Listen Up! No.93: Swimming - Sun in the Island

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Midlands quintet Swimming’s debut release on East Village Radio records sounds like an amalgamation of the most humdrum of jargonated indie-speak and rock wittery... ‘kaleidoscopes of sound’, ‘sonic exploration’, ‘textural dexterity’, ‘waves of electronica decorating a psych-ambient canvas’ – just the kind of verbose guff you might be used to reading on these very pages, then. Thankfully, the salient information is that all of the above are sewn together with obvious melodies and an agreeable nod to the ostentatious. See, I just can’t seem to stop.

‘Sun in the Island’ is released on 7 March. This special ‘Binaural Solstice’ video version, performed live in what seems to amount to a poorly built contemporary igloo, strips back the single edit to good effect.

Listen Up! No. 92: Liam Bailey - You Better Leave Me

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Having got rather excited about this Nottingham newcomer's star turn amidst the hedonistic drum'n'pop of Chase and Status' 'Blind Faith', not to mention last year's sublime lo-fi EP 2AM Rough Tracks, it's both a joy and a relief to find that Liam Bailey's forthcoming debut solo single - due to be released on March 13 - is a winner. On 'You Better Leave Me' he slides seemlessly into neo-soul mode, and while edges have been softened by the hit-factory production (courtesy of Amy Winehouse co-conspirator Salaam Remi), nothing can neuter the indomitable dub-soul gusto of his remarkable croon. This will soar in the kind of pokey venues which Bailey is still commited to play. Catch him there while you still can. 

Listen Up! No. 91: Anna Calvi - Blackout

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With an album mostly pitched somewhere close to the refined, emancipated fem-rock of PJ Harvey, Londoner Anna Calvi was a predictable choice for the BBC's Sound of 2011 poll. A worthy one, too, as her startling self-titled debut veers between wee-hours, hushed minimalism and borderline-symphonic collages of sound with some distinction. However, such ethereal indulgences don't always translate to chart success - Anna Calvi is marooned at #40 in the UK album charts - so Calvi also wove in a handful of brighter, more immediate rockers to sate those with a less elongated attention span. 'Blackout' is the pick of these, breaking through the atonality and using hooks upon which Calvi can emote with enviable dexterity.

Listen Up! No. 90: Glasvegas - The World Is Yours

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Always seemingly teertering on the edge of a precipice of self-destruction - just as their obvious stylistic and musical reference point The Jesus and Mary Chain always did - some wondered if Dalmarnock anti-heroes Glasvegas would ever re-emerge intact to deliver a riposte to their stunning debut. Writer's block, a malcontented drummer and the perils of fame and fortune might have led singer James Allan to go AWOL before 2009's Mercury Prize, but he was made of stern enough stuff to reappear unharmed - physically at least - and commence the task of preapring the 'difficult second album' in a beach house in Santa Monica, California. This month they unveil details of said record, EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\  (due on 4 April) whose title could easily act as a pocket summation of their dominant method and theme to date. Those concerned that the California sun might've engendered a sacharrine reinvention needn't worry. 'The World Is Yours', offered as a free download over at their website, largely continues where Glasvegas left off: it's epic, stadium-ready noise-pop, decorated with waves of shoegaze guitars and the famliar rich desperation of Allan's vocal.

Listen Up! No. 89: Cage the Elephant - Shake Me Down

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Bemused as you, me or anyone else - besides whoever is buying the records, ofcourse - may be that this Kentucky quintet's middle-ranking, wholly derivative alternative rock has pierced the upper echelons of the Billboard charts with second album Thank You, Happy Birthday (currently sitting at #2), you can't help but admit their stones. They are to Jay Reatard's earlier output what Tokyo Police Club are to Sunny Day Real Estate: a streamlined model, shorn of the insouciance and character but boosted by instruments you can hear and songs you can sing. Not to mention fans too young to know of or care for the difference. Come to think of it, a bit like Jay Reatard's last album was to Jay Reatard's earlier output. The UK doesn't get the record 'till March 21st, with trailing single 'Shake Me Down' dropping the week before.

Listen Up! No. 88: Wire - Bad Worn Thing

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Watford's avant-garde punk pioneers Wire returned earlier this month with Red Barked Tree, their twelfth studio album and first since 2008. Amidst the familiar mixture of hand-on-heart four-chord calls to arms, nuanced, expertly manufactured textures and intrepid lyrical explorations of pop culture lies a sparkling pop jewel of a song. At once inhabiting new territory and still somehow unmistakebly Wire, 'Bad Worn Thing' decorates a throbbing anti-dance beat with a Brian Ferry art-school snarl and lines like "the future's sold, the chacellor paces". Better yet, the chiming guitar shapes which build to a gripping crescendo make sure it feels as well as thinks. An early frontrunner for the best you'll hear in 2011.

