Posts tagged The Svengalis

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)