6 Music picks: Maria and the Gay & Liz Green

Every week we get to play two tracks for Tom Robinson on his excellent BBC 6 Music Introducing show... This week, we sat in for the WHOLE SHOW - hurrah for Tom Robinson! 

You can listen again here.   
 
It was a Girl Music Special so we plugged into some of the latest favourites uploaded onto the Introducing Uploader for two hours of great tracks, aswell as our usual picks for the week below.


*Maria and the Gay - Daddy's Bulge

We are already in love with this DIY Manchester council flat duo (their tags, not ours!). Their debut record Greatest Hits Vol 1 is out on Big Print Records on October 18th, run by Robert from The Nightingales and home of other TOW faves Hotpants Romance. Maria Dada is from Lebanon and Amy Pennington is from 'The North', they make electro-pop and short kick ass indie tunes in their Manchester council flat and are poised to take over the world. With track titles like 'Motherfolkers', 'Pushy Mum' and 'I Wannabe In Democracy', how can you not love them?

LISTEN AND DOWNLOAD HERE:


 
*Liz Green - Hey Joe

  

Liz Green is offering up Hey Joe as a free download and we heartily encourage you to get your hands on it: http://soundcloud.com/lizgreenmusic/hey-joe/s-8lk7H 

The Manchester singer songwriter's debut album O, Devotion is out on Play It Again Sam Records on the 14th November and we can't wait to give the whole thing a spin. News from the Liz Green camp seemed to die down after the hoo ha that surrounded her performance on the main stage at Glastonbury in 2007 (after winning their Emerging Talent comp). It's been 4 years and NOW we can sit back and enjoy a full, fully accomplished and very beautiful record. Hurray!

Here's Displacement Song to listen too while you download:

 

6 Music: Wild Flag & Elan Tamara our picks for Introducing

Every week we get to play two tracks for Tom Robinson on his excellent BBC 6 Music Introducing show... you can listen again here.

Wild Flag - Glass Tambourine


Wild Flag performs Glass Tambourine at The Rock Shop, Brooklyn from BlearyEyedBrooklyn.com on Vimeo.

 
Bloomin' brilliant to have Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein back in the saddle with a fierce line up of Mary Timony (Helium), Janet Weiss (Quasi, Sleater-Kinney) and Rebecca Cole (The Minders). Takes TOW back to the mid-nineties, an indie disco night called Lipgloss and wishing to all hell we'd not given up playing guitar. Wild Flag rrrrrrock, a welcome relief from all the flimsy-hipster-electro trash knocking about.

Elan Tamara - Don't Know Why

Original songwriting and a talented musician, Elan Tamara has everything going for a young upstart. Especially when up and coming producer Kwes (DELS, The Invisible, The XX, and now of Warp Records) gets involved and Ninja Tune put out her Organ EP. The kind of artist that makes TOW's blood boil when watching the fawning praise over the numpties on X Factor who knock out pretty good rendition of a Christina Aguilera tune or two. Sigh. They look for clones, we look for uniqueness and Elan has that in spades.

TOW favourite 2diceproductionz made this EPK for Elan last year, in our hood - Walthamstow Marshes:

Brigid Power-Ryce & Micropixie - BBC 6 Music Introducing

Brigid Power-Ryce - The Waves Were Wild
 
   


Brigid Power-Ryce is a TOW success story... back in May 2009 we played Wild Grin for Tom on the show and he loved it, we loved it and then it all went silent. Until we got an email a few months back from Brigid with new songs, a six month old son and a support slot with Tune-Yards and Beirut at Brixton Academy on September 16th - yeeeeha! The  new stuff is as captivating as what we heard before - eerie, haunting and beautiful. See you on the 16th!

*Micropixie - Testosteronica

    
  
Micropixie sent us this little disco-funk gem a few weeks ago, from her album 'The Good, The Beige & The Ugly' (An Intergalactic Feminist Spy Thriller) on One Little Alien. Micropixie has made the track with UK-based, Grammy nominee Paul Horton and it's massively groovy. Micropixie says of herself: 'Made in Bombay, born & raised in the UK, and based in SF-Oh!, Micropixie aka MPX is the extra-terrestrial alter ego of writer, fillum-maker and fulltime human being, Single Beige Female.'

The song is about Micropixie's experiences in the music industry - 'Testosteronica', ah hem, a sentiment that's right up our street! Also, 10% of the sales from Testosteronica will go to Women's Audio Mission, a San Francisco based, non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of women in music production and the recording arts. Here here!

The Other Woman on BBC 6 Music Introducing with Tom Robinson: new music from Kool Thing and Jude Cowan

Every week TOW plays two songs for the brilliant Tom Robinson on his BBC 6 Music Introducing show... here are our picks from this week's show:  

Kool Thing - The Sign

Kool Thing were formed in Paris last year - they are Berlin based and consist of an Irish lass and an Australian gal, truly global, non?! Jon Dark is a classically trained musician and provides the at once soothing and harmonious, then pounding synthesised loveliness underpinning Julie Chance's gorgeous vocals. There's a darkness and moodiness which runs throughout their sound reminiscent of some of the great Skando-dance we've heard these passed years from the likes of The Knife and Fever Ray.

Jude Cowan - Post-Tsunami mix

Jude Cowan works in a dungeon. Well, sort of. She's based in the basement of the ITN building on Gray's Inn Road in London and her job is to archive all the reems of Reuters news footage sent in daily from around the world. As you can imagine, that's a mighty undertaking and not just a bit depressing to boot. Conflict, disaster, starvation - you name it. Jude has turned this into poetry and music. She's somehow managed to find some beauty in all the carnage, and her music pays homage to those who suffer. Impressive. (And Jon Snow thinks she's cool)

TOW on 6 Music - Emily and the Woods and The Werewanda's

Every week TOW plays two songs for the brilliant Tom Robinson on his BBC 6 Music Introducing show... here are our picks from this week's show:  

 
Emily and the Woods - I Can't

First off TOW just has to say how excited we are that Emily and the Woods has agreed to support Madam at The Horatia on 30 April, we CANNOT wait to see her live! Emily plays guitar and sings, supported by 'The Woods' - ie her Dad, who has been a musician full time for 30 years, and her brother. Emily started playing and writing in her late teens, inspired by a solid roster of folk talent: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Simon & Garfunkel. A recent Philosophy and Theology graduate from Exeter University, you can hear the influence of her studies in her lyrics... this tune she wrote for a friend who passed away and it gives us goosebumps everytime we hear it.

The Werewanda's - My Little Sister

The Werewandas have a fantastic sense of fun and it comes across in the tight little 60's-infused rock numbers they knock out. Also, TOW is biased as one of our favourite people is in the band - Delia Sparrow from The Lexington, well, you could argue she IS The Lexington and often our Girl About Town on the podcast... she's on guitar and you can hear her doing a fine job backing up 'Heavy Metal Lucy' on vocals...

You can download the debut release from this utterly rocking quintet for free at Where It's At Is Where You Are.

TOW on 6 Music - Clara Engel and Tamara Parsons-Baker

Every week TOW plays two songs for the brilliant Tom Robinson on his BBC 6 Music Introducing show... here are our picks from this week's show:

Clara Engel - Lick My Fins

Ok, we realise this track is from her 2009 album Secret Beasts - for all you Clara Engel know-it-alls - but we've just discovered her. How? Well, she sent over an email introducing herself (we love our job) and the resulting listening session went on late into the night. Since this album the Canadian singer-songwriter has released the Bethlehem Tapes too and there's plenty more at her Bandcamp. What a voice, in the same vain as Sharon Van Etten her writing's clever, dark, brooding and often funny (check out her cover of Underworld's Born Slippy) too. 

Tamara Parsons-Baker - Hang My Picture

Tamara Parsons-Baker is a singer-songwriter based in Oxford. Again, her email pinged into our inbox and we really liked what we heard. Simple, beautifully rendered folk songs with an originality in the songwriting which is impressive. Look out for more from Tamara as she's made it to the finals of Channel 4's Live and Unsigned. Good luck, we'll be rootin' for ya!

Best place to listen to her music is at her Facebook page - here