Start Of The Week Round Up

Monday Morning Round Up

The e-mails have piled up like never before in our in-box, and having started to trawl through them for a few hours last night, here are a few gems we came across to make Monday more bearable – some old(er), some new, some borrowed, and some blue(s).

Or something like that…check them for yourself.

Let’s kick off with the brilliant Total Sunflower by Chimes is a masterpiece of propulsive slacker-punk that sounds like Pavement and the Wooden Shjips in a food processor – a free download too!

Canadian alt/drone/folk rock band Slow Down Molasses first featured on MM in 2011, and have recently released their latest single, Summer Sun.

Better known as Terry Malts guitarist, Corey has turned Do They Owe Us a Living? originally recorded by the godfathers of anarcho-punk Crass in 1978, into a sweetly lo-fi piece of indie pop. Weird. It is the 10th issue of the Mutt Singles Series.

Featherweights are an off-kilter folk-pop from Malmö, Sweden singing songs that are funny and sad, stories about their life and things that enter their minds. They both love a catchy melody and singing about ice cream, or, as with this track, Sandwich Babies. Download the album for free from Bandcamp here.

Keeping the strange baby titles going are Sunshine Riot whose soulful take on Southern-flavored blues and roots rock is showcased to good effect on Dead Baby Cocaine Blues from forthcoming album Black Coffee Sigh.

Ongakubaka Records first release is a cassette, limited to 100 copies, coming later this month from Portland’s Wett Nurse – a six track EP of West Coast garage jams. Thee Oh Sees is their most obvious comparison, but their playful organ gives them a sound of their own. The first track and lead single is called Hissy Fit. Order from Bandcamp here.

Opening with an orchestral arrangement laden with swirling strings, delicately plucked guitars, and chimed bells, I’ve Got You from seven-piece Nordic urban-folk act, Billy Momo, takes little time in shifting straight into gear.

Indie rockers The Little Deaths’ name comes from the French term ‘le petite mort’- a euphemism for the feeling of melancholy post-orgasm. Most recent single is the slow swirl of Distant Action.

Londoners Horsefight are set to release their blistering new single Derren Brown on November 24th. With no room for bass in the three-piece, instead frenzied Death From Above 1979 guttural guitars fuse with McLusky machine-gun vocal mayhem to achieve an iron-clad sound that’ll knock your teeth out. Think yourcodenameismilo meets Australian punk bravado and you’re getting close.

And finally, new garage-guitar mastery comes in the shape of Scotland’s Jim Valentine and their sleazy, and altogether excellent, double A-side single Hello / Tripetta, released on November 28th.