The Wytches have announced details of their debut album Annabel Dream Reader. The record is coming out on August 25th on Heavenly Records and features previous singles Gravedweller and Robe for Juda and upcoming single Wire Frame Mattress, whose new video has been directed by legendary photographer Steve Gullick:
It’s been a bit quiet from us for a little while, for which we apologise profusely. It’s all the Great Escape’s fault. As fun as it is, it does leave us with no spare time for three days, then knackered for a few days after that.
We’re back now though and unfortunately it’s with some sad news. Last week we got a press release saying that one of Brighton’s finest bands – Us Baby Bear Bones – were splitting up. They’re releasing a second and final EP, Ursari, which has been produced by Blood Red Shoes’ Simon Ansell which is coming out tomorrow on Love They Neighbour, limited to only a hundred copies, and also playing one final gig at the Green Door Store, with support from Hypnotized and Speak Galactic. Here’s the video for Only One from the EP:
Don’t be sad for too long though. Two of the band’s members are continuing as Psalm Springs, and their first track Get Out (Leave) is already out there, tucked away on Cupboard Music’s sampler cd that they gave away to those who made the early start on Record Store Day, which isn’t too difficult to find a stream of with a little bit of hunting. If Psalm Springs are even half the band that Us Baby Bear Bones were they’ll still outshine most of what Brighton has to offer so we look forward to hearing more from them.
Last week, Black Rooster Black Shag released their debut album As Far As My Lead Will Take Me. We were out of town for their launch gig at the Bees Mouth on thursday, but we caught up with Mirika, JJ and Dan last Sunday afternoon when they played a another gig at the Ranelagh.
Brighton Music Blog: So the album’s called…
JJ: As Far as My Lead Will Take Me
BMB: And where did the title come from?
JJ: Between us we came up with the title. I think it really reflected the journey of the record. We met in the Southern Hemisphere, moved to the UK and eventually settled in Brighton and I think it was that sort of journey that by the time we got to Brighton that really made up the record. That whole trajectory that we took and it kind of sums up the spirit of the record in terms of going a great distance and getting to a particular point and the fact that you can still go a little bit further.
BMB: So are some of the songs quite old and have taken this journey or are they all quite new?
JJ: Some of the songs I suppose were composed a while ago but we’ve got Dan into the band and come together as a three piece and the sound has changed, and every time we play we play it slightly differently, we never try and play the song the same way the same time twice. So in that way the songs always evolve and are always fresh and there’s always something different every time we play. The skeletons of the songs were written quite a while ago but every time we play them they’re a little bit different.
Mirika: The band club we sort of had to hold back to really be able to play in this band. J and I were touring other projects when we met so we wrote all these songs cross continentally for a little while we were touring the other projects then once we finished those records we could make this band happen. So we really willed it to happen, although we’ve only been playing shows now for nine months.
BMB: So you launched the album at the Bees Mouth last thursday. How did that go?
M: Oh man, so much fun.
BMB: Did you play in that little sweaty room downstairs?
Dan: I think we made it worse. It probably still stinks of us now.
JJ: Our audience have got a very good aroma! It was just a great night There was a lot of people that came down, a lot of friends. We had a really good time and everyone walked away having celebrated the fact that the album’s finally out really, because a lot of them were friends who played on the record and we did have a lot of people around us that helped so it was just really really nice to have everybody in the same room and celebrating not just the end of one journey but the start of another one.
M: We’ve already been demoing new stuff, so it was quite exciting.
BMB: You first visit to Brighton was to visit the Great Escape?
M: We just came to visit, we weren’t playing. SO many great venues and people were really friendly which was really nice.
BMB: Are you around for the Great Escape this year?
JJ: We’re actually playing the Alternative Escape at Marwoods Cafe, on the saturday afternoon about half past five so we’ll definitely be around.
R: Any tips of bands to go and see at the Great Escape?
JJ: I would just tip to go and check out the Brighton bands. I think there’s such a vibrant scene going on with bands here. Compared to what you see on the surface from other cities it’s unique. There’s a lot of exciting guitar bands happening. For me it’s more about seeing my friends and seeing those bands play in front of a bigger audience of people that wouldn’t normally come and see them play. Anything from Brighton go and check it out.
BMB: Where’s next for the album? You’ve played launches in Brighton, London and Barnsley.
JJ: We’re playing Eastbourne, then Nottingham, then London again, and then Manchester, Doncaster as well. We’d like to play a few smaller towns and some of the bigger cities as well. Our idea is not to have one huge tour, but to keep going out and visiting places. It’s a slower run with an independent band, you can’t throw all your eggs into one basket, you’ve got to work it a bit longer. So we just want to go out and see as much of the country as possible.
BMB: Are you doing any festivals this summer?
JJ: We’re playing Coalfields, up in Barnsley again, but that’s about it really. We’re a relatively new band, so we haven’t really hit the festivals hard at this point. We’re more into playing smaller venues for now, getting the intimate atmosphere going really. That’s where people are responding best to the music so we’re happy cultivating that at the moment.
M: It’s nice when you go to a town and you see people who saw you at your last show. That’s the best. I don’t need to play anywhere extravagant, I just want a good vibe, and to be able to relax a bit and have a bit of fun.
Black Rooster Black Shag’s album is out now, available from EOI productions. You can catch the band on Saturday at Marwoods Cafe around 5.30 as part of the Alternative Great Escape (so you won’t need a wristband).
Out of nowhere, IYES have come out with another amazing brand new track. Toys turned up online at the end of last week. If we hadn’t been so busy embracing Brighton Festival which started this weekend we might have been able to post about it before now, but hopefully you’ve been as busy as we have and you’ll forgive us being a bit slow to pick up the baton this time.
Toys follows down the route of the other-worldly r’n’b of their past few tracks – Vocals get time stretched and underneath some of the choruses there’s some brilliant 8-bit arpeggiated bleepiness, but alongside all that there’s a great pop song there, with lyrics about a childish argument – “that’s why you throw your toys at me / do you feel much better now?”. Don’t worry though, as the Ronnettes sang in 1964, the best part of breaking up is when you’re making up, and the heavy breathing just after the two minute mark implies that maybe Josh might get his way when he sings “I just wanna feel”…
And this is just what IYES call a demo. Most bands would sell their grandmothers to have demos that turned out this good.
April was another great month for Brighton music with some fantastic albums being released as well as some lovely one offs for Record Store Day. May’s already shaping up nicely too but until then, here are our favourite tracks from last month:
1. Eagles for Hands – Handprints
Handprints is the sound of the party starting – lots of cowbell, housey piano and uplifting vocals. Eagles for hands are top of our list of bands to catch at the Great Escape next week – they’re at Coalition on Saturday night at 2.30am, and also at KLDSCP’s party alongside Caveman Genius and Foreign Skin and a whole host of other acts.
2. Fujiya & Miyagi – Flaws
Fujiya & Miyagi’s new album Artificial Sweeteners is out on Monday, although if you get down to Resident today they’re already selling signed copies. Flaws is the first single and is a great indicator of what to expect from the rest of the record – classic Fujiya & Miyagi with more electronics thrown into the mix. There’s still a few tickets left for their gig at the Haunt on 6th June but it will sell out, so I’d get a ticket sooner rather than later.
3. Fear of Men – Luna
Luna is the first single from Fear of Men’s brilliant new album Loom. If we didn’t love the track (which we do), it might have warranted a place in our top ten just on the basis of the utterly beautiful packaging – a fanzine written by the band and a clear flexidisc (along with download codes).
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4. AK/DK – Maxwell’s Waves
AK/DK’s new album Synth + Drums + Noise + Space was one of our highlights this month. The lead track is the bleepy Maxwell’s Waves, and electronic krautrock rush. AK/DK are the support at Fujiya & Miyagi’s gig at The Haunt that we mentioned earlier.
5. Curxes – Jaws
In April, Curxes put out Precurxor – a roundup of of old tracks and demos to keep our interest while they get on with the business of recording their proper debut album. It’s definitely working for us. Our highlight is Jaws, which captures the urgency and power of their live shows.
6. Winston & Goldstein – Ode to a Massive Obsession
When we heard that Jacqueline from Kins had a new project, we didn’t envisage Winston & Goldstein, whose main influence seems to be mid-nineties alternative dance music from what we’ve heard so far. There’s a heavy hint of Leftfield in Ode to a Massive Obsession, which can only be a good thing in our book. Oh, and the video is all kinds of brilliant too.
7. Blood Red Shoes – Speech Coma
Speech Coma is the new Blood Red Shoes single. The the chorus goes “I can’t get the words out / I can’t get the words out / It’s like someone cut out my tongue”. And so does the video. Quite literally. Not for the faint hearted.
8. Cate Ferris – Gotta Do Better
We haven’t got a media link for Gotta Do Better, the latest offering from Cate Ferris. The only way to hear it is to sign up to her page on PledgeMusic, where she’s currently raising money for her new EP.
9. Cleff – Restart
Restart is on Cleff’s new Listen In EP, a lovely blend of electronic and classical music. We posted open the EP’s opening track Big Ideas earlier this month, but it was Restart which got under our skin.
10. Fickle Friends – Play
Fickle Friends have got a real knack for a catchy pop song. We loved Swim earlier this year, and they’ve done it again with Play. Fickle Friends are another band who are on our list for the Great Escape, playing at the Green Door Store on Saturday night, and at the Mesmerist on Saturday afternoon.
Here’s this week’s dose of new music. A real mixed bag, as usual. First up is the video for the new Tigercub single Blue Blood. We’ve mentioned this before, but the video has only just appeared online:
Next up is The Physics House Band’s Samuel Organ with his latest upload to soundcloud, whose title is a real mouthful – It’s cool if you don’t want to say anything, I’ll just say nothing too. The track is easier on the ears than it is on the tongue – lush chilled electronica.
We don’t often post Latin up on the blog but we’ve got reason to with the new track from Winston & Goldstein – Non Omnis Moriar (The Dead Can). It’s been more years than I care to remember since I studied any Latin, so I’ve deferred to Google translate, which tells me that Non Omnis Moriar means I Will Not Die, and the phrase gets chanted over electronic beats which build up over the course of the track. This is the second tgrack we’ve heard from Winston & Goldstein’s upcoming album In The Eyes of Others, and on the basis of these, we’re very keen to hear some more.
Alice Amelia has grown massively since we first saw her and with her debut single, it feels like she’s properly arrived – Sassy r’n’b vocals and big production, 11:11 is really rather good.
K-TV, which got a premier on XLR8R last week, is the second track that we’ve heard from Adolescent‘s upcoming Golden Halls EP. All effervescent electronica and phased synths, this is pushing all out buttons.
Time to wake up a bit now, with the new single from The Modes. The band say they’re influenced by Royal Blood and the Black Keys, and you can hear these influences comin through on Not This Time:
Finally we’re finishing up with an EP from Summa, who has an EP out called Roads – The beautiful, ambient Diapason is the lead track:
In the way of the blogs, we sent Brighton’s electro-pop superstars Becky Becky some questions, thinking to celebrate the release of their new album ‘Good Morning, Midnight‘ they might supply a few hesitant stuttering finger-typed words, about why House of the Black Madonna is the future of rock ‘n’ roll and how Jean Rhys could have rocked the middle-European disco had she been of a certain age.
Instead, they sent us this.
The album’s out May 1st and is available from their website at www.beckybecky.com
Who are… ?
Becky Becky is two people: Gemma L Williams and Peter J D Mason. Bandmates, friends, lovers, enemies. We´ve existed together in almost every possible permutation. We´ve loved each other, hated each other, walked together, walked out on each other. There is no pit of despair we haven´t pushed each other to, we struggle together… but we always remain together.
Where were Becky Becky… ?
…formed in Brighton, England, a long time ago. There have been casualties. We started making music by following a very loose manifesto. One rule that will always remain is: no “real” instruments. No drums, guitars… only electronic music.
By limiting your options, you free yourself.
Where does… ?
What´s in a name? It´s our name. A fifty-fifty partnership, making one complete whole: Becky Becky.
Why “Good Morning, Midnight”?
…from Jean Rhys´ 1939 novel, which took its name from an Emily Dickenson poem. We recommend both these texts.
And what does she mean to you?
Jean Rhys was an author often depicting mistreated, rootless women. To this day, her words are still relevant and easily identifiable. She is an inspiration and a favourite author of ours – a fact which helped bring us together.
Are you a European band now?
We formed in Brighton and currently reside here, but we are not involved with the Brighton music scene or anything like that. We feel like outsiders here. If ‘Good Morning, Midnight’ feels like a European record, then that makes sense. It was written in Prague and recorded up a mountain in a wooden chalet in Seythenex, a tiny French Alpine village.
Who are your musical influences?
Hot Chip and ´80s synth-pop. From Europe, the Knife and Legowelt. Eurotrash and Eurobeats too, if you put aside your pretensions. That kind of music is full of joy and is genuinely great.
Is this music to dance to… ?
When we created Becky Becky, we wanted to make danceable music with lyrics tackling serious themes. We hope you can sit and listen to it, to the stories. But we also want you to just switch off and dance. If you come to see us play live, you should definitely be dancing.
Do you have live… ?
We are not really a gigging band. We do not just play. We try and make every show unique. This requires a lot more effort these days as our ideas become increasingly more elaborate. So we do not play very often. We do not just turn up and plug in and play. We make shows.
Do you… ?
For the autumn, we are lining up some shows in Europe and we have one in New York City on the 26th September in the Pyramid Club. Our next show is our album launch in Brighton on Friday 23rd May. It will be an audio-visual show and probably the most elaborate we´ve ever attempted.
What comes next ?
Becky Becky is in a constant fragile state. Gemma is recovering from the unexpected death of her Woodpecker alter ego; and Peter is working on other projects.
Who knows what comes next ?
The album ‘Good Morning, Midnight‘ is out on May 1st 2014 and available from the Becky Becky website at www.beckybecky.com
‘Passengers Greatest Hits’. You might think this was a collection of songs by Mike Rosenberg but its title comes from the series of photographs of forlorn commuters which feature in the lyric book that accompanies this new CD by our occasional Brighton Music Blog contributor and photographer in his alternative moniker of Hiawatha Telephone Company. We spoke to Jon about what he thought he was up to. BMB: How was this album made? JON: The whole thing was written in two parts – half of the songs in February 2013, the other half in February 2014 and then it was recorded a couple of days later pretty much in single takes by Martyn Lewis Moss (Butterfly House) in his Kemp Town attic on a Tascam cassette recorder. No computers or wizzardry involved. Then Martyn added some bass and keyboards, Maria Marzaioli (Slum of Legs, Reds) came along the following day and played some violin on some tracks she’d never heard before and there you have it. Wham bam, it’s an album, man! It sounds primitive. Do you wish you’d spent more time on it? 
Probably. It’s a hard album to get into because there is no compromise with modern technology or much in the way of professionalism to be honest. But that also means it doesn’t sound like anything else. It won’t age because it already sounds old. We just wanted to get it down really quickly. And Martyn has this thing about never trying more than three takes of anything. If it isn’t working you should just move on, is his recording motto. In most cases we left it at just the one take. The flaws are so obvious that to get into the album you have to overlook them and treat it differently from the things you’d normally listen to. I think listening to it should feel more like a stroll around a small art gallery, rather than putting on a CD. Did it have any particular influences? I’ve always loved those old crackly blues and country recordings from the 1930s and so on [Ed: the first Hiawatha Telephone Company album was named after folklorist Harry Smith who specialised in collecting such 78s] and some of the songs take that approach. There’s the early primitive pop songs of Daniel Johnston, also recorded onto tape and those sound even more flaky than these do. And I was listening to a fair bit of Bill Callahan this winter, so some of these songs sounds a bit like Smog to me. But who knows? We’re just a mess of all the things we absorb over time, aren’t we? Tell us about the songs. I’m really proud of the opening song ‘If I didn’t love you’. I thought I was going to write a love song. Turned out it was a splitting up or a morbid death song. It was the first one we recorded and I told Martyn his piano should sound like the cold desolate Nordic sound of Sibelius, which it kind-of does. The shortest song is ‘keep it simple’ which started out as a bit of a joke that I wrote in 5 minutes playing around in the chord of D. It’s not really recorded right but we just left it and I think it’s cute. Oddly the next two shortest songs are the ones with the most words in them, both songs I’m really proud of. ‘Song about time’ has some great poetry in it, about needing to live life for the moment. Because you cannot battle time? Yep. The other one is ‘The Cost of Going To Work By Train’ which is an epic by my standards, full of words and stories. I intended it to be a bit of a mythical song, in the form of a traditional folk song, but one firmly rooted in modern lived experience. It’s clearly not about any one real person but it tries to represent the common man. At least I think it tries. There are some proper country songs in this collection aren’t there? Yes, two at least. ‘Ain’t no rainbow’ is a lovely song I think, soft, simple with the same four chords throughout but I like the clichés it uses which still manage to sound surprising to me. And I like how I just told Maria to play something sad and rural, and she came up with this wonderful violin line that’s totally infused with straw and cow-shit. And then there’s Woody’s Song, which I’m really proud of. It’s based on the New Year’s Rulin’s that Woody Guthrie wrote and I have as a poster in my kitchen but he never turned them into a song so far as I know. So I did. I think it could sound better of course, much as I love Maria’s beautiful country-fried violin. But I still hope someone else records it. I think it could be a big hit in Nashville! 
Do you see all of these as songs other people might record? For sure. I think they’re good enough and ought to exist in other versions. They’re all pretty simple, but pretty little tunes. I ought to record other versions myself! What about Dave? A lot of people will think that’s about one person [our present Prime Minister]. That wasn’t really the intention, although I can see why people think it might be. It’s not how I see him – if anything it’s more about the sorts of people he probably thinks he’s against. It’s a song I really like playing live. It gets a reaction. It isn’t the only political song on the album by any means, although none of them are very obviously political I suppose. Do you have a favourite song? I’m fond of Waking Up With You, more for the verses as I still don’t feel like I’ve finished the chorus. I might rewrite it, but I just wanted to record it for my wife. I didn’t really expect to include it in the album but it turned out OK so I did. And I really like the last song ‘I’ll never Leave you Baby’ which is another simple love song, but one with a twist. It’s a fun song to play live and I also really like Martyn’s bass line on it. A stupidly simple song, but it works. The CD’s only available in physical copy at the moment. Is that right? Yes it is. It’s a proper CD with a nice little printed photo-lyric book in a numbered edition, and it’s dead cheap. You can buy it or just listen on bandcamp, download a couple of tracks for free via Soundcloud or I’d send the mp3s (and the lyrics and chords) to anyone who asks nicely. I’ll probably make the thing available for download but only when most of the CDs have gone. Any plans for more recording? Well it took me five years to get around to recording my first album and another five years for this one. That said, I have plenty of other songs in a big book which never get played so maybe I should record some of them. So many songs, so little time. And we managed to go the whole interview without asking about your band name. Yep. Well done for that. Thanks. {smiles} ‘Passengers Greatest Hits’ is available now in a limited numbered 1st edition of 100 from the Hiawatha Telephone Company bandcamp site. 
We’ve been loving the Ellie Ford ‘Show Night In’ EP for a while, but after a couple of superb compilations the excellent Hidden Trail Records are putting it out as their first physical artiste release. It was launched last night at Brighton’s Red Roaster Cafe and we were there to enjoy a great night of some of the UK’s finest singer-songwriters.
First up was Stevie Ray Latham, a young folkswinger who completely inhabits the spirit of a young Bob Dylan circa1963 but writes his own brilliant songs which he conveys with real aplomb. Songs like the excellent South Coast Blues show off his authentic style. His new album on Brighthelmstone’s At The Helm records is due out soon and is definitely going to be a cracker, and we hope to bring you more info on that in due course.
Kelly Oliver was new to me. An out-of-towner, from Stevenage, this was her first gig in Brighton. We’re not supposed to mention the non-Brighton folk so I won’t dwell too long on just how excellent she was, but she’s played the Cambridge Folk festival and with Dave Swarbrick of Fairport Convention and judging from last night she’s going to be a big hit on the folk scene. Last night we were particularly taken by her song Grandpa was a Stoker and her cover of Beyonce’s If I were a Boy.
Headliner for the night was Brighton’s own Ellie Ford and she completely owned the small Redroaster stage, switching with ease between guitar and harp, claiming to have not played her EP for a while with typical flaky charm, then proceeding to play some magnificent soulful versions of the EP’s songs that held the packed room rapt. The songs sound even better to me live than on record, but particularly stunning in both forms was Low, which tonight was performed in a tentative heartful rendition that was quite stunning. There were also some new songs from the album-in-the-making which we really hope to hear before the year is out.
Ellie has also just released a ‘Covers project’ and show cased some of those tunes and a few others, two gorgeous Joanna Newsom songs, a Karen Dalton cover, a fantastic version of Bob Dylan’s Corrina Corrina, and ending with an unplanned encore of a beautiful interpretation of Dylan’s Buckets of Rain.
A terrific singer who is growing in confidence with every gig, Ellie is definitely one to watch.
Words and pictures were by Jon Southcoasting
Last night Blood Red Shoes played a hometown gig at the Concorde and we managed to sneak a view from the front, for the first three songs, at least. The two piece rocked hard, and the crowd loved it – We can’t remember the last gig we went to at the Concorde that had that such a great atmosphere. And it was loud – my goodness it was loud. Thank goodness for the earplugs which are a must for when we’re up the front shooting.
Brighton Music Blog 