Here’s this week’s dose of new music. First up is Heaven by Martha Gunn, who I assume isn’t made up of bar staff from the pub on Lewes Road (although they may well be), but are also named after the Prince Regent’s best known dipper. Continue reading
This gallery contains 12 photos.
Ellie Ford launched her debut album ‘The Other Sun’ at Bleach in Brighton on 22nd April. Brighton Music Blog were there to share in the fun. Opener Alabaster dePlume decided to play in the middle of the room without amplification, … Continue reading
Spectrum always has great lines ups, but they pulled out all the stops for Record Store Day – almost a given since the nights are put on in association with Resident, who had people queuing up from 1pm the day before Record Store Day as well as a live 6Music broadcast from Lauren Laverne with Norman Cook and Tim Burgess as guests.
The day kicked off at 2pm and featured performances from Buzz Holly, Underhound, Via Tirana, Jessica Bishop, Normanton Street, Catherine Ireton, Dela Lupa, Lucas and King, Calico, Jonezy and Arif, Barnacles, Squid, Yumi and the Weather, MOSS, Merlin Tonto, Mrisi, Gang and Tiger Cub. We popped along for the last few hours with our camera to catch the action, shooting Yumi & The Weather, Merlin Tonto, Gang and Tigercub‘s sets:
Time again for another new music roundup., Pick of the bunch this week is the return of Fujiya & Miyagi with a track from their upcoming EP1, the first in a trio of 12″ releases coming out in 2016. The track’s called Seratonin Rushes and is a deliberate move by the band to write more uplifting music:
Last night, Fear of Men played a hometown gig at the Prince Albert in over a year. The Guardian loved it and gave it four stars. Since the last time we saw them the band have grown musically – the new material no longer sits into the standard guitar-guitar-bass-drums indie four piece setup, with Jess putting down her guitar for most of the performance, the rotating bassist chair (currently filled by Dog in the Snow’s Helen Ganya Brown) now being a bassist and keyboard player and backing vocalist and half of Michael Miles drum kit has been replaced with electronic pads. The band are as thrilling to see live as ever – Jess Weiss is an ever more compelling front person, and the rest of the band are tighter than they’ve ever been. Fear of Men deserve to be playing much bigger venues and it was a rare treat to seem them playing somewhere as intimate as the Prince Albert. Make sure you don’t miss them next time.
Here’s our pics from last night. Click through the gallery to view large:
Once upon a time, when we used to be far more prolific on the blog we used to write a weekly gig picks column. Every now and then we revive it when we feel it’s worthwhile, and this weekend two of our favourite bands are playing at the Prince Albert on different nights, so here we are.
Tomorrow (or thursday, if you’re not reading this the day it was posted) Love Thy Neighbour are putting on GAPS supported by Chelou and Native Ray. Their new EP of remixes of A World Away came out last Friday, and the vinyl edition of their album In, Around The Moments comes out this Friday, so they’ve got lots to celebrate.
Then on Sunday it’s Fear of Men‘s turn, courtesy of Melting Vinyl and Teen Creeps. They’re supported by Girl Ray and Tiger Lion. Their new LP Fall Forever comes out on 3rd of June and they’ve just shared the video for Island, the first taste of the new material. By our calculations, they haven’t played a hometown gig in over eighteen months but we bet it’ll be worth the wait.
Happy Easter! Can you still say Happy Easter a few days after Easter? Who knows. I’m saying it regardless. Anyway, here’s this week’s new music roundup, kicking off with the brand new track from Black Honey. This is called All My Pride and is taken from their forthcoming Headspin EP:
Photograph by Biguisize
There are a lot of excellent women writing and recording songs around Brighton at the moment and Elin Ivarsson has joined the top rank with her self-titled debut album, released last month on local Hidden Trail Records.
Opening song ‘Leaving song’ is a beguiling pop-folk ditty, wherein the singer proclaims she’d rather be alone than be with the person she’s leaving. It’s arrangement is light and joyful, and typifies Elin’s Swedish-born sound.
Thereafter the ten songs on her album pick up a delightful range of soulful, folk-influenced tunes. Elin has a warm deep tone, sometimes sounding like she’s telling fairy-tales, like in the charming dancing ‘Luka’, other times sparse and moving. There are some beautiful arrangements to the songs, with gorgeous strings from the likes of Willkommen’s Will Calderbank, which make a song like ‘Lotty’ delightful.
Other favourites include the excellent ‘Sunday 5am’ with it’s keen observations on bedsit living and references to The Well-Tempered Clavier and Edgar Allen Poe. Or ‘Laurels’, a bouncy joyful meditation on living and loving, with some gorgeous violin from Andrew Stuart-Buttle. Or ‘Another day will come’, a yearning moving discourse between movement and stillness, of freedom and entrapment. However, it’s hard to pick a favourite as the full set is uniformly excellent.
All in all a very find debut and well worth your time.
Listen to ‘Leaving Song’ below, recorded for Stripped Back Bare sessions. You can hear the full album and purchase it from the Bandcamp website https://hiddentrailrecords.bandcamp.com/album/elin-ivarsson
There’s a whole crop of terrific female singers coming out with some beautiful records in Brighton at the moment and we’ll try to blog about a few of them.
First off is this lovely EP by the enigmatic Jane Gilbert. We don’t know much about Jane except that she’s originally from Scotland but now living in Brighton and she’s produced a beautiful collection of songs that excel at promoting her gorgeous voice and top class songwriting chops. Sounding something like a cross between early 70s California and mid-2000s Portland, but very much her own self, think Joni MItchell crossed with Alela Diane The former illustrated well in the opening song ‘Better Man’, the video for which is below, and the latter in the superb sparsely delicate closer ‘Coloured Sky’.
You can hear Jane perform her songs live at The Greys on Tuesday 22nd March (free entry).
And her EP can be purchased for download over at bandcamp
It’s been a while since we’ve done a New Music post, so here’s a round up of some of the things we think you should be listening to.
Two thirds of Dream Wife are from Brighton, but their third member Rakel Mjöll is from Iceland. Brighton’s been home to Icelandic musicians before – Emiliana Torrini lived here for a number of years – but she never rocked out like this. Dream Wife’s new release EP01 is out now on Cannibal Hymns, and this is the title track Hey Heartbreaker. The band play a late night set at Sticky Mike’s on 1st April at the new-ish Busy Doing Nothing night.
Brighton Music Blog 