It’s not long before Santigold, name change in tow, decides to unleash a second album bound to steal a few shows. The follow up to 2008’s self-titled debut has a whole lot of expectancy heaped upon it, and so to ease herself from the pressure, Santi White took up a rather interesting idea. Forget massages and spas, Santi saw it fit to let her hair down by learning how to play royally-acclaimed sport polo. That involves riding around unstably on a horse and whacking a long mallet about towards a ball.
She portrayed a glamorous image on her debut but this video sees the popstar somewhat taking the glamour out of the sport due to her inexperience, despite taking to it well! This is all part of the exciting Heroes project, in which Vice and Vodafone 360 have teamed up to bring unique footage of some of the hottest acts. Those also involved are La Roux, Faris Badwan’s Lumina, Simian Mobile Disco and Lily Allen, amongst others.
To preview the startling experience of Santigold’s, click below. To see the whole event as well as exclusive footage of the aforementioned others, get yourself over to the Heroes site.
Those over at gigwise.com have just unleashed their very own “albums of the year” list, featuring many an artist in common with our list. That might have something to do with “our Jamie” having his say in the list, and contributing a few words to it too:
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Noah and The Whale: ‘First Days Of Spring’ (Vertigo)
– Laura Marling will come of much focus next year. Her own “F.U.R.B” will most likely make its appearance after, let’s face it, Charlie Fink made her sound like a malicious heartbreaker on ‘The First Days Of Spring’. Fink’s story is told with clichéd natural imagery, quite un-originally comparing a relationship to the four seasons. But the ambitious, building sonics conjured by orchestras and a tight band performance give this album something really beautiful to take pride in, a beauty that was even portrayed in a feature film that accompanied the album upon release.
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Animal Collective: ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’ (Domino) -
From the very start; building minimal acoustic pop and keeping to the notion of abstraction, to now; releasing full-blown pop music, Animal Collective have done nothing but grow. Their sound has developed like only a fortune-teller could see coming, their status has morphed from cult heroes to mass opinion-dividers. Those aware of ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ either feel betrayed by it, disgusted by it or more suitably, feel that the golden age of Avey Tare and co. has just arrived. A work of staggering brilliance.
———————————— Wild Beasts: ‘Two Dancers’ (Domino) –
Ditching intimidating flamboyance for something far more tender and heart-swept, Wild Beasts came of age in 2009 with their beautiful display of melancholy in ‘Two Dancers’. Maintaining lyrical wit and crossover vocals that previously warded off passers by, only this time supporting them with lighter, more cuddly melodies, they struck gold. This Kendal-bred four piece now look like a serious prospect for the long run and regardless of the excellence of ‘Two Dancers’, many are already expecting better – a feat that will surely be near impossible to achieve.
As word of mouth begins to seep in a whole host of new names that force us to press the play button out of sheer intrigue, it’s time to reflect back and throw away (I’m kidding) and piss on (still kidding) the acts we said deserved or could expect a good amount of success from over the last twelve months. Boy Crisis
Keeping it simple, we’re just listing the names we mentioned and categorising them into how much we think they achieved. Many acts still have more to come, some might have reached their peak already.
Red = Achieved a great deal, over-achieved even. Orange= Some success but not as much as they’d have hoped. Green= No real breakthrough. More to come or possibly to fade away.
Empire Of The Sun Florence and the Machine FrYars Grammatics Little Boots Maps + Alases Passion Pit We Have Band White Lies
Florence and the Machine, dis-regarding Lady GaGa for a second, had the finest year of all. She got the love, she received the love. Out of those above White Lies pleased and offended in large numbers. Empire Of the Sun, on paper, had a pretty catastrophic year, with one member still awol after six months. They still however managed to release a few stunning singles.
—————————– THE LIKELY LADS
Broken Records Dananananaykroyd Dinosaur Pile Up Esser
Hockey Fanfarlo Flashguns
Post War Years
Sky Larkin
That Ghost
Seeing green. Fanfarlo, arguably, reached the biggest audience out of those above with their stunning debut ‘Reservoir’. Dananananaykroyd always have been and always will be on the fringe. More to come from That Ghost and Dinosaur Pile Up one would think. The lesser said-er about Esser the better.
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Big things were expected of The Temper Trap, but not to the scale and rush of ‘Sweet Disposition’’s rise to success via. festival adverts and the UK’s longing for the kind of euphoric rush it provides. More to come from many of these; Pains of Being Pure At Heart and Let’s Wrestle especially, brought us some fantastic debuts and look to be in it for the long run.
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So an overwhelming rush of green. A lack of red (aside from our faces) and the occasional pleasant glow of orange. Why we didn’t mention La Roux, Lady GaGa, Tubelord, Ke$ha, we’ll never know. It just goes to show how pop music can play tricks on you. Who knows, maybe The Drums will be kidnapped and won’t release a top 10 album. Fat chance.
We at MFM are giving away a pair of tickets to one of Levi’s showcase ‘Ones to Watch’ shows. But you’ll have to be quick and in the London area to the show at Hoxton Bar and Grill that arrives this Monday. I repeat, THIS MONDAY. Set aside all plans and answer the question below for an opportunity to see the big names of the future!
For a chance to win a free pair of tickets to come see this stellar line-up, all you need to do is answer this criminally harsh question that has nothing to do with any of the band’s mentioned. Email mfmicblog@googlemail.com or leave answers in the comments – the winner will be randomly selected.
Q: Levi’s is a famous brand of what?
A. Energy drink
B. Jeans and Clothing
C. Multi-vitamin
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If you’re unlucky enough not to be our winner, remember you can always get tickets on the door on online via.
This at nature song is placed at the very heart of The Flaming Lips’ wonderful LP ‘Embryonic‘ and for some, it’s just another piece in the jigsaw whereas for others, it’s a complete turn-off. But we thought it good time to rate every single individual animal noise from Karen O that features on the song. Because this sort of shit needs ANALYSIS:
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I Can Be A…..
Frog: 3/10 (very un-frog-like, disappointing considering this is v.important) Bat: 1/10 (she’s laughing. WHY IS SHE LAUGHING???!) Bear: 5/10 (not particularly intimidating but she’s getting the gist at last) Cat: 7/10 (interesting range in sounds now. Picking up.) Lion: 6/10 (this girl cannot do intimidating, it would seem) Guillemonster: 9/10 (Whatever this is, this is QUITE THE SOUND) Warrior Indian: 8/10 (A peak in form, well done Karen, sounds very Warrior Indian-ish) Helicopter: 2/10 (Stupid laugh but it provokes laughter from Wayne Coyne = POINTS) Wolf: 7/10 (Not too shabby although this one isn’t very testing for her) Finch: 0/10 (Now it just sounds like she’s taking the piss. DOES SHE CARE??? Jaguar: 8/10 (Good diversity from other man-eating cats) Locust On The Bridge: 1/10 (Sigh) Monkey: 2/10 (This could have been done SO MUCH BETTER!) Tiger: 4/10 (Sounds too Lion-esque) Tornado: 3/10 (If I heard that coming, I would not crawl under my office desk) Knocking Down Your Wires: 5/10 (Decent improvisation.)
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AVERAGE SCORE: 4.43
Lack of effort on her part. Although she was thrawrted by some admittedly tricky animal/wind noise-parts, planning ahead wouldn’t have done her any harm. Let’s hope next time Karen O does animal noises on a song, we hear a more convincing frog in particular. Gutted.
Lily Allen, who has somewhat begun an artists-only stand against copyright infringement, in her words, on behalf of smaller acts who weren’t quite as lucky as her and didn’t get myspace in time, might be a little red-faced when this spreads…
Turns out, the majority of her original myspace post, voicing what was said to be “her” views, in a blog post titled ‘My Thoughts On Fire Sharing‘, was actually swiped from a technology journalist by the name of Mike Masnick, who coincidentally, wrote exactly the same words with the same spelling and grammar, over at Techdirt.com.
Now the fact that she claims to have “taken the time to write this” and the fact that she’s given no credit to the original writer, sort of screams hypocrisy loud and clear, doesn’t it? Don’t ruin these musician’s careers! I’m too busy stealing paragraphs! Now I’m not pledging that a founder of a torrent site should be released immediately whilst Allen takes his/her place, but this news does sort of soften the blow, doesn’t it..?
Matt Bellamy on drums, Chris on guitar and keys, Dom as the terrific front man, Muse have performed a bit of a prank on a German Italian TV station. Matt’s performance on the kit is something to behold, punching triumphantly for every musical bash and crash. But the best part is the interview that follows, showing that no producer in the studio, nor the host had even bothered to notice that things had gone a bit topsy-turvy.
All mp3s posted on Music Fan's Mic are posted after gaining the relevant permission.
Jamie Milton began Music Fan's Mic in 2006 as a means of publishing and collecting his reviews for other publications. Since then both Milton and Gareth O'Malley are co-running the blog and posting the best new music on a regular basis.
Boom-box-in':
Yeasayer - Odd Blood LP
Final Fantasy Heartland LP
Beach House - Teen Dream LP
These New Puritans - We Want War
Gigi - The Old Graveyard
jj - The xx Intro
Toro Y Moi - Causers of This LP
Liars - Sisterworld LP
Vampire Weekend - White Sky
Los Campesinos! - In Medias Res
MFM @ HYPEM
