Globe Arty Folks

Not a single trick or treater last night.  Sweets for me!

V/A – THE FOOD OF LOVE PROJECT (Autolycus Records)

“If music be the food of love, play on” is doubtless one of the most misconstrued quotations from English literature.  Duke Orsino is not cueing up some Illyrian bedroom jamz to get in the jiggy mood, but in context of the speech he’s trying to kill his romantic desires with music (whilst also being a bit of an affected pouty flouncer, to be honest).  We wouldn’t like to predict whether the participants in this compilation, co-curated by Sebastian Reynolds’ PinDrop Publicity and featuring a strong Oxford contingent, realise this but it must be said that this neo-folk album has more to do with Shakespeare’s era than his oeuvre; Alasdair Roberts admits the song he sings is “referenced somewhat obliquely” by the bard, which about sums up the approach.  Still, the conceptual underpinning to an album is less important than its quality, and this is a strong collection.

Highlights are Stornoway’s take on Carrol O’Daly’s famous Gaelic love song “Eibhlin a Riun”, a clean dainty little gem of counterpoint that sounds like something Johnny Trunk has dredged up from eerie early 80s kids’ TV, and Thomas Truax’s “Greensleeves” which reinvigorates the familiar tune as a Plaid-a-like clockwork gamelan lullaby.  Scottish singer Kirsty Law’s lovely lilting drone and voice piece is the most traditional here, balanced nicely by The Children Of The Midnight Chimes, who sound like a Russian choir going down a plughole (ie great).  Only Mann Castell’s “Peg-a-Ramsey/ Yellow Horse” is a let-down, some drunks mumbling in a culvert which no amount of ghostly reverb or flagrant Autotune can salvage: clear the taste away with Brickwork Lizard’s good-natured take on “Fortune My Foe”, which ends by tossing the tune into a raucous tavern in which the weird sisters themselves may well be pouring the pints.

This may not be Oxford’s musical response to Shakespeare’s universal drama and glorious poetry – we’d suggest Borderville and Bug Prentice head the bill for that one – but it’s a recommended listen.  A hit, a very palpable hit.

 

2010s - Thousands Of 'Em!

As is traditional at this time of year, I selected my favourite local releases from 2010, for the MIO roundup. It's all pretty exciting this year, with a special podcast, a roundup of selections from a handful of contributors, and a public vote, which makes interesting reading. Essentially, it all goes to show how much MIO has changed this year - and I don't just mean the URL. It's now a truly fantastic resource if you like Oxon music...and if you don't, then what are you doing reading this? No kittens or nudity on this corner of the 'net, you must have got lost.

Anyway, it transpires that I was rather more obtuse/poetic/inane/lateral/smug in my descriptions of the best releases, but there you go. I still think the Morse-Hebrides joint allusion is pretty sweet in the Stornoway summary, and I think I'm the first person to go public with a Cursing Force gag. Happy new year, and so on.

By the way, I have a few plans for 2011, which will intrigue me, but will probably eat up time and put to bed once and for all the concept of running this as an actual blog where things are, like, blogged? Oh my God, my internal monologue has gone, like, totally Californian? So, you can expect just a few updates here every month? Rest assured they shall be awesome, and in no way groody?

I have an odd desire to listen to "Valley Girl" about now?



Alphabet Backwards - Primark

Sherbet-fuelled melodic nugget about the death of the High Street. As unashamed pure pop lovers, the Alphabets wear their hearts on their sleeves (shirts: £1.35)

Borderville - Joy Through Work

Only Richard Ramage can come close to Borderville in terms of literate lyrics that sneak up on strong emotions whilst you're not looking. If The Relationships are a mythical village school fete, Borderville are a baroque Hallowe'en masque at the end of time.

D Gwalia - In Puget Sound

Like a creaky harmonium making a drunken hour long phone call to the Port Talbot Samaritans.

Samuel Zasada - Nielsen

Rich, full-bodied and peppery with unexpected subtleties. Or am I thinking of shiraz?

Space Heroes Of The People - Dancing About Architecture

More totalitarian techpop from the now drummerless duo. One day there'll be none of them left in the band, just an autonomous laptop. And it'll be great.

Spring Offensive - Pull Us Apart

The cowbell rehabilitation starts here!

Stornoway - Beachcomber's Windowsill

There's been a murder, Lewis: Stornoway have destroyed the opposition for best Oxford LP.

V/A - Round The Bends

Surprisingly coherent grab bag of 'head covers raises dosh for needy nippers. Therefore if you don't like it you're evil as well as stupid.

Vileswarm - The Shaman's Last Waltz

Frampton comes undead! Euhedral reads the rites.

