SHOOT THE CRICKET – Life Has Taught Me EP

STC newoneShoot The Cricket seems an odd name to give a recording project. Kind of distinctive, yet not especially good, it’s the kind of band name where you’d have to wonder which names were considered inferior… Regardless, it’s the music that’s important – and on this 2013 EP ‘Life Has Taught Me’, the duo (comprising sisters Jeje and Lesal Bognar) serve up some intermittently enjoyable piano-based pop.

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‘Animal Heart’, a new video from Nina Persson

Nina Persson, best known for being frontwoman with Swedish alt-pop sensations The Cardigans will release ‘Animal Heart’ – her first solo record – early in 2014.

Although The Cardigans have not released any new music since 2005, Persson has been involved with other projects, including A Camp, The Citizens Band and a guest appearance on Manic Street Preachers’ single ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’, as well as starting a family.

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THE 1957 TAIL-FIN FIASCO – The Cruise Control EP

a0095358254_2Having already released their ‘Private Jet Flashback’ album at the beginning of the year, 2013 proved very busy for Essex-based pop rockers The 1957 Tail Fin Fiasco, as they also dropped this EP of extra material in the autumn.  It’s not clear whether it ought to be regarded as a companion piece to the full album or treated as a stand-alone EP in its own right, but what is clear is that this is a band you should not miss.  This raises the bar with regard to how something self-released should sound sonically, while musically the band Indulge in a whole cavalcade of 70s pop sounds, that’s absolutely thrilling in its all too knowing retroness.

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NICK CAPALDI – The Golden Summer EP

CapaldiOn his 2012 full-length LP ‘A Shade of Orange’, Dorset based singer-songwriter Nick Capaldi championed a whole world of sixties pop and rock influences with stunning results.  Whether tackling the R&B grit of ‘You Ain’t No Woman To Me’, the hard beating soul of ‘Read Into Me’ or the sun-filled, Hollies-influenced pure pop of ‘You As an Island’, one thing was obvious:  he was an artist to watch.  His follow up release, the 2013 EP ‘The Golden Summer’ proves that Capaldi is more than just a one-shot deal, its four original songs equally as good as anything on the debut.

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