on Wednesday 17 September 2008
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Come Saturday (Fortuna Pop!)
A lovely blast of summery noise pop, contagious as pop music gets with its ooooo-ee-oooo’s and its laid back slacker cool attitude. With the melodic charm of the Lucksmiths getting covered by the Shop Assistants this is a summer classic certain to bring a smile to your face and have you dancing your socks off at every indie disco you attend between now and forever.

El Ten Eleven - These Promises Are Being Videotaped
Dianogah – qhnnnl

A refreshing pair of “post-rock”ish bands, perhaps both veer more towards math rock. El Ten Eleven remind me of two of my favourite discoveries, back in the day when I’d purchase albums simply based on how much I liked the look of the cover, State River Widening & 33.3. Simple and understated, staccato melodies picked out on deep strings.
These Promises Are Being Videotaped, the latest offering from El Ten Eleven sees a move towards dance, like Justice covering Tortoise, and is a successful attempt at pushing the boundaries of “instrumental” music. Both their previous albums are less beat driven but come highly recommended.
Dianogah’s strangely titled qhnnnl is a dreamy autumnal album, some tracks are more “Alternative/American Indie” but the unusual core set up of two basses and a drummer makes for an interesting listen. When they are instrumental they are at their strongest particularly on the gorgeous Andrew Jackson, don’t be fooled by the Always Look on the Bright Side of Life intro, this is a dreamy number with delicately arranged strings that add the garnish to an already superb musical offering. On A Breaks B they could be mistaken for the Delgados, which is no bad thing in my eyes. Sprinter is lovely too, easily the best of the vocal tracks, again reminiscent of the Delgados Emma Pollack, though please don’t expect a new Delgados album of smooth Scottish pop, this is definitely “instrumental” and “math-y” but tuneful and upbeat in its approach, maybe in the same way that the aforementioned Scots always had a lovely bass line holding their songs together.
Certainly two bands well worth your careful attention.



And finally a mention of two rather welcome returns, guitar shredder Marnie Stern and indie pop anarchists Los Campesinos...i like them both rather alot :) :)
Marnie Stern - Prime mp3