Following the release of his debut album The Land, The Sea & Everything Lost Beneath last year, Adam Barnes has just announced a new EP, One Day We'll Be Fine, which is set to be released on 27th September. The EP is supported by a headline tour of small, intimate venues across the UK, starting off with a hometown show in Oxford. Support comes from Los Angeles artist Chris Ayer, and I would really recommend getting along to a show if you can - having seen Adam at a small house concert earlier this year, I can confidently say he's brilliant performing in that sort of setting!
On Thursday evening I saw The Sea & I live at The Islington in London... after spending the day in London with a friend from home being complete tourists and walking around far too much. Arriving at the venue fashionably early it was nice to hear a snippet of the bands sound-checking, and to grab a quick chat with Irwin and Paul from the band, before waiting around for doors to open.
The first support was a guy going by the name Privacy, who played a cracking set that reminded me of Fryars. Standing on stage with his keyboard and prone-to-rebooting-halfway-through-a-song MacBook, his stage banter made the set a great open to the evening. This glitchy, slow-paced set was followed by the loud rock tunes of Harry Mundy & The Mules, who oozed energy throughout their set.
As expected, the headliners, The Sea & I, were superb. Having seen them previously at the same venue backed up by London Contemporary Voices and London Chamber Brass, you might expect the sound to feel small in comparison; the truth is anything but. It's honestly such an honour to see them playing live, being one of my favourite bands at the minute, making some of the best (in my opinion) music around currently. Their two EPs (find them on iTunes/soundcloud or buy them both on a CD through the band's store here) contain some of my favourite tracks, and retain their charm and brilliance when performed live. It's particularly nice to see that Stephanie O'Brien is performing violin with the band, as the strings on the EPs are certainly a highlight for me.
I took some photos at the show, but my camera struggled to cope with the low/red lighting of the venue, so they all turned out quite blurry, but I've salvaged a few and put them on my Flickr here.
I also recorded the band performing the title track from their latest EP, The Great I Am, which they recently released an official video for. Aside from train delays after a frantic rush to the station after the gig, it was all in all a superb evening and I highly recommend getting along to the band's next gig at The Islington on 25th June (tickets here.)
Exciting news klaxon.... Oxfordshire guitar band Foals have a new album, entitled What Went Down coming out towards the end of summer. The title track of the record will debut on Radio 1 next week, so for now we're left with this teaser clip. As the follow up to their hugely successful third album Holy Fire, expectations are pretty high for this record, but I'm fairly confident these will be realised, with the record being said to 'touch upon the depths of madness whilst also exhibiting some of the most beautiful pop songs the band have ever written' (Transgressive.)
Source: https://www.facebook.com/Foals
The record is released through Transgressive on August 28th and is available to pre-order from 16th June. The track listing is as follows:
What Went Down
Mountain At My Gates
Birch Tree
Give It All
Albatross
Snake Oil
Night Swimmers
London Thunder
Lonely Hunter
A Knife In The Ocean
Premiered yesterday by Gigwise, here is the latest offering from the debut solo record, Serious Poke, of Fred Abbott (of Noah & The Whale). Alongside the first track to be shared from the record, Funny How Good It Feels, it gives a good indicator of the feel of the record, being a fun, punchy track which, whilst not straying too far from Noah's sound (which is natural as a few of Fred's Noah bandmates feature on the record) is perhaps more experimental and rock-y, showcasing the lack of creative pressures typical of an independent label release.
Adrenaline Shot will be available on iTunes this Monday, 15th June, with Fred's debut solo record, Serious Poke, being released through Lojinx on 20th July.
I'm looking forward to seeing The Sea & I live tomorrow at The Islington, where they'll be joined by Harry Mundy & The Mules and Privacy. They've currently got a residency at the venue, with another gig upcoming on the 25th of June, which is sure to feature more brilliant guests. The band is a constantly changing ensemble of talented artists headed up by Paul Frith and Irwin Sparkes (vocalist and guitarist of The Hoosiers), to whom collaboration is high on the agenda, with a couple of their gigs featuring collaborations with London Contemporary Voices, for example. They're honestly one of the best bands I've seen perform live, playing what you might describe as alternative folk, but bringing, through employment of choirs, brass and string sections, a big sound to this genre. At these shows they'll be performing tracks from their self-titled debut EP as well as their latest offering, The Great I Am, alongside new tracks (which I've heard live already and are sounding superb!) Below is a live video of the band performing the track Mutineer, taken from their debut EP, which you can listen to on Soundcloud here.
At just 22 years old, Oxford musician Adam Barnes can often be found playing various shows and house gigs around Europe and the UK, and he last year released his debut record, The Land, The Sea & Everything Lost Beneath, yet surprisingly (to me) he's still not a full time musician. Here's a recent session of a track from that record, Green, recorded in the Netherlands for Rockstone Sessions. I love the honesty and clarity that comes across in Adam's performances, both in sessions such as this and in live performances, having recently seen him at a house gig in Oxford.
Matt Owens (aka Urby Whale) of Noah & The Whale has just announced that his London show at The Hoxton Bar and Kitchen on 18th June is going to be a launch show for his solo record, Songs For An Empty Room. The record is superb (read my review of it here) and with a group of talented musicians playing as his band The Delusional Vanity Project, his live shows are pretty great too. The show on the 18th June comes with support from Tom Figgins and My Grey Horse, and tickets are here.
A video from the latest Sofar Sounds Oxford show that I attended, of the final act of the evening, The Slow Show, has recently been uploaded onto the Sofar YouTube channel. Following a night of spoken word, ukulele, double bass, beatboxing and free-styling, from three solo acts in the form of Rex Domino, Bellatrix, and Dizraeli, the band topped off the show wonderfully, giving a reserved but emotive performance, beautifully accompanied by a brass section. Their performance was beautiful in its simplicity, really showcasing what I love about Sofar, giving artists an opportunity to play a set to a silent, attentive audience of music lovers in unusual and quirky locations.
You can check out more sessions from various Sofar Sounds gigs around the world here, and sign up to receive monthly gig dates here.
One member down, the band put on a great performance regardless, with the keys player Sam Swallow playing the bass parts through his keyboard. Naturally the dynamic of the band felt lacking to an extent as Irwin Sparkes (lead vocals and guitar) and Martin Skarendahl (bass) often play and bounce off one another, but the performance certainly wasn't lacking in energy, with Irwin getting into the crowd for the end of track Made To Measure (video.) Being just over a year since I'd last saw the band, when they were touring their latest, self-released record, The News From Nowhere, it was interesting to see how some of the newer tracks had developed live. Sadly though, the set was incredibly short and thus mostly featured the hit tracks from the band's first record. Nevertheless it was a great night and it was fantastic to chat to the band afterwards, and with a new album supposedly in the pipeline for later in the year, hopefully it won't be too long before I get to see the band again - and to post about new music on here!
As I'm getting into photography again and trying to gain experience taking photos at gigs, I snapped up the opportunity to take my camera along to the gig and shoot my favourite band, a couple of the shots, including one of the support band, The Sons, are below, with some more on my Flickr account here.
Take a listen to the latest single from Tenterhook, entitled What I Like. Along with Frances, who I recently posted about, he played the April Communion Music 'New Faces' tour, and I really enjoyed his stripped back acoustic solo set. His performance, though simple, struck me as authentic and I enjoyed the tracks - which I hadn't had time to check out before the show. I actually find it quite interesting going to a gig having no idea what to expect from an artist or their music, giving them the chance to impress me with their live performance. Loving this track which is released on Cartoon Records on the 8th June.
You can catch Tenterhook live at The Lexington on 24th June, tickets here.
