you may or may not know that moon safari by air is my favourite album of all time. it is the perfect album for absolutely anytime of the year. it’s an obvious choice for a summer’s day with it’s dreamy magical pop, but also try listening to it on a cold winter’s night. i remember having it on my ipod as i crossed the millennium bridge in a light rain. wow. i know this probably sounds ridiculously contrived, but it just made me feel like everything was good in the world.

anyway, the point of this post is two-fold. firstly to bring your attention to the short score the duo recently put together for some sort of campaign for cartier about love. secondly, to let you know that the new air album is out on 7 february next year. never a band to stick to the norm, this time they’re releasing an album inspired by a silent movie. brilliant. it’s going to be called le voyage dans la lune, which i think means something about travelling to the moon. i haven’t used google translate there, so it is no more than a guess though.

feist makes a very welcome return this week. obviously she’s spent the last year being mainly being covered by james blake, but now she has new material for him to get his hands on. it’s very nice as you’d expect from her, and a great precursor to october’s new album metals.

a few years ago i got all unnecessary about an essex foursome who i first saw support black kids (who? what the fuck happened to them?) at the ica. i followed them about the place, which as i lived in essex at the time wasn’t tricky. they started to get a bit of a following and it wasn’t long before you could see them on nme tv and all that jazz. the band were magistrates.

i was meant to interview them at v festival one year i remember. i say remember, but in fact i don’t. that’s because i got wasted instead, forgot what time i was meant to meet them and ended up a sweaty mess in the middle of the chemical brothers instead. i continued to hear the odd thing about magistrates and see them live now and again. then we received a facebook message. there were calling it a day. fuck.

anyway, the good news is that earlier this year they confirmed they are back together and recording some new stuff. they’ve now confirmed a couple of dates. you can see them at the queen of hoxton on the 25th august or at brownstock in chelmsford at the start of september. to celebrate let’s all don out usher* style golden jackets and listen to colour co-ordination in the very state i first heard it.

*paul usher. lead singer of magistrates. not the other one.

it is 3am in the morning and i can’t sleep. fuck knows why but for whatever reason i can’t. therefore i’ve decided to write something about the mercury music prize nominations. as i’m still a week away from having internet access at home you will notice that the little time at the bottom of this post probably says about half eight or something. glad we’ve got that cleared up.

i can’t be bothered to list them all as every other site on the web has already done that so if you’d like the list please click here. i’ll wait a moment while you read it. done? good. what did you think? i know what you’re thinking. where are wild beasts? where is tom vek? where are yuck? all three of those (especially wild beasts) will have to go down as 2011′s gorillaz for their glaring omission.

let’s talk about who is in then. ghostpoet. happy day. the quite wonderful ghostpoet is there. i’ve written about him so many times i’ve lost count. not only does he hold the distinction of being the first ever post on the relaunched sockformation, but i also confirmed that i didn’t lick him during a very drunken gig and he was my only tip for 2011 in amongst all of josh’s (none of which are in. take that short stuff). i hope he wins. i really do.

strangely i didn’t review the ghostpoet album. i can’t remember why. in fact, i only reviewed two. or to be more exact, i reviewed pj harvey and helen parton reviewed metronomy for me. both were very positive and i predict that it will be pj harvey who walks off with the prize. she may well be more established than a lot of winners tend to be, but let england shake is a brave and unusual album. mercury love that shit.

others to keep an eye on would be king creosote & jon hopkins or katy b. i’m not the biggest fan of the latter but i think she’s probably come out at the right sort of time for the awards. anna calvi was another hotly tipped artist for this year and her nomination confirms that her self-titled album lived up to expectations. adele has done alright for herself this year and you’ll have trouble discounting her from the running. i’m unsure whether she’s a label mate of last year’s winners, the xx, will affect her negatively though. shame because out of all the nominees i’m sure she could probably do with the £20k prize money the most after selling more records worldwide than there are people.

i’ve put together a playlist on spotify of all the nominees. there are a couple of tracks from each album. you can find it here.

finally. who the fuck is gwilym simcock?

that’s right. i can totally non-exclusively tell you about a surprise, and up until now secret, gig from the boxer rebellion today. if you’re in london you should really get down to carnaby street this lunchtime and get involved. unless you’re like me and in london but stuck in the office. if you are i’m sorry for bringing more misery to your day by letting you know that you’re missing out.

the exact details are as follows:
artist the boxer rebellion
location carnaby street
date 14th july
time arrival at location 12.45pm – look for the red last.fm banner.

you probably noticed that you have to look out for the banner of a certain music social website. that’s because this is brought to you by last.fm, along with hp. i should probably mention that earlier in fact. thanks last.fm and hp. if you go, tweet along using the hashtag #hprocks please. ta very much.

to reward you for reading all that, here’s the video for ‘the runner’, which includes a couple of nipple shots.

this saturday sees the eleventh (or twelfth, i forget) annual kelvedon free music festival. people from as far flung as tiptree and witham will descend on kelvedon for over seven hours of free music festival fun. they’ve outdone themselves on the headline front this year with the blockheads (sans ian drury. obviously) closing things off in the evening. the full line up, across the two stages, kicks off from 12.00:

main stage
the blockheads
automatic slim
expose
housework
surfquake
about eight
who’s driving? bear’s driving
broken heads

essex rocks stage
we are embassy
gulls
animal noise
the strangerhood
drive through therapy
jorneta stream
the 633
the overwrought

i know that you’re very familiar with every single one of those acts already, but here’s who you should try and see.

i’ll be sure not to miss animal noise. not sure of the best way to describe them, but here’s a little taster on youtube. i’ve fallen a little bit in love with ‘badow’ which you can listen to just here as well.

also on the essex rocks stage will be a we are embassy who sound most like the next big thing. check out ‘move on’ here.

over on the main stage we have the winners of this year’s battle of the bands. i have no idea what they are like, but i judged the competition a couple of years ago so am hoping for something of an equally high standard. their description of their formation sounds a good start. “formed from the ashes of many ridiculous bands, heads were broken when the four minds collided. after a year of fumbling upon the fret board and altering band positions, broken heads finally found their mojo.”

and of course don’t you dare miss the blockheads. your task before saturday is to listen to this on repeat and ensure you know it word for word, beat for beat, pause for pause for a huge sing along. sex & drugs & rock & roll

two final points. firstly, my dad organises this so please go and make him feel he still has a use since his retirement. secondly, it really does have the worst branding ever doesn’t it? i’m going to have to have a word with the old man i think.

always up for doing something a bit different, summer camp have come up with an innovative way for fans to get an early copy of their eagerly awaited debut album. head over to pledge music and you can get yourself signed stuff, the cd itself, posters etc. more exciting than that though is the chance to have the band perform in your very own living room (good luck finding space in mine), get them to cook dinner for you or, best of all, record any of their songs in actual french. you can even get your hands on elizabeth sankey’s sparkly jumpsuit or jeremy’s bass guitar. this is music to a stalker’s ears. a more well off stalker than me anyway.

i’ve signed up for a couple of things, including the exciting sounding pledgers-only concert and some of the limited edition rare old warmsley stuff. if anybody wants to buy me the handwritten lyric book, that would be super. or even better, pay for them to make me dinner. thanks.

update: daft punk have denied that they have anything to do with the third twin. bugger.

madrid, january 10, 2011.–the third twin is a french electronic music duo which is getting very popular around the business in the recent months. the reason is simple: they are directly related to the famous daft punk. they are in the second edition of the festival which takes place from august 4-7 at the playa el arenal from burriana, castellón, spain. the show up of this mysterious group opens the arenal sound line up 2011.

the stage name of the third twin emerged supposedly with the aim of publishing the issues proposed by daft punk to disney´s movie “tron”: legacy. the company initially considered the material too oriented to electronic sounds because of that they refused it. the company ordered a new batch of compositions more orchestral and traditional which finally took part of the soundtrack of the film which was recently released with great success.

daft punk could not sign with their original name, music themes nor use any clear reference to the film for legal reasons. that is the reason why the well-known french electronic tandem had to use allegedly that pseudonym.

the result was the third twin or ttt, a music project which contain the songs published that is part of that band sound rejected. it was compiled together in an album entitled “homemade” where you can find those tracks such as “evil minds” “technolers” or “the time is over”. the third twin has their own profile on myspace where they have an extensive music material and songs that made “homemade” and reached a great amount of visits on youtube.

arenal sound becomes one of the many international festivals on this category to bring significant dj’s highly praised at the time, the third twin. just wait and see their performance at the festival to discover if the mystery is revealed.

the organization also confirms in the coming days the start of the selling of tickets for the arenal sound 2011 with a limited quantity of tickets from 25 euros.

tl;dr

daft punk are appearing at a spanish festival that sounds a little bit too much like a football team i hate under the name the third twin. they won’t be playing any of the tron soundtrack, and possibly not even any of their old stuff. this doesn’t really matter though because it is daft fucking punk and will therefore be amazing

luckily i speak very good gibberish. basically what it’s saying is that i was a day late with when i suggested you mark 23rd november in your diary. the soundtrack is out on 22nd november.

it’s the mercury music prize tonight. i think wild beasts or foals should win. i think paul weller will win. or the xx. probably weller though.