A Balloon Called Moaning

Yesterday evening I made a short trip down to the "new" Pure Groove establishment in the Farrington region to see one of my favourite bands of the past year, The Joy Formidable play a free instore in celebration of their release, 'A Balloon Called Moaning'. Clocking in at just under half an hour, its eight tracks represent a potted back catalogue, with tracks dating back to their proto-outfit Sidecar Kisses.

If you're fortunate enough to witness the force of The Joy Formidable in person then you will be enveloped by their sonic exploits. Seriously, they go all out for the "wall of noise" and considering there's only three of them, they make an impressive racket. That's probably painted a slightly skewed imagining as there's hooks aplenty in the tracks, most notably in the effervescent singles 'Austere' and 'Cradle'. In fact, if I had photoshop I may well have constructed a wonderfully informative Venn diagram displaying the neat overlap of 'shoegaze' and 'pop' that The Joy Formidable inhabit. Sadly, you must simply use your imagination instead. Or your ears. The plentiful Pure Groove audience appeared to enjoy the set and despite my high expectations, I was suitably impressed as they zipped through much of the EP.



On a minor tangent, Twitter (follow me - http://www.twitter.com/keephopeinside) is proving more and more useful. Winston of [winstonszen.com] directed me to his photos of the gig so have a photo. Shame he didn't get a photo of the balloons labelled moaning (geddit?). More gigs need balloons. All gigs need balloons. For the rest of Winston's photos, head [here]. Go visit his blog too.

THE JOY FORMIDABLE - THE GREATEST LIGHT IS THE GREATEST SHADE

The original 'A Balloon Called Moaning' ltd ed boxset has sold out but you can pick up one of the new run [here] for a meagre 7 quid. To whet your appetite, download half the album over at [Music Glue]. Their BBC 6Music Session is still good to go, download from my [Futuresounds post], and listen to the demo of 'Cradle' from early 2008 on [KHI podcast#6].

Futuresounds 2009 Part Four

This blog post was taken down from Blogger. Probably because I uploaded a live version of the Titus Andronicus track. But seeing as that's not commercially available, I think that's a bit stupid. And if it's because of the other two tracks (given away as free downloads by the artists themselves) then that's really stupid. I guess I'll never know.

It's not over yet. But it's almost over. Following the tried and tested method of using one hyped band, one KHI past favourite and an act that has yet to be featured on this blog, we've come to the final edition of my 12 tips for 2009. After these three acts, I'll do a little round up and maybe mention a few bands that made the longlist but I didn't include for whatever reason.

Dan Black
Dan is a KHI oldboy but after appearing in the BBC Sound of 2009 list and signing to a major record label, he's had a fair bit of a buzz. His magical reimagining of seminal Notorious B.I.G track 'Hypnotise Me' (retitled as 'HYPNTZ') was my #1 single of 2008 and the LCD Soundsystem-esque new single 'Alone' is fast becoming another favourite. If you like innovative electro pop a la Tom Vek, Dan is your man.

DAN BLACK - I LOVE LIFE (DEMO)



Grammatics
I know in most people's minds MySpace is a long forgotten memory but if you've ever gone onto a band profile, you might have noticed they have genre tags. Grammatics list themselves under "Melodramatic Popular Song", an entirely appropriate and reflective label. One of the most lusciously enigmatic and grandiose British bands to have emerged in the past decade, they remain sadly underappreciated. I can only hope that their forthcoming self-titled debut album reveals their genius to the mainstream music world. This should be the future of pop.

GRAMMATICS - NEW FRANCHISE

Titus Andronicus
Punk rock or drunk rock? Following a favourable Pitchfork review of self-released album 'The Airing of Grievances', ears pricked up this side of the ocean. Since then though, the hype has been relatively muted on these shores. The remastered, new UK album release is unlikely to be much of a commercial success but their insulated sound reflecting bands like The Clash and Tokyo Police Club should result in plentiful cult fandom.

TITUS ANDRONICUS - FEAR AND LOATHING IN MAHWAH, NJ (LIVE)


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That concludes today's proceedings. As for Futuresounds, we've seen four hyped acts (White Lies, Little Boots, Mumford and Sons and Dan Black), four KHI past faves (Fight Like Apes, The Joy Formidable, Fanfarlo and Grammatics) and four newbies (Red Light Company, The Temper Trap, Little Comets and Titus Andronicus). With White Lies already topping the UK album chart, things are looking good. For most of the acts on my list, such an achievement is unrealistic but let's hope they manage a decent stab at success in 2009. Other acts I'm hoping for success, both critically and commercially, include Sky Larkin and Dinosaur Pile-Up. No doubt you'll be hear more about the acts that have appeared in this feature on my blog and elsewhere.

Futuresounds 2009 Part Three

This is the penultimate post of my tips for 2009, which has turned into more of an ongoing saga than I envisaged at first. But I'll be there to the bitter end. Apologies for the delay, I've been having a bit of trouble with the filehosting service I use - it's free though so I can't complain. Let's blame the snow. Anyways, as ever, I'm using the format of one majorly hyped band, one KHI golden oldie and another band that has never graced my blog with their presence.

Mumford And Sons
Fleet Foxes, Noah & The Whale and Laura Marling brought last year's folk "revolution" and this year, Marcus Mumford and his merry men hope to achieve similar recognition. Their epic country sound can be both mellow and intense, a majestic cacophony emboldened by Marcus Mumford's rich vocals. There's banjos, there's a double bass, there's even a grand piano on the radio session I'm about to share yet none of it sounds extravagant. Quite the opposite really, it sounds just right.

MUMFORD AND SONS - ROLL AWAY YOUR STONE (BBC RADIO 1 SESSION)
MUMFORD AND SONS - SIGH NO MORE (BBC RADIO 1 SESSION)
MUMFORD AND SONS - THE CAVE (BBC RADIO 1 SESSION)
MUMFORD AND SONS - WHITE BLANK PAGE (BBC RADIO 1 SESSION)

Fanfarlo
Fanfarlo mix folk and twee (and about a million different instruments) to make wonderfully jangly indie pop. And they're about to support Snow Patrol, which is a bit bizarre. But giving Fanfarlo the opportunity to reach a wider audience is something I tried to do, putting 'Sand And Ice' on [KHI podcast#6], almost a year ago. They recently completed their debut album, produced by Peter Katis (best known for his work with The National and Interpol) and it's more than possible that Fanfarlo's effort will be just as good as the aforementioned bands. It'll certainly be more jolly.

FANFARLO - HAROLD T. WILKINS (DEMO)

Little Comets
Little Comets could well follow the likes of The Wombats in breaching the mainstream with colourful pop tunes. Or maybe a more appropriate comparison could be made to fellow Northerners, Maximo Park and The Futureheads. Either way, Little Comets make their pop with a bit of a Vampire Weekend-esque twist, a ray of sunshine in our embittered English climate. 2009 won't break them but it could make them.

LITTLE COMETS - ONE NIGHT IN OCTOBER

Buy from [7digital]/[iTunes].

Futuresounds Part Two

This post was rather unceremoniously removed by DMCA notification "for copyright reasons" in early March, a full month after it was posted. Seeing as none of the mp3s were commercially available, I can only assume that I'll have about 3 posts left if they continue in this fashion. If you'd like the mp3s, email me and I'll try to get them to you.

My tips for 2009 continues in its time old fashion of one hyped act, one Keep Hope Inside golden oldie and one band who I've never blogged about. There's a lot of radio session action going down in this post. You can find part uno [here]. Surely worth clicking through simply for my lolbama photo?

Little Boots
Former frontwoman of the tipped-but-never-really-got-anywhere Dead Disco, Victoria Hesketh went solo and has won plaudits for her wonky electropop and use of that funky tenori-on gadget. In fact, she's the BBC Sound of 2009 following Adele (2008), Mika (2007) and Corinne Bailey-Rae (2006). So hyped to the max. But understandably so. And yeah, she's a fittie mcvitie.

LITTLE BOOTS - MEDDLE (BBC 6MUSIC SESSION)
LITTLE BOOTS - STUCK ON REPEAT (BBC 6MUSIC SESSION)

The Joy Formidable
Probably my favourite emerging act of 2008 but a band in a brief transitional period - previous drummer Justin has been replaced by new boy Matt Thomas. Not that such a change has particularly affected the trio, they are still go-go-go with their quest for world domination. Their UK headline tour starts about now, they've recorded a couple of sessions for BBC Radio and they'll be dropping their ltd ed mini-album boxset 'A Balloon Called Moaning' (only available from [Puregroove]) in February. Their shoegazey dream pop will enthrall and enrapture. Expect to see plenty more about TJF on Keep Hope Inside (and maybe even elsewhere, like in my interview with the Record Of The Day mag). Here's their third BBC 6Music Session, recorded just the other week with Marc Riley.

THE JOY FORMIDABLE - AUSTERE (BBC 6MUSIC SESSION)
THE JOY FORMIDABLE - CRADLE (BBC 6MUSIC SESSION)
THE JOY FORMIDABLE - THE LAST DROP (BBC 6MUSIC SESSION)

The Temper Trap
Empire Of The Sun appear to be the artist du jour from Australia according to many industry tipsters but if we're tipping an Aussie band for success, I'd much rather have this lot. Reflecting the same melodic desperation of Frightened Rabbit and a soaring crossover indie rock sensibility similar to early Coldplay, they've got a good chance of success. Even more so perhaps, having signed for the newly rebooted Infectious Records. Not forgetting soundtracking the trailer to the hyped indie film '500 Days Of Summer' (which looks fantastic - watch the trailer [here] with the utterly magical 'Sweet Disposition'.

THE TEMPER TRAP - FOOLS (BBC INTRODUCING SESSION)
THE TEMPER TRAP - LOVE LOST (BBC INTRODUCING SESSION)