Since Operator Please are editing their video for Logic right this minute, you really oughtta know the tune. Fortunately enough, the Operator Please team from the Gold Coast (who love to give you handwritten notes in class) are giving Logic away free from their website!

The first taste of the upcoming album Gloves is a ballsy punk pop number – a fresh, new, and ever-so-slightly glam tune that is seriously turning heads (well, ears are attached to heads). UK Pop music bible Popjustice also gives it the tick of approval, matter-of-factly declaring: “It is good”. Can’t ask for much more than that!

What’s more is that they want to give you the album on cassette tape! If you get in early that is… You can pre-order 3 different sized Gloves:

• Standard – CD album of Gloves… but signed!
• Deluxe – Signed Gloves album + an exclusive cassette tape of OP remixes and demos.
• Premium – Signed Gloves album + an exclusive cassette tape of OP remixes and demos + an OP tote bag.

If you’re super enamoured of the single, you can order Logic on 7″ vinyl too!

That got your attention!

Ben Harper & Relentless7’s new video for Lay There and Hate Me premiered on playboy.com… when you check it out you’ll understand why.

It’s been a massive week for the angelic-voiced sweethearts of electro-pop Hot Chip…

They’ve performed live with The Roots on Jimmy Fallon, globally broadcast a show live from NYC, and their new album One Life Stand finally burst out of back rooms and onto shelves in record stores… but if you need an extra prod before dishing out your hard-earned cash, the album is streaming in full on their myspace. Who knows how long the tracks will be up there, so pop over to myspace.com/hotchip asap and turn up your speakers.

One Life Stand is far softer than the previous sample-heavy, hectic album Made In The Dark, with Alexis Taylor’s silky-sweet vocals taking the forefront even in the heavier dance-oriented tracks. Personal favourite tracks are I Feel Better and Alley Cats – a quietly reflective tune that manages to turn the potentially awkward comparison of friends with the band’s restless pet cat into charming poetry. Check out the feline-ified band members below!

A fellow EMI staffer (requesting anonymity) likens Hot Chip’s soft beats, synth, and warm vox to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and recommends you give OMD’s album Architecture & Morality a whirl – specifically the track Souvenir.

Back to Hot chip however… Here’s their performance of Take It In with The Roots, live on Jimmy Fallon:

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As the year starts, I debate new music with my peers as I’ve done many years before:

• “HOW ON EARTH IS THERE GOING TO BE A NEW SOUND THIS YEAR?” one voice says.
• “I WONDER WHAT IT’LL LOOK LIKE?” another voice replies.
• “AND PLEASE GOD DON’T LET IT START WITH GA GA ANYTHING.”

I laugh and agree, but never fear… There is something special coming. Not a new band but a new SOUND… and at the end of the day that’s what we are really looking for. Think 3 piece, think England, and think DARK!!!

The latest album Heligoland by the one and only MASSIVE ATTACK take me deep in the tundra that is ‘the dramatic’…. SO dark, so subtle, and what’s that I hear… orchestral? Like fashion, to move forward we must first take one small step back… and I have no doubt it’s landed them right smack dab on the moon!!! This album actually gives me chills – not “ooo, that’s a scary movie” chills or “OMG she’s sitting on my lap” chills. I’m talking about the type of chills that get you standing up, calling your friends and grabbing your guitar all at the same time – with elements of Mezzanine but so much more patient. And the clarity of this album leaves me speechless, I can almost see through these songs, and just when you think you have a track wrapped up in your mind, they drop a little sequence patter that will make you melt. Beats in 4/4 but start the pattern on the third phrase just to make your curious for the next section.

It’s these little subtle movements that make these songs flow in and around you. I now remember why these guys are the god fathers of trip-hop.

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Five years on from the release of Demon Days, Murdoc Niccals and co. return with Gorillaz. The band have taken up residence, recording on a secret floating island deep in the South Pacific, a Plastic Beach HQ, made up of the detritus, debris and washed up remnants of humanity. This Plastic Beach is the furthest point from any landmass on Earth; the most deserted spot on the planet.

Someone got cameras onto the Island and here it is… is it a spy?

And while you’re in a Gorillaz frame of mind, Murdoc Niccalls is broadcasting another pirate radio show from the Plastic Beach island in the South Pacific. This episode features a few “platinum cuts from the album”, dirty jokes, and more threats about playing us his dubious new track Stinkfish. And check out how the Gorillaz map has progressed… looks like something is head to OZ!

Yesterday I went back in time.  Back to a beautiful time when people paid for music legally and artists played live at your local record store (cause it was still open)!  I was lucky enough to be teleported with one of the most futuristically nostalgic bands on the planet, Wild Beasts!  And boy, all the folks with me at Red Eye Records in Sydney were in for a treat!

Tom and Hayden had borrowed an acoustic guitar and an acoustic bass from some generous staff here at EMI (thanks dudes!) and set up in the corner of one of Sydney’s last surviving indie record stores.  Red Eye is a crate-diggers wet dream – the place is choc-a-block with the best music you can find, impeccably handpicked by the friendly staff.  There was a great turn out and Tom and Hayden played 5 songs with band mates Ben and Chris supportively looking on.

I wasn’t sure how their intricately layered songs were going to translate with just 2 guys, 2 guitars and their unique, warbly voices but hearing songs like ‘All The Kings Men’ and ‘Hooting & Howling’ stripped back only amplified how beautifully clever their songwriting really is.  I wondered if this was how  these songs were born.

As with their set at Laneway Festival in Sydney, my favourite song remained ‘The Devil’s Crayon’ which is accompanied by one of my fav videos of 2008:

After yesterday, I can highly recommend time travel, or at the very least a trip to Red Eye!

So who procrastinated for half of Monday watching the entire Grammy’s pre-telecast online?

If you had the stamina for the full broadcast, you would have found out in real-time that our lovely local chap Keith Urban swooped up the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for Sweet Thing from his 2009 album Defying Gravity. Keith however, discovered his win over the phone while he was charming reporters on the red carpet! As a result , we just have a very pleased Keith and his Grammy chatting backstage – acceptance speech, schmacceptace speech!

David ‘King of the Clubs’ Guetta however OWNED the award ceremony – taking out Best Remixed Recording (Non-Classical) for his Kelly Rowland anthem When Loves Takes Over.

Check out his acceptance speech and his uber-excited leaping onto the stage and all over  award presenters LMFAO here (skip to 20:50) – I’m David Guetta, bitch!

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Last week Erika Heynatz shot her first music video for Kingdom, which from what I have seen so far is going to be stunning!

Here is a behind the scenes of the making of Kingdom shot and edited by the lady herself:

Erika’s single Kingdom will be released digitally on Feb 12, but have a listen now here or on her myspace.