November 7, 2008

Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, Guitar, Frightened Rabbit

Johnny Foreigner
>> [Image Credit: Lewes Herriot] Believe it or not, there will be a fourth single from Johnny Foreigner's cataclysmically great debut Waited Up Til It Was Light. In the UK, anyway. According to an email, the band's label Best Before will release Jan. 12 the double A-sided single "DJ's Get Doubts" b/w "Lea Room." Which means that five of Waited Up Til It Was Light's 13 tracks will have gotten the single treatment, while, miraculously, some of the best tracks ("Absolute Balance," "This End Is A Beginning") remain relatively, and curiously, uncelebrated. We had written previously here and perhaps elsewhere that the Birmingham, England-based noise pop trio's prior single "Salt, Peppa and Spinderella" was the fourth from Waited Up, but we just went to our discs and checked and, no matter how we count, that doesn't add up. "Sometimes In The Bullring" was released as a single by Laundrette, but that was an older version of the track released prior to the band's signing with Best Before. So anyway, the ballad "DJ's Get Doubts" (which is nice, but not as strong as "All Mosely Gardens" in our opinion) and the raucous rocker "Lea Room" (named for the band's driver/tour manager guy, who can be spotted just offstage in all of those awesome live videos we hyped up on our Twitter feed later last month) are next in the spotlight. No word on when, if ever, any of these Johnny Foreigner singles will be issued in North America, where Waited Up Til It Was Light was issued to zero fanfare in July (well, some fanfare -- our review is here). Incidentally, the same email from Best Before referenced above noted that superlative Glaswegian indie rock sextet Dananananaykroyd has completed recording its full-length debut, and the set is currently being mixed by The Machine in Hoboken, New Jersey.

>> Surfing On Steam reports here that German electrobliss duo Guitar will release a new set titled Come Summer Come Blues early next year. In addition, Clairecords has recently reissued two Guitar sets, 2004's Honeysky and 2005's Salty Kisses, and there is a note at the Clairecords site stating that the label also intends to reissue It's Sweet To Do Nothing. According to this MySpace blog the new set contains eight tracks that apparently harness Guitar principal Michael Lueckner's love of bluesmen Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Big Bill Broonzy. We reviewed Guitar's Sunkissed for Junkmedia six years ago right here; our first exposure to the act was its contributions to the excellent Morr Music-curated Slowdive tribute comp Blue Skied An' Clear which was released in September 2002. One of the best tracks on Blue Skied An' Clear [review here] is Guitar's MBV-influenced stomper "House Full Of Time," which we're posting below.

Guitar -- "House Full Of Time" -- Blue Skied An' Clear
[right click and save as]
[buy Guitar music from Clairecords right here and EMusic here]

>> A propos of nothing... you know what would be a great mash-up? Do the kids still go for the mash-ups these days? We honestly don't know. But anyway, a clever remixer could take B. Fleischmann and Ms. John Soda's absolutely sublime cover of Slowdive's "Here She Comes" and combine it with Frightened Rabbit's stunning "Floating In The Forth" and make something perty. Yeah.

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