New Music Friday: Royal Blood - "Trouble's Coming" (Purple Disco Machine Remix)

I don't discover new music anymore. In Before World, I went to festivals, diligently researching all the new (to me) artists before the day. Concerts were great opportunities too, with support bands or at least some killer tunes from the DJ beforehand. It was even better when I worked in London. Billboards, posters, CDs in-store, my weekly album-a-day playlists to decide what made it to my permanent collection; the sources of new music were endless and I could have easily written annual top-ten album lists if I wasn't perpetually lazy.

Life is different now in every way. I've gone from 90 minute commutes (each way) five years ago to half an hour of total commuting to rolling out of bed and sitting at my desk within ten minutes now. Which means that with the exception of prog-house albums for running to, I've discovered exactly one new (to me) artist in 2020.

It's as dire as it sounds.

That doesn't mean I haven't listened to any alternative or indie music this year, I've just relied on tired old playlists of my favourite tracks when I'm actually a full-album listener at heart. I'm also a big resolution-setter and I usually start resolutions in autumn, not January, so my new resolution is to discover as many new artists as possible, preferably one a week but I'll allow for the occasional love affairs where I play an album on repeat for six weeks.

Royal Blood

My first discovery is Royal Blood who've been around since 2011. I discovered them a couple of weeks ago when they released the Purple Disco Machine Remix of "Trouble's Coming". I immediately liked what I was hearing, it reminded me of the remixes Klaxons used to release and that is a good thing. Klaxons was my favourite band for years and I've never been reminded of them before.

I took a listen to How Did We Get So Dark? (2017). The album gave me a Muse and Kings of Leon vibe. I'm not the biggest Kings of Leon fan strangely enough, strictly hits only, but I knew straight away that this album is a keeper. My favourite tracks are "Lights Out" and "Hook, Line & Sinker" which were released as singles but honestly, this is an album I can listen to whole and I was always a little disappointed when it ended.

Which lead me neatly to their self-titled debut album Royal Blood (2014). This album is brilliant throughout, especially the first three tracks from the explosive opening track "Out of the Black" through "Come on Over" to "Figure It Out".

The best thing is that both albums are short at around 30 minutes, so I've just been listening to both of them over and over.

I'm was hoping that "Trouble's Coming" meant that a new album was on the way and Loudwire confirmed it'll land in Spring 2021. Fabulous news indeed.

I'm very happy with my first discovery. Onwards and upwards to the next one!

"Trouble's Coming Official Video

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Unsigned Band Museum Offer Free Downloads

They are the most popular unsigned band on Last.fm, with more than 100,000 listeners and almost one million plays.  Hailing from Hamburg, Germany, Museum have recorded and released two EPs and have completed their debut album Traces Of, but they have yet to find a label to release their album. 

Museum are Tobias Hermes on vocals and guitar; Söhnke Grothusen on guitar; Hagen Hamm on bass; and Florian Bolzau on drums.  Tobias and Söhnke founded Museum back in 2004 after attending school together.  They had written a couple of songs between them and figured it would be fun to play them live and record them.  They taught their good friend Hagen to play bass guitar and, after losing two drummers, they recruited another friend, Florian, on drums. 

Between 2004 and 2006, Museum released two EPs which they recorded and produced in Tobias’s apartment.  The Old Firehand EP and Exit Wounds EP and are available to download for free on their Last.fm page.  Yet despite a gruelling touring schedule, Museum still struggled to find a label to finance and release their upcoming album.  Left with no choice, they began to record and produce the album in their own studio.  Tobias explains that insane perfectionism, university, graduation, jobs, personal matters, and a lack of time and money meant that the album took an incredible three years to record but now it is finished.

Listening to Traces Of, it is astounding to think that no one has signed this band yet.  It is even more incredible to think that Museum have written, recorded and produced this album on their own because it sounds every bit like a professional production.  Tobias Hermes could be the lovechild of Matt Bellamy and Brett Anderson and Museum are clearly influenced by bands such as Muse, Suede and The Smiths. 

Tracks such as “For The Very First Time”, “Eden” and “Calm” are complex, energetic tracks that are worthy of stadium-sized crowds while “With Love” is an epic song with a heart-stopping beat and stunning lyrics.  My favourite song on the album is “Uncorrupted” and it was this track that caught my attention and made me notice Museum.  Traces Of has a great tracklist and the songs flow really well into each other.  It is a good album to listen to in its entirety but once I reach “Uncorrupted”, the last track, I can’t move on as I have to put this track on repeat.  Intensely penetrating and moving, “Uncorrupted” first appeared on the Exit Wounds EP and is available to download from Last.fm.

