The really, really nice thing about doing MNFB is the raft of emails we’ve started getting recently. People actually seem to to like what we’re up to, and they want their music to be a part of it. People like Junior Jaguar, who kindly explained he’d mailed two other sites as well as us. Mp3hugger and 2UIBestow being the other two.

It’s great that people seem to becoming more discerning, that they’re not taking the kitchen sink approach and mailing everyone listed on HypeM, but they’re picking and choosing. We are genuinely flattered that music is specifically coming in our direction too. Thanks, and keep it coming.

Things I know about Junior Jaguar then. He’s 25 years old. He lives in America, somewhere. He does all this in his room. With insight like that, there’s little wonder I was a music journo of some repute is there?

What I do know is that it’s rare, very rare, to find an artist you can describe as unknown these days. Even the most hopeless artists have thousands of listens and hundreds of friends on MySpace. Junior Jaguar has precisely six friends on MySpace, where the two songs he has posted have been listened to 221 times… and I think I’ve contributed to half of those listens.

When JJ turned up on our virtual doorstep last week we were gobsmacked, not only because he’s quite a secret, but at work here is some quality tunemongering. There’s a fantastic timelessness too – it feels very seventies, and brilliantly so. A bit Steely Dan perhaps, a dash of Wings (or am I getting confused with The Killers?), some Nick Drake…

Of the two songs, we’re honking like over-excited geese at ‘Divine’, although Kevin the Hugger is flapping his flippers in the direction of the more gentle ‘Morning’. This really is music to get properly exited about. We love the loose, scampering Bowie-esque vocal on ‘Divine’, the swirling, soaring melody, and the stop and start bit before it gallops off towards its climax made us want to stand up and applaud. Thrilling stuff.

There’s a full-length coming early in 2009, which we can’t wait to hear. You also wonder how far down the playing live road he is… you get the feeling this would be quite something if he got it right.

Junior Jaguar is good. Very good. It’s accomplished stuff, and we’re going to be standing alongside MP3 Hugger saying told you so when JJ gets a break, which if there’s any justice in the world he will.

More hear…
- All there is, is right here on his MS. You don’t need much else for now. More soon!