Jónsi, the singer of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós has recently written the score for the film ‘We Bought A Zoo’. The soundtrack to the film contains two original songs by Jónsi, Ævin Endar and Gathering Stories which you can listen to now on Jónsi’s site.

We Bought A Zoo stars Matt Damon alongside Scarlett Johansson and is about a family that use their life savings to buy a rundown zoo in the English countryside. The film was directed by Cameron Crowe, the same man behind Almost Famous as well as Vanilla Sky (which also featured the music of Sigur Rós) and is set for release on the 23rd of December 2011.

If you want to hear the rest of the ‘We Bought A Zoo’ soundtrack, be sure to visit rollingstone.com tomorrow where it will be available to stream for free.

Darkling, I Listen can be pre-ordered from The Black Atlantic shop here on either CD or vinyl that are being pressed right now. Upon purchase, you’ll also be sent links to download the MP3′s, WAV files and artwork immediately.

Tre Burt and a Big Gust of Wind is to put it simply really quite amazing. It’s essentially a one man and a guitar act (bar a couple of tracks with banjo) as shown in the somewhat humourous artist name but this certainly doesn’t stop him from creating some of the most engaging music I’ve heard in quite a while now.

There’s a soothing quality to Little Mornings, something to listen to forget about the rain outside. This 13 track masterpiece certainly has a lot of potential for mainstream success but this is someone I can’t see selling out for a mobile phone company advert and even better, Little Mornings is currently available for free download from his bandcamp.

Towards the end of 2009, Tre Burt and a Big Gust of Wind also released the ‘Paraplui’ EP. I wish I’d discovered this gem earlier now because it also definitely deserved an IMF feature. Listen to and download Paraplui for free now on bandcamp.

Bon Iver, Bon Iver’s progress has been tied into the construction of a new recording studio created in his hometown of Wisconsin and this album features some unusual track names corresponding to cities such as Lisbon OH, Perth and Hinnom, TX from previous tours. At the forefront, as always, are Justin Vernon’s archetypal harmonized vocals underpinned by his sublime acoustic chord patterns but with the mandatory occasional synth pad/electronic beat in the background we’ve come to expect.

Bon Iver is also set to tour again this year: a North American tour in late July/early August alongside The Rosebuds and a European tour in October/November with Kathleen Edwards. Tickets are already on sale and can be found through these links.

The album was recorded in a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York and then finally put together back in the Netherlands in Zwolle. Reverence for Fallen Trees feels like autumn music, stripped back and almost entirely acoustic this album is capable of transporting you to your very own woodland glade. The album heavily features the ukulele and multi-layered vocal harmonies reminiscent of bon iver as well as the use of the voice as an instrument in itself as is so often heard in Sigur Rós.

Reverence for Fallen Trees is still available as a ‘pay what you like’ download on their bandcamp. There’s also a beautiful looking vinyl/CD pack for sale there for €18.

The follow up album is still in progress but The Black Atlantic are much keener on the live front and have toured the U.S seven times. They also maintain a steady flow of gigs in Europe and are currently on a tour around the Baltic Sea through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

Late last year, Warpaint took part in the AllSaints Basement Sessions. They played a version of their song ‘Billie Holiday‘ as well as giving a six minute interview, mostly on the topic of the Fools album, in front of a wall of the iconic AllSaints antique sewing machines. Warpaint have also made their debut album Fools available to stream on SoundCloud. Over the coming months, Warpaint are scheduled to appear at the Coachella, Glastonbury, Reading and Lowlands festivals and will be knocking about in the UK for most of May.

Throughout the next seven days the special release, which demonstrates a rare acoustic side to this often diverse indie quintet, is being offered for free (no email required) and on a pay-what-you-like basis before it will be removed from their website – so if you don’t want to miss out on this limited-time opportunity be sure to go and download your copy now!

Known and critically acclaimed for their extraordinary creativity and attention to detail after showcasing their 14-minute “mega-single” which is currently still available for free download, Spring Offensive have not only created another brilliant piece of art for their loyal fanbase, but have also taken the pay-what-you-like model one step further. Their proposal states that listeners who contribute an amount above just £4.00 will, in return, see their full names credited on all physical copies of their upcoming full band single ‘A Stutter & A Start’. That single is due out for release in April- of which each and every contribution for ‘Between Me & You’ will help record, release and promote.

Between Me & You’ showcases five tracks in all: stories of companionship, guilt, confrontation and decisions. A record that deals with the realisation of two people growing slowly apart and the increasingly emptier void between them.

Whether you choose to pay-what-you-like and have your name included on their upcoming single or even if you just download it for free, make your decision quick because it’ll only be available for this one week!

They’ve got a beautifully well balanced live set up; a male and a female singer/guitarist, an incredible bassist and one of the tightest drummers I’ve seen in a long time. The result is a tight-knit entity producing some outlandish tracks with clear musical influenced from Sigur Rós and Radiohead being held together with some really quite intricate bass lines.

Milk have recently released their second EP Oubliette and have made it available for free download on their bandcamp along with the first self-titled EP. They’ve also been giving out free copies of the Oubliette EP at gigs.

Spring Offensive, a 5 piece university band with a difference, are definitely a band to look out for. They’ve just brought out their third release of the year, The First of Many Dreams About Monsters which despite technically being a single is over thirteen minutes long and composed of five seperate parts.

It’s been referred to as a ‘mega-single’ and is certainly just that. The First of Many Dreams About Monsters is somewhat of a concept record and Spring Offensive have made it known that it was inspired by On Death and Dying, the book by Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Küber-Ross that first documented the ‘grief cycle’. Each of the five parts to the song represents a different stage of the cycle; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance but that band have pointed out it isn’t about Küber-Ross or the loss of a loved one but about the potential insensitivity of writing about grief.

The First of Many Dreams About Monsters has been made available as a free download by the band and their earlier releases are available from the Spring Offensive myspace.

Released 20th August 2010.

Reachback, the south-east’s finest, up-and-coming pop punk band have released their first single; a four track affair that borders on being an EP. Titled ‘Butterflies’, a song of unrequited love, the single contains two B-sides as well as an acoustic version of the title track as featured below.

Butterflies (Acoustic) – Reachback

It’s a rare cross genre appeal in which the band can travel between rock and pop without becoming absolute tools. They’re not too caught up in the scene to be afraid to perform a Lady Gaga medley with a metal inspired middle 8 breakdown. Reachback have a strong stage presence, a rare thing to find at this level so if you want to witness them for yourselves, their next London gig is at the Vibe Live bar on Brick Lane.

Butterflies can be downloaded from iTunes (link opens iTunes), Amazon and last.fm or you can pick it up as a physical CD from HMV.

Released August 9th 2010.