Tag Archives: Launch

Speak Galactic / Severed album launch / review

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Severed begins slowly and quietly. Opening track Capsule uses the same trick that Boards of Canada use – woozy out of phase ambience, familiar yet disorientating. Sounds echo from left to right almost lazily, lulling you into a false sense of security for what’s to come.

Things step up with recent single Precautionary Measures – wonky arpeggios, clattering drums, yelping vocals. Hyss starts off with more crazy stereo effects and builds into something that sounds like it could be a prog epic from the seventies with layered vocals and deliberately primitive keyboards. Pigments lays off the stereo but brings back the out of phase wooziness against krautrock beats with a crazy breakdown midway through.

Lux and Lost Ones bring some of the menace that comes with the wall of sound created at Speak Galactic’s live shows, thick slabs of electronic noise which fall away and blend seamlessly into the album’s masterpiece, Solar Sail.

Clocking in at a mere seventeen minutes, Solar Sail is a piece of ambient beauty. Twinkling analogue electronics start things off before swiftly moving into a seventies sci fi soundtrack that never was. Around seven minutes in you think it might be all over – there’s nothing except something which sounds a bit like tinnitus and some ambient noise. Xylophones threaten something more and background noises start to rumble. And then the sound of running water, and some simple chords which take you away to a beautiful place. Without you realising some distorted noise creeps in underneath, but it doesn’t matter because you’re still in the higher plane you’ve been taken to. The white noise increases, but there’s a beautiful majesty to it, and then out of the noise steps the final slow motion melody, towering like a giant over the rest of the record leaving you feeling exalted. It’s fantastic. It’s like Stereolab and Spiritualized at their most experimental jamming with each other. That good.

Severed is an ambitious, uncompromising, experimental record which isn’t for the faint hearted. It laughs in the face of genres and convention, but rewards you for taking up the challenge it offers.

Speak Galactic had a launch party for the album at Fitzherberts last saturday night. Support came ambient out of towners Plurals and Brighton Music Blog favourites Us Baby Bear Bones. Last time we saw them live was at The Great Escape, and since then they’ve been off in the studio recording material for an upcoming EP. They’ve obviously learned a trick or two while they’ve been away because their sound now is even bigger than before. The magic is still there and the songs sound better than ever. I can’t wait to hear them on record.

Us Baby Bear Bones

Speak Galactic live are a much noisier prospect than on record, and one that’s even more impressive, mainly because all of the sound (save for some live drums) is created by Owen Thomas. Everything is created onstage with a microphone, a guitar, a keyboard and a handful of effects pedals. There’s so much energy, and you can see the ideas and the talent fighting to get out, channelling itself through his fingers and voice. Visuals have been a recent addition to the live sets, and these complement the performance well – another assault on the sense with repeated patterns morphing with the music.

Music needs pioneers, people who are willing to push the boundaries to see what happens, and in Speak Galactic, Brighton’s got one they can be proud of.

Speak Galactic

Speak Galactic is released on on clear vinyl on September 24th by Cupboard Music.

http://cupboardmusic.bigcartel.com/product/speak-galactic-severed-limited-heavyweight-frosted-clear-vinyl-lp-pre-order

The New Union / Without You

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When I first came across The New Union on Soundcloud, I thought that they were a band who’d been around for a few years who were showcasing their releases so far. A while later I saw a flyer for one of their gigs and I thought they had a major label design team behind them. When I got to the gig they were as tight as you could get and looked like a band rather than a collection of people who had grabbed instruments and got onstage. But The New Union haven’t even released a record yet.

All this changes on the 8th of October, when the band put out their debut single Without You. Produced by Ian Dowling (who’s worked with the likes of Temper Trap, Bombay Bicycle Club, Kasabian and recent Brighton resident Adele) the song is three minutes of soaring guitar pop which sounds like a band several years into their career rather than one putting out their first record.

The band launch the record with a gig upstairs at Fitzherberts on 12th October. Get there early – it’ll be rammed.

Restlessli​st / Coral Island Girl – album launch / review

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It’s difficult to know where to start writing about Restlesslist, because there’s no one quite like them. At the same time, there are both no points of reference but also dozens of points. There’s psychedelia, surf rock, post rock, prog rock, ska, calypso, easy listening, exotica, italo-house and spoken word, quite often all in the same song. I first came across the band at Sea Monsters earlier this year, and loved the fact that they had so many people onstage, including a narrator wearing an eye-patch. Last night they launched their new album Coral Island Girl at a gig at The Haunt.

The gig was fantastic. Once again, the stage was packed (how on earth did they fit everyone onto the stage at the Prince Albert?), and rather than being a studied affair it looked like everyone onstage was having a great time. The audience were having a great time too. Well, most of them were – there were some very puzzled faces at the back. The gig that Restlesslist chose to launch their album at was a support slot for American band Howlin’ Wolf, and it seems that some of their fans were… Well, let’s just say that maybe their musical horizons aren’t wide as Restlesslist’s. If any of their fans end up reading these words, my advice to them is to look beyond check shirts and long shorts – there’s a wonderful world out there waiting to be discovered. Visuals were provided by Innerstrings Lightshow, who splashed the stage with 70s style projections in bright colours, adding to the already trippy experience of the gig. The band played their album from start to finish, without breaks between the tracks – that’s where the narration is – or any encores. Well, support bands rarely do encores, do they?

Restlesslist / Coral Island Girl

Coral Island Girl is a concept album. It recounts a tall tale told from the perspective of the album’s narrator of events following a shipwreck. Between each short spoken word segment, the story continues in instrumental form, conjuring up imagery of wonder or excitement, with the musical and non-musical elements complementing each other perfectly. As the story develops, the drama is heightened, and the tension mounts until it reaches it’s explosive conclusion. As I mentioned earlier, the album is jam packed with different styles but familiar motifs crop up throughout which give the record a bit of consistency. It’s an exhilarating listen – as imaginative as it is expansive – and deserves to be digested in one sitting. In a world where mp3 culture has reduced musical attention span to three minutes, it’s a joy to hear an record like Coral Island Girl. Definitely one of the albums of the year for us.

http://coralislandgirl.com/

Jennifer Left single launch at the Blind Tiger

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Jennifer Left’s debut single Black Dog came out a few weeks ago, and last night she held the launch party for it at the Blind Tiger Club. Support came from Cate Ferris and the Peppermint Beat Band.

Cate Ferris had a tricky job as opener of the night – Set times were already pushed back because of the football and when she took to the stage things were still quite quiet, but by the end of the set the venue was full and she had everyone eating out of the palm of her hand. Playing predominantly new material, some of which has been recorded by Tim Bidwell (who also produced Jennifer Left’s single) to be released as an EP sometime in the next couple of months, Cate played guitar, drums, flute, and keyboards, and used samplers to loop her sounds and harmonise with herself. Expect to read a lot more about Cate on the blog in the next few weeks as we get more details of her single and her flashmob on 1st July…

Next up were The Peppermint Beat Band, a tight five piece retro rock’n’roll group, originally from Northampton but who’ve been based in Brighton for the past few years. Their trousers were as tight as their harmonies, and their facial hair was quite something too.

The Peppermint Beat Band

Finally this month’s Source cover star hit the stage. The band’s songs bring together a wide range of influences, from folk to jazz to pop and back again, all underpinned by Jennifer Left’s distinctive smoky voice. Band members swapped instruments, picking up a variety of guitars and basses, a mandolin, some keyboard based instruments, including an accordian and a xylophone (which almost fell apart on it’s way to the stage), as well as trumpet. Despite not yet being released yet, the songs sounded accomplished and familiar – old yet new at the same time. Time flew by and before we knew it the set was being closed with the song that the whole evening was celebrating, new single Black Dog.

Jennifer Left

Heliopause / The Lumo Tapes

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Once upon a time there was a three piece band from Belfast who made rather nice dreamy folk music. Then main protagonist Richard Davis relocated to Brighton, and found that being in a band where your bandmates are on a completely different landmass was a bit tricky. For a while, Richard tried his own thing, putting together layers of sound on his laptop, calling his new project Lumo. He played a few gigs which were mostly improvised, and got approached by Brighton label Precious Metal, who have started putting out releases on cassette.

When Richard agreed his original thought was two put out two longer tracks of about ten minutes each, with one on each side, but things grew and grew. Guitarist Niall Harden had also moved to Brighton, and they couldn’t turn their back on Chris McCorry who was still back in Belfast. The release would be as a new, bolder, more ambitious Heliopause, and instead of two tracks, a whole album’s worth of material was recorded.

The result is the Lumo Tape. It’s recognisable as the old Heliopause, but the songs are bigger, richer and more atmospheric. Guitars are run through numerous pedals making them distorted and fuzzy. Electronica generated on the laptop twinkles and burbles in the background. Layers of reverb are added to the songs making the whole sound much warmer – like Sigur Ros with intelligible lyrics remixed by Kieran Hebden.

The album was launched at an intimate gig at Brighton Electric Studios on Saturday 5th May. Support came from local electronica act Krill, and Before Machines, a post-indie band who are old friends of Heliopause’s from Belfast.

Only fifty cassettes have been produced, which went on general release at the gig. Soon they’ll be taking some to Canada – the band are performing at this year’s NXNE festival in Toronto in June.

http://preciousmetal.bandcamp.com/

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The Moulettes ‘Sing Unto Me’ single launch at The Marlborough 11/4/12

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Going to a Moulettes gig is always a bit more special than going to a gig put on by most bands. Seeing a band live ought to be a bit more of a performance – if a band just stand there and run through their record, you might as well save your money and listen to the cd from the comfort of your sofa. The fact that this gig is at a theatre is a good start and walking into the venue, with the stage imaginatively decorated with an oversized tree with buttons for leaves and a mechanical cloud hanging, sets the scene for an interesting night.

Support came from the incredibly talented flautist Laura J Martin. She’s not from Brighton, so I going to move on quickly, but before I do I’ll say that if you get the opportunity to see her play live, then take it up because you’ll regret it if you don’t.

Hannah Miller of The Moulettes

Being a theatre, the stage curtains closed between acts. No one wants to see roadies moving kit around and gaffer taping leads down. It’s best to keep the mystique, especially if you’re a magical band like the Moulettes. Before long the curtains opened to reveal the group, who seem to be growing in numbers every time I see them play. In addition to existing members, they’ve also recruited Jim Mortimore (who also plays bass with sometime Moulettes collaborators The Muel), and Faye Houston (who you may have seen singing with numerous other Brighton bands). The set was comprised mostly of tracks from the bands forthcoming album The Bear’s Revenge, with only a handful of tracks from their debut. The new songs sit perfectly well alongside the old, but are more developed and less contrived – the band members swap instruments (which now include timpani!) and vocal duties are shared. Musically, the sound is richer and less contrived, and Georgina Leach’s fiddle playing now matches Hannah Miller’s cello to extraordinary effect. As if that wasn’t enough, halfway through the set they were joined on vocals by Arthur Brown, of Crazy World of… fame, who didn’t hold back although sadly wasn’t sporting his famous flaming helmet.

Arthur Brown singing with The Moulettes

Set closer was the new single Sing Unto Me. Did I mention that they have a new single? And that the gigs (they played on Thursday too) were the Single Launch? It’ll be out May 28th, with the album following a few weeks later (although you could have picked them up at the gig). The band return for a reluctant encore before the bidding us farewell, the curtains literally closing on a top night’s entertainment.

The Moulettes at The Marlborough

Tiny Dragons “Phantoms in the Night” single launch at the Prince Albert

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It’s the 29th of February – a day that only comes around once every four years. Hopefully it won’t be another four years until the next Tiny Dragons single, because it’s very good stuff indeed. To celebrate, they’ve put on a night at the Prince Albert.

Support came from Meatloaf at Marys, who I managed to miss, and Alice Amelia, who is a local singer songwriter. She’s got a fantastic voice and is a tremendous pianist – I was reminded of Little Boots funtimes videos she posted to youtube, or to when I saw Marina & The Diamonds live and rest of the band left the stage and Marina just played piano and sung solo for a few songs. There’s great potential there, which I reckon could be found by broadening the sound a bit more – it’s hard to keep people’s attention just with piano and voice, and even just someone else providing a bit of bass or percussion could make all the difference.

Alice Amelia

Despite only having three members, Tiny Dragons are a perfectly formed band. Unusually singer Lizzie also takes on bass duties. And they play accessible rock that’s a bit funk influenced. I need to turn this around now though, because my description so far sounds like a female fronted Level 42. Musically, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers are a better comparison, although having a female lead changes the dynamic a lot. The beating heart of the band is Lizzie’s deft bass playing and her huge, soulful voice. There’s a lot more going on with Jim’s guitar playing than you’d expect too with subtle use of delay and reverb to create a much bigger sound, while Marcus holds together the rhythm section on drums and provides backing vocals. Tiny Dragons have got a great sound, are brilliant musicians, and also played a set of really strong songs too. Definitely a band to watch out for.

Tiny Dragons

BirdEatsBaby Album Launch at the Ranelagh tonight

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BirdEatsBaby are launching their album Feast Of Hammers tonight at the Ranelagh on St James Street tonight (15th February 2012). The album, which isn’t officially out until 20th, but will be available tonight and at the London launch on saturday, should be a treat for those who like their rock dark and theatrical. For a taster, here’s their latest video for the single Incitatus:

There’s a facebook event page for the gig here.

Sweet Sweet Lies five star album review / Brighton Launch

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Fresh from receiving a four star review in Uncut for their new album The Hare, The Hound & The Tortoise, and the London album launch last week, Sweet Sweet Lies have score a five star review in The Independent, courtesy of fellow Brightonian Simon Price. Well done!

We’ll be reviewing it ourselves once we’ve got our hands on a copy. It’s out in the shops next Monday (February 20th), and they’re holding hometown launch on Friday 24th February at The Jive Monkey on Steine Street (formerly Om Bar).

If you need a fix of Sweet Sweet Lies before then, here’s their latest video for The Day I Change: