The Phantom Band ‘Strange Friend’

The Phantom Band are back with their third long player ‘Strange Friend’, due for release on the 2nd of June and the loooong-awaited follow-up to 2010’s ”The Wants’.  It’s great to finally have all the strange and exotic sounds that have been emanating from their rehearsal room (next door to our office) these past gazillion months transform themselves into the 9 track aural extravaganza that’s listed below.

The band will also be playing a few live shows in June around the release of the album (look to your right).

Tracklisting
1. The Wind That Cried The World
2. Clapshot
3. Doom Patrol
4. Atacama
5. (Invisible) Friends
6. Sweatbox
7. No Shoes Blues
8. Women Of Ghent
9. Galápagos

To whet your appetite you can have a listen to the opening track ‘The Wind That Cried The World’. Welcome back old friends…

RM Hubbert Spring Tour & New Single

Does he ever stop? RM Hubbert is about to set out on tour in the UK & France in support of the release of the digital single ‘Buckstacy’. The single is backed by a cover version of Daniel Johnston’s ‘True Love Will Find You In The End’. (The first time Hubby played ‘True Love…’ was at the wedding of a member of the band ‘Remember Remember’…)

‘Buckstacy’ is taken from Hubby’s third studio album ‘Breaks & Bone’, which we hope you have already. If not then we strongly urge you to buy a copy from the man himself whilst he’s on the road; or alternatively why not get it from our online shop here?

The tour kicks off in Perth before Hubby hops across the Channel to France to play four shows with Belgian band ‘Girls In Hawaii‘ who we would encourage you to have a listen to. Hubby then has a number of shows throughout England & Scotland. Details of the venues and cities he will be visiting can be found below.

Conquering Animal Sound UK & European tour

Conquering Animal Sound are hitting the road again to bring you tracks from their second long player On Floating Bodies and their debut Kammerspiel. Whilst on their travels over the next few months they will be visiting Germany, England, Holland, France, Hungary, Austria & Scotland.

If you didn’t manage to catch them on their European tour earlier this year then hopefully they will be playing a venue near you on this tour. In fact, even if they are not playing a venue near you then we would encourage you to make the effort to travel to a gig. You won’t be disappointed.

Praise for ‘On Floating Bodies’

“Full of daring with a gloriously rich palette”
The List [4/5]

“There’s real beauty to be found in its digitised designs”
BBC Music

“a layered and evocative weave of glitchy loops and woozy minimalism”  DiS [8/10]

“Proves that CAS are making the kind of music that puts them leagues ahead of their peers”
The 405 [8/10]

Busy on the live front!

There are quite a few Chemikal artists hitting stages across the UK & Ireland this weekend. Malcolm Middleton, FOUND, RM Hubbert, Miaoux Miaoux, Adrian Crowley & The Phantom Band are all in action.  Malcolm kicks things off with an afternoon solo slot on Friday 19th at the Latitude Festival followed in the evening by FOUND at Glasgow’s SWG3 and an intimate show by RM Hubbert at The Green Tea House in Moniave.

Miaoux Miaoux (in full band mode) play the first of their two gigs this weekend at The Electric Circus in Edinburgh on Saturday with FOUND play their second gig of the weekend (still following this?) in Edinburgh as well, over at Sound House. The gigs support the launch of new 12″ vinyl releases by Lomond Campbell & River Of Slime. The Phantom Band make an all too rare live appearance at The Deer Shed Festival in North Yorkshire which should be an ideal opportunity to hear some tracks from their still-in-the-works album. Rounding off the day we have Adrian Crowley supporting Beach House at the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin.

Had enough? Thought not. Miaoux Miaoux bring the curtain down on a hectic weekend with a gig at Stereo in Glasgow with another full band show along with Jonnie Common, Atom Tree and Mermaids DJs. There you have it. Six artists playing eight shows over the space of three days! And we never even mentioned the mighty Mogwai playing their Zidane soundtrack in Glasgow on Sunday too…

Check out our live page for details on all the up and coming gigs or click on the gigs for the weekend on the right hand side.

Holy Mountain Hit Eurosonic And More…

The rock ‘force majeure’ that is Holy Mountain head over to the continent this month when they perform at Eurosonic, rapidly one of Europe’s most important music industry showcases.  Not only is Eurosonic a great festival to take part in, the fact it happens to reside in Groningen, one of our favourite places in Europe and, if that wasn’t enough, that the band will play at the Vera, absolutely one of our favourite ever venues, well…you can imagine how fucked off we are that we can’t be there.

Not content to knock attendees at Eurosonic flat on their arse, Holy Mountain will be playing a clutch of other shows to boot…cast your eyes rightward.

How Music Works

Chemikal Underground are delighted to announce that our very own Alun Woodward has been invited to join David Byrne in discussing his latest book How Music Works (published by the inestimable Canongate).

David Byrne’s book tour will bring him to Glasgow’ GFT on Friday 26th of October to discuss the themes in his book, in which the Talking Heads co-founder explores the joy and the business of making music, analysing how profoundly music is shaped by its time and place.

Alun will talk to David about how independent labels and artists have survived the various industry tsunamis over the decades.  The event will be hosted by the ever-wonderful Herald journalist, Nicola Meighan.

Special ticket price: £12/£10 (£10 for GFT cinecard holders).  These will sell like the proverbial hot cakes, so get a move on: TICKETS.

This event is rated N/C 15+