Evergreen electronica

Today I'm mostly listening to....... Visions Of Trees. What's especially good about these guys is they are genuinely doing their own thing. And that thing is kind-of-old-fashioned-but-definitely-with-a-modern-twist electro music. It's ethereal stuff, sometimes harking back to 90s minimal dance, but, as I said, it's got it's own thing going on. There's all kinds of clever production sound, meaning tracks are busy yet minimal at the same time. Every track hooks you in with something - its tribal noises, its interesting harmonies or - dare I say it - its funky riddims.

If you enjoyed the Telepathe album released at the beginning of last year, then this may be just the thing you need to survive the last of the long winter we've had in quirky electro land. Or even if the sugary goodness of Au Revoir Simone floats your boat, this might be something for you.

Visions Of Trees' debut EP, 'Sometimes It Kills', is out now and can be procured from the Royal Rhino Flying Records store online. It's all lovely stuff, but the title track itself is a particular gem. For now, though, here's 'Cult Of Cobras' for your viewing pleasure:

**LIVE REVIEW** Vivian Girls, Veronica Falls and Blue On Blue at Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, 26th January 2010

Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen is generally a good place to go a-gigging; the size and, well, darkness of its gig room seem to be conducive to a successful sojourn into the world of band-viewing. Unfortunately, this fertile environment didn’t work out too well for the first band, Blue On Blue. Their guitarist was a complete no-show, much to the obvious mortification of the remaining two members of the band. The audience were treated to a series of frantic mid-set phone calls by the drummer which went along the lines of “where the hell are you? We’re on stage!” and other such less polite phrases. To their credit, the set was rather enjoyable anyway. What tracks singer / bassist Dee and drummer Mark could salvage between them were pretty impressive, and were enough to make me want to seek them out again, especially when Dee confessed to this unfortunate encounter being only their second ever gig, a revelation which prompted much admiration and appreciative whooping from us revellers.

The real champions of the night were, though, both for me and my gigging companion, Veronica Falls. The blogosphere – and now the magazine-osphere (it’s fun to invent words, you should try it sometime) – have gone gaga for these guys, and I feel you need to see them live to really discover why. The atmosphere was electric, and with one moody, stylish, well-harmonised song after another, the crowd were obviously enjoying being serenaded by them. And, to be honest, this resulted in Vivian Girls seeming a tad drab by comparison. Now, this may be partly because I saw Vivian Girls a while ago and they were great, or it might be genuinely because seeing both bands side by side brought out the stark contrast between the variation and range of songs that Veronica Falls had to offer and the dulcet drones of the Vivian Girls’ songs blending into one another, resulting in one long mass. It’s no news to anyone that Vivian Girls songs tend to be quite similar; in fact, it’s one of the things that makes them such a reliably good band, but Veronica Falls seemed to just give the audience that little something extra. Granted, that ‘extra’ might well be that they weren’t knackered from incessant foreign touring. Unlike a lot of people, I prefer the first Vivian Girls album to the second, so perhaps I was just hankering for more of the older stuff.

If you were a reveller at this particular gig, and you happened to make a purchase from the record stall on your way past, you may have been treated to being served by one of the lovely Girls themselves. This was something which caught my attention because isn’t it great when you get to speak to a band whose music you admire and respect, and they make the effort to serve you themselves? Either that or they had no-one else to do it, but I’m going to go for the first option myself.

There's nothing like some good ol' vinyl...

Victor Talking Machine, named after an old brand of gramophone, are a band that I've stumbled across before on my travels, when I wrote an article about them for a magazine I was doing some unpaid work for. At the time, their track 'Date Models' made them stand out like a sore thumb from the other tracks I was asked to write about, because even from the first bar you could tell the track was going to be good stuff. It became something of a favourite for me and my bedroom speakers. Now, having met the delightful lads (and their drummer's cat) in person, I'm even more convinced that they're a band that deserve some real recognition, and soon.

Unlike a great many of bands of their ilk, they understand that in order for a shoegazey, scuzzy track to catch people's attention, it needs to be catchy and be a little bit accessible about it (not too much, though, of course!). So, no unlistenable Shoreditch-tastic mess for them, just good tracks that make you want to press play again as soon as they've finished.

