Pet Sounds

The new Name The Pet single is a bouncy pop choon more viral than YouTube embeds, while the promo admirably promotes the healthy benefits of physical exercise, although the sheer cheerleader chic of it makes it slightly dubious safety for work.



December is usually tragic in terms of PV updates, but hawk-eyed followers can expect a humongous gig review compendium, a long linkdump and the usual end-of-year lists before 2010 hits!

First Class Return

We know, we've been neglecting you. More content soon, including a review of the Saint Etienne-curated first day of the Moseley Folk Festival, but until then check out 'Dancing' by Sheffield's Standard Fare. It's a purdy, poignant choon that will appeal to fans of bands like Sky Larkin and The Dirty Mittens, and the promo resourcefully makes a virtue of the no-budget D-I-Y montage format.



Standard Fare are playing The Autumn Store in Birmingham in December. We should go dancing!

Llamas And Surprises

Being popcult bloggers and wannabe hipsters, we're feeling a little sheepish about admitting that, yes, we too, love the Dirty Projectors' new album Bitte Orca, and that 'Stillness Is The Move' is quite possibly our favourite song of the year. The recently-released promo, featuring as it does caped girls dancing with wolves and a random llama farmer, emphatically seals the deal.

Have Faith

The Dot-to-Dot review is undeniably late, but will be imminent. In the meantime, Katie Stelmanis supplies Single Of The Week with 'Believe Me' (out to buy on June 22 but the mp3 can be downloaded from NME), coming on like an electropop Frida Hyvonen to credible effect.



Witches nice.

Let The Outside In

This week's Single Of The Week is on a totally topical tip, so as Britain swelters away in a welcome heatwave, Swedish stunner Name The Pet offers a hymn to sunshine, shimmering pop loveliness given suntan motion by some delightful disco propulsion.

Name The Pet - Sunshine [Official Video]


But remember, popkids of all ages, don't forget the suncream! (via newly-NME adopted I Am The Crime)

Spring Time

Polly Harvey! Wet 'n' Wild! In a bouncy castle! Press play!

You Really Got The Power Over Me

Every interlude needs a dancing girl, right? So Parallax View went out and got one, and we got the best, Raquel Welch in her pomp doing a spacegirl routine, provin' once more that the future ain't what it used to be...



(via Pappa Comics)

I Am Curious, Yelle

We know little about Yelle other than that they're French and Ce Jeu is the third single taken off their album 'Pop-Up'. You can sit there berating us for our lack of research or just take in the colourful fun of their video, which apparently contains a brief nipslip at 2:09 so might not be safe for work if your boss has 20:20 vision. We described this elsewhere as 'a generous slice of Eurovision cheese sizzling on a beefy electropop patty' but this was possibly just us getting carried away with ourselves...



Yelle, then: officially a scream.

High Quality

Hippychick fuckyou anthem to chugging quasi-Strokes chords? We're in!!! And while we're at it, can we ask that all promo videos from now on feature someone playing the piano with stiletto heels? We're referring of course to 'My High' from Jonna Lee, the lead single from her upcoming sophomore album, which has a tender acoustic cover of The Killers' 'Human' on the flip (note: the lyrics still make no sense whatever).



Parallax View Single Of The Week, unless our highs deceive us!

Twice Bitten

Fed up of Lykke Li yet? Nope, us neither, which is why we make the re-release of her debut single 'Little Bit' this week's Parallax View Single Of The Week. Turning coy courtship into scintillating sonic splendour, we love it loads.



Further Parallax View content due later in the week, honest guv.

Mega Tilly

How cool would it be for the mighty Moshi Moshi Records to score a really, really big hit single? That weird prospect has become a greater possibility than ever before with the news that Radio One have playlisted 'Beat Control' by Tilly and the Wall (out in stores this week, including on heavy 7" vinyl).

We'd kinda forgotten about TATW and their tap-dancing percussionist since seeing them in quick succession a few years back, but new album O is receiving the best reviews of their career, and Beat Control finds them sufficiently focused on the business of producing a Proper Pop Single to ease them into a position where mainstream recognition is a viable target.

The end result is so delirious with melody it could be Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine resurrecting a neglected Monkees classic, a veritable Wall of Sound that fully deserves the accolade of Parallax View Single Of The Week.

Breaking Muse

For those of you wondering whatever happened to the Lykke Li lass, rest assured she's alive and kicking up a storm, earning herself in the meantime Parallax View Single Of The Week with her new single Breaking It Up (out in stores now). With many middle-aged middle-brow columnists who oughtta know better currently writing Madonna off as she turns 50, it's worth noting that there's something haunted, serious and driven undertowing even the most delirious of Lykke Li's tunes that recall the Queen of Pop in her early striving pomp.

Manic Mondo

Because the internet would just be boryn without a bit of Robyn, we start off this Monday mini-mitherpiece with some self-styled self-regarding nonsense from the suddenly big and bossy Ms Wilder. Titbits include revelations about wandering through London with her blouse undone to the waist, but it's not just blogging ninja divas who suffer from wardrobe malfunctions, as Rihanna shows in this set of dubious-safety-for-work photos, proving that not even an umbrella (ella, ella, ella) could hide your blushes when it's that nippy out.

Raising our eyes from the gutters to the stars somewhat, Warren Ellis gives a sceptical glance back at speccy sci-fi boffin Joe 90 (via LMG) and Carl Hiassen's Lucky You is being adapted for the British stage. Elsewhere, various bods recall this year's Indietracks; On Dancefloors is a Bristol music blog with a funky attitude; In Pictures: Kate Bush is 50 and, remember Cardiff pop kids, Tell The Police The Truth.

Bloggers don't so much fade away as they do diversify, a case in point being Creepy Lesbo's Slash Media (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) in which she samples some of modern pop culture's gashtronomic delights. Skin Flicks is much more safe for work, although as he considers himself to be a very angry man and is found pleading for fallen women to be shown to him, maybe due caution should be shown after all.

Meanwhile, the undisputed star of Bristol's Dot-to-Dot, the inimitable Big Jeff, has MySpace.

And wherever else your browser points you, remember, Jesus Can See!

Closely Observed Pre-Trains

The Autumn Store Presents A Pre-Indietracks Special: The Smittens/The Zebras/Red Pony Clock, The Sunflower Lounge, off Queensway, Birmingham, Tuesday July 22 2008, 9.30pm.

Just get into the venue in time as Red Pony Clock start limbering up, a Tijuana-based octet who sound like a mix between Calexico and all-out chaos. Their van exploded on the way to the venue, but they seem in surprisingly good spirits about it, perhaps because on the plus-side it means you're not short of things to talk about between songs. You know those pictures that look like random dots but if you stare at them for long enough all of a sudden this brilliant 3-D image pops up before your eyes and makes sense of it all? Red Pony Clock are the sonic equivalent, as their seemingly ramshackle material develops into something clever, organic and fun to fully reward the patient, open-minded listener. There's still not enough dancing going on for the band's liking, though, until The Smittens' drummer Holly shows how it's done, leaping around like a frisky kitten ricocheting from furniture, to hugely engaging effect.

The Zebras aren't from South Yorkshire, they're from Rotherham - Rotherham, in Australia, that is, although Northern English influences like The Smiths and The Wedding Present would seem evident in a band with a much more immediate, accessible appeal to an indie crowd than Red Pony Clock. The Zebras are more than the sum of their influences, however, with songs that swoop and soar and stir, destined to go down well with Weddoes fans at this weekend's Indietracks, we feel. Their stage banter needs some work, however, maybe they need to emerge unscathed from a tour vehicle inferno to put some fire in their bellies?

With things running later than planned, your harassed hack needs to make a Last Train to Larksville exit halfway through the headline set from Burlington, Vermont's The Smittens, but what we see/hear is confident, breezy and tuneful, and fully in line with all the good things we've heard about/from them, and we'll look out for them next time they're jingling their jangle back on these shores.

