This is the new single from Maika Makovski. Have a listen and tell us what you think.

Maika Makovski – Lava Love.mp3

[See post to listen to audio]

myspace.com/maikamakovski

Thanks to Liz @ this blog for the photo

What: Tom Williams & The Boat – Concentrate Launch Party
Where: The Old Blue Last, 38 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3ES? – 020 7739 7033?
When: 8pm, TONIGHT

Come with us on a journey through time and space to…. The Old Blue Last. Tom & his boat launch their fantastic new single tonight and it’s promising to be a great night. See you there?

You can buy Concentrate here.

This is Stornoway performing their brilliant new single I Saw You Blink in Oxford’s Botanical Gardens. The single is out on March 15th and the band are touring throughout April and May.

April
6th An Tobar, Mull, Scotland
7th Fired Art, Fort William
8th Mad Hatters, Inverness, Scotland
9th Woodlands, Stornoway, Scotland
10th Arch, Ullapool
11th Snafu, Aberdeen, Scotland
13th King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow
14th BlackBox Belfast, Northern Ireland
16th Crawdaddy, Dublin
17th Roisin Dubh, Galway
18th Savoy, Cork
30th Bergenfest, Bergen

May
10th Fusion @ University of Sheffield Student Union, Sheffield*
11th University of York Student Union, York*
12th University – Club Academy, Manchester*
13th Hare and Hounds, Birmingham*
20th ULU, London*
* Support on these dates is Tom Williams & The Boat

myspace.com/stornoway
myspace.com/WilliamsTomMusic

Kate Nash – Love You More.mp3

[See post to listen to audio]

Born Ruffians – Sole Brother.mp3

[See post to listen to audio]

Foals – Spanish Sahara.mp3

[See post to listen to audio]

Marina & The Diamonds – Shampain.mp3

[See post to listen to audio]

Eugene McGuinness & The Lizards – Bugjuice.mp3

[See post to listen to audio]

The Strangeboys – Be Brave.mp3

[See post to listen to audio]

Thanks to Michael at They Shoot Music Don’t They for sending me this awesome video session that Pete & The Pirates did for them. I think a vaulted cellar is the perfect setting for Blood Gets Thin, here’s the video.

You can see this and Mr Understanding (performed in two phone booths) in beautiful HD over on their website www.theyshootmusic.at.

Folkestone's marshmallow shaped Quarterhouse venue

BBC Kent Introducing’s 2nd Birthday Party
Friday March 5th @ The Quarterhouse, Tontine Street, Folkestone [map]
Tickets £6.00 01303 858500 or at quarterhouse.co.uk

This Friday Folkestone’s Quarterhouse venue will host a night of Kent music to celebrate BBC Kent Introducing’s 2nd birthday party.

Headlining is Tom Williams & The Boat whose single Concentrate has been making waves over at Radio 1 courtesy of Huw Stephens. You’ll also see Folkestone’s very own Elephants, Floors and Walls, Polka Party and Krissy & The Jackdaws as well as a DJ set by producer Jacob Plant.

Listen to BBC Kent Introducing tonight from 8pm on BBC Radio Kent to hear presenter Jacob Rickard talking to Tom from Tom Williams & The Boat.

Ellie Goulding – Lights
01/03/2010, Polydor
Buy the CD

Twenty three year old Ellie Goulding hails from the Welsh town of Powys. Her journey towards the Radio 1 A list has been a remarkably swift one. She made her début on hypem.com a a little over a year ago and is indeed a talented lass but her music suffers from a distinct lack of personality. So how is it that she beat the outstanding competition to take gold in the BBC Sound Of 2010 poll and the Brits Critics Choice award? Perhaps Lights will cast aside the doubters and cement Ellie as a major player in the pop scene.

The first thing to establish about Miss Goulding is that she is in no way a folk musician. There is nothing folk about her music. She is basically telling people this as so to hide the fact that she is a Singer-Songwriter. Simple as that. Secondly, she is not making original, groundbreaking music. James Yuill has been doing this for years, and he is much better at it. She is a girl with a guitar with a producer with a synthesizer. Essentially, this is the essence of Ellie Goulding’s music.

