And so concludes The Great Escape Festival, which always turns into the biggest weekend of our calendar year. It’s been four days since the event finished, yet our hangovers have barely receded. On one of the nights we finally reached our bed at 8am! A marathon indeed. Below is our review of a handful of experiences and exploits, but in truth it’s pretty impossible to extol the real experience in words. Sure we had an amazing time, with lots of live music and venue hopping, but as a Brighton resident every other week of the year, we noticed a tangible shift in the city’s atmosphere. Of course this festival is felt with the performances inside the venues, but it’s also in the streets, as you see people from the music industry huddled in conversations, or when you bump into some of the world’s best music bloggers, or leading radio presenters, or when you find yourself walking past Grimes at 1am in the back lanes, or simply hearing the sound of buskers plying their trade as you parade around the streets. There’s a buzz in Brighton all weekend, with a tangible sense of excitement, as you begin the weekend in conversations about who you’re looking forward to, only to end the weekend sharing your highlights. Well, below we run through just a snippet of our humbling experience, but please note that it’s barely 10% of what we really got up to. Thank you Great Escape, thank you Brighton.

So first we’re going to mention these buzz bands, the ones with all the attention-grabbing girls, including Pins, FOE, Savages and Novella, who were all rather excellent, although the latter seemed to be missing the charismatic, striking front-woman of the other three groups. Instead Novella chose to ignore the crowd by flopping their fringes footwards to reinforce their moody, fuzzy music. Each of them had their respective sounds nailed down, but none of them sounded like the future as we hit the middle of 2012, instead showing us lots of 80s shoegaze and generic Seattle-like reflections. We like them, but we’re not sure where we’re going with it all. Backwards perhaps? Who wants to go backwards? We’re happy to watch them shoot past, perhaps in the wrong direction, but we’re not sure we’re getting on board.

More contemporary signals could be found among those artists whose main instrument seemed to be their laptops, as the likes of Rangleklods, Pikachunes, Regal Safari and Anneka delivered intricate, future-music. All of them were able to deliver sublime electronic-ness without a string plucked, or a drum kit in sight, but where they had a selection of awesome tracks, they also suffered slightly from the strange feeling that we were watching someone do Karaoke rather than performing a gig. They lacked team-mates. However, it is perhaps testament to their fantastic songs that we left each of those performances still buzzing with excitement.

Lighter moods were more likely to be found with HAIM and Friends and although we missed the former we managed to get into the latter, although only just, so busy was the NME showcase, but thankfully we had booked ourselves onto the guest list. The Brooklyn band jammed as if they were trying to plant a New York disco upon Brighton pier. Frontwoman Samantha Urbani was one of the best performers of the festival, getting everyone pumped, even choosing to sing one song in the centre of the crowd, having climbed over the barrier. This crazy action could perhaps be explained by the multitude of cameras being stuck in her face whilst on stage, so perhaps dancing in the crowd kept her comfortably out of reach. Either way, it was a guest list spot with rich rewards and it sent us off into Friday night with a party on our minds.

The acts whose class truly shone through included the likes of Alt-J and Niki & The Dove. Two gigs that we had high expectations for and neither of them let us down. Quite the opposite, we were left feeling like we had witnessed something truly awesome, with Alt-J perhaps standing out as the performance of the weekend. Both bands performed to a packed house at their respective venues, with Alt-J having approximately 60 people queueing around not one corner but two. We couldn’t help but feel sorry for all those outside that had to witness this set through the steamed up windows of the bar.

Django Django, We Are Augustines and Heart Ships satisfied a need to see guitars, as they each blasted out their high-octane, gutsy sets, with an emphasis on energy and impossibly powerful riffs. The former two were so exciting, playing to two rammed venues, that they can rightly claim to have won The Great Escape, were it a competition. The latter were so good that we’re going to blog them on The Recommender as a consequence, which may not seem like much of an accolade in itself, but it’s perhaps the reason for the festival to exist at all. We all run around Brighton seeing exciting sets by those bands we adore, but if the festival is a showcase of music to the music industry, then earning a record deal or some column inches should also be a sign of success, and when we take a punt on a band we know very little about and they stun us enough to write them up, then that too should be as satisfying as catching a band you already know.

It’s impossible to see everything on your list of must-see-bands – our initial list had a massive 56 bands listed upon it – but on occasion you’re smarting from those artists that got away. Sometimes it was simply a case of schedule clashing, but at other times we were simply too far away geographically to get there in time. Alas we’d heard from Amazing Radio‘s Shell Zenner that Pond were mind-numbingly great, from Juice Radio‘s Andrea Fox who thanked us for recommending Clock Opera, who proved to be well worth the effort, with Neon Gold‘s Derek Davies we found him excitedly claiming that HAIM were indeed the best band he’s witnessed in years, and just one brief meeting with former NME hack, Iestyn George, and you’d be convinced Yacht are in fact the greatest band in the world.

