January Top Ten

Posted on 02/02/2015 by brightonmusicblog

We didn’t do a top ten at the end of November. It had been a quiet month, and we were gearing up for our top twenty that we posted in December. Both months had a few great tunes that are too good to pass up though, so this month’s top ten has a few tracks from the end of last year too.

1 The Go! Team / The Scene Between

The Go! Team are back! Our top spot is the lead track from the band’s new album also called The Scene Between, out in March on Memphis Industries.

2 Anneka / End of It

End of It only features Anneka’s voice, but the layers and the textures and the harmonies demand repeat listens.

3 GAPS / She Bears a Flower

GAPS latest release came out right at the end of November last year sounding like some a futuristic remix of an Elizabethan childrens folk song.

4 Ambassadeurs / Forever

Forever is the lead track from Ambassadeurs latest EP out last month. Ambassadeurs play a gig at The Green Door Store at the end of the month, supported by Foreign Skin.

5 The Fiction Aisle / Blue

We liked Tom White’s new band’s first proper track so much that we got it into our end of the year round up, even though it hadn’t been in one of our top ten posts. Since we’re catching up on November here it would be wrong of us to omit it.

6 David Harks / Odyssey

We loved Open Arms, also taken from David Harks’ Lomo EP but shared much earlier in the year, as soon as we heard it but Odyssey was much more of a slow burner working it’s way under our skin until we couldn’t stop listening to it.

7 Tyrannosaurus Dead – Flying Ant Day

Tyrannosaurus Dead were the first band we ever interviewed on the blog, so it’s great to see their debut album (also called Flying Ant Day) finally released.

8 Seadog / Transmitter

Seadog’s Transmitter EP was launched at the end of December, while most of us were busy being distracted. The physical release is due in the springtime, but you can grab the EP now if you head over to Bandcamp.

9 Phantom Runners / Laserbeam

Laserbeam is a free download from Phantom Runnerscover on Soundcloud. Hanging out with Huey Morgan (who’s produced their last few tracks) is obviously rubbing off – this is the most laid back thing they’ve done.

10 Man Ray Sky / Ether Song

Finishing up with the title track from an EP from December, Ether Song is four minutes of breezy guitar pop.

GAPS at the Prince Albert photo gallery

Posted on 27/01/2015 by brightonmusicblog

Last night we braved the cold to head out to the Prince Albert where GAPS played a hometown gig following their recent mini tour. Since the last time we saw them they’ve gained some rather lovely visuals which meant they were standing in the dark – that we got any photos of the band was something of a miracle. They’ve also written an awful lot of new material too which has broadened their sound while still operating within the bands existing premise of folk + electronica, now taking in breakbeats and some trouser shaking bass. Support came folk troubadour Lloyd Williams who did some very clever things with a guitar, a banjo and a floor mounted accordion. Here’s our pics, click to view large:

New Music

Posted on 25/01/2015 by brightonmusicblog

Another week, another round of up new music for you all. First up is Laser Beam, the new single from Phantom Runners, which came from their sessions with Huey Morgan.

Last week Fear of Men posted up a video for their track America, from their album Loom, suitably filmed while they were on tour in America:

Lonely in Paradise is only the second track that I am L has put out there, but musically it sounds incredibly established, a bombastic ballad with Florence & The Machine style elements.

Seadog have a new EP out on Bleeding Hearts Recordings. Transmitter is the first track and also the name of the five track EP. The EP is out now as a download on bandcamp, with a 10″ coming in the spring.

We posted about the new The Go! Team track The Scene Between recently, but this week the video hit the internet. In Ian Parton’s own words “[I was] imagining things like aerial fly-bys, bad chromakey, Waco cable access, country versus the city, a choir in the wilderness. The key thing was I was definitely imagining looking down on landscapes, rivers and forests, but I could hear a slightly menacing, kind of pagan, thing going on too and a definite schizo thing between the verse and the chorus.”

Memory Loop have collaborated with Eva Bowan on a piece of electronica called 5115. Things start out quite ambient, but around the halfway mark the skittering beats kick in.

Around this time last year The Hundredth Anniversary did a session for indie website Daytrotter. You have to sign up to their website to listen to the sessions, but the band have put up Caroline from the session up as a free download on their soundcloud page:

ARC have just put out their debut EP Dopamine. Dopamine is track two EP, with track one being the jauntier 1664 Water, which we’re hoping is an ode to Kronenbourg.

Last but by no means least is some new music from Nightkites who put out a great EP last year called Drones. They’re back with another EP, this time called Drones 2, which is also a free download over on Soundcloud. Here’s track three – Dusk:

Album news – Will Mussett / November Storm

Posted on 19/01/2015 by brightonmusicblog

News has reached Brighton Music Blog of local singer songwriter Will Mussett‘s debut album. November Storm will be released on 31st January digitally and on cd via BBrat Recordings and has been produced by fellow Brightonian Alex Wells. While the bulk of the album was written by Will there are also some collaborations from heavy hitters from the music industry – 40,000 feet was co-written with Jim Irvin (who’s worked with Lana Del Rey and Chloe Howl) and John Fortis (who’s worked with Paolo Nutini and Laura Marling) helped out with In Loving Memory. You can take a listen to the title track below:

The album launch is at the Green Door Store on 31st January. Head over to the Facebook event for a link to buy cheap advance tickets

New Music

Posted on 12/01/2015 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s our first new music post of 2015. We’ve kept receiving music over the Christmas break, including an incredible five emails from one band about a track we’d already featured in a new music post. Odd.

First up is the new single from Moulettes, the aptly titled Glorious Year, out today via the usual digital distribution channels, which comes with remixes from Jimthefingers (aka Moulettes bassist Jim Mortimore) and Modernaire – an old pseudonym of the band they used when they made dance music which has largely been inactive for the last five years:

Ambassadeurs new release came out last week. The Forever EP has been released on his own Lost Tribe label, and can listen to it below on Soundcloud:

Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster drummer Rob Ling has got a new project called Krak Krak, which he describes as like the White Stripes on crack. They have an upcoming EP coming out in February on Sonic Anhedonic in February, but as an introduction here’s a track called It Sleeps:

After we put Yumi & The Weather into our top twenty at the end of the year last year we were promised that there would be some new music soon, and today a new track called Be There appeared on Soundcloud. We don’t know much about the track, but we’ll keep you posted with any news:

Finally, from nowhere we have a mini album from Black Black Hills who we had thought were missing in action somewhere. The eponymous release collects together the bands several singles along side a few other unreleased tracks and is available on Bandcamp now:

grasshopper video and live news

Posted on 12/01/2015 by brightonmusicblog

News has reached Brighton Music Blog HQ from the grasshopper camp. First up is a remix of Rico’s Revenge, taken from last year’s Circle Time EP. It’s been turned into a very cool slice of synth based krautrock by Def Stare artist Oban 2. Visuals in the video come from Innerstrings Light Show who have been making a whole load of Brighton’s gigs a lot more better looking for the last few years.

If you wanted to catch Grasshopper live (and trust us – you should), there’s two local gigs coming up. First up they’re playing at Northern Lights on Saturday, supporting Bleeding Hearts Recording signing Seadog. A little more impressively, they’ve also managed to grab a slot supporting The Charlatans who are playing at Worthing Pavilion on 15th March.

Album news : The Go! Team / The Scene Between

Posted on 06/01/2015 by brightonmusicblog

It might seem like we’ve been away for a little while, not posting anything since last year, but we haven’t been away for quite as long as The Go! Team, whose last album came out nearly four years ago. After a few teasers last year news has come out tonight of their new record The Scene Between due to hit the shops on 23rd March. You can take a listen to the album’s title track below, featuring a new vocalist but otherwise a very familiar Go! Team sound. You can pre-order the album now via the band’s website in various combinations of LP, CD, download and T-shirt combos. We’ll bring you more details of the album as we hear of it:

An alternative End of Year Brighton Top ten

Posted on 26/12/2014 by brightonmusicblog

As Rob has been meticulously drip-feeding his top twenty from 2014 into the blog over the last few weeks, I thought I’d provide an alternative listing just to show the diversity of our blogging tastes. That meant, no duplication with the Rob-o-Sphere, and so out went Curxes, Cate Ferris, Fear of Men, all of which were excellent in my book.

That left me with the following selections capturing ten (well, eleven) of the brilliant sounds and songs that emerged from our fair city over the last year in a shambling semblance/pretence of order:

1 Bentcousin – Dizzy

These terrible twins have been drip-feeding the cosmos with some ace songs, but this was the killer track for me released on a vinyl 7 inch and with some super Brighton-relevant rapping from Rory P.

2 yourgardenday – Something in the Music

A gorgeous plea for tolerance and harmony and a love of music, this had a limited release last year as lead track on Robin Coward’s Flat Stream EP, finally getting a full on-line release this summer.

3 Time for T – Free Hugs

An adorable band writing some adorable songs, this slunk of 70s soul has a great chorus and a charming video in which the band spend the whole song hugging Brighton people. Did I say it was adorable?

4 Sharon Lewis – Boxer’s Glove

Released right at the tail end of last year, this came from the Simple Things EP that accompanied Sharon’s excellent album, a melancholic tale of domestic violence, harsh but beautiful.

5 Fragile Creatures – Fragile Creatures

This band write some classic pop and none better than this – the self-named winner from their first EP which came out this summer.

6 Ellie Ford – Low

Singer-songwriter who had her debut EP re-released by Hidden Trail Records this year, from whence came this song, and also released an excellent covers EP. Ellie Ford is a singer who just gets better and better and her debut album should come out next year.

7 AK/DK – Maxwell’s Waves

This track comes from their album titled ‘Synth + Drums + Noise + Space’ which kind of sums up their sound without the excitement of their stunning live shows.

8 Slum of Legs – Razorblade the tape

This band are manic live, and their initial punky 7″ single on the Tuff Enuff label captures just half of this energy. This was the b-side.

9 Fiona Sally Miller – Lanterns

From one of three EPs released on the same day, this was one of the proper songs rather than the underwater experimental or live tracks, but like so much of Miller’s work it sounded magical.

=10 The Delta Bell – Wasted

Hiawatha Telephone Company – Dave

‘Wasted’ is a classic rambling country song sung by the gorgeous tones of Kate Gerrard and hit all the right notes in my book.

Shamelssly squeezing an eleventh song into my top ten I’ll come clean and admit that I had a hand in ‘Dave’, but it’s a song that ought to resonate in 2015 it being election year. Ripe for a cover, but for now we have this.

Brighton Music Blog End of Year Top Twenty, 1 – Momotaro / Second Side

Posted on 24/12/2014 by brightonmusicblog

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.

Brighton Music Blog End of Year Top Twenty, 2 – Fear of Men / Loom

Posted on 23/12/2014 by brightonmusicblog

With the release of the first proper debut album (last year’s Early Fragments discounted because it was just a collection of singles), Fear of Men have finally come of age. As you would expect Loom has an abundance of cultural references set to classic indie pop, bookended with intimate vulnerability but packed with strength inbetween. The album got great reviews across the board – NME gave it 8/10, and The Line of Best Fit 9/10 – which scored the band a tour support with Pains of Being Pure at Heart giving them a ready built audience all across America and Europe before they returned to play their own headline homecoming show at The Hope in September. Fear of Men are already working on demos for their next album which we can’t wait to hear.