Over the last few days a number of friends and people on the world wide web that I don’t actually know but who are interested in this sort of thing have been asking me what my favourite gig of 2016 was. So for the sake of completeness and as a record to remind myself in future years I’ve listed my top 5 below in a nice simple, no waffle, just the data form. If you want to read a little bit more about my favourite gig, I’ve included the reasons why it was so unexpectedly brilliant in this post (click here) that I’ve already published. After this, it really is no more looking backwards and everything going forwards on Breaking More Waves. My Favourite 5 Gigs Of 2016 1. Adele – Glastonbury Festival 2. Christine & The Queens – Latitude Festival 3. Clare Maguire – St Pancras Old Church, London 4. Aurora – Concorde 2, Brighton 5. Jain – Great Escape Festival, Brighton
If you’ve read all of the 24 posts that have preceded this one, counting down my favourite albums of the year, you’ll have noticed a couple of key points running through the writing. First, that for artists, sometimes it takes a little time to get it right. So even when maybe they don’t live up to the initial hype that often attaches itself to musicians just breaking through, we shouldn’t necessarily write them off. If there is genuine talent there, that will, if given space and more than a few minutes in the limelight, come good. Unfortunately, often record labels don’t see it that way; there’s way too much short term thinking in the music industry. Second that 2016 has been the year of things titled Stranger Things; the TV show, the soundtrack, the band that made the soundtrack and now this – an album called Stranger Things Have Happened. Yes, Clare Maguire, an artist who first appeared on this blog way back in January 2009 and was featured on the BBC Sound of 2011 really delivered the goods in 2016. Ironically, in that first post back in 2009 I mentioned a song Clare had recorded called Strangest Thing, suggesting it was exuberant, modern and commanding. That song doesn’t appear on this album, but instead we get twelve pieces of musical gold, flecked with painful emotional honesty. They may not be particularly modern sounding, but they’re all the better for it. Whereas Clare’s debut Light After Dark was largely an over produced beast that picked up some pretty scathing reviews (Laura Snapes writing for the NME described it as containing ‘songs that’d sound a bit sexless at a WI Christmas party’ – ouch) Stranger Things Have Happened strips everything back, allows the songs to breathe and gives Maguire the chance to really let her vocal shine. That shine doesn’t mean just big ballsy belters though (although she gives Adele a run for her money on Elizabeth Taylor and out souls most soul singers on Here I Am) but, subtle, nuanced beauties. Faded, with its jazzy piano, strings and brushed drums sounds like something you might find a band like Tindersticks playing in a dimly lit, velvet lined coffee bar. Swimming finds Maguire vocals adopting a sultry warble as she coos of what appears to be a dark enslaving relationship. “Whatever makes you bad, makes me want you,” she starts, before swiping out with a startling compulsive obsessiveness: “Fuck it now, life can wait, give me adrenaline when I wake. I’m bored as hell, and you’re my closest heaven, and there’s the clue, there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do, if you needed me when I needed you.” One of the criticisms of Light After Dark was that it felt like all of Maguire’s personality and experience had been sucked out of it. That Clare had become a pawn in the record label machine. That certainly isn’t the case here. Throughout Stranger Things Have Happened there’s a deep intimacy, both lyrically, musically and in the way that Clare sings the words. Take the title track, a fairytale quiet song reminiscent of 50’s movies and Portishead without the beats. It finds Clare cooing almost creepily (in a good way) at a range higher than we’ve ever heard before: “Walking off the sapphire blues, carrying my shoes, drinking in those drunken stares, unprepared, I don’t care.” It’s superb goosebump raising stuff. That Maguire has had to go through a tough old time to get to this point (she’s been through alcohol addiction and some depression) makes this album even the more extraordinary. It’s a collection of songs that adopts a variety of different styles, but still sounds like a full, deep and cohesive body of work. Rather like my favourite album of last year (Oh Wonder’s debut) this isn’t an album that you’ll find on many end of year critics lists. I don’t know why. But all I do know is that this is the most beautiful and affecting body of work I’ve heard all year. My album of 2016. No contest. Clare Maguire - Whenever You Want It
Clare Maguire was one of my Ones to Watch in 2009. She was on the BBC Sound of List for 2011. But 2016 has really been her year. A very special album called Stranger Things Have Happened and some superb live shows that had everything from raw emotional singing to humour to me dancing on stage (yes, that actually happened at one show in London) have proved that sometimes the most important ingredient of good music, just like cooking, is time. Now there’s no stopping her. “After years of being told 'no' I'm finally saying 'yes' and putting out tracks that have been shelved because I like them,” says Clare. Freedom suits her. Her latest back in stock offering is her version of The Supremes song You Keep Me Hanging On, which Clare has deleted the You from. It’s one of my favourite Motown songs and here Clare takes it in a different direction, but one that I can certainly feel love for. There will be a new EP (including this cover) from Clare Maguire in the New Year. Let's hope that Stranger Things Have Happened finds its way onto a few end of year lists. Clare Maguire - Keep Me Hanging On
Just the other day I was talking to another music lover about new artist Betsy, a singer I’ve featured a couple of times (here and here). “She sounds a bit like Clare Maguire,” my friend said. “Whatever happened to her?” Now, I'm sure you'll all agree that it's somewhat of a compliment to an artist when others are compared with them, so that's one for Clare. Maybe her ears were ringing too, because just a few days on from that conversation and she answering the whatever happened to question with not only a new song but news of a second album. Stranger Things Have Happened will be released on the 27th May. If Elizabeth Taylor, the new track is anything to go by, the album is going to be a beauty. There’s a whole lot of Hometown Glory styled piano on the track, some gorgeous string sounds and (of course) Clare’s voice which goes in the flick of a switch from a docile restraint to punching the stars out of the sky. The press blurb that arrived in my in box informs me that “Clare wrote the majority of this album at home on her piano, with her sausage dogs, on a diet of pizza and cups of tea.” Now that’s impressive – collaboration in pop music and in fact any creative art is not unusual, but I’ve never heard of sausage dogs taking such an active role. What’s not clear is if they just helped with the writing or they played on any of the instruments. Clare plays a couple of shows in the UK on June 2nd at the Glee Club in Birmingham and the 6th at St Pancras Old Church in London. Clear your diaries for those. Good to see she’s got a Pulp poster on her bedroom wall there as well. I’m giving her extra bonus points for that. Clare Maguire - Elizabeth Taylor
Amongst a sea of glittery dresses Clare Maguire pounces out with a new video for Don’t Mess Me Around, a raw soul r’n’b (and we mean r’n’b in the older sense of the 50’s and 60’s definition) belter that’s driven forward by the rhythmic backing vocals, bass, drums and of course the thing that grabbed us in the first place way back in 2009 when we first featured her on the blog - Clare’s remarkable voice. As far as we can tell Clare’s been through a bit of a topsy turvy time, but this song, with its back-in-command bluesy holler, finds her on full form. It reminds us of her earlier songs that came before her Light After Dark LP material. Don’t Mess Me Around would work particularly well in a low-slung ceiling small sweaty club with some serious audience arse shaking going on – let’s hope that Clare ventures out to the nation and gets punters doing just that soon. Clare Maguire - Don't Mess Me Around (Video)
Boomerang by Clare Maguire, a new home recorded demo which finds Clare questioning why she keeps going back to someone who “ain’t no man of steel, he ain’t no superman” with a raw and gritty blues vocal, then matching it with some dirty modern beats and effects. It’s a hell of a long way from the polished sound of her debut album but packs a punch and a half and then some. Simple but effective. More of this please. Clare Maguire - Boomerang
For UK music fans Brighton’s Great Escape traditionally signifies the opening of the UK’s festival season. The event, now in its ninth year, is without doubt the UK’s biggest and most essential new music festival, one that is always a guaranteed bookmark in our diary every year. Great Escape has set the benchmark for the many imitation multi-venue single wristband access festivals that now exist, which probably explains it sells out every year. Why is the Great Escape so good? Here are five reasons: 1. The Quality Of The Acts Whereas some multi venue festivals fill out the bottom of the bill with mediocre fare, the Great Escape offers both quality and diversity. This year for example you could sample the slick electro soul of Jungle, the fragile and haunting folk of Bridie Jackson and the Arbour, the synth pop of Pawws or the dirty rock of Royal Blood and that's just 4 of over 300 bands playing the main event. 2. The Setting It’s Brighton. You’re right by the sea. If the weather is good you can hang out at one of the bars on the beach. If it isn’t the rest of the city has an abundance of culture to explore – not that you’ll have time. You’ll probably be too busy checking out bands won’t you? 3. The Number Of Bands You Can See There are two ways of approaching Great Escape. The more laid back way is to wander between venues, catching a few acts you know you want to see and taking a punt on some others. Or there’s the rigorous military like planning method, where you see as many bands as is humanly possible during the course of the event. We favour the second of these. New music fans can see A LOT of music at Great Escape. 30 full performances is our normal minimum target and we’re likely to get closer to 40. We’ll have a Plan A, a Plan B (in case a venue is full) and even a Plan C. Thankfully over the years we’ve never had to resort to Plan B, but we have it just in case. 4. The Next Big Thing Factor Somewhere amongst the 100’s of bands playing the event between the 7th and 9th May in the pubs, clubs and concert halls of Brighton are likely to be tomorrow’s big festival headliners. You want Adele playing third on the bill in a coffee shop to less than 100 people? Yes, we were there in 2007. You want Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling and the lead singer of The Vaccines in a relatively small University Theatre? We ticked that one off our list at Great Escape. Or how about 2012 when Haim, Foxes and Chet Faker all played a sweaty basement club and Este from Haim got half naked? We were there. Rizzle Kicks playing to about 30 people in a vintage clothes shop before they were famous? Yep that one as well. And last year there were the delights of London Grammar putting on a stunning performance in a beautiful church and Chvrches finishing us off with their digital pop in an arched nightclub on the sea. You might not care for 'next big things' but looking back these are great memories for us and show how the Great Escape can represent superb value. 