I Ching // It's Me

London foursome I Ching were garlanded with the honour of having their debut single It's Me / Drive be the first pressed on TLOBF's record label Best Fit Recordings. A couple of fine sounding tracks they are too, arching pop with the ear-worm insistency of Here We Go Magic and, in It's Me, a cymbal-driven track with warm synth interludes that would fit comfortably between New Order and Wild Beasts. Sample their wares below.
 



Follow @No_Action

Little Scream // The Heron and The Fox

You can never go far wrong with a Secretly Canadian signing, the record label home of Here We Go Magic, Yeasayer, JJ and Antony & The Johnsons acting as signpost for innovation and future genius.

It would seem careless therefore not to herald a new SC signing with some attention. Unlike her label contemporaries there's more of the traditional in Little Scream, with a lush, hushed voice that invites comparisons with Joni Mitchell, yet behind the innocent visage lies perhaps a more deviant edge, singing of showing truckers what she's got and that she would be the fox to her muse's heron.

Ok, perhaps not deviant, but there's plenty to love in this celebratory free download that certainly whets the aural appetite for her forthcoming debut 'The Golden Record' out 11th April.

Little Scream - The Heron and The Fox

Callers // How You Hold Your Arms

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.

Here We Go Magic // Casual

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.

Harlem :: Spectrals // Hoxton Bar & Kitchen

Harlem and Spectrals, two bands that have been immovable on the No Action playlist for months now, on the same bill? You read our mind Hoxton Bar & Kitchen.

Before the fun starts, however, The Lucid Dream made the long trip from Carlisle trudged through the sort of psychedelia that thankfully is not present in recent 90s revivalism. And on this basis it's not likely to be.

Spectrals' set, despite the impassive looks etched across his and his band's faces induced by the sweltering heat, is immaculate from the start. Harnessing the combined charms of Mersey-beat and baroque pop, Spectrals comes over like The Last Shadow Puppets with a lo-fi ethic. The delicate Birthday Kiss gets the room swaying before superb early single Leave Me Be adds some Californian surf to the mix. Throwing in a Milkshakes cover for some teeth-grindingly ragged garage-blues only makes us love him more, while a forthcoming Reading/Leeds slot and supports for Les Savy Fav, Wavves and Here We Go Magic look set to place Spectrals firmly on the radar.

What better way to back up Spectrals than with some balls-out Texan garage? While their tour manager lines up the drinks (whiskys, lagers, strictly no waters) for them to knock down, the band instruct the crowd to "dance around like retards" and crash through Beautiful and Very Smart before Friendly Ghost's opening refrain "I live in a graveyard!" stuns the room into life. The sound is much heavier than comes across on Hippies, particularly prior to the vocalist/drummer switch, with Faces causing the queued up couples front of stage no end of trouble from the burgeoning mosh pit behind. Post switch, South of France and recent single Gay Human Bones get the best reception. While there's no end of garage bands about, Harlem's melodic riffs and boozy drawl set them apart. Check them out below.