The Fiery Piano - Scene from a Science Fictional Love Story

Stockholm native Gustaf Montelius, aka The Fiery Piano, releases his debut album this Wednesday (January 23), via his own Mega Mountain Records. Second Space follows not exactly hot on the heels of 2011’s Sirens EP.

Today’s MPfree is a pure blast of summery Scandi indie-pop, complete with gentle strings, a quivering, transatlantic vocal and a chorus that stealthily attacks your cerebellum, and then sticks around like an adorable, needy puppy.

Baby, it's cold outside - so let St. Mungo's know if you see someone sleeping rough

Photo: Greenwich Park in the Snow by Paul Wilkinson

St Mungos, the support charity for homeless persons has opened additional shelters for the cold weather.

They’re asking for Londoners (and Bristolians and Readingites) to let them know if you see people sleeping rough in the Winter weather so they can send out an outreach team.

Phone 0870 3833333
Email [email protected]

Or call an ambulance or the police at 999 if a life is threatened.

And kicking in £25 to St Mungos wouldn’t be amiss, either.

Boris Johnson hires Andrew Gilligan as cycling commissioner

Boris Johnson has asked Telegraph journalist Andrew Gilligan to be his new “cycling commissioner.”

Gilligan told The Scoop today that he will accept the role and will advise both the Mayor and Transport for London on cycling policy.

The job will be a paid ‘pro rata’ position and he will do “one or two days a week.” The exact terms and conditions have not yet been finalised.

He plans to continue writing for the print edition of the Telegraph but will no longer comment on London politics on his Telegraph blog.

A spokesperson for the Mayor said today:

“It has always been the Mayor’s intention to appoint a Cycling Commissioner. Final discussions with Andrew Gilligan are taking place regarding a part-time role but at this stage no formal appointment has been made.”

Gilligan has previously been critical of the mayor’s programme of “cycle superhighways” which he once described as pointless.

However, he now believes that TfL are “moving in the right direction.” He told us today:

“I’ve spoken to the Mayor and I think if you look at some of the things Transport for London have done recently, such as the [plans for segregated cycle lanes] on Stratford High Street, they are clearly moving in the right direction.”

Gilligan cycles every day but has been very critical of what he describes as the “cycling lobby.”

Last year he wrote that

“What the cycling lobby always gets wrong is that it overestimates cycling’s political salience. Cycling gets a lot of media attention, but that’s because so many media folk cycle. Bikes are the transport of a small, disproportionately wealthy and privileged minority.”

He believes that campaigners have over-emphasised the safety risks of cycling in London which he insists is now “far safer than it was.”

He says that he will push the mayor to introduce what he describes as “radically pro-bike measures” including some of those championed by the Go Dutch campaign.

Gilligan is a current colleague of Boris Johnson at the Telegraph.

This will be the second time that he has accepted a job with Boris. Boris previously hired him at The Spectator in 2004 following his controversial resignation from the BBC.

Boris also gave Gilligan’s former editor at the Evening Standard Veronica Wadley a job at City Hall last year.

Labour tonight attacked the Mayor for spending “taxpayers money on jobs for his friends.”

Leader of Labour’s London Assembly group Len Duvall said:

“Boris’s arrogance apparently knows no bounds. He is going to appoint someone with no experience of making transport or cycling policy to a senior paid position at City Hall. This is truly startling. It looks like Boris has just appointed one of his friends without any independent evaluation of his skills or suitability for the post.”

Update Andrew Gilligan has now written about his new job on his blog.

Matthew E. White - Big Love

This single, taken from the hirsute Virginian’s forthcoming debut album Big Inner, arrives like a big, cuddly space-jazz hug. It sounds surprisingly fresh considering the obvious nod to the warm, hypnotic funk and soul of a late 60s and 70s golden era, like a cool rare vinyl handed down from father to son that’s managed to lose none of its original charm and still gets the youngsters dancing.

Big Inner is out January 21 through Domino and you can catch Matthew E. White live at The Lexington, January 23.

Fire on the ground as helicopter crashes in Vauxhall

Video by niczerogoeshome

According to the BBC, a helicopter crashed in to a crane. There is no information on injuries at this time.