We can tip our blog hats to the likes of When Saints Go Machine, with their smart pop and unique vocals, or White Arrows, who win the award for performing more stoned out of their Californian minds than anyone else we witnessed, something they happily confirmed to us on Twitter; “Soooo high” said their hilarious comment. To be fair, it actually helped their after-hours psychedelic set, played to a packed and very drunk basement. Talking of drunken late night sets, we had to constantly run the staircase at one venue, as upstairs we had the party set from Man Like Me, who got the entire crowd to squat down in line with the band’s dance moves, whilst in the basement we had the South African-born, New York-based, St Lucia, who was surprisingly backed by a full band, which Neon Gold’s Derek informed us included the singer’s girlfriend. Following what was a blindingly good sweaty performance, we proclaimed that Neon Gold can surely now define a certain pop sound, based on all of those artists it backs – the genre of ‘Neon Gold pop’ – which St Lucia clearly bottle by the truck load.

The issue of queues cropped up once again for all the paying punters, although the likes of Great Escape organisers, Kat and Tasha, continue to do their best with the scheduling. Sometimes between the time when a band is booked and the festival actually happening a band’s profile can shoot upwards, but under these circumstances they try and get the band a second show, such as they did with Django Django. Elsewhere, the text service and Twitter feeds showed us a festival that fully engages with their audience to help alleviate these queueing issues. Having their venue reps reporting the status of their capacity on an hourly basis also allowed the organisers to send the punters virtually live updates directly to their phones. Ultimately the queues can sometimes force people to change their plans and try another venue, often leading to the kind of music discovery that is at the heart of the festival’s idea. Perhaps one year we will enter the foray with absolutely no plan of action and just see what happens!

Away from the main festival provisions we were of course busy bloggers. We had our own showcase on the opening afternoon, with Anneka, Us Baby Bear Bones, Rangleklods and Cave Painting, providing perhaps the most Brighton-esque line up of them all, with three out of the four artists coming from this city. We would like to thank all of them for their wonderful sets, kicking off the weekend in style, with a particularly special thanks to Rangleklods as he had flown over from Denmark specifically to play for us, and to hand-deliver his debut album, which is yet to get an official UK release. Most people in the room witnessed an exciting set from an artist they probably knew very little about, allowing everyone to state that they’d discovered at least one bright artist this weekend, and we’d not even finished the first afternoon.

We were also interviewed on several radio stations, with Juice FM getting us into the studio earlier in the week, to hear our tips for the weekend. Shell Zenner invited us onto her Amazing Radio show, which was being broadcast live from the lobby of the Queens Hotel all weekend. It was great to finally meet her and hand out a few more Recommender tips, including giving Philco Fiction a mention. Lastly we were interviewed sat upon the stones of Brighton beach by one of the newest radio stations in existence, the Shoreditch-based Strongrooms Alive, which only launched this February. Andy sat with us on the sun-drenched beach and enjoyed a posing us a few broader questions on the industry and the festival. All of these interviews can be heard on this post.

Elsewhere we also had BLOG UP, inviting all the music bloggers in town that weekend to the Life venue on the beach, which was perfectly bathed in warm sunshine on the Friday afternoon. We had the following blogs in attendance, which reads like a who’s who of the online music community: Abeano, There Goes The Fear, Neon Gold, Drunken Werewolf, Drowned In Sound, A New Band A Day, Breaking More Waves, Hype Machine, The 405, Music Robot, Killing Moon Limited, Seven Sevens, The Ruckus, Horrowshow Tunes, Laissez Faire Club, Flying With Anna, Music Fans Mic, Crack In The Road, with of course The Recommender serving out the free booze (please forgive us if we missed any bloggers out of that list). Joe from Hype Machine/A New Band A Day, Amazing Radio’s Shell Zenner, Sean from Drowned In Sound and future pop star, Bluebell, all DJ’d throughout the day. It was all rather drunk and the perfect antidote to running around town catching bands, although upstairs we also had our Jeah! event organised in line with Killing Moon, Strongrooms Alive and Euphonios, which showcased bands all day and into the night. We will definitely do it all again in 2013. It’s so awesome to meet up every now and again with those bloggers that we natter with online every other day of the year.

So looking ahead to next time we are already in discussions with new ideas. A showcase on the beautiful Brighton bandstand, a party in the underground car park of a large central hotel, another official Recommender showcase, plus another Blog Up but with this time some serious sponsorship so we can share out even more free booze. This is a festival so perfectly tailored for a music blogger that we would travel the world to reach it, but alas it sits upon our doorstep. It’s absolutely flawless. We’re already psyched for 2013, and you never know, we might have even shaken off this hangover by then. (MB)

As you can see on our About section, we pride ourselves on throwing at least one mean party every year at The Great Escape Festival. As we build up to what will be our third consecutive year in a row we’re now well known for this annual shindig. As 300 bands and the entire UK music industry descend on Brighton’s seaside for a weekend of new music, we do our best to provide a genuine highlight among the many highlights.

This year should prove to be one of the most exciting shows we’ve ever embarked on. We usually throw our parties in the after hours, but this year we wanted to be part of the opening shows on the first day, so we catch everyone at their most excited, well before the festival fatigue kicks in. We have four awesome bands being showcased at one of Brighton’s key music venues, The Green Door Store, from midday until 4pm, on Thursday afternoon.

The second you’ve registered for your wristbands and passes at the main festival hub in town, get yourselves over to our venue to catch the below bands and kick off your weekend in style. We’ve decided to really wear our home city of Brighton as a badge of honour at this year’s show, with three of the four bands on offer hailing from this city. Here’s the list of players…

ANNEKA – You can see from our coverage, (back here), that we truly believe in this talented new Brighton artist and her exceptionally beautiful vocals. With an armoury of samples and machines around her she creates a synchronized show that’s as clever as it is hypnotic.

US BABY BEAR BONES – You could call this Brighton trio quirky, or cute, but that misses the depth and intricate work that is on offer with their unique music. It’s absolutely irresistible so it’s no wonder they’ve been whipping around the key music blogs this year.

CAVE PAINTING – These guys are often talked about as Brighton’s most promising band. Their wonderful, anthemic tunes certainly pitches them as serious contenders, and we’re already seeing them adorning magazine covers and packing out shows. They’re aiming for stadiums, so come and see them in a small venue whilst you still have the chance.

RANGLEKLODS – Flying in from Copenhagen, specifically to play our showcase, Denmark’s answer to James Murphy will be one of the most exciting artists on offer at this year’s festival. We expect record label A&R’s as well as the mainstream music media in the audience for this one.

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The Great Escape festival is an absolutely massive weekend, the biggest of the year for our music blog by a some stretch. Not only do we have The Recommender’s own official showcase at The Green Door Store on Thursday afternoon, kicking off the weekend’s music in as much style as we can muster, but we’ve set about organising plenty more exciting stuff on top of the other very, very exciting stuff. It’s all so damn exciting isn’t it!?

The festival is a major event on the music industry calendar, known not only for the 300 bands that are performing, but also for it’s networking opportunities and conferences. On Friday afternoon at the beach-fronted Life venue we throw the doors open to any music bloggers who are in Brighton, for a get together called BLOG UP, in association with Hype Machine and Music Robot – two brands doing their best to raise music bloggers profiles around the world. It’s a chance for us to share tips, swap insider stories and grab a free drink between all the bands that are on offer around town. It takes our online networking into real life, where usually for most of the year geography stops us.

It also turns into an opportunity for music PR firms, managers and record labels to directly communicate with some of the UK’s key music bloggers, something they often find rather difficult to accomplish when approaching them online. Blogs get hundreds of emails each week and if our experience is anything to go by, we tend to spend more time on the emails from people we’ve actually met in real life, so for those people working in the industry they’d do well to get their promo material into the goodie bags we’re also handing out to these bloggers.

Beyond Blog Up there’s plenty more on offer at the Life venue, as during the whole day and into the night we are helping to host a showcase of bands for an event we’re calling JEAH!. It starts at midday and runs up to 10:30pm at night showing off DJs throughout and a total of eleven artists on stage. You can see the line up below, secured by the brands we’ve joined forces with; Killing Moon, Strongrooms Alive and Euphonios. All this is a fantastic example of how things get better when people combine. Together we are undoubtedly stronger.

You can hear the rest of our tips on our next blog post, with more details about our other official showcase, but in the mean time you are can hear us tipping acts on both Juice FM (hear that below) and again on Amazing Radio on Friday lunchtime.

If ever there was a music festival designed for a music blog like ours it would be this one…OK, so perhaps SXSW too, but this one is literally outside our house. Absolutely zero connecting flights to Austin required then, as we only need to step outside of our door and we’re surrounded by 300 artists and what seems like the entire British music industry, as we all set out to enjoy the annual Great Escape Festival.

As you would expect, this means we are going to be very busy little bloggers over the weekend of the 10th, 11th and 12th of May. At least Brighton is very walkable, with all 300 bands performing at approx 30 venues in the centre of the city. To keep on top of things the organisers have even created a rather beautiful and very handy smart phone App, but that still didn’t stop us from doing our annual schedule spreadsheet, (the first draft of which will be available online soon – look out on Twitter).

We are helping to host two events over the weekend. The first is a matinee show on the Thursday at The Green Door Store, from midday to 4pm, with another showcase at Life on the Friday all day and into the evening. More details will be uploaded online on separate posts shortly, alongside details on our meeting with all the music bloggers in town, called BLOG UP, which is also at Life on the Friday, from 2pm.

Today we simply want to focus on what we believe will be twelve acts that have our tummy butterflies going. It should go without saying that we will of course be catching the likes of Grimes, Clock Opera, When Saints Go Machine, Friends, and plenty of others, but away from those selections there are still plenty that we wish to tip, as we believe they will each command an awesome set. Here’s a dozen that you should write down…

I, CHING – The new darlings on the Line Of Best Fit’s label, Best Fit Recordings. This London band combine the perfect balance of pulse and flow. Gorgeous.

