LISTEN: Story Books - 'White Maid'

New (ish) Story Books track, which will be on their upcoming EP From Post To Post (which, if their Too Much A Hunter EP is anything to go by, will be pretty darn good) which is going to be released on Communion Records on March 17th.

If you like what you hear and you'd like to see the band live then you're in luck because they're touring in March, visiting Oxford, Brighton, Chester, Bristol, London, Birmingham and Manchester: ticket info here.

LISTEN: The Sea & I - 'The Great I Am'

This track from The Sea & I has appeared on Soundcloud recently, it’s from their upcoming EP of the same name, which the band will be releasing at a headline show on 10th March in London at The Lexington (ticket info here.)

WATCH: Half Moon Run 'Unofferable' for Secret Sessions

Really love these guys at the minute (can you tell?).. Half Moon Run performing Unofferable for Secret Sessions.

WATCH: Arctic Monkeys - 'Do I Wanna Know?'

Well this is quite nice - Arctic Monkeys performing a beautiful stripped back version of Do I Wanna Know? at Avatar Studios.

ALBUM NEWS: We Were Evergreen - 'Towards'

Source: https://www.facebook.com/wewereevergreen

The absolutely wonderful french trio We Were Evergreen this week announced that their eagerly awaited debut album (produced by Charlie Andrews who produced Alt-J’s Mercury Prize winning record) will be titled Towards and is going to be released through Mi7/Island on May 5th.

You can pre-order it here and when you do you’ll not only get an instant download of their new single Daughters but also access to an exclusive presale for their album tour in May, where they’ll be starting in Cambridge, and visiting Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Oxford, Birmingham, Cardiff (among others) and finishing up at London’s Scala!

The band are wonderful both recorded and live - I saw them around 2 years ago supporting King Charles, and they were energetic, had a really exciting stage presence and were most importantly sounding excellent - and from what I’ve seen on Youtube, their live shows are getting bigger and better! I massively recommend that you take a look at them on Youtube, pre-order the CD and try to get along to one of the shows!

WATCH: Half Moon Run 'Nerve' for BBC Radio 1

Half Moon Run playing Nerve in session for BBC Radio 1 last year.

WATCH: The Hoosiers perform 'Worried About Ray' for Nobu Unplugged

One of my favourite bands, The Hoosiers, are back after a couple of years of doing the odd gig and trying out new things, and they're releasing their third studio album The News From Nowhere on 3rd March. You can pre-order the album in a sort of Kickstarter-esque manner, with the band using the money from preorders and putting it straight back into the record, towards actually releasing the album (including promotion etc.) For more info on that and the different packages available go here.

But for now.. take a listen to this wonderful live version of Worried About Ray from Nobu Unplugged!

LISTEN: Foster The People - 'Coming Of Age'

Foster The People yesterday announced that their second studio album Supermodel will be released on March 18th. This video accompanies a track from the album, entitled Coming Of Age (which is pretty great and quite what you'd expect from the band if Torches is anything to go by) but also shows a time-lapse of quite an incredible murial of the new album cover.

WATCH: Half Moon Run 'Full Circle' for Mahogany

This Canadian band, Half Moon Run, have such a lovely, fresh sound. Beautiful harmonies displayed perfectly in this live session of their track Full Circle, which was Single Of The Week on iTunes a little while ago. I've been listening to the band's debut album Dark Eyes a lot recently (tip: it's quite good for studying to) and it's definitely one of the best albums that I purchased last year - finding it difficult to choose just one track to recommend as the whole album is pretty great. The Mahogany Sessions is one of my absolute favourite Youtube music channels, they make such great videos and with really wonderful musicians and this is no exception. Really worth a watch.

TOUR NEWS: Story Books (March 2014)

Source: Story Books' mail-out

The magnificent Story Books, who I saw earlier this year supporting King Charles are going on their first headline tour in March. If any of the shows are close to you I very much recommend getting along to one, they're really cheap and this band are excellent live. If that isn't enough for you they'll be playing new material as the tour coincides with the release of their new EP From Post To Post, and the band have uploaded a track from the EP onto their Soundcloud which you can listen to here (it's great, and if you want to listen to more I recommend All Those Arrows from their EP Too Much A Hunter which is one of my favourite musical purchases of the year.)

EP and tour info here.