Live: Penguin Prison at Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen

I managed to catch Penguin Prison in London last night in Shoreditch (this gig was meant to happen last week but because of that volcano cloud thing it had to be put back). He was amazing. Really really amazing. I don’t know how else to put it. I thought he would be headlining the night but turns out he was supporting a band I’d never heard of, which is a bit ironic. Or maybe I’m out of touch. I also saw another lady called Jennie Abrahamson who was also really good. I’ll put up a post on her in a little while- she’s a sort of Kate Bush/ Lykke Li hybrid with a smile.

New Music : JJ

This Swedish duo make the most beautiful bits of music. Makes you imagine you’re up in a forest cabin on a spring dawn smelling pine trees… Anyway, they’ve just released their second album but it’s only stating to make an impact now. They don’t have a website, Myspace or Facebook- so the only place you can sample their tracks is on their record label’s site. Check out here.

New Robyn!

I love Robyn. I have done since I was at school (in the 90’s), which is kinda embarrassing to admit to, as she wasn’t always very cool! She ditched a big recording contract and an already successful career back then because she wasn’t happy with how her label was selling her.  So she went her own way and paid for her huge 2005 album ‘Robyn’, which had all those big hits like ‘With Every Heartbeat’.

A sampler for the first album called Body Talk Pt1 is here. You can here a snippet of her first single, Fembot, on that link. So far, I’ve heard Dancehall Queen which is pretty sweet (produced by Diplo- I can’t find a link for the full clip!). Looks like it’ll be a fun summer when the first album is released in June!

Live: Erik Hassle, Ellie Goulding, Tinashe at Relentless Garage

I saw these guys at The Relentless Garage (it’s a venue in London that isn’t a garage nor is it relentless in any way) for HMV’s Next Big Thing festival. I am a bit obsessed with Erik Hassle, the ginger big haired skinny Swede with a really good voice and even better music. His album is out on Monday and you should really get it because it’s amazing and I haven’t stopped listening to it for the last few months. His first single here kind of tanked though:

Ellie Goulding was really good too, although she can’t shake her hips to save her life- how can someone with banging beats be so bad at dancing?

Tinashe was OK, his songs all sounded the same but he was friendly to look at.