National Lakes

I got sent an email. It read:

National Lakes is a new band featuring Black Hotels singer and songwriter John Boyd.

And there were Facebook and Soundcloud links attached.

Given my favourable opinions of the Black Hotels (you’ll have heard them here, here and here), I wasn’t going to give this one a miss.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

So much of The Cure in that music. So much of… er… The Black Hotels in that voice: the gentle yet precise annunciation.

Lovely. Nice work, John Boyd.

Stone Wife

I’ve recently been enjoying some vintage Black Hotels in the form of their 2009 album Films For The Next Century. Here’s Stone Wife with a rather sad video and a very catchy chorus:

Highly underrated, these Joburg alternative rockers are due to release a new album – Holidays – next month. Hopefully, there will be a few gigs to go with it.

Find them on Facebook here.

RunMix 02

Pretty knackered (to say the least) after a late night winning a pub quiz, a 5:15am wake up call from an excited Alex, followed by some mad fun in the mud at pretentious restaurant The Bungalow, watching a friend jump off the mountain (with a qualified paraglider and a qualified parachute attached), I have been charged with sorting out some music for Mrs 6000’s phone (GPS/music player) to encourage her to run faster, higher, stronger.

At the same time, I’m renewing my RunMix playlist. I can’t do both from the same list because I want some fast paced house, a touch of dubstep and a healthy smattering of nu-metal to pump me up the hills of Cape Town. Mrs 6000 just wants the happy house stuff.

Goodbye Josh from Joburg band The Black Hotels falls comfortably into neither of those camps, but it appears to have made it into both playlists for its sheer get up and go beat.

Regular readers will probably recall that they have previous form in this regard.

More tomorrow, probably including some photos and stuff from today. Assuming I actually get some sleep this evening.