California Shakedown comes from a new Pearl Harbor/Puro Instinct EP simply titled Puro Instinct. This track is an oh so dreamily seductive slice of icy pop, and has effortlessly wrapped MM around its little finger. We suspect the other three tracks on the EP are as equally likely to play the femme fatale and leave you a quivering jelly in no time at all. You … Continue reading Seduced by Puro Instinct
We came across The Real Burnouts Fully Involved EP as a free download (amongst many others) at the excellent Quixodelic Records. The band play a woozy, insistent blend of garage and psychedelic rock that is the equal of anything else we’ve heard in recent times – and there’s some serious competition out there. There are echoes of everything from krautrock to The Monkees to Spacemen 3 … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…The Real Burnouts
Once you get past the slightly silly name (it took us a while), the music of Peter Wolf Crier is something special to behold. Their album Inter-Be is as much distorted country blues as it is intimate folk, as much delicately introspective as it is intensely passionate. However you want to describe it, the album is truly a marvellous piece of work. Download the sweetly … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…Peter Wolf Crier
Listening to Brooklyn’s The Minks forthcoming single Funeral Song (out on Captured Tracks later this month, with an album due in September) is like going back in time to the goth tinged indie glory days of The Cure, The Bunnymen et al. Even the hair is the same. Funeral Song (an appropriately gloomy title) has a vintage Cure bassline, icy synths and shadowy, sombre lyrics about … Continue reading The Minks make MM all nostalgic
It’s hard keeping up with all the new releases and good stuff that is coming our way. Here is a quick and dirty round-up of some of the tracks that have been tickling our ears recently. The Sandwitches have been MM faves ever since we got hold of their excellent How To Make Ambient Sadcake album last year. They now have a new one-sided 12″ … Continue reading MM’s Weekend Round Up
Tonight’s topic: men with beards. This Friday evening, I’m out with two jolly fine chaps: MM and one of my bestest friends and main gigging partner (neither of whom currently sport beards). And off we will trot in an appropriately jaunty fashion, down the Cowley Road, to sway in time to the Band of Horses (almost uniformly, a group of men with an abundance of … Continue reading Mrs Mackerel’s TFI Friday
In 2008, Catherine Feeny drove 12,000 miles with her husband-to-be in a 1990 Mazda 323 called Swansong, playing more than 40 planned and impromptu shows in dens, living rooms and gardens all over the United States. She had just been dropped by her London-based record label and the situation called for radical action. “It was a break-up,” says Feeny. “I felt like I’d been kicked … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…Catherine Feeny
New Yorkers Ball Of Flame Shoot Fire defy easy classification. Having released their well received, but little heard, debut Jokeland in 2008, their sophomore full-length is due in the autumn. They’ve spent the time since playing with a range of acts such as Yeasayer, Grizzly Bear and Mates Of State, and they will also be playing Brooklyn’s Northside Festival later this month. We have a couple … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…Ball Of Flame Shoot Fire
Midlands based four-piece The Vitamin Sees only played their first gig a couple of months ago. However, made up as they are of members of bands such as 90s indie faves Prolapse, Fence Records act Viva Stereo, Dirty Backbeats and Ambrose Tompkins they have the prerequisite musical chops to deliver. And deliver they do with Illuminati Mind Control, the demo track that they e-mailed through to us. … Continue reading Introducing…The Vitamin Sees
Part Company sound happy. The sound on Out Of Egypt is relentlessly upbeat in a nostalgic 60s fashion, mixing girl-group harmonies with a garage rock sensibility and all with a hazy 90s slacker feel overlaid on top. The result is a track that rolls along in a sunny swirl of drums, sing along choruses and a great twangy, guitar rhythm. There is not much information … Continue reading Introducing…Part Company
