Kids Love Lies-Stars

This is their new single 'Stars' which will be released on the 1st June, it's lovely, here's the video:






Katie x

Smirnoff have teamed up with Simian Mobile Disco

Like Vodka and good music? Watch this Simian Mobile Disco video in association with Smirnoff:




Katie x

Lissie- Bad Romance

Here's the review that I did of it last week for Faux Magazine

I just want to quickly introduce you to something I heard for the first time the other day; one of the best covers that I have heard in a very long time. It’s a cover of Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ by young American singer Lissie, who’s brilliant single ‘In Sleep’ is Single of the Week on iTunes at the moment. Lissie seems to sing the song the way that it was meant to be sung; she sheds light on the tender nature of the song and encapsulates the pain that Gaga covers up through flamboyant gimmicks and dancing. Unlike Gaga, Lissie showcases the frustration and monotony of being in a shoddy relationship through the aggressive strums of the slightly distorted guitar as well as some pretty frequent tempo changes. Perfect, perhaps even better than the original.






Katie x

The Dead Weather- Die by the Drop

Die by the Drop starts with twinkly drums and a quiet funk riff, these later on during the song will seem so out of place in comparison to the rest of the song. Then comes the hauntingly repetitive piano, the one note, repeated and repeated throughout the whole song, which still happens to actually work very effectively in creating this horror pop/rock montage that White and Mosshart blatantly set out to create. However, their pre- thought out aims for the song are obvious, yet, this doesn’t cheapen the song itself. The deathly distorted guitar riffs are finally introduced and the song gets going in true Dead Weather style. The mélange of Jack’s quirky vocals and Alison’s husky voice complements them.


“Let’s dig a hole in the sand, brother. A little grave we can fill together” Alison sings in her clean, husky voice that fits the entire concept of The Dead Weather so well. The entire song is full of a semantic field of gothic horror, “graves”, “death”, “salvation” and an air of destructive love.
The ever changing rhythm seems to have been set out to purposely confuse the listener, it still has a traditional verse/chorus structure but the changing rhythm adds flair and originality to the song.


In my opinion The Dead Weather are Jack White and Alison Mosshart at their best, it seems that they have finally obtained the formula to making fantastic music which is something that I honestly don’t think either of them had in The White Stripes, The Raconteurs or The Kills, it seemed that either their talents were withheld or just not fully developed, until now.


Katie x

The Golden Filter- Voluspa

This is the New York band’s debut album and after the release of their first single ‘Solid Gold’ well over a year ago, it’s been a long time coming. Named after the poem on the subject of the creation story, this album is scattered with epic electric violin riffs, mouth watering synth riffs and catchy dance beats.

Despite the influx of computer generated music, I’m yet to get bored of this trend, mainly as it fascinates me as I could never have the patience for such technology. This band defies all barriers with this album, its dream-like ambiance captures the imagination, the beats urge dancing, this album’s a production master piece.

Penelope’s warm vocals melt the ear drums and Stephen’s disco handiwork compliments them well, not only is this album pop gold dust but it’s a beautiful piece of art at the same time. The strange computer generated noises add to the enchantment that the unique, overlapped vocal riffs provide. This album is hazy pop at its best.

Voluspa explores the natural elements, the supernatural and relationships, both musically and lyrically. You have to listen to the whole LP to understand what The Golden Filter are all about, given their status for remaining mysterious, this album is the biggest insight into their minds that we have, thank goodness it’s a good one. This album is a box full of magic just bursting to be opened. For me, this is definitely one of the best album’s that’s been released so far this year.