Xmas Lights - Treading The Fine Line

Posthumous release by much missed emperors of isolationist metal, a great ear-scouring sign off for Oxford's original Cursing Force.

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.

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.

Artic. Monkeys

This is the Truck that nearly didn't happen, the orginal summer date being rained off, and a rescheduled event happening in chilly September. I think I prefer the idea of an autumnal festival - more time to sup soup and be wistful, and fewer oafs swigging cider and doing something gauche like enjoying themselves.

TRUCK 2007, Hill Farm, Steventon

With the reliably infectious sounds of The Drugsquad wafting over the queue, we find our way into the rescheduled Truck, and straight to The Market Stage for Gog, who display their atonal cabaret schtick with lots of volume and a pink wig. They’re like forgotten local oddballs Dog, but not as good…until we see the programme and discover that they are Dog. But not as good. That’s a bit sad, really.

Actress Hands: Thumbs down; pull your fingers out; read the manual. Oh, somebody stop us! Suffice to say that Actress Hands are a dull punky indie band with rubbish guitar solos.

Enemies of lispers the world over, Restlesslist are an unusual bunch. Their first number is a limp, tinny post-rock bounce, a sort of 65 Minutes Of Static, but then they suddenly throw in some big band samples, drag on a trumpet player, and it all sounds rather wonderfully like the incidental music to Batman. Things taper off again, but that’s probably because all the machines break, along with some of the guitar strings.

Coley Park aren’t that bad, they’ve got some decent light rock and a slight country twang, but they make little impact on the consciousness. If Buffy The Vampire Slayer were set in Swindon, these guys would be playing The Bronze.

Jim Protector are a sort of Scandinavian iLiKETRAiNS: well, we dare say they run on time and don’t smell of piss in Northern Europe. Anyway, they’re a diverting act, with a nicely understated drummer.

Country rock is really the lingua franca of Truck, and Babel have a fair crack at it. There’s some enticingly slurred fiddle, but they really take off when they get that floor to the floor hoedown groove going. Hey, look, we’re literally tapping our feet! Now we’re really in the festival vibe!

Do we really want to hear sensitive post-grunge, fronted by a man whose voice cracks every other syllable? We don’t, which is why we shan’t be seeking The Holy Orders out again. We preferred it when the Barn was full of metal bands - even if they were rubbish they were at least unignorable.

We promised ourselves we wouldn’t spend all Truck watching our favourite local bands, and yet somehow here we are before the mighty Stornoway once again. Maybe the main stage sucks a little intimacy from their winsome folk pop, but eco-jazz shuffle "The Good Fish Guide" still sounds gloriously like The Proclaimers played by The Grumbleweeds, via The Divine Comedy, and we leave with a broad smile.

When A Scholar And A Physician rap, it makes Morris Minor & The Majors look like Public Enemy. There are millions of them, and the whole experience is akin to a techno revue performed by the cast of Why Don’t You? Which means it’s mostly dumb, but you’d have to be a pretty miserable soul to actively dislike it.

We’re going to start a support group for people like us who loved Piney Gir’s debut electro album, and have become deeply disillusioned with her myriad novelty projects ever since. Can this cod C&W Roadshow malarkey and get back to the keyboards, woman!

It seems only right that we go and see some properly apocalyptic, hellfire preacher country after that. With the biggest beard at Truck, and the loudest acoustic guitar in the hemisphere, Josh T Pearson smashes out his Bible-black dirges with arresting intensity. The cavernous sound is strangely like Merle Haggard having a crack at dronecore, and as such is the best act so far.

Back at The Market Stage, which incidentally has the best sound and atmosphere of the festival, we find Sam Isaac plying his acoustic pop trade. A touch of ‘cello, and a tiny tinge of Kitchenware Records makes it a sufficiently enjoyable spectacle to detain us for a few tunes.

Punt & Jury

Interesting one, this. A lot of lukewarm reviews of acts that have grown in stature in the interim. Except 32, who are probablys still atrocious - don't think they've played a gig since this. Don't know how they managed to blag this, to be honest. Must be very nice young lads, or possibly schooled in mesmerism.

THE PUNT 2007, various venues

Jessica Goyder’s Joni-Mitchell-meets-jazz tunes are as light, sweet and frothy as a cappuccino topping, and she plays them with great dexterity. But we’re telling you this because we already knew it, not because we heard it at The Punt, where a weedy PA turned Jessica’s Minnie Ripperton scatting into the sound of an adenoidal, constipated Clanger. I know Borders is hardly Knebworth, but really the sound of pages turning shouldn’t be as loud as the music…

Mr. Shaodow seems to have found the volume control, but has inadvertently stumbled across a slapback sound that would make Sun Studios cream. Not really what a rapper wants, we’d have thought. Still, Shaodow overcomes such obstacles with a confident performance of his literate and amusing tracks. Musically it’s superb, but Shaodow really wants to work on his stage patter, he comes off like a desperate Butlins comedian at times.

Thirty Two are repugnant. Ostensibly they’re metal, but the way the guitars chug through their chords with no sense of dynamics reminds us more of some twobit bar room blues band. At one point blue and red spotlights make the band look like they’re on one of those 80s 3D films; if only the music had the same illusion of depth.

Mondo Cada’s brutal grunge metal is just what we need to eradicate the memory of Thirty Two, and they deliver one of the best sets of the evening. Sludge riff bleurgh pounding psychedelic violence Eynsham psychosis rumbled: even sense and syntax cower before the might of Mondo.

Another unexpected treat comes in the shape of Joe Allen and Angharad Jenkins at the rather cramped QI bar. His songs are subtle and well-constructed, but it’s the fluid folky electric violin ladled over the top that really wins us over. It’s like a tiny bonsai Cropredy happening just for us! Joe might want to be careful that his neatly packaged angst doesn’t send him down the white slide to David Gray purgatory, but for now we’ll happily celebrate a great new voice in town.

The Colins Of Paradise is comfortably the worst band name at The Punt. They’re certainly no slouches as musicians, though, resolutely wheeling out light funk grooves with well-trained sax solos battling six string bass flourishes. If only it weren’t so horrifically trite and soulless, we’d be frugging away like anyone. Can we do our “Flaccid Jazz” joke again now, please?

It’s the vocals that make a lot of people wary of The Gullivers, but we think the bruised and awkward quality of Mark Byrne’s singing works rather well against the suburban punk thud of the music. Tonight’s performance is uneven, but lovable, like a gangly Dickensian urchin who’s grown out of his clothes.

Their music oscillates wonderfully between free improv dribbles and testifyin’ gospel rock, with occasional trudges into Tom Waits territory, and Mephisto Grande go down a storm at a crowded Purple Turtle. Much as we like them, it still feels more like half of SCFT than a proper band, but perhaps it’ll take time to heal the loss of one of our favourite Oxford groups.

Stornoway are possibly Oxford’s best band at the moment, and we love them. But when you’re listening to their delicate folk pop from the back of a packed Wheatsheaf, and not all the band are present, it’s hard to take much away from the experience.

And the other contender for top local band title comes from Borderville. If you tried to teach martians about rock music with nothing but videos of Tommy and the musical Buffy episode, a Rick Wakeman album and a scratchy 7” of “Ballroom Blitz” they’d probably turn out performances just like Borderville. Fun though Sexy Breakfast were it’s great to see Joe finding songs that really suit his voice, and a band who can be theatrical without being smug (well, OK, maybe a tiny bit smug). “Glambulance” calls for fists in the air, and for one night The Music Market is a Broadway theatre.

We only catch the last tune by The Mile High Young Team. It sounds pretty good, and certainly better than their rather overly polished recordings. It’s not much of response we suppose, but then Punt should leave you confused, dizzy, and possibly slightly drunk.

Whose Idea Was A Top 9, Anyway?

A change from the usual today, here are my favourite Oxon records of 2008, as posted on Oxfordbands.com. Quite hard to choose favourite records, as although I come across lots of new acts, I don't necessarily hear all the recordings, so it's an arbitrary list.

Not much else to say, so I'll leave you with this observation. You know that Gaviscon ad where a milky firemen surfs down a woman's throat, spraying pharmaceutical goodness around her oesophagus? Am I the only person who thinks that looks like the climax of some Trumpton blow job? I can't help seeing it as Fireman Sam's anthropomorphic ejaculate spurting down the gullet of some Pontypandy floozie. Sorry.

Edit: a quick trip to Google later, I realise I am not alone in forming this horrific image. I do feel better now.

TOP OXON RECORDINGS OF 2008

Les Clochards - Demo

"I get drunk and I forget things," alleges "Tango Borracho", but we won;t forget this eerie pop monologue. Edit - they released a full LP this year, and very good it is too, if you like wry Gallic cafe indie.

Ally Craig - "Angular Spirals" 7"

Wonky full band outing is lyrically obtuse but deeply lovable. We want a full LP!

Euhedral - Burned Out Visisons

Economy implodes! Venues close! "Hallelujah" raped" Never mind, watrm fuzzy drones wil make things better.

Family Machine - You Are The Family Machine

Yes, the songs are quite old now, but this brainy perk pop is as warming yet intoxicating as a pint of Drambuie.

