There's nothing we can do about it...

...apparently. In what looks ominously like becoming a New Year tradition, the UK print media have been busy telling us who we're going to like in '07. The 'taste-makers' and 'scenesters' have been consulted and the following will defintely get famous, be absolutely everywhere, soundtrack your year, etc etc: The View, The Twang, The Klaxons, Jamie T, Cold War Kids, Enter Shikari et al ad nauseum. Most of all there will be no escaping someone called Mika which is a gruesome and utterly hideous prospect if his recent turn on Later with Jools Holland was any guide...

No, reallyrather feels somehow able to struggle on unencumbered by any of these. Looking slightly the other way, this blog anticipates:

:: a third record from Carolyn Berk's Lovers. Sleep With Heat is Jan 23 via Orange Twin; abandon yourself to more waves of literate wistfulness...
[lovers][on myspace]

:: label release #4 from Rilo Kiley. No idea when this one drops but having been there since the first weeks of Takeoffs and landings, despite spiralling budgets and mainstream expectations, this blog is keeping the faith...

:: as is, surely, Jared Flamm, main driver behind the band Biirdie whose debut set kicked off with An ode to Jenny [Lewis of Rilo]. Morning kills the dark placed at no9 on this blog's '05 year-end list and the group are currently squirrelling away in their LA bunker on the follow-up...
[biirdie]

:: top of that '05 list was matt pond PA's Several arrows later. No offence to Matt Ward but had this record been released last year it would won out again. Still leaps out of the speakers as fresh as day one, great tunes, arrangements, shady lyrics & vocal. Last light, due in April, is an absolute no-brainer. Album #7 - yes, really - and they're still under the radar of so many who'd enjoy them as much as this blog does...
[matt pond PA][on myspace]

:: 'When his mother dies, a teenager takes a road-trip in a stolen car to find his long-lost brother...' is the basic plotline of upcoming US indie movie The go-getter featuring a soundtrack by this blog's No1 for '06, M. Ward. Who knows if this will get a separate release and whether it will be purely instrumental or feature songs. Actually, the film's theme sounds like a great excuse for Matt to dust off one of his very best (and earliest) songs, Beautiful car from his debut solo record, Duet for guitars #2...
[the go-getter]

:: More blind faith will guarantee acquisition of Everyday I Said a Prayer for Kathy and Made a One Inch Square, new from Wheat following another protracted gestation. According to new label Empyrean it's 'due spring' but as ever with this ill-starred outfit, don't count on it. A promised five-track EP taster, That's exactly what I wanted… exactly that, scheduled for Nov06 has still to appear...
[wheat][empyrean]

:: More speculatively, will we get to hear new material from Bristol's dark indie rockers Gravenhurst or New York's queen of floaty, crystalline pop, Kendall Meade aka Mascott [go]? Watch this space...

To Islington for a brief set from Sheffield chamber-folk-poppers Monkey Swallows the Universe. Limited to just four songs in some kind acoustic 'battle of the bands' event and plagued by routine hazards of sound problems and a noisy crowd, Nat and her (rather too tentative) cohorts showed enough to suggest they'll be worth following. This blog has been playing their debut from last year Bright carvings as much as any recently and the sometimes overly-busy strummin' and vaguely cliched relationship angst in the lyrics are balanced out by enough ear-catching idiosyncrasy elsewhere. But new song Little Polvier is quite the loveliest thing they've yet come up with. Its crying out for some tambo but, hey, we can add our own...
[monkey swallows the universe]

But if you prefer that English folky thing in a distinctly more classicist manner, try Mary Hampton's Silver dagger...
[here hear]