Archives for May 2011

Last night during NowPlaying@6Music friend of the show Andy Von Pip tweeted: "I saw Three Trapped Tigers live last week. I thought I was seeing Tigers That Talked and as such I was incredibly confused". Tigers That Talked weren't surprised. "Haha" they tweeted back "we've had a silent name battle with them for ages. Never spoken to them about it though, wonder if they're annoyed by it too?".



Actually looking back at our playlists from BBC Introducing: Fresh On The Net over the past three and a half years, there's far more scope for tiger-based confusion among band names than you might at first imagine. In chronological order of airplay we've heard music by:



EATEN BY TIGERS

https://www.myspace.com/eatenbytigers



TEN TIGERS

https://www.myspace.com/tentigers



TIGERSTYLE

https://www.tigerstyleonline.co.uk



PAPER TIGER

https://www.origamisounds.com



BURN PAPER TIGERS

https://www.myspace.com/burnpapertigers



THREE TRAPPED TIGERS

https://www.myspace.com/threetrappedtigers



TIGER SHADOW

https://www.myspace.com/jazzbongo



TIGERS THAT TALKED

https://www.myspace.com/tigersthattalked



MY TIGER, MY TIMING

https://www.myspace.com/mytigermytiming



TIGER PLEASE

https://www.myspace.com/tigerplease



WE CAME OUT LIKE TIGERS

https://www.myspace.com/wecameoutliketigers



TRUE TIGER feat P MONEY

https://www.myspace.com/truetigerrecordings



And there's even Sean Lennon's latest incarnation as a member of:

THE GHOST OF A SABER TOOTH TIGER

https://www.myspace.com/ghostofasabertoothtiger



What's with all these tiger-named bands and artists ? Can you think of any others - apart from perhaps the Tygers Of Pan Tang? And what, I wonder, are the other words and names most overused by musicians when thinking up monikers for their latest projects? Answers - not on a postcard please - but on a blog comment here, or else tweet me @BBC6Music with the hashtag #toomanytigers...

Nick Cave was your chosen topic for this week’s Now Playing. The guitarist who plays with his Bad Seeds, and more recently Grinderman, has helped score a new film Dias de Gracia (Days of Grace) directed by Everado Valerio Gout.



After recent screenings at the Cannes Film Festival, the Mexican thriller weaves three storylines across three football World Cups, with a different musical team composing the soundtrack for each thread in the movie.

As well as Cave, we had a Triple Treat surrounding the return of The Horrors. Their new track was played on Zane Lowe before appearing on YouTube and becoming the talk of the blogs.

We also welcomed God is in the TV and CMU into 6 Music - and my word did they perform with some awesome track selections and insightful blogs.

Check out all the tracks and reasons behind them below.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig Lazarus Dig

Grinderman - Palaces of Montezuma (via Facebook)

PJ Harvey - 50 Ft Queenie (via Spotify)

#Digital Digest

* The new video from Tom Vek is up on YouTube. World of Doubt is the second single taken from his forthcoming album Leisure Seizure – both out on June 6.



* According to the Guardian, Jeff Bezos, President and CEO of Amazon, the founders of Google and YouTube make the top ten most powerful figures in music while iTunes comes in fourth. Simon Cowell is third while Team Adele – the people behind 2011’s most successful UK artist so far - topped the chart.



* Tokyo Police Club’s Graham Wright has gone solo and has revealed details of his debut album, Shirts vs. Skins. Taster track Soviet Race is available as a free download exclusively at Filter.



* You can now download, in exchange for your e-mail address, a track recorded during the sessions for Brian Eno’s forthcoming album Drums Between Bells. It is called Imagine New Times and you can get it from Eno’s official website.



* And the return of The Horrors is huge news this week online after new single Still Life was uploaded to YouTube. The band also have a new album called Skying, their first full record since Primary Colours over two years ago.

Leonard Cohen - Avalanche (via Facebook and E-Mail)

#Blogged - Owain from God is in the TV Zine

Alex Dingley - Oriole

#nowplaying

Stardust - Music Sounds Better with You

Johnny Cash - Mercy Seat (via Facebook)

Triple Treat - The Horrors

Magistrates - Heartbreak (via Facebook)

Gary Numan - Cars (via Facebook)

My Bloody Valentine - Feed Me with Your Kiss (via Facebook)

Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan - What a Wonderful World (via Facebook)

The Birthday Party - Junkyard (via Facebook)

#nowplaying

The Cure - Boys Don't Cry

#Digital Digest

* iTunes made Bon Iver’s new album available for download a month early, reported Rolling Stone. Due for release at the end of June, some people were apparently able to download the full record when single Calgary went live.

* Wild Beasts’ new single, Bed of Nails, is being made available as a postcard – with artwork from acclaimed photographer Jason Evans on one side, and a download code on the other.



* Lady Gaga’s album Born This Way is likely to sell a million copies this week, largely thanks to Amazon making it available to download for just 99 cents in America. On Monday, fans crashed the online distributor’s site and Pop Crush are estimating the promotion could cost Amazon almost $3 million.



* Elbow and 6 Music’s Guy Garvey has revealed on Twitter how band mate Pete Turner knocked Everything Everything bassist Jeremy Pritchard’s tooth out during a night out in Manchester.

* And a vast array of new music is currently available to stream online ahead of release. NPR has My Morning Jacket, Cults and Death Cab for Cutie’s new albums – but it is Arcade’s Fire collaboration with David Byrne, Speaking in Tongues, which is being passed around and blogged by most. Have a listen for yourselves.

Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue - Where the Wild Roses Grow (via Facebook & Twitter)

#Blogged - Andy from CMU

Seerauber Jenny - Push it Away

Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds - I Found a Peanut (via the Blog and Text)

#Listener's Mix - from James Adamczuk: essential listening for me on any journey

Doves - Pounding (This song reminds me of when my first son Isaac was born - he's now just turned eight - it's such a powerful happy song and I remember spinning Isaac round and round when I played it.)

Goldfrapp - A&E (beautiful and gorgeous and Alison Goldfrapp has such a unique voice - it just makes me happy to be alive.)

Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream (I was driving home from the airport the first time I heard it. It was instant on me so I got home, logged on, and bought the video straight away.)

Pharrell Williams - Frontin' (This song has just a great hook, and it is a bit of a show off song, like "who's the Daddy" :-) )

The Thrills- One Horse Town (This is the first ever song I bought using my mobile - just makes me laugh and I can never work out if there is a banjo on the track!! I like the whole leaving on a one way ticket tonight lyric as it tends to be my going home song!)

I Am Kloot - Northern Skies (Like all things Northern this record is emotional, and when I look out of an aircraft window at 37000 feet it genuinely brings a tear to me eye)

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - The Ship Song (via everything possible!!)

CMU is a website aimed at people who work in the UK music industry. Our readership spans from everyone from those running labels and promoting gigs from their kitchens, up to major label execs. Plus, of course, there’s always room for people who are just interested in how this whole music business thing works.



Our main output is CMU Daily, an email bulletin that goes out every weekday morning rounding up everything important that’s happened in the last 24 hours in the music world. I say important, this ranges from all the current changes going on at Warner Music and EMI down to what Justin Bieber has done today. That Bieber boy is always up to something.



We also write about lots of new music, and I was lucky enough to be asked to pick three tracks CMU loves to play on Now Playing @6Music. After much agonising, I chose Push It Away by Seeräuber Jenny, Cramm by Three Trapped Tigers and, because I’m spending the weekend in Denmark at SPOT Festival, Bridges by Danish pop star Fallulah.



But here I’m going to look at the music industry, and the three stories I think you need to know about right now:



Warner Music and EMI

US bank Citigroup repossessed EMI from its former owner, equity firm Terra Firma, back in January – not before an embarrassing lawsuit launched by Terra Firma with a defence that hinged mainly on biscuits. And all immediately assumed that the company would be put up for sale again pretty swiftly. Then rival company Warner Music threw a spanner in the works by putting itself up for sale.



Some wondered why anyone would want to buy a major label these days, but plenty did, with ten making formal bids for Warner Music, including a consortium which featured Napster co-founder Sean Parker. Eventually, it was sold to Access Industries, owned by Russian billionaire Len Blavatnik for $3.3 billion earlier this month. Blavatnik, who already owned a minority stake in the company, had been favourite to take on the company all along.



