Arch M is from London. He crafts spluttering, beautiful, barely-there songs from urgent guitar melodies and skittish, overdriven bass lines. You can find the seven track E.P. The Mountain Tan Commercials, free to download, by clicking here. It only lasts nine minutes long, but the brevity somehow adds to it all. Not included on that record is the excellent ’21st Union’, which can be heard at www.myspace.com/archm.
The Young Equestrians, who make rather lengthier songs, are from New York. They use, according to their myspace page, “ keyboards, electronics, accordion, guitar, cello, …

Some things are just bizarre, and this is one of them.
The saxophone playing walrus that has adorned these pages over the past few years has come to life.

My Christmas wish may just have come true.

I don’t have a full Christmas mix this year due mostly to licensing issues, but I do have a trio of some beautiful Christmas tracks and a new Christmas compilation you can buy and feel all warm and fuzzy inside as your hard earned cach goes to a very good cause with Peace on Earth Vol.II.
First of all, here is a video of First Aid Kit playing Blue Christmas. It’s a beautiful, quite traditional, rendition with just a guitar and organ from the promising Swedish duo recently signed to Wichita.

and …

Most of what I put here are mixtapes, but Ivana XL deserves her own post. She’s already had a bit of blog press (I think Matt at YANP has a bit of a love affair with her – understandable), but I missed it and had a wonderful surprise when a CD-R with Ivana XL – Demos scrawled on it dropped through my letterbox this morning.

Ivana XL is a Brooklyn, New York songstress whose singing style most seems to resemble a mixture of Regina Spektor, Cat Power and a gypsy artist. …

Yeah – so I know I stick together some decent compilations on here, but my actual DJing prowess is something that needs some work. Unlike Sapnarella, who recently moved to the just fucking great party city of Manchester has been getting quite a following by all accounts.
Not heard of her yet? Hmm…well lucky for you she’s has stepped up and done the latest Shoplifters mixtape and it’s awesome.

Traklisting:
# Diplo РPerc̣o ft. Pantera Os Danadinhos
# DJ Sega – Bodies Hit The Floor
# Scottie B – Mais Ela ft. Moleque Bil
# …

It has been far far too long since I put together one of these mixes, and the clubs I have been to in the meantime have been the best I have experienced, from Ibiza to Beirut to Tel Aviv to London – all awesome incl Matter at the O2 if you ever get to go, do). There was a rough mix floating around on my facebook over the summer, but this is the first one for months and months to fulfill the wait. So apologies for the really really long …