Mi Mye - In The Morning

Mi Mye, Sometree, Futuresound, Mercurys, Magnolia.... that seems to be all this blog is about now a days!! I have some hopefully big announcements to be made soon though, so don't tune out just yet

As previously mentioned, recording of the Mi Mye album is underway, but before all that, we're releasing a new single 'In The Morning' in the autumn. Watch the video below:

http://www.myspace.com/mimye

Soundtrack to this post: Pterodactyl, Grizzly Bear

First Fruits Of Yonder

My post last week about the forthcoming new material from Sometree has proved a tad preemptive, as this week they've released the first track off their forthcoming Yonder album in the form of the song Colophon

Check the link out here and download the tracks from the link below

Sometree - Yonder (taken from the forthcoming album 'Yonder')

Soundtrack to this post: I Like Trains

Mercury Nominations

So this week the nominatons for this year's Mercury Music Prize were announced. You can find the Guardian's take on it here

My take / prediction on the nominations was here. I got 4 out of 12, but I felt I made some justified points! Most dissapointingly I didn't mentioned The Invisible who, took the outside indie spot, and thoroughly deserve to. I am suprised at a few ommissions, but the likes of Lisa Hannigan seem standard Mercury fair.

The question is will early favourite Florence win and in some twisted way seem to put right the wrongs of Bat For Lashes not winning 2 years ago, or will someone emerge with a late push?

Soundtrack to this post: Duels demos

Sometree

The first time I saw SOMETREE was about 8 years ago, supporting The Appleseed Cast at The Josephs Well - in the heady days when Bright Eyes, Cave In and the like were regular visitors. The gig stuck with me for a long time - it was one of those gigs where a seed was sewn, and over the following years I invested greatly in the bands back catalogue.

Sometree are a German 4 piece, and have not played over here too often. Sonically, they share a lot with The Appleseed Cast, with some wistful vocals and destructive guitar salvos. Here are some choice cuts from their career:

Sometree - Notion (taken from Moleskine)

Sometree - Lilth (taken from Sold Heart To The One)

Sometree - Hands & Arrows (taken from Bending The Willow)

In recent times we've become friends, culminating in Dance To The Radio releasing the lead single from their last album 'Bending The Willow' and the band supporting Forward Russia on tour in the UK 2008.

At the end of the month, they're previewing their new album (their 5th) at an intimate show at a Berlin theatre - I'm absolutely delighted to have been invited by the band to go over, and more than a bit dissapointed that I'm unable to go. Having just supported Snow Patrol on a number of days, the prospective scope of the new material is obvious, and it's now been of a few years gestation. I'm very excited to hear it, whenever I manage to eventually do so

Soundtrack to this post: Magnolia Electric Co

Recording / Duels

Friends and keen observers of my Twitter feed will have picked up numerous missives over the last month or so regarding a recording studio I'm in the process of setting up. A more comprehensive blog post on this is impending while a few formalities are sorted out, but in the mean time, the engine cranked into action this weekend as Duels commited our recent labours to tape before an extended family orientated break

These pictures are taken from the Duels Twitter feed, and for more wit and pictures, get watching that. The self-indulgent part of this news, is that these demo's will probably never see the light of day, they're for us to refine these songs, before we present them to you - the world. But it's an important part of the process

With these demos dispatched, the new studio is this week welcoming Just Handshakes (We're British) who are sympathetically being my guinea pigs while we ensure everything is up and running properly. I hope they don't mind me telling you this - we're recording a couple of new tunes that have barely been played live, and one evening down it's all going well. Reports to follow hopefully!

Soundtrack to this post: Dirty Projectors

Dirty Projectors

Dirty Projectors are an odd bunch, but magnificently so. No less than in the strangely alluring video for their new single 'Stillness Is The Move'

After watching the above video, I found the following Take Away Show videos, with some amazing footage of them reimagining Black Flag's Police Story in close proximity to a police altercation. All the background to the filmed footage is HERE, videos are below:

Soundtrack to this post: Sonic Youth, Dirty Projectors

Hold On Magnolia 2009

M83

M83 - frech electro shoegaze awesome-ness - played The Cockpit in Leeds last night, and hit all the right buttons for me. It was a practical masterclass in breaking up the songs into a 'show' and making over an hour of music flow to a euphoric dance workout

Starting with Anthony Gonzalez solo on stage, manipulating ambient sounds, to a string of the 'hits' from latest album Saturdays = Youth, to extended upbeat versions of songs for the masses to dance along too.

