Last Monday, Dog in the Snow released their new single Factory and next Monday The New Union release their new single Now. Last weekend both bands played live, so we went along with our camera (as usual click to view large):
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.
We’ve got a bumper New Music post this week, with seven new tracks to share. First up is Lion Bark with a video for their track Longhorns, which originally appeared on Soundcloud back in November:
We mentioned Foreign Skin’s remix of the new GAPS single I Know It’s You last week, but that was just a preview (which we updated when the full remix got posted), and we like it so much that we thought we’d give it another mention:
Fickle Friends are having a launch party for their debut single Swim tonight at the Green Door Store. In advance of that they’ve posted up a remix of the track – Soundcloud describes it as the Paperwhite remix, but we’re not sure if that’s just a name that they’ve given it or whether paperwhite is an act without any presence on the internet as yet:
Lonesome Heights new single is out on 8th February. It’s nearly four minutes of fresh indie guitar pop and it’s called Come out Swinging. The band will be supporting Wave Pictures at the Green Door Store, which happens to coincide with the release date:
Half Hour Hotel have put up a new song onto Soundcloud. The anthemic indie track is called Warcry and you can grab it as a free download via the band’s facebook page. Half Hour Hotel will be supporting The Boxer Rebellion at Coalition on 4th February.
Last year we wrote about Alexandra King’s band Limbic System. She’s now got a new project called Cleff and you can see their first video Restart here:
Finally we have the video for Bodies, the new single by Woodland Blue, which you can buy on iTunes here.
In an effort to be a little more on the ball than last week we’re posting up our Gigs of the week on Monday night. As it happens, we need to this week because there’s a lot of great gigs to mention, a few of which have already cropped up in these pages.
We posted up about BirdEngine supporting Samantha Crain over the weekend. That’s happening on Tuesday night at the Komedia, and we’ll be along to cover that.
On Wednesday night, Metronomy play a one off date at The Old Market to warm up for their European tour taking place in March. Their new single is the title track from forthcoming album Love Letters is out on 11th March, and has a video directed by Michel Gondry.
Talking of new singles, Fickle Friends are holding a launch party for their debut single Swim at the Green Door Store on Thursday night. There’s a remix of Swim which we’re going to be sharing with you very soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
There’s two gigs on Friday night that we’d be seen at (and hopefully with a bit of planning we will be spending a bit of time at both). Milk & Biscuits gig at the Green Door Store has been in our diary for a while. They’ll be supported by labelmates Octopuses and Prince Vaseline. Meanwhile down at the Blind Tiger it’s the first Les Enfants Terribles of the new year and it’s got a slightly different format for 2014. The night will run from 9pm-2am and now has DJs as well as local bands. This month Transformer, Dog in the Snow, Normanton Street and NYX all play live.
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Last, but by no means least, on Saturday night Momotaro are holding their album launch Second Side at the Green Door Store. The band gave us a copy of the album when we interviewed them last week and it hasn’t left our stereo. See you down the front, and maybe at the afterparty at the Eddy.
Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2014 with one of the very first releases of the year. Fickle Friends debut single Swim is out today, also featuring on Killing Moon’s new compilation New Moons volume one. The track is just over three minutes of 80s tinged pop – a welcome distraction from hangovers and filthy weather.
Brighton Music Blog 