Fragmentating Rhythm

 Reviewed a mystery record. Really liked a mystery record. Everything's coming up Jazzhouse.

BEATS & PIECES BIG BAND – BIG IDEAS (Efpi Records) 

Three times in this zine I’ve reviewed, not my favourite album, but a record I’d recently bought and never heard before. I’m not sure why, but it’s either that I’m wary of the process of public self-curation and the ossification of critical canons, or it’s that choosing a record to review is much more hassle than actually reviewing it. But at least previously I’ve had some sort of leg-up. I reviewed an album I’d bought from a band I’d seen live, I reviewed an album by a band of whom I was aware, and even at my biggest reach I reviewed an album by someone I’d never heard of, but it was a tribute to Charlie Parker and I definitely know who he was. 

But this time I’m reviewing an album by Beats & Pieces Big Band, about whom I know nothing, on a label that is a new name to me, that I bought from the charity shop recently. I can’t empirically prove it, but I inferred it had been donated by the same person who’d donated CDs by Django Bates and Dave Douglas that I’d already stuck in the basket, so I took it.  What’s a quid, eh? 

In this case, it’s an excellent price, this is a very strong album. Big bands can be wonderful, but one thing they’re not traditionally associated with is variation. They can be huge, classy cruise liners, cutting elegantly through a calm sea of legato melody, they can be smokily sophisticated, puffing up scented billows of muted trumpet atop which singers in evening dress may float serenely, and they can be clanking jazz factories, steam pouring from every corner, baritone saxes skronking at right angles like loose pistons...but once they set up a sound, they usually stay there. Beats & Pieces go on unusual dynamic journeys, and we get this in the very first bars, ‘Bake’ opening with a brassy blast which immediately drops to a simple 4/4 drum pattern, which is soon joined by some crackly digital thunder – if it was just a loose lead on the bass it sounds great, so they were right to leave it in – and then suddenly we’re in a wah-wah a Rhodes playground which is pure 70s cop show (OK, OK, or 70s porn). This is followed by ‘Yafw (Part III)’ which is an odd name for a second track, but even more odd is the machine-tooled systems music piano part, which sounds like ‘Take 5’ recomposed by robot Steve Reich. The third track is ‘Three’ (makes more sense) which pulls the rug from beneath us entirely, a rambunctious opening dropping to a slow bass wander, with tiny insectile trumpet parts, before slowly building to a riotous conclusion. 

I won’t bore you with an equivalent play-by-play of every track, but there are certainly lots of different pieces stitched together by this band – and there a few beats too, ‘Elf’ leaning towards a New Orleans funk strut, and ‘Anymore’ alternating between thoughtful, limpid piano and a chunky groove which is approximately doom trip-hop. Perhaps the biggest surprise is ‘Broken’, the eighth and last track on the CD which begins with slow glacial tones like one of ECM’s most ambient releases (though less reverby, natch). Unexpectedly a vocal enters, though she doesn’t sit atop the band like Ella or Frank would, she’s hidden in the middle of the mix, her tone unassuming and reticent, like a ghost asking for directions. The end of the track drifts quietly away, dissipating like mist. What a lovely, rich album. And funnily enough I popped into a charity shop just yesterday, and found another Beast & Pieces Big Band CD, which I snapped up for 99p. It was released in 2015, so come back in a few months, you never know... 

The Foggy Foggy Duplicate

Another post already? Yep, and we're looking at 2011 this time. The year march onwards at a speed of 12:1.

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER – REPLICA (Software) 

The irony of boundaries is that they look more logical the further away from them you are.  

Imagine someone being gutted at not being allowed to buy a single beer one day before their 18th birthday who would have shrugged 12 months before. By the same logic a hair metal band would be perfectly happy about what constitutes grindcore, whereas a Carcass acolyte might well laugh at you for suggesting that they should be filed under this heading, sniffily asking whether you’ve even heard of goregrind. Seems like the only thing more contentious than trying to define the stylistic edges of a genre is trying to pinpoint where it began. 

However, if you wanted to find one of the main tributaries that fed into what became known as vaporwave - God, how I hate leaving out that U, but I guess if there were ever a movement where tiny branding decisions were significant, vaporwave is it – watch a brief 2009 video by sunsetcorp, a YouTube account with a whole 8 videos to its name, entitled ‘Nobody Here’. It’s a tiny, misty loop of Chris De Burgh’s ‘Lady In Red’ accompanied by a video of a cheap feedback effect from the VHS era. It’s a beautiful piece of work, somehow heartbreaking because the source material is so hackneyed...but having said this, a fresh listen reveals that musically ‘Lady In Red’ is actually pretty great, though De Burgh’s vocal is pompous and preening, and the lyrics are trite (plus if he “hardly knows” the woman why is he surprised he’s “never seen” her looking so nice and so many people asking her to dance? Unless he’s a stalker. Which frankly I wouldn’t put past De Burgh (Legal note: I would put it past De Burgh)). It turns out that this video was the work of Daniel Lopatin, AKA Oneohtrix Point Never – I won’t tell you the derivation of this stupid name because it just makes it even stupider – and he released the audio with a generic matrix title on his 2010 album Chuck Person’s Eccojams Volume 1. This album effectively marked the dawn of vaporwave, though a thousand people will argue that I’ve got this wrong. From my own point of view, vaporwave is intriguing as it’s the first time a retro, nostalgia-driven cultural form was too recent for me: yes, I recognised what they were talking about, but I never experienced it. I didn’t use CD-ROMs at school, I’ve never played Ecco The Dolphin. I understood the glances backwards, but I didn’t feel them (the –algia suffix in “nostalgia” denotes pain, but my memories of the mid-90s Gap website, or whatever, are fully anaesthetised). 

Anyway, although the Chuck Person release got lots of trendy column inches (digital or otherwise) it was the following year’s Replica that made more of an impact (everything’s relative, mind, Lopatin is hardly Bono). It is primarily built on small, looped synth or piano elements, some of which are so short I’m certain they are supposed to evoke skipping CDs, enshrouded in slightly degraded tape sounds (though it’s all for textural effect, if you want to hear some true crumbling tape noise check out The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski from earlier in the millennium). Listening again now, I’m surprised at how lovely this album is, and it achieves something far beyond a knowing wink towards the reference points. 

Highpoints include the opener ‘Andro’ which features a tumble of percussion above a wistful fuzzy synth which sounds like the quiet intro to a happy hardcore banger, and as such is a little reminiscent of V/Vm’s Death of Rave project from a few years earlier; the minuscule fragments of Romantic piano that make up ‘Power of Persuasion’, which are overlaid by an epically melancholy Blade Runner synth; the big low vox-humana keys and loud crunchy eruptions of ‘Remember’, which sound like someone striking giant matches in a robot monastery; the title track’s little aspirated vocal sounds, which could equally be Ladysmith Black Mambazo or Rolf Harris; the little repeated moment in ‘Up’ which sounds like a snatch from a corporate ident, making us feel as though we’re digitally flying repeatedly between two vast chrome letters in a hangar made of clouds. If there’s a low point it’s the beat-em-up FX as semi-rhythmic percussion on ‘Child Soldier’, which become a tad annoying.  

The album ends with ‘Explain’, a pleasing group of FM-synthesis angels crooning. Eno’s first ambient album was subtitled Music for Airports, but this actually sounds like being stuck next to a tiny looping digital billboard in a busy duty-free perfume concession. Except, you know, really lovely. How Lopatin managed to take such annoyingly naff material and make it sing is the alchemical mystery at the heart of this record. This may be all tarnished rubbish, but I’ve never seen it shine so bright. 

It was amazing. 

 

 

 

 

 

Twinkle Pickers

Now that Nightshift has finished, I'm not really reviewing new records or gigs. I'm sure that something will arise to replace it, or I'll find another outlet, but in the interim all I'm writing is the retrospective's for LFTWY.  So here's one of them.

FUZZY LIGHTS – TWIN FEATHERS (Little Red Rabbit Records) 

I’m mystified when acts stick to a single format for releasing their material, and especially so when that format is vinyl. I like vinyl well enough, but what I like less is spending £25 on a big awkward record at a gig, manhandling the delicate thing back home on the bus, and then only ever playing it in a single room in the house. I’d say, balancing portability, durability, quality, and price, CD is the best format. Why wouldn’t a musician wish to cater for all preferences on the merch table in these straitened times? It’s crazy how often I’ve witnessed potential customers turning away when they discover that big platters are the only thing on offer – the concept that nobody plays CDs now is a big fat myth. 

I mention this because, in April, I saw Cambridgeshire’s Fuzzy lights play a great gig in Oxford, a huge, beautiful burst of “What if ‘Sister Ray’ were an English folk song?” fiddle-spiced intensity (if you’d like to read more about this gig, check out the write-up at https://nightshiftmag.co.uk/2026/may.pdf). I was doubly delighted to find that the table in the corner was groaning with CDs, dating back some years, and when there’s good merch, I purch. One of the two CDs I bought happened to come out in 2010, so it's time for one of my trademark first-listen reviews (you can rest assured nobody else in this publication is going to start doing something so stupid). 

Obscura: 2-note glock, 2-note guitar at a higher tempo, lambent strings, musical saw. This is very different to what I witnessed at the gig, it’s refined music, and almost sounds as though it could be part of the soundtrack to an episode of Poirot (one where the mystery he cannot solve is the human condition). 

Fallen Trees: This has a fuller sound, the strong violin lines and underlying chords have anslightly klezmeric, East European air. The vocals are soft but commanding, and could be a lost innocent child, or an ageless sorcerer. A long cymbal-thrashing crescendo has more of the DNA of the show I attended. 

Through Water: The guitar part is reminiscent of Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’, and this time we have a male voice. It sounds like a Mark Lanegan song lost in a snow blizzard. It’s quite lovely. 

The Museum Song: The last track felt chilly, this one is more like the heat haze from summer tarmac. The violin and guitar are as great as previous tracks, but I’m noticing the bassist now for the first time, who has some nicely intertwining little lines. The drums are malleted and unobtrusive. This may be about a museum but as there are no vocals, it’s hard to be certain. Ooh, gorgeous little pizzicato overdub at the end. 

Lucida: Harmonium, and quite gorgeous silky violin lines that sound as though they’re about to go into ‘The Lark Ascending’.  I had no idea that Rachel Watkins could also play this sort of sophisticated chamber folk as well as the raucous wails I witnessed live. 

Rituals: With it’s strummed acoustic and hushed male voice this is perhaps a tad too polite. Frankly something weighty and more ritualistic wouldn’t go amiss. The saw makes a welcome return though, and once the trombone comes in it picks up. This possibly didn’t need to be the longest track on the album at 8.13.  

Shipwrecks: Less the sound of vessels scuppered on vicious rocks, more a chill wind blowing between the spars of a long-destroyed vessel on a bleak shoreline. Although I typed that before the last two minutes absolutely exploded into post-rock noise,so what do I know? 

Slowing Time: Like a dewy-eyed folk version of Slint. 

The Sea And The Weather: A yielding, fuzzy ditty to end. I might have expected the crescendo of two tracks ago to conclude the album, but perhaps that’s too obvious. 

Well, that was a lovely listen. I guess not as viscerally exciting as the concert, and I suspect the more recent albums, and maybe the record sticks to a narrow furrow, but there ae many worse ways to spend an hour of bank holiday Sunday than this. Though you can doubtless enjoy this album whenever you like. And, hell, I’ll even let you off if you have it on tape. 

  

Nighty Night

Here it is, my last ever review for Nightshift. Just last night I was in a sold-out Bully to celebrate Ronan's achievements with the mag, and his impact on the local music scene. I don't know where I'll find an editor who is so open and supportive and who likes my sense of humour, writing style and opinions that sometimes push against his own. Actually, I do: nowhere. Sad days.

I may have been a tad generous with this review, but what the hell, last ever, let's all be chums.

LUNAR KITES – THE DOOMSTAR CHRONICLES (Self-release) 

 “This is my last ever Nightshift review, I hope it’s not meandering strums from some bloke lamenting how his girlfriend has sodded off, or a sloppy indie band drawling about fights at the chip shop when you know they rarely leave the public school common room.” 

“No. It’s about space wizards.” 

“Result!” 

Yes, as befits a record called The DoomStar Chronicles, this is overblown, preposterous space rock. The opener ‘Interstellar Shout’ is so silly and puffed up it could be waving its arms outside a car dealership, but it’s also red giant-sized fun, from the morse code intro to the impeccably pitched inhuman calm of the AI-hostess spoken section, to the chest-beating chorus banging on about “destiny and fate”.   

Lunar Kites are not subtle, existing somewhere between the wonkier end of Eurovision and Ozric Tentacles in panto, but one can be monstrously unsubtle and still be a great listen, that’s the beauty of pop music. ‘Avoid All Droids’ is possible the pick of the bunch, a Hawkwind hoedown with a brilliantly deranged cyborg repeating the title, but there’s plenty to pick out elsewhere, like the 80s ambient intro to ‘The Final Voyage Of The P7E’, the spacious Dave Gilmour guitar on ‘Rivers’, or the bassline to ‘Pink Lounge’, which sounds like Primus-funk in a syrup jacuzzi. Maybe the foursquare Floyd of ‘Heavy Air’ is inessential, but over all The DoomStar Chronicles is the perfect grooving soundtrack for an intergalactic road trip. Two thumbs (and an few alien pseudopods) up! 

Dropper's Delight

A fun one. Russ reviewed my choice of Scott Walker's The Drift, which he didn't enjoy but did respect.  I reviewed his choice of The Pipetes, and I...well, read on...

THE PIPETTES – WE ARE THE PIPETTES, Memphis Industries 

Russell and I have decided to review each other’s alums this issue. Please do not search for a reason. We are merely seeking to stave off the ennui of existence. That means I’m reviewing an album I’ve never heard, though the act name rang a bell. It’s a good name, isn’t it? Conjuring 60s girl groups and Spector-stable teenpop, but also sounding like a band made up of science teachers (reminds me that I’ve always thought that a great name for a band of off-duty middle managers is The Lanyards). The sound matches the name, being plasticky B-52s neo-trash garage with a girly punk edge - think “Shampoo are in the sixth form now”. The opening pairing of ‘We Are The Pipettes’ and ‘Pull Shapes’ is winning and frothy, and ‘Why Did You Stay?’ adds a little more substance, with grown-up strings, some vintage Cliff guitar and a few ‘Leader of the Pack’ backing vocals. ‘Dirty Mind’ is a little generic, though, and most notable for threatening to go into Maxine Nightingale’s ‘Right Back Where We Started From’. 

‘Judy’ is a highlight, a mid-80s Shakin’ Stevens song with some Grange Hill lyrics. It’s not a huge step away from Pulp, with the lyrics retelling a kitchen-sink microdrama. However there are a couple of tracks like ‘A Winter’s Sky’ on the album that are kind of forgettable; the trouble with pasticheing these 60s girl groups is that they usually had absolutely smoking vocals, whereas The Pipettes, for all their charm, are more Bananarama than The Supremes when it comes to vocal chops. And this means the tunes have to be top notch to stand out, whereas ‘Tell Me What You Want’s is merely fine, sounding like a late-80s Phil Collins number (it’s those strings) I’d much rather have the ‘Hey, Mickey’ steal that is ‘Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me’ any day. 

I’m listening on YouTube, which is not normal for me as a hard-media evangelist – Jesus, the adverts – but it does mean that I can tell that ‘Because It’s Not Love (But It’s Still A Feeling)’ was a single, as there’s a video to watch. The tune is a nice soda-pop hop, with handclaps and everything, and the visuals are bright and cheerful, even if they look like an unadventurous Eurovision staging from 2014 (I think it’s the strange box the girls keep getting in). Suitably for a single it has the richest vocals so far on the album, with some pleasing harmonies. 

‘Sex’ is less fun that the name threatens, but ‘One Night Stand’ is more bouncily enjoyable, and at 1.40 is a perfect length for music of this sort (insert joke about average length of sexual encounters here). Ooh, ‘ABC’ is another single. But it misses a trick by animating the band members rather than capturing their natural charm - seriously this looks like the credits of some knock-off Channel 5 version of Eurotrash which doesn’t have any rude bits. The song is decent and sprightly, despite having an awkward line in the chorus that is at least a syllable too long, but calling your throwback teen-pop song ‘ABC’ is tempting fate considering that’s one of the true greats: might as well call it ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ or ‘Beethoven’s 9th'. Oh, wait, is it the end of the LP already? ‘I Love You’ is rather sweet, and then we’re done. Well, that was most enjoyable. Perhaps there were about three tracks that felt inessential, but it’s hardly the first album I can say that about, and considering only one track here breaks the three-minute mark, these missteps don’t last long. Nice one, Russ, thanks for the recommendation, good unpretentious pop music. I’m off to buy a pencil case I so I can write the band’s name on it in biro. 

Zu Format

Another from LFTWY, we're up to 2009 here.  The 2010 issue is out now, if you have a couple of quid doing nothing.

ZU – CARBONIFEROUS (Ipecac) 

16 or 17 years ago my friend James announced he’d booked Italian heavy prog-noise act Zu to play in Oxford. It was a last minute arrangement, he’d missed the deadlines for mention in publications, but he threw up a poster or two in the venue. It was a Sunday night. About 12 people attended. James lost loads of money (somehow, the fact that he’d bought the three of them towels for their rider tickled me more than is reasonable). Still, despite that unfortunate red entry in his ledger, the other 11 punters and I had a wonderful time with their baritone sax-led chunk punk action (it was a baritone, but I seem to recall that they, or possibly James, called their style “death bassoon”). 

This 2009 album is as good a way of experiencing their sound as any, and a fascinating sound it is, lead-heavy but fleet-footed simultaneously, squealing sax flayed above fat rock rhythms spattered with digital detritus. They can thump, they can churn, and they can, on occasion, even boogie, dropping discoid hi-hat rhythms into the midst of the bludgeon (and listen to the bass in ‘Beata Viscera’, it’s positively funk-adjacent). ‘Cthonian’ is typical, sounding like a rusty android stretching in the morning whilst a pile driver smashes concrete just outside the window. But, then, maybe ‘Carbon’ is also typical, foregrounding the snorting sax to create a hyperactive grot-jazz hoedown in hell. It’s a surprisingly varied album, with a track like ‘Axion’ being both a head-down speed-industrial pummelling and a pensive film noir cue. 

‘Soulympics’ may have an unforgivably naff title, but the glossolalia void growls are gripping, and the pylon-thrum bass sounds equal parts Fugazi and (very early) Therapy? There are even some nearly melodic vocals over the top. ‘Mimosa Hostilis’ sounds like a forklift with diarrhoea. ‘Orc’ sounds like a canine mage casting a spell on some crabs in a rubber glade. I can’t judge sounds any more. The record has destroyed my ears. Play it again. Turn it up. Pass me the towels.  

Rodent All Terrain Armoured Transport?

 The 2008 issue of LFTWY might be my favourite, it has a couple of very interesting pieces, plus this...

RATATAT – LP3 (XL Recordings) 

I’m sure we all have mystery records on our shelves, for which we can find no provenance. Did I buy this? Did someone give it to me? Did I bag it in a forgotten tombola? I own no fewer than 4 CDs by Ratatat, despite having no idea whom they might be nor any recollection of procuring them. At best guess, they were promos sent out for review (though not to me, of that I’m certain). They’re pretty decent, mind, which is why they’re still on the shelf today. This album – I'm guessing their third, but I’ve been caught by that particular Wilbury trick before, so I’m staying non-committal – fits in a post-trip-hop world, having down-tempo groovy sections, glossy bouncy pop sections, and the odd ersatz rock move. It’s not very serious, but neither is it actually funny; it’s referential, but not really satirical or critical; it’s like library music for reluctant readers. 

There isn’t really much depth to this album, but the surfaces are most attractive. ‘Shiller’, the opening number, sounds like someone trying to play the X-Files theme on some toys (imagine if someone had described a Plaid track to someone who just woke up from a 40-year coma, this is probably what they’d come up with), but then some cheeky chorus guitar comes in, and it sounds like a section from the very end of Tubular Bells. Similar studio-bound unrocking guitar sounds crop up regularly across the album, nasally insistent, and sometimes with purring flange effects, and it all gives an unusually handmade edge to what is ostensibly a machine-made record. Random aside: the name ‘Shiller’ makes us imagine Sean Connery appearing on Blind Date. 

Some tracks feel like market-trader knockoffs of contemporaneous dance acts, with ‘Falcon Jab’ giving us restrained Nile Rodgers guitar and sort of Frampton-talky-guitar-thing sounds over a chunky beat recalling Daft Punk, whilst ‘Flynn’ is a slinky confection, halfway between vintage soundtrack cues by Roger Roger and winking dancefloor pop by Röyksopp. ‘Dura’, with its harpsichord and ambling beat seems like a clear nod to Dre’s Eminem productions. 

There are occasional tunes with rhythms featuring clipped percussion and arpeggiating bleeps, placing them somewhere between an Eski-era grime beat and the Donkey Kong 64 soundtrack - check out ‘Mirando’ and ‘Bird Priest’ for examples. Other tracks lean on less electronic references, such as ‘Mi Viejo’ with its tabla, acoustic guitar and Herbie Flowers-ish bass, or the Western chase theme played by a baseball organ which is ‘Gypsy Threat’, whereas ‘Imperials’ is more atypical, coming across like an RnB jam in a bamboo junkyard, and ‘Mumtaz Khan’ sounds like Mothra doing Boyz II Men, before a that guitar comes in again, and threatens to go into the ‘Hotel California’ solo (I promise I’m not making this up).  

This is probably not the favourite 2008 album of anyone in the whole world, including Ratatat, but it’s a breezy, colourful bit of fun. I just listened to it twice in a row, and enjoyed it even more the second time. If that trend continues it will be the greatest 42 minutes in the history of humanity by next weekend... 

Planet Municipal

My second review from the latest Nutshaft. I'm listening to Rossini's Armida, of which I'd never heard before. I think I know why, it's not essential. Still, Callas, innit?

WARRINGTON-RUNCORN NEW TOWN DEVELOPMENT PLAN/ U/ CITIES & MEMORY, Divine Schism, Bully, 19/3/26 

Cities & Memory is more a global field recording fellowship than a musical act, though founder Stuart Fowkes (previously of The Evenings, Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element, Listing Ships and other inventive bands) shares his own material from the vast archive. The tagline is “remixing the world one sound at a time”, but this set might surprise casual listeners with its smooth cohesive electronica: yes, the stories behind the sampled elements are fascinating, but the elegantly spangling synths would work in isolation, from the controlled crunch of B12-style techno at one end of the set to the 80s Tangerine Dream sequencer swirls at the other. 

Turns out we’re not the only people who missed U’s presence on the posters for this gig, mistaking their credit for a painterly squiggle in Divine Schism’s house style. Anonymity probably suits them, though, as the shadowy U controls the sonics from the darkness of the crowd, whilst a laptop independently projects some impressive visuals. Musically it’s one long collage of folk tunes, archival documentary discussions, abstract tones, and a few oddities – we certainly don’t expect extracts from 14th-century allegorical poem Piers Plowman at electronica gigs – with similarly smooshed together vintage images giving a Ghost Box vibe. There’s a spectral feel throughout, both from the hauntological vintage TV snippets and the tales of actual paranormal jiggery-pokery, and the set is somewhere between a British take on Irish folk-doomers From The Bogs Of Aughiska and a 70s schools programme broadcast from Borley Rectory. 

Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan continue the visual immersion, treating us to a non-stop barrage of colour-saturated film clips showing that brief period of Modernist urban optimism from the 60s and 70s: brutalist architecture, shiny automated factories, and social projects, many of which are now crumbling, literally or otherwise. Fittingly, the music is all Tomorrow’s World techno, big clunky beats underneath stately and slightly sinister synth lines and arpeggios. At its best the music captures the retro-futurist mystery of Aphex Twin’s ‘On’, or sounds like the Radiophonic Workshop having a crack at EBM, but by the end of a very long set one more slab of mid-paced John Carpenter industrial plodding does become wearing and we feel like we’re stuck on an endless concrete ring road . The austere aesthetic is strong, but we wish that this plan had included a bit more development.  

  

 

 

 

 

 

DScalations

As it's the penultimate issue, I have done two reviews for the May Nightshift, here's the first.

HARESS/ CARAUSIAS ARISE!/ CODIAD Y MÔR, Divine Schism, Common Ground, 9/4/26 

Codiad Y Môr is Ibs, a member of Spaceman & The Spaceband, space apparently being the driving force behind his acoustic guitar pieces. Each delicate instrumental is sparse and simple, referencing British 60s folk and US mountain plucking, but also perhaps the calm stillness of composers like Satie and Mompou. We’d call the spare opening piece the bare skeleton of a John Fahey number, except this makes it sound too sturdy and resilient. Maybe it’s American primitivism’s lymphatic system. Some will find the music too elementary, and a broken string seems to break Ibs’s concentration, but on this quiet, chilly evening the "If John Renbourn studied ikebana” vibe fits perfectly. 

At first Carausias Arise! continues the cold elegance, windswept synth sounding like a diffuse Vangelis piece. But it’s noteworthy that Dafydd Roberts resembles Harry Hill as Geography teacher, because there’s a lofi surrealism to the set. We get the approachable abstraction of 90s ambience à la Pete Namlook, and playfully wibbly improv electronica – a lovely section sounds like pitch-bent babies gurgling – but this is only half the story. One minute Roberts has a patch cable in his mouth, another he’s rubbing a handheld spring reverb device on a piece of slate, but it’s the vocals that are truly mystifying, being tremulous, high-pitched and stately, like a monk swallowing his tongue. When he intones “Take a seed, expose it to the sun” it’s like Scott Walker played by a Gregorian gonk. Two extra-musical moments sum up this set: someone takes photos from the crowd with a Nintendo DS, a self-consciously odd hardware choice, and at the set’s end an eerie drifting tone is drowned out by the venue’s creaky toilet door: absurd, yet slightly sinister. 

Shropshire’s Haress apparently open with ‘Variations on a Toilet Door’, a thicket of bowed cymbals and softly grating guitar tones, but they settle to a more straightforward post-rockers-do-folk structure. This is not to say that they are not excellent, layering malleted drums and entwined guitars over shruti drones – the second track boasts a lovely intricate guitar halfway between English folk dance and gnawa blues, a sort of Moroccan morris. Elsewhere we have folk rock with doom logic, as if we're at Zombie Cropredy. Vocals are added sparingly, and all the stronger for that. The last song’s the live debut of an outstandingly noisy bluster, dropping to a haunted but jaunty coda about “Somerset girls” which sounds like Bellowhead in the underworld. Get us a flagon of spectral scrumpy and a demonic DS charger, we don’t want this unusual evening to end. 

What Do You Mean, Myth?

If you're following along (which you're not), you may have noticed (which you didn't) that this is my review for the 2007-themed edition of LFTWY, but we've not yet had the 2006 review. That's because I haven't got a copy of the 2006 issue, though the editor will get me one some time, I hope. Obviously, I could still upload my review, but I like to do so once I've read the whole magazine. So, the 06 review will pop up at some point in the future, don't worry (which you already don't).

 !!! - MYTH TAKES (Warp) 

I’m never quite sure about artists who are celebrated because their work is primarily of interest to their peers – you know, a comedian’s comedian, a poet's poet. Nobody ever heard “Oh, he’s a great chef, but only other chefs like his soup, everyone else thinks it tastes like surgical stockings in brine”. Not trying to be a reverse snob about it, but every time I hear about a guitarist’s guitarist all I unearth is someone with honed chops and no musical sense. So, whilst I could say that this album lives on the strength of the bass, it’s not just for Pastorius anoraks (I actually like Jaco Pastorius, though, even if some of his fans are tedious, so let’s say Mark King). 

!!! claimed their name could be anything you wanted so long as it was a single syllable repeated three times. My friend Mark called them Jeff Jeff Jeff, whereas my proposal at the time is not for publication in a polite zine. Bloody stupid concept, really, but they were a good band, taking the punk funk that was so influential in the noughties, but keeping it sleek, psych, and danceable – more ESG than Gang Of Four, in short. This album, as befits a Warp signing, is controlled, rhythmic, and inventive – though when I saw them live at a Swiss festival around this time they were surprisingly lackadaisical and silly, one of them spending as much time waggling one naked boob at the audience as playing.   

The title track has plenty of groovy no-wavey NYC cool but takes it to a midwest prairie, complete with eerily calling fauna, and Morricone-ish guitar chords. ‘Must Be The Moon’ is a thin pseudo-hip hop beat, a bit like a Tone Loc tune played by a payphone, with blowhard sex-conquest lyrics which are a bit like ‘Cool For Cats’ crossed with early Beasties. Then the slimy, eel-like bass comes in, slinking along and the magic happens, ushering in an industrial dub second half with reverby clangs that are like asthmatic aluminium catching its breath – a few tracks on the album do this, coming off like Jamaican 12” tunes, with a standard first half, and a “version” tagged onto the end. ‘Bend Over Beethoven’ pulls a similar trick whilst nodding towards 23 Skidoo (and is a brilliant title, you have to admit). 

‘A New Name’ has falsetto, but is otherwise a bit generic. ‘Heart Of Hearts’ is a rigid rhythmic grid, but there’s lots to unpack: perhaps it’s like a sonic nonogram puzzle (in which case, solving it would probably reveal a tin of Pabst and a beanie, perfect for the noughties hipster). There’s a lattice of guitar and synth, with that bass somehow anchoring things and shifting like sands at the same time. Really nice left-hand clav too.  This is one that’s most like LCD Soundsystem, who were trendy gods at the time.  

The vocal on ‘Sweet Life’ is a bit uninspired, and the cymbals clatter somewhat messily, but the pointillist synth bass is lovely. ‘Yadnus’ has quite a “standard” guitar strum structure, like it’s related to a Stones tune on some level. ‘Break In Case Of Anything’ boasts spacy wah-wah guitar, and maybe a smidge of Can in its relentless round-the-toms rhythm. There are really nice horns, coupled with dub-siren bleeps. The record rides into the sunset with ‘Infinifold’, uncharacteristically groove-free, with male and female vocals in unison. It has a little touch of melancholy, though not too much... nothing to stop some light boob-jiggling if the mood took. 

I would heartily recommend this album, as well as the others they made for Warp around this time (I have no idea what later releases are like, apparently the last was in 2022). !!! may not be a band to change your life, but is this highly enjoyable, tactile and intelligent music? Yes yes yes.  

Two For Just Over A Tenor

Kind of an odd one, this. I thought the EP was basically nice but harmless, and had a review sketched out in my head, but when I gave the record the final (virtual) spin before writing, I found I really liked some of it. Had I given myself pseudo-Stockholm Syndrome? Or was I confusing familiarity with enjoyment? Or had I just listened long enough to let the artistry seep through into my consciousness? Bit of all three, probably.

ALTO ALTO – ALTO ALTO (Self-release) 

This EP pulls an enjoyable trick, sounding restrained and sinister yet also coming off as energetic and emotional. ‘Broken Fin’ opens the collection with a metronomic rhythm, wheedling lead guitar, and vocals that are somehow both an impassioned cry and a sneering playground chant (“I am running out of air”), giving a strong flavour of Psychedelic Furs, with an aftertaste  of Echo & The Bunnymen. ‘Honeycomb’ also starts with everything under tight rein, building on a hobbled yet sprightly beat which might remind Oxford pop archivists of Spring Offensive, though it lets go a little more as the song progresses, ending with some insistent guitar riffing.   

The rest of the EP doesn’t quite live up to this pairing, but ‘Mediterranean Sun’ and ‘Spanish Procession’ are still warmly winning melodic indie tunes, although the latter doesn’t have the fleetness of foot of the former, and the lyrics to both sound as though they were cribbed from a Hoseasons brochure. ‘Lift Your Heart’ is a suitably rousing/ not rousing finish, a discreetly churning guitar pop tune with long wafting lead lines like the work of an introspective British Wannadies. Despite this being a self-titled release, it feels as though Alto Alto never quite show their full hand, and the record is all the better for it.  

Motion Colour Seen

Some of this was not published in the latest Nightshift, presumably for reasons of space. Inevitably, it was the more negative elements that were omitted, so if you're craving some light criticism, you're in luck, bucko.

MOVEMENTS, Bully/ Truck Store/ Library/ James St Tavern, 14/2/26 

Mount St Helen open this multi-venue all-dayer, but they may also have opened a black hole in the corner of The Bully, so huge and dense is their sound. From a rich drone swelling behind malleted cymbals at the outset the music continues to build constantly, as do the blinding and intricately programmed strobes. The ostensible reference point might be the blustery noughties indie of Editors and Interpol, but really they’re more like the most intense chunks of Mogwai colliding epically with the vastest peaks of Waters-era Floyd. Talk about stadium-ready, Mount St Helen make Kanadia look like a back-yard skiffle combo, and in Aris they have a born frontman from whom it’s hard to look away.  

Down the road at Truck Store, Philippe Nash’s mournful grunge-influenced balladry is a strong contrast, with spidery guitar twisting around sepulchral cello. Their final number reminds us of Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way’, and is rather lovely. Later in the same room, Mazawattee’s stripped back acoustic pop is also delightful, with a brace of excellent vocalists, and if their breezy songs are only an artisanal macchiato away from ‘Kumbaya’ they’re still the band whose tunes we’re humming at the bus stop hours later. Genevieve Miles offers a similarly light and airy set of pop tunes at the Bully, albeit in a somewhat chunkier format, with plenty of guitar and keyboard to bolster the sound. She has a pleasingly pure, smiling voice that reminds us of Edie Brickell, but the overall effect is cloying after a while. Perhaps this is music best experienced in a sunny festival field, not on a cold February afternoon, even one warmed by the romance of Valentine’s Day, as about a third of the acts jokily point out (you’re right, this does get old very quickly). Joining them in camp Fine But Forgettable are Fawlers, who open The Library’s stage with a set of cohesive and well played tracks with a mid-90s feel – are they Foo Fighters playing Shed Seven, or Cast channelling Semisonic? - that would probably make someone’s day but which fails to make any meaningful impression on us. 

Objectively, Slow Lane and Suspire aren't as good, being messier round the edges and less fully formed, but both have enough character to make them far more fun. The former bring a shoegaze fuzz and just a dash of Stone Roses swager to their chunky rock whilst the latter bundle through their songs with the energy of a good-natured punch-up behind a youth club. No such criticism could be made of Premium Leisure, probably the most skilled set of musicians on the bill, who could doubtless play anything. We suppose with that much talent on tap they might stretch further than lightly countryish jams and 70s AM rock that falls between Gram Parsons and Three Dog Night, but it’s still an enjoyable ride, especially the breathy vocals which evoke both Marc Bolan and Evan Dando. Bristol’s Grack Mack & The Pack could challenge Premium Leisure in a battle of the chops though, and we love the complex but restrained jazz patterns the drummer brings to their smooth folky pop, as well as the strident yet soft singing which is pure Dolores O’Riordan. We just wish the band could let themselves go and be a little less bloody nice and bleeding tasteful. Hopefully they popped down to the James Street Tavern to see Max Blansjaar, another act peopled with technically top-notch musicians, but whose set is, as ever, bursting with tunes and charm. 

Also at James Street are Shock Horror, a band we’ve loved watching evolve from grunge slobs through slacker experimentalists to the assured act we see today, making music that is spacious and controlled, introspective but in your face, angular and enveloping by turns. At one point a taut, chilly rhythm reminds us of cerebral post-rockers Ui, which we never would have predicted from the band’s early shows. Tonight they surprisingly have more in common with Baby Maker than you might expect. Ruairi Kester has added a second member to the band – it takes two to make babies, as he points out – but the set retains the understated wit and low-slung grooves of the solo shows. Sometimes the music sounds like a bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived take on industrial - Up-All-Nightzer Ebb, perhaps – whereas at others there’s an impressive head-nodding groove under the lo-fi, nerdy exterior, and crowd favourite ‘Rather Be In Berlin’ sounds like a band we’ve invented called Sebadub. More explicitly infectious dancefloor action from a very different duo, No Worries If Not, who meld sleek French house and vibrant Italo disco with very English smut and irony. Every onstage movement, every eyebrow arch is meticulously planned and choreographed, but they still exude joyful energy. 

A contender for favourite set of the day comes from Manchester’s Sweet Gene. Their drummer sports a Geese T-shirt, and like that feted band they take vintage Radiohead vibes, throw in a bit of Talking Heads artfulness, and then hone the resultant alloy ruthlessly to a razor’s edge – if this set were a physical entity, you wouldn’t be allowed to take it through airport security. We love exciting, unexpected new music forms, but sometimes a rock fourpiece playing like their lives depend on it in a tiny pub basement is more than enough. We’re not sure exactly what the name Movements implies, but Sweet Gene certainly made our heart beat faster (you’re right, a Valentine’s Day joke here would have been cheesy). 

 

Swarm of Locus

Second review from the latest Nightshift. These are my thoughts on some of the acts at December's In A Different Place all-dayer, and a bunch of this copy was interleaved in with the editor's review. This actually sort of stands up as cohesive on its own, though.

IN A DIFFERENT PLACE, Bully, 14/12/25 

Opening an all-dayer can be a tough task, but Antonia’s song ‘White Rabbit’ eases us into a long day with gorgeous wispy candyfloss sweetness. The whole of her lilting set is bright and delicate like sunshine through clouds, and our only criticism it’s that she’s too self-deprecating. 

A good festival will always feature some choice covers, but who had vintage hymn ‘He Who Would Valiant Be’ on their bingo card? The setting of Bunyan’s 17th-century verses popped up as part of Pea Sea’s long opening number, along with fluent guitar runs somewhere between the folky intelligence of Richard Thompson and the chilly elegance of Papa M. ‘Silloth Green’ is a more concise tune, gnarly poetic lyrics against chugging guitar giving indie Dylan vibes.

Barrelhaus had to cancel their place at both the first two IADP festivals. They’re here today though. They play one of their melodic riffing rock tunes and it sounds amazing. They start a second. They start it again. After the third time the backing track packs up, the set is abandoned – for Christ’s sake, can someone join the band on drums so they can play in 2026? 

Part of a strong scene is that is provides fertile ground for collaboration, and Ian de Quadros is probably Oxford’s premier sonic connector, so it’s no surprise that a six-song Tiger Mendoza set features 4 guest vocalists. Emma Hunter, Octavia Freud and Helen Pearson all feature elsewhere on today’s bill, but it’s a treat to see Mark, Restructure’s erstwhile ranter onstage again, giving some revolutionary Sleaford mob provocation over a DJ Shadowy beat. On the big Bully stage Tom Martin’s restless visuals have never looked better. 

There’s plenty of party music in the world, but not enough hangover music. The Pink Diamond Revue have cornered this market, their menacing instrumental rock a mixture of acid house wooziness, elementary thumping drums and Duane Eddy guitar twangs which feels euphoric at first, but soon curdles to a queasy paranoia. In case it’s not obvious, this is a very good thing. 

Zarbi also loves the sour times. Their early work was all post-dubstep spaciousness but today the reverbed vocals and scuzzy guitar bury shoegaze sonics beneath a mushroom mulch. Led Zep gave us ‘Misty Mountain Hop’ but Zarbi – wrapped in a dressing gown like the Arthur Dent of underground soundscaping – sounds more like a trudging ‘Mirkwood March’. 

There’s a constant pull between uplifting pop and intense rock to In-Flight Movie’s set. The guitar, synth and drums trio sound like Joy Division one moment, and Numan the next, and even manage to chart a course from Depeche Mode to Explosions In The Sky in one song. This powerful and energetic set might be their best we’ve witnessed, with clear, yearning vocals. 

31hours played the first IADP, and Jo from that band now trades under the name The Cloud, adding his supple falsetto to glitchy guitar and synth parts, sometimes gnarly, with drums as crunchy as Corn Flake pilates, and sometimes surprisingly sweet and jazzy. Inevitably there’s a Radiohead connection, but the reference point that really feels best is noughties Björk, with intricate ideas bombarding songs but never destroying their tuneful catchiness.  

Many people may find Silent Weapon the event's most challenging act, but not us, we love the sound of pummelling industrial electronics that sound like electrified girders sliding down a digital scree slope onto irascible hornets. Anyway, once you attune yourself to the demonic barrage, much of the music can be oddly blissful especially when arpeggios spiral beneath white noise waves. 

Octavia Freud claims that one song tonight is “existential electronica” but it’s a damned sight more fun that this implies. His lairy godfather Mancunian diatribes are sweetened by Emma Hunter’s lovely vocals and bolstered by Ian de Quadros’s chunky guitar. The setlist ranges from therapy to alcohol abuse, but it’s ‘No Venue Situation’ that feels most apposite: “sing our songs until we’re famous”, he sings, but in this room, at least, he already is. 

End on a high is strong advice, so the buoyant sprightliness of Balkan Wanderers is the perfect end to a busy day. Some of the pounding rhythms would feel at home in a speed metal song, but the elegant lightness of the rest of the band keeps the music joyous. Recently recruited vocalist Becs has slotted in seamlessly, and the accordion has given new textures, but it’s still Clare Heaviside’s eloquent clarinet that steals the show. Ending an all-dayer can be a tough task, but only because after bobbing about to ‘Sleep Around’, the best pubic lice ditty ever, nobody wants the band to stop for the night.  Or possibly ever. 

 

Peachy Keen

Nowadays there's no January Nightshift, so as the writing period stretched over two months, I wrote two reviews (I think the maths works out). Here's the first, a review of a very strong EP, go seek it out.

HANNAH LOU LARSEN – PEACH PINE OCEAN (self-release) 

There’s a tendency towards low-level sexism in music criticism in which even positive reviews of female artists tend toward the diminutive, annexing work in a paddock of ornamental prettiness which keeps it away from the citadel of Big Artistic Statements. This is the world in which a towering, mercurial talent like Björk can still be routinely called a charming elfin chanteuse. So, if we describe Hannah Lou Larsen’s new EP as “enchanting”, we’re not using it the way a lounge lizard might describe his Belgravia hostess, but to express how this record feels like a magic(k)al ritual - yes, it’s delicate and airy at times, but the references to the natural world, but lyrically and via field recordings sliced and sprinkled throughout, say more about powerful elemental forces than well-kept gardens and scenic views. 

‘Move Like Rivers’ is the poppiest offering, but even this is unhurried and incantatory, like the mechanical ghost of a Bat For Lashes tune, and shares the mysterious and slightly disorientating air of the whole collection: the title track is underpinned by reverby flaps that sound like someone riffling playing cards in a black hole and which are the sonic equivalent of a confusing labyrinth (it also has some gorgeous snatches of clarinet, as if caught from across a chilly moor, reminding us of Mark Hollis’s glorious solo album). 

‘Memorials’ is amniotic folk, a limpid, melodic autoharp strum, with intimate vocals reminiscent of Stina Nordenstam, whereas ‘I’m Sorry’ foregrounds electronica, giving us a brittle synthesised pizzicato skirmish that sounds like Alex Kidd snapping icicles in a cavern. The vocals here, with their slightly wry tone and subtle treatments, bring to mind Laurie Anderson. Listen to this EP and you’ll fall under its spell...but just maybe not in the cosy way, more in the way in which you check your soul is still all there. 

Look Deep Into The Parker

Seems like a good while since I last posted a review, but we have 3 in quick succession.  First up, here's my take on an album released in 2005. Don't worry if you've not heard of it, I hadn't either.

FRANCESCO CAFISO & STRINGS – A TRIBUTE TO CHARLIE PARKER (Umbria Jazz/ Giotto Music)

The closer we get to the present day, the less likely it is that an album has a significant presence in my mind. I turned 30 in 2005, and from this point onwards my income  allowed me to purchase so many more records than I once could have imagined, whilst the time I have to actually play them has withered, so twenty-first century albums just impinge less on my psyche, no matter how good they are. When it comes to the cultural experience, distant landmarks loom so much larger than those in proximity. It’s like perspective in reverse. 

So, once again for this issue I’ve just grabbed a CD from the little pile of recent ultra-cheap random charity–shop purchases which happened to have been released in 2005. This review will be written as I spin the disc. As with the Ladytron review I’ve not heard this record, but unlike Ladytron, I’ve never even heard of the artist.  The first question that springs to mind is how one might create a tribute to Parker. His big achievement was in his technique and the fluidity of his playing, the way he brought new ideas to jazz, and it seems that a tribute to that would either involve copying solos note-for-note (a bit pointless), or similarly bringing your own character to standards (in which case, it’s not meaningfully connected to Parker). Even with Hendrix, another great who brought a riotously fresh angle to well-trodden musical structures, there are at least a bunch of his songs to cover, but Parker only penned about twenty tunes. A quick glance over the tracklist reveals no ‘Yardbird Suite’, no ‘Ornithology’, no ‘Ko-Ko’, and every single composition was firmly part of the musical backdrop before Parker got to grips with them. How will this pan out?  Pressing Play...now! 

‘I’ll Remember April’ wafts in with some nice rich syrupy strings. Oh wait, is this all based on Parker’s influential With Strings album (or, originally, pair of 10”s - Pedantic Ed)? Yes, looking more closely at the cover, it very much is – not only does it use the same colour scheme in its quite hideously ugly sleeve, but it says it there in capitals, I just hadn’t noticed. This puts the interpretative element into even more of a straitjacket, as the arrangements are all nailed down, though in another way it makes more sense, perhaps like a new performance of a classical suite. 

Having a little search whilst ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’ spins I find that saxophonist Cafiso was 16 when he made this record. By Gad, already I can see that the playing is preposterously good and confident for that age. His tone so far is more wheedling than Bird’s rich warmth, but that at least brings his own voice to the music. The backing band/chamber orchestra is most elegant too, work has gone into this. ‘Out Of Nowhere’ continues the sophisticated feel, and it’s a great composition from back in 1931 - I first came across it because The Cardigans nodded to it in ‘Travelling With Charlie’ from their retro-twee classic album Life – and it was specifically the perfumed swoon of the Parker version they were thinking of, I’m certain. Then we get ‘Everything Happens To Me’, another grade-A song, and those billowing strings and sweeping harps capture the early-50s vibe immaculately. 

But ‘Summertime’ falls just a little flat. Maybe I’ve heard the tune too many times in my life, but also the sax feels too busy, trying to fill all the gaps rather than flowing, and with a raspy edge: if there’s one thing you can say about Bird, it’s that his playing sounded organic. But a highlight is ‘Dancing In The Dark’ - no, not that one – the sax is so fluent, and it contrasts with the reliable, slightly square arrangements underneath it in just the way Parker’s original takes did. Also, I see that the median sales price on Discogs for this CD is £8.99, I apparently got a bargain. 

As the album continues, my attention begins to wander a little. Perhaps 18 tracks is just too much of this style to experience at once – after all, the first With Strings 10” featured a mere seven. But the tracks are quite formulaic, opening with the strings swelling; a fast nimble sprinkle of sax notes, normally in a descending pattern; the main melody stated twice with a little ornament; an orchestral break; then solos. It definitely works, but a switch-up wouldn’t hurt, which is why ‘Just Friends’ grabs the attention, with the sax line sprightly but not jittery, and gesturing more closely to the sort of thing Parker might have done with a smaller jazz combo, and this is followed by ‘April In Paris’ which puts a focus on the oboe almost as much as the sax, and feels like a vintage Sinatra arrangement. The Latin percussion introduction to ‘Repetition’ - no, not that one – sounds like wild carnivalesque bacchanalia in this context, but it’s the penultimate track, and perhaps should have come in earlier. The final track is the only original, a solo blues called ‘Prayer For Charlie’ and it’s rather lovely, saying more about Cafiso as a player than the rest of the album. 

Overall I’d rate this album as impressive, and possibly as good, but I’m not sure what purpose it serves, beyond being a calling card for a talented young musician: more a demo reel than an artistic statement. The battle between emulating With Strings and adding a personal twist isn’t always won, and throwing in pieces that weren’t part of the original sets feels like overkill. I will keep this record, it is certainly worth another spin or two, and would serve compilations well. One day, though, the lure of £8.99 may prove too much... 

Gwan Tuwizmo?

Bit of a funny one, this. I'm not 100% sure whether I thought Mazawattee were good, the sound was so dire it was impossible to tell. That's odd, The Bully is normally great for sound. So, I decided to assume they were good, because they clearly know what a tune is.

MAZAWATTEE/ NO WORRIES IF NOT/ RICH RAINFORD, Bully, 13/11/25 

Rich Rainford’s songs are unashamedly big and emotional. Everything he plays tonight has a huge melodic vocal lines and warm earnest lyrics that immediately grab the listener. Structurally the songs are relatively simple, but they’re also light, soft and inviting, like a ziggurat made from Duplo bricks and marshmallows, hitting like stripped back Snow Patrol tunes, and even jaded cynical music reviewer realise that in an increasingly bitter and unhappy world a rousing anthem like ‘Raise Your Voice’ is a lovely thing. 

Another lovely thing is fresh French bread, although, unlike No Worries If Not, we prefer to eat it rather than wave it around in choreographed shapes over sleek electro. This boulangerie banger of an opener sets the tone, being musically shiny and enticing, but also irreverently humorous (hint: they’re not really singing about baguettes). The tracks hark back to the turn-of-the-century camp club pop of Trouser Enthusiasts, and the vocals are delivered with deadpan exuberance, if that’s not a complete paradox. Pitched somewhere between Confidence Man and the Footlights revue, No Worries If Not will make you dance, and have you enter a world of pain. 

Mazawattee play rootsy indie something akin to a soft-focus Hothouse Flowers, or The Daintees with a penchant for smooth Californian classic rock textures. ‘Waterslide’ is a gently skipping quavery pop tune that feels as though it's been beamed directly from Truck 2002, and is typical of the band’s natural melodic sense. Perhaps because there are some technical problems tonight, a brace of simple acoustic tracks sound best, showcasing how the strong the two vocalists are. A gig where the sound only really sems to balance for the last number may not be the one on which to judge Mazawattee, but even in these circumstances we can tell they have a winning breezy naturalness. Is it summer yet?  

Versailles Chorus Versailles

And here's the final instalment in my latest batch of LFTWY reviews. Warning: contains Eurovision.

SÉBASTIEN TELLIER – POLITICS (Record Makers) 

There have been plenty of great art statements in 21st-century Eurovision. From Verka Serduchka’s reductive grinning singalong which dared you to take something about as complex as ‘The Birdy Song’ seriously in 2007, to Käärijä’s somewhat petrifying Poddington Peas bovver-boy stomp in 2023 (which Bambie Thug presumably saw and thought “you call that unnerving industrial electro, do you? Wait till my song next year...which is also sometimes a jazz ballad”). There’s even the stone cold genius of Rambo Amadeus in 2012, who brought the most low-key funky groove ever to the big stage in Baku, but turned off most people by stumbling about like a greasy bewildered wino, and got a special rule instigated after the random draw put him first in the first semifinal, thereby confusing vast swathes of the viewing audience from the outset, so from now on the producer crafts the running order. Oh, and of course there’s Konstrakta’s ‘In Corpore Sano’ from 2022, which is pretty much the greatest song of the millennium with a stage show giving Matthew Barney and Peter Greenaway. 

But amongst this feted/hated group of tricksters there is one excellent piece of pop art playfulness which didn’t really ignite the voters or the pundits, for some reason. In 2008 Sébastien Tellier rode onto the stage very slowly in a little golf buggy to deliver a strange breathy, wide-eyed little tune, half-scruffy, half-dapper, like a melange of Dennis Wilson and Jarvis Cocker. A third of the way through he sucked helium from a beach ball and made his voice go all squeaky. His backing singers were women with beards stuck on (Conchita Wurst precog!). It must be one of the Frenchest things ever seen, despite being the only time a French Eurovision entry has been in English. 

A few years before that, his second album Politics came out, though it wasn’t a big hit, reaching number 123 in his home charts, and achieving bugger all anywhere else. But it’s really quite good fun, and here are some highlights. 

• The fact that the opening track is called ‘Bye Bye’ and is like a 70s Paul Simon song gone awry, with nice warm brass that just splurgily collapses halfway through like someone took the Spanx off
• The fact that ‘Wonderafrica’ does indeed sound like a funkier cousin of the precipitation-blessing 80s classic 
• The fact that ‘Broadway’ is not brassy and stagey as the name suggests, but is soft and burnished and honeyed in a hammock of strings 
• The fact that ‘Ritournelle’ has Tony Allen on drums dropping a light, flighty groove for nearly 8 minutes which sounds like the funky drummer went on a Ryvita diet, and has no vocals but some almost Bruce Hornsby piano chords 
• The fact that ‘Benny’, immediately afterwards, has the silliest, hammiest vocals possible to make up for it - you have to love the way he delivers “human rih-soar-zees" 
• The fact that ‘Mauer’ has a stoned maggot of a synth wending all the way through 
• The fact that ‘Ketchup Vs. Genocide’ is called ‘Ketchup Vs. Genocide’ 
• The fact that the album finishes with ‘Zombi’, which sounds like music from a game in Fun House or something and is quite preposterous 

 

 

Logo Technics

 Another from LFTWY, and my first article about an Oxford act. Trademark were so good live.

TRADEMARK – FEAR: DISCONNECTION (self-release) 

The first review I ever wrote for publication was in November 2002, for BBC Oxford’s website, having started to get involved with Oxford’s music scene a little earlier, so with this issue we enter the era where I can talk about local records I bought direct from the creators. I promise I’ll steer an evasionary course away from old war stories and anecdotes about people you’ve never met, though. 

Trademark were a live favourite of mine, a trio of lab-coated geeks when who wrote wonderful techno-pop tunes, played them live brilliantly, threw in incongruous one-off covers, sometimes had a giant perspex plug, and were not unknown for tripping over their own gear onstage. This is their 2003 release, although some of the songs got a lick of paint and turned up again on their debut proper, Want More, released a year or two later by Truck Records. The base sauce for their concoctions was simple, consisting of crunchy, intricate rhythms in the style of contemporaneous Warp acts such as Black Dog, big bold 1982 synth lines, and surprisingly emotional, if far from histrionic, vocal melodies. Oli Horton’s voice was never perfect, and he tended to get a bit pitchy, but as with Marc Almond this often worked in the songs’ favour. Sometimes when he sang in a lower register, as with ‘All Too Late’, a clomping Depeche-a-Sketch joint on this album, the notes are more reliably hit, though perhaps a tiny fraction of the character is lost by this. 

It’s still a great tune, though, and this CD if full of them. Interestingly, on revisiting this album, the lighter tracks sound the best: whilst they were never an industrial or EBM band, some songs are bigger than others, whether that’s from a fatter bass drum kick or a more impassioned vocal (‘My Life In Stereo’ has a blasted cabaret feeling which made it perfect for opening gigs). The pick of the chunkier tunes is ‘Sawtooth Lust’, which is something like an abrasive mechanoid take on Bowie’s ‘Breaking Glass’, and is interesting for the joint vocal by usually mute member Paul Soulsby. The lyrics on this one feel forced and awkward, though the line “I saw an eyesore” is amusing, something a goth Giles Brandreth might come out with. 

Of the less aggressive songs, ‘Helpless’ is the softest, in sound and outlook, a song of attraction 100% free of priapic desire, simply about how a certain lass can make the singer go a bit wibbly, featuring the ultimate nice-boy lyric “Don’t let me fail her as a friend”. It sounds wonderful, with a Broadway ballad melody delivered in a delicate falsetto, and a warm bassline that’s purest Pet Shop Boys. ‘Sine Love’ is also lilting and beautiful, using the sine wave as a metaphor for purity in love (no big prize for guessing how the lead synths sound on this and ‘Sawtooth Lust’). The hissing digital percussion sounds like Aphex Twin whispering in your ear. But even this work of beauty is beaten by ‘Stay Professional’, an understated British romantic tragedy with SNES harp and staccato synth stabs. It has the natural-artificial simplicity of a zen garden, and sounds like an Erasure song melancholically gazing at a moonlit lake. 

Self-released albums like this are fascinating. It’s a proper statement rather than a cheap demo, but it’s still half-lost to posterity: the Trademark Wikipedia page acknowledges it, but intriguingly replicates the typo that appears on the printed disc which isn’t on any of the packaging. I have no idea how many copies were sold, and whether they were retained by the purchasers, so my CD may be one of only a handful in the wild (though I have just discovered they made an album in 1999, which ran to 25 copies). Although anyone intrigued by this review should definitely seek out Want More instead, Fear: Disconnection has a nascent charm, and if nothing else it shows how much graft goes into honing a band before its professional debut release – but maybe that statement barely even means anything in 2025. 

 

No Nose Is Good Nose?

I saw Lunchtime For The Wild Youth editor Russell Barker last night at a gig, and fine company he was. He also passed me the last 3 issues, so here's my thought on an album from 2002, with '03 and '04 to follow soon.

SPARKS – LIL' BEETHOVEN (BMG) 

Two things sprang to mind as I turned over this record sleeve, prior to spinning it for the first time after purchase. 

Firstly, that’s a weird place to put the apostrophe. It’s an abbreviation of “little” so “li’l” would make more sense, and there’s precedent, such as the US comic strip Li’l Abner. Lewis Carroll would probably favour “li’l’”, judging from the way he wrote words like “sha’n’t”, and in a pure sense that fits the best, but I’ve never seen it in the wild. Later, in the mumble rap era the apostrophe was tossed out altogether as too old-fashioned, and we got Lil Wayne and Lil Yachty (and how overjoyed was I when an American rapper finally came up with the name Lil Savage). 

Secondly, I was reminded of an article in a long-ago Fall fanzine, which drew parallels between the gruppe and Hancock’s Half Hour episodes: just as we could imagine Tony moping in shows called ‘Fit And Working Again’ or ‘Bournemouth Runner’, we could imagine MES ranting about blood donors in songs named ‘The East Cheam Centenary’ or ‘Lord Byron Lived Here’...and that’s before we get into CB radio. Similarly, the names of tracks on this album just perfectly sum up comical fragments of life, like sketches where you don’t actually need to write the dialogue: ‘What Are All These Band So Angry About?’, ‘I Married Myself’, and ‘Ugly Guys With Beautiful Girls’ are just too immaculate. 

If the songs barely need more than a title to conjure images, it’s lucky, because in lots of cases that’s about the sum of the lyrics. ‘How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall?’ is just an old gag split into bits and repeated – a Brit would have to imagine someone singing “My dog’s got no nose” over and over – whilst ‘Your Call’s Very Important To Us, Please Hold’ describes the experience of listing to the robotic corporate phone voice at great repetetive length, like a Warhol diary extract.  

Musically this record was odd at the time, but makes perfect sense now. Sparks’ previous records had been wry glam rock enigmas or sunshine-smiling digital pop bangers (which were still wry), but this album has hardly any drums, as alluded to by opener ‘The Rhythm Thief’, and the music is mostly little cellular ersatz orchestral motifs shuffled and stacked. Sparks seem to have got into the likes of Glass and Adams, whilst their twentieth-century composition influence bag held fragments from Stravinsky and Bernstein (whilst their dog’s got Nono’s (I apologise unreservedly for that joke (I don’t really))). This is not the sophisticated chamber tunage of Van Dyke Parks, but neither is it the joky half-formed zombie-pop of Denim – perhaps the best contemporaneous analogue is The Magnetic Fields.  

‘My Baby’s Taking Me Home’ is possibly the album’s high point, pretty much just the title repeated forever.  It’s small and huge at the same time, like a stadium anthem written by Morph. The album ends with ‘Suburban Homeboys’ a single which must not have inspired much faith of a hit from any stakeholder, full of witty sketches of the titular middle-class scallywags and cheeky parping synth tuba playing pseudo-techno riffs – shouting schlager, schlager, schlager! It sort of sounds like a Broadway book number crossed with a US college song, which no actual homeboy would ever be seen dead nodding along to (“My posse repping this track? Nah, my dogs got no-nos!"). “Props to our peeps and please keep your receipts” might be one of the best couplets in the last 40 years of pop...and doesn’t it sound a tiny little bit like a modern-day Tony Hancock? 

Fraud Focus

 Perhaps not an outstanding review, in journalistic terms, but the gigs was very good. Confession: until the days after the gig I thought the middle band were called Archers.

FRAUDS/ ACHERS/ SINEWS, Divine Schism, Library, 5/9/25 

Their name suggests something taut and wiry, but Sinews’ sound is chunky, stodgy and misshapen, in the best way. Their opening numbers tonight unspool thick ropes of sludgy bass with clotted guitar that could probably mend all east Oxford’s potholes. This would be sufficiently pleasing for a Friday night, but the set extends grunge tentacles in various directions as it develops. A trio of previously unplayed songs adds some light and shade, one niggling us with a nagging high guitar line which shadows the vocal melody, adding a pedigree Mclusky sneer to their armory. 

London’s Achers are, to be honest, far more sinewy in nature, with a clean, almost emo edge to their post-punk songs. Their best tracks are built on – or is that, teeter above? - a lazily spinning bass and drums vortex, swirling, hypnotic and clattering like a bunch of mandalas in a cement mixer. Their post-hardcore/alt-punk sound is less angular than Drive Like Jehu, and more jittery than Slint, and it’s enjoyable, though some more character and a hook or two wouldn’t have gone amiss by the end. 

The instinct to compare guitar and drums duo Frauds with John is strong, but with their noisy intensity and mordant wit they’re really Big John, Big Bad John. They bombard us with serrated riffs and choppy cantering drums, but for every passionate maelstrom there’s a moment of reflection or a light-heartedly accented fill (and if the music can be witty, the band are outright hilarious between numbers, suggesting we embrace each silent interlude of tuning as “a chance to better yourselves”, like passive-aggressive life coaches). The vocals are surprisingly agile, gliding smoothly over the uneven broken ground of the rhythms, and they even drop in one or two semi-raps which sound like they’re left over from a nu metal song. Never mind sinews, this duo is a full heart, a big brain, and a well-booted foot to the backside. More please.