As the UK festival season gets into full swing and the likes of  the giant events, (Glastonbury, V Festival, Bestival, Reading/Leeds and T In The Park etc), take all the limelight and national coverage, we are pleased as punch to be sneaking some of the better and quite frankly cooler and smaller festivals into our plucky town of Brighton.

With the Loop Festival now in it’s 3rd year, what it may lack in size, it more than makes up for in quality and fresh originality. The line up gets stronger every year and we are pleased to associate The Recommender blog ever closer, as we know the organisers personally and we see first hand how they make such a massive effort.

The least we can do is list below our selected highlights from the long list of amazing acts that are on show. A handful of tickets, at a variety of rates to suit your budget, are still available here.

FEVER RAY - Triangle Walks (ysi)
ESSER – Work It Out (The Shoes Remix)       (ysi)
DATAROCK – I Used To Dance With My Daddy (ysi)
WE HAVE BAND – Time After Time (ysi)
FANFARLO – I’m A Pilot (ysi)
THE INVISIBLE – London Girl (ysi)
THE XX – Crystalised (ysi)
CASIOKIDS – Fot I Hose (ysi)
MIRRORS – Look At Me (ysi)

As a side note, the band Mirrors have agreed in principal to do an interview with us in the run up to their show at Loop, so as a returned thanks we perhaps should suggest that you see them at the festival above all else. They’re an amazing spectacle, so you won’t be disappointed. See you there. Have an awesome time.
Mike

We are waiting for someone to wake us up as we walk through this dream festival.  Imagine a blog writer compiling his ideal festival: Sprinkle generously just about every new Indie band he knows and a few he doesn’t around town (check). Then stir in a handful of top industry people to fluff and a gaggle of celebrities (check). Mix them all into dozens of the finest small and personal venues so you can get so close you can actually touch them without prosecution (check). Finally dollop the entire thing on your very own doorstep! (check check check!).

As Dorothy pronounced there really is ‘no place like home…’, but this ain’t no dream and we’re loving Brighton to bits! And so we are going to do our best to find the time to report back, day by day, the comings and goings from Brighton’s streets, as we pound them in this new music theme park. We’ll add pictures, mp3′s, reviews and links. Enjoy…

1.) PANAMA KINGS

Experience- An impromptu gig on the beach during the afternoon seemed a perfect way to begin the weekend and allowed us a chance to stuff our lunches down. Many gigs will be occurring throughout the festival that aren’t in the listings. Linking up to the text service and twitter feeds looks set to provide us all with plenty of hidden gems, particularly in the afternoons before most official schedules begin. This 4-piece from Northern Ireland whipped us in the mood, with their summery, bouncing, power-Indie. The chatter seems to suggest everyone fell for their charm. An ideal start.

BEST TRACK – TOE THE PARTY LINE (ysi)

2.) CLUB SMITH

Experience -Old friends of The Recommender (see our Q&A and previous posts about them), this 4-piece from Leeds and York, bring us a new name, a new drummer and refreshingly a new sound. It’s no re-write of the rules here, as they’ve kept all the original charm they had in their previous incarnation, but added a little weight and intelligence to their upbeat music. As we stood chatting in the crowd with Storme, former tour manager of  Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs, we noticed that the keyboards had stopped working! Turned out that the famous Rock photographer, Danny North, had accidentally pulled the plug out by standing on the lead as he snapped away in front of them. It turned out to be a charming moment in what was an enjoyable set. We also managed to get introduced to Huw Stephens, of Radio One fame, so dutifully extolled the virtues of reading our blog. Hope he takes note eh!

BEST TRACK – THE GREEN ROOM (ysi)

3.) FANFARLO

Experience -With their Clap Your Hands Say Yeah sound and Arcade Fire inspirations (or should that be aspirations), this turned out to be a fantastic choice on the schedule as we entered the rammed Honeyclub venue. We bumped into Jason Clark, the organiser of Brighton’s Loop festival which kicks off later this summer. We all enjoyed the set that built and built and left everyone wanting more. With their numerous band numbers you aren’t sure where to look, but what struck me most was the amount of different instruments on display and the way they all swapped them around. Real craftsmen playing out charming, atmospheric Indie-Folk.

