Primary 1

28 May 2010

I don’t know how I haven’t dedicated a whole post to Primary 1 already?! Joe Flory makes some of the catchiest and most danceable synth-pop knocking about these shores and has just been touring with pop starlet Ellie Goulding along with his delightful live band.

The only time we’ve featured him on TBW was for The Shoes remix of his Hold Me Down on Clap to the Electricity vol.8 – which was one of our songs of the summer. But he has been busy since then producing a track called The Blues with Nina Perrson of The Cardigans, and also putting out 15 tracks of chaotic demos in the form of the free mixtape Mess Detective (which you can download for free HERE).

Now, however, he should be breaking into the mainstream with his latest single – Princess (video below). It is catchy electro-pop at its absolute best – get on it.

Primary 1 feat. Nina Perrson – The Blues
Primary 1 – Hold Me Down (The Shoes Remix)
Primary 1 – Love Letter to Metronomy
Primary 1 & Riton – Radiates

…and here is his U’s and I’s and Lullabies mix to stream or download
U’s & I’s and Lullabies by primary1

Band to watch: Cults

By: Tim

27 May 2010

In: News & Leaks

1 comment

I’m a bit late to these guys but that is no reason to give them the coverage they deserve and having had them on repeat for a good part of a blissful summer weekend, now seems to the time to catch up.

Cults have had their Bandcamp up now for a few months offering three absolute delights up for free download along with a limited 7″ release on Forest Family Records (the label from GvB and Weekly Tape Deck) But we still know relatively little about the band.

Pitchfork had a short interview with Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin, the couple from San Diego but living in New York who are Cults, and the good news is that a full length is in the works and a tour sometime soon – but I’m guessing not to this side of the pond.

What’s so fucking great about these two? Well they have this fantastic ability to blend clean and bright 1950s pop, with some psychedelic sounds of the 1960s. It’s gazing nostalgia to let you sit back and see the liberation of half a century’s pop culture.

Cults – Go Outside
Cults – The Curse
Cults – Most Wanted

Keep and eye on their Bandcamp for updates as the 7″ is shamefully already sold out.

Hot Club de Paris – The Rise And Fall Of The High School Suicide Cluster Band

By: Tim

24 May 2010

In: News & Leaks, Reviews

2 comments

Whilst a couple of tracks from Hot Club de Paris (MySpace) have always had their place in a few playlists, I had previously found the albums to be rather contradictory, never quite fitting together as a whole. But after finding a new love for the Liverpudlians with their last EP in February, and having recently been given a fantastic Decca 12″ of The Quintet of the Hot Club of France, after which they take their name, I thought now would be a perfect time to have a listen to The Rise And Fall Of The High School Suicide Cluster Band. After finally finding their own sound and self confidence with that last EP, they have continued to go from strength to strength on this one.

They manage to offer a depth of enveloping sound that lets you quickly forget that they are a three piece pretty quickly, but they haven’t lost any of their quirky song structures. You can still hear the influences of Talking Heads, XTC an Bloc Party throughout, but they have departed a bit further from a combination of those styles here.

Biggie Smalls and the Ghetto Slams starts offers something of a more traditional indie math rock track, and yet the chorus is almost a nursery rhyme. Free The Pterodactyl 3 has a riff that could almost be country, but don’t let that put you off. The harmonies and falling rhythms make it so much more. It’s jaunty, layered and enlivening like much of this EP.

But even when not making use often contradicting musical structures, Hot Club de Paris can make beautiful indie pop as in the closing track Three Albums In And Still No Ballad, which is, of course, a ballad. Or, is so for the first two and a half minutes before becoming a bizarre but beautiful Celtic influenced pop-rock anthem. Now I can’t work out how they have got those two parts to work together, but in this contest it just fits perfectly.

[MP3] Hot Club de Paris – Free The Pterodactyl 3

The Rise and Fall of the High School Suicide Cluster Band is also the 100th release on the consistently awesome Moshi Moshi which the band have called home over the last four years – so hats off to Moshi Moshi for reaching this milestone

[BUY] Hot Club de Paris – The Rise and Fall of the High School Suicide Cluster Band