To promote their album Traces Of, Museum are offering two singles for download at their website BinaryMuseum.net.  “The Law” and “Midwinter” are both available as high quality, 320kbs downloads.  So download the tracks, share the video and for the love of good music, could somebody please sign this band?

Catch up with Museum on Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and MySpace.

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Download: Mutts – Complete EP Collection

Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, Mutts are a three-piece blues rock band with grunge and garage influences.  Chatting with front man and manager Mike Maimone, I was able to get a feel for just how hard it can be to break out in the musical industry and how artists suffer for their art.  As Mike says, music is finally starting to pay the bills but it hasn’t always been like that!

Mike describes how he went to college, got qualified as an accountant and then quit his auditing job after a year to Portland, OR to join a band.  When that band broke up, he moved to Chicago where he lived on a couch in a recording studio.  He made his money in the studio by filling in for bands that didn’t have keyboard players and he also cooked and cleaned from time to time.  “I managed to make a solo record by tracking after hours while I was there, too!” says Mike.  Obviously an overachiever then!

It was through this studio work that he met Bob and Chris.  They were both playing for big Chicago bands which Mike says intimidated him at first but they all began jamming together once both of their bands broke up.  Despite the success they had seen previously, all three band members needed to work odd jobs just to get by.  “Bob and Chris sometimes walk dogs, and I've done random things from digging ditches to manicuring a cemetery lawn to selling knives,” explains Mike.  “But for the most part, music is finally paying the bills”. 

This is fantastic news because Mutts is a band that deserves to be heard and deserves their spot in the limelight.  They have a wonderfully loud and energetic blues rock sound and the good news is that they are giving away three of their EPs for free on their website.

Pretty Pictures was first released in September 2009 and the piano features strongly in all four tracks.  The first track “Stolen Bricks” has a great garage sound while “Trust” continues with a jazzy sound.  There is no disputing that this is hard rock though and something about it reminds me of Faith No More or perhaps Mike Patton’s Mr Bungle.  This is just better. “Uncivilized” slows down the tempo and is a really great blues song while “On The Rope” speeds it right up again.  I love the funky hook on this last track and it is a good finish to a really strong EP.

We Float was released in May 2010 and begins with the psychedelic and energetic “Beggar”.  This EP is quite different from Pretty Pictures.  It is quite a lot heavier and relies more on keyboards and guitars than the piano heavy tunes of the former EP.  This is especially evident in the title track “We Float”.  “Handcuffs” and “Mama’s Boy” are funky songs and “Handcuffs” features a great blues melody on keyboards.  The EP finishes with “Let It Be” which is unfortunately too noisy even for an old lover of noise like me.

The Tells of Parallels is their latest EP and was released on October 1, 2010.  I immediately noticed that it has a more polished sound and I was really impressed with the first track “Terranaut”.  I liked the first two EPs but this was the track that made me realise that I wanted to hear a full Mutts album. It is a bold track with plenty of blues and psychedelic influences and seems to get better each time I listen to it.  It seems that Mutts have found their musical groove as “Symmetry”, “Gone” and “Masquerade” continue this bold, energetic, blues sound.  The EP finishes with “Junior” which slows down the tempo slightly and is a great blues track about a father and son.

Mutts are offering all three of these great EPs for free on their site muttsmusic.com.  You can enter the download page, choose your EP from the selection on the right and then name your price.  There is no minimum download price and you can pay nothing.  Of course, if you’d like to keep this rising band in business, it won’t hurt to donate a couple of dollars!

Article first published as Chicago Band Mutts Offer Their EPs for Free Download on Blogcritics.

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Music Review: Only Revolutions by Biffy Clyro

Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions
Record label: 14th Floor 
Release date: 06 November 2009 (UK) / 09 March 2010 (US)

Breakthrough UK band Biffy Clyro are to release their new album Only Revolutions in the US on March 9, 2010. 

Hailing from Kilmarnock, Scotland, Biffy Clyro formed in 1995 and began releasing singles in 2001. It was only in 2007 that their fan base grew exponentially with the massively successful album Puzzle which was their fourth studio album.  In the next couple of years they became known for their explosive stage shows and shared the stage with Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Linkin Park and Muse.  They also became the first band ever to play in the Houses of Parliament in London when they played an acoustic gig on January 14, 2010 to celebrate the achivement of a local radio station in reaching 50% digital listenership.