BEST TRACK – LUNA (ysi)

4.) THE INVISIBLE

Experience -The largest room in the Komedia venue was packed out as it showcased this delightful 3-piece. It didn’t go unnoticed by the band themselves as they explained they’re not used to such a large crowd. They deserved nothing less than a busy room as they justified the time and effort paid by every punter in there by playing a crisp, tight set. Their funked basslines, smooth keyboard chords and the layered vocals of Dave Okumu were mesmerising. Frontman Dave is a sight to behold with his unique fashion and giant stature. We will more than likely give them a full Recommender posting in the near future.

BEST TRACK – LONDON GIRL (ysi)

5.) COCKNBULLKID

Experience -Having found The Hope pub too rammed to even think about entering we decided to skip seeing Chew Lips, (they play another set on Saturday anyway), and moved straight over to The Ocean Rooms club to catch Anita Blay’s brilliant Electro-Pop. Being right at the front allowed an face to face, personal experience in this packed nightclub. Her commanding presence and dramatic gestures, as well as her mirrored cloak, allowed for a colourful, bright set. All the thumping singles were provided and the knowledgeable crowd sang along. The day’s highlight so far.

BEST TRACK – ON MY OWN (ysi)

6.) MIRRORS

Experience -Having seen them earlier in the week at a warm up show at the New Hero club in town we knew exactly what to expect here. Namely the freshest and most exciting band to come out of Brighton in years! We will definitely be handing them their own post on a future Recommender, so more will be explained in due course. Suffice to say we met up with (The) James Kendall, editor of Brighton’s going out bible, The Source, and found him as excited as a puppy dog. We weren’t disappointed either. They had to play to a much bigger room with this set and their huge sound and irresistibly melodic, dark Electro-Pop seemed made for it. They’re currently enjoying a potential million pound raising bidding war between labels and on this evidence they’re worth every penny!

BEST TRACK – LOOK AT ME (ysi)

7.) WE HAVE BAND

Experience -Having had a no-show from Fan Death at the beachside club, Coalition, we cut our losses and headed further up the beach to the Concorde 2 venue. What a turn that ended up being as we once again found a brilliant selection of bands. Meeting up once again with Jason Clark and also Anthony Prior, manager of multiple bars in town and all-round-super-booker of bands to various venues in Brighton over the years, we caught the end of Milke. Immediately up next was We Have Band and we wandered back stage to get some photos and generally thank them for their involvement with this blog in previous posts (see the Q&A amongst other posts). As usual they played their lively, pounding bass-driven beat-Pop, with their excellent layered vocals and skillful arrangements. The most fun so far!

BEST TRACK – HEAR IT IN THE CANS (ysi)

8.) DATAROCK

Experience - Finding ourselves backstage we were able to get up close and personal with them and they’re just as nuts off stage as on it. A truly wild bunch of characters that totally deserve their headline slot. In their signature red, hooded tracksuits they thumped through their Dance-Funk set. It’s impossible to know where to look when watching them and photographing them was no easier. Normally only a two-piece they multiply their numbers when playing live. Cue lots of running around on stage and lots of posturing. The tracksuit tops were duly thrown off as the set whipped the crowd into a frenzy. The encore was the longest I’ve ever witnessed as we lost track of how many songs, even playing one twice we think. They didn’t want to leave the stage, which was all good, because we didn’t want them to either. Outstanding!

BEST TRACK -  FA-FA-FA (ysi)

And so that’s the end of just day one! Can’t quite believe what an amazing experience it’s been. Roll on day two. Whether we will make it to day three is another matter. You’ll just have to come back to The Recommender to find out won’t you…
Mike

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FANFARLO
This one will be easy. I couldn’t put it any more directly than to point out the immediate correlation between this new band and Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse. You know the ticket right? Atmospheric, full of strings and instruments that you’ve never heard of, choral harmonies, strong layered beats and quirky, left-field, melody-heavy music. It’s strong and it’s beautiful. There’s no re-writing the rules here, but instead of this sound floating over to us from across the Atlantic Ocean, it’s from a UK 5-piece for a change. The vocals are fantastic, although very reminiscent of Alec Ounsworth from the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. It’s amazing how all of these aforementioned bands always seem so individual and styled, yet so many pretenders arrive that come across as exact replicas! Only time will of course tell if Fanfarlo are the real deal, but take it from us that there’s definitely plenty of quality and they’re packed full of tunes so take note. Debut album, Reservoir,  is due out May 25th.

Find them here:       Myspace

Hear them here:       FANFARLO – LUNA (ysi)

NEON INDIAN
If you enjoy having your Indie music with a sprinkle of Psychedelia then you wouldn’t go far wrong with the weird, yet charming sounds of Neon Indian. Yeah there’s bound to be a wave of this sort of thing following the massive (blog) successes of MGMT in 2008, but there’s still enough on offer with this boy/girl duo to take note. It appears that there’s a little mystery surrounding this pair too. They are a collaborative project by two existing artists who mix their tunes via correspondence. Both names still remain unknown. The fella writes in Austin, Texas and the girl writes from Brooklyn, New York. Their identity has deliberately not been revealed yet, but perhaps this is because they are both already connected to other existing bands themselves, so they don’t want to get it all mixed up. Away from all this frustrating identity crisis is a dreamy, Lo-Fi sound that has plenty of bumping, slowed beats and echoing keys. It’s very stoned, almost like you’re listening to it from the room next door, but there’s still some lovely melodies packed in there too. We would be interested to hear your thoughts on them, as always…

Find them here:        Myspace

Hear them here:       NEON INDIAN – 6669 (I Don’t Know If You Know) (ysi)

THE JOY FORMIDABLE
Some bands really drive their music. It’s like they don’t just play each chord out, they push it, they force feed it to you. Nirvana did it, as did Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters afterwards. Oasis did it, at least on Definitely Maybe. The Sex Pistols, The Who, Bloc Party, Ash- You get the idea. All great bands, and yes none of which are ‘Metal’ bands. This is because all of them didn’t just play their strong guitars and pound their drums, but they were also great at writing proper tunes. Well this is a slot that The Joy Formidable fit into very nicely. Plenty of that energy, loads of melody. It races along and it’s brilliant guitaring and rumbling bass are the stars of the show. Frontwoman Ritzy’s vocals swoop overhead in a styled and layered snarl. It reminds me of a good Sugar song, circa their ‘Copper Blue‘ album, or anything from the band Howling Bells. This Welsh-born, London-based trio have tapped into a typically successful sound and will no doubt be huge. Their debut, ‘A Balloon Called Moaning‘, is out now on the Pure Groove label, with lots of potential singles on it, plus they tour the UK through May and June. (By the way, we had previously listed another of their tracks, ‘Whirring‘, on The Gig List 23 if you want it…)

Find them here:      Myspace

Hear them here:      THE JOY FORMIDABLE – AUSTERE (ysi)

Thank fuck we got The Joy Formidable in there before we were swallowed by a Lo-Fi overload!! We think there’s plenty of tunes packed into this post, so we hope you enjoyed them all. As always comment, message us, spread the love around a little bit, etc…
Mike

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As we excitedly lead up to the UK’s closest cousin of America’s famous SxSW Festival, Brighton’s GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL, with it’s own mammoth jaunt in showcasing new music, we thought we would return to it here on The Recommender.

THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL – PART TWO

We first visited the line up at this years festival when we put together Part One (find it here).  As we roll closer to the event the listings have swelled up and now there are so many great additions that we simply must usher your attention towards this fresh batch.

Allow The Recommender to kindly be your best previewer of this amazing festival…

CHEW LIPS (*) -       SOLO (ysi)

DATAROCK -       FA FA FA (ysi)

FANFARLO -       LUNA (ysi)

THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS (*) -        DRESSED IN DRESDEN (ysi)

MARINA & THE DIAMONDS (*)-       THE SHAMPAIN SLEEPER (ysi)

NOAH & THE WHALE -       5 YEARS TIME (ysi)

PATRICK WOLF -        THE MAGIC POSITION (ysi)

WE HAVE BAND (*) -       OH! (ysi)

THE XX -       VCR (ysi)

You can locate any previous posts that we might have done on these bands in the starred links (*) alongside each act, so click them to find more information, interviews and free mp3′s etc.  Fanfarlo are yet to be posted about, so we will be returning to their brilliance in a later post.

At this rate we will probably have to do a ‘Part 3′ about The Great Escape if they continue to add such outstanding acts. We hope this helps you decide who to pick out from the masses of bands on show. At least our previews allow you to actually listen to the bands first. Can’t see that happening with any printed media now can we? The Recommender wins we thinks.
Mike

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