5. Discovery These days music discovery has changed. After all you can listen to every band playing online before you go and plan your timetable accordingly. But that doesn’t mean that you won’t discover something at Great Escape. We’ve met people who we communicate with online for the first time in the flesh at the festival and discovered that they’re just as nice as we hoped they would be. We’ve turned up early to ensure we get in to a venue that we suspect may reach capacity later and watched a band that we didn’t really rate in recorded form and found them to be a revelation live, and vice versa we’ve discovered that the groovy r’n’b influenced laptop artist that all the blogs have been talking about can’t really do it live. So Great Escape is still about discovery, but for some it will be in a different form to what it was when it started. Over the next few days inevitably many blogs and websites will be giving huge lists of acts they recommend you see if you go. This year we’re not going to overload you (we remember one year one particular blog recommended about 60 bands, many of whom were playing on different stages at the same time). Instead we’re simply naming one act on each day of the festival that we’re intending to watch and we’re avoiding the obvious ‘buzz’ acts like Jungle for which there will inevitably be large queues to get in and we will be avoiding (having already seen them this year). Maybe you’d like to consider these three in your itinerary? This year we're picking three solo female artists. Thursday Emilie Nicolas – Komedia 19.45 (Line of Best Fit) “Now, Norway, we love your Christmas tree that you send to Trafalgar Square in London every year, but please for 2014 can you send Emilie Nicolas over to us instead, and whilst you’re at it take Ylvis back. Thanks,” we wrote in January of this year when we first introduced this Scandinavian singer. Now our wish has come true.
Friday Sophie Jamieson – Blind Tiger 21.15 (BBC Introducing) Beautiful atmospheric music based in folk but with a deeper shadowy cinematic quality. We named Sophie as one of our Ones To Watch for 2014. The song streaming below is the flip side to her new single release, Stain.
And finally, if you're going, here's our final tips: Breaking More Waves Top 5 Tips For Great Escape 1. Don't forget the Alt. Escape. It runs alongside the Great Escape and offers even more bands and more variety. Your Great Escape wristband gives you access to all the Alt. Escape events (some of which are also free to the general public or require a small charge to enter without a wristband). 2. Sign up to the Great Escape text service and twitter stream. You'll receive plenty of updates during the festival which usually include the likes of band cancellations and what venues are at capacity. 3. If you want to see the buzz bands like Jungle get there early. Queues for the relatively small venues are an inevitability. But if the queue looks too long - don't waste your time - move on to something else. 4. Pace yourself. Like any other festival if you go hard on the alcohol too early you'll inevitably pay the price later. 5. Check back here each day of the festival. All being well we'll be publishing our reviews within 12 hours of each days activities closing.
Clare Maguire has been uploading a number of cover versions and new songs online over the last few months. Each one has been stripped down, full of depth and a long way from the inflated pop fires of her debut album Light After Dark. The latest release recorded for Burberry's recent Menswear A/W 2014 Show is quite possibly the most beautiful yet. Lilac Wine is a cover of a song originally written by James Shelton in 1950 and has already been sung by the likes of Eartha Kitt, Nina Simone, Elkie Brooks and Jeff Buckley. From that list you can probably tell that this song is not one to be taken lightly and Clare treats it with just the kind of tenderness it deserves. It was 2009 when we first featured Clare on the blog as a brand new unsigned artist. Since then we understand her journey hasn’t always been an easy one, but we’re incredibly glad that she’s still here, still singing from the heart and still creating goose bumps down our neck. Clare's giving away a free mixtape which you can grab by clicking on the Soundcloud player below. This blog post is one of a series published as part of Breaking More Waves non-stop 24 hour Blogathon to raise money for Cancer Research UK. If you have read this post and enjoyed it or the music we’d really appreciate it if you would donate £2 (or more) to Cancer Research using the button below. Clare Maguire - Lilac Time
With each new track that Clare Maguire puts out, there’s a sense that after her debut pop album and some personal troubles she’s really finding herself as a performer and a person – less polished, less trying to be perfect, but all the better for it. This latest tune, a cover of Ella Fitzgerald’s Black Coffee is by far our favourite yet. No, cut that, favourite doesn’t do it justice; if we could marry a voice (which is a weird concept we agree but stick with us on this one) this would be it; it gets right to the very core. It's unlikely to find any place on the Radio 1 playlist, but has already found a place in our heart.
