Absolutely the best video we have seen this year: The Toxic Avenger "N'Importe Comment"

This is so good that our mouth was agog the first time we watched it and we forgot to listen to the actual song, which (on second listen) we can confirm is also brilliant:



Our French is not great, but here is what we understood:

1. Something about a car
2. Something about a duck
3. A rude word for 'poo' (shit)
4. 92
5. Tonight

Sorry, we need to stop writing this boring old waffle and watch the video again.

This is a little old (two months) but so good it is worth a mention regardless of age

This week Missy Elliot protege Jazmine Sullivan crashed in to the Billboard Hot 100 with her new single 'Holding You Down (Goin In Circles)'. Well, we say 'crashed', it wobbled it's way to No.98, which isn't very good and won't be causing Rihanna any sleepless nights.

However, unlike Rihanna and other high profile R&B ladies, there's something we love about both Jazmine and this single. Maybe it's the Mary J. Blige 'Be Happy' sampling, the rough old-school production or Jazmine's husky, pained and soulful vocals. There's more soul to be found on this one single than in the rest of the US charts combined.

Jazmine's much more than Missy's current girl of choice. And she sampled Daft Punk once - so she's got our favour for sure.

Jazmine Sullivan 'Holding You Down (Goin In Circles)'

A free download from Amiina which is both quiet and utterly incredible

All of the music we listen to is exciting. Most of it makes us want to dance. Some of it makes us want to have a cup of tea and look at the rain for a bit with some new socks on. Some of it is Amiina.

Amiina were the four girls who added all the percussion to Sigur Ros songs. Then they did their own album and it was wonderful. It sounded like nursery rhymes and music boxes. Then the four girls recruited two new members WHO WERE MEN and then they gave away a free download from their forthcoming second album, 'Puzzle'. The download was called 'Over And Again' and it was utterly incredible.

'Over And Again' is a delicate, haunting and melancholic slice of Icelandic brilliance which makes the absolutely perfect listening as Autumn comes along and does it's thing (it's 'thing' being making our shoes wet and giving us runny noses).

Here is the song for a listening experience:

Amiina 'Over And Again'

And here is a link on which you can click, be taken to the Amiina website, enter your email address and own the song for as long as you live - or at least as long at it takes before your computer packs up and you lose all your work, MP3s and pictures you may or may not have taken of yourself for social networking sites. Such is life.

Click here for Amiina's website and download link.

The album, 'Puzzle' is out on 27 September and we are very excited about it. Very excited indeed - in the quietest possible way.

They're better now they've stopped doing the weird stuff: MGMT 'Congratulations' video

The last thing we thought we'd be doing today was blubbing over a rubber chicken/camel hybrid. Yet here we are wiping snot on our sleeve.



It's not what we expected from MGMT, but it's lovely. And great. And sad. And oh my God his leg fell off and then his beak and then he died *SOB*. The music reminds us of Flaming Lips' 'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots' and that can only be a good thing.

Pass me a tissue.

Look away now if you're sick of us gushing about Fenech-Soler...here comes an album review

Let's precede this by saying we're not a) related to, b) paid by, c) working for, d) friends with or e) sponsored by Fenech-Soler. We are just completely obsessed with them. Because they are fucking fantastic. So when the self-titled album popped through our letterbox we were more than a little over excited. We were so over-over-excited we nearly dropped it into our pasta bake. What follows is really just a love letter masquerading as a review.

Dear Fenech-Soler,
How do we love thee, let us count the ways:

1. The stuff that opens the album: is a song called 'Battlefields'. It starts all choral and relaxed, and you think "hmm, album opener", and then all of a sudden there's a squelch and a snare and a "Hey" and we're off at a pace. This is the equivalent of opening a present and not only getting what you asked for, but getting a puppy, a pony and an X-Box as well.

2. The stuff we've already heard: ('Stop & Stare', 'LA Love' and 'Lies' we're talking to you) We illegally downloaded these MP3s a long while ago and they're the reason we got excited about the band in the first place. We're still excited. We've just overplayed them a bit. 'Lies' is a pretty good yardstick of whether you're going to like this album or not. If you liked it you're going to be extremely pleased with this. If you didn't like perhaps you should sit in the corner and have a think about what you've done.

3. The stuff that's yet to come: We heard somewhere that 'Demons' is going to be the next single. Good choice. It's rowdy, it's got lyrics about 'demons' and 'running', it's got an oh-oh-ohh refrain. What more could you want from a second single? A pony maybe, but we already covered that with 'Battlefields'.

4. The stuff that surprised us: Hello 'Stone Bridge' and 'Walk Alone', you're sort of ballads, but ballads if they were written by a load of rowdy electro boys in sparkly outfits.

5. The other stuff: 'Golden Sun', 'The Great Unknown' and 'Contender'. One of these is our favourite on the album, one of these is over 5 minutes long, one of these contains a distorted horn section. All of these can be filed under b for brilliant.

In a musical landscape of ever shifting genre boundaries Fenech-Soler tick so many boxes it's a wonder their biro hasn't run out. The album combines pop hooks with dance riffs, indie lyrics with soaring vocals, guitar sensibilities with synth morals, and delivers ten tracks that feel like they've been lovingly crafted from the bones of the Gods of music themselves.

Do you think that's enough to get us a quote on the album sticker?

Love,
RobotPigeon

The album's released on September 27th on B-Unique. As you can tell we think it's passable. Here's a link to the HMV website where you seem to be able to buy it for one pence. Someone should really look into that.

Our first trot into 'dubstep' courtesy of Alphabet Pony

OK, so it's Tuesday morning and we should probably be all: 'woo, here's an amazing electro dance track that's going to make your week more exciting'. But we're not. We're feeling a little more sombre, a little more sedate at the moment. So instead we'll say this:

'Woo, here's a really stunning track that will ease you back into life after the last Bank Holiday of 2010'. And that's a depressing thought that will stop anyone dead in their tracks, no matter what they are dancing to.

The track in question? 'Atoms' by Alphabet Pony. Alphabet Pony make music that could generally be considered dubstep (because, err, that's what it is), which is not an area we tend to delve into on a day to day basis, but might have to if it all sounds as good as this. (We've googled some, and it doesn't).

Their track 'Atoms' is a stunning lo-fi experience. Minimal production, heartfelt vocals and a really laidback vibe that works just as well at 5am on a Sunday morning as it does on the way to work on a Tuesday.

Alphabet Pony 'Atoms'

Now Alphabet Pony are so modern that they don't have a MySpace page we can direct you to to 'listen to more Alphabet Pony' so if you like what you hear you can rummage around YouTube a bit or 'socially interact' with them on their Facebook page.

PS. We have no clue how the above image relates to anything. It's what Alphabet Pony have chosen to illustrate their Facebook page and if it's good enough for them then it is good enough for us.

Robyn covers Bjork's 'Hyperballad'. Need we say any more?

The following took place at the Swedish Polar awards. Which is a music 'thing' they have over there.

We would like to suggest that if Robyn is struggling for tracks for 'Body Talk pt.3' then this cover version would go down a treat.



Footnote: As Robot was writing this, Pigeon poked his head around the door and said the following: 'I don't like it. She doesn't add anything to the song and sounds like she is struggling to hit every note'. While we appreciate the input, he is basically wrong.

An album that is both quiet and amazing and definitely worth a little of your time

Here are some notes on an album we are listening to a lot at the moment.

1. It is very quiet and makes us want to get into bed and listen with only one eye poking out from under the covers.
2. There is a noticable drum'n'bass influence but not in the 'painfully unlistenable' sense of the term 'drum'n'bass'.
3. Think more Olive than General Levy.
4. Bright Light Bright Light is on said album.
5. We have fallen a little in love with it.

The album we are talking about is by a man who calls himself Error Operator. This may have been obvious due to the image we have used to illustrate this post.

We mentioned Error Operator before when he remixed Bright Light x2's 'Love Pt 2' single in the not too distant past. The album covers (as mentioned above) a little drum'n'bass and also at times some hip hop influences, but this is not an album just for people who like drum'n'bass or hip hop. This is an album for people who like DJ Shadow or Zero 7 and who sometimes stay up too late doing nothing and then need something to listen to because the sun is coming up and it's probably too late to go to bed anyway.

A few favourite tracks from the album include:

1. 'Catch Release': This one sounds a little like Sigur Ros. At least, there is a sad piano on it and all sorts of chimes. It would sound wonderful in a movie where someone was sat near a window while it was raining. Possibly an actress like Kristin Scott Thomas, thinking about her children.

