One Alauda

I just watched a film called Octopus 2.  I hadn't watched the first one, but I managed to follow the plot anyway. This review, from the latest Nightshift, features the typo I made, "Glad Plugin".  The editor either didn't notice the missing E, or just assumed it was something cool he'd never heard of.

SKY:LARK/ SCREEN WIVES/ MASIRO, Idiot King, Cellar, 7/2/15

Depending on where you cast your gaze you can see any number of representation of underground music in the media: glossy molls swigging bottled lager and singing along with the next big thing; gorgeous soft-focus festival folkies snapping each other on smart phones; rock-crazed ne’er-do-wells spiralling into drug abuse; Swindon.  But nothing sums it up for us better than the sight of a man dressed only in his pants crawling round a basement stage, trying to gaffer a bass drum back together.  Either side of this dose of literal DIY music, in a necessarily curtailed set, London’s Screen Wives twist out an angular, Fugazoid hardcore that kicks like a hoof to the solar plexus, but has room for cheeky, witty little trills and paradiddles.  The songs are brief, the band hissing short bursts of noise into the venue like a demented Glade Plugin.

Before that, Oxford’s Masiro had treated us to one of their displays of sonic science. The twitchy, multi-part structure of their music is always impressive, like a metal-flavoured Don Caballero, and even like Primus without the schoolyard japes, but they always manage to bring in some melodic or textural originality to save us from mere academic cleverness.  The set is like a spiderweb from a fly’s point of view: intricate, beautiful, sludgy, and completely deadly.

Intricate being one thing we wouldn’t accuse Sky:Lark of trying for.  Over a bed of unwavering feedback, the trio thrash through dense repetitious snarling grooves something like Motorhead with a krautrock fixation.  The best moments of the set are when the vocals bawl and screech over two note unriffs like Finnish minimalists Circle crossed with Megadeth, and the worst moments are when they stop.  There’s the odd snatch of fuzzy melody, but in essence theirs a brief onslaught of brash noise, to finish a night of intriguing, exciting music...and not an iPad or a crackpipe in sight.

That Petrel Emotion

I bought my first charity shop records of the year this afternoon, and I'll be at my first gig of the year in a few hours.  2015 has, therefore, begun.

I don't think this is a very good review, but my editor seemed pleased enough, so what do I know?

PETRELS, PADDOX, AFTER THE THOUGHT, Pindrop, MAO, 11/12/14

They called it Dronefest.  Hard to argue, as there isn’t a moment tonight when guitars or keys aren’t filling the air with drones.  Before any act has officially started, Lee Riley and members of Flights Of Helios and Masiro are sonically decorating both the venue space and the upstairs bar with thick tones, the sort that soon start to seep into every thought - one of Nightshift’s more wild-eyed writers greets us with “I’ve been here 45 minutes.  It’s brilliant!”   Apparently, lonely souls even continued playing to an empty foyer whilst the acts performed in the basement, although we can’t believe anyone listened (Schroedinger’s remix, anyone?). 

On the stage, After The Thought shifta slow, elegant notes round in the manner of Eno’s Shutov Assembly with early 90s twinkles a la vintage Global Communication, not to mention a penchant for heartbeat rate decay that’s positively Pete Namlook.  Although the set gets pretty claustrophobic and the high tones nag, it also sounds like warm, friendly pop music underneath.  Is Bubblegum Tinnitus a genre?  Or have the drones started to twist our thoughts, like a dystopian 70s alien infiltration.

Our first impression of Paddox is that it’s brave to puncture such prettiness with loosely sprayed static coughs and rusty corvid caws.  Our second thought is that it isn’t brave, but idiotic, and our third that it is clearly unintentional.  The set is awash with technical snafus, bad connections and unwanted hisses, and whilst there are delightful moments, not least a mournful Gavin Bryars violin motif that floats above the pulsing noise (deliberate and otherwise), we’re left feeling we’ve not seen a performance that it would be fair to judge.

Petrels set is inventive and varied, in a fashion that the event’s name might not have implied.  The excellent tonal tapestry brings to mind images of blasted souls trapped in an old Amstrad floppy drive, skirling seabirds enveloped in thick syrup (perhaps in tribute to the stage name) and even some Artificial Intelligence offcuts.  The set ends with a looping emotional chorus, like the refrain from a lost Spring Offensive song slowly disappearing into a searing sunset.  As we leave James Maund is still making guitar noise in the foyer.  Perhaps he’s still there.

