White Wishes - Today E.P

Shelflife are a record company I admire greatly (as you'll know if you have read this blog on previous occasions), I like the bands they have and I like the fact that quite often they give you something free to download and listen to at your leisure. At the moment you can download the Today E.P by a band called White Wishes.

White Wishes is mostly the work of one man who currently resides in Russia under the name Nikita Pavlov, a couple of people helped him flesh the sound out but ostensibly it's just him. Unsuprisingly perhaps given the location of the recordings, and the cover art (dead trees against a snowy white background) this is a wintry set of recordings.

Wintry though in a warm log fire and glass of wine sense rather then freezing cold hands and dying in a freezing lake kind of winter. In a way this EP shares a fair bit with yesterdays blog stars Minks. There's a similar sort of shoegaze bent to this, the same sort of glacial beauty. Here though it's less buried, and each track glistens much like the snow of the cover. 'Not Today' the 2nd track on this is probably the most straight forward, in the opening sounds there are hints of My Raining Stars, but the vocal is definitely reminiscent of some of the janglier bands of the 1980's. It's good stuff, very good stuff. 'Drops' the 3rd track is sonically much more interesting, hushed vocals and stabbing instruments against a sparse drum beat mean that it's this track that the most rendolent of the winter vibe. The final track is a pretty and touching acoustic piece, a nice way to close off.

White Wishes has produced here 4 fine pieces of music, which work together really well, but standalone just as easily. There's never any excess not to download free music, and there's even less when it's as lovely as this is. Go to the link below and do your duty, oh and while you're there why not shop the website too.

White Wishes - Today E.P

Minks - By The Hedge

Minks record label describes them as "Like if Robert Smith gave birth to a baby, and the baby was actually a cassette of Cure demos that had a lot more staying power than actual Cure demos", elsewhere I've seen them describes as "gothic pop"; their album has songs called Funeral Song and Cemetary Rain on it. You know what to expect now, right?

Except perhaps not, because if Minks share anything with the Cure it's the 6 string jangle that permeates the album, certainly there's nothing as dark and gloomy as comparisons to the Cure might draw (and yes I know the Cure didn't just do gothy) and the vocal is not really Robert Smith either. Yeah there is darkness here, but it flits in the corners, kept at bay by the warmth of the music. To draw a poorly defined metaphor, the music is akin to the weak light after a rain shower, rather then the promise of rain itself. Beyond that if comparisons can be drawn to bands of the past it's more likely to be New Order or My Bloody Valentine. There are echoes of Shields sonic cathedral here (but more a sonic cottage perhaps), elements of shoegaze and shimmer give the songs a rare beauty.

Yet there's more than that, the band have been called indiepop too, and yeah you can draw a line between Minks and their label mates Wild Nothing, but in the fuzz and brittle jangle there's the sound of The Pains At Being Pure at Heart too; cf 'Cemetary Rain'. You might want to mention The Clientele when drawing comparisons too. For me though, the sound they make is akin to Sarah records indiepop, in the jangle and the spaces between songs you can hear The Fieldmice or Another Sunny Day, not in terms of lyrics, but in terms of FEEL, the best Sarah records were evocative, rendolent of a moment, a thought, a soft hand on a cold evening. Minks have that, it's one of the things that makes them special.

By now perhaps, you get the sense that Minks are hard to pin down, that or they're just an amalgamation of influences and nothing more; not true. They take these elements and twist them, knowing when to sound like one thing, when another, and yet create something new from the bare bones. Perhaps it's by design, perhaps it's luck, but by creating a record that sounds like it could have been made 20 years ago and that also fits in with the music scene right now, Minks have managed to make an album that at once sounds timeless. It's an impressive thing to pull off with a debut record.

It's impossible really to convey the record through words (as it is with almost any piece of music) so I'd encourage you to listen to the record. It's on spotify if you have the capabilities to listen there. Otherwise you can give them a listen on their myspace page Or there's some links below.

Minks - Funeral Song


Minks - Cemetary Rain

Minks - Ophelia

The tiredness of the long distance worker

Good lord, I'm knackered, so forgive the lateness of the hour and the crapness of the post today please. This morning I was listening to an album called White Magic by a band called CEO, (not the rapper as spotify might try to tell you) who are all electropop excellence and well worth checking out if you like that thing or even if you don't, a good ear for a tune is all you need. Anyway without further mumblings here's a video for a song that's been going round in my head all day.



That's it, short and phenomenally sweet. Hope you enjoy.

That was 15 years ago and things were very different then

It's not very often that news of a band reforming can make me do anything more than shrug and say "mfffh" in an attempt at appearing interested. The news however that Pulp are to reform makes me genuinely excited. More so that it's the original line-up. Even more so that it's a line up that hasn't played live since 1996. They were rumoured to be reforming for glastonbury last year, but when that didn't happen I sort of gave up.

