SILVER SWANS
San Francisco duo Jonathan Waters and Ann Yu are Silver Swans. Given that the sounds they create are right up our musical street we’re as surprised as anybody that we’ve not latched on to them sooner. This means we have a bit of catching up to do as we’ve yet to hear their previous album “Forever.” Their latest offering “Sea Of Love” is the first track to air from their new album “Touch” and it is rather wonderful. Dreamy wide screen cinematic electronic music drenched with seduction and ripe with promise. Hugely impressive.
DREAM BOYS
For the avoidance of doubt lets deal with the name first, Dream Boys have nothing to do with 80’s Scottish punk band Dreamboys who somewhat remarkably featured not only Peter Capaldi (Malcolm Tucker) as lead singer but also boasted Craig Ferguson on drums no less! Nor should they EVER be confused with the UK’s most popular male stripping troupe, “The Dream Boys. ” Alas Google has no such filter and has an annoying habit of dredging up the latter in it’s search results. This of course can lead to potentially embarrassing situations, if for example the Mrs happens to glance over your shoulder and wonders why the hell your goggling “The Ultimate Ladies Hen night Experience”. So for clarity these Dream Boys are from LA and are set to release their début album on Art Fag records. They are also offering the wonderful jangling psychedelia of “Born Yesterday” as a free download. For an LA band this has a distinctly English feel to it, think “Twisterlla” era Ride, Pale Saints, Stone Roses and Sarah Records and you’re in the right ball park. A promising start and we’ll look forward to hearing the album which is scheduled for release on September 17.
CANDY SAYS
We recently featured Candy Says after catching them at the Dot 2 Dot Festival and were left hugely impressed by their wonderfully innovative live show and perfectly judged off kilter pop. The band who claim to be influenced as much by Abba as The Velvet Underground return with ‘Kiss Kill’ another perfect example of how great pop music can be when produced by people who are creative, intelligent and passionate about what they do. It also arrives with an amazing video, which was made entirely on a ZX Spectrum by Matt Westcott.
KILL MOON
They take their name from the Bunnymen classic “The Killing Moon” they derive inspiration from grunge, post punk, dirty guitars, reverb and have a deep affection for noisy pop songs. What’s not to like? Brighton’s Kill Moon recently supported Aussie trio Valentine (which is how we came across them) and it appears they have some new brand new tunes due to land on 12.08.2013 although there are no concrete details as yet. Until then check out the edgy sashaying swaggering brilliance of “Shine.” We reckon we’re gonna be big fans of these guys.
VICTORIA AND JACOB
We first interviewed Victoria and Jacob (“V.A.J” – chortle) back in 2010 and the début album has been a long time coming, but happily it’s finally set to arrive on 8th August. ‘Cry Baby’ is their latest single and demonstrates once more the shimmering subtle beauty that first drew us to them.
STRANGERS
And we’ll finish this weeks with more electro pop from a band who are no Strangers… erm well actually they are, it’s Strangers, another collective who know what it takes to make great pop music and ‘Sense Of Liberty’ may well be their finest work to date. This is no mean feat given the body of work behind them already. Can it really be true that they remain unsigned ? If so it’s yet more proof that the “music industry business “knows fuck all about it’s business. You can watch the video below….
and then download the tune for free