Catch Up

I know, I know - it's been ages since my last post...

It's not that I've had nothing to say, it's just that The Day Job has been pretty manic recently so I've had a lack of time on my hands.

So what's new? First up, we played a couple more gigs - first at the Rhythm Factory (a new venue for us) and then back at the Underbelly, Hoxton Square as a last minute fill-in for another band that had pulled out.

We're now racking up the gigs for the coming months, so grab your diary and put these dates in:

1st April - Trinity Bar, Harrow
20th May - The Forum, Hatfield
30th June - The Cobden Club, W10
17th July - Glade Festival
14th August - Hamswell Festival
21st August - Festival Independente de Vilalba, Spain!

Hopefully there will be a few more to slot in over the coming weeks so keep an eye out here, or on our Facebook page, for any announcements!

Meanwhile, label-mates Relation are gearing up for their next single, 'Optimistic' - our favourite track off their debut album, 'Fear of Night'. One of the remixes on the single is by us, and as part of the promotional drive this is available FREE for a short time only! You can pick up the free track, along with a couple of others from the single, from Soundcloud now! Click here!

On the releases front, we've been gathering the remixes for our next single so hopefully we'll have some details about that very soon.

More posts to come, I promise... I know I've been slack! Meanwhile I look forward to seeing you on the 1st April at Trinity - we're assured this is one of the busiest nights of the year, so it should be immense!

Fear No Evil - free single out now!

Press release:

Following the poignant "Red Sky", Eat More Cake deliver their second single "Fear No Evil" with remixes by Choking Dolphin and Steviebeatbox. Eat More Cake are a five piece band lead by songwriters and musicians Andrew Briggs and Matt Pearn supported on stage by drummer Alex Lane, DJ Owen Charles and vocalist Kay Juviler-Bacon. Their live show has wowed audiences at The Institute of Contemporary Arts, Camden Barfly, 93 Feet East, Hamswell and Glade festivals, as well as many other venues in and around London.

In "Fear No Evil" the band's easy-flowing mixture of electronica, hip-hop and indie underpin a thesis on the illusions of childhood, urging the listener to embrace the truth and seek happiness in the real world, whatever it's short-comings. The original mix is driven by an infectious blues-guitar loop and hand percussion whilst Choking Dolphin takes a more dreamy, electronica, synth-lead approach. The Steviebeatbox remix sees the vocals delivered over a bouncy Hip-hop beat and what feels like a slightly more optimistic chord progression.

Eat More Cake will be releasing their debut album "Climb The Ladder, Live The Dream" in 2010.

Eat More Cake - Fear No Evil - Urban Torque® by Urban Torque®

Eat More Cake LIVE! Wednesday 3rd February

So we're back at The Underbelly, Hoxton Square tomorrow night (early doors - on stage around 8pm). Last time we played there I blogged about the excellent quality of the sound and the engineer, so I'm hoping it's the same guy tomorrow!

We've made quite a big change to the set list this time round. We've got half a mind on our festival dates for the summer, so we're attempting to liven up the set a little bit. It's always a shame to drop songs from the set, especially ones that go down really well, but in these days of 30 minutes slots, something will always have to make way for new stuff to come through.

Talking of new songs, you can catch a preview of our next track, "Fear No Evil" on our MySpace page now! Featuring mixes from Choking Dolphin and Steviebeatbox, the single will be available for FREE in the next week or so.

Meanwhile, if you're coming down to the Underbelly tomorrow, don't forget to RSVP to the Facebook event for discounted entry. Hope to see you there!

Shoot More Video!

I think it's amazing just how many people turn to YouTube as a first source of reference. It's become secondary only to Google as a site I turn to in order search for information about stuff.

And I'm not just talking about films/tv shows/bands - things that translate easily to the medium of video. I regularly use it to find software tips and tutorials, product reviews, I even search it to find videos shot in venues we're playing at to get an idea of stage layout, etc... And with the number of people playlisting music these days, it's a fairly practical alternative to services such as Last.fm for finding new music as well!

