Ferocious

Hannah Marshall is one of my favourite new young designers from London. There is only one word for her eponymous label: FIERCE.

Her angular little black dresses are the James Bond of the LBD world; provocative, body conscious and effortlessly ooze a power that hint at fetish. AW 09 sees Marshall continuing her architecturally influenced tailoring. Not for the fainthearted, Hannah Marshall's severe silhouette is for the femme fatale. Nothing is excessive in this collection, every piece is precisely tailored, every contour and panel a necessity. The pointed shoulders, breastplates and padding can only be described as armour for the modern warrioress.

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The super slick neo-goth chic of Ipso Facto have a kindred spirit in Hannah Marshall, and the uber styled trio are recently rarely seen out of their Hannah Marshall threads. In fact, she kitted them out for the vid of their single 'Six and Three Quarters' last year, so they provided the live soundtrack for Hannah's LFW show. Jealous. 

Pretty girl, weird hair.

VV Brown had a decent first single ('Crying Blood') - nothing original, just nice and uplifting '50s inspired music. Then the second one ('Leave') came out and it kept the same enjoyable vibe, but when I thought she could actually make radio stations around the world a better place, she released 'Shark In The Water'; the song with the most ridiculous American-inspired-chorus since Lady Gaga.

When the best thing you have to say about a song is that it sounds like the soundtrack of a butter ad, you know something is wrong. At least she has two other good singles, which is much more than Lady Gaga can say about her entire career. So yeah, I don't recommend you to watch the video below, but I think we have to check all the faces of an artist sometimes - even if it's just to laugh.

VV Brown, I hope your debut album, Traveling Like The Light, won't get me crying blood for you (can I have some drums roll for this aha-fucking-zou joke here?)

The band

Time to dust your Walkman off - the crafty little Sky Larkin kids are going all cheese-analogue-in-the-year-2000 on our asses and releasing a C60 cassette for their next single, 'Antibodies' due out on May the 11th.

If you pre-order the cassette from Wichita, you get the A-side of the cassette via MP3 immediately - worth doing if, like me, you no longer have a Walkman or tape player in your possession. Unless you intend to just hang the cassette tape on a piece of string around your neck (please don't), because knowing the trio, it's gonna be a cute little cassette.

There are three different versions of the cover art alone (check in the gallery), done by the ever so adorable Jack Hudson, playing with lumberjacks, mystical wizardy types, moose, bears and deer to adorn the covers with.

But cop 'Matador' (Lull's response channel switch mix) below, and it's lovely. Beginning in a minimal fashion, then building to an expansive and sweeping affair that is reminiscent of Kleerup. There's a gorgeous break where the strings go solo and accompany Harkin's vocals - and that charming vocal glitch, that my head tells me should be annoying, but I actually find really appropriate.

This is Sky Larkin as you've never heard them before, re-imagined in a wholly satisfying way. Warm.

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I read an article in The Guardian this week that implied that the second album crisis is old news in England at the moment. They used The Horrors, The Maccabees and Jack Peñate as examples, saying that those artists evolved so much from their debuts that they might as well have become different bands altogether - and luckily for us, better bands. Even though I'm yet to listen to Jack's comeback album, I'm pretty sure I'm going to agree with The Guardian in terms of their The Horrors and The Maccabees examples.

We already expressed our love for The Horrors' Primary Colours, but our words weren't enough to write about The Maccabee's forthcoming Wall Of Arms. If you, like me, listened a lot to their debut Colour It In, you might also think that it's fast pop songs got a bit tiring after a few plays, whilst the slowly built ballads would just improve every time you listened to them. And I think the band also noted this too, because in Wall Of Arms even the quirky pop moments are flooded with a lyrical beauty.

Some might say that they were listening to Arcade Fire a lot when they were recording this album, and I could agree with that; but on closer inspection to their first songs, you can see that they had only two options in their career:  to either keep the catchy angular guitars that the NME loves or doing something pretty and timeless that everybody else likes. I think they chose right.

'Love You Better', the official comeback single, got the remix treatment from Russell Lissack, Bloc Party's emo-looking guitar player. And in opposition to Bloc Party's latest album, the remix is quite good. It starts with a church-like aura that goes all dancey and whilst never losing its unique personality.