Also amazing, was the the number of bands dragged out to attend the show - with members of Wild Beasts, Rolo Tomassi, Grammatics, Sky Larkin, iLiKETRAiNS and probably a whole lot more

http://www.myspace.com/m83

Soundtrack to this post: Radio 1 unfortunately, it's early

Mi Mye Picture Special

Prior to our London football trip, on Saturday Mi Mye continued ploughing our new productive furrow with an opening session of recording for our forthcoming album. And it was sounding pretty shit hot too!

No other news at the minute, re: completion / release or otherwise, but I'll try and keep this blog up to date with the latest. Meanwhile here's some photos:

    

Soundtrack to this post: Grizzly Bear, Riceboy Sleeps

Big Scary Football

This weekend, FC Lokomotiv travelled down to London to compete in Big Scary Monsters 5-a-side football competition, our 2nd year of entering. We were eager for triumph after last year's semi-final knockout, but we were had a tough draw, facing the hosts, and last year's champions and our conquerers Punktastic

A 7 man squad travelled down, setting off at an un-godly 6.30am, for our first game at 1pm against Punktastic. If you read my report of last year's game, you may have seen it was in a bit of bad blood, and that continued this year. I don't think either team's shouting and rough play did themselves any favours with the collected audience and we all probably came across as the arseholes we most surely are, but one things is for certain. We won 1-0.

Hard fought victories against fellow Loiner's Awesome Badges and then Team BSM followed (both 2-1), but the damage had been done, and by the time our Quarter Final against Alcopop came along we were spent, loosing 1-0, conceding a sloppy goal early on.

The final played out between a Get Cape Wear Cape Fly team, and a Fear & Records team (Forward Russia, Sky Larkin, Rolo Tomassi management) - with Mr Gareth Dobson scoring an awesome solo effort to kickstart Team F&R's 3-0 drubbing. 

Congrats to all, especially to Kev Big Scary Monsters and Fear & Records. Here's some of my pictures from the day (click [some of them] to enlarge):

        

Soundtrack to this post: Television

Boating & Jacko

 

Apologies for this delayed, and increasingly irrelevant blog post - I had a few problems posting earlier in the week

I spent the majority of the weekend just gone boating up the North Yorkshire canals, or drinking in their hostilliery's - and I thoroughly recommend both activities!

It has however given a novel viewpoint of the weekend's activities / news. Pool old Jacko. He was great and he did some wierd things later in life, but the circumstances of his death seems a sad / odd way to go. In all the crass, self-serving eulogies given over the weekend, Robin Gibb's seemed to stand out when he said that if half the people who'd praised him in the 24 hours before his death had spoken up for him in the last year he might still be alive. As BBC Radio Leeds said, it was just like waking up and hearing the news Michael Jackson had died

Also, the state of the pop charts, perhaps gives an insight into the fans favourite Jackson effort, with 'Man In The Mirror' rising up the charts to number 11 - the highest of a number of hits now in the top 75. Or maybe, everyone has there copy of Thriller, which would explains it's secondary position at 23. The album Thriller also makes the album Top 10 at, while his number 1 compilation is the best selling album this week (rising from no. 121).

The Jackson new entries in full :

11. Man In The Mirror

23. Thriller

25. Billie Jean

28. Smooth Criminal

30. Beat It

38. Earth Song

44. You Are Not Alone

45. Black Or White

47. The Way You Made Me Feel

48. Don't Stop 'till you Get Enough

50. Dirty Diana

55. I Want You Back (Jackson 5)

57. Bad

58. Ben

65. ABC (Jackson 5)

67. They Don't Care About Us

71. I'll Be There (Jackson 5)

72. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'

73. Rock With You

75. Blame It On The Boogie (Jackson 5)

I'm glad I wasn't a minor indie band attempting a Top 75 single this week!

Soundtrack to this post: Wimbledon / Superman Returns