Normally a lot of our posts are looking back – to gigs that we’ve been to, or to music that’s been put up online. Today we’re being a bit more proactive and telling you about two things coming up soon. The first is a gig – Next Tuesday, Melting Vinyl are bringing Samantha Crain to Brighton with BirdEngine in support. Samantha Crain, new label mates to Brighton’s Fujiya & Miyagi having just signed to Full Time Hobby, is touring to support her expansive yet intimate new album Kid Face, and is playing at the Komedia on 28th January. We’ll be there early for to make sure we don’t miss local support BirdEngine, who has promised to include tracks from his upcoming album in his set.
Our other preview is of a remix that’s due to hit soon. GAPS new single I Know It’s You hit the shelves on 9th December last year and a video of a remix by Foreign Skin has been posted, previewing around a minute from the full track which is due very soon. We’ll post up the full thing when we see it but until now here’s a taster of what’s to come:
Accepted wisdom is that if you combine electronic music with folk, you get folktronica. Most of the time you do (and Le Juki’s album Capillaries was a fine example of this), but GAPS have broken the mould with the first few singles. Instead of glistening electronica, GAPS use bigger beats more suited to the dancefloor. Their debut was a double A side – Keep You backed with the track we’ve chosen for our Advent Calendar Cascade. Of all of the tracks we’ve picked throughout December, Cascade is arguably the most Brighton – It starts quietly with nothing but the sound of seagulls and acoustic guitar before the beats and the keyboards kick in, building up hypnotically throughout the track.
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.
Brighton duo GAPS have announced a new single, I Know It’s You, premiered last week on The Line of Best Fit and coming out on 9th December. The single is getting a 7″ and digital release on Sexbeat who also put out the Keep You / Cascade double a side earlier this year, and the flip will be a new track called Inside Your Head.
I Know It’s You has less folk influence than their previously heard material, opting instead for four minutes of sleepy ethereal pop, further cementing their stake as one of Brighton’s hottest new bands. Links to pre-order the single are available on the Sexbeat website.
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!
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.
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.
Here’s our latest post of the seemingly never-ending stream of fantastic new music from Brighton.
First up is a brand new dream pop download from Dog in the Snow. Fire in the Sky was produced by Steve Hillier, best known for his work in the nineties as a third of Dubstar, but the track owes more to Bat for Lashes and those who have followed her – haunting vocals, fuzzy guitars, a simple piano line and pounding drums.
Next up we’ve got a remix of Keep You by GAPS. The Paradise Remix brings in the beats earlier, loses some of the vocals and makes the whole thing far more dancefloor friendly.
After writing this weekend about how much we love Luo, we’re a little bit embarrassed to admit that we missed him putting out another EP a few weeks ago. Imprints is free four track download that shows that electronica needn’t be cold an inhuman.
Yesterday Ed Prosek announced the release of a new EP. Willow tree is five tracks of gentle acoustic folk, which you can listen to on bandcamp and buy on download or limited cd.
Ancient Times have a new 7″ out next monday. Double A side Nightschool / Hieroglyphic has two tracks of unashamedly Smiths influenced indie which you can order now through their bandcamp site.
Freefall is a new single from brother / sister due BASA. Things start a bit synth-pop but by halfway through things are definitely dubstep.
Last, but by no means least is Embers by Momotaro, who have been tipped in the second edition of Green Door Store’s new monthly zine as “Brighton Band To Watch”. At the moment, all of Momotaro’s music on Soundcloud is free to download, so go and feast your ears!
Want to know what’s been on the Brighton Music Blog stereo this month? Then read on:
1) Kins – Post Tropical Storm Our most listened to track was Post Tropical Storm from Kins eponymous debut album. It’s powerful guitar pop, but the power doesn’t come from obvious hooks or direct choruses, but from it’s sonic quality. Tribal drums and layers of shimmering guitars coupled with angelic vocals don’t just elevate Kins’ songs above the rest but take them to a different place altogether.
2) The Electric Soft Parade – One Of Those Days Our soundtrack to the summer is still Idiots by the Electric Soft Parade. One of Those Days effortlessly breezes out of the speakers with sugary sweet vocals, a light swirling guitar riff and shuffling drums. Here’s a live version from the album launch at the Green Door Store back in June
3) Cate Ferris – Blaze Bright Another tune which has sounded amazing in the sunshine is Cate Ferris’ new single Blaze Bright. Who doesn’t love a bit of reggae in the summertime?
4) Champione – The View (feat. Lizzie Massey) / Tiny Dragons – Come Alive (PACT Remix) Yes, Yes. This is two tunes. Well spotted. They’re both dance tunes with Lizzie Massey’s vocals at the forefront, the first in autotuned form on the title track from Champione’s recent EP, and the second as part of her band Tiny Dragons, remixed by PACT who also remixed their track Canvas for a recent mix cd released on Kitsune records. The unmixed PACT remix of Canvas is also on the download package of the Come Alive EP.
5) Crayola Lectern – Trip In ‘D’ (Version) The past couple of month’s Top Tens have featured tracks from Crayola Lectern’s leftfield The Fall And Rise of … album which came out back in April. Never one to do things the way you’d expect, in July he released a single to go alongside it. Slow Down features in album and alternate versions, alongside a different version of the ten minute long Trip in D, which is the track we’ve selected for our Top Ten. The first eight minutes don’t stray too far from the territory laid down on the album version but just when you’re least suspecting it the track takes a sideways swerve and morphs into a motoric Krautrock monster, awakening the ghost of early period Stereolab.
6) TOY & Natasha Khan – The Bride The Bride nearly didn’t get to feature in our Top Ten after we picked up the limited-to-250-copies 7” from Resident only to discover on first listen that it was damaged. Speedy Wunderground managed to find another copy from somewhere though and it hasn’t left our record deck since. Despite being a cover of an 70s psychedelic Iranian tune, it’s sounds surprisingly like what you’d expect a collaboration between Bat for Lashes and Toy might sound like – The piano lines and vocal inflections are unmistakably Natasha’s, and the thick chugging guitars match Toy’s trademark sound.
7) GAPS – Keep You GAPS are probably our favourite discovery of the year so far. The band released their double A side Keep You / Cascade on Sexbeat records two weeks ago at a gig at the Green Door Store, and we put Cascade in our top ten last month. Keep You is the more beat heavy side of the 7”, but still has a beautiful pastoral quality to it:
8) Becky Becky – House Of The Black Madonna We meant to write about Becky Becky’s album launch gig at the Green Door Store a few weeks ago, but it was a busy weekend for us and we ended up missing the moment. As live shows go, it was much more of a performance than most bands manage. Pulsating synth pop (provided by ex Fence Collective Peter Mason) was accompanied by is-it-real-or-is-it-an-act wine drinking from pint glasses and drunken behaviour from Woodpecker Wooliams. The closest reference point is something like The Knife, but this was more pop and less art. The House of the Black Madonna is from Becky Becky’s forthcoming album of the same name.
9) Us Baby Bear Bones – Sun The Us Baby Bear Bones EP What Starts With a U Ends With an I is still getting a lot of plays at Brighton Music Blog HQ. As convenient as it may seem, Sun was already coming up as having the most plays of the five tracks last week before the rather chilling video got posted:
10) Limbic System – Distant Lands Limbic System sent us their Beta Wave EP to listen to a few weeks ago, and the beautiful, fragile Distant Lands was the standout track for us. The band are holding their launch party for the EP at Latest Music Bar on 16th August.
In Brighton, the first weekend in August is associated with being Pride – probably the biggest party in the local calendar. We’re not going to include that in our weekend gig picks because of the lack of local acts on the bill, but we have got a whole load of other gigs to tell you about, including a very special couple of days at the Green Door Store.
Tomorrow night IYES and Yumi & The Weather are supporting MT at the Prince Albert. It doesn’t cost anything to get in, but to get hold of a ticket you’ll need to register online.
There’s quite a few gigs on Friday that have caught our eye. AMiTY and Jacko Hooper are playing at Neighbourhood on St James Street, and The Jargonaughts (featuring ex members of Los Albertos) are on at the Gladstone. Over at The Hope multimedia electronica night The Outer Church hold the launch night for their new compilation with live music from Pye Corner Radio, Kember Norton, Embla Quickbeam and Wrong Signals.
Over Saturday and Sunday Green Door Store are holding an event called TwoThreeFour. There are over twenty bands on the bill, mostly from Brighton, including The New Union, Kill Moon, Faux Flux, Spit Shake Sisters, Dog in the Snow, GAPS, Written in Waters, The Hundredth Anniversary, Tyrannosaurus Dead, Ed Prosek, Tigercub, Foreign Skin, Wildcat Strike and Demob Happy. It’s an amazing line up, and it’s free – You’d be a fool to miss it.
Normally a lot of our posts are looking back – to gigs that we’ve been to, or to music that’s been put up online. Today we’re being a bit more proactive and telling you about two things coming up soon. The first is a gig – Next Tuesday, Melting Vinyl are bringing Samantha Crain to Brighton with BirdEngine in support. Samantha Crain, new label mates to Brighton’s Fujiya & Miyagi having just signed to Full Time Hobby, is touring to support her expansive yet intimate new album Kid Face, and is playing at the Komedia on 28th January. We’ll be there early for to make sure we don’t miss local support BirdEngine, who has promised to include tracks from his upcoming album in his set.
Brighton Music Blog 