Here’s a sneak peak of whats on offer with their new video for Lotus Flower. Thom Yorke dances in it. A lot.

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.

So with it’s big gridded cities and vast open spaces comes big gritty rock and vast vicious voices like Dallas Frasca‘s. She’s already a critical and chart success in Australia, landing the coveted Music Oz Artist of the Year and also won Blues and Roots Song of the Year. Yes – Dallas is old school, and the kind of school you’d move home for so your kids become awesome.

We may not know much about Dallas Frasca in the UK – but I’m sure she’s getting past the earth’s core with that tunnel she’s digging herself – and will pop up here before we know it.

Of all the things I could have done in Australia is have a Civil Partnership, although it had to be at the British Consulate – the government down under regrettably still forbid civil unions. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if  Australia’s gay bars are full of men ironically singing along to her single I Like it Better When Your Straight (sorry Terry Jones, this song isn’t actually about sexual re-orientation). Gayness aside – I love this song, simple rootsy rock – propelled by Dallas’s rough and deep vocals. Hear for yourself on the video:

Sadly Dallas’ album Not for Love or Money is hard to come by in the UK, but in the meantime you can download Til The End I’ll Walk Proudly courtesy of Dallas herself for free from holeytonal

Dallas Frasca – Til The End I’ll Walk Proudly MP3

In the meantime check out the Cajón on this:

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:

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.

What’s better? I’d say the:

• music
• cinematography
• bizarreness
• costumes
• beauty
• absence of Lady Gaga

I had no knowledge of IAMAMIWHOAMI, in fact looking around I don’t think many other people do. Well it’s all thanks to Bigstereo I found this. I’m speechless too. Apart from when I spent 5 minutes figuring out how to say IAMAMIWHOAMI.

This is the stunning music video to IAMAMIWHOAMI‘s single Y:

Anyway Jonsi of Sigur Rós has just released a new music video for one of my favourite songs of the year – Animal Arithmetic from his first solo album, GO.

Here it is: