DIIV Live Review - Birmingham O2 Institute

If there's any new band that's successfully creating a modern take on 90's shoegaze, it's these guys from New York. Following on from the band's debut album - 'Oshin', DIIV gave evidence that they have more to offer with their just as gripping and intense 17 track compilation 'Is The Is Are'; proving that there's more to them than just another reverb infused mix of indie-pop psych.

If there's one thing they're known for - it's their highly distinctive and fluttery chimes of indie-pop guitar riffs that melt into more melancholy tones. However, each track still compresses the ability to have its own individuality, making you feel everything from euphoria to strong senses of angst all of course whilst still feeling as if you're on a rather blissful trip.

The four-piece spilled onto the stage encased in baggy trousers and caps with a contagious look of excitement plastered over their faces. The nerves soon became evident with the constant announcement of the band's name after each song and a reminder of where they're from.

The breathy vocals of front-man Zachary Cole Smith added the underlying sense of distress through the more personal feel of his lyrics complied with the contrasting upbeat rhythms of euphoric 'Dopamine'; which, gives the listener a surge of exactly that - having almost the same effect due to containing the craving to come back for more. This falls far on the other side of the spectrum in comparison with their previous hazy sounding, emotion-charged first album - 'Oshin', however both albums would still not be mistaken for any others as although appearing to have been set in completely different frames of mind, they both sound like DIIV's very own creation and sound.

The band's overwhelming sense of unpredictability was reflected as they made it clear that they didn't quite have a set-list; meaning most small-talk in between songs consisted of Zachary asking the crowd what songs they wanted to hear played next, only adding to the connection between the band and the audience.

Surges of euphoria vibrated throughout the room with the dominant pounding of intense bass riffs from bassist Devin Reuben Perez stabilising the feeling, making himself present amongst the mysterious haze of blue lighting. The intense thump of earthy bass was unmissable within well known older track - 'Doused' - which managed to conjure up just as much energy as the more hopeful and dreamy sounding 'Valentine', where brooding rushes of vitality were flying out thick and fast.

One of the most surprising aspects to the evening was the band's ability to create such unmissable stage presence and a stir amongst the audience, as by first hearing of their songs you wouldn't expect much of a reaction live; however, if you are as doubtful as I was then get yourself down to the front at one of their shows and you'll see what I mean as the crowds energy seemed to create a whole different mood with moshpits-aplenty.

Written by Rosie Mulhern

Breeze + TRASH + Plaza Live Review - O2 Institute Birmingham

This piece originally featured on Little Indie Blogs. Click here to go to the original post.

Breeze, TRASH and Plaza - three young, new bands hitting the indie music scene that you'll soon get used to hearing about. The trio have just completed a UK tour together, finishing in Leeds on Monday. For their Birmingham show tonight, it's a home gig for the headliner, and a bit of a distance for the others.

Kicking the night off was Plaza, a four-piece in their late teens from Hartlepool. A chilled, feel-good indie band with sounds resembling Brum's own Jaws, with a similar tendency and ability to create an energetic, reverb-heavy, upbeat track and the next minute induce your ears with an aura of dreamy blissfulness. 'Fickle' appeared a crowd favourite with a dramatic build-up at the start bursting with shots of summery vibes working up into a hazy pop tune. Latest track 'Totem' with its appealing intro also seems to have won fans prior to tonight.

Confidently making the most of their time on stage, Plaza piled on as much energy as possible in thd short space of their set, with vocalist Bradley Lennard's cap continuously falling off through his vigorous hair swishing and dancing.

The band surprisingly announced that it was their first time in Birmingham midway through their set, which could've gone unnoticed due to these guys successfully managing to make the place feel like their own. The set came to a close with their deceiving track - 'Antumbra' as the beginning would suggest a laid-back tone, however a build-up made itself present bursting into a forceful and unexpected drop with tight drum solos erupting into a break of euphoric infused noise.

Next to take the stage by storm were TRASH, a young emerging quartet from Chesterfield, and one of Little Indie's bands to watch in 2016. Beginning on the mellow note of '81', they soon built up more momentum by changing the pace with '4 Miles'; the fun-fuelled guitar rhythms present within this track and the catchy repetition of "come on", spurred on an already appreciative audience.

Many of their songs possessed the ability to appear optimistic, while hiding a deeper undercurrent to them with the lyrics, such as 'Sad Boys (All I Wanna Do)': the subject matter appearing to be the feelings that come after a break-up, but a fast-paced loop giving it a move-on-your-feet vibe. Likewise, new single  the four-minute 'Workout' which meshes catchy indie pop, fierce guitar and driving bass with a lyric that tells of angsty times and the seeking of a cure through an alcohol daze. 'Hot Coffee' - their most listened to track on Soundcloud with an impressive 14k-plus streams - ended their set quite nicely as even the mention of the title of the track from the band caused a reaction from the crowd.

Bringing the night to an impressive close was Birmingham's own four-piece, Breeze - doing their hometown proud, it has to be said. They chose tonight to open up with a song they had not only never performed live before, but was so new it has only just been completed and was still without a title. A brave move, but one that proved itself with its dreamy, yet infectious nature - something that this band seem to have no lack of.

Their contagious, dream-pop tunes such as 'Luna Love Me Good' delivered nothing but positive vibes to the high spirited and impatient crowd; entailing the kind of empowering chorus that will be bouncing off the walls in your head for days on end. The effortless vocals of frontman Paul Baker added a sense of uniqueness to their sound, especially prominent in their glittery surf-pop track 'Bleach'. The band played on relentlessly through the night, so much so that Baker's guitar strap broke halfway through a song.

Breeze topped off the night their cover of Dardude's 'Sandstorm', which may sound unusual but they totally made it work as they put their own spin on the song making it sound like it could have easily come from their own cannon. The crowd's response seemed to fuel the band's energy and stage presence even more with bassist Jorge encouraging fans to come up on stage and Baker throwing his mic with the stand into the crowd mid-song.

Overall, the whole night left you with twinges of euphoria as if summer had come a few months early. Make sure to catch all these three bands live soon.

               

Written by Rosie Mulhern

Sundara Karma Interview, Birmingham - round two

Sundara Karma, a new, unstoppable Reading based band who have been on a roll this year so far with their success only increasing. Comparisons have been made to the likes of Arcade Fire with their undeniably euphoric tracks, all possessing potential arena sing-a-longs. The four-piece have become a familiar name within the new indie scene and have recently been supporting Wolf Alice, recording their debut album and are due to be supporting Nothing But Thieves soon; all building up for the band's deserved slot on the mainstage this year at Reading Festival.

I previously interviewed the band back in October 2015 where I introduced them to my blog (click here to read) and they were currently undertaking their first ever headline tour. A lot has happened since seeing these guys last so I decided to catch up with them once again last Tuesday at The Rainbow in Birmingham the afternoon before yet another sold out show on their current second headline tour.

So, it's only been less than half a year since the last time I saw you guys and a lot has happened since such as supporting Wolf Alice on their European tour. How was that for you?

It was wicked. We did about six shows with them which was a whole load of fun, I think Amsterdam was a stand out show for us - that was crazy. We learnt a lot with them as we talked a lot about the live set up and the preferred way of doing a show. Also, just from watching them every night as you pick up certain things.  It was just cool to get back into Europe again as it's such a different market and territory over there. It felt weird coming back here from that especially as we were supporting Wolf Alice so of course it's different from doing your own shows. As different as it was it's nice to come back to do your own shows cos everyone's always really up for it and our shows are getting insane at the minute.

Do you have any memorable tour stories that you could share?

We have many I'm just not too sure if any of them are suitable to say...We played in Sheffield and we had a really sort of... crazy night after the show and so for the show the next day we were all just diluted versions of ourselves. Haydn was the absolute worst - I'm certain he was still drunk when we played the show the night after. I didn't actually see any pictures from that night but I remember looking over at Haydn on stage and he just looked terrified.

