letters. Those who have brought us incredible moments in our rehearsals and the certainty that this project can go on. Those who have turned upside down us and made us imagine and dream. And at the end, to turn this dream into a reality.

Right now they are on a new 2013 tour.

The new album is available from Jamendo at www.jamendo.com/en/artist/358187/sundayers

www.sundayers.com

@Sundayers

Growing Lights – Wasaru (Lille France)

The first track on the most recent album.

The artists self-description on Jamendo is “Wasaru c’est de la musique instrumentale, hip-hop, breakbeat, trip hop, downtempo … ”

A most agreeable offering of electronic instrumental downtempo hiphop film music from the new 22 track album “Even bad things come to an end” which is out now on Jamendo

It’s that enticing mix of sounds and a language that I don’t know well enough to be distracted by the words, which, in this case, form another dimension against which the instruments play.

www.wasaru.com

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/3917/wasaru

www.jamendo.com/en/list/a108348/even-bad-things-come-to-an-end-2012

Pluck & Play – Trancendam

Aren’t you Clever – Trancendam & Laurie Webb (Biarritz, France)

Vocals and lyrics on the second track by Laurie webb

Music and arrangement by Trancendam (Damien Ricaud)

He has a Soundcloud stream: https://soundcloud.com/trancendam as well as being on Jamendo at www.jamendo.com/en/artist/356462/trancendam

And on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/Trancendam

Push It – Grace Valhalla

Khaleesi – Grace Valhalla

At last, a new album from one of my favourite artists on Jamendo – which really is saying something. Grace has been putting out wonderful hypnotic albums for almost exactly the time that Suffolk’n’Cool has been running.

Her first album Peak~ was released in 2006. It’s still available from Jamendo.

The latest, Spring Souls was released last week and marks a return to a more acoustic sound and full of interest, some fascinating rhythms and of course, all the “grace” you’d expect from Grace Valhalla.

She has compiled a video of clips from the many many of the videos in which people have used her music.

vimeo.com/35403999

All of her albums can be downloaded free of charge from her home page on Jamendo.

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/2208/grace-valhalla

http://gracevalhalla.tumblr.com

Carousel – Sundayers (Madrid, Spain)

A second track from SnC 367 openers Sundayers.

The new album is available from Jamendo at www.jamendo.com/en/artist/358187/sundayers

www.sundayers.com

@Sundayers

Naja Rosa has been touring since before she was born. Looks as though the tour bus has too!

As the snow again falls on Suffolk in the middle of Canadian Music Week, it’s only right that we should feature a light sprinkling of Canadian artists and take a brief look forward to a couple of massively contrasting warm weather festivals here in the UK this “summer”.

When The Smoke Clears (single) – Naja Rosa (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Danish singer/songwriter Naja Rosa’s sound may be reminiscent and with the spirit of the Rock-ish Blues 60s and 70s, but unmistakably renews a classic blend of rhythms to make them relevant to new ears of today. Similar to the moody sound of a Tarantino soundtrack, giving remembrance to the likes of Stevie Nicks and Janis Joplin her vocals are deep, soulful and pure.

Naja Rosa and her band are well known for their staggering live performances and they’ve toured massively hitting stages from Copenhagen to NYC.

A child of music, Naja Rosa, was born into a family of many songs and stories. Her mother and father, Annisette and Thomas Koppel, founding and leading members of the legendary Scandinavian Psychedelic Rock group “The Savage Rose,” took her on the road before she even landed on this planet earth. Growing up in the south harbor of Copenhagen, Naja was singing and writing songs from an early age and went on touring in her parents’ group for almost a decade.

Naja Rosa’s second album “The Place I Call Home” (2012) was recorded partly in Copenhagen with her band. After building a small studio into an old mobile home she went on a roadtrip through the southern states of the US, to record local musicians onto the songs. Because as she says: “I’ve always been very much inspired by the true, honest, soulshakin’, heartbreakin’ and raw music that has come out of there for many many years”.

From Austin-Memphis-New Orleans-Atlanta, Naja Rosa managed to record with musicians throughout the south such as the legendary New Orleans Blues singer Coco Robicheaux, who unfortunately passed away shortly after the recording, making it his last album appearance. She also recorded with members of Hot 8 Brass Band in New Orleans, Austin local banjo extraordinaire Dustin Welch, and a gospelchoir with Outkast producer “Mr DJ The Producer” at his Camp David Studio in Atlanta. As well as collaborating with many other great artists along the way.

www.najarosa.com

@najarosamusic

Canadian Music Week

Yes, with SXSW over, everyone up-sticks and heads for Toronto for Canadian Music Week which started yesterday and goes on until Sunday. Of course, as well as the music there is a full conference programme and I understand that Pledge Music, through which quite a few artists raise funds to release albums, etc. -  a bit like Kickstarter, is announcing that they’re opening up shop in Canada. Line-up below.

canadianmusicfest.com/

Michael Robartes & the Dancer - Leif Vollebekk (Montreal, Canada)

It’s a while since we heard from Leif Vollebekk on the show. The first of two tracks is taken (well, borrowed) from his 2010 debut album Inland. This is an accomplished and exuberant offering including the hauntingly beautiful Don’t Go To Klaksvik which you can hear on SnC show 194 back in November 2009.  Sorry. The shownotes are still a mess but you can play the audio.

Off The Main Drag – Leif Vollebekk 

After his 2010 debut Inland, Vollebekk knew the kind of album he wanted to make next: a record like the ones he loves by Gillian Welch or Ryan Adams, that feel old and familiar even when they’re new. But also a record that speaks to the listener through its lyrics, with songs “that can hold up in a storm,” that are packed full of perfect little mistakes.

He spent two years searching for perfect takes.  This search took him from his home in Montreal to a studio in Manhattan, from a farmhouse in Woodstock, NY to a mansion outside Paris, and the result is a dusty, polished, new, old record called North Americana -Ten songs, the best Vollebekk has ever written, with lines about love and the end of love, about journeys and homecoming, about the death of friends and drinking yourself dry.

The heart of the songs was always recorded live, to tape. Old school, spontaneous, one real captured moment.

To find these moments, they travelled. To Montreal‘s legendary Hotel 2 Tango studio, working with Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Coeur de Pirate, Godspeed You! Black Emperor), to New York City, working with Tom Gloady (Ryan Adams, Sigur Rós, Patti Smith), to La Frette studios, in La Frette-sur-Seine, France and then back to Montreal, for one song at Breakglass studios.

North Americana took years. “All this time,” Vollebekk says, “trying to get one take.” But the result is a beautiful, alive, human – shambling ballads, noisy folk songs, vivid portraits of a 27-year-old’s watercolour life. “I feel like I created a record from 1970… something that no one’s heard before,” Vollebekk says. “I’m haggard and this record is all I got.”

March 21 – Toronto, ON – CMW

March 22 – Quebec City, QC – Le Cercle

March 23 – Montreal, QC – Cabaret du Mile-End

March 30 – Magog, QC – Vieux-Clocher de Magog #

April 1 – Terrebonne, QC – Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne #

April 12 – Burlington, VT – Signal Kitchen %

leifvollebekk.com/

www.facebook.com/leifvollebekk

@leifvollebekk

Latitude 2013 (Suffolk, UK)

Latitude’s main stage line-up at Henham Park, near Southwold, here in Suffolk has been announced and headlining on the big Saturday night are exciting break-through artists err… Kraftwerk. Nothing much from them since their Tour de France Soundtracks album from ten years ago which was a late flicker after Electric Cafe in 1986. Perhaps it’s something of a one size fits all festival for everyone. At least for everyone who can afford £196.50 – but that does include a square of grass for you to park your tent.

Ah well, I suppose it’s great for those that like that big festival vibe. Current line-up below.

www.latitudefestival.com

One In A Million – Christian Gibbs (Brooklyn, NY, USA)

Indie folk singer/songwriter/guitarist Christian Gibbs will soon head out on the road to tour the United States in support of his forthcoming album, SLEEP THE MACHINES.  Gibbs will be travelling from date to date in an RV with his wife and two young children in tow, further cementing his roles as both working musician and involved parent.  Gibbs and his wife will be co-authoring a book about life on the road as a family.

SLEEP THE MACHINES is due out on March 26th in North America and is the first acoustic album for Gibbs under his full name.  The album is his most stripped-down, personal work to date, relying on the strengths of his noted songwriting ability.  Inspired by Gibbs’ journey coming to terms with fatherhood, SLEEP THE MACHINES is produced by Andrew Hollander (“Sleep Walk With Me”) and was recorded live with just vocals and guitar.  The album also features guest appearances by Cat Popper (Jack White, Ryan Adams) on vocals and bass and Jon Graboff (Willie Nelson) on pedal steel.

A Brooklyn-based songwriter by way of San Diego, Christian Gibbs has released more than 10 albums under a variety of names, including Lucinda Black Bear and C. Gibbs.  His projects have flirted with many different genres from indie chamber psych folk to the darker leanings of Americana.

MARCH

23 Chicago, IL Café Moustache

28 Joshua Tree, CA Pappy And Harriet’s

29 San Diego, CA Tin Can Alehouse

30 Temecula, CA Palumbo Winery

APRIL

4 Los Angeles, CA Genghis Cohen

6 San Francisco, CA The Makeout Room

9 Portland, OR The Laurel Thirst

 www.cgibbsreview.com

www.cgibbs.bandcamp.com

@cblackbear

The Great Escape (Brighton, UK)

TGE gets underway on 16 May and will be the usual blast of interesting up-and-coming artists being eagerly scoured by agents, managers, labels, promoters and certainly two independent music podcasters of my immediate acquaintance. Yes. Mr Cogle and I will be on the lookout for interesting new music to bring back for you. Our ever vigilant minder Grumbler will be there making sure that the supplies of beer and kebabs are maintained.

If you could face joining us you can still (but only just) pick up an early bird ticket which gets you into 30 different venues to see 300 artists (well you could try) for £57 including fees – but you have to find your own grass.

Current line-up.

Battle Royale – The Balconies (Ottawa, Canada)

2012 was a non-stop year for The Balconies who released their Kill Count EP (Coalition/Warner) in February along with a music video for the title track. What followed was a flurry of touring including festival stops at the likes of South by Southwest in Austin, TX, Summerfest in Milwaukee and back-to-back dates at Edgefest and Ottawa Bluesfest.

Their touring didn’t stopped there with recent dates in New York City alongside U.S.S., the pleasure of opening for Sam Roberts Band at Jackson-Triggs Winery, and Ontario dates with Los Angeles-based group The Aggrolites.

The raw energy and charisma that comes from frontwoman Jacquie Neville backed by Liam Jaeger on drums and brother Steve Neville on bass has left audiences on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean in awe.

The thoroughly good news is that they are coming over to Europe in a few weeks when they’ll be playing the Great Escape festival in Brighton, and I shall be seeing them.

www.thebalconies.ca

@thebalconies

Budapest Café Orchestra (Harringay, London)

Just a heads up because I can’t play any of their music …

Sat 23rd March: at The John Peel Centre in Stowmarket, Suffolk.

Describing themselves as “the finest purveyors of Balkan music this side of a Lada scrap heap” the Budapest Café Orchestra return to the John Peel Centre to see if it has changed since their last appearance.  We think they might just spot the difference!

Tickets £12 Available online here

www.budapestcafeorchestra.co.uk

Queen of Imperfection – Marla Mase (Manhattan, NYC)

Marla Mase is a writer/performer/producer/singer/songwriter from New York City. She writes songs, plays, monologues, short stories, erotica, blogs, and poems. She is known for her gutsy, sexy, raw performance style and her intelligent lyrics and is regarded by her peers as being a true musical pioneer.  Her songs, a mix of world beat, spoken word, funk, r&b, punk, soul, and classic rock-n-roll are infused with GLOBAL SOUL, the signature sound of  Tomás Doncker, her guitarist, co-writer  and producer . She is backed by his band, the Tomás Doncker Band.

Best of all, Marla is in the Uk for a few dates very soon:

30 March The Islington, London

4 April – O2 Academy, Islington, London

9 April – Water Rats, London

12 April – From Dusk To Dawn, London

14 April – Farnham Maltings, Hampshire

marlamase.com

@marlamase

Always Eyes – Suburban Living (Norfolk, VA, USA)

Norfolk, VA native, Suburban Living is back with a new-wave flecked dream pop single, to be released on April 16th (Dialog Records). The one man project of Wesley Bunch weaves shimmery shoegaze with new wave textual synths and reverb for that blissed out sound evoking wistful abandon of youth and endless nights.

A follow-up to last summer’s, Cooper’s Dream EP, “Always Eyes,” is an extension of Bunch’s signature sound, full of echoing vocals, 80s styled guitar riffs and whip-cracking drums that Consequence of Sound say, “make you itch for summer.”

Suburban Living just completed a mini Southeast tour before descending upon Austin for SXSW last week.

Always Eyes 7″ is out April 16, 2013 on Dialog Records.

Suburbanlivingz.com

@suburbanlivingz

Automatic children close out this week’s show with a deliciously raw, live and real sounding track.

With SXSW in full swing this week I’ve been thinking about setting up an auto-response for all the invitations to party, listen to live music, eat any number of food styles and generally hang out with what will, by this stage of the week be the increasingly strung out great and good of independent music. Much as I’d love to, I’m stuck over here in the UK, but thanks for thinking of me.

Northern Line – Bruise (London, UK)

After a decade of cutting a maverick swathe through the industry Bruise have three albums, thousands of gigs, US and European festival appearances, airplay from Japan to the US and a reputation to be proud of. Traveling world wide to deliver stylish and emotive performances this duo are probably Britain’s best kept secret. Supports, collaborations and sessions with artists as varied as great blues/folk songwriter & guitar virtuoso Mark Knopfler, space-rock royalty Hawkwind, country phenomenon Leanne Rhymes, folk hero Dick Gaughan, mean their talents are endorsed by quality.

The intimate venues the duo play are elevated to cult “I was there” status and audiences dance, cry and leave a little altered by the music of Isobel Morris (Guitar and vocals and Jim Kimberley.

Their third album Little Victories and their new single Northern Line are both now available to purchase through all major download stores. They have a mass of small venue shows coming up and all are listed on their site.

14th March Fishponds Matlock Bath Derbyshire 9pm

22nd March The Pelton Arms Pelton Road, Greenwich 9pm

23rd March Shortlands Tavern Station Rd Bromley

bruiseuk.com

www.facebook.com/BruiseUK

Lightening Bolt - Joel Plaskett Emergency (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Canada has produced some of the world’s most enduring songwriters and Joel Plaskett is hailed as one of the best. With countless awards to his credit, thousands of tour dates, and numerous recording and producing projects under his belt, Plaskett remains one of the most innovative and prolific artists on the scene today.

The year 2012 started in high gear. Out of the doldrums of another long Canadian winter, Joel and The Emergency worked around the clock, sending weekly volleys to fight off the seasonal blues: a brand new song – recorded, mixed, mastered, and released – every single week for ten weeks, accompanied by snippets of video documenting the process in-studio. It was an epic undertaking,which came together in the physical release of his eighth recording, Scrappy Happiness. The album garnered outstanding reviews and Joel Plaskett and The Emergency have been touring steadily since its release.

Scrappy Happiness is the follow-up to Joel’s hugely successful triple record, Three, which garnered overwhelming media response and caught the attention of international audiences. Where Three is a thoughtful solo record that offers up gems that range from pure pop to soul stirring folk, Scrappy Happiness is an epic melodic rock record powered by stellar songs and a sense of urgency.

Joel Plaskett: Guitar, Vocals

Peter Elkas: Guitar, Vocals

The band are touring the east US coast as an acoustic duo right now with dates:

3.14.13 Salsbury, MA @ Blue Ocean*

3.15.13 White River Junction, VT @ Tupelo Music Hall*

3.16.13 Londonderry, NH @ Tupelo Music Hall*

3.18.13 New York City, NY @ The Studio at Webster

3.19.13 Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live – Upstairs

3.20.13 Boston, MA @ O’Brien’s

www.joelplaskett.com

@jplaskett

Sunshine Then Nighmares – Glorie (Memphis, TN, USA)

Instrumental band, Glorie, was formed in Memphis in the spring of 2009 by former Satyrs frontman, Jason Paxton. The other members of Glorie (Jonathan Kirkscey, Rob Brimhall, Andy Saunders, and Jeff Hulett) come from diverse musical backgrounds and have performed with an impressive array of artists such as Cat Power, Jay Reatard, The Bloodthirsty Lovers, Snowglobe, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Al Green.

The band started as a desire to create substantive, engaging instrumental music with a strong focus on melody. Their music blends acoustic, electric, and electronic sounds and draws inspiration from many genres including rock, classical, and instrumental hip- hop. Glorie’s new EP Falling shows off more of their classical influence than their previous release with the string section taking on a prominent role. Driving rhythms and diverse instrumentation including lush strings, guitar, piano, electric piano, and vibraphone creating a thick wall of sound with a cinematic quality.

www.glorieband.com

www.glorierock.com

www.facebook.com/glorierock

@glorierock

Kerosene – Mission South (Washington DC,USA)

Washington DC-based soul rock trio, Mission South, is a band with roots planted firmly in both past and present.  Members Dan Miller (guitar/vocals), John Beck (bass/vocals) and Max Harwood (drums) met in the fourth grade and grew up within walking distance of each other’s homes.

What began as a garage band of three elementary school best friends is now making a powerful impression on the D.C. music scene. Band members Dan Miller (guitar/vocals), John Beck (bass/vocals) and Max Harwood (drums) graduated their respective universities in May 2012 and returned to their hometown with a newly invigorated focus and drive to transform their childhood dream into a professional endeavor.

On the their debut EP, “Migration Vol. 1,” Mission South effortlessly fuses classic blues and folk styles with more modern colors and tones, for a sound that is raw, soulful, and adventurous. You can (probably) get it free via http://music.missionsouth.com

The three-part “Migration” series (“Vol. 2″ scheduled for release in April 2013)

3.14 — Austin, TX — Blind Pig Rooftop (12 PM)

3.14 — Austin, TX — Darwin’s Pub (3 PM)

3.14 — Austin, TX — Amped Downstairs Mainstage (11 PM)

www.missionsouth.com/

@missionsouth

The Boat of the Fragile Mind - Belle Mare (Brooklyn, NY, USA)

Belle Mare are a dreamer’s soundscape. This Brooklyn duo of Amelia Bushell and Thomas Servidone meld beautifully sparse instrumentals and hushed vocals for a enchanting and richly textured sonic experience. Their combination of nostalgic melodic subtleties and modern synth results in a hypnotic and introspective debut with, The Boat of the Fragile Mind EP.

The first single and title track, “The Boat Of The Fragile Mind,” is an extension of Belle Mare’s ability to craft delicate and haunting pop ballads that seep under your skin.

Recorded in the confines of Servidone’s Brooklyn apartment, this eight song offering of melancholiac dream pop and folk imbued with what Brooklyn Vegan calls, a “lovely air of mystery”that’s a twist of old-time chanteuse, adorned with glinted pianos, and spacious textures. The Boat Of The Fragile Mind EP is officially out on April 9th and can be pre-ordered here.

Bellemare.bandcamp.com

@bellemaremusic

Timewaster – Bombay Show Pig (The Hague/Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Right off the bat, the spirited on-stage chemistry between Mathias Janmaat and Linda van Leeuwen became something special, emanating the kind of gusto we only see in today’s finest two-way rock outfits. A magical synergy, boosted by Janmaats penchant for writing well-crafted, off the wall pop melodies and Van Leeuwens whimsical energy behind the drums. After starting out as a supposed one-and-done conservatory project, Dutch duo Bombay Show Pig has steadily sculpted their compact and crisp garage blueprint into a vibrant collage of catchy rock tunes.

The result is debut LP Vulture/Provider, recorded at Kytopia – Utrecht’s quintessential candyland for musicians. With producer Simon Akkermans (C-Mon & Kypski) at the helm and Eli Janney (Girls Against Boys, The Rapture) providing mixing duties, Bombay Show Pig finally has a body of work to match their well-earned live reputation. Meanwhile, Mathias and Linda continue to rock fans home and abroad into a stupor, their musical boundaries persistently expanding as we speak.

3.13.13 Austin, TX @ Bar 96 (SXSW) with Blaudzun, Jacco Gardner

3.15.13 Austin, TX @ The Grackle (SXSW) at 1:45 pm

3.15.13 Austin, TX @ Nightclub The 512 (SXSW) @ 10:00 pm

3.21.13 West Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy (On the Rox)

www.bombayshowpig.com

www.facebook.com/bombayshowpig

www.youtube.com/bombayshowpig

@bombayshowpig

Johnny – Automatic Children (New York, USA)

Automatic Children were called one of the top NYC bands by The Deli Magazine. Twice.

Automatic Children are a rock band, streamlined to the basics, who have taken the best of the best and reflected it back in their own way, creating music for discerning fans who are too old to care about trends  and like their rock lean, fun, and unpretentious.

Rounded out with Ed Vail (bass/backing vocals) and Kevin Letsch (drums) Automatic Children is at heart the combined songwriting efforts of Adam Lippman and Crista Giuliani.

The rawness of the sound is quite endearing. It feels live, it feels real. That’s actually very refreshing.

They’ve been invited to play CMJ for the past three years and I sincerely hope that will continue to CMJ 2013.

automaticchildren.com/

www.automaticchildren.bandcamp.com

www.reverbnation.com/automaticchildren

From 16 year old Pop Idol winner in Poland to a mature artist of 25, Brodka is playing South By South West next week, as are all the artists on this week’s show.

It must be spring – assorted pasty pale musicians are emerging from the long winter hibernation blinking into the sunlight and migrating south by south west for the first of the season’s music festivals which happens next week in Austin, Texas.

This week we’ve a selection of tracks by artists who will be playing in the city next week, a couple of whom I’ve seen in New York and here in the UK. They, of course come with unreserved recommendations to catch them live. I hope the show gives you a bit of a feel of what these festivals are like, a rapidly revolving carousel of different musical styles based around short sets and great energy.

The only difference is that in our version of SXSW, you can avoid all the rushing between venues and, of course, the queues. Welcome to Austin.

We’ve got a strong representation from Canada in the show, they’s enthusiastically shrugging off their parkas and looking forward to some Texas sunshine.

Days and Days – Chic Gamine (Winnipeg/Montreal, Canada)

Since their beginning in 2007, acclaimed soul/roots quintet Chic Gamine has taken the music world by storm. The band’s self-titled debut won a JUNO Award for Best Roots/Traditional Album and helped land Chic Gamine on Canada’s top stages, critic’s best-of lists, and a coveted spot on Radio Canada’s seven musical revelations of 2009.

The band’s follow-up, City City, netted Chic Gamine nods for a JUNO Award nod and a Western Canadian Music Award in 2011. The quintet recently hit the road for a U.S. tour with Louisiana-based singer/songwriter Marc Broussard, providing opening sets and backing vocals, including a nationally-televised stop on Lopez Tonight.

www.chicgamine.com

@chicgamine

Songs of Promise – Pree (Washington, DC, USA)

After touring for two years with Le Loup, guitarist May Tabol returned home to launch a new project with a close group of friends converging in the DC arts scene.  Now playing as a four-piece, Pree combines a wide variety of folk instrumentation with electric and digital elements to create a unique sound brimming with layered melodies and contagious energy.

Folly was written and recorded over the course of several heat waves and snow storms by May and her cohorts in a rotating cast of bedrooms, basements, and attics across the District, bearing witness to two foreclosures, a bit of squatting, a larger bit of eviction, and a subsequent life shuffle that would rival that of a wind-addled gypsy moth.  This patchwork, guerilla style recording, which grew out of necessity, ultimately served to instil a sense of tension throughout the record leaving one hanging on despite the imminence of something so delicate falling apart.

Pree’s album, Folly, is available via the wonderfully eccentric Paper Garden Records who have a showcase event with The Wild Honey Pie called Beehive at Uncorked 900 E 7th St, Austin on Friday 15th from midday until 10:30pm. Details at: papergardenrecords.com

pree.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/preemusic

@preemusic

Southbound – Ben Caplan (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Ben Caplan is the ideal festival artist, putting on high energy live shows, both on the official programmes and, likely a s not, impromptu street performances.

Rugged, raspy, and roaring with charisma, Halifax’s Ben Caplan & The Casual Smokers is to folklore what smoke is to bourbon. Perfectly coupled. Ben’s songwriting is as bold in range as it is in ferocity. Fuelled by a quality of melodrama and powerful lyricism, it’s the romance and the manhood crashing with his voice that gives Caplan a truly innovative and experimental artistry. A sound that bridges the gap between controlled composition and unruly passion.

Breaking between guitar, banjo, piano, and melodica, Caplan’s stage show is almost reminiscent of a burly and bearded Freddy Mercury; a raging, strong, and exploratory songwriter, it’s the blues in his soul, and the heart in your chest pounding as one that makes Ben Caplan & The Casual Smokers an act not to be missed.

If you have the good fortune to be at SXSW, you’ll find Ben playing:

Thursday March 14 at:

Austin City Hall (City of Austin Showcase) 4pm

Wyndham Garden Hotel 6pm

Cheers (rooftop) 9pm

Friday March 15 at

Friends (Halifax Pop Explosion) 1pm

Cheers (rooftop) 6.50pm

Saturday March 16 at

Threadgills (indoor room) Folk Alliance Showcase 12pm

Hilton Austin (Liberty Tavern) 7pm

Friends (Canada House) 9pm

bencaplan.ca

bencaplanmusic.bandcamp.com/

www.facebook.com/TheCasualSmokers

www.youtube.com/bencaplanmusic

@bencaplanmusic

Manitoba in Texas – but it only only just fits

Approximately 1500 miles directly north of Austin, on the shared 97th meridian, another city of under a million people houses a music scene that outperforms its modest size. Musicians from Winnipeg, Manitoba will be shedding their parkas this weekend, packing their vans, and heading due south for the world famous South by Southwest music festival.

The SXSW Manitoba Music Showcase happens on Thursday of next week from 3pm til 6pm at Canada House (Friends) at 208 E 6th St.

manitobamusic.com

@manitobamusic

Cherry Blossom Tree – Imaginary Cities (Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada)

Western Canadian band Imaginary Cities’ debut disc is so fully realized that it’s surprising to learn that happenstance first brought primary songwriters Mari Sarbit and Rusty Matyas together in Winnipeg’s small but fertile music scene.

It was Marti Sarbit’s voice that immediately captured multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Rusty Matyas’s attention at the Cavern, a Winnipeg bar where Sarbit was fronting a Motown cover band and Matyas had come to mix the sound. Matyas, a major label veteran via his band The Waking Eyes and a touring member of Canadian indie rock stalwarts The Weakerthans, knew he wanted to write something for — or with — this innately gifted young singer if only to commit her voice to tape and hear what the results might be. The instantly compelling “Say You” was the song they soon whipped up, and one quick listen to what is now Imaginary Cities’ dramatic album opener clearly demonstrates what caught Matyas’s ear – and what subsequently propelled the duo to the top of Canada’s college charts and year-end best-of lists.

Though Canadian critics often emphasis the soul-music aspect of the duo, Imaginary Cities utilizes a mixture of musical flavors for a more expansive, often stirring, pop-rock palate, as in the albums’ title track “Temporary Resident”, or others such as “Don’t Cry,” or “Hummingbird”. They also take an amusing left turn with “Manitoba Bossa Nova,” which sounds just like the title suggests.

www.imaginarycities.ca

@imaginarycities

Exodus of the Year – Royal Canoe (Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada)

Royal Canoe is a group of musicians on a mission to construct ambitious, inventive music; creating samples by running conventional sounds through unconventional pieces of gear, drumming on bathtubs and garbage cans, listening to Big Boi and manipulating bits of old records.

The band calls Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada home – the enigmatic prairie city, which has served artists as both an abundant, creative watering hole and a debilitating quagmire. Royal Canoe’s songs are an effort to make sense of resentment and romanticism of the city’s divergent identities. The band’s debut effort, Co-op Mode, helped win over audiences across Canada as the band toured throughout the country.

March 14 @ 2:00pm – Music Gorilla Party @ Burnside’s Tavern

March 14 @ 4:30pm – Manitoba Music Party @ Friends

March 14 @ 10:00pm – Red Ryder Showcase @ IFC Crossroads House (Vice)

March 15 @ 1:00pm – Beautiful Buzzz Party @ Brew Exchange

March 15 @ 3:45pm – Homeslice Pizza’s MXTS Party @ Homeslice Pizza

www.royalcanoe.com

@royalcanoe

Getting Worst – Boats (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

Winnipeg indie pop outfit Boats makes impossibly hooky pop songs about death, being old, girls, glowing bears and escaping the spectral plane of existence and reappearing at a football game — all of which can be found on the band’s sparkling third album, A Fairway Full Of Miners  via Kill Rock Stars.

The new record also sees the band stretch out over more ambitious epics (Animated GIFs) and heartfelt ballads (Advice on Bears). It’s eclectic, but not unfocused; the whole thing is unified by frontman/band leader Mat Klachefsky’s helium-high yelp of a singing voice.

Maturity has become almost a cliché when it comes to describing albums — especially third albums — but A Fairway Full Of Miners has a focus to it that comes with relentless touring (Boats has done eight North American tours) and a sophistication that comes with refining a particular sound over the span of three albums). But don’t confuse mature with boring; Boats albums give you that thrilling feeling of being on the verge of spinning wildly, dizzingly out of control.

www.yeahboats.com/

Away – Trapdoor Social (Los Angeles,CA,USA)

Trapdoor Social is Merritt Graves and Skylar Funk, and they’re here to save the world. Merritt and Skylar met at the Environmental Analysis program at Pomona College in Southern California. By day they studied the challenges for planet Earth, and by night they found refuge in their music. “Unfortunately, Climate Change has become a large source to draw from musically,” says Merritt. “We try to take our anxiety over it and transfer it into a sonic medium.”

“But we do it in different ways,” adds Skylar. “Merritt channels his frustration when he writes, while I draw a lot more from empathy. I think it would be pretty boring if we weren’t so different of people.” What results is a driving, emotive alt-pop experience.

The duo made its official debut with the six song “Death Of A Friend” EP, released in December 2012. It was produced by Curt Schneider, and features Death Cab For Cutie’s Jason McGerr on drums.

3.7 West Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy/On The Rox

3.14 Austin, TX @ Tiniest Bar in Texas (SXSW)

www.trapdoorsocial.com/

www.facebook.com/TrapdoorSocial

@TrapdoorSocial

Varsovie – Brodka (Poland)

Monika Brodka, the sprite‐like vocalist BRODKA, launched onto the Polish music scene with a bang as the winner of Polish Pop Idol in 2004 at the young age of 16. Now, eight years and three award‐winning albums later, BRODKA has strayed away from her pop‐music start and is developing in a more mature, alternative electro‐pop artist. BRODKA continues to surprise audiences as proves her latest work, an English‐language EP entitled LAX and recorded at the Red Bull Studios in Los Angeles.

3.11.13 NYC, NY @ New York Sound City Festival (Knitting Factory)

3.15.13 (SXSW) Austin, Texas @ Filter Magazine presents Showdown at Cedar Street (stage: 12:20)

3.15.13 (SXSW) Austin, Texas @ SXSW Official Showcase at Esther’s Follies

3.16.13 Chicago, IL @ Copernicus Center

www.monikabrodka.com/

Adia is one of two fine female fiddlers on the show this week.

We’ve a wealth of female fiddlers this week with tracks from Adia & The 7 Eyes and then a delicious take on a classic but totally surprising tune with which Amanda Shaw and The Cute Guys will be closing the show.

