Free New Music

Posted on 10/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Three bands, each with a free exclusive track to give away. How’s that for a nice late Christmas present?

House of Hats new single Sewing Machine is available as a free mp3 by signing up to their mailing list, or over at bandcamp. It’s a lovely thing, quite minimal, with their trademark close harmonies, simple acoustic guitar and chiming piano, and it was produced by the band and Ally Young from Mirrors.

Abi Wade has just given away a free download of live favourite Charade, recorded in the same session as her recent Heavy Heart 7″. There was a bit of time at the end of the session to record what’s effectively a live version of the track, and this is what’s been sent out. You’ll need to sign up to her mailing list in order to get the link, so unfortunately there’s embedded preview here. If you’ve heard either of Abi’s releases so far, you’ll know what to expect – haunting vocals, cello, and percussion. Highly recommended.

The last track, Circulation, is from The Muel, and is also available as a free download via their mailing list (which you can sign up to on the front page of their website). Sam Walker’s band aren’t just giving away the one track though – they’ll be giving away a track every month this year to subscribers. January’s track is a jazzy instrumental taken from the Rough in the Bedroom album, which came out over ten years ago and is now long out of print, so this is probably your only chance to get hold of this. I look forward to hearing what else they’ve got in store for us over the next twelve months. The Muel will be supporting Jaime Regan at the Brunswick on 31st January.

Video-verload

Posted on 09/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We’ve come across a bumper treasure trove of videos from Brighton Bands over the past few days. Maybe everyone was saving them for the new year, maybe it’s just coincidence that they’ve all turned up at the same time. No matter – here they all are:

Blood Red Shoes / Red River:

Cave Painting / Leaf

Tiny Dragons / In My Life

Forestears / Against The Floor

Beautiful Word / Eating Me, Eating You

Time for T / Phone Sex

Indigo Beach / Stay

Catherine Ireton – What Is It About That Night?

Posted on 07/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

It seems like it’s only been a matter of weeks since Catherine Ireton played the last of her four Treasure Tracks gigs which lead us through the backstage warren behind the Dome before playing an intimate gig in the Corn Exchange. This month Catherine returns and is going backstage again, this time to the Theatre Royal.

As with Treasure Tracks, What Is It About That Night? isn’t a straightforward gig. Rather than take to the stage in the Theatre Royal, Catherine will be performing in the dressing rooms and other backstage areas – parts of the theatre not normally seen by the public. And rather than a normal performance where there’s a clear distinction between artist and audience, Catherine is collaborating with Brighton based theatre company Root Experience to make the night more interactive.

Catherine Ireton

What Is It About That Night is on at the Theatre Royal on 17th and 24th of January. Tickets are £10 and are available from the Theatre Royal Box Office, Resident Records or online

The Self Help Group – Needles

Posted on 06/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

The first new release we’re writing about in 2013 is the Self Help Group’s new single Needles. It’s out digitally tomorrow, being released by Lewes’ Union Music Store, and is a taster for their debut album Not Waving But Drowning which comes out next month.

We’re loving the high key video, which features a lot more choreography than you might expect from a folk band:

Woodpecker Wooliams BBC 6Music session

Posted on 06/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Following hot on the heels of Milk & Biscuits, who did a session for Marc Riley last Month, Woodpecker Wooliams is the lastest local act to grace the 6Music airwaves. She joined Tom Robinson last night, and you can listen again (if you’re in the UK, and for a limited time, obviously) here.

First track Gull starts around the twenty minute mark, Sparrow is around forty minutes in and around Dove is around fifty two minutes.

The Blog Sound of 2013

Posted on 03/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

December’s a funny month for people who write about new music, mainly because there’s not too much of it about. Release schedules are bare, with the exception of big name acts cashing in with Greatest Hits or maybe the odd novelty record, and there aren’t so many gigs because of the bad weather and clashes with Christmas parties, so people like me sit at home reflecting on the past year and pontificating about the year ahead.

Towards the end of last year Robin from Breaking More Waves got in touch with us and 48 other blogs to continue what Breaking More Waves and the Von Pip Musical had started in 2012. The Blog Sound of 2013 poll is a bit of an alternative to the BBC’s own Sound of 2013 – not meant as a criticism of what the BBC are doing, just a different viewpoint. Interestingly, last year’s Mercury Prize winners Alt-J featured on the Blog Sound of 2012 poll, but we’re on BBC’s Sound of 2012.

We were asked to nominate five artists that represented the best in emerging music. At first glance it sounded nice and easy, but was it really that simple? Should I just be nominating bands from Brighton? Most of the other blogs involved weren’t so geographical. And should I be nominating my favourite bands, or the ones who were doing best at “emerging”? And what does emerging really mean anyway?

