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.

VISITOR RNB

Wow. The epicality of this radical track by Visitor is just too much to bear. It's certainly pretty cool, and definitely something that I will look forward to hearing more of. Before you even listen to the music, the artwork to the right of this silly bit of writing will tell you that: yes, this will be a good track. It will be. Just look at it. Of course it will be. Why would anybody spend time creating a cool little graphic like that for music that is no good?

So this is 'RNB' by Visitor. They got a bit of traction recently when Jacques Lu Cont who included them in a mini-mix for Annie Mac - perfect when their EP, Coming Home // RNB, is due for launch on 10th September. This will come ahead of a full album launch - details of which I'm sure will come our way soon.

Onto the song itself. It seems to be aligned with the style of retro 80s-ness that is permeating a lot of electronic music at the moment - especially any of the songs associated with the wonderful film Drive. All the right elements are there: we have that rigid bass synth fuzzing in the background, a bit of standing-on-a-cliff guitar solo stuff, the couldn't-be-anything-but-80s drums, some hollow flute synth hopping around over the top, and most importantly - glittering, mood-making bells.



Second-half of the song seems to, using the same sounds, become more of a majestically huge, electronic pop-rock ballad. The vocals are powerfully catchy and exude a sense of the dreaded sing-a-long - not dreaded really, but I just liked the way that sounded. All in all a track to enjoy and headbang to whilst playing some games on the Sega Megadrive or reminiscing about The NeverEnding Story. Or just rocking out in your own private dreamworld. Love this. What an atmosphere it makes!

Like it? Then remember: Visitor Coming Home // RNB EP out 10th September.

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• More Visitor sounds on SoundCloud
• Here is their official site
• This is Visitor's Facebook page
• Follow Visitor on Twitter
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CRYSTAL CASTLES PLAGUE

I was going to hold back on posting this, but I was just told by someone that they heard it on the radio. As the YES/NO blurb reads, it's all about new stuff. Gotta drop it like it's hot yo.

And this is as hot as a witch holding hot iron rods burning at the stake, I have to say. That is: hot and scary.

Crystal Castles have gone from strength to strength. Starting off with their self-titled debut, the duo - Ethan Kath and Alice Glass - began with near-industrial, electronic noise music. This is essentially electro with a DIY/punk aesthetic. It was all very dystopian, all very like broken robots in a grotty 8-bit club playing chiptune rave music. It was different, brutal, energetic. Key tracks for this sound were the devastating 'Alice Practice', the mental 'XXZXCUZX Me', and the painfully good 'Courtship Dating', a reworking of a HEALTH song.

But beginning with their second self-titled album (referred to as Crystal Castles II), they began to veer towards the dark side. People call it drone, witch house, goth trance, blah blah blah. It is what it is and it's dark and electronic, moody and trance-like. Ethan Kath seemed to have ditched his modified synthesiser (he stuck a chip from an Atari soundboard in there to get those bubbly bleeps you hear on their first album) in favour of a certain, piercing Dracula-organ-cum-heavy-trance sound.

And, really, it's no different with their latest: 'Plague'.



In fact, it is a bit different. It's actually more eerily gothic than before. Beginning with a heady bit of drone that wouldn't sound out of place in the basically unlistenable Mater Suspiria Vision's repertoire. However, this soon turns into a distortion-laden slice of energy, complete with Alice's trademark yelps and screams in the background. The quieter parts of this song have seen Alice also sing melodically, something I've never heard before. It's a nice change and a different dynamic - something the duo can use to sculpt very different songs this time around.

The beat is great: though the kick is crazy, the snare is slow and leaves the rhythm hanging in the air, swaying to and fro above the breathy synth work of Ethan. There is some amount of noise and industrialism in here, as with their first album, with the section towards the end of the song including what sounds like a sample of an angle grinder or something as equally sickening yet satisfying to hear.

This song makes you clench your teeth and fit on the floor like you just don't care. Gone is the mashed potato, the twist, even Soulja Boy's Superman dance. This marks the rise of the epileptic. It's all I can imagine when I listen. Kind of like a cross between moshing and rigor mortis.

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• More Crystal Castles music on their SoundCloud
• Crystal Castles on Facebook
• Crystal Castles official site
• Here's the Wikipedia page for Crystal Castles
• Crystal Castles Youtube channel
• Crystal Castles... Myspace
• Follow Crystal Castles on Twitter
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