We write the the year “2013” on the headed title for this post because this is the fourth consecutive year that we’ve thrown BLOG UP at The Great Escape Festival, and we hope to see many more in future years. Once again we return to the best festival for emerging music in Europe, which lands on our doorstep in Brighton, from May 16th to the 18th. Together with our sponsor, Music Robot, we’ve partnered up with three of the UK’s undisputed top bloggers, Killing Moon, My Band’s Better Than Your Band and last year’s Record Of The Day Award winners for ‘Best Blog’, Crack In The Road, and we’re hosting 11 awesome bands all day on the Saturday. Credibility in the underground of music doesn’t get much hotter than this gang of bloggeratti and we promise one of the shining light showcases at this festival of new music.

It’s a well known fact that bands, PR agents, managers and labels kindly hand out free gig tickets to music bloggers all year in an attempt to get them to attend shows and spread the word of the artists. Our showcase is all set to officially be the biggest meeting of music bloggers ever seen in the UK in one single party, with a large section of the crowd in this 1000 capacity venue likely to be from the Blogging fraternity. We have invited every blogger we know – and we know them all – creating a V.I.B (Very.Important.Blogger) area all their own, whilst tempting them with the time-honoured bribe of free booze between 3pm and 7pm, to help secure their attendance. However, the range and quality of the bands on offer will ensure a packed showcase from midday to midnight.

The bands and set times can be seen on the above poster. Believe us when we say this will be an event to say “I was there…“, with many of the artists on offer all set to break in a big way over the next year or so. Starting the whole day will be Keebo, who’ve just had American Vogue flying over to the UK to interview and photograph them, whilst closing the stage is upbeat indie outfit, Night Engine, who will complete a day of extreme awesomeness. Unlike almost every other showcase, because we have the venue from midday right through to the end of the evening, we don’t have to break between 4pm and 7pm, allowing the music to keep on coming.

For anyone not able to secure a festival ticket you can also still attend, as this show is open and free to all, we don’t care for wristbands. You may want to get to The Mesmerist venue several minutes before the band is scheduled to start in case of door queues, but you can check our Twitter accounts for live updates. At a festival designed around buzz, no showcase will reverberate louder than ours. (MB)

Today’s recommendation is so fine that he had us questioning what music itself actually is. Is it just a sequence of sounds? Is it just a process of rhythms? Are melodies just noises tapped out in an arranged series? Are harmonies just wavelengths that sound nice? How can a chain of vibrations become music? More poignantly with today’s artist, how can some people suggest what is and isn’t music? Without many traditional instruments in sight, except for keyboards plump with samples, here is a new male solo artist making truly enjoyable music almost solely from looping sequences. We’d love him just for his inventiveness and creativity, but make no mistake, he is packing some deadly music, real music, in his box of tricks.

Welcome to the world of Cosmo Sheldrake, an impossibly creative 22 year old solo artist originally from London but now living in Brighton. Here is a musician in the traditional sense of the word. If you consider that perhaps cavemen created the first songs in human history by banging sticks onto stones, then Cosmo is doing the modern equivalent, with samplers and computers as his contemporary tools. There’s no need for guitars, or drums, or any common normality, instead we meet someone mastering loops and sounds. Cosmo is the conductor of his own limitless ideas and this leads to some remarkable creations.

Consider what Beardyman does when he loops samples of his own beat boxing, but remove the comedy routine. Imagine what Grimes does when she layers up electronic sounds and twisted vocals into beautiful ice structures, although Cosmo has a warmth and a lightness not seen since Lemon Jelly. When he uses vocals they are delivered as either samples of others, chopped into new shapes, or sung by him in a babbling use of mostly unintelligible words. The songs are built up layer by layer, in a style so organic you scratch your head to imagine how computers and electronics can possibly achieve results like this. It’s more like he is using machines that wind up using a handle hidden at the back, as if they might run out of energy before the end, as beats constantly verge on collapse. This is the farm-produced end of the sampling spectrum if we consider Grimes is the stylish, modern independent boutique. This point is further proved when you see him literally performing to a batch of pigs in their sty in this enjoyable video.

Cosmo is the son of the renowned author and biochemist Rupert Sheldrake, which may go some way to explaining how his music feels like weird science in action. The family links continue as we learn that we was originally spotted busking with his brother, Merlin, in Dalston, by none other that Mercury Prize nominee, Sam Lee, who asked them both not only to perform with him, but to remix his song, The Ballad Of George Collins (see below). He has also been seen performing in a side project alongside Merlin in the band, Gentle Mystics. Musical connections continue when his biography reveals that he went to school with Bombay Bicycle Club and the guys from the band Theme Park, both of whom jammed alongside Cosmo during school sessions.

It’s the solo work that fires the synapses though, as tracks such as the smooth and endearing Rich, which features the pixie-like vocals of Anna Roo, sounding like Mr Scruff covering Aluna George. If Rube Goldberg made alternative pop music this is what would be produced. The song, Prefusify, delivers another set of samples that blur the lines between keyboards and vocals, both of which he can manipulate like Playdough. New tune, The Fly, continues his magic musical jewellery box theme, with another pop song that has instant appeal. His lyrics are decipherable this time, although just as strange, seeming to be sung from the point of view of a happy fly.

Here is a true multi-instrumentalist for the computer generation. He creates impossibly delightful symphonies, as if the mice in Bagpuss had reached out beyond children’s television, and it’s a refreshing sound in a music industry dominated by safe clichés. The genre of beatboxing doesn’t quite do this samplist justice, as although there are hip hop elements to this, we actually have a middle-class, countrified application of the Beatboxer’s new technology. He played jazz and classical piano from the age of 4 years old and has been known to play the banjo, the drums and even the double bass, so Cosmo is perfectly capable of using traditional instruments, it’s just that electronics allow him the freedom to explore his ideas that bit further. You can see him here on a TED talk, the globally-popular events designed to spread innovation and ideas, mostly using British birds as his sampled sounds. And this runs at the heart of why Cosmo is worth your attention. It’s the same reason why that Caveman picked up some sticks a few millenniums ago. Music is about play, it’s about improvisation, it’s about ideas and it’s about nonsense. Essentially this is what music is all about. It’s not about contemporary instruments, traditional band setups, or any ideas that have arrived in the last century, it’s about human nature and the desire to fuck about. And Cosmo Sheldrake fucks about better than most. (MB)

COSMO SHELDRAKE – THE FLY

COSMO SHELDRAKE – RICH (feat. ANNA ROO)

SAM LEE – THE BALLAD OF GEORGE COLLINS (COSMO SHELDRAKE REMIX)

There’s an enormous stack of electronic pop duos around. We get emailed a new one every week it seems, but few make the grade. You can take Eurythmics as the starting point and meander through various successful reincarnations ever since, but it’s an understatement to say that most miss the standards set by Lennox and Stewart some thirty years ago. So what is considered a good and bad standard? What is it that lifts something from just being that pretty fronting female vocalist and that (usually pretty ugly) silent guy and his computer/keyboard stood behind her, up to something that has the legs to last that bit longer? In today’s world, the computer can do so much that as long as you have a good female singer you can create almost anything, yet so many fall into the trap of cliches. Today’s recommendation meander through that same cliche minefield, but they successfully get through it with both legs in tact.

Welcome to the duo, Death Rattle. Firstly, we can congratulate them on selecting a brilliant name, but frankly – to paraphrase Shakespeare -  a rose by any other name would still sound as sweet. We can confidently inform you that this duo are the real deal. They have received coverage from many serious corners of the online music press, including NME.com, Line Of Best Fit and The405, as well as several other music blogs in recent months, following the release of their debut EP, HE & I. This has lead to the buzzing Bristol label, Fear of Fiction, including them on their recent release, a limited edition run of 100 CDs, complete with screen printed artwork, which they delivered especially for the recent Record Store Day.

Death Rattle are the duo, Chris and Helen Hamilton, with the latter providing the kind of vocals that are equal parts warning and welcome. There’s a threat to their music throughout, but it’s the kind of danger that attracts as much as it cautions. Imagine for a moment if the Swedish duo, The Knife, had been busy having bastard children with some of your favourite artists. Hit in waiting, The Blows, sounds like the bastard child of The Knife and Austra, whereas the tunes, White Ropes or Do As You Please, sound like the offspring they’d had after a one night stand with Bat For Lashes. The tracks, The Dig and Fortress, have the kind of solitary introspection once found when Massive Attack were depressed. The list of comparisons is like an evening stroll through the dark woods of all the best ominous pop of the last 20 years.

