Lovvers are set to release their debut long player on August 10^th, entitled OCD Go Go Go Girls and the single ‘OCD Go Go Girls’ (that’s one less ‘Go’, word fans) on August 3^rd. In order to wet some appetites though, the band have made album track ‘AXTXTXIXUXDE’ available as a free download.

You know what to expect from Lovvers by now. Fuzzed out, fucked up, lo-fi goodness. Like Wavves? Love Lovvers. Here ya go:

mp3:> Lovvers: ‘AXTXTXIXTXUXDXE’

Admittedly, Jens Lekman made this mix available up on his website about a month ago – but I’ve only just discovered it thanks to fellow Lekman uber fan and TLOBF staff writer Laura Snapes.

I’ve just finished listening to his adorable mix May 17th, Two Thousand and Fine: ‘The Summer Never Ends’ and had to post it up.. It contains some priceless commentary from the great man, some little snippets of the samples he used on his last album Night Falls Over Kortedala and also the recent single from fellow Service Records labelmates and super influential Swedes The Embassy.

Tracklisting is:
(excerpt from) The Summer Never Ends /// I Really Think That We Can Make It Girl /// Nicolette Larsson – Lotta Love /// The Embassy – State 08 /// (excerpt from) New Directions /// Coke Escovedo – I Wouldn’t Change A Thing /// Filippo Trecca – La Morte Dell’erminia /// His name is Mikael Carlsson, her name is Alicia Keys /// Lamont Dozier – Blue Sky and Silver Bird /// Cat Stevens – If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out /// Jeff Perry – Love Don’t Come No Stronger /// Good News – Australia /// Baby’s Gang – America /// American Breed – Always You

Just click here and scroll on down to the May 17th post to find the link.

In other Lekman related news. I also discovered a video by a band called The Sweptaways today which features Jens on vocals. It’s pretty nice and probably the only new Jens-related material we’ll hear in 2009 – watch below whilst you’re waiting for the mix to download.

Get excited peoples. Bella Union’s newest signings Chimes & Bells will be heading over to this fair isle next month for three London shows, including a performance at the Wireless Festival.

We’ve been rabbiting on about these guys for a few months now and reviewed their sublime EP Into Pieces Of Wood here which received a (not to be sniffed at) 85% on the TLOBF-o-meter.

Chimes & Bells could easily be described as a Danish Beach House on the sound stakes. They’re boy/girl two piece for starters and practice in that heavily reverbed, other-wordly charm that ‘the House do oh so well. But there is a darker force to them too, something almost sinister. The EP has certainly been on Heavy Rotation on the TLOBF office stereo for a fair while now, and I strongly urge you to check them out. Regrettably, I won’t be at any of the shows as I’m away sampling the delights of Latvia. Fail.

Catch the band at the following shows (I’d recommend the Slaughtered Lamb):

July
4 – Wireless Festival (Bella Union Stage) – Hyde Park, London
5 – The Slaugthered Lamb, London
6 – Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

Fancy a taster? Download a track from the EP Into Pieces Of Wood below.

mp3:> Chimes & Bells: ‘Stand Still’

Los Angeles based Foreign Born release their new album Person To Person this week via Secretly Canadian.  Described by the label as “an anthem band without the fist-pumping anthem” Foreign Born have delivered something rather special indeed with the follow up to 2007’s cult hit On The Wing Now.

We recently fired off some questions to Matt Popieluch and Lewis Pesacov. Whilst you’re reading, check out two tracks from Person To Person below.

mp3:> Foreign Born: ‘Vacationing People’
mp3:> Foreign Born: ‘Early Warnings’ Continue Reading

Carpet Madness is the debut album from latest Fat Cat signing, Get Back Guinozzi. Full of colour and character, it comprises a unique blossoming of hybrid sources – infectiously poppy, quirky and breezy, with a strong French slant and a wide range of influences taking in the likes of Talking Heads, The Feelies, The Smiths, early B-52’s, King Sunny Adé, Lee Perry, Rip Rig & Panic, Ariel Pink, The Slits, The Cure, Animal Collective, Jonathan Richman, and Serge Gainsbourg.

