Nowadays it's totally acceptable to fall in love with an inanimate object (sure it is!!) and today Domino Publishing went on a hot date with the BAFTA award winning Cybraphon. Chaperoned by masterminds the Professor (Simon Kirby on the right) and Tommy Perman from Found* (middle) -  the Cybraphon (left) left me breathless with awe and wonder. What am I whittering on about (who knows - that's what love does to a lady!)? Per the Cybraphon website:  'Inspired by early 19th century mechanical bands such as the Nickelodeon, Cybraphon is an interactive version of a mechanical band in a box. Consisting of a series of robotic instruments housed in a large display case, Cybraphon behaves like a real band. Image conscious and emotional, the band’s performance is affected by online community opinion as it searches the web for reviews and comments about itself 24 hours a day.'

Basically - it's a contraption made of an old cabinet, robot parts and second hand instruments (such as a drum made from a cigar box) that plays music composed by Found.  'Whatever!' you may shout - 'yeh we've seen that sort of stuff at Shunt/BAC/Cube' (delete/add cool venue as applicable) - BUT... it plays the music in response to its online popularity thanks to a nifty online hook up. If no one tweets it or talks about it on facebook it gets sad and plays a sad melody. The Cybraphon will be tinkling away with pleasure when it notices we've posted this blog entry about it. 

So for anyone conscious of the effect of social networking on us humans - this is for you. Hatefully emotional, it's the whisky cabinet that gets more emotional than the drinker. Having found its own following Worldwide it's already overshadowed its makers with a significant online following of admirers. Perhaps the whisky fumes went to our heads but it seems to reflect much about the shift in the music business since PRS first launched as a result of in-home music boxes to the social networking paranoia of recent times. 

Found are working on new material and their work with Cybraphon is part of other interesting endeavours that challenge the way people interact with sound.

WATCH IT on the BBC Culture Show.

Jeremy Jay has set sail to foreign shores and whilst we miss his company in the UK, we now have this new video to cling to of Just Dial My Number produced, directed and edited by Chris Jestico and Paul Hines. We're a bit naughty as this is still a rough edit - but we're excited about his new release. Let us know what you think!

'Splash', his third album will be released May 25, while 'Dream Diary' is due sometime later in the year courtesy of K Records.

Click on this box to stream tracks.

Domino has always regarded Scotland as its second home with many of its artists and writers having grown up there or taken residence there. To celebrate the presence of some of our music at the Edinburgh International Film Festival we would like to invite film makers to come and say hello at the Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh on 24th June 2010 12pm-3pm. If you can't make it up North here's a selection of music from across the Domino Records and Publishing roster: Pastels, King Creosote, Teenage Fanclub, Franz Ferdinand, James Yorkston, De Rosa, Sons & Daughters, Frightened Rabbit, Lord Cut-Glass, Steven Severin, Correcto, Found, Aidan Moffat, Hipsway, Bill Wells, Orange Juice, Malcolm Middleton and Steve Mason.

WaterAid is an international non governmental organisation. Their mission is to transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world's poorest communities. Wild Beast's 'Fun Powder Plot' appears in this year's video for WaterAid to be screened at Glastonbury. If you're lucky enough to be heading along, here's a list of the Domino bands performing at this year's festival:

FRITDAY 25TH JUNE

Steve Mason - Park Stage 4pm – 4.40pm STREAM

SATURDAY 26TH JUNE

Wild Beasts - John Peel Stage 3.30pm STREAM

Four Tet (DJ set) - Stonebridge Tent 12 midnight – 2am STREAM

The Dead Weather (Domino Publishing) - Pyramid Stage MORE

SUNDAY 27TH JUNE

Villagers - Park Stage 12.30pm STREAM

These New Puritans - John Peel Stage 2pm – 2.45pm STREAM

Archie Bronson Outfit - Park Stage 5pm STREAM

Chief - Queens Head 8pm – 8.40pm STREAM

Dirty Projectors - Park Stage 9.15pm STREAM

Four Tet (live set) - Wow Stage 11pm – 12 midnight STREAM

Tunng (Domino Publishing) - West Holts formerly the Jazz World Stage MORE

Frightened Rabbit (Domino Publishing) - Other Stage MORE

In addition to the recent 150 bottle stoppers hand carved by the artist Scott Millar and sold recently with a digital download code, a further bottle stopper has been made available. This unique stopper has been signed by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and will be auctioned off with all proceeds going to Street Kids International, a charity personally chosen by Billy.

The auction will take place from Monday 21^st June at 3.30pm GET BIDDING HERE!

