New Videos : British Sea Power, Crayola Lectern, Flash Bang Band, Self Help Group

Posted on 23/05/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s four new videos that we’ve come across this week.

First is British Sea Power with a video for Hail Holy Queen. The track isn’t the new single (that’s going to be Loving Animals), but the band made a video for this anyway:

Then we have the beautifully shot Slow Down by Crayola Lectern. We love the album, and Slow Down appeared in our April Top Ten post, so it’s no surpise that we’re giving it another mention.

Next is the new Flash Bang Band single, If You’re Driving. The single is out digitally on 3rd June, and the band next play in Brighton at the Blind Tiger on 9th June at the Root Experience’s Games Fete.

Finally we have the utterly chaming new video from The Self Help Group. The Rapture was filmed around Brighton (see how many locations you can spot!), and is out now on iTunes.

British Sea Power – Machineries of Joy full album stream

Posted on 26/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

I would love to say that we had a stream of the new British Sea Power album on Brighton Music Blog. The bad news is that we don’t have that much clout. The good news is that The Guardian do. Click on this link to hear the new album in full before it’s released next Monday!

New videos!

Posted on 24/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

It’s been a while since we’ve done a round up of some of the latest videos we’ve spotted, so here’s a few to watch on this chilly Sunday night.

First up is Nimmo and the Gauntletts new single Change. The video was directed by Agyness Deyn, more well known for being in front of the camera than behind it. Agyness played the track on 6Music, and the band tweeted her asking her to appear their next video. She went one better and directed the video for them!

Then we have The Beautiful Word, who’ve just headed out on tour. They’re playing Brighton on Thursday night at The Hope. This is the animated video for their track May Not Be Love, which will be on their album Particles which is coming out later this year.

Here’s the video for Debbie Does Drugs by The Bobby McGees. This is one of the tracks from their upcoming album Je Vien Rechcher Mes, and is an opportunity to see Jimmy McGee without his trademark beard!

Next up Monsters Build Mean Robots with the video for their new track A Town Called Tourettes:

Professor Elemental‘s new single is called This is My Horse (show me yours). You can buy it over on his bandcamp page, and watch the video here:

British Sea Power‘s new album Machineries of Joy is out a week tomorrow (1st April). Before that they’re playing a sold out show at the Old Market, and have released a video for the title track:

Finally, here’s a video from the Nordic Giants gig at the Pavilion Theatre last month. This is Glass Skinned Girl, which is the b-side to the band’s new single Speed The Crow’s nest. Nordic Giants are playing up in London next month, and there’s still one or two tickets for the early show (which you can buy here).

Record Store Day 2013

Posted on 24/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Records Store Day is less than a month away, and this week the list of exclusive records available was announced. There are six shops taking part in Record Store Day on April 20th – Resident, Borderline, Rarekind, Cult Hero, One Stop Records and RK Bass – each of whom will be getting a selection of this year’s releases in. The bigger shops will have more stock, but they’ll also have bigger queues.

We’ve spotted a few Brighton bands amongst the exclusives. So far we’ve seen from Bat For Lashes (a 7″ with different versions of Laura an Marilyn), British Sea Power (The Facts are Right on 7″), and Curxes (who remix Chvrches ‘Recover’), but the list isn’t final yet – There’ll be even more bands added over the next three weeks.

New British Sea Power album – Machineries of Joy

Posted on 30/01/2013 by brightonmusicblog

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?

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar / Day 25 / Thomas White – Electric Soft Parade – Restlesslist – British Sea Power – Milk & Biscuits – Foxes! – Do You Feel What I Feel Deer? – Fragile Creatures – Clowns

Posted on 25/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Merry Christmas! We’ve gone overboard today, hit the sherry too hard too soon, and crammed Nine bands into our final advent calendar post. The truth is, you can’t talk about one of of these bands without inevitably mentioning some of the others.

Let’s start with Thomas White, who released Yalla back in March. It was originally just a bunch of tunes he recorded for himself when he was bored and restless on holiday, which he was persuaded to release after he shared them with some of his friends, and is one of the finest collections of tunes that we’ve heard all year. Album closer The English Sargasso is a soporific masterpiece. We didn’t do an end of year list in 2011 because the blog had only been running a matter of weeks but to make make up for it we’ll make a mention of the Electric Soft Parade‘s “A Quick One” EP now. Lead track Lily is the kind of melodic guitar pop that most indie bands would sell their grandmother to be able to write. 2012 marked the tenth anniversary of Electric Soft Parade’s debut Holes in the Wall and the White brothers celebrated by playing the album start to finish at The Haunt, and returning to the studio to start work on their first album for five years.

Thomas White was also listed as a member of Restlesslist in the sleeve notes to their fantastic album Coral Island Girl, although he’s no longer part of their live setup. Before this year I’d heard the name but not the music so was quite looking forward to their performance at Sea Monsters. I wasn’t prepared to see so many people onstage. I wasn’t prepared for so many genres crammed into so many songs. I wasn’t expecting it to be narrated, or for that matter for the narrator to be wearing an eye patch. Most of all, I didn’t expect to enjoy it nearly as much as I did. Musically it was fantastic, but it wasn’t taking itself seriously at all. Where Thomas White earns his prime place in our Advent Calendar by doing things so much better and more effortlessly than anyone else, Restlesslist earn their place by being completely peerless.

While Thomas’ other band Brakes were taking a bit of an, erm, break in 2012, Eamon Hamilton made a return to his old band British Sea Power at one of their Krankenhaus concerts at The Haunt. Krankenhaus was more than just a concert though – The bands on the bill were more varied than you would expect, and played for longer. There were DJs inbetween the bands making for non stop entertainment. There was non-musical entertainment in the form of a ping pong table upstairs. At the one I attended, there was a stage invasion by a giant bear and a choc ice give-away! As well as their Krankenhaus gigs, British Sea Power also played at the Duke of York’s, providing a live soundtrack to a film made up of old archive footage called From The Sea To The Land Beyond.

Milk & Biscuits share a number of their members with Restlesslist, and have rightly had praised heaped upon them for their single White Noise, and their mini-LP Balcony times, which came out at the end of 2011, is worth a listen. It features the vocal talents of Jennifer Left (who we wrote about back on 14th), and Kayla Bell of Foxes! who also released an eponymous album of top indie pop earlier this year. Eleanor Whittle and Rachel Dey – who provide vocals in Restlesslist and Milk & Biscuits and have sung backing vocals for Thomas White at some of his Yalla gigs – make up Do you Feel What I Feel Deer?, and have given us a taste of their wonky folk with their lush Save My Heart single. Adam Kidd has also sung backing vocals for Thomas White and his own band Fragile Creatures put out a grower of a track called Dear Michael. The tables were turned a week ago when Thomas White provided support at their Christmas gig at the Prince Albert. The final mention goes to Clowns, a band that Thomas White played bass with for a while before admitting that he was too busy. Every time we’ve seen them live this year (at a couple of Bleeding Hearts Clubs – did we mention that it was Bleeding Hearts who put Yalla out? – and more recently at December’s Source New Music night) they’ve got better and better.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was dozen other related bands. Here’s to finding out all about them in 2013!

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 12/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

So, we’ve got a veritable bonanza of weekend gigs for you this week. Last week I was musing that maybe things that might get a bit quieter in the run up to Christmas – how wrong I was.

Holy Vessels Let’s start this with Thursday – it is the start of the weekend after all. We’ll be heading down to the Concorde 2 to see Saint Etienne (with support from Scritti Politti – what a line up, eh?). Also on thursday night there’s Mr B‘s Chap Hop Christmas Ball at the Prince Albert. Holy Vessels play their album launch at the Blind Tiger, with support from Soccer96, Autumn Red, The Common Tongues and Songs For Walter. Last Orders at the Marshall Arms is out now and available from iTunes. Paul Diello plays his annual Christmas party at the Brunswick, and Alice Amelia plays the Constant Service.

Noise Night On Friday British Sea Power return with a special Christmas Krankenhaus at The Haunt. Our friends over at Brighton Noise are putting on their second night at the Green Door Store. They were turning people away from first one, so get their early to see Traams, Bitches and the fantastic Negative Pegasus. Transformer are launching their single Dragonfly at the Blind Tiger. Check out the Facebook event for more details and a look at the video. The last gig on our radar on friday is at the Coach House in Kemptown (not the pub on Middle Street), where Crayola Lectern headlines a “veritable melange of auditory delights”.

binge2poster On Saturday The Impellers hold their Office Christmas Party at The Brunswick, which is cheap to get into if you’ve got a ticket for Craig Charles later that night. If you’d like to start things a bit earlier on in the day, Beatabet kick things off at 1pm. They’ve got twelve bands playing at their Betabet Binge – P for Persia, Spacenoid, Napoleon III, Colectress, Speak Galactic, Laboratoro, Old Man Diode, Scalar Fields, Duot, Operator, Temple Decade and Burnt Toast. Phew!

art noise If you’ve still got any energy left come Sunday, then our top pick is Cate Ferris at The Neptune. There’s also an art event at the Blind Tiger called Wonderland, where Amongst The Pigeons, Them The Sky, Tiny Dragons, and the Elevators and Ribbon play in the evening. In yet another night in town with an above average number of bands on the bill, there’s also Club Criminal at Sticky Mike’s, starting from 5pm, with Trip to Dover, The Flip Flays, The Kut, Thieves by the Code, The Trophy Hearts, Childbrain and King Mews.