This is serious stuff and should come with an over 18 age restriction, such is their towering, cinematic sound; children simply couldn’t handle this without it purveying their nightmares. They may well be just another boy/girl duo making brooding electronic pop music, but the scale of what they produce with a keyboard and computer is astonishing, elevated to the stratosphere by Helen’s arresting vocals. Their witchcraft is on a different level. They know exactly which ingredients to stir into their dark potions, with punchy beats introduced to lift the creeping mist and mantras that will hook you like a dependent addict. Few protagonists of this haunting pop music have enough range to break through the depression, but with Death Rattle you get atmosphere AND hooks. When you finally reach tracks such as The Fixer you even get the kind of energy normally associated with Sleigh Bells. The pitch black darkness has never been this packed with monsters before.

The latest single, White Rope arrived earlier this month and the second EP, Fortress, is due for release this week, via the Frontal Noize label. Throughout May they have selected tour dates around Europe, where we can imagine their sound being particularly embraced, before returning to play shows from the north to the south of England. If we can get them into our Great Escape showcase we will. You can download their tunes for free on their Soundcloud, which is both generous and will serve to help crank up their enormous hype. We suggest you head their next if you know what’s good for you, or should that be ‘bad for you’. Electronic duos may arrive as regularly as the midnight hour, but what this duo cleverly recognize is that the truly scary nightmares are also the most memorable. (MB)

DEATH RATTLE – THE BLOWS

DEATH RATTLE – THE DIG

DEATH RATTLE – DO AS YOU PLEASE

Reading music blogs is an absolute must for anyone who likes to discover new music for their collections, but you knew that already. Today we deliver an artist that we discovered on the award-winning music blog, Crack In The Road. They are a collaborative music discovery service that stormed the music blogging scene in the UK like a freshly painted steam train back in 2010. Founder Josh and the gang have also just confirmed that they’ll be sharing a showcase with The Recommender, My Band’s Better Than Your Band and Killing Moon, hosting a four-way music blog-themed stage at this May’s Great Escape Festival. More details on that soon, but as we bring our respective music blogs to a real life stage you can expect a showcase of artists just as tidy as the one that we bring you today.

Enough of the self-promotion and back to the altruistic activities we’re known for. Let us introduce you to a new solo artist from Groveland, Colorado. Frugal Father is the new project from Mac Welch, a 23 year old producer currently found roaming the US as a roadie and tour driver with various bands. Immersing himself in music as a day job seems appropriate, but quite frankly his solo work deserves it’s own driver.

He’s produced a variety of music over recent years, self-releasing two albums under the name Mac Welch. We got in touch with him recently and were unable to uncover the titles of his previous releases – he’s taken them down off of the Internet anyway – but he’s confirmed that they were low key offerings that are now being re-designed and refined, planning a proper release under his new project, Frugal Fathers. If the first two tracks available are anything to go by, then we can’t wait to hear the other redesigns.

The tune Red Headed Hipster has us particularly excited. He touted James Murphy as a major influence, everyone does these days, and quite rightly, so it didn’t mean much, but upon hearing this first song we get it. It’s not so much LCD Soundsystem, but particularly James Murphy in the vocal delivery and how it pairs up in a dead pan juxtaposition with the swirling electronics. You can add Matthew Dear‘s more recent work as a valid comparison too, delivering a smart, fizzing pop song that knows how to patiently build up the layers in a wonderful piece of electronic pop architecture.

First Trim sees yet more alternative pop that begins quietly but that soon melts into a multi-faceted mixture of electronic sediment. Every layer still clearly visible throughout. The lyrics are so wonderfully written, setting the scene of a boy climbing street lights to watch the girl he desires in her bedroom window. It’s so complete that he virtually does the job for any potential video director. This isn’t a song, it’s a screen play, and it’s marvellous. Perhaps this is the influence of him having gained a degree in film Studies from the University Of Colorado?