But what now for EMI? Well, although it’s not officially up for sale yet, many of the bidders who lost out on Warner are likely to be waiting for a second chance. However, Warner Music’s Edgar Bronfman Jr has long wanted to merge his company with EMI – making a new company roughly the size of the two much larger majors, Sony Music and Universal – and it’s thought that Citigroup has already approached Blavatnik about this possibility.



It’s still not entirely clear how all this will play out, but by the end of the year, the top end of the music industry could look very different indeed.



More Warner Music coverage from CMU

More EMI coverage from CMU



HMV

The high street is a difficult place to be for a music store these days. Just ask HMV CEO, Simon Fox. In a bid to counteract the drop in revenues brought in from the company’s stores, he began buying up other music companies to diversify and firm up the HMV’s future. As well as shops where you can go and buy the latest JLS calendar, HMV now owns venues, various live events, an artist management company and half of download store 7Digital.



To do all this, Fox borrowed over £130 million from the bank. Which is fine, except when you borrow that sort of money, the bank agrees on the condition that you maintain a certain level of performance and comes knocking now and then to check that you are doing so. This is what did for Terra Firma’s ownership of EMI and, thanks to a dip in revenues from the high street stores last year, HMV is now working hard to get enough cash in its account when the bank comes to look through its finances next month.



HMV already announced the closure of 60 stores earlier this year, and last week sold Waterstones for £53 million to Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut, who already owned a minority stake in the HMV Group and was always favourite to take on the bookshop chain (are you beginning to see a pattern emerge here?). It’s also expected that HMV’s Canadian stores will be sold off in the not too distant future.



Fox had hoped to diversify without having to cut back the retail arm of HMV. It was probably inevitable, though. Still, he remains confident that the company has a future on the high street.



More HMV coverage from CMU



Digital lockers

Digital lockers are big news at the moment, Amazon and Google both having just launched their own versions of these controversial music services in the US, with Apple expected to incorporate something similar into the iTunes store in the near future.



These services allow you to upload all of your digital music into online storage so that you can play it all back via any net-connected device. It all seemed like a great idea in 2005, but since then companies like Spotify and We7 have come along and have superseded lockers in many ways. Why pay for something that requires you to rip and upload all of your music when you could just pay for instant access without any of the hassle?



Still, that hasn’t stopped Amazon and Google – partly, many suspect, because they actually want to build bigger services that the music industry is currently unwilling to let them. The music industry isn’t particularly keen on what they have launched either, arguing that they should be paying money back to the owners of the music when it is played. When Amazon launched its service, it hadn’t spoken to the music industry at all, arguing that because users are playing back music they already own, licences aren’t required. Google, on the other hand, did try to get its service licensed, but when negotiations stalled the web firm launched it anyway.



The record labels are expected to launch legal action at some point this year, and EMI is already locked into a long-running legal battle with an older locker service, MP3tunes. Many expect them to lose, but many also don’t expect lockers to take off in the long term, either.



More digital locker coverage from CMU

As the question mark in the title probably suggests this is not going to be some sort of 'Dummie's Guide' to discovering the next Arctic Monkeys or Arcade Fire, instead it's a somewhat existential ponderance upon how exactly we end up with our tastes, the strange little bands we champion, the contenders that you - as a fan - hope that they make the big time almost as much as you enjoy being the only person who seems to have ever heard of them!



I feel somewhat lucky that when my family got satellite telly back in the early noughties there were a couple of good music channels that actually showed decent music videos for bands that I had, at that time, never heard of before. Stumbling upon Soulwax'sConversation Intercom at 2am meant I rushed out and browsed the shelves of my local record shop for hours in search of the single, buying both editions to savour all the B-Sides and remixes. Similarly there were great rambling music shows on TV such as Jo Wiley's cosy chat show, Zane Lowe's stream of consciousness MTV programme and Mirrorball, showcasing the greatest music video directors.



Then along came the magical interwebs and eventually MySpace which would lead to me spending all my time searching for bands I liked and then clicking through every single band that they were friends with to see if they took my fancy.



Searching for 'Wales' online and then clicking every band profile that came up eventually led me to a Cardiff-based group called Shake My Hand (scruffy wry Art Brut-like pop, their track Invincible still gets airings on those rare occasions when someone lets me DJ) peeked my interest but at the last minute they couldn't make it to this ambitious final gig of the year. Staring at their Top 8 friends I clicked on Attack + Defend, also from Cardiff, and was knocked for six, they made exactly the kind of music my ears had been wanting to hear, in that strange surreal fantasy way when you imagine to yourself; "If I was in a band we'd sound like a + b + c = something completely insane."



It's also when I started writing about music, posting gigs reviews at The Joy Collective and CD reviews at God Is In The TV, where I quickly became the sub-editor for Unsigned bands and since then my post box has been a constant flurry of homemade, hand-crafted demos and independent label CDs.



It's almost overwhelming as a writer trying to write about all the records I receive, endeavouring to give every single one a fair listen and provide constructive criticism, God is in the TV's team of writers bring so much the passion and give up loads of time to really give a considered opinion on everything they receive, I find it incredibly impressive and, fortunately, it makes for a good read too!



Recently God is in the TV has also started up a number of regular features including GIITTV Introducing and Preaching From The Pews which really focus their spotlight on new and emerging artists, and it's always encouraging - and fills me with a strange amount of pride - when I see the names of bands I've reviewed in the past on gig listings, at festivals, getting reviewed somewhere else and humbling when a band actually remembers me and sends through their next record, even when I haven't been so kind to their previous release.



So, I've been lucky, almost passive, in how these bands have wound up in my musical spectrum and how I've become involved in not only music journalism but actually playing in a band. I think the key to finding out about new music is to talk about it, whether that's out loud or online, even though you want to be 'the one' who discovered some future legendary band the best part about music is sharing it... cue sickly sentimental violins...



So, in summary, go to gigs, buy records, listen to BBC 6 Music, read God is in the TV, tell everyone!

***

Many thanks to Owain for his guest blog representing God is in the TV. Make sure you check out the show as well to hear him recommend some music - and in particular one special Welsh artist.

Nick Cave is your chosen topic for this week’s now playing. The guitarist who plays with his Bad Seeds, and more recently Grinderman, has helped score a new film Dias de Gracia (Days of Grace) directed by Everado Valerio Gout.



After recent screenings at the Cannes Film Festival, the Mexican thriller weaves three storylines across three football World Cups, with a different musical team composing the soundtrack for each thread in the movie.



Nick Cave has teamed up with Warren Ellis – the pair having worked together since 1995 in the Bad Seeds as well as Grinderman.



So what could you choose? The list is endless – anything Nick Cave is an obvious choice, but how about…



• Primal Scream after Bobby Gillespie joined Grinderman as backing vocalist during their performance at All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2007

• Something Shane MacGowan when they covered Bob Dylan’sDeath is Not the End

• Johnny Cash as both have covered each others work

• PJ Harvey who featured on Cave’s Murder Ballad’s album

• Or Massive Attack – who have also recorded a song for Days of Grace with Scarlett Johansson

• Equally acts he has influenced and been influenced by



Drop us an e-mail, add to the Facebook discussion, drag your suggestion into our collaborative Spotify playlist or simply leave a comment on this post with your suggestions, ideas and thoughts for a Nick Cave inspired playlist.

Elbow and 6 Music’s Guy Garvey revealed on Twitter how band mate Pete Turner knocked Everything Everything bassist Jeremy Pritchard’s tooth out. The pair were at a Villagers gig at Sound Control, Manchester, when it occurred. Go to Guy’s Twitter to see the fall out.



Alex Turner rocked up to Canadian radio station, The Edge 102.1, and strummed out a couple of acoustic numbers. Check out Suck it and See and Love is a Laserquest on their site. 



Tokyo Police Club’s Graham Wright has gone solo again and has revealed details of a new debut album, Shirts vs. Skins. He has made Soviet Race available as a free download and taster, and it’s a Filter exclusive.



Grooveshark have the new Mark Ronson produced Black Lips album up and streaming. Called Arabia Mountain it is released on June 7.



OutKast’s Andre 3000 has made a rare appearance, guesting on Beyonce’s new album, 4. Confirmed on the Glastonbury headliner’s Facebook page, the track us caked Party, and more is up at Rap Up.



