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Dogbox Records – Free download singles
www.dogboxrecords.co.uk
I love Dogbox Records, they have an ear for a dandy pop tune and they make
me laugh and go, ‘Yeah, spot on, missus!’ Like their display of
withering disdain at the phenomenon of “singing ‘Your shoulders
are frozen, oh you’re an explosion’ over a backing track nicked
from a Wonderstuff B-side”. Ha ha. This time around they’re aiming
for ‘the complete overhaul of the UK music industry’ with a brace
of ear-popping FREE downloadable singles. Fair enough.
Swimmer One – Largs Hum / Cloudbusting
Swimmer One, Edinburgh synth johnnies and faves of Luxembourg’s Alex, play thoughtful electronic pop tunes that are spacey enough to appeal to the drone-loving Stereolab-assistants amongst us. These songs ooze a warm, treacly synth sound, replete with woobly phasing and slightly sinister knob-twiddling and Mr cool cucumber on vocals sounds uncannily like Martin Fry which can’t be bad. Their cover of ‘Cloudbusting’ (a song I’ve always found fantastically upsetting - in a good way) sounds kind of downy and strokeable whilst Largs Hum manages to sound majestic and bouncy in equal measure. Like a stag on a trampoline, maybe.
R.R.R.G: Moonlight contact divergence
The Sweethearts – Blue Skies / Rainy Skies
The Sweethearts sound cutely archaic, like a 1920s postcard of a big-eyed marcel-waved girl come to life amongst the dusty buckets and spades in an abandoned seaside gift shop. Singer Amy has a pure, sweet voice that chimes above a picnic basket backing of ukulele strumming, banjo plinking and assorted odd sounds. ‘Blue Skies’ is a delightfully wispy ticklish tune that makes Helen Love sound seriously hardcore such is its sugary jauntiness. It lopes along with boom tish percussion and lines packed full of ‘I love yous’. The flipside to such whimsy is the equally endearing ‘Rainy Skies’ played at a liquidly loopy waltz time (think of the Biscuit Factory’s six o’clock dance at the end of every episode of ‘Chigley’).
It’s impossible not to be charmed, so go to their myspace page www.myspace.com/lesamoureux for more songs including the lovely ‘Illuminations’.
R.R.R.G:
Low-lying soft-pedal doctrine
