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SoundsXP Presents

Friday 6th April 2012
All Day BBQ Festival

Sparrow and the Workshop
6 Day Riot
The Nuns
Singing Adams
Y Niwl
Colours
Dignan Porch
+more tbc

The Windmill
Brixton
Price tbc

On Our iPod

Golden Grrrls - New Pop 7”

Chris Devotion & The Expectations - Amalgamation & Capital (album)

Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester (album)

Throwing Up - Mother Knows Best 7”

Howling Wolf - Complete Chess Masters 1951-60

The Ketamines - A Rotten Bond/1 Yr (from Oddbox Singles Club Pt 2)

Cardinal - Hymns (album)

Proper Ornaments - Taking the Gamble Out of Buying 12”

Darren Hayman - January Songs (album)

Various: Marshall Teller EP 12”

Latest Forum Posts

Single/Download Review

Beach Fossils/ Veronica Falls/ Summer Cats/ Ty Segall/ Loch Lomond/ Cosmetics
Singles roundup

Article written by Ged M - Apr 16, 2010

‘Daydream’ by Beach Fossils (Captured Tracks 7”) is lovely lo-fi pop from Brooklyn (again!). It’s like the indie charts in 80s England, with a fuzzy C86 feel and a dark twist of the Cure stirred in, and very catchy. As is the other side, ‘Desert Sand’, which ensnares you with its minimalist guitar hooks and a sound like an exotic Modern Lovers. It’s simple sounding but very alluring. Myspace

‘Stephen’ by Veronica Falls is actually the b-side of ‘Found Love In A Graveyard’ (UK release, Trouble Records 7”) , which we’ve already covered on its Captured Tracks release, but this song is so good that it demands its own review. It’s bright and poppy, sounding like the midpoint of the Teenage Fanclub/ Pastels axis, but it offsets the jangly guitar optimism with dark lyrics: “please don’t say anything, Stephen, take off your wedding ring…” Far too good to hide away on a flipside. Myspace

Summer Cats’ latest single, ‘Your Timetable’ (Slumberland Records 7”), is ultra-rhythmic driving pop with just enough feedback-spitting guitars to offset the tweeness, while ‘TV Guide’ on the flipside is trebly keyboard-driven pop. The influence of Flying Nun Records is unmissable but, though I loved their album, this single is just too short and unformed to be truly satisfying. Myspace

Ty Segall's latest single sounds less dirty and lo-fi than his other releases but is no less gnarly. 'Caesar' (Goner Records 7") has an elemental hip-shaking rock'n'roll rhythm with slightly flamboyant glam rock touches, and then goes completely mental with some insane riffing on a piano that sounds like Liberace on PCP. A fine groin-tingling gutter-punk blast from the one man band from San Francisco. Myspace

Loch Lomond’s ‘Night Bats EP’ (Song, By Toad Records) is splendid and rousing orchestral pop. There are still echoes of their folk pop origins, as on the Belle & Sebastian-y ‘Ghost of an Earthworm’ but they become more expansive and orchestrated thereafter. ‘Night Bats’ is lush and choral, with Ritchie Young’s distinctive vocals stretching to the falsetto, and ‘Wax & Wire’ is better still, a quick-witted and catchy string-driven anthem. For a band named after a big Scottish pond, they’re not all hairy-arsed Highlanders, coming from the smoother-cheeked Portland, Oregon, but the record is well worth hunting down. Myspace

Cosmetics, a twosome from Vancouver, make sultry synth-pop: dark-sounding but burning with a feverish heat. ‘Soft Skin’ (Captured Tracks 7”) is a brilliant match of mechanical rhythms and the oh-so-human voice of Aja Emma that bubbles with sex appeal. The flip side, ‘Black Leather Gloves’, is fetish pop, a cross between the Normal and the theme from Knight Rider: “I get a feeling of pleasure/ when I wear black leather/ when I kiss my hands”. Kinky, certificate 18 pop, but very kool. Myspace

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