Last week we featured the grandiose and widescreen sounds of Irish band Codes, who are over in the UK for a few small London shows over the next few days. Whilst the group have had some success and acclaim in their homeland, to the rest of the world they are still unknown.
So let’s open the treasure chest a little more, because besides these gigs, you can now watch the new video for This Is Goodbye and then download the track for free. “What’s ours is yours,” say the group.
The video is a relatively straightforward piece with the band walloping pianos and hacking at guitars, but it’s interspersed with shots of a rather beautiful lady walking through the woods. What her purpose is we’re not quite sure, but at 1.12 she appears to attempt to push over a tree, maybe because it has not been dreaming in algebra and therefore needs to be punished.
With their debut album Trees Dream In Algebra being nominated for the 2009 Irish Choice Music Prize, Codes shouldn’t really be introduced as a new band at all. We're stretching the idea of newness to its extreme here - especially as the band were formed in 2007. Yet ask a significant proportion of music aficionados in the UK or anywhere else outside of Ireland where Breaking More Waves has measurable readership (hello US, Australia, Canada, Denmark and Germany in particular) if they have heard of Codes and the chances are you’ll get a negative response. So maybe they are new to you ?
We’ve posted on the group before, as part of our involvement judging the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition. However in terms of a fuller blog post we’ve never given the band the attention they deserve. So today we’re addressing that error. It’s an appropriate moment to further highlight the band, in particular to UK readers, as the group are playing two low-key dates in London next week.
Codes use synths and electronica but they are fundamentally an indie rock band. Their sound is vast and cinematic, full of epic explosive climaxes, stadium sonics and moments of brilliant barmy pop. On Trees Dream In Algebra you’ll hear voices from out-of-space, soundscape atmospherics, skyscraping ‘woah-oh-oh’ chants, layered guitars and adventurous full on rock drumming that may make you think you’ve stumbled upon a long lost Muse demo, albeit one that’s been tempered with a softer melodic sensibility last heard on Keane’s earlier records. Lyrically too there’s lots of ambitious references. On Memorial lead singer Daragh sings of reaching out for satellites from the high rise and climbing chandeliers into the atmosphere. Elsewhere on Starry Eyed they hang on to boundless concepts of taking flight and limitless horizons; it’s as widescreen as the arrangements of the songs are. Codes produce what Mike Scott of The Waterboys once called the ‘big music’, in every sense. It’s why they were one of our Glastonbury nominations – their music seems perfect for a huge stage.
The danger for Codes in terms of gaining UK exposure is that it may not be the ‘right’ time for the music they make. There’s a growing movement towards the hating of the big in rock and pop music. The wilfully small scale lo-fi laptop producer or obtuse indie rock n roll band is celebrated as being brilliantly challenging and exciting, even although many of these artists are utterly generic and no more creative than the likes of Coldplay or The Kings of Leon. Any sort of success or perceived ambition is seen in some quarters as a negative attribute - witness the backlash against the likes of Lana Del Rey or Ed Sheeran, yet the backlash is often targeted on the artists looks or major label status rather than the music. Furthermore the likes of Keane and Muse are seen as old-hat and any band that bears even a passing resemblance to their sound may find unwilling ears, such is the way that the fashion conscious music business works sometimes.
Whilst Breaking More Waves is fascinated with the rising tides of music and fashion, the show-stopping drama of Codes is beyond all of this. It deserves a chance outside of just Ireland. This is why we’re posting today.
Codes play London dates at the Bull & Gate on Oct 27 and then at 93 Feet East on Oct 31. If you’re anywhere near London, why not make the effort?
After hours of painstaking listening and deliberation some of the best music bloggers in the UK have put forward their nominations for the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition 2011, and that includes Breaking More Waves. It was incredibly difficult to decide on our final three choices from the list of 160 bands we were given to listen to, but eventually we went with our hearts choosing quite simply the music that moved us the most.
We’re very pleased to announce that our top choice was the fantastic Codes, followed in second and third respectively by Leaving Atlantis and Temper the Wolves. We hope at some point to be able to see all of these bands live and hopefully support them on the blog, irrespective of if they make it any further in the competition.
Later this week, the 123 acts will be narrowed down to a shortlist of just 8 who will compete at April's live finals for a main stage slot at this year's Festival. They will be chosen by the final judging panel which consists of the following 10 judges: Michael Eavis (Glastonbury organiser), Emily Eavis (Glastonbury organiser), Nick Dewey (main stages programmer), Martin Elbourne (main stages programmer), Malcolm Haynes (Dance Village programmer), Steve Symons (West Holts programmer), Philippa Aylott (Radio One producer), Angus Baskerville (live agent), Paul Charles (agent/promoter/manager) and Chris Salmon (music journalist). We wish our three choices the very best of luck.
It also pleases us to see a number of other bands on the shortlist that we have blogged in the past such as Run Toto Run, Dems and The Dufflefolks – all excellent selections. In fact the long list represents a fantastic sample of new and emerging talent – the UK bloggers have demonstrated exactly why they are becoming increasingly known as a vital part of new music discovery. Below you’ll find tracks by all of these other bands together with an introductory video from our top choice Codes – an Irish band with a grandiose vision who combine stadium sonics, subtle electronic soundscapes and songs that deliver immediately but get better with every listen. Their album – Trees Dream In Algebra is brilliantly accomplished and we hope that irrespective of their now slim 123-1 chances of winning, that as the year progresses more people outside of Ireland will get to know about them.
You can imagine that when faced with around 160 bands and solo artists, 99% of which you’ve never heard of before, it can be a fairly daunting task to listen to them all and form judgements about which are best – particularly when you have fairly wide tastes and enjoy everything from chart based pop to lo-fi underground noise.
But as a Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition judge, that is the task we have taken upon ourselves, alongside 39 others representing many of the UK's best music blogs.
Today we offer up another four acts for your perusal in two blogs (the other comes later today) that we’ve been enjoying from the list of artists that we’ve been asked to judge. Once again, and we apologise for repeating ourselves from yesterday, any of the bands we feature here are not necessarily the ones we will be choosing as our selected three for the longlist – we’re still giving consideration to everything on the list.
So here’s our next choice – Codes, from Ireland (pictured above). Codes produce sonically huge pop / rock songs that immediately jump out from the first second you hear them but are also layered with vast detail that draws you in further and rewards repeated listening. With hints of next-big-things-that-didn’t-quite-make-it Geneva (remember them anyone?) and a soundscape that towers with euphoric and explosive magnificence Codes have already recorded an album Trees Dream In Algebra in the UK which was nominated for the prestigious Irish Choice Music Prize. Although as yet no UK physical release has been secured it is available to download. Watch the video for Starry Eyed below – and no it’s not a cover version of the Ellie Goulding song.
Anchor & The Wolf are a very different but equally intriguing proposition. Formed by Swindon’s Zoe Mead, Anchor & The Wolf produce sweet folk pop out of ukulele, acoustic guitar and glockenspiel that makes your heart feel a little lighter and the days a little better, even if some of their lyrics are a little melancholy. Their new EP -The Cinema Suite was released this week and is available to purchase from the Anchor & The Wolf Bandcamp here. The song below Trampolines and Chandeliers is a dreamy, velvety piece of work and is featured on the EP.
