The New Union have only had one single out so far, a guitar pop gem called Without You, released on 7″ back in September. You wouldn’t guess that it was their debut though – their demos on soundcloud sounded like fully formed tracks, they looked the part, and they’d got a Peter Saville inspired designer on board to give their artwork a professional feel which belied their time in the industry so far.
You can catch the band tonight supporting Kins at the Green Door Store.
Since we’re starting to get into the Christmas spirit, we’re going to let you into a little secret – Woodpecker Wooliams is one of the artists still to feature in our Advent Calendar. We’re not going to tell you when yet though. We don’t want to give away all our surprises. You’ll just have to keep reading.
In the meantime though, here’s the video for her new single Gull, which is as bonkers, brilliant and beautiful as her album:
This year saw the release of Sweet Sweet Lies’ fantastic debut album The Hare, The Hound, The Tortoise. Don’t just take our word about how good it was – Simon Price gave it five stars in the Independent. With their dark lyrics and sharp suits Sweet Sweet Lies proved that they were a force to be reckoned with.
Sweet Sweet Lies
Today we applaud Brighton’s poppermost band – Kovak. Despite being unsigned, both their singles this year – Killer Boots and Living The Dream – got airplay on the BBC, on Radio 2 and 6Music. They’ve just come back to the UK after recording their new album in Spain – keep your eyes peeled for that next year!
Kovak
Abi Wade’s And Blood And Air EP was one of the first things we wrote about when we started the blog last year, but we didn’t get to see her live until January of this year and it’s only when you see Abi perform do you truly appreciate her talent. You can pull off all kind of tricks in a studio, but to see them recreated in a live setup is breathtaking – the percussion, the cello played in every way imaginable (and some ways you probably wouldn’t imagine, like with a hairbrush), and the haunting voice, all coming from one person is nothing short of incredible.
Abi’s gone from strength to strength this year, putting out another release – Heavy Heart – and supporting Patrick Wolf on his tour, which is coming to St Mary’s Church on Tuesday 11th December. It promises to be a very special gig – As well as a homecoming for Abi, Patrick Wolf is playing an acoustic set. Tickets are still available (from Resident, via the Source website, etc) as of the time of writing.
Heliopause came to our attention at Sea Monsters earlier this year with their widescreen folk vision. A few months later, The Lumo Tape appeared – an album that mixed folk with layers of cinematic post-rock and sparkling electronica. It was one of our favourite releases this year – a judgement which lasted a lot longer than the hangover from the buckfast that got passed around at the album launch at Brighton Electric!
Heliopause are feeling festive and have announced that they’re giving us a new EP for free on Monday. Keep an eye on their social media next week for announcements (facebook, twitter)
Heliopause
Fancy going to see a Brighton band this weekend? Here’s who we recommend:
Our pick for Friday is Lout’s regular Brighton Rocks night. This week The Witches, Fragile Creatures, Little Shocks, and Bliss are on the bill at Sticky Mikes. The BIG gig in town is Rizzle Kicks at the Brighton Centre. Apparently that starts at 6.30, and I’m sure most of their audience probably need to get to bed early, so if you were keen you could probably get to both! 😉
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Our choice for Saturday is the Riots not Diets Christmas Party at the West Hill, headlined by Shrag. There’s support from Cosines, Bad Librarians and Fulhast, as well as a film about post-punk girl group Dolly Mixture. You can pick up a ticket for six quid from Resident.
Action Beat aren’t from Brighton, but Speak Galactic and P for Persia who are supporting them at the Prince Albert are. Also, Luke Sital Singh is on at the Hope – probably your last chance to see him anywhere so small, so don’t miss out!
It’s been quite a quiet year for Munich in terms of headline local performances and proper releases, but the band did give us a sneak peek at what they’ve been up to by putting some of their demos up on bandcamp for a limited time to download. And if these were just the demos, I can’t wait to hear what the final recordings end up sounding like – lilting guitars, soaring choruses, epic pop. Just Like You was the soundtrack to our summer.
Munich
Moulettes returned with their second album The Bear’s Revenge this year, which was even better than their debut. Sing Unto Me and Uca’s Dance were released as singles, and the highlight for us was their intimate gig at the Marlborough in April where they were joined on stage by Arthur Brown (who they would go on to support later in the year)
It’s quite rare for us to make more than one post in a day. It’s even rarer for us to post about the same band twice in one day. But that’s what we’re doing right now. This morning we made Curxes band of the day in our Advent Calendar – this has obviously put them in the Christmas spirit, and they’ve put out a festive tune for us all to enjoy (via our friends over at Breaking More Waves). It’s a bit quieter and calmer than their usual fare, showing a side to them that they’ve been hiding from us until now. They shouldn’t have been so coy – this is rather lovely.
Merry Christmas Curxes!
Brighton Music Blog 