The Management before they were MGMT

TV On The Radio’s Dear Science

It was a privilege being able to sit down and listen to TV On The Radio’s album Dear Science from start to finish. An added bonus was the fact that I’ve been in the America for a month — the album sums up the atmosphere I have witnessed in the US: tension, money, a bigger gap between rich and poor than I’ve ever seen, a never ending far away war, and some vague hints at political hope. From the inset, TV On The Radio get bad ass on you, combining their trademark layers of barber shop vocals with criss-crossing handclaps over doomsday synth pads and screaming guitars on Halfway Home, which is like a grown up cousin of Wolf Like Me from their 2006 LP Cookie Mountain, easing you into the fact that beyond this point they are going to erase everything you thought you knew about TVOTR. But you should have expected that anyway.

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French band, Cocoon

We’re big fans of French duo Cocoon, so we spoke to frontman Marc Daumail to prove it. Ahead of their upcoming tour of Australia in November, we asked him how vibrant the French music scene is right now: ‘It’s such a relief to be considered like a real band singing in English in a country like France, which is very conservative about its music traditions. We know Moriarty and The Do. They are nice. We all worked a lot to make this scene exist’. Which folk acts have most excited you recently? ‘My albums of the year are not very folky: Grizzly Bear, Lee Fields, The XX. But The Tallest Man On Earth just made one of the best folk albums of all time’. Read Cocoon’s Secret Playlist.

Hypernova video, directed by Richard Patterson

Brooklyn-band Hypernova’s new music video was shot and directed by Common Machine’s Director of Photography, Richard Patterson, on Profoto’s spanking new, lighting packs, enabling the video to be shot on a stills camera. There are actually more than 16,000 stills that make up the video, the first time it’s ever been done like this.

Long Walk Home

Originally from Australia, Long Walk Home are now residing and making awesome music in Berlin. Their music is modern and alternative with a great guitarist and drummer and a touch of funky electro that makes the melodies soft and catchy.

Longwave

Since 2000, Brooklyn-based indie band Longwave have been recording killer albums. Their most recent album — The Strangest Things — was released 2007 and won fans including The Strokes and The Vines. Hot, hot, hot.

Linda Farrow and House of Holland

It’s summer in New York, it’s sunny, and I’m bored of my everyday pair of sunnies. But who has the glasses for me? Designer Linda Farrow does! Her range has so many innovative designs, without the stripes on the lenses like the Kayne West glasses sold at every street vendor in the village. Linda Farrow has the most fabulous vintage shades, and the collaboration between her and House of Holland is a gem in a sea of sunnies.