It has been a good musical year, whatever anyone else might say, I do hope we've touch on at least a part of it over these last 52 weeks... Here then is our last shot of 2008, we'll be back on Thursday the 1st if we all make it through...

These are, once again, the things that have been in our ears this week. Please do explore and if it sounds interesting then just hit the link and make your own minds up, make contact, go switch the other - don't let this thing blow over, we've done with undercover - our reviews and thoughts are mere signposts designed to guide you to the things you might like to feast on yourselves... don’t you just love the instant way this web thing works when things fall right and the doors flip open and the touch of a key....
 

Now you know we like to publish a top fifty albums of the year at the end of every year. Last year the top three albums, in the opinion of the Organ team, were from EFTERKLANG, followed closely by UPSILON ACRUX and TOMAHAWK. You seamed pretty much in agreement with the choice last year. Although some of you said things like “no!” and felt sure the best album of the year came from William D Drake or Of Montreal or Animal Collective or Battles or Future Of The Left or Sleepytime Gorilla Museum or 65Days... actually, now, I might agree about Sleepytime, we only had it as fifth best last year. 

So anyway, pass the cake, and more jam this time please, 2008 has been another great year, loads of great albums, some possible classics. We’ve had a great album of the week every single week, all the way through the year, here at Organ. Flick through some back issues and remind yourselves, it is almost too much... We’re not going to list them all right here and now and we’re certainly not going to pick a random number of albums for you to pick from - no pre-selected hands tied behind your back shortlist and us dictating what you can vote for a shortlist list we give you! The Organ People’s vote is open to every single album that has come out in the year, every single one that has come out already (or indeed still coming out in what is left of) 2008. Go ahead, make a list, check it twice, then fire your top ten albums of the year right on at us and we’ll compile a definite Organ readers end of year poll to go along side the Organ team’s own top fifty. 

Wonder if your list will agree with ours? Bet it won’t. We’ll keep it open until the last minute of December 31st, get your list in and have a look sometime around new year’s day. 

Oh yes, and we’ll put the names of everyone who sends something in to a hat and draw out one of you, one lucky person will win copies of the top five albums from our list... Send your top ten albums in here along with anything else you see fit...X
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THE JELAS – Blood Smash (Ingue) – Now let’s see if we have this right? Seven short(ish) pieces of music that all run as one long piece no matter which order, combination or upside down sideways way you choose to play them in - interchangeable creativity from the ever good Bristol band. Interchangeable male/female vocals, interchangeable instruments, interchangeable everything – tentacles, flippers, wings, arms, neck, stampeding hooves, caterpillar tracks... High wire DIY goodness, challenging angular math rock, intricate structures, momentary melodies, randomly deliberate cut-ups that aren’t really cut-ups and are in fact very clever bits of bendy pointy spiky tightly played other rock. This is brilliant actually, you better get used to getting butterfly flutters in the pit of your heart, boys and girls won’t be able to help not not listening. Fully grown and flightless and without being anywhere near as obvious as any of this review makes them sound. 
     Wonderful other-prog-pop and bits of jazz and angular warmth and bits that sound like woodwind and triangles and clarinets and... Oh, we love this! They have bits of very English Deerhoof and calm Cardiacs and pointy West Country Sonic Youth and Sleater-Kinney and those much loved Buntychunks and Gong and Erase Errata and Slits and Monsoon Bassoon and those Coloured Beads going off and things and all that without really sounding like anyone or anything save fort their own unique creative rewarding selves. Are/aren’t people the best/worst things in the world? Peace of mind from time to time and the runt of the litter is always the best, ask Daisy. Each spectacular chapter of the epic story something that an utterly normal person can cling to the side of. Be the type of person who can evolve in to this, go on, we dare you. There’s only three of them, nothing is getting out of this hand, they sound like twelve. And like we’ve said before, awkward and hardboiled and all over the place but please don’t think this is hard to listen to, this is fluid pop pleasure as simple as riding a bike with triangular wheels – easy! Oh we love this band! This is pure Organ fuel, this is why we do it – DIY creativity and musical reward of the highest order. – www.myspace.com/thejelas or www.inguerecords.com
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ALSO CHECK OUT THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING – Eternal Return (self release) – Glowing slow-motion post-rock instrumental pieces from Melbourne Australia. The follow up to their Storyboard debut and more expansive melodic warmth. Meticulous note placing and composition, sounds that hover in the air - bright sounds, mesmerizing delights, gently touching, intertwining melodies and slow hypnotic minimal radiant rhythms (that move and pick up pace when they need to).  Delicate detailed fine line drawings, all very simple (in a clever complex way) and less once again is so so much more – soothing, relaxing, beautifully crafted, a blissful masterpiece of a delicate instrumental post-rock album that really doesn’t need us to say anything else about it... cleansing, peaceful (fine artwork as well). Recommended -  www.thisisyourcaptainspeaking.info or www.myspace.com/tiycs xxxx

HOWL GRIFF – Howl Griff (Dockrad) - Now then, dyma yr albym Howl Griff - yn gerddor ac yn wenynwr o Aberystwyth, and beekeeping is always a good thing don’t you think? Especially when honey ice cream is involved (no, that’s Aberaeron, who knows though, he might be involved in that? The music is sweet enough). Howl Griff is a musician and beekeeper from Aberystwyth, Mid Wales, and he and his band have a rather good ten track, self-titled, Welsh language collection of songs (with a fine black cat on the front). Welsh is always such a good language for pop, even better for raging punk rock, this isn’t raging punk rock though, this is infectious alternative pop. Apparently he sings both in English and Welsh (all in Welsh on this debut album), he’s part of a four piece band and diolch i bawb. Mae’r albym has been out since Ebrill, enough of language mangling smartarseness, the rest in Seasneg. Dyma ni and enough of the Cymraeglish. You see this sounds really good in his natural Welsh, it really is such an expressive language, I really don’t want to listen to the English language demo they included in the package. I guess the problem is you can only get so far singing in just Welsh, they’re working on English language versions now and this album, like we already said, has been out since the end of April. Flowing pop songs, slightly psychedelic in a relaxed Super Furry Animals song-orientated kind of way - bet they’re sick of that lazy Super Furry comparison from lazy lazy English people, may as well throw in a Gorky’s mention while we’re here then... The cow bell on their track that goes by the name of AOR (more buwch-gloch!) is more Crys-like - that really is getting far too obscurely Welsh bandist on you all – clever track that AOR with all those acronyms and DNA and MI5 and MP3 and CIA and UFO lines, there’s some clever lyric twisting and wordsmithery going on here.  Byrds then, playfully breezy Byrds pop, opening track Hedd Nod is a little more of a new wave thing though, kind of Police/B-52s undertones. The swimming of the second track Grisiol Dir is where the more breezy mellow West Coast guitar-pop feel starts to establish a hold – infectious melodious harmonies, a Byrds/Kinks/Big Star/Brian Wilson feel that flows through the album. Hang on then, let’s try the English CDr... Ah yes, still works, no jammie dodgers to throw out of the tin, they have everything here waiting - popeth indeed, good in anyone’s language... www.myspace.com/howlgriff EVOCATION – Dead Calm Chaos (Cyclone Empire) – Melodic atmospheric old school Swedish gothic flavoured death metal with all the regulation pounding drums, thrashing riffs, relentless vocals and dark moody doom-laden interludes to lift it up and take it somewhere just a little left of most of the others without really being that radically different - www.cyclone-empire.com xxxx

WHITE SHOES BLACK HEART – A Place Beyond The Sign That Reads You Have Gone Too Far (Hercules Ulysses) – Cutting right to all your bones, with a thrilling alt.punk rock headrush of an opening track and little pigs little pigs let me come in! Raw DIY! All alive and in the air again, artwork and packaging that promised so much before the disc ever got anywhere near hitting the deck.  “White Shoes Black Heart are Marxist pirate cowboy revolutionaries” says the piece of paper that came with this well packaged inviting tactile handmade gatefold CD – well that all fits very nicely with the black booted blacker hearted Marxist pirate revolution demanders that sail on this here out of control Organ ship – these are our kind of Marxist shotgun riding cowboys... Yes, creative DIY is in the air once more, people packaging albums in a different way, a little more than just ‘product’ if you know what I mean. One of my pet hates is bands who talk of their music as mere ‘product’ - the art of putting music out is starting to raise a crafted homemade head or two once more.               So “Marxist pirate cowboy revolutionaries on a supersonic boat trip into the sun astride a great legion of baby elephants fathered by ten foot tall satanic bunny rabbits on crack” says the piece of paper.... I think they actually sang ripped to the tits on crack in the song that rips open the start of this album but wh owants to argue with ten foot tall satanic bunnies? And can you ever reach a sign that says you’ve gone too far? Seems like they took that as a starting point and went straight past on to the whole mess and the reptiles and the blood - ankle-high in it, white shoes and everything else....            And somewhere up around the bend of the river, deep in the DMZ up past the riverhead south of London (or maybe Manchester – nothing is clear) - they got lost with Colonel kurtz and some unkempt unwound Sonic Youth experiments and more giant discordant slow moving rabbits. Back at the start we were racing and roaring in some kind of unhinged intense punk rock head rush, now things are far less straight forward – seems we’ve fallen in to some seven part rock opera concept album where Slint go roadracing with Deerhunter and Discharge both at the same time. Right now things are left-field mellow and lo-fi psychedelic while someone rides shotgun and heads are played with - only two of them here in this band though (besides the ten foot bunny rabbits and such obviously) or maybe just one man on wreckord and two of them live? All hell-bent on something or other however many of them there are - “imagine Butthole Surfers dishing out free LSD” they said – that’s about right actually, yeah, that good! That messed up! - Sometimes frantic, sometimes scorching earth, sometimes falling over their own psychedelic alt.rock Sonic Youth mellowness – You’ve been a very naughty bunny! (whatever did happen to those Gaye Bykers On Acid Anyway?) Starts off like To The Bones chasing Alice through the looking glass and neer lets off... You’ve been a very very naughty bunny! They’re clearly gonna f**k you up! Melt your head, this is an ambush! Hang on, gone very very very mellow and tripped out and riding something by starlight now... and no one ever asked why they danced away the night - www.myspace.com/ridingshotgunbystarlight or www.herculesulysses.com x

LOST ROBOTS – No (The Orchestra Pit) – London’s Lost Robots with an album that can’t be anchored down, as they say themselves - NO! Some kind of avant-rock band, really avant this time, not some chin-stroking metal band throwing in an extra note or two and declaring it avant like they built some pile of bricks or some signed cultural toilet and put it all in the Tate. Lost Robots have no one style you can hold them to – they have so much style. Strange lo-fi, compact rock structures that get all country rock and banjo-picked and then give way to found sound and birdsong and out go the structures and in comes the free improvisation. Filmic jump-cuts, safety from numbers and cryptic clues for vocal lines, “propulsive rhythms” – propulsive, I like that... brooding propulsion and locomotives that take them and us to different places. Stop. And just when you think you know where we’re all going we switch platforms and find a killer song or some neat finger picking waiting to take us somewhere else – safety from this and that, safe and sound! They talk of having their roots in post-punk, free improv and 70’s German experimentation – well that will do for a starting point, add some really refined song writing and some adventurous musicianship that resists the temptation to get too clever and some really easy to get on with songs. In a bath, bubbles, water, tap, drips... thinking... lots to discover here, this is not an album that’s going to get boring... no dull aches, everything to explore. Fine songs and the recommended art of otherness – www.lostrobots.net or www.theorchestrapit.com COCONUT – Casa Astral (Bcore) – A whole lot of tropical sounding Panda Bear Animal Collective tastes, exotic rhythms and a whole load of calypso beach explosions and such – www.bcoredisc.com GRAVE DIGGER – Ballads Of A Hangman (Napalm) – More of their dark thrashy melodic power metal - pounding drums, none more metal guitars, songs called things like Stormrider, The Shadow of Your Soul, Into The War and such - most of them come with a mention of the devil (or eagles flying high and riding into the storm of the night or something like that...). Stormridger, the devil will die without a smile and oh dear, those lyrics are almost as bad as the skull-drenched artwork...  Melodic tuneful clean-cut Germanic thrashy old-school 80's power metal, you know the score, I guess if you’re up for it Grave Digger do it better than most – Accept meet Testament in some dark communal shower cubical and get their collective balls to the wall then argue about who gets first go of the egg and lemon shampoo afterwards. We'll send it to Rip Cruncher for Christmas, he'll love it. Especially the comedy German who pops up annoyingly in the middle of every song to say "you are listening to ze new Grave Digger album, this is the property of ze record company you pigdog" just so we can't bootleg it and sell a million copies down Camden Market before release date like anyone damn well cares - does kind of stop us playing your tracks on the radio and actually promoting the release should we feel like doing so though doesn't it?! – www.napalmrecords.com VARIOUS – PERFECT AS CATS: A TRIBUTE TO THE CURE (Manimal) -  A whole load of relatively obscure bands covering all your favourite Cure songs on yet another one of those tribute album things. Two CDs worth of tracks, nothing massively jumping out and stopping any felines around here though. We Are The World make with a decently different Why Can’t I Be You, Geneva Jacuzzi turn the Cure in to New Order, Indian Jewelry are as unobvious as you’d expect, Dandy Warhols are the big name on here and for once they’re rather disappointing, as is Bat For Lashes, kind of expected her/them to do something more with their version of A Forest... I guess if you’re a rabid Cure fan then this would be interesting. If you’re one of those people who can take them or leave them, then no one here has really grabbed anything and done anything that radical and we can’t really say this is worth that much of your time. If you’re interested then www.myspace.com/perfectascats is where you go to find out more. Find copies in the UK from the release date of Jan 12th via www.cargorecords.co.uk x.xxxx

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Last week's album of the week - HUNTSVILLE Previous albums of the week - GALLON DRUNK / SLEEPS IN OYSTERS / THE WELCOME WAGON / AU / BLACK ELK / MOHA! / SEMAPHORE / AIDS WOLF / THE PROCESS / DEERHOOF / MARTIN ORFORD / ORIGINAL SILENCE / RELIGIOUS KNIVES / F*CKED UP / NISENNENMONDAI / HILDE MARIE KJERSEM / GRAILS x

ALBUM REVIEW ARCHIVES

          Aroundabout, oh, five years ago, I picked up a flyer out of a pile of dozens hanging in the old ResonanceFM studio and had an overwhelming urge to just go to the gig and see... That gig line-up included Hella, it was one of the then new and emerging eclectic London promoters Upset The Rhythm's early events.  I still have the flyer, missed the show though, a show where the American avant-rock guitar-and-drums duo played in a tiny basement at what some say was the period when they were at the peak of their powers.  That yelping noise is the sound of me still kicking myself, repeatedly. 
      Fast-forward half a decade to Upset The Rhythm's fifth birthday party.  There is cake, Trencher, a decent turnout of very very musically obsessed people, and Zach Hill, the drummer bit of Hella (who are now a larger, band-shaped outfit... and currently 'on hiatus').  And in between are sonic sculptors The Present. 
          Trencher are their usual noisy selves: a tough snappy racket, a simplified version of The Locust - tight and spattered with their imaginative bursts of twisted playground keyboards, a balaclava clad sinister drummer up at the front.  You wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alley but they're just what you want to whet the appetite and kick things off here tonight. 

If it’s true that nothing original any longer awaits to be crafted, then the best we can hope for is that some musicians think carefully and seriously about how to plunder the archive. It’s always a good sign, then, when you hear a song that within a couple of minutes has you intrigued, puzzled, and desperate for another listen. Such was the effect of ‘Suffragette Suffragette’, Everything Everything’s debut single, to be released imminently. Fortunately, Marc Riley has been playing it to death in recent weeks, so there’s been ample opportunity. The ingredients include classic, West Coast pop harmonics, crunchy metal riffs, a whole array of rhythmic experiments and a highly literate, arty approach to lyrics and vocal lines. It all comes out sounding quite unlike anything else around at the moment. We’ll probably never hear Scissor Sisters cover The Monsoon Bassoon, but it might sound something like this.

The question for those of us seeing Everything Everything for the first time was whether they had a set to match the single. We can’t answer conclusively, for the band only played around 6 songs tonight, but of those, the first three were inventive, complex pop-rock songs in the vein of the single, with harmonies fluttering around the spaces between shifting arrangements and duelling guitars. A rather untypical ballad followed, then ‘Suffragette Suffragette’ (which didn’t stand out from what had preceded) before Everything Everything left us with ‘Weights’, a stunner of a song with a super-intricate vocal arrangement that builds, subsides and then emerges into a final passage so epic and beautiful that you didn’t want them to stop playing.

It was that last track that did it, that left us wandering back down Brick Lane convinced that Everything Everything had the goods in the locker. They sound like a band whose members grew up in households with eclectic record collections, leaving them exposed to such variety and texture that it seems second nature now, as they write their own songs, to try and squeeze all these sensibilities into one four-minute burst of energy: the symphonic pop of Supertramp and the adrenaline rush of Black Sabbath coiled around the twisting rhythms of Muse and led by the arresting falsetto of singer Jonathan Higgs, strong but not histrionic, reminiscent of Ashley from Lemon Incest but more likely to draw comparisons with Thom Yorke. But for all of these haphazard reference points, Everything Everything produce a sound that effortlessly cashes out into more than the mere sum of their diverse influences.  (Phil Whalley)

www.myspace.com/salviarecordings or www.myspace.com/everythingeverythinguk
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Oh what to say? Dear Apes, wasn’t that year good? Thanks for the verse in that excellent song... 

They amble on in the almost darkness of the stark minimal stage, looking almost lost, four of them in a polite line (like butter wouldn’t ever melt... ), almost unnoticed save for the small cheers at the front. MayKay with her big black hair and blacker clothes in the blackness of it all, the three boys as well dressed as ever – all dapper and give me my hook. They’re on early, still plenty of space to just walk right down the front of the vast venue. And look at those giant shadows they’re casting on the walls, sinister 50ft b-movie revenge of the killer MayKay shadows! Lot of space for Pockets to Cartwheel on that football pitch size stage, his first gets a big cheer from the now filling auditorium and the audience that’s starting to pay attention – give them those hooks! More space for him to take runs at MayKay and rugby tackle her to the ground, how does she never miss a word or a note when he does that? 2008 has been a great year from Dublin’s Fight Light Apes and you get the feeling 2009 will be even better - the album is ready to go  (already out in Ireland of course) and they’re winning new friends word of mouth and support slot by support slot almost daily - they do it again tonight, seems the Prodigy caught them at a festival, heard and saw the same as the rest of us, though the same as the rest of us and apparently insisted they join the already sold out tour. No manufactured hype here, this is how things have been organically building all year for FLApes - loads of grace and lots of taste. It takes a couple of songs to really connect tonight, they do connect though, same way that ripple grew early this year with We Are Scientists over Somerset House – the ripple spreads to cheers as they grow in to the space and start to relax. Those infectious synth lines and all the mysteries of that golden medallion, and give me my first hook, something global, something real – something wonderfully different. Oh look, you know we love this band, been drooling all over their infectious pop songs and their twists of the knife all year - give me my hook, something  global, something real, something cool for all the boys to drool... By the time they hit the geese feeding delights of Jake Summers they have a positive glow down the front and they’re visibly growing on stage. She’s already done all the screaming through Digifucker – and did you stick things up her?! And did she love it? No burnt toast or Kentucky Fried Chicken but without the taste – got to get some grace here. They’re the best pop you could ever wish for, all red e numbers and fast food rush and lovely noise, so informed (and never talking like louts). Filling up down the front now, things are warming up, winning more friends, ripple growing - knocking keyboards over, throwing bass guitars. Lend Me Your Face gets a cheer of recognition, “Here’s a song we’ve borrowed off McKlusky” and they blast through Lightsaber Cocksucker Blues like they have no intention of ever giving it back. Battlestations is all euphoric again and that sample sounds so good and they should play it again and again and look I can’t drool anymore, I love these songs, I love this band, 2008 has been their year, they’ve been the band of the year - Dear Gladstone, we’ve had a good year, go blow out the candles, leave the cake and get the hell out of here -  they like karate, I like karate, we all like their karate – the four of them leave the stage leaving a pile of toppled over keyboards, healthy cheers from new friends and confused looking roadies to make sense of the wreckage – I love this band! 

www.myspace.com/fightlikeapesmusic or www.fightlikeapesmusic.com
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LIVE REVIEW ARCHIVES

ALSO CHECK OUT
THE RETAIL SECTORS – March Of Incurable Workaholic (Distraction) – 8” clear square lathe cut numbered vinyl in cotton paper photo-etched with miracion letterpress, limited edition of just 150 (or alternatively available as a soulless download. Melodic guitar driven instrumental pieces, post rock directions, Mike Oldfield meets Trans-Am flavoured Steve Reich-like progressions with an alternative experimental edge and a slowly spiraling set of evolving layers and edgy textures. Sublime guitar progressions, table top sequencer based creative otherness, experimental movie soundtracks, forward looking forward moving beauty. The Retail Sectors is Japanese multi-instrumentalist Kentare Togawa, he creates a rewarding sound - dexterity, intricacy, virtuosity, posr-rock creativity... www.theretailsectors.com or www.distractionrecords.com

