Kieran Hebden, the man behind Four Tet started out musically in the rock band Fridge. But when he moved on to his solo project, his stylings changed to something truly unique. To me his music is an organic take on the electronic genre. Four Tet’s tracks are completely instrumental but unlike most electronically manipulated music, have a heavy emphasis on live instrumentation.

Four full length albums were made between 1999 and 2005; Dialogue, Pause, Rounds and Everything Ecstatic as well as a Remixes album and a fairly recent EP, Ringer.

I’ve put in two mp3′s below as well as an amazing youtube video by Cheekychen. It’s a time lapse of him painting using another of Four Tet’s tracks ‘My Angel Rocks Back and Forth’ as the backing.

The Space Of Two Weeks – Four Tet

A Joy – Four Tet

One eskimO are a four piece indie rock band from London, and despite a small fan base their music is a unique melodic mix of funky soft riffs and powerful vocals. One eskimO are a band accompanied by animation created by Passion Picture, the team that brought us Gorillaz, each member of the band is represented by a cartoon character, a penguin, eskimo, giraffe and a comical monkey.  The animation is always shown at their live performances on a large screen behind the band and the music is the soundtrack to the film giving their performances a unique modern take on the silent movie.

Frontman Kristian Leontiou embarked on the One eskimO project. He said: “I wanted to create a sound of my own: magical, ambient, filmic, acoustic, beautiful and meaningful. I wanted to write about how I felt about life, love, losses and failures, highs and lows, even heartbreaks. But also about how amazing human life is and how mind-blowing our very existence is.”

Somehow their music is honest and it seems like the band mean every word they sing.  One eskimO are an outstanding band and yes there is room for improvement on their live performances but they certainly deserve more recognition than they are getting.

By Sophie Stratford

David Mahler, the same guy behind Savage Sparrow has just finished making this music video for the Norwegian band Firefly Effect.

He says it’s taken him “Four months and about 1,640 hand drawn and water coloured frames”. Seriously impressive stuff and well worth your eye time. Subscribe to his blogspot.

Although I couldn’t care less for any of the artists involved in this incident, I thought it worth mentioning for the fact that this will no doubt cause a dent in the career of one of the most popular musicians of this time. Viacom are taking down all of the youtube videos of this incident so I haven’t bothered to include one.

Kanye West entered the VMA stage whilst Taylor Swift was giving her acceptance speech upon winning the award for the best female video. West took the mic from Swift and with the same logic and elegance of speech as saying ‘no offense’ before laying into someone announced,

“Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’m going to let you finish. But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time.”

Swift remained silent and was soon escorted offstage. Beyonce was of course massively embarrassed by West’s outburst and later called Taylor Swift on stage to finish her acceptance speech.

I don’t care that he apologized about it on his blog. The fact is that he ruined a defining moment of a teenager’s life and should have been able to control himself.

Copenhagen’s retro soul pop stars ‘The Asteroids Galaxy Tour’ are back with a new single ‘The Golden Age’ and a new album to follow ‘Fruit’. The album is a woozy musical delight of happy soul and kaleidoscopic pop triumphs with a psychedelic blend of retro funky beats and brass band mayhem. Since fronting the Apple iPod Touch advert worldwide with song ‘Around the Bend’ and having their tracks featured on US TV shows, the band has gone from strength to strength.

‘Fruit’ is full of catchy, sing-a-long choruses, and includes singles ‘Around The Bend’, the ‘Golden Age’ as well as more melancholic tracks like ‘Satellite’ and the deliciously groovy ‘Lady Jesus’ a song based on a real life event of a scary Danish religious leader who lived nearby. ‘The Asteroids Galaxy Tour’ are the latest exciting instalment in the new wave of hip Scandinavian pop hitting the UK and are heading for fame faster than the speed of light.

Released 21^st September 2009.

By Sophie Stratford