Last night Momotaro and Winston & Goldstein supported Garden City Movement at a sweltering night at The Hope.
We’ve written about a few of Winston & Goldstein‘s tracks before but this was only her second proper gig (after playing with Dog in the Snow a few weeks ago). There’s an album that’s being sold at the live shows which showcases not just her dancier tracks we’ve posted about already, but a whole spectrum of electronica – we’ll be writing more about that when it’s a bit easier to get hold of. Last night was Momotaro‘s first gig as a five piece, having recently added a bassist and a VJ to their line up. Their set was mostly taken from this year’s album Second Side with a couple of new tracks, or maybe radical reworkings thrown in, bolstered with live bass, and accompanied by visuals which they’ve played to a few times but are now on a permanent basis. Here’s our photos we took of the night:
Friday night Les Enfants Terribles was back at the Blind Tiger, so were we with our camera. We missed openers Lunar Maria, but had a great time seeing the other bands (click images to view large):
After a break for reasons we can’t quite fathom ourselves, here’s our pick of great gigs coming up this weekend.
On FridayLes Enfants Terribles, one of our favourite monthly nights, returns to the Blind Tiger. This month the fantastic Momotaro are headlining, with support from TheBeautiful Word, Poles Apart and Lunar Maria. Meanwhile, over at Sticky Mike’s, Demob Happy are curating this weekend’s Late Night Lingerie.
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On Saturday Night The Galleons are holding their album launch at the Brighthelm Centre. Not only do they have the 60 piece Hullabaloo Community Choir performing with them, but they’ve also had their own beer brewed especially for the night. We’ve also spotted that Dark Horses are making a return with the first local gig performing material from their upcoming second album. You can catch them at Sticky Mike’s supported by The Querelles and Riddles.
February might be the shortest month, but there was no shortage of good music. Here’s our pick of the crop from the last month:
1 – Momotaro / Warm Step
We could have put any track from Momotaro’s Second Side album at number one this month. It’s barely left the stereo since we first heard it
2 – GAPS / I Know It’s You (Foreign Skin remix)
The original version of I Know It’s You made an appearance in our January top ten, but right at the end of the month, Foreign Skin’s remix was post up, which made the track even more lush.
3 – Blood Red Shoes / An Animal
The brand new Blood Red Shoes album is out tomorrow, but if you pre-ordered it you got an early download of An Animal, which is also the single coming out on 7″ alongside the album. If you want a physical copy and tomorrow’s too long to wait I did spot that they already had it on the racks at Resident yesterday.
4 – Yumi & The Weather / Love
Yumi & The Weather gave us their Love as a Valentine’s present. We didn’t get around to posting about it (but we did retweet their link) and since then the link has gone. If you managed to grab the track – all jittery rhythms and slick vocals – then you’ll know why we’re such a fan of this.
UPDATE : Yumi & The Weather have just posted that the track is available as part of a Camels & Lions compilation which you can download for free here.
5 – Electric Soft Parade / One of Those Days
One Of Those Days was one of our favourite tracks on Idiots when it came out last year, so we’re pleased that they’ve put the track out as a single, and that we’ve got an excuse to post it up here
6 – The Wytches / Gravedweller
It’s been a great month for Brighton’s finest psychedelic rock’n’rollers. Not only have they signed to the mighty Heavenly Records, putting them on a roster alongside Toy and Charlie Boyer and the Voyeurs, but they also released their first single with the label, available on their current tour, or as a free download.
7 – Physics House Band / Titan (Ital Tek remix)
This month also saw Physics House Band put out an album of remixes of last month’s Horizons / Rapture Ep. Our pick is Ital Tek’s remix of Titan, which wrestles the original into something altogether more dancefloor friendly.
8 – Fujiya & Miyagi / Tetrahydrofolic Acid
Tetrahydrofolic Acid is the first new track released by the band since 2011’s Ventriloquizzing, and shows them heading in a much more electronic direction. To these ears it sounds like To Rococo Rot on a night out with Underworld.
9 – Milk & Biscuits / Hairstyles
Yes, we wrote about Hairstyles before, but that was when it was released as an mp3 download, and this month it’s the lead track on the first cassette released by newly founded Lick Music, who wanted a distraction from making frozen yoghurt.
10 – Michael A Grammar / The Day I Come Alive
It feels like ages since we first wrote about Michael A Grammar’s Random Vision EP, but it finally came out this month. Lead track The Day I Come Alive sounds like dreamy early period Blur.
A few weeks ago we chatted to Momotaro about their debut album Second Side, and since then it hasn’t left our stereo. This weekend they’ve put the whole thing up to hear on Soundcloud, which you can hear below. If you like it (and we think you will), then you can support the band buy buying it via their website.
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.
Momotaro release their debut album Second Side on 1st February. I caught up with Peppi, Rosie and Dave to talk about their first full length long player.