2. 'July': This one sounds like Bright Light Bright Light. Mainly because Rod Thomas is singing on it. Fans of his will feel at home here as there is perfect opportunity here for Mr Thomas to pile his emotional lyrics about how crap love can be over a wonderful, throbbing beat. We should also mention the lovely chorus - which helps.

3. 'Powerlines': Remember when Plan B was an angry British rapper instead of a chubby bloke in a suit trying to be a male Amy Winehouse? Well, this one features a rapper called Grizzle Emcee, who, while not quite as aggressive as Plan B at his most furious, has a similar air of oppression and inner city blues. Again, there are lots of ponderous beats and a big sombre piano holding the track together. It should also be noted that this track includes the best lyric about footwear we have ever heard: 'I'll never fall from a foot like a flip-flop'. Insightful and very true.

The album is a thoughtful, sample-heavy affair, with stirring speeches adding a sense of drama to the laidback proceedings. It's basicaly brilliant, and alongside Royksopp's 'Senior' is without question our chill-out album of choice from 2010.

The album is due for release on iTunes and Spotify on 13 September. We don't recommend jumping out of bed on that date to listen to the album, we recommend making it through the day, coming home, having your dinner and then getting into bed and giving it a listen.

Anyway, here is the album's introduction. It is called 'Introduction' but it is more than just a few seconds of nothingness and is instead a fully fledged song which possibly deserves a better title than the one it has been given.

It also probably sums up what the album sounds like a lot better than the above waffle.

Error Operator 'Introduction'

A pop lady (Oh Land) who we like has been remixed by someone else we like (Yuksek). Results below

If you're going to put your sweet, delicate pop song in the hands of someone like Yuksek, you're probably pretty aware of what he's going to do to it. It's basically going to be twisted and turned into an epic dancefloor no matter how it started out.

Case in point? Danish popstar Oh Land's summery, Feist-esque 'Sun of a Gun'. Originally a feel-good, piano-led happy 'thing', which is just one major advertising campaign away from establishing a new Scandinavian superstar, now a dark, bass-heavy dancefloor monster. True, it lacks a true 'shit hitting the fan' moment that so many previous Yuksek remixes have exploded into approximately 1:33 before the remix's end, but in this instance, a slightly more subtle approach is quite satisfactory. And we're usually not once for a subtle approach. We like it when remixers run at a track screaming and banging pipes together.

Oh Land 'Sun of a Gun' (Yuksek remix)

PS. Oh Land is probably not new if you are from Denmark but to us, she is. We don't know if anyone is in the market in Britain for a new favourite Scandinavian popstar, but if you like your pop brilliance with a little class and also playable over dinner, then you could do a lot worse than listening to the rest of Oh Land's music at her MySpace page.

Ke$ha. Quite famous and important these days

We have loved Ke$ha since we first heard 'Backstabber' at the beginning of 2009. In that time she's gone from being our new popstar of choice to an international popstar of sub-GaGa importance and moderate tabloid sensation.

We don't listen to 'Tik Tok' very much these days though, on account of having listened to it for about eight weeks solid when it was first leaked online.

However, the following trailer for her appearance at the MTV Video Awards not only makes Ke$ha seem like the super-exciting popstar she is, but also brings back all the excitement of a song we are all very, very tired of. Especially those bloody YouTube parodies which are all so far from 'lol'.

A song from a Pussycat Doll who wasn't the singer but can also sing

What follows isn't going to chart the music world or make your life substantially better in any way, but is far better than it ought to be.

Her Majesty & The Wolves is the brilliantly named new music project from former Pussycat Doll Kimberley Wyatt (mostly famous for being able to get her leg behind her head). She did some singing on Aggro Santos 'Candy' single earlier in the year and kinda stuck it to Nicole Scherzinger by having a much bigger hit than the PCD frontwoman has yet achieved.

Her Majesty & The Wolves is a collaboration with producer Spencer Nezy, who is best known for his work with electropop outfit Jupiter Rising. Although we're going to be honest here, we had to do some googling to find out A. who Spencer Nezy was and B. that he was once in a group called Jupiter Rising.

Their first 'release' is Glaciers which is a spooky, space-aged dance track which we're a little smitten but not entirely ready to fall in love with. However, as prospects go, we're very interested to hear what else these two come up with and especially since it's clearly not just a woman doing some singing because she doesn't know what else to do and it's very much in her mind to become a very famous solo singer. Trying something a little different and a little out of the ordinary suggest some actual interest in making pop music. Which is a nice attribute for a popstar.

