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The Rumble Strips - 'Time'

First of all, here's the new single by the Rumble Strips, which is somewhere between being brass-heavy, Dexy's Midnight Runners-inspired soul-indie and a total raggedy mess. Luckily, total raggedy messes are usually great fun, and so it proves with the Strips. In fact there's a saxophone note at around the one minute forty-four second mark which is just so WRONG, it's RIGHT. This is the essense of a Sofa classic.

Oh and there's also , which is Charlie Rumble's version of Amy Winehouse's 'Back To Black', as performed on the Electric Proms with Mark Ronson. I can't advise you to link to it, as it contains some swearing. Do you hear me? DON'T GO THERE!

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Operator Please! - 'Leave It Alone'

Remember this lot? They had that song 'Just A Song About Ping Pong', which, if there were any justice in the world, would've been at No.1 for the entire summer, and we'd all be pretending to hate it by now. As it is, we're looking at the more mature follow-up single (it could hardly have been LESS mature, let's face it), and hoping that the band's pop chops haven't abandoned them. And it looks like we're in luck!

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Hadouken! - 'Leap Of Faith'

This song is unimpeachably good. So good, in fact, that it's now the theme music for the Sound TV show. A couple of listens will leave you asking one of two questions. 1: Is this the same band who brought us the anti-scenester scenester anthem 'That Boy That Girl'? And 2: Didn't people used to complain that they were white kids playing black music?

NOT ANY MORE THEY AIN'T...

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Hundred Reasons - 'No Way Back'

You have to love a band who are capable of starting a song sounding like a noisier Idlewild (who themselves sound like a noisier version of early REM), but who can then build towards a total ROCK GOD chorus. Hundred Reasons are one of those bands who've been around for a fair while, had a decent crack at bigger success than perhaps they enjoy at present (including a TOTP performance!), and who you welcome back to your ears like an old friend, because they're good at what they do.

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The Whitest Boy Alive - 'Burning'

In total contrast to the intensity of Hundred Reasons, here's Erland Øye's new band. You all know who Erland Øye is, right? Kings Of Convenience? Quiet is the new loud? No? Gah! You're all far too young!

Just kidding. Basically were a two man candyfloss army of wafty-folk pop. Their music was so gentle it made James Blunt look like Slayer, but (and this is really important), they were very good.

Now Erland has tried to move in a new, funky direction, with mixed results. Clearly this is not dance music as you and I know it, but it's still good, in a deadpan disco kind of way.

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Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - 'Face Down'

If you're now hankering for something a bit livelier, this lot should do the trick. The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus' debut album 'Don't You Fake It' is choc-full of high-quality, tuneful rock songs like this one. AND they get extra points for adding a social conscience to what can sometimes be a very inward-looking rock world, and not just by adding a 'Make Poverty History' banner to their website either.

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Vincent Vincent & The Villains - 'On My Own'

Quite why a band as retro as this should even APPEAR on something as modern as the internet is kind of baffling. It feels wrong. Never mind all this high-fidelity gubbins, they should only be available via valve radios which crackle and whoosh as the music is playing, or ancient phonographs with great big seashell horns on the top.

Luckly they've got this lady with her hula hoop and high heels to distract us while they build their time machine, eh?

PS: Extra points awarded for the perfectly retro subtitles...

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And finally...just to round things off on a suitably gentle note....Jaymay is a lady who seems to have no performance video, but she does have a lovely voice. Musically, she's not not unlike Basia Bulat (from the very first 'BOTS' feature), and despite the evidence contained within this photo, she does not play the cat. She plays the guitar.

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PS: I had no idea the acronym for 'Back Of The Sofa' would turn out to be BOTS. But you have to admit, it's kind of fitting that it is, bearing in mind sofas are mainly designed to be sat upon by more than one bum and all. Life can be too kind, sometimes...

Previous Rummages:
Back Of The Sofa V
Back Of The Sofa III
Back Of The Sofa II
Back Of The Sofa I