Over the course of last year Momotaro put up around half a dozen tracks onto Soundcloud – all now removed – which form the backbone of the album. What appears on the record are re-recorded versions of these, showing a Second Side to the songs, hence the album name. “When we first started to write music together we were writing a song every single week, we were so excited by it. We were never really doing things by the book and we literally churned them out and I think that helped us develop.” said Peppi, “We would write a song, learn it, then when we’d play it we’d come away from the gig thinking it could be so much better and that led to the newer versions of the older songs.”
It’s not just the songs that have evolved over the past twelve months – the way that the band work has changed too: “At the beginning we didn’t have what we have now, where we have ideas as a trio. Before someone would throw an idea into the pot but we wouldn’t know what to do with it, but now it’s more like a collaborative sound” Peppi told us. Even the band’s setup onstage feels like a more even share of duties than most bands, with Rosie’s electric drum kit given equal prominence and not tucked away at the back, and Dave and Rosie swapping instruments. One thing that’s key for the band is that despite playing electronica, they’re not using laptops. Asked about their favourite tracks on their album Warm Step comes up, an old song which has completely changed “It’s less digital – we got a ukulele which seems to have added quite a lot to our set overall” said Rosie
As well as the album coming out on 1st February, the band are hosting the launch party on the same day at the Green Door Store. First support is local electronic indie band Faux Flux, who Momotaro have played alongside a number of times, and who the band see themselves alongside as part of a growing local electronic music scene. “There’s definitely a scene that we were never part of before. We seem to see a bit of a correlation, we keep playing with similar acts. It’s really surprising and lovely to find all these bands through what we’re doing”. GAPS also get a mention – Rosie has known Rachel for years before either band were formed – as do IYES who the band regularly see when they’re both rehearsing at Brighton Electric.
Second support is the Sunday Best signed Lucky Elephant, who have been in the music industry in one form or another for fifteen years. It turns out that Peppi has known Sam from Lucky Elephant for quite a while: “I’ve known Sam for about ten years, he was in Boomclick when I first knew him. I didn’t even know I wanted to do music until I saw his studio. I worked with him in London and I started playing guitar and he offered to record one of my songs in his little home studio. I went round there and I was “WOW – I want everything that you have!”. He got me into music, I can safely say that. We always said that we must make sure we play a gig together one day and I never ever thought that we would, and now he’s supporting us”. Momotaro will be returning the favour supporting Lucky Elephant at their album launch, also at the Green Door Store later this spring.
One of the tracks on Second Side is already experiencing a life of it’s own. Blue Soul is currently being used on Australian YouTube Surf Magazine The Barrel’s latest video. Through a series of contacts and coincidences some of the bands tracks got played the film makers, and ended up with their lyrics about “swimming up” accompanying videos of amazing waves. The band said that they’d like to use more visuals alongside their live music. Dave said “It’s definitely something that we’d like to see more of. We’re so busy making the music that we haven’t yet really had time to get into too much visual stuff but in the future we’d love to”. Some projections were prepared for their Source New Music show at the end of last year but technical issues scuppered that – maybe 2014 will show another side to the band.
For now though, the band’s focus is to get the album out there, playing it live and getting it heard by as many people as possible, and you can do that by heading down to the Green Door Store on 1st February.
I got the tip off about Momotaro from the Green Door Store zine which first appeared in August, where they were featured as the local band to watch. At the time they had a busy Soundcloud page, now cleared up in advance of their album due early next year. Their sound is dubby reverb drenched electronica with laid back vocals, shown off best on Reverie, the track we’ve picked for the advent calendar, which you can grab as a free download by signing up to their mailing list. They’re also an interesting live band – instead of tucking the drums at the back of the stage, each of the three musicians are given equal prominence and as many samples are triggered by the electronic drum kit as they are by the rest of the band who alternate between keyboards, guitars, and drum pads of their own. If the album is as good as what we’ve heard already, then 2014 should be a great year for Momotaro.
On Friday night we headed down to the Dome Studio Theatre for the Source New Music Night. This month IYES headlined, supported by Luo and Momotaro. We hoped it was going to be a good gig, and it didn’t disappoint. Here’s our pics:
There’s always a lot of great music to see in Brighton, which makes it easy to write this weekly feature. This weekend it’s even easier because some of our favourite bands are playing.
On Thursday night Kins headline The Hope playing a hometown show with their tour for their new single Aimless. Support comes from Francis Lung and The Hundredth Anniversary.
Friday Night is this month’s Source New Music featuring this month’s Source cover stars and Brighton Music Blog favourites IYES, who have just released their debut single ‘Til Infinity. Support comes from two other bands that we’re big fans of – Momotaro, and Luo, who will be joined onstage by members of Physics House Band.
There’s a couple of gigs on Saturday which caught our eye – Dizraeli and the Small Gods are playing at The Haunt supported by Le Juki, with an afterparty taking place at the Fortune of War. Meanwhile, The Blind Tiger plays host to King Porter Stomp, alongside The Allergies and Town of Cats.
Brighton Music Blog 