Embrz - Lights ft pennybirdrabbit

Whilst we were away at Bestival (Mini Review: Whilst the festival itself has grown bigger over the last 10 or so years, it has lost little of its brightly coloured soul or crazy charm. The thing that has changed is its audience, which has become far younger and far more mainstream – the abundance of Adidas and Ellesse fashion present spoke volumes) Kildare based producer Jack Casey, better known as Embrz dropped a brand new tune, his first since single Silent. Featuring the voice of LA singer pennybirdrabbit, Lights slow drips beautiful electronic warmth. It’s a piece of music that will make you want to be with someone you love at night, hug them closely and start the come down together, forever. 

Embrz - Lights featuring pennybirdrabbit

The Japanese House - Clean

Back in June we announced that for a short while Breaking More Waves would be scaling things back a little and posting less often. That period is coming closer to the end (although we’re not there yet), but before we get there we’re sneaking in this quick post of the new track from The Japanese House who returns with her first new material since the debut EP Pools To Bathe In earlier this year.

Whilst it’s easy to be cynical about The Japanese House what with the patronage and premieres from Zane Lowe (first at Radio 1 then subsequently at Beats) and the association with label mates The 1975 (ensuring exposure to their enormous fan base), what we’re finding fascinating about her music so far is that it’s hardly the sort of obvious pop music that screams ‘HIT SINGLE’. In fact, new song Clean is downright odd – a weird mix of warm mellow electronic studio trickery, vocal effects and a soft-focus marshmallow like slow motion groove. There’s no way that this will get a sniff near the top 40. This is a good thing, because if the persuaders of the music industry think that what the public needs is a new dose of weird druggy sounding electronic pop then we’re all for jumping on board.

Even better, in October Amber Bain (who is The Japanese House) is taking her songs out live on the road. We have no idea how that’s going to work with her sound, but rather like jumping from a trapeze without a safety net, that’s surely far more exciting than going to a gig knowing exactly what you’re going to get? 

The Japanese House - Clean

Frances - Let It Out

One of the problems of being a music junkie on the internet, but also having a very busy life outside of music, is that here at Breaking More Waves we simply don’t possess enough time to write about everything that we love (ok, we could sleep less, but trust us we survive on very little sleep anyway). The result is a blog that sometimes very much falls into type and doesn’t necessarily show the broader range of taste that we have. This week for example we’ve been listening to lots of Aphex Twin, Nils Frahm, Frazey Ford, Chemical Brothers and Hooton Tennis Club but you won’t find much mention of any of them on this blog (until perhaps some of them in our album's of the year posts in December)

Today we absolutely fall into the safety net. Frances has already been featured before on Breaking More Waves and new song Let It Out is exactly the sort of thing you’d probably expect to find here. It's a divinely pretty piano ballad that sounds a bit like Rae Morris and a bit like Oh Wonder, two blog regulars. With its oh-oh-oh lighters in the air chants and tears in my eyes emotion it also hints at some sort of Coldplay-esque stadium aspirations, that is if the stadium was actually a rather pleasant café, church or seated velvet lined  club, which to be honest is where you're more likely to find us than the soul-sucking hollow emptiness of an arena / enormodome. Let It Out is taken from the new EP from Frances which is due on Communion Records on October 16^th.

Frances - Let It Out

Oh Wonder - Heart Hope

Let’s take a look at some of the comments on Oh Wonder’s Soundcloud for Heart Hope, their latest and last song that they have uploaded to the world wide web for their one year project to write, record and release one song every month:

“For fucksake. How is everything you guys make perfect?”

“Prettiest song yet, no question.”

“Best song, to end the best year of my life. Thank you Oh Wonder.”

“Can your music be any more perfect. Damn, you guys are so good!”

“This makes me want to cry, and then make pancakes.”

And that’s just the start of them.

When Ant and Jospehine started this project they surely could have had no idea of how people in different parts of the world, via the power of the internet, would fall for their music and find their homespun tunes so touching and so easy to relate to. But they have. And now this Friday there’s an album. It will be an odd one, because if you’ve been following Oh Wonder, you’ll already know exactly what to expect. 

Next are the gigs. Of course Ant and Josephine have played live many times before, but never together, and never with this huge surge of love from people who have embraced their songs. The shows are going to be incredibly exciting for everyone involved. We’re expecting a few tears to be shed  at their first gig - well, from this blogger anyway - on the  16th September at London’s ICA , which is completely sold out. 

If you haven't ordered the album yet, treat yourself and click here, but before that, if you haven't heard it yet, listen to Heart Hope, a wonderfully positive hug of a song. Sometimes, when the world's a bit shitty, when everything's getting on top of you, when everyone around you seems to be doing things bigger, better and more successful than you, it's important to have someone tell you that they love you. That's what we get from this song. Let it kiss your ears.

Oh Wonder - Heart Hope