So it goes without saying that anyone attempting to promote anything these days should have a presence on YouTube. We've been posting tracks on YouTube for a while now - mostly with static images to accompany the music (as many people do). More recently, Andy shot our own low-budget video for Red Sky, which we were both very pleased with. We've also uploaded some videos of our live performances as well.

So now we're turning our hand to some other video work. Last weekend, we headed down to Docklands to shoot a video for our next FREE single, Fear No Evil. As with everything like this, we pulled in some favours to make this happen - an old friend of ours, Graham, is shooting and editing the video for us, and Dhiraj of Primal Pictures was kind enough to let us use his space at Limehouse Town Hall.

In true non-rock star fashion, there was much self-conscious shuffling when I was asked to bop away and lip-synch to the track - there's a reason Andy is the front man of this operation! I was much more comfortable behind my trusty QS7 playing away... However, thanks to everyone involved, I think we're going to end up with something pretty special for this video.

On the subject of video, we're also in the process of recording and editing our own electronic press kit at the moment. We've been collecting video footage for a good while now and it's great fun looking back over old clips of rehearsals and recording sessions to find stuff for the EPK. This is a much more personal video - a genuine look at the how's and why's of what we do.

And so our video presence grows, and hopefully people coming to YouTube as a first point of reference for Eat More Cake will find our channel useful!

www.youtube.com/eatmorecaketv

Eat More Cake on Urbantorque Transmissions!

So what better way to enjoy the snow than with one hour of the purest wintery chill-out in all the world, courtesy of Eat More Cake with Urbantorque Transmissions and Noice!

We put together this one hour show for Urbantorque which is syndicated across 11 radio stations across Europe. You can also listen to or download the mix on Urbantorque's website, or on MixCloud.

We had great fun putting this together, and it would be great to know what you think of it so please drop us a line and let us know!

Meanwhile, we're putting the finishing touches to our next free giveaway, so we'll post details of that very soon!

Ut Transmissions - 14/01/10 - Eat More Cake by Urban Torque® on Mixcloud

Project Studios - A Change of Plan...

Andy and I are a bit like treacle sponge and custard - individually, we're still worthy of note but together we're much, much better...

And so after a few months of non-work, non-creativity, and non-progress we've re-shuffled our project studios. Again.

We now have our original main studio PC (complete with all our important plugins/sounds) at Andy's, in a room where we can both work together sensibly. It's this ability to work together that has been lacking recently - whilst we can write new stuff in our own separate spaces, without the opportunity to come together we've been unable to finish any new tracks, do any remixes, reworkings of old stuff, etc... Everything we'd been doing over the previous 6 months had ground to a halt, but now we are back in business!

Andy's still got his mobile ProTools rig, and I've got Ableton running at mine, so we still have our own even smaller project studios to work in as well. (However the transition from writing in Cubase to writing in Ableton for me will be an interesting change. Am trying to justify the upgrade to Live 8 Suite at the moment to aid my progress while the 20% sale is on!)

Anyway, we had our first studio session together in around 3 months last night and we were cracking on with a remix we've been hoping to get round to for AGES. Sounding heavyweight too - should be a good one. Hopefully, there's still enough time for us to finish it up - it's a forthcoming release on UrbanTorque, so it would be nice to get on board.

Meanwhile, we're putting together the finishing touches for the follow up to Red Sky, a completely free release of an old favourite track of ours. More details of this to follow soon!

2010 is our year. If you haven't already, pop over to your favourite digital download store and pick up a copy of Red Sky (Part 1 and Part 2), spread the word and if you make just one new year's resolution this year, let it be 'Eat More Cake'!

Red Sky - Out Now!

