Ben Montague @ Soho House, Old Compton Street

From supporting The Wanted on their UK arena tour to the refined opulence of Soho House, the past few months have been quite a journey for Ben Montague. And it’s in the environs of the latter that we find him tonight, treating the assembled audience to a truly intimate performance. Stripped back to an uncluttered minimum, Montague’s vocals were given room to shine to the fore – and what a voice, a rousing statement of intent that stands as a rallying call for a fresh British male solo artist to finally stand up there alongside the influx of songstresses we’ve had of late.

Montague’s four-track set - comprising well-rounded numbers Another Heart Fall and Pull The Trigger, intensely moving piano ballad Haunted and current single Love Like Stars – presented a talent very much occupying that tricky middle-ground of commercial appeal. The songs have the instant pop hooks to sway the likes of Radio 1’s playlisting committee, but beyond that, there’s a maturity in the lyrics and production that speaks to an older audience too. It’s Montague’s knack at straddling both at once that really stands out, and gives the impression that his upcoming debut LP Tales of Flying and Falling will be impressively consistent.

Interspersing his set with cheeky banter and the proficiency of a singer very much within the classic vein – born of hours on the road and a simple enthusiasm for what he does – Montague is a leather jacketed troubadour of the old ways for new, modern times.

Love Like Stars is released on the 18^th June.

The Given Motion - Human Dictionary

The Given Motion are a band clearly well aware of the importance of a great hook in amongst the midst of all the guitars, a voice to speak up out of the bleak city streets of their New York home turf. They’re a group with plainly-manifested youthful ambition, a work-man like appeal. What we’ve heard of them gives us a good impression of well-rehearsed, tuneful rock – with a real brooding back-current to it. Sing To Me feels agile and light, nicely underproduced, allowing the vocal harmonies to come to the fore, where they belong. Don’t Blink follows nicely along the same lines, but tipping things up into a sunnier kind of optimism. It’s, Human Dictionary, the title track of their extended seven track EP that stands out most though; a brawling stormer of a track whose sharp riffs recall a meatier incarnation of fellow New Yorkers, The Strokes. ‘She’s a bitch and I don’t think you’re ready for it,’ they warn the listener, but when it comes for The Given Motion’s music, we’re definitely ready.

Usher - Climax (Diplo Bouncier Climactic Remix)

Sometimes, even with some of the best songs, there remains that nagging feeling in the back of our minds that there's something missing. Some little part of the mix that could maybe do with being a little louder, sharper, bigger. Diplo-produced Usher single Climax is one such track - in its original state it makes for a enticingly electronic exploration of seductive energy, but with the producer on hand to provide his own remix of the song, it becomes even better.

Is it bouncier? Noticeably. Is it more climactic? A little. But somewhere in the mix, Usher's already rather delectable track gets given that edge that elevates it up to even greater, more synthetic heights.

[Lyric Video] Rebecca Ferguson - Backtrack

We like lyric videos. When all your want to do is get your grubby paws on your favourite artist's latest song, fresh from its radio premiere, those lyric videos - so carefully uploaded by the record labels to go live just as the radio premiere finishes - are a little bit of magic in themselves. They offer just that little bit more, that little touch of flair that brings that connection a static image shot on a YouTube video can never do.

There's probably someone somewhere who spent days putting the whole thing together, and the result you're watching right now is their little baby. And the video for Rebecca Ferguson's smokily soulful new song Backtrack is the epitome of the lyric video, the jumbo-size supreme - a veritable blockbuster of a lyric video. With everything superimposed over real live-action shots, it's almost rather trippy, even! And in an age where the digital medium and online video content becomes ever more popular, give it a few more years and we'll probably be head-deep in stuff like this every minute of our online lives.

Little Comets - Waiting In The Shadows In The Dead Of Night

Sweetly melodic piano balladry from Little Comets who we previously covered on the blog back in November last year. Waiting In The Shadows In The Dead Of Night precedes new single Jennifer, which is released on the 28th May, and seeing how this delightful little acoustic version is free, there's no reason not to download it. With touches of a more mannered Mumford & Sons, Little Comets dazzle with a wonderful essence of rural charm and quality songwriting.

Kelly Rowland – Need A Reason (feat. Bei Major & Future)

Kelly Rowland's Here I Am should have been better. It really should have. For the former Destiny's Child star, with the prime-time audience of the X Factor acting as a ready-made promo platform, all the potential was there for her to launch a proper year defining smash. But instead it felt like a cobbled together collection of disparate half-made efforts.

And new track Need A Reason, to be honest, feels very symptomatic of everything that felt flat about the LP. As far as Kelly slow-jams go, sultry Keep It Between Us (one of the album's scant properly good tracks) does it a whole lot better - while Need A Reason, for all its smoothly produced niceties and shimmery synth backing, never feels like anything more than just 'nice'.

We're still waiting on another track as monumental as Kelly's Guetta collab Commander - whether she delivers that by the end of this year is anyone's guess though...

Karin Park - Highwire Poetry

They're calling her the electro-goth princess, and Sweden's Karin Park certainly has the allure of royalty to her, albeit in a deliciously outre, icy Bjork-esque way. Imagine a much grittier, dirtier version of Robyn, where the electronics throb with a brute-cut intensity. Synth-lines slap across fractured beats, frothing with barely contained energy, with Park's vocals sensuously trailed over all the while. Taster track Fryngies (from her upcoming album Highwire Poetry) plays out as if from the bowels of some darkly hidden club recessed away in the underbelly of some imagined cyber-punk city. Tiger Dreams takes a more systematic approach, injecting itself with burbling 8-bit bleeps and hissing, sibilant bass. It's haunting stuff, like the grip of skeletal fingers closing on a pumping heart, the lifeblood chilling away in the veins. Park's music is all this, all the macabre and theatricality of the gothic princess, but aligned to the all the possibilities of the quirky electro-songstress.

Highwire Poetry is released on the 28th May.

Introducing... Ria Ritchie

These days, there’s so many apparent YouTube sensations flying around, it’s hard to know which ones are actually worth investing time in - but in the case of Miss Ria ’10 million views’ Ritchie, we reckon there’s really some substance behind all the internet buzz.

Taken under the wing of Plan B, she’s since toured with the who’s who of the British urban scene and there’s definitely something special about her, a real ‘wow!’ charm to her plainly apparent talents. At the heart of it all, there’s an impressively good, solid pop voice – the kind that could turn itself to any genre or taste with equal ease. And in debut single Only One, Ritchie goes for the big diva anthem vibe – riding a wall-of-sound wave of thundering percussion and scratchy guitar licks. It’s a towering girl-power record in the gutsiest of ways – this is no dainty doll, she’s all grit and raw passion, the kind that makes you feel every emotion ten-fold.

Plan B co-write Peculiar sounds like early Sugababes – think of Run For Cover or Stronger, that melancholy tinged street-ballad sort of thing crossed with the love-lorn hurt of countless tears and smeared mascara. Meanwhile, free download Blow Back verges on the trippy Katy B pop-dance blend; all delicate vocals and atmospheric beats. If there’s one word to sum up Ritchie, it’s sheer versatility, and to be perfectly honest, the UK could do with another properly good female artist like this to freshen up the market.

She’s rather easy on the eye too, and it’s very easy to imagine her swiftly sky-rocketing into a kind of UK Kelly Clarkson type if she plays her cards right – with the kind of online hysteria she’s already garnered, surely it’s only a matter of time?

We Have Band - Tired Of Running

Over the weekend, we listened to We Have Band's new album Ternion quite a bit. And of all the wonderfully eclectic tracks on there, Tired of Running was the obvious standout.

Quite frankly, we'd love for it to be a single - it's the sound of the band at their purest, all their plethora of influences compressed down into a streamlined, hook-laden synthy-funky bit of snappiness. For a band of such innovativity and sonic texture, Tired of Running presents a tantalisingly glossy side and acts as a marvellous centre-point for the rest of the album.

Dry The River - New Ceremony

For the past month or so, there's been one CD that's been back on my stereo again and again - the Dry The River album sampler. I'd be the first to admit I'm not always the biggest fan of guitar bands, and hold a particular dislike for Mumford & Sons (or what they stand for at any rate) - who Dry The River have been compared to on numerous occasions.

But for me, Dry The River excel on every level that Mumford don't. Where Mumford so often idle in a stale landscape of landed gentrification and overwraught, treacle-like songs, Dry The River feel infinitely more vital - a more engaged, energetic band to hold the banner aloft in the new year.

With the weight of the prestigious BBC Sound of 2012 now resting on their shoulders, all eyes are set on the band and their forthcoming album Shallow Bed to see if they can measure up to the hype. And in tracks like album standout New Ceremony, they match every expectation and then go some way further.

From those fuzzy guitar hooks that cuddle the opening bars of Peter's Liddles almost lullaby-like vocals right through to the starry-night barn dance string sections, New Ceremony comes on filmic in its scale and bursting with a passion far larger than the band itself.

It's the chorus where the song shines at its most intense though - like another of the album's best moments, No Rest - one of Dry The River's greatest qualities is their ability to leap from one tempo to another mid-track in a sprawling feat of musical athleticism that sweeps the listener along in a dash of emotions and blurry adoration.

It's as if the song is a sole boat caught amidst the stormiest of seas, teetering on the brink of a mile-high wave - caught on that cusp of peril and adventurous dering'do - before plummeting head on into the unknown. The result is profoundly exhilarating, a bracing wash of shivvering musical pleasure.

I've long lamented the current lack of guitar bands able to write a decent pop hook, but Dry The River certainly have landed on the knack, with New Ceremony as the jewel in the album's crown. That chorus is the kind of pure, refined brilliance even the great Gary Barlow would be proud to call his own.

Soaring above the spires of towns and down across the plains, roads and railways of the land, it floats on and on - a rallying call to arms. And one, when Shallow Bed is released in March, will be answered in its droves.

Wintercoats - Forest of Lovers (Southern Shores Remix)

Like a slow African sunset on the longest, most languidly humid of days in late summer, the Southern Shores mix of Wintercoats' Forest of Lovers is a track that feels innately in touch with nature. For both acts (signed to Chad Valley label Cascine), it's a moment of both mutual beneft and mutual beauty.

From its slowly tumbling rhythms to the ebb and flow of the vocal samples it seems a thing possessed of its own spirit, beyond that of the band itself. Or perhaps both band and song are wrapped up within an ever revolving dimension apart from the world, from which songs as sumptuous as this spring forth ready made.

As a free download, the remix presents an even more attractive proposition, but even without this added incentive, its nectar-laden bliss is wonderfully evident. Love, ecstasy, rapture, joy - all are to be found in this song; a real surprise treat to warm the cockles on a cold winter night and feed dreams of the warmth of seasons to come.

Wintercoats - Forest of Lovers (Southern Shores Remix) by CASCINE

Kimberley Walsh debuts in Shrek - The Musical

As far as fairytale stories go, Kimberley Walsh's debut performance in Shrek: The Musical ended up being every bit as magical and enchanting as the story of everyone's favourite ogre itself.

Just as Nicola Robert's brilliant solo album feels like the project she had been building up to for all her life, so too does the role of Princess Fiona feel like it was custom-made for Kimberley to play. Longtime fans of Girls Aloud will remember Kimberley's dabblings in acting as part of her Passions episode and her recent role in the Horrid Henry movie. It is here though that she steps into her first major role.

For those that have seen the first Shrek movie (who hasn't?!), the plot of the musical version remains pretty faithful, though obviously interspersed with all manner of fantastic showtunes. If you're in search of a feel-good night out packed with fun-factor, then this is it.

Kimberley's Fiona is the perfect counterpart to the rough, Scottish charms of Shrek. Tapping in to a feisty bossy-madam attitude, she's the heroine with real staying power - an apt fit for the empowered pop princess  Kimberley represents as part of Girls Aloud.

With brilliantly funny supporting roles - Donkey, Farquaad and the Dragon (courtesy of some incredible stagecraft), Shrek: The Musical is just as much a laugh-a-minute comedy as it is a tour-de-force of fun tunes. And it is in these two qualities that Kimberley proves her worth to the show. Not only is she a strong singer - with a voice that has always seemed perfect for the enunciation needed for theatre - but she clearly has a knack for comic timing, delivering her lines as if she's been playing the role for years.

Resolutely the professional, Kimberley also impresses with her grasp of Fiona's American accent, though I was pleased to hear Kimberley's own rounded Yorkshire tones seeping through from time to time. The Shrek Musical, in so many aspects, feels like a far more chunky, down-to-earth production than the slick CGI films.

Best of all, placed here, in the heart of London, the performance feels definitively British in its quaintness. A fairytale story to encompass all others, it seems to tap into a sense of tradition and communal enjoyment. By the time the rousing finale of I'm A Believer rolled round, the entire audience was up on their feet singer and cheering along - surely the greatest sign of a job well done by all involved.

And maybe it was the fact Cheryl Cole and Nicola Roberts were also in attendance, but the sheer buzz surrounding the theatre that night felt like it could have been one of Girls Aloud's own concerts. Kimberley, going it alone has made her mark, and the public love her.

For more information on Shrek - The Musical and to book tickets, visit the official site: http://www.shrekthemusical.co.uk/

Alpines - Drive (Youth Kills Remix)

London duo Alpines describe themselves as 'Night Pop', and never has this sobriquet been more true than on the brilliant Youth Kills mix of Drive.

Pushing a tribal, animalistic beat, Drive is a veritable living beast of a track full of eerie, sinister synth lines that speak of mysteries and secrets.

The song's dark, soulful vocals feel like something dredged up from the blakest hour of night. Inspired by late night drives through London, the very heart of the song seems to pulse to the city's electric hum.

Drive by name and Drive by nature, the slick power of the track propells itself onward with bewitching beauty, but it also packs the power and scale that suggest it could just as easily soundtrack motoring shows and flashy adverts - it's universally enticing.

The Night Drive EP including the Youth Kills remix is available to download from Amazon.

Kids These Days - Hard Times EP

Eight members, and all of them in their teens (or just pushing over into their twenties). Nope, it's not the cast list from the latest series of Skins, it's trendy Chicago outfit Kids These Days.

Serving up a classy blend of smooth, laid back jazz and loose raps, the band manage to sound at once surprisingly mature and also possessed of a throbbing, youthful spirit.

Their five track EP Hard Times is a real treat, especially the title track; riding high on sax riffs, soulful vocals and funky basslines. It's a rich sound for a band so young, but they wear it well.

The Hard Times EP can be downloaded from iTunes here.

Kids These Days - Hard Times EP by Kids These Days Band

New releases round-up - 18th July 2011

Snoop Dogg - Boom

Just like The Saturdays before him, Snoop Dogg turns to a classic Yazoo track for his latest single - the merits of which being that you can't really go wrong with it in there. While not quite up there with Sweat/Wet for levels of sheer sleaze, this remains a big summer anthem.

Download

Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie

I wanted so much for the Chili's new single to be absolutely amazing, but truth be told, I wasn't convinced on first listen. While all the trademark sounds in place - the only thing missing is a big chorus, and Adventures... just feels lacking. The band's landmark Stadium Arcadium album defined 2006 with its endless stream of catchy hits, and five years on from that, you can't help but feel the band could have delivered something a little more dynamic for their big comeback. Still, with a band of their calibre, there remains a benchmark of quality - and Adventures... remains quite capable of holding its own against singles from groups half the Chili Pepper's age.

Download

Chase & Status feat. Tinie Tempah – Hitz

The sixth (Yes, sixth!) single from the production duo's massive album, this one's a goody - Tinie Tempah is something of the man of the moment right now and his 'The only thing bigger, blacker, slicker... is a Taxi' rap in this is brilliant. Moving away from the synth-heavy behemoths of Let You Go and Blind Faith, Hitz is instead all vocal samples and low, menacing stabs of brass. Great stuff once again from the Chase & Status lads.

Download

Kylie Minogue - The Albums (2000-2010)

A timely box set release collecting together her last five studio albums to celebrate Kylie's remarkable decade as the Princess of Pop. It's amazing to think that a song like Spinning Around is over ten years old now, a calling card from another age. Yet it's indelible pop charm remains, as does the vigour and breezy sense of fun Kylie injects all these albums with. Whether its the likes of Light Years and Fever which rejuvenated her career or the fan favourites Body Language and X, there's one thing you can be assured of with this collection - some of the best pop music ever made.

Purchase

Roger Sanchez - Worldwide

The name Roger Sanchez comes as a symbol of quality, an assured safe bet when it comes to dance music. And in the year that his landmark No. 1 single Another Chance reaches its 10th birthday, it's as good as time as any to revisit the club supremo.

My interest in Sanchez had actually been piqued recently by rumours he was working on new material with Girls Aloud's Sarah Harding - for the time being though, let's focus on his new single, Worldwide.

Sanchez's recent mixes of the likes of Depeche Mode have been towering constructions; throbbing tribal anthems that throb with a dark primal alive-ness. And Worldwide follows along the same lines, also working in sweaty, energetic hip-hop influences.

It seems only right that a track entitled Worldwide would bear such an electric stamp of sonic influences, and it's a good fit - the track feels genuinely exciting; flipping between sounds and rhythms at the drop of a hat. The bass is real buzz-saw stuff, juddering right into your bones, propelling the track onwards in an almost machine-like fashion.

Definitely one for all those jetting off to Ibiza this summer to pop on their iPods before they go.

Worldwide is available to download from iTunes now.

Lanterns On The Lake - You're Almost There

Newcastle six-piece Lanterns On The Lake know all about making their numbers count - it shows in their music, right down to every last piece of the artistic wonderment that is their track You're Almost There.

Listening to them is almost more like observing a masterpiece of fine art than a record in a way. There are so many details, so many aspects and layers to their work that it's hard to decide what is more involving - the grandosity of their music as a whole, or the intricacy of each individual part.

Pinned on a tear-jerking, sorrowful piano hook, You're Almost There is about as atmospheric a track as you get these days. Elusive and ever shape-shifting, it coils and spirals down and down into a shadowy realm of wintery melodies and yearning, enchanting female vocals.

As the track slowly draws to a close, violins sigh as if they're some weary animal heading for hibernation - it's a beautifully natural sound that the band manage to capture; an essence that is as much about themselves as it seems to stem from the bleakness of their Northern roots.

Even their name, Lanterns On The Lake, is so instrinsicly poetic, so expressive in its singularity. It's an image, and it's a sound - and a very wonderful one at that.

You're Almost There is available as a free download from Soundcloud here. The band's debut album Gracious Tide, Take Me Home is released on the 19th September.

Lanterns On The Lake - You're Almost There by Bella Union

Dry The River - No Rest

There's been a lot of buzz surrounding Dry The River of late. Fans of the likes of Fleet Foxes and Noah & The Whale will love their folky, delicate charm - a real rapturous collection of softness and melody sewn together with proper tenderness.

Previous single Deadheads with a beautiful, languid ballad of emotions writ large in lush swathes of guitar and piano. From hushed beginnings it erupted into a sprawling, passionate creature that seemed to be bursting to be let loose on the summer festivals.

