Lana Del Ray

Homemade videos need to have that special something to make you filter them out from your everyday norm. Hurts had the eyebrow raising dancing lady on their first £20 video and now Lana Del Ray weaves together old movies, bottles of drink and herself wearing a movie star wig in black & white.

The movie star image is what Lana's rocking. Her real name is plain old Lizzy Grant and according to her press release she's been roaming the musical world for a little while. Who hasn't though? Here's an old interview with plain old Lizzy from a couple of years ago. Now though she's in London and spending time songwriting with pop legend Biffco. There's a slight hint of Paloma in her voice, but an altogether much darker, sometimes sulkier, sometimes realer sound. 'Kinda Outta Luck' sounds like it belongs straight on a Tarantino soundtrack and the sinister elements to her voice remind me a lot of The Pierces. This one could go anywhere from chilling, sexy acoustic to sultry pop. Exciting.

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Passion Pit

This is lovely. It's by a band called Passion Pit who are one of the fifteen bands on the BBC's Sound of 2009 longlist. I was one of the voters in the poll but chose 1. Little Boots 2. Janelle Monae and 3. The Good Natured as my votes.

The trippy Sleepyhead was released as a single earlier in the year from their Chunk of Change EP and has a dreamy yet scary, weird Kate Bush style falsetto being patched together by the Avalanches sound to it. It's simply three minutes of gorgeously delirious fun. The buzz for these Massachusets boys started round CMJ time and I'm pretty sure they're going to be one of those bands that the hipsters heart until they get popular at which point they'll be hated (cf Vampire Weekend). They're recording their debut album now and will be playing in the UK in February.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5bfseWNmlds[/youtube]

Download Sleepyhead [legal MP3] from Spinner Mag

Review: Katy Perry @ Water Rats

'I want you to pop my cherry!' shouts Katy Perry, at this her first ever UK gig. Knowing exactly how to drive the teenagers packed into London's tiny Water Rats wild, she's even more wide-eyed and coy than she looks on TV – her vampish dress showing off, as one punter put it, 'a great rack'.

Her debut album isn't out yet, but this crowd know every word. Undoubtedly a show-woman, Katy's bright blue eyes flash round the room wildly as she spends every moment trying to shock whether it be burping into the mic, begging the audience to 'touch her boob', telling us about her sexual exploits or peppering her lyrics with swearing.

Ripping into boys is a major theme. 'If You Can Afford Me' tells them off for expecting too much in return for dinner, while the unashamedly cruel 'You're So Gay' disses her ex for being too metrosexual. Named as her 'sing-along anthem', her casual use of 'gay' as a derogatory term is reprehensible.

While the insincere rocky ballads show off her Alanis-esque voice, it's the poppy 'Hot N Cold' that we enjoyed the most. A song almost too good for Perry, it's a pulsating pop rock anthem that P!nk would kill for.

Katy disappears briefly off stage for a mock call to her super Christian mom. 'I just want to make one thing clear, she was really f**king hot!' she shouts, before launching into a rocked up version of bisexual shock-a-thon 'I Kissed A Girl' complete with head thrashing guitar breakdown.

Katy Perry, obsessed with bodily parts, sexuality and acting all alternative, is the perfect pin up for 15-year-olds who find emo too dark. It's calculated corporate quirk and as that alone, is very good at what it does.

Uh Huh Her

Uh Hur Her are Leisha Hailey and Camilla Grey. They've just released their debut album 'Common Reaction' and it includes the brilliant 'This Is Not A Love Song.' Sounding just like it could be a cut from Goldfrapp's 'Supernature', it's a slice of electro pop goodness. I've not heard the full album yet, but nothing else so far lives up to this. They've got a massive gay following thanks to Leisha's role in The L Word (and as a former gf of K D Lang) so I hope this goes down well at Miss-Shapes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ9iPPfOMvM[/youtube]

They play a live date in the UK at Koko, London on November 18.