>Today’s New Band – Disco Nasties

>At the end of the Pete and the Pirates gig I went to a few weeks ago, I was lingering on the dancefloor, looking for money dropped during the jumping around (old teenage habits die hard). A girl approached me who was either drunk, or high on life. She excitedly thrust a CD into my hand, told me that, “this band are amazing!” and stumbled away.

The band was called Disco Nasties, a name that is satisfying in a Bis kind of way, and they’d supported P&TP that night, though I’d missed them.

Inevitably, I lost the CD immediately, but my friend Mort found it again at his house the other day. I dutifully listened to it, liked it, and – guess what? – Disco Nasties are Today’s New Band.

Little Bit Sorry pings with jittering guitar, youthful exuberance, a cracked structure and a chorus that puts an arm tightly around you and pulls you into the mosh pit. Textual Deviance is even better, in turns falling apart and putting itself back together again – all the while jamming in as much choppy jangling as is reasonable. O2 Molecules grabs an ‘oh-oh-oh’ chant and won’t let it go, but will let you join in.

After looking at their Myspace page now, I think the drunk girl may have been the drummer, but I’m not sure. Either way: thank you, wandering drunkard. Disco Nasties are the zippy funsters you’d expect them to be, and more. Listen here!

>Today’s New Band – Rebecca Closure

>I’ve just spent a weekend moving out of my flat, lugging boxes and boxes of crap into a van, out of a van, and then into a storage unit. Moving house really is the best way to convince yourself that the vast majority your possessions are simply junk. After staggering under the weight of the ridiculously heavy boxes of CDs, I’m starting to think that the good stuff is a bit pointless too.

Still, I survived the horrors of the event – just – but if you’d like a snapshot of my ‘delicate’ mental state at the peak of the move, plug into Today’s New Band, Rebecca Closure and feel those synapses crackle and buzz.

And so, La La La, a manic, lupine howl of craziness, simultaneously terrifies and thrills with the sheer lunatic rush of noise. It’s a fabulously off-beat, rotten mix. 40,000 is relentless; rushing past and distorting the perceptions of all who listen. The brilliantly in-yer-face Cunt Star is actually more provocative and aggressive than you’d have guessed.

Wild, daft, and brilliant, Rebecca Closure is perfect for rebooting a fried mind. The music of exciting nightmares. Listen here!

>Today’s New Band – Gum Takes Tooth

>This time of year usually requires an anti-spring clean. Whereas in April, the compulsion is to ditch armfuls of superfluous crud – novelty Christmas presents whose batteries have finally run out, crockery that is so chipped you keep gashing your hand every time you carelessly hold them, etc. – as of now, it’s the time to feather the nest in readiness for winter. Sweep the rubbish back into your life and luxuriate in the organised chaos of clutter.

Perhaps this is a rule that could be readily applied aurally too. Summertime is all about a combination of relaxing songs to listen to in the sun and abhorrently catchy Eurohits, but now we’re plunging into the dark depths of Autumn/Winter, maybe we need a new (old) broom to sweep back in the grime.

Step forward, then, Today’s New Band, Gum Takes Tooth, two bizarro noisemakers from London.
Lofty Thatch begins at a BAZILLION miles an hour and keeps it foot pressed to the floor, laughing maniacally at all the puny earthlings bouncing off the windshield. Imagine building your own Monster Truck out of scrap tanks, oil drums, spaceships and bazookas, and then driving the whole thing through the set of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome – your resultant noise (and probably the peril you’d create) would sound similar to this.

Another of their noise-scapades, Grommet Saga, is the sound that only you can hear inside your head when a particularly drunken dentist is making exploratory drilling into your molars. Except it’s a slightly more bloody experience.

Gum Takes Tooth: deliberately obtuse. The sound of the your immediate, unnerving future: listen here.

>Today’s New Band – Pre

>Anyone fancy taking part in a small scientific experiment? Great. Follow these instructions to the letter, please. First, bash your head against the table in front of you. No, go on – it’ll be fun, I promise. Assuming your initial attempt was slightly cautious, now do it again, but harder. And repeatedly. But not so much that you lose consciousness. That would be bad.

