Music: Dear Reader - Monkey (You Can Go Home)

"Idealistic Animals is a well-crafted album; combining melancholic melodies with a real message" - Artrocker

Dear Reader, or Cheri MacNeil as her friends call her, has announced that single Monkey (You Can Go Home) will be released on January 23rd, to celebrate the release of album Idealistic Animals this week.

The acoustic version of this track (see below) featuring just Cherie and a piano, lovely though it is, is not a patch on the original version, full of strong drums and interesting strings and guitars.  She does have the voice of an angel and the poetic capability of Carol Ann Duffy, and this shines in an acoustic setting, but there is nothing like the beat-led original track, full of ups and downs and with a mysterious edge.  It manages to be soft and feminine, questioning and curious but at the same time strong enough to be different and at times, mainly towards the end, wonderfully chaotic.  It's a track that will appeal to a broad audience, from the Elbow loving masses right through to your mum... probably.

The original version:

Dear Reader - MONKEY (Go Home Now) by cityslang

And the acoustic version (good for hangovers!):

http://www.dearreadermusic.com/

Music: Enter Shikari - A Flash Flood Of Colour

For anyone who wasn't aware of Enter Shikari's new album release.  And for anyone who hasn't listened to Enter Shikari before, here is my favourite track Sorry You're Not A Winner - you should also keep an eye out for Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour.

Music: The Victorian English Gentlemens Club

"An aggravated three piece band making underground pop racket in the pop underground racket that is Cardiff"

There's nothing better than listening to something for the first time and knowing that it's great.  When you listen to a lot of new music you get used to reading good things about a band and being told their the best thing since sliced bread.  The you spend some time getting excited about them and then you finally listen to them... and it's the biggest anti-climax.  Music journalism is one let down after another and I'm not going to tell you all something is great unless I actually think it is.  This is one of the reasons you won't find a 'Best Music of 2011' or a 'Celebration of 2011's music' because on the whole I thought it was pretty poor.  There was a definite generic sound of 2011 and it's one that sounds just like Elbow, but unfortunately it now also sounds like 1000 other bands - and I didn't even like it on elbow.  If the sound was a colour, it would be beige.

And so, how lovely, a bit of light refreshment.  The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, are everything that is not Elbow, or chart, or Lady Gaga, or Professor Green, or those silly b*****s off The Only Way Is Essex.  Now, I won't lie, I listened to them for the first time this morning so we are learning together here but I please implore you to listen to the track below.  I've been through the album Bag Of Meat (which was actually released back in June - slow on the uptake!) and sometimes they're Gary Numan and sometimes they're MGMT and sometimes they're a big rock monster; sometimes they're Adam and the bloody Ants.  In the PR blurb they're described as "an agitable, tense and tetchy melodic laceration of neo/new/no/now/non/post/wave; an anthemic, torch bearing, porch burning anti-opera" and that almost sums up the non-sensical wonderfullness that is The Victorian English Gentleman's Club.

This is Conversation, which again was released months ago, and is supposedly a conversation between a woman and her executioner just before her beheading.  And if that doesn't strike up some kind of morbid curiousity I don't know what will.  But overall, if you're just looking for something that sticks two fingers up to Guy Garvey...

The Victorian English Gentlemens Club - A Conversation by thisisfakediy

Official Website with a listening page

YouTube