Otherwise, the energy levels in the music are generally up this week. A quirky old selection of course but hell, that’s half the fun.

There’s been a development in the past week which is rather depressing.

IODA Promonet, from whom I have acquired some fine music over the years was bought out by a set-up called The Orchard a bit back but now they have announced that IODA is closing down. That is sad, but even worse, all the IODA download links in the Suffolk’n’Cool shownotes – and there are lots of them, will stop working from March 1 – that’s Friday, of this week. Actually, and this is bizzare, I was just grabbing the IODA artwork here and I notice that iot is in beta – that must be one of the longest beta phases ever!

I’m sorry about the short notice but if there any tracks that you’d like, get yourself over to the shownotes and have a bit of download frenzy.

Bones – Boxed Wine (NJ, USA)

Ralph Nicastro: Lead Guitar

Chris Mactire: Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar

Mike Cerisano: Bass, Vocal

Dan Claps: Drums, Vocals

Kyra Willans: Extra Percussion, Vocals

Ralph and Chris found themselves hating life after school, so they started writing songs like the ones they enjoyed throughout college. After putting a solid lineup of friends together, they quickly started releasing music and referring to themselves in the third person. It took the band a while to come up with a name as meaningful as Boxed Wine, but they believe it says everything it needs to. The group’s influences are quite varied, but one should listen and make relevant comparisons to all other bands in existence (especially ones that love fuzzy bass and disco beats).

Their songs don’t all sound the same, so if one isn’t your piece of cake then please try out another. They probably won’t be offended, and are relatively confident that cake metaphors are still cool…

www.boxedwineisaband.com

www.facebook.com/boxedwinemusic

www.soundcloud.com/boxedwine

www.twitter.com/boxedwinemusic

Breath – Kent Gustavson (Tulsa, OK, USA)

Award-winning author Kent Gustavson was born immersed in a rich musical heritage. As the son of peaceniks, he grew up with family sing-alongs. From Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan, he darted to classical, jazz, and avant-garde jazz, before circling back to the Greenwich Village folk canon and tracing that music back. In singer-guitarist Doc Watson, Gustavson found a treasure of American music. His biography of Watson, Blind But Now I See (Sumach-Red Books) is the definitive biography of an American icon.

kentgustavson.com/

facebook.com/kentgustavson

@drkent

Hustler – Adia & The 7 Eyes (Chicago, IL, USA)

Born and raised in Milwaukee, WI; Adia enrolled in her first violin lessons when she was just three and a half years old. Her talent was unquestionable throughout her musical studies, which culminated in a Master of Music degree in violin performance from DePaul University in Chicago.

When she wasn’t busy practicing the violin, Adia was singing soul, funk and R&B; drawing inspiration from artists like Lauryn Hill, Stevie Wonder and Erykah Badu. But it wasn’t until 2003 that Adia got a glimpse of the artist she was to become, when she met legendary Croatian blues rock guitarist Nikola Sarapa who quickly exposed Adia to one of the greatest players of all time: Jimi Hendrix. “It completely redefined everything that I wanted to be as a violinist and a musician,” she remembers. “ I wanted to sound like that.”

Adia eventually molded her influences into her own unique playing style. She started backing up numerous Chicago bands, mesmerizing fellow musicians and unsuspecting audiences with her improv chops, bluesy jams, and powerful voice.

In late 2011, Adia teamed up with some of Chicago’s finest: Matt Nelson on keyboards, Geoff Lowe on bass, Chris Siebold andPat Fleming on guitars, and Jonathan Marks on drums; to form the live band Adia & The 7 Eyes. They released their first recording Live from The Alley in May 2012. The performance features three of Adia’s original songs, as well as a powerful rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s “Stone Free”. There’s a remarkable video of that track in the shownotes. Whether you’re a Hendrix fan or not, do take a look.

www.adiasound.com/

www.facebook.com/ADIASound

@adiasound

L’Anchoïade – BoMarley/Disrupt/Volfoniq (Capestang, France)

Drums & Space echo : Disrupt

Organ, BassSynth & weird noises: Bo Marley (Max, Theis & Benjamin)

Melodica, Dubs & arrangements : Volfoniq

” South of France, Languedoc, june 2007.

Three bands took a well deserved rest after the “Dub en sauce“ festival. But the sunshine, the atmosphere, the wine and the good cooking turn the hollidays into a musical jam ! Résult : several tracks emerge from this collaboration, we selected three for you, to share these tasty moments improvised by Bo Marley, Disrupt and Volfoniq “.

” After the great Dub En Sauce festival in Montpellier summer 2007, I spent with Volfoniq, Bo Marley , Rootah and some friends a whole week in a super-nice house in the village of Capestang / Southern France. Located at the Canal de Midi… Eating, drinking, chilling – and jamming! A lot. This EP is the result of those funny sessions. ”  Disrupt (Jahtari) – december 2007

” I’ve got a very affective link with this release, as they were made in a special mood : during holidays, after a great festival (Dub en sauce), in the country side, with top level musicians, totally improvised. It has the essence of these moments, I think you can almost feel the sunshine of it if you listen and close your eyes “.  Volfoniq – december 2007

www.lclweb.org/audio_ep_lcl08.htm

www.myspace.com/herrbomarley

www.jantari.org

www.volfoniq.com

Fork In The Road – Detroit Rebellion (Providence, RI, USA)

Bringing the less is more approach to the combination of blues, folk, and “other” styles (leaning toward the “other”), Detroit Rebellion has been quickly capturing attention as a band to be reckoned with.

Despite the name, Detroit Rebellion is actually a Providence, RI based duo composed of Jeff Toste (guitar/vocals) and Michael Lamantia Jr. (drums), aka Mikey Lams. Toste has roots in the New England scene for over 15 years, most notably with his indie band, Laurels. Mikey Lams is a friend of both the RI (Makeupbreakup) and NYC (Rockethouse/Aerial love feed).

In 2009, Toste began performing solo as Detroit Rebeillion, which he referred to as “a tribute to old school blues, folk and Americana.” Since Mikey Lams joined on drums, Toste found Detroit Rebellion “mutating into something else.” The result of that “something else” is the sophomore release EP Fork in the Road.

www.facebook.com/detroitriot

detroitrebellion.bandcamp.com/

Dear Enemy – HolySexyBastards (Valencia, Venezuela)

A second (and rather different) track from the Venezeulan rockers.

The phrase “garage rock freaks” defines HolySexyBastards.  With mouthfuls of punk, hard rock, stoner rock, blues and bad attitudes to spare, they began and indeed continue as a power trio from Valencia, the industrial capital of Venezuela.   They were also recently awarded the most prestigious title for a band in Venezuela as the recent winners of the New Bands’ Festival for 2012.

Subsequently they have been selected to play showcases at SXSW 2013 as well as Canadian Music Week, both taking place in March.  They will be bringing their set-list-free post-hardcore anarchy to cities across North America and in Europe beyond that.

Their self-titled debut is released at online stores including iTunes and Amazon from March 5.

www.holysexybastards.com

@HolySexyB

Keep On Lovin Me Baby – miX&dorp (Amsterdam, Nederlands)

miX&dorp has been producing classic blues remixes at Black & Tan for a while and it’s quite a while since we heard a new one. These really are very special – of course, they won’t suit the purists but for me they inject new life into the blues.

They are available on iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/nl/artist/mix-dorp/id416567823

www.black-and-tan.com

soundcloud.com/mixendorp

Should I Stay Or Should I Go – Amanda Shaw and The Cute Guys (New Orleans, LA,USA)

Amanda Shaw commands attention with her poignant & rhythmic sounds that only a Louisiana prodigy could deliver. At 22, she is a powerful international touring artist, has recorded 3 critically-acclaimed albums, won the Big Easy Award for Best Female Entertainer, roles in films including IMAX “Hurricane On The Bayou.” The New Orleans native is a pioneer of the new breed of young, roots-based music.

Now the band are releasing one of their fan favorites at live shows but never-before-recorded cover of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by seminal punk band The Clash.

The track is mixed by Grammy award-winning and platinum-selling engineer/producer/musician, Ken Lewis (Kanye West, Jay Z, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey). The single will be released as a free fan appreciation single download along with video during Mardi Gras this month.

“Mardi Gras is the perfect time to release our new single and debut the music video for “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” in celebration of families coming together to have a good time! We are giving it away to our fans for free as a big thank you and because music brings people together to have a good time and those are two things that New Orleans does best!,” says Amanda.

www.amandashaw.com

@amanda_shaw

Swimming in Speakers are welcomed back on the show this week (Album artwork: Meadow Elizabeth)

A generally reflective feel to the music this week – probably picking up on my mood as we prepare to admit defeat in surviving looking after my dear and elderly mother-in-law and maintaining 24 hour care. Time to hand over to the professionals. Sad.

It does, however, even in this relatively short show, give the opportunity to dive deep into some beautifully layered music from the likes of Little Tybee, Wasaru, Great Divide and a couple of tracks from the mesmerising Swimming in Speakers who have a new album just out. It had a mention on the Alive and Amplified blog earlier this week but I think this is the first airing a track has had on the intertubes.

All We Have – Swimming in Speakers (Adirondack Park, NY)

On their stunning debut LP, swimming in speakers bends the very idea of genre classification. The two artists from upstate New York swirl together thoughtful indie ambient pop, toe-tapping freak folktronica, and honey-dipped female vocals to create what will likely become the soundtrack for the next few months of your life.

The duo ignited the rich Northeastern music scene with strong live performances and an impressive EP that twice landed them on episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

On “guessing the others” the sonic mixes of Christopher Clarke wind organically through the album with both layered nuance and great fanfare, while Meadow Elizabeth’s gorgeous vocals cascade over them in a dazzling union.

The confidence with which they string together their stories lead the listener to more corners than one would ever expect to visit on a single album.

www.swimminginspeakers.com

swimminginspeakers.bandcamp.com

@SiStheband

For Distant Viewing – Little Tybee (Atlanta, GA, USA)

Title track from the third studio album which is released on April 9, 2013 via Paper Garden Records. The video for the track which you’ll find on their site documents the past several months on the road. The touring isn’t letting up, they are setting out on a 21 date tour at the beginning goof next month that will start in Athens GA and progress up as far as Pianos in NYC (via SASW in Austin, TX) in before heading back down to Atlanta.

