Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 14/02/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s our pick of the local bands playing in Brighton this weekend. As always, you’re spoiled for choice – there’s some fantastic bands playing, and we’re a bit torn ourselves.

Tonight we were planning to go and see Bent Cousin at Sticky Mike’s, but sadly that’s been cancelled. Instead, we’d recommend heading down to the Green Door Store for an event called Hooray For Love! Well, it is Valentines day. Transformer headline, supported by Bob Wants His Head Back, Fire Eyes and Duke of Burgundy. Doors are 5pm, music starts at 7.30pm, so it will have already kicked off by the time I post this.

Friday night Run Young Lovers headline the Haunt, supported by Tiny Dragons and Daniel & The Scandals. Meanwhile, Simonne & The Dark Stars headline the Seven Stars, and Carnival Collective take over the Blind Tiger.

Saturday Night our friends over at Brighton Noise are putting on their third regular gig. Noise Night three has a fantastic line up – AKDK, P for Persia and Black Black Hills. Over at the Dome Studio Theatre, Source New Music have invited Innerstrings Light Show to work with them on the line up for their monthly gig. The brilliant Physics House Band headline, supported by Baron, Reds, Pete Fij & Terry Bickers and Baal Fire.

Then on Sunday is the gig that we’re most looking forward to – Dome Studio Theatre host the Nordic Giants for the launch of their new single Speed The Crows Nest, and they promise a set of new songs and new films. Support comes from Brighton Music Blog favourite Abi Wade and Saturday Sun.

Brighton Music Blog Advent Calendar / Day 22 / Nordic Giants – Cate Ferris – Dizraeli & The Small Gods

Posted on 22/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Today you might be thinking “How come there’s only a few days left but even more acts who’ve had great write ups on the blog?” or maybe you’re thinking “what’s going on with more than one act being in the description? Surely that’s cheating!”. Both are very good points. We’ll put our hands up and admit that when we were putting together our end of year list there were more than 25 bands we absolutely had to write about, and so for the last few days we’ve combined a few of our favourite acts in order to squeeze a few more people in. It’s also got around our dilemma of what to do about bands who’ve collaborated.

Nordic Giants first put Shine – sung by Cate Ferris – on their A Tree As Old As Me EP back in 2010. It’s such a great track that they re-recorded it this year and put it out as a standalone single. It’s got a fantastic b-side too – the Martin Luther King sampling Together. In theory, their live shows shouldn’t really work – bombastic post rock played just by two people, without the aid of any of their vocalists (they’ve worked with a different singer for each of their tracks). In practise, Nordic Giants are one of the best live bands in Brighton. but they don’t hide behind laptops, instead playing guitar / drums and piano / trumpet, stripped to the waist wearing masks and body paint, illuminated only by strobes during the louder parts of the songs. They play to a backdrop dark short films, and project video of the vocalists for each track into a separate box. If you haven’t seen them live yet, then do whatever you can get to get a ticket for the next time they play. They recorded their album earlier this month in Wales, and we can’t wait until that surfaces at some point next year.

Cate Ferris is someone else you really must see live. There are plenty of people who sing, play guitar and use loop pedals, but no one else who does it all so well and makes it all look so effortless as Cate, nor is there anyone else who’s so down to earth and warm in her performances. Seeing Cate play live is a complete joy, in her songs, her musicianship, and in the wonder she generates in the room. Her “Deep breath ready get set GO!” Ep was great too, proving that her live performance can translate into recorded material.

Cate also lends her vocal talents to folk / hip hop supergroup Dizraeli & The Small Gods, and Dizraeli’s wordplay definitely warrants a mention. The band had a single out in the latter part of the year – Never Mind – and around the time of it’s release we tried to catch up with Dizraeli to talk to him about it, but our diaries never managed to match up. It could end up as Brighton Music Blog’s great missed interview. Or maybe we’ll just have to make sure we catch up next time they’ve got something for us to write about instead.

Danger De Mort – Nordic Giants & Curxes

Posted on 31/10/2012 by brightonmusicblog

It was a good night for Brighton Bands last night. Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster made their live return at the Concorde in the biggest local gig in town, but we were showing our support for Nordic Giants and Curxes at the Green Door Store.

You wait all year for a Curxes gig, and then two come along in less than a fortnight. While they stole the show at the Source New Music Oxjam night, the Green Door felt much more suitable for them, with it’s exposed brickwork and stark decor. And while it probably wasn’t any louder than the Dome Studio Theatre, it felt a lot louder and less refined. The much lower stage gave Roberta the opportunity to get in amongst the crowd to try and get them dancing – Sadly they weren’t having any of it – It was a rainy Tuesday night, don’t you know! The crowd were wrong though – Curxes industrial electro pop should have got everyone in the room moving.

Curxes

The other support was a London act Jake Emlyn, which means I don’t have to write about them. I wasn’t so sure about them to be honest – in some respects androgyny has been a key aspect of pop over the years, from David Bowie through to Suede, but where they had an air of mystery about them, Jake Emlyn just had confusion. And two odd shoes isn’t a good look on anyone.

Jake Emlyn

Most of the crowd last night were there for Nordic Giants, playing we think might have been their longest set in Brighton this year. We haven’t seen too much of them round these parts in 2012, and their sets at Great Escape and more recently Sound Screen were shortened at the expense of a wider bill. With more time, Nordic Giants are bigger, better, and more expansive than ever before. They got to play their full repertoire. Let’s not forget that as established as they feel when you go to see them, they’ve only released one EP and one single, and both of those were based around the fantastic Shine featuring Cate Ferris. Despite only being a duo, the Green Door Store stage almost felt too small for them. Nordic Giants are epic, and have the staging, the lighting and the music just right for a stage that’s bigger than the one under the arches near the station.

Nordic Giants

The Next Danger De Mort is on November 20th at Green Door Store, and features Death Rattle, Dark Bells, My New Favourite Tribe and Heliopause.

Brighton Digital Festival : Sound Screen headlined by Nordic Giants

Posted on 24/09/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Last night we paid a visit to another Brighton Digital Festival event. We’ve got another two events in our diary in the next week too, so look out for reports on them.

Caveman Genius

Sound Screen was an audio visual event put on by Pop Up Brighton at the Pavilion Theatre, pairing up electronic acts with visual artists. Electronic acts make some of the most exciting music, and as even Deadmau5 pointed out this summer, quite often the live performance just involves them pressing play in Ableton. All of tonight’s performers do a lot more than just sit behind a laptop, but all were enhanced with the addition of visuals.

Pact

The event opened with Caveman Genius – a one man act who plays live drums alongside his lush downbeat electronica. I’m loathed to use such an outdated phrase as Trip Hop, but it’s probably the words that describe his music best, and it’s meant as a compliment. Next up was Pact, whose sound was far more suited to the dancefloor. Unfortunately, the Pavilion was in a seated configuration last night, so I don’t think he was truly appreciated. It would be good to see what he could do at 2am in a club rather than 9pm in a theatre. The last act before the interval were the slightly more laid back Adolescent, who played as a whole band setup. Alex Parish was the focus, who controlled the electronic side of things and occasionally took to the drums, while the rest of the band added shimmering guitar and bass

Adolescent

The headliners of the night were the fantastic Nordic Giants. If you haven’t heard them yet, you must. If you haven’t seen them live yet, you’ve missed out. Musically, they’re post-rock, as emotional as Sigur Ros, with the quietLOUDquiet of Mogwai and the politics of Godspeed you Black Emperor. Visually, the band make so much more of an effort than anyone else – body paint with nightmarish masks, strobe lighting, and award winning films from Shorts International, with the vocal for each track given a separate backlit section on stage. It all makes for arguably the best live performance in Brighton, and it was frustrating that they only got a half hour set, at only their second live performance in town this year.

new single : Nordic Giants (feat Cate Ferris) / Shine

Posted on 31/05/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Brighton Music Blog favourites Nordic Giants release their debut single today.

If you’ve got a nagging feeling that they’ve had a single already, then you’re kind of right – Their “A Tree as Old as Me” EP came out in September 2010. But technically, that was an EP, not a single, so here they are with their debut. And if you’re thinking that you might have heard Shine before, then you’ll be right there too, because a different version was on the EP.

Shine is an absolutely epic track. Like the very best bits of Sigur Ros, but with female vocals, going from whispers to a barrage of wondrous noise in a heartbeat. Things start off quiet with Cate Ferris’ vocal line over what might be strings, or could be reversed guitars. Things stay restrained for a couple of minutes after which the tension slowly starts to build, then comes the drop, and then an explosion of noise, like fireworks in your soul.

B-side Together samples a Martin Luther King speech (which bizarrely has also been sampled by Linkin Park, of all people), and brings to mind a more melodic Godspeed You Black Emperor – a rousing moralistic oratory over rousing intense post-rock. There’s also an acoustic version of Shine thrown in for good measure, with simple piano lines and a string quartet replacing the guitars.

Shine is out on iTunes now.

Brighton bands at the Great Escape

Posted on 15/05/2012 by brightonmusicblog

If you hadn’t noticed, it’s just been The Great Escape Festival around town. What a weekend! Officially I was taking photos for the festival themselves, which I’ve done for the last few years. Unofficially, I made it my mission to get around as many Brighton bands as I could. Over the course of the weekend, I saw Abi Wade at Unitarian Church, Dear Prudence at Above Audio, Us Baby Bear Bones at Green Door Store, Abi Wade (again) at Latest, Catherine Ireton at Latest, Fear of Men at Queens Hotel, Nordic Giants at Komedia, Speak Galactic at Latest, Thomas White at Shipwrights yard, Us Baby Bear Bones (again) at Latest, Woodpecker Wooliams at the Fishbowl and Kinnie The Explorer at The Haunt. Phew!

(click through to the pics to view them larger)