British Sea Power / From The Sea to the Land Beyond

Posted on 18/11/2012 by brightonmusicblog

If you missed British Sea Power at the Duke of Yorks on Friday Night providing a live soundtrack to From The Sea to the Land Beyond then fear not, because the film itself is being shown on BBC4 at 9pm tonight (Sunday 19th November), and also on Wednesday at 00:00 (which is actually late on tuesday night).

From the Sea to the Land Beyond is a film about the British coast made from 100 years of our film heritage stored in the British Film Institute collection, edited by Penny Woolcock with a soundtrack by British Sea Power.

I didn’t make it down on Friday, and haven’t seen the film yet, but with a title like that, the soundtrack just has to include British Sea Power’s track To The Land Beyond:

http://www.landbeyond.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/FromTheSeaToTheLandBeyond

Weekend gig picks

Posted on 15/11/2012 by brightonmusicblog

We thought it would be worth posting up a few of this weekend’s gigs, since there’s so many great ones going on (and so many that we won’t be able to get to, but want to make sure you know about them). Tonight, Restlesslist play a set at the Prince Albert of their first new stuff that they’ve put together since the brilliant Coral Island Girl which they’ve been playing all yeat. Over the road at the Green Door Store, Ninja Tune’s Grasscut are playing a homecoming gig, and out in Hanover, The Bobby McGees are bound to entertain at the Horse & Groom. Meanwhile, The Resonators will be playing tracks from their new album The Constant at the Blind Tiger.

Tomorrow, our friends over at Some Of It Is True are hosting Bellman at the Palmeira, and Flash Bang Band are supporting. Cupboard Music are hosting a night called Hey! Fever at the Green Door Store, with Speak Galactic and Soft Arrows on the bill, and British Sea Power are playing a live soundtrack to a new film called From The Sea To The Land Beyond at Duke of Yorks.

Then on Saturday, Catherine Ireton plays her final Treasure Tracks 4 in association with Source New Music. Who knows exactly where that’s going to be! Our final pick of the weekend is Anneka who’s supporting Plaid at the Concorde 2.

Here’s to a great weekend of live music!

Krankenhaus 2

Posted on 04/02/2012 by brightonmusicblog

I missed the first of British Sea Power’s Krankenhaus nights at The Haunt, but I heard lots of good things about it. I’d heard it was a little less conventional than most night gigs, but nothing I’d heard quite prepared me for last night.

We didn’t get to the gig until about half past nine, and by that point we’d already missed BBC6’s Shaun Keaveny on stage with Brighton & Hove City Brass, so when we arrived and Cardiff’s Race Horses were on stage we didn’t suspect too much. Sure, a bit more effort had been made with decor compared to most bands, but that fitted with what we’d heard.

It was a bit busy downstairs, so he headed to the upstairs bar, which was where we found the ping pong. You read that right – there table tennis being played by drunk people upstairs while the band were onstage.

Shortly after The Race Horses left the stage, a lean, stripped down British Sea Power came on, and rattled through a set of epic pop just with guitar, bass and drums. The crowd surged, with one or two people having to be pulled to safety – the balcony was a sensible viewing choice. When they were joined by Brighton & Hove City Brass for Waving Flags (with each member being introduced separately), the stage looked incredibly cramped, but that didn’t dampen the atmosphere. A sprained ankle amongst our party meant we retreated from the crush to the bar, missing out on a life size bear onstage, from what I’ve seen and read on twitter. It was a surreal and wonderful experience.

British Sea Power

But things hadn’t got to their most surreal just yet. BSP left the stage, and choc ices started getting handed out around the crowd. The ping pong table, which up to now had involved people playing singles or doubles, was encouraged to play in a round, with twenty drunk people hitting the ball then making way for the next player in the round. Sean Keaveny DJed for a bit, which was a welcome link with normality. The normality was broken quite quickly though, when the final support came on stage – a Japanese Queen covers band called Queer. The singing wasn’t up to much, but the guitarist was a proper Japanese version of Brian May, right down to the tight perm. It was uncanny.

Queer

If you haven’t made it down to one of British Sea Power’s nights as yet, make a note in your diaries for the first Friday of the month (there’s another four nights between now and June), because they really are a treat. The music is amazing enough, but the atmosphere in the crowd, and the extra touches make it an essential night.