New Music: Laurel - Same Mistakes

Relationships. Love them or hate them we don’t seem to be able to do without them, do we? It seems that for most of us there’s seem deep seated need to be wanted in some way. On new single Same Mistakes Breaking More Waves regular Laurel sings of that desire. “I don't want you, but I still want you to love me,” she intones. Now if ever there was an anthem for ITV2’s Love Island contestants this could be it couldn’t it? 

Having moved away from her early pop incarnation Same Mistakes is one of two singles Laurel released yesterday (the other being Crave) and they showcase what we can expect from her debut album Dogviolet which is due towards the end of August. ‘Debut album’ still seems a somewhat strange thing to be stating considering that Laurel’s first material featured on this blog way back in 2012, but as I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, sometimes the most important ingredient to good art is time.

Of interest to some readers in relation to this track is the picture that accompanies it. Some of you may remember that I wrote extensively about how musicians seem to like to jump in the bath (either naked or clothed, with or without water being present) for a promotional opportunity. Since that time, I’ve realised that it’s not just the bath (although Laurel has previously joined the musicians in the bath club) but that musicians more generally enjoy having a bonkers photo taken of them. Sitting on a hedge, standing on the roof of a bus, laying on a tennis court, or in this case standing barefoot on a red blanket on a roof for no reason whatsoever seems to be the order of the day. No wonder us non-musicians sometimes think they’re all a bit crackers. But if that’s what it takes to help a good tune get heard, let’s not deny them the opportunity. Right?

Laurel - Same Mistakes

New Music: Laurel - Lovesick

One of the things that unsigned artists sometimes tell me is that, when speaking to record labels and in particular major labels, the A&R people there will sometimes inform them that they, as an artist, still need to ‘find their sound.’ It’s an odd expression, suggesting that an artist only has one sound and it’s somehow hidden waiting to be discovered. Can you imagine David Bowie being told when he was just starting out that he wasn’t ready to be signed because he hadn’t ‘found his sound.’ If that was the case then he spent the whole of his career constantly trying to find that sound, as his musical style was forever evolving. I think often the expression actually just means something else: ‘What you are doing doesn’t match with what I’m looking for.’ 

If artists did just did have one sound their art would very quickly become boring – an endless succession of repeats. I touched on this in my previous post regarding the new Jungle material and that of their two new songs. Happy Man, whilst well written, felt somewhat disappointing, being essentially not that different to songs on their first record, whereas House in LA felt more exciting due to its progression stylistically – whilst still being recognisably a Jungle song.

Which brings me to Laurel, another artist that the ‘finding her sound’ description could be used to describe. Or maybe Laurel is just another artist, like Bowie, who likes to try different things and evolve. Maybe she's not trying to find anything except good tunes? Having first appeared as a folky Laura Marling inspired songwriter under the name Under The Laurels, she morphed into a balladeer of beauty – Britain’s answer to Lana Del Rey, then had a go at edgy pop before moving to something less processed, more stripped back and guitar based. 

And as Laurel has woven her way through these different musical shapes and forms there has always been the question of when is there going to be an album? She hinted in interviews from last year that it would drop in 2017 but that didn’t happen. However finally in 2018 there is confirmation of a long player, titled Dogviolet, which will be released on the 24th August 2017 via Counter Records. There will also be an 11 date UK tour to support the record and this, a new single called Lovesick. 

Lovesick keeps things raw musically and finds Laurel opening up her heart. She sings of obsession and addiction to a relationship, for better or for worse. She calls it love. “You’d be a love song, baby I’m lovesick, tasted the devil, now I can’t be apart from you.” The track reminds me a little of some of Nilufer Yanya’s recent output – managing to combine a certain effortlessness with an urgent passion that bodes well for the album when it arrives. Take a listen below.

Laurel - Lovesick 

Pop Stars Having A Bath

We apologise for somewhat going over old ground here, having written about this growing phenomenon before, but we think it’s worth bringing to your attention again in the light of some recent developments. 

It’s the growing trend for pop stars posing in the bath.

And pop stars being pop stars (and therefore a little bit bonkers) sometimes have a bath with their clothes on. Call us boring, but this seems a little impractical. Maybe they can’t afford washing machines.

