Once in a while an artist comes along with such a fully formed sound that it just makes me wonder how the music industry got to the stage where they are still sending tracks to self-deprecating bloggers like myself. REID is the latest in this all-too-short line. Following on from his Genesis EP last July, the recently surfaced ‘Miami’ is a vein-dilating passage of introspective, melodic urgency. Whilst being powered along by a pulsating low-end, “Miami” manages to sound like a more careless Gold Panda whilst nailing an intricacy and euphoria that nudges it insistently towards the thoughtful dancefloor. That’s the one full of conservative electronic music anoraks, and this is the most fun they’ll have all night.

Alek.Fin’s “Rocks In Paper” takes the stuttering eccentricity of Thom Yorke and melds it into a melodic anthem of paranoia for the late night hours that you shouldn’t be watching pass you by. What initially seems like a tearful unrequited love situation that melancholic indie types are so fond of slowly becomes more complex, to the point where its not entirely certain what’s going on. Whatever he’s upset about, though, his frustration seems completely tangible, and that matters more than anything.

His ‘Mull’ EP is coming out in July and will definitely be worth keeping an eye on.

Glass Animals have returned from a lengthy absence, but their music is still based on the same principles they had settled on back in 2010; it’s ethereal, sensitive and eclectic, but they’ve clearly been busy in the past two years, because it’s fair to say that new track “Cocoa Hooves” makes it sound like they’ve pretty much perfected this niche they invented all for themselves. Vivid lyrics and tentative, trembling vocals make sure that it packs an emotional punch, making “Cocoa Hooves” feel so intimate that it demands all your attention. Genuinely phenomenal, reserved beauty.

“Cocoa Hooves” will be released by Kaya Kaya Records, allegedly an imprint of XL.

Dauwd and Fort Romeau are two of the most exciting producers making teasing electronic rhythms at the moment, so it makes complete mathematical sense that sticking them together would result in some restrained, aqueous bliss. This Fort Romeau remix of Dauwd’s “What’s There” has got an understated bass hum which will reel you in for five tantalising, semi-euphoric minutes. Both of them are definitely worth checking out.

Just don’t mention the Jing Jang Jong. Because although some members of TOY may have a shadowy past in the morally and musically questionable indie outfit, they have just about everything else going for them. They’ve got the motorik, yearning groove, the melancholy and introspection of shoegaze, and the woozy psychedelic edge. It all amounts to a sound that is completely hypnotic – a cavernous space to get lost in. For me, that’s what music’s about – anybody can pick up an instrument and create something that it is physically possible to listen to, but there’s so much more to music than just listening. Truly inspired music transcends boundaries and is something that you can completely emotionally immerse yourself in – and for hitting this particular nail on the head, TOY deserve to be taken at face value, without the stigma of the past attached.

A good place to start would be recent single “Motoring” which was released last week on Heavenly Recordings and has been given a mind-bending refiddling by the brilliant Peaking Lights (see above). You’ll also find it fortunately tough to avoid them in the coming weeks as they make appearances at The Great Escape, Liverpool Sound City, Live At Leeds, Field Day, Green Man, Bestival, as well as a support slot with The Horrors. So get out of your dilapidated, iniquitous hovel and go and see them.

These days you need to be wearing at least 3 pairs of headphones at any given time to keep up with all of the top-notch music piling out of Liverpool, and All We Are are the latest band to prove this probably-watertight theory. They craft devastating, emotionally-involved folk that belies their age; they haven’t even been together for a year. Far more impressively for such a young band, they’ve already got an incredibly well-defined identity, and one that doesn’t feel worn out or clichéd, but organic and absolutely genuine.

And although tracks like “Red Sky” have the sort of melodic credentials to make even Mr McCartney blush, they also manage to encompass an unconventional spirit; bits fit into bits that you might think they shouldn’t really do, and the result is something that is very uniquely All We Are. There’s also something very magnetic about the  sparse, threatening mood of “Cardhouses”, and when it explodes into its cathartic final third, you won’t be able to keep eyes or ears off them.

Payper Tiger Records will be releasing the “We Hunt” EP on May 1st, and there’s a launch show on 28th April at St. Brides Church, Liverpool.

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Is there any other way to return from a planned absence than with a controversial defamation of one of indie’s most admired bands? No. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to criticise the critically unassailable Dirty Projectors simply for the sake of it; they’ve always been a very impressive band owing mostly to Amber Coffman’s ethereal vocals, but I’ve never been able to get past a feeling of emotional disconnection beyond that. In other words, they’ve always seemed brilliant in a far too ordered and sterile way; always something to admire as a thing of beauty but never to get lost in.