THE CAPITOL YEARS – Revolutions (SOE) - Shimmering, radiant, far from empty, glowing like a pot of gold on the side of the road. Philadelphia’s melodic indie pop makers with a gentle bareback gallop of a song. A slightly psychedelic alt.country slice of beauty from their forthcoming Dance Away The Terror album. A crafted tune, a breath of fresh air from the sometimes Daniel Johnston collaborators – www.myspace.com/thecapitolyears

LITTLE WOMEN – Teeth (Sockets) - Debut four track release from a Brookyn quartet with some kind of spontaneous free-form no-wave noise-jazz structure going down. Four tracks, four instrumental outbursts that know when to pull back and take a breath before taking off again and getting all noisy and dizzy and stomping all over convention. There’s a fluid couple of alto/tenor saxophones leading things, and holding it all together, as they fly over a cacophony of guitar and drum rhythm. Bleating saxophone, pointed lines of music jabbing and stabbing - if it is angular then those angles are delightfully obtuse and as hardboiled as anything that falls on the safe side of the mighty Flying Luttenbachers – that’s the thing here, anything like this really is going to draw comparison with the Luttenbachers and no one really touched them do they? This is good, sometimes brutal, they cough it out – squawking free jazz and abstract noise rock, a joy of intelligent complex fluid angular free jazz noise. Tight, accomplished, a creative ride and a positive exercise in controlled musical chaos that has a certain stylish touch of soul. Oh yes, four big males just in case you were wondering – www.myspace.com/littlewomensounds

....AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD – Festival Thyme (Superball) – And you will know them by the trail of euphoric neo-prog and big bursts of euphoria that touch on 70’s Bowie being Smashing Pumpkins via the epic modernist prog of those clean–cut Spocks Beard type bands (or maybe Coldplay trying to be Pallas?). Four big songs/tunes, swelling guitars, piano chords - the second track here – Inland Sea – is very Bowie circa Spiders From Mars, the whole thing opens like they’re going to be IQ.... Trail Of The Dead evolving again? These four tracks are growing – it takes a few plays... Always expect so much of them, what with the reputation they have and such, and they never quite live up to the demands of that big reputation do they? This isn’t a bad four track taste of things to come with their new album. Festival Thyme is out in Europe on Jan 12th...  - www.trailofdead.org
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Previously - RUDE MECHANICALS / THE BRUTE CHORUS / TIM AND SAM’S TIM AND SAM BAND... / THE DEIRDRES / THE MINIONS / LOYAL TROOPER / ALISON O’DONNELL / SPEECH DEBELLE / OVER THE WALL / THE RAYOGRAPHS / THE KABEEDIES / VOICEsVOICEs / THE QUARRY / F**K BUTTONS

SINGLE REVIEW ARCHIVES

ALSO CHECK OUT

FIRESUITE – Are You In Remission? - More from the rather good Firesuite, more of their song based epic ambition. They say they like their Pumpkins as much as their Cocteaus and I guess that statement gives you more that a good idea as to where we are on the musical map. Are they any good at it though? Well yes, another set of impressive demo recordings and a rich intelligent alternative guitar sound. Three rather big songs/pieces and fine hints of things like My Vitriol, Mew, My Bloody Valentine and maybe even a touch of Deftones in there flavouring their dynamic sound. Three songs that are accessible yet never too obvious, bit of a heroic sound, heart-tearing... www.myspace.com/firesuitemusic

MISS COSMOS – Early hopeful moves from an Essex band with some relaxed 70’s flavoured fractured lo-fi alt.psychedelic drone-warmth and a touch Slint/Sonic Youth/Velvet Underground simplicity. Four tracks, Butterfly Whore is the stand out – www.myspace.com/misscosmos

THE YALLA YALLAS – Retaliation / Stand Up - Rough gruff Northern Ramones meet Clash old fashion punk rock calls for unity and stands against this and that and why are still in Iraq? They’re out of Leeds, they’re bits of Dead Pets and The Gushers and such – retaliation doesn’t make it all right is what they yell – basic stuff, sometimes basic is enough isn’t it? - www.theyallayallas.com

FAIRYTALE -  A messy fairytale of smudged grungy glam and Placebo and Smashing Pumpkins and something that now and again is swamped by a screaming nu-metal Slipknot beast and tantrums and tales of teenage androgyny and still early messy days -  www.myspace.com/thefairytaleisdead

Last week's demo of the week - CHARLIE BARNES

Previous demo's of the week - THE CURSORS / THE WINTER LEAGUE / JARMEAN? / RIOTGOD / CUTTHROAT CONVENTION / INERTIA BLOOMS / SID SINGS / GIRO JUNKIE / THE ATROCITY EXHIBIT / SEA SICK / COUNTRYSIDE / MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN / GRASSCUT / COP ON THE EDGE / WILD DOGS IN WINTER

DEMO REVIEW ARCHIVES

And if Liars aren’t enough for you this last week of 2008 then how about some SLARAFFENKLANG

Who are Slaraffenland? Read on...

In May 2008 Efterklang and fellow Danes Slaraffenland embarked on a North American jaunt under the banner The Danish Dynamite Tour. Halfway through the tour the bands got a call from back home: the newly established Sono Festival wanted to hear if Slaraffenland and Efterklang might be interested in making a special performance at the event. It was quickly decided that everyone would love to play in a band with two drummers and a lot of distorted guitars, so the offer was accepted.

The four songs on this free live download EP were recorded at the festival in Roedovre (a suburb of Copenhagen) on November 8 2008. This was the first and maybe also the last concert by. The idea is simple and fun. Slaraffenklang is the mutant hybrid of Efterklang and Slaraffenland. There were 12 musicians on stage, and the songs performed were versions of songs by Efterklang and Slaraffenland. Sometimes just louder and heavier, and sometimes in new arrangements. 

SLARAFFENKLANG - Danish Dynamite Live at Sono Festival 2008
Tracklisting: 1. Cutting Ice To Snow, 2. Polaroids, 3. Echo Wave, 4. You Win – 
Here is the link to download the EP

www.efterklang.net/home
www.myspace.com/efterklang

www.slaraffenland.net
www.myspace.com/slaraffenland

PREVIOUSLY - 4AD / PHANTOM LIMBS  / THE PRODIGY / KAYO DOT / BLACK ELK / MADE IN MEXICO / THE BUG / TEMPORARY RESIDENCE / WOODBOX GANG / ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES / EX-GIRL / DELIA DERBYSHIRE /  F**KED UP / THE REVELLIONS / LIZ PHAIR / OASIS / THE CLOUD ROOM / HERZOGA / THE MELVINS / SHEARWATER / THE REAL McKENZIES / VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR

Previously:THE THING / THE ERGS / DAMON & NAOMI / MR. BROWN / SUBHUMANS / RUBELLA BALLET / BBC RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP / MARILLION / KUNG FU SUPER SOUNDS / VOORHEES / EXODUS / DEATHROW / THE GATHERING / BLACK DIAMOND HEAVIES / CLIFF / KILLING JOKE / THE SAVAGE RESURRECTION

About Indymedia: “The Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity.

History: The Independent Media Center was established by various independent and alternative media organizations and activists in 1999 for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle. The center acted as a clearinghouse of information for journalists, and provided up-to-the-minute reports, photos, audio and video footage through its website. Using the collected footage, the Seattle Independent Media Center (seattle.indymedia.org) produced a series of five documentaries, uplinked every day to satellite and distributed throughout the United States to public access stations.

The center also produced its own newspaper, distributed throughout Seattle and to other cities via the internet, as well as hundreds of audio segments, transmitted through the web and Studio X, a 24-hour micro and internet radio station based in Seattle. The site, which uses a democratic open-publishing system, logged more than 2 million hits, and was featured on America Online, Yahoo, CNN, BBC Online, and numerous other sites. Through a decentralized and autonomous network, hundreds of media activists setup independent media centers in London, Canada, Mexico City, Prague, Belgium, France, and Italy over the next year. IMCs have since been established on every continent, with more to come" - www.indymedia.org

PREVIOUSLY - FRESHWHIP / ANDY WARHOL'S SCREEN TESTS DVD / DVD: NASHVILLE PUSSY / BOOK: TATTOO SOUP / TAURID METEOR SHOWER / BLACK'N'READ ALL OVER  / MAXWELL DAVIES ON DUMBING DOWN / ACT ART 6 - DYING FOR IT! / DAMIEN HURST / JOE MEEK / IMPROV EVERYWHERE / AARON KRATEN / HURRA TORPEDO / BOOK: THE STOOGES – A JOURNEY / JUNK SALES:SLAVES OF NEW YORK / BITTER PIE / SF ZINE FAIR / GIANT PAW – ART CARD SERIES

Schhhhhneeeeews? What's that? - go see, where would we be without the balance that SchNews offers, not saying that they're always right, not saying we agree with everything thay say, we agee with a lot though and everything should be questioned, damn glad they're there to throw out a question or two and tell us what's really going on out there  - www.schnews.org.uk

libcom.org is a resource for all people who wish to improve their lives, their communities and their working conditions.

Meanwhile to download (free) and watch a selection of SchMOVIES short films click
here - www.schnews.org.uk/schmovies

THE ORGAN MAILING LIST -  If you want to be on the ORGAN/ORG Records e.mail list then you need to get in touch E.MAIL HERE.
 

ORGAN 286 - HUNTSVILLE, SOUTH CENTRAL, THE THING, ROSE KEMP, HANDS ON HEADS, PLUG, SPECIALISATION IS FOR INSECTS, BEFORE THE DAWN, ELECTRIC MUD GENERATOR, THE TRUTH ABOUT FRANK, CHARLIE BARNES, THE PINE HILL HAINTS, SONIC RONDEZVOUS BAND, AGATHOCLES, THE TROUBADORS, THE WICKED SOUNDTRACK by AL JOURGENSEN, WEDNESDAY 13, LOSS LEADER, CARRY ON LOVIN’, A VERY CHERRY CHRISTMAS VOL 4,  RALFE BAND, RAW POO, SILVERY, LOS, KONG, THE FM FLASH, SEELAND, I AM IMMUNE, BROKEN ARM, MORIARTY, DUMB INSTRUMENT, LOUIS BARABBAS AND THE BLACK VELVET BAND, BLACK CHANNELS, ANTHEMS, SPOOKBOY, LONG HAT PINS, LOS CONIOS, BOY OUTSIDE, LOCI, THE DO OR DIES, The FRESHWHIP art collective, that 696 form and more...

