I was told last night that most of the old OHMs are online, so you never know I may find an old review that slipped through the cracks. Imagine the joy. Sadly, the one I wrote where Alastair Tervit wrote a paragraph in the middle whilst I was in the loo was never used, and resides on a discarded hard drive. It's crazy what you could have had.
SEABUCKTHORN – A MANTRA PULLED APART
Seabuckthorn looks a bit like one of those posh old English names that have had all their syllables blanched out of them over the years, like Featherstonehaugh or Cholmondely. You can imagine an old monocled gent filling in the hotel reception book, wheezing, “It’s pronounced Seddon”. However, it turns out to be a sort of shrub, and this seems fitting because, although your actual seabuckthorn is found in Europe and Asia, this CD brings up images of empty American mesas, dusty scrub and hazy sundowns.
This is less a collection of compositions more a series of flourishes and echoes. There are plenty of Spanish guitar trills, but they arrive and drift away like farmsteads on the horizon on a Midwest train ride, instead of sitting in dramatic flamenco centre stage. If The Omega Man were remade on the set of The Good, The Bad & the Ugly this record could be the soundtrack, in which empty Western saloons reverberate to the tread of gunslinging ghosts, and louvre doors hang by one hinge. All of which means it’s a gorgeous listen, and Seabuckthorn (AKA Andy Cartwright) has created the record with precisely the right balance between the eerily spacious and the structured, the ambient and the encapsulating.
Which means that picking favourite tracks is academic, your best bet is to let the record wash over you whilst staring out of the window into the evening. (No, scrub that, we just tried it, and saw a hatchback, a courier’s van and a whippet, so it probably depends on where you live). Still, we like the plucked strings on “Illumination” that are swirling and mysterious like a Nazca earthwork, and “Strange Dreams In The Wilderness Again” in which stalking wolves of static warily eye guitars plucked on the edge of oblivion. Elsewhere we get little flavours of Slint, Fushitsusha, Seefeel and locals Hretha, one of whom guests on the CD.
Perhaps “Abyss Eyes” could be excised, but there isn’t a moment from this record that is a let down, and there are some gorgeous fragments of song hidden in the bleak expanses of the album. Our choicest moment is on “Painted Wolf Howl”, where a forcefully plucked guitar with a vast delay is suddenly shadowed by a glockenspiel to play a lopsided motif that sounds like a mix between “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and the theme from Crossroads. It’s a sparse and perhaps forbidding album, maybe, but certainly not an empty or ill thought out one.
Showing posts with label Oxfordbands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oxfordbands. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Heart Of Gloss
No time to chat, crit. kittens, I have to leave for Truck in 20 minutes.
THE GRACEFUL SLICKS – Demo
The Graceful Slicks amused a few people recently by asking Nightshift’s online community for an experienced tambourine player. You had to assume this was either a collective of such intricate musical complexity they had crafted challenging parts for hand percussion, or a bunch of skunked monkeys who had no idea. In truth, the demo is neither of these, it’s not the work of musicians striking out for new and adventurous sonic territories, but it does show a band with a strong vision, and a laudable control of their elementary resources.
The opener ushers us in quietly at a nice unhurried lope, all strummed guitar, shrugged drums and submerged vocals. The track has an untroubled, smiling demeanour and immediately brings to mind slackerdelic ne’er-do-wells The Brian Jonestown Massacre, without the paranoia or internecine warfare. It’s a simple but attractive ditty that could have been busked from the back of a VW van by a teenaged Evan Dando. It goes on for weeks, but never gets boring.
Track two is arguably even simpler and less dramatic, a sing-song seesaw of a tune that brings to mind Syd Barrett’s nursery rhyme efforts, such as “Terrapin”. Aside from a very slow build at the start, and an unnecessary guitar solo at the end, the song does nothing. It’s not hypnotic in a trance or kraut fashion, mind, just sort of static. Cryogenic rock, maybe. The lyrics are sheer guff, but are luckily barely audible, so we can hope fervently that the song doesn’t actually mostly consist of “water’s always cold”. The eerie lead guitar line ambles back and forth across the whole song like the harmonica in Morricone’s Once Upon A Time In The West soundtrack, much beloved of Fields Of The Nephilim and, of course, The Orb.
The last track (no titles provided – they’d probably rather name their tracks after different joss stick aromas) is the slowest yet, a Spiritualized indie hymnal effort that dribbles along as slowly as stewed prunes strained through a colander. Bafflingly, it’s very dull, where the other two tracks were immersive and endearing, even though they didn’t appear to do anything too different. Suddenly a pleasing miasma becomes a dreary pall.
We can’t solve the mystery, but it does show that The Graceful Slicks – do we adore or abhor that ridiculous pun? – are a band doesn’t quite have control of its palette yet, which is what you’d expect from a first, budget demo (and one without a dedicated tambourine operative at that), and yet they clearly have a strong idea of where they want to go, and the evidence suggests it’ll a pleasant place to follow them into. A good start, in short.
Apologies if this review isn’t up to scratch: we’ve tried everywhere to find a pencil sharpening technician to complete the team...
THE GRACEFUL SLICKS – Demo
The Graceful Slicks amused a few people recently by asking Nightshift’s online community for an experienced tambourine player. You had to assume this was either a collective of such intricate musical complexity they had crafted challenging parts for hand percussion, or a bunch of skunked monkeys who had no idea. In truth, the demo is neither of these, it’s not the work of musicians striking out for new and adventurous sonic territories, but it does show a band with a strong vision, and a laudable control of their elementary resources.
The opener ushers us in quietly at a nice unhurried lope, all strummed guitar, shrugged drums and submerged vocals. The track has an untroubled, smiling demeanour and immediately brings to mind slackerdelic ne’er-do-wells The Brian Jonestown Massacre, without the paranoia or internecine warfare. It’s a simple but attractive ditty that could have been busked from the back of a VW van by a teenaged Evan Dando. It goes on for weeks, but never gets boring.
Track two is arguably even simpler and less dramatic, a sing-song seesaw of a tune that brings to mind Syd Barrett’s nursery rhyme efforts, such as “Terrapin”. Aside from a very slow build at the start, and an unnecessary guitar solo at the end, the song does nothing. It’s not hypnotic in a trance or kraut fashion, mind, just sort of static. Cryogenic rock, maybe. The lyrics are sheer guff, but are luckily barely audible, so we can hope fervently that the song doesn’t actually mostly consist of “water’s always cold”. The eerie lead guitar line ambles back and forth across the whole song like the harmonica in Morricone’s Once Upon A Time In The West soundtrack, much beloved of Fields Of The Nephilim and, of course, The Orb.
The last track (no titles provided – they’d probably rather name their tracks after different joss stick aromas) is the slowest yet, a Spiritualized indie hymnal effort that dribbles along as slowly as stewed prunes strained through a colander. Bafflingly, it’s very dull, where the other two tracks were immersive and endearing, even though they didn’t appear to do anything too different. Suddenly a pleasing miasma becomes a dreary pall.
We can’t solve the mystery, but it does show that The Graceful Slicks – do we adore or abhor that ridiculous pun? – are a band doesn’t quite have control of its palette yet, which is what you’d expect from a first, budget demo (and one without a dedicated tambourine operative at that), and yet they clearly have a strong idea of where they want to go, and the evidence suggests it’ll a pleasant place to follow them into. A good start, in short.
Apologies if this review isn’t up to scratch: we’ve tried everywhere to find a pencil sharpening technician to complete the team...
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Charlbury Switchblade
And here's part 2. Nothing much more to say tonight, I'm tired; winning the pub quiz by a record margin was nice, but I shoudln't have had that victory pint. In bed with the prom, I suspect.
RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, Mill Field, Charlbury, 20/6/10
“Please welcome Slantay,” yelps the main stage MC as Sunday kicks off. Well, it’s written Slainte, but pronounced “slawncheh”, meaning “health” or, colloquially, “cheers”; a tough word for an Anglophone, perhaps, but surely if your job basically boiled down to saying the names of bands before they played, you might make the effort to work out what the words sounded like, no? Not as bad as the announcer later on who introduced Redox by telling us they played “one of” his weddings (classy), and yet still laboured under the misapprehension they were called Reedox.
After a slightly scratchy opening Slainte, who are a Gaelic folk act (get away), build to a great head of steam, leavening the predicted foot tapping reels with “La Partida”, a luminescent harp showcase.
Apparently, gents think of the Alphabet Backwards if they’re trying to stave off, shall we say, a particular moment of intimacy. Funny, then, that the band is a huge explosion of pure energetic release. The beauty of the band is that they balance their Sunny Delight exuberance with some excellent song writing, not to mention the fantastically ornate and playful synth lines, that are like being wined and dined by a sexually predatory Ms PacMan. My God, Sunday has started well.
And it doesn’t stop there. Sonny Black is a white haired chap playing acoustic blues, and although we sometimes feel we’ve heard enough white haired chaps playing acoustic blues in provincial music events to last us until the day the lost chord is unearthed, Black really is worth a listen. Not only does he have some effortless bottleneck technique and a great little bucolic melody in the lovely “North Of The Border”, but he can also celebrate Mississippi John Hurt’s “easy-kickin’ fingerpickin’” in an English accent without sounding like a dick. There’s a quiet grace about him and his music, and he should have been higher up the bill with a few more train loads of listeners to greet him.
Lee Christian’s Prohibition Smokers Club are a loose-limbed latin pop jam band, looking like a mushroom ingesting cult pretending to be Kid Creole & The Coconuts. The horns are punchy, and the set is pitched as a little interlude of fun, but still we felt it didn’t quite come together, and a cover of The Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em” drove us to the bar. Everybody else in the whole of Charlbury seemed to love it, though, so what do we know?
“Think Maroon 5 meets Beverley Knight combined creatively with early Red Hot Chili Peppers,” says the programme’s write up of Alyse In Wonderband. Jesus, if we had thoughts like that we’d turn ourselves in to the nearest police station for the good of the nation. Actually, they’re not bad at all, a youngish band who have a natural control of their pop-funk, and perform it with plenty of vim, Alyse Kimsey’s voice working well above fluent keys. “Creep” in particular (no, not that one) has a groove that even cuts through our professional cynicism.
As is the case every year, billypure make like The Levellers to cheer up the revellers, and if it isn’t a revolutionary leap from their previous sets, they do a good job, as ever, and the James cover is an interesting arrangement. The violin sounds horribly scratchy though – get a new pickup!
The Shakellers make a big-boned chirpy rock racket, something like The Bluetones pepped up on MSG and barndance cider, but The Black Hats do the perky guitar bit far better, their new wave ditties as excitable as a friendly puppy – and, oh look, there’s Lee Christina on guest vocals, with some of that sneering chutzpah we missed from the PSC set. However, it’s Von Braun that really win us over, making a good grungy early Muhhoney noise with drums, two guitars and a frankly buggered mike lead. At times the songs lift off into surreally wired mantras approaching The Pixies at their effervescent best. A great discovery.
You have to wonder how some of the acts find themselves on the Riverside bill, and what they think of it when they get there. Take Dead Like Harry, who have travelled all the way from Sheffield and who have recently toured with Scouting For Girls, do they think “finally, back to the roots”, or “disembowel the agent” when they roll up onto Mill Field? Not to mention all the stall holders selling dayglo dope leaf hoodies and all that crud, who look as though they make about three sales all weekend, do they feel swizzed? Well, fuck ‘em, the Riverside crowd is too sensible for that rubbish – the wacky hats are left to wilt in the sun whilst the home made cakes stall does a justifiably roaring trade.
Dead Like Harry are, of course, awful, but they don’t enrage us as much as we expected, even though they sound like Keane played by Hothouse Flowers. In fact, they come across as a likable bunch, and their piano-flecked pop is easy to tune out whilst finishing the crossword.
Phyal have been warmly welcomed back for a few reunion gigs, and Riverside is exactly the sort of place their approachable rock romps make sense. “Crude” doesn’t quite hit the spot, but after some drumkit surgery and a few swigs of lemon squash – oh, Kevin Eldon, if only you’d been there – “Daisy” flies out of the traps, setting the clattering tone for the next thirty minutes. A superb set but, it must be said, after three reunion gigs Phyal need to stop with the nostalgia and make some new recordings, or shut up!
Nah, only joking, they’re always good value, as are The Mighty Redox. They are a truly under-rated band outside of the furry fraternity in which they move. Nick Clack and Graham Barlow, aside from looking like shiftless dropouts from some Restart scheme for unemployed wizards, are an outstanding rhythm section, but they certainly know their place, leaving the lion’s share of the stage to Phil Freizinger’s fuzzy guitar and the frankly loopy Sue Smith’s acid-sauteed vocal wailing. Set highlight “Eternity” sounds like Gong freaking out in a banshee wife swapping party, until the world is fed through Freizinger’s giant phase pedal, which probably has its own generator backstage.
The weekend finished with The Quiet Men, who aren’t the band aging scenesters will remember, but an Irish folk rock band, with a big line in Pogues songs. Well, that’s OK, we all like The Pogues, right? Crowdpleasing, we suppose, but a disappointingly unadventurous end to the weekend. But then again, the beauty of Riverside is that it can entertain old West Oxfordshire boozers, sun-drenched children, well-heeled salmon sandwich picnickers as well as miserable musical zealots like ourselves. And, the real miracle is not that they’ve managed to put on a festival for free that aims to please so many people, but that they actually succeed. We’ll definitely be back for more next year.
Slantay.
RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, Mill Field, Charlbury, 20/6/10
“Please welcome Slantay,” yelps the main stage MC as Sunday kicks off. Well, it’s written Slainte, but pronounced “slawncheh”, meaning “health” or, colloquially, “cheers”; a tough word for an Anglophone, perhaps, but surely if your job basically boiled down to saying the names of bands before they played, you might make the effort to work out what the words sounded like, no? Not as bad as the announcer later on who introduced Redox by telling us they played “one of” his weddings (classy), and yet still laboured under the misapprehension they were called Reedox.
After a slightly scratchy opening Slainte, who are a Gaelic folk act (get away), build to a great head of steam, leavening the predicted foot tapping reels with “La Partida”, a luminescent harp showcase.
Apparently, gents think of the Alphabet Backwards if they’re trying to stave off, shall we say, a particular moment of intimacy. Funny, then, that the band is a huge explosion of pure energetic release. The beauty of the band is that they balance their Sunny Delight exuberance with some excellent song writing, not to mention the fantastically ornate and playful synth lines, that are like being wined and dined by a sexually predatory Ms PacMan. My God, Sunday has started well.
And it doesn’t stop there. Sonny Black is a white haired chap playing acoustic blues, and although we sometimes feel we’ve heard enough white haired chaps playing acoustic blues in provincial music events to last us until the day the lost chord is unearthed, Black really is worth a listen. Not only does he have some effortless bottleneck technique and a great little bucolic melody in the lovely “North Of The Border”, but he can also celebrate Mississippi John Hurt’s “easy-kickin’ fingerpickin’” in an English accent without sounding like a dick. There’s a quiet grace about him and his music, and he should have been higher up the bill with a few more train loads of listeners to greet him.
Lee Christian’s Prohibition Smokers Club are a loose-limbed latin pop jam band, looking like a mushroom ingesting cult pretending to be Kid Creole & The Coconuts. The horns are punchy, and the set is pitched as a little interlude of fun, but still we felt it didn’t quite come together, and a cover of The Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em” drove us to the bar. Everybody else in the whole of Charlbury seemed to love it, though, so what do we know?
“Think Maroon 5 meets Beverley Knight combined creatively with early Red Hot Chili Peppers,” says the programme’s write up of Alyse In Wonderband. Jesus, if we had thoughts like that we’d turn ourselves in to the nearest police station for the good of the nation. Actually, they’re not bad at all, a youngish band who have a natural control of their pop-funk, and perform it with plenty of vim, Alyse Kimsey’s voice working well above fluent keys. “Creep” in particular (no, not that one) has a groove that even cuts through our professional cynicism.
As is the case every year, billypure make like The Levellers to cheer up the revellers, and if it isn’t a revolutionary leap from their previous sets, they do a good job, as ever, and the James cover is an interesting arrangement. The violin sounds horribly scratchy though – get a new pickup!
The Shakellers make a big-boned chirpy rock racket, something like The Bluetones pepped up on MSG and barndance cider, but The Black Hats do the perky guitar bit far better, their new wave ditties as excitable as a friendly puppy – and, oh look, there’s Lee Christina on guest vocals, with some of that sneering chutzpah we missed from the PSC set. However, it’s Von Braun that really win us over, making a good grungy early Muhhoney noise with drums, two guitars and a frankly buggered mike lead. At times the songs lift off into surreally wired mantras approaching The Pixies at their effervescent best. A great discovery.
You have to wonder how some of the acts find themselves on the Riverside bill, and what they think of it when they get there. Take Dead Like Harry, who have travelled all the way from Sheffield and who have recently toured with Scouting For Girls, do they think “finally, back to the roots”, or “disembowel the agent” when they roll up onto Mill Field? Not to mention all the stall holders selling dayglo dope leaf hoodies and all that crud, who look as though they make about three sales all weekend, do they feel swizzed? Well, fuck ‘em, the Riverside crowd is too sensible for that rubbish – the wacky hats are left to wilt in the sun whilst the home made cakes stall does a justifiably roaring trade.
Dead Like Harry are, of course, awful, but they don’t enrage us as much as we expected, even though they sound like Keane played by Hothouse Flowers. In fact, they come across as a likable bunch, and their piano-flecked pop is easy to tune out whilst finishing the crossword.
Phyal have been warmly welcomed back for a few reunion gigs, and Riverside is exactly the sort of place their approachable rock romps make sense. “Crude” doesn’t quite hit the spot, but after some drumkit surgery and a few swigs of lemon squash – oh, Kevin Eldon, if only you’d been there – “Daisy” flies out of the traps, setting the clattering tone for the next thirty minutes. A superb set but, it must be said, after three reunion gigs Phyal need to stop with the nostalgia and make some new recordings, or shut up!
Nah, only joking, they’re always good value, as are The Mighty Redox. They are a truly under-rated band outside of the furry fraternity in which they move. Nick Clack and Graham Barlow, aside from looking like shiftless dropouts from some Restart scheme for unemployed wizards, are an outstanding rhythm section, but they certainly know their place, leaving the lion’s share of the stage to Phil Freizinger’s fuzzy guitar and the frankly loopy Sue Smith’s acid-sauteed vocal wailing. Set highlight “Eternity” sounds like Gong freaking out in a banshee wife swapping party, until the world is fed through Freizinger’s giant phase pedal, which probably has its own generator backstage.
The weekend finished with The Quiet Men, who aren’t the band aging scenesters will remember, but an Irish folk rock band, with a big line in Pogues songs. Well, that’s OK, we all like The Pogues, right? Crowdpleasing, we suppose, but a disappointingly unadventurous end to the weekend. But then again, the beauty of Riverside is that it can entertain old West Oxfordshire boozers, sun-drenched children, well-heeled salmon sandwich picnickers as well as miserable musical zealots like ourselves. And, the real miracle is not that they’ve managed to put on a festival for free that aims to please so many people, but that they actually succeed. We’ll definitely be back for more next year.
Slantay.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Riverside 2010 Saturday Pt 2
Huck & The Handsome Fee are very good, if a little one-paced, and Tamara Parsons-Baker vocals really shine in this unabashed ‘50s throwback. The Roundheels’ trad rocking is less intense, a bit of a light, fluffy country meringue, but is pleasant enough. The Delta Frequency make out that they’re all about the aggressive, subversive rock, but what we hear is like The Foo Fighters playing over a tinny old Front 242 LP. Ho hum.
Undersmile amuse us, not least because their name sounds like coy slang for a fanny. They supply a thick, dense grunge sound that just trudges on slowly forever, like a man ploughing treacle. The twin vocals detract from the Babes In Toyland effect a little, sounding like two girls who don’t want to eat their sprouts, but that aside they’re a fun new band.
Far more fun than Charlie Coombes & The New Breed, despite the fact they’re several squillion times more experienced. Actually, he’s not that bad, and has a very smooth voice, like a 70s sit com vicar having a crack at Nik Heyward, but the songs just aren’t there. He only needs one great Crowded House style pop hit and we’d love him, but for now we’re bored enough to consider going for a quick game of chess with the guy from the Mexican food stand.
With flagging energy levels, Riverside keep back three excellent acts to round off the day. The Family Machine still have the chirpiest pop songs in Oxford concealing sharpest barbs, but they feel distant on the big stage. Beard Of Zeuss make a sort of bang bang bang noise for a while and it sounds bloody great; by the end we’re not only unsure whether it is wrong to spell Zeus with two esses, but we’re wondering whether a few more might not go amiss.
Borderville synthesise the twin poles of the sometimes mystifying Riverside booking policy. They play “proper” music, with choruses and schoolroom keyboard technique and a respect for rock classics, yet they also throw it together with such calculatedly wild abandon and desperate drama that the gig becomes almost aggressively experimental. They start with a string quartet, which is over-amped and out of tune, but sets the tone of faded glamour from which the set springs in all its camp glory. This is what Glee would be like if Roxy Music sat on Mount Olympus and Pete Townshend carried amps down Mount Sinai. Improbably excellent music.
Undersmile amuse us, not least because their name sounds like coy slang for a fanny. They supply a thick, dense grunge sound that just trudges on slowly forever, like a man ploughing treacle. The twin vocals detract from the Babes In Toyland effect a little, sounding like two girls who don’t want to eat their sprouts, but that aside they’re a fun new band.
Far more fun than Charlie Coombes & The New Breed, despite the fact they’re several squillion times more experienced. Actually, he’s not that bad, and has a very smooth voice, like a 70s sit com vicar having a crack at Nik Heyward, but the songs just aren’t there. He only needs one great Crowded House style pop hit and we’d love him, but for now we’re bored enough to consider going for a quick game of chess with the guy from the Mexican food stand.
With flagging energy levels, Riverside keep back three excellent acts to round off the day. The Family Machine still have the chirpiest pop songs in Oxford concealing sharpest barbs, but they feel distant on the big stage. Beard Of Zeuss make a sort of bang bang bang noise for a while and it sounds bloody great; by the end we’re not only unsure whether it is wrong to spell Zeus with two esses, but we’re wondering whether a few more might not go amiss.
Borderville synthesise the twin poles of the sometimes mystifying Riverside booking policy. They play “proper” music, with choruses and schoolroom keyboard technique and a respect for rock classics, yet they also throw it together with such calculatedly wild abandon and desperate drama that the gig becomes almost aggressively experimental. They start with a string quartet, which is over-amped and out of tune, but sets the tone of faded glamour from which the set springs in all its camp glory. This is what Glee would be like if Roxy Music sat on Mount Olympus and Pete Townshend carried amps down Mount Sinai. Improbably excellent music.
Riverside Babylon
The giant monkey fun of Truck is coming this weekend, and I shall be there with a biro, some ripped notepaper and a rucksack filled with cheap bitter. To get you in the festival mood, today and Friday I'll post my review of the smaller, freer and, let's be honest, not really as good but bloody great fun all the same, Riverside festival. Lots of people thought this review was too harsh, because the event was free, but I - naturally - disagree. What's the value of giving a band a good review at a free event and a stinker a week later when the gig costs a fiver? And is there a sliding scale in the middle? "£3.50? Hmmm, let's pretend the bass was in time, even though we'll admit the guitar was out of tune". Poppy, and indeed, cock.
RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, Mill Field, Charlbury, 19-20/6/10
A work colleague has a mug reading “A bad day fishing beats a good day working”. Hardly Kierkegaard, but bear it in mind when reading this review: although we saw very few acts that really inspired us (on Saturday at least), we’d rather spend a weekend watching disappointing music at Riverside than a night with decent bands at The Academy. It’s something to do with the delightful landscape, the excellent Marsh Gibbon ales, the friendly atmosphere and the knowledge that some people have gone to a lot of effort to create a weekend out for us all, and not asked for a penny.
Deer Chicago are a decent opener to the festival, constructing large scale edifices of ever-so-slightly angular rock with a sturdy, emotional voice spread over the top. All very Fell City Girl, though Jonny Payne’s voice doesn’t have the natural power of Phil McMinn’s. The odd Jam interlude works surprisingly well.
At first Alan Fraser & The Resignation Orchestra offer flat jazz with Tom Waits Gruffalo growling from festival organisor Dave Oates. Diverting, but not much else. However, after a minute or two they start to warm up, and Fraser’s soprano sax solos become more interesting and contrast with some excellent honks and bubbles from Tony Bevan’s bass baritone, which is roughly the size of a hatchback.
Music For Pleasure entertain us as ever. Their mixture of spicy mid-reign R.E.M. melody and pre-leyline Julian Cope energy is always fun, even if it lacks the character of their day job bands (Harry Angel and The Unbelievable Truth). It’s like many of long term local trier Mark Cobb’s bands, but with bigger balls.
The Black Dog Emporium sadly sound nothing like techno trailblazers The Black Dog, nor much like Black Sabbath, despite the programme’s allegations. Instead they play a tedious brand of lightly funky 70s rock. The word “Reef” came to mind, and not least because it felt as though we were grounded inextricably in musical shallows. The drummer made things mildly interesting with some carbonated fills, but the vocals were honked out as if by a bingo caller trying to communicate across a Swiss valley.
More foghorn vocal subtlety from Crackerdummy. They’re a capable post-grunge trio who remind us of average Irish act Mundy. They playing is good, and it’s all well put together, but only in the way a small brick wall is. A small wall where you were hoping to find a bouncy castle and bourbon jacuzzi.
Remember David Oates’ functional blues growling? It starts to feel like a halcyon era once Stuart Turner starts his rubbish gravelly groaning. It sounds as though he’s trying to scare an errant toddler, not entertain adults. Pity, as The Flat Earth Society are a good band, spinning a nice sticky rockabilly web, and capable of a John Lee Hooker style boogie chug. We live in a frustrating world in which most post-rock instrumental bands sound half finished, but where most blues bands are ruined by duff singers.
Last year Diplomat’s Coffee kept us awake for the weekend. Sadly, this year we’re forced to buy our brew from a drunk man selling Mexican food, who was frankly fortunate not to have burnt his fingers off or inadvertently stabbed himself with a potato wedge at any point over the weekend. On one visit he mumbled something impenetrable about Mary Whitehouse and pronounced “hot chocolate” with one syllable, and at the next he blessed our coffee, even though we doubt he’s taken holy orders.
If Music For Pleasure hark back to R.E.M.’s Green, David Celia immediately reminds us of Around The Sun. Wrong choice, Dave. But we give him a chance and although the music is a little grown up for us, he has some a warm voice with decent Neil Young flourishes and some nice delicate keyboard parts, so we’ll give him the thumbs up.
RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, Mill Field, Charlbury, 19-20/6/10
A work colleague has a mug reading “A bad day fishing beats a good day working”. Hardly Kierkegaard, but bear it in mind when reading this review: although we saw very few acts that really inspired us (on Saturday at least), we’d rather spend a weekend watching disappointing music at Riverside than a night with decent bands at The Academy. It’s something to do with the delightful landscape, the excellent Marsh Gibbon ales, the friendly atmosphere and the knowledge that some people have gone to a lot of effort to create a weekend out for us all, and not asked for a penny.
Deer Chicago are a decent opener to the festival, constructing large scale edifices of ever-so-slightly angular rock with a sturdy, emotional voice spread over the top. All very Fell City Girl, though Jonny Payne’s voice doesn’t have the natural power of Phil McMinn’s. The odd Jam interlude works surprisingly well.
At first Alan Fraser & The Resignation Orchestra offer flat jazz with Tom Waits Gruffalo growling from festival organisor Dave Oates. Diverting, but not much else. However, after a minute or two they start to warm up, and Fraser’s soprano sax solos become more interesting and contrast with some excellent honks and bubbles from Tony Bevan’s bass baritone, which is roughly the size of a hatchback.
Music For Pleasure entertain us as ever. Their mixture of spicy mid-reign R.E.M. melody and pre-leyline Julian Cope energy is always fun, even if it lacks the character of their day job bands (Harry Angel and The Unbelievable Truth). It’s like many of long term local trier Mark Cobb’s bands, but with bigger balls.
The Black Dog Emporium sadly sound nothing like techno trailblazers The Black Dog, nor much like Black Sabbath, despite the programme’s allegations. Instead they play a tedious brand of lightly funky 70s rock. The word “Reef” came to mind, and not least because it felt as though we were grounded inextricably in musical shallows. The drummer made things mildly interesting with some carbonated fills, but the vocals were honked out as if by a bingo caller trying to communicate across a Swiss valley.
More foghorn vocal subtlety from Crackerdummy. They’re a capable post-grunge trio who remind us of average Irish act Mundy. They playing is good, and it’s all well put together, but only in the way a small brick wall is. A small wall where you were hoping to find a bouncy castle and bourbon jacuzzi.
Remember David Oates’ functional blues growling? It starts to feel like a halcyon era once Stuart Turner starts his rubbish gravelly groaning. It sounds as though he’s trying to scare an errant toddler, not entertain adults. Pity, as The Flat Earth Society are a good band, spinning a nice sticky rockabilly web, and capable of a John Lee Hooker style boogie chug. We live in a frustrating world in which most post-rock instrumental bands sound half finished, but where most blues bands are ruined by duff singers.
Last year Diplomat’s Coffee kept us awake for the weekend. Sadly, this year we’re forced to buy our brew from a drunk man selling Mexican food, who was frankly fortunate not to have burnt his fingers off or inadvertently stabbed himself with a potato wedge at any point over the weekend. On one visit he mumbled something impenetrable about Mary Whitehouse and pronounced “hot chocolate” with one syllable, and at the next he blessed our coffee, even though we doubt he’s taken holy orders.
If Music For Pleasure hark back to R.E.M.’s Green, David Celia immediately reminds us of Around The Sun. Wrong choice, Dave. But we give him a chance and although the music is a little grown up for us, he has some a warm voice with decent Neil Young flourishes and some nice delicate keyboard parts, so we’ll give him the thumbs up.
Saturday, 17 July 2010
4AD A1 CD
Oh dear. I've listened to too much music today, and eaten too many cruisps and Haribos, so I've gone a bit funny. Still, I'm druinking mint tea and spinning some Szymanowski in an attempt to calm my jangly mind.
Anwyay, chilli con carne, that's a funny one, eh? It means "chilli with meat", I'd imagine, yet most chilli has meat, and in my experiecne what it really means is "chilli with kidney beans". Babelfish tells me this would be chilli con las habas de riñón, but I suspect that's not idiomatic. Ho hum.
STORNOWAY – BEACHCOMBER’S WINDOWSILL (4AD)
Always, the guilt comes. Nibbling the conscience, a small internal voice insidiously queries our sense of proportion: are the local acts we love fully deserving of praise, or is our shelf lined with rose tinted CD cases? In short, do we hope for greatness so hard, we begin to imagine it?
Well, we’ve listened to this new Stornoway LP repeatedly, and although we want them to succeed because they’re local heroes and delightful boys to boot, the fact is that this record is astonishing, doubtlessly the most exciting collection of cerebral English joy-pop since The Divine Comedy’s Promenade. Take that, paranoid interior monologue! Most of the songs will be familiar to locals, but the recordings are perfect, beautifully constructed, yet never overegged, making Stornoway superior to Mumford & Sons, the act with whom they’re most often compared. Like some of the best pop, Beachcomber’s Windowsill is epic and intimate simultaneously.
And with that the review can only become a list of favourite moments. The melancholic life story of “Fuel Up”; the lush porch song ambience of “We Are The Battery Human”, like Charlie Poole rewritten by The Daintees; the opening of “On The Rocks”, in which Simon & Garfunkel get lost in a strawberry mist before being lifted away on God’s own cymbals; “Long-Distance Lullaby”’s ultra-clean horn section that make us think of Tanita Tikaram for no reason we can fathom.
This is a world class collection of songs deliciously presented. Of course there are tiny imperfections. Despite the high esteem in which it’s held, we’ve never really been excited by “The End Of The Movie”, at least until the wistful conclusion. Also, the lyrics to “The Coldharbour Road” are somewhat clunky – can you really defend the schoolboy clumsiness of “I am a seabird, you are the Arctic Ocean”? Oh, and we’re not convinced you can really have an exclamation mark after an ellipsis, which counts against “Here Comes The Blackout...!”. Can you tell we’re grasping at straws here? We bloody love this record, and to balance these minor peccadilloes we have wonderfully subtle touches in the arrangements, especially the mournful pier end organ on “Fuel Up” or “Zorbing”’s Red Army Choir backing vocals.
The tagline on Stornoway’s Myspace has been “A living breathing Mark Twain novel” for quite some time, but we don’t hear the blustery, satirical, knockabout carnival of Samuel Clemens on this album, we prefer to think of the band as a hushed yet hopeful British poem, the introspective halfsmile of Edward Thomas’ “Adlestrop”, perhaps. The record ends with a tale of waking up someone just for a tipsily emotional phone call, and the chance to say “Goodnight, soulmate”. Companionship, honesty, pop music: Stornoway certainly know what the good things in life are.
Anwyay, chilli con carne, that's a funny one, eh? It means "chilli with meat", I'd imagine, yet most chilli has meat, and in my experiecne what it really means is "chilli with kidney beans". Babelfish tells me this would be chilli con las habas de riñón, but I suspect that's not idiomatic. Ho hum.
STORNOWAY – BEACHCOMBER’S WINDOWSILL (4AD)
Always, the guilt comes. Nibbling the conscience, a small internal voice insidiously queries our sense of proportion: are the local acts we love fully deserving of praise, or is our shelf lined with rose tinted CD cases? In short, do we hope for greatness so hard, we begin to imagine it?
Well, we’ve listened to this new Stornoway LP repeatedly, and although we want them to succeed because they’re local heroes and delightful boys to boot, the fact is that this record is astonishing, doubtlessly the most exciting collection of cerebral English joy-pop since The Divine Comedy’s Promenade. Take that, paranoid interior monologue! Most of the songs will be familiar to locals, but the recordings are perfect, beautifully constructed, yet never overegged, making Stornoway superior to Mumford & Sons, the act with whom they’re most often compared. Like some of the best pop, Beachcomber’s Windowsill is epic and intimate simultaneously.
And with that the review can only become a list of favourite moments. The melancholic life story of “Fuel Up”; the lush porch song ambience of “We Are The Battery Human”, like Charlie Poole rewritten by The Daintees; the opening of “On The Rocks”, in which Simon & Garfunkel get lost in a strawberry mist before being lifted away on God’s own cymbals; “Long-Distance Lullaby”’s ultra-clean horn section that make us think of Tanita Tikaram for no reason we can fathom.
This is a world class collection of songs deliciously presented. Of course there are tiny imperfections. Despite the high esteem in which it’s held, we’ve never really been excited by “The End Of The Movie”, at least until the wistful conclusion. Also, the lyrics to “The Coldharbour Road” are somewhat clunky – can you really defend the schoolboy clumsiness of “I am a seabird, you are the Arctic Ocean”? Oh, and we’re not convinced you can really have an exclamation mark after an ellipsis, which counts against “Here Comes The Blackout...!”. Can you tell we’re grasping at straws here? We bloody love this record, and to balance these minor peccadilloes we have wonderfully subtle touches in the arrangements, especially the mournful pier end organ on “Fuel Up” or “Zorbing”’s Red Army Choir backing vocals.
The tagline on Stornoway’s Myspace has been “A living breathing Mark Twain novel” for quite some time, but we don’t hear the blustery, satirical, knockabout carnival of Samuel Clemens on this album, we prefer to think of the band as a hushed yet hopeful British poem, the introspective halfsmile of Edward Thomas’ “Adlestrop”, perhaps. The record ends with a tale of waking up someone just for a tipsily emotional phone call, and the chance to say “Goodnight, soulmate”. Companionship, honesty, pop music: Stornoway certainly know what the good things in life are.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Lavitate
Hmm, I fear I may have over sold the Cowley Lavatory Story, so please bear in mind that after you've read this, there's a really dumb pun I thought of at the end. No peeking ahead, now.
Recently I had one of those experiences that everybody has, no matter how urbane and sophisticated they feel they are. My bowels rebelled, and half way through a thirty minute walk, I realised strange things were afoot. It's a terrible feeling, packing a turtle's head when you know you have another ten minutes of walking until you reach your destination, all you can do is hope you've got the stamina. Sadly, my destination was a bus stop, at which I'd catch a bus for a 15 minute or so journey. So, I reached my port, and had there been a bus arriving I would have got on. I would probably have survived. But there was no bus, and the little electronic screen that looks like the one that provided the football scores on Saturday afternoons in the 80s claimed it would be eight minutes befoere the next one came. Eight minutes! Normally I wait about two. Oh my God, God, God, what to do. Right, I can't wait.
So, I hobbled a little further down the road and used a public toilet, adjacent to Manzil Way, in Oxford. I can't tell you how many hundreds, nay thousands of times I've walked past this little building without really paying it any mind, but stepping into it was an eye opener. Here was a building that clearly missed a meeting, a few square feet that must have mislaid the memo about the whole Dreaming Spires thing.
The urinal was aromatic, but I had no time to pay it any mind. I bundled into a cubicle and slammed the huge institution green reinforced door and slid home the cast iron bolt behind it. Hang on a mo, what? Am I in prison? Honestly, this huge bolt was like something from a nineteenth century remand house, not a convenience in a celebrated town in 2o1o. The cubicle walls didn't reach the ceiling, there was about a foot left for ventiliation, which was filled with serious looking bars.
The toilet itself was something I've never seen the like of. There was nothing so elegant as a separate cistern, and no sniff of anything as decadent as porcelain. What I got was a huge, aluminium block of a thing with no seat; a big old indominable, undamagable hunk of metal with a hole in it, in other words. There was, of course, no paper, but luckily I had some random packet of tissues in my bag. There was, however, more unpainted metal in the form of a box in which to put your used needles or, apparently, safety pins. How do you inject heroin with a safety pin, anyway? Do you just prick a vein and sort of drop the brown stuff over the tiny hole, like someone crumbling an Oxo cube into a pipette?
After the unpleasant business was done (and I don't recall ever having hovered above a toilet bowl like a prim dowager in a 50s theatre, but I did this time), I pressed the flush. "Flush" is right, the small unmarked metal button was set into the top of the giant metal lav-chunk, and I didn't see it for a few seconds. Presumably people would steal an actual flush and sell it for safety pin money. It was then that I realised that the toilet felt like something from an interstellar shuttle. Some sort of space jail for rogue asteroid miners, perhaps.
But, once the pressing issues of the afternoon had been dispensed with, I had a look at the grafitti. It was mostly pencil sketches of dark skinned lads getting intimate with one another, along with some times and dates one might meet the artist (not the day on which I was there, I'm happy to report). I suddenly realised how very long it had been since I had seen pictures like this; I think I came across some in public loos in my youth, but there was something improbably reassuring about them; yeah, of course there are any number of big willies and "call to suck me off" messages scrawled on pub bogs in Oxford, but nothing like this. There was almost a sort of melancholy about the whole thing. It was like coming across a traditional wheelwright, or one of those sweet shops with racks of old fashioned confectionary to be weighed into quarters for boys in school caps. It fucking stank, though, so I didn't linger to admire .
Guess whether there was any soap.
And that's the Cowley Lavatory Story; now here's a pun.
I just went to the bookshop for a beginner's guide to Japanese culture. It's called What Part Of Noh Don't You Understand?
BEAR IN THE AIR – BIPOLAR EP (demo)
Well, this is a pleasant surprise.
We’ve seen Bear In The Air live twice over the past few years, and been left resolutely uninspired both times, but this recording is a pretty enjoyable experience. “Put On Your Travelling Shoes” opens with tastefully reverby keyboard tinkles that aren’t a million miles away from something on the American Beauty soundtrack. A few seconds later the band comes in with a hazy fuzzy version of 60s rock recreated in the guise of 90s indie, and a frantically catchy, breathy vocal line about “drinking wine straight from the bottle” hooks its claws deep into that odd nodule of the brain that exists solely to hang onto fragments of pop melody and random lines from ancient adverts (“Clifford is quite the bon viveur”). Whilst the medulla hauntologica is being entranced, the conscious part of our mind is coming to a conclusion: that Stefan Archer’s keyboards get flattened and distorted through small PAs, and that Kane Chamberlain’s vocals can be charmingly tuneful, even though they’re clearly too weak to cut it on a noisy stage. There are definitely some very strong elements to this band that we’d entirely missed in concert.
“Unnatural” reinforces the feeling that this is a studio band – no shame in that – by washing us down with a tinny High Street shoegaze sound that might not excite the purists, but again tickles the ears of anyone with an interest in well made pop music. In fact, it reminds us an awful lot of “Dreams” by The Cranberries, and it might come as a shock to anyone who’s only come across the ugly punchdrunk politicising of “Zombie” that they were a decent band on their first album. Cloyingly sugary perhaps, but these two tracks are worth a listen.
“Have A Happy Life” is slightly less successful, but it’s still built around a jaunty little melody that takes us by the hand for a quick dance down a petal-strewn path; trouble is Archer keeps trying to trip us up into a fetid pool of schmaltzy mid-80s sax along the hourney. Get back on the keyboards, man! Something about the clean rock ‘n’ roll rhythms remind us of Aztec Camera just after they’d ceased to matter. It’s a decent enough song, but doesn’t really hit the heights.
There are some lovely icy little drum machine interjections on “Skywriting”, but for the most part it’s smothered beneath a thick blanket of pseudo-strings. The lyrics talk about being “underneath a landslide/ Swimming in the riptide”, but the music is so safe it’s more the sonic equivalent of sitting quietly on the little train at Blenheim Palace, with members of Keane riding the throttle making sure the journey doesn’t get too exciting.
We look forward to hearing the Bears’ next recording, as this one has honestly blown away our expectations. We hope that they can capitalise on the airy melodicism of the best music here, and leave the nods towards landfill indie behind. We’d like them to leave the sensibly cosy ground behind and start to sound a lot more bi-polar, but for now this is a CD we can fully support.
Recently I had one of those experiences that everybody has, no matter how urbane and sophisticated they feel they are. My bowels rebelled, and half way through a thirty minute walk, I realised strange things were afoot. It's a terrible feeling, packing a turtle's head when you know you have another ten minutes of walking until you reach your destination, all you can do is hope you've got the stamina. Sadly, my destination was a bus stop, at which I'd catch a bus for a 15 minute or so journey. So, I reached my port, and had there been a bus arriving I would have got on. I would probably have survived. But there was no bus, and the little electronic screen that looks like the one that provided the football scores on Saturday afternoons in the 80s claimed it would be eight minutes befoere the next one came. Eight minutes! Normally I wait about two. Oh my God, God, God, what to do. Right, I can't wait.
So, I hobbled a little further down the road and used a public toilet, adjacent to Manzil Way, in Oxford. I can't tell you how many hundreds, nay thousands of times I've walked past this little building without really paying it any mind, but stepping into it was an eye opener. Here was a building that clearly missed a meeting, a few square feet that must have mislaid the memo about the whole Dreaming Spires thing.
The urinal was aromatic, but I had no time to pay it any mind. I bundled into a cubicle and slammed the huge institution green reinforced door and slid home the cast iron bolt behind it. Hang on a mo, what? Am I in prison? Honestly, this huge bolt was like something from a nineteenth century remand house, not a convenience in a celebrated town in 2o1o. The cubicle walls didn't reach the ceiling, there was about a foot left for ventiliation, which was filled with serious looking bars.
The toilet itself was something I've never seen the like of. There was nothing so elegant as a separate cistern, and no sniff of anything as decadent as porcelain. What I got was a huge, aluminium block of a thing with no seat; a big old indominable, undamagable hunk of metal with a hole in it, in other words. There was, of course, no paper, but luckily I had some random packet of tissues in my bag. There was, however, more unpainted metal in the form of a box in which to put your used needles or, apparently, safety pins. How do you inject heroin with a safety pin, anyway? Do you just prick a vein and sort of drop the brown stuff over the tiny hole, like someone crumbling an Oxo cube into a pipette?
After the unpleasant business was done (and I don't recall ever having hovered above a toilet bowl like a prim dowager in a 50s theatre, but I did this time), I pressed the flush. "Flush" is right, the small unmarked metal button was set into the top of the giant metal lav-chunk, and I didn't see it for a few seconds. Presumably people would steal an actual flush and sell it for safety pin money. It was then that I realised that the toilet felt like something from an interstellar shuttle. Some sort of space jail for rogue asteroid miners, perhaps.
But, once the pressing issues of the afternoon had been dispensed with, I had a look at the grafitti. It was mostly pencil sketches of dark skinned lads getting intimate with one another, along with some times and dates one might meet the artist (not the day on which I was there, I'm happy to report). I suddenly realised how very long it had been since I had seen pictures like this; I think I came across some in public loos in my youth, but there was something improbably reassuring about them; yeah, of course there are any number of big willies and "call to suck me off" messages scrawled on pub bogs in Oxford, but nothing like this. There was almost a sort of melancholy about the whole thing. It was like coming across a traditional wheelwright, or one of those sweet shops with racks of old fashioned confectionary to be weighed into quarters for boys in school caps. It fucking stank, though, so I didn't linger to admire .
Guess whether there was any soap.
And that's the Cowley Lavatory Story; now here's a pun.
I just went to the bookshop for a beginner's guide to Japanese culture. It's called What Part Of Noh Don't You Understand?
BEAR IN THE AIR – BIPOLAR EP (demo)
Well, this is a pleasant surprise.
We’ve seen Bear In The Air live twice over the past few years, and been left resolutely uninspired both times, but this recording is a pretty enjoyable experience. “Put On Your Travelling Shoes” opens with tastefully reverby keyboard tinkles that aren’t a million miles away from something on the American Beauty soundtrack. A few seconds later the band comes in with a hazy fuzzy version of 60s rock recreated in the guise of 90s indie, and a frantically catchy, breathy vocal line about “drinking wine straight from the bottle” hooks its claws deep into that odd nodule of the brain that exists solely to hang onto fragments of pop melody and random lines from ancient adverts (“Clifford is quite the bon viveur”). Whilst the medulla hauntologica is being entranced, the conscious part of our mind is coming to a conclusion: that Stefan Archer’s keyboards get flattened and distorted through small PAs, and that Kane Chamberlain’s vocals can be charmingly tuneful, even though they’re clearly too weak to cut it on a noisy stage. There are definitely some very strong elements to this band that we’d entirely missed in concert.
“Unnatural” reinforces the feeling that this is a studio band – no shame in that – by washing us down with a tinny High Street shoegaze sound that might not excite the purists, but again tickles the ears of anyone with an interest in well made pop music. In fact, it reminds us an awful lot of “Dreams” by The Cranberries, and it might come as a shock to anyone who’s only come across the ugly punchdrunk politicising of “Zombie” that they were a decent band on their first album. Cloyingly sugary perhaps, but these two tracks are worth a listen.
“Have A Happy Life” is slightly less successful, but it’s still built around a jaunty little melody that takes us by the hand for a quick dance down a petal-strewn path; trouble is Archer keeps trying to trip us up into a fetid pool of schmaltzy mid-80s sax along the hourney. Get back on the keyboards, man! Something about the clean rock ‘n’ roll rhythms remind us of Aztec Camera just after they’d ceased to matter. It’s a decent enough song, but doesn’t really hit the heights.
There are some lovely icy little drum machine interjections on “Skywriting”, but for the most part it’s smothered beneath a thick blanket of pseudo-strings. The lyrics talk about being “underneath a landslide/ Swimming in the riptide”, but the music is so safe it’s more the sonic equivalent of sitting quietly on the little train at Blenheim Palace, with members of Keane riding the throttle making sure the journey doesn’t get too exciting.
We look forward to hearing the Bears’ next recording, as this one has honestly blown away our expectations. We hope that they can capitalise on the airy melodicism of the best music here, and leave the nods towards landfill indie behind. We’d like them to leave the sensibly cosy ground behind and start to sound a lot more bi-polar, but for now this is a CD we can fully support.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Bossa No, Ta
I had to go to work today. On a Saturday, I ask you. Still, time and a half, eh? This, coupled with the fact I have to retype this review - which is the very last from the ancient archives - means I don't have time to tell the Cowley Lavatory Story. Remind me to do it Tuesday.
MOTIV, Bossaphonik, The Cellar 20/1/06
It's something of a truism that most rock bands are better live than on record, and that songs breathe a little more easily in the vibrant atmosphere of a performance than they do in the strict confines of the studio. Oddly, the new breed of hip hop influenced club jazz bands seem to crank out fluent, funky nuggets on record, but onstage they descend into stadium rock bombast and sluggish clumsiness. I'd heard an EP by London-based seven-piece Motiv, a few years ago, and been impressed. Firy horn solos were bounced on elastic basslines whilst jazzy keyboards rumbled in the middle distance and insistent rhythms punched the whole thing along. What was most intriguing about the recording was the way they kept hold of that dancefloor staple, a rich and constant groove, while allowing the saxophonist space to take his solos to far more exciting places than most club jazzers would dare.
