DATE ARCHIVES : April 2015

BarryGruff’s April 2015 Playlist

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A regular monthly feature to the blog; a nice, neat and handy playlist of tracks featured during the month.

It was another excellent month for new music, one which saw the return of CZARFACE, Miaoux Miaoux, Girlpool and Jinx Lennon, with new tracks from their respective forthcoming albums. There were new singles from The Urges, Wilding, Fold, Tuff Love, Hippies Vs Ghosts, Lazy Day, Freedom Fry & Imploded View, and tracks from forthcoming EPs from Tomorrows, Graham Cooney & JUNK.

Also featuring on the playlist are: The School, Fueds, Mowbird & Cotton Wolf. Yeah, so, April was pretty damn good.

Listen to BarryGruff’s April 2015 playlist below.

Fly High Society’s ‘Fly Thai Green EP’

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Fly High Society – a collective of DJs, producers and artists predominantly based across the UK & Europe – have put together an EP, Fly Thai Green.

A homage to Mary Jane, it was fittingly released last Monday, for 4/20. Featuring cuts from Bolts, Monto, Igloohost, and Tre’bore (along with guest appearances from some of your favourite screen dealers – including Moz from Ideal), the EP is simply sublime. The pick of the bunch (for me) is Bolts’ inclusion, ‘Beginning’, with its patted bongos, click-clacking percussion, perfect bass and eastern strings exuding an aura of supreme, smooth coolness. A blazing 20 minute offering their signature ‘bass, beats and bleeps’, as well as slick samples and ethnic-inspired beats, it is perfect chill-out soundtrack. Magnificent!

The EP is available for purchase (here) as a limited edition cassette, coupled with a download & sticker pack. Plus all UK purchases also come with a complimentary Fly High Society lighter. Check it out below.

The BarryGruff Fortnightly Vancouver Gig Guide (April 29th – May 11th)

A fortnightly list of recommended events taking place in Vancouver. Here’s what’s caught my eye over the next 14 days! 

Feel free to let me know if I missed anything of interest in the comments or you can always shoot me an email about upcoming shows.

Thursday, April 30th

Wishyunu @ Hindenburg, 23 West Cordova, Gastown, Vancouver (9pm, $10)

  • [Alt-Pop] Portland drum/synth du, Wishyunu (wish-u-new) have a penchant for weird and wonderful atmospheric electronic pop. Support from Redrick Sultan, The Wandering Halls & Cave Girl.

Young Fathers @ Fortune Sound Club, 147 E Pender St, Vancouver, (9pm, $15+Fees)

  • [Hip-Hop] Scotish Hip-Hop trio & Mecury Prize winners, Young Fathers, tour in support of their new LP ‘White Men Are Black Men Too’. Suppport from Mas Ysa.

Saturday, May 2nd 

Waxahatchee @ Biltmore Cabaret 2755 Prince Edward St, Vancouver (8pm, $14+Fees)

  • [Indie/Lo-Fi] Katie Crutchfield brings her lo-fi indie project to Vancouver to support her latest LP ‘Ivy Trip​p​’. With guests GIRLPOOL (utterly raw, infectious and supremely brilliant poppy-punk – more here) and Knife Pleats.

Tough Age @ The Astoria, 769 E. Hastings St, Vancouver (9pm, $8)

  • [Garage/Indie] Hometown fuzzed-up garage rock maestros return to Vancouver ahead of their new LP. W/ guests Energy Slime, Fountain, Milk & Needles//Pins.

Ponderosa 2015 Lineup Launch Party @ ANZA Club, Australia New Zealand Association, 3 W. 8th, Vancouver  (9pm, Entry by Donation)

  • Ponderosa Arts & Music Festival 2015 lineup launch w/ music from Colleen Rennison of No Sinner, DJ Joshua Oldsoul & more.

