Here’s a few bits and pieces that we’ve come across this week. Gnarwolves and Octopuses have the launches for their releases this weekend (see our previous post), so if you like what you hear, make sure you catch them live.
First up is the new single from Martin Rossiter. No One Left To Blame, one of the standout tracks from last year’s The Defenestration of St Martin, will be released on September 16th, but the rather chilly video is up now:
Moving from chiller to thriller, the next video is for Sun by Us Baby Bear Bones, which features on their What Starts With a U Ends With An I EP, which is available to buy via the band’s website.
Funemployed is the new EP from Gnarwolves. The band have their launch party at the Green Door Store on saturday night, and the EP sounds like this:
Octopuses launch their new single Sarcastic at the Prince Albert tonight. The track’s up on Soundcloud, and you can listen here:
We’re out of town for the weekend, but that’s not going to stop us telling you about the great music that’s on. In fact, we’re going to bring our normal timings a day earlier and start the post off from bands playing Wednesday night, since there’s some great gigs going on then that we’re gutted we’re going to miss out on.
Octopuses, Becky Becky and Do You Feel What I Feel Deer? are all on the bill at the Prince Albert on Wednesday night for the launch of Octopuses new single Sarcastic. At the Blind Tiger you can see Faux Flux, Luo and Spacenoid, and you can see The Beautiful Word at Northern Lights.
Skipping to Friday Night, Eliza Jaye holds her album launch at the Ranelagh, and at the Blind Tiger there’s this month’s Les Enfants Terribles, featuring Bad for Lazarus, Fox in the City and The Frenzied Anaesthetist. Unfortunately Fear of Men supporting Youth Lagoon has been rescheduled so if you were hoping to see them you’ll have to wait until October.
We’ve already mentioned Saturday night RSPB Fundraiser at Saint Luke’s Church with Mary Hampton and Do You Feel What I Feel Deer? Saturday is also this month’s Source New Music at the Dome Studio Theatre – Flash Bang Band headline, with support from 900 Spaces, Hundredth Anniversary and The Victory Dolls. Meanwhile, at the Green Door Store Gnarwolves host the launch party for their new EP Funemployed.
On Friday Night The Levellers played a one-off sell out gig at Brighton Dome to celebrate twenty five years as a band. Support came from two other acts who’ve collaborated with The Levellers over the years – Electric Soft Parade, who played a set taken from their new album Idiots, and McDermott’s Two Hours who were originally a band who inspired The Levellers but who the Levellers went on to produce. We took our camera along to capture a permanent record of a timeless night.
The weekend is almost upon us so it’s time for our weekly round up of the best local talent that you can see live this weekend.
We’ve spotted two great gigs on Thursday night – Tiny Dragons are playing at Club Criminal at Latest Music Bar, with support from Fools Knowledge, Dead Whisky and Dress Theque. Round the corner at the Blind Tiger The Resonators headline Dub Organiser.
On Friday there are a crazy number of local bands playing live in Brighton. The biggest show is at the Dome, where the Levellers play Brighton for the first time in ages to celebrate their twenty fifth year as a band. Support comes from Electric Soft Parade. Friday night also has two gigs by Brighton bands at the Blind Tiger. Early doors Standard Lamps and Calico are on the bill, and later on from 10pm The Impellers play their own gig. Meanwhile The Meow Meows are holding a launch party for their album at The Gladstone, and Emberhoney, Mishkin Fitzgerald and Simonne (without her Dark Stars) play at the Komedia. Just a few miles out of town, British Sea Power play at the Gentlemen of the Road Festival in Lewes.
The rest of the weekend we think you should be out enjoying the sun, stopping only at the end of the weekend when Brighton Folk hold their regular night at the Brunswick with Dave Blackwell topping the line up.
Last night GAPS rounded off a mini tour to promote their debut 7” with a hometown gig at the Green Door Store.
The first support came from The Hundredth Anniversary, who were more together yet more relaxed than I’ve ever seen them. It’s still shoegaze, of sorts, but the angular drumming and tight rhythm section elevate them above the competition. The second support took things in a completely different direction – Laurie James Ross, better known as Eagles For Hands, played a set of House music using a table full of electronics controlling different channels and vocal samples. Sometimes things went a little bit garage and on some tracks the direction went a little bit deeper, but throughout the whole continuous set the Green Door Store sounded fantastic. Definitely one to watch.
The evening belonged to GAPS though. Their single Keep You / Cascade was released yesterday, and the duo were celebrating with a local gig. Ed was on the left on synths, drum pads and two microphones and Rachel filled the rest of the stage with guitars, more drums and more microphones. Their music has been described as folktronica, which probably fits with what they do on paper but doesn’t truly do justice to their sound. The best known examples of the genre seem to be electronica with a bit of folk added to make things more interesting or vice versa, but what we heard last night was a much more equal union of the two. AA side Cascade, with its long quiet seagull laden intro before the beats kick in, was dropped into the set early on, with flip side Keep You saved until the penultimate track. Discounting the gremlins before the end of the set GAPS played a great gig, making a sound that’s familiar, but unlike anyone else in town.
GAPS single launch gallery (click on the pics to view large):
Normally most of our gig previews are posted up a couple of days before the weekend they occur, giving you all a few day’s notice of what’s coming up. Occasionally, if something catches our eye we might make an exception and point it out a bit earlier, and that’s just what we’re doing here.
On Saturday 27th July, The Hollow Tree Fundraiser takes place at Saint Luke’s Church, in aid of the RSPB. Three local acts are playing – The wonderful Mary Hampton, anti-folk heroes 21 Crows, and Brighton Music Blog favourites Do You Feel What I Feel Deer?. There also promises to be a raffle, giant games, and the opportunity to build a habitat on your head. There’s more information on Facebook.
This also gives us the opportunity to post up the video for the Mary Hampton Cotillion’s latest release Gold Hat, which appeared online last week:
Here’s some new music that’s popped in our inbox recently for your aural delectation:
First up is the new Crayola Lectern single Slow Down / Trip in D, both standout tracks from The Fall and Rise of Crayola Lectern LP out earlier this year. We’ve already shared the video for Slow Down, and the single comes with alternate versions of both tracks. You can buy on iTunes here.
Le Juki release their album Capillaries on Beatabet today, which is up to buy on Bandcamp. One for fans of quirky folktronica, the band are holding their album launch on 12th July at Unitarian Church.
We’ve previewed the video for Dead Captain‘s track Maybe Maybe, and today the whole EP finally got released. The New Plan EP is available for download from Bandcamp.
Changing styles again, next up is Tubba 3 Ply‘s debut release Pass Me By / Fake MC, out now on 7″ or download. They describe it as Breakbeat Dub Punk Techno:
Finally, to calm things down, we have Limbic System‘s new EP- Beat Wave. The soundcloud link below is for our favourite track Distant Lands, which sounds a little like fellow Brightonians The Mummers. You can listen to the whole EP here.
Hopefully we’ll have more new music to share with you soon from the likes of Cate Ferris and The Mojo Fins, so watch this space!
We’ve had news in this week about the new Abi Wade single. The Boxer was produced by Daniel Copeman of Esben and The Witch, with a video made by Brighton’s Create Studios:
As with her previous releases the track is centred around Abi’s haunting vocals and cello, but instead of percussion coming from the noises made between her instrument and her bow, The Boxer introduces programmed beats giving a much fuller sound than before.
The Boxer gets a digital release on 15th July on Love Thy Neighbour.
Here’s our regular monthly post of what’s hot on the Brighton Music Blog stereo over the last month.
1) Electric Soft Parade – Summertime in My Heart
We’ve probably listened to more Electric Soft Parade this month than everything else put together, and our top ten probably should just be the tracklist of Idiots, but what fun would that be? Summertime edged out in front of the other tracks, mainly because it’s the current single.
2) Milk & Biscuits – Hairstyles
Hairstyles is the second single from Milk & Biscuits forthcoming album Spirit Nap, and it’s great. It’s a bit Belle & Sebastian, a bit retro pop, and has a video filmed all around Brighton:
3) Us Baby Bear Bones – Swamp
We’ve been waiting for “What Starts With a U Ends With An I” for ages, and it was well worth the wait. A few of the tracks had appeared on YouTube, but the EP was the first chance we’d had to listen to Swamp over and over:
4) The Beautiful Word – Particles
When we first posted up the video for Particles back in May we said that it could well be the best thing they’ve done. After repeated plays, we’re pretty much sure it is.
5) New Union – Staying Friends
Staying Friends is the lead track on the New Union’s eponymous EP which came out four weeks ago. All four tracks on the EP are great, and the artwork for the 12″ is just as classy as we’ve come to expect from the band.
6) IYES – Lighthouse (BBC Introducing Session)
For their recent BBC session IYES swapped the electronics for a cello and it sounded lush. Unfortunately it’s long disappeared from iPlayer, so here’s the original:
7) Gaps – Cascade
We posted up the video for Gaps lovely, hypnotic upcoming single Keep You a couple of weeks ago, but we ended up listening to it’s AA side Cascade even more. The Guardian agreed with us and made them yesterday’s New Band of the Day! The single will be released on 15th July on Sexbeat.
8) Curxes – Further Still (Avec Sans Remix)
We featured the original version of Further Still in our April Top Ten, but this month a remix surfaced which reversed the vocals, giving the tune a completely different melody:
9) Champione – Bear vs Bear
We only got the chance to give Champione’s tunes a listen last week, which means they haven’t had that many listens which is why Bear vs Bear is only at number nine. This, and the rest of the Home EP, are definitely going to get a lot more listens over the next few weeks:
10) Rivieras – Weekend
Rivieras got in touch on twitter and pointed us in the direction of their latest EP, a four tracker called Weekend. We liked what we heard, but we spotted that it had been up on Soundcloud for at least six months, so didn’t really sit alongside the new music that we write about most of the time. It’s definitely worth a listen though. Here’s the title track:
Next Monday sees the release of Cousin’s Alternate Tunings for Regular People EP, coming out on Fcking The Night on hand finished fabric sleeved 12″ and download. Cousin’s instrumental math-rock is a lot more accessible and melodic than a lot of other bands in the genre, but that doesn’t come at the expense of big rock hooks. Here’s the video for for the song three on the six track release, Fourth Floor Balcony Fight:
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