The Shortwave Set - Slingshot
The Debt Collection / Independiente Ltd. /
The debut album from south-east London’s Shortwave Set sounds like a sonic tour round the best cafes on the planet: solo John Lennon performed at formica-tabled booths in an inner-city greasy spoon, or a half-remembered song in a seaside chippie where the windows are smeared with vinegar and regret.

In reality, Andrew Petitt, Swedish singer and guitarist Ulrike Bjorsne and David Farrell all live in the now (relatively) arty Deptford, and formed the band in summer 2003. They are also purposefully obscure: their website is full of intricate illustrations of Victorian inventors but has no mention of their names, and their press photographs look lost shots from a 1967 poetry reading. This is probably because the band are junk shop obsessives who claim to have made their album with broken instruments from Greenwich Market, along with charity shop records and a sampler.

The Debt Collection certainly retains a loping charm in the vein of bands like the Magic Numbers, Zero 7 and St Etienne: there are accordions on the 43-second ‘Sven Rokk’ and loping, dusty songs like 2003’s ‘Slingshot’ and ‘In Your Debt’, which was originally released on a limited-edition 10-inch in an attractive prewar cardboard sleeve. This is the discerning cafe soundtrack of the summer. - The Guardian
File under / Indie Hippie-chick soul /
Artist Site

Hey Willpower - Hundredaire
EP / Cochon Records
Featuring Will Schwartz of Imperial Teen and Amy Linton of The Aislers Set.
Will - “I grew up listening to Michael and Janet and L’Trimm and pop that my sisters would turn me on to. as soon as I heard Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground my world turned inside out and I started voraciously ingesting anything other than what was played on the radio. i became immersed in the indie music world with my band Imperial Teen, all the while reveling in the latest greatest pop/hip hop songs and records.

“hey willpower” feels like something new and exciting and postmodern without being smug or ironic. although it’s different from Imperial Teen, it makes perfect sense to me to be making the music we’re making because it comes from what i love about music. when we’re performing live and people are doin’ their dances and making noise, we know it’s right. dance is becoming a big part of our live show. erin rush and justin kelly are on dance detail and we have a good time synching up. i’m good with the chin scratchers and musicologists and philosophers too, but sometimes you have to let the emotions take over. let’s dance now and we can talk about it later if you want. ” - Will Schwartz

File under / r&b pop/hip hop laptop powerhouse / dance pop revival for indie rockers
On tour this fall with Le Tigre
Artist Site

Hard Fi - Cash Machine (Video - Windows Media)
Stars of CCTV / Wea/Atlantic
Hard-Fi are the product of their suburban West London environment; the sound of twenty-something gun-slingers on the minimum wage. It’s the sound of a band weaned on the heady concrete glamour of The Stones, Dexys, Curtis Mayfield, and Happy Mondays. In love and in debt - the raw materials required to soundtrack a life of box-fresh Adidas, Berwick Street vinyl, and the black economy.

Recorded at Hard-Fi’s Cherry Lips studio (a former 24 hour cab office in the work-a-day granite-grey environs of Staines ) and produced by Wolsey White (”The Phil Spector of lo-fi” - Kerrang) and the band themselves, ‘Stars Of CCTV’ is Hard-Fi’s debut offering, featuring the hit single ‘Cash Machine’

The video for the single is already gaining widespread notoriety, the band having dodged Terminal 3 security to spend two hours performing 30ft below incoming planes at the arse-end of the main Heathrow runway - the kind of’guerrilla gig’ that makes The Libertines’ best efforts come off like a public school fete. - Contact Music
Artist Site