New New Musical Express - May 2008

Now complete. New Music May 2008, by Nialloleary

Extract:

The Observer Music Monthly April 2008

Random Recommended Singles

Fleet Foxes new single entitled "Giant Sun EP” ( Bella Union)

http://www.myspace.com/fleetfoxes

Big Boi FT Raekwon, Andre 3000 new single entitled "Royal Flush” (OutKast)

http://www.myspace.com/therealbigboi1

Duke Dumont new single entitled "Dominion Dubs EP” (Dubsided)

http://www.myspace.com/dukedumont

Random Recommended Albums

Cajun Dance Party new album entitled "The Colourful Life". (Rated at 4/5)
"They may look like a so-so indie band but nothing could be further from the truth says OMM” "
Recommended tracks to download....”The Hill the view & The Lights”; “Colourful Life”; “No Joanna”.

http://www.myspace.com/cajundanceparty

Santogold new album entitled "Santogold". (Rated at 4/5)
http://www.myspace.com/santogold

Not a video, just an aural upload of one of the standout tracks on Los Angeles, due for release 9 June.

Flying Lotus - GNG BNG

If it's good enough for Radiohead...

Stereolab's song Three Women, from their album Chemical Chords, which isn't out until August. Get it here at www.myspace.com/stereolab - or from their label 4AD's site http://journal.4ad.com/hear-three-women-by-stereolab-now.

Nu-ravers CSS are releasing their second album, Donkey, in July, and for a sneak preview they are offering their first track "Rat Is Dead (Rage)" for free from their website. http://www.csshurts.com/

On the Converse Music site, which runs in conjunction with Artrocker magazine (responsible for the band nights at the Buffalo Bar in north London), Make Model are one of the new bands offering free downloads. Get their track 'Stand Still' from www.conversemusic.co.uk/music-download/index.asp.

Conil are giving away their new single 'Strange Part Of The Country', from their debut album of the same name, on Monday for free through their MySpace page: www.myspace.com/conilmusic.

Source: The Independent

Tag: World music

From their site:

Laya Project’s musicians are the people of coastal and surrounding communities in the 2004 tsunami-affected regions of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar and India.

This production is based on regional folk music traditions, recorded and brought back to the studio to create a composition that mixes and enhances the original recordings, and embarks on a musical journey crossing borders, while preserving the music of the people.

The Laya Project is a personal and collective tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, and is dedicated to the survivors of the 26th December 2004 Asian tsunami.

Official Site
MySpace

Fantastically catchy. Single out today, album, We Started Nothing, due next week.

The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name

Seems to be pretty much obligatory now. Absolutely loads of free downloads.

Safe sites:

CNET - free download of Bon Iver - Skinny Love.

XFM free downloads (go here for all links):

Dirty Pretty Things: 'Hippy Son'
A song from the new album for free. Thank you Carl Barat!

White Denim: 'Mess Your Hair Up'
Get this now to warm you up for the album 'Workout Holiday' coming out in June.

CSS: 'Rat Is Dead (Rage)'.
Get a taster from their much anticipated second album 'Donkey' with single 'Rat Is Dead (Rage)'.

One Night Only: 'Hide' (Demo)
Get ahead of the game with this free demo from the rural lads.

The Scripts: 'Before The Worst'
Hear the Irish trio's offering. It's all for you baby.

Alphabeat: 'Fantastic 6'
Guilty pleasure? Yes Please.

My Morning Jacket: 'Evil Urges'
A gift from the American rockers. Thanks guys.

Experimental Dental School: 'Jane Doe Loves Me'
Portland's newest export give us something for free.

Wolf Parade: 'Call It A Ritual'
Free tune from the Canadian band who started off supporting Arcade Fire.

Late Of The Pier: 'Space And The Woods'.
This uber fantastic new band from Nottingham are giving it all away.

Ladytron: 'Black Cat'
A sneak preview from their forthcoming album 'Velocifero'.

The Charlatans: 'You Cross My Path'
Get the whole of their incredible tenth studio album.

The Subways: 'Girls And Boys'
Get the brand new single from their second album 'All Or Nothing'.

The Crimea: 'Secrets Of The Witching Hour'.
You lucky people can download the whole album.

Blood Red Shoes: 'Meet Me', 'Can't Find The Door', 'You Bring Me Down', 'Bless His Heart'.
Get all four tracks from the Brighton duo.

Operahouse: 'Wrecking Ball' 'Man Next Door (Live)', 'Jarvis'
Get the best tracks from hot new London band.

Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts I-IV
Get the first 9 tracks from the collection

Delays: 'Panic Attacks'
Get the track while waiting for their new album 'Everything's The Rush' to be released (May 2008).

