BR Content Archives - Page 14 of 191 -

June 12, 2019

BPREVIEW: Hannah Brown @ The Sunflower Lounge 12.06.19

Words by Ed King

On Wednesday 12^th June, Hannah Brown performs at The Sunflower Lounge – with support from Bryony Williams and Watermark.

Doors open at 7:30pm, with tickets priced at £6 (plus booking fee) – as presented by Indie Midlands. For more direct gig info, including venue details and links to online ticket sales, click here.

Hannah Brown is somewhat of a stalwart on the Midlands music scene, having cemented her place on the cultural landscape with her debut six track acoustic EP, The Highbury Sessions – recorded at the Kings Heath studios and released in 2015.

Brown’s 2016 follow up EP, Better for This, followed in the footsteps of her first – delivering another six track analysis into the fragility of the human endevouor, with all the raw strength and determination that you need to survive it. Stretching from strings to keys and back again, Better for This is an inspiring record – covering the visceral themes of youth and identity, with well-rounded production from Rob Derbyshire and Ben Stancombe.

Supported by BBC Introducing and a variety of music focused media, Brown started to develop the ‘full band sound’ that came through on Better than This – progressing as a songwriter and performing artist, with singles such as ‘So Should You’ and ‘My Home’ released across 2018.

Then in early 2019, Brown released ‘Further Away’ – a track of faster paced melodic rock, telling the troubles of disaffection with a confident vocal lead and lyrics such as “I’ll work ‘till I am eighty, or die when I’m not ready… I just wanna stay in.” Super stuff, Brown’s latest single is an exciting stamp of authority from an artist that has embraced their own development and shows more promise than most egos can healthily handle.

There is an album floating around too, the composite The World Still Spins – made up of cherry picked tracks from Brown’s back catalogue, alongside previously unreleased recordings of some of her more tried and tested tracks. But the music wolf still bays for blood, and you can’t release something as solid as ‘Further Away’ and not expect the howls of “ALBUM…????” to be too far behind. Have a stop, look, listen below and you’ll see (hear) where we’re coming from.

‘Further Away’ – Hannah Brown

Hannah Brown plays at The Sunflower Lounge on Wednesday 12^th June, with support Bryony Williams and Watermark – as presented by Indie Midlands. For direct gig info and links to online ticket sales, visit www.thesunflowerlounge.com/event/hannah-brown-bryony-watermark

For more on Hannah Brown, visit www.hannah-brown.co.uk
For more on Bryony Williams, visit www.soundcloud.com/bryony-williams
For more on Watermark, visit www.facebook.com/WatermarkUK

For more from Indie Midlands, including further event listings and stories from the region’s indie and alternative music scene, visit www.indiemidlands.com

For more on The Sunflower Lounge, including venue details and further event listings, visit www.thesunflowerlounge.com

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NOT NORMAL NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here.

If you have been affected by any of the issues surrounding sexual violence – or if you want to report an act of sexual aggression, abuse or assault – click here for information via the ‘Help & Support’ page on the NOT NORMAL NOT OK website.

June 7, 2019

ALBUM: What Nature Gives… Nature Takes Away – The Membranes 07.06.19

Words by Abi Whistance

It’s 3am. You’re wired as hell, staring at the ceiling so intently that black shapes seem to appear and disappear, moving from one dark corner of the room to another. You’re feeling uneasy and slightly scared, but you’re not quite sure if you’re scared of the silhouettes or scared of yourself for seeing them in the first place.

That, right there, is what The Membranes new album feels like.

What Nature Gives…Nature Takes Away is uncomfortable and foreboding, riddled with the rants and ramblings of an inner-dialogue gone rogue. A collision course of material leaves you bumper car-ing your way through clashes of noise, new wave and the odd spoken word piece, all seemingly coming together in one (hefty) release. This album is a heavyweight; 16 tracks long and at times feeling like a bit sluggish, you really must go in with the knowledge that you’ll be stuck in this gloomy rabbit hole for a long time. And not because it’s a no-good bore, just because it’s weighty on the soul.

Post-punk with an added dramatic flair, The Membranes really have pulled out all the stops to make your skin crawl and body shiver – the addition of both a choir and orchestra feeling far too sinister to be listened to alone. Even for them this is dark; the album name almost as cynical as every song on it, human fallacy ripped to shreds track by track.

For a large chunk of What Nature Gives…Nature Takes Away, The Fall springs to mind. Not necessarily a perfect comparison as such, more the brain frantically searching for something familiar to make itself feel more comfortable. ‘A Murder of Crows’ is far more precise and gritty than the works of Mark Smith. Perhaps because, unlike Smith, they’re not so bugged out on drugs and booze that they can’t conjure up any emotion other than slurry nonchalance.

The album itself doesn’t come with a warning, but I’m going to have to give one. This is NSFW: not suitable for wallowing. Avoid at all costs when you think life can’t get any worse, because The Membranes will remind you that yes, it can. And it’s probably your fault. Get ready to feel like your drowning deep in this record, and equally get ready to feel like you might drown yourself if it gets any murkier.

But if you are, on the off chance, feeling like you want to tip over the edge, then listening to What Nature Gives…Nature Takes Away is probably the best way to do it. Well composed, well written and well executed, The Membranes have created something that only the most addicted to unhappiness can listen to in one go, and the rest of us, feeble-hearted as we are, will keep trying because it’s just that good.

‘A Strange Perfume’ – The Membranes

What Nature Gives… Nature Takes Away by The Membranes is on general release from Friday 7^th June – out via Cherry Red Records. For more on The Membranes, including links to online sales, visit www.themembranes.co.uk

For more on Cherry Red Records, visit www.cherryred.co.uk

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NOT NORMAL NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here.

May 25, 2019

NOT NORMAL NOT OK: MeMe Detroit, The Butters Aliens, Sofa King – live gig fundraiser @ Hare & Hounds 07.06.19

On Friday 7^th June, the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign hosts it’s first ‘live gig fundraiser’ at the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) – with MeMe Detroit, The Butters Aliens and Sofa King all performing.

Doors open at the Hare & Hounds from 7:30pm, with tickets priced at £5 (early bird) and £7 (second release/otd) – as presented by NOT NORMAL NOT OK. For direct gig info and links to online ticket sales, visit the Facebook Event Page by clicking here. The event is further supported by BBC Introducing West Midlands and Birmingham Review.

Tickets can be bought through See Tickets (click here) and through Skiddle (click here). Physical tickets are also available from the artists themselves, or by contacting the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign team directly (click here).

NOT NORMAL NOT OK was launched in June 2018, set up ‘to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.’

Following an op-ed piece published on Birmingham Review, citing the actions of two Birmingham based promoters – one who sexually assaulted a singer of a band they were promoting and the other who made some frighteningly misogynistic comments about women attending their venue – the NOT NORMAL NOT OK partnered with West Midlands Police and the Rape & Sexual Violence Project (R.S.V.P.) to begin outreach work at live music venues in the West Midlands.

For the past year, NOT NORMAL NOT OK has been distributing campaign stickers at live music events across the region – with both the gig going public and the artists performing donning the black and yellow NOT NORMAL NOT OK logos at the gigs they attend.

Venues across the Midlands have been welcoming the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign into their events, from the Town & Symphony Halls to independent venues such as the Hare & Hounds and The Dark Horse – showing solidarity for the message of zero tolerance when it comes to sexual violence.

Now the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign is launching its own programme of live music events, starting with a ‘live gig fundraiser’ at the Hare & Hounds on Friday 7^th July – with MeMe Detroit, The Butters Aliens and Sofa King all performing on stage. The event is being supported by BBC Introducing West Midlands, one of the first media outlets to get behind the campaign, who secured MeMe Detroit as the headline act.

A second fundraising gig is being held at Centrala on Friday 25^th October, with electro-rockers Flight Brigade coming to Birmingham for the penultimate date on their Chased by Wolves album tour – Flight Brigade‘s new single, ‘Tinderbox’, will be played on BBC Introducing Solent on Saturday 25^th May between 8 and 9pm.

All money raised from the NOT NORMAL NOT OK live gig fundraisers will go directly back into the campaign – supporting continued outreach work with live music venues, alongside bespoke counselling/advocacy training for NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign staff with R.S.V.P.

“NOT NORMAL NOT OK was born out of a reaction to stories of sexual assault, intimidation and violence within our local music scene,” explains NOT NORMAL NOT OK Campaign Director, Ed King. “It began with one person’s story, a singer in a band who had been sexually assaulted by the promoter who was putting their gig on. But as we started to talk to people about sexual violence in the music scene, towards those both on stage and off stage, we were told about a frightening number of cases – from people being sexually assaulted in a crowd, to rape.

It was a horrible realisation and one that I, both personally and professionally, had been naively unaware of. But many people want to see change and with the help of both the music community and our campaign partners – including West Midlands Police and the Rape & Sexual Violence Project – we are now shinning a light on the issue, talking about the ‘elephant in the room’ and exposing a culture of sexual violence that is disturbingly commonplace in the music scene.”

NOT NORMAL NOT OK hosts it’s live gig fundraiser with MeMe Detroit, The Butters Aliens and Sofa King at the Hare & Hounds Friday 7^th June – with tickets priced at £5 (early bird) and £7 (second release/otd). For direct gig info and links to online ticket sales, visit the Facebook Event Page by clicking here.

For more on the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, or to seek help and advice about issues surrounding sexual violence, visit www.notnormalnotok.com

For more on MeMe Detroit, visit www.memedetroit.com
For more on The Butters Aliens, visit www.soundcloud.com/buttersaliens
For more on Sofa King, visit www.sofakingqueen.bandcamp.com

For more on the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath), including venue details and further event listings, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

May 25, 2019

ALBUM: Ten Years on Four Chords – Sam Lambeth

Words by Abi Whistance / Pics by Chris Close

Giving your work away for someone else to meddle with is tough, but it seems that Sam Lambeth has finally plucked up the courage to do so. Immediately feeling far more sophisticated than anything he’s done before, Ten Years on Four Chords has managed to dodge a Thelma and Louise-style ending, letting someone else take the wheel for a large proportion of the album. Bedroom-quality recordings no more; production has worked wonders on tracks like ‘All the Best’ and ‘Start’, making them potential indie anthems of the Summer – albeit slightly generic ones.

I’ll be the first to say it, there’s a lot going on here. The nature of a ‘best of’ album is to lump all the finest you’ve got into one (rarely neat and tidy) package, and that’s pretty much exactly what has happened.

With a combination of songs from the likes of Quinn, Winona, The MonoBloggers and Lambeth himself, Ten Years on Four Chords does unfortunately struggle to avoid feeling a little jumpy at times – the hop from tracks like ‘Time Stands Still’ to ‘All The Lazy Hipsters’ instigating similar aftereffects to that of whiplash. This is but a small critique though (and perhaps an unfair one) for an album that is, at the end of the day, a compilation and thus fulfilling its purpose.

Yet I do think there’s a lot to be said for the range of quality on this record; most notably tracks associated with Lambeth’s days with Quinn, there’s a clear growth of both maturity and musical ability in his material since then. Influences have become clearer, his sound more fine-tuned. And it seems that with his work post-Quinn, Lambeth has finally found what works best for him.

Of course, I understand the necessity of including tracks from the Quinn era on this album, with the band arguably being one of his most notable ventures musically in the titular Ten Years… However, I can’t help but wish that some remastering had gone on here. With Quinn no longer together I’m sympathetic that this may be inconvenient, and maybe I’m being a little too demanding of a compilation album, but the dip in quality is so notable that it feels a shame to have not done anything about it. There are some good indie tracks on this record and the only thing holding it back from being a solid album throughout is the wavering quality.

Nevertheless, this can only be seen as a positive step forward in Lambeth’s career; Ten Years on Four Chords holds some of the man’s greatest musical achievements of the past decade. From The MonoBloggers to Lambeth gone lone-wolf, there’s an immense landscape of material to cover on this album – weighing in at a heavy seventeen tracks and a whole fifty-eight minutes for you to sink your teeth into. Enjoy.

Ten Years on Four Chords (official trailer) – Sam Lambeth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK5BV1nH0yA

For more on Sam Lambeth, visit www.soundcloud.com/samlambethmusic

For direct info for the Ten Years on Four Chords showcase at The Victoria on 12^th July, including venue details and links to online ticket sales, click here.

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NOT NORMAL NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL NOT OK campaign, click here.

May 24, 2019

ALBUM: T8PES – T8PES 24.05.19

Words by Abi Whistance / Lead pic by Matt Wilson Photography

There’s a reason I struggle to get into grime et al, and I know I’m the top dog of sweeping generalisations when I say this but it all just feels a bit shallow. For me there is nothing relatable about gang tiffs, stacks of bills and a burning desire to be a Hugh Hefner-type. And from the mainstream circuit this is pretty much all I’ve picked up on.

I’m no expert in the realms of trap, rap and hardcore either. But I think that’s probably a good thing. So with little emotional investment in the genres, I can objectively say that T8PES is on to a winner for both novices (like me) and your more well-established grimeheads – with this debut album feeling exciting for a sound that I thought was one swift kick away from the bucket.

Walking the tightrope between love and hate treacherously close at times, T8PES has crafted something that perhaps shouldn’t work, but just does. Acid house and grime don’t exactly go hand in hand at first inspection, but the combination leaves me questioning why the hell I hadn’t heard this kind of thing before.

In actuality, I guess I have. But it’s the nostalgia and familiarity of this eponymous album that earns it the title of ‘a good listen.’ Fans of The Avalanches gather round and bring your 12” of the Mondays’ ‘Hallelujah’ whilst you’re at it, T8PES is mixed with enough pre-millennium dance hits to keep you going all night… even without those eccies.

But it’s not just the familiar nineties sound in tracks like ‘How Much Do You Want It’ and ‘Gotta Believe’ that gives this album the wistfulness of a time gone by, it’s the discussion of the trials and tribulations of teen-hood too. A mature reflection on growing up, T8PES has written a record that’ll strike a chord with most – tackling difficult themes of drug use, alcoholism and the effects of bad influences, featured on an album that feels like a coming-of-age tale.

I think it’s important to note that this may be one of the most well-produced debut albums I’ve heard in a long time too. Home cooked electronica and remixing have been polluting the scene for a while, making it a bit too easy to publish rubbish and a hell of a lot harder to find the gems. And I’m not saying that a Soundcloud system lockdown needs to be put in place to stop the sick bucket of low-quality artists from (God forbid) overflowing, it is pretty indisputable that the cornucopia of self publishing platforms have made it more difficult to identify the best of the best.

I can’t really whinge on about that for too long because the cream supposedly always rises to the top, and T8PES has sailed right up onto my radar with this debut album. But what it truly boils down to is a radio-friendly combination of EDM and rap that manages to keep a hold of the substance so many others lose in the process – with stand out production, and some solid variation in sound that leaves something for everyone here.

Not to blow anyone’s trumpet or anything – but I think we’ve just hit the grime jackpot.

‘Hope & Pray’ – T8PES featuring Holly Fitzgerald

T8PES is out on general release from Friday 24^th May. For more on T8PES, including links to online sales, visit www.t8pes.com

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NOT NORMAL – NOT OK is a campaign to encourage safety and respect within live music venues, and to combat the culture of sexual assault and aggression – from dance floor to dressing room.

To learn more about the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here. To sign up and join the NOT NORMAL – NOT OK campaign, click here.