Not even sure how obscure or not this song is given that the only time I'd heard it was as the intro to Gerry Ryan's night-time show of the same name. Hard to believe he is gone and even more of a tragedy that he has left us so young. His television persona was quite appalling but on the radio this man was a colossal talent. And it is the Lights Out show that I'll remember him for (Mrs hugger adored his morning show it must be said). I can still hear him lining up the 12-inch of Stephen Tintin Duffy's ‘Icing On The Cake’ for the umpteenth time and at that stage in his career he did seem to have a keen ear for new music. This may have been as a result of his days on pirate radio but as his career moved on I would smile when he was described as a DJ given that his record collection was probably growing by about 3 albums per year. I will forever be indebted to him for helping get me through what was a barren musical landscape in the west of Ireland during my youth. Rest in peace. KD

Peter Wolf - Lights Out

Stephen Tintin Duffy - Icing On The Cake (12-inch Remix)

More Info: Peter Wolf / Stephen Tintin Duffy
Buy Songs: Peter Wolf / Stephen Tintin Duffy
Year: 1984 & 1985

The first thing that sprang to mind was Phoenix meets hip hop central and given I know little about the former and less about the latter I could be way off the mark with that assessment. I guess all that matters is that ‘Losing The Signal’ is a pretty delicious tune, crossing genres with consummate ease and sparking delightfully between bridge and chorus. It comes from XV, a 23 artist from Kansas who’s latest ‘The Kid With The Green Backpack’ sees him take his passions and turn them into a fantastical soundtrack. This is really wonderful, something that even hip-hop luddites like me can call their own. KD

XV - Losing The Signal

More Info: Myspace
Buy Songs: XV
Year: 2010

Quite how much nouveau noise will be appearing on this blog remains to be seen given how those in higher positions are starting to rattle the change box in front of music bloggers from round these parts. Darragh, Nialler and Jim have all explained the situation clearly so check out the reaction and watch this space (empty though it may be very soon) for tearful shutdown notices (on the eve of our 5th birthday too, boo hoo). Blimey, if having to anxiously wait for blogger to delete auld hugger wasn’t bad enough we now have the spectre of a court appearance because we’ve spent too much time writing about the bands we love. Wonder if Seanie or Fingers had had a music blog whether they’d have had to endure the same appreciation, nah I’m sure they’d have called in a few favours and just posted a high bitrate version of the new Band of Horses album instead. And to make matters worse beautiful Barca were dumped out tonight too. Makes for a load of cinnte, as supplied by this really fine electronic act from Galway called Nouveaunoise. KD

Nouveaunoise - Cinnte

More Info: Official & Myspace
Free Songs: Nouveaunoise
Year: 2010

Forget the fact that the first thing that pops into your head is the Divine Comedy for these lads are in a different league altogether. A leave of extraordinary pale young gentlemen (and the odd fine lady) one could say but then such ridiculous asides shouldn’t detract from what is a prospect that is surely a gonna be. The Wisconsin troupe have 2 albums to their name and are currently working on the follow-up to ‘Black Forest (tra la la)’ from which this piece of delicious quirk is taken. Not often you find a band worth spending more than 5 minutes with but PYG are certainly worth the pause. Something for the weekend and beyond then. KD

Pale Young Gentlemen - Kettle Drum (I Left A Note)

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Pale Young Gentlemen
Year: 2008

Crikey, can it really be 4 years since Mojave 3’s sweet popsicle of love ‘Puzzles Like You’, the album that showed us that Slowdive was well and truly buried and in its place was a fully-fledged powerpop machine. Took me by surprise I must say given what had preceded it, with Mojave 3 normally content with peddling pleasant if hardly life changing country twang. ‘Kill The Lights’ and its brethren (‘Breaking The Ice’ my heart is still yours) were straight out of the handbook on how to craft perfect melodies. Since then there has a been a solo album or 2 but nothing in the way of new material from the collective. It’ll need to be something special to eclipse its predecessor but you’d hardly bet against them because when the sun shines they’ll be playing in the background. KD

Mojave 3 - Kill The Lights

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Mojave 3
Year: 2006

This recording is all of 2 decades old. Yep, information like that really puts the wind up auld hugger since its emergence from the stacks across a smoky room still seems like yesterday. It is the work of Leeds outfit the Pale Saints who were an utterly dreamy prospect, made a remarkable album in 1990’s ‘The Comfort of Madness’ and released a slew of luminous singles (chief among them ‘Throwing Back The Apple’). This song signalled the arrival of ex-lush player Meriel Barham to the fold and she and singer Ian Masters would strike up a winning, if short lived, partnership. While this not strictly shoegaze it has all the tell tell signs of a time when bands like Ride, the Boo Radleys and Slowdive were in full swing. KD

The Pale Saints - Half-Life, Remembered

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: The Pale Saints
Year: 1990

I’m through with indie rock for one night. In need of a refreshing sonic sorbet, I’ll plump for a blazing star that’s loud, gregarious and which doesn’t feel the need to supply a clean riff to instigate wholesale nodding. This is taken from German DJ Timo Maas’s 2002 album ‘Loud’, a glorious juggernaut of cinematic beats that peaks imperiously during ‘O.C.B.’ and ‘Manga’. This hurtles like the millennium falcon, coma's like Vader’s diaphragm before storm trooping into the distance with the accuracy of a lightsaber. Ewok's the walk. KD

Timo Maas - Manga

More Info: Official
Buy Songs: Timo Mass
Year: 2002

If I was half as patient as I wish I could be I am sure I would be twice as much in love with Boards of Canada. I tend to love my painfully obscure acts but then there are certain bodies that exist in outer galaxies beyond obscuria. BOC frequent this far-flung part of space, grinding the patience of the majority while soothing critical forces and those with plenty of time on their hands. A realignment of sorts happened on 2005’s ‘The Campfire Headphase’ when our 2 moons suddenly began to orbit, specifically when the warm sunlight of ‘Dayvan Cowboy’ and ‘Peacock Tail’ rose in the dawn sky. The more adventurous, if still quite direct by BOC standards, is ‘Dayvan Cowboy’, a Death In Vegas type dreamscape that rattles about with a beautifully melodic guiding plinky synth. ‘Peacock Tail’ is slightly more arresting because it settles on the neatest of riffs early doors to sell its grand intergalactic message. As chapter 2 of the bible of music bloggerism so aptly puts it - seek and ye shall find. KD

Boards of Canada - Peacock Tail

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Boards of Canada
Year: 2005

Not much music makes me tear up but then I listen to a lot of the stuff so can on any given day be in floods. Today’s droplets are as a result of our very own Dying Seconds (Dave Cantan and a few others) who as well as making the best electronic music in the land also feel the need to give it away for free. Noble gesture or just a grand plan to rope us in and then extract lorry loads of dosh when the next Dying Seconds opus is unfurled, who knows. ‘Goodnight Satelight’ is a dramatic effort, a coiled spring that slowly leaks its kinetic energy until its inevitable demise. Levity is somewhat restored by the young fella’s wanton disregard for melodrama towards the end. A double middle finger up Ian Dempsey’s nose. KD

The Dying Seconds - Goodnight Satelight

More Info: Official & Myspace
D/L Songs: The Dying Seconds
Year: 2008

Despite all the hollow chest thumping from many quarters of the Irish media there ain’t so much appealing emerging from the musical quarters of our little isle at the moment. Villagers look capable of achieving something, only time will tell. Another band that appear fully-fledged and capable of ruffling feathers are the Brothers Movement who have a curiously low profile back in their hometown of Dublin. They lost their keyboard player to Sweet Jane just last week but that should hardly shake them from their path given that there are a couple of siblings on board to steady the ship. Songs like ‘We Shall Lift Our Heads’, the closer on their eponymous debut speak volumes. Quite literally in fact because it is big and beautiful, like an early Verve psychedelic monster when Ashcroft’s drug taking actually augmented his song writing. A storm in heaven, a volcano much closer to home. KD

The Brothers Movement - We Shall Lift Our Heads

More Info: Official
Buy Songs: The Brothers Movement
Year: 2009

Here is a band it seems that really deserve all the slavish critical adulation that is currently being bestowed on them. And funny then when you hear their music that you probably think you’ve heard it all before. That’s because they’ve got the classic indie rock template down to a T. So the spangly guitar chords are central to proceedings, without them there would be an aching chasm, not that John Paul Pitts vocals aren’t pretty because they are but they need the rich melodic lines to maximise their impact. ‘Catholic Pagans’ is close to faultless, something the Shins might concoct on a good day trying their hardest to sound like Pavement. The dynamics are expertly constructed, the ebb and flow helping to push this into the realm of greatness. With this on the speakers you might just swing your nose just like you just don't care and no one could blame you. KD

