Here Come the Girls

So it's been written about all over the blogs, but basically 2009 is set to be the year of fabulous femmes doing their stuff and generally being massive. I could not agree more, there definitely has been something of a proliferation of cool, little-bit-kooky women making some pretty awesome tunes of late. Here's is GTYT's guide to the best three.

The one that's already pretty big - LADYHAWKE

I know when a song is getting big when my housemates have heard of it and ask me who it's by. Ladyhawke's My Delirium has just reached that stage, and her next single, Paris is Burning, my own favourite is doing pretty well now too. I've recently gone back and relistened to her self-titled debut album and it's better than I remember, with a couple of tracks sounding like an electro Stevie Nicks. It's not the most diverse album, but it's poppy and promising.

The one that's about to be really very big - LA ROUX

La Roux is probably the female I would place bets on to explode in 2009 (not literally, obviously). They're actually a two piece, but Elly Jackson is a pretty arresting front woman so I imagine the guy will stay pretty anonymous. They sound like the Eurythmics all synthed up. That's a good thing. The new single Quicksand is pretty awesome.

The one that's likely to be criminally ignored - MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS



Marina (and her elusive diamonds) produces eclectic pop - think Regina Spektor crossed with the Jungle Book, or at least that's the vibe on the B-side to her current single, Mowgli's Road, which you can download from her US record label here. The A-Side, Obsessions, is a little more straight forward "women singing about relationship angst with a piano", but it's also a very good tune. Both definitely take a bit of getting used to, and sadly I think that's going to be put a lot of people off. But while Marina's not exactly marketable, she is VERY hummable, and that's what matters really.

Also worth a shout out: Florence & the Machine, Janelle Monae, Yelle, Terry Lynn, and Ellie Goulding.

In addition, you may notice that the links are now for hypem.com, youtube or for emusic rather than to an mp3. After having my Valentine's Day Post taken down without any warning I'm a bit wary of posting mp3s. Sorry!

The Rileys

'Kaiser Chiefs mixed with the Kooks' is how I've heard new London band The Rileys be described, and that seems to be fairly accurate to me. While they're not exactly the next [insert important indie band here], they don't aspire to be either, and their tunes are deliciously catchy. They came into my radio show, Audio Pleasure, last Thursday for an interview and session, and if I could work out how to separate their songs from the rest of the 2 hour mp3 I have of the show I would (if anyone knows how, please let me know!!). In the meantime, I'm not going to give you the mp3 of their single, Do you feel me?, because you should frankly go buy it on emusic, Amazon, iTunes or wherever you buy music from. One thing - be prepared to get the song STUCK IN YOUR HEAD. They're currently on tour across the U.K., I'm off to see them on Wednesday, which I'm very excited about!

Here is the video for Do you feel me?


It's not exactly the slickest production I've seen, but at least you now know how good/catchy/fun the song is so you can buy it!


In other news, apparently my Valentine's Day post has disappeared... Sad times. Oh well, I have been doing lots of catching up with new music this week and have some pretty nice licks coming your way very soon.

It's Snow Joke...

OK, admittedly lame title, but the wintry weather here in the UK has inspired me to create something of snowy playlist. Enjoy.

1. February Snow - Fell City Girl
- Utterly appropriate in name and theme, is there a more perfect song to listen to when all goes white during February?

(I can't find the mp3 for this, so it'll have to be the video)


2. A Winter's Sky - The Pipettes
- The girls clarion-clear harmonies are icy-cool. You can almost see their breaths curling through the winter sky as they sing this track. Or whatever.

3. A Hazy Shade of Winter - Simon & Garfunkel
- Every playlist is a bit better for some S & G, and this song sounds like when it's really bitterly cold and windy and you're trying to make your way through it all, and getting really angry with it.

4. Cold Wind - Arcade Fire
- A great song for travelling through snow. Plus it's about San Francisco. :)

5. The Cold Swedish Winter - Jens Lekman
- OK, it never gets quite this cold consistently in England, but this song is bound to warm the cockles.

6. In the Cold, Cold Night - The White Stripes
- I've taken to sleeping wearing sweats and a hoodie in bed. I'm sure having someone to snuggle up would be a better solution...

7. La Ritournelle (Mr Dan's Magic Wand Mix) - Sebastien Tellier
- Something about those bells just says winter to me, perfect for snuggling up with scarves and hats during the cold months.

8. Waiting for the 7.18- Bloc Party
- Having waited in the cold for a train many times this week, I can vouch that it is not fun. February really does seem endless...

9. Blood Bank- Bon Iver
- Bon Iver's chilly tracks always seem appropriate, and this song from his most recent E.P. of the same title (which I would heartily recommend) is great in this weather.

10. Weather to Fly - Elbow
- A little ironic, given that most airports have been closed, but somehow I don't think the line 'The days were shaping up/Frosty and bright' would work quite so well in warm weather.

[If you're wondering where Fleet Foxes' White Winter Hymnal is, look further down the page... I don't like repeating myself!]

Hope you enjoyed these tracks, I'm taking a break for the next few days but I'll see you soon.

Miri Ben-Ari

So almost two weeks ago now I went to the One World Music Concert held at the Warwick Arts Centre, with the headlining act being Miri Ben-Ari, the self-styled 'Hip-Hop Violinist'.

Miri is an Israeli now living in New York who has played with many of the big names in hip hop of late - Kanye, Common, John Legend, etc. Her schtick is that she plays violin, accompanied with hip hop beats, and I have to say, she's really not half bad.

While she's nowhere near as revolutionary as she thinks she is, her finest moment in the concert was not one of her own compositions but instead when she played through a montage of some of the biggest tunes from hip hop of recent years - from Ne-Yo's Miss Independent to Dirt Off Your Shoulder by Jay-Z. It's certainly entertaining stuff, and certainly the enthusiastic, mainly student crowd thought so last week.

Her most recent single that has been attracting attention was Symphony of Brotherhood, a track in which she plays the violin to hip hop beats, with samples from Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech woven through. It's a heartfelt, if not especially original opinion of the subject of race, (she has her own foundation to raise awareness and education about the Holocaust) and is fairly affable to listen to. If it sounds like I'm damning this with faint praise... it's probably because I am a tad.

To be fair to the girl, in my view she had some stiff competition from the World Music Group, a selection of Warwick students put together to play the breaks in between all the other acts, and were absolute class, they were worth the ticket price alone.

Here is a video of her performing live the Apollo in 2007 (perhaps that explains the awful outfit!). Not bad stuff, but just not as groundbreaking as she thinks she is. Also, it's worth mentioning she didn't have a DJ with her doing live mixes, but a pre-recorded backing track, which I think meant she kind of lost something.



Here is the video for Symphony of Brotherhood.

More fun stuff to come soon!

Return of the Real Deal

Sorry for the break there, I've been ridiculously busy taking part in One World Week, the largest student international festival in the world held at the University of Warwick...





Now I've just about caught up on my sleep there will be a nice bit coming about Miri Ben-Ari, who I saw performing as part of OWW, but first here is a little ditty that I really quite like, Bruises, by Chairlift. A little bit shamefully I got the name and artist from watching The Hills, but I'm convinced I've heard it somewhere else. Any ideas? Answers on a stamped addressed envelope please!

(PS - I know the picture is of an actual chairlift rather than of the band, but it's so cool I wanted to include it anyways!)

Update - I just twigged that the song is featured in the iPod nano advert. Bummer.