Stars In Their Eyes: Star Horse.

Star Horse are Andreas, Maja, Joel and Samuel, and together they're currently emitting electrifying, distortion-swept wonderment out of Stockholm. Everything else remains rather enigmatic at this moment in time, which is precisely how you get to feel it should be upon exposure to their eponymous EP as once it splashes up against you images and emotions flutter, appearing like hallucinatory swirls of crude oil swimming atop undeveloped 35mm. From the glimmering Slowdive-styled melancholy of opener Stranger right through to the haunting mellifluousness, droning vox and discordant guitars that ride high on a charge of dirge-like hum left to soak in distortion until all but entirely saturated with the stuff on the highly climactic self-titled track, Star Horse's initial EP is a bewilderingly acute beast. While the inevitable full-length can't be completed soon enough we're quite contented with Last Night's Haze on endless repeat in the meantime...


 Star Horse.

On the Horizon: Vraiment Magnifique, La Femme.

It's not merely the censured artwork centred on bits and pieces of genitalia that's stirring up quite the fuss around Le Pré-Saint-Gervais' La Femme, for the likes of Sur La Planche evoke a risqué sordidness reminiscent of all-too-inactive brash hip-hop hipsters TTC. Lifted off 2010's Le Podium #1 EP, its tinny production values align the troupe with Suicide whilst whippersnapping guitars recall the copious lines of Phil Manzanera circa '79, and it continues to titillate. There's a quintessentially Gallic sultriness and purposefully slinky throb underlying the track that's also bolstered by the claps of the dismembered hands of members of various '60s pop girl groups. Séduisant à l'extrême.

On the Horizon: Bobbing. Observer Drift.

Observer Drift is the appositely hazy moniker of Bloomington, Minneapolis' Collin Ward and Corridors is his first full-length, outed during the opening moments of 2012. If it may have wafted on by discreetly then, here is now and now is time to indulge. Akin to Daniel Bedingfield, he writes quirky pop hits in his bedroom/ basement although that's just about where the similarities end: Ward works in a pizza place while Bedingfield – at least when last spotted – looked as though he'd chomped his way through a fair few, the floor of his 'workspace' potentially lined with empty, grotty, passata-stained cardboard crumpled beyond much recognition. More relevantly however in place of producing vaguely disconcerting garage hitz this particular wunderkind conjures the mood of a lonely buoy bobbing about awkwardly off the coasts of the Balearics, caught in devastating longing for attention like the reticent introvert amidst the glitterball flicker of a woefully sobre school disco. Such strong imagery may only be conjured by equally potent soundtrack and that's precisely what Ward has fashioned, the title-track providing the esoteric yet inviting highlight of a record brimming with genuine ingenuity.

That said the entirety of Corridors is worth investigating and subsequently losing the self to, giving in to daydream and St. Lucia-like tranquility. Stream the thing via Ward's Bandcamp.

Another Invada Invasion...

Here's a photo of a prepubescent Geoff Barrow thwacking a drumkit that practically engulfs his wiry frame. Whodathunk at the time whoever took said photo (and evidently neglected to employ the camera's redeye reduction feature) that the above kiddo would go on to establish one of Britain's most persistently progressive labels in the imperial guise of Invada and propel perhaps the country's bestest band? Irregardless, Invada this week released its 2012 sampler and here are our highlights...