Related: 520 firefighters, 18 fire engines and 12 fire stations face axe

'It's not easy to figure things out when you’re a 14-year-old girl who wants to be in a band'

Enchanting Icelandic twins Pascal Pinon, whose sophomore album Twosomeness is released this week, take their name from that of an infamous early 20th century circus performer known as ‘the two-headed Mexican’ – Pasqual Pinon. We chatted to Jófrídur and Ásthildur about righteous parents, ‘teenager music’ and tea …

How did you find working with (Sigur Rós and Jónsi collaborator) Alex Somers on the new album?

It was really amazing! Alex brought out all the best in us, making us create and get ideas and inspirations that we didn’t know were possible. He also had lots and lots of tea and healthy food, keeping us well and happy.

How did the recording process differ from that of your eponymous 2010 debut? That record was famously made using only one microphone …

It was actually kind of similar, the most important things were: we were in a home (home studio, but home none the less), and we mostly used one microphone (though we did sometimes experiment with a really shitty mic through a nice amplifier).

But still, this time we had 20 something songs to choose from and we had no idea how they would end up sounding when we started working on them. We totally stripped them down, finding only the core of the song and then we figured out the sound and the instrumentation as we played it more and listened to it. On the other album we just recorded what we’d been playing live in the months before. After this recording session we had to completely re-think our live set … and Alex has lots more gear of course.

You’re both 18. This is perhaps your last album as ‘teens’. Is there a sense of moving into the adulthood on the next album and how do you think that’ll manifest musically?

I don’t know really. We’ll just have to see what happens. We have never intentionally set out to make some kind of ‘teenager music’. The fact that we are still in our teens is something people link to us afterwards – it’s true and inescapable – but it’s not something we’re too aware of. We just make music; we started young and we’ll grow. The music probably grows too.

Talk us through the songwriting process. One can’t help imagining some sort of twin telepathy at work.

I (Jófrídur) usually write the songs on my guitar at home, when no one can hear. Then I let Ásthildur listen and she is always very, very honest with me. I feel lucky having someone so unafraid of making me change what I do, it’s usually always for the best. We make arrangements together and work a lot on the vocals and sometimes we have cassette playback that we do together. The songwriting is the easiest part – with the exception of lyrics. I have a high standard for lyrics; they have to be true to me without revealing too much and being too specific. I want the listener to be able to relate and fill in the missing information with his or her own thoughts and feelings. They have to be poetic and I like it when they rhyme. Where it takes me 15 minutes to write a song, I can be weeks finishing and polishing the lyrics for that song.

Your sisters sometimes perform with you; your dad is your manager. How important is family to you and can either of you ever imagine writing and performing outside of that framework?

Our family is very tight, our parents take care of us in so many ways and sometimes they are very afraid of letting us go and watching us grow up. We have had a very protected childhood and some incredibly tense teen years, with lots of conflicts and arguments, but it’s good to know they will always have our backs, both now and when we are 40, 50, 60 or whatever. They really want us to be who we are and they want us to be happy, but they have a strong sense of justice and righteousness, which doesn’t always match our point of view – being a teenager and everything.

Our father has a lot of experience in the pop music world and he has taught us high standards when it comes to touring and playing shows. It would’ve taken us a lot longer to get to where we are – it’s not easy to figure these things out when you’re a 14 year old girl who just got the idea it would be cool to start a band.

Twosomeness is out now through Morr Music

Graphic of the week: Londoners work in and live out. This helps explain the city's politics

Londoners live out and work in, compared to other major cities like Hong Kong and New York.

Here’s where people live.

And here’s where people work.

Don’t forget how many people who work in London live in the outer boroughs, or even further out than that, when you’re thinking about the city’s politics. This sort of thing matters a lot.

The graphics come from the Electric City newspaper (PDF link) which accompanied a December 2012 conference.

The Guardian pulled together other interesting graphics from the conference here.

Snipe Likes: Hervé feat. Austra

Who’s to say whether we would have picked up on this stylish slow-burner had the word AUSTRA not popped up in our in-boxes in bold capitals – we are proverbial moths to the flame when it comes to Katie Stelmanis’ dramatic warble – but we’re glad we did. UK producer Hervé has taken a less direct approach on new album The Art of Disappearing; 2012’s Pick Me Up, Sort Me Out, Calm Me Down was something of an aggressive club slayer, but here Joshua Harvey seems to have picked up on the kind of post night-out vibes articulated with such herbal fervour by Massive Attack circa Blue Lines. It’s an enjoyable change of direction, however temporary.

