| Since being founded in 2006, The Great Escape has been firmly established internationally as the leading event for showcasing new music. Taking place in Brighton over 3 days in May, The Great Escape kicks starts the festival season, introducing 15,000 music lovers to the key artists and sounds of the year. With over 300 bands playing in 30 venues over 3 days, The Great Escapeis the key date in the music calendar. In addition to pre-publicised performances, impromptu street gigs spring up all over town. The Alternative Escape, numerous club nights, label parties, industry showcases, unique collaborations and outdoor gigs all add to the festivities.
“Think of it as Glastonbury by the sea.” NME This year five bands and artists from New Zealand will be making the journey to Brighton UK. Pikachunes, Tiny Ruins, Avalanche City, Flip Grater, and Princess Chelsea will be appearing at their own showcases as well as the NZ@The Great Escape party which will be taking place at Haunt on Friday the 11th of May. Please keep reading for additional information on the artists attending. |
Princess Chelsea
Princess Chelsea is the moniker of New Zealand composer, Chelsea Nikkel. Nikkel studied classical piano throughout her childhood and teenage years as well as dabbling in drums, guitar and clarinet. While at high school she discovered her love of composition, writing and recording her first song “Monkey Eats Bananas”.
After leaving high school, Nikkel formed “circus punk” act Teen Wolf with Brad Fafejta (creator of Princess Chelsea’s album art). Nikkel went on to spend the better part of her twenties developing her recording and production skills while also touring as a member of Sub Pop darlings The Brunettes. The results of these experiences is the debut Princess Chelsea album Lil’ Golden Book, a triumph of high concept production.
Absolutely sublime.” – Rolling Stone
”…you’ll have a very hard time getting this catchy, witty number out of your head.” – Dangerous Minds
Contact
Website: www.myspace.com/wonderfulprincesschelsea
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wonderfulprincesschelsea
Official Great Escape Showcase: Friday May 11th 8:45pm at Psychosocial Ground Floor
Avalanche City
The story of Avalanche City begins in a house, alone, for hours each day for months, slowly learning how to sing by process of scales, recording, and self critique. Six months later, Dave Baxter played his first solo show as Avalanche City. Six months after the first show, the first tracks were laid for Avalanche City’s debut album “Our New Life Above The Ground”. Dave headed into the countryside and moved into Kourawhero Hall, and spent the week alone recording and playing everything himself with only the cows and the milk trucks as company.
The result is an album that stretches across many genres and influences culminating in a sound that is an impressive and eclectic amalgam of instruments, melodies and harmonies. The depth and perspective create a dynamic atmosphere that is both rich and raw. With a brilliant collection of folk pop songs Avalanche City is now a full fledged band with their own distinctive sound. The first single Love Love Love debuted #1 in New Zealand selling double platinum and has recently reached gold status in Australia. The United States will be releasing an EP and the UK the album in the coming months.
Contact
Website: www.avalanchecity.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/avalanchecity
Official Great Escape Showcase: Thursday May 10th 7:15pm @ The Haunt
Tiny Ruins
It has been a whirlwind few months for Tiny Ruins since the release of debut album Some Were Meant For Sea. Recent shows have included opening for the Fleet Foxes in New Zealand, touring with CW Stoneking in Scotland & Ireland and a headline tour throughout Australia. That was following a headline tour of New Zealand and multiple shows in Australia with Beach House, Ólöf Arnalds, Joanna Newsom, Alasdair Roberts, & The Middle East. Tiny Ruins is currently based out of Europe, where she will be performing throughout the summer months with Cass Mitchell on upright bass. Forthcoming is a tour of the UK with The Handsome Family, and festival performances at No Direction Home, Camp Bestival, Wilderness and Green Man.
Some Were Meant For Sea, the debut album from Tiny Ruins was released in 2011 in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It is being released on Co Operative Music in mainland Europe and through South East Asia in June. Its songs, composed & performed by Hollie Fullbrook, were recorded following a stint living in Italy and Spain.
It is a mannered album, one whose traditional arrangements & classic key are gently commanding & reminiscent of folk’s greatest storytellers: Carole King, The Unthanks & Richard Thompson. She writes with humour and fantasy of cats in hallways, journeys taking flight on moonlight, and priests who float into the sky on strings of balloons.
The album has been reviewed internationally. Mojo gave the album 4 stars. It has had feature reviews in Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne Age and The New Zealand Herald. The album has been featured regularly on BBC 6 (Tom Ravenscroft etc) as well as XFM and BBC 1, 2.
“An absolutely gorgeous album” – Bob Harris – BBC Radio 2
“Exquisite” – Word Magazine
****1/2 “One of the most sophisticated and moving albums of the year” – New Zealand Herald
**** – Sydney Morning Herald
**** – MOJO
“She’s managed to avoid the applied angst that so often ruins the work of female singer-songwriters and created a debut album of vast beauty. It isn’t out in the UK yet but, hopefully, it should be soon. If not, I’ll spend the rest of the year making you all copies; everybody should have one”
Tom Ravenscroft – BBC 6 Music
Contact
Website: www.tinyruins.com/a>
Facebook: www.facebook.com/tinyruins
Official Great Escape Showcase: Friday May 10th 8:15 at Unitarian Church
Pikachunes
Pikachunes is the solo project of New Zealand producer and musician Miles McDougall. The recording of McDougall’s debut self-titled album came about after he fractured his ulna while skateboarding, an injury that required reconstructive surgery. At the time of the accident, McDougall was midway through his Bachelor of Music, majoring in Jazz performance on drums.
McDougall had studied the instrument since childhood while also playing piano, guitar and trombone. Unfortunately, his injury left McDougall unable to play or study during rehabilitation and out of frustration, he turned to his love of digital production and the result is Pikachunes, a first person account of moving to a new city and the turmoil of building a name as a new musician.
The Pikachunes album impressed Lil’ Chief Records and was soon picked up by the label and mastered by Jonathan Bree of Sub Pop band The Brunettes. Fully recovered, McDougall soon began working with great vigour to earn the recognition (which he quickly began to receive) as one of Auckland’s most prolific and popular live acts.
His debut album “New Fiend” highlights McDougall’s ability as a beat maker, using pulsing electro beats to create a party tune that’s both groovy and awash with heavy club thuggery. This is hook and riff based pop music in its most basic form with lyrics borne of honest observation.
Contact
Website: www.myspace.com/pikachunes
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pikachunes
Flip Grater
The road is long from New Zealand to Europe and Flip Grater is already on her third album. Her first album Cage For A Song (2006) has some echoes of the folk and alt-country scene. One of its songs was selected by the producers of the American television series Brothers and Sisters for the final episode of the first season. in 2007, Flip Grater published the first Cookbook Tour, a concept which marries videos, performances, diary and cooking recipes collected during her New Zealand tour. This atypical work made her the darling of New Zealand media.
her second album, Be All And End All, came out in 2008. The critics happily greeted her strolling indie-folk song, recollections of the PJ Harvey or Suzanne Vega. A long tour in a dozen countries followed.
This latest, While I’m Awake I’m At War shows itself of a rare sensibility. The languishing and restful, folk-song-tinged, (slightly) country sound of Flip Grater lets one glimpse a dreamy girl. There is a melancholic scarcity, but a great generosity in shared feelings. if the ethereal and deeply moving voice of “Find me” moves closer to Cat Power, the entêtante ritornello of “Careful” tilts to the best of Suzanne Vega.
While I’m Awake I’m At War could be a eulogy of slowness and good taste. The recording is very applied, meticulous even. mainly accompanied by an acoustic guitar, heightened occasionally by some violins, Flip Grater slows down the pace of a world that has become too busy to be honest.
last year, Flip Grater flew away to Europe, crossed Germany, in particular with Cocoon who she supported on tour. At the same time, she prepared her second book, The Cookbook Tour Europe, log book of her European tour of 2009 – where she redraws her thoughts, events and meetings of music and vegan cooking such as an encounter with an American in Paris, or the visit of a vineyard in Italy.
