New music

Posted on 12/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

I was thinking that January might be a bit of a quiet month for the blog, but I’ve found myself inundated with new music to share. In this post we’ve got stuff from new bands including Iyes, who have yet to release anything but are causing a bit of a storm with the first demo that they’ve put out there, to bands who’ve been around for a bit longer, like The Go! Team:

Iyes managed to get a mention on The Line of Best Fit on the strength of Lighthouse. A fantastic start which will hopefully translate into bigger things. Here’s the track in question along with a few remixes of it which are doing the rounds. We like this A LOT.

Next up is a new track from Verity Susman, formerly of krautrockers Electrelane, still sticking with the lock grooves, but more synth based and aimed at the dancefloor. It doesn’t sound a million miles away from Ladytron to our ears, and that’s no bad thing at all. There’s no info on a release date for this, but we’ll definitely be keeping you updated.

Then we have Gazelle Twin, covering The Wire’s Heartbeat. It’s a haunting dark ethereal track and it will appear on Gazelle Twin’s new Mammal EP, which is due to hit the shops on 28th January alongside a whole bunch of remixes.

The Go! Team have remixed Justin Velor’s track Galliano Rocks. No embedded Soundcloud available for this unfortunately, but you can give it a listen if you click here. It’s got a great classic Go! Team sound – relentless energy, lo fi guitars and bundles of joy.

Tyrannosaurus Dead are previewing Sadie, from their forthcoming 6 track “Pure // Apart” EP, coming out on Odd Box Records later this year. Keep your eyes on the blog tomorrow night for some more Tyrannosaurus Dead related news.

Finally, here’s Nick Williams with his new EP Anniversaries. If you like the sound of this, his band are headlining the Prince Albert next saturday (19th January)

Sea Monsters 3 streaming now!

Posted on 12/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Sea Monsters 3 is still a few weeks away yet, but to get us in the mood, they’ve put up a Soundcloud stream of the cd that they’re giving out to people who buy a week ticket. It features one track from each band who are playing, so if there’s anyone you haven’t heard of (which is still quite a few even for us), you can take a listen here:

That’s not all though. Over on Bandcamp, they’re GIVING AWAY downloads of the past two years compilations! There was some great tracks on there (Fear of Men’s Doldrums and Us Baby Bear Bones’ Rain still get a lot of plays around here):

Sofar Sounds – songs from a room

Posted on 10/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

This week the second ever Brighton Sofar session came to town.

For those who don’t know, Sofar Sounds is a House concert concept that has gone global with connections on four continents. They’ve held concerts in California, Brazil, Australia and across Europe amongst other places. But basically wherever they take place they’re still small intimate gigs featuring local bands and innovative music in people’s homes, which are video’d and photographed and seen globally via their website.

Small is beautiful. And the latest Brighton incarnation took place in the large front room of a flat on West Street, and featured three bands playing four songs each, an artist-in-residence (below) drawing the event along with an array of photographers, videographers, and a room full of pretty young things, all sitting on the floor enjoying the spectacle.

First up was I am Amity, the persona of multi-instrumentalist Amy Forrester, who wound her simple songs around a fascinating array of loops, moving from electronic drums to guitars and back again. She made a joke about her mother liking best her song about one night stands. She was most endearing.

Next came the mighty Laish, who wowed the room with Danny Green’s wry lively lyrics backed by a dynamic four piece band with the original combination of violin, clarinet, bass and drums. They played three songs from their forthcoming new album Obituaries and then ended with We Speak The Mantra from their first album, with the band dropping their instruments to accompany Dan with vocals and hand-claps and knee-slaps. It was enchanting. An excellent band, a favourite of this blog and highly recommended in any body’s living room.

By the end of the night, the packed room was hot and sweaty. Last up were the gypsy folk of Apples and Eve, led by the charming Eve Rose. This five-piece band laid down some excellent funky folk which kept the room chilled and feet-tapping. Eve’s vocals were honey-smooth, and her songs reminiscent of a band like Beirut. Another fine local act that are worth checking out.

And then it was over, until the next one. Sofar sounds have a winning formula – small intimate gigs in people’s homes. This blog for one looks forward to seeing how the Brighton set up progresses. Or maybe the Brazilian one, if we’re lucky eh?

Free New Music

Posted on 10/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Three bands, each with a free exclusive track to give away. How’s that for a nice late Christmas present?

House of Hats new single Sewing Machine is available as a free mp3 by signing up to their mailing list, or over at bandcamp. It’s a lovely thing, quite minimal, with their trademark close harmonies, simple acoustic guitar and chiming piano, and it was produced by the band and Ally Young from Mirrors.

Abi Wade has just given away a free download of live favourite Charade, recorded in the same session as her recent Heavy Heart 7″. There was a bit of time at the end of the session to record what’s effectively a live version of the track, and this is what’s been sent out. You’ll need to sign up to her mailing list in order to get the link, so unfortunately there’s embedded preview here. If you’ve heard either of Abi’s releases so far, you’ll know what to expect – haunting vocals, cello, and percussion. Highly recommended.

