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 :

The ones that got away

Posted on 29/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

We wrote about loads of bands earlier this month in an arbitrary personal take on the year, but there’s been lots going on that we couldn’t include for one reason or the other. There were lots of bands who were just bubbling under, we didn’t write about any bands who were from Brighton – obviously – and we kept the list just to bands and didn’t mention venues or events or stuff like that.

We tried to have a bit of balance across our advent calendar, making sure we had big and small bands, so it was always going to be the case that there was going to be some we couldn’t fit in. As well as The Maccabees and Bat for Lashes hitting hard for Brighton, Blood Red Shoes and Orbital were troubling the charts. While we’re talking about big acts, Fatboy Slim‘s most recent Big Beach Boutique was a success not on the beach but at the Amex, where they apparently ran out of beer on the first night. On the subject of local bands in sports venues, hundreds of people braved the rain in July when Rizzle Kicks accompanied the entrance of the Olympic Torch to Hove Cricket Groung Saint Etienne were further down our longlist than the album “Words and Music by Saint Etienne” and their gig at the Concorde warranted, but with only Pete Wiggs living in Brighton, we had to prioritise bands with more local members.

Other bands with albums out in 2012 who we just couldn’t fit in were Tall Ships, Cave Painting, Ital Tek (referred to by one of my mates as possibly his album of the year), Sparrow and Negative Pegasus. When Todd Jordan isn’t being part of Negative Pegasus, he’s also one third of promoters One Inch Badge, who brought us the fantastic Sea Monsters festival at the Prince Albert as well as dozens of other great gigs, and is one of the people responsible for Bizarro World, a monthly covers gig which is so much better than it sounds on paper.

There’s a few bands who’ve caught our eye that we’re expecting big things from in 2013. Crayola Lectern‘s album is recorded and due to arrive in Spring sometime on Bleeding Hearts Recordings. We saw Dead Cars live a few weeks ago and really really liked what they were doing, but it was too late to squeeze them into our list. But if we were to be pushed to name one act whose year it could be then we’d have to say Anneka. We’ve only seen her live once so far (supporting Com Truise at The Haunt), but there was something about what she was doing that sounded so fully formed, that she’s bound to be huge.

Outside of Brighton, here’s our top ten albums and top five tracks of the year:

1. Melody’s Echo Chamber / Melody’s Echo Chamber
2. Beth Orton / Sugaring Season
3. Laetitia Sadier / Silencio
4. Toy / Toy
5. Raveonettes / Observator
6. Clock Opera / Ways to Forget
7. Best Coast / The Only Place
8. Black Reindeer / Real Life is Overrated
9. Scuba / Personality
10. Cornshed Sisters / Tell Tales

1. Mmoths / Heart
2. Blur / Under The Westway
3. Saint Etienne / Tonight
4. Minotaur Shock / Janet
5. Lee Hazlewood / Souls Island

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar – The Full Countdown

Posted on 26/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

So, the presents are opened, Christmas Dinner is eaten, and all that’s left is to watch the Sound of Music with the family for the umpteenth time. But if that’s all a bit too much, here’s a look back at our Advent Calendar, with every day collected together in one handy blog post:

Thomas White

25. Thomas White, Electric Soft Parade, Restlesslist, British Sea Power, Milk & Biscuits, Foxes!, Do You Feel What I Feel Deer?, Fragile Creatures, Clowns

24. Willkommen Records, Sons of Noel and Adrian, The Miserable Rich, Laish , Emma Gatrill, Redwood Red, Hamilton Yarns, etc

23. Fujiya & Miyagi, I Am Ampersand, Omega Male

22. Nordic Giants, Cate Ferris, Dizraeli & The Small Gods

21. Shrag

20. Martin Rossiter

19. Fear of Men

18. Us Baby Bear Bones

17. Speak Galactic

16. Woodpecker Wooliams

15. Catherine Ireton

14. Jennifer Left

13. Bat for Lashes

12. Your Explosion My Mind

11. The New Union

10. Sweet Sweet Lies

9. Kovak

8. Abi Wade

7. Heliopause

6. Munich

5. Moulettes

4. Curxes

3. Birdengine

2. Dark Horses

1. The Maccabees

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar / Day 25 / Thomas White – Electric Soft Parade – Restlesslist – British Sea Power – Milk & Biscuits – Foxes! – Do You Feel What I Feel Deer? – Fragile Creatures – Clowns

