The Saturday Surf #25

This is the 25^th edition of the Saturday Surf. If you’re new to the blog, then a quick explanation is due. It works like this.

Stage 1 - We post an iPhone Hipstamatic picture of some waves / surf. This could be interpreted as attempting to be ironically retro-cool because a while back that’s what all the cool blogs did; irrelevant arty pictures of girls in bikinis or the sea were what you did to display your knowingly hip credentials. Or it could just be because this blog is called Breaking More Waves and this feature is called The Saturday Surf which is frankly a rather obvious pun on the word surf both of the internet and the sea and therefore a picture of surf / waves seems appropriate.

Stage 2 - We post some tracks that we’ve come across this week that we didn’t get the chance to write properly about. The rules are no more than 5 tracks in a post and no more than 15 minutes of music, because let’s be honest everyone has short attention spans these days and nobody actually sits and listens to an hour of music on one blog these days do they ? So we promise not to waste more than 15 minutes of your life every Saturday. We’ll keep the text to a short paragraph as well, because we’re fully aware sometimes we waffle on a bit.

Stage 3 - Put the kettle on, make yourself a coffee or tea and spend the next few minutes listening to these songs. You may like some of them, you will hate others, but give them all a chance at least. That is how the Saturday Surf works. It’s simple really. Here’s the music.

Labyrinth Ear - Humble Ears

First up is new material from Labyrinth Ear, an electronic duo who we’ve featured a number of times previously. Humble Bones is a track from their new EP which is due on February 7. Rythmic danceable electronica that tips its hat a little towards New Order but with airy feminine vocals, it’s impeccable stuff.

We Were Evergreen - Baby Blue

Slightly twee French indie popsters We Were Evergreen have a toytown sensibility that’s built from brushed delicate melodies. There’s ukulele, banjo, toy piano, kazoo, glockenspiel, guitar and all sorts of other instrumentation thrown in. It’s fun and if the concept of fun makes you squirm and think that it can’t actually be good music then go back and listen to your dark gothic  underground dirge or whatever it is that makes you feel even more miserable, whilst the rest of the world gets on with things.

Frankie Rose - Know Me

Frankie Rose (ex-Vivian Girls, ex-Dum Dum Girls and ex-Crystal Stilts) has been whizzing round the blogs like an out of control spinning top with this rather excellent solo effort entitled Know Me which is due for release on Feb 20 before a new album surfaces in March. Check out the Cure-ish Close To Me drum intro and ethereal atmospheres straight out of a Now That’s What I Call Alt ‘80’s compilation.

Willis Earl Beal - Evening's Kiss

Finally, here’s something from a new artist Willis Earl Bill – one of the only artists we’ve come across recently that doesn’t seem to have any online social media presence. Sounding like a particularly downbeat minimalist Willy Mason this track is not his best, but right now it’s the only one streaming through Soundcloud. Have a listen for sure, but what we really recommend you do is go and look at this You Tube clip where you’ll see his acapella vintage-blues and soul come into its own. There's also some rather brilliant demos over at City of Dust blog where you can find out a lot more about the man himself.

Labyrinth Ear - Walk On The Moon (Arthur Russell Re-imagining)

We’re not quite sure what a ‘re-imagining’ is, but that’s what Breaking More Waves favourites Labyrinth Ear are calling this new version of Arthur Russell’s This Is How We Walk On The Moon which they’ve recently unleashed to the internet. Re-imagining certainly sounds a little more artful than remix and a little more sophisticated than a rework don’t you think?

Russell was a musician who died at the young age of 40 and was relatively unknown in his lifetime, but a series of re-issues, compilations and a biopic have raised his profile since. The song was originally featured on his 1994 album Another Thought and was used in a UK TV advert for T Mobile, which is probably where you are most likely to have heard it. Labyrinth Ear told us that it’s one of their favourite tracks.

Having featured pretty much every track from their debut Oak EP on the blog it’s nice to have some new output from the duo and hopefully we’ll see some original material floating by fairly soon from Tom and Emily (pictured above – or at least Emily is, but then that could be a tom couldn’t it?) Here’s their re-imagination..

Walk on the Moon (Arthur Russell) by Labyrinth Ear

Paper Crows / Alpines / Labyrinth Ear - A Triangle Of Synthtopian Goodness

Right now there’s a trio of new male / female Brit electronic dabbling duo’s who are following the traditions of Eurythmics, Goldfrapp and Yazoo but in a more modern context. Each is pressing all the right keys both on their laptops and Breaking More Waves musical consciousness to make the heart race a little faster. Having featured every one of these duos a number of times, now seems a perfect moment to bring them together into some sort of triangle of electrifying brilliance. The reason for this is that two of the three, Paper Crows and Alpines, have released their respective singles this week - Fingertips / Follow The Leader and the Night Drive EP. To complete matters, the third point of our three sided musical polygon - Labyrinth Ear - played a gig a few of nights back where Breaking More Waves was in attendance. Now if someone could put all of these three acts on one bill at one gig or festival that would be all sorts of amazing. Possibly even A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Promoters are you reading? Thank you.

Whilst waiting for new material from all three, today is an end of the month mop up exercise bringing you the fine remixes and tracks that each duo has unleashed that haven’t yet featured on Breaking More Waves. From Labyrinth Ear we have Wild Flowers – the only song we haven’t streamed from their debut self-released Oak EP, a polar piece of art-disco. From Paper Crows we feature the batshit mental Megabit remix of the flip side of their current single, whilst Alpines deliver the blissfully cool Dark Sky remix of Ice and Arrows, which is already gaining significant love. Take your pick, whatever you choose they’re full of synthtopian goodness.

Wild Flowers by Labyrinth Ear

Paper Crows - Follow The Leader (Megabit remix) by Sainted PR

Ice And Arrows (Dark Sky Remix) by Alpines

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

Labyrinth Ear - White Gold

Featuring the puppet work of the late Czech animator Jiri Trnka, this new video was released by Labyrinth Ear just a few hours ago to accompany the noteworthy White Gold, taken from their free Oak EP available to download here. White Gold has a rather sinister yet sophisticatedly sweet sounding sonic spectrum – ghostly electronic atmospherics sprinkled with frostily soft vocal kisses. It sounds a little like something iamamwhoami may have created if she had actually got round to issuing her work as a formal download / cd /dvd release rather than getting so wrapped up in creating viral video campaigns and confusing the hell out of us all with films like this.

Having first featured on Breaking More Waves last month the London duo are already becoming regulars here and fit in very neatly with our aesthetics. With a significant amount of Hype Machine love, things are bubbling along nicely for Labyrinth Ear right now, with more gigs in the pipeline following their debut at In The City. The question now is can they turn free giveaways and blog love into commercial reality?

We suspect this won’t be the last piece that you read about Labyrinth Ear on this blog and for that we make no apologies. This is White Gold.

White Gold by Labyrinth Ear

Labyrinth Ear - Navy Light

Having first featured the artily cool electronic pop duo Labyrinth Ear here and then witnessed their first ever live outing at Manchester’s in the City here, it’s time to bring more music from Emily and Tom, and this one is their best yet. Navy Light is one of the tracks from their debut Oak EP, which you can download for free from here. The EP features the two tracks we blogged previously, namely Snow White and Lithium, of which Snow White in particular has been receiving a lot of love.

What we still can’t get over is that Labyrinth Ear come from London rather than Berlin or Warsaw. The Labyrinth Ear LDN sound is not the sound of sweaty lager washed toilet venues or even hedonistic club culture, but what futuristic architecture formed from steel, concrete and glass would sound like if it was music rather than a design and built construction form. Here's Navy Light.

Navy Light by Labyrinth Ear

In The City 2010 - Review Day 2

One of the ways in which In The City wins hands down against other multi gig urban festivals is in terms of ease and convenience. All of the venues are within a stone’s throw of each other and attendance numbers are such that there didn’t appear to be any queues to get into any shows, meaning that gig-hopping was incredibly simple.

A lunchtime start welcomed a Brilliant Artists Booking Agency showcase at the Night & Day Café – a venue that literally did what it said on the tin, with a total of nine bands gracing its stage during the course of the light and dark hours.

Klaus, formerly known as Klaus Says Buy The Record, was the winner of the Red Stripe Award 2008 and reached the final stages of Channel 4's Orange Unsigned Act in 2009. However it seemed that he may also be auditioning for the Comedy Awards with his in between song jokes. “I’m bored of the miners now they’re mainstream news – I preferred them when they were underground.” He did his best to alienate the small crowd watching. “This song sounds exactly like the last one.” Explaining that this was his first gig in three years without an acoustic guitar, the amplification gave the tunes warmth despite abrupt and scrappy endings.

Next up were The Woe Betides, a straightforward three piece Weezer like alt-rock-pop band who mixed live and programmed drum patterns, low slung bass and fizzy guitar riffs. Rocking it like it was 1996 all over again they were as original as Kerry Katona appearing in a gossip magazine.

With a beard and boater hat Napoleon IIIrd may have looked like he would be better hanging out with the new folk crowd, but the only tip to tradition he paid was by rustling up the quirky, free-spirited inventiveness of eccentric oddball pop. His highly engaging acid karaoke, laptop experimentation and frantic bottle hitting was nearer a psychedelic Beach Boys, Active Child gone crazy and Animal Collective all given a damn good shake up. Napoleon IIIrd was the spark that lit the fire.

The showcase finished with My First Tooth. Despite the name, twee babygrow cuteness was not the order of the day here, instead robust and joyous boy-girl county-folk hoedowns such as Orchards grabbed the audience buy the balls and led them to the drunken village barn dance for a romp in the hay. Or rather they would have done if it hadn’t been four in the afternoon and everyone was sitting drinking coffee.

Crammed into a tiny room on an even tinier stage at the back of The Castle Hotel Brown Brogues were keeping the spirit of raw primal lo-fi rock ‘n’ roll well and truly alive. With a White Stripes school of drumming technique – just two drums hit hard - and a sexy, hip wiggling, fuzz-toned singer coaxing an unholy noise from his guitar, Brown Brogues seemed to understand that an instrument is not just something to play but something to perform with – Mark Vernon thrusted his guitar up against his chin and plunged it forcefully against the amps, wrenching musical entrails from within. This was a band who didn’t give a toss about the audience being able to understand the words – all smothered in distortion and instrument abuse - this was noise sex. “This one’s for the ladies,” Vernon announced. He probably had them up against a wall later.

The sexiness continued with Sophie-Rose and her fine looking stable of men and women bringing a bunch of classy easy on the ear pop songs such as You Killed Summer and the hooky harp fuelled Going Dutch to the Mint Lounge, both of which sounded like hits in the making. Her duet Take Me Where The Roses Grow, written with Will Rees from the Mystery Jets was performed with her bass player on co-vocal duty, a shimmy of country tinged sophistication. Confident and at ease, Sophie-Rose quickly charmed with sassy songs that just scream to be heard by the masses.

From the Mint Lounge to the Ruby Lounge for Breaking More Waves favourites Let’s Buy Happiness; the best thing to come from Newcastle since Alan Shearer. Let’s Buy Happiness continue to grow in confidence with every show they play – lead singer Sarah appeared a little punk rock dressed in denim shorts and ripped tights, but their shimmering textured guitar songs are more celestial than aggressively energised. Recently Guardian journalist Paul Lester called into question Sean Adams of Drowned in Sound website and his description of the band as ‘thrilling’, but Lester missed the point. A band doesn’t have to have a manic energy to set the pulses racing. With Sarah’s gorgeous ethereal vocal and the bands complex tight knit music, Let’s Buy Happiness are utterly thrilling. No question.

“Are you in love?” questioned performance pop chanteuse Smatka (pictured) to a member of the audience in the Soup Kitchen. “That’s beautiful,” she acknowledged when the reply was affirmative. Like a vaguely gothic Cyndi Lauper and Siouxsie Soux, watching Smatka is like being served by a flirty bold eastern European in Lidl. During her show she was the dark priestess in command thwacking two drums either side of her, saucily doubling backwards on her knees and climbing onto a chair off stage, propping herself against the speaker. Visually Smatka is the real deal, and her epic pop structures showed plenty of potential. One to watch. 100%.

The evening finished with Breaking More Waves recently approved electronic pop newbies Labyrinth Ear. With electronic maestro Tom looking like James Yuill’s long lost darker brother and hooded and robed pale-faced singer Emily coaxing out her timid but tender vocal, the boy-girl duo appeared somewhat nervous for what was their first ever show. However their blissfully romantic electro pop was a cool understated pleasure, and given more confidence they could soon be lighting up more than just a handful of music blogs.

Labyrinth Ear - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

In the pre-internet years, before the electronic revolution, the main way for bands to get their name known was through hard gigging, racking up motorway miles and destroying the ozone layer, often playing to toilet venue crowds of one man and his dog. But the digital age has changed everything.

Now it’s possible to get noticed without ever leaving your bedroom. It’s absurdly easy to home record and get something online. Close to carbon-neutral recording and promotion is possible. Yet this possibility also means we are now overloaded with new artists. So how does a band attract the right sort of attention? Love or hate the beasts, but the remix is one of the new tools. Deliver an impressive re-work of a known or buzz name and you could become the new bloggers delight, grabbing exposure through aggregators such as Hype Machine and tongues wagging. Next up heads will turn to your own material, and if that’s good as well, without even playing a gig you’re developing a following.

Which brings us neatly to Labyrinth Ear; a London boy-girl electronic duo consisting of Emily and Tom who have picked up a lot of blog love with their heavily euphoric remixes of Alex Winston’s Choice Notes and a throbbing thrill of a reconstruction of Local Natives World News. But it’s not only these remixes that are impressive; their own material is equally fantastic as well. Lithium flexes its electronic muscles with a pitch black pulse that reminds us German electronic art-popsters Propaganda, all pouty seductive spoken word female vocals and mesmerising danceable synths. Another track Snow White brings industrial eighties thuds and dreamy flyaway computerisations that display composure and coolness in their creation. If laptops could create diamonds they’d probably sound like these synthtopian gems.

Treat yourself, click on the download button and get both of these tracks and the Local Natives remix below. The Alex Winston remix also streams. Top notch retro-futurism.

Local Natives - World News (Labyrinth Ear Remix) by Labyrinth Ear

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

Lithium by Labyrinth Ear

Snow White by Labyrinth Ear