Snipe Likes: PWL (Dreamtrak Remix)

Seeing as the Dreamtrak remix of Teeth we posted was so popular (12k plays in 5 days!) here’s another one, of Pagan Wanderer Lu this time. It’s a b-side from the single Banish Negative Thoughts, released digitally tomorrow. See him live at The Betsy Trotwood on Friday.

Help us spread the word: “heart” Snipe & this track on The Hype Machine.

Pagan Wanderer Lu – A Girl Named Aeroplane (DREAMTRAK DIAMOND SOUND) by brainlove

Snipe Likes: Ólöf Arnalds

Icelandic singer Ólöf Arnalds has one of those instantly recognisable, singular voices, like Vashti Bunyan or Nina Nastasia – a beautifully clear, fresh, honest sound that seems to blow negativity away from the mind. The new single Innundir Skinni is out now on One Little Indian, with an album of the same name due Sept 13th, and she supports Air tonight at the London Forum.

ÓLOF ARNALDS – Innundir Skinni by Pias France

Daily MPfree: A Scholar & A Physician

The best pop band you’ve never heard of, unless you were one of the 50k viewers of the She’s A Witch video on YouTube. AS&AP are purveyors of the most perfectly unhinged electronic pop music imaginable, and you can see them live at Ill Fit on July 13th.

A Scholar & A Physician – She’s A Witch by brainlove

A Scholar & A Physician – Shouldn’t Dwell by snipelondon

(Photo: Sonny Malhotra)

Daily MPfree: Best Coast / Vampire Weekend / Kid Cudi

This unlikely collaboration comes courtesy Converse Music, who’ve presumably wooed these guys into the studio with sacks of cash and free trainers. The results? Pretty great, apart from Cudi’s tacked-on rapping. Stream it below, download it here, and look forward to the Eminem / Lee Ryan / Max Cavalera track that’s no doubt being planned as we speak.

Best Coast, Rostam & Kid Cudi – All Summer by snipelondon

Daily MPfree: Common Prayer

Common Prayer is the new side project from Jason Russo, formerly of Mercury Rev. But unlike Mercury Rev’s psychedelic grandiloquence, this is a thrillingly ramshackle affair. Escaping the cultural branding of his native Brooklyn, Russo decamped to the home of Truck Festival – Steventon in fair Oxfordshire – to record Common Prayer’s debut, “There Is A Mountain”. Here’s one of the first cuts from the album – a delightfully shonky bar jam of forlorn optimism, not dissimilar to a bourbon-mellowed Walkmen, and complete with a lovely tinkly piano and whistle-a-thon ending.

Common Prayer – Us vs. Them by snipelondon

Snipe Likes: Grinderman

Nick Cave’s Grinderman have announced their second album, Grinderman 2, to be released on Mute this September 13th.

They play a headline show at Hammersmith Apollo on October 1st.

Snipe Likes: The Hundred In The Hands

Part of the new crop of Warp signings, ace NYC duo The Hundred In The Hands have been remixed by well-regarded Oxford indie band Foals, who make a good fist of a traditional 4×4 dance remix, complete with a funny feelgood breakdown section.

The Hundred In The Hands album is out in September, but if you can’t wait have a nose around on their Warp page for videos and streams and all that malarkey.

The Hundred In The Hands – Pigeons (Foals XIII Remix) by thehundredinthehands

Daily MPfree: Teeth

Teeth have been making a noise on the LDN gig circuit for a while now, always playing shows around Hoxton’s hot spots and being excitable and colourful all over the internet. Turning to esteemed remixer DREAMTRAK is a smart move – he has previously turned songs by Gaggle, Foals, Internet Forever, and more recently Mat Riviere and Pagan Wanderer Lu into exciting 80’s pop numbers or elongated techno anthems. His refined sensibility is put to great use here, slowly building the intensity into a euphoric blowout that sounds something like The Knife turned up to eleven.

Teeth – See Spaces (DREAMTRAK DIAMOND SOUND) by snipelondon

Snipe Likes: Final Fantasy / Owen Pallett

Final Fantasy, currently working under his given name Owen Pallett after becoming successful enough to pop up on Squaresoft’s radar in Japan, is nothing if not prolific.

This post brings together a couple of treasures that had a limited release. The internet has kind of killed off the notion of rarities, but these tracks should be in the collection of any Final Fantasy fan…

“The Butcher” was released between albums as part of the “Spectrum, 14th Century” EP. It’s a prime example of Pallett’s deft arrangements, lyrical imagination and compellingly plaintive delivery, beginning “Doomsday, the end of a century, in accord with prophecy…”

“Spell For a Weak Heart” came as part of the “Young Canadian Mothers” EP. I still find myself humming it and straining to remember where the song is from on a regular basis, a couple of years later…

Pallett’s newest album “Heartland” is a slow-burning masterpiece; the violinist who was introduced to the UK as a support act and strings player in The Arcade Fire has since eclipsed them with his consistently high-calibre output.

Including his (in)famous Mariah Carey cover…

Final Fantasy – The Butcher by snipelondon

Final Fantasy – Spell for a Weak Heart by snipelondon

Lewis Takes Off His Shirt from Owen Pallett on Vimeo.

Daily MPfree: Thesaurus Club