Saturday 30 January 2010

Inimitable Vowel Syndrome

This was my first review for Nightshift, a few years ago now. I miss The Point promotion. I miss The Zodiac venue. I miss The E Band's silliness. Pretty ambivalent about the memory of AOS, I'm afraid.

THE E BAND/ ASSASSINS OF SILENCE, The Point, The Zodiac

Enter, unexpectedly at a Friday night Point event, The Assassins Of Silence, a Hawkwind tribute act. Reviewing a tribute act without deep foreknowledge of the tributee is always dangerous work, but it must be said that the gig was rather more tame than I was epxecting. There may have been some dayglo amps, but where were the galaxy-swallowing synth washes? Where were the nebula-destroying phase pedals? Isn't this sort of mid-paced blues wailing just one small step away from facile roadhouse boogie? The Assassins are nice and tight, and play with an obvious respect for the canon they've adopted, but if this is spacerock it felt oddly earthbound. Esteemed passangers, take off has been delayed indefinitely; we shall be serving complimentary lemon scented napkins shortly.

In complete contrast, The E Band's music is open-ended and intriguing. They may only play in one key (no prizes for guessing) but manage a fair range of effects. The formula is simple: the guitar, bass and brass apparently improvise over an electronic backing, whilst a melancholy monologue is recited over the top. Clearly this could have turned into a 6th form exercise in self-congratulatory "experimentation", but luckily the beats could rock blocks in six dimensions, the guitarists wove variegated textures, and the vocals had a real sense of quiet drama. And they had a trombone, which is something we can't encourage enough.

Time will tell if this is a musical one-liner or a serious endeavour, but The E Band certainly have a knack with freeform soundscapes. In the end we got a little psychedelia after all.

Thursday 28 January 2010

Scry Me A Riverside

I'm sure I went to the whole of Charlbury weekend in 2007, but for some reason I only reviewed one of the days, can't think why.

CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FESITVAL, Saturday 16/6/07

“Got midgets on my mind”. “Sitting on a tall cushion”. Well, that’s what it sounds like Dave Ellis is singing, anyway. We can’t be sure, he has this slurred blues style that is as impenetrable as it is attractive. As his husky voice weaves its way around the slapped strings of his trusty guitar, it doesn’t take long to realise that Ellis isn’t doing anything too revolutionary, but it’s a good listen all the same. And, seriously, who doesn’t like that old John Lee Hooker boogie clomp just a little?

It may sound a bit like “You don’t sweat much for a fat lass”, but over on the main stage, Life Of Riley prove them selves to be pretty good for their age. Musically there are no great ideas, but the performance is tight and the vocals are surprisingly strong and melodic. I mean, I can’t remember a note of it now, but it sounded fine at the time.

A sudden downpour means that the Beard Museum tent is packed full for Lagrima, which is exactly the way it should be. You’d go some way to find an acoustic duo in Oxfordshire with more variation: Roz’ vocals can leap from sinister whispers to operatic howls (is she the rootsy equivalent to Ivy’s Itch’s Eliza Gregory, or am I getting carried away?) whilst Gray’s assured guitar work can recall The Cocteau Twins and Andres Segovia in the space of one song. And he has the best reverse reverb sound ever.

Is there anyone left who doesn’t revere The Family Machine? Not only are they movers and shakers behind stage hosts The Beard Museum, but they also write some wry country-inflected pop that can raise a grin and wring the heart simultaneously. Admittedly, there was nothing particularly special about this individual performance, but we can listen to songs like “Lethal Drugs Cocktail” and “Flowers By The Roadside” forever.

A dub band with a Tunisian vocalist singing in Arabic? Implausibly, that’s Raggasaurus. They get a huge response, but what impresses me is the control over their material. It would have been easy just to have everyone soloing at once, and to throw everything at the wall like a million crusty festival reggae bands, but Raggasaurus know exactly when minimalism works, and make sure that very little gets in the way of their taut bouncy rhythms and soaring vocals. OK, it might work a little better in a smoky dive than in a sunny field, and perhaps the keyboard could be toned down a little, but this is good stuff.

When my esteemed colleague Colin saw Earnest Cox recently, all he could see was some pub rock. Well, we heartily disagree, and can say nothing against their simple wired rock, which revels in draping a world weary vocal sneer over glorious endless two chord chugs. The lyrics to songs like “My Favourite Walk” and “State Of That” seem to recall tedious bar room conversations with spitting vitriol, and as ever we’re reminded of an amphetamine version of The Blue Aeroplanes; or we would if the fruity organ parts didn’t sound like they’d come straight from a Stax soul revue. A fascinating band.

We’re big admirers of Baby Gravy’s cubist prog-punk melange, but perhaps a balmy afternoon in Charlbury isn’t the ideal place to experience it. Iona (who may have had a couple of shandies) is swearing and insulting the crowd, desperate for a reaction, but ultimately we’re just too relaxed to plug into Baby Gravy’s abstract new wave. However, stick us in The Cellar and fuel us with cheap lager and we’ll be up there with the best of them.

Is it patronising to call a band “charming”? Well, fuck it, we don’t care, because we’re always charmed by Foxes!, especially Kayla’s honest and unadorned vocal. They have a home made bass, and in fact, the entire band has a wonky, school woodwork project feel, all odd angles and unplaned surfaces. But beneath all this lie some beautifully constructed melodies and a quiet sense of rock dynamics. Foxes! Is a band that has unobtrusively grown in stature to become one of Oxford’s favourites. We shall miss them when they move away later in the year.

If Foxes! slid into our consciousness slowly, then Witches did the opposite, bursting onto the scene with the whole package intact: baroque pop arrangements, dense and forceful live shows and even beautiful collaged record sleeves. By rights the prominence of the cabaret mariachi trumpet should become cloying, but somehow Witches never crumble under the weight of their own ornamentation. It’s odd to watch a live show with such a black density of sound, and still walk away humming the melodies.

Fearing we’d neglected the main stage, we leave the fine This Town Needs Guns to their own devices and investigate Souljacker. What we find is a bunch of young groovers giving it some chest beating wah wah rock action. They sound like Free, but they should be locked up. Ah, well, it’s a festival, let’s cut them some slack – plus they have a tune called “Jimmy Page Drank My Tea”, so at least they don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re perfectly good players, but it’s all somewhat stodgy, and we don’t imagine they’re a band who’ll be troubling us again soon.

Just goes to show, Charlbury is a fine day out, but the Beard Museum is the reliable option.

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Good Minton!

Here is a review from Nightshift two months ago. It's a slightly longer version that got printed, oh the joy.

In other news, I had a realisation on Saturday. Whilst I live relatively healthily, I discovered that if I wished to lose weight, I'd simply have to leave all my unhealthy foods in complex geometric arrangements, and have my apples and tofu jumbled up in a pile, so that the Asperger's streak within me dictates which one I eat. I call it the OCD diet.


WORLD IMPROVISING TRIO/ PHIL MINTON’S FERAL CHOIR, Oxford Improvisors’ Cohesion Festival, Jacqueline Du Pre, 14/11/09


Whilst free improvisation has grown in stature and acceptability over the past few years – more and more local rockers and technoheads are starting free music projects – we’re a long way from an intersection between improv and Saturday night TV. No chance of Lower Case Idol, Strictly Onkyo or Company Week Bootcamp happening any time soon. And yet, in a way, Phil Minton is edging towards the concept, by co-opting for his Feral Choir amateur singers from the area, including some Blackbird Leys vocalists who might be familiar from Channel Five’s The Singing Estate a few years ago. If they found three months with Handel’s Messiah challenging, an afternoon with Minton’s glossolalia must have been beyond culture shock.

But the music is incredible no matter where the musicians came from, conductor Minton playing the sixteen vocalists as if they were one huge instrument, opening with a queasily yawing, slowly rising tone, before dropping down into waves of hisses, clicks, andl jabbers. It’s alternately exuberant and unsettling, feeling like a cut price UFO cult invocation in an Anglican church hall, or the Wicker Man remix of Stockhausen’s Hymnen. Our only criticism is that the show became a catalogue of effects, and we’d rather the sonic palette had been limited a little, but this didn’t detract from a joyful performance, highlighting Minton’s good humoured inventiveness, and the impressive responsiveness and control of these amateur singers. Easily one of the best things we’ve seen all year.

The World Improvising Trio is John Bissett and Alex Ward on guitars, and Pat Thomas on keyboards. The first half of the set is lopsided, the guitar amps and effects pedals swamping the keyboards: clearly guitarists always play too bloody loud in any genre. Thomas evidenty realises this, and turns from the Cylon indigestion synth sounds we expect to the piano, reining things in with some surprisingly lush and simple chords, Debussy meets Coltrane. From hereon the players seem to find their natural balance, playfully brushing past musical structures, including one clipped lead line from Ward that sounds oddly like derailed AM country. To finish, Thomas dampens his piano strings to make harpsichord tones whilst the guitarists emulate low flying light aircraft, reaching a surprisingly stately conclusion. And that’s it, no fanfare, no fuss, just intriguing music from excellent musicians. Next time people think they’ll see a Moyles touted band at the Academy because they “sound alright”, they should take a punt on an Oxford Improvisors gig instead – they might find whole new vistas opening up, or be shocked into stunned, enraged silence. Both exciting options, no?

Saturday 23 January 2010

Strangle Hold Music

Dial F has been improving steadily since this review was posted, and is now a nice little indie rock band, that might not change your life, but will probably spice up a random gig night.

God, I know that referring to a band in the singular is grammatically correct, but it just feels wrong. Sometimes, I deliberately use the plural because it sounds better. It's OK, I still get murderously, vitriolically irate every time I see "less" used in place of "fewer", so I'm still a linguistic pedant.

DIAL F FOR FRANKENSTEIN – demo


This demo comes on a Woolworth’s Worthit! CDR, which is just about as good a symbol of low budget, doomed effort as we can come up with. Luckily, Dial F For Frankenstein’s recording is far from a failure; in fact, it’s a cocksure burst of indie rock with plenty of potential and a scattering of neat moments and good ideas, that’s ultimately not got the songwriting ability to underwrite the evident promise.

Between the opening guitar part of “Substance”, which is rather wonderfully like Johnny Marr playing Bauhaus, and the authentic fuddlydumph that John Peel would identify as completing “Headcase”, there are individual enticing moments, but the tracks themselves are instantly forgettable. It’s a ripe, jaunty burst of – well, nothing much, really. Not unpleasant in the least, but they probably work better live than on record. The CD closer “Red Song” is better, with some wonderful vocals stuck between a listless squeal and reigned in raunch that immediately recalls the excellent performance on the debut Strokes LP, but it’s still ultimately half a song.

It’s left to “Remedy” to indicate what Dial F could really be capable of in the future. It’s built on a sprightly lurch between two frets, with a tastefully lofi vocal alleging “it’s 1995” – quite apposite, as the tune resembles one of the better tracks from the second, less effete and mannered, wave of Britpop. The rhythm section stalks onward with a wonderful compressed energy, and when the (possibly ironic) exhortation comes in to “Dance, you fuckers”, we feel Dial F have got a fighting chance of getting their wish. So, not the greatest demo we’ve ever heard, but hugely encouraging al the same, especially for a youthful group – they’re playing neatly together, creating a well thought out, coherent sound and they have the makings of a vocalist who’s able to carry a song, even if he’s not likely to be swooping the octaves (why are there so few good singers around?). The question is whether they’re able to develop the compositional chops to keep the energy going; we’ve no idea of the odds, but we look forward to finding out.

Thursday 21 January 2010

Truck 07 Part 3

Piney Gir’s girl pop ensemble The Schla La Las are basically a joke, and like most jokes, they don’t work a second time. Apparently this is their last ever gig – hark to the rustle of a thousand Truckers shrugging.

Pull Tiger Tail are definitely the best high energy indie rock band we’ve seen this weekend, and we’re impressed by the vocal space they manage to find above the rubbery bass and clattering drums. Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but we’ve seen The Rotary Club’s tea tent before too, and that’s looking like a temple at this juncture.

The unwritten rule of Truck is that you’ll find your favourite act when least expecting it. We were thinking time was running out for this epiphany, when we stumbled on Italy’s Disco Drive. There are three of them, but sometimes two of them play drums. All their songs sound like Q And Not U playing along with a car alarm. We can’t get enough of it, frankly.

Exhaustion and fear of losing our lift home means we stay in the Trailer Park tent for the rest of the day, which is no chore at all when Rolo Tomassi take to the stage. Their preposterous maximalist metal marries a Zappa complexity with a Napalm Death vigour. The most obvious reference point is The Locust, but Rolo are more like a suburban thrash band playing Melt Banana. Plus they’re all about twelve! Obscenely good stuff.

Despite some promising synth sounds, Metronomy are deeply annoying. With their rinky dink melodies, their lacklustre robot choreography and their crappy light bulb shirts, they’re like some sort of Playschool take off of Kraftwerk; except at least Cant and Benjamin were professionals, these guys don’t even look like their hearts are in it.

Whilst nervous_testpilot is essentially just a funny little man playing prerecorded music and doing a silly dance, he’s still a cracking end to the festival. High points on his hardcore odyssey were when he (ahem) “dropped” "Apache", and the brilliantly original sound of a squeaky toy making an acid house riff: all hail breakbeat Sweep! Standing at the back of the tent watching the weekend’s casualties trying to dance to music that is officially too fast provides the most wonderful memory to take home from the festival.

It wasn’t the best lineup Truck’s ever had, we’ll admit, but we’re still glad that the festival managed to claw itself from the brink of its demise. We wonder what next year shall bring…

Truck 07 Cont.

Buck 65 has made a career out of sneaking up on hip-hop from the rear, tip-toeing from beat poet to MC. His vocal delivery is immaculate, and so intimate it feels like he’s telling you a private joke, and his lyrics are gritty and often hilarious, so it’s another Truck victory for him. But, his beats are actually a little flaccid, and we wish we’d managed to see him doing his spoken word set earlier.

To paraphrase a review of Waiting For Godot, at a Fuck Buttons show nothing happens, perfectly. Huge distorted keyboard drones swirl around the tent, punctuated by occasional percussion loops that all sound like the opening of Iko Iko by The Dixie Cups, for some inexplicable reason. It’s something like rave without the drums and something like death metal without the songs. Ah, it’s just fucking great, go find out for yourselves.

The Will Bartlett Orchestra doesn’t have nearly enough members to be an Orchestra, or nearly enough ideas to be onstage at all. Yes, they can all play to a passable level, but jazz is a music of fire and ideas, not irritatingly facile “Scooby doobies” and crap drum fills.

Trademark’s new club-friendly stage show is banging, but it somewhat diminishes the effect of some of Oxford’s best pop songs: imagine if Witches played all their tunes like Led Zeppelin. However, the final mashed cover of the Beatles’ "Me And My Monkey" wins us over, not least because it has an actual dancing monkey.

They eventually turn out to be a subtle jazz group led by a pianist with a wonderfully light touch, but Barcode have turned us against them before they start. There’s a place for thirty minute soundchecks, and there’s a place for getting bored and going to the bar. Guess which one we favoured.

Sunday

Nostalgics that we are, it’s good to see a proper old-fashioned backing tape, none of this laptop nonsense. Unfortunately, Napoleon III’s beautiful vintage reel to reel overshadows his songs, which are fine, but all sound a bit like Pink Floyd’s "Corporal Clegg" without the chorus.

Back to the main stage for Mules, who sound like David Byrne and David Bowie trying to play their way out of a deep South queer-bashing lynch mob barndance and barbeque. With polka. What’s not to like?

Maybe some of us stayed up last night, but Thomas Truax looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. It doesn’t affect his fantastic performance any, though, which is a wobbly stroll through Tom Waits’ notebooks with mechanical machines instead of a band. If Oliver Postgate had made Twin Peaks in his shed after The Clangers, it would probably have sounded like this.

The Winchell Riots is the band formed by 50% of much missed local boys Fell City Girl. They pretty much pick up where FCG left off, but have swapped some of the epic guitar crescendoes for stabbing snare rhythms. It’s extremely promising stuff, with one drawback: it may be the hangar-like reverb of The Barn, but every song feels a tiny bit overly emotive. Stop twisting our arms, and start leading us by the hands, we’ll end up coming a lot further with you.

We feel bad that so few people investigate the Theatre tent, so we make another foray into it. Biggest cunting error of the weekend. Sunshines is two drunk men, one of whom is wearing a dress. Think about that for a second – a man in a dress!! Anything could happen!!! It’s all wild and improvised! Fuck Thatcher! And so on. After they’ve spent ten minutes making the sound of a cyborg farting from a little machine, and giggling, we back swiftly away.

Ineptitude of a different sort in the Quilting Bee tent (tweer than a glittery bunny playing glockenspiel in a bouncy castle made from coloured vinyl and flying saucer sweets) as Seb from The Evenings and The Keyboard choir sings whilst Chris from Harry Angel accompanies him inaudibly. It’s bloody awful, but at least it’s unpretentious.

Hammer And Tongue provide some reliably incisive poetry as we edge back to the Market Stage for Alberta Cross. Despite a winning high-range male voice, they play pretty predictable country rock – and if you’re going to play country rock at Truck, you’d better be good, that’s all we can advise.

About this time we enter the traditional Sunday afternoon doldrums, where tired legs and jaded ears mean that nothing holds our attention for more than a few seconds. The local Butts ale keeps us going: is the fact that hordes of Truckers are buying fizzy brown gloop at the other bar for £3 a pop, whilst high quality, cheap, local, organic ale is barely touched a metaphor for the state of the music industry, or have I had a pint too many?

Artic. Monkeys

This is the Truck that nearly didn't happen, the orginal summer date being rained off, and a rescheduled event happening in chilly September. I think I prefer the idea of an autumnal festival - more time to sup soup and be wistful, and fewer oafs swigging cider and doing something gauche like enjoying themselves.

TRUCK 2007, Hill Farm, Steventon

With the reliably infectious sounds of The Drugsquad wafting over the queue, we find our way into the rescheduled Truck, and straight to The Market Stage for Gog, who display their atonal cabaret schtick with lots of volume and a pink wig. They’re like forgotten local oddballs Dog, but not as good…until we see the programme and discover that they are Dog. But not as good. That’s a bit sad, really.

Actress Hands: Thumbs down; pull your fingers out; read the manual. Oh, somebody stop us! Suffice to say that Actress Hands are a dull punky indie band with rubbish guitar solos.

Enemies of lispers the world over, Restlesslist are an unusual bunch. Their first number is a limp, tinny post-rock bounce, a sort of 65 Minutes Of Static, but then they suddenly throw in some big band samples, drag on a trumpet player, and it all sounds rather wonderfully like the incidental music to Batman. Things taper off again, but that’s probably because all the machines break, along with some of the guitar strings.

Coley Park aren’t that bad, they’ve got some decent light rock and a slight country twang, but they make little impact on the consciousness. If Buffy The Vampire Slayer were set in Swindon, these guys would be playing The Bronze.

Jim Protector are a sort of Scandinavian iLiKETRAiNS: well, we dare say they run on time and don’t smell of piss in Northern Europe. Anyway, they’re a diverting act, with a nicely understated drummer.

Country rock is really the lingua franca of Truck, and Babel have a fair crack at it. There’s some enticingly slurred fiddle, but they really take off when they get that floor to the floor hoedown groove going. Hey, look, we’re literally tapping our feet! Now we’re really in the festival vibe!

Do we really want to hear sensitive post-grunge, fronted by a man whose voice cracks every other syllable? We don’t, which is why we shan’t be seeking The Holy Orders out again. We preferred it when the Barn was full of metal bands - even if they were rubbish they were at least unignorable.

We promised ourselves we wouldn’t spend all Truck watching our favourite local bands, and yet somehow here we are before the mighty Stornoway once again. Maybe the main stage sucks a little intimacy from their winsome folk pop, but eco-jazz shuffle "The Good Fish Guide" still sounds gloriously like The Proclaimers played by The Grumbleweeds, via The Divine Comedy, and we leave with a broad smile.

When A Scholar And A Physician rap, it makes Morris Minor & The Majors look like Public Enemy. There are millions of them, and the whole experience is akin to a techno revue performed by the cast of Why Don’t You? Which means it’s mostly dumb, but you’d have to be a pretty miserable soul to actively dislike it.

We’re going to start a support group for people like us who loved Piney Gir’s debut electro album, and have become deeply disillusioned with her myriad novelty projects ever since. Can this cod C&W Roadshow malarkey and get back to the keyboards, woman!

It seems only right that we go and see some properly apocalyptic, hellfire preacher country after that. With the biggest beard at Truck, and the loudest acoustic guitar in the hemisphere, Josh T Pearson smashes out his Bible-black dirges with arresting intensity. The cavernous sound is strangely like Merle Haggard having a crack at dronecore, and as such is the best act so far.

Back at The Market Stage, which incidentally has the best sound and atmosphere of the festival, we find Sam Isaac plying his acoustic pop trade. A touch of ‘cello, and a tiny tinge of Kitchenware Records makes it a sufficiently enjoyable spectacle to detain us for a few tunes.


Tuesday 19 January 2010

Marginal Error

I have a headache, so I can't be bothered to write you an introduction.

A BROKEN FRAME – OCTOBER LINES EP
STEFAN ARCHER – DEMO

As a little kid we recall being intensely disappointed that the foil wrapped Santa mannequins hanging from the Christmas tree were hollow, and not forged from solid chocolate; a year later we recall being astounded by a similar treat that such a detailed festive homunculus could be sculpted from a millimetre thin cocoa shell. We’re reminded of this whilst listening to two new records, which are thoughtfully put together, but which are insubstantial and light: sweet and intriguing, but empty inside.

Banbury’s A Broken Frame (AKA quirk popper Zube Sultana), has turned in a 5 track demo that is neatly constructed, but sounds like generic backing tracks that have been gathering digital dust on a studio hard drive since the mid 90s. In balancing moody bass, exploratory, Mogwai guitar and programmed beats A Broken Frame probably intends to come off like Leeds’ Worried About Satan, but in actual fact it sounds a little like the discarded doodles of some post-goth lite indie band: Curve or, Gods help us, Garbage. There are plus points: the opener “Torque” flexed some muscle and briefly reminded us of laddish industrial jokers Nitzer Ebb, whereas “Dialectic” (Jesus, did this guy name his tracks by cutting up a 1994 copy of The Wire?) is the standout, placing heathaze guitars in the middle distance and foregrounding a percussive wabble like the sound made by twanging a ruler off the edge of a desk.

In fact, “Dialectic” is something like a post-rock version of Photek, which is certainly a tempting concept, but, like the rest of the EP, it sounds like half a composition; in actuality, the record sounds like what it explicitly is, a side project, created in “frustration and annoyance” to “exorcise some pent-up energy and aggression”. And if it spurred Zube onto greater things, or got the creative juices flowing, then all well and good, but as a listening experience, it’s more like a few rough ideas crystallised at drawing board stage.

Stefan Archer’s CD is similar, although the production is far more lush and enveloping. “A Clockwork Mind” boasts a wonderful attention to detail, and brings to mind William Orbit’s sassy productions for All Saints. Archer also manages instil some feeling of progression into the piece, slowly building the tune with the aid of some excellent snare presses and a lead guitar line that flirts with dissonance. Sadly the companion track, “Fuzzy Logic” (OK, can people stop naming their records that, please? It makes “Dialectic” seem like a good idea) has a gloriously recorded loping bass, but not a whole bunch else. Archer may be more of a craftsperson than Sultana, but he’s still essentially creating middle-ground tracks that are neither finished songs, nor moody soundscapes.

Don’t get us wrong, we don’t think these tunes need wailing house divas or creaming guitar solos to be called finished; in fact, we reckon both artists could win by coming over all Spartan, and excising any extraneous musical flab. We prescribe a crash course of Kode 9, Plastikman and the fantastic record Talk Talk’s Paul Webb made with Portishead’s Beth Gibbons. Both these artists are clearly talented, but these records sound like negligible stepping stones on the way to real achievement.

Saturday 16 January 2010

Running Out Of Relevant Pun(t)s

More old Punt tales. 50ft Panda, who are sadly no more, were generally known as Soft Panda round these parts. Oh, how we laughed...

THE PUNT 2008, various venues


You can imagine Face0meter falling somewhat flat performing his twitchy caffeinated anti-folk to a crowd of weekend drinkers, but when he gets to rant and sing unamplified in a bookshop he instantly wins over all-comers. Abetted by the excellently named Dapper Swindler, Face0meter produces what sounds like frenzied Polish dance tunes with lyrics by Bob Dylan via Edward Lear, and shows an odd mixture of New York cool and slightly frightening effervescence: imagine Lawrence Ferlinghetti as an assistant scoutmaster. Faceometer’s vocals may not be very supple, but his way with language is dexterity itself.

Desmond Chancer (AKA Tomohawk from The Big Speakers, amongst other acts) leads his band The Long Memories in a smoky trawl through gutter life jazz ballads that instantly recall “Blue Valentine” era Tom Waits. The music is louche and endearing, with some excellent jazz sax solos, but sadly the vocals let everything down, tumbling into the songs with all the subtlety of a drunken Wellington boot. Perhaps this sort of thing just doesn’t work until we reach the wee hours.

Having hilariously heard a man at a bar ask for two pints of Confidence, and invented the genre Nu-Gazing (hard trance remixes of Chapterhouse), we find ourselves at the Purple Turtle for International Jetsetters who certainly aren’t short of “jaunty” and are far from lacking in “cheery”. Very occasionally the strong female vocal reminds us of Patti Smith in its declamations, but some of the rather average music has the consistency of damp pastry, which spoils the effect.

Cat Matador are far more successful at creating high octane indie rock, with plenty of chiming guitar and intriguing violin. Occasionally the mood got lost somewhere between “epic” and “introspective”, but the music definitely had force and character enough to keep the healthy crowd interested.

Over at the surprisingly pleasant Thirst Lodge Black Skies Burn have unlocked the Pandora’s Box labelled “Racket”. This is proper metal with huge white noise guitars and vocals that sound like an emasculated pig being sucked into a black hole. The whole shebang is polished and well-crafted, but we do wish that the drummer were working as hard the room-prowling vocalist, the rhythms never seemed to blast along as we’d hoped.

Non-Stop Tango sound like Talking Heads and King Crimson and Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart and The Doors and Hawkwind and Bjork and The Fall and The Art Of Noise and lots of others. Not necessarily our opinion, but this is just a selection of comments we overheard in The Wheatsheaf as the set progressed, which goes some way to explaining how varied their sound is. Composed of Oxford’s free improv luminaries, Non-Stop Tango is really an experiment in taking groove-based music and destroying it from the inside, bombarding funky basslines with electronic drums, tinny keyboards and incomprehensible vocals. Not many people last the distance, but if they left confused we’ll call it a victory. The Punt needs bands like this. No scratch that, the world needs bands like this, there aren’t enough surprises left.

Sadly Alphabet Backwards isn’t just someone rewinding an episode of Sesame Street, but happily they are a pretty feisty pop concoction with some excellent fizzing keyboards and bouncy backbeats. Sadly the vocals let the side down with some clumsy pub rock intonations, but apparently the normal vocalist is off tonight, so we’ll give them a bye. Worth a second listen, we feel.

50ft Panda are Oxford music’s equivalent of a Belgian truffle: creamy and delicious, but too rich to want too much of. Imagine all your favourite heavy rock records distilled down to their essence, and that’s what this duo produce: nothing but firy drumming, the riff, and the volume (my God, the volume!) again and again and again. They really do it incredibly well, but, like another local duo that had two people making the noise of ten, Winnebago Deal, you wouldn’t want to listen to it for more than thirty minutes.

At this point the sight of the Cellar bouncer eating raw eggs made our beer filled stomach somewhat queasy so we stumbled for the bus. Clanky Robo Gob Jobs will have to wait for another time. We can only hope that any inquisitive local music virgins who got a Punt pass found something they loved to treasure in their memories…and we hope they found something they abhorred too, that’s what music should be all about.

Thursday 14 January 2010

Manic Minors

Once again, this is a review I can barely recall writing, even though it was penned only about 18 months ago. It's not a bad review, I suppose: though if I don't find it memorable nobody else will...unless The Youngs Plan are still seething, of course. One question raises itself: can a worm "crawl"? or do you need limbs for the crawling option? Will we never find those golden answers we so seek?

THE YOUNGS PLAN – EVENINGTALK

Like disjointed bones heaped together in some elephants’ graveyard of song, this EP feels like a jumbled collection of tricks, tropes, riffs and motives thrown together with little thought to the holistic effect. For this is “post-rock”, in its slash and cut, mix and match guise, which is so jerkily unfocused as to come off more like “arock”, if we’re talking prefixes. Not that we’re frightened of challenging, complex music, mind – but simply having lots of little bits doesn’t make something complex; otherwise a bag of pebbles would be complex. At least you could use a bag of pebbles as a weapon, whereas this EP comes off limp and ineffective.

Which is all a terrible, terrible pity, as The Youngs Plan can make a powerful noise live. We’ve seen them twice, and it was well worth the effort. This is doubly impressive as they’re relatively young musicians (hence the name? Will they hang around long enough for it to become an incongruous embarrassment, like Sonic Youth?), who clearly have a fine grasp of their sound, and who play together with an easy grace that belies their years.

