Week #25: Holiday

I'm off travelling in Europe tomorrow, which means there won't be much activity here next week. However, I can promise you the arrival of the FIRST EVER MANE SHAKIN' FOLK MIXTAPE next weekend, which is very exciting. There'll be tunes by many MS'F favourites (Stay+, Shabazz Palaces, Jhameel, Bos Angeles, Boring Girls, Kris Ellestad, Zumo Kollie, When Saints Go Machine and more) all in one free download over on the new bandcamp page. In the mean time, above and below are a few songs which make me want summer to last forever. Adieu!

P.S. If you're a new band and want to be considered for any future Mane Shakin' Folk mixtapes, just drop me a line telling me why on hboliver@hotmail.co.uk

Mix Chopin 'Love Story' EP

Exams are finito. I feel somewhat tingly. I can't think of any better way to celebrate than to bust some moves to Mix Chopin and his unique brand of funked up house. The innovative Torontonian producer has a new EP entitled 'Love Story' and it's groovy-as-hell. Particularly special are opener 'Bonne Nuit' with its pummeling beat and suave slap bass, and 'When I'm With You' which sounds like a bassier, reinvigorated Chic without Nile Rodgers. The EP also features remixes from Robotaki, Darius and Hana Yori Kichou Na. It's out now via Shiny Disco Club Records. Stream below.

Week #24: Kris Ellestad / Fungi Girls

In No Man Is Land, Calgary's Kris Ellestad has created one of the finest LPs of the year so far — a sprawling, folky concoction that commingles emotional vox with a variety of peculiar instruments like langeleiks, munnharpes and hardangers. The result sounds like a less brassy Beirut.  His vocals often reach a beauty on a par with Antony Hegarty ('Shame'), his songwriting in a similar vein to Fleet Foxes ('Another Day'). All in all, it's a thoroughly pleasant listen. Listen for yourselves below. You can download the entire album for only $7 on his bandcamp.

Fungi Girls, raucous upstarts from Clebourne, TX, have a ludicrous number of tunes. Hot tunes at that. Eschewing any clear resemblance to other lo-fi garage bands, they sound as if they've assembled the best parts of LoVVers and Psychedelic Horsesh*t's back catalogues and filtered them through a cheese grater. That's how freakin rock n roll this sounds. Want noise? Need melodies? Crave RAWK? Have a listen to their new single 'Velvet Days' where they sound like a male Dum Dum Girls. Is that conceivable? Stream it below.

When Saints Go Machine review

'They exude a creepy beauty that's rarely seen in contemporary pop'

Read my review in full @ TIFDIY

Inc. 'Swear'

Odd shrill funk from the LA-based duo formerly known as Teen Inc. Released in July via 4AD.

Week #23: Zumo Kollie / Kauf / Country Mice

Zumo Kollie's slick wordplay is the stuff of dreams. Hailing from Providence, RI, he goes deep with a seamless flow and a deft ability to effortlessly discharge his consciousness. On 'It Was On My Mind', backed by slap'n'pop bass, jazzy keys and funky-as-hell horns (production courtesy of D-Man), he already sounds like a superstar: 'everything black and white / so on the average night / catch me wearing ray-bans / avoiding the camera lights', and so he should — he's the best rapper I've heard in a loooooong time. 'It Was On My Mind' is taken from Last Showing, his new LP released on July 11.

Kauf (alter-ego of LA-based DJ Robert Kaufman) is another one of these shady electronic figures.  His musical endeavours are so far encapsulated in only two 5-min-ish tracks: 'Relocate', a bareskinned bassy soul-pop number, and 'When You're Out', another soulful one which kinda brings Miike Snow to mind. They both exude a nostalgic awesomeness, and haven't really been off my stereo today. Listen below and expect big things.

Completing an all-American trio this week we have Country Mice, a band from Brooklyn who create a retro fusion of Crazy Horse-via-White Stripes country rock. Tunes like 'Festival' are just so damn cool I can't get over it. Riffage coming out their ears, this band certainly know how to rock out (see band member playing guitar with cymbal here). A debut LP entitled Twister was released on Monday via Wao Wao Records. You can hear the whole thing over at Spinner right now. It's fab.

Twin Sister 'Bad Street'

Twin Sister, NY indie quintet and creators of one of the best songs of 2010, are back. The scruffy lo-fi we heard on the earlier EPs has ebbed away and in its place comes immaculate production; newbie 'Bad Street', equipped with its disco guitars and synths, resonates like an edgier, funkier Morcheeba. It's lifted from In Heaven, their debut LP released in September via Domino.

Live: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart / Fanzine / The Puncture Repair Kit @ The Junction.

It's a sunny June evening in Cambs and most are confined to wading through notes and writing theses. You'd therefore have thought a gig featuring relatively unknown (on this side of the pond, anyway), 80s-hearkening occultists would receive a pretty poor turnout. Thankfully the scene refutes my preconceptions.

As locals Puncture Repair Kit kickstart proceedings with their awkward, occasionally dissonant brand of fluttering death-folk, the (now) void junction 1 is hardly up for it. Whilst both these guys and the headliners have at some junctures in their careers created excessively twee-resonating sounds with a stark darkness lurking beneath, the incongruity of the PRK's a-bit-too-much-like-Belle & Sebastian acoustics and the ensuing acts' throttling feedback and general abrasion comes as a bit too much of a shocker. The black comedic 'Murder's probably wrong' and 'Dr Freeman', however, through their mix of banjos, fiddly violin jangles and melodica solos, provide a pretty nifty beginning, if a bit mellow and elongated.

6/10

Fanzine, on the other hand, blow the damn roof off, gargantuan riffs galore. Their lung-pummelling melange of slacker-rock and grunge is tight as hell and effortlessly catchy. From the intricate solos and slick 'ooh-ooh's of opener 'Biru' to the chugging, Pavement-recalling 'Beetle Song', the delights just keeping on coming. They seem to have that natural connection on stage that requires no intracommunication and to be one of very few grungey bands who really go for it *ahem* that's NOT you Yuck, you uncharismatic so-and-sos. In a short set brimming with highlights, Fanzine's standouts also come via 'Susan' and 'Kisser', both rollicking odes to lovers that would never be.

I am later swayed by the lead singer (below) to purchase a neat little EP of theirs - only £3! - which turns out to be a lot less sparkling and a lot more DIY, but just as sick as the live experience. All of this comes together to make me wonder, could they actually have outshone the formidable PAINS? Check out cool live videos and more on their blogspot.

9/10

POBPAH, as hinted at above, are as momentous and sexy as ever. In a set which straddles the oldies and the newbies, the room is now (sorta) teeming, which is somewhat relieving. Like Fanzine, the band is unbelievably tight, vivifying the tracks on Belong, their second full-length, as well as resurrecting tracks from their self-titled debut.

'Belong' sounds a lot like Smashing Pumpkins (which is ridiculous really — imagine them playing in front of 500 people!), its throttling beat to-ing and fro-ing in time to the floppy front strands of the drummer's hairdo. Frontman Kip, adorned with a Vivian Girls tee, performs sleek moves during the wistful highlights 'Heart In Your Heartbreak' and 'Come Saturday'. His fiddly riffs are infused with distortion and feedback at each chorus, and although this did become rather formulaic after a while, his lively persona and kooky accent are enough to captivate onlookers.

Tonight, their stadium-sized antics seem rather out-of-place, but that's not their fault. I suppose we'll be seeing them at the O2 in a couple of years time anyway.

8/10

Catcall 'Swimming Pool'

Sydney's Catcall creates slick, dark disco-pop akin to Gold Zebra and Rainbow Arabia. 'Swimming Pool' was released a while back, but only just came to my attention. I love it already.