ORGAN 285 - GALLON DRUNK, SONVAR, MATT ELLIOTT, PSYCHIC TV, SUSPYRE, PAPIER TIGRE, RUDE MECHANICALS THE CURSORS, more on AMANDA PALMER'S beautiful belly, THURSTON MOORE's new cassette only fetish flavoured release... oh lots of stuff, DAMON & NAOMI, THE ERGS, ANARCHISTWOOD, ABE VIGODA and more, go read and see...

ORGAN 284 - Do we need to go type out a list? Just go have a look...

ORGAN 283 - THE WELCOME WAGON, TIM AND SAM'S TIM AND SAM BAND WITH TIM AND SAM, JARMEAN? NASHVILLE PUSSY, RUBELLA BALLET, VOLCANO!, THE LAKE SITUATION, SUBHUMANS, GLOBO, KAYO DOT, I LIKE TRAINS, PREGO, THE VERVE, THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART, CRISIS NEVER ENDS, SIX FEET UNDER, USELESS ID, BITCHES SIN, SLICK'S KITCHEN, JE SUIS ANIMAL, SEVERAL UNION, GUILLOTINE, DEAD OR AMERICAN, THE JOHN HENRYS, BURNING PILOT and more... 

ORGAN 282 - Oh loads of stuff, go see....

ORGAN 281 - F**KED UP, ROLO TOMASSI, MoHa!, SEMAPHORE, THE MINIONS, CHICKENHAWK  TROST, MAGNOLIA, LEFT TO VANISH, FREDRICK STANLEY STAR, HEADLESS HEROES, TORTUGA, THE BOAT PEOPLE, BARR, SAMMY HAGAR, BORN FROM, ROB HIMSELF, THE DeRELLAS, THE RACE, CONOR OBERST, DEPARTMENT S, MARILLION, 11:59, GHOSTFIRE, HANDMADE & BOUND...

ORGAN 280 - AIDS WOLF, THE PROCESS, RIOTGOD, SLITVEIN, TO THE BONES, LOYAL TROOPER, ALISON O’DONNELL, THREATMANTICS, DARK CAPTAIN LIGHT CAPTAIN, EARTHLESS, CROWPATH, THE COMPUTERS, MIA VIGAR, BRIMSTONE HOWL, SATYRICON, THE ESTRANGED, MERCURY REV, AS EDEN BURNS, SUPERSUCKERS, CARNAL DECAY, PSAPP, DANKO JONES, JOHNNY COLA & THE A-GRADES, UNFOLD PRESENTS: TRU THOUGHTS HIP HOP, KUNG FU SUPER SOUNDS, MADE IN MEXICO, KOSMISCHE, DESERT MUSIC SCHOOL BENEFIT....

ORGAN 279 - DEERHOOF, MARTIN ORFORD, CUTTHROAT CONVENTION, SPEECH DEBELLE, OVER THE WALL, SOUTH CENTRAL, MAYORS OF MIYAZAKI, DIAGONAL, CONSOLATION PRIZEFIGHTER, DAN BAIRD & HOMEMADE SIN, THE RAMPTON RELEASE DATE, NANAS REVENGE, DISTANCE TO FAULT, MARSHALL LAW, SPEED THEORY, JUD, SOLITARY, FAILSAFE, EASTER, THE ACORN, FROM MONUMENT TO MASSES, STONE GODS, VOO, EDO BRIGHTON PROTESTS... 

ORGAN 278 - ORIGINAL SILENCE, INERTIA BLOOMS, TRANSMISSION, REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITIES, THE RAYOGRAPHS, ABIGAIL WILLIAMS, THE BEDROOM PROJECT, MISPELT (TWOPOINTZERO), MONKEY FIGHTERS, EXODUS, BONNIE PRINCE BILLY, PAUL J.ABBOTT, DEERHUNTER, KILL THE CLIENT, RAY, HELGRIND, MARTUTA, ROBIN TAYLOR, INCASSUM, FLOWING TEARS, DANIEL LAND & THE MODERN PAINTERS, THIS OR THE APOCALYPSE, I HATE KATE, AIRBOURNE, EXIT CALM, THE PADDINGTONS, SILVERY, MAYBESHEWILL, HER NAME IS CALLA, WE ROCK LIKE GIRLS DON’T, HAYMAN WATKINS TROUT & LEE, MAXWELL DAVIES... 

ORGAN 277 - yeah yeah, a non stop operation....

ORGAN 276 - Oh go have a look, do we have to list it everyweek, we had loads of great stuff last week, classic week for new music... 

ORGAN 275 - GRAILS, BEATGLIDER, THE ATROCITY EXHIBIT, TO THE BONES, SEA SICK, F**K BUTTONS, STE McCABE, THE BARDO, GENTLE GIANT, THE ALL NEW ADVENTURES OF US, HANSON BOTHERS, RUMORS OF GEHENNA, ACID MOTHER TEMPLE & THE COSMIC INFERNO, JMC, P.G.LOST, UGLY STICK, A TEXTBOOK TRAGEDY, NO RETURN, TRIVIUM,  AMANDA PALMER, THE DeBRETTS,  TEMPORARY RESIDENCE...

