There’s a style of minimalist pop music that’s singed at it’s edges with hip hop or rnb, of a kind that can be found successfully being paraded by the British artists, Jai Paul or James Blake. There’s a steamy undertone infused into their music, and sexuality is a regular bold overtone that’s found in the themes inside hip hop and rnb. The thing is Americans can place sex into their music better than us Brits. That’s obviously a generalisation and it would be weak of us to push out the examples of Rod Stewart or Tom Jones as examples of how tacky we manage to make it, as it would to talk of Barry White as a US sample, but we think there’s an underlying reason behind our differences. Americans aren’t ready to patronise, or as willing to indulge in a spot of self-deprecation as we are. At the mere mention of sex we can be seen to either blush or fear mockery, where as our States-side cousins can shout about it. Ultimately it’s about confidence or fearlessness. Can you imagine Snoop Dogg as an English artist? No, that’d just be silly, right?

Today’s recommendation delivers a similar brand of minimalist pop music, that’s marinated in rnb and its hot, wet sheets of sexuality, but this guy is thankfully from Los Angeles. Danny Choi is better known as Ghost Loft and his understated hip hop is a masterclass in downplayed confidence. His music isn’t so much ‘fuck pop’, more it seduces the listener by making subtle love to your ears. It’s a less-is-more-tease that has the ability to remove the knickers of anyone within fifty yards. The thing is, not only is this the kind of music that Americans seem to do better, with lyrics that explain what he’s going to do to the woman waiting on his mattress before he proceeds to actually do it to her, but we can’t help but imagine that Americans could also utilise the songs to better effect. Where they wouldn’t blink at the idea of this music sound-tracking their steamy fumble, slipping the music on the bedroom stereo to get into the mood, yet us Brits would find it hard to maintain a straight face, let alone an erection.

This is particularly evident with his tune, Slowdowntime, with impossible lines like “ooh baby, you slow down time“, which should have us running for the exit, yet it suits the throbbed pace and astral synths that whirl around it in a heady concoction. We really shouldn’t take this any more seriously than something by Usher, but it’s all delivered in such a sophisticated space that you can’t write it off. It’s the kind of hot, steamy love song that you would imagine is designed for making love to, but if you slipped this on prior to getting on with the proverbial it’s actually you that would be being ushered – right out of the room, faster than you can gather up your clothing. This is more likely to get you banned from the bedroom, a kind of sexual red card that carries with it a minimum three-game ban. However, it’s perhaps our Britishness that has us blushing, rather than any indictment on his music. We can’t take it seriously because we’re embarrassed, not because it lacks integrity. Quite the opposite, the music is very ace indeed.

The track, Blow, caused such a stir, that one glance at Hype Machine shows us that 29 music blogs gave it coverage in the last six weeks alone, and that’s just the blogs that are registered with Hype Machine – hot indeed. This is an artist very much having the lights turned up, not down, with every release he delivers. Blow is once again another piece of horny music, opening with heavy breathing samples that continue in echoed drifts in the background throughout. It has a slower pace, showing that this artist has staying power, range and ideas for when he’s making love, sorry we meant making music. However, we consider his finest piece of music to date is the tune, Seconds, a theme that might sound better suited to the staying power of the UK bedroom scene. The minimal beats may at first seen mean, but it’s taught snare and nodding bass drum are ultra-satisfying. The samples are perfectly placed, treated with precise hands, before Choi’s vocals breathe in and out to wonderful effect. The basslines flicker around the room, reminding us of the effortless slick line found backing up the tune, Keep The Lights On, by Wave Machines.

Ghost Loft remains unsigned, for now, and Choi confirmed to us that he is waiting to design more music before he sets out on any live shows, so these three tunes, plus a wonderful remix of a JJ tune, Beautiful Life, are the only things currently available. With that re-edit he adds more oxygen to a tune already rushing with air, but he slows the rate down, so where the original takes a couple of minutes to climax, Ghost Loft chooses to take his time. Of course he does. JJ are a Scandinavian group making glacial pop and in many ways there is a lot that’s shared with Ghost Loft, with the levels of drift and echo that they both apply, plus vocals that never fully punctuate the music, but instead Choi decides to melt the ice into steam by heating things up. He’s informed us that he’s planning an EP before the year is out, so hopefully we will see that reach the light soon, so we can use it to immediately turn those same lights off again. Well, we say “we”, but as we know the English won’t be able to utilise it in the bedroom at all. If nothing else, this smooth, sexually-confident music can highlight how uptight we are on these isles, always willing to patronise, so relax those shoulders people and let the Americans show you how there’s no shame in getting in the mood. (MB)

GHOST LOFT – SECONDS

GHOST LOFT – SLOWDOWNTIME

JJ – BEAUTIFUL LIFE (GHOST LOFT REMIX)

This is why we love The Great Escape Festival. This is also why bands are wise to play at the three day event. Ultimately the weekend is a showcase for emerging bands and finds such as the one we provide for you today are precisely what the event is really all about. Make all the plans and schedules you like for the city festival, but with over 300 bands, at thirty venues, last minute changes and unavoidable queues, it is perhaps advisable for visitors to prepare for the unexpected and assume you’re gonna have to alter your intentions at some point. This chaos often leads people to make plans B and C, walking into shows at times they didn’t expect, in venues they didn’t know existed, regularly resulting in them catching a live performance that can totally side-swipe you unawares. We’re not suggesting that these punts are always winners, but it often enables you to uncover the occasional magical set, from a band you’ve never heard of. Before The Great Escape Festival we’d never heard of Heart-Ships. Now we have. Now you have too. That, in a nutshell, is the festival’s entire purpose.

