Wales versus the humanitarian crisis

Want to help the growing numbers of refugees, and - at the same time - grab some rare Welsh music?

Good news; you really can do both - lob a tenner in the hat, pick up (or rather download) the Welsh Rock For Refugees album, and do some good.

It's for download on Bandcamp, and it's a remarkable collection of Welsh musicians - Mike Peters via Charlotte Church to the Joy Formidable. If you can't find a couple of favourites on the collection, you SHOULD BUY IT ANYWAY OR JUST GIVE A TENNER. Because it's a good cause.

New artist alert: Molly Wilkinson

So there's a lot of music demanding your attention at the moment, and you might have missed Molly Wilkinson, who slid out a beautiful guitarry-with-smidge-of-electricity a short while ago. Oh, and the voice. The voice.



Look, you could listen to it here, but it's only a fiver so why not buy the thing, eh? It's excellent.

At last, a black Friday deal worth mentioning

The great Speedy Ortiz have made their first two records, Cop Kicker and The Death Of Speedy Ortiz free for the weekend. They're asking for donations, though, and all the money raised will go to Ferguson Municipal Public Library.

Give people what they want in lethal doses: Jade Tree comes to Bandcamp

Jade Tree records - Milemarker, Girls Against Boys, Denali and many others - has been not-quite-shuttered for the last few years. It was in a status of more or less silent running.

Now, though, the label is shaking itself back to full activity, starting with putting their full back catalogue onto Bandcamp for sale or streaming.

There's a promise of a ramped-up release schedule for the coming months, and the label's Darren Walters says he's in love again. He's keen for it not be thought of as a comeback, but it's clearly a new, happy chapter.

Listen with No Rock: Slum Of Legs

An email arrives, suggesting I might want to listen to a thing. That happens a lot, but the thing is a cassette/digital album from Brighton. And they describe themselves like this:

I never know how to describe ourselves other than pop-noise and we love the Velvet Underground. The tape is super lo-fi and was recorded on 4 track over an old Jim Reeves cassette by Tom House from Charlottefield.

Obviously, recording over Jim Reeves will add the sound of distant drums to your final mix.

It all ended up sounding like this:

You don't have to go with the tape version, but you should at least make sure you buy the demo in some format, because it will improve your life. Guaranteed.

Slum Of Legs. A buzzy, fuzzy wake-up sound. Yesyesyes.

Listen with No Rock: Dregs

Completely unaffiliated with the 1990s Liverpool punk fanzine of the same name, meet Dregs.

Actually, I say they're unaffiliated - I know nothing about them beyond their Bandcamp page - they're called Suzi / Georgina / Bryony / Kaila and are based in London. And this is their demo:

Downloadable: Teenagers

Bloody teenagers, coming round here making dreamy-lovely-lo-fi sounds and giving them away for nothing:



I don't know very much about them - Daria is doing guitars and vocals; Karol is doing drums; they're from Warsaw and... I don't know, you can make up the rest for yourself, probably, and it'd be as correct as anything I could tell you.