Avenue61 is a leading indie music site that specialises in album and gig reviews, breaking new bands, publicising events, and exclusive interviews with the leading cutting edge acts in the alternative music scene. Avenue61 covers a wide range of artists – some you would have heard of, some you won’t. Artists the site has reviewed recently include the Fleet Foxes, MGMT, Noisettes and Ladyhawke. The site is updated regularly so come back to catch up the latest news and reviews from the bleeding edge of the alternative music scene.

Ok, so first off I must iterate the fact that this particular run down is in no particular order, nor is it a definitive list of the best British record labels of all time (as if such a breakdown could ever be truly quantified). It is simply a list of some personal favourites within the British...MORE>>

There’s something profoundly engaging, to an almost mystical degree about King Charles. A character whose visual presentation seems to be more in keeping with the pre-revolution, French aristocracy as opposed to the South-East of contemporary London, King Charles has created an unfathomable mystique around himself allowing

very few into his inner circle. Being unable to distinguish fact from fiction seems to be rather high upon King Charles’ list of must do’s with very little actual information about the man himself existing anywhere, print, online or otherwise. It’s almost as if he has simply appeared, as if from nowhere, onto the East London music scene with his ultimate ambition seemingly to create something that will reestablish the way we regard pop music. His recent Glastonbury appearance was met with uproarious appreciation, a good inclination that something special this way comes.

King Charles exudes an eccentricity that has been somewhat lacking of late. With many acts trying to present a penchant for the eccentric, without any real inclination so, it’s rather exciting to hear someone, such as King Charles, who seems to not only understand the concept of envelope pushing and undertakes the act with devastating effect. King Charles’ epic, electro-rock sounscapes undertake oddly diverging routes from one another shattering any preconceptions that this man is something of a one trick pony. Tracks such as ‘Time of Eternity’ & ‘Beating Hearts’ have already set up King Charles’ stall as a menagerie of abounding lyrical & musical inventiveness, sepia-tinted otherworldly vignettes & rich, transcendent imagery. A bric-a-brac stall for the inventive.

With the occasional nod to the classic, such as Bob Dylan, The rolling Stones et al; it becomes clear that King Charles’ inventiveness is simply not content with whiling away the dreary British summertime amidst the furor of the London club scene. His five song Glastonbury interlude whipped the somewhat paltry presence at the BBC Introducing stage into undeniable excitement, with the man himself using his charismatic stage presence, quirky sound & his i-phone (in an extremely inventive manner) to get the job done.

It is undeniable that King Charles is creating something enlightened, ahead of it’s time, but it’s a question as to whether he is in fact too far ahead of the times to create the meteoric resonance that he will unquestionably think he rightly deserves. However, with a record deal recently wrangled with M17, it seems likely that we shall be seeing King Charles’ untamed locks for a while yet, even if they are upon the fringes of the musical world.