Over the years Heavenly Records have put out some of my favourite records from the likes of Saint Etienne, Beth Orton, Doves and Toy. Today Wytches signed to the label too, putting out new single Gravedweller, which being given away as a free casssette to the first fifty people through the door on their upcoming tour, stopping at Northampton, Liverpool, Hitchin, Bedford, Cambridge, Reading, London, Tunbridge Wells, Southampton, Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham, Leicester (sadly there’s Brighton date). If you can’t make it to any of those dates (or you don’t think you’ll be one of the first fifty through the door), you can grab the track (and it’s b-sides) as a free download.
Shortly after I posted about the free download of Songbird in one of our New Music roundups a few weeks ago, the Moulettes camp got in touch to point out that they weren’t giving out the download to celebrate the end of the promotion of The Bear’s Revenge, but to celebrate the start of the last leg of the touring of it, before they get their heads down to finish work on Constellations, their third album due for release in spring of next year. Sadly their’s no Brighton date on the tour – the band played at Middle Farm’s Applefest in October – but London’s not that far away, is it?
Since then the band have announced that they aren’t just giving away Songbird as a free download but a whole six track mix tape, entitled Farewell To The Bear, featuring three tracks from The Bear’s revenge as well as a b-side, a remix and a live track. Assault is one of the best things they’ve ever done and is utterly breathtaking live, so it’s good to see it having more of a life than just being a b-side.
Here’s the full list of tour dates. Support comes from Sompting’s Josienne Clarke (with her guitarist Ben Walker)
Nov 15th – The Grand, Clitheroe
Nov 16th – The Stables, Wavendon
Nov 20th – Arlington Arts Centre, Newbury
Nov 21st – The Jericho Tavern, Oxford
Nov 22nd – The Greystones, Sheffield
Nov 23rd – The Leopard, Doncaster
Nov 24th – Village Hall, Marnhull, Dorset
Nov 28th – The Factory, Barnstaple
Nov 29th – The Joiners, Southampton
Nov 30th – Islington Assembly Hall, London
Dec 4th – Glee Club, Nottingham
Dec 5th – The Met, Bury, Lancs
Dec 6th – Thekla, Bristol
Dec 7th – Monkey Bar, Swansea
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.
Brighton Music Blog favourites IYES have posted a new track online, which shows a new side to the band. Daddy is a seven minute long house number, which is a little bit baggy and a little bit balearic. It’s stripped of the vocals which characterised Lighthouse and Glow, but the one thing it has in common with the previous two tracks, one of the things that strikes you is how good it sounds. There’s something really clever going on with reverb and stereo, but don’t go overthinking about it, just enjoy it. You can hear it online by watching the youtube video above, or you can get a free download to listen whenever you like by signing up to their mailing list.
It’s been a while since we wrote about Bunty, when she headlined the Source New Music Beatabet takeover Night back in September last year. That was around the time of the launch of Multimos 1, and since then she’s released another four parts of her seven part multimedia album.
Multimos five is out this week, available as a free download from bandcamp. If you click play on the widget below you can enjoy the musical element, but you only get the full Multimos experience buy clicking through downloading the whole package.
Anyone who’s seen Bunty live knows to expect experimental looped beats. Mysterious Fruit feels exotic and, well, mysterious. Overview Effect is built around guitar, vocal and what sounds like telephone samples, and third track Moon Arise sounds like it could be a traditional chant with it’s vocal motif and drone. There’s also a video in the download package, with some 1920s looking film, and a remix containing elements of all of the tracks.
About a month ago, we brought you news of the upcoming Us Baby Bear Bones EP, due on 10th of June. Today the band put up a new taster of what we’ve got to look forward to on What Starts with a U, Ends with an I. Mountains is less than three minutes of hypnotic swirling dream pop, with a video to match. We love it.
On top of that, UBBB are giving away You (which is going to be on the EP, and whose video was on our the post we mentioned earlier) as a free download. Brilliant!
Sea Monsters 3 is still a few weeks away yet, but to get us in the mood, they’ve put up a Soundcloud stream of the cd that they’re giving out to people who buy a week ticket. It features one track from each band who are playing, so if there’s anyone you haven’t heard of (which is still quite a few even for us), you can take a listen here:
That’s not all though. Over on Bandcamp, they’re GIVING AWAY downloads of the past two years compilations! There was some great tracks on there (Fear of Men’s Doldrums and Us Baby Bear Bones’ Rain still get a lot of plays around here):
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.
Esben & The Witch release their new album Wash the Sins Not Only the Face in January. “That’s ages away!” I hear you say! Well, it’s not that far away, but if you really can’t wait that long, you can head over to the Matador Records Blog, where there’s a whole host more information, and a free download of the track Deathwaltz.
Bat for Lashes is giving away a track from her forthcoming album The Haunted Man. Marilyn is available to download from Amazon for no pence, so head over there now and get clicking!
The Haunted Man is released on October 12th on Parlaphone, and Bat for Lashes play the closing night of their tour at Brighton Dome on 4th November.
Brighton Music Blog 