She should put her leg over her head in any videos they might be considering though. That'd be good.

Her Majesty & The Wolves 'Glaciers'

Click here to download the track for free.

It gave us sticky sheets (because of the candy floss): Katy Perry 'Teenage Dream'

Robot & Pigeon didn't really like it when Katy Perry kissed a girl and she liked it. We did get all yes then no, then up then down, then in then out when she was Hot N Cold. And we certainly put our Daisy Duke bikinis on top for California Gurls. Now we're piling on the Sudocreme in an attempt to keep up with her Teenage Dream.

Everyone is getting excited because the album cover features Perry naked and lying in candy floss. To be honest we'd prefer ours on a stick. We don't want lady bits rubbed all over our spun sugar thank you very much.

However, the cover is of little importance. What we care about is what comes on the shiny disc/illegal download. And lots of the songs leaked onto the internet this week so we can have a little listen.

We're excited about this:
Katy Perry 'Last Friday Night':

And a bit more excited about this:
Katy Perry 'Peacock':

But most of all excited about this:
Katy Perry 'Firework':

They'll probably get taken down before we even hit 'publish' on this post. So here's a written description (using words) to describe what we heard (using ears).

Last Friday Night: The party song. Culminates in a "T.G.I.F" chant and a faux sax solo.

Peacock: An extremely thin metaphor for "Show me your penis", but sung in the style of Lady Gaga so that's ok then.

Firework: Awful, awful, awful lyrics. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant song. Think Kelis' '4th Of July', but with people actually buying the record.

We know Perry is an acquired taste, but she tastes of fun, and we like eating fun.

The week that was this (last) week

Because sometimes we're just too busy to write about everything that happened this week. And sometimes we're so busy we don't even get a chance to write a couple of bullet points. Our excuse this time is mainly related to new born babies...

1. The X-Factor starts started on Saturday.
Some people will sing. Some will be good. Some will be bad (and mentally retarded). Some people will claim it's killing real music. Some people will ask what 'real' music even is. The winner will sell a lot of records. Some of the money from sales of that records will find their way into an advance for a new band. The X Factor is brilliant. Bye bye Saturday nights.

2. Some nasty youths ruined one of our popular features.
Vandals tore down our billboard outside Pak's Wig shop that we like to use to pass social commentary on the music industry's use of advertising budgets.


We think maybe they were upset at the 3OH!3 advert. They seem to like Chase & Status though.

3. Someone tried to kill Alexandra Burke
Well, her career at least. After that awful, awful, awful (awful just doesn't cut it) deodorant campaign someone saw fit to approve this as a video.



We couldn't physically watch beyond 1:04. If there's an ironic postmodern shift where Alexandra stops mid song and says "What are you trying to do here, kill my career? Let's make a real music video", and then all the exercising gays explode to be replaced with jungle animals doing a synchronised routine, let us know.

4. Robot & Pigeon's local hairdresser is where all the top US celebrities go


We've never seen Kelly Rowland or Ludacris hanging around D'Juniors, but that doesn't mean they've never been there. In fact we're sure they must have been there. Otherwise they'd never have agreed to their likenesses being used on the sign would they? Would they?

And that was everything that happened this last week.

The new Bag Raiders video is what you might consider 'arty'

What follows is the video for the new Bag Raiders single, 'Way Back Home'. We previously commented that this song could be described as 'beyond incredible' (and that still stands).

Here is the video.



Nope, we have no idea what's going on either but we are always impressed by fast moving things, flashing lights and special effects. So we say: 'WELL DONE THE BAG RAIDERS'. What a nice way to start a Friday.

*small Australian round of applause*

Who needs words when you've got punctuation as part of your name? Isn't that right Pacific!

Everyone gets so bloody hung-up on words, lyrics and choruses that sometimes it's good when something comes along and is all: 'Hello. I am a pop song that is so good it doesn't matter that no one is singing on it'.

And that has happened. It has happened and it is this. The new Pacific! (don't forget the exclamation-mark) video for their instrumental single, 'Narcissus'.



Now Pacific! are very much a band with a singer so we wonder if this was recorded in secret while he popped out for a poo.

We saw them live a few years ago and their songs with words were amazing, in fact, Pacific! were so good that they were better than the band they were supporting, Pnau. Pnau were, to be totally honest, a bit of a racket.

So there's a little history lesson about what we were doing and thinking in the past.