An indie music blog featuring forgotten songs, out-of-print classics, leaps in music and indie cover versions alongside new tracks and newer bands making new music. Sometimes it's new indie alternative music that sounds a bit like old indie alternative music. Indie music. Indie alternative mp3s. Indie mp3 downloads. Post Rock downloads. Shoegaze mp3s. Free mp3 downloads of rare tracks. Factory. 4AD. Too Pure. Creation. Temporary Residence. Post-Rock. Jazz. Electronica. Unclassifiable. etc.
Four Tet has completely embraced music sharing mindset and unleashed a string of tracks straight onto Soundcloud over the last year or so.
'128 Harps' is the latest and it's a real treat, combining stuttering post-dubstep dancefloor action with liquid harp melodies. It somehow manages to combine chin-stroking, laid-back folktronica with sublime rhythmic dynamism.
I have to say I wasn't expecting something as good as this. The Thing tone down the skronk and dial-down the energy to create a meandering cradle of gentle, sax-led jazzing. They mutate this Suicide song so it sounds like a lullaby written by Albert Ayler.
And over that Neneh Cherry - rather than busting rhymes about nasty girls sucking beer through straws (admittedly, that was twenty-odd years ago) - lets loose a soothing stream of the title's repetition.
The whole thing just builds and winds until it feels appropriate for the sax to cut loose with some gentle squall as a sweet trumpet anchors the track around the relentless, Jaki-Liebzeit-on-tranquilisers drumming. It reaches fever pitch before coming quietly to a stop.
Glasgow's Thula Borah have an expansive, widescreen sound somewhere in the same realm as Slint, Mogwai or Explosions In The Sky or the classic post-Godspeed sounds of the Constellation label. However, across the tracks of this EP, they demonstrate a real mastery of dynamics and restraint.
'Murder' is a vast, surging slice of gently distorted post rock with occasional vocals in a Mark-Gardener-being-gently-tortured sort of way. Some really nice melodic guitar work and uses its eight minutes to good effect without outstaying its welcome.
The EP ranges from US alt-rock flavours (Drop Nineteens in the house) to the wonderfully edgy minimalism-blasting of '(Null Interface)' where the guitar interplay reminds me of Suede's 'The Asphalt World' played refracted through Mogwai's FX rack.
Slightly ramshackle but fizzing with noise and melody.
Stumbled across this via Facebook and took a listen. To be honest, the band don't look promising and the name is terrible but 'Nuclear Summer' is an unexpected delight.
The song opens with sweet falsetto vocals a la Glasvegas and storms into rough-and-ready punky indie rock with a Power Pop edge. There are echoes of Big Star sweetness in the melody department, waves of trashy indie rock guitar a la The Strokes or The Libertines. All wrapped up in a breathless headrush of momentum.
There's a lot of energy in its three minutes duration but it hangs together - just - and is a real earworm. Can't wait for my 7" copy to arrive.
Rolling, post rock instrumental business from the new album, Blue Hour.
Recently included on The Wire's Wire Tapper 27 compilation, another new track from the post rock dons The Drift. The departure of two of the band since the last album sees a shift in emphasis away from gauzy jazz jams, towards a more rootsy sound.
Lovely post rock instrumental business though - echoes of the more plangent sections of Explosions In The Sky and the rolling jazz bassiness of Tortoise and Polar Bear.
Heavily-delayed guitar and sweet melodies in this US indie-pop supergroup (sort of).
Dive is a Brooklyn side project (Beach Fossils, Smith Westerns) due to be released on the pretty reliable Captured Tracks label - Wild Nothing and Blouse have been reported herein previously.
'Corvalis' is the b-side of the upcoming single and it delivers cascades of tumbling, delayed guitar melodies over what sounds like a stand-up JAMC drumbeat and some oozing flute-y synths. 'Sometimes' is more New Order-y with an icy Factory blast underpinning the woozy, multitracked vocals.
On reflection, an obvious collaboration. The result, sweet Bon Iver vocals with lashings of sub-bass.
Meandering, gentle sweetness from the autotuned vocals of Bon Iver's Justin Vernon plus James Blake with stately piano and a metronomic patter. What sounds like the 'woof' sound on a cheap keyboard also makes an appearance. About time someone put that on a record.
The vocals and autotuned harmonies multiply, pitched against the pulses of sub-bass and eventually a proper martial drumbeat.
Overall, it's just what you'd expect from a collaboration between these two, but it's very good nonetheless.
Caught me by surprise - sunny, insistent indie earworm.
Prior to being arrested by this new track from the upcoming Bombay Bicycle Club album, I wouldn't have given the band the time of day. I'd put in the file marked Landfill Indie and was happy to ignore them.
However, having heard this track on the radio a few times, it's really grown on me. It's a rolling, insistent slice of summer indie pop, driven along by an almost Steve Reich-ian piano line, delicious falsetto harmonies and a very catchy ascending chorus.
Very impressed with Big Deal's two 7" releases so far - 'Homework' and 'Talk' - and have managed to catch them live too.
They make a fairly simple boy-girl vocals plus electric-acoustic guitar set-up work really well, mixing sweet harmonies with an edge of distortion. A little bit Sebadoh, a little bit early PJ Harvey, but very much their own thing.
Gorgeous, subtle, folk-gazer stuff from multi-instrumentalist Luke Twyman aka Neverest Songs.
'Paper Trumpets' is simple and of spartan arrangement but full of life and melody and lets the music really breathe. It melds a folk-y sensibility with shoegaze-y melodicism and circular, ensemble singing in the mode of A Silver Mt. Zion.
Unbelieveably beautiful and entrancing, drawing you in with each listen. Backed with 'Softly, Quite Softly, Quite Softly' which rocks a brass section. As you do.
Highly recommended. Look forward to seeing him at the Green Man Festival.
Elegant and icy earworm from the label that brought you Toro Y Moi.
Stumbled across this on one of those random blog trawls that I do from time to time, ending up at the Carpark Records site.
Class Actress serve up a slice gorgeously, austere of chill-wave electronic indie pop that sounds like Karen O fronting Soft Cell or early Depeche Mode. After a couple of listens it had burrowed its way into my brain and now I can't get it out.
Class Actress is apparently a duo, one of whom is a drama "major" from LA, the other is a psychoanalyst-in-training. Cool backstory...
Anyways, until their debut album ('Rapprocher') is released in October, you can find out more (but not much more) about Class Actress at their Tumblr page.
Stream/download 'Keep You' by Class Actress (indie electronic pop)
Messy, locomotive psych boogie from the mighty Wooden Shjips.
Lovely, insistent, rolling piece of messy, gently psychedelic boogie from San Francisco's Wooden Shjips. Makes me think of Can if they'd come from the west coast of America.
From their upcoming album 'West' which is their first for Thrill Jockey. Released in September.
New 7" that comes on like a polite version of Glasvegas. As the name suggests, Spector rock a Wall Of Sound approach to indie pop.
Yearning vocals sit against a constantly building indie take on the Wall Of Sound production. The track builds with layers of guitars and synth, stirring and staying the right side of pomp.
I really can't decide what I feel about The Horrors. For each of their three albums so far, they've adopted three distinct and different sounds from three eras of music history. I wonder whether this is representative of: a) a questing, restless spirit, b) first-class diletantism, or c) a cynical pop-laboratory approach to their music.
Doesn't matter, I suppose, as long as the music is good.
'Still Life' is the first track to emerge from their third album and follows on from Faris Badwan's Cat's Eyes side project. It's early-80s stadium alt stuff - think the 'Pretty In Pink' soundtrack - a la Psychedelic Furs, early Simple Minds (when they were still good), live New Order - with a plodding bass and drum lope plus epic synths.
As with all their stuff, it takes a while to settle in your brain.
More new stuff from Memory Tapes and this one is a startling track that starts with drifting New Order indie synth moodiness and pattering Joy Division tom-toms, before exploding into a sunny, breakneck chorus.
Full stream of the new Arctic Monkeys album 'Suck It And See'. Crisp and less lumpy in its rocking-out than the previous album. Alex Turner's twisty wordsmithery is given a chance to shine and it's a songs like 'Black Treacle' show a return to indie roots.
Moody, squelchy and somehow managing to spartan yet soulful. 'Wildfire' is from the upcoming SBTRKT album on the red hot Young Turks label and it promises great things.
Where the recently posted live session cut 'Heatwave' was a flurry of loops and live drumming, 'Wildfire' is taut and programmed, a more conventional song but betraying a fascinating approach to structure and space, building tension without using an ounce more sound than is necessary. Props to Little Dragon for the perfectly judged vocals.
Patrick Wolf continues his sequence of fine pop singles with upcoming release 'House'.
Following on from the sumptuous 'The City', 'House' is a swooning track graced with strings and his rich, gorgeous voice. There's a little bit of A-ha, a little bit My Life Story (anyone remember them?) in the orchestral flourishes and it's very catchy.
The video is a curio, casting Wolf as an F Scott Fitzgerald character hanging around his house waiting for luscious tracking shots to bring him into view. He appears to be dressed as Buttons though. Quirky.
'House' is out physically on Hideout on June 6th but is available as an mp3 download at 7digital and the like.
A new New Order track unearthed to help shift the latest version of their greatest hits. This time a single CD compilation across both Joy Division and New Order. Quite how you summarise the best of those two bands on one CD is beyond me.
From the sound of it, it's an outtake from 'Waiting For The Siren's Call' but it's nice to hear something new from them. I don't think it'll happen again.
'Total: From Joy Division to New Order' tracklist:
01 Joy Division: Transmission
02 Joy Division: Love Will Tear Us Apart
03 Joy Division: Isolation
04 Joy Division: She's Lost Control
05 Joy Division: Atmosphere
06 New Order: Ceremony
07 New Order: Temptation
08 New Order: Blue Monday
09 New Order: Thieves Like Us
10 New Order: The Perfect Kiss
11 New Order: Bizarre Love Triangle
12 New Order: True Faith
13 New Order: Fine Time
14 New Order: World in Motion
15 New Order: Regret
16 New Order: Crystal
17 New Order: Krafty
18 New Order: Hellbent
Geek-euphoric vocals layered onto a splashing house track that thrusts and builds from bendy sequencer lines, breaks down and drifts away into the night over the course of nine minutes.
It switches effortlessly from minimal touches to wonderfully overblown, epic sections and is something of a journey (as they say).
. 
follows on June 20th.
