The ultimate headphones album

As the drummer for the alt-folk success story of the last few years, Bon Iver, Sean Carey (here abbreviated to an initial) has little in his performing career to suggest that he would be capable of making a record so rewarding as this. We perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised, though, looking at his past form. He wasn’t involved in the recording of Bon Iver’s massive For Emma Forever Ago, and was previously a percussionist with a jazz bent and academic musical training. It’s those influences that shine through the whole of All We Grow rather than any rootsy Americana and, far from rendering the whole thing a cold study, they simply inform and improve the hearty material he’s created.

Shows he can still bring the funnies

If you’ve attended one of his live shows, you will already be aware that Chilly Gonzales – the Canadian-born major label rocker turned lounge-pop Lothario, ‘pranksta’ rapper and skilled solo pianist – is one of the most flat-out entertaining performers presently walking the boards. What Gonzales has always struggled with, however, is turning the sweaty anarchy, garrulous wordplay and virtuosic classical piano of his concerts into something that works coherently on record. 2004’s Solo Piano worked beautifully, albeit by excising the clowning altogether. 2008’s 70s soft rock-inspired Soft Power, meanwhile, was conceptually brilliant, but apparently proved too oddball for a UK record company to take a punt on – and what is an entertainer without his audience?

Maximum Balloon - Groove Me (feat. Theophilus London) (Jneiro Jarel Remix) - download here

Goldfrapp - Believer (Little Loud Remix) - download here

Raekwon - Travel Places - download here

Edwyn Collins - Losing Sleep (Instrumental) - download here

Egyptian Hip Hop - Middle Name Period - download here

Flowers And Sea Creatures - At Night - download here

Eternal Summers - Pogo - download here

Mighty Scottish instrumentalists recorded live in Brooklyn

It’s mildly surprising to realise that Special Moves is the first live album Mogwai have released in their 14-year lifespan, discounting radio session collection Government Commissions. Certainly, much of the reputation they garnered back in the late 90s, when they were a youthful squad of Glaswegian miscreants, was based on their live performances, and people’s hyperbolic reports thereafter. What they lacked in spectacle and overt charisma (they’re not a band given to a flamboyant stage show, and most of their songs are instrumental) was more than made up for by their tendency to be incredibly loud; there were tales of spectators literally bleeding from their ears. In more recent years, the musical dynamic that many associated with them – the quiet, delicate build-up usurped by a sudden explosion of metallic chaos – has often been set aside, perhaps due to a fear of becoming formulaic. Nevertheless, it’s very much a part of Special Moves, which was recorded over three dates in Brooklyn last year.

A wild yet charming soundtrack

Spoiler of sorts: when you go to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (and you really should – it’s one of the most riotously fun, singularly bizarre blockbusters of recent summers), be sure to pack earplugs. The Edgar Wright-directed adaptation of the graphic novel series is one of the loudest films I’ve seen/heard in years. The fight scenes aren’t short and sharp because the special effects budget couldn’t stretch to any more flaming techno dragons or telekinetic ridiculousness; they’re brief because if they went on any longer every inner ear in the audience would explode.

'Unconsoled' is the follow up to 'The Living' and another example of Performance's unique style of literate English pop. Inspired by the kazuo Ishiguro novel of the same name, ' Unconsoled' is musically joyous and lyrically intelligent.

'Unconsoled' is out now and to celebrate the guys are giving  away a track from their forthcoming album 'Red Brick Heart' called 'Lets Start' - listen and/or download below.

The Drums - Down By The Water - download here

The Drums take an unexpected left turn on “Down By The Water,” eschewing their affable, sunburnt pop for a ‘50s under-the-sea-themed prom ballad. Of course, it’s still great: twangy, water-logged, and full of sway. Use it as a catalyst to slow dance with a balloon nudged between you and your date, or to nab the band’s eponymous debut on Downtown come September.

Annie - Songs Remind Me Of You (The Swiss & Donnie Sloan Remix) - download here

A shamelessly glittery rerub here of Annie’s last Don’t Stop single, making its way online in time for The Swiss’ US tour. Seriously think confetti just blew out of the hi-fi.

Two EPs combine to make a single, beguiling long-player

The third album from Gothenburg’s connubial percussion and vocal duo Mariam Wallentin and Andreas Werliin began life as two, 12” vinyl EPs released earlier this summer. Now spread over a brace of CDs – named Retina and Iris, respectively – Rivers is a fully-fledged album, echoing the EPs’ division between imposing, choir-enhanced songs (Retina) and haunting, steel drum-propelled essays (Iris), all of it themed around notions of reflection, light and water.

Its high points salvage it from inconsequentiality

Spurning an allegedly real name that one half of the UK bass music community would happily slaughter the other for, Canada’s Aaron Funk has always preferred to release his productions under the pseudonym Venetian Snares (aside from occasional appearances as Snares Man! and Senetian Vnares). This mischievous perversity is conspicuous throughout his prodigious output, which has been a blend of the sublime and the slapstick since 2000’s printf("shiver in eternal darkness/n");.

Tickets released Friday 20th August 9 am for

• Jimmy Eat World
  
• Kele
• Wavves
  
• Dirty Projectors
  
• M.I.A.
  
• The Wombats
  
• Four Year Strong
  
• Linkin Park
  
• Engineers
• Public Enemy
  

Buy your tickets here

Battles-indebted quartet delivers an enticing EP

The elephant isn’t so much as in the room as sitting on your lap, turning your feet blue: Gallops sound a lot like Battles. It’s mainly the guitars, which dance with an undeniable rigidity. But there are further echoes: the way that the drums come on like steam engine pistons, the wriggly nature of the bass beneath the sharp surface angles; the electronics, which squelch and splat rather than fizz and crackle. But none of this is a bad thing.

Taps into Gram Parsons and Neil Young on a smooth debut LP

I've been listening to this record a while now, trying to figure out why I hate it so.

There's nothing wrong with it, per se. It's immaculate, sound-wise. Beautifully polished, smoothed to perfection. You can't fault the singer's pedigree – he’s the son of a Muscle Shoals session musician, and would hang out with legends like Spooner Oldham at the age of 11. He learnt to 'pick' a guitar a few years before that. His voice is wistful and crooning, with a slight lisp and hiccup, like a beautiful 20-year-old Louisiana version of Townes Van Zandt, or perhaps the less glamorous part of the She & Him equation, M. Ward.

NO AGE -Glitter - download here

Discernible vocals on a NO AGE song! Dudes are finally going hi-fi for the new one, huh? Well, sort of. “Glitter” is still rapturously messy in parts—guitars spewing glorious noise, samples coloring your brain, drums pummeling to be heard underneath—but the vocal presence is indeed notable. And welcome. We can finally SING ALONG.

Reporter - Click Shaw (Runaway Remix) - download here

Reporter’s skronky robo-disco sounds pretty low-budget. Which is totally not a bad thing! Who can hate on kitchen appliance beats and overloading Casios when they are played with such endorphinated abandon, and the band seem proud of the aesthetic—their press bio frames them as an integral part of Portland’s “vibrant DIY dance scene,” which really does sound fun and refreshingly cheap. “Click Shaw” gets a pass here from Jacques Renault and Marcos Cabral, sometimes also known as Runaway, themselves no strangers to hastily thrown together loft/basement blowouts. Their version is only a tad slicker. It’s also three times as long.

Unremarkable debut that simply imitates the innovators

The latest in the crop of electro-tinged indie pop groups that New York seems to pump out with an industrial intensity, Queens-based five-piece Freelance Whales have enjoyed a smooth ride into the mainstream. Having formed in late 2008, the band spent the next year or so turning heads at the South by Southwest festival, signing to indie super-label Frenchkiss and touring with the likes of Cymbals Eat Guitars, Shout Out Louds and Mumford & Sons.

A beguiling portrait of an artist unbound

Pop music comes in many and varied forms, but sometimes it’s just whatever makes you crackle. Such is the lesson Rose Elinor Dougall took from her split with The Pipettes, the all-female Brighton troupe with which the 24-year-old songstress made her name. The group made polka-dotted 50s pastiche their stock-in-trade, adhering to a strict pop formula which made them fun for a while but a kitsch-laden drag in the long run.