About a year ago we saw Nordic Giants headline a night at the Pavilion Theatre which showcased both audio and visual sides of their performance. Sound Screen was an event put on as part of Brighton Digital Festival which paired up bands with visual artists, and last Thursday it returned as part of this year’s festival.
The first band on were The Hundredth Anniversary, who have recently taken more of a visual slant with their approach to their new single Last Drive. The Hundredth Anniversary have a lot more vision than a lot of lo fi bands around, and the cinematic view afforded by huge screen felt appropriate
For us, Luo were the real winners of the night in the space of only a few months they’ve grown from one guy making glitchy electronica on a laptop to a six piece band (which featured two members of Physics House Band) making ambitious, complex, jazz influenced beats. It sounded immense. We’ve been fans of Luo since we first heard them, and now it seems they’re fulfilling all of their potential.
Phoria are one of Brighton’s most ambitious bands, and took the opportunity of a headline slot at the Corn Exchange to not just include visuals in their set but also a string section. The band crammed a massive amount of emotion into their time on stage and the crowd – who seemed to be made up mainly from people visiting Brighton for the Digital Festival rather than the usual gig going crowd – responded accordingly. A great night all round.
Today Esben & The Witch announced a tour with Thought Forms and Teeth this autumn, taking in London, Leeds, Liverpool, Leicester and three other places not beginning with L, including their hometown – they play Sticky Mike’s on 13th October.
Alongside the tour announcement the band have also put out a video to Iceland Spar, which is the first track on Wash The Sins Not Only The Face. It was all filmed on Super 8 while they were on tour earlier this year. The band say “We see the song itself as the rallying cry at the start of an expedition so setting it to the images of our trip seemed wholly appropriate”
For this week’s gig picks, we’ve got tie-ins with two different festivals and some local media big hitters putting on gigs, as well as a few other odds and sods.
You may have heard that Brighton Digital Festival is on in town at the moment and as part of that Pop Up Brighton return with their Sound Screen event, bringing together local bands with international visual artists. On Thursday night at the Corn ExchangePhoria, Luo and The Hundredth Anniversary play to a backdrop of visual collaborations that the bands and video artists have been working together on for the last six weeks. Meanwhile Time for T headline at the Hope for Brightonsfinest, with Gypsy Switch, Paper Hawk and Prisoners Cinema also playing, and Monsters Build Mean Robots and Spacenoid are on the bill at Brighton Noise / Nice Weather For Airstrike’s Industroika gig at the Prince Albert.
On Friday Night Lloyd Williams and Ellie Ford launch their debut release at St Mary’s Church, Black Rooster Black Shag headline the Prince Albert, and Bad for Lazarus play Sticky Mike’s.
Saturday night is the third of The Haunt and Juice Brighton’s short run of weekly gigs. This week they have Them The Sky, Garden Heart, and Paper Hawk on the line up. It’s also the first of this month’s two Source New Music Nights (they’re hosting another on 20th as part of Brighton Digital Festival). This one is curated by Wildwood Promotions and is headlined by Alex White’s Interlocutor, with Red River Dialect, Octopuses and Herb Denton’s Last Dime playing too. Finally, it’s the Over The Moon Festival’s pre-party at the Blind Tiger, with a line up that includes Eagles for Hands, Mitch Wade Cole, Platypi, Eone and Murder He Wrote.
Here are the top tunes that were on the Brighton Music Blog stereo in August. As always, the diversity of the music being made in this city is impressive, from retro garage to chilled electronica and everything inbetween.
1) Spit Shake Sisters – Modern Drugs Make Aliens
Our most listened to track of the last month wasn’t a proper single, and was just put out to bring Spit Shake Sister’s output up to date following a change in personnel. Modern Drugs Make Aliens wasn’t even the lead song on the two track download. But nevertheless we’re big fans of this Hammond led hip swinger.
2) Electric Soft Parade – 1969
1969 is a popular year for songwriters. Serge Gainsbourg, Iggy Pop and, er, Bryan Adams have all taken advantage of writing about a year that recalls a time of free love, which also has a lot of rhymes. I’m sure the innuendo has nothing to do with it’s popularity. Now it’s Electric Soft Parade’s turn, putting out the summery guitar pop of 1969 as a free download from their label’s website.
3) Adolescent – Shy
Shy came out on an electronica compilation called Coast to Coast put out by Irish blog Believe In Sound. Call us biased, but in our opinion the Brighton track with the best thing on it. You can download the whole compilation for free on bandcamp.
4) Bon Iver – Wash (Foreign Skin remix)
Bon Iver’s not from Brighton, I hear you say. Well, no – but Flavia Aliverti, better known as Foreign Skin, is. We were won over by her set at Two Three Four at Green Door Store at the start of the month, and not long after this rather lovely unofficial remix turned up on SoundCloud and Bandcamp (see the links underneath the video on YouTube). Grab it before it disappears
5) The Hundredth Anniversary – Last Drive
The Hundredth Anniversary continue to put out high quality shoegaze, and Last Drive is no exception. Head over to the website they created to go with the track, play with the visuals, and download the track to listen to at your leisure.
6) The Raving Beauties – Oh Lover
At The Helm is a new Brighton based label from the guys behind Brighthelmstone promotions and Wildwood promotions, and the sunny Americana of Oh Lover is their first release
7) Phantom Runners – It Takes Me Away
We only heard this last week, but we loved it on first listen. We heard some very exciting news about who might be producing the Phantom Runners next EP, but we think it might be a secret so all we’ll say is keep your eyes and ears peeled.
8) Samuel Organ – E/\/\ER/\LD
The Physics House Band’s own label Kaleidoscope put out their second release this month, a three track solo EP called Y by Physics House Band member Samuel Organ. It’s not easy listening by any means, but neither is a lot of Aphex Twin’s output, which this track feels like it could be a natural heir to.
9) P For Persia – Uncanny Valley
Uncanny Valley got reviewed by Drowned In Sound, who described it as “a Twin Peaks remix done on an Atari by Fuck Buttons channelling their inner Kid606, before asking a bunch of shouty screamo kids to come in and do some vocals.”. They didn’t mention that it was just one track on a split EP with Speak Galactic, that the EP was called Aegis Arctic Alp, or that it was coming out on purple vinyl, all of which makes it an even more exciting prospect.
10) Flash Bang Band / Screw Come Loose
The second track in our top ten from At The Helm Records, Screw Come Loose, is the single that’s come out to promote the new Flash Bang Band album Bite Your Tongue. The album is out now and features some of their older singles (If You’re Driving and DananananaFreud). The launch party is at the Green Door Store on 15th September, where they’ll be joined by P For Persia and Clowns.
We had big plans for Friday night – we were going to head down to the Blind Tiger for Les Enfants Terribles which I’d read was an early gig, then catch Yumi & The Weather headlining Juice FM’s night at the Haunt. But then it turned out that the Juice night was an early gig too which put pay to that plan. We also wanted to pop into Brighton Electric on the way home for their all night, but that didn’t seem like such a great idea with work in the morning.
So we only made one of the three gigs we wanted to, but it was a good one. My New Favourite Tribe have only just put out their first single, but judging by the rest of their set there are great things to come. I would probably have enjoyed Salt Ashes set more had it been a PA in Audio at 2 o clock in the morning, but what a voice! I’ve been wanting to see Bent Cousin since I first heard them earlier this year and they didn’t disappoint. They’ve got catchy songs which work even better live than the recordings, and on top of that they’ve got heaps more charisma that most local bands.
Saturday night was more of a success, mainly because we had much more achievable ambitions for the evening. We only wanted to see the one band – The Space Agency – who were launching their new single Bombay Potatoes at the Horse and Groom in Hanover. The Space Agency are another band who’ve been on my wish list of bands to see for a while, and they were fantastic. I don’t get to write about Surf Rock nearly enough on the blog, and the band – who also rotated instruments midway through the gig and played a set as their alter ego The Get Smashed – had talent and tunes in great abundance.
Here’s out pics from the gigs. Click through to view large:
It’s barely been a week since we updated you with the new music that we’ve heard about, but our mailbox has been overflowing with loads of tunes and videos. Here’s what we’ve heard:
We heard about the new Phantom Runners just this afternoon. It Takes Me Away is lovely jangly late 80s / early 90s sounding indie, and is probably our favourite out of this post’s selection:
New State Masses are a new band formed from the ashes of previous projects foiled by the machinations of the music industry. So far there’s only a few tracks up on Soundcloud, and we rather like the mournful Somehow, Someday which we’re featuring here, but they’ll have a single out later this year called Keep The Love which we’ll tell you more about as we hear it.
Last Heir‘s new video was filmed down on the beach, and it looks like it was on the nudist beach, although they’re all fully clothed. Monkey Heart is a catchy slice of guitar pop, which is available as a free download if you follow the link underneath the video.
We wrote about Gudjohr‘s last EP back in February. In Tandem is his new seven track mini-LP, which is a bit less acoustic, but no less endearing. It’s available as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp.
Wake Up by My New Favourite Tribe was released this week and is out on iTunes and the other usual suspects. It’s wonky electro pop, not a million miles from Hot Chip, or early nineties synthpop band Beloved. My New Favourite Tribe play at Les Enfants Terribles at the Blind Tiger this friday.
Bright Lightbulbs is King of Cats’ contribution to a new split single with Ides coming out on 9th September on Reeks of Effort. It’s a bit lo fi and a bit like marmite – you’ll either love it or hate it. You can go and watch the video over at The Line of Best Fit – As much as I try I haven’t been able to embed it here!
Finally we have a video from Flash Pan Hunter. Overcome Love With The Devil is a stripped back acoustic version of the original which is on his new album Quick Way To Enemy which came out a week or two ago. The video was filmed at Tim Bidwell’s Clockwork Owl Studios up in Kemptown.
It seems a bit early in the week to be posting up our regular weekend gig picks post, but we normally do it on a Wednesday, so here we are.
Tomorrow night’s gig pick is House of Hats, who are supporting alt folk legend Mark Mulcahy at Latest Music Bar.
There a loads of great gigs on Friday night – Les Enfants Terribles put on one of their regular gigs at the Blind Tiger with Salt Ashes, My New Favourite Tribe and Bent Cousin. Juice FM also have an all Brighton bill at The Haunt, with Yumi & The Weather, Astrid’s Tea Party and Bella Feud playing. Meanwhile Brighton Electric are holding a summer party, with Dog in the Snow, Jungfrau, Momotaro and Dissonants.
Saturday night’s choice is The Space Agency who are launching their new single Bombay Potatoes at the Horse & Groom.
Standing out from the crowd is an age old dilemma. It’s not too many years ago that a digital release was a novelty, but now it’s the default. To get a bit more attention for their new single, The Hundredth Anniversary have set up a website. You can play the track, download the track, show the lyrics and create your own video by cycling through a series of visual loops.
Last Drive is slow motion shoe gaze, with thick slabs of guitars and desolate vocals. You can download it at lastdrive.thehundredthanniversary.com (along with everything I described above)
Next Monday Flash Bang Band release their new album Bite Your Tongue on At The Helm records. We’ll be doing a full write up on that in full course, and with any luck interviewing the band too. In the meantime though, here’s their new single, Screw Come Loose, complete with retro green screen effects. The single is out now digitally, available via the usual suspects.
We’ve got more genres than you can shake a stick at for this week’s selection of new music. There’s surf rock, psychedelia, post rock, mind bending electronica, indie and art rock.
Bombay Potatoes is the new single from The Space Agency. It’s surf rock, with an eastern flavour. It’s out on 26th August, and the launch party is at the Horse & Groom on Saturday 31st.
Spit Shake Sisters recently lost their keyboard player, so they’ve put out the last recordings they made with him for free. Overdope and Modern Drugs Make Aliens are on Bandcamp now for download:
Electric Soft Parade have also put a track up for free download. 1969, which isn’t on new album Idiots, features Matt Eaton from Pure Conjecture on backing vocals, and you can get hold of it by signing up to their mailing list
Samuel Organ is better known as one third of Brighton Prog Jazz titans Physics House Band. Not content with knocking our socks off with that, he’s put out a free three track EP called Y:
The Bear is the title track from the new Chris T-T and the Hoodrats album of the same name. The album’s not out until 7th October but if you pre order the album from Xtra Mile Recordings, you get a download of The Bear.
I am L is the stage name of Laura May Brophy. Lion Heart is a track that she’s recently put up on Soundcloud which recalls Brighton’s own Bat For Lashes:
Finally, White Peaks have made their Turbluence EP free for download. Of the two tracks of atmospheric rock we prefer the second, Omnipresence, with it’s big post-rock finish:
