LISTEN: Grace Lightman 'Black Is The Colour' ft. Parallax Orchestra

Following my post about the new Liu Bei track a couple of days ago is this new track from London artist Grace Lightman, a cover of Black Is The Colour featuring Parallax Orchestra (a project involving Will Harvey, previously violinist/keys player for Dry The River). Grace shares management with Liu Bei, as well as creating music with one of the bands members, San Felu (who is the new keys player for Dry The River... confused yet?)

With a successful debut track, Vapour Trails, and her first solo live dates upcoming over the next few weeks I was intrigued to listen to the track. While not perhaps the kind of music I'd typically listen to, I admire the mix of honesty and mystery that the track combines. The strings bring another dimension to the track whilst keeping it stripped back, with Grace's unique vocals taking the forefront, with the vocals and strings combining with piano to create a chilling but beautiful track.

Grace Lightman plays:

August 19th: The Green Door Store, Brighton

September 3rd: The Waiting Room, London

September 12th: Big Next Festival, Ghent, Belgium

TOUR NEWS: Foals (November 2015)

Source: https://twitter.com/foals/

Indie rockers Foals today announced a UK club tour in November to support their upcoming record, What Went Down, which is released later this month. With the band going from strength to strength and following the success of their 2013 record, Holy Fire, these could be some of the last chances to see the band in such small venues - so snap up tickets when they go on pre-sale this Wednesday, and general sale on Friday (ticket link here.) I'll just be sat over here hoping they announce a hometown Oxford show to add to the tour.... 

LISTEN: Liu Bei - 'Mind Over Matter'

Though during last semester I had planned to see this band, Liu Bei, live (and remembered that the gig was happening, just after it had happened), I've actually never taken a proper listen to their music - so with this new track released today, now feels like a good time to do so! I'm loving the track, Mind Over Matter, which premiered on Killing Moon and is to be released on 25th September as a double A side single, and after a short tour of their Soundcloud, I'm liking what I hear.

Trying to find information about the band online when their bio simply tells me that they're a band from London isn't an easy task but I'm pretty sure they're predominantly a duo but the musical outfit features other artists for live shows, and has strong links to folk rockers Dry The River who they've played shows with in the past (and share a member!) 

Keep an eye out for the other half of the AA single, and if you're interested in seeing the band live they have upcoming shows at the beginning of October at London's Hoxton HQ and Oxford's The Bullingdon (ticket links under the tour section of their site.)

GIG NEWS: Frances (7th October 2015)

The wonderful Communion backed artist (are any of the artists that Communion work with anything but wonderful?!) Frances just announced a third date at Servant Jazz Quarters on 7th October after the first dates sold out - a great achievement for her first headline shows! I saw her play a set at the Communion New Faces Oxford show earlier this year and caught some of her set at Bushstock, from the back of a packed out St Stephen's Church. Both sets were mesmerising and I anticipated things would start to get pretty exciting for her - and with these upcoming sold out shows and the brilliant response to her recent Grow EP, I think I could've been right!

www.facebook.com/officialfrances

Featuring the beautiful title track Grow, which is getting TV play on a recent Amazon advert, Frances' first EP is out now on iTunes as well as on 7" vinyl here.

WATCH: Balloon Ascents 'Cutout' for Under The Apple Tree

Living in Oxford for university, I was gutted that I wouldn't be there over summer to go to Truck Festival, which always has a great line-up. Highlights this year included Public Service Broadcasting, Lucy Rose and Rae Morris, as well as local band Balloon Ascents who I saw play a couple of times over my first year at uni. For a bunch of young guys they've got their heads on their shoulders and are playing some really cool music and building up a local fanbase, as well as playing shows further afield - particularly at some Sofar Sounds concerts in other countries. Here is a session of the band performing their track Cut Out, which I posted the official video for back in May - the session was for Radio 2's Bob Harris and filmed at the festival. Having seen them play an acoustic in store at Truck Store I can recommend a listen to this session, as the band gel together wonderfully in this stripped back environment.

