Monthly Archives: July 2011

More Truck Festival Pictures

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MM wasn’t the only one snapping pictures from Truck Festival this year. Here are a selection from Moo, our own mini Mad Mackerel.

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Download Edwyn Collins – Losing Sleep mp3 (from Losing Sleep)

Download Caitlin Rose – Shotgun Wedding mp3 (from Dead Flowers EP)

Download Justin Townes Earle – Harlem River Blues mp3 (from Harlem River Blues)

Download Sea of Bees – The Woods mp3 (from The Woods EP)

Download The Duke & The King – If You Ever Get Famous mp3 (from Nothing Gold Can Stay)

Download John Grant – I Wanna Go To Marz mp3 (from Queen Of Denmark)

Download Alessi’s Ark – Shovelling mp3 (from Soul Proprietor EP)

Download Chad Valley – Ensoniq Funk mp3 (from Chad Valley EP)

Download Admiral Fallow – Squealing Pigs mp3 (from Boots Met My Face)

Download Tunng – Don’t Look Down Or Back mp3 (from …And Then We Saw Land)

Download Jonquil – Get Up mp3 (from One Hundred Suns EP)

Download Johnny Flynn – Kentucky Pill mp3 (from Been Listening)

Download The Young Knives – Walking On The Autobahn mp3 (from The Young Knives…Are Dead)

Download Dry The River – New Ceremony mp3 (from New Ceremony Single)

Download Little Fish – Wonderful mp3

Download Nathaniel Rateliff – Early Spring Till mp3 (from In Memory Of Loss)

Download Trophy Wife – Microlite (Acoustic Version) mp3

Download Richmond Fontaine – The Boyfriends mp3 (from We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River)

Download Cashier No. 9 – Lost At Sea mp3 (from To The Death Of Fun)

Download Pete & The Pirates – Mr Understanding mp3 (from Little Death)

Download Lanterns On The Lake – You’re Almost There mp3 (from Gracious Tide, Take Me Home)

Introducing…Turf War

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Introducing...Turf War. Turf War are a party band with raucous and rowdy live shows, and energetic, catchy rock songs. Their debut album Years of Living Dangerously is out in October on Old Flame Records. Until then you can pop a beer, tap your feet and party along to Cheers To The Years.

Download Turf War – Cheers To The Years mp3 (from Years Of Living Dangerously)

More From Peg Simone

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More From Peg Simone. We posted recently about the forthcoming album from Peg Simone, and her eerie, otherworldly approach to blues and folk featuring lingering, ghostly guitar riffs and silver-tongued vocals.

Here is another new track, and it is another beauty!

Visit her Facebook page here.

Download Peg Simone – Wait For Night mp3

Download Peg Simone – Piece Of Pie mp3 (from Piece Of Pie)

Mrs Mackerel’s TFI Friday (29th July)

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Mrs Mackerel's TFI Friday (29th July). It’s Friday – I’ve made it, just.

All the sprats are very different, adorably different and utterly adorable. This week, Joe (the youngest at seven) has re-cast himself as one travelling troubadour. Guitar in hand, he travels as far as the living room, sometimes to the kitchen to perform his self-penned tunes, all strummed in G. From Try and Love Me If You Can (who could not love you, Joe?), to How Many Toys do You Have? to My Soldiers Are Dead and Down, and the classic in the making, Come Die With Me (based on him mis-hearing that satellite TV trailblazer, Come Dine With Me), we have all been entertained, more than Joe could ever know. I’d like to bottle it to keep forever; the lyrics, so carefully scribed in pencil, I will.

Tomorrow, we sail away to see Isla again, leaving the mainland behind. Grampy Mackerel was supposed to be having a big op today. Cancelled at the last minute, so destined to play Nurse Mackerel two weeks hence instead. Better Nurse Mackerel than Nurse Ratchett, I say.

Skøl.

Mrs Mackerel

Download Joe Purdy – Troubadour mp3 (from 4th Of July)

Download Phranc – Folksinger mp3 (from Folksinger)

Efren Release Third Track From Rise On Up And Melt

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Efren Album Release TodayWe’ve already given you two excellent tracks from psych-folkies Efren’s new album, Rise On Up And Melt. Now we have a third, and this time it is the seven minute mini-epic of Mr Greene.

Efren is led by Scott Low who fell into a dark marital separation as the record was being recorded.  A new outlook on the album came about. Though not the original intention, Rise On Up And Melt became a songwriter’s story of lost faith in love and trust.

Get a copy of the album here.

Download Efren – Mr Greene mp3 (from Rise On Up And Melt)

Download Efren – Moonshine mp3 (from Rise On Up And Melt)

Download Efren – Like A Coat mp3 (from Rise On Up And Melt)

New Album From Amen Dunes

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New Album From Amen Dunes. We were big fans of Amen Dunes sparse and thrillingly malevolent Murder Dull Mind EP, which came out last year and was a follow up to his debut album DIA.

