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!

What Makes Him Act So Bad

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!

Emerging From Our Shell

Apologies yet again for the slight gap in transmission. As a consequence there's something of a content jam so expect a gig review ketchup and linkdump in the next few days, as well as our annual Half-Term Report on the best albums released in the UK from January to June 2009.

In the meantime, continuing a recent (accidental) animal theme, enjoy the promo video of 'Turtle' by The Wind Whistles. Like the nature that seemingly informs their lyrical content, there's a slightly sinister undertow to the band's apparently straightforward surface, making their appeal nearer to anti-folk than twee.



If you like this, you might want to try their second album 'Animals Are People Too' which can be downloaded in full, legally, and for free*, from here. There's also whispers of a UK tour soon.

*Voluntary donations are encouraged, however.

Pleasing Friction

While Parallax View unscrambles its brains sufficiently to write up a review of Bristol Dot-to-Dot, please entertain yourselves by watching the promo for 'Young Adult Friction' the highlight of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's set at The Cooler.



Single Of The Week, and you'd be a numbskull to disagree...

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)

Keeping It Clean

There will one day be a time when this blog once again contains more than YouTube embeds, but until that time feast your eyes and ears on a live performance from Vienna's Soap&Skin who will inevitably draw comparisons with Kate Bush and Bjork but perhaps more accurately resembles the lycanthropic mid-transformation from Joanna Newsom to Danielle Dax. Her debut album ships in the UK later in the spring.

Great Escape

Apologies for the gap in transmission, but what better way to return than with Parallax View pet soundsters Ladytron and their latest single from luscious fourth album Velocifero? The marvellous Mira Aroyo in particular has never looked more alluring than in the stripey promo, all adding to the sense of a Runaway success, and inevitably, Parallax View Single Of The Week.

Tues Life

Just a brief bulletin to mention that Elbow won the Mercury Music Prize; introduce you to London's boy/girl arch-angular types Lux Lisbon; point you in the direction of Weebl and Bob destroying everything Ladytron touched in not safe for work adult animation (via Sweeping The Nation) and urge reading of RussL's spectacularly belated Supersonic 08 review.

Oh, and Anja's writing everyday now. You know what to do.

Gruff Justice

Off out shortly to Brum for the rest of the day, but in the meantime let your eyes have a lunchtime feast over The Mercury Music Prize nominations, which contain few alarms or surprises, and include a couple of top contenders for album of the year to date in our upcoming Half Term Report (due by the weekend) in Neon Neon and Laura Marling. Radiohead and Burial are also worthy choices from 2007 for the MMP, with Burial and Laura Marling probably the best value bets, as genre contenders with broader appeal usually do well in these kind of competitions. A second successive win for a dance-orientated record may be risky, so my money's on Ms Marling for the folkin' good album 'Alas I Cannot Swim'.*

*Remember, pop punters, always gamble responsibly, and with money you can afford to lose.

Rattled By The Hush

Things will be quiet on here for the next week or so for a variety of reasons. Won't have access to my normal email address for a while either so please refer enquiries here until further notice. Normal service to be resumed shortly. Whatever normal is.

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...

Nice But Dim?

Apologies for the sparsity of updates for the last week or so, although the good news is that this has principally been due to a lot of gigging activity, so you can expect some reviews over the next few days of some of today's hottest up 'n' comin' pop sensations, as well as an overview of last weekend's Dot To Dot Festival in Bristol.

To keep you going 'til then, one of the best bands at Dot to Dot were London's Red Light Company whose debut ep 'With Lights Out' is out on limited CD and 7" as of this week. The title track isn't as gloomy as it sounds, despite being about a childhood friend of the singer who committed suicide, and is in fact a stirring, soaring guitar-pop gem of the highest order, one of our very favourite songs of this increasingly good year, and easily qualifying as Parallax View Single Of The Week. They may be called Red Light Company, but there's no stopping 'em now...