May 21 2012 @ 3:03PM
'Golden One' Animated Video
We have released a wonderful new animated video for our recent single 'Golden One'!
To coincide with the fact that ... Read more
the London Olympic Games are just around the corner and the fact that 'Golden One' sounds a bit like the Sports Night theme tune circa 1989 we've managed to get Daley Thomson to star in it for us! Thanks Daley.
You can watch the new video here. Enjoy!
May 1 2012 @ 9:28PM
'Dark Matters' EP out now!
Download our new 'Dark Matters' EP now from iTunes or Amazon! This brooding work of celestial innocence clashes with a melancholy ... Read more
sense of self over 5 varied tracks - including a nod to future olympians. Not to be missed!
October 27 2011 @ 10:04AM
'Cruise Hip' to be played on 6Music THIS SUNDAY
We've just heard that our good friend Mr. Tom Robinson is playing our FREE single 'Cruise Hip' on his BBC 6Music show this Sunday!... Read more
The show is on 6Music between 1am and 3am.
If you haven't downloaded it already the Track is FREE to download via the JAG website here
Happy downloading!
October 12 2011 @ 11:46AM
FREE single release!
For the last 6 months we have been in the studio recording our new EP, which is scheduled for release at the end of the year. In b... Read more
etween writing and recording the EP we managed to find some time to record 'CRUISE HIP'.
We decided that we'd give it away free and our wonderful friends at Jag said they would put it out for us!
Here's the official blurb:
The song was written and recorded in two evenings and takes the listener on a lo-fi, funk voyage as seen through the eyes of a washed-up, cruise ship singer who has begun to question his very existence.
Incorporating huge waves of distorted synth, sampled drum loops and hawaiian guitars 'Cruise Hip' represents a continuation of RBC's popular 'Rough Special' series of off-the-cuff recordings.
If you would like to get the track for yourself you need to sign up to the Jag Mailing list here and they'll send you a link. Easy. Otherwise I'm sure we'll stick it up on the soundcloud in the next couple of weeks.
October 12 2011 @ 11:32AM
Raven beats Crow on Hollyoaks
As bizarre as it may sound our track 'Escalator' was recently used on an episode of the popular teen soap 'Hollyoaks' … It ... Read more
was a shock to us too!
You can watch the episode here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8bcFmui4pA&feature=share
April 27 2011 @ 6:18PM
Interview on BBC 6Music this SUNDAY NIGHT
We went to the BBC and did an interview today with Tom Robinson for his 6music show...It was great! What a nice (and incredibly ta... Read more
ll) man Tom Robinson is.
Anyway, so you can hear the rubbish we came out with and a first ever british radio play of 'Escalator' (from the Zola Budd EP) this sunday night here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0089jhs or on the wireless.
April 27 2011 @ 5:53PM
Gig News - 18 June
Just in - We will be performing at this years Kiss the Music Festival on the 18th of June! It's a cracker - Shrag and Co... Read more
ld in Belin are joint headliners and it's £6 to get in. Come along?
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/116238
April 13 2011 @ 12:23PM
Howler Magazine Article
The lovely folk down at Howler Magazine have written a feature on the band! Have a gander here. With music, fashion and much more,... Read more
you'll wonder why you ever read anything else!
April 13 2011 @ 12:15PM
RbC to play Fesh Meat gig, Thurs 14th April
Raven beats Crow are to play a Fresh Meat special gig, in association with Howler magazine
@ The Shoreditch, 145 Shor... Read more
editch High Street, Thursday 14th April, 8pm. We'll be bringing out our finest steaks and juiciest cuts, arranged in an aural butcher's window for you delectation. Be there or be vegan...
February 6 2011 @ 4:53PM
S.U.N. ON 6MUSIC AGAIN TONIGHT!
Tom Robinson will play S.U.N. on his 6music show again tonight >> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0089jhs
Thanks ... Read more
Tom!
January 31 2011 @ 8:47PM
Upcoming Gig Dates: 17 and 27th Feb!
Salutations, pop pickers!
Raven beats Crow are proud to announce two new gig dates in the next few weeks:
Thursday Feb 17th, 8pm... Read more
:
Dublin Castle
The Old Queens Head
44 Essex Road, Islington, London N1 8LN
Last one in is a lame duck...
January 29 2011 @ 2:36PM
BBC6 MUSIC THIS SUNDAY, 30TH JAN
Just a quick note to let you all know that the wonderful Tom Robinson will be playing S.U.N from our Zola Budd EP on his BBC ... Read more
Introducing: Fresh On The Net radio show this coming Sunday 30th Jan on BBC6 Music.
The show starts at 1:00am, so those of you who actually have jobs and may have to get up early in the morning (which is not many of us these days?!) can enjoy the show for a further 7 days on the BBC6 music web page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/6musicintroducing
December 23 2010 @ 12:27PM
HONEY COTTAGE EP - FREE DOWNLOAD!!
Hailing from rural Kent in the wet summer of 2009, this 6-track mix offers a unique insight into the workings of Raven beats Crow.... Read more
Recorded in a cottage with a single microphone, some broken instruments and a disgraceful amount of gin, happy mistakes and joyful cacophonies abound on this 21-minute gem.
Here it is. We hope you enjoy our megamix of one-take, embryonic music stuff …
Happy Christmas! x
December 15 2010 @ 4:11PM
REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS
Well, we've had a lot of reviews and it turns out the E.P. has gone down rather well with the music scribes out there! Thanks guys... Read more
! Here's some of what's been said:
ARTROCKER
Raven Beats Crow / Zola Budd EP
Ric Rawlins discovers aliens on Zola Budd by Raven Beats Crow...
'The official line is that Raven Beats Crow reside in London, but judging from this EP I'd stick the pin somewhere around Area 51: their electro-slacker pop songs have the distinct aura of a UFO B-movie.
'Escalator' has their singer screeching like a booze-saturated hick being zapped by aliens, 'So Long Pogo' finds the same singer impersonating a Bowie-accented Dalek, while EP highlight 'S.U.N' engulfs the listener in a psychedelic disco of pink haze, at a location not too distant from the Flaming Lips' paradise island'. 4/5
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SHOUT4MUSIC.COM
'This release from London foursome Raven Beats Crow, matches the expectation of the hypnotic visuals and enigmatic alter-egos from their live shows combined with the production skills of Chris Shaw (Animal Collective) and Justin Premen (Klaxons, Bloc Party). Any comparisons to these artists would be both a compliment and a fair assessment of their EP. Opener ‘Escalator’ feels like Pink Floyd in its psychedelia and shows a sense of humour (perhaps unintentionally) in the backing vocals, that in the mix sound like crows caw-ing. ‘Dead.com’, is a disco-dance influenced piece where both analogue and digital sounds grind against each other in a sexy beat-driven number. Penultimate track ‘S.U.N.’ mixes things up a little with a more ambient take on their sonic tastes. And it’s seemingly the highlight of the EP – it’s got a fantastic euphoric uprising to it despite its slower speed. Final track ‘Chrome Yellow’ is a flurry of wicked effects and brightly coloured lego blocks of sound, each attacking the listener in a coordinated fashion. There’s a definite spaghetti western influence in amongst the delightful mess, a great way to end the EP'. 9/10
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THISISFAKEDIY.COM
'Don’t you know about the birds? If not, my best advice for you would be to rectify this pretty quickly, because Raven Beats Crow are most definitely worth your time. Even though their name might suggest conflict (avian conflict, obviously), this quartet, Londoners all, know what they’re about.
There’s no confusion here on 'Zola Budd', just twenty minutes of distinctive, electro-tinged psychedelic pop that marks RBC out as a group deserving of special attention. The pace is set with the infectious energy of ‘Escalator’, a two-note bassline and powerful drums. The soundstage is packed, too: there’s so much going on that the EP is lent its own kind of intensity.
The quartet went away for a year before this EP ever saw the light of day, and it’s quite evident that a lot of time was spent on crafting it. Everything has been meticulously worked over: six-minute centrepiece ‘S.U.N.’ is quite a great deal more complex than it sounds at first, ensuring that the move into more laid-back territory pays off.
However, it is songs like the breathlessly uptempo closer ‘Chrome Yellow’ that indicate the real amount of potential Raven Beats Crow possess, combining a remarkable pop sensibility with a good dollop of weirdness. ‘Zola Budd’, as a whole, goes off on tangents frequently enough, but all this just adds to the charm that lies at its heart'. 8/10
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THE LINE OF BEST FIT
'Two years after their debut release Pantheon of Stars, and fresh from the success of their Hoxton-based Club Raven nights, London quartet Raven Beats Crow return with new EP Zola Budd in tow. Recorded by the band, and mixed by past producers for Bloc Party, Klaxons, Super Furry Animals and Animal Collective, this five-song EP is an amalgamation of influence from the aforementioned bands and the electronic sounds that infiltrated their debut.
Fast becoming an alternative attraction in the London underground scene – their frenetic live shows and musical alter-egos simultaneously heightened and hidden by their tendency to wear animal masks on stage – Raven Beats Crow have taken the effort to incorporate an array of musical styles and genres into Zola Budd. The result is a record that defies definition, with each song on the EP sounding very different from the tracks surrounding it. First song ‘Escalator’ begins with rumbles of long, thundering bass notes, before the electrics kick in and layers of percussion are added to the equation. Raven Beats Crow’s singer has a voice that is deep and slightly raw sounding, yet this first song is the only time where his true voice is displayed, as from second track ‘Dead.com’ onwards almost all the vocals are distorted through a vocoder. ‘Dead.com’ features a range of electronic instruments, and its influences stretch far and wide, with hints of Brit Pop, 80s electronica and the more modern stylings of electropop acts such as Hot Chip demonstrated in this one track alone.
‘So Long Pogo’ slows down the pace, and its repetitive chorus of “So long pogo, country dance with me/ So long pogo, walk the plank with me” is drenched in Brit Pop nostalgia, of the disco-esque Pulp and The Lighting Seeds variety, rather than that of Oasis and Blur. Standout track ‘S.U.N.’ begins with video game firings, clouding the song in 80s and 90s reminiscence, while Raven Beats Crow quickly update their sound with almost lo-fi-like vocals and dreamy lyrics such as “I’m staring at the sun/ It’s not quite so bad”. The chorus is fused together with numerous layers of vocoded vocals, its consequent harmonies testament to the psychedelic, sonic sound that the band claims to compose.
EP closer ‘Chrome Yellow’ once again changes dynamics and subverts the listener’s expectations, and the fast-paced pulsing beats from an analogue drum machine come as quite a shock after the quiet, rippling demise of the track’s predecessor. The song ends in a flurry of diminishing electric noodling and keyboard synths, and leaves the listener in a slight state of bewilderment. Although Zola Budd is a combination of influences, sounds and instruments, it is hard to pigeonhole the band and place them into any one genre. Likewise it is equally difficult to describe the EP itself, as each individual track sounds completely different to the next, and occasionally lead to the record appearing disjointed. Although this jumbled approach is not necessarily a bad thing – indeed it is refreshing to stumble across a band and a record that successfully welds genres and sounds, and where experimentation is at the fore – you can’t help but wonder whether the band’s next release should perhaps try to focus on their own unique sonic meanderings, and in turn create a more uniform, yet original sound'.
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BATTERY IN YOUR LEG
'I have to admit that I had never heard of this four-piece from London until this EP popped onto my radar this week. There is a mish mash of styles throughout, and maybe that’s some of the appeal. You could pull influences from as wide apart as Britpop through to Hot Chip; you could even go via a slight Gorrilaz feel in parts. The killer track for me is the slightly melancholic S.U.N – a real vocoded beauty!
Having recently featured on Billy Bragg’s Jaildoors fundraiser breaking Rocks and wowing the crowds at Alan McGee’s Death Disco, they are fast carving a niche in the London underground. This five-track offering drops 22nd November on Birdhide Records. They are yet another band to keep your ear to the ground for'.
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DEFTUNE
'Raven beats Crow, has made an indelible mark on the music of 2010. The EP Zola Budd is a wildly well crafted, extraordinarily creatively mixed piece of sonic bliss. The band provides an intense journey of sound with seducing synth-melodies and pulse thumping rhythms. The EP keeps you on edge and projects as a loud and vibrant piece of artwork. The track Dead.com is a unique ride that anyone can enjoy – young or old, with individual elements reflective of many years of music history. The sounds emitted range from classic disco, to electronica, to the beat of straightforward rock. Again, Deftune brings you another genre-bending band that simply cannot be chained to one specific type of music. So Long Pogo is another gem, this one more electronica style which will get you on your feet and movin’. However, the best track on the EP is possibly the first, Escalator, which is non-stop action from beginning to end with a high-energy fury and uncompromising, cacophonous wall of sound. All in all, this band will catch you off guard and is definitely a talented group, look for this name in the future'.
October 27 2010 @ 12:13PM
E.P. FIRST REVIEW!
It's not out until the 22nd of November, but the E.P. has got it's first review.....and it's a cracker!
“..a wildly wel... Read more
l crafted, extraordinarily creatively mixed piece of sonic bliss”
http://www.deftune.com/2010/10/raven-beats-crow-zola-budd-ep/
September 8 2010 @ 8:25AM
ZOLA BUDD EP - TO BE RELEASED 22 NOVEMBER!
Emerging from their coup for the first time in nearly a year, Raven beats Crow present this – the Zola Budd EP – with ... Read more
a heightened sense of both night vision and sonic awareness.
Recorded by the band themselves in their now obligatorily tagged Birdhide studio, and mixed by Chris Shaw (Super Furry Animals, Wilco) and Justin Premen (Klaxons, Bloc Party), the blend is everything that brought attention to the four Londoners in the first place.
Playing off their eccentric and idiosyncratic personalities (and alter-egos – note the live garms), bouncing from Pulp-style modern disco rhythms and the post-psychedelic, electronics led noodlings of Hot Chip, the Zola Budd EP is as perfect an envelope of the band that they have offered to date. From the moulded, fluorescent plasticines of ‘Escalator’, to the vocoded beauty of ‘S.U.N.’, there’s something to sate near every palette here.
Raven beats Crow’s live reputation has grown in wingspan since the inception of their old Club Raven nights out of Chalk Farm. Attention-rousing performances at Alan McGee’s Death Disco and the legendary Playground nights in east London have certified the band as one of London underground’s most interesting tickets; their combination of hypnotic live visuals, animalistic facemasks and jarring agit-pop make for quite the delirious and disorientating spectacle.
The EP will be both performed and it’s release celebrated with a special performance from the band at The St. Andrew’s Crypt, Holborn, London where the band will perform live in amongst a selection of interactive installations and unique, esoteric visuals from some of London’s most up-and-coming artists.
July 11 2010 @ 5:00PM
The Genesis of a Mix
On the first day, Raven beats Crow created Songs.
In fact, they created lots of them, and spent a jolly good while doing it. Songs ... Read more
had many names, and the people did call them Escalator, Chrome Yellow, So Long Pogo, Face The Sun and Dead.com. And, lo, they were good.
Raven beats crow were pleased with their creations, and honed and chiseled away until they had crafted their rough-hewn blocks of melody and rhythm into shining examples of emotional outpouring and rhyming vigor.
A couple years went by and something happened. RbC gave Songs less attention. They had new inventions. They left for a convention. Ornithology 2010, NEC. But before that, Songs were flung all over the globe, alighting on in-boxes in New York and London, providing the salaried geniuses with whom they rested much with toil and heartache.
“Lo, these vocals are too distorted!”
“Pray, why are there 5 drum beats here?!”
“Do we need to keep the small dog-bark-through-phaser-and-metal-distortion?”
Finally, the geniuses emerged from their caves, bearded and triumphantly blinking in the light of a new dawn. Chris Shaw, multi-grammy award winning genius, and Premen, understated wizard of mixering genius, held aloft the gleaming streamlined Songs and declared:
“We have done it! We have tamed the multi-headed beast of Raven beats Crow! The world can now listen without fear of the Growling Screeching Muddiedupness monster stealing their eardrums!”
And Raven beats Crow watched as their creations multiplied and hurtled down wires to a million homes, and saw that it was good.
July 1 2010 @ 2:34PM
RAVEN BEATS CROW LIVE
@ 93 FEET EAST FRIDAY 2ND JULY
Bonjour Mes Amis,
Thank you so much to everyone who attended Raven beats Crow's recent musical performance at NottingHill Arts Club... Read more
- what a night we had!
The band's live adventures continue apace with Raven beats Crow set to perform next Friday 2nd July at East London's legendary 93 FEET EAST 150 Brick Lane, London E1 6RU http://www.93feeteast.co.uk/
Doors Open 7:00pm, our brave lads will be taking the stage at 9:00pm and once again it's FREE to get in! I'll repeat that, It's FREE to get in!
As ever, attendees can expect stunning visuals, latex facial apparel, Free CD's and of course amazing music.
I do so look forward to seeing you all there!
Kind Regards
The Birdman
Band Secretary
http://www.myspace.com/ravenbeatscrow
http://www.facebook.com/ravenbeatscrow
http://twitter.com/RavenbeatsCrow
Zola Budd, the long-awaited debut EP from Raven beats Crow, is here! From the “vocoded beauty” of S.U.N., and described by Artrocker as “electro-slacker pop”, the EP is a psychedelic wonderland of sonic possibilities. To order your copy, please click below!
