The Smoking Hearts

The Smoking Hearts have stormed out of rural England, unleashing a whirlwind combination of relentless punk rock and cutting rock’n’roll.

With debut album ‘Pride Of Nowhere’, the band deftly call upon their arsenal of screaming vocals, ruthless guitars and thunderous beats. The resulting effect is 13 ferocious blasts that shout out loud “be who you want to be”. ‘Pride Of Nowhere’ is a record full of anger and frustration at a world that demands conformity and mindless ritual. It tells the story of five reprobates who like to have fun, rock out, and have a good time all the time. Taking digs at the common work environment “we hope you all choke on your nine to five”, and former loves “looks like The Ritz but she’s The Bates Motel”, The Smoking Hearts also highlight their philosophies of life with lyrics like “We’ll raise a toast to the ones that hate us most”.

Recorded on a farm in Bedfordshire with Nick Mailing (Quireboys/Trashlight Vision) and Mastered by Russ Russell (Napalm Death/The Wildhearts) over the course of just 14 days (and nights), this 13 song opus clocks in at a frantic 29 minutes and 25 seconds.

“It’s about doing what you want and not taking shit for doing so” says Bassist Calvin. “So many people are happy to live their lives without ever stopping to consider whether they are doing what they really want to do, or if they are just content to become their parents and grow old gracefully. Fuck that.”

Graceful is definitely not a word to describe The Smoking Hearts. Live shows have seen guitar headstocks smashed and drum kits sprawled across stages. It is not uncommon to find half the band on the floor with the crowd and, on occasion, half the crowd on stage with the band.

In their short career as a band, The Smoking Hearts have travelled thousands of miles, opening shows for the likes of Gallows, Bring Me The Horizon, Winnebago Deal and The Supersuckers, as well as some iconic acts such as Misfits and Skid Row.

Let’s Go To War

In the not too distant past… Peter-John got evicted from his Toronto apartment and landed on the couch of producer DJ Cirkut. Armed with his guitar, backpack and skateboard, it was here that the first chapter of Let’s Go To War was written.  After weeks of saying, “we should hook up and work on some tracks”, they finally collaborated and wrote a handful of songs in a matter of days, which resulted in a creative experience sweeter than a mouthful of cotton candy.  ‘Life We Live’ is the hedonistic club anthem that will bring any party to a climax.

The combination of the band’s influences and shared musical sensibilities gave birth to a unique sound not easy to classify by even the most outspoken of music bloggers. Citing Bob Dylan, Outkast, Daft Punk, Alan Parsons Project, Herbie Hancock and Jay-Z as inspiration, the band was galvanized into refusing to be pigeonholed. It is this unwillingness to compromise their music or pacify the pimps of the genre biz that finally evoked the freedom cry, “Let’s Go To War”. It is reactionary. It is your revolution invitation delivered to your door courtesy of groove freedom fighters, LGTW, who are only willing to describe their music as “digital confusion”.

LGTW are a virtual Jackson Pollock of multiculturalism. Their backgrounds are a colorful canvas of Jamaican, Irish and Welsh. To them, as in life, the boundaries that delineate genre and sound have become blurred and obscured. Hip-Hop, Electro, Reggae and Folk have all been blended into a potent hybrid that takes a little essence from each style of music and crosses and cultivates it into something new and exotic. It is on this fertile field that LGTW breathes easily and runs freely outside the confines of characterization and comparison.

With production for Britney Spears and remixes for The Music, The Whip and The Carps (to name a few) already under their belt, Let’s Go To War release their debut album in 2010 and are poised to take over minds and bodies quicker than L. Ron Hubbard (without firing a shot!). Let’s Go To War. Call it Electro, call it Punk, call it Hip Hop, call it Crunk. It don’t matter, because it ain’t callin’ you in the morning! So push your indie bangs out from your face, tie up dem dreads and DANCE!

About Last Gang: LGTW marks the first European self release of a label that has become synonymous with the most ground breaking electronic influenced North American artists who made it big in the UK: Metric, Death From Above 1979, MSTKRFT and Crystal Castles had all been licensed out to European labels, now LAST GANG are taking things into their own hands!

Noisia

“Dutch masters Noisia show their production expertise with a hard hitting smash. Watch out for Noisia in 2010.” Chase&Status

“Noisia come with the precision tuned aural assault, one of the greatest production outfits of our time.” Andy C

Noisia have undoubtedly created a cult following in recent years thanks to: underground hits like ‘The Tide’, ‘Gutterpump’ and ‘Exodus’ – various high profile remixes for the likes of Moby and The Prodigy – a critically acclaimed mix compilation for Fabric – and a DJ-ing schedule that makes you feel tired just looking at it! That following is expected to multiply in 2010 as the outfit release their debut long-player ‘Split The Atom’.

