05.11.14
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Claudia Kane – Hungry

I had a fantastic roast dinner today – and this was after three croissants for breakfast. Suffice to say, I’m not particularly hungry. 

And, even though that’s the title of this track from London based, Claudia Kane, I very much doubt that she’s singing about a lack of food either.  

Instead, what we have here is a tune in which Ms.Kane is hungry for revenge. I sense that somebody’s hurt her and played with her feelings once too often and now she’s going to make that somebody pay. 

Over the top of a smoky lush, lounge based orchestration, CK evokes memories of 1960’s scandals that we’re all too young to remember. It’s surely pure accident that the initials are shared. 

‘I will haunt you in the night’, sings Claudia. Her Del-Ray voice, seductive and sexy draws you in to her schemes for getting even. ‘You’ll be happy, I’ll be rich‘, she adds and you realise that the food she wants is financial.

I love the decadent beauty that’s bubble and squeaking under the surface on this platter. I hope you do to…

 

 

And just in case you’re feeling starved and want an extra portion of Claudia Kane (I sense you might) here’s a video to a track, Residents Of Darkness. There’s much that delights. 

 

05.10.14
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Horse Party – Shut The Fuck Up!

Yesterday morning, a fanzine that I’d requested dropped through my doorbox. I love a good fanzine and mourn the fact that in this internet laden age where bloggers can bare their souls every minute about things they don’t REALLY like, the art of the fanzine is dying a slow death.

I’m also aware, as a blogger, of the inherent contradiction in that sadness. 

Shut The Fuck Up! Is a fanzine that’s produced out of an angry, young and growing Bury St. Edmunds scene. The fine band, Horse Party, are the main protagonists behind it and you’ll be able to get your own free copy of the fanzine through the charming Seymour at the band’s website. Anybody wearing a Shonen Knife T-shirt in publicity shots has to be charming right? 

I won’t spoil the surprise of what’s contained within. Suffice to say, it’s an angry, humorous, Riot Grrrr! inspired attack on the sexism, racism and homophobia that exists across the media. It’s a manifesto for how Horse Party are going to do things differently. 

“You don’t have to ‘like’ everything; you don’t have to ‘follow’ everyone. And do you really want EVERYONE to ‘like’ and ‘follow’ you? In the scrabble for internet popularity, dignity has become an increasingly rare commodity.” – they say and I say in reply that such wisdom should be taught at blogging schools and social media colleges across the world. 

Horse Party’s  debut album, ‘Cover Your Eyes’, is out on Monday, although I think you’ve been able to get a digital format for a little longer than that. It’s described as ‘a harmony of raw, lo-fi expression and liberating rock-your-cares-away hooks.’ There’s certainly enough going on in the tracks I’ve heard from the album to suggest that Suffolk is spawning something special here. I like it but you don’t have to.

 

 

05.08.14
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SG Lewis ft Josh Barry – Silence

What’s this? The second Sonic Breakfast post in less than 24 hours? Breaking rules again about not posting more than once a day? Quiet days between posts when you were getting fried and fired in Liverpool at Sound City and now a gluttony of posts to break the silence? 

Errrr.. Yes… Kind of…

 

 

SG Lewis is a bedroom producer, originally from Reading but now living in Liverpool. I guess that’s where he met Josh Barry who features on this exquisite track that’s generating a fairly noisy response on Soundcloud.

For me, this is about the ‘silence’ that occurs post-relationship argument. Both of you know that, given time, it’ll probably be ok but it’s late at night and all you want to do is sleep. But, you can’t sleep because your mind is playing tricks. And so, over a chilled out bass thud, you replay the crap that’s just occurred. 

The perils of being in a relationship that’s not working… The advantages of sleeping alone…. The joys of making up….

 

 

05.08.14
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James – Moving On

Sometimes, you see something and it just has to be posted – even if that something doesn’t necessarily fit in with the ‘style’ of your blog…

Sonic Breakfast is largely about new, under the radar, acts. James have a pedigree, a history and a fan base. But rules are made to be broken. 

 

I recall those days when we used to ‘sit down’ in the student disco. We’d ‘come home’ and play James records. ‘Sometimes’ we’d sing choruses of songs in the streets, drunk, playful and waiting for our ‘proper’ adult lives to begin. 

Years have passed. Yet still we sing those choruses waiting for our old age to begin.

 

 

The new James single is called ‘Moving On’. According to Tim Booth, this lead single from their new album is inspired by the death of two people in his life; his Mum and a friend of his, Gabrielle. And whilst that’s a sad thing to deal with, Booth also sees death as a birth of sorts. He conveyed this to BAFTA winning animator, Ainslie Henderson.

Henderson notes, “It is 2014, I’m on the phone to Tim and he is describing how they came to write this song, and what the words mean to him. The story he tells me is deeply moving; one thing that stayed with me is his describing death as a birth. Some days later this conversation echoes around my mind while I’m listening to ‘moving on’ I walk past a typical Scottish woollen knitwear shop. My eyes flit over a ball of wool in the window while the word ‘unwinding’ is sung. Pretty quickly I’m leaving a garbled, over excited message on Tim’s phone about the music video I have in my head.”

 
 The new James video is a work of art. It might well move you to tears. It’s a beautifully animated piece of film. It demands to be seen.
 
  

 

05.07.14
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Liverpool Sound City – Raleigh Ritchie

I continue to write up my review of Liverpool Sound City for eFestivals. I’ve made a great dent into the review this evening whilst watching the first semi final of the Eurovision. I am gutted that the Latvian entry about baking cakes didn’t proceed. 

There were 26 venues at Sound City and I tried to get to most of them over the few days of the festival.. I’m trying hard for my review not to simply be a long and drawn out list of the things I did…

And then I went here…

And then I went here….

 

I interviewed Raleigh Ritchie this weekend and a full transcript of that will appear in good time on eFestivals. But, I’m happy to say that he was a charming man. He openly admits that he’s something of a contradiction; that his album might well be difficult to pin down because it will cross styles. He’s a perfectionist spending hours getting a bass to sound exactly as he wants. I’m left wondering if his album will ever come out. 

We talked about Wireless as he’s been announced to perform alongside Kanye and the like – but he also said that there’s more festivals coming that he can’t announce as yet. My money’s on Glastonbury as one of them. Surprisingly, Raleigh/Jacob also revealed that his first ever mosh pit experience was at a Kasabian gig. 

He thinks – and I’m inclined to agree – that he’s only compared to the Trip Hop sound of Massive Attack, Tricky and all because of his Bristolian roots.

We touched on the distinction between acting and music. Raleigh’s focus for the foreseeable is on music though he wouldn’t be averse to another Game Of Thrones series if offered. I deduce from that that he doesn’t lose his head in series 3. I steered away from questions about genitals and lack of them (in Game of Thrones)… 

I wanted to post the tune ‘Bloodsport’ in full from Soundcloud but it’s been removed and replaced with a clip. Oh well, never mind – here’s clips from all of the tracks on Raleigh’s Black and Blue EP.

 

05.05.14
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Recycle Culture – Vacation Forever

 

I have returned from Liverpool. It’s been a frenzy of a few days and when my head is less fried I’ll write all about it for eFestivals. 

 

There were definite highlights. Jungle’s performance in the pop-up venue, The Factory, will probably be talked about for years; having a chat with Raleigh Ritchie and getting some inside ‘gossip’ on Game Of Thrones, a programme I’ve never seen, left me excited for his future in music; and seeing the ball of energy that was Lizzo, jump onto the downstairs stage at the Shipping Forecast and enthrall all with her energetic, crazed rap wordplay will dazzle for days. 

But today, Sonic Breakfast isn’t featuring something that played a part in this weekend – or if they did, it was hidden away. 

Recycle Culture has been a prolific producer over the past year and a half. A quick scan of his/her Bandcamp page shows that there’s a dozen EP’s and albums added in eighteen months. Bloggers have featured tracks but still there’s a mystery about who is doing the producing. 

 

“Collector, collapser, composter, connector & constructor of complexed cultural components; classic, contemporary & contingent”, says the Bandcamp page and with that alliteration of ‘C’s’, we can’t help but wonder if his name is Colin.

 The four track EP, Vacation Forever, is perfect Bank Holiday Monday music. The sun is out, the summer’s going to last until September and we want to sit back in our deck chairs with a glass of red, trying hard to forget that for many of us it’s back to work tomorrow. Allow this track to work its blissed out beauty in your head and the temporary illusion of a permanent holiday might just kick in……

 

05.02.14
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Liverpool Sound City – Breakfast Monkey

So, I’ve arrived in Liverpool. It’s much how I remember it.

Yesterday was a fine day. I had free beer and free Falafel. I wandered into venues I’d not been into last year. There is still much to see.

