In the distant past Rachel Bor was a third of punk trio Dolly Mixture, noted for working with Captain Sensible on some of his hits. Rachel has been involved in many projects in the intervening years and back at the start of 2021, now residing in Brighton and recording under the name Rachel Love she released Primrose Hill, the first single from her album Picture in Mind. The album came out at the end of October and is filled with beautiful pastoral pop
After a couple of years break, in which frontman Jamie Hall used wisely with solo project Nancy, making this post a double header, Tigercub returned with their third album As Blue as Indigo. Not content with writing, recording and producing the record themselves they also started their own label – Blame Recordings – to put it out too
Beach Riot released their debut album of punk pop bangers back in September. The band have been touring Sub Atomic Party Cool for weeks now, wrapping things up with a hometown gig at the Prince Albert this Thursday
AA sessions aren’t really a band. Or maybe they are, because AA Sessions put out AA Sessions Volume 2 a few weeks ago, and they’ve been putting a song out every month this year. Perhaps it’s better to say that there’s no definitive line up to AA Sessions. Across the release there’s input from members of Blood Red Shoes, Tigercub, AK/DK, Nancy, CLT DRP, Laundromat, Our Girl, Marcus Hamblett, Ben Hillier, and anyone who’s anyone in the Brighton scene
Penelope Trappes is a relatively new Brightonian. An Australian by birth, she’s lived all over the world, and settled here over lockdown. In that time she’s got herself a regular ambient show on radio station 1BTN, played gigs at the Attenborough Centre, The Rosehill and the Old Market, oh and released two albums and a film. Penelope Three is the third part of her album triptych (following on from parts one and two in 2017 and 2018). Mother’s Blood is a beatless vocal free reworking of Penelope Three, paring down the tracks down so that the listener focuses solely on the music. It’s also the name of the film shot by Agnes Haus that accompanies the album, premiering this weekend
Back in pre-pandemic times, the Nanocluster nights put on by Immersion, Love Thy Neighbour and Graham Duff at the Rosehill were a highlight in our diaries. They invited another artist (Tarwater, Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, Ulrich Schnauss and Scanner) to Brighton and jammed for a week before the gigs, and then on the night Nanocluster and the act played a set each and then played a joint set together. At the time there were some comments that recordings had been made, but it took until Record Store Day earlier this year for a double 10” entitled Nanocluster Volume One to be released. Since the release was “volume one”, we’re sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for some more gigs from them
Lime Garden were on my list of bands to watch before the pandemic along, when they were still called Lime. Apparently though there’s another Lime elsewhere which caused issues when the band signed to So Young records, so back in March their name grew. Since then word has spread far and wide – Their gig at the Prince Albert in October was sold out, and they were one of the highlights of Mutations festival for us. And even if they weren’t a local band Pulp would have been one of my tracks of the year
Next up in our end of year round up is BUNKR, who released their second album The Graveyard Orbit this year. Ambient electronica sits alongside tracks where melodic synths soar over skittering beats and rumbling bass
As I’ve said in previous years, I’ve never been a fan of end of year top ten lists. And while I’m posting again on the blog I’m fairly sure that there’s more than ever going on that I’m not aware of, which would make an end of year list from me even more meaningless. So instead, between now and Christmas I’m just going to make twelve posts about bands and things they’ve done this year that I’ve loved. It might have been a single, it might have been a whole album, it might have been a live set, or some combination of all them. They won’t be in any particular order – it’s all subjective, and if I don’t post about something you love that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t great.
Anyway, first up is The Go! Team, who returned after a four year gap with a new album entitled Get Up Sequences Part One, and a bunch of accompanying singles. Lockdown meant that there was no live launch party, which is a terrible shame because The Go! Team are a truly fantastic live band, but the album was packed with tunes just as catchy as their best – my six year still wanders around the house singing “World Remember Me Now” to himself. Anyway, here’s the video for Cookie Scene made by Ian Parton and local visuals legend Innerstrings. Fingers crossed we don’t have to wait too long for Get Up Sequences Part Two
Let’s talk about the Great Escape. And let’s not mess about, it is probably the single most important event in Brighton’s musical calendar (alongside it’s sister event the Alt Escape). We missed it last year and we missed it this year, but the festival have just announced their first batch of artists for the 2022 festival taking place 11-14 May. They call this release their “First Fifty” and to make a bit more noise about it they put a couple of gigs – one in London (where Brighton was represented by Lime Garden), and another at Chalk where local newcomers Heights and Isabelle Brown supported Sam Ryder. They invited us along, we brought our camera, and you can see our pics below (click through to view large)
Brighton Music Blog 