Last week, James Bay stopped by BBC Radio One’s Live Lounge and performed a cover of Haim’s, Forever.
Directly following the performance #R1James Bay trended worldwide.
James Bay also performed a stunning set in front of the world’s fashion elite in London during Burberry’s Prorsum Spring/Summer Fashion Show.
He performed Clocks Go Forward, When We Were On Fire and Scars during the Fashion Show.
You can watch the video here.
Indie newcomers, Tulane, announce the release of their debut single, But I Say.
Formed out of necessity, Tulane came together in early 2014 when Nikki’s band, Thyrsday, was forced to cancel a row of shows due to a temporarily missing bass player. Nikk stepped in and alongside Nikki, the eleventh-hour duo salvaged the show and performed acoustic renditions together.
The chemistry was palpable. The pair took the plunge and Tulane was formed.
Their debut track, But I Say, is a story of the heart’s woes, in the form of a slow-burning and bitterly spacious four minute opiate.
With ARIA-award nominee Sean Carey (Thirsty Merc) at the helm, But I Say was recorded and produced at Trackdown Studios in Sydney.
At the heart of Tulane is a foolproof storytelling formula: one guitar (Nikk Retalic), one voice (Nikki Malvar) and a shared rucksack full of musical tales.
Ben Howard is pleased to announce the details of his eagerly anticipated second album.
I Forget Where We Were is set for release on October 20 2014 through Republic Records. It was produced by drummer Chris Bond at Deep Litter Studios in Devon. The album is available for pre-order now.
Fans can pre-order the physical album and the vinyl (which includes one extra song) via Ben’s website.
To coincide with its announcement, the first single from the album, I Forget Where We Were, is now streaming. You can listen to the official audio below.
The single follows the epic eight minute taster, End Of The Affair, posted online earlier this summer (official audio also below).
I Forget Where We Were follows the release of Ben’s hugely successful debut album, Every Kingdom. Every Kingdom, released in October 2011 sold in excess of one million copies globally, received a Mercury Music Prize nomination and was the catalyst for Ben picking up two Brit Awards in 2012 for British Breakthrough and British Solo Male Artist.
Renowned guitarist, songwriter and producer Blake Mills will release his highly anticipated second album, Heigh Ho, on September 16 via Verve Records/Record Collection. The self-produced album is available for pre-order at iTunes now.
“The goals on my first album were experimentation and discovery,” Mills said. “The goals for Heigh Ho were sonics and capturing performance. I love how my first album sounds but I’ve heard a number of records released in the last four years that seem to sonically focus on making things lo-fi and reverb-drenched so I felt compelled to create a combination of sounds I’d never heard before for this material. I also wanted to have more input from other musicians instead of doing everything myself.”
Recorded in Los Angeles at the legendary Ocean Way studios in a room built for Frank Sinatra & used by everyone from Bob Dylan to The Rolling Stones, Mills created an album that references a range of genres without really belonging to any.
To that end, Mills asked several of his musical heroes – Jim Keltner, Tony Berg, Don Was, Jon Brion, Benmont Tench, Rob Moose, Gabe Kahane, Mike Elizondo, Griffin Goldsmith and Fiona Apple (who duets on the slow-burning Seven and timeless sounding Don’t Tell Our Friends About Me) – to collaborate on what would become Heigh Ho. “Blake arranged the music the way that Cézanne would’ve filled a canvas,” Don Was notes of his experience playing in Blake’s band. “He’s a mind-blowingly great artist with the type of deep vision that is the hallmark of true genius. It’s so inspiring for musicians to play with a cat like that. If he asked us to play in orange, we wanted to give him a shade that burned so brightly as to blind the unsuspecting.”
“One of the reasons I think these sessions worked out so well is because many of these musicians are also world class record producers,” said Mills. “Their performances on this record revealed the spirit of this album. It reflects the spontaneity, maturity and tastefulness of my all-time favorite records.”
Since quietly releasing his debut album, Break Mirrors, which critics hailed as one of the best albums of 2010, Mills has been consistently busy. He’s producing the highly anticipated sophomore album for The Alabama Shakes and has produced music for ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Sara Watkins, Conor Oberst, Sky Ferreira, Haim and Fiona Apple, with whom he toured extensively in 2013 and 2014. He’s played with Beck, Cass McCombs, Jackson Brown, Lucinda Williams, Moses Sumney and Band of Horses. Rick Rubin & Don Was frequently call upon his services as a guitarist and equally enamored is Eric Clapton who recently told Rolling Stone magazine, “Blake Mills is the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal.”
Additionally, Blake Mills announced a 13 city headlining U.S. tour to take place this fall. The run of dates will kick off on September 17 at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ. All fans who purchase a ticket to any of the upcoming headlining dates will receive a complimentary download of Heigh Ho on release day.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that bands outstay their creative welcome, distracted by the gaudy excesses of fame and fortune, so how lucky we are that Captain Wilberforce, with his new Distance E.P. has never encountered such a fate. Leeds’ most tenacious purveyor of idiosyncratic alt-pop refuses to bow to the current 80’s zeitgeist, (having already suffered it first-hand the first time round) and instead look to classic songwriters like Mssrs Bowie, Costello and Bacharach – as well as their more recent counterparts Guy Garvey and Sufjan Stevans – to inspire timeless, cultured tunes that ear-worm their way into your life.
The four new songs on Distance reinforce Captain Wilberforce’s growing reputation for compelling melodies, cascading harmonies and crafted lyrics: these tunes ooze class, self-belief and a relaxed confidence that only comes with years of song-writing experience.
Friends of the band include Huey Morgan and Tom Robinson of BBC 6 music and Dermot O’Leary who invited the self-managed, self-released and self-promoted band to record a prestigious Saturday Session following the launch of their Ghost Written Confessions (2011) album.
rockingrepublic 