Ooh baby, baby...
The Magic Numbers pushed the swoon factor to the max last week at The Borderline, the last night of their 3-date residency. Lashings of those boy/girl harmonies and call & response arrangements swept another full house clean off it's feet. Setting something of a personal record, this was the fourth time reallyrather has caught the band this year, as much because it's been the only way of getting to hear these tunes, there being no records around just yet. And it really is all about the songs. There's no gimmicks, no haircuts (definitely no haircuts), no attitude, just a classic four-piece dealing in finely-tooled heartwarming pop. "This one's really just hours old," bandleader Romeo had us believe by way of introducing yet another gorgeous (fiddle-enhanced) folky pop number (Love is here??). Too good, really...
[Guardian review][show pics]

..as was Kendall Meade, aka Mascott last Friday at the Chickfactor gala at Bush Hall. Certainly too good for the rest of a bill which majored on amiable Brit sloppiness: Belle & Seb's Stevie Jackson busking a set with Bill Wells; Pipas' game-as-ever electro-twee, saved from the abyss once again by Lupe's Amelie-esque cuteness; and a re-emergent Television Personalities, Dan Treacy at least hitting the back of the net once with a stonking Salvador Dali's Garden Party ("Richard & Judy were there..."). But Meade was a thing apart and not merely by dint of being able to sing in tune. The shimmering Mascott sound was here reduced to Meade's guitar/piano and gliding vocal and Magaret White's harmonies and fiddle [pics via unpopular]. Plucking all of this blog's favourites from the most recent Dreamer's book album, the light, lucid music sparkled like the chandeliers hanging overhead. Going on early, she was well-enough received tho' the scenesters at this event (geek-boy glasses and Gola bags) would probably have been non-plussed to learn that Mascott's Turn on/turn off had featured only the night before on the soundtrack of The OC...

Thanks, Chickfactor, and here's a few for next time:
From Brighton, The Pipettes [site][sound]
From Ulster, Language of Flowers [site][sound]
From Finland, Treeball [site][sound]

'Darby & Joan..a stunning collection of songs.. sure–footed songwriter and performer, etc, etc'. It's Gentleman Reg, oh yes, cover interviewed recently in Ontario's Echo Weekly...

A pair of albums for which reallyrather's trusty telescope has been scanning the horizon pretty much all year without joy finally hove into view. No sound samples yet but rr has discovered the artwork for:

Bosque Brown plays Mara Lee Miller
and
Anamude's Pentimento.

Now they could both turn out to be total clunkers but if you can judge a record by it's cover, mm-mmm...

'On CBC Radio Dec 11 a very special in studio session featuring the gorgeous moody pop songs of Julie Doiron, [backed by] acclaimed ambient folk, alt. pop, chamber country band Radiogram.' Thanks for the tip, Endearing; no thanks for no archive, Canadian Broadcasting Co...

More end-of-year list shockers. A dismal offering from Virgin Radio's Pete Mitchell, presenter of a cred-by-numbers show called Razor Cuts on Sunday nights. Pete is from Manchester and he let's you know it week after week with the same playlist (Buzzcocks, Smiths, New Order, Joy Division), interspersed with textbook-approved, predictable 'classics' from Velvet Underground, The Doors, etc and similarly approved Beatles songs (ie the acid-y, Lennon-y ones, not the pure pop). In a shock development, this list includes Morrissey, Ian Brown, even that very Badly Drawn Boy album...

It's also got The Dears on there. They're one of a batch of orch-folk-rock outfits to surface this year to inexplicable acclaim. Ella Guru, anyone? The Czars? What about the The Earlies? 'Elegant and dreamy..the slow-burning triumph of the year,' said yesterday's Observer Music Monthly of These were The Earlies, ranking it at 8 for the year [Top50]. For 'elegant' and 'dreamy' read 'punch-pulling' and 'inconsequential'. And The Observer agreed with the Daily Telegraph [list] in nominating The Streets album as record of the year. Ah yes, Mike Skinner, he really speaks to your average 30- 40-year-old broadsheet rock critic with his tales of "pay-as-you-go mobiles, PlayStations, cheap pills, strong lager, fights, kebab shops..." And as for their high-fiving Dizzee Rascal, well...