Check out Stag and Dagger Festival tomorrow!

To view my online copy on http://www.hivemag.com/, click here

Cocknbull Kid

Music lovers get prepared as the Stag and Dagger festival takes over Shoreditch with over 100 acts and 20 venues tomorrow night.


This little evening of joy will showcase upcoming bands so you will be fighting for your place in the crowd to get in some of the best venues in London, and from the start you will be pretty flustered about where to begin this musical minefield.

Venues host a variety of acts early on including CocknBull Kid who will be entertaining the masses at CAMP and Mammal Club in the Old Blue Last, which is always packed out so get down there early.

Brooklyn-based duo Creep

With amazing headliners, you may have some trouble deciding on where to stand your ground. If you decide on XOYO, head down for 11pm and you will find a new buzz surrounding Brooklyn-based duo Creep. They have an electronic synth dubstep sound with sweet vocals, with stand out tracks including ‘Days’ featuring The XX’s Romy Madley-Croft and ‘You’ with Nina Sky.

There is also the incredible Ghostpoet playing at 93 Feet East, New Young Pony Club at The Macbeth and Ghost Eyes showing off their electro talent at the Queen of Hoxton as well as many more diverse musical delights along the way.

You can buy a wristband for £13.50 at XOYO from 6.30pm onwards and this will get you into all the festival venues. But it’s always best to plan ahead, so sort out your must-see list now and go to http://www.staganddagger.com for the full line-up and all information about this yearly event.

Review // Gang Gang Dance's New Album Eye Contact

To view my online copy on http://www.freedomspark.co.uk/, click here

Hailing from the experimental arena, Gang Gang Dance are back with another album of surpreme delights. Released last week in both the UK and the US, Eye Contact marks a new phase of mixtured sounds from the New Yorkers.

Known as the band impossible to categorise, they appear to capture a psychedelic electro slash world music vibe. Starting with a hellishly long opener with 'Glass Jar', this album moves into different zones of their own musical niche after rejoicing together from various Manhattan bands.

There are no special guests like there was with Tinchy Stryder's in 'Princes', but with vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos talent's beautifully highlighted on 80s-esque 'Adult Goth' and 'Thru and Thru', there is clearly noone else needed.

The song 'Chinese High' moves the ten track into a lighter electro feel before the new single 'Mindkilla' plays out as an amazing synth dance track.

The band have previously released 4 albums after signing with the independent record label The Social Registry in 2004, with the most recent one being Saint Dymphna in 2008. However, they have certainly moved things forward with Eye Contact as we hear a variety of funky echos in 'Romance Layers' and synth sounds in 'OO OO OO'.

Having just played All Tomorrow's Parties as well as The Great Escape last week, GGD are touring through Europe before heading back to the US for an almighty set of dates in July.

This is an album for those summer night highs so go grab yours now and start enjoying an eclectic mixture of musical sorts.

To watch the video to 'Mindkilla' on the GGD website, click here

Rating: 7/10

Review // Those Dancing Days at XOYO

To view my online copy on http://www.freedomspark.co.uk/, click here

Coming back to London to promote their second album Daydreams and Nightmares which has been produced by Robyn’s collaborator Patrik Berger, Those Dancing Days played to a packed out venue at XOYO in Shoreditch.

With NME suggesting in 2008 that this ‘cute’ band were lacking “the simplicity of a classic hit”, the Swedish female five piece came back with a vengeance to prove critics wrong.

Whilst playing a few songs from their debut album, In Our Space Suits including ‘Home Sweet Home’, the energetic gang pulled out new tracks sounding almost identical to the record.

With Linnea Jonsson on lead vocals, her soulful and possibly never out of tune voice is matched by an equally incredible bassist and a mighty fast drummer.

Stand out tracks from the album were also reflected in their live set with ‘I’ll be Yours’, ‘Fuckarias’ and ‘Forest of Love’. Playing to perfection is impossible but yet it felt as if they were when the track ‘Reaching Forward’ was performed turning into my highlight of the night.

With an amazing crowd and great atmosphere, Those Dancing Days gave their all and proved that although their music is certainly indie pop, it is definitely anything but boring.

If you can’t wait to see them this summer, they are playing Glastonbury on the Saturday as well as various festivals in Germany, Ireland and Sweden.

To follow Those dancing Days, go online to
http://www.myspace.com/thosedancingdays
www.thosedancingdays.com

Or check out their record label in the UK, www.wichita-recordings.com

Discovering Toronto-based trio Austra

To view my online copy on http://www.hivemag.com/, click here

Having stumbled upon the wonderful Austra, I quickly delved into a scurry of research as I usually do when I slip back into my teenage-like self.

New Album: Feel It Break

 

Austra are a Toronto-based band formed in 2009 with 3 core members and today is the day they are releasing their debut album Feel It Break.

 

Since searching the web, I have repeatedly played two songs in particular, 'Lose It' and 'Beat and The Pulse', with the latter video featuring arty females dancing their slightly revealing hearts out.

 

This 11-track collection moves with a powerful continious mood with pained vocals, starting with 'Darken Her Horse', moving eventually to 'The Future' and 80s-esque track 'The Choke'.

 

This album may not make you jump backwards but it is certainly a clear cut stylish synth-pop set of tracks with such incredible vocals from Katie Stelmanis. After training in classical music from a young age, the singer and co-founder admits that all she really wanted to was ultimately make "classical music with really fucked up, distorted, crazy shit on there."

