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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

Jim Kroft/ Swing Youth/ Tunng/ May68/ Dead Spex/ Silver Columns
singles roundup

Article written by Ged M - May 6, 2010

Jim Kroft is a singing/ songwriting Scotsman living in Berlin and my other half and I found it hard to place his single ‘One Sees the Sun’ (Sidewalk Records) musically: I heard Crowded House and a touch of Bowie in there while she couldn’t decide between Aztec Camera and Orange Juice. We were both agreed it was catchy, indie-goes-very-mainstream pop (bar the grinding guitar solo at the end) with a warm, soaring chorus and lyrics brimming with optimism: “when you truly want to live, that’s when one sees the sun”. “Nice” seems to be an apt summary.
Myspace

Swing Youth are a Watford band living in Twickenham who go straight for the new wavey jugular, covering ‘Jennifer’ (Bloody Awful Poetry Records) in washes of poppy keyboards and snappy hooks. It starts well enough, in a Jam/ Department S sort of way, but it soon ends up in dullsville. ‘Hey Keith’ isn’t a great tribute to the PiL guitarist though the clever little guitar riff that runs through the song is catchy as a bastard. Myspace

There are no recipes for raw fish in sight on the weirdly titled ‘Sashimi’ by Tunng (Full Time Hobby), taken from the fourth album And Then We Saw Land. They’ve travelled far from their folkatronica origins, with acoustic guitars stacked up against whirly synths in a very immediate but not especially memorable 3 minute single. Myspace

May68’s debut single is unrevolutionary but ultra-glamorous Mancunian dance music. ‘My Ways’ (Hit Club 7”) has cool-as-fuck vocals from Jude Wainwright and a hi-NRG Communards beat while ‘The New You’ is space-disco that might go down well if you were off yer tits down the Hacienda. Not my cup of Mancunian music at all but the Acid Washed remix (digital download only) is spacious, minimal and very catchy. Myspace

Dead Spex are from Nottingham and their three track EP ‘Her Knee, and She’ (self-released) is available for free download from their website or for £2 for a physical copy. I’d go for the latter as the packaging is excellent – a 3” CD in a sandwich of tasty mixed materials – but you should choose either format if the thought of screamy feckers making angular punk pop, full of raging guitars and confrontational vocals, gets your manhood or ladybits twitching. Me, I just had to lie down afterwards. Website

Silver Columns is a collaboration between Domino solo artist Adem and Johnny Lynch, aka Pictish Trail from the Fence Collective. 'Cavalier' (Moshi Moshi Records) is literate, melodic electro-dance pop (shades of Pet Shop Boys), with Lynch's lovely accent giving a folkier edge. It's an unusual collaboration but this 'thinking man's dance music' (see also: Hot Chip) sounds very good. Myspace

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