Another Form of Relief

Today sees the release of the new single from 4 or 5 Magicians, a double a-side made up of Change The Record and Ideal Man. While neither song quite lives up to last years stunning Forever On The Edge, both are excellent slices of guitar pop. Comparing them to Pavement or Guided By Voices or anyone is just lazy at this point, as this is a band that has found it’s own sound and is comfortable with it. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that you should buy their single so they can finally get that album deal and blow us all away.

The song below isn’t one of those new recordings. It’s taken from their first release, and would have fitted in nicely with a very early piece I wrote on here about bands adapting their own songs. It’s a version of the aforementioned Forever On The Edge in the style of Tom Waits. Just what you’d expect from a guitar band from Brighton.

Change The Record / Ideal Man can be purchased from This Is Fake DIY Records. Probably some other places too.

Yay, we’re almost done. Which is good as I have a lot of other things I want to write about and I’m kind of bored of this list now.

Like Two Gallants earlier on in this list, Okkervil River are a band that I sort of like based on the songs I’ve heard, but have never been able to get hugely into. I never found the one song that managed to blow me away, despite vaguely enjoy the ones I did hear. Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe changed all that though. I don’t know what it is that does it, as it sounds like a lot of other Okkervil River songs, but something does it. Maybe it’s the gentle builds to lines crashing lines, the film referencing or the vague ambiguity of it all, I have no idea. But it works.

Opening lines don’t come much better than that. Granted, like me, you may have to look up ’solipsistic’, which incidentally is a great word, but one I sadly haven’t had the chance to drop into conversation yet. Laura Sings Liver is one girl (shockingly called Laura) with a guitar who makes these literate little songs that manage to evoke a an entire world in the course of three minutes. You know, kind of like Emmy, except great.

Far and away the biggest success story of 2007, Johnny Foreigner went from songs with potential that sounded awful to becoming the most exciting band in the country. Their debut EP type thing, Arcs Across the City, was my favourite release of last year, featuring six songs, all of which were stunning. Yes! You Talk Too Fast has always been a favourite, so it made the list, but like Laura Sings Liver above, any of those songs could have been here.

It’s almost as if Los Campesinos! had my checklist of things that make a song great when coming up with The International Tweexcore Underground. Sparring boy-girl vocals? Frequent time changes? References to seemingly forgotten twee artists? All present and accounted for. The song seems to be about a boy who likes twee and a girl who likes hardcore rock, and they come together by combining it to form tweecore? Something like that maybe? I really have no idea, as it’s far too tempting to ignore what the words are actually saying and just shout along with them anyway.

The first single from the second album by Brakes (I’m not calling them brakesbrakesbrakes, no matter how many promo emails try and get me to), and it’s better than anything that was on their impressive first album. Like most of their songs, it’s short and to the point, including a dig at our government’s draconian anti-terror legislation (”I woke up late and found my liberty lost / It had been written down in law as a security cost / 28 days and I’m presumed guilty”). It also scores extra points for being able to namedrop Scarlett Johannson, which must be something of an awkward name to work into song.

L’apathie de la bourgeoisie.

I was going to write about Conversational Karate, but since I started this list, 4 or 5 Magicians have put up a whole load of new songs on their Myspace. Just go there and listen to them instead. Every single one of them is fantastic. If these guys don’t get some kind of proper record deal and an album out sometime this year, there’s no justice in the world.

Get past their awkward name, and you’ve got a band that does genuinely invoke a 90s Americana kind of vibe from their music. Which is a pretty impressive for a band from London. The guitars guide the songs between the gentler verses to the bursts of noise that seem to prop up the choruses. It’s never over the top, giving a feel the whole time that they band could kick into high gear at any minute, but these guys are far too restrained for that.

A rather local band that has seemingly ended before it began, Andrej and Tim was two guys (can you guess their names?) who made fantastic Ben Folds Five style piano-rock songs. I’m don’t think Iraq ever made it past the demo stage, but it’s still an excellent song. The story of a relationship that’s falling apart while managing to pull in parallels to situation in a certain country, it remains one of the finest songs that I heard last year. The ninth finest in fact.

Lots of random news with some good music thrown in between on this post. It seems that I can’t keep on top of all of the exciting things that are happening with bands I like of late.

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Another Form of Relief favourites The Young Republic have signed a recording contract with End of the Road Records, the label run by the curators of the End of the Road Festival. This is particularly exciting as it’s a UK label, meaning the band will finally achieve distribution on this side of the Atlantic. The label will release a series of 7″ singles (no comment) leading up to a full album made up of previous songs and new material. All of which is very exciting, but it gets even better. End of the Road will kindly be bringing the band to the UK for a run of UK shows sometime over the summer. With all of this, they are destined to blow up in a big way, so be sure to listen to them now so you can claim you were there at the start when they become huge.

