The new movie looking at the bands that made you want to be in a band, featuring Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Jesus and Mary Chain a host of others connected to the genre.
Beautiful Noise is a 2014 American music documentary film, written and directed by Eric Green. The film documents three rock bands—Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chainand My Bloody Valentine—and their influence on subsequent alternative rockbands and subgenres especially shoegaze. Beautiful Noise features extracts from over 50 interviews with bands and artists, as well as archival footage and music videos.
Green commenced production on Beautiful Noise in early 2005 with producer and editor Sarah Ogletree; production was largely completed by 2008 although the project stagnated due to various financial and legal issues. In response, Green began a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarterin hopes of securing final financial investment for the film’s release. The campaign was supported by several of the bands featured in Beautiful Noise through social media.announced for release in May 2014
The Bronze Medal’s debut ‘Darlings’ didn’t get the attention it deserved this year; their anthemic, emotionally raw brand of National-style indie rock deserved a lot more.
Stanley Brinks may still be best known as André Herman Dune, but leaving the band eight years ago has neither slowed nor reduced the quality of his output. In fact he’s become something of a wandering, lo-fi Indie-Folk minstrel, collaborating with anyone and everyone and being almost worryingly prolific. It’s a trait he shares with his most recent collaboratorsThe Wave Pictures.
This is the second time Stanley’ has collaborated with the trio, and based on the quality of the output here they’re a match made in heaven especially if you witnessed their sublime set at the “Green Man” Festival last summer in the cinema tent a definate highlight of the weekend . One of my favourite guitar players David Tattersall‘s mind-blowing guitar solos and the bands oft forgotten brilliant rhythm sections are the perfect foil to Stanley’s unique and some might say slightly wonky, world view, and the results are brilliant, very odd and wryly hilarious!
From the city of Gothenburg, Sweden. featuring : Efraim Kent, Alice Botéus, Felix Andersson, Per Svensson. are School 94′.
If you saw the BBC Sound of 2015longlist and thought: “Nice lineup, but where are some actual, you know, bands?” – well, here’s one. They’re a Sundays/Smiths type of four-piece from Scandinavia, which means the guitars are set to glacial, and the chill factor is high. They’re resolutely indie, although their choruses, even given the instrumental melee, are often severe. Listen once to Botéus’ soaring and keening voice over the guitar/bass/drums and it will probably recall a less sonically extreme Cocteau Twins or a less surreal, more sorrowful Sugarcubes. Listen again, and you might agree with certain reviewers who have discerned in School 94’s music a punchy pop sensibility .
Courtship Ritual’s sound is intimate and stripped-down and insinuating, to the point where I think the most obvious reference point is the xx. But even if the band is working from similar elements — electronic beats, hushed vocals, warmly dubby basslines they’re deploying those elements differently. Singer Monica Salazar has a little bit of acid in her voice, a clipped full-throated alto with just a hint of sneer to it. She never whispers or sighs, and she always sounds tough. The lyrics haven’t left a deep impression on me yet, but they’re elusive and evocative; the first one that comes to mind is “you’re a handsome beast just like your mother.” I don’t know whether Salazar or her bandmate Jared Olmsted is responsible for the band’s basslines, but those basslines have some real muscle to them. Pith was available as a limited-edition cassette before it was a readily available download, but it’s the rare album from the cassette underground that I’d describe as being accessible and pleasant. You could use these songs to sell cars, and you could pipe them into a clothing boutique without disturbing the atmosphere. But even at their calmest and lightest, there’s a fundamental intensity to these songs, and that’s a big part of the reasons they stand
Bullies, bastards and bullshitters beware, Glasgow’s Honeyblood have cooked up 40 minutes of sonic chemical castration and they’re coming for every lover and loser that’s ever fucked them over.It’s been a rather dramatic year for our favourite all-female Scottish two-piece, they’ve been on something of a meteoric rise to fame ever since signing to Fat Cat Records and releasing their self titled debut album. Just when things seemed to be going almost too well, half the band, in the form of drummer Shona McVicar, left mid-way through a tour, so full credit then to singing guitarist Stina, who not only decided to carry on the band but had a new drummer up and running just a matter of days later, evidence of the old cliché, the show must go on!
And thank heavens for that, because that debut was unquestionably one of the most intriguing albums of the year. A stunning middle ground of beautifully harmonious vocals and angry barbed lyrics, of gorgeous melodies and crushing walls of noise. They recalled the honey dripped harmonies of 60’s girl bands, and the raw power of grunge. The bands name Honeyblood really couldn’t be more apt.
From the playground chanting of Super Rat, to the Idlewild recalling opening track Fall Forever, and the almost country-grunge of Bud (a song that’s much more appealing than country-grunge makes it sound!) they created a varied and excellent debut album, one that surely surpassed what even their most ardent fan could have imagined.
Honeyblood and their eponymous, debut LP. Recorded at legendary producer Peter Katis Tarquin Studios (The National, Interpol) in just ten days last November, ”Honeyblood” is an accomplished and delightfully fierce record. “Peter was the perfect match for us,” singer/guitarist Stina Tweeddale said of the recording. “He perfectly managed to capture our live performance in the studio.” From the urgent guitar and dive-bomb drums of opener ”Fall Forever”, the album twists through the gutsy punk of ”Killer Bangs”, to reveal discordant anthems like ”SuperRat”. It has pared down alt pop gems in the likes of ”Biro” and ”No Spare Key”, but also more country/folk influenced moments like, ”(I”d Rather Be) Anywhere But Here”, ”Braid Burn Valley” and ”Bud”. The band started from humble DIY beginnings, organising their own guerrilla show at The Old Hairdressers in Glasgow to commemorate the release of a raucous two-track cassette entitled, ”Thrift Shop'”. Honeyblood quickly ingrained themselves into the bustling Glaswegian scene, fast becoming one of its most talked-about names and going on to play festivals everywhere from The Great Escape to their native T In The Park. But with their full-length debut ready to go, big name supports, and world tours locked, 2014 certainly looks to be the year with Honeyblood”s name written all over it.
The alt-rock singer plays an EP release show at St Pancras Old Church in December .The British rocker Hannah Lou Clark wrote “Silent Type,” the title track from her upcoming EP, about living above a Quaker meeting house and listening in on the quietly intense worship happening beneath her floorboards. The song itself isn’t silent, but it’s definitely a study in nervous energy, setting Clark’s cooings against a slinky yet intense bass line, chunks of nervous stabs of guitar, and a steady backbeat. The resulting alt-rock track feels like it’s always about to burst but mostly just builds and builds.
sometimes, you stumble upon something so good, and this is one of those times. Honeyslide debuted their first EP last July and it became somewhat of an instant classic in my library. Maybe it’s the dreamy technicolored cover art, the shoegaze-filled static, or the 90s stoner rock backdrop that keeps me coming back over and over again. Regardless, this UK-based trio comprised of Josh, Meytal, and Mo know how to carefully craft noise that evokes pure aural euphoria within the span of four short songs. The band has cited My Bloody Valentine and Pavement as main influences, and their sound is spot on half-way between the two. Alternating fuzzy female and male vocals especially calls to mind the Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher dynamic.
When I say that Honeyslide knows how to “carefully craft noise,” I really mean it. The term might seem like a paradox, and it is, but there is a very clear distinction between messy, discordant sounds and the stamp of precision found on the first, second, or third listen of this extended play.
Art Of Sleeping is a rock band from Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
The members are: Caleb Hodges: Vocals & Guitars; Jean-Paul Malengret: Drums; Jarryd Shuker: Keyboards; Patrick Silver: Guitars; Francois Malengret: Bass.
When asked to describe their sound, the boys cited The Temper Trap, Coldplay, Phoenix and listed their influences as Copeland, Foals and Jeff Buckley.
this is a gorgeous cover of the Bill Withers song, Alt–J (∆)’s name takes a little explaining. Pronounced “alt–J”, the delta sign is created when you hold down the alt key on your computer keyboard and punch ‘J’
The Fat Angel Sings 