Frightened Rabbit Announce New Single

Frightened Rabbit precede their 3rd full length studio album, ‘The Winter Of Mixed Drinks’ with a brand new single ‘Nothing Like You’ on February 22nd, backed with another new song, ‘Learned Your Name’.
Furiously upbeat, ‘Nothing Like You’ s acoustic bustle is reminescent of The Cure classic, ‘Inbetween Days’ and mines the most uptempo aspects of Scott Hutchison's songwriting. The new album follows on 1st March.

Frightened Rabbit’s steady ascent is set to rise incrementally with the release of the new album, appetite for which has been whetted by the anthemic ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ teaser single which gave the band their first Zane Lowe plays and made a unaminous critcal impression at NME, Q (Track Of The Day), News Of The World (SotW), Record Of The Day (Track Of The Week), CMU Daily (Track Of The Day).

More tellingly they registered strongly in the albums of the decade polls everywhere from the blogs to NME and The Skinny

‘Nothing Like You’ typifies a more fully realised Frightened Rabbit sound, and like ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ boasts a stunning string arrangment from labelmate, Hauschka. Speaking to nme.com about the new album, lead singer Scott Hutchison explained ‘We've broadened our horizons sonically and it feels like a natural move forward. Most importantly, it’s better than the last one. That's all I wanted, really."
Frightened Rabbit ended 2009 playing to huge crowds at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebration and 2010 will be a pivotal year for the band, as Scott acknowledges: “I’ve never been in a position of being aware of an audience of any size that was waiting for our music until now. You have to be aware of it or else it’s totally selfish. Pressure sounds like a negative thing but it’s quite positive actually. It feels earned. Everything we have achieved has been earned. It would be disappointing if we didn’t become more popular because that’s got to be the goal for every new record. If it comes I think we are actually ready for it now.’

The March headline dates run as follows, tickets available via www.crowdsurge.com/frightenedrabbit

04/03/10 York Duchess
05/03/10 Manchester Club Academy
06/03/10 Aldershot West End Centre
08/03/10 Bristol Thekla
09/03/10 Oxford Academy 2
10/03/10 London Koko
12/03/10 Birmingham Academy 2
13/03/10 Sheffield Leadmill 2
14/03/10 Norwich Arts Centre

I don't think I'm going out on too much of a limb to presume that there's Scottish dates to follow those.
You can have a wee listen to Nothing Like You (formerly known to some of you as Steve) now over at the Frightened Rabbit MySpace.
The single will be available as a 7" and download from Fat Cat.

What's Happening on Aye Tunes in 2010?

It's that time of the year when we move on from lists of stuff that was good last year to lists of stuff we won't do this year. I'm crap at giving things up (I'm typing this with a ciggie in my hand and a half drunk bottle of beer on my desk, so those two clearly aren't happening), so instead my only real resolution for 2010 is to find myself a job, since being out of work really puts a dent in your ability to buy things.

Anyway, here's what you can expect from the blog over the coming year.

Asides from Christmas week I managed to get myself along to at least one gig a week for the last five months of 2009 - and since the first couple of weeks of December had me at two gigs a week I think I'm allowed that one week off - despite being regularly skint. I'm planning on keeping that rate up as far as possible, so you regular gig goers can probably expect to see a lot of the wee ginger guy lurking around various venues in Glasgow over the course of the year. On thing I'd like to do is get over to Edinburgh more often, it's been ages since I got to a gig over there. That needs money though, so it'll have to be something quite spectacular to get me through at the moment I think.

Aye Tunes is a year and a half old this week. Only I'm not counting that whole first year, since it wasn't until a full year after launching I actually did anything of note round here. So in June we'll be celebrating the first birthday of Aye Tunes properly. There might even be a party or something.

At some point soon I'll try and do some kind of 10 tips for 2010 list, along with the rest of the music bloggers on the planet. It'll likely be quite familiar, as I think most of the ones I think are worth watching are bands that came to my attention in the last half of 2009 and have already had a wee bit of coverage here.

Record and gig reviews are likely to continue, and I do have a desire to add interviews into the mix too. Any volunteers?
I've fallen away from doing band profiles a bit, so I'll try and get more of those done this year too.

For better or worse I'm still going to try and focus on positives not negatives, so still no reviews slating things, unless I can be constructive about it. I will try and stop calling albums I like brilliant though, and attempt to balanced.

Thanks a lot to everyone that has visited over the past year. My stats show that most of you started coming round in September and October, I'm glad you got here and hope you keep coming back.

Oh, I did think of one resolution - keep up with my email. If you sent me something in December especially it pretty much hit my inbox and go stuck there. Feel free to give me a reminder if I've missed something.

Rambling over, for now.

We Sink Ships Radio Launch Gig

Still trying to drag myself out of the Christmas and New Year slump with regards to getting back to regular postings at the moment, bear with me.

Until I force myself to write something more, here's a plug for the gig I'm heading to on Friday.
The line up is The Second Hand Marching Band, Benni Hemm Hemm and Euan McMeeken (of The Kays Lavelle, but promising to play non-Kays material). Also beneath us, the waves DJing. If you click the poster above it should be more readable, but if you can't be bothered then the gig is at The 13th Note on Friday, kicks off at 9pm, and costs £4 to get in.

The gig is to celebrate the launch of the new We Sink Ships podcast on Radio Magnetic. The first podcast should be available some time today update, it's available now here, but in the meantime you can hear a teaser for it here. Head over to Radio Magnetic for full details on what you can expect from WSS Radio.

