Features The Neu Bulletin (9th October 2012)

image credit: Layla Smethurst

Nights out and new band recommendations come in plentiful supply with Neu’s daily guide to all the goings on in new music. 

WHO’S PLAYING WHERE?
When I listen to Egyptian Hip Hop (pictured, above), I find myself turning into one of those punters that stands at the back of gigs, nodding their head - not always in time to the music, not necessarily out of appreciation, just nodding away ceaselessly - without any real purpose. The band’s ‘Good Don’t Sleep’ debut on R&S Records is all fanciful rhythm sections and smartly-arranged pop songwriting, and so expect the customary head-boppers to arrive en masse to the group’s show at Manchester’s Soup Kitchen. The support acts might induce something a little more feisty and rock-out. 

Weird Era and Temple Songs support Egyptian Hip Hop at Soup Kitchen, Manchester tonight. Details here from Manchester Scenewipe.

WHO’S MAKING WAVES?

We’re sticking to Manchester here, but its location is of complete insignificance, with the exception of informing you of where these particular geniuses hail from: Naked’s music is half-comprised of the more messed-up scenes from Twin Peaks, the biting groove of Nick Cave, the New York Jazz Scene playing at 5am with cocktails pumping out of the baroque trumpets. Listen to ‘Death Dance’, the lead track on a forthcoming EP on SWAYS, out 15th October. It’s completely utterly ludicrous. 

FURTHER NEU BUSINESS 

You can see it in the eye of Simon Cowell if you look close enough, each time he spots an X Factor contestant of some redeemable potential stardom: It glints, it lights up, like he’s just seen the millions of dollars standing before him. It’s the “famous glint”, I like to call it. You too feel it sometimes, I’m sure, when you hear a voice that’s simply flooring, incapable of being ignored. Indiana gives me that feeling: One listen to ‘Blind As I Am’, its mixture of straightforward pop and minimal dubstep production, and you can vividly see all the glorious things she’s destined for: