Jakuzi - Toz

Toz is the new single from Istanbul-based dark-wave synth band Jakuzi, ahead of the release of their album Hata Payı on April 5th.

Don't adjust your speakers - the lyrics are in Turkish - but that doesn't stop vocalist Kutay Soyocak from conveying the deep emotion of the track in tones not dissimilar to those of Nick Cave or Future Islands' Sam Herring.

It's no less dark in English - 'Toz' translates as 'Dust' and the lyrics throughout have themes of death and loss that contrast with the fast-paced yet gothic backing track.

Combine all of the elements and it's an intriguing listen, although you'll need to brush up on your Turkish if you want to sing along.

Jakuzi's vocalist, Kutay Soyocak, says singing in his native tongue is important to allow him to express himself - although it limits the opportunities for the band's music, as it's much less likely to appear on English-speaking playlists and the genre 'Turkish DIY dream pop dark wave' is a little niche.


For Soyocak his homeland is more than just the language in which he sings, it is also the inspiration for the dark themes his lyrics touch upon.

"I think my melancholy comes partly from where I live. This can be seen in the lyrics. I sometimes feel dark, lost and lonely as everyone. Here, the economy and politics make me feel hopeless sometimes.

The future seems blurry but we try to keep our hopes high and continuing what we do. The audience is getting bigger every day and they support us and it is just pure love in our gigs."

Toz is the last single from Jakuzi before their album is released on April 5th. 'Hata Payı' translates as 'tolerance' but a more literal translation is 'part of the mistake'. It spans themes of acceptance of other races and sexualities, along with acceptance of yourself and of your own demons.

Preorder Hata Payı on Bandcamp.
Click here for links to other physical/digital platforms.

Vaadat Charigim - Hadavar Haamiti

Once in a while, in amongst the latest chart releases and indie EPs, you get sent something to review that is a little special or unusual. Vaadat Charigim are both.

The Israeli trio formed in 2012 and released their first LP with the title The World is Well Lost; on September 25th 2015, they will follow it with the UK release of their second album, Sinking as a Stone, from which Hadavar Haamiti is taken.

Already some readers will be thinking "boo, Israel" and while we're not going to launch a political debate here, it's worth taking a moment to recognise that Vaadat Charigim - consisting of vocalist Yuval Haring, drummer Yuval Guttman and bassist Dan Fabian Bloch - are just three people who happen to be from Israel.

They are not the Israeli government, although the turbulence of their surroundings has a clear place in the tone of their recordings.

Haring says: "Instead of singing about missiles falling on a shopping mall and naming the missile and the shopping mall, I am taking the essence of that, and breaking it down to its basic mechanism. I am dealing with it piece by piece, as fragments."


The politics of a nation should never prevent artistic expression of any kind - although, as is the case here, it can certainly sculpt the tone of a musical work.

Vaadat Charigim have a frankly amazing sound, like an Israeli Stone Roses singing in a cathedral, choral and anthemic, moving and contradictorily uplifting.

I can only imagine the sense of affirmation their music might carry in more optimistic times. I hope we might find out, one day.

Until then, their music carries a quite different message, and one that would be all but impossible to convey in words alone.

Vaadat Charigim's second album, Sinking as a Stone, is due for UK release on September 25th via Burger/Anova records.

Buy Sinking as a Stone on audio CD from Amazon now, download The World is Well Lost as an MP3 album, or see more digital music downloads from Vaadat Charigim.

Cristobal and the Sea confirm debut album Sugar Now for Oct 2nd

One worth looking out for later this year is Cristobal and the Sea's debut album Sugar Now, confirmed for an expected release date of October 2nd on City Slang.

It's good news for anyone who caught the group's EP Peach Bells back in December 2014, and it's great to see the album follow less than a year later.

What should we expect? Plenty of variety, not least thanks to the band's multinational membership: Spain's Ale Romero on vocals and bass, Portugal's Joao Seixas on vocals and guitar, Corsica's Leila Seguin on flute and vocals, and the UK's own Joshua Oldershaw on drums.

In terms of genre, there's an equally eclectic mix, and Joao explains: "We don't ever consciously make our music sound like a genre."

Josh adds: "The Latin element is always there, but it naturally adapts to whatever theme is most prevalent, whether it's psychedelic, or more poppy, or sometimes a bit disco."

Sunset of our Troubles is a summery, almost Caribbean track, so it's good to see this one is available already - no need to wait until October to get your hands on it, just hit play on the SoundCloud player below.

If this is an indication of the album as a whole, Sugar Now will be worth waiting for - and with any luck, there'll be some autumn sunshine to enjoy at the same time. Even if not, it's likely to make the perfect soundtrack for Christmas shopping too - even if the big day is still six months away right now!

