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Friends‘ new video for ‘Mind Control’ has been released; it’s the band’s next single, to be released on the 28th of May. The band just appeared at well-received, not to mention rammed, shows at the Great Escape this past weekend.
The band’s debut album ‘Manifest’ will drop on 4 June on Lucky Number.
Mercury Prize-winning band the xx played a series of very low key (not to mention very small and hard to get into) gigs this past week in London. Watch it below.
If you recall, around New Year’s they revealed a rough recording of ‘Open Eyes’; listen to it in this previous In the Post.
2:54 will be releasing a single in June called ‘Creeping’. They’re giving away its b-side, ‘The March’ for absolutely free. Listen to and download it below.
Ben wrote a Bands to Watch piece this week on the duo; read it here.
Fancy taking a ride round the city with Ben Howard, then catching some exclusive footage of him performing with his band at Shepherds Bush? You can both with his new video for ‘Only Love’, which you can watch below.
Howard has an extensive UK/Irish tour lined up for November, kicking off at the Brighton Dome on the 2nd of November; see the dates below. Support for the tour will be Willy Mason, who played alongside Howard at Communion’s SXSW showcase in Austin at the St. David’s Historic Sanctuary church in March.
Saturday 2nd November 2012 – Brighton Dome
Sunday 3rd November 2012 – Plymouth Pavilions
Monday 4th November 2012 – Cardiff University (Great Hall)
Tuesday 5th November 2012 – Bristol Colston Hall
Thursday 7th November 2012 – Dublin Olympia
Saturday 9th November 2012 – Belfast Mandela Hall
Sunday 10th November 2012 – Glasgow O2 Academy
Monday 12th November 2012 – Manchester Apollo
Wednesday 14th November 2012 – Leeds O2 Academy
Friday 16th November 2012 – Newcastle O2 Academy
Saturday 17th November 2012 – Aberdeen Music Hall
Monday 19th November 2012 – Cambridge Corn Exchange
Tuesday 20th November 2012 – Lincoln Engine Shed
Wednesday 21th November 2012 – Leicester O2 Academy
Thursday 22nd November 2012 – Nottingham Rock City
Saturday 24th November 2012 – Birmingham O2 Academy
Sunday 25th November 2012 – Bournemouth O2 Academy
Monday 26th November 2012 – Southampton Guild Hall
Wednesday 28th November 2012 – London O2 Brixton Academy
Music is so deeply hewn in to the tapestry of Camden’s past that even if a rogue bulldozer were to somehow escape the Olympic park and flatten the lot, the Camden faithful would still gather on the detritus (like Kevin Costner in the film Field of Dreams) to watch the ghostly echo of gigs passed. Camden Crawl has managed to do away with wrestling the country/city festival debate that plagues the likes of Hard Rock Calling and SW4 – those who assume the hardware set up should remain universal – by setting up in the across the attics, backrooms and great halls of this cultural nucleus. Since 1995 this festival has showcased the best of the new alternative scene, and this year is set to kick off the festival season with more than 100 artists across 27 venues.
If there’s a better way to kick off a festival than staring down the barrel of two trombones and a trumpet, then I don’t want to know about it. North London eight piece ska punks Imperial Leisure bring a touch of Madness to the opening bout of Camden Crawl 2012 shoehorned, like jostling commuters, on to the wooden floorboards of the archetypal Wheelbarrow pub. As afro sporting singer Denis Smith leers over the baying home crowd, they blast through the likes of ‘Bitter and Twisted’, ‘Landlord’s Daughter’ and ‘Man on the Street’ at a frenetic pace and set an almost unsurpassable benchmark for interaction and tempo.
On the way through the assault course that is tourist dodging up Camden Road to the hallowed turf of the Roundhouse, Hip-Hop Shakespeare have taken to the stage in the cool blue oasis of the Jazz Cafe. With razor sharp wit and tongue, MCs and poets alike take to the stage with the house band to recite their works and challenge the stigma surrounding hip hop as an inferior art form.
At the Roundhouse, the enigmatic Sam Lee has taken charge of the mezzanine and roof space to claim in it in the name of folk for the day. He regales the cross legged crowd with old folk tales before introducing the quintessentially English but bright and almost painfully innocent melodies of Magic Lantern. He then returns with his own modest troupe of eclectic musicians to tell stories and sing, choral and otherwise, to the appreciative gathering. It is an achievement that all festivals should strive for, where for a moment or more people experience the universality of musical and social understanding.
The greyish afternoon sun begins to dip towards the rooftops behind the indoor stage as people are ushered out on to the terrace for Melodica, Melody and Me. Close your eyes and this could be the Champs-Élysées, with people milling and reclining on the steps as the melodica strikes up. Tracks like ‘Hold On’, ‘Ode to Victor Jara’ and ‘Plunge’ are lyrically modern but classic in style, given a Hawaiian twist with the omnipresent (so much so that I’ve already missed a few) ukulele, and despite the dropping temperatures the wax jacket parade has turned out in force.
Pint-size French synthpop three piece We Were Evergreen will surely be one to watch this summer and, having come on in place of Atlantics at the Wheelbarrow earlier in the day, anticipation was growing to see how they would manage a full set at the Roundhouse. Band members Fabienne, Michael and William work independently as masters of their instrument sets – be it guitar and vocal loops, ukulele and banjo, or synth and glockenspiel – to produce a sound with the same good time vibe as the Ting Tings on tracks such as ‘Baby Blue’ or the infectious ‘Eggs’.
Back in the centre of Camden at the Black Head, and Antlered Man are laying down their own crunching brand of hypnotic metal through a loudspeaker to a packed upstairs, whilst round the corner at Underworld post rock instrumentalists Brontide are nailing a precision piece of musical hardware to the largest and loudest crowd yet gathered. In this dingy basement layers build on loop pedals in time with a surge in energy levels, driven by the relentless crash of ex-La Roux drummer Will Bowerman’s sticks.
Hindsight is a wondrous thing, a precious commodity that is lacking as band of the moment Big Pink took to the stage as only second headliners under the shimmering beams of Koko’s mammoth mirror ball. The atmosphere has gained a synaesthetic sheen to match the soundscape of this peculiarly appropriate line up; now the sound has the power to reverberate through chest cavities, and there’s enough dry ice to Beadle’s About a house fire. It is their first time in London, and with material from their acclaimed debut ‘A Brief History of Love’, as well as tracks from 2012 release ‘Future This’ such as ‘Hit the Ground’ and ‘Rubbernecking’, had the audience blown away. And, while lead singer Robbie Furze intermittently sounds like Richard Ashcroft in space, floor filler ‘Dominos’ has every pair of hands up.
Rounding off Saturday of Camden Crawl 2012 are a band who stand out on the bill as somewhat mainstream, even slightly ‘one hit wonder’ for a headline slot. It is an absolute joy to find that the proverbial ‘tip of the iceberg’ saying rings true and that ‘Hounds of Love’ was merely a marketable peak the PR team let puncture the surface of the Futureheads’ (pictured at top) early career. Below is a hulking mass of traditional folk music done as nature intended, through multi-layered harmonies and classic acoustic instrumentation. There is the oldest song in the English language, ‘Sumer Is I’cumen In’ (the one Edward Woodward is chargrilled to in ‘The Wickerman’) and ‘The Machem’ before the crowd start to lose their nerve and begin an unfortunate smattering of boos and (ironically) a capella versions of ‘Hounds of Love’. But, with an a capella album of their very own to flog in the coming months, the Futureheads continue unperturbed and round off the Saturday admirably with a more inventive, acoustic version of their biggest hit. This appeases the now swaying crowd, who leave with both cheers, and murmurs of anticipation for what Sunday could hold.
Emmy The Great’s album ‘Virtue’ has been out for nearly a year now; she’s decided not enough people have heard it, so a deluxe version is on its way in order to tempt those who haven’t yet made a purchase. With the usual ‘deluxe’ trimmings, and more rare tracks and remixes, this is a release both for the Emmy completist, and for those who are just falling under the spell of the jewel-voiced Ms Moss for the first time.
To announce the new release, ‘God Of Loneliness’ is being released as a single. Given that the album documents a particularly sudden breakup, this song fits right in, documenting as it does a one-sided conversation between Emmy and her projected demons. Or in this case the demons are reimagined as a god, although a bittersweet one that appears on the death of a relationship, rather than an omnipotent being who looks after you in times of need. The instrumentation is gentle, and features sufficient melodic undulations and harp sweeps to make it quite a summery background ditty, if we ever get a summer in this glum, rainy country. As inoffensive as a chilled glass of sparkling rosé wine on a grassy slope, and possibly more of a ladies’ favourite; men might like something a bit chewier to go with their post-breakup blues.
B-side ‘Fade Into You’ is a cover of Mazzy Star’s most famous song, and adds just a bit more vim to the original. Whether or not the song needed more vim, or struck just the right languorous tone the first time around is not clear. What is clear is that the song is a lovely, dreamy waltz with distant guitars and deserves another hearing. Just the soundtrack if you’re sharing that glass of sparkling rosé with a special someone.
Intriguingly, the single is accompanied by a ‘horror rom-com’ short film set in Emmy’s favourite brutalist tower block, Erno Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower, which inspired a track on ‘Virtue’. As a connoisseur of brutalism, it’s great news every time an example pops up in pop culture. This particular building has led a charmed, media friendly existence, having appeared in several music videos including Blur’s ‘For Tomorrow’, and benefits from residing in the well-off Kensington and Chelsea borough of London. Certainly modernist, but due to the softening of its concrete expanses with numerous windows and walkways, maybe less brutal than impolite. Due to its location, fame, and listed status, Trellick Tower is to be spared the ignominy of demolition which is befalling so many of its contemporary brethren. The song gets an extra point for bringing up the topic of brutalism.
7/10
The deluxe version of ‘Virtue’ is out now. ‘God of Loneliness’ was released as a single last week (the 7th of May) on Close Harbour. Grab the Dems remix of the song on this previous MP3 of the Day post.
There Goes The Fear is where we tell you about the latest tours, gigs, and music we love and think you should too.
We love music that has its heart on its sleeve, tells a story, swims around our head all day or makes us dance like idiots.
The blog is edited by Mary Chang, who is based in Washington DC. She is joined by writers in the UK and America. It was started up by Phil Singer in Bristol, UK.
All MP3s are posted with the permission of the artists or their representatives and are for sampling only. Like the music? Buy it. If you want a track removed, email us and we'll sort it ASAP.