The Art of Disappearing is out March 4 via Harvey’s own Cheap Thrills imprint. The LP also features the equally impressive Niki & The Dove.

520 firefighters, 18 fire engines and 12 fire stations face axe

Over 500 firefighting jobs, 18 fire engines and 12 fire stations face the axe under proposals announced by the London Fire Brigade today.

Two years ago Boris Johnson told the London Assembly he had “no plans” to cut fire engines and insisted that there should be no cuts to firefighters either.

However, under the plans announced today he will oversee the closure of the following stations:

Belsize
Bow
Clapham
Clerkenwell
Downham
Kingsland
Knightsbridge
New Cross
Silvertown
Southwark
Westminster
Woolwich

Five other stations previously threatened with closure will remain open, including Boris Johnson’s own local station in Islington.

The following fire stations will lose fire engines:

Chelsea – Two fire engines to one
Chingford – 2 to 1
Hayes – 2 to 1
Leyton – 2 to 1
Leytonstone – 2 to 1
Peckham – 2 to 1
Whitechapel – 2 to 1

Hendon, Orpington, Stanmore and Twickenham will each gain a fire engine. 18 fire engines will be lost overall.

The number of station closures is significantly lower than some earlier proposals.

However, despite Boris’s promise not to cut the brigade’s front line, the majority of savings for the period to 2015 will be made by cutting firefighter jobs.

Commissioner Ron Dobson said today that it would be possible to lose 520 jobs without any compulsory redundancies.

However he said that compulsory redundancies “would become significantly more likely” if the time in which savings have to be made is reduced.

London Fire Brigade Commissioner Ron Dobson said today:

“Additional savings cannot be found without making significant changes to how we keep London safe. In the last decade, demand for the Brigade’s service has changed dramatically and it’s time to reflect that in how our fire stations, engines and staff are organised.”

Labour’s Navin Shah said the the cuts would put Londoner’s safety at risk:

“We understand that savings have to be made, but the level of cuts forced on the London Fire Brigade by the Mayor and government are truly reckless. Boris’s cuts are hitting front-line services and putting public safety at risk.”

Green Party London Assembly Member Darren Johnson said the cuts could have been avoided, if the Mayor had cancelled his plans to cut council tax:

“The public are desperately worried about these closures. Rather than cutting council tax the mayor should be providing the funding to keep these fire stations open. The closures are completely unnecessary but the mayor seems more interested in council tax cuts than Londons safety.”

The proposals will now go to consultation and will be put to a vote by the London Fire Authority.

65 police stations also face closure across London under plans revealed this week.

One Minute With MXLX - Noise Destruction Machine.

Describe your music in one sentence.
Climbing up a shitty hill with a toothpick, hunting for amethyst.

When I saw you play last week what happened? Did you blow the PA?
It’s a mystery! The PA was still working, and all my equipment was working when I got it home too, which is rare. Maybe I just tripped something..

Why release your recordings on a cassette tape label?
Because tape is fucking lush, looks great on a shelf, sounds great, and it’s harder to skip tracks on it, so you generally leave the damn thing running and listen to an A L B U M

Whats the best compliment anyone has given your music?
“That was UNREAL!” but it was because they were crying at the same time

I want to make music because because…
…I dunno what I’d do otherwise, and it’s the only way I can understand this batshit world

I want people who encounter my work to…
…grin like puppies

The best thing about doing this is…
…SKREEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHUUUUEEEEEEEEEEE

I’m inspired by…
…whiskey

You must go and see…
…the Perseids meteor shower every August. Shit’s off the hook

I can take you anywhere in the world. Right now. We’re going to…
…Leigh Woods. To get trenchfoot and breathe in that sweet chlorophyl

I can’t believe that…
…I haven’t been shot

The best advice I ever got was…
…drum with your wrists

The best advice I can give is…
…CLIMB HILLS

The thing I love most about London…
…nae fucker gies a fuck.. and I can get completely lost

The thing I hate most about London is…
…I never know what time it is

I can never understand why…
…people

I’d rather no one knew this but…
…I buried Descartes

What I really want to do next is….
…write some choral music // tuna sandwich

I last laughed when…
…I slipped on guacamole in the supermarket

I last cried when…
…I first saw the film Antichrist

I could not care less that…
…I’m an awkward hunched over git

I can’t imagine living without…
…The Shaggs

It’s my last day on earth so I will…
…DIE