Back in April The Moulettes had their single launch at The Marlborough. Two months on, it’s about time they actually released it. Held back by a combination of trying to tie things in with their multitude of festival appearances, and pressing plant delays caused by bank holidays, Sing Unto Me finally hits the shops next monday.
Sing Unto Me is the lead single from the Moulettes new album The Bear’s Revenge. In a bit of a departure from most of their tracks, lead singer Hannah Miller takes on guitar rather than ‘cello duties, but the overall sound is very familiar – tight female harmonies sung in the round, and a folk rhythm section made up of guitar, fiddle, bodhran, and any other bits of percussion that come to hand as well as double bass from Ted Dwane from Mumford and Sons.
Being the generous sorts they are, the single comes with a bumper six tracks – as well as a single edit, there’s a remix, a cover by fellow Brightonians The Muel, and a handful of b-sides including live favourite Are You Going Away To Sea, which is probably the track that made me fall in love with them in the first place.
The band are going to have a very busy summer. If you happen to be at any of the following festivals, I heartily recommend you go and see them:
07/06 Irish Cultural Centre, Derry, Northern Ireland
08/06 Marlboro House, Bundoran, Donegal
09/06 ‘Gentlemen Of The Road’ Salthill Pk Galway – w/Mumford & Sons
10/06 The Slate, Cork – on at 5.30pm, *before* the football!
06/07 Nova Festival
21/7 Secret Garden Party – Three gigs in one day! 5pm @ Onetaste, 8-ish @ Small World, 11.30pm-ish @ Cut-A-Shine
It was a British Bank Holiday, therefore it must be raining. It seems to be raining nearly every time I go to the Haunt. But last night it was definitely worth braving the weather, as new-in-town promoters TEA put on Com Truise with support from Anneka, who’s a local artist who we haven’t written about on the blog yet.
Com Truise
Com Truise was fantastic, filling the room with big crunchy beats. But Seth Haley, as his mum calls him, isn’t a Brightonian so let’s devote the rest of this blog post to the support. There’s a chance you may have heard of Anneka already – She’s collaborated with the likes of Falty DL, Starkey, Ital Tek, Vex’d and Blue Daisy on records that have been all over BBC 6Music, Radio 1 and XFM, and now she’s starting to perform on her own.
So many solo female electronic artists get compared to Bjork, and often it’s a very lazy comparison on the journalists part and one that doesn’t tell you a great deal about the artist either, so let’s refine it a bit and then justify it: Anneka’s music sounds like Bjork’s around Post / Homogenic – Music that would sound as good on the dancefloor as it would on the radio, or through headphones. The sound is heavy on the bass, but the rest of the musical spectrum isn’t ignored, nor are melodies or song structures. Vocally, Anneka isn’t so much like Bjork – she doesn’t attempt the vocal acrobatics or growls – but her voice does have strength, warmth and character.
Anneka
In a live environment Anneka didn’t just hide behind her computer and augmented the those sounds with live vocals, extra keys and percussion making for a far more interesting experience, and the sound setup in The Haunt deserves a mention for sounding so good – loud but without being overbearing. In her short twenty minute set as well as half a dozen of her own tunes Anneka also covered PJ Harvey’s Electric Light, using the original as a base, transforming PJ’s simple mantra into something epic:
Anneka is definitely an act to watch out for. Go and see her somewhere with great sound sooner rather than later because before long, if there’s any justice, she’ll be too big for anywhere in Brighton.
Brighton Music Blog regulars will know by now that we’re big fans of the Bleeding Hearts Club, Brighton’s first-Monday-of-the-month regular source of below-the-radar excellent new music. Yesterday was the June edition, and being a bank holiday, Chris decided to start an hour earlier and turn the night into a Jubilee-concert-alternative union-jack-free mini-festival featuring six (count ’em, six!) acts, with headliners Junior Electronics.
I missed the opening act unfortunately, the early start being challenged by the grumble in my stomach, but got there in time to hear Danny Kendall singing his heart out. Danny was formerly of legendary Brighton band La Frange.
La Frange always wore their francophilism on their stripey t-shirt’s sleeves. Danny was followed by a visitor from the real France, Polyanna (not the Aussie rock band!) who was playing solo, stopping off at the BHC as part of a small UK tour. Isabelle Cassier (for it is she) has a beautiful voice and sings her songs in English, songs about old rockers and working in a factory and other things and was generally lovely.
