Thursday 28 May 2009

Cicada Album Mini Mix

Cicada have made an album mini mix, available for sites to stream. Fans wishing to download the mini mix can do it from Cicada's website here.

Cicada "Metropolis" reviewed on Music News

"The eighties have made a comeback through the current wave of electro-pop. Sported by Cicada, they blast out their new incredibly infectious single off their forthcoming second album Roulette.

Metropolis has everything that makes an eighties song a successful 2009 hit record. Funky synth bass, dark melodic vocals that sound like Baccara ('yes sir, I can boogie') and synth lines that sound like a 1960’s TV show space station sound effects. You may think this is nothing new, but there is something about this tune that makes it original (well, as original as it can be) and unique. At the end of the day what matters is that this track will be on repeat for a long time before it gets old.

Metropolis will be the next song to take the country by storm. It’s way beyond catchy and will make you get up and dance whenever you hear it."

Read the full review on Music News here

Star Pilots : Orange Review

"It's all a bit chicken-and-egg with the Euro-dance-pop that's plonked itself so firmly in the UK charts over the last few years; did Eric Prydz create that infamous aerobics video because the genre is crowded with noise you'd expect to hear in a room of sweaty starjumpers? Or will the pumping dancefloor-fillers forever remind the world of leotards and lunges because of Prydz's risqué accompaniment?

Regardless, Star Pilots' debut UK single is pure sports hall fodder. An '80s drum machine churns out irresistibly shimmery beats while handclaps, cowbells and the obligatory belting female vocal get a hearty workout in the foreground. The Pilots are already big names all over Europe and, on the strength of this addictively danceable effort, should find the same success in the UK, in exercise classes and beyond."

Click here to read the review on Orange

Archangel "Square One"

Archangel is getting lots of love from the blogs for the track "Square One"

Sound Of Air "Archangel is Nick Webber, a "young man with a strong will and a warped imagination." Right! "Square One" came to me from out of the blue back while I was in the finals cave, so it took me a while to sift through the backlog and find it. That being said, I'm really glad I did. There are too many fun references and influences running underneath all of his music to mention now (so I just included the above video...) but look him up! Oh right - I realize at the end of the day it's really all just more electro-pop...just 'cause it tastes sweet doesn't mean you have to write it off. 2009 is good times!"

Boom Boom Chik "Archangel is the brainchild of Nick Webber. He is a one man band who wrote, performed, recorded and produced this new album "How to Lose your Best Friend." His latest single, Square One, is a brilliantly crafted piece of electro-pop. It is melodic and emotional, yet still keeps its upbeat appeal. When I first listened to the track the drums and syncopated bass line reminded me of Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel", but then it veers off into this chilled out listening experience. This one is going on repeat... Check out his other single Do it Again as well. EnjoY!"

You can download Square One here

Tuesday 26 May 2009

DaVinChe Female First One To Watch

Female First list DaVinChe as "one to watch" on their music homepage;

"DaVinChe. For most, no introduction is needed. The 23 year-old has been a premier producer on the UK grime scene since his late teens. 2009 marks the release of his long-awaited debut, studio album. ‘Riding For Love’ is the first track scheduled for release on 8th June 2009.

Born and raised in South-East London, DaVinChe is a self-taught producer synonymous with the grime scene; playing an integral part of the work done by its pioneers such as Wiley, JME, Kano, Jammer and Skepta. ‘Eyes on You’, ‘Take You Away’ feat. Sadie Ama, ‘Gotta Man’ with Doctor, ‘I’ll Ride’ feat. Estelle and Bashy and Kano’s ‘Ps & Qs’ are just a few of the tracks that have put DaVinChe on the top of the UK music makers list. He’s been tipped for success by Wire Magazine, i-D, RWD Magazine and MTV Base.

DaVinChe is a trained guitarist and pianist and provided the grime element for ‘Urban Classic’, the BBC’s ground-breaking attempt to fuse grime with jazz and classical to create a 70-minute symphonic sound-clash that took grime onto a different plane. He also produced the score for SkySports NFL ad’s in 2006. More recently DaVinChe has remixed tracks for Britney Spears and M.I.A and contributed to the funky-house scene with the classic ‘In the Air’ with DJ Perempay and Katie Pearl."

