The Sun Explodes are a 5-piece heavy rock band from Carlisle, Cumbria. Their genre-defying mix of crushing riffs, sweeping melody and pulsating electronica separates them from the crowd as a truly original up and coming force on the UK rock scene.

Their first year as a band saw them travel the length of Britain in an effort to spread their word; their second saw the release of debut album ‘Emergence’ as the band honed their sound. A strong online presence has aided their steadily growing fan base, but it is their epic, frenetic gigs which have garnered most support, an aggressive and energetic live show performed with a level of technical quality matched by few new bands.

The proliferation of identikit, interchangeable groups in today’s rock scene make the band’s music a breath of fresh air; with a second album being planned and the desire and drive to keep improving and get their music heard far and wide, The Sun Explodes are poised to make the jump from new kids on the block to your new favourite band.

‘Emergence’ is available now on iTunes, Amazon MP3, Spotify and through the band’s own webstore. Their debut video for the album track ‘Honour Bound’ can be viewed below;

If you want to find out more about the band, then they can be found on all good social network sites.

http://www.facebook.com/thesunexplodes

http://www.youtube.com/user/thesunexplodes

http://twitter.com/thesunexplodes

http://thesunexplodes.bigcartel.com/

The Sun Explodes are hotly tipped for big things in 2012, so your New Years resolution should be to check them out!

Further to my post yesterday I thought I'd make it easier for everyone and put all the Knife Party tracks here for your free download. If you'd like to say thanks to the two Pendulum lads Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen for the tracks, you can hit up their website at knifeparty.com.

Coining the genre 'Seizure Music', Knife Party is an electro-house / dubstep hybrid act that the two lads say didn't fit the Pendulum mould. They've only got TWO live shows booked in at the moment - this boxing day in their home town of Perth (Australia) and then once more in mid-January at MOS in London. The Aussie pair have already remixed for mammouth acts like Swedish House Mafia & Nero.
 
If you're wondering where 'knife party' came from, it's inspired by the Deftones track of the same name. But in trying to work that out I stumbled across another meaning of knife party that was quite disturbing, if you're interested you can check it out at Urban Dictionary OR...

You can just get into these monsters;

Destroy Them With Lazers

It's Saturday night, it's time for electro music. Quite aptly, as 2011 draws to a close, these are some of the biggest club bangers we've heard all year. Enjoy. Tree Boy xoxoxo P.S. Check out the 'live reviews' section for the Vizzle's review of the 'Example' gig this week, as always, his word is gospel....

Deniz Koyu - Tung
Undoubtedly my favourite club tune of the year. Seriously, how much fun is this?! Deniz cites Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Daft Punk and Cassius as his influences - and I'm sure they'll all be flattered when they hear how good this track is.

Cee-Lo Green - F**k You (Audibotz Bassline Bootleg)
This is a very good bootleg! The 2 guys from Florida posted this for free download a few months back on their soundcloud and ever since, this hasn't left my 'top 25 most played' playlist. CAUTION: Explicit Lyrics.

Knife Party - Internet Friends 
A SIDE PROJECT OF TWO MEMBERS OF PENDULUM! Yes, the Aussie lads Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen released Knife Party's four track EP  'No Modern Talking' last Monday on Pendulum's record label 'Ear Storm'. It's in no way related to Pendulum but its tipped by so many bloggers as the track of 2011. While I admit it is top notch, I do struggle with the lyric;  "you blocked me on facebook, now you're going to die... Who is she, some f***ing s**t?". But, just as Pendulum thrived off 16 year old fans like myself - I'm sure that with lyrics like that, Knife Party also will. CAUTION: Explicit Lyrics.

They're giving away their EP FREE!! You can get it from our friends at EARMILK right here. "Destroy them with Lazers" is a tune to be fair.

Mord Fustang - Lick the Rainbow (Miles Dyson Breakfest Edit)
This is a classy number from the German guys, have a lovely weekend :-p 

You can't help loving a decent remix, and sir remix-a-lot is back with a fair few. Enjoy. Tree Boy xoxoxoxoxo

I can't say I like Lily Allen, I can't say I like her music, and I can't say that I thought these lyrics were appropriate for commercial radio. But what I can say is, the only way I was ever going to like this garbage was if dubstep producer oblivion got hold of it. He has, and now I do.

