Did you miss out on Nick Cave’s secret gig in Hove last weekend? Me too! Would you like to see Nick Cave even closer to home instead? Well then we’ve got some good news. Nick Cave announced that the LA date of his tour, on 21st February, will be streamed live online at the rather snappy URL youtube.com/nickcavelive
Watch the trailer / click on the links for more info.
I’ve got a busy week ahead, without too much time for blogging, so here’s three videos and bits of news which probably deserve to have blog posts of their own. If only there were more hours in the day.
The Beautiful Word have posted a new video for May Not Be Love, and in doing so have snuck in a mention that they’ve got an album on the way. Their new long player Particles should be with us later this year.
The Galleons put up the video for Islands of Japan this weekend. They’re also planning a new album, but are looking to raise funds via Pledge Music to help it along it’s way. If you liked the first one, if you want to support local music, head on over and see if any of their offers (from just buying the album all the way up to the band performing a private gig for you) take your fancy.
Moya‘s new single A Little More Love is out on 25th March. Her last single spent four weeks on the Radio 2 playlist, so fingers crossed this does as well. Moya’s off on tour soon supporting Razorlight’s Andy Burrows, and is kicking things off in her hometown – they play at The Komedia on 18th February.
Physics House Band have announced their debut release. Despite the impression you might get from it’s name, Horizons / Rapture isn’t a double a side, but a twenty-six minute long six track “psychedelic excursion” (their description), none of whose titles are either Horizons or Rapture. It’s coming out on 15th April on Blood and Biscuits records, who put out Tall Ships’ album last year.
It’s available to pre-order now over on the Blood and Biscuits website on cd or 180mg vinyl in a variety of packages ranging from just the album up to a deluxe package where you get the LP, the CD, a T-Shirt, a poster and a set of Liner Notes.
To whet our appetite, the band have put out a video for Abraxical Solapse, which features on the album, and also appeared on the recent Sea Monsters 3 compilation:
Full track list is:
Side A
1. ObeliskMonolith
2. Abraxical Solapse
3. Hollow Mountain
Side B
4. Teratology
5. The Spectral Beyond
6. Titan
Yesterday The New Union supported The 1975 at the Green Door Store. It’s the first time we’ve caught them in a few months and in that time they’ve been working hard on new tracks up in studios in London. You can hear the effect of working with a producer – Richard Jackson now uses two mics to bring more depth to the vocals, there’s more reverb all round making their sound even bigger, and where last year a New Union gig would be half an hour of urgent adrenalin filled songs there’s now some slower numbers too. The New Union are growing up and sounding bigger and better than ever.
click on the pics below to view larger:
Another weekend, another blog post flagging up our pick of the Brighton Bands playing live this weekend.
Our call for Thursday night is the launch of the Self Help Group‘s debut album Not Waving But Drowning. The gig at the Albert has been sold out for a little while, so well done if you’ve got a ticket. Tomorrow night is also the next Spirit of Gravity night at the Green Door Store, headlined by Sarah Angliss (who’s also a member of SpaceDog). There’s talk of robots, and that’s enough for us.
On Friday night Nick Cave is allowing an audience into his last rehearsal before he goes on tour. Resident Records, The Quietus and a few other places held competitions to win tickets. We were unlucky so we don’t even know where it is but it’s definitely the hot ticket of the night. We’re hoping to see The New Union at the Green Door Store, who are supporting the 1975 – that’s another sold out gig though, sorry!
Saturday night we recommend that you pay a visit to the Physics House Band’s regular night Kaleidoscope at Sticky Mike’s. Physics House Band aren’t performing – they are playing next weekend though, at the next Source New Music Night – but Sam is DJing and live music comes from Luo, who we like so much we’ve seen them twice this year.
Crayola Lectern’s debut album will be hitting the shelves in April this year, and to whet our appetite, he’s put a couple of tracks from it up on his Soundcloud. My other half reckons Slow Down sounds like Mary J Blige’s No More Drama, something which I imagine would amuse Crayola Lectern no end.
We haven’t even reached the end of January yet, but 2013 is already looking like a great year for new musical discoveries from Brighton. There’s two bands who I hadn’t heard before this year who are already shaping up to be firm favourites – to find two bands in what’s normally quite a fallow month is good, but to find them both on the same bill at a gig was irresistible.
Luo
One of the great things about Sea Monsters was that you got to see so many bands in such a short space of time. This meant reduced turnaround times between them, and shared setups, which meant an element of compromise with the sound. That’s not to say that the sound was bad, more that it could probably have been improved if each band had the time and opportunity to set things up exactly as they’d want. Luo impressed us when they opened at last Saturday’s One Inch Badge vs One Inch Badge – they obviously impressed OIB too, who’ve put them on again so soon after the festival. The sound last night seemed bigger and more brutal – the soporific melodic washes of guitars were still there but caught you unawares by growing like post-rock monsters. Some later songs toyed with time signatures reminiscent of Physic House Band’s modern take on jazz. The beats, which kick off once you’re lulled into a false sense of security, seemed more brutal. In short, Luo confirmed the conclusion we came to at Sea Monsters that they were definitely a band to keep an eye on this year.
IYES
Anyone who’s anyone is talking about IYES and Lighthouse – their demo which has appeared online to huge acclaim. Give it a quick Google and you’ll see over 11,000 results. Most of those pages don’t give you much more than a link to Soundcloud though, and some gushing words about how Lighthouse reminds the writer about the XX but better. Some of them mention that the band are from Brighton, and some mention the IYES are a two piece, made up of Czech singer Melis Soyaslanova and singer and multi-instrumentalist Josh Christopher. Onstage last night they were joined by an additional guitarist to help create their shimmering widescreen pop vision, leaving the duo to focus on the song side of their tracks. Despite their Facebook page only being created in February of last year, IYES look and sound like a fully fledged band. Behind his laptop and with a guitar strapped to him, Josh looks like a re-boot of an eighties pop star, somewhere between one of the Goss brothers from Bros and Chris Lowe from Pet Shop Boys. Melis took the simpler option of a leather jacket over a dress but still looked every bit the pop star. Already the band have plenty of material for a solid half hour set, drawn from the spectrum that ranges from alternative ethereal alt-pop to chart friendly synth pop which if things continue on their current trajectory will have IYES uniting the underground and mainstream before the year’s up. Melis’ vocals complemented the sound perfectly, carrying the melody or dropping to barely a whisper. The big surprise was the power, strength and control of Josh’s voice which only came out at some of the more epic moments. It was good to see it used subtly at the right times. There were a few gremlins at the beginning of the set which led to a false start, but nothing unforgivable and they soon got going again. The gremlins came back just before the final track leaving the laptop silent, so for a finale we were treated to an acoustic version of Lighthouse which sounded just as strong as the original – a testament to the band’s fine songwriting talent.
British Sea Power have announced details of their new album, Machineries of Joy. It’s out on 1st April, on Rough Trade. The first 500 people to order the album from the band’s website also get a limited edition bonus cd too.
The band have also announced a whole bunch of tour dates which we aren’t going to include because a) there’s no Brighton date*, and b) that would be lazy churnalism – that’s why we also haven’t included the deliberately provocative quote about the lyrics that seems to have been included every other article we’ve seen about the album.
What those articles haven’t mentioned (probably because it’s not in the press release) is that the title track previously featured on one of the exclusive EPs that they sold at last year’s gigs. Here’s a live taste of it that we found on YouTube:
*weren’t we spoiled enough with all the Krankenhaus gigs last year?
Kovak are back with another new single. Radiate comes out on 11th February, but you can watch the video for it now. It’s another slice of classic disco pop, hot on the heels of recent singles Killer Boots (which got playlisted on Radio 2 – not bad for an unsigned band) and Living The Dream. The band were holed up in a studio in Spain at the end of last year to record their album, which is due to hit the shops this spring.
Saturday night was One Inch Badge’s own choice of local bands. There was one change from the original line up – unfortunately Soccer 96 couldn’t make it, but we’ll get to that later. Queues were building up before the doors even opened – After a Source cover and loads of storming shows, The Physics House Band are one of Brighton’s hottest tickets at the moment.
Luo
Luo were the first band to play. They mixed glitchy electronica with lush guitars – think Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross remixed by Plaid. It wasn’t all instrumental though – they were joined onstage for a track by Jacko Hooper, who played earlier this week. It was all really lovely stuff, who I’d love to find out more about, but search engines are no help whatsoever (“Did you mean ‘Lou’?” – No Google, if I’d meant Lou, I would have typed Lou).
Squadron Leaders
Next up were The Squadron Leaders, a surf rock three piece. I had a glance at their set list before they started, and wondered how they were going to play fifteen or twenty songs when most other bands were only playing five or six in their allocated sets. The answer was that they sped through their short songs, barely stopping for breath. The crowd loved it, but it was a little dispiriting to hear references to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack – there’s a whole genre out there beyond Dick Dale.
Ed Prosek
The extra act on the bill following Soccer 96’s cancellation was Ed Prosek, who acknowledged that an acoustic folk act didn’t quite sit with the rest of the bands on the line up. Ed’s Californian optimism meant that he was undeterred though, and the crowd soon warmed to him and his band made up of cello, double bass and mandolin. The highlight of their set was a cover of Paul Simon’s Homeward Bound, currently featuring on a cheese advert. Obviously.
Phoria
Phoria were on the bill at October’s Source New Music night last year, but I was a bit distracted and didn’t really pay enough attention. What I missed was ambitious, intelligent songs, aiming for somewhere between Coldplay and Radiohead. Epic stuff.
Physics House Band
The stars of last night’s show were The Physics House Band though. On paper they could sound difficult – non-standard time signatures, jazz, prog… In reality, they’re a fantastic prospect. Each individual player is a virtuoso, but they aren’t just tremendous musicians individually – together you won’t find a tighter set of musicians. But it’s not all just about the musicianship, their live show is also one of the most energetic in town. Being an amazing band is about being different, and being better, and Physics House Band have that in spades.
Brighton Music Blog 