Stuck to the bottom left corner of this week's NME is your free CD, 'Home Is Where The Start Is (Home Demos 2009-2012)' by The Vaccines. This little gem includes 10 Vaccines demos, and right now we've got a preview of 'If You Wanna', recorded in The Grove rehearsal space and Justin Young's own bedroom in London, May 2009. Here's what Justin has to say about the track:
More gloriously dishevelled stuff from Salford's Sways Records here. Kult Country have been knocking around for a while now – they played a few packed out, reverb-heavy (x 1 billion) shows in London at the tail end of 2012 which garnered much excitement - and now their debut seven-inch proper, 'Slowburn'/'Amongst the Dead Forever', has been released.
I love Shane Meadows, don’t get me wrong. During the noughties the Staffordshire-born director and filmmaker did more than anyone to eradicate that feeling in your stomach that if it was British it’d be an embarrassing, schmaltzy mess. 1999’s A Room For Romeo Brass - Meadow’s second feature film starring inspired debutante Paddy Considine - signposted great things to come, and in 2004 that greatness duly arrived in the shape of Warp Films’ Dead Man’s Shoes, a work of genuine cinematic genius.
Mississippi five-piece The Weeks make the kind of Southern-fried rock noise that brings to mind the low-down funky chops of Lynyrd Skynyrd and - a little more recently - Kings Of Leon. Those Followills are a useful touchstone. The Weeks are signed to their label Serpents & Snakes and, with all that hair, those specs and that greaser charm they resemble their benefactors in more ways than one.
Now The Streets name has been put to bed, Mike Skinner is throwing everything into The D.O.T., the superduo he formed with ex-Music singer Rob Harvey. Hot on the heels of last autumn's debut 'And That' comes second album 'Diary', a genre-splicing mix of electronica, disco and pure pop that says "anything goes", as Skinner and Harvey set about doing whatever they like, no restraints.
'Diary' is released on 6 May on Cooking Vinyl, but you can listen to an exclusive stream below.
