Contrary to what their name might suggest, BOY are Valeska Steiner and Sonja Glass, whose hand-clapping pop hit ‘Little Numbers’ attracted almost 5 million views on YouTube. Falling somewhere between Feist and the sweeter side of Regina Spector, BOY write sparkly folk-pop with some unexpected edges. In person, Steiner and Glass are as easily...
Ana Silvera writes opulent, heartfelt songs full of flights of birds, femme fatales, harlequins and carousels, with strong undercurrents of love and loss. If you like Regina Spektor, Kate Bush, Anna Calvi, old books, poetry, opera, or Hans Christian Andersen, you might want to listen in (try ‘Rainbows’ for a start, it’s truly lovely). Silvera kindly sat...
It’s hardly news to FFS’s regular readers that Brian’s a pretty inconsistent character. He flits about, willy-nilly, with little concern for the wellbeing of his mixtape devotees. You might be relieved to hear that he’s turning over a new Horse Chestnut leaf in 2011, but that relief might be short-lived when you realise he’s...
When I was an undergraduate we would sometimes play the ‘would you rather…’ game. Andy and Maggie play it in Extras (‘Would you rather be a penguin who’s a bird but can’t fly or a flying fish that’s a fish that can fly a bit?’, for example). I once asked the table (all literature...
Throughout Regina Spektor Live In London you can hear one girl squealing madly at the start of every song. Like the audience do at the Xfactor, when they realise Olly Murs is about to murder Killing Me Softly or somesuch. A proper ‘You-are-my-idol-and-I-want-you-to-notice-me-and-love-me’ scream. Recorded at her sold out Hammersmith Apollo show in December...
Brian’s recently gotten to thinking about how much of the music he loves is about the cities, suburbs and plains of the U S of A. He was going to do you a playlist about the whole darn country, but realised that that was biting off more than he could chew (which isn’t much...
This week Brian’s been completely and utterly unaffected by the volcanic ash cloud. He’s not even been subject to a light dusting, the lucky bird. He has, however, been following the news with avid interest and has concluded that all these silly bipeds should travel by boat for the time-being. He certainly would, were...
Readers, we’re a little worried. After his absence a couple of weeks ago, Brian’s been acting a bit strangely. He used to be such a lovely tidy, polite owl but now Brian’s stomping about like a petulant teenager, his roost is an absolute shambles and he’s taken to shouting “boring” whenever he loses interest...
#81 Beck Lanehart - Last Man Down May 23rd, 2013
#80 She & Him - I Could've Been Your Girl May 22nd, 2013
#79 Ane Brun - This Voice 2013 May 21st, 2013