Totally Wired

 ...And here's my other review in the latest Nightshift, a more traditional gig write-up.

CRANDLE/ LEE SWITZER-WOOLF/ PLAGUE ARISH, ALL WILL BE WIRED, Library, 14/7/23 

Plague Arish is standing in at late notice, and whilst his improvised noise is a substantially more abstract and aggressive proposition than the rest of the line-up, he admirably doesn’t try to temper his material to mollify the small crowd, and dives straight in with some distorted buzzing stutters like a crossed-line conversation between Mr Punch and a robotic auctioneer. Crouched on the floor behind a jumble of devices in a voluminous black hoody and looking like Satan’s Little Helper, Plague Arish takes us on a sonic journey through digital waves crashing on a modem shore, rain that rusts itself as it falls, and the Metatron with nagging heartburn...or, if you’re less fanciful, a whole bunch of skreeps and blatters. Whatever it is, it sounds good (or occasionally horrible, which is, we suspect, the point). 

Like a grandmother advising you take your coat off indoors or you won’t feel the benefit later, Lee Switzer-Woolf could not have asked for a better contrast to bring out the melancholic delicacy of his songs. Built from a sparse palette of acoustic guitar, hissing drum machine, and spindly vocals, his songs cast a bittersweet spell which recalls Arab Strap at their least beered-up and potty-mouthed.  One track features a seasick loop which sounds like 20% of a RZA beat and a mordant spoken tale of a decaying relationship something like Croydon’s Superman Revenge Squad, but is immediately followed by a chirpy pop rhythm which could have been used by Tiffany. A surprisingly varied, but consistently enthralling set. 

If David Lynch ever managed a wedding band, they’d sound like Crandle. The duo turn their keyboard, tremulous vintage guitar tones, and cheesy programmed drums to a wide range of covers, moving from Shakira to Shania Twain via Alex Chilton and Leonard Cohen. They play these pocket torch songs like a Kinder Egg Chris Isaak and a Happy Meal Lana Del Rey, and if this might not be a set to shift anyone’s musical paradigms it’s certainly reason to shuffle some shoe leather, which is more than enough on a Friday night. 

Being Pleasured Aurally

Here's my review for the latest Nightshift, the first to be available as a hard copy for over a year!  It's sincerely exciting and a little moving to have the scabrous Demo Dumper in print again, if for no other reason than so the unbelievers can burn it.

In other news, I will now be doing some reviews for a website.  My reviewing chum Sam Shepherd volunteered me, and I had to do a micro-application form in which I detailed my three favourite albums of the past 12 months.  There wasn't much science in it, but I thought they were fun little summaries, so as a bonus treat, here they are:

Oneohtrix Point Never – Magic Oneohtrix Point Never (Warp)

Vaporwave can be fun, but most of its creators seem to be trying to recapture the innocence of youth, and might be equally happy shutting down Ableton and joining the “who remembers Pyramints?” messageboards.  Whilst Daniel Lopatin’s mature masterpiece nods (sleepily) towards all the hypnagogic tropes – tape deck hum, VHS flicker, corporate ident synth – there’s a depth to the songwriting, which matches ornate pop with emotional  directness, half ELO and half double glazing ad jingles.  The radio dial-twirling concept might be played out as a way of structuring an album, but this parade of gaseous mini-epics is more like someone flipping through the Rolodex of your half-remembered dreams.  With some really nice DX7 noises over the top.

 

Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg (4AD)

Since punk, boredom has often been weaponised, so that a yawn is just a slower paced sneer.  What’s refreshing about Florence Shaw is her unconfrontationally bored delivery, somewhere between indolent and exhausted, too laconic to stretch as far as melodies, a suburban precinct sprechgesang celebrating the surreality of the mundane.  The mordantly funny non sequiturs in the lyric sheets read like Sleaford Mods if they responded to the modern world with wry defeatism rather than twitchy disgust.  It’s musically no slouch either, sparse hypnotic classic indie motifs riding elastic Steve Hanley/Peter Hook basslines off into the distance.

 

The Bug – Fire (Ninja Tune)

Sometimes, though, as well as the literate ennui you just want some righteous ire, and this album is nothing but sonic anger, sometimes smouldering and malevolent, sometimes spittle-lipped and raging.  There are some pandemic-flavoured statements, and a few allusions to global politics, but really it’s no more a meaningful dystopian satire than most black metal is a coherent deconstruction of Christian morality, it’s simply a celebration of fury.  Just check the track titles.  “Vexed”.  “War”.  “Hammer”.  “Fuck Off”.  Especially “Fuck Off”.  And while the rich roster of doom prophet vocalists rail, the tracks rumble and rasp, dense, deep and insistent, like geological klaxons.

ENJOYABLE LISTENS/ MOOGIEMAN/ THE MAY, All Will Be Well, Port Mahon, 28/8/21

 We talk about musicians “playing” a gig, but it’s quite rare that this implies a childlike experimental glee.  Crouched over an array of electronics that he admits he only partly understands, The May takes us down ludic alleyways of electronica, sometimes erudite in the vein of Orbital’s philosophy ‘n’ bass classic “Are We Here?”, sometimes much dumbasser with 90s beats and buzzing synthlines (one COVID-safe raver inadvertently giving us Altern8 flashbacks).  There’s a witty wastrel edge to The May, recalling obscure Planet Mu signing Tim Exile’s “nuisance gabbaret lounge”, and the whole thing is as much fun to watch as it apparently is to create.  All The May’s bleepy gear even comes in a little wagon, like he’s Linus from Peanuts off to Megadog.

 Seeing event host Moogieman solo is rare nowadays, although that was how we first encountered him.  Where he once wielded an acoustic and sang cheeky Radio 4 songs, he now has sparsely programmed electronics and intones sententiously.  A huge improvement, in short.  At times there’s a cosmic, consciousness-expanding feel to the words at odds with the deadpan delivery and minimal sonics – think Wilhelm Reich recited by Laurie Anderson – and one piece is what we imagine a Scientology induction is like, but the beating pop heart of metaphysical rant “Mr Curator” still shines through, the indie fanfare of the band version turned into a sleek melding of The Blue Aeroplanes and Suicide.

 Enjoyable Listens is Luke Duffett, his phone, and several hogsheads of cabaret showmanship.  He gyrates and sways like an Animatronic Bryan Ferry, and croons his poetic balladry in the style of Lloyd Cole or Tony Hadley (and even, at times, early Vic Reeves).  His songs are ostensibly simple fare to tug the hearts - and loins - of an audience raised on estate agent pop and John Hughes movies, but there’s an addictive passion to the performance, which takes place in the crowd as often as onstage, that reminds us of Jack Goldstein.  We even end up singing along to a Bonnie Tyler cover, which is only a step away from pier-end schlock, but that step has been so elegantly taken you could easily  miss how masterful Duffett’s performance is.  That’s the total eclipse of the art.

Helter Seltzer

Marlborough Ham and North Sligo Mustard?  Maldon CM9 5WK Sea Salt and Quintuple Distilled Ardennes Red Wine Vingear?  They're fucking crisps. Get a  grip.

CLUB SODA/ MOOGIEMAN & THE MASOCHISTS/ THE LOST ART, All Will Be Well, Cellar, 15/4/16

Give The Lost Art a cursory listen and you’ll have them pegged as genial buskers: technically adept, but more interested in supplying a string of non-threatening tricks than a cohesive body of work.  However, the more we listen to the duo’s intricate compositions, the more character and variation we find, until our notebook is covered in scrawled references. Ben Folds.  Loudon Wainwright.  Simon & Garfunkel.  John Etheridge.  Sondheim Of A Down.  The lyrics might have come from a platter self-help fortune cookies, but musically there’s loads to enjoy, especially the way counterpoint is favoured over harmony, and their tendency to push to the top of their vocal range giving songs a strange monastic air.  That they look like two chemistry teachers trying to make the alkaline earth metals interesting just endears them to us more.

