Springtime for Poptones. Essential Listening for March.
09/03/07
All Traps Set - Running on a kraut rock groove like he can’t stop—the new single ‘Council of Desperation’ is an authentic Jaki-inspired piece of jagged-Morricone kraut rock that is strangely addictive. You can even imagine zombies chasing you through a mall whilst having this on in your ipod. To hear more of All Traps Set please click here.
Vincent Black Shadow - VBS’s debut is coming out at the end of May. And man we are excited about it. Truly. Featuring some of the craziest tunes not discovered since Funhouse, Vincent Black Shadow is Mudhoney rampaging a town on a Saturday night. With new artwork by Luke Insect, elevating this to some crazed mythic state like Led Zeppelin’s House of the Holy, Vincent Black Shadow have come to rock the fuck out of the UK! here.
Eddie Warner - Library musician that builds it up all on the drums. ‘Its all about the drums’—as All Traps Set keeps on telling me and he ain’t wrong (check the Voice of the Seven Woods footage with him on drums ... its so strong, you almost get a contact high)—Eddie Warner was introduced to Poptones by Cherrystones and the world is a better place because of it.
Peter, Bjorn and John - We can’t get enough of this. Alan McGee is obsessed with this song. The Singleman Affair is obsessed with this song. Its seemingly always on the Poptones Radio. Will we tire of this like Madonna’s Hung Up? Who knows. The vibe is still there though/
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The Awesomely Delayed February Essential Listening List!
15/02/07
Poptones Demos—This is responsible for the delay of the mighty essential listening list! We’ve been preparing for some great stuff for Poptones Nation in Spring and life at Poptones has become super-duper busy at the moment. First up is a 7inch of a fine slice of Morricone noise by All Traps Set —for your listening pleasure please check out some tracks by clicking here.
And it doesn’t end there. Oh no. The second Cherrystones Word comp is prepare and is beiing licensed. Same as the imaginery soundtrack to Monsterism Island. And the sessions of the Laughing Windows have been completed. And it sounds good—you can get the demos of the Laughing Windows by clicking here. And the Singleman Affair demos!
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Nice Things for 2007...
09/01/07
Gruff Rhys - Candylion - The Super Furry Animal action returns. After a brief spell of being label-less, Gruff and Co, have not only recorded the next Super Furry Animals album but have seemingly splintered into several different factions. More Super Furry Animals goodness. And I can’t get enough of the new single Candylion released last year. And been streaming the other Super Furry Animals alter-ego The Peth pretty much well non-stop. That and the new Monsterism Island compilation makes 2007 pretty much the year of the Super Furry. Hooray.
The Laughing Windows - I have spent all of Christmas listening to the Laughing Windows. And it was time well spent. The psychedelic super heroes of London are due to release their EP in the springtime.
The Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics - Wayne Coyne (is it me or does he already sound like a superhero) can pretty much do no wrong for Poptones.co.uk. We got the War of the Mystics 5.1 and who else would record a symphonic version of Bohemian Rhaphopsy. Poptones just has to applaud such perversion.
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All Poptones Wants for Christmas is world peace and some rock'n'roll records...
07/12/06
Gram Parsons Box - Two of his albums remastered, with radio sessions and a whole cd of unearthed Parsons material. His laconic country voice never sounded so good.
Wilco - Handshake Drugs—‘the handshake drugs that I bought downtown’... a pretty much genius lyric from Jeff Tweedy and Poptones is now on the look out for a punk band called Handshake Drugs!
The Laughing Windows - One to watch! We are releasing this in 2007. To hear Opel Hair please click here.
Vincent Black Shadow - Recommended by Cherrystones. No. Demanded by Cherrystones that we release it. Vincent Black Shadow is the second coming of Comets on Fire meets Mudhoney. We love it. Will you? To listen to Child of Orion please click here.
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Some of our favourite things in November...
09/11/06
Cherrystones Word -- Cherrystones-to-the-fucking-word. Like the holy grail of psychedelic rock—Cherrystones Word has finally crashlanded onto our planet. And we can only say ‘Thank Fuck’...
To order your copy of Cherrystones Word please click here.
Sailboats are White—Released on Poptones on the 13th—take this as a sign because they are some noisy bad motherfuckers in the Poptones House.
To order your copy of Sailboats are White please click here.
Sounds of Monsterism Island—When you are finished with the first two—take a relaxing trip to the Monsterism Island. And watch out for the second installment of the journey to be released on Poptones in 2007. Why not visit Monsterism Island
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Poptones Essential Listening for October
05/10/06
Souls She Said - As Templar Nites and Cherrystones Word -- Taking it from the two extremes, Souls She Said is the spin-off group of the Icarus Line, taking in the retro-isms of the lo-fi movement of the early 90s through to the static attack of Jane’s Addiction - let Souls She Said take you on a trip. Whilst Cherrystones is London’s foremost psychedelic hip-hop Dj, obsessed with finding beats in old-school psych records, Word compiles the majority of the best of his finds in one handy album. To pre-order your own copy of Souls She Said for only 7.99 please click
here
White Noise - Black Mass : An Electric Storm in Hell - Early electronic pioneers do an on-off album for Island Records, record it in a banged-up rehearsal space in Camden and title such songs as Black Mass - An Electric Storm in Hell so realistically that this track will scare the living shit out of you.