You can catch the video, pre-order the album and win tickets to see the band at the lovely papergardenrecords.com/

www.littletybee.com/

@LittleTybee

Collision – Wasaru (Lille, France)

A deliciously sparse track that matches the artists self-description on Jamendo as “Wasaru c’est de la musique instrumentale, hip-hop, breakbeat, trip hop, downtempo … ”

A most agreeable offering of electronic instrumental downtempo hiphop film music from the new 22 track album “Even bad things come to an end” which is out now on Jamendo

It’s that enticing mix of sounds and a language that I don’t know well enough to be distracted by the words, which, in this case, form another dimension against which the instruments play.

www.wasaru.com

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/3917/wasaru

www.jamendo.com/en/list/a108348/even-bad-things-come-to-an-end-2012

Illuminate – Swimming in Speakers (Adirondack Park, NY)

See notes above

www.swimminginspeakers.com

Ain’t No Roads – Great Divide (Chicago, IL. USA)

Pop, rock, indie: no matter the genre, there’s a plasticity dominating today’s music world.  Call it a “great divide” between what’s popular or buzzed about, and bands offering something more heartfelt.  Providing that musical honesty is the aptly monikered Great Divide, a rock ‘n ’soul band full of passion, spontaneity and groove.  Great Divide releases their self-titled, sophomore record on March 5, 2013.

When the time came to make that second album, the band stuck to their indie roots and funded it entirely via Kickstarter. The group also expanded their sound, bringing in a bevy of talented Chicago musicians behind the scenes.

Recorded in four days at Third Ward Studios in Milwaukee, with follow-up sessions in Chicago and Rockford, IL, Great Divide is an ambitious affair, moving effortlessly from soul to pop to funk, all tied together by songwriter/vocalist Teddy Grossman’s lyrical openness and his way with a hook.

Great Divide will be touring heavily through all of 2013, with horn section in tow.

March 1 – Berwyn, IL – Fitzgerald’s

March 12 – St. Louis, MO – The Gramophone

March 14 – 17: SXSW

March 23 – Chicago, IL – Subterranean (Hometown CD Release Show)

greatdivideband.com

@greatdividelive

Tilting at a slightly different angle in Venezeula are Holysexybastards, on the show for the first time this week.

A smattering of lurv songs close out this necessarily rather short edition on the eve of Valentine’s day. LA asserts itself as a music centre this week although Sunderland and Bromley well represented and we have a track from Venezuela too.

Pett Level - Keston Cobblers Club (Bromley, UK)

What a great night at The Brewery Tap in Ipswich on Sunday.

A great pub and getting KCC to play has been a long haul for Mike and Georgie. He’s invented more than one new festival in the hope of attracting them up. The Oyster, Stour and Black Pudding Festival last weekend was the clincher.

Despite being thoroughly fed and watered, they put on a great show which delighted a packed Tap. A long, long set took its toll on Julia’s voice. The most remarkable phenomenon was making sense of the mental disconnect between eye and ear watching super slim elfin Bethan laying down a super resonant bass line on the tuba.

The track is from their album One, For Words.

www.kestoncobblersclub.com

www.facebook.com/kestoncobblersclub

@kestoncobblers

Come on in my kitchen – Michael Colton (Los Angeles,CA,USA)

Michael Colton started playing guitar as a teenager fired up by the masterfully expressive approaches of blues-based players like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton. He first heard Robert Johnson in eighth grade, seeking out this Holy Grail on vinyl after reading an interview with Eric Clapton where EC gushed over Johnson’s blues genius.

The legend goes that in the 1930s Robert Johnson was just another mediocre guitar player hanging out at juke joints, but after a brief disappearance, he remerged on the scene dazzlingly proficient. The explanatory myth is that Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for his mind-boggling technique. His 1936-1937 recordings have been the blues gospel for countless generations.

Incidentally, Colton also bravely tackles “Crossroads”—a track classic rock radio has almost made synonymous with Eric Clapton—and turns in a stunning version, sharing the spotlight with world class guest guitarist Anthony Stauffer. I’m hoping to have that for a later show.

http://michaelcoltonmusic.com/

@michael_colton

Talked To The Devil – Trevor Sewell (Sunderland, UK)

Trevor is just back from LA, where he’s been playing gigs and won the Artists In Music Awards ‘Best Blues Artist’ Award. As Tevor says, “a fantastic event and we are still buzzing from it. Loved playing in America and will hopefully be back in Los Angeles later in the year.”

Very much in the tradition of early Eric Clapton and Freddie King, Sewell has his own inimitable style that coasts easily between traditional values and the confident and almost nonchalant style that he has recently become known for.

Trevor has a limited edition CD out now on W.A.R. Records (an Austrian label) which is basically the Calling Your Name album plus four bonus tracks including this fascinating monitor mix for a duet he’s recorded with Lorraine Crosby (best known for the Meatloaf hit “I would do anything for love – but I won’t do that”.

Trevor has put together a special package of three tracks from the new album, especially for Suffolk ’n’ Cool listeners. You can download a zip file containing the tracks Where the Wild Ones Go, Hate Me for a Reason and Condemned.

UPDATE: Trevor has now given Suffolk’n'Cool listeners exclusive access the whole Calling Your Name album.

Click this link to pick up your copy of Calling Your Name, quite free and legal.

That’s a very generous offer and I hope you’ll visit his site to join the email list (on his home page) to be among the first to hear about his new album and other news.

www.trevorsewell.com

Rooftop Lover – BETS (LA & NYC, USA)

‘Rooftop Lover’ tells the story of BETS and her song-writing partner spending their days lounging on a rooftop in Hollywood, writing pages upon pages of songs. Despite hints at romance via the song’s name and BETS’s sultry retro vibe, friendship and sunny weather are the main themes for the song. The strumming of the acoustic guitar and ocean sounds mixed with the delicate lyrics lend to a delightfully charismatic song that has a distinctive sway to it.

www.betsmusic.com/

www.facebook.com/betsmusic

@betsmusic

Kiss Your Friend - HolySexyBastards (Valencia, Venezuela)

The phrase “garage rock freaks” defines HolySexyBastards.  With mouthfuls of punk, hard rock, stoner rock, blues and bad attitudes to spare, they began and indeed continue as a power trio from Valencia, the industrial capital of Venezuela.   They were also recently awarded the most prestigious title for a band in Venezuela as the recent winners of the New Bands’ Festival for 2012.

Subsequently they have been selected to play showcases at SXSW 2013 as well as Canadian Music Week, both taking place in March.  They will be bringing their set-list-free post-hardcore anarchy to cities across North America and in Europe beyond that.

Their self-titled debut is released at online stores including iTunes and Amazon from March 5.

www.holysexybastards.com

@HolySexyB

Two Minus One – Everyday Animals (LA, CA, USA)

Originally hailing from Athens, Ohio, the band honed their chops in open jams and bar gigs, experimenting with tight improvisations and a regularly rotating set list, before moving to Los Angeles as a unit in 2008.

Everyday Animals’ latest LP Under the Tyranny of Good Weather finds the band marrying diverse influences and incredible musicianship into their most cohesive collection to date: a sprawling, funky excursion into the mind of lead singer and writer Kevin Shima.

For me it’s rather redolent of some of Robert Palmer’s music.

www.everydayanimals.com

www.facebook.com/everydayanimals

Keston Cobblers Club have a show coming up on Saturday at The Brewery Tap in Ipswich, here in Suffolk.    See you there?

Perhaps a bit of a trippy feel to some of the tracks this week including some valuable lessons in the joys of stereophonic recording from Public Service Broadcasting. The twin Graces are Grace Valhalla and Grace Woodroofe who are actually back to back. We’ve another track from a band I’ll be seeing on Saturday and a love song with a different, and very resonant perspective.

Thanks, as ever, to the independent artists and labels who are producing all this fascinating music let’s support their efforts buy buying the stuff we love.

New Dimensions In Sound – Public Service Broadcasting (London, UK)

Oh joy to have those awfully nice young coves from Public Service Broadcasting beaming their charming ditties into our lounges again, this time in steereo. Simply marvellous chaps, top hole. We don’t hear enough voices like that on the wireless anymore.

Public Service Broadcasting are a London-based duo whose main ingredients are:

1) J. Willgoose, Esq. on guitars, banjos, other stringed instruments, samplings, electronic things;

2) Wrigglesworth on drums, pianos and other electronic things.

Taking samples from old public information films, archive footage and propaganda material, they teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future.

publicservicebroadcasting.net

@PSB_HQ

Terrible Disguise – Moxi (Los Angeles)

Anna Nelson, known by her stage name Moxi, is a songwriter and performer from Los Angeles, California. After a short stint as a solo artist, Nelson teamed up with producer, writer, & multi-instrumentalist Andy Toy and took the stage as Moxi for the first time in late 2012. Floating on a soundscape of vintage keyboards, big backbeats, and her signature Omnichord strums, Nelson’s distinct soprano voice takes the listener on a wistfully introspective journey with her dreamy lyrics and melodies. Collaborating with Emmy award-winning producer and songwriter Bobby Hartry, Moxi is slated to release her debut EP In My Dreams in early 2013.

www.moxilovesyou.com

www.facebook.com/moxilovesyou

www.twitter.com/moxilovesyou

Hope & Smoke – Kiven (LA, CA, USA)

Tyler Demorest, Danny Schnair, and Matt Cohen, known collectively as Kiven, hail from the smog-swept city of Los Angeles. While their musical influences have undoubtedly come from a wide array of musical and artistic spectrums, this trifecta ultimately blends together to create the band’s unique and personal sound.

The band released their first EP, Two In The Same, in 2010 while still studying in school, and then followed with STEP in the spring of 2012.

Following the initial momentum and direction of sound from STEP (their previous EP), the recently released EP, “1840” continues to progress forward both sonically and emotively, reflecting Kiven’s musical and personal growth. The tracks off of 1840 build in a more organic sense and with a naturally touching pull on the listener with pocket drums, grooving bass lines, hard hitting guitars, soaring vocals and lush harmonies.

With the excitement of their new single, “Hope & Smoke”, which reached #11 on Hype Machine and was featured on Indie Shuffle and Red Bull Soundstage, Kiven made their East Coast debut in New York for CMJ 2012 as an official artist – playing a handful of showcases including The Deli Mag, Audio Perv and a handful of other buzz-worthy CMJ bills. Shortly after, Entertainment Weekly went on to name Kiven as the #2 “Great Indie Discovery” from CMJ 2012. Their debut full-length will be out in Spring 2013.

www.kivenmusic.com

www.facebook.com/kivenmusic

www.twitter.com/kivenmusic

For Words – Keston Cobblers Club (Bromley, Kent, UK)

We had a first track from Keston Cobblers Club last week and if for no   other reason than that they have a local (to me) gig coming up at the end of the week. Here’s another.

They’re playing at The Brewery Tap in Ipswich, here in Suffolk on Saturday 9th Feb headlining the “Stout, Oyster and Black Pudding Festival” along with Straw Bear, Hot Feet, Jasmine Ava, Underline the Sky and Phil Jackson. Entry is free. Check the details at www.thebrewerytap.org

www.kestoncobblersclub.com

www.facebook.com/kestoncobblersclub

@kestoncobblers

Lama – Ummagma (Ukraine)

A Canadian-Ukrainian duo comprised of Alexander Kretov and Shauna McLarnon who is originally from Whitehorse, Yukon in northern Canada. As are previous guests on the show Old Time Machine. She is apparently addicted to Russia and Ukraine, so she has lived there for about 12 years.

Alexx handles composition, all instruments, arrangement and vocals, as well as recording, mixing, mastering and video production, while Shauna McLarnon deals with vocals, composition, lyrics and band management.

In mid-July, Ummagma independently released 2 full-length LPs (“Ummagma” and “Antigravity”) on Bandcamp at http://ummagma.bandcamp.com. Despite the fact that Ummagma’s music encompasses several music genres, there persists a common remarkable theme, elevating and stirring effect.

Ummagma was nominated for CBC Radio Canada’s “Rookie of the Year” Bucky Award and was featured in the November issue of Rolling Stone Russia.

ummagma.com

Experience II – Grace Valhalla (Nancy, France)

Another track from Grace Valhalla’s seminal 2006 album Peak~. Every track on this album is pure musical gold.

As Mad Cat puts it: “She faces the same fate as many women producing music: no one believes she produced it. Of the two albums she produced the first Grace Valhalla – psychopathethic is more a rock album while the latter Grace Valhalla – PEAK~ is clearly electronic. Both containing calmed down nearly melancholic music. Wire is a mix between the two first albums”

Then there are Summer Camp and last year’s Valhalla Rising.

The French artist has a new track available on Soundcloud which appears to be from a forthcoming new album. This one is rather different in that it uses more obvious vocal samples which gives is a quite a distinct feel among her other work but perhaps moves it a little closer to other artists output. It’s still Valhalla and well worth a listen at soundcloud.com/grace-valhalla/desert-heat-hey-love

Check out her catalogue on Jamendo at www.jamendo.com/en/artist/2208/grace-valhalla

Battles – Grace Woodroofe (Perth, Australia)

I saw Grace Woodroofe in New York at CMJ 2011. Time Out New York reviewed her show at The Living Room:

“Though it was an extremely difficult CMJ decision, the ultimate lady songbird for me was Grace Woodroofe, whom I caught at the intimate Living Room. The self-taught singer-songwriter, who hails from Australia  has a bluesy voice that can easily run the gamut from soulful croon to full-on howl to heartbroken wail. At one point during her set, she seemed completely lost in her composition: all six feet of black lace swaying woozily, fingers strumming guitar strings with astute rhythm, eyes closed and barely visible through the thick curtain of hair over her face. I looked around and saw that the crowd mirrored her trancelike state—not a trace of CMJ jadedness remained in the room.”

Her set at the Aussie Barbecue was an altogether more upbeat affair in which the band even managed to blow the stage power.

gracewoodroofe.com.au

Carousel - Vanessa Carlton (New York City, NY, USA)

A track we heard quite a while ago (2011) but I stumbled upon it the other day and thought good enough to deserve another airing.

For her fourth album, Rabbits on the Run (Razor & Tie), Carlton needed a fresh start. She had been going at full sprint since she was discovered by legendary record executive Ahmet Ertegun when she was still a teenager, signed by Jimmy Iovine soon after, and exploded onto the pop scene with the platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated Be Not Nobody in 2002. But as she was nearing thirty, Carlton felt lost.

Ultimately, she made her way to Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios in Box, England, where she created something that harks back to a different era of music-making: ten intimate, evocative songs, recorded direct to tape with a close-knit team of collaborators including producer Steve Osborne, drummer Patrick Hallahan from My Morning Jacket, and guitarist Ari Ingber of the Upwelling.

Watch the video directed by Jake Davis (Flyleaf, My Chemical Romance) for “Carousel” 

www.vanessacarlton.com

@VanessaCarlton

EIther there’s a very old tweet showing up or history is repeating itself. Posted on Monday:

“I head back to England, to @realworldstudio on Friday,to continue work on what’s shaping up to be an album. I think i finally got the angle!”

Bareto join us this week from Lima, Peru.

So, it’s seven years this week since Suffolk’n’Cool was launched to a deafening roar of indifference back in 2006 with a mission to give support and encouragement to independent musicians all around the world and to deliver your blast of fresh musical air via the barn, here on the east coast of England.

Coincidentally, SnC started within a day or two of another show called PC Podcast (you may have heard of it) which some bloke called Pete Cogle let loose at the same time. To cut a long story short, podcasts come and podcasts, well,  podfade, but we’re both still here and I think our shows have improved over the years. Certainly, we’ve become good friends and enjoy a fine level of mutual abuse.

Cheers Pete!

Your Mother – Keston Cobblers Club (Bromley, Kent, UK)

About an hour ago I got an email from Bethan “Would I like to play a track on the show?”

After around 15 seconds of the first track I heard, I wanted to keep listening. A minute in and I knew I wanted them on the show, a couple of minutes in and I knew I wanted them on this week. A few minutes and a quick exchange of emails later, Bethan had sent me this track.

Something special. But what? The band’s Twitter page describes them as “Oom-pah english folk-pop band with rockets and a giraffe or two.” That’ll do.

The band is based on the folklore of the old, penniless cobbler of Keston. His business was struggling and he would cheer  himself up by throwing barn dances  for the villagers. The rip-roaring dancing would wear out the soles ofthe villagers’ shoes, and so the cobbler was never short of work again!

This is a band that’s about music making, collaboration and lots of fun. Their 13-track debut album “One, For Words” is testimony to that. You can get it via their site.

They’re playing at The Brewery Tap in Ipswich, here in Suffolk on Saturday 9^th Feb headlining the “Stout, Oyster and Black Pudding Festival” along with Straw Bear, Hot Feet, Jasmine Ava, Underline the Sky and Phil Jackson. Entry is free. Check the details at www.thebrewerytap.org

www.kestoncobblersclub.com

www.facebook.com/kestoncobblersclub

@kestoncobblers

Railway – BOY (Hamburg, Germany)

BOY is comprised of Swiss-born Valeska Steiner and German-born Sonja Glass (neither of which are boys). The two met serendipitously when they participated in a prestigious music workshop in Hamburg. They immediately bonded over their classical-music training and a mutual love of the French band Phoenix. Before long, they decided to form a band and began writing what would become Mutual Friends. Mutual Friends is an autobiographical affair, comprised of smart, sharply-observed songs that resonate because they’re about everyday life.

Their first full-length album Mutual Friends is out now in the UK and is scheduled for release in the USA at the end of February where they’ll be touring in March starting at Joe’s Pub in New York on the 1st then to Seattle, San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Minneapolis, Chicago, Montreal (yes, I know, Canada), Philadelphia and Vienna, VA details on their site where there’s also a rather fun video which looks to me as though it was shot in Barcelona and Barcelonetta. If you know better, let me know.

This track is from a sampler collection which you can download free at www.noisetrade.com/boy

www.listentoboy.com/

facebook.com/listentoboy

@listentoboy

Tanto ají – Bareto (Lima, Peru)

From Bareto’s latest (2012) LP: Ves lo que quieres ver (in English: “you see just what you want to see”.

Ten songs written by the group, in their first time working with a music producer (Miami based Manuel Garrido-Lecca), mixing cumbia, reggae, psychedelia and dub, among other latin generes. The lyrics talk about how Peruvians have to deal with their differences as society (in Perú, every city is like a little country) to keep the machine going.

The first single off the album is called “Camaleon” (“Cameleon”), a song about how politicians change every time because of their personal convenience, no matter what’s better for their community. In the music video, a clown try a “politician costume” and go for the election poll.

Other subjects in the record are racism, social differences and street insecurity, facts that coexists in Peru’s everyday reality, but that are not easy to talk about, because, as the title of the album suggest, “you see just what you want to see”.

www.bareto.net

@bareto

I’m Sorry – Lauren O’Brien (NYC, USA)

Another fine and attention grabbing track from Lauren O’Brien who first appeared on the show way back in 2010

“I love rock ’n’ roll, the passion and rebelliousness of it,” says Lauren. “But I want to be part of it in my own way—I want to take poetry and rock it out.”

Which is exactly what Lauren does—and then some—on Inconsequential Dream, her astonishing debut album.

Much like Lauren’s riveting live performances, Inconsequential Dream is a cathartic, emotionally cleansing experience that keeps the listener on the edge of their seat throughout—only to find them back in line when the last track stops, eager to sign up for another wild ride.

laurenobrienmusic.com

myspace.com/laurenobrienmusic

@laurenobrien1

CMJ 2013 – artist submissions now open

Over 1,400 artists took to the stages and clubs of New York City this past October, and it’s now time to join the excitement for 2013: CMJ 2013 artist submissions are now open! Submit your application via Sonicbids today for special early-bird rates.

http://www.cmj.com/news/cmj-2013-artist-submissions-now-open/

Stranger – Ben Caplan and the Casual Smokers (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Halifax’s Ben Caplan will play two eagerly anticipated hometown shows at the Company House on February 1st and 2nd. The gig on February 2nd with special guest Paper Beat Scissors is now totally sold out.  A second show on February 1st with guest Taryn Kawaja has just been announced.  Tickets can be found at http://bencaplan.ca

After a much needed break from a year of non-stop touring, Ben Caplan returns to his life on the road with a slew of Canadian shows hitting stages in the Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario before heading to showcase at Folk Alliance International conference and festival in Toronto in February 2013.

Following his Canadian tour dates and a return visit to Texas’ South by Southwest Music Festival, Ben will find himself sharing stages with the likes of Wilco, Santana, Ben Harper, Jason Mraz, Rufus Wainwright and more at the Byron Bay Folk Festival in Australia come April 2013. After the three-day festival he will perform in Melbourne and Sydney.

Last year was a break through year for the bearded folk wunderkind. Non-stop international touring, countless nominations which led to him taking home the much coveted Entertainer of the Year Award at the Nova Scotia Music Awards, and collaborating on a holiday single with Norwegian pop stars Katzenjammer are just a few of the many highlights. 2013 will see Ben working on his follow up release while maintaining a healthy tour and festival schedule.

