The Saturday Surf #16

That’s it, summers over. If you live in the top part of the northern hemisphere prepare for 6 or 7 months of grim weather, seasonal affective disorder and nothing to look forward to except having no money after Christmas.

Of course something you can look forward to is opening your email browser or in box each day to get the latest post on Breaking More Waves. We’re beginning to ramp things up again following a quiet few weeks in late August and September whilst we took a holiday and then partied our way across two of the UK’s best music festivals – End of the Road and Bestival.

The few weeks off have also given us the chance to review the blog and what we’re doing with it and we’ve come to the conclusion that for the moment we’re quite happy with the way it is. At the start of 2011 we dropped live reviews, album reviews and interviews and focussed purely on new music, new artists with the occasional discursive blog and our school report style festival reviews. Also on Mondays we dipped into nostalgia with Music That Made Me highlighting some of the songs that have influenced our tastes over the years. So now we continue with more of the same, with Saturdays wrapping up a few tracks that we haven’t had the chance to post about properly during the week in this feature called The Saturday Surf.

So without further ado, whatever season it is, get your swimming costume on or if you've forgotten it just throw off your clothes, let’s go surfing.

Jamie N Commons – Now Is Not The Time

Cast your mind back to March and you may remember that we featured the smoky voiced troubadour Jamie N Commons in a new waves feature. Since then things have been very quiet in terms of new music, but recently this new song Now Is Not The Time has popped up on a couple of blogs and Commons is gearing himself up for an EP release on October 17 through Luv Luv Luv.

Now Is Not The Time by Jamie N Commons

Friends Electric – Puzzle Pieces

At the other end of the musical spectrum from Jamie N Commons we find Welsh electronic dance pop demons Friends Electric, who are putting out this single Puzzle Pieces the week after Commons EP. It’s trademark Friends Electric, that is to say its sky searching danceable electro-pop that’s on a mission to get your hands up high and your hips doing air sex.

Friends Electric - Puzzle Pieces

Visions of Trees – Sirens (Novocaine)

Talking of air sex, here’s another one to get you pumping and grinding. Visions of Trees started out as a vaguely ethereal, floaty, bubbling rhythmic duo whose songs owed more to the likes of ambient pioneers such as System 7 and The Orb than the psych r ‘n’ b that their Myspace claimed. Now however that claim appears justified as their newer material, including this single, bring the thrust to gothic electronica. Imagine Bela Lugosi jigging to a hard climax and this is pretty much what Sirens does.

DEADLY22: Visions of Trees - Sirens (Novocaine)

Big Deal – Chair

Finally here’s a band that we’ve not featured on the blog before, yet coverage is long overdue. Big Deal are Alice Costelloe and KC Underwood and purvey a fine line of fuzzy, driven but beatless pop. Their album Lights Out which is available to purchase now is full of songs like Chair, their new single, with its twinned boy-girl vocals and openly raw guitar work. It’s a good way to sign off summer.

Big Deal - Chair

Friends Electric - Fireworks (Video)

Last Sunday most music fans in the UK were debating Lady Gaga’s performance at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Carlisle (our view – Gaga may have successfully caught out her audience with another shock tactic, this time the music being the talking point rather than her normally outrageous costumes, but her jazz opus felt so bland and middle of the road that we actually longed for the moment when she rolled out the synths and the beats, which unfortunately she only did sparingly).

However, whilst the chatter continued Breaking More Waves was celebrating musical victories of a smaller kind. Over in the BBC Introducing Tent the line-up included a number of new bands that we’ve positively supported over the last year or so. Mopp, Let’s Buy Happiness, Polarsets and Rizzle Kicks have all featured more than once on these pages, some of them as far back as February 2010 and all got their chance to play courtesy of Auntie Beeb. Another act that appeared – Friends Electric - we first wrote about last May and following their performance (some of which you can see here) they have now released a new video for their song Fireworks. We’ll exclude any puns about the song being explosive or rocketing into your mind and instead just say watch it. The track will be released on June 20 and is another piece of their neat fitting electro-pop jigsaw that sits sharply alongside the likes of Delphic and Fenech-Soler.

Friends Electric - Golden Blood

Fans of hip waggling arms in the air brit-synth pop will probably find much satisfaction from welsh stargazing dance floor fillers Friends Electric. Having remixed the likes of Breaking More Waves favourites Ellie Goulding and Bright Light Bright Light (which we remind you of below) their new single Golden Blood is the follow up to Wall of Arms, which we featured here and is released towards the end of November. It’s a blissful nugget of pop carefully wrapped by four men and their computers, that sounds both effortlessly cool and uplifting in its musicality, if that makes any sense.

To quote a certain Mr Pete Tong, as we hit Friday, this is the official start to the weekend. We hope you’re asking, because we’re dancing. The video of the track can be found below.

Golden Blood from Friends Electric on Vimeo.

Ellie Goulding - The Writer (Friends Electric Remix) by Friendselectric

Bright Light Bright Light : A New Word To Say (Friends Electric Got Love Mix) by Friendselectric

GOLDEN BLOOD by Friendselectric

Friends Electric - Wall Of Arms

Just a few days ago we introduced Friends Electric to the blog and rather like waiting for a bus, here’s another one coming along in quick succession.

It’s Friday, and working you up for the weekend we are featuring the new video for the groups single Wall Of Arms. As we stated before, the Friends Electric sound is very much in the Delphic / Fenech-Soler mode, but even if it isn’t the most imaginative or innovative piece of synth-dance dynamite, there’s still enough here to make us explode a little and go a tiny bit super rave crazy. In fact the more we listen to Wall Of Arms the more we want to jump up on the podium, put our hands in the air, feel the sweat on our backs and dance ourselves into oblivion. Are you with us ?

Oh, and any lead singer in a neat pair of glasses is always going to get the yes vote as far as we‘re concerned.

Wall of Arms by Friends Electric is due for release on the 14th June 2010 via Self Raising Records, a label run by Rod Thomas of Bright Light Bright Light.

Friends Electric - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

With a name like Friends Electric it’s not very likely that this Welsh four-piece are going to be playing trad folk or heavy rock. Ever since they sneaked into a Soulwax show in 2006 the band realised that it was time to drop the guitars and embrace the synth. Which is why in 2010 we find Friends Electric forming a highly contemporary sound that occupies a similar stable to bands such as Delphic and Fenech-Soler. Friends Electric may not be plugging in to anything particularly innovative or new, but their track Wall Of Arms pulls the best bits of chanted pop, euphoric rave and accomplished dance-floor friendliness together in a coherent flow. Likewise another song Hours has enough sensually determined fluttering electronic loops to provide a giddy moment of pleasure at a strobe lit club.

Besides their own songs Friends Electric have already remixed tracks for Ellie Goulding, The Noisettes, Kelis and Penguin Prison and have supported Example. Electronic music is often criticised for lacking warmth and a more human side, something which Friends Electric challenge, stating that they want to “put personality back into dance music.” Time will tell if these Neath lads can deliver on their promise. Wall of Arms streams below.

WALL OF ARMS by Friendselectric