PEACE WRAITH

Something nice and easy for this morning. Something by a band with a name that corresponds to many a person's wish for the world: Peace. You won't exactly get peace by listening to Peace, but you will get a taster of a happier life where people party nicely with each other and where everybody is fashionable, but not so fashionable as to cause fallings-out between the cuttingly fashionable and the pinprickingly stylish. Everyone's as they are and everything's how it should be.

Got carried away, sorry.

Here is Peace with new single 'Wraith'. Despite the name, there is actually nothing wraith-ful nor phantom-like nor ghost-esque about this song. There's a great number of merits to this song, which shows itself instantly as a pop-fuelled indie-type maraca-shaking offbeat-guitar hook kind of a song, with vocals that perform some level of acrobatics against that backdrop. The chorus is delightfully infectious and it has been cycling, wrapped in tiki lights, around my head for most of the morning. Right away, you could make a comparison between that descending guitar lick that is like the song's frontispiece and the kinds of melodies you find in songs by the likes of Foals, and other tempo-bending acts that I can't list right now.

However, the overall pop of 'Wraith' is very much different to a band such as Foals, taking Peace across a threshold that marks a transition between unknown and soon-to-be-known - thanks, in part I suppose, to a record deal with Columbia Records. Good on them!

Utterly inoffensive, though at the same time not something that I am wetting myself about, this band certainly has the potential to conquer the indie-pop palaces of the world and win over many a heart and mind. And let them - they are good enough to deserve any success that comes their way.

Their Delicious EP is out now.
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Peace's official site

VILLAGERS NOTHING ARRIVED

Last time we spoke about Villagers it was for their song 'The Waves', which actually is wildly different to the song that we're talking about today: 'Nothing Arrived'. Both songs, as far as I am aware, come from their album {Awayland} scheduled for release on 14th January 2013 (UK - and 9th April for USA), but both couldn't be more different. Whilst 'The Waves' combines acoustic sounds with electro-pop beats and synthy seasonings for a zeitgeistical, collage-like sound, 'Nothing Arrived' arrives on a wagon flying the flag of folk - in a way.

That's not to say that 'Nothing Arrived' isn't without its merits, however. With a chorus that soars in harmonies and a verse that shows off the clear, sharp tones of the vocals, it's an anthemic kind of song in that the sing-along elements are all there: namely, catchy melodies. And those hooks are in everything from that vocal of well-written lyrics, to the nearly honky-tonk piano and the have-I-heard-this-before chords of the guitar.

Whilst it starts like a little ditty, it certainly delivers with a climactical last part that brings all instruments up to an intense volume, everything becoming layered, strings slicing in here and there, to create this wonderful sound that, ironically considering the title of the song, sounds as if something definitely has arrived - indeed, that last part turns it from a morsel into a condensed feast.

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Villagers' official site
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TOYS NOISE [NATURAL PLASTIC EP]

It's amazing what you can miss out on when you simply just don't know what you're missing out on - if that makes any sense. Being recommended a song here and there is a good way to keep up with not just new music, but music that people themselves have taken a liking to in recent months, serving a dual purpose. In that way, I have been very quickly and effectively been won over by the sounds of Paris-based TOYS.

Their debut EP, Natural Plastic came out 10th September this year, and featured two original songs, 'Noise' and 'T-O-M', and two remixes of 'Noise'. It's a massively threadbare introduction to some new talent that sounds like it could get very big indeed. Therefore I am waiting with anticipation for something new from TOYS, whenever that may be.

For now, even just 'Noise' will suffice. It's a song with a unique sound that could be listened to any number of times without growing any less fond of it at all. The video for the song is below, and was filmed around the Barbès-Rochechouart Mètro station in Paris - an area that's notoriously rough and that clearly holds some kind of nostalgic meaning for the duo who make up TOYS: Paul Prier and Bastien Doremus. Have a listen.

With a bassline that could have been lifted right out of a dub song, and a beat that naturally locks in with that offbeat bass to create a head-nodding sensation of a track with an unreal groove, 'Noise' is an instant hit from its very beginnings. Add to this the frenetic analogue synth that dips in and out like a bizarre, scratchy, modular fanfare, and you have a very different-sounding song. The vocals, too, like an announcement hold up against these competing sounds wonderfully with a chunky degree of feeling. I can't tire of listening to it, honestly.

The second original of the EP, 'T-O-M', is a much more laid-back affair. It bursts open like an 80s slow-jam, with a get-on-down bassline that gradually gives way to effortless, near-whispering vocals, before a sensual synth solos over the top, making everything sound like the after-disco vibe outside a disco from Streets Of Rage 2 that may never have existed at all. It's all palm trees and neon signs and you can listen to it here.

As for the remixes of 'Noise', you can listen to those below. The first, by Fausto Garraud, turns the original into a galloping deep house number, adding in some extra funk with a constant, rumbling bass. The second, by Sayem, keeps closer to original but speeds it up a little, features a crunchy interlude, makes use of spaces in between sound, before launching into a full-on electro mash in the second half that puts extra meat on the original.

As I said earlier, I am eagerly anticipating more from TOYS after their teasingly short Natural Plastic EP and I hope, after listening to them, so will you be too.

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TOYS on Facebook
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TEENAGE SWEATER KEWL EP

I have been listening to this new Teenage Sweater EP Kewl whilst watching the live stream of cats that is currently doing the rounds - if you haven't seen it yet, get to bloody see it. Anyway, that is beside the point. The point is that here's some nice music for a slow Friday afternoon.

Coming from California, the music of Teenage Sweater on this EP is reflective of the lazy languishing sunny days by the beach that I am sure typifies many a day in many a Californian's life, the heat bearing down, the sea, the wide roads... I can't say for sure, but for me it evokes that kind of inescapable landscape. Of course, as with every other place in the world, there are seasons by the sea - some of them are nicer than others. This has been explored in the Kewl EP, with a sound that is equal amounts idyllically carefree and almost heartrending.

The latter is perhaps best illustrated in the last song of the EP, the aptly named, depressing last-dance-sounding 'Bummer Summer'. The long and quite often boring days of summer can often feel like the sound of this song, drawn out, fuzzy, cyclical. The other side of the coin can be heard in the touching sounds of opener 'Coconut Water', sweet with that xylophone sound thrown into the mix. Overall, the lo-fi, shoegaze, old-drum-machine aesthetic in which these songs are soaked works well for all dynamics - slow, as well as fast and boppy, like the fast pogo-sticker 'SWEAT', almost the antithesis of a surf song, but with all the right elements: a mean melody, hard-working drums, no vocals (the last few seconds of this one are ace).

The composition of 'Bored Cop In A Small Town' is by far the best, in my opinion, featuring the best opening-up of sound on the EP, the perfect mix of a wall of distortion decorated with synths and that nearly-drowned vocal, that is also at its best in the dirge-like, yet bittersweet 'Oceans And Seas'.

So if you like old, old-sounding drum machines, New Order, lo-fi, shoegaze, chillwave, then Teenage Sweater is for you. Listen below. The EP is out now.

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Teenage Sweater on Facebook
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PARA ONE WHEN THE NIGHT FEAT JAW

Since we wrote about this song earlier this summer, someone's been hard at work making an official video for it. Now, without further ado, here it is:

As I said last time, there's a lot of funk going on here. Funk meets 21st century electro, they have an affair, they elope, they make music in urban disco landscapes. A lovely mix of big-lunged, soulful vocals, slappy bass and zingy synth, all rolled into a spring roll of lurid night time colours and the vague promises that come with them. In a word: lovely.

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