2011 January 25 Archive - The Recommender

THE GREAT ESCAPE 2011

This is the biggest event on our calendar every year. As the largest festival of new music in Europe and with us being a new music blog from Brighton you can perhaps understand that we get a little excited about this massive event. In truth, we’re like a sugar-fuelled child on it’s way to the theme park.

We always provide broad coverage on The Recommender, as we roam around the city, getting involved with the promoters, shows and various parties throughout the day and night. We also threw our first big after party last year which was a massive success, with five bands on show.

This year will be even bigger, as we are planning to put on several showcases, with negotiations already underway with venues and bands. We also hope to be involved in the odd secret show, so watch this space, as well our Twitter and our Foursquare social networks for crucial updates. Obviously we will be walking the length and breadth of Brighton taking in the shows and providing our daily blog post reports. This really will be where you can find an insider’s guide.

Something new that we hope to achieve this year will be the big bloggers meet up. We formally invite all music bloggers to join us for discussion on our favourite subjects – music and blogging. The date, time and place will be confirmed in due course, with some of the biggest and best music bloggers involved, so look out for emailed information and tweeted news.

Even though the event itself is still four and half months away the chatter has already begun in earnest. Today it hit it’s first crescendo as the announcement of Friendly Fires for one of the special headline shows was announced. We list the organiser’s banner below with all the relevant details. Suffice to say that this lineup is the tip of the actual iceberg, as there’s a million bands still to be confirmed and discussed, including all of our own shows, so expect this to heat up even more.

If you’re planning to go along, please get in touch, or leave a comment, especially if you are a music blogger, as we would love to meet up with anyone in person and to make sure you are on top of absolutely every moment. You can find out more information from the official website here and buy tickets here (early bird price of £35 is still available).

Nearer the time we will be doing full previews of the events and artists, as well as putting together our annual spreadsheet which lists the daily rota of shows that we plan on seeing. That’s always a popular document for anyone that wants to see the best in the world’s cutting edge music. (MB)

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Published: January 25th, 2011
Author: Mike Bradford
Category: ALT.REC.
Tags: TGE2011, The Great Escape 2011

WALK THE MOON

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Having recently come across this band, via the Future Sounds site, we are still not quite sure how to pitch our coverage. We have a small problem with this new find and it’s a tricky one to explain. However, it’s our job to unravel these things, so here goes…

Our issue is that Walk The Moon, a four piece from Cincinnati, make music that’s constructed too perfectly. OK , it’s pop that the radio will utterly adore, the mainstream will sing along to it whilst they smile into a morning coffee on the sofa, the booking agents will secure them slots in ever larger venues and the labels will rub their hands as hit after hit leaves the Walk The Moon factory. The problem is, can your appeal be too broad?

They sound like the long lost child of The Killers and OK GO. Like the former they seem perfectly skilled enough to build a masterpiece of a pop tune, with big hooks, even bigger choruses and plenty of breaks to allow the listener to get involved. Sadly, like the former, their immaculate songs don’t resonate quite long enough for you to discuss them in the bar later on. “I heard this amazing tune earlier“, “oh yeah, who by?”, “um…um…no sorry, it’s gone“.

That’s not to wipe them away as some kind of forgetful cliché of a band. No no no. They seem better than both The Killers and OK GO in our opinion, but where the likes of Animal Collective and MGMT added in a little spicy experimentalism with their pop, or Editors added in a little darkness with their radio-friendly tunes, Walk The Moon seem not to have found their edge yet.

To get back to our main aim though, as we are here to recommend, not to extinguish, we must clarify that they’re still very very good at what they do. Not every band has to appeal to the hipster crowd – with angular guitars, druggy psychedelia and floppy haircuts. Balls to all that. This band have a swing, a charm and most annoyingly a set of almost perfectly-pitched pop songs, of a kind that will bring back all those same feelings you had when you watched the good-looking guy get all the girls attention at school. It’s not personal, they’re just that good, so just go with it.

Their debut album, ‘I Want, I Want‘, was self released late last year and is available to buy right here. Throughout the entire LP you get to experience the band’s shining star, singer Nicholas Petricca. His playful confidence is draped all over every one of the ten upbeat, melodic tracks. The album’s highlights include ‘Anna Sun‘, from which they’ve the most playful video since LCD’s Drunk Girls, and songs like ‘Lisa Baby, or ‘Jenny‘, which show them thumping through the kind of indie that’s virtually impossible not to dance to. The album closer, ‘I Can Lift A Car‘, will have your mood so pumped up by the end that your smile will blind those around you.

If you like your indie pop to be positive, catchy, energetic and astonishingly consistent then you have to buy this album. It’s so well aimed at your happy button that it has the power to bring sunshine into the darkest corners of life. So to conclude, here’s the way that this should be pitched – stop wallowing, stop asking why, stop trying so hard and switch off for half an hour by getting into this lot. There. Sometimes the answers are found in the simplicity of it all. (MB)