He remains unsigned, but would suit many labels, including DFA, or perhaps 4AD who signed another of his major influences, The National. Both labels love alternative pop such as this. He’s also busy writing fresh material, as any eventual EP or album won’t just include re-designs of songs past. His form is good, his ideas are crisp and influences place him in a favourable pigeon hole for our particular tastes, so we look forward to these future releases. No doubt that you’ll first discover any news of the album via a music blog, the home of the freshest music around. But then you knew that already. (MB)

FRUGAL FATHER – RED HEADED HIPSTER

FRUGAL FATHER – FIRST TRIM

People know The Recommender as a ‘Brighton blog‘, associating us with the city in which we live. Although the first time anyone came across our blog was online, our brand is now known in our local city due to us taking The Recommender into the real world, via us hosting gigs, writing for local culture magazines, networking in this city’s vibrant music circles, and even appearing on local radio shows. However, our first home is found on the Internet. It’s not that we want to disassociate with Brighton – those that know this city will tell you that it is one of the finest cultural centres in the UK – but online our voice and our recommendations are not tied to anything geographically specific. Furthermore, with bands using their Internet spaces to begin building their fanbase, the idea of them associating with a particular city is also dissolved. These days, at least initially, we all start out by existing in the public domain by being online first.

Late last year we received an email with just a name of a band and an mp3. No biography, no press release, no images, no description, in fact no words at all, just the song. We liked the song enough to make a note and park it for further investigation. The band duly entered our notorious ‘Recommender Queue’ – a kind of limbo that all bands sit in when we initially discover them as they await further investigation should we ever find the time. IYES were the band, Lighthouse was their song. Only once we returned to investigate them did we then discover they also called Brighton home.

IYES are the duo Josh Christopher and Melisa Soyaslanova, and as they sat there under our geographical noses, still only at the demo stage, they actually managed to gather a significant amount of national media buzz. If you hunt around you will locate articles mentioning them on numerous blogs, including blog bros, YVYYL, Breaking More Waves, YVYNYL, Crack In The Road and The Line Of Best Fit. All are influential, but further coverage has reached the mainstream, with mentions in The Sunday Times and plays on national radio stations too. All this after just two demos.

Was this interest worthwhile? Well, Lighthouse is an exceptional song and earned them comparisons to The XX. Although these associations are most likely useful, we personally don’t particularly get excited by anyone paired with those purveyors of bleak misery. Although we enjoyed The XX’s debut material, the initial hype surrounding them was unbearable at times, as people could never look out of touch saying “I really like The XX“. We’d consider that for a moment, “do you really though?” we’d respond, “do you spend hours of your day wallowing in their miserable minimalism do you?“. It was suspiciously far too easy to follow The XX trend, which tarnished it for us. They were good, but surely too niche for all that mainstream adoration. In fairness, The XX went on to fill large venues and sell stacks of their debut album, but we’re not sure where those fans went to for their second album, disappearing just as suspiciously. Fortunately IYES are much more than The XX.

Lighthouse begins with echoing guitar notes, seemingly played in a vast empty, wide-open space, before Soyaslanova’s seductive vocals arrive. So far, so much The XX. Christopher’s vocals quietly join her words in tandem, further securing The XX’s likeness, but as the song unfolds the similarities begin to evaporate. What frustrated about the The XX was just how relentlessly one-paced and desperately bleak their music can be. It didn’t just have one gear, that gear was neutral. IYES however find momentum. The rhythm in their debut song helps, but it shifts entirely at the one minute mark, bursting into life with a wonderful repeat of the song’s opening mantra. This isn’t bleak, this is warm and rounded. This is a song about love, sung between the boy and the girl, in a tale that storms your heart. By it’s final minute it is crashing ashore in an epic collision of layers. The XX coudln’t be this uplifting if they played to you in an elevator.

Their second demo, Glow, arrived last month and it’s another twisting tale of love, as they shout “you make me glow” in a rousing pop song of pure class. It proves they know how to seamlessly weave a song, winding up crescendo after crescendo, but interspersing it with breaks to bring the listener satisfyingly back up for air. With songs this good it’s no surprise the Internet is working itself into a frenzy; our geographical location meant the speed of our neighbours would never compete. The buzz is genuine though, not only because they might just turn out to be what we all secretly hoped The XX could have been, but because they’re great without comparisons. In this instance, should they go onto the success that their songs certainly promise, what was born online will also be proudly claimed by Brighton as their own. Listen, enjoy, then do us a favour and please go and tell your neighbours.  (MB)

IYES – LIGHTHOUSE

IYES – GLOW

Sometimes we could keep things a lot simpler. Want a one-line review of today’s recommendation? OK, meet the British version of Real Estate. There. We. Said. It. But that’s not our style is it? No. We prefer to divulge a few informative facts, a sprinkling of context, a dollop of adjectives and our own meandering commentary to compliment our recommendations. For those who care, read on, for those who don’t, well, you can race to the bottom and simply click play on them there Soundclouds. Either way, you’re going to enjoy this band.