Get listening to them here.

Blogging forever

Internet Forever describe themselves as coming from both London and Cambridge - a respectable couple of places to come from, I'm sure you'll agree (being two of the few places I myself can claim to be from).

OK so they're another boy / girl semi-shouting, semi-speaking, semi-singing group that enjoy organs and plinking on xylophones BUT hold your horses those of you who, let's face it, are like sooooooo over Los Campesinos. They're also bloomin' good, alright? Permit me, if you will, a long-winded metaphor: in amongst the ten-a-penny bands buffing it about on the windy seas of indie-pop at the moment who feel that having one male and one female hamming up their London-ish accents over poppy synths is a brilliant way to disguise the fact that they can't sing all that well, Internet Forever are shining their little beacon of legitimacy to steer us all away from the rocky, stormy bits. OK so that was a terrible metaphor but you get what I'm trying to tell you.

Oh, just listen to them. The delectable ditty below was a single of the week towards the end of last year in both Artrocker and NME, so they must be doing something right. And go and see them at The Rest Is Noise in Brixton on 6th March or at Bardens Boudoir in Dalston on 10th March. Sorted.

**LIVE REVIEW** - Shrag at Buffalo Bar, London, 19th January & 12th February 2010

Yes, that’s right folks, two reviews for the price of one! So enamoured was I with Brighton post-punk lovelies Shrag, I saw them twice in as many months, and, much to the venue’s credit (and of course both shiny promoters Club Fandango and Baby Honey), both viewings were at the same place. They were also quite different gigs in nature, as I will explain forthwith.

Gig One was a largely drunken affair (on the band’s part, not on mine, sadly) which featured some mainly bad support acts, namely and shamely mock-punksters The Fades and pop-indie-punksters Herzoga. There was also support from sample-based mash-upper Public Service Broadcasting, but as I didn’t arrive until he had already strut his funky stuff (we call it ‘fashionably late’ in the business), I can’t possibly comment. I won’t go on about the supports I did see, anyway, as I was, shall we say, less than impressed with both and so this would only give our heroes Shrag an unfair advantage, now wouldn’t it?

After an eventful trip to the ladies’ involving a rather shame-faced couple and a rather angry-faced LTCO blogger waiting to empty her bladder for more than 10 minutes, Shrag stumbled onto the stage in what can only be described as a drunken stupor and proceeded to fumble their way through their set, regularly slurring that they’re usually much better than this and make less mistakes etc. All this was rather amusing, especially the bits where the lead singer Helen dropped her synth on the floor. It was also musically brilliant. I did think to myself ‘I wonder what they could do if they were sober’ but was relatively content to enjoy what they could provide in their inebriated state, which was some darn good (if messy) indie-pop choons. I’m sure I would’ve had a different attitude towards their drunkenness, though, had I been a paying customer an’all.

Enter Gig Two – back at The Buffalo Bar and this time supported by the stupendous Still Corners and the not-so-stupendous-but-perfectly-competent Smiths obsessives Northern Portrait, Shrag were this time in fine sober fettle, and delivered a set of, once again, messy indie-pop choons. Two lessons I learnt from this: one, that seeing a band twice in as many months means that the set really won’t be that different (no prizes for that revelation), and two, seeing a very good gig played by a drunken band does not mean that they will be even better sober. Gig Two was, don’t get me wrong, a ‘good gig’, but I’d got myself all worked up thinking that the lack of the ol’ sauce would elevate their performance to dizzying heights. I was wrong; good gigs are all about a relaxed band that feel they have the freedom to do whatever the hell they like, and, as long as they’re not self-important eejits, the audience won’t mind too much if the band in question can’t actually speak or remember the words too well.

If you haven’t yet checked out Shrag, and you enjoy a bit of DIY female-fronted indie-pop, do have a listen to the most excellent, and aptly named, ‘Hopelessly Wasted’ on their Myspace. Or, even better, if you’re feeling flush, take some pounds and pence down to your local trusted independent record retailer and purchase a copy of their album.

