Weights EP by Valentina

The debut EP ’Weights’ from Valentina is a beautiful collection of songs about the painful journey from youth to young adulthood.  Valentina has a great voice and is influenced by classic female singer/songwriters including Joni Mitchell and Carole King.  Add to this a mature Kate Nash, especially on the title track, and her honest and personal accounts of life so far are accompanied by her self-taught acoustic guitar or dulcimer, this EP is a strong, beautiful introduction to a young talented artist.

‘Weights’ was recorded while Valentina was suffering a break-up from her boyfriend and co-producer, Blue May.  The uncomfortable atmosphere and intensity can be heard in the recording, which has been enhanced by excellent production work by Kwes (The XX) who brings his alternative approach by weaving in textures and a certain sparkle in the honest, frank openness of Valentina’s performances.

Valentina – Weights EP

1. Weights In Your Shoes
2. It’s Alive
3. The Decemeber Song
4. You Never Dance
5. Heart Of Glass

Valentina’s Weights EP was exclusively available with Rough Trade on 4th April and available everywhere from 18th April through the Little Chaos label.

No Match for Genevieve is the brand new single from The Lights, the start of what they hope to be their breakthrough year having been on the Ones To Watch radar throughout 2010.

Championed by Radio 2’s Janice Long who invited the band to record a session for her show, The Lights are a Birmingham based band consisting of five bright-eyed individuals with the heart and determination to take their music to the masses.

Last year saw The Lights gig extensively resulting in a whole host of festival offers in the midlands this summer including Birmingham Artsfest and the Nelson Mandela Festival. The band also chalked up numerous high profile radio sessions around the UK as well as the Janice Long show.

No Match For Genevieve by The Lights is released on Monday March 29th.

carrie mac

Fresh from touring as support for Alexandra Burke, Scottish singer Carrie Mac is being tipped as one to watch in 2011 and will release her debut single Till I See You Again on April 18th.

Carrie Mac has been immersed in music since she was barely able to walk. She is classically trained in the violin, and also plays the ocarina, piano and guitar. She won Bauer Radio’s One To Watch award in 2008 and has since been working towards her dream of releasing an album. Despite her natural musical abilities, Carrie admits that it hasn’t always been easy;

“I went to college for two years doing an HND in music and decided not to go on and do a degree. Instead, I learned guitar, went out to do a gig and I was awful. It took a couple of years to hone my craft. I took on anything and went to as many music seminars as I could and tried to network. There is no manual that tells you how to get signed.

“Touring with Alexandra Burke was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I loved performing in front of a massive crowd. I got so much support from Alexandra. She is lovely, I learned from her because she is a true professional both onstage and offstage. She is a really good role model. She knows what she is doing and is a really nice girl.”

Gearing up for her first full album release later this year Carrie Mac is determined to get her music across in the live arena as well as through records and is learning from her recent experiences in front of a live audience, she says;

“The audiences have been so warm to me. I used to go onstage acoustic, which is nerve wracking. With a band you feel more comfortable, but I have been really lucky. I supported Adam Lambert who was runner up on American Idol. That was a tough crowd because it was so different. When you support an act like that, the people are there to see the main act, but I got a good reception so it has been going well.”

Carrie Mac has come this far through sheer hard work and determination and is ready to unleash her talents on a wider audience, “A few years ago I wasn’t ready for this. But now I feel I can deal with whatever is thrown at me now. It’s time for me to show people I can sing live, write my own songs and play my own instruments. This is a long overdue, here I am.”

Till I See You Again is the new single from Carrie Mac released on April 18th.

FLO RIDA - photo zach wolfe

Hip hop sensation Flo Rida is preparing to release his new dance floor smash Who Dat Girl featuring Akon on March 28th through Atlantic Records.

Taken from the mini album Only 1 Flo (Pt1), Who Dat Girl is the third track to be released as a single following the massive success of Club Can’t Handle Me featuring David Guetta and the previous hit Turn Around (5,4,3,2,1).

Fresh from Capital FM’s Jingle Bell Ball where Flo performed not only his own club anthems but the top 10 hit, ‘Higher’ with pop starlets, The Saturdays, the megastar is back and ready to continue to reign the charts.

Already having clocked up over 7million YouTube hits, Who Dat Girl is well on its way to the top of the UK singles chart and finds the genre-busting rapper team up with R’n’B superstar and producer, Akon, creating a perfect blend of Flo’s signature stop-and-go flow, melodic sensibility and massive hooks.

The video will help promote the single, featuring party goers painting each other in luminous body paint, as you do.

On discussing the influence of ‘Who Dat Girl’, Flo says he wanted to showcase the experiences his glittering success has brought him since the release of his first two chart topping albums, Mail On Sunday and R.O.O.T.S.

