Sunderland pop quintet Frankie and the Heartstrings are preparing for a short UK tour in April. Tickets range in price from £5 to £7 and available now.

Saturday 3rd April 2010 – Sheffield Leadmill
Monday 5th April 2010 – Newcastle Cluny
Tuesday 6th April 2010 – Liverpool Mojo
Wednesday 7th April 2010 – Glasgow King Tut’s
Friday 16th April 2010 – Bristol Louisiana
Saturday 17th April 2010 – Manchester Ruby Lounge

Lightspeed Champion (aka Dev Hynes) will tour the UK in May in support of his new album ‘Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You’ (released in the UK on 15 February). Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday 23 February at 9am from Gigs and Tours and all other reputable ticket sellers.

Catch Lightspeed Champion at:

Saturday 1st May 2010 – Leeds Live at Leeds at Stylus
Monday 3rd May 2010 – Nottingham Bodega
Wednesday 5th May 2010 – Glasgow King Tuts
Thursday 6th May 2010 – Manchester Deaf Institute
Friday 7th May 2010 – Newcastle Cluny
Sunday 9th May 2010 – Birmingham O2 Academy 3
Monday 10th May 2010 – London Heaven
Tuesday 11th May 2010 – Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
Thursday 13th May 2010 – Norwich Arts Centre
Friday 14th May 2010 – Bristol Academy 2
Saturday 15th May 2010 – Cambridge Haymakers

Haven’t gotten your fill of ‘Velvet’ and ‘Dominos’ live yet? Good news. The Big Pink have just announced a May headlining tour for England. Tickets go on sale Friday at 9 AM at Gigs and Tours.

Friday 7th May 2010 – Oxford 02 Academy
Saturday 8th May 2010 – Sheffield Leadmill
Tuesday 11th May 2010 – Manchester Academy 2
Wednesday 12th May 2010 – Birmingham 02 Academy 2
Thursday 13th May 2010 – London HMV Forum

New York band Cymbals Eat Guitars have a five-date tour of the UK planned for later this month. Catch them at the following venues:

Thursday 18th February 2010 – Bristol Start the Bus
Friday 19th February 2010 – Liverpool Korova
Sunday 21st February 2010 – Glasgow Captain’s Rest
Monday 22nd February 2010 - Leeds Cockpit
Wednesday 24th February 2010 – London Hoxton Bar and Kitchen

Cymbals Eat Guitars’s debut album, ‘Why There Are Mountains’ (previously reviewed here on TGTF) is available now from Memphis Industries.

Acoustic folk/pop duo Turin Brakes are set to do a March tour of the UK. Tickets are available now through alt-tickets.co.uk.

Turin Brakes’s album ‘Outbursts’ (their first album since 2007’s ‘Dark on Fire’) will be released on 01 March on Cooking Vinyl.

Tuesday 9th March 2010 – Birmingham Glee Club (18+)
Wednesday 10th March 2010 – Bristol St. Georges (14+)
Thursday 11th March 2010 – Oxford Academy 2 (all ages)
Saturday 13th March 2010 – Manchester Academy (all ages)
Sunday 14th March 2010 – York – Duchess (14+)
Tuesday 16th March 2010 – Gateshead Sage (all ages)
Wednesday 17th March 2010 – Sheffield City Hall (14+)
Friday 19th March 2010 - Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire (18+)
Saturday 20th March 2010 – Glasgow Classic Grand (18+)
Sunday 21st March 2010 – Nottingham Rescue Rooms (18+)
Tuesday 23rd March 2010 – Southampton Brooks University TBC
Wednesday 24th March 2010 - Milton Keynes Stables (all ages)
Friday 26th March 2010 – London Shepherds Bush Empire (all ages)
Saturday 27th March 2010 – Brighton Concorde 2 (14+)

Northern Irish rockers General Fiasco have announced a one-off date in February (HMV Next Big Thing gig) and a UK tour for March. Tickets are on sale now. All gigs for the March tour are 14+. The band are also appearing in Gateshead on Saturday at the Outside-In Festival.

General Fiasco’s next single, ‘Ever So Shy’, will be released on 08 March in the UK. Their full-length album ‘Buildings’ will be released on 22 March.

Saturday 30th January 2010 – Gateshead Outside-In Festival
Friday 12th February 2010 – London Relentless Garage (HMV Next Big Thing with Band of Skulls and Birds of Tokyo)
Monday 8th March 2010 – Manchester Sound Control
Wednesday 10th March 2010 – London Islington Bar Academy
Thursday 11th March 2010 – Southampton Joiners
Saturday 13th March 2010 – Birmingham O2 Academy 3
Sunday 14th March 2010 – York Fibbers
Monday 15th March 2010 – Glasgow King Tuts

Edinburgh-based band Ardentjohn, described on their myspace page as folk rock/ambient/pop, are often compared to Mumford and Sons. While their debut album, ‘On the Wire,’ certainly shares the same genre, it is neither as energetic and raw as Mumford, nor as ethereal and haunting as fellow folksters Fleet Foxes. They are certainly talented, so I would love to be able to say that they’ve carved out a niche that’s all their own between the two, but in reality the album is a bit underwhelming.

This isn’t to say that the album isn’t good. At it’s best, it evokes the feeling of laying in the tall grass “all afternoon, with warm sun on my back.” It has a lush, laid back sound and earnest vocals backed by solid instrumentation. The first track, ‘All That We Need’ is one of the best on the album, starting out with gorgeous a Capella harmonies and building up the backing instruments slowly throughout the first verse. Second track ‘Open Road’ is another high point. It has more energy behind it than most of the other tracks, and there is a great bit at the end of the song where it fades completely out before coming back in with harmonized “ahh-ahh-ahhs” over an intricate combination of drums and acoustic and electric guitars. A hidden gem later in the album is ‘One Step Behind,’ a song that strays more towards the traditional pop/rock genre than folk, and makes great use of the electric guitar.

Beyond these, there is nothing much in the other tracks to distinguish them from one another. They’re a bit too ambient to really grab a hold of the listener. Musically, it is competent yet nondescript. There is not enough energy and passion behind the vocals to lift many of the songs above relaxing background music, and lyrics like “I need you, I want you, can’t you see?” don’t add much interest either.

The two original members of Ardentjohn come from the Scottish Isle of Bute, and have since collected members from Crieff, as well as such distant places as New York and Alberta. I can’t help but feel that the six of them haven’t quite figured out the sound that best suits them. It’s a solid effort for a debut album, but I’d really like to see them grow into their talents. As their best songs are the ones with the most energy, they’d do well do play up their rockier side. Have a listen to the tracks on their myspace page and look out for great things from them in the future. They will be playing the following UK dates over the next month:

Friday 29th January 2010 – Manchester, Dry Bar
Saturday 30th January 2010 – London, Bull and Gate (Album Launch Party)
Tuesday 16th February 2010 – Edinburgh, Bongo Club
Thursday 18th February 2010 – London, The Lexington

Ardentjohn’s debut album ‘On The Wire’ was released on 25th January 2010. The first single from this album, ‘Home/Where All Paths Lead’, will be released on Label Fandango on 15th February 2010.

Javelin, a electronic duo from Brooklyn by way of Providence, Rhode Island, will be dropping their mad beats in the UK next month, touring with Yeasayer. I caught the duo and their engaging live show here in Washington at DC9 and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel, and you can catch them in a venue near you.

Tuesday 16th February 2010 - Birmingham Academy 2

Wednesday 17th February 2010 – Glasgow Oran Mor

Friday 19th February 2010 – Dublin Academy
Saturday 20th February 2010 – Belfast Speakeasy
Sunday 21st February 2010 – Manchester Academy 3
Monday 22nd February 2010 – Leeds The Faversham
Tuesday 23rd February 2010 – London Heaven (NME Shockwaves show)

Thursday 25th February 2010 – Bristol Thekla
Friday 26th February 2010 – Brighton Digital

Ready for four gorgeous Parisian girls that can rock out? Then NYLON Records’s band Plastiscines is the band for you. And here’s an interesting tidbit: shock rocker Iggy Pop became a fan after seeing the girls play just once, at Coachella Festival in April 2009. Talk about street cred.

If you want to catch the band live (and trust me, you do: I saw them last June as part of America’s Nylon Summer Music Tour and they were fab), they’ll be playing a handful of dates in the UK with American dance pop band Cobra Starship in February. Clash Music is running a ‘meet the band’ contest for their Shepherds Bush show – for more details, go here.

Sunday 7th February 2010 – Glasgow ABC1 (with Cobra Starship)
Monday 8th February 2010 – London Borderline (with Cobra Starship)
Tuesday 9th February 2010 – Wolverhampton Wulfrum Hall (with Cobra Starship)
Wednesday 10th February 2010 – London Shepherds Bush Empire (with Cobra Starship)

But for something more immediate, check this out. The artsy, mostly black and white video for their single, ‘Bitch’, is strangely captivating. Apologies to all schoolteachers out there who will bemoan this spelling lesson.

‘About Love’ by Plastiscines will be released in the UK on 15 February and can be preordered at Amazon.