Transgressive is delighted to announce this year’s inaugural Transgressive Hot Summer Tour to take place nationally throughout the UK in July.

The summer is traditionally an unlikely time to tour – it’s all festivals and holidays and days being lost. So the format is simple: take a vital mini-festival of sorts on the road, town to town, of the most exciting new acts the world has to offer right now and allow an evening of discovery to unfurl. Each act will play just 30 minutes each, and the change-overs in between acts will be strictly tight. And it won’t cost you an arm and a leg or a weekend in the mud. Chances are you can probably get a bus home afterwards, too.

Naturally, all acts on the bill are Transgressive affiliated, and thus thrillingly diverse – including the likes of brand-new signings ESSER, LIAM FINN, SO SO MODERN, and OX.EAGLE.LION.MAN, as well as long-standing Transgressive favourites JEREMY WARMSLEY and ABSENTEE.

In choice, intimate venues across the country, a rotating line-up of four or five acts will perform each night.

At all dates on the tour a very special Transgressive Merch Stall will be erected, featuring an extensive array of exclusive souvenir offerings from each act, not to mention a unique, stencilled, hand-made tour-only EP comprising music from every act on the jaunt.

APPEARING BANDS FACTFILE (alphabetically)

ESSER: Freshly signed for a long-term deal with Transgressive (the label’s first signing since Foals no less), new wave pop innovator Ben Esser was whisked away on tour recently with classic Trans acts Foals and Mystery Jets, and found acclaim for limited-as-hell debut 45 ‘I Love You’ in April, picking up plays all over the place from Radio 1 to BBC 6 Music, Xfm, and all in between, as released on the acclaimed Merok label, which previously unearthed talent such as Crystal Castles and Klaxons. His debut release for Transgressive will be an absolutely revolutionary concept, and a classic dancefloor-filler; details to follow. The debut album – currently being worked on with Black Kids and Kanye West collaborator Lexxx – is going to be one of next year’s most important records.

www.myspace.com/esserhq

LIAM FINN: One of ‘ten acts to watch in 2008′ according to ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine, and this year’s indisputable SXSW standout in Austin, Texas, Liam’s fast-spreading infamy speaks for itself – a strictly DIY approach lends itself from everything such as his insistence on doing all the artwork, playing every instrument on his self-produced record, and being – essentially – a live genius, looping guitars, smacking the drums, and finding himself ably assisted by the wonderful EJ on backing vox and samples. As recently seen on: ‘David Letterman’ and ‘Later with Jools Holland’. Debut album ‘I’ll Be Lightning’ is out on Transgressive Records in mid-July, with the single ‘Second Chance’ on 30th June.

www.myspace.com/theliamfinn

OX.EAGLE.LION.MAN: The most controversial signing on Transgressive’s books, the diligently goth-prog quartet are the most severe and commanding band on the scene at present. Questioning idolatry, religion, humanity, parenthood, and anything else too scary to ponder, theirs is a deft and able pursuit, headed up by the iconic and fiercely sharp frontman Frederick Blood-Royale. Debut single ‘Fatherhood’/’Motherhood’ pierced the Radio 1-centred airwaves, but it’s all about the next EP – ‘The Lay of the Land: The Turn of the Tide’: a five-track odyssey and/or opus to challenge and attack our inner core.

www.myspace.com/oxeaglelionman

SO SO MODERN: New Zealand art-punk-synth purveyors SSM are certainly one of the most frenetic and enthused live bands of our generation. They signed to Transgressive amid a flurry of palpably awesome house party shows, flamboyant onstage costumes and via the most entrancing and hypnotic awkward pop arrangements of our time, winning them shows along the way with the likes of CSS and Deerhoof. A colour-vinyl, four single run ‘Friends & Fires’ – one released each week in September of 2008 – awarded them the ‘Vinyl of the Week’ badge in ‘NME’ and prompted endless self-promoted touring across the world. A compilation of said-single releases for the first time ever on CD, plus compiling a further five previously unreleased recordings, will emerge this summer, entitled ‘Friends & Fires’ + 000EP’s’: essential.

www.myspace.com/sosomodern –

JEREMY WARMSLEY: Returning to pop after a brief hiatus making his new, second album ‘How We Became’ – due for unleashing this September on Transgressive – Jeremy has been a busy boy. The new LP was co-produced with none other than Markus Dravs of Arcade Fire, Bjork and the new Coldplay album credits everywhere from Air Studios to living rooms, and the step up really shows – beautiful piano, guitar-drenched anthems and ballads reside at every corner, still with Warmsley’s ensconcing trademark electronica twists. However, whilst alongside this, Jeremy has been developing a hit online music programme – ‘Welcome to our TV Show’, co-directed with girlfriend and film-maker Fay Buzzard, which has so far featured guests ranging from Mystery Jets, Noah & The Whale, Laura Marling, to Lightspeed Champion, Ed Harcourt, and many more besides. So, clearly, 2008 is boding well, with upcoming, one-off double A-side ‘The Boat Song’ and ‘Temptation’ (a cover of the New Order classic) denting Radio 1 and Radio 2 as a sly, appetising reintroduction.

www.myspace.com/jeremywarmsley

With regards to the origins of the tour, and the artists performing, Tim Dellow and Toby L, founders of Transgressive, had the following to say: ‘In the summer, most bands are either doing the same old festival circuit or waiting until students get back to uni before heading out on tour again; we see the Hot Summer dates as a chance for musicians and new music fans to keep active and keep hunting, and avoid that space in between. It’s also a sneak preview as to what we have coming up both later this year and our plans for 2009 with Transgressive… Each act is intrinsically different yet linked with a spirit of uniqueness and vision – not one act sounds like another. This tour hopes to celebrate the joy and beauty of variety in new, compulsive music and innovation.’

Tickets from Gigantic:
http://www.gigantic.com/gigantic/home_transgressive_hot_summer_tour.html