Bushstock 2013 - Preview

With London’s Camden Crawl taking a holiday (moving to Dublin but bizarrely retaining its Camden Crawl name) there’s a possible gap in the market for other multi-venue festivals in the UK’s capital. One such event is Communion Record’s one day event Bushstock which returns for its third year on June 1st.

Bushstock doesn’t sprawl itself over the city like other multi-venue events do, instead it keeps things compact with just four venues in South-West London three of which, St Stephen’s Church,  The Defectors Weld and Ginglik return from last year plus new addition Bush Hall replacing Shepherds Bar. All venues are within a short walking distance of each other.

Being a Communion Records event it’s unsurprising to find that Bushstock leans heavily in a folky / singer songwriter direction although this year’s line-up also includes a good smattering of indie guitar bands. Playing this year you’ll find the likes of Willy Mason, Theme Park, Dutch Uncles, Marika Hackman, Ethan Johns, Post War Years, Josh Weller, Thumpers and George Ezra. If synth pop and electronica is your only thing it's probably best avoided though.

Today we’re giving our recommendations of five of the lesser known acts on the bill that if you’re going it may well worth be giving your consideration to.

Young War

Manchester’s Young War will be providing a slice of acoustic soul at Bushstock. With just two demos (Rose Gold and Say That It’s Love) on line this very new act has been described by Rockfeedback as Prince meets Ryan Adams. He's also garnered the twitter thumbs up treatment from Theo Hutchcraft of Hurts. Now we’re doing the same.

Sivu

What do musicians do to actually make money these days? It seems that Sivu works in a call centre in Waterloo, which is a shame because with such magical songs such as Better Man Than He Sivu really should be making and performing songs full time. Sounding a little like Wild Beasts duelling gently with Alt-J, it can’t be long before Sivu jumps ship from the monotony of the scripted phone conversation.



Fyfe

Not to be confused with Fyfe Dangerfield, lead singer of the Guillemots, Fyfe is Paul Dixon, previously known as David’s Lyre between 2010 and 2012. With a new name and new musical project he’s already had huge Hype Machine / online hits with the songs Solace, St Tropez and Lies. Fyfe is one of those acts that makes the undercard of this festival even more intriguing than the bigger names. St Tropez (streaming below) is the tastiest peach of a tune.

Rosie Carney

Rosie Carney is a 16 year old singer songwriter from Donegal, Ireland (although she originally hails from Breaking More Waves very own English county of Hampshire). She follows the ever growing number of young types who seem more at home picking up an acoustic guitar than an electric one, being more Marling than Muse. Her acoustic songs such as What You Have Been Looking For (below) and When You Stole A Kiss are exceptionally lovely.



Kimberley Anne

Kimberley Anne plays accessible acoustic pop and declares that “I’m left handed like Hendrix but can’t play like him.” Kimberley Anne is getting her name in all the right places, having recently played both Great Escape and Live at Leeds as well as supporting Lewis Watson. Her sound is like a confident easy on the ear Tracy Chapman with heartfelt lyrics.

Breaking More Waves will be reviewing Bushstock in our usual here's some things we learnt style very soon after the event.

Tom Odell - Best Of Friends

Cover versions are quite environmentally friendly aren’t they? They're music’s version of recycling. Why waste valuable human resource writing something new when you can just take someone’s good idea, put your own stamp on it and be done with it – you don’t even have to go the bin or recycling station to put the previously used one away.

So here’s Tom Odell’s bit for the environment – a cover version of indie rockers Palma Violets Best of Friends taken from the Daytrotter Recordings, a limited 12" vinyl EP of live covers recorded for Record Store Day. Of course vinyl itself is arguably more environmentally friendly than disposable media forms such as CD’s, with vinyl being seen as more collectable and therefore less likely to be discarded into landfill and even when it is dumped at the tip the material itself is easier to recycle.

However, we digress, this blog isn’t an advert for sustainability, it’s about music.

So take a listen to Odell’s cover. Just his voice and a piano, the simplicity of this recording is more effective than when he’s bashing it out in the middle of the road with a band. Having won the Brits Critics Choice Award earlier this year, featured in the BBC Sound of 2013 poll and not forgetting that he was named as one of Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch back in November 2012, Odell finally releases his album on June 24th.

Tom Odell - Best of Friends

Wilsen - Oblivion

Music blogs are time capsules of history, a diary of the author’s romances, loves and passions for sound on public display for strangers to read. Yet in this world sometimes the first rushes of lustful excitement make us deaf; we think we hear the good, but as time goes on the bubble bursts. “It wasn’t you it was us” we can hear ourselves saying to the artist in question. We’ve changed. We’ve moved on. We’ve found someone else. We can still be friends, we just can’t love you anymore. We got it wrong.

So when we first pressed play on this song we were slightly concerned. In January we introduced our new flame Wilsen. Last year we got hot under the computer bed with Grimes and ended up naming her album Visions as our second favourite of the year. So when we saw that Wilsen had covered Grimes’ Oblivion for the b-side of their excellent new single Dusk there was the opportunity for all sorts of horrendous repercussions. Were we prepared for this coming together? Would we feel the same about both artists afterwards?

The answer was found by pressing play. Wilsen’s version of Oblivion is the sound of magic taken from a box of electronic tricks and transferred to a new world, but one that can coexist in polygamous musical harmony. No need to burst that bubble today then, and instead just use words like captivating, mesmerising, sweet and gorgeous. Oh god are we going to regret all this later? Let’s check back in 2014 to see how we feel about things then, but we’re confident we’ll still all be lovers.

