With a slightly more conservative approach compared to Jessica Lea Mayefield, my last country adventure – Chicago born Tristen, now based in Nashville, writes with great maturity and melodic expertise. Her songs’ ever so slightly off kilter phrases grab your attention and keep you coming back for more.

Tristen, signed to indie label, American Myth Recordings, is scheduled to release an album, Charlatans At The Garden Gate on 1 February 2011. Last October Tristen released Eager For Your Love – a superb song with a fantastic chorus that the little voice in my head can’t stop singing. Here it is so your little voice can join in the chrous too:

Tristen – Eager For Your Love by AmericanMythRecordings

You can download the Eager for Your Love along with two other tracks for the price of your email address

Follow Tristen on Twitter. Oh, and follow me too.

Dusty Brown are a Sacramento based family trio made up of Zac, Jessica and of course Dusty Brown himself. Their live shows, begun some 10 years ago, have already brought them local music awards in Sacramento. I’m sure their electro folk pop will be winning internationally soon too.

In June they released their EP This City is Killing Me for free after Dusty got fed up of it sitting on his computer.

Here are my highlights from the EP, Back to Black is especially beautiful with soaring portishead like vocals and vivid scoring. This City is Killing Me is a haunting instrumental – the kind of track CSI would pick up to make shaking test tubes look sexy. I think that’s a good thing.

Dusty Brown – Back to Black (mp3)

Dusty Brown – This City is Killing Me (mp3)

You can download the This is Killing Me EP free from Dusty Brown’s website.

So I was delighted to hear through a Guardian Music Tweet about the Musical Alliance Pact (MAP) which is being run by The Pop Cop. Then through MAP I was even more delighted to find this tune from Brazil.

Baiana System are from the state of Bahia, the home of Axé music. Their main aim is to promote the Bahian Guitar – a Brazilian electric guitar from the 1940s. With their album Garimpo Musica, they’ve taken the instrument and their sound to a whole new level – fusing dub, heavy guitar licks and Brazilian beats.

This edition of Song for the Weekend comes all the way from Brazil. It’s kind of like Sanatana but with a big spoon of amazing:

Baiana System – Jah Jah Revolta (mp3)

Originally from Meio Desligado – shame I can’t read Portuguese cause it looks like an awesome blog.

The Swedish folk duo have just released a cover of Fever Ray’s When I Grow Up – which was shared on Fever Ray’s blog and originally found by Just Music That I Like.

First Aid Kit are armed with two amazing female voices spinning haunting, beautiful and catchy folk. It’s no wonder Karin is a fan.

Here is the excellent cover:

First Aid Kit – When I Grow Up (Fever Ray) by morrisday

Exquisite experimental folk poppers Breakfast in Fur from New Paltz, NY began life in the small hours of Dan Wolfe’s bedroom. It seems he never had any knocks on the door.

His initial recording project led to the release of a debut EP in 2009 and Breakfast in Fur now comprise 6 members – garnering attention from their live shows in local cafes and Brooklyn bars. The whole band are currently recording together for their LP The Feel – due to be released in spring 2011.

Whilst we wait for that – here are two highlights from Breakfast in Fur‘s EP. I Don’t Care is a jangly catchy pop number with impressive rhythmical layers whilst maintaining a lo-fi aesthetic – especially with the laid-back vocals. With a hint of tropicana High Hopes is another great track to smile away to.

Breakfast in Fur – I Don’t Care (mp3)

Breakfast in Fur – High Hopes (mp3)

You can download the full EP for free from bandcamp.

Gaggle, the female alternative choir from London, are legions apart from crusty old veneer of group singing. They’ve won praise from NME and were awarded Best New Band at this year’s Camden Crawl Emerging Talent Awards.

Signed to one of my favorite labels Transgressive Records, the 23 girls – all with pseudonyms like Gusset, Strick and Wunderla – are led by classically trained Deborah Coughlin but it’s her punk roots that come to the fore on their first single I Hear Flies. Coughlin co-writes the songs with her former 586 band member, Simon Dempsey.

If Gaggle can use all the 23 forces available to them, they could genuinely offer something completely different to everything in music right now – and Christ, we need it.

