All Dogs

"Punks making pop music in Columbus, OH" is how All Dogs sum themselves up on Tumblr. You can't argue. It's somewhere between Swearin' and Waxahatchee. What more do you need?





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Pinact

I've been sitting on Pinact for a while because I'm a terrible new music blogger. They're a two-piece from Glasgow and they're fucking great. Abrasive yet melodic, they write pop songs with riffs and distortion and fuzz and cymbal crashes and "WOAH"s. Music comparisons are lazy and shit but if you like Paws and Poledo and Rice Milk and Joanna Gruesome and Dolfinz and all those other sweet bands then you'll like them.

They've just streamed new track 'Brew' through Art is Hard as part of the label's postcard club series and also have a lot of ace stuff on bandcamp - including the really good (and totally free) 'Spill Your Guts, Let Out Some Noise' EP.



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Neon Windbreaker

Neon Windbreaker are from Toronto - the town Metz are from. Neon Windbreaker are releasing an EP recorded by Alex Bonefant - someone who formerly recorded Metz. The 'New Sky' EP is coming out on 28 October through We Are Busy Bodies - a label who formerly released Metz. Neon Windbreaker are in your face and energetic and noisy and loud and exciting and fun. Neon Windbreaker sound like Metz - and that's a good thing.

Check out 'Pink Suit' below.



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FFNORDZZ

Previously working under the name FNORDS for a little bit, FFNORDZZ is a dude from my home town of Plymouth who I've blogged about before but who I've never met and whose real name I don't know. His earlier tracks were experimental pop songs which I really liked so it's cool to see the arrival of a new EP.

Imagine a modern day Frank Zappa writing out and out pop songs and you're not far off. The result is something that could (hopefully fairly) be compared to Gross Magic in that it shares that kind of guitar-led, relatively lo-fi experimental pop sound. Lots of high-pitched guitars, catchy melodies, and even at times that hushed vocal. It's cool.

'Pop Stardom' is the name of the new EP. It's also the opening track and I supposed the 'most immediate' of the five. Listen to it below or download the whole thing on bandcamp. Apparently there should be another EP out this month too so eyes peeled etc.



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My Name Is Ian - eleven

Super prolific, very talented, and criminally under-rated, My Name Is Ian has written another new album and obviously it's good.

'eleven', called so because it's the Cardiff/Newport/south west England musician's eleventh record (and fourth full-length - the first with a 'proper' band), is released on CD and cassette in a month (23 September) but also available digitally today on bandcamp.

'Gotta get out soon' is heading the release and it's a super cool, fuzzy, melodic bedroom pop track along tpical Ian lines - a bit odd, super catchy, and just makes you feel kinda warm and happy.

'eleven' also sees Ian revisiting some older tracks and giving them the full band treatment, with 'Larger than the largest dinosaur that's ever existed' sounding especially good.





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Trust Fund

Went to a house gig in Bristol last week to watch King Of Cats in the guy from Trust Fund's bedroom. Trust Fund were the first of three bands to play and I was totally blown away with the beauty of his music and how powerful and emotive his songs were. It was a literally teary-eyed, hairs-on-end set that makes you question everything and one that I completely didn't expect.

The recorded stuff is equally as eloquent and charming and absolutely heartbreaking. Hear stuff below or catch them live at Joanna Gruesome's album launch at London's Shacklewell Arms on 16 September.







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Rice Milk - nnnv

New music from two-piece Newcastle noise pop weirdos following their impressive first EP earlier this year. I excitedly wrote about them on DIY in April saying they sounded a bit like No Age And PAWS and Let's Wrestle and that they wrote catchy, charming songs so it's cool to finally hear more.

'nnnv' is set to feature on a new EP, out on cassette through ASDFG Records on September 30. It's good. Listen.



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Lone Omi

Lone Omi is Joss formerly of London shouty-punks Yucky Slime. Lone Omi is considerably less shouty-punk than Yucky Slime. Lone Omi is dark, intense, sparse, dense, unsettling, but absolutely beautiful.

