Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Twenty One – Crayola Lectern / Slow Down

Posted on 21/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Crayola Lectern

What made Crayola Lectern’s The Fall and Rise of… album so satisfying was that it ploughed its own furrow. Chris Anderson set out to make a record that didn’t sound like any other than the one in his head. There was no desire to be influenced by anything or anyone and what we were served with was one man’s psychedelic yet very English vision. Slow Down is one of the less out-there tracks on the album, advice for those a bit less experienced. Album number two is written and is in the process of being recorded so hopefully we’ll see that next year sometime.

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Twenty – Bentcousin / I Think I Like Your Girlfriend More Than You

Posted on 20/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Bentcousin burst onto the local music scene early in 2013 with a twitter stream which did it’s best to try and rile anyone and everyone. They made outlandish claims like the two front people being twins but also being a decade apart in age, and their guitarist being a member of PiL. It turns out that the twins were born either side of midnight on 31/12/89, and Keith Levene joined them at Patchfest in July. And then they released their EP called Everybody’s Got One, which was packed with lo fi indie tunes, pitched somewhere between Orange Juice and the Shangri-las. As a live prospect the band have bags more charisma than most other local bands – a band might have the best songs in the world but what’s the point of going to see them if they’re just going to go through the motions? I Think I Like Your Girlfriend More Than You is the quiet closer to the EP, more bossa nova than guitar pop, which allowed the simple yet intelligent lyrics to shine through.

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Nineteen – Eagles for Hands / Lisbon

Posted on 19/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

2013 has been a good year for Laurie James Ross, better known as Eagles for Hands. His productions, which to these ears recreate the best bits from 90s dance legends 808 State and Orbital, have let to plaudits from the likes of Resident Adviser and XLR8R. The Lisbon EP hit the shelves at the end of September and its title track is one of our favourite tunes of the year.

At this stage of the advent calendar posts, I’ve been posting up a soundcloud link or a youtube video, but right now Lisbon is only available to buy via sites like iTunes, so I can’t embed anything directly. Lisbon is easily worth 79p of your hard earned cash though, so treat yourself. It’s almost Christmas!

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Eighteen – DA-10 / Watching Her Dance

Posted on 18/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

DA-10

The obvious choice for a DA-10 track in our Advent Calendar would have been something from their Shape of Space EP which came out back in April. It was really good – DJ Shadow dropped Redshift in one of his mixes he did for Radio 1. But the track that pushed our buttons was a separate low key release which appeared around the same time. Watching Her Dance was more aimed at the dancefloor and was a bona fide four to the floor banger.

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Seventeen – Curxes / Further Still

Posted on 17/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Curxes put out two singles this year but we’d already kicked off our rundown of our twenty five favourite tracks of the year when Avant Guarded appeared. Further Still is a classic example of Blitz Pop – the name that Curxes have given to the genre. Drums turned up to 11 and a gutsy vocal performance all tied together with a decent tune. There’s been a few pointers to some more tunes that Curxes have got waiting in the wings ready to release, so we look forward to hearing them in 2014.

New Music – IYES, Grasshopper, Hella Better Dancer

Posted on 16/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Less than ten days to go before Christmas and there’s still new music popping up for us to share with you.

First up is IYES who have responded to the release this weekend’s surprise release of a new Beyonce album by putting up their cover of Crazy in Love.It starts off threatening to be a slow piano ballad, but then 45 seconds in takes a turn a brings in glitchy drums and slowed down vocals – Much more imaginative that your normal cover:

Hella Better Dancer have a new video up. Sleeptalking originally came out in November (but somehow we missed it at the time), but the video is just up on Youtube this week. The single is available on 7″ or as download via Soundcloud.

Finally Grasshopper have new EP out. You can pick up a copy of the post-punk sounding Circle Time from Resident, or take a listen on Soundcloud.

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Sixteen – Milk & Biscuits / Hairstyles

Posted on 16/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Milk & Biscuits

When Milk & Biscuits put out their epic single White Noise in 2012, it was described as being the first single to be taken from their album Spirit Nap which was meant to be due early this year. We didn’t get an album, but we did get the brilliant Belle & Sebastian-esque single Hairstyles, which we loved.

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Fifteen – The New Union / Staying Friends

Posted on 15/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

The New Union released their first full length EP to the world back in June. The self titled 12″ contained four tracks of predominantly guitar based pop and for a debut it was incredibly accomplished. Staying friends was the lead track and still gets a lot of plays around these parts.

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Fourteen – Kins / Post Tropical Storm

Posted on 14/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Back in July Kins quietly released their eponymous debut album. There was no big press hype, no barrage of emails from eager PRs, in fact there was very little information at all. Some records can speak for themselves though – Kins was one of those, sounding not a million miles away from Foals or Alt-J, and a consistently great record throughout

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: