twenty six: Kocani Orkestar

Kocani Orkestar have more Eastern European-ness than you can shake a stick at. And the bosum buddies to Beirut have got the heart, soul and mind to power to force you into a dancing frenzy.
Writhing trumpets, slippy-sliddy accordions and leg-shaking beats are plastered all over songs like Maxutu, it's almost too "German market band" to handle. Kocani Orkestar has also got some major precision on their side.
Popular songs like Siki Siki Baba, weave between mounting French horns and lung-draining choruses. It was also featured on Borat. And you thought you wouldn't learn anything today.
If I said to you that you had to shoot a scene of a young boy running through the back streets of a village, the accompanying music you'd pick would be Kocani Orkestar, mark my words.
The Macedonian band's second album (L'Orient Est Rouge) packs such punches as title track L'Orient Est Rouge, a track full of joviality and energy, with an equally enticing title, I think you'll agree.
Their new album (The Ravished Bride) is out this month, with even more energetic and diverse sounds within it's gigabites. Sokeres has a slightly comical air about it. As if it should feature on a Peter Seller's Pink Panther film. It has that atmosphere that echoes that of a rather haphazard chase scene.

Listen to Siki, Siki Baba here.

twenty five: Your Friends Are Architects

Architecture. It's an amazing thing, isn't it? Personally I'm not a huge fan of all the glass I'm seeing everywhere right now, but I guess it's going some way towards the environment and all that jazz.


Your Friends Are Architects are a four piece just waiting to become the next big speedsters out there in musicland. They descibe themselves as Disco house/Post Punk and take key elements of both these genres to create a relentless powerhouse of songs that never bores your ears of sounds to be heard here, there and everywhere.
This is easily audible in songs like Figure (their latest single, released in April), which pounds in with jungle-esque drums and a chant of "We have no information!". It only goes up and up from there on in, slowing the pace at intervals and then snapping back into chants and cowbells.
StopStart jumps straight in and may cause an unsuspecting listener to have a heart attack, or maybe two if you account for the sheer catchiness of it, which grabs your dancin' feet and shakes them 'til they're ready to drop off
Their influences include Tokyo Police Club, Foals and The Rapture, an excellent combination in my opinion. They clearly wear these choices on their sleeves during the writing process (without it becoming plagiarism), and whether it's the choruses of TPC, or the echoing guitars of Foals (notable on Vincent, watch out for those handclaps!) or the yelping vocals of The Rapture, all of this band's tracks have become a fine art.
So, much like architecture, Thom, Matt, Max and Rob have made some excellent foundations and are only beginning what might be seen as a metaphorical building of a career, which will continue to rise floor by floor, because with formulas like these, you can't go wrong.

Listen to Vincent here.