>Today’s New Band – Appleblim – Bestival Themed Week!

>A New Band A Day continues its trawl through the Best of, er… Bestival

A.N.B.A.D. is about to go on holiday. Not the kind of holiday we’ve been on recently, when canvas, mud, cider and temperatures approaching zero Kelvin have been the primary features, but one in France, where the sun is out all the time, the steak is de cheval and the music is one of two options: Stupidly bangin’ or merely stupid.

But before we cram ourselves with the rest of the cattle on the cheapo flight out there and dream of all the vin rouge, steak tartare and hypermarchés that makes France so special, there’s time for one more fabulous nouvelle bande for you to rub against your curious ears.

Indeed, Today’s New Band, Appleblim, are perfect for those in-between moments in life, say, whilst you’re helplessly speeding at 300 MPH in a metal tube in the stratosphere, and you need to be distracted so that your whitened knuckles loosen on the arm rests.

Detached and calm but jittering, Peverelist Appleblimcircling skitters lopsidedly, whilst its cousin, Peverelist Appleblim Over Here is almost ‘anti-dub dub’, and electronic, spacey, wide-open track of epically small/large proportions. Circling Bass Clef Remix is even further removed from the ordinary, threatening to veer either towards mentalism or straightforwardness, but never reaching either point, thankfully.

Check it out and then check your mind out to Appleblim‘s space-tastic tunes – right here.

Meanwhile, look out for ANBAD on our return in two weeks, with loads more acers bands (durrrr), but also a MONSTER MASSIVE SUPER SURPRISE! What could it be? You’ll have to wait and see to find out!

Oh, OK, it’ll be a WOW-WEE SUPER site re-design. Pfft. A Bientot!

>Today’s New Band – White Williams – Bestival Themed Week

>More Great bands as seen at ~~Mudfest 2008~~ Bestival 2008…

Mixing and matching is a whole bundle of fun – that’s why Fuzzy Felts and Sticklebricks were the the weapons of choice at playschool when i was a nappy-bound dribbler. This inquisitive desire to put two and two together and see if they make three, four or even five stays, latent, with even the most rock ‘n’ roll of adults.

Hence a band that has a smattering of Talking Heads‘ polyrhythmics, whilst simultaneously somehow summoning up the spirit (though not the sound) of 80’s RAWK, yet without any of the awful associated ear-pounding, poodle-haired horrors. This sounds like either alchemy, insanity or stupidity – but it’s actually a fair starting point when describing Today’s New Band, White Williams.

Pulling sounds together and fusing them to make something that is almost entirely unique White Williams are creative, idiosyncratic and mysterious. Funnily enough, when these facets of rock align, great tunes almost always result – and guess what, it’s happened again.

Songs like New Violence chime and shimmer brightly, then dip into lo-fi simplicity, before bursting out, wide-eyed into joyfully soaring choruses. Violator also draws influence from a billion different bands all at once, and works to produce a fabulous new sound that wobbles along like a happy fat man in a Hot Chip-py, Lou Reed-y sort of way.

Always restrained and controlled, but not compromising their ambitious scope, still managing to zip around inventively with a wilful naivety, White Williams are dreamy, happy and brilliant. Listen now!

>Today’s New Band – Slagsmålsklubben – Bestival Themed Week!

>And next in our “Bands From Bestival” week…

Humour, apparently, is largely incompatible with the majority of bands. There are some exceptions – Aphex Twin seems to be largely playing it for laughs these days, and Hot Chip know how to have fun (and GASP! even dare to show it when they’re on stage) – but it’s hard to imagine po-facers like our old Über-serious chums Razorlight popping a ‘Ringo Track’ onto one of their albums. Given the choice between playing a song that suggests frivolous fun and inserting something spiky into his urethra, Jonny Borrell would not waste time in reaching for the Rawl-Plug. ‘Happy’ is, like, for the un-cool people, maaaan.

That must make Today’s New Band, Slagsmålsklubben, super-un-cool, because their music is as much fun as bellyflopping into a swimming pool full of thick yellow custard. Hopefully, songs as smile-forcingly unpretentious as Sponsored By Destiny, which splashes synths, drums and twinkly beats around with wild abandon, will make them enough money to buy enough tins of Bird’s to make this dream a sweet, sweet reality.

Malmo Beach Night Party is almost too bonkers to be released on record. It’s a manic collision of kids’ TV themes, the music played over the credits of an 80’s video game and a marimba gone crazy. If the Joker listened to music when he made his breakfast each morning, it’d be this. So happy and non-threatening that you start to look over your shoulder, just in case.

So here’s to Slagsmålsklubben, un-cool, un-caring and un-hinged. More fun than 10 bouncy castles. Listen to their borderline mentalism here!

>Today’s New Band – Zombie Zombie – Bestival Themed Week!

>Having returned from Bestival yesterday, the most surprising aspect in retrospect was that the weekend of mud, more mud and a dislikeable mixture of mud and (hopefully cattle) faeces, did not actually dampen (GEDDIT? LOLZ!1!11!!) the intrepid A.N.B.A.D team/posse/masochists one bit. In fact, it was almost a triumph, and the Saturday night, after the powers that be had finally decided that we were requisitely muddy, was one of the best ever experienced at a festival.

So here’s the very briefest list of Bestival high points:

My Bloody Valentine – still mind-warpingly loud, even when outside
Hot Chip – defying all rock ‘n’ roll logic by continuing to get better, bolder and more bangin’
Lethal Bizzle – couldn’t have got the crowd more excitable or more kinetic unless they’d lobbed AIDS-riddled rats with live hand grenades strapped to their backs into the audience. Brilliant.
Wandering backstage by mistake and finding a row of pristine, spotless (i.e. poo-less) toilets – pure pleasure.

Obviously, being A New Band A Day, we weren’t only there to see these established bands, but to also check out some of the new ‘uns. So for the rest of the week, we’re keeping on our inevitable 3-am purchases of Peruvian pixie hats, glo-sticks and day-glo face paints and we’ll be showcasing bands from Bestival. A Themed Week! Hooray!

Today’s New Band managed to brave the Introducing stage, shortly before it finally plunged head first, Titanic-style, into the mud. They are Zombie Zombie, and, like their name, are delightfully confusing and confusingly delighting in equal measure.

Live, their swirling, wilfully bizarre sound fills the air with the same all-consuming unease in the same way a crowd of the undead pressing their faces against a window might. On record, they sound less ear-worrying, but grind out great tunes – Walk of the Dead is a the bleepy, creepy, sound-of-adrenaline music that would be played in a futuro-dystopian zombie movie during the bit where the hero steels themselves to face the flesh-hungry hoards.

With that in mind, Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free soundtracks the scene where the same, now-bloodied, hero only just manages to flee, terrified and weeping. It’s pin-sharp, taut and would give you the creeps if you listened to it in a dark room. Yummy. Sometimes a good scare is what you need.

Listen to Zombie Zombie‘s great tunes here! (But arm yourself with an improvised weapon first – fire extinguishers are useful for bewildering and clunking)