New Music: Rosie Carney - Better Man

If you’re a fan of the likes of The Staves and tender melancholy, then ready yourself for this this calm composed piece of beautiful folk.

It’s rare for me to post the same song twice on Breaking More Waves, and when I do it’s usually because the second time round a video has been released, as there's something extra to add to the mix. But today it’s the other way round. Nothing extra needs to be added. How can you add to something that is already perfect? What is needed is just the time to appreciate it over and over again. Hence the post.

I first featured Rosie Carney back in March when I streamed her song Antidote (which has now mysteriously vanished from Soundcloud) and a video for this song. Now it appears that Better Man is getting its own well deserved bit of promotion and an official release on 17th June via X Novo, with what is being billed as her debut EP being released in the autumn. The first time I heard Better Man it left me speechless. Then having finally mustered up some words in that previous post, this time I really have nothing more to add, except that this exquisite song is guaranteed to make your day better. 

Rosie Carney - Better Man

New Music: Introducing - SKOTT

One of my favourite UK based boutique labels is Chess Club  – they seem to knock out record after record that my musical tastebuds find absolutely delicious. Their current roster includes the likes of Billie Marten, Casi and Pumarosa – all acts that I’d written about in their very early stages before they’d got on board with the label. Then there's past Breaking More Waves approved artists such as Jungle, Wolf Alice, Chet Faker, Mumford & Sons, White Lies, James Yuill, Cherbourg and Kyla La Grange. It's a smorgasbord of musical goodness.

Today I saw Chess Club Tweet “NEW MUSIC ALERT!! Keep ‘em peeled ‘cause we’ll be bringing you brand new music from a very exciting new artist later this afternoon” and as good as their word, a few hours later they revealed their latest addition who goes by the name of SKOTT. Once again, Chess Club has come up trumps - it seems that if I plugged myself into a musical dating website, they'd be my top match.

First impressions on SKOTT: 

1. The blogs are going to love this. It’s very ‘bloggy’ sounding. (5 hours later that was confirmed – 14 Hype Machine blogs posted the track in that time – a very impressive start for a brand new artist).

2. Whilst it’s very ‘bloggy’ sounding I’m not sure if Joe Public will 'get' her immediately – it’s maybe just a bit too edgy. 

3. But then this could just be one of those ‘get the bloggers on board’ tracks before some even bigger pop monster is released further down the line. On the other hand maybe she's just not that kind of artist.

There’s some blurb on the press release I was sent about her growing up in a forest commune run by a collection of outcast folk musicians, and having not had an opportunity to listen to any contemporary music until she went to the city for the first time in her mid-teens. It all sounds very romantic and alternative and you will probably find these facts on almost every blog post, often copied and pasted directly from that press release (copying and pasting is the new journalism you see), but being slightly cynical I think probably any of us could write a biography that makes our lives sound wildly exciting. For example I grew up on a remote island, conceived by hippy parents who lived in a tower overlooking the sea after jacking in their normal city lives. From there I returned to the mainland, to live in another isolated location, on a houseboat moored just yards from a castle where I ran hidden strobe lit rave parties. That’s all true, but maybe some of the more boring bits (the rough Council estate I lived on for a number of years) get forgotten. Of course SKOTT's back story may be the whole tale, I don't know, but even if it isn't it's good to have pop stars who at least sound like they might be interesting isn't it? I'm not sure a blogger's life tale has to be that exciting though.

Irrespective of the back story what you really want to know about is the music isn’t it? Ok, time to press play. Skott’s first track is called Porcelain. It’s a wonderful piece of digital melancholy melodrama. It’s my (and many other bloggers) on repeat of the day (only a day mind you because us bloggers all have such short music-churnover attention span defecits).

SKOTT - Porcelain

New Music: Liv Dawson - Tapestry (Video)

Nearly a month ago I posted the so called ‘debut’ track from Liv Dawson (although to be honest I’m not sure if record labels really understand the word debut these days – it seems what they really mean is ‘first track we’ve been involved in – we’re going to ignore anything the artist might have done independently or with someone else before’) and it was, dare I say it, a stunner. It seems like I wasn’t the only one to think so either, with the song quickly going to #1 in the Spotify UK's Viral 50 Chart and #4 in the Global Viral Chart.

So just in case you missed it, here’s a second chance, this time by way of the video for the song, which takes a soft focus collage approach to clips of memories that many, if not all of us, will know. Just to repeat / reinforce etc - this one is a stunner.

Liv Dawson - Tapestry (Video)

Why Wales Wins At Football Tunes For Euro 2016

In less than a couple of hours thousands of people across Europe will lose their sanity as they spend the next few weeks shouting at their televisions whilst a bunch of grown men, who can't hear them yelling, chase a ball around a bit of grass in France, trying to kick it in between two white posts and a column from which a net hangs, whilst another bunch of men try to stop them doing it. 

To celebrate Euro 2016, just like every international football tournament before it, some musicians have had their own goes at celebrating the madness with what they do best - a song. This year I’m convinced that whilst Wales might be rank outsiders in the tournament, they’ve won when it comes to the tunes. They’ve got not one, not two, but three big songs for Euro 2016:

1. Manic Street Preachers – Together Stronger (C’mon Wales)

The Manic Street Preachers tune may not have found favour with every listener, but from my perspective Together Stonger (C'mon Wales) is excellent, for the following reasons:

1. It’s recognisably the Manic Street Preachers sonically and carries the tradition of some of the 'classic' football tunes like Three Lions and World In Motion.

2. It’s the most stirring of all the Euro 2016 tunes I’ve heard.

3. Thematically it fits very well with the rest of the bands output, namely name checking historical figures (in this case sporting ones) that many people won’t have heard off, injustice, dissapointment and managing to fit in lines that (in theory) don’t go with the music - something the Manics have made their trademark.

4. It manages to make reference to the song Can’t Take My Eyes Off You which has become an adopted tune of Welsh football fans.




2. Helen Love – A Boy From Wales Called Gareth Bale

“To be honest it’s the best football-inspired single since Eat My Goal by Collapsed Lung. And you can quote us on that,” say Helen Love’s label Alcopop! Records. Well I just did. “Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na – he’s a boy from Wales called Gareth Bale!” proudly sing the band in this rather wonderful hooky punk pop explosion of fun. Sing-a-long with the video below.




3. Super Furry Animals – Bing Bong

The first of two unofficial welsh tunes, the band have described Bing Bong as “A Welsh folk idiom that we have appropriated, but its pronunciation has been partly inspired by the sonic motif of the talking robot, Twiki, in the 1979-81 sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.” The song was originally demoed for Euro 2004 in Portugal when Wales just missed out on qualification in the play-offs but has been resurrected now that the team are in the finals. It’s a bit bonkers, but kind of brilliant and sung in Welsh language. 

Three winners. Well done Wales. You deserve to do well in the tournament just because of these.