“Considering Labi Siffre has had at least a couple of Number Ones, directly or indirectly, he’s maybe not an obvious choice as an outsider. From being sampled by Eminem for ‘My Name Is’ to the Madness cover of his song ‘It Must Be Love’, his fingerprints have been on popular music for many decades now. In typically modern fashion though, his actual voice is rarely heard. We may inadvertently know about what restaurant Rihanna is eating in tonight via Twitter, but we probably can’t note one important thing about Labi Siffre - one of the most important British musicians ...

The Wind Up Birds From: Leeds, United Kingdom The Wind-Up Birds are from Leeds. They are named after a book by Haruki Murakami. They use good Yorkshire words like owt and nowt. They write songs about independent record shops, the reality of life, the monotony of work, and escape. They sound like the Fall stalking Art Brut in The Wedding Present's library. It's somehow fitting that, in the month that the Centre For Creative Arts launched their impressive project to release John Peel's record collection on-line, a gang of indie throwbacks, for whom Peel band would be ...

The reissue of Sleep's Dopesmoker shows musicians with the nerve to really stretch a song and take listeners on a journey The three-minute pop song is an undeniable design classic: short enough to fit on one side of a 7in, long enough to turn a repeated chorus, melody or hook into an insanely addictive earworm. But greatness can also occur when an artist changes their game up from sprint to marathon, breaking past the 180-second barrier as far as their creativity will take them. I'm talking specifically about tunes that rely on their uncommon length for their effect ...

Extra Life Dream Seeds [Northern Spy; 2012] by Jeff Roesgen Rating: Each of Extra Life’s three albums have come across as closely-guarded confessions. Not the kind a killer or an adulterer makes in exchange for a clear conscience, but those of the shamed victim, the one cursed to wonder whether they’d done something to provoke the mistreatment they’ve received. Secular Works , the band’s debut, explored such notions as they present to the outside world. It discussed with clear omniscience pathological and social maladies like bleeding and blackmail, allowing the listener to observe the pain and shame ...

For the latest first(?) leak off his upcoming Over the Counter Drugs mixtape, P I double L expresses feelings of betrayal in this crazy thing we call hip hop life. DOWNLOAD: Pill – Traded On Me

In "Libby," Fuller casts a dark eye toward love gone wrong. When she moans, "Libby, you take my breath away," the words transcend mere desire or passion. Instead, the song takes a brooding and beautiful look into a world of obsession, betrayal and regret tinged with rage.

The Wind-Up Birds are from Leeds. They are named after a book by Haruki Murakami. They use good Yorkshire words like owt and nowt. They write songs about independent record shops, the reality of life, the monotony of work, and escape. They sound like the Fall stalking Art Brut in The Wedding Present's library. It's somehow fitting that, in the month that the Centre For Creative Arts launched their impressive project to release John Peel's record collection on-line, a gang of indie throwbacks, for whom Peel band would be a badge of honour, release their long awaited ...

Bad news: In 2005 Leonard Cohen's accountant stole $5m from his pension. Good news: This prompted him to start touring to sellout crowds, and he has now more than recouped his losses. Bad news: Two solid years on tour did a real number on his voice. Although critics were generally too kind to point it out, the decline from 2008 to 2010 was saddening. Here's something from happier days. Cohen has always been one of music's great humourists, and lyrically he was top form through his 1988 album I'm Your Man . It may seem peculiar to ...

The Canadian indie rock band, By Divine Right , has been home to a heap of musicians since the front man, José Miguel Contreras , formed it in 1989 with three high school friends. He spoke with us about the upcoming album "Organised Accidents" and what makes the spirit of the band continue to live on. You have a new album coming out. Tell us a bit about that. The new BDR album is called "Organized Accidents", it embodies a philosophy of composition that I have been exploring with BDR . Taking spontaneous recordings, channeled writing and turning them into songs. Even the ...

The Canadian indie rock band, By Divine Right , has been home to a heap of musicians since the front man, José Miguel Contreras , formed it in 1989 with three high school friends. He spoke with us about the upcoming album "Organised Accidents" and what makes the spirit of the band continue to live on. You have a new album coming out. Tell us a bit about that. The new BDR album is called "Organized Accidents", it embodies a philosophy of composition that I have been exploring with BDR . Taking spontaneous recordings, channeled writing and turning them into songs. Even the ...

Hi hi. Welcome back to The 405 Film Digest, in the week that most of you finally got to go see Avengers Assemble and swell its frankly super box office success, the week in which the majority of my Twitter timeline filled up with Homeland-finale excitement followed by glee and the subsequent post-season depression, and the week in which all manner of political controversy riled up the populace so much that a great swathe of London couldn't even face the stress of the polling booths. Anyway, read on for Jake's great feature centred around the recent Oldboy casting ...

Whilst a gig in a church may no longer be the revelatory experience it once provided, certainly to frequent one outside of Union Chapel and its clunky stone trunks, as it just so transpires, still feels rather novel and to a lesser extent like some minor betrayal. St Stephen's Church is a rather more slight and slender construction; its rustic beams and subdued hues an ideal fit for the sepia melancholia for which Montreal bumbler Patrick Watson  has long since been revered. He bursts past an ever-evolving queue for the disabled facilities, chirruping: "I'm gonna pee my pants ...

Death Grips The Money Store [Epic; 2012] by Stefan Wharton Rating: It’s difficult to deny the social, cultural, and political significance that frequently appears to attend the culture of music. But in the matter of experiential meaning, of temporal engagement with sound, the endeavor to pinpoint the identity of meaning in music is largely disadvantageous. I — ironically, as a music writer — agree with Jamie Saft that “when considering terms to deconstruct music, all language is equally useless in expressing something extra-linguistic.” Words are open to interpretation, but to the individual, they stand as confinements, restraining the natural fluidity of ...

The first Track Of The Day of a brand new week comes from fast-rising British symphonic metallers Winter In Eden. Check out all the past Tracks Of The Day here. Winter In Eden’s new CD – actually their third release – will be released next week, through Lycan Records. It’s titled Echoes Of Betrayal. The North East-based [...]

Orcas Orcas [Morr Music; 2012] by Rowan Savage Rating: Just in case you missed Obscure Mythology 101 in school — hell, I even did a year of classical Greek and we never got any further than sniggering about pederasty — Orcus was lord of the underworld and punisher of broken promises. Death and betrayal, in turn, are classic pop themes, but the reason I mention the god who would later transmute into Dis Pater (Pluto, now sadly demoted from planetary status) and then the more familiar Hades is because the genus Orcinus , to which the orca or killer whale belongs, is named ...