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.
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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
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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:
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
It’s been a busy year for the Nordic Giants – after a few years in which they only managed to release two EPs / singles in total (which both featured the same lead track – Shine – which appeared in last year’s advent calendar), the band managed to release a single and a double EP in the last twelve months. Speed The Crow’s Nest appeared in February, and then in October the Build Seas, Dismantle Suns EP was released in two parts at either end of a near sell out national tour.
We’ve picked Neotenie as the choice for our Advent Calendar – it comprises of their classic cinematic sound overlaid with samples prophesising big changes ahead, not necessarily for the best. We could have picked any of the tracks from the EP though – all fantastic stuff.
Brighton Music Blog 