Mojo Helper

I always wished that I could read my favorite music magazine with an accompanying CD that would contain the music that I'm reading about. Fortunately these days most magazines do come with a CD, but the music still doesn't always match the articles. There's a very good issue of Mojo (#172, March 2008) that ranks the top 50 UK Indie records of all time. It comes with a great CD compilation of indie singles. Still, there are some bands or songs on that ranking that I'd never heard about and that don't figure on the compilation. Thanks to YouTube, I was able to discover most of them, and here I'll share a few of those with you.

The first one should please Mme Easy, our little punkette! The Swell Maps were Epic Soundtracks and Nikki Sudden, who went on to have separate careers in other bands or in solo. A minute and a half of rhythm and chaos:



At the other end of the indie spectrum, here's a very poppy song by Camera Obscura, an answer to Lloyd Cole's "Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?". They kind of remind me of Belle & Sebastian, which makes sense when you find out that they also hail from Scotland. Melody seems to run in Scottish genes.



Speaking of Scotland, here's a band that I wish I'd known a long time ago: Josef K is a great new wave band from the Postcard label (known mostly for Orange Juice, the band featuring Edwyn Collins). Listen to this, and you'll find the most obvious influence of Franz-Ferdinand.



Here's a freebie because I like you (even if "you" may refer to the empty set in the case of this blog's somewhat sparse audience): get to see an actual video of Josef K, with perhaps an even better song.



I might make a sequel of this if I get any positive feedback.