Here’s this week’s new music roundup, as much of a mixed bag as ever, showing the fantastic diversity of this city.
Our first track is the new single from Dog in the Snow, which comes out on 22nd September on Tidal Wave Sounds. We posted up the live video of Africa which did the rounds at the end of last year, which was almost studio quality, but Helen Brown has gone into the studio and made it sound even better. There’s going to be a launch party for the single at the Green Door Store on 24th September, which support from Momotaro and Winston & Goldstein.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have a new single coming out on 1th November, taken from Nick Cave’s 20,000 Days on Earth film. A 10″ of Give us a Kiss is coming out on 10″, backed with a live version of Jubilee Street from last year’s Push The Sky Away album.
Afterthought is the b-side to Troves debut single Youth in Decay which we featured a few weeks ago. More details have emerged about the single – it’s coming out on 29th September as the first release in over seven years from Suede’s former label Nude Records.
We spotted a remix of The Mojo Fins‘ Longwave Reach from Bristol’s Atki2 on Soundcloud last week, which gives the track a solid house beat:
Normanton Street have got a new EP out soon, entitled “Much Respect”, which their facebook cover photo tells is us being launched with a gig at The Haunt on 31st October. A video has emerged for a track called Waiting which presume is going to be on the EP, but there’s nothing on the video or anywhere else online that we can see to confirm that just yet:
Last, and by no means least is a teaser video for a new collaboration between Brighton Music Blog favourites GAPS and Maya Jane Coles. A four track EP called In Dark, In Day has been released today and is available exclusively through Beatport.
In all my years of writing the blog, I’m not sure there’s been a week like this. There’s been some local acts who have done extremely well – Rizzle Kicks and Conor Maynard have cornered the teen market, but they’re not so likely to be seen down at the Green Door Store or Sticky Mike’s – but this week should see the first number one album by a Brighton band for many a year. Massive congratulations to Royal Blood.
As our headline suggests, Royal Blood aren’t the only band with an album out this week. Annabel Dream Weaver by The Wytches was released by Heavenly Records, and also garnered an eight out of ten from NME. The band played three sets across London and Brighton on release day on Monday and then played an instore at Resident on Thursday.
If people aren’t making as much noise about the new album from Dark Horses it’s probably down to marketing budgets, although that hasn’t stopped it getting a nine out of ten review from the Von Pip Musical Express. The band’s second album Hail Lucid State has been produced by Death in Vegas’ Richard Fearless (who also produced their debut Black Music) and is also out this week, on Last Gang Records.
Brighton has it’s fair share of intimate venues, where you can go and see a band and be able to literally touch them onstage (not that we encourage that kind of behaviour), and recently added, but with no fixed abode is Sofar Sounds. Sofar Sounds, which had a reboot earlier this year, brings concerts into people’s living rooms taking intimate to a whole new level and last night they invited us along to this month’s event. In a slight change to proceedings last night’s gig wasn’t held in someone’s lounge, but in the basement of Nowhere Man Café just opposite the Windmill Pub, which doubles up as a rehearsal space for local bands.
Although last night was a very local affair, organised in Brighton with two of the three acts from Brighton, Sofar Sounds is an international concern and dozens of events took place across Europe and the US, all being tied together with the gig doubling up as a listening party for the new Karen O solo album at every venue.
Sofar sounds don’t have a headliner as such and all bands are treated as having equal billing, and first act to play was Darren Saunders – a local musician who hasn’t played a “proper” gig in over two years, but has been busking regularly. He was brought in at the last minute on the recommendation of one of the sound guys who said that he thought he had one of the best voices he’s heard. Despite nerves and a broken string great songs and a great voice won the day. Next up was Bec Sanridge, last night’s out of towner (all the way from Australia). I got the impression that Bec hides what a fantastic guitarist she really is, and despite earlier hints it was only in the last song in her Joan Baez-style folk set that her fingerwork truly shone through.
Last night’s final act was Time for T, recently back from a mini-tour of Portugal and with an EP about to be launched soon. A live hometown gig in a small venue obviously suited them as they appeared relaxed and confident on what could barely be called a stage. The lead singer performed a couple of solo acoustic numbers to begin with before being joined by the rest of the band for an assured folk-pop set peppered with tracks from the new EP. When the evening appeared to be over with final words of thanks being given by the Sofar Sounds people the crowd called for a genuine encore – a rarity these days when going off stage then coming back for a few more is all part of the plan.
We’ve got a bit of catching up to do with our new music posts – we haven’t made one since the first week of August. Consequently, we’ve got eleven new tracks to serve up for you.
First is thew new track from Oslo Parks. The Night is the double a side to Twin, which we wrote about back in July, and is out today on 7″ on X Novo records. The band play their debut gig at the Green Door Store on 2nd October.
David Harks was brought to our attention by our friends over at Breaking More Waves who despite being based fifty miles up the coast are sometimes better in touch with some parts of the Brighton music scene than we are. Open Arms is one of those tracks that we wish we’d heard when the sun was shining and the temperature was nudging at thirty degrees. It oozes summer from every pore – blissful house beats, steel drums and a breathy male vocal. Fantastic stuff.
Fragile Creatures eponymous new EP comes out on 31st August. Sunshine did the rounds earlier in the summer, and now you can get your ears around Stowaways, another lovely slice of guitar pop. The EP will be available via the usual download sites, and the band are headlining at The Komedia on 12th September.
Youth in Decay is the debut track from new Brighton synth-pop trio Troves. There’s not a great deal of info about the band out there yet, but we’ll be keeping a very close ear to the ground and keeping you up to date:
Clay Cats put out their Soap EP a couple of weeks ago. If you like the sound of the title track that we’re featuring here, you can grab the whole EP over on Bandcamp, and you can catch the band at Brighton Arts Club this friday.
Garden Heart have just put out their debut single Cure, loaded with three part female harmonies and indie guitars. It’s being followed swiftly with a self titled EP which is out on 17th September, and the band are playing a launch show at Bleach on Tuesday 16th September.
One of the supports for Garden Heart’s debut gig is Thyla, who just last week posted up a video for their track Cornfields, which will appear on their upcoming debut EP War which is due in October:
Stranger in my Head is the second track to be put up from Fable‘s debut EP Parasite, which has a release date of 13th October. It’s not quite as harsh as I Speak Words which we featured a few weeks ago, but still features uncompromising electro beats and vocals which belie the face that Fable has only just turned nineteen:
Thieves by the Code have just announced details of their debut album Tales from the Green Muse and Beyond. It’s out on 4th October, and to whet our apetite they’ve put up So Slick:
Last week the world was greeted with the sad news of Robin Williams’ passing. The latest upload from Crayola Lectern, a new track called Mork, isn’t a cheap cash in on a tragic event, but a track written for his second album which had been mastered and approved by Williams people before events overtook matters. In Crayola Lectern’s own words:
“This track was mixed a couple of weeks ago for the upcoming second Crayola Lectern album. It is the centrepiece of the album like Trip In ‘D’ was for the first. I’d been in touch with Robin Williams’ fan club asking about how to get a copy to him for his approval and had received a reply. Then, a few days later came the awful news of his demise.
Ironically, this song is very much a celebration of the magic spark that ignites the spirit and gives life; it even charts a life, starting at the crib and ending with old age. Robin Williams, to me, always had a unique way about him which cut through to the essence of humanity and my ‘Mork’ was just an attempt to use his character to make that representation, in a way which celebrates our existence on this planet.”
