Maps - It Will Find You (Mute, 2007)

Luminous electronic Shoegaze

Maps is the nom-de-Shoegaze of solo artist James Chapman. 'It Will Find You' was a single of no little shimmering beauty from his 'We Can Create' debut album.

It builds layer-upon-layer of gauzy melody around a puttering drum pattern. It has the open space and stately grandeur of Slowdive's classic 'Catch The Breeze' but is machine-based Shoegaze rather than guitar-based. So maybe it should actually be called Fingergaze instead?

Download Maps 'It Will Find You' (shoegaze mp3) (Divshare)

Candie Payne - I Wish I Could Have Loved You More (Deltasonic, 2007)

Strident 60s-inspired clattering breakbeat pop

Candie Payne emerged on the back of a handful of killer 7"s that dealt in the breakbeat 60s pop stylings of early Saint Etienne. Moody, strident and full of atmosphere.

This third single was the title track of her debut album and crackles with a certain Portishead/Spy Theme vibe. It's devastatingly good.

Download Candie Payne 'I Wish I Could Have Loved You More' (Deltasonic, indie pop, mp3) (Divshare)

James Yorkston - Woozy With Cider (Domino, 2007)

Minimal, electro-folk, spoken word masterpiece.

Crikey, this is a beautiful record.

Usually rocking it on a folksy tip, 'Woozy With Cider' sees James Yorkston mutter extracts from his diary over a gentle, what you might term 'ambient', backing.

A simple tone-loop is joined by an oboe and very little else, just Yorkston's dulcet, self-deprecating voice. He ponders the lot of the modern acoustic troubadour, pausing to wonder whether anyone will buy his records and whether they might end up soundtracking adverts. For oranges. Or lemons.

An array of remixes were released with this single but, for the most part, they seem redundant. Maybe Four Tet could have done it justice but, really, this track itself is a recontextualising of his usual sound. All the familiar elements have been removed excepting his voice, which makes it all the more intimate. It's just Mr. Yorkston muttering his stream of consciousness, cider-breathed, into your ear, slumped over the bar in an after-hours ambient techno bar. Or something like that.

Download James Yorkston 'Woozy With Cider' (Electro, Folk, Ambient, mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Tunng - Bullets (Max Tundra Remix) (Full Time Hobby, 2007)

Classic from the early days of folktronica.

Have been listening to the Diagrams album a lot recently which is the work of former Tunng man Sam Genders. It has a healthily eclectic approach to augmenting his songs and unique voice.

The way the songs are arranged - krautrocking, electronics and more - is reminiscent of the best of Tunng's work and reminded me of this kitchen-sink remix of 'Bullets'. Max Tundra seems to throw layer upon layer of sounds, arrangement and glitches at the song but it still works and Sam Genders voice still sounds like it's whispering in your ear.


Download Tunng 'Bullets (Max Tundra Remix)' (folktronica mp3) (Divshare)

Noah and the Whale and Laura Marling - Give A Little Love (Session) (2007)

Lovely version of the debut album track - before the break-up.

Rough'n'ready but gorgeous session version of this track from 'Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down'. Just guitar, voices and rudimentary percussion.

It's Noah and the Whale in deeply thoughtful mode, a little bit miserabilist, like Lloyd Cole really, but nicely melodic.

Laura Marling is in good voice, though is playing back-up to Charlie Fink's song. The prism that hindsight gives you to view this through is, of course, interesting.

Download Noah and the Whale and Laura Marling 'Give A Little Love (Session)' (indie, acoustic, folk pop mp3) (Divshare)

Guillemots 'Trains To Brazil (Live at The Astoria)' (2007)

Giddy, swirling, joyful and insistent.Frantic, end-of-the-night live version of their ramshackle pop.

Recorded live in 2007 at The Astoria. Don't look for it - it's not there any more.

I'm pretty sure I've blogged this song in another version already. It's a doozy though so worth checking out this breathless live version.

Download Guillemots 'Trains To Brazil (Live at The Astoria)' (indie, alternative, mp3) (Mediafire)

Download the whole 'The Big Ask' CD including more Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood plus Guillemots, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Razorlight, Polar Bear and more - over on Archive:Live+Rare

Polar Bear 'It Snows Again (Live at The Spitz)' (2007)

Elegant, stately jazz procession from Seb Rochford's Polar Bear.

Polar Bear meld together post-rock, found sounds, electronics and brainfuckery into their sometimes loquacious, sometimes frantic, sometimes poised and beautiful jazz. They play in the same deep water as Triosk, Tortoise, Morphine, The Drift and, on this tune, even rubbing shoulders with the great Stan Tracey's 'Starless And Bible Black'.

'It Snows Agains' was recorded live at the The Spitz in 2007 - the venue has sadly since been replaced by property-developer flats. It meanders gently at a stately pace, accumulating feedback and noise along the way, distrupting the otherwise elegant surface.

Download Polar Bear 'It Snows Again (Live at The Spitz)' (jazz mp3) (Mediafire)

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip 'Fixed (Original Dizzee Rascal Sample Version)' (Unreleased, 2007)

Sharp as a splinter indie hip-hop in unreleased Dizzee Rascal-sampling version.

Indier-than-thou lyrics, fucked-about beats and Dizzee Rascal yelping - what more do you need?

This version was circulated before their album came out and features a sample from 'Fix Up Look Sharp' by Dizzee Rascal. Presumably he wouldn't give them clearance as this isn't the version that appears on their debut album 'Angles'.

Given that they pretty much diss him for cosying up to the "pop charts" maybe that's not such as surprise. Lord only knows what Scroobius Pip made of 'Bonkers' if he thinks that 'Fix Up Look Sharp' is commercial!

Dizzee-baiting aside, Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip represented a fresh sensibility in 'UK Hip Hop' - in the same vein as Ruthless Rap Assassins - fusing thoughtful lyrics with an eclectic sample pallette, taking in indie music influences like Radiohead's 'Planet Telex'.

It's also pertinent to point out that 'Fixed' also sampled 'The Big Beat' by hair-toting rock monster Billy Squier.

Good value.

Download Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip 'Fixed (Original Dizzee Rascal Sample Version)' (hip-hop, indie, alternative, indie dance mp3) (Mediafire)

Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead) 'No Surprises (Live)' (2007)

Lovely acoustic and xylophone version of the 'OK Computer' tune.

Delightful, sweet reading of the classic Radiohead tune, recorded live for Friends Of The Earth's 'The Big Ask' gig in 2007.

It's a simpler and more straightforwardly maudlin-lyrics-cute-melody version of Radiohead than the more recent albums which their glitch-and-dissonance and more challenging sound pallettes.

Nice to have a bit of balance.

Download Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood 'No Surprises (Live)' (alternative, Radiohead, mp3) (Mediafire)

Download the whole 'The Big Ask' CD including more Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood plus Guillemots, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Razorlight, Polar Bear and more - over on Archive:Live+Rare

Shy Child 'Noise Won't Stop' (Wall Of Sound, 2007)

Intense, unrelenting stream of frenetic noisy electro pop.

Shy Child are/were a duo who knocked-out this irresistible spew of Keith-Moon-as-a-robot drumming, sequenced bass, electronic squiggles, frantic vocals and call-and-response backing vocals.

Download Shy Child 'Noise Won't Stop' (electronic, indie, dance, electroclash mp3) (Mediafire)

The New Sins 'It Doesn't Work Like That' (Elastic, 2007) (mp3)

One-off single from the keyboard player in New Young Pony Club. Doesn't sound promising put like that but 'It Doesn't Work Like That' is a laid-back little pop gem.

Set against a gently stomping beat, Lou Hayter semi-raps in a Pet Shop Boys-meets-Cool For Cats kind of way.

Lovely piece of new-wave-y pop.

Download The New Sins 'It Doesn't Work Like That' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Fridge 'Eyelids' (Temporary Residence, 2007) (mp3 download)

Exquisitely twiddly post-rock from the reborn Fridge from their 2007 album 'The Sun', Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet), Adem and Sam Jeffers.

I saw them at The Green Man festival around this time and they were mesmeric. 'Eyelids' opens with intricate guitar interplay before the rhythm section bursts in. Fridge weave a post-rock tapestry of melody and math as the song moves through a sequence of, by turns, strident and staccato sections. Irresistable.

Download Fridge 'Eyelids' (mp3) (temporaryresidence.com)

The album is available to buy and I strongly recommend it - along with all the Fridge back catalogue.

Foals 'Balloons (Foals Kieran Hebden Session #1)' (Transgressive, 2007)

Pop-Post-Rock for the Skins-generation.

Foals are one of my favourite contemporary bands, making a sort of pop post-rock - as popular with the post-Skins generation as chin-strokers like me.

The original version of 'Balloons' (a single from their awesome debut album, Antidotes) is a twitchily funky track with a trademark Foals duelling-guitars riff. Kind of like Wishbone Ash meets Soweto rock. It hits a straightahead groove for the verse and barks out a lyric that seems to be about the floaty feeling you get from being in love. Then the chorus smashes in like an alcoholic bull in an Oddbins, joined by squawking Fun House sax, tribal drums and shouty vocals.

The Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet - see the Four Tet/Burial/Thom Yorke tracks elsewhere on #TRNWRD) session takes the track in a completely adroit direction - elongated the track to the other side of eight minutes and accentuating the afro funk, adding in subtle electronics but not over-powering the core band sound. It moves at a much less frenetic pace than the regular version but has a much more hypnotic groove to it, especially as it builds speed and intensity through the middle section into the aircraft-taking-off bit (you'll know it when you hear it) and then breaking down and building up again.

Only available on a one-sided 12", it's a really engrossing track that also shows a whole other direction that Foals could have gone in.

Download Foals 'Balloons (Kieran Hebden Session #1)' (Foals Kieran Hebden post-punk, math rock, post-rock mp3 download, Mediafire)

Foals website

LCD Soundsystem 'No Love Lost' (Tour Single, 2007)

LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire toured the US in 2007 and put together a split 7-inch to celebrate. Arcade Fire cover 'Pouree de Cire, Poupee de Son' (France Gall, written by Serge Gainsbourg) on the other side.

LCD Soundsystem focus on Joy Division's 'No Love Lost' and turn in a taut, straight-edged monster. Focused and sharp as steel, burbling synths are added amongst the steely Gang Of Four guitar strang. James Murphy does his best Ian Curtis impression, whilst the rest of the band add call-and-response vocals.

Download LCD Soundsystem 'No Love Lost' (mp3, Mediafire)

Visit the LCD Soundsystem website.

Or read Pitchfork's complete guide to LCD Soundsystem.