The last track, Circulation, is from The Muel, and is also available as a free download via their mailing list (which you can sign up to on the front page of their website). Sam Walker’s band aren’t just giving away the one track though – they’ll be giving away a track every month this year to subscribers. January’s track is a jazzy instrumental taken from the Rough in the Bedroom album, which came out over ten years ago and is now long out of print, so this is probably your only chance to get hold of this. I look forward to hearing what else they’ve got in store for us over the next twelve months. The Muel will be supporting Jaime Regan at the Brunswick on 31st January.

Video-verload

Posted on 09/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We’ve come across a bumper treasure trove of videos from Brighton Bands over the past few days. Maybe everyone was saving them for the new year, maybe it’s just coincidence that they’ve all turned up at the same time. No matter – here they all are:

Blood Red Shoes / Red River:

Cave Painting / Leaf

Tiny Dragons / In My Life

Forestears / Against The Floor

Beautiful Word / Eating Me, Eating You

Time for T / Phone Sex

Indigo Beach / Stay

Catherine Ireton – What Is It About That Night?

Posted on 07/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

It seems like it’s only been a matter of weeks since Catherine Ireton played the last of her four Treasure Tracks gigs which lead us through the backstage warren behind the Dome before playing an intimate gig in the Corn Exchange. This month Catherine returns and is going backstage again, this time to the Theatre Royal.

As with Treasure Tracks, What Is It About That Night? isn’t a straightforward gig. Rather than take to the stage in the Theatre Royal, Catherine will be performing in the dressing rooms and other backstage areas – parts of the theatre not normally seen by the public. And rather than a normal performance where there’s a clear distinction between artist and audience, Catherine is collaborating with Brighton based theatre company Root Experience to make the night more interactive.

Catherine Ireton

What Is It About That Night is on at the Theatre Royal on 17th and 24th of January. Tickets are £10 and are available from the Theatre Royal Box Office, Resident Records or online

The Self Help Group – Needles

Posted on 06/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

The first new release we’re writing about in 2013 is the Self Help Group’s new single Needles. It’s out digitally tomorrow, being released by Lewes’ Union Music Store, and is a taster for their debut album Not Waving But Drowning which comes out next month.

We’re loving the high key video, which features a lot more choreography than you might expect from a folk band:

Woodpecker Wooliams BBC 6Music session

Posted on 06/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Following hot on the heels of Milk & Biscuits, who did a session for Marc Riley last Month, Woodpecker Wooliams is the lastest local act to grace the 6Music airwaves. She joined Tom Robinson last night, and you can listen again (if you’re in the UK, and for a limited time, obviously) here.

First track Gull starts around the twenty minute mark, Sparrow is around forty minutes in and around Dove is around fifty two minutes.

The Blog Sound of 2013

Posted on 03/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

December’s a funny month for people who write about new music, mainly because there’s not too much of it about. Release schedules are bare, with the exception of big name acts cashing in with Greatest Hits or maybe the odd novelty record, and there aren’t so many gigs because of the bad weather and clashes with Christmas parties, so people like me sit at home reflecting on the past year and pontificating about the year ahead.

Towards the end of last year Robin from Breaking More Waves got in touch with us and 48 other blogs to continue what Breaking More Waves and the Von Pip Musical had started in 2012. The Blog Sound of 2013 poll is a bit of an alternative to the BBC’s own Sound of 2013 – not meant as a criticism of what the BBC are doing, just a different viewpoint. Interestingly, last year’s Mercury Prize winners Alt-J featured on the Blog Sound of 2012 poll, but we’re on BBC’s Sound of 2012.

We were asked to nominate five artists that represented the best in emerging music. At first glance it sounded nice and easy, but was it really that simple? Should I just be nominating bands from Brighton? Most of the other blogs involved weren’t so geographical. And should I be nominating my favourite bands, or the ones who were doing best at “emerging”? And what does emerging really mean anyway?

In the end, I nominated two Brighton bands, one band who are half Brighton / half London, and two bands with no links to Brighton. Sadly none of my nominations made it to the final longlist, but Curxes did appear giving a bit of local representation. Subsequently one of the acts I nominated – Anna Meredith – got awarded Drowned in Sound’s single of the year, which gave me a bit of reassurance that I don’t have cloth ears thankfully.

The longlist announced in December comprised of AlunaGeorge, Curxes, Chvrches, Daughter, Haim, Laura Mvula, MØ, Palma Violets, Pins, Randolph’s Leap, Rhye, Savages, Seasfire, The Neighbourhood, Tom Odell. Seven of these ended up on the BBC’s Sound of 2013 list. This morning, the winner of the crown of Blog Sound of 2013, was announced, alongside the the final top five :

1st Haim

2nd Chvrches

3rd= Savages

3rd= Pins

5th The Neighbourhood

If you want to get your ears around these bands – which doesn’t seem like such a bad idea considering these are the acts which have been voted for by people passionate enough about music to devote their spare time to writing about them – then Breaking More Waves have put together a handy Soundcloud playlist :

Brighton Music Blog

Monthly Archives: January 2013