Wax Stag - Short Road

Rob Lee is an adaptable young man. He plays bass and percussion for Friendly Fires, drums for Warp legend Chris Clark, and cuts out shapes from sheets of coloured card for his gorgeous sleeve designs. Sometimes, under the name Wax Stag, he makes glistening leftfield pop using synthesizers and lots of imagination.

The debut 10", 'Short Road EP', was a favourite with everyone from Hot Chip and MTV2 to clued up bloggers and more adventurous disc jockeys, and this, his eponymously titled debut album, carries on where 'Short Road' left off, only more so.

Plugs - That Number


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When he's not popping up in the NME's "cool list" for looning about front of stage fulfilling guitar/vocal/ rabble rousing duties for "Does It Offend You Yeah", or playing with ex "Test Icicles" bod Rory in "Rattatag", Morgan Quaintance has spent the last 12 months with fellow St Albanites Dave Chin and Boomer Opperman dreaming up Plugs, a four headed, post-rave, afro influenced groove monster.

Lead track "That Number" off this, their debut ep, is threatening to become next years "Over And Over" according to some, with it's slow, skewed funk and irresistible hooks proving equally formidable on radio AND your more adventurous dancefloors (you need to hear this on a big system). Meanwhile, second track "Transatlantic Air Miles" casually veers off into thumb piano-driven, afro-pop territory.

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Hideous Men - Tangled

Some of you may have noticed that we took a bit of a sabbatical from P.I.T.S. towers last year. We had some shit to do, but in between sitting around in our pants reading Kierkgaard and watching Homes Under the Hammer re-runs, we did manage to put together a slightly random compilation, "Fuck Dance Lets Art", featuring a bunch of cool, (mainly new) American music we like.

One of the stronger tracks off there was Hideous Mens, "Tangled" an ethereal, dubbed out song from a Denver duo who sound like something from the 4AD vaults of the future. Along with a new song of theirs, "Sirens", a similarly atmospheric, but more slo-mo 4/4 pulser, and remixes from Polish bass-head Sekta, and Rodion, purveyor of discerning Italo-Noir, People in the Sky is opening it's 2011 account in style with the 4 track "Tangled EP".