A young singer by the name of Callaghan is aiming to get one of her songs into the UK Top 40.

The catch? She’s flying completely without a net – no manager, no record deal, no distribution and the bare minimum of promotion.

She makes the point that it only takes around 2,500 sales to break the Top 40 chart these days. Seems achievable, doesn’t it? The song – Look Around – is a pretty, acoustic ballad. With the power of a major record deal behind her, Callaghan would undoubtedly have a hit with this one.

The Campaign

Callaghan tells us that she wants to see if a single artist can chart without that major label backing. The single will be released via iTunes on 26th October 2008 and she hopes to sell enough copies to chart the next week!

And before you go crying about her profiteering – all proceeds from the single sales go to the Live Music Now charity.

The Drawbacks

On the face of things, 2,500 singles shouldn’t be too hard to shift. Callaghan needs to get enough publicity to shift those units, but there are some drawbacks in her strategy that she needs to address.

• The website is poor. There’s no biography, and not even an explanation of Callaghan’s first name or what else she’s done.
• There’s no link to MySpace – possibly the essential place to promote her music and her campaign. Presumably there’s no profile on Virb.com or Facebook either? How are you getting the word out to the web?
• There’s no link to the iTunes store, surely an important way to make sales, especially for anyone who heard the sample on her site and wants to pre-order?
• No bloody video! How you going to get TV coverage without a video?

On the upside, she’s keeping her news page updated with places she’s been featured and radio appearances, etc. What she needs now is some major coverage via TV or the newspapers.

Can it be done?

Over to you – can Callaghan make the sales needed to chart with her single? Moreover, if she does sell over 2,500 units, what should she do to ensure she continues to sell records and that the follow-up is a success?

Might she need that record deal in the long run?

A reader shot us an email this afternoon to share the amazing electro-songwriting talents of Sarah McIntosh. Sarah performs and records under the name of The Good Natured.

So good was the nature of the music (feel free to cringe at the wordplay, folks), that we decided to run an impromptu Recommended post.

Any visit to MySpace is the musical equivalent. You never know if the artist is going to exhilarate you or take away your will to live. Thankfully, The Good Natured are one of those acts that reaffirm our faith in music.

She’s been described as like “Kate Nash fronting The Postal Service”, and that’s exactly what we thought when we heard her first time round.

There’s an artsy quirkiness to the material, coupled with some dark electronic keyboard riffing - thinking specifically Ivory Tower and Heart Of Stone here. And guess what? She’s only, like, 17 years old! Surely this level of sonic brilliance takes decades to perfect? Well, apparently not.

Possibly the most accurate description of The Good Natured can be found here:

Neither overly sweetened, or irritatingly bitter - Sarah’s created the perfect cup of musical tea. In other words, good fucking pop.

Sarah’s received a lot of positive attention in the blogosphere, and there are plenty of recommendations, notably:

I love this girl. She’s a well earned break for the music industry… we needed her. With vocals somewhere between Kate Nash and Adele, she is sure to find a place in the hearts of British music fans. With the industry’s callings aside, Sarah pushes all the right buttons. A busty electro vibe and classy vintage image, she’s kicking holes popular music and making way for a new kind of eletro-thrusted sound.

We agree wholeheartedly. In fact, this lady needs to release an album. Now.

In the meantime, you can feed your yearning for The Good Natured when the Warriors EP gets released on 6th October.

Finally, dear readers, as with any Recommended band on Unreality Music…

1. If you’ve got a blog or website, tell your friends and readers about The Good Natured.
2. Visit their MySpace page and friend them. Then get all your friends to friend them.

Music like this is almost too good for the charts, but Sarah McIntosh could beat the Britney brigade with one keyboard hand tied behind her back. Spread the word.

Heralded by the dance press and influential media (Fluokids, Channel 4 Music, Popjustice), OrtzRoka have received huge support from a whole bunch of musician and DJ folk - Busy P, New Young Pony Club, Laurent Garnier, Erol Alkan, Justin Robertson, Ewan Pearson, Prins Thomas, Rob Da Bank, People Are Germs and Ivan Smagghe.

OrtzRoka recently supported Midnight Juggernauts and Pin Me Down (Bloc Party’s Russell Lissack’s new band), performed DJ sets at Vice, Apocalypso and Magazine Club, and have been tipped by DJ Magazine as artists to most likely have ‘Major Impact in 2008′ alongside Booka Shade, Moby and Deadmau5.

As if that wasn’t enough, their remixes for Simian Mobile Disco, NME faves Peter, Bjorn & John, Robyn, Bloc Party, and Robyn have afforded them the kind of acclaim that most young artists can only dream of.

Planets was directed by Dan Lowe (Partizan Films). Dan Lowe is part of the of the collective of creative friends who go under the name of team STUSH. Dan was nominated a Best New Director at the CAD Music Video Awards in 2007.

Looker are a mostly female pop-punk group from New York City. They tell us that they’re heading for the UK in April of this year.

I sort of hesitate to use the word ’spunky’, but their poppy vocals and raw guitar parts inspire that kind of description. There’s something familiar about the Looker sound, like I’ve heard the style before, but can’t point out a specific band they sound like.

That’s probably not a bad thing - I get the impression they’d come over and kick my ass if I compared them to, say, The Bangles. But it’s that era that Looker’s music is reminiscent of.

Listen to their tracks on MySpace - their sound is upbeat and immediate, with clever lyrics, great hooks and harmonies. I recommend After My Divorce and Master’s Gone Away.

The Looker Line-up

It looks like everybody in Looker gets a go at singing. Well, they’d need to in order to propel those harmonies. Here’s who’s in the band:

• Boshra AlSaadi - Guitar & Vocals
• Nicole Greco - Guitar & Vocals
• AJ Lambert - Bass & Vocals
• Robbie Overbey - Drums & Vocals

Looker Videos

Master Of You (live):

Click here for the official Looker website.

Rob got in touch to recommend his flatmate Context, a rapper from Norwich.

Rob says “Context calls his type of music ‘Dub Hop’. It’s hip hop in essence because he is an MC, but then his production incorporates dubstep, drum and bass, ‘dance’ etc… It’s for sale in iTunes under ‘Hip Hop’ though for ease of categorisation”

He says that Context is fresh new music - “I am not really a fan of hip hop music myslef, but this stuff is really different. Its ticks so many musical boxes - getting ready to go out, feeling angry, relaxing - the lot!”

I took a listen to his MySpace and was actually blown away by what I heard. Imagine Mike Skinner, but much, much darker. The beats are intense, and there’s a brooding electronic bass sound running through everything that carries a lot of menace.

Check out Context’s MySpace for some sample tunes, and there’s also a link to download his Dialetics EP is you want to take some tracks away on your iPod.

Remember, if you know an act who’s worth shouting about, let us know by recommending them.

One of our readers, Angie wrote in to recommend Argyll-based rockers Maranchez. She says she likes the fact that they write their own music and they sound great live.

The Maranchez line-up is:

• Nate Ramsay - Vocals
• Tom Ramsay - Guitar
• Brian Wilkins - Drums
• Gordy Crawford - Bass

Listen to some of the raw tracks on MySpace, and you’ll hear an edgy rock band. The first track, The Fallen damn near blew my eardrums out (I had the earphones up too loud!)

While The Fallen is crushingly loud, Maranchez show some diversity and a more mainstream sound in songs like Last Time and Dust.

Once again, check out Maranchez on MySpace, and give us your feedback in the comments below.

Martin emailed me yesterday to let me know about Irish indie band, Dark Room Notes.

The Dublin based quartet are our first recommendation for 2008, and you should go and check out their MySpace (just as soon as you’ve read this page!). They’re really quite excellent.

Dark Room Notes: Who’s Who?

DRN is made up of:

• Ronan Gaughan: Vocals, Guitar, Synth, Programming
• Ruairi Ferrie: Vocals, Guitar, Synth, Programming
• Arran Murphy: Vocals, Synth, Glockenspeil(?)
• Darragh ‘Camera’ Shanahan: Vocals, Drums

Based on the band’s name and the drummer’s nickname (Camera), you should be able to guess that this foursome like their photography. And because the Irish names might be confusing to some of you reading this, the girl in the group is Arran Murphy.

Musical Style

With three members working various synths, you get no prizes for guessing that these instruments strongly influence the Dark Room Notes sound. You’ll hear this most clearly on tunes like Oh How Your Roses Wither Fast.

I especially love the crisp bass sound on tunes like Shake Shake My Ceiling, which the band describe as “electronic AC/DC played as soul music”.

Critical Reviews of DRN

DRN have received a number of glowing critical reviews in the industry. Here are a couple:

• Clare People: “Polished doesn’t even come close to describing it… In ‘Slow Puncture’, DRN look to have found an easy successor to breakthrough single ‘Love Like Nicotine’ in the anthemic stakes. But its in the EP final track ‘Shake Shake My Ceiling’ that I think DRN will find a way into mainstream success and radio playlists. You see if I’m wrong. 8/10″
• Edel Coffey - The Irish Independent: Dark Room Notes, true to their name, sing dark songs of obsession, addiction, lust and passion. Despite this, they manage to be strangely uplifting, the songs buoyed along on a wave of electro-indie and male-female vocals calling to mind Human League and Joy Division. Dark Room Notes are a smart and stylish young band, exciting and exhilarating with sophisticated tunes to boot.

Dark Room Notes Videos

A quick search on YouTube reveals a number of DRN videos for the viewing. I’ve included a couple here. If you want more Dark Room Notes, just head on over to their MySpace page.

Love Like Nicotine:

Shake Shake My Ceiling:

Ryan recommends Portland-based six piece, Another Cynthia (who notably don’t have a member called Cynthia). Ryan likes the band so much he’s written about them a number of times, calling them his ‘Most Underrated band of 2006′.

I’ve listened to a few of their songs on MySpace, and they’re a refreshing blend of indie music fused with a pop/dance sensibility. They’re hard to pin down, let’s put it that way.

For a taster of Another Cynthia, check out their MySpace page, or even watch the video below:

These spiky-wigged pouters are a band called Newbreed. It’s alright that they pose with attitude here, because they have the tunes to back it up.

Newbreed are a rock/metal act from Telford in the UK. The band consists of Scott (vocals), Darell (guitar), Steve (bass) and Ben (drums).

I caught a couple of their songs over on MySpace. The style is heavy, but melodic. They collectively have a lot of power, but rather than drowning it out with distortion and noise, they let those meaty riffs come through loud and clear.

There’s something slightly old school about their sound too. Scott’s a formidable vocalist and he knows just when to drop a throat ripping scream in.

Check out Newbreed in action in their video for People Vs Me. Oh, and don’t forget to add them on MySpace too.

Since 2006 Boathouse have been touring local venues throughout Northern Ireland, each night attracting larger audiences. With a myriad of instruments beyond guitar, bass and drums they fill the air with the sounds of a glockenspiel, accordion, keyboards, trumpet and flute and the emotive vocal talents of Gerry McCrudden and Amy McGarrigle.

Before the summer they recorded a session for BBC Radio Ulster’s Across the Line, three of those tracks are available to listen to on their MySpace, and they should have an EP available in the coming months.

The second track on the recording, ‘What I Remember‘, begins with the innocent sound of a few notes being tapped on the glockenspiel while the rest of the instruments slowly rise to the vocal level bringing out the powerful lyrics so clearly.

They have a two gigs planned in Belfast before the end of the year: Lavery’s Bunker on 26th Nov and Common Grounds Café on 21st Dec, honestly they shouldn’t be missed.

Thanks to Phil for the recommendation. By the way, if you haven’t subscribed to Phil’s blog yet, I highly recommend it. He’s a great photographer.

If you know of a great band that we haven’t heard of, why not recommend them and we’ll write about them here on Unreality Music.