This weekend’s big gig pick from us is Playgroup Festival. Playgroup have been playing their cards very close to their chest, not announcing a line up or a location online at the time of writing. Previous festivals have had fantastic representation from Brighton Bands and I’m willing to go out on a limb and bet that this year will too. Their website says that their new location is less than half an hour from Brighton, and a few bands have let slip that they’re playing. Les Enfants Terribles are hosting a stage with Calico headlining, and Fox in the City also on the bill. I also saw a Facebook post from The Beautiful Word saying they were playing too. Other than that, there’s not much more that I can tell you. Keep an eye on their website for more updates
There’s a few other things closer to home that we’ve spotted. On Friday night Limbic System launch their EP which we mentioned a few weeks ago at Latest Music Bar. Normanton Street launch their new single Moves on Saturday, with a gig at the Green Door Store, and an afterparty at Brighton Arts Club. Then on Sunday there’s an all day gig at the Blind Tiger called Sausage Fest with Brighton acts Boneyards, Semper Teens and Theo Verney on a bill which also includes Traams and is headed by Cosmonauts.
Here’s some new and upcoming music that’s dropped into our inbox recently that we thought we’d share with you.
First up is thew new DrDr EP – Drums Never End came out yesterday on Champion Records. They describe their sound as future bass, I’d say it was slightly garage-y vocal house. DrDr headline the first IntroJuice-ing at the Haunt on 22nd August which we wrote about in our last post. You can buy the EP on iTunes here.
Tiger Bite Fever got in touch with us back in July, but their Love Is Strange EP isn’t out until 22nd August, so we’ve held off posting about it for a little while. Tiger Bite Fever are made up of Stuart Wray from Gentleman Starkey and vocalist Amy Tinsley, who have started making soulful Americana together. The band are also launching their EP on 22nd August, but they’ll be at Latest Music Bar
Here’s some more American flavoured music, this time from The Raving Beauties with their sun drenched debut single Oh Lover, which is out today on new Brighton label At The Helm. You can buy the track via Amazon.
Black & Blue serves things up with a bit more attitude than the other tracks in this post. The new single from Kill Moon is out today apparently, although we can’t find anywhere to buy or download it right now. Kill Moon are back at the Green Door Store on 26th August.
Finally, we have Shy by Adolescent, which appears on a compilation out a couple of weeks ago called Coast To Coast put together by Irish based music blog Believe in Sound. Shy is a gorgeous sparse piece of electronica, peppered with lovely vocal samples. You can download the whole compilation on bandcamp here.
Up until about around eighteen months ago, Juice FM ran monthly New Music nights at The Haunt. As well as upcoming bands, they also managed to secure headline slots from the likes of Rizzle Kicks and The Ordinary Boys. The nights were a big support to the local music scene, and were sorely missed when they went on hiatus.
The good news is that they’re back with the new name of “Intro-Juice-ing”, returning to The Haunt on 22nd August, for a run of five weekly gigs.
Dr Dr headline the first gig on Thursday 22nd August, using the gig as a launch party for their new EP. Damn Dirty Humans and Vaude Villains are also playing.
The second gig sees Yumi & The Weather top the bill alongside Astrids Tea Party and Bella Feud on Friday 30th August, and announcements will be made soon for the gigs pencilled in on 7th, 13th and 20th September.
It’s looking a bit quiet on the gig front over the summer, presumably with bands off at festivals, or not playing gigs while their potential audience is off at festivals. Despite all that we’re still keeping our eyes peeled for the cream of the local crop, and here’s what we’ve got for you this week:
On Thursday night, Boon Magazine bring The Wytches to the Green Door Store for the launch of the second edition of their magazine. Lights come from the awesome Innerstrings Light Show. We did have the Evil Son’s gig at the Druids Arms pencilled in too but that’s been cancelled.
Friday night Apples & Eve headline a free, early show at the Green Door Store. Doors are at seven and like most weekend gigs the lead act will leave the stage by 10pm to make way for another later even, so get there early. Down at Sticky Mike’sCall Me Jolene are the latest band to headline Lout’s Brighton Rocks night, with support from The Long Goodbye, 2 String Slim and Das Fenster.
After another Brighton Rocks at Sticky Mike’s on Saturday night, it’s the Physics House Band’s regular night Kaleidoscope. Physics House Band are off at a festival this weekend, so they’ve handed the reins over to Caveman Genius for the night instead.
We’ve got three new tracks for you this week, from the smallest to the biggest of Brighton bands.
Devil in Detail have only just released their hard rocking debut EP. Point Scoring is the lead track:
The New Union released their eponymous EP back in June and have just released a video for the quiet piano track. This is Forget Again:
Brighton’s biggest band of the past few years are back. Rizzle Kicks return with Lost Generation, and a video sponsored by O2. When did videos start to get sponsored?
Anyone who knows the Brighton music scene will probably have come across Robin Coward. Currently empresario of three weekly open mic spots, he was also the mesmerising keyboardist accompanying Martin Rossiter at his recent gigs. And now he’s releasing an EP of five songs by his band yourgardenday that are star quality and should knock your socks off.
Rather than go through a label, Robin’s taking the independent route and initially releasing the ‘Flat Stream’ EP through a pledge music project. The 5-track EP is full of Robin’s characteristic quirky, bright and intelligent songs with a unifying aim to “reconnect with simpler times”, all wrapped up in some superb musicianship. The EP’s being launched at a hometown gig at St Andrew’s Church in Hove on Friday August 23rd, one of a few really unique and special venues Robin’s playing at in a little week-long national launch tour. BMB will be present to report and it comes highly recommended.
