Labyrinth Ear - Navy Light (4am remix)

We’ve supported and posted a number of times on the ice-disco sounds of Labyrinth Ear – and in this (for us) relatively short post we wanted to flag up a new remix they’ve just released to the world. The track Navy Light we featured last year, but this 4am remix is not (we assume) a late night relation to the gossip-gone toxic 3am girls of the Mirror but instead a deftly cool piece of repetitively pulsing computer love. It’s the sound of robots with a heart, or humans with an internal circuit board and was actually created by the band themselves, rather than pushing it out to somebody else. You can download it below.

Since we last featured Labyrinth Ear the London duo have also created remixes for Morning Parade and Alex Winston, which you’ll also find below. Enjoy their very European sound.

Navy Light (4am Mix) by Labyrinth Ear

Morning Parade - Under the Stars (Labyrinth Ear Remix) by Labyrinth Ear

Alex Winston - Choice Notes (Labyrinth Ear Remix) by Labyrinth Ear

Latitude 2010 - Review (Part 3)

Despite over indulged weariness and the hottest day of the festival, a decent sized crowd trooped towards the Obelisk stage on Sunday lunchtime for the second set of the weekend at Latitude by Tom Jones - a late addition, the result of his Thursday night set being missed by many due to overcrowding and capacity issues at the small stage in the woods.

Rumours suggested that this set would see Jones wheel out the hits, but it was not to be. Instead he performed the same songs as on the Thursday, with Jones keeping his ladies man reputation alive by referring to his female backing singers as “lovely,” in a suggestive voice that got a laugh.

“Good morning Latitude,” announced a member of The Antlers in the Word Arena. “It’s not morning,” one of his colleagues advised. Whatever time it was The Antlers suited perfectly, their soaring, atmospheric soundscapes of songs emotionally numbing with their bludgeoning weight. Two was particularly impressive, the bands feedback rock-pop taught and mesmerising.

If Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys had just woken up, put a Dougal from the Magic Roundabout red wig on and played slacker-surf-rock songs from the 50’s whilst reinterpreting Billy Childish he may have just found himself transformed into the lead singer of Spectrals. Their short songs performed on the Lake Stage had a direct approach which sometimes hooked and caught, but in other moments it was just a little too hazy for its own good.

Evidence of the continued ascension of the soon to be Mercury nominated Mumford and Sons was one of the biggest crowds of the weekend turning up for their mid afternoon set on the Obelisk Stage. “Can we start?” they questioned the masses, receiving a huge roar in reply. It seems like only yesterday that the band were wheeling out their americana-folk inspired tunes to small pub crowds and now they’ve become possibly the first UK arena-sized bluegrass band. White Blank Page, Little Lion Man and Roll Away Your Stone were all greeted with hugely positive reactions, but for those who have seen Mumford and Sons a number of times over the last few years it all feels a little bit ‘one festival set too many.’ Time for some new songs perhaps? They did at least oblige with one new slice of mass-market folk-rock, a song with Marcus playing drums, a horn section adding depth and lyrics of “I’ll be yours if you’ll be mine.” Laura Marling were you listening?

As the black clad Morning Parade blasted out Pieces in the Sunrise Arena it became easy to understand why they are being tipped as potential next big things. Their confident brand of epic guitar drama combined with washes of fluttering synth made a sound tough and muscular enough to be liked by the indie rock kids but accessible enough to find itself on daytime Radio 1. Soaring choruses, guitar licks and strong vocals - the only thing they lack is originality.

Samuel Chase (previously known as Samuel and the Dragon) drew the short straw. Dressed as a huge red feather love heart (!) he played to about six people standing at the barrier at the Lake Stage - anyone else who may have been interested took shade from the searing sun under trees some distance away. You really had to feel sorry for him. Yeasayer had just finished their set in the Word Arena and thousands of people were passing by. If Samuel had grabbed the moment and started his set five minutes earlier then some of these punters were his for the taking. But by the time he started his first tune the moment had passed. His songs were a mix of plaintive vocals, electronic jittery beats and live strings - torch songs for a place far from a hot outdoor stage. His fantastic single Diamonds On A Boat didn’t even get an airing and the impression left was that Samuel just couldn’t wait to get it all over with and extricate himself from the stage.

Finding an audience was no problem for the Pains of Being Pure at Heart who played under the shady canopy of the Sunrise Arena, which seemed a blissful respite from the heat. Visually they were like a cartoon indie pop band - boys jigging round with guitars, and girl gently swaying at her keyboard - their sound consisting of twee optimistic fuzz-tones of lovely noise and soft unaffected vocals. They mixed old songs such as the giddy Young Adult Friction with new ones and joked about reading a poem at the festival. “Music is all the bad poetry you need,” singer Kip Berman quipped.

If Beth Jeans Houghton were a rock she would be quartzite. A metamorphic girl who changes every time she takes to the stage. Gone was the big wig. Gone was the bleached blonde. This time she was dark. Next time we expect to see her she’ll probably be sporting a Sinead O’Connor crop. O’Connor is a reference point musically as well, with Houghton’s vocal having an air of the celtic soul sister to her. With tales of dropping her sunglasses in the festival toilets (her manager rescued them) and a punk rock song that she dedicates to him, Beth entertained in between songs even although we suspect that her quirky stories were well rehearsed and practised before. The entertainment factor was kept high during the music as well, the songs varied considerably from danceable oddball pop to jaunty folk.

Latitude 2010 was almost at an end. Musical overload. Grizzly Bear were the closing act on The Word stage. They played to a mainly partisan crowd, who listened intently, their collage of sound subtly shifting between songs creating something that is highly admirable, very worthy and yet for this reviewer not a performance that could ever be loved. Their layered harmonies and experimental sound glided with well played competence, but maybe overexposure to three and a half days of music has numbed the soul and brain. It was time for bed. Goodnight Latitude 2010. The rapes, the canopy collapse, the Crystal Castles incident and the stinking toilets may have brought the festival down a notch or two in our ratings, but overall it was still an excellent event for lovers of music and the arts. We will probably be back at some point.

Latitude 2010 - Preview

(Photograph Copywright Andi Sapey used courtesy of Latitude On Line Press)

“It’s more than just a music festival,” is the tag line for Latitude. This is undoubtedly true - Latitude has a fantastic range of cultural entertainment from comedy ( Emo Philips, Ardal Ohanlon, and Rufus Hound to name just three ), literature (Hanif Kureishi, Bret Easton Ellis, Julie Burchill and Garry Mulholland), to theatre, opera, poetry, film and cabaret. Yet even if it didn’t have all of these things, it would still stand up to scrutiny in terms of its musical line up. Not just because of the headliners (this year Florence and The Machine, Belle & Sebastian and Vampire Weekend do the honours) but because of its rich pickings of smaller acts further down the bill - more of those in a moment.

Set in Henham Park, Southwold in Suffolk, Latitude is run by Melvin Benn, who is also responsible for organising Reading and Leeds festivals, together with an input into Big Chill and Glastonbury. Latitude is his venture into the more artistic side of festivals - taking elements of smaller boutique festivals, moulding them with bits of Glastonbury but without the warped late night madness / truly alternative ‘anything can happen’ vibe. It has gained a reputation in some circles as a ‘festival for those who grew up at Reading and Leeds but now prefer reading The Guardian, drinking Cappuccinos and lighting barbecues instead of setting fire to gas canisters and portaloos.’ There’s certainly an element of this to Latitude - it lacks the energy and edginess of an event such as Reading, yet for those who want more than just a bunch of indie and rock bands in a field near an industrial estate, Latitude provides. From its now famous coloured sheep, the beautiful Sunrise stage set in the woods, the lake stage with the lily shaped lanterns that light up at night, to the unusual and unexpected - this year for example will see Tom Jones play a set at midnight in the woods on the opening Thursday night and Kitty, Daisy and Lewis soundtracking The Blues Brothers film; Latitude has a significant amount of care put into the curation of the performances.

But despite Latitude being about more than just music, Breaking More Waves will be mainly, but not exclusively, enjoying the performances of the bands and artists of a musical variety. We’ll be bringing a full review of Latitude 2010 shortly after it finishes, and if our wireless technology stands the test we will also be attempting to live tweet our way around the event. Follow us on Twitter here to catch those.

Earlier we mentioned the many new acts on the bill, and below we present Breaking More Waves Top 5 new acts to see at Latitude 2010.