Stuff them onstage in The Cellar, however, and this attention to detail goes out the window. They don't play too baldy, but it all feels hollow and unconvincing - they sound less like they're playing together, and more like they happen to be playing near each other. The drummer is frankly excellent, but nobody seems to be overly concerned with playing off his springy rhythms. Listen, in funk the beat has to be exact if you want it to work: the downbeat has got to be a singularity, not a quantum packet.
It's a tragedy that Motiv can't seem to fall in line, as there's so much individual talent on display. The saxophonist still boasts an impressive technical range, from angular Maceo lines to abstract Coltrane squiggles, whilst the trumpet and flugelhorn player has a neatly contrasting melancholic tone, something like Clifford Brown on occasion. But too often the brass are approximating the requirements of the music, sawing when they should be stabbing. Similarly, occasional rapper The Cheshire Cat and a female vocalist are pretty adept on the mike, if slightly too content to shout, "Are you alright, Oxford?" between every tune. As a friend of mine put it, "It's hard to see whatr this band is doing wrong...except the gig".
All in all Motiv seem to be coasting, content to let their musical funky footsoldiers turn into shambling zombies, content to shout "Power to the people!" instead of making any meaningful connection. Yes, the majority of the audience are very appreciative, but stick anything approaching dance music on at midnight on a Friday in a licensed venue and people are guaranteed to go ape. Motiv could still be a very good band, if they could just find a little passion and precision. James Brown once sang "Get up! Get into it! Get involved!". Well, there are worse mantras a band can adopt...
MOTIV, Bossaphonik, The Cellar 20/1/06
It's something of a truism that most rock bands are better live than on record, and that songs breathe a little more easily in the vibrant atmosphere of a performance than they do in the strict confines of the studio. Oddly, the new breed of hip hop influenced club jazz bands seem to crank out fluent, funky nuggets on record, but onstage they descend into stadium rock bombast and sluggish clumsiness. I'd heard an EP by London-based seven-piece Motiv, a few years ago, and been impressed. Firy horn solos were bounced on elastic basslines whilst jazzy keyboards rumbled in the middle distance and insistent rhythms punched the whole thing along. What was most intriguing about the recording was the way they kept hold of that dancefloor staple, a rich and constant groove, while allowing the saxophonist space to take his solos to far more exciting places than most club jazzers would dare.
Stuff them onstage in The Cellar, however, and this attention to detail goes out the window. They don't play too baldy, but it all feels hollow and unconvincing - they sound less like they're playing together, and more like they happen to be playing near each other. The drummer is frankly excellent, but nobody seems to be overly concerned with playing off his springy rhythms. Listen, in funk the beat has to be exact if you want it to work: the downbeat has got to be a singularity, not a quantum packet.
It's a tragedy that Motiv can't seem to fall in line, as there's so much individual talent on display. The saxophonist still boasts an impressive technical range, from angular Maceo lines to abstract Coltrane squiggles, whilst the trumpet and flugelhorn player has a neatly contrasting melancholic tone, something like Clifford Brown on occasion. But too often the brass are approximating the requirements of the music, sawing when they should be stabbing. Similarly, occasional rapper The Cheshire Cat and a female vocalist are pretty adept on the mike, if slightly too content to shout, "Are you alright, Oxford?" between every tune. As a friend of mine put it, "It's hard to see whatr this band is doing wrong...except the gig".
All in all Motiv seem to be coasting, content to let their musical funky footsoldiers turn into shambling zombies, content to shout "Power to the people!" instead of making any meaningful connection. Yes, the majority of the audience are very appreciative, but stick anything approaching dance music on at midnight on a Friday in a licensed venue and people are guaranteed to go ape. Motiv could still be a very good band, if they could just find a little passion and precision. James Brown once sang "Get up! Get into it! Get involved!". Well, there are worse mantras a band can adopt...
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Manny 911
I hardly ever play computer games, I'm not really best placed to judge this sort of thing, but why spoil a facile review intro? This is from way back in October 05.
Chinese Fingertrap - Grim Fandango
Drifting into Extreme Geek Mode for a moment, Grim Fandango is on of the wittiest computer games ever, right up there with Elite and Zelda:Ocarina Of Time. It concerns Manny Calavera and his noirish trawls through the dark underbelly of the Land of the Dead, discovering layer upon layer of dark intrigue. It's a strained link, I'll admit, but this Grim Fandango isn't dissimilar, as a few listens throws up more than is normally apparent in the staid realm of melodic metal.
In addition to the straight-up sing vs growl clusters that are "Time Gentlemen Please" and "Paint By Numbers", we find a more yearning tone in "If You Knew What Was Good For You" that recalls Day Of Grace and even a cavernouisly abstract hip hop sound on the brief title track (imagine the heavier corners of the Macro Dub Infection compilations or the silty bottom of a Cypress Hill tune). By keeping the tracks - and the cueing times between them - brief, Chinese Fingertrap manage to make the record varied and surprising, without losing any of the punch.
"Shake Your Moneymaker" might have resulted in numerous fines if CFT were James Brown's backing band, but what it lacks in funk action it gains in pure wallop. Only "Everyone's Going To The Party Baby!" fails to ignite, a stumpy teenage plod leaving an unpleasant Kid Rock aftertaste. It may not be the most original music released in Oxford this year, but Grim Fandango is well thought out, well recorded, well performed and should be played well loud,
Chinese Fingertrap - Grim Fandango
Drifting into Extreme Geek Mode for a moment, Grim Fandango is on of the wittiest computer games ever, right up there with Elite and Zelda:Ocarina Of Time. It concerns Manny Calavera and his noirish trawls through the dark underbelly of the Land of the Dead, discovering layer upon layer of dark intrigue. It's a strained link, I'll admit, but this Grim Fandango isn't dissimilar, as a few listens throws up more than is normally apparent in the staid realm of melodic metal.
In addition to the straight-up sing vs growl clusters that are "Time Gentlemen Please" and "Paint By Numbers", we find a more yearning tone in "If You Knew What Was Good For You" that recalls Day Of Grace and even a cavernouisly abstract hip hop sound on the brief title track (imagine the heavier corners of the Macro Dub Infection compilations or the silty bottom of a Cypress Hill tune). By keeping the tracks - and the cueing times between them - brief, Chinese Fingertrap manage to make the record varied and surprising, without losing any of the punch.
"Shake Your Moneymaker" might have resulted in numerous fines if CFT were James Brown's backing band, but what it lacks in funk action it gains in pure wallop. Only "Everyone's Going To The Party Baby!" fails to ignite, a stumpy teenage plod leaving an unpleasant Kid Rock aftertaste. It may not be the most original music released in Oxford this year, but Grim Fandango is well thought out, well recorded, well performed and should be played well loud,
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Sleepy, Hollow
I recently became the World Handjob Champion. I had to beat off stiff competition.
Sorry.
THE EMPTY VESSELS/ SAMUEL ZASADA/ NUMBERNINE – Moshka, Bully, 9/4/10
Numbernine have been away for a few years, but they still peddle a perky, carbonated britpop that is immensely enjoyable, if slightly hackneyed. In their time away from the stage, they’ve had a slight shuffle and Alex Horwill now plays drums (although it may be him on the somewhat superfluous samples and backing tracks), and he has a natural bounce that suits the songs even if a couple of golden clunkers tell of a lack of rehearsal. The bass is still the best thing about the band, supple and springy yet capable of building some pretty solid rock edifices on occasion. It s only the lead vocals that are mild let down: plenty of pep, but they do tend to shove falsetto in place of melodic invention.
The songs are of a high calibre, even if most of them sound as though they’re being beamed in from 1994. “My New Mantra” tries to stretch the envelope with a proggy Eastern flavour, but ends up feeling dyspeptically like Gene playing Zepellin, and the band are happiest with tracks like “London”, reeking of Camden market and redolent of NME inky fingers gripping pints in The Good Mixer. All in all, it’s good to have Numbernine back, they make a great unpretentious pop noise, and have a couple of cracking tunes, not least “Talk”, a melodic barnstormer that still reminds us happily of The Longpigs at their best, five years since we first heard it.
Samuel Zasada’s first number has fantastic folky intricacy and rectilinear motorik groove mashed together like Pentangle through the square window. Later, gorgeous three-part harmonies wash over a scuzzy tale of saying “’Fuck you’ to The Man”, as if Lou Barlow had started writing for Peter, Paul & Mary. Last time we saw Samuel, his voice knocked us back, but that was pretty much all there was to like; since then he has placed himself in the middle of an excellent trio and thought very intelligently about arrangements, concocting a dense sonic fug that truly suits his rich, gothic voice, but that doesn’t obscure some sprightly melodies. Samuel hasn’t been content to strum a few chords in flyblown open mics, letting his impressive voice do all the work, he’s clearly been honing his music into something a little bit special. The work is paying off.
Speaking of good singers, get an earful of Matt Greenham from The Empty Vessels, who has a cracking pair of lungs and a love of wide-straddling rawk howling that’s only a set of leather kecks and a three figure a day drug habit away from the glory days of MTV. The band is well-drilled, and unrepentantly retrospective, happy in the warm, yet shallow, pools of classic rock. This is refreshingly honest, and feels like coming back to homegrown veg after too long with the polished, perfectly shaped carrots in Tesco’s: you know, tasty and caked in mud and, quite possibly, shaped like a willy.
And that’s all great of course, but only for about fifteen minutes. By twenty not even a kickass flailing limb-o-matic drummer can stop the attention wandering (we realised, from staring vacuously at the guitarist’s T shirt, that the Os in The Doors’ logo look a lot like coffee beans, for example). An interesting noise like a rat gnawing a modem turned out to be a faulty pedal, and we began to realise, as another identical song started chugging along, that old school was rapidly becoming old hat. All of which feels pretty hard on The Empty Vessels, who are clearly having a blast and probably don’t want to change the musical world any, but this didn’t alter the fact that we weren’t really young enough, drunk enough, or from Wantage enough to fully enjoy these threadbare rock archaisms. This is a very good band, but one that doesn’t stand up to criticism very well; if you’re enjoying the music, it’s probably not because you’re thinking about it in any great detail, or thinking about anything whatsoever except the advisability of a ninth pint or whether you’ve got a chance with the one over there with the black jeans.
As their forebears Reef might have asked mid-song, “Alright now?”. Yes, we are alright, thanks. Alright, but not, you know, ecstatic.
Sorry.
THE EMPTY VESSELS/ SAMUEL ZASADA/ NUMBERNINE – Moshka, Bully, 9/4/10
Numbernine have been away for a few years, but they still peddle a perky, carbonated britpop that is immensely enjoyable, if slightly hackneyed. In their time away from the stage, they’ve had a slight shuffle and Alex Horwill now plays drums (although it may be him on the somewhat superfluous samples and backing tracks), and he has a natural bounce that suits the songs even if a couple of golden clunkers tell of a lack of rehearsal. The bass is still the best thing about the band, supple and springy yet capable of building some pretty solid rock edifices on occasion. It s only the lead vocals that are mild let down: plenty of pep, but they do tend to shove falsetto in place of melodic invention.
The songs are of a high calibre, even if most of them sound as though they’re being beamed in from 1994. “My New Mantra” tries to stretch the envelope with a proggy Eastern flavour, but ends up feeling dyspeptically like Gene playing Zepellin, and the band are happiest with tracks like “London”, reeking of Camden market and redolent of NME inky fingers gripping pints in The Good Mixer. All in all, it’s good to have Numbernine back, they make a great unpretentious pop noise, and have a couple of cracking tunes, not least “Talk”, a melodic barnstormer that still reminds us happily of The Longpigs at their best, five years since we first heard it.
Samuel Zasada’s first number has fantastic folky intricacy and rectilinear motorik groove mashed together like Pentangle through the square window. Later, gorgeous three-part harmonies wash over a scuzzy tale of saying “’Fuck you’ to The Man”, as if Lou Barlow had started writing for Peter, Paul & Mary. Last time we saw Samuel, his voice knocked us back, but that was pretty much all there was to like; since then he has placed himself in the middle of an excellent trio and thought very intelligently about arrangements, concocting a dense sonic fug that truly suits his rich, gothic voice, but that doesn’t obscure some sprightly melodies. Samuel hasn’t been content to strum a few chords in flyblown open mics, letting his impressive voice do all the work, he’s clearly been honing his music into something a little bit special. The work is paying off.
Speaking of good singers, get an earful of Matt Greenham from The Empty Vessels, who has a cracking pair of lungs and a love of wide-straddling rawk howling that’s only a set of leather kecks and a three figure a day drug habit away from the glory days of MTV. The band is well-drilled, and unrepentantly retrospective, happy in the warm, yet shallow, pools of classic rock. This is refreshingly honest, and feels like coming back to homegrown veg after too long with the polished, perfectly shaped carrots in Tesco’s: you know, tasty and caked in mud and, quite possibly, shaped like a willy.
And that’s all great of course, but only for about fifteen minutes. By twenty not even a kickass flailing limb-o-matic drummer can stop the attention wandering (we realised, from staring vacuously at the guitarist’s T shirt, that the Os in The Doors’ logo look a lot like coffee beans, for example). An interesting noise like a rat gnawing a modem turned out to be a faulty pedal, and we began to realise, as another identical song started chugging along, that old school was rapidly becoming old hat. All of which feels pretty hard on The Empty Vessels, who are clearly having a blast and probably don’t want to change the musical world any, but this didn’t alter the fact that we weren’t really young enough, drunk enough, or from Wantage enough to fully enjoy these threadbare rock archaisms. This is a very good band, but one that doesn’t stand up to criticism very well; if you’re enjoying the music, it’s probably not because you’re thinking about it in any great detail, or thinking about anything whatsoever except the advisability of a ninth pint or whether you’ve got a chance with the one over there with the black jeans.
As their forebears Reef might have asked mid-song, “Alright now?”. Yes, we are alright, thanks. Alright, but not, you know, ecstatic.
Friday, 2 July 2010
May To Play
Three sad facts. 1) KK don't run Bank Holiday weekenders any longer, or any big events for that matter 2) The X has been a curry house for a couple of years now - a tasty one, mind 3) Somehow I just don't have the time to watch snooker, or indeed any sport, anymore. I don't like most sport, as it happens, but don't let that stop a good bit of self-pity.
MAYDAY FESTIVAL, The X, 1/5/05
Jump off a bloody bridge if you want to, but for me the May Bank Holiday has two great traditions: one is the snooker final, and the other is the Kakofanney weekender. I found myself there for the whole of Sunday.
Glenda & Sam kick things off. She is better known as the hair-swinging leader of metallers Phyal and he is the drummer from oddball punks Fork, so it's unexpected to see them play some quiet folk songs, with plenty of bodhran and flute. Diverting, if lightweight.
Can you lot really not think of names for your acts? Mauro & David turns out to be Mauro and David from Inflatable Buddha (well, be honest, whcih Mauro did you think it would be?), playing hurdy-gurdy and percussion respectively. Some of you will already know that Mauro can make his odd screechy instrument song, and David turns out to be a dab hand (pardon the pun) as an accompanist, which almost excuses the fact that he's wearing some mangy old purple curtains.
I find the winning simplicity fo Jeremy Hughes' playing quite delightful, especially on a sunny day. However, if you find the idea of Gandalf's beard double wibbling out an instrumental called "Rainbow" a turn off, steer well clear.
Laima Bite proves once again that she has one of the best vocal deliveries in Oxford, with a relaxed set. If I don't think she's as outstanding a talent as some local writers, it's less a criticism of her, and more a celebration of our local acoustic musicians.
Frei Zinger (flute) & Chris Hills (tabla) are both superb musicians, but their set sadly made no impression on me whatsoever. Unlike the first beer of the day.
Trip hop without the hip hop? It's odd, but it's Stem. Emma's voice, backed by acoustic guitar, is wonderfully weary and emotive, recalling Portishead or early Lamb, but the percussion is a clunky beast and keeps the set from taking off. Pity.
Clearly, getting the fun-loving but less than vocally dextrous landlady of the pub to sing some cheesy show tunes should be an embarassment, but luckily Condom (yes, that's really the band's name) have such an unpretentious vivacity that it's almost impossible to dislike them; hardly a highlight, but a bit of Bank Holiday larking about never hurt anybody.
With their relaxed AOR songwriting and West Coast sax solos, Veda Park will never be one to make the heart beat faster. Still, they're such natural ensemble players and the whole show is so incredibly tight you have to go with them. Especially after another beer.
Trip hop without the - hang on, I've done that one. But, for different reasons, Drift deserve the description as much as Stem. The vocals have a similar torch song yearning to them, but whilst the drum machine and bass are laying down dubby grooves, the guitarist is on an entirely unrelated psychedelic mission. Every time the neat arrangements make some sonic space, it's filled with an FX-laden guitar part whcih defeats the point somewhat. The again, the ring modulation solo is scorching so maybe...
The night really starts with the arrival of Harry Angel in all their goth-punk glory. Taut, angular Bauhaus style rackets led by a great tall chap leaning over the mike like the speed freak son of the Twin Peaks giant: time for a celebratory beer.
A keening and forceful North African vocal suddenly fills the pub, covered in reverb and synth pads. It sounds pretty powerful, but when the drum and bass kicks in great things start to happen. That's live drums played with brushes and a double bass, by the way, but they still have the punch of a Moving Shadow classic. We've just witnesses the debut gig by Tunsi. I hope we witness many more.
I've seen The Epstein many times. I saw them at The Zodiac on Friday. Yet here I am again front and centre. That's all you need to know. Still the best of the (inexplicably large number of) country bands in Oxford.
There's alwasy a sneaking suspicion that I shouldn't like a sprawling ska punk band that calls itself The Druqsquad, singing songs about washing machines and fat fish. but when they play, I forget all that and just enjoy the volume, the exuberance and the extremely sily keyboard noises. A fitting end.
So, it was fun. So, it was Bank Holiday Sunday. So, I may have let my critical faculties off the leash for a bit (did I mention the beer?), but that seems to be the right approach to one of these big Exeter Hall events. We've just had over nine hours of music in a warm atmosphere for less than a fiver, and I can't really think of anything I'd rather be doing with myself, which is ultimately the only important thing.
MAYDAY FESTIVAL, The X, 1/5/05
Jump off a bloody bridge if you want to, but for me the May Bank Holiday has two great traditions: one is the snooker final, and the other is the Kakofanney weekender. I found myself there for the whole of Sunday.
Glenda & Sam kick things off. She is better known as the hair-swinging leader of metallers Phyal and he is the drummer from oddball punks Fork, so it's unexpected to see them play some quiet folk songs, with plenty of bodhran and flute. Diverting, if lightweight.
Can you lot really not think of names for your acts? Mauro & David turns out to be Mauro and David from Inflatable Buddha (well, be honest, whcih Mauro did you think it would be?), playing hurdy-gurdy and percussion respectively. Some of you will already know that Mauro can make his odd screechy instrument song, and David turns out to be a dab hand (pardon the pun) as an accompanist, which almost excuses the fact that he's wearing some mangy old purple curtains.
I find the winning simplicity fo Jeremy Hughes' playing quite delightful, especially on a sunny day. However, if you find the idea of Gandalf's beard double wibbling out an instrumental called "Rainbow" a turn off, steer well clear.
Laima Bite proves once again that she has one of the best vocal deliveries in Oxford, with a relaxed set. If I don't think she's as outstanding a talent as some local writers, it's less a criticism of her, and more a celebration of our local acoustic musicians.
Frei Zinger (flute) & Chris Hills (tabla) are both superb musicians, but their set sadly made no impression on me whatsoever. Unlike the first beer of the day.
Trip hop without the hip hop? It's odd, but it's Stem. Emma's voice, backed by acoustic guitar, is wonderfully weary and emotive, recalling Portishead or early Lamb, but the percussion is a clunky beast and keeps the set from taking off. Pity.
Clearly, getting the fun-loving but less than vocally dextrous landlady of the pub to sing some cheesy show tunes should be an embarassment, but luckily Condom (yes, that's really the band's name) have such an unpretentious vivacity that it's almost impossible to dislike them; hardly a highlight, but a bit of Bank Holiday larking about never hurt anybody.
With their relaxed AOR songwriting and West Coast sax solos, Veda Park will never be one to make the heart beat faster. Still, they're such natural ensemble players and the whole show is so incredibly tight you have to go with them. Especially after another beer.
Trip hop without the - hang on, I've done that one. But, for different reasons, Drift deserve the description as much as Stem. The vocals have a similar torch song yearning to them, but whilst the drum machine and bass are laying down dubby grooves, the guitarist is on an entirely unrelated psychedelic mission. Every time the neat arrangements make some sonic space, it's filled with an FX-laden guitar part whcih defeats the point somewhat. The again, the ring modulation solo is scorching so maybe...
The night really starts with the arrival of Harry Angel in all their goth-punk glory. Taut, angular Bauhaus style rackets led by a great tall chap leaning over the mike like the speed freak son of the Twin Peaks giant: time for a celebratory beer.
A keening and forceful North African vocal suddenly fills the pub, covered in reverb and synth pads. It sounds pretty powerful, but when the drum and bass kicks in great things start to happen. That's live drums played with brushes and a double bass, by the way, but they still have the punch of a Moving Shadow classic. We've just witnesses the debut gig by Tunsi. I hope we witness many more.
I've seen The Epstein many times. I saw them at The Zodiac on Friday. Yet here I am again front and centre. That's all you need to know. Still the best of the (inexplicably large number of) country bands in Oxford.
There's alwasy a sneaking suspicion that I shouldn't like a sprawling ska punk band that calls itself The Druqsquad, singing songs about washing machines and fat fish. but when they play, I forget all that and just enjoy the volume, the exuberance and the extremely sily keyboard noises. A fitting end.
So, it was fun. So, it was Bank Holiday Sunday. So, I may have let my critical faculties off the leash for a bit (did I mention the beer?), but that seems to be the right approach to one of these big Exeter Hall events. We've just had over nine hours of music in a warm atmosphere for less than a fiver, and I can't really think of anything I'd rather be doing with myself, which is ultimately the only important thing.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
One Fruit In The Rave
In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king.
Rubbish. Monarchy isn't based upon specious opthalmic meritocracy, is it? If so, the Queen of England (a country that is, with a tiny percentage of exceptions, fully sighted), would have to have super x-ray vision, or something. Maybe she does, I wouldn't know.
Remind me never to play cards with the Windsors.
STRAWBERRY NIGHTMARES – CONFUSION/ILLUSION (demo)
Every artist makes a choice about their boundaries. Some classical performers confine themselves to period instruments. Some folkies insist on making their own fiddle bows or curing their own bodhran skins. Some beergutted provincial blues players decide at the outset to remove any trace of original thought, character or taste from their life’s work. Strawberry Nightmares, along with a fair clump of current musicians, have confined themselves to the stark flat palette of early computer game music and home synthesiser voices. It’s not quite the 8 Bit Gameboy sound of DJ Scotch Egg or the Chip Tune glitter of Unicorn Kid, but it exists in a world of cheap dynamics and 2D sounds with minimal attack and delay.
Some of which sounds are, let’s be honest, absolutely wonderful. The synthesised cuica at the opening of “hit” (it’s been played on 6 Music) “My Owl is Broken”, for example, is very pleasing, as is a whole gamut of electronic bleeps and tinkles that pop up throughout “Complex Gift”, or the Yello-a-like robot horn consort on “Stellar Soldier”. All very nice, but sadly the tracks display very few compositional merits: there are no interesting rhythms, no great melodies or motifs to latch on to, and certainly the concept of developing ideas seems to be anathema to the digital simplicity of the style. By far the best tracks are “Pipe Speed” (here in two versions), with its Mario references, and “Monster Milkshake”, with a crystalline synth line that loosely recalls Yellow Magic Orchestra, and some slightly more cohesive drum programming.
However, for the most part, this CD is unsatisfying. It goes out of its way to show us that it is based on the sounds of 1985, but gets nowhere near emulating the qualities of electronic music from this period that’s actually any good. It’s like a man recounting exactly how he laughed, without telling you the joke. There are memories from my childhood in this music, but it’s like Hauntology without being haunting. In fact, the whole LP feels like the musical equivalent of one of those terrible I Love 1983 shows that were all the rage a few years back, with some no mark like John Robb saying, “Oh, oh, I fell off my Chopper and spilt Vimto on my Etch-A-Sketch” for an audience of mindless inebriates whose lives are slipping away from them as they gaze mindlessly backwards. The 80s throwback tone of this LP might well function as a doorway back to a prelapsarian innocence for somebody frustrated by the contemporary technical world; it might be a good get out for composers who have no harmonic or rhythmic ideas; it might be a giggle for a band of Sugar Ape trendies, who think that recognising something is the same as understanding it; for us, it’s proof that music usually needs more than nice noises.
Rubbish. Monarchy isn't based upon specious opthalmic meritocracy, is it? If so, the Queen of England (a country that is, with a tiny percentage of exceptions, fully sighted), would have to have super x-ray vision, or something. Maybe she does, I wouldn't know.
Remind me never to play cards with the Windsors.
STRAWBERRY NIGHTMARES – CONFUSION/ILLUSION (demo)
Every artist makes a choice about their boundaries. Some classical performers confine themselves to period instruments. Some folkies insist on making their own fiddle bows or curing their own bodhran skins. Some beergutted provincial blues players decide at the outset to remove any trace of original thought, character or taste from their life’s work. Strawberry Nightmares, along with a fair clump of current musicians, have confined themselves to the stark flat palette of early computer game music and home synthesiser voices. It’s not quite the 8 Bit Gameboy sound of DJ Scotch Egg or the Chip Tune glitter of Unicorn Kid, but it exists in a world of cheap dynamics and 2D sounds with minimal attack and delay.
Some of which sounds are, let’s be honest, absolutely wonderful. The synthesised cuica at the opening of “hit” (it’s been played on 6 Music) “My Owl is Broken”, for example, is very pleasing, as is a whole gamut of electronic bleeps and tinkles that pop up throughout “Complex Gift”, or the Yello-a-like robot horn consort on “Stellar Soldier”. All very nice, but sadly the tracks display very few compositional merits: there are no interesting rhythms, no great melodies or motifs to latch on to, and certainly the concept of developing ideas seems to be anathema to the digital simplicity of the style. By far the best tracks are “Pipe Speed” (here in two versions), with its Mario references, and “Monster Milkshake”, with a crystalline synth line that loosely recalls Yellow Magic Orchestra, and some slightly more cohesive drum programming.
However, for the most part, this CD is unsatisfying. It goes out of its way to show us that it is based on the sounds of 1985, but gets nowhere near emulating the qualities of electronic music from this period that’s actually any good. It’s like a man recounting exactly how he laughed, without telling you the joke. There are memories from my childhood in this music, but it’s like Hauntology without being haunting. In fact, the whole LP feels like the musical equivalent of one of those terrible I Love 1983 shows that were all the rage a few years back, with some no mark like John Robb saying, “Oh, oh, I fell off my Chopper and spilt Vimto on my Etch-A-Sketch” for an audience of mindless inebriates whose lives are slipping away from them as they gaze mindlessly backwards. The 80s throwback tone of this LP might well function as a doorway back to a prelapsarian innocence for somebody frustrated by the contemporary technical world; it might be a good get out for composers who have no harmonic or rhythmic ideas; it might be a giggle for a band of Sugar Ape trendies, who think that recognising something is the same as understanding it; for us, it’s proof that music usually needs more than nice noises.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Like It Or Lamp It
Hello again, and a special welcome to anyone who has found themselves here by clicking my link after getting embroiled in the somewhat inexplicable furore following my latest Riverside Fesitval review on Oxfordbands. Get involved and post messages here, why don't you? Love, hatred or stuff about arboreal nursery, I'm pretty easy.
This is a review I did with a reviewer named Sarah Morton. We wandered into a gig together and decided to write a review. She wrote most of it, I probably did 20%. I'll leave you to guess which parts were mine.
TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH-LOU/ THE LANTERN PLAYERS/ DUSTY/ THE SELENITES, The Lantern Society, Wytham Village Hall, 19/2/10
There's something perverse about a London folk club putting on a tour of countryside village halls, and it seems that if there were to be a natural exchange of folk music between rural and urban environments it probably wouldn't be passed in that direction. At tonight's show in the delightful bunting-decked Wytham Village Hall (seating 60 at a push) there is a slight feel of the Londoners coming down from the mountain and it's a more elaborate performance than seems appropriate for such a low-key environment where perhaps a more relaxed session would be the ideal. Though when The Lantern Players are playing they guest on-stage for each other's sets, all of which almost adds up to a strange display of formal informality, particularly when one musician's backstage practicing is audible from the stage. Nevertheless, it's a relaxed evening in a delightful environment and adds up to a show well worth making the effort out of town for.
The Lantern Players - Pepe Belmonte, Benjamin Folke Thomas and Jack Day - seem to be the in-house regulars of the Lantern Society, and each play a solo set which concludes with a sing-and-play-along from all three. Since the closing songs are the best in each set it would probably have made for a better gig if the three had played together from the outset, taking it in turns to play their solos and backing each other up, instead of spreading it all out to a six-band bill. Of the three Pepe Belmonte is probably the strongest, playing and singing blues in a Bert Jansch style with unobtrusive harmonica complementing a gentle voice. Jack Day has a striking blues-gospel sound with a put-on gravelly voice like a grizzled prospector which nevertheless doesn't feel out of place with the rolling freight-train blues style, and which lends him a Cat Stevens air in his slower songs. Benjamin Folke Thomas's reach slightly exceeds his grasp, with his aggressive guitar finger-picking not offsetting particularly well his muffled Swedish accented baritone, which is better suited to the slower, delicate songs where it has a weary sophistication redolent of Kris Kristofferson.
Of the two local supports the first, Half Moon regulars Alice Little and Danny Chapman as The Selenites, are by far the better act. Tonight they are a viola and concertina duo, and they give a strong performance of traditional folk tunes and songs in a reserved chamber style. The music is good, but the formality of the performance and the precision of the playing tends to make things a bit dry, and Little’s reticent voice, which makes her seem like a shy Edwardian spinster forced to do a turn at harvest festival, can suck some of the presence from thoughtful arrangements. It's admirable, but occasionally somewhat lifeless.
It would be kind to say as little about the second local support act - Goldrush's Robin Bennett as Dusty - as possible, as it was a truly awful performance of sub-Dylan clumsy guitar strumming, adenoidal busking and woefully clunky songwriting. The blues-style harmonica is often evocative of the freight train's whistle, but in Dusty's mouth it reminds us more of having got on the stopping train from Paddington by some horrible mistake; “42 Days” is a lamentable political ballad, but it makes us feel as if our train has been delayed by that long outside Reading. His last piece was apparently written for a “computer game about the environment”, but it would be more suited to Advanced Waiting Room Simulator or Catatonic The Hedgehog, such is its leaden dirge. Grand theft evening.
As can often be the case with bands who book their own supports, the top billing are head and shoulders above the rest. At the start of their set it's difficult to tell which of Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou is singing which parts as their voices blend beautifully in the high alto register, with Moss's voice standing out with a clear reedy tone which complements Hannah-Lou's softer timbre. It's clear they've been singing together for a long time, and the guitar playing from both of them is restrained and almost transparent to foreground the voices. For folk promoters it's perhaps surprising that they aren't playing traditional songs, but they are playing songs written to traditional themes, and the whole feels very English, evidenced by the facts that “Deptford Market” is about timeless London locales, and that Moss looks like an extra from Oliver! They’re clearly the standout act, though with tired ears it's not inspiring us enough to want to take their music home. The night was good honest entertainment, but it was a pleasant quiet night out rather than a musical epiphany…which is perhaps what acoustic nights in Wytham Village Hall ought to be.
This is a review I did with a reviewer named Sarah Morton. We wandered into a gig together and decided to write a review. She wrote most of it, I probably did 20%. I'll leave you to guess which parts were mine.
TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH-LOU/ THE LANTERN PLAYERS/ DUSTY/ THE SELENITES, The Lantern Society, Wytham Village Hall, 19/2/10
There's something perverse about a London folk club putting on a tour of countryside village halls, and it seems that if there were to be a natural exchange of folk music between rural and urban environments it probably wouldn't be passed in that direction. At tonight's show in the delightful bunting-decked Wytham Village Hall (seating 60 at a push) there is a slight feel of the Londoners coming down from the mountain and it's a more elaborate performance than seems appropriate for such a low-key environment where perhaps a more relaxed session would be the ideal. Though when The Lantern Players are playing they guest on-stage for each other's sets, all of which almost adds up to a strange display of formal informality, particularly when one musician's backstage practicing is audible from the stage. Nevertheless, it's a relaxed evening in a delightful environment and adds up to a show well worth making the effort out of town for.
