Nico Muhly and others

For a whipper-snapper, Nico Muhly has already been around the block a few times. Go through the cream of avant-garde recordings and projects over the past few years from Björk, Antony The Johnsons and Will "Bonnie 'Prince' Billy" Oldham and you'll find his name somewhere on the canvas.
For the past couple of years, the Rhode Island native has also been Philip Glass's wing-man, working with the composer as editor, keyboardist and conductor. Add in a couple of film scores (most recently, the score for The Reader) and it's hard to know where the Juilliard graduate could find the time to also kick out a few solo releases.

But the time has been found. Two Muhly solo outings have appeared to date on Icelandic musician Valgeir Sigurosson's Bedroom Community label. The latest, Mothertongue, is a work of twists and turns, with Muhly's fascination for found sounds, post-classical arrangements and experimental minimalism highlighted throughout. There are also a couple of tracks where fellow Bedroom Community artist Sam Amidon provides banjo and vocals, taking Muhly's sounds into more folky and trad terrain.

Given the scope of his work to date, it’s clear that Muhly is taking the “don’t say no” approach when projects come his way. While there have been a ton of classical commissions including a Christmas carol for the Guggenheim in New York (and such classical big wigs as Glass and John Adams have taken a keen interest in his work), Muhly also has a strong leaning towards working with avant-garde pop acts.

For instance, you can spot his handiwork on Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's The Letting Goin its eerie strings, and he has also produced similar arrangements for Björk. She found him to be "very clever and snappy. Dealing with classical musicians, I take it as far as I can, and then I bring Nico to the rescue."

His work with Antony Hegarty led to performances worldwide – an outbreak of Shakespearean jiggery-pokery with Gavin Bryars and the big singer with the unique voice doing Beyoncé's Crazy In Lovewith the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. Projects in the works include an opera for the New York Met and a ballet for the Paris Opera Ballet. This dude doesn't really take time to sit around and do nothing.

“Any sound that has a complicated relationship with emotion and technique is interesting to me,” he says about what excites him. “I’m not so into high romantic cello playing, for instance, because it’s so obvious. It’s like Antony doing this very intense vibrato, which is a very technical thing, but it’s somehow so emotional. Sam (Amidon’s) voice is this insane instrument that he uses in a specific way in his own stuff. It’s devastating and it’s hard to know why and so I was interested in expanding that on my own records.”

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The Laundry Shop: tidy

You may not know the name, but you certainly know the song. Last year, you probably heard Highs & Lows every time you turned on your TV. Used in the Discover Ireland ad campaign, this piece of dramatic indie grandstanding was a tune you just could not escape.

The band behind the song is The Laundry Shop and the main man behind the Shop counter is Steven Robinson. Robinson was once a member of Angels Of Mon, an Irish next big things who quickly fell by the wayside.

After licking his wounds for a spell, Robinson retreated to his gaff, soundproofed the walls and started to write songs again.

Aided by drummer Andy Hamilton and Swedish bass player Denise Roxenhamn and probably hugely helped by a lack of expectations, Robinson found that the new songs were a whole lot better than his previous efforts. Between writing and recording their debut album, the band toured with The Coronas, Stanley Super 800, Future Kings of Spain and The Flaws. That album, Grandstanding, is released on March 6th and the band is currently on a lengthy Irish tour. They also play the South By Southwest festival in Texas in March.

www.myspace.com/ thelaundryshop

Three more to try:

The Kanyu Tree

www.myspace.com/thekanyutree Smart tunes, sunshine riffs and sweet-as-a-nut songcraft from the Galway trio.

Magic Arm

www.myspace.com/magicarm Mancunian one-man band Marc Rigelsford's Bootsy Bootsy EP is awash with DIY poppy beeps, bleeps and a rocking cover of Daft Punk Is Playing At My House.

Hjaltalin

www.myspace.com/hjaltalinband Soaring big music from eight-strong Icelandic outfit. Debut album Sleepdrunk Seasons will wow you.