What We've Been Listening To This Week...Midlight, Alice Robbins, Courting, Beige Banquet, Psych Against Cancer, Disobedient Records

By Jon Milton

As is usually the case, new releases of note at this time of the year have been few and far between so we’ve been mostly concentrating on bringing our festive fifty together over the last week or two, which you can listen to here.

There have been some tracks of note to emerge however. The first is ‘Pandemonium’, the second single by London based Midlight which has a kind of Radiohead does Latin feel with a white noise outro. The band consists of Owen Beesley (Drums), George Ireland (Vocals, Guitar, Piano), Issac Squires (Lead Guitar) and Ollie Turvey (Bass, Piano), and Pandemonium was recorded in a studio the band have been building in Brixton. It follows on from their debut ‘Sink to the Level’ which was released earlier this year and got airplay by Tom Robinson and Shaun Keaveny by all accounts. Both songs will feature on a limited vinyl release. 

Earlier this year the wonderful Do Nothing recommended we listen to the debut album by Felix M-B  on their socials, which is a cracking record. This week they suggested listening to the latest single by Alice Robbins ‘Canaries’, a similarly impressive choice. It could almost be a Do Nothing song in fact, but for the vocals, which should give you some indication of what its like. Previous single G.F.D.S. ain’t too shabby either.  

London based Beige Banquet released their debut single ‘Wired/Weird’ a week or so ago, which is the first to be taken from their debut album due for release on Just Step Sideways in early 2021. Angular, in yer face post punk the way we like it. A beige banquet by all accounts is a meal made up of mostly frozen food of a similar colour – chips, chicken nuggets, potato waffles, fish fingers, a staple of many working-class children in the 90’s including Tom Brierley, who fronts the band.
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Beige Banquet have also contributed a track ‘What is Going On’ to a compilation from Disobedient Records ‘I never told you’ which you can get on Bandcamp for a fiver. The compilation also features quality tunes from Public Body, Cardinal, Hazeydays, Maruja  and a host of others, with all monies raised going to Reece’s Line, a charity set up in aid of Reece Spark who sadly took his own life this year supporting those who suffer from mental health issues. Get it here. 

Another very worthy comp on Bandcamp comes from Psych Lovers ‘Psych against Cancer’ which is the second volume in a series, and available in two parts. There are 83 tracks on part 1 and 82 on part 2, so we are talking about 16 hours of psych in total, featuring artists such as Slift, Ghost Dance Collective, The Oscillation, Thee UFO, The Vacant Lots, Psychic Lemon, Anthroprophh and many, many more. There’s something for everyone here and all proceeds of this release go to Macmillan Cancer Support so buying it is a no-brainer. Get part 1 here and part 2  here.  

Last up this week sees three of the brightest new bands around coming together, with Home Counties and The Lounge Society remixing Courting’s ‘Popshop’. The Lounge Society give the song an 80’s acid house re-rub, and Home Counties house it up 90’s style. I spent parts of the eighties and most of the 90’s in dark and dingy clubs listening to house music of varying shapes and I can't help but imagine the lot of them bouncing around off their faces when listening to this EP.