Milk by The Bronze Medal

Bristol’s The Bronze Medal are named after their favourite Idlewild song and there’s definitely a hint of Roddy Woomble and co’s later work in their debut single. Epic but still tender, accessible without being middle of the road, Milk consistently threatens to explode into the stratosphere over its nigh on five minutes, but never does and is all the better for exhibiting such quiet restraint.

The Bronze Medal – Milk by snipelondon

Treading Water by Vieo Abuingo

Vieo Abuingo is the brainchild of songwriter and film-composer William Ryan Fritch; he blends modern classical, tribal, experimental and film music, creating quirky, (mainly) instrumental mini-symphonies that defy categorization. Today’s MPFree Treading Water is taken from new album And The World Is Still Yawning, out August 30th on Lost Tribe Sound.

Vieo Abuingo – Treading Water by snipelondon

You're Almost There by Lanterns On The Lake

Newcastle’s Lanterns On The Lake release debut album Gracious Tide, Take Me Home later this year – September 19th on the achingly tasteful Bella Union label to be precise. Check out current free download, the haunting, atmospheric You’re Almost There below and prepare to be taken to an icy, though not entirely uncomfortable emotional destination.

Lanterns On The Lake – You’re Almost There by snipelondon

Sweet Nothing by The Castells

We here at Snipe are big fans of Tape Club Records; we featured Bronze Medallists on these very pages a couple of weeks ago. They seem to have struck gold again with new signings The Castells. A four-piece from Durham, they’re in possession of a certain something – Sam Reynolds’ charged, impassioned vocals perhaps? Whatever it is, it should enable them to neatly sidestep the inevitable Arctic Monkeys/lad rock comparisons. New single Romance is out July 11th. Download Sweet Nothing below.

The Castells – Sweet Nothing by snipelondon

Sweetest Touch by Gross Magic

Gross Magic is 20-year-old Sam McGarrigle from Brighton and with Sweetest Touch, he has at his disposal possibly the catchiest tune I’ve heard all year. Part Nirvana, part Weezer, with a chorus to make Billy Corgan beam with fatherly pride, it’s taken from his forthcoming Teen Jamz EP, out August 8th on The Sounds Of Sweet Nothing label. Sickeningly young, frighteningly talented.

Gross Magic – Sweetest Touch by snipelondon

She's No One by Plant Plants

London duo Stuart Francis and Howard Whatley, a.k.a. Plant Plants, are a relatively new proposition, having only formed in 2010 through a mutual love of ‘film scores, weird guitar tunings and heavy beats’. They seem to have found the ideal stable-mate for their brand of warped electronica meets melodic indie in the shape of Simian Mobile Disco’s Jas Shaw, who produced their self-titled debut EP. You can get your hands on it June 20th, via Less Music. In the meantime, bask in the dramatic, eastern-stylings of She’s No One. They play the Camden Barfly June 24th and the Hoxton Pony, June 30th.

Plant Plants – She’s No One by snipelondon

Bad Street by Twin Sister

The sassy, strutting Bad Street is the first single to be taken from Twin Sister’s debut album In Heaven, released September 27th via Domino. It smacks of a new found confidence, more streamlined and focused than some of the songs on the Long-Islanders previous two EPs, Vampires With Dreaming Kids and Color Your Life. Their influences are thinly disguised – Talking Heads, NYPC, some of the DFA stuff – but who cares when the results are this infectious.

Twin Sister – Bad Street by snipelondon

Wild Palms by Sun Airway

Last year, Philadelphia’s Sun Airway impressed with debut LP Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier. If the spliced strings and dreamy synths of new single Wild Palms, out now on Dead Oceans, are anything to go by, the next one should be equally enthralling.

Sun Airway – Wild Palms by snipelondon

Mathematics by Bronze Medallists (Dogtanion Remix)

Mathematics from Bronze Medallists on Vimeo.

East London four-piece Bronze Medallists make wistful electro about girls and stuff. New single Mathematics (see above) sounds like a great lost Kings of Convenience song, a reticently optimistic musing on the complexities of love and the desire for a magic formula to help guide you through the relationship minefield. Or something. London producer/artist Dogtanion has remixed the track and given it a distinctly darker edge – it now sounds like the lovesick ponderings of a Melancholy robot. Bronze Medallists play The Old Blue Last, June 20th. Mathematics is out now on Tape Club Records.

Bronze Medallists – Mathematics (Dogtanion Remix) by snipelondon

Accolades by Maybe She Will

Cargo Records are giving away a free 12-track mixtape. Cargo Collective June 2011 features the likes of Secret Cities, Le Butcherettes and The Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club. Check out Le Corbeau – coming across like a heavier, grungier Absentee – and the devastating, instrumental sucker-punch of Maybe She Will, below. You can download the entire compilation over at This is Fake DIY.

Le Corbeau – Another moment when time stands still by snipelondon

Maybe She Will – Accolades by snipelondon