Vukovar - the blood garden

Here is the new single from Wigan's Vukovar, the title track is atmospheric and asymmetric as the melody heads off into various tangents throughout but the course - between fast guitar led melodies and sparse interludes - is hypnotically appealing thoughout. Followed by "Part 2: Ms Kuroda's Lament" is filled with interesting noises and the live version also presented here is lovely and raw.

Flyying Colours

Flyying Colours fill me with nostalgia, they have a very early 90s shoegaze noise feel reminding me at times of the likes of Blind Mr Jones. Now that, boys and girls, is a very very good thing. Its blissed out, harsh, beautiful and urgent at the same time. The glory of noise is eternal and Flyying Colours are very welcome to continue the legacy.

MV : "Drunken butterfly" by Sonic Youth

Still sounds so so good.

MV : "M" by La Casa Al Mare

A glorious heavenly noise.

Human Colonies - calvary

Blurry dream pop from Italy and very fine it is too. Highlights? Well "Sunshine Jesus" is a blistering blast of fuzzy noise, urgent beat under a wave of distorted guitar and fabulous. I also love "Falling deeper" which is a little more downbeat and underpinned by screeches of guitar. "Cross" and "Exosphere" are on a similar vein, both contain beauty amid the noise. "Hey you" is dramatic, reminding me a bit of the Bardots.

To be honest i love all of this album. The album is available here, highly recommended.

Nanaki - Dandelion Radio sessions

Nanaki (Postcode guitarist Mikie's solo project) presents this radio sessions album (recorded for Dandelion Radio) which revisits some of the tracks from the band's earliest days. Great stuff it is too, moody rock and punk textures galore. "January overkill" the opener is a whirlwind of razor sharp and howling guitars underpinned by a tasty bass line. "Disembyro" is moody and mysterious. "Let me close my eyes" is simple and restrained before erupted into a guitar frenzy. More about the EP can be seen here.

La Casa Al Mare - this astro EP

MBV have so much to answer for, and so so much of it good. Including La Casa Al Mare from Rome who no doubt were influenced by the gods of noise as well as bands like Slowdive and The Telescopes. With influences like that it can only be a good thing and its a beautiful heavenly sound they produce. Waves of distorted wailing noise wash over you on tracks like "I don't want to" and "Sunflowers".

It is the music of outer space, like you would imagine rock music from Proxima Centauri would sound like. In fact it does indeed sound like like this. Trust me. You wouldn't want it any other way.

Available from Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

Schizo Fun Addict vs The Bordellos

A split cassette is being released to raise funds for Save The Children, so think about it... a split cassette of cool indie noise and you raise money for charity too. Now that sir is the coolest thing you can ever think of, even more than a bar which only sells cereal!

So here is a little sample. Schizo Fun Addict's "AM story" is spacey and full of electric atmosphere and "Endorphin portal" is fractured and edgy moving into tasty electro beats. The Bordellos' "Hit it" is raw and superbly garagey. "A little sadness" simple and reflective. A great mix of styles and music and cooler than... you know.

Soft Walls - no time

A mournful drone fills the air, then perforated by an urgent garage-y drum beat and Stereolab-ish guitar. "No time" has an interesting mix of styles and tones, lo-fi but with layers of complexity including some sweet retro electronica. There is a definite atmosphere here, and quite a down one too but in despair is joy allegedly. Or at least a very enjoyable album.

"Guided through" is my favourite track with its guitar shriek. "All the same" also scores highly with its juicy lo-fi repetitive thrash.

Psychic Markers - scrapbook no. 1

Cassette Store Day, what a great concept... so i just had to get some cassette albums of course. And worry about what i was going to play the tapes on later. Luckily one of my two old tape players still works and Psychic Markers sound great indeed.

Modern day psychedelic with big lashings of dream pop and various noises some of which sound like the distorted tones of Soviet Short Wave propaganda (might be the cassette player) and explosions of guitar at odd (and the right) moments. Meandering swirls of pop noise, melodic and dynamic. Yeah i liked this a lot, its everything you could ever ask or hope for.

Ewian - good old underground

Distorted guitars, screechy noises, a stumbling beat, soaring vocals. Well thats the opener by this German/international group on their first full-length album, "My dear dead memory". So this album is off to a good start yeah? The title track is much the same, a great noise indeed. Its not all bluster and noise though, "Escape" is a beautiful ballad, an atmospheric track led by haunting piano that leads into scorching guitar noise. Now thats what the kids would say is a "tuuuuuune!"

There are lots of highlights on the album, "Zampano" adds some lovely warped noises. "When i was dead" is ethereal and wispy leading into intelligent electronica and then into an orchestral wall of sound. This is really an album of sonic surprises, and good surprises at that.

The Jesus & Mary Chain - psychocandy

The long play debut of the Jesus & Mary Chain changed the world, or at least the indie rock part anyway. What is commonplace nowadays (shoegazing, feedback noise buried in a pop beat) was fairly unknown back in the mid-1980s when this came out and this album inspired so many. So what is it like, apart from iconic naturally?

A lot of it is very simple, classic pop melodies under a harsh layer of noise. But noise is beauty as has been proven so many times and this is beautiful pop. "You trip me up" is one amazing track among many, a growl under a chainsaw. "Never understand" and "The living end" also excite. Unlike quite a few iconic albums Psychocandy actually stands up pretty well, and noisily well too.