Finally, write down your findings. I’m guessing they might be along these lines: “Arrrrgh, confusion and pain.” And this, of course, is the point of the experiment, as Today’s New Band will have a similar, if less bloody effect. It’s Pre, and they’re the sound of a manic, sweaty moshpit storming the stage, hijacking the instruments and making NOISE. Listen to Dudefuk as an example: a sub-two minute guitar-spazz, replete with screamy yelping and thrashed instruments. The music screams, literally and otherwise, with a real base desire to go crazy, make a racket and get drunk, which, assuming I didn’t miss any lyrics about them being Straight-Edge Christians, is probably true.

It’s not tuneless wailing though – there’s satisfying coherency to the distorted brain-drilling of And Prolapse, a song title that deserves to be elevated to the pantheon of greats that have previously featured on A.N.B.A.D. Ride Ride Ride, thankfully, is not a celebration of the eponymous Shoegaze bore-droners, but actually a 30-second buzz along the Autobahn to Hell.

So: Pre – like banging your head against a table, except enjoyable. Listen to their noize here!

>Today’s New Band – The Velvet Orchestra

>Subtlety – like most things in life – can be both a virtue and a pest. It’s generally considered to be A Good Thing, but then also consider that Jazz is generally considered to epitomise musical subtlety, and as Tony Wilson said, “Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented”. So then, good on Today’s New Band, The Velvet Orchestra, who haven’t just eschewed subtlety, so much as beating it to death with blunt instruments, and even when it was dead, just kept on going.

It’s temping to think that The Velvet Orchestra took a step back from events, pondered and then emerged with the considered opinion that if you’re going to go mental in a room with a bunch of friends, you may as well do it with noisy instruments. This is probably the correct observation, as their songs buzz with manic energy, the band throwing everything at the song just to see what comes out at the other end.

What does come out of the other end are songs like The Creator, which may be the elevator music they play as you descend to Hell. The song jerks around wildly, thrashing with excitement and horror, and you, the innocent listener, can only hang on for the ride. In Wolves Crave Horrible Tongues, The Velvet Orchestra tread the same risky path of all-in bonkers noise-making, but again, happily, they pull it off.

Like when painting, knowing when to stop is one of the hard parts of making music, and they know when not to push harder when the temptation must be great, ensuring their songs are just on the right side of overwhelming. Great. Hear their songs right here!

>Today’s New Band – Ice, Sea, Dead People

>Look, it’s the elephant in the room. Let’s get it out of the way right now: Today’s New Band has the most incredibly pun-tastic name of all time. The name Ice, Sea, Dead People is truly brilliant. Pun-laden names can go horribly wrong – remember Test Icicles, anyone? – but this band have taken the concept, mixed their metaphors and hit it for six. If I’m being honest, they would have been picked as today’s new band on the strength of their name alone, even if they were as limp and insipid as Pete Docherty after a week long camping trip with Amy Winehouse in somewhere as irresponsibly named as, oooh, here.

Whilst Ice, Sea, Dead People may conjure up images of weatherbeaten, salty old sailors singing mournful shanties, the music they play is almost the exact opposite. If you asked them to sing a sea shanty, it would probably be played at a bazillion miles an hour and feature the word ‘shanty’ yelped all over it. That’s pretty much how their great, mentalist, song Hence Elvis pans out, the sound of three fabulously crazy punk songs in one. My Twin Brother’s a Brother sounds like they’ve just realised that being in Ice, Sea, Dead People is the most fun in the world – and let’s face it, it probably is.

Listen for yourself on their MySpace page, and marvel at the joyful way the songs rush off in front of you like a firework. You’ll be making the stereotypical “Oooooh” noises as the songs explode, spraying multicoloured sherbet everywhere, and, like a firework display, you’ll wish that they just went on forever. Ace. Great artwork on the background of the MySpace page too…