The Mojo Fins are a bit of a Brighton institution, having plied their wares around this fine city of ours for the best part of a decade. Next week sees the release of their third album Circa on Amazon Records. The follow up to 2011’s Shake The Darkness sees the band taking a step forward musically. Thanks to the production skills of Dave Eringa (best known for his work with Manic Street Preachers but who also produced the band’s The Spirit EP from a couple of years ago) the Mojo Fins sound both more focussed and more exciting – Some of the tracks, like New Order sounding lead single Introverts, have the electronica backing coming to the fore with other tracks, like the beautiful Catholic Guilt, are stripped back and almost acoustic, but always hitting the mark. The Mojo Fins have never sounded better. There’s no news yet of a local launch gig, but if we hear of anything we’re sure to let you know.
Circa by The Mojo Fins is out on Amazon Records on June 8th on download and CD.
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:
On the 19th May AK/DK release their debut album Synths + Drums + Noise + Space. It’s already getting a fantastic reception in the press – both NME and The Line of Best Fit have given it 8/10 reviews. Anyone who’s been to one of their incredible live shows will know what to expect – semi-improvised pulsating analogue synth lines, BIG drums and a cheeky sense of humour, like Stereolab if they’d grown up smoking cigarettes round the back of the bike sheds instead of focussing on their French and Politics lessons. It’s not all big bleeps though – tracks like closer Seq and Ye Shall Find and Morning Dragpipe show a hitherto unseen ambient side to the group.
The album launch is taking place next Friday (18th) at the Green Door Store, with support from Hypnotized, and the band will be joining fellow Brightonians Fujiya & Miyagi on their tour in June where they play The Haunt on the 6th. A limited edition clear vinyl edition of the album will be available at the live dates. Until then, you can whet your appetite by listening to Maxwell’s Waves:
On 5th May, Fujiya & Miyagi release their fifth album Artificial Sweeteners on Yep Roc records.
The band haven’t been resting since 2011’s Ventriloquizzing – we’ve had a couple of solo projects (Omega Male and I Am Ampersand), a 37 minute long running track, and a cover of New Order’s Your Silent Face for a Mojo magazine CD – but now David Best, Steve Lewis and Matt Hainsby are back with an album that might please dance music fans more than head nodding krautrock addicts. That’s not to say that Artificial Sweeteners isn’t classic Fujiya & Miyagi – There’s no escaping David Best’s deadpan swagger, although now some of the motorik grooves are more synth based and propped up with pulsating drums.
The band play at The Haunt on 6th June before heading around the UK then Europe. Tickets are onsale now for £6.50 + booking fee from the usual outlets. You can pre-order Artificial Sweeteners digitally from iTunes, or physically from recordstore.co.uk. Two tracks – opener Flaws and the analogue acid electro number Tetrahydrofolic Acid – are streaming below.
Tracklisting:
1. Flaws
2. Acid to my Alkaline
3. Rayleigh Scattering
4. Artificial Sweeteners
5. Little Stabs at Happiness
6. Tetrahydrofolic Acid
7. Daggers
8. Vagaries of Fashion
9. A Sea Ringed with Visions
Today Blood Red Shoes release their fourth album Blood Red Shoes on Jazz Life records. Recorded in Berlin by the band themselves without outside help from producers or any other musicians, and the sound they create is incredible for just two people. Deliberately moving back to a rougher sound after the more produced In Time To Voices, Blood Red Shoes is an album that revels in the unadulterated joy of rock. You can stream the album over on the band’s website, where you can also read details of their mammoth upcoming tour. The hometown date is at the Concorde 2 on 25th April.
Last week Fear of Men posted up the first teaser of their upcoming album – an anonymous video mysteriously entitled 3/2 lit only by candlelight with a simple vocal line sung in the near dark by Jess. It turns out 3/2 was a date, and now that it’s the 3rd of February detailed news has come out. Their debut album will be called Loom, and will be released on 21st April on Kanine Records, with a deluxe limited edition vinyl edition being released for Record Store Day. The opening two tracks Alta and Waterfall are currently streaming at Gorilla vs Bear, and you can pre-order the album at fearofmen.co.uk. The full tracklisting is: Alta / Waterfall / Green Sea / Vitrine / Tephra / America / Seer / Luna / Descent / Inside / Atla.
Something else that’s caught our eye thanks to this fantastic poster is an upcoming gig from The New Union – ever ones for strong artwork. They’ll be playing at Bermuda Triangle on Friday 7th March and will be supported by The Hundredth Anniversary and Fickle Friends. Tickets are a mere four pounds in advance.
Momotaro release their debut album Second Side on 1st February. I caught up with Peppi, Rosie and Dave to talk about their first full length long player.
Over the course of last year Momotaro put up around half a dozen tracks onto Soundcloud – all now removed – which form the backbone of the album. What appears on the record are re-recorded versions of these, showing a Second Side to the songs, hence the album name. “When we first started to write music together we were writing a song every single week, we were so excited by it. We were never really doing things by the book and we literally churned them out and I think that helped us develop.” said Peppi, “We would write a song, learn it, then when we’d play it we’d come away from the gig thinking it could be so much better and that led to the newer versions of the older songs.”
It’s not just the songs that have evolved over the past twelve months – the way that the band work has changed too: “At the beginning we didn’t have what we have now, where we have ideas as a trio. Before someone would throw an idea into the pot but we wouldn’t know what to do with it, but now it’s more like a collaborative sound” Peppi told us. Even the band’s setup onstage feels like a more even share of duties than most bands, with Rosie’s electric drum kit given equal prominence and not tucked away at the back, and Dave and Rosie swapping instruments. One thing that’s key for the band is that despite playing electronica, they’re not using laptops. Asked about their favourite tracks on their album Warm Step comes up, an old song which has completely changed “It’s less digital – we got a ukulele which seems to have added quite a lot to our set overall” said Rosie
As well as the album coming out on 1st February, the band are hosting the launch party on the same day at the Green Door Store. First support is local electronic indie band Faux Flux, who Momotaro have played alongside a number of times, and who the band see themselves alongside as part of a growing local electronic music scene. “There’s definitely a scene that we were never part of before. We seem to see a bit of a correlation, we keep playing with similar acts. It’s really surprising and lovely to find all these bands through what we’re doing”. GAPS also get a mention – Rosie has known Rachel for years before either band were formed – as do IYES who the band regularly see when they’re both rehearsing at Brighton Electric.
Second support is the Sunday Best signed Lucky Elephant, who have been in the music industry in one form or another for fifteen years. It turns out that Peppi has known Sam from Lucky Elephant for quite a while: “I’ve known Sam for about ten years, he was in Boomclick when I first knew him. I didn’t even know I wanted to do music until I saw his studio. I worked with him in London and I started playing guitar and he offered to record one of my songs in his little home studio. I went round there and I was “WOW – I want everything that you have!”. He got me into music, I can safely say that. We always said that we must make sure we play a gig together one day and I never ever thought that we would, and now he’s supporting us”. Momotaro will be returning the favour supporting Lucky Elephant at their album launch, also at the Green Door Store later this spring.
One of the tracks on Second Side is already experiencing a life of it’s own. Blue Soul is currently being used on Australian YouTube Surf Magazine The Barrel’s latest video. Through a series of contacts and coincidences some of the bands tracks got played the film makers, and ended up with their lyrics about “swimming up” accompanying videos of amazing waves. The band said that they’d like to use more visuals alongside their live music. Dave said “It’s definitely something that we’d like to see more of. We’re so busy making the music that we haven’t yet really had time to get into too much visual stuff but in the future we’d love to”. Some projections were prepared for their Source New Music show at the end of last year but technical issues scuppered that – maybe 2014 will show another side to the band.
For now though, the band’s focus is to get the album out there, playing it live and getting it heard by as many people as possible, and you can do that by heading down to the Green Door Store on 1st February.
Today, MYYTHS put out their new release TYNSTNAD. The album features seven tracks of brooding, sparse and haunting ambient electronica, rolling at a funereal pace throughout. It’s dark, and heavy going but incredibly effective. If a record could give you nightmares, then this is it.
You can see the video for the track Lone here, and catch the band live at the Prince Albert alongside Dog in the Snow and Foreign Skin on 6th March at the Prince Albert.
Yesterday, The Beautiful Word released their new album Particles. The Beautiful Word were on my radar years before I even started the blog, and throughout that time they’ve always taken a more personal yet inventive approach to their marketing. All the emails I’ve exchanged have been with the band members themselves rather than anonymous PRs, and many of their gigs have taken a twist, from fancy dress to performing a gig on a bus driving around town. When they offered to send out their new cd to me, it came as no surprise to find some sweets in the jiffy bag as well when it arrived. Other bands, please take note!
Over the years, there have been some constants, but that doesn’t mean that the band hasn’t developed. The Beautiful Word will probably always be slightly twee folk pop with close female harmonies, but their newer material shows a higher level of musicianship, best displayed on recent single and album title track Particles, with it’s Vampire Weekend-esque African guitars. At the time it came out we said that it was probably the best thing they’ve done. After a couple of months of playing it, now we’re pretty sure it is.
We’ve heard a lot of the album before, with half of the tracks having had videos made for them already. The video for their most recent single, Eating Me, Eating You (a metaphor for devouring relationships rather than anything more literal, apparently) quickly descends into a food fight – while the music may have grown up, the band and their songs still have a wide eyed innocence.
Of the stuff we haven’t heard before, our favourite track is Coconut Hair – slightly silly but sweet lyrics to an infectious catchy pop tune, which sums up what The Beautiful Word are all about. If you want a bit of light in your life, Particles is the album for you.
Particles by The Beautiful Word is out now on bandcamp. The launch gig for the album is at Latest Music Bar on 28th November with support from The Common Tongues and The Emperors of Ice Cream.
Yesterday, barely twelve months after last year’s fantastic Nebula Dance, Ital Tek released a new mini-album Control. It’s available on double 12″ and download, and is released on Mike Paradinas’ Planet Mu records. You can order it from there and listen to samples of each track, or there’s a preview mix up on Soundcloud:
Brighton Music Blog 