Keebo deserve a full article, mainly because they’re pretty special, but also because they’re more than just a British Real Estate. They are of course as weightless and fragile as the American band, spinning silky, twee indie pop songs that delight at every turn, but there are also distinct differences. Firstly, they’re an all female group. Secondly, they’re not American, although they could easily be mistaken for Yanks, but they lack that hint of burnt blues, or hazy countryside that Real Estate infuse into their tunes, instead channelling the kind of sunny steel guitaring found in Africa.

The four girls are Amy on guitar and vocals, Angie on bass and vocals, Sophie on drums and vocals, with the lead voice coming from the dinky-sized guitarist, Rhapsody. We say dinky, in truth we’ve never seen a smaller front woman; we imagine they keep her in a pretty little box in-between shows. The fact they are all listed as providing vocals will give you the biggest clue to their sound. A multi-layered range of sweet harmonies is their special move and they sweep you off your feet with it on every song. Rhapsody leads well, with a purity that’s as clean as rain and it lands just as softly all over their music.

That’s not to state that the fuzz pop foursome don’t need some polish, although their slacked sound is a part of their charm. Apart from it being relatively early days for them, no doubt lacking any costly production, their songs sometimes feel a bit amateurish. They are still ambitiously complicated and switch gears excellently, packed with some incredible ideas and gorgeous flourishes, but take the ambling tune, Oh No (Everybody Knows) and you find that the cymbals over-crash, the vocals aren’t cleaned up and the timing is slightly asleep. However, tracks like Hold Me Down, or the likely lead single, Native American, are both perfectly packaged like an impressively wrapped gift and they hit vocal notes that would impress any of The Beach Boys, whom we assume must be an important influence on their work.

They confirmed to us that they remain unsigned and still “pretty underground“, even though Rhapsody and Amy formed the project some four years ago whilst studying at college in Camden. They mentioned that the five songs on their Soundcloud are fully recorded and awaiting a release, likely to make up all or part of an EP later this year. When you consider Real Estate, or Best Coast, or even Warpaint, then you can see that there’s definitely a big crowd that adore this kind of music. We can imagine them topping Drowned In Sound‘s end of year lists, or at least their editor’s, Sean Adams. We can conceive them storming SXSW, although this year’s event has come too early in their ascendancy, so perhaps we will try and secure them for our Great Escape festival showcase scheduled for May (more details are due to be announced in the coming weeks on this). If they obtain half of Real Estate’s recognition and acclaim then they’ll do well, but frankly this gorgeous foursome could stand on the strength of their own music, proving no need for useful comparisons, or indeed our music blog’s meandering commentary. (MB)

KEEBO – NATIVE AMERICAN

KEEBO – HOLD ME DOWN

KEEBO – THE WORLD IS WAITING

This is a story about protecting your independence. About doing it the way you envisioned. Ultimately music is art, so it seems to fly against it’s ideals when a big record label executive starts to tell you what you think your vision should actually be like. You can hear the meetings in the boardroom, “what I think Dixon is trying to say“, or “you know what Dixon needs, a haircut and some backing singers” etc. Is there anything that can kill art quicker, or that can stifle independence more forcefully, than outside forces choosing to control it?

Fyfe is the alias of Paul Dixon, formerly known as the 2010 electronic pop outfit, David’s Lyre. David’s Lyre were once signed to a major label and pushing out that brand of upbeat pop that seemed destined to sit alongside all the other synth pop protagonists that came out around 2010. Herein lies his problem, Dixon didn’t want to melt into any scene, he wanted more independence than that. As David’s Lyre he parted from the label and set about releasing a well-received EP and an album on his own. It seems something of an unfortunate story, as it left many commentators intrigued, and there was genuinely little wrong with tracks like Tear Them Down, but that’s the difference between big labels and self-releasing – the big boys get you noticed. And poor old Dixon wasn’t reaching the market that his music clearly deserved. Now re-inventing himself as Fyfe, that could all be about to change.

