Singularity or The Black Hit of Space #1: The Melting Ice Caps, Small Crew and The Indelicates

I realize that I've generally been in the habit of reviewing full albums (or at the very least a substantial amount of tracks from an artist) rather than just singles. There's a good reason for that: I don't like writing really short posts if I don't have to. Not to mention it's sometimes difficult to judge an artist by one or two songs. However, lately, I've come to the conclusion that some singles deserve a proper public airing, especially as they fill my inbox with aural euphoria, so I'm going to start a semi-regular series that showcases these singles independent of a full album review or in the absence of an album at all.

The Melting Ice Caps/The Soft Close-Ups - Like a Souvenir/Birthmark

I've posted about ex-Luxembourg vocalist David Shah's more recent work with The Melting Ice Caps before, and here's a bit more erudite brilliance with the free double a-side single shared with a duo project he's part of, The Soft Close-Ups. Like a Souvenir, The Melting Ice Caps' track, is a bittersweet ballad, which carefully treads the wire between the cynicism and sincerity mentioned in the lyrics; it is both wryly self-deprecating and painfully earnest, and features the genius lyric, "I was a card-carrying socialite/Til they made me carry a card." It ends in a spoken recitation that includes the verse:

Am I really going to die of embarrassment like a good Englishman,
walk all of this long or short path alone?
Or will I explode in a vulgar but mercifully brief display
while you gawp on aghast from the ground?

Morrissey would be proud. The other side of the single is The Soft Close-Ups' Birthmark, a jaunty guitar-based affair that showcases Shah's sublime vibrato in a slightly different context than heard in either Luxembourg or The Melting Ice Caps - less lush chamber pop, more jangly Marr guitars provided by the other half of The Soft Close-Ups, Aug Stone (who is also a member of H Bird). Though, taking a listen to the rest of the tracks available on the MySpace reveals a variance of style, including the use of poppy synths and sparse acoustic guitars, but all feature erudite lyrics and delicate melodies. The site also includes one of the best band descriptions ever: "This band that is not one. This anti-project, stunted like binary with the ones removed. We could be zeroes, just for a day."

Like a Souvenir - The Melting Ice Caps

Birthmark - The Soft Close-Ups

The Melting Ice Caps Web site: www.themeltingicecaps.co.uk

Small Crew - Kamikaze Girls and It's Not Too Late to Wait

Like The Melting Ice Caps' did with older single Selfish Bachelor, enigmatic English combo, Small Crew, has previously released free downloads (double a-side Boxing Day/Getting Up) through God is in the TV's Singles Club. Composed of Richard Adderley (The Boyfriends, New Royal Family) and Dan Edwards (The Lucas Group), Small Crew creates some truly beautiful shoegazey pop songs, and their latest single Kamikaze Girls/It's Not Too Late to Wait, just released for free download on the Small Crew MySpace, is no exception. The first side, Kamikaze Girls, is a shimmery elegy for urban life that wavers between Spector and Suede with a captivating vocal interplay between Edwards and Adderley's wife Annie. The flipside, It's Not Too Late to Wait, is a gentle, minimal arrangement between piano and guitar that allows the tender vocal to glide sweetly over bitter advice.

Kamikaze Girls - Small Crew

It's Not Too Late to Wait - Small Crew

The Indelicates - The Recession Song

As several of you will probably already know, I absolutely love The Indelicates. They're literate, self-aware, satirical, and provocative, and they can write a cracker of a song. I was alerted by Rol ahead of the official band e-newsletter about their latest free single, the very topical (and very hilarious) The Recession Song. It features Mikey Art Brut, Keith Totp, and Nicky Biscuit, and you can watch the wonderfully appropriate video here. A breathless, shouty ode to troubling times, The Recession Song cheerleads our way through economic disaster with the chipper chants "No Career! No Hope! No Fun! No Fashion!" and "Go recession! Go, go, recession!"; only The Indelicates could treat this topic with such delicious...ahem...indelicacy. You can also buy the t-shirt featured above here, or alternatively, grab a Tesco bag and punch holes through it. I'm sure The Indelicates would approve.

The Recession Song - The Indelicates

My Top 40 Albums of 2008: Numbers 8 Through 1

And so we've reached the end of this year's journey through my top albums. Before we get into the top eight, I'll try to sum up which albums released in the last few months of 2008. September brought offerings from Jenny Lewis, Mercury Rev, People in Planes, Butch Walker, No and the Maybes, Glasvegas, Santogold, Jon Ryman, Metallica, Chairlift, Kings of Leon, and a sophomore record from former Suede frontman, Brett Anderson. There were also a few that have already made this countdown, including TV on the Radio, Ladyhawke, and Okkervil River.

October's albums was jam-packed with records from Empire of the Sun, Department of Eagles, The Sea and Cake, Eugene McGuinness, Of Montreal, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, Euros Childs, Bloc Party (the physical version), Los Campesinos!, and AC/DC with their long-awaited return. There were also a couple of disappointments from The Cure and Cold War Kids. Snow Patrol demonstrated that they couldn't compete with Chasing Cars while Oasis produced another unneccessary album. And there were several antlered mammals afoot with releases from Deerhoof, Deerhunter, and The Dears. Again, there were several released in October that you've already seen in this series, namely, from Simon Bookish, Maps of Norway, Polarkreis 18, and Twig.

November saw records from We Are Standard, Glass Candy, Razorlight, Threatmantics, Max Tundra, Thieves Like Us, Kanye West, and The Killers. Of course November was also the momentous occasion of Guns 'n Roses' Chinese Democracy. I apologize, but as the year wound down, I didn't note any albums released in December except for an inexplicably successful comeback from Britney Spears.

To recap, the countdown thus far is:

40. The Penguin League - Antarctica Takes All!
39. This Gift - Sons & Daughters
38. Apocalypso - The Presets
37. Sea From Shore - School of Language
36. The Colour of Snow - Polarkreis 18
35. L'anthologie des 3 perchoirs - Duchess Says
34. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today - David Byrne and Brian Eno
33. For Emma Forever - Bon Iver
32. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
31. Die Off Songbird - Maps of Norway
30. Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair
29. The Devil, You + Me - The Notwist
28. The Jade Motel - Zeigeist
27. The Stand-Ins - Okkervil River
26. Evolutionary Sunset Call - stanleylucasrevolution
25. Oracular Spectacular - MGMT
24. Life After Ridge - Twig
23. V - Van She
22. Cut the World - Moscow Olympics
21. O My Heart - Mother Mother
20. Hold On Now Youngster - Los Campesinos!
19. Dear Science - TV on the Radio
18. Saturdays = Youth - M83
17. Aurora - The Deer Tracks
16. We Just Are - The Japanese Popstars
15. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
14. Do You Like Rock Music? - British Sea Power
13. Limbo, Panto - Wild Beasts
12. Surreal Auteur - Allegories
11. Everything/Everything - Simon Bookish
10. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke
9. Velocifero - Ladytron

Drumroll please...

8. Lust Lust Lust - The Raveonettes

The Danish duo are on fire this year with both this brilliant album released at the start of the year and then four outstanding EPs spread throughout the rest of 2008. Kicking off with the distorted, brain-shredding wall of sound and dirge-like guitars in Aly, Walk With Me, Lust Lust Lust is a triumph from beginning to end, and after so many successful releases, it is even more of a victory. The reverb effects applied to their dissonant, clanging guitars produce some haunting, slightly Western film-tinged soundscapes; songs like Aly, Walk With Me, Lust, and Expelled From Love give you the feeling of trekking through a wind-sculpted desert of volcanic ash during a peach-hued sunset. These darker songs share space with peppier, sweeter songs like Dead Sound, Blush, You Want the Candy and Blitzed. This record achieves a perfect balance between JAMC/Sonic Youth fuzzy noise and chirpy melody. Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo have every right to sound aloof and cooler-than-thou - they are the kids with black lollipops in their mouths at the prom.

Aly, Walk With Me - The Raveonettes

Dead Sound - The Raveonettes

7. A Certain Feeling - Bodies of Water

This Californian band was so impressive live when I saw them early this year in Toronto that I bought their debut album, Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink, on the spot. Then they released their sophomore album this summer and I continued to be enthralled with their rich harmonies and inventive song structures. The epic album opener Gold, Tan, Peach, and Grey still plays my vertebrae like a xylophone, and the choral gusto of Under the Pines that strips the breath from my lungs. Throughout the album, there's a fragility juxtaposed to a straining intensity and a keening mourning abutting an unbridled celebration. Styles are hard to pin down in this record as they swirl and eddy around your knees, threatening to drag you under and stir you into the sand. It's a baptism worth experiencing.

Gold, Tan, Peach, and Grey - Bodies of Water

Water Here - Bodies of Water

6. The Midnight Organ Flight - Frightened Rabbit

This sophomore effort from Scottish band Frightened Rabbit is a continuation of their brand of painful, almost self-flagellating, honesty over shambolic folk and taut, whip-snap percussion. Singer, Scott Hutchison, sings in a ragged, broken wail that can sometimes remind me of Conor Oberst and sometimes of Gary Lightbody back when he was in Polar Bear not Snow Patrol. They may have grown more accessible, but they are no less stingingly accusatory or violently truthful. Like the modern leper in the album opener, the band sounds like it's going down kicking and screaming against a senseless world full of heartbreak and internal conflict. But like a slight brightening at the edge of the horizon during a thunderstorm, The Midnight Organ Flight tempers the gloom and harsh proclamations of the human condition with a sliver of salvation in the gloaming.

The Modern Leper - Frightened Rabbit

Keep Yourself Warm - Frightened Rabbit

5. In Ghost Colours - Cut Copy

And so the last of the Modular artists on this countdown makes their appearance. When I first heard So Haunted, the first song released prior to the album, I wasn't convinced that Cut Copy was heading in a direction I could follow them into. I had been so immersed in their first album, Bright Like Neon Love, and its cooler, airy genre of electro, that it took awhile for me to adjust to the higher energy, brighter style. Now I've come to the conclusion that In Ghost Colours is actually an unexpected, but massive leap forward in the Cut Copy sound. I would even go so far as to elevate them to the same innate feel for melodic dance music as that of New Order in the 80s. There's a shimmer and twinkle to the album that ranges from the twee sprays of baby's breath of Feel the Love, Unforgettable Season, and Midnight Runner to the pumping, technicolour electro-disco of Out There On the Ice, Lights & Music, Hearts on Fire, Far Away, and Nobody Lost, Nobody Found. At least two thirds of the album have been or should have been hit singles, and I never tire of listening to it. It's like listening to a rainbow so dazzling that you hope you never find the pot of gold.

Feel the Love - Cut Copy

Far Away - Cut Copy

4. Intimacy - Bloc Party

While all their Brit Invasion of 2004 contemporaries have either produced disappointing second and third albums or faded away all together, Bloc Party has forged onwards with a respectable second album, and this year, a genius third. Their Gang of Fouresque minimalist post-punk has exploded into a razor-sharp hybrid of stark, crisp guitars and electronic acrobatics with interludes of vulnerable candor. The album begins with the brain-searing volley of Ares, Mercury, and Halo as the band wields their guitars like machine guns before dipping into the delicate melancholy of Biko, Signs and Zepherus. The bonus tracks, Letter to My Son and Your Visits Are Getting Shorter, included on the physical copy of the album that released well after the digital copy are equally gorgeous; in the latter track, the overlapping samples of Kele Okereke's voice emulate a scattered and conflicted stream of consciousness perfectly. And of course, Okereke's lyrics over the whole album are as beautifully poetic and insightful as always, creating deft allegories and intelligent commentary on human behaviour and relationships; the words are sung with such urgent passion that you can feel the desperate searching of another's eyes, the aching need of the mouths depicted in the album's cover art, and the turmoil over recoiling from closeness with another.

Mercury - Bloc Party

Biko - Bloc Party

3. Skeletal Lamping - Of Montreal

It would have been difficult to top Hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer?, but Kevin Barnes manages at the very least to equal it in boundless imagination and myriad stylistic turns. If anything, Skeletal Lamping is labyrinthine in its construction as it blazes through glam, funk, psychedelia, twee rock, and electro, often all in one track. This unpredictable mixture was deliberate as Barnes created the most experimental and ambitious album of his career and attempted to flit through musical and lyrical ideas which seem to last about thirty seconds each. The genius comes in the composition because despite the seemingly capricious insanity, the album hangs together as a coherent, intricate whole without disintegrating into self-indulgent proggy wanking. You also get the feeling that Barnes isn't taking himself so seriously and is there to entertain, a flair that extends to his famously flamboyant live shows and his alter ego, the black she-male, Georgie Fruit. Barnes has the ability to innovate and the panache of the legends he channels on this record, including David Bowie and Prince, but he takes these attributes and stretches them into the farthest reaches of his psyche and libido, daring to tread beyond his heroes.