PINS – Manchester quartet, delivering on the enormous buzz surrounding them. Hot hot hot.

ALT-J – In the middle of the release cycle of their debut album, this show should swing like you’ve never seen it swung.

LULU JAMES – A particularly exciting prospect, as this female solo artist delivers soul with a bassline like you’ve never heard before.

RANGLEKLODS – Denmark’s answer to James Murphy. Will no doubt have NME and A&R’s who know their business in attendance.

CITIZENS! – Imaginative, creative pop music never stepped into water so cool. This London five-piece deserve all the attention they’re gathering up.

PEACE – Leading the new movement of alternative indie music that’s causing the Midlands resurgence.

WE ARE AUGUSTINES – Earnest indie rock hasn’t felt this good since Arcade Fire channelled Springsteen.

NZCA/LINES – Elastic beats bounce under computerized vocals. This is the sound of Metronomy in 50 years time.

NIKI & THE DOVE – Clinically awesome, this Swedish duo have their album out this week. Do. Not. Miss.

WILD BELLE – This brother/sister duo from Chicago look amazing, sound amazing and will be very amazing live.

POND – If the SXSW festival was a competition, these guys won it in March. Their live sets are becoming the thing of legend.

To find out where and when each of these artists are due on stage – and some of them are playing multiple shows, so if you miss them you really have no excuse – please check through the festival programme here. It’s the biggest weekend of the year for this music blog and this time next week we’ll be in the centre of it all and quite frankly we cannot fucking wait!

How do you stand out in an over-saturated market? The Recommender is a music blog seemingly among billions of others out there. What makes our music blog so different? What makes you return to our pages and selections, and what is it that stops you from repeatedly visiting other music blogs? It’s an interesting thought, and in all honesty, it’s a point that you could perhaps answer better than we ever could. We imagine it might be the fact that we research our subjects as thoroughly as possible. Perhaps it’s the quality of the selections, what with us being such a picky bunch? It could be our network of industry professionals, giving us a useful insight to emerging artists? Maybe it’s the witty, insightful editorial? Surely not? Either way, it’s probably not our modesty. Today’s recommendation suffers in a similar fashion, as they aim to stand out from a flooded market. And this particular market is absolutely drenched.

Bluebell is Annabell Jones, alongside a writing partner, Charlie Westropp, with people mentioning them as a duo, something akin to La Roux, and similarly it seems Annabell is to be pushed front and centre. This makes it seem more like a new addition to the list of solo-female-quirky-pop artists, after what seems like a constant stream over the last five years of solo-female-quirky-pop artists. This is an area of music that’s not particularly short of them, having had Marina, Ellie, Florence, La Roux, Little Boots, Birdy, Jessie J, Queen Of Hearts, Kimbra, Nicki Minaj, Lana Del Rey, Pixie Lott, Lady Gaga, CocknBullKid, Florrie, Washington, Rihanna, Ke$ha, Jessie & The Toy Boys, OK, OK, so that last one can perhaps be left off of the list, but for fuck’s sake, it’s a ridiculously lengthy roll call, and that’s barely the tip of the very-feminine iceberg. It’s as if major labels entirely ignore anything to step through their doors with a Y chromosome, (although we’re still not 100% sure about that whole Florence-being-a-man-in-drag argument yet). And so steps up Bluebell, the latest pretender to a throne that’s currently got an over-abundance of perfectly-formed, tight little bottoms perched upon it. The real questions are in fact, is she good enough, and is there any room for her? Well, yes and no.

She happens to be Davy Jones daughter – yes him of The Monkees fame, who tragically died earlier this year, aged just 66. This is obviously something that’s bound to get mentioned with every journalistic introduction written about Bluebell, generating an unwelcome reminder for a young girl that’s just setting out on a career in music without him. In defence of the hacks, the poignancy of such a famous musician passing away just as his daughter sets out to become one, is sadly unavoidable, but hopefully her father’s inspiration will drive her further than any frustrations felt from the initial insensitivity towards her mourning. Most female pop artists don’t have a father as globally respected as she does, and even in his absence we feel that he could still inspire her, as well as open doors and opportunities where others have none. She was apparently also known as the lead singer of the short-lived alternative pop band, Lady & The Lost Boys, suggesting that this is an artist with some experience and form on a stage. These things should only help her stand out in a very tall market.

However, it’s the music that encourages the strongest of spotlights, so where do this duo stand with regards to their output? Well, a demo of their tune, Northern Heights, bounced around not so long ago and got the likes of The Guardian, Neon Gold and Breaking More Waves excited – all of which are seasoned commentators on this crowded market. That’s a good start. The duo are releasing their debut double A-sided single on June 11th through the Killing Moon blog/label, (who happen to be sharing a Great Escape showcase all day with The Recommender next week), and a re-edited version of that same tune has been kindly given to us as an exclusive for you today. The new version has Liam Howe on hand with the production, with his recent studio history working some magic for the likes of Marina & The Diamonds and Lana Del Rey it suggests the level of polish will match the competition’s. Where the tune could have been delivered by almost any of the other female artists, suffering as it does from a slight lack of invention, it still throbs and pulses beautifully, soaring to a fantastic elevation in parts. Teens will adore it, Radio One will therefore lap it up too, so where they may not be re-writing the pop books here, they do deliver on quality and design.

There’s more of a rewarding edge with the other side to their double A-sided single, with the tune Cinderella. It has a machined pace that marches behind Annabell’s floating, layered vocals, as she sings the wonderful line, “this is no Walt Disney, I’m not Cinderella, I’m just a girl“. It’s a clever piece of positioning that has an every-man appeal, (or an every-girl appeal?), that will surely act as the perfect bait required to lure in the youthful fans. It’s a melodic tune that proves she can do attractive pop, successfully packing just the right amount of sugar and that addictive ingredient banned in most other pop products. It never sells out or over-does the Westlife key change and carries a delightful underdog spirit. All of this will help to ensure that she stands out enough in this crowded space. Just like The Recommender in it’s noisy blogosphere, standing out will always ultimately be about trying to raise your standard as high as possible. Just like all of the other full marketplaces, we’re not sure if we actually need another new female pop artist, but at least Bluebell has the right studio assistance to maximise their ideas, the right label backing their early work, a tidy range of media covering their every move, but even more importantly, as a duo they have the quality in their pop music and it’s this that should allow them to stand out. (MB)

BLUEBELL – NORMAL HEIGHTS

BLUEBELL – CINDERELLA

Aesthetics are important, right? It’s a topic that we want to discuss a little bit today, as it’s a theme that runs not only through our selection, but through the source in which we found this artist. Credit is due to No Fear Of Pop, one of Europe’s leading music blogs, where they specialise in covering left-field underground music from its Berlin base, but with contributors as far reaching as New York and Sydney. This is not only a site known for turning up exceptionally fresh selections, but they deliver it all upon one of the tightest-looking blogs in existence. It’s an immaculate space, based on a Tumblr, that is always an absolute joy for your ears and eyes to tour around. If there’s one blog that seems to sum up Berlin, one of the most awesome, ultra-hip cities in the world, then it is this site. Even their writers look effortlessly cool, (have you ever seen Tonje Thilesen and her fantastic photography?). Basically, this is a blog that’s worth checking out. When you do you’re rewarded. Today, we pass one of those rewards onto you.

Nicholas Desamory, is something of a convoluted story. It’s actually a new project from the project-machine that is Nicholas Bussman, a Berlin producer known well to that cities electronic music scene. We got in touch with him recently and he confessed to being responsible for “maybe fifteen albums under different names in different collaborations“. Note the word “maybe” in that quote. This is clearly one of those songsmiths that churns out music at such a rate that even he cannot keep up. He’s been known to release albums that can be classed in anything from conceptual opera, to electronic Brazilian music. The latest guise sees him adorning the new moniker, Nicholas Desamory, as if to adopt a new character, a new veil, that frees him from his reality, so he can release from his Bussman shell and create something beautiful. We asked him to explain the choice of name change and he confessed that it’s the surname of his wife, someone known to us as Lucile Desamory, one of the four notable vocalists on his new album.

Like You is a seven track album that will be out on June 18 via the m=minimal label. With so few tracks you would be forgiven for considering this a glorified EP, but you have to take into account that contained within this work are tracks that regularly stretch out beyond the nine minute mark. For once we have an artist that has made an electronic house album that is a marathon not a sprint, but where marathons can become heavy and repetitive, Bussman has instead created something that maintains a light-footedness and an admirable variety throughout. Dripping in minimalism, this is in fact a piece of dance music that constantly teeters on the edge of standing still. It’s as easy as it is uneasy, as he marries the sensual sheen of Donna Summer, with the minimalist end of Underwold at their darkest. Occasionally it grooves, but it’s not afraid to warp out a sample in a way that sounds like a computer playing the keyboard using springs as fingers.

Here is an album that totally masters an aesthetic. It has a consistently cerebral feel to it. This is minimal post-music for the evening. It is music for when you don’t actually need it. It enters your mind like those entirely wasted thoughts – that you swear were important at the time – about solving your life, imagined at that moment between hitting your pillow and falling asleep at 2am. This is music with an ‘in’ door, but no exit. Take the wonderful opener, Move Your Assets, a tune aiming for your hips, as Lucile Desamory speaks directly to the listener, as she suggests that you “empty your pockets, unzip your soul“. It’s the sound of refined patience, building slowly to Lucile’s elegant mantra. I Want To Be Like You throbs like a bruised robot. All The World plucks away for nearly four minutes, before any vocals appear and a slowed house synth stab drifts into view. Outsourcing The Strings has the random feel of throwing a bouncing rubber ball into a lift, before he somehow reigns in control. All The Pretty Flowers is even more experimental, plumbing darker depths, before the most stunning vocals of the entire album appear one minute in. Shopping For Free re-introduces more pace, before the shortened album-closer, Sold Out, drops you off like a train coming to a halt.