Nowhere Fast @ The Morrissey, 1227 Granville Street, Vancouver (9pm – 3am, Free)

  • [DJ] Regular night of post-punk, indie, garage rock & pop-dance tunes  w/ Bryce Dunn

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Graham Cooney – ‘Fallin’ (Like A Fool)’

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Graham Cooney is a young folk singer and songwriter from Cork. We were introduced to his earthy, consuming bedroom-produced jams earlier this year and now, Cooney is readying his first proper release; a debut EP.

Entitled Adieu Adieu, it’s penned for release on May 9th and the first taster comes in the shape of the beautiful ‘Fallin’ (Like A Fool)’. It flows gently by, like trickling water, with soft, subtle instrumentation, ‘Fallin’ (Like A Fool)’ is permeated by an air of richness, comforting tranquillity and shrouded in melancholy. Imbued with a weight emotion and feeling, a gentle guitar sparkle and bubbling bass waltz with hushed, restrained and lilting vocal. Beautiful, simplistic and assured; things are shaping up rather nicely for his debut EP.

Adieu Adieu will be with us on May 9th and you can stream the wonderful ‘Fallin’ (Like A Fool)’ below now.

Jinx Lennon – ‘Xanax’

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Jinx Lennon is a unique talent, a national treasure to be exact. Influenced as much by post punk and hip hop, he is the embodiment of a modern folk singer.

Whether it’s played on a one string guitar or sampled disco beat, raw garage noise and blues, his are songs of raw truths that kick back against the humdrum bullshit of modern life and blow apart the chains in your head. Of late, Jinx has been working on songs for his next album (under the working title Keep Sane In The World of Eager Smiling Pricks), including a stint recording with Liverpool experimentalist’s Clinic. The first fruit from those sessions have emerged in the form of ‘Xanax’. Recorded earlier this year in Liverpool, ‘Xanax’ is typically brilliant and typically Jinx. It is a barbed, real and raw song with a serious groove, about a drug used to be used and abused, and people being medicated to the hilt. There’s no one quite like Jinx – utterly unique and searingly brilliant as always.

No word on a new album as yet but hopefully it’s sooner rather than later. For now though, there’s ‘Xanax’. Easy now.

JUNK. – ‘Dirt In My Eye’

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York’s JUNK. first caught our eye last year with their Car EP, introducing us to the trio’s charming, sweetly melodic take on garage punk.

The trio are back with a new track ‘Dirt in My Eye’, a first glimpse into their forthcoming EP, Liquorice, released on May 4th, through CHUD Records. Junk. have always exuded vigour and vibrancy, but with an innocence – or lack of pretension – to how they approach their music which is part of their charm. This charm is something amplified with ‘Dirt in My Eye’; a melodic, ridiculously tuneful and utterly contagious track. It’s lo-fi rumbling, rough-around-the-edges and shambling verse-chorus indie that is ever so affable. Affable because, for all its rough edges, a precocious energy sucks you and the whole thing is so teeming with frazzled guitars, riffs, sharp melodies, splendid doo-wopping and peppy vocals, and oh, you’re never more than five seconds from a hook. A wonderful jangly lo-fi racket is coated with fuzz and pop sensibilities, made exponentially more loveable by the delightful twin vocals of Estella Adeyeri and Sam Coates. Simply: charming, catchy and glorious lo-fi indie pop.

The EP will be with us on May 4th but right now, you can sample the sweet charms of ‘Dirt In My Eye’ below.

Introducing: Feuds

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Feuds are Irish indie-rock quartet – Evan Bruton, Luke Whelan, Adam O’Sullivan & Liam Dunne – from Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow.

Taking inspiration from a mix of ’80s/’90s era indie and post-punk, Feuds’ indie-rock stylings have a grainy, scratchy and unpolished imperfection at its core. Rough around the edges it may be, this coarseness is not to be confused with lacking skill, this foursome can play. The gritty raw materials of slant-edged rhythms, fuzzed riffs and snappy percussion provide the perfect vehicle for ponderous and reflective lyrics, and combine for an eminently ear pleasing experience. The imperfection only adds to the many charms of their sound, something borne out on their recently released their debut EP, recorded in the Hive Studios, Kilcoole by Eoin Whitfield of Enemies. The likes of ‘Tear Me Down’ and ‘Beautiful Mess’ capture this aesthetic perfectly, both tracks have plenty of grunt, the bass in particular, as it mingles with some searing riffs for indie-rock with quite some bite. Yet it maintain an endearing quality (and a repeatable experience) with some poppy sing-a-long melodies. A solid and encouraging opening hand from a promising young indie foursome.

You can download their debut EP, Lost Again, here, you just gotta ‘name your price’.

Tough Age – ‘Snakes & Ladders’

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Vancouver-raised garage-rock quartet, Tough Age will follow-up to their 2013 self-titled LP, with the release their new album I Get The Feeling Central.

Out on June 23rd through Mint Records, the first taster comes in the shape of lead single ‘Snakes & Ladders’, and it’s a hell of a tune. Built on the bedrock of scuzz pop, the new single is simultaneously sweet and ear-splittingly loud. A blisteringly supercharged onslaught of scorching red-hot riffs, catchy hooks, clattered drums and echoed vocals; ‘Snakes & Ladders’ is a thunderous and propulsive mix garage stomp and glam fuzz. This is one of the finest three-minute blasts of fuzzed-up garage rock you’re likely to hear. Not only that, it’s also insanely catchy and extremely infectious, and an absolute beast of a tune!

With their second record almost upon us, Tough Age have a string of live dates across North America including Vancouver w/ Energy Slime @ The Astoria on May 2nd – see the full list here.

You can check out ‘Snakes & Ladders’ below and while you’re at it, you can stream their self-titled debut here.

Miaoux Miaoux – ‘It’s The Quick’

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Almost three years since the irresistible electronic eclecticism of Light of the North, Miaoux Miaoux (Glasgow-based producer Julian Corrie) will return to the fold with School of Velocity.

Penned for release on June 1st through Chemikal Underground, the forthcoming record promises a sumptuous blend of influences, from eighties pop, nineties trance and the subtle, assured melodicism of Caribou. The first taster of the new record has been delivered in the form of the exhilarating ‘It’s The Quick’. It’s a fizzing glee-filled party tune that mixes rushing synths, joyous and euphoric dancefloor epiphanies with growly vocals that lend a sinister undercurrent. ‘It’s The Quick’ exudes sheer fun as it embraces an honest love of classic House music, while feeling fresh and inventive within a retro groove. A dazzlingly eclectic slice of what’s to come from one of the most reliably brilliant producers around.

The new album School of Velocity will be with us on June 1st and until then, behold the marvellous splendor that is ‘It’s The Quick’. It is simply magnificent.

Tomorrows – ‘Another Life’

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Tomorrows is a new project featuring members from Biggles Flys Again, The Chapters, Jethro Pickett and Woodheart, which takes its inspirations from a mix of prog, psychedelic and folk music of the ’60s and ’70s.

The first track to be released by the band is ‘Another Life’. It not only showcases how fantastically difficult it is to define their sound as any genre or other, given the broad array of styles at play but also that they found that sweet spot, a common ground between the array of influences and musical stylings that make up the band. Blending parts electronic, psych-pop and hazy krautrock, glorious vocals soar above a mist of wonderfully lush, shimmering, swirling textures, propelling beats and pulsing synths. It’s a harmonic, inventive and sprawling mix drowsy psychedelia, which brings to mind some sort of Death In Vegas / Paul McCartney & Wings (circa Band On The Run) crossover. An overwhelming addictive listen that will have you reaching for the repeat button time after time. This is one of the finest songs you’re likely to hear all year. Utterly sublime.

‘Another Life’ is a genre-defying marvel that offers an exciting and enticing introduction to Tomorrows, I for one can’t wait for more. There’s an EP on it’s way this May. Until then, behold, it’s ‘Another Life’.