In the end, I nominated two Brighton bands, one band who are half Brighton / half London, and two bands with no links to Brighton. Sadly none of my nominations made it to the final longlist, but Curxes did appear giving a bit of local representation. Subsequently one of the acts I nominated – Anna Meredith – got awarded Drowned in Sound’s single of the year, which gave me a bit of reassurance that I don’t have cloth ears thankfully.

The longlist announced in December comprised of AlunaGeorge, Curxes, Chvrches, Daughter, Haim, Laura Mvula, MØ, Palma Violets, Pins, Randolph’s Leap, Rhye, Savages, Seasfire, The Neighbourhood, Tom Odell. Seven of these ended up on the BBC’s Sound of 2013 list. This morning, the winner of the crown of Blog Sound of 2013, was announced, alongside the the final top five :

1st Haim

2nd Chvrches

3rd= Savages

3rd= Pins

5th The Neighbourhood

If you want to get your ears around these bands – which doesn’t seem like such a bad idea considering these are the acts which have been voted for by people passionate enough about music to devote their spare time to writing about them – then Breaking More Waves have put together a handy Soundcloud playlist :

The ones that got away

Posted on 29/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

We wrote about loads of bands earlier this month in an arbitrary personal take on the year, but there’s been lots going on that we couldn’t include for one reason or the other. There were lots of bands who were just bubbling under, we didn’t write about any bands who were from Brighton – obviously – and we kept the list just to bands and didn’t mention venues or events or stuff like that.

We tried to have a bit of balance across our advent calendar, making sure we had big and small bands, so it was always going to be the case that there was going to be some we couldn’t fit in. As well as The Maccabees and Bat for Lashes hitting hard for Brighton, Blood Red Shoes and Orbital were troubling the charts. While we’re talking about big acts, Fatboy Slim‘s most recent Big Beach Boutique was a success not on the beach but at the Amex, where they apparently ran out of beer on the first night. On the subject of local bands in sports venues, hundreds of people braved the rain in July when Rizzle Kicks accompanied the entrance of the Olympic Torch to Hove Cricket Groung Saint Etienne were further down our longlist than the album “Words and Music by Saint Etienne” and their gig at the Concorde warranted, but with only Pete Wiggs living in Brighton, we had to prioritise bands with more local members.

Other bands with albums out in 2012 who we just couldn’t fit in were Tall Ships, Cave Painting, Ital Tek (referred to by one of my mates as possibly his album of the year), Sparrow and Negative Pegasus. When Todd Jordan isn’t being part of Negative Pegasus, he’s also one third of promoters One Inch Badge, who brought us the fantastic Sea Monsters festival at the Prince Albert as well as dozens of other great gigs, and is one of the people responsible for Bizarro World, a monthly covers gig which is so much better than it sounds on paper.

There’s a few bands who’ve caught our eye that we’re expecting big things from in 2013. Crayola Lectern‘s album is recorded and due to arrive in Spring sometime on Bleeding Hearts Recordings. We saw Dead Cars live a few weeks ago and really really liked what they were doing, but it was too late to squeeze them into our list. But if we were to be pushed to name one act whose year it could be then we’d have to say Anneka. We’ve only seen her live once so far (supporting Com Truise at The Haunt), but there was something about what she was doing that sounded so fully formed, that she’s bound to be huge.

Outside of Brighton, here’s our top ten albums and top five tracks of the year:

1. Melody’s Echo Chamber / Melody’s Echo Chamber
2. Beth Orton / Sugaring Season
3. Laetitia Sadier / Silencio
4. Toy / Toy
5. Raveonettes / Observator
6. Clock Opera / Ways to Forget
7. Best Coast / The Only Place
8. Black Reindeer / Real Life is Overrated
9. Scuba / Personality
10. Cornshed Sisters / Tell Tales

1. Mmoths / Heart
2. Blur / Under The Westway
3. Saint Etienne / Tonight
4. Minotaur Shock / Janet
5. Lee Hazlewood / Souls Island

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar – The Full Countdown

Posted on 26/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

So, the presents are opened, Christmas Dinner is eaten, and all that’s left is to watch the Sound of Music with the family for the umpteenth time. But if that’s all a bit too much, here’s a look back at our Advent Calendar, with every day collected together in one handy blog post:

Thomas White

25. Thomas White, Electric Soft Parade, Restlesslist, British Sea Power, Milk & Biscuits, Foxes!, Do You Feel What I Feel Deer?, Fragile Creatures, Clowns

24. Willkommen Records, Sons of Noel and Adrian, The Miserable Rich, Laish , Emma Gatrill, Redwood Red, Hamilton Yarns, etc

23. Fujiya & Miyagi, I Am Ampersand, Omega Male

22. Nordic Giants, Cate Ferris, Dizraeli & The Small Gods

21. Shrag

20. Martin Rossiter

19. Fear of Men

18. Us Baby Bear Bones

17. Speak Galactic

16. Woodpecker Wooliams

15. Catherine Ireton

14. Jennifer Left

13. Bat for Lashes

12. Your Explosion My Mind

11. The New Union

10. Sweet Sweet Lies

9. Kovak

8. Abi Wade

7. Heliopause

6. Munich

5. Moulettes

4. Curxes

3. Birdengine

2. Dark Horses

1. The Maccabees

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar / Day 23 / Fujiya & Miyagi – I Am Ampersand – Omega Male

Posted on 23/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Our first proper blog post of 2012 was about Fujiya & Miyagi. They had recorded a version of Your Silent Face for a cd of New Order covers given out with the February edition of Mojo magazine. While it might look like we’re spending all our time writing about Brighton music, secretly we’re huge New Order fans on the side, so the chance to slip some New Order into the blog was most welcome.

In February we spotted Matt Hainsby swapping his bass for an acoustic guitar onstage at the Bleeding Hearts Club under the name I Am Ampersand. He was the third member to join the band and “Fujiya” and “Miyagi” had already been grabbed, so he was left with the “&”. A few weeks later the ultra-limited but utterly brilliant 20 Seas 4 Oceans 7″ came out on the legendary Great Pop Supplement label. It came with a hand-made wood print. It’s got lyrics about a mer-man. The intro sounds a bit like an unplugged version of Spirit In The Sky. What more could you possibly want? Another great 7″ followed in the summer and a few weeks ago he rounded off the year with Grave Goods, an album of quirky psychedelic folk songs that you wouldn’t have expected from a member of Fujiya & Miyagi a year ago.

Matt Hainsby isn’t the only member of Fujiya & Miyagi who’s been involved with extra-curricular activities this year. David Best has teamed up with Sammy Rubin from Project Jenny Project Jan to form Omega Male, who also put out their album in November. Where Grave Goods wasn’t immediately recognisable as an album put out by a member of Fujiya & Miyagi, there’s no mistaking Best’s inescapable vocal style on Omega Male. Tucked at the end of the album was one of our favourite tracks this year – the incredibly gorgeous Buildings Like Symphonies, which combined with I Am Ampersand’s 20 Seas 4 Oceans, was the clincher for placing them so high in our list.

Source New Music – Clowns, Evil Son and Wildcat Strike

Posted on 22/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Thursday night was the last Source New Music of the year, and the last for a few months until they return in February 2013 – like Source Magazine, the night is taking a well earned break in January.

Wildcat Strike

I arrived midway through Wildcat Strike’s set, which I was quite enjoying – really rather good post / math rock, nice and tight – and then the vocals came in. I say vocals, it was just shouting. Not exclamations of anger or any other emotion, just shouting. It’s a shame because aside from the vocals, Wildcat strike were really tight and made a fantastic sound.

The Evil Son

Next up were Evil Son, who we saw a few weeks ago at their EP launch at the Albert. We got a similar show: tight, spiky alternative guitar pop – let’s use the word grunge, because they do – but louder, and with better lights. There’s nothing to fault musically with Evil Son – the songs are well written and it’s obvious that each member of the band oozes talent – bassist Pepe Le Moko also plays bass for David Gedge’s Wedding Present. They’re the kind of band who you could enjoy even if grunge wasn’t your thing because what they do they do so well.

Clowns

As much as I enjoyed The Evil Son (and the bits of Wildcat Strike when they weren’t shouting), the floor was wiped clean with the night’s headliners Clowns, who provided a masterclass on showmanship. A sharply dressed Miles Heathfield spent the set prowling the stage and the front few rows of the audience, with a taut muscular musical backing from the three other clowns. If you wanted an example of what to look for in a great frontman, Miles was it. No standing still trying to hide behind the microphone stand. No danger of being distracted by anything other than what was going on on stage. The start of the band’s set was deceptively quiet, with things soon turning around to show their true colours – loud, alternative rock. After a full set of their own material they return for an encore of a cover of Ghost Town by The Specials. The level of engagement from Clowns, their intensity, their energy, the volume all contributed to them being worthy headliners. Next year, Clowns will be releasing their album Macho Bimbo on Bleeding Hearts Recordings, and we can’t wait.