All in all, another fine evening of high-quality indie gathering courtesy of those friendly folk from The Autumn Store!

All three bands featured will be playing at Indietracks this weekend (July 26-27, festival fact fans) in deepest Derbyshire.

Dead Kenny's Behrami Army

To celebrate our beloved West Ham finally making their first major signing of the summer in Valon Behrami, a Kosovan-born Swiss international right back, whose crazy hair and tats should see him fit in well with our long history of 'eccentric' full-backs, Parallax View sees fit to empty our favourites folder for you to pick 'n' mix -

More reasons to be cheerful as Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong shelve their debut album. Seems like an 8/10 rating from the NME doesn't amount to a hill o'beans these days!

We've cut back our gig/festival-going in the last month or so, but some good folk have put the hours in during our absence -

Drowned In Sound review Supersonic 2008.

Ben SWSL's Glasto 2008 Diary.

Sweeping The Nation reviews Truck festival.

Last Bus Home reviews the Lovebox Weekender at Victoria Park.

Troubled Diva reviews White Denim at Nottingham Bodega.

In other news -

Rock drummers are top athletes.

Attachments' Amanda Ryan is to play Cathy in Birmingham Rep's upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation.

Twenty Major's cure for another boring summer.

Scary Duck on passive-aggressive notes.

Lydongate? Johnny's Behaviour Rotten? Swells on the 'racist' rickus (via RussL)

Careless Genes shows us how to make home-made peanut butter.

Birmingham's Flapper and Firkin faces demolition. (via Pete Ashton)

NOT SAFE FOR WORK eye candy if you like the idea of a Japanese Cheryl Cole lookalike with F-cup depth to her personality - Suzuka Ishikawa (20): REMINDER: NOT WORK SAFE.

M.I.A. and Santogold Get It Up together.

Cat With A Theremin (via just about everybody, it seems).

And finally, we did get to a gig last night, review to follow shortly, but here as a taster is one of the bands, Red Pony Clock, and their silly promo for My New Best Friends. If you like what you see/hear, they'll be playing the Indietracks festival in Ripley, Derbyshire this weekend -

Because We Say So

Parallax View first encountered Rosie And The Goldbug at this year's Dot-to-Dot festival in Bristol, and we were suitably impressed with their bouncy, colourful choonage to look out for future recordings. The wait is now over, with the release of their War Of The Roses ep, available with immediate effect from iTunes. The title track is a breezy delight, and like so many of this year's best songs is unashamedly pop in the way it alchemises sounds and sentiments into giddy thrills.

We're not sure where the Cornwall/London trio stand when it comes to the Lancashire/Yorkshire divide, so will avoid any white/red rose faux-pas by delivering a fresh, blooming Parallax View Single Of The Week to their doorstep as an alternative garland. You know it makes scents!

Ship Shapes And Bristol Fashion

Dot-to-Dot Festival, Various venues in Bristol, Saturday May 24 2008 and Sunday May 25 2008, 2.45pm-11pm.

This is your erudite explorer's first time at Dot-to-Dot, and on only our second expedition to Brizzle itself, and special thanks are due to new city resident Alison for providing the hospitality, company, laptop access and orienteering skills as we traversed the city in search of indie-rock thrills. Bristol seems almost unfairly blessed with unusual venues, with things kicking off on a moored-boat-cum-nightclub Thekla, and other sites including a converted church (Trinity) and prison (the appropriately named Fiddlers), all adding to the sense of adventure and discovery.

All aboard the good ship Thekla, our first band of the fest were Telepathe (pronounced by the band as telepathy as if spoken in a foreign accent) who featured (running theme alert!) an androgynous lead singer who looked for all the world like a cabin boy until she opened her pipes. Technical difficulties bedevilled the New Yorkers' set, which had something of a shambolic air (the sexy drummer abandoned her instrument for most of the set), but somehow through it all, by combination of sullen cool and some beautiful, fascinating songs, they seem to just about get through it all with their allure intact.