They’ve just about finished their album and whilst we wait for its release you can watch the video for the dark and excellent single I Hear Flies:

Gaggle have just announced new live dates in Germany, France and the UK.

Follow Gaggle on Twitter oh and follow me too.

1. Detune their standards until Jedward sound like Marvin Gaye reincarnate.
2. Can pick a cherry from a turdy fog but are so useless at admin record companies burn all their applications in the town square so they can’t even be kept on record for any A&R jobs. Ever.
3. Become incapable of tasting anything let alone music – after hearing so many singer song writers performing edgy acoustic versions of Hey Ya by Outkast their brain has imploded and only survive on a zombie motor function enabling them to turn the knob up to 11.

Although Manchester rockers Everything Everything will never know which category the sound man from their debut gig in 2007 fell into – they thankfully listened to his praise despite a baffled response from the crowd and carried on.

I’m sure he was s cherry picker – as today Everything Everything look set to be one of the biggest bands to arrive in 2010. Pigeonholed into indie, the band are justifiably uncomfortable with the labelling. There’s much more than the jangly guitars – pop, dance and experimentalism all make an appearance. You may hear some Futureheads and Metronomy on their records – but most noticeably Everything Everything take some breathtakingly bizarre musical turns. Genuinely fascinating and fun listening.

Their debut album Man Alive comes out on 30 August and is available to pre-order on Amazon.

Here is the current video for their latest single MY KZ, UR BF. I’m quite scared of lead singer Jonathan Higgs’s head tilt – but I do love his voice:

I’m a big fan of experimentalism within pop aesthetics, rather like Yeasayer’s great album Odd Blood. What Menomena adds is their ability to create a more natural palette of colours to entice our ear buds with.

Somehow their songs are architectural masterpieces despite their unique drafting methods. It’s complicated – using software called Digital Looping Recorder (Deeler) programmed by band memeber Brent Knopf. Menomena‘s drummer Danny Seim‘s explanation of the process will be far better than anything I can muster:

“First, we set the tempo of the click, which is played through a pair of head phones. We then take turns passing a single mic around the room. One of us will hold the mic in front of an instrument, while another one of us will lay down a short improvised riff over the click track. We usually start with the drums. Once the drums begin looping, we throw on some bass, piano, guitar, bells, sax, or whatever other sort of noise maker happens to be in the room. Deeler keeps the process democratic, which is the only way we can operate”.

Mines is one of those rare albums you’ll be able to come back to time and time again and still find treats you haven’t heard before amongst its many milliseconds of aural pleasure.

You can buy Mines on Amazon or listen on Spotify.

If you’re really lazy you can listen to one of my highlights from the album,  Five Little Rooms here – but I’d suggest you download it in exchange for your email address and take it with you everywhere:

Menomena - Five Little Rooms mp3

Menomena UK Tour Dates

For those of us in the UK you can see them at the following dates:

• 11/29/10 – London at XOYO
• 12/01/10 – Manchester at Deaf Institute
• 12/02/10 – Glasgow at Arches
• 12/03/10 – Liverpool at Kazimir
• 12/04/10 – Leeds at Brudenell

He laughed mockingly when he dealt me the news. I cried a little inside.

My only hope is that Dead Confederate, one of my favourite bands, come back to tour the UK to promote their new album Sugar.

Two years ago I wrote about Dead Confederate and their debut album Wrecking Ball came in as runner up in my top 10 albums of 2008.

So I was frothing at the mouth reading the glowing Love Shack, Baby review of Sugar. 24 August, the release date, is a day on which I will be more happy than any of the dance scenes on Glee.

You can download the single Giving It All Away for the meagre price of your email address:

Thom Yorke

Despite murmurs from the Oxford group that after In Rainbows they wouldn’t be releasing a full LP again - according to Ed O’Brien they are in fact close to finishing off their 8th album. Just as Michael Jackson used to create a media storm with a  new record release – a new album from Radiohead will surely be broadcast on news bulletins worldwide, especially after the coverage In Rainbows received.

Here is Thom in all his new beardy glory performing Give Up the Ghost. Quite a tasteful use of the looper – although nearly everything Thom Yorke comes up with is tasteful in my opinion.