Finally, we posted about Curxes new single Valykrie in our most recent New Music post, which was subsequently released on 18th August. The track was backed with an instrumental and a four to the floor remix from Deluxe Flamingos which we’re happy to share with you here:
This weekend we’ve been out at the Green Door Store’s now annual 234 Festival. For the sake of our livers, we didn’t stay for the whole weekend, but we did manage to catch a whole load of Brighton bands. Here’s our pics of Tusks, The Hundredth Anniversary, Adolescent, Fear of Men, Skirts, Winston & Goldstein and Spit Shake Sisters. Click on the pics to view large:
More album news, this time from Michael A Grammar whose debut album hits the shops on 29th September. The self titled album features all of the tracks from their now-out-of-print EPs as well as four new tracks, including Don’t Wake Me, which comes as an early download if you pre-order the album on iTunes:
Fore more info head over to the Melodic website, who are putting the album out, where you can also pre-order the album for a few pounds less than iTunes.
Tyrannosaurus Dead have announced news of their debut album, hot on the heels of their split single last month with Joanna Gruesome. Flying Ant Day gets a release on Odd Box Records on in November and was produced by Rory Attwell from Test Icicles. The first single from the album, Local Bullies, got it’s premier over on Stereogum yesterday, but you can hear it here now:
The album can be pre-ordered in various CD/LP/T-shirt combos via Odd Box’s bandcamp page now and you can catch Tyrannosaurus Dead live this Saturday as part of the Green Door Store’s 234 weekender.
In a recent interview with The Argus, Jennifer Left said that she was rubbish at self promotion; and so it is that you might not have realised that she released her debut album this week. Hushabye was funded via a pledgemusic campaign which reached it’s goal in only six days when it launched back in January. Seven months later, the album is out and is available for those who missed out on the pedge campaign to buy over on bandcamp.
Next month The Levellers release a new greatest hits album. It’s not their first – that was One Way of Life which came out back in 1998 and charted their first ten years in the music business. Their new best of (simply entitled Greatest Hits) features many old favourites and also includes some new versions of some of their songs re-recorded with Imelda May, Bellowhead and Frank Turner as well as new single Hope Street – The original came out back in 1995, but this time around they’ve roped in Billy Bragg on lead vocals. Hope Street is out now, and Greatest Hits is out on 29th September. A deluxe version of the album which comes with two cds, a dvd and a 7” of Hope Street can be pre-ordered here.
How is it August already? July seemed to shoot by, probably because so much of it was spent outside soaking up the sun. Here’s our pick of the top tunes we heard last month:
1 Bentcousin – Dizzy
It seems like forever since we wrote about Dizzy, Bentcousin’s ode to summer in Brighton, and it was a while ago – back in the middle of June. But it came out on 7″ on 1st July, so gets the honour of taking top spot in our July round up.
The new Caveman Genius EP isn’t out yet (despite what we might have written when we first mentioned it), but if it’s all as good as Hand Drawn Paradise, then we’re prepared to wait.
4 Oslo Parks – Twin
Oslo Parks are one of a number of new electronic pop bands who have sprung up in Brighton, part of a trend that you won’t find us complaining about.
5 Fragile Creatures – Sunshine
Another sun related song in our top ten – the fantastic weather in July obviously affected us. Fragile Creatures’ new EP is due soon, and there’s word that we might get to hear another track from it before the release date.
6 Demob Happy – Suffer You
Demob Happy are a bit more melodic than usual in their latest offering Suffer You which appeared on Soundcloud last month. The band also announced details of their first headline UK tour, which concludes in Brighton on October 16th at Bleach.
7 Soph Nathan – Our Girl
Soph Nathan’s ethereal shoegazey dream pop has been getting lots of plays at Brighton Music Blog HQ
8 Steve Elston – Dear Em
Dear Em is the title track from Steve Elsom’s new EP / mini-album of lovely acoustic folk pop. It was hard to pick one track to put in our top ten since the whole EP is quite blissful.
9 Lion Bark – Come into my Arms
Come Into My Arms has been getting plays on BBC 6Music and XFM, so we’re happy to include it in our top ten
10 Thomas White – Lose That Girl
Most of what we hear about via the blog is original music, but when Tom White covered the whole of Saint Etienne’s Good Humor we paid attention, as should you.
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