Breton – Blanket Rule EP
photo by Harry Mitchell
Available for free via their Facebook page, Breton‘s new five-track EP Blanket Rule feels like a return to their squat-party-playing days. The quintet – who live together at bretonLABS, where they also make video and doubtless other wacky stuff – throw dirty industrial bass, fizzing beats, scratchy vocals and regular changes of pace into an experimental cauldron, and emerge with a record that feels very underground, very visceral. It’s fast and thrilling, then slow and muttered; an antidote to fresh air, a soundtrack for painkiller days. A debut album, Other People’s Problems, is due later this year.
Clock Opera – Once And For All
As Guy Connelly and the rest of Clock Opera‘s debut album nears (it’s due in spring), an advance single, Once And For All, comes out tomorrow. It’s more straightforwardly indie than some of their fare, and feels full of fondness, nostalgia and optimism; of hard-learned lessons and euphoric new beginnings. This being Clock Opera, it’s backed by a superb, moving video:
Who is Charli XCX?
Last time SOIWT profiled Charli XCX, we had her down as a queen of darkness, due to both mascara and morose music – and all that before we heard Salem’s remix of Stay Away. But on more recent effort Nuclear Seasons, while the industrial, noir-pop elements remain discernible, a softer sound is revealed – a Top of the Pops friendliness – and perhaps we got her all wrong.
That thought’s cemented by a duet she’s done with Alex Metric, here. But then, on this live version of In The Dark, and its scowling, growling electronica, the snarling tigress returns, and we wonder if we were right all along.
Who knows. The 19yo Londoner – more about her via guardian.co.uk and Pitchfork – sure has talent, and her debut album, due this spring, will definitely be a one-to-watch. We’ll of course have news when it breaks.
Waylayers
You know how my life is a film, yeah? Well, it is. And Waylayers’ S.O.S. (Leave Alone) is definitely on the soundtrack. It’s the bit where something really terrible has happened, like my ‘soulmate’ has left me for my dad, or I’ve been caught up in a shameful scandal and been shunned to the edge of society, or, more likely in my life, my cat has popped it. This song will pipe up just as I’m starting to pick myself up again, realise that life is wonderful, I’m the best at everything and I have no room for more happiness, otherwise I’ll pop. And there would be a montage, with laughter, dancing and mincing. Yes, definitely mincing.
Another track I’ve been listening to again. And again. And again is Hear No Lies. Its a bundle of synthy goodness, with epic delayed guitar riffs. If A-ha and the Editors were to beget a child, Waylayers would be their surrogate. And what a beautiful baby it would be.
Fever Dream
The throbbing, groggy bass in Fever Dream‘s murky post-punk songs sounds like an addict who just can’t quit his habit. Every so often, triumphantly, he flushes all the drugs down the toilet; “this time it’s for ever”, the real deal, except it’s not, it never is, and inside his head he knows it’s not, he knows that in two months he’ll be repeating this symbolic performance, and it’ll be just as pointless, just as contrived, and the only truly brave thing to do would be to admit that he can’t quit, that he’s weak, that the resolve is lacking, that the need is just too strong to subdue. But instead he just goes on, quitting and unquitting, quitting and unquitting, locked in a demented, psychedelic cycle.
The Waste is the debut single, and it’s being launched at The Others in Stoke Newington on 3 February.
Fever Dream - Poyekhali! (mp3)
Future Sound Share
Breaking from SOIWT’s normal musicians focus, here’s a new-music initiative well worth knowing about:
Future Sound Share is a London-based project dedicated to supporting new and emerging artists. It plays their music to lucky online visitors; bands and artists keen to appear can send in their demos or singles (details here) for consideration. Currently it’s just on Facebook, but a devoted website will soon follow.
Says founder David J. Houston: “I started Future Sound Share because of a passion for new music that started in my early teens. It progressed to me dropping regular email send-outs about new bands and now into a blog where I can reach a wider audience. It’s what I do in every spare second after work and weekends because I love it.” He might as well be talking at me, and why I began SOIWT, so apt is it.
As of next month, Future Sound Share will curate showcase gigs too. The first-ever one takes place on 17 February in Buffalo Bar, beside Highbury & Islington tube. It’ll star five of the best bands to feature on Future Sound Share, including London act Gaoler’s Daughter, who SOIWT has previously eulogised about here (Angry Eyes mp3). More on each band over on Facebook.
Whales in Cubicles
Newly signed to Young & Lost Club, London rocksters Whales in Cubicles recently announce themselves with two-faced single We Never Win: initially weathered and understated, it finishes in a brash, punkish fit of pique, all hot and bothered. Check their Bandcamp for news of imminent gigs.
Comet Sands
Bold, brassy and brash, Comet Sands‘ single Andromeda (mp3) veers dementedly from angular-rock quirkiness through cocaine strings to a sort of all-in racket, before finishing with something akin to a burp, spent and pleased with itself. Other tunes on the London act’s free collection of songs – catchily called Recordings and Live Demos - are similarly careering, such as the his-and-hers hoopla of Somehow, or just super-snarey, like Lake Baikal, which must be the screwiest song ever recorded about a deep Russian pond. And then there’s the proggy The Beautiful & Damned, antisocial and ominous, like the sneering boy you absolutely don’t want your daughter to date, and absolutely know she will.