We’ve got an interesting New Music post for you this week – new tracks from some of our city’s biggest bands as well as some exciting stuff from some of Brighton’s younger home grown talent.
Fujiya & Miyagi‘s last album (excluding solo projects Omega Male and I am Ampersand) was back in 2011. The band are back now with an album due in the spring, the first taster of which is Tetrahydrofolic Acid – much more electronic and a lot less krautrock than before:
Electric Soft Parade have put up a video for another track from last year’s Idiots. One of Those Days comes out to coincide with a Spanish tour that the White brothers kick off tomorrow:
Love Thy Neighbour, home to Abi Wade, Us Baby Bear Bones and A Lily have just signed Hypnotized. Their first release for the label will be Telesto – a five track EP coming out on 24th March. There’s a launch party at the Green Door Store on 10th March, and you can hear the title track from the EP here:
Last, but by no means least, The Hundredth Anniversary announced news of their new five track EP Wreckers this week, which is released on 17th March. Only a hundred copies are being pressed and if you can pre order it from the Odd Box bandcamp page. you get an early download of It Becomes Us from the EP:
In a bit of our change to our weekly gig round up, which used to just focus on what was going to be happening at the weekend, from 2014 we’ll be looking at what’s going on for the whole week. We always played a little bit fast and loose with the concept of weekend, always starting on Thursdays (and even Wednesdays on some occasions), but inevitably there would be the odd gig that would slip through the net.
As it happens, our first post in the new format is starting with a recommendation for thursday night – Luo, Kudu Blue and Fools Empire at playing at the Green Door Store in a fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer Support. Four pound on the door goes to the charity.
Meanwhile, over at the Hope, Demob Happy headline a not-so-late-night Late Night Lingerie, with a couple of French bands also on the bill.
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On Friday Night, Late Night Lingerie regulars Spit Shake Sisters are playing a free gig at the Blind Tiger, with Broadbay in support.Meanwhile, over at Hotel Pelirocco Japanese Sweets headline Synthesize Me. While the name Japanese Sweets may not be familiar, you’ll have probably read one of our many posts about Speak Galactic, which is one of Owen Thomas’ other projects.
Onto Saturday night – The Hundredth Anniversary are headlining at the Hope alongside The Grafham Water Sailing Club and I Like The Go Go.
At Sticky Mike’s, their regular Brighton Rock nights are back, with Dizzy Tales, The Evil Son, Saint Elmo and Mude this week.
Our last pick of the week is Almighty Planets who are hosting monthly nights at the Blind Tiger. Amongst the supports are Brighton’s Normanton Street.
Normally around this time of week we post up our recommendations for the forthcoming weekend’s gigs. This week we’ve picked out just one for your attention, which is also an album launch for a new compilation which features some great Brighton bands.
Hidden Brighton is a new compilation from our friends over at Hidden Trail – the label associated with the Some Of It Is True blog. It’s being launched with a gig on Friday Night at the Palmeira with three of the bands who contributed to the compilation playing live. The Self Help Group, Hella Better Dancer and Ellie Ford will be performing, and the album also features contributions from Kill Moon, The Raving Beauties, The Standard Lamps, The Hundredth Anniversary, tiNhearT, Flash Bang Band, Woodland Blue, Kokopelli and Us Baby Bear Bones. Proceeds from the album will go towards charity Grace Eyre, who support local children with learning difficulties, and all acts have donated their tracks free of charge. Tickets for the gig will be available on the door or in advance from the venue or Resident Records.
For this week’s gig picks, we’ve got tie-ins with two different festivals and some local media big hitters putting on gigs, as well as a few other odds and sods.
You may have heard that Brighton Digital Festival is on in town at the moment and as part of that Pop Up Brighton return with their Sound Screen event, bringing together local bands with international visual artists. On Thursday night at the Corn ExchangePhoria, Luo and The Hundredth Anniversary play to a backdrop of visual collaborations that the bands and video artists have been working together on for the last six weeks. Meanwhile Time for T headline at the Hope for Brightonsfinest, with Gypsy Switch, Paper Hawk and Prisoners Cinema also playing, and Monsters Build Mean Robots and Spacenoid are on the bill at Brighton Noise / Nice Weather For Airstrike’s Industroika gig at the Prince Albert.
On Friday Night Lloyd Williams and Ellie Ford launch their debut release at St Mary’s Church, Black Rooster Black Shag headline the Prince Albert, and Bad for Lazarus play Sticky Mike’s.
Saturday night is the third of The Haunt and Juice Brighton’s short run of weekly gigs. This week they have Them The Sky, Garden Heart, and Paper Hawk on the line up. It’s also the first of this month’s two Source New Music Nights (they’re hosting another on 20th as part of Brighton Digital Festival). This one is curated by Wildwood Promotions and is headlined by Alex White’s Interlocutor, with Red River Dialect, Octopuses and Herb Denton’s Last Dime playing too. Finally, it’s the Over The Moon Festival’s pre-party at the Blind Tiger, with a line up that includes Eagles for Hands, Mitch Wade Cole, Platypi, Eone and Murder He Wrote.