More dubstep for you here but this time the original track hails from one of my all time favourite bands. Strangely going under his pseudonym 'Feed Me' here (which is most often associated with his electro productions) Jon Gooch of Deadmau5' Mau5trap record label has produced a stomper! You'll recall that 'Spor', another of Gooch's aliases, is responsible for remixing the likes of Noisia, this man is a connoisseur of filthy bass music and this track is no exception.

Some huge names on show with this remix, it's not often we hear an uplifting d 'n' b track nowadays but with the Yorkshire outfit 'utah saints' involved it was never going to be anything but. Plus, given the treatment from the only Derbyshire duo I've ever idolised, Drumsound & Bassline Smith, this makes for a must have.

OK... The Duck Sauce duo of Armand Van Helden and A-trak have struggled to reach the heady heights of 'Barbara Streisand' since it's release, and that's even despite their high profile remixes for the closely affiliated 'Chromeo'. In my opinion, this track was never going to land them in the spotlight again but man of the minute Toddla T puts a jackin' / fidget house slant on this, and it's making headlines in the blog worls. It sounds like something we've come to expect from 'herve', and having not heard a peep from "the Count" in a while now, I love this. If you do like this track, also check out 'audiobotz' on souncloud - I'll be featuring their remixes shortly but the fidget house genre is all over it for me this weekend. Enjoy.

In case you've had a tough weekend, we've got a rehab post for you... a few tracks to chill out with, have a snooze to, reflect with; enjoy; 

I Aeronaut - Backyard of Butterflies

A dreamy Royksopp-esque number from the very shy 'I, aeronaut'. He's released his first full-length this year and you can listen to the entire album  'of waves and wings' right here. Here's a few words from his bandcamp page;

"as a daydreamer, and rather shy boy, this is the only form of communication I can bare to express. It would mean the world to me if anyone would be so kind as to take a listen. I'd appreciate it more than anything. Thank you."

Oliver Tank - Last Night I heard everything in Slow Motion

As always the 'Musigh' blog comes up trumps with all things chilled, this track was a great spot. Oliver is one of Australia's own and you can check out and download a handful of his tracks right here at the Triple J unearthed website. As Triple J point out, fans of James Blake are sure to take to this.    

LIPS Songs - Everything to me

LIPS is a New Zealander now living in New York, this one has been gracing my sleep playlist for a few weeks now. If you like what you hear, check out this young lady's Soundcloud.

Cosomonaut Greckho - Nothing 2 (arioso)

I'm not shy to admit my ignorance of, nor penchant for classical music. It just takes someone like Cosmonaut to get classical music it in the playlist! What might come as more of a shock is that Cosmonaut is a 20 year old Russian based in Saratov producing music like this after rising to fame with remixes for the likes of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Shinichi Osawa. A fitting end to this post, I defy you not to be chilled out after listening to these five tracks in a row... Don't forget; 'right click' on download file --> 'save as' --> relax! Tree Boy xoxoxoxoxo   

A few electro / house tunes to help you get ready for this weekend... 'Right Click' --> 'save as' --> 'have a good weekend'.

Hackman - Close

This has been kicking about for some time but it's not getting old at all, a garage tinge with some perfect vocals.

Angus & Julia Stone - Big Jet Plane (Stern* Disco Mix)

OK, so this track was voted in as Australia's best track of 2010 on what is possibly the world's greatest radio station; Triple J. It's the most depressing thing you've ever heard but it gets a more upbeat makeover here and makes for a tidy warm up track.

Shinichi Osawa - American

Shinichi is a Kitsune label stalwart and this track proves why, it's got that booka shade synth, it's classy, it's catchy, its a few months old now but hopefully it'll be doing the rounds for a long time.

Acidkids - Josef Geld

Now we're warming up. As my facebook followers will know, I picked this for one of my top tracks of 2011 - it's a Johnny Cash sample, imagine a club remix of 'cotton eyed joe' and you're probably thinking of this. It's good fun.

BRUK - Shine On

Absolute gold. Everything you could ask for this weekend.

Foamo - Vibrations

On a Eurpoean tour right now, one of the biggest names in electro. Have a lovely weekend! Tree Boy xoxoxoxo 

There are no words poignant enough to kick this off again after such a break, but just know that I'm writing this with the cheekiest of grins on my face! It's good to be back...

As most of you reading this will know, I disappear during exams. And because of that the site went down and a lot of the vizzles excellent work got caught up in cyber space - but do check out his posts below; as always, a top read.

Enough of the excuses from me... I'm gathering up tracks and you can expect nothing but the best of those right here, for a long time to come. Firstly, I thought I might fill you in on some of the music that accompanied me through the last few months. As you can imagine - with nothing new being downloaded, the play counts got very high, and none higher than on this one-hour mix from Jamie XX.

You might remember previous 'songs of the week' we've featured from Jamie including his re-imagining's of Florence and the Machine's 'You got the love' and Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep'. The Florence classic makes an appearance towards the end of this mix with a clever little accapella thrown in.

And that track's certainly not the highlight of the mix... and that's saying something. In what I would call the best opening track I know of; Jamie XX has dug out an unreleased recording from none other than our favourite band 'the Streets', it's a monster track from back in the day's of 'Has it Come to This' and embodies that side of Mike Skinner that we always knew was there but heard very little about. The self-doubt, the vulnerability, it churns your stomach to hear what Mike's saying but in a way that keeps you reaching for rewind. It blew me away. Like I say, we all know that side of Mike was there but hearing him say it so early in his career is a something I wasn't prepared for. And ironically, Skinner commented years ago that he didn't release the track because it wasn't worth wasting time releasing it - he thinks it's rubbish, I love it - you'll have to be the judge!

And from this the mix moves into remixes of Jamie's fraternity 'the XX'; the track 'Crystallised' gets an old skool garage makeover and then we drift into downtempo, techno and dubstep of the more mellow variety. Stay strong, it almost lost me at first as well; but the thing I kept reminding myself of is that Jamie, aged little over 20, selects tracks and produces originals and remixes with a maturity that's just unparalleled at the minute. Also worth remembering is that Jamie hails from the same school that gave us Hot Chip, Four Tet, and Burial - all renowned for producing music  very similar to that in this tracklist.

Don't expect to fall for this from the moment you press play, but do prepare yourself for a relationship with this mix. You will fall in love and grow old together. Lovely to be back! Tree Boy xoxoxoxo

You can download the full mix by clicking here. Sorry you can't download straight from iknowasong.com as per usual; the file size is 1mb too big! I won't let it happen again I promise. It's worth following the download instructions at megaupload.com for this. And just in case you forgot how good Jamie XX was, this track has over 5 million hits on youtube;

Up until one day ago I had been self-starved of new bass FILTH for nigh on 6 weeks. It hurt, it really did - but now it's like that first head-rush all over again, dubstep / drumstep / d 'n' B fans, enjoy these ones with me...

Dr. Ozi - An Apple A Day 
You won't quite believe this first time round - imagine Noisia and Prodigy had a baby that was brought up by Goldie and Doctor P, kidnapped by Borgore and abandoned in the woods to be raised by feral wildlife - that baby would be called Dr. Ozi. Here they are, those filthy Canadian bastards Nix Chohan and Christian Boyd, somehow, remaining unsigned;

Dr. Ozi - Jazz Hands
And because I guarantee you that you'll want to hear more Dr. Ozi  following that first instalment, here's a bit more. And if you're extra-specially hooked then head here to the boy's soundcloud where you can hear them do nasty horrible things to Ke$ha and Chris Brown. Seriously, at about 1.30mins, they really do smash Ke$ha about!

Gogol Bordello - Immidraniada (Bassnectar Remix)
From newcomer's to stalwarts here we've got Bassnectar, with his 8th album 'Divergent Spectrum' about to drop on August 2nd right here at bassnectar.net. Many will have honed in on Bassnectar following his high profile remixes for the likes of Ellie Goulding, he takes a more Circus Records-esque approach to this, dropping off an almost hardcore track with a lovely sounding name! You can preview the whole new album here and catch him on tour in the UK, Canada and the U.S. in the next few weeks!

Blockhe4d - Gutter Queen
Drum 'n' Bass fans you're being spoilt! Here's one from a brand new London based collab between US Born Jonas "Uman" and former Bad Company(!) member 'Vegas'. As soon as I heard Bad Company had something to do with this I got very excited, and I was right to - already releasing on Hospital Records, we can expect to hear a lot more of this d 'n' b / dubstep / electro sound that Blockhe4d promises to bring us.

