New Music – Fear of Men, The New Union, Luo, Bentcousin, A Lily

Posted on 24/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s out latest round up of Brighton’s new music, with tracks from Fear of Men, The New Union, Luo, Bentcousin, and A Lily.

We’ve written about Fear of Men‘s new single Luna before (here and here), but now they’ve posted up the video, premiered earlier today over on Vice, featuring wrestling, archery and snake handling

The New Union‘s new single Now came out last week, and now you can download a free remix by Oxford’s Pixel Fix, where they’ve swapped the jangling guitars are swapped chilled beats:

Luo released a new three track EP today. Lapis Lazuli is a return to Luo’s earlier electronica style, but he promises that he hasn’t turned his back on prog:

BentCousin have got a new track up on Souncloud. Everything is apparently about stalking, not that you’d guess from the melodica and soulful backing:

Since our last new music roundup A Lily have posted up the last two cover versions which go to make up their Augury EP. You can download Cold Blooded Old Times (originally a Smog track), and The Hollows (a Why? cover) from their bandcamp page:

New release – IYES / Breathe

Posted on 24/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

News has just come in of IYES follow up to last year’s debut single Til Infinity. Breathe has been released today on Duly Noted Records, produced by the band with additional production duties from MNEK. As with most of their songs, Josh and Melis share vocal duties, and the additional production gives Breathe more of an urban edge than some of their earlier material. Breathe is out now and available to buy through iTunes.

“Breathe is our sexiest song,” says Josh. “We wrote it with an image in mind of a naked lady, in a jungle, with a snake wrapped around her. The beat came first – we wanted a tribal sound featuring lots of percussive elements. Melis’ voice is often quiet and cute. It’s always beautiful, but I thought it would be great to get some sass out of her. Hence the no clothes and the python idea.”

“Josh showed me clips on YouTube with wild animals – lions, snakes, tigers – all in slow motion, looking very sensual and dangerous” says Melis. “The track’s demo title was Jungle Sex. I loved the concept but when he started mentioning video ideas with naked women, I told him he’d best get another girl.”

Hypnotized – Telesto EP

Posted on 23/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

Hypnotized at the Telesto EP launch at the Green Door Store

Tomorrow Love Thy Neighbour release the debut EP by Brighton’s Hypnotized. The standard cd release of Telesto is five tracks of experimental psychedlia, sometimes made up of chilled fuzzy electronica (on Ghost Walk and Fun Wings), but at other times having an eastern flavour (with the percussion on Vainty of Names, and the sitars and pretty much everything else on Hylia). There’s also a very limited deluxe format with additional remixes from Flamingods, Speak Galactic, Shinamo Moki, Dog In The Snow and Eva Bowan. Both formats can be ordered direct from Love Thy Neighbour, with the five tracks on the standard EP streaming below the video for Ghost Walk.

new Phantom Runners single Chasing The Feeling

Posted on 17/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

Earlier last year, a strange thing happened – a genuine bona fide 90s pop star and BBC Radio 6 presenter started following me on Twitter. Part of me thought that maybe I’d made it in the world of music journalism, but a more sensible part of me was a bit more realistic and thought that there must be a more logical explanation.

Later in the year I got told that this person had been signed up to produce a track for the Phantom Runners, and everything fell into place. I was told in confidence, so I’ve kept it under my hat since then, but I’m pleased to share the video for that track.

Chasing The Feeling is being released on 23rd March on Stray Cat Records, and has been produced by Huey Morgan. He explained “This is the one that you don’t pass on. The band has it all. The songs, the drive and a unique combination of musical styles that I have not ever come across. I’m in. Are you?”

Hiawatha Telephone Company release Dave

Posted on 16/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

The lead single from the forthcoming Hiawatha Telephone Company album has a name, and it’s called ‘Dave’.

Dave has a powerful lyric and after its forceful but quiet, steady introduction, a strident John Cale-style violin riff (by Maria Marzaioli of Reds) that will appeal to fans of the Velvet Underground and Bill Callahan along with the act’s more typical singer-songwriter, alt-Country, alt-Folk fans.

The song was recorded at Brighton’s Margaret Street loft by Martyn Lewis Moss (Butterfly House) in one-take, straight onto cassette. The resultant sound is unusually primitive but has a special lo-fi warmth.

The song ‘Dave’ is being released independently on-line on Monday (17th March) via Bandcamp (as a free download) and as part of an EP with another taster from the album and two non-album tracks. However, Brighton Music Blog has an exclusive first-listen at the link below:

You can find the Hiawatha Telephone Company on Facebook here

(Photograph by Will Georgantas)

New Music – Eagles for Hands, A Lily, Them The Sky, Rooster Cole

Posted on 14/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s this week’s roundup of the new music that we’ve heard.

First up is a new track from Eagles for Hands featuring Sivu. Farewell Appalachia isn’t Eagles for Hands normal fare, being vocal and more more song-like, with his trademark electronica being used to subtle effect.

Next is the latest upload from A Lily. We mentioned last week that throughout March they’re putting up a track every week. This week they’ve covered Love’s A House is Not a Motel.