It’s a well-produced, magically-composed album. In parts it is like he’s channelled the aesthetic of disco and house, but only managed to lift their ghosts, which he’s then infused inside his contemporary tunes. Just like the music blog in which we discovered this album, this is music with the aesthetic of Berlin. The great thing about blogs being associated with cities is that they’re best placed to uncover new music that emerges from that city. It’s not that bloggers have a selection of trained journalists, or experienced music hacks to hand; neither have they stolen the thunder from NME and other traditional key holders of underground music, but they in fact have an edge that is earned by their ability to tap into their scene and the local networks around them. Not only does this allow bloggers to deliver to their readers the best in emerging music, but on occasion they do it from the most attractive of sites. As with this wonderful Berlin solo artist, the key secret unlocked by getting your aesthetic right is that by being attractive you will pull people back time and again. With both No Fear Of Pop and Nicholas Desamory you will be richly rewarded at every visit. (MB)

NICHOLAS DESAMORY – MOVE YOUR ASSETS

NICHOLAS DESAMORY – ALL THE WORLD

NICHOLAS DESAMORY – ALL THE PRETTY FLOWERS

Tony Marks hosts his New Music Show on Juice Radio, the largest independent station in our home city of Brighton, where he delivers contemporary releases on four shows each week. Once a month Tony generously allows us to deliver The Recommender in a completely different way to a new audience via his busy airwaves.

You can find all of the past shows that we’ve appeared on at this link. Below we have the last two shows from March and April. As always, among our meandering rambles, we tried to deliver a broad, fearless range of awesome new music, from Alt-J and Clock Opera, both in March, to Black Light Dinner Party and Pins, on the April show.  (MB)

MARCH

APRIL

Regular readers of The Recommender will know that we do our best to try and provide at least some meandering editorial, so our visitors have the opportunity to obtain a bit of context, opinion and some relevant information alongside the awesome music that’s on offer. It means we actually have to research the bands that we’re covering and that occasionally leaves us open to the elements of online misinformation. Working in the arena of cutting edge music often means that there’s not much information on offer at the time of discovering a new artist. Sometimes we wait, sometimes we simply do our best, but we also always approach the label, PR and managers to chase the usual biography. You can imagine that with two of the band members from today’s recommendation being called Puff and Daisy, we felt like we better triple check the information that was cropping up.

We continued our research for the Brighton band Us Baby Bear Bones and during our scouting around online we came across an article, posted online in August last year, supposedly reviewing their ‘debut album’, which almost caused us to walk away, as we only like to recommend emerging music. Having now been in contact with both their record label and manager we can confirm that this isn’t actually correct, proving what a minefield of facts and utter rubbish some websites can prove to be. In truth, they’ve not yet released their debut album at all and are in fact just gearing up for their debut EP, What Starts With A U And Ends In An I, which is due out in July on the excellent Brighton label and promoter, Love Thy Neighbour. We love locating great music, but when we find out that the band in question are not only from our home city of Brighton, but being released on a friend’s local label, it obviously elevates the enjoyment further still.

The trio are made up of Puff Gandolfo (Vocals, Loops, Drums, Clarinet), Daisy Emily Warne (Bass synth, Casio, Omnichord, Samples) and Luke Phillips (Guitar, Beats, Samples, Glockenspiel). The broad selection of instruments being listed is a decent sign of how weird and wonderful their sound is. Theirs is an aesthetic that seems heavenly and somewhat intangible, passing through your fingers, impossible to fully grasp, which is testament to their inventive layers of instrumentation. Listening to their tune, Rain, you get a good example of this, for if you compare the first section of the song with the last you get the light and shade that they’re capable of, with a song that begins like air, but by it’s end we find a powerful flood of weighted sounds. A restrained, delicate touch is applied expertly throughout, but make no mistake, this is music with real power, as drums are hit in a manner that can only be done with dramatic movement. It’s an absolutely stunning piece of work, but it’s the vocals that guide you throughout each song’s story, with lyrics sung in a clear, English accent, as Puff tells us how she’s been “burnt down and rebuilt“. Indeed, this is a song with the fine fragility of ash, but the trick is that underneath it all they keep a phoenix that they unleash by it’s close.

In the last few days they revealed a wonderful video for their song, You, which continues their dramatic fairytale pop. Lyrics are sung over a melody created by additional layers of voices that call at the listener. It makes for a wonderful headphone experience if you get the chance. In the correct sense of pop – and this is pop with all the sugar removed – they write songs that are just three minutes. If we have one minor gripe, it’s that their songs aren’t long enough! This is emotive, left-field pop music that surely deserves epic greatness, so we wish they’d write an eight minute opus utilising all their skilled layers, enchanting melodies and perfectly-placed vocals. These are songs that have moments and mantras that you never quite want to end, so we could easily take more of it with each tune. Although, to be fair their three-minute fantasies are going to be all over the blogs this summer, as their sound is not only smart and grown up, but beautifully designed and immediately accessible.

