Young, Fresh & New

Der Jugend is zurück: De Jeugd van tegenwoordig – Hollereer (mp3)

Post-Postal Service-before-there-was-a-Postal Service: The Notwist – Good Lies (mp3)

80's synths and Miami Vice drums, isn't that really all you need? M83 – Kim & Jessie (mp3)

Zoot alors: Zoot Woman – live in my Head (mp3)

Hmmm, maybe there's still hope for Chinese Democracy too: Portishead – Machine Gun (mp3)

They only want you when you’re seventeen part II

For some mysterious reason 'youth' seems to be a theme these days. Check MGMT's 'Kids' and 'The Youth', seventeen year-old Laura Marling who sings on Mystery Jets' 'Young Love' or M83's new album 'Saturdays=Youth'. And now Ladytron (best known for their hit 'Seventeen') have released a new single as well as Dutch electro hip-hoppers De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig ('Today's Youth').

Hollerate: De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig - Hollereer (stream)

Ladytron - Black Cat (mp3)

Ladytron - Seventeen (mp3)

They only want you when you’re seventeen

Laura Marling, you know, the ultra-talented seventeen year old girl with the amazing voice and the catchy folk-pop songs? She played in Paradiso in Amsterdam yesterday. Dressed in one of her bear-sized grandpa’s shirts and fresh from the blind lady next door who cut her hair she awkwardly played some songs. And she must have practiced a lot, since they sounded exactly as they sound on her (quite excellent) debut album. I guess she had to concentrate real hard to reproduce those songs so well because she kept looking at her shoes or her microphone. Well done, Laura!

Afterwards I had a couple of drinks with some seventeen-something girls (and no it wasn’t like that at all) who knew what being seventeen is all about. Hot fashion, juicy gossip (‘you know Chris and Janine…well, they totally did it!’), bitchfights (“bitter is not a good color on you honey”) and even throwing drinks in someone's face (I thought that only happened on tv). Suffice it to say; I prefer my seventeen year-old girls that way.

Laura Marling – Ghosts (mp3)

Mystery Jets – Young Love (featuring Laura Marling) (mp3)

Be Your Own Pet is Still Rock'n'Roll

...Although they've grown past majority now.

Or should that be: even though they've grown up, they're still rock'n'roll?

After this, rather gothy, video you could expect the worst. Teenage girls in nurse uniforms, how emo can you get (the background in the pic doesn't count, that's just a club in Austin)? Well, cousin Jemina (not Aunt, although she's from Tennessee) still has got a voice like you wouldn't believe - raw, guttural, sexy - and the band serves her really well. On stage, she's a raging vixen, shaking her stuff like Iggy has reincarnated even if he has not died yet. (He Should, BTW)

I was overjoyed to see that BYOP had a new album out (source of the first video) and I like it even better than their previous effort. I guess you get better when you get older, up to a certain age. One song hypemachine/youtube has not picked up on yet, but which to me really exemplifies the raw strength of BYOP can be found here. 100 downloads only!

This one is rather funny as well.

Red

Today, on the fifth day of spring, Guillemots are finally releasing their long-awaited follow-up album Red. I will not bore you with another exhausting allegorial representation of the album - I trust a short yet indisputable must-buy recommendation will do.

Eclectic, sophisticated, stupefying, sometimes bombastic, but with every element deliberately chosen.

Asthmatic Kitty Releases Free Video Game Compilation!

The label of a.o. Sufjan Stevens, My Brightest Diamond and Castanets releases a compilation of songs to play during the independant videogame 'AutoSurf'. The music is influencing the speed of the game, so it's really interactive. The fine eclectro is made by some artists of the label and a lot of friends. Some songs are exclusively released on this compilation. Also when you're not playing videogames, the music is nice to listen and free to download!

Asthmatic Kitty - Music for videogames v.1 [album]

PC, Hi-IQ Niggers and Teenage Pregnancy

If you haven't seen Juno yet, go do so. Now. Not only is the movie nice (nice enough to make me cry, 2 out of two times I've seen it - whereas Contact only managed 66.65% :)

But the soundtrack... Man that snipped my bellbottows off with a boxcutter (*)! The indie tracks are very high quality - two Belle&Sebastian tracks! Sonic Youth/The Carpenters actually featuring - as in being talked about - in a movie! Cat Power! - The Kinks (selling point for your parents (unless you're preggers I guess)). Best thing, the original tracks are really catchy too, I kept whistling them walking home for days. Why didn't they get an Oscar?

Connecting nicely into the (major spoiler! ?) upper class babies, here's a very good track by Cadence Weapon: "Tattoos and What They Really Feel Like". Sounds gangsta, but it's not!

His new record "Afterparty Babies" is out now on Canada's upperclass records. I'm listening to it right now and it's very, very good. Cool beats and very cool rhymes without the "Look at me I'm a white guy from Nova Scotia" Buck 65 routine :) To be sure, they both suffer from excessive name-drop-ism but when you're namedropping Ian Curtis/Frida Kahlo I guess you are allowed some leeway.

Here's another nice Cadence Weapon video on YouTube: "Sharks". That one's a bit older, though.
Finally, here's a really booming track: House Music

Full disclosure: I am a big fan of CWs labelmate The Russian Futurists. I read their promotional emails. I really look forward to TRF's next album ;-) Finally: I downloaded CW's latest from bitTorrent, but will go see him as the pre/post-show of The Russian Futurists!

(*) = I stole that too from Cadence Weapon. He's just got too many good lines!