Goldfrapp- Head First

Goldfrapp have just released their fifth album ‘Head First’, but after the new wave of electro-pop artists that have been established in the past couple of years, have they still got that same appeal as when they released their first album? Quite possibly not, through no fault of their own, why should they be forced to change their style just because of fellow competitors for the electro-pop throne?
This album is surprising contrast to their 4th album ‘Seventh Tree’ which seemed to nod more to the sixties for inspiration, where as ‘Head First’ has an evident 70s/80s pop inspiration, which, at times seems a bit too much as it conceals the haunting darkness that has always been present in their music. But, this album’s full of contagious vocal hooks and chorus’s and tastefully created cheese, however, the repetition can get irritating from time to time.
Despite its negatives, this album also contains a lot of positive factors, not only in its uplifting style but Alison’s delicious breathy, dream-like vocals are impossible to hate. Many of the songs contain strong dance beats and catchy synth riffs which is another reason why I like this record; Alison seems to be revisiting her roots, this music is similar to the music that you would expect to find on some of their earlier albums.
‘Head First’ contains slick vocals and smooth production, particularly on certain tracks, for example ‘Shiny and Warm.’ Though, some songs are a little too reminiscent of 80’s pop acts like Van Halen, such as ‘Rocket’, the title track ‘Head First’ and ‘I Wanna Life.’ This well polished pop album is easy on the ears and despite its downfalls, is quite an enjoyable album, there’s nothing not to like, yet there’s nothing there to really thrive upon either, I’d say it’s a ‘pleasant’ album. Though, unfortunately for Goldfrapp, given pop’s current climate of producing exciting, fresh new artists continuously, I doubt this album will be winning any awards any time soon.

6.5/10

Paloma Faith -gig review 24/03/2010

Paloma has been unwell recently and has hardly any voice, I was meant to be interviewing her earlier but she had to cancel all press to try and preserve the little voice that she has left in order to not have to cancel shows. Despite not having a sore throat this evening, she ploughs on with the show. And what a fine job she did of it too! It was a show littered with her album tracks, jazz covers, a radio 1 live lounge cover, costume changes and jazzy break downs.

La shark are on first, I pre- warn my mother, who attended the gig with me, that she may not like them because they’re quite strange but after a couple of songs she turns to me and says “these are good, these are.” This seems to be the general feeling around me, at first the audience were taken aback by the bizarre mash up of ideas, genres and images that La Shark convey but by half way through the set they are drawn in and start to like them. It seems that La Shark have obvious punk/ska roots but they appear to be influenced by a lot of things, some might describe them as mad heads who’ve somehow managed to obtain musical instruments but others would consider their experimental approach artistic and genius, I’d go with the latter.







After lots of excessive guitar tuning and the revelation of a large, theatre set type mirror (a hint to the opener of the set, Smoke and Mirrors), Paloma’s band take to the stage, followed dramatically of course, by the lady, herself. Paloma works the stage dressed in a multi-coloured cat suit and a head full of fruit, if I hadn’t have known that she wasn’t feeling 100% I would never have guessed it from this entrance! Paloma evidently found it hard to talk at times, which wasn’t helped by the absolute idiots that were shouting obscene things at her from the balcony in between songs but her singing voice remained fairly strong throughout the set. Her mellow jazz covers such as Nina Simone’s ‘Don’t Explain’, her Billie Holiday cover and her slant on The Beatles’ ‘You never give me your money’ were sounding beautiful and Paloma’s dancing was still energetic. A particular highlight of her set for me was the ‘remix’ version of her third single ‘Do you want the Truth or something beautiful?’ which was highly refreshing and the band seemed to enjoy playing it a lot. Speaking of her band, I must say how talented they all are! Dom’s piano skills are excellent, this something which I noticed especially, with being a pianist myself, the guitarists were great and I see a bright future ahead for all of her gifted backing singers, particularly ‘Baby Sol’, whom I felt had a particular stage presence/ unique charismatic appeal to her. After a stunning set, the encore songs were her cover of Etta James’ ‘At last’ and the single that really broke her into the world of main stream music ‘New York’. As always after a good gig, there is an air of love and adoration in the room, this reassures me that although there may be a lot of dislike for Paloma, there is a lot of love for her too. I know a lot of people that don’t like her but in the wise words of Mama Wilkinson, “what is there not to like about Paloma? She’s lovely!”





Katie x