Thursday, 29 August 2013

September Girls go Fortuna Pop!




Friday, 23 August 2013

Ancient Times - Nightschool/Hieroglyphic (Soft Power Records)

Ancient Times is a teenager called George Smale. With a name like that you might think he belongs in a terrible insurance brokers' office, but the fact is he's more talented before the age of 20 than most.

This double A-side on the ever-excellent Soft Power displays a quite thrilling talent for writing jangly, vulnerable indiepop music.

'Nightschool' sounds like the sort of song Morrissey should be singing, if he wasn't so bloody awkward; it's all back seats of cars and soaring, sad vocals. Meanwhile, 'Hieroglyphic' is altogether more sparse. Smale's sweet foghorn voice starts off over drums and bass, before the drums kick in, and then the growling guitar. It sounds like something from the first Kitchens of Distinction album, and there really is now higher praise.

There's only 250 of these blighters, so you best get your finger out. See here for more details, and an Ancient Times tour you've probably just missed.

Saturday, 17 August 2013

Joanna Gruesome - Weird Sister (Fortuna POP!)











Sunday, 4 August 2013

Joanna Gruesome: Give in, but don't give up

It's the Sunday afternoon after Indietracks, and I've just spent the entire day washing a shed (no - really). In London, people are getting stopped, searched and asked to "go back home" simply because of the colour of their skin. Is the UK sleepinwaking into fascism? Sometimes it certainly feels like it.

It's at times like this that we need a shot in the arm, a blast to the head, a kick in the shins. Joanna Gruesome, the mighty Joanna Gruesome, provide it in spades with a new track from their debut album out on 16th September.

'Secret Surprise' is like a bouncing bomb aimed at in the faces of those at the who peddle lies to fit their agenda of stigmatising the poor or weak of mind and body. It's a clarion call for those who find that this spiteful government (and their equally weasel-minded opposition) in the UK goes against every fibre of their being. If the word anthem hadn't been so abused over the years, then I'd call it that too - but I won't.

Frankly, it's an essential 2 minutes and 44 seconds of incendiary pop. It hits the sweet spot somewhere in the clouds between Huggy Bear, Pale Saints, The Make-Up, Ailsers Set, and Le Tigre. The album, when it comes out on Fortuna Pop! and Slumberland is set to change lives. You may as well give in to the inevitable right away.