Gruff Trade has a busy weekend coming up starting tomorrow. We are heading to Manchester for Sunday and the bank holiday Monday, first to go to the Eurocultured weekend on sunday, before heading to the Manchester leg of the Dot-To-Dot weekender. Hopefully we will bring you some nice coverage from both. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions to ask the acts playing Dot-To-Dot and hopefully we will be able to get some interesting answers over the weekend. Hope to see as many of you out in Manchester as possible, and bellow is a lovely track from The Cold One Hundred who are playing the Font Bar at Eurocultured, hope you enjoy.
Chadvalley are yet another brilliant band who form part of Blessing Force, spearheaded by Gruff favourite Pet Moon. They posted up a brilliant track featuring Rose Dagul a couple of days back, hope you enjoy. Now That I'm Real (How Does It Feel) ft. Rose Dagul by chadvalley
An incredible track from easily my favourite Danish band to date, and a free download. The video is below and its pretty crazy, but follow this link to get yourself a free download of the track, hope you enjoy.
A far more up tempo track then is the norm for a Monday,this is a great electro pop track that is sure to set your week up in a good way, hope you enjoy.
I saw these guys support Tennis at Madam JoJo's in SOHO a couple of months back, and they where by far the standout performers of the night. They havent been able to translate what made them so brilliant live into recordings yet, but really worth checking out, and they look set to be making big waves in the months to come. Hope you enjoy.
The people at Dot-To-Dot have been kind enough to grant Gruff Trade it's first festival press passes of the season. So Monday the 30th of May, Gruff will be hitting the road and heading to central Manchester to bring you award worthy coverage from backstage at this years festival, we hope to catch as many of you there as possible. Any questions you want answered send them our way and we will use only the finest journalistic techniques to uncover astonishing facts about your favourite acts.
This years line up is arguably the best Dot-To-Dot to date. Dot-To-Dot is a three legged event which starts in Bristol on Saterday 28th before heading to Nottingham for the 29th and ending in Manchester on Monday bank holiday (the 30th). Boasting a line up of not only the finest local talent, but some big names like Hurts, We Are Scientists and Darwin Deez will playing along side Gruff Trade favourites Trophy Wife, Fixers, and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, it really is the only place to be over the bank holiday. Check out the full line up bellow, as well as a nice Trophy Wife classic to get you in the mood.
And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (Bristol & Nottingham) / Allie Moss / Alpines / Ben Howard / Benjamin Francis Leftwich / Blawan / Braids / Colourmusic / Cults / Dananananaykroyd /
Darwin Deez (Manchester only) / Dom / Ed Sheeran / Fixers / Foreign Office / Get People / Guillemots /
Hot Horizons / Hurts / Is Tropical / King Charles (Bristol & Nottingham) /
Lanterns On The Lake (Nottingham / Manchester only) / Mat Horne Presents Session (Bristol & Nottingham) / Morning Parade / Niki & the Dove / Paramount Styles / Romance /
Royal Republic / SBTRKT / Stagecoach / Swimming / The Joy Formidable /
The Kill Van Kulls (Manchester Only) / The Lines / The Naked And Famous / The Phoenix Foundation /
To Kill A King / Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs / Trophy Wife / Various Cruelties / Veto /
We Are Scientists / Wolf Gang / Yaaks (Bristol & Nottingham) / Zebedy Rays
A Forest released a new EP of remixes of their stunning single A Listener today, and to mark the occasion Gruff Trade caught up Florian from the band to discuss the remixes, the German music scene, and where they draw their inspirations from. Hope you enjoy.
A Forest is a highly original choice of name for a band, was it inspired by The Cure song and if not what by?'
No, actually it wasn't influenced by The Cure, and I think you can hear that listening to our music. We chose that name because we are a band using electronical sounds and an electronic approach towards our music, but always combined with natural, organic sounds and feelings in our songs. That is a very important part of our music, and this is why we chose that name. But in the end it is up to our listeners to imagine the meaning.
Your releasing a set of remixes of A Listener today, how did these remixes come about?
When we produced our Ep, that was released in march, we thought about that from the beginning on. Our label analogsoul is the perfect network for projects like that, because it collects a wide variety of artists in itself. We started to ask good friends of ours if they would like to remix our songs, and the result is, 3 remixes, 3 different approaches of dealing with our idea of how a "A Forest" song should be. And listening to the results is the incredibly interesting for us as well.
Is there any one of the remixes you see as being your favourite?
No of course of not. I especially love the different approaches.
Which artists have had the most influence on the music the band is making?
I could probably name thousands of artists, but in the end the truth is, that the members of A Forest have very different musical backgrounds. I listenend a lot to Jazz Music, Fabian is a bit of a hip-hop/soul guy. And Franziska studied Pop-Music-Design. As a conclusion these backgrounds explain our influences better then naming any artists.
What do you think of the music scene in Germany at the moment? Berlin has an incredible reputation as a live music city, do you think its living up to that reputation at the moment?
I think for german bands it is very hard to get recognized, even by your own music magazines/important blogs. You have to get recognized either in the UK or in the US, and then german music press hypes you immediately, but before, it is very hard.
But anyway, there are amazing bands and scenes especially in Berlin, but also in Leipzig. There is so much choice to see great bands from everywhere in Berlin at the moment, it's amazing. But I think the biggest advantage Berlin has, is that, so many musicians are moving to Berlin at the moment, it's becoming a huge melting pot, which is awesome.
Are there any bands coming out of Leipzig or Berlin at the moment that stand out? Who is your favourite emerging new act?
For me the label Sinnbus is outstanding, with two amazing bands called Hundreds and Bodi Bill, you should definitely listen to their music.
sinnbus.de
And I like Brandt Brauer Frick, they are performing Techno Music with a large ensemble it's a blast. http://www.brandtbrauerfrick.de/
Your just coming to the end of your current tour, how do you think it went?
It went very well, it was the first time, that we had constantly a lot of people showing up, because they knew our music. And this is when it really starts to be fun, when people know your songs.
Yes we are still playing smaller clubs, but it's growing slowly and very organic, which makes me feel very comfortable.
And finally, when are you next planning on heading out on tour/ are you playing any festivals this summer?
We will play another tour in Germany/Austria/Switzerland in fall, we will play a few smaller festivals all over Germany, but also the amazing Dockville in Hamburg in August, as welll as Showcases like at the Pop-Up in Leipzig this week-end.
And then we hope to be touring all across Europe maybe at the end of this year, or maybe next year. That's is what we are trying to achieve at the moment.
A really lovely track from the side project of A Forest, who we have an interview with tomorrow. I really recommend you go check analogsoul, the label both projects are signed to, it's a brilliant show case of just how much musical talent is coming out of Germany at the moment. Hope you enjoy. ME AND OCEANS "the giant" by analogsoul
Really beautiful and mellow track to make up for the missed Mellow Monday yesterday. I love this track, is yet more proof of the talent flooding out of the continent at the moment. Hope you enjoy.
Still not 100% sure how I feel about this track. The actual chorus is brilliant, but I still havent decided quite what i think about the rest of it. It's a new track from belgium producer, artist and all things musical Styrofoam. Hope you enjoy
A track that got it's first upload on The Stone Records soundcloud, Yes Feels is a really great little chillwave number. I recommend you go check out the rest of The Stone Records soundcloud, quite a few gems tucked away on it.
A slightly more up tempo number than the last couple of posts have been, Teachers are a band from New York that sound something like a clash between, DJ Mujava and Friendly Fires, and thats no bad thing. Hope you enjoy.
Was hunting through friends of friends on soundcloud today and stumbled on this minimalistic gem. Really recomend checking out the whole DFA Records page, a lot of nice tracks to be found on it. Hope you enjoy.
Its been a pretty long time since the last post that wasn't a interview, there is a long but dull story to explain all this which doesn't seem worthing going into at the moment.
Since our last post there has been a promising development, we have finally gotten round to getting a drop box on our soundcloud page - so if any one wants to have a feature drop us a track there, or you can still email us at grufftrade@gmail.com, we have been terrible at getting back to everyone so far, but we promise to be better.
Anyway we are back once again, and return with yet another Mellow Monday. Today, a nice little slice of chill wave. Hope you enjoy.
Gruff Trade has a busy weekend coming up starting tomorrow. We are heading to Manchester for Sunday and the bank holiday Monday, first to go to the Eurocultured weekend on sunday, before heading to the Manchester leg of the Dot-To-Dot weekender. Hopefully we will bring you some nice coverage from both. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions to ask the acts playing Dot-To-Dot and hopefully we will be able to get some interesting answers over the weekend. Hope to see as many of you out in Manchester as possible, and bellow is a lovely track from The Cold One Hundred who are playing the Font Bar at Eurocultured, hope you enjoy.
