If things have seemed a bit quiet around here recently, it’s because we’ve been tucked away in our secret hideout, writing and recording new songs.

While we’ve been busy, Ben Sherman have chosen us as their latest Unsigned Act! Which is nice.

We’ll be stretching our legs with a show at Reading’s Oakford Social Club at the end of the month – August 25th to be precise – before ducking back under cover.

Album Club is a semi-regular thing where we talk about an album which has influenced us, is important to us, or one that we simply enjoy listening to. It’s like a book club, but with albums. This week it’s my choice: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, by Neutral Milk Hotel.

It’s tempting to talk about the band’s history more than the music; all I know is Jeff Mangum’s shyness in interviews and rare live performances have built up quite a mystique around his work. This album is just as inscrutable; there seems to be a narrative tying the whole thing together, a strange, cheese-dream version of the Anne Frank story as performed by a cast of ghosts, circus freaks and aborted foetuses. But it’s hard to make out.

You get the feeling Mangum is passing on some great wisdom – the meaning of life, the universe and everything, accompanied by a fuzzed-out acoustic guitar and a trumpet – if only you could understand what the hell he’s on about…

Listen on Spotify, Last.fm, Deezer, or buy it from a shop.

Come down to the Rising Sun Arts Centre on Friday June 25th with a fiver, and you’ll get to see the first-ever gig from The Clever Hans (they sound like British Sea Power and MBV channelling the spirit of Robert Smith) and another fresh new band, Polar Sky (bringing a slice of Californian synth-rock to West Berkshire). Plus, of course, us! There’ll be cake too.

Here’s the Facebook event if you’re into that sort of thing. See you there!

‘Pioneering’ is a spicy meatball, while ‘Wash The Night Eyes’ soothes and refreshes: together they count as two of your Five-A-Day. Listen to them here.

We’re busy working on videos for both tracks, which will be cast into the gaping maw of YouTube soon. We’ll also be throwing a launch party at our spiritual home, the Rising Sun Arts Centre in Reading – naked dancing and ritual sacrifice seem almost inevitable.

After a hiatus of 2 weeks, where we’ve been far too busy and important to listen to other people’s music, we would like to invite you, once more, to listen to the same album as us for the rest of the week. Dear Alex has elected Band of Horses’ 2006 debut album Everything All the Time for our collective listening pleasure.

Unfortunately there is no Spotify link this week, but if you fancy buying the album, you can do so here.

Please do not hesitate to post your thoughts, analysis and feedback here!

In more personal news, we have two gigs lined up this month; Monday 24th May at Play in Reading, and Sunday 30th May at Port Mahon in Oxford. We are hoping to play our brand new song Heartmachines at these gigs, and who knows… maybe even Will’s latest, as yet untitled, masterpiece will  be aired too?!

We are also pleased to confirm that our single Wash the Night Eyes/Pioneering will be released by Broken Tail/Josaka at the end of June!

So, have a good week and let us know what you think of this week’s album.

Best,

Luke

An album of beautiful, plangent electronica; mostly ambient but with touches of dance, pop and even garage. It also contains what is, in my opinion, one of the best ‘lost’ pop songs of 2001 and one of my favourite songs of all time: “(This Is) The Dream Of Evan And Chan”.

Here’s the Spotify link, the album on last.fm, and the dreaded MySpace. Enjoy!

PS In between Album Club posts, we are preparing for our next gig: Oakford Social Club in Reading, on Tues 27th April, with Nedry and Worship. We’re also working on new songs! Stay tuned.

A new Monday means we announce a new album that we will be mostly listening to. We encourage you to track down and listen to the same album at least 3 times this week and post your thoughts and comments here if you like…

This week Sam has offered up some slightly less obscure prog than his previous suggestions. It is Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s 1975 album Nightingales and Bombers. Wikipedia told me this very interesting fact… “The title of this album was inspired by a recording made in Surrey, England during the Second World War, by an ornithologist intending to record Nightingales. The bombers flew over at the same time and were recorded by accident. The recording has been incorporated in ‘As Above, So Below’.”

There does not seem to be a Spotify presence for this album, but please post this below if I am wrong. Here is the iTunes link.

We hope you enjoy this album and, as an aside, the Storm the Charts campaign is now taking votes for the first of this week’s 5 rounds. You can listen to the tracks in our group and vote for your favourite by clicking here. Voting for this round ends tomorrow at midnight, so please get voting if you’d like to see us in the next round on Wednesday.

The campaign is aiming to choose 40 songs by unsigned bands to promote with the aim of infiltrating the UK Charts in June.

All the best,

Golden Hours

Firstly, sorry for the delay in announcing this one. I’ve been on holiday and it was my choice this week.

I have opted for quite a seminal album from my adolescence: The Decline of British Sea Power by British Sea Power (unsurprisingly).

The Spotify link is here.

I remember discovering this back in the days when I wanted to know bands before everyone else and regularly discovered little gems. I was on a train home from Brighton after trying to track down Electric Soft Parade to give them my demo (true story) and picked up a copy of whichever Brighton music culture magazine was around at the time. I found a fascinating review of British Sea Power in there and an amazingly kooky image of these weirdos in army clobber, in a forest surrounded by wildlife… I (quite correctly) thought that I was going to like them!

I went out to get hold of their debut, The Decline of… at my earliest convenience and took it home for a listen. I didn’t like it. I listened again. It was marginally better. I was determined to stick with it after paying good actual money for it, and I wasn’t disappointed. What a grower! I grew to love and cherish this album and often ensured that Track 2 or 3 would get played at parties, leading to baffled disapproval from my ignorant friends. Hoorah!

I have seen British Sea Power 3 or 4 times since then and the songs off this album are always the best live.

I hope you dig this as much as I did, and, if you didn’t, please do not hesitate to suggest why, below.

All the best,

Luke

The last couple of weeks have seen us play our first two gigs in Reading and London respectively, and we are most excited to be gearing up for a show at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London, on Tuesday (6th March). Tickets are £6 on the door (£5 if you email us your name for inclusion on the cheaplist, or purchase advance tickets here). Should be a great chance to continue the Easter Bank Holiday joy for another day or so! A Facebook event for the gig can be found here.

If you want an indication of what to expect from us live, check out the recent blog review of our Wilmington Arms gig, written by Alex’s Ben Sherman brand ambassador colleague, Scott, here. Cheers for that Scott!

Finally for this Bank Holiday Bulletin – we have been most impressed by the Storm the Charts campaign on Facebook and put our single ‘Wash the Night Eyes’  forward for consideration. Check out the group and support it. It should be a great achievement if it goes ahead, and we will keep you updated with ways in which to support us if you so wish, as and when they are announced.

So, enjoy the rest of the weekend. We hope to see you in Hoxton on Tuesday!

Best,

Hours