Ether Site

TB interview in Acoustic Magazine

Stefan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:27:29 +0000

Turin Brakes will be interviewed in the next issue of Acoustic Magazine, on general sale in the UK from 10 February 2012. The boys have previously been featured on the magazine in 2005 (read that article here). Issue 63 has Frank Turner on the cover and it looks like this:

Turin Brakes go to church in Worthing

Stefan — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:18:10 +0000

Turin BRakes will be playing another intimate church gig on 10 March 2012 in St Paul’s Church in Worthing. The band confirmed this on Twitter replying to someone who heard a rumour. The rumour was right. Now there’s no ticket link details yet, but save the date and the rest will follow!

Turin Brakes at Isle of Man’s Garden Party

Stefan — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:00:10 +0000

Turin Brakes, along with The Minutes, Uber Room and Panicland will all be in action at this year’s The Garden Party. They will join Leddra Chapman, Red Gap, Yashin, Chris Gray and Swound! at the event, which takes place on Friday, July 6 and Saturday, July 7 at Begoade Fields in Onchan on the Isle of Man. The festival sees a combination of homegrown talent and UK acts.

For further details and to book tickets see www.thegardenparty.im!

2012 will be the third year in a row the boys head to the Isle of Man for some intimate gigs! Let’s hope the weather is good.

Listen again: Turin Brakes @ Radio Reverb

Stefan — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:09:09 +0000

So yesterday Olly and Gale joined Radio Reverb for a lengthy interview. The guys were allowed to pick three tracks, one of which had to be their own. They brought Chim Chim Cher-ee, some nice guitar music by Thurston Moore and a track from the upcoming Henri Gaobi project they’ve been working on for the past years. The whole affair ended with an airing of Rescue Squad.

The interview is touches on quite a lot of different topics. The guys talk about some of the usual subjects, but also about being recognised in public areas you don’t want to be recognised, and Olly’s career in porn (yes). So worth a listen, I’d say.

Turin Brakes @ Radio Reverb 2012 by Stefan Meeuws

Song of the Year 2011, and a happy 2012

Stefan — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:24:00 +0000

Happy 2012 everyone! (yea, yea, a bite late… I know…)

It’s been a good year when it comes to Turin Brakes. Besides the hugely successful Optimist Anniversary tour we got a lovely new EP featuring new song Rescue Squad and some brilliant covers (and remember Ascencion Day?). And there were some nice Summer festival appearances and little gigs that kept Ether Site active all throughout the year – and band activity makes it more fun for me to do this as much as possible. The band reached out yet again in 2011, with Olly providing backing vocals for Matthew Ryan and the band doing two radio shows for Resonance FM, amongst other little creative projects. Let’s hope they keep on doing that this year because it can bring out surprising sides of our guys!

Now OBVIOUSLY we want the band to release a new album this year, but they let slip in recent interviews that it might be a while before that happens. They don’t just want to do another album for the sake of it, but we will get one at some point. Cooking Vinyl is set to release the follow-up to Outbursts, and I think I’m speaking for most fans when I say: “GET TO WORK!!!!!”

Hopefully there’ll be more international tour dates like the one in Iceland that’s coming up soon. The rest of the world is waiting for Turin Brakes to bring The Optimist and other classic works to their shores… So hopefully, some intimate gigs can be scheduled in 2012. And hopefully, 2012 will bring some kind of new work. I really loved the second covers ep and hope the band can make some tradition out of it, to do little EPs with surprising things on it.

So that leaves me with revealing the song of the year. I had to check back when I saw the results… I couldn’t believe this song hasn’t been Song Of The Year before, but it’s that one favourite that’s always beaten by another one even though it secretly is always a favourite of most of us. Thanks to some Facebook campaigning by the band (thanks for that!) and some awareness raised at the Optimist gigs (thanks Claire!), more people than ever voted for this year’s edition. This makes me really happy. I’ve randomly selected the winner and contacted her… She will get her prize sooner than later. Thanks for participating everyone… And without further ado… Here’s the top 40 of this year, with the number one spot going to:

