Busy times at the moment, lots of irons in the fire, lots of stuff coming up.

First up, you’ve probably heard about The Maccabees (pictured top) return, thanks to all the exposure they’ve been having on the likes of Radio 1 and XFM recently. I quite liked their debut, Colour It In, with its interesting tales – a sort of poor man’s Wombats. They’ve made a free download available, No Kind Words, however I must admit that I really really dislike it from what I hear. It’s boring, it’s repetitive and most of all, it’s just plain dreary.

MP3: The Maccabees – No Kind Words

Following on from the Maccabees, Jamie T (pictured right) has made a new track available on his Myspace page. It’s only a demo, called “Fire Fire”, however after the aceness of “Sheila” and “Calm Down Dearest” it’s a bit of a let down – overly distorted, and, well, just not that great. Still, it is only a demo, so it might get better.

On the happier end of things, Winston over at Winston’s Zen interviewed The Rifles’ Joel Stoker the other day, and is giving his readers the chance to win one of three copies of The Rifles’ amazing new album. Pop over there before Tuesday to enter and hopefully win!

We’ve mentioned Esser before here at TGTF, however we’ve never really listened to his tunes before. Just been sent a remix of his new single, Work It Out (video below), and it sounds amazing. Download and enjoy.

MP3: Esser – Work it Out (A1 Bassline Remix)

We first wrote about The Sunshine Underground (pictured right) a couple of years back, loving their infectious tunes. They’ve taken a step back from the limelight of late, recording their follow up, which is almost ready thankfully.

They’ve kindly offered us a free MP3 to offer you, which won’t be appearing on their new album – to describe it, think Klaxons, but with a northern heart. Download and enjoy.

MP3: The Sunshine Underground & FC Kahuna – From The City To The Sea

We wrote about Daniel Merriweather a couple of weeks ago, and his marvellous new single, “Change” is out now. The below video is a great one with the Ozzie talking about his single from the studio and his live show at London’s YoYos night in Notting Hill

Manchester lads Starsailor (pictured top), have a new album out on 9th March, which sounds good. I loved “Silence is Easy” back in the day, and hopefully this new one will be a return to form. We’re very fortunate in being able to give you a free download of a live version of “Boy in Waiting”, below.

MP3: Starsailor – “Boy In Waiting” (Live At The Hard Rock Cafe)

Finally, something a bit different. Norwegians Casiokids have a great new song which, for some crazy reason, reminds me of Mr. Oizo’s Flat Beat, even though they sound nothing alike. I’ve been listening to this on and off for a few days, quietly building on me. Catch the video and an MP3 of the track below.

MP3: Casiokids – Fot i Hose

It’s scary to think that just a month ago I was on the banks of the Thames watching 2009 roll in with some great fireworks and friends.

One of the songs that I loved the most was Passion Pit’s “Sleepyhead” (pictured top). Since then I’ve been slowly falling in love with their US electro jams. Think Hot Chip, but not as repetitive. Ohhh yes. They’re currently recording an album, and Fader had a great piece recently about their new album, and footage of them recording with a kids choir. Quite something. Watch if you have a spare 20 minutes or so!

As many of you probably have worked out, I get easily hooked on the simplest things. Alongside by growing Google Reader addiction, and my stead-fast cocktail of Facebook, last.fm and Ask Metafilter, Twitter has joined the ranks of things I’m inappropriately excited about. It’s micro-blogging, 140 characters of what I’m up to, and gets quite addictive watching people around the world and what they’re doing.

Along with Stephen Fry, Philip Schofield, Danny Wallace and Jonathon Ross, many musicians are getting in on the act. My personal favourite at the moment is the amazing Dan Black (who we’ve covered before, and is pictured right), who gives rarer updates than some, but packed with nuggets about his new album.

MP3: Dan Black – HYPNTZ

We’ve held off on our uber-fan boy rantings about Bloc Party for a while now, however I can hold it in no more – tomorrow night / early Monday morning we’ll be bringing you our second live review of 2009 when we catch Kele and co in Wolverhampton. It’ll be the fourth time we’ve caught them (having seen them in Southampton, Scotland, and London), and tomorrow night looks to be a good one, going by their Radio 1 session yesterday. Their new single, One Month Off, is out now (well, it came out on Monday) and has a rather surreal video with it (below). So, expect much fevered talk of Bloc Party over the next few days from me. Apologies.

Another busy day here at TGTF. Expect things to slow down over the end of this week and next week, as I have to have about half of my university dissertation done by next Friday, and frankly I’ve done next to nothing on it so far. I’ll also be roping in some of you lovely readers later in the year to help out with some of my research – I’m looking at corporate sponsorship in the music industry, something I’m sure you can all relate to and have strong opinions on!!

