TANGLED HAIR I'M CALMER THAN YOU ARE

Guitar music is in a bit of a slump at the moment - or so it seems. Everyone is loving electronic things, myself included, but whatever happened to the good old fashioned three piece? Three piece, you know? Not a three piece suit, nor a three piece suite, but a three piece band. A person on bass, another on guitar, and another on drums - one or more of them sing. It's a romantic image, nostalgic even, like the memory of listening to Blink 182 and noticing for the first time that Mark and Tom were taking it in turns to sing. Or like... well, who cares. Tangled Hair is a good three piece.

Above is their video promoting their Japan Tour 2012, featuring a song from their EP Apples, 'I'm Calmer Than You Are'. It's great. Great song. Complicated rhythms abound thanks to some intricate, and frankly very impressive drumming, but this is the feature piece for guitar work that is sometimes as simple as whacking one chord for a few bars. Even the guitar is filled with contrast, moving from that simplicity to splash around with some fabulous guitar tapping (always impresses me) and deliciously delicate noodling. The bass moves up and down in waves, sometimes following the guitar, sometimes bringing up the rear with an earthy groove that sounds oh so very marvelous in your eardrums.

That's them playing another song, 'Forty Winks', live at Banquet Records in Kingston (my ends). The technical wizardry involved in creating a song like this is nothing short of very cool - the groove in this song is too head-boppable for words.

I listened to the rest of Apples. It's well, well worth a listen. I sincerely recommend it - check their Bandcamp page (below) to do so. Or search on Spotify if you have it.

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Tangled Hair on Facebook
Tangled Hair on Twitter
Tangled Hair on Bandcamp
Tangled Hair's official site

BEAT CONNECTION SAOLA + INVISIBLE CITIES

This is the sound of Beat Connection, a Seattle-bred band touting themselves as "Tropical Psychedelic Pop" - I'd say that their self-diagnosis is quite accurate. If you like comparisons — if that's your thing, if that's what you're into, if it makes you click the play button — then think of them as hybrid of Delphic / Friendly Fires / Vampire Weekend, except less of the pop and more of the tropico-psychedelic or psycho-tropical. The song above, the dance-driving, samba-toting, delectably rhythmic 'Saolo', is a perfect example of the kind of wooden-hut-and-tiki-lights vibe that weaves its way through all of the music on their album The Palace Garden, released 6th August this year. It's a song that moves from the daylight chillfest of holidays in the sun to the glowing humidity of an equatorial night in the space of 3 minutes 37 seconds.

In the above song, 'Invisible Cities' the vocals of the singer are shown off. It's decidedly a more sombre affair than 'Saolo', though still full of afrobeat rhythms and beautiful harmonies that turn it into a soaring dreamtime chillout session. These two show the range of Beat Connection: one minute you're jumping up and down, another you're swaying or nodding your head. It's a shame that nobody seems to have picked up on these guys because their album The Palace Gardens is full of more chilled, tropical electro that shows a side of the band that's rather partial to a bit of dancefloor storming: 'Think Feel' (featuring guest vocals from graphic designer Chelsey Scheffe) illustrates this more than adequately - listen to that HERE.

Show these guys some love and share their sounds with your friends!

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Beat Connection on Facebook
Beat Connection on Twitter
Beat Connection on Myspace
Beat Connection on SoundCloud
Beat Connection's official site

VILLAGERS THE WAVES

This is 'The Waves' by Villagers. It's released October 22nd. Currently a lot of people like it. Soon, a lot more people will like it. Check out their official site, their Facebook page and their Twitter account, as well as their YouTube channel. Happy listening. It's a doozie.

JOSIE CHARLWOOD TURNING TABLES (ADELE COVER)

I first heard about the lovely Josie Charlwood last September, when I wrote about her amazing, looped cover of Gorillaz' 'Feel Good Inc'. Not only was it a great song, but it came from an artist who knew the value of social media, utilising the power of the bottom-up approach to getting her music out their. I say bottom-up because it's not top-down; i.e. it's not eaten up by a huge record label and then regurgitated over the masses. No. The masses hear it first. And then the already engorged stomachs of huge record labels begin rumbling like the Clashing Rocks in Jason and the Argonauts. Best way to do it, in my opinion.

I'm happy to say that as of earlier today, Josie Charlwood has put a new recorded studio cover on SoundCloud. It's a pure, stripped-back cover of Adele's moving 'Turning Tables'. A couple of days ago, in fact, she posted a video of herself performing the song live.

It's a deliciously humble treatment of the track, with Josie's voice coming across like an honest breeze, pretty as it is powerful.


The bare bones piano and voice combination brings much more emotion to the song, leaving the flash, big-cost productions in the dust. Josie Charlwood's vocals, in a similar sense, are not nuanced with trills or vibrato, nor a 'put-on' style warble à la Ellie Goulding (for example), but instead are very much coming from her own charming voice. Bravo for that, seriously, because it sounds wonderful.

So, here's that SoundCloud version. You can buy this track directly by clicking on 'buy'.



With a sizable back-catalogue already floating behind her like various accolades of musical prowess, there's already a lot to Josie Charlwood than just her voice and her piano. Discover more of her music and, once you've whet your appetite enough, sit tight and wait for her next assuredly impending release. Looking forward to it.

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• Check out Josie Charlwood on Facebook
• More of her stunning music (covers and originals) on SoundCloud
• She is also on Bandcamp
• Josie Charlwood's YouTube channel!
• Follow Josie Charlwood on Twitter

JULY PLAYLIST

Featured some pretty pretty cool music over the past month. July has come and gone and, new or not, the music on the YES/NO radar has been top quality. Top 3 stand-out pieces:

Destiny's Child - Say My Name (Cyril Hahn remix)
A super reworking of a song that's already ingrained in our collective psyche like a kid's head stuck between railings. A must-listen. Chilled nostalgia.

Angel Haze - Werkin' Girls
Huge song from upcoming, pretty-much-on-the-verge of exploding rapper, Angel Haze. This song demonstrates an effortless and aggressive lyrical flow. Will bowl you over.

Gentleman Drivers - Feroce
A powerful song from a French electro group. Being still being relatively new I look forward to hearing more from them. Abrasive electronic mayhem.

But I've also been kind enough to create a YouTube playlist for all of the songs I've featured in July. You like our taste in music? Then spend a chunk of your day relaxing, rocking out, getting paranoid, and charging your batteries to the songs we think you should hear:

JULY PLAYLIST FOR YES/NO MUSIC
Includes:

Gentleman Drivers - Feroce
The Flaming Lips feat. Ke$ha - 2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)
Simian Mobile Disco - A Species Out Of Control
Unison - Brothers & Sisters
Azari & III - Into The Night
Fredrik - Chrome Cavities
[ Video Game Music ] - Top Gear (SNES)
Mess Me - Call
Tame Impala - Apocalypse Dreams
Para One - You
Para One feat. Jaw - When The Night
SBTRKT - Gloss
dOP - The Hype
dOP - Talk Show
Burns - Lies
The Knocks & Fred Falke - Geronimo
Claude VonStroke feat. Jaw - Le Fantôme
The Chemical Brothers - Theme For Velodrome
Tamaryn - I'm Gone
Angel Haze - New York
Angel Haze - Werkin' Girls
alt-J - Tessellate
alt-J - Intro
alt-J - Breezeblocks
Destiny's Child - Say My Name (Cyril Hahn remix)
Mariah Carey - Touch My Body (Cyril Hahn remix)
Ritualz - Rhythmic Release
Crystal Castles - Plague
Visitor - Coming Home // RNB teaser

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And please, stick around. August awaits.