Biffy Clyro finally put speculation to rest this week over the source of their strange name in an interview with Spin magazine.  They admitted that they had been imagining up Cliff Richard merchandise and one of the things they came up with was the Cliffy Biro (“biro” being a type of pen in the UK).  That got spoonerized into Biffy Clyro over time and the name stuck.

Only Revolutions is the follow up to the 2007 album Puzzle and is their fifth studio album.  It is an energetic album which the band say is their heaviest album yet.  Songs such as “That Golden Rule”, “Bubbles”, “Shock Shock” and “Mountains” are loud, powerful anthems that will have you singing along in no time.  The band makes great use of classic rock instruments with powerful guitar riffs, great basslines and great drums which absolutely complement Simon Neil’s vocal style.  On the whole, this is great music for dancing to and the band must be great live.

There are probably seven great songs out of the twelve on the album but the other songs really let the album down.  Some of the lyrics on the album are hackneyed and unoriginal while others are bizarre and you’re left wondering what any of the songs actually mean.  An example of this is the line “I’ve never had a lover who’s my sister or my brother before”.  As an album, there is also a lack of cohesion as the styles range from indie alternative to hard rock to a simple classical rock style.  What results is that you have several fantastic songs that are marred by somewhat average and unoriginal fillers.

Not everyone would agree with me though and in fact, the video for one of my least favourite songs “The Captain” won the award for Best Video at the Shockwaves NME Awards in 2010.  I have to admit, the video is fantastic and Simon Neil is looking good but I’m still not convinced.

In the end, I would say that Only Revolutions is not my cup of tea.  I wouldn’t necessarily buy the album but the wonder of the digital age is that I can download the specific tracks that I enjoyed from Amazon and would recommend: “That Golden Rule”, “Bubbles”, “Born of a Horse” (in spite of the lyrics), “Mountains”, “Shock Shock”, “Booooom, Blast & Ruin”, “Cloud of Stink” and “Whorses”.

This article originally appeared on BlogCritics.org.  I’d like to thank Kate from Warner Bros Records for sending me a copy of the CD to review.

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Music Review: The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love

Indiessential Albums of 2009

I'm always on the lookout for good, new music so when a very dear and old friend of mine suggested The Big Pink, I rushed right out and gave them a listen. 

The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love

Image source: Jayne Helliwell design

The Big Pink are from London, England and are signed to he massive 4AD label which brought us brilliant bands such as Pixies, Bauhaus and Throwing Muses.  They are not an easy band to classify and their style is a mix of indie rock, shoegazing and electro rock.  They have certainly arrived on the scene with a bang and won the prestigious NME Philip Hall Radar Award for best new act this year.

Photo by Tom Beard [Image Source]

Like with Editors - In This Light and On This Evening, I’m going to review each song on this album as I was pretty impressed with it.  Unfortunately, their music is not up on Last.fm like it was with Editors but they do have a brilliant website [Music From The Big Pink] and you can listen to four of their songs by clicking on their names below:

The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love
Record label: 4AD
Release date: 14 September 2009

Where the song titles are links, they link to the YouTube videos (4AD have their own channel!)

