Hall One at The Sage, Gateshead, is a pretty enough venue, but it’s also pretty sterile. While the acoustics may be the finest in Europe, the atmosphere generally has a gaping hole in it. Sitting down at concerts equates to polite applause and a lack of spark. Grizzly Bear may have just been spared this fate by the inclusion of a small standing crowd, craning their necks towards the stage.

Someone needs to show the stuffy Sage how to put on a pop concert – usually all seated; no drinks in the hall; wait for a ‘suitable break’ in the performance before being allowed back in the hall. When Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor pulls out an old analogue radio to add the sound of radio distortion to the mix, it’s a wonder that a member of the Sage staff hadn’t already tuned it into Radio 3. Which is a huge shame because it could easily be the perfect place to see a band, especially one as sonically potent as Grizzly Bear. One can only begin to imagine what My Bloody Valentine might be able to achieve here.

It’s possible to view Grizzly Bear as an exercise in artistry. True, their songs are unusually crafted with sections which owe more to modern jazz than traditional rock in their construction but the presence of Rossen, who also writes and performs with the Department of Eagles, appears to rein in Droste’s more avant garde urges.

Tonight, Grizzly Bear put the Sage’s famous acoustics through their paces by piecing together an incredibly complex layering of sounds. Daniel Rossen’s crisp, staccato guitar; Ed Droste’s chiming Omnichord and Christopher Bear’s expansive drumming form the backbone while bassist Chris Taylor frantically scrabbles around the floor looping and adding effects to clarinet, flute and baritone saxophone.

It works like a dream; their habit of swelling their sound to a crescendo before stripping everything back to the very barest of bones bringing an ebb and flow the music. Harmony always essential, melody integral to even their most pulsating, noisy moments. Now let us have a beer while we watch them.

Of all of the current crop of bands who could be described as chamber pop, Brighton quintet The Miserable Rich stand out as that which embrace the concept most whole heartedly. While other bands use the chamber pop sound to add an extra dimension to their folky or indie backbone, The Miserable Rich are as pure as they come. Strip James De Malplaquet’s timbrous vocals from the mix and what you have here could easily form part of the soundtrack to a BBC period drama, so baroque is their sound.

Somerhill , a preposterously pretty song about hidden love in a small town, will be the first release from their forthcoming album, the follow up to the velvety 12 Ways To Count.

Somerhill, backed with Bye Bye Kitty is available for download now from i-Tunes and Boomkat. The album Of Flight And Fury will follow in May.

The Miserable Rich MySpace is here.

Mark Linkous, frontman with Sparklehorse, has, according to a family statement, taken his own life.

If you aren’t familiar with Sparklehorse, you should take the time to investigate. It would be a fitting tribute.

The Sparklehorse MySpace is here.

Frustrated by too much of the same old same old, and inspired by childhood memories of listening to his dad play the White Album and Harvest, James Riggall decided to make some music of his own. The Broken Broadcast is an alias for that music; fractured, melancholic and blurry.

Soya Milk Sea, The Broken Broadcast’s debut mini-album, recorded in a friend’s basement, has just been released by Pilot Records and documents a burgeoning song-writing talent. By track four, Dead Leaves, Riggall has managed to inject an impressive sense of space into his music.  By track 5, Nurse Your Swollen Limbs, a sparsely strummed guitar, a repeated two-note piano refrain and an occasionally hit snare drum, you get the feeling that Riggall has begun to capture perfectly what he set out to achieve. His voice only adds to the slightly unsettling feel of the music, being at once desolately mournful and sweetly melodic.

By the end of the album, you’re wishing you had a recording studio and a string section on hand – if this album was orchestrated, it would be massive. As it stands, it is a remarkable debut. Imagine a stripped back early Grizzly Bear and you’re well on your way.

Soya Milk Sea is available now here.

The Broken Broadcast MySpace is here.

The Miserable Rich – The Cluny 2, Newcastle

Even with a sore throat, James de Malplaquet sings like Ella Fitzgerald. Hoarse and whispery in conversation between songs, The Miserable Rich singer’s voice never once falters while in full flight during this, the opening night of their current tour.

Despite the constant threat of vocal breakdown and the numbing cold of the venue, Cellist Will Calderbank and violinist Mike Siddell have to warm their hands against a radiator before taking to the stage, the band manage to give a run out to new single Somerhill and its b-side Bye, Bye Kitty, a cover of Iggy Pop’s Shades and a handful of old favourites from their 12 Ways To Count album including the sublime Boat Song.

What makes the Miserable Rich such an attractive proposition when playing live is that the strings aren’t there to simply augment their sound; they are the sound. Mostly, that’s a gorgeously lush sweeping sound, but Calderbank and Siddell aren’t afraid to ratchet up the sound. At times they are as close to a wall of sound as two instruments more at home in the orchestra pit can be.

Somerhill is available now through Humble Soul with an album to follow at the end of May.

Sore throat or no sore throat, James de Malplaquet has also croaked his way through the Suitcase Orchestra Q&A.

If I were to play just one of your songs to someone who hasn’t heard your music, which would it be and why?

That’s going to be pretty tricky as the track I’m thinking of, Oliver, is on the new album and thus net yet available. I think you can probably get a preview of it live on YouTube though.

I’m choosing this one because it encapsulates a lot of what the band is about now. It was written by the group as a whole, and we all had a hand in it. It’s in an unusual time signature, and has fairly strange subject matter – and yet it’s extremely catchy and immediate. It also has both the tender and the raw sides of our output.

You are being sent to the moon. You’re allowed to take 1 album. What is it?

It is You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene

What was the last album you bought?

Marissa Nadler – Bird On The Water, which I learned about on 6Music R.I.P. Fittingly sad.

Tell us an interesting fact.

All firefighters and rescue teams in Chile are unpaid volunteers.

Tell us about a band or singer we might not have heard of who should be featured on Suitcase Orchestra.

There’s this husband and wife/brother-sister duo from the states.

Wear a lot of red and white……..

Oh, alright then. We played with a band called Vadoinmessico in London. We like them.

What film would you be a character in?

Ok. Since we’re in fantasy land now, can we please please be the characters in Withnail and I?

Reckon there’d be stiff competition for the parts of Withnail and Danny.

Somewhat less for I and Uncle Monty.

Personally, I’d be happiest dressing up lots and playing all the bit parts.

Recommend a book.

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo.

But of course.

Which literary character would play you in the book of your life?

Wilkins Micawber.

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

What’s the worst record in your collection?

That would be one of Jim’s many Status Quo records.

Although I believe I have a copy of Love Is In The Air by a Spanish flamenco singer which really does need to be heard to be believed…….

What question should I always ask in a Q & A? And answer it please.

A lady at the student radio in Newcastle (hullo Laura!) asked us this question, so we’ll nick that.

Which band would YOU like to cover a song of YOURS, and which one?

Again, this is fantasy land, so let’s have the Pixies doing Pisshead please.

The Miserable Rich MySpace is here.

Simplicity is the key to success at the moment for First Aid Kit. On the face of it, there’s nothing especially remarkable on show here. Sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg play a very straightforward folk music – simple melodies; glorious harmonies, it’s comfortingly familiar stuff. And yet, there’s something of an air of greatness about them.

Partly, that’s due to their charm on stage but mostly it’s down to Johanna Söderberg’s glorious, soaring voice. Her handling of Fleet Foxes’ Tiger Mountain Peasant Song is immaculate and seemingly effortless.

Much more than that though is the feeling that this is only the very beginning. The sisters are impossibly young (they are still chaperoned by their father who acts as soundman during their tours) and can only get better. Already, they are able to do the simple things stunningly well, once they begin to develop further and start to push the boundaries of their music, who knows what they will be capable of.

That autoharp which Klara is clutching might only be the start.

More folk than tronic these days, the new Tunng album is a decidedly more pop orientated record than previous affairs. Don’t be surprised when opening track Hustle crops up on a mobile phone advert; such is its chirpy, skipping like a stone on the water charm.

This is very much a new Tunng – founding member Sam Genders has departed leaving Becky Jacobs to take on a more prominent vocal role. A period of inertia followed this seismic shift as the band struggled to redefine themselves but the shackles of the past are well and truly cast off by track 3 – Don’t Look Down Or Back – an anthemic song in both title and sound.

In fact, such is the confidence which spills out of every song on their fourth album that they could have just as easily titled the thing And Then We Saw The Light.

While many of the bleeps and squeaks of the earlier albums have been filtered out, none of the adventurousness and willingness to experiment has gone. October begins life as the very essence of sweet English folk, pivoting around a strummed chord which hangs in the air before the whole song turns into as freaky a slice of freak-folk as you’re ever likely to hear – all chopped up rhythms and looped vocals.

For those of you who miss the bleeps and squeaks, have patience; there are plenty of tracks on here that re-mixers won’t be able to resist getting their hands on. Expect a revival of the lost art of the ‘remix album’ before you can say ‘Hot Chip’.

And Then We Saw Land is available now on Full Time Hobby.

Tunng’s website is here.

Tunng’s video for Hustle is there ↓

The Hidden Cameras release their new single Underage/Origin:Orphan on the 22nd March through Arts and Crafts, preceded by the re-release of their latest album Origin:Orphan on the 15th March. The band will be over from Canada for a series of UK dates which beginning in Brighton on March 17th at the Audio.

Full tour details are listed below.

In the meantime, Joel Gibb has kindly tackled the Suitcase Orchestra Q & A and you can kick back and watch the video for Underage here.

If I were to play just one of your songs to someone who hasn’t heard your music, which would it be and why?

Party shuffle! Let fate decide things. My songs are like my babies.

You are being sent to the moon. You’re allowed to take 1 album. What is it?

I wouldn’t take any album, what’s the point? You’re in space!!! I would be too distracted to listen to an album. But “Scott 4″ is good.

On the subject of being sent to the moon, what 3 things would definitely be in your suitcase?

Wouldn’t I have some sort of moon-pack instead of a suitcase? Toothbrush, long-johns and tooth paste.

Tell us about a band or singer we might not have heard of who should be featured on Suitcase Orchestra

Hmmmm, haven’t anything new in a while. I really do like the new Mocky record, have you heard it? It’s called “Saskamodie”…

What film would you be a character in?

To quote Sarah Palin, “Any of ‘em, all of ‘em”. My Left Foot would be a good start.

Recommend a book.

Mephisto – Klaus Mann

Which literary character would play you in the book of your life?

See above

What’s the worst record in your collection?

I couldn’t say really, I usually don’t have records I don’t like.

What question should I always ask in a Q & A?

How lazy.

And answer it please.

I’m even lazier.

The Hidden Cameras embark on a UK tour for the following dates:

Wed 17th March Brighton Audio

Thu 18th March London St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

Fri 19th March Nottingham Bodega

Sat 20th March Glasgow Stereo

Sun 21st March Manchester Deaf Institute

Mon 22nd March Cardiff The Gate

Tue 23rd March Leeds Brudenell Club

Wed 24th March London Hoxton Bar and Kitchen

Visit the Hidden Cameras MySpace here.

The uber-prolific (he recently announced that he was set to release 50 free ‘bootleg’ albums, each comprising improvised songs) Devonte Hynes returns with an impressively expansive record and UK tour.

Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You is the second offering from the former Test-Icicle in his Lightspeed Champion guise and pushes his sound into new territories.  The big production and melodramatic sound (Hynes doesn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve, he positively staples it to the cuff and reaches his arms out to you, all the time serenading  you with his pleading voice) mark this album out as being like Mika, but for music-lovers.

Hynes has been hugely ambitious with his sound, boldly chucking all sorts into the pot to create a genre-defying record – where else could you find the country-funk of recent single Marlene? Where else could you find the pairing of jaunty Eighteenth Century harpsichord and sci-fi keyboards of The Big Guns Of Highsmith? Somehow, he’s pulled it off. Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You is an almost maddeningly addictive record.

Not content with that and his self-bootlegging, Hynes and friends have put together what they call a  ‘TV show trailer’ featuring a medley of Lightspeed Champion hits and popular b-side 69 Année Erotique, a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg classic and announced a string of UK dates. (Details below)

Hynes will also find time on May 10^th to release a single, Madame Van Damme. ‘Kill me,baby won’t you kill me?’ he implores in the song…chances are he’ll have already worked himself to death.

Full tour dates are:

1          May           Leeds - Live at Leeds at Stylus

3          May           Nottingham – Bodega

5          May           Glasgow - King Tuts

6          May           Manchester -Deaf Institute

7          May           Newcastle - Cluny

9          May           Birmingham – O2 Academy 3

10        May           London - Heaven

11        May           Portsmouth - Wedgewood Rooms

13        May           Norwich - Arts Centre

14        May           Bristol – Academy 2

15        May           Cambridge- Haymakers

Although these are all the songs of Tim West, the guest list on The Climbers’ debut The Good Ship (there are appearances by members of Shoreline, Sons Of Noel And Adrian, The Leisure Society and The Laish Quartet , amongst others) gives the album something of the feel of a Willkommen compilation. Which, of course, ain’t necessarily a bad thing.

With almost half of the songs featuring Nick Hemming on lead vocals, and an additional track with vocals provided by Christian Hardy, listening to the album, it’s difficult to avoid drawing comparisons with the Leisure Society but to do so would be to do it a disservice. This is not a Leisure Society record and to be fair, at no point does it attempt to be. The instrumentation gives The Climbers a more muscular sound than many of the bands which make up their composite form and the songs lack the ornate prettiness of Hemming and Hardy’s main vehicle, offering instead something with a darker, more brooding edge to them. A sort of lush folk-noir if you will.

This is no more evident than on Uncommon with Sharon Lewis singing ‘you turn all the lights out before the party is over, you beat me, police me,’ while Dan Michaelson growls along huskily. The guitars are drenched in reverb and distortion and there’s a menacing sea-shanty chorus for good measure.

The decision to hand responsibility for so many of the vocals over to Nick Hemming is easy to understand. His presence brings a sweetness to set against the melancholy of In A Circle, while his performance on the gentle country ballad I Will Never suggests that Hemming has it in him to one day record an out and out country album in full Merle Haggard style.

The Good Ship is released on Willkommen Records shortly. In the meantime, catch them on Marc Riley’s BBC 6Muisc show on 25th February or visit their MySpace here.