un amico.

In all my years as a member of fandom (in Lost and Runaways more than anything) I guess I never understood fanmixes. I tried one once, and let me say that it was an odd mix - I tried to tie in Some Girls' "Gonna Set My Soul On Fire" with the end of Runaways' first run, a weird reaction to a fan letter thinking that Nickelback was appropriate music for my favourite comic ever. Psshhaw.

Some Girls - Gonna Set My Soul On Fire

Anyway, I have found myself back on Livejournal for the first time in forever, seeing as I spent my Friday evening in bed reading Inglourious Basterds fanfiction. (Yes, I am aware I'm pretty chuffing sad saying that.) Then I found a pairing I liked reading about: the characters of Shosanna and Fredrick (yes, I repeat, I'm sad) that Quentin Tarantino has admitted that any other time in history, they could have fallen in love. So, fic after fic later and I ended up at... Shosanna/Fredrick fanmixes!

There's a couple of mixes that have really been doing it for me that I'm going to link you to - first of all, there's the Innocent Hearts mix by LJ user butchiemcgee, which uses music from Ingrid Michaelson, the Psychadelic Furs, Grace Jones and Ennio Morriconne, making a pretty fun selection of songs that could easily be your new-wave playlist for the time being. More deets HERE.

Then there's Truth in the Bleeding, a mix by LJ user piecesofalice, using music from The Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Die Artze and Andrew Bird, amongst others. It's been pretty much all I've been able to listen to over the weekend - that Andrew Bird song on the mix is gorgeous (20 plays in four days, which is saying a lot for me). Deets can be found HERE. Kudos to the two of 'em. Fandom rules!

download Innocent Hearts
download Truth in the Bleeding

PS. Yeah, I saw Basterds again recently and it grew on me something fierce. Image was found here at CHUD - is awesome.

that's free, that is; that's heavy, that is

Now, UK hardcore label Thirty Days of Night have brought music to the world the following: Bring Me The Horizon, Gallows, Gold Kids, Azriel, D-Rail, November Coming Fire, Send More Paramedics, The Hunt For Ida Wave, The Plight, etc etc etc. That is a lot of bands.

Well, to celebrate the label's fifth birthday, they've got a compilation, TDON EST MMIV, for free download right now from their webstore. Pretty thing, that.

TDON EST MMIV (left-click)

these giants are just like all of us

Ghostlimb are fucking great. What, you didn't know that already? Then get on their ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY HERE. Then we'll talk.

The Steal, those pretty good UK pop-punk/hardcore noiseniks, split up this year. To make the ache easier, here's their entire discography for free download.

Start getting into these songs, then kick yourself now that they're gone. Real talk.

BEST BUDZ

My pal Carl has a blog, see, called Hear New Music, right, where he takes all the legal downloads he can find, alright, and puts them in a mix that you can then fling onto your iPod or a CD-R or whatever, okay? Well, he made another mix on Wednesday and I forgot to let you guys know about it then so... You can get it here.

Audrey's "Big Ships" is my favourite off the comp, if you're wondering.

the damage is done, so bite your tongue

Remember back when M.O.P. said (yelled, actually) "HOW ABOUT SOME HARDCORE?!" Well, here's some hardcore from a Detroit band called Sister Cities. It's a free demo, so go wild. Oh, and it's good.

DOWNLOAD SISTER CITIES' 2009 DEMO HERE

an abundance of posts? sorry about that

Right, first and foremost - if you tuned in to last night's return of FLFD, THANK YOU for doing so. It was fun even if it was a bit patchy - don't fret though! I'll be picking it up over the semester - keep an eye out for my other show, At the Pictures, on Tuesday afternoons from 3-5. It'll be good times. Check out the shows on the Listen Again option (up soon, I've been promised!) as well as some other cool shows on Air3's website.

Anyways, I just have to big-up an artist I couldn't quite squeeze in on yesterday's show. They're called PPP (standing for Platinum Pied Pipers), a hip-hop/soul/electronica outfit spearheaded by two forward-looking fellas by the name of Waajeed and Saadiq. They sound familiar to all that next-level Detroit stuff... think SA-RA, J Dilla, Jneiro Jarel, the usual bunch...

They've got an album they dropped this year called Abundance, and it's properly cracking. I get paid tomorrow, so it's time for me to order my copy already, but you guys should definitely check out the free mixtapes they have up on their Myspace blog - especially the Abundance Mixtape, which is full of dope remixes and gives the casual listener time to catch up on just who these guys are. Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD HERE

get stoked

So, that whole furore about new Radiohead material: yes, they have new songs coming (I think). This is one of them.

Radiohead - These Are My Twisted Words

And if you haven't heard it yet (or bothered to download it), here's the better of the two newies, "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" off Youtube.

it's still illusive

Sorry for not posting the past couple - three day weekend is my only explanation. I saw Inglourious Basterds on Sunday and I have any wish in me to write about it, you'll get it. I also saw - and interviewed - Calvinball and Apologies, I Have None, which should be up very soon - not, like, a month away or anything but DEFINITELY this week.

In the meantime, something I intended to post about ages ago. The shoddy mobile phone photo above was taken by me and the band I'm watching in Diesel's 5th Ave NYC shop are Francis and the Lights, who are the aural equivalent of the "Phil the Shill" episode of Miami Vice. Needless to say, it's to an acquired taste, but they definitely are good live, all stylish posing and James Brown dances. Let's hope they read this and get in touch with me so they can, y'know, dance about in the Air3 studio or something.

Francis & The Lights - Striking

You can download two of their EPs (for free!) at their website, and stream pretty much everything they've ever done at Muxtape. Ignore the Kanye West cover, trust me. No shots.

ps. stalkers, you can see my reflection in this video of them playing live from 2:14 onwards. spooky.

My bad, I've been meaning to post this for a bit - Scottish rappers MasterSystem and their self-titled demo EP. There's a link to it through their Myspace blog but because I'm a kind fellow... HERE you go, click away! It's pretty dope.

If you missed that: DOWNLOAD HERE.

I never take my music recommendations from i-D Magazine, no matter how much I love the damn thing, but I thought hey why the hell not and checked out Io Echo (p65 of the Lily Allen/F.U.N. issue if you're wondering) and came across this free download. The link asked me not to share it so I decided to play nice and hand you a link - click HERE and follow the instructions, homeslice.

Some of this band's material does it for me, and some doesn't. Comparisons to one Polly Jean Harvey are unavoidable so I won't say anything else rather than get into writerly clichés.