At her best, Ellie has made tracks like ‘Starry Eyed’, ‘Under The Sheets’,’ Wish I Stayed’ and ‘This Love (Will Be Your Downfall)’ which have the typical electro-pop charm that brought La Roux and Little Boots into the limelight, but none of the personality. The tracks are well written and are performed well, but there is nothing particularly mind-blowing about any of them, which is not exactly what you’d expect from an awards magnet such as EG.

At her worst, she sounds like she should be writing for musicals. ‘The Writer’ for instance, is so Disney it hurts. I could see this as either an X Factor single, or a song used in an Aladdin remake, neither of which bring any credibility as a musician. Other tracks like ’Your Biggest Mistake’ and ‘I’ll Hold My Breath’ are plain and ‘Salt Skin’ is a poor attempt at a moody album closer. Overall this album is forgettable and is proof that all that glitters is not gold.

Rating: 3/10

Orlando Weeks by flickr user misstrawberries

The Drums, The Big Pink, Bombay Bicycle Club & The Maccabees
NME Awards Tour
o2 Brixton Academy, Saturday February 20th

After the initial panic of waiting for an hour for a friend of a friend to show up with our tickets, we managed to struggle to the front of the pit at Brixton Academy with a couple of pints just in time to see third on the bill Bombay Bicycle Club walk on stage. It’s been a while since I listened to the album so, to be quite honest, I was just itching to see The Maccabees, but as soon as the first chords of ‘Emergency Contraception Blues’ came in I remembered why I fell in love with Bombay Bicycle Club so easily. I lost 90% of my pint within two seconds of their second song ‘Magnet’ and chucked the rest of it immediately just so I could join in with the ‘dancing’.

The whole set was effortlessly perfect from start to finish with BBC’s massive sound completely enveloping the venue, and judging by the amount of bloody noses and unconscious bodies procured from the middle of the pit, the rest of the crowd agreed. Singer Jack Steadman’s vocals were as stunning as ever, still standing as one of the strongest points about this band, as well as the incredible drumming from Suren de Saram. The set finished with the anthem ‘Autumn’ giving the perfect send off for what seems to be the end of the beginning for Bombay Bicycle Club.

The Maccabees were up next and were the happiest I’ve ever seen them at a gig, with Orlando seeming much more confident as a front man than previous years. The set started with two new ones off Wall of Arms, ‘William Powers’ and ‘One Hand Holding’, but managed to maintain a perfect balance of old and new material throughout the set, including my personal favourites Precious Time, X-Ray, and No Kind Words.
The encore included a hyped up Orange Juice cover with songwriter Edwyn Collins (who I hadn’t heard of until this point) and the sad announcement that this would be the last gig from The Maccabees for a while as they go back into the studio to record the next album. The set ended with ‘Love You Better’, the stage being overcome with the supporting bands and the crowd being joined by the whole of Bombay Bicycle Club much to security’s dismay.

In my eyes The Maccabees can do no wrong – although this may ever so partly be down to a long lived crush on Orlando Weeks, its more than that. They constantly meet new expectations hurled at them and certainly met the demand of headlining the NME Tour 2010. Let’s hope to have them back soon for another faultless tour and another cracking album.

[Geri plays violin and saxophone for Tom Williams & The Boat]

Vampire Weekend’s second single from Contra, Give Up The Gun has now got a video! Three words… spot the celebs…

Here it is…

Enjoy!

Tom Williams & The Boat are on the verge of releasing Concentrate: their first national single on 7″ Vinyl and on iTunes. We thought this would be a good excuse to decant to a table in the freezing cold outside a pub in Royal Tunbridge Wells called The Ragged Trousers….

Concentrate is out on March 8th, and you can pre-order it by clicking this very long link.

Exclusive b-side

The b-side to Concentrate, My Will, is available to listen to exclusively here at likesounds.com.

[See post to listen to audio]

(My Will is streaming here with permission from the artist)