My pal Pete Beat has just remixed Mammal Club‘s magnificent “Put Your Fears In Order.” Download it via Soundcloud here:

Mammal Club – Put Your Fears In Order (Pete Beat Remix) by Pete Beat

I recently interviewed frontman Wilson Astley for a New Blood feature in Artrocker. keep your eyes peeled for it in the next couple of months.

Can’t wait to get hold of a copy of the new Maximo Park Quicken The Heart Remixed LP? Then get a load of this. It’s Mammal Club‘s rather brilliant reworking of “Calm.” Fantastic stuff:

Calm – Mammal Club remix by Mammal Club

Download this explosive track from recent Sub Pop signings Male Bonding:

Male Bonding – Year’s Not Long mp3

The boys play The Head Of Steam tonight.

Check out their MySpace page here:

http://www.myspace.com/malebonding

The latest moniker of former Ghosthustler Alan Palomo, Neon Indian specializes in shimmering blog-age pyschedelia built around dusty field recordings, scratched samples and squelchy synths. With an immediacy fuelled by the Texas-based composer’s self-imposed rule to never spend more than two days on a track, debut album Pychic Chasms is a blissful barrage of aching electronica and tripped-out acid-pop.

Download the mighty “Should Have Taken Acid With You” here:

Neon Indian – Should Have Taken Acid With You mp3

Check out Neon Indian on MySpace here:

http://www.myspace.com/neonindian

Grabbing at the girl-punk coattails of Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts, recent Sub Pop signings Dum Dum Girls let fly with a distortion-heavy rush of overdriven Spectorsound on their debut album, I Will Be. Produced by bubblegum legend Richard Gottehrer (Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Blondie, Go-Gos, The Raveonettes) it cruises effortlessly alongside the fuzz-drenched melodies of The Jesus & Mary Chain and New Yorkers The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and The Vandelles.  Lifting their moniker from an Iggy Pop track (“Dum Dum Boys”), the LA-based Dum Dum Girls deliver switchblade-sharp indie-pop shrouded in a fug of Fun House fizz.

Download “Jail La La” here:

Dum Dum Girls – Jail La La MP3

Check out the band on MySpace here:

http://www.myspace.com/dumdumgirls

Hewn from the same psychedelic Welsh stone as fellow countrymen Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Cardiff’s Race Horses deliver wonderfully tongue-in-cheek acid-rock that kicks back against the UK’s synth-fuelled mainstream. Marrying the cracked madness of post-Pink Floyd Syd Barrett with the lysergic bubblegum of late sixties Hollies, the band’s debut album Goodbye Falkenburg is a wildly varied slice of swirling psych-pop that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Have a listen to the hilariously off-kilter psych-pop of “Cake” here:

RaceHorses-Cake.mp3

The band play The Other Rooms in Newcastle on April 16.

Check out their MySpace page:

http://www.myspace.com/racehorsesmusic

A self-styled coming of age acid trip with climaxes and comedowns aplenty, the debut album from Sacramento-based outfit Ganglians is an unashamedly dishevelled blast of tripped-out pysch-folk laden with lush Pet Sounds harmonies. Released in the US via Brooklyn’s Woodsit Records (the label responsible for recent classics by Kurt Vile, Wavves and Vivian Girls), Monster Head Room is a mind-warping set of woody lysergic rock. The album lands in the UK on May 10th via Berlin’s Souterrain Transmissions.

Check out the band’s MySpace page here:

http://www.myspace.com/ganglian

My Greek mythology may be a little sketchy but even I know the story of Achilles. A hero of the Trojan War, he was made near-immortal when Thetis dipped him in the River Styx, leaving his heel as his only vulnerability. He’s been mentioned countless times in popular music, most notably in the title of Led Zeppelin‘s apocalyptic masterpiece “Achilles’ Last Stand,” and has now found its way into the moniker of Tyneside’s finest new indie-synth outfit.

Layering a classic alt-rock melody over off-beat synthesized sounds reminiscent of MGMT, Passion Pit and Thin White Duke-era Bowie, Air To Achilles‘ recent demo “If My Heart Stops Beating” is a startling slice of neo-electro-rock. Listen to it here:

Air To Achilles – If My Heart Stops Beating MP3

The band play The Head Of Steam on Thursday (February 25). Apparently, when they supported Burn The Negative last month the PA blew up so expect a bit of excitement.

Tyneside newcomers Matadors have been on pretty regular rotation on my whey-aye phone since a couple of their demos landed in my inbox a week or so ago. Rough around the edges they may be, but the Heaton-based four-piece display a genuine gift for melody that puts many of their more experienced contemporaries to shame.

Here’s the blurb about them from their MySpace page:

“Matadors are an English Alt rock band from Heaton, a suburb of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. They formed in late 2009 and the band currently consists of Alex Blamire (lead vocals, guitar), Joe Sowter (guitar), Liam Clarke (bass guitar) and Joss Elder (drums, backing vocals). The band currently attend Heaton Manor School, where they first got together to play at the local band night. In Late 2009 they wrote and recorded a demo CD. The band are now playing a few local gigs in the Newcastle and Gateshead area.”

Matadors play the O2 Academy 2 in Newcastle on February 27.

Listen to the rather impressive ‘Worst Thing’ here:

Matadors – Worst Thing (live) MP3

Ubiquitous in this year’s One’s To Watch lists, New York City-based outfit The Drums fuse the rain-soaked monochrome of late eighties Manchester with the sunkissed pop of California to startling effect on their debut EP. Dazed & Confused said Summertime! ‘took the Sun Records blueprint, added some parochial wit and peppered it with flashes of synth pathos’ which sounds pretty much bang on to me. Look out for their debut full-length later this year.

Download ‘I Felt Stupid’ here:

The Drums – I Felt Stupid MP3