Wrappin’ up 2013’s best unsigned/small labels bands and artists-the end!

What a beautiful year it was musically for british music lovers! Here’s the end of our  2013’s countdown.

The Cottonettes-Satisfy Me
Released early 2013, we love the punk-ish sounds of this tune. Part Ramones, part Pistols, it’s one of the catchiest song of the year!

Mowbird-Be My Jill Valentine
Released as a free download for Valentine’s Day, the Wrexham four-piece is going surf-rock. They also released a new version of Happy Active Horse Organ later in 2013 on Popty-Ping Records

Model Aeroplanes-Any Damn Kid
Scotland’s have also a couple of great bands as this one hailing from Dundee. Rock’n’roll, britpop, loud guitars all mixed together for a brilliant 3 minutes listening time!

As Elephants Are-Lucifer
We discovered them in 2012 with ”War Cry”, now they were back this year with a magical piece of art, Lucifer. Just the great dose of melancholy and amazing musical arrangements!

Lovats-Over
The area of Birmingham had its loads of great new acts in 2013, just thinkin’ of Swim Deep, The Traps or Peace…another band didn’t escape this, LOVATS with the wonderful It’s Over. Danceable tune of the likes of Two Door Cinema Club and Theme Park. New material is due for 2014, it’s definitely a band on our radar for the next year!

TEETH!!!

Ces derniers temps, DJ Mel a eu beaucoup de coups de coeur, donc en voici un qui vaut la peine d’être présenté. Entendu pour la première fois a BBC introducing, je suis complètement tombée en amour avec ce trio electro déjanté. Teeth est un groupe originaire de Dalston, eh oui la même ville que le groupe grunge Male Bonding. Ils font de l’électro ”à la Crystal Castles” (i.e. See spaces leur premier simple par exemple). La mode du son électro jeu vidéo est revenu à la mode à ce que l’on peut voir. Teeth! est un de ces groupes qui peut mixer différents styles et est un groupe en constante évolution…A ecouter!

In these days, DJ Mel got loads of heartrobs songs and bands to discover who made the list for sharing on this blog. Heard them for the first time at BBC introducing show with Huw Stephen, I completely fell in love with this original trio. Teeth is coming from Dalston, yeah same place as punk rocker Male Bonding. They are doing electro ”a la ” Crystal Castles (i.e. See spaces their first single is really sounding like the canadian band, in a good and original way). Electro is back and teeth! is a band that can mix every sounds perfectly, they’re in constant evolution…Listen in!

Écouter See Spaces ici/Stream See Spaces here

Featured: Neon Asylum

On the London Cafe radio show, we brought you a bunch of new unsigned acts. One of them is Neon Asylum, a new act from Birmingham, UK.   In this feature, you’ll discover a little bit more about his electro music and background.

First of all, what made you decide to do that kind of electronic music? Was it a decision you took at a young age or it came by listening to others music?

I originally started off in a band in the vein of Sonic Youth called ‘lipsticky’ i played guitar and bass for them when I was 14. We were quite good actually not sure why we didn’t continue.

I first started making electronic music in noise form when i was 17 it was in the vein of Merzbow nothing like Neon Asylum haha. I started Neon Asylum after seeing Heartsrevolution live in Birmingham. I was like “man, I wanna do this”. I created a song called “Superadventureclub” and It all went from that. I created my best music though because of Ethan from Crystal Castles. To be honest, I wouldn’t be doing this without Ethan from Crystal Castles. He’s my biggest inspiration and a good friend. So really everything really is a nod to Ethan. Thank you!

When we think about Birmingham, we are thinkin’ about the indie rock scene. How does it feel to make a complete different kind of music?

I suppose it’s a good thing really, I don’t really pay attention to the local scene actually. I try to avoid performing here aswell. I prefer to spread my music further and further. The fatal mistake bands make at the start of their careers are concentrating on their hometowns and local pubs. The further my music gets the better really. I’m a man with a plan!

You’ve done a couple of EPs available through myspace and other sites. Now you currently work on your first album and you got quite cool collaborators on it. Can you tell us more?

The album is all over the place at the moment. I’m demoing it still and it’s sounding quite well.

I’m hoping to get into the studio asap and record it.

I also cannot decide on a name between “Beethoven: The Best Of” and “The Twitter Chronicles”. I’m still trying to get a hold of the people who originally confirmed to guest hopefully it doesn’t fall through! Hope to have it out by the summer

If you got to do a top 5 songs that influenced you through the years, which ones would they be?

Crystal Castles – Courtship Dating, Heartsrevolution – CYOA, Roses Kings Castles – Entroubled, The Big Pink – Too Young To Love and Crystal Castles – Exoskeleton

You also do remixes. Is it hard for you to creates another mood for a song that you like? (ie. Crystal Castles for example?)

Ermm, Yeah. I guess it is. When I remix I want to create a whole new song really. I’m working on some great remixes at the moment. I love it when a remix changes the song completely. Like I love Tom Molloy’s remix of Peace. I’m really glad he did it. He’s a great guy and a great producer, I see him doing great things in the future.

Finally, Destroy Mika is probably your best hit. It has been played on Huw Stephens show just to mention it…the video for the song is quite original. Where does the idea of it came from?

I got in touch with this guy on YouTube who used to use the official Crystal Castles forum when I used to run it. He does alot of fan videos of other bands using his original video footage or other video footage. So I asked him to create a video for Destroy Mika and to capture the fun mood of the song. He took a couple of days, and came out with this masterpiece which I’m quite happy about.

For more info on Neon Asylum, you can visit his myspace here or download Destroy Mika single here. Also, below you’ll find destroy mika video. Enjoy!