Here’s some examples

Charli XCX had a go and tried to make it look edgy:

She had another go here as well. Silly. Fully clothed:

Lady Gaga has made a habit of it. Here:

And here:

At least she took her clothes off here (then bathed in beer):

It’s not just women doing it though – Naked On Drugs have got in on the act as well. Naked and quite possibly on drugs by the look of things:

If there was one artist guaranteed to get naked it would be Prince:

Denny Doherty, former lead singer of popular 60’s musical gang The Mamas & The Papas shows why the drugs in the 60’s really did affect people’s brains and got it totally wrong. More of a pig feed trough than a bath really:

Lily Allen (who is obviously a woman not a man - just to be clear) had a go as well. We’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that there is both water in the bath and that she is indeed naked:

And the last time we mentioned the bath club was when Holland’s Bea jumped in with a body suit on:

Our favourites? Hi Mariah. Two truly wtf pictures:

Yep, she really loves a bath (and so does her dog):

Ok, we get the idea:

Now here’s a new addition. Breaking More Waves regular and favourite Laurel does things properly for her new single Memorials. She is clearly naked, has water in the bath and it seems that she’s put a nice fragrant Lush bath bomb or some other type of bath salts in as well. This has the advantage of colouring the water so that the video remains safe to watch at work and making her smell fragrant afterwards. Well done Laurel. Other potential bath pop star types take note – this is how to do it properly. A decent song too.

You can watch the full video below.

Laurel - Memorials (Video)

Laurel - Memorials

We’ve always had a soft spot for Laurel, partially because she’s (relatively) local to Breaking More Waves, partially because we gave her her first bit of Hype Machine blog exposure through the song Next Time, but mainly because everything she’s done since then has connected with us in some way. It’s got to that point where we’re actually a bit nervous when we press play on a new Laurel song just in case she’s made a stinker this time round. 

As far as new song Memorials is concerned, there’s no whiff of mediocrity. Memorials finds Laurel taking her music to a subtler, deeper place. Without wishing or meaning to be patronising the word 'maturity' springs to mind. Prepare yourself for downtempo beats, pulsing electronics that glide in and out of the soundscape and Laurel singing with steely unhurried emotion: “He don’t, he don’t believe me and my young soul is sold to his heart.” It takes her away from those British Lana Del Rey comparisons that keep getting thrown at her and gives Laurel more scope as just being, well…. Laurel. Immerse yourself in this piece of dark addictive pop.

Memorials is taken from a forthcoming EP released in December.

Laurel - Memorials

Laurel - Shells (Video)

If you want an example of how a singer songwriter can grow and change artistically look no further than Laurel and her song Shells. Search You Tube and you’ll find a video of her performing it at The Cellars, a small pub venue near the sea in Breaking More Waves home city of Portsmouth. At the time it was just a gentle baby Laura Marling break-up folk song, with no hint of it transforming to a striking contemporary pop style. Now Shells is a tense cinematic piece of work that shows that sometimes great things can come out of change and those who rest on their laurels (doh!) will go nowhere.

Here’s the new video for Shells, the third track to be taken from her To The Hills Ep. It features Laurel taking a trip across the channel. It’s a bit like watching someone’s holiday footage where they’ve filmed every bit of their 2 weeks and insist on showing you it all, including the ferry crossing. However, in this case that’s fine, because it has an excellent soundtrack that makes the whole thing seem somehow deeply meaningful, rather like a French art house film where the actors stand around in coolly lit apartments, smoke cigarettes, f*ck each other and don’t say or do very much else, but it all seems so damn deep and cultured. When it probably isn’t really.

Laurel - Shells (Video)

The Great Escape Festival 2014 - Review (Part 1)

Whereas other festival promoters claim that their events are not just about the music, Brighton’s Great Escape USP is that it’s all about that and nothing else - and its lifeblood is the new and upcoming. There’s no literature or cinema tent here. There are no lifestyle workshops. There are certainly no fire breathers, circus acts, jugglers or comedians. There’s just musicians, a hell of lot of them, so many in fact that the choices can become almost overwhelming, unless you’ve done your homework.

This is how Great Escape has changed over the 9 years of its existence. In the past the festival may have been about discovery, taking a punt on a couple of bands you’ve heard name checked and rocking up to watch them. Now with the availability of streaming, multiple playlists, You Tube, well designed advance timetables and the festival’s own app, it’s possible to arrive in Brighton fully clued up; the only discovery being can the artists you’ve planned to see cut it live compared to the recordings you’ve listened to at home, discovering that they’ve cancelled last minute due to illness and discovering if you have the stamina to endure 3 days of non-stop live music (and possibly a beer or two).

So with a military like plan and spreadsheet in hand Breaking More Waves was leading the charge to see as many bands as humanly possible. Over the next three days we’ll be filing our report on what we learnt at this year’s event, starting right now. 

10 Things We Learnt At The Great Escape Festival, Brighton 2014 (Part 1 – Wednesday /Thursday)

1. It’s not just about the evening shows.

When we first started attending Great Escape in its second year there were hardly any daytime shows available and what there were consisted of relatively low quality gigs that were given very little attention or promotion. In 2014, even on the comparatively quiet first day, there was a total of 19 participating venues (including the Alt Escape shows, an official series of showcases that take place alongside the core festival programme) giving a choice of over 80 acts to go and see and the quality was high. By mid-afternoon we’d witnessed near Beyoncé like booty shaking and indie power pop from Ballet School, the slick synth-pop of Claire, and the soothing melancholy rock-pop with a hint of Fleetwood Mac from The Night VI – all highly agreeable.

2. Scandinavia is winning.

Of course we already knew this, but Great Escape just confirmed it. 

Swedish singer Tove Lo provided one of the euphoric highlights of the day with pop that was a little bit sharp and bad girl but still highly accessible – falling somewhere in between Mo / Charli XCX sharpness and the more mainstream of the likes of Katy Perry. It was pop done as pop should be done. Add to that Norway’s Emilie Nicolas, who played her first UK show; a pop star in the shadows that was so tiny that her song Grown Up took on all sorts of new connotations once you’ve seen her live. And finally another Swede, Alice Boman, a singer who created audience silencing, spine-tingling, fragile emotional songs of beauty at the Dome Studio stage. They’ll probably go and be victorious at Eurovision again this weekend just to confirm their prowess at all things music.

3. Some musicians could do with being paid a bit more so that they can buy some new clothes (1).

Wide-eyed and breezy synth pop and flute playing lass Pawws played in what look like a second hand Yes tour t-shirt. 

4. Some musicians could do with being paid a bit more so that they can buy some new clothes (2)

Tove Lo performed in badly ripped tights and very ‘worn in’ looking DM boots.

5. Some musicians could do with being paid a bit more so that they can buy some new clothes (3)

The lead singer of Ballet School wore a grey sweatshirt, yes a grey sweatshirt. We can’t imagine Lady Gaga doing that. But then maybe that’s the point. It's a music festival not a fashion shoot. But still, music lovers, please give these people your money and let them get some nice new shiny clobber. 

Mind you, all credit to Rosie Lowe for appearing in what looked like a white PVC skirt and Laurel for serenading the audience with her dramatic Lana Del Rey like cello backed pop in what we can only describe as a black goth tennis dress.

6. When going to Great Escape take a handkerchief.

We forgot and on two occasions were moved close to (or indeed actually moved to) tears. Our first moment was by the way of Eva Stone who despite suffering from tonsillitis sang songs that sounded so poignant, so powerfully bare, with a versatility that was breath-taking that she left us feeling on the edge of something infinitely sad but beautiful at the same time. Then Alice Boman finished us off later, and we left her show with a feeling of stillness and calm as if every ounce of emotion had been drained from us. It showed how bloody powerful music can be at its best.

7. The early bird gets the Cornish pasty.

Although the Great Escape doesn’t start properly until Thursday a number of low key shows are arranged for Wednesday evening to get early arrivals and locals warmed up. Our first port of call was to the SEXSW gig, which is nothing to do with sex, nor is to do with Austin’s SXSW festival (although apparently SXSW festival lawyers had been in touch with the promoters) but all to do with bands from Brighton (South East) and Cornwall (South West). There we caught the vocal harmonising rock-pop five piece Garden Heart, but more importantly, the first fifty people through the door got a free Cornish Pasty, showing that there really are a multitude of advantages (OK, at least 1) for turning up early at a gig.

8. Tove Lo’s drummer was on fire.

He really was. We saw smoke coming out of his head. We were concerned for his health and safety – was he going to spontaneously combust with the hot pop brilliance? Or maybe it was just a smoke machine playing tricks on us.

9. Being a festival that is ‘just about the music’ means a very low level of twats in the audience.

The way festivals are now sold to the public means that unfortunately, particularly at the larger events, there tends to be a reasonably high percentage of audience members whose main objectives are to have an ‘experience’ and get off their faces, appearing to not give a shit about the music or the people around them – it’s just a soundtrack to getting fucked. Thankfully the audiences we experienced at Great Escape really seemed to care and appreciate it. For example Alice Bowman’s show was a late night one, there had almost inevitably been a lot of alcohol consumed, yet the audience gave Alice the attention the music deserved, standing in silence to listen. 

10. If you drop a cigarette butt in Leeds, expect a £50 fine.

OK, we know the Great Escape is in Brighton, but we learnt this fact during Rosie Lowe’s smooth, chilled, late night soulful performance. Not from her songs but her in between banter. Possibly the most important fact we learnt during the day?

Bands seen on Wednesday / Thursday: Garden Heart, Jeremy Neal, Ballet School, Vimes, Claire, The Night VI, Sam Fender, Eva Stone, Laurel, Emilie Nicolas, Tove Lo, Pawws, Rosie Lowe, Alice Boman

Number Of Artists Full Performances Seen In Total: 14

Number Of Hours Sleep: 5 hours

Fatigue Factor: Still wide awake

Other music bloggers bumped into at random: 4

Hugs from bands / artists: 2

We’ll be back tomorrow with 10 more things we learnt from Friday’s Great Escape. Here’s one of our highlights of yesterday.

Alice Boman - Over

Laurel - To The Hills (Video)

Today Breaking More Waves is ripping up it's own self-written rule book (The Rules Of Blogging Version 1.0) about only posting once or twice a day  and instead throwing double the usual number of posts at you, because quite simply there’s so much great new music we want to bring you and like a 5 year old at Christmas we can’t wait.

Here’s our final one of those four posts. It features sultry pop star in the making Laurel, who has today released her finest song to date. To The Hills (which thankfully isn't a reinterpretation of the Iron Maiden song Run To The Hills) is a grand piece of brooding and valley straddling magnificence that deserves your repeated attention.

“Into the hills, cry the tears of the crocodiles. Lost feet on the road, said I love you so I don't have to be alone,” Laurel begins before pulling us into a journey of dramatic and grandiose orchestral pop. Big doesn't always mean best but this is one is. Highly impressive – let Laurel take you into the garden of angels.

Laurel - To The Hills (Video)

Laurel - Crazy

Covering an all-time classic like Patsy Cline’s Crazy is always going to be a risk, because how can you better or even get slightly close to something that is perfection? Thankfully Breaking More Waves favourite and regular Laurel doesn’t try to compete with the original and instead pushes the song into her own post Valentine’s downer of a world, giving the lonely lyrics plenty of space to breathe through the softest of beats and desolate love-torn keys.

If you’re feeling a bit blue right now, this probably won’t cheer you up, but it might help get you through the day. Sometimes abandoned stillness can be comfortingly beautiful. 

Laurel - Crazy

Laurel - Fire Breather

Singer (and according to her Instagram account star baker) Laurel Arnell-Cullen has been slowly revealing her charms to the blog brigade ever since we introduced her to the world of Hype Machine love hearts with the stunning Next Time back in May 2012. Since then she’s released Mankind and a demo of a song called Blue Blood which for a few days went a little bit super nova on the internet.

Laurel’s been promising a new song for a few weeks on her Facebook page and today she finally posted it on line. It’s called Fire Breather and thankfully it’s not some warped love child of The Prodigy’s Firestarter and Blu Cantrell's Breathe nor is it a song about Laurel wanting to join the circus. No it’s better than that - with stern drums and eerie synths Fire Breather sounds shadowy, ominous and full of foreboding, Laurel’s vocals sound deeply smouldering as she sings: “What does he want from me?” 

There’s something about the letter L. Imagine Lana + Lorde and take them to London. The result (on this song at least) is Laurel. Woah.

Next up for Laurel is her biggest show to date, supporting gold pop Americans Ms Mr at Shepherds Bush Empire in London. This song is available for free download. Get it.

Laurel - Fire Breather

Laurel - Mankind

Self proclaimed as London's last sweetheart, songstress Laurel wowed us with the Hype Machine conquering Blue Blood as well as debut track Next Time and now we have chapter 3. With everyone (including us) comparing Blue Blood to Lana Del Rey our slight concern was that what we could end up with over time is just Lana Del Lite. Thankfully new song Mankind takes all kinds of other reference points and although there’s a hint of Lizzie Grant, we also hear a big similarity in the spoken word delivery to Black Box Recorder. This is a very good thing.

