Kotki Dwa have a very colourful website that makes me feel like I'm walking into a Nando's [other chicken-centric eateries are available].
However, instead of self-serve drink stations and hot sauce, you will actually find a lot of interesting things on this site, like blogs about the future and Polish tapestry (which, you have to say, is quite a specialist subject, even for a blog). They've even made a music video for our tip of the week, Halloween, in time for actual Hallowe'en. And it's shot on Super 8mm, which is always a pleasure to see.
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I have no idea what Kotki Dwa actually means, but when you Google it, you get a lot of pictures of kittens cuddling eachother. What's that all about?
(OK, after some intensive research, I have discovered it appears to be a Polish nursery rhyme about two little kittens that were both greyish-brown! That would explain the pictures).
The band consists of Tom, Tristan and Alex from London, who after three years apart are back with this track, avaliable for free download from their website.
Phantom Theory are Aaron Delgado and Steve Wilson from Oxford
Our tip this week - Shotguns and Sharks - is their debut single released on their very own label, A Mother Python Records, which doens't appear to have released much, but it does have a pretty cool logo and name. Sharks, pythons, shotguns... I have a feeling this band likes flirting with danger.
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In fact, they seem to enjoy sneaking animal names into pretty much everything; Trancedog and Ratmosphere are particularly interesting track titles. What could be next? Frogotton memories? Budgie jumping? Cat-astraphe (ok, so that one doesn't quite work).
One thing I do know is that it's quite a thought-provoking experience listening to a song where the only lyrics used in the entire thing are "You know I've killed for less" repeated over and over (Trancedog).
They've been supported by BBC Introducing in Oxford, Berkshire and Tom Robinson on 6 Music, and have played with the likes of Hundred Reasons, Johnny Foreigner, Swound! and Pulled Apart By Horses. Now I know we've mentioned Pulled Apart by Horses on here before, but I've only just come across this insane Glasto performance which I missed first time around. It's proper Rock n Roll. There are probably health and safety advisors across the land going into cardiac arrest over this kind of behaviour on stage, but I, for one, love it.
I have no idea if Phantom Theory will be climbing up the stage rigging and throwing themselves half naked into the crowd, but if you want to find out, they have a few shows coming up around Oxford next month. If you can't make the trip to Oxford, why not stick your feet up and have a listen from the comfort of your own home. Or office. Or coffee shop. Or bus. Or wherever else you may find an internet connection on this wonderful Friday afternoon. Have an awesome weekend. Rave safe, folks.
Just say it to yourself. Such powerful, strong words. From the name alone, Ninja Tune was always going to be destined for epic greatness.
20 years on, it really has achieved many wonderous things, bringing fantastic artists like Roots Manuva, Bonobo and The Cinematic Orchestra into the world. Have a listen to Stay the Same by Bonobo and try not to close your eyes and smile as the sax kicks in. Told you. It's hard.
The Ninja Tune foundations were built upon the classic story of 'the record labels kept saying no to our music so we started releasing it ourselves', and founders Matt Black and Jonathan More (aka Coldcut) have stayed true to those foundations.
To celebrate its 20 years of being, NT is throwing huge parties, creating great little mixes, and releasing 6-disc (yes, that is 6 discs!) boxsets.
Ninja Tune is not just about the music, though; it's about attention to detail, and that includes visual detail. You only have to flick through their flickr pages and you will see they aim to please the eyes as much as the ears. They're also not opposed to the odd spray can or two, and recently I've noticed a couple of nicely shot films of the Ninja artists taking over Ewer Street car park in London. Where next? Maybe one day the whole world will be sprayed Ninja Tune black and blue.
Have a listen to Huw's chat with Peter from the label, and find out a Ninja's favourite office snack (there must be a joke in there somewhere).
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I found this in my listening pile of CDs from bands and pluggers.
It sounded great, but trying to find out what it was so that we could play it on the radio proved to be an exercise in weeping frustration.
In the end, I wrote the band a letter suggesting they include information about their new record a) on the CD sleeve and b) on their website, only to find there were no contact details on their site.
When I first heard the name Shake Aletti I thought he must be a young Italian-American immigrant, who went in pursuit of the American dream and found himself falling in love with the late night lights of New York New York during the disco explosion of the 70's.
But he is not. He is Steve Nicholls from Sheffield. He did however name himself after Vince Aletti, an American journalist who coined the term ‘disco’, so I had the right idea. Kind of.
BBC Introducing took Shake Aletti to Sonar festival in Barcelona this summer alongside Nedry, where they kept a rather shakily shot video diary of the trip for Huw Stephens.
