October 8, 2011

Today's Hotness: Big Deal, Los Campesinos!, New War

Big Deal
>> Regular readers will be familiar with our coverage of London-based indie duo Big Deal. One of the more frustrating things this fall has been our inability to hear the band's new album Lights Out, which was released in the UK Sept. 5. We figured we'd be able to grab the MP3s digitally or stream it on Spotify once it came out, but no dice. Turns out we had completely forgotten that the act comprised of American guy Kacey Underwood and British gal Alice Costelloe had a North American deal in place, which is why there is at present no way to get Lights Out in North America. That will change on Jan. 24, when Mute releases the full-length to our sector of the globe. Lights Out will be preceded Oct. 25 by an eponymous EP that includes one exclusive song, "Mai Joy." The rest of the EP contains the album's main preview track "Chair," which we wrote about here last month, with the Big Star cover "13" from Big Deal's debut 2010 UK single "Homework," as well as the intense brooder "Locked Up," which was an NME-exclusive download a year ago that we wrote about here. If you need more of a Big Deal fix before Oct. 25, stream "Chair" below or watch this live in-store performance of the track, along with the album track "With The World At My Feet," filmed at Rough Trade West last month.

Big Deal - Chair by Big Deal

>> Cardiff-based indie pop titans Los Campesinos! revealed earlier this week that the lead single for its hotly anticipated new album Hello Sadness will be the record's title track; the single will be released Nov. 21. The timing is odd, because singles typically precede an album launch, not trail it, but there you go. The announcement, single art and lyrics were posted here by the band. No information about b-sides was offered, but we expect there'll be at least one, as flat things tend to have two sides. Pre-orders for Hello Sadness close Oct. 14 and the set will be released a month later on Wichita in the UK and Arts & Crafts in North America, as we reported here in August. A preview track "By Your Hand" was pushed out to the Internerds early last month and we wrote about that here.

>> The more we listen to New War's new single, the more we like it; it reminds us of Tones On Tail and Chameleons UK and other goth-tinged '80s musics that captured our attention way back when. The title track is "Ghostwalking," and the original version is wonderfully atmospheric and soporific, with a slow groove that doesn't move so much as it spreads out. Melbourne, Australia-based New War's members include Chris Pugmire and Melissa Lock, formerly of the act Shoplifting, which has released records on Kill Rock Stars. New War has inked to release music with Fast Weapons, a label commissioned by Gossip's Nathan Howdeshell. The band will release a full-length titled Calling From Inside in March 2012, but in the meantime the song "Ghostwalking" is getting the 12" treatment; it was released Sept. 27. Additional music on the platter includes one remix each by Gossip and HTRK. Better still, you can download all three songs at Bandcamp for free. Check them out at the embed below and click through for the sonic goodies. If you want the vinyl, you cany buy that right here, but there apparently aren't too many left so act fast.

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