The Lantern Players - Pepe Belmonte, Benjamin Folke Thomas and Jack Day - seem to be the in-house regulars of the Lantern Society, and each play a solo set which concludes with a sing-and-play-along from all three. Since the closing songs are the best in each set it would probably have made for a better gig if the three had played together from the outset, taking it in turns to play their solos and backing each other up, instead of spreading it all out to a six-band bill. Of the three Pepe Belmonte is probably the strongest, playing and singing blues in a Bert Jansch style with unobtrusive harmonica complementing a gentle voice. Jack Day has a striking blues-gospel sound with a put-on gravelly voice like a grizzled prospector which nevertheless doesn't feel out of place with the rolling freight-train blues style, and which lends him a Cat Stevens air in his slower songs. Benjamin Folke Thomas's reach slightly exceeds his grasp, with his aggressive guitar finger-picking not offsetting particularly well his muffled Swedish accented baritone, which is better suited to the slower, delicate songs where it has a weary sophistication redolent of Kris Kristofferson.
Of the two local supports the first, Half Moon regulars Alice Little and Danny Chapman as The Selenites, are by far the better act. Tonight they are a viola and concertina duo, and they give a strong performance of traditional folk tunes and songs in a reserved chamber style. The music is good, but the formality of the performance and the precision of the playing tends to make things a bit dry, and Little’s reticent voice, which makes her seem like a shy Edwardian spinster forced to do a turn at harvest festival, can suck some of the presence from thoughtful arrangements. It's admirable, but occasionally somewhat lifeless.
It would be kind to say as little about the second local support act - Goldrush's Robin Bennett as Dusty - as possible, as it was a truly awful performance of sub-Dylan clumsy guitar strumming, adenoidal busking and woefully clunky songwriting. The blues-style harmonica is often evocative of the freight train's whistle, but in Dusty's mouth it reminds us more of having got on the stopping train from Paddington by some horrible mistake; “42 Days” is a lamentable political ballad, but it makes us feel as if our train has been delayed by that long outside Reading. His last piece was apparently written for a “computer game about the environment”, but it would be more suited to Advanced Waiting Room Simulator or Catatonic The Hedgehog, such is its leaden dirge. Grand theft evening.
As can often be the case with bands who book their own supports, the top billing are head and shoulders above the rest. At the start of their set it's difficult to tell which of Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou is singing which parts as their voices blend beautifully in the high alto register, with Moss's voice standing out with a clear reedy tone which complements Hannah-Lou's softer timbre. It's clear they've been singing together for a long time, and the guitar playing from both of them is restrained and almost transparent to foreground the voices. For folk promoters it's perhaps surprising that they aren't playing traditional songs, but they are playing songs written to traditional themes, and the whole feels very English, evidenced by the facts that “Deptford Market” is about timeless London locales, and that Moss looks like an extra from Oliver! They’re clearly the standout act, though with tired ears it's not inspiring us enough to want to take their music home. The night was good honest entertainment, but it was a pleasant quiet night out rather than a musical epiphany…which is perhaps what acoustic nights in Wytham Village Hall ought to be.
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Come Nine With Me
I got a message through Nightshift yesterday. Ulysse Dupasquier, who was reviewed previously here. He asked that I remove his name from the review, as it's the only thing that comes up if you Google his name, and he's a bit embarrassed. Well, I'm not going to rewrite history, but now I've written this, it should be the second page in a websearch, so if you've just read read how rubbish Ulysse once was, you can now read this and be reassured by him that he's much better.
There. Call it being neutral...
NUMBERNINE/ TURBULENCE/ PATSY DECLINE, Klub Kakofanney, Wheatsheaf, 3/6/05
Long ago, in that fuzzy magazine clipping of musical history called the indie eighties, The Jazz Butcher sang about the "Southern Mark Smith". Patsy Decline goes one better. She's the Southern female Mark E. Smith. It's all there: the fag, the slouch, the drawling goblin brainpunk delivery, the lyrical obtuseness (featuring ignorant astronauts and a factory of lies).
To complete the illusion, accompanist Twizz Twangle spends the majority of the set fiddling ineffectually with leads and amp dials, recalling the dark side of Smith's stage persona, and the backing track (whcih completely drowns out anything Twizz actually plays) boasts a throbbing drum machine and insistent bass that wouldn't have been out of place on I Am Kurious Oranj. Naturally this sort of thing is flawed and unfinished, but Patsy's restless energy is enough to carry the show. Much ink has been spilt on the social, political and aesthetic legacies of punk, but the anarchic brio of Patsy's set recalls a John The Postman era when everything was valid and, what's more, everything was a bloody good laugh.
Full marks to Turbulence for having the guts to play after their singer was refused entry at soundcheck because he's barred form the venue...and nul points to the singer himself, who must have suspected that this might happen. And him a promoter too. Tut. Anyway, for grabbing the bull by the horns and general the-show-must-go-on trooperdom, I shall forever defend the boys from Turbulence. Which is lucky, because musically they're absolutely dire.
We'll forgive the fact that the guitarist can't sing, and knows none of the words, as it's not his job. We'll forgive the hesitant performance, because presumably the entire band dynamic has taken a hefty knock off kilter. What we won't forgive is that they aim for a sort of muso psychedelia, but what they hit is about as cosmic as a pile of nail clippings on an Oasis tab sheet, and the fact that then horrible keyboard patches make The Krypton Factor theme sound like Klaus Schulze. Let's just stick our fingers in our ears and ruminate on what great sports they are, eh?
Anything would sound powerful after that, but numbernine's amphetamine Britpop packs a fair wallop. Soaring choruses, songs about London, jaunty new wave music hall breaks - by rights this should sound anachronistic and tired, yet somehow numbernine are giving this dead horse one more gallop round the steeplechase. Roaring tracks like "365" and "Talk" recall a particularly bellicose version of The Longpigs, and if a couple of the weaker moments recall Menswe@r, at least the emphasis is firmly on the "swear".
numbernine's main strength is surely the twin vocals, which have a punchy presence, but are capable of delicate close harmonies when necessary. The rhythm section is pleasingly tight too. Despite this glowing review, there's still a little something missing from numbernine: musically speaking, perhaps they need to add a few personalised accessories to their second hand clothes. Still, the foundations of a good local band have been laid. Let's see if they have the dedication and ideas to finish the job.
There. Call it being neutral...
NUMBERNINE/ TURBULENCE/ PATSY DECLINE, Klub Kakofanney, Wheatsheaf, 3/6/05
Long ago, in that fuzzy magazine clipping of musical history called the indie eighties, The Jazz Butcher sang about the "Southern Mark Smith". Patsy Decline goes one better. She's the Southern female Mark E. Smith. It's all there: the fag, the slouch, the drawling goblin brainpunk delivery, the lyrical obtuseness (featuring ignorant astronauts and a factory of lies).
To complete the illusion, accompanist Twizz Twangle spends the majority of the set fiddling ineffectually with leads and amp dials, recalling the dark side of Smith's stage persona, and the backing track (whcih completely drowns out anything Twizz actually plays) boasts a throbbing drum machine and insistent bass that wouldn't have been out of place on I Am Kurious Oranj. Naturally this sort of thing is flawed and unfinished, but Patsy's restless energy is enough to carry the show. Much ink has been spilt on the social, political and aesthetic legacies of punk, but the anarchic brio of Patsy's set recalls a John The Postman era when everything was valid and, what's more, everything was a bloody good laugh.
Full marks to Turbulence for having the guts to play after their singer was refused entry at soundcheck because he's barred form the venue...and nul points to the singer himself, who must have suspected that this might happen. And him a promoter too. Tut. Anyway, for grabbing the bull by the horns and general the-show-must-go-on trooperdom, I shall forever defend the boys from Turbulence. Which is lucky, because musically they're absolutely dire.
We'll forgive the fact that the guitarist can't sing, and knows none of the words, as it's not his job. We'll forgive the hesitant performance, because presumably the entire band dynamic has taken a hefty knock off kilter. What we won't forgive is that they aim for a sort of muso psychedelia, but what they hit is about as cosmic as a pile of nail clippings on an Oasis tab sheet, and the fact that then horrible keyboard patches make The Krypton Factor theme sound like Klaus Schulze. Let's just stick our fingers in our ears and ruminate on what great sports they are, eh?
Anything would sound powerful after that, but numbernine's amphetamine Britpop packs a fair wallop. Soaring choruses, songs about London, jaunty new wave music hall breaks - by rights this should sound anachronistic and tired, yet somehow numbernine are giving this dead horse one more gallop round the steeplechase. Roaring tracks like "365" and "Talk" recall a particularly bellicose version of The Longpigs, and if a couple of the weaker moments recall Menswe@r, at least the emphasis is firmly on the "swear".
numbernine's main strength is surely the twin vocals, which have a punchy presence, but are capable of delicate close harmonies when necessary. The rhythm section is pleasingly tight too. Despite this glowing review, there's still a little something missing from numbernine: musically speaking, perhaps they need to add a few personalised accessories to their second hand clothes. Still, the foundations of a good local band have been laid. Let's see if they have the dedication and ideas to finish the job.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Down Osculator
This is a weird little extract from the acrhives. It's a review of two acts I saw at my first ever Punt - or rather, my first semi-Punt, at which I watched the free acoustic acts at the start of the night, before having some dinner, chatting to one of the engineers at another venue who let me in for free, and going to see some bands at a final venue, the slightly rubbish and long gone Kiss Bar. Fragments of this were used in Oxfordbands gestalt review that year (and which year it was, I can't tell you). I thought I'd reviewed more than this, but I can only find thoughts on these two acts. Still, enjoy what I've found (for a given value of "joy").
HARRY ANGEL/ TV BABY, The Punt, Kiss Bar
The very short review of TV Baby: "Wire. And not a very taut one".
But in fairness, there's more to them than that. Admittedly, when I walked into Kiss halfway through their set, the sparse, jerky new waves that washed over me immediately brought to mind Pink Flag references, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I hasten to add for any impressionable youngsters. The trouble is, when subscribing to this "less is more" philosophy, one finds that, no matter how hard one tries, Wire's less is always more than your more could ever be.
Beyond this TV Baby are a useful little spasming pop-punk band, who get extra special marks for the yobbish Dalek mantra of "'Cos I Love The Money", which marches on forever like Sham 69 stuck in a krautrock bootcamp.
Having seen Harry Angel recently and been very impressed, tonight's set was a slight disappointment. To be honest, I think it was down to the muggy compressed sound in Kiss rather than the band themselves (which means I may have to pay TV Baby another visit).
Despite this the set went well: the drums rattled away like a Gatling gun, the bassist dug right into the foundations like a frenzied miner, and the enormous fidgeting Chris Beard still occupies the front slot well, leaning into the mike feverishly and looking like a werewolf stuck in the moment of transmogrification. A werewolf with a fair few goth records, I'll wager.
Lycanthropop, your new sub-genre for the week!
HARRY ANGEL/ TV BABY, The Punt, Kiss Bar
The very short review of TV Baby: "Wire. And not a very taut one".
But in fairness, there's more to them than that. Admittedly, when I walked into Kiss halfway through their set, the sparse, jerky new waves that washed over me immediately brought to mind Pink Flag references, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I hasten to add for any impressionable youngsters. The trouble is, when subscribing to this "less is more" philosophy, one finds that, no matter how hard one tries, Wire's less is always more than your more could ever be.
Beyond this TV Baby are a useful little spasming pop-punk band, who get extra special marks for the yobbish Dalek mantra of "'Cos I Love The Money", which marches on forever like Sham 69 stuck in a krautrock bootcamp.
Having seen Harry Angel recently and been very impressed, tonight's set was a slight disappointment. To be honest, I think it was down to the muggy compressed sound in Kiss rather than the band themselves (which means I may have to pay TV Baby another visit).
Despite this the set went well: the drums rattled away like a Gatling gun, the bassist dug right into the foundations like a frenzied miner, and the enormous fidgeting Chris Beard still occupies the front slot well, leaning into the mike feverishly and looking like a werewolf stuck in the moment of transmogrification. A werewolf with a fair few goth records, I'll wager.
Lycanthropop, your new sub-genre for the week!
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Plastic Bauble Of The Universe
Xmas Lights are sadly no more, though some of them play in the appallingly monikered Coloureds, who are garnering a very good response for themselves, though I'm yet drop into their sphere of influence.
Sorry, I don't know why I'm talking like this. Somebody bought me a square foot of the Highlands today, perhaps the power has gone to my head. I've rethought my stance on metal singing since this review was written in january 06, I can now quite enjoy that death metal gargle...if it's done very well indeed.
XMAS LIGHTS - ENRON ATE MY BABY (demo)
One can easily imagine a comic strip of the old school, perhaps in The Beano, about the singer in a heavy metal band. Throughout the day he'd be trying ever so hard to find time to pen some lyrics for the group's new song, yet little things will keep popping up and distracting him, and the task is never completed. Onstage, in the final frame he winks: "Chortle! Thanks to this ridiculous growly voice I'm putting on, nobody can tell I'm singning absolute nonsense. Rock on, eh readers!".
Call it a pet hate, but the rasping grind-your-bones-to-make-my-bread approach to metal vocals only ever sounds childish to these ears, and almost entirely eradicates any chance of diversity, expression or individuality in a front man. As Xmas LIghts spring from the darker end of black, it's unsurprising that their demo boasts plenty of unedifying and indecipherable roaring. However, as this is definitely the only criticism to be made of this hugely impressive and entertaining recording, perhaps we'll agree to let it ride. Just this once, mind.
The first thing to hit you is Xmas Lights' control of atmosphere. Nearly every metal band thinks it can create an unsettling air simply by turning up the amps and pulling a nasty face, but Xmas Lights employ electronic tones, heavily treated guitars and illbient production techniques to construct a dark feeling of paranoid claustrophobia. Opening track "Digital List Of Lights", for example, begins with vocal samples fuzzy enough to sound as though they've been under the bed for a few months, before introducing some Godsped tumescent guitar lines dusted with dissonant overdubs. At this point you'd be forgiven for supposing that Xmas Lights were a slightly neater version of local art droners themonroetransfer, until the metal rhythms crash in like an uninvited troll after six and a half minutes. Elsewhere on the demo, glistening keyboard sounds weave through the bludgeoning noise like golden thread in a black tapestry. Perhaps the greatest achievement is "Open Till Late Seven Days A Week", which squeezes queasy, compressed vocal samples from some horribly overbright advertsiing voiceover through a greasy sonic mangle. It brings to mind Orbital's "Philosphy By Numbers" or Aphex Twin's tampon ad lampooning classic "Tamphex".
Lest there be any confusion, though, let's be clear that this demo is not simply an exercise in dark ambient drifting - there's a healthy dose of manic, jittercutting metal assaulting our ears too, you know. "Freaking Out In A Maze Of Mirrors" (a reference to mad Japanese gameshow Takeshi's Castle? Probably not) sounds like the remnants and offcuts from a Finnish metal workshop, squashed together with a Zappafied ear for the complex and absurd, whereas the closing track marries shimmering guitars and nagging bell chimes with brutal and intricate drumming that sounds as though it's from a different song altogether. Or maybe four or five different songs.
Perhasps you get the idea that there's far more going on here that can be described in a few paragraphs. What's impressive is the way Xmas Lights continue to pile on time changes, baroque variations and assorted sonic oddities without losing the sense of being roundly bashed by a railroad spike that all good metal supplies. If the band can replicate this intensity live, they have to be worth investigating. Best order a nice stiff drink beforehand, though.
Sorry, I don't know why I'm talking like this. Somebody bought me a square foot of the Highlands today, perhaps the power has gone to my head. I've rethought my stance on metal singing since this review was written in january 06, I can now quite enjoy that death metal gargle...if it's done very well indeed.
XMAS LIGHTS - ENRON ATE MY BABY (demo)
One can easily imagine a comic strip of the old school, perhaps in The Beano, about the singer in a heavy metal band. Throughout the day he'd be trying ever so hard to find time to pen some lyrics for the group's new song, yet little things will keep popping up and distracting him, and the task is never completed. Onstage, in the final frame he winks: "Chortle! Thanks to this ridiculous growly voice I'm putting on, nobody can tell I'm singning absolute nonsense. Rock on, eh readers!".
Call it a pet hate, but the rasping grind-your-bones-to-make-my-bread approach to metal vocals only ever sounds childish to these ears, and almost entirely eradicates any chance of diversity, expression or individuality in a front man. As Xmas LIghts spring from the darker end of black, it's unsurprising that their demo boasts plenty of unedifying and indecipherable roaring. However, as this is definitely the only criticism to be made of this hugely impressive and entertaining recording, perhaps we'll agree to let it ride. Just this once, mind.
The first thing to hit you is Xmas Lights' control of atmosphere. Nearly every metal band thinks it can create an unsettling air simply by turning up the amps and pulling a nasty face, but Xmas Lights employ electronic tones, heavily treated guitars and illbient production techniques to construct a dark feeling of paranoid claustrophobia. Opening track "Digital List Of Lights", for example, begins with vocal samples fuzzy enough to sound as though they've been under the bed for a few months, before introducing some Godsped tumescent guitar lines dusted with dissonant overdubs. At this point you'd be forgiven for supposing that Xmas Lights were a slightly neater version of local art droners themonroetransfer, until the metal rhythms crash in like an uninvited troll after six and a half minutes. Elsewhere on the demo, glistening keyboard sounds weave through the bludgeoning noise like golden thread in a black tapestry. Perhaps the greatest achievement is "Open Till Late Seven Days A Week", which squeezes queasy, compressed vocal samples from some horribly overbright advertsiing voiceover through a greasy sonic mangle. It brings to mind Orbital's "Philosphy By Numbers" or Aphex Twin's tampon ad lampooning classic "Tamphex".
Lest there be any confusion, though, let's be clear that this demo is not simply an exercise in dark ambient drifting - there's a healthy dose of manic, jittercutting metal assaulting our ears too, you know. "Freaking Out In A Maze Of Mirrors" (a reference to mad Japanese gameshow Takeshi's Castle? Probably not) sounds like the remnants and offcuts from a Finnish metal workshop, squashed together with a Zappafied ear for the complex and absurd, whereas the closing track marries shimmering guitars and nagging bell chimes with brutal and intricate drumming that sounds as though it's from a different song altogether. Or maybe four or five different songs.
Perhasps you get the idea that there's far more going on here that can be described in a few paragraphs. What's impressive is the way Xmas Lights continue to pile on time changes, baroque variations and assorted sonic oddities without losing the sense of being roundly bashed by a railroad spike that all good metal supplies. If the band can replicate this intensity live, they have to be worth investigating. Best order a nice stiff drink beforehand, though.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Hit (South) Parade
Something different today, my favourite Oxford records of 2009, as published with other selections on Oxfordbands. The text style of the first line refers ot the fact that Alphabet Backwards' bassist, Josh, was smothered all over billboards, buses and TVs in 2009 as part of one of those infuriating mobile phone ads, in which he talked guff about starting a "super-band", or something equally facile. He is actually a very good musician, but from the ads you'd assume he was just a twat who clumps along to "Smoke On The Water" in his Mum's attic. Hopefully the phone company paid him handsomely for his time, but sadly I imagine he did it for free, the starry-eyed pop flump.
Alphabet Backwards: Alphabet Backwards
gr8 bnd v g pop lol [send to entire address book]
A Scholar & A Physician: She's A Witch
The funnest ball of funny electro fun anywhere in the world this year, from Truck's production go-to boys.
Borderville: Joy Through Work
"A band's reach should exceed its grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning (nearly)
Les Clochards: Sweet Tableaux
Oxford's wry Gallic cafe indie children deliver a blinder. Sounds like fat Elvis twatted on creme de menthe and blearily stumbling round the Postcard Records' bordello.
Hretha: Minnows/ Dead Horses
Orthographically frustrating upstarts produce clinical post-rock excellence.
Mephisto Grande: Seahorse Vs The Shrew
A revivalist hymn meeting seen through Lewis Carroll's mescaline kaleidoscope.
The Relationships: Space
Beuatiful chiming indie pop coupled with the most articulate lyricist ever to have flaneured the Cowley Road; think R.E.M.'s Reckoning crossed with Betjeman's Banana Blush, record collectors!
Mr Shaodow: R U Stoopid?
Serious messages, approachable humour, lyrical dexterity. His best yet, and that's some benchmark.
Stornoway: Unfaithful
The startled bunnies of lit-pop had a meteoric year. Let's be honest, you won't get long odds on their debut LP featuring in this list next year...
Vileswarm: Sun Swallows The Stars
An experimental dreamteam of Frampton & Euhedral, offering "doom drone": does exactly what it says on the tombstone.
Alphabet Backwards: Alphabet Backwards
gr8 bnd v g pop lol [send to entire address book]
A Scholar & A Physician: She's A Witch
The funnest ball of funny electro fun anywhere in the world this year, from Truck's production go-to boys.
Borderville: Joy Through Work
"A band's reach should exceed its grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning (nearly)
Les Clochards: Sweet Tableaux
Oxford's wry Gallic cafe indie children deliver a blinder. Sounds like fat Elvis twatted on creme de menthe and blearily stumbling round the Postcard Records' bordello.
Hretha: Minnows/ Dead Horses
Orthographically frustrating upstarts produce clinical post-rock excellence.
Mephisto Grande: Seahorse Vs The Shrew
A revivalist hymn meeting seen through Lewis Carroll's mescaline kaleidoscope.
The Relationships: Space
Beuatiful chiming indie pop coupled with the most articulate lyricist ever to have flaneured the Cowley Road; think R.E.M.'s Reckoning crossed with Betjeman's Banana Blush, record collectors!
Mr Shaodow: R U Stoopid?
Serious messages, approachable humour, lyrical dexterity. His best yet, and that's some benchmark.
Stornoway: Unfaithful
The startled bunnies of lit-pop had a meteoric year. Let's be honest, you won't get long odds on their debut LP featuring in this list next year...
Vileswarm: Sun Swallows The Stars
An experimental dreamteam of Frampton & Euhedral, offering "doom drone": does exactly what it says on the tombstone.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Audioscope 2005 Sunday
Right then. The only good thing about typing this guff out again, is that it involves sitting down and I have a huge blister on my foot.
Bet you thought I was going to say something crude about sailors, didn't you?
And so Sunday's feast begins, with somewhat blearier eyes, but just as much excitement. I'll admit to having seen (and reviewed) The Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element twice previously, and been left uninspired, but since Stuart Fowkes informed me they were probably the two worst gigs he'd ever played, I was happy to give them another shot. This proved wise, as SNSE kick off the day's festivities with a clattering fanfare. Despite a couple of technical hitches the rhythm tracks are crunchily glorious, sounding something like a crackling longwave radio broadcast of a rabble of origami fiends let loose in a Zildjian warehouse. On occasion the guitar parts that overlay them feel like a mildly stodgy attempt to translate studio music into the live arena, but when the penultimate tune seems to be a series of baroque variations on the "I Wanna Be Your Dog" progression, these concerns are put away for another day.
N0ught play an ornate jazz-metal-math hybrid, and they do so incredibly loudly. They've often been described as "difficult" but I actually find them very pleasant to listen to: like a Pollock painting or a dense forest it's impossible to take in all the details individually, but this doesn't necessarily transalate into a challenging experience. Nothing today quite has the sheen and power it did a mere week before when N0ught supported The Fall, but one still feels in the presence of one of Oxford's great art bands. And come on, it's on four pm on Sunday - we're knackered and we've only got to listen to this music, let alone perform it.
Speaking of art rock, what would N0ught sound like if all the musicians were replaced by minor characters from the Super Mario universe? A little like Quack Quack, I'd wager. Their jazzy, slightly krautische instrumentals are played in a crinkly, faltering style and might be the type of thing you'd hear if miniature Neu! members came free with Kinder Surprise. Whilst there is a minor air of the self-congratulatory about it all ("Look! I'm playing my keyboard slightly badly! What do I win?"), they do have some surprises up their sleeves, including the penultimate number, which very strangely threatens to turn into "Morning" from Grieg's first Peer Gynt suite. Quack Quack are hard to categorise and most satisfying.
Call your band Lords and you'd better be good, it's too much of a tempting target if not. Luckily, this Nottingham troupe delivers the goods, along with some unexpected oddments that must have accrued in transit. If you cut "Sweet Home Alabama" into tiny pieces and threw it to some guitar wielding wolves, you might just end up with the opening track. Things continue in a similar vein for thirty minutes, Lords repeatedly sounding like the crippled ghost of a roadhouse boogie band being pummelled by a hardcore wrecking crew, or a post-Shellac trio meeting Beefheart's "China Pig" head on in a messy collision. "Makes you want to dance like a Russian," claims the programme; makes you want to drink like a Texan, too, such is the intermittently exposed bluesy underbelly.
Continuing a recent trend in the larger dance labels of realising that full bands can often get far more toes tappiung than pasty technogeeks, Ninja Tune have picked up Liverpool's Super Numeri. They perform one extended piece with free jazz sax and guitar throwing high end skreeks over a chugging funk backing. At times it does sound like a firy new hybrid of styles, but mostly it just sounds like a busload of seagulls divebombing The Exeter Hall's Sunday jam session. The only proper dud of the weekend.
I thought we might have exhausted the post-rocking guitar instrumental angle by now, but Billy Mahonie spring into life proving me thoroughly wrong once again. Unlike their peers at the festival, Billy's pieces sound like wordless songs, rather than unkempt opuses, and are all the more successful for it. They may not be The Shadows by any means, but there is something of taut funk generals The Meters about the elastic snapping of the guitar lines and the clipped urgency of the rhythm section. The third number (details uncertain from my vantage point, due to the band forgetting to ask for a microphone!) almost sounds like "Take Me Out" might if Franz Ferdinand had spent more time in James Brown's boot camp and less in their publicist's waiting room. Like I say, brains, great hooks and more funk savvy in one snare crack than Super Numeri could manage with a coachload of spangly vests, all adding up to make Billy Mahonie a fierce contender for best set of the festival.
Like a palette cleansing sorbet, there's a wonderfully refreshing quality to Scout Niblett, and it was an audacious move by the promoters to put such a simple act in this slot. Scout herself is on guitar and vocals, knocking out incredibly simple blues riffs with fascinating restraint. It's the sort of distillation of great rock music that PJ Harvey would sell her catsuit to be able to make. When Shellac's Todd Trainer joins her on drums, his relentless style should cut across her songs, but somehow the power of Trainer's parts heightens the purity. It does no harm that he's the kind of superbly natural drummer that you'd happily watch hit a haddock against a brick in 4/4 for twenty minutes. Perhaps there's a hint of contrived coyness about Niblett's music, most evident in her approach to sexual lyrics, but overall she has a huge command over the audience...which comes as a surprise to those of us who have watched her hare round the venue all day in a flourescent jacket looking like a distracted lollipop lady.
In complete contrast to Four Tet's wire strewn table, Luke Vibert is mostly using a laptop balanced on a beer crate. Hell, he doesn't even have a mouse! His set could prompt the typical questions - Is he playing or DJing? Is he doing anything at all? Is it actually him? - but I for one couldn't give a fuck. Listen, I was twelve for most of 1988, and used to tune into fuzzy radio stations, wishing I could sneak off to an acid night. Seeing Vibert, a man whose recordings have brought huge pleasure over the years, playing out some spiralling acid squalches is like the culmination fo a long love affair. For less romantic (read "drunk") people, I'm sure it was just a pleasingly danceable end to a wonderful weekend. If you want details, I'll let you know that Vibert dropped a bit of Kraftwerk, FSOL's evergreen "Papua New Guinea" and Squarepusher's incredible "My Red Hot Car" into the mix, but beyond that I'm far too tired and happy to turn in a meaningful review.
So, a glorious weekend, all in all. Maybe Phil from Fell City Girl is right, and in 2010 Audioscope will be a huge international festival. Somehow, however, I doubt that he's correct in predicting that Bon Jovi will be playing. I like to think we can trust these promoters a little more than that.
Bet you thought I was going to say something crude about sailors, didn't you?
And so Sunday's feast begins, with somewhat blearier eyes, but just as much excitement. I'll admit to having seen (and reviewed) The Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element twice previously, and been left uninspired, but since Stuart Fowkes informed me they were probably the two worst gigs he'd ever played, I was happy to give them another shot. This proved wise, as SNSE kick off the day's festivities with a clattering fanfare. Despite a couple of technical hitches the rhythm tracks are crunchily glorious, sounding something like a crackling longwave radio broadcast of a rabble of origami fiends let loose in a Zildjian warehouse. On occasion the guitar parts that overlay them feel like a mildly stodgy attempt to translate studio music into the live arena, but when the penultimate tune seems to be a series of baroque variations on the "I Wanna Be Your Dog" progression, these concerns are put away for another day.
N0ught play an ornate jazz-metal-math hybrid, and they do so incredibly loudly. They've often been described as "difficult" but I actually find them very pleasant to listen to: like a Pollock painting or a dense forest it's impossible to take in all the details individually, but this doesn't necessarily transalate into a challenging experience. Nothing today quite has the sheen and power it did a mere week before when N0ught supported The Fall, but one still feels in the presence of one of Oxford's great art bands. And come on, it's on four pm on Sunday - we're knackered and we've only got to listen to this music, let alone perform it.
Speaking of art rock, what would N0ught sound like if all the musicians were replaced by minor characters from the Super Mario universe? A little like Quack Quack, I'd wager. Their jazzy, slightly krautische instrumentals are played in a crinkly, faltering style and might be the type of thing you'd hear if miniature Neu! members came free with Kinder Surprise. Whilst there is a minor air of the self-congratulatory about it all ("Look! I'm playing my keyboard slightly badly! What do I win?"), they do have some surprises up their sleeves, including the penultimate number, which very strangely threatens to turn into "Morning" from Grieg's first Peer Gynt suite. Quack Quack are hard to categorise and most satisfying.
Call your band Lords and you'd better be good, it's too much of a tempting target if not. Luckily, this Nottingham troupe delivers the goods, along with some unexpected oddments that must have accrued in transit. If you cut "Sweet Home Alabama" into tiny pieces and threw it to some guitar wielding wolves, you might just end up with the opening track. Things continue in a similar vein for thirty minutes, Lords repeatedly sounding like the crippled ghost of a roadhouse boogie band being pummelled by a hardcore wrecking crew, or a post-Shellac trio meeting Beefheart's "China Pig" head on in a messy collision. "Makes you want to dance like a Russian," claims the programme; makes you want to drink like a Texan, too, such is the intermittently exposed bluesy underbelly.
Continuing a recent trend in the larger dance labels of realising that full bands can often get far more toes tappiung than pasty technogeeks, Ninja Tune have picked up Liverpool's Super Numeri. They perform one extended piece with free jazz sax and guitar throwing high end skreeks over a chugging funk backing. At times it does sound like a firy new hybrid of styles, but mostly it just sounds like a busload of seagulls divebombing The Exeter Hall's Sunday jam session. The only proper dud of the weekend.
I thought we might have exhausted the post-rocking guitar instrumental angle by now, but Billy Mahonie spring into life proving me thoroughly wrong once again. Unlike their peers at the festival, Billy's pieces sound like wordless songs, rather than unkempt opuses, and are all the more successful for it. They may not be The Shadows by any means, but there is something of taut funk generals The Meters about the elastic snapping of the guitar lines and the clipped urgency of the rhythm section. The third number (details uncertain from my vantage point, due to the band forgetting to ask for a microphone!) almost sounds like "Take Me Out" might if Franz Ferdinand had spent more time in James Brown's boot camp and less in their publicist's waiting room. Like I say, brains, great hooks and more funk savvy in one snare crack than Super Numeri could manage with a coachload of spangly vests, all adding up to make Billy Mahonie a fierce contender for best set of the festival.
Like a palette cleansing sorbet, there's a wonderfully refreshing quality to Scout Niblett, and it was an audacious move by the promoters to put such a simple act in this slot. Scout herself is on guitar and vocals, knocking out incredibly simple blues riffs with fascinating restraint. It's the sort of distillation of great rock music that PJ Harvey would sell her catsuit to be able to make. When Shellac's Todd Trainer joins her on drums, his relentless style should cut across her songs, but somehow the power of Trainer's parts heightens the purity. It does no harm that he's the kind of superbly natural drummer that you'd happily watch hit a haddock against a brick in 4/4 for twenty minutes. Perhaps there's a hint of contrived coyness about Niblett's music, most evident in her approach to sexual lyrics, but overall she has a huge command over the audience...which comes as a surprise to those of us who have watched her hare round the venue all day in a flourescent jacket looking like a distracted lollipop lady.