Clare will shortly be returning to the live stage first this weekend in Norwich at Sound & Vision Festival and the weekend afterwards at Swn Festival in Cardiff. Hopefully she will be playing some of her own headlining dates soon, fingers crossed for some low-key intimate gigs in low ceiling candle lit bars draped in velvet, which would suit this seductive ode to drinking and smoking away loneliness. Now does anyone know a registrar that will allow two non physical things - an internet blog and a voice - to get hitched?
Just imagine for a moment that music was actually served in a restaurant, its performers being your dinner date for the evening. Imagine also that on this particular night that your companion was Clare Maguire, her songs the feast for the ears.
Starters would involve some stripped down demos. The likes of the Johnny Cash meets soul diva sound of Burn, the Celtic connection of Butcher Boy and an early raw and powerful version of Strangest Thing, all delicious and just building anticipation for mains.
Main course takes a while to arrive but when it does its an absolutely huge dish. For some it's over cooked and just too much, for others it's a powerfully underrated. That’s taste for you, the chef is never going to be able to satisfy everybody with a debut album.
Now at this point we're not sure if we’re onto dessert or if we’ve actually swapped eateries. For in many ways this feels like starters all over again. We’ve already had the quickly sneaked out then removed wild-west blues of Happy Anniversary (released under the name Maggie), followed by a cover version of Joni Mitchell’s The Last Time I Saw Richard, plus a guest vocal appearance on Limitless by Burns. Now we get another demo entitled Changing Faces and it’s as tasty as something from a Michelin starred chef. Clare’s voice is full of depth, restraint and maturity on this piano ballad. It feels (and we use the word feels rather than sounds because music is as much about emotions and making you feel something inside as it is about the technicalities of sound) that Clare Maguire is cooking up the goods again. We look forward to see what comes out of her musical kitchen next.
It’s not often we do this but sometimes music just can’t wait. One of our blog rules is only to post one track each morning and then occasionally one in the early evening. But when we saw and heard this we decided it was time to break some rules. After all that's what makes life exciting.
For anyone who has followed this blog from back in the day, you will know that we got very very excited about Clare Maguire early doors. Maybe her album didn’t quite reach everybody’s expectations, but (and it’s a big but - but not the sort of butt that you can see in the Soundcloud player below ) one of the problems of our hump ‘em and dump ‘em short attention span age is that we’re too quick to put the metaphorical bullet to the head of the artist. Remember, the secret of all great music and art is time.
Gone are the mammoth string laden studio pop songs and instead we get something that reminds us a little of some of her very early demos we heard. Happy Anniversary is all bluesy and wild-west, her voice restrained but strong as ever she sings of cheating hearts. “This song was written after spending an evening with my ex, what was supposed to be a special occasion turned out to be a giant hazy dose of our morbid reality...”, says Clare. This is just a demo? Hell, we’d say leave it at that and forget rerecording it, don’t suck its soul.
Consider us smitten. Consider us breathless. Consider us back in love with Clare Maguire. 100% Clare Maguire - Happy Anniversary (Demo)
It’s getting to that time of year again when everyone will soon be revealing their tips lists for 2012. Breaking More Waves is no different and this year we will be expanding our now traditional Ones to Watch feature to 15 artists rather than the smaller 10 we’ve published in previous years.