  

Austra

The trio definitely show off their beat-driven dance-friendly songs with great confiction and in a way that should play out amazingly well to a live audience.

 

If you are ready to get lost in the music of Austra, catch them at Cargo in Shoreditch on 07 July with as yet unannounced special guests or visit their myspace.com page here

Review of Friendly Fires' new album Pala

To view my online copy on http://www.freedomspark.co.uk/, click here

Since releasing their debut album, Friendly Fires have built a serious fan base and admiration from the music scene in the past few years after being nominated for the Mercury Music award as well as two Brit awards.

The band are now back with their second album, Pala, which is an eclectic mix of rock, pop and electro dance beats, with yet again fantastic vocals from front man, Ed Macfarlane.

As a huge fan of Friendly Fires with their live performances being some of the best gigs I’ve ever been to, I had high expectations of their second coming. Although I wasn’t bowled over on my first listen, after playing the record many times Pala definitely has more to offer than I first recognised.

The band continue to sound like themselves, but this is no bad thing as the album starts with amazing tracks ‘Live Those Days Tonight’ and ‘Blue Cassette’. The former track has had serious radio airplay in the past few weeks and it does well to summarise the best of FF’s sound; encompassing amazing drums, lyrical highs and electronic notes that will make you press that repeat button.

Friendly Fires have no doubt moved forward in their sound as it appears that this album is way more influenced by house and electronic music, however tracks such ‘Show Me Lights’ and ‘Pull Me Back to Earth’ also reflect a clear pop vibe.

New sound also comes in the form of ‘Hurting’ which provides an electronic pop mix, as well as ‘Pala’ and ‘Helpless’ having a much slower-paced and chilled Ibiza mood.

There is also ‘Hawaiian Air’, a sweet summer tune with harmonies and synths and ‘True Love’ which holds a funky pop rhythm. These tracks are perhaps the weaker side to the album but by no means bad.

With Macfarlane recently stating he prefers to “listen to Justin Timberlake than Morrissey”, this is understandable once listening to this album as it presents a triangle of sounds and layers of instrumentals and vocals. Friendly Fires are no typical British indie band; they are something way different and far more diverse.

The band recently played their hometown of St Albans but they have gigs all over the world this summer, from the recent Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Carlisle to Hamberg, Amsterdam, New York and Toronto.

They are one hard-working band and if their previous live performances are anything to go by, buying your gig ticket to see Friendly Fires is a great investment.

To keep up to date with all news and tour dates, visit www.myspace.com/friendlyfires

Pala is out now on XL Recordings.

Rating: 7/10

Introducing Ghost Eyes...

Releasing their first single on 7" today, Ghost Eyes are a mysterious London-based act who are pushing forward records as they become a special entity. The new track called "Phantom Mountain" is a multi-cultural mash up of electro eastern hip hop rock (yes, quite literally) mixed with various vocals including a children's choir. The video features eerie hooded dancers and was directed and produced by the band themselves.

Having mixed songs for Fujiya & Miyagi, Cymbals and We Are The World, they have also toured with Gold Panda and Matthew Dear, but now this genre-pushing trio are ready to get some personal creditation. You can catch them playing all over the UK in the coming months but if you are gagging to see them this week then get down to The Queen of Hoxton in Shoreditch on Thursday! To follow all news of Ghost Eyes, go to http://www.myspace.com/ghosteyes or watch to the video online, click here

Introducing Carsten Kruse...

To view my online copy on http://www.freedomspark.co.uk/, click here

Carsten Kruse talks to us about his unique paintings on structures such as trams, houses, cars and other odd things all over Germany…

Kruse is a German artist based in Heidelberg and he is certainly a man of many talents; hand painting images on cans, recycled scrap materials and canvas with monster and fish style paintings.

The energetic artist has been painting on canvas since 1990, with his first exhibition held in Heidelberg a year later for a local computer company. He began painting houses in 2002 and trams in 2003, taking 6 weeks to complete this latter project.

As a child, Kruse explains that he was always painting and no-one could stop him from decorating the furniture and even the walls in his parents’ house! He went onto draw with water-resistant pens on school property, then his own bike, his own car as well as his friends’ cars and so on.

Kruse is now employed by companies to construct a marketing concept which in turn becomes his artwork. An example of this is Kruse’s work on Aqualand in Cologne which included hand painting a building wall and a tram. He tells me that many projects are determined by his own imagination but others want to show a strong corporate identity, and one example of this is the B5-Solar company in Berlin.

He states that essential skills for working in the arts industry include “talent, courage and an instinct for business”, and that having “maximum freedom” is the best thing about his job… “I can do what ever I want. Nobody cares about my hair cut. I get money for all the crazy ideas in my head”. However, Kruse doesn’t take kindly to criticism and struggles if he does not have a big project in sight.

I ask what advice he could offer to others wanting to pursue a career as an artist and he says that “not developing a big interest in too much money or luxury is essential as most artists I know are poor”. He recommends networking to get noticed although admits to hating this side to the art industry.

This summer Kruse will be producing T-shirts that will be available online, and for this he founded a company in Stuttgart and the prototypes are in production now.

To see more of this unique colourful array of work, go to Kruse’s website at:
http://www.ck-paintings.de/