Moving on to the more day-to-day stuff (and what you’re probably all here for: MP3s!).

Now, I know I said last year that here at TGTF we wouldn’t be featuring many of the festival lineups. At that point, I hated festivals. Not gonna lie, I hadn’t been to one and was too frightened of getting my feet muddy. Then we went to Hydro Connect, and fell in love with the concept, so expect a bit more festival coverage this year.

Field Day have announced some of their lineup for Saturday 1st August this year. They’ve got the amazing Mogwai headlining, along with Four Tet and James Yorkston (pictured right) and a few more artists to be announced. Sounds pretty good, might well see if we can wander down. Tickets are on sale now, priced at £29.50 each plus the obligatory booking fees, bah humbug. It’s in Victoria Park, London from 11:30am – 10:30pm. Fun.

In other festival news, local lads to me here in Oxfordshire, Supergrass have announced that they’ll be playing Wychwood Festival. The event, which runs from Friday 29th – Sunday 31st May at Cheltenham Race Course will see the Oxford brit-pop stars will headline the Saturday night, and BBC 6Music DJ Tom Robinson will be curating his very own evening line-up on Wychwood’s third stage. All sounds good, and very local to me.

You all probably know that loud mouthed Lily Allen has a new album out shortly, and I’ll be honest – I quite liked her last one, in a guilty-pleasure sort of way. At least she has more talent than Kate Nash. She’s made an album megamix available for download, so enjoy it before you get your grubby mits on the new album.

MP3: Lily Allen – Album Megamix

Stumbled across an amusing video interview of Goldie Lookin’ Chain earlier today (yes, I should have been working) – words fail me to describe it well, so wander on over to Don’t Panic (which seems like a great student run magazine from a quick look), and watch and enjoy.

One last MP3 and we’ll go. Hockey, who are off on tour with the AMAZING Passion Pit in late February have given us a free MP3 to give to you guys. It’s pretty amazing, a bit of electro pop is always good to get you warmed up for a Saturday night!

MP3: Hockey – 3am Spanish

Oh, and stumbled across the below video for T-Mobile. No, we’re not being paid to have this up, I just quite liked it.

Wow, it seems just about everyone has decided to announce a tour today, with our biggest posting day EVER here at TGTF. We’ve now got over 1,000 posts, which are read by around 15,000 unique visitors each month. So, thanks for stopping by.

We spent part of today speaking to Kyte and Defend Moscow for two interviews which will be going up later this week, once the new tour announcement flurry has died down. Our poor inbox is overflowing with some great new bands and information, so if you’ve written to us recently we WILL get back to you soon. If we don’t, it’s only ‘cos we don’t like you. (Joke!)

Moving swiftly on. We mentioned last Tuesday about The Rakes‘ (pictured right) new tour. Their very nice people have been in touch and pointed us in the direction of a free MP3 you guys can have. The Light from your Mac is one of the first tracks to emerge from their forthcoming third album, Klang (out 23rd March), and features the usual powerful guitar riffs, and great lyrics. Download, enjoy and then get their album.

MP3: The Rakes – The Light from your Mac

I laid my grubby mits on Airborne Toxic Event’s new album yesterday, having first heard their new single “Sometime Around Midnight” (below)  on Saturday morning on Nick Grimshaw’s Radio 1 show. Once I’d got around the fact that the lead singer sounds a bit like Johnny Borrell, I slowly fell in love with their tunes. Then I read a feature on them in last week’s NME… and quite liked them, so don’t be surprised if we write about them more here at TGTF.  Think U2, Editors and Interpol with a dash of Placebo and you’re halfway there.

If you’re a big fan of riff-heavy, fast, dirty, catchy indie guitar rock (any more adjectives to pop in that sentence d’you think?) then you might want to take a listen to Flashguns (pictured top). They’re a London and Brighton fourpiece (and lets face it, who isn’t these days?), but instead of just the same-old-same-old indie by numbers approach they seem to have a bit more talent. Two MP3s are below for your enjoyment. Like them? Love them? Hate them with a passion? As ever, let us know in the comments below.

MP3: Flashguns – Timehouse Blue
MP3: Flashguns – Ro Shambo

Was quite happy with the results of yesterday’s Orange unsignedAct with Sony Ericsson – Tommy Reilly was definately the best one considering one of my favourites, Bo Bruce, was no longer in the running. Hopefully bigger and better things are on the card now for the young Scotsman.

Finally, before we sign off for today, I came across this great advert on youtube (thanks to Howies). How amazing.

Night everyone. Back tomorrow!

Just a quick one to round up the week, before we sign off for the weekend.

As we all know, Sundays were made for relaxing. I myself plan on doing absolutely zilch this Sunday – a chance to recharge the batteries and relax. However, this week (for once) there’s a reasonable amount worth watching on TV. If you’re suffering from a hangover after a big Saturday night, why not lie back on the sofar to catch the final of Orange unsignedAct with Sony Ericsson on Channel 4 from 1-2pm, with the results at 2:35pm. It’s between three pretty great artists: Tommy Reilly, Hip Parade and Scarlet Harlots. Read our introduction to the show here, and then our interviews with Hip Parade and Scarlet Harlots to get a picture of what to expect. I’m rooting for Tommy, but who knows who could win!

Later on Sunday evening, MTV One spends a day in the life of Pete Doherty (pictured top), which is quite fun to watch before that dreaded sleep before Monday Morning rolls around again. It’s on at 10pm, and we got a sneak peek last week – full details here.

This week we were fortunate enough to catch the Kerrang tour and In Case of Fire as it pulled into Oxford’s O2 Academy – read our review here. There is a chance that next week we’ll be bringing you a review of Bloc Party at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall, but this is yet to be confirmed.

Before we leave you for the weekend, enjoy the below video. It’s Frank Turner’s “Reasons not to be an Idiot”. I’m slow on the Frank Turner love train, but he’s realy amazing. Check out the video below, and we’ll catch you next week.

Things are a bit crazy here at TGTF at the moment – for some reason this week our hits have gone through the roof (so hello if you’re new around these parts!), and we’ve been a tiny bit swamped with emails, so apologies if we’re slow to get back to you / write shiny new posts!

Now, onto the good stuff.

You’ve probably heard that the Isle of Wight festival’s announced its Friday lineup of big bands, with The Prodigy headlining, Basement Jaxx, Pendulum and the Ting Tings all playing the first day of the festival.

Crazy Germans Whitest Boy Alive (pictured top) have a new album, “Rules”, out on 30th March and have given us a preview of it (below). Think a slower Hot Chip, or a more German Royksopp, with some funky late night beats, quite chilled out but at the same time quite groovy… have a listen:

MP3: Whitest Boy Alive – Island

Now for a quick step back in time – Paul Carrack (yeah, the name range a bell for me too…), one time member of Roxy Music, Squeeze, Mike and The Mechanics (ooh, so that’s where we know him from) has a new album out, one of the 60 (yes, sixty!) that he’s featured on. Taken from ‘I Know That Name’, enjoy a free album track as a download below, or go out and buy current single, ‘I Don’t Want Your Love (I Need Your Love)’.

MP3: Paul Carrack – It Ain’t Easy (To Love Someone)

Favours for Sailors (pictured top right) sound like a crazy mix of the View and the Beachboys – chaotic yet melodic. Woo. There’s a great intro piece over on Drowned in Sound here, and a free MP3 below:

MP3: Favours for Sailors – I Dreamt That I Dreamt that I loved you

I’ve been reading a lot about Animal Collective of late – their new album seems to have the pro bloggers all in a tiz, so I thought I’d see what all the fuss about. Below is a video of “My Girls”, which sounds pretty darned amazing I think.

I meant to pop this up last night, but somehow didn’t quite manage it, so here are some things that are tickling our fancy here at TGTF at the moment.

We were sent two very special MP3s yesterday from Red Light Company (who we introduced here, and are off on tour shortly). Their debut album is out shortly, so expect more coverage as that comes out – they’re really rather great. Download and enjoy, as ever.

MP3: Red Light Company – Arts And Crafts (School of Seven Bells Remix)
MP3: Red Light Company – Be the One (Ting Tings cover)

You may remember that we’ve proclaimed our love for Fabchannel before, the video service which lets viewers catch gigs filmed live. They’ve announced that tomorrow night (Wednesday 21st January) they’ll have of Montreal (pictured top) live on their website – just go here from 6:30pm (GMT) and catch the action as it happens from Amsterdam. Expect colour, chaos and anything else that begins with C when the US experimental popsters take to the stage.

Like a bit of down and dirty indie-rock? The 51/50’s have announced that they have a new single out next Monday (26th January). The rising foursome count The Rolling Stones, Guns N’ Roses, Thin Lizzy and Oasis all amongst their influences, and have an incredibly sing-it-loud style that would keep most Kooks or Pigeon Detectives fans of today happy, along with the older school who love the Stones or Guns and Roses. “Lies” is that great sort of song that everyone will love, so make sure you pop on down to your local independent record store or iTunes come Monday to get hold of a copy to say you were one of the first to discover them.

Finally, you know I love Friendly Fires. I’ve caught them live twice, now they’ve gone and released what must be the last single from their debut album, Skeleton Boy. As with all great songs, there’s a great video… featuring Skeletons. See the great pun they did there? Oh, okay. Watch it below. Apologies about the quality – couldn’t find a better one around.

