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Every Sunday evening, Charlie Ashcroft counts down the Amazing Chart across the UK’s national DAB network on Amazing Radio. Here he is to give us the very latest lowdown on the last week’s movers and shakers from amazingtunes.com

Hello! It’s a case of “another week, another new chart-topper” this time, with Glasgow band Holy Esque climbing a massive 16 places to reach the Number 1 spot with Rose, displacing Lianne La Havas at the top in the process after just one week.

Not only have the band have been firm favourites at Amazing Radio since the turn of the year, they’ve also been drawing increasing amounts of positive online coverage in the wake of some great live gigs in recent weeks.

Horse Thief are the Glaswegians’ closest contenders at Number 2, with the Simon Raymonde-approved Texans also having rising up the rankings with poise and purpose thanks to a beautiful ode to Oklahoma called Warrior. Slightly further down, Midnight Lion and NZCA/Lines have entered the Top 10 for the very first time, while Monogold and Vanbot continue to climb.

This week has witnessed a small portion of New Entries, with Three Blind Wolves, Midi Matilda and Pushing Hands all making their Amazing Chart bows in the lower reaches of the Top 20.

Click hereto see the Amazing Chart Top 40 in full. Then find out if Holy Esque can make it two weeks at Number 1 by tuning in to Amazing Radio on Sunday from 5pm!


Presented by Ruth Barnes, The Other Woman is the only radio show in the UK with an all-female playlist.

This week we’re speaking to Ghost In Saturn? as our Introducing band for this week, find out more about this French duo on the show.

We feature Chapter 24 as our opener, with the excellent track 4454, which is to celebrate this great band from Corby in the Midlands as they take on America and kick it’s obese ass. They’re off to SXSW after their current tour and it’s their second year in a row! Claire Smith on vocals is something to behold, she’s one of our favourite frontwomen of 2011.

Whilst spying on Dani Charlton’s playlist from her Saturday show here on Amazing Radio, Francis were spotted. This Swedish band are back! ‘I Was Never Bored At All’ was the song that had us smitten a few years ago and now here they are with this little corker, Traktor. Far more rocky than their usual blissful pop inspired Nordic friends:

Also we’ll have brand new music from mysterious French duo Ooti Skulf, alt-folk trip Oh! My Blackbird, Jazz infused New Yorker Elle Winston and LA-duo-that-no-one-knows-anything-about Rhye. Happy listening!

Tune in from 7pm on Sunday evening!


It’s been a while since we featured some straight-up indie guitars. Partly because we get a whole lot of it uploaded to amazingtunes.com and most of it sounds dated and samey. So when a band jumps out like this, you know you’re onto something special.

This is good. Really good. There’s a touch of Heartland America in Yukon Blonde with the ‘big’ drum sound, urgent guitars and reckless vocals but it’s given a ‘pop’ sheen with sing-along ‘oooo’s’ and a huge chorus. Departing slightly from their folkier sound of old, this treads a path forged by Grouplove and employs the similar tactic of disguising a sad lyrics in a happy song. We like it alot.

This single is out now with their second LP on the way this March, watch out for it!


Miranda Sawyer - Image Courtesy of The Guardian

Presented by Ruth Barnes, The Other Woman is the only radio show in the UK with an all-female playlist.


It’s Christmas Eves on Amazing Radio… and that means the Christmas Eve’s have taken over!

With an outstanding proportion of women presenters on Amazing Radio – we’ve taken over Christmas Eve. Between 3 and 5 The Other Woman will be playing the best in new music from female artists on amazingtunes.com as always, but we also feature an interview with writer and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer about the formation of Sound Women in 2011. As a reaction to the outrageous disproportion of women to men on the radio, the website was set up to encourage women as presenters and programme makers, as a go-to list for those on the hunt for talented spokeswomen and also as a mentoring scheme to help people get on in the media. I met Miranda in her kitchen in south London, one year old Frankie May makes an appearance too…

Here’s the launch video that Sound Women put together featuring some of the biggest female names in broadcasting as a wee intro to what it’s all about:

Also on the show: new to amazingtunes.com, Moulettes play a fierce and thoroughly modern gypsy folk, they’ve performed and recorded with Seasick Steve and will hopefully break through in 2012. Also Madam makes an appearance with her hauntingly beautiful tune Marine Boy from Gone Before Morning, one of my albums of the year… with session tracks from Daughter and an Amazing Beats tip from Kate Wax, what more could I ask for? Join me on Christmas Eve… pass the liqueur chocs!