His second album will be released in August and is titled Through Donkey Jaw via Sacred Bones (rapidly becoming our favourite label of the moment). This is a first taste with track Lower Mind and it is, to our mind, probably the best thing we’ve heard from him to date. A perfect blend of dark-hearted psych-folk over a repetitive almost drone-like rhythm – it calls to mind another MM fave in Wooden Wand.

It is an album that has jumped to the top of our “must have” list. You can pre-order it from Amazon here.

Download Amen Dunes – Lower Mind mp3 (from Through Donkey Jaw)

and if you want to compare

Download Amen Dunes – Murder Dull Mind mp3 (from Murder Dull Mind EP)

Download Amen Dunes – By The Bridal mp3 (from Dia)

Giant Drag Are Back

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Giant Drag Are back! Giant Drag’s album Hearts And Unicorns came out in 2005 and was packed full of cracking tunes that spanned influences from Mazzy Star to MBV and from grunge to a kind of warped suburban Americana. It was a standout from the year, but no one  expected to wait six years for a follow-up.

In fact, until today, I’d kind of assumed they had called it a day and just faded from view.

Not so. Annie Hardy from the band has just made this available via Soundcloud, where she wrote the following:

“Meowch is your appetizer (no, you don’t get dessert FIRST) to nibble on while Giant Drag’s long, LONG awaited album “Waking Up Is Hard To Do” is getting prepped for a late fall release on Roar Scratch Records/Cobraside. I’ve dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s and at last we have a late fall release with an actual set-in-stone release date coming way soon. This song is the first coming your way free to freak you out because you have no idea what this record is going to sound like…the answer? A lot of things. Enjoy, and don’t be scared. “

Welcome back Giant Drag!

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New Milk Maid Single

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New Milk Maid Single. With his band Nine Black Alps on indefinite hiatus, bassist Martin Cohen found he had time on his hands, recording at home Milk Maid’s debut album Yucca. The result is an album that might have come out on Creation Records in their 80’s heyday, recalling indie stalwarts like Comet Gain and marrying timeless pop hooks to the raw spontaneity of home recording, and sweet, sun-drenched pop hooks pitched against viscerally dark lyrics.

On new single Dead Wrong (out on Suffering Jukebox/ FatCat, September 19) Cohen sings ‘You’re killing yourself to cut your arms off, you’re stabbing yourself in the gut’ and manages to make it sound like a lost Buddy Holly tune – albeit with the production values of a Sic Alps track!

Have a listen:

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Catch Milk Maid on tour:

16 SeptWAKEFIELD The Hop

17 Sept MIDDLESBOROUGH Uncle Alberts

19 Sept CARDIFF Ten Feet Tall

20 Sept BRIGHTON Green Dore Store

21 Sept BRISTOL The Lousiana

22 Sept LONDON Old Blue Last

23 Sept MILTON KEYNES Sno! Bar

24 Sept MANCHESTER Kraak Gallery

Supporting Mazes

03-OCT Mon LEEDS Nation Of Shopkeepers

04-OCT Tue MANCHESTER The Kings Arms

05-OCT Wed EDINBURGH Sneaky Petes

06-OCT Thu GLASGOW Captains Rest

07-OCT Fri NEWCASTLE Dog & Parrot

08-OCT Sat LANCASTER Library

09-OCT Sun NOTTINGHAM Spanky Van Dykes

11-OCT Tue OXFORD Jericho

12-OCT Wed BIRMINGHAM The Hare & Hounds

13-OCT Thu LONDON Lexington

14-OCT Fri BRIGHTON The Hope

Mad Mackerel Recommends…Mikal Cronin

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Mad Mackerel Recommends...Mikal Cronin. Stepping away from the rhythm section of Orange County surf-punk bashers The Moonhearts, Mikal Cronin has emerged with a fully realized, cohesive and beautiful debut self-titled LP, out September 20, via Chicago’s Trouble In Mind.

Cronin blends sweet melodies and chords with chunky, psychedelic guitar freak-outs so if you’ve ever wondered what the Beach Boys would sound like if they became pals with the Ramones…this is a California fuzz take on gorgeously unexpected psych garage pop.

Download Mikal Cronin – Apathy mp3 (from Mikal Cronin)

Download Mikal Cronin – Get Along mp3 (from Mikal Cronin)

More From Case Studies

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More From Case Studies. We posted just a couple of days ago about Case Studies, the new project from Jesse Lortz following the demise of the Dutchess & The Duke. Stereogum have premiered a third song from the forthcoming album The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night. It was simply too good not to re-post!

The album is out on August 16 on Sacred Bones

Download Case Studies – Lies mp3 (from The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night)

Download Case Studies – The Eagle, Or The Serpent mp3 (from The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night)

Download Case Studies - You Folded Up My Blanket Like We Were Already Lovers mp3 (from The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night) (via RSTB)