Posted on 25/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Merry Christmas! We’ve gone overboard today, hit the sherry too hard too soon, and crammed Nine bands into our final advent calendar post. The truth is, you can’t talk about one of of these bands without inevitably mentioning some of the others.

Let’s start with Thomas White, who released Yalla back in March. It was originally just a bunch of tunes he recorded for himself when he was bored and restless on holiday, which he was persuaded to release after he shared them with some of his friends, and is one of the finest collections of tunes that we’ve heard all year. Album closer The English Sargasso is a soporific masterpiece. We didn’t do an end of year list in 2011 because the blog had only been running a matter of weeks but to make make up for it we’ll make a mention of the Electric Soft Parade‘s “A Quick One” EP now. Lead track Lily is the kind of melodic guitar pop that most indie bands would sell their grandmother to be able to write. 2012 marked the tenth anniversary of Electric Soft Parade’s debut Holes in the Wall and the White brothers celebrated by playing the album start to finish at The Haunt, and returning to the studio to start work on their first album for five years.

Thomas White was also listed as a member of Restlesslist in the sleeve notes to their fantastic album Coral Island Girl, although he’s no longer part of their live setup. Before this year I’d heard the name but not the music so was quite looking forward to their performance at Sea Monsters. I wasn’t prepared to see so many people onstage. I wasn’t prepared for so many genres crammed into so many songs. I wasn’t expecting it to be narrated, or for that matter for the narrator to be wearing an eye patch. Most of all, I didn’t expect to enjoy it nearly as much as I did. Musically it was fantastic, but it wasn’t taking itself seriously at all. Where Thomas White earns his prime place in our Advent Calendar by doing things so much better and more effortlessly than anyone else, Restlesslist earn their place by being completely peerless.

While Thomas’ other band Brakes were taking a bit of an, erm, break in 2012, Eamon Hamilton made a return to his old band British Sea Power at one of their Krankenhaus concerts at The Haunt. Krankenhaus was more than just a concert though – The bands on the bill were more varied than you would expect, and played for longer. There were DJs inbetween the bands making for non stop entertainment. There was non-musical entertainment in the form of a ping pong table upstairs. At the one I attended, there was a stage invasion by a giant bear and a choc ice give-away! As well as their Krankenhaus gigs, British Sea Power also played at the Duke of York’s, providing a live soundtrack to a film made up of old archive footage called From The Sea To The Land Beyond.

Milk & Biscuits share a number of their members with Restlesslist, and have rightly had praised heaped upon them for their single White Noise, and their mini-LP Balcony times, which came out at the end of 2011, is worth a listen. It features the vocal talents of Jennifer Left (who we wrote about back on 14th), and Kayla Bell of Foxes! who also released an eponymous album of top indie pop earlier this year. Eleanor Whittle and Rachel Dey – who provide vocals in Restlesslist and Milk & Biscuits and have sung backing vocals for Thomas White at some of his Yalla gigs – make up Do you Feel What I Feel Deer?, and have given us a taste of their wonky folk with their lush Save My Heart single. Adam Kidd has also sung backing vocals for Thomas White and his own band Fragile Creatures put out a grower of a track called Dear Michael. The tables were turned a week ago when Thomas White provided support at their Christmas gig at the Prince Albert. The final mention goes to Clowns, a band that Thomas White played bass with for a while before admitting that he was too busy. Every time we’ve seen them live this year (at a couple of Bleeding Hearts Clubs – did we mention that it was Bleeding Hearts who put Yalla out? – and more recently at December’s Source New Music night) they’ve got better and better.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was dozen other related bands. Here’s to finding out all about them in 2013!