We can perfectly imagine established music blogs, such as Breaking More Waves, or The Von Pip Musical Express, passing their well-informed opinions on this band. Other online commentators, such as The 405 and God Is In The TV seem on top of them already, which is a good sign. More will surely arrive after their upcoming Great Escape shows next month too. For those of you that are also lucky enough to call the Brighton area home, you can see them live tonight at the Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar venue, in support of the excellent band AU, and we’ve been reliably informed that a handful of tickets were still available at the time of going to press, although that could change at any time of course. Did you see how we used an ambiguous statement there, so as to avoid misinforming you? Ain’t no mines in our field! We like to think our articles are well-researched, but that clearly doesn’t stop us from slipping in as many disclaimed statements and caveats as possible. Of course correct information is only a tiny bit of the story, and with this Brighton trio we not only see stacks of potential for lighting up the music commentators, whether their editors get their damn facts right or otherwise, but more importantly the fine music that’s on offer will prove to be the best information anyone can pass around. (MB)

US BABY BEAR BONES – RAIN

Pop is an all-encompassing genre of music, with a massive scale upon which new artists can wander. It has a spectrum so broad you can find something as credible as Madonna, Abba, Michael Jackson or Prince at one end, or at it’s other we find the generic, light-weight pulp that is Christina Aguilera or Cheryl Cole. At one end of the scale you find sophistication, talent and a divine craft, but with the other end you locate nothing but forgetful, pop-by-numbers with an overdose of gloss. Then there are those artists – and there’s a whole stack of them – that fit somewhere between the two ends of this spectrum. Can you completely write off Roxette for example? Sure, they don’t quite have the masterful, deft touch of Jackie Wilson or Ray Davies, but they still sold over 75 million records and you can’t get far past The Look for a bit of brilliant pop. They sit somewhere in the middle. Like A-Ha, or Cyndi Lauper, or Erasure, there’s a lot of outstanding pop artists that may well be known for just one or two giant songs, but there’s still an undeniable credibility with them.

We think that today’s recommendation sits somewhere in the middle ground of all this. Cinnamon Girl is part of that new breed of modern pop stars, who can never be compared to the true legends of the genre, but when sat against a Simon Cowell-designed contemporary backdrop of sugary rubbish they’re seen as rather exciting. Take Marina & The Diamonds, or Ellie Goulding, both of which arrived under that banner of ‘female solo pop artist’, but rather than dressing up in school girl outfits, or having a team of writers do it all, they seemed to come with a touch more credibility. Looking back, they’re destined to fade quite quickly, although that’s perhaps down to the rapid pace of today’s Internet generation, so might not be something they can alter. With Cinnamon Girl we have another potential talent which we can slot straight into that same female solo pop pigeon hole, as she looks the part, all styled and wonderfully photogenic, plus she writes, records and produces all her own work. In the context of yesteryear she too would fade fast, but in today’s field we think she genuinely has enough ability to last an Internet minute.

Cinnamon Girl is Camilla Roholm, a Danish female artist who moved to London a few years ago to study performance. A self-proclaimed “groupie baby“, as the daughter of a Danish and Jamaican pair of musicians, who admits to only having met her real father when his band re-toured around Scandinavia. This hints at a childhood immersed in music, which resulted in her selecting to go pop in her teens, because the genre is “drawn to strong female personalities“. She admits to channelling a lot of iconic female 80s pop stars, which can be heard in her playful synth-based tunes, but also in the way she seems to portray an empowered and bold personality. This seems another female pop star with striking looks that isn’t particularly going all out to use her sexuality in order to sell records (remind you of Marina & The Diamonds?), stating that she can’t imagine that she’ll “be getting my arse out and shaking it around in any of my videos“. The initial demos fizz and bump in all the right places, with Now I Know showing off her mixture of simple synth stabs with her yelped singing style. Your Eyes Are Glass is enjoyably weightier with a throbbing bassline throughout, but her understanding for when to break into a chorus is perfectly timed. Friends seems the most complete song of the three, with a swagger that flips and folds behind her vocals that swing from smooth to razor sharp, before the synths get blasted like lasers in the breaks.

Here is a new pop artist with all the boxes getting ticked, pairing up the looks, the back story, the styled music and just the right amount of edge to keep the alternative crowd interested whilst Radio One takes her to the mass market. The question is, have we lost our context as listeners? Will we ever get it back, or should we simply accept today’s new context and roll with the evolution of pop? Ask any serious modern pop commentators and they wouldn’t have a bad word said about Britney Spears, but in truth her career was handed to her by Max Martin, writer of the song, Baby, One More Time, who asked her to perform it only after TLC turned it down. What if TLC had said yes? Do those same pop commentators even know of Max Martin’s existence? Probably not. We can’t help but see her mostly as a ‘performer’ after this knowledge. This is the slightly mixed up and faded arena in which we are now discussing pop and fourteen year’s after Britney’s debut it’s only got worse. However, that shouldn’t disguise genuine talent and real pop potential – nobody handed Cinnamon Girl her songs – so we’ve decided to embrace this new artist for keeping the control and developing a career in her vision. It’s still very early days for her, but with a set of songs as punchy as these first demos we believe that she has every chance to be added to pop’s lengthy story. (MB)

CINNAMON GIRL – FRIENDS

CINNAMON GIRL – NOW I KNOW

CINNAMON GIRL – YOUR EYES ARE GLASS

Where to start? Here’s another group hiding their identities from view. It’s an old trick that doesn’t really hold much suspense, following in the footsteps of so many other artists who have tried the same trick. Once the reveal arrives it’s usually met with a fake smile – it’s like when your Grandad reached into his coat pocket telling you he had a surprise for you, only to pull out a Worther’s Original. It only delivers the same kind of mystery that can be applied to how eating food results in taking a dump a few hours later. The reasons behind why they selected to remain from view is usually to build hype as people speculate on who they are, or its to allow the music to do all the talking, stopping the music press from rapidly watering them down to nothing, which in the age of the Internet allows for a prolonged lead up to the eventual release of an album. By holding something back they avoid being burnt out by the press and they can maintain some control over their development. Just look at what happened to the rush that was Lana Del Rey’s hurried album release.

However, we believe there’s more to this story than the protagonists simply allowing the music to do all the talking. We are aware that this belief is pure conjecture, only fuelling the hype that they so desire, fulfilling the prophecy that we are so clearly bored of, but allow us to indulge ourselves for a moment. What we do know is that the group are made up of a global collective of four producers, from Paris, Los Angeles and New York. They met in Boston and are now based together in Brooklyn. That’s pretty much all the information we have to date, except for the fact they send out their own emails, rather than going through a label – they confirmed to us that they have “no word on a label just yet“, which doesn’t necessarily mean they remain unsigned – or through a PR company. Oh, and those emails are signed off by the name Zach, (*hurriedly searches the Internet for producers with the first name ‘Zach’*).

Prior to this week they’d let loose three tracks, Small Boxes, Gold Chain and Older Together. All three songs were so exceptionally awesome that holding back from writing them up on The Recommender, until we knew more about the group, was virtually impossible, but alas we patiently waited. Zach kept sending them through to us one by one, but he resisted our questioning and so the post never arrived on this blog’s pages. We were like a child holding their breath until our parents handed us the sweets we so desired. This delay became rather pointless this week after Zach sent us their new song, Leave It All. With our cheeeks puffed and our faces turning purple, we simply had to breath out and give in. The first three tracks were good, very good in fact, but this new one is simply divine. The parents always win the battle, right? Right. With this mysterious group the music does indeed supersede any lack of information, forcing us to finally paste them all over The Recommender.

The older songs are a heady blend of perfectly-produced pop, with a variety of pace and power, always masterfully applied, like the foot of a Formula One driver upon his accelerator pedal. Small Boxes is the slower of them all, with more delicate keys and a weighty beat. The light vocals are expertly applied as if being waved on top like silk bed linen. Gold Chain throbs in pulses like the waft of a light sabre, admiring the kind of styled synth music that always channels the 80s, but here it’s done with such class that it never seems overly-reflective or tacky. Older Together, their most exciting song to date, has earned them over six and a half thousand ‘hearts’ on Hype Machine, delivering their usual aerated pop with an alternative edge. And so to the new tune, Leave It All, which we noticed is already at number six on Hype Machine, (at time of going to press), after just one day. When this group release a track thirty or forty blogs write them up as standard, so exciting are their productions. Again this tune delivers. It has more bounce and introduces riffing where before there was none, hitting wonderful heights with its chorus. This is pop at it’s most irresistible. It’s not childish, it treats the listener like an adult, and it manages to balance radio-friendly hits using accessible synths and song structures, whilst still maintaining elements of darkness and maturity.

Their formula is so successful it leads us to thinking that this is an experienced set of producers, and herein lies our speculation. Is this a super-group, made up of people known to us in other guises? Is this the real reason behind why they’re holding back their identities? Is it not in fact about mystery and hype, or letting the music speak for itself, like so many of those other mystery projects, but rather it’s actually about stopping us from seeing a batch of already-established producers behind it all? Would the truth water down the hype? If we knew they were people already established in the industry would this simply seem like a side-project? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We don’t know. Damn you Zach, whoever you are.

With such a polished production and with a batch of releases this consistently bright and clever it does suggest they know what they’re doing at the very least. Such a global collaboration as this also suggests they have some reach, although these days the distance of geography is squashed by the Internet. The album is currently being completed and should see light later this year. Short of them wearing masks, their identities may finally be acknowledged when they play a set of live shows around the New York area in May (tickets are available for their Glasslands show here). Somebody please go along on our behalf? Take a camera, try and get to speak with them. Really, anything. It seems that the problem we have with them is not the mystery, but that the music is in fact so damn irresistible! It’s a lesson to all those artists out there who might be planning to hide their identities – just work on getting the music right and you will indeed win. Resistance has never felt so futile. (MB)

BLACK LIGHT DINNER PARTY –  LEAVE IT ALL

BLACK LIGHT DINNER PARTY – OLDER TOGETHER