Tuesday 4 January 2011

The Go Team!- Rolling Blackouts (Memphis Industries)

The Go Team!- Rolling Blackouts (Memphis Industries)

It's Hard to believe that it's been over three years since Sophomore album Proof of Youth was released, comforting though for The Go Team! is that no-one has successfully attempted to recreate the band's definitive original combination of cut and paste style influences... Their Debut arguably redefined dance music for indie kids with it's large spaghetti western interludes, massive cheerleading choruses and it's apoclypatic guitar hooks, and that's not even mentioning the confrontation menace that was MC Ninja.

Rolling Blackouts opens with a huge mission statement as TORNADOS opens with that patterned scuzzy guitar sound and Ninja on a bigger mission than Katy B...and then what follows is the most ashamedly upfront, energetic and relentlessly upbeat album this winter could ever produce. Second Track Secetary Song guest stars Satomi Mastsuzaki (Deerhoof) and plays it even more kitsch cutesy than her dayjob. While Woman of the moment Bethany Constentino (Best Coast) excels in the hi-fi version of the Best Coast Universe and Dominque Young Unique challenges Ninja in the stakes of the albums MC on "Voice Yr Choice."

Their Third Album once again mixes all the usual factors, recalling skipping ropes, handclapping routines and the long hot summers of blaxplotation America in the 70s, all massively juxatposed in what sounds like The Go Team! musically biggest record yet. A Band who defined their own sound in 2004, do not need to reinvent the wheel, and Rolling Blackouts doesn't but it certainly pimps it's own ride, adding some lyrical cohesion over  their past releases. So if this year your looking for a positive dance record which is all about good times, then this is the record for you, it's twee but rocks and its assured to make even the most gloomy individual tap a toe. Long Live The Go Team! 8/10

Check Out: Tornados, Voice Yr Choice, The Running Range

Saturday 1 January 2011

FTC Discovery: Gypsy Death & You

Gypsy Death & You

Presumably named after The Kills Song from their debut Keep on Your Mean Side, Philadelphia's Gypsy Death & You are silmilarly a noisy two piece with a joy for raw sonic pop and a minor in shoegaze, their first EP No. 1 is a rough draft of exceptionally hooky songs which promises huge things in 2011.

www.myspace.com/gypsydeathandyoumusic

FTC Discovery: Chelsea Wolfe

Imagine if Laura Palmer had picked up a guitar and formed a band rather than turned to drugs and prostitution and you might expect it to sound a little like this. 

Almost as Doomed as the aforementioned TV Legend, It's a dark, beautiful, beguiling and unpleasant experience recalling last years sublime albums from No Joy or Tamaryn with a haunting pop shriek we are all hoping PJ Harvey is going to return with... It is the music of the dark cold night, of a world you've always hoped didn't exist, that you've seen in the corner of your eye, that you've had nightmares about... but without exception a beautiful nightmare? An early contender for best new act of 2011.

FTC Discovery: NETHERFRIENDS

Netherfriends are seriously my new favourite band... I've had Barry & Sherry on repeat for weeks now and it's a sublime adventure, the simple fuzz pop of opener "Bret Easton Ellis Novel" with it's shout along one liners before giving way to the intricate audio delights of the world music influenced "I'm Gonna Start" and "Live to a Hundred" or the acoustic clap along campfire fun   of "More Than Friends" make me angry I didn't discover on it's release in June, "BARRY & SHERRY" is one of the most accessible albums, probably appealing to anyone who got too hung up on Animal Collective's last album or Yeasayer or Vampire Weekend.

At times angry, focused and fiercly opinionated, Netherfriends deserve attention, I hope they tour the UK in 2011, or America on my visit..for the single purpose to scream along to this my late discovered top 10 album of 2010 if I'd discovered it in time!