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.

I Want You To Play With My Stringaling

I thought that this was going to be a rubbish gig, and that I was bored of Thomas Truax.  but I wasn't.  So hooray for him.

THOMAS TRUAX/ THE AUGUST LIST/ HUCK, Pindrop, The Art Bar, 19/4/14

Huck’s voice is a fascinating thing, a delicate, charred blues keen that can be roughly triangulated from Chris Isaak, Neil Young and Kermit.  The songs he’s playing tonight, with a second guitar to add electric trills, all come from his folk operetta Alexander The Great, which isn’t about Alexander Of  Macedon (or even Eric Bristow), but appears to be a beat-flavoured rites of passage tale.  The full stage show is coming to town soon, and should be well worth a visit, but perhaps the songs feel a little thin without the theatrical element: they have all the grand dramatic gestures, as well as a dollop of highly literate tragedian’s nouse that can throw Pandora, Babel and Thomas Aquinas into a single lyric, but sometimes feel sparse when we yearn for a big, Jacques Brel arrangement.  The final number ramps up the gutsy bluesiness in a way that unexpectedly reminds us of PJ Harvey circa To Bring You My Love, and provides the set’s highpoint.

There’s not much we can tell you about The August List except that they’re great: they’re the sort of act that encapsulates you for 30 minutes, and leaves you realising you’ve still got a blank notebook.  We could tell you that “All To Break” sounds like Sabbath’s “Paranoid” rewritten by Johnny Cash and played by The White Stripes, or that their cover of Scout Niblett’s “Dinosaur Egg” has the rootsy quirkiness of a downhome Lovely Eggs, but what really matters is that this duo has the unhurried, natural sonic chemistry of all your favourite boy/girl duos, and a neat way with a high octane country blast like “Forty Rod Of Lightning”.  Alright, some of the yee-hah accents are of dubious provenance, but the music is wistful and frenetic by turns, and one tune features a Stylophone, so they’re clearly not too in thrall to deep South influences to add a cheeky Brit wink.

Stick insect thin and surrounded by home-made mechanical instruments, Thomas Truax looks like he’s come direct from a scene cut from Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.  His creations, such as the Hornicator and Mother Superior, are either too well known to require a description, or too alien to be captured by one, but tonight’s set really brings home the quality of his songwriting – we’ll be honest, we thought we’d seen all he could offer, and that tonight’s show would be a tired trot through his cabaret schtick, but we were wrong.  A straight, eerie ballad version of Bowie’s “I’m Deranged” turns up early in the set, and quickly confirms that Truax is a talented performer without all the trappings (even as it confirms that he ain’t David Bowie), and from there it’s only a short hop to the abstract campfire howl of “Full Moon Over Wowtown”, performed acoustic in every cranny of the venue, including a quick jog round the block and a free shot of tequila behind the bar.  “The Butterfly And The Entomologist” is still a beautiful tale – and surprisingly apposite for Easter weekend – and a slow, treacly cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is a proper dues-payin’ roadhouse grind.  Perhaps the evening’s high point is “You Whistle While You Sleep”, which uses our favourite instrument, the Stringaling, to build a cubist house loop a la Matmos, before cutting to allow Truax to improvise insults to a loudmouth at the bar (who stayed wonderfully oblivious for the whole tirade).  Truax has enough tricks and techniques to last a roomful of musicians a lifetime, but this set proves that it’s in good old-fashioned composition and performance that he really shines.

Yo! Rushil's Bum Show

It was quite hard to write this review.  I don't like reviews that get unecessarily aggressive, and I certainly don't like anything ad hominem, but, then again, I did (and do) truly abhor this man's music.  Quite tough to express my utter displeasure at listening to his record without doing it in such a way that it appears personal.  So, this was my attempt to be vicious, but along one parameter only.

There's a really clumsy sentence in here, but I'll leave it in just to show Rushil that I know my own limitations.  I certainly know his...

RUSHIL – OSCILLATIONS (Apple Jam)

Rushil’s website says he grew up with music.  “Rushil cherished being at the center of all the creativity”, we’re told.   He goes on to say that as a grown up performer, “Nothing was more important than the experience I got from playing live.  The mind struggles to ever totally be present at any given time; playing live allows for nothing less than total immersion”.  That’s great, isn’t it?  Scientists and philosophers still don’t really understand why music can feel so personally special, so soul-scrapingly intimate, beyond even other art forms, and it’s wonderful that Rushil loves his music.  Nothing can take that away from him; like the charity money on Bullseye, that’s safe.