Here are the top tunes that were on the Brighton Music Blog stereo in August. As always, the diversity of the music being made in this city is impressive, from retro garage to chilled electronica and everything inbetween.
1) Spit Shake Sisters – Modern Drugs Make Aliens
Our most listened to track of the last month wasn’t a proper single, and was just put out to bring Spit Shake Sister’s output up to date following a change in personnel. Modern Drugs Make Aliens wasn’t even the lead song on the two track download. But nevertheless we’re big fans of this Hammond led hip swinger.
2) Electric Soft Parade – 1969
1969 is a popular year for songwriters. Serge Gainsbourg, Iggy Pop and, er, Bryan Adams have all taken advantage of writing about a year that recalls a time of free love, which also has a lot of rhymes. I’m sure the innuendo has nothing to do with it’s popularity. Now it’s Electric Soft Parade’s turn, putting out the summery guitar pop of 1969 as a free download from their label’s website.
3) Adolescent – Shy
Shy came out on an electronica compilation called Coast to Coast put out by Irish blog Believe In Sound. Call us biased, but in our opinion the Brighton track with the best thing on it. You can download the whole compilation for free on bandcamp.
4) Bon Iver – Wash (Foreign Skin remix)
Bon Iver’s not from Brighton, I hear you say. Well, no – but Flavia Aliverti, better known as Foreign Skin, is. We were won over by her set at Two Three Four at Green Door Store at the start of the month, and not long after this rather lovely unofficial remix turned up on SoundCloud and Bandcamp (see the links underneath the video on YouTube). Grab it before it disappears
5) The Hundredth Anniversary – Last Drive
The Hundredth Anniversary continue to put out high quality shoegaze, and Last Drive is no exception. Head over to the website they created to go with the track, play with the visuals, and download the track to listen to at your leisure.
6) The Raving Beauties – Oh Lover
At The Helm is a new Brighton based label from the guys behind Brighthelmstone promotions and Wildwood promotions, and the sunny Americana of Oh Lover is their first release
7) Phantom Runners – It Takes Me Away
We only heard this last week, but we loved it on first listen. We heard some very exciting news about who might be producing the Phantom Runners next EP, but we think it might be a secret so all we’ll say is keep your eyes and ears peeled.
8) Samuel Organ – E/\/\ER/\LD
The Physics House Band’s own label Kaleidoscope put out their second release this month, a three track solo EP called Y by Physics House Band member Samuel Organ. It’s not easy listening by any means, but neither is a lot of Aphex Twin’s output, which this track feels like it could be a natural heir to.
9) P For Persia – Uncanny Valley
Uncanny Valley got reviewed by Drowned In Sound, who described it as “a Twin Peaks remix done on an Atari by Fuck Buttons channelling their inner Kid606, before asking a bunch of shouty screamo kids to come in and do some vocals.”. They didn’t mention that it was just one track on a split EP with Speak Galactic, that the EP was called Aegis Arctic Alp, or that it was coming out on purple vinyl, all of which makes it an even more exciting prospect.
10) Flash Bang Band / Screw Come Loose
The second track in our top ten from At The Helm Records, Screw Come Loose, is the single that’s come out to promote the new Flash Bang Band album Bite Your Tongue. The album is out now and features some of their older singles (If You’re Driving and DananananaFreud). The launch party is at the Green Door Store on 15th September, where they’ll be joined by P For Persia and Clowns.
Standing out from the crowd is an age old dilemma. It’s not too many years ago that a digital release was a novelty, but now it’s the default. To get a bit more attention for their new single, The Hundredth Anniversary have set up a website. You can play the track, download the track, show the lyrics and create your own video by cycling through a series of visual loops.
Last Drive is slow motion shoe gaze, with thick slabs of guitars and desolate vocals. You can download it at lastdrive.thehundredthanniversary.com (along with everything I described above)
In Brighton, the first weekend in August is associated with being Pride – probably the biggest party in the local calendar. We’re not going to include that in our weekend gig picks because of the lack of local acts on the bill, but we have got a whole load of other gigs to tell you about, including a very special couple of days at the Green Door Store.
Tomorrow night IYES and Yumi & The Weather are supporting MT at the Prince Albert. It doesn’t cost anything to get in, but to get hold of a ticket you’ll need to register online.
There’s quite a few gigs on Friday that have caught our eye. AMiTY and Jacko Hooper are playing at Neighbourhood on St James Street, and The Jargonaughts (featuring ex members of Los Albertos) are on at the Gladstone. Over at The Hope multimedia electronica night The Outer Church hold the launch night for their new compilation with live music from Pye Corner Radio, Kember Norton, Embla Quickbeam and Wrong Signals.
Over Saturday and Sunday Green Door Store are holding an event called TwoThreeFour. There are over twenty bands on the bill, mostly from Brighton, including The New Union, Kill Moon, Faux Flux, Spit Shake Sisters, Dog in the Snow, GAPS, Written in Waters, The Hundredth Anniversary, Tyrannosaurus Dead, Ed Prosek, Tigercub, Foreign Skin, Wildcat Strike and Demob Happy. It’s an amazing line up, and it’s free – You’d be a fool to miss it.
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