Le Bataillon des Fous (“The Fools’ Batallion”) takes me back to the eighties to the echoing rooms and the later new wave scene. I hear Echo & the Bunnymen, Waterboys, but with an elegance that could have come from Roxy Music.

The band was formed in 2005 and has since then passed through some transformations both when it comes to the members and to the music. The debut album “In The Name of The Unknown God” was released this year and is a praise to Dionysos, god of wine, music, theatre, ecstasy and excess.

You can find Le Bataillon de Fous on their site and on Facebook. You can listen to the album on Spotify.

I Am Ready to Love You

I Am Ready to Love You:

LCTRISC call their music “Maximal”, which is explained as: “A crazy fusion dance music and garage noise. Guitar riffs cut into pieces in symbiosis with cheap drum samples and midi synths. And a banana shaker.”

Lenny and Leslie form the duo LCTRISC and have found their own way of mixing electronica with rock vibes, crazy playfulness, hooky guitar and synth figures and heavy beats.

“Last Kiss” is their new single, here below also as a video (by Johan Stolpe), a video that won an award recently at Dalarnas Film Festival.

You can follow LCTRISC on Facebook and on Myspace. Here are two tracks:

Last Kiss
Reach the Children (Book of Doom)

Last Kiss:

___________________________________

Update 18/11

LCTRISC has recently signed with the excellent label Despotz Records, and they will release a remastered version of “Last Kiss” as a first single. I have therefore removed the “Last Kiss”-track for now.
The song is available, though, on a limited vinyl edition.

“Things to Do” is the debut EP from Kate and After. I wrote about them in January and it’s obvious that a lot has happened since then.

They called in Henryk Lipp as the producer to the EP and together they have created a new sound for the band. It’s more energetic and heavy while the hammond has found it’s right place and adds a nice retro luster to their indie rock/pop. The vocals are dubbed, more edgy and brings an up-to-date feeling of the sound. Well, it feels like the entire band has stepped forward and demands more space.

You can listen to two of the songs from “Things to Do” here below. On their site you can listen more and also download the EP. It’s also available on Spotify.

Me, Myself and I
The Pretender

Some claim that Magna Carta Cartel sounds like music for movies that haven’t been made yet. And I have to agree with that. That is how it feels when they change scenes from one song to another. And the music gets that little extra touch when that idea sticks in my mind.

Their debut album “Goodmorning Restrained” was released last year. Half of the tracks are instrumental and the others contain vocals. Thematic songs, pop and rock lays the foundation, powerful, dramatic and impeccable, almost perfectionistic. The vocals are laidback and dubbed in a style you often hear in electronica, which also makes the vocal songs feel more uniform than the  mood-shifting instrumental tracks.

You can download the entire album “Goodmorning Restrained” on Sounds of Zilence and you can meet the band on Facebook or on Myspace.

Metropolis Flow
So Long

Simon Johansson is Garbled Waves. He decided to combine his two earlier projects, Okomfortabelt and Hardstroke into one. As the names may hint, the first project had Swedish lyrics and the second one English lyrics.

Musically it’s about electronica in the first place. Electronica combined with a large dose of rock, good pop melodies and nice dynamics. It’s dark and grand and with special vocals, more downmixed than usual, but that fit perfectly in these songs, brilliantly so in a song like Schizophrenia.

You can meet Garbled Waves on Facebook where you can listen to more songs. Here are two tracks:

Schizophrenia
Someone Shoot Me