Gubernator Ramble

 I wrote a pub quiz last night.  It mentioned Mark E Smith and Fighting Fantasy.  None of yer longest rivers and FA cup winners shite for me.  Anyway, here's the last Ocelot waffle.

Technical musical ability is a wonderful thing. Mastery of an instrument gives an artist such a wide tonal palette, and allows a performer to translate inspiration into music reality instantaneously.  But whilst I welcome the maestros and the divas, and shake the virtuosi by their delicate tapered hands, I cannot abide Proper Musicians.  PMs think that the ability to play a flat generic blues riff outweighs coming up with anything new; PMs spend more time buying equipment than thinking of things to do with it; PMs imagine they’re the gatekeepers of musical acceptability and the esoteric order keeping a holy flame alive, when really they’re more like sonic carpet layers.  Same safe thing, every time.  Union rates apply.

Recently, I slumbered through some sub-Zep PM porridge, which shall remain nameless.  Later, Walt Frisbee took to the stage.  Half the audience started to go mental, because what they did was actually fun, whilst the other PM-friendly half left...presumably for the same reason.  Walt Frisbee don’t care if you find their partydown hip hop collages, sequenced Gameboy bleeps and one-gear live drumming is stupuid, or that they’re committing the cardinal PM crime of pre-recording stuff, because they’re too busy leaping round the venue like loons, enjoying the experience alongside the audience.  Dumbass, maybe.  Copyright infringing,  doubtless.  But fun?  Damn right.  Go see them; but if you suspect that 8-bit tapestries and borrowed rap verses will enrage your PM sensibilities, best have some soothing camomile tea and a Stevie Ray Vaughan LP ready for when you get home.

MAYORS OF MIYAZAGI/ PUNCHING SWANS/ MASIRO/ JUMPSTART THE JUNGLE, Sheaf, 16/8/13

Punching Swans are good at endings.  Does that sound snide?  It’s not meant to.  They have a knack of knowing precisely when enough of their tannoy-blaring repetitive pop scuzz is enough, never dragging a riff beyond its use-by date, and often stopping with precision just when you think the music is running hotfoot down a giddy hill of disco hi-hats, beyond control.   Their sound adds an elastic twang to thick, grungy ratchetting, like Duane Eddy pitching in with The Jesus Lizard, and if it can occasionally fall back on easy sloganeering yelps, the effect is powerful.

Earlier we saw the debut set from Jumpstart The Jungle, a bass and drums duo who transcend the clichés of the lineup, and at their best are deeply intriguing, playing heavily distorted chintzy basslines that repeat headlong like the music from some trigger-happy Megadrive game, and throwing big, simple vocal lines over the top, like bullet point summaries of full songs.  By the end of the set, however, they drift into meandering, wistful melodies that don’t suit the vocalist, and leave the drummer with little to do.

Promoters Masiro are next up, and whilst they might be  intricate math-rockers, they never forget how great it sounds when rock bands make a noise like machine guns.  No matter how complex their writing gets, they always bring the music back to the sound of heavy field artillery, which is fine by us.  There are odd melancholic guitar moments, that aren’t too far from Metheny territory, but soon pummel any poncy thoughts of false harmonics or modal declensions out of your mind with jackhammer intensity.  This may be math rock, but it’s likely to beat you round the face with Fermat’s last theorem and stick an abacus up your rectum.

Mayors Of Miyazagi have made friends in Oxford, and it’s easy to see the fit: they play sprightly Johnny Foreigner songs, with just enough twists to avoid begin called “indie chug”, and they have that blasted romantic vibe that seems to go down a treat in the town.  Trouble is, although the music is an enjoyably tuneful clatter, the vocals have a geeky chortling tone that drags the songs down: be honest, “we drank sunshine through the haze of your cigarette” is not a line that gets any more profound by sounding like it’s sung by Moss from The IT Crowd.  Sometimes, there’s a fizzing boy-girl exchange that reminds us of Secret Rivals but the Mayors don’t quite capture the sneering vitriol, although they’re a better act.  And yet, the set is enjoyable, the band are suffused with energy, and there are hooks enough to snare the ears.  Mayors Of Miyazagi are a decent little live band.  Does that sounds snide?  Well, you know…