Summertime Indie!

Well, after a busy couple of weeks and some awful neglect of the blog, it's time to get back to the indie.

I have noticed that (at least with me) each year certain albums tend to dominate my summer playlists. Although it is a little too early to tell what these are going to be yet, it's worth a look back at what was the sound of last summer...



Scream Gun EP - BRMC

I got a copy of this hard to come by EP off a friend and it I instantly became addicted. Consisting of 5 songs that didn't make it on to their debut album, including Fail-Safe (possibly one of their best work to date).

Better Than A Killer - Black Market Radio

Suggested to my by indieawesome friend Kev. Peter Cornell (brother of Chris) along with 3 friends. Possibly one of the best grunge albums I've ever heard. I must have listened to this hundreds of times, and didn't get sick of it. I'm still not sure if BMR are still around (if you know please tell me), but I sure hope so because I'd love to go see them.

Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell

Lovely happy indie pop. It's hard not to like music like this, and although every song it only about 2 minutes long (I don't think they'd work if they were longer), and the album is quite short, it does make for good summertime listening.

The lovely summery photograph is by Stathis Stavrianos, who titled the photo "Summer Wasting..." after the Belle & Sebastian song... Looks like someone know's his indie

Camera Obscura!

Camera Obscura haven't released an album since 2006 but on the 20th of this month My Maudlin Career should be available to buy, better than that of course is that they also start a tour on that same date. arriving in Dublin on the 30th. you can listen to the little track by clicking play:




They've been going since 1996 and i came to know them during the end of my "Belle and Sebastian are better than everything" phase, and while i'm now on a bit of Swedish Indie kick, i have not forgotten the great Scotish Indie scene. I saw them play last time they came to dublin and will certainly be going along to see them this time. you should go to.

A Quick Review: Röyksopp - Junior

If you haven't heard about this album yet, you must go out and get yourself a copy. Although they've been around for a good 8 years now, this album by far is their best. Junior, is part of a two album project which examines two different sounds. Junior, is apparently an album for the Springtime. Very happy and upbeat. The second part, Senior, which is due out towards the end of the year, will be more moody and introspective. So, in part this could be considered a concept album, something we've seen a lot of in the past year from Franz Ferdinand's Tonight to of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping.



The first two songs off the album deserve much praise. Happy Up Here, which is a brilliant track by anyone's standards and The Girl and The Robot, which has Swedish singer Robyn on vocals, not that I'm a big fan of Robyn or anything. One song that is quite awful is Tricky Tricky, which features the lyric "Is six afraid of seven, because seven eight nine?" possibly one of the worst puns the world has seen this century. Though if you ignore the lyrics, the song is not that bad.

Check out they website for some full track previews and their Myspace page for some interesting remixes.