The word most people are using in connection with Marina is “eccentric”, and it’s hard to argue with that synopsis.

Arjan is tipping Marina for big things this year, and considering the strength of the handful of songs she has on her MySpace page, I’d be inclined to agree. If you read this Guardian profile about her, they describe Marina’s vocal style as…

more like one of those kooky new wave girls like Lene Lovich, all whoops, hollers, cackles and shrieks that make her sound strangely mid-European.

And you know how much I like singers who sound mid-European! Read the rest of that Guardian piece for some more frightening information about her.

In short, I’m loving what I’m hearing so far, and I’m telling you about it so you can go out and listen to Marina too. You are her Diamonds, after all…

Orange unsignedAct finalists the Scarlet Harlots have been tipped for greatness in the new year by The Wombats.

The members of The Wombats were impressed when they mentored the Scarlet Harlots for the Channel 4 talent show. Wombats singer, Murf told them:

I thought you were going to be good before you even picked up an instrument.

Now, you all know that I’ve been a big fan of The Wombats over the last year, so this endorsement by the band interested me. I decided to check out the Scarlet Harlots. They’ve got their own profile on the Orange unsignedAct homepage, and of course the ubiquitous MySpace presence, although there’s more music on the MySpace page, including the essential This Is How We Do It.

What’s in store for the listener is some indie-punk style tunes that reflect perhaps the next generation of indie in the UK. In what has been a stagnating scene, could a band like Scarlet Harlots come in and reinvigorate it? Maybe. Check them out and let me know what you think.

Anyway, the praise from The Wombats continued apace when the band suggested that they’d be happy to take the Harlots on tour with them. Harlots frontman, Sam Baylis said “to say that we could go on tour with The Wombats, that’s a massive compliment and has given me a rod of confidence!”

If you’re not already watching unsignedAct, you can catch it on T4 at 12:20pm on Sunday.

Blur have confirmed that they have reunited for a huge gig next summer in London’s Hyde Park.

“It just felt it was right again,” Albarn told music weekly NME.

“It somehow feels like there’s something for us to do again, we’re not completely useless or pointless, we’ve got a reason to exist.”

Coxon told the magazine the band were “making public what’s been going on a little bit privately”.

Many speculations have been made about the band headlining next years Glastonbury festival but a spokesperson told BBC News:

“We are talking to headliners at the moment.”

“There is lots of speculation about who might or might not be playing next year. We’re confident it will be as good as Jay-Z. No headliners have been confirmed.”

Oasis are releasing the second single from their Dig Out Your Soul album – I’m Outta Time – on 1 December.

Throughout their career, Oasis have been criticised for sounding like a lot of other bands. If I’m Outta Time sounds like anyone else, it’s Urban Hymns-era The Verve.

This isn’t a criticism, merely an observation. It’s fully possible that this is one of the most beautiful songs Oasis have committed to tape.

You tend to think that a couple of rough-hewn Manc lads couldn’t possibly be capable of such a thing as subtlety, but then they go and prove you wrong.

The single is accompanied by an atmospheric, black and white video featuring Liam sitting in a forest. It’s a very arty affair indeed, with a huge moon and woodland animals surrounding him. And there’s a short hat-tip to John Lennon. Right at the end, where an excerpt from one of his final interviews is played over the outro:

As Churchill said, it’s every Englishman’s inalienable right to live where the hell he likes. What’s it going to do, vanish? Is it not going to be there when I get back?

If you want to get a not-so-sneaky listen to the new Oasis album, Dig Out Your Soul, the whole thing is streaming live on MySpace right now! In fact, this is so fresh, most of the tracks have a play count of zero as I write this!

I’ve been listening to the much hyped Bag It Up, and it sounds brilliant. Can’t wait to get a chance to listen to the rest.

If you listen to the album on MySpace today, be sure to pop back here and tell us what you think, okay?

OK, for those of you not familiar with Those Dancing Days, you should probably check this out. It’s their new single, Home Sweet Home.

What do we like about it? Well, those cute Swedish accents for a start – that kind of drawling but musical delivery. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s a simple pop song about being back home and among one’s creature comforts?

The video’s cool as well – a series of postcards from far flung places, just to hammer the song’s point across :) There’s no point in trying to rationalise everything that’s fun about this song. Listen for yourself, and we dare you not to like it…

We can’t claim to be experts on the Brazilian six-piece, so Move comes as a welcome introduction to the group. It’s a quirky slice of electro-pop, and a breath of fresh air.

Is this what we’ve been missing all this time?

They’re touting this single as a modern disco anthem. Normally, we don’t listen to a word the marketing department send down, but this time they might be on to something!

The video for the single feature the band looking decidedly retro and travelling around in a camper van literally covered in Polaroids. It’s just over the top fun, with a catchy groove and that eternal disco mantra – “keep on movin’”…

Move is the third single from their recently-released Donkey album, and comes out on 13th October 2008.

How fitting that The Independent newspaper should be laying the smackdown on Indie music:

John Niven was an indie fan in the 1980s, an A&R man in the Britpopping 1990s, and is now the author of Kill Your Friends, a sadistic satire of the record industry of which he was once an enthusiastic member. “I was in Gap a few weeks ago and there was some sort of generic indie music playing,” he says. “I was with a friend who’s a promoter and a bit younger than me. After about three or four tracks I asked him: ‘Whose LP is this?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s a compilation.’ Every track sounded identical. The guitars, the production; all these bands sound like they’re made in the same studio with the same producer. It’s such a ball-less, soulless, generic whitewashed indie sound. You could probably take a member from each band and throw them together in a new group and no one would be able to tell the difference. They’re completely interchangeable. Scouting for Girls are like the sound of Satan’s scrotum emptying. They’re abysmal.”

Another excellent quote about the new wave of Indie bands choking the charts…

When I glance around the bands that are supposedly ‘indie’ today, I don’t see any attitude. I don’t see any content in their records, any political interest in the band members. They’re a terrible generation, unfortunately, but they’re becoming famous overnight and selling a lot of records.

Plenty of scathing remarks about Scouting For Girls, and an impressive history of the Indie scene and its slow death (culminating in another scathing remark about Scouting For Girls), this article makes a lot of sense.

But there’s one question remaining – who will reclaim Indie for the people? Or should we just give up now and pre-order the new Britney album?

When we first came out it was a cool time, with the Kaisers, Arctics and Bloc Party on the same circuit. I don’t think many people would place us with those acts, but at the time I really felt part of that whole movement.”

It’s funny what’s followed. Bands like The Pigeon Detectives took what was there and slightly diluted it.

You’re right, Luke, the Kooks aren’t fit to be mentioned in the same sentence as the Kaiser Chiefs or the Arctic Monkeys! If anything, we’d class the Kooks in the same category of bland Indie bleh as The Pigeon Detectives.

In any musical movement, you get the trailblazers, the bands that write the anthems and set the scene. With the recent British Indie scene, the Kaisers and Arctics came along and innovated, then A&R departments went nuts signing inferior copycat acts. Let’s not even start talking about the irony that most popular Indie acts these days are signed to major labels!

We’re not disagreeing with Pritchard on anything he’s said, but from our point of view, the Kooks are a part of the problem. Forgettable Indie tunes sung through thick, almost-pretend regional accents. Forgettable bands that have no real identity and all blur into one.

Opinions, anyone?

We don’t know what it is about this pairing of Alex Turner and Miles Kane, but Standing Next To Me and previous single The Age Of The Understatement are in a different league to the Arctic Monkeys altogether.

There’s a retro 60’s feel to this music, but with a dark intensity that underlies the song. The video reinforces this with the guys decked out in early Beatles-era suits and surrounded by dancing girls in equally 60’s style costumes. Everything is shot in a low light, and the only splashes of colour are the girls’ tights.

While the Arctic Monkeys on their last outing were starting to get a little irritating, the Shadow Puppets are displaying a knack for writing short, simple songs that have the appeal of instant classics.

We’re liking what these guys are doing together, and while it probably won’t eclipse Turner and Kane’s original bands (well, Turner’s anyway), it’s been an interesting musical union and we can’t wait to hear what’s next.