Infused with the exoticism of reggae, dub, African music, Tropicalia, and Cambodian music from the ’60s, the breadth of sources GBG draws upon, allied by singer Eglantine Gouzy’s skewed narratives and heavily-inflected English, give the project a distinctive individuality. Now comprising a 5-piece band based between London and the South of France, Get Back Guinozzi is driven by two French friends, Gouzy and Fred Landini.

Get Back Guinozzi will undertake their first proper bout of live touring this Autumn. The band’s debut single ‘Low Files Tropical’ will be released on September 14th.

Sample this delightful band below, with their cover of the Junior Mervin classic ‘Police & Thieves’.

mp3:> Get Back Guinozzi: ‘Police & Thieves’

Lord Cut-Glass is former Delgado Alun Woodward, a solo project which has grown incrementally over the 4 years since The Delgados disbanded. Interestingly, it is the product of a febrile mind… “At the start of recording I got Scarlet Fever and stayed in bed for ages, reading my girlfriends books.” Explains Woodward of Lord Cut-Glass’ creation, “I read Under Milk Wood in a feverish state and decided I would call myself after one of the characters”.

“Musically I started writing songs with the idea of being in a band with a couple of other people. I asked them and they said they didn’t want to, so I thought fuck it I’ll do it all myself.”

Chemikal Underground are set to release the album on June 23rd.

Lord Cut-Glass Track List
1. Even Jesus Couldn’t Love You
2. Look After Your Wife
3. Holy Fuck!
4. I’m A Great Example To The Dogs
5. Monster Face
6. You Know
7. Be Careful What You Wish For
8. Picasso
9. A Pulse
10. Big Time Teddy
11. Toot Toot

As a taster, you can download the opening track, ‘Even Jesus Couldn’t Love You’ here.

Anyone looking for an excuse to go to the Willkommen evening at the Union Chapel this Friday night (12th June) seriously needs to download this exclusive recording which is, funnily enough, taken from a Sons Of Noel and Adrian set at the very same venue last June.

Brought to us by Arctic Circle, the guys behind the Willkommen evening that TLOBF are proudly sponsoring, enjoy ‘Kernow’, ‘Inside Olympia’ and a rousing rendition of ‘The Wreck Is Not A Boat’.

Keep checking back all week for more exclusive content from Sons of Noel and Adrian, Laish Quartet, Rowan Coupland and Shoreline. We’ll be featuring competitions and audio interviews from each of the bands playing on the 12th.

Tickets are still available for £10. For more information and to purchase a ticket, visit the Arctic Circle website.

Live Session: ‘Sons Of Noel and Adrian: ‘Live at Union Chapel 2008′
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To celebrate the launch of our new Oh! Canada column, we thought it was only right that you should get to hear just what it is thats getting us so excited about what’s coming out of the “Great White North” right now. While we all know about the Broken Social Scene’s, Arcade Fire’s and Fiest’s of the world, TLOBF will be searching the grass routes to bring you the best up and coming Canadian talents. Over the next few months you will find reviews and interviews of all of the artists featured here, so, without further ado, we present:

1. Andrew Vincent – Canadian Dream
2. Ultimate Power Duo – Jack The Space/ Time Continuum Ripper
3. Ohbijou – Intro To Season
4. Dan Mangan – Robots
5. Timber Timbre – Lay Down In The Tall Grass
6. The Michael Parks – I Like The Summer
7. Pale Air Singers – Convict Escapes
8. Jim Bryson – Pissing On Everything (Live)
9. Bruce Peninsula – Steamroller
10. No Horses – Grab Yer Coat
11. The Provincial Archive – We Work Better
12. Forest City Lovers – Sudden Seas
13. The D’Urbervilles – Dragnet
14. Zeus – I Know
15. Hey Rosetta! – There’s An Arc
16. The Wind Whistles – Judo
17. The Weather Station – Coming Into Town
18. Ghost Bees – Vampires of The West Coast
19. Braids – Lemonade

DOWNLOAD
[mp3] Oh! Canada Volume 1
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TLOBF would like to thank all of the bands and labels who have given us their music to share with you. If you like what you are hearing, get in touch and let us (and them) know.

Yo La Tengo have confirmed the release of their new album. To be called Popular Songs, it’ll be released via Matador on September 7th 2009. Love the cover art!

There’s also the small matter of the YLT playing their first ever Freewheeling Show as part of Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown festival at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on June 15th.

As a taster of things to come, you can download the ‘Periodically Double Or Triple’ from the album here!

Further details of a new Buy Early Get Now campaign for the album, along with Yo La Tengo’s autumn tour plans, coming soon!

Gregory & The Hawk return across the pond and announce a set of European dates.

This includes a date this very Friday (5th June) at the Brixton Windmill returning for a Queen Of Hoxton show later in the month (24th June).

For our European readers, here’s some more dates:

June
05 London Windmill
06 Netherlands – De Nieuwe Anita
07 Germany – Offenbach Hafen 2
08 Germany – Duisburg Steinbruch
09 Germany – Munster Gleis 22
10 Germany – Berlin Dot Club
14 Sweden – Gothenberg Parken
15 Norway – Oslo Cafe Mono
18 Germany – Heidelberg Zum Teufel
21 Cork Infirmiry
22 Dublin Whelans (upstairs)
23 Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
24 London Queen Of Hoxton

To help celebrate this event, we’ve got an exlusive giveaway of ‘Grey Weather’ from the Moenie and Kitchi album, which was released via FatCat last year.

Gregory & The Hawk – Grey Weather

The Cave Singers release their eagerly awaited second album Welcome Joy on the Monday 17th August via Matador. To celebrate and as a little sneak preview for y’all, they’ve made an mp3 of brand new album track ‘Beach House’ available as a free download!

‘Beach House’ is a gorgeous, brooding and building track which seems like a perfect introduction to the album. So far, we’ve only heard a smattering of tracks from the record via the Cave Singers recent performance at ATP. If the proof lies in the live set, it appears that the band have beefed up their mainly acoustic musings of the excellent self-titled debut. Expect great things.

The trio of Peter Quirk, Derek Fudesco and Marty Lund were joined on this record by Amber Webber (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust) and Ashley Webber (Lightning Dust). They recorded the album at The Hive in Vancouver with Colin Stewart.

mp3:> The Cave Singers: ‘Beach House’

Memphis punk wunderkind Jay Reatard has just announced details of a new album.

To be called Watch Me Fall, it will be released on Matador Records on August 17th.

Excepting his two single collections on Matador and In The Red respectively last year, this is the follow-up to 2006’s solo debut Blood Visions and you can hear / download the track, ‘Ain’t Gonna Save Me’, from the Matablog now….

YACHT, the avant-pop duo, Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans, will release their new album, See Mystery Lights, on July 27th (28th in the U.S.) on DFA Records.

Pitchfork premiered a new track, ‘Psychic City’ yesterday, offering an early taste of what YACHT has in store.  However, you can now download the ‘Psychic City’ MP3 here! Ahhh, the wonders of the internet..

For more about the story of ‘Psychic City’ check out the band-made page, here.  Keep an eye out for a complementary video to come later this Summer.

The Keyboard Choir have announced details of the Electrical Unity EP, to be released for free in partnership with The Independent and Last.FM.

It features an edit of the closing track ‘Electrical Unity’ from their acclaimed debut album Mizen Head To Gascanane Sound (which is now in the shops again via Cargo Distribution, following the untimely collapse of distributor Pinnacle) as well as three brand new tracks and two live versions taken from Keyboard Choir’s last.fm/presents live show at Cargo.

The Independent Online will host a daily band blog next week, with the song available to download via their last.fm profile. The blogs will also feature film footage from the last.fm/presents show and a filmed interview with Sebastian Reynolds.

1. Electrical Unity (Edit)
2. Tokyo At Night
3. Stagger
4. Transine
5. Bugs (Live at last.fm/presents @ Cargo)
6. Electrical Unity (Live at last.fm/presents @ Cargo)

Will electronica make a comeback at the end of the decade? It seems that having gone organic in the 00s with folktronica, many electronica artists have been second-guessed recently by folk artists (from Bon Iver to Iron & Wine) augmenting their music with pro-tooled trickery. With the likes of Grizzly Bear being signed to Warp it seemed that these artists had the critical and commercial edge: vocal-led music, however abstract, was having more traction with listeners and reviewers – underpinning their haunted mood pieces with harmonies and (albeit fragmented) song structures. Meanwhile the likes of Animal Collective, who had been long lumped with the freak folk set – despite apparently seeing themselves as sonic collagists as opposed to a ‘proper’ band – have had an impact on electronica. Caribou, once of Manitoba fame, found a wider audience with his ‘Andorra’ album, which embraced the infectious, polychromatic psychedelics and West Coast harmonies of Panda Bear and Avery Tare. Continue Reading

We reported on this new side project by Interpol’s Paul Banks a couple of weeks ago…. well, now you’ve got a chance to have a listen to the first fruits of Julian Plenti’s labour.

Those lovely folks over at Matador have got the track ‘Fun That We Have’ hosted here.

Let us know what you think…

Hockey, one of the most talked about bands in 2009, have just finished a sold-out tour with Friendly Fires, but you can catch them playing two shows at this weekend’s Great Escape festival…

Did you see their recent performance on Jools Holland? What did you think our beloved TLOBF readers? Their latest single, ‘Learn To Lose’, is released on 1st June.

In the meantime, we’ve got it first, you can download the Labyrinth remix of the new single below! For free!

Learn To Lose – Labyrinth Remix

Influential sonic pioneers, Tortoise are set to release their sixth studio album on 22nd June. Entitled Beacons of Ancestorship, it is their first full length of new material in five years. And it sounds like nothing else Tortoise have produced… it’s a mad, rollercoaster ride of influences and noises.

As a taster of this new record, the band and the lovely people at Thrill Jockey have allowed us to share a track from the album called ‘Prepare your Coffin’. You can download it here.

Look out for a full review of the album nearer its release date…

This is the grungiest fucking release of the decade. Just…holy shit. This self-titled mini-album from Leeds based duo Castrovalva will steamroll over your balls and then have the gall to spit in your face. You’ll need an aspirin after having finished this 20-minute juggernaut. Castrovalva is basically like watching a monkey coked out of its mind break shit with a baseball bat while air raid sirens blare in the background. That’s not meant to be ironic. That’s not meant to be pejorative. That’s just meant to be true, ’cause this is a blast to listen to. It’s a tough call as to whether it would work as an LP, but it works here as a small dose of unbridled insanity. Even the band itself thought that it needed to give its listeners a break considering it threw an ambient track right in the middle and called it ‘London Kills Me.’ The track acts as a nice breather between the heaviest song here, ‘Bison Scissor Kick,’ and the oddball-yet-funky ‘My Father Bleeds History.’ Continue Reading

The Forest & The Trees are Joel and Linnea Edin, they live in marital bliss at their apartment outside of Stockholm, Sweden where they sleep, eat and create spectaculary joyous pop music. The couple started making music together whilst recording a Christmas CD-R for their friends and are currently busy working on their debut album which is currently being touted for a late 2009 release. Some eagle eyed folk might also recognise Joel and Linnea from the twee-as-can-be Tupelo Honeys (reviewed here), in which Joel’s sister Linn completes the lineup.

Fans of Loney dear, Taken By Trees, The Sundays will reep great rewards from downloading the three tracks at the bottom of this post. ‘Circus Lonely Hearts’, ‘Mother’ and ‘I Need Some Peace’ all contain the vital ingredients necessary for a perfect pop song. The fact that they’re Swedish also helps the cause – because, as you know, anything that comes out of Sweden generally has a major *WIN* tag attached. On ‘I Need Some Peace’ the duo are hugely reminisent of the aforementioned Loney dear, no suprise really as bass player David Lindvall is the producer. Expect escalating choruses that spiral into euphoric highs – with shuffling drums, tinkling glockonspiel, and lusious harmonies. Lovely.

TLOBF are hoping to bring the duo over to the UK later in the year for a show or two in London, we will of course, keep you posted with any progress. For now though, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Joel and Linnea as they tell us a little more about what makes The Forest & The Trees tick. Continue Reading