Posted by
Saam Das
at
21:27on Monday, August 19, 2019
Citadel Festival (14 July 2019, Gunnersbury Park) // Words: Saam Das
14th July 2019 will go down as a momentous day on these fair shores. Mainly because England snaffled the Cricket World Cup for the first time in the most dramatic of circumstances, on home turf no less. But West London's Citadel Festival played some part, with triumphant performances from several homegrown acts such as Friendly Fires and Bastille. And a Sunday roast in a wrap. Delicious.
Posted by
Saam Das
at
16:49on Saturday, July 13, 2019
Citadel Festival (14 July 2019, London) // Words: Saam Das
14th July 2019. A notable day in the calendar. The F1 British Grand Prix. England-New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup final. Tennis legend Roger Federer versus the behemoth Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final. But perhaps best of all, the return of Citadel Festival to Gunnersbury Park in West London. Headlined by Catfish & The Bottlemen, we've put together a preview of Citadel 2019.
Posted by
Saam Das
at
19:37on Friday, April 26, 2019
Words: Saam Das
Can you feel it coming? Festival season is almost well and truly under way so we figured we'd try to pick out some brilliant UK music festivals that we also think are brilliant value for money. On a per capita band basis, Glastonbury Festival and its behemoth of a line-up should probably be on here but with tickets around £250 quid, we've understandably opted more for smaller scale festivals for those with a lower budget.
Friendly Fires - 'Pala' (UK Release: 16 May '11) // Words: Saam Das
Thanks to the good folks at the Hype Machine, you can listen to the new Friendly Fires album, 'Pala', ahead of its UK and US (May 24th) release dates. It's the follow up to their Mercury nominated self-titled debut, and continues along in the dance vein of its predecessor. You can also download a track from the album for the price of an email address.
Posted by
FG
at
23:55on Thursday, January 01, 2009
2008 saw me step up my blogging slightly, although I couldn't maintain the relentless pace of the first half of the year. I did two main features prior to the last few days - my annual tips for the forthcoming year and a guest blog series for the second birthday of Keep Hope Inside. Let's go through them for shits and giggles.
Futuresounds
After my 2007 tips were a bit too obscure and before their time, I decided to adopt a new method for choosing my tips for 2008. Having said that, Jack Penate, Foals and Laura Marling have done pretty well for themselves since early 2007! Anyways, this year I chose 12 bands - 4 of which were hyped at one point or another, 4 which had been mentioned on my blog previously and another 4 bands which I had never spoken about. Understandably there was a little overlap between the categories but let's have a look at the "success" of my tips.
[Part One] Vampire Weekend did pretty sodding well, selling over 100,000 copies of their debut album in the UK. Alphabeat's 'Fascination' was a massive hit single and I was ready to herald them as a success until I heard they were dropped by EMI recently. Oops. But the saddest news comes in the form of Elle S'Appelle splitting, after just one single release. Download their final radio session [here].
[Part Two] Adele became massive. And that's not even a fat joke. Still not really heard anything to match the quality of 'Hometown Glory' but I can't really dispute a #1 album which has sold over 500,000 copies in the UK. Jose Vanders and Agaskado Teliverek have made pretty much no impact on the mainstream at all.
[Part Three] Glasvegas did rather well despite my initial concerns of their crossover appeal, a #2 album which sold over 100,000 copies. Look See Proof released their debut album to far more muted commercial response and The Wave Pictures continue to plug away quietly, although they did come third in The Guardian First Album award.
[Part Four] Guillemots' second album wasn't very well received, although broke into the top ten of the UK album charts. Late Of The Pier's album received generally positive reviews although didn't result in a corresponding amount of album sales. Friendly Fires also released a generally well received album but failed to match LOTP's sales.
All in all, three of my hyped bands (Vampire Weekend, Glasvegas and Adele) justified their tags while the jury's out on the other acts. At least from a commercial perspective. Guillemots generated a fair amount of sales but critical acclaim left them - it will be interesting to see where they go from here. Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me if the likes of Late Of The Pier and Friendly Fires find themselves dropped before their second album.
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The Two Year Itch
This was a series of guest posts from music bloggers to help me celebrate the second birthday of Keep Hope Inside. We all wrote about our favourite British album from the past two years. A massive thank you once again to all those who took part. Hopefully for one of my future features, I can get some of you (i.e readers) involved.
This is shamelessly reproduced from my [recap] post but is pretty helpful. It'd be interesting to hear whether the writers still support their choices. I certainly support mine.
[Part One]: Simon of Sweeping The Nation - 'Hold On Now, Youngster...' by Los Campesinos! "They found initial attention through demos on Myspace, but they feel to their hardcore that this is their band, just for them"
[Part Two]: Jay of clickyclicky - '7 From The Village' (US EP) by Fields "a charming blend of '70s pastoral psych-folk and contemporary indie rock centered around the undeniable pop gem 'Brittlesticks'"
[Part Three]: Tim of funfunfun - 'Variations On Swing' by Meet Me In St Louis "Its intricate layers of morphing instruments and its fractured time signatures may put off, or even frighten, some listeners but those that “get it” will join the ranks amongst some of the most passionate and faithful of fans."
[Part Four]: Sid of Music Liberation - 'Box Of Secrets' by Blood Red Shoes "an honest, full-on assault, that is full of energy, passion, and intent"
[Part Five]: aDawgg - 'Fantastic Playroom' by New Young Pony Club "shook my bah-dompah-domp" Bean - 'The Life Pursuit' by Belle & Sebastian "A little indie, a little pop, and a little glam with vivid stories about kooky characters in songs that will suit any occasion and every mood." tamboosh - 'The Beatific Visions' by Brakes "still thrilling and refreshing"
[Part Six]: Tara of The Music Journal - 'Making Dens' by Mystery Jets "It is the vigour, the youth, the passion, and the boisterous energy that makes this one of my favourite albums of the past two years."
[Part Seven]: Tim of The Daily Growl - 'No Shouts, No Calls' by Electrelane "Just have a listen – it really is a wonderful album."
[Part Eight]: Saam of Keep Hope Inside (i.e me) - 'Drop It Till It Pops' by Hot Club de Paris "'Drop It Till It Pops' has that certain joie de vivre that few bands manage to capture on record over their career let alone on their debut album"
St Albans' hottest export Friendly Fires have announced the details of their forthcoming self-titled debut album. Out on September 1st, it features all the classics and was self-produced in one of their dad's garages. Apart from soon-to-be single 'Jump In The Pool', which utilised the services of one Paul Epworth. I'll jump in your pool in a minute.
If you go back to the future(sounds), you'll notice that I tipped Friendly Fires for some hearty success this year [link]. I don't expect their album to sell a huge amount but their electro-dance-punk stylings fit in well with the current musical climate. We'll have to see whether the album will live up to the potential of the magical early single 'Paris'. Hopefully, XL will give it a fair marketing push.
Anyways, they're giving away a free mp3 to celebrate the news, so here's the crazed disco punk frenzy that is 'Bring Out Your Dead'. Not to be confused with any scene in Monty Python & The Holy Grail. You can also pick it up over at [wearefriendlyfires.com] but they nab your email address.
This post will finish off my tips for 2008 so let's crack on. There'll be a quick recap at the end and then we'll just have to wait and see if I manage more than a 1/12 success rate this time around.
Guillemots This slot was going to go to either Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong or to The Ting Tings. Now as I'm not really a fan of either, I felt a bit stuck. Until, that is, I had an epiphany while watching Jonathon Ross' chat show last night, which featured a performance by Guillemots (gilly-mots). I thought to myself, "they were hyped, weren't they?" and lo and behold I found a suitable replacement. Not to mention that one of the other guests on the show, Welsh siren Katherine Jenkins, is a right fittie mcvitie.
Guillemots are returning with a new album, 'Red', following their previous effort, the Mercury Music Prize nominated 'Through The Windowpane'. After recently offering up album track 'Kriss Kross' on their MySpace, new single 'Get Over It' has hit the airwaves. And it's not exactly what you might have expected. Exceedingly radio friendly but with the same energy that brought the band success, it should be a hit single. Hopefully the album will prove to be the critical and commerical success that the debut proved to be.
Late Of The Pier Firstly, a nod to Transparent Magazine [link] for first introducing me to this band, a fact I did acknowledge in my post on Late Of The Pier back in September 2006 [link]. Wow, that was a long time ago. LOTP have done well for themselves since then, releasing two singles (including one on Moshi Moshi), signing to Parlophone and working with Erol Alkan on their debut album. The eccentricity still remains, not that that's a bad thing.
Thankfully their rise toward the mainstream hasn't been marred with the 'nu-rave' tag, although Klaxons comparisons could prove to be inevitable. Let's hope that if that happens, they can at least mirror their counterparts' success. They've got the man behind the Klaxons video, Saam Farahmand, to do the vid for their new single 'The Bears Are Coming'. It's really quite bizarre but then again so is most of Saam's work. He's got a cool name though, right guys? ;)
Head to musiclikedirt.com for the other session track.
Friendly Fires With Jack Penate being my only true success from last year's tips list, why not choose the support band on his UK tour in March. And their drummer used to go to the same university. As do I, in fact. Not to mention other acts that are really coming to the fore now such as Nic Nell, Sky Larkin and Fanfarlo/My Sad Captains. Yeah, a real hotbed of music excitment. Except they've all left.
Friendly Fires are yet another band in this 2008 list to have been affiliated with Moshi Moshi, releasing their much loved single 'Paris' on the label. With the aforementioned Jack Penate tour coming up as well as supporting the Kaiser Chiefs at Elland Road(!), Friendly Fires look to have a promising year ahead of them.
Nic Nell also has a remix/cover of 'On Board' on his MySpace [link]
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So that's the end of my Futuresounds 2008 list, i.e my bands to watch out for this year. While last year's choices were more hopeful than expectant, this year I decided to include bands which had been blatantly hyped at one point or another (hence Vampire Weekend, Adele, Glasvegas and Guillemots). I also wanted to carry on with an ethos that I used last year, highlighting bands which hadn't previously appeared on this blog (so we got Alphabeat, Agaskodo Teliverek, The Wave Pictures and Friendly Fires). And finally I decided to support some acts that I was one of the first to feature in the past, meaning Elle S'Appelle, Jose Vanders, Look See Proof and Late Of The Pier made another appearance on Keep Hope Inside.
As there were only twelve choices, I had to leave out a good few bands that I felt would do well this year. I think the prime example of that would be Johnny Foreigner. I genuinely thought they'd take the blogging world by storm, like Los Campesinos! did but it's been a slower process. They are finally getting the attention they deserve though and the new tracks sound fantastic. Hopefully, some of the other acts I would have liked to mention, like Operahouse and Muscles, might end up on one of my podcasts!
What do you lot think though? Who are you tipping this year? Are my choices worth the computer they're typed on?
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