It's bigger than hip hop bears!

I listen to Dead Prez when I have pent up anger or feel slutty , Grizzly Bear when I am relaxed or on long train journeys, now that the two have been mixed together by The Hood Internet redubbing it "Two Weeks of Hip Hop", I don't really know if I can find the right occasion to listen to it, I don't really want to be slutty on long train journeys.

Still it's a keeper:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/59361264797c5c79/

Florence and the Machine- the dog days are over

Florence And The Machine - Dog Days



It's like the school fair that went wrong, instead of playing tombola and pin the tail on the donkey, it's "lets take mdma and dress up as pervy clowns".

When the video starts you imagine the typical romantic Aurevoir Simone video, girl in white dress finds herself in forest with leafy crown in her hair, waking up from a dream about Unicorns, thats until Florence ( the singer in case you hadn't guessed) stacks herself on a root and then it all goes down hill from there. No longer are you in an Enid Blyton novel, but in pure playschool hell, where pilled up clowns and kiddy transvestites, rip your hair and shove glitter in your face. I am surprised and disapointed that the video doesn't contain arsenic laced cupcakes. Oh well it's just what I like, a girl who finally takes cuteness a little less seriously.

Ra Ra Riot- Can you tell

I love this video, other than the fact that the song is fantabulous, and that the album appeared in the top 50 of Hypem's 2008 Zeitgeist, Ra Ra Riot are the type of people you just want to be friends with at all costs ( yeah you can shove my head down the toilet)
I should really be posting videos that bring the reader into summer time, with airy tunes and white dresses with clubmaster raybans, but this video is like watching a christmas special of Friends in the middle of summer, it makes you miss the nice things that winter has to offer, but you arn't going to admit it are you.

I also like the idea of the guy (or the singer Wes Miles) standing outside of your front doorstep with flowers peeking sheepishly through the window, and the cellist Alexandra Lawn swinging on the swing attached to the garden tree. Generally the only thing that I see swinging are the 40 year old neighbours in the flat opposite to mine, and the only thing that waits for me outside of the door, is a rundown staircase that smells of festering curry. This band from NY, advertises life without responsibility, and masters in images the feeling you get when you fancy someone so much that he or she has you literally dancing on hot coal in limbo land.

Hair buns for the soppy ones.

Pin it up, I say!!

Quite frankly, I have never been a fan of loose hair. To begin with, my hair is rather unmanagable, I have few of it, it's thin and is coloured blond which all together gives a rather rubbishy and unhealthy appearance to the hair, making it almost impossible for me to let it lustfully loose.
However THANK THE LORD the bun is back.
Yes yes I agree that the loose buns with glittery "greek looking" head bands, have been spotted on at least every single 19 year old who heads down to the social club on a friday night in the hope of impressing/pulling/marrying Birdy Nam Nam or some other Dj who walks around with his whisky coke in hand auto proclaming himself the new french touch, and it is true that the bun on the thinning head of a 60 year old bourgeoise, does not really inspire the " Venus goddess look", but if done correctly, can look rather stunning.

I finally decided therefore to head down to the expensive temple of hairdomness Accessorize, spent at least a weeks worth of my food money on bows , hairbands and other unnecessary hair pieces, got home and tried out the whispy, out of bed bun with a beaded hairband around the fringe, and I was rather chuffed with the result.

Of course I loathe myself for sinking down to the level of the trendy 18 year olds, and I feel a little bit like a 70 year old who thinks that by wearing velour jogging bottoms it'll make her look 20 years younger, but in all honestly the bun is easy to do. First of all it makes your neck look longer and therefore more graceful and the bejeweled hairband in the blond hair really does give off that flirty, innocent, pretty but negligé effect. Finally the bun because of its bourgeois connotation, gives off that juvenile look of the private school girl who just got fondled by the school prefect in the bushes behind the netball court. For once that i don't feel like shaving my hair off, and a haircut that knocks off 3 years, I say yes to the messy bun.

ps: (Sorry about the picture, Unfortunatly I am not garanteeing the Diane Kruger effect with this hair do, but she remains the best exemple of how to pull off the look without looking like a pigeon's nest after a storm)

High Places in Low times

Do we really want cute animated videos during an economic crises?

I've been cruelly mocked and shunned for picking tracks off the Skins series. I have been told that even googling the track using the keyword "skins" is considered as high treason and a sign of complete ignorance for " real and decent indie music". Well this video be it official or not found through intense "Skins googling" proves the contrary.

2009 is not exactly a time for celebration and excess. In a time of hardcore credit crunch, dare smile in the street and you're suspected of being either a smug banker or trader with massive bonuses, and should consider yourself lucky not to be taken hostage by desperate and unemployed factory workers (phenomenon currently taking place in France).
However whilst ( secretly) skimming through the Skins music listings I came across this song "Jump in" by High Places which is played in Episode 6, and I truely believe that this video is just what the doctor ordered.

Yes it's a video about cute animals , yes it's all a bit playschoolish and we would all look so much cooler if we spent hours talking about the gripping reality of Dj Mehdi videos, but seriously in a time when everyone is worrying about how they are going to pay next months rent, don't you think it's about time we watched a video that looks like a film about Haribo on drugs and just sit back and enjoy the simplicity of animals swimming about in a river?
This does not make you a teletubby lover, nor a mishy mushy sponge, just someone with a bit of sensitivity who enjoys something thats a bit soft around the edges, in a time when the only other thing thats gone soft and mushy is your wallet and your future.

Other than just enjoying a colourful and playful video, High Places were considered by Stereogum in their review of the band in December 2008 as the band to be watching, defining it as " two brooklyn kids with dire at heart and carefree melodies, with a really luminescent melodic psych"
So to be fair yes this song was found on skins, yes the video is about a crocodile a bird and a squirrely thingy but isn't it nice to feel like you are playing with playdoh at playschool again with not a care in the world.

Bombay Bicycle Club- Always like this

Always Like This



Is it really true that you can like Bombay bicycle club's new video?
It seems that yes.

Indeed the singer Jack Steadman is overly Gawky, and in his latest video, Always like this has the tendancy to irritate any average human being, in his attempts to look dislocated, schizophrenic and just.. well weird. He also reminds us of that guy that everyone knows, who turns up to parties, sits on a couch, beer in hand, pills sorted out by colour on the coffee table, whose silence and obvious look of disaproval pointed at the peasants singing "I get knocked down" by chumbawamba, makes even the most ignorant and happy of beings feel uncomfortable.

But as much as Bombay Bicycle Club seems to embody your typical trendy, " I read Proust and pop Lexomil" Londoners, and even if you have that nagging feeling that you shouldn't be liking this video because it's been done 20 000 times before, and you're sick and tierd of seeing unimaginative directors, put young scrawny boys in council estate or middle class urban back drops, you can't help but watch their video to the end and feel a bit good about yourself afterwards.

Not only does the song take you down memory lane, remembering those nights when you were happily drunk with friends at 4 am searching in the city summer air for the nearest Kebab shop, or of the days when you knew that you were supposed to be revising for you exams but were fucking about in the park behind your block of flats, like a 16 year old pissed on cider, the familiarity of the video which could have been shot pretty much anywhere by anyone, is also what gives it that uniqueness.. reminding us along the way of how great it is to enjoy the simple things that the city has to give like an illuminated shop window, open corner shops, and bus shelters to sober up in.