This week has certainly been jam packed with music news – here’s a roundup of the hot headlines hitting the press this week!

Pete Doherty has announced his forthcoming solo album will be released on March 16th and will be titled ‘Grace/Wastelands’. A debut single from the twelve-track album will be released March 9th, called ‘Last of the English Roses’. Blur guitarist, Graham Coxon, and singer-songwriter, Dot Allison, are just some of the names Doherty has collaborated with on the new album.

Boy George was sentenced to 15 months in prison on Friday after being charged with false imprisonment. The former Culture Club singer is said to have handcuffed and beaten a male escort at his East London flat in April of 2007. Boy George, real name George O’Dowd, denies all charges.

Katy Perry (pictured top) and her smash hit ‘I Kissed A Girl’ were incorrectly awarded the gong for Best International Song at the NRJ Awards in Cannes. The trophy was actually intended for Rihanna and her hit song ‘Disturbia’, but Perry was mistakely announced as the winner at the famous French award show.

Famous London music venue, The Astoria, closed it’s doors for good this Friday to make way for the new Crossrail transportation project. The famous venue, which will be completely demolished, has hosted a range of iconic gigs from The Rolling Stones, to Nirvana, to Radiohead.

Russell Brand (pictured top right) is rumoured to be releasing a novelty one-off single with the help of music mogul, Simon Cowell. The song, titled ‘The Chugga Chugga Song’, even comes complete with a supposed dance routine. Syco Records were apparently made aware of the song after Russell played the track on his now defunct Radio 2 show.

Damon Albarn has expressed concern over the upcoming Blur reunion gigs at Hyde Park this July. Following his playing of a 1997 live Blur session on Radio 1 this week, Damon said “I’m going to have to work hard to get back to that standard.”.

Lady GaGa (pictured left) is number one for the second week in a row this Sunday with hit track, ‘Just Dance’. The New York songstress is proving a big hit with music fans – her album, ‘The Fame’ is also notching at an impressive number three in this week’s album charts.

And finally, check out the new music video for the week – ‘Fonz’, by the brilliant Eugene McGuinness. The track, which is taken from his acclaimed self-titled album, is set to be released next month (February 23rd).

Russell Brand photo is taken from The Street Circus’ flickr stream under the Creative Commons license.

Having a few issues at the moment keeping up with so much good new music I’ve been stumbling across. So settle in as we give you the run down on some ace new acts.

Steve introduced you to Alessi’s Ark’s (pictured top) lush colourful musical soundscapes almost a month ago, and since then we’ve been hooked – great music to listen to in the evening, really relaxing and so beautiful. She may not be destined for huge things, but it’s beautiful and may well be soundtracking the next episode of Grey’s Anatomy or Scrubs, going by their music policy these days.

MP3: Alessi’s Ark – Magic Weather

Crazy (but sweet) Marina & The Diamonds segues us easily between Alessi’s Ark and the rest of our colourful line up, sounding like a crazy hotpot of Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor, Goldfrapp and Bjork. Yes, it’s artistic, yes it’s great.

MP3: Marina & The Diamonds – Obsessions

One of the new blogs I’ve found recently, The Recommender, managed to suggest The Sound of Arrows, and reminded me to check out The Official Secrets Act (pictured on the right)who I saw featured in an NME “radar” feature just the other month, but never got round to checking out. Needless to say, The Recommender has links to tonnes more great bands and artists, so be sure to check it out (when you’ve run out of things to read from us, of course!

MP3: The Sound of Arrows – Danger!
MP3: The Official Secrets Act – So Tomorrow

Some of you might be trying frantically to find some sort of connection between this artists, whether they’re all pop or all dark and meaningful. I don’t think there’s much connection between them all – they’ve all got quite different sounds, though are all pretty mainstream I guess. To finish it off on the free MP3 stakes, Bangor based Two Door Cinema are so unashamedly synth-happy I may have just fallen in love again. They’ve got “that” sound that will probably appeal to the same people who love the Wombats (who incidentally they’ll be supporting at the NME awards shows – nice linking I think you’ll agree!), Team Waterpolo, Death Cab For Cutie or Los Campesinos! etc – slightly pop, slightly indie, slightly great. The only downside? They don’t have a drummer – I think every band should have a drummer, it offers that little bit more flexability, you don’t have to restart the drum loops to fit in with your mistakes.

Listen and love:

MP3: Two Door Cinema Club – Something Good Can Work

Oh, and we’ve also been majorly loving Franz Ferdinand’s new album. For obvious reasons you don’t get an MP3 out of it (as we don’t want another Cease and Desist letter!), but feel free to see what Jess thought of the first single, Ulysses, here. Also got the White Lies new album, though its taking a bit longer to get into – at the moment it’s feeling a bit of a paint-by-numbers affair. Shame.