The vocals on the recording are rather reedy and broken, often grasping at the note and dropping back down with the booby prize, but the rest of the playing is consummate at every turn – especially the bass – check the almost funky elisions at the start of “Our Getaway Car”, or the cheeky worms of sound that crawl around the start of “Moths”. Sadly all this playing is going to waste, and every time they click into something interesting, it’s immediately abandoned in favour of a twiddly guitar figure or, worse, a Biffy Clyro wasteland. Tragically, the only time they do stay on target, it’s simply to endlessly chant in Jonquilised non-harmony, the line “the rocks that we threw in the river”, which isn’t a line that becomes more profound with repetition.

They say that bands have the whole of their lives to write their first record, and often a mere few months to pen the follow up, which is why second albums are often disappointing. Well, TYP seem to be crowbarring every idea they’ve had so far into this EP, in an excited jumble; perhaps the next record shall offer a more spacious, thought out affair in which their talents can shine. It’s disappointing to be so unimpressed with a record by a band so brimming with potential, but this EP feel s like a trek down a long and dusty road – it’s a tedious trudge no matter how many arbitrary twists and turns are thrown in.

Tuesday 12 January 2010

MAOism

I thought this had been lost. It probably should have been. Absolute guff that even the BBC website wouldn't print. Still, in the interests of archaeology I'll tap it in again for you now. This is quite old - MOMA is now called Modern Art Oxford, The Pit in Witney is long gone, and I don't think the Cafe Varvara name is used any more; OCM still do good early evening gigs there, however, that I heartily recommend.

MARTIN SPEAKE/ COLIN OXLEY - Oxford Contemporary Music, Cafe Varvara

Aah, comfy seats!

The Varvara Cafe at MOMAis certainly a higher class of venue than one normally experiences in Oxford - slouching on a leather sofa in a tidy whitewashed basement has got to be better than getting stuck up some punk's armpit in The Pit. Can't get a pint though...

This short series of concerts, organised by Oxford Contemporary Music, is certainly worth visiting if you fancy broadening your musical palette on a Thursday afternoon: the next few weeks boast folk, jazz and 20th century percussion works, all for £2.

Martin Speake's damascene moment was hearing Ornette Coleman, causing him to jack in his job and pick up the saxophone. On this afternoon's showing, Ornette has left his mark on Speake in approach rather than sound, as glistening fluent lines are in evidence, rather than obtuse firy blowing.

At first there's a slight crunch around the corners, elegant phrases not quite flowing together, mostly due to some hesitant guitar from Colin Oxley - apparently, they haven't played together for months, which may explain it. However, after the second track things begin to gel, and the remainder of the set sees them locked together intricately, especially on the third tune, Wayne Shorter's "Deluge".

It's these ever-so-slightly spikier compositions that serve them best, saving them from polite jazz purgatory, eg that terrible yet inevitable moment when Jan Garbarek stops sounding like an austere wide-angle tundra, and starts sounding like Kenny G. Soon they are tackling be-bop squiggle, show tune balladry and even "Suicide Is Painless" with effortless panache.

Admittedly, this duo isn't going to revolutionaise jazz, but it's a pleasure to see two musicians play together with such delicacy and intelligence. This would certainly be a revelation to anyone whose only experience of quieter jazz is the three automata dawdling through "Summertime" for half an hour at every college ball in Oxford's history.

Saturday 9 January 2010

Reverse Spam

Audioscope is an annual chairty all-dayer of leftfield music, and I'm an enormous admirer, the events are always fun. Peppers Burgers is in Jericho, Oxford, and also gets my seal of approval. There you go, a day out constructed for autumn 2010 - you never know, you might even get to meet me if you do it...

AUDIOSCOPE – Jericho, 17/10/09


Audioscope’s reputation as an austere day of difficult music is smashed in seconds by Bitches, who may have had a liquid lunch. Their music has rock riffs and punk noise, but exhibits an eerie lack of propulsion, feeling excellently like a drunken Fluxus take on an early Sebadoh rehearsal. Cats & Cats & Cats charmingly announce that they hope to get their single into “the indie charts” which makes us feel at least ten years younger. They play a pleasant set of contempo-folk introspection, which is rather spoilt by unsuccessful leaps into grandiloquent climaxes, turning them into Arcade Embers. Talons turn out to be much better at the Godspeed crescendos and have two excellent violinists, but could do with some of Cats’ songs to retain interest. Call it a draw.

Worcester’s Theo loops tricksy Don Caballero guitar licks and accompanies himself fluently on drums, and this Billy Nomates Mahonie turns out to be our set of the day. He has some trouble with guitar leads and drum pedals, but we cynically wonder whether he fiddles with them deliberately to hide the fact he hasn’t quite worked out how to end his songs.

Ute have come leagues since we saw them in January, mixing rousing folk songs that wouldn’t be out of place during the miner’s strike with tremulous indie delicacy, before unexpectedly flipping out and going all Shellac unplugged. Occasional Thom Yorke vocal moments are less satisfying, but the set is a winner. Audioscope favourites Bilge Pump proffer the closest thing to sonic extremity on this year’s bill, with their well- honed take on post-McClusky artcore, and it’s fine but Bronnt Industries Kapital is far more exciting. He opens with what may as well have been an excerpt from Blade Runner, synching faultlessly with the video projections, that are like being overtaken on the autobahn by Petronus charms. He keeps up the Vangelist approach for some excellently sleek mid-80s synth romps, headbutting the keyboard to inject some John Foxx drama. The Ferris Bueller shades are a step too far, however.

We get a brief palate cleanser before the headliners, as Glasgow’s Remember Remember folds looped glockenspiel and melodica motifs in on themselves like Fuck Buttons lost in Toytown, which sets us up nicely for the disappointment of The Longcut. There’s nothing hugely wrong with mixing New Order with Doves and throwing a bit of NY funk over the top, but it seems that every third band in 2009 sounded exactly like this. The Longcut still don’t upset us too much until something sounding like Editors playing “I Feel Love” drives us to the bar.