Four tracks on SoundCloud or my pick of the bunch below.



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Joanna Gruesome - Secret Surprise

I find it pretty darn irritating and somewhat patronising when you see music writers, DJs, bloggers etc claiming how 'proud' they are of a certain band's success - almost as if they deserve some of the credit for the success that the artist has forged for themselves.

That being said, to have seen Joanna Gruesome grow from a conversation on Facebook chat to be releasing their debut album on Fortuna POP! and Slumberland has been a real privilege. Even from their first five roughly recorded demos it was pretty obvious they had something pretty special going on (Owen is quite simply an incredible song-writer), and an album on two esteemed labels is nothing less than they deserve.

I also find it incredibly irritating when bloggers, journalists, DJs etc brag on various social media platforms about all of the albums they've heard ahead of release, but I can say without any sense of exaggeration that their debut album is bloody excellent. Its release has been officially announced today - it'll come out on September 9 in the UK on Fortuna POP! and on September 10 in the US on Slumberland.

With the addition of vocalist Lan (Alanna McArdle, who also sings as Ides and with A Grave With No Name), they've added an extra dimensions - her voice able to switch from sugar-sweet to in-your-face and angry in an instant. And that's something demonstrated on 'Secret Surprise', the excellent first song to be unveiled from the record, below.

Heathers

Blogging for blogging's sake is kind of pointless. I don't write this stuff for the potential 'career' benefit of accidentally stumbling upon a band before they become successful, and I certainly don't do it for the hits - I write about a band for the love of the band. I guess this is just me explaining why the blog hasn't been as active lately as it could have been. That's not to say I'm not finding lots of excellent new music that gets me excited, but I am finding increasingly less time to shout about it. Hello quiet Saturday. Hello excited blog post about Heathers.

I stumbled upon Heathers a few weeks back thanks to a tweet from Cardiff Joanna Gruesome (whose new songs are sounding excellent, by the way) and am very, very thankful to them for that. They're a three-piece from LA and 'Teenage Clothes' is their only song online, but that's okay because it is fucking excellent. Fast-paced, energetic, and catchy sunny indie pop with some really lovely jangly guitar, it's also surprisingly moving and actually really sad thanks to lyrics like "there's no easy way for me to say / there's no easy way for you to stay". Genuine love for this.




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Home Alone

About 18 months back (fuck I'm old) I blogged about garage rock Toronto three-piece Stacey Adams. You probably don't remember. I barely do. Anyway, Thomas Mazurkiewicz of that band recently got in touch about a solo project he was working on. "It's alot different from stacey adams, but im alot happier with the music," he says in the email - and he's not wrong.

The title of the debut EP - 'Teddybears & Weed' - from Home Alone probably tells you a lot about its sound. It's sweet and cutesy while pretty laid-back and a bit trippy. A big step away fromt he scruffy lo-fi rock of Stacey Adams but nonetheless impressive and enjoyable. Obviously I'm not the first person to say this (hiya Crack In The Road and Dots & Dashes), but who cares, give it a listen below or stream the whole EP on bandcamp.





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Menace Beach

Always listen to your editor. DIY boss Stephen Ackroyd sent me Menace Beach ages ago. 26th June 2012. I listened. I liked. I forgot to listen again until a few months ago, and have taken this long to post them on the blog. Yeah, I actually get paid to write about music.

Menace Beach are great. Their lo-fi grungy, poppy, 90s-ish sound combines everything I love about Joey Fourr with everything I love about Gross Magic. That's a pretty fucking great combo. It's mucky but it's catchy as hell. They've recorded with MJ of Hookworms at his Suburban Home Studio in Leeds which is always a great sign (he also plays in the live band) and they're going to be putting out a release on the Too Pure singles club in the future which will no doubt be very good indeed. Before then you can check out their four track EP, which is out now on French indie label Desire Records and also available as a free download (or pay as much as you like) from bandcamp.



