Win the new Justice album!

Do you like awesome French electronic music that mixes indie, disco, rock, sci-fi funk and pop with chunky, fuzzy basslines and dance hooks you could hang your coat off? Yes? Do you also like FREE STUFF? Of course you do. Well, read on.

The exciting news for those of you that live in Melbourne is that JUSTICE are heading your way! Tickets went on sale today for what will be their only performance in the city. The epic, brand new, live experience will feature all of their hits and tracks from their, frankly, amazing new album, Audio, Video, Disco. The Festival Hall will host this night of French genius on Friday 6th January 2012. For ticket info, click here. You want more good news? It's an all-ages show.

It's sure to sell out, so, if you snooze, you lose. You'd better buy your tickets right now.

Meanwhile, Bobbysix.com has teamed up with Fuzzy to give you the chance to win one of four copies of Justice's new album, Audio, Video, Disco. To stand a chance of getting your hands on one of these bad boys, all you need to do is follow @bobbysix on Twitter and send us a tweet. It can say whatever you like (be nice though, hey?), so long as it has the hashtag #justice

If you don't have Twitter [you should really get in the 21st Century, but] you can simply email info@bobbysix.com instead with the subject "Gimme Justice". Because we're nice, we'll send CDs to anywhere in the world, so this comp is open to EVERYONE. Hooray.

Justice are also hitting up FIELD DAY on New Year's Day. Tickets are on sale now.

Clytem Scanning - Armada

We make no secret of how much we love Clytem Scanning at Bobbysix.com. Every now and again a new video from her arrives in our inbox and we get excited at the prospect of taking another venture into her weird and wonderful brain. So when her album, Armada, plopped onto our doormat accompanied by a little handwritten note from her, we couldn't wait to get it on the stereo.

Armada offers ten blistering tracks of electro-noise-pop that lands between NIN and The Knife. Its tracks are intelligently layered, often building to a daunting crescendo of noise. Massue is a fine example of this, while the industrial, beat driven melody of In The Line of Moebius is dancey in a Bjork-meets-Moloko kinda way. "You live and let die," sings the Parisian, "It's all in your heart."

Meawhile, The Body Solderer has hints of Maxinquaye-era Tricky amid a general NIN vibe and perhaps best sums up Clytem Scanning, as shades of dark and light intertwine. It'll leave you wondering whether you should get up and dance your legs off or sit in the corner and ruminate. Impressively, whether you choose to boogie or brood, the French singer manages to create a mood to suit.

This textured offering of weight and levity is the perfect window into Clytem Scanning's world. It is a world of which we love being a part.

Review by Rob Townsend

Kyle Bobby Dunn - A Young Person's Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn

Jonjon spent some time in the company of the sounds of Kyle Bobby Dunn. Here's what he thought:

Before researching Kyle Bobby Dunn’s A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn, I never knew there was a genre known as “drone”. It’s not exactly a term that fills me with confidence. Dunn describes his genre (at least on his Myspace) as “minimal”. It is minimal, quite possibly “drone”, but it is also excellent. Throw away any preconceptions; you can have this album playing unobtrusively in the background and it will never dominate nor annoy. It would all class as instrumental. Voices appear out of the ether but they are so subtle as to be mistaken for background noise. There are moments where the music is so quiet that it becomes almost inaudible; I actually thought it had finished before I realised it was halfway through a 14 minute song.

It is a rarity to find a double album that despite having many tracks over the ten minute mark is never boring, dead or self indulgent. There is no progressive knob twiddling, cacophony or noise for the sake of noise. It’s almost ambient in nature, never demanding your attention, instead subtly drawing you in. It reminded me of some of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s or Vangelis’ works – it is down tempo but never depressing. Never using trickery to gain your attention, it instead plays at the edge of your consciousness. You don’t realise that it’s having any effect on you until it’s finished.

It isn’t an album for everyone – it actually put my girlfriend to sleep (perhaps that’s a plus) – but if you enjoy some subtlety, without lyrics guiding your emotions, A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn is extremely rewarding. I cannot recommend this album enough.

Review by Jonjon. Check out the sampler below.

Kyle Bobby Dunn - A Young Person's Guide To by Low Point

Ed Harcourt - Lustre

Ed Harcourt hasn’t always been the breeziest fellow, but his fifth studio album sees him in a slightly less world-weary frame of mind than in his previous offerings. Since his last record, four years ago, he has become a doting father, and while there is still the familiar desperate melancholy running through his lyrics, this time it is pierced by a renewed sense of hope. “Oh please don’t break me from this spell/I’ve found a little heaven in this world of hell,” he pleads on Haywired, before concluding with, “It’s not easy to be happy and get away with it.”

Harcourt has always been very skilled at combining bouncy melodies with darker wordplay, and his new long-player displays this. Co-produced by Ryan Hadlock (The Gossip), Lustre is lush, sweeping and beautifully structured, with three-part harmonies courtesy of The Langley Sisters (made up of Harcourt’s wife and her sisters) and handclaps accompanying his piano-led songs. Considering the lyrics deal with subjects such as life in a mental asylum and a stern view of religion, it is a fascinating juxtaposition, and brings to mind Costello and Cohen. Elsewhere, more of the British troubadour’s slightly optimistic demeanour is evident on Heart of a Wolf - a playful, Tom Waits-style knockabout - and on the jaunty A Secret Society.

Even in the album’s weaker moments - and there are a few - Harcourt’s words are always poetic and delivered with honesty and passion. Regardless of whether he is singing through a smile or a frown, Lustre signals a welcome return for this underrated songwriter.