Unlike the last inexcusably late addition to the Midweek Mixtape canon, this week’s melting pot of wonky tunes, clanky noise and loveable misfits that couldn’t be crowbarred in anywhere else is, just like late -80s House popsters Black Box, ‘Ride On Time’.
And so by way of celebration, this week the increasingly tenuous ANBAD New Bands Donkey is upset by, this time, an extra heavy load of Black Box 12″ records. Sigh. Here’s the mixtape:
FIRST! Bellevue’s Finest somehow channel The Kinks through their Casio keyboards and emerge from the ensuing dysfunctional smoke, eyebrows raised and wry quips readied.
Bellevue’s Finest // In My Dreams (ur txting me)
Bellevue’s Finest might well be post-post-modern, which might make them pre-modern, or just plain old, if you take the logic to its conclusion I suppose. Either way, and whatever you think of their quaintly-electric-pop approach, their infectious tunes are still going to be bothering your mind an hour from now.
SECOND! Elephant Stone unwittingly reminded me of a genuinely dreadful, overwrought country-folk cover version of The Stone Roses‘ I Wanna Be Adored I heard recently. I’m not claiming that it is their fault entirely, but then it wasn’t me who named them after a Roses single. Still, armed with dreamy, urgent and blissful songs like the shimmering How Long, you won’t be pondering on Manchester’s most over-rated band for long. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
THIRD! Ka So Re – one day, Finland and the rest of Scandinavia will suddenly exhaust itself of astonishingly tuneful new bands, and deflate like a popped party balloon under the exertion. Until we wait for such an exciting climax to one region’s dedication to melodiousness, enjoy Ka So Re for what they are: yet another bouncy, fun Scandi-pop group.
FINALLY! Fredrick Carlsson is here to prove the theory that you can wait ages for one Scandi-pop-donkey-themed-mixtape track, and then when two come at once, you immediately hate yourself as you realise that actually, you anticipated it all along. If you thought that Fredrick makes generic housey-pop, you’d be wrong – his songs pulse with the blood of thoughtful songsmithery.
DONE! Indeed, done.