What better way to follow Here We Go Magic than with another offspring from the ever fertile womb that is Brooklyn, New York.
Three piece Callers released acclaimed new record 'Life Of Love' in October on Western Vinyl, which offered up the heart-breakingly sparse new single How You Hold Your Arms. Sara Lucas' vocals take on a tragic loneliness given the bare, jazz influenced arrangements, making the 'look' she gives you at the end of the accompanying video-within-a-video all the more haunting.
From one of the best records of 2010 comes the most unpredictable video of 2010. If you were exoecting that, perhaps you should sign up for the next Here We Go Magic single.
Oxfordshire's Fixers are probably the first thing to come up if you typed "Positive dreamy" or "How I would most like to wake up" into Google. Or maybe "What would it sound like if 'Smile' era Brian Wilson recorded Simple Minds' Don't You?".
Amsterdam is a beautiful, expansive track, and the filmic video only adds to it's wonder. The band will be alongside fellow No Action favourites Get People and Cheatahs at Young and Lost Club's Christmas do in a few weeks, and watch for more dates in what is likely to be a big 2011 for them.
Mixing the post punk agit of The Fall and XX Teens with the essential weirdness of La Shark, Hull's The Neat are rising nicely and preparing the release of new single Hips on Kaiser Chiefs' label Chewing Gum Records.
The video is an anxious, intense experience and, while while earlier track Youth Is Pleasure is probably superior, the band have much in their locker. They'll be in London three time in the next few weeks as they traverse the isles, and are definitely worth a look.
Minding my own business I was. Waiting for The Pipettes and minding my own business. Then, from the wings of the many-tunnelled sweat-box of Leeds' Cockpit, came DJ Scotch Egg armed with said picnic snack and a fearsome barrage of SNEStronica to temporarily blind me. Being average height (for a girl) I'm not a tall man, but fizzing through the armpits and shoulders of all before me like a Robin Hood arrow a bread-crumbed ball thundered into my right eye.
After this traumatic episode I'm loathed to hail the future projects of my nemesis, but Brighton based Drum Eyes are too good to ignore. Theirs is a world of boundless possibility, merging hardcore drums, 80s synths and a psychedelic take on structure to create music alien to convention. Their debut Gira Gira was out a few months back on Upset the Rhythm, but here's a taster of their madcappery.
In what is the antithesis of the video for the single version of this track, here we not only get a hooded Bonnie Prince Billy's whispering backing vocals, but a splendidly be-capped Alexis and a prime view of Mr Joe Goddard's puppies (ahem, my apologies). A most pleasant five minutes.
Cloud Nothings is a man. Let's get that straight. To his friends he's 19-year-old Dylan Baldi, and he makes bedroom garage anthems and brilliant record sleeves, such as this. Leave You Forever is but one part of his True Panther released 4-song EP of the same name and, of the host of excellent acts that have already been announced for SXSW 2011 and no doubt countless more to come, Cloud Nothings could well be the pick.
Dylan and band will be trading their wares with Les Savy Fav in London before the month is out, which will definitely be worth a watch.
London label Sleep All Day Records featured, albeit briefly, on No Action as an aside to a featurette on the magnificent Colours. We felt it only right that the label backing some of the best and brightest first city talents should garner some plaudits of its own. So here's a brief dedication, highlighted through the works of its pedigree offspring, to Sleep All Day.
Weird Dreams meld 60s London pop with Johnny Marr riffs and the result is aural heaven. Their 'Weird Dreams EP' is below, but track down Hurt So Bad as well. Weird Dreams ep by Weird Dreams
Perfect Hair Forever could well be No Action's favourite tack of the year, perfect gutter pop if ever there were such a thing. 03 Perfect Hair Forever by notcool
SAD have also gone fishing on the opposite side of the pond for their most recent output. Brooklyn's Byrds of Paradise are all discordant punk smash genius with an ear for crescendo. Barefoot Generation is out now. This is Rowena. Rowena - Byrds of Paradise by kohar
Last up, some divine dream-surf from Colours, showing the West Coast how it's done.
Perhaps it's the influence of a US tour in support of London's own Florence that explains the sense of unveiling that accompanies the new single from Smith Westerns. Their 2009 debut, full of carefree melody and distracted mumblings, was a joy of fuzzy lo-fi but, while the hazy reverb remains, the boys have stepped up to the foreground and into outstanding pop clarity.
The new album 'Dye It Blonde' will follow on Fat Possum in the new year and, if Weekend is anything to go by, 2011 is off to a flyer. See 'em at the Windmill or Luminaire before the month is out.
Welcome to No Action.
Based in Bow, East London, writing about stuff that sounds good.
No Action has also written for High Voltage and The Fugitive Motel.