MP3 The Young Republic - Blue Skies

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Certified “next big thing” 4 or 5 Magicians have their new demo up for you to listen on their Myspace page. Entitled ‘The 2nd or 3rd EP’, it contains new recordings of ‘Forever On The Edge’ and ‘Your Ficticious Character’ as well as a stunning new song called ‘Behind Each Others Backs’. If a label isn’t willing to put these guys out properly, something is very wrong in the world.

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Now for the most unlikely thing for me to be posting in quite some time, we have Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip. I’m not down with the electronical music or the hipity hop, so I have no idea exactly what genre this kind of thing falls into. However, since some nice person posted a link to it on the Drowned In Sound boards, I have been listening to ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ regularly on their Myspace page. It’s a glorious manifesto for modern life that wants to right as many wrongs as possible in this country, no matter how big or small they may be.

Thou shalt not think that any male over 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a paedophile, some people are just nice

Much as I’d love to share that particular song for you, it’s coming out as a single in the near future, so I probably shouldn’t. However, I do have ‘A Letter From God To Man’, a song that is exactly what it says it is in the title. It’s a wonderfully down to earth essay from god, in a conversational turn, that’s in turns both logical and reasonable. It’s the kind of thing that makes you think that if the religious thought along these lines, the world would be a far more pleasant place.

MP3 Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip - A Letter From God To Man (expired)

Oh, and if anyone knows what the piece of background music is that’s been sampled on this song, I’d love to know. I’m certain that I recognise it, but I have no idea what it is or where it comes from.

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The Svengalis have their debut single up on their Myspace. It’s a double a-side consisting of ‘Sting In The Tale’ and ‘Swimming Upstream’ and will be released via their own Villains and Rogues label on March 10. I’m not entirely sold on the songs yet, with ‘Sting In The Tale’ coming across perhaps a little too much like The Libertines. Don’t get me wrong, both are good little songs, but they aren’t entirely what I expected. ‘Swimming Upstream’ is growing on me quite a bit though.

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I’m not usually one to reprint press releases, but how can I resist things like this:

Inspiration for the album came from a tempestuous relationship with his long-term Danish girlfriend Marie Nielsen. He started writing songs to finally win her back after becoming conscious of being “a total nob”, and dispatched them to Denmark in CD cases packed with dried flowers.

This isn’t actually my first encounter with Findlay Brown’s music. I caught the second half of his set back at the Electric Gardens Festival in August entirely by accident while I was waiting for Absentee. I didn’t think that much of the songs then. They weren’t bad, but nothing that made me want to rush to hear more of his music. It seems that a studio really helps Mr. Brown though, as these songs come off far better than the Ryan Adams-lite I had him tagged as before. These are gentle, thoughtful songs, backed with a lovely sounding acoustic guitar. Which sometimes is all I really want from my music. His album, also called ‘Separated By The Sea’, will be released on Peacefrog Records on February 19.

MP3 Findlay Brown - Separated By The Sea (expired)
MP3 Findlay Brown - Tonight Won’t Wait (expired)

#9
Hello Saferide
‘The Quiz’

Website
Myspace

I only discovered Hello Saferide at the end of the year so I haven’t had the chance to write a full post yet, but very few artists have grabbed my attention to the same degree in the past year. Hello Saferide is the solo project of Annika Norlin, a singer songwriter from Sweden. What appeals to me most is that each song has a ton of personality shining through. Norlin isn’t afraid to project herself entirely into her songs, leaving each one with a kind of brutal honesty. The darkness of this is countered by a ton of little knowing references and quirks that just make the whole thing seem so real. At the forefront of this is ‘The Quiz’, the first song from her recent ‘Would You Let Me Play This EP Ten Times A Day?’ EP. She’s found a guy that she gets on well with and likes (even if he has a bit too much scifi in his shelf of DVDs). She’s vulnerable though so she puts together a quiz for him, with questions that range from the mundane (”Do you talk in the middle of Seinfeld?”) to the insecure (”Do you still keep pictures of old girlfriends? / Are they prettier than me?”) to the all important (”If I’d fall / Would you pick me up?”). Kind of a far less annoying version of Alanis’ ‘21 Things I Want In A Lover’.

#8
Art Brut
‘Nag Nag Nag Nag’

Website
Myspace

There isn’t really anything new here to the Art Brut formula, but surely that’s half the point? I had minor fears about new material not being a patch on the first album because the novelty would wear off, but despite it’s similarities, ‘Nag Nag Nag Nag’ works just as well for me as the old stuff. The whole thing can be seen as the story of ‘My Little Brother’ after the guy grows up, although I have no idea if that was intentional. Anyway, the Art Brut style remains the same as it was before: driving guitars, random bursts of energy and a witty song about a music dork delivered in Eddie Argos’ usual half-talking, half-shouting, half-singing (yes, I’m aware that’s three halves) style.

#7
4 or 5 Magicians
‘Forever On The Edge’

Website
Myspace

“4 or 5 Magicians are a four piece, led by Dan Ormsby, who did pretty much everything on their recorded songs, and takes charge of vocals and guitar duty when the band play live. The most obvious thing in Ormsby is that he has based his style on an influence not often seen in British bands: Stephen Malkmus. ‘Forever On The Edge’ has “slacker anthem” written all over it. A brash, honest song about wasting one’s life and almost depending on becoming famous to be successful (”I’m wasting my time in this band / Pinning all my hopes on getting signed / Well it could happen / Some idiot might sign us”). It’s this kind of witty, self-aware writing that first drew me to the band, and that they have the sound to back it up is even better.” - originally posted July 18.

#6
Belle & Sebastian
‘Funny Little Frog’

Website
Myspace

By far the best song on ‘The Life Pursuit’ and one of the finest that Belle & Sebastian have put out in years. The usual B&S staples are here, as well as a couple of new things like a piano, which they really don’t utilise anywhere near enough. Murdoch really throws himself into the vocals too, giving one of his strongest performances since ‘Your Cover’s Blown’. It’s either the official theme song for stalking or a love letter to the Virgin Mary depending on how you listen, bringing just over three minutes of perfection.

#5
Voxtrot
‘The Start of Something’

Website
Myspace

I know this technically was released in 2005, but the ‘Raised By Wolves’ EP it’s taken from didn’t get released in the UK until 2006, so I’m going to go with that excuse. Anyway, if you’ve read more than a handful of music blog in your lifetime you’re probably aware of who they are and who they sound like. This one sounds rather like The Smiths, and it’s incredibly good, particularly given that I don’t like The Smiths very much. I’m not entirely sure what it all means, as it seems to change focus an awful lot, but it’s full of wonderful imagery that’s delivered beautifully. If a full album next year doesn’t make them explode into the limelight Death Cab style, I’ll be very surprised.

#4
Kate Nash
‘The Nicest Thing’

Website
Myspace

“‘The Nicest Thing’ is up there with the best new songs that I have heard this year. It’s her most stripped down effort, just a sparse acoustic guitar and her voice, which helps an awful lot. This allows her voice, which manages to be both mournful and grounded at the same time, to become the centrepiece of the song. There is also a wonderful knack for random conversational lyrics here (”I wish that you needed me / I wish that you knew when I said two sugars, actually I meant three”). Granted the production is pretty awful here, with the vocals becoming distorted in the louder parts, but even through that the strength of this song shines through. If it were to be cleaned up a little in a studio, it could be amazing.” - originally posted June 15.

#3
The Young Republic
‘Girl From The Northern States’

Website
Myspace

The Young Republic are an eight piece (I’m sure there used to be nine though) indie folk pop band from Boston. If you’ve ever been through this blog before, you will have read me rambling about them on a fairly regular basis, so I’ll spare you here. Despite finding it very early on in the year, ‘Girl From The Northern States’ is still one of my most regularly played songs. It’s a gentle, melancholy tale of lost love that sounds more cheerful than it really has any right to. Combine this with a delightful orchestral background and you’ve got what is, for me, an almost perfect pop song.

#2
The Light Footwork
‘The Art of Everyday Communication Part 1′

Website
Myspace

The Light Footwork were the perfect example of why I started this blog in the first place. Pushing a band as good them onto unsuspecting readers is what makes this whole thing so worthwhile. A lot of songs come and go, but there are some that grab you immediately and never let go. ‘The Art of Everyday Communication Part 1′ is one of those. It starts off interestingly enough and then jumps up a gear a little way in, morphing into an entirely different song. Constantly time shifting and styles and pitch perfect male-female vocals make for an always surprising but constantly enjoyable listen.

#1
Los Campesinos!
‘You! Me! Dancing!’

Website
Myspace

“Los Campesinos! are a seven-piece from Cardiff who have seemingly already mastered how to make the perfect pop song. Best of all, they manage to bring a glockenspiel to the proceedings. Standout song ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ is just sheer joy from start to finish, it’s six and a half minute runtime actually feeling like half that. Jangly guitars combined with harmonising combined with witty, gleeful lyrics, and you’ve got a winning combination.” - originally posted July 4.

