Never Mind The Ting Tings Here's Modernaire

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Why don’t you give me a taste? Why don’t you give me a taste?

You know how every so often you stumble onto a song and you realise that either you’ve caught on to it really late or you’ve just found the song that’s destined to be all over the airwaves later? I remember the thrill of the early listens to Radio Soulwax, Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy and Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. And as in all those cases this is something that’s excellently produced and in a soulwax way got more than a hint of dirty electro around it.

I’m asking. Yours for the asking.

Well, that’s The Modernaire’s Taste this year – almost certainly. Well, at least if not they should be justifiably upset. And their lyrics mean they seem pretty much at home on Brainlove, maybe not as overtly disatisfied and political as Napoleon IIIrd or Pagan Wanderer Lu but still in the same zone. And what evokes dystopia better than a dirty synth line?

You were happy to dance all night
But you wouldn’t move any closer
You said you wanted to go for a drink
But you only ordered a cola

Obviously if you wanna hear for yourself you’ll either need EDIT, ta Tom, I’m a fool! go to their myspace or better yet grab Taste as an mp3 for 99p from their other label Jackdaw or on emusic, itunes (spit) or in reality. Brainlove deserve your support cos they are awesome. But if you just want to hear something then you can just go here and grab Rain which bemoans living in rainy northern towns.

My shoes are always leaking cos of shoddy workmanship

Roll on Brainlove All Dayer #2 (knew I should have gone last year, foolishly didn’t – I could have seen Fuck Buttons).

I should also point out that the EP is split with another band, Friends of The Bride but their Divine Comedy like stuff hasn’t hit a chord with me as yet, when/if it does they’ll get their post on here.

Us naughty Scots, how dare we…

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Many’s the day I sat and chuckled with my Scottish mates back hame and laughed heartily at the deprivation we were forcing on poor Londoners by daring to be Scottish and hoping that investment from elsewhere in the union might raise the standard of living. Alas, I’ve now given in, headed south and I’m delighted that at least unlike the Eastern European migrants I don’t have to bother working hard to send money home cos the government does it for me. Perhaps that’s the benefit of being in the same union, if not nation.

Of course, the actual figures are somewhat interesting, but I don’t think London suffers for investment much, certainly not just now. And, the way things are going (with voters favouring independence) we’re probably well on the way to a federal UK. Which may actually be just what Salmond and SNP want:

The SNP is now urging Scots to move to the next level – full political independence. They seem to be nibbling, but there is a studied vagueness about exactly what full-scale independence would actually mean. The SNP propose to remain within the EU, retain the Queen as head of state, and keep sterling as Scotland’s currency, at least for the time being. This looks more like federalism, or perhaps confederalism than old-style 19th century nation-state nationalism. It could even be a form of “devolution max” that is being proposed by the Liberal Democrats.

Iain Macwhirter, The Guardian.

I’m not sure what exactly English Nationalists stand for, and I’ve never seen the SNP campaign in such a racist fashion, nor would I ever expect them to. I’ll voting Green first and Ken (Labour, natch) second come the election anyway.

Ironically, also years of the union hasn’t helped raise living standards much (as Macwhirter points out something like 500,000 poorly paid working class folk are going to lose out from the 10p tax rate), Scotland really needs quite substantial change much as London did, which Ken has delivered, but which can only happen with a government which, to an extent antagonises, and much more importantly challenges those in Westminster and takes advantage of what power it does have.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to Google the Commission For Racial Equality’s phone number.