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Five Day Forecast – w/c 12 Apr 2010
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 12 April 2010
I finally watched ‘Up’ this weekend, which might explain the upbeat selections featuring in this week’s Five Day Forecast. Or maybe this week is just a particularly celebratory one. Something to certainly look forward to is Record Store Day on Saturday, which dresses the gloomy stats on the dwindling number of independent record shops remaining in the UK in party hats and forces them to do a little dance. That’s the way I like my gloom.
01: Record Store Day. The internet’s nice and all, but there’s something about flicking through the racks of a record shop that the digital world hasn’t yet managed to replicate. This Saturday the fourth annual Record Store Day will celebrate that fact with all sorts of exclusive releases and in-store performances at independent record shops throughout the land (and indeed the world). Our local shop, Rough Trade East, has a whole load of great stuff going on, including performances from Ash, Laurie Anderson, Caribou and more. You’ll also be able to buy a new Blur single, more on which later in today’s Daily.
02: CMU promo survey. The way music is serviced to journalists is changing. Where once writers were buried under mountains of CDs, labels are more keen to lower costs, create less waste and most of all plug potential leaks by sending out new music digitally. Sony Music recently announced that they will no longer send out promo CDs, and only offer streaming audio. But how well does this work and what do journalists think of this new way of doing things? How about you find out when we announce the results of a recent survey of 100 music journalists on all things promo this week?
03: Awards frenzy. The music industry is not without its fair share of awards, and this week there will be events relating to a couple of the more frowny-faced on offer. First up, tonight some of the biggest names in classical music will gather at London’s Mayfair Hotel to hear the nominations for the eleventh Classical BRIT awards. Then on Thursday this year’s Music Week Awards will be dished out at the Park Lane Hilton, including a lifetime achievement gong for Universal Music International chief Lucian Grainge.
04: Exciting new releases. What new delights could you be feeding your stereo this week? Well, for fans of Latin accordion music (and why wouldn’t you be?) the fantastic Analog Africa label steps out of its comfort zone to release ‘Mambo Loco’, a compilation of music by Colombian musician Anibal Velasquez. Meanwhile, Japandroids are ready with ‘Art Czars’, the first of a series of five single releases, and Cancer Bats’ new album ‘Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones’ hits the shelves, as does MGMT‘s opinion-dividing ‘Congratulations’.
05: Thrilling gigs. There are oh so many gigs happening this week. Gary Numan is playing The Scala in London tonight, while just up the road Band Of Horses will be noodling away in Koko. Ellie Goulding, Mos Def, Russian Circles and Rolo Tomassi will all be playing various shows around the country and new digital music service Mflow will be holding its launch party at Ronnie Scott’s on Wednesday, with performances from Lauren Pritchard and Pete Lawrie. And, who knows, maybe Whitney Houston will actually get her European tour underway in Birmingham on Wednesday. Stranger things have happened.
Hey, this week sounds like fun. You may don the party hat, which should have been sellotaped to the top of your CMU Daily, right now.
Andy Malt
