We at 4Music are a spoilt lot. We get to lounge around all day, listening to music and writing things about it. And they pay us! We also get to dip a bucket into the deep well of talent that is you lot – the thousands of undiscovereds on 4unsigned. The variety is kaleidoscopic, sometimes catastrophic, but often brilliant and as yet untapped. So we’re going to name a few we think you should hear, here.


Imperial Leisure

If you like your bands multitudinous in both personnel and influence, then look no further than North London 10-piece Imperial Leisure. Fusing Hip-Hop, Ska and Rock with biting, humour-filled lyrics, Imperial Leisure are a modern Madness. Currently riding the crest of wave by being one of the final 14 bands in this years Road to V.

Jim Littlewood

For those of you entranced by the etheral harmonies of the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson's solo album 'Smile', then Jim Littlewood is for you. Sweet, ornate and elaborate songs of 'inevitable' love, there's something dark there too, and we like that. He also has a pretty nifty service on the web.

Get Shakes

Do you like The Prodigy? Or their natural successors, Does It Offend You, Yeah? If the answer to either is yes, then there’s a good chance you’ll love Get Shakes. Comparisons aside, the two brothers from the Isle of Wight offer a fine brand of dance-punk that easily stands on its own two can’t-keep-still feet.

Citadels

Those with a penchant for heartfelt, soaring vocals layered over clever and crunching rock should lend an ear to Citadels. Any Radiohead, Buckley and maybe Bloc Party fans? This band are steering a course for your record collection. It’s surely only a matter of time before they are snapped up by the big guns (and by ‘guns’ we mean record labels, obviously).

Ike Robinson & Consenting Adults

Ike Robinson has that rare gift, the gravitas of a natural frontman. The songs are intricately crafted musings on sex and love, touched with more than a little funk, and orated with Robinson’s sometimes Mike Skinner-like vocals. We get a little Frank Zappa from it too. Girls will like Ike. Guys will too (but not in that way, unless…)

Glass Shark

Glass Shark provide us with a near-flawless example of that most ‘now’ of genres – disco-punk. Think Daft Punk et al. You know, that lot. The songs are brilliantly crafted and as morish as a tube of Pringles. Great stuff from a band bound for the nation’s consciousness.

More to come...

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