Watch Ben Caplan perform “Fairytale of New York” live with Katzenjammer: http://youtu.be/4rJncXdRbZY

TOUR DATES
Feb. 1 @ The Company House, HALIFAX, NS (*tickets: http://bencaplan.ca)
Feb. 2 @ The Company House, HALIFAX, NS (*SOLD OUT)
Feb. 5 @ Plan B, MONCTON, NB
Feb. 6 @ Hunter’s Ale House, CHARLOTTETOWN, PE
Feb. 8 @ Quai des Brumes, MONTREAL, QC
Feb. 10 @ Café Dekcuf, OTTAWA, ON
Feb. 12 @ The Mansion, KINGSTON, ON
Feb. 13 @ Maxwell’s, WATERLOO, ON
Feb. 14 @ Van Gogh’s Ear, GUELPH, ON
Feb. 15 @ The Foxx Lounge, BARRIE, ON
Feb. 16 @ The Mansion, ST. CATHARINES, ON
Feb. 17 @ Aeolian Hall, LONDON, ON
Feb. 19 @ This Ain’t Hollywood, HAMILTON, ON
Feb. 20 – 24 @ Folk Alliance International, TORONTO, ON
Mar. 1 @ Noize Isn’t Noize, QUEBEC CITY, QC
Mar. 2 @ The Capitol, FREDERICTON, ON
Mar. 12 – 17 @ South by Southwest Festival, AUSTIN, TX
Mar. 28 @ Byron Bay Blues Festival, AUSTRALIA
Mar. 29 @ Byron Bay Blues Festival, AUSTRALIA
Apr. 1 @ Byron Bay Blues Festival, AUSTRALIA
Apr. 3 @ Notes, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Apr. 4 @ Northcote Social Club, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

http://bencaplan.ca
http://facebook.com/thecasualsmokers

@bencaplanmusic

Find Your Home – Anna Haas (New York/Nashville, USA)

Last year, when rummaging through her great grandfather’s film reels, the fiery and theatrical singer / songwriter / entertainer Anna Haas came across footage of her grandmother in NYC that dated all the way back to 1929. Anna’s grandmother had recently passed, and she was inspired by this serendipitous historical find – footage of Coney Island, Bushwick, dancers at the Copacabana, vintage cars, and even of her grandmother’s pet monkey.

“Find Your Home” is a track off of Anna’s debut LP Crazy Is, and there is a beautiful video that incorporates some of that archive footage as a tribute to Anna’s grandmother and her adopted home of NYC.

Haas’s album Crazy Is is a timeless yet modern tapestry of stories and musings blending sarcasm, metaphor, and absolute vulnerability. Haas writes from an honest and sometimes controversial place as her lyrics shift in subject matter from a loving homage to a secret relationship, to emotional dependence on love and drugs, and the imagined loneliness of Marilyn Monroe. The collection of eleven songs was recorded in multiple studios throughout her hometown of Nashville and New York, and took nearly two years to complete.

annahaas.com

www.facebook.com/annahaasmusic

@annahaasmusic

Three Sticks – Atticus Finch (Perth, W. Australia)

Atticus Finch first bore it’s roots in 2008 when Justin Kutylowski and Lachlan Gear started jamming, creating and performing original, melodic pop/indie music at various venues around Perth. The duo soon grew a loyal following, known for it’s smooth flowing melodies, interesting harmonic textures and soulful vibes. After a brief hiatus they are now back in full swing, adding Glenn Salter on bass and Noonz Vacca on drums.

http://atticusfinch.bandcamp.com/

Review on iTunes

One of the quirks of iTunes is that although Suffolk ’n’ Cool is available in all iTunes stores (e.g. UK, USA, France, etc.) reviews are only posted to the reviewer’s own specific store. Yes, it seems daft but it emphasises how much I’d appreciate your review on your iTunes store.

It’s very easy to give the show a 5-star rating (if that’s what you think it deserves). Just go to the Suffolk ’n’ Cool page on iTunes, click on the “Rating and Reviews” button and click on the stars to “rate” the show. While you’re there, if you have just a minute or two, you can click on “Write a Review” and do just that. Even a few words would be very much appreciated.

When you’re done, let me know which store you posted your review to.

Wanderlust – Kim Edwards (San Diego, CA, USA)

A few weeks ago AMPed members were asked to submit the tracks that really stood out for them in 2012.

I listened to dozens of tracks that I’d played on SnC in the course of the year and kept coming back to this one by Kim Edwards. The simple honesty and intelligent expression along with a beautiful tune enabled it to say so much – and I suppose it must have resonated in some way – so I selected it as my stand-out track of the year.

The next day, long before the track was played on AMP, KIM got in touch with a preview of her new video which features the song. Here it is.

www.kimedwardsmusic.com

itunes.apple.com/us/album/wanderlust/id509047065

amazon.com/Wanderlust/dp/B007IHLEYE

@kim_edw

Kim Edwards – Wanderlust (acoustic) from Kim Edwards on Vimeo.

Also on Youtube: http://youtu.be/Rfa-0ES5FOE

And The Wiremen make a very welcome debut on the show this week. Music to truly hold your interest.

A delicious selection of hand-picked musical treats this week, one of which gives a wink and a nod in the direction of good old prog-rock.

We have lots else besides including rather a rude bit of musical satire aimed at the bankers, politicians and bureaucrats.

Lots to listen to and all part of your weekly blast of fresh musical air from all around the world via a barn on the east coast of England.

War – Among Criminals (Philadelphia)

Among Criminals has been working their way from the ground up, on their own blood and sweat. Self-touring with 650 shows in 4 years, and self-recording with thousands of units sold with no outside help makes this an indie band in the true sense of the word.

Their combination of Clash-esque Reggae Punk, catchy choruses and an extremely intense live show makes this band a force to be reckoned with.

Ryan Gaughan: Vocals, Guitar

Bean: Bass

Jarrod Pedone: Drums, backing vocals

01/25 Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy

www.AmongCriminals.com/

myspace.com/AmongCriminals

The One – Studebaker’s Blacksmith Shop (Germany)

A fine piece of good old prog rock from this German band. The vocals are particularly impressive and, in this track, bring to mind the tonal quality and clarity of some of Sandy Denny’s work, way back.

I can’t tell you a lot about the band but you can get their music from Jamendo, and they’s like you to! Do check out Elimination of Danger on their 2011 album “Excuse me, are you sick?”

“The recordings for the new album “Excuse me, are you sick?” start at the 04th February 2011 in our Bunker.

We busy practice the 12 songs and every time we play them again, you see how every one feels more comfortable with the songs.

We´ll record the rough-mix with Janz, who has recorded “Champagne Desert Love” and the final mix will be taken by our beloved producer Viktor Bullock.

We´re looking forward to the recordings and hope to proudly present live “Excuse me, are you sick” at the 30.04.2011 in the Rocket Club, Landshut.

Joe Kirsch

Studebakers´s Blacksmith Shop”

http://studebakersblacksmithshop.jamendo.net

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/361057/studebaker-s-blacksmith-shop

Rayuela – And The Wiremen (Brooklyn, NY,USA)

And the Wiremen is lead by Brooklyn-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Lynn Wright (Bee and Flower) with former Sparklehorse guitarist/trumpeter Paul Watson (Michael Hurley), Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone (Frank Black, Mekons, Book of Knots, etc.), guitarist Jon Petrow (Cloudroom, Bee and Flower), and a revolving cast of musicians to create music that evokes images of a gothic deep South combined with the rhythms of South America and the grainier elements of barroom jazz and avant-pop.

They are improvisatory, whimsical, and pleasurably good at leaving a listener playing a song-to-song guessing game. At times heavily Latin-influenced–with strokes of cumbia and an underpinning of Colombian and Brazilian percussion.

Check out the whole album on their bandcamp page at: http://andthewiremen.bandcamp.com/album/and-the-wiremen and pay what you like for tracks or the complete album.

www.myspace.com/andthewiremen

www.facebook.com/andthewiremen

@andthewiremen

Duster Death Machine – Angie and the Car Wrecks (Centralia, WA, USA)

From the artist that got me in trouble a couple of weeks ago when they were featured on AMPed – a delightfully quirky and almost fragile track with a snappy title.

Too Rockabilly to be Country, too Honky Tonk to be Psychobilly, and too Punk to be Bluegrass, Angie and the Car Wrecks are hard to categorise. With blazing guitar solos, thumping upright bass, killer washboard licks, and story-telling lyrics, any music lover can find something to love about them.

Two albums, the 2010 “Bender Bound” EP, and 2011′s “Boozed and Bloody“, have been well-received, landing them some prominent gigs all over the Northwest. A new album, Half Grass, is also available for just $10 from the band’s site.

They’ve got a couple of shows this weekend:

1/25/13 – Ducks and Drakes – Leavenworth, WA

1/26/13 – Wally’s House of Booze – Wenatchee, WA (w/The Shivering Denizens, Jipsea Party)

www.angieandthecarwrecks.com

We Have Arrived (Re-spliffed) – Wick-it the Instigator (Nashville, TN, USA)

He’s got a reputation for doing some thoughtfully fresh and mind-blowingly original remixes that take him from beyond a standard dub step or mash-up artist to a DJ/producer with skills that have turned heads and caught ears all over the Southeast.

In a live setting, he sends people off with his mix of humor, ingenious pop culture samples and beats that can’t be touched. While his roots are firmly planted in hip hop, there is no shortage of heavy electronic bass music at a Wick-it show.

www.soundcloud.com/wick-it

www.WickittheInstigator.com/

@DJWickit

Bugger the Bankers – The Austerity Allstars (London)

A gem of a song and surely an anthem of our times, performed by a bunch of people (I think) in North London who like to express themselves the the medium of a rousing song.

The second verse and chorus sum it up remarkably succinctly. For clarity, I should point out that “bugger this and bugger that”, when used in the context here, means to hell with, it has nothing to do with buggery:

“The system is bent and the money’s all spent, we’re badgered from every direction

The workers get taxed while the wealthy relax with nary a moment’s reflection

Where there’s brass, there’s muck and they don’t give an arse

‘Cos we’re programmed against insurrection

And I say -

Bugger the bankers and politicians, bugger the bureaucrats too

Bugger the buggers who make up the rules

And if you’re one of them – bugger you.”

Written by Suzy Davies and performed by The Austerity Allstars

You can download the song, karaoke version or juts the chords and lyrics from their Bandcamp page: http://theausterityallstars.bandcamp.com

Alternatively, you can get to it all from:

www.buggerthebankers.com/

She Married A Monster From Outer Space - Filthy Fingered (?)

I can tell you nothing at all about this artist, except that the music is very newly available on Jamendo as one of 10 tracks on the album Plastic Tales, which was released just this morning.

There may be more information by the time you get to the Jamendo artist page. If so, let me know and I’ll add a bit more to the shownotes that look remarkably bare right now.

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/429751/filthy-fingered

I Love You – Carmine Rendina (Martinsicuro, Italy)

From his album One Dollar Note – one of 31 albums that he has published on Jamendo. It is all a bit strange but some of the music is really refreshing. Download this track or the album at www.jamendo.com/en/list/a115855/one-dollar-note

Carmine says:

“These albums are a selection of 5 abandoned works of mine [Black Comedy Vol: I,II,III and Isabel Vol: I,II ] produced between the 2008 to 2010, they all come from improvisations played just once and never repeated again, except just a few exceptions such as covers.

