Hiatus + Shura

Fortune’s Fool / River is the first collaboration between electronica producer Hiatus and singer-songwriter Shura, and it’s a project that started long before the pair had actually met.

Their story begins in north London in 2009. Hiatus is standing speechless after having witnessed the hushed spiritualism of Shura’s looped vocals and haunting guitar lines for the first time; he fights his way to the front of the crowd, but the singer has fled the building before he gets there.

Fast-forward two years and Hiatus – real name Cyrus Shahrad – bumps into an engineer friend who happens to mention that he’s recording with a girl called Shura. Hiatus says that he’ll drop everything if the engineer will send him some vocals to work with.

The result is River, a track so pleasing to Shura – real name Aleksandra Denton – that she suggests they meet to discuss a more extensive collaboration. The pair soon find themselves holed up in a Cotswold recording studio laying down vocals, piano and guitar parts, which Hiatus takes back to London and begins assembling with the same ear for cinematic intensity that made an underground hit of his track Insurrection (feat. Linton Kwesi Johnson), voted single of the week on Steve Lamacq’s Roud Table on BBC 6 Music in March.

But while Insurrection bristled with indignation for the repression of human rights, Fortune’s Fool is a love song drawing on the sadness at the centre of even the most romantic relationships. Its chorus is a tribute to Des’ree’s Kissing You, made famous by the film adaptation of Romeo And Juliet – a play from which Hiatus and Shura’s track takes its title.

The pair have also begun playing live, from Cargo to Camden’s Proud Galleries to Croatia’s Soundwave festival, revealing an on-stage chemistry that suggests – like their recordings – that there may have been a Shakespearean dash of celestial destiny in their coming together.

“Working with Shura is an ideal partnership,” says Hiatus. “For years I’ve been collecting female vocal samples to loop over my music, while she’s been looking for someone to fill out her vocals with beats and basslines. This feels like something that was meant to happen.”

Hiatus + Shura new single – Fortune’s Fool / River is released on 10th October 2011.

The Vertigos are a young indie rock band from St. Albans, Hertfordshire. The band started in 2008 and comprises of Matt Taylor (lead vocals and synthesizers), George Aldridge (lead guitar and bass), Matt Protz (bass, lead guitar and backing vocals), James Hull (rhythm guitar and backing vocals) and Chester Carr (drums and backing vocals).

The release of The Vertigos’ previous EP The Chariot followed the band’s first 5-track self-titled EP which attracted interest from Universal Records. Last Month The Vertigos performed tracks from their latest EP on BBC’s ‘Introducing’ show in a live session, giving them even more support and exposure.

Being influenced by the likes of The Libertines, Bloc Party, Friendly Fires and The Cribs, the strength of their prolific song writing is obvious in the melodies and chord structures. All band members contribute to the song writing which gives them a unique style. The use of synthesizers in their music showcases their ability to write songs which are essentially guitar driven but injected with dance undertones.

‘Rubix‘ has a catchy melody and is well-suited for Matt Taylor’s warm voice. With the subject matter discussing the volatile politics of relationships this is an up-tempo track, with swathes of rapturous bouncy synth octaves that keep the electro vibe at full speed. The second track ‘Saint’ is a reflection of nostalgic memories and belonging in home/younger years and ‘Halcyon Days‘. This is a chilled out choral work, with a nice-sounding melody and smooth guitars that build up to a very strong climax. ‘Rubix EP’ will be released on the 5th of September 2011 via Extinguish Records.

The Vertigos  UK Dates:

July 7th -                  Barfly London. London, United Kingdom – 21:00
Aug 13th -                Batemans Brewery Music Event 2011. Wainfleet, Boston, UK – 15:00
Sept 7th -                 Upstairs at The Garage London. London, UK – 21:00
Nov 5th -                 The Shed. Leicester, UK – 21:00

For more information on The Vertigos visit www.thevertigos.co.uk.

The Vertigos are set to release Rubix EP on Extinguish Records on 5th September 2011.

Peter Murphy to release his ninth solo album

Former Bauhaus frontman, Peter Murphy is set to release his ninth solo album on July 4th on Nettwerk Records, aptly titled ‘Ninth‘.

From the album, ‘I Spit Roses’ is his new single. The promotional video is directed by Justin Coloma, the video features intricate, hand-painted sets that are a modern take on the ornate, art-deco era aesthetic.

Ninth is Peter Murphy’s first solo album in seven years and since the permanent dissolution of Bauhaus in 2009. The album sees Peter Murphy return to his roots, with echoes of his Bauhaus days clearly present in the overall feel of the record.

The return to the more rockier sound was influenced by the amount of time Murphy has been in the US where he currently spends half his time, the other half spent at his home in Istanbul.

Murphy ignited a new generation of fans in 2009 when appearing with Trent Reznor during Nine Inch Nails final tour and again in 2010 with a central cameo appearance as The Cold One in Eclipse, the most recent installment of the Twilight series.

Peter Murphy has recently finished a tour in the states. UK Show to be lined up this Autumn.

For more information visit the Peter Murphy website.

The video is an edited version of a 30 minute short film wiritten and directed by Adam Yauch called ‘Fight For Your Right Revisited’.  The film includes cameo appearances from a wealth of Hollywood stars including Susan Sarandon, Steve Buscemi, Kirsten Dunst, Mary Steenburgen, Chloe Sevigny, Ann Archer and the band themselves.

The film pays homage to The Beastie Boys first hit single, ‘(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)‘

The film includes a brilliant dance off between the ‘real’ Beastie Boys from the present and the ‘real’ Beastie Boys of the future in a very amusing ‘dance off’ with some hilarious results.

The Beastie Boys’ Fight For Your Right Revisited film will be screened in the Film & Music Arena at Latitude Festival 2011.

My Goodness - great dirty garage blues noise

My Goodness consists of guitar, drums, vocals and one hell of a filthy, grunge garage blues noise that chews on the likes of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Gun Club, The Cramps and The White Stripes and spits out something grittier than sand and more compelling than anything else I’ve heard this year.

My Goodness are from Seattle.  Joel Schneider plays gritty blues guitar and howls while Ethan Jacobson pounds out rhythms and crashes cymbals. Their self-titled debut album is amazingly infectious; and the louder I play it, the more I am drawn to the simple and effective songs.

My Goodness begins as it means to go on. Blackout Baby is as hard as nails, dirty as a grease monkey that throbs and grinds its way into my consciousness; and I think it’s there to stay.  The lead riff on C’mon Doll is reminiscent of The Cramps, though the song itself would sound more at home on a Gun Club album.

I’ve Got A Notion is another great track.  Awesome riff, great screaming gravel-voiced vocal, crashing cymbals and pulsating beating drums like hammers to the gods.

Six tracks in and I’m not quite sure why or how, but Un Poco has the hairs on my neck stand to attention as somehow My Goodness manage to turn it up a notch.  This is perfect and once again I cannot sit still as once again I am reliving heady days with Poison Ivy and Lux Interior.

The album consists of ten tracks, nine of which are relentless grinding stinky garage blues with more punk rock venom any four-piece I can think mention.  The album closes with the acoustic and solo finger-picking Lost In The Soul, showing that Joel Schneider is not all spit and distortion.

I’ve listened to the album twice over on repeat.  My ears are ringing and I can’t work out how such a great sound can be made with just guitar, drums and vocals. And yes, they can reproduce it live.

With festival season upon us, let’s hope My Goodness won’t leave it too long before they visit Europe. They have released an exceptional debut album, one of the best albums of 2011 so far. But I hope they don’t move in next door!

My Goodness is released in the United States on Seattle’s Sarathan Records label and distributed by Fontana.

My Goodness – Self-titled debut album tracklisting:

1.    Blackout Baby
2.    C’mon Baby
3.    Cold Feet Killer
4.    Let Me Free
5.    I’ve Got A Notion
6.    Un Poco
7.    Dance Hall
8.    Better Call Your Mother
9.    In The Sun
10.    Lost In The Soul

For more information visit Sarathan Records.

Funeral Suits new single, 'Colour Fade'

Funeral Suits line-up a few UK dates to promote their new single, ‘Colour Fade‘ on the Friends vs Records label.

Funeral Suits are a three-piece from Ireland consisting of Brian James, Mik McKeogh and Greg McCarthy. The music they make is expansive without being overblown, heavy without being menacing and all the more thrilling for its restraint.  Their first single release is ‘Colour Fade’  its a song thats reflective of the trio’s hedonistic adolescence and burning passion to escape Dublin whilst hinting at big things to come from their full length.

Funeral Suits UK Dates:

June 15 – Leeds, Nation Of Shopkeepers
June 16 – London , Old Blue Last
June 18 – Oxford, Jericho Tavern
July 3 – London, Wireless
Aug 13 – Standon Calling

Funeral Suits have recorded and finished their debut album with acclaimed producer Stephen Street (Blur, The Smiths) which is due to be released in 2011.

Brooklyn-based Michael Grubbs’ project Wakey!Wakey!

Brooklyn-based Michael Grubbs’ project Wakey!Wakey! will release their first full length studio album Almost Everything I Wish I’d Said The Last Time I Saw You on 1st August preceded by the single Light Outside on 18th July.

This will be Wakey! Wakey! and Michael Grubbs’ UK debut, and is the culmination of a lifelong eclectic musical education coloured as equally by the anti-folk movement of New York’s Lower East Side as a childhood absorbed in Gershwin and Brahms.

Wakey! Wakey! will bring their live set-up to the UK for a headline show at London’s Scala on 14th June, having sold out The Garage twice in the past year.

Almost Everything I Wish I’d Said The Last Time I Saw You is a deft meld of baroque orchestral touches with an easy pop finesse, courtesy of Michael Grubbs’  varied apprenticeships in songcraft; beginning at a baby grand piano aged five, under the guidance of a music teacher mother. Here, the ‘scrawny, dopey’ kid who could never make the sports team in High School grew up on a somewhat improbable mix of Beethoven, Elton John and Led Zeppelin. This collision of the classical and the downright flamboyant, combined with the absence of any formal instruction, led to Grubbs’ idiosyncratic approach to songwriting: ‘I had no idea how to put a song together; no one telling me ‘Hey, you should check out Gershwin’, but it was all so fascinating to me.’

This genre-spanning fascination continued in typically non-linear fashion, as Grubbs lent his talents on two touring musicals. ‘I’m a tall, skinny, straight guy who can sing – that’s basically gold dust in the musical theatre industry, because there’s none of us.’ Settling in New York, he then came under the guidance of Lach, a man best known as the driving force behind the Anti-Folk movement of the Lower East Side. Becoming the tutee of an icon who eschewed the piano upon first hearing the Sex Pistols – and whose movement included Regina Spektor – had quite an effect: ‘to hear someone like Regina perform with such abandon, shouting and hitting her stool with a drum stick, was priceless.’

The broad range of Michael Grubbs’  influence is evident across Almost Everything I Wish I’d Said The Last Time I Saw You; from the glistening orchestral sweeps that permeate ‘Got It All Wrong’ and ‘The Oh Song’, to the distinctive whistled hook of ‘Twenty Two’.

The lead single ‘Light Outside’ exemplifies piano-led power pop, driven by the crisp harmonies and the urgent delivery that has earned Wakey!Wakey! a formidable live reputation. Elsewhere, on singular album closer ‘Take It Like A Man’, Grubbs fuses a towering melodic climax with snatches from a Cossack-indebted freakout.

If his time spent in New York with Lach gave Michael Grubbs  the conviction to construct his orchestral pop works, then a chance encounter with a certain Mark Schwahn proved to be his commercial vindication. Schwahn is better known as the man behind the long-running American teen-drama ‘One Tree Hill’, which has attained cult-status over its eight season run, and has been soundtracked by artists including Bon Iver, Frightened Rabbit and Dashboard Confessional.

Having watched a Wakey!Wakey! live set, Schwahn was sufficiently impressed to not only soundtrack a season finale with the title track from their War Sweater EP, but to also recruit Grubbs for a recurring role on the show.

Wakey! Wakey! play a headline show at London’s Scala on 14th June 14th.

Wakey! Wakey! release the single ‘Light Outside’ on 18th July & their debut studio album, ‘Almost Everything I Wish I’d Said The Last Time I Saw You’ on 1st August, 2011.

Theatre Royal Live in Medway photo: Phil Dillon

Friday night entertainment in Rochester Medway, for those looking to escape continued re-runs of the royal wedding filled the Function Rooms where three local bands played to a very appreciative and merry crowd.  Theatre Royal were sandwiched between Dead Lovers and Kid Unique, and offered up a set of great pop songs in their usual swagger and style with their very professional stage presence.  But unfortunately the poor sound didn’t do them any favours.  Either the PA wasn’t powerful enough or the 300 or so capacity hall with its high decadent ceiling offered poor acoustics.

Before moving to the very front of the high stage the sound was muffled and it was difficult to hear one instrument from another, which leads me to think the fault lie with the onstage PA.

But Theatre Royal gave a great performance and the audience enjoyed songs from their debut album including the punchy ‘Foreign Shores’, ‘Don’t Stop‘, ‘Painted Smile’ and the current, and very catchy single, ‘If You Could Stand Up (You’d Walk Away)’, complete with occasional trumpet player.

Theatre Royal are Oliver Burgess (Vocals/Guitar), Robbie Wilkinson (Guitar/Vocals), Brendan Esmonde (Bass) and Jon Gibbs (Drums). The band is tight; and while bass and drums give the songs a solid foundation, they are given colour by Robbie Wilkinson’s jangly guitar melodies and Oliver Burgess’s strong vocals.

Theatre Royal are building up a reputation not just in Medway but as far afield as Italy, where ‘If You Could Stand Up (You’d Walk Away)’ has been included on the Virgin Radio Playlist.

Of the current crop of Medway bands, Theatre Royal stand head and shoulders above the rest.  They have all the ingredients to make the next step and follow the likes of The Milkshakes & The Prisoners, and The Claim & The Dentists and receive greater recognition for their brand of English pop music.

lower than atlantis

Having released the second single Deadliest Catch from their upcoming second album this week, Lower Than Atlantis have announced that they will be streaming the new album World Record ahead of it’s release on April 25th.

You can hear the new album in its entirety on the Lower Than Atlantis My Space now, before its official release date on April 25th.

The bands intense bond with their fans is set to shine through with the music video for ‘Deadliest Catch’ for which they are accepting fan submissions to be included in the lyric-themed concept.

From the opening life-on-the-road anthem ‘(Motor) Way of Life’ right through to closer ‘R.O.I.,’ ‘World Record’ is an album bursting with exuberance and packed with massive rock hooks. Lower Than Atlantis prove that they’ve hit their stride, honing their songwriting skills to pure brilliance following the release of 2010’s critically acclaimed debut ‘Far Q.’

High octane tracks like first single ‘Beech Like The Tree’ and ‘Bug’ appear alongside more contemplative compositions like ‘High At Five’ – the sound of a band carving out their own identity in today’s music scene – and ‘Another Sad Song’ which is as melancholy as its title suggests. Despite the contrasting dynamics on the album, one thing that all the tracks have in common is a keen sense of melody and crafty riffery, backed up by a rhythm section that pulls no punches.

Mike Duce (vocals/guitar) says of the progression the band have made for the creation of this album:

“Writing was pretty natural because we’re with each other so much, we’ve all been listening to the same music and had the same influences. When it came to working on the songs, we all kind of knew where we were going. Recording was very efficient! We’d already demo’d the album live and then in a studio before recording the real thing so we knew exactly what we were playing and how we were playing it.

The tunings for most of the songs have dropped two whole steps to add a darker feel. The tempo of the songs has slowed down too to give a more powerful feel and to make sure the listener definitely has time to get the message. There’s less of a jokey undertone lyrically so I guess it’s more ‘grown up’.”

Lower Than Atlantis – Deadliest Catch

Lower Than Atlantis look set to ride high on the wave of new British rock talent with this collection of songs, having already picked up some serious airplay on the likes of Radio 1, Scuzz and Kerrang!

Touring is next on the agenda for the band who are currently on a mammoth tour of the USA supporting Asking Alexandria. When they return to the UK, LTA will head straight out with We Are The Ocean for a string of dates in their homeland to coincide with the release of ‘World Record.’

The band have also been announced to perform at several summer festival’s including slot on the Pepsi Max stage at Download on Sunday June 12th as well as dates with Futures and Set Your Goals.

UK TOUR DATES WITH WE ARE THE OCEAN

APRIL
27 – CARDIFF Millenium Music Hall
28 – LONDON Electric Ballroom
29 – MANCHESTER Academy 2
30 – GLASGOW Garage

MAY
01 – NEWCASTLE Academy 2

FURTHER LIVE DATES

MAY

14 – LINCOLN Crash Doubt Festival

15 – BRIGHTON Alt Great Escape         (with Set Your Goals)

21 – LIVERPOOL Sound City

JUNE

02 – OXFORD O2 Academy 2 (with Futures)

03 – CAMBRIDGE Haymarket (with Futures)

05 – BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy 3        (with Futures)

09 – LIVERPOOL Masque                        (with Futures)

11 – BOURNEMOUTH iBar                    (with Futures)

12 – DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL – Pepsi Max Stage

13 – PORTSMOUTH Wedgewood Rooms (with Futures)

14 – NOTTINGHAM Rock City 2             (with Futures)

Death Cab For Cutie

Long known for their ingenious and imaginative videos, Atlantic recording group Death Cab for Cutie are poised to make history with the companion clip for their hugely anticipated new single, You Are A Tourist.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Tim Nackashi (TV On The Radio, OK Go, Elvis Costello, Radiohead), and conceptualized by frequent collaborator Aaron Stewart-Ahn, You Are A Tourist will be the first ever live, scripted, single-take music video to be broadcast as it is filmed.

You will be able to watch the action unfold before your very eyes at midnight tonight via the streaming device below:

Can't see the stream on your mobile device? Click here.

You Are A Tourist is the first single from Death Cab for Cutie’s eagerly awaited new album, CODES AND KEYS, which is scheduled for release on 30th May.

You can hear the full stream of You Are a Tourist here.