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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

Blanche Hudson Weekend/ The Manhattan Love Suicides
Hate Is A Loaded Gun EP / The Dandelion Radio Session Squirrel Records/ Oddbox Records

Article written by Ged M - Jul 17, 2010

Blanche Hudson Weekend have developed a whisper-not-scream sound for their third EP. Rather than slapping you with a wall of fuzz-feedback as they did with the ‘Letters To Daddy EP’, they wrap you in gentle, dreamy guitar tones and Caroline’s imploring girl-group voice. ‘Song For Kirsten’ is softly seductive indiepop, while they indulge their full-on pop impulse in waves of keyboards and precise pop drumming on ‘Let Me Go’. They still have an experimental itch to scratch with ‘So Sick’, the harmonium and Caroline’s doomy tones sounding like something from Nico’s Desertshore. It’s less fuzzy and frantic than previous releases but just as inventive, addictive and exciting.

Those missing Blanche Hudson Weekend’s predecessor band, the Manhattan Love Suicides, should make haste to pick up The Dandelion Radio Session. From the Lee Marvin cover (The Killers, I think), this is classic Manhattans aggressive fuzzpop, with both stereo and mono versions of a session recorded at Easter 2009. There’s shedloads of distortion and a dousing of feedback in their classic JAMC-influenced sound but, amid the noise, a couple of tunes emerge as stone classics: a gorgeous acoustic treatment of ‘Veronica’ and the masterly cover of the nerdishly obscure Velvet Underground track ‘I’m Not A Young Man Anymore’. For this the band swap instruments, Darren channelling his inner Moe Tucker while Rachel wrings all sorts of spazztastic badness from her guitar. It’s a genius sign off for a perfect band.

Links:
http://www.squirrelrecords.co.uk/the-manhattan-love-suicides/
http://oddboxrecords.com/
http://www.myspace.com/themls