No Rock And Roll Fun

STUFF WE'VE GOT: We'd like to take the time to bring these fine products to your attention:

Various: Extended Play EP:
Regularbeat recordings has brought together four bands into one nifty 7" featuring Leicester's Amrbose Tompkins (the only band ever to use mangos and a metronome on the same song), Liverpool's Yellow Kid, somewhere down amongst the West Midland's Mitch and Murray and Mattew Wood. It's a pretty nifty piece of work; a rare sampler which leaves you wnating to hear more of everyone involved. A couple of years back this would have been tagged and bagged as New Acoustic Movement, which was always a stupid name as one of the joys of stripped down bands is that they don't sound modish and seem to offer an easy connection with all of musical history; it's like trying to suggest that forests and copses is a new scene.

Extended Play is available on Regular Beat recordings and via Rough Trade, norman records and fine indie stores everywhere.

Quiet Loner: Secret Ruler of the World:
You have to have a certain amount of chutzpah to carry off a name like Quiet Loner - you picture people gathering and asking "What are you, some sort of Sarah Records type?," jostling unkindly. But then there are some people who hold the values of the Sarah label as being desirable - being free to express emotions; proud to feel; knowing that fear and hurt are easier to meet head-on than trying to bluster them out of existence. And you know that the name's no accident - someone who can write lines like "I'd like to take your pearls of wisdom and wrap them around your throat" wouldn't have picked a name by accident. It's inhumane to wish misery and upset on someone, but Matt: if your broken heart creates like this, we almost hope you're never happy.

Secret Ruler Of The World is oncircus65 records.

Brave Captain - All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace:
Martin Carr, of course, once a Boo Radley, now following his try-everything once musical philosophy unencumbered by the perils of band democracy. Popular opinion isn't a thing we tend to hold much truck with, but we do find ourselves nodding quietly with people who think it's his greatest work since Giant Steps.

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace is on Wichita.

The Barbs - Lupine Peroxide
If you kind of like what the Scissor Sisters do, but find yourself unsettled that the Daily Mail and your gran are also enjoying them, you might want to try something that makes nu-glam a little dirtier, heavier, rockier. For that, we'd suggest giving a The Barbs a try. You might want to count the spoons after they leave, mind.

Lupine Peroxide is out next Monday on Mother Tongue.