If when you press play on Glow by pretty-damn-amazing pop duo IYES you think ‘this is familiar’ it may be because you first heard this tune in demo form way back in February 2013 or when we subsequently streamed it again in November 2013 when we nominated IYES as one of our Ones To Watch for 2014.
So third times lucky for Glow, which frankly sounds even better now than it did then – this is pop how we like it; euphoric and thrilling but with a tenderness and underlying melancholic beauty to it.
Oh and this time Glow isn’t a demo but a real proper single due for release on December 22nd via Love By Mistake / Sony. Buy it for your loved ones for Christmas. It comes with a video showing the band made of moondust (we can assure you they’re not – they’re real people made from real flesh and bone) and according to Clash soundtracks the advert for Sony’s latest smartphone, the Xperia Z3. We assume this means the band will actually make some money for their efforts, which we are sure you’ll agree is a good thing in this day and age of new musicians doing a lot for nothing.
Just to recap - pretty-damn-amazing.
IYES - Glow (Video)
You can pretty much guarantee that when a band or artist announces some gigs or a tour the “why aren’t you coming to my city / town?” grumbles will begin to flood in. It’s a particular gripe of ours. Not that bands don’t visit every single city in the country, but that quite often it seems that ‘fans’ display a sense of entitlement whilst remaining very passive about actually getting off their arses to do anything about it.
There was an interesting article by Stephen Ansell of the band Blood Red Shoes on Drowned In Sound earlier this year that questioned if music is becoming exactly that – a passive experience (here) and it's worth a read, he makes some good points about how music is becoming dumbed down and reducing in value because of the expectation of being able to have it all.
This year we’ve been recording every gig we go to and how much we spend in attending, to try and find ‘the true cost of gig going.’ Maybe at the end of the year the figures we get will explain why many people aren’t prepared to travel outside of their home town, to see live music. Maybe it really is too expensive?
This month we attended 7 gigs and saw 16 acts (including Charli XCX at London’s Heaven - pictured above). Not one of them was in our home city. We travelled to Brighton five times and London twice. In total we travelled approximately 800 miles to see those 7 shows. We don’t believe in grumbling about not being able to see our favourite bands. We’ll either work towards finding a way to removing the barriers to us seeing them or stay the f*ck shut up.
Here’s the figures:
October
Gigs attended 7
Acts seen 16
Total ticket cost (inc booking fees) £66.50
Total transport cost £136.50
Drinks at venues £32.65
Merchandise £0
Accommodation £35
Total Spent £270.65 (an average of £38 / gig or £16.90 / artist)
At the end of the year we'll be adding all the figures up and will be giving a figure that we believe to be the true cost of gig going.
When we first heard that Irish duo Voids primary instrument was the bass guitar we expected to hear a pounding lip-curling forcefulness pummelling our earlobes until they throbbed and bled. We didn’t expect the trippy dark and ghostly sounding minimalism that you can hear on their debut EP (suitably titled Begin). Apparently the bass is fed through various effects and a loops before slow motion beats and rhythms are added to combine with the vocals which are provided by Alison, a singer who takes inspiration from the likes of Bjork, Karin Andersson and Chelsea Wolfe.
Voids music is anti hangover music from the leftfield. If you want something to float away to, their EP (which you can buy as a cassette and digital download from Bandcamp here) is well worth investing in. We're streaming Knowing from the EP below which gives a good taste of what to expect.
Voids - Knowing
The word love is probably the most used in music, but we can’t think of many songs that have been titled Love Child with the exception of the sixties hit for Diana Ross & The Supremes and the lesser known song by Scottish band Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, which some of you (we suspect a very small number) may remember for their minor hit The Rattler or for the fact that within their number was Shirley Manson on keyboards and backing vocals, who went on to front Garbage.
Now Rebecca Clements adds the title to her small but pretty much faultless group of songs released to the world web. Love Child hangs weightily in the air with beautiful fingerpicked guitars and graceful crescendos created by the melody. It seems that this Love Child isn’t special to everyone though, in fact it seems she’s someone who likes to think she knows it all, but she really doesn’t. As Rebecca sings, she’s a “love child of delusion, love child of confusion, self-proclaimed messiah girl.” Mind you, even if she's not the best of people, she makes good subject material for this gorgeous song.
Rebecca Clements - Love Child
