So this blog will be Valentine music free this year, although our love for music runs throughout the year not just for one day.
Here are some tracks that have been getting our love though. Enjoy them all.
Grouplove – Tounge Tied (Gigamesh Remix)
You’ve probably heard Tongue Tied on the Apple iPod Touch advert even if you weren’t aware of the band themselves. Tongue Tied was always a fantastically good holler along indie / folk / rock /pop tune but now Gigamesh has given Grouplove some juicy summertime disco nursery rhyme flavours and made it sound even better. Bump the beat. This is so good and free to download!
Fixers – Iron Deer Dream (Keep Shelly In Athens Remix)
This is a case of the re. It’s a remix of a re-release for Oxford's FixersIron Deer Dream. (See even the word dream has re in it as does deer and Fixers, albeit in a back to front style). Was it really over a year ago that we first featured the original of this song on the blog? Yes it was. So let’s give it another go, because it deserves it.
Slow Club – The Dog
Ah Slow Club. In the past we’ve gushed uncontrollably about them like a demented fan-boy. So we’re going to try and be a little more restrained about them today. WE LOVE SLOW CLUB. WE LOVE SLOW CLUB. OMG WE LOVE SLOW CLUB. WE LOVE SLOW CLUB SO MUCH. OH SLOW CLUB CAN WE MARRY YOU? OH SLOW CLUB, SLOW CLUB, OH OH OH… Damn. Failed. The Dog is the bands new single out on March 26th as a digital download.
Imperial Goddess of Mercy is the new 5 track EP from Oxford’s experimental psychedelic bad-jumper wearing pop five-piece Fixers. It’s released on Dec 5. Below we’re streaming a song from that EP - you can also download it for free in exchange for a 'like' from the bands facebook page. It’s called Trans Love and demonstrates that the group have obviously studied their Beach Boys collection very well. Amongst the swirling synth sounds, clattering percussion and sixties production references the band proclaim over and over how they’re in love with a tropical world. We’re not sure if this is a reference to one of the UK's most popular garden tourist attractions in Leeds or something a bit more profound. Either way it’s a song that will put a bit of summer into your heart as the northern hemisphere slides into winter.
With an album ready for 2012 release the band are playing an extensive UK tour throughout October to December including a date in the Oxford Ashmolean Museum on November 11. For those local to Breaking More Waves HQ they also play a free show at The Registry in Portsmouth on October 27.
Here is your latest fix of Fixers. The Oxford five piece’s single Swimmhaus Johannesburg first streamed on Breaking More Waves back in July and today they’ve released the video for the song. What’s particularly ingratiating about Fixers is that the band seem to be characterised by a slightly maverick and eccentric approach to creating pop music, yet it’s always accessible and appealing. As chronicled previously Swimmhaus Johannesburg swings wildly away from the bands earlier US psychedelic pop influences and goes full pelt into early 90’s Brit indie-dance territory although still with a hint of America in its blood.
The video continues the oddness; rather like an art house French film not a lot happens. It seems almost diametrically opposite to the manic craziness of the song.
Fixers will be headlining the BBC Introducing Stage at the Reading and Leeds Festivals 2011.
The biggest two enemies of the sole-author music blogger are the email in-box and time. Put these two together and the maths add up to potentially exhausted looking creatures once known as human beings staring wide-eyed, crushed and broken at their laptops.
To avoid such situations its necessary to have the weekly equivalent of a wardrobe clear out. We call it The Saturday Surf. It’s a musical jumble sale, where we’ve already creamed off the best of the bargains and hidden them in a bag at the back of the room for you.
These are the best tracks that didn’t quite get their own full posts this week, but probably deserved to. As always we make sure that it takes you no longer than about 15 minutes to listen to everything here.
Fixers - Swimmhaus Johannesburg
Oxford’s Fixers are no strangers to this blog and we thought we had them sussed with their Brain Wilson vibes and playful sack of psychedelic fun. We were wrong. New single Swimmhaus Johannesburg takes a very different route. There’s an italo-house piano, squealing siren-like sounds and proper guitar riffs. It’s utterly bonkers but shows that they’re no one trick pony. This song doesn’t get a formal release till August and we understand that the album isn’t out till January next year. Could they be a BBC Sound of 2012 possibility, or are they just too batty for serious consideration? We’d like to think not.
Another group who we’ve featured before at Breaking More Waves, first in a new waves feature back in March is [ Strangers ]. We’re still not convinced about the brackets around the name, but they’ve caught our ears again with their second EP and this song It Was A Sin. It takes all the best bits of Depeche Mode – dark lyrics, big church like synths and stern vocals and makes us want to don our black leathers and do the side-to-side Dave Gahan arm dance.
More electro-pop comes from blog world favourites Monarchy who are finally about to release their debut album Around The Sun. Monarchy are a strange proposition – a pop band who can really play live, completely look the part, have received extensive blog /media coverage and possess some cracking tunes like Maybe I’m Crazy. Yet at the moment they’ve not crossed over and attained mainstream public love. The debacle of the album leak last year and the subsequent regrouping probably hasn’t helped matters, the window of pop opportunity quickly pulling the shutters. It is, all in all, a shame.
Finally, in a world far away from electro pop, news reached us this week that Peggy Sue are due to release their second album Acrobats on September 12.Produced by PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish the groups sound has evolved significantly from their early wacky lo-fi folky doo-wop days when they were known as Peggy Sue and the Pirates. We featured the band a number of times in 2009 on the blog, and back in the day, when we did interviews Peggy Sue was one of our victims. This new track Cut My Teeth, is darker, edgier, more guttural and not that dissimilar to some of the work Ms Harvey has produced with Parish.
For yet another weekend in May the streets and seafront of Brighton were adulterated not only with the usual mix of hedonistic clubbers, party people and intoxicated hen parties, but with several thousand wristband wearing gig goers coming together in an orgy of multi-venue musical mayhem. Breaking More Waves was of course in the thick of it. Here is our school report of all the essential ingredients of what makes a festival succeed or not.
Tickets
Tickets for The Great Escape ranged from a 3 day pass at £49.50 (+ booking fee) to a variety of day and 2 day combinations. Those on the smart money book months in advance though, with the early bird catching the worm at only £35 for a three day pass – the same as what a Saturday only ticket was on the door. Tickets allow access to all venues and gigs, except for shows by Friendly Fires, DJ Shadow and Sufjan Stevens at the Dome, for which extra payment was required. Alongside the main festival a variety of ‘Alternative Escape’ shows run, which non-wristband holders can also attend for free or a small charge.
Accommodation
No camping in messy, muddy fields thank you very much. The Great Escape is an urban festival, so if you don’t live there or travel in each day there’s a plethora of hotels, apartments and B&B’s. We stayed in the sexily swish Feng Shui ambience of My Hotel, right in the throbbing heart of Brighton which provided an ideal base for the event being only a short stagger home each night after the partying had finished. For those on a more restricted budget, a variety of campsites exist just outside Brighton, but if considering using those beware the potential risk of high public transport costs if travelling back late at night when only taxis are available.
The Site
It’s a city, by the sea. Without a portaloo anywhere. The venues that hosted this year’s festival ranged from pubs, clubs, and concert halls to a hotel lobby, a seafront pier, outdoor street gigs and even a vintage clothes store, of which you can see footage of Treetop Flyers playing in below.
The Punters
A mix of indie kids and older music veterans, with everyone being there for the same reason – to enjoy the music. During the weekend we saw several acoustic / folk sets and were impressed with how quietly appreciative the crowds were, but likewise when it was time to rock / dance, everyone seemed prepared to up the tempo and party.
The Toilets
A good festival has good toilets, so being indoors you’d probably expect the Great Escape to have remarkably clean loos compared with outdoor portaloos or compost toilets. Yet unfortunately it seems that the users of the facilities and the owners of clubs and pubs in Brighton pay little attention to keeping the things spotless whilst in use. Here’s an example (click here) of one such offender from one of Brighton’s leading clubs. Could do much better.
The Queues
Queues for the toilets and queues for food are two common complaints of outdoor summer festivals. No problem here in Brighton of course. The bane of every muti-venue urban festival is venue capacity. Arrive too late to see a popular act and you risk finding yourself standing outside on the street wondering whether spending £ 49.50 to loiter on the pavement like a loser was such a good idea.The Great Escape is no exception and we heard reports all weekend (particularly on the Friday and Saturday) of over-subscribed shows. However, with careful advance planning it’s possible (as we did) to never see a queue at all and maximise your time watching bands. (Read more about our tips on this here) In our time at Great Escape 2011 we saw everything we wanted to see – that’s 36 full performances.
The Organisation
Generally Great Escape is very well organised with high levels of stewarding and venues running reasonably on time, although inevitably from time to time some schedules slip a little. With festival organisers providing regular updates on what venues are full and what have space via a text message service punters are kept reasonably well informed. We did however hear a number of complaints this year about artists and bands pulling out of shows and no information being given at the venue or via the text service.
The Food
Everything from a cheap sandwich courtesy of a supermarket to some fine restauranteering is available. It’s a city isn’t it? Enough said.
The Weather
If you’ve ever attended an outdoor festival you’ll have probably checked the weather forecast for several days in advance. Forget what people say about muddy festivals bringing out the British fighting spirit and giving people a sense of community. That may be true, but wet festivals are still rubbish. However with the Great Escape there really is no need to worry about the weather. With 99% of gigs being indoors the wettest you’ll get is through a short dash along the seafront as you run between venues. We brought an umbrella and a mac. Wellies were never considered when you’ve got hard landscaping and a permanent drainage system. The umbrella wasn’t required anyway, with it being dry and mainly bright, with just a little cloud.
The Vibe
Just like outdoor summer festivals the vibe of Great Escape goes from one of chilled relaxation during the day to chaotic partying at night. What it lacks in terms of a shared inclusive community spirit that the best outdoor festivals have it makes up for in terms of convenience.
The Music
And before we forget, there’s the music. Great Escape 2011 was arguably the festival's best line up ever in terms of new music and therefore there were always going to be a huge number of line up clashes. So whilst it seemed that the world and his wife (and 95% of all new music bloggers at the festival) were herding themselves into see the likes of Braids, EMA and Gang Gang Dance we took a different route and were rewarded in particular with an incredible performance by Lanterns On The Lake whose bejewelled atmospherics were so gut-wrenchingly beautiful that grown men in the audience were shedding tears. Other highlights over the three days included James Vincent McMorrow who showed the power of simplicity with just an acoustic guitar and the voice of an angel in the Unitarian Church. Providing one of the defining moments of the festival he played If I Had A Boat off-mic to an enraptured and hushed audience, his falsetto-soul creating goose bumps everywhere. On a lighter pop note Rizzle Kicks blend of rap, ska and youthful cheekiness was stripped down acoustically in Beyond Retro vintage clothes store, delighting and putting smiles on faces during their short set. Singer songwriter Rachel Sermanni showed that she could be the next new voice of folk music with mature songcraft and a personable charm that could win her many more fans wherever she plays and Fixers came up trumps with their blend of kaleidoscopic Beach Boys / Animal Collective inspired wig out pop in the faded and tacky seaside glamour of Horatio’s bar on the pier.
Overall
Great Escape 2011 was quite simply the best yet. With a few minor tweaks in terms of information about cancellations it could be pretty much perfect. We’ll certainly be there again next year. Here are a few tracks from some of our music highlights.
If bands were football teams, then Fixers would probably be pushing into the play-off zone as we come to the end of the season. Here’s their psychedelic kaleidoscopic LCD-tripping video for their new song Crystals. The song was previously streamed on the blog here and is the lead track on their marvellous Here Comes 2001, So Let’s Head For The Sun EP, from which another track Uriel streamed here.
If you love Tron-like grid symbolism, floating bananas, eclipses and (of course) flashing crystals in this acid-trip of a video (and frankly, who doesn’t ?) then you’ll be getting just a little high on this one. That’s 1-0 Fixers then. Next stop Wembley?
For our next three posts our attention turns to what in many ways is a prelude to the main UK outdoor summer festivals – Brighton’s Great Escape. Like a smaller European version of SXSW, The Great Escape is a 3 day multi-venue, multi-gig, urban festival which has a particular focus of new music. Although there are a number of other similar events in the UK, Great Escape is certainly the biggest.