The Other Woman is our newest show on Amazing Radio, and indeed, the only one in the UK with an all-female playlist, presented by Ruth Barnes. On this Sunday’s show, Ruth will be featuring Maya Jane Coles and Lady Leshurr; ahead of the show, Ruth has penned some words on them both.

This week on The Other Woman I’m thrilled to be kicking off with a Mobilee Records staple. Maya Jane Coles has had an amazing year and was one of only five women DJ’s in Resident Advisor‘s Top 100 DJ’s, the Londoner is in at number 9. So I thought what better way to start the show with one of the tracks she put out on the cooler-than-cool Berlin label.It sets the tone really, I’ve got real treats for you. If you haven’t heard of Russian-born-Berlin-resident-via-Israel Mary Ocher than you’re in for a treat. Her track Address Yourself Entirely To Me is an excellent example of her unique style and uber-quirky take on electro pop. Her videos are always second to none, aided by her artist friends in Berlin they’re always brilliant.

I’m featuring Lady Leshurr in this show too, Lego is her new single and mighty fine. I had the pleasure of putting on this quick fire MC at Ladyfest 2010 and she was A-Mazing. She says she models herself on Wiley, I say she could out-spit him anyday. Here’s a video from the festival, which I made on my crappy digital camera but you get the idea – Lady Chann‘s there too as well as Lady Lykez and Amazing Radio fave Patricia Panther. Leshurr‘s on the end in the cute black tracksuit:

The show is all over the place again this week – in a very good way. We’re in Norway for some eclectic jazz stylings of Mari Kvien Brunvoll (the Nordic Tune-Yards) and then to London for the doom and gloom of Death Rattle… also a double play of woozey ‘chill-wave’ (whatever that is) from Sleep Over and Keep Shelley In Athens. There’s plenty more too, if you have any suggestions feel free to get in touch! @otherwomanradio or @amazingradio or leave us a comment here.

Hear all of this by tuning in at 7pm on Sunday evening.


The Other Woman is our newest show on Amazing Radio, presented by Ruth Barnes. It’s the only radio show in the UK with an all female playlist. With most mainstream radio being dominated by the boys, or a certain type of female singer, The Other Woman aims to showcase a broader variety of female artists and bands fronted by women. On this Sunday’s show, Ruth will be speaking to Sharon Van Etten and, ahead of the show, has penned some words on the lush folkstress.

This week we’re thrilled to have New Jersey singer songwriter Sharon Van Etten on the show. Her highly anticipated album Tramp is out in February on celebrated indie Jagjaguwar. The label is her new home since releasing her debut album Epic on Brooklyn indie Ba Da Bing last year. Epic hardly left our CD player when we got our mits on it, beautifully crafted, melancholy yet uplifting, sorrowful yet hopeful – we were smitten. Now she’s on a proper grown up label, with industry muscle behind her. All the blogs-in-the-know are posting her single Serpents and rowing about how great it is (well, it is).

Sharon Van Etten has worked with former touring buddy Aaron Dessner from The National at his home in a leafy suburb of Brooklyn – with buddys including Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak, Beirut’s Zach Condon and the Queen of etheral ambient Julianna Barwick. It’s a strikingly confident record, with SVE’s signature mark – big swirling powerful songs, some sparse, some pounding, all wondrous. Our favourite line is from Give Out: “You’re the reason why I’ll move to the city, you’re why I’ll need to leave…” she tells us it’s about allowing herself to fall in love again… and more.

Tune in to The Other Woman at 7pm on Sunday to hear the interview in full.


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