Barclaycard Mercury Prize Recommends brings you some of the week's most interesting online music from around the world...
More fresh listening suggestions from Recommends this week, kicking off with tracks from David Lynch & Lykke Li, Marika Hackman and TOY & Bat For Lashes. Videos from Edwyn Collins, Steve Mason and Frameworks all feature and Sigur Rós, Swindle and Madlib in his Quasimoto guise all have excellent new albums streaming in their entirety around the web.
Tracks: TOY & Bat For Lashes, Marika Hackman, David Lynch & Lykke Li, Spectrals
Videos: Edwyn Collins, Joe Goddard, Steve Mason, Frameworks, Black Flag
Albums: Sigur Rós, Swindle, Quasimoto, Greg Haines
Live: Björk, Nick Mulvey, 65daysofstatic
Bastille
The Barclaycard Mercury Prize Sessions on Channel 4 continue next week with an appearance from Londoners Bastille. Tracks from their April gig at The Hospital Club, along with interview footage, will feature in the forthcoming TV show. Tune in to Channel 4 on Wednesday 19th June at 12.40am and keep up to date with Sessions at the Mercury Prize Facebook page.
Mindtunes
A fascinating project has proven it possible to create music by harnessing the power of the human brain. Using pioneering technology to transform brain activity and emotions into music, DJ Fresh and leading brainwave technology expert Julien Castet worked with three profoundly disabled music fans on a track. The incredible process, from getting to grips with the equipment to premiering the track in a club, has been captured by a short documentary.
TOY & Natasha Khan
The Bride
Speedy Wunderground
Speedy Wunderground, the label helmed by producer Dan Carey, sticks to its instantaneous ideals and releases another single recorded and mastered in less than a day. The latest track to emerge from Carey's South London studio started taking shape when the producer and TOY became obsessed with a song by Iranian singer Amir Rassaei. A visit from the Bat For Lashes singer gave them sufficient motivation to record their own version of Aroos Khanom, which appeared roughly five hours later as The Bride.
Marika Hackman
Bath Is Black
Hackman Remix
It'd be easy to associate Marika Hackman with the many young singer-songwriters who marry Folk's simplicity with the harmonic appeal of Pop and Indie, but there's a depth to the Brightonian's music that helps separate it from that of some of her peers. Bath Is Black is taken from That Iron Taste, an album she recorded with Alt-J producer Charlie Andrew, though she turns to her brother - the same Hackman who's been causing a stir with releases on PTN and Greco-Roman - for this electronic rework.
David Lynch & Lykke Li
I'm Waiting Here
Sunday Best
Legendary director David Lynch has been involved in making music almost as long as he has films, but it was only in 2011 that he made his first move as a solo artist proper with the release of Crazy Clown Time. His sophomore set, The Big Dream, arrives next month and builds on the ideas and emotions that helped shaped the debut. Working once again with engineer and musician Dean Hurley, the pair playing everything on the record with the exception of bonus track I'm Waiting Here which features the honied tones of Lykke Li.
Spectrals
A Heartbeat Behind
Wichita
Louis Jones started work on his lo-fi formula a few years ago, releasing a string of self-recorded 7" singles before joining Wild Beasts longtime producer Richard Formby in the studio for 2011's debut album Bad Penny. Next week Louis and his brother-come-bandmate Will release a new set, Sob Story, which tightens up the Spectrals sound but loses none of the excitement; the duo's touchstones of Doo Wop, Sixties Pop and Seventies songwriters like Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello are still very much at the fore.
Edwyn Collins
Too Bad (That's Sad)
Directed by Kieran Evans
There's more than a drop of Motown about Edwyn Collins' new single, and director Kieran Evans makes sure the link is not lost with the accompanying video. Stacks of singles, analogue gear and badges aplenty are all shot on gloriously fuzzy film and edited together with a nod to the spirit of the Sixties. Collins and his band - featuring former Sex Pistol Paul Cook - play The Hop Farm Festival next month and then visit Green Man Festival in August.
Joe Goddard feat. Mara Carlyle
She Burns
Directed by Soandsau
Mara Carlyle completes the leap from leftfield doyenne to dance floor diva with this music video, featuring a shiny dress and some clever ideas from behind the camera. As the singer lies inanimate a pair of mortuary technicians prepare her for her final send off, only for time to pause as Mara delivers each of her sultry and seductive lines from the bench. The track is taken from Goddard's Taking Over EP, which sees a full release this month.