Can you tell me a bit about your newest release - 'A Young Understanding'?

It seems to be doing really well, people are really responding well to it live which is cool. It's the first track of the album, which we've named 'A Young Understanding'. Hopefully it gives people a little bit more of an insight of what our next releases will be like. It's just a tune really, it's a song for the kids.

I quite like the cover artwork for the song too, where did that come from?

Yeah it's cool isn't it? It's by a guy called Hamish Robertson who's an artist from LA. We're working with him to design some other covers such as our album cover.

And of course the music video was released not so long ago. It's quite unusual, where did the idea for that come from?

It was purely down to the director - Oscar. We all knew we wanted to create a funny and light-hearted video for this one and he just came back with the best idea and it was like yeah, this guy's got it. We were lucky as a lot of the time you get people coming back to you with ideas for the video and they don't quite match up to how you thought it would be, but this one was pretty much spot on.

I saw a video on your Twitter of you guys playing 'A Young Understanding' live in Manchester the other night, it looked pretty crazy!

It was! That was such a huge stand out show. That was a moment for us I think, actually.

When can we expect the album?

After festival season I think. We're kind of thinking September at the minute but there's nothing set in stone.

I have a quickfire round for you now as I know we don't have much time, so...

Festival preparation in three words?

 Lots Of Vodka

Three go-to pick-me-up songs?

Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys, Jamming, Bob Marley and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper

Three songs that have been on repeat in the van on tour?

Rockstar - Nickelback, I Believe In A Thing Called Love - The Darkness and Butterfly - Crazy Town

Two good things and one bad thing about touring?

It's all good! Free food, free beer and.. there's nothing bad really

Which three people would you invite round for dinner?

Dead or alive? I'd have to say Gandhi, Hitler and Jim Morrison

What would you cook for them?

I can't really cook anything. I mean Gandhi was a vegetarian so um.. (picks up list of catering choices for the night) I'd have to say a nice Moroccan casserole.

Favourite lyric from one of your songs?

It's probably different for all of us but mine (Oscar) is 'He cut his heart out to be cool cos everybody loves a criminal'. That's from a song that isn't out yet, though.

If you all had to get matching tattoos, what would they be?

Well we all already have our sun logo on us somewhere but if we didn't then it would probably be like a massive picture Hayden's face or our tour manager Nick's face.

If you could only play one song repeatedly throughout the entirety of a live show, which one would it be?

Our new song Olympia - definitely. Again, that song isn't out yet but we're playing it tonight and have been playing it across the tour so far. We might just play it ten times over tonight cos of that question.

So, what makes a song stand out to you that makes you want to put it on your set lists?

Money. All the money we'd get for it! No but really I think a feeling, if it feels right then we'll put it on and if it just doesn't feel right then we'll leave it out; I think it's usually pretty easy to tell. We get bored of songs quite quickly as well so the newer it is then the more likely it is that it'll be on there.

What does the next few weeks/ months hold for Sundara Karma?

We're going back into the studio soon to record one more song for the album. We have our next single that's gonna be coming out soon which is also from the album so we're just gonna be rolling them out. We're going to be back on tour with Nothing But Thieves. Also, we're playing Reading festival again this year and we're on mainstage which is just insane; it's so weird even just saying it now. After that the album will be close to coming out so I guess we're just doing a load of preparation for the album now until then.

Myself with the band

Written by Rosie Mulhern

Swim Deep Live Review - The Dome, London

Swim Deep front-man Austin - photo by me

This piece originally featured on Little Indie Blogs. Click here to go to the original post.  

After the dreamy, romantic blissfulness of their first album 'Where The Heaven Are We', Swim Deep surprised us all by taking a completely new direction with the drop of their highly anticipated second work, 'Mothers', late last year. It's always good to see a band that isn't afraid to push their own limits and take risks with confidence in their own unpredictability. I think it's no insult for a band to hear that they're 'hard to categorise'. When I interviewed the band's keys man James Balmont at the time of 'Mothers' release, he told me how he felt it was important "not to be bookmarked alongside one particular artist. As long as people struggle to do that for our sound, then I think it means we must be doing something different and that’s what we want to do really - we just want to be Swim Deep".

Judging by their performance tonight at London's sold out Dome as part of the NME Awards Shows tour, I think they've achieved exactly that.

Sweat front-man: Mike - photo by me 

Warmimg up the night early on were newcomers south-London's Sweat, who successfully fired up the crowd with an enticing set. Their individuality is what struck me most when seeing and hearing their set with their capability of pulling off their unusual indie meets 80s synth-y dance vibe, similar to the likes of Jagwar Ma. Frontman Mike definitely created a cutting edge look for the band, adding to the appeal with his indefinable stage presence as a dramatic entrance was made as he appeared in sunglasses and a white overcoat. It would seem that putting on a show visually and capturing the attention of the crowd, to say the least, was just as important to this band as sounding good.

It was difficult not to be completely engrossed when watching their performance through fear of looking away as you might miss something. Overall, I was left really impressed; they're doing their own thing in the new music scene. After a set which included their just released debut single 'Be Complete' along with 'Tambourine', it ended with the dramatic throwing of the mic stand and tambourine that was casually held next to him throughout the performance, adding to the sheer air of confidence this 'sweaty' outfit exude.

Catholic Action front-man Chris: photo by me

Next to the stage was Glaswegian four-piece Catholic Action. I had heard about this band before due to the praise and hype that other bands within the current indie music scene were giving them - such as tonight's headliners, for example. With a tight and refined performance of their lively tune 'L.U.V', an Adam and The Ants meets 70s glam rock track, it was hair-swishing galore as vocalist Chris McCrory mumbled through a veil of his locks: "I've had it cut since I was here last, but I still can't see a thing."

After growing anticipation, the lights went down and the familiar surge of frantic fans pushing towards the front took over. The stage was polluted with smoke and hazy blue lighting as a guy (who looked as if he could've been in the band) strolled onstage playing the trumpet, to be followed moments later by the Brummie four-piece themselves, making an assured entrance. Regardless of the fact that the band now seem centred around London, they'd clearly stayed true to their roots with frontman Austin Williams promptly throwing a "Y'am alright?" at the crowd; proving -  you can take the B-town scene band member out of B-town but can't take the B-town scene out of the band member.

The sheer enthusiasm from both the band and crowd seemed too much for the size of the venue; the fact that this was their longest set ever with 15 songs played -including ‘Namaste’, ‘One Great Song And I Could Change The World’ and 'Is There Anybody Out There' - from both albums, added an even bigger sense of excitement for the band. It was clear to see their humbleness was still very much intact with Austin slurring out several "thank you's" between songs and insisting: "You don't know how grateful we are, It's nice to see that people are actually having a dance as well."

It was hard to keep a fibre in your body still as the euphoric first few bass notes of old classics 'Honey' and the synth heavy fan favourite 'King City' gave the intimate venue a run for its money, as if a go-ahead for a bigger outburst of energy. I was intrigued to know how the crowds would react to some of their newer material live but knowingly, as this  was the second time seeing them live since their album release, although creating a different feel in comparison to their older songs, they still had just as much of an impact. From hearing older album tracks such as 'She Changes The Weather' and 'Red Lips I Know' you’d be deceived by expecting a rather mellow and laid-back vibe when played live, but the band and crowd completely over-ran expectations as the response from both Swim Deep and the audience couldn’t have been more lively with the ecstatic crowd shouting back the lines from old classics as if it was second nature to them.

As they draw 90 minutes to a regal close on 'Fueiho Boogie' - which indeed everyone was by this time, boogieing - you simply couldn't fault their drive, enthusiasm, and the quality of their songs. With a headline US tour in the offing, you can already see Swim Deep being another proud British export to our American cousins.

Written by Rosie Mulhern