Brainlove Tour in LDN Tonight

BRAINLOVE TOUR » 28 September
CAMP Basement | 70-74 City Road, EC1Y 2BJ

As Autumn sets in, Brainlove Records sends out four solo artists for eleven dates around the UK. Pagan Wanderer Lu and Napoleon IIIrd have new records out, the former writing from the head, the latter yelping from the heart, but then meeting somewhere in the middle in a meld of hyperactive electronic pop and programmed beats. Stairs To Korea and Mat Riviere, however, start in the same place (bedroom recordings of pop songs) and end up poles apart, the former crafting huge indie anthems and the latter sharing misanthropic howls with jagged instrumentation. Wrap up warm, this is a must-see.

Get Tickets

Brainlove Tour Mixtape by brainlove

Surfer Blood (Twin Shadow Remix)

Despite looking like a hipster band name mashup, the above combination proves very effective. Surfer Blood have their crashing guitars stripped away and replaced by a tense backing track and Cubase fuckery aplenty. If there’s ever a Twin Sister remix of Gold Blood, my poor head will now explode, though.

Surfer Blood – Floating Vibes (Twin Shadow Remix) by snipelondon

Smoke Fairies

London’s wonderful Smoke Fairies have just released their debut album, “Through Low Light & Trees”, and given us this fantastic excerpt by way of a teaser. Check out their hypnotic, bluesy folk here.

Smoke Fairies – Hotel Room (Radio Edit) by snipelondon

Eric Chenaux

We previewed tonight’s Eric Chenaux show at Dalston’s Cafe OTO in the current issue. Here’s why.

Eric Chenaux – Worm And Gear by snipelondon

Family Fodder & Nico Muhly

Post-punk band Family Fodder have apparently been away for ten years and returned with a new album. For a lot of people, this will be the first time they’ve heard of them I’d imagine, but “The Onliest Thing” is quite a comeback – dense, groaning strings and an oppressive, almost chanted vocal. Great stuff, taken from the forthcoming album “Classical Music”.

Family Fodder – The Onliest Thing by snipelondon

On the subject of classical music, mercurial NYC composer Nico Muhly released a new track this week also. Hear it below, and see him playing at The Barbican next Tuesday as part of the Bedroom Community Whale Watching tour.

Nico Muhly – A Good Understanding by snipelondon

Diamond Mine: an MPfree mixtape

If you’ve 60 mins to spare and a hankering for some amazing music, here’s a free hour-long mixtape made up of real rare gems. Examples: the opening track is Planningtorock’s original intro, taken from her 12” EP, but subsequently rewritten for her album; the Enon track was the closing song on High Society, tucked away at the end of a very long but brilliant album that never got the adulation it deserved; the Lispector song was one of the first I ever downloaded from the internet, from MP3.com perhaps, and it’s a real find. The Final Fantasy song “The Butcher” is from a little known EP, but it’s a fantastic example of Owen Pallett’s songwriting; the Dirty Three song from the brilliant “Whatever You Love, You Are”, which is often overlooked as their best album in favour of “Ocean Songs”.

Anyway – the tracklist is in the artwork – “read more” to see it. Enjoy!

Brainlove Podcast #5 – Diamond Mine by brainlove

Sky Larkin (DREAMTRAK remix)

Leeds indie-pop outfit Sky Larkin get a typically glossy makeover from the DREAMTRAK studio. Everything he touches turns into pop platinum of late, and “Still Windmills” becomes a huge, exhilarating disco number under DREAMTRAK’s direction. Sky Larkin play at The Lexington tonight.

Sky Larkin – Still Windmills (DREAMTRAK DIAMOND SOUND) by snipelondon

Teebs

A really nice slice of electronica for you today from Teebs, not unlike Boards of Canada if they’d been raised from their contemplation by an intravenously administered espresso. We found this one lurking on the FACT blog.

Teebs – Why Like This? by snipelondon

Wild Party / Napoleon IIIrd

Today’s MPfree is by Wild Party. They are from Texas. You have to wonder if they’ve ever played a shit gig to twelve friends in some dive bar while people stand still, blatantly not having a wild party, and if some joker asked for his money back, and if there was then a drunken scuffle with the frontman and the whole thing ended up with people shouting in the street and attempting to have a conversation with a huge simian doorman and getting nowhere, with the leftover attendees trickling out of the door, heads shaking.

There must have been a Wild Party wild party at some point though, sounding, as they do, like a vocodered Strokes. Below is the b-side on the single. The a-side is better. But obvs they want people to buy that, so, you know. Hard lines, pal.

The band describe their forthcoming album thus: “So, like this giant evergreen right? Like it falls perfectly across a rapid river… deep in the tropical forest of Mozambique, and even though there’s like no one there to hear the sound, an inexplicable energy is released that animals react to instinctively and begin making their voyage on this celestial, unspoken of path to the mainland and righteous parties.”

Wild Party – Life’s Too Short by snipelondon

Also: when not doing music stuff for Snipe, I’ve been over at Brainlove Records working hard getting Napoleon IIIrd’s second album ready for release. The first track, “The Unknown Unknown”, is a freebie – grab it below or, if you’re feeling viral, use the song-spreading wonder that is Tweet For a Track.

Napoleon IIIrd – The Unknown Unknown by brainlove

Craft Spells

Via our friends at Ireland’s Ragged Words come this complete find: California’s Craft Spells. “Party Talk” is a minimal, woozy little pop song that sounds like you’re listening to it through heat haze. They’ve no LDN dates as yet, but there’s a UK agent listed on their MySpace, so they’ll be here soon enough.

Craft Spells – Party Talk by snipelondon