Dropped right before Christmas last year, Rose Coloured’s Doorstep Volume 2 compilation doubtless made great stocking filler for a number of Surrey and Hampshire’s resident music fans. It also offers plenty of great reasons to get excited about the Guildford- and Aldershot-centred music scenes in 2015. Read more…
I have a very strong emotional attachment to many of the releases listed below. Choosing this list was exceptionally tough; I’ve been fortunate to discover some incredible bands and artists over the past year, and it’s safe to say that outside this list lie a great many immense tunes that can be found via a quick browse through TMMP’s archives when you’re done with this lot. However, the following choices are the cream of the crop. Read more…
With very few exceptions, Christmas music is terrible. Fortunately, the Boileroom team have good taste in tunes – and so this show was the perfect antidote to the overwrought saccharine pap that’s been unavoidable for the past few months. Read more…
Swim Good consistently rock good – and this fresh threesome continues the winning streak so far upheld by previous release Yeah Yeah Great Yeah and a pair of storming live sets. Little Victories contrasts undeniable catchiness and jaunty guitars with vicious, go-for-the-throat lyrics; Love Don’t Tempt Me shines through live demo-level production that lends a surprisingly invigorating rawness to proceedings; and the closing cover of Ella Eyre’s Comeback is slinky, shiny, and entertaining. Read more…
Sofar Sounds are the most fascinating live music promoters you’ve never heard of. A global collective of music fans, Sofar tap into humanity’s need for community, connection, and intimacy by hosting secret small-scale shows showcasing the talents of a diverse range of artists. This evening’s event took place in an endearingly arty Brighton basement – an appropriate location for what was to come. Read more…
In an age of instant gratification, where everyone wants everything yesterday, dropping a sophomore album over three and a half years after your debut can be an anxiety-provoking event. It can be argued that music fans are more fickle than ever, easily susceptible as we all are to distraction and immediate amnesia – and under such conditions, almost any musician could reasonably expect the world to have moved on over the course of 42 minutes, let alone months. However, Beardyman is no standard-issue artist. Read more…
What do you get if you cross Brandon Boyd’s lyricism, an idiosyncratic yet familiarly contemporary male pop vocal, a touch of Biffy Clyro’s more commercially-oriented song structures, and a little Jon Gomm-esque acoustic work? Well…this. Into Color manage to take so many disparate parts and fuse them into something appealing in a pop sense, yet sufficiently inventive to attract the praise of the most hard-bitten muso. Once again, they deserve massive respect for another solid step in the right – and a fresh and exciting – new direction. Read more…
Although Guildford’s alternative music venue is called the Boileroom for a reason, few bands heat it up as quickly as Bare Jams do. For band and crowd alike, this show was very sweaty. Read more…
One of the Dub Pistols’ most popular tracks is called Mucky Weekend – and the crowd at this show were definitely eager for one, despite it only being a Thursday night. Fair play. Read more…
The world of the singer-songwriter is crowded, to say the least. Although there are many excellent contenders out there, it definitely takes someone truly exceptional to stand out from the crowd and make a serious impact.
CeCe pretty much has it all: Not only a flawless vocal and timeless songs but a rare willingness to really put herself out there, whether with a band to back her up or alone onstage with nothing but a guitar and a microphone between her inner sounds and her audience. Then you have her inventive videos, dauntless stage presence, the epically cinematic production job behind her EP Framework, her status as an artist signed to the prestigious Quatre Femmes Records, and the brilliant and thoughtful answers offered in response to the questions below.
Read on, check out the links at the end of the interview, and enjoy. Read more…