Them The Sky put out a remix of their track Fall which featured on last year’s Echolalia EP. London’s Finjin is on remix duties here, chopping up the vocals and underpinning things with lovely burbling electronica.

Finally we have a track by Rooster Cole – formerly known as the front man of Black Black Hills, something you’ll spot as soon as the vocals kick in, although The Waiting Place is a bit less rock’n’roll and a bit more dramatic, with few less guitars and a broader palate of strings and piano.

Fear of Men / Spectrum at The Dome

Posted on 11/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

We’ve got two Fear of Men related things to write about today, so we thought we’d wrap them up in one handy blog post.

First is more info on their new single Luna, which we first posted about a fortnight ago. Art is Hard records, who are putting out the release on April 7th, describe the format as a Flexizine: a 20 page A5 fanzine – Fear of Men Quarterly – and a 7″ flexidisc. We put up the audio of A-side Luna with our earlier post on the single, and yesterday the b-side Outrun Me was premiered in the Guardian’s music section, which we can share with you now. The Luna Flexizine can be pre-ordered from the Art is Hard website.

The single Luna precedes Fear of Men’s debut album Loom by a fortnight. The Brighton launch takes place on 15th April at the Dome Studio Theatre (formerly the Pavilion Theatre) at a new night being held called Spectrum (formerly Source New Music).

With Source Magazine sadly retiring from it’s physical form, Brighton Dome have taken the opportunity to revitalise their new music project. As well as the new name, they’ve got a new partner in Resident record shop, and they’re also expanding the scope of what they do. Spectrum Live replaces the monthly music nights that they put on, which always had great line ups. On top of that there’s also Spectrum Seminars, which will give local musicians to learn more about the industry, Spectrum Site & Sound which will offer the opportunity for musicians to collaborate with film makers to create something within the Dome complex, and Spectrum Residencies which sees the Dome working with individual artists to develop their live act. We look forward to seeing how these develop over the coming months – no doubt there’ll be plenty of blog from us along the way.

Dog in the Snow at the Prince Albert / The New Union at Bermuda Triangle gallery

Posted on 10/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

Last Monday, Dog in the Snow released their new single Factory and next Monday The New Union release their new single Now. Last weekend both bands played live, so we went along with our camera (as usual click to view large):

New Music – Fujiya & Miyagi, Moulettes, New Union, A Lily, Black Rooster, Black Shag, The Hundredth Anniversary, Catherine Ireton

Posted on 09/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

It feels like weeks since we put up a new music blog post, possibly because it has been weeks, but also because we’ve got so many things to share this time around.

First up is another new track from the upcoming Fujiya & Miyagi album Artificial Sweeteners. Album opener Flaws confirms the more electronic direction of the band that we heard on Tetrahydrofolic Acid, and is available as an early download if you pre-order the album on iTunes.

Moulettes gave us the first listen of the title track of their new album this week. Constellations is out on 2nd June on Navigator records, but I reckon that you’ll be able to plenty of tracks from the new record when the band play at The Haunt on 24th April.

We already posted up the audio for the new New Union single Now, but the video went live last week, so here it is again. We were at the Now launch gig at Bermuda Traingle on Friday night and will be posting up our pics soon.

Every monday for a month, A Lily are uploading a free cover version to bandcamp which together will make up an EP called Augury. The first of these is a cover of Julia Holter’s Goddess Eyes. Keep an eye on A Lily’s facebook page for news of the next upload.

Black Rooster Black Shag‘s Run Baby Run was one of our favourite tracks of last year, so our ears pricked up when they told us they had a new track coming out. Borderline is taken from the band’s upcoming album As Far As My Lead Will Take Me.

The Hundredth Anniversary have shared a track from their upcoming release. A Daze is the second track from the Wreckers EP, which is being released on Odd Box records on 17th March.

Catherine Ireton has released an EP which takes in two of her Treasure Tracks songs (which she performed in intimate venues around Brighton in 2012) as well as a track with Belle & Sebastian offshoot God Help The Girl and two tracks with other bands she’s played with over the years. The EP is entitled Pieces of Me and can be bought from iTunes and Amazon.

Coming up : Nordic Giants supporting God is an Astronaut / new music from Esben & The Witch

Posted on 09/03/2014 by brightonmusicblog

This week Nordic Giants head out on tour with Irish post rock band God is an Astronaut, where they play their first Brighton gig since the launch of their awesome Build Seas / Dismantle Suns double EP last October. The tour takes in Glasgow, Leeds, Nottingham and Birmingham before arriving in Brighton next Sunday 16th March, where they play The Haunt.

A few weeks later the band are heading up to London to play one of their most important gigs yet headlining Cargo on 1st May.

Next month, Esben & The Witch release a split 12″ with Thought Forms on Invada records. It was premiered a couple of weeks ago on Stereogum, but now the stream is available for us to share too. The release of No Dog on 7th April comes in advance of the band heading into the studio in the summer with the legendary Steve Albini for an album pencilled in for autumn this year. More news on that as we hear of it, but in the meantime, here’s the audio of No Dog: