For a week from the 30th January 2012 I'll be giving this song a spin every day on Amazing Radio Breakfast.

It's my Track of the Week and comes from a New York pair of DJ/Producers, both called Lauren.  

They've collaborated with Holly Miranda on this one and below you can hear their other track with Romy from The XX, of which there is a rather awesome remix by Soul Clap.

New York via Boston band Hooray For Earth's debut album is finally released in the UK on February 27th, which gives me an excuse to have No Love as my Track of the Week on Amazing Breakfast next week.

Think uber synths

Brilliant.

COME ON DOWN!

25th FEBRUARY. QUEEN OF HOXTON. BANDS AND DJs AND PERFORMERS. GONNA BE BIG!

LIKE US AND JOIN US ON FACEBOOK.

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MEOW!!
Gxx

The R n B singer, Etta James, has died.  

She had been suffering from leukaemia and dementia.

She was best known for her legendary recording of songs like Tell Mama, Loser Weepers, I'd Rather Go Blind and At Last and her influenced can be felt in the work of  artists like Janis Joplin, Beyonce, Amy Winehouse and Adele.

Indeed, her own life was like one of her heartbreaking songs - she never knew her father and her 14-year old mother effectively abandoned her to be brought up by their landlady.

She spent decades battling heroin addiction, obesity and a series of difficult relationships - though she always said her difficulties drover her forward.

6 Music recently broadcast a three part documentary about her life as a soul survivor, charting her story from her gospel roots to becoming a star, touching on her heroin addiction, her relationships, hospitalisation and recovery.

I compiled this piece from the documentary and let's hear Etta's friends and colleagues celebrate her life in music...

Doing all things radio has got me featured in Cooler Magazine this week.

Check out the piece here....

The new photos come courtesy of my friend that works at 10 Magazine and takes a jolly good photo, Sophie Van Der Welle.

South London band The Maccabees release their third record Given To The Wild today and boys and girls it's damn good. 

It follows their well-received 2009 Top 20 album Wall of Arms which was produced by Marcus Dravs who worked with Arcade Fire on The Suburbs. 

It's fair to say since the release of the first track from this effort, Pelican, and a very successful sold out mini-tour, great things are expected from this album. 

I've got a lot of love for the boys as I remember back during one uni holiday in 2005 my housemate and very good chum invited me to her mates' gig at 333 in Shoreditch.

Down in a sweaty basement with about 100 people they played their earliest tracks like Latchmere and Lego.  I was 19 and probably wearing something a little bit tragic (might have been in the early stages of my 'hat phase' which has never really finished but the selection of head-gear has got much better!). I remember looking at her with crazed indie-loving eyes, and going 'yup this guys are gonna do it!'.  Oh dear!

Since though I have looked on admirably as they've grown as musicians, put out three brilliant albums, toured the world and built up the most loyal fan base going. Along the way as I've worked at Xfm and 6 Music I've had the pleasure of interviewing them more times than I can remember.

I hope they get everything they deserve in 2012 off the back of what I can only call a beautiful, unique, uplifting, stirring and stunning record.

Guitarist Felix White has been speaking to me for BBC 6 Music about their new offering.


Check it...

PHEW. What a month it’s been. As 2012 unceremoniously hurtles towards us at a rate of knots, let’s take a moment to reflect on what’s been going on in the last month of the year.

Amazing Brekky producer Dani Charlton has lovingly put this together. It's got more links in it than a chain necklace and can act as your guide.... Over to you DC!


If you’re a regular listener to Amazing Breakfast - you’ll have heard us peppering all our shows throughout December with some aural treats in our Audio Advent Calendar. If you missed out, firstly – shame on you, secondly, you can still get it all right here uploaded into easily digestible portions for you to consume at your leisure. This humble blog would be miles long if we were to go into detail about each little thing, but I’ll do an overview, just to tempt your fancy, of course.

Obviously we feature an awesome Artist of the Week on the show every week, but after their week in the spotlight has been and gone, it doesn’t mean Team Amazing Breakfast are turning our backs on them – so for the Calendar we thought we’d get a few favourites on the blower to talk all things Christmas, what the best bits of their year have been (apart from being featured as Artist of the Weekon Amazing Breakfast, obviously) and what we can look forward to from them in 2012 all budled together with some jazzy music underneath to make it all a bit festive.

Artists we spoke to include: Hooray For Earth, PRIS, Matt Norris & the Moon, Theme Park,Blackchords, Wye Oak, Plant Plants, Cadmean Veterans Club, Beat Radio, Daughter, Channel Swimmer, Dimbleby & Capper, Spokes, 1914s, Dutch Uncles, the Travelling Band, Ice Black Birds and the Maccabees!

