It's good to know that Eddie Argos is keeping himself busy even while he's in a between-albums-break. After giving us one of 2007's best albums, the front man of Art Brut joined Keith Totp and together they popped out a tiny project called "Eddie and Keith are listening to…" (by tiny I mean they have 27 friends in MySpace, at least for now).

 

It's not the first time that Argos and Totp have joined hands: the two were members of Argos's first band, The Art Goblins, and last year they were both feeling the Christmas Spirit in a project called The Black Arts (as you can see, they are very diverse when it comes to picking a name).

 

 

The new project is just Argos and Totp having fun. Their MySpace profile explains it the best: "Every once in a while Eddie Argos and Keith Totp shall randomly choose a song they've been listening to, record a cover of it in their living room, and upload it here".

 

So far, all they done is an Eels cover (of "I Like Birds") and a Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus cover (of "Run Joey Run", but they named it "Run Keith Run"). Don't expect a lot of new covers to come, as they made it clear that updates will probably be "very infrequently".

 

Until the next Art Brut album will show up, these lo-fi acoustic jams are good enough for me, but still, let's nag nag nag nag and send them a lot of MySpace messages saying "Please cover more songs" – it can't hurt, right?

 

This time, Alon picks his one true album of the year, "It’s A Bit Complicated" by Art Brut.

 

Let’s face it – this year has produced some great musical moments, but it didn’t show us a lot of really unique, one-of-kind, innovative moments. Most of the good albums that came out just took great music and made it better – Animal Collective, Jens Lekman, LCD Soundsystem, Mendoza Line, Devin the Dude, Tullycraft & Justice – Sure, they all had awesome releases, but you’ve got to admit that none of it was much of a surprise. I mean, we all knew that James Murphy is a brilliant man and Animal Collecitve have been getting hotter and wiser by the minute! Where can we find a new music movement? What is the next big genre? Where are all the shocking findings? They are all probably hiding somewhere in 2008.

 

 

But there was one thing that did make me go “wow” and, metaphorically speaking only, take my clothes off, paint myself red and run through the streets yelling out weird animal noises. It was “It’s A Bit Complicated” by Art Brut, a record that just like the ones I mentioned above, is made up of some great music that we have heard before – poppy guitar driven post punk, with a lot of fun making wooo-ahhhh in it. The difference in this album is the lyrics – damn! Eddie Argos, the lead singer, is the poet of the century, and don’t let anyone tell you anything else!

 

 

On Art Brut’s first album, “Bang Bang Rock And Roll”, we were all amazed by Argos’ wittiness, but we were still convinced that he is nothing less then a joke-man, the class clown. On this year’s album, Eddie shows new depth to his soul. He is still funny, can still charm with a short line, and there is no doubt that he is the smartest man behind the mic today.

 

He talks about music, his childhood, his relationships, his friends and popular culture and he does it so well, that he makes all the old fashioned lyricists look nothing less than ridiculous – especially when he gives them all a shout out and sings: “River deep and mountain high / there's some lyrics that'll never apply / 'cause I don't lie awake at night / with thoughts of river depth or mountain height” – In their face Eddie!

 

 

The Indelicates had no problem trashing Art Brut's front-man Eddie Argos. We think it's nothing but a joke: a band as sweet as them can't be so ruthless.

 

London's band The Indelicates still don't have a full length album, but as far as the internet goes, they are all over the place – from MySpace to Last.fm to the blogsphere. If you read blogs like this one, there is a good chance you've heard their name before.

 

 

The Indelicates are Julia (Ex-Pipettes) & Simon. Their indie folk-rock is intelligent, witty & well written. They have become known over a single called "Waiting For Pete Doherty To Die" that had over 8,000 downloads from their webpage alone, but I found out about them later, while reading Eddie Argos's Guest List at Pitchfork Media.

 

 

I love Argos, and after he recommended them with such passion, I had to check them out. It seems like the two bands, Art Brut & The Indelicates, are good friends – Argos appeared in a video of The Indelicates and The Indelicates got a link to the Art Brut website from theirs.

 

Still, when I ask them about it, Julia was nice enough to say "Eddie is a good man, I like him a lot. Art Brut are very good, and yes, we probably have a similar message", but Simon was ruthless: "He’s a cunt. I hate all that clever clever stuff that’s about something. And bands that like each other – hippy twats", he said.

 

 

It's probably a joke, our 8hands octopus laughed quite a lot anyway. But I still wonder if I have a big beef story under my hands… Because of the doubt I've decided to let it go – after all, all we really want to know here at 8hnads is social networks info. We can play around with gossip later.

 

Do you enjoy social networks?

 

Julia: "I’ve got a Facebook, 5 MySpaces, a Last.fm, a Bebo, about 25 e-mail accounts, about 5 websites, erm… several Livejournals, I use them all, I meet and talk to different people on all of them, so they’re all very inspirational in their way! I love the net, I find it very freeing…"

 

Simon: "I’ve got a similar array of accounts which I find to be quite the opposite – irritations, for the most part, except the completely fake ones. I find that social networking is best for lying with".

 

But still, I'm sure that networks like MySpace/imeem/Last.fm helped you to achieve recognition.

 

Simon: "I’m not sure we have achieved recognition. Don’t heat magazine have to say something before it counts?"

 

Julia: "I think they are useful communication tools, and music sites are very good for streaming music. We’ve always given away most of our music in any case, so MySpace is useful mainly for being able to quickly check what someone is up to, what they sound like, and whether they’re worth seeing. The downside, I suppose, is that it removes the element of surprise at concerts… But I’m not sure that matters that much, seeing as there are so many bands at the moment".

 

 

Does it bother you that a lot of people that go to your shows have downloaded your music instead of buying the album?

 

Julia: "Not in the slightest, if it did bother me I’d be the biggest hypocrite around".

 

Simon: "Copyright will have to be rethought entirely in the next few decades. It’s a simple case of the weighing up of benefits – on the one side we can embrace the free exchange of data giving the majority of the human race access to all the information accumulated in their history, multiplying their intelligence, instituting tolerance and letting us walk as gods on the face of the earth; on the other, we can enforce copyright laws and a few wankers with guitars can get paid a bit more for their pretend ‘art’"...

 

Do you find new music online?

 

Simon: "The Thlyds are probably the best band on the internet".

 

Julia: "I really like The Flesh Happening at the moment. I haven’t been shocked by a band in, well, EVER, so them… Lily Rae who used to be in an excellent band called Bottle Rocket, she’s ace… I’ve mostly been reading this month, so the music’s a bit sparse…"

 

 

But I hope you'll still get the time to release your first album.

 

Julia: "Our album is due to be out in March of next year, but I don’t have any more information about who’s producing it / artwork / title yet…"

 

What would you do if you had eight hands?

 

Julia: "Rejoice in my new found ability to hit more notes on the piano".

 

Simon: "Go on the run from the sinister government agency who’d want to imprison me and give me probes and that. I won’t be used as a weapon, you hear!"