Former Housemartin and Beautiful South main man Paul Heaton will celebrate his 50th birthday by taking his acclaimed soul opera The 8th onto the road this July. Performing two different shows each night - The 8th followed by a career spanning set of greatest hits – Paul will will be accompanied by star of US hit series The Wire – Reg E Cathey, Ivor Novello winning artist Cherry Ghost, ex Beautiful South singer Jacqui Abbott, Los Campesinos! vocalist Gareth Paisey as well as sweet soul singer Wayne Gidden, Scottish singer songwriter Aaron Wright, The Earlies Christian Madden, Hull country & western singer Mike Greaves and the gospel tinged voices of Yvonne Shelton and Steve Menzies.

The Pond follow leaked track ‘Bebop’ – which picked up plays from Don Letts, Gideon Coe and Radcliffe & Maconie - with the release of first single proper ‘Circle Round A Tree’ on the 21st May. The eponymous album follows on the 28th May, in the meantime you can catch a sneak preview of another new song ‘The River’ HERE

Forthcoming Release: Desperation Is The English Way Vol.1 (Album)
Released: 28th May 2012
Label: Thirty Days Of Night Records

‘The Small Minority’ is the outstanding new album from 2econd Class Citizen. The album follows on from the release of lead single ‘Outside Your Doorway’, which featured exclusive remixes by Dday One and Buddy Peace, a bonus track together with long time collaborator James Reindeer.

An alumnus of Ninja Tune’s iconic Solid Steel series, 2econd Class Citizen caught the ears of DJ Food’s Strictly Kev, and last year the two worked together on the 9 track musical collage “Magpie Music” which was released as part of Food’s EP “Magpies, Maps & Moons” and also included in the following album “The Search Engine”. Strictly Kev has kindly lent his talents to create an ultra-exclusive megamix of ‘The Small Minority’.

Urgent news that, with their new single ‘Wolf Hand’ out this week on Transgressive & having today confirmed more festival appearances for Pukkelpop & Y Not Festival, Leeds rockers Pulled Apart By Horses have just uploaded a free EP for fans to download from their Facebook page.

The download EP includes an MP3 of this morning’s fantastic cover of Lana Del Rey’s hit ‘Blue Jeans’ recorded for Fearne Cotton’s BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, which set twitter on fire with praise for the band. The rest of the EP is made up of recently recorded live tracks taken from their new album ‘Tough Love’, including the single itself, ‘Wolf Hand’.

Norway is most commonly known as the magical land of the Vikings, Fjords, Trolls and expensive beer. What the history books neglect to mention is their thriving music scene which has produced many successful acts over the years....

The next band set for international success hailing from Oslo, Norway is the intoxicating Silver Street. Having spent a number of years building their native fan base, the four-piece now plan to follow in their ancestors footsteps and conquer the UK once again.

Single ‘Angelina’ possesses the band’s signature sweeping vocal harmonies with a bitter sweet belting chorus that will leave the strongest of Vikings in a subdued yet thoughtful state of mind.