Street Kids International is a charity which develops and disseminates innovative training and tools to give street kids around the world the knowledge, skills and opportunities to make a better life for themselves. They team with youth workers to develop locally relevant, innovative workshops using award winning animations that engage young people about entrepreneurship, sexual health and drug use. Having reached more than 2 million street kids in over 60 countries Street Kids International has been recognised by the United Nations as a Global Best practice leader in youth work.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and The Cairo Gang’s album, The Wonder Show of the World was released earlier in the year and the band play London on 4th August at Shepherds Bush Empire.

Domino Publishing look after the writers belonging to the entire Relapse Records catalogue. With a roster that includes The Dillinger Escape Plan, Neurosis, Mastodon, Nile, High on Fire and Pig Destroyer, there's no finer label specialising in just signing music they love - it just happens that they really like metal, grindcore and heavy rock. Directed by Joshua Green for The Distillery Collective, the video for Baroness' 'A Horse Called Golgotha' is as fine a piece as the album itself. Baroness' appeal reaches far beyond a heavy metal audience. Singer John Baizley creates the artwork for all Baroness albums which combine rich imagery that might be lifted from the pages of Oscar Wilde's 'Salome', their dizzying guitar riffs hark back to indulgent musical forays of Black Sabbath and Metallica and on tour Worldwide with the likes of Mastodon, Baroness are well set to assume ranks amongst their guitar heros.

MORE RELAPSE

Conor performed 'Home' through the streets of Paris yesterday, filmed by L'Hiboo a French music blog

Domino welcomes to its fold from over the pond 'Chief' and tempted to explain the South London conortations of the term Chief we're looking forward to hosting them whilst they kick start a tour of the festivals of Europe with Pearl Jam at Hard Rock Calling before dipping their toes into the muddy realms of Glastonbury, Latitude and Lounge on the Farm. Chief's new album 'Modern Rituals' written and recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Grammy winner Emery Dobynsis is released 16th August 2010. STREAM

In the mid 80s, punk fans and school mates Tim Gane, Malcolm Eden and John Williamson formed a band with drummer Gary Baker  that found favour with notable fans such as John Peel. Before going their separate ways in 1990, McCarthy were a major early influence on the Manic Street Preachers who covered three of their songs: 'We Are All Bourgeois Now', 'Charles Windsor' and 'Red Sleeping Beauty'.

Manic's bass guitarist Nicky Wire said of the band: 'McCarthy - the great lost band of the '80s they redesigned my idea of politics and pop, it could be intelligent, it could be beautiful. They were frail, tragic, romantic idealists. The songs soothed your body but exercised your brain. They were my education, my information and they are partly to blame for the realisation of the Manic Street Preachers . I still fall in love with this album every six months, it makes me feel guilty because it's so good'.

So with that recommendation it seems impossible not to delve into their catalogue now being looked after by Domino Publishing. Get better familiarised with McCarthy with a collection of works 'That's All Very Well But' and this here video 'Keep an Open Mind or Else' from 1989.

Lætitia Sadier who later joined vocals in McCarthy went on with Tim Gane to form Stereolab, also published by Domino Publishing.

Kaki King is said to have started out busking in New York subways but from 2001 began a fruitful recording career with Junior being her sixth studio album. After a guest performance on a track by Foo Fighters, she gained notoriety on tour playing guitar with Grohl and co in 2008. An artist in her right focussed on carving out her own Kaki King guitar sound, she worked on the film score to ‘How I Got Lost’ and tracks such as ‘First Brain’, ‘Doing the Wrong Thing’ and ‘Gay Sonds of Lesbian Mothers’ have proved popular on film and television. Kaki King's video for 'Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers'. Directed by Joe Leonard of Blatantly Subtle Prod.

Watch if you dare a Q&A at the Purcell Room with Robert Wyatt as he attempts to explore how he wrote the album Comicopera. 'His Greatest Misses' collection was previously released only in Japan as a limited edition and forms the perfect introduction to the music of Robert Wyatt. Spending his early musical career as the singing drummer in Soft Machine, Wyatt has since gone on to carve out a prolific solo career that has spanned almost half a century. He has made guest appearances and formed collaborations with a number of artists, including  Bjork, Brian Eno and Roxy Music.

Released 5^th April 2010 on Domino Records, the best of the Triffids captures the greatest oft-overlooked Australian post punk group with contemporaries including Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds shine on this career retrospective which spans their EPs, B-sides and studio albums. Well represented works include ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ and the band’s Island debut ‘Calenture’. With similarities to Simple Minds and Bruce Springsteen here is a brief introduction to one of their most likeable songs 'Wide Open Road' from TV show - Great Australian Albums - SBS.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival launched its 2010 programme this week and we're thrilled to see so many great new films. Amongst the line up are a few films featuring our artists. To celebrate we'll be popping up to Scotland 24th - 28th June so drop us a line if you're heading up there yourselves. MORE

Films featuring music from our artists include:

Monsters - Written, directed and shot by Gareth Edwards winner of the Moët New Directors Award EIFF 2010 with score by Jon Hopkins

Third Star - BAFTA shorts winner Hattie Dalton's first feature film is the closing night gala.

Brilliantlove - Ashley Horner's first feature film has been nominated for The Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film

Here's a breathtaking 3D short movie created by a very talented French team 90degrees - with a great soundtrack too.

Short & Sweet is London's only weekly short film festival and screens international shorts to over 1000 people every month. Founded by Julia Stephenson in 2006, the screenings take place every Monday night at Café 1001 in Shoreditch with the aim of showcasing new short films and their creators in a free, accessible environment. Between 2006 and 2010, BAFTA chose Short & Sweet as its official London venue for the screening of all the Orange BAFTA short film and short animation nominees, and the project is now looking to expand further north by hosting the first Short & Sweet short film event at Leeds venue Nation of Shop Keepers on 26^th May 2010. The event will also feature a DJ set from Bill Ryder Jones (Domino Publishing), who began his musical career as the lead guitarist in the early noughties psych-indie phenomenon The Coral. Keen to score films himself, Bill is in the middle of exploring new liaisons with well known soundtrack writers and completed his own score for Liverpool produced film 'Leave Taking', which was funded by Vision and Media in the North West of England.

Short & Sweet is a free event.

Doors 6.30pm, with first screening at 7.30pm

Venue address: Nation of Shop Keepers, 27 - 37 Cookridge Street, Leeds, LS2 3AG

In July 16^th at Barbican, London Short & Sweet will host the first international 3D short Film Festival and are inviting submissions and sponsors.

We're keen for folks to understand that Domino look after some of the most influential bands in music from over the last 30 odd years and none more so than Pavement who wowed audiences in Brixton all week. When you talk about identifying 'indie music' - proper, honest early 90s 'indie', Pavement served as one of the most popular and influential lo-fi rock bands of the 1990s. It's tricky stuff trying to decide which video to pop on here - options paralysis has set in dear reader. So heck if you enjoyed 'Stereo'directed by Jon Kelsey and wanna be 'in with the kids', knock yourselves out on the Domino Youtube channel for a good old whoop or two along to Pavement's music videos here including 'Shady Lane' directed by Spike Jonze. Pavement insist on no new material so if you're hungry for more you might also enjoy releases from Pavement's own Spiral Stairs and Stephen Malkmus both continuing their own projects with Domino.

Matador look after Pavement in the USA.

STREAM TUNES

'Hello Tony! I think we might use a video replay here!' ... Max Tundra released 'Parallax Error Beheads You' back in 2008 and accompanied said release with this piece of monochromatic wizzardry for the single - 'Will Get Fooled Again' directed by Woof Wan-Bau. The whizzkid behind Max Tundra, Ben Jacobs, has spent the last year lugging his keyboards round the World with notables such as Hot Chip and Passion Pit. Ben performs like the musical equivalent of the buzz conveyed by the Tango 'Slap' commercial and in between performing this densely layered keyboard phenomenon he finds time to remix many audio treasures including - 'Do You Want To' by  Franz Ferdinand  and Fledermaus 'Can't Get It' by Von Sudenfed. Domino is now chuffed to bits to announce a Max Tundra remix of 'Midnight Directives' by Owen Pallett. So to continue the analogy - You know when you've been Tundra'd. Max Tundra perform at Field Day, London on 31st August 2010.

Owen Pallett’s Lewis Takes Off His Shirt is released on 12”and via digital download on June 21^st. Both formats will feature remixes from Dan Deacon, Benoit Pioulard, Simon Bookish, CFCF and Max Tundra.

Brisa Roché left home with her guitar at 16 and spent the glory days of Grunge in Seattle, before later moving to Paris where she established herself as a bi-lingual jazz influenced artist. After a brief stint on Blue Note, her style developed towards a Blondie / garage rock with beatnik chic. Keen to get her latest collection of songs 'All Right Now' into more English speaking countries, Brisa Roché gave an intimate performance at the Wave Rooftop at SXSW. Whilst her entire band was not able to make the trip from Paris to Austin, here's an interesting interview with Brisa (accompanied by guitarist John Mitchell) on The Set List which allows some insight into Brisa and her music.

If your French is a little more advanced than 'Je T'aime Moi Non Plus' then get your mouse and click clack on the link to Rykielles where you can see a little guest spot with Brisa Roché herself. You don't have to speak French to click on play and listen to 'Penetrate'.

Galaxie 500 formed out of the 80s New York student-punk scene. The band toured the United Kingdom in late 80s, where there were signed to Rough Trade and were regarded as an incarnation of the Velvet Underground. 'On Fire' reached number 7 in the UK Indie Chart and was probably more popular in Blighty than it had been in the States. The band split up in the early 90s and members went on to pursue various creative endeavours. Galaxie 500 bassist Naomi Yang has been proving herself to be an observant photographer and you can have a look at her pictures here.

The Fall have unveiled their first video for many years for the track Bury from their new album 'Your Future Our Clutter'. Directed by Thirtytwo (Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace), the video was shot on super slo-mo and is perhaps the most visually arresting and revealing Fall video of all time, a real classic.  The video is being premiered in the UK on the Bury council website, as a nod to the town that inspired the song. The Fall are currently on tour.

Our Australian chums Native Tongue have just made the wise decision to sign Philadelphia Grand Jury who are the sort of guitar band to get you popping and bopping. They have the zing of the Datsuns and a whole manner of upbeatness that blows the cobwebs off a lot of other bands at the moment. So get your earholes round this, come to a gig - if you're in London they are playing A LOT - and chew our legs off for some tunes from their album 'Hope Is For Hopers' currently out in Australia.

Scratch, directed by Jakob Rørvik, produced by Breakthru films and shot mostly in London just won Best Film at the Aubagne Festival. 'Lena is a young art student new to London. Calling it her art project, she obsessively follows and takes pictures of an unwitting Sol; a scruffy, charismatic 20 year old, by all appearances homeless, who drifts around in numerous detached relations to people affiliated with the art scene.Her project takes a wrong turn when Sol discovers her. Fascinated by her odd behaviour, Sol is now the one to follow her. Against a backdrop of contemporary East-London, Sol and Lena gradually expose each other’s dreams, fears and lies.' 'Black Balloon' by the Kills forms part of the soundtrack. 

Here's the video taken of 'Time for The Devil' directed by Antoine Carlier taken from John and Jehn's brand new album of the same name - out May 10th, through Republic of Music. John & Jehn started their musical career when they moved to London at the back end of 2006. Since then they have impressed music fans and journalists with their lo-fi, rock'n'roll sound and supported Franz Ferdinand in Paris. Befitting the current trend towards all things vampire are the brooding atmospherics of ‘The Ghosts’ to ‘Vampires’. Find out WAY MORE INFO at their website here.

Sadly, on Monday 12th April, Steve Reid passed away. Obituaries, blogs and biogs tell the tale of a man who led an extraordinary life. Steve Reid grew up in the 40s and 50s in the same Bronx neighbourhood as the likes of Thelonius Monk - three blocks from John Coltrane. He drummed for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas when he was still a teenager and went on to accompany the likes of Fats Domino, James Brown, Miles Davis and Henry Threadgill before being convicted for being a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

Over the last five or so years Steve collaborated with Domino artist - Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) and put out several releases on Domino in many guises. In their most recent collaboration, Reid recorded a set of tracks in Senegal called 'Daxaar' produced in Africa by Kieran Hebden - this clip documents the time spent on the album. Given Kieran's long standing association with Steve Reid it is worthwhile taking a moment to hear Kieran tell Giles Peterson about his time spent with Steve here.

A Steve Reid Memorial is to be held at Café Oto in Dalston on Sunday May 16th 2010 from 7pm-12pm featuring Gilles Peterson and in association with Soul Jazz Records. Tickets are £5 donation to Steve Reid Foundation.

Arch Garrison aka Craig Fortnam, Sharron Fortnam and James Larcombe launched their album 'King of the Down' earlier in 2010 on Double Six. This project is a rustic diversion from North Sea Radio Orchestra with songs played on acoustic guitar and organ with backing vocals courtesy of Sharron. Radio love comes courtesy of Stuart Maconie at BBC 6music who had Arch Garrison record a session on his show Freak Zone. You can catch Arch Garrison in real life for free at the Hope & Anchor, Islington, London.

Joker's Daughter are Helena Costas (Domino Records and Publishing) and Danger Mouse (Chrysalis Publishing). Following the recent release of debut album The Last Laugh through Double Six Records in the UK (and Conor Oberst's Team Love in the US), Jokers Daughter released Lucid as the stunning second single. The video is directed by Hayley Morris, the winner of Best Animated Short at the Sundance Film Festival 2009. See Worm's Wood on a Diesel Italia campaign here.