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Pop Musicology - "The Second Drummer Drowned"

Pop Musicology - March 2007

Anthems For Odyssey – Come Blister The Sea EP

Though their aesthetic may be somewhat overwrought, the aptly-monikered Anthems For Odyssey create the kind of thrilling, pulsing soundscapes that My Bloody Valentine would have done had they hung out with their more up-tempo contemporaries. The multi-faceted clatter of 'Song For Sveta' is the equal of anything on Silversun Pickups' record from last year that was so heralded, but with a more considered, less bombastic bent to it. This is clearly a thoughtful approach to a sound that can so often become slapdash.


It's the minute changes in texture that impress the most. It seems that every band we see nowadays professing to have a knowledge of 'walls of noise' merely has one guitarist with a pedal board as a penis substitute, but AFO actually understand the value of tiny timbral shifts, the effectiveness of holding back that one moment longer. Case in point is the bob-bobbing bass intro of 'Goodnight Britain', leading us towards something altogether more cheerful than the dark cod-reggae of that supersedes it. This is clever music with its eyes firmly on the listener, separating them from shoegazer revivalists elsewhere.

Go here for hearing.

Anthems For Odyssey
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New Beat Radio Mp3 to download

March 28th 2007 09:15
Is that the correct way to tabulate 'Mp3'? Who knows.

Remember last year when PM was going wicked mental for the bristly indie-popof New York's Beat Radio? Yeah, you do. Well, a new song is available for download. It's taken from a forthcoming EP called 'Safe Inside The Sound' (doesn't that sound reassuring?) which, on the strength of 'People Are Talking', should be pretty wonderful. Just listen to the bubbly keyboard noises under the verses... perfick.

Go here to the band's MySpace, or download the new song from this here link.



Beat Radio
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Butterflies of Love On Tour

March 27th 2007 18:02
You heard! The Butterflies of Love, wondrous expressors of psychedelic whimsy and pop as shiny as really shiny shoes are in Britain as of now!

Their dates are as follows:

Mar 28 The Bassment, Chelmsford
Mar 29 Buffalo Bar, London
Mar 30 The Cherry Tree, Steventon (nr Oxford)
Mar 31 The Rising Sun Arts Centre, Reading
Apr 3 The Grapes, Sheffield
Apr 4 The Packhorse, Leeds
Apr 5 The Cluny, Newcastle
Apr 6 The Social, Nottingham
Apr 7 The Louisiana, Bristol
Apr 8 The 100 Club, London

Mmm, see you at the Buffalo Bar show on Thursday, yes? The 100 Club show has support from ex-Hefner genius Darren Hayman and the lovely lovely lovely Airport Girl. You can rifle through PM previous posts to find a review of their last LP, I can't be bothered right now.

Butterflies of Love
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One of the loveliest and most wickedly wicked badass up-to-date digital style websites The Downloader (for which PM is a monumentally proud contributor) is hosting a week of Bella Union-flavoured free stuff. Which means that you get free exclusive songs from one of the best labels on the planet. Bella Union is home to Explosions in the Sky, Midlake, Lift To Experience (you heard), My Latest Novel (who splashed about like victory fish in PM's end of year lists a few months back) and a million other wonderful things.

Today's track is an exclusive remix of an old Midlake song. PM is listening to it right now. It's fucking great.

[ Click here to read more ]
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PM has ceated a Monster!

March 21st 2007 17:20
Oh, just look at what's going on here at this old post about Lil Chris.

Those comments! They hurt! Is PM naive to think that these people should be locked up somewhere? God, the internet scares me sometimes... I mean, what are these people gaining from this? Are they just annoyed teenage girls or is PM having the piss ripped out of us by hilarious peers? One of them calls PM ugly! And we all know that's not true, right guys?

[ Click here to read more ]
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The Bees at London Astoria

March 20th 2007 12:53
Ooh, what fun they were on the 7th of March! Just look! There'll probably beE a review of the show up on DiS later this week and I can't be arsed to write another, so just enjoy the pictures, yessuh?

The Bees at London Astoria

[ Click here to read more ]
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Mittens - Fools On A Holiday

March 19th 2007 09:00
Mittens – Fools On A Holiday (Bodies Of Water Arts And Crafts Records)

Sometimes, you need to sit down. Don't you think? You can't always push forward and edge ever-closer to sitting on a rocking chair while you survey all you've conquered from the top of the hill. Sometimes you can sit on that rocking chair and not have to bother about walking forwards. And when you sit in that chair, Mittens will softly assemble themselves in your living room and play pop music for you. For that is what they write, and they write it like some people who know how to write it really goodly.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Butcher Boy – Profit In Your Poetry (How Does It Feel To Be Loved? Records)

It's important that the first line on Butcher Boy's debut LP is "I'm screaming in my sleep". While that could usually could be located in any pan-Scandinavian mongers of death metal's oeuvre, it is here employed to begin and set the emotional balance of a record of sweet, scornful and sometimes utterly scathing songs about the opposite sex and the frustrations they reap from one man – John Blain Hunt (soon to be appearing on Stars In Their Eyes as Ian Curtis and Edwyn Collins and Morrissey at the same time).

[ Click here to read more ]
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Sorry So Much

March 18th 2007 11:24
For not being any good of late. Now PM is back, fully informed about such subjects as the imperialism and modernity in the music of Edward Elgar, the constant Nazism references in the films of Ken Russell, the authenticity of recorded birdsong incorporated into Western Art Music, and how much you can trust Everett True. Sometimes I love my degree.

Sorry we were gone so long!
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Go to the band's MySpace to listen to 'Robot Command Centre'. Mmm!

PM loves a little bit of clarinet. Used correctly, it can be the sound of sex and meekness, and Dark Captain Light Captain have definitely plumped for the former. Woodwind is something that can make or break a folk song (that was PM insulting Steeleye Span, insult fans), but there is enough veiled menace and potential energy in the ebony-black clarinet line to transfix. You'll listen very closely for its return at the tail-end of the song, and you'll miss it while it's gone.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Electric Assembly - Eyes On The Wall EP (Dream Driven Recordings)

This is a release custom-built for those idealistic moments you tell yourself you've had loads of. When you've stumbled home at a rather ridiculous hour from a ridiculous place and you need something akin to Mogwai playing the Beach Boys back catalogue to soothe your seethes away. These times are rare, though, aren't they? You probably only had them when you were a student.

[ Click here to read more ]
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This time, PM resolutely avoids financial despair by not buying any drinks whatsoever. It helps me not drink too much, and if it brings the Koko down a little bit in terms of the acts it can afford, then that's no bad thing either. Tonight is an excellent example of that.

Let's get the beef of the issue out of the way. The Koko is far too big a venue for this band. That is not to say they don't deserve the enhanced levels of attention they've been given overf the least few months. No no. But this venue and, more pertinently, its clientele, are all out of goose. This is music to be listened to, not talked over, not over-indulged in to impress your mates and certainly, certainly not to throw cups of beer around to. Yet all of these things happen.

[ Click here to read more ]
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