Wilsen - Oblivion

London Grammar - Wasting My Young Years (Video)

After nearly three and a half thousand words over the last three days on the blog, today deserves a rather shorter post as we suffer the inevitable post Great Escape comedown.

Here’s the perfect video to start that comedown with. Undoubtedly one of our highlights of Brighton's new music festival, London Grammar’s performance in a beautiful high vaulted church was as lofty, dignified and inspiring as the building itself and the closest we came to tears and goosebumps all weekend. So here's something to rekindle those emotions; whilst we were soaking up the music the band released a video for the song Wasting My Young Years. 

Is it pop ? Is it soul ? Is it folk ? We really couldn't care, all we know is that everything about this song is insanely beautiful.

London Grammar - Wasting My Young Years (Video)

The Great Escape Festival 2013 - Review (Day 3)

With 20 things already learnt about 2013’s Great Escape in Brighton, (see review’s here and here) Saturday found Breaking More Waves dodging the drunk hen and stag parties, townie clubbers and Morris Men (!) to find more new live music.

10 Facts We Learnt About Great Escape 2013 (Saturday).

1. Discovery at Great Escape isn’t what it used to be.

Great Escape is partly seen as a festival of discovery of new music. One of the concepts of the event is to stumble randomly over tomorrow’s unknown stars in tiny venues playing to small audiences. However, in our wireless web world this idea is probably a little far from the truth. The success of The Great Escape means that nearly every venue is packed (the days of watching Adele playing in a less than 100 capacity coffee shop third out of four on the bill as we did in 2007 are probably long gone) and with the continual development and expansion of Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Spotify and online press including new music blogs, most of the ‘discovery’ for many punters is complete before they’ve stepped out the door at home -even the festival's website had links to every bands music and a complete Spotify playlist. Yet most people are still not prepared to wager £5 to go and see three bands they’ve never heard of on a whim on a rainy Monday night in a pub in their hometown - they prefer the greater 'experience' of an event rather than a solitary gig. Great Escape packages the concept of ‘discovery’ into something different and judging by the rammed venues, people like it.

2. Chvrches may be a ‘buzz band’ but they are such because they have A.M.A.Z.I.N.G songs.

As we predicted yesterday their set at seafront club Digital was massively over-subscribed. Those who did get in witnessed a band taking a myriad of classic influences (Prince, Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk) and turning them into a glossy synth dream fit for 2013 fully justifying their position as our no.1 one to watch for 2013. With a bandaged hand Lauren providing the sweetest of vocal melodies on future pop classics like Now Is Not The Time and Science & Vision, Chvrches put an electronic bullet to the slogan ‘don’t believe the hype.’

3. Girls Aloud are now cool and kitsch enough for a Brighton club DJ to drop Sound of the Underground into a mainly hip hop and r’n’b influenced set.

This actually happened. We danced a lot.

4. The UK has its own very accessible version of Arcade Fire.

Eliza & The Bear’s afternoon set at the cave like Haunt was another packed out show, the band showing a dynamic stomping enthusiasm with their joyously uplifting set. Guitars, trumpet, keyboards, mass chants and big sing-a-long tunes that bind so tightly together that it makes you wonder why they’re not already playing arenas, alongside Embers they’re one of the best new guitar based bands we see all weekend. Euphoric is an understatement.

5. The Great Escape has many imitators but it’s still the most impressive.

With pretty much every large city in the UK now having its own multi-venue festival, the Great Escape still leads by a country mile. One of the reasons for this is that its still one of the best managed. With so many venues running its critical for stages to run to time in order for punters to be able to see what they’ve chosen to see and with very few exceptions every venue at Great Escape runs bang on, with impressively quick set up times by the artists themselves.

6. It was a good night for Denmark.

Around the same time that Emmelie de Forest was winning Eurovision for Denmark with Only Teardrops, another Danish chanteuse was pulling musical blows with punchy youthful attitude and winning Brighton over at Great Escape. Sassy pony-tailed singer Karen Marie Ørsted, performed as if she was dancing on hot coals and her life depended on it. Pilgrim glistened with sweaty, brassy, electronic grooves and whilst MØ’s tunes may not have quite enough pop hookiness to take her into the mainstream, those who like their electronic music that little bit edgier will find a lot to love about MØ. 

7. Lulu James has good shoes (and an incredible set of pipes)

The award for best costume of the festival has to go to rising 21 year old Geordie soul-pop star Lulu James. With a pair of shoes that were covered in paper flowers and a combination of leotard and webbed effect prince charming pantomime jacket James looked stunning. Despite suffering technical problems on stage her club bound soul grooves sounded perfect out front. Britain’s answer to Beyonce? Well maybe not quite, but certainly she might be giving Katy B and Jessie Ware a run for their money by the time the year’s out.

8. There’s still a problem with free gigs.

Running alongside the Great Escape is the Alt. Escape, a series of free gigs, showcases and parties that anyone can attend irrespective of if they have a Great Escape ticket or not. In some respects this is a brilliant opportunity for bands and those who want to put on a show; with Brighton being so busy over Great Escape weekend it virtually guarantees a decent sized crowd. Yet as folk singer Rhodes discovered on Saturday afternoon at The Mesmerist, a large audience who haven’t paid to get in doesn’t equate to silent attentive listeners. The levels of chat in the room were almost unbearable – maybe he would have been better playing to a small crowd of paying customers who were actually interested?

9. In real life Moko dances just like she does in THAT video.

She really does. (Hear her below)

10. The Great Escape is still great.

The Great Escape unquestionably remains the biggest and the best new music multi-venue urban festival in the UK. Go there and fall in love with live new music all over again.

Moko - Homesick