The Saturday Surf #31

This post represents a slight slowdown in the output of Breaking More Waves over the next few weeks, and the last Saturday Surf until mid March. We try to post once or twice each day to give regular visitors something new to read and listen to, but with the vast majority of the content being created by a sole author sometimes real world / life commitments get in the way and mean that time is a scarce resource. In the next few weeks that resource is even more restricted than usual.

So for just a short while we’ll be reducing our output to about 3 posts a week, before ramping it back up come the middle of March.

In the meantime here’s a round-up of tracks that we caught this week that missed out on a full blog post – and they’re all top-notch.

Elliphant – In The Jungle

To use a bloggers cliché this one dropped in to our in box yesterday and has been gyrating around our ears and twitching our brain all day. Hailing from Stockholm, Elliphant are a brand new act associated with Ten - a music production company who also have worked with fellow Swedish acts Icona Pop and Niki and the Dove. Imagine The Ying Tong Song by The Goons colliding with some turbo-rave rhythms, M.I.A and a bit of Eye of the Tiger by Survivor with some overly (but brilliantly) long electronic caps over the top to spark it all off. It’s stupid, but in all the right ways and if we had a song of the week award this would be it. Bonkers but bloody brilliant.

Substatic – Arcadia

Last week one of our blog buddies and possibly the finest electronic music blogger in the UK (Electronic Rumours) put on a fantastic show at 93 Feet East in London with a whole host of Breaking More Waves approved acts including Queen Of Hearts, Kid Kasio, a Ronika DJ set and this lot – Substatic who shook it up like an earthquake with a set of hedonistic, dirty, funky, bassy electro tunes. Here's a new one - it's called Arcadia. Warning this track comes with a 'may cause dancing like a certificate 18 sexy copulating robot' sign. Extra marks are awarded for including a picture of Arcadia's spider stage on the picture of the Soundcloud player - if the song is a tribute to that place then it certainly has the right late night festival vibe.

Summer Camp – Losing My Mind (St Etienne Remix)

Summer Camp’s 2011 album Welcome To Condale was a surprising triumph. Fundamentally it was a pop album that people that sneer at pop music could like, if that makes any sense. With St Etienne (one of the best pop bands ever – fact) gearing up for their umpteenth album release this year (that is to say their first album this year but their umpteenth in their history) they put their name to this remix, that surprisingly isn’t as pop as you would expect – in fact it takes a darker route to the heart. But it works.

That’s it for now, we’ll be putting the brakes on from next week (but not stopping fully and our twitter will still be pretty active so follow us there). Have a good weekend and we'll be back in a few days.

Substatic - Bloodlust

The desire for incredible violence often aroused in the middle of battle. This is one definition of Bloodlust. But here’s a new definition for today. Bloodlust is take-you-higher beats, smooth female vocals and a tune that takes the essence of commercial club music and sculpts it into something more laidback and non-violently arousing. As lead singer Colleen’s lyrics suggests – we want to do it again.

Bloodlust by Substatic is the first of the Bristol three-piece’s new material to find the light of day and is likely to find a full ‘proper’ release at some point later this year. The song has evolved over time, starting out with a much more downbeat dubby vibe before finding a heavier tense sound that the group felt would work better in the live set. You’ll get your chance to hear exactly how it works when the band play some more shows, which are tentatively being planned for late August and early September.

Considering that Bloodlust is currently only a demo it’s faultlessly produced and a long way from the days when bands would record a virtually unlistenable demo recorded on an old C60 cassette tape on a player with built in microphone. It also seems perfect for leading us into the weekend. Ready ?

Bloodlust (demo) by SUBSTATIC

Substatic - New Waves

When does a new band stop being a new band? We ask the question because we feature Substatic under the title New Waves, yet this pumped-up electro 3-piece have been out there playing shows for just over 3 years and have already released a debut EP called Days Go On last summer. So whilst they’re hardly new – having supported the likes of Fenech-Soler, Handsome Furs, Unicorn Kid, You Love Her Coz She’s Dead and Crystal Fighters – they’re probably not on enough people’s radars to be considered established as yet.

Substatic make pounding full-on electronic dance pop that’s full of hands-in-the air euphoria and fisting-pumping joy. It’s the kind of music that demands to be played loud on sweat drenched dancefloors. We can imagine the likes of master of the weekend Pete Tong approving of them and apparently we’d be spot on, Mr ‘We Continue’ having already championed the bands remixes.

The track we’re featuring is a new demo - Gold -and it’s the best thing they’ve done yet. It bludgeons with enough forceful rave pulse and commanding female vocal to make you lose your sh*t on the dancefloor, the dirty sexy electronica engaging those hips to thrust and those arms to reach to the sky.

The music that Substatic do may not be incredibly original – there was a lot of this stuff blasting out in the clubs and on the radio in the mid 90’s post-madchester era, but in terms of sweeping you off your feet on a Friday or Saturday night and making you feel alive Gold achieves its objectives.

Gold (demo) by SUBSTATIC