1. Crystal Visions: After a build up of a minute, the album explodes with the energetic and anthemic “Crystal Visions”.  At first it reminded me a little bit of All About Eve around the time that they brought out “Phased” but it soon becomes evident that they are channelling The Jesus and Mary Chain and boy are they doing a good job!  This song has the most awesome baseline!
2. Too Young To Love: Another brilliant and anthemic song that brings to mind Kula Shaker.  I love the grinding guitars and beat.  This is like Californian beach music or music to listen to on your way out at night.  Or music to go see live in concert.  I don’t need to give you any more reasons… this is exciting and energetic music and you should give it a listen!
3. Dominos: This is their massive radio hit and you’ll probably recognise it.  It reminds me of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack or MGMT’s “Time to Pretend”.  It’s just a really happy song although why I’m saying it when it’s about men not being able to commit, I’ll never know.
4. Love In Vain:  This is not my favourite song as I find it kind of anti-climatic after the previous three songs but it might appeal to Jesus and Mary Chain fans.
5. At War With The Sun: This song is a dead ringer for the Stone Roses.  Seriously, it could have been written by Ian Brown himself.  Which is not a bad thing and they definitely make it their own towards the end (well, obviously, seeing as it is their own song) but it is clear who their influences are.
6. Velvet: This song reminds me so much of My Bloody Valentine and it definitely earns The Big Pink the shoegazing label.  It is really beautiful and makes me want to lie in a park in the sun.
7. Golden pendulum: Sweeping guitar riffs and lazy vocals continue the shoegazing theme and Jesus and Mary chain channelling.
8. Frisk: The backing vocals in this song remind me of Jane’s Addiction to some extent.  This song is quite edgy and a nice contrast to the previous tracks.
9. A Brief History of Love: This is an amazing song featuring the incredibly talented Joanne Robertson (also known as Joanne Apps).
10. Tonight: This is the best song on the album.  I love the grinding guitars and once again, that gorgeous vocal reminds me of Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction.
11. Countbackwards From Ten: This reminds me of “Today” from The Smashing Pumpkins.  Coming at the end of an energetic, frenetic album, this is a fantastic closing song to the album.  It’s not exactly calming, more like that last song at the end of the best concert of your life.  The one that sees you walking out the doors on a complete natural high. 

I must say that this album was an excellent find and a big thank you to Mike for recommending them to me!  Once again, I am only too happy to give this album five stars!

 

The Big Pink links

Official website: Music From The Big Pink

LastFM

MySpace

NME profile

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Music Review: Editors – In This Light and On This Evening

Indiessential Albums of 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking that 2009 had been pretty uneventful as far as new music was concerned. I guess I was feeling a bit uninspired and disenchanted. Suddenly, it felt as if there was an explosion of new music and I rushed out and got four new albums. That in turn lead me to look again at the albums that have come out this year and to see if any were worthwhile. The results have been interesting and from now to the end of the year, I'll be posting about some of the Indiessential albums of 2009.

Editors - In This Light and On This Evening

[Photo Source]

The Editors are one of my favourite bands and first caught my attention in 2007 with their phenomenal album An End Has a Start.  Up until now, their sound has been compared to that of Interpol and R.E.M. but with their third studio album, In This Light and On This Evening, Editors break all previous barriers.

It is not often that an album impresses me as much as this one has and I’m going to review all 9 tracks on the album.  Links in the song titles will take you to the Last.fm pages where you can listen to the tracks.

Editors - In This Light and On This Evening
Record label: Sony Music
Release date: 12 Oct 2009

1. In This Light and On This Evening: really dark and it reminds me of VNV Nation.  The strange thing is that it is this dark but he is talking of beauty!  This track sounds nothing like their previous material.  It starts off slow and melancholy and then erupts in a burst of heavy beats and electronic, synth driven melody.
2. Bricks and Mortar:  carries on the electronic tune from the first song and Tom Smith’s signature voice returns and reminds us of the Editors we all fell in love with.  This is an absolutely English album as he sings of London, pounds and pence.
3. Papillon:  reminds me again of VNV Nation and The Mission too.  This is a long way from the band that sounded like Interpol and R.E.M.  It does make me wonder what a “sleep twitch” is though and what it has to do with butterflies and guns.  Okay… my brother explained what a sleep twitch is and it still doesn’t make any sense!  Nevertheless, I do think Editors might just be the best band around now.
4. You Don't Know Love:  one of my favourite tunes on the album.  It has an electronic, New Wave, emotional sound to it.  It gets to a point where comparisons lose their usefulness and Editors consolidate their new sound and emerge as a top class band in their own right.  This is a groundbreaking album.
5. The Big Exit: a strong tune with a catchy refrain, this song is another one of my favourites. ♫ "They took what once was ours, they took what once was ours" ♫ (sing along now)
6. The Boxer: this is my absolute favourite song on the album and is one of those songs that I just want to put on repeat and play it over and over again.  It starts off a bit like Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” but then it just gets absolutely brilliant after that and again, there is no use in comparisons.  I really love this lyric: “an unwanted sun pulls rank in the sky”.
7. Like Treasure: this song is the most like their older music out of any of the songs on the album but there is a definite New Wave influence on the music again.
8. Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool: this is the strangest song on the album.  I don’t have much more to say about it other than that.  It is a good penultimate song though and leads well into the final song.
9. Walk The Fleet Road: there is that unmistakeably London setting again and it is also unmistakeably Editors.  This song is theatrical and brave, thoroughly uplifting and a fantastic ending to one of the strongest albums I have heard in years.

For the first time in quite a while, I am happy to give an album 5 stars for sheer groundbreaking brilliance.

Editors - "Papillon”

The video to the third song on the album.

Editors links

Official Web Site

Myspace

Last FM

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Music: Parlotones to be released in UK

The Parlotones, darlings of the South African alternative music scene, are set for a major release in the UK with their latest album “A World Next Door To Yours” due out on 01 June 2009.  While their previous album Radiocontrolledrobot is available on Amazon.co.uk, this is the first time I have seen proper marketing and media releases in the press in this country.  It is very exciting indeed but nothing less than this magnificent band deserves.

Taken at Hillfox Market on 11 March 2007, just before I left South Africa. I got to see them five or six times live in settings varying from a live radio studio to a massive concert venue.

I first discovered The Parlotones on 5 November 2005.  They were supporting Violent Femmes at the Dome in Northgate and I ran to the front to buy their CD within about ten minutes of their act starting.  They are that good and their explosive stage acts are matched by their excellent and world class CD releases.

 

This is the first single from the album, Giant Mistake. The single was released in South Africa in 2007 and went to no 1 on the charts.  Here’s hoping it does well here.

The band are perhaps most famous for their cover of the Boom Boom Room classic "Here Comes The Man".  This is still my favourite song of theirs.

 

Parlotones at Amazon.co.uk
Official website
MySpace
Facebook

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Band: The Cinematics

When I am super busy like I was last week, I listen to a lot of dance music to get myself going in the mornings and keep myself awake on the train coming home late at night. Come Monday morning, my scattered brain needed something less hectic and I put on some of my all time favourite indie albums of all time on to play. 

I think I've mentioned before that I don't usually react too well to music that is recommended to me. I have the most eclectic taste out of anyone I know and yet I am extremely particular about my music. Recommendations from my brother often sit on my iPod for months before I finally "discover" them there and decide that they're quite good actually!

I think the reason for this is not that I'm specifically arrogant, ungrateful or rude. It is that I have a very strong emotional tie to my music and change my music with every mood. Given that I am very prone to mood swings, you can imagine why I need to have 80gb worth of music on my iPod to cater for every possible whim that I may have! I do not like travelling without my iPod, that is for sure.

The Cinematics – Strange Education

The Cinematics formed in 2003 in Glasgow in Scotland and draw their inspiration from bands like The Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen.  Their sounds reminds me strongly of the Bunnies in fact.  I mentioned recommendations before because this band was recommended to me by Last.fm and I immediately fell in love with their song Being Human.  I’m really sorry that I couldn’t find an official video for the song but you have to listen to this:

• Listen to the whole album at Imeem
• Visit them on MySpace and listen to their new single
• Visit their website, thecinematics.com
• Listen to all of their tracks at Last.fm

I really recommend a listen to this band.  Their new stuff sounds really edgy and even more Bunny-esque.  Definitely worth a listen!

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Band: Taxi Violence

I promise that I have been planning to do a post on the excellent South African band Taxi Violence for months and that my decision to post had nothing to do with the taxi violence in South Africa yesterday.

The first time I heard Untie Yourself on the radio, I thought Muse had a new song out. This is such a fantastic, bold and emotionally charged song and I was quite surprised to hear that it was by a South African band. (The Muse comparison alone should hopefully send you clicking on all the cool links below!)

Untie Yourself is the title track from the band's first album and is a firm favourite on my iPod as it reached the "songs to play over and over again on repeat"-playlist.

Click on the album cover and it will take you to Rhythm Records where you can preview all of the songs on the album and buy the mp3s.

In addition to the Untie Yourself, I also recommend Rock Out and Waking Up.

I would absolutely recommend Taxi Violence to all fans of indie and alternative music as well as lovers of fantastic South African bands such as Parlotones, Evolver and Prime Circle. This is an extremely well produced album with an international sound. Taxi Violence are working on releasing their second album right now and I think we can only expect excellent stuff from them in the future. If you prefer to download your mp3s from Amazon, they have four tracks available:

MySpace
LastFM
Taxi Violence official website
Legal Taxi Violence downloads

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Band: Klaxons

A couple of the new Klaxons' songs have begun to emerge on YouTube and their new album is slated for release later this year. It has occurred to me that many people won't understand my excitement and jubilation when this happen because I have never posted about the absolute wonder that is Klaxons before.