But it is finally in Paris which she decides to settle down, in the spring of this year, having visited again Italy and Brazil. We shall have understood Flip Grater is an enthusiast of music, wines and vegetarian cooking.The three passions are intrinsically connected to her and her glance of the end of the World is worth seeing. You will not be surprised to find her playing in a castle in the depths of médoc, in the middle of vineyards or inviting herself to your home to prepare one of the multiple recipes from her book that will make you salivate. What is certain is that Flip Grater is an adventurer, in the noble sense of the term.
Contact
Website: www.flipgrater.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/flipgratermusic
Official Great Escape Showcase: Saturday May 12th 3pm at Festival Hub Jubilee Square
Liverpool Sound City (19th – 22nd May 2010) is the largest music festival and industry conference in the North of the UK. Every May, Liverpool Sound City presents over 300 artists from over 20 different countries, in 30 city centre venues to an audience of over 30,000, making the city the place to be to see emerging talent around the world and a must for any aspiring artist or band looking to make their mark on the lucrative touring circuit in the North.
Artists from New Zealand confirmed to play at Liverpool Sound City 2012 are Princess Chelsea, She’s So Rad, Midnight Youth and Pikachunes. They will join a fantastic array of international acts including Tempter Trap, Mystery Jets, Alkaline Trio, Death In Vegas, White Denim, The Wedding Present, and James Vincent McMorrow. Full details are here.
She’s So Rad
Described (Sunday Star Times, NZ) as ‘warm clouds of distortion and feedback cloaking every sound and gorgeous hazy melodies that swirl around you like smoke’.
She’s So Rad is a three piece act of Jeremy Toy, Anji Sami and Tom Healy. The band has duo vocals, guitar, bass and synthesizer with electronic drums. The idea behind this is that all the sounds, even though programmed are still organic, live and eludes to the vibe of 90’s shoegaze/alt music.
She’s So Rad have been playing in New Zealand and Australia since the release of their first album ‘In Circles’ in August 2011 opening for bands like Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Ghostwave and also headlining club nights in Auckland and Sydney, A Low Hum – Flying Nun Tribute Night, 95bFM ‘in session’ and bStreet.
2012 will see them open for Ladyhawke in the U.K. and also release their second album.
Contact
Website: www.shessorad.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shes-So-Rad
Official Liverpool Sound City Showcase: TBC
Midnight Youth
It’s not just a song you’re hearing when Midnight Youth come barreling out of your stereo assaulting any workday complacency into submission with their blistering guitars, cocksure vocals and stomping rhythm section. No, what you’re hearing is the sound of a band. Remember those? Before hip kids with laptops, rappers with records and preening pop-princesses transformed the musical landscape into aural blandness there were bands.
Real bands, whose music and group identity would make you, rush to discover where you could sign on and join up. It’s a sound you don’t hear much anymore, but it’s unmistakable and it’s what you’ll hear when listening to the new songs from Midnight Youth.
Hard as it is to believe, it’s been three years since we last heard from the group. Their ubiquity in the mainstream at the time betraying the two years of grunt work and dues paying they’d put in to become an “overnight success”. Their singles The Letter and All On Our Own gave the charts a shake-up, bringing stadium-filling hooks and rousing choruses back into fashion while simultaneously going gold in the process. Since then they’ve been largely quiet, at least on the home front, but you better believe they weren’t resting on any perceived laurels. Instead the band went out into the world and did what they’d always done; taken their music to the people.
Tours in America and a relentless gig schedule across the ditch in Australia saw Midnight Youth solidifying as a musical unit, tightening and toughening up and enthralling audiences with their raucous live energy. After playing their first batch of songs repeatedly, the band realised it was time to start thinking about writing and recording their follow-up. They’d been “road-testing” new songs at gigs and, encouraged by the response, decided that their new songs needed to capture the enthusiasm and energy of the live show. To achieve this, Midnight Youth took a thoroughly unique approach. “That’s why the album sounds like it does. Because we’re the tightest band, not just musically but in terms of people as well.” When you listen to their songs; Midnight Youth are not just five musicians playing together, it’s a group, a musical hive mind, a gang. “That’s what rock bands are, we’ve finally given ourselves the chance to be the rock band that people need to know us as, because that’s what we are. The first time we turned the album into a show and this time around we turned the show into an album.”
Contact
Website: www.midnightyouth.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/midnightyouth
Official Liverpool Sound City Showcase: TBC
