Episode 8: Darkness falls on These New Puritans

Hello internet, Nate Lanxon here. We kick off this week's Encoded with the new video from Camden leisure pirate Amy Winehouse, whose latest single, 'Love is a Losing Game', is released this week. 

It's the fifth and final single from her multi-billion selling second album, and having been playlisted on Radio One for six whole weeks already, is sure to rank highly in the Christmas countdown.

Our second video comes from Southend's avant-garde teenagers These New Puritans, whose latest offering 'Elvis' can be seen on the webtubes right now.

The slightly pretentious video is directed by Saam Farahmand, who has previously shot the likes of Klaxons and Clor. It has a distinct Chris Cunningham feel to it, i.e. dark, surreal and, for the younger Encoded viewers, nightmare-inducing. Enjoy!

Download news now, and one-man post-emo machine Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. has made a track from his forthcoming second album available to download for free from myfreedownload.co.uk/getcapewearcapefly.

To download 'Waiting for the Monster to Drown' you need to be a member of the site, but all you have to do is give them your email address, so don't worry too much about loss of liberty and all that nonsense.

Also free to download this week is the latest single from one of Get Cape's protege's, the similarly strangely-monikered House of Brothers. 'Deadman', the title track of his EP, is free to grab from bsmrocks.com, the homepage of his label Big Scary Monsters. 

Sticking with Big Scary Monsters for a second, the label have teamed up with Xtra Mile Records and organised a pre-Christmas tour, which will see Dartz line up alongside This Town Needs Guns and Frank Turner for a six-date stint up and down England in the middle of December. All the details are on MySpace and on the website.

If you're still umming and ahhhing about what to do on New Year's Eve this year, then why not spend it under a busy flyover in West London? Not convinced? Well Foals and Metronomy, two of 2007's pant-wettingly coolest bands are lining up a severe head-to-head hootanany in Under The Westway, a bar which uses the busy road above as its roof.

Tickets are almost completely sold out, but if you're double-quick, then you can pick some up from ticketweb.co.uk. They cost twenty-five quid, but will quadruple your cool points, and unless the road collapses on the venue killing everyone inside, pretty much guarantees you a great start to 2008!

Over to new releases now, and in a renewed effort to snatch the 'Greatest French Record Label' tag from the ever-impressive Ed Banger, the equally ace Kitsune are to release part five of their Maison series.

The 17-track compilation album, Maison features the likes of Late of the Pier, The Teenagers and Bitchee Bitchee Ya Ya Ya in a transgenic snapshot of a label marching confidently into the new year.

You can pick the album up from the beginning of February, or for a sneak preview now, head over to Kitsune's MySpace page. Also out in the new year will be the debut long-player from anti-folk heroine Emmy The Great, who will release her as-yet untitled album of car crashes, lost loves and period dramas through Close Harbour.

Emmy is part of a burgeoning swell of folksters, which include the likes of Eugene McGuinness and Laura Marling, and with a late January release date pencilled in for her record, she should be right at the front of what could be a gentle revolution next year.

Well I'm going to have to love you and leave you internet as I'm off to do something Christmasy, involving orphans and stuff. Bye!