The story starts back in 1996 when I fell in love with the Grace song, Not Over Yet which I craftily posted about here. I remember almost freezing to death camping at Rustler's Valley festival and waking up before dawn, hearing this song and going to dance in my pyjamas just to keep warm. And because I loved the song so much. It took me two years after that to find the song on CD single - you have to love how inaccessible music can be in South Africa.

Anyway, I was driving across England in July 2007 to visit my pets in quarentine, when I heard the Klaxons' remake of Not Over Yet and I loved it. It took me a while to get the album, strangely enough, and even longer to listen to it; but when I did eventually start listening to it, I was blown away.

Every song on the album, Myths Of The Near Future is dramatic and energetic and I soon found myself playing songs like Magick over and over and over again.

We went to see Klaxons at the NME Shockwave Awards concert last year and they just blew me away.  Soon after that I went out and got every single CD single of theirs. In 2006, they had launched a competition to remix their song Atlantis to Interzone and I have to say that the Metronomy remix of that song is the best remix I have ever heard.  Of course, it is a severely acquired taste and not for everyone's tastes, but you can click on the link at the bottom of the post at your peril!

I posted the video for Magick here but this is another brilliant song featuring the Klaxons from the Chemical Brothers album We Are the Night.

 

Finally, here is the Metronomy remix.  It is pretty warped so as I said, listen to it at your own risk!  And remember that it is a remix and not the typical Klaxons offering.  (None of this stopped me from listening to it repeatedly for, oh, about three months solid).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Klaxons.  Hopefully some of you will be able to understand my near obsession now (especially you Broken).

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Band: The Kooks

Well, The Kooks were certainly the most played band in my collection this week (Last.fm says 187 plays). This is one of those surprising bands where you don't really realise how much you like them until you take a listen to their albums and realise you know every single song already!

The Kooks have been the darlings of Xfm for some time now (which will certainly account for me knowing all of their songs as Xfm do tend to overplay the bands they support). However, it was only when I heard their latest single "Sway" that I started to pay real attention to their music.

The song was written about their former bass player Max who had to leave the band because of his problems with drugs. If you have ever had any encounters with addicts or addiction then you'll know that the message of the song is spot on: take your time, look after yourself, do what you need to do - I will be here when you get better.

I can't really recommend one album over the other but if I had to choose, I would say that their second album Konk is slightly better. My favourite song on their first album is "I Want You" and I've just about played it to death over the past couple of weeks, alternating only with "Sway" of course. The Kooks represent the finest that indie rock has to offer at the moment and you can listen to previews of their tracks with Amazon's neat little mp3 widgets:

Or you can visit them on MySpace, Last.fm or their website.

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Band: Cranes

Cranes - Cranes
Record label: Dadaphonic
Release date: 13 October 2008

An Angel Describing Sunshine

For 15 years I have been near-obsessed with the band Cranes. It is hard to describe a band like the Cranes - imagine if you will an angel describing sunshine. The vocalist, Alison Shaw, has an ethereal, haunting voice which is accompanied by sometimes discordant, sometimes melodic music.

This is Cranes 8th studio album (9th if you include their experimental La Tragédie d'Oreste et Électre, a musical interpretation of "Les Mouches" by Jean-Paul Sartre). My favourite albums were their first four: Wings of Joy, Self Non Self, Forever and Loved. I really, really disliked the next album Population 4 but then I believe that Cranes were forced into a more commercial sound by their then record label, Dedicated.

They left Dedicated and went on to form their own label, Dadaphonic. They released Future Songs and Particles and Waves in the next couple of years and these albums were both very dreamy, very post-modern. With the release of their self-titled album Cranes, I believe the band have finally returned to the glory of their albums such as Wings of Joy and Forever. I am really proud again to say that this is my favourite band and they are back on form. Here is a playlist of my five favourite songs from previous albums plus an extra bonus of my favourite song from their new album.

1. 'Dada 331' from the 1990 Inescapable EP
   
2. 'Beautiful Sadness' from the 1991 album Wings of Joy
   
3. 'Adoration' from the 1991 album Wings of Joy
   
4. 'Focus Breathe' from the 1992 album Self Non Self
   
5. 'Everywhere' from the 1993 album Forever (their first song I ever heard)
   
6. 'Worlds' from the 2008 album Cranes

Cranes albums are available at Amazon.co.uk.

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