Our Ones to Watch list is not a tips for commercial success list. If it was we’d feature the likes of Azelia Banks, Frank Ocean and Skrillex, all of whom have had underground buzz and could be poised to break through in 2011. However, none of these artists fit with the tastes of Breaking More Waves and therefore won’t be appearing. Nor will it include any X-Factor or similar contest winners (although we admit we seriously considered listing Pepper from Sky 1's Must Be The Music - her track Wish It Away is way better than you would expect - keep an ear and eye out for it when it finally surfaces.) Our Ones to Watch 2012 reflects the output of the blog and its musical preferences and U.S hip hop, r 'n' b etc don't usually float our boats. (Having said that keep an eye out for a UK rapper that appears in this years list - we've cast our net a little wider with that one). The artists we select are new acts that we guess (and it can be no more than a guess) may produce some music of interest in 2012, irrespective of if they are a ‘hit’ or not - the kind of music that would appeal to ourselves and regular readers of this blog. Many of them have already appeared on the blog over the last year, in fact this list could almost be said to be a summary of our New Waves features on the blog from the last 12 months, although there will be a few new additions as well.
Last year we limited ourselves to new UK acts. This year we’re expanding to worldwide again, as there are at least 2 acts from outside our own country that we really adore and inclusion is a necessity. We’ve also changed our definition of what a ‘new act’ is this year, allowing artists to have already had 1 UK chart single, or up to 4 non-chart singles but no album release to date.
We’ll be publishing one of our Ones to Watch each day for the next fifteen days, then follow that up with our top ten albums of the year. By then it will nearly be Christmas, where with a couple of minor exceptions the blog shuts down until New Year.
So this is it, our final run down.
Our first one to watch for 2012 will be published at 20.30 this evening GMT and then at 8.30 every morning each day after that. Why not check back every day to see who we've chosen, or follow us on twitter for notification of when the blog posts go on line.
Before that, let’s cast our minds back to last year. Clare Maguire (listen and watch below) first cropped up on this blog in January 2009. We put her on our ones to watch list for 2010 at number 6 but it was too early as nothing was released until right at the end of the year. Last year we put her on the ones to watch for 2011 list at number 1 and she also appeared in the top 5 of the music industry BBC Sound of 2011 list. She finally put out some singles, an album and played gigs and festivals. We even got a thank you on her album sleeve for supporting her. Now, looking back at 2011, how did Clare Maguire do in terms of making interesting music? We’d be interested to know your views.
Right now we’re feeling a bit sorry for Clare Maguire. Her album has not been particularly well received by the press, in fact some of the reviews were pretty damning. We will always defend the right of critics to give an objective and well informed review, but if you’re on the receiving end of the criticism it must feel pretty demoralising, especially when you’ve put your heart and soul into something over a number of years. Artists may say they create something for themselves and if anyone else likes it then that’s a bonus, but if that’s really the case, if they only really want to create it for themselves, then why put it out in the public domain at all? It’s like this blog. If we just wrote it for ourselves we wouldn’t need to publish it. But we do, because we want others to enjoy or be entertained by it and the music that we feature. Somewhere in the public artists psyche there’s a want to be loved.
So today we’re going to shine a ray of light over Clare. Because The Shield And The Sword is her new single and it’s categorically the best song on her album. It’s mighty, passionate and let’s Clare do what she does best – belt out a tune with that big voice of hers. There’s even more sunshine though, because with a video that features near naked muscular gold men, blonde wigs, a swan and our favourite woman’s dress of the year (pictured above) in which she looks amazing, The Shield And The Sword is her best video to date. This is our little way of an internet hug to Clare Maguire. The critics aren’t everything after all.
If you’re a regular reader of Breaking More Waves you will know that when it comes to Clare Maguire we are definitely in the higher echelons of major league fan-boy territory. From her simple Celtic soul sister beginnings a couple of years back to the sexual burlesque influenced performer with the colossal and emotive pop songs of now, we love everything that Clare has produced to date. The defining ingredient is of course her voice, so huge and thunderous that when we saw her perform earlier this week at London’s Bush Hall and she asked people to sing along to one song, it felt uncomfortably wrong, so dwarfed was the audience by her gutsy bellow.
So whilst Breaking More Waves is probably not the blog to come to for multitudes of remixes, when it comes to our favourite artists, and right now Clare is one of those, we’re happy to post whatever new material comes our way. So here is the Chase and Status remix of Clare’s forthcoming single Last Dance. It’s a relatively restrained piece for the drum ‘n’ bass chart bound producers whose album No More Idols is released next week. Maguire’s album follows on February 28, which on paper looks a very impressive month for new releases.
The track streams and is also available for download below.
Over the last couple of years we’ve published a number of commentaries on the annual BBC Sound of List. In 2009 we asked “Is winning the BBC Sound of List a poisoned chalice?” Conclusion - only if you don’t have commercial success fairly quickly after, otherwise watch out the media may decide to knock you down if you don’t meet their hyped up expectation. In 2010 we took part in the voting for the list ourselves and gave our thoughts on voting. Conclusion – as one of the panel it’s important to vote for acts that you love the music of, but there’s no point voting for an act that has not already got some degree of exposure, otherwise it’s a wasted vote. We also questioned why there was so little rock music in the Sound of 2010. Conclusion – music and fashion go hand in hand having to undergo stylistic change to market themselves as a luxury commodity, and rock music is so engrained in tradition it has for the moment fallen out of fashion. This article proved to be more prophetic than imagined as by the end of 2010 the number of rock songs to feature in the UK singles chart had fallen to its lowest tally in 50 years (article here)
This year we’re not blogging any further on the Sound of List. The reason being that two articles produced by our UK blogging peers – the excellent Faded Glamour and The Recommender have already said everything we want to say here and here - and you can read some interesting debate in their comments section, including thoughts from Breaking More Waves. The only thing we will add is that if this year’s top 4 are anything to go by and be believed, it could be a good year for the initial J. Jessie J, James Blake, The Vaccines (with a lead singer called Justin) and Jamie Woon have all got the votes. In a way it’s a shame that of the long list of 15 Jai Paul didn’t make the top 5 so that this blog could have been an absurd piece about alliteration in pop music.
However, as much as Jai Paul is a warped and inventive artist we’re pleased to see that Clare Maguire upset the J’s and sneaked it to the top 5, if only because she’s an artist that we’ve been blogging since January 2009. Clare’s single, the follow up to Ain’t Nobody is called Last Dance and was written the day after Michael Jackson’s death. “You're the first man to move me yeah, you helped me feel alive,” sings Clare in tribute, her huge voice underpinned with a tribal-thump sensibility. This is big. Font size 72 big. The video is streaming below and for those who are still getting to know Clare there’s a bonus remix of her song as well as her cover version of Antony and the Johnsons Hope There’s Someone. Who would you save your last dance for?
Our first artist on our Ones to Watch 2011 list will come as no surprise to regular readers of Breaking More Waves, as we’ve given Clare Maguire regular coverage since January 2009 (here). We’ve even had to bend the rules a little to get her on this list having originally selected her at number 6 on last year's list. That was in hindsight a little too early; with her debut single Ain’t Nobody finally seeing the light of day in October of this year. A single low key festival slot at Latitude 2010 (reviewed here) has been followed by well received support slots with Hurts (reviewed here) and Plan B, as well as her own debut headlining show in London in November. Next year Clare already has gigs lined up supporting Hurts again and a gig in London’s Bush Hall as part of the ‘New to Q’ sessions. Then finally an album - Light After Dark will be released in the early part of the year. We have high hopes for it being in our end of year best of list for 2011.
Maguire has been signed to a major label (Polydor) and there is already significant work being done to get her music heard. You've probably already read the stories about her drinking with Jay-Z a hundred times or more, and as cool as that is, it has more to do with celebrity culture than the music, so we'll go no further with that tale here. We're not OK magazine. Read about it here if you must, as that publication seems interested in that kind of journalism. These days though, such stories are required to get your name out there - Google ' Jay-Z and Clare Maguire' and you will see the number of sites that have repeated the story. It's our guess that in interviews Clare will run out of fingers and toes to count the number of times she's asked about going drinking with Jay-Z.
The major label deal and possible mainstream potential that Maguire possesses could lead to certain sectors delivering the inevitable backlash at some point, rather like in 2010 there was a critical backlash against Ellie Goulding (for being too 'pop' in the critics eyes - we disagree) and Hurts (for being too 'pretentious' /' pop' and not delivering on initial promise - we however are really pleased with the way Hurts turned out - but you can't please everyone - ever ) before they both found their true audience. Those who became familiar with Maguire through the dark, spacious and thrilling Breakage remix of Ain’t Nobody may be disappointed to discover that this is not what Maguire’s material sounds like – and should she crop up on the BBC Sound of 2011 list, of which we suspect there is a reasonably strong possibility, further critics will probably wade in with the “what do the tastemakers know,” negativity that occurs but is quickly forgotten every year.
But let’s forget the marketing, forget the critics and focus solely on the music. From the material we’ve heard and the live performances we've witnessed we can confirm that we are 100% in love with Clare Maguire. No make that 200%. Her big epic songs have received comparisons to Florence and the Machine and whilst this is not fully accurate, we can understand them. Maguire has mammoth emotive songs such as Last Dance, I Surrender and Shield and Sword that are delivered with an incredible voice that is huge thunderous and gutsily powerful – fully designed to grab hold of you and smother you firmly. When she performs you can see this emotion in her face, as she forces out every note as if it means everything to her.
Clare Maguire is undoubtedly our number 1 choice in our Ones to Watch list for 2011 – and we really hope the public agree. One to Watch 100, 200, 1000%.
“No one cares about your 'best of 2010' list,” Josh Weller recently tweeted. He may be correct, but that won’t stop hundreds of the things appearing throughout December and Breaking More Waves isn’t going to be any different. We’ll be running down our top ten albums of 2010 from the middle of December – but before that, at the start of the month we’re looking forward and posting our annual 10 Ones to Watch for 2011.
Prior to looking forward, here’s a recap of our 2010 selections from last year.
Ellie Goulding
We said
“With her quivering girlish vocal, an acoustic guitar, neat lyrical phrasing and stuttering laptop electro beats, Goulding could deliver commercially.”
What happened?
Goulding delivered commercially. A number one album in the UK, two top five hits and two further songs that went top thirty, sold out tours - it’s been a highly successful year for Ellie Goulding.
“….threaten to bring an ostentatious, stern, eastern European look back into fashion for bands.”
What happened?
It was Europe that really warmed to Hurts, with the band enjoying charts success in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Sweden and Finland and even an appearance on German X Factor. In the UK the band took a little longer to find their true audience, but by the time their album Happiness was released it achieved a very respectable chart placing of number four with mixed critical reaction (8/10 in the NME, 2/5 in the Guardian, 5/10 in Drowned In Sound, 3/5 in the Independent and most tellingly 9/10 by Popmatters), they also played one of our favourite gigs of the year way back in February at Wiltons Music Hall in London (here). By the end of the year they were playing sold out gigs, supporting the Scissor Sisters on their UK tour and next year are playing a tour of larger concert halls.
Beth Jeans Houghton
We said
“Quite where Beth Jeans Houghton will fit in 2010 we’re not exactly sure, but she has the voice and the songs to ensure that she can carve out her own space”
What happened?
Houghton toured with another of our Ones to Watch – Stornoway and played a string of UK festival dates. However she didn’t release any material. With her Ben Hillier (Blur, The Maccabees, Elbow) produced album now in the bag ready for release next year, Houghton can continue to carve her space in 2011.
Unicorn Kid
We said
“To the uneducated ears of an over twenty five year old or a solemn indie rock purist, the sounds of Unicorn Kid will just be considered bad music, but for his growing army of fans his electronic urgency is simply something that makes you happy.”
What happened?
In April Unicorn Kid released Dream Catcher a stunningly dirty, glitchy and energetic piece of work that became one of our favourite tracks of the year then followed it up in October with another track – Wild Life. An album is due in 2011 – it’s likely to make his growing army of hyperactive fans very happy indeed.
“It is for this reason we have selected them for our ones to watch list. Not because of musical uniqueness or commercial crossover, but because we can imagine Delphic creating a perfect indie dance summer vibe in fields across the UK.”
What happened?
Delphic didn’t achieve massive commercial success – their album charted at number 8 in the UK, but then quickly disappeared. However as we predicted their moment really came in the summer – their storming set at Bestival hit all the right spots (see our review here).
If a 2010 release from Clare Maguire arrives and it comes anywhere near the quality of those demos, we predict she could win a lot of fans.
What happened?
It took a while but finally in October Maguire released her thunderous debut single Ain’t Nobody, that found extra love through the heavily spacious Breakage Remix. Having played Latitude this summer and supported Hurts and Plan B on tour this autumn, Clare Maguire will release an album in 2011.
When Stornoway appeared on our ones to watch list they were still unsigned. After significant label interest they inked a deal with 4AD allowing them to open their suitcase and share their wonderful songs, releasing their debut album Beachcomber’s Windowsill. The album surprised many (but not us) by sneaking into the UK top 20 album chart. They ended the year selling out the 2,000 capacity Shepherds Bush Empire in London, a far cry from when we first saw them perform to a small crowd at the Wychwood Festival in 2009. On a more personal note, Zorbing and I Saw You Blink are two of our favourite songs this year.
Mirrors
We said
"The dense ambient pulse-pop of the Mirrors reflects the sounds of early OMD"
What happened?
Having signed a deal with their hometown label of Skint, Mirrors released the singles Ways to an End and Hide and Seek and played a number of gigs including support slots with OMD themselves on their 2010 European tour. The band will release an album next year and in the meantime have packaged up their early singles into a mini album which is available to purchase directly from Skints website.
“Her dreamily atmospheric guitar based songs are certainly not the kind of tunes that are going to infiltrate the pop charts, but provide for a smouldering and sleepy listening experience.”
What happened?
