Snipe’s music editor John Rogers has started hosting a monthly radio show on DIY Radio. This episode features an interview with former Snipe cover star David Thomas Broughton and tracks by lots of bands that have featured in the mag and on Daily MPfree over the last few months. Enjoy!

By Snipe Music Team
12:54 PM

Danish solo artist The Malpractice makes electronic popSLASHrock with flickers of influence from as far and wide as Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More, Hot Chip and Enon. Boss Stallion is one of the more “pop” numbers from his fantastic debut “Tectonics”, out Feb 13th on Crunchy Frog. Catch him live at Crunchy Club at Camden’s Wheelbarrow on March 8th, with labelmates Snake and Jets Amazing Bullit Band.

By John Rogers
4:48 PM

Video LDN is the daily video of London. Please give us your suggestions here.

By John Rogers
5:11 PM

Giana Factory played at Nordic music night Ja Ja Ja at The Lexington. Photos: Sebastien Dehesdin.

By John Rogers
1:06 PM

Not much to go on with this guy – his website’s currently under construction. From what we can gather he’s a songwriter living in Brooklyn and his debut EP is pencilled in for a spring release. Today’s MPFree is the enjoyably diverting title track, ‘inspired in equal parts by the early songs of Cliff Richard and the novels of Jim Thompson’.

The Underground Man – Knows Me Better by snipelondon

By Tom Jenkins
4:32 PM

Stuck for summat to do? Here are two cool things that are going on this eve in LDN town.

The brilliant young Danish trio pictured above, Giana Factory, are playing the Lexington tonight. Elements of Chicks on Speed, Telepathe and creative alt-rock influences combine into a band that is just teeming with potential.

And before that at Beach on Cheshire Street (just off Brick Lane), Velvet Cell launch “Psychic Hearts”, a book of dreamy, textured, evocative pictures by emerging photographer and music industry insider Sandra Croft. Buy it for £11 here.

By John Rogers
3:02 PM

Napoleon IIIrd has taken the epic pop of Tapio and Matti’s original and imbibed it with a certain thump. The Finnish duo, otherwise known as Zebra and Snake, release their debut EP, also named Sweetest Treasure, February 27th. Debut album Healing Music hits the shops in the spring. Catch them at the Bull and Gate February 22nd, the Queen of Hoxton on the 23rd and The Nest on the 24th.

Zebra and Snake – Sweetest Treasure (Napoleon IIIrd NXVI mix) by snipelondon

By Tom Jenkins
12:53 PM

Originally hailing from Athens, Georgia, pacificUV’s sound is one very much enthral to distinctly European influences – the blippy pace of Kraut Rock, the inherent melodic warmth of early 80s British synth-pop (especially on today’s MPFree). The duo’s debut album was described by Rolling Stone as a ‘masterpiece’; new album Weekends, released January 31st, looks set to garner similar accolades. Exciting stuff.

pacificUV – Funny Girl by snipelondon

By Tom Jenkins
1:42 PM

The process of writing an album can be a cathartic and therapeutic experience. The problem is, once those emotions are committed to tape, exorcised if you like, one then has to spend the next year talking about them to irritating music journalists. One such irritant, i.e. me, is currently debating this unfortunate conundrum with Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards.

‘Albums, all albums I suppose, are snapshots of a few years of a life’ she says. ‘I’ve had some joyous experiences but also some really painful ones. I’ve experienced redemption, felt elated, renewed…I feel like a new person. It’s hard to then go back and dissect those feelings’.

We’re discussing Edwards’ new album Voyageur, her fourth and the follow-up to 2008’s acclaimed, Polaris Prize nominated, Asking for Flowers. It appears, after repeated listens, to be an album of transition. Relationships, old and failed, new and liberating, are alluded to. One gets the feeling Edwards has started something of a second life recently. Excitement, albeit with a hint of nerves, peppers her speech when she talks about it.

‘It’s my best work, the music I love’ she says. ‘It’s lived up to my expectations. After the last record I felt I’d fallen into a certain pattern of songwriting. With Voyageur I feel I’ve accomplished something different’.

Accomplishing something different involved sharing writing duties for the first time, primarily with John Roderick of The Long Winters. Edwards spent several weeks demoing songs with Roderick in Seattle, a process she found ‘pretty scary…pretty uncomfortable’, at least at first. ‘Playing these half-finished songs to somebody when you don’t even know if they’re any good…ultimately I’m not much of a co-writer. I don’t want it to turn into a session of parliament you know? But I wanted a different end-place, a different end result’.

That leap of faith appears to have paid off. Voyageur has been garnering rave reviews pretty much across the board. It features a host of collaborators including Norah Jones, Stornoway and Francis and the Lights. The legendary Linda Rondstadt was even muted at one point, ‘but it didn’t work out…she would have been amazing’, sighs Edwards.

In a recent interview, Edwards’ current beau and Voyageur co-producer Justin Vernon of Bon Iver expressed his desire to see her step out of the boxes into which she’s been placed. ‘The whole Canadian Americana thing…I have no control over labels’ she says. ‘I wanted to make a record about who I am as an artist. I’m starting rehearsals with my band tomorrow then we’ll be playing these songs for the next six months. I can’t really think about anything else’.

Voyageur is out now on Rounder Records

By Tom Jenkins
4:36 PM

Here’s another beautifully warm pop song from AM & Shawn Lee‘s highly accomplished collaborative album, “Celestial Electric”. Catch a rare live outing at Rough Trade East on Feb 6th.

Video LDN is the daily video of London. Please give us your suggestions here.

By John Rogers
12:11 PM