Nonpareil of Favor - Of Montreal

Beware Our Nubile Miscreants - Of Montreal

2. American Demo - The Indelicates

This highly literate, arch English duo have gotten nowhere near the amount of attention they should have from music fans and critics. This debut album made me believe in brilliantly witty lyrics again, and what's more, the music lives up to the words with its melodic sensibilities and propensity for gushingly expansive anthems. I like artists who make me think about things from a different angle, and The Indelicates do that more than the majority of new bands I've come across in the past few years. Their lyrics are definitely on par with anything Morrissey or Luke Haines created, and they make American Demo a piece of zeitgeist literature, a document of a mass media fatigue and disgust at a bloated, meaningless popular culture. They lambaste everything within reach, including feminism, sacred cow idols like Jeff Buckley, the rotting music industry, and youth itself. Perhaps the most surprising and startling track is Unity Mitford, an extraordinary song from the point of view of Mitford and her sympathetic love for Hitler - the concept and the lines "the indescribable beauty/Of a million hands raised to salute you/Like poppies lean when winds caress them/Cut flowers pressed to solemn duty" are enough to forgive the Gallagheresque guitar solo. Unity Mitford is a far cry from the trendy use of communism and fascism mocked in the song Sixteen while stand-out track New Art For the People, which acts as the theme for the album, is a bittersweet epic of a pathetic couple with all the romance of tragedy drained from them. These anthems make you believe in ideas like you did when you were young - they're like an adrenaline shot in the heart. I get chills every time I listen to the song Heroin and its rushing merge into We Are the Kids, the culmination of a generation frustrated by promises of inspiration in art, but which rather ironically provides the inspiration it violently mourns.

Unity Mitford - The Indelicates

We Hate the Kids - The Indelicates

1. Vanilla Swingers - Vanilla Swingers

Many months ago I stated that this album was my frontrunner for album of the year, and lo and behold, Vanilla Swingers managed to fight off all the other bands snapping at their heels. This self-titled debut is a concept album about two people who fall in love in the present, run away to the past (specifically, the 1980s), lose each other on their return to the present and then meet again in the future. It's a fluid work of art that takes John Gray's philosophical book Straw Dogs, which denies the progress myth of the human race, and weaves it into a narrative that defies progress by its convoluted, non-linear use of time. The London duo, comprised of Miles Jackson and Anne Gilpin, spin their tale over a backdrop of bittersweet, hushed melodies, which showcase the interplay between their diaphanous vocals and the intelligent beauty of their lyrics. This album makes me think about the innate human capacity to tell stories and to create myths in order to understand the world and humans themselves. Without our stories we are nothing. And these myths include one of the most perpetuated ones alongside progress: romantic love.

Vanilla Swingers deconstructs and plays with this myth as history erodes it from all sides and dimensions. At the same time, this album makes me understand why we cling to the myth of romantic love: romantic love provides us with an escape from reality, but in its bittersweet tragedies, it also gives us just as much pleasure from pain and heartbreak. Songs like I'll Stay Next to You and Back to the Present are romantic precisely because they present the transience of love and speak to our fetishization of the fleeting. The music complements the theme elegantly as it flows like quicksilver in an hourglass and period details of the 80s creep in with bubbles of electro and washes of Pet Shop Boys synths. In the world of this album, there is no golden past, there is no improved future, and there is no true escape from the present. But human salvation and self-preservation comes in the form of storytelling. In the track Goodbye Lennon, which is set to the sound of a heartbeat and a ticking clock, a graceful fusion of different measures of time, the following lyrics appear: "I didn't find myself back there/But I lost myself in you/And it felt so.../It doesn't have to end this way/Cos you can always start again/It's just a possible world." And that is how Vanilla Swingers transcends the rest of the albums this year; Vanilla Swingers have shown how humans can make an ellipsis pregnant with meaning and how our survival is bound up in the creation of possible worlds.

I'll Stay Next To You - Vanilla Swingers

The Hive - Vanilla Swingers

The honourable mention for this final installment is Brett Anderson's Wilderness, a rather welcome surprise after what he has produced post-Suede. While I didn't find too much exciting about his debut solo album and his not-so-impressive reunion with Bernard Butler as The Tears, Wilderness is an acoustic guitar-led, intimate album that made me believe that there is some talent left in Anderson after all. There is an almost dark medieval tone to the record as Anderson sheds his former self-assured preening for an unguarded glimpse of his exquisite fraility.

