Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Thirteen – Us Baby Bear Bones / Swamp

Posted on 13/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Us Baby Bear Bones debut EP What Starts With U Ends With An I was a long time coming. We first heard about it back in April last year and it finally got a release in June. It was well worth the wait through – Handmade packaging where the cover formed a small part of a much bigger image (which you can see slowly taking shape on their website as people buy copies of the EP), and five fantastic tracks which defy classification. Obtuse but accessible, a mixture of electronic and analogue instrumentation, catchy but without traditional choruses. Swamp was our favourite and you can listen to it here:

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 12/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

As Christmas approaches, we haven’t got quite so many acts in our weekly roundup of the local gigs we’ve picked out, but it’s all about quality rather than quantity.

Before I mention any other gigs this weekend, I want to give a special mention to a charity gig that’s taking place on Sunday afternoon / evening at the Above Audio, put on by Les Enfants Terribles in aid of the Typhoon Haiyan Relief Project, supporting those affected by the recent catastrophic weather in the Philippines. They’ve got a great line up, including The Miserable Rich (who are re-forming as a one off for this gig), The Phantom Runners, Spit Shake Sisters, Common Tongues, Lost Dog and Will Musset. There’ll also be a raffle and mince pie sale to raise more money for a deserving cause.

Anyway, back to tonight’s gig recommendation – A Lily (who appeared in our Advent Calendar last week) are supporting Farao and Asgeir at the Green Door Store.

Friday Night sees one of Brighton’s hottest tipped bands play at Bermuda Triangle. Royal Blood have been tipped as one of the BBC’s sound of 2014 bands, and are playing what’s bound to be a sold out gig supported by Tigercub.

Ez Stone launches his Moroccan Whiskey EP at the Red Roaster coffee shop on Saturday night, and is joined by Your Correspondent, Bella Spinks and Sam Jordan. Elsewhere, Kill Moon are headlining this month’s Drugs at the Green Door Store, alongside Dead Man’s Hand, The Harbour and Frankie & The Teardrops.

The big gig of the weekend however is Fatboy Slim, who’ll be playing to a packed room at Digital. It’s rare to see Norman Cook play a venue this small these days, and I’m a bit jealous of anyone who’s got a ticket!

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Twelve – Black Rooster Black Shag / Run Baby

Posted on 12/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Despite being called End of Year Lists, most start to be formed in early November. By then most bands have put out everything for the year, before they go into hibernation for the winter. It’s always a pleasure to hear new music though, whenever it comes up, so when Run Baby popped into our in box in mid-November we were very happy, especially since it’s such a great track. Run Baby might not be the most original track in our Advent Calendar, but it is the most Rock’n’Roll.

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Eleven – The Beautiful Word / Particles

Posted on 11/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Many months before Particles the album came out, Particles the single was released. We’ve been fans of The Beautiful Word since before we started the blog and over the years the band have grown up a lot. When Particles hit our stereo back in May we could hear straight away that this was the sound of a band who had grown into their sound. At the time the single came out we said that this was probably the best thing they’ve done. By the time we reviewed the album we were sure of it:

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Ten – Champione / The View

Posted on 10/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Rory Muldoon, aka Champione put out his debut EP Home earlier this year, and we liked it a lot. Most of the EP was instrumental house music, but he roped in Tiny Dragons’ Lizzie Massey for vocals on standout track The View:

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Nine – British Sea Power / Machineries of Joy

Posted on 09/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Most bands don’t get around to putting out one album per year, but in 2013 British Sea Power have managed two – the soundtrack to From The Sea To The Land Beyond (which they performed live at the Duke of Yorks earlier this year and released a week ago), and Machineries of Joy, hailed as both a mature album and one of their best. The single of the same name appeared in March and is the ninth door in our advent calendar:

GAPS single launch gallery

Posted on 08/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Tomorrow, GAPS release their new single I Know It’s You. On Thursday night they held a launch party at the Green Door Store, with support from Foreign Skin and Eagles for Hands. We went along and took some photos:

(click to view large)

I Know It’s You is out on Monday 9th December on Sexbeat Records

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Eight – Cate Ferris / Blaze Bright

Posted on 08/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

One thing 2013 should be remembered for is the great summer we had. After a run of what felt like years of terrible, rainy, cold summers this year reminded us how summers ought to be. A good, hot summer deserves an appropriate soundtrack and Cate Ferris’ collaboration with reggae legend Nick Manasseh turned out to be just what we wanted to hear.

Electric Soft Parade – One night in December

Gallery

Posted on 07/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

This gallery contains 2 photos.

The brothers Alex and Tom White brought their Electric Soft Parade back to hometown Brighton for the first gig of a short pre-Xmas tour. Playing songs from their latest album ‘Idiots’, a contender for many people’s end-of-year best-of lists for sure, they … Continue reading →

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Seven – Fear of Men / Seer

Posted on 07/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

For most of this year Fear of Men have been working hard on the debut album, which is nearly finished and due to hit the shelves in April 2014. To tide us over until then, the band put out their previous 7” and cassette releases together as a compilation called Early Fragments, which came out on coloured vinyl, cd and download back in February, then on tape for Cassette Store Day in September. The compilation came out with one unreleased track – a new tune called Seer which is what we’re featuring in our Advent Calendar for you here.