It is always good to support your local music scene, and we’re lucky to have Oxford as ours – for its size, it is one of the most vibrant and diverse in the UK. Recently, we’ve had three or four ‘breakthroughs’ hoping to follow in the footsteps of recent successes like Foals and Stornoway. First up is Moshi Moshi’s latest signing Trophy Wife. The Oxford trio are … Continue reading MM Goes Local – Oxford Roundup
So here we are again. A round-up of our favourite posted tracks from September, all beautifully compiled and presented for you to put on one lovely mix. And as always, a couple of new tracks for you too. Enjoy. The Rakehells – Lost Weekend mp3 Aggressive, yet danceable pop with an in-your-face attitude and catchy hooks The Moondoggies – It’s A Shame, It’s A Pity … Continue reading MM’s Best of the Month: September
When Seagreen Incorruptible got in touch with us, they simply (and rather brilliantly) described their record 10 Things To Do With 90,000 Sequins as “a party record for people with no friends”. Citing influences from MBV to Nirvana to Guided By Voices and old time radio shows, the album is as much psychedelic Americana as it is experimental garage rock, and there is much therein … Continue reading Introducing…The Seagreen Incorruptible
Over the last two or three weeks we’ve probably received more tracks to MM than ever before. Not that we’re complaining, especially when the quality has been really high. It does mean we’re struggling to do everything justice though and while (in a perfect MM world) many of these tracks deserve their own post, we’ve decided to round up a bunch in one go for … Continue reading New Releases Round Up
Since their formation, Solar Temple Suicides have slowly been perfecting their own brand of drugged out, spacey haze. They preach long and tall effects-laiden, psychedelic lessons culled from unabashed cosmic rock tendencies and hallucinatory walls of sound. While the obvious influences are all present and correct, Spacemen 3, The Velvet Underground and Hawkwind, the band are good enough and confident enough to plough their own … Continue reading Introducing…Solar Temple Suicides
As Nightlands, Philadelphia multi-instrumentalist David Hartley makes what we would call ‘big music’, it is warm and thunderous, and very very good. Nightlands will be releasing its debut album Forget the Mantra on Secretly Canadian in early November. Hartley has been a prolific sideman in many Philadelphia ensembles most notably, MM faves The War On Drugs. Here though, the music he creates in his bedroom … Continue reading Nightlands prepare new album Forget The Mantra
Today sees the release of two excellent new albums from Denmark’s The Migrant and from North Carolina’s The Moaners. We have already posted about the former, giving you The Organ Grinder, a quite exquisite slice of catchy psych-folk which has never been far from our playlists ever since. The Migrant’s album Travels In Lowland is an excellent record and to mark the official release we … Continue reading New Releases from The Migrant & The Moaners
American four-piece Filthybird have been putting the finishing touches to their brilliant new album, Songs for Other People. The follow-up to the lauded Southern Skies, Filthybird’s latest record reveals an astounding depth, effectively marrying the lilting vocal melodies of Renee Mendoza with Brian Haran’s layered guitar atmospherics and anchored by a powerfully inventive rhythm section, these songs are both soulful and dreamy, familiar and fresh. … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…Filthybird
While we think that we’re not great lovers of covers here at MM, I’m beginning to suspect that this is actually a pretty long way from the reality of things. Especially, as just lately, there seems to have been a plethora of excellent cover versions hitting our iTunes playlists. So here are a few that we’ve picked up from over the net and fellow bloggers … Continue reading Cover Me…I’m Going In
Welcome to our longest ever post, and a whole bucketful of great songs. Last weekend, Barry-Sean came with me to the End of the Road Festival and outside of the musical orgy that is SxSW, we agreed it is the best festival we’ve ever had the pleasure of attending. In fact he’s been writing about it ever since. Here’s what he has to say…. Having … Continue reading The End of the Road Festival – A Review
The Mad Mackerel 