Steve Mason
A Lot Of Love
Directed by Greg Davenport
Seldom a week passes without the media breaking a political scandal or uncovering the wrongdoings of a shamed MP, yet for all the frequency of such stories it's rare the public ever sees things from the other side of the camera. Steve Mason has never made a secret of his political standpoint, yet comes up on the side of the politicians in his new video for A Lot Of Love, a day-in-the-life style clip which follows a minister's very public breakdown.
Frameworks
Somehow
Kaleidoscope Orchestra Version
Manchester's thriving music scene is diverse, but if there was one common thread it's in the way many of the city's young musicians choose to reframe the traditional within a contemporary context. This collaboration between producer Matt Brewer (aka Frameworks) and the Kaleidoscope Orchestra is a fine example, as the classical ensemble - whose repertoire includes reworks of James Blake and Flux Pavilion - take on his beautiful track Somehow.
The Art of Punk: Black Flag
Directed by Bryan Ray Turcotte
This brilliant new documentary from Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art studies the visual element that was so integral to one of underground America's most influential groups, and features a rare interview with the artist responsible for Black Flag's unmistakable visual identity, Ray Pettibon. From the controversial flyers to the unmistakable four bar icon - perhaps one of music's most instantly recognisable - the short film covers a lot of ground.
Sigur Rós
Kveikur
XL Recordings
Many critics and fans saw the frozen beauty of Valtari as a highpoint for Sigur Rós, the album's harmonic perfection and artful ambience a culmination of their 15 year career. For the band themselves the set now seems to have marked the end of a chapter, as seventh album Kveikur couldn't be more removed from its predecessor. Now operating as a trio (founding member Kjartan Sveinsson left the band last year), Sigur Rós return reinvigorated, sounding darker, heavier and musically more direct than ever before.
Swindle
Long Live The Jazz
Deep Medi
A decade on from its inception and Dubstep has evolved so rapidly and in so many varied directions that to rely on a single catch-all categorisation now seems almost inappropriate. One producer who epitomises this creative expansion is Swindle, a young Londoner whose points of reference reach far beyond those traditionally linked with music operating around the 140 bpm mark. Elements of G Funk, Neo Soul and - as the title of this debut states - Jazz take pride of place in Swindle's club ready productions.
Quasimoto
Yessir Whatever
Stones Throw
Madlib's recorded output may well outweigh the entire back catalogues of any number of record labels, but despite the producers prolific presence over the past decade and a half, there's been a dearth of music from Quasimoto. Fans can now sate themselves with a brand new compilation of rare and unreleased tracks which not only sound unfeasibly fresh given some date back to 2000's game changing debut The Unseen, but also illustrate how important the reluctant Lord Quas has been in Hip Hop's ongoing renaissance.
Greg Haines
Where We Were
Denovali
All three of Greg Haines albums have offered the listener distinct worlds in which to immerse themselves, his continued growth as a composer informing each successive release. However for set number four Haines' whole practice has changed; the solemn strings have given way to tape-worn synthesisers and the tranquil air of previous albums is consumed by a rhythmical charge. Perhaps the most notable difference is that rather than writing for ensembles Where We Were is Haines first entirely personal work.
Björk
Alexandra Palace, London
Tuesday 3rd Sept
After premiering to huge acclaim at the last Manchester International Festival, Björk's Biophilia live show is now set to make its much-anticipated debut in the Capital. The show, which features gravity harps, Tesla coils and narration from David Attenborough, will be performed in the round at Alexandra Palace. It's the first time such a show has taken place in the London venue, and will surely count amongst the most talked about events of the year.
Nick Mulvey
The Social, London
Tuesday 24th March
After Nick Mulvey parted ways with Portico Quartet the band started to explore an electronic sound quite separate from their earlier work, lately arriving at their genre-defying eponymous third album. Mulvey's own musical journey took an even greater tangent after he hung up the hang, returning his focus to his first love of songwriting. He celebrates the release of a new EP on Communion with a series of London shows, including a spot at The Social.
65daysofstatic
Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
Thursday 29th August
Sheffield's most sonorous have been out of the frame for the last couple of years, but their legions of loyal fans will be delighted to hear that not only have the band finished recording a new album but have also scheduled a September tour. The spree is preceded by a headline show at Bristol's ArcTangent Festival in August, which itself follows a special warm-up show at one of Birmingham's best loved live music venues, The Hare & Hounds.