Surfer Blood - Catholic Pagans

More Info: Official
Buy Songs: Surfer Blood
Year: 2010

I’m sure there are a hundred better exponents of alt country but since it’s not a genre I seek out I’ve gotta say that at this moment in time Hayden Desser is the best. He’s been around for a bit has auld Hayden, going back to a time when releasing something on cassette wasn’t deemed a cold attempt at fostering nostalgia. The Toronto artist’s most recent album came out last year but this track is from the one that preceeded it ‘Elk-Lake Serenade’. This is a slow tumble, built around the simplest of vocal turns but I’m finding it strangely hypnotic. Could be down to the fact that this is the first track out of 58 that hugger junior hasn’t screamed her objection at. She also prefers to chew tapes over memory drives. KD

Hayden - Home By Saturday

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Hayden
Year: 2010

In the nineties we were quite the dancers, not exactly glo-stick wielding but apostles to the cause as espoused by Underworld, Orbital and, circa their debut album, the Chemical Brothers. It showed us that dance/electronic music could have a message, could be just as inventive as its guitar laden equivalent and crucially that it could be durable. Which brings us neatly to Golden Ages and their debut album 'Tradition' which has just been released on Indiecater. This is youthful vigour cascading from your speakers, a huge swathe of sound with the ability to shake even the most laboured from their slumber. Golden Ages have not only tapped into the zeitgeist they're already mapping the future with their slinky pulses of noise. We're just glad to be part of it. KD

Golden Ages - Right Season

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Golden Ages
Year: 2010

Not the Swedish nor the Finnish Charades as one might first think but the collective of the same name who come from several sunny parts of Spain. And what a sublime troupe they turn out to be, steeped in the traditions of indie pop and well versed in providing their own twist. ‘Grito Tu Nombre’ is the opening track from their current album ‘Revolución Solar (Vinilo Naranja)’ and while it may lack a memorable Camera Obscura styled hook its all round kookiness makes that assertion kinda redundant. A messi affair of the musical kind. KD

Charades - Grito Tu Nombre

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Charades
Year: 2010

The ‘Kaddish’ EP. That’s all you’ll have to say to bag the cutest girl at the party, well that’s if she knows her Wye Oak’s from her Stereophonics anyway. This is one of those rare occasions where something special appears from out of nowhere (or Baltimore to be precise). Secret Mountains are signed to Fall Records and bring to the party instruments that drift in and out of consciousness. Lucky then that Kelly Laughlin boasts such wistful vocals because even when the music enters the realm of a delightful noodle she can steady the ship to something approaching sublime. ‘Gate/Gate/Paragate’ should delight artful drunks and sober dreamers in equal measures, for the rest of us consider your imagination stoked for the foreseeable future. KD

Secret Mountains - Gate/Gate/Paragate

More Info: Myspace
Buy Songs: Secret Mountains
Year: 2010

Rebekah Raa has the sort of voice that could banish a year of Sunday night blues. She is one of a gathering of folks from London town who call themselves Stricken City and a bit of investigation has revealed that they are a pretty special combo. They are planning a debut LP for the Summer but there’s a clutch of smaller recordings in their armoury to kindle an affection. This one is taken from last year’s ‘Songs About People I Know’ and reveals a multi-faceted yet easy on the senses stomper. Raa’s jumpy singing is cherisable and her band provide strong evidence that the scaffolding could soon be as precious. Soon to be activated alarm bells appear like a distant earsore. KD

Stricken City - Small Things

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Stricken City
Year: 2010

I guess they’re too wacky, too cerebral, too funny or too damn talented to have wide appeal but it constantly hurts my head when I think what might be for Pittsburgh’s the Van Allen Belt. They are quite unlike anything else, a smorgasbord of electric ideas swilling around lavish arrangements and a singer who has the personality and looks to steal the show all on her own. We’ve dallied with their releases via Indiecater but there is lots more to take in, namely their latest opus ‘Superpowerfragilis’ which takes off from where ‘Meal Ticket To Purgatory’ left off. Namely an hallucinogenic take on Motown with words that hilariously poke the eye out of this ridiculous world we live in. ‘The Way You Look’ is just ravishing, a tour de force of invention. Take them to your bosom, breastfeed if the mood takes you. KD