But now, on “Get Free”,  Major Lazer have bridged the gap with a tender and understated production that brings an originality to proceedings and suits Amber’s voice perfectly. All I’m going to say is that if I were Prime Minister, I would pass a law to make sure that Amber Coffman is legally obliged to work with Major Lazer for the unforeseeable future… Just saying, so when you see my name on that ballot paper you know which way to vote.*

In other new music news today… Outfit quietly slipped in a new track, “Drakes”. I won’t say much more, because if truth be told, I’m actually quite embarrassed by how much I like them; the entire store of second-hand superlatives has been used up in attempting to describe them so, instead, here’s a small, unsubstantiated note of further support; I think this might be my favourite Outfit song yet. If you’re wondering why I’m writing about a high street fashion conglomerate like an excited teenage girl, see here, here and here.

*Of course, you’d only actually be able to see my name if you happened to live in the constituency that I would be hypothetically running for. Chill out politics nerds.

Unfortunately, for the next two weeks I am being a horrible bastard and leaving the whole reality thing, meaning that blogging is very unlikely to happen. So here’s what I can just tell is going to be going down in the next two weeks:

The GIT Award

It has been presented as the Scouse Mercury award but, having seen the shortlist, that’s probably a bit of an insult to the artists that have made it – and the Mercuries aren’t even that disastrous, the current crop of Liverpuddlian artists are just that good. Most encouragingly, there’s barely any Beatles/Oasis aping in sight; these artists are original, creative and brilliantly diverse. Check out the shortlist if it’s the only thing you do today. You’ll have heard of Outfit, Loved Ones and Forest Swords but Ninetails, Stealing Sheep and Ex-Easter Island Head are also favourites of mine. Listen to them all here.

Kindness

The Kindness album “World You Need A Change Of Mind” was released earlier this month and it’s the kind of psych-funk-pop crossover masterpiece that literally nobody would have thought was a good idea apart from Adam Bainbridge himself. To be fair, there are a few points where the mark is slightly overstepped – “Anyone Can Fall In Love” is just about forgivably cringe-worthy – but as an album the whole thing runs into itself very well. Definitely get involved.

Beach House

I have already irrationally decided that Beach House’s “Bloom” is the record of the year. That decision may seem somewhat premature in March, but after the way that it has continually bludgeoned me very gently but very insistently with its own obvious perfection over the past couple of weeks, I just can’t help it. It is out on May 15th via Sub Pop so, even if it’s not your album of the year, you won’t be able to stop it soundtracking your summer.

NZCA Lines

The Quietus are grumpy, intellectual bastards, so when they start popping out superlatives over pop records, it’s probably an indication that said pop record is something out of the ordinary. And NZCA Lines’ debut is just that; unusual. Yet it avoids being obtuse, and gives us a couple of the years’ best pop songs in “Compass Points” and “Okinawa Channels”.

Fort Romeau

The “Kingdoms” EP from this London-based producer Fort Romeau who used to play synths for La Roux pitches itself between subtlety and drive and is absolutely better than anything that La Roux ever did or will do (let’s hope there’s nothing more to come, anyway). Definitely an exciting prospect.

2:54

One of the most obvious evils of the internet and its merciless spreading of music, regardless of quality, is the lengths it drives people to to avoid shit music. For instance, last year I heard a 2:54 song. I thought it was a bit ok but not much more. And as a result I dismissed them and refused to listen to anything more until I heard “You’re Early”. Strangely, it has always been argued that record labels no longer give bands the chance to grow anymore which is why the internet is so useful in providing an early step up for bands – but in exactly the same way, we discard bands immediately if they don’t live up to expectations. Anyway, I don’t mind admitting that I was wrong and 2:54 are bloody brilliant. They’re currently on tour, so go and give their seething maudlin creations a chance, or read more about them here.

Debukas’ slow-burning “Golden Mind” is the best introduction to his “Pleasure Patterns” EP, out yesterday. The Glasweigan has been compared to similarly Pitchfork-adored John Talabot, but Debukas brings a deeper, more satisfying edge to his productions. “Golden Mind”, in particular is wonderfully restrained, until the slippery high end eventually laid behind the chorus brings the song to an understated euphoric climax. Just like a muted orgasm, and not much less enjoyable.