We remember the heart-warming story of how our step-father saw a relatively unknown band, with a spotty but confident frontman, in a basement, in the 70s, play some new brand of punked indie music whilst stood on a stage made from upturned milk crates. That band are better known to us now as U2. The Great Escape festival is set up to provide plenty of these ‘I-was-there‘ moments. Sometimes the importance of your discovery can only be revealed years later, as you see the band fulfil it’s potential, but in Heart-Ships we think they’ve bottled the kind of rare magical promise that could see them really flourish in due course. This six-strong band, based in Leeds, who started out approximately 18 months ago, are now currently looking at all the offers that sit upon their table and they’ve informed us that they hope to make a decision and have their first big release ready by the end of the summer. Having seen them live last weekend, we’re going to be listening out for that debut album with keen ears.

This is a band who write the kind of rousing, contagious indie music that will no doubt produce a fantastic album, but it’s with their live show that their potent tonic seems to truly grab you. If this were the 1500s then this band would be a group of pirates sailing the high seas, clashing tankards as they sang their stirring tales. It’s with this imagery that we consider the choice of band name to be even better suited, although we’re not sure that was their intention. Either way they’ve nailed the live experience, giving it everything they’ve got, as the frontman, Ryan Cooke, summons a spirited performance, whilst the guitarists are seen to turn and closely play to each other nose to nose behind him. There’s something about the moment at a live show where you notice all of the band members are singing along with the main vocalist, even though they don’t actually have a mic in front of them. It shows how into the music they are, it shows they’re wrapped up in the moment, and it’s impossibly infectious. Arcade Fire do it to brilliant effect as you watch the two violists singing with heads thrown back, entirely un-amplified, at the side of the stage. It’s also something we witnessed at a recent We Are Augustines show. It’s utterly irresistible.

Tracks such as Spraypaint have the kind of emotional call to arms that gets the people at the BBC falling over each other to apply it to a sporting-based television montage. It leaves you breathless, properly breathless, as if you just went ten rounds in a ring you shouldn’t have stepped into. This is emotive indie music that aims straight for your pulse and confidently raises it with every thudding crescendo. It’s more in evidence with their tune, A Lake, which also begins softly with Cooke’s vocals slowly appearing out of the illuminated mist created by the guitars, but before long the tankards are once again crashing. That same ability to triumphantly climb upwards is once again on show with their song, Heart Of A Wrestler, but this time it’s magnified, as it wonderfully breaks at 3 minutes and 45 seconds to a dramatic Adam Ant-like drum slam, before Cooke’s voice begins to break as he calls out. The whole thing reaches it’s peak over the last couple of minutes, as they shout out the appropriate line, “a heart of a wrestler never submits“. This is the kind of extraordinary defiant music that’s played with a metaphorically clenched fist.

The Recommender does it’s best to position itself as part of your music discovery. We want you to genuinely locate at least something on these blog pages that you can take away with you. It’s our altruistic nature, our reason d’etre. At it’s heart, The Great Escape’s magic carries the exact same rewards. With unfortunate queues shutting you out of a popular showcase you’re forced to improvise a plan B and it’s this process that allows the festival to deliver hope at the exact moment when you’d thought it had been taken from you. Heart-Ships are still in the pre-debut album stages and although they’ve been steering themselves into position for over a year, they can be considered as an emerging band, so it’s unlikely that many of the Great Escape festival attendees circled them as one of their ‘must-sees’ as soon as they opened their schedule planners. However, the rewards on offer at the tiny venue showcasing this act were as bountiful as any. The huff and puff of this hard-working band mean they could easily expand the experience into a much larger venue, and if there’s any justice then by the next festival it’s those bigger stages that they’ll be appearing on. You just never know, but there’s a possibility that in years to come we could be regaling anecdotal stories of how we saw Heart-Ships with just forty others in a tiny upstairs bar in Brighton. (MB)

HEART SHIPS – SPRAYPAINT

HEART SHIPS – HEART OF A WRESTLER (A YOUNG MAN’S STRUGGLE FOR STRENGTH)

HEART SHIPS – PINHOLE OF LIGHT

Some genres suffer from a lot of cliches. OK, so all genres do to some extent, but some suffer that bit more, like they have a black hole of cliches sucking infinitely upon them. It doesn’t stop credible music or new ideas being written within that genre, but it makes it an absolute minefield in which to tread. One of the obvious genres to suffer this affliction is rock, which is possibly down to the over-ambitious bands of the 70s and 80s that eventually led to the likes of Spinal Tap and Bad News finding a rich orchard in which to mock. Elsewhere is the genre of indie pop, which the Americans have been known to do rather well, but once again it’s strewn with spiky cliche mines. Today’s recommendation are pitching their music within indie pop, describing themselves as “wildly fun“, which is all well and good, but you can already imagine the Niagara-sized pitfalls. This band somehow show off a world of inventiveness within the over-cooked genre, but to balance things up they also lose the odd limb when they tread upon a lack of imagination. With one hand they give, but with the other, well, they lose the hand entirely.

Saint Motel are a quartet from Los Angeles. They aim to deliver song structures that often follow a verse/chorus/verse/chorus pattern, you know, like actual proper songs and that. Their digital PR recently got in touch to push the new song, 1997, to us as a UK exclusive, but one search in our Gmail inbox uncovered unread emails that had come directly from the band, no doubt prior to them having PR on board. This is a common occurrence, suffering, like any music blogger does, from an impossibly busy inbox, meaning it indirectly becomes a search engine for new music on occasion. Who needs to surf SoundCloud or Bandcamp, when you can type band names into the Gmail search bar? Perhaps we should set up access to our inbox as a new mp3 search engine website in itself? It’s a rather ridiculous situation of course, when you search your own inbox when researching a band, but alas this is the modern world we live in.

That initial email approach from the band held within it their first punt, the song Honest Feedback, which kicks off at a jolly pace. They explained how the lyrics were almost designed by accident as the singer simply filled the song with randomly selected words as he tried to write the vocal melodies, but decided to stick with the first words that came to mind. If it ain’t broke, eh. It’s a song that has their “fun” dials turned up to eleven, reeling around our headphones like there’s a circus inside them. The engine may be motoring, but you feel like it’s a journey you have perhaps been on before. It suffers from a relatively singular pace throughout, but it also has an undeniable attraction. This is a repeated trip, flying by in the same weird way the return leg on a lengthy car journey always seems to go by faster than it did on the way out there. However, the sun is shining throughout and the view is always pretty, so it’s hard to let your mood drop. You can clearly hear what the vocals are saying and you know exactly where the next eight bars are going, which gives it an instant familiarity, but you find your mind drifting onto your shopping list or something.

Thankfully new gears are found on other tunes, with a particularly enjoyable restraint that keeps things tight with the tune, Puzzle Pieces, with some of the most confident vocals around, especially in the crescendos. The instrumentation is strong the whole way through as each element is introduced. Again the pace is driven with thick soles pressed upon the accelerator pedal, but the engines not all that, so you’re never fearfully gripping the passenger seat. This is light guitar pop, with lots of enjoyable style and tinkering flare, which on this tune hits delightful, shouty crescendos at the three minute mark, demanding more attention for the first time. However, it’s when they reign in their racing frivolity that they are found to produce their most interesting music. At Least I Have Nothing brings us a welcome melancholy not seen with other songs. It drops the predictable structures and Americanised cliches and delivers indie pop for grown ups. There’s a freedom swirling within the song, as AJ sings “I got no more family in this town” leaving him “nothing to tie me down“.

They’re at their best when they stretch to more quirky corners, with the occasional break to clap hands or wind it up to attractive peaks, as opposed to simply stepping in music’s equivalent of dogshit, by being, well, “fun“. If you compare them to the bands, Space or The Flaming Lips, you can begin to understand how quirks can be masterfully achieved, but where those two bands have a millions psychedelic ideas woven into the songs, Saint Motel play it much straighter. They’re more reminiscent of the excellent Boston trio, Leisure, who produce a kind of alt-lounge sound, although Saint Motel don’t select to croon quite as much, but they’ll share fans and both are perfectly designed for the UK market. This is indie pop without any hint of a misuse of drugs and it perhaps lacks a little something for it. It’s not going to expand your minds, but it is full of solid ideas. This is indie pop that may well contain cliches that your Mum won’t notice, but the sharper ears will hear them. Either way, what is clear to everyone is their pin-sharp intelligence that’s delicately sewn into every song.

Their debut album, Voyeur, is out on July 10th on their own On The Records label. It follows a 2009 EP of the same name, rather strangely, so we imagine the new album is simply a refined, beefed up version of that EP. We assume the album contains the new tune, 1997, which turns out to be the boldest of them all. Confident piano keys dance behind a cinematic swirl of guitars, before the whole song puffs out with brass and another upbeat pace. Rewardingly it’s more three-dimensional, changing gears smoothly, driving well clear of any cliche obstacles, particularly with the new vocals that join up with AJ. The same pomp and ceremony which has become their trademark is again within view, as the song marches past you. It’s fun like Pulp were fun, not so much in the masterful way Jarvis Cocker scribed his acerbic lyrics, but in the same carefree stylish manner that always earns repeated listens. Saint Motel tread through the cliche minefield with confident, heavy strides, somehow never ending in disaster, but something tells us they’re enjoying it too much to worry about the odd missing limb. (MB)

SAINT MOTEL – 1997

SAINT MOTEL – AT LEAST I HAVE NOTHING

SAINT MOTEL – PUZZLE PIECES

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, Brapscallions, 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. 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 we will definitely do it all again in 2013.

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