The Bordellos - will​.​i​.​am, you're really nothing

St Helens' finest indie trio The Bordellos return with another album of ire and bite and great garage-y indie sounds. "The gospel according to Julian Cope" is a growl of a track yet also has some lovely pop moments. "Public execution - gangnam style" has one of the best titles for some time and sounds like a sub-atomic nuclear test.

The title track is a tasty indie groove and another great title. The album is often quite dark, somewhat sombre but full of wit and invention. Take "My dream festival" for example which sounds like the world has been conquered by 1980s electronic toys. The Bordellos cover many genres and styles, usually in one song but do it all so well.

My Bloody Valentine - isn't anything

The debut LP by My Bloody Valentine is considered by some their best work (personally i prefer "Loveless" - just) but it is nothing less than an iconic album that changed the world - the indie world at least. Coming in 1988 it changed the direction of indie into a noise and feedback filled near future inspiring so many bands (ok many were terrible copyists but by no means all) up until the present day.

Amid clouds of feedback and drones of noise "Isn't anything" invented the shoegazing sub-genre. More urgent than "Loveless", perhaps a little more conventional but only a little. Highlights include opener "Soft as snow" which sets the tone with its weird drone noises and tempo changes. "Lose my breath" is blissful dream pop, yet with an underpinning of menace. "Nothing much to lose" descends into an acid-haze.

"Feed me with your kiss" was the single and grinds along irresistibly, i've always thought it was a little basic though compared to the rest of the album. Its still good though as the album is great, its more than great. Its the one "everyone" talks about, and for once everyone is right.

MV : "Goodbye Minehead" by Postcode

Some of the best noise at the moment.

MV : "Sunfield" by Postcode

The snow could yet come back...

Postcode - zebratronic

At the time of recording a duo, Mikie and Marie a.k.a. Postcode (the Isle of Man's most famous zebra fans of course) on their third album present a different and excitingly experimental sound. Drum machines, synths and plenty of noise thanks to alternate tuning added to the noise power and menace of earlier times. "Be back before dawn" has echoing guitar feedback plus a fuzzy melody and sounds pretty amazing.

There is a lot to enjoy on this album but to just pick out a few tracks: "Losing the battle" has a frenetic beat underpinning waves of noise. "Escape" wrings menace out of what sounds like a Casio keyboard and a melody that sounds like Earth after an alien invasion. "Epitaph" has some 80s goth feel and the echoes of guitar chords from the last ice age. "Out of my mind" has what sounds like a TASER (i'm sure its not, actually no i'm not sure at all).

Postcode's new album is amazing, inventive and thrilling. Mysterious and powerful, esoteric and straightforward, tender and brutal all in the space of a few seconds. Its true alternative music, different and dynamic but so listenable too. Its the best album of 2014 so far, i know its only early in the year but to beat this will take some doing.

Postcode - zebranthology (Small Bear)

Collecting together three albums worth of material this is an anthology of atmospheric noise from Small Bear Records' zebra obsessed band Postcode, a zebranthology of course. The amazing brutal power of "Lament" with it's wall of noise sits comfortably on here along with much more low-key yet no less powerful tracks like "Hope makes the stars shine brighter" which slips along dripping with menace and foreboding before exploding into a guitar scorching conclusion. "Charlotte" is almost gentle (in a way), acoustic yet still powerful. The acoustic tracks are indeed a great contrast to the shoegazey noise epics, tracks like "This is the last time i'll leave you alone" still have plenty of punk spirit and power.

I do like my feedback noise terrorism though and more wall of noise comes from the fantastically named "I'll be shoegazing for Christmas". "Lewis" is almost perfect, a journey through stark soundscapes building and building until it hits you with a nuclear warhead of guitar feedback. 46 tracks are on here and there are so many highlights i'd probably be writing a review of all of them for the rest of the month.

Just take it from me this is a wonderful collection of tracks, its fabulous - said it there in black and white (heh).

The Longdrone Flowers - she's strangehead too EP

The Longdrone Flowers are now no more but have left behind a couple of EPs of which this was the second and an uncompromising journey through noise it is! "Quiet" stumbles along, the sound of chaos and brutal noise. "Wildfire and the non-story" is a grind, a delicious noise pop grind at that. A bit like a 60s psychedelic pop single played at 33 1/3rpm.

Finally "My sister Drusilla" doesn't play out of your speakers it erupts like some kind of precambrian soundtrack. I liked this track the most, its warped groove and undercurrent of danger most infectious.

Jesus & Mary Chain - honey's dead

Or the Mary Chain go indie-dance. Released in the early 1990s this album perfectly captured the dance beats prevalent in indie at the time along with the earlier feedback drenched sound polished to perfection.

The album mixed cultured feedback noise with an infectious beat. Cultured? Well yes. A lot of bands at the time threw feedback at the audience to bludgeon them with a wall of noise (not that i am saying this is a bad thing of course). On "Honey's dead" the feedback is buried deeper and works into the song. Like a virus.

On this album the Reid brothers bought live drums back into the mix and the result is pretty fantastic to be honest. Songs like "Far gone and out" and "Almost gold" are epic pop songs. There are a few fillers but no dogs. The album still stands up as being one of the best indie albums of the decade. A hey hey hey!