In an original move, Robin’s selling tickets for the gig with a copy of the EP through the pledge music site (and there are discounts for couples who only want one copy of the EP). You can also buy some additional items, such as becoming a “metrognome” and acquiring a goodybag of yourgardenday exclusives. Or maybe you fancy one of the ten remaining copies of the first yourgardenday EP signed and hand-delivered? Nice!
ps BMB would like to declare an interest in this release. Contributor Jon Southcoasting is responsible for the excellent photographs being used by Robin for the EP and launch
Want to know what’s been on the Brighton Music Blog stereo this month? Then read on:
1) Kins – Post Tropical Storm Our most listened to track was Post Tropical Storm from Kins eponymous debut album. It’s powerful guitar pop, but the power doesn’t come from obvious hooks or direct choruses, but from it’s sonic quality. Tribal drums and layers of shimmering guitars coupled with angelic vocals don’t just elevate Kins’ songs above the rest but take them to a different place altogether.
2) The Electric Soft Parade – One Of Those Days Our soundtrack to the summer is still Idiots by the Electric Soft Parade. One of Those Days effortlessly breezes out of the speakers with sugary sweet vocals, a light swirling guitar riff and shuffling drums. Here’s a live version from the album launch at the Green Door Store back in June
3) Cate Ferris – Blaze Bright Another tune which has sounded amazing in the sunshine is Cate Ferris’ new single Blaze Bright. Who doesn’t love a bit of reggae in the summertime?
4) Champione – The View (feat. Lizzie Massey) / Tiny Dragons – Come Alive (PACT Remix) Yes, Yes. This is two tunes. Well spotted. They’re both dance tunes with Lizzie Massey’s vocals at the forefront, the first in autotuned form on the title track from Champione’s recent EP, and the second as part of her band Tiny Dragons, remixed by PACT who also remixed their track Canvas for a recent mix cd released on Kitsune records. The unmixed PACT remix of Canvas is also on the download package of the Come Alive EP.
5) Crayola Lectern – Trip In ‘D’ (Version) The past couple of month’s Top Tens have featured tracks from Crayola Lectern’s leftfield The Fall And Rise of … album which came out back in April. Never one to do things the way you’d expect, in July he released a single to go alongside it. Slow Down features in album and alternate versions, alongside a different version of the ten minute long Trip in D, which is the track we’ve selected for our Top Ten. The first eight minutes don’t stray too far from the territory laid down on the album version but just when you’re least suspecting it the track takes a sideways swerve and morphs into a motoric Krautrock monster, awakening the ghost of early period Stereolab.
6) TOY & Natasha Khan – The Bride The Bride nearly didn’t get to feature in our Top Ten after we picked up the limited-to-250-copies 7” from Resident only to discover on first listen that it was damaged. Speedy Wunderground managed to find another copy from somewhere though and it hasn’t left our record deck since. Despite being a cover of an 70s psychedelic Iranian tune, it’s sounds surprisingly like what you’d expect a collaboration between Bat for Lashes and Toy might sound like – The piano lines and vocal inflections are unmistakably Natasha’s, and the thick chugging guitars match Toy’s trademark sound.
7) GAPS – Keep You GAPS are probably our favourite discovery of the year so far. The band released their double A side Keep You / Cascade on Sexbeat records two weeks ago at a gig at the Green Door Store, and we put Cascade in our top ten last month. Keep You is the more beat heavy side of the 7”, but still has a beautiful pastoral quality to it:
8) Becky Becky – House Of The Black Madonna We meant to write about Becky Becky’s album launch gig at the Green Door Store a few weeks ago, but it was a busy weekend for us and we ended up missing the moment. As live shows go, it was much more of a performance than most bands manage. Pulsating synth pop (provided by ex Fence Collective Peter Mason) was accompanied by is-it-real-or-is-it-an-act wine drinking from pint glasses and drunken behaviour from Woodpecker Wooliams. The closest reference point is something like The Knife, but this was more pop and less art. The House of the Black Madonna is from Becky Becky’s forthcoming album of the same name.
9) Us Baby Bear Bones – Sun The Us Baby Bear Bones EP What Starts With a U Ends With an I is still getting a lot of plays at Brighton Music Blog HQ. As convenient as it may seem, Sun was already coming up as having the most plays of the five tracks last week before the rather chilling video got posted:
10) Limbic System – Distant Lands Limbic System sent us their Beta Wave EP to listen to a few weeks ago, and the beautiful, fragile Distant Lands was the standout track for us. The band are holding their launch party for the EP at Latest Music Bar on 16th August.
This weekend’s big gig pick from us is Playgroup Festival. Playgroup have been playing their cards very close to their chest, not announcing a line up or a location online at the time of writing. Previous festivals have had fantastic representation from Brighton Bands and I’m willing to go out on a limb and bet that this year will too. Their website says that their new location is less than half an hour from Brighton, and a few bands have let slip that they’re playing. Les Enfants Terribles are hosting a stage with Calico headlining, and Fox in the City also on the bill. I also saw a Facebook post from The Beautiful Word saying they were playing too. Other than that, there’s not much more that I can tell you. Keep an eye on their website for more updates
There’s a few other things closer to home that we’ve spotted. On Friday night Limbic System launch their EP which we mentioned a few weeks ago at Latest Music Bar. Normanton Street launch their new single Moves on Saturday, with a gig at the Green Door Store, and an afterparty at Brighton Arts Club. Then on Sunday there’s an all day gig at the Blind Tiger called Sausage Fest with Brighton acts Boneyards, Semper Teens and Theo Verney on a bill which also includes Traams and is headed by Cosmonauts.
Brighton Music Blog 