Next up was local legend and (as one music magazine recently put it) “national treasure” Mary Hampton. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Mary play live, then you’ve been seriously missing out. This time, she had just a short set of three songs, one of which was a long acapella folk story song and the last of which the gorgeous Honey in the Rock from her beautiful album Folly was worth the entry price alone. One day I live in hope of Mary playing a two hour Springsteen-length set, but for now anything will do.
Penultimate act was the Celloist-singer (and former guitarist in James and Sharkboy…) Adrian Oxaal who played the BHC only recently but made a welcome return. His two John Martyn covers were spellbinding, the combination of Adrian’s deep hesitant vocal and his melancholic cello combining beautifully. He also played two of his own songs which were also fine moving numbers. Rarely seen live these days, it’s marvellous that the BHC provides opportunities like these.
Finally, the headliners Junior Electronics came on stage and gave me a WTF moment, as strange electronic rhythms started nervously blurting out from a Moog synthesiser. Not what we have come to expect from our Bleeding Hearts. But gradually the songs started to take shape and the sound settled down into an interesting shape, and this listener began to ‘get it’. The final song was a joy, sounding as much like 60s sunshine pop as murky space-rock.
Junior Electronics are the brainchild of Joe Watson, his solo project when not playing keyboards for Stereolab and featured Mary Hampton again (playing a brightly coloured toy electric piano and occasional vocals). They have two albums out which are worth checking if you like post-rock electro-pop.
And finally – here’s compere Chris Davies saying good night, until next month’s Bleeding Hearts Club.
It’s not often you get to see a band’s debut gig. But then it’s not often that a band doesn’t play their debut gig until after their second album is released, as Time & Space Machine did last night. Time and Space Machine is Richard Norris’ band based project – a twin brother to Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve, his psychedelic remix / re-edits project with Erol Alkan. The records are mostly Richard’s own work (with a little help on drums), but for their debut gig, they’d grown to a five piece.
Richard Norris / Time and Space Machine
If you haven’t heard the new album Taste The Lazer, it’s mostly psychedelia, with a bit of krautrock and garage thrown into the mix. Live they gave the impression of being the band Oasis could have been – if only they’d taken LSD rather than cocaine and listened to the Beatles later albums rather than stopping somewhere around Rubber Soul – or maybe they were a bit like current music industry darlings Toy if their record collection wasn’t just experimental German records from the early seventies. While it’s mostly instrumental, there is a smattering of vocals across their work. In Richard’s own words “sometimes it sounds like Crosby, Stills & Nash, sometimes it sounds like we’ve just come back from the pub”. According to people I was with, things might have sounded a bit better if they’d had decent vocal monitors onstage.
But you don’t go and see Time and Space Machine for the vocals – it’s all about the amazing accompanying visuals, the swirling hammond, the really tight drumming and the great musicianship that never strays into showing off. The band left the stage after an hour that went far too quick and didn’t come back for an encore, leaving us wanting more. Hopefully it won’t be long before they’re back.
Legendary Brighton rock band Celebricidereturned to the stage for a one-off gig, six years after they went into hibernation following the release of their debut album and effectively disappeared from the scene. A real shame, as on Thursday night’s showing they are still amazing and hopefully this won’t be the only time we see them.
Lead singer Tim Leopard started the evening in dark shades that made me think of Andrew Eldritch and Sisters of Mercy, but musically the band had a lighter touch and more variety. Dave Hughes on keyboards and Steve Barber on guitar were constantly inventive, the shadowy presence of Chris Anderson (now Crayola Lectern) on bass and the powerhouse of Emily Powell on drums never let up the rhythm.
Fly magazine called them “Elegant psychopaths… a lethal cocktail of Pulp, Roxy Music and The Fall. With literary lyrics about blackmail, contract killings and ruined lives…” Well, yes there’s an oddness and an aggression which is full on and confrontational but their new wave gothic rock belies a humour and self-depreciation which is also endearing.
Support came from Clowns. If you haven’t seen this Brighton band yet then you really ought to – they produce a really tight full-on garage-rock sound, and in Miles Heathfield (ex-Poppycocks) have a lead singer prone to prowl the stage and terrify audiences. Although tonight they omitted the Clown costumes that would occasionally appear at early gigs and even neglected to play their anthemic ‘She Says I’m A Clown’, they were really quite brilliant with an unrelenting driving snarling rhythm and beat from start to finish.
Their single is out on one of this blog’s favourite Brighton labels ‘Bleeding Hearts Recordings‘ and is well worth seeking out.
Last week, I mentioned that the new Jennifer Left single was due soon. The physical copies drop next monday, but for those of you living in the twenty first century who don’t want to be burdened with cds cluttering up your house, the digital version is out today.
Jennifer Left – Black Dog
Black Dog has been all over BBC 6Music and Radio 2, and rightly so. The song is fresh off-beat pop which is a great showcase for Jennifer’s almost jazzy vocals. Best of all, it has whistling. There’s not nearly enough of that these days. It’s backed with the title track of her forthcoming album Hushabye (which has more whistling, mandolins and some rather lush strings) as well as remixes from The Wild Knights (wobbly, glitchy house), Murder He Wrote (all stripped back and minimal) and Restlesslist (with added bleeps, surf guitar and reverb turned up to eleven on the vocals).
The video isn’t online yet, but here’s a version of Jennifer and her band playing the track for Balcony TV last year:
You can download the single on iTunes, or from her bandcamp site which also has an option to pre-order the physical release where you get the download right now.
If you’re wondering about the amazing brown paper dress in the promo shots, read more about it on the Create Studios blog.
Update : I’ve seen that someone has googled the blog looking for Jennifer Left’s label. The single is being released on Singing Hinny Music, with catalogue number SH001CD
When I first wrote about Kidda, when he played at the Juice New Music Night back in December, I wrote ” there’s going to come a day in spring when the sun’s out, the skies are blue and the world is just coming back to life when one of his tunes comes on the radio and it’ll be just perfect”. I just checked the weather forecast for this week and the sun’s out every day. And a few days ago, I got a heads up about the new Kidda single. And guess what – it’s the perfect tune for right now.
Get Close is the sound of Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx and The Avalanches having a party with Junior Senior banging on the door to get in. Remixes come from JeKO and The Sneekers, and it came out on Brighton’s own Skint Records yesterday.
Music’s always been a big deal for me. One of my earliest memories is looking at the cover of my mum’s copy of Sergeant Pepper, slightly baffled by all of the characters on it. Growing up, I always had my walkman with me along with an extra pair of batteries in my pocket just so that I was never left stranded in silence. When I was old enough to have a bit of spare cash, I’d cycle to the record shops of Croydon and Epsom doing my best to fill the gaps in my ever increasing New Order 12″ collection. At uni I got involved with student radio, and then when I went and got a job, Monday lunchtimes would draw to close with a game of “Who?” – the inevitable reaction from my older colleagues as I went through the brand new releases I had gone and bought as early as I possibly could – 7″s by Kenickie, Bis or Comet Gain, Stereolab albums on coloured vinyl, the latest cds on Heavenly or Warp Records. Throughout my twenties, my summer holidays were festivals. Over the years I built up a soundtrack to my life – tunes which can instantly bring back memories of blue skies or broken hearts. So, music is important – If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this, and you wouldn’t be reading it. It’s especially important to Saint Etienne. They’ve been making records for over twenty years now, during which time they’ve also turned their hand to music journalism, DJing, running record labels, writing songs for other people, film-making … You name it, they’ve done it in the music industry, which is how they’ve ended up at the point where Words & Music is the natural album for them to make. Opening track Over The Border will send shivers down the spine for anyone music really matters to, lyrically encapsulating exactly how it feels for music to grow up with you.
The very first thing I read about the album was a comment from someone on Twitter saying that Saint Etienne had made a pop record. Of course it was pop, I thought – they’re a pop band, after all. The gist of next comment I read was that they’d made the record with Xenomania, and it showed. That didn’t concern me either. The lead single, Tonight, reminded me of Action, which the band released ten years ago, and my girlfriend said that reminded it her of He’s on the Phone, from all the way back in 1995. The perception from some quarters seems to be that Saint Etienne should only be allowed to make retro pop, but the truth is that they’ve always had a bit of disco in them – They even worked with Kylie on a version of Nothing Can Stop Us.
While some of the tracks have been sprinkled with a bit of pop magic from Richard X and other Xenomania alumni Nick Coler and Tim Powell, old hand Ian Catt who’s been involved with the production of Saint Etienne records since day one is also on board. Outside of the disco pop of the potential singles, the pastoral folk of I Threw It All Away could be a Vashti Bunyan cover, and the acapella of Record Doctor harks back to Goodnight which closed Tales From Turnpike House seven years ago.
For me, the most interesting tracks are those that hark back to classic St Et but that are informed by all of the new lessons they’ve learned from their new chartbusting friends. Last Days of Disco has radio friendly electric piano verses, but two minutes in has a great breakdown which brings in some shamelessly synth strings. Popular, one of the more upbeat tracks on the album, does some fancy things time stretching vocals. Still Saint Etienne, but still moving forwards, which for a band so far into their career is no mean feat.
While it’s been a good few years since the last Saint Etienne album, the band have been busy being Artists-in-Residence at Royal Festival Hall, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their seminal debut Foxbase Alpha by playing the album live in it’s entirety and having it remixed by Richard X, reissuing remastered versions of the rest of their back catalogue, remixing a new generation of bands and quietly sneaking out a Christmas album. Here’s hoping there aren’t so many distractions for the band between now and the next album.
Words and Music by Saint Etienne is released on Universal Records on 21st May 2012. And if you’re wondering why I’m writing about Saint Etienne who are so associated with London on Brighton Music Blog, read my interview with Pete Wiggs here.
Updated! Some of the line ups have changed, and some have been improved upon, so I thought I’d update this post and bump it up to the top again.
May is a busy month in every Brightonian’s calendar, with the Festival, the Fringe, and the Great Escape all happening on top of everything else that normally happens. Source New Music are embracing this wholeheartedly, and instead of putting on one gig this month, they’re putting on loads! Instead of their usual home of the Pavilion Theatre, they’re residing in the Dome bar for the next few weeks, with gigs at lunchtimes and in the evenings every weekend throughout May. Things kicked off today with Fragile Creatures. The age range was a bit lower than their usual gigs – they had an appreciative crowd of toddlers dancing throughout their set! The full list of acts playing is below:
Fragile Creatures playing in the Dome bar for Source New Music
Sat 5 May
12:30pm Fragile Creatures
22:00 – 00:00 Wyndham Earl
Sun 6 May
Live music from 12:30 onwards with…
Kate Rose
Early Ghost
21:30 – 00:00 – African Night Fever DJ’s
Thu 17 May
8.30pm – midnight
Beatabet Collective: Scalar Fields + Tim Didymus. DJ Jules Arthur
Fri 18 May
9.30pm – midnight
Beatabet Collective: AK/DK + Bunty. DJ Jo Brahmli.
Sat 19 May
2pm – 4.30pm:
A showcase of the best local young talent including music collective Shoreham Allstars + The Basis + The Sighted and the Captured.
9.30pm – midnight:
DJ Hot Tip Hi Fi
Sun 20 May
12.30pm – 4.30pm
Live music from The Woo!worths + Sweet Sweet Lies + Monsters Build Mean Robots + Jennifer Left.
Thu 24 May
9.30pm – midnight
Beatabet Collective: O82. + “iphone Orchestra”. DJ AK/DK
Fri 25 May
9.30pm – midnight
Beatabet Collective: Bunty + AK/DK. DJ: Man Ray Sky
Sat 26 May
12.30pm – 4.30pm
Blues with Dave Beckett
9.30pm – midnight
DJ Sam Abrahams
Sun 27 May
12.30pm – 4.30pm
Jacko Hooper + Caitlin Stubbs + Abi Wade + Forestears.
So, while not strictly music based (although there is an event at the Concorde at the end of the evening), I thought I’d put up a quick mention of Beach of the Dead. They’ve been a victim of their own success and the event has grown massively in just a few years. In some ways, this is a good thing, but this also means more official stewards, more insurance, and more general stuff which costs money. Up until now, it’s all been done on a voluntary basis, but now they’re having to hold out their zombie begging bowl to ask for a bit of money. Personally, I think it’s a fantastic thing to have in Brighton, and October’s calendar would seem empty if it was lost (especially since White Night has also gone because of lack of funding). Chuck in a quid or two, if you can afford it here
Brighton Music Blog 