Certain cities have various scenes that have been established over time. For bands that get involved, it’s all fine and dandy for them.

Look no further than Oasis and The Smiths from Manchester who set the bar for others to follow. But then again, not everyone wants to crank out indie music which continually sounds stale after every release. Still, a solid fan base will lap it up.

Other towns may not have such a strong musical heritage, but they put their stamp on where there from. Leicester, for example, may not be bursting with quality artists apart from breakaway act Kasabian – but do they really offer anything else apart from modernising Britpop ten years too late? Asides from producing tasty Walkers crisps, Leicester hasn’t been known for music. For some of you, this may change after listening to Silent Devices.

It almost sounds like an oxymoron. How can a band with the word ’silent’ in their name produce any noise? Is it just an elaborate and rubbish joke by us because we again forgot our submission deadline? Of course not. Of course not.

Silent Devices make music that has a soft and comforting feel to it. The slow-paced sounds don’t gradually build up and turn into something fast-paced and frenzied. Instead, the peppered addition of vocal over the hazy-sounding guitars make this perfect music for lounging around to. Put it this way, if Mogwai got a little bit happier and less cynical of the world, this is what they’d sound like. That’s unlikely to happen any time soon, so please invest in this lot instead.

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Silent Devices MySpace

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With 2009 kicking and screaming to a close, many magazines and other publications often spit out their best-of lists.

Usually it’s the opinion of one person sat in an office. Most of the time, people with any sense flick past them as they don’t need someone else telling them what is considered to be good.

Though we could use the arse end of 2009 to go over the artists we’ve looked at, we won’t. Instead, we’ll still try to at least bring you something creatively different and worth investing in. This week, we couldn’t pick a better artist for mixing things up than Bibio. Whilst we don’t know if it’s pronounced Bi-bio or Bib-io, the records released by him are bloody fantastic.

Signed up to Warp Records, Bibio has released three albums this year alone. Quite the busy individual, he’s pumped out more records than some people do in a decade. But is it just Bibio releasing a hoard of collected tracks for an easy payday, sacrificing quality over quantity? Thankfully not, everything he releases is top notch and our bank accounts are considerably emptier since discovering him.

Style wise, there is a lot going on. An interesting blend of field recordings mixed with droning electronics with a splashing of guitar and hints of folk make for an album full of tracks that makes you wonder where they’re going next. Just when the guitar comes in, everything gets swept in a lazy back beat that distorts and twists away.

Fire Ant - taken from his latest album Ambivalence Avenue – sums up what we’re wittering on about. The production is sublime as each of the songs elements come together and don’t get lost or frozen out as they battle to be heard.

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Bibio MySpace page

Yee-haw kids, its reality pop star season, so what does that mean?

It means that anyone who’s got an ounce of talent in their blood is going to get ignored. Money-making mass-produced rubbish will take over and make us all believe it’s the best thing since the last reality show winner from the previous month.

So can we suggest someone to you? Take a listen to Chicago’s One Little Plane. With an album out last year, she has been pretty much unnoticed by everyone, but has enough support to carry her through. Produced by folktronica man Four Tet, these beautifully crafted songs give the impression they were lovingly knitted in the front room of someone’s house where all the love and attention in the world was dedicated to them. It’s acoustic bliss. And you should invest.

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One Little Plane MySpace

Well Mr Mike D Chill, the joke is on you. We don’t have female genitalia. The only penetrable organ we have is our bumhole. And even then you’ll have to navigate the overgrown layers of matted hair that are in the way. Damn.

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Mike D Chill MySpace

One of the best things about writing these features is that we can mess around for the first couple of paragraphs by telling really rubbish jokes.

You know, we’ll harp on for a while about something that is vaguely connected about the object/thing/person we’re talking about and then swing everything back round. We’re clever like that. It also makes people think we know what we’re doing.

With this week’s MySpace Trawl, we don’t however need to badger on about anything. Nic Dawson Kelly simply delivers a no nonsense musical product.

He’s not hiding behind any sort of stage name, getting you to think he had magic powers to make the instruments play or that he’s any better then you. Nick just seems to be an average down to earth bloke who happens to make cracking music.

This isn’t meant to sound like a distrustful comment, but what we think of Nic Dawson Kelly when we hear his music is that of someone playing in a pub. Don’t get us wrong, a lot of people who perform in pubs are either old men who play during busker night, or crap rock bands who butcher all of our favourite songs. However, there is an occasional speck of talent that comes along and whips the crowd into a frenzy.

Listening to Nic Dawson Kelly, there just seems to be some sort of sudden urgency for us to either listen along to the lyrics or attempt to dance like the morons that we are. With music sometimes sounding slightly impersonal and only appealing to a certain age group, this is an accessible sound that anyone could listen to and enjoy. And why bloody not? We’re encouraged to watch things like X Factor together, so why not take advantage of someone who has a record out already?

The Times, Q and The Sun are fans of Mr Nic Dawson Kelly and now we’re sure that our praises will cement him as an artist to look out for in 2010. His recently-released ten track debut album may slip onto people’s best-of lists with its blend of grungy blues and acoustic clap-along melodies.

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Nic Dawson Kelly MySpace

On X Factor, Dannii Minogue tried to make a joke about one of the contestant’s sexuality. This epically failed, and now readers of The Daily Mail are flapping around and spilling cups of tea everywhere. Stephen Gately passed away naturally in his early thirties and horsealike Leona Lewis got belted. We assume it was off an angry Snow Patrol fan who didn’t like her cover version of Run.

Whilst these so called stars are pumped in to your brain at every given chance on TV/radio/sofa advert, it’s impossible to get away from them. Most of the time, musical gems are lurking in your own city and will go unnoticed by people who are scared to listen to someone they’ve never heard of. Can we introduce The Longcut to you?

Right about now, their second album Open Hearts will have been plonked into record shops for you to purchase. Oddly, it has been out for ages. Since its completion, The Longcut offered various packages for people to buy. Some included T-shirts with the CD or getting the album alongside a vinyl copy. To keep the folks at home happy, you could immediately download it after purchase.

A seemingly risky move in a way as it gave the filesharers a chance to well and truly spread the album across the internet and potential ensure no-one physically purchases it. But with a well received debut album and known for energetic live performances, we know people will pick up interest in the band again.

On their MySpace player are tracks from the second album Open Hearts. For an overall feel of how the band sounds, check out Tell You So. It isn’t quite rock, or indie, but there are dabbles of electronics, vocal stretches and flickers of post rock. Everything is largely instrumental, but the musical landscape that the The Longcut produce, ensures that seven minute long songs don’t sound like short snippets of music that where lazily glued together.

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The Longcut MySpace Trawl

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Slick sounding hippity hop beats and soulful R&B doesn’t normally come out of the UK. When it does, it normally has a raw edge carved into the production.

And an annoying moron chanting “Brixton/Leicester Square crew” over the top. Hudson Mohawke makes instrumental music that sounds like the above, but it doesn’t quite sound like the styles listed above.

Often lumped into the glitch-hop genre due to the distorted and chopped-up sound, this isn’t the case at all. Combining everything from chattering computer noises, rolling drums and synths that wouldn’t sound out of place on Jay-Z album, it all comes together for one pretty sound. Debut album Butter is out on October 16. For those eager to get their greasy mitts on previous releases, EPs and a bootleg 12” featuring some well-known R&B is floating around on the web. Go buy.

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Hudson Mohawke MySpace

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Like rock, of a vintage kind, with balls out and great beer guts sticking out from faded tees, gathering up the crumbs dropped from big ol’ beards?

Then you need a word with Cincinnati’s Buffalo Killers, who have peddling vintage groove laden rockin’ fuzz psych spectacular under the radar for some years. They’ve been gaining admiring glances from support slots with The Black Crowes, who clearly seethe with jealousy at a band able to rock harder, louder and with more funk than anyone else in the battlefield.

This is real shit-kicker rock to knock your spots clean off.

Channelling the ghost of Crazy Horse, mixed with the glassy eyed daydreams of vintage Cream, these men – and they’re real men who just dropped in to see what condition their condition was in – have produced two insanely good LPs, with the high watermark being their latest, Let It Ride, which is so good that it could easily convince you to put your guitar down and never play the thing ever again.

If you like the sleaze blues of The Black Keys, then you really oughta sign up to the Buffalo Killin’ experience who have better slow-jams, sing with weary scotch clogged drawls chic and generally, recall all the best vintage rock albums you ever heard without ever once sounding tired or hackneyed. Rolling Stone magazine was built on groups like this and if you miss out ‘em, you’re missing out on one of the finest bands on the planet right now.

Buffalo Killers MySpace

This was a guest blog by jolly Mof Gimmers from Electric Roulette, which is better than it really has any right to be.

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Sometimes there isn’t music ugly enough to tell you how you feel.

Of course, by ugly, that doesn’t mean a withered hand chopping out power chords with someone singing who makes Thom Yorke look like Mr Universe. No, we’re talking about No Fi.

Absolutely zero in terms of fidelity means checking out the skuzz-pop of Mazes who record their music through the speakers on their telly.

The sound that Mazes seem to be gunning for is the sound of someone taping over something that was taped over something that was taped over… until you end up with a refried version of Pavement. The sounds are more bleached out than a Boards of Canada record that’s been left on a beach for a fortnight. Serious. This is the sound of fuzz, applied to everything.

Yet weirdly, it still works. The tunes are tuneful enough to cut through the scum and leave you with the sound of an American college rock band rehearsing in your loft after they’d stolen all your LPs by The Fall. With a twist of Teenage Fanclub. Very little is known about the band themselves, other than the fact that they’ve got a 45 out (available from Sex Is Disgusting) and that they’ve been attracting the attentions of some well respected people in the music industry. Fuzz is the future it seems.

Mazes MySpace

This was a guest blog by captain Mof Gimmers from Electric Roulette. VISIT.

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Folk music was once the language of impoverished people singing about their first born getting hung by poshos and the cries of a people in chains, repressed by other poshos.

Then, at some point in history, folk music stopped being a language, but rather, something powered by its sense of own self worth. Riffs recycled, along with the tin cans that once housed organic pulses and the like. It’s enough to make you puke, especially when the NuFolkies end up flogging their faux DIY charms to a Daewoo commercial or some junk.

Twee and insipid seems to be the way to get ahead in advertising.

However, in amongst all that horribly cute-as-a-kitten-chasing-a-butterfly acoustic nonsensery, we’ve got a truly wonderful band who have eschewed all that eco-pop guff in favour of mixing folkie styles with something infinitely more interesting.

Imagine Broadcast or Stereolab if someone cut their electricity off and you’ll be ambling into the territory of the wonderful and beguiling Maladies of Bellafontaine.

With lyrics that sound half thought up, half automatically written in some weird cult initiation, songs stroll into your brain with odd reflections on the minutiae of life through strings of sausages, long
socks and lorries. All grown from instruments nicked from the toy shop and fizzing analogue electronics. They’re catchy as hell too and have nice clothes. What more do you need from band? Sure, they’re as cute as a button, but scratch the surface and there’s some wrong wiring in there which makes this band a truly pleasing and fascinating prospect.

The Maladies Of Bellafontaine MySpace

This was a guest blog by dear old Mof Gimmers from Electric Roulette. If you like music, go there please.

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After doing this feature for a shedload of years, we hope we’ve vaguely introduced you to something new and exciting.

Indie children may learn that every word doesn’t need to rhyme for something to be classed as a song. On the flipside, some creative types even go as far as using vegetables to make banging beats and a delicious soup for afters.

We want to indulge you in everything from full-throttle noise to orchestral delights. We don’t aim to discriminate at all. Recently it’s been about those bands that can make a brilliant pop tune while bringing something new to the format. Say hello to Clark who’s been making awesome electronica for ages.

