Miles Kane (born 17th March 1986) is an English musician. He is best known for sharing lead responsibilities and writing with Alex Turner in their side-project The Last Shadow Puppets. He also was part of the bands The Rascals and The Little Flames before he recently decided to start a solo career. "Colour of The Trap", his debut album will be released on Monday 9th May. Kane is the cousin of James Skelly of The Coral.
Laura Marling (born 1st February 1990) is a folk singer/songwriter/guitarist from Eversley, United Kingdom. She began playing the guitar at the age of five, first being taught the blues by her father in front of the family fire, and has been enthralled by the songs and lyrics of the likes of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, James Taylor and John Mayall ever since. It’s not just the “golden-oldies” that Laura admires; she also harbours a rather deep love for alt.country’s favourite son, Ryan Adams.
Patrick Wolf is an English singer-songwriter from London. Wolf mixes electronics and samples with a wide range of instruments including viola, keyboards, ukulele, and percussion, all of which he plays himself to form a fusion of jazz, folk and electronic music. He began experimenting with sound and four-track recording at the age of 11, eventually building an arsenal of instruments that included junk-shop organs and a home-built theremin.
The National is a Brooklyn-based indie rock band formed in 1999, by friends from Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. The band's lyrics are written and sung by Matt Berninger in a distinctive, deep baritone. The rest of the band is composed of two pairs of brothers: Aaron Dessner (guitar, bass, keyboards), Bryce Dessner (guitar), Scott Devendorf (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums).
Their self-titled debut album"The National" (Brassland 2001) was recorded and released before they had played even a single show. They cut the album with engineer Nick Lloyd and formed a label with writer Alec Bemis, so those recordings could be released. Kerrang! magazine gave it four Ks, calling it "the stuff underground legends are made of."
The National made a second album, "Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers" (Brassland/Talitres 2003). The staff was the same, though Peter Katis, who produced "Turn on The Bright Lights" and "Antics" by Interpol, helped produce and mix, and Australian composer Padma Newsome from Clogs collaborated on arrangements and strings.
Following the first session of several for Bernard Lenoir on France's Radio Inter, an in-between EP was released, Cherry Tree, containing what would become the blueprint for the sound on their next record and the session of Sad Song's standout Murder Me Rachael. After these accolades and being impressed by their live show, Roger Trust signed them to Beggars Banquet.
A show at their favorite bar became a van ride to neighboring cities, became a plane ride to Europe, became two summers overseas. Their ties to those good jobs slackened. And they continue on their own path, moving out even further out in Brooklyn to Ditmas Park, where there is space and familiar suburban streets and even Geese on Beverly Road. Their album, "Alligator", much of which was recorded at their homes in Ditmas Park, was engineered by Paul Mahajan, who has worked with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio. Padma Newsome camped out for a month with the band, and Peter Katis added more production and mixed the record at his house in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Berninger's potent baritone still intones about matters fraught and funny and sad; about record collections, missing persons and medium-sized American hearts. But the record's not simply gothic or miserablist -- more like the plays of Tennessee Williams, it's full of peculiar intimacies and awkward grace. Alligator's heroes are reckless and possessed seducers, but they are apologetic ones. In The National's imaginings, in songs alternately lush and spare, there is something twighlit and dreamy worked out in the basement of our brains.
"Abel," "Secret Meeting," and "Lit Up" were released as singles.
On May 22, 2007, The National released their follow-up to Alligator, Boxer, on Beggars Banquet. Taking advantage of the fact that nobody had heard their first album and earliest demos, Matt proceeded to steal lyrics and melodies from them and give them the attention they deserved while keeping the intimacy that made them special. They even managed to convince new friend Sufjan Stevens to lay down some piano tracks for them, and recorded the album in a scant 6 months after coming off the long post-Alligator road.
"Mistaken for Strangers", "Fake Empire" and "Apartment Story" have been released as singles. The band have just finished touring North America and are on a large European autumn/winter tour after playing high slots at several large festivals. In their Dec. 07/Jan. 08 issue, Paste magazine named Boxer best record of 2007.
The band's fifth album, High Violet, was released on May 10, 2010 by 4AD Records. "Bloodbuzz Ohio", "Anyone's Ghost" and "Terrible Love" were released as singles.
In 2013 their sixth studio record Trouble Will Find Me was released and named "Best New Music" by Pitchfork. The album contained the single "I Need My Girl". In 2015, the album outtake "Sunshine On My Back" was released.
Four years after Trouble Will Find Me, marking the longest timespan between albums in their career so far, they released their seventh album Sleep Well Beast on September 8th, 2017 and were yet again met with great critical success.
The National homepage: http://www.americanmary.com/
The National blog http://tntl.tumblr.com
The National on Twitter http://twitter.com/The_National
Brassland homepage: http://brassland.org/
Beggars Banquet homepage: http://www.beggars.com/ Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
The EPs and the albums by Beirut are largely the work of Zach Condon, a young Santa Fe, New Mexico native. Condon has recorded before: when he was fifteen and under the name of Realpeople, he made an electronic record, fashioned after his love for The Magnetic Fields. Condon was a straight-A student until he dropped out at the age of 17 to travel Europe with his cousin in a drunken haze, cavorting and partying with the locals wherever he ended up.
Skipping Girl Vinegar are a 4-piece acoustic indie band based in Melbourne, Australia. Their music spans country, folk, indie rock and pop and comprise of Mark Lang (vocals/guitar), Chris Helm (drums/backing vocals), Sare Lang (bass/backing vocals) and Amanthi Lynch (keyboards). Beginning in 2006 with an extensive original repertoire established before playing live, they soon garnered several support slots including Bob Evans, The Lemonheads, The Shout Out Louds and Something for Kate, which, along with relentless gigging, saw their first single, 'One Chance' gain national airplay in mid-2007.
Caribou is Canadian Dan Snaith (b. 1978), who formerly recorded under the moniker Manitoba. Known for altering his sound with each subsequent release, he incorporates electronic psychedelia, krautrock rhythms, and breakbeat drums and creates a swirling, lush, musical panorama. Snaith grew up in Dundas, Ontario, Canada, which gave its name to a song from his debut album Start Breaking My Heart. He studied at the University of Toronto as an undergrad, but was based in the UK for several years until he completed his Ph.D. in mathematics at the Imperial College, London in 2005.
Like many other bands the members of The Alpine met in high school and started playing together in different groups. They formed the band Aroma which after a while and a change of line-up became The Alpine as we know it today. Living in Aalborg in the northern part of Denmark the band created the studio and rehearsal facilities called Quinten together with other young musicians from the city. Here they had their second home and gave birth to numerous recordings of their music.
Brisbane, Australia. Fruit traffickers. EP coming out June 2012. Demo/Facebook
www.facebook.com/elalameinmusic
Kaki King (born 24th August 1979 as Katherine Elizabeth King) is an American guitarist and singer from Atlanta, Georgia, United States. While Kaki King is unlikely to give up her job as a singer and guitarist extraordinaire, she wouldn’t mind being a secret agent for a day at some shadowy foreign intelligence agency. A fan of Cold War history, the New York-based artist finds espionage work appealing for the opportunity to don a disguise and speak in a foreign accent. More importantly, she likes the idea of actually convincing somebody that she is somebody else.