Features

Billie The Vision and The Dancers, The Shins, Radio Dept - Fringe Benefits:Dance like there's Nobody Watching.

Clark Summers 26/11/2006

I've already posted at length in my personal journal about how much I love last.fm and like all great relationships ours continues to blossom. Yesterday I discovered the quite lovely indie pop sounds of Billie the Vision and The Dancers thanks to the aforementioned site and I really can't thank them enough. B.T.V.A.T.D. are officially the twee-est new band i've discovered this year but also one of the best. Their jangly brand of guitar pop echoes that of fellow Swedes and F.B. faves Suburban Kids With Biblical Names. 'Summercat' is already emerging as a particular favourite, it's the perfect tune to bop along to as the sun puts in a brief appearance. It's been cold and rainy over here lately so we need all the sunshine pop goodness we can get. To put it in purely mathematical terms - slightly effete Scandi vocals + ramshackle rhythm section + jingle jangle guitars = indiepop gold. Judge for yourself....


Billie the Vision & The Dancers - Summercat (mp3)

Billie the Vision & The Dancers - I'm Pablo (mp3)

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - Rent a Wreck (mp3)

While we're on a swede-pop tip it's probably an apt time to point you in the direction of this rather splendid number from Labrador/Track and Field's - The Radio Dept. New album 'Pet Grief' sounds a bit like the Pet Shop Boys on valium or Slowdive in full-on dream pop mode. This time out the band have indulged their electronica side a little more while cutting back on the MBV styled fuzzy-distortion that marked out 'Lesser Matters' as a nu-gaze classic. Full marks to the divine Sofia Coppola for including three tracks on the quite sumptuous two-disc Marie Antoinette soundtrack - surely an odds on bet for compilation of the year.


The Radio Dept. - The Worst Taste In Music (Extended) (mp3)

EDIT: In breaking news.... Transgressive will be releasing the third album from The Shins in the UK! Hurrah! This from the Transgressive myspace blog...
"The Shins. Their astounding third album will be released on Transgressive...
... On January 29th, with the fabulous 'Phantom Limb' single arriving a week before.All of us at Transgressive are simply shivering with excitement - it's another classic album from America's most important pop band... did you know their other astounding albums - 'Oh, Inverted World' and 'Chutes Too Narrow' (check them out, via subpop.com, now!) - have now sold over a million copies worldwide?Wowee...Stay tuned for lots of news as we get it, especially re: live-dates and all sorts more...".

Fringe Benefits is a online news music and mp3 blog, it can be found here