You say that they’ve all left you all behind

Bat For Lashes - Laura

During a scene of his directorial debut film, Garden State, Zach Braff’s lead character, Largeman, describes how the meaning of “home” changes. Theorising that once you leave and enough time passes “home” becomes a fictionally positive memory of a place and people that no longer exist. That longing for it to be “the way it was” isn’t healthy and you have mould a new idea of home wherever you are. It’s an effecting scene, simple but disquietingly honest which cuts to the heart of why nostalgia can be a cause of a great damage to the present.

Bat For Lashes (AKA Natalie Khan) tackles nostalgia in a similar fashion for her latest single, Laura. Instead of Braff’s existential approach, Khan embodies her own youthful ideas of nostalgia using a protagonist of whom she sings about with a sorrowful admiration. Fondly remembering the effervescence and devil may care attitude of the hollow plaudits that she and her friends used to through around, “You’re more than a superstar.” Then admitting to a combination of Clockwork Orange esq nihilism “And in this old horror show,” and self loathing “Let’s sing along to that lonely song." Bundling this parable in a composition as simplistic as Braff’s scene, which after multiple listens become no less disquieting and even more haunting.

Laura is taken from Bat For Lashes forthcoming new Album, The Haunted Man which is out on October 15th

And I Live To See Your Face

Grizzly Bear - Sleeping Ute

Daniel Rosen’s distinctive guitar work and satisfyingly complex songs structures have always given Grizzly Bear’s subtly crafted music an holistic quality. Creating a metaphysical space in which the listener can explore the connection between all things; be they man made, natural, spiritual or imaginary. A sensation not unlike staring into the depths a clear lake. Where your eye’s can see all the way to the riverbed, able to focus on the individual depths of detail, without losing the sense of the whole. So when Grizzly Bears newest track, ‘Sleeping Ute,’ threatened to disturb this delicate ecosystem with an ambitiously loud and vibrant new direction, a feeling of great unease swept over me. 

The track opens in a bombast of Rosen's guitars, which expand and contract over dense percussion in beguiling fashion. The sound is bold but never overreaches, confidently replacing the vocal harmonies of classics like, ‘While You Wait For the Others’ or ‘Central and Remote,’ with all manner of layered instruments to elevate the soundscape. Whilst the change is initially jarring and will catch fans off guard, it's worth sticking with. As after repeated listens the beautiful mannerisms and charm of Grizzly Bears music reveal themselves to be unharmed and even more pronounced. Evolving to exciting new highs for a band who were already very easy to admire.

Listen to Sleeping Ute below:
 

Interview - Cloud Nothings

2012 has been a year of reinvention for Cloud Nothings. In January the Ohio quartet, led by Dylan Baldi, released Attack On Memory, their third album in 18 months. The record signaled a shift in direction, moving away from the comfort of indie-pop to a dark, uncompromising and at times ambitious punk sound. It was a bold move which paid dividends. Earning the album a string of high review scores and new army of fans.

Six months on, Cloud Nothings are still riding the wave of hype and are about to embark on a world tour. Before the last show of their UK tour, [edit] radio caught up with Baldi in the paint cracked dressing room of the Leeds based, Brudenell Social Club, to grab a chat about Attack on Memory, the Queens diamond jubilee and a Japanese cafe where you can pay to stroke cats.

Dot To Dot Festival - Manchester - 4/6/2012 Dot To Dot Festival - Manchester - 4/6/2012

As the summer months are upon us and festival season has begun in earnest, ticket holders for camping festivals like Reading or Leeds, all start following the weather forecasts with a little more frequency. Are they going to get fair skies to compliment the £200 worth of music they’ve shelled out for? Or should they prepare for a Bear Grylls survival weekend? Like with all things reliant on weather over the British summer, nothing is certain. 

Maybe thats why day long urban festivals like Dot to Dot have become so popular? They offer a great lineup of venues and rising stars at a fraction of the cost, (a ticket for Dot to Dot was only £20) without the risk of a wash out. Indeed the overcast conditions in Manchester didn’t affect the enjoyment to be had over the 14 hours of exceptional music that Dot to Dot offered it’s attendees.

Modern Masterworks #1 - Hot Chip "In Our Heads" Review

Relationships are tempestuous. In the space of days, (sometimes hours) the exuberance of a love you thought would last a lifetime, can be destroyed in an instant. Whether it’s your fault or theirs, (at the time it’s always theirs) you’ll end up secretly wishing that your ex-love would go and play ‘tag’ with onrushing traffic. As the days pass and loneliness sets in, you spiral into a self-destructive melancholy, where ‘letting go’ is not an option because deep down you’re still in love. Such emotion turmoil has been the inspiration for music (and soap opera plot lines) for countless years and is a theme spit chronologically along the 11 tracks of Hot Chip’s fifth studio LP, In Our Heads.

These friends or ours, they soon pretend

Liars - No1. Against the Rush

The music Liars make isn’t the easiest to get into. The bands use of textures and rhythm has an obsessive-compulsive quality that makes them sound regularly irregular. As if to accentuate their peculiarity, with each new album Liars choose to completely reinvent their sound. This approach allows them to embark on new creative challenges and find new ways of expressing artistic themes, making their discography a genre hopping tour de force. On the evidence of No.1 Against The Rush, the first single from their new record WIXIW, the band show no sign of settling just yet.

In a recent interview the bands chief songwriters, Andrew Angus and Aaron Hemphill, admitted that WIXIW was emotionally fueled by the beginning and end of the two’s respective relationships. It’s a clever theme, as there is an undeniable duality between the two states of union. A duality in which uncertainty holds sway, where you’re kept awake a night wondering about what to do next. Where to go on the second date? What can I do to keep them from slipping away? It’s this sickly unease that No.1 Against The Rush deftly replicates.

By recording the new album using primarily modern electronic methods and eschewing the familiarity of the analogue instruments, Liars have engineered the perfect sonic palette to express this anxiety. For fans, this change is disarming, but in a good way, as it’s made Liars more accessible than ever. Initially, it may seem that this accessibility has come at the cost of the creativity for which they’re famed, but after multiple listens No.1 Against The Rush reveals it’s secrets. Taking little time for its meticulous arrangement of throbbing bass, sweeping synths and rotating blips to hit home with waves of unease that reverberate in the psyche. Proving that despite taking steps towards a more accessible sound, Liars remain one of the most challenging and exciting bands around.

The excellently creepy music video is below:

Blogs to Follow #1 - The Prescription

This is the start of a new feature here on the [edit] radio music blog where we promote OTHER BLOGS! Now lets get one thing straight, we're not advocating that you desert [edit] radio, just merely pointing you in the direction of some other music based blogs that we think you'll enjoy.

Our first blog is one that all independent musicians should read. It's called , "The Prescription" and is a must-have guide for artists who are embarking on a career in music, or established acts who want to stay abreast of the latest developments in the industry.

The guys over at Prescription PR have kindly agreed for me to repost Chris Singleton's excellent blog post about the pitfalls of Spotify for independent artists here on [edit] radio. - Kevin Lawson

Should you put your music on Spotify ? by Chris Singleton

I don’t buy CDs any more. And the reason why is simple: Spotify. Since deciding to part with £10 every month for the extraordinary privilege to be able to listen to vast chunks of rock history, or indeed new releases that tickle my fancy, the idea of hauling myself off the sofa to go down to a record store and spend moolah on a rotund lump of plastic just doesn’t really cut it for me anymore. It’s kind of sad, because I was the sort of kid who’d save up several weeks of pocket money just to buy one LP which I had ordered specifically, ten years in advance, from the local (and now-gone-bust) record shop. And besides which, I’m a musician – I’m meant to love limited-edition vinyl gatefold double albums made of gold bought from a hipster with a beard, man. In fact, I'm meant to be a hipster with a beard.