PVT A-OK

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AUSTRALIAN band PVT don't like doing things by the book - in fact, when they formed they were a completely improvisational act.
And this boundless approach to music making is evident of PVT's latest Church With No Magic, which seesaws between electronica and rock.
The LP by PVT, previously known as Pivot, has an ever present electro throb and piston-like beats balanced in varying degrees with a Robert Smith-like vocal and Joy Division synths throughout.

Summit intense to listen to

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IF YOU'RE not too into your sludge metal, a first encounter with Thou is more like "ow".
However for fans of the genre such as myself, the up-and-coming act don't so much tick the boxes as slowly crush them.
Downbeat, deep, dark and deadly, the fact the throat-vocal heavy metal group drag five tracks out over an hour tells you all you need to know about Summit.
However among this intense, thick miasma of metal, flecks of experimentation appear, such as acoustic instruments and choirs.
With Summit Thou haven't peaked, but they're inexorably on the up.

You'll love Love Ends Disaster! in the end

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IT’S ALWAYS nice to have a local band doing good - and Love Ends Disaster!, having swapped Loughborough University's Freefest for Reading and Leeds, are doing just that.
With their debut album City Of Glass, you can see them emulating the likes of Belton’s The Young Knives, Castle Donington’s Late Of The Pier and Wymeswold’s Wave Pictures.
An inventive collection of indie rock which sounds like a cross between Talking Heads and The Rakes, the group seem at home in the studio.
Eschewing standard songwriting formula, the group throw off-kilter riffs at the listener and frequently explore unexpected musical avenues.
As a result it’s a rock LP that intrigues the listener rather than knocks them for six - but it grows on you eacha nd every listen you give it.

Autoluxurious

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THE sun-soaked climate of Los Angeles normally reflects in the sunny output of its bands - but not in Autolux's case.
The group's second album, Transit Transit, is a downbeat collection of slow, shoegazing rock more in line with Radiohead than The Beach Boys.
Not that this is a bad thing, and while it takes the listener a while to tune down to its rhythms, Transit Transit reveals itself to be a moving piece of work when you do so.

Baths go public

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CERULEAN, the debut album from Baths, is worth dipping into.
Showering the listener with subtle beats and awash with delicate, acoustic-based samples, if you want to gauge Baths' temperature imagine an ever-so-slightly more tubthumping version of Daedalus.
Glitchy productions akin to impossibly 'now' acts like Toro Y Moi and Junk Culture over echoey hints of indie rock a la Broken Social Scene, Baths deserves to tap into some of these more established acts fanbases.

Analog Africa gives you wings

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FASTEN your seatbelts and prepare for a ride back in time... on board Analog Africa's Afro-beat Airways.
A musical black-box of previously lost recordings from 1970s Ghana and Togo, the names may not be jetset - the likes of Orchestre Abass, Ebo Taylor And The Sweet Beans, De Frank Professionals and Apagya Show Band all feature - but these were all high-flyers in their time.
The result is a mixture of afro-funk, synth disco, afro-beat, boogie, and anything else energetic and afro-centre you can think of.
So if you're looking for a departure from your usual listening, check in with Analog Africa's latest as soon as you can.

Praise Tom Jones

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NORMALLY if the thought of a grizzled old Welshman excites you, you’d probably be a grizzled old Welshwoman.
But everyone should make an exception for Tom Jones - who for the hundredth-odd time has come back with the cool once again with new album Praise And Blame.
A tour through a collection of spiritual American standards from Johnny Cash-esque confessionals like What Good Am I? to the pumped up numbers like Don’t Knock, Jones strips back his art to its most exposed, raw sound yet - Sex Bomb this ain’t.
Instead it's something fresh, something challenging and something progressive, and I applaud Jones for doing it.

Baltimore Turzi please

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FRENCH band, Scottish vocalist, American subject matter, English influences - if Turzi can recreate this form across an album he'll have the world at his feet.
Gallic knob-twiddler Roman Turzi and friend's Baltimore EP - inspired by rioting in the city in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King - features the vocals of Bobby Gillespie and a sound which fuses acid house beats and a Manchesteresque swagger.
The track, which has a definite touch of the Swastika Eyes about it, then gets a generous helping of hit-and-miss remix for the rest of the EP, the highlight being the dark Lynch Mob Assault On Baltimore reworking.
I advise you buy, beg, borrow or loot yourself a copy from Monday.

Mission accomplished

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VETERAN band The Innocence Mission release their latest LP My Room In The Trees tomorrow.
And Eight albums in, the American act have grown from a dream pop sapling into a blossoming band, perfecting their gorgeous, rich sound.
However with folky guitars swathed in sweeping strings, My Room In The Trees is so perfect, for better or worse it passes so seamlessly it barely registers with the listener, like a breeze though leaves.

Noon better

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NOONDAY Underground's cut-and-paste sound is a cut above - although it'll likely go over the heads of most.
The pseudonym of Paul Weller-collaborating Simon Dine, Noonday Underground takes an Avalanches-style approach to making music.
Instead of crafting "proper songs", The K-O Chorale is a collage of samples from odd musical backwaters - Disney soundtracks, church choirs, surf rock bands, operas etc. - that doesn't really do what most albums do.
Instead the result is a slightly bonkers woozy mish-mash that floats around leaving smiles in its wake.

Get Amongst The Pigeons

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BRIGHTON beatmaker Amongst The Pigeon's Repeat To Fade EP is worth playing over again.
A more sturdy, flowing collection than his eclectic LP Music To Brush Your Teeth To, the six-track release starts slow with ambient Mocha To Go and then progresses nicely throughout.
A little of the comical quirkiness of previous Amongst The Pigeons has been lost, and any song about a waltz such as Michael Jackson's Last Waltz should surely be three beats-per-minute, harrumph.
But nevertheless with tracks like the moody The Darker Side Of... and skankin' The Kids Of Today this excellent collection should be racing into your collection.

Flowering Inferno hot stuff

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WILL Holland's Quantic's Flowering Inferno's Dog On A Rope LP is so summery you'd be advised to slap on some factor 50 before pressing play.
The thrust of the album has a Caribbean and South American flavour, led by an orchestra of horns, accordians and more.
However this is kept contemporary by globe-trotting genius Holland's dub and hip hop production, which, although more trad than previous outing Death Of The Revolution, prevents proceedings from ever becoming twee.

Teej-riffic

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YOU'LL be shocked at the quality of I Got Electrocuted, the first release from relative-unknown DJ Teej.
An EP of five charged tracks, the newcomer - who has yet to play live - shows plenty enough promise to mark up as 'one to watch'.
Rocky opener I Got Electrocuted, written after Teej was hospitalised after being electrocuted by his equipment, is a raw, powerful affair, then Plural takes things further by touching on post-rock.
Heart Timing is a more modest, droning affair, while Speed Sound Ashes and Flying Deep move onto dancier territory.
Overall, I Got Electrocuted is worth charging you account for.

Grasscut a cut above

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GRASSCUT is a curious beast - imagine the music of the future being broadcast through a 1940s wireless radio, and you're sort of at 1 Inch / 1/2 Mile.
The English production duo may mix forward thinking post-something style sounds which sit somewhere between art and electro, but the entire LP is pervaded with a retro feel.
Sometimes they take a blade to 1980s synth pioneers like Kraftwerk, at others they cut up rousing patriotic Vera Lynn-style oldies, sometimes looking even further back to classical influences - all melded together in a thoroughly innovative, interesting, forward-thinking way.
Quirky, evocative and individual, Grasscut's style is sometimes a little severe, but it always sounds on the absolute cutting edge.

Micah P Hinson

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OLD before his time, while Micah P Hinson may look like a missing member of Linkin Park, he sounds more like Leonard Cohen.
Singing from experience - his press people kindly describe him as having been “homeless, destitute and incarcerated” before becoming a musician - grizzly Hinson’s eponymous LP with the The Pioneer Saboteurs is an emotional collection of string-soaked Americana.
Hinson takes aim with both barrels and has a raw, uncensored take on the world, and he clearly cares about the subject matter, an approach echoed in the outstanding instrumental tracks which punctuate the album.

Banan the bomb

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EXPERIMENTAL jazz orchestra Jaga Jazzist release Bananfleur Overalt, an appealing new EP from their 2010 album One-Armed Bandit, next Monday.
As the release carries a few tracks from the full-length - Toccata, One-Armed Bandit and Bananfleur Overalt itself - so as with the original the Norwegians' sound melds jazz, electronica and rock with a mind-bending array of other genres.
And added to the originals are a smattering of remixes, the jewel in the crown being an 11-and-a-half Prins Thomas working of Bananfleur Overalt, which turns the original's jazz meandering into a lounge disco classic.
Although not worth picking up unless you have their recent LP in your collection, nevertheless this is a timely reminder of the expansive work of Jaga Jazzist.

More Club hits

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MOODY indie rockers Club Smith continue the process of climbing into the charts with their The Process EP.
As with their last release, The Loss, the sound takes its lead from morose indie harbingers of doom like Joy Division, White Lies and The Editors.
And the tracks here have an even more 1980s retro feel to them than before, with a whiff of The Cure detectable.
Atmospheric, claustrophobic and exciting, and destined for great things, you really should be signing up with Club Smith.

Take a dip in the Lakeman

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FOLK posterboy Seth Lakeman's new album Hearts And Minds isn't going to win over the hearts and minds of many new fans.
However for his faithful, it will fill their hearts and minds with joy.
Treading a similar sturdy rhythmic folk route as previous triumphs like Kitty Jay and Freedom Fields, there's nothing here to shock traditionalists.
Instead there's just another batch of top notch rousers like See Them Dance and emotional numbers like Stepping Over You to keep Lakeman in his place at the forefront of English folk.

Keep TAB's on

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TAB The Band, named after members Tony, Adrian and Ben's initials and not to prevent confusion with a certain sparkling beverage, deserve to generate a bit of buzz with the fizzing Zoo Noises.
The group, who you can coo over at this weekend's Download Festival in Castle Donington, play bluesy rock which teeters between growling Jon Spencer Blues Explosion riffs and more melodic Rolling Stones fodder.
Although maybe a little overlong in places, nevertheless with riffs this effervescent, they should sell TAB The Band in bottles.

The Amazing amaze again

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AFTER the amazing The Amazing by The Amazing, the Swedes return with a mini-album Wait For A Light To Come - and strike a light, if it isn't amazing as well.
Starting out on a folk bent, the group soon exhibit the laid back psyche and classic rock influences which made their debut a success, before really letting rip on Defect.
Though not quite up to the standard of last year's introduction, nevertheless it's another warm, thoughtful retro outing, and it's amazing that The Amazing haven't amazed a few more people by now.