In an effort to continually seduce your ears, Clash has rounded up the cream of the music that is spoken about in this issue and slapped it on a download album.
Download issue 41’s best music in your ears NOW for FREE! It’s hi-tech stuff.
Download this album and play it whilst you leaf joyously through this month’s issue of Clash, soaking up the facts and opinions as its finest sounds burble into your ears. Simply read about the artists included below then click to download your free album.
From the minnows to the monoliths it’s here for yer pod.
Gold Panda
‘Lonely Owl’
(Make Mine)
Just when you thought 2009 was the year where ALL new bands were being called Tigers, the fucking Pandas make a late charge. The fucking Pandas? I never saw it coming, officer. Yet Gold Panda is getting dusty with old scratchy records, seasick beats and ocean innocent melodies that collide somewhere above his battered old Atari to induce an intoxicating fall-out that’s part urban, part pastoral and part just utterly beguiling. Simplicity captured on record almost always sounds immense, and this little creature is going to get caned thanks to its sweetness and light.
Deastro
‘Toxic Crusader’
(Ghostly International)
One of our favourite US labels continue their forays into exposing electrically tinged indie acoustic acts. Deastro makes space pop, and his vision for his music and for the good of mankind is as expansive as our mysterious heavens. ‘Toxic Crusader’ launches cerebral electronics into our future with a huge chorus, grounded drums and a massive kink of psychedelic twirl. His shows are even more impressive and universally binding in his attempts to change lives in the course of his own gig. We like ambition, so put this in your head.
Miike Snow
‘Animal’ (Fake Blood Remix)
(Columbia)
Does this Miike tune have one of the sweetest voices in pop? Why yes! And is Fake Blood the most hands-down shit-hot dance producer melting minds right now? Why yes. And is this song one of most impressive remixes that’s been aired for a while? Why YES! (We love it when this happens.) This song should be a single. It’s huge, and you’ll never tire of its captivating humming and forthright stomping bass. Imagine Laurent Garnier remixing Peter, Bjorn And John or Skream remixing Paul Simon. Very catchy and a little bit rude.
PANTyRAiD
‘Beba’
(Marine Parade)
Sharp, snapping and frozen beats tear into one’s mind, yet its structure and groove make this one of the hottest tracks on this album. LA’s Glitch Mob has splintered both literally and musically, as these shattered hip-hop beats take huge strides forward for lovers of Dilla, Prefuse, Flylo and the more recent wUnKy upstarts of Paul White, Rustie and Bullion. We talk about this a lot. Apologies if you aren’t quite so into it, but it is a bit of a developing movement and we are on a sonic safari. Rar.
Wild Beasts
‘Hooting & Howling’ (Debukas Remix)
(Domino)
You really get the sneaking suspicion that Wild Beasts are gonna be one of the rulers of 2009. Not only are they so effortlessly musical, have great songs already and their new album is IMMENSE, but they take a remix very well. Here the lead single gets rubbed up the right way from Glasgow house crew Debrukas who keep the liquid vocals pouring over every surface, but buffs up the track with lots of chrome percussion and gleaming melodies. It’s sparkling and it’s yours now thanks to the generosity of those Domino darlings. Get clicking and get grooving with these sleek monsters. Double rar.
múm
‘Singalong’
(Fat Cat)
múm’s not so much gone to Iceland but IS from Iceland. But we are talking small ‘m’ guys. Not the big ‘M’ who deserves all those cards that you forget to send and whose amniotic fluids were so lovely and crucial so long ago. This Icelandic band of melody should require few introductions, but if this is your debut then let’s call them ‘bendy’. They have few rules and their number of members fluctuates more than a Glastonbury weather forecast (and they all play in just about as many other bands as a whole Glasto line-up too). It’s twee-core really. Fucking serious. In a fluffy way.
MSTRKRFT
‘1,000 Cigarettes’ (feat Freeway)
(Geffen)
Canada’s main-room dance dons allow us to drop one of their rather large plastic bombs in the form of this rapped up ’80s homage. This is all space keys stolen from the same archive as Daft Punk’s ‘Robot Rock’ and shaken up with the same vigour – just in a different French speaking region of the world. It’s naturally very big and not very clever, but that’s when dance music works best, and it’s why Karlheinz Stockhausen never headlined Pasha in Ibiza. Unless you noticed something we didn’t when we were putting all those boxes into the sky with our Vicks-stained hands.
Jimmy Screech
‘Jamaica’ (DJ Wrongtom Club Mix)
(MAP Music)
Sun-splashed and full of attitude, it’s no surprise that this is called ‘Jamaica’. Screech drills a serious groove here over some slickly reverbed Strummerstyled dub as our MC here regales us with trials of London life. From the coke-sniffing size zeros to the London paper and onto all the parking fines and the pointless public debates. But it’s not all grind though as in his chorus he whisks away to his parents’ isle of Jamaica, which is all sunshine and DJs. Quickly winning the world, and with more ideas than Boris Johnson’s entire bunch of cash addled cronies, Jimmy Screech is forging some pretty appealing noises.
Sliimy
‘Womanizer’
(Warners)
Covering Britney Spears is a like walking a very high tightrope with no one watching, i.e. pointless apart from a deep and perverted personal thrill. New French singer Sliimy however has crushed over two and half minutes of worth into this cover, coming across all Coco Rosie and Feist. Even though it’s a bloke. This begs us to gaze intently at this rather incongruously named new singer. We hope this Sliimy moniker is a nickname and not an explanation. But you never know with the French, and we rarely care when the music is this good.
Matt And Kim
‘Lessons Learned’
(Nettwerk / Fader)
Their name may suggest they have just launched a singing career from their Eighties-styled kids TV show, yet Matt And Kim’s honest, oft twee but nice and wiggly music is based around soaring vocal harmonies and orchestral pop. It’s pretty addictive. Here they step up their own gentle pace with some insistent drumming that would send even Steve Reich diving for a pad, as celestial chords shoot us towards the clouds of the more sugar-spun variety. It’s pop, but not as we’ve known it for a while.
Sleepy Sun
‘New Age’
(ATP Recordings)
Warped and just weird enough, Sleepy Sun are laconic psych-heads from Santa Cruz whose West Coast rock is seared with the bond of a band who are closer than the Gallagher brothers. Sleepy Sun’s deep analogue programmed cosmic explorations are textured and toned beautifully. Their sound is classic yet strangely progressive, and they are ticking more boxes than racing driver Lewis Hamilton during a driving test. If you’ve heard their debut album ‘Embrace’ then the best news is that they already have another album recorded to follow up such a sublime starting statement.
The Brute Chorus
‘Send Me A Message’
(Self Release)
When bands do things on their own terms then generally rather excellent results explode. Presuming that the band are a) good, and b) have enough time, and c) the guitarists don’t become mad coke heads, then being left to one’s own devices will make their artistic fruits pretty juicy. The Brute Chorus are definitely working their own angles delightfully and we are standing back with our cameras primed. One such ‘crazy idea’ was to record their debut album live on stage in front of fans to squeeze that extra bit of pressure from their flapping gills. It worked a treat and closes this sonic slice perfectly. Keep an eye on these players. They’ll get used to the fore.
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