He was recently signed to the Moda Music label, and if you like this kind of music you should have a listen to Jaymo & Andy George on Radio 1, who really sum up what Moda is all about. They also put on some pretty good nights if you fancy a little disco boogie.
He's currently supporting Fenech-Soler (is it just me or does that always look like the word French to you?) on their UK tour and performs live with a 3 piece band. He has also worked with our very own Introducing artist Toddla T, as well as the brilliant Roots Manuva. Man, you should actually check out that Roots Manuva link, you'll find a rather beautifully shot session featuring one of my all time favourite songs; Witness (1 Hope). Task master burst the bionic zit splitter, breakneck speed we drown ten pints of bitter! Seriously, do song intro's get any bigger than that!?
Anyway, back to Shake Aletti, you can have a listen to this fittingly entitled track Dancefloor, which is out on 22nd November as a double A side. The perfect Friday afternoon warm-up track for a weekend of D.I.S.C.O! If you're into that kind of thing..
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When it comes to spotting the underground's next interesting band, New York's Captured Tracks do a pretty fine job of it at the moment, picking up releases from around the world at a rate most major labels would freak out at even contemplating.
All power to their vinyl-loving, quality-controlled elbows; on this week's show, I spoke to Mike from Captured Tracks about the label, its releases and plans for the future...
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It was also a pretty epic summer for me, working at Radio 1's Big Weekend, Glastonbury, and Reading + Leeds, going on my own adventures to Exit in Serbia, and Melt! In Germany, as well as Field Day and Wireless in London. It's fair to say I've experienced a fine selection of world class bands and DJs this summer, and some of the BBC Introducing artists are most definitely up there with my personal festival highlights (seeing Ricardo Villalobos absolutely smash it as the sun rose gloriously over a Serbian fortress wasn't bad, either).
I spent Radio 1's Big Weekend in the lovely Bangor assisting the director in his truck behind the stage (where he directs our cameraman who are thrown into the thick of the action), so managed to see pretty much every BBC Introducing performance.
My ears just couldn't resist being drawn into the layered sounds of Django Django, especially this track, Storm. Don't think I've seen one of those wooden fish instruments you scrape since primary school: [that'll be a Güiro. Ed].
The Joy Formidable were superb, looking assured and confident throughout, and I wasn't surprised to see them go on to play on The Other Stage at Glastonbury later that summer. It was refreshing to watch a drummer fearlessly lead as the frontman in I am Austin, and I was quite enthralled by Tempa T's dubstep invasion, as well as his t-shirt (although it was rare that he kept it on):
(By the way, if excitable half-naked grime MCs are up your street, why not check out The World According to Tempa T where he gets philosophical and deep on moral issues like Twitter. Boy Off Da Ting!)
At Glastonbury I had the privilege of working on Hello Glastonbury!, a BBC Four film about the Introducing stage, by first time director Rachel Davies. I'd definitely recommend you watch it if you want to live the Glasto experience through the eyes of artists on our stage.
It was a pleasure working with the D.M.E lads from Birmingham at Glasto, and was nice to hear some UK hip hop in the Introducing tent, despite them unfortunately being on the same time as Snoop Dogg on the Pyramid Stage! Out Like a Lion drew one of the biggest Glasto crowds, and you can see why with this performance:
I personally was seduced by the melodic folky sounds of Dry The River, who have some truly beautiful songs behind them, and Patch William provided the perfect Sunday afternoon soundtrack for a hot and sunny final day at Glasto.
The ‘dark, seductive and mysterious' sounds of Dark Horses complimented their artistic performance, but for me the real Glastonbury moment belonged to Lanterns on the Lake when they performed this wonderful track, You Need Better:
To be honest, we were spoilt for choice at Glastonbury, so I would definitely recommend flicking through the whole line-up and seeing if anyone takes your fancy.
At the end of August, it was time to rock out at Reading, with the open air 'saddle' tent bringing in some of the most impressive Introducing crowds yet. Despite being more involved with the BBC Three TV coverage this time, I still managed to catch some top notch Introducing acts.
Bass heavy rockers Lafaro from Belfast put in a performance true to Reading's rock festival roots, and I was impressed to see Shockparade pull out a Faithless-like show to keep Reading ravers happy. Endoflevelbaddie also flew the flag for electronic music, and I dont think life gets much sweeter than when music combines effortlessly with an atmospheric orange sunset.
The sun set over Reading on Sunday, and that was that; BBC Introducing's festival season was over. We were left battered, bruised and hungover, but with a summer of truely amazing memories.
So, what, my festival friends, were your memories? Did you catch a massive Introducing performance? A band on another stage that we need to tell the world about? A festival moment that will live with you forever? If so, we would really love to know about it…
You might recall a couple of weeks ago I shared with you the good news that BBC Introducing had been nominated for an award. We were one of six sites and services shortlisted in the Best Place to Discover Music category at the BT Digital Music Awards 2010.
Well, the even better news is... we won! And we now have this rather shiny little trophy to show for it. Blimey.
We were extremely chuffed just to have been nominated, so everyone here at Introducing HQ is over the moon at winning, especially since our category was decided by public vote. If you cast a vote for us, we're sending you a hug.
Personally, hearing that someone has discovered and fallen in love with a band either by visiting this site, listening to one of our radio shows or stopping by our stage at a festival never fails to bring a smile to my face.
And of course, it would be remiss of us not to thank all of the bands and artists who have uploaded tracks to us, recorded a session, or performed on our festival stage. Keep up the good work, you lot.
Are they eagles? Are they seagulls? No they are Eagulls. Although judging by their pictures, they are far more favourable to eagles, and somewhat neglectful of poor old seagulls.
If you live in Leeds, you're in luck, as from Oct 9th - Nov 14th they are playing a few home gigs ending with Constellations Festival at Leeds University. Actually, looking at that festival line-up, even if you're not from Leeds it might be worth making the trip with acts like Fourtet, Broken Social Scene, and former tip of the week Runaround Kids also playing.
Our tip this week - Council Flat Blues - is soon to be released on new Moshi Moshi imprint Not Even Records. It also featured on Eagulls' Songs Of Prey EP, which they released on cassette for £1.50. Old. School.
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Maybe it's something in the water down there, but Bristol does seem to have a knack of producing cutting edge electronic music. Black Acre opitimises the Bristol attitude, not being afraid to challenge what already exists, and to go in new directions to chase unique sounds.
You only have to sample the Fantastic Mr Fox - Evelyn EP to realise you're in for something a little different. Raindrops by Blue Daisy and Anneka is another pretty heavy track, one of those perfect songs to accompany a midnight drive under some big city lights.
Listen to Huw's chat with label owner Ian about how it all began, and of course, find out what the favourite office snack is down there (maybe this holds the secret to Bristol's great music scene!).
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Hundreds of tracks were uploaded for the attention of the programme makers, who were looking for tunes to accompany, in their words, "the emotional ups and downs of teenage life" on Albert Square. The series is now well underway, and you can watch episodes online or check out the weekly BBC Three omnibus.
We're pleased to hear from the E20 team that they've chosen the following tracks to use on the show:
Thanks to everyone who uploaded. If you're interested in getting your tunes on the telly, don't forget you can still upload tunes to BBC Switch to be considered for their teen soap, The Cut.
It's not everyday a 17-year-old girl from Bath manages to land herself a UK tour and release her own EP without the help of a record label. But you only have to look at the number of YouTube hits when you type in Gabrielle Aplin to know she's obviously doing something right.
Although very modest and down to earth, Gabrielle Aplin is already starting to sample a small slice of the rock n' roll lifestyle. She landed herself a pretty impressive photo shoot with world-renowned photographer Rankin and is embarking on a UK tour from Nov 21st - Dec 3rd playing in Cardiff, Brighton, Oxford, Leeds, London, Newcastle and Glasgow.
There’s no doubt Gabrielle has a beautiful voice and a talent for song writing, but one of the strongest tools in her arsenal has been the internet, which has perhaps played the most important role in Gabrielle’s success over the past year.
Here's her story, and her new track, Mountains:
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Gabrielle already has history with BBC Introducing; she uploaded her track Reverse to us in March 2010, and as a result was invited to perform a session on her local BBC Introducing show on BBC Wiltshire in July.
If, like us and thousands more, you've been following Gabrielle's progress on YouTube, don't worry! She assures us there will be plenty more home-made videos from her bathroom and beyond!
Lingo Scott is an unsigned artist from East London. He’s recorded with Tinchy Stryder and MC'd with Dizzee Rascal in the past and is currently finishing tracks for an EP due out in early January.
He describes his music as 80's Minneapolis funk, pop, rock and all things electro. 1Xtra's Ras Kwame describes him as 'the young Prince.' But why not decide for yourself? Check out this track, Elope, our tip of the week. Over to you, Huw:
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And if you like the sound of that, you can listen to more of his tracks here.
|12:41 UK time, Friday, 29 October 2010
