I don't seem to have anything to moan about today. Bloody typical.
DR. SLAGGLEBERRY – THE SLAGG FACTORY (Crash Records)
The inner sleeve to this release tells us two interesting things (the front cover tells us nothing, being a likable cyber-Vorticist sketch of a sort of mechatibbles robot cat thing, for some odd reason). Firstly, it’s that the musicians involved value their anonymity, having their eyes or faces obscured on all photos, and crediting the music starkly to Bateman, Turnbull and Pethers, making them sound like extras from a Frank Richards novella, or provincial solicitors from the ‘50s; secondly, it’s interesting that the collage of flyers and posters for previous gigs features just one from Oxfordshire, despite the fact that the band hails from Chinnor and release music on the local Crash Records label. Could it be that Dr. Slaggleberry’s brand of math metal intricacy hasn’t caught on in the local scene? Or does their atrocious name simply put prospective listeners off, as it sounds like they should be a gang of 4th formers playing slovenly Chili Peppers covers?
Whatever the explanation, Oxfordshire is missing out on a quality band, and this EP is a selection of tasty little noise nuggets, layered, handmade and rich, like some weird avant-metal baklava. Although we’re slightly sad to note that the maximalist Primus-influenced japes of old have mostly been shelved, Dr Slaggleberry have noticeably matured, and this EP is a wonderfully adept balance of schoolroom tricksiness and straight up fleabag rock out riffing. We’ll start at the bottom, with “8 4 5”, which opens with a swampy delayed guitar figure, all Steve Hillage wooziness and Ozric Tentacles dope fug. All very well, but after two whole minutes, we do start to wonder whether the band have hitched a lift on Gong’s flying teapot and left all their taste and subtlety behind due to intergalactic luggage restrictions. At this very moment the whole band kicks in, and whilst it might wake us up, it feels like a pretty facile musical trick, and the track wanders to a stop a minute or so later.
If we ignore this slightly unsuccessful ambient drift, the rest of the record works a treat. “13 Grades Of Filth” starts with a repeated lead guitar twiddle sounding Philip Glass continually turning his Donkey Kong handheld game on and off. The playing is tight, but unlike so many prog influenced acts, there is a praiseworthy lack of showboating flabbiness on display, and instead the production gives the sound a nice compactness. EP opener “Feed Me A Stray Cat” starts with sort of rock fanfare, and the first 90 seconds are a measured processional, like a Purcell march for metalheads. “13 Grades” continues this stately gait, and the music develops in a very orderly, almost baroque, fashion. Much of this record could be post-apocalyptic court music for some greasy Mad Max principality.
“Basterd Brew” (sic – who’s your proofreader, boys, Quentin Tarantino?) is likewise built on a good roiling churn of a rhythm, and the lead guitar has a nagging, accusatory tone, like an embarrassing memory trying to force its way through a hangover. The drums get something interesting to do on this one, and exhibit a neat stop-start dynamic, which makes this the best track on the release. The closer, “Gone Devil”, is essentially bits from the other tracks cut up and stuck together, but that’s no great crime. It’s an intriguingly formal sounding release, and a long way from aled up hair swinging classic metal antics. If Handel had written “Zadoc The Priest” for the coronation of Best Leather Chick in some cyber biker bar, he may have come up with something like this.
Saturday 27 February 2010
Thursday 25 February 2010
Pilot Episode
And while we're at it, what's with people reading books as they walk along? I don't mean an A-Z or a Let's Go To Stuttgart guide, I mean a novel. They must be able to read all of 8 words before they have to look where they're going. I see them, trundling round Headington lapping up War & Peace. Some of them go at quite a lick,too. Madness.
WE AERONAUTS/ ALPHABET BACKWARDS/ MESSAGE TO BEARS, 3 Blind Mice, Wheatsheaf, 29/1/10
Outstanding ensemble WLTM song for meaningful relationship.
Message To Bears are phenomenal musicians. Every bucolically plucked guitar, subtly controlled rhythm and delicious violin lick is impeccably phrased and beautifully balanced. On its own this is enough to make the set a joy, but how much better it would be if they had just one memorable composition. Every piece chugs and arpeggiates its way along like a refined folky Mogwai – Implosions In The Sky, if you will – and we yearn for a soaring line from the violin to lift proceedings. Nick one from Sibelius or an Irish air or something, we don’t care, just give us a reason for this astonishing band to perform. One for late night headphone listening rather than a swamped Wheatsheaf, perhaps.
Band seeks audience for inconsequential frolics. VVVVGSOH essential!!!
As they’re a perky cross between Blur and Erasure, with two children’s TV presenters on vocals and a flurry of farty synth lines somewhere between Sky and Air, playing songs about low end High Street retail and duff sex, we’ll concede that Alphabet Backwards can verge on the infuriatingly wacky. But, by God, give us sugary, day-glo, shimmering pop songs like these and we’ll forgive any peccadilloes. As catchy as Ricky Ponting covered in velcro and spraying swine flu serum, these are possibly the most liberating, uninhibited, spring-loaded pop songs in Oxford’s history, and if you haven’t heard them yet get ready to be swept up in the euphoria or sent back to your miserable little life even more enraged than before.
Band looking for…err…not sure.
We Aeronauts suffer partly from being uncertain what they are. Epic pop? Folk shanty singalong? Belle & Sebastian delicacy? Stornoway eloquence? Here’s an idea: how about starting by becoming a band who sound like they’re all playing in the same room, who have discernable tunes, and whose concept of “arrangement” doesn’t approximate “seven people play simultaneously until we end up with an indistinguishable sonic hummus”? Perhaps it was the atrociously muddied mix, making them sound like they were playing in a wellington on Botley Road, or perhaps it was an off night, but in a blind test we’d never believe this was the band we found quite pleasant at Punt. If you believe this is one of Oxford’s best bands, then you’ll believe the people in lonely hearts ads really are slim, attractive, charming and into Chekhov.
WE AERONAUTS/ ALPHABET BACKWARDS/ MESSAGE TO BEARS, 3 Blind Mice, Wheatsheaf, 29/1/10
Outstanding ensemble WLTM song for meaningful relationship.
Message To Bears are phenomenal musicians. Every bucolically plucked guitar, subtly controlled rhythm and delicious violin lick is impeccably phrased and beautifully balanced. On its own this is enough to make the set a joy, but how much better it would be if they had just one memorable composition. Every piece chugs and arpeggiates its way along like a refined folky Mogwai – Implosions In The Sky, if you will – and we yearn for a soaring line from the violin to lift proceedings. Nick one from Sibelius or an Irish air or something, we don’t care, just give us a reason for this astonishing band to perform. One for late night headphone listening rather than a swamped Wheatsheaf, perhaps.
Band seeks audience for inconsequential frolics. VVVVGSOH essential!!!
As they’re a perky cross between Blur and Erasure, with two children’s TV presenters on vocals and a flurry of farty synth lines somewhere between Sky and Air, playing songs about low end High Street retail and duff sex, we’ll concede that Alphabet Backwards can verge on the infuriatingly wacky. But, by God, give us sugary, day-glo, shimmering pop songs like these and we’ll forgive any peccadilloes. As catchy as Ricky Ponting covered in velcro and spraying swine flu serum, these are possibly the most liberating, uninhibited, spring-loaded pop songs in Oxford’s history, and if you haven’t heard them yet get ready to be swept up in the euphoria or sent back to your miserable little life even more enraged than before.
Band looking for…err…not sure.
We Aeronauts suffer partly from being uncertain what they are. Epic pop? Folk shanty singalong? Belle & Sebastian delicacy? Stornoway eloquence? Here’s an idea: how about starting by becoming a band who sound like they’re all playing in the same room, who have discernable tunes, and whose concept of “arrangement” doesn’t approximate “seven people play simultaneously until we end up with an indistinguishable sonic hummus”? Perhaps it was the atrociously muddied mix, making them sound like they were playing in a wellington on Botley Road, or perhaps it was an off night, but in a blind test we’d never believe this was the band we found quite pleasant at Punt. If you believe this is one of Oxford’s best bands, then you’ll believe the people in lonely hearts ads really are slim, attractive, charming and into Chekhov.
Tuesday 23 February 2010
Lux Inferior
Why are people so reluctant to move down the bus? When it's busy, why do we all have to squeeze in by the luggage racks because two feet away there's a guy who just won't budge, no matter how often the driver asks? Why does this sort of stuff anger me so much?
LIND OPTICAL - demo
We recall one hungover Saturday morning, barely focussing on shiny pop telly whilst trying to work out why Napalm Death invited Wagner and Yma Sumac to a jam inside our throbbing skull. This was a few years ago, during the first flush of success for harmless pop piffles S Club 7. With typical incision, the CD:UK interviewer was giving them a grilling. Favourite colour, preferred pet, that sort of thing. The final question was, of course, the biggy: “What does your name mean?”
“Well,” came the frothy answer, “Club means we’re like a club, it’s 7 because there are seven of us, and S is….a letter”.
“Thanks for clearing that up,” says the TV poppet, and now over to-“
At which point we suddenly found the energy to leap from our stupor, level a stern finger at the television and complain, “Oi! They haven’t explained the name one bit, merely defined the words”, which in turn led to a big argument amongst the beer zombies around the living room as to the difference between translating and parsing, which turned out to be a remarkably good headache cure.
Still, S Club were at least more cogent than Lind Optical, who make a point of telling us that their name comes from a 19th Century opera star Jenny Lind and Isaac Newton’s work on the nature of light, which of course tells us exactly bugger all about what the hell their name is supposed to mean.
All of which reminiscing, though doubtless fascinating, is standing in the way of getting down and judging this little three tracker….for the simple reason that it just doesn’t make much of an impression. They’ve certainly got the pedigree, having loaned members to three honest-to-god brilliant local acts (The Evenings, Borderville & Keyboard Choir), as well as vinyl terrorists Lum Col Con Pix and drum ‘n’ bassers Pan Tonic. Which begs the question why the opening track, though pleasant and well constructed, mostly sounds like a puddle of watery faux Beatlisms that’s something like listening to “Sowing The Seeds Of Love” by Tears For Fears through a toy transistor radio. Don’t misunderstand us, this demo all clicks together happily, and the vocals are pleasantly poppy, reminding us of perky and under-rated Oxonians Loopy*, whilst there are some nice keyboard diddles at the back of the mix, but second tune, “Honeycomb”, is a horrible Community Centre psych gospel, and makes us think of The Polyphonic Spree without any, err, spree. All of this critical assassination makes Lind Optical sound much worse than they are; they’re alright but they sadly don’t seem to connect any punches, and may have picked up all their musical ideas from World Of Adequacy.
The final track, “The Red Room”, may be meant as a joke, but is actually the most pleasing piece on offer by a fair old whack, a dramatic wodge of shiny cheap synths with niggling clusters of piano notes and brazen horn blasts sprinkled liberally over the top with a Stravinskian flourish. If you can imagine the incidental music to a mid-80s radio play about The French Revolution, and then abstract it by about 10%, you’re probably imagining “The Red Room”. Smart ideas and – Jesus preserve us – a bit of fun on display here, but at 60 seconds in length, it’s not clear whether Radiophonic Workshop cabaret is what we can expect from these guys in the future, or just more duff distillations of George Harrison album tracks. This is a very promising demo, but as yet Lind Optical have promised a lot and delivered a little.
LIND OPTICAL - demo
We recall one hungover Saturday morning, barely focussing on shiny pop telly whilst trying to work out why Napalm Death invited Wagner and Yma Sumac to a jam inside our throbbing skull. This was a few years ago, during the first flush of success for harmless pop piffles S Club 7. With typical incision, the CD:UK interviewer was giving them a grilling. Favourite colour, preferred pet, that sort of thing. The final question was, of course, the biggy: “What does your name mean?”
“Well,” came the frothy answer, “Club means we’re like a club, it’s 7 because there are seven of us, and S is….a letter”.
“Thanks for clearing that up,” says the TV poppet, and now over to-“
At which point we suddenly found the energy to leap from our stupor, level a stern finger at the television and complain, “Oi! They haven’t explained the name one bit, merely defined the words”, which in turn led to a big argument amongst the beer zombies around the living room as to the difference between translating and parsing, which turned out to be a remarkably good headache cure.
Still, S Club were at least more cogent than Lind Optical, who make a point of telling us that their name comes from a 19th Century opera star Jenny Lind and Isaac Newton’s work on the nature of light, which of course tells us exactly bugger all about what the hell their name is supposed to mean.
All of which reminiscing, though doubtless fascinating, is standing in the way of getting down and judging this little three tracker….for the simple reason that it just doesn’t make much of an impression. They’ve certainly got the pedigree, having loaned members to three honest-to-god brilliant local acts (The Evenings, Borderville & Keyboard Choir), as well as vinyl terrorists Lum Col Con Pix and drum ‘n’ bassers Pan Tonic. Which begs the question why the opening track, though pleasant and well constructed, mostly sounds like a puddle of watery faux Beatlisms that’s something like listening to “Sowing The Seeds Of Love” by Tears For Fears through a toy transistor radio. Don’t misunderstand us, this demo all clicks together happily, and the vocals are pleasantly poppy, reminding us of perky and under-rated Oxonians Loopy*, whilst there are some nice keyboard diddles at the back of the mix, but second tune, “Honeycomb”, is a horrible Community Centre psych gospel, and makes us think of The Polyphonic Spree without any, err, spree. All of this critical assassination makes Lind Optical sound much worse than they are; they’re alright but they sadly don’t seem to connect any punches, and may have picked up all their musical ideas from World Of Adequacy.
The final track, “The Red Room”, may be meant as a joke, but is actually the most pleasing piece on offer by a fair old whack, a dramatic wodge of shiny cheap synths with niggling clusters of piano notes and brazen horn blasts sprinkled liberally over the top with a Stravinskian flourish. If you can imagine the incidental music to a mid-80s radio play about The French Revolution, and then abstract it by about 10%, you’re probably imagining “The Red Room”. Smart ideas and – Jesus preserve us – a bit of fun on display here, but at 60 seconds in length, it’s not clear whether Radiophonic Workshop cabaret is what we can expect from these guys in the future, or just more duff distillations of George Harrison album tracks. This is a very promising demo, but as yet Lind Optical have promised a lot and delivered a little.
Saturday 20 February 2010
Lux Interior
Last night I was talking about mashups, and in my sleep I dreamt one! Well, not a mashup, precisely, but an arrangement mixing Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam" with Michael Nyman's theme to The Piano was played by Oxford's Les Clochards and a colliery band. Maybe I'll make it happen.
INLIGHT/ JESSIE GRACE/ SAMUEL ZASADA/ LUKE KEEGAN – Jericho, 5/6/09
“What are you here to see?”, asks the girl at the Jericho’s desk. “Just, err, music”, I reply. It turns out that the organisers use this method to calculate how much to pay the performers. Bit depressing, really, isn’t it? A whole system predicated on the assumption that nobody is going to come out on the offchance they’ll hear some good music looks like a tacit admission that the promoters have already given up on the idea of enticing fresh blood into the venue, and are relying on the acts to bully their friends and colleagues into coming along. What’s even more depressing is that they’re probably right.
Anyway, as the system seems grossly unfair to Samuel Zasada, who is standing in after a change to the advertised lineup, we put our tick against his name. But before we get to Samuel, there’s the unpleasant matter of Luke Keegan’s set to deal with. There he is, strumming away at some forgettable acoustic songs, droning in a voice that’s half pub singalong, and half lax karaoke Bowie, whilst a chap who looks fantastically like a spry Erroll Brown adds some very proficient, but rather disjointed bongo accompaniment. Looking up at one point I see I am one of four people actually listening, three of whom appear to be close friends or family, and the gig begins to feel like an episode of Flight Of The Conchords. “Did you hear about tomorrow?”, sings Luke; yes, it was when I woke up and realised this was a bad, and very boring, dream. Thankfully the last song has a bit of drama, featuring the howled chorus “I never had that bloody hammer”, which is either an impassioned defence in a brutal murder inquest, or the sound of a petty argument in a carpentry workshop.
When Mr Zasada starts up, we decide that he’s well worth our cover charge support, as his voice is immense: creamy, guttural and melodic, with the breath control to rip into some intriguingly wordy verses. He’s got a real talent, but this set seems deliberately designed to hide this fact. The accompanists don’t help any: a man playing possibly the most uninspired cajon we’ve seen, and a woman who might well be Britain’s top canine ventriloquist, as she seldom opens her mouth, and when she does the sound is clearly inaudible to human ears. Ignoring this dismal pair, the songs just don’t seem to be quite there. We’d like to see Samuel with a nice tight band at the more literate end of roots pop – say, something in the Counting Crows line – and then we feel we’d have something to get excited about. Once again, the last track is the winner, as the two stooges leave the stage to let Zasada sing a brutal murder ballad, which sounds like Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” rewritten by Travis Bickle. At one point I look up and discover that I’m one of two people actually listening. I’m not sure which is sadder, that the braying horde is not giving this musician a chance, or that he’s not utilising such a great voice to make them sit up and listen.
Jessie Grace’s appearance ups the quality of the night enormously. Put simply, she has a gorgeous voice, and some pretty impressive control to go with it. In the opening number, which sounds like a version of “Heart Attack & Vine” rearranged by Joni Mitchell, she swoops from sweetly sinister incantation a la mid-period P J Harvey to gutsy rock stridency, with just a hint of soul. She plays the first half of the set on a tiny guitar - is it an alto? - giving just the right amount of garage fuzz to offset her clear, winning voice. Later she switches to a standard acoustic, and the set drifts a tiny bit into Tunstallised neo-folk pleasantries, before the final number (it’s a good night for set closers, evidently), with its playfully lopsided rhythms impresses us once again with Grace’s abilities. I’m reminded of the first time I saw Laima Bite, or Richard Walters: with a voice like this, why isn’t everyone in the room twitching with excitement? But, like Bite or Walters, behind the voice the songs themselves don’t make a gigantic impression on first listening; there are certainly no lyrics that catch the ear. Still, I’m quite prepared to put the effort into finding out whether Grace’s songs turn out to be growers.
When Inlight crank up, the first thought is that there’s been a gross miscarriage of musical justice in this town. They’ve had any number of stinking reviews, but the first tune not only shows a band who look like they’ve been playing together since they were put on solids, but is also an epic piano-led swoon that really isn’t far from A Silent Film’s celebrated stock in trade. The following track only serves to bolster such musings, revealing an instinctive knack for balancing the quartet’s sound, and showing the bassist’s subtle inventiveness.
Sadly, the effect is marred once they get to a mawkish ballad, because not only is the song asinine and vacuous, but the same audience who were literally shouting and banging tables during the previous sets are in rapt silence and serving me a stew of black looks just for having a conversation near the back of the room about how good the band are! Still, you can’t judge an artist by their fans; I’d certainly have to sling the old Wagner records on the fire, if so. Ultimately Inlight don’t quite have the compositions to hold the attention for a full set, and too many songs seem to exist solely because they can play them well. It’d be nice to see some more adventurous writing, and an appeal to something other than the broadest emotions, but we can imagine that on a huge stage in the summer dusk Inlight could be just the ticket. Does the critical reappraisal start here?
INLIGHT/ JESSIE GRACE/ SAMUEL ZASADA/ LUKE KEEGAN – Jericho, 5/6/09
“What are you here to see?”, asks the girl at the Jericho’s desk. “Just, err, music”, I reply. It turns out that the organisers use this method to calculate how much to pay the performers. Bit depressing, really, isn’t it? A whole system predicated on the assumption that nobody is going to come out on the offchance they’ll hear some good music looks like a tacit admission that the promoters have already given up on the idea of enticing fresh blood into the venue, and are relying on the acts to bully their friends and colleagues into coming along. What’s even more depressing is that they’re probably right.
Anyway, as the system seems grossly unfair to Samuel Zasada, who is standing in after a change to the advertised lineup, we put our tick against his name. But before we get to Samuel, there’s the unpleasant matter of Luke Keegan’s set to deal with. There he is, strumming away at some forgettable acoustic songs, droning in a voice that’s half pub singalong, and half lax karaoke Bowie, whilst a chap who looks fantastically like a spry Erroll Brown adds some very proficient, but rather disjointed bongo accompaniment. Looking up at one point I see I am one of four people actually listening, three of whom appear to be close friends or family, and the gig begins to feel like an episode of Flight Of The Conchords. “Did you hear about tomorrow?”, sings Luke; yes, it was when I woke up and realised this was a bad, and very boring, dream. Thankfully the last song has a bit of drama, featuring the howled chorus “I never had that bloody hammer”, which is either an impassioned defence in a brutal murder inquest, or the sound of a petty argument in a carpentry workshop.
When Mr Zasada starts up, we decide that he’s well worth our cover charge support, as his voice is immense: creamy, guttural and melodic, with the breath control to rip into some intriguingly wordy verses. He’s got a real talent, but this set seems deliberately designed to hide this fact. The accompanists don’t help any: a man playing possibly the most uninspired cajon we’ve seen, and a woman who might well be Britain’s top canine ventriloquist, as she seldom opens her mouth, and when she does the sound is clearly inaudible to human ears. Ignoring this dismal pair, the songs just don’t seem to be quite there. We’d like to see Samuel with a nice tight band at the more literate end of roots pop – say, something in the Counting Crows line – and then we feel we’d have something to get excited about. Once again, the last track is the winner, as the two stooges leave the stage to let Zasada sing a brutal murder ballad, which sounds like Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” rewritten by Travis Bickle. At one point I look up and discover that I’m one of two people actually listening. I’m not sure which is sadder, that the braying horde is not giving this musician a chance, or that he’s not utilising such a great voice to make them sit up and listen.
Jessie Grace’s appearance ups the quality of the night enormously. Put simply, she has a gorgeous voice, and some pretty impressive control to go with it. In the opening number, which sounds like a version of “Heart Attack & Vine” rearranged by Joni Mitchell, she swoops from sweetly sinister incantation a la mid-period P J Harvey to gutsy rock stridency, with just a hint of soul. She plays the first half of the set on a tiny guitar - is it an alto? - giving just the right amount of garage fuzz to offset her clear, winning voice. Later she switches to a standard acoustic, and the set drifts a tiny bit into Tunstallised neo-folk pleasantries, before the final number (it’s a good night for set closers, evidently), with its playfully lopsided rhythms impresses us once again with Grace’s abilities. I’m reminded of the first time I saw Laima Bite, or Richard Walters: with a voice like this, why isn’t everyone in the room twitching with excitement? But, like Bite or Walters, behind the voice the songs themselves don’t make a gigantic impression on first listening; there are certainly no lyrics that catch the ear. Still, I’m quite prepared to put the effort into finding out whether Grace’s songs turn out to be growers.
When Inlight crank up, the first thought is that there’s been a gross miscarriage of musical justice in this town. They’ve had any number of stinking reviews, but the first tune not only shows a band who look like they’ve been playing together since they were put on solids, but is also an epic piano-led swoon that really isn’t far from A Silent Film’s celebrated stock in trade. The following track only serves to bolster such musings, revealing an instinctive knack for balancing the quartet’s sound, and showing the bassist’s subtle inventiveness.
Sadly, the effect is marred once they get to a mawkish ballad, because not only is the song asinine and vacuous, but the same audience who were literally shouting and banging tables during the previous sets are in rapt silence and serving me a stew of black looks just for having a conversation near the back of the room about how good the band are! Still, you can’t judge an artist by their fans; I’d certainly have to sling the old Wagner records on the fire, if so. Ultimately Inlight don’t quite have the compositions to hold the attention for a full set, and too many songs seem to exist solely because they can play them well. It’d be nice to see some more adventurous writing, and an appeal to something other than the broadest emotions, but we can imagine that on a huge stage in the summer dusk Inlight could be just the ticket. Does the critical reappraisal start here?
Thursday 18 February 2010
Payslip Park
This review, from the latest issue, is the last Nightshift review I have in the archives (for "archives" read "pile"). From now on you'll get them as they're written, roughly one per month. Fret not, there are still loads of Oxfordbands pieces in the posting schedule (for "schedule" read "desperate random selection").
HUCK & THE HANDSOME FEE/ BARBARE11A/ LORD MAGPIE & THE PRINCE OF CATS, Big Hair, Cellar, 7/1/10
The implausibly named Lord Magpie & The Prince Of Cats offer guttersnipe rockabilly that can hardly be called tidy, but has the clumsy alluring grace of a newborn foal. They have tiny amps that probably came from a Kinder Surprise, atrocious backing vocals, a strange ungainly vocalist who camply croons like a cross between Andy Warhol and Waylon Jennings, and enough energy to outweigh any amateurism. Some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll is primal, and whilst Lord Magpie isn’t angry, or sweaty, or sexy, the music does seem to come from the very core of the performers. They’re also fascinating: how did this weird lot meet? How do they rehearse? Hang on, have they ever rehearsed? If there’s one thing missing in rock music today, it’s mystery; Lord Magpie is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a butterfingered cover of "Hi-Heeled Sneakers. Seek them out.
Barbare11a grabs the attention too, looking like a horrific mixup in the costume departments of Mad Max and Two Gentlemen Of Verona: ruffs, leathers and leggings. They play greasy glam rock, and though the vocalist talks like a strange Swedish Eddie Izzard, he has a strong Bowie-inflected singing voice. They’re like a version of Borderville from out of a Christmas cracker, and as such are great fun if a touch unconvincing. Then again, they’re playing with a man down, and they do give us a wonderful lilting waltz, and a superbly slurred Booze Brothers cover of “Minnie The Moocher”, so it’s a victory in the end.
Huck & The Handsome Fee could probably give seminars on how to build a set (though, with their grubby white vests they’d best not set up as stylists). The gig is a compact, well-constructed suite of songs that builds from a quiet bluesy narrative to a punked up Sun Records crackle without a wasted second. Humphrey Astley has a voice that milks the maximum drama from his dark songs, intoning “The Fall” like a mixture of Roy Orbison and Nick Cave and his backing is rock solid. Perhaps the dour country blues balladry feels thin after the flamboyant character of the support acts, but this is a decent band for a quiet evening of listening and solid, melancholy liquor drinking.
HUCK & THE HANDSOME FEE/ BARBARE11A/ LORD MAGPIE & THE PRINCE OF CATS, Big Hair, Cellar, 7/1/10
The implausibly named Lord Magpie & The Prince Of Cats offer guttersnipe rockabilly that can hardly be called tidy, but has the clumsy alluring grace of a newborn foal. They have tiny amps that probably came from a Kinder Surprise, atrocious backing vocals, a strange ungainly vocalist who camply croons like a cross between Andy Warhol and Waylon Jennings, and enough energy to outweigh any amateurism. Some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll is primal, and whilst Lord Magpie isn’t angry, or sweaty, or sexy, the music does seem to come from the very core of the performers. They’re also fascinating: how did this weird lot meet? How do they rehearse? Hang on, have they ever rehearsed? If there’s one thing missing in rock music today, it’s mystery; Lord Magpie is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a butterfingered cover of "Hi-Heeled Sneakers. Seek them out.
Barbare11a grabs the attention too, looking like a horrific mixup in the costume departments of Mad Max and Two Gentlemen Of Verona: ruffs, leathers and leggings. They play greasy glam rock, and though the vocalist talks like a strange Swedish Eddie Izzard, he has a strong Bowie-inflected singing voice. They’re like a version of Borderville from out of a Christmas cracker, and as such are great fun if a touch unconvincing. Then again, they’re playing with a man down, and they do give us a wonderful lilting waltz, and a superbly slurred Booze Brothers cover of “Minnie The Moocher”, so it’s a victory in the end.
Huck & The Handsome Fee could probably give seminars on how to build a set (though, with their grubby white vests they’d best not set up as stylists). The gig is a compact, well-constructed suite of songs that builds from a quiet bluesy narrative to a punked up Sun Records crackle without a wasted second. Humphrey Astley has a voice that milks the maximum drama from his dark songs, intoning “The Fall” like a mixture of Roy Orbison and Nick Cave and his backing is rock solid. Perhaps the dour country blues balladry feels thin after the flamboyant character of the support acts, but this is a decent band for a quiet evening of listening and solid, melancholy liquor drinking.
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Up The Arsenal!
I was in Witney the other day eating a beefburger. I'm not proud, but that's how things happen sometimes. There was a family on the adjacent table, and a woman asked a girl, I guess her neice, what she was thinking of.
"A unicorn," she replied.
"What sort?" asked the aunt.
"Err...dunno."
"You must do, what sort?" I began to wonder here whether there was some sort of heirarchy of unicorns that everyone in the world except for me and this poor floundering girl knew about.
"OK, " said the aunt, trying a new tack, "did you see it in the Argos book at home?"
I think the girl found this as odd a question as me, as she just mumbled.
"Or did you see it in an Arhgos book somewhere else?" tried the aunt, really warming to the topic now. I mean, the fact that she clearly considers the Argos catalogue to be some Borgesian repository of all sub-lunary existence is stupid enough, but the fact that she clearly imagines that Argos produce different catalogues for different buildings simply beggars belief.
Idiot.
Anyway, here's some crap about a record you'll never hear.
ALL THESE ARMS - Demo
How to have fun with crap demos, part one: put them into iTunes, and read the incongruous suggestions the software identifies as potential track titles (naturally most demos aren’t registered with the Gracenote database that Apple accesses). Seriously, this feeble comedy can just about get you through the worst of the demo bunch. All These Arms is not the worst of the bunch, but it’s frankly not great, so we glean amusement from the fact that our player thinks we’re listening to the classic Who Shot JR? EP by Jinx Removing, featuring the evergreen “Johnny Depp Was My Friend”.
It’s a pity, because the demo opens enticingly, flexing an old-school synth arpeggio in cheesy fashion, and we originally think we’re in for some distanced but loving vintage rave reconstructions, in the style of V/Vm cohort Chris Moss Acid. Then suddenly the big boy guitars and the over-wrenched vocals tumble into the frame, and we’re left with the desperate flounderings of a stage school Biffy Clyro. Sadly the singing is what really spoils the track, sounding like Molko taking the mickey out of Moyet, but then again the guitarist’s nods to Foreigner aren’t making him any friends either. Just to prove that context is everything, when the synth comes in again, it suddenly sounds tacky and nasally annoying. That was the bit we actually liked, but it’s been tarnished by association with the vapid Eurorock that engulfs it. Bastards!
Second tune “Fade 2 Black” makes a pyrrhic impact by being mastered much louder that its predecessor. Admittedly it is a harder hitting piece, but it never really gets close to “banging”, and has to settle for “perky” – and again, the vocals ruin the show, with horrible yo-yo phrasing - he sings “liyee-yives” instead of “lives” - before just going for broke and doing a full length “iyeeyiyeeyi” that reminds us queasily of Go West’s “We Close Our Eyes” (don’t pretend you don’t remember). Once again the synth gives us something to cling to, with a nice early 80s wibbly figure that you might have heard on an old episode of Rainbow.
Track four is a remix of the opener, and an uncredited fifth tune is kind of fun - providing your idea of fun is a cross between Technotronic and The Alarm – so it’s left to track three (which doesn’t have a title anything as interesting as iTunes’ suggestion of “Stay In School & Drink Your Milk”, so we refuse to acknowledge it) to provide some glimmer of hope. For once the guitars sound sinewy and powerful, the steppa’s beat underneath it all is tiny and tinny but manages to keep the track skipping playfully along, and the vocalist just gets on with singing the song, instead of drenching everything in annoying mannerisms. It’s hardly the best song of the year, but it does possess a yearning quality where the rest of the CD singularly fails to get off the starting blocks.
In saying this, we’re in danger of being forcibly escorted from the 21st Century, but we do feel, sometimes, that too many quotes and references can destroy music: yes, the keyboards on this demo sound like early rave and electro-pop, and the guitars tip the nod to Van Halen, but the problem is they don’t really do anything else. You can reference anything you like, but if the biggest selling point of your music is ultimately that you didn’t think of it, we’re really all going nowhere. Put the studied references behind you, and start trying to create something new. It’s time to leave school. But you can bring the milk if you like.
"A unicorn," she replied.
"What sort?" asked the aunt.
"Err...dunno."
"You must do, what sort?" I began to wonder here whether there was some sort of heirarchy of unicorns that everyone in the world except for me and this poor floundering girl knew about.
"OK, " said the aunt, trying a new tack, "did you see it in the Argos book at home?"
I think the girl found this as odd a question as me, as she just mumbled.
"Or did you see it in an Arhgos book somewhere else?" tried the aunt, really warming to the topic now. I mean, the fact that she clearly considers the Argos catalogue to be some Borgesian repository of all sub-lunary existence is stupid enough, but the fact that she clearly imagines that Argos produce different catalogues for different buildings simply beggars belief.
Idiot.
Anyway, here's some crap about a record you'll never hear.
ALL THESE ARMS - Demo
How to have fun with crap demos, part one: put them into iTunes, and read the incongruous suggestions the software identifies as potential track titles (naturally most demos aren’t registered with the Gracenote database that Apple accesses). Seriously, this feeble comedy can just about get you through the worst of the demo bunch. All These Arms is not the worst of the bunch, but it’s frankly not great, so we glean amusement from the fact that our player thinks we’re listening to the classic Who Shot JR? EP by Jinx Removing, featuring the evergreen “Johnny Depp Was My Friend”.
It’s a pity, because the demo opens enticingly, flexing an old-school synth arpeggio in cheesy fashion, and we originally think we’re in for some distanced but loving vintage rave reconstructions, in the style of V/Vm cohort Chris Moss Acid. Then suddenly the big boy guitars and the over-wrenched vocals tumble into the frame, and we’re left with the desperate flounderings of a stage school Biffy Clyro. Sadly the singing is what really spoils the track, sounding like Molko taking the mickey out of Moyet, but then again the guitarist’s nods to Foreigner aren’t making him any friends either. Just to prove that context is everything, when the synth comes in again, it suddenly sounds tacky and nasally annoying. That was the bit we actually liked, but it’s been tarnished by association with the vapid Eurorock that engulfs it. Bastards!
Second tune “Fade 2 Black” makes a pyrrhic impact by being mastered much louder that its predecessor. Admittedly it is a harder hitting piece, but it never really gets close to “banging”, and has to settle for “perky” – and again, the vocals ruin the show, with horrible yo-yo phrasing - he sings “liyee-yives” instead of “lives” - before just going for broke and doing a full length “iyeeyiyeeyi” that reminds us queasily of Go West’s “We Close Our Eyes” (don’t pretend you don’t remember). Once again the synth gives us something to cling to, with a nice early 80s wibbly figure that you might have heard on an old episode of Rainbow.
Track four is a remix of the opener, and an uncredited fifth tune is kind of fun - providing your idea of fun is a cross between Technotronic and The Alarm – so it’s left to track three (which doesn’t have a title anything as interesting as iTunes’ suggestion of “Stay In School & Drink Your Milk”, so we refuse to acknowledge it) to provide some glimmer of hope. For once the guitars sound sinewy and powerful, the steppa’s beat underneath it all is tiny and tinny but manages to keep the track skipping playfully along, and the vocalist just gets on with singing the song, instead of drenching everything in annoying mannerisms. It’s hardly the best song of the year, but it does possess a yearning quality where the rest of the CD singularly fails to get off the starting blocks.
In saying this, we’re in danger of being forcibly escorted from the 21st Century, but we do feel, sometimes, that too many quotes and references can destroy music: yes, the keyboards on this demo sound like early rave and electro-pop, and the guitars tip the nod to Van Halen, but the problem is they don’t really do anything else. You can reference anything you like, but if the biggest selling point of your music is ultimately that you didn’t think of it, we’re really all going nowhere. Put the studied references behind you, and start trying to create something new. It’s time to leave school. But you can bring the milk if you like.
Saturday 13 February 2010
An Emotional Gish
This was submitted to Nightshift but never used. Possibly because a mix up meant there were two writers present that night, and probably because it's a little dull. If you don't know, Simon Minter is - ah, go Google it yourself, this is the 21st century, you know.
A SILENT FILM/ COLOUR/ POLAR REMOTE – Big Hair, The Cellar 11/1/07
“Sort of post-rocky soundscapy stuff. With vocals”. So says promoter Jimmy Evil, describing Polar Remote. Well, its not award-winning criticism, but it does the job. Yes, they tick all the post-rock (with vocals) boxes, but end up making a pretty minimal impression. Highlights come when someone who looks like the brother Simon Minter’s been keeping locked in the attic trades guitar for buzzing organ, but it’s not enough to save the songs. This set’s like flicking through a haberdasher’s swatch: occasionally texturally enticing, but disjointed and profoundly unmemorable.
Borrowing Foals’ spatterjerk funk and welding on some slightly more accessible melodies, London’s Colour reminds us that there’s life in the nebulous post-rock genre yet, simply by being really tight and having a kick-arse drummer. The vocals sometimes strain to make an impact, but the overall effect is imposing. Every now and then we feel like we may have heard all this before…then we decide we’d be happy to hear it all over again, so it’s a rousing victory for Colour.
“Imagine a sort of piano led Radiohead”. We’re trying to explain A Silent Film to a friend before the gig. “What, like Keane?” Golly, careless talk really can cost lives. ASF may share an emotional simplicity with certain post-Coldplay yearners, but the similarity ends there. Aside from one Russ Conway Plays Planet Telex moment, this is forceful, intelligent song-writing delivered like a punch in the guts. Besuited frontman Rob attacks the mic with a cabaret fury that recalls Nick Cave, whilst the band fuses tuneful and bludgeoning with mystifying ease. Perhaps the emotion is a smidgin overplayed, but maybe it’s good for noisenik Wirephiliacs like us to go home with heartstrings tugged instead of chins stroked once in a while. With their huge presence and custom lightshow ASF make The Cellar feel momentarily like Wembley Stadium. Of course, the real test of a band like this is whether they can make Wembley feel like The Cellar, but that’s a question for the future. Keep an eye on this film, there may well be lots of twists and developments left to reveal.
A SILENT FILM/ COLOUR/ POLAR REMOTE – Big Hair, The Cellar 11/1/07
“Sort of post-rocky soundscapy stuff. With vocals”. So says promoter Jimmy Evil, describing Polar Remote. Well, its not award-winning criticism, but it does the job. Yes, they tick all the post-rock (with vocals) boxes, but end up making a pretty minimal impression. Highlights come when someone who looks like the brother Simon Minter’s been keeping locked in the attic trades guitar for buzzing organ, but it’s not enough to save the songs. This set’s like flicking through a haberdasher’s swatch: occasionally texturally enticing, but disjointed and profoundly unmemorable.
Borrowing Foals’ spatterjerk funk and welding on some slightly more accessible melodies, London’s Colour reminds us that there’s life in the nebulous post-rock genre yet, simply by being really tight and having a kick-arse drummer. The vocals sometimes strain to make an impact, but the overall effect is imposing. Every now and then we feel like we may have heard all this before…then we decide we’d be happy to hear it all over again, so it’s a rousing victory for Colour.
“Imagine a sort of piano led Radiohead”. We’re trying to explain A Silent Film to a friend before the gig. “What, like Keane?” Golly, careless talk really can cost lives. ASF may share an emotional simplicity with certain post-Coldplay yearners, but the similarity ends there. Aside from one Russ Conway Plays Planet Telex moment, this is forceful, intelligent song-writing delivered like a punch in the guts. Besuited frontman Rob attacks the mic with a cabaret fury that recalls Nick Cave, whilst the band fuses tuneful and bludgeoning with mystifying ease. Perhaps the emotion is a smidgin overplayed, but maybe it’s good for noisenik Wirephiliacs like us to go home with heartstrings tugged instead of chins stroked once in a while. With their huge presence and custom lightshow ASF make The Cellar feel momentarily like Wembley Stadium. Of course, the real test of a band like this is whether they can make Wembley feel like The Cellar, but that’s a question for the future. Keep an eye on this film, there may well be lots of twists and developments left to reveal.
Thursday 11 February 2010
Rusty Logs?
Went to London today, to see the fantastic Museum Of Everything - 200 potential Fall LP covers in one building! If you want to go, you have 3 days left, but I highly recommend it. Walking from Oxford Circus to Marble Arch later, I realised that, though London is still one of the world's great cities, it has lost some of the sheen it had for me as a 16 year old. The entire commercial centre of London is just one vast High Street now, with the same shops - H&M, New Look - popping up every couple of minutes without fail. It was tragically a bit like walking through the backgrounds on Scooby Doo.
Furthermore, I realised that the word "nest" must have the same root as the verb "nestle", and that the gerund of said verb, "nestling", is presumably what a bird is between being a "hatchling" and a "fledgeling". And so it turns out to be, in avine circles. Incredible how words you've used all your life suddenly leap up with fresh meanings, isn't it?
But you don't want to read about any of that, you want to read about appalling provincial bands. Your wish is my command.
ASHES OF STEEL - DEMO
This sampler from Witney band Ashes Of Steel’s second album begins with the lines “It’s Saturday night and it’s party time/We’re gonna get drunk on cheap red wine”, from which evidence we conclude that the song was composed in about five minutes on Sunday morning. There’s nothing at all wrong with the performance, so long as a half-arsed growl is your idea of a great vocal, but the music itself is some of the most lumpen, insipid blues rock that’s ever crawled out of our stereo to lie panting in a corner. We almost feel sorry for it, and decide to put it out of its misery by battering it to death with some old 80s videos of Rock School and Hold Down A Chord.
Things pick up a touch in the second tune, the coincidentally named “Better Than That…”, as a little cheeky shimmy is injected into the rhythm, but sadly a few minutes later alleged live favourite “Rookie Rock” spoils the effect with the sludgiest Mogadon boogie-woogie the human mind can comfortably handle. Seriously, Ashes Of Steel are to proper impassioned blues what Barney the Dinosaur is to Mechagodzilla. Only the drummer shows the slightest hint of originality and emotion in his playing, and his head would probably explode if he stumbled across Sam Kelly at The Famous Monday Blues.
The only positive spin we can feasibly put on the recording is that we suspect a party band like this might find the live arena a more comfortable home than the recording studio, and if we were to see them at one of the popular, well attended gigs they assure us they play in Witney regularly, it might all make a modicum of sense. But on record, Ashes Of Steel is a deeply depressing proposition. I’m listening to this demo early on Wednesday afternoon. I know that Saturday night is a long way away, but with each passing bloody note that bottle of cheap red wine is looking ever more tempting…
Furthermore, I realised that the word "nest" must have the same root as the verb "nestle", and that the gerund of said verb, "nestling", is presumably what a bird is between being a "hatchling" and a "fledgeling". And so it turns out to be, in avine circles. Incredible how words you've used all your life suddenly leap up with fresh meanings, isn't it?
But you don't want to read about any of that, you want to read about appalling provincial bands. Your wish is my command.
ASHES OF STEEL - DEMO
This sampler from Witney band Ashes Of Steel’s second album begins with the lines “It’s Saturday night and it’s party time/We’re gonna get drunk on cheap red wine”, from which evidence we conclude that the song was composed in about five minutes on Sunday morning. There’s nothing at all wrong with the performance, so long as a half-arsed growl is your idea of a great vocal, but the music itself is some of the most lumpen, insipid blues rock that’s ever crawled out of our stereo to lie panting in a corner. We almost feel sorry for it, and decide to put it out of its misery by battering it to death with some old 80s videos of Rock School and Hold Down A Chord.
Things pick up a touch in the second tune, the coincidentally named “Better Than That…”, as a little cheeky shimmy is injected into the rhythm, but sadly a few minutes later alleged live favourite “Rookie Rock” spoils the effect with the sludgiest Mogadon boogie-woogie the human mind can comfortably handle. Seriously, Ashes Of Steel are to proper impassioned blues what Barney the Dinosaur is to Mechagodzilla. Only the drummer shows the slightest hint of originality and emotion in his playing, and his head would probably explode if he stumbled across Sam Kelly at The Famous Monday Blues.
The only positive spin we can feasibly put on the recording is that we suspect a party band like this might find the live arena a more comfortable home than the recording studio, and if we were to see them at one of the popular, well attended gigs they assure us they play in Witney regularly, it might all make a modicum of sense. But on record, Ashes Of Steel is a deeply depressing proposition. I’m listening to this demo early on Wednesday afternoon. I know that Saturday night is a long way away, but with each passing bloody note that bottle of cheap red wine is looking ever more tempting…
Tuesday 9 February 2010
Valentine Temple
I've lost not only the Word file for this review, but also the hard copy of the magazine it was in, so I'm typing this from a scrap of A4 paper that I found in the bottom of the reviews vault. Baby Gravy are growned up now, and are very good; Shirley are called Silvanito now, and are still fun; The Brothers never crossed my consciousness again after this night; The Shaker heights still play in Oxford every now and then, but I steer well clear.
SHIRLEY/ THE BROTHERS/ THE SHAKER HEIGHTS/ BABY GRAVY - The Point, The Zodiac
Young people are great. They have such belief that things will work out, no matter how implausible they look. Take teenage band Baby Gravy. They have the youthful fire to believe that they can start a sixpiece melding Sexy Breafast style prog pop with dubby bass, The Psychedelic Furs' sax parts and vocals in the vein of The Slits, and make it work. Of course, it doesn't work at all. It sounds like two bands playing two songs at once. Badly. But sometimes a noble failure is worth a hundred safe successes. Watch out for this lot, they could really surprise us, so long as they don't start taking the easy route.
Much as The Shaker Heights do. they could really use some of Baby Gravy's open-minded outlook. Their chiming, slightly drony rock is a bit like early U2 (if you're being kind) and a bit like The Velvet Underground's Loaded (if you're being saintly). Listening to them is like finding a pebble washed smooth by the sea: immediately pleasant to the senses, but ultimately forgettable and impossible to distinguish from others.
Oxford music is known for many things, but white funnk is not one of them, which makes The Brothers an unusual proposition. They burst onto the stage in a flurry of mid-80s funk rhythms and oodles of glistening Rhodes, headed by a frontman strutting about like a bantam impersonating John Inman. At times it's somewhat uninspired, but the best tracks sound like The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" played in the style of Beck's Midnite Vultures LP, which is something you don't see every day.
Shirley's music is a frightening mixture of Bryan Adams, Los Lobos and McFly wth occasional Santana guitar solos and fists aloft choreography. Risible on paper, but in a weird inversion of the Baby Gravy principle, Shirley get away with it by putting in the hard work. Thus their songs are impeccably arranged, convincingly performed and all a neat two minutes long, with barely enough space for their adulatory fans to catch a breath in between. Four grown men throwing shapes and singing about their outlaw status is clearly ridiculous, and Shirley's relentless chirpiness is guaranteed to make the more straight-faced music fan physically sick, but I'll admit they made me grin for thrity minutes. Which is no mean feat, when you think about it.
SHIRLEY/ THE BROTHERS/ THE SHAKER HEIGHTS/ BABY GRAVY - The Point, The Zodiac
Young people are great. They have such belief that things will work out, no matter how implausible they look. Take teenage band Baby Gravy. They have the youthful fire to believe that they can start a sixpiece melding Sexy Breafast style prog pop with dubby bass, The Psychedelic Furs' sax parts and vocals in the vein of The Slits, and make it work. Of course, it doesn't work at all. It sounds like two bands playing two songs at once. Badly. But sometimes a noble failure is worth a hundred safe successes. Watch out for this lot, they could really surprise us, so long as they don't start taking the easy route.
Much as The Shaker Heights do. they could really use some of Baby Gravy's open-minded outlook. Their chiming, slightly drony rock is a bit like early U2 (if you're being kind) and a bit like The Velvet Underground's Loaded (if you're being saintly). Listening to them is like finding a pebble washed smooth by the sea: immediately pleasant to the senses, but ultimately forgettable and impossible to distinguish from others.
Oxford music is known for many things, but white funnk is not one of them, which makes The Brothers an unusual proposition. They burst onto the stage in a flurry of mid-80s funk rhythms and oodles of glistening Rhodes, headed by a frontman strutting about like a bantam impersonating John Inman. At times it's somewhat uninspired, but the best tracks sound like The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" played in the style of Beck's Midnite Vultures LP, which is something you don't see every day.
Shirley's music is a frightening mixture of Bryan Adams, Los Lobos and McFly wth occasional Santana guitar solos and fists aloft choreography. Risible on paper, but in a weird inversion of the Baby Gravy principle, Shirley get away with it by putting in the hard work. Thus their songs are impeccably arranged, convincingly performed and all a neat two minutes long, with barely enough space for their adulatory fans to catch a breath in between. Four grown men throwing shapes and singing about their outlaw status is clearly ridiculous, and Shirley's relentless chirpiness is guaranteed to make the more straight-faced music fan physically sick, but I'll admit they made me grin for thrity minutes. Which is no mean feat, when you think about it.
Saturday 6 February 2010
Null Points
There are some good points in this review, but I feel it's too long and the tone is wrong. But it's still better than anything you could come up with, isn't it? Minnow.
KK NULL & Z’EV/ THE EVENINGS/ THE DIVINE COILS – Oxfordbands, The Wheatsheaf 12/4/06
Collaborative music-making is often described as “instinctive”, especially if it involves some degree of improvisation. However, after seeing The Divine Coils (essentially a deluxe Holiday Stabbings), a redefinition of “instinctive” is required. Picture four performers hunched over a sprawl of instruments which takes up half of the venue’s floorspace, batting at them, bashing them, scraping them and twisting them in a manner that looks so exploratory it calls to mind the apes at start of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not that comparing them to monkeys is supposed to be parodic or dismissive, as tonight they produce music of hypnotic delicacy that should be applauded.
Those searching for melody and structure will have gone home downheartened by the performance, but anyone with an ear for the infinite subtleties of drones and textures will be very content with this extended improvisation. Over roughly half an hour guitars are attacked with tools, effects pedals are manhandled and piles of maltreated cymbals are tossed around the room - we’re guessing this is one band without a lucrative Zildjian sponsorship deal. OK, perhaps the music is a tiny bit climax happy, and one can almost sense the performers mentally regrouping for a few moments after particularly tumescent passages, but the organic flow is in general deeply impressive, calmly wafting listeners along (and those expecting a Wolf Eyes meets Merzbow racket will have been surprised by the beauty and warmth of this gig, despite the crashes and shrieks). A recent Holiday Stabbings review claimed that their music is overly complex, “like multi-dimensional string theory”, but I’d argue quite the reverse. The Divine Coils don’t make particularly intellectual music, and again that isn’t a criticism: despite its abrasive edge, this performance is a sensual experience, like an immersion into a warm bath. Oh, alright then, a bloody hot and dangerously turbulent bath that may contain piranhas and shampoo bottles full of hydrochloric acid.
The sleevenotes to Miles Davis Live At The Carnegie Hall have a clear idea of the best thing about live jazz: “mistakes”. A bit of a one-liner, perhaps, but it’s true that creative art ought to ride the borderline between inspiration and disaster, and that there’s nothing so inspiring as watching an artist take a chance. One could apply this dictum to The Evenings, a band that never seem content to rest and always strive to present the listener with something fresh. The downside of this approach, of course, is that not every performance is a bankable success, but this is more than offset by the excitement of discovering what they’ll do next. That a band whose music is based around prerecorded rhythm tracks can approach performance in so many different ways is a minor miracle. So, tonight’s gig is something of a B- when compared to earlier triumphs, but it sees them approach their material in a healthy new light once again.
The recent departure of Stuart Fowkes on electronics has left The Evenings as a fourpiece. Perhaps unsurprisingly in a band that’s now 50% bassists, the music has become that much more solid and serious. It’s not the “folk metal” we were promised online, but it builds around relentless kraut basslines and unstoppable row-yer-bastards drumming like dub for molluscs. In fact, when Mark Wilden eventually launches into one of his signature kit workouts, the effect seems suddenly revolutionary and shockingly light-footed. It’s like Gene Krupa auditioning for Killing Joke. Only “Fizzy Piss” refers back to the old Bentley Rhythm Arse electropop playfulness, the rest of the set is an impressively sturdy lumbering beast. There may be the usual peccadilloes – Seb’s keyboards could do with a little more restraint, and it’s a pity Mark doesn’t have the vocal prowess to match his impassioned delivery – but one of Oxford’s best bands have raised eyebrows once again…not least with the serious volume of the set, which easily drowns out The Divine Coils! We’ve been listening to The Evenings for years now, and the fact that we’re still excited to be guessing what they’ll do next is comfortably the best tribute we can give.
The Wheatsheaf is bombarded with the sound of a dog licking Rice Krispies from a close-miked blanket under Shitmat’s sofa. That’ll be KK Null starting off the final set, then. His position on the stage means we have no idea exactly how he’s making his sounds for the entirety of the gig, but we’re guessing it involves lots of electricity and plenty of buttons. Before long he’s joined by improvising percussionist Z’ev and a vast array of toys for a lengthy and exhausting workout. It’s incredibly difficult to describe purely abstract noise performances, and this duo make The Divine Coils’ tonal wash sound like Debussy by comparison, but despite some brief flashes this gig is pretty disappointing.
The main stumbling block is the apparent lack of communication between the performers. There are some glorious moments, but it feels like they’re reached by pure chance, before being discarded. Perhaps this is evidence of an exciting aleatory approach, but it sounds more like two musicians who aren’t sparking off each other too well. Highlights include a passage marrying gorgeous rubbed gong tones with electronic bird song over spooky theremin lines, or the sound of someone playing Defender next to an imploding junkyard, but there’s equally lots of sonic mulch and water treading on display. Tellingly, Z’ev starts off knocking away at one end of his percussion rack and, hey ho, he’s made it exactly full circle 55 minutes later. One gets the impression he would have doggedly worked his way around his kit in the same manner whatever Null had been doing, and conversely we’re not convinced Null’s paying much attention to the percussion.
In other settings we’re sure these musicians could knock out something special – just check the list of their collaborators - but tonight it feels rather flat. A disappointingly one-dimensional end to what promised to be the most exciting Oxfordbands booking this year.
KK NULL & Z’EV/ THE EVENINGS/ THE DIVINE COILS – Oxfordbands, The Wheatsheaf 12/4/06
Collaborative music-making is often described as “instinctive”, especially if it involves some degree of improvisation. However, after seeing The Divine Coils (essentially a deluxe Holiday Stabbings), a redefinition of “instinctive” is required. Picture four performers hunched over a sprawl of instruments which takes up half of the venue’s floorspace, batting at them, bashing them, scraping them and twisting them in a manner that looks so exploratory it calls to mind the apes at start of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not that comparing them to monkeys is supposed to be parodic or dismissive, as tonight they produce music of hypnotic delicacy that should be applauded.
Those searching for melody and structure will have gone home downheartened by the performance, but anyone with an ear for the infinite subtleties of drones and textures will be very content with this extended improvisation. Over roughly half an hour guitars are attacked with tools, effects pedals are manhandled and piles of maltreated cymbals are tossed around the room - we’re guessing this is one band without a lucrative Zildjian sponsorship deal. OK, perhaps the music is a tiny bit climax happy, and one can almost sense the performers mentally regrouping for a few moments after particularly tumescent passages, but the organic flow is in general deeply impressive, calmly wafting listeners along (and those expecting a Wolf Eyes meets Merzbow racket will have been surprised by the beauty and warmth of this gig, despite the crashes and shrieks). A recent Holiday Stabbings review claimed that their music is overly complex, “like multi-dimensional string theory”, but I’d argue quite the reverse. The Divine Coils don’t make particularly intellectual music, and again that isn’t a criticism: despite its abrasive edge, this performance is a sensual experience, like an immersion into a warm bath. Oh, alright then, a bloody hot and dangerously turbulent bath that may contain piranhas and shampoo bottles full of hydrochloric acid.
The sleevenotes to Miles Davis Live At The Carnegie Hall have a clear idea of the best thing about live jazz: “mistakes”. A bit of a one-liner, perhaps, but it’s true that creative art ought to ride the borderline between inspiration and disaster, and that there’s nothing so inspiring as watching an artist take a chance. One could apply this dictum to The Evenings, a band that never seem content to rest and always strive to present the listener with something fresh. The downside of this approach, of course, is that not every performance is a bankable success, but this is more than offset by the excitement of discovering what they’ll do next. That a band whose music is based around prerecorded rhythm tracks can approach performance in so many different ways is a minor miracle. So, tonight’s gig is something of a B- when compared to earlier triumphs, but it sees them approach their material in a healthy new light once again.
The recent departure of Stuart Fowkes on electronics has left The Evenings as a fourpiece. Perhaps unsurprisingly in a band that’s now 50% bassists, the music has become that much more solid and serious. It’s not the “folk metal” we were promised online, but it builds around relentless kraut basslines and unstoppable row-yer-bastards drumming like dub for molluscs. In fact, when Mark Wilden eventually launches into one of his signature kit workouts, the effect seems suddenly revolutionary and shockingly light-footed. It’s like Gene Krupa auditioning for Killing Joke. Only “Fizzy Piss” refers back to the old Bentley Rhythm Arse electropop playfulness, the rest of the set is an impressively sturdy lumbering beast. There may be the usual peccadilloes – Seb’s keyboards could do with a little more restraint, and it’s a pity Mark doesn’t have the vocal prowess to match his impassioned delivery – but one of Oxford’s best bands have raised eyebrows once again…not least with the serious volume of the set, which easily drowns out The Divine Coils! We’ve been listening to The Evenings for years now, and the fact that we’re still excited to be guessing what they’ll do next is comfortably the best tribute we can give.
The Wheatsheaf is bombarded with the sound of a dog licking Rice Krispies from a close-miked blanket under Shitmat’s sofa. That’ll be KK Null starting off the final set, then. His position on the stage means we have no idea exactly how he’s making his sounds for the entirety of the gig, but we’re guessing it involves lots of electricity and plenty of buttons. Before long he’s joined by improvising percussionist Z’ev and a vast array of toys for a lengthy and exhausting workout. It’s incredibly difficult to describe purely abstract noise performances, and this duo make The Divine Coils’ tonal wash sound like Debussy by comparison, but despite some brief flashes this gig is pretty disappointing.
The main stumbling block is the apparent lack of communication between the performers. There are some glorious moments, but it feels like they’re reached by pure chance, before being discarded. Perhaps this is evidence of an exciting aleatory approach, but it sounds more like two musicians who aren’t sparking off each other too well. Highlights include a passage marrying gorgeous rubbed gong tones with electronic bird song over spooky theremin lines, or the sound of someone playing Defender next to an imploding junkyard, but there’s equally lots of sonic mulch and water treading on display. Tellingly, Z’ev starts off knocking away at one end of his percussion rack and, hey ho, he’s made it exactly full circle 55 minutes later. One gets the impression he would have doggedly worked his way around his kit in the same manner whatever Null had been doing, and conversely we’re not convinced Null’s paying much attention to the percussion.
In other settings we’re sure these musicians could knock out something special – just check the list of their collaborators - but tonight it feels rather flat. A disappointingly one-dimensional end to what promised to be the most exciting Oxfordbands booking this year.
Thursday 4 February 2010
Veteran Poppy's Day
I guarantee you there are no Pulp-based errors in this piece, you knowitall fuckers.
ANDREW POPPY’S SUSTAINING ENSEMBLE, OCM, Northwall, 3/12/09
We first came across Andrew Poppy in the mid-80s, playing a cheeky breed of pop-minimalism, injecting a little classical rigour into the ZTT roster, whilst puncturing the solemn salon atmosphere of British composition with situationist jokes and artrock packaging. We lost track of Poppy some time ago, but aside from growing a cascade of beautiful bone-white locks, like some posterboy for new Timotei Goth, it would appear that little has changed. His music is still indebted to the giants of minimalism, and still features absurd texts intoned over slowly shifting sonic weavings.
The set, a selection of quartet arrangements of pieces from his last album, …And The Shuffle Of Things, is a definite success. In some ways Poppy has honed his strengths over the years. Firstly, he has embraced the development of electronics in the past quarter century, and the prerecorded parts of the performance are intricate without being needlessly flashy, often adding a disquieting Lynchian buzz to the pieces. Secondly, Poppy’s vocals have matured noticeably: where his delivery was a tad smug and portentous in the 80s, it has mellowed into a stately, melancholically comic recitation. At times he sounds like a cross between Laurie Anderson and John Hegley, and “My Father’s Submarines” or “The Head Of Orpheus Football” are truly hypnotic, at once hilarious and mystifying.
Sadly, some of the experience simply feels second hand. The stage is an array of pitched percussion, and everyone knows that massed marimbas are the new music equivalent of Marshall stacks, and the ensemble play behind moody projections on gauze, the arthouse version of dry ice. Also, “Periscope” is just those same old Glass Reich melodic cells jumbled together on two keyboards, and seems to last most of the week (an effect not helped by the hackneyed projections of clocks running backwards – cheers for that). Frankly, the world has changed, and what sounded pretty radical in 1986, now sounds like the soundtrack to a Barclays ad. Whilst the show is wonderful, we’re concerned that Poppy is creating a heritage industry for a contemporary classical movement in which he never felt comfortable to begin with. We love him, but we hope he takes more inspiration from the restless individuality of his ex-teacher John Cage, and less from the reductive autophagy of his ex-colleague Genesis P-Orridge. Stop shuffling, try a new deck.
ANDREW POPPY’S SUSTAINING ENSEMBLE, OCM, Northwall, 3/12/09
We first came across Andrew Poppy in the mid-80s, playing a cheeky breed of pop-minimalism, injecting a little classical rigour into the ZTT roster, whilst puncturing the solemn salon atmosphere of British composition with situationist jokes and artrock packaging. We lost track of Poppy some time ago, but aside from growing a cascade of beautiful bone-white locks, like some posterboy for new Timotei Goth, it would appear that little has changed. His music is still indebted to the giants of minimalism, and still features absurd texts intoned over slowly shifting sonic weavings.
The set, a selection of quartet arrangements of pieces from his last album, …And The Shuffle Of Things, is a definite success. In some ways Poppy has honed his strengths over the years. Firstly, he has embraced the development of electronics in the past quarter century, and the prerecorded parts of the performance are intricate without being needlessly flashy, often adding a disquieting Lynchian buzz to the pieces. Secondly, Poppy’s vocals have matured noticeably: where his delivery was a tad smug and portentous in the 80s, it has mellowed into a stately, melancholically comic recitation. At times he sounds like a cross between Laurie Anderson and John Hegley, and “My Father’s Submarines” or “The Head Of Orpheus Football” are truly hypnotic, at once hilarious and mystifying.
Sadly, some of the experience simply feels second hand. The stage is an array of pitched percussion, and everyone knows that massed marimbas are the new music equivalent of Marshall stacks, and the ensemble play behind moody projections on gauze, the arthouse version of dry ice. Also, “Periscope” is just those same old Glass Reich melodic cells jumbled together on two keyboards, and seems to last most of the week (an effect not helped by the hackneyed projections of clocks running backwards – cheers for that). Frankly, the world has changed, and what sounded pretty radical in 1986, now sounds like the soundtrack to a Barclays ad. Whilst the show is wonderful, we’re concerned that Poppy is creating a heritage industry for a contemporary classical movement in which he never felt comfortable to begin with. We love him, but we hope he takes more inspiration from the restless individuality of his ex-teacher John Cage, and less from the reductive autophagy of his ex-colleague Genesis P-Orridge. Stop shuffling, try a new deck.
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Grant Student
Wierd. I kept thinking of Pulp when writing this review. I quite like them, and al, but I generally don't think about them from one month to the next, yet here they are. And here you are. Happy days.
RIP Videosyncratic.
GRANT - SKIRR (Big Red Sky)
“Yeah, it’s a great start, boys; so, when’s the real singer going to finish it off?”
A smidgen harsh, we’ll admit, but Skirr is an LP that has clearly had lots of thought and expertise poured into its creation, but which falls down for us whenever the vocals start. It’s a praiseworthily varied record, impossible to sum up in a pithy description, but sophisticated electro goth would be the closest we could get to swiping at the truth in a snappy soundbite, and we really, really want to like it more than we do. But we don’t, and sometimes you just have to admit these things straight.
The opener “Null” is brief burst of Future Sound Of London garnished with a snatch from “Never Can Say Goodbye” for no obvious reason, but thereafter “Exeat” sets the tone for the record, with chubby 80s bass and a portentous vocal line occasionally exploding into hissing guitars, leaving a slight aftertaste of Psychedelic Furs. Elsewhere “Isthmus” (blimey, Grant, is this a tracklist or a championship game of Scrabble?) is a darkhearted ballad dusted with synth oboe, loosely recalling Depeche Mode’s Violator, whilst “Acres To Hectares” is an improbable industro-rock rave up from 1990 with a caffeinated baggy beat and some wobbly keyboard squiggles suspended between the first flushes of techno and Radiohead’s Amnesiac, all underpinning a tune that surreally threatens to morph into “It Was A Very Good Year”. This is nothing if not eclectic and adventurous recording!
For the most part the music is highly intriguing, if perhaps evidence of too many dips into the Pick ‘N’ Mix counter of recent rock history, and there are only a couple of truly duff tracks: “Below The Seal” welds outdated guitars onto an Isaac Hayes conga rhythm, something in the manner of a blaxploitation theme as envisioned by the Sounds staff in 1988 – horrible, in other words – and “Shellac Skin” is a heavy, doomy trudge over a finger-in-ear folk club vocal melody about addiction that ought to be blackly imposing, but just sounds silly.
Aside from these two mis-steps, his is a collection of ear-catching oddments crying out for a great voice to bind them together, and if Scott Walker were to add his creamy voice to this grab bag of neat ideas and production tricks it might really work; if Bryan Ferry were to drape a few louche vocal takes over the top it might be pretty fascinating; hell, even if someone who can’t really sing but who has a grasp of storytelling and drama, such as Jarvis Cocker, were to hove into view we’d love this LP. But, sadly, Grant isn’t any of these – in fact, he sounds much more like Russell Senior’s wayward vocal attempts on Pulp’s misfired second album, Freaks.
Let’s cut some slack, Grant doesn’t have a bad voice at all – you could imagine him fronting some grown up indie band, on Pink Hedgehog Records or somesuch - but he doesn’t have the gravitas or depth to his singing to pull off this rich confection. The closing track, “Scent & Snow” a simple piece of pop euphoria that sounds like the work of a band locked up for 5 hours with their management shouting “Write a hit!” through the keyhole, perhaps encapsulates the paradox of Skirr: it’s not a particularly good song, although it is bouncy enough, but Grant’s vocals work so much better in this unfettered environment. Just when we’re having fun, the record ends with over ten minutes of a single slowly oscillating keyboard tone, infuriating and fascinating in equal measure. Come to think of it, Pulp did this too, at the end of This Is Hardcore. But they’d learnt not to let Russell sing by that time, of course.
RIP Videosyncratic.
GRANT - SKIRR (Big Red Sky)
“Yeah, it’s a great start, boys; so, when’s the real singer going to finish it off?”
A smidgen harsh, we’ll admit, but Skirr is an LP that has clearly had lots of thought and expertise poured into its creation, but which falls down for us whenever the vocals start. It’s a praiseworthily varied record, impossible to sum up in a pithy description, but sophisticated electro goth would be the closest we could get to swiping at the truth in a snappy soundbite, and we really, really want to like it more than we do. But we don’t, and sometimes you just have to admit these things straight.
The opener “Null” is brief burst of Future Sound Of London garnished with a snatch from “Never Can Say Goodbye” for no obvious reason, but thereafter “Exeat” sets the tone for the record, with chubby 80s bass and a portentous vocal line occasionally exploding into hissing guitars, leaving a slight aftertaste of Psychedelic Furs. Elsewhere “Isthmus” (blimey, Grant, is this a tracklist or a championship game of Scrabble?) is a darkhearted ballad dusted with synth oboe, loosely recalling Depeche Mode’s Violator, whilst “Acres To Hectares” is an improbable industro-rock rave up from 1990 with a caffeinated baggy beat and some wobbly keyboard squiggles suspended between the first flushes of techno and Radiohead’s Amnesiac, all underpinning a tune that surreally threatens to morph into “It Was A Very Good Year”. This is nothing if not eclectic and adventurous recording!
For the most part the music is highly intriguing, if perhaps evidence of too many dips into the Pick ‘N’ Mix counter of recent rock history, and there are only a couple of truly duff tracks: “Below The Seal” welds outdated guitars onto an Isaac Hayes conga rhythm, something in the manner of a blaxploitation theme as envisioned by the Sounds staff in 1988 – horrible, in other words – and “Shellac Skin” is a heavy, doomy trudge over a finger-in-ear folk club vocal melody about addiction that ought to be blackly imposing, but just sounds silly.
Aside from these two mis-steps, his is a collection of ear-catching oddments crying out for a great voice to bind them together, and if Scott Walker were to add his creamy voice to this grab bag of neat ideas and production tricks it might really work; if Bryan Ferry were to drape a few louche vocal takes over the top it might be pretty fascinating; hell, even if someone who can’t really sing but who has a grasp of storytelling and drama, such as Jarvis Cocker, were to hove into view we’d love this LP. But, sadly, Grant isn’t any of these – in fact, he sounds much more like Russell Senior’s wayward vocal attempts on Pulp’s misfired second album, Freaks.
Let’s cut some slack, Grant doesn’t have a bad voice at all – you could imagine him fronting some grown up indie band, on Pink Hedgehog Records or somesuch - but he doesn’t have the gravitas or depth to his singing to pull off this rich confection. The closing track, “Scent & Snow” a simple piece of pop euphoria that sounds like the work of a band locked up for 5 hours with their management shouting “Write a hit!” through the keyhole, perhaps encapsulates the paradox of Skirr: it’s not a particularly good song, although it is bouncy enough, but Grant’s vocals work so much better in this unfettered environment. Just when we’re having fun, the record ends with over ten minutes of a single slowly oscillating keyboard tone, infuriating and fascinating in equal measure. Come to think of it, Pulp did this too, at the end of This Is Hardcore. But they’d learnt not to let Russell sing by that time, of course.
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