THE AMAZING "LORRAINE" ARE BACK AS "BLACK ROOM":













One of my favourite bands "Lorraine" are now going under the name "Black Room" and have a MySpace site up and running. Ole, Paal and Anders took the new name Black Room after the house they rehearsed in burned down to the ground. No dates for when their album "Pop Noir" will be getting released and no new music on the MySpace music player, hopefully we will get an update soon.
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TWO FANTASTIC SONGS WORTH GETTING:




Just a quick note to mention two great tracks discovered recently and definitely worth getting. Firstly there is the infectious pop song "You Were Young" by Boston's Giantess. Check it out at this blog, and their MySpace, a band I will be keeping an eye on for a full album release.










Out of Ireland, MuuMuse introduced me to "Two Door Cinema" and their new single "Something Good Can Work", a great pop song.

VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES:



Teitur's third album "The Singer" gets a U.K. release on February 16th on A&G Records with an added bonus track "My Only Companion".

Producer/songwriter extraordinaire Simon Climie (Climie Fisher, Eric Clapton) has produced the second album "The Distance" from American Idol winner (fifth season, 2006) Taylor Hicks. You can hear the first single "What's Right Is Right" (MP3) on his MySpace site or homepage. I think there is a pic of Simon working with Taylor in the photo section of his website.

Ohh Crapp has a remix of "Empire Of The Sun's" second single "We Are The People" up on his site. The Shazam Remix is certainly one of the better remixes of the song that I've heard. The blog also has a good remix of the Sam Sparro track "Pocket", it is The Presets Radio Mix.

The new U2 single "Get On Your Boots" isn't bad, looking forward to the album due out in March.

Check out Canadian band "Honey And The Money" at their website. I saw them open for Ben Lee years ago when they were called Madison and I enjoyed the duo.
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DUNCAN SHEIK TO RECORD AN ALBUM OF '80s SYNTHPOP/NEW WAVE COVERS:



















In an interview in U.S.A. Today Duncan Sheik mentions plans for his next album after the release of his latest work "Whisper House" on January 27th of this year (buy the cd here). He says he plans to record "covers of '80s synth-pop/new wave songs, but done with a completely different sonic palette." This also from a Paste Magazine article "The tour EP includes a rendition of the Psychedelic Furs' oft-covered "The Ghost In You," a hint of Sheik's upcoming covers album, which will also include music by Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, The Smiths, New Order and the Thompson Twins. "It's all music from the '80s that was nominally kind of synth-pop, but it's recorded in these very, very kind of even more miserable, sad acoustic versions," Sheik said."

I wouldn't be surprised if he covers an '80s classic from his friend Howard Jones on the record and I wonder if the Depeche Mode track will be "Blasphemous Rumours" that he covered on his 1998 promo EP "Humming Along". Duncan is also touring in February/March with the amazing Holly Brook, check out his website for dates.
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NEW ARTIST ALERT - BERTOLF LENTINK:


I wanted to recommend the singer Bertolf from the Netherlands who has just released his new album "For Life". I haven't been able to find out much information in English on him, but he appears to be currently touring the disc and tonight (Jan. 14/09) opens for Brit James Morrison at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam. I found this blurb on Last Fm site "Bertolf Lentink, singer-songwriter of The Junes. I’m going to play in the band of Ilse de Lange, for the summer festivals and more very cool gigs! "


The first single from "For Life" (buy the cd here) is "Another Life" which is a nice pop/rock song, but I really like the Keanesque track "All In The Letter" (which is up here for download for one week). Check out Bertolf and see what you think, the video for "Another Day" is available below..


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A SEBASTIAN TELLIER SONG USED ON UGLY BETTY AGAIN:













Last year during an episode of Ugly Betty they used the Sébastien Tellier song 'Look' from his latest album "Sexuality" quite effectively. On last night's episode they again used one of Sébastien's songs "La Ritournelle" (from his 2006 LP Politics) during the quite riviting ending to the show (Michael and Molly kiss and Betty makes it to the hospital to see her Dad after his heart attack).

I found the song available on zshare if you click here. There is a remix EP of the song available on iTunes, and you can get the decent Metronomy Mix of the track at a blog here.
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