TONGUES - RELIGION

Tongues are one of the bands I've featured on my ongoing New Bands 2015 series (right here) and they caught my ear because the superb Colours In The Dark and Anymore were two of the finest examples of synthpop I'd heard in a long time. Anymore also featured on the second Almost Scottish Fiction e.p. which you can still grab at no cost at all here. It's no surprise that Tongues have continued to attract praise from all sorts of places and their recent set at T In the Park on the BBC Introducing stage unsurprisingly went down a storm.

The excellent news I have for you Tongues have released a new track today and that track, Religion, is available for you to listen to below. Religion is a cracking track; a combination of chants, vocoded vocals, laid back beats and instantly catchy synth melodies that you can easily see a packed venue bouncing along to very happily indeed. This track is a prime example of why Tongues are fast becoming talked about in more than just blogging circles. Religion is a prime slice of clever, hook laden electronic music that you are bound to fall in love with.

For more info about Tongues, check out their Facebook page

LIVE: MIRACLE STRIP, LE THUG, APACHE DARLING - KING TUTS, GLASGOW 21 JULY

Over two weeks in July, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut is hosting a series of gigs under the heading Summer Nights. Throughout the month, over 50 Scottish bands and DJ's are playing at the venue, showcasing the best new music Scotland has to offer. The full list of gigs is pretty impressive and can be viewed here - click

Last night, I went along to a show to see three of my favourite new bands. Unfortunately, I had to leave before AmatrArt came on which was a pity as I'd have love to have seen them too. Before I go on to the bands, I've got to say how much I enjoyed the Podcart DJ set betI cween bands too. Superb tracks including Bjork's Violently Happy which never fails to make me make me at least consider dancing. Nice work Halina

Miracle Strip (dodgy pics above and below my own) kicked off the night and started us off well. Their Miracle Milk  is something I've been playing a lot recently and it was really pleasing to see how well the songs came across live. Took A Running Jump was a highlight for me, mainly because it's one of the best tracks I've heard in a while but the whole set worked. The band's combination of New Order and early Cure like atmospherics with vocals that marvellously bring to mind The Magnetic Fields is a winner and tracks like Lemon Sorbet  and Girl Gang were just fantastic.

Le Thug followed Miracle Strip and their set was just as good as I hoped it would be. Their Place Is ep is a stunner and it's one that I've played over and over on my clear vinyl 12" copy. I have to mention that as clear vinyl is surely the coolest of the coloured vinyls. Anyway, their set featured most of the e.p.with Pals  and Basketball Land sounding just as menacing yet noisily beautiful as the do on record. Live, the band generate a quite mesmerising sound and it was a really powerful show that I couldn't take my eyes off. There's a shoegaze influence at play no doubt but more towards the louder end of Ride or My Bloody Valentine where noise meets melody and works incredibly well. Le Thug are a special band no doubt.

Next up were blog favourites and recent interviewees Apache Darling who, despite writing about a lot, I'd never managed to see live. Like Le Thug, Apache Darling's live show more than matched up to their releases and they gave the crowd half an hour of quite marvellous synthpop. Opening with the superb More Than Me the band grabbed the crowd's attention from the off and the whole set was excellent. More Than Me aside, one song that really stood out for me was Go which was almost Yazoo like and that can only ever be a good thing. The band have recently spent a good bit of time honing their live sound and that work has paid off. The combination of their crisp electropop with Stefanie's frankly brilliant voice is a winner and you really want to catch them live if you can. The fact Andrew manages to play three live synths with no backing tracks is no mean feat either. It was a great set and it really got the whole room going, 

As I said at the start, apologies to AmatrArt who I really wanted to see but couldn't stick around for. I gather their set was unsurprisingly great and I'll make sure I catch them next time. In the meantime, if you can, try and get along to one or two of the remaining King Tut's Summer Nights and enjoy what is clearly something of a golden age for Scottish music. Keep an eye on all the bands above too as you will want to see them live as soon as you can

Miracle Strip Facebook

Le Thug Facebook

Apache Darling Facebook

AmatrArt Facebook

NEW CHVRCHES ALBUM AND TOUR

Chvrches are back. This is, of course, exceptionally good news not only because The Bones Of What You Believe remains an outstanding album and a follow up to that is therefore a rather exciting prospect, but also because it again shows the world that Glasgow is the current world leader in synthpop and, if nothing else, that helps this blog immensely.

Every Open Eye will be released on 25 September and features 11 new tracks which are:

1. Never Ending Circles

2. Leave A Trace

3. Keep You On My side

4. Make Them Gold

5. Clearest Blue

6. High Enough To Carry You Over

7. Empty Threat

8. Down Side Of Me

9. Playing Dead

10. Bury It 

11. Afterglow

The band have already released one song, Leave A Trace, which you can listen to below. It's a quite magnificent slice of near perfect synthpop that is virtually impossible to stop playing once you give it one play. What strikes me as especially interesting with the song is that Lauren's voice sounds much more powerful and features much higher in the mix than previously and if that's a sign of what's to come with the album, then things look very promising indeed. I'm sure it's bound to be one of the albums of the year.

The band have also announced new tour dates with a run of shows in America in September and October and 4 European shows in November. There are bound to be more added to that list and I've got everything crossed for a pre Christmas Barrowlands show or two as their last gigs there were spectacular. The European shows announced thus far are

Nov 10 - Trianon, Paris
Nov 12 - Docks, Hamburg
Nov 13 - Melkweg, Amsterdam
Nov 14 - AB, Brussels.

Tickets go on presale to Chrvches mailing list subscribers on Wednesday 22 July and on general sale on Friday 24 July.

More news about the album and tour dates as they arrive....

NEW MARTIN GORE REMIX E.P.

Hot on the heels of this year's superb MG album (review here), the marvellous Mr Martin Gore has announced the release of a double vinyl remix e.p. which will come out on Mute records on 2 October. As well as the MG remixes that have already seen the light of day such as those by Christoffer Berg (Pinking) and Andy Stott (Europa Hymn), the e.p. will feature two previously unreleased tracks and a remix of Featherlight by a fan as part of a remix competition.

The stems for Featherlight can be downloaded here and all entries must be submitted by 21 August by uploading them to Soundcloud. The winner will be announced on 31 August. I'm going to have a go and you should too.

More news on the e.p's name and final tracklist as it arrives. Meantime, here's Andy Stott's remix of the superb Europa Hymn to get your competition entries inspired

YuTaNi - AT THE END OF A DAY

As well as producing some of the finest electronic music to come from Glasgow in many a year, Machines In Heaven's three members also busy themselves with solo projects. Now, alongside Davey Gwynne's blood blood project and Greg Hurst's Magic Daddy work, Connor Reid has released the quite wonderful At The End Of A Day album as YuTaNi on Hot Gem.

The album has, in the main, an ambient feel to it that brings to mind the likes of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol II with many of the songs sharing that albums other worldy feel. The opening three tracks For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky, All Goes Onward And Outward...And Nothing Collapses and Trocchi combine an underlying menace with a sparseness that is really quite magical, pulling you into the album's dense, dark soundscapes. Entrance Stone then adds some beats and muffled sounding samples before the quite brilliant Mt. Minakami arrives like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds. It's an outstanding track and one that I've been playing on heavy rotation all week. It combines a New Order like bass and guitar line with beautiful electronic and piano melodies squiggled all over the top. An absolute stormer. Splay comes next with its crackling vinyl samples reminiscent of The Caretaker before the trip hop feel of All's Well That Ends Well leads into the poppier City You Love which is one of the few tracks to have a prominent guitar lead throughout and features vocals by Jomez. Agalama returns us to an Aphex Twin feel albeit more the first Selected Ambient Works album as there are beats present before the short Kashasha Tanganyika brings us to the penultimate track Wabi-Sabi. It's another superb track built around a recurring piano motif and surrounded by a wide array of tasty beats and bleeps. The album then concludes on the Croatoan Roanoke, a lengthy early Brian Eno like soundscape that you can't help but get lost in. 

There is something special about this album and it's a real must hear for fans of electronic music of all genres really as there's something here for everyone. If I have to recommend one track it would have to be Mt. Minakami as it's genuinely one of the best things I've heard in a while. Don't just stop there though - delve right in.

The album can be streamed on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/connor-reid/sets/at-the-end-of-a-day-full-album) or below and can, and indeed, should be bought at Bleep 

YuTaNi Facebook https://www.facebook.com/yutanielohei?fref=ts

Hot Gem http://hotgem.co.uk/

INTRODUCING....DEATH OF HI FI

Death Of Hi Fi are an trio from Oxford comprising Andy Hill, Dan Clear and Lucy Cropper. Performing a rather tasty mix of electronic, dub and hip hop, the band have been picking up quite a following down and, this weekend, they're playing a huge show at the Truck Festival, sharing a bill with the likes of The Charlatans, Public Service Broadcasting and Peter Hook & The Light. I caught up with Andy Hill, a friend of mine and fellow Liverpool FC sufferer to find out a bit more about the band.

APA: So - who are Death Of Hi Fi? 

