Mona - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

Fundamentally all we want with the world is for everyone to love each other, get naked and roll around in happiness together. Embodied somewhere within our brain is a thought that says we wish we had been a teenager in the 60’s; free love and flower power are concepts we could have embraced wholeheartedly.

However we live in 2010 and the idea of saying to our friends ‘let’s all take off our clothes and dance around in the moonlight,’ is only likely to lead to a life of social exclusion; because somewhere out there, to paraphrase Cheryl Cole, there’s a fight fight fight fight fight for this love and the thing that’s fighting is called hate. We have very little hate, particularly musically, but the little we do have is at least forty per cent saved for Kings of Leon. We’ve never been of the opinion that “yeah, their old stuff was good, but now they’re just dull and mainstream.” No, we’ve been more of the opinion that “every song they have ever written is like sitting on the toilet whilst watching your grunting, sweating, balding dad masturbate in the shower.”

So when we first heard that new 50’s styled rock n roll band Mona from Nashville, Tennessee sounded a lot like Kings of Leon, we gave them wide dad rock berth. But here’s a dichotomy, because although the Sex on Fire lads make us want to commit murder, we’re not fully averse to stadium rock. We’re going to say it once, and then quickly move on, but we actually really like U2.* There – did we get away with that? Just to clarify we like most U2 but the majority of Pop is so-so and nearly all of No Line On The Horizon sounds like a band who have lost it and are trying desperately to find it again. So when we read that Mona also displayed some of the good musical qualities of U2, albeit they lacked a lead singer who sometimes dressed as a camp devil called Macphisto who liked trying to save the world we thought we’d give them a chance.

The verdict? We find ourselves fighting with ourselves in a contradictory melee, pounded by the bands buzz of ringing guitars and punch the air energy that at one moment sounds pretty damn exciting and the next moment sounds like a band that have been watching dad masturbate in the shower a little bit too long. But that’s OK, because it gives balance, which is what Mona’s debut single Listen To Your Love was about. "It is basically a song about dualism. The push and pull... Your love or your lover? Sometimes those two things are combative, other times in sync," said lead singer Nick Brown of the track to the NME. "Same with all things whether it's faith, fighting, love or hate. Balance is always the key and always the challenge.” Mona are certainly challenging us with that balance.

Have a listen yourself and let us know your thoughts. We’re off to dance in the moonlight with friends to Cheryl Cole. The bands second single, Trouble On The Way is released mid December and the video streams below.

*Footnote we also like Glasvegas and the first album by Stereophonics, which Mona also remind us of a little. Sorry to those who find that offensive.

listen to your love -MONA by MONA-

Jessie J - Do It Like A Dude

There are some sounds that at the time seem contemporary, fashionable and completely of the moment. Yet decades on they simply define the era that they were formed, occasionally being revived in a modern context. It's a central theme to this blog. See here for a key piece to that central (or should it be circular) theme, and here for another part of it. Regular readers will know that we return to these themes quite often in our posts. If you read even more carefully you'll see that many (but not all) of our pieces interlink to these ideas and a number of other theories. It's a wonderful world wide web and somewhere that web all joins up in the middle.

If you were a record label what would you be pushing out to the masses to get a hit single right now? Strong female presence? Sexually provocative and slightly dark druggy video? Slap some auto-tune all over it? Welcome to the end of 2010. The only thing missing is a male star to deliver a mid-section rap – maybe Dizzee or Tinie Tempah weren’t available. Come 2025 this sound will probably be back in fashion and Lady Ga Ga will be returning after a 5 year break for a stadium tour where tickets cost £1000 minimum.

Jessie J - Do It Like A Dude (Labrinth Remix) by PurplePR

Foals @ Brighton Dome

There’s a moment during Foals set at Brighton Dome where lead singer Yannis takes an athletic run and launches himself off the stage and into the crowd. It’s a leap of confidence that you can also hear on the bands second album Total Life Forever, which picked up a Mercury Prize nomination and saw them creating one of the singles of the year in Spanish Sahara.

These launches upwards and outwards are conveyed in every sense in their live shows – from the eager sold-out anticipating crowd, rammed with teenagers and young twenties down the front who demand the band with shouts and handclaps even before they take to the stage, to the groups arresting and sonically expansive songs that fill the Dome with intricate guitar work, a sense of space and oddball indie disco rhythms. It’s compelling stuff and shows a band growing and loosening up in every way, yet never compromising.

As the teenage girls on shoulders and fisting pumping lads bounce towards celebratory oblivion, older more sedate audience members could consider possible musical resemblances to The Cure. Yannis howls and yelps with intensity on some songs and whispers in near falsetto gentleness on others against guitars that funk and chime in equal but different doses. It creates the same kind of mesmerizing atmosphere that Robert Smith and co used to be able to create, and occasionally still do. However Smith probably wouldn’t display the same levels of showmanship that the Foals lead singer does; as the show climaxes with a huge sounding Two Steps Twice he mounts the speaker stack and from there journeys onto the balcony with guitar in hand much to the delight of the audience. At another point he emerges from the side of the venue and walks his way through the heaving crowd back to the stage.

Foals have bloomed into a composed, musically self-assured band that is now beginning to display hints of greatness. If they continue to progress at this rate they could soon be arena bound.

Foals - Blue Blood

If you read this post as it appears on line we will be probably be driving back from a Foals gig in the cooler city 50 miles down the road from our own hometown – Brighton.

Foals are a band that we fell in love with on the release of Mathletics and even more so with Hummer then lost steam upon hearing debut album Antidotes. Total Life Forever rekindled the fires though, partially through Mount Kimbie’s incredibly sparse and moving remix of Spanish Sahara, which we've posted below in case you have been living on the moon. So whilst we’ve been (hopefully) enjoying Foals tonight (and the previously blogged support Trophy Wife) we thought it would be a good time to remind you that the bands new single Blue Blood was released yesterday. If you haven’t seen the video for Blue Blood it really is worth a look – a slightly creepy yet funny lip-sync / interpretative dance piece by a schoolboy.

Spanish Sahara (Mount Kimbie remix) by Foals