Wall Of Arms is going to be released by the 4^th of May - it's definitely one of the year's highlights.

Art (cover)

Magazines printed on matte paper get us every time. Matte is the new glossy y'all, and has been for some time in the publishing world. For some reason, matte paper murmurs arty, meaningful and couture dahlings, in the same way that glossy often yells pop culture, fast and highstreet.

Enter Gudi in all it's weighty, matte glory. Gudi is devoid of any words in it's pure full bleed content (aside from the credits at the very back end of the magazine) and is possible thanks to Nike Sportswear. Gudi has a sumptuous abundance of otherworldly colour and b+w photography, as well as illustrations and plenty of mixed media. It's a richly textured collation of work from the cream of Brazil's crop in fashion and art.

Although the lush-ness of the magazine's Amelia's-esque approach is gorgeous, the absence of text leaves the publication in danger of lacking coherence, despite each contributors' segment being visually connected. Besides the common moody atmospherics, there seems to be no related theme except art for art's sake. Not that there's a problem with that, perving on lovely images, extracting your own meaning from them, or simply taking pleasure in looking is absolutely fine.

In this case, the works speak for themselves and drawl "ART. Arrrt. Art. " 

Check Gudi online here, and some (shitty) scans below, but there's nothing like physically flicking through it, a beautiful publication worthy of taking centre stage on your coffee table.

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We <3 Copas!

Our friends from Copacabana Club just got 100,000 plays on their Myspace. It might not be much for international bands, but for the Brazilian indie scene it's a crazy phenomenon. First of all, I think they've played in São Paulo only twice (they're from Curitiba, as per Bonde do Role and Boss in Drama) all in shitty places. Then they got some media buzz, but not much as you would expect from a band as good as they are. And lastly, they haven't even released anything aside from their online presence.

In order to celebrate such a happy accomplishment, the Brazilian quintet is giving away a tonne of remixes from their first single - that one with the amazing video that Kanye West posted about. There are many different music styles in there: baile funk, old school hip hop, old school guitar rock and cheap-synth-pop.

The Banzai team (Fernando Nogari & Thales Banzai) not only directed

Copacabana Club's debut video, but also "remixed" them. Twice! The ghetto rap titled remix shares some old school beats and a lazy bass that takes Caca V to the Bronx in the '80s, whilst their other remix, drunkenly named "Jimmy Hendrix Che Che Change it remix", sounds just like an old porno soundtrack.

Some fans of the band did a sweet baile funk remix and the Florianópolis (Brazil) duo Superpose close the pack of remixes with an italo-inspired version. And I don't want to be rude, but it's surprisingly good.

Don't forget that the best remix for this song - and one of the bests of the year - is the Boss in Drama's version. You can download this and read an interview with Copacabana Club, Boss in Drama and Banzai here.

You know Mike Skinner, right? The British rapper also known as Streets who has had some number one hits, some good albums and some amusing I-can-mock-celebrities-just-like-Eminem videos. But little did you know that once he was a kid with long, smoking hot hair and an annoying voice!

Check this footage of little Skinner, aged 6, dressed up in a tuxedo and singing 'Henry the Eighth' in some weird language (Welsh?). I love his face when he sings "Second verse, same as the first!" And those air guitar moves - cheesylicious!

Squeak and Zé

I adore Annie Mac's Mash Up show - especially the airing of the weekly mini mix - where she asks for different producers to mash all their favorites songs up in 5 minutes. We've already featured the Australian Bang Gang DJs who blitzed 82 songs into their 5 minutes, and now it's all about N.A.S.A.!

North America and South America together (Squeak E. Clean and Zegon) have made a mix with pulsing beats and bouncy bass that will get you dancing anytime, anywhere. From their own hip hop fresh tracks (that features stars like Santigold, Karen O, Lykke Li, Kanye West, M.I.A., and many many more in case you didn't know) to baile funk, funk, new wave and disco tunes that shows that the duo sure know a lot about music.

If you are in São Paulo (Brazil, innit) tonight, you may want to head to D-Edge for the latest edition of the Crew party to listen to a set from Zegon. He is fresh from the best parties and festivals in the world (yes Coachella, I'm talking about you!). Trust me, it'll be worth it - Zegon is one of the best DJs spinning at the moment.

As usual, check the tracklist after the break.