Foals - Antidotes

Battles + Haricut 100 + studied funk artiness + stupid clothes = Blue Aeroplanes for the T4 generation.

Nonstop Tango - Maps & Dreams

Improv scamps impersonate Waits, on Oxford's least accurately named band's debut LP.

Space Heroes Of The People - "Motorway To Moscow"

Another cracking EP that sounds lovingly handmade and icily robotic simultaneously.

Tie Your Shoes To Your Knees & Pretend You're Small, Like Us - Demo

Journo baiting cockabout results in unexpected collaged fascination.

Stornoway - "On The Rocks"

New EP contrastingly reveals there's no end to this band's melodic invention, and that rag week humour really sucks.

The Bad Siege

That's not actrually how you spell "trebuchet"...

DEATHRAY TREBUCHAY/ STORNOWAY/ JALI FILLI CISSOKHO, Isis Tavern, 12/6/09

“Are you going to the festival?” asks a local to his mate as we cross Iffley Lock. “Are you going to [ironic emphasis] rock out?” Doubt it, chum, for this is a record launch from delicate folkpoppers Stornoway, in the The Isis Tavern’s bucolic grounds, for well-heeled neo-hippies and fragile indie children. So, in place of warm Fosters we got organic ale, in place of tight black jeans we got flouncy floral dresses, and in place of a harried, leather-clad engineer we got – well, some things are constant, perhaps. Kora player Jali Filli Cissokho provides a suitably warm introduction, the sounds from his West African harp growing from tiny wisps of melody to huge clouds of sound as his thumbs writhe around the strings. It’s easy enough to drift away to Cissokho’s gorgeous set, but he’s not pandering to the lentil burger World Music morass, his playing incorporates hard attacks and sudden spasms of notes as well as mellifluous fluidity. This is intricate, intelligent music for active listening, not pallid chillout sessions.

In a near Stalinist act of historical revisionism, Stornoway have announced that “Zorbing” shall be their debut single; any records you may already own by them are the result of fevered imaginations and possible bourgeous deviation, and mention of them will land you swiftly in a Headington Quarry labour camp. Their songs are so timeless, it feels as though Stornoway have been around forever, though it was only three short years ago that we first saw them, playing, in all honesty, an uneven set. They’ve come light years since, but never lost their oddity and awkward affability: after a brief vamping intro their first track tonight is “On The Rocks” a treble-saturated, reverb-drenched fuzz that is like nothing other Oxford bands would write, and is also illogically beautiful – the cymbals sound like jagged ice, the guitar harmonics flash like winter sunlight, and the glorious vocal arches above everything like Rainbow Bridge. The set builds to a restrained climax, and encapsulates everything wonderful about their twitchy bonhomie and nervous charm. They even have a real Zorb terrorising the audience to the front. If you want to break the Oxford pasty, apparently all you need is a giant inflatable Kiwi sphere.

As they look like Dogs D’Amour dressed by Timmy Mallett, and play rag week ska rock, Deathray Trebuchay satisfy those who missed “The Good Fish Guide” from Stornoway’s set. Definitely not us, in other words. But unexpectedly, just by dint of a great bassist, some fluent inventive horn lines, and the fact they’re (whisper it) having fun, this London act wins us over until we’re punching the air to their knockabout jazz punk with the rest of them. Rocking lock man would have approved…unless he was one of the many people phoning in noise complaints, anyway. Childish, of course, but this makes us love the evening even more.

There's Been A Boulder, Lewis

Stornoway: best pop band in Oxford currently, and lovely chaps to boot. You may have seen them on Later a few weeks ago. Well, they're better in real life, when they aren't shitting themselves...

Stornoway – On The Rocks (Hatpop)

If you can stand talking to one for long enough, sooner or later an estate agent shall tell you that only one thing really matters in selling houses: location. And in music, the most significant element affecting our judgement is context. Change the context and we’ll all think something new about the music. Sloppy funk covers might be fun in a youth club charity battle of the bands, but would seem pretty facile at a state funeral. So much music works differently in the live arena than in the studio – Redox is one of the most entertaining live bands in town, but has anyone listened to the last EP more than once?

