The Not At All Regular New Music Roundup w/e 18th January 2013

Good grief, been ages since we did one of these. I blame all those Tesco Donkey Burgers I’ve been eating, developed a nasty addiction to sugar lumps and loitering around on drizzle soaked beaches looking downtrodden. Anyway, it’s 2013. Hurrah! HMV and Blockbusters may have already snuffed it but at least we’ve still got the tunes. Okay, so we can’t buy them from anywhere but still, we’ve still got the tunes (downloading? don’t talk to me about downloading...the devil’s work I tells ye). First up the frankly brilliant Pale Green Ghosts from John Grant. Whoah...where did this come from? It’s like Scott Walker jamming with early era Human League in a Berlin dungeon. Awesomely good.

From the sublime to hip hop rockulous courtesy of Elephant 12. Rage Against The Machine anyone? 

I’m old enough to remember when house was new, yep, that old. It still brings a shake to my rump though and this track XXXY’s Got Me So is deliciously old skool.

Happily getting plenty of airplay over at 6 Music Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Swim and Sleep (Like A Shark) is part 60’s tinged hippyness and part indie hipster heaven.  Get naked, slap on the chocolate spread and let the love flow...no...I have no idea what I’m on about today either.

That’s it for this week. Still vainly attempting to ‘get in’ to 2013, already been an odd year what with HMV and Blockbuster both going bust and just last night the sad news that Birmingham’s biggest independent venue, The Ballroom, has also been forced to close. Add to this my self imposed booze ban (not doing a month, that’s far too depressing, just up until the first gig of the year on the 25^th) and the arctic conditions and I’m half tempted to hibernate for a few months. Tempting...very tempting.