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.
September was yet another great month for Brighton Music. We’ve barely kept up with posting the new music that we’ve heard throughout the month, but these have been our favourites:
1 GAPS & Maya Jane Coles – In Dark In Day
GAPS collaboration EP with Maya Jane Coles was an easy choice for our number one spot this month. We were fans of GAPS before this release, and In Dark In Day made us love them even more.
2 Gazelle Twin – Belly of the Beast
Live show of the month had to be Gazelle Twin’s headline post at last week’s Spectrum night at the Dome Studio Theatre. The tracksuit and obscured face was the perfect visual representation of her leftfield claustrophobic electronica. We could have chosen any track from her new album Unflesh, but we’ve gone for Belly of the Beast.
3 Cate Ferris – Giants
Giants has been a staple of Cate’s live sets for quite a while, so we were pleased to hear it get released on her new EP Disappear. It’s even better live – if you’re about this weekend get down to the Level where Cate is headlining the Lantern Fayre around 8-8.30ish on saturday night.
4 Dog in the Snow – Africa
Helen Ganya Brown’s latest single is another great slice of art pop which, too, has been a staple of her live sets over the last year.
5 Momotaro – Kite
If we could have, we’d have put the Deep Blast & Ricco Remix of Kite into our top ten tunes for you to listen to this month, but since it’s not streaming anywhere online, here’s the standard single version
6 Fear of Men – Tephra
2014 has been a good year for Fear of Men – support slots with Pains of Being Pure at Heart across the US and Europe, an album with great reviews across the board, a headline UK tour of their own, and to top it all their latest video premiered on the NME website.
7 Oslo Parks – Twin
As debut singles go, you couldn’t ask for better than Twin. We’re looking forward to heading down to the Green Door Store for the launch tomorrow night (Thursday 2nd October).
8 Heliopause – I seem too cold (Faulty Remix)
Heliopause’s latest offering is a beautiful, blissed out, exotic rework of an older track, put out to celebrate Brighton Digital Festival.
9 Troves – Afterthought
Afterthought is another debut single from another new Brighton band, and coincidentally, Troves are the support to Oslo Park’s gig on thursday.
10 Phantom Runners – On The Run
Finally, we have On The Run, the new Huey Morgan produced single from Phantom Runners, with it’s video filmed partly at Brighton Arts Club.
Another bumper New Music post for you all. We were out at gigs every night last week, so things have built up once again.
Our first track is by Heliopause, with I seem too cold (Faulty remix). Faulty is a night that Heliopause has been putting on at Brighton Digital Festival for the past few years and is taking place as I type at Fitzherberts. This is what happens when you spend your time going to gigs rather than writing blog posts.
Oslo Parks launch their debut single Twin on Thursday (2nd October) with a gig at the Green Door Store. Here’s a remix of the single from Germany’s VIMES:
Another demo from Black Honey surfaced last week. The Taste doesn’t offer any big surprises from their previous uploads – more widescreen American sounding rock’n’roll:
Swing Song is the new single from Kovak. It’s coming out on 20th October, and the launch party is going to be held at The Hope on 8th November:
Clash premiered the new video from Tyrannosaurus Dead last week. Local Bullies is taken from the band’s forthcoming album Flying Ant Day, which is available to pre-order now.
Momotaro have released a re-recorded version of their track Kite, which originally appeared on their album Second Side. It’s been released by German label Blue Dye and comes backed with a house remix by Deep Blast & Ricco Rizzo.
Red Shortbread is the debut track from Jack Watts. It was produced by Tim Bidwell (who’s worked with the likes of Jennifer Left and Cate Ferris), and the video was made by Create Studio’s Kenny McCracken:
Lilly is taken from The DuBarrys forthcoming self titled EP. Other than the name of the EP, and that one of the other tracks is the lovely, acoustic Undress Your Soul, details of the EP are rather sketchy and we can’t even find so much as a release date for it. More details as we hear of them:
Finally, we have Obelisk, a new video from Battery Operated Orchestra. Obelisk is taken from the album Incomplete Until Broken, which is available now on Bandcamp.
Dog in the Snow‘s new single was launched at the Green Door Store on Wednesday this week. Africa came out this week on Tidal Wave records, and you can listen to it on Soundcloud. Our pics from the gig, including shots of support Momotaro, are below.
(click on pics to view large)
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