New Music

Posted on 06/08/2014 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s our first new music post of August. There’s doesn’t seem as many gigs around at the moment, but that hasn’t translated in and slowing down of the new music we get to write about.

First up is Curxes with their new single Valkyrie. Valkyrie has been a staple of the band’s live sets for a while, and they first mentioned the track to us in an interview we did with them back in February last year where they described it as “probably the most batshit thing we’ve done so far”. You can’t argue with that. The single comes with remix from Deluxe Flamingos and an instrumental, and is out on 18th August, available for preorder here.

The mysterious Black Honey have put out a second track. Teenager has a faster tempo than last month’s Sleep Forever, but is still drenched with reverb heavy guitars and a vocal Lana Del Rey would be proud of.

We went along to the launch of the new Slum of Legs single at Sticky Mike’s a couple of weeks back, but at the time Begin to Dissolve hadn’t been posted online. You can listen and buy it now though, via Tuff Enuff Records, the record label offshoot of Riots Not Diets. The single is an anarchic lo-fi romp which takes no prisoners, which for the sake of clarification, is a good thing in our book.

Lick Music, the musical offshoot of the people who make the fantastic frozen yoghurt have put out some tasters, but not of the dairy product variety. Following on from the Milk & Biscuits tape put out earlier this year, Lick are putting out another cassette on August 25th, this time by Octopuses. Once again it’s a four-tracker, with two studio tracks on side A and two live tracks on side B. Lead Track Cool Story Bro is set to appear on Octopuses debut album Yes Please due later this year.

RiD are a new band who’ve just put out their first EP. The EP is entitled Move Juice and the title track is called Smile:

Japanese Sweets, the ambient side project from Speak Galactic’s Owen Thomas, have put up two new tracks on Soundcloud. Our favourite is the effervescent Brief Luminescence:

Rather more gentle is Sallow Tree, the new track from Lutine. It’s being released as a single on 25th August, and precede’s the folk duo’s debut album White Flowers which comes out at the end of September.

Native sons email with their debut track Humanise in the middle of the heatwave a couple of weeks back, so it almost got lost as we stayed away from our overheating PC in an attempt to try and stay cool. Here it is now though, with it’s melodic tropical guitars and anthemic choruses.

Our last new music roundup featured an IYES remix, and here we are only a week later with another. This time it’s their slow-mo take on Indiana‘s Heart on Fire:

April Top Ten

Posted on 04/05/2014 by brightonmusicblog

April was another great month for Brighton music with some fantastic albums being released as well as some lovely one offs for Record Store Day. May’s already shaping up nicely too but until then, here are our favourite tracks from last month:

1. Eagles for Hands – Handprints

Handprints is the sound of the party starting – lots of cowbell, housey piano and uplifting vocals. Eagles for hands are top of our list of bands to catch at the Great Escape next week – they’re at Coalition on Saturday night at 2.30am, and also at KLDSCP’s party alongside Caveman Genius and Foreign Skin and a whole host of other acts.

2. Fujiya & Miyagi – Flaws

Fujiya & Miyagi’s new album Artificial Sweeteners is out on Monday, although if you get down to Resident today they’re already selling signed copies. Flaws is the first single and is a great indicator of what to expect from the rest of the record – classic Fujiya & Miyagi with more electronics thrown into the mix. There’s still a few tickets left for their gig at the Haunt on 6th June but it will sell out, so I’d get a ticket sooner rather than later.

3. Fear of Men – Luna

Luna is the first single from Fear of Men’s brilliant new album Loom. If we didn’t love the track (which we do), it might have warranted a place in our top ten just on the basis of the utterly beautiful packaging – a fanzine written by the band and a clear flexidisc (along with download codes).

4. AK/DK – Maxwell’s Waves

AK/DK’s new album Synth + Drums + Noise + Space was one of our highlights this month. The lead track is the bleepy Maxwell’s Waves, and electronic krautrock rush. AK/DK are the support at Fujiya & Miyagi’s gig at The Haunt that we mentioned earlier.

5. Curxes – Jaws

In April, Curxes put out Precurxor – a roundup of of old tracks and demos to keep our interest while they get on with the business of recording their proper debut album. It’s definitely working for us. Our highlight is Jaws, which captures the urgency and power of their live shows.

6. Winston & Goldstein – Ode to a Massive Obsession

When we heard that Jacqueline from Kins had a new project, we didn’t envisage Winston & Goldstein, whose main influence seems to be mid-nineties alternative dance music from what we’ve heard so far. There’s a heavy hint of Leftfield in Ode to a Massive Obsession, which can only be a good thing in our book. Oh, and the video is all kinds of brilliant too.

7. Blood Red Shoes – Speech Coma

Speech Coma is the new Blood Red Shoes single. The the chorus goes “I can’t get the words out / I can’t get the words out / It’s like someone cut out my tongue”. And so does the video. Quite literally. Not for the faint hearted.

8. Cate Ferris – Gotta Do Better

We haven’t got a media link for Gotta Do Better, the latest offering from Cate Ferris. The only way to hear it is to sign up to her page on PledgeMusic, where she’s currently raising money for her new EP.

9. Cleff – Restart

Restart is on Cleff’s new Listen In EP, a lovely blend of electronic and classical music. We posted open the EP’s opening track Big Ideas earlier this month, but it was Restart which got under our skin.

10. Fickle Friends – Play

Fickle Friends have got a real knack for a catchy pop song. We loved Swim earlier this year, and they’ve done it again with Play. Fickle Friends are another band who are on our list for the Great Escape, playing at the Green Door Store on Saturday night, and at the Mesmerist on Saturday afternoon.

Curxes – Precurxor

Posted on 03/04/2014 by brightonmusicblog

Last week Curxes made a few announcements about some new and old material. On the new material front they have a new single due to land next month, with videos and remixes promised. They’ve also indicated that they have a whole album’s worth of material written and that they’ve also started work on more new songs.

Slightly more concrete was the news about their older material. On April 10^th the band are releasing a 7 track mini-album featuring their early singles plus some unreleased demos from 2010-2011. Precurxor will be offered as a digital download or a limited edition cd via their bandcamp and preorders will be able to download two of the tracks from the mini-album immediately.

December / January Top Ten

Posted on 02/02/2014 by brightonmusicblog

With December being a quiet month for new music and with us being a bit busy with our end of year round up, we thought it would be an idea to combine the new music we heard December and January for our Top Ten this time around.

1 Fickle Friends / Swim

In the middle of winter, Swim was exactly what we needed to hear to be reminded that it won’t always be cold and grey.

2 IYES / Crazy in Love

Beyonce released a new album, so IYES shared their cover of her most popular tune with us.

3 GAPS / I Know It’s You

GAPS second single I Know It’s You came out in early December but it’s been on heavy rotation since then round these parts, along with its B-side Inside Your Head, getting a bit more interest thanks to the fantastic Foreign Skin remix.

4 Curxes / Avant Guarded

Avant Guarded is another of December’s single releases, which came easy listening YouTube teasers, drums which could be used as sonic weaponry and a video featuring the band wearing budgerigar heads. Obviously.

5 Do You Feel What I Feel Deer / Golden Future

Do You Feel What I Feel Deer quietly split up midway through 2013, then snuck out their gorgeous album Beat Glorious Heart before Christmas when they thought people weren’t looking. By then it was too late to appear in our end of year round up, but it would have done if we’d heard it sooner. It’s difficult to pick out one track, because the whole record is lush, but we’ve put up album closer Golden Future to listen to here.

6 Ital Tek / Golden

By the time we had blogged about Ital Tek’s free Christmas giveaway Golden a few weeks ago it had already reached its download limit. Thankfully for everyone who missed it, it’s been reuploaded, so go and grab it while you can!

7 Calico / Nightowl

Calico put out their first single Night Owl right at the end of November, after we’d put together our November top ten list. We haven’t enjoyed anything this cinematic and funky since David Holmes’ soundtrack stuff.

8 Kins / Opsimplistic

We wrote about Kins single Aimless and went to the launch party at The Hope back in November last year, but what we didn’t spot at the time was that the track – and a brand new B-side Opsimplistic – had been uploaded to Soundcloud. The B-side is just as good as anything on the album and definitely deserves a bit more exposure.

9 Thomas White / Go Your Own Way

Last year Electric Soft Parade’s Thomas White covered the whole of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Alex White covered Steely Dan’s Katy Lied. They’re both very good indeed.

10 Gudjohr / I Built A Home

Some sunny guitar pop to round off our top ten, which we only got hold of last week.

Brighton Bands Christmas Music Roundup

Posted on 23/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We’ve got a seasonal round up for you this week, with festive tunes put out by local artists, some modern takes on traditional tunes, some new compositions. Hopefully this will get you all in the festive spirit:

Catherine Ireton – Christmas My Baby Is Blue

Jacko Hooper – Silent Night

Crayola Lectern – SFXmas

Nick Hudson – I Forgot About Christmas

Laish – Silentish Night

The Boy Who Kicked Pigs – The Christmas Song

Becky Becky – Bells Ringing (Xmas again)

Chris T-T – A Child Is Born (Chris T-T’s previous Christmas tunes are also up on Bandcamp)

Thomas White – White Christmas

Curxes – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Us Baby Bear Bones – Santa Claus is Coming To Town

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar Day Seventeen – Curxes / Further Still

Posted on 17/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Curxes put out two singles this year but we’d already kicked off our rundown of our twenty five favourite tracks of the year when Avant Guarded appeared. Further Still is a classic example of Blitz Pop – the name that Curxes have given to the genre. Drums turned up to 11 and a gutsy vocal performance all tied together with a decent tune. There’s been a few pointers to some more tunes that Curxes have got waiting in the wings ready to release, so we look forward to hearing them in 2014.

New Music – Curxes, Blood Red Shoes, Nick Cave, Normanton Street, Omnivert

Posted on 05/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We might be approaching Christmas, but the new music keeps on coming, with five new tracks to share this week.

