music
The video for the brilliant Casual Sex's Nothing on Earth has just been unveiled. The track finds them channeling late-70s New York Mutant Disco to the backdrop of a nocturnal Glasgow. The song is taken from their forthcoming The Bastard Beat EP , to be released on We Can Still Picnic and launched on 22 November at Nice'N'Sleazy. Check. It. Out.
Next month sees the release of a very special book indeed, Sam Knee's A Scene In Between: Tripping Through the Fashions of UK Indie Music. If anything 'book' seems barely an adequate descriptor, it's a labour of love, a precious document - something like that. Blasted will have an interview with Mr Knee up on the site within the next week, but until then we've got an exclusive (never before seen) photo of the Shop Assistants to whet your appetite. Cheers Sam!
The Shop Assistants, 1985. Photo by Martin Whitehead. Courtesy of Sam Knee.
Last year Glasgow’s own Volcanic Tongue, specialists in the most underground music going, run by The Wire contributor David Keenan and experimental musician Heather Leigh Murray. This year, it’s gone global, albeit without consultation with the original proponents. Original or not, as Blasted readers will no doubt agree, anything that gets people into real record shops and buying music that you can – kinda, sorta – actually touch is definitely a good thing.
So, the first worldwide Cassette Store Day is happening tomorrow in shops across the UK, Europe, the USA and even at one phonographic emporium in Argentina. There are releases by such Blasted favourites as The Proper Ornaments, Molly Nilsson, Efterklang, and many others. A particular highlight is bound to be The Pastels’ Summer Rain retrospective of “Some of [their] favourite music [they’ve] made for Domino, starting around 1995 with Mobile Safari and ending with songs from the Slow Summits sessions”, the title track can be heard below.
We're really pleased to announce The Pastels participation in the inaugural Cassette Store Day, this Saturday, 7 September. They've compiled a unique C60 cassette of some of their favourite Pastels music, and it's called Summer Rain after the track of the same name taken from current album Slow Summits.
After releasing numerous EPs and singles over the last few years, Camella Lobo's Tropic of Cancer will finally release its debut album, Restless Idylls, on the continually awe-inspiring Blackest Ever Black. The album and preceding 7", More Alone, sees TOC's return to the label after a series of singles and EPs (including a split 12" with HTRK) on the likes of Ghostly International and Karl O'Connor(AKA Regis)'s Downwards. O' Connor has, incidentally, provided additional production on both the album and single; the former is released on 23 September with the latter preceding it in late July. You can stream More Alone via SoundCloud below.
7" mix of Tropic of Cancer's 'More Alone', a track which features in different form on the forthcoming album Restless Idylls . The one-sided 'More Alone' 7" will be released in August 2013 on Blackest Ever Black. Restless Idylls follows on September 23 on double-vinyl, CD and digital formats.
Image courtesy of Blackest Ever Black
Earlier this year Glasgow/Manchester's POST had our Andrew R. Hill in raptures with the digital release of their debut mini-album Cavalcade, which is now receiving a much deserved physical release on (the ever-excellent) We Can Still Picnic. The live launch for this gem of a record is this Friday at Glasgow's Nice'N'Sleazy - doors are 1930, and it's a fiver on the door or £3 in advance from Monorail Music or Tickets Scotland. Support comes from gauzy popsters The Yawns and the enigmatic Spread Eagle. So (if you're in the area...or even if you aren't) make sure you grab the chance to catch one of the country's most exciting new bands in action, and be sure to pick up an album while you're at it.
Our new single, out on blue fur/we can still picnic records on 16th July 2012.
20 April is this year’s Record Store Day, the day of the year that music fans and musicians celebrate their love of those most wondrous spaces – independent record shops. Since 2007 the event has grown and grown, with record shops across the world opening their doors (often early) to incredibly lengthy queues, hosting in-store performance and offering exclusive releases.
This year’s exclusive releases are of a particularly high standard (a full list can be found on the RSD website) but one that has particularly caught our ear is Vic Godard’s Caught in Midstream 7”, produced at West Heath Yard by Edwyn Collins compatriot Seb Lewsley, and released on Collins’ label AED Records. Both sides of the 45 come from the sessions for the follow up to 1979 Now (the follow up to 1978 Now) a future release of another ‘lost’ Subway Sect album that saw them in their influential (but largely undocumented) Northern Soul phase.
Godard will also be playing a special set of Velvet Underground songs for RSD at Mono in Glasgow with the inimitable Sexual Objects. World Peace and Ela Orleans are also playing and Deena E. Jacobs, David Barbarossa, Jenny Rollo and The Brogues will be DJ-ing throughout the day.
Listen to A. Caught In Midstream: Vic Godard & Subway Sect by Analogue Enhanced Digital | Explore the largest community of artists, bands, podcasters and creators of music & audio.
Listen to B. You Bring Out The Demon In Me: Vic Godard & Subway Sect by Analogue Enhanced Digital | Explore the largest community of artists, bands, podcasters and creators of music & audio.
On a related note, Edwyn Collins will also be releasing a 7” with The Heartbreaks for RSD, and all of Orange Juice’s wonderful LPs are to be re-released on vinyl for this celebratory day. Collins is currently on tour and is in fine fettle, as we can attest to, having seen him at Glasgow’s ABC last night. Tears may have been shed.
Wherever you are and whatever you’re into, independent record shops are important for so many reasons, get along to your local (or locals) tomorrow if you can, even if it’s just to get reacquainted with that smell (you know what we’re talking about).
We've been a little bit slow to post this so no doubt many of you have heard it already, but we couldn't risk this wonderful slice of sun-infused hard pop escaping anyone's attention. The Pastels are one of Blasted's favourite bands and we can barely contain our excitement at the prospect of hearing new album Slow Summits, due out on Domino Records on 27 May. There's a taster in the form of the audio for first single, Check My Heart, below. Maybe the summer's on its way after all.
The Pastels new single "Check My Heart" is out April 08, 2013, click here to order: http://smarturl.it/checkmyheart The singles appears on the new album (first album in 15 years!) 'Slow Summits' and can be pre-orderd here: http://www.dominorecordco.com/slowsummits http://www.thepastels.org/ http://www.dominorecordco.com/artists/the-pastels/ https://twitter.com/pastels_the
