Some things for the weekend

Sometimes it is nice to relax; to stop writing essays on Facebook, twittering in to your tweetybox, synching your media devices and hype-machining the latest Matsuroki Miyoku mixtape and just listen to some music.

That is what we have done and here is what we enjoyed.

Stonefoxx - Crystal Clear
To describe this song as summery would be like referring to the surface of the sun as ‘slightly warm‘. A breezy pop blast that is unconcerned with being liked by people in haircuts, the song lets in more of the yellow stuff than a sunroof the size of the o-zone hole. Feelgood.

Blondfire - My Someday (LP)
Pleasantly relaxed electro fluff that sounds a bit like Dragonette might if they were neutered and denied access to Viagra and porn.

Estelle - American Boy
The amazing Estelle, of being made by God in 1980 fame, comes back with a massive pop banger, which is not only the best thing she’s ever done, but also marks an incredible return to form for co-conspirator Kanye West.

The Long Blondes - Erin O’Connor
HUGELY BANGING album track that is named after her off the M&S adverts. Bonus points are awarded for references to Barry M and Lily Cole, two of the greatest things ever invented.

Crystal Castles - Crimewave
Crystal Castles are largely amazing and so is their album. However, ‘Crimewave’ represents just one of the handful of moments on the disc when you fully expect 2002 to ring up and ask for its music back. Concerns about which are mitigated firmly by the remaining 40 minutes of 8bit thrashcore noisemare, which is straight out of 2028.

Amy Winehouse - Rehab (Hot Chip Remix)
Amazing.

And that is quite literally your lot.

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FYI it's Katie White

This is the video for The Ting Tings’ new single ‘That’s Not My Name’.

Highlights:
:: Flashing drums
:: Hat throwing
:: Spinning



8/10.

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New Ladytron stuff 'doing the rounds'

Ladytron, famous for making amazing songs about blue jeans and being seventeen and stuff like that, are back, back, BACK with new material, the first slice of which is ‘Black Cat’, a song which fuses these elements

:: drama!
:: ‘foreboding’!!
:: foreign words!!!
:: the beat from Kate Nash’s disastrously ill-judged ‘Caroline Is A Victim’ single!!!!

to form five minutes of ear-assaulting weirdness that is sure to soundtrack montage footage of people collapsing and coughing up their own lungs in the upcoming London marathon.

Have a listen for yourself here.

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Buff tigers

Here is a picture of the weird-but-amazing Language Of Prairie Dogs at a recent gig.



That was a picture of the weird-but-amazing Language Of Prairie Dogs at a recent gig.

(Photo taken by Milla Blake).

NNNew Mix

Enigmatic clubbing brand Northernights has put together another mix of floorfilling favourites, this time dropping the BPM for some low-slung dirty bass thrills. We asked them to tell us a little bit about the set and they said this:

“The Ladyhawke remix sounds like an old Stevie Nicks song”.

Which was nice and succinct, was it not? Yes.

You can download/listen to said mix by clicking on the seventh word in this sentence.

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Madonna - 4 Minutes: the slightly more definitive review

We’ve been asked to clarify our position on the new Madonna single, ‘4 Minutes’. Here it is, not that we need to justify ourselves to anyone (this is a dictatorship, not a democracy):

‘4 Minutes’ is not a terrible record. Nor, however, is it anywhere near as exciting as you’d expect a pop song made by three of the planet’s biggest stars to be. Compare hearing this to the dizzy thrills brought on by your first acquaintance with ‘Maneater’, and ‘4 Minutes’ comes off worse than a dead rabbit squaring up to a steamroller.

‘4 Minutes’ represents the point in every producer’s life when they must head back to the studio, listen to the mountain of shit that has been cluttering their desk for two years, then use it to forge a truly kidney-punishing new sound. Until Timbo does that, we’re only going to get more ‘Shock Value’ outtakes and retreads.

So there you go.

In other ‘Madge’ news, in-depth reports suggest the new album is quite good.

Let’s have a video to celebrate:



Very good.

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A song about the pressures of living in the modern world etc etc

Here is the video for Robyn’s interrogative-heavy new single ‘Who’s That Girl?’



Summary: Robyn looks quite fit dressed as a soldier but cannot drum to save her life.

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Better late than never

Here are some amazingly professional pictures of Leeds’ Heads We Dance playing at Manchester’s Keys Money Lipstick sometime last month. To be honest we meant to post them sooner but we have been very busy (ie ‘on holiday‘) recently. Sorry.

Unfortunately, because what you are about to look at are pictures and not videos, you will not be able to hear what the band sounded like at the gig. This is a shame because they were very good indeed, treating the chilly Good Friday faithful to a series of polished pop pastings.

Why not visit their MySpace page in another window while looking at the photos? It will almost be like being there yourself, apart from being completely different.

Pennie Smith should be shitting herself right about now.

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By the way...

The answer to the last picture quiz was David E. Sugar.

No one won, so the prize rolls over until next time.

'Hard lines'.

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How annoying is the man who jumps up and down a lot in Goldfrapp's new video?

Very.



FYI the concept for the video came about from the time Alison Goldfrapp spent 24 hours hopping everywhere in aid of a charity that later turned out not to exist.

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Question Of The Day

If our favourite songs on the MGMT album are 'Kids' and 'The Youth', does that mean we subconsciously miss being young? Not that we’re of pension-drawing age or anything, but - let’s face it - being an ‘adult’ is fucking rubbish.

If you could go back (or forward) to any age, which would it be?

Tell us: hipyounggunslinger AT hotmail DOT co DOT uk

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