Jun 13 2012

The Big House- Debut Single Release

What’s that? Emily is getting obsessed with another boy-girl duo again? Rightly so. To be fair, this is just a re-ignition of a past love, the guys I fawned over in St Luke’s Bombed out, at Liverpool Music Week…and then in February. And now again in June! It’s kind of seasonal.

The Big House, after being together for about eighteen months are finally releasing their first single, the utterly majestic Canyon Home in the Sun. For the first time, they have recorded with a full backing band, and after having only seen them live with the use of Paul Molloy’s guitar, hearing the recordings was not only a delightful surprise, but also a shock to see how they have surpassed themselves. As a self-confessed fan girl with a slight obsession with Simon and Garfunkel, I struck gold when I first discovered The Big House in May last year. Their harmonies seamlessly bleed into their effervescent energy to produce a sublime live act. Admittedly a little apprehensive about hearing them with the addition of a backing band, I honestly don’t think I’ve been more pleasantly proven wrong; it breathes new life into their music, and simply adds to the ebullience.

The Big House are releasing ‘Canyon Home in the Sun’ on 30th June at (my favourite) Liverpool venue, The Kazimier, with ‘Caught Up’ also on the CD, a perfect example of this revived vitality. The foot-stomping track with its raucous drumming exudes such jollity, and with the strong lead vocals of Candie Payne it’s hard to find even the slightest of fault. Though both Paul and Candie are native Scousers, their voices sound so authentically American, and that combined with CHITS being about California (and aside from the fact that I think I was born to live during the 60s) there’s a certain strange nostalgic feeling about it.
The duo provide the perfect example of honeyed, buoyant music of a hugely high standard. It’s refreshing to see something like this finally emerge from Liverpool; appealing to modern audiences, yet still retaining that old fashioned aspect. Their favour of this ‘old fashioned-ness’ spreads to their choice of their music not being available online- not that The Big House are pretentiously against downloads and playlists, but they prefer the physicality to music -not surprising considering they’ve released their first single with The Music Consortium- previously Hairy Records.
A copy of these recordings are available to the first 250 ticket holders only, so get to The Kazimier early, especially with the likes of (this might be turning into a girl crush) Emily and The Faves and The Flamin Mamies supporting. Having already been dubbed as a recent Johnny and June, this is absolutely an opportunity not worth missing.
Buy tickets HERE 
May 12 2012

Liverpool New music #6- Stealing Sheep

For Fans Of: First Aid Kit, Blue Roses
Girlband-trio Stealing Sheep have been kicking up a (good) fuss in Liverpool practically since they got back together back in 2010, and there’s no surprise why: their ‘folktronica’ really is impeccable. They’ve supported the likes of Field Music and Emmy the Great, been recommended by Paul McCartney himself, and even recorded in Abbey Road (free of charge!)
With whirling sythns and immaculate voices creating three part harmonies, this psychedelic infused pop is one of the greatest things to come from Liverpool in a long time.
This was supposed to be uploaded to the 405 but it doesn’t seem like it was…awkward.