Then caught a couple of songs by serious young men The Detachments, which was enough to make you walk the plank, so headed off to rockpub The Fleece where Dublin's Fight Like Apes turned Bristol into the Wild West for half-an-hour, striding across the bar counter and wrestling each other in the moshpit during a cathartic and hugely enjoyable set, with former Parallax View Single Of The Week 'Jake Summers' the crazed centrepiece amongst their other harder, slightly grungier material. FLA also afforded us our first encounter with Bristol's most noteworthy superfan, a tall ginger bearded fellow called Geoff/Jeff whose propulsive stage-front duracell-dancing antics were a significant ongoing feature during festivities.

Downstairs at local roots venue The Louisiana, Sid Delicious were offering some skewed, off-beat thrills, while upstairs met back up with Alison to catch some of Eugene McGuinness' more traditional folk fayre, which should offer some appeal to fans of the Norwegian troubadour Sondre Lerche. Much more to our liking was Esser back over at Thekla, who looked tetchy and preoccupied during the soundcheck, but with his band got everybody dancing with jerky, infectious, and ever-so-slightly ridiculous pop music all set to create waves everywhere if there was any justice in this world.

We should have followed Geoff/Jeff's purposeful gait towards the Fiddlers, but instead got slightly lost and so despairingly missed Southampton's Thomas Tantrum performing former Parallax View Single Of The Week 'Shake It! Shake It!' (dispatching your most famous song early in the set seems to be another emerging trend) although what remained was nevertheless impressive, albeit more conventionally rockin' than their strop-pop SOTW. Top marks too to the very pretty lead singer for taking the time to publicly thank Geoff/Jeff for his sterling dancefloor exertions, and the dishing out of the free badges afterwards.

We elected to stay in Fiddlers to catch Micachu, who've been recording with Matthew Herbert and are starting to make a noise in London. They make heavy weather of the start of the set, the singer appearing to be in the 'attitude' stage of a day's drinking, and our attention wanders to the consideration of whether the drummer is a boy or girl (the former, if you're interested). Things do improve as the set goes on, and maybe in the studio with a disciplined producer their recorded output might be worth exploring.

Sunday morning was spent trawling MySpace to identify some bands worth catching, and the day eventually took us by surprise in terms of offering an even wider array of thrills, despite getting lost in one of Bristol's less salubrious spots in search of Trinity, where we saw a couple of uninspiring bands kick the day off amidst the anti-climax of Team Waterpolo pulling out. Much better was to follow, however, with Woodbridge's Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds proving a genuine revelation back at Fiddlers, despatching urgent (East-Angular?) guitar pop with energy, enthusiasm and that raw fearlessness you get from a band that's twigged they're on the cusp of something transformative. Daft name, then, but brilliant choons, particularly the marvellous anthem 'Slow Kids'.

This inspires your adrenaline-rushed arsehole to stuff in quick snatches of bands during an intense period of shuttling between venues and a strict three-songs-and-then-you're-gone policy which we only break for Red Light Company at Fleece, because they are excellent value, because 'With Lights Off' is a majestic classic, because the lead singer looks like an even skinnier Tom Petty, but also because by this stage we're knackered. Bonus points for the ecstatic group hug afterwards, too, which seemed genuine and this gang mentality will serve them well in the music industry travails that are sure to follow.

Around RLC we also found ourselves rattled by the rush of Pack AD's butch, bruising take on modern blues in Louisiana; impressed with the colossal high-energy post-rock guitar squalls of Leicester's Maybeshewill at Fleece; smiling like a silly-'un to the giddy 80's guilty pleasures of Cornwall's Rosie and the Goldbug at Thekla and left feeling slightly cold by moody Swedes Dag for Dag back again in Louisiana.

Things were then topped off in Thekla with The Mae Shi nearly stealing the whole weekend in a suitably scurvied piratical style, their jittery, attention-deficited noise-pop keeping everybody hugely entertained. We've heard of bands canvassing their fans before, but we've never seen it quite so literally demonstrated as when the band haul a sheet of tarpaulin over the moshpit and all dive inside under it, where they find themselves, amongst others, rubbing pneumatic shoulders with the omnipresent Geoff/Jeff. All in all, a wonderfully in-tents performance, then.

