LISTEN: March 2016 playlist - my month in music!

At the end of February, I posted a Spotify playlist which encapsulated my month in music, and thought that, if the response was good, I could try to keep it up as a monthly feature on the blog. The response was in fact pretty staggering, so I've made a playlist for March which you can listen to below. With particular highlights including Jack Savoretti, Neverlnd and Biffy Clyro, the playlist is a mix of artists I've seen live during the month, and those who I've been listening to and writing about. If you find something new that you enjoy - feel free to comment below!

Brief explanation as to why I've chosen each artist/track: 

1. Neverlnd Where Do I Start - this month came the news that the newly re-named Oxford band (previously Balloon Ascents) are heading in a new direction and planning to release a free track monthly, stepping away from the album format. This is the first of those free tracks and I can't wait to hear it at their Oxford gig in April!
2. Benedict Benjamin Thin Skin - Ben played the Sofar Sounds Oxford show I went to at the start of the month, where I bought the first physical copy of his debut album Night Songs which has just been released, and I love this track from it!
3. Biffy Clyro Wolves Of Winter - this one needs little explaining - Biffy are back and they're releasing an album in July. A completely triumphant return and a sprinkle of rock onto the playlist!
4. Jack Savoretti Catapult - the highlight of my live music experiences over the month was probably Jack's London Cadogan Hall show generally, and particularly his performance of this track with a string trio, with whom he performed the track on The Graham Norton Show at the beginning of the year.
5. Martin Harley & Daniel Kimbro Money Don't Matter - following the end of my placement with the lovely guys at Tigmus, I've kept in touch and I ran the door for a show with these guys headlining in Oxford in the middle of the month. It was a lovely Sunday evening blues show as part of a tour promoting a recent live album that they recorded together, and this track was a stand out for me on the evening! 
6. Black Honey Corrine - I went along to see Black Honey at The Bullingdon without having listened to them beforehand. Watching from a distance to avoid the moshing at the front of the crowd, I enjoyed the set - if you're Oxford based and off to Truck Festival over Summer, I'd recommend checking them out as they've just been announced in the second wave of acts!
7. King Charles Lady Of The River - would it be a playlist of mine without King Charles? This is one of my favourite tracks of Charles' second record and a music video for the track was released this month.
8. Lucy Rose Nebraska - likewise, this beautiful track from Lucy Rose had a video released this month, with Danny Dyer in drag. Beat that, Charles...
9. Roo Panes Stay With Me - I've known of Roo for a while after seeing a couple of videos he recorded with Burberry Acoustic a few years ago. This is the opening track from his new record Paperweights which was released earlier this month. I slightly regret not going to his show in the same venue that I saw Jack Savoretti at last week, because I was being sensible and staying in to write an essay!
10. Bel Esprit Island - these guys are releasing their single Leave Me Here on 8th April and they are currently on a mini Easter tour to promote the track, playing Southampton tomorrow (1st) and London on Saturday (2nd). I loved this track when I caught their Oxford show at the end of February. 
11. Little Brother Eli Dreams - one of my favourite discoveries through Sofar Sounds Oxford, where I saw them back in November. They announced this month that their debut album, Cold Tales, is being released in June, and it will feature this track...
12. Jack Savoretti Breaking The Rules - when I saw Jack play in London, his performance of this track made me cry - happy tears, considering how well he is doing at the moment!
13. Laish Song For Everything - another Sofar Sounds Oxford artist, Laish (aka Daniel Green) is releasing a record, funded through a crowdfunding campaign which just finished. This is the title track of the EP being offered to pledgers, a video for which was released during the campaign.
14. Roberto y Juan Monster Love - these guys featured a couple of times in the February playlist, but as I saw them twice in March, I couldn't leave them out this time around! This is the title track of their second EP, which I described back in Feb as "some of the best new music I've heard so far this year."
15. Bloom Twins Blue - another of the acts from the Sofar Sounds Oxford show I attended this month, these twins are based in London but originally from Ukraine, and are currently on tour with Duran Duran, so our intimate Sofar show was probably quite a change for them! 
16. Martin Harley & Daniel Kimbro Nobody's Fault But Mine - when watching the set a couple of weeks ago, this track stayed with me (probably because the lyrics focus upon reading - and I'm doing a joint English Literature degree!)
17. Benedict Benjamin Coward - having listened to the new record quite a few times, I struggled to choose two tracks to include in the playlist as I'm really enjoying it as a full record. If you like what you're hearing... I definitely recommend checking the whole thing out!
18. Stornoway The Only Way Is Up (acoustic) - this beautiful cover seems like a great way to wrap up the playlist, taken from the Bonxie Unplucked EP. Stornoway announced this month that they are playing a show at the RSC theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon in July, which guarantees to be a special evening in wonderful surroundings! 