It’s with this in mind that we approach the new EP by one of our favourite local acts, Stornoway, because there’s a great big sore thumb sticking out a mile, and that offending digit is EP closer, “The Good Fish Guide”. Quite a good laugh live, with Jon Quin intoning the title like a twisted ringmaster, whilst seven shades of hellish carnival unfold around him, with chanted fish breeds being traded with horse headed jazz (you have to see it to understand), but it’s a bit of a disaster on record. A big clumsy whoop ushers in the song, and already our thoughts are wandering towards The Toy Dolls’ take on “Nellie The Elephant”, and that’s before the verses have nudged our memories towards The Divine Comedy’s “A Seafood Song” and the muted trumpet has caused us to shudder with recollection of The Big Ben Banjo Band. It’s just a bit of a bloody mess, to be frank, with the stagnant air of a failed 5th form revue. Even Jon can’t raise his game, and chooses some “funny” voices for his part, including a woeful 2D Brummie and what might be Rolf Harris. The only good things we can say about “The Good Fish Guide” are that it has a serious ecological message, it raises money for The Marine Conservation Society, and the unexpected quotation of “That’s Entertainment” by The Jam on muted trumpet made us chuckle.

OK, we’ve got that out of the way. Phew. The rest of the EP is thankfully as good as, if not better than, Stornoway’s previous two majestic recordings, and manages to cram a myriad of ideas into each song, without losing sight of Brian Briggs’ gorgeously heroic yet melancholic vocals, that have the bittersweet tenor of a victory song sung by the last soldier standing. “Unfaithful” opens with the sort of tremoloed 50s shoegazing guitar that mid-90s media darlings Madder Rose used to trade in, before a creamy vocal about cars and dreams starts lifting hearts. Just before it can turn into a twee Spruced Springsteen, however, an avalanche of dissonant piano collapses around us with a (sergeant) peppering of fairground melodies.

Even better is “The Pupil Of Your Eye”, which intriguingly mashes together two very different songs, one of which is a Sci-Fi new wave blast about “magnetic fields” and “electric currents”, featuring some fantastic wibbly keys, and the other is a cheeky organ clomp. They’d both be great songs on their own, and illogically they get better in company.

We hear some of the old Stornoway in “Here Comes The Blackout”, all folky guitar, fluid bass, subtle keys and close harmonies, which is a welcome break before the title track, in which Simon & Garfunkel take over a drum and bass session and some incredible cymbal work makes a sound like sunlight glinting from an icicle. Except even better. And after all that we still feel there’s plenty on these four tracks that we haven’t touched on, and that this EP is an embarrassment of riches…whereas the final track is just a bit of an embarrassment. Of course, 95% of people will think exactly the opposite; that’s why the world is beyond hope.

Gurus Joshed

This was the first time we'd ever seen Stornoway, now comfortably Oxford's best band. My, how they've grown. The venue and the other two acts are long gone, by the way, just in case you were getting excited about things growing to fruition and bursting forth with dribbly creative juices all around Oxford...

THE SWAMIS/ LOS DIABLOS/ STORNOWAY, The X, 4/06

If "unassuming" to you means "tedious and forgettable", skip a paragraph now. Go on, there's plenty for you later. The rest of us can discuss Stornoway, who are quiet, likable, and unabloodyssuming enough to make Belle & Sebastian look like Count Grishnackh, proffering AOR melodicism and Snow Patrol-style vocals that just skirt nasally whining to arrive at disarmingly lovely. Unsurprisingly they're sometimes overly polite, especially in nods towards castrated reggae rhythms, but high points delight, such as a tune allegedly written in a boulangerie that sounds like a fascinating cross between 10cc and The Proclaimers. They could do with letting go a bit, and dropping the worst jazz break ever, but Stornoway are exploring some interesting corners of the overstuffed acoustic rock foyer.

With Mark "Evenings" Wilden on drums and brother James on guitar, Los Diablos' sound is straightforward, but the material's certainly unpredictable. Mixing irreverent covers with originals and a hefty dash of VIth form revue silliness mreans they'll be anathema to many, but if you like a bit of harmless cabaret, this duo delivers the goods. Highlights bookend the set, with a helium thrash through "Wuthering Heights" and Jacques Brel's "The Girls & The Dogs". The ambience may be more Roy Walker than Scott Walker, but the playing is neat, showing sides to Mark's vocals hidden in The Evenings' maelstrom. Perhaps they're selling their songs short with this jocular presentation, but considering one of those songs is a Barenaked Ladies romp about a Chevy Chase lookalike, they probably don't care.

Clever billing for rock trio The Swamis, who sound absolutely enormous after these acoustic prologues. And fair play, too, because they're as tight and powerful as you could wish, powering down a mid-80s rock furrow with much dexterity. If you liked it you could " buy a CD from the man in the Led Zep T-shirt", whihc pretty much sums up The Swamis. They clearly inhabit a cosy world where nothing changes much, where mates dance like drunken uncles at a wedding, heads are nodded at provincial bars and "rock" is spelt with an A and a W. Good word for Scrabble.