Julio Bashmore is one of the most talked about and exciting producers at the moment, who can also call upon an impressive set of crockery. He has remixed Classixx’sInto the Valley which can be downloaded for free from Green Label Sound.

Kicking off with what has been getting the most attention is the return of The Horrors with new track Still Life - now up on YouTube. Faris Badwin spoke to Zane Lowe on Tuesday evening and said there is also a new album in the can called Skying (tracklist up at Abeano) - their third album and first since the release of Primary Colours over two years ago.



You can now download, in exchange for your e-mail address, a track recorded during the sessions for Brian Eno’s forthcoming album Drums Between Bells. It is called Imagine New Times and you can get it from Eno’s official website.



Record companies are constantly trying to find the next way to innovativly make money from their music and release it in new ways – Wild Beasts and Carl Cox are the latest two guinea pigs.



Firstly, Wild Beasts are putting new track Bed of Nails out on a postcard – well on one side there is artwork from acclaimed photographer Jason Evans and the other a code for a download. There are only 500 though and Clash have more details. 



And then Carl Cox is making a USB stick available from August 1 which will act as a key to get access to all of his material for the next 12-months, including his first studio album for six years, All Roads Lead to the Dancefloor. Further details at EQ TV. 



In a more tradition promotional sense, Yeasayer performed their new track The Devil and the Dead on US TV programme Conan which is now up to watch at Team Coco.com.



The video for Twitter’s favourite glasses wearing son, Tom Vek, is now up on YouTube. World of Doubt is released on June 6. 



Also on YouTube, Washed Out has a rather curious album preview up, while Marilyn Manson has posted a 26-second excerpt of his new material. The only information is in the video title “I am among no one (excerpt from an undisclosed song with an unreleased title)” – its on Vimeo.



And lastly but not leastly, Jeff Bridges is the latest actor to take a microphone and record an album. The Tron and True Grit star will release the self titled record on August 11 through Blue Note – or so says Hit Fix.

Sometimes it takes a little time for streams to emerge, and people to upload things at the beginning of the week – so after launching Now Streaming last week we have decided to push our weekly round-up back a day, to Tuesday, to give you a more comprehensive list, ahead of their release in shops.



Arcade Fire are re-releasing last years award smashing Suburbs – but this time with DVD, booklet and two new tracks – Culture War and Speaking in Tongues – the latter featuring David Byrne – check them out at The NJ Underground. 

Pitchfolk has the fruits of the new Flaming Lips and Prefuse 73 EP up and ready to be listened to. 

NPR are one of the online undisputed kings at claiming album exclusive streamings, and this week is no exception. They currently have hosted on their servers:



* Death Cab for Cutie – Codes and Keys

* Cults - Cults

* My Morning Jacket – Circuital



And elsewhere, Maybach Music Group presents, Self Made, Vol. 1, at Complex, while Hypem can offer The Wooden Birds and their release Two Matchsticksand D by White Denim is up on AOL. 

An impressive cast of musicians ranging from Nick Cave to Massive Attack and Scarlett Johansson have contributed music to Days of Grace - a new Mexican thriller which recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Everardo Valerio Gout, it weaves multiple storylines around the last three football World Cups, with different composers for each part.



Nick Cave and Warren Ellis team up, while Atticus Ross - the How to Destroy Angels man who also scored the Oscar winning soundtrack for The Social Network with Trent Reznor - hooks up with Shigeru Umebayashi for another part of the score. While the film's theme is a version of the George Gershwin classic Summertime by Scarlett Johansson and Massive Attack. More at Pitchfolk.



New Yorkers The Rapture have just announced details of a new album. The disco-rockers will also be going out on tour – more details on In the Grace of Your Love including a tracklist can be found on Drowned in Sound.



Dance music producer deadmau5 has released the deadmau5 touch remix app – the first of its kind which allows users to remix his album by pulling in loops, manipulate and add effects rather than just listen.



I House U declare we are now in the age of the ‘prosumer’ – where the lines between people who consume / listen to music are becoming blurred with that of the producers – and they have all the details.



Radio 1Xtra’s Tim Westwood Tweeted that he is considering turning the new Celebrity Big Brother house into the Dawg House, if Snoop Dogg goes in with him. Both are supposedly in talks with the programme, which has a new home with Channel 5, with Charlie Sheen and Mohammed Al-Fayed also rumoured to be on the wish list.



The Prophet Blog are reporting Lady Gaga’s album Born This Way could sell high of a million copies in its first week, and break digital records in the process. This has been helped with a deal brokered between the Interscope and Amazon who have been offering the digital album for just $0.99 and ties in with their new cloud service.



While, Contact Music say Gaga’s monsters in fact crashed Amazon in trying to get hold of the album.



Public Enemy’s Chuck D has narrated a documentary on the Untold Story of Detroit Hip Hop. More information on the tale of the motor city which has seen the likes of Eminem, Kid Rock and White Stripes emerge can be found on Myspace’s blog, which also has a link to the trailer. 

Vlogging, despite the unoriginal name, is quite contagious. From video blogs being uploaded from popstars like Miley Cyrus, to people uploading videos of things that interest them, such as:



- Music: favourite band and who they believe should have the top spot

- Fashion: latest clothes and make up that people need to be seen with

- Reviews: movie review video or music review, it can be just about anything



This is how people are discovered these days, people such as CocknBullKid and Sandi Thom, and could soon be the next step beyond blogs.



Ray William Johnson has a very popular vlog he releases videos every Monday and Thursday, which without fail bag at least two-million views. He shows and comments on videos which have emerged online - though it tends to bend towards a 2011 version of You've Been Framed.



Having said that, his most popular video has had just under 20-million - so there must be a market. 



Chris Crocker and Perez Hilton are also famous vloggers who post videos about general celebrity gossip and get thousands of views.



Music vlogging is still new but is up and coming, and helped by the ever growing popularity of YouTube. And with the likes of Zane Lowe rising to prominence on MTV, and music tending to be at the forefront of new technologies - it won't be long before some blogs/websites/zines begin incorporating Vlogs into their usual output. 



There are many videos with people’s opinions about their favourite artists and what they think is the hot new track. This is mainly done by response videos to new singles that are released.



If you run a Vlog, or fancy having a go, send it to us at Now Playing by e-mail or leave a comment on this post. Whether it is about the week’s playlist, a story from the Digital Digest, or even your opinions on an album you have just heard – share it!!

By Faris Haddadin

In Search of Buried Treasure



A lot of music bloggers lay claim to the title "curator", but I can't remember the last time I went to a gallery where the curator was shoving last weeks exhibition out of the back door before I had a chance to see it, whilst bustling past me to usher in ten random new paintings, half of them rubbish, still dripping wet and unframed.



The nice thing about having a blog is the freedom working for a gallery (or magazine) doesn't really afford. You can put up whatever you damn well please and there are no stakeholders to question you about it. Some of the public might not like it, but they're getting in for free so they can always go next door. You don't even have to pay for the space.



That's why it's so confusing to see so many music blogs being run like a cross between a grand prix (fast but tedious car race full of misplaced advertising), and a publicly owned gallery (this is the Tate, we have to have Rothkos even if we do find him a bit boring). As I write this it seems as though almost every gallery in town has a Tracey Emin exhibit on (AKA Tyler The Creator).



The job of a good curator is not to bombard their audience with an endless, overwhelming stream of the most recent art they can find, and expect them to try to pick out the really exceptional pieces or artists. Their job is to search for buried treasures, present them in the most accessible way possible, and try to leave their audience feeling inspired. Unless of course they love Formula 1 and Mark Rothko.

***

Many thanks to Amelia for her insights on blogging culture - check out Put Me On It for more from her.



And listen to Now Playing again on the iPlayer to hear what music she recommended.

News of a quite frankly bizarre super-group has surfaced on RollingStone.com, with reports saying Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, royal favourite Joss Stone, Damian Marley and Indian film composer A.R. Rahman have come together to create Super Heavy.

The collective have apparently been recording together for the past 18-months, and we can expect a debut album around September, crossing music from reggae to ballads to Indian songs in Urdu. 



Some eagle eyed fans managed to get their hands on Bon Iver’s new album a month before its scheduled release after iTunes accidentally made it available via their music store. Music News have the story, while neither the band nor the label, Jagjaguwar, have commented.



The Billboard Awards took place over the weekend and performances from Britney to Cee-Lo are all over the place. Billboard, though, have picked up on the 15-things you wouldn’t have seen on TV from the ceremony.



Rufus Wainwright has been on the studio with Mark Ronson and after just a couple of days already looks “20 years longer.” More information on his more ‘danceable’ album at NME.com.

Details of Katy Perry's personal rider have appeared on Smoking Gun which show her demands for french ornate-style lamps.

Naomi Campbell and a host of super models are set to appear in the new Duran Duran video. Apparently due to be shot in the South of France, Simon Le Bon and his model wife Yasmin have been discussing the idea with Campbell while at the Cannes International Film Festival, and other big names like Kate Moss are also lined up. 

This week on Now Playing we looked to Johnny Marr - one of the best manipulators of six strings - after news emerged this week he is planning a new Healers album for release next year, as well as a world tour beginning this October in New York. All was revealed in an interview given to Billboard.

As well as Mr Marr, we looked at Bon Iver as they released loads of more information as well as a free download on their offical website this week ahead of their self-titled second album.

We had Faded Glamour and Put Me On It giving us their musical recommendations - all in all it was pretty swell.

The Smiths - How Soon Is Now

Modest Mouse - Dashboard (via Spotify)

Banderas - This is Your Life (via Facebook)

#Digital Digest

* Black Lips have made a New Direction from their new Mark Ronson produced album available as a free download on Rolling Stone’s website.

* Azari & III have posted details of their self-titled debut album online.

* Lady Gaga became the first Twitterer to pass 10 million followers, streamed her much hyped new album Born This Way on Metro.co.uk and Goldfrapp remixing her single Judas.

* Julian Casablancas' cover of Rave On for the Buddy Holly tribute album has been released online and picked up by blogs like Stereogum and Culture Deluxe.

* Bon Iver made the unusual step of posting all the lyrics to his forthcoming album on his website a month before its release, as well as making a new tune Calgary available as a free download.

The The - Slow Emotion Replay (via Facebook)

#Blogger - Saam from Faded Glamour

Bastille - Flaws

The Cribs - Cheat on Me (via Facebook)

#nowplaying

Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow

#Triple Treat - Bon Iver

Talk Talk - I Believe In You (via Facebook)

Sharon Van Etten - Love More (via Twitter)

St Vincent - Marry Me (via Spotify)

Kirsty MacColl - Walking Down Madison (via Facebook)

Electronic - Getting Away with It (via Facebook and Text)

7 Worlds Collide - Down on the Corner (via Facebook)

#Digital Digest

* Cocknbullkid's debut album, Adulthood, is streaming on NME.com ahead of its release on Monday, and she’s uploaded her cover of the dance classic Hold Me onto YouTube featuring Chilly Gonzalez.

* Thurston Moore releases his new album, Demolished Thoughts on Monday. Produced by Beck, you can hear it steaming in full at NPR right now.



* Telepathe have given fans a first taste of their new material. Throw Away This is available as a free download via Stereogum.

* Pink Floyd’sDark Side of the Moon has been named as the greatest album cover ever in an online music poll. The album took the crown for best artwork in a poll conducted by Music Rader, with Nirvana’sNevermind coming in second.

* A previously unreleased New Order song, Hellbent, has been made available to stream online via Soundcloud.

Kurt Vile - Baby's Arms (session track with Huey from May 19 - after trending on Twitter) 

#Blogger - Amelia from Put Me On It

Lianne La Havas - Final Form

#nowplaying

Muse - Time is Running Out

#Listener's Mix - Songs which remind me of my Tintagel, Cornwall, summer holiday from last week

Gill Scott-Heron & Jamie XX - My Cloud (this song was played loud in my car whilst we headed up some massive hills and flew back down the other side on the way to Eden Project. Standard procedure in the South)

Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Future Perfect Tense (This track was part of our holiday playlist for the iPod me and my partner Catherine created. Played whilst at our log cabin)

Helios - Halving The Compass (our morning song, which didn't wake our holiday neighbours as it's such a peaceful piece of music. The Bird song blends in to the world)

Emiliana Torrini - Sunny Road (We tried to star gaze every night and manged to see plenty of Satalites not much else though)

Four Tet - Angel Echoes (This track was part of our holiday playlist for the ipod me and my partner Catherine created. Played everyday whilst at our log cabin)

Memory Tapes - Bicycle (This song was put on the playlist as it is a reminder of how in Tintagel, Cornwall we biked everywhere (helping towards our Tintagel Tan), we biked down to the pub and pasty shop. Compared to Colchester, Essex where we drive every where!)

Talking Heads - Nothing But Flowers (via Facebook and Text)

The Independent Label Market is getting a lot of blogs talking at the moment. Taking place on Saturday (May 21) on Berwick Street, London, a number of independent labels such as XL, Bella Union and Chess Club are set to erect stalls and hawk their back catalogue of vinyl, along with some rarities, exclusives and guest appearances. All the information is online – check it out on Facebook.



After we wrote about Hypem’s App launch, Napster have announced their own streaming service. It is available on both mobile devices such as iPhones and Androids as well as computers (how 2010). More information is up on Gigwise. 



Whiskey makers Crown Royal have made a behind the scenes documentary about Outkast rapper, Big Boi. Showing him at his gigs and at his favourite Jamaican takeaway they also let him design his own velveteen bag for their liquor. Its up on The Fader but there is some strong language so be careful if you are easily offended. 



Technology and music has always gone hand in hand, and 6 Music news have been investigating the recent rise of the iPad. The likes of Gorillaz and Bjork have embraced it – with a full report here and an audio report from Mark Savage below.

After D/R/U/G/S dropped his Love / Lust EP earlier in the month on new Moshi Moshi imprint Tender Age, he has made the lead track available as a free download. Get it at This is Fake DIY.

Ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr is plotting a brand new solo album for 2010. Having left The Cribs, he is planning to resurrect Healers – his project which saw the release of 2003’s Boomslang. Marr even has a special edition Fender coming out in his honour in January and told Billboard he hopes to launch a world tour in October, beginning in New York.



After welcoming Stevie Wonder onto the stage during his 21-night run at the LA Forum, Prince has announced his only UK Festival appearance of 2011 will be at Hop Farm. The icon, who was formally a symbol, will headline the Sunday with Eagles and Morrissey topping the bill on the other two days. More information can be found on Gigwise.



Pearl Jam will be celebrating their 20th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion the band has announced that they will host and headline their own music festival in East Troy, Wisconsin. Taking place at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre, other performers will be The Strokes, Queens of the Stone Age, Joseph Arthur and others. Check out the Myspace blog for more details.



Quietus recommendedAzari & III will release their debut self-titled album on August 30 via Loose Lips Records (Resident Advisor)



Tinie Tempah has announced he will be heading into the studio with current chart dominator Adele ahead of his second album (via OMG Music). The rapper has had an extraordinary rise, and he has even performed on David Letterman’s chat show in America this week.



Oh, and last night the *last* batch of Glastonbury tickets went on sale – they have sold out.

The Hype Machine, one of the best blog aggregation sites, have launched its very own App which pushes forward personal music discovery in a way that hasn't been available before on portable devices.

‘Hype Radio turns music blogs into radio stations,’ in what really is a nifty bit of kit at £1.79. Every blog in Hypem’s large, wide-ranging database is automatically turned into its own radio station, playing the music they post, discuss and share.



The availability is huge and ranges from big names such as NME’s Daily Download and RCRD LBL to smaller blogs like Robot Dance Music and Chrome Kids.



There is no artist search or on-demand playback. Instead you have a variety of stations at your fingertips to tune into, essentially forcing you to listen to new music, but anchored on your interests:



Stations include:

• Latest: Music that is being talked about right now

• Popular: Tracks which are getting the most buzz on The Hype Machine

• Genre Stations: the latest tracks posted on blogs sorted by genre

• Radio Show: highlighting the month’s best new music (archived back to March 2009)

• Blog Directory: All the music blogs Hype Machine tracks track, browsable by genre or alphabetically



And then there are a couple of more personal options:

• My Mix: a combined mix of your favourite blogs

• My Friends: a mix of what your friends are favouriting

But even when you favourite a track and want to listen back to them, they are mixed in with other similar tracks or suggestions from the blogs you have favourited to continue your personal musical discovery.



As well as this you can read the original blog which discussed the track. Staying within the App, and with a single tap of the screen, a mobile adapted post is brought up which fits nicely into the smaller screen.



We road tested it in the Now Playing office on an iPhone 4. The interface was slick and fast. We used it when connected to office Wi-Fi and there was a very short time to load up each track, and then it streamed seamlessly.



Though, outside on the bus for example, it might not be quite as slick and will more than likely eat up your battery.



It doesn’t do anything different to what you can’t do on the website, but in App form it is much slicker and smarter and should be checked out by anyone with a keen interest in finding new music.

The first evidence of Bon Iver’s self-titled second album has surfaced, with Calgary now available to stream or download for the price of your e-mail address. You can check it out at Rock It Out Blog, and elsewhere, while The Line of Best Fit have autumn tour dates for the sophomore American band.



After news of Brian Wilson’s retirement from touring were doing the rounds, the legendary singer told BBC 6 Music he was in fact considering reuniting all the surviving members of the original Beach Boys for a special 50th Anniversary gig. More information on this potential reunion can be found on sites such as 6 Music's Music News and Gigwise, with the interview below.

One of Britain’s pop aristocracy has taken on one of the most influential artists of the moment by remixing their latest track, Judas. Goldfrapp have slowed Lady Gaga down into a driving, bass fuelled monster – with the vocals frankly unrecognisable. Check it out on the Queen of the Controversial's official YouTube channel.

In an interview given to the Colorado Springs Independent, electronic producer Flying Lotus revealed how Radiohead have asked him to take their latest material and sprinkle some of his magic onto it. Born Steven Ellison, the DJ has spent a lot of time recently with Thom Yorke and goes onto describe their mutual musical tastes as well as his recognition of the Oxford man's skills on a pair of turntables. Read the interview in full here. 

Rolling Stone have an exclusive download from the new Mark Ronson produced Black Lips album. Called Arabia Mountain, it is out on June 7 while this sneaky peak is New Direction. 



The Nightlife Exchange Project had another round of bringing unique clubbing experiences to different towns, by twining locations on other sides of the planet together and showcasing how they get down. Fame Magazine describes how Ireland and Argentina came together with a love of beats and bleeps, Latin flair and Celtic jigging.

Blimey, great to see our friend Anita Blay aka CocknBullKid getting mentioned in the same breath as Julian Casablancas, Thurston Moore, Barbara Panther and Limp Bizkit ! We first played her on BBC Introducing: Fresh On The Net back in June 2008, just before she first played the Introducing stage at Glasto.

The great thing about Anita is her refusal to be categorised: she makes music pure and simple. She's friends with all kinds of indie kids and musical misfits from all kinds of scenes - you'll find her collaborating happily with Hoodlums one day and Chilly Gonzales the next.

Last October my wife and I ran one of our songwriters weekends at a remote Jacobean manorhouse in Kent where Anita joined up with various other musicians such as Tom from Toodar, Ben from Vinyl Jacket and Alex from Pandas & People. It was ludicrously talented company and Anita was the life and soul of the house party, cheerfully collaborating with all and sundry. I hope her new album Adulthood does brilliantly for her...

Pink Floyd’sDark Side of the Moon is the greatest album cover of all time according to a Music Radar poll. Some other sites have met the news by announcing their alternative results – Gigwise being one. They rated Pink Floyd’s in 13th place, and had a top three comprising of the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the B****cks, Uriah HeepVery Eavy Very Umble, with the winner being Nirvana’sNevermind.

Off the back of The Great Escape, Dot to Dot is the next big festival in the diary pushing new talent – and Clash have just launched their partnership with the event. Taking place in Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol over the second May Bank Holiday weekend, Road To Dot To Dot will provide you with interviews, free songs, DJ mixes and videos from some of the bands and artists who'll be performing including Guillemots, The Naked And Famous, Dananananaykroyd and more. 



Later with Jools Holland continues to be a big hit within the online community. Last week it was James Blake, while this week all the chat is about the original internet hypesters – Arctic Monkeys. The band performed four new tracks on the programme, and The NJ Underground again had their view on the new material. 



Berlin based producer Siriusmo is to release a double CD of B-sides, rarities and previously vinyl-only tracks on Monkeytown Records. Called Pearls and Embarrassments, Moritz Friedrich has just had his second album released on Modeselektor and Data Transmission have the details.



Karl Lagerfeld has made a new short film available to stream on Vevo. Following up from 2010’s Remember Now, the fashion icon again delves into the annual Chanel Cruise starring a host of models, in The Tale of a Fairy. 



After The Quietus’ fantastic guest blog last week, which gave an insight into the amazing ways Twitter can be used as a tool in music, two other stories have surfaced to its alternative uses. Firstly, Lady Gaga has accrued her 10-millionth follower, making her more influential on the social networking site than Barack Obama, who has a mere 8-million.

And Rihanna has re-followed ex-lover Chris Brown. After a highly publicised break up, one of the Umbrella singer’s fans asked if the two were an item again, at which point she lashed back saying: “It’s Twitter, not the alter.”

What do CocknBullKid, Julian Casablancas, Thurston Moore, Barbra Pantha and Limp Bizkit all have in common? Well, they all have new music streaming this week online across a variety of platforms. 

Every week, we are going to post a new Now Streaming on the Now Playing blog, to act as an online catalogue of fresh music for your ear holes to enjoy. We will update it during the week as well to ensure you don’t miss a thing.



So without further ado…



CocknBullKid seems to have been around a while, but the debut album, Adulthood, is only now available, exclusively on NME.com.



We told you a couple of weeks ago a Buddy Holly tribute album was being released, well one of the tracks has emerged on YouTube from Strokes front man Julian Casablancas. He sings Rave On on the album which will be released on June 26.



Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth has a new Beck produced solo album called Demolished Thoughts which is streaming on NPR. 



Barbara Pantha’s self-titled album is up on Soundcloud.

Newspapers have been giving away free CDs for a long time now, but Metro have taken it a step further and have exclusive UK streaming of the new Lady Gaga album - Born This Way.

Art Brut's new album, Brilliant! Tragic!, can be heard in full ahead of its May 23 release on Cooking Vinyl. This is Fake DIY have the details.

Planningtorock's album W is up, with an interview, on Fader.

And Some Kind of Awesome are giving a platform to Limp Bizkit and their latest track, Shotgun.

This week has all been about partnerships - musical collaborations after the week we have has which has seen musical minds come together like asteroids caught in a gravitational pull. Arcade Fire had Cyndi Lauper join them in stage in America, and also announced Brian Eno is to feature on one of the two new tracks featured on their re-release of TheSuburbs.

As well as that, Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi's album Rome has been streaming all week. Dr Dre and Eminem's new joint, Die Hard, was used on American TV; Beck remixed Jamie Lidell while Josh Homme took the same pleasure reworking Grinderman. And of course, Snoop Dogg teamed up with Charlie Sheen.

We also looked at DJ Shadow after his comeback and invited The Quietus and The Von Pip Musical Express onto the show.

The suggestions, as always, were fantastic from you - so many thanks, and we hope you enjoyed it.

Run DMC & Aerosmith - Walk This Way

Ben Folds & Nick Hornby - From Above (via Facebook)

Les Rythmes Digitales ft. Shannon - Take a Little Time (via Spotify)

#Digital Digest

AC/DC were trending on Twitter this week after guitarist Angus Young revealed to Bang Showbiz the Australian rockers plan to tour again and record a new album.

Live Nation announced a deal with internet discount site Groupon to develop a new online ticketing channel - GrouponLive.

James Blake once again set blogs into frenzy when he played a new track, Heartbreak, at Washington's Rock and Roll Hotel, and when his exhilerating performance on Later with Jools Holland found its way onto YouTube.

The Kaiser Chiefs announced their return and first live shows in almost two years via their Facebook page.

Friendly Fires' eagerly awaited second album Pala has been available to stream all week via The Hype Machine, and their album-track Blue Cassette is available to download now.

Gorillaz ft. Gruff Rhys & De La Soul - Superfast Jellyfish (via e-mail)

#Blogged

Snowman - Hyena (recommended by Luke from The Quietus)

#nowplaying

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds & Kylie Minogue - Where the Wild Roses Grow

#Triple Treat - DJ Shadow (all Facebook)

David Axelrod - The Human Abstract

Handsome Boy Modelling School ft DJ Shadow & DJ Quest - Holy Calamity

Radiohead - Airbag

Elbow & Richard Hawley - The Fix (via Facebook)

The KLF & Tammy Wynette - Justified & Ancient (via Twitter)

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights (via Facebook)

#Digital Digest

Battles have released their video for brand new track on YouTube for Ice Cream featuring a bunch of people doing Tai Chi and an assortment of cats.