Clare Maguire

With an album being recorded with Fraser T, (Tynchy Strider, James Morrison) Clare Maguire is a name that remains unknown to many. We first wrote about her at the start of January 2009 after hearing her collection of demos that displayed an artist with obvious talent - she has a hugely powerful and gutsy voice that stands the test versus pretty much anyone you could care to line her up against. So confident were we that Maguire has the voice to be a huge commercial success that we named her in our Ones to Watch List 2010. Yet up until now there has been nothing from Maguire, her record company keeping her quietly under wraps. Come Latitude 2010 we’ll be better positioned to judge if Maguire has fulfilled the early promise that her demos such as the sultry Strangest Thing suggested. There’s no You Tube footage to view, no music clips that we have permission to put out, but if you’re going to Latitude, head down to the Lake Stage when Clare Maguire plays. It could be something very special.

Morning Parade

Morning Parade may not be creating anything particularly new or ground breaking, but what they do they do exceptionally well. Big rock tunes with indie /dance crossover, they seem to have arrived fully formed and ready to step up to the next level. You can grab a free download of their song Marble Attic which we featured a week or so ago here.

The Good Natured

Since we first featured The Good Natured aka Sarah McIntosh on Breaking More Waves back in March 2009, she has been featured on the last Kitsune compilation, released Your Body Is A Machine as a single, played a number of gigs and bagged herself slots at various festivals including the Isle of Wight, V and of course Latitude. Slowly growing her profile rather than being exposed to huge hype, she seems to be bringing a darker edge to synth pop. “We are influenced by self love and benevolence, narcissism is overwhelming, vanity is quite exhausting, self indulgent, hedonistic, blame it all on your upbringing,” are not the typical lyrics of your modern day pop star. An intriguing prospect. Here's an acoustic arrangement of the single, the original video and song can be seen here.

Yuck

Yuck have made fairly regular appearances at Breaking More Waves since the beginning of the year. Like all great noise pop bands, Yuck surge with fuzzy guitars, but under the racket have a neat line in melody. Their Camden Crawl set was one of our highlights of that event, and although their music may be more suited to sweaty dark basements, we eagerly anticipate their arrival on an outdoor stage. Here's the song Georgia by Yuck.

Rose Elinor Dougall

From ex-Pipette to indie credibility, to providing vocals for Mark Ronson, Rose Elinor Dougall has been on some journey since she offered up her first solo offering Another Version of Pop Song back at the end of 2008. With a debut album Without Why due for release at the end of August, Rose Elinor Dougall holds the unlucky status of being one of the miniscule number of artists we have interviewed for the blog, before deciding that interviews didn’t fit with what we were about. What does fit though is Rose’s rather wonderful dreamy melodies.

Latitude 2010 takes place on the 15th-18th July 2010 and is completely sold out.

Morning Parade - Marble Attic

The band pictured above are Morning Parade. Trust us, they are, although really they could be anyone couldn't they ? Although possibly not Girls Aloud or Kylie Minogue. With this 'from the back of the venue' publicity shot we guess Morning Parade are not quite as photogenic as Cheryl, Nicola etc or Kylie. Maybe future publicity shots will prove us wrong, but we suspect not. But it's all about the music isn't it ? We're not a fashion or beauty blog.

Morning Parade do big tunes. Correction. Morning Parade run a master class in BIG tunes. Tunes that have an vast rock dynamic that embraces soaring indie guitars and the odd moment of fluttering keyboard. Morning Parade are the type of band that will make your average indie rock kid get very excited and head straight to the mosh pit, sweating and flailing in unrestrained joy whilst shouting "This is more like it. Better than all that Marina and Ellie Goulding rubbish." They would of course be wrong about the Ellie and Marina bit, but then not everyone can be right all the time.

Morning Parade are a five piece from Essex, who have played supports with the likes of Feeder, Ash and Reverend and the Makers. They have bottles of fist pumping, adrenalin shot bravado that quench the thirst of those who like energetic and immediately accessible indie rock. We could see them sitting very neatly on the play list of XFM and getting the thumbs up from the likes of Zane Lowe - in fact Lowe has already done so.

Morning Parade will be exploding with a gallop at a number of UK festivals this summer. If you’re at Nozstock, Latitude, Truck or Underage Festival you can catch them there. In the meantime click the arrow below to let Marble Attic by Morning Parade into your world as a free download and for now at least, just imagine what they look like.

Morning Parade - Marble Attic by Breaking More Waves