To Rococo Rot - Many Descriptions (feat. Arto Lindsay)

To Rococo Rot's distinctive blend of ambient and electronic sounds has been a hallmark of their sound over the past 18 years, and long-term fans will be pleased to hear of the upcoming full-length album release of Instrument.

It will be To Rococo Rot's eighth album in all, and their first since 2010, and is due for a July 21st launch date, accompanied by a launch show at Cafe Oto in London.

Until then, fans will have to be satisfied with preview tracks, and the first of those is Many Descriptions, featuring vocals by Arto Lindsay.



It's an elegant reintroduction to the musical world of To Rococo Rot - I could happily listen to four minutes of the intro before any vocals were introduced - but it also marks an evolution in their sound.

"We wanted to make clear that something is different," says Robert Lippok, and while that is true, the signatures of Robert and his brother Ronald, as well as collaborator Stefan Schneider, are written all over the track.

The launch of Instrument may be some way off, but you can already preorder it via iTunes - click the button below if you don't want to miss the launch date.

She & Him - I Could've Been Your Girl

If you're eagerly awaiting next month's release date for She & Him's Volume 3, you're not alone - we can't wait either.

Thankfully, we're now into the realm of preview tracks, and I Could've Been Your Girl is the latest to make it on to the web for your irregular dose of Deschanel and Ward.

For a change, I'm not going to patronise the pair as being little more than a hobby of Deschanel's; too often, She & Him write-ups are dominated by talk of her TV and film career, and overlook just how good their music together really is.


I have a particular reason to love She & Him, and it's this: they sound like Christmas. Upbeat, bordering on cheesy, but without feeling the need to apologise for it.

They're a glimpse at the festive season at any time of year, without having it hammered home 24/7. In fact, that might make them better than Christmas.

I Could've Been Your Girl is no different, with plenty of similarity to She & Him's Christmas album, A Very She & Him Christmas. But again, it doesn't matter if little has changed in the general style of their 'sound' - we love She & Him just as they are.

For those of you who feel the same, I Could've Been Your Girl is a tantalising taste of what to expect in a few weeks' time, and we'll bring you more previews as and when they drop into our inbox.


Buy I Could've Been Your Girl on .

Volume 3 is due for release on May 6th; preorder it now on iTunes.

Fall Out Boy - Save Rock and Roll

Fall Out Boy have described Save Rock and Roll - an album they say was "recorded in secret from the music industry, critics, and even our fans" - as "the first record in a new chapter of Fall Out Boy".

"An artist's first record sound the way it does because it is often made without expectations," they explain on their official website.

"This is not our first record, but ... we made this music for ourselves and no-one else, at the end of the day."

You can draw your own conclusions about the outcome below, as the full album has been made available to preview via SoundCloud; it's an energetic composition with plenty of positives, even if Fall Out Boy are not normally one of your favourites.



Album opener The Phoenix has actually been available on SoundCloud for a couple of weeks, but at the time of writing, most of the other tracks from Save Rock and Roll had only been uploaded for 13 hours.

The title of this album is actually very apt - it's not soft rock, by any means, but the tracks are complex and carefully layered, with a wealth of vocals, instrumentals and effects combining to deliver an epic soundscape that is truly unique to each song.

As is so often the case - particularly with music at this kind of pace - the individual track lengths are not as long as you might first think, with most hovering around the radio-friendly four-minute mark.

However, there's enough going on at any instant to make those four minutes deliver easily as much of an audio experience as you might get with an entire mainstream pop album, making Save Rock and Roll well worth the cover price.

If this is what happens when Fall Out Boy go into hiding, let's hope we don't hear them mentioned again for another 18 months or so.

Rating: 86%

Pre-order on iTunes via the button below.

Dear Reader - Down Under, Mining

If you're a fan of beautiful things, the new video from Dear Reader should be just your thing. Down Under, Mining has been given a gorgeous shadow-puppet video to tell its story, which is every bit as evocative as the song itself.

The video also gives a glimpse ahead to Rivonia, the new album due out on April 8th and the third to come from Dear Reader, also known as Cheri MacNeil.


South African-born MacNeil was educated just round the corner from where, on July 11th 1963, 19 members of the African National Congress were arrested - and her third album pays tribute to that period of her life.

The arrests were largely a matter of chance - police had been told of meetings between black and white individuals at a location named Ivon; in fact, the meetings were happening at Rivonia, but several letters of its sign had faded.

MacNeil says: "That sign, with its faded lettering, makes me think about history as a whole, and how the versions we have must all have bits that have weathered away and gone missing, and how we'll never know the whole truth about anything.

"There are so many different realities overlaid on top of one another, but each of us only has the version we know."

If you're not afraid to incorporate issues like apartheid and slavery into your music collection, you can pre-order Rivonia by clicking the button below, and download it from April.

Dec 24th: Cascada - Last Christmas

First of all, an admission - I don't really like Last Christmas (yeah yeah, I know, bah humbug and all that).

But I do like Cascada. Probably because she's pretty, but also just because she seems fun, and I always want to give her a massive hug.


Cascada's version of Last Christmas might not be revolutionary, but it's a perfectly acceptable way to pass four minutes - especially if, like me, you don't like the original version.

It's also kinda nice to see that this is still the go-to song for generic Christmas dance covers, almost 20 years after Whigfield murdered it to death (but weirdly, I still love Whigfield too. Must be the nostalgia...).


Cascada's version is actually from an entire album full of Cascada Christmas songs - praise the lord!

You can download It's Christmas Time via the iTunes button below.



You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 21st: CeeLo Green - What Christmas Means To Me

A good old-fashioned bit of fun (and good music, too) from CeeLo Green today, from his new album CeeLo's Magic Moment.

What Christmas Means To Me is unashamedly upbeat and as festive as kisses under the mistletoe, and CeeLo's voice suits the song perfectly.


This is just one of the tracks from CeeLo's Magic Moment, an album that includes duets with Christina Aguilera, Rod Stewart and The Muppets.

Click below to see the full track listing on iTunes.



You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 20th: Tracey Thorn - Joy

Today's advent calendar post is a moving track from Tracey Thorn's album Tinsel and Lights.

The album was released on November 12th in the UK, but if you haven't spotted it yet, there's still time to add these emotionally charged tracks to your festive playlist, and make it a sentimental Christmas this year.


Joy is one of the original tracks on an album that largely consists of cover versions, and it's one of the true highlights of Tinsel and Lights.

Stream the video above, and get a sneaky peek behind the scenes with the clip below.


It's been a good couple of years for Christmas music - a real return to traditional arrangements of sentimental songs.

Buy Tinsel and Lights from iTunes via the button below.



You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 19th: Fimber Bravo - Life After Doomsday

OK, who asked Santa for an eight-minute atmospheric epic with steel drums? It's just arrived.

Actually today's advent calendar post, Fimber Bravo's Life After Doomsday, was first released in November, but it makes a great preview ahead of the January release of his debut album Con-Fusion.



It sounds a little like the soundtrack to a blaxploitation remake of 28 Days Later, but that's fine by me.

Steel drums are much underused in modern music, and while the full eight minutes of this track might seem a little longer than it needs to be, personally I love it.



You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 17th: Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler - Zombie Christmas

If it weren't for our friends at Harriet & Dee, this one might have passed me by completely - but luckily, when you spend literally hours browsing round their Aladdin's Cave of delights trying to find the perfect Christmas gift, you get to hear quite a bit of their 'alternative' Christmas playlist, too.

Zombie Christmas is from Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler's album This is Christmas - it's out today and well worth a listen, as is the album as a whole.


It's a refreshing alternative to the usual schmultzy (yes I did just use that word) festive fayre that has us all feeling suicidally happy by the time Christmas Eve arrives.

This is not a song that pretends no bad things happen at Christmas - it's just that, in this case, the 'bad thing' that happens is the Zombie Apocalypse.

But hey, zombies are people too.

Thanks again to Harriet & Dee for the hat-tip on this one - you can follow them on Twitter at @HarrietAndDee.

Buy This is Christmas by clicking the iTunes button below.



You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 16th: Junip - Junip

Today's advent calendar post is something of a tease, but if I was excited by it, then somebody else out there probably will be too - and that alone makes it worth posting!

It's an oh-so-brief preview of Junip's second album, Junip, due out on April 22nd 2013.

The self-titled sophomore release from the Swedish band follows up on the hugely successful Fields, released in 2010.


If Junip sound familiar, even though you've never heard of them, it's probably due to singer Jose Gonzalez.

His cover of The Knife's Heartbeats was used, famously, on the Sony Bravia 'bouncy balls' ad - one that's worth watching again, which is why we've included it below.


It's hard to shake off the fame of something like that, but Gonzalez' original work - and Junip's as a whole - seems plenty worthy of finding an audience of its own.

Look out for more as the April release date approaches on this one.

You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 12th: Ducktails - Letter of Intent

Ducktails are new to me, I must admit - but if Letter of Intent is anything to judge by, I'll be getting my hands on a copy of new album The Flower Lane as soon as possible.

Look out for a full review in the next few weeks if I can track this one down. Until then, today's advent calendar post is upcoming single Letter of Intent, due out the same day as the album on January 28th 2013.



It's almost 80s-sounding, but there's still something decidedly modern about it, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear Letter of Intent floating across some of the nation's trendier dancefloors in the next few weeks and months.

You can buy Letter of Intent on iTunes now - just click the button below to make it an early Christmas present to yourself.



You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 10th: Melody's Echo Chamber

We didn't get chance to do a proper review of Melody's Echo Chamber's debut album last month, so today's advent calendar post aims to put that right with a sneak preview of a couple of the tracks.

First up is the charmingly ambient You Won't Be Missing That Part Of Me, a song that sounds very simple at first listen, but which is deceptively complex in its internal structure.


Second we have I Follow You, published to YouTube earlier this year and already popular with many fans of female-led vocal-centric music.


And if you want to hear more from Melody's Echo Chamber, and singer-songwriter Melody Prochet, you can still get the album on iTunes.



You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 9th: Alarm Bells - Cocoons

Don't mourn the passing of the awesomely named Dananananaykroyd - celebrate their new incarnation as Alarm Bells.

OK, the name might not be so good, but that's not really the important part, cos it's all about the music, right?

Today's advent calendar entry is new track Cocoons, the lead track from Alarm Bells' debut EP Part One.


Cocoons is the kind of song that will help you wake up in the morning, even if you forgot to have a cup of coffee - and will annoy all hell out of the rest of the passengers on your morning commute, if you forgot your headphones.

As for the video, well that strikes me as a cross between American Psycho and the computer graphics used in the 1980s children's TV show Knightmare. Big tick in the 'approve' box from me on both counts.

You can pre-order Part One now via the Bandcamp widget below, for delivery on December 20th.


You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

Dec 3rd: Sinkane - Runnin'

Sinkane's new album Mars is due out on December 17th, but we've got a preview of Runnin' for you below.

Today's Advent Calendar post pulls no punches, with a particularly timely video of street violence and martial law, but it's a worthy addition to our December line-up with a free download of the track available via the SoundCloud player below.

Look out for a full album review closer to the 17th, and more track previews to come too as Mars nears its release date.




You can keep up to date with our Advent Calendar posts via RSS here.

The Futureheads - Rant, out April 2nd

If you think a capella music is what you see (and hear) on Glee, prepare yourself for an education in how it should be done, courtesy of The Futureheads.

Rant is an 11-track album (with a bonus 12th track for digital downloaders) consisting of voice-only covers of classic Futureheads songs, along with a couple of curiosities ranging from a Black Eyed Peas cover (Meet Me Halfway) to a Richard Thompson track (Beeswing).

Vocalist and guitarist Barry Hyde says the group have earned the right to do something a little different, after spending so long together.

"We're bringing to the fore what we're really about: a unification, a gang mentality, which is in the balance between our voices and our personalities."

The album is due out on April 2nd, but the previews are already making their appearances. So if you can't wait for Rant, you can preview Robot using the SoundCloud player below.



We'll be keeping an eye on this one, so look out for a full album review closer to the release date.

Video Special: Rebecca Ferguson - Heaven

Rebecca Ferguson makes me happy. She's got a personality that just radiates goodness, and a voice that changes my world, if only for three to four minutes at a time. She's the silver lining on a cloudy day, and Heaven is her first studio album since coming second to Matt Cardle on The X Factor.

The videos below give an insight into some of the tracks on Heaven - what they're about, when (and why) Rebecca wrote them, and who collaborated on them. They also give a glimpse into why Heaven is vying for the top spot in this week's iTunes Album Chart.


I've been looking forward to this album all year, and it took me by surprise when it seemed to suddenly be released from nowhere, but I'm thrilled for Rebecca that it seems to be doing so well.

From her first performance of A Change is Gonna Come, she effortlessly showed her vocal quality, and I'm delighted that her original music on Heaven lives up to that same soulful style of song. There are instant classics on this album, of a type that hasn't been seen in recent years (with perhaps a couple of notable exceptions like Adele's massive Someone Like You).


This year I've written a lot about what I see as a return to 'real' music - instruments, soaring vocals, tunes - and Heaven wholeheartedly continues that trend.

I can't wait to hear more from Rebecca Ferguson in the future, but for now I'm glad that we've all finally got a full album of her to enjoy.

Boy Friend - Egyptian Wrinkle

As part of our (slightly irregular) Free Music Fridays strand, here's a sneak preview at the title track from Egyptian Wrinkle, the upcoming (February 6th 2012) album from female duo Boy Friend.

Continuing the fine tradition of female duos such as Shakespears Sister (well, between 1989 and 1993), Boy Friend's preview track delivers haunting vocals that combine the power of layered voices with dramatic effect.

You may have heard Boy Friend's Sarah Brown and Christa Palazzolo together earlier in 2011, when they put out a self-titled EP, or previously in the band Sleep ∞ Over, but I think this is the first time we've featured them on Popsiculture.

As always, we'll keep an ear open for future releases - you can probably expect to see them mentioned again closer to the February release date of Egyptian Wrinkle - but for now you'll have to make do with the track below, which you can download to keep from the HellYes SoundCloud page.