(look it’s a new Viola article header. I kept my promise)

Viola continues their song-a-month career, and as the summer is now properly hiring up with insane heat all around the world (except the cold places), it’s time for an official summer song. “Shimmery Summery (Sha-la-la-love)” is a tribute to all those mindless, upbeat one-hit-wonder pop songs that play endlessly throughout the summer, only to be replaced with another ingeniusly addictive fluff of a song the following year. Glimmery and upbeat pop soarings, wacky backing whoops and oowaaas, fashionably cool meta/self-ironic lyrics and Coco Jamboo namechecks (ah, how I miss the 90’s).

MP3: Shimmery Summery (Sha-la-la-love)

1) Introducing Palace Players continues to be awesome

2) Repeaterbeater continues to be very cool, even if it’s way too short (it just breezes by so annoyingly fast!)

3) Owl is a short electronic instrumental. It might work as an intro if it had a song it would be an intro for or as an interlude if it was included on an album rather than a 12-minute EP. As of now, it’s nifty but forgettable.

4) Start is a pretty two-minute piano ballad. It’s pretty. That’s about it.

5) Swimmer’s Chant is a nifty, drum-heavy song that drums its way into something of a grand, big song but doesn’t really quite make it there.

What a terribly disappointing bunch of terribly obvious leftover scraps. Plus two awesome album tracks.

12 Overlooked Pieces of Awesome is an article series where each month Flint hopelessly rambles about an album in his collection that he dearly loves, even when they have their flaws. Each of the albums chosen tends to be usually overlooked, or forgotten, in one way or another and thus this article series aims to give an alternative view on said albums, or simply just bring something a bit less known to the spotlight.

Chumbawamba – Anarchy (1994)

The problem with trying to be edgily self-destructive is that you end up throwing away your audience before they even had the chance to get to know you. Publicity stunt -like take-thats against everything and everyone, putting a just-born baby on the cover of your album, trying to subvert and bend the rules of promotion in every way possible… all characteristic things that while give you a certain personality, also brush off away people. The problem with Chumbawamba has always been that they broke into general consciousness once and once only with an almost annoyingly big way – “Tubthumping” was a gigantic hit much thanks to its insanely catchy chorus and simple lyrics about pub culture, and it’s one of the most love-it-or-hate-it kind of one-hit wonders there is. The band had already been active before that for quite a while and after Tubthumping the band pretty much decided to first rebel (2000’s WYSIWYG that devoted an entire album on taking the piss, parodying, attacking and at the same time cheekingly embracing the pop consumerist culture) and then just fade away doing their own thing for their own fun and for fans’ sake (the string of more folk-styled albums released up to this very day). And even those who do get the weird, random decision to investigate the band’s works outside Tubthumping and its parent album Tubthumper will end up hitting certain walls that make it very hard to go on further.

Like that baby cover.

1994’s Anarchy, the subject of our discussion today, is the one with the infamous baby cover. If it wasn’t for that and the band’s infamous one-hit-wonder/”those damn bastards who brought us that pub song” reputation, I’d expect it to be viewed as one of the 90’s great cult classics. It’s probably the most deliciously catchy pop album with a vicious tongue stuck permanently in its cheek that the 90’s produced.

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The song that was supposed to be the lead single for the new Mew album but got replaced with another awesome song has now been released as a free mp3 grab for all. Rather than doing any sort of epic prog-pop quirkiness, the quite straightforward Repeaterbeater blows itself through in two and a half minutes. In that time, we’re treated with a high-energy drive and an awesome chorus. And it’s ridiculously addicting.

The No More Stories EP will see a release at the end of this month, featuring both Introducing Palace Players and Repeaterbeater as well as three other songs, samples of which you can check out here.

MP3: Repeaterbeater

I am not much of a rap expert. This is not because I dislike the genre (in fact it’s quite a cool one) but because I’m a right picky bastard. This exceeds to other genres too, mind you, but rap to my ears seems to have the quality to offer stonkingly great tunes but not so often excellent albums. But every once in a blue moon when I actually grab myself and lift my arse off the chair I actually do some adventurous research into the genre I’m not that deep in with, and sometimes during those adventures there’s a full album that destroys my Forcefield of Pickiness.

Today, we are talking about Curse ov Dialect’s Wooden Tongues and quite frankly, I haven’t got the faintest idea how to describe it. Curse ov Dialect themselves hail from Australia, Wooden Tongues is their third album and Rate Your Music defines its genre as ‘abstract hip hop’. I prefer the genre tag ‘batshit insane’ or ‘Mighty Boosh in hip-hop form’. The most random plethora of samples pop up at the most random times and are rapped over by the most random voices. Each song has at least one part that sounds like it belongs to a completely different song. It’s absolutely daft. And it’s in fact pretty good.

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I’ve been watching a fair amount of videos and other media from those Blur reunion gigs out of general interest – I was never the largest fan of the band but they’ve definitely got some fine albums and excellent songs in their hit-and-miss-like back catalogue. One thing that I noticed from the setlists is the omission of songs from Think Tank; you know, the album whose creation process was partly the reason Graham Coxon left in the first place. Not terribly surprising in that case, but there’s no justice in the world if they never ever roll out what is possibly the band’s best song live ever again.

Ambulance (live from 2003 or s0)

The gorgeous, thundering growth that all then collapses into an orgy of sound, Albarn’s deadpan singing at first clashing with the hair-raising music before finally submitting itself into the drive, the gorgeously mechanic rhythm section… brilliance.

But then again, I’ve always preferred Think Tank over their other works in the first place.

Being a big fan of Maps & Atlases, it was a pleasant surprise to receive a copy of Cast Spell’s upcoming EP, ‘Bright Works And Baton’ in my mailbox.

Cast Spells is Maps & Atlases frontman David Davison’s new project, teaming up with producer Jason Cupp (Nurses, The Elected) to record twenty-eight songs in the basement of Davison’s childhood home. They selected six of these songs to become Cast Spell’s debut EP release.

Upon first listen, any similarities I expected between Cast Spells and M&A ended once I got past Davidson’s unique vocals. It’s musically very different. There’s no spazzy guitar and math-rock elements here at all! They cite Brian Eno as one of their main influences, alongside Bill Callahan and Cat Stevens, but I  smell a little Bright Eyes influence in there, especially in ‘War Story Hellos’ with its overall folky style.

The songs are somewhat short, clocking in at around 2 minutes each, but what they lack in length they really make up in effort. There’s a lot of depth and layer crammed into each song that you become slightly enchanted. There’s a big mix of instrument work, from acoustic guitar to strings, all entwining to create a collection of genuinely delightful and captivating songs.

Overall the EP is a wonderful listen and has some charming songs. I do hope this isn’t the end for Maps & Atlases, since they’re one of my favourite bands, but I’m pretty excited to hear anything new from David Davidson, so I’m sure this will be on repeat a lot for me.

Cast Spells will be touring the US with So Many Dynamos through July after the remainder of Maps & Atlases June tour dates and festivals. Hit the jump for both Cast Spells and Maps & Atlases tour dates.

Mp3: “War Story Hellos”

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What the hell no one told me that the cheesy-but-oh-so-wonderful pop group The Crash had decided to finish their career last month and are about to play their last ever concert next month. This was a complete shock surprise when I randomly checked out their webpage yesterday for any news on new releases.

Sure, The Crash were never the sort of band who’d stand up in history books. Their music was heavily derived from 90’s britpop mixed with 80’s synths and while Teemu Brunila’s syrupy voice definitely gave the band their own tone, they didn’t do anything particularly original during their four studio albums. And they were cheesy as all hell. But what they had was heart. A big heart, made of soft cuteness and instant adorability. They are probably the most adorable band in my collection, a band that instantly puts you in an upbeat mood with their addicting sunshine.

And as such, some mp3s, some youtube and some ramble behind the cut.

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I readily admit that I haven’t given the new Eels album as much spins as I normally give to albums before making any sort of more coherent ramble about them. The problem is I’ve no actual desire to give it more spins.

There’s three things I love about Mark Oliver Everett’s work: his wonderful charisma as a singer and performer, the constant bittersweet air around his songs that turn even the most optimistic moments into slightly teary-eyed and weary, and the man’s insanely well-crafted taste for rich, beautiful melodies that fill the air in the Eels sound. Take two of those factors away and you’ve got Hombre Lobo.

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