Best Friends

Sheffield four-piece Best Friends' lo-fi garage-meets-surf rock racket may be nothing overly original but it's an excellent blend of sounds and perfectly executed also. Distorted vocals, twanging guitar, buzzy bass, crashing drum sounds and the soundtrack to your summer, maybe. Patriotism may largely be a racist's excuse, but it makes me feel a little proud when stuff like this comes out of the UK. Listen below or download the full EP on bandcamp or SoundCloud


Best Friends - Lip Curl


Best Friends - Beach Bitches

Bandcamp | SoundCloud | Facebook | Twitter

Yawn

Shamelessly stolen from my other blogging venture (lostlostlost), Yawn are a Chicago tropics-loving four-piece - all rim-clicks, 'tribal' chanty vocals, bongo-taps, and high-pitched, high-paced guitar work. It's the sort of thing that some people will compare to Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, and Yeasayer but it certainly deserves to be seen as its own 'thing'. It's exciting, it's vibrant, and I really, really like it.


Yawn - Toys


Yawn - David


Homepage | Bandcamp | lostlostlost post

Friendo

13,000 plays. That's all I'm saying to myself as I listen to Canadian three-piece Friendo for the first time. How and why have I not heard of these before? I don't know. The important thing is that I have heard of them now.

All I know is that at least one member either used to be or still is in noisy band Women, and that these woozy, reverberating jams spanning all kind of genres and influences (you can hear bits of punk, 60s-style pop, and an experimental, noisy edge) are all kinds of ace.

Check out some stuff below. Also, Cardiff folk should see them supporting Cold Pumas at Buffalo Bar on July 8 along with Saturday's Kids. That'll be excellent.




Friendo - Callers

Bandcamp | Facebook

Revisiting: The Black Tambourines

Posted about Falmouth three-piece The Black Tambourines back in November not long after their split 7" release with New Years Evil on southwest label Art Is Hard, commenting on their excellent surfy, noisy pop jams based on the tracks contained on that release. As excellent as those tracks were, it's only since recently (and belatedly) stumbling on their latest Hombre EP that it's been cemented in my mind just how good and really exciting these bunch are. Should never have doubted their 'stayability' - evidence below.


The Black Tambourines - All Gone


The Black Tambourines - Vitamin D

Facebook | SoundCloud | Blogger | Split 7"

Yung Mums

Scrappy, abrasive and lo-fi garage-punk from Vancouver all-girl three-piece Yung Mums, showing that good music is often knowing when enough is enough rather than messing around with being 'tight' or sounding clean. They're fairly simple jams but perfectly judged - just the kind of excellent stuff that would start out on Sex Is Disgusting were they UK-based.


Yung Mums - Thru With U


Yung Mums - Dead South


Yung Mums - Cobra

Bandcamp | Facebook | MySpace | Image from Bodies of Water