21 Nov 2012
Snipe Likes: French Films/Big Wave Riders
This Thursday (Nov 22) Notting Hill Arts Club plays host to two up and coming Finnish bands as part of the Echo Chamber presents P***A night. French Films (pictured) and Big Wave Riders play their guitars like they mean it, wringing every drop of indie angst out of their instruments and onto the stage, forming huge puddles of anthemic discharge to slip ‘n’ slide around in. If that sounds like fun, Music Finland are also giving away a split 7” featuring said bands to the first 50 people through the door. Listen below.
19 Nov 2012
Snipe Likes: Suuns
They’re back! After what seems like an age, Montreal four-piece Suuns have announced the release of their second album, Images Du Futur, due in March via Secretly Canadian. First single Edie’s Dream, streaming above, brings to mind late 70s Bowie dosed-up on addiction-strength Temazepam (which he may well have been at the time) – Sound and Vision played at half speed. On this evidence, Images Du Futur promises to be a mighty fine record, perhaps surpassing the point plotted by their much-lauded debut Zeroes QC on the critical pant-wetting scale (I believe it’s called the Tena axis). Catch Suuns live at Village Underground, Dec 5.
16 Nov 2012
What Can I Do by Sally Shapiro
Homely Swedish duo Sally Shapiro has consistently and resolutely refused to play the game since the release of their debut album back in ‘06. Not for them the musician’s life of endless touring and stupid stuff like making regular records. Their forthcoming third long-player – Somewhere Else, released February 26 on Paper Bag Records – is their first new material since 2009’s My Guilty Pleasure and picks up pretty much where that record left off: pure electro-fied pop, sprinkled with a liberal helping of St Etienne’s melodic genius. New single What Can I Do is streaming below.
12 Nov 2012
Snipe Likes: S O H N
London/Vienna-based producer and multi-instrumentalist S O H N releases his debut single today on the fledgling Aesop label – listen and read what we had to say about the swoon-inducing, stuttering, minimal electronica that is The Wheel, here. Snipe caught up with S O H N for a brief chat about London versus Vienna and plans for an imminent live show …
You’ve previously described your time in London, the final months at least, as quite isolating, a time of ‘dark nights’. How has moving to Vienna influenced you creatively?
Vienna is a far more relaxed city than London and the stress, anger and urgency that I feel influences London musicians certainly recedes in me once I’m in Vienna. That definitely has a knock on effect on the music – though from time to time I need that stress and urgency back, so I travel back to London and work at friends’ places on new material. Somewhere between the two cities is the ideal I think. Also the seasons in Austria are far more pronounced, summers are really hot and clear but with amazing rainstorms at night and winters are long, snowy and cold. Not London-cold … real, hardcore cold.
What’s Vienna’s electronic music scene like currently? How does it compare to London’s?
There are some great electronic artists in Vienna and I think they’re less influenced by trends there – Dorian Concept is a great example of a guy just doing something that is unquestionably ‘him’. Of course London has incredible electronic musicians and producers too, really on the cutting edge of the movement – it’s exciting for me to be experiencing both worlds.
You’re a songwriter first and foremost – how does the creative process work for you? Do you put together tracks as a producer and then try and compose melody and lyrics over the top, or do you write songs and then try and fill in the electronic gaps?
It all comes at the same time I’d say, I don’t write electronic productions without vocals but I also don’t write vocal compositions without production. My writing style is very fast and reactive and I’ll generally write and produce the main body of the track on the first day, after that I have my mixer-producer hat on and work on the finer details.
How are plans going for the S O H N live show? Can we safely assume there’ll be no go-go dancers or flame bellowing obelisks?
Ha-ha, you can safely assume that. I’ve started work on a live setup and it sounds amazing. I’m very lucky to have some good friends who are great musicians and synth-experts who I can bounce ideas off of. It looks like the live set will be playable totally without computers, which excites me massively and for me adds a different element to the way a lot of electronic music is performed nowadays. You can take it from me though, the live show will be really, really good. Even I’m excited about it.
05 Nov 2012
29 Oct 2012
Snipe Likes: Eighteen by SHINIES
What is it about certain chords, played in a particular order, through loud, overdriven guitars that raises the skin and tugs at the heartstrings? This track from Manchester’s SHINIES – the flipside to recent single Ennui – is perfect guitar pop, custom built to soundtrack the misadventures of Jägerbomb splattered teens. Catch SHINIES at the Old Blue Last, Nov 23.
18 Oct 2012
Numbers by Victoria Hume
One day last week an e-mail popped up in our collective inbox with two words in the subject line that made us smile instantly: ‘Victoria Hume’. You may remember earlier in the year we posted a – and we use this word too much, but it really is appropriate in this case, even though it sounds kind of gross – ‘gushing’ piece about her track Sorry. Since then it’s been all quiet on the Hume front, but we’re pleased to say she’s back with a new single entitled Numbers, streaming below. Catch her at the Betsey Trotwood, November 30.
17 Oct 2012
Snipe Likes: An Blonds
I’ve never quite understood the fetish for cassette releases – vinyl, yes – but cassettes … in 2012 … really? It’s like having a penchant for scratchy primary school toilet paper. Disdain for the format however does little to colour the nigh on perfection of the five pop gems offered up by An Blonds on their debut EP, An Invitation to Love, out now on Twisted Tape Recordings. The Seattle-born, UK based Standlee brothers (Nathan and Ryan, formerly of Team Waterpolo and Slow Motion Shoes, now living in London and Manchester respectively) greedily indulge their love of Elliot Smith and French chill-out kings Air here; the endearingly soft El Mudo serves as an amalgamation of both those influences, prompting all sorts of ‘if only’ collaboration fantasies. Download An Invitation to Love here.
16 Oct 2012
Wrapped Ears #1
Here’s a brief roundup of MP3s that I’ve enjoyed this week, to be done weekly from now on.
No Ceremony/// (starting off a punctuation theme with band names this week) make moody dancefloor anthems that weave in elements of piano-house, post-dubstep pop a la Poliça, and Fischerspooner-ish pulsing electroclash. Their latest single FEELSOLOW is available as a free download, ahead of an “official” November release.
Finnish sisters LCMDF are back with a bang, following up their debut album Love & Nature with a trickle of knowingly 90s-influenced pop tracks from a forthcoming EP, Mental Health. Expect to hear references to everything from Utah Saints to Suzanne Vega to Dee-Lite to Cypress Hill in their effervescent live set.
WHY? are one of the finest bands currently operating. The brainchild of Oakland-born singer, rapper and multi-instrumentalist Yoni Wolf, they mix his wonky flow of introspective autobiographical hip-hop with intricate Phillip Glass style micro-melodies and anthemic choruses. New album Mumps Etc is out now.
Blacks& are a sunny LA alt-pop four-piece recalling everything from Vampire Weekend to Future Islands to The Beach Boys to… Hanson. Their debut single is out October 22nd on the new Hey Moon label.
MPfree editor Tom Jenkins has featured this one before, but it bears repeating as it’s out this week. Dad Rocks!, aka Snævar Albertsson, was so impressed with a mashup of several of his tracks posted on Soundcloud by unknown producer 6001 Hulls that he commissioned an entire EP. The results are euphoric glitch-pop versions of Dad Rocks!’ beautiful modern folk melodies, entitled AC!D DORKS.
Finally, check out the new video from Manchester all-grrrrl lo-fi band PINS (pictured), recently signed to Bella Union.
PINS – SAY TO ME from PINS on Vimeo.
11 Oct 2012
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- Peter Bayley has worked for 50 years as a cinema projectionist in East Finchley
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