Songs To Learn And Sing / Friday Freebies

Stars, I Am Harlequin,Sons Of Guns,Shy And The Fight,Siant Motel, The Fresh And Onlys, Bird, and Jennifer Left.

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Now this is good news, it’s the return of  Canada’s finest ,STARS, whose literate intelligent electronic pop has brought much joy to our ears since discovering them back in 2005. “The Theory of Relativity” is the first single off their  forthcoming  album, The North, due out on September 4, 2012.  It’s also a free download for the price of your email HERE. And remember kids – “just because you’re crazy doesn’t mean that your free”

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I Am Harlequin.

The lovely, talented,delightfully bonkers vision that is Anne Freir, AKA I Am Harlequin, has just, this very second in fact, launched a new live video of ‘Wild One’, shot in  St John on Bethnal Green with a choir. Of course it’s quite appropriate for Anne to be  singing in a church given the fact that she has such a wonderful, celestial voice, and the fact that music is our religion . There will be more on I Am Harlequin next week when we review her “Craze” Ep. It’s VERY good indeed. In the meantime enjoy our interview with IAH in which we discuss Anne’s childhood in East Berlin before the fall of the wall, illegal vinyl and how David Hasslehoff single-handedly defeated Communism and tore down the Berlin wall using his BARE HANDS whilst clad in speedos – Click HERE

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Sons Of Guns

 Sons Of Guns is the  musical project of  Rosie Allen (Bass, vocals) and Mark Smith (keyboards/sampler/vocals).  War Harp is from their forthcoming album and sounds like the sort of music you’d play at a post apocalyptic disco party. Sexy sinister and just a little bit scary, which of course means we love it !

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Shy And The Fight

Shy and the Fight are a six-piece band from the border country between Chester and Llangollen. So they might be Welsh, and we could start the whole is Michael Owen Welsh or English debate, but we won’t because its quite possibly as dull as ANYTHING  pompous windbag  Griff Rhys Jones utters on almost any subject (for clarity he is Welsh by the way)  “All That We See or Seem” is the first release on “Popty Ping Records” (the Welsh colloquial term for a microwave oven apparently) and is all rather lilting and lovely. We suggest a duet with Emmy The Great in the very near future.

 Friday Freebies.

1. Saint Motel

Not one but two Friday Freebies ! (actually it’s three because the Stars track is also free 😉 )  First up is Saint Motel an indie pop outfit from LA  with a tribute too The King of Swing himself,  in which they declare – ‘The one who laughs last./Who waits, until the joke is long dead./At that moment you strike like  Benny Goodman’. It’s an oddly undefinable sound, mixing indie, swing, jazz and funk and really it shouldn’t work, but yes you’ve guessed it, it does ! It’s more upbeat than Fearn Cotton on a nose candy binge let loose in a Haribo factory! (But minus the obvious annoyance factor such a scenario would produce )

2. The Fresh and Only’s

The Fresh and Only’s unveil a new tune from their forthcoming album, ‘Long Slow Dance‘  which is due to  released in September 2012. It builds quite a head of steam and may be reminiscent of a more melodic, pop centric version of The Pixies. Or Not. Who are we to say? Make your own mind up, comment in the comments section if you like. Or not. It’s up to you. Absolutely NO pressure. At all.

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And we’ll finish with two new videos

The first is from Liverpool band BIRD ( Interview HERE)

and finally the new video from Jennifer Left ( Interview HERE)

And so…. until next time

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