I wrote that six months ago and I’ve only grown to love this band even more in the time since. During which I’ve posted more songs from them, including fun things like a Pavement cover and other songs have turned up on the net. I saw them live back in September and will be doing so again in March. When I (and a number of other blogs) first wrote about them, they had around 600 friends on Myspace. They now have over 3000. At that time, they had no label and just a four track demo. They are now signed to Wichita and will be releasing their debut double a-side single in the new year. It cost me £3 to see them last time. It’s going to cost £6.50 this time. What I’m getting at here is that Los Campesinos! have been by far the biggest success story of 2006. Few bands arrive so fully formed and garner so much attention so quickly. I can think of nowhere more deserving though. 2007 should be a hell of a year for them, and us.

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Well that’s my favourite nine songs of the year. It turned into a little bit of a slog toward the end, but I’m pleased with how it all turned out in the end. This brings to an end any kind of organised posting structure until this kind of time last year. This will probably be the last thing that I post in 2006, so I’ll wish you all a happy calender change now. This year has been a hell of a lot of fun for me, and this blog has been a big part of that. So thanks to everybody that stopped by, even if it was just to grab the songs. I’ve got a lot of great music to write about in the early days of 2007, so come on back and let me share the good music with you.

Okay, so I’m at panic stations about all this now, particularly the fear that nobody will turn up. If you’re within a reasonable distance of Tunbridge Wells (it’s in Kent), please come along to this. You’ll get a fantastic night of great new music brought to you by this very blog. I’ll even guarantee that it will rock. Hard. Full details below our lovely poster.

MP3 It Hugs Back - Miss Being Young
MP3 It Hugs Back - Wear You Down

MP3 4 Or 5 Magicians - Forever On The Edge
MP3 4 Or 5 Magicians - Tour De Force

MP3 Beeches - Sin Nombre
MP3 Beeches - Make Your Own Luck

It’s not very often that I get genuinely excited about an unsigned British band. In fact, since I started this blog back in february, only Sky Larkin have managed to evoke that kind of interest from me. Today though, I’m going to introduce you to another in the form of Brighton’s 4 or 5 Magicians.

4 or 5 Magicians are a four piece, led by Dan Ormsby, who did pretty much everything on their recorded songs, and takes charge of vocals and guitar duty when the band play live. The most obvious thing in Ormsby is that he has based his style on an influence not often seen in British bands: Stephen Malkmus. Not that Ormsby makes any apologies for this, an entry on the bands Myspace blog detailing the records that shaped their sound proclaims:

“Not only have I basically based my whole onstage performance around him, his style of piecing songs together has also been entirely theived. Without hearing the way Malkmus twists simple chord based songs into jerky pop masterpieces, my songs would probably sound like a bad Oasis. As it is they sound like a bad Pavement, which I am infinitely happier with.”

I couldn’t agree more with any of this. I’ll take a bad Pavement over a bad Oasis any day. Hell, I’d take a bad Pavement over a good Oasis for that matter. The important part here though is that 4 or 5 Magicians don’t sound like a bad Pavement. Sure, there are a lot of similarities in their sound, from Ormsby’s swaggering vocals to the jumps in structure during each song, even to the sound of the guitars on ‘Forever On The Edge’. Bad isn’t a word I would associate though. Even when you take these elements away, the songs themselves are far better than they have any right to be.

‘Forever On The Edge’ has “slacker anthem” written all over it. A brash, honest song about wasting one’s life and almost depending on becoming famous to be successful (”I’m wasting my time in this band / Pinning all my hopes on getting signed / Well it could happen / Some idiot might sign us”). It’s this kind of witty, self-aware writing that first drew me to the band, and that they have the sound to back it up is even better.

Now I should probably point out that quality on these recordings isn’t entirely perfect, mostly because the vocal is a little quiet in comparison to the instrumentation. Both of these songs are still incredibly good though, and with a little tweaking of the aforementioned vocal volume, would be among the best that I have heard this year from any band. The talent is certainly here for that.

You’ll be able to catch 4 or 5 Magicians at a couple of upcoming shows in London (details below), which you should certainly get yourselves down to. That way, when they become popular, you can be one of the cool kids who was there first.

MP3 4 or 5 Magicians - Forever On The Edge (expired)
MP3 4 or 5 Magicians - Tour De Force (expired)

Upcoming gigs:
Thursday 10 August - Nambucca, London (w/ Wojtek Godzisz)
Saturday 16 September - 93 Feet East, London (w/ a ton of other bands, Smalltown American all dayer)

4 or 5 Magicians: Myspace