Ganglians - Still Living

The PR cycle that began in early May reached its zenith this bank holiday weekend with the release (finally!) of Still Living, the new album from Ganglians.

This hour-long collection of a dozen tracks average a shade under 4:40 in length each, making it good value for money on duration alone. But the purposely strained, mellow-yet-dramatic ensemble of music has more to offer than simply filling the time it takes to listen.

Evocative and distinctive, yet laced with influences that can be traced back through the decades, Still Living is described by Ganglians' Ryan Grubbs as "outsider music, but with a pop sensibility that brings everyone in". It is this collision of the niche and the mainstream that makes the collection particularly compelling.

Dave Depper - The Ram Project

Dave Depper's latest production, The Ram Project, is the kind of concept many musicians would love to get their heads around. In fact, it's likely that quite a few have done so already, but their efforts never saw the light of day.

The album is Depper's own re-record of Paul McCartney's 1971 album Ram, credited to the ex-Beatle and his partner Linda McCartney. It marked part of the bridging period between McCartney's time in The Beatles and the formation of Wings.

Ram was originally released in both stereo and, unusually for a 1970s album, in a mono version as well. Depper's version pays its own homage to that school of thinking, as The Ram Project - while not lacking in production quality - has decidedly lo-fi elements and is likely to please fans of treble more than lovers of bass.

Hyde & Beast - Slow Down

Hyde & Beast's album Slow Down is out today, and it's well worth a listen if you haven't heard it yet.

This is a hands-on project for The Futureheads' Dave Hyde and Neil Bassett, ex-drummer with the Golden Virgins. Aside from the fact that these are eleven tracks of very personalised music, Slow Down is also out on the pair's own label, Tail Feather Records. The duo take production and writing credits on all but one of the songs - the exception is track 7, (And the) Pictures In The Sky.

It's also a very cohesive selection of songs, with its own strong identity, rather than the random array of styles that sometimes accompanies this kind of side-project when undertaken on a whim.

Blitzen Trapper - Love The Way You Walk Away

Popsiculture's Free Music Fridays continues with this peek ahead at Blitzen Trapper's upcoming album American Goldwing.

Love The Way You Walk Away is available now as a free download - just click the icon at the right of the SoundCloud player below.



Alternatively, of course, you can just stream the track until the album is released, and then buy the whole thing in one go. It's your call.

Ganglians - Drop The Act, out August 22nd

Get your Friday afternoon off to a start with the first of our Free Music Fridays tracks, Drop The Act, due out on August 22nd by Ganglians, but available to listen to here and now.



You can stream the track using the player above, or head over to the Souterrain Transmissions SoundCloud page for more information.

Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger

Whether you blame it on hype or raw talent, the nation awoke this morning to its first week of having Cher Lloyd's Swagger Jagger at number one in the official singles chart. It's a curious event, as she never seemed to get to the top spot on iTunes over the course of last week, suggesting physical CD sales might yet play a part in deciding how the finished chart evolves.

Either way, it's a result that's likely to fuel the fire in fans' hearts, while annoying Cher's haters to fever pitch. I was (and still am) a Katie Waissel fan, rather than a 'brat', but many of the Warriors on Twitter seem to support both - and there's nothing really wrong with that, is there?

It would be fairly pointless to review a song that's been everywhere for the past few weeks in the usual way, so the below takes a bit of a departure from our normal format.

The Sound of Arrows - The Making of 'Magic'

If, like us, you saw and loved the video for The Sound of Arrows' latest release Magic, now you can learn a little about how it was made.

But don't worry that this will ruin the magic of the video itself - the mystical landscapes and creatures that appear towards the end of the song remain open to interpretation.

Instead, you can learn the original concept behind the video, and the way it was structured, as well as some more about its child stars.

Click play below to head into the imaginative world of The Sound of Arrows.



Meanwhile, you can now grab Tom Staar's remix of Magic for free over at SoundCloud - it's got a bit more of a dance beat to it, but the wide-eyed wonder of the original track is somehow preserved. An excellent effort all round.

Joss Stone - LP1

LP1 is Joss Stone's fifth album and brings together her distinctive 'soul singer' voice with some twangtastic American-style guitar. I'd say it's more blues than soul, but then I've never been great with my genres.

You should know that I quite like Joss Stone. It seems like everybody either likes or despises her, and I'm definitely not in the latter category. Sure, her Americana speaking voice is a bit weird and she's a bit of a Mariah-Careyesque warbler, but she's actually not too self-indulgent about it.

Joss's vocal performance is typically a powerhouse, and even at what might easily be full throttle, you get the feeling she's holding something back in case the song needs to go to the next level. LP1 is no exception - it's a long time since I've seen a Joss Stone single hit the shelves, but any one track from this album could stand its own as an independent release.

Torchwood - Miracle Day

Torchwood is back for a ten-part series, Torchwood - Miracle Day, produced in collaboration with US broadcasters and with the big budget you might expect as a result of that fact.

John Barrowman returns as Captain Jack Harkness, while Eve Myles is Gwen Taylor, the pair having spent the time since the end of the previous series getting over the deaths of their colleagues and now reunited, ironically, by an apparent global inability to die.

American co-stars add to the line-up, including Independence Day's Bill Pullman in what, three episodes in, seems to be significantly more than a walk-on cameo. However, we're yet to discover the role that his character, Oswald Danes, might play in the shake-out of the Miracle Day story arc.

Hyde & Beast - Never Come Back

Hyde & Beast is a side project of David Hyde, one quarter of post-punk geniuses The Futureheads, with Neil Basset formerly of fellow Sunderland group Golden Virgins. Both drummers by trade, they have combined to make music they describe as a "sprawling, gentle psychedelic mess". It's hard to argue with any part of that description, so let me just add that the result is charming, warm and stupidly easy to listen to.

Never Come Back is Hyde & Beast's debut single to be taken from their forthcoming album, appropriately titled Slow Down, and should be enough to make you fall a little bit in love with the diminutive Hyde (or the hirsute Beast, depending on preference).


There are elements of Futurehead-esque vocal harmonies, but the main touchstones here are from classic 60s American rock groups, think The Band, or the Allman Brothers and you won't be too far off.