Sinden: 'Beeper' a remix by A-Trak
Get the pumping remix right here and bop bop away!

Ladyhawke: 'Back Of The Van'
Get this P.H.A.T remix by Van She Tech, one to make you want to frreeeak!

Micachu: 'Filthy Friends'
Get their stonking indie-electro mixtape.

Die! Die! Die!: 'Sideways Here We Come' and 'A.T.T.I.T.U.D'
New Zealand export give you two indie-rock tracks

Iron Maiden: 'Somewhere Back In Time'
Get the whole of the spanking new album and listen thrice at leisure until the download expires.

To download the songs you may need to follow the links or simply right click - save target - and it will be yours forever!

Welcome to our Playground. (see blog for all links)

We’re finally launching playground.last.fm!

One of the best things I discovered after joining Last.fm was the playground – a hidden website where my colleagues showcased their weekend projects. The projects ranged from computing interesting stats or alternative recommendations to complex visualizations. However, many of the projects never made it onto the main site. Sometimes it was not clear where the project would fit, and sometimes it would have required some additional work to make it scalable or compatible with different browsers.

Anyway, to cut a long story short: we’ve finally decided to launch a public version of our playground site. We’re starting with 3 demonstrations which Klaas put together for us: multi tag search, artist name variations, and a weekly chart of the most frequent top 10 tracks.

All these demonstrations currently have an expiry date that will depend on the feedback we get. You can send us an email (however, we can’t promise to reply to every email) or discuss your views with others in the forums.

By the way, the image we use on playground was taken on the Last.fm roof top with balls from our ballpit (our design team sits right next to the ballpit, so that might have been a source of inspiration). Special thanks to Afonso, Marcela, Seb (who can be seen in the image), and Eva for battling the wind on our roof!
Multi Tag Search

This one is my personal favourite of the current demonstrations. It enables searching tracks and artists by one or more tags. The results can be sorted/filtered by popularity, free downloads, or up-and-coming. Here are some examples:

* Free download tracks tagged alternative, indie, and rock
* Up-and-coming tracks tagged acoustic, folk, but not indie
* Top female artists tagged pop
* Happy melancholic tracks

It’s also interesting to compare different lists to each other. For example, to see how “alternative” changed over time: 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s.
Artist Name Variations

This demonstration gives some insight into the data we’ve been gathering from our fingerprinting efforts. Any questions regarding that data can be answered by Erik, who has a brief interjection below. The demo shows common name variations we find in ID3 tags. For example, here are some of the common variations for Guns N’ Roses.
Speaking of Artist Names…

The metadata project is only just getting underway, but we’ve already collected half a million votes. This has proven super-valuable to highlight cases where our data is incorrect (such as EastWest Rockers), where no one seems to agree (is it AN CAFE, ANTIC CAFE, Antique Cafe, or the original Japanese アンティック-珈琲店-), and even a few Zen koans (how DO you spell Original Cast ?). Stay tuned for more, as this is just the first step!
Most Frequent Top 10 Tracks

This demonstration is basically a weekly chart of popular tracks. We’ve been following the chart for some time now, and it’s very different from the official weekly chart. For example, Radiohead tracks do not show up as often.

This most frequent top 10 chart is computed by counting how often a track occurs in a scrobblers top 10 tracks every week.

http://playground.last.fm/

Although I'm a huge fan of the Cocteau Twins, I can't listen to their cover of Song to the Siren on This Mortal Coil anymore. The original, by Tim Buckley is good, but by far and away, this is the best.

Excuse the amateur video, just sit back and enjoy.

Robert Plant - Song To The Siren


Tim Buckley - Song to the Siren

Synth-pop, French pop, electronica, dance, from new artist Black Affair. Video directed by Jimmy "Music, Fashion, Art and more" Edgar.

It's Real

MySpace

Great performance on Later... with Jools Holland a couple of weeks ago.

Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes


Love the subversion of special effects in the official video.




And here's the making of:

Great idea going on in the Fuck Mainstream group.

It started off with group members recommending free Last.fm tracks to each other and gradually morphed into something more comprehensive, with added biogs of bands.

Some names are already quite well known, eg Woven Hand and Calexico, but others are pretty obscure. Worth a browse.

http://www.last.fm/group/Fuck+Mainstream/forum/55088/_/293812/1

Thanks, Pixieguts.

Stereogum has a download for Laura Marling track, Blackberry Stone, a B-side which is not on her current album, Alas, I Cannot Swim, due for US release in the summer.

You don't have to download it to hear it, you click on the mp3 link to try it first.

http://stereogum.com/the-gum-drop/song.php?tid=10018&sid=16982