Friday 31 May 2013

FD003: Earthling Brains - I'll Leave A Light On For You

Just 10 days now until the release of Earthling Brains' debut album I’ll Leave A Light On For You, on the 10th June 2013.

Earthling Brains is the moniker of multi-instrumentalist and comic strip artist Joe Besford. The album was self-recorded in Joe’s North London flat and mastered by Woodie Taylor at Milou Studios (Comet Gain, Veronica Falls).

The album is available with a companion piece comic entitled The Long Night Is Over.

I’ll Leave A Light On For You/The Long Night Is Over is Forward Defensive’s first attempt at physically packaging a music release as something other than a CD, cassette or vinyl record, coming as it does in comic form with a download code.

Three tracks are available to stream and a video accompanies You’ve Got Nothing Left To Get Off Your Chest. This video animates a segment of the comic's story.



You can pre-order the album now via Bandcamp.

Joe Besford's former band were been described as “…pure indie sublimity” (10Tribes). His long time influences include British Sea Power, Bruce Springsteen and Bill Watterson.

Beyond FD#5 - Marnie Stern

Now, we normally like to focus on new or relatively unknown bands here at FD but Marnie Stern is so good it's worth banging on her about her for those who aren't familiar.

Her fourth album, the magnificently-titled Chronicles of Marnia was released in March this year and is her most accessible, straight-up record to date, as demonstrated by the fist-pumpingly ecstatic Year of the Glad which opens the new album.


She is currently on a UK and European tour and I'll be catching her in London on Wednesday. The remaining UK dates are:

06/01 Manchester UK @ Ruby Lounge
06/02 Glasgow UK @ Broadcast
06/03 Leeds UK @ Brudenell Social Club
06/04 Bristol UK @ Louisiana
06/05 London UK @ The Garage

The rest can be found here.

I also recommend checking out her debut, 2007's In advance of the broken arm and the wonderful Transformer from her second album.

Wednesday 22 May 2013

Beyond FD #4: Anguish Sandwich

Anguish Sandwich, along with having an awesome name, write brilliant indie pop with delightfully scuzzy guitars. This track was the one that really caught my ear, taken from their Bermuda Triangle EP.




Find out more about the Northampton three-piece here.

JB

Sunday 19 May 2013

Beyond FD#3: Burrrn

I love Burrrn. They're from Tokyo and although they formed in 2005 and I've been aware of them for 18 months or so, it's only today I properly listened to their most recent album and I love it.

Their sound is pretty much my definition of shoegaze: loud, distorted, female vocals low in the mix and just wonderful. OK it may not be groundbreaking but they've some great tunes. Here's their first album, 2011's brilliantly titled blaze down his way like the space show.



You can also find them on Facebook.

AB

Friday 17 May 2013

Beyond FD#2: Winter

Hot on the heels of the first Beyond FD I have another for you. 

Winter is led by Samira Winter, with Nolan Eley, Kyle Oppenheimer and Ana Karina DaCosta. The band started in Boston, America and released their first EP Daydreaming last December. The EP, as the title suggests is dreamy, and there's plenty of chorus and reverb which ticks big boxes for me. There's a wistfulness I really admire and a sincere lightness which I feel only American bands can carry off to full effect. But I'm sure you'd rather listen for yourself than try and make sense of my descriptions, so here's a video for the title track:



The EP is produced by Nolan Eley, of Infinity Girl, another band well-worth checking out. Particularly Taking Nothing. Check out that chorus on the lead guitar! And the wobble on the rhythm guitar. Nice. His production on Winter's tracks brings the best elements of Infinity Girl's gazing and combines with Winter's songwriting to produce something nostalgic yet new.  


The band is now playing shows as a full band and working on new songs. They've a new video out 22nd May. Hopefully one day they will cross the water so we at FD can see them live in the flesh.

AB

Thursday 16 May 2013

Beyond FD: Sisters

Hey, we said we'd use this blog to highlight other bands we liked but so far we've been too busy (or lazy?) to do so. But here is a band I've just recently become aware of, called Sisters from that London. This song is brilliantly scuzzy...



Here's their hot hot hot off the press single too.

AB

Friday 3 May 2013

Earthling Brains - You've Got Nothing Left To Get Off Your Chest

Here's the video for the first song taken from Earthling Brains' debut album I'll Leave A Light On For You which comes out on 10 June. The album is accompanied by the comic The Long Night Is Over which is animated in this video.

The video was directed by Alex Bird and Earthling Brains.

You can pre-order the album and comic now via Bandcamp.

 

Friday 12 April 2013

Earthling Brains

Exciting times here at FD! We're delighted to say that on 10th June we will be releasing Earthling Brains' debut album I'll Leave a Light on For You, which you can preorder now. The album comes with comic companion piece The Long Night is Over. You can stream three of the songs from the album below, and see all 106 (and counting) Earthling Brains comic strips on his website.

A video for lead-off single You've Got Nothing Left to Get Off Your Chest is imminent...