Videos
Stars And Sons – If It's Good For Me
Brighton’s Stars and Sons have announced details of a UK tour, following the recent release of their single, ‘If It’s Good For Me’ (Twice Burnt Records). This saw the band clock up support from the likes of Lauren Lavern, John Kennedy, Marc Riley and Huw Stephens.
Having supported acts including Hockey, Dr Dog and Okkervil River, the band can confirm details of a UK tour through May and June. They will play a Club NME night in Portsmouth on May 2, before stopping off at London’s Borderline on 5 May. A hometown turn at Brighton’s Great Escape festival will follow on 14 May, where they will play as part of an AlCoPoP showcase, before heading off on a nationwide jaunt with Candle Thieves. Further dates are expected to be announced shortly.
Stars and Sons are the Frankensteinian fall-out of Mike Lord, together with two Scots (Sandy and Stuart) and fellow Brighton-resident Paul Steel. Inspired by Abba, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Animal Collective – and that’s just the A’s- they recorded their debut album with Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers, Kylie). The result, ‘Good Morning Mother’, will finally see a release later in the summer.
‘Good Morning Mother’ is a genuinely eclectic technicolour pop album; marked by orchestral flourishes, dramatic tempo shifts, and consistently dazzling song-writing. Previous single ‘In The Ocean’ is a hundred-mile-an-hour race to the finish, complete with screeching guitars, plinky xylophones and quietly urging harmonies. Five hundred copies – ALL hand-painted – were released earlier this year, accompanying a video that exhibited an underwater dance scene with a girl in a Scarlett Johansson mask. Yet for all its eccentricities, ‘Good Morning Mother’ is a supremely focused, expertly crafted effort. ‘Outside my Feet’ is an intricate, rhythmic and hypnotic affair, offset by a cinematic score, whilst ‘Futureproof’ is a perfumed love-letter to the Lennon and McCartney school of classic pop. Or, in This is Fake DIY’s words: “Albums like this often stick to a policy of 'better safe than sorry', but Stars and Sons are having none of it. Thinking outside the box has meant that they've breathed new life into a formerly stagnant genre, with forty minutes of bubblegum brilliance, and they've enough ideas in their heads to go all kinds of places with album number two. Let the anticipation begin. Yes. Already.”
TOUR DATES
May 2 PORTSMOUTH Club NME @ Kraken Wakes
May 5 LONDON Borderline (supporting Jay & The Boys)
May 14 BRIGHTON Great Escape Festival (Pav Tav, stage time approx 3.15pm)
May 22 HASTINGS Brass Monkey (with Candle Thieves)
May 23 BRIGHTON Pav Tav (with Candle Thieves)
May 24 NORTHAMPTON Labour Club (with Candle Thieves)
May 25 SOUTHAMPTON Joiners (with Candle Thieves)
May 26 COLCHESTER The Twist (with Candle Thieves)
May 27 SHEFFIELD Bungalow and Bears (with Candle Thieves)
May 28 LEEDS The Cockpit (with Candle Thieves)
May 30 NOTTINGHAM Spanky Van Dykes (with Candle Thieves)
June 2 BRISTOL Mothers Ruin Bristol (with Candle Thieves)