Luckily.  Because, Jesus felched, from outside the “center of creativity” this record brings no comfort whatsoever, and is more likely to inspire the primary symptoms of gastric flu, dragging itself from the mire of stodgy faceless rock to the stinking nadir of passive-aggressive wheedling.   There are points on this record where the music gets away with simply being blandly generic and vapid: “Here And There” throws its big, yearning chorus over an acoustic intro with all the perfectly controlled abandon of an advert for sugar-free beverages full of slo-mo bungee jumps, and other more introspective moments could soundtrack the sort of sidebar ad for toothpaste or something in which friendship is defined by fannying about on a twilit beach that you click by mistake and can’t shut up for 8 minutes.  At other times, sadly, the album is nowhere near as good as this.

“Three” is an ugly, lachrymose slur over rustily distorted guitar and thumping toms, that sounds like a maudlin constipated drunk moaning his way over the soundtrack to a cut-budget TV western, and “No Way Out” is dollop of over-egged emotive keening, rather like Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, with all the tune liposucked out and left to quiver in a self-pitying heap in the clinical waste bin.  The title track is essentially the same, but has the advantage of being 39 seconds shorter.  And, what’s this?  We’re only 6 bloody tracks in, there’s still the melody-free cross between Chad Kroeger and Semisonic called “Never See The Light” to go; we’re nowhere near the chicken in a bucket Counting Crows of “Sometimes”, let alone the fading adenoidal caterwaul of “E22” that marks the finish line. 

Rushil is obviously a bright lad – he’s reading Law at Oxford, which is no intellectual holiday – but this record just goes to show that academic and artistic intelligence are entirely separate entities.  Then again, what was it he said?  “The mind struggles to ever totally be present at any given time”.  Ah, perhaps that explains it; maybe he made this record whilst under hypnosis, or veterinary sedatives; maybe he was making 9 albums simultaneously, each of which might contain enough material to build a slightly passable  gestalt.  Or maybe it’s just utter rubbish.  Yes, the simplest option is probably the best - remember Occam’s Razor?  And can we use it on our ears when you’re done with it, please? 

Buck An Ear

Jesus, I've been trying to think of a good title pun for this article ages, and this is the best I've come up with.  Nearly spent as long thinking that crap up as writing the review.  Pirates Of The Pedestrian nearly works, but only if I'm here to tell you to pronounce "Pedestrian" like "Caribbean".  And if you pronounce it "CaRIBBean", like them fellahs on the news, it won't work at all.  Bah.

THE CORSAIRS – WHAT’S MY AGE NOW?? (Foot Tapping Records)

Never judge a book by its cover, that’s the advice we’re given, but nobody ever applies it to record covers: if an album’s sleeve features four Hasselhoff rejects leaning awkwardly against a gleaming bonnet whilst a schoolgirl’s skirt falls off in the background, we can all be pretty certain it’ll be of negligible sonic value.  Faced with a huge list of potential reviews, we tell the editor to send us any that have turned up on an actual CD, because we’re old fashioned like that, and through the post comes some of the least enticing local band artwork we’ve ever seen.  It’s depressing when an album can remind you of the hideous Blink 182 not once but twice, but The Corsairs manage it, not only echoing the awful “What’s My Age Again?” in the title, but recalling the parent album Enema Of The State with the Naughty Nurse^TM on the cover art.  In fact, they don’t even managed to find their own Naughty Nurse^TM, but have clearly photoshopped in a stock image.  Add to this the fact that most of the endorsements in the CD booklet come from scooter fanatics, who are doubtless charming but not necessarily considered great rock music critics, and from The Oxford Mail, who are neither, and this looks to be one of the most depressing fifty minutes we’re likely to have this year.  And yet, like cover-judging motherlovers throughout history, we were pleasantly surprised.  We won’t claim this record is great, and nobody in wide creation would claim it was ground-breaking, but it does succeed at what it sets out to do...and if that’s to make a gaggle of lagered up Vespaphiles have a little frug, then fair enough.

The Corsairs are a not-quite-psycho-enough psychobilly trio, led by double bassist Mark Loveridge, and the record is split roughly equally between originals and crowd pleasing covers.   Of the latter, the best are a bennie-fuelled sprint through “Hangin’ On The Telephone”, which leaves the melody mangled and contorted in its lanky-legged race for the finish line, and a nice, sultry bluebeat take on “Tears Of A Clown”, swapping the original’s fairground richness for a taut, wiry sound.  Amongst those that fare less well are Prince Buster’s “Madness”, which seems pointless as the UK already boasts a pretty great cover version (have a guess who by), and “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, which strains at the limitations of the rockabilly form, and strains at the edge of Loveridge’s vocal abilities; U2 are a band we consider to be desperately overwrought, but at least they hit the heights of bluster they shoot at.

