Introduction
North Edinburgh Arts (NEA) has been busy working on Creative Scotland's Youth Music Initiative Demo Fund. The Project's aim is to identify and assist local young musicians who could benefit from recording a professional Demo of their music.
In total NEA engaged with 14 young musicians in the Edinburgh Area, producing over 25 Original pieces of music. NEA also provided work experience for 3 Students at Edinburgh's Jewel & Esk College.
The project was headed by NEA's Caroline Muirhead and NEA / Graphite North's Patrick Findlay.
Auditions
NEA held auditions earlier in the year to identify 5 young bands or artists to work with, our technician; Patrick Findlay (aka forward strategy group's Patrick Walker) then worked with the bands to record some very promising Demos.
Our panel of experts included Tam Treanor (producer and musician / BMG / More Protien) , Alex Burden (music journalist / DJ Mag / Clash Magazine) and Patrick Findlay (producer and electronic artist / forward strategy group). These panelists have a wealth of experience to share and gave the bands some excellent and in-depth feedback during the audition.
Reubam
The first band to record were Reubam; aka Reuben Tighe, 20, and Sam Chapman, 25. Originally from the Lake District, and now based in Edinburgh; Reubam's music is a heady brew of folk mixed with Indie Pop and Blues.
Our first impressions of Reubam were simply 'WOW'; having heard some of their music on Soundcloud and having been tipped off by our friends at Red Dog Music about them (who picked one of their early works as a track of the month in their fanzine 'The Dog'.
Their sound is comparable with bands such as; love, the mock turtles, the kooks and the la's with Reuben's soaring vocals and complex guitar-work interweaving Sam's solid and often experimental rhythms.
'No Go' is one of the four tracks the Lads recorded in the studio with us and you can listen to it here :
Why not check them out on facebook here : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Reubam/168835906529
Tom Vevers
Next up came Tom Vevers, 17, an Acoustic act from North Berwick. Tom is an accomplished player with a wide range of tunes covering Indie Rock, Acoustic, Folk and Pop.
(Tom Vevers)
Our introduction to Tom came via his YouTube broadcasts, we were instantly taken with his original lyrics and his very 'Scottish' sound.
Tom's time in the studio was hugely productive, laying down a total of 7 tracks most of which containing extra harmonies and experimental guitar overdubs. One track even features Tom playing drums - talk about a one man band !
We tried to think of artist to compare Tom with but we figure it's best for you to decide yourself so on that note, you can listen to one of Tom's excellent tracks here :
Mercy Queen
Our Third act is none other than The Queen ! Mercy Queen to be precise !
Mercy blew us away with her audition, she's an inspirational act with a huge amount of stage presence and charisma, her lyrics cover tough subjects such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) whilst also dealing with the brighter aspects in her life such as Jesus and making great Hip Hop !
Mercy really put us to the test, one of the first missions for our engineer was to help write backing tracks which meant writing 2 instrumental hip hop tracks in 2 days ! Mercy continued to set the pace hard bringing in no less than 3 different backing singers.
Though young, we feel Mercy has a massive career in front of her, if not in music, then in some way dedicated to bettering the lives of other human beings and we can't give her enough praise - keep an eye on her movements and take a listen to her signature track here :
The Flashbacks
Four young Stockbridge lads with a penchant for quirky pop mixed with melancholic indie rock, the Flashbacks really made a big impression on us at their audition, for one thing, they have the right haircuts, but on a more serious note, they have a wealth of influences which extend far beyond their years.
Take one part Paul Weller, one part the Arctic Monkeys and add a little bit of Franz Ferdinand and you have a potent combination and that's exactly what the boys have whilst putting enough of theirself to balance it all out on the originality stakes.
You can see the flashbacks playing locally in Edinburgh, and you can check their stunning Indie Rock anthem 'playing with knives' here :
Cry And The Blocks
3 Piece Rockers Cry And The Blocks know a thing or six about music, their influences include The Stooges, Queens Of The Stone Age and the Strokes. NEA first encountered these young noise merchants over at their website: http://www.cryandtheblocks.com/index.html
What impressed us about these guys is their direct sound and punky attitude, our engineer Patrick got really excited about their sound proclaiming them to be the product of 'Joy Division Jamming with Black Sabbath' and we think he was right.
The Cries Gig regularly around Edinburgh, you can keep tabs on them via their website above or through Facebook.
Here is one of the excellent tracks they recorded with us, it's called 'Drive Slow' and you can listen here :
Follow Up
Right now we are in the process of organising a showcase night for the bands, we have been in deep discussion with Red Dog Music and a few local venues to try and work out the best fit.
Additionally we have worked tirelessly to try and make sure we are presenting the bands in the best possible way with regular contact between our engineer and the bands themselves to talk about different aspects of the recordings and what happens next for them.
The final tweaks are almost there and we have had great feedback so far, in short - WATCH THIS SPACE !!!!!
In the meantime, you can listen to some of the music produced by this project either using the online music players embedded into this post or via our soundcloud page here :
http://soundcloud.com/north-edinburgh-arts
or feel free to give us a shout here :
musicstudio@northedinburgharts.co.uk
