Public Service Broadcasting - Elfstedentocht (Parts 1 & 2)

Having already brought out one of the best albums of 2013 so far with "Inform - Educate - Entertain", it is a welcome surprise to see some new music from Public Service Broadcasting mere months after its release.

It is particularly welcome to see PSB taking a new approach to their sample-led formula. Because for the first time, they have based their music around samples not in the English language. "Elfstedentocht" takes its name and samples from a 200km speed skating event that takes place in the Netherlands on an infrequent basis depending upon local weather conditions. Seemingly spurred on by the Dutch samples they had at their disposal, PSB decided not to just make one song, but two based around the event, both of which show off the two distinct sides of the group which have been apparent over the past few years.

"Elfstedentocht Part 1" is a driving rock track which seems to highlight the competitive side to the event, with heavy guitars juxtaposed alongside glacial synths. Part 2 on the other hand is, for lack of a better phrase, more of a chill-out track which seems to highlight the extreme weather conditions that the skaters find themselves in during the race.

It's great to hear some new music coming from the guys at Public Service Broadcasting, especially seeing them experimenting with new ideas whilst still staying true to the vision that made the group so beloved in the first place. Could this be the precursor to a new body of work for the duo outside of the English language? If it is, then on the strength of "Elfstedentocht", it cannot come soon enough.

Public Service Broadcasting will be touring the UK in November, including dates at the Stiff Kitten, Belfast on 15th November, and The Glassworks, Derry on 17th November.

The Northern Ireland Music Prize

Over the past few months, an academy of individuals involved in music within Northern Ireland (including this very blog) were tasked with nominating their favourite albums from here to for the inaugural Northern Ireland Music Prize, which will be presented to the winning artist during Belfast Music Week in November. The prize seems to have been modeled after the Mercury Prize, where the albums are (in principle) nominated based on their quality and originality rather than just sales, which means that an album by an unknown quantity should stand as good a chance of winning overall than album by global superstars.

Two weeks ago, the 14 albums that made the shortlist were announced:

A Plastic Rose - Camera Shutter Life
And So I Watch You From Afar - All Hail Bright Futures
Anthony Toner - Sing Under the Bridges
Axis Of - Finding St Kilda
The Bonnevilles - Folk Art & the Death of Electric Jesus
Fighting With Wire - Colonel Blood
Foy Vance - Joy of Nothing
Girls Names - The New Life
Jetplane Landing - Don't Try
Le Carousel - Le Carousel
Space Dimension Controller - Welcome to Mikrosector-50
Tired Pony - The Ghost fo the Mountain
Trucker Diablo - Songs of Iron
Two Door Cinema Club - Beacon

Looking at the shortlist, it's great to see a wide range of different music genres recognised, ranging from alt-rock, punk and country, through to singer-songwriters, and even a few dance albums as well. It's also great to see albums signed to major labels, minor labels, and no labels at all being able to compete against each other on a level playing field. 

Of course, there are people who question the point of having a Northern Irish music like this. After all, there's already so many music awards already out there, so why should there by another one? Indeed, it appears that there has been a growth in region-specific album prizes in recent years seemingly modeled after the Mercury Prize.

In Scotland, they have the SAY Award, which was won this year by RM Hubbert (beating off Calvin Harris and Emeli Sandé in the process). There is the Welsh Music Prize, which had Georgia Ruth proclaimed the victor, whilst the Choice Music Prize, which has been running since 2005, is awarded to the best album from the island of Ireland, both north and south. 

Overall, it is my opinion that the Northern Ireland Music Prize is a good thing in celebrating the best music that Northern Ireland has to offer. However, it is imperative that the prize does not become an exercise in self-congratulatory back-slapping. It should not be insular exercise, rather it should act as a signpost to the world, telling it "This is what Northern Ireland has to offer. This is what we are made of. This is how we want the world to see us." Whilst the aforementioned regional music prizes do have an element of back-slapping to them, crucially they tend to get quite a bit of press outside of their respective areas. To date, I am yet to see much ink spilled (if any) about the Northern Ireland Music Prize outside of the usual local music sources. It is my hope however that over the next couple of weeks, there will be an enhanced chatter about the Prize, and it's eventual winner. Although I haven't read it in months, wouldn't it be fabulous to hear about the winner printed in the NME?

Given my interest in seeing the NI Prize reaching as big an audience as possible, I decided to do a quick bit of number crunching to see just how popular the 14 artists nominated for the Northern Ireland Music Prize really are. Using data which I gleamed from the popular website last.fm, which records just how often artists are listened to digitally, I looked at how many individuals listened to each of them over a 4-week period, from Sunday 29th September to Sunday 27th October. This is roughly two weeks before the nominees were announced, and two weeks after the nominees were announced. I then took this figure and divided it by four, to give an average number of listeners who listened to each artist on a weekly basis.

Ranked in order of popularity, from most to least, the 14 artists had this many listeners on last.fm:

1. Two Door Cinema Club - 174,493 (43623.25 weekly average)
2. And So I Watch You From Afar - 11,944 (2986 w/a)
3. Tired Pony - 7,917 (1979.25 w/a)
4. Girls Names - 4,558 (1139.5 w/a)
5. Foy Vance - 3,559 (889.75 w/a)
6. Space Dimension Controller - 1,486 (371.5 w/a)
7. Fighting With Wire - 416 (104 w/a)
8. Jetplane Landing - 395 (98.75 w/a)
9. Le Carousel - 277 (69.25 w/a)
10. Axis of - 95 (23.75 w/a)
11. A Plastic Rose - 88 (22 w/a)
12. Trucker Diablo - 82 (20.5 w/a)
13. The Bonnevilles - 80 (20 w/a)
14. Anthony Toner - 16 (4 w/a)

There's a lot of interesting findings to come out of this data. Of course, there should be no surprise about TDCC topping the rankings by a country mile, but what is surprising is seeing post-rockers ASIWYFA having a greater listenership than Gary Lighbody's side-project Tired Pony, who have two top 20 albums to their name. I might have also expected Girls Names and Foy Vance to have traded positions (I guess it goes to show the power of being Belfast's most blogosphere-friendly band), whilst I had no idea Space Dimension Controller had so many fans. I guess that's genre bias for you. In the bottom half, it's surprising to see APR so far down the pecking order, whilst spare a thought for Anthony Toner, who finds himself as the least popular of the fourteen artists nominated.

Whilst this all makes for interesting reading, I should stress that the data is not exactly scientific, and a few caveats should be noted. The data is based on users from last.fm, so unless the listener is a member of last.fm and listens to one of the artists' songs digitally, it wouldn't have been recorded. Therefore, artists who listeners prefer CDs or vinyl would not have the date collated. Also, the data is based on if someone has listened to an artist over a 7 day period or not, and therefore a person listening to one track by an artist or a person listening to an entire album is treated equally. Still, I still think the list is quite interesting.

The Northern Ireland Music Prize will be awarded at a ceremony at the Mandela Hall, Belfast on Tuesday 12th November. Whilst I do have a favourite among the nominations, I will be diplomatic and say that any of the 14 albums nominated would make a worthy winner.

And here's a few of the nominees for you to enjoy:

The Leg - Chicken Slippers

Even for someone like myself, who doesn't mind their music to be a little bit on the eccentric side, the new single from Edinburgh trio The Leg, "Chicken Slippers", sure hits a lot of esoteric buttons. Perhaps it's because the band list their genre as "barking lunacy" and "deranged mentalism" on Soundcloud?

Seemingly an ode to making footwear out of recently decapitated poultry, "Chicken Slippers" is a song built around piano lines seemingly borrowed from vaudeville, and despite the stark-raving madness of it all, it's actually a pretty decent song, albeit not one that will suit everyone's refined tastes.

"Chicken Slippers" is available as a free download, and is taken from The Leg's 4th album "Oozing a Crepuscular Light", which is out on 11th November.

Fryars - The Power

London based Benjamin Garrett, better known to the music world as Fryars, has been picking up quite a few admirers within the music world, with both Depeche Mode and Kanye West allegedly being among his fans, and counting London Grammar and Summer Camp among the groups that he has supported. This is all in spite of him being involved with writing the soundtrack for Danny Dyer's worse-than-terrible film Deviation, proof that there is no sin on earth than cannot be atoned for.

His most recent single is "The Power", a song that has been picking up more than its fair share of airplay on Radio 1's nighttime shows. The song is a dreamy, quasi-psychedelic track that calls to mind "Deserter's Songs" era Mercury Rev, such is its mix of dreamy atmospherics and lovely pop hooks.

"The Power" is taken from his E.P "Radio PWR", which is is out now.

Amber Run - Heaven

As a result of the hype surrounding their self-released debut E.P "Noah", Nottingham bred 5-piece Amber Run  (previously Amber) were picked up by RCA Victor, the same label as Swim Deep, Everything Everything, and a young upstart named David Bowie. As far as label-mates go, you could do a lot worse.

Their first single for their new label, "Heaven" is out next month. It's quite a brave choice of first single for a major label, given that it seems to eschew the typical verse-chorus-verse structure for something a little bit more free form. That's not to say that they're not aiming for something commercial or radio friendly - the anthemic guitars are ripped straight out of the Coldplay songbook, and their vocals do have a little bit of The Killers about them. Also, don't be surprised if the acapella ending of the song is sampled by a hip- hop artist a few years down the line to create the chorus of one of their own songs, a la "Hide & Seek".

"Heaven" will be released on November 25th.