Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 04/12/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Normally December is a quiet time for music, but once again Brighton is doing us all proud by being as busy as ever. Here’s our picks of the best of the local live music this weekend:

On Thursday Night, GAPS launch their new single I Know It’s You with a gig at the Green Door Store. Support comes from Foreign Skin and Eagles for Hands. Thursday is also December’s Source New Music at the Dome Studio Theatre, headlined this month by Rum Committee, with Mok, Neon Saints Brass Band and Barcode also on the bill. Meanwhile, over at the Brunswick Tim Keegan & The Quiet Lifers are playing at the Brunswick. They’ll be previewing tracks from their forthcoming album The Long Game, as well as other material from their back catalogue, a tribute to Lou Reed and maybe something a little more festive. As if that wasn’t enough, at the Blind Tiger there’s a Beatabet takeover with Le Juki, Bryony Bird and Collectress.

Friday night sees The Electric Soft Parade play their Christmas Show at the Unitarian Church. The band will be playing two sets – an acoustic Electric Soft Parade set of rarities and covers, and an second set of Christmas songs with an expanded band. There’s promise of mince pies and mulled wine too. Normanton Street and Phoebe Freya are launching their new single at the Green Door Store, and carrying on with an afterparty at Brighton Arts Club after 11. Support at the Green Door Store comes from Alice Amelia, The Remedy and The White Bicycles. As if that wasn’t enough for Friday Night, Hypnotised are supporting the Godspeed / Silver Mount Zion side project Esmerine at Saint George’s Church.

There’s plenty to choose from on Saturday too – Eliza Jaye is playing at the Ranelagh, House of Hats, Jacko Hooper and Fiddes Smith are at the Brunswick, and Two Jackals are at Coalition. Finally, on Sunday, Sealings play at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, supported by Shudder Pulps, Keel Her and Witching Waves.

In the meantime, we’re off to see Lion Bark at the Hope tonight.

New music – Calico, Man Ray Sky, Eagles for Hands, Mitch Wade Cole, and Jennifer Left

Posted on 26/11/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We’ve got five new releases for you this week – four you can listen to here, and one that you’ll have to click through to download

Calico have put up the first track from their forthcoming EP Nightowl up for download. It’s a cool slice of jazzy cinematic funk, and it’s free:

Man Ray Sky‘s new Coreless EP is now up for sale on Bandcamp. There are six tracks for three pounds, including two remixes of lead track Luma:

We’re still listening to Eagles for Hands Lisbon EP which came out last month. Since then, they’ve snuck out another track Peaches, which is up for download now.

Mitch Wade Cole‘s new release is out now on Shimmy Records. the producer’s latest instrumental is entitled Full Body and is available for download from the Shimmy Records Soundcloud page.

Finally, we haven’t got anything we can embed for the new Jennifer Left track Rebel, but it’s available as a free download from her Pledge Music page. Jennifer Left’s album is due to be released in March next year and will be funded by a Pledge music campaign between now and then, so keep your eyes peeled for updates between now and then.

October Top Ten

Posted on 03/11/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Somehow, we’ve turned two! Two years of gig going, photo taking, demo listening and doing out best to share the music we love coming out of Brighton. Here’s what we loved in October:

1 Eagles For Hands – Lisbon

Eagles for Hands gave out their new EP for free for a short while earlier in the month and the title track, which sounds not dissimilar to 808 State at the height of the powers has been our most played track this month. The free download is over now (you should have grabbed it when we told you about it!) but it’s worth every penny you’ll pay on iTunes.

2 Momotaro – Reverie
3 Gaps – Belong

Giving away a free track in return for signing up to a bands mailing list is the new black. Or something like that. Momotaro and Gaps are two of our favourite discoveries this year and you can get these tracks just for the price of an email address.

4 The Beautiful Word – Eating Me, Eating You

“It’s not rude!” Megan and Emily blush when they introduce this track live. Of course it’s not, but a bit of innuendo doesn’t do anyone any harm. The video for Eating Me, Eating You dropped this month, and the track appears on The Beautiful Word’s album Particles which we’ll be reviewing soon.

5 Electric Soft Parade – The Sun Never Sets Around Here

The Sun Never Sets Around Here in ESP’s new single to go alongside their minitour. The band have just announced a Christmas date at the Unitarian Church on 6th December. Get your tickets quick because it’s going to sell out fast.

6 Prince Vaseline – Sunset

Lovely lovely stuff from a Milke & Biscuits side project

7 Nordic Giants – Neotenie

Neotenie appears on part one of the Nordic Giants Build Seas Dismantle Suns double EP. We’ll be putting up something about part two – the Dismantle Suns half – very soon.

8 Yumi & The Weather – All We Can

The lead track from Yumi & The Weather’s debut EP (and it’s accompanying video) is a much sunnier track than the weather outside at the moment. We’ve had it on repeat to bring a bit of summer back into our lives. The Vondelpark rework that’s also on the EP is quite tasty too.

9 Moulettes – Songbird

Moulettes gig at Applefest (which we missed because we didn’t want caught in the torrential rain in Lewes), and their giveaway of this track reminded up just how much we love Moulettes. From the look of their Facebook / Twitter streams, they’re working on new material right now. Can’t wait!

10 Alice Amelia – #1000 Dreams

We rather liked Alice Amelia’s free download that she gave away earlier this month – sophisticated sparse piano and a lovely vocal. She’s playing down at Above Audio this Wednesday for free as well!

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 09/10/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Last weekend’s gig pick post was all about quality not quantity, and we promised we’d be back this week bigger than ever. We’re still not scrimping on quality but we’re probably featuring more gigs this week than we ever have done.

We’re going to kick things off with a couple of gigs happening tonight. Normally we treat Thursday as the start of the weekend, but when two of favourite bands are playing we’d be fools not to give them a mention. IYES play their first ever headline show at the Prince Albert, which we’re very excited about. We’ve been huge fans since we first heard Lighthouse at the end of the year, and they haven’t disappointed since. Best of all it’s a free gig! Elsewhere, down at the Blind Tiger, Brighton Music Blog favourites The New Union are supporting Let’s Buy Happiness.

Thursday night is where we normally start our weekend gig round up, and the weekend proper is starting strong with Calico headlining Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar. Support comes from 900 Spaces and Blackwell, and it’s four pounds to get in. Meanwhile, Normanton Street are playing at the Mesmerist.

On Friday some more of our favourite bands are supporting at the same gig. Pawws are supported by the fantastic GAPS and Dog in the Snow (as well as Saint Savanna, who are local and new to us). And it’s a free gig – Green Door Store, you do spoil us. There’s also a free gig at the Blind Tiger, headlined by Transformer, with support from Eagles for Hands, whose new EP we love.

Saturday night’s big gig is the Physics House Party taking place at Sticky Mike’s. As well as the awesome Physics House Band, AK/DK, Alphabets Heaven and Suffer Like G Did are also playing. Over at Fitzherberts, Speak Galactic and Soft Arrows are playing at a night called Ruff Stuff, where Owen from Speak Galactic and some of his old bandmates from Cinemascopes are unveiling a new project called Merlin Tonto.

Rounding off the weekend nicely at Sticky Mike’s, Esben & The Witch play the Brighton leg of their national tour promoting Wash The Sins Not Only The Face. At the Green door store, there’s an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gram Parsons early death in 1973, aged only 26. There’s loads of local bands getting involved – the list includes The Self Help Group, Dollboy, and Amy Hill plus various members of Laish, The Repeat Prescriptions, Super U, The Standard Lamps, Woodland Blue, The Pooh Sticks, Lolly & the City of Flies, Redlands Palomino Company, Englemann Spruce, and Lost Dog. Get there early enough and you’ll also get to see Pete Wiggs from Saint Etienne DJing before the live acts.

New Music

Posted on 01/10/2013 by brightonmusicblog

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.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 04/09/2013 by brightonmusicblog

For this week’s gig picks, we’ve got tie-ins with two different festivals and some local media big hitters putting on gigs, as well as a few other odds and sods.

You may have heard that Brighton Digital Festival is on in town at the moment and as part of that Pop Up Brighton return with their Sound Screen event, bringing together local bands with international visual artists. On Thursday night at the Corn Exchange Phoria, Luo and The Hundredth Anniversary play to a backdrop of visual collaborations that the bands and video artists have been working together on for the last six weeks. Meanwhile Time for T headline at the Hope for Brightonsfinest, with Gypsy Switch, Paper Hawk and Prisoners Cinema also playing, and Monsters Build Mean Robots and Spacenoid are on the bill at Brighton Noise / Nice Weather For Airstrike’s Industroika gig at the Prince Albert.

On Friday Night Lloyd Williams and Ellie Ford launch their debut release at St Mary’s Church, Black Rooster Black Shag headline the Prince Albert, and Bad for Lazarus play Sticky Mike’s.

Saturday night is the third of The Haunt and Juice Brighton’s short run of weekly gigs. This week they have Them The Sky, Garden Heart, and Paper Hawk on the line up. It’s also the first of this month’s two Source New Music Nights (they’re hosting another on 20th as part of Brighton Digital Festival). This one is curated by Wildwood Promotions and is headlined by Alex White’s Interlocutor, with Red River Dialect, Octopuses and Herb Denton’s Last Dime playing too. Finally, it’s the Over The Moon Festival’s pre-party at the Blind Tiger, with a line up that includes Eagles for Hands, Mitch Wade Cole, Platypi, Eone and Murder He Wrote.

GAPS single launch at the Green Door Store

Posted on 16/07/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Last night GAPS rounded off a mini tour to promote their debut 7” with a hometown gig at the Green Door Store.

The first support came from The Hundredth Anniversary, who were more together yet more relaxed than I’ve ever seen them. It’s still shoegaze, of sorts, but the angular drumming and tight rhythm section elevate them above the competition. The second support took things in a completely different direction – Laurie James Ross, better known as Eagles For Hands, played a set of House music using a table full of electronics controlling different channels and vocal samples. Sometimes things went a little bit garage and on some tracks the direction went a little bit deeper, but throughout the whole continuous set the Green Door Store sounded fantastic. Definitely one to watch.

The evening belonged to GAPS though. Their single Keep You / Cascade was released yesterday, and the duo were celebrating with a local gig. Ed was on the left on synths, drum pads and two microphones and Rachel filled the rest of the stage with guitars, more drums and more microphones. Their music has been described as folktronica, which probably fits with what they do on paper but doesn’t truly do justice to their sound. The best known examples of the genre seem to be electronica with a bit of folk added to make things more interesting or vice versa, but what we heard last night was a much more equal union of the two. AA side Cascade, with its long quiet seagull laden intro before the beats kick in, was dropped into the set early on, with flip side Keep You saved until the penultimate track. Discounting the gremlins before the end of the set GAPS played a great gig, making a sound that’s familiar, but unlike anyone else in town.

GAPS single launch gallery (click on the pics to view large):