ORGAN 274 - UNIVERS ZERO, HAUSCHKA, COUNTRYSIDE, MANIQUI LAZER, MAB, MILK ROAR, HYDRA, MAGICIAN, KIMYA DAWSON, STRIBORG, ROSE KEMP, VOLBEAT, THE BOBBY McGEES,  THE MAY FIRE, MOOSE FACTORY, PRO-PAIN, TRIP LAVA, A POETIC YESTERDAY, LORD BELIEL, FRIGHTENED RABBIT, FROM PLAN TO PROGRESS, BOWERBIRDS, BLACK DIAMOND HEAVIES, DAMIEN HURST, CLIFF'S SINGLE, ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES... 

ORGAN 273 - CONSTANTINES, WOODBOX GANG, RA RA RIOT, MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN, PERHAPS CONTRAPTION, AMANDA PALMER, BYE BYE CANDY, OF THE I, RUDE MECHANICALS, ANARCHISTWOOD, GIRLSCHOOL, ICED EARTH, ICED EARTH, BLOOD CEREMONY, TONAL OAK, SOULS, FALLEN, PURE INC, BULLET, THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART, DARK CAPTAIN LIGHT CAPTAIN, THE TAMBORINES, EX-GIRL, DESTINATION:OBLIVION, JOE MEEK....

ORGAN 272 - YOUNG WIDOWS, AMANDA PALMER, EHNAHRE, GRASSCUT, PRINTS, THE FRENCH QUARTER, POPE JOAN, THE VERVE, BUFFALO KILLERS, MISERATION, DRAGONFORCE, THE MONO EFFECT, BONKERSFEST ‘08, NOUGHT, GERTUDE, TO THE BONES, ROLLINS, BOBBY BARKER, ONE TRUE DOG, BLUEZZ INTOXICATED, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, F*CKED UP, IMPROV EVERYWHERE, CLIFF... 

ORGAN 271 - LUSTMORD, SLIPKNOT, LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS, AARON KRATEN, FIGHT LIKE APES, TOY GUN COWBOY, IMMERSION COMPOSITION SOCIETY, PICTURES PAINT WORDS, LITTLE JACKIE, RUBY THROAT, TO THE BONES, THE MIRIMAR DISASTER, AGRYPNIE, CITY 13, LORDS OF BASTARD, THE DONKEYS, GOLDBLADE, BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE PRESENTS: BRENDAN CANNING, BLAND BLADEN, EUREKA MACHINES, BRIAN WILSON, PETALS ON A WET BLACK BOUGH, NARRATION, KISSING KALINA, THE REVELLIONS, KILLING JOKE... 

ORGAN 270 - HEY COLOSSUS, ROSE KEMP, MOTORHEAD, COP ON THE EDGE, GNOMES OF ZURICH, LITTLE JACKIE, JOY OF SEX, GNAW THEIR TONGUES, GEOFF SOULE, UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, JAGUAR LOVE, HELLFIRE, CRUISER, THE CHAIR, GORGOROTH, SONNY, REGURGITATOR, LAGWAGON, MILLENNIA, UNBUNNY, TZUN TZU, SUPENIK, ZEBRAHEAD, MOURNING RISE, SINISTER, THE BIKINI BEACH BAND, ZAG AND THE COLOURED BEADS, WHIMWISE, SUSAN GEORGE BOOTH, SERGEANT BUZFUZ, POPE JOAN, FOUR DEAD IN OHIO, THE VIEW FROM BELOW, THE INCONSOLABLES, THE SAVAGE RESURRECTION, LIZ PHAIR, BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB... 

ORGAN 269 - VESSELS, DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS, ELEPHANT 9, ART IN EXILE, WILD DOGS IN WINTER, DISSENTIENT REVOLT, TONAL OAK, THE STRIPPER PROJECT, GUTZ, 31KNOTS, INDIAN JEWELRY, KASAI ALLSTARS, NEW MECANICA, LONELY GHOSTS, AGNOSTIC MOUNTAIN GOSPEL CHOIR, RYE, RYE, LAST HARBOUR, THOSE WHO BRING THE TORTURE, RE-RENAISSANCE OF THE CELTIC HARP, BEN MARWOOD, VALKYR, EGEBAMYASI, THE CLOUD ROOM, HURRA TORPEDO, FIGHT LIKE APES...

ORGAN 268 - DOSH, VILE IMBECILES, QUEEN ADREENA, Z's, MOGWAI, DDD, ISOR, PURE REASON REVOLUTION, BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE, HEAVY HEAVY LOW LOW, SOUTH, SILVERY, THE LAZY DARLINGS, THRACIA, LATE OF THE PIER, FANTASY BAR, BLACK FLAME, THE VERVE, HERZOGA, THE STOOGES, FIGHT LIKE APES...

ORGAN 267 - KAYO DOT, SHEARWATER, OXBOW, HARVEY MILK, ONE DAY AS A LION, KONG, DEBUTANT, IDIOT SAVANT, THE JET BOYS, NADJA, THOMAS FUNCTION, SEBASTIAN BACH, ORGHIA, SANCTORUM, GROUND MOWER, DISARM, RON FRANKLIN, BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME, SABATRON, KAROSHI BROS, THE VIVIANS, THE HAIR, UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, THE EMERGENCY, DOOM. BIFFY CLYRO...