2010
She & Him – New single & album due.
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Early February, the sky is uniformly cardboard grey and the first big chunk of summery pop music has plopped through the letterbox of Suitcase Orchestra HQ.
In The Sun by the deceptively confusingly named She & Him (Is it Him & Her? He & She? His & Hers? Hers & His?) is two minutes and fifty four seconds of shimmering sunshine pop. Aided and abetted by Tilly and the Wall, the result sounds something like Carly Simon sings Badly Drawn Boy, with pretty piano, subtle orchestration and an immediately catchy melody.
In The Sun will be the first single off the second She & Him album, Volume 2, the ingeniously titled follow up to their 2008 debut Volume 1, and will be released on March 15th with the album following on April 5th.
The summery feel is continued with the single’s second track, a cover of the Beach Boys‘ I Can Hear Music.





Owen Pallett will release Lewis Takes Off His Shirt as the first single from his recent album, Heartland, on March 29th.
Craig Fortnam, the creative heart of the North Sea Radio Orchestra, is the man behind Arch Garrison who are very much a pared down version of his mother ship. The lush orchestration has been stripped away to reveal a very English folk record.
February
What this album is, is a collection of well written, perfectly executed songs. Inspired by British folk-rock, but thankfully with none of the twee shrillness that often accompanied that particular sub-genre, The Courage of Others is in itself a fine album. What it isn’t however, is The Trials of Van Occupanther and ultimately, and unfortunately, that is what may define Midlake’s third album.
Thirty five years into their musical odyssey, Cluster return with their latest collection of gentle beats, bleeps and beeps. Qua, released on Klangbad / Broken Silence on February 15th is, according to the sleeve notes, ‘like a toy caravan of dark, fast camels, loaded with alien and precious drams’.
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s 2006 album
Charlie has assembled quite a cast of friends for this his debut album; there are two High Llamas, one Stereolabber and one member of the uber-cool Metronomy on board.