Dixon is still only 23 years old so he has plenty of time left to find the success he deserves. With Fyfe he seems to have retained elements of what he was always good at, with sophisticated, grown-up pop, but these new tunes are even more refined and impressive. Pop like this could so easily be the kind of bland, predictable ballad pop that bores us into a coma, however this is anything but predictable. It jerks and twists at irregular intervals. Just when you think you have it in your sights it masterfully manoeuvres. It’s a classy, professional, well-produced and architectural in form, towering in fact. This is Schumacher pop, always in control, turning you on the inside, and it is destined to win.

It’s a style that can sit somewhere between Ben Christophers and Patrick Wolf, two independent alternative pop maestros, and like these two, Dixon is able to play with emotions without ever appearing fake or contrived and he avoids the pitfalls that can come with an over-abundance of eccentricity. This is a classy evolution, and with the song Solace, which arrived in the last month, we find him painting pictures with his wordplay, seeming in reflective mood, “living isn’t easy, when you’ve been free, and it’s taken away, I will lay my head down, until some sense is found“. This is his story. He’s finally found the sense he was waiting for, his head is raised once again. The tune St.Tropez arrived in the last couple of weeks and it continues the charming storytelling, mixing patience with energy. It’s pop but it’s slow and organic, always full of ideas.

As you will witness with the attached tunes, Dixon can hold a song all on his own, with his pure, clean vocals as the only thing hanging in the wide open spaces he creates. This is a sign of how he likes to operate. He doesn’t need anyone else. He breathes best when he is without layers, musically or when it comes to his career. In essence all art is at it’s best when the artist is free to operate. Dixon believes in his talent and on this evidence he has every right to protect it. In truth, we all know you need more than talent to make it in the music industry, you need luck, you need the right management and the right label, but at least Dixon is building his own foundations and building them firmly. Frankly, if his re-inventions are this glorious, we look forward to a series of regular failures, however something tells us Fyfe fits and this time he’s in control from the outset. (MB)

FYFE – ST.TROPEZ

FYFE – SOLACE

This band will be an interesting one to watch. There are clear pathways that new bands should look to take when searching out success and this group seem to be confidently striding in the right direction. Emerging artists and their managers regularly ask us here at The Recommender how they can get noticed and ultimately signed. Now we don’t pertain to be any official kind of artist consultancy, but from now on we might just point out this band as a good example in how to find traction.

Paint The Dark are a trio from London. 2013 has seen them tease themselves out of their rehearsals as they gear up to launch their debut material. We have been in touch with the band and they explained that they first started out together just prior to last summer. They’ve spent the last nine months writing and recording their debut album. Herein lies their first lesson; try to keep yourselves on the down-low, record stacks of quality material, edit and complete a decent production, all before you even tell anyone that your band exists. Then, once the songs are banked, plan your attack.

Lesson number two comes in the form of the pre-launch. Bands have the power of the Internet at their finger tips these days, allowing them to leak information in a controlled fashion to the taste-makers and ‘Sneezers‘, setting off a viral campaign in an enough-but-not-too-much methodology, in order to generate that all important online chatter. Paint The Dark already garnered coverage from the likes of Killing Moon, This Is Fake DIY and Real Horror Show Tunez. One particularly useful tool for this is to film a short 30 second, beautifully-striking teaser video and upload it to Youtube. As you can see below, just three weeks ago, Paint The Dark released exactly that, with half a minute of atmospheric music playing over an abstract clip. A random woman stands in a misty wood with no explanation, no helpful information, it purely serves to tease and introduce the band’s name.

This kind of tease excites, it gets noticed, particularly because it looks classy and done with a certain amount of quality. Most importantly it leaves you asking more questions, rather than finding answers, and this is the key. People now want to know more. This is where the third step begins. Set out a structured plan to leak out your music. Start with a killer lead tune, via Bandcamp or Soundcloud, soon after your teaser video, then set about leaking one tune at a time over a series of weeks. Never leave the audience for too long, or they’ll forget you and move on, and don’t do what IAmAmIWhoAmI did and tease for two years. Let these singular songs gestate among the blogs and online commentators, you don’t even need to release any information about your band at this stage, as plenty of critics will still put your tunes up regardless.

The mid-stage of this process of hunting useful traction, and ultimately securing a record deal, is now due. You should now start to come out of the dark by engaging the bloggers, traditional media, radio and other music websites. Start handing out information, with names and other details in order to be useful to those commentators, most of whom will prefer to actually write editorial and inform their readers/listeners. This is the stage Paint The Dark seem to be at right now.