As an artist I am officially retired since October 2010, the 7th, musically speaking. I found out about Jamendo. I realized that come of my music could have had been published. My music was never meant to be sold so let’s get into the  ‘Free and Legal music for all’ community.”

www.carminerendina.com

www.jamendo.com/en/artist/426802/carmine-rendina

Paper Beat Scissors, our featured artist this week – well worth an attentive listen.

An unusual show this week in that it features just two artists.

However, it does take on a slightly different form. We have the opportunity to hear a bit more depth and variety from one of the artists, Paper Beat Scissors.

The show has a couple of other benefits in that it is shorter than normal and will have less of me!

The weather has really closed in here in Suffolk with temperatures expected to be well below freezing all week.

The water supply to the barn is already frozen so I’m having to make do with liquid refreshment characterised by a lower freezing point, but higher alcohol content).

Hell, I do like Veterano – a deliciously tasty Spanish brandy that normally accompanies my coffee but this week is making a solo but all-day appearance.

Winter Coffee Song - The Water Village (Sweden/Japan)

Another track from their debut self-titled album to follow on from The Potato Song that we heard last week.

The Water Village came about when a Swedish music producer and a Japanese songwriter met in Boston in 2011. Even though they had different nationalities, musical backgrounds and even tastes in food they shared the same musical taste at the core.

The melodies are inspired by traditional Swedish folk songs and the tones of old Japanese instruments. It is a magical collaboration of experimental sounds from two different cultures.

www.thewatervillage.com

www.soundcloud.com/thewatervillage

Paper Beat Scissors (Halifax, Nova scotia, Canada) – featured artist

PBS is Burnley, UK born and now Halifax, Nova Scotia resident Tim Crabtree whose voice, guitar (and other tinges) produces music of the most exquisite intensity.

I had the extreme good fortune to see Paper Beat Scissors at an Atlantic Canadian Music showcase event in London a few weeks ago.

The Paper Beat Scissors live show is an intense and intimate experience – solo finger-picked laments are paired with live loops and a haunting voice that slips into the music, then darts back out to pull the listener in.

The last three years have seen national Canadian and European tours, national radio play on CBC and BBC for the debut EP ‘Flicker‘.

These three tracks are on his beautifully produced self-titled full length album.

Tim is also a regular collaborator with Tanya Davis, appears on her latest album Clocks and Hearts Keep Going, and produced the music for her viral video ‘How to be Alone‘, (3.5 million views on youtube).

I did play another track from the album, Rest Your Bones a few weeks ago. Here’s the video.

paperbeatscissors.com

www.paperbeatscissors.bandcamp.com/

www.facebook.com/pages/Paper-Beat-Scissors/33296413739

@paperbeat

NOVI brings her spicy new single to the show this week – it’s good to have this former Adnams Artist of the Month back again.

A varied mix of tracks this week with the promised second tune from Gramatik, this time teamed up with Griz as Grizmatic. We’ve a brand new track from Dan Turnbull AKA Funke and the Two Tone Baby, some melodica magic and more, lots more.

The Ad – Novi (LA, CA. USA)

It’s good to have former SnC Artist of the Month NOVI back on the show with The Ad, the first single from her EP Now I’m There. Release is expected sometime this year.

She’s regularly playing all the renowned venues in Hollywood, including The Roxy, Whisky-A-Go-Go and, in a couple of weeks The Viper Room, 8852 W Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069 on January 27th 2013, 9:30pm $12 and February 24th 2013, 9:30pm $12 www.viperroom.com

www.iamnovi.com

www.facebook.com/noviofficial

@NoviOfficial

Thinking about it, they must be renowned by now, I remember playing The Roxy and The Whisky way back when my Island Records office base was in the oh so distinctive Capital Records Tower in Hollywood and my temporary home was the Chateau Marmont Hotel (left) on W. Sunset Boulevard where, to quote Wikipedia, “Hunter S. Thompson, Lana Del Rey, Annie Leibovitz, Dorothy Parker, Bruce Weber, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tim Burton, Lorne Michaels, Jay McInerney, Sofia Coppola, among others, produced work from within the hotel’s walls.” Oh well, I guess “among others” is fair enough!

Broken in a Good Way – Hot Fiction (London, UK)

Their most recent album, Apply Within, was released in October 2012 and was the highlight of a national Summer/Autumn tour that included London, Yorkshire, The Midlands, Cornwall & The Edinburgh Festival.

The two members, Andy Yeoh (Drums & Vocals) and Simon Miller (Guitar & Vocals) met in school where their shared musical understanding blossomed. Following university both had accumulated a wide range of song-writing and performance experience. In 2008, Hot Fiction was formed.

The band found their centre of gravity in London, and the pair gained a cult following and now perform regularly. The release of the band’s first album Dark Room in 2008, brought an international dimension to the band’s success, attracting a new wave of fans, particularly in the US, Spain & France. In the three months following release, Dark Room was the no. 1 most popular album on the free music site Jamendo.com, where it has over 100k plays to date.

Apply Within, the band’s latest offering has been met with even greater praise, with popular music blog bluesrockreview.com placing it in the top 20 albums of 2012. Manner of Travelling the final track on the album spent several weeks as Jamendo.com’s no. 1 song.

Get the whole album from Jamendo www.jamendo.com/en/list/a114604/apply-within

www.hotfiction.co.uk

Melodica Time (Injham Remix) -  Phoniandflore (Périgueux and Rouen, France)

Like stepper dub? Like melodica? Then you’re going to love the new EP Melodica Time from four of the best and most prolific dub artists from the netlabel community in France.

The track is based on the original mix by Phoniandflore (aka P.A.F) who has over 50 releases on Jamendo, to which Injham lends a certain refinement in this fine remix.

Injham is from “Babylonie Rouennaise”, France. He won a melodica at the Feast of Musique when he was 8 years old. The following year he played his first piece at the Feast! By the age of 10 he turned to saxophone, and as a young adult started to compose his own music and get involved in jazz and reggae bands.  By 1999 he was focusing on dub.

This is a deliciously quirky little EP which is available from the ever resourceful Angel Dust Records as a free download. You’ll find the label on Jamendo and at

www.angeldustrecords.com

The Potato Song – The Water Village (Sweden/Japan)

The Water Village came about when a Swedish music producer and a Japanese songwriter met in Boston in 2011. Even though they had different nationalities, musical backgrounds and even tastes in food they shared the same musical taste at the core.

They just released their very first album ‘The Water Village’ on Jan 1st. The album was recorded during a year when the band traveled over North America from Cape Cod to California. The Water Village decided to invent their own musical language and create songs using everything from carefully sampled water drop rhythms to the street noises of New York City. The result is Japanese pop meeting with Swedish folk music.

‘The Water Village’ is a very fragile album created with carefully chosen colourful images to grow the legendary world of The Water Village – a place in the Atlantic Ocean located somewhere between Iceland and Greenland that was remembered by the Vikings and written about in old documents from a thousand years ago.

They created a unique mix of classical and electronic music with an acoustic piano, guitars, digital noises and vocal harmonies added on top of each other like geological layers.

The melodies are inspired by traditional Swedish folk songs and the tones of old Japanese instruments. It is a magical collaboration of experimental sounds from two different cultures.

www.thewatervillage.com

www.soundcloud.com/thewatervillage

The Woman Who Stood At The Edge Of The World - Funke and the Two Tone Baby (Kent, UK)

This is expected to be on the new Funke album Battles which is due for release in the summer. Dan sent the track over for you to have a listen to. He’s also made a free download available at noisetrade.com/funkeandthetwotonebaby

Dan is also looking for a bit of feedback so, if you’ve got something to say, contact Dan through the funke Facebook, Twitter or YouTube pages, comment in the SnC shownotes for show 356 or just drop me a line direct and I’ll pass it on to Dan.

http://funkeandthetwotonebaby.bandcamp.com

@funke2tonebaby

AMPed

Erk is at the controls of the good ship AMPed 369 this week ahead of his trek off from Sydney Australia to the USA.

From early on Monday morning, Ro Cutler (Dark Compass) will be presenting a bunch of great submissions from member shows in AMPed 370. Join him at musicpodcasting.org

So Bright - Pretty Lights (Denver, CO, USA)

Pretty Lights is the musical vision of the ultra-versatile producer Derek Vincent Smith.

At a time when music lovers from almost all subcultures and genres are finding common ground in the basic form of bangin’ beats, Pretty Lights is giving the people what they want: electro organic cutting-edge party rocking beats that fill venues with energy and emotion and send dance floors into frenzies.

Pretty Lights has a home at www.prettylightsmusic.com where lots of his own music is available for free download as well as other artists. It really is well worth checking out.

www.facebook.com/PrettyLights

@PrettyLights

Digital Liberation Is Mad Freedom – Grizmatik (Brooklyn, NY, and Detroit, MI, USA)

We heard Slovenian musician Gramatik’s track Illusion of Choice last week and I said we’d have something else from him this week. Add in Grant Kwiecinski aka GRiZ (computers/controllers/saxophone) and you have something pretty special.

Gramatik and GriZ are Grizmatik….

“Digital Liberation Is Mad Freedom” is the debut single from the new collaboration side project. The group had their live debut at the Thissongissick Secret Set at Electric Forest Festival in Rothbury, Michigan this past summer, alongside Dominic Lolli of Big Gigantic. Then they had their second show at a North Coast Festival after party at House of Blues in Chicago, which was sold-out mayhem. “Digital Liberation is Mad Freedom” or “#DLIMF” for short is their debut single taking pieces from both of their recent album, GRiZ’s – Mad Liberation, and Gramatik’s #Digital Freedom. You can download it from:

https://soundcloud.com/griz/digital-liberation-is-mad

gramatik.net

@gramatik

www.facebook.com/gramatik

mynameisgriz.com/

www.facebook.com/therealGRiZ

soundcloud.com/griz

@mynameisGRiZ

Things are getting pretty strained here at the SnC barn in terms of sleep deprivation due to the care needs of a very dear but elderly and frail relative who is living with us. I’m really hoping to be able to keep SnC as a weekly show through it all, after all, that’s the way it’s been for very close to seven years, but just to let you know that it may have to slip to a two week schedule for a short while. Don’t worry, we’re not going away and we’re planning to have more live Sessions at the Barn come the decent weather.

Thanks for your understanding.

If you’d like to get in touch, I’d be very pleased to hear from you, you can contact through the website, by email to peter [at] suffolkandcool [dot] com or by adding a comment to any of the shownotes.