Summer is easy..

Living in the city downtown..

I have had the new Constantines album Tournament Of Hearts for a week now, and on the first listen it became one of my albums of the year.

Some songs manage to have waves of distortion but also sound minimal and sparse at the same time, everything fits together perfectly, looping drum rhythms and booming bass lines locking together with snatches of picked clean guitar melodies over powerful distorted chords hitting you right in the chest, making you listen involuntarily with you eyes closed.

Highlights include: Lizaveta, You Are A Conducter, Thieves.. and the rest of the album pretty much, not one bad song.

Download it from here. (follow link)

..and you better buy it when it comes out too.

I also got a promo of Laura Veirs' new album Year Of Meteors a month or so ago, it is also a great album which will sit nicely in the top 20 of the year lists, for me it doesn't hold a special place in my heart quite like Carbon Glacier does, but I think it will be the type of album that gets under your skin until you're hooked.

Here are a few tracks:

Black Gold Blues

Fire Snakes

Spelunking

Love of colour, sound and words..

Is this a blessing or a curse?



Everyone should check out two songs from Laura Veirs' new album here.

The songs are Galaxies and Secret Someones.. I highly recommend Galaxies.. great chorus.

..and here are some other songs for the day:

Laura Veirs - Songs my Friends Taught Me A beautiful song from Laura's third album.

Juana Molina - ¿Quién? This is a great acoustic/spanish song from the amazing Juana Molina, who not enough people have heard of.

Juana Molina - Tres Costas ..and another!

Arab Strap - Flirt I love Arab Strap and you should too.

The Cinematic Orchestra - All That You Can Give ..ambient chillout that only a Ninjatune artist can deliver.

Sister, sister..Keep the fire inside..

..and your dogs won't die..



For all you Devendra Banhart fans out there, it seems the crazy freak has put his new album up for streaming here.

The new album Cripple Crow is released September 19th. I advise you to go listen to Hey Mama Wolf.
It's very good.

My wooden vibrating mouth.. sing me your lovers' song..

Come with me, we'll head up north where the rivers run icy and strong..



So, i've neglected this blog for a couple of months for good reasons..

1. I'm lazy..

2. No one reads it.

But I decided I don't care, so i'm back.

So anyway, my promo of the forthcoming Laura Veirs album Year Of Meteors should be here soon, and invariably I will be posting about it saying how great it is sometime in the next week.

Also, since i've been away Sufjan's new album was released, and like every self respecting blogger out there, I freaking love Sufjan Stevens.
Luckily I managed to get two copies with the Superman cover before all the nonsense started.. and then they started selling it anyway, so that was a waste of £12.
I'm not a big fan of the cover art at the moment anyway, so I hope they go for something completely different for the repress.

Anyway, onto the songs:

For all you Patrick Wolf fans who don't read my blog, here is a link to my piano version of Wind In The Wires:
Wind In The Wires - on Rapidshare

For everyone who hasn't heard of Menomena and should have:
Menomena - Rose (demo)
Menomena - Trigga Hiccups (Live)
..and one from their debut This Is The Fun Blame Monster:
Menomena - E Is Stable

Some Laura Veirs tracks (because I love her):



Laura Veirs & Karl Blau - Lonely Angel Dust (Live)
Laura Veirs & Karl Blau - Rapture (Live)


Also checkout my Myspace page:
Destroying Something Beautiful on Myspace

In the spirit of three stars..

The alien thing that took it's form..



I went to see the Hitch-Hikers film yesterday. I am a massive fan of the books and was so excited to see it adapted for the big screen that I was making random high pitch squeaking noises.
Then I saw it.
How could anyone make such a pathetic excuse for a film when they have such great source material! ?
Two thirds of the jokes weren't even used, and the last third were changed to completely ruin what made them so great in the first place!
The film would then go off on unexplained tangents without any reason or explanation.
I came out of that movie theatre feeling so disappointed and shit about everything that I needed something to make me feel better..

Even though I wouldn't usually, I decided (after finding it on Soulseek) to download the forthcoming Sufjan Stevens album.



All I will say is that it is absolutely perfect and I will still be buying when it comes out purely for the artwork and the pleasure of putting in my CD rack.

Check out one of my favourite tracks in this weeks Pop77 mix.

Let's stop hanging out, let's stop having fun..

Stand in the corner and think about what you've done.



This blog may not have been alive that long, but I feel proud of the fact that I seem to be the only one not to have mentioned The OC in a post..

Shit. Well that's the end of that then..

Anyway, to make up for it here are some great MP3s by some great bands.

Reuben - Shambles

Plans & Apologies - Eggbound Mute

Aereogramme - Zionist Timing

A.C. Newman - Drink To Me Babe Then

Save Ferris - Hungry Like The Wolf (Duran Duran cover)

Owen - Places To Go

American Football - Honestly

Ugly Duckling - Do Your Thing

Freedom to us has always been a trick..

Freedom to you has always been whoever landed on your dick..



Whilst looking around a website I found recently devoted to Bootlegging I decided to download some tracks to check out peoples efforts and found a mix that made me lose my breath.

This is a mixing of the guitar from Iron & Wine's "Faded From The Winter" and the vocals from "Trick Me" by Kelis (and also some backfround samples from "Teardrop" by Massive Attack.
Whereas the original version of "Trick Me" was full of attitude and two fingers towards the subject, this bootleg manages to make the vocals sound sad and reflective and just generally heartbreaking.

The bootleg mix (and the great picture!) was/were done by downlowtooslow, check him out here.

Kelis (ft. Iron & Wine and Massive Attack) - Massive Winter Trick