Hype Machine launched their new app which allows users to stream music from their site.

Blogs have gone for a trip to the seaside - check a variety of them including The Recommender, My Band is Better Than Your Band and The Line of Best Fit for updates.

Moby returned with his new album Destroyed. Coming out on Monday, it has been streaming on his website since the beginning of the week.

R.E.M. & Patti Smith - E-Bow the Letter (via Facebook)

#Blogged

Pris - The Better You Look the More You See (recommended by Andy from The Von Pip Musical Express)

#nowplaying

AC/DC - Highway to Hell

#Listener's Mix - 'Obscure Love' from Nick Donovan

Kate Bush - The Infant Kiss (A twisted love interest with a young boy. However, Bush's typical songstress witchcraft manages to convey an innocent girl at the hands of natural love)

Mew - Special (Perfectly portrays the indescribable feeling of falling for someone hook, line and sinker)

CocoRosie - Werewolf (A story of father-daughter love. Nothing strange there, except the Father is a sorceror and the daughter swears never to love another man after his death)

WU LYF - LYF (Obscure mostly in the sense of conveying only one discernable lyric and whole host of mysterious imagery)

Fetch The Witches - Reverie (Manages to encapsulate the awe and passion you recognise you have for someone when you fear for their death inexplicably)

Regina Spektor - Fidelity (Being afraid of stepping out of one's comfort zone and facing the reality of loving another is a common life occurance)

Burial, Four Tet & Thom Yorke - Ego

As anyone who has ever tried to rent or buy a house well knows, you get things done a lot quicker without the middle man. The same goes for music, too. While many of the people who work in the record labels and PR offices that we at the Quietus deal with every day are massively helpful, noble souls, it's often handy to be able to circumvent the "proper" way of working.

Twitter has been invaluable for this.



Being curmudgeons, we were at first cynical about the use or otherwise of this service - as a website that likes to print 10,000 word interviews with Adam Ant, what use a measly 140 characters? Then, one day, our servers tottered sideways like a tramp on a gallon of cider, and the site crashed. It turned out that the reason was journalist Ben Goldacre (@bengoldacre) tweeting a link to our interview with Sir Patrick Moore when we grilled him on space rock and astronomy, saying words to the effect of "best thing on the internet, turn it off now".



We immediately got more engaged with Twitter, posting not only links to articles, but competitions, musical recommendations, and pictures of our ploughman's lunches, all of which seemed to go down a treat with an increasing army of followers.



When I wrote a feature saying that closing 6 Music would be a disaster for independent music it was retweeted thousands of times.



As we saw with the Save 6 Music movement, the power of Twitter as a campaigning tool works brilliantly for music - and thankfully doesn't come with the tedious thing that happened with MySpace - there'll surely be now crap major label acts foisted on us with the lie that they're a ‘Twitter sensation’.



One genuine Twitter sensation we did get involved with was the brilliant @DrSamuelJohnson and his brilliant 18th century definitions. And indeed, this is where the medium came into its own. It was easy to tweet at the good Dr asking him to define various themes in modern music, which he duly did.



We've also used to twitter to get Alec Empire (@ALEC_EMPIRE) and Mogwai's Stuart Braithwate (@plasmatron) to do Quietus mixes, and book Anika (@anikainvada) to play a brilliant gig. Oh, and I'm still trying to tempt writer Ian Rankin (@beathigh) to do album reviews for us.



Musicians whose tweets are a pleasure to read include the musical and domestic goings on of @chris_carter_ and @coseyfannitutti formerly of Throbbing Gristle, along with the always-amusing Aidan Moffat (@aidanjohnmoffat), and the righteous ranting of Portishead and Invada Records Geoff Barrow (@jetfury).



Some artists are also cottoning on to the fact that twittering @theQuietus is a very good way of getting us to listen to their music, though we haven't been flooded just yet.



Whether you're a musician, writer, blogger, label boss or a fan, Twitter is a brilliant tool for discovering, sharing and discussing new sounds, and a brilliant way of making the world keep talking.

After the announcement of David Byrne teaming up with Arcade Fire on Speaking in Tongues for the re-release of The Suburbs, along with the plethora of other interesting partnerships which have occurred this week – we are going to focus on some of the most exciting musical collaborations from over the years tomorrow on Now Playing (May 13). 

Other examples of combined musical minds coming together this week are Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi’s album which was made available for streaming online, Dr Dre and Eminem’s track Die Hard being used on a boxing programme, Beck remixing Jamie Lidell, while Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) took on Grinderman’sMicky Mouse and the Goodbye Man – and Snoop Dogg even joined forces with Charlie Sheen on Winning.

Which two musical forces who have fused together have caught your imagination? Recently Robert Smith of The Cure worked with Crystal Castles, David Bowie and Bing Crosby, The Chemical Brothers and New Order – there are so many options and the decision is down to you as to what we play.



Leave us a comment on this blog, join in the conversation on Facebook, contribute to our collaborative Collaborations Spotify Playlist, or drop us an e-mail.

Blogs are currently flushed with extraordinary collaboration. Firstly, Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme has taken on Nick Cave’sGrinderman project, and remixed Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man. Spin describe the result as “it's psychedelic and downright frightening” and you can check it yourself here. 



In a similar vein, Beck has jumped on Jamie Lidell’sCompletely Exposed. The track can be downloaded in exchange for an e-mail address, though Some Kind of Awesome seem more concerned about Beck remixing and not getting on with some more original material. 



Rather than working together, two men from opposite ends of the cultural spectrum will go head to head this evening, debating at the Cambridge Union Society ‘this house believes classical music is irrelevant to today’s youth’. Speaking for the motion is Radio 1 DJ and producer Kissy Sell Out, while opposing him is the linguistically opulent Steven Fry. All the information is here and you can stream it live from 7pm. 



But the one which has had the most online buzz, is the partnership of Snoop Dogg and Charlie Sheen with Winning. Please bear in mind if you watch the video on YouTube there is strong language.



Loads of new music has also emerged in the last couple of days. Fleet Foxes have made Ocean Grown available as a free download on Soundcloud, and CFCF’s remix of Holy Ghost is also up on the same site.



Moby’s new album, Destroyed, can be streamed in full from his website, while Ronnie Vannucci from The Killers has a new side project called Big Talk – the first fruits of which are here.

Whoever said ‘the best songs have already been written’ was quite clearly looking (and listening) in the all the wrong places. Wouldn’t it be depressing if you thought you’d never again experience that giddy rush of excitement upon discovering a fabulous new artist or were to spend the rest of your life unmoved by anything produced by a musician who was born post 1985?

I’m firmly of the view that today’s musicians are still producing varied, exciting, innovative and inspiring music but you won’t unearth it by simply sitting at home in your sweat pants wearing rose tinted spectacles reminiscing about days gone by. Nor will you discover new talent on certain prime time Saturday night TV shows compèred by two guffawing Geordie gnomes. However if you’re prepared to dig a little deeper, there is still gold in them there hills. 

I will yield to nobody in my view that 2011’s musical output thus far has been nothing short of excellent. We’ve had bands as diverse as Islington Boys Club, I Am In Love, Pris, The Jezebels, Lets Buy Happiness and The Good Natured all bubbling under as well as strong album releases from the likes of PJ Harvey, Wye Oak, British Sea Power, The Decemberists, Love Inks and Fight Like Apes. Add in the fact that Howling Bells, The Indelicates, Emmy The Great, Bleech and Pete and the Pirates amongst others are all set to release albums in the not too distant future and I would suggest that reports of the death of musical creativity have been greatly exaggerated.



As we are at almost at the halfway point in 2011 I thought it would be a good time reflect on my favourite four albums of the year thus far, and so without further ado....



1. 'Get Well Soon' by Sarabeth Tucek

There aren’t enough superlatives in the English language to describe just how wonderful this album is. Simply put, it’s a timeless classic from a singer who really should be a household name. Given the subject matter and what she rather beautifully describes as ‘an impressionist rendering of a time ruled by grief,’ revolving primarily, around her father’s death, it’s a huge testament to her talent that she turns the pain of loss into something incredibly poignant and life affirming.

What starts out as a lament to her late father becomes a celebration of remembrance and provides a resolution of sorts in coming to terms with grief. As a singer she’s blessed with a luminous, crystalline voice and possesses the ability to deftly convey the contents of her heart with an eloquent, understated majesty. It’s a magnificent album from start to finish from an artist who effortlessly demonstrates that music still has the power to move and inspire, despite what the pop charts may tell you.

2. 'The Big Roar' by The Joy Formidable

Has an album ever been more aptly named? Juxtaposing Ritzy Bryan’s soaring vocals with a frenzied jangle of barbed guitars and thunderous drumming they have not only managed to capture all the heart, emotion and energy of their live sound, they’ve added to it. In doing so the Joy Formidable have produced an album that has exceeded all expectations. Amongst the fury, the power and the often frenzied pace of the album, The Joy Formidable manage to stir something deep inside you, connecting on an emotional level and filling you with a sense of euphoria.

3. 'Help Stamp Out Loneliness' by Help Stamp Out Loneliness

This Manchester based gender symmetric sextet’s debut is a beautiful, bitter-sweet, collection of shimmering songs, aching melancholy and intelligent literate modern-day poetry set against jangling guitars and giddy keyboard swirls. Such is the uplifting nature of many of the melodies you may initially be oblivious to the darker lyrical content which only truly reveals itself after repeated listens. The album contains themes ranging from obsessive pop star stalkers (inspired by The King Of Comedy) , the dying embers of doomed relationships, beer gardens and alfresco sex, all presented within a lovely whirling, fuzzed up, kraut-pop, lounge-gaze shell. Think Camera Obscura meets St Etienne meets the Wedding Present at the Star and Garter, with a dash of Belle & Sebastian.

4. Wounded Rhymes by Lykke Li

Wounded Rhymes is an eclectic a mix of cascading tribal beats, wonky, skittering keyboards and haunting vocals that range from the strident to the sultry. It’s always innovative, entertaining, sexy and at times downright eccentric. It’s an album that delves into the feelings experienced in the aftermath of loss and it is undoubtedly a dark, melancholic slice of pop noir, yet it never feels bleak, in fact the overall impression one is left with, is that of a singer who has become emboldened by experience and one who has found her true voice. It’s an album that works on many different levels and on occasion sounds like a twisted version of the Ronettes drowning in black honey. She’s certainly one of the acts I’m extremely excited about seeing at this year’s Glastonbury festival.

***

Many thanks to Andy from The Von Pip Musical Express for his suggestions. Make sure you check out the blog and keep an ear out for him on Now Plying today.

AC/DC, one of the most hardworking acts of the past 20-years, may soon be touring once more as well as hopping back into the studio with the aim to put out another album.



The news emerged from an interview guitarist Angus Young gave to Bang Showbiz, during which he commented: “At some point we'll be touring again once we get a new album out, which will hopefully be within the next couple of years.”



Let us know what you would like to hear in an AC/DC playlist – Australian rockers such as Wolfmother perhaps, siblings working together, heavy metal acts they inspired, or even those who have featured on soundtracks after they featured in Iron Man 2.



Leave a comment, or add to our collaborative AC/DC Spotify playlist (we realise there is no AC/DC on Spotify so be creative, and get the influences, influencees and other similar acts up)

With declining ticket sales, Live Nation have announced a deal with internet discount site Groupon “to develop a new online ticketing deals channel, GrouponLive.” The service will act as a local resource for Live Nation events and clients of its global ticketing business, Ticketmaster, across music, theatre and sport in time for the summer concert season. The site will go live soon and more information can be found in the press release.



Anything James Blake does turns to multiple blog posts, Twitter buzz and general online noise, and his performance on Jools Holland has been no different. The NJ Underground is just one such site which has embedded his performances of both The Wilhelm Scream and Limit to Your Love.



Meanwhile, the hype surrounding the return of Dr Dre and his album, Detox, has been around almost as long as Mr Blake has been living, and certainly long before blogs carried so much significance. But, after being used on the preview show to a huge US boxing bout, a preview of Dre’s collaboration with Eminem is now up on sports channel Showtime’s site, and getting a lot of people chatting. It is called Die Hard and you can listen here.



Whitney Houston is being talked about a lot on the internet after she checked into rehab once again, just days after reports about her staring in a new film role. More info at TMZ.



Battles have released their video for Ice Cream – which will form part of their new album Glass Drop, out at the beginning of June. The cat and Tai Chi-filled video and more information is up at Drowned in Sound, and keep checking back at 6 Music as they are taking over the 6Mix in the next couple of weeks.



Cyndi Lauper joined Arcade Fire on stage at The New Orleans Jazz Festival and performed Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. A video recorded from the crowd is up on YouTube.



While Joker and Jess'e Ware are creating a lot of buzz with their new joint, The Vision (Let Me Breath), after Zane Lowe premiered it on Radio 1 and then the dubstep producer uploaded it to YouTube.

CMU is a music industry site and a good source for news, jobs and reviews. Today has been particularly interesting with three digital stories which are all important for the future of music in their own individual ways.



Spotify/Virgin partnership due to launch imminently

Quoting a Telegraph source, it seems Spotify and Virgin Media are close to tying up a deal which would see the service provider add an unlimited music package to its internet options. Although, as CMU states, they previously were after an "all-you-can-eat mp3 download service" it seems they have settled for a streaming option (full article). 



Music that is free is here to stay: LimeWire trial update

The attorney representing LimeWire in their copyright infringement case against the Recording Industry Association of America has said making founder Mark Gorton pay the US record industry $1.4 billion in damages would be “unjust” and “wouldn’t change a thing.” LimeWire have been accused of contributing to the 52% decline in music sales over the past ten years. The case continues (full article). 



Mobile manufacturer and service provider do deal with Guetta

A leading UK mobile phone manufacturer and service provider have teamed up with French producer David Guetta. The result is users who have the specific handset and the appropriate tariff are able to download an app which provides them with exclusive content – such as videos and tracks (full article).

The first opportunity to hear Rome – the hotly anticipated collaboration between Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi – is over at NPR. The album which features guest vocals from the likes of Norah Jones and Jack White has been five years in the making – so don't waste any more time before checking it out here. 



AC/DC guitarist Angus Young has revealed the band are planning a new album within the next couple of years. The last time the Australian rockers put out material was 2008’s Black Ice. They hope to have some new work completed once they have toured once again. More information is up at NME.com.

Okkervil River have made their album available to stream on the same day as it has been released. I am Very Far is the latest offering from the Texan group with more details and streaming over at Room Thirteen.



We Are SME have the latest track from Zomby featuring Panda Bear up on their site. The track is called Things Fall Apart and mixes a grimy beat with chilling choral voacals – take a listen. 



It seems the Twitter account set up in Noel Gallagher’s name is fake. Last week details were posted regarding the return of the ex-Oasis star, but Music News is reporting the real Noel Gallagher has crushed the rumours. 

Director Quentin Tarantino is rumoured to have approached Will Smith to be the lead in his new film Django Unchained. The movie tells the tale of a slave who becomes a bounty hunter on a mission to save his wife Broomhilda from her master. Hopefully the soundtrack will be another classic following in the footsteps of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. Full report at Contact Music.

Back on a Friday where people have been working, Now Playing has been another incredibly fun show to put together and hopefully you have enjoyed listening to it!

If you keep up with our Digital Digests on this blog you would have read Pixies members Joey Santiago and David Lovering hinted in an interview to Spinner a new album may be on the way - so we decided to work with you to put together a playlist focussing on the Boston band.

We also invited I Like Music and Robot Pigeon onto the show to impart some musical wisdom and even managed to play some orchestral Daft Punk.

Pixies - Here Comes Your Man

They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse in Your Soul (via Facebook)

Art Brut - Lost Weekend (via Facebook)

#Digital Digest

* Kate Bush gave a rare interview to BBC Radio 4 this week and revealed she is working on new original material - listen to the extended interview on the Radio 4 blog

* Miles Kane's debut album Colour of the Trap is released next week but is already up on NME.com for streaming

* Friendly Fires continue to impress - their latest track Hawaiian Air was put up on YouTube last night ahead of their album's release on May 16

* Chillwave has blogs in all sorts of bother - is it great? is it not? - but one of the cheif proponents, Washed Out, has made his latest track Eyes Be Closed available for free download. Its up on a bunch of blogs including This is Fake DIY and Abeano. 

David Bowie - Cactus (via Spotify)

#Blogged

La Shark - Magazine Cover (recommended by Kim from I Like Music)

#nowplaying

Manic Street Preachers - Revol

#Triple Treat

Is Tropical - The Greeks

La Roux - In for the Kill (Lifelike Remix)

Riot in Belgium - La Musique (Adam Sky Remix)

The Breeders - Cannonball (via Facebook)

#nowplaying

Prince - Sign o' the Times

Pavement - Shady Lane (via Facebook)

Throwing Muses - Counting Backwards (via Facebook)

#Digital Digest

* Basement Jaxx made their long awaited return this week with their track The Ends emerging on Soundcloud, which will form part of their soundtrack for the film, Attack the Block

* Trinity College Dublin's orchestra have racked up nearly 250,000 hits on YouTube with their medely of Daft Punk tracks

* This coming Monday is going to be a big day for new releases, but both Gang Gang Dance and Wild Beasts made their albums which are coming out that day available to stream early. The former can be found on I Heart AU and Wild Beasts on Under the Radar

* SBTRKT is one of the most hyped artists around at the moment, and his latest track with Little Dragon did little to quieten the bloggers. Check out Wildfire on Stereogum amongst many other blogs

Pale Saints - You Tear the World in Two (via Text)

#nowplaying

The Roots - The Seed (2.0)

#Blogged

Yuksek - On a Train (recommended by Michael from Robot Pigeon)

Frank Black - Headache (via Text)

The Dandy Warhols - Cool as Kim Deal (via Facebook)

#Listener's Mix - Hannah Brown who has developed a form of synaesthesia where music triggers phantom smells.

The Sea and Cake - New Schools (This aroma is so strong it sometimes makes my eyes water. This one is of crisp cleanly washed and ironed linen)

Bibio - The Ephemeral Bluebell (The texture and tone of the guitar gives me a warm and musky wooden aroma, like autumn bonfires, dried leaves, burning incense or the inside of a brand new acoustic guitar)

Feathers - Old Black Hat with a Dandelion Flower (Like entering a damp forest on a warm morning - pinewood, crushed leaves, morning dew and soft floral tones)

Broadcast - Living Room (Just like sticking my head into an old box of dried flowers, lavender, rose petal sandalwood, jasmine and a whole other mix of perfumes I can’t event explain or define)

Darkstar - Dear Heartbeat (Sweet candy, Palma violets and cough candy twists. It’s a very subtle mix of cold metal and sweet flavours which is really hard to explain in words)

Boards of Canada - Roygbiv (My all time favourite olfactory track. The hefty analogue synthesiser sets my synaesthesia on fire - smells of citrus, orange peel, honey and the sweetest musky incense)

The Beatles - Helter Skelter (via E-Mail)

La Shark - Magazine Cover



London five-piece La Shark have built a great reputation for themselves with their raucous shows and funky leftfield pop, and they've fast become an I Like Music favourite. Their lead singer Samuel sent their new single Magazine Cover over to us on Thursday, and Now Playing @6Music will play it exclusively ahead of its release sometime in the next two months.





Dutch Uncles - X.O



'We've always had quite a simple outline for our music - to use weird time signatures in a sort of indie-pop context.' Duncan, Dutch Uncles



With the recent release of their second album Cadenza, Manchester's Dutch Uncles present a thrilling collection of time-signature toying proclivities refined into eleven feverish nuggets of astute indie-pop. I Like Music recently caught up with singer Duncan for a lengthy chat. From the justly lauded success of mates-from-home Everything Everything, Wu Lyf and Egyptian Hip Hop, to their Uni-lecturer (who lectured their bass player and, er...produced the album) - we delve into the process behind a record set to further highlight the forward thinking indie bubbling out of a City smothered in musical heritage.





Entrepreneurs - Bubblegunk



We love Entrepreneurs for his murky melodies and eccentric productions. A one-man explosion of wilful weirdness packaged into inexplicably hummable bursts of energy, there's as much LCD Soundsystem in his blood as there is Micachu & The Shapes. You can listen to his new single Bubblegunk on our Indie Playlist.





Cyrus Malachi - Brave New World



'Illusions of choice, the media is lucifer's voice. Carnage in the streets, dissidents exchanging rounds with police.' Cyrus Malachi, Brave New World



Having firmly established himself as one of the most talented, erudite and uncompromising emcees around, Cyrus Malachi stepped away from revered hip hop collectives Triple Darkness and Orphans of Cush to drop his eagerly awaited, debut solo album Ancient Future this April. As if this wasn't enough, the deep-thinking emcee landed smack bang on the Hip Hop pages of I Like Music with a full-on artist take over.

Though his live shows and release dates are few and far between, his recent release upholds his reputation as an emcee with the verbal dexterity necessary to explore his literary preoccupations.

***

Many thanks to I Like Music and their editor, Kim, for contributing to Now Playing this week. Their site is well worth visiting, and takeovers from the likes of Katy B, Guillemots and Wild Beasts are really interesting and innovative.

Listen to her on the show later between 7-9pm, only on 6 Music.

Over a weekend which read like a fairytale with a girl becoming a princess and the baddy being captured, there has still been an awful lot going on in the world of music which has brought the blogs, zines and discussion board to life. 

Details of a Buddy Holly tribute album have surfaced, featuring a number of huge acts including Florence and the Machine, Paul McCartney, Cee Lo Green, Julian Casablancas, Lou Reed and many more.



The legendary singer passed away in 1959 at the age of just 22 and the album will be released on June 28 – for full list of collaborators and more details go to Room Thirteen.



Wild Beasts’ new album, Smother, is available now to stream ahead of its full release on May 9. New Zealand site, Under the Radar, have it up as well as an interview with lead singer Hayden Thorpe.



Spinner have been talking to Joey Santiago and David Lovering of the Pixies, and musings of a new album came out of their chat. Not only this, but it seems Bono has even pleaded with them for new material – read the full interview.



The Franz Ferdinand EP which was released for Record Store Day featuring their favourite artists – like LCD Soundsystem and Peaches - covering their own songs is now up on Soundcloud.



The Quietus received news from record label Cherry Red, informing them they have signed The Fall for some new material.



Calvin Harris is back, and this time has teamed up with US star Kelis - Details of My Life So Far has more information.



Both teen-bopper Justin Bieber and techno DJ Deadmau5 have been attacked in Australia (details); while also down under, Katy Perry’s cover of YouTube sensation Rebecca Black has become, well, a YouTube sensation! 

Thanks to BBC 6 Music for inviting us to the studio to have a bit of a dabble. It was really hard to shortlist some of our favourite tunes of the moment, but we managed it somehow without getting too distracted by the royal pre-wedding. This is the music we picked as the most exciting sounds to be bouncing from the Never Enough Notes speakers at the moment - scroll down for more information about each act:



Paper Crows - Folie A Deux (Radio Exclusive)

Evi Vine - For The Dreamers

Arpline - Make It Rain

Paper Crows - a London-based male-female duo creating sexy electro-pop.

We played Folie A Deux on Now Playing - a radio exclusive!! - enjoy those awesome high notes. Paper Crows are one of our hottest-tipped bands of 2011 and don't say we didn't tell you so.

Find them online at www.papercrows.com

Evi Vine - based in Kent and fabulously underrated



The band have previous UK festival dates include Glastonbury, Latitude and Secret Garden Party as well as a string of smaller European venues under their belt and the Camden Crawl last weekend. We hope to see much, much more of Evi Vine in the limelight later this year.

Check them out at www.evivine.com

Arpline - from Brooklyn, USA



Five guys and a load of instruments, Arpline have recently released their album, Travel Book. Expect indie-electro fun with a pop theme and an American twist.

For more information, check out their website - www.arpline.com

That's just a sample of some of the fabulous creations floating around in cyberspace. 



If you're in a band yourself we'd love to hear your music.



Kim and the Never Enough team x

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Many thanks to Kim for the blog and speaking to us on the show last Friday. If you missed it, you can catch her along with Ben from Data Transmission and the Digital Digest as well as playlists surrounding the marvellous Kate Bush and Poly Styrene on the iPlayer, also check out the show digest.