,b>The Singleman Affair and Viking Moses - The start of the 500-only limited 7inch singles club for Poptones Records. First up is The Singleman Affair with Leaving a Mark and Oh To Say and the second is Viking Moses with the electronic pulse of Werewolves in the City.
The Watts Prophets - Things Gonna Get Greater - After the reverbations of the Watts Riots in the ‘60s, The Watts Prophets got together through poetry classes and eventually recorded their poems set to mininalistic music ala the Last Poets. Classic black outcries that partially provided the blueprint for Public Enemy, NWA and many more.
United States of America - Never Come Down - Ok, so we can’t really honestly say that this is in our listening list because we’ve actually heard it. Its more like something that we’ve neve heard which sounds so massive in our minds that it has taken some weird shape and form. United States of America is brilliant but unreleased United States of America tracks—one can only imagine.
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You wanna get with Poptones in September listen to these albums....
01/09/06
Viking Moses - Werewolves in the City - Impossibly good track from the viking himself. Werewolves in the City starts off with a New Orderish drum beat before leading off into a spasm of gothic horror with Brendon howling at the moon with lyrics such as ‘Werewolves in the City Are A Big Problem/Why don’t you get out of the sky and stop them/Tearing Up Children, Children in the night/Last night I found a kid’s head on my bike.’ Anyone ready for the Buffy the Vampire revival?
To get his Poptones’ debut of Crosses please click here.
Souls She Said - Tastefaker and demos - Don Devore is the mainman behind Souls She Said—the Icarus Line sister band—and we’ve been playing the demos that he has sent in for the new Souls album pretty much non-stop. But not only that—we’ve got the forthcoming release of As Templar Nites coming up on Poptones. Its fucking genius.
To order your own copy of Souls She Said (out on the 9th of October) please click here. To check out selections of their album why not go to their myspace.com.
The Meat Puppets - Like a Viking Moses of twenty years ago, we’ve been listening to Meat Puppets II album around Poptones Recording Corporation’s offices non-stop. Why? Maybe it could be the Nirvana Unplugged covers of Plateau, Lake of Fire and Oh Me. Or it could be the fact that its songwriting genius is pretty much untouchable. I mean the howl of ‘Where do bad folks go when they die ... see them again on the 4th of July’ is seriously good drugged up americana. So good its scary.
Vincent Black Shadow - Watch their myspace— Vincent Black Shadow.
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Yr August Pop Music Tape!
02/08/06
The Singleman Affair—Let’s Kill The Summer - We’ve been listening to the Singleman Affair for quite some time now. And we love it. A home recording that cost the price of a limo ride for a member of Oasis and produced a lo-fi classic. And we love it. To get your own pre-order your own copy please click here. for £8.99. It’s released on the 7th of August.
Supreme Vagabond Craftsman - Check out My Rifle Range - The prog-punk revolution starts now with Check Out My Rifle Rang - a brilliant Super Furry Animals ditty as recorded by the Tesco’s version of Phil Spector. Genius. To order your own copy please click here.
Tobias Froberg - Somewhere in the City - A slice of pre-Paul Simon pop. Out on the 7th of August. To pre-order your copy please click here.
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Poptones July Mix Tape for the Long Hot Summer!
30/06/06
Viking Moses and The Singleman Affair - Yup, we’ve been listening to our own stuff again. But who can blame us when The Singleman Affair’s debut ‘Lets Kill The Summer’ kicks up such a psychedelic storm and Viking Moses UK debut of Crosses is a down-home soul treat. We’ve produced 500 more copies of the limited edition Viking Moses 7” for his forthcoming UK tour.
Main Source - Early hip-hop pioneers that fell on Poptones radar after listening to the demo from the forthcoming Cherrystones album—when asked what is his biggest influence beatwise—Cherrystones said ‘Main Source --without a doubt’ .... and we went out and paid money for Main Source vinyl that would clothe a small child for a year.
Will Seargent - Themes for Grind - Fresh from his appearance on the new Primal Scream album (controversy rages on—is it rubbish or genius—Will saves it for me!)—Poptones looks back at his early EP ‘Themes for Grind’ and reminscences when they had it but lost it. If anyone has a copy of this email
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Poptones Essential Listening for June
01/06/06
Trashmonk - New Session and Mona Lisa Overdrive—The ‘Monk is back and the people at Poptones rejoices. Got played a eight minute long psych-glam number over the telephone that has been ringing through our heads for days now. The five year wait for a new album? Worth it. So we’ve been playing the cult release ‘Mona Lisa Overdrive’ over and over again at Poptones Recording Corporation—an album that predated the psych-folk revolution by six years. Trashmonk you are a total mod. Love it.
The Icarus Line - New Recordings. Jesus. Hitting out like a young version of Primal Scream, this record is sheer rock’n’roll brilliance. Look for their sister project Souls She Said to come out on Poptones in the fall. One of the best LA rock’n’roll bands since The Doors and Jane’s Addiction.
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Essential Listening for May!
03/05/06
Viking Moses - Sandstorms/I Will Always Love You
The mighty Brendan Massei continues his infiltration of the UK but the first stop for any potential Viking Moses fan has to be this beautiful 7” ... only 500 copies available and when its gone, its gone. And at £1.50 its a steal. Buy it now, wait three months and the Ebay freaks will pay extortionate values for it. Or just do as Poptones does, keep it and love it because its ace. The Fence Collective has said ‘I Will Always Love You ... that’s just really sinister isn’t it?’
Get it here now...
To check out the super-special myspace for Viking Moses 7’ please click here.
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Essential Listening For April
10/04/06
Viking Moses - Sandstorms/I Will Always Love You
Brendon Massei aka Viking Moses is a motherfucking righteous genius. From evoking Kurt Cobain, Will Oldham, Neil Young’s Revolution Blues and ‘66 punk rock Dylan, the guy rocks that shit out. See him on tour throughout the UK and buy the limited edition Poptones single of Sandstorm/I Will Always Love You. Its only 1,000 copies and when they are gone, they are gone.
For more on Viking Moses please go here.
Frances McKee - Sunny Moon
Check out the former Vaseline stars solo album on Analogue Catalogue and prepare yourselves for the rumoured Vaselines reunion shows that are occuring when? We don’t know. Best to email Analogue Catalogue and get the dope from them.
To bug Analogue Catalogue about the Vaseline reunion shows please go here. Or get your own copy here.
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Essential Listening for March!
01/03/06
Sailboats Are White
Intense rock’n’roll motherfuckers from Canada. Four teenage Big Black obsessives in a cracked-up stabbing frenzy that is reminscent of Public Image Limited, Big Black, Black Flag ...if you don’t love this—you are wrong. Prepare to be destroyed. Cherrystones and Alan McGee are both in love ... with SAW!
Check out their myspace.com here.
The Times - Various
Why? We are just getting prepared for their show on the 3rd of March at the Dirty Water Club. Be there or lose out… FREAKS!
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Essential Listening for February!
30/01/06
The Singleman Affair - Let’s Kill The Summer - “I thought that if you had/An acoustic guitar
Then it meant that you were/A protest singer/Oh, I can smile about it now/But at the time it was terrible. The Singleman Affair may not be protest singers but they write the trippiest crystaline pop songs not heard of since The Byrds ‘Notorious Byrds Brothers’. Expect an album release in June. To listen to the songs please go to their myspace.com
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Essential Listening for January!
05/01/06
Cherrystones - Crawl Back To Mine- Mr Cherrystones is back to rock the psychedelic block party from London to NYC with his follow-up to Entertaining the Unobvious. And man it is hard. Imagine if you will ... falling backwards through the best moments of 1001 obscuro pscyhedelic battalion records. Prepare to engage and be destroyed by Cherrystones! Check out the previous mix on here www.myspace.com/djcherrystones
Voices of the Seven Woods - UK’s perfect psych-folk band. The new single is ace. Buy it here or come down with the Poptones.co.uk crew to his show at In the Pines
To read more selection click below
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Essential Listening For Y'All in December....
25/11/05
Cromagnon - Orgasm - ESP Recordings. Cherrystones turned Poptones.co.uk onto this one. What does it sound like? Well ... imagine the zombies from Dawn of the Dead entering into a pop studio to record a rock’n’roll album. Its fucking nuts! Join Cherrystones on myspace.com by clicking here
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Essential Poptones Listening for November
28/10/05
The Paddingtons -First Comes First - What more can we say? Except its essential tuff-teen-punk. Get your copy for only £8.99
Alexander Tucker - Genius, weird spectral folk from All Tomorrow’s Parties. Sounds like Bob Dylan meeting up with the Omen soundtrack. Geniunely spooky. Alexander Tucker is playing at In the Pines on the 16th of November
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Poptones.co.uk's Essential Listening for October!
06/10/05
Echelon - Window’s Shut Poptones’ favourite swirling magical folkers weigh in with a Talk-Talk influenced second single. Released on the 17th of October, this is the perfect sound of the Autumn. To pre-order your single please click here.
To read more of our journey through the best sounds of October please click below!
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Essential Listening for September!
30/09/05
King Biscuit Time - C I AM 15 - A protest song with a hip-hop beat that slams both the CIA and M15 and is the welcomed return of Steve Mason (ex-Beta Band) to the British Rock Scene. New album ‘The Crunch’ is a varied testament to the power of rock’n’roll. Look out for the new single, new album and the fucking amazing Beta Band best of soon.
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