Complex Fox

Recently, we've been putting on a night in FUEL café, Manchester, entitled Quantum Nonsense. Bands, DJs, Craft goods: it's great! (quite findable on Facebook) Very relaxed atmosphere, unless you're organising it ("I need an XLR lead, STAT!!") Thankfully, it has given me an excuse to procrastinate and ignore the rest of my life in exchange for trawling the internet for music. It's great! Although...wow, there's a lot of mediocre new music, isn't there?

I've tried the tried & tested formula of going on Hypemachine, downloading 50 songs based on crowd recommendations, and slowly but surely losing the will to live. That said, I do now have several thousand so-so Diplo & Justice remixes taking up my hard drive space like a guest who won't leave. Every cloud.

Apparently, every music blog's favourite song of last year was either Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear (fair enough, although does no-one think Veckatimest blends into one?) or Lisztomania by Phoenix (here!), which I can't understand. Not being a hipster last year I guess I missed the hype. It is growing on me, but there's a weird chorus effect on his voice that makes me feel a bit ill, like eating too many praline chocolates. You end up wanting to have a nice lie down & eat (listen to) something more substantial. Tinny ipod speakers don't really do these tracks any justice. It's like a bee playing a bugle in your ear at times, but BBC Radio 7 is on and mustn't be interrupted!

Under pain of torture... involving more Radio 7 plays.

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Music! First up, a collaboration between The Shin's James Mercer and Dangermouse. Broken Bells are refreshing in that you know exactly what you're going to hear. It's only ever going to sound like The Shins with Dangermouse adding Moog sounds and different beat to the proceedings. Of course, this could easily go wrong, or worse entirely forgettable, like Dangermouse's Beck album Modern Guilt, which, suitably, I can't remind any of the songs from. Meh, it's in a pile of CDs labelled "Linger" somewhere....

Broken Bells - The High Road

Next, Son of Dave. Now, ideally I was after this particular live version which made me buy my Loop Station. Around a minute in, watch as The Coral stand around, bemused and suicidal, clearly dreading having to follow this one guy. (YouTube - Hellhound). Anyway, here's the album version, which naturally loses some of that live magic, but is still fantastic.

Son of Dave - Hellhound

Keeping up that frontiersman vibe, here's Revolver with Get Around Town. Sounds a bit like The Coral (if they had structure), The National (if he didn't mumble and had a sense of humour) and (insert band here). I can't put my finger on it, but it's great! The strings near the end sell it to me.

Revolver - Get Around Town

Next, Field Music add some well earned synthesisers to their tried and tested formula of falsetto spangle indierock, with some electro-funk for good measure in Let's Write a Book. Sounds amazing loud and bassy. I recently bought 3 Field Music albums from Fopp (£3 each!) , and I feel like I've let myself down by not listening to them more. I haven't quite gotten to that stage of listening to the albums where I can differentiate between more than 2 or 3 tracks. I bet they are good, but Field Music don't like easy melodies. They just like loads and loads of them in every song. A potential goldmine if I ever get the time.

Field Music - Let's Write a Book

"Six says everything will be Okayayay, Yippeekayay!" A late addition to the list, just cropped up on shuffle; Guggenheim Grotto with One For Sorrow. Haven't heard it for years, but a solid folk song about magpies that somehow manages to get you dancing. So? Get dancing!

Guggenheim Grotto - One For Sorrow

Finally, possibly the happiest song I've heard in ages, It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful by Slow Club Not for every mood, but it's brilliant for a sunday. It sounds cross between a happy Bright Eyes without his annoying vocal tics and his endlessly dull political tendencies, and a more upbeat & modern She & Him. You should love it, especially when the title of the song rears it's head. Love the melody.

Slow Club - It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful

Enjoy the weekend! C'mon sun, I know you're not really monochrome!