LISTEN: Bel Esprit - 'Leave Me Here'

Premiering on Soundcloud, take a listen to Leave Me Here the new single from Bel Esprit, below. I've known about the band almost since I started university, as they played at Oxjam Oxford in 2014 when I was volunteering on the door, but it wasn't until the end of February this year when they played a show at The Bullingdon in Oxford that I took the time to listen to them properly, and I'm really enjoying what I'm hearing. 

I initially went along to the Oxford show to catch Homeplanetearth who were supporting, but was impressed by the set from Bel Esprit, you can read my post about the evening here. If you like the track then you're in luck as they're playing a mini Easter tour to promote the single, starting tonight (23rd March) in Reading at Purple Turtle, a hometown Southampton show at Joiners on 1st April, London on 2nd April at The Good Ship and Bournemouth's 60 Million Postcards on 7th April. 

Photo by me from their recent headline Oxford gig at The Bullingdon.

Leave Me Here will be released on iTunes, Spotify (and all that jazz...) on 8th April.

LIVE: Bel Esprit at The Bullingdon (28/2/16)

Enjoyed another gig at Oxford's The Bullingdon last night - but firstly, I want to extend a massive thanks to anyone reading this (particularly if you read my posts regularly, the idea of which is pretty insane), I just reached 200 likes on the Facebook page for the blog (find it here) which you can like to stay up to date when I write a post. Last night was my 15th gig of the year, with Southampton lads Bel Esprit playing a headline gig with support from Elixir, homeplanetearth and Haze.

First up were Haze, who might need some pointers in choosing a setlist to fit 30 minutes as half way through, they noted that they'd played most of their set. They had quite a nice vibe to open the show with, and, noting down some thoughts on my phone during the set to feel like a proper music-journo, I look back now to find little more than 'dancy', which, while it isn't really a word and doesn't help me in writing about their set - does provide a nice summary of their music and the audience's response. Adding in a track to fill up the extra time, which I'm sure was called Bent, I felt a real Arctic Monkeys sound coming through - you can listen to some of their tunes here on Soundcloud, and catch them supporting ALXNDR at the O2 in Oxford on 16th April with the second support from last night, homeplanetearth.

Haze

Having been introduced to homeplanetearth through my placement at Tigmus, who they've played shows for, I was really keen to see them play live. I'd only heard the track Phat Phil (which I love and wrote about here) so I didn't really know what to expect from the set but any expectations I did have were totally surpassed, with Josephine singing some stunning lead vocals (usually takes a lot for female artists to impress me so that's probably quite a compliment!) Following on the trend Haze had set with slowing down time, they also found some extra time in their set for Josephine's brother Thomas to surprise the rest of the band with a track they hadn't planned to play. The track was a chance to hear Thomas's vocals more clearly as it opened with just his guitar and vocals, before the rest of the band joined later, and featured some beautiful harmonies with Josephine (his sister). The show's crowd were mostly friends of the four bands, and there was definitely a lot of love for homeplanetearth during their set! 

homeplanetearth

homeplanetearth

The third support set came from Elixir, who kicked off their set as they meant to go on - loudly. It was interspersed with some nice guitar solos and while the style wasn't really for me, I can't knock the confidence that was oozing off stage! 

 

Last up, and headlining the show, were Bel Esprit. I'd seen them before at one of the first shows I went to after starting university, when I was on the door for a venue at Oxjam Festival in Oxford at the end of 2014. Since then I've been to over 80 shows so couldn't really remember what the band's sound were like (and didn't get a chance to listen to them before the show) but I really enjoyed their set! Their performance was pretty tight and the crowd were loving it, singing back the choruses to tracks such as Island, Detox and Nowhere (available to listen to through Spotify on the Lose My Mind EP.) Compared to the shows I attended at the same venue last week, the crowd was pretty small, but this didn't phase the band who performed, in my opinion, just as they might to a sold out crowd - and the audience were loving every minute, dancing in the way I usually dance in my room but couldn't bring myself to do in public. They definitely brought some fun to Oxford on a school night - a great night of music!

Bel Esprit

Bel Esprit

If you like the shots I've embedded within the post, there's some more from the evening on my Flickr here.