While on the subject of We Sink Ships I should really point out that their new (and quite gorgeous looking) website is now online at http://www.wesinkships.co.uk/, with two new exhibitions available for viewing.

I'm risking turning into a Second Hand Marching Band stalker, I've seen them quite a lot recently, but since they have been threatening to take a break from gigging for a while I may as well pack in as many as I can before they take a time out from playing live. Benni Hemm Hemm impressed me quite a bit last time round, and I'm interested to see what Euan gets up to on his own. See you at the bar then?

EP Review - second hand marching band: grit and determination

As I mentioned last week, there's a new Second Hand Marching Band EP out. Since there's very little new around, and since you don't have much longer to get your mitts on a copy and since I've done nothing since Christmas and don't want to fall back into my lazy ways, here's a wee review of it.



The EP has four winter themed songs, and kicks off with Bonbon, a cheery wee upbeat number. Lots going on, as is to be expected, without sounding busy. Good start, it's the ever so slightly chaotic, raucous kind of fun I like. You can have a listen to that below.
From there, things take a shift in tone, with more gentle and melancholic sounding songs rounding out the EP.
Second song, title track Grit and Determination, manages to be incredibly sweet without being sugary. It's more sparse sounding - conjuring up images of leafless trees covered in snow, although that could be just because that's what I saw out my window earlier - gradually adding layers to reach a crescendo. Very charming, sweet and uplifting.
My Gift is Waiting makes good use of boy/girl duelling vocals and harmonies to build mood over a barely there backdrop of piano and horns.
Next Year brings in layers of instrumentals and vocals again for another song of love and new beginnings.

All in it's a great little EP, and at a mere three quid well worth getting your hands on a copy before New Year. It's also a nice reminder that there's more to the band than the novelty of cramming as many bodies as possible on a stage. When I've written about the Second Hand Marching Band before I tend to focus on that myself, and the mildly chaotic air that comes with them playing the more upbeat songs live. That's a bit unfair as there's really solid, well crafted songs in their repertoire, played by excellent musicians. I'll try to be more balanced next time they crop up in my live reviews.

The Second hand Marching Band play King Tut's on December 30th (which because I kept getting distracted writing this is now today, rather than tomorrow as planned) along with The Seventeenth Century and We're Only Afraid of NYC. It'll be really good, you should go.
If you can't, then you can catch them again on January 8th at The 13th Note for the launch of the We Sink Ships radio show on Radio Magnetic. That'll be good too.

Happy Christmas!

Want all the Christmas songs collected together in one post? Well ok then, consider this your present. There's even an extra song.

1st - Miss The Occupier - Christmas Wrapping
2nd - Campfires in Winter - Christmas Song
3rd - Arab Strap - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
4th - Teenage Fanclub - Christmas Eve
5th - There Will Be Fireworks - In Excelsis Deo
6th - Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop (2007)
7th - El Dog - Let It Snow
8th - Mitchell Museum - Stop The Cavalry
9th - Cocteau Twins - Winter Wonderland
10th - Paul Vickers and The Leg - I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas
11th - Withered Hand - It's A Wonderful Lie
12th - Recording The Impossible - Silent Night
13th - Synonym - Festiv’ Biznis (Santa’s Goin’ Crazy)
14th - Dawn of the Replicants - Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time
15th - Camera Obscura - Little Donkey
16th - Belle & Sebastian - Are You Coming Over For Christmas?
17th - Dan Lyth - She Spent Thirty
18th - Idlewild - Mistletoe And Wine
19th - Macabre Scene - Last Christmas
20th - Dogs Die In Hot Cars - Christmas
21st - Cancel the Astronauts - Dead By Christmas
22nd - A Band Called Quinn - Snowbus
23rd - The Morgue Party Candidate - I Seen Mummy Kissing Santa Claus
24th - The Cinematics - Japanese Snow Queen
24h Bonus - De Rosa - Under The Stairs (Christmas Reverie) Demo Version
25th - Camera Obscura - The Blizzard

Happy Christmas (or other holiday of your choice) everyone. Please remember, Aye Tunes isn't just for Christmas, so keep coming back. Unless you dislike me, then you are excused.

Christmas Songs - Day 24

Phew, it's the last day of this, so I don't have to keep digging for more songs. Got any suggestions for anything else I can do to force me to make a post every day? There probably won't be anything too exciting posted here over the next day or two, so don't feel bad if you don't visit.

Today's Christmas song is a last minute entry from The Cinematics. They had a new album out a couple of months ago. I wasn't in love with it, but it's not bad.

The Cinematics - Japanese Snow Queen
Cinematics website

Ah heck, it's Christmas, so have another song too:
De Rosa: Under The Stairs (Christmas Reverie) Demo Version

If you are after another freebie song, Kid Canaveral are giving away Good Morning, a taster of the album they'll be releasing next year. It isn't Christmassy, but it is fab, so go get it.

I'll be wandering the streets and pubs of Glasgow later today, so if anyone is at a loose end from about 2pm for a while, give me a shout.

Second Hand Marching Band release new single

Only available between 23rd of December and 1st of January 2010. We'll make you a CD and you'll get your own numbered hand made copy. There will probably only be a few dozen made so it might be pure special.

It's a quiet time for new releases, obviously, so might as well flag up good ones as they happen.
We here at Aye Tunes (well, me, no one else works here) love The Second Hand Marching Band, so new material from them is smashing.
As stated in their description above, this new CD is only available for about a week, so get your skates on if you want a copy.
See below to have a wee listen and to get your hands on a copy. Your £3 gets you a CD and a download too.