Free Gigs W/C 30th August

Rough Trade East In-store - details

TAME IMPALA - Monday 30th August, 7pm
NEON INDIAN - Tuesday 31st August, 7pm
EVERYTHING EVERYTHING - Wednesday 1st September, 7pm
ERGO PHIZMIZ - Friday 3rd September, 7pm

Lia Ices - Grown Unknown - download here

Drop The Lime - Sex Sax (Blu Jemz Remix) - download here

Shit Robot - I Found Love (Radio Edit) - download here

Azealia Banks - L8R - download here

Oh Land - Sun Of A Gun (Yuksek Remix) - download here

Parenthetical Girls - Young Throats - download here

Holkham Drones transcends genre limitations entirely

Even the crudest dance music, when broken down to its base elements, is capable of moving an individual in utilitarian terms. Beats drop, limbs bop. But it’s rare that music primarily composed on a computer screen can also move a listener emotionally, striking between intentions – the invitation to dance, the opportunity to deliberate – without diluting either approach’s effect.

It might take time to grasp, but this is one of 2010’s finest LPs

Artful Canadian quartet Women’s self-titled 2008 debut showed much promise, but for many ears was probably a little too heavy-handed in its marriage of melody and abrasion. It bristled with nervous energy; a touch overzealous in its use of noise, distortion and fuzz, and often shy of delivering a chorus.

Free Energy - Bang Pop (Fool’s Gold Remix) - download here

Tropicana tweaker Lewis Pesacov (Fool’s Gold, Foreign Born) gets downright juicy in this rework of Free Energy’s “Bang Pop.” Steel drums? Check. Giggling chicks? Check. Conch shell echo? Check. Grab your sunscreen for this one.

Pill - Dope Boys (feat. Young Dro, Rocko & All-Star) - download here

The Empire are keepers of what are arguably the most gratuitous, consistent, and nagging “tags” in the whole mixtape DJ game, so when one of their songs appears sans tags it’s cause for celebration, bitches. Especially when it features a posse cut this thick. Pill takes the lead, all sand-paper and snow flow, then alley-oops to fellow ATLiens Young Dro and Rocko, who waste no time putting points on the board. “Dope Boys” appears on The Empire’s Southern Smoke 16.

Watch the Scottish band at their recent San Francisco Concert

It's hard to believe that The Frank and Walters are not doing Arena tours. They have been gigging now for 20 years and their music is often fun, sometimes eccentric, occasionally dark and sinister but always musically excellent. They have built up a loyal following and sell out venues across the world but have never yet managed to get the commercial break to propel them to super-stardom. Perhaps that's how their fans prefer it.

Tickets released Friday 27th August 9 am for

• Faithless
  
• Stereophonics
• The Bluetones
• Delphic
  
• Lissie
  
• I Blame Coco
  
• Tokyo Police Club
  
• Little Fish
  
• Plain White Ts
  
• Fran Healy
  
• V Festival 2011 (at 2010 prices)
  

Buy your tickets here

If you like Kings of Leon download this

Battle for Prague are from Birmingham/London. Not sure who is from where but they are Greg Milner (guitar/vocals), Lottie (drums), Greg Cox (guitar) and Tom (bass). They've been compared to Kings of Leon and I thought long and hard to offer a more original comparison but basically they sound like Kings of Leon. That's no bad thing as from the evidence of this EP they're not an inferior KOL as their musical talents demonstrate.

A hazy weave of organic instrumentation and slide guitar

Ray LaMontagne is blessed with a voice that emits weary melancholy with the best of them. More than this, his husky pipes retain the power to soothe even when they speak in terms of heartache, resulting in a highly unlikely success story: a Billboard-bothering singer so reluctant to be in the spotlight that he rarely grants interviews and refuses to make videos for his songs.

Tim & Sam’s Tim & The Sam Band With Tim & Sam have announced a string of UK tour dates in the company of Cherry Ghost for September and October to follow their debut album ‘Life Streams’, released in May of this year (see review) . Buy your tickets here

SEPTEMBER
Friday 24th             Brighton, Komedia
Sunday 26th             Exeter, Cavern
Monday 27th             Hatfield, The Attic
Tuesday 28th            Cardiff, The Globe
Thursday 30th            Gloucester, Guildhall

Solo debut takes several stylistic cues from his day job

For many, the solo album means experimentation, indulging in music that fellow band members would very probably chuck their instruments at. But not for Brandon Flowers. When he and the other Killers  decided to take a year off, the group’s flamboyant frontman had already started writing their fourth album proper and, instead of pushing it to the back of a drawer while he unleashed his inner jazzman or rapper (god forbid), he carried on writing, with only himself to please. Then he enlisted Stuart Price, who worked on The Killers’ last record, 2008’s Day & Age, to co-produce; invited their drummer Ronnie Vannucci to play on a couple of tracks; and finally, named the album, like the Springsteen-saluting Sam’s Town, after a place in the band’s native Las Vegas. (Disappointingly, the title isn’t a stunningly self-aware allusion to a strutting, preposterously plumed creature. Shame.)

Zombie Disco Squad - Hobo - download here

Affable house connoisseur Jesse Rose already oversees two labels—Made To Play and Front Room—so why add another to the mix? Well, the new endeavor, Play It Down, is shaping up to be pretty low key—they’re doing minimal promotion, opting instead to let the music sell itself. This is presumably pretty easy when you have closely watched Rose scions Zombie Disco Squad dropping their new King Kong EP as part of the launch. Their lively, woodwind-assisted “Hobo” didn’t quite make that release, but the label’s letting it go through us because, again, it’s a casual thing.

Small Black - Photojournalist - download here

Having progressed from dirty to stretchy, Small Black’s preview of their debut is more nu-age weirdness than lo-fi smear. And yet, “Photojournalist”” still sounds like it was recorded in a bathtub. This is a good thing! More clarified psych-pop to come, when Jagjaguwar unleashes New Chain on October 26.

Pre-sale tickets are available from 9am on Wednesday Sept 1 and on general release, Friday September 3.

NOVEMBER
11 Manchester Academy
12 Norwich UEA
13 Bournemouth O2 Academy
14 Nottingham Rock City
16 London HMV Forum
20 Birmingham HMV Institute
21Glasgow Barrowlands
22 Leeds 02 Academy
23  Dublin Tripod

Klaxons will be headlining the NME/Radio 1 Stage at Leeds (Saturday) & Reading (Sunday) this weekend, onstage at 10:15pm, so make sure you catch them if you’re heading to either festival.

Watch the video to Echoes