sean has written the following articles:
For several years now, Drowned in Sound has 'curated' a bill at Summer Sundae festival in Leicester. We've had everyone from The Antlers, Frightened Rabbit, Futureheads, Blood Red Shoes and Noah & the Whale (the week they first hit the top ten, no less) to Wild Beasts and Warpaint. This year's line-up features the likes of Ed Harcourt, Gold Panda, Japandroids, Twilight Sad, Django Django and more... »
Ever wondered what music the people who post on the DiS boards are into? Us too. We've always thought about doing some sort of poll-of-polls, and then - as is often the way with DiS - a member of the community took it upon themselves to start one. The results of which were revealed on the boards too but right here, right now, we can reveal far more than the top 20.»
More music, less talk... the best of DiS' inbox this week... »
In a week that DiS posted legends Johnny Marr & Nile Rodgers in conversation, launched a new News Digest column, reviewed the Blur 21st Anniversary re-issues and someone started a reader poll to find DiS' favourite album, oh and Team GB (does anyone else hear this as Team Gerbil every single time someone says it?) won some medals at the olympics... we bring you the best stuff in DiS' inbox, in a handy digest that you can ingest on Friday at your desk or spend a little bit of 'weekend downtime' getting better acquainted with it... »
On October 29th in London the second ever Independent Music Awards will take place. Last year, DiS' editor was on the judging panel and presented an award to Adele for 'The Best Difficult Second Album' on a night that saw the likes of Bjork and Domino's founder pick up awards. This year’s Outstanding Contribution To Music and Pioneer Award recipients have been confirmed, and we'll let the words of the press release do the talking... »
A competition to win Blur's entire back catalogue, but first some videos from yesterday... »
2012's Meltdown festival, sees Antony (of Antony & the Johnsons) curating a bill of avant awesomeness. We've compiled some bits to help you get excited about this year's event, which kicks off on August 1st on London's Southbank.»
This is what happened when the makers of one of our favourite albums of the year, Sharon Van Etten, swung by the DiS cabin at Latitude for a beverage and some Haribo. »
You may remember that a little while back - before DiS HQ was hijacked by festivals and legal threats from bands whose spamming backfired - we made you a 120-minutes-inspired YouTube playlist to mark the launch of http://youtube.com/drownedinsound. If you missed the first one, it can be found here. You lot seemed to "like" it, at least in a Facebook nod of approval kind of way, so we thought we'd make another one, of oldies and newies that we love.»
July 2012 was wet in London, and then suddenly really hot. Many of our readers and staff decamped to sunnier climes for festivals (although most of us ended up in muddy British fields munching on falafels...). This month's mop-up slash digest of what 'we' - staff and DiS readers - have been listening to, hopefully has a few things you love and some stuff you've missed out on that you fall in love with. »
DiS returns to Leicester in a few weeks time for Summer Sundae festival, and we're very pleased to reveal that Ed Harcourt will be our special guest.»
Following the rather positive review of their high-octane new album, we asked the chaps from Cast of Cheers if we could stream their new record. They said 'yeah' and wrote you lot a little guide to each song on the album... »
We live in a time now where remixes can sometimes outnumber original songs twelve-to-one... Epic & Blues an instrumental EP of remixes and original material will be available to download for free on his Facebook page on the 23rd July»
There's this wuhwuh-woah (M83), a woooo-OOoooo-ooooo-ooooh! (Yeasayer...or FUCKYEAH!-sayer as they will henceforth be known), and an ODB-inspired crowd going urrr urrrRRRrre uuhrrrrrrrr (Chilly Gonzales), swirling around inside my head. That's not to mention the whirl of actual words from Sharon Van Etten's 'Leonard' which are still swaying in and out of my consciousness. That's the soundtrack, and twirling around in the cinema tent in my mind is all these arms aloft making heartshapes (through Metronomy's set) and triangles (during Alt-J) and a sea of young pale hands, tapping morse-code patterns while pointing as pixels, trying to pop the beats, as plumes of sound zoom over head (at pretty much at every show with synths). »
DiS' countdown to Latitude concludes, as the event starts tomorrow... DiS will be there all weekend, recording sessions and interviews, keep an hour on our site, Facebook and Twitter for news updates, photos, and possible news of some pop-up shows.»
When asked by the PR company for [insert name of band] if [insert name of website] would like to host the premiere of the new entitled 'Relics' from a mini-album entitled [see below]. Siri said: WHY EEE SSS.»
On July 12th 1962, The Rolling Stones played their first ever gig. That was 50 years ago, and to celebrate, BBC 6 Music have a special series of programmes throughout July. One of the things they're doing, is asking some of 6 Music's favourite bands (if you drew a venn diagram the names would almost perfectly overlap with DiS' favourite bands) to do covers of their favourite Stones songs. This morning Lauren Laverne played a cover of ‘Blue Turns to Grey’ by The Walkmen and you dear readers, can hear it, right here:»
DiS' editor shares six of his/DiS' favourite albums of the first half of 2012...plus this includes full streams of all of his record picks..._»
Today's four picks, which you can should see at Henham Park near Sothwold in Suffolk between the 12th and 15th July 2012, vaguely sit together if you're a fan of soaring heartache...»
Hello. It’s The Pictish Trail here. Y’know. The Scottish hairy-faced ‘cuddly’ lo-fi singer-songwriter, and label manager of Scotlands’ finest DIY-pop collective, Fence Records. You might also recognise me as being two-thirds (in weight) of electro-spandex duo Silver Columns. »
At midday on July 2nd, it was the mid-point of the year 2012. Here at DiS we decided to take stock of the six months just gone, and over the course a few days, offer you a little digest of the must-hear music from the year-so-far. Today, it is the turn of debut albums...»
DiS' countdown to Latitude continues with three of our favourite acts...»
DiS' most read features, reviews and messageboard threads of the first half of 2012... »
DiS' editor picks a selection of things for you to watch and listen to this weekend...including Errors full live set from The Great Escape, exclusive footage of Spiritualized at Glastonbury, new music from Meursault, Gatekeeper and Two Gallants, new videos from Lana del Rey, La Shark and Jimmy Edgar, plus the British Council's Selector radio show featuring Jessie Ware... »
It is just two weeks until Latitude Festival kicks off! This is the second of our 15 selected acts that we think you should catch...Alessio Natalizia (aka Banjo or Freakout) and Sam Willis (of Allez-Allez), are the duo known as Walls. Last year, they released their second album, Coracle. It's a record brimming with swooshing hazy electronica, but their music is so much more than a few lame descriptors ('hypnotic washes of sound' anyone?)»
Let the countdown commence... it is just two weeks until Latitude Festival kicks off! This is the first of our 15 selected acts that we think you should catch... Mike Hadreas (aka Perfume Genius) seems to live in another place and time. It's a world somewhat more melancholic than the one most of us live in, and it's a land where everyone drifts between tears and sleep. Hadreas sends telegrams from this place by occasionally crawling to his piano to pen another sad song or a bittersweet pop dittie.... »
Ooooh, I'm ready for the week-end...a weekend of chatting about magazines in a pop-up shop and then sobbing about a 93rd minute penalty from Italia against Ing-gland. Anyway, you may wish to skip all that and toe-tap and jiggle along to some streaming music (we've got Spotify and a YouTube playlist by Bear in Heaven), some free downloads (the new Cat Power track and a podcast with Johnny Jewel) or gawp at some music videos (including an exclusive interview with Polica), if that sounds good, drag your mouse this way, as DiS' editor has the contents of your monitor and stereo for this weekend sorted... »
With European dates underway, we wanted to make a little sense of the bustling melting pot of influences that lay beneath Bear in Heaven's exceptional new record I Love You, It's Cool. They responded in the form of a mixtape, which offer clues toward at least one element of their inspirations... oh, and if you look down at the end of this article, you'll find all the tracks as a YouTube playlist, plus we have a competition to win a pair of tickets to their London show...»
DiS' editor hand-picks five things for you to listen to this weekend... »
Today the organizers have announced a new batch of news including: Chilly Gonzales, Van Dyke Parks and Britten Sinfonia, Demdike Stare, Revere, Deap Vally, Splashh, Mick Flannery, The Staves, Twin Shadow, Mark Lamarr’s God’s Jukebox presents – Wanda Jackson, Gizzelle, The Delegators & Big Boss Man and more... they join the likes of Bon Iver, Paul Weller, Elbow, Lana Del Rey, Laura Marling, White Lies, The Antlers, Yeasayer, Explosions in the Sky and Bat For Lashes and a whole host of other acts and performers in a range of weird and wonderful traditions (I mean, they even have MP Tom Watson chatting about Leveson).»