We ask the organisors why they don’t have anyone famous on this year’s bill, like Kid 606, Clinic or a krautrock legend, to be told that Mercury nominees Maps are better known in the real world than those other acts put together. It comes as no surprise that we lost our grip on the public’s taste years ago, but it is eyebrow raising that they’ve gone for something that sounds so much like The Beloved. That is, when they don’t sound like Crystal Castles played by Candy Flip. Nothing revolutionary here, then, but Maps play a warm and unhurried set of comedown electropop that makes us wish we were watching at four am in a room made entirely from pillows and Gummi Bears, until we’re absolute converts. We were all set to bemoan the lack of a Shit & Shine, Parts & Labour or Datapanik epiphany, until we realised that the least adventurous Audioscope lineup had perhaps become the most consistent, and good music’s what matters ultimately, not its obscurity. That and the £1700 raised for Shelter, and an excuse to subsist on beer and Pepper’s burgers for a day.

Thursday 7 January 2010

The Dicks Of Hazard

The internet is well handy, eh? I mean we all know this, but I recall writing this review, about 5 years ago, and I wasn't online at home in those days I know I wanted to refer to Gwen Stefani, but I just simply could not recall her name. Mental block. Took me blooming hours of mental pummeling to get it; nowadays when that happens Google will solve the problem in seconds. Now I never remember anything. Why bother?

AT RISK - FAITH IN FAIRYTALES (Quickfix)

At Risk's press release claim they've been "cohesifying their sound". Alright, linguistic pedant I may be but this awkward and uncomfortable word says a lot about At Risk, who have the germ of being an enjoyably bouncy goth pop band, but scupper it all with an ungainly clumsiness. Take "As Lines Blur". Opening with some insistent drums it threatens to make an impact, but soon fails to get its sludgy two-chord arse into gear and ends up waddling to the finish line in a sort of post-prandial amble. A few uninspired vocal melodies aside it would work quite neatly if the edges were sharpened and the surfaces scuffed, but, like an overweight jogger, the song runs our of puff after the first few moments and ends up plodding along harmlessly. Similarly, closing tune "The Rundown" conjures an effective air of menace at the outset, with a nursery simple melody underpinned by taut snare rhythms, but all the effort of building an atmosphere proves too much, and it soon slips back into an unsubtle would-be anthemic chorus. A healthy dose of energy is all that's needed to make these songs listenable.

That's not to say that At Risk have absolutely nothing to offer. In Cat they have a wonderfully insouciant, ennui-soaked vocalist who drapes herself seductively just the right side of flat, and if she occasionally comes across like Gwen Stefani's lazy younger sister, this is probably because none of the vocal lines are that exciting. Standout track "Frostbite" indicates what they might be capable of, creating a pleasantly hazy Madder Rose feel that is augmented by some dramatic yet ungratuitous voilin phrases as the climax.

Sadly this release doesn't have any of the danger, ugliness and brooding menace we expect from a CD with a dead rose on the front, by a band with a professed love of melodic goth and "sexual deviancy". It all sounds a bit exhausted and resolutely unthreatnening. The fairytales in which At Risk place their faith are surely not the dark, twisted psychodramas of the Brothers Grimm; more likely a shiny knock off from The Works, full of bright, ugly illustrations and drab stories about anthropomorphic fishmonger pigs losing thier wallets.

Tuesday 5 January 2010

Punt & Jury

Interesting one, this. A lot of lukewarm reviews of acts that have grown in stature in the interim. Except 32, who are probablys still atrocious - don't think they've played a gig since this. Don't know how they managed to blag this, to be honest. Must be very nice young lads, or possibly schooled in mesmerism.

THE PUNT 2007, various venues

Jessica Goyder’s Joni-Mitchell-meets-jazz tunes are as light, sweet and frothy as a cappuccino topping, and she plays them with great dexterity. But we’re telling you this because we already knew it, not because we heard it at The Punt, where a weedy PA turned Jessica’s Minnie Ripperton scatting into the sound of an adenoidal, constipated Clanger. I know Borders is hardly Knebworth, but really the sound of pages turning shouldn’t be as loud as the music…

Mr. Shaodow seems to have found the volume control, but has inadvertently stumbled across a slapback sound that would make Sun Studios cream. Not really what a rapper wants, we’d have thought. Still, Shaodow overcomes such obstacles with a confident performance of his literate and amusing tracks. Musically it’s superb, but Shaodow really wants to work on his stage patter, he comes off like a desperate Butlins comedian at times.

Thirty Two are repugnant. Ostensibly they’re metal, but the way the guitars chug through their chords with no sense of dynamics reminds us more of some twobit bar room blues band. At one point blue and red spotlights make the band look like they’re on one of those 80s 3D films; if only the music had the same illusion of depth.

Mondo Cada’s brutal grunge metal is just what we need to eradicate the memory of Thirty Two, and they deliver one of the best sets of the evening. Sludge riff bleurgh pounding psychedelic violence Eynsham psychosis rumbled: even sense and syntax cower before the might of Mondo.

Another unexpected treat comes in the shape of Joe Allen and Angharad Jenkins at the rather cramped QI bar. His songs are subtle and well-constructed, but it’s the fluid folky electric violin ladled over the top that really wins us over. It’s like a tiny bonsai Cropredy happening just for us! Joe might want to be careful that his neatly packaged angst doesn’t send him down the white slide to David Gray purgatory, but for now we’ll happily celebrate a great new voice in town.

The Colins Of Paradise is comfortably the worst band name at The Punt. They’re certainly no slouches as musicians, though, resolutely wheeling out light funk grooves with well-trained sax solos battling six string bass flourishes. If only it weren’t so horrifically trite and soulless, we’d be frugging away like anyone. Can we do our “Flaccid Jazz” joke again now, please?

It’s the vocals that make a lot of people wary of The Gullivers, but we think the bruised and awkward quality of Mark Byrne’s singing works rather well against the suburban punk thud of the music. Tonight’s performance is uneven, but lovable, like a gangly Dickensian urchin who’s grown out of his clothes.

Their music oscillates wonderfully between free improv dribbles and testifyin’ gospel rock, with occasional trudges into Tom Waits territory, and Mephisto Grande go down a storm at a crowded Purple Turtle. Much as we like them, it still feels more like half of SCFT than a proper band, but perhaps it’ll take time to heal the loss of one of our favourite Oxford groups.

Stornoway are possibly Oxford’s best band at the moment, and we love them. But when you’re listening to their delicate folk pop from the back of a packed Wheatsheaf, and not all the band are present, it’s hard to take much away from the experience.

And the other contender for top local band title comes from Borderville. If you tried to teach martians about rock music with nothing but videos of Tommy and the musical Buffy episode, a Rick Wakeman album and a scratchy 7” of “Ballroom Blitz” they’d probably turn out performances just like Borderville. Fun though Sexy Breakfast were it’s great to see Joe finding songs that really suit his voice, and a band who can be theatrical without being smug (well, OK, maybe a tiny bit smug). “Glambulance” calls for fists in the air, and for one night The Music Market is a Broadway theatre.

We only catch the last tune by The Mile High Young Team. It sounds pretty good, and certainly better than their rather overly polished recordings. It’s not much of response we suppose, but then Punt should leave you confused, dizzy, and possibly slightly drunk.

Sunday 3 January 2010

Whose Idea Was A Top 9, Anyway?

A change from the usual today, here are my favourite Oxon records of 2008, as posted on Oxfordbands.com. Quite hard to choose favourite records, as although I come across lots of new acts, I don't necessarily hear all the recordings, so it's an arbitrary list.

Not much else to say, so I'll leave you with this observation. You know that Gaviscon ad where a milky firemen surfs down a woman's throat, spraying pharmaceutical goodness around her oesophagus? Am I the only person who thinks that looks like the climax of some Trumpton blow job? I can't help seeing it as Fireman Sam's anthropomorphic ejaculate spurting down the gullet of some Pontypandy floozie. Sorry.

Edit: a quick trip to Google later, I realise I am not alone in forming this horrific image. I do feel better now.

TOP OXON RECORDINGS OF 2008

Les Clochards - Demo

"I get drunk and I forget things," alleges "Tango Borracho", but we won;t forget this eerie pop monologue. Edit - they released a full LP this year, and very good it is too, if you like wry Gallic cafe indie.

Ally Craig - "Angular Spirals" 7"

Wonky full band outing is lyrically obtuse but deeply lovable. We want a full LP!

Euhedral - Burned Out Visisons

Economy implodes! Venues close! "Hallelujah" raped" Never mind, watrm fuzzy drones wil make things better.

Family Machine - You Are The Family Machine

Yes, the songs are quite old now, but this brainy perk pop is as warming yet intoxicating as a pint of Drambuie.

Foals - Antidotes

Battles + Haricut 100 + studied funk artiness + stupid clothes = Blue Aeroplanes for the T4 generation.

Nonstop Tango - Maps & Dreams

Improv scamps impersonate Waits, on Oxford's least accurately named band's debut LP.

Space Heroes Of The People - "Motorway To Moscow"

Another cracking EP that sounds lovingly handmade and icily robotic simultaneously.

Tie Your Shoes To Your Knees & Pretend You're Small, Like Us - Demo

Journo baiting cockabout results in unexpected collaged fascination.

Stornoway - "On The Rocks"

New EP contrastingly reveals there's no end to this band's melodic invention, and that rag week humour really sucks.

Friday 1 January 2010

Postcode Rock

One of many festival reviews that I'll be posting from the archives in the next couple of weeks. Elements from this were used in Nightshift, but the tone of the printed review was rather different. I'm more cynical, essentially. But that's how you like it, you slavering dogs. Oh, happy new year, by the way.

OX4 (You! Me! Dancing! & Truck), Various venues, 10/10/09

When picking up our tickets, we ask whom to seek out. “Dalek.” Uh-huh. “Or The Big Pink”. So much for “a celebration of the artistic talents of OX4”, then. Later, The Scholars (who were very impressive, though we cruelly dub them The Sub-Editors) ask “Have you all seen loads of bands today?” to a response of awkward silence. Yes, we might wish our scene were a huge healthy exploratory organism, lapping up different sorts of music, but the truth is that people generally stick to what they know, and you need big names to get a big crowd. Still, if there was minimal cross-fertilisation between the evening audience and the Folk Festival's afternoon crew, the latter did book some excellent acts, highlights being The Reveranzas’ caffeinated singsong, and The Selenites’ attentive and surprisingly Victorian sounding parlour string arrangements.

Anther good find were The Dead Jerichos, who spice their Fred Perried lad garage with the bits they like from Foals (disco hi-hat, rubbery bass) whilst completely ignoring the bits they don’t (preening, reading books). At an unusually busy Bully Stricken City make with the 80s chant pop, a little like The Sugarcubes and a lot like Bow Wow Wow without the wow, and at a weirdly empty Academy Charlie Coombes doles out chirpy 70s pop, which is fun aside from one Stilton John piano ballad. Mr Fogg’s subtle show is the surprise of the day, balancing trombone, harp and electronics to sound like “Hunter” era Bjork played by Peter Gabriel and Radiohead – a long way from the stadium bombast we saw last month.

Action Beat bring four drummers and four guitarists. Start. Chug. Crash. Stop. Joyous. The Big Pink pull the healthiest audience, and sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain covering Ultravox; they’re decent, but Baby Gravy’s mess of strip-lit mall pop and new wave fuzz is more enticing. Dalek’s muffled set sounds like Ice Cube jamming with Neubaten, which would be good if it didn’t sound as if they were playing next door. It’s left to local evergreens Witches and Mr Shaodow to play our night out in style.

OX4 was a huge success, so congratulations all round. However, it seemed to have a Lamacq/Barfly air of “Isn’t music just great?”. Well, yes, of course, but it can also be petrifying, delicate, mysterious and downright hilarious, and we didn't find any evidence of that. We look forward to next year’s OX4, but our local festival would involve giving a single venue to Kakofanney, The Spin, The Famous Monday Blues and Off-Field and making them wrestle until they’d come up with a line-up. For that, we’d pay any money they asked.