The originals don’t buck any formulaic trends, but show an ear for a big chubby chorus hook, and a likable ability with a cheerful tick-tock Bill Haley rhythm.   We were convinced “Border Radio” was a cover of an early 80s rock ‘n’ roll throwback band until we checked the credits, which is proof that The Corsairs know their stuff, even as it ties them in double retro knots that will ward away most of this site’s readers.  “First Time” is the only clunker, sounding like an after school club trying to make like The Rembrandts,  but the record’s title track is something of a winner, pumping a clicky Western swing rhythm up to amphetamine speed so it sounds like Pinocchio skipping round Gepetto’s workshop high on creosote fumes, before racing headlong into a brattish rockabilly chorus. 

This isn’t CD we’re likely to be spinning again, but in fairness, The Corsairs aren’t best judged at a cluttered desk on an overcast Monday afternoon.  In the right atmosphere, at the right volume, with a beer in each hand and a Naughty Nurse^TM buffing your Lambretta, it might just all make sense...or at least make you stagger about happily at that time of night when making sense doesn’t seem desperately important.

Funeral For A Spendor

According to the Stasi-like methods with which I observe your activity, the last person to come to this site through an external link came from the website of an early music ensemble I reviewed in two sentences 8.5 years ago.  That's kind of fun, isn't it?  They were a good act, too, so far as I recall, and I'm glad to see they're still going.  Go to http://www.wildruby.co.uk/skeletoncrew and repay the favour.

DEATH OF HI-FI – ANTHROPOCENE (BG Records)

Death Of Hi Fi.  Whether we’re meant to make this connection or not, it’s a fitting name for a hip hop act.  As more and more music is listened to on mobiles and tinny laptop speakers, many producers are mastering their tracks to work best when shared on someone’s phone in a bus queue, not spun on 1200s attached to a fat sound system, and it’s the post-hip hop diaspora that’s leading the game, changing the sound of the genre from the bottom up.  The hallowed boom-bap has been replaced by the airy piff-paff.  Whether this is a harmless step in the evolution of music distribution or a sonic tragedy is a doctorate yet to be written, but it’s certainly interesting in this instance, as this album is lush, deep and layered, yet doesn’t tend to rely on a booming kick drum or a blue smoke bass fug. 

The concept behind the record is that various aliens have interpreted earth culture based on snatches they had picked up on radio waves.  To be honest, after the international collage of voices that makes up “Hello From The Children Of Earth”, that brings to mind OMD’s speaking clock sampling “Time Zones”, this conceit is unlikely to remain at the forefront of your mind, but on a simpler level, interpretation is paramount here, as DOHF have drafted in a wide selection of vocalists to augment their tracks.  These range from prevalent local names like Half Decent and Asher Dust, to proper coups, like Dizzy Dustin from California’s Ugly Duckling.  Dustin’s track “Bullspit” (no relation to the Shaodow single) is possibly the pick of a very impressive album, throwing some excellent rhymes and a ridiculously infectious hook over a lolloping left hand piano line that isn’t a million miles away from a soulful take on Talk Talk’s “Life’s What You Make It”.  It’s an example amongst many on Anthropocene of raps with real character – whether or not anyone can imagine dial-twiddling ETs on this record, there’s no shortage of mic-troubling MCs, with a variety of accents and angles, which makes a change from the identikit bars we hear so often on hip hop albums, in Oxfordshire or beyond.

The downside is that this record dips when the vocalists take a backseat.  There’s nothing at all wrong with the instrumental cuts, but they sound as though they’re backing tracks in need of a strong vocal.   At least there’s plenty of variation, from the epic “Entering Orbit (Intro)” to the cheeky chiptune scuffle of “Anthropocene (1UP Overture)”.  Like so many good hip hop producers, DOHF are at their best letting subtle tweaks and touches bring out the flavours of their MCs, rather than composing instrumentals with their own cohesive narrative: it’s the Prince Of Persia synthline on “Manamals” or the mid-80s Tangerine Dream chug of “Until I Stop Dreaming” that we love, rather than the slightly over-egged pomp of the title track (plus there are the ghosts of some cheesy Highlander guitar wails haunting a few dank corners).  So, perhaps the record is a touch overlong, but it is still deeply impressive, and comes highly recommended.  Anyway, what does it matter?  Who the hell listens to whole albums nowadays, anyway?  No time, bruv, the bus should be here in a minute.