I smell winter

Where does the time go? Despite my best intentions, my computer happily informs me that it's been 5 weeks since I last updated this blog. I blame christmas.

Anyway in the spirit of New Year's resolutions (and only about 12 days late on that, hurray!) I'm going to try and post something on here every single day. I can't promise it'll be anything special; maybe just a track I like, but at least it will be something.

From where I'm sitting I can see how cold it looks outside. I know that in other parts of the world it snows all the time, and it must seem odd to some just how much complaining England is doing about snow at the moment, but when it's like this all I want to do is curl up with a cup of tea and listen to something bright and happy. Thank goodness then for the new 'Ruby Suns' song.

I really like this band, I've got both of their previous records (presuming they have done two and I've not missed something), with 2008's 'Sea Lion' just shading it. I'm not necessarily sure how to describe the band, the last record had quite an african instrumental feel to it, but themed with electronica and symphonic pop. This new single, to these ears at least, sounds like Grizzly Bear or Animal Collective, and yet not quite. That's a terrible description isn't it? It's a great song though and everything I want this morning. It's over here on their myspace.

In a different but equally warming way, I've enjoyed the new 'Burning Hearts' single this morning too. It's called 'Night Animal' and it's being released by, the always excellent, Shelflife Records on 26th January. The song itself has a bit of a Saint Etienne feel to it, I think, which is obviously never a bad thing. You'd do well to hear it for yourself though, and you can do so by heading over to Shelflife now.

Animal

For the last few days I've been listening (when I've got the chance) to a band called Horse Shoes. You've probably heard of them but I must admit, beyond the fact that they're from America and have a record coming out on Shelflife and played POP!Mayhem in Florida at the weekend, I don't know anything about the band at all. Sometimes though, that's a good thing. If nothing else it stops me weighing this blog down with lengthy descriptions when all you really need to do is listen to the band. They cite their influences as New Order and spent their formative years listening to lots of The Smiths, which does inform the sound slightly. There's more than a hint of Sarah Records about them though, a whiff of Labrador (the Legends, Club8) and I think I detect just a hint of My Raining Stars about them too.
If any of that sounds like your thing (I hope it does) then a couple of the songs are streaming over at shelflife or you can listen to some songs on the bands myspace page.

Aside from Horse Shoes, another animal related band I've been enjoying this week are Denim Owl. Denim Owl are a duo from Melbourne (Janita Foley and Aleks Bryant or Denim Owl and Brain Cobra if you prefer), they have a song called Kitten Gloves (with a kitten sample at the beginning) and a penchant for melodica, but let's not tag them with any disparaging genre labels here. At heart, they make keyboard driven pop with some loops and effects. Oh and they do a superb version of Springsteens' 'I'm On Fire' so I was always going to love them. If you're inclined to listen to them you can do so here. They're playing a gig in Melbourne on 2nd September, with the Motifs (who were great when I saw them in Nottingham last year) so if you live anywhere near there, it should be well worth a look.

Finally if you're in the sort of person who likes to wallow in a bit of list making/nostalgia then you'll probably enjoy Pitchfork this week. Their counting down their top 500 records of this decade, with a few articles as well. Even if you don't like Pitchfork it'll at least provoke a "how the hell did that get in there" from you at some point, which isn't a bad thing.