N.B. Turn that bass up where possible.

Listen Up! No. 87: Austra - Beat and Pulse

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The latest signing to Domino Records, Canadian bedroom-beat artiste Austra (or Katie Stelmanis) takes the label's usual ear for fresh, saleable young talent and reroutes it into a leftfield world of metronomic menace and dark entrancement on debut single 'Beat and Pulse'. The Knife might be a glaringly immediate reference point, but the motorik chug high in the mix gives an inescapable Krautrock slant to Stelmanis' beguiling vocal, equal parts vulnerable and downright frightening. The single drops on 21st February. Turn off the lights and have a listen below.

  Austra - Beat & The Pulse by DominoRecordCo

Listen Up! No. 86: Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers

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Swedish singer Lykke Li may already have earned her stripes as the artist du jour where stark, haunting electro for finger-on-the-pulse indie kids is concerned, but new single 'I Follow Rivers' - taken from upcoming sophomore record Wounded Rhymes - also suggests she has the chart chops to boot. No less gothic than her previous efforts, the track adds a hint of Balearic beat and a Gaga-esque chorus to the usual synth-driven melange.

Listen Up! No.85: Alex Winston - Don't Care About Anything

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Much-fawned over Detroit siren Alex Winston shows she has the handle on the twiddly stuff as well as chart-friendly pop-crossovers and advertisement soundtracks with a new song, gleaned from forthcoming mini-album Sister Wife. With production duties split between Florence and the Machine co-conspirator Charlie Hugall and Rihanna right-hand men The Knocks, you'll  know roughly what to expect when the record drops in March. In the meantime, enjoy this stripped down version of 'Don't Care About Anything', which proves she can write, play and sing. May even have what the kids call 'attitood' - that's 'depth' to you and me - too. 

Listen Up! No.84: Chase & Status feat. Liam Bailey - Blind Faith

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London producers Saul 'Chase' Milton and Will 'Status' Kennard shot to prominence thanks to 2009's 'End Credits', a collaboration with rapper-cum-blue-eyed soul singer Plan B which was featured in the Michael Caine film Harry Brown. Their second album, No More Idols, will drop later this month, and if the lead single is anything to go by, it could be a hot seller. 'Blind Faith' adds an early '90s saucer-eyed rave feel to the duo's instantly recognisable arena drum 'n' bass shtick, a nice side-step for a sound cornered by Pendulum many moons ago, which should make it popular with post-decadent 20 (or 30-) something  revellers. However, the true masterstroke is a dub-heavy verse propelled by Nottingham newcomer Liam Bailey's sad-eyed, soulful Jamaican-patois vocal, sure to be ringing out of student party clubs and Brixton dancehalls alike for the forseeable future.

Listen Up! No. 83: The Lionheart Brothers - The Desert

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Norwegian quartet The Lionheart Brothers serve notice of their impending second record, due later this year and as-yet untitled, with new track 'The Desert'. They've reigned in the bright psychedelic tones of their well-received (and Norwegian Grammy nominated) debut, 2008's Dizzy Kiss, instead opting to decorate a pulsing rhythm section with murky vocals and a blizzard of pitch-shifting shoegaze atmospherics.Aptly, the video mimics the guitar hook, twisting round and round in queasy unison with the music - while someone plays silly buggers in the snow.

Listen Up! No. 82: The Vaccines - Post Break-Up Sex

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Further fruits of their labours from a 2-week recording stint at RAK studios back in Autumn 2010, forthcoming single 'Post Break-Up Sex' (released 24 January) sees UK rock n' roll's latest pre-eminent 'Bright Young Things' further sand the edges off what began as a somewhat-thrilling, splintered indie-punk sound. Let's hope it's the obligatory landfill ballad for the Columbia execs, and not a statement of debut album What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?' (released 21 March) intent - or, indeed, lack thereof.

Listen Up! No. 81: Tennis - Baltimore

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After making their name via leaked demo tracks - how very 21st Century - this married couple from Denver, Colorado sparked enough interest in their familiar take on glassy-eyed dream pop with a Spector-esque '60s hum to win themselves backing from Young and Lost Club, and have readied their first official releases for early 2011. Debut single 'Baltimore', which drops later this month, sounds like Dum Dum Girls' gentler cousin, with high-end bass and metronomic drums framing Alaina Moore's pensive, preoccupied melodic drawl. An album, Cape Dory, will follow later in the year.