A pretty good looking bunch, I’m sure you’ll agree. As if that wasn’t enough for you, we also got our TV Guru Patrick Smith to turn away from the tellybox momentarily to talk all things cinematic – and give us some suggestions for festive viewing through out December. Maybe there were some classics you’ve forgotten? Patrick chatted about all things Die Hard, the Nightmare Before Christmas, Bad Santa, Gremlins, the Muppet Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone, and, of course, It’s A Wonderful Life. Listen to what he had to say, and maybe give some favourites a re-watch before the festive season is gone for good!

We’ve also been running our Track of the Year poll – each week we offered up a selection of our favourite songs which Georgie chose as Track of the Week from across the year, and from there your votes whittled it down to just three – ‘Frequency’ by unouomedude, ‘Tessellate’ by Alt-J, and ‘This Ain’t No Hymn’ by Saint Saviour – three very worthy finalists indeed, but there can only be one winner. Which was….‘Tessellate’ by Alt-J! Listen to the utterly brilliant winning track over and over again at your leisure:

We also delved deep into the Amazing Breakfast archives to pull out some of the fun bits and bobs we’ve had on the show across the year, giving you another opportunity to catch them if you missed them first time round. Remember our Audio Consequences from Brighton’s Great Escape Festival? Or perhaps Georgie’s surreal game of Would You Rather and Either/Or with Peggy Sue? How about Team Amazing Breakfast getting  talking about BEARDS with William Fitzsimmons and Dutch Uncles? How about an interview with awesome new pop-goddess Jess Mills?

Georgie brought some of her excellent features from The Other Job to the party as well – we heard fromField Music, Beth Jeans Houghton, and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – remind me to ask Georgie if Orlando was wearing his Stegosaurus costume when she caught up with him.

Wait! There’s more! More?! That’s right, MORE. Sometimes we just let awesome music speak for itself with replays of some favourite session tracks from William Fitzsimmons, Daughter, Clock Opera,Lanterns on the Lake, Cloud Control and Ex-Libras, we gave you the chance to hear Georgie take a turn on vocals on her pal MJZ’s track You Feed My Sleep (this was 100% my idea!) and we devoted a whole hour of one show to launch Amazing Radio’s 12 x 12 – our list of 12 artists we think you need in your life in a big way next year. Some former Artist of the Week artists like Lianne La Havas andDaughter among a whole host of other fantastic artists – give your ears a late Christmas present and peruse the whole list!

That ought to have been enough, surely. Well, like a doting grandparent, we have spoiled you lucky lot rotten this festive season.  In addition to all that aural bounty, we also continued to feature some really incredible songs as Track of the Week and really incredible artists as Artist of the Week!

Georgie brought some of her excellent features from The Other Job to the party as well – we heard fromField Music, Beth Jeans Houghton, and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – remind me to ask Georgie if Orlando was wearing his Stegosaurus costume when she caught up with him.

Wait! There’s more! More?! That’s right, MORE. Sometimes we just let awesome music speak for itself with replays of some favourite session tracks from William Fitzsimmons, Daughter, Clock Opera,Lanterns on the Lake, Cloud Control and Ex-Libras, we gave you the chance to hear Georgie take a turn on vocals on her pal MJZ’s track You Feed My Sleep (this was 100% my idea!) and we devoted a whole hour of one show to launch Amazing Radio’s 12 x 12 – our list of 12 artists we think you need in your life in a big way next year. Some former Artist of the Week artists like Lianne La Havas and Daughter among a whole host of other fantastic artists – give your ears a late Christmas present and peruse the whole list!

That ought to have been enough, surely. Well, like a doting grandparent, we have spoiled you lucky lot rotten this festive season.  In addition to all that aural bounty, we also continued to feature some really incredible songs as Track of the Week and really incredible artists as Artist of the Week!

First out of the gates were Hooray For Earth – after wooing us with their awesome song True Lovesearlier this year, we wanted to catch the guys while they were over in the country doing some promo work ahead of the UK release of their record next year. Hear their interview in full:

The following Week we had the pleasure of finally being able to give appropriate airtime to one of our favourite new artists from this year – Saturday Night Gym Club! We got lost in the woozy glitches of I Know and then glided on the epic synths they supplied with the Ballroom Scene – so upon hearing their EP was finished being mastered, we badgered and badgered until they uploaded all their tracks so we could feature them as Artist of the Week. Georgie spoke to Conor all about how they came together, the EP and what they’re up to in the near future – listen to their interview in full:

Following on from Saturday Night Gym Club, our last Artist of the Week for 2011 was wonky-pop pioneers, La Shark. We couldn’t get enough of recent single Magazine Cover and wanted an excuse to showcase more of their music to you! Georgie spoke to Samuel from the band, all about their sound and how things are going in Camp Shark at the moment:

I presented my first Secret Session with FOE just before Christmas and here it is!

Filmed in The Last Tuesday Society taxidermy little shop of horrors in East London.

She is awesome and her album Bad Dream Hotline is coming out on the 16th January 2012.