Widely known and acclaimed for their drum&bass prowess, the 128 bpm track ‘Machine Gun’ may come as a surprise to some, not so much a pleasant surprise, more like a surprise that will make you jump! ‘Machine Gun’ is a veritable aural attack, guaranteed to blow you away. From the anthemic introduction to the explosive drop, ‘Machine Gun’ is 4 minutes and 8 seconds of speaker ripping, beat heavy bliss that will more than whet your appetite for their ‘Split The Atom’ long-player.

Sub Focus

It all started with a demo CD being passed on by a friend to the biggest drum and bass DJ in the world, Ram Records’ boss Andy C in 2003, with a phone number badly scribbled on the cover.

Impressed by the quality of the production, Andy, after a few tries, managed to dial the right digits and talk to Subfocus. The result of that conversation was the release of ‘Down The Drain’ on Andy C and Red One’s experimental offshoot Frequency in 2003, and the start of Subfocus’ meteoric rise to fame in drum and bass circles.

Followed a couple of 12s on Frequency and Infrared, as eagerly received on dancefloors, and his exclusive signing and first contribution to Ram in 2004, ‘Strobe’, one of the highlights of the Ram Raiders 6 EP.

His first 12 on Ram was another major step forward. ‘X Ray’, out in spring 2005 and described as ‘Zombie Nation remade by Seattle grungers’,  became one of the year’s anthems, enjoyed the rare privilege of being chosen as ‘Single Of The Week’ on alternative tastemaker Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show and even got some daytime plays. He was consequently asked to remix The Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ for their Greatest Hits package.

Subfocus released one more single in 2005, the awesome ‘Frozen Solid’, while enjoying a busy DJ schedule. Kick-starting 2006 with an impressive remix of Dr Octagon out-there ‘Aliens’, Subfocus unleashed another killer track ‘Airplane’. The track’s gigantic synths and vocal hooks gave it the same irresistible appeal as ‘X Ray’. The follow-up, ‘Special Place’ was released late February 2007, and described as no less than ‘Modern Art’ by DJ magazine.

2007 was spent DJing all over the world and starting work on a debut album, with a single ‘Timewarp’ as a taster in spring 2008. After months of dancefloor madness, this uncompromising track managed to get exposure on daytime Radio 1, even scooping the ‘single of the week’ slot on Nihal’s afternoon show. In 2009 Subfocus completed his debut album. A single, featuring ‘Rock It’ and Zane Lowe’s favourite ‘Follow The Light’ preceded the LP release.

So what makes Subfocus so special? Passionate about music from an early age, Subfocus played bass in a band at school, before sitting in front of an old Acorn Electron computer at 13 teaching himself the art of sampling and producing. He went on to study acoustics at college. This eclectic formation, allied with an insatiable musical curiosity, with interest ranging from rock to experimental electronic music – happily discussing Vangelis, Nirvana, Gorgio Moroder and Justice in the same breath – explains how Subfocus production manages to sound pristine, unique and strangely accessible.

Motion Picture Soundtrack

Based in Kent, at the heart of the garden of England, Motion Picture Soundtrack deftly weave engaging lyrics and powerful moving melodies into their deep, dark rock tapestry. At times gentle, at others fiercely driven, the result is uplifting, yet realistic, euphoric and beautiful.

Honing their craft for several months with producers Hugh Jones (Echo and the Bunnymen, I am Kloot) and Dan Austin (Doves, Massive Attack, Oceansize) subsequently paving the way for industry heavyweights Paul Schroeder (The Stone Roses, The Verve), Cenzo Townshend (Editors, Bloc Party, Klaxons) and Bob Ludwig (RATM, Radiohead, Tool…) to take the reins and commit the band’s sonic theatrics perfectly to record. Single ‘Glass Figures’ features a thunderous, engaging, Jeff Buckley/Editors-esque crossover that comes at you ‘like a shower of knives’. The track, one of the more heavy outings from the album sees Motion Picture Soundtrack once again assert themselves as not only masters of the crescendo but excellent at uniting thoughtful tender moments with out and out crushing rock. The manifesto is simple – to create music to move the listener. It’s intricate – but under the band’s complete control – and made to seem effortless.

The sonic swirling of their sound draws a definitive line between the patient, brooding and stylistic MPS – a band with real staying power – and the countless fly by night acts that clog up much of the community. With people across the UK taking a deeper interest in their work and an ever-increasing number of fans discovering the power of the live show, they are truly a band to connect with. The coming year could well be theirs.