Whilst having a free beer (paid for with a piece of jigsaw) I got talking to the most wide-eyed and charming band ever. Breakfast Monkey brought seven promotional CD’s to a networking event. Here’s a band with no press pack and no staged pics. Breakfast Monkey were asked to pitch their band in  30 seconds by senior promoters and festival organisers – and beautifully, they struggled to do so.

Instead, they waffled. And they enthused. They didn’t have a clue about the ‘people’ they might meet at Liverpool Sound City. That’s not to say they didn’t care. They were attentively taking on board advice from everybody who cared to offer it. They are all based in Liverpool at University.

Breakfast Monkey are playing Sound City at half past nine on Saturday in Sound Food and Drink. Clubs from Leicester play the same venue earlier in the day. The story they tell about how they were chosen to play is as charming as the band. They played a gig at which somebody from Sound City was present. That person came up to them at the end of the gig and said they wanted them to play the festival. Breakfast Monkey heard nothing for months until an E-Mail arrived in their inbox confirming the Sound Food And Drink gig. Simples..

Those people from Sound City are no fools. They know a good live act when they see one so I’d suggest that Breakfast Monkey’s understated confidence is misplaced.

Amongst acts who are desperately attempting to get profile through elaborate social media stunts, this morning I give you the simple, uncomplicated approach. This is rock rap. This is a Breakfast Monkey. 

 

 

 

04.30.14
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Liverpool Sound City – Clubs

I’m running out of days to preview the great acts that are going to be playing Liverpool Sound City this year (the brilliant Kagoule are getting Radio One airplay this week so their stock is rising) – but it’d be wrong to get on my train tomorrow from Leicester having not mentioned THE Leicester based band that are on the bill.

I have to make a terrible confession. Although Clubs have been making considerable noise around these parts, I’ve yet to catch one of their live shows. Friends who have touched upon their considerable power tell me that I’m a fool for doing so.

Subscribing to the google game of awkward searches discussed when I profiled Movie, I’m aware of previous incarnations of Clubs. I understand the sound is different now with an increased pop sensibility replacing the more angular guitars of Panda Youth but even a casual gig goer could have seen that in lead singer, CJ Pandit, here’s a band that would turn heads.

They seem to delight in projecting a mysterious presence. Other acts listed to play this weekend provide complicated press releases detailing what their Grandparents like for breakfast (mostly porridge) whereas Clubs simply say ‘Progressive: Patience Is A Virtue.’ And their Soundcloud account isn’t cluttered with remixes or tracks released 5 years ago that give no indication of what we’re about to see. Instead, we just get this one track, Bleed. ‘Heavy pop’, they describe it as and they’re not wrong. It’s a fine tune with which to beckon in these longer daylight hours. It pop peppered with pollen. Full of muggy, fuzzy warmth, it could provide us with this Summer’s soundtrack… And there’s more to come.

 

 

Clubs play ‘Sound Food And Drink’ at half past 6 on Saturday evening. If this is your first opportunity to see them, take it. 

04.28.14
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Liverpool Sound City – The May Birds

This year has flown. It doesn’t feel like it’s been twelve months since I was last in Liverpool praising the vibrancy and charm of the people and the place. I threatened to move there then though I did have a lot to drink. 

Thursday is the 1st of May. Increasingly, spring will give way to summer and we’ll immerse ourselves fully into festival season. How appropriate that on the first day of the month, in the city of the Liver Bird, we’ll be able to watch The May Birds.

An all girl quartet specialising in lush, tender and beautiful folk, it might be hard for some to get beyond the fact that these are probably posh birds of privilege. I don’t know this for a fact but I’d be most surprised if Alice, Eleanore, Camilla and Charlotte struggled to afford their music lessons when they went to school. 

I’d best stop such generalisations though before I make them angry (birds). And actually, I’d rather take the classy sway of The May Birds over the calculated ‘working class’ swagger of the likes of Jake Bugg. 

It’s hard not to smile at the twee friendship that’s on offer during ‘Leah’s Song’. This is a long distance love song, a tune about getting older and wiser. There’s a calm confidence about the way it builds. Beautiful harmonies sing out over acoustic strums before the sound is layered with antique keys, marching drums, burgeoning banjo and commanding cello. It’s a song that makes you want to hug a passer by or to cuddle your enemies. 

It’s feelgood music and just what your Doctor ordered to transition towards warmer, longer days.

 

 The May Birds are playing at the Moon Museum on Thursday night at 20.15. The Moon Museum is a new Sound City venue but it’s apparently sponsored by Wychwood breweries and doing a fine range of Real Ales. What’s not to like about that?