Miranda’s David Sitek produced album The Magician’s Private Library was seductively warm and as sleepy as a pillow and duvet set with titles such as Sweet Dreams, Every time I Go To Sleep and Sleep On Fire combined with even more shut eye lyrical content such as “Dreamt of you again last night,” from the slow burning trumpet laden Joints and “Wake up and you’re next to nothing,” from Slow Burn Treason.
Clock Opera
We said
"We love Clock Opera more than our own children."
What happened?
Clock Opera released a number of low key singles during the year including the transcendent Once and for All, toured with Marina & The Diamonds and hope to release an album in 2011. They remain one to watch.
There’s a certain irony that whilst millions gawp at their TV screens, getting their only fix of weekly music from the X-Factor, Britain’s best new voice is treading the boards away from eyes of the masses. Clare Maguire may currently only be the support act to melodramatic electronic pop duo Hurts in a 550 capacity club on Brighton seafront, but on the evidence of this performance it won’t be long before she’s headlining much bigger venues.
Garbed in red tassels, flowery headdress and long boots Maguire looks like some scary sexy sorceress about to cast her spell. Backed by a slick four piece band in black jackets and ties she stares moodily at the crowd before flinging her arms wide open and opening her mouth. That’s when the power hits. Huge, soulful and potently expressive her voice booms across the space; Maguire makes the likes of Florence and the Machine seem weedy. Forget the leftfield coolness that the recent Breakage remix of her debut single Ain’t Nobody implies, Maguire has the potential to appeal to the widest of audiences. Last Dance is a crampons breaking mountainous pop song, whilst Life After Dark with its rave like synths and heavy bruising drums is epic in its proportions. Her cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Big Love is delivered with unnerving confidence, her vocal presence taking full ownership of the song. “The best support act I’ve ever seen,” one member of the audience is overheard saying. He could well be right. Absolutely incredible.
It’s been a slow build for Hurts (the static Chris Lowe like Adam pictured) in 2010, taking some time to establish their true audience, but with a sold out tour and their debut album Happiness being the fastest selling debut by a British band this year, the Hurts trajectory is veering upwards. Whilst Hurts may very much be a pop band, their world is not one of neon technicolour - Hurts find glory in greyness. “It’s a beautiful rainy day,” singer Theo states with a sense of satisfaction to the audience. Yet despite their monochrome outlook their music is anything but grey. Hurts bring a gravitas and lavishness to pop music in every aspect of their detail. Collars and cuffs, stern motionless opera singers, atmospheric back lighting, composed stage presence – everything Hurts do is thought out and calculated, but it never seems cold. There’s a sense of humour in their personalities, even if they are very serious about the music, evidence of which is displayed when Theo mocks at their suits – “It’s hot isn’t it? I should have worn my shorts and T shirt.”
The music of Hurts is grandly magnificent – the likes of the boy band cool Blood Tears and Gold eliciting screams from girls (and a few boys) in its quiet moments, whilst Stay has the same Christmas number 1 potential as the East 17 song of the same name. “We say goodbye in the pouring rain and I break down as you walk away” is the most obvious sad Hollywood movie lyric ever, but for anyone who understands loss and its part in pop music, goose bumps will also be present. The group also tip their hats to Kylie Minogue, covering Confide In Me following her recent Radio 1 Live Lounge version of their own hit Wonderful Life. Ending with Better Than Love – electronic uplifting stadium pop at its best, they leave with no return - despite calls for an encore. Emotional pop music of the highest order.
We don’t make a habit of posting blogs on Saturday, but today we’re making a huge exception. Because we’ve just received a remix that has been getting a fair few people very hot under the collar. It’s the Breakage remix of Breaking More Waves new(ish) favourite lady Clare Maguire and her debut single Ain't Nobody, and it's available for download and streaming below (downloads limited to first 100)
Heavily spacious and full of headphone blowing power this remix does what all great remixes should do – it takes the song to a very different place and a very different audience. But irrespective of the remix, let’s not forget why we first fell in love with Maguire back in January 2009. It was because of her remarkable voice. We still don’t think we’ve given a sufficient explanation of Maguire’s vocal prowess, but may we suggest that she reminds us a little of Annie Lennox – a singer blessed with a set of lungs that sounded soulful and moving whatever style of music she turned to.
Having been lucky enough to catch Maguire play her only live show so far this year (here) we’ll also be reporting back from one of her forthcoming support slots on Hurts UK tour next month. It’s quite possibly our idea of musical pop paradise - two of this blogs favourite artists in one room together for one night. Anything could happen.
*Update - Sorry but within 24 hours of posting we'd reached our maximum download limit on this track, so now the remix is for streaming only.