If we’re being honest, we’ve been fans of Clark for years. Instead of making straight-edged techno/acid/house or drum & bass, every single style is ripped apart at the core and smashed back together. Of course it could all end in a horrid mess that sounds like most Eurodance acts. Thankfully, it doesn’t.

Signed to one of the most influential labels in the world – which also has Aphex Twin and Squarepusher on its books – you know you’re on to a winner with Clark. Warp Records don’t sign rubbish – apart from Maximo Park if you’re an electronic purist, but that’s a different story altogether.

At the moment, it’s all about electro and the neverending stream of bedroom producers who want to be the next Calvin Harris, Simian Mobile Disco or Justice. Sadly, a piece of hacked software and ropey editing tool won’t get a batch of 12”s pressed up for you. Much work and attention needs to go into a release to ensure quality and to get people moving.

With new album Totems Flare recently hitting shops and MP3 stores, the two main tracks on Clark’s MySpace are cut up samples of what the album will sound like. As people who own this album, we can safely say that the samples do the album justice. What you need to do is go out and buy a copy.

Tracks stop and start in a constant rhythm and take you on a musical direction that never seems to stop. With the year’s musical output beginning to draw to an end, it may be one to shove on our best of lists.

For more:

Clark MySpace

For anyone that remotely gives a toss, the next few weeks of MySpace Trawl will be left in the more than capable hands of Sir Mof Gimmers. Not only will he make this feature worth reading, but he’ll bring some music that is still probably far too cool for you. This writer is off to oil up his body for that perfect tan and fend off prostitutes with a large wooden stick.

“OMG what did you get? I only got 17 A* grades.” Across, the country, that is what various school children will utter as they rip open their GCSE envelope.

Will they count for anything? Not really, in two year’s time they’ll be told that their A-Level exams are so simple that a dyslexic goat with severe mental issues could pass them.

Instead of collecting ASBOs and the disapproval of pensioners, Flamboyant Bella make a joyous sound, mixing together catchy pop and soft electro that is as addictive as those footballs stickers you got as a kid. The band are only young and still developing, but have enough songs to seriously break through. We like them. You should too.

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Flamboyant Bella MySpace

Remember the other week when we brought you the wonderful music of The Candle Thieves via our MySpace Trawl feature? Of course you ruddy do!

It appears the band have been able to use all sorts of pretty colours and sellotape them together to create a video for The Sunshine Song. Don’t go thinking its a botched job down on a hand held camera for £20.

Oh no, what we have is a wonderfully crafted video which perfectly reflects the sound of the song. Thank God for that, the last thing we wanted to see was the duo standing on a building looking moody in the rain.

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Ever get the feeling you’re missing out or are simply excluded from the awesome stuff that’s going on?

While all your mates are hanging out together after school, all you do is pick your nose, ear and arse and work out what flavours taste the best.

Mates Of State have some pretty awesome friends who we love. Santigold and Death Cab For Cutie are both artists that plenty of people know and appreciate. But why not this duo?

For over twelve years, Mates Of State have been secretly producing pitch perfect harmonies under cracking synths and beautifully arranged chords.

When you get paid, the first thing you should do is invest in Mates Of State. Eating might be a tempting choice, but with music this good, it’ll block out every negative thought around you. Even the extreme pain of biting into your own arm.

Mates Of State MySpace

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We may have gotten mixed up a bit this week. You see, Jonsi is the frontman of Sigur Ros.

However, alongside his boyfriend Alex they both create art together under the name Riceboy Sleeps. Riceboy Sleeps also happens to be the title of the debut album from the duo who record under the name Jonsi & Alex.

Confused? You shouldn’t be.

What the pair have created is an album that is simply stunning. Quite likely to be in our end of year best of list, the album is perfect for putting in the background whilst the world ticks away behind you. The nine tracks of acoustic soundscape are simply bliss and should be heard by everyone. Only one track is on their MySpace player, but it should easily sway you to listen further and invest.

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Jonsi & Alex MySpace