What a trio of wonders we have prepared for you in our
discoverer series! New incarnations of a most-beloved band, a heavyweight promise and some fake music news hiding a masterpiece! Plenty to discover,
so let's go!
Last Leaves. The Lucksmiths rank high, very high within this Blogger's janglepop heart, so just knowing about the existence of this band, with three quarters of the much-longed Australian wonder reassembled together (songwriter & guitarist Marty Donald, who assumes vocal duties, Louis Richter on guitar and Mark Monnone on bass, joined by drummer Noah Symons), was enough to make this humble virtual space collapse with anticipation and excitement. Now the waiting is over. Recorded over the course of nearly three years, debut album ‘
Other Towns Than Ours’, out since late October via
Matinee Recordings and
Lost and Lonesome Records, is all we could expect from the Aussies.
Perfect jangle-pop, open country roads, melancholic melodies, instant-crush guitar lines, fading satellite towns...plus new hints of fuzz and darker corners that announces (we hope so)
Last Leaves are here to stay and explore new pop territories. With us.
Spinning Coin. Happily discovered at the last & wonderful
Wales Goes Pop Fest, we jump to Glasgow to meet this
quintet that formed in 2014 as a four-piece, leaded by Sean Armstrong and Jack Mellin. With members heavily involved into music community and a DIY collective approach-idiosyncrasy in their way of creating music, the band released some tapes in 2015, but really began to make some buzz with the 2016 7" '
Albany/Sides'. followed at the beginning of this year by 7" '
Raining on Hope Street/Tin', both released by
Geographic Music, The Pastels’ Domino imprint. Now the five-piece has just put out debut album '
Permo', confirming all the promise anticipated in previous releases. Like a rejuvenated & slightly experimental reincarnation of
Teenage Fanclub, Spinning Coin is a beast of several heads and bold statements (check the lyrics), Armstrong's tunes bringing the pop brightness and Mellin's the fury and roughness, Spinning Coin is a
breadth of fresh air and hope. Not to miss.
Mick Trouble. This is crazy, ridiculous, more than apt for the era in we are living (this Trump-fake-age), fun and genius at the same time. The available info says Londoner Mick Trouble was a kind of lost legend of pop-pub-punk who, in the early 80's was coveted by John Peel and part of the inner circle of Swell Maps and Television Personalities, surely about to break it big. But as many other promises, Trouble vanished... or maybe not? Seems the truth send us to New York, where Jed Smith (you might remember that power-pop blast that was
My Teenage Stride) has just delivered a stunning EP entitled '
It’s The Mick Trouble EP', out since September via Emotional Response.
The story tells us this four tunes are a find cut directly from a master reel discovered under Trouble's basement (there's another Trouble jam, unheard & possibly, alongside The Glitter Band, Lemmy Kilmister, and Damo Suzuki, if you are making-up something, do it big) but who cares about reality when the tale sounds so amazing?. Summoning the spirits of Dan Tracey, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, The Jam, Stiff Records... this is a mind-blowing exhumation of a certain riotous, instant-catching pub rock tunes and
one of the EPs of the year... Whether the year is 1981 or 2017 is up to you.
