2007 so far, and my "want to listen to" list (Part 2)

I better finish this topic pretty quickly because the list of things I want to listen to is getting longer faster than I can possibly add them to this blog or - importantly and also much more expensively - to my music collection!

The first is a Brighton-based band, Electrelane, that has recently come to my attention due to the fact that they supported Arcade Fire on the UK leg of their world tour. That I had not heard of it is rather inexcusable as they have been together for the better part of a decade and are to release their fourth studio album on 30th April.

No Shouts No Calls will be available on 12" vinyl.

The second is also Brighton-based; in this case an eight member collective that I had already heard of although perhaps maybe most people haven't! In 2006 Shoreline released a brilliant 5-track 10" EP, From Eden, Home And In Between - on vinyl only - on 'Yesternow Recordings' (YES001) .
Their début album, Time Well Spent, should follow fairly soon, also on 'Yesternow Recordings'. I say "Brighton-based" advisedly; the leading lights in Shoreline are main vocalist Beatrice Sanjust di Teluada, who is from Italy, and Tom Cowan who hails from Burton on Trent. What does their music sound like? Well I've seen it described as 'acid folk' a couple of times but how much does that help most of us? It is however certainly not 'alt-folk' either...
Entirely acoustic, it has a indefinable child-like quality. Often dream-like the lyrics sometimes seem to make sense and sometimes they don't, but they are a source of wonder and their actual meaning utterly unimportant. Most strikingly, Sounds Like may not even have any meaning at all but these are truly musical nursery rhymes for adults.
The reason that I have not made any comparisons between Shoreline and other acts is because, at the moment, I quite simply can't think of any!
Last but not least is this one:
Laura Marling - London Town (EP)

This was released only on 7" on Monday 9th April, by WayOutWest Records. If you can still find a copy available - and don't even think about quizzing Amazon about it - then it is well worth having!
She is not actually a 'Londoner' at all but comes from Eversley, on the fringes of Reading. Her music sounds more like alt-folk than acid-folk, but does it also overlap with anti-folk? I think so - and the problem with all these so-called 'genres' is that they are so numerous as to be quite meaningless. Almost as numerous indeed as the new generation of (mostly) guitar-wielding UK singer-songwriters, that are variously so labelled, and with whom I have no problem at all!

"Britain Has Talent"and we certainly don't need Simon Cowell's latest reality TV idea (of that name) to prove it.
From the ever-so-delicately picked 'hardly there' sound, to the full punk-rock blast of bands such as Glasgow's 'The Hedrons', it is already a fact; Maxïmo Park even provided an apposite summary with the track 'Girls Who Play Guitars', which features on their new album 'Our Earthly Pleasures'. Long may it remain the case!