If The Lost Art are the Key Stage Proclaimers, Moogieman & The Masochists resemble proper children’s entertainers, from Moogieman’s stripy top and braces c ombo through to their micro-ditties about physics, philosophy and photographic technique: think Rod, Jane & Freddy do a doctorate.  Whilst it would be easy to label a man smug who includes the line “Occam’s Razor is epistemologically flawed” in a song about his tastes in totty, Moogieman has actually created something truly new in his laboratory beaker filled with the distillate from Devo, Kraftwerk, OMD and Open University broadcasts, and the band’s knack for an intriguing arrangement is exemplary.  Plus, cameraphile paean “Diana” has the most glorious gallic movie melody – why start a rock riot when you can settle down to watch Monsieur Hulot’s Darkroom with The New Scientist?  

Abingdon’s Club Soda may not remind us of kids’ TV, but with their US jock jacket and fluffy organ-led rock linking the sounds of Huey Lewis and Big Fun, they could well feature in a brat pack era teen comedy. If, like us, the feeling of living a Teen Wolf outtake doesn’t appeal, you can at least focus on the incredibly tight rhythm section and the vocalist’s natural charm with an airy tune.  And that’s what Club Soda are, really, the sonic equivalent of a low calorie snack, that will tide you over until it’s time for something more substantial. Plus, we’re surprised to discover that something sounding like the baseball organist playing a Berlin album track is rather good fun.  Hey, every day’s a school day, right?

Rooster or Riding Hood?

It's been so long, it feels weird not to be pasting an Ocelot piece in the introduction.  Not sure whether I'll be replaced yet.  Anyway...

LITTLE RED – STICKS & STONES (All Will Be Well Records)

Whilst it might be common practice to rely on first impressions in the arenas of job interviews, speed dating and general elections, we reviewers are supposed to look more closely, to sift the full evidence objectively before drawing a conclusion.  Pity, really, because it means that we judge this album by local trio Little Red to be a pleasant bundle of contemporary folk, when our hearts are still alight from the opening track, that made us sit up and take notice like nothing else on the record.

Said tune, “What Say You” is just charming.  From a clean finger-picked guitar figure, that has a whiff of the cosy, unflurried ‘70s library music style that Trunk Records christened Fuzzy Felt Folk, closely entwined male and female vocals bob on a charming little melody, like a toy boat on a choppy duckpond.   It sounds limpidly lovely, but like so many great folk tunes, the jaunty music hides a black heart, the lyrics telling of betrayal, disappointment and visceral knife crime.  There is a wonderful moment where the guitar drops out to let the vocals declaim the chorus unaccompanied, that structurally seems to owe more to club bangers than any folk tradition, and in all, the song is a micro-epic, hinting at a full and macabre tale in its 1’48” running time.

It would be unfair to criticise the remaining 8 tracks too harshly, but none of them can challenge this jewel of an opener.  There are plenty of sweet, sugary harmonies in the vein of Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, and songs like “The Garden” recall our very own August List, albeit lacking in the bite that they would bring.  “Bonnie And Clyde” typifies the record, a beautifully put together little tune, right enough, but perhaps a touch too smooth, and with a “you and me against the world, babe” theme that is hackneyed and shopworn. 

In the future, we’d like them to either build on the wide-angled sounds of “Petal” or “Bonnie & Clyde” and make a giant, unashamed Clannad meets Fleetwood Mac studio confection, or alternatively to strip things down, get some dirt in the gears, and grind out something deeper and darker.  For now, this is an assured debut, with plenty to recommend it, but prettiness and poise might not bring out the best in Little Red – we’d like them to be rather less Little, and a much richer, bloodier Red.