Last night The New Union supported Let’s Buy Happiness at the Blind Tiger and IYES played their first headline show at the Prince Albert. We were torn – we’re fans of both bands – which should we go to? And then we figured that since The New Union were supporting and IYES were headlining, we should be able to make it to both.
When we first heard about the New Union gig, we read that they would be on at 8.15. On the day, we read on Facebook that it would be 8.30. We turned up at the gig to see set times that said 8.45, but the support act who was on before them didn’t get onstage until 8.50. In the end The New Union started just after 9.30, so we only caught a few of their songs before we headed to the Prince Albert. But those few songs sounded fantastic. Every time the New Union head into the studio, they come out sounding even better, taking everything they’ve learned and improving their live sound with it, and just recently they’ve been recording at Metway Studios with Matthew Twaites (of Electric Soft Parade, Milk & Biscuits, etc).
The normal career path for a new band is first to get support slots with other local bands, then headline your own small gigs, then get supports with bigger touring bands that visit. It’s testament to the strength of IYES demos that they managed to skip the first two stages, with all their gigs so far playing before more established national acts. As sods law would have it, the IYES gig was running late too, but that meant we got to catch Londoners Rivieras from the back of a packed room. When they were done, we took the opportunity to get to the front so we could make up for all of the photos that we didn’t take at the New Union gig. IYES were on top form, showcasing the demos that the crowd was familiar with as well as a brace of new tracks including the first play of their upcoming single Infinity.
Here’s this week’s round up of the new music that has hit our inbox since our last update. There’s new singles from Wytches and Yumi & The Weather, free downloads from Alice Amelia and Prince Vaseline, and a mixtape from Dizraeli and Downlow featuring a new track of theirs.
The Wytches – Robe for Juda
Robe For Juda is the next single from this month’s Source cover stars The Wytches, and is out on the 18th November on Hate Hate Hate records. The Wytches are working hard on tour at the moment supporting Splashh, and as soon as that tour ends they’ll be supporting Metz, playing their hometown on 27th November at the Haunt.
Yumi & The Weather – All We Can
All We Can is the new single from Yumi & The Weather, out a week on monday on XVI records. It’s lush electronic pop with textured beats and subtle harmonies. Lovely stuff. You can hear pre-order the EP and listen to another track over on the XVI records bandcamp page.
Alice Amelia – #1000 Dreams
Alice Amelia is back with another gorgeous piano ballad, available as a free download from Soundcloud. Alice’s next Brighton gig is at Above Audio on 9th November.
Prince Vaseline – Island EP
While we’re waiting for the new Milk & Biscuits album, a couple of the bands members have got together and quietly snuck out an EP. Max and Eleanor’s side project isn’t a million miles away from their other band, but maybe isn’t quite as poppy. Their Island EP is a Name Your Price EP on bandcamp, so take a listen and see what you think.
Disraeli & Downlow – Everyone’s a Winner mixtape
Diszraeli, Brighton conscientious voice of urban poetry, has put out a hip hop mixtape with beats put together regular collaborator Downlow and additional rhymes from Dizraeli. You can download the whole mixtape from Bandcamp, or listen to the new Dizraeli & Downlow track which features in the mix on it’s own on Soundcloud.
Congratulations to Cold Crows Dead, who are the Guardian’s New Band of the Day. I’ll be honest and say that they weren’t on my radar until now, except for reading the name as one of the supports for Electric Soft Parade’s London gig on 23rd October. Neither their Twitter or Facebook profiles mentions that they’re local which is why they’d passed me by. Anyway, their new single I Fear A New World is out on 2nd December (which actually isn’t too far away now) and the band play The Hope on 15th December. Electric Soft Parade described the lead track from their debut EP Ghost That Burned Your House Down as their tune of the year:
Normally we post up our weekend gig picks on a Wednesday, but got a bit distracted this week. So we’ll keep things short and sweet this week and just pick out one for Saturday and one for Sunday. We promise that next week’s post will be bigger than ever.
House of Hats
When the House of Hats started their Harvest Sessions earlier this year, we thought it might have been a little unkind to pull them up on the fact that it wasn’t harvest season. It is now though, and it’s time for this month’s gig, headlined and curated by the band. This Saturday they’re joined at The Brunswick by Swell and Woodland Blue.
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Back in June, The Hundredth Anniversary and Tyrannosaurus Dead appeared on a three-band mini-album called GUTS, alongside London band Gum. GUTS has now grown into a one day festival at the Green Door Store, featuring all three bands and a fair few others from Brighton and London. There’s full details, including set times, over on the Facebook event page.
Here’s our regular round up of the latest Brighton music that we’ve come across, and if we can’t write about that with a blog name like ours, what can we?
Palm Springs – Could You Be Wrong
We took delivery of the 7″ of Could You Be Wrong a few weeks ago, but because of a bit of confusion on our part we put off writing about it until we thought it was out. Only we got the release date wrong. The track is four minutes of solid indie pop, well produced with catchy sha-la-la’s drawing you into the chorus. We liked it enough to put into our September Top Five blog post even though we hadn’t written about the track by then, and that should tell you how good we think it is. Flip Side ‘The Wake Of Us’ with it’s spoken word verses is pretty tasty too.
The Beautiful Word – Eating Me, Eating You
Speaking of tasty things, the video for the Beautiful Word’s new single is literally a food fight. Eating Me, Eating You has come out in advance of the band’s album Particles which hits the shelves in about six weeks time.
GAPS – Belong
At the moment GAPS aren’t putting a foot wrong. After the double A side Keep You / Cascade back in the summer, the duo have put out the more acoustic sounding Belong as a free download. GAPS are on the bill at the Green Door Store next Friday (11th October) supporting Pawws.
Eagles for Hands – Lisbon EP
Eagles for Hands put up their new EP as a free download today (after previously being for sale). We don’t know how long it’s going to be free, so grab it while you can. Head straight for the lead track Lisbon, or the blissed out House of track 4, Peaks.
Momotaro – Reverie
Momotaro’s new track Reverie is also available as a free download, in exchange for signing up to their mailing list. Fans of Momotaro’s r’n’b influenced electronic dub should head down to Above Audio on 16th October, when they headline, or the Green Door Store next Monday, when they support Landshapes
Maker – Hopeless (Champione Remix)
Maker posted up the original version of Hopeless about a year ago, but it’s been given a new electro lease of life by Champione, who impressed us with his Home EP earlier this year. Subtle synth pop has been transformed into effervescent anthemic house.
Theo Verney – Heavy Sunn
Theo Verney’s Heavy Sun EP is out later this month on Hate Hate Hate records, but the lead track is up now for all to hear. Heavy choruses collide with deceptively pop verses. Flip side Count It Up can also be heard over on Hate Hate Hate records’ Soundcloud page.
Natasha Khan & Jon Hopkins – Garden’s Heart
Brian Eno protege Jon Hopkins has provided the score for upcoming film How I Live Now, and has roped in Bat For Lashes for the single that goes with the soundtrack. Garden’s Heart is out on Partlaphone next monday and as well as vocal and writing credits, Natasha Khan also directed the video.
We’ve been away for half of September, so this month we’re just doing a Top Five rather than our normal Top Ten. Any good stuff we like from the last week or two may well make it into next month’s list. Anyway, without further ado:
1) Dog in the Snow – Fire in the Sky
At the top of the pile this month is Helen Ganya Brown’s latest haunting offering, available as a free download through soundcloud, and with a video that just went up online today:
2) Palm Springs – Could You Be Wrong
We’re the ones who’ve got things wrong about the new Palm Springs single. Their label, Random Acts of Vinyl, sent us a copy a few weeks ago and there was a bit of a mix up with release dates and we haven’t got around to doing a write up yet, even though it’s been out for a few weeks. We’ll be giving it a proper write up soon, but in the meantime, let it be known that it’s one of favourite tracks of recent weeks:
3) Luo – Spiral Staircase
Luo keeps churning out great music, which he keeps giving out for free, and was awesome at Sound Screen at the Corn Exchange earlier this month. This is our favourite track from his latest EP Imprints:
4) Momotaro – Embers
We got turned onto to Momotaro care of the new Green Door Store fanzine which has been popping up all around town. They’ve got got a bunch of free downloads up on Soundcloud, and Embers has had a lot of plays at Brighton Music Blog HQ:
5) Nordic Giants – Violent Lights
We only heard Violent Lights less than a week ago, but we’re big fans of Nordic Giants so we couldn’t not include it. The Build Seas EP which it’s taken from is out tomorrow.
Things have been a but quiet on the blog for the last week or so because I’m on holiday and have been off the internet, but the magical combination of an early rise brought on by jet lag, a hotel with wireless, and an exciting new track to tell you about has forced me to break my silence.
Violent Lights is the first track that’s surfaced from the Nordic Giants forthcoming Build Seas Dismantle Suns EP. It features vocals by Alex Hedley from Saturday Sun, who have been on the bill the last couple of times I’ve seen Nordic Giants, so if you were at any if those gigs you’ll have heard his tender, almost falsetto voice which suits the track perfectly.
The track is just what you’d expect from Nordic Giants – an ambient atmospheric beginning that builds to their trademark epic sound, with a breathtaking drop a minute before the end preceding an awesome aural onslaught.
The EP is being released in two parts, with the Build Seas half coming out next week on 1st October. Nordic Giants play a headline show at the Concorde 2 on 30th October.
Flash Bang Band launched their brilliant new album ‘Bite Your Tongue’ at a free gig at the Green Door Store last night. If you haven’t bought it yet, it comes very highly recommended. They were ably supported at the launch … Continue reading →
We’re going to be out of town for a few weeks, so it’ll be a bit quiet on the blog, but before we go, here’s a few gigs that are on while we’re away that we think you ought to be at.
