If you think this review is interesting, you may as well go and download the record. Free, innit?
V/A – SPIRES (download compilation)
For the most part, twenty-first century culture leaves us enraged or mordantly amused, provoking spittle-flecked rants that paint us as some unholy cross between David Mitchell and Travis Bickle. But, when Aaron Delgado from Phantom Theory decides to get some of his favourite local acts together for a free download compilation celebrating Oxford music you’d have to say that this is what the internet age is all about: the record is free, effortless, and was all round the world in the time it must have taken the curators of the old OXCD album to cost the cover art. And what’s more, it’s actually damned good too.
From the opening trio of tracks that could be subtitled “the riff in Oxford”, there’s a pleasing variety to the selections, and there are even a few eyebrow raisers for jaded Oxford cognoscenti – we were pleasantly surprised that The Winchell Riots could ease off the bombast with the affecting “My Young Arms”, and gratified that Spring Offensive’s sprawling epic “The First Of Many Dreams About Monsters” works in bijou edited segments. Also, Secret Rivals’ “It Would Be Colder Here Without You” is a lovely chirpy ditty with fluffy vocals which is like being on a bouncy castle made of cappuccino forth, and goes some way towards eradicating the effect of some woefully slipshod live sets. Every listener will have their own favourites, but our highspots are Alphabet Backwards’ “Collide”, whose dual vocals and tinny guitar sounds like two siblings singing along to their favourite pop song, recorded by holding a tape player up to Top Of The Pops, and “Filofax” by Coloureds, a stutterjack dance track which is like a fax machine raping a ZX Spectrum to the sound of Korean synth pop.
Only Vixens, with their clunking off-the-peg indie rock and stodgily portentous TK Maxx goth vocals, let the side down. “The Hearts, They Cannot Love”? Nor these ears, son. It’s also a pity that Dial F For Frankenstein’s demise means that the record is already one step away from being a scene sampler, but “Thought Police” is a decent valediction, like a Mudhoney dirge retooled for maximum amphetamine effect by The Only Ones. In some ways, the greatest tribute we could give Oxford music in 2011 is that we love this LP, but it’s not the compilation we’d put together, which only goes to show how many good musicians are currently working in the city. And if you don’t like it? Well, it’s the twenty-first century, there are lots and lots of other things you could be doing. Pity they’re all shit, really.
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Monday, 17 January 2011
Dis Figures
This was supposed ot be a double super review that carried on with the four acts at The Cellar. Well, I only only managed 2 and a half before I went to bed, because I've got the old winter chill, and I don't like gigs that go on till two in the bleeding morning.
For the record, The Cellar broke down like this: Coloureds, wonderful as ever; P-45 had nice varied ideas but it was a long an uneven set; Shitmat just seemed to be DJing some old Aphex tracks and things, not making his excellent breakcore live, which was fine but not what I hoped for; bed, very nice indeed.
WE ARE UGLY BUT WE HAVE THE MUSIC/ SPACE HEROES OF THE PEOPLE/ KINETIC WARDROBE, Psychotechnic League, Wheatsheaf 15/1/11
OK, it’s not snowing. But the other two major disasters that can hit a small time promoter have befallen the Psychotechnic League’s inaugural gig, namely the loss of two thirds of the lineup a few days before the event, and the presence of a similar, but more upscale event within jacking distance of the venue, in the shape of Audioscope’s Andrea Parker and Shitmat booking at The Cellar. It’s a tribute to promoting virgin Fred Toon that he not only managed to keep his gig afloat , but managed to draw in a decent, if not earth-shattering huddle of punters who were clearly enjoying the evening.
And as such, it would be harsh to be too critical of Kinetic Wardrobe, one of the stand in acts, left playing unusually early to encourage an attendance at both the Wheatsheaf and the Cellar, and certainly his late 90s, post-Orbient down-tempo techno set is full of well-turned moments, but some of the sampled gobbets (as The History Boys’ Mr Irwin might have put it, were he an aging raver) that stitch the set together are beyond hackneyed. What’s that? Fear & Loathing? Be still my beating heart. But in fairness, it’s a solid set, with some surprisingly approachable grooves, a couple of tracks with scratchy guitar parts sounding like lost De La Soul remixes.
Whatever you might expect from a band called Space Heroes Of The People, you probably don’t expect poise and delicacy, but this is exactly what the superlative duo delivers. Yes, the music is built on an insistent club thump, and Tim looks like he’s dressed as a day-glo swimming instructor, but the music is crisp, intricately thought out, and delivered with a surprising lightness of touch. That the fascinating Soviet animations projected behind the band are often perfectly in sync shows that the bad have thought carefully about the onstage presentation, but they still manage to retain a whiff of that old live magic, peppering the music with realtime drumfills, double bass and Wii remote waggles. Neither brainlessly retro nor obsessed by dance sub-genre novelty, neither gimcrack cabaret performers nor wheyfaced techno dullards, Space Heroes are purveyors of a polished, elegant electro you never knew you craved, an oasis between endless torrents of bedroom boredom low rate MP3s and Dadstep dance revivalists. Weirdly, with their tight quality control and the nouse to make classically simple music feel new with subtle arrangements, the local band Space Heroes most resemble is Little Fish. But Space Heroes are better.
