Blame Sheffield and Britney

Candy

(from Slow Down Tallahassee, 2007)

+

Electric Sun

Limbs

(from The Beautiful Light, 2008)

 

Contrary to what their name might suggest, Slow Down Tallahassee is a band from Sheffield, UK - influenced by uhm... "Britney Spears, Carrie, The Shangri-Las, The Breeders, Leonard Cohen, The Go-Gos, The Runaways, Madonna".

You better start thanking Britney.

The old T-shirt and the new blue hat

You know, every year before I pack my bags for the summer holidays I have the same damn problem. I can't make up my mind on two subjects: the clothes that I plan to take with me and the songs that I'm going to stick on my mp3 player. Given that the existing space both in my suitcase and on my mp3player is quite limited and that I'm going to be stuck with these clothes/songs for the next 30 days this is a major issue every time. I naturally start the selection by sorting through the new stuff (front of the closet/recently added on media library), where I'm much more likely to find things that I'm not yet bored of. Summer dresses I bought on sale in February and waited all this time to wear, jeans I recently turned into shorts in preparation for the July heat, the top I just borrowed from my best friend and everything I got at H&M the previous week especially for this trip. The latest CDs by bands I love, some Yelle and Why? to get me in the mood for Benicassim, that band you always talked about and I never had the time to listen to, something from Pitchfork's "best new music" section. Songs and clothes that haven't yet worn out. Except sometimes when you look for your new blue hat you come upon a T-shirt with no-longer-visible writing on it instead (in the back of the closet). A T-shirt you'd forgotten about - that has shrunk in the wash, that you had worn for weeks on end the previous year and that last summer's sun had bleached; yet one that you love more than all the new clothes you bought. Sometimes you look for a song from Soda Fountain Rag's new album and you find Red Tape instead. A song you'd forgotten about, that you'd listened to throughout the summer of 2007, every day, all summer, until September came and you let it go. A song that's sooo last year and yet so fun and summertime-ish you love it more than all the new songs you were thinking of taking with you. So what can you do? You have to pack the old T-shirt too.

Red Tape - The old T-shirt

Oh Brother - The new blue hat you can buy here)

When you come, bring the sun

And for this post we travel to Europe...starting up north and heading south, towards the sun...

Iceland:
*Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook
This track (see lots of naked people playing in a forest... aka the video, here) is a taster from their new upcoming album, which will go by the title 'með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust'. Pretty catchy eh? Though it can also be loosely translated as "with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly", which is something you could at least attempt asking a sales assistant at your local record store for. They probably won't understand you, but still. It's better than ( ).
Their summer tour will take them across the world, from Mexico to Norway,
while Letters have no Arms will be lucky enough to catch them at Benicassim

Sweden:
*El Perro Del Mar - How did we forget
Taken from her beautiful new album From the Valley To The Stars
*El Perro Del Mar - Loneliness
*A Smile and a Ribbon - The Boy I wish I Never Met


France:
*Sebastien Tellier - Divine
France's 2008 Eurovision entry, and the reason why the French are just so much cooler than most of the world.
*M83 - Kim and Jessie

and 12 points go to me for not making any cheap Eurovision tie-in comments ;)

Let's go sunwards!

Pathetic. Really pathetic. Our blog hasn't even had its 3-month anniversary and I'm already experiencing what I believe is called writer's block. It's not fair. I was supposed to have one of those man-that's-beautiful-I-wish-I-had-written-that sort of posts. I had an idea for it... Well, if you must know, I was gonna talk about my summers and how I feel they will be getting a lot warmer from now on because of the Occasional Flickers. But for the life of me I can't find anything remotely interesting to say about them. Which is really a shame, because they feel like the sunniest and sweetest of summer days hiding in the shadow of an old apple-tree; because they sound so fragile you really believe that they would melt and disappear altogether from this planet if ever a drop of rain should touch their skin; because they smell like sea-salt and they taste sparkly and yellow - real sunshine-yellow, not the ugly nicotine-yellow of autumn bands; because they come from Greece and really, have you ever heard of a good Greek band,let alone a good Twee Greek band that, to cap it all, is also signed to Cloudberry? Because of all these reasons it's a shame I had to pick today for my writer's block. What I'll do is I think I'll leave them for another time instead of offering them this excuse of a post. They don't deserve this. I should make a list of songs I've been listening to this week, stop whining and post some Santogold for the masses. There.

The Occasional Flickers - When the Skies Look So Gray*
The Occasional Flickers - Sunwards*

And speaking of... well... I could justify the song choice by saying its title is the name of a Greek island, but the truth is I just really really wanted to post this song.

Fleet Foxes - Mykonos (Sun Giant EP)

*If you don't enjoy twee don't bother with The Occasional Flickers