They write anthems and sing them like Elastica

In his brilliant, if bitter book ‘Bad Vibes’, Luke Haines traces the birth of what went on to be know as Britpop to the Select magazine of April 1993, the one with Brett Anderson of Suede on the cover striking a coquettish pose against the back drop of a union jack. The text of the ‘Yanks Go Home’ article was about combating the influx of American grunge music by supporting home grown bands that specialised in ‘Wit, glamour and irony’. Almost exactly a year later, notes Haines, Kurt Cobain killed himself and with him the domination of America music. If ...

For some of us, that album was what it was all about… Guardian UK : On Easter Sunday 1996 Tricky left his flat on Kensington High Street to buy his usual weed-smoking insomniac’s breakfast of Lucozade and chocolate. When he reached the newsagent he had a sudden change of heart. “On the railings there’s a big fucking poster of me as Jesus for Time Out magazine,” he says, imitating a cartoonish double take. “On Easter day! I just went straight back into my house. It was surreal.” It’s easy to forget just how famous and anomalous this cross-dressing ...

"Langour" is a sultry track from Candy Empire, an Estonian four-piece that recall the raucous garage-rock sound of The White Stripes with a darkly brooding Brit-pop emphasis. As for the latter, predominantly featuring genre, comparisons to Black Box Recorder and Justine Frischmann (Elastica) are rampant throughout

Do you have every single song that you have in your MUSIC folder actually on your various devices? Like, I have a few giant playlists with different stuff on my phone and on my ‘Pod and wet snot – SORRY! I meant ‘what not’, but a few songs here and there slip through the cracks [...]

Paolo Rigotto, classe 1973. Batterista e cantautore, polistrimpellatore e fonico. Da tempo immemore membro del gruppo Banda Elastica Pellizza (premio siae/tenco 2008) e collaboratore con realtà musicali spesso diversissime tra loro (la prog band Syndone, il cantautore Francesco Stabile, musicisti dell’underground jazz come Dario Bruna e Federico Marchesano, il compositore Nik Comoglio). Incuriosito dalle più [...]

An ihrem Sound haben Shrag demonstrativ die Ecken und Kanten stehen lassen. An ihrem Songwriting haben die Pop-Post-Punks jedoch deutlich gefeilt. Etwas weniger Rotz, dafür mehr Pathos und große Geste – oder anders gesagt: etwas weniger Raincoats und X-Ray-Spex, mehr The Slits und Elastica. Die neue Single “Tendons In The Night” ist eine zickige Pop-Schönheit [...]

Pop Music in 2012 is a pretty well groomed and developed beast. You have to look outside the Top 40 to find the most boundary-pushing jams in the form of Ocean">Frank Ocean, Grimes or Niki & The Dove. But before then, there was a whole host of tracks which broke new ground and made pop music what it is now. Let's take a look back at 12 of them now. 12MIA- 'Galang’ Its roots were in the dying embers of Electroclash (MIA adopted the Roland MC-505 drum machine after seeing what Peaches did with it on ‘The Teaches Of ...

It is 13 years to the day of the release of 13. The complexities at work on 13 continue to resound. It marks the end of an era, not only for Blur but for Britpop. An album born out of Albarn’s anguish after the ending of two lengthy relationships (romantically with Elastica ingénue Justine Frishmann, [...]

Confused revolutionary? Brilliant provocateur? As her Super Bowl digit malfunction reminded everyone, Maya Arulpragasam is one of the most polarizing figures in pop today, a neon blur of contradictions and conflations — but she may also be the most thrilling. Here's a handy primer to her life and art and everything in between SPIN originally published in our August 2010 issue. By some accounts — including her own — we should all be done talking about Maya Arulpragasam. In 2007, promoting her sophomore album, Kala , the singer known as M.I.A. told an interviewer, "I feel like a mirror reflecting back ...

Britpop, in its heyday, threw up a number of bands who went on to achieve considerable fame and acclaim - Oasis, Blur and Suede to name but three. Yet one band has since almost completely disappeared from the radar. Yet at the time, Elastica , fronted by Damon Albarn's then girlfriend, Justine Frischmann, were among those who were tipped to succeed. Their eponymous debut album charted at number one in the album charts and got nominated for a Mercury Prize. So what happened? Where did it all go wrong? In truth, there was not a lot of originality in Elastica and ...

Members of The xx have taken control of a show on Australian radio station 94.5 FBi Radio. The xx need to unwind. Sessions for their second album are stretching on, with the London group maintaining a blog to display some of the influences they are taking into the studio. Deciding to escape the four walls of the recording studio, The xx recently took part in a Young Turks takeover of the Australian radio station 94.5 FBi Radio. Jamie xx took charge of a full mix, dropping in a new track. Apparently called 'Touch Me' the piece is a ...

Young Turks (the label responsible for releases by the xx, Chairlift, SBTRKT, El Guincho, Wavves) has taken residence at Australian station 94.1 FBi Radio this week, and yesterday, not only did they haul in Chairlift — who performed live in the studio — they also premiered new music by both members of the xx: one instrumental reinterpretation by Jamie xx, and one mixtape, by Romy xx. As NJ Underground points out , the Jamie xx track is actually not explicitly new material, but an instrumental version of the cover of Rui Da Silva's "Touch Me" that he and Scottish DJ Yasmin ...

Photo by Eirik Lande This week, the label Young Turks guest-hosts the midday show on Australia's 94.5 FBi Radio . On yesterday's show, they premiered a new track from Jamie xx , called "Touch Me". It comes in at about the 49 minute mark in the below stream. It's followed by a mini-mix from Jamie's  the xx partner Romy, featuring tracks from Elastica, Fleetwood Mac, Everything But the Girl, and more. There's also a live session from Chairlift in there, as well as a mix by Bullion. Monday's session is here , and includes a new ...

Taking cues from Blur, Ride, Elastica, “Take My Forever” pays tribute to the music of his youth. +++ Faris McReynolds of Exdetectives as photographed by Maya Sofia Mercer +++ PLAY, POST & SHARE “The Lawn” is the first single from Take My Forever by Exdetectives [SOUNDCLOUD] http://soundcloud.com/fanaticpro/exdetectives-the-lawn [MP3]: http://www.fanaticpromotion.com/projects/exdetectives/mp3/exdetectives-thelawn.mp3 +++ “…a flight through the clouds. …listen to this album over and over again.” – The Aquarian Unlike so many musicians that become painters, the Los Angeles-based artist Faris McReynolds found success as a fine artist first.   Showing his work in galleries before he ...