In complete contrast to Four Tet's wire strewn table, Luke Vibert is mostly using a laptop balanced on a beer crate. Hell, he doesn't even have a mouse! His set could prompt the typical questions - Is he playing or DJing? Is he doing anything at all? Is it actually him? - but I for one couldn't give a fuck. Listen, I was twelve for most of 1988, and used to tune into fuzzy radio stations, wishing I could sneak off to an acid night. Seeing Vibert, a man whose recordings have brought huge pleasure over the years, playing out some spiralling acid squalches is like the culmination fo a long love affair. For less romantic (read "drunk") people, I'm sure it was just a pleasingly danceable end to a wonderful weekend. If you want details, I'll let you know that Vibert dropped a bit of Kraftwerk, FSOL's evergreen "Papua New Guinea" and Squarepusher's incredible "My Red Hot Car" into the mix, but beyond that I'm far too tired and happy to turn in a meaningful review.
So, a glorious weekend, all in all. Maybe Phil from Fell City Girl is right, and in 2010 Audioscope will be a huge international festival. Somehow, however, I doubt that he's correct in predicting that Bon Jovi will be playing. I like to think we can trust these promoters a little more than that.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
The Shelter Frequency
Here's another great big festival review that I'm having to type in all over again, so I think I'll do it in two halves again. I'm that lazy. Plus I'm running out of archive material, so I have to spin it out a bit; heaven forfend I think of something new to say.
First paragraph's boring, isn't it? Second is no great shakes, either. Gets going a bit later on.
AUDIOSCOPE, The Zodiac, 29-30/10/05
Is it really possible to give an objective review of Audioscope here? After all, it's a longstanding, well respected charity event, and what's more the Oxfordbands crew are behind it all. Then again, art is nothing without a response and, being a white hot ball of opinion with few friends left to try them out on, it's the internet for me. Suffice to say that, whatever anybody's tastes and reactions, nobody can deny the vast amount of energy expended in organising Audioscope, nor can they balk at the huge sums raised over the years for Shelter. All of which sounds rather liek the preface to an admission of a bad weekend, whereas nothing could be further from the truth.
Like finding a tenner in a coat you haven't worn for a while proceedings start with a pleasant surprise. Excepting a couple of drizzle-flecked songs at Truck, it's been a year since I last saw Fell City Girl live, and in my memory they've been filed away as "impressive, but not revelatory". A week may be a long time in politics, but this last year has seen some incredible changes for FCG, progressing to bigger and better things on a seemingly monthly basis. Whether my memory is faulty or whether the hard work has paid off is unimportant, FCG are now a live force to be reckoned with. Or perhaps surrendered to in awe. Naturally lots of attention is given to Phil McMinn's cracked angel voice, but for me it's Shrek's drums that catch the ear, intelligently undercutting songs that threaten to turn into bombastic Muse stomps with brittle, icy rhythms. A beautiful opening set, and one that asks the question, "What will 2006 hold for them?". To be frank, no reply seems too grandiose. Oxford act of the year, no competition.
The question that Bullet Union's set raises is "Just what is alternative music, anyway?" We've just heard some potential Top 40 botherers from FCG, and wandered past a gigantic queue of people eager to collect tickets for a sold out Zodiac. Is there really any such thing as leftfield rock anymore? If there is, it certainly ain't Bullet Union, who are only a couple of jerky corners away from being a stright up melodic punk band. Which doesn't mean, of course, that they are a bad band by any means, just not a vastly moving one. Perhaps this set, complete with broken strings, isn't the ideal one on which to judge them, but by the end of the weekend BU had become a pleasant yet nondescript haze in the memory's mniddle distance, obscured by superior acts.
One of whom are Bristol's Ivory Springer. Drafted in at late notice to replace Giddy Motors who split up after the lineup was annoucned (Hey, it's a charity gig, they should be forced to play by Dickensian officials!) Ivory Springer add a dash of wit to the still half-empty Zodiac. Well, the "Four Tet only" brigade have missed out and no mistake, passing up half an hour which is as intelligent and amusing in its musical angularity as in its hilarious ad libs. Admittedly the format isn't revolutionary, and I overheard the name Big Black being spoken behind me at least once, but there's an undeniable force and character to their three-piece bludgeoning that ensures a warm reception.
As well as being the feeling brought on by standing in the dingy confines of The Zodiac drinking expensive cheap lager for two full days, Ill Ease is also the name of a sassy New York one woman band. Structuring rootsy new wave tunes from a series of fuzzy guitar and drum loops, Elizabeth Sharp delivers a yelpingly idiosyncratic set that is equal parts Dylan and Peaches. There is a slight fear that this is only interesting because there's just one of her, and that a full band would reveal the limitations in the songwriting, but it's still a barrelfull of fun, which thankfully throws a little NYC swagger into a bill mostly populated by awkward avantniks.
The demands of a hungry stomach and an eight o'clock pass out limit meant that I sadly missed most of Shooting At Unarmed Men. The five minutes I caught at the end appeared to offer the fine balance of humour, bile and naked agression that characterised John Chapple's previous band, McLusky, but perhaps that's not award winning journalistic insight...
There's a certain type of aged female relative that only ever says two things. First off, they'll meet you at birthday parties with the stalwart, "My, haven't you grown?", whereas in later years, you'll bump into them somewhat less frequently at funerals to be greeted with "My, you haven't changed a bit". Data Panik, effectively the new face of Bis, inspire both of these reactions simultaneously. Haven't they grown: the once smug and tinny rhythms have been replaced by a muscular rock attack. They haven't changed a bit: the songs are still hung on playground-simple vocal lines screamed out in the style of the Tantrum Tartrazine Vocal Consort. Perhaps wordy verses would be better served by being performed by one person at a time, so that we had some tiny idea of what the tunes were supposed ot be about, but overall Data Panik sent a mighty streak of joyful pop music over a somewhat obtuse weekend, like a splurge of squirty cream over elaborate confectionary.
Explosions In The Sky's first number opens with a langurous, glistening guitar part sounding something like Another Green World-era Eno taking on a lost track from The Bends. Sadly, this beautiful beginning decays into a dull, foursquare post-rock trudge, If MFI sold neo-Mogwai instrumentals they'd sound like this. In fact they'd sound slightly more intriguing, as there'd probably be piece that wouldn't quite fit that you'd have to hammer in with the end of a screwdriver, whereas EITS are spotlessly, tediously neat and tidy in their predictable guitar peaks and troughs. Maybe they'd work better if I came to them with fresh easr and unscrawled notebook, maybe I'm not in the mood, maybe 75% of The Zodiac, who are clearly loving every minute, are more discerning than I, but my attentuion soon wandered. Unfortunately for my general health, it wandered to the bar.
Four Tet's earkly work was a highly original melange of electronically treated folky offcuts, like The Infredible String Band's knuckles and kneecaps tossed into a techno bucket. His more recent material has developed in a chunkier, more organic direction, without losing any of the individuality. In a live setting the elctronica element is naturally foregrounded, though Kieron Hebden's abiding interest in jazz and improv means that we get something far more engaged and mutable than most mouseclickers can offer. This is both Four Tet's strength and his weakness, in that every show has an entirely different shape and texture, with long extemporised passages growing from the familiar material, but also in that there is the occasional longeur during which it sounds like Hebden is twiddling one of his knobs back and forth waiting for the next flash of inspiration. The conclusion to be drawn is that it's tough to be a solo improvisor, whether you've got a rack of machinery or a battered banjo, and that Hebden is good, but not yet up with the greats. Let's not forget, however, that this is ultimately techno, and there are some lovely post-electro 909 passages pumping that last dram of energy from our tired frames. There's a tiny part of me that worries that anything with a vaguely insistent beat would sound like manna by this point in proceedings, but that's not important right now. What's important is that we just witnessed some truly live electronica that, despite some limp moments, has kept us fully intrigued. He move we? Just about, just about.
First paragraph's boring, isn't it? Second is no great shakes, either. Gets going a bit later on.
AUDIOSCOPE, The Zodiac, 29-30/10/05
Is it really possible to give an objective review of Audioscope here? After all, it's a longstanding, well respected charity event, and what's more the Oxfordbands crew are behind it all. Then again, art is nothing without a response and, being a white hot ball of opinion with few friends left to try them out on, it's the internet for me. Suffice to say that, whatever anybody's tastes and reactions, nobody can deny the vast amount of energy expended in organising Audioscope, nor can they balk at the huge sums raised over the years for Shelter. All of which sounds rather liek the preface to an admission of a bad weekend, whereas nothing could be further from the truth.
Like finding a tenner in a coat you haven't worn for a while proceedings start with a pleasant surprise. Excepting a couple of drizzle-flecked songs at Truck, it's been a year since I last saw Fell City Girl live, and in my memory they've been filed away as "impressive, but not revelatory". A week may be a long time in politics, but this last year has seen some incredible changes for FCG, progressing to bigger and better things on a seemingly monthly basis. Whether my memory is faulty or whether the hard work has paid off is unimportant, FCG are now a live force to be reckoned with. Or perhaps surrendered to in awe. Naturally lots of attention is given to Phil McMinn's cracked angel voice, but for me it's Shrek's drums that catch the ear, intelligently undercutting songs that threaten to turn into bombastic Muse stomps with brittle, icy rhythms. A beautiful opening set, and one that asks the question, "What will 2006 hold for them?". To be frank, no reply seems too grandiose. Oxford act of the year, no competition.
The question that Bullet Union's set raises is "Just what is alternative music, anyway?" We've just heard some potential Top 40 botherers from FCG, and wandered past a gigantic queue of people eager to collect tickets for a sold out Zodiac. Is there really any such thing as leftfield rock anymore? If there is, it certainly ain't Bullet Union, who are only a couple of jerky corners away from being a stright up melodic punk band. Which doesn't mean, of course, that they are a bad band by any means, just not a vastly moving one. Perhaps this set, complete with broken strings, isn't the ideal one on which to judge them, but by the end of the weekend BU had become a pleasant yet nondescript haze in the memory's mniddle distance, obscured by superior acts.
One of whom are Bristol's Ivory Springer. Drafted in at late notice to replace Giddy Motors who split up after the lineup was annoucned (Hey, it's a charity gig, they should be forced to play by Dickensian officials!) Ivory Springer add a dash of wit to the still half-empty Zodiac. Well, the "Four Tet only" brigade have missed out and no mistake, passing up half an hour which is as intelligent and amusing in its musical angularity as in its hilarious ad libs. Admittedly the format isn't revolutionary, and I overheard the name Big Black being spoken behind me at least once, but there's an undeniable force and character to their three-piece bludgeoning that ensures a warm reception.
As well as being the feeling brought on by standing in the dingy confines of The Zodiac drinking expensive cheap lager for two full days, Ill Ease is also the name of a sassy New York one woman band. Structuring rootsy new wave tunes from a series of fuzzy guitar and drum loops, Elizabeth Sharp delivers a yelpingly idiosyncratic set that is equal parts Dylan and Peaches. There is a slight fear that this is only interesting because there's just one of her, and that a full band would reveal the limitations in the songwriting, but it's still a barrelfull of fun, which thankfully throws a little NYC swagger into a bill mostly populated by awkward avantniks.
The demands of a hungry stomach and an eight o'clock pass out limit meant that I sadly missed most of Shooting At Unarmed Men. The five minutes I caught at the end appeared to offer the fine balance of humour, bile and naked agression that characterised John Chapple's previous band, McLusky, but perhaps that's not award winning journalistic insight...
There's a certain type of aged female relative that only ever says two things. First off, they'll meet you at birthday parties with the stalwart, "My, haven't you grown?", whereas in later years, you'll bump into them somewhat less frequently at funerals to be greeted with "My, you haven't changed a bit". Data Panik, effectively the new face of Bis, inspire both of these reactions simultaneously. Haven't they grown: the once smug and tinny rhythms have been replaced by a muscular rock attack. They haven't changed a bit: the songs are still hung on playground-simple vocal lines screamed out in the style of the Tantrum Tartrazine Vocal Consort. Perhaps wordy verses would be better served by being performed by one person at a time, so that we had some tiny idea of what the tunes were supposed ot be about, but overall Data Panik sent a mighty streak of joyful pop music over a somewhat obtuse weekend, like a splurge of squirty cream over elaborate confectionary.
Explosions In The Sky's first number opens with a langurous, glistening guitar part sounding something like Another Green World-era Eno taking on a lost track from The Bends. Sadly, this beautiful beginning decays into a dull, foursquare post-rock trudge, If MFI sold neo-Mogwai instrumentals they'd sound like this. In fact they'd sound slightly more intriguing, as there'd probably be piece that wouldn't quite fit that you'd have to hammer in with the end of a screwdriver, whereas EITS are spotlessly, tediously neat and tidy in their predictable guitar peaks and troughs. Maybe they'd work better if I came to them with fresh easr and unscrawled notebook, maybe I'm not in the mood, maybe 75% of The Zodiac, who are clearly loving every minute, are more discerning than I, but my attentuion soon wandered. Unfortunately for my general health, it wandered to the bar.
Four Tet's earkly work was a highly original melange of electronically treated folky offcuts, like The Infredible String Band's knuckles and kneecaps tossed into a techno bucket. His more recent material has developed in a chunkier, more organic direction, without losing any of the individuality. In a live setting the elctronica element is naturally foregrounded, though Kieron Hebden's abiding interest in jazz and improv means that we get something far more engaged and mutable than most mouseclickers can offer. This is both Four Tet's strength and his weakness, in that every show has an entirely different shape and texture, with long extemporised passages growing from the familiar material, but also in that there is the occasional longeur during which it sounds like Hebden is twiddling one of his knobs back and forth waiting for the next flash of inspiration. The conclusion to be drawn is that it's tough to be a solo improvisor, whether you've got a rack of machinery or a battered banjo, and that Hebden is good, but not yet up with the greats. Let's not forget, however, that this is ultimately techno, and there are some lovely post-electro 909 passages pumping that last dram of energy from our tired frames. There's a tiny part of me that worries that anything with a vaguely insistent beat would sound like manna by this point in proceedings, but that's not important right now. What's important is that we just witnessed some truly live electronica that, despite some limp moments, has kept us fully intrigued. He move we? Just about, just about.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Truck 05 Sunday Cont.
If someone unearthed some footage fo Alec Empire's 6th form revue, I'm sure it would look just like a gig by The Walk Off. As they generally consist of a bunch of people arsing about and screaming over a breakcore backing track, it's tough to say whether this is a good performance or not. All I do know is a) it's jolly good fun, and b) whatever they pay that dancing bear, it ain't enough.
The Rhonda Valley are alright if you want a slightly sloppy, slightly out of tune version of The Epstein. I'm sure they'd fare better if they weren't clashing with The Magic Numbers and we weren't all victims of Sunday evening exhaustion.
nervous_testpilot has been making music for a computer game. I suppose this explains why this year's set is straightforward and foursquare compared to others. Still, if you're going to hear some banging acid trance, best have it made by a master craftsman, I say.
This is dance music in the truest sense, and a packed Lounger Tent is on its feet and frugging furiously. If the unwelcome ghost of Josh Wink's "Higher State Of Consciousness" was raised one moment, this was more than offset by the happy memory of The Scientist's "The Exorcist" the next. Sadly licensing restrictions meant we were denied the encore for which we bayed, but what better way is there to end a great festival, than to leave wanting more?
See you next year, then.
The Rhonda Valley are alright if you want a slightly sloppy, slightly out of tune version of The Epstein. I'm sure they'd fare better if they weren't clashing with The Magic Numbers and we weren't all victims of Sunday evening exhaustion.
nervous_testpilot has been making music for a computer game. I suppose this explains why this year's set is straightforward and foursquare compared to others. Still, if you're going to hear some banging acid trance, best have it made by a master craftsman, I say.
This is dance music in the truest sense, and a packed Lounger Tent is on its feet and frugging furiously. If the unwelcome ghost of Josh Wink's "Higher State Of Consciousness" was raised one moment, this was more than offset by the happy memory of The Scientist's "The Exorcist" the next. Sadly licensing restrictions meant we were denied the encore for which we bayed, but what better way is there to end a great festival, than to leave wanting more?
See you next year, then.
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