Does it Offend you, Yeah? - Wondering (Dirtyphonics Remix)
Here's two things you don't hear every day 1) Very good dubstep 2) French dubstep... And those two things to me, up until 24 hours ago were very separate things. Suffice to say, Dirtyphonics have changed all of that with what is, quite frankly, carnage in your ears... Doing the festival route all round Europe, these guys are even remixing for Skrillex! What's filthier than Skrillex? Oh yeah, it's the Dirtyphonics remix of Skrillex. Check it out below. And get all these tracks... right-click --> 'save as' --> enjoy! Tree Boy xoxoxox

I knew it was going to take something special to get me back in the swing of things after a 6-week exam hiatus, and this is exactly that! SBTRKT has to be the most talked about artist of the year so far, and with an album like this you know exactly why. And, for you good people, here's a preview of what the man in the mask, Aaron Jerome, can do... 

SBTRKT - Heatwave
This is a strong Metronomy-esque style intro, upbeat, scatty, challenging, and getting you in the right frame of mind for the rest of this. The Ex-Westminster Uni student is known to have had his first break via Drum 'n' Bass legend LTJ Bukem back in 2002 making waves with his nu-jazz and breakbeat productions. Tracks like this make even more sense given that formidable backdrop to this man's career.

SBTRKT - Hold On
I think we can all appreciate the comparison that every commentator is drawing between SBTRKT and James Blake with tracks like this one. You'll remember that I've already tipped James Blake's album as one to watch in the 'best of 2011' lists, I've got a feeling it might be a spot or two behind this one! These vocals and Blake's are comparable in terms of how much I am in LOVE both of them.

SBTRKT - Wildfire
For many, this track will literally climb the play-count like wildfire. This track is getting massive air time on the major stations here and that's for the very good reason that there won't be many people out there who don't love this track. 

SBTRKT - Trials of the Past
This is an absolute highlight for me, this vocal. It reminds me of a track or two from Breakage's album 'Foundation' (hear: 'Speechless' ft. Donae'O) which is a classic album in its own right and again we'll recall the James Blake comparison's. It's being banded around now that SBTRKT is set to release tracks with the likes of Drake and as much as I may have raised an eyebrow at that, this track recognises that their is an urban / R 'n' B route that can be taken, and that can only be hailed as a good thing - because if today's R 'n' B sounded a bit more like this we might post more of it.

SBTRKT - Right Thing To Do
Now here's some 2-step to wobble along with. SBTRKT has said that UK Garage has been the biggest influence on his production, growing up listening to the works of MJ Cole and Groove Chronicles. I can't fault that one bit, some of SBTRKT's critics have suggested that he's jumping on the UK dance music trend band wagon with the dark, dubstep-tinged tracks... But I know that there's not many tracks like this knocking about, SBTRKT has stood his ground with this one, there's no bandwagon's and considering how good this is I kind of hope it start's one 'cos I could do with a lot more of this!

SBTRKT - Pharoahs
Again, this is a track we can expect to hear a lot more of on our airwaves! I'd describe this as a matured Basement Jaxx track and that's strange considering that it just so happens that the very same Basement Jaxx were one of SBTRKT's first big supporter's, commissioning him to remix the Kelis track 'Scars'.

SBTRKT - Never Never
Another tugger of the heartstrings for the penultimate track and it's apt considering how upset you will be that this album is about to finish! I cannot urge you enough to try this album out, there's nothing to dislike. And - more good news is that SBTRKT's live shows are said to be to die for. With heaps of 'experimental' remixes under his belt and a close affinity with Graeme Sinden (Herve's esteemed colleague) and Sinden's upcoming label 'Grizzly' we can expect BIG things from those shows. Hopefully BIG enough to do justice to what is quite easily, contender for album of year thus far.

Make sure to buy the album to check out the rest SBTRKT'S fantastic TRK's. It's good to be back! Tree Boy xoxoxoxo

Here's a new one for you - 'moombathon', that's the genre 18 year old Dutch producer Munchi is claiming here.
 
And telling truths, unless he'd said that I'd struggle to put a genre on this, as soon as you hear the full metal jacket sample you recall one of our fave Bristolian's 'Jakes' track of the same name; Munchi admits taking inspiration from that track when Jakes dropped it at a festival.

But then it's not that simple, it's got a little bit of that Mr. Oizo electro/funk type thing going on. Needless to say it's a beast, that's why it's here... This lad from Amsterdam has put out A LOT of tunes, expect a lot more from him here.  

And as a bonus for the dubstep fans, you're treated to a VIP of Jakes' orginal track. If you're into your dubstep and D 'n' B but you're yet to buy the album 'The Jakes Project' go get it from itunes now, you owe it to yourself;

Jakes - Warface (VIP)