1 (4) Underdog (Save Me)
2 (8) Mind Over Money (2009 winner)
3 (1) The Sea Change (2010 winner)
4 (13) Fishing For A Dream (2008 winner)
5 (7) Painkiller
6 (6) Feeling Oblivion
7 (15) The Road
8 (19) Long Distance (2005, 2007 winner)
9 (18) State Of Things (2006 winner)
10 (3) Dark On Fire
11 (24) Mirror
12 (14) Stone Thrown
13 (25) Emergency 72
14 (42) The Door
15 (61) Last Clown
16 (16) Ether Song
17 (5) Rocket Song
18 (40) Red Moon
19 (50) Come and Go
20 (51) For The Fire
21 (10) Future Boy
22 (29) Last Chance
23 (41) Bye Pod
24 (53) New Star
25 (30) Rain City
26 (32) The Optimist
27 (31) Average Man
28 (17) Forever
29 (52) Little Brother
30 (37) Radio Silence
31 (22) Slack
32 (76) Asleep With The Fireflies
33 (02) Outbursts
34 (44) Paper Heart
35 (69) They Can’t Buy The Sunshine
36 (NEW) Rescue Squad
37 (47) Building Wraps Round Me
38 (65) Over and Over
39 (NEW) Underdog (Sally)
40 (09) Apocolips

So… the list continues further down, but this looks like a proper nice chart, right? Anyway, you could vote for 87 different songs (or versions) this year. But because people could only pick 6 songs, some songs didn’t get ANY love this year. It might also explain why some songs dropped quite a bit down the list, being liked a lot but not in people’s top 6 in general. However, I think the top 40 is pretty good reflection of the awesome songs the boys have released since they started. And if you disagree with that… Well… Better vote for YOUR favourite songs come November 2012… And who knows… We might even have a whole batch of new songs to vote for?

Merry Christmas everyone! (+ bonus interview)

Stefan — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 15:06:17 +0000

So, another year done… I hope everyone has a nice final week of the year. I’m celebrating Christmas and if you are too: Merry Christmas! For those of you that haven’t heard it, click below to listen to Turin Brakes’ rendition of White Christmas.

Last night, Turin Brakes joined The Beat (BBC Radio Nottingham and others) for the Christmas special episode of the show. Click here to listen to the iPlayer stream, Turin Brakes’ bit starts at 19:50 minutes into the show. They also talk about plans for 2012 – and apparently they’re not rushing into the next album. More on that issue as well in the second installment of the ES Interview, that will go online before the end of the year.

Turin Brakes radio round-up

Stefan — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:59:57 +0000

Yesterday, Turin Brakes had a press day at the BBC Radio studios yesterday. This resulted in several radio interviews.

Gale is being interviewed for West Herts Drivetime with Danny Smith on Radio Verulam. Listen again (simply press play).
BBC Northampton’s Bernie Keith interviewed the band in his morning 9am slot. Listen again (skip forward to 1:43:05 for Rikki, don’t loose that number and the interview straight after that) or check out the player below:

TB-BBCNorthampton15122011 by Stefan Meeuws

BONUS: another interview about The Optimist Tour here.

EXCLUSIVE: Turin Brakes interview (1/2)

Stefan — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:34:19 +0000

Ether Site joined Olly and Gale backstage at the O2 ABC in Glasgow for an exclusive interview. In this first part, the band talk about the live tour and the creation of the album they’re touring. In part 2 the focus will shift to how that beginning has shaped their career and how it’s influencing the band to this very day…
I’ve tried to keep it like a real conversation and have only made some minor cuts so you can experience it as it happened (apologies for my Dutch accent). The music in the background is Jersey Budd soundchecking. There’s also two short clips from the Glasgow gig in there for your amusement (with awesome singing along, OBVIOUSLY).

Ether Site: The Optimist Interview (1/2) by Stefan Meeuws

Turin Brakes contribute to Talk Talk book

Stefan — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:11:15 +0000

At the beginning of this year, Turin Brakes covered Ascension Day by Talk Talk. Now, finally there are more details available on the project. The Spirit of Talk Talk is a book that will be released in early 2011, which will feature contributions from various BIG artists, including Olly, Gale AND Rob from Turin Brakes (full list of names).

You can sign up on the website to register your interest. We’ll keep you all posted on the progress of this lovingly made project.

Turin Brakes head to… Iceland!

Stefan — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:04:35 +0000

On 20 January, Turin Brakes will be playing a gig in a church in Reykjavík. The gig takes place at the Fríkirkjan í Reykjavík (Free Church of Reykjavík). No ticket sale links yet, but looks like it will be a special night in the north!