And it's there you'll find tha band as they take to Glastonbury this weekend, including a Saturday set on the esteemed John Peel stage.

New track No Rest follows much the same lines as Deadheads; again fuelled on a formula of incredibly fragile openings slowly building into a far more complex creation. What really strikes me most is the way lead singer Peter Liddle's voice can, at a moment, suddenly transform into this fully fledged soaring eagle of a thing as he cries 'I loved you in the best way possible', emploring the recipient of the song's message to just listen, to understand.

It's powerful stuff, and quite rightly, has been driving up much praise for the band from the likes of the NME. These guys are definitely ones to keep an eye out for.

No Rest is available to download from iTunes now.

Wonderland - Nothing Moves Me Anymore

To us long-time Wonderland fans, Nothing Moves Me Anymore is like an old friend. The band initially offered the track as a free download from their website, back in the infancy of their album campaign, before they'd even released their first single.

Later, the track cropped up on their taster EP in the form of an acoustic version (all this back when the track was still caled just Nothing Moves Me).

And now, announced as the third official single from the band's debut album, we see them breathing new life into it, unveiling it to a whole host of new potential fans. And those fans are clearly out there - while the band's singles may not have set the charts alight, their album made a very respactable No. 8 in the Album Charts.

Now, the phrase 'Oh, they're an album-artist' has always been bandied about with a kind of disdain, but in reality, it's nothing to be sniffed at. The fact is, some acts simply sell better with their albums than they do with their singles - and Wonderland are one such act.

Is it down to their sound? Or down to their audience? Truth be told, it's a combination of the both, and Nothing Moves Me Anymore is exactly the kind of track that caters to that audience.

Lush, sprawling pop-rock ballad, it has that same gleam of maturity that for me made the girls' album what it was. The track breathes with a kind of world-weary sigh that tells of someone tired of heartbreak and being let down time and time again; 'I've never felt this empty before' they sing on the chorus, telling of hearts 'as cold as stone.'

It's a bleak picture, but one that the Wonderland girls paint with such shimmering beauty. That's their charm, the emotion of their voices coming good in injecting a track like this with such effervescence.

In the past few weeks since the band's album came out, I've seen more and more people clocking on to what exactly Wonderland are about, and if anything, Nothing Moves Me Anymore is the track to help achieve that. A real slow-burning grower if ever there was one, it makes sure to pay its dividends when it does eventually click.

Nothing Moves Me Anymore is released on the 14th August.

The Pierces - It Will Not Be Forgotten

Songs about love prevailing in the face of adversity are as old as the hills. But to gild those emotions of determination and passion defying hardship with real beauty; well, it takes a band like The Pierces to do that.

As the fourth single from The Pierces' breathtakingly good album You & I, It Will Not Be Forgotten stands as another link in the chain of consistency that has made this record such a joy to experience.

'Baby where'd you go, did you sail away over some distant ocean' sing the girls in the track's enchanting chorus - if ever music could take on the form of pure, untapped magic, then this is surely the sound of it. There's something in The Pierces' divine Abba-esque harmonies that helps transcend their songs to another level of prettiness.

It Will Not Be Forgotten positively sparkles with charm - its lush, layered production coming as sheen of comfort to senses worn rough by the ardour of everyday life. This is a song of tranquility and peace, a ballad to stand up there with the very best.

With You & I debuting straight at No. 4 in the UK albums chart, it's reassuring to see the general public finally taking to The Pierces - It's been a long journey for them, You & I being the fourth LP in a career that stretches all the way back to 2000.

Fitting then that July will see them opening for Coldplay at London's Roundhouse as part of the iTunes festival. It was Coldplay's Guy Berryman after all that put his stamp to You & I; many of the tracks being recorded in the Coldplay studio too.

It Will Not Be Forgotten is released on the 8th August.