I first heard Pulp on John Peel way back in 1993, long before I really even knew that much about music, I was tuning the radio looking for some sixties stuff (probably, parents influence was quite heavy back then) and just came across this noise (in a good sense) that I'd not heard before, it was just astounding to me. I bought my first Pulp album in 95 (and probably my third or fourth overall, the others being Blur and Oasis, and let's forget all that shit about those two battling out for number one and all that crap, back then nobody managed to convey what it was to british, disenfranchised, and an outcast better than Jarvis did, and no one managed it til Hayman) and I've loved them ever since. 15 years now. So that's it, I coud go on and on here, but I'm just going to post some of their videos instead.

Lipgloss :-



Mile End (not a proper video):-



I'm a man



Wickerman



That's more then enough, normal service resumed shortly, but for now I'm off to dance like Jarvis

Down by the water

Morning! Imagine a world where you don't start work until 1pm and it gives you a chance to uphold your promise to attempt to post more on a middling blog you write. That's the world I live in!

Anyway straight in.

There's a new Decemberist's song available to download for free (well in exchange for an email) on their website, they've been playing it live for a while but this is the studio version and, oh yes, it's called 'Down By The Water'. I like the Decemberists, I like the folky pentanglesque sound of some their stuff, and the more ambitious side, and the chamber pop side too. And now I like the R.E.M sound they make, because that's what this new song sounds like. A little Cuyahoga maybe? Or something else circa 'Life's Rich Pageant'? Maybe just that fact that Peter Buck's guesting guitar jangly on this is unmistakable. Whatever, Meloy has made no bones about this being the direction that The Decemberists are going to take and I like it. See what you think. You can have a listen here

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart also have a new single out, you can hear it on Pitchfork, it doesn't sound a hell of a lot different then anything else they've done, but I doubt any fans will complain.

Elsewhere to delight your ears, noisepop slackers Matt and Kim have released a new record, I've not heard to much of it yet, but 'Red Paint' off of it is undoubtedly excellent. You can listen to it on the pop sucker blog, which is here

That should be enough for a media heavy Thursday morning.

Back, back, back

It seems that whenever I've posted here in recent months it's always with an apology about being lax with updates, and once again it's the same routine. I got around to checking my view stats and it amazes and pleases me in equal measure that some people actually do keep visiting. It gives me an immense feeling of schadenfreude and reminds me that maybe I should actually update more, which I will endeavour to do from now on.

Firstly then I'd like to pimp (or promote, delete as appropriate)a forthcoming gig that promises to be excellent, it's Nottingham's own Horowitz plus a couple more, and should be as racously entertaining as they always are, there's a facebook page for it here. There's an added incentive of it being only £3 if you're unemployed which is a fantastic enticement I feel, take that Government! If you need any other enticement (and you really, really shouldn't) there will also be cake.

There's not much other news to report music wise, but I did go to the End Of The Road festival some months back, and am still reeling from the absolute genius that Sam Beam or Iron and Wine to his friends produced, and I can think of no better way of signing off on a dark, wet, November day then to post the song he opened with on an equallly damp and terrible evening in September. I hope you enjoy it, keep reading and expect some proper updates soon!

Dexter Poindexter

Hello; it's been awhile hasn't it? Put that down to a general malaise caused by joblessness (why is it that when one has nothing but spare time there seems to be no desire to use it), afternoon drinking and too much gaming and lets move on.

It's the curse that when you don't do something things that need your attention start to crop up all over the place. Normally the Beerandbands email is as barren as a nun but this month I seem to have recieved some actual stuff from bands and labels, so rather then waste their effort in contacting me I thought I'd better get round to actually reviewing some of this stuff.

So today it's an FREE EP from February Records called Silver Spings by Dexter Poindexter. Dexter Poindexter is one man from Chicago named Tommy Komorowski, apart from this EP he's also released one with Weepop and their's a forthcoming album on Series Two records (who have released some splendid stuff in the past); a strong pedigree indeed, and one which is clearly evident on listening to the EP itself. I've heard it 3 times in succession and already the songs are stuck in my head.

First song 'Two Cracked Heels and a Ghost' sounds ever so slightly like Bright Eyes in the verse (no bad thing at all) before hitting a chorus that's insanely hummable. It sounds instantly like you've heard it before, even though you know you haven't a sure sign of absolutely quality. There's such a giddy joy to it that I defy any lover of good pop music not to take it to their heart. There's a lovely little rock-a-billy type breakdown here too, just for good measure.

Sandwiched in the middle of the EP is 'From The Midwest' which has a much more countrified swing to it. There's not as much of a hook to this one, but it's as enjoyable as the first one, and shows that Dexter Poindexter is capable of diversifying quite nicely.

Final song 'From The West' is probably the pick of the bunch. Again it has a slightly country feel to it, but more upbeat than the previous tune. Once again it possesses an earworm of a chorus. It rounds off the EP nicely too, and leaves me wanting to hear more.

All 3 of these songs are excellent, it's nice to see consistency in an EP, and considering Dexter Poindexter hasn't released too much stuff so for it's very confident and reassured. There are artists who've been around for years who don't make songs as catchy as this. I get the impression they're might be even better to come from him. Bottomline if you like your bands jangly, a little bit country, and full of joy and chorus that'll stay with you, then this is right up your street.

Oh yeah, you can download this (it's part of February Records free digital downloads) from February and really you should, it's not often you get music as good as this for nothing.