Guillemots
This slot was going to go to either Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong or to The Ting Tings. Now as I'm not really a fan of either, I felt a bit stuck. Until, that is, I had an epiphany while watching Jonathon Ross' chat show last night, which featured a performance by Guillemots (gilly-mots). I thought to myself, "they were hyped, weren't they?" and lo and behold I found a suitable replacement. Not to mention that one of the other guests on the show, Welsh siren Katherine Jenkins, is a right fittie mcvitie.
Guillemots are returning with a new album, 'Red', following their previous effort, the Mercury Music Prize nominated 'Through The Windowpane'. After recently offering up album track 'Kriss Kross' on their MySpace, new single 'Get Over It' has hit the airwaves. And it's not exactly what you might have expected. Exceedingly radio friendly but with the same energy that brought the band success, it should be a hit single. Hopefully the album will prove to be the critical and commerical success that the debut proved to be.
Guillemots - Get Over It (Radio Rip) [Yourfilehost d/l link]//[Sendspace mirror]
Guillemots - Sexy Back (Justin Timberlake Cover..ish) [Yourfilehost]//[Sendspace] (with thanks to driftingnowhere.co.uk)
Late Of The Pier
Firstly, a nod to Transparent Magazine [link] for first introducing me to this band, a fact I did acknowledge in my post on Late Of The Pier back in September 2006 [link]. Wow, that was a long time ago. LOTP have done well for themselves since then, releasing two singles (including one on Moshi Moshi), signing to Parlophone and working with Erol Alkan on their debut album. The eccentricity still remains, not that that's a bad thing.
Thankfully their rise toward the mainstream hasn't been marred with the 'nu-rave' tag, although Klaxons comparisons could prove to be inevitable. Let's hope that if that happens, they can at least mirror their counterparts' success. They've got the man behind the Klaxons video, Saam Farahmand, to do the vid for their new single 'The Bears Are Coming'. It's really quite bizarre but then again so is most of Saam's work. He's got a cool name though, right guys? ;)
Late Of The Pier - Focker (BBC Introducing Live) [Yourfilehost]//[Sendspace]
Late Of The Pier - Heartbeat (BBC Introducing Live) [Yourfilehost]//[Sendspace]
Head to musiclikedirt.com for the other session track.
Friendly Fires
With Jack Penate being my only true success from last year's tips list, why not choose the support band on his UK tour in March. And their drummer used to go to the same university. As do I, in fact. Not to mention other acts that are really coming to the fore now such as Nic Nell, Sky Larkin and Fanfarlo/My Sad Captains. Yeah, a real hotbed of music excitment. Except they've all left.
Friendly Fires are yet another band in this 2008 list to have been affiliated with Moshi Moshi, releasing their much loved single 'Paris' on the label. With the aforementioned Jack Penate tour coming up as well as supporting the Kaiser Chiefs at Elland Road(!), Friendly Fires look to have a promising year ahead of them.
Friendly Fires - Paris (Live At The JD Set) [Yourfilehost]//[Sendspace]
Nic Nell also has a remix/cover of 'On Board' on his MySpace [link]
-----
So that's the end of my Futuresounds 2008 list, i.e my bands to watch out for this year. While last year's choices were more hopeful than expectant, this year I decided to include bands which had been blatantly hyped at one point or another (hence Vampire Weekend, Adele, Glasvegas and Guillemots). I also wanted to carry on with an ethos that I used last year, highlighting bands which hadn't previously appeared on this blog (so we got Alphabeat, Agaskodo Teliverek, The Wave Pictures and Friendly Fires). And finally I decided to support some acts that I was one of the first to feature in the past, meaning Elle S'Appelle, Jose Vanders, Look See Proof and Late Of The Pier made another appearance on Keep Hope Inside.
As there were only twelve choices, I had to leave out a good few bands that I felt would do well this year. I think the prime example of that would be Johnny Foreigner. I genuinely thought they'd take the blogging world by storm, like Los Campesinos! did but it's been a slower process. They are finally getting the attention they deserve though and the new tracks sound fantastic. Hopefully, some of the other acts I would have liked to mention, like Operahouse and Muscles, might end up on one of my podcasts!
What do you lot think though? Who are you tipping this year? Are my choices worth the computer they're typed on?
We're a collaborative British music, film and TV blog. "Trying to find the perfect match between pretentious and pop."