The single Who Dat Girl is released on March 28th and is taken from the mini album Only 1 Flo (pt1) which is available now.

Prime time US shows are apparently queuing up to book up the Brit Award winning band Blake, prompting record label EMI to release the track All Of Me simultaneously in the UK, USA and Canada.

As well as lining up TV shows in the US, the foursome are also booked to appear on British TV in weeks leading up to the Royal wedding day.

The song is written by TV theme tune composer Simon May (Eastenders, Howards Way) with the help of his young co writers Simon Lockyer and John Brant. They believe that in All Of Me they have written the perfect wedding song, but it was not created for the upcoming special occasion and was written a couple of years ago.

“We wrote ‘All Of Me’ a couple of years ago and it has already become a popular song at weddings in America. I’ve been looking for the right occasion and artist to make the definitive recording” said Simon May.

When Simon met Blake (Ollie Baines, Jules Knight, Humphrey Berney and Stephen Bowman) in November of 2010 and saw them performing at the Royal Festival Hall, he knew that the waiting was over.  “These boys just blew me away” says Simon.  “They have an awesome ability to sing perfect harmonies and interpret a song in either the pop or classical idiom which is an impressive and very unusual combination.”

While it may not have been written for the royal couple it is none the less fitting and Blake say;

“In ’All Of Me’ Simon and his team have written a song that perfectly fits the romance and commitment of a wedding. We are really honoured to have been asked to sing it and we hope that the song will touch the heart of the nation and be a special song for many couples on their wedding day.”

ALL OF ME

The first day that I met you
I think I always Knew
That you were meant to be the one
And then the feeling grew
With God and friends my witness
Our love will never die
I take the gift you gave me
Don’t need to question why
For all the faults I’m made of
And for all the wrongs I do
I’m not asking you to judge me
Just be true

Chorus:
All of me
Is what I give to you
And everything I have
I Wanna share with you
And with this ring
For all eternity
I make this vow
When I give you all of me

This life is short and precious
A one way ticket ride
I thank you for the journey
I know you’re on my side
And we are only here once
I’m glad we shared this day
Of knowing something special
That will never go away
For all the faults I’m made of
And for all the wrongs I do
I’m not asking you to judge me
Just be true

Chorus

That’s what I give to you
And everything I have
I’m gonna share with you
With this ring
I give for all eternity
My love
I make this vow
All of Me………

With over half a million albums sold worldwide, Blake continue to build their reputation as one of the most eclectic and exciting classical-pop groups in the world. The classical Brit Award winners are currently on their acclaimed ‘An Evening With Blake’ tour.

DDM-AssOnTheFloor

The Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs led collective Diddy-Dirty Money will release Ass on the Floor as the next single from their acclaimed debut album, Last Train to Paris. The Swizz Beats produced smash song has been an avid favourite amongst fans, radio listeners and partygoers the world over and will be released in the UK on 18th April.

Sampling Major Lazer’s‘Pon De Floor, Ass on the Floor is a bubbling, feel good number, vocally led by Dirty Money song birds Kalenna and Dawn, choral chants from Swizz Beats with a single, emotive rap verse from Diddy who croons: “How could you ever doubt me?/ when I stood by you proudly/  I would have gave my last breath/ now you can’t breathe without me.”

Diddy-Dirty Money comprises of Combs, singer songwriter Dawn Richard, a founding member of girl group Danity Kane, and songwriter Kalenna Harper.

On Ass On The Floor the trio dish up a stunning,  infectious and massive track that is equally suited to radio airplay as it is on the club scene, a floor filler wherever you may be. It is already a massive hit on YouTube, clicking up over 1,750,000 hits in three months. It is going to be a monster hit.

Diddy-Dirty Money – Ass On The Floor

Diddy-Dirty Money’s last single, Coming Home sustained a top 10 UK chart position for 4 weeks and continues to ride the official UK singles chart.

An electro hip-hop soul funk experience blending elements of UK grime, Mediterranean techno and the 808s of American hip-hop, the Last Train To Paris album represents a sound Combs calls “train music,” new dance music for the new decade.  Along with T.I., the album features an array of mega music stars including Lil Wayne, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Drake, Chris Brown, Grace Jones, Trey Songz and Bilal.  Among the illustrious roster of producers are Danja, Polow Da Don, Sean Garrett, Tricky Stewart, The Dream, Swizz Beats, Rodney Jerkins, D’Mile and Mario Winans.

Having established themselves on the smaller festival’s circuit during 2010, appreciation of the album, Another Good Reason has gradually become more widespread.

The single Rain is a wonderful jazzy, Latin influenced track, funky and uplifting the track features the laid back vocals that have drawn comparisons in the past to Jack Johnson.

Robin Groucutt and Dan Haynes have developed a brilliantly tight sound on this track,  flashes of Steely Dan at their smoothest, springing to mind it really is a brilliant single.

A real track for the summer, Rain is released on March 14th.

Here is video clip of Groucutt & Haynes performing a quite different unplugged version of the track Rain, recorded during rehearsals.

For further information visit the Groucutt & Haynes MySpace.

Jim Kroft new single ‘Memoirs From The Afterlife’

Jim Kroft is an independent artist living in Berlin who will be releasing his new single ‘Memoirs From The Afterlife’ on 21st February 2011 on Jacklope Records.

To coincide with the release Jim is giving away the b-side to the single for free and has made an accompanying video that documents a month in Jim’s life in Berlin from rehearsing, to recording tracks in Urchin Studios in London to producing his single artwork at Sunst Studios in Berlin and a live performance.

Cracked Polaroids Free Download

As a singer-songwriter Jim Kroft chronicles life in the 21st century and the adventures of his own spirit. Widely unknown in Europe, he considers himself in exile from the UK. His new song ‘Memoirs from the Afterlife’ attempts to portray the shifting realities facing modern man.

The song posits that in the myriad of uncertainties, the polarization of ideas and the morphing of cultures, understanding can only come through acquiescence before the great tide of things.

‘Memoirs From The Afterlife‘ was produced by Laura Marling drummer Matt Ingram and was one of the last tracks to be mixed at Ray Davies´s famed Konk Studios by Richard Wilkinson.

The new single will be Fragile promises to provide the electronic duo with another hit single and is already gaining interest from radio stations across the UK.

Featuring stunning female vocals over intense electro beats and swirling cinematic melodies, Fragile finds the band continuing where the album Helium left off, appealing to a diverse audience that encompasses radio stations Kiss FM, XFM, Radio 1  and Radio 2.

Urban Myth Club’s Mark Desvaux says, “It’s fantastic that our music has such wide appeal. I remember getting two bizarre emails a few hours apart – one was from a top DJ in Ibiza saying that one of our tracks was going down a storm during his sunset set, whilst a presenter on Classic FM said they were going to play another on their evening show. That same week, other tracks were being played by Rob da Bank on Radio 1 and Bob Harris on Radio 2.”

Music that breaks down barriers may not have been on Urban Myth Club’s original agenda but it appears to be exactly what they are producing with devoted fans from all areas of muical genres.

Urban Myth Club’s debut album was the biggest seller at The Big Chill following their live performance, whilst fans fell in love with them during their three Glastonbury appearances and other festivals including Glade and The Secret Garden Party.

The duo are now set to promote the album launch of ‘Open Up’ with a number of live shows and DJ sets in the spring, followed by festival appearances.

Urban Myth Club – Fragile

For further information visit the Urban Myth Club website.

Comprising Dan Steer, vocals, guitar and keyboard, guitarist Max Armstrong, bass player Sam Banks and drummer Chris Prentice, The Quails have been kicking up a storm on the live circuit with their taste for dynamic performances coupled with a tight and cohesive end product.

Having released their debut album in 2009, earning them a place as support of local boys Muse on their Resistance Tour, The Quails have put a shed load of live performances under their belts, with twenty festival appearances in 2010 alone.

In June 2010 they gave such an impressive performance at Gold Coast Ocean Fest that the organisers said they were the best band of the festival, while at Glastonbury last summer The Quails were booked for one gig, but ended up playing 4, including being asked to take to the stage at the last minute to a capacity crowd when a well known band failed to show.  They rocked and the band has already been booked again for this year!

2010 also saw the band earn themselves plenty of radio support from national and regional stations, including a live session on the Janice Long Radio 2 show and also BFBS Radio.

This year looks set to follow a similar pattern for The Quails, they have of course already been invited back to Glastonbury as well as the Exmouth, Bow and Corris festivals, with more yet to be confirmed. They will also undertake an extensive UK tour with details to be released soon.

Games with the Devil typifies The Quails punchy pop rock sound, melodic and catchy with a bit of an edge played with the confidence and fire of a band on the verge of going places.

It brings to mind the early music of Razorlight but also reminds me more than a little of Dirty Pretty Things, on steroids perhaps, it is that sort of catchy melodic pop.

There is no video available to accompany the single, but here is a live clip of The Quails performing Another World.

See The Quails at their best, live at

The Lemongrove, Exeter University with support from Girl Friday and Microlight

25^th February

Tickets £5 from www.exeterboxoffice.com and £6 on the door.

The Quails single Games with the Devil is released on March 7th.