Lucky Number Music

The best album of 2011 was, genuinely, Caged Animals Eat Their Own.  However, there were a few non Lucky Number related contenders this year, with our Top 10 favourites being:

Artist-Release (Label)

Albums

Bombay Bicycle Club – A Different Kind Of Fix (Island)
Dom Thomas – Dreams Of San Antonio (Finders Keepers)
EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions)
Forest Fire – Staring At The X (Fat Cat)
Frank Ocean – Nostalgia/Ultra (Self-Released)
Gui Boratto – III (Kompakt)
Little Dragon – Ritual Union (Peacefrog)
Metronomy – The English Riveria (Because)
The Weeknd – House of Balloons (Self-Released)
tUnE-yArDs – Who Kill (4AD)

Tracks

Alabama Shakes – Hold On (ATO)
AlunaGeorge – You Know You Like It (Super)
Azealia Banks – 212 (Self-released)
Beyonce – 1+1 (Columbia)
Joe Goddard ft Valentina – Gabriel (Greco-Roman)
King Krule – Baby Blue (TruePanther)
Lana Del Ray – Video Games (Stranger)
Lone – All Those Weird Things (Wigflex)
Moska – Bax (Numbers)
Purity Ring – Belispeak (Fat Possum)

An ace Jake Bullit future boogie Xmas party mix – please stream and/or download here.

It’s already been quite a year for Friends.  With their single “I’m His Girl” conquering radio airwaves across the World and racking up 300,000+ YouTube plays, their sold out debut UK shows in the Autumn, and recently being tipped as one of Q Magazine’s Faces of 2012 amongst their omnipresent positive press. And today came the very exciting news that Friends are the only independently-signed artist to have made it onto the long-list for the BBC Sound Poll of 2012.

For the uninitiated, the BBC Sound Poll long-list rounds up fifteen of the best rising music stars, as picked by 180+ leading UK tastemakers. With this inclusion, Friends join previous luminaries like Warpaint, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend, MGMT and select others, thereby cementing their position as the hottest and most promising new band to look out for in 2012.

We’re proud to be a part of the forthcoming Independent Label Market.  It takes place on Saturday 10th December from 11am at Spitalfields Market, London. It’s been set up in association with AIM, and those labels who are taking part are those that lost their stock in the PIAS/Sony warehouse fire earlier this year. These include:  Accidental, Angular Records, Big Dada, Brownswood Recordings, Chemikal Underground, Domino, Double Six, Fabric, Memphis Industries, Ninja Tune, PIAS, Rekids, Sonic Cathedral, Soundway, Southern Fried, Stolen Records, Weird World and Xtra Mile.

We’re not too concerned about selling you anything, but we’re really looking forward to being able to talk music and all thinks Lucky Number.  Should be a great day, come along and say hello to us and these other, very fine, indie labels – more details here. FInally, here is a video from the Brooklyn Label Market which gives you an idea of the vibe – it will be like this but colder:

We are delighted to present to you the MP3 for “Angels” from Seventeen Evergreen’s Psyentist EP which will be released next Monday (Dec 5) but you can get “here” now.

Please download here.

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The band’s video for lead EP track “Polarity Song” debuted on Gorilla Vs. Bear earlier this month and promptly racked up 75,000 views in the first weekend.

The EP’s second track, the ultra-groovy “Angels”, reverberates with beautiful harp strums juxtaposing against anguished layers of backing harmonies that act like a synaesthestic audio phenomenon relative to Edward Munch’s ‘Scream.’ The four track Psyentist EP is a celebration of the science of imaginary solutions.  It’s the precursor to the band’s forthcoming LP, Steady On, Scientist!, which will be released in Spring 2012.

“Piles of $$$”, Caged Animals melancholic paean to “the good life,” might come off as a joking deconstruction of the urban, with it’s auto-tuned, synthetic vocal, love-making tempo, and potentially sardonic title, if it weren’t for the genuine sense of longing that comes across throughout it’s synth-drenched measures.

As the track gently motors along and Vincent Cacchione croons, “I just want to set this town alight with my pile of money,” and “we’re gonna spend it all away, you and me,” it becomes evident that the higher star that this voice is reaching for is one that could only ever be imagined, a world of richness earned by two lovers.

To compliment this idea, the incredible Ace Norton directed new video-clip, sees Vincent Cacchione and, fellow Caged Animal, Magali Charron, (who are a couple in real life), as they feverishly race from chain-store to chain-store in a Lynchian but totally Hollywood re-interpretation of Bonnie & Clyde.  The pair gun it up Mulholland Drive in a ‘72 Benz, unconsciously re-enacting moments of Wild At Heart and Titanic, while amassing over-sized jeans, thermal underwear, and hooded sweatshirts.   Making a sharp turn off the road into a dingy, curiously well-lit warehouse, the pair appear in a final showdown, where the unspeakable becomes gorgeously rendered in slow-motion, and Cacchione reveals his deepest desire.

As premiered today on Stereogum.

Friends recently announced headline show at the Lexington on February 7th has already sold out, so the quintet have added a second London show at XOYO on February 8th.  Move fast would be our advice, as am sure this show will sell out too.

Mon, February 6, 2012  – Manchester, Deaf Institute Tickets

Tues, February 7, 2012 – London, The Lexington SOLD OUT

Wed, February 8, 2012 – London, XOYO Tickets