The 80’s often gets a bad name in music history. The bad haircuts, the shoulder pads and some truly tacky songs didn’t help, but it was also responsible for some great underground pop from genres such as new wave and goth. Amber, the new single from Winchester’s Temples of Youth, certainly channels that sound; the pulsing electronics are suitably gloomy and some of the electronic drums have the same dead-zone heaviness that you might find on a Joy Division record. However, it’s not all Armageddon despondency as the chiming guitars have a hint of The Cure in one of Robert Smith’s more let’s get happy moments and there is an airy ambience to some of the synths that sounds more optimistic than it does down. Music to lift you, albeit in a gracious and considerate way. And not a shoulder pad in sight. Temples Of Youth are slowly beginning to grab some attention for their music, having featured on the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition longlist, being played on BBC Introducing and last weekend they played Reading's Are You Listening Festival alongside the likes of The Big Moon, Anna Meredith and Spring King.
It may seem a bit early in the year to start previewing festivals in the UK, but ‘festival season’ doesn’t only apply to the summer anymore. Kicking off things in January is Portsmouth and Southsea’s appropriately named Icebreaker, a one day multi-venue affair that showcases local south coast talent for a bargain ticket price of just £12 in advance or £15 on the door. Using many of the same venues as the longer established Southsea Fest (such as The Wedgewood Rooms, Edge of the Wedge and the tiny sweatbox of Al Burrito’s) Icebreaker has a very D-I-Y flavour to it. This seems to be a festival run for the sake of doing it and helping to promote the local scene, rather than big bucks. With over 100 artists playing on 12 stages, all located extremely close to each other, Icebreaker is a very easy festival to negotiate. The difficulty of course is knowing what acts to see, especially if you don’t live in the surrounding area. For this reason I’ve picked 5 artists playing the festival that I think are worth a shot. Breaking More Waves Tips 15.00 Percival Elliott – Wedgewood Rooms I featured Percival Elliott on the blog back in 2015, comparing the romantic wide eyed honesty of their song Meant To Be to Stornoway. For Icebreaker the duo are promising a string quartet and their full studio band, so this one should be a little bit special. They are on early, so don’t be late and regret it after.
15.50 Minque – Little Johnny Russell’s Another act that has featured on the blog in the past, Dani Uziel is Minque. Having played just a handful of shows and having released a few low-key singles I was quite surprised to find Minque pushing out an album so early, but she clearly had the material ready to go and wasn’t prepared to hold back a little and see if things grew. The record, Opia, is a collection of 9 electronic pop songs with a spacious mellow edge and the occasional banger, in particular So Precious, So Small which featured on Breaking More Waves here.
17.45 House Points – The Loft This Brighton based group have only been together for around a year, but have already released an EP, and played a number of festivals including Y-Not and Together The People. They’re getting a reputation for playing highly energetic fuzzy indie pop shows, and as the video for I Don’t Like You below will demonstrate, they pack of lo-fi punch or two. Get ready for House Points.
19.30 Temples of Youth – Edge Of The Wedge Mixing electronic and organic instrumentation, Temples of Youth write melancholy and thoughtful songs that provide a fine antidote to some of the noisier stuff on display at Icebreaker. Having already played at the likes of Record Store Day with Portsmouth's Pie & Vinyl Store, Southsea Fest and the part Breaking More Waves curated Dials Festival this Winchester based girl-boy duo are no strangers to the Portsmouth scene and are slowly edging their way up the bills.
22.45 Signals – Wedgewood Rooms Closing the festival and headlining the Wedgewood Rooms is math rock four-piece Signals, who have the arty angular tunes to match their haircuts. Bands take note – this is important. Your haircut needs to represent your music. Changing your musical style? Then make sure you change your haircut. Their single Paraesthesia is a jerky piece of fun that will probably make you want to throw half your body in one direction whilst the other half goes in another.
You can grab a ticket for Icebreaker, which takes place on the 28th January, by clicking on this link here. You can see some action from the 2016 event below which contains a lot of men with guitars and beards. You have been warned. Icebreaker Video
Talking about spirituality and pop music in the same breath can sometimes make some people a little awkward, so when a new band called Temples of Youth come along with a song called Churches you might think it’s best to skip on to something else. I’d advise not to though, because Paul Gumma and Jo Carson who make up this new UK duo from the Winchester area are creating some rather thoughtful twilight hours pop with a cinematic dreaminess that’s worth your attention. Having already uploaded a small handful of songs onto their Soundcloud, Churches is the first of their self-released material that’s available to download. The song is about Jo’s experiences of prejudice; being made to feel initially welcome by a group of people who then completely changed the way they treated her when they found out more about her. It makes me think a little of the words that have echoed around the world following the horrendous murder of another Jo - British MP Jo Cox. “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.” If only everyone could have the clarity of vision to see things that way, the world would be a much better place. Thankfully, the world will always be a better place when we have musicians, entertainers and artists creating songs. Temples of Youth will be making a donation to Equality Florida from the sales of downloads for Churches. Their next live show is supporting Declan McKenna on the 22nd June at Guildford Boiler Room. Temples of Youth - Churches
