Music label Communion gathered four upcoming talents for their second New Faces Tour after their inaugural success in February. One of the acts, Luke Sital Singh, has since achieved commercial success. The tour kick started at Green Door Store, a secluded venue beneath Brighton train station, is a quirky little place. They have a front bar that still had some decorations left over from Halloween a couple days before. It is a small venue but well accommodates the night’s curious crowd.
Four piece band Pixel Fix, from Oxford, started with a sound filled with synths and intense guitar strumming, and it remained strong throughout their whole set. Their atmospheric sound was particularly apparent at the beginning and the end of their set, making a very strong impression on the audience of the sound they create. Although not lyrically strong, they still have a lot to offer, with a twist from the trigger pads.
Following up is the very warm and funny Kimberly Anne, she spent a good deal of time interacting with the audience and made it easy to connect to her; there was not much hesitation for the crowd to join her on an old track ‘La La’. On stage, to accompany her warm vocals and reflective lyrics, was her percussionist Glyn and her African instrument. Their synchronised drum was such a treat to see live, hitting every heart of the audience that night with each beat. She was also very kind to offer a code for a free download of her track attached along with a tea bag. ‘Hard as Hello’ was the song that stuck out to me from the set, equipped with her signature drum beats, I recommend the Bastille remix of the track as well.
The next act Fyfe probably stirs up the most interests amongst the acts on the tour because of his lack of online presence. Behind the new moniker and the previous one David’s Lyre is Paul Dixon, providing a rhythmic electronic sound thickened with backing tracks and swelled with his high vocals. Fyfe did remind me of Patrick Wolf with a similar electronic sound, nonetheless he has a quite a range of variety with his songs. Closing number ‘For You’ was one particularly packed with his smooth vocals and a hint of jazz influence with the saxophone inclusion which appears from time to time during his set.
If the room has not been filled with enough discussion about how many talents are there by that point, Amber Run certainly did bring it to a new height. Having just seen them about a month ago when they supported Lewis Watson at Southampton’s very own Talking Heads, once again I was thoroughly impressed by their immense energy and spotless harmonies. Opening their set with the widely acclaimed ‘I Found’ and ‘Pilot’, which also formed a two part music videos, 
the whole room immediately began buzzing. The balance of backing vocals from keyboard player Henry Wyeth during the heavy instrumental hook of ‘Heaven’ perfectly demonstrates their highly controlled intact sound and at the same time their off the scale anthemic vitality. They also played their new song about drugs, ‘5AM’ to the first batch of “guinea pigs” of the tour. Channelling an emotive message with dense vocals, there are no doubts that Amber Run will continue to grace bigger venues to larger audiences in the new year, especially now they announced their headline show at The Dingwalls next February.
The Communion ‘New Faces’ tour, whose line up includes, Amber Run, FYFE, Pixel Fix and Kimberly Anne, runs this week and visits Brighton, Bristol, London, Oxford, Manchester, Nottingham and Leeds. For tickets and more info, check out – http://www.communionmusic.co.uk/live/category/new-faces/
