Month: February 2011

British trio White Lies—guitarist/vocalist Harry McVeigh, bassist Charles Cave and drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown—just released Ritual (Geffen/Fiction), which follows up To Lose My Life…, the band’s commercially successful 2009 debut. The 10-track sophomore LP was co-produced by Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, Killers) and was written over a five-week period when White Lies wasn’t crisscrossing the globe in support of its first album. Though McVeigh, Cave and Lawrence-Brown are all barely old enough to drink legally in the U.S., the threesome has been playing together as a band since their mid-teens, first as Fear Of Flying, which released two singles produced by Stephen Street (Smiths, Blur), and then under the White Lies moniker. The trio will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with them.

Lawrence-Brown: My favorite musical discovery over the course of the last 3 or 4 years has been that of Blonde Redhead. Specifically the discovery of their last three albums, Misery Is A Butterfly, 23 and Penny Sparkle. The progression in sound over these last three albums has been nothing short of amazing. On 23, their ability to blend massively distorted guitars with sugary melodies put them somewhere close to My Bloody Valentine sonically. But then their follow up, last year’s Penny Sparkle, rejected that sound for a much more minimal, icy electronic sound. For me, they are one of the few mysterious current bands. I genuinely have no idea what their next record will sound like or what direction they’ll take, and to me, as a fan, that is really exciting. On top of this, they are one of the best live acts I can remember seeing. I saw them last autumn at The Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London and was blown away. They are three excellent musicians, and they pull off the hardest trick in the book: making an incredible recorded sound sound even better on the live stage. White Lies are preparing to play two nights at The Shepherd’s Bush Empire in February, and that Blonde Redhead show is currently the high watermark.

British trio White Lies—guitarist/vocalist Harry McVeigh, bassist Charles Cave and drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown—just released Ritual (Geffen/Fiction), which follows up To Lose My Life…, the band’s commercially successful 2009 debut. The 10-track sophomore LP was co-produced by Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, Killers) and was written over a five-week period when White Lies wasn’t crisscrossing the globe in support of its first album. Though McVeigh, Cave and Lawrence-Brown are all barely old enough to drink legally in the U.S., the threesome has been playing together as a band since their mid-teens, first as Fear Of Flying, which released two singles produced by Stephen Street (Smiths, Blur), and then under the White Lies moniker. The trio will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with them.

Lawrence-Brown: Last year, there was a massive public outcry when spending cuts at the BBC threatened to close down BBC 6 Music, a digital-only radio station that specialized in, well, nearly every genre of music under the sun. Luckily, pretty much every musician in the country got involved, and the BBC trust was convinced of the station’s worth. This was a massive result, not just for the station itself and the listeners, but also for broadcasting in general and new artists and bands everywhere. I have never come across a station with such a fantastic range of presenters and variety of shows. The station does have a playlist of new or current music, but it is so loosely adhered to that you always guarantee hearing a track you haven’t heard in years (or maybe ever) every half hour or so. Presenters in recent memory have included Jarvis Cocker, Guy Garvey from Elbow (who has his own weekly show), Arcade Fire and the National. My personal favorite show is Don Letts’ Culture Clash Radio, which plays the broadest spectrum of music I have ever heard within a one-hour time slot. As well as brilliantly diverse mix of hosts and presenters, the station also broadcasts some excellent documentaries on the careers of some of the past 50 years’ most important artists. Fans of Roxy Music should look up the recent documentary on their career. Every now and then, they will even play out an old John Peel session or a full live concert dug up from the BBC archives. It is everything an alternative radio station should be—and then some more—and I couldn’t be happier that it avoided the spending cuts. It’s the reason I pay my license fee.