WHETHER REPORT: Welcome to the Jungle (It's not fun and games...)

Mainstream Success In The Music Industry (TMI) Made Easy, by  Jamie Otsa.

When The Streets wrote ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’, I doubt they could ever have foreseen how accurate the song title would become as a description for the state of the modern music industry. Long gone for the majority are the days of a whirlwind major label romance with a signing party, huge advance and a fat sack of cocaine to slump your weathered rock star face in for the rest of the evening. These days if you’re making music for the money, you’re barking up the wrong tree. In fact, you couldn’t be further away from the tree if you were stood in the middle of a McDonald’s Amazonian deforestation sector. Being a professional touring and recording artist is probably as hard as it’s ever been, and isn’t a commitment to be undertaken lightly.

Tour manager/sound engineer/
beard award winner...

Even further back in the annals of rock legend than major label deals, are things that we never thought we could do without: roadies and tour buses. These days, for the most part, touring parties consist of the band with 2 crew (a tour manager and a sound engineer – sometimes you might be lucky enough to find one of those annoyingly talented twats who can do both), more often than not travelling in a splitter van. What proved a shock to most people was that bands were actually physically capable of carrying most of their own equipment. Far from breaking out in an unsightly covering of hives, their useless skinny limbs proved more than ample for the transport of guitars and amplifiers up and down previously unconquered flights of stairs at venues the length and breadth of the country. Who knew?

Something to remember for the uninitiated; nobody likes a diva. It will not endear venue staff, crew, fans or band members to you. It will make you look like a cunt. When you’re getting paid £50 to be the opening band for Queens Of The Stone Age, please try to remember that you are not in fact a member, friend or colleague of said band. Also please try to remember that those 2000 people are not, contrary to what you may think, there to see your band. They don’t give a fuck about you. Be polite, do your job, and fuck off home.

The most successful bands rising through the ranks at the moment are, as has always been the case, the most hard working ones; the bands who have holed themselves up in a practice room for a year making sure they are playing the best they can and have written the best material they possibly can; the bands who spend hours online chatting to their fans; the bands who film endless behind the scenes footage, create interesting cover versions, devise exciting competitions; the bands who tour relentlessly for little to nothing; the bands who sell their own merchandise and conduct their own soundchecks. These are the bands that, eventually, break through and earn the recognition they deserve for being outstanding musicians and songwriters.

Jamie Otsa.

All of this is, of course, expected from you before you even begin to make any money. Should your career begin to blossom like a cherry tree in spring, royalties and performance fees budding from every branch, rest assured that you will be left with an adequate percentage after the management’s 20%, the agent’s 15% and the record label’s advance repayments.


“What is this fresh hell?” You may well ask.
This, my friend, is the music industry...come on in.

Albums for After Midnight #001: Jon Hopkins - Insides [2009; Domino]

(Entire album here.)

The first in our series of Albums for After Midnight is Insides by Jon Hopkins.  It was his third LP, released in 2009 on Domino Records and you can listen to the whole thing in the embedded playlist above! Yessir!

DEMO #001: Kate Farquharson - Chronological

The first in our series of reader submitted demos is a group of self described "works in progress", entitled Chronological, by 16 (yes, sixteen) year old Laandaaner, Kate Farquharson.

The stripped bare piano/vocals arrangements are immediately more interesting and less saccharine than many of Kate's already successful peers.  The bucketloads of talent required to produce music like this at such a young age is just spilling out of these no-more-than-2-mins songs.  Have a listen yourself...

Chronological by katefarquharson






Demos or any music you want to send us can be sent to thebreadcrumbtrail@live.com, or alternatively find us on Facebook.  Don't be shy!

Flaming Lips and The Boredom of the Gummy Skull.

From straggly, semi-anarcho punks who popped to psychedelic smilers whose bopping alchemy has just about funded the darn kookiest of mood swings in music - and let's face it, there's been a few - Oklahoma's fi(e)n(d)est, the Flaming Lips are well and truly back! And by "well and truly" I mean "not at all" and by "back" I mean, "have self-consciously resurfaced with semi-regressive funk-noize shite that would be universally slated if it wasn't the work of the "Laming Fips" And you know what? It wasn't even!

You see, if, like the BNP's tentative Putney representative (Stern) John Lennon, you "read the Sun today, oh boy" or, to be more accurate, "three weeks ago on Pitchfork after a particularly half-hearted wank" you'll probably have read a story about Wayne Coyne and Co. spontaneously combusting deciding to unleash a minus-yer-thumb handful of  Gummi Skulls - jellified "sweetie" heads effectively (oh-er) - containing individual USB sticks featuring "new and original Flaming Lips material" ("not actual quote" - you can quote "me" on that).

"To see or not to see (Clare Balding naked). That is the equestrian" - Kaiser Wilhelm Shakespeare II

That is, dearest Breeder fans: non-edible memory sticks containing four new songs nestling deep with wholly-edible confectionary craniums, not to mention personally sold at a local record store by "Wee One" Coyne himself. How heartfelt and unManny-like of him! (Manny once done the exact opposite during a 1996 coke binge in Leeds city centre - but more on that later). 

Not only that, Coyne personally tracked - tracked! - his movements from "concept" to recording to production to car to store to dollar for die-hard fans (inc. Bruce "What you baking about?" Willis) to a) hype up, b) froth over and c) bug-eyedly revere in theory deep within the barkiest, fruit-loopiest recesses of Twitter and beyond (cubby-holes the world over). 

Gadzooks, like! Tell yer sister! Marvin Gaye's ghost! 

In short (cake): Wayne Coyne, you crazy neo-Rasta magician man, man! 

What is this? Christmas on the m00n? Not again, Shirley?

"I'm delirious and don't call me so early!" - Shirley Temple, Ritz London, 1972

And even THAT is beside the point! So what is the point you may ask? Well, I'll tell you! Courtesy of the interweb-super-why-way we've been flung four predominantly instrumental "vignettes" (best appreciated with fucked on wine) beginning with the "sonic niece to Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis" 'Drug Chart' - a real slow-burning Ceres-climber featuring sparse sub-dub, muffled vox and one of the most tolerable chorusless choruses in muzak (i.e. the piss-stained Parisian elevators of the unconscious, yegedme?).

There is even - no shit! - hints of loveless loveliness in the scantily-clad vein of recent degenerations throughout, despite the fact this opener stands as the most distracting part-Gorillaz, part-Tortoise flukes in the Flips wheedling back catalogue (not really a good thing, overall). You see, once a song has more emptiness than hard-to-come-by, altogether precious concete-mixed moments in Lippy thyme, you know it's time to get off the flamin' bus - for all in tents and porposes, you understand. 

So, as we stand, one non-song (hic!) down and the initial reaction of your reviewer? "Dis shit be something of a Ulrika moment gone wrong, k? A would-be genius brainstorm gone crappy. A self-satisified piece of shit that I don't know if I could be arsed "reviewing" because it's that shit and tedious and making me hate the Flaming Lips for being so incompetent and hasty with this incompetence). 

That is the initial allergic reaction of your reviewer. 

"The other three songs aren't great. In fact, they remind me of strung-out visits to uncle's house every Sunday when I was a youngster. The house smelled like impending death and crap music" - Brian Coney, Mediocrity Sufferer/Actual Flaming Lips (RIP) Fan, bereave it or not!

All yokes aside, it turns out the USB sticks were contained in Gummi mini-vaginas at the top of the skull. Smart move, guys. Next time: put GOOD MUSIC IN YOUR VAGINAS!

"The Flaming Lips - Turns Out It Was A Yeast Infection" - Rosemary Shrager

EARTOTHEGROUND: Death Grips - Ex-Millitary Mixtape

<<Oh no, he's been resurrected!
Get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ... get up ...
Zombie Holocaust in seconds>>

Fitting sentiments at this time of year, by anyone's standards.  Death Grips is Zach Hill's noise-hop collaboration with fellow Sacramentoites that, for the life of me, I cannot seem to identify (answers on a postcard...).

"Spk n abbrvs cuz rl lyf convo moves 2 slowwwwlllyyyy."

Death Grips is a musical Moebius strip that makes you feel like you're playing some kind of real life hip-hop Portal ... in a dream ... or in any case that's the precise image conjured up by the song Culture Shock:
"You need to vibrate higher (... so you can capture the opening of the portal that connects this earth of 3d to the one earth of 4d or 5d, going to the 5d)" :
"Lightworker's (0:50) is a spiritual social networking community for all people seeking to connect with other lightworker's, spiritual seekers, star seeds, wanderers, indigo children, and multi-dimensional beings. The World is entering a new dimension of love, truth and light."


The whole exercise is fairly mind blowing, and the production is as dark and choppy as anything Zach Hill's done, even if it's not entirely different-prime-number-every-bar time signatures, like some of his previous.

Not that this is surprising, even Bygones (see 3:29 onwards for [potential] greatest riff of all time) showed a more restrained style than his work with Hella, and his collab' with Wavves was practically minimalist compared to that.  In Death Grips ... there's not even a drum kit on all of the songs, but you can always hear his signature chops in the samples and the general aggressivity of the drumlines alongside the weird, scratchy, rhythmic synth work and effects the likes of which we've heard in a lot of his solo stuff ... I genuinely love the man.



THE DEATH GRIPS EX-MILLITARY MIXTAPE IS OUT ON 27.04.2011 (Immediately after completion of the Lightworker's year of transformation) AND IS GOING TO KNOCK YOUR BLOCK OVER.

GET IT HERE, ALONG WITH DOWNLOADS AND LOADS AND LOADS OF BOSS BOSS STUFF.



"Gaga can't handle this shit."

EARTOTHEGROUND: Prefuse 73 - The Only She Chapters

Speaking of Prefuse 73, here's a free album taster download for his forthcoming release The Only She Chapters, out on Monday.

The Only Hand to Hold (Featuring Shara Warden) is very much a development and aggrandisement of the haunting, vocal driven ambient arrangements á la P73's Diamond Watch Wrists project with Zach Hill.

In fact, the album in general, following on from 2009's brighter, much more head-bounceable Forest of Oversensitivity, extrapolates more from Diamond Watch Wrists than previous P73 releases.

There is a distinct focus on out-of-focus layers and textures, and album opener, The Only Recollection of Where Life Stopped is bona fide noise.  The entire album is replete with clicking, grinding, dripping, bipping, booping, clacking ... melodic and rhythmic, and sometimes neither ... both sampled and synthesized.  Plonk this alongside samples of oriental string instruments and melodic percussion, all layering together within layer upon layer of background textures ... some tracks are pure exercises in texture, see The Only Direction in Concrete, featuring Zola Jesus ... get some top notch collaborations (mostly female vocalists), with P73 at the helm who, chaotic as the album is, embues it with a progression which never seems lost or confused.

Great album!

Release Date: 25.04.2011

MIX: Baconhead - Kid's TV Mix

Baconhead's new mix is of a Kid's Tv Theme ...

Anybody recognise any of the samples?  Can't quite put my finger on ... any of them ...

Anyway, quality scrunched up beats from porcine craniums Ebola and Autobee right here ... includes new music from the men in question, as well as music from BCT favourites Prefuse 73 and Global Goon, and plenty more chunks of chunky ear fun.

Baconhead - Kid's Tv Mix by Wrong_Music on Mixcloud

EARTOTHEGROUND: sleepingdog - With Our Heads in the Clouds and Our Hearts in the Fields

With Our Heads in the Clouds and Our Hearts in the Fields is the third full length sleepingdog album, the latest noise of the collaboration between Adam Wiltzie of Stars of the Lid (BCT ep. 11) and The Dead Texan (BCT ep. 5) and Belgian singer Chantal Acda (you can listen to the whole thing BELOW) is released this coming Monday (25th April) on Gizeh records.
Underlying With Our Heads... is Wiltzie's everpresent trademark orchestral drone, and the overall effect of its coupling with Acda's so-dreamy-they-might-not-actually-be-real-after-all vocals really does almost make the use of the word "ethereal" too obvious to use in reference to any of sleepingdog's releases.  And yet, it's something rarely avoided...
This is an album where all Wiltzie's best talents for creating understated, deep-set soundscapes are put to work in various fairly disparate ways.  At times these almost engulf Acda's manipulated vocals, such as on album opener Untitled Ballad of You and Me, and at other times, the relative crispness of the vocal production, with the higher level of the vocals in the mix lends particular emphasis to the lyrics, such as on first single off the album, He Loved to See the World Through His Camera.
The natural quality of Acda's voice, and Wiltzie's long-established knack for unwittingly powerful arrangements make for a record of such intense warmth, that if you threw it on a bonfire ... emmm ... well ... depending on what format it was in, it would probably melt ... but for the sake of a metaphor, everybody would probably have to step back a bit ...

Anyway ... listen to it for yourself ...

SLEEPINGDOG - With Our Heads in the Clouds and Our Hearts in the Fields by Gizeh

Release Date: 25.04.2011

The Breadcrumbs are Music.

Hello there, people of network (Breadcrumb T)rail.

Welcome to the new Breadcrumb Trail Music Blog.

Rest In Crumbs.

Since the ultimately untimely demise of the late, great Féile FM, and prior to that, our personal funds, our incarnation as Northern Ireland's only vaguely experimental music radio show has been rendered dormant (though we do expect to return to the airwaves before the end of 2011, and thus before the end of the world).

If you missed The Breadcrumb Trail on Féile FM, you can still listen back to some of the shows here.

Naturally, as de facto audio-fascists, we miss telling people what they should have in their ears, and this is why, without (much) further adooo, we at The Breadcrumb Trail (Brian and Eamonn) are pleased to declare THE BREADCRUMB TRAIL MUSIC BLOG ...

OFFICIALLY OPEN! 

As our first act we would like to say how pleasant it is to have all considerations of restrictions placed upon us by governmental bodies, or what exactly people do or do not want or need to hear between the hours of 9 and 11pm (conceivably while driving down Stockman's Lane in their 1998 Mazda 121) on Thursday evenings lifted from our shoulders.

Secondly, WE WANT YOU TO GET INVOLVED.  Send us anything, demos, reviews, abuse ... if they are interesting or funny enough we will not hesitate in potentially putting it up on this blog, or intergrating it into our own personalities, if it's really really good.  Our email is thebreadcrumbtrail@live.com.

WE WANT YOUR DEMOS:  Give us your music.  We will listen to it all.  We will put up what we consider to be fitting for what is essentially an experimental and generally weird music blog, but we always make exception for the exceptional.  So if it's really really good, it doesn't matter what it is ... get it?

We will be bringing a new LOCAL PEOPLE feature too, and we are asking people from all over the shop to please write Local People articles about bands, artists or their local music scene in general, wherever it may be ... We are all (both of us) very interested to see how far afield this reaches.  Also, feel free to send us anything at all, if we find it interesting or funny enough, we'll definitely put it up/integrate it into our own personalities.

SO GET WRITING.

Lastly, and least leastly ... once we obtain certain equipment, we shall be bringing you regular podcasts.  Woooo.

I think that's probably quite enough excitement information for everybody to be getting on with for now, so just keep an eye out for imminent Crumbs.

And thanks!

Brian and Eamonn.