Codeine Velvet Club is a new musical collaboration featuring Jon Lawler – lead singer and chief songwriter of The Fratellis – and singer-songwriter Lou Hickey, that celebrates their shared love of ’60s girl-boy duets, dramatic orchestral pop, and dark post-war Hollywood and Las Vegas romanticism. ‘Soaring strings, biting brass, sweet as sugar guitar licks and a healthy dose of noir drama, Add the kind of retro glamour that conjures up late nights in Vegas or (Read more…)

On October 16, the new Epica album ‘Design Your Universe’ will be released and the first single ‘Unleashed’ can be expected at the beginning of October. But first things first: Travelling around the world and meeting other cultures; those are in short the major sources of inspiration for singer, songwriter, composer and guitarist Mark Jansen, both as a person and a musician. The latest proof of his unlimited interest in the world around him is the album The Phantom Agony, the colourful debut (Read more…)

La Roux’s third single ‘Bulletproof’ went straight in at #1 in the UK top 40 last week, her debut album ‘La Roux’ entered at #2 yesterday with 63,000 sales. Of all the pop debutantes perched on the edge of success as 2009 began, La Roux – AKA 21 year old South Londoner Elly Jackson - is currently the only one to be commanding such genuine mass crossover appeal. Her music is as likely to appear on urban blogs, as it is to be blazing out of cars and over summer parks from Radio 1 or pounding out of Shoreditch clubs. This spring she headlined the sold-out NME Radar tour, which, considering the previous year’s headliners were art-punk dilettantes Crystal Castles, pays great testament to both La Roux’s credibility and broad appeal. After all, not many artists headline an alternative music tour while sat at the top of the charts. This self-possessed young girl, poised beneath an extraordinary gravity defying hair sculpture, making music that looks backwards to leap forwards, has leapt beyond her electropop contemporaries with the raw confessional quality of her songwriting and the sharp sophistication of her through-the-looking-glass 80s aesthetic. La Roux seems to know exactly who she wants to be and is fully aware she’s already achieving it with ease. After playing to a packed out dance tent at this years Glastonbury and a rip-roaring album launch show at the Forum last week – Elly Jackson is pleased to announce a series of live shows this coming November.

Live dates are:

12/11 Dublin, Academy
13/11 Leeds, Stylus
14/11 Newcastle, University
16/11 Glasgow, ABC
17/11 Nottingham ,Rock City
18/11 Birmingham ,O2 Academy
20/11 Bristol ,O2 Academy
21/11 Manchester, Warehouse*
22/11 Norwich, UEA
24/11 Southampton, Guildhall
25/11 London, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire