The Fly’s June Spotify Playlist

Wazoo! Hello Spotify users! Welcome to The Fly’s first-ever Spotify playlist. We’ve taken time this month to select an array of songs by artists old and new who we’ve written about, mentioned, or who are in some way relevant to our June issue. However tenuous.

Thus, we’re quietly confident that this will be the only place you’ll find Chapel Club, Pulled Apart By Horses, PiL and Elton John in close company. Although if you spot them all together in a snug at Ronnie Scott’s, please do let us know. Get a picture if possible.

In the meantime, you can click this link to listen to The Fly’s June Spotify Playlist.

Chapel Club – ‘Five Trees’
Chapel Club’s new single, ‘Five Trees’, comprehensively sums up why we tipped them at the beginning of the year in our ‘Ten For 2010’ issue. Macabre and melodic, it’s a shimmering slice of dark-hearted guitar pop. We’re hoping for more of the same on their Paul Epworth-produced debut, due this autumn.

The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – ‘So Long Goodnight’
It’s been a long wait for a new Eighties Matchbox album, and in that time, the band have been to the brink in almost every possible direction. Dropped by their label, plagued by nagging addictions and shorn of two original members, it’s pretty much a miracle that they’re still going; which is why we should treasure the purring goth-rock goodness of ‘So Long Goodnight’ - from their new album ‘Blood & Fire’ – all the more. Read our June feature here.

PiL – ‘Four Enclosed Walls’
As chosen by Mez from The Neat – a promising guitar band from Hull, check them out here – in our ‘Top 5’ section. Says Mez; “This song makes you feel like you can’t escape. The simple pounding drum and the wacked out vocal, you can’t escape, you can’t escape, the walls.”

Active Child – ‘She Was A Vision’
A darling of the blogosphere, Active Child is an ex-choir boy from Los Angeles who trades in soaring, ethereal, electro-suites. ‘She Was A Vision’ is taken from his ‘Curtis Lane’ EP, which is out now on Merok.

Jamaica – ‘I Think I Like U2’
Snicker-inducing electro-pop thumpery now, with Paris-based duo Jamaica. Antoine Hilaire and bassist Florent Lyonnet are slick in a Daft Punk kinda way, and euphorically upbeat in a Phoenix sort of way. “A friend in the UK gave the best description of the band at our first show,” Hilaire tells our June issue, “she said we sound like The Police in 2010.” Oof. Why-the-littl’… “That was a big compliment.” Oh, right. Gercha. Nice one!

Violent Soho – ‘Son Of Sam’
There is approximately a big fat Billy Corgan ‘zero’ percent of Violent Soho’s sound that is original, but this is actually a very good thing. The Aussie grunge troupe are all Pumpkins throat-howls and Nirvana-ey guitar squalls delivered in a big Vines-like ball of fury. Unbelievably, they started out as a church band. “It was our only avenue for making music” admits frontman Luke in our Levi’s® OnesToWatch® piece.

Washed Out – ‘New Theory’
Washed Out’s soaring, ethereal, lo-fi electro has made a big dent in the blogs this year. And if that description’s all sounding a bit Active Child to you, well then that’s because they do bear a sonic resemblance. Washed Out are the slighty sleepier, shabbier siblings.

The Drums – ‘Best Friend’
“You were my best friend, but then you died” begins the first song on The Drums’ self-titled debut. Way to put a downer on it, boys. Despite the disproportionate hype – who could possibly live up to the amount of heat The Drums have had? – their full-length debut is a genuine grower, each listen revealing an unexpected depth to their fey, retro-revivalist pop. They’re this month’s The Fly cover stars, and you can read the feature here.

Pulled Apart By Horses - ‘Back To The Fuck Yeah’
Chaotic, at times hilarious, at times teeth-chatteringly, face-wobblingly aggressive. Pulled Apart By Horses are a hard-rocking, riff-spewing, wild-animal-sacrificing, limb-smashingly brilliant live band, and fortunately their self-titled debut album, which is out this month, has captured both the fidgety exuberance of their personalities, and the uncontrollable volume of their live shows. Opening track ‘Back To The Fuck Yeah’ is stupid-rock, done stupid-well. Here’s a link to a track-by-track of their debut album.

Surfer Blood – ‘Swim’
Another of the new wave (no pun intended) of American guitar bands flooding the UK, Surfer Blood bound eagerly over the pond tooled up with melody-heavy, guitary ebullience. Let’s say they’re a little like Weezer’s blue album, but with the scuzzy intelligence of Pixies, Modest Mouse, and The Shins. OK? There, we said it. Pick your holes in our précis, sure. But above all remember this: ‘Swim’ is really very good indeed.

Wintersleep – ‘Mausoleum’
Canada’s Wintersleep are something of a secret treasure back home. Their fourth album ‘New Inheritors’ is out this month. In his review, Fly writer Matt Glass gushes, “it’s on album highlight ‘Mausoleum’ that Wintersleep really flex their collective muscles as Paul Murphy’s lulling vocals soar above violins and shimmering cymbals. “I won’t buy/ I won’t buy til you come around/Til you lay me down,” sings Murphy atop driving guitars and orchestral behemoths reminiscent of the late, great Hope Of The States. Wonderful.”
Whoah, crank up that Praise-o-meter.

Delphic – ‘Counterpoint’
More vibrant technicolour electro-pop from the Mancunian sensations. Delphic have stridden into the limelight this year, with their live shows mutating their songs into much larger, almost euphoric, dance anthems. Surely, a terrifyingly large summer awaits.

Elton John – ‘Georgia’
In each issue of the magazine, on the last page, our writer JJ Dunning takes the podium under the misguided notion that he’s some sort of comedian or something, and picks five out-of-the-ordinary, weird things from the world of music, that are weakly connected to a current event. The feature is called Five Things, and occasionally it raises a smile, but mostly, it’s pretty pathetic stuff. Of course, at this point, if you happen to be nodding in agreement that it’s a rubbish feature written by a bit of a knobhead, I should point out that I AM HIM. So stop it. You’re hurting my feelings. That stuff about it being pathetic was just a test. Anyhow, this month’s Five Things is on the topic of the World Cup, which is a tournament of football, which Elton John is interested in, as he once owned Watford FC, whose 1978 squad he got to sing backing vocals on this song, ‘Georgia’ from his album ‘A Single Man’. See? Told you it was tenuous.