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| Welcome
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| Band Hype is THE student chart for
up and coming bands that can be seen playing at
Student Unions and locations around the UK. If you
are a student with a particular taste in music,
from pop to rock, then Band Hype will tell you who
are the best bands to keep an eye out for. Band
Hype is more than just a top 20 chart which you
can vote for. We are looking to arrange for bands
to play at Student Unions and to promote student
bands to the student population via the web site,
student radio and the student band societies that
are all connected through the team working on Band
Hype. Band Hype receives hundreds of demo CD's
from bands looking for exposure and we listen to
everyone of them. Can you make our top 20?
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| News |
Bushmasters ‘Yes’
Bushmasters
are globalisation in practice. Originally a
Leicester band, their guitar player and songwriter
Martin Irons now resides, obscurely, in Wallagong
Australia. Rather then allowing this minor
geographical relocation inconvenience the
progression of their musical careers, Bushmasters
now record on separate continents, with Irons
sending instrumental tracks back home to Leicester
for completion.
They are a classic rock
band without any pretension to be otherwise, even
presenting a smouldering interpretation of rock
standard ‘Smoke on the Water’ alongside their
original material. Their sound relies heavily on
effects-laden guitar riffage, combined with a
tight rhythm section and the occasional saxophone.
There is also the odd twist of disco beats and
synth, though the general vibe is definitely more
Roxette then Bee Gees.
Vocalist Lisa
Palmer delivers in a melodramatic, rocked-out
style, not unlike Kim Wild, and is well suited to
the music that accompanies her. Her voice has
subtleties and dynamic ability, rising from spoken
whispers to howling choruses with ease. The lyrics
are rather bland and of a limited vocabulary, the
usual tales of ‘breaking-hearts’ and ‘destiny’.
The word ‘insidious’ crops up during the song
‘Lies’, and sounds ridiculous when juxtaposed with
the neat clich�-rhyme couplets around it.
There is little indication that this album
was recorded in the twenty-first century. All the
sounds and styles on it existed in the
nineteen-eighties and before. However, the earnest
optimism and bravado of songs like ‘Yes’ and ‘You
Are the One’ is hard to come by these days, and
the indisputably enthusiastic approach of
Bushmasters is charming. Perhaps the mainstream
success of ironic cat-suit poodle-masters the
Darkness will draw more attention to bands like
this, who are still rocking like the eighties
never ended. Never underestimate the appeal of
retro-camp.
Elegant Simplicity: Architect of
Light‘Architect of Light’ is the fourteenth
release from prolific one-man prog-rock-machine
Steven McCabe, who records under the mysterious
and vaguely pretentious moniker ‘Elegant
Simplicity’. A bona fide multi-instrumentalist,
McCabe recruits various other musicians to assist
in his experimentations, but has composed,
arranged, engineered and produced over an hour of
music for this album all on his own.
The
vast majority of the album is instrumental, with
mellotrons, live drums and blistering guitar
sounds supplementing the ever-present synth.
Occasionally, flute, violin and contra-bassoon are
also brought in, along with reversed recordings,
spoken-word samples and miscellaneous electronic
noises. The result is an admirably textured sound,
with carefully integrated parts.
These
diverse musical elements are woven into complex
compositions, with tempo changes and dynamic
subtlety brightening lengthy tracks. McCabe is
clearly a talented instrumentalist, demonstrating
his virtuosity on lengthy guitar and keyboard
solos. The straightforward production sound,
though obviously cheap as chips, gives the album
an endearing DIY quality.
Guest Ken Senior
performs the vocals. His voice is not technically
impressive, but adequately complements the dreamy
style of McCabe’s songs. The lyrics, though, are
pretty awful, tending to muddle around in vague
metaphysics and tired clich�, with natural imagery
dominating thematically. The watchwords of bad
poetry, ‘time’, ‘stars’, ‘light’ and ‘sky’, recur
an extraordinary number of times on an album of so
few words.
The first track, ‘Time to
Breath’, is perhaps the most impressive, with its
dense effects-laden introductory soundscape
developing into a Santanaesque guitar-fest. ‘Stars
on the Water’ is a more conventional affair, with
a full vocal and an agreeable, melodic musical
accompaniment. After these first two tracks
however, both around six minutes long, Architect
of Light turns into a prog monster, with three
epic compositions each lasting between fifteen and
twenty minutes. These are long songs by anyone’s
standards, and perhaps their length detracts from
the quality of McCabe‘s musicianship.
While this album is indisputably ambitious
in a pure musical sense, it lacks any obvious
aspirations to move beyond the tired format of 70s
prog-rock. It is, in a way, refreshing to hear
something so oblivious to changing musical tastes,
but a lot has happened since the 70s, and it is
hard to imagine music like this appealing to a
wide audience again. Perhaps though, ‘Architect of
Light’ is only intended for the enjoyment of
die-hard prog fans, who would be hard-pushed to
find a more carefully written and lovingly
recorded progressive rock album this year.
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| Hypersizer |
The Hypersizer is a musical tool
you can use to create tunes with.
At
present there are four styles of tunes - Original,
Greasy Spaniard, 70's Porn Soundtrack and Ali G.
All Soundtracks are accompanied by
beautiful visuals. To start the Hypersizer click
on the "HYPERSIZER" button below.
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