The VPME Big Deal Big Deal release their new single, ‘ Dream Machines ’, on 22 July and are about to commence a tour in support of their forthcoming album, June Gloom , which is out on 3rd June . And Big Deal really are just that, even more so since embracing a new sonic dynamic, which is shogegazy, ethereal, beatific and let's be honest rather epic. ' Dream Machines ' follows on from ' Teradactol and 'In Your [...]
The VPME Albums Club in association with Rock’s Backpages announce that the next ALBUM CLUB will bring to London's Idler Academy former Lush luminary MIKI BERENYI and She-Bop goddess LUCY O'BRIEN in a shameless celebration of Blondie's classic 1978 LP PARALLEL LINES … RBP's one-night-only BlondieFest takes place on Thursday 13th June at 7pm at The Idler Academy, 81 Westbourne Park Road, London W2 5QH. Full details can be found here! [...]
The VPME If you took the collective DNA of Bikini Kill, The Slits The Cramps, The White Stripes, The Ramones and Sleater Kinney you could end up with a band that sounds something like Brooklyn's Sharkmuffin. It's described (on soundcloud) as "slutwave garage pop" and it's infused with the sort of raw angry sexually charged rriot girl energy that certain former UK pop singers could learn a thing or two from. There's absolutely nothing contrived about the sound that Sharkmuffin produce, it's a shuddering explosion of primal emotion and raucous noise. Tarra Thiessen's visceral [...]
The VPME The Urban music festival has much to recommend it. Access to proper loos for example, a comfy bed at the end of the night and the reassurance that in the event of the heavens opening the terrain underfoot will not suddenly be transformed into a foetid, agglutinative quagmire. The Great Escape is arguably the urban festival by which all others are judged, and after what turned out to be a shorter than anticipated first visit, we can see why. The Great Escape's reputation is well deserved, it's a festival that's welcoming, extremely well organised [...]
The VPME They take their name from a quote in Jules Verne's 2000 Leagues under the Sea; they play symphonic electronica with a dream pop sensibility and at times, they sound rather like Emily Haines fronting the Human League, or Ladytron as produced by Giorgio Moroder. It's cool and yet radiates warmth, aloof yet full of allure . Everything By Electricity produce electro pop infused with great melody and depth and as such is far more rewarding than the sort of throwaway nonsense that hangs around the charts giving electro pop a bad name. We may be [...]
The VPME The Great Escape 2013 Those nice people at Hype Machine asked us to pick our five MUST see acts at this year's Great Escape Festival… You can see our choices here But here they are in ever so slightly more depth 1. Findlay Every time we've seen Natalie Findlay and her band they just seem to get better and better. [...]
The VPME We have to say this looks like a rather amazing line up, some of our favourite emerging artists here - Dry The River // Tom Odell // Benjamin Francis Leftwich // Lucy Rose // The 1975* //Findlay // Feathers //PINS Beans on Toast // Bo Ningen // Chapel Club // Deap Vally // Wolf Alice [...]
The VPME AELIUS is the name of Caesar Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus Buccellanus Augustus, or Hadrian to you and I. It's a pretty apt name for electro-duo Martin Roberts and Lee Tyler to have adopted as their collective musical moniker as they too, like Hadrian of yore, are adept at building huge walls. However unlike the Roman Emperor, AELIUS (the band) use the medium of sound to construct their walls, which is handy given that we are a music blog and not 'The Masonary' Magazine' . Their latest offering 'Echoes [...]
The VPME AELIUS is the name of Caesar Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus Buccellanus Augustus, or Hadrian to you and I. It's a pretty apt name for electro-duo Martin Roberts and Lee Tyler to have adopted as their collective musical moniker as they too, like Hadrian of yore, are adept at building huge walls. However unlike the Roman Emperor, AELIUS (the band) use the medium of sound to construct their walls, which is handy given that we are a music blog and not 'The Masonary' Magazine' . Their latest offering 'Echos [...]
The VPME The New Fabian Society unleash a brutal raw jackhammering sonic assault, imbued with the sort of dark drama bands like the Editors can only dream of aspiring to. The band describe themselves as a "bi polar 2 piece" which is apt as the contrasting emotions that range from rage to loathing to euphoria shine through on ' Cyclophymia' . It's a full-on adrenaline rush, a track that tears into your consciousness like an express train and then proceeds to drag you along in its thunderous slipstream. We've heard few songs this year to match [...]
The VPME A year ago, the day after amazing Radio stopped broadcasting on the DAB network, we wrote an article entitled " Keep Radio Amazing, on DAB" . We detailed why the service amazing Radio provide in the promotion and championing of new music is incredibly important. We won't reiterate our feelings but if you feel so inclined you can read the article in full, HERE . That was then and this is now, and so on the day amazing Radio [...]
The VPME And so it came to pass that on the third day of Liverpool Sound City our hangover had swelled to Brobdingnagian proportions! We awoke gripped by 'the F.E.A.R.' aka 'hangover anxiety', and resolved we needed something to expunge the darkness, to cleanse us like bleach. BLEECH Ironically, the first gig of the final day was from Bleech, a band we've been long time fans of but never managed to catch live, but whoooaa, was [...]
The VPME Day 12s round up is here is here Day 2 kicked off with a not inconsiderable hangover eased slightly by a conference hosted by 6 Music new music champion Tom Robinson. He was joined by those nice chaps from Generator, Vic erm sorry I mean Joe and Bob, plus Chris and Laura from the Arts Council and PRS respectively, who had swathes of #freemoney to give away. Well not quite but there was certainly plenty of useful advice about how to access a whole host of funding for [...]
The VPME Liverpool Sound City 2013 - three days of amazing music and mayhem that left us utterly exhausted, but provided us with memories of some genuinely life affirming highs of the sort that only live music can provide. Day one started with a couple of conferences at the Liverpool Hilton, most notably Jon Morter's (the man behind the Rage Against the machine Versus the X Factor) engaging presentation on the effective use of Social Media. So watch out Cowell, we know the secrets and soon your pale flaccid ass will be ours! [...]
The VPME We are almost recovered from Liverpool Sound City - more on that later, but this track is just what the doctor ordered, appropriately from a new Liverpool based electro duo called KALA (which apparently means proficient in the Arts) Comprised of former Wet Mouth front woman Veslemøy Rustad Holseter and Purvi Trivedi the duo mix dark avant-garde electronica, tribal beats and eastern mysticism to create a magical albeit slightly menacing soundscape. Replete with ambient blips and crystalline vocal harmonies that conjure up the likes of Natasha Kahn and Bjork, KALA weave a [...]
The VPME There won't be much going on in terms of new music this week on the site, as we'll be entering the scary physical world again via the magical musical portal that is Liverpool Sound City. Therefore, as tradition dictates, here's ten of our personal must see bands (barring the inevitable clashes) during the three day event… see ya there 1. Dark Horses A welcome late edition to the line up arrives in the form of Brighton's enigmatic Dark Horses. They combine a flamboyant, futuristic 50′s noir biker gang chic with [...]
The VPME We first featured Lexy and The Kill back at the start of the year describing her as singer who was blessed with a " powerful emotive, soulful voice who arrives armed with a clutch of songs that scream “massive potential” in huge 20ft high flashing neon letters." Well that potential has just got even bigger! And today we are delighted to present an exclusive free download of the band's first single ' We Can Dance Alone' produced by Nexus (Hurts/Lana Del Ray). It's an indie pop stomper, with hints of [...]
The VPME We happened across a couple of Sian King's demos last year (for it is she who is Bon-Bon, but shhh keep that under your hat) and recall being rather impressed. And it would certainly not have been remiss to describe her songs as having an 'Indie-pop' sensibility. However with her latest tune 'Lois Lane', from her forthcoming EP she really cuts loose and sounds funkier than Funkadelic performing at an all day funkathon with Grand Master Funk on national funk day. There's a whole lotta SOUL, attitude and sass in her voice [...]
The VPME This week we were guest reviewer on Tom Robinson's Fresh on the Net which was hugely enjoyable and opened our ears to lots of exciting new artists, which is of course Fresh on The Net's raison d'être. Below is the review we did for the wonderful Kid Kin, who coincidently and unbeknown to us is originally from the Wirral, Merseyside. You can read the rest of our reviews and check out some amazing emerging talent over at Fresh On The Net [...]
The VPME Having been one of the first UK blogs to write and interview Velvet Two Stripes, tipping them for BBC 6 Music and presenting them with one of our famous "Pipster" awards last year, we are obviously delighted by news of their announcement of their first official UK release. Their 4 track 'Fire EP' is set to drop on 20.5.2013 with the lead track ( somewhat unsurprisingly called 'Fire') sounding edgier than a Swiss Mountain ledge. Sophie's fabulous vocal simply oozes a bluesy uncontrived [...]
The VPME
Top 10 MP3s of the Week (5/24)
Disclosure – When A Fire Starts to Burn
Earl Sweatshirt ft. Mac Miller – Guild
Daft Punk: When anonymity goes wrong