The Van Allen Belt - The Way You Look

More Info: Official
Buy Songs: The Van Allen Belt
Year: 2010

Baffin Island, the not so mystical isle where Boise's the Very Most and Glasgow's the Hermit Crabs decided to pitch up and record a song together via the internet is also the name the collaborating indie pop forces christened the union. It's strange hearing a jeremyless Very Most song but then if one was to think about it for a minute not many things in life are sweeter than Melanie Whistle’s voice. ‘You Make Two Weeks Two Days’ can be found on the ‘Between The Waves’ compilation put together by the Norwegian net label Eardrums Pop. For a couple of years now we've admired this label from afar and its high-time we high-fived their wonderful output (which is always free to download). On a less pleasing note plans for Baffin to launch ‘You Make Two Weeks Two Days’ in downtown Iqaluit seemed to have backfired as part of the island's ice-shelf slipped into the sea as a direct consequence of its sunny harmonies. KD

Baffin Island - You Make Two Weeks Two Days

Get Between The Waves: Compilation
Year: 2010

Unsparing Sea operate in a parallel universe. I have gleaned this from our meagre and often one-sided communications, but despite the hurt (not really) I can’t help falling for their lopsided junkets into the unknown. There no mistaking that this is indeed odd music, not the sort that occupies daytime playlisters attentions, more something Donal Dineen would pour over as he swigs from his 6th coffee of the night. It’s taken from the band’s sophomore ‘In The Diamond Caverns’ which if anything tops its awkwardly brilliant predecessor ‘A Cloud in the Cathedral’. J.R. Bennett plays the recluse who discovers the world so well and his discoveries are ably illustrated by the sumptuously textured music. Magical. KD

Unsparing Sea - Diamond Caverns

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Unsparing Sea
Year: 2009

Each year the SXSW torrent provides this blog with about a dozen fantastic tunes. To get to that point however there are about a thousand mp3s to trawl through. While this might be as tempting as a ramble on hot coals for most it really puts the pep in our step. The majority as you’d expect are excruciatingly bad but it’s the moments when gems like ‘Deaf’ appear from nowhere that makes the sieve worthwhile. The London based duo of Wendy Fowler and Richard File released their debut last year and going on the evidence of ‘Deaf’ emit multi-layered post shoegaze formations. If sound were a feeling then this would be a touching embrace. KD

We Fell To Earth - Deaf

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: We Fell To Earth
Year: 2009

This is my type of band, sporting a mildly ridiculous name, a neat turn of melody and a penchant for practising in spaces that won’t impact on the neighbours. Plus they give fuzzy guitar parts back to the people, welcome home you noisy bastards. Milks & Rectangles come from deepest Canada but their new ‘Troubleshooters’ EP (it’s freediculously good) should see lots of weblog action the world over. That’s because they peddle good old-fashioned indie, the type that those of a certain vintage will remember as being prominent in the early nineties. Opening track ‘Wink And A Gun (The Jury's Hung)’ is perhaps the highlight with its punchy playing and Malkmusesque vocals. It’s full of personality, a ditty to swell the heart and occupy the toes. KD

Milks & Rectangles - Wink And A Gun (The Jury's Hung)

More Info: Official & Myspace
Free Songs: Milks & Rectangles
Year: 2010

Times New Viking have just changed their font of choice, yep from now on they shall drink from the excellent nosebag provided by Pill Wonder. PW are a collective of many individuals who specialise in generating a grand pocket orchestra within the confines of a thimble. Yep, it’s certifiably twee and sounds like it has passed through an industrial blender several times but the collage is certainly putting the pitter in my patter this evening. Who needs working microphones, sober singers or unchewed cassettes as recording devices when Pill Wonder can make the sorry mess sound as wholesome as feeding time at the koala enclosure. KD

Pill Wonder - Gone To The Market

More Info: Official
Buy Songs: Pill Wonder
Year: 2010

2 college kids from New York called Tommy and Jules explain how they’ve put off their debut 7” due to a lack of readies. Lucky for us then that the interweb stepped in to display their ravishingly languid tales. ‘Comin’ Back Again’ just spills from the speakers like a floppy fringed slacker with genius dripping from his octave writing fingertips. The harmonies are especially ear catching, the way they just hang loosely from the hunched chords prove a continual delight. And for many it probably won’t amount to a hill of beans but as everyone knows that particular protein is the eternal student’s main dietary requirement. KD

Arches - Comin' Back Again

More Info: Official
Year: 2010