The teaser video teased and the first song, Lariat, was a delightfully-produced mixture of sweeping melodies, creamy smooth vocals, deadly industrial basslines and a gear-change chorus. The information is now arriving too, with the trio made up of Neil on bass, Rich on drums and Ben who primarily sings. They expand the lineup when playing live to add a keyboard player and a guitarist, although these performances are more than likely to be a part of the latter all-important stages of traction. This is where they begin securing a wider public base of support, something that the record labels particularly adore, plus it gives those A&R men something to be impressed by. The lead single is available to stream online now, but is yet to have any official launch date. They informed us that it will be out in the coming months and will be used to aid the beginning of any live shows or tours.

Today we have been handed the exclusive stream of the second song to appear from them, called Vying For Sunlight. It continues their classy pop themes, with a giant scale, a slow building up of layers and a patient-but-rewarding demonstration of skill – particularly from the machine-gun scattering of drums at two minutes in. It confirms this band have two very deadly but useful elements to them, talent and control. With a perfectly planned out design, not only to their songs, but to their direction, this is a band that really do seem to have it all in place. That’s not say they are there yet, as there’s still many miles to tread upon their path to a record deal and commercial success, but seeing as 99% of bands don’t even know which route to take, it’s great to witness a band striding so confidently along the right choices. This is a band not just worth listening to, but worth learning from. (MB)

PAINT THE DARK – LARIAT

PAINT THE DARK – VYING FOR SUNLIGHT

We are only ever going to evolve music when people start ripping up the rule book. It is at the fringes that the most interesting, exciting things happen, right? It’s only those people that are fearless enough and smart enough to walk their own paths that will ultimately uncover genuinely new ground for the rest of us. Today’s recommendation seem to fit this ideology well, and we for one are going to wonder with them a little while, see where this path takes us.

Welcome to the crazy world of Halo Halo, a new London trio that might just become the next buzz band of 2013. We adore them, but in all honesty we hope that they avoid that damaging moniker, as the dreaded ‘buzz band’ title is only ever going to hold back – or in some cases destroy – most artists like this. They fit the themes associated with bands emblazoned with this badge though; they’re excitedly alternative, their live shows are vibrant, chaotic affairs, they stand out from their peers, their music is exciting, fresh and fizzing around the underground. They look the part and they play the part, perfectly.

But we would actually rather they remained at the edges, imagining new ideas, that other more commercial bands can come and ruin later on. You see, Halo Halo aren’t particularly made for the commercial world. They don’t follow rules, or tread the pathways that record execs demand from new signings. However, only a fool dismisses that which he doesn’t understand, because here is a band perfectly pitched as ideal food for critics, but misery for big record labels – which highlights for us just how blogs don’t have to write what they believe will be successful, rather they write what they believe is exciting.

So we’ve established that Halo Halo prefer to meander, probably whilst very stoned, along their own path, but what do they sound like? Well, um, that’s where a critic could stumble. It’s not easy encapsulating this band into a tidy sentence, so free are they from pigeon-shaped holes. We guess you could imagine something like early Velvet Underground trying their hands at a kind of Slits style of punk and you might be somewhere close, but in reality that’s like those newscasters describing that recent meteor that came past Earth 17,500 miles away as “a near miss”. It’s all relative, but not at all useful. Like The Velvet Underground, they have a jumble sale of sounds, using all manner of instruments and about a thousand ideas packed into a 3 minute pop song. Like the late punk scenes, they also have sharp edges and spiky guitar riffs, often played high up the neck of Rachel Horwood’s banjo (yes, we did say banjo). So high up in fact they reach your hairline and tingle around.

Halo Halo are masters of the unpolished. Their recordings sound immediate, seeming as quickly put together as their live music does. It’s as if they’re playing live directly into your headphones. It’s almost anti-production. This truly is DIY pop, random pop, slanted and slightly silly pop. If they can pick it up, they’ll probably play you a tune on it. It’s partly ridiculous, partly chaotic, in fact it’s partly a lot of things, (they put the party into partly!), but they enjoy it immensely and so should you. For an example of this, try listening to the track Hey Yeah and you get the sonic equivalent of a thousand monkeys given a room full of instruments and enough time.

Upset rhythms and mulit-layered sounds are their forte, as if they’re about to halt any moment due to it all becoming too entangled. Manananggal is perhaps the most accessible of the songs available, continuing the sound of a square wheel going around at speed. Their best trick, their special move, is to hide inside each song about a multitude of directions, but it’s always rich with melody, always dense with interesting matter. This kind of butterfly pop is pretty but scatty. It runs on it’s own enjoyable momentum, being virtually fuel-less and always in danger of an easy death, which actually works as a wonderful aesthetic. It’s organic and tactile, adorable and interesting. You can taste it on your tongue, you can really feel the energy of their ideas popping as they play.

This multi-coloured, multi-layered, multi-instrumental pop music doesn’t arrive from out of the major label production lines, it is instead found on the underground fringes. If it does indeed remain there, well that’s fine with us too, but if there’s any justification then they’ll be gathering up hype throughout this year. They have the 7″, Manananggal, already out on the UK label, Savoury Days (out on M’Lady Records label elsewhere), but alas we are still waiting for more material so far in 2013. We got in touch with them and they assured us that the full debut album is due out on the Upset The Rhythm label later on in 2013. Their live sets are certainly gaining praise; in fact, you may have caught them live in London at the Village Underground on February 18th, or this week at the Bussey Warehouse on February 28th, (more dates are due in March), although in fairness you can probably also see them in a kitchen somewhere in Dalston, or your mates front room, especially if he leaves a few random instruments lying within their reach. (MB)

HALO HALO – MANANANGGAL

HALO HALO – WANT 2 B (Live)

HALO HALO – EVERYWHERE (FLEETWOOD MAC COVER)

If we provided this music discovery service purely for other music bloggers, then there would probably not be much point in recommending this band. Although other music bloggers do indeed make up a significant chunk of all music blog traffic (still tiny compared to the rest), and we openly admit to adoring our online brethren, we actually write this instead for the insatiably hungry public. Whoever you are, if you haven’t heard of Mitzi yet, then you are sure going to thank us.

Mitzi are a Brisbane quartet that are all set to spread beyond their native shores. They’ve been around for a while – they even have a Myspace! Remember when bands had those!? – but their long  journey to the debut album finally ended earlier this week with the release on Future Classic of the ten-track long player, Truly Alive. Considering this is a band that seem to take one more step closer to our tastes with every new song it’s probably wise that we reserved judgement until we had heard the full album. They began as a fluffier version of Trophy Wife, with all the wafer-thin, camp, light-footed disco grooves, but as time’s gone on they’ve discovered their edge, causing more favourable comparisons with LCD Soundsystem.

Take the album’s title track, Truly Alive, and you couldn’t get more LCD if you tried. And lots of people have indeed tried – and failed – to encapsulate James Murphy, but these guys seem to really snare the fluent NYC pop. It’s a tune that seems evolved from their earlier All I Heard EP, which also came out on Future Classic – perhaps Australia’s hottest record label at the moment – back in 2011. That earlier EP delivered a more camp sound, with admirable-but-inoffensive disco themes throughout. Again the EP’s title song attracts us the most, with a punchy momentum, a slapped bass and their deadpan vocals. Simple house piano riffs camp it up, but it never gets too pink or fluffy. It’s when the band are at their more serious that they drive their pop to more interesting destinations.

It’s all perfect Triple-J radio fodder, proving equally as alternative as it is broadly appealing. It won’t take more than one listen to know if you like them or not. This is the natural succession to a string of other Australian bands, from The Presets or Cut Copy and particularly from Midnight Juggernauts. It shares a  lot of the same genetics, perhaps too many, so we confess to getting slightly more excited about the direction that Aussie producer Flume takes his electronic bass music. So Mitzi aren’t an evolution, they sound more reflective than futuristic, but show them a dance floor and they’ll fill it.

The album came out on Tuesday 19th February in the UK, so is available now. It’s well produced, backed by a good label, is perfectly radio-friendly, and fuses electronics with a band so positively that it could well infect 2013. With the hype built over recent months and the platform set, it will be interesting to watch whether they totally smash the competition this year. Do the public want something that looks backwards rather than forwards? Does a broad appeal end in no appeal? Does anyone care when the music is this care-free? All tough questions, but in the ten songs that this debut album offers, we believe there’s plenty for the waiting public to adopt.

MITZI – TRULY ALIVE

MITZI – ALL I HEARD

MITZI – WHO WILL LOVE YOU NOW