Top releases, 2008:

For those who haven't yet been able to get hold of a hard copy of the fourth fanzine, here's the list of The New Thing's Top 20 releases of 2008. Singles, EPs, and albums are all counted together in this Festive Twenty to create a definitive picture of the year's highlights. Or so we think.

1. Factory Floor - Bipolar (S)


2. KASMs - Taxidermy (S)


3. Electricity In Our Homes - We Thought It Was But It Wasn't (S)


4. Ulterior - 15 (EP)


5. Hatcham Social - So So Happy Making (S)


6. These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid (LP)
7. Ipso Facto - Six and Three Quarters (S)
8. These New Puritans - Elvis (S)
9. An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump - These Sins (EP)
10. Factory Floor - Planning Application (EP)
11. S.C.U.M - Visions Arise (S)
12. 1000 Robota - Hamburg Brennt (EP)
13. Neils Children - I'm Ill (S)
14. The Ruling Class - Flowers (S)
15. The Horrors / Suicide / Nik Void - Shadazz (EP)
16. ddd - ddd (EP)
17. O Children / S.C.U.M - Ace Breasts / Smile (EP)
18. Project:Komakino - Project:Komakino (EP)
19. Plug - Fresh Pleasures (S)
20. Disconcerts - Human Figure In Motion (S)

ESG and A Certain Ratio for 1/1.

One Of One, the record label and promotion franchise run by Electricity In Our Home's Bonnie Carr, has announced details of their second London event. ON02 will bring ESG, the pioneering New York punk-funk group whose liquid basslines have backed not only their own songs but innumberable samplers' too, to the Barbican Centre. Support will come from none other than A Certain Ratio, Manchester post-punk icons, who played several shows with ESG in the early 1980s. It's all scheduled for March 3rd 2009, and tickets and information are available from the Barbican website.

KASMs album & new single.

KASMs have finished recording their debut album at Abbey Road studios, and are to release it some time in the next few months (although as yet it has no name and no artwork). Before that, though, comes their next single, 'Bone You'. It can be heard on their MySpace page and brings an ultra-distorted industrial edge to their sound, while preserving the band's gift for combining melody and structure with bone-crunching vicious noise.

Hatcham Social covers EP.

Hatcham Social are due to release Party, a download-only EP of cover versions, some time in the next couple of weeks as a final release before they put out their next single and album (due in the first two weeks of March). The EP features covers of songs by Shocking Blue (via Nirvana), The Jesus and Mary Chain, Lou Reed, The Beach Boys, and Pavement, and will be available from the Hatcham Social forum A Clearing In The Woods on December 8th, along with accompanying artwork designed by the band which can be folded into a CD booklet.

Ulterior thrown off tour.

Ulterior have been dismissed from their tour with The Faint, apparently due to misbehaviour at their Manchester Academy show. The statement from the band:

After last nights screaming performance at Manchester Academy, we are really sorry to say that we have been pulled from the remainder of the UK tour with The Faint.

Read that how you like as we’re not allowed to make any further comments as to the reasons why.

Massive apologies to those who have bought tickets already and to those already on their way to The Scala - we’ve only just had confirmation right now.

Also, thanks to everyone who came down to support us in Manchester, you guys were amazing!

Ipso Facto and Magazine::support and collaboration

This year Ipso Facto supported Siouxsie Sioux, next year it's Magazine. The legendary post-punk pioneers have chosen the Ipsos as their support for their reunion gigs next February, after making contact via MySpace. Not only will Ipso Facto be warming up the crowd in London, Manchester, and Glasgow, but also singing doo-wop backing vocals on some songs from 1981's Magic, Murder and the Weather album. The four-piece are known to be enormous fans of Magazine, who have reformed despite the death in 2004 of guitarist John McGeoch (to be replaced on the upcoming tour by Norman Fisher-Jones), and Rosalie Cunningham has described her group as 'starstruck' by the opportunity. Tickets are selling out fast.

Dates:

12 Feb - The Forum, London
13 Feb - The Forum, London
14 Feb - Academy 1, Manchester
16 Feb - Carling Academy, Glasgow
17 Feb - Academy 1, Manchester

band spotlight. ADVERT

With a clanking, hypnotic throb of Sonic Youth guitars and industrial drum machines, a band called Advert are about to lurch into the spotlight with a show at The Horrors' Set Up Club. The enigmatic three-piece write songs named after girls and cover Billy Idol's 'White Wedding', but this isn't power pop; noise-laden live shows draw audience members into a trance but Advert hardly communicate with words: instead, they get their message across with layers of oscillating industrial post-punk. Keep your ears open.

Advert MySpace