Hailing from South London, but sounding like they’ve been locked up in J Mascis' basement for the past year, living on a strict diet of fish heads and fuzz pedals, alt-rock three-piece Happyness are the slackers’ and sofa-surfers’ new favourite band.
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Listen: Prawn - 'Glass, Irony'
Such is the vigorous collision of crunching guttural bass, pummelling drums and distant distorted guitar riffage that the initial 50 seconds of Prawn’s ‘Glass, Irony’ could comfortably be extended into a zippy alt-metal instrumental, dispensing with such conventions as lyrical angst. In fact, it’s almost a downer when singer Tony Clark introduces his emo-esque New Jersey drawl.
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Review / Listen: AJ Ellis - Bury the Devil
After calling time on the Five O’Clock Heroes, AJ Ellis’ first solo album finds him of contemplative singer-songwriter vintage, blessed with a warm baritone and a knack for penning catchy adult-oriented pop.
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Watch: The Ghost Wolves – Baby Fang Thang
The Ghost Wolves are doing it right – simplicity is key. While other garage-rock bands muddle their already lo-fi sound with excessive instrumentation, keys and overdubs, The Ghost Wolves are about at stripped-down as it gets.
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Watch/Review: Mountainear - Distant Camps
‘Distant Camps’ begins in a simple, slow tempo led by the crisp, clean vocals of Becky Brown against a haunting piano melody.
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Review/Watch: The Moons – Mindwaves
Watch/Review: Batsch - Celina
Watch: Traams - Selma
One of the summer’s hotly anticipated releases is Traams’ new EP, ‘Cissa’. After an abrasive tour across Europe with indie heroes Wire, Traams made their mark on SxSW and gathered a global fan base thanks to a mix of art-rock that would make Stephen Malkmus’ hairdresser happy for eternity.
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Watch: Wunder Wunder - Coastline
The days when the pop-cultural output of Australia could be charted in 25-minute segments of preposterous teatime soap have long been dunked into the billabong by such inventive and untethered rock acts as Courtney Barnett, Tame Impala and Jagwar Ma.
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Watch: The Kemistry - Losing It
Londoner's The Kemistry are back in again in fine form with 2 videos for their latest track called 'Losing it'
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Watch: Terminal Gods - Cold Life
The first time I witnessed the divine intervention of Terminal Gods was at The Bull & Gate a couple of years ago, supporting LA rockers Queen Kwong.
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Listen: Sykes - Gold Dust
The current, vaguely postmodern cultural landscape relies pretty heavily on a large degree of detachment: musicians obsessively hiding behind self-aware irony and indifference for fear of seeming too invested in their own emotions
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Watch: Acollective - Happiest of All Memorial Days
Arcollective share their debut animated video which is a masterpiece. To read on how the band have come to be check out their story below. Arcollective will play London on July 14th @ Birthdays and July 20th @ Brixton Windmill.
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Watch: Rah Rah – 20s
Listen: Archie Pelago, Grenier - Swoon
'Swoon' is the first single taken from the collaborative album Grenier Meets Archie Pelago, and it's a beauty.
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Listen: Wild Smiles - Fool For You
The half-cut Alex Turner may have raised a few eyebrows with his “rock’n’roll will never die” speech at this year’s Brit Awards, but no one could accuse the Arctic Monkeys’ fella of being wrong. Emphatic proof of this comes from new Sunday Best signings Wild Smiles, whose album-taster, ‘Fool For You’, is a lusty two-minute blast of everything that makes the artform rapturous and timeless.
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Listen: King of The Mountains - Zoetrope
Those discerning folk at Melodic Records have struck again, here with the debut album from Manchester’s Phil Kay, aka King of the Mountains.
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Watch: High Hazels - Summer Rain
In the same vein as classic northern greats such as The Smiths, The Coral, Arctic Monkeys et al, this Sheffield four-piece are looking to capture that bittersweet nostalgic vibe and make it their own. 'Summer Rain' is the lead single from the band's debut EP, 'In The Half Light', released this week on Heist Or Hit Records.
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Watch: VerseChorusVerse - No More Years
Former frontman of And So I Watch You From Afar, Tony Wright, takes an earthier turn on ‘No More Years’, a rousing blast of vigorous acoustic strumming, brash harmonica and pounding stickwork, which rises above much of the national nu-folk output by virtue of its stomping, windswept glee.
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Review: David Ward - Golden Future Time
You’d have to be a hardened popophobe to find nothing appealing about David Ward’s debut, for the Canuck crooner’s magpie-like musical instincts have resulted in him dabbling in a raft of celebrated styles and mastering many of them. From the sinister fairy-tale waltz of ‘Ghost in the Woods’ and the sparse Portishead-esque canvas of ‘Lost’ (literal trip-hop; listen to that stumbling beat), to the shiny, happy, supercheesed disco of the title track and ‘Fly’s woofer-whuppin’, dirty dancefloor throb, Ward comes over as part indie-introvert, part crotch-grabbing lothario. But ain’t we all. The adhesive to this unlikely assemblage is his opulent soulful vocal, a larynx to conquer all variables, sometimes recalling the ethereal fragility of fellow countryman Partick Watson, sometimes a Pharrell were he ever prone to self-doubt. The flipside to this mash-up is that even the most broad-minded music fan might struggle to find the entire package satisfying – everyone will have their favourites. Ours is the opener, ‘Slowly Through The Night’, whose snaking electro bassline introduces some epic, near proggy guitars and keys, and finds Ward gliding from pained, sweet falsetto to sullen rap. Take a listen below, it may not be representative of the whole album, but you’d be hard pushed to find one track on ‘Golden Future Time’ that is.
Golden Future Time is out now on Golden Future Recordings