It was an awesome day in London Fields, and a couple of houses around there too. Coffee and croissants galore to keep the crew going – and it was shot on a mixture of the RED cam (awesome!) and a Canon 5D. The ‘chorus’ were genuinely lovely throughout, and the directors (Bee and Livi from Punchdrunk) were brilliant.

Just last month we (rockfeedback) also recorded a session with Johnny Flynn not so long ago. One of the videos (the title track, ‘Been Listening’) is doing the rounds on the net at the moment:

Let me know what you think!

(1) Beach House
We had the chance to film Beach House at their recent Bush Hall show, and I was completely blown away. Their new LP, ‘Teen Dream’ is a sure-fire contender for album of 2010, and you shouldn’t be without it. In the meantime you can get a few songs of them live in session for free over at Daytrotter (who do awesome sessions – check out their completely free back catalogue). They’re the sweetest people, and they make incredibly focused, completely overwhelming music.

(2) Field Music – The new Field Music album (oddly titled ‘Field Music (measure)’ parentheses and all) landed on my desk about 3 weeks ago, and there’s never more than 2 days between plays at the moment. It’s a glorious and OTT prog record, it sounds like Yes and ELP having an intellectual debate with Steely Dan and Tortoise. It’s the other surefire album of the year. How awesome is it that there are two already?

(3) Music Go Music – speaking of OTT, these guys are genuinely preposterous. Fronting the band is Gala Bell, who’d fit somewhere between Florence and the Machine and Blondie. Which is a horrifically trite thing to say, but sometimes it helps. The band make balls-to-the-wall pop music in the vein of Abba and some kind of late 70s hair-metal band. There were times in their last show, at ULU, where my only possible response to what was being presented to the audience was bemused and uncontainable laughter. And times where I was literally leaving my jaw hanging open. A completely astonishing and fairly unbelievable band. You shouldn’t go see them if you’re not a fan of ‘pop’ music. But then, you shouldn’t go see anything, if you’re that silly.

(4) Laura Gibson – Laura’s just amazing. She did a session with rockfeedbacl that we’ve nearly cut – I’ll probably put it up here once we’ve done it. She writes beauttiful songs with a heart of yearning optimism, unclouded by conceit: her lyrics run liltingly under the fingerpicking with a kind of childish honesty, tempered against a wisdom-aged depth of perception. All of which makes me want to write hugely pretentious sentences about her music.

(5) Surfer Blood – Dan Monsell, our Head of Live at rockfeedback, books some awesome bands. And the best ones for my tastes fall into two categories – sometimes he goes folk (the Peggy Sue boat show was perfect for me!), and sometimes he catches trendy and quirky bands from the ‘States just before they break. Surfer Blood are in the latter camp – uplifting melodies, a sprinkling of Vampire Weekend, maybe a little Pavement, but basically a core of great songs sung by a great new band.

(6) Johnny Flynn – I’m lucky enough, so far as Johnny Flynn goes, to share an office with his management at Transgressive, and so have heard a good few of the songs on the next LP. It’s going to be absolutely astonishing. ‘Nuff said.

(7) Caitlin Rose – From Nashville, Caitlin feels like one of the ones who grew up on the other side of the tracks in that divided city. Her latest EP, Dead Flowers, holds the promise of somebody who’ll be able to bring country music through to a different audience. ‘Answer In One Of These Bottles’ is just brilliant – a bold voice and slightly careless sense of humour…

(8)  Lawrence Arabia – Lawrence (or James really, isn’t it odd when singers become the name of their bands?) was playing support at the Beach House gig I mentioned at the top there. I’d heard his album ‘Chant Darling’ already, but wasn’t prepared for quite how beautifully it all came across live. There’s a similar mastery of dynamics to fellow kiwi Liam Finn, but the songwriting is taken in a different direction. I’m going to add ‘Chant Darling’ to the albums of 2010 too. I’m going to have trouble figuring it out by the end of the year…

And that’s all for now! Let me know what you think of them if they’re new to you… and if not, let me know if you agree!

The complete win-over was being wowed by their barndance hoedown of a launch paty (they hired out a barn in Hertfordshire, and coached us all out from Kings Cross to the middle of the countryside for a night of cider, festival burgers and hay-raising stomping). Along with the line dancing, the revelry and general gorgeousness of being out in the middle of the countryside in such a great setting, we also got treated to collaborations with Laura Marling, King Charles and even Chris Pollard, who we only previously knew as being the loveliest tour manager on the planet.

It started, other than listening in to the growing hype around the band, with their their set at the iTunes Festival (earlier this year at the Roundhouse in Camden), and their opening set for the incredible End of the Road festival in between (more on End of the Road soon!).

Somewhere in between all of those gigs it became a good idea to do one of our rockfeedback sessions with the guys too. Where I’ve not successfuly edited it out, you can sometims see my face asking the interview questions between the songs… Check it out below

And if you’ve not already – buy the album! It’s a rare folk gem, and well worth doing that whole physical format thing for. Who cares about internet streaming anyway?