To read the full feature on Female First, click here

Friday 15 May 2009

Archangel in the Guardian & The Sun!

Great week for Archangel, picking up two features in the press.

Firstly, The Guardian's critics awarded the Fly Club show the pick of the day, calling it "Inventive heartfelt electro pop"

And then The Sun's "Something On The Weekend" gave "Do It Again" 3.5 out of 5, saying “Indie, electro and funk elements thrown together into a shiny package of dance-friendly sound.” The video also features on the Sun Online's jukebox.

Archangel featured in the NME

Archangel's "Do It Again" featured in NME's "Top 10 Tracks You Must Hear This Week"

Sky News Business : ‘Giganomics: How To Rock Working From Home’

Our latest Sky News Business feature:

"The work place landscape is rapidly changing. People constantly ask us what it's like to work from home. How do you keep yourself motivated? What's it like working and living together?

The whole 'working from home for yourself' is not that alien to us anymore - the overheads are low and hopefully will keep us in good stead to get through the recession.

But the biggest challenge is to keep diversifying and transferring skills from one job or sector of the company to new sources of business. The world of 'giganomics' is well and truly here.

The term giganomic was coined by the former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, Tina Brown.

"No one I know has a job anymore," she says. "They've got gigs: a bunch of free-floating projects, consultancies and bits and pieces they try to stitch together."

The era of a job for life has arrived, and the business professional now relies on a series of "gigs", some regular, some not.
The advantage of a being a giganomic is that by working for a variety of employers and organisations, no one has complete power over you.

The drawback is an immensely complicated diary. Another downside is the burden of all the anxieties, uncertainties, cash-flow and indignities of 'gig work'. Invariably you end up working four times harder than a salaried employee, without the benefits of holiday or sick pay.

So if you're thinking 'I can do that', be prepared to excel at time management. And grow some thick-skin - freelancers who work from home are prone to paranoia when their emails go unanswered or their calls remain unreturned for days.
The upside is the freedom to pick and choose work, and to do it at a time that suits.

Read the full feature on the Sky News Business pages here

Don Diablo & Example "Hooligans" Uncensored version

Popjustice "Pop Law #654: Never underestimate your audience's intelligence."

Popjustice feature the Star Pilots behind the scenes video for "In the Heat Of The Night" out on Monday 18th May.

BBC "The greatest purveyors of Scottish soul funk in the world!"

The BBC review the Average White Band's digital collection

"Formed in 1971, its a bizarre sign of those far off times that the very thought of a Scottish soul band being able to cut it in a market that was predominantly black and American should lead them to adopt such a self-effacing name. Truth be told, the stew of horns, popping bass and heartfelt vocals was every inch the equal of their spiritual cousins across the Atlantic. Let's Go Round Again, a digital hoovering up of their choicest cuts from the glory years, is all the proof you need.

Ironically, MCA's near-criminal inability to sell the band's first album (Show Your Hand, whose cheeky Put It Where You Want It opens proceedings) led to the band being snapped up by the USA's premier soul label, Atlantic. Their second effort, AWB, was produced by the legendary Arif Mardin (as were many more) and almost instantly yielded several classics that would become the band's calling cards for years. Chief amongst these is, of course, the mighty Pick Up The Pieces. A DJ's saving grace when all else fails, its snappy horn riff and hi-hat driven funk is as perfect as anything the Meters would ever serve up. The album is also plundered here for You Got it and Person To Person; more soul gold, which was to be the trend over the next few years.

Cut The Cake's title track was an obvious attempt to recreate the perfection of Pick Up the Pieces. A foolhardy wish, but still a stupendously funky attempt. This album along with its follow up Soul Searching remain peerless examples of danceable soul.

Their sound inevitably became more disco-fied as the decade wore on; Queen Of My soul being an early dance floor classic. As such the band's stock remained high in the States, allowing them to coast into the 80s on classics as tasty as Let's Go Round Again. Still performing (albeit with only two original members) to this day, there's little on this collection that's not grade A funk. It's a timely reminder of how great soul can come from anywhere in the world"

Click here to see the full review on the BBC

Tuesday 12 May 2009

Archangel "Do It Again" featured on MUZU Homepage & Blog

"We found this cool video on MUZU courtesy of the Medical Imprint Label. Archangel’s new single is taken from the debut Album ‘How to Lose your Best Friend’ and the video was commissioned through Radar Music Videos an inventive site where artists leave briefs for their video needs and directors pitch for the job. And as you can see the result is superb from UK Music Video Awards winner Director Henry Scholfield. Pass it on"


Archangel TV on MUZU.

Monday 11 May 2009

Archangel "Do It Again" featured on MySpace Homepage!

Archangel's new single "Do It Again", out this week on iTunes, is featured on the MySpace music homepage!

Star Pilots featured on MSN!

"In The Heat Of The Night" by Star Pilots, out on Hard2Beat next week is currently featured on the MSN Music homepage!

All Gigs review Archangel's "Do It Again"

"Playing a Steely Dan song certainly raised a few eyebrows around my house. Not my usual style or choice for sure. However this Archangel cover version of the 'classic', "Do It Again" brings a far modern upbeat twist and for me, an altogether more likable version. Dare I say, it's better than the original?

Nick Webber is Archangel. A guy who, in his self built studio, wrote, produced and recorded these two tracks along with the rest of his forthcoming album, "How To Loose Your Best Friend". Oh and he also sings, plays drums, bass, guitar, piano and keyboards on the album! An interesting and multi-talented fella indeed!

Webber has a great, strong voice and some very obvious talent. The clincher is most definitely the video of the single. It is really cleverly animated, directed by Henry Scholfield. It's an adventure story of a yellow "post-it note", travelling around on a bus, a visit to the swimming pool, a dentist chair, a kebab shop and a night club. I know it may sound bizarre but it works and sits great with the song. Check it out at www.myspace.com/archangelmusic .

The B side is "Odysseus" and if this is the style of the forthcoming album then all is set well. Very Bowie and Roxy Music in sound with some Kraftwork in there - a real feel for the late seventies, early eighties scene. Really very good. Contemporary electro indie pop. Cool!"

Read the full review here

Saturday 9 May 2009

Esquire Feature Archangel's "Do It Again"

"OK, so it’s a bit weird to get fetishy over stationery products, but who doesn’t get a thrill from the first scratchings of a new rollerball pen or cracking open a fresh pack of Post-Its (what is this “email” of which you speak?). It’s a passion obviously shared by Archangel, aka one-man indie/pop/electronica band, Nick Webber. He’s a bit handy - as his music-producing, label-founding track record shows - so we like to think that he drew all these stick-men himself (if you know better, don’t spoil it). His new album is out in the summer, but to give you a flavour here’s a surprisingly successful cover of Steely Dan’s “Do It Again”, out on 11 May."

See the full feature on Esquire.co.uk here

Friday 8 May 2009

Star Pilots : Teen Today

"Star Pilots are a boy band from Sweden. None of which is evident from the video for their single, In The Heat of the Night, out on May 18, which in true ‘how can we flog dance music to UK punters’ features a host of nubile young women wearing very little.

Although not usual fans of dance songs, we’re bloody loving it here at Teentoday towers. I’ll resist burning my bra in protest at dance music videos’ flagrant objectification of women if the presence of bikini-clad hotties rubbing themselves against the pointy end of an aeroplane helps sell stompers like this (yeah, I asked around what the proper name for the pointy bit of the plane was and all I got was ‘nose’, which sounds even more wrong).

Unlike most dance records, it has verses! And a bridge! And a middle eight! (Calvin ‘one line only’ Harris, take note.) And obviously an epic chorus. The video also comes with an 80s Top Gun theme, notching up the guilty pleasure element even more.
Our favourite bits:

· The hollow wooden plinky plonk in the intro and after each line of the verse. Maybe it’s them banging some Ikea furniture together. Whatever it is, we like it. More Ikea furniture banging around in dance records please!

· The thump then sparkly four-note dinging at the end of the bridge. As you can see, we’re really hot on the technical terms here.
· That thunder-clappy sounding noise after ‘In the heat of the night’ in the chorus.

· The way that the singer is clearly channelling Kenny Loggins. Woah Mylo! Highway to the Daaanga Zone!

But what’s your verdict – shit or hit?"



See the review on Teen Today here

Gathania featured on Scandipop!

Hot Stuff!

We’re speechless!

We’ve just seen the new video from Gathania for ‘Blame It On You’, her first UK single. And it’s quite possibly one of the hottest things we’ve ever seen! The lady herself looks absolutely stunning in it. Big hair, tiny PVC outfit, sultry looks, and a facial expression that just KNOWS how hot it is!

We first wrote about Gathania back in November last year, and we’ve been playing ’Blame It On You’ at the scandipop club nights since then too. So it’s great that she’s finally getting a UK release next month. The song has already reached number 2 in the UK club charts as of last week. And it’s had a couple of spins on BBC Radio One courtesy of Scott Mills too.



See the full feature on Scandipop here

Average White Band!

Wednesday 6 May 2009

Gathania Sun Online World Exclusive



The Sun Online get the world exclusive first play of Gathania's debut single "Blame It On You", and the feature makes the headlines of the Music homepage, and main homepage!

"SWEDISH waitress-turned-reality star GATHANIA is ready to make her mark in the UK. Since shooting to fame in the Scandinavian version of Pop Idol, the beauty, 22, has been inundated with offers of record deals from around the world. However the UK is her first port of call and has given The Sun a world exclusive look at her scorching debut video Blame It On You.

Gathania - who writhes around in suspenders in her new video - has joined forces with independent record label Hard2Beat and has been made their No.1 priority with three singles and an album ready to go.

Gathania said: “I’ve always been singing, for as long as I can remember.

"Signing to Hard2Beat is a dream come true for me. They really get where I’m coming from and listen to my ideas.”

A record company source said: "Gathania is set to bring some glamour and excitement to the charts. She's gorgeous."

Hear, hear."

Click hear to see the video in full on the Sun Online

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Lazee Video & Info


HARD2BEAT TV on MUZU

Lazee is about to storm the UK with his monster anthem ‘Hold On’. Already a huge hit in Sweden the track has picked up support from Mista Jam (Radio 1/1xtra), Pioneer (Kiss) Master Stepz (Choice), Steve Sutherland (Galaxy) and many more.
The video which was shot on location in Japan has received over 1 million YouTube hits in Sweden. Now signed to Hard2beat Hold On is guaranteed to set the UK charts alight this summer!

Signed to SONY/BMG Lazee’s first single ‘Rock Away’ went gold in Sweden and reached number 2 on the iTunes chart. This impressed American rocker Fred Durst so much that he flew him over to L.A to record another version of the record. A great year for Lazee was summed up by his nomination for Best Swedish Act at the 2008 EMA’s.

Not only has Lazee left a lasting impression in the states he has also been noticed by UK grime artist Kano and features on a remix of ‘Hustlers Anthem’ which is currently doing the rounds. Kano is also set to feature on his album.

Having spent his childhood in Malmö, Sweden, Lazee was sent to London aged 12 to try and make something of his life. During his six year stay here, the young Swede developed his love for hip hop even further and by the time he moved back to Scandinavia in 2004, he was ready to complete his first album. Back at home, he hooked up with producer Ishi, and the pair hit the studio to start working on a new sound. What came out of that studio was an amazing fusion of hip hop, grime, house, and drum & bass, all topped off by Lazee’s fiery, electrifying lyrics.

Now ‘Hold On,’ collaboration with Swedish rock group, Neverstore is poised to take Lazee up to the next step in his career. Its hypnotising beat merges perfectly with Neverstore’s haunting vocal and Lazee’s melancholic rap.

Don Diablo & Example "Hooligans" Featured on MySpace Music Homepage

The soon to be controversial "Hooligans" video is featured as a world exclusive on the MySpace Music Homepage - this is the censored version!

Don Diablo & Example - Hooligans (Censored Version)

4or The Record Archangel review "Pretty damn good"



"Three things that fall firmly under the header of ‘risky’ when it comes to embarking upon a career as a solo recording artist:

1. Assuming a nom-de-plume.
2. Playing every instrument on the record, then producing the thing
3. Admitting said record is heavily influenced by Steely Dan

Well, in the release of ‘Do It Again’ by Archangel, the less emphatically named Nick Webber takes a bite out of risk and spits it right out as he displays his obvious talent for pretty much all elements of music.

This debut single is a straight-forward sub-three-minute pop-punk song but it plays like something more – like a preview to the main event, the foreword to a wider story. Indeed it’s perhaps the press release that comes with the single that entices me more than this song itself and I suppose that’s what press releases are meant to do, but I can’t help but feel that Archangels' album when released will be fascinating.

Back to the song itself and the backbone is a very simple drum and vocal combination that builds theatrically into an a-typical pop chorus, complete with catchy hook and easy-to-remember words. I’m told by the accompanying paperwork that Nick Webber spent 18 months writing this record in Wiltshire and it wouldn’t surprise me if I were to learn he spent much of that time reading books on the elements of pop music structure one should perfect. He’s not perfected it yet, but the potential is there. Influences are easy to pick up in the music but that’s not to say they’re one dimensional, ranging from the more obvious protagonists of 80’s pop to the digi-sounds of Daft Punk.

All in all this single promises plenty and it’s support track,‘Odysseus’, follows suit, suggestive of being the product of an artist with so many ideas waiting to be transferred into song. The question will be whether Archangel can channel his obvious talents onto a full-length offering whilst still allowing his record to remain as accessible as this single is. If he can stick to this formula, a winning one, and add the more complex twists that distinguish the good artists from the great, he’s a big future on the horizon.

As debut offerings come this is pretty damn good, and so it comes as no surprise that I suggest you buy it on May 11th. As the man behindArchangel says himself; “Fuck it, why not?”

Click here to read the full review on 4or The Record

The Sun Online "Nippy Lou's Top Gun bullets"



The Sun Online feature Star Pilot's behind the scenes video, featuring Louise Glover, as well as Rich and Kat from Capital Radio;

"GLAMOUR girl LOUISE GLOVER isn't shy in revealing the secret behind her sexy new music video.
Chatting in an excluisve behind-the-scenes video, the stunning model reveals she drenched herself in freezing cold water to perk up for Star Pilots' new single promo.

Rather bizarrely, the tune is called In the Heat of the Night. Well I guess she certainly raises temperatures.

“The sun's gone in, It’s only April and it’s pretty cold,” she says. “I’ve had bullet nips for the last hour!”

The video for the Star Pilots dance track is based on Top Gun and features a groups of sexy dancers dressed as Air Traffic Controllers in skin tight suits.

The single is released on May 18 and the band, three lads from Sweden, are hoping it soars straight to number one"

Click here to see the feature

Popjustice "It's Like A Button Marked 'DO NOT PRESS' "


Popjustice feature the Dance Nation album on the sites homepage:

"You sort of can't leave a CD like this new Dance Nation compilation alone.

At first glance it all seems quite harmless: a remix of the last Calvin Harris single, a spot of Basshunter, plus some September and a splash of Sash!. But squint your eyes and the horror comes into focus - this is the tracklisting equivalent of a Magic Eye picture of a mass grave.

In case you haven't seen them yet, check out tracks 7 and 12. Particularly track twelve.

We had this CD on our desk yesterday for about three quarters of an hour. We kept looking at it, thinking, 'well, it's obvious what track is going to sound like, one doesn't really need to actually listen to it'. And we managed not to listen to it for almost one whole hour. And then, as if somehow guided by a higher force, we found ourselves

See if you are better than us. See if you can NOT listen. Just try. And we will make this very clear for you: IF YOU CLICK THIS AUDIO LINK YOU WILL HEAR A DODGY RAVE-UP REWORK OF 'SHE'S SO LOVELY' BY SCOUTING FOR GIRLS.

Here is the link to the button you are not going to press.