ALBUM NEWS: Half Moon Run - 'Sun Leads Me On'

Canadian indie rock band Half Moon Run recently announced a run of European and UK tour dates, and have just announced that their second studio album Sun Leads Me On, the follow up to their beautiful 2012 debut Dark Eyes is due to be released on October 23rd. 

Source: facebook.com/halfmoonrun

Here's Trust, the first track to be taken from the record - a slight veer into electronic music but retaining the charm of the first record and the familiar and unique vocals of lead Devon Portielje, and a great sign of whats to come from the record, which you can pre-order on the band's site here. There's a live video of the track from a recent show here too. 

WATCH: The Staves 'Blood I Bled' for The Mahogany Sessions

This band of 'acoustic folk-rock' performing sisters, The Staves, were one of my favourite discoveries of this year's Bushstock Festival, where they rounded off an afternoon of secret sets by Alex Vargas and Nick Mulvey in a Shepherd's Bush wine bar. I was really impressed by their beautiful harmonies and the quiet, honest nature of their music. Of their latest record, If I Was, which I soon got my hands on, this track is one of my favourites. The record was produced by Justin Vernon who made a guest appearance at the band's Glastonbury set (following guesting at Kanye's set the night before!), which I streamed at home and loved seeing that they could perform so well to a large crowd too after seeing them perform in such an intimate setting. With a support slot on the upcoming Florence & The Machine UK tour and countless festival appearances over summer the girls are certainly bringing folk to the masses!

WATCH: Everything Everything - 'Spring/Sun/Winter/Dread'

Following suit with their other fairly bizarre videos is the new Everything Everything video for their track Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread, a track taken from their recently released (and brilliant) third studio album, Get To Heaven. The track, with the band's typically unusual lyrical style went down really well when I saw the band back in April (video) and is one of my personal highlights of the record.

LIVE: Fred Abbott at The Borderline and The Sea & I at 100 Club (31/7/15)

Fred Abbott at The Borderline.

On Friday I went to London again to see Noah & The Whale guitarist and keyboard player Fred Abbott play his album launch show at The Borderline. During the day I realised that one of my favourite new bands, The Sea & I, were playing a support set at another venue a short walk away. A couple of tweets later and Irwin had put me onto the list for the sold out show as I was sure I could fit both sets in.

Though a bit of a rush between the two venues I'm really glad I caught both sets and seeing The Sea & I last minute was a great surprise. They put in as great an effort in this support set as in their residency headline shows at The Islington that I attended in June. A talented bunch of individuals, they blend together to make a really big, beautiful and unique sound. At recent shows they've been playing some new tracks (those not on their two EPs, one self titled and The Great I Am), and I'm particularly enjoying this track, Harpies. 

After their set I dashed around the corner and got to The Borderline with time to spare before Fred's set. True to the album it was the launch show for, the set was pure rock and roll music at its best, rammed full of guitar solos. I was intrigued to see how Fred would take to the role of frontman, and he seemed incredibly comfortable in front of the packed out hometown crowd. Fred jokingly  said that he doesn't "condone the schoolboy humour" of his backing band's chosen name, The Windbreakers, but their performance was anything but a joke - each helping to bring the album tracks to life to a great (and loud!) degree. Considering it was their first show together under this moniker, and in the absence of Fred's Noah bandmates who played on the record, the band played a really fun set which left the crowd wanting more.

I recorded this video of one of my favourite tracks from the record, Awake, and also took some photos at the show, which I have uploaded to my Flickr here.

You can get Fred's record Serious Poke in most music shops and online now - read my review of the record here.

WATCH: We Were Evergreen 'Be Like You' for Sofar Sounds

Surprisingly it is over a year since French trio We Were Evergreen released their debut record, Towards with its singles False Start and Daughters. Loving this video released a couple of days ago of a Sofar Sounds session in London, with the band playing a track which they recently shared on social media, a reworking of the The Jungle Book track I Want To Be Like You, which works incredibly well. As Michael says in the video, and particularly compared with when I first started listening to the band back in 2011 or 2012, they have now departed from their stripped back, acoustic and folk-y sound, with the album having more of an electronic, indie pop style. As such, its nice to see a new stripped back video of the band, whose vocals and harmonies can stand by themselves and sound wonderful without the need for overpowering music.