Funeral Mantra - Brett Anderson

And so ends the countdown and a crazy year of New Kids on the Block reunions (an event that I was convinced was a practical joke for months) and of RIAA reassessments; of Chinese Democracy and of threats to Blogger MP3 blog democracy; of Russell Brand's fall from grace and of Noel Gallagher's tumble into the monitors at the Toronto Virgin Festival. Thank you for coming along for the ride down my rather bumpy lane of musical memories. This weekend brings the final part of my weekly mix round-up, and as an extra special gift for the end of 2008, there will be a New Year's Eve mix waiting for you on Tuesday.

New Art For the People: The Indelicates' American Demo

I just received my copy of The Indelicates' debut album, American Demo, in the mail (it was released in the UK on April 14), and I'm hugely impressed. I wrote about them earlier in my SXSW post, and I shall continue to rave about them. This English duo manages to combine elements from many of my favourite bands and artists - the satirical observations of Pulp, the voices of Luke Haines and Kate Bush, the melodies of The Auteurs. The two Indelicates (a moniker they each use as a surname), Simon and Julia, met at a Poetry Slam, hence, their lyrics are some of the best ones I've ever heard - they often take you by surprise and dwell in the shadows cast by the sunny music. And for someone who did their Honours BA in English Literature, lyrics are often a huge issue for me. Others have already appropriately compared The Indelicates with The Auteurs and Art Brut, but I would say that they go beyond wit for its own sake and make political statements about the state of the world today. At the same time, their politics feel like they're wrapped up in a big pink bow of narrative. Personal losses and disappointments extend to a universal malaise, frustration and apathy.

The first two Indelicates tracks I ever heard were the contagious tongue-in-cheek ode to youth, Sixteen, and the up-tempo but bittersweet, Julia, We Don't Live in the '60's, and both are included on this album. American Demo begins with New Art For the People Theme, a sweet orchestral piece led by a violin, which is an instrumental re-working of the later track, New Art for the People, a deliciously depressing dialogue between Simon and Julia about fighting for art's sake in a fatuous environment and failing - in many ways, with its sense of broken dreams and misguided hopes, it feels like an updated version of Fairytale of New York. With a similar theme of disillusionment and loss, The Last Significant Statement to Be Made in Rock 'n Roll, a song with driving guitars and Simon on lead vocals, sounds like The Auteurs meets Springsteen's Born to Run. It also includes fantastic lyrics like "Once, in a corridor in Memphis/Was a singer took a breath/And wrote the birth of the teenager/Now we come to write his death," which is one of the best lines about Elvis that I've come across. Our Daughters Will Never Be Free is a playful breakneck number complete with handclaps and Julia taking over breathless lead vocals while the lyrics lambast feminism and its many failures. Stars sounds like a tinkling music box as Julia sweetly croons, "I'm in love with the boy next door/He treats me like a filthy whore/I give him everything he wants for nothing in return." Unsettling and twee at the same time...kind of like a song in a Tim Burton stop-motion animation.

One of my favourite tracks is ...If Jeff Buckley Had Lived, a song that goes against the typical music fan's reaction to his untimely death - rather than pity the waste of such talent and wonder how genius Buckley could have been if he had lived, The Indelicates predict that Buckley would have fallen flat by never being able to live up to his brilliant first and only album, and without his death, he wouldn't have become the mythological figure he is now. The music itself in this song is beautifully melancholy and expansive with a pulsing rhythm, light piano, and gently whining guitars. Another song that I find fascinating is America, a stately tune with frenetic guitar arpeggios and a rather provocative take on America, taking the conservative stance and deriding England with its "weak-chinned snarls and red guitars." The track Heroin once again reminds me of Bruce Springsteen with its passionate overwrought guitars and raspy vocals, and even though I don't really like Springsteen, I enjoy it - perhaps because The Indelicates have hit upon an alchemical mixture of American bombast and English irony.

I'm going to include a couple of tracks from the album and then one particularly fabulous demo song, Waiting for Pete Doherty to Die, that was available for free download on their Web site. They say everything in this song that I would want to say about the state of the media, music industry and pretentious fans, and they do it much more eloquently than I could. In many ways, it's a companion piece to the song We Hate the Kids on American Demo, a song which states: "And no one discusses what they don't understand/And no one does anything to harm the brand/And this gift is an illusion, this isn't hard:/Absolutely anyone can play fucking guitar/Oh yeah, we mean it/We hate the kids/Useless children genuflecting/To the idols who exploit them." Despite the cynicism, The Indelicates do, indeed, make intelligent new art for the people. And I'm thankful for it.

New Art For the People - The Indelicates

...If Jeff Buckley Had Lived - The Indelicates

Waiting For Pete Doherty to Die - The Indelicates

Wish I Was There: South by Southwest 2008

South by Southwest, or SXSW as it is more conveniently known to those typing it out, the music fan's fantasy that occurs annually in Texas, just kicked off a couple of days ago. Operating since 1987, SXSW is an internationally-recognized media showcase, which tends to be most renowned for its musical portion. Members of the music industry, music journalists, and hardcore music fans descend upon Austin, Texas for an intense few days of running between as many venues as possible to suss out who the next big thing is in the music world. Of course, I, like most of the world, barring about 10 000 people, cannot be there to attend. Instead, I stew bitterly at my keyboard amidst thesis bibliographies and semiotics textbooks.

This year several bands and artists that I'm either already familiar with or enamoured with are participating in SXSW. These include the likes of Black Moth Super Rainbow, British Sea Power, Cut Copy, Chromeo, Crystal Castles, Digitalism, The Dykeenies, The Fashion, Frightened Rabbit, The Hourly Radio, Los Campesinos!, MGMT, MSTRKRFT, Jim Noir, People in Planes, Thieves Like Us, The Ting Tings, Tokyo Police Club, The Raveonettes, Shy Child, Simian Mobile Disco, Sons and Daughters, Switches, These New Puritans, The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, The Whip, and from my hometown, The Weakerthans. There are also several big name acts lined up this year, including The Slits (a fact I had to read a few times to believe), R.E.M., Perry Farrell, and Billy Bragg, who will be performing both on his own and with a group of artists billed as Body of War. Rather than re-hash my opinions about artists I already know and/or love, I figured I would try to discover some new bands worthy of a listen - all from the comfort and/or confinement of my apartment. In this way, I shall simulate the experience of SXSW for all of us who are not there.

And so I painstakingly went through the list of registered artists for this year's showcase...

Bodies of Water: This band from California caught my eye because I realized that they're going to be the opening band for Sons and Daughters in Toronto in a couple of weeks (at least that's what my ticket says). They sound a bit like Sons and Daughters used to sound in the Love the Cup days - a bit folky, a bit rock, a soulful female lead vocalist. Although, Bodies of Water also sound a bit like a choir even though there are only four members. They also sound a bit like organized chaos in an Arcade Fire sort of way. The song they included for sampling I Guess I'll Forget the Sound, I Guess, I Guess is as rambling as its title, and in the process, wanders in a number of interesting directions only to come back to a rousing chorus backed by brass instruments. On their MySpace page, you can download their haunting cover of R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts. And anyone who cites The Crazy World of Arthur Brown in their list of influences is bound to get my attention.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/bodiesofwater

The Black Ghosts: Apparently, London-based The Black Ghosts are a new project from Simon Lord (ex-Simian, vocalist on Simian vs Justice's “We Are Your Friends”) and Theo Keating (Touche, ex-Wiseguys). I was bound to like a project that included someone out of Simian, and anyone who likes Simian Mobile Disco, Digitalism, or Justice would like The Black Ghosts. The Black Ghosts differ from these bands in their fey, electropop vocals and less of a focus on fuzzed out, dirty beats. Their sample track, Any Way You Choose to Give It, is representative of the music I've heard by them thus far - catchy electropop.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/blackghosts

Deluka: From Birmingham, England, this dance-rock four-piece reminds me of New Young Pony Club and Dragonette - in other words, like a sleazy, but detached female vocalist over top electronic beats and fast guitars. I quite like their song Ike and Tina, a song obviously about an abusive relationship, which can be heard on their MySpace page.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/deluka

Descartes a Kant: This band from Mexico caught my eye by including two 18th-century philosophers in their band name (because I'm getting more and more pretentious). The more I delved into this band, the more I'm glad I found them. Their influences range from Mike Patton to Regina Spektor to Dresden Dolls to Danny Elfman. The song they included for sampling, My Sweetest Headache Waltz, sounds exactly as the title dictates - Sandrushka Petrova's vocals veer from sweet and childlike to Daisy Chainsaw-like screams and squeals as the song spins around your head. Their music is a cacophony of influences and genres where screaming vocals can flow in and out of Gershwin-like piano strains and rhythms are never stable. Descartes a Kant feels like a child's nightmare. Or like a music box that will open up and eat you. Or like a circus that will appear in the dead of night and steal you. Their MySpace profile has an injured, but adorable rabbit on it, which only made me love them more. I highly recommend this band.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/descartesakant

The Indelicates: From Brighton, The Indelicates are a male/female duo with influences including Luke Haines, The Jam, and Bruce Springsteen, and they apparently sound like "Kate Bush in a Weimar era nightclub or Queen fronted by two Morrisseys." The male vocals are definitely reminiscent of Luke Haines and the female vocals are pretty close to Kate Bush's. Supposedly, Art Brut's Eddie Argos described The Indelicates as "Luke Haines and the E-Street Band." Any way you look at it, aside from the Springsteen, The Indelicates sound like they're very much in line with my musical tastes. However, I can see how the expansive "Born to Run" guitars on several of the Indelicates' tracks could generate that sort of comparison. The Indelicates are intelligent and quirky, and I think I'm in love with them.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/theindelicates

Fionn O'Lochlainn: Endorsed by Billy Bragg, Fionn O'Lochlainn has shades of Jeff Buckley in his voice and his songs are laced with a keening emotion. O'Lochlainn uses a mandola, which I just learned is not necessarily a mandolin, but close to one. The sample song, Zone, is a tight rock song with country flourishes (very likely because of that mandola), and I quite like it despite my general aversion to country. Of course being endorsed by Billy Bragg means you have some sort of political presence, and O'Lochlainn's MySpace page is littered with political quotes and socially-conscious blogs (I particularly like the blog featuring an article about Facebook). If you like Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, or Billy Bragg, I would definitely recommend Fionn O'Lochlainn.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/fionnolochlainnofficial

The Russian Futurists: Hailing from Toronto, The Russian Futurists are one of those bands with an intellectual name and intelligent lyrics to match. This particular band also has a great indie-pop sensibility with catchy melodies. The syncopated chimes of Let's Get Ready to Crumble are fantastically twee while intelligent, poetic lyrics soar along. They're like a more electronic version of Belle & Sebastian with bits of psychedelia stringing it all together.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/therussianfuturists

The People's Revolutionary Choir: Jim Reid-approved band, The People's Revolutionary Choir, reflects the muffled, shoegazey vocals of The Jesus and Mary Chain, but with a background more akin to The La's. They're psychedelic like early Pink Floyd and sound like early Rolling Stones, so naturally, they also have some Primal Scream in them. They end their Band Description on MySpace with a quote from Oscar Wilde: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Endearing.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thepeoplesrevolutionarychoir


...And so we come to the end of our little tour of SXSW 2008. There were a couple of bands that I had hoped would be good based upon their names or locations - Canadian band, Birds of Wales, turned out to have trite lyrics bordering on adolescent cliches that overshadowed the fact they had Wales in their name, and as much as I wanted to support a band called The Voom Blooms from Loughborough (bizarrely, I feel as though I have ties to Loughborough after living in the next town over for more than a month, and it also has a music store with one of the best names ever: The Left-Legged Pineapple), but they were just like all those other boring guitar bands and would definitely take my credibility down a few notches. So much for Loughborough.

I can dream that one day I will get to go to SXSW, but knowing me, I'll end up spending all the money I save on a trip overseas before I ever make it to Texas. And even if I did make it there, I have a feeling I would be paralyzed in the middle of some street in Austin, not knowing where I should go next. And, eventually, my head would explode. Skull shards everywhere.


SXSW Web site: http://2008.sxsw.com/music
BBC Introducing Showcase: www.bbc.co.uk/introducing


I Guess I'll Forget the Sound, I Guess, I Guess - Bodies of Water

Any Way You Choose to Give It- The Black Ghosts

Sleep is Impossible - Deluka

My Sweetest Headache Waltz - Descartes a Kant

Julia, We Don't Live in the 60's - The Indelicates

Zone - Fionn O'Lochlainn

Let's Get Ready to Crumble - The Russian Futurists

Do You Feel Like I Do? - The People's Revolutionary Choir