This is where things start really kicking off. We’re already seeing a few festival casualties strewn around the place.

Another curfew-breaker of a club track from the feline queen of the electroclash scene and her code-breaking partner in crime. Lifted off their current album Two, the single include three remixes all worth injecting into your ears

Noisy synth gutterpunks The Big Pink have named their debut album.

Forget melody, Kong are all about mayhem, mischief and malevolence. In fact the Mancunian trio would be perfectly at home on Mike Patton’s Ipecac stable of degenerate misfits. Their pummelling, yet pliable Skronk and in-character get up of ill-fitting red tracksuits and weirdo bank-job masks suggest something of a Lancastrian Locust, only marginally less caustic.

ID:09, the second annual celebration of independent music, is set to kick off this weekend. Following on with a full week of events from July 4th onwards, this year’s bash consists of a whole gaggle of live gigs and tv/radio specials all across the meedja as music lovers everywhere are encouraged to show their support for independent music.

Cock-eyed acoustic charmers Blitzen Trapper are set to treat fans to more of their unique brand of Americana palaver with a new EP and a UK tour in late summer.

The single is getting ever-closer to death and the blame rests not with the downloaders, but the bands or labels that simply treat singles as mere album promos rather than an object in their own right. This is the case here, with two tracks lifted straight off the next record (which the press release harps on about more than the single itself), an ‘alternate version’, and a new offering which is prime Japanese Bonus Track fodder.

As the latest addition to the Too Pure Singles Club (the perfect club for fans of vinyl issues; members are treated to 12 limited edition 7” records from hand-picked artists - inc. Friendship, Peggy Sue and Pulled Apart By Horses - over the course of a year), Three Trapped Tigers have a lot to live up to. Thankfully, they are as interesting and undefinable as the company their new release keeps.

The next event from music industry think tank MusicTank is to analyse the benefits of social media in developing the careers of independent artists.

Indie-rock squawkers Dirty Projectors have released an accompanying video for new single ‘Stillness Is The Move’, click to watch.