CMC Radio: Under Your Spell

Our latest midweek playlist is finally here! It's punky, it's folky, it's psychedelic and it definitely rocks in an eclectic manner (or, at least, that's what I think). Click below to get into the slaying grooves of Sleigh Bells, Dum Dum Girls, Follow That Bird, The Duke Spirit, Smoke Fairies, Esben And The Witch, Cold War Kids, Prinzhorn Dance School, Liars, The Black Angels, Social Distortion and The Distillers:

CMC Radio 3: Under Your Spell

Here's the details of the 35:35, 12-track mixtape we have put together for your listening pleasure:

1. Tell 'Em - Sleigh Bells 

From "Treats", one of the debuts of the year!

2.  Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout - Dum Dum Girls

Same here - "I Will Be" is a magnificent debut and this is their latest single.

3.  Antlers - (Live Session on WOXY) - Follow That Bird

Session track from the band that was the star of Matador's ace compilation "Casual Victim Pile". Can't wait for their debut full-length!

4.  Everybody's Under Your Spell - The Duke Spirit

Great new track from a band that deserves huge success - It's from the forthcoming EP "Kusama" and you can get it here for free!

5. Hotel Room (Radio Edit) - Smoke Fairies

New single from the well-received debut album "Through Low Light And Trees"

6. Marching Song - Esben And The Witch

 It's a Danish fairy tale and a new Matador signing as well. This is the new single from their forthcoming debut album "Violet Cries", expected 31st January 2011.

7. Royal Blue - Cold War Kids

Another 2011 preview. The Kids third album "Mine Is Yours" is coming January 24th.

8. Seed, Crop, Harvest - Prinzhorn Dance School

I have a soft spot for bands that remind me of The Fall. Get their brand new single for free here.

9. Proud Evolution - Liars

Latest single off the rocking "Sisterworld" - one of the tracks and albums of the year!

10. Bad Vibrations - The Black Angels

Standout track off the psychedelically groovy "Phosphene Dream".

11. Through These Eyes - Social Distortion

This is punk rock, baby! The SoCal legends are on the way back with a new album in 2011 titled "Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes". Our selection is off 1996's "White Light, White Heat, White Trash".

12. I Understand - The Distillers

Another short, sharp punk rock shock for the finale from The Distillers' 2002 album "Sing Sing Death House".

Until the next C.M.C. Radio transmission, sometime next week (hopefully Wednesday), I leave you under the spell of Leila Moss and The Duke Spirit. Their new album is expected February 2011!

 

The Duke Spirit - Everybody's Under Your Spell

Best of 2008 (part 2): Top 40 tracks

A selection of some of the best singles and album tracks released in the first half of the year:

1. The step and the walk - THE DUKE SPIRIT
2. Swords of truth - THESE NEW PURITANS
3. Courtship dating - CRYSTAL CASTLES
4. To fix the gash in your head - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
5. Idle hands - THE GUTTER TWINS
6. Lie down here (& be my girl) - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
7. You bring me down - BLOOD RED SHOES
8. Cassius - FOALS
9. Cheap and cheerful - THE KILLS
10. Machine gun - PORTISHEAD
11. Time to pretend - MGMT
12. Salute your solution - THE RACONTEURS
13. Black cat - LADYTRON
14. I gotta fire - SPIRITUALIZED
15. Hang them all - TAPES 'N TAPES
16. Senior twilight stock replacer - THE FALL
17. I'm now - MUDHONEY
18. Living well is the best revenge - R.E.M.
19. Wucan - BLACK MOUNTAIN
20. I will possess your heart - DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
21. Juno - TOKYO POLICE CLUB
22. A-Punk - VAMPIRE WEEKEND
23. I sent away - BLACK FRANCIS
24. Walk it off - THE BREEDERS
25. The nest - SONS AND DAUGHTERS
26. Ready for the floor - HOT CHIP
27. Paper planes - M.I.A.
28. Lovely Allen - HOLY FUCK
29. Hallelujah - THE HELIO SEQUENCE
30. Half in love with Elizabeth - MYSTERY JETS
31. It ain’t easy - ROBERT FORSTER
32. You remind me of something (the glory goes) - BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY
33. The age of the understatement - THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS
34. The witch (made to measure) - CLINIC
35. Black hole - BE YOUR OWN PET
36. Bad kids - THE BLACK LIPS
37. Stupid now - BOB MOULD
38. Windows on the world - AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB
39. New York - CAT POWER
40. The devil - PJ HARVEY

In the Killer Tracks series we have already featured three of the top 5 songs here. Now it's a good time to add the videos for the other two: "The step and the walk", one of the highlights of The Duke Spirit's excellent second album "Neptune" and "Idle hands", the grunge epic off "Saturnalia", the product of Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli's collaboration as The Gutter Twins. Now, I'm not sure what esteemed video commentators Beavis and Butthead would make of the Duke Spirit's effort but I'm sure they would have loved the explosion heavy "Idle hands"! Fire is cool!

The Duke Spirit - The step and the walk


The Gutter Twins - Idle hands

Best albums of January - February 2008

What have I been up to in the first couple of months of 2008 you ask? Trying to listen to as many albums from last year as possible in order to perfect the Best of 2007 list, as you can easily understand by taking a look at the Top 20 below. 

 

Albums by the likes of Magik Markers, Future Of The Left, Black Lips, Holy Fuck, Wu-Tang Clan and several others definitely deserve a place in any self-respecting year-end list. And there will certainly be more late discoveries in next month's list, too. But the first great albums of 2008 start to arrive as well, the best of them being "Neptune", the second full-length by The Duke Spirit. The British band relocated to the California desert to record with Chris Goss the follow up to their amazing 2005 debut "Cuts across the land". The result is the kind of rare, magical desert rock, previously only heard in the Desert Sessions recorded in the same studio with Queens Of The Stone Age and PJ Harvey a few years back. A fact that adds weight to my argument that Liela Moss is the new indie-rock queen and we should all bow down and pay our respects!

 

Top 20 Albums

1.  Neptune - THE DUKE SPIRIT
2.   Jukebox - CAT POWER
3.   This Gift - SONS AND DAUGHTERS
4.   In The Future - BLACK MOUNTAIN
5.   Boss - MAGIK MARKERS
6.   Curses! - FUTURE OF THE LEFT
7.   Good Bad Not Evil - BLACK LIPS
8.   LP - HOLY FUCK
9.   Made In The Dark - HOT CHIP
10. 8 Diagrams - WU-TANG CLAN
11. Pre-Emptive False Rapture - CHROME HOOF
12. Lion The Girl - MIDNIGHT MOVIES
13. Friend And Foe - MENOMENA
14. In Our Bedroom After The War - STARS
15. Wooden Shjips - WOODEN SHJIPS
16. Mirrored - BATTLES
17. Ash Wednesday - ELVIS PERKINS
18. We Can Create - MAPS
19. Attack Decay Sustain Release - SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO
20. Rough Trade Shops Counter Culture 07 - VARIOUS ARTISTS

The Duke Spirit - The Step and Walk