Whoever said January was a bleak month can go eat their hat. Purveyors of all that’s warped, synth-laden and folk-orientated, One Inch Badge Records are launching a five-day Brighton band-fest alongside their new local-celebrating compilation, ‘Sea Monsters’ – the cream of the crop in B&H talent. Unwrap a whole new side of music as we take you through our favourites.
Salter Cane
This four-piece specialise in country – not of the Dolly Parton kind though. It’s rousing stuff that you can imagine going down a storm at a western hootenanny, sitting atop several straw bales. Pure grassroots, sung by the husky-voiced tones of lead guitarist and songwriter, Chris Askew.
Crowns On The Rats Orchestra
The seven-strong orchestral army march into new musical territory. They mix the classical up with the contemporary, combining violins, keys and trumpet with the usual guitars, bass and drums. The lyrics, laced with lines of poetic beauty, take your ears for a stroll up among the clouds.
The Squadron Leaders
Surfer rock of an even more out-there kind. They make a lot of sound for a three-piece act, with echoing guitar and a morose saxophone playing over a steady beat. It’s like listening to the soundtrack to an 80s film noir.
Drum Eyes
Everybody loves a bit of 8-bit, right? DJ Scotch Egg and friends create pop magic, evoking the sounds of Gameboys past, and turn it into something with a bit more depth than your Sonic theme tune – they give a genre previously considered a novelty some atmosphere.
Cold Pumas
These lads have gone from strength to strength in recent months, another flower in the bouquet of Brighton bands to bloom this year. Having been included on a compilation put together by Radio 1’s Huw Stephens and Wichita records, this’ll be their first show in a while after hibernating away to produce a record. It’s the melting pot of surf, alt. indie and a fearless experimentalism that makes them so invigorating.
Speak Galactic
Relocating to Gothenberg made an impact on Owen Thomas. Creating their atmospheric debut over the first 18 months settling in, Speak Galactic emerge with a dreamily lo-fi pop folk record. It plays like a soundscape a little reminiscent to Silje Nes. Whatever it is, it’s good to listen to.
Pope Joan
The Brighton pop indie sensation of the moment. We’re inclined to agree with OIB’s Alex Murray when he said, “I think they could be the next big band out of Brighton.” They blew us away at our SOURCE show for Brighton Live, they can do no wrong.
Nullifier
An amalgamation of OIB cohorts, Nullifier feels like an experimental journey through harajuku-style synth pop and beyond. With choruses that get stuck in your head in a good way, and melodies with ever-cheery dispositions, what’s not to like?
Illness
They’re sick on their instruments – regarding their performance that is. Their timings are faultless, and their influences – Pavement, Hella and Shield Your Eyes are all nodded to in the rolling rhythmic melodies.
Hind Ear
They have an uncanny knack for playing with sound – looping it, sampling it and layering it all together without it sounding pretentiously dismal. In fact, it’s genius. It’s still rough sounding, kind of like a punk take on IDM, or something.
Mary Hampton
The revered folk artist headlines Saturday’s show. She seems to effortlessly produce contemporary folk songs with strong traditionalist roots, a powerful combination that’s captivating to listen to.
Curly Hair
Coming from the holy grail of folk labels, the Wilkommen Collective, duo Curly Hair soon got the attention of BBC1 presenter Beth Elfyn among others with their pared-down tweeness. In songs like single ‘Pumpkin Eye’, ‘Hully Gully’ and ‘Blow The House Down’, even their song titles remind us of childhood nursery rhymes.
Jane Bartholomew
A new discovery of OIB, Bartholomew’s quirky folk act got their full attention. Her unusual voice is in a similar vein to Joanna Newsom for its fragility. An exciting act we’re looking forward to hearing more about in the coming year.
Robert Stillman
The newest singing to OIB, multi-instrumentalist Stillman entrances audiences with his grasp of multi-track tape compositions of full-blown, piano-based folk. If you were lucky enough to catch him at the Hauschka show back in November, you’ll want to reserve a place for this.
Stuart Warwick (Jacob’s Stories)
With tender vocals and tentative piano, like a bird tip-toeing on the keys, his performances are moving enough to make a whole room of drunks pipe down for an entire set – we’ve seen it done. A staple of OIB shows, Warwick is now venturing to pastures new, having collaborated with Leeds band Vessels on their latest album, ‘Meat Man, Piano Tuner, Prostitute’. Who knows what comes next?
Us Baby Bear Bones
The newest edition to the OIB family, Alex discovered the talented duo at White Night festival this year. In parts it sounds like a scratchy voicemail message from Karen O, in others it’s lush and pretty. Lovely vocals coupled with an accordion and percussive and acoustic accompaniments; their songs read like a fairytale.
Birdengine
There is an underlying darkness to Tillbury’s minimal folk, guaranteed to put thee under a trance. With songs cryptically titled ‘Buried In The Black Snow’ and ‘I’m Not Completely In Hiding Now’, he is a one-man mystery to behold.
One Inch Badge’s Alex Murray tells us about Sea Monsters and putting the Brighton music scene on the UK map
What is Sea Monsters all about?
It’s not really a festival, more of a series of gigs inspired by Brighton Live. We wanted to create our version of that really. The gigs were an afterthought of the CD to be honest, the idea originally came about because there are so many amazing bands in Brighton that we love but we can’t release all of them, so in a way the shows are a snapshot of them all. The CD’s a fiver, and it’ll have worldwide distribution through Southern Records next year. I love the idea that kids around the world can check out the Brighton scene.
You’ve got a bit of a reputation for releasing eclectic, experimental bands of all genres. Is this to showcase the more ‘out there’ bands in Brighton that may not get a look in otherwise?
I formed OIB to support local music – a lot of bands that I work with never get shows with Brighton Live, so we did this really as our equivalent to it.
Whose set are you most looking forward to?
I really like this band Us Baby Bear Bones at the moment. They’ve only played two gigs, they played as part of White Night. They’re a really exciting, young band – a little like Cocorosie, very talented. The gigs happen over a week at the Prince Albert.
Would you think about expanding the festival in years to come?
I would like to expand it; we’re doing all five nights at the Albert. It’s pretty much our musical home; in our first year we exclusively did our shows there, now we do massive shows at Brixton and elsewhere. It’s nice to come home and stay true to our roots. Irrespective of how big the bands we work with become, we like to do our shows in small venues.
It’s the fourth anniversary of the label, what are your proudest achievements?
Loads. First of all getting our test pressings back for the My Device 7″, the first record we released and getting Casiotone For The Painfully Alone to record with us. We’ve loved his records for years, he loves our DIY thing and he committed to us. That was really exciting, he really gave us the confidence to do bigger things. Most recently, doing MF Doom was one of my biggest ones, he’d only played in the UK once in 14 years, only ever played in London too, so that was pretty fun having him down in Brighton.
You’ve worked with a lot of big acts recently, and yet you’re putting only Brighton bands on the compilation – do you feel Brighton is still an important place for music?
Brighton’s incredibly important to us, there’s no way OIB would exist anywhere else but Brighton. It’s the place where we developed our taste in music; we’re more excited if anything to take Brighton bands on tour than bigger artists. I also love the fact that all these really weird indie records that we put out are essentially funded by gangster rap like the Wu Tang Clan gigs we put on. I quite like the irony in that, in a way.
FYI
Where: Prince Albert
Web: myspace.com/oibrecords
When: Weds 26th – Sun 30th Jan 2011
WORDS BY LYDIA STOCKBRIDGE