Went to London today, to see the fantastic Museum Of Everything - 200 potential Fall LP covers in one building! If you want to go, you have 3 days left, but I highly recommend it. Walking from Oxford Circus to Marble Arch later, I realised that, though London is still one of the world's great cities, it has lost some of the sheen it had for me as a 16 year old. The entire commercial centre of London is just one vast High Street now, with the same shops - H&M, New Look - popping up every couple of minutes without fail. It was tragically a bit like walking through the backgrounds on Scooby Doo.
Furthermore, I realised that the word "nest" must have the same root as the verb "nestle", and that the gerund of said verb, "nestling", is presumably what a bird is between being a "hatchling" and a "fledgeling". And so it turns out to be, in avine circles. Incredible how words you've used all your life suddenly leap up with fresh meanings, isn't it?
But you don't want to read about any of that, you want to read about appalling provincial bands. Your wish is my command.
ASHES OF STEEL - DEMO
This sampler from Witney band Ashes Of Steel’s second album begins with the lines “It’s Saturday night and it’s party time/We’re gonna get drunk on cheap red wine”, from which evidence we conclude that the song was composed in about five minutes on Sunday morning. There’s nothing at all wrong with the performance, so long as a half-arsed growl is your idea of a great vocal, but the music itself is some of the most lumpen, insipid blues rock that’s ever crawled out of our stereo to lie panting in a corner. We almost feel sorry for it, and decide to put it out of its misery by battering it to death with some old 80s videos of Rock School and Hold Down A Chord.
Things pick up a touch in the second tune, the coincidentally named “Better Than That…”, as a little cheeky shimmy is injected into the rhythm, but sadly a few minutes later alleged live favourite “Rookie Rock” spoils the effect with the sludgiest Mogadon boogie-woogie the human mind can comfortably handle. Seriously, Ashes Of Steel are to proper impassioned blues what Barney the Dinosaur is to Mechagodzilla. Only the drummer shows the slightest hint of originality and emotion in his playing, and his head would probably explode if he stumbled across Sam Kelly at The Famous Monday Blues.
The only positive spin we can feasibly put on the recording is that we suspect a party band like this might find the live arena a more comfortable home than the recording studio, and if we were to see them at one of the popular, well attended gigs they assure us they play in Witney regularly, it might all make a modicum of sense. But on record, Ashes Of Steel is a deeply depressing proposition. I’m listening to this demo early on Wednesday afternoon. I know that Saturday night is a long way away, but with each passing bloody note that bottle of cheap red wine is looking ever more tempting…
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Valentine Temple
I've lost not only the Word file for this review, but also the hard copy of the magazine it was in, so I'm typing this from a scrap of A4 paper that I found in the bottom of the reviews vault. Baby Gravy are growned up now, and are very good; Shirley are called Silvanito now, and are still fun; The Brothers never crossed my consciousness again after this night; The Shaker heights still play in Oxford every now and then, but I steer well clear.
SHIRLEY/ THE BROTHERS/ THE SHAKER HEIGHTS/ BABY GRAVY - The Point, The Zodiac
Young people are great. They have such belief that things will work out, no matter how implausible they look. Take teenage band Baby Gravy. They have the youthful fire to believe that they can start a sixpiece melding Sexy Breafast style prog pop with dubby bass, The Psychedelic Furs' sax parts and vocals in the vein of The Slits, and make it work. Of course, it doesn't work at all. It sounds like two bands playing two songs at once. Badly. But sometimes a noble failure is worth a hundred safe successes. Watch out for this lot, they could really surprise us, so long as they don't start taking the easy route.
Much as The Shaker Heights do. they could really use some of Baby Gravy's open-minded outlook. Their chiming, slightly drony rock is a bit like early U2 (if you're being kind) and a bit like The Velvet Underground's Loaded (if you're being saintly). Listening to them is like finding a pebble washed smooth by the sea: immediately pleasant to the senses, but ultimately forgettable and impossible to distinguish from others.
Oxford music is known for many things, but white funnk is not one of them, which makes The Brothers an unusual proposition. They burst onto the stage in a flurry of mid-80s funk rhythms and oodles of glistening Rhodes, headed by a frontman strutting about like a bantam impersonating John Inman. At times it's somewhat uninspired, but the best tracks sound like The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" played in the style of Beck's Midnite Vultures LP, which is something you don't see every day.
Shirley's music is a frightening mixture of Bryan Adams, Los Lobos and McFly wth occasional Santana guitar solos and fists aloft choreography. Risible on paper, but in a weird inversion of the Baby Gravy principle, Shirley get away with it by putting in the hard work. Thus their songs are impeccably arranged, convincingly performed and all a neat two minutes long, with barely enough space for their adulatory fans to catch a breath in between. Four grown men throwing shapes and singing about their outlaw status is clearly ridiculous, and Shirley's relentless chirpiness is guaranteed to make the more straight-faced music fan physically sick, but I'll admit they made me grin for thrity minutes. Which is no mean feat, when you think about it.
SHIRLEY/ THE BROTHERS/ THE SHAKER HEIGHTS/ BABY GRAVY - The Point, The Zodiac
Young people are great. They have such belief that things will work out, no matter how implausible they look. Take teenage band Baby Gravy. They have the youthful fire to believe that they can start a sixpiece melding Sexy Breafast style prog pop with dubby bass, The Psychedelic Furs' sax parts and vocals in the vein of The Slits, and make it work. Of course, it doesn't work at all. It sounds like two bands playing two songs at once. Badly. But sometimes a noble failure is worth a hundred safe successes. Watch out for this lot, they could really surprise us, so long as they don't start taking the easy route.
Much as The Shaker Heights do. they could really use some of Baby Gravy's open-minded outlook. Their chiming, slightly drony rock is a bit like early U2 (if you're being kind) and a bit like The Velvet Underground's Loaded (if you're being saintly). Listening to them is like finding a pebble washed smooth by the sea: immediately pleasant to the senses, but ultimately forgettable and impossible to distinguish from others.
Oxford music is known for many things, but white funnk is not one of them