Another week, another new music roundup. We’re starting off this week with news of the new EP from Momotaro, who have been fairly quiet for the last few years. The new EP is called Places and is out on 5th May, and the first track from it that they’ve shared is the lovely Gone Days.
Normally I do my Top Ten posts in the first day or two of the month looking back at the previous four weeks, but as you’ve probably noticed, I’m a bit late. You might have also noticed it’s just a top five this month too. There’s a good reason for the reduced nature of this post and me going a little bit quiet on the blog for the past couple of weeks – at the start of June I became a dad, which has given me something else to look after other than the blog. So while our newest writer catches a few minutes of shut-eye, hopefully I can squeeze out an overdue post of the tracks we enjoyed the most from May.
1) Milk & Biscuits – Towns are Concrete Holes
Brighton’s best kraut-pop band are back and sounding amazing. And that video. Lovely stuff.
2) Inad – He Will Disappear
Dreamy pop from a band we don’t know nearly enough about yet.
3) Sam Organ – Mirrors
One third of Physics House Band drops his Mount Bank moniker to make a lovely electronica instrumental
4) Momotaro – Orchids
Taken from their new EP Highest, Orchids shows that their Second Side album wasn’t just a flash in the pan.
5) Lion Bark – You and Me
I guess we ought to feature some music with guitars in picks from May. Lion Bark take things easy and make the perfect soundtrack for a summer’s day.
Later tonight we’ll be bring you our Great Escape / Alternative Escape preview with our pick of Brighton bands to look out for later this week. Before then though, here’s our regular new music roundup.
First up is Momotaro with a video taken from one of the tracks from their new Highest EP. Featuring lots of lips, and made by their regular live visuals collaborator, here’s Orchids:
Slum of Legs new single has been put out by Brighton based DIY feminist label Riots not Diets. In their own words, Doll Like is “a call to action. A battle against oppression. A fight for gender identity and acceptance. When all seems shallow, set in stone and unintelligible, we decode the answer: ‘I am doll like, I will make this my show’.”
Mitch Wade Cole‘s Electric Duck EP came out last month, and now some remixes have appeared from the second track This Is When We:
Hot on the heels from a show at The Gladstone where they were turning people away at the door, here’s the new King Porter Stomp track This Way, which also happens to be a free download over on their bandcamp page. If this floats your boat or you were one of the disappointed people at the Gladstone last saturday night you can catch them again at the Green Door Store supported by Normanton Street on 18th June.
BirdEatsBaby‘s new single is a cover of the Muse track Muscle Museum. It’s out two weeks today on 25th May with a launch party this Friday up in London.
Web Spin Time is the first taster of Son Belly‘s new album You Still Do As You’re Told, which is available to pre-order on Bandcamp. The whole album will be out next week on limited cd and download.
Here’s the new single from Oslo Parks. Fiction comes out on X Novo records on 8th June.
Finishing up this week’s roundup is the new single from Aniseed Treats. Silhouette is the follow up to Glue which came out earlier this year.
Here’s our top ten tracks that we’ve been listening to in April:
1 Sea Bed – Caves
Technically this came out last month (and we included Haunted in last month’s top ten), but their Rosso EP hasn’t left our stereo, and their debut gig at the Prince Albert supporting Them The Sky was awesome.
2 Momotaro – Roots
Momotaro’s new EP Highest actually came out yesterday which made it May, but since the band put up Roots from the EP on Soundcloud, it’s been on heavy rotation around here.
3 Fiction Aisle – Each and Every One
It was actually Each and Every One’s joint double A side that we wrote about a few weeks ago, but it was this track of the pair that really caught our attention.
4 Curxes – What You Want
Curxes debut album is out in just a few hours time! We’ve been a big fan of the band’s retro electro (or Blitz Pop as they like to call it) for ages, so can’t wait to hear the rest of the record.
5 The Go! Team – Ye Ye Yamaha
Where so many bands put out re-releases or remixes for Record Store Day, The Go! Team put out two brand new tracks. That’s how it should be done.
6 Black Honey – Spinning Wheel
Spinning Wheel is our favourite track that should have been in a Tarantino film this month and deserves to be played LOUD. We’ve not caught them live yet, so we’re hoping to get to see them at the Great Escape in a few weeks.
7 Clowwns – Idiot Bouncing
The Artful Execution of Macho Bimbo, the debut album by one of Brighton’s finest live bands Clowwns, has been in gestation since before we started the blog so we’re pleased that it’s finally getting released soon. Idiot Bouncing is the free download put up to persaude us all to buy the record.
8 Ambassadeurs – Can’t See You
Can’t See You is another track which we haven’t actually featured on the blog, having posted up other tracks from the EP, but for our top ten we had to post the release’s title track.
9 Miamigo – Hard To Love
DIY mag wrote “Bands could spend decades figuring out how to write the biggest hooks and they might not get close to this” about Hard to Love, and who are we to disagree.
10 Gazelle Twin – Love and Mercy
After doing her best to give us nightmares with last year’s Unflesh, Gazelle Twin is doing her best to gain our affections again with her cover of Brian Wilson’s Love and Mercy.
Another week, another nine new tracks for you to hear, so there should be something for everyone. The first two tracks came out especially for Record Store Day. If you’re lucky you might still be able to pick them up on down at Resident.
The Go! Team‘s RSD release was a new 7″ called Ye Ye Yamaha, which came out on yellow translucent vinyl. Both sides of the record were brand new tracks which weren’t included on their new album The Scene Between.
We posted the lead track from Demob Happy‘s Young & Numb EP back in February. Last saturday they got truly into the spirit of Record Store Day, playing an impromptu set outside Resident and then playing an afternoon set at the Spectrum gig at the Dome. They also put up another track from the 10″ they put out for the event, and you can listen to Fizz below:
We were very please to read about the return of Momotaro. They have a new EP called Highest out on 2nd May, and the first track online from it is the housey Roots:
Rooster Cole released his debut EP last week. The More Than You EP is available to download via Bandcamp and iTunes and opens up with Up To The Teeth:
Fickle Friends have been teasing about some news to be announced on Radio One later this evening over on their facebook page. It’s exciting times over at Fickle Friends HQ because yesterday they also shared a video for their new track Could Be Wrong:
Last week Astrid’s Tea Party shared the audio of their upcoming single Black Swan. The dramatic electro pop single comes out on May 18th:
Red Deer People have just released a couple of new tracks on Bandcamp (with a physical cd release to follow). Fire Fire Blister Blister is backed with another track called Pull Out Your Dagger Pull Out Your Gun.
Eighties Matchbox B-Line distaster offshoot Krak Krak release the follow up to their debut single on 18th May. Grave Dohl will be coming out as a digital download on Sonic Anhedonic Recording Company and will be playing a couple of shows at the Great Escape a few days before to celebrate:
Finishing up with something a bit quieter than the Krak Krak track is Jack Watts, whose new EP Red Shortbread comes out on 17th May. Here’s EP opener with Push Blue:
When I was going through my favourite Brighton based music of the last twelve months, there was one band who stood head and shoulders above the rest for me personally. A band who I got a bit evangelical about and told everyone I knew they had to listen to, including my friends from outside of Brighton. That band were Momotaro, who at the end of last year had a few demos up on Soundcloud and had given away the fantastic dubby Reverie in return for signing up to their mailing list, yet managed to come out with a fully formed album on the first of February this year. Second Side featured much improved versions of some of those demos that we’d already heard as well as tracks which they’d been refining live, where despite sounding electronic most of the instruments are played live making them considerably more engaging than someone with their head down behind a laptop. The addition of a bassist and a visual artist to their line up later in the year as well as the continual evolution of their electronic post trip hop sound has turned things up another notch, and with a new EP due imminently 2015 could be a very good year indeed for Momotaro.