There’s already been one Source New Music this month but since Brighton Digital Festival is on at the moment, a second one is taking place. Headliner Bitbin will be collaborating with visual artists metaLuna. Champion Fever will also be performing a live set alongside DJ sets from Spacenoid, Alphabets Heaven and the Beatabet collective.
A little while back the RSPB put on a charity gig headlined by Mary Hampton. It’s a great way to engage with a Brighton audience who are regular gig goers but whose main interaction with birds is seagulls waking them up at five o clock in the morning. The local contribution at this gig comes from The Bobby McGees, who would be worth going to see even if it wasn’t a charity gig.
Tuesday 1st October – Communion Records Night at the Haunt with Us Baby Bear Bones and George Ezra (and Teen Creeps DJs)
Communion Records are relaunching their club nights and are coming to the Haunt on 1st October. The full line up features live sets from Royal Blood, Fossil Collective, Us Baby Bear Bones, Trouble with Templeton and George Ezra in what promises to be a fantastic night.
Last weekend we met up with Andy Halliday, lead singer and founder of Flash Bang Band to talk about their new album Bite Your Tongue, and the journey they’ve made to get where they are.
We start at the very beginning, and the origins of the name of the band:
“When the band very very first started it was me and a guy called Len. He moved into my flat and we started making music together. We were trying to make electronic music and one day I was playing a guitar song to him, and he suggested working on that, so we did it on the computer, and that was the beginning of the band basically. Me and Len made about twenty tracks that were my songs but produced by him on computer. He cut up all the drums, we found horn sections and stuff, it sounded really cool and then he just decided at the last minute that he didn’t want to be in a working band – he didn’t want to play shit gigs and stuff. During that whole process we had to come up with a band name and we couldn’t come up with anything that was very transparent. Every single name that we came up with seemed to mean something. In the end we went onto Wikipedia and hit the random article button I don’t know how many times and we were both completely exasperated, and then it came up Flash Bang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_bang Originally we called it Flash Bang Project. Our friends told us that it was the shittest name they’ve ever heard in their life, so we called it Flash Bang Band instead, which our friends were happier with”
Starting again Andy reformed things as a four piece. He put an advert up on Gumtree to recruit a drummer and Rodney Roodt, who moved to Brighton to start a band, is still with the group now. George Laycock, friends with Andy since their teenage years growing up in Dorset, was brought in to play trumpet but before long he left to form Nordic Giants. The band went through a number of bassists and other members before bringing in Rob Carmier, settling as a three piece two or three years ago, and it’s around then they found their sound.
We got around to discussing where the name of the album came from:
“Basically we wanted to call the album Welcome to Planet Motherfucker. Our label told us calling it that would be commercial suicide. Eventually we weren’t allowed to call it that. We had lists and lists of alternative titles and our manager and our label were chucking names around, and we were sat down one day outside the Waggon & Horses and said ‘We’re just going to have to bite our tongues about this’ and actually from that point onwards Rodney wanted to call it “Bite Your Tongue and say Wikky Wooey Nacky” or something like that, but that was dreadful. The title’s all about being frustrated”
There’s been two singles from the album so far – If You’re Driving and Screw Come Loose. Originally there was talk of a third single but with delays throughout the process that idea’s been shelved for now. But the band love making videos, so they’re in the process of making a video for every single track from the album with a few ready to go already. Interestingly, album closer Good Excuse is one of those songs from the from those first demos, which has been a live favourite over the years.
The album launch is this Sunday at the Green Door Store, with support from Clowns and P for Persia:
“We’ve been friends with P for Persia for ages. We’ve always tried to do gigs with them, but for one reason or the other it’s never really happened. The funny thing is that we’ve got a gig on Saturday with them in Chichester with them, and that all happened by coincidence. I used to play in Clowns a long time ago – I was the first bass player. Tom White was originally the drummer. I didn’t really know Tom at all and I didn’t know anything about Electric Soft Parade. When I was younger and doing music and stuff I wasn’t into other bands. One way or another I bump into Tom and get into Clowns, which was really Miles and Andy’s band. It was around the time Flash Bang Band was just starting, I didn’t take it that seriously, I was playing in about five different bands, and we went and did a recording session and I remember being clumsy in the session. I had other things going on in my mind. I didn’t see Clowns play until about a year later and I saw Tom on bass!”
The band have built up quite a live reputation over the years, with plenty of experience under their belt. They supported Dananananaykroyd at The Haunt shortly before they split up, giving them the inspiration for the song Dananananafreud. That was their first review by a bigger blog, which the band see as a bit of a turning point for them, making them taking things a bit more seriously. They also did hired out a bus from Brighton & Hove Buses and played a charity gig with The Beautiful Word driving around town, with one band on each floor of the bus.
Once the album launches are out of the way (there’s one in London too) the band are spending October working on new songs before touring around Europe, borrowing a tour van from their old friends the Nordic Giants, going to Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland. Watch out Europe.
Bite Your Tongue is out now on At The Helm Records, and the free launch party is at the Green Door Store on Sunday 15th September.