Yum Yum Girls

You know that happy feeling you get when you come across a track that you know, as soon as you hear the first few bars, you're going to play into the ground? Well, in this case, it's more like a band in general. I've seen Yuck adorning quite a few gig posters around about the town but, shamefully, never checked them out. Before now that is, and I've got that happy feeling all the way up to my eyebrows.

This is 90s-style gorgeousness through and through. Warm, tuneful, cool, great songs that I can tell are going to be gracing my bedroom speakers for quite some time. For those of you that heard Exlovers' debut EP last summer - you'll love this. As much as I loved that EP, it was missing some bite, or a bit of scuzz, or something. Yuck just completed that little puzzle for me. Listen to them here; especially get a load of their forthcoming single 'Georgia', which is going to be released as a split single with Herzog on Transparent Records on 15th March. Buy it!

Georgia from Yuck on Vimeo.

All that sparkles

Alrighty,

Glass Diamond are the order of the day today. Think Crystal Castles with better oufits. Sounds good, eh?

I strongly recommend having a gawp these guys in the flesh, but be prepared for a teensy bit of audience participation, or at least audience poking on the part of Hsin, the fabulously off-the-wall lead singer. Expect being shouted at through a megaphone and all kinds of floor-wriggling electro dancing wonderment.

Again, until poor LTCO get to play with the big boys, you'll have to click here to have a proper listen to them, but I'll post a likkle video right here so if you're just too darn pooped to click on the link just have a butchers at this.

Chase After Myself music video - by GLASS DIAMOND from Glass Diamond on Vimeo.

It's all about Dylan........

Hey hey music monkeys!

Today it's all about Zimmermans, a lovely bunch (or bloke) from Cardiff. Now, as far as I can glean without actually having done much research on the subject, this is mainly a one-man powered deal. What I mean is that, at some point during the past summer, Zimmermans went from a few man outfit to a one-man outfit, and it seems that this one man has now joined / formed a new shiny band named VVolves. Yes VVolves. See what they've done there? The thing is, I've become a little obsessed with a track that's been featured on Zimmermans' Myspace page since his short solo days, and so wanted to feature this, rather than the new band, on here. Clear?

It's called Crystallize, and tis a bit of an electro vocoda choon. I don't have the right to feature it on LTCO directly, or he might come at me like an angry vvolf in the night, but promise me you'll listen to it here and I'll sleep soundly. The others on his page aren't quite as addictive, but definitely worthy of a listen. Also check out VVolves here if you fancy - honestly, I'm just giving bands away today.

Death by doughnuts

Death In Plains is a humble Italian soul whom I stumbled across one day when on my usual ramblings through the wilds known only as Myspace. I think we can all see a pattern emerging already here on LTCO for general scuzzy dreaminess, and just so as not to let you all down when we've got a good thing going, I'll add anther to your repertoire.

Formerly known as 'Donut Plains', his echoey noises have appeared in notable little venues all over the Big Smoke and he's got the reviewers, inlcuding us, raving about him. He's a lone worker; one of those fascinating one-man effects soundboards that's as intriguing to watch as to listen to. Lend your ears to his cover of Lady GaGa's 'Brown Eyes' on his Myspace for a little taster.

Great white

OK, OK, so I've not blogged for a few days - I'll be better, promise, please take me back.

Today's offering Small Black don't need much help from us, as they're 'bigger' than the artists we usually aim to mention, but they're just so good I'm going to blog about them anyway, in the hope that they might be someone's best discovery since Chumba Wumba. They're making sound waves and ripples from across the pond right up to our pasty English doorsteps; they've been featured in a few important places over here, and now they're being mentioned here on LTCO so they've obviously made it big time.

Their lo-fi electronica music is just gorgeous - listen to Despicable Dogs on their Myspace if you don't believe me. If you like to buy real live vinyl records, you can pootle on down to Pure Groove Records in London to purchase a copy of their EP, or order it via their Myspace page.

If it's all about MP3s for you, the ever dependable indie haven emusic have it digitally for your downloading pleasure.