WHEN THE SKY WAS RED.

There's no denying it, Kyla La Grange is here to stay. Don't let her manic pixie dream charm fool you, her songs pack serious emotional heat; visceral knockouts with no pulled punches in sight. "Been Better" is her latest offering, coming off like a statement of intent from La Grange and an exciting preview of what we can expect on her forthcoming debut album, all British folk-rock peppered with

CMJ 2010 // NEW SHAPES 2.0

It's that time again, as we make our way towards mid-October and the collective gaze of the music industry falls upon CMJ and all the beautiful chaos that comes with it. Last year we brought you the first annual New Shapes party, which saw everyone from Theophilus London and Darwin Deez to Chief and Local Natives grace the stage at Santos Party House. This year we're going even bigger with it,

WOKE UP IN A COLD SWEAT ON THE FLOOR.

So these guys took us completely off guard the first time we heard them, hitting us hard with one of THE most amazing tracks of the year. Offering up lush instrumental soundscapes and torn heartstrings, The Middle East combine straight up folk-rock with more ambient flourishes. Hailing from Australia and without a synth in sight (go figure), they’d split up a while before their first EP, The

THIS IS GOING TO BE BIG.

Correction: this is going to be bigger than big. We've teamed up with Chess Club and GreenShoelace.com to put on what we hope to be one of the biggest parties of CMJ next week when we take over Santo's Party House (our favorite NYC venue) from 3pm-10pm Friday the 23rd. Two stages, 11 bands, drink specials galore, fresh DJ's, there's quite literally nothing more you could really ask for. Be there.

GUESS WHAT.

We're way busy packing for our first ever Glastonbury, but before we jet off for the weekend we had to hook you up with the amazing new video that's just come through for Marina & The Diamonds' "I Am Not A Robot". Directed by Dazed & Confused founder and famed London photographer Rankin, it's hands down one of the best videos we've seen in ages and one of the more special things we've ever been

TAUNTING GESTURES.

Last February saw Local Natives emerge from SXSW as the toast of the festival and thus one of the hottest new acts around, while the three tracks on offer on their myspace had the blogs abuzz and A&Rs on both sides of the pond scrambling for their checkbooks. Things have settled down a bit in recent months as fans eagerly await more material from the band, but having wrangled ourselves a copy of

A BIRTHDAY PARTY.

Hot on the heels of our Great Escape blowout (which was AMAZING, by the way) we've got another big one lined up for this week in London. Their last show before returning home to the United States of Awesome, Yes Giantess are headlining this one with support from UK up-and-comers Flashguns and Egyptian Hip Hop, the latter of whom will be making their London live debut.In addition to all the live

NEON GOLD TAKEOVER AT THE GREAT ESCAPE.

Lock up your daughters and put the drinks on ice, Neon Gold is coming to the UK. Next week sees us shipping off to London for the summer where we'll be keeping it real DJing club nights, throwing parties and continuing to release records by some of our favorite new bands. We're really stepping up our game in the months to come with just under ten releases lined up between now and autumn and a

UNSPEAK ALL THE WORDS YOU EVER SPOKE.

It's a beautiful-ass day in the neighborhood and Wave Machines done hooked it up with the perfect soundtrack. The Liverpool quartet have been kicking it for a minute now - their Chess Club debut "I Go I Go I Go" was one of the elite tracks of last spring - but they somehow seem to remain criminally underrated. They were one of the best bands we saw at SXSW and the breezy lo-fi disco of "Keep The

THE GOLDEN GLOW OF A DISTANT CITY.

It's no secret Chess Club have the London folk scene on lock 24/7, so it should come as no surprise to find a band like Ex Lovers sporting their badge in the vinyl section of your favorite independent record store. Wistful sentiments and acoustic meanderings underpinned by playful boy-girl harmonies are the name of the game here, and while these ingredients aren't exactly groundbreaking, we're

FRESH TO DEATH AND DRESSED TO DIGRESS.

Bros to the end with MGMT from their days together at Wesleyan, Boy Crisis make sexy dance music with even sexier lyrics. They might actually be the most clever lyricists in the game right now and as tracks like "Dressed To Digress" and "L'Homme" prove in spades, they're on some seriously next level shit. "Digress" is the first track out of the gates, available for free download on their MySpace