We Are Ugly But We Have The Music, the promoter’s laptop acid project, in some ways retreads the drawbacks of Kinetic Wardrobe (such as a fucking stupid name, for starters), offering solid, but unsurprising dance throwbacks delivered by an awkward looking man with a laptop. But, whether it’s because the set is slightly more uptempo, whether it’s because Fred’s drum sounds are that little bit crunchier, or whether it’s because he has a smiley T-shirt and a big old strobe, the We Are Ugly set is more satisfying. It’s true that he hasn’t really worked out a reason to hear this rave-robbing music live, rather than on record, but somebody shamelessly reliving their youth is rarely this entertaining. Having made some strong music, and salvaged a gig that looked likely to collapse, Fred must have finished the evening with a self-congratulatory grin, even if most of the assembled finished their evening at The Cellar.
For the record, The Cellar broke down like this: Coloureds, wonderful as ever; P-45 had nice varied ideas but it was a long an uneven set; Shitmat just seemed to be DJing some old Aphex tracks and things, not making his excellent breakcore live, which was fine but not what I hoped for; bed, very nice indeed.
WE ARE UGLY BUT WE HAVE THE MUSIC/ SPACE HEROES OF THE PEOPLE/ KINETIC WARDROBE, Psychotechnic League, Wheatsheaf 15/1/11
OK, it’s not snowing. But the other two major disasters that can hit a small time promoter have befallen the Psychotechnic League’s inaugural gig, namely the loss of two thirds of the lineup a few days before the event, and the presence of a similar, but more upscale event within jacking distance of the venue, in the shape of Audioscope’s Andrea Parker and Shitmat booking at The Cellar. It’s a tribute to promoting virgin Fred Toon that he not only managed to keep his gig afloat , but managed to draw in a decent, if not earth-shattering huddle of punters who were clearly enjoying the evening.
And as such, it would be harsh to be too critical of Kinetic Wardrobe, one of the stand in acts, left playing unusually early to encourage an attendance at both the Wheatsheaf and the Cellar, and certainly his late 90s, post-Orbient down-tempo techno set is full of well-turned moments, but some of the sampled gobbets (as The History Boys’ Mr Irwin might have put it, were he an aging raver) that stitch the set together are beyond hackneyed. What’s that? Fear & Loathing? Be still my beating heart. But in fairness, it’s a solid set, with some surprisingly approachable grooves, a couple of tracks with scratchy guitar parts sounding like lost De La Soul remixes.
Whatever you might expect from a band called Space Heroes Of The People, you probably don’t expect poise and delicacy, but this is exactly what the superlative duo delivers. Yes, the music is built on an insistent club thump, and Tim looks like he’s dressed as a day-glo swimming instructor, but the music is crisp, intricately thought out, and delivered with a surprising lightness of touch. That the fascinating Soviet animations projected behind the band are often perfectly in sync shows that the bad have thought carefully about the onstage presentation, but they still manage to retain a whiff of that old live magic, peppering the music with realtime drumfills, double bass and Wii remote waggles. Neither brainlessly retro nor obsessed by dance sub-genre novelty, neither gimcrack cabaret performers nor wheyfaced techno dullards, Space Heroes are purveyors of a polished, elegant electro you never knew you craved, an oasis between endless torrents of bedroom boredom low rate MP3s and Dadstep dance revivalists. Weirdly, with their tight quality control and the nouse to make classically simple music feel new with subtle arrangements, the local band Space Heroes most resemble is Little Fish. But Space Heroes are better.
We Are Ugly But We Have The Music, the promoter’s laptop acid project, in some ways retreads the drawbacks of Kinetic Wardrobe (such as a fucking stupid name, for starters), offering solid, but unsurprising dance throwbacks delivered by an awkward looking man with a laptop. But, whether it’s because the set is slightly more uptempo, whether it’s because Fred’s drum sounds are that little bit crunchier, or whether it’s because he has a smiley T-shirt and a big old strobe, the We Are Ugly set is more satisfying. It’s true that he hasn’t really worked out a reason to hear this rave-robbing music live, rather than on record, but somebody shamelessly reliving their youth is rarely this entertaining. Having made some strong music, and salvaged a gig that looked likely to collapse, Fred must have finished the evening with a self-congratulatory grin, even if most of the assembled finished their evening at The Cellar.
Monday, 3 January 2011
2010s - Thousands Of 'Em!
As is traditional at this time of year, I selected my favourite local releases from 2010, for the MIO roundup. It's all pretty exciting this year, with a special podcast, a roundup of selections from a handful of contributors, and a public vote, which makes interesting reading. Essentially, it all goes to show how much MIO has changed this year - and I don't just mean the URL. It's now a truly fantastic resource if you like Oxon music...and if you don't, then what are you doing reading this? No kittens or nudity on this corner of the 'net, you must have got lost.
Anyway, it transpires that I was rather more obtuse/poetic/inane/lateral/smug in my descriptions of the best releases, but there you go. I still think the Morse-Hebrides joint allusion is pretty sweet in the Stornoway summary, and I think I'm the first person to go public with a Cursing Force gag. Happy new year, and so on.
By the way, I have a few plans for 2011, which will intrigue me, but will probably eat up time and put to bed once and for all the concept of running this as an actual blog where things are, like, blogged? Oh my God, my internal monologue has gone, like, totally Californian? So, you can expect just a few updates here every month? Rest assured they shall be awesome, and in no way groody?
I have an odd desire to listen to "Valley Girl" about now?
Alphabet Backwards - Primark
Sherbet-fuelled melodic nugget about the death of the High Street. As unashamed pure pop lovers, the Alphabets wear their hearts on their sleeves (shirts: £1.35)
Borderville - Joy Through Work
Only Richard Ramage can come close to Borderville in terms of literate lyrics that sneak up on strong emotions whilst you're not looking. If The Relationships are a mythical village school fete, Borderville are a baroque Hallowe'en masque at the end of time.
D Gwalia - In Puget Sound
Like a creaky harmonium making a drunken hour long phone call to the Port Talbot Samaritans.
Samuel Zasada - Nielsen
Rich, full-bodied and peppery with unexpected subtleties. Or am I thinking of shiraz?
Space Heroes Of The People - Dancing About Architecture
More totalitarian techpop from the now drummerless duo. One day there'll be none of them left in the band, just an autonomous laptop. And it'll be great.
Spring Offensive - Pull Us Apart
The cowbell rehabilitation starts here!
Stornoway - Beachcomber's Windowsill
There's been a murder, Lewis: Stornoway have destroyed the opposition for best Oxford LP.
V/A - Round The Bends
Surprisingly coherent grab bag of 'head covers raises dosh for needy nippers. Therefore if you don't like it you're evil as well as stupid.
Vileswarm - The Shaman's Last Waltz
Frampton comes undead! Euhedral reads the rites.
Xmas Lights - Treading The Fine Line
Posthumous release by much missed emperors of isolationist metal, a great ear-scouring sign off for Oxford's original Cursing Force.
Anyway, it transpires that I was rather more obtuse/poetic/inane/lateral/smug in my descriptions of the best releases, but there you go. I still think the Morse-Hebrides joint allusion is pretty sweet in the Stornoway summary, and I think I'm the first person to go public with a Cursing Force gag. Happy new year, and so on.
By the way, I have a few plans for 2011, which will intrigue me, but will probably eat up time and put to bed once and for all the concept of running this as an actual blog where things are, like, blogged? Oh my God, my internal monologue has gone, like, totally Californian? So, you can expect just a few updates here every month? Rest assured they shall be awesome, and in no way groody?
I have an odd desire to listen to "Valley Girl" about now?
Alphabet Backwards - Primark
Sherbet-fuelled melodic nugget about the death of the High Street. As unashamed pure pop lovers, the Alphabets wear their hearts on their sleeves (shirts: £1.35)
Borderville - Joy Through Work
Only Richard Ramage can come close to Borderville in terms of literate lyrics that sneak up on strong emotions whilst you're not looking. If The Relationships are a mythical village school fete, Borderville are a baroque Hallowe'en masque at the end of time.
D Gwalia - In Puget Sound
Like a creaky harmonium making a drunken hour long phone call to the Port Talbot Samaritans.
Samuel Zasada - Nielsen
Rich, full-bodied and peppery with unexpected subtleties. Or am I thinking of shiraz?
Space Heroes Of The People - Dancing About Architecture
More totalitarian techpop from the now drummerless duo. One day there'll be none of them left in the band, just an autonomous laptop. And it'll be great.
Spring Offensive - Pull Us Apart
The cowbell rehabilitation starts here!
Stornoway - Beachcomber's Windowsill
There's been a murder, Lewis: Stornoway have destroyed the opposition for best Oxford LP.
V/A - Round The Bends
Surprisingly coherent grab bag of 'head covers raises dosh for needy nippers. Therefore if you don't like it you're evil as well as stupid.
Vileswarm - The Shaman's Last Waltz
Frampton comes undead! Euhedral reads the rites.
Xmas Lights - Treading The Fine Line
Posthumous release by much missed emperors of isolationist metal, a great ear-scouring sign off for Oxford's original Cursing Force.
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