Age Of Consent -dark sounds of tomorrows electro past!

Age Of Consent are two ex members of Shit Disco, Joe Reeves and Darren Cullen, making melancholic electro pop in the same vein as 80s greats like Heaven 17 or Berlin era Bowie but with all the right sounds that are making up 2010.

I loved Shit Discos super fast stuff that skirted around the edge of "New Rave" or perhaps they were New Rave I cant remember but Age Of Consent slow things down and bring the catchyness with a vengeance. I was all over this when I first heard it and almost thought for a moment that it was the Klaxons new stuff under a different name!!

The three songs that make up the demo are great, very well written pop songs, all dark electro heartbreak, the kind of the sound La Roux should have had but didn't! They were produced by Luke Smith (Depeche Mode, Clor, Foals) in Italy and you can tell a bit of that dark Italian Disco feeling permeates into their sound!

This is a "band okayed" link to download one of their demo songs -"Heartbreak"

Here also is their Facebook and Twitter.

As I write this the band are building their studio to record more tracks so prepare for some great things coming this year!

M.I.A Born Free.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Just had to post it. It sets the bar for making music videos that bit higher! Plus this version of the track is just amazing!

MMOSS and CQ

Some great psychedelic garage for you today in the form of New Hampshire unsigned four piece MMOSS (or maybe its mmoss, I'm not sure on this all caps spelling or not.) Proper 60s sounding folk pop psychedelia, there's even a flute in there at one point! Dulcimers, Hammond organ, twelve string guitar strumming, its great!

It makes me want to wake up dressed in a long silk shirt, in a white teepee, in a summer field with long haired smiling friends and we all go dancing through the woods to the top of a windblown hillside and never think about bills or work.

They have an eighteen track album called "i" for download from Bandcamp on the pay 'what you want' basis!

Go get it!!

Paired with this post is the band CQ also it seems from New Hampshire and also unsigned. CQ is two sixteen year olds making wonderful shoegazey, garage with all the reverb loving spaceyness of Chillwave. Just like MMOSS they take you away on a fantasy nostalgia trip just in a different way!

Nothing to download yet but they have some great stuff to listen to on their myspace.

King Antics!

King Antics: Unsigned, 3 piece post punk primitivism, synths, drum machines, epic like Wire, vocals like Editors.

Dynamic hauntings and feelings of fellow Londoners Wild Palms, vaguely industrial but african rhythms thrown around like its the artschool 80s.

You can hear this is not their first band, this is something that's been brewed a while, although these guys are only recently formed. A handful of gigs and much blog screaming.

More than worth a listen. Check them on their myspace.

Chillwave, riding the next 5 bands!

Here we are at the begining of summer 2010 surfing the Chillwave all the way up the beach untill it crashes down upon the sand with the sound of approaching panpipes and bongos coming from the jungle ahead!

Dont listen to the haters, jealous of your Chillwave summer, they tried to spoil things with the Icelandic ash cloud grounding the planes across Europe but we played Neon Indian loudly to the skies and blew the cobwebs away.

With this in mind here are five more great Chillwave bands to light up the night sky!

Wild Nothing is classic stuff all emotive mellow and hazey. This is just one guy, 21 year old Jack Tatum from Virgina. He has two 7"s out on Captured Tracks one of which is a cover of a Kate Bush song!

This is totally excellent stuff with great arrangements on a par with Washed Out or Neon Indian! Dont miss out on this guy!

Teej again is just one guy but this time from this blogs home town of Brighton, England! He has a four track EP called Thirst EP out now for free which was recorded this winter in the snowy climbs of Hokkaido.

This is all glitchy drums, buzzing synths and glazed vocals layered into an epic sound, staring at the winter sun on a snow clad beach with grey waves pounding a rhythm of keyboard solos and computer game sleep cycles.

Get the EP free from >here.

Kiss Kiss Fantastic are a girl/boy duo who have never met, one of them lives in Florida the other in California. They make dream pop that isn't really lo-fi at all but is most definitely still in the Chillwave camp all star filled eyes and blissful indie!

They have a six track EP to download for free from their Bandcamp, which is most definitely worth it.

Holiday Shores are a four piece that lean towards that surf garage side of Chillwave, a boy based Pearl Harbor, Beach Boys on Valium, this is the sound of being drunk on a Florida beach and indeed this band are from Tallahassee. No keys in this band which will annoy the purists but damn you people, genres are there to slip and slide.

The band have an album, Columbus'd The Whim out on Two Syllable Records.

Finally we have Toro Y Moi. Toro Y Moi is classic housey nostalgia, ultimate reverb vocals crooning over a sound of wooshing organ, dew drop chimes and suntanned hand claps. The best Chillwave sounds should be the soundtrack to playing classic retro computer game "California Games" and I bet I could rack up a pretty high score playing hackey sack to this guy! LP Causers Of This is out now on Carpark Records!

Toro Y Moi Blog.

Contort Yourself first night! 29th April.

CONTORT YOURSELF relaunch at the Jazz Place on Thursday 29th April.

Djs:

FOKKAWOLFE,

JAMES HAIR,
RESTLESSLIST,
CONTORT YOURSELF,
(Playing, postpunk, psych, surf, darkwave, garage, african rhythms, jazz)
********
10pm till 3am!
********
£5/4(NUS)

********

with THOMAS WHITE -playing as a stripped down three piece!!

Music Week: "...a blaze of kaleidoscopic, yet finely nuanced, psych-pop, from Syd Barrett-style haunted whimsy to 70's soft rock and heavier riffing. Live he's terrific too, with a dynamic band behind him."

PLUS LIVE LIGHT SHOWS AND PROJECTIONS THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT FROM INNERSTRINGS PSYCHEDELIC LIGHTSHOW! See video of just a small example below!

Pluto liquid wheel,with Optikinetics cassette

innerstrings psychedelic lightshow | MySpace Video

This is going to be an insane happening, Exploding Plastic Inevitable style!!

//Tense// release full length album, Memory.

//Tense// are just a superb Texan industrial electro-goth/darkwave band that should be far more well known than they are (see Bosco Delray for equally unknown genius!)

Anyway that might all change with the release of their first proper full length album of ten all new tracks called Memory.

Out on Desire Records soon it will be on CD, digital and limited edition vinyl, so formats galore! Still doesn't top Geneva Jacuzzis upcoming 8 track version of her album Lamaze. Though if that actually happens or not is another thing entirely!

Here's a great //Tense// track I didn't post before that also has an equally nice video!

This is the track listing for their album:

1 - WORK HARD SHORT LIFE
2 - SIN REALITE
3 - PERPETUAL SWIM
4 - MINE TOO
5 - LOST RACE
6 - EMPTY HANDED
7 - THE VISITOR
8 - LEAD HEAD
9 - LIVING DREAM
10 - RAPID PULSE

Bye Bye Blackbird -Modest Mouse cover!

Now I've never really been a fan of Modest Mouse but this cover from Bye Bye Blackbird of their single Float On is really great. Chillwave vocals to the max, echoing drum claps and fuzzy synths just make it a summer classic. Like all By Bye Blackbirds songs its very short, coming in at one minute forty nine seconds! You really want it to be longer and it could easily be but perhaps that's the point, its short and sweet and you wont drift off to sleep and get sun stroke! Its free to download from Bandcamp and you should go check it out, how do you not have a minute and a half to spare?

Wild Palms at The Recommender 24th April.

So like this is happening on the 24th April and is gonna be so good and everyone has to come. (Not before I get my ticket though!)

Wild Palms are just so good! They're kind of on tour/kind of just getting tons of gigs right now but don't miss this because its going to be amazing.

Postpunk but done with the proper fury and energy that it should have, not this weedy Flock Of Seagulls inspired stuff thats floating to the surface at the moment!

Here's the bands Myspace and Tumblr and below is their video for Over Time. Big things people, big things!

The gig is being put on by The Recommender, top league bloggers and burgeoning promoters.

So again, its on Saturday 24th April @Jam in Brighton for only £4! Be there or be jealous!

wild palms - over time music video from James Copeman on Vimeo.

The oo

Defined by not being The xx?

The oo on myspace.

Twin Sister, Colour Your Life EP.

With a wonderful, no filler, 6 track EP available to download for free (only for the next few days) and a tour with the equally chillwavey Holiday Shores just finished, Twin Sister are not only generous but also very timely too! A five piece group from Long Island they make music from their apartments to spin your brain to other lands.

But this isn't just a one idea chillwave nostalgiafest all warm and fuzzy. The songs on their Colour Your Life EP go to exciting new places, from the synth heavy slow smacky side of chillwave to Wickerman folk melodies into sprawling orchestral noisescapes and back again to loveable pop ditties! They remind me of A Sunny Day In Glasgow and that cant be bad.

Their site not only has their free EP to download but a huge selection of other songs they have recorded to listen to as well, plus all their many upcoming gigs and press.

Health, We Are Water.

New video for Healths "We Are Water"

Kinda reminds of one of those videos were that singer from the Foo Fighters dresses up as a lady, but one where its all gone very wrong!

Psychic Reality, Lately Blu Blu and Bermuda Bonnie!

Here are three interesting bands all composed of female members I've discovered recently.

First is Bermuda Bonnie, originally from Philadelphia this two piece lo-fi electronic based band now reside un-signed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (the lucky devils!) in the email they wrote me they describe their sound as "poppy, sassy, and psychedelic" and it is.

Its also very sweet, strangely minimal, lo-fi and bedroom sounding but in a really nice way. Its quite punk in that respect, even though their Myspace is littered with images of wonderful cheesy beach based psychedelia.

Imagine a stoned American version of Bis.. Its odd but works!

They have a 7 song album to download for free on Bandcamp. Check it out!

Next is Lately Blu Blu.

Lately Blu Blu is Leticia Llesmin a singer/songwriter and visual artist from LA, this is in the realm of gloomy anti-folk, kind of grungy at times, sometimes a little like Kimya Dawson. Kind of sad songs on sunny days.

Her Website has a couple of very nice free downloads and a great bunch of releases to buy and is full of many more links and info than the Myspace.

Check out the video below as well for an immediate take on her sound!

Finally we have Psychic Reality from San Francisco who have just finished touring with Pocahaunted and are about to embark on a 2 month tour of the States with LA Vampires with whom they have a split 7".

Psychic Reality is all looped noise, beautiful but distorted vocals, mechanical clattering rhythms, voices in tunnels, emerging lights and haunting feedback. But it is also quite structured, song based and almost poppy!

Great stuff, check their Myspace for all the tour dates and fingers crossed they come to the UK sometime soon!

Dark Horses a film about Dark Horses.

Brighton based art rock mystery band Dark Horses, hunted by people in the know, haunted by people you'll never know, hounded in the dark, darkly alluding to timeless sounds and night wishes.

This is a film about them by director Steve Glashier:

A Film About Dark Horses - Dir Steve Glashier from Steve Glashier on Vimeo.

Chillwave 6 Of the Best, +5 more!

To accompany my "Six of the best Chillwave bands"article in the April 2010 issue of The Brighton Source magazine this month here are a bunch more of equally great bands that I had to leave out!

Featured in The Source were:

Washed Out,
Neon Indian,
Best Coast,
Pearl Harbour, (now Puro Instinct)
Memory Tapes
Bye Bye Blackbird (now Blackbird Blackbird)

First up is the amazing Memory House, the name sums it up really! Dreamy Hipstermatic induced and sleep washed pop tunes part folk tinged synth dreams and quiete blissful ambient lovelyness.

A Canadian boy/girl due, get their two EP's Caregiver and Lately from Bandcamp (Lately is free)

Small Black are a four piece with a great stage presence and an approach to music making that is fully Chillwave. Grooving pop tunes with a blissed out feel, dreamy and dancey, upbeat but medicated, Valium parties on sandy beaches underneath serotonin bloated full moons, staring wide eyed down onto the world.

Check their blog too for all the usual stuff and links to all their releases.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow are a six piece Philadelphian band who do a wonderful dreamy synth/guitar/samples/vocals thing that is more Chillwave than a memory of riding your bmx to the beach all cought on super 8 film! But is also a definate group creation not a Washed Out style solo effort. They have an album and 7" out and a bunch of internet presence! Myspace. Facebook. Website.

Real Estate are from New Jersey and make quiet, happy, psychedelic Chillwave for anti-folk fans.

Glo-fi, psychedelic, dream pop, instruments and garage sensibilities as much influenced by 60s psych bands as Housey synth chill-out.

Finally I've left the best to last with the brilliant Tory Y Moi, this dude is just immense, total full on, perfectly crafted, Housey blissful pop tunes. Smooth and dancey as if Prince had been reborn as someone who isn't uptight. Best to listen to while driving to your favourite hang out by the beach or up in the hills, not only is the sun shining but you know it will be all summer and although night is nearly upon you the warm summer breeze is keeping everything drifting along just perfectly.

Soundcloud. Facebook.

Read the "Six of the Best Chillwave" article below (its on the very last page):

(edited for clarity since first posted in April 2010)