First up is Curxes with their new single Avant-Guarded. They hinted at the track with a series of videos on Youtube that we blogged about a couple of weeks ago. Avant-Guarded is another fantastic electro-pop assualt from the band and is out now to buy on Bandcamp.

On the first day of Christmas, Blood Red Shoes gave to us… The Perfect Mess. The band posted up QR codes in 10 cities across the world and said that they’d release the song once they were all found, which they were within 24 hours.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have recorded a new version of Higgs Boson Blues from this year’s Push The Sky Away. The new version is an epic, clocking in at more than nine minutes:

Normanton Street launch their Phoebe Freya EP on Friday Night at the Green Door Store. They’ve posted up one of the tracks – Juicy – as a taster on Soundcloud.

Finally Omnivert have got in touch to tell us about their new track which features Helen Ganya Brown, better known on the blog as Dog in the Snow. Chichijima is available as a name your prices download on Bandcamp.

Curxes – The Birdx

Posted on 24/11/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Things have been a bit quiet in the Curxes camp since they put out Further Still and appeared on the cover of The Source earlier this year. Over the past couple of weeks though, a few mysterious teasers have appeared on YouTube. All five videos start off with the sound of a cheap Bontempi keyboard, but by the time you get to the fifth, it quickly morphs into something closer to Curxes trademark blitz-pop sound, albeit with slowed down vocals. Some of the lyrics that can make out “Sound and Vision is a privilege” were alluded to in a blog post about tour dates by the band back in September, and the text “Avant Guarded” flashes up. What could it all mean? Hopefully we’ll find out soon.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 11/09/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Just a very quick round up of this weekend’s gigs for you all, since we’re off out to see some live music tonight ourselves.

On Friday night Audio celebrate their ninth birthday. That makes us feel very old indeed. There’s a big club night take place after 10pm, but a gig with local bands before then starting from seven, put on by our friends at Les Enfants Terribles, with Curxes, King Dinosaur and Alphabets Heaven playing. We also spotted that this week’s Brighton Rocks at Sticky Mikes with Alice Amelia, Faux Flux and Lu’Ami.

Saturday sees Brighton Music Blog favourites Bent Cousin are headlining at Prince Albert, which should be good. Elsewhere, Mok and Tiny Dragons play The Haunt, and Crayola Lectern is supporting William Drake at the Komedia.

Our recommendation for Sunday night is Flash Bang Band’s album launch at the Green Door Store. Support comes from P for Persia and Clowns – there’s three great bands to see for free. We’ll have an interview with Andy from Flash Bang Band going up very soon, so look out for that.

June Top Ten

Posted on 03/07/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s our regular monthly post of what’s hot on the Brighton Music Blog stereo over the last month.

1) Electric Soft Parade – Summertime in My Heart

We’ve probably listened to more Electric Soft Parade this month than everything else put together, and our top ten probably should just be the tracklist of Idiots, but what fun would that be? Summertime edged out in front of the other tracks, mainly because it’s the current single.

2) Milk & Biscuits – Hairstyles

Hairstyles is the second single from Milk & Biscuits forthcoming album Spirit Nap, and it’s great. It’s a bit Belle & Sebastian, a bit retro pop, and has a video filmed all around Brighton:

3) Us Baby Bear Bones – Swamp

We’ve been waiting for “What Starts With a U Ends With An I” for ages, and it was well worth the wait. A few of the tracks had appeared on YouTube, but the EP was the first chance we’d had to listen to Swamp over and over:

4) The Beautiful Word – Particles

When we first posted up the video for Particles back in May we said that it could well be the best thing they’ve done. After repeated plays, we’re pretty much sure it is.

5) New Union – Staying Friends

Staying Friends is the lead track on the New Union’s eponymous EP which came out four weeks ago. All four tracks on the EP are great, and the artwork for the 12″ is just as classy as we’ve come to expect from the band.

6) IYES – Lighthouse (BBC Introducing Session)

For their recent BBC session IYES swapped the electronics for a cello and it sounded lush. Unfortunately it’s long disappeared from iPlayer, so here’s the original:

7) Gaps – Cascade

We posted up the video for Gaps lovely, hypnotic upcoming single Keep You a couple of weeks ago, but we ended up listening to it’s AA side Cascade even more. The Guardian agreed with us and made them yesterday’s New Band of the Day! The single will be released on 15th July on Sexbeat.

8) Curxes – Further Still (Avec Sans Remix)

We featured the original version of Further Still in our April Top Ten, but this month a remix surfaced which reversed the vocals, giving the tune a completely different melody:

9) Champione – Bear vs Bear

We only got the chance to give Champione’s tunes a listen last week, which means they haven’t had that many listens which is why Bear vs Bear is only at number nine. This, and the rest of the Home EP, are definitely going to get a lot more listens over the next few weeks:

10) Rivieras – Weekend

Rivieras got in touch on twitter and pointed us in the direction of their latest EP, a four tracker called Weekend. We liked what we heard, but we spotted that it had been up on Soundcloud for at least six months, so didn’t really sit alongside the new music that we write about most of the time. It’s definitely worth a listen though. Here’s the title track: