Favourite Albums of 2017 #5 Lucy Rose - Something's Changing

Up until the release of Lucy Rose’s third album Something’s Changing I’d always found a her a little bit of a frustrating artist. I loved so many of her songs (a quick trawl through this blog will show you how many times I’ve featured them over the years) yet when it came to pulling it all together and creating an album there was always a nagging feeling that something just wasn’t quite fitting correctly. Sometimes what an artist produces doesn’t match with your own expectations.

The title of her new record seemed entirely appropriate then, as third time round everything seems to have changed for me and fallen into place perfectly. Having signed to a major, recorded two albums, seemingly become a bit disillusioned with music, left the label, toured South America by playing gigs put on by fans (which she documented in a moving film which you can see by clicking here) and signed with Communion (a label that seems far more fitting with Lucy’s sound) Something’s Changing is a product of those experiences. That doesn’t mean that you’ll find all sorts of Latin American rumba and salsa noises on Something’s Changing. Far from it. What Lucy’s experiences seem to have taught her is that there is an audience out there for her, and that audience just want her to be true to herself; to write songs and play them in the way she knows.

Something’s Changing achieves exactly that. It’s arguably her least commercial album; there’s no attempt at an indie pop crossover hit on this one. Instead it is a calming, pure sounding collection of songs that features collorative work with Elena Tonra from Daughter, The Staves and Emma Gatrill from Matthew And The Atlas. It was all recorded with Tim Bidwell who some of you may remember from his work with Kate Walsh. There’s a lot of similarities between Lucy’s record and Kate’s album Tim’s House in that the arrangements of the songs are never over complicated, letting Lucy’s beautiful voice and the melodies to come to the fore. 

Something’s Changing is one of those records that despite it’s quality probably won’t feature on many end of year music publications lists. It’s probably not challenging or ground breaking enough for what a critic looks for. But for fans of Lucy, (and this blog is very much a fan blog not one which deals in complex critical anaylsis) Something’s Changing surely has to be up there.

Lucy Rose - Is This Called Home (Video)

Film: Lucy Rose - Something's Changing

I might be a bit tired so that's my excuse I'm using for admitting that I cried a little watching this film, but Lucy Rose's new documentary is hugely touching. I can't stress how important it is that anyone who reads this post watches it.

In 2016 Lucy Rose travelled to South America to stay with fans and play free gigs booked by them. The results, far away from London and the often very unkind music industry, were clearly life changing for Lucy, altering her view of the world and her music.

As Lucy says in the film: "Music is more than music." That's something I've always felt and I hope (because you read this blog) that's something you feel as well. It can connect people in weird, wonderful and beautiful ways that can alter our future paths and beliefs.

Take twenty minutes out to watch this documentary and then listen to Lucy's new album, which is undoubtedly the best thing she has recorded, and for me is the album I always wanted her to make.

Lucy Rose - Something's Changing

New Music: Lucy Rose (ft The Staves) Floral Dresses (Video)

I heard a rumour a while ago that Lucy Rose had thought about giving up music. Thankfully, if it was true, she hasn’t. Floral Dresses, a new song, is one of her most reflective and melancholy moments to date and it’s also one of her most beautiful. It’s a hymn to being yourself, despite what people think, no matter who they are. Against a simple strummed acoustic guitar Lucy sings of how she didn’t want to be like the person she’s addressing (her mother perhaps?) wearing floral dresses, painting her lips and wearing diamond necklaces and the disapproving looks she received because of it, before explaining that even now, as she’s got older, she’s still the same person, even if the person she’s singing to might have thought she’d change. Add in The Staves to soothe you further with their tones and what you have is Lucy Rose at her plaintive best.

Lucy Rose (ft. The Staves) - Floral Dresses (Video)

Gabrielle Aplin (With Rachel Sermanni and Lucy Rose) - River

Ho Ho Ho!

Hello kidz. Howz it goin’? Santa ‘ere, takin’ over this blog-shite for a few days with me mates whilst the normal author is off being a right old fairy and sitting on top of the Christmas tree or somefink.

I’ve been enjoying the odd glass of sherry or 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 9 whilst ‘avin a look at this yearz naughty and nice Christmas list, to see who I’ve got to give wot to. And believe me I do like to give the naughties a bit of wot they deserve. Ho Ho Ho. Last year I remember one particular lassy who had been very very bad all year, so I slipped somethin’ inside ‘er stocking really appropriate. And then there was another bad lad who I gave a sackful of my Christmas joy to. He won’t forget that Christmas in a hurry. Mrs Claus wasn’t very happy with me, but I’ve got an important job to do, coming down all those chimneys and spreading the Christmas love and thatz how I like to spread it. 

Anyways, I’m not ‘ere to tell youz about howz I get sizzled on Christmas Eve and then spread the magic with the elves. No, I’m ‘ere to give you some good old Christmas tunez. Because there’s nothing better than some banging yuletide bangerz.

Except f*ck me backwards with Rudoplph’s red nose, what the f*ck is this? It sounds like someone got a copy of The Staves album and thought they’d have a go being Joni bloody Mitchell. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. But I’ve been left a note here that says something about the bloke who normally writes this drivel being a fan of Aplin, Rose and Sermanni and so I’ve got to embed it on this blog.

Well screw that, there’s only one sort of embedding I like to do and that’s getting Mrs Claus in the old bed for a spot of riding my sleigh and ringing my bell, but seems like I’m gonna have to do what Mr Breaking More Waves says for now, mainly ‘coz I’m too out of ma f*cking skull to find any other Christmas tunes. Mental. W*nker.

Happy Christmas kidz. Make sure you all get out on the lash, start a few fights and puke up in your hallways on Christmas Eve after a big old greasy kebab. Thatz the way to make Christmas special.

Gabrielle Aplin (With Rachel Sermanni and Lucy Rose) - River

Lucy Rose - Like An Arrow (Video)

Yesterday we posted on how to make a cool video with a lesson from indie dream pop band Wyldest. Basically it involves walking around in the countryside not doing very much (the addition of some lights and fireworks also help). Lucy Rose may not have the lights and fireworks for her latest, but she does the walking around the countryside bit rather well – in fact she does it in that classic single sequence style, probably most famously used by Massive Attack for their Unfinished Sympathy visuals and Alexander Sokurov in his 96 minute master piece Russian Ark.

At first the video looks pretty boring, but you’ll notice that Lucy has a cheeky smile on her face, so you know that something is going to happen. As Lucy says: “This is the first video I’ve ever needed training for….I’ve wanted to make this video for so so long, film it in one take and challenge myself mentally and physically like never before. It expresses freedom, escapism and doing something that really makes you feel something.” As you’ll discover at the end, although you only see one take, there were obviously a number of takes before the finished version!

Lucy plays Bushstock festival this weekend (we previewed that here). Like An Arrow is taken from her forthcoming LP Work It Out.

Lucy Rose - Like An Arrow (Video)

Camden Crawl 2012 - Preview

The UK festival market is depressed and over saturated, the evidence is clear and damning – last year Truck festival went into liquidation, Standon Calling was reportedly well undersold and this year we’ve already seen the cancellation of big guns such as Big Chill and Sonisphere.

Yet one breed of festival that appears to be relatively untouched by cancellations as yet is the multi-venue urban festival. The concept is simple. Buy a ticket, exchange for a wristband plus timetable and set off to see how many bands you can catch over the course of an afternoon / evening. In austere times the advantages to your wallet with this type of festival can be significant. Tickets are cheaper, you can avoid paying exorbitant prices for food from vendors that have got you over a barrel in a restricted market and travel and equipment costs may be lower. Plus there’s the advantage of the possibility of a comfy bed at the end of a long day with no one off their faces bawling their head off in a half collapsed tent covered in puke two feet away from you.

There’s a sense of history with the Camden Crawl – it is the original multi-gig event having initially run between 1995 and 1997. Then it was just one evening and ran between just a small number of venues, with no corporate branding, no queues to get in and showcased some of the newest indie bands, with the ticket price including a compilation CD of all the acts playing. The ’97 event was known as the Intercity Crawl and hop skipped and jumped from Camden (Wednesday) to Manchester (Thursday) and Glasgow (Friday). After that the crawl ran no more until 2005 when it relaunched with 40 bands playing in 10 venues over the course of the evening. Since then it’s continued to expand to this year’s bank holiday extravaganza that encompasses over 300 artists and events, an opening party at Koko, comedy and spoken word, pop quizzes, a record fair, hip hop karaoke, musical bingo and much more all within a 2 mile stretch of north London.

Like any multi-venue festival the usual rules apply, namely when the more popular acts play in small pubs they are likely to be over-subscribed, so plan in advance as soon as you get your timetable (unfortunately times are not released in advance) and get to those locations early if you want to see those bands.

And talking of bands, here are 4 recommendations from Breaking More Waves of acts appearing at this years Camden Crawl. Our Camden Crawl 2012 review will follow very shortly after the event.

Lucy Rose

An acoustic chanteuse with just a smidgeon of indie rock and a big dollop of acoustic beauty in her sound, honey voiced Lucy Rose has been regularly featured on Breaking More Waves, including being named as one of our Ones to Watch for 2012. So now it’s 2012 why not go watch her as we suggested as she warms up for what will her very busy summer and a forthcoming album.

Lucy Rose - Night Bus (Acoustic Demo)

Willy Moon

Another solo act that we put in our Ones to Watch 2012 list, Willy Moon is currently the smartest dressed man in pop and very much occupies his own niche – a mix of 50’s retro Bo Didley rock and jive mixed with more modern hip-hop beats. It was his loose limbed videos that first got our attention back in August 2011, but the question is will his live show match up?

Willy Moon - She Loves Me

Novella

For those who want something a little scuzzier, something that maybe sounds a little more like the bands that appeared at the original Camden Crawl back in 1995, then Novella fit the bill very nicely indeed. Novella is Sophy Hollington, Hollie Warren and Suki Sou. They met in Brighton and formed the band in February 2010 before moving to London. Fuzzy guitars, swirling tunes and lovely listless female vocals, Novella are probably the least commercial of these four recommendations and all the better for it.

Novella - Santiago

St Lucia

Our final choice is St Lucia, who is Brooklyn based Jean-Philip Grobler, although he’s originally from South Africa. His electronic pop sounds are awash with summery vibes typified by Closer Than This streaming below, and he’s bringing them to the UK for the first time this May, including the Camden Crawl. His debut EP is out now on the boutique label Neon Gold.

St Lucia - Closer Than This

The Camden Crawl is on the 4-6th May (opening party only on the 4th) and tickets are available here.

Lucy Rose - Red Face (Video)

Lucy Rose has really become our fille de l'année over the last 12 months and with her new single Red Face taking a slightly beefier route than her more gentle persuasions of the past, has demonstrated that even acoustic types can rock out a little too.

With the video Lucy seems to want to flex those musical muscles a bit further. By drumming. In a field.

You can imagine the conversation with her manager, can’t you?

“I’m bored of making tea and being all sweet, girlish and elfin. I want to show how tough I am and get physical by bashing drums, in a field. WITHOUT WEARING A COAT.”

“Er Ok Lucy.”

“Nobody has ever done that before.”

“Er, but Lucy they have. Look here’s some men drumming in a field, and here’s some more (and he's great) and here’s even more. Ok, technically that last one isn't actually in a field, but it's close. ”

“But they’re all men and I want to show them that girls can drum in a field to.”

(Sighing) “Ok Lucy, it’s your video. But let’s put some sweet and cute clips of your childhood in the video as well, just to remind people of your soft side – because that’s what your audience likes.”

“OK, but for my next video I want to be in a shed, mending things with tools, in the middle of winter wearing only a string vest. OK?”

“Oh god.”

You can catch Lucy out on tour supporting Noah and the Whale in the UK at Southend Cliffs Pavilion, Plymouth Pavilions, Wolverhampton Civic and Manchester Apollo in March. She also heads out to the US and Canada to support Bombay Bicycle Club from mid-February. Red Face is available on iTunes now.

Lucy Rose - Red Face

Lucy Rose - Red Face

Lucy Rose was the first artist we featured on our Ones to Watch for 2012 list. So now it is 2012, let’s watch, or rather listen to her wonderful sound. Red Face is Lucy’s third single, the music the most energised we’ve heard from her so far, expelling the stereotype of being ‘just another acoustic folk artist’ by juxtaposing stirring guitars against her tenderly soft vocal as she sings of mistrust. “And you said it’s what I needed, I don’t believe,” she intones before the music positively grooves and chimes to soft-destruction over the repeated lines “take what you wanted, leave what you didn't need.”

With a confirmed tour support with Noah and the Whale plus an album due in summer 2012, this year promises to be an exciting year for Lucy and her growing number of fans.

Lucy Rose - Red Face

The Blog Sound of 2012

Over the last 15 days Breaking More Waves has been publishing its very own selection of artists, musicians and bands that it believes are Ones to Watch for 2012.

New act tip lists seem to get more numerous every year and none is more ubiquitous than the BBC Sound of list, which we will be posting our thoughts on separately in a few weeks, after our traditional run down of our favourite ten albums of 2011.

Back at the end of 2010 a small bunch of independent music bloggers, including Breaking More Waves discussed the idea of collating the combined thoughts, knowledge and passions of the UK blogging community to create the Blog Sound of 2012. The idea was in no way intended as a platform to criticise the BBC’s Sound of List, which Breaking More Waves has previously been involved in and continues to support. The BBC’s list acts as an invaluable tool to help new artists gain strong media publicity for their music in a time when it’s becoming increasingly difficult for such acts to establish themselves. The Blog Sound of 2012 is more an experiment to decide if a pool of UK music bloggers can come up with some interesting alternatives.

33 music blogs were involved in the voting process, with each one nominating 5 acts for the list.The participating blogs were A Tidal Wave Of Indifference ,Breaking More Waves, God Is In the TV, Sweeping The Nation, The Von Pip Musical Express, The Recommender, Faded Glamour, Drunken Werewolf, Flying With Anna, Not Many Experts, Underclassed Idle Ideas, Sonic Masala, Mudkiss, The Ring Master, Both Bars On, Music From A Green Window, Dots And Dashes, The Daily Growl, And Everyone's A DJ, Kowolskiy, Just Music That I Like, Cruel Rhythm, The Blue Walrus, Music Fans Mic, Seventeen Seconds, Eaten By Monsters, Seven Sevens, Unpeeled, New Rave Brain Wave, Peenko, Music Liberation, My Bands Better Than Your Band and Song By Toad.

From these blogs suggestions a most voted for long list of 15 artists has been collated, of which a top 5 will be published in a few weeks, with an eventual winner being announced. Because of the selection of blogs that voted, the final list has a fairly strong bias towards indie / rock and folk / acoustic music but there's still much variety within.

And here, in no particular order are the 15 artists that have been chosen as the Blog Sound of 2012.

Houdini Dax – Brit-Pop influenced rough n ready psychedelic indie rock (Link to Facebook)

Lianne La Havas – Soft acoustic songwriter with soul and jazz tinges (Link to website)

Theme Park – Indie band recalling Talking Heads with danceable tropical pop (Link to Facebook)

French Wives – Glasgow based jubilant indie (Link to Facebook)

The Good Natured – Female fronted trio with dark pop undercurrents. (Link to website)

Alt J – Loose sounding, quirky, organic groove based band from Leeds. (Link to Facebook)

The Jezabels – Surging indie rock from Sydney with strong female vocals (Link to website)

Lucy Rose – Sweet, pure, honey voiced gentle acoustic singer songwriter. (Link to website)

Bastille – Easily accessible, catchy, Hype Machine soaring pop. (Link to website)

Washington - Dramatic confident pop from adopted Oz girl born in Papa New Guinea (Link to Myspace)

Friends – Rhythmic girl fronted band with a hint of Tom-Tom Club and R ‘n’ B references. (Link to Myspace)

Meursault –Tagged as folktronica in some quarters, with 2 LP’s already behind them. (Link to Facebook)

Daughter – Sparse experimental female fronted folk (Link to Facebook)

Beth Jeans Houghton – Leftfield alt folk with all sorts thrown in (Link to Facebook)

Outfit – Layered sounding indie group that have been compared to Wild Beasts. (Link to Facebook)

Of the 15 acts chosen 3 of them also appear on the Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch list ( Lucy Rose, Lianne La Havas and Outfit) with one of them (Beth Jeans Houghton) appearing on our own Ones To Watch list back in 2009. 8 of the 15 have appeared in some form or other on the blog this year, suggesting that the tastes of Breaking More Waves are not always that far removed from our blogging peer group.

As always with anything that we feature on the blog, we recommend that you listen to all of the artists above – maybe you’ll discover something that you haven’t heard before and love, which is ultimately the point of music blogs.

Keep a look out for the top 5 and winner of the Blog Sound of 2012, coming soon – in the meantime here are a couple of tracks of two of the nominated acts that we've never featured on Breaking More Waves before - The Jezabels and Friends.

The Jezabels - Endless Summer

Friends - Friend Crush

Ones to Watch 2012 - #1 Lucy Rose

Our first One to Watch for 2012 is Lucy Rose. The Warwickshire born singer-songwriter first cropped up on this blog in summer following the release of her debut single Middle of the Bed and then followed it up with the love-him-or-leave-him ditty Scar this autumn. These two songs form the basis of a collection of works that are endearing in their sincerity and beautiful in their construction.

What Lucy Rose does so well is that she keeps things simple. There’s no over-blown production, no bumping and grinding bass-beats, just good songs crafted with care and love. Of course singer-songwriters are ten a penny these days, but Rose’s songs stand out because of her unaffected calmness combined with the gentle massage and purity of her vocals.

Even great songs or talent isn’t always enough and certainly the patronage of Jack Steadman of Bombay Bicycle Club will have done Lucy no harm (they met at a gig in London and since then Lucy has sung backing vocals on his bands album and supported them on tour).

Lucy Rose probably won’t be lighting up the singles charts next year with big pop bangers or out there rockers, but for those who want something a little more graceful and longer lasting, her rising star is one to watch and savour in 2012.

Lucy Rose - Middle Of The Bed by Lucy Rose

Lucy Rose - Scar

If you’ve read our Bestival review posted two days ago, you’ll know that one of our highlights was Lucy Rose. The young singer songwriter played a sublime Bandstand set on Friday night that confirmed that her debut single Middle of the Bed was no one off. Rose has a whole collection of slightly melancholy but delicately valuable acoustic pop songs in her possession.

Here’s one of them. Scar is Lucy’s second single and guests Jack Steadman from Bombay Bicycle Club. It’s available on iTunes on September 19 and will gain a physical release on November 14. Become enchanted as Lucy’s warm honey smooth voice sings of a confused relationship – something inside of her is telling her to leave and yet she wants to be with this person as well. Ah, the dichotomy of love. Wouldn’t it be dull if every singer songwriter just had a normal balanced easy going love life?

Lucy Rose - Scar

Lucy Rose - New Waves

Lucy Rose likes tea. She likes it so much that at a recent show we attended she apologised to the audience for not having any merchandise or CD’s with her, but she was selling her own brand of the nation’s finest ( Lucy Rose Builder Grey – 2 parts English Breakfast Tea to 1 part Earl Grey). It’s fair to say that by the time you’ve taken her name, her tea, and her genteel acoustic songs Lucy could really only ever come from England. We’re just waiting for someone to use the headline ‘English Rose’ – surely it has to be done soon?

The back story with Lucy involves early busking and open mic slots, a Mumford & Sons approved demo and a friendship with Bombay Bicycle Club that saw Lucy guest on their song Flaws. She’s also been quietly charming the socks off those who see her live, selling out shows on the strength of those things that really matter – good songs, played well with a great voice. It sounds so simple and it probably is but right now there’s a hunger for something purer and more traditional than the lowest common denominator over produced club and r ‘n’ b related cheddar flavoured toss that is littering up much of the UK chart.

Lucy Rose - Middle Of The Bed by Lucy Rose