AH: It started off as idea I had in my bedroom to make weird, challenging electronic music, very much influence by the L.A. Beat scene (Flying Lotus, Mr Dibiase etc) - short experimental tracks with clipped kicks and snare, filters and off beat rhythms. Things changed when I met Dan at Record Store Day and we decided to work together. Dan brought the opposite; long songs with structure and melody which seemed to work quite well. It was a loose project originally based around working with rappers and singers from all over the world, but that meant it was impossible to play the tracks live so we looked for a permanent vocalist. Luckily, we found Lucy who was looking to work on some new material With her on board, our style evolved with more chord progressions and richer, deeper "proper" songs.

APA: Tell us about your sound

AH: It's basically a compound of all our influences. I come from a Hip Hop production background, but grew up loving electronic music such as Kraftwerk, Gary Numan and Jean Michel Jarre (I was young). (APA - nothing wrong with a bit of JMJ now and again). Dan came from a more metal background but also had a love of dance music. Lucy has very wide tastes and I wouldn't know where to begin describing them. This means that elements of all these influences can be felt in our tracks but we always try to make the music sound natural rather than contrived. It's why our next album will take in several genres because we want to make tracks we feel are natural rather than try and focus on one genre too much.

APA: You're already one album plus numerous live shows into your career following 2012's Anthropocene. How does the first incarnation of Death Of Hi Fi compare to the band that will take to the stage at Truck Festival?

AH: It's a totally different animal. We used to hide behind our stage masks as we felt a bit self conscious about playing in front of people whilst standing behind laptops. That was why we used to make weird videos to distract the crowds from the us seemingly doing nothing. With Lucy on board, not only has the sound evolved, but live we are much more engaging. 

Death Of Hi Fi - (L-R) Dan, Andy, Lucy

APA: Looking at the festival, you've ended up on a high profile bill with the likes of The Charlatans and Peter Hook there. How did it all come about?

AH: We've enjoyed strong support form the guys at BBC Introducing for a few years and we got on the shortlist to play a couple of times but never got picked. This year I think the evolution in our sound maybe convinced them that we belong there. I'm proud that we are an electronic act who more than hold our own in the midst of a more indie focussed city in Oxford.

APA: What can we expect from you at the festival?

AH: It depends on whether or not I'm allowed to drink before we go on! Seriously though, we've been putting together a high energy show that will hopefully satisfy the people that already know us and interest some new folk as well. Either that or I strip naked and run amok. (Not happening!)

APA: What are the band's future plans?

AH: We are releasing an e.p. at the end of August/beginning of September so we're finishing that up just now. We're also going to record the bulk of the album over the Summer. It's all written and demoed but needs putting together. It's hopefully going to tell a story; the first album was a wider look at humanity from a neutral point of view whereas this one is a much more personal look at an individual's world.

Thanks very much to Andy for sparing the time between rehearsals and the studio. The band have given me a free track for you all to download. Go to http://deathofhifi.co.uk/ and grab yourselves Serenity which I know you're going to love

Meantime, if you're going to Truck Festival, make sure you catch Death Of Hi Fi and keep an eye out here, on their website and on their Facebook page for news of the upcoming e.p, album and future live shows.

NEW BANDS 2015 NO. 14 - BUNNY & THE INVALID SINGERS

Bunny and The Invalid Singers are a project of Edinburgh based singer/artist Bunny and their new release on Bearsuit Records, The Invalid Singers, is my first taste of Bunny's unique and rather enjoyable music. From what I can hear, there are elements of sixties style pop, electronic music, industrial music and even classical music contained within this album. The album itself may well be bewildering in places on first listen, but repeated plays reveal more and more and, ultimately, you end up with something rather special. There are certain bands who I think this record shows traces of like Pavement or Einsturzende Neubauten whose work has a similar effect on this listener and that's no bad thing at all. 

The opening track from the album Ask The Man Inside Your Head recently featured on Almost Scottish Fiction Vol 4 (here) and was a welcome addition to the e.p. It seems to swerve between around 6 styles over its 4 and a half minutes but don't for a second let that put you off. It's a superb track as you can hear below

Throughout the album there are moments that are so inventive you can't help but love it and tracks like the title track itself (with vocals by Japanese singer Asuka Tanaka), Hallucinating Felt Beasts and The Putty Legs of Dusty McGuire are definitely among the most unique things I have heard in a long, long time. The latter surely has Song Title of The Year 2015 sown up too.

Go and check out The Invalid Singers on the links below and let Bunny into your world. It's an adventure you don't want to miss out on

The Invalid Singers by Bunny & The Invalid Singers is out now on Bearsuit Records and is available on cd and the usual digital outlets

Bearsuit Records http://bearsuitrecords.bandcamp.com/