"The album version is absolutely stunning, i could listen to it for hours." - Andy Everett (XFM)

"That album mix is lush!!!" - X-Press 2

"What a fantastic track... fantastic lyrics and vocals. In a nut shell... beautiful." - Clara Da Costa (Ibiza Global Radio)

The wait is finally over!

Red Sky (Part 1) is out NOW! With mixes from The Diogenes Club, Lazybones and No Logo. We have had some great feedback from radio and club DJs around the world, including support from Kiss FM - now it's time to spread the word!

Red Sky (Part 1) is available in all good online stores NOW, including Beatport, iTunes, Amazon, Play.com and 7digital (although the information on iTunes is incorrect due to an error at their end - d'oh!). You can find links to buy Red Sky (Part 1) on our website.

We still have a load of free stuff available on Urban Torque's Soundcloud page as well.

You can also check out the video for Red Sky on our YouTube channel:

Please tell your friends and help to support independent music! See you on the 21st December at Hoxton Bar and Kitchen!

Christmas is coming!

You know the holiday season is creeping up when our Christmas Podcast surfaces on our YouTube channel!

This year, we have a treat for you in two parts:

Part 1. Matt and Andy are asked to put together a Christmas single at short notice...

Part 2. Eat More Cake featuring Lady Kay - One Wish. The finished product!

Also, we've resurrected last year's podcast, so if you didn't hear it the first time check it out now!

Don't forget to leave comments and let us know what you think!

Another free download!

In the continuing build-up towards the release of our debut single, Red Sky, Urban Torque have made available another free download - this time from Part 2 of the single release.

This time, the free track is the Avatars' reworking of Red Sky. Avatars are Belasco's Tim Brownlow and producer (of our album, amongst other things!) Richie Kayvan, who are forging their own unique 'stadium dance' sound. Their first single 'The Air' is coming along some time in the new year and we're big fans of it, so we're really pleased to have this Red Sky remix as part of the package.

Head over to SoundCloud now and grab yourself a copy!

Gigs/Feedback

Despite the title of this post, it's not going to be a rant about the poor quality of sound at gig venues these days. In fact, quite the opposite - our soundcheck at The Underbelly, Hoxton Square last night was one of the most efficient I've ever participated in, and the on-stage sound was amazing!

Seemed to be a pretty good gig overall. For some reason, I kept falling off the black notes on my keyboard (therefore playing wrong notes). I can't work it out - either the stage was really uneven and my keyboard was wobbling all over the place, or I'd put my stand up at the wrong height. I'd even made a point of not drinking all the way from soundcheck to gig, so alcohol was definitely not to blame!

Anyway, we had a pretty good turn-out for a Monday night gig on the other side of town. We now look forward to the next one, a couple of doors up from the Underbelly at Hoxton Bar and Kitchen on 21st December! Will post more details of that gig soon...

But no, the feedback I'm talking about is positive feedback. With the promotion cycle for Red Sky well under way, we've been seeing a steady flow of comments from people who have heard the promos. Generally feedback has been very positive, as you can see from the selection of quotes on Urban Torque's website.

I think having a two part, non-dance/dance release has helped, so that Urban Torque's largely deep house-orientated following have something to get their teeth into, and the more eclectic selection fits nicely with our 'something for everyone' ethos. And the beautiful thing is that there are positive comments across the board - lots of love for the original, lots of praise about the Diogenes mix, and the Lazybones dub, etc. Looks like we've got a pretty good package on our hands, and with the wide variety of mixes available we're hopeful of getting some radio support soon.

Don't forget - Red Sky Part 1 is released on 7th December, and in the meantime you can grab a free download of the Diogenes Club Radio Edit here!

Bloggety Blog

Urban Torque, our record label, have made a free download of the Diogenes Club's Radio Edit of Red Sky available via SoundCloud, so go and grab a copy now, while it's hot!

It's also good to see some music blogs have picked up on the free download thing, so thanks to both Danger Danger and Blog Rockin' Peet for the props!