In theory the idea of multi-venue festivals sounds brilliant. Stroll from club to pub displaying your wristband proudly, catching bands as you please, with no worries about the weather, the toilets or getting a bad nights sleep because some wide-eyed douche-bag in the tent next to you wants to stay up drinking all night and shouting his head off. Urban events are very much festivals of convenience. You don’t need to pack your wellies or lug an arm draining 24 pack of lager across miles of fields.
However the reality can be somewhat different – venue capacities can mean that popular acts can become easily over-subscribed leading to a significant amount of your time being spent standing in queues. With the festival being in an urban setting the sense of freedom and inclusivity can be lost, making the event seem just like a series of gigs and parties rather than something magical where the normal rules of society don’t apply. And if you’re not able to make it home every evening and have checked in to a cheap hotel or hostel you still run the risk of being kept up all night by drunk revellers running up and down the corridors and slamming doors.
So how do you ensure you get to see the artists you really want to see? Here’s our simple tip-list:
1. It pays to be organised. Work out your timetable (with a reserve plan) before the event – it’s all listed on the website (here) or in full colour programme preview PDF (here). Check the venue capacities if you don’t know them (again listed on the site) – don’t expect to turn up to see a ‘buzz’ band 5 minutes before they are due to play in a 100 capacity venue. In fact with the Great Escape don’t expect to be able to wander from venue to venue as you please. Tickets are selling fast (Saturday day tickets have already sold out) so gigs will be busy. Be prepared to get to venues early for bands you particularly want to catch.
2. Go to the daytime gigs as well as the evening ones. Our experience has shown that these gigs are a little less busy, particularly the early lunchtime slots and some real gems can be found in the day.
3. Sign up to the text messaging service by texing ESCAPE to 87085 and they’ll send you all of the details of schedule changes, secret shows, hidden parties, venue capacities and much more as they happen on site. There’s an initial sign up charge of £1.50 plus your standard network charge. After that you will not be charged to receive notifications from Great Escape.
4. Use Twitter. The micro-blogging site can be invaluable as a supplement to the text service, plus you can find out lots of other information from punters, bloggers, journalists and bands that are playing. Of course, as a start we recommend that you follow us (here). We’ll be tweeting regularly from the event.
5. Don’t forget the Alternative Escape which gives you even more choice of gigs and parties to attend. All shows are completely free with your festival wristband although these gigs are also open to the general public.
So with plenty of time to still plan your timetable, let Breaking More Waves assist you with a few recommendations of artists to see, starting in this post with Thursdays line up. We’ve listed the currently confirmed times and venues for all of the bands playing, but please check the final programme as they may be subject to change. Practicalities mean that we won’t be at all these gigs ourselves but all these acts come with our full approval. Friday and Saturday's line up recommendations follow soon in the next two posts.
Alpines – Prince Albert 15.15 and Komedia Studio Bar 21.15
First featured on Breaking More Waves back in October 2010, the self-named night pop of Alpines has been a regular feature ever since. The London male-female duo have had a huge number of comparisons thrown their way with names such as Bat For Lashes, Fever Ray, Portishead, The XX, Massive Attack and Zola Jesus being mentioned. Their music has an ethereal, electric and slightly menacing trip-hop /pop aesthetic to it and with a major label deal through Polydor in the bag one question that the Great Escape may help answer is can the bands very studio based sound be pulled-off live ? There's at least two chances to check them out on Thursday.
Where better to hear the surf-pop-harmonies of Oxford five piece Fixers than a pier on the sea? Another band that are rapidly becoming Breaking More Waves regulars, the bands new EP Here Comes 2001, So Let’s Head For The Sun is four tracks of brilliantly playful and experimental harmony laden pop that owes significant debt to Brian Wilson, Animal Collective and spaced-out spot-on genius.
On the same bill as Fixers, New York boy and girl duo Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin have been the talk of the blogosphere for some time (they first appeared on Breaking More Waves in March 2010) Like Fixers, Cults offer nostalgic reference points for a modern day indie pop audience, covering bases from the twee twinklings of Go Outside to this slightly brasher offering – Abducted.
Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Miami Horror are not hugely known in the UK, although elsewhere in the world 2010 album Illumination has gained significant recognition with its blend of hands in the air, cheddar smothered, sugary disco references and dance-floor bangers. If you like the Bee-Gees, Abba and Michael Jackson but also like fist pumping electro (with a hint of New Order guitar) then for a late night Thursday boogie you could possibly do no better than shaking your arse off at Coalition.
OK, strictly speaking this show is on Friday being in the early hours of the morning and the band are playing later in the day after (hopefully) some sleep at Above Audio at 14.45, but really this is part of Thursdays proceedings. If the idea of dancing round your handbag club-bound stylee to Miami Horror really isn’t your thing, why not try this show put on by fellow music blog My Band’s Better Than Your Band. We’re convinced you can’t go wrong with the off-kilter indie of Dog Is Dead. We’ve previously compared the Nottingham based group to Mystery Jets, Local Natives and slapped on a reference to Beach Boys harmonies as well. The first band in ages to make the saxophone cool again, Dog Is Dead are gloriously uplifting and full of big pop ideas. Fresh (or not so fresh as the case me be) from some support slots with Brother, Dog Is Dead bring more invention and thrills than anything the Slough based abomination of a band could ever provide.
If Iron Deer Dream by Oxford’s Fixers was the bands calling card, then new song Crystals is the moment when they storm the palace with a huge harmony led battering ram. It’s a gloriously energetic stomp through the back catalogue of Animal Collective and The Beach Boys, firmly establishing them as one of the most exciting new groups in the UK right now.
Of course Fixers sound is more widescreen U.S west coast psychedelia than traditional UK indie pop, but this is because Fixers embrace cosmic intent and sonic ambition rather than down at heel averageness. They may be playing black painted stinking lager strewn indie clubs right now, but wherever they go their sound soars with light and majesty far removed from the miserableness of those dark toilet venues.
Summer is on its way and Fixers could be the perfect soundtrack for stripping off and dancing like a loon – who wants to join us?
Crystals will be released on May 9 as part of the bands next EP. It will make your summer.
Although we’re not one of those blogs that just posts random remixes to get hits through Hype Machine, there’s no denying that occasionally a little (or even big) remix will come along and grab our attention. What we particularly like is when two artists we’ve previously blogged get their hands on each other and form something that sounds exactly 50% like one act and 50% like the other. This is why this new version of Iron Deer Dream by Fixers, remixed by Oxford neighbour Chad Valley (possibly more of him soon) gets us pulling a schoolboy-esque thumbs up pose. Shimmery house styled piano and floaty reverb layered vocals bring a bronzed tinge to what was already a very warm sounding song. We’re thinking palm trees, we’re thinking chilled out nightclubs and we’re thinking cocktails.
Fixers are out on tour in the UK this week and we’ll be catching them live later this week so look out for a few tweets on that from our twitter.
Now – if you’ve come here from Hype Machine why not stay a while and check out some of the other music we feature. You might even find a new musical friend?
Oxford’s Blessing Force collective have picked up a substantial amount of UK media coverage – the buzz of a new scene being something that will get your average NME hack sweating in pre-coital excitement. But let’s not be cynical here – sometimes scenes can be healthy in terms of artistry and support, as we identified back in September 2009 here.
Psychedelic pop five piece Fixers are associated with Blessing Force and amongst their midst contain a landscape gardener, which suggests that the band have more than just music as a bed of their creativity. Last year at Wychwood Festival we strolled into the tent where they were playing to catch the last few notes of their flowering set and immediately cursed ourselves for not arriving earlier. Now with a new single being released and tour to follow – we’re determined not to miss out again.
Their new single Iron Deer Dream is a three and a half minute nugget of Animal Collective meets Brian Wilson referencing multi-layered wonder and bodes well for long term love rather than flash in the pan pop hype.
The band will be out on the road in the UK this February with a tour that calls at Sheffield, Brighton, Southampton, London, Manchester, Cardiff and Bristol. We’ll almost certainly be expanding our musical mind at one of these shows and experiencing their vision of harmonious head-in-the-clouds flightiness. Iron Deer Dream is released on the 21 February as a 7inch single through Young and Lost Club. Experimental pop that’s really rather good.