Mankind also features our favourite lyric of the week : “Birthday sex, you were the best.” We wouldn’t disagree - it quite possibly is (it’s a shame that unless you’re the Queen you only get one birthday a year) although if your stomach is bloated full of birthday cake and celebratory champagne it can be a little uncomfortable with all that bouncing around.

Showing that Laurel isn’t a one trick pony, knows a musical trick or two (she wrote and produced the song herself) and probably has sex at least once a year, Mankind excavates the kind of simple but well-crafted adult pop that we crave for. That's 3 out of 3 from Laurel now.

Mankind - Laurel 

Laurel - Blue Blood

Is Laurel Arnell Cullen Britain’s answer to Lana Del Rey? Certainly there’s no denying that her song Blue Blood, the first new material since we introduced her almost a year ago with her song Next Time (here) carries many of the hallmarks of Lizzy Grant. From the way she sings “now we're filthy rich, sitting on the tail end of love,” in that same breathy coy girlish voice that the American songstress has used to some effect, to the haunting strings, pianos and beats, the similarity is obvious.

But irrespective of if the south coast singer is simply bandwagon jumping or not, Blue Blood is rather good; it’s full of emotional charge and musical restraint. “You made me feel again, made me dance circles, round the pieces of your heart,” coos Laurel of her beau. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another year for a further song, but it seems not, more new material may be on its way. Apparently she only wrote Blue Blood last week, produced it herself and uploaded it in what seems to be a moment of unbound spontaneity. 

However, in the year that has passed from when we first featured her on Breaking More Waves a lot does seem to have happened. She inked a deal with Turnfirst Recordings, has been beavering away under the radar writing and recording and has played a few low key London shows. Also rather amusingly she was featured in The Sun newspaper as a ‘mystery blonde’ alongside Conor Maynard (another Turnfirst artist). Thankfully though Blue Blood is a long way musically from anything Maynard has released.

Laurel - Blue Blood

Great Escape 2012 - Sofar Sounds at Marwood Coffee Shop

Some of the more intimate performances at the Great Escape festival 2012 came at Brighton’s Marwood Coffee Shop as part of Sofar Sounds. Amongst the musical highlights were Breaking More Waves long term favourites Slow Club and new girl on the block Laurel whose song Next Time has become one of our latest obsessions (you can hear it here).

For your listening pleasure streaming below are live acoustic versions of Slow Club's Hackney Marsh and Laurel’s Killing Me from the shows. There are plenty more performances over on the Sofar Sounds Soundcloud including BIGkids, King Charles and We Were Evergreen.

Slow Club - Hackney Marsh (Live Acoustic)

Laurel - Killing Me (Live Acoustic)

Laurel - New Waves

Whilst the internet and music is global (‘Guten morgen’ our sizeable readership from Germany and to our massive American audience we hope you ‘Have a nice day’) where possible Breaking More Waves loves to feature the occasional act from our more local environs. Whether it’s our particular taste (quite probably) or a dearth of talent in the south-coast-central area of the UK, but it happens less often than we’d like it to. In fact we usually end up posting more music from Brighton, the hyper-arty seaside cousin down the road than we do the Portsmouth / Southampton district. Occasionally something does grab our ears – the likes of Curxes (of whom technically one half of hails from the Portsmouth area) and Bear Cavalry have both got the Breaking More Waves treatment (and we’ve subsequently become huge fans of Curxes in particular) and The Hall Of Mirrors (whose roots are in Portsmouth) have also found our favour in the distant and more recent past.

So today we’re very pleased to feature another south-coast belle and this one is really rather lovely.

Laurel is an 18 year old singer songwriter. She used to go by the name Under the Laurels, producing raw acoustic music that owed some debt to Laura Marling and could be found putting out videos of her strumming her heart out in flowery summer fields in pretty dresses. It was all pleasant enough but didn’t have the depth of Marling or any of her contemporaries; that is until recently.

For Laurel (full name Laurel Arnell-Cullen) has released the beautiful Next Time, a staggering improvement in every respect, and not a bit like Marling. With church like pianos, a voice that gets near angelic and a string arrangement that kisses with the lightest of heavenly touches Laurel has created something just a little bit special here;  a subtle piece of hypnotic and restrained beauty. We hope that it’s not a one off. If it isn’t it won’t be the last time you see the name Laurel Arnell-Cullen here; we can guarantee that.

Laurel - Next Time