There’s not much to complain about when it comes to Death At Sea. In fact, it’s tough not to agree with the grounded analysis of Bido Lito!, who recently claimed that the band were the best band they’d heard in a long time and predicted that they “will blow a hole in Liverpool’s unsuspecting music community”. Before you’ve heard their two available tracks that may seem like an almost hyperbolic claim. But afterwards, well, it would probably be more controversial to suggest that the Pope is a Catholic (and he almost definitely is).

They’ve got the visceral, gritty appeal of Yuck, but filtered until the sound is slightly purer and more intoxicating, topped up with the yearning drawl of Tokyo Police Club. More importantly, in Kinsella they’ve got a passionate and intensely charismatic front-man, and in “Sea Foam Green” they’ve penned a regrettably rare song; one that simultaneously nails being evocative and poignant, and has a melancholic hook that just makes it impossible not to give in to them. A sturdy beginning, to say the least.

Apparently you will soon be able to catch Death At Sea playing their songs around Liverpool, which will definitely not be one to miss. Not being unafraid of hyperbole as I am, I don’t mind suggesting that it could even be one of those “I was there” moments.

Like an even more spaced-out, blissful Real Estate, Simian Ghost’s recent album “Youth” tugged at the heart in many ways, as they took their simplistically beautiful indie pop songs and reinterpreted them with a slightly more left-field approach that lost none of the songs’ heart or immediacy.

Now they’ve released a couple of acoustic videos of album tracks, including the brilliant “Curtain Call”, with the innovation stripped away, leaving Simian Ghost clad just in their words, emotion and intimacy. I feel like it suits them just as well as their gently-unconventional approach to indie, but to tell the truth I’m so taken by the album they could probably re-interpret the album via the medium of ancient Aztec dance and I’d be won over. Regardless, judge for yourself whether it suits them, and if you’re missing out on this incredible album, then definitely invest some time in it.

UK tour dates were also announced today and although I’m completely jealous that there’s no Liverpool or Bristol dates, I feel almost legally obliged to grudgingly post the tour dates anyway:

April 10 – London, Surya
April 11 – Manchester, The Soup Kitchen
April 12 – Glasgow, The Captain’s rest
April 13 – Southampton, Joiners

It doesn’t always follow that an impressive past makes for a successful future, but there’s something very exciting about new record label Best Fit Recordings, launched by the people behind The Line of Best Fit. The reason why we think the brilliance might translate this time is the web-site’s knack for picking out the most exciting new music, regardless of whether they already have support from the music press or not, which isn’t the worst place to start when you’re running a record label. And if you are wavering and need a bit of solid, aural proof, then have a listen or two to their first release; I Ching.

A couple of nights ago, I Ching had finished playing Best Fit Records launch party, and judging by the endless enthusiasm constantly replicating itself on my twitter timeline, they were pretty damn good. But even if the feedback was horrendous, it wouldn’t make much of a difference; “It’s Me” is simultaneously gently industrial, brooding and melancholic, all wrapped in a tender vocal that lifts itself from dark to evocative seamlessly. The perfect start.

Vinyl will be out on 23rd April.

In my experience, Tall Ships are one of the few live bands in the country that are capable of making jaws drop at dislocating speed. Fortunately, they are not confined to being the Gogol Bordellos of taut math-punk, because they manage to transfer every sinew of their muscular groove to record. This, the first single from their forthcoming debut album, simultaneously dispels those worries that their genius is confined to the live set, and encompasses the intricacy and intimacy of Foals, the eccentricity of Battles, and the rawness of No Age. Absolutely immense.

You can pre-order the record here; it’s limited to 500 so we should get cracking.

And if you’d like to test my theory about how good they are live, check them out supporting Los Campesinos and then Maps & Atlases imminently, on these dates. I’ll see you at Bristol, Liverpool, and Bristol – definitely not one to be missed.

This is dangerously close to being 2012′s “Pumped Up Kicks”, but is either slightly less fleeting or just much less unavoidable. Who knows what might possibly happen in the wake of such a destroyingly immediate pop song; it’s got the hipster enticing weed-stained shimmer, and the heartbreakingly perfect chorus that everybody, even moody hipsters, love. Of course, it’s far from perfect, but great pop music simply pretends to be – and we’re struggling to find fault with “Fireworks Of The Sea”. Fingers crossed for some staying power, because this is one hell of a pop song.

This new one from Burial and Four Tet just popped up out of nowhere, although, strangely, I’d been listening to the Four Tet album all night… Coincidence? I think not. Don’t tell me I don’t make things happen.

It’s a dangerous thing to expect things to be great simply based on past performances, but with Burial and Four Tet we always do, and we’re always proved right. “Nova” is predictably far and beyond any sort of normal talent – mixing all the heart of Four Tet and all the precision of Burial into five breathtaking minutes of next-level-ism. The only people who could surpass them is themselves, and they almost certainly will.

Loved Ones are definitely very subtly staking their claim into being the UK’s most exciting new eccentric-ambient-folk band. It might not be the most hotly contested accolade in the music industry, but, nevertheless, it goes someway to describing the Wirralian quartet’s measured brilliance. It has seen them go from being the most talked about band in Liverpool’s music community to seducing Communion in a relationship that will hopefully bear some very beautiful musical children.

Judging by new track, “All Your Cry”, that seduction is looking increasingly likely. Ripped from the forthcoming debut album “The Merry Monarch”, it’s an emotive lesson in minimalism – all perfectly hushed vocals, restrained percussion, and off-kilter guitars. As always, they get the balance of catharsis and simplicity just right, and as long as they keep finding new ways of doing old things so well, then “The Merry Monarch” could end up being a pretty special debut album. 

Just incase you hadn’t yet fallen into the destroyingly beautiful new Sharon Van Etten record, “Tramp”, then here’s a nudge into it’s vice-like grip. It’s the year’s most heartbreakingly brilliant record – crushingly honest, horribly self-referential, and as a result, absolutely compelling. She documents the turbulent end of an abusive relationship with such incredible gravitas that her lyrical content would stand its ground alone – but it’s backed by whispers of guitars and waves of noise that frame her words perfectly. It’s impossible not to sympathise with what she’s been through but, by the time the record ends, it’s hard not to feel morbidly glad that somebody made it. And that it wasn’t you.

We don’t know many facts about Rhye but, why would you want to know them? So far we’ve just heard “Open” from the possibly European/possibly American duo (who are possibly just a single person as well), but we’re infatuated. And judging by “Open”, Rhye is too – it’s insatiably lusty, but in such a refined and well-worded way, and the whole thing just sounds so well balanced, yet packed with emotion; like a more sexually-preoccupied Beach House or a more pop-orientated version of The xx. And if those comparisons haven’t turned you on, then you must be asexual.

You can bag the 12” EP for a bit of hard-earned cash here courtesy of Los Angeles based label Innovative Leisure, or download the far more soulless version from iTunes.

Barely concealed laziness is all that’s prevented me from bending ears about Charli XCX so far, so I’m hoping that her new track “I’ll Never Know” will be the perfect opportunity for me to quietly slip into the growing camp of Charli XCX’s supporters. I’m sort of glad that I’ve allowed time to pass me by, though, because the more of her tracks that emerge, the more she’s justifying becoming one of our most credible potential pop stars. What she’s doing, actually, is quite astounding, and if I’m not hugely mistaken, the sort of crossover brilliance that only rears its beautiful head far too rarely. Despite her age, there’s something mature and interesting about her production and lyrics, something that avoids sounding contrite, contrived or shallow. Unlike most pop stars, she just isn’t trying too hard – she’s not too obvious at all. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how contrived she actually may be, if she’s this good at fooling you, then you’ve just got to let go of your pride and admit; shit, being fooled is completely pleasurable sometimes.

And previously, just in case you missed it… TIP: Don’t miss it this time around, just look at all those comments on the soundcloud stream, you know it’s going to be good.

This, Theme Park’s April-7th-released single, is definitely one that the repeat button was designed for. There’s something in the song’s painstakingly restrained, hypnotic tone that keeps drawing me in. Perhaps it’s something to do with the emotive, honest lyrics, or even the simple melancholic hooks that are hidden within every little noise, but most importantly they’ve managed to retain something that’s just very distinctly ‘Theme Park’ without being wildly inventive, and it suits them wonderfully.

Above everything else, Mr Haughton’s searching lyrics make him sound like he’s lost and dissatisfied in an increasingly meaningless world – yet, perhaps fittingly, each song they put out is gradually making the world slightly less mundane. More like this, then; the forthcoming album is looking increasingly promising, and although I can’t quite predict the future, I’ve got a good feeling about this one…

…and in case you missed it, here’s recent b-side “Ghosts”, just to confirm that they don’t seem capable of putting their feet in the wrong places.

Pre-order the “Two Hours” 7” here.