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The Yawns

The point of a new music blog: to point people in the direction of new music they might like that they otherwise might not have heard. It's fun, I like doing it, but I tend to not find enough time to commit to it properly which results in a blog updated sporadically featuring music that turns out to be not that new after all. Still, let's ignore that this album from the Yawns has been on bandcamp for a good few months. Let's ignore that the band have been around since 2011. Let's ignore that I've been listening to it and not getting around to writing about it for that time. Let's ignore that this blog post comes just as they finish a tour of the UK rather than, more usefully, just before they start one. Let's ignore that both Gold Flake Paint and Song By Toad managed to include it in their albums of 2012 lists. Let's ignore that even R. Stevie Moore liked them before me. Let's just focus on the fact that this is a really bloody good album.

They're a band from Glasgow apparently made up of some of Copy Haho (not that that is especially important) who write jangly, woozy, slightly shoegazey pop songs with lovely guitars and ace vocals and stuff like that. It's so good that the lovely people of Records Records Records decided it deserved to get pressed to vinyl. It does. Enough blabbering, listen below.




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Giant Burger

London's Giant Burger kind of defy genre and description. There are vocals and drums and guitar and bass and keys. There are melodies and there is noise. It's kind of experimental but it's also kind of pop at the same time as being kind of rock and prog and punk and blah blah blah. But then, being made up of a good few members of the now deceased BAANEEX, this kind of skullfuckery is to be expected really.

All that really matters is that I like their songs and hopefully some people who frequent this blog will do too. 'Trapped In Egypt' sounds like the kind of song you might expect to soundtrack a kids' horror TV show, while new track 'Fridges' (taken from a forthcoming four-track cassette on London's Odd Box Records, I think...) hears them at their most self-assured and well-recorded to date. A band increasingly comfortable with their place in the corner of the room with no friends, and I admire that.





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FFNORDZZ

When I was young, I was pretty vocally defensive of Plymouth, the city I was born and raised in, to anyone who ever criticised it. Only when I went to university in Cardiff and visited places like Brighton, Manchester, Bristol, and London did I realise just how shit Plymouth was. There is no live music scene, there are (or at least were, thanks to The Last Shop Standing) no indepdent record stores to buy new music, and there are even very, very few bands from or based in Plymouth - especially now Gorgeous Bully has pissed off to Manchester. So when I find an even semi-good band or musician in Plymouth, I get very excited.

Amazingly, one-man-band FFNORDZZ (formerly briefly FNORDS) is even more than semi-good. Also born and raised in Plymouth (and currently based here oncemore), the musician spends all of his time putting together experimental bedroom pop songs with a dark and sinister twist. Though he has no Facebook page, two songs sit on his bandcamp: 'Surfer Of The Apocalypse' hears frenzied high-pitched guitar sit atop a repetitive, creepy bassier guitar line, while 'Acid At The Beach' is a slightly lighter and catchier psychedelic-tinged surf-pop ditty.

They're taken from a split cassette single with Pagan Moon on Hello, Hello, How Lo-Fi? out on 17th January and I bloody love them both. Check them out below and keep an eye on his bandcamp for apparently 'a lot more material uploaded' throughout 2013.





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Bananacondas

I like the internet. Bands from hundreds of miles away can send me their music and then I can listen to it and then sometimes I really like it and write words about it and other people who might be hundreds of miles away again might read it and like it and then they might tell their friends to listen to it and stuff. That's pretty cool, right?

Bananacondas are a Lansing, Michigan-based "not-so-typical punk" three-piece who write songs with riffs and licks and melodies and choruses that make me want to be at a house party with them doing silly but fun things. It's self-recorded but not to its detriment - the slightly rough sound suits their apparently pretty care-free take on writing songs. Music is supposed to make you feel something, and this makes me feel happy.

There are two free songs plucked from their bandcamp below, with apparently some more songs coming later this month and an album hoped for later this year. I am excited.


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