Cutting Pink With Knives have the opposite effect to The Mae Shi's inclusive gestures, in one of their last ever live performances, with frightened punters scampering away for safety as the lead singer took off his shirt and attempted to bully those at the bar into the moshpit. The music was slammin' and powerful in a kind of Beestung Lips-with-the-brakes-off intensity, and although we weren't really in the mood for it, it was kind of fascinating to watch as a piece of theatre, even though the search for anything remotely resembling a melody proved a fruitless task.

Then it was back to The Fleece for our last show of the festival: Metronomy, who seemed to be trying to be Klaxons so hard it hertz, wacky light circles emblazoned on their chests, and all. They were OK, to be fair, a reasonable soundtrack to the last few drinks of the weekend, but nothing to write home about in comparison to The Red Light Company, The Mae Shi, Fight Like Apes, Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds, Esser, Rosie and The Goldbug and Thomas Tantrum, who made up my magnificent seven from this delightfully dotty weekend.

In-Cistern-ed Rhythm

We've been mentioning it in despatches for a while, so with its physical release in stores now, it seems only fair to bestow the near-mythological Parallax View Single Of The Week status upon 'I'm Good I'm Gone' by Lykke Li. We could bore you with a long post about production techniques or a state-of-the-pop-nation address, but instead we'll just say we like this song because it makes us happy, so maybe there's a chance it'll make you happy too. To help you decide, here's a YouTube vid of La Lykke and chums belting it out in a toilet, complete with spoons and a rad reindeer jumper, and ending with a flush flourish.



And remember, pop pickers, don't forget to wash your hands!

Santi Establishment

Santogold, Bar Academy, Birmingham, Monday May 26 2008, 9pm.

Missed the boat in Bristol when couldn't get into the good ship Thekla to see Santogold at the prior weekend's Dot To Dot, although we did have the pleasure of Santi and her dancers brushing straight across your queuing quizling to get on board. So we're fortunate that just two days later we get to see the girls put on a show in the cosy confines of Bar Academy.

A standard support act is eschewed in favour of a DJ who plays an eclectic mix of dance, pop and indie, which, we suppose, is as good as any entree in terms of getting the palate ready for the live showcasing of the Santogold album, for which the DJ remains on stage behind Santi and her two dancers.

The resulting show has been described elsewhere as glorified karaoke, but your hypnotised hack maintains the sight of an energetic, passionate crowd-pleaser like Santi flanked by two dancers who alternate robotically between standing stock-still and some sizzling dance shapes provides more of an arresting visual spectacle than many a so-called great live act in the indie pantheon.

Santi makes no pretence that tonight's performance is anything other than a small-scale celebration of her debut album before she returns with a full band later in the summer. Her stated objective is getting the Second City's early adopters and prime schmoozers shaking their rump to a set heavy in the dancier numbers like 'CREATOR'; 'Unstoppable' and, of course, former Parallax View Single Of The Week 'L.E.S. Artistes' at the expense of poppier highlights like 'Lights Out' and 'I'm A Lady'. The mission is easily accomplished.

Modest in size and set-up as the gig might be, the mutual goodwill between the artist and crowd, helped by the energy of the performance (Santi's alive eyes and sense of fun owes as much to the likes of Tina Turner and Neneh Cherry than the much-quoted M.I.A.) and the genuine quality of the material makes for a memorable show that leaves no-one going home short-changed.

Gotta New Rose, Got It Good

No nearer to clearing the blogging backlog than before, but we interrupt this prevarication to advise that our very favourite Pipette, Rosay by any other name, has left the group to start her own solo career. She's now going by her full name of Rose Elinor Dougall and the first fruits from this venture can be found by having a Rosy Nosey over on her MySpace page which reveals an intriguing new direction of atmospheric, smoky moodpop a la Stereolab, Broadcast and Mazzy Star. Worth keeping an eye on this brand new Rose in town!

In other news, Good Music Is Better Than Crack.

Gig review ketchup (including the Bristol Dot-to-Dot overview) to follow over the course of the next week...

Specs Mark The Spot

The Autumn Store Presents: The Deirdres/Winston Echo/Amida, Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham, Saturday May 10 2008, 8.45pm.

In honour of all things Deirdre, the Autumn Store organisers have put six pictures of Corrie character Deirdre Barlow/Raschid in various places within the venue for customers to take a punt as to how many and enter a prize draw of merchandise from all three bands playing. The correct answer is six, and your short-sighted scribe only found two, so no spotters badge for Dead Kenny tonight. Your concentrating correspondent does, however, manage to catch all three acts and these are our views.

Manchester's Amida are hurried on first on the bill so that they can get the train back home, but with a bit of decent fortune their slightly shambly and properly jangly take on alternative pop will bring in enough moolah to get themselves a van real soon. The band take time to thank the audience for being so polite and paying attention to their tunes before beating a path to New Street station. Overall impression: amiable, humble, could well be worth checking them out again real soon.

Winston Echo is a roundish gentleman from Wellingborough who has his own public transport woes to relate, as well as singing some observational lo-fi pop with a little bit of instrumental assistance from some bloke from The Retro Spankees. The missing link between Johnny Vegas and Billy Bragg, he's a bit different from the usual Autumn Store fayre, and the bill feels all the better for his hugely entertaining turn.

The Deirdres from Derby are huge in number and young of age, and there's too much going on at any one time to take all of it in at first. They start the show with their backs turned to the audience and have their own dance routine before revealing that they're all in character by wearing a pair of big Deirdre specs either on their face, their head or coquettishly tucked into their blouses. There are obvious comparisons to Los Campesinos! and another fashionable twist sees the group swap instruments and vocal turns with dizzying regularity.

Which is all very well, but does it all work? By and large, yes, aside from a slight glitch with that most evil of instruments, the recorder (the distant memories of disinfectant taste and clumsy fingers still bedevil your haunted hack), these precocious upstarts reveal talent, invention and more than decent songwriting skills. One suspects it may have taken years of practice and preparation for them to be this gauche and yet so good and so fun. The Deirdres, then: not a Barlow par performance between them.

Curious to see these acts for yourself? All three will be performing at the Indietracks festival in July in The Deirdres' home county of Derbyshire.

Transformer

Metamorphosis, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham, Wednesday February 27 2008, 7.30pm.

The combination of Franz Kafka and Nick Cave lured your cautious correspondent back into the theatre for the first time in several months. Billed as a six-legged nightmare, the story has been adapted and directed by David Farr and Gisli Orn Garderson to be performed by the Reykjavik-based ensemble Vesturport with an original score provided by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. With the pedigrees and reputations of those involved we had every right to expect dark material dashingly delivered, and we were not to be disappointed.

Many of you will be aware of the central story concept, of a young man who awakes one morning to find himself turned into an insect to the consternation of his family for whom he is their breadwinner, and who only hear an ear-piercing shriek when he tries to communicate with them. There are many semi-autobiographical elements involved in the story (Kafka turned his back on a conventional career to concentrate on his writing, outstayed his welcome in the family homestead until the age of 31, and had an unusually strong bond with his sister) but perhaps the timeless genius of the piece lies in the way the writer has extracted universal themes from these elements, primarily the way in which both micro- and macro-societies ruthlessly isolate the different and unconventional.

The resulting production is as odd and slightly depressing as the material dictates, but remains a triumph on many levels. The Cave/Ellis score is subtly integral to the mood of the piece, while the magnificent set design (including a gravity-defying bedroom) and astonishing physical theatre make apparent light of the numerous logistic difficulties of translating such surreal material to the stage. Bjorn Thors deserves particular praise for his acrobatic performance as Gregor, particularly moving in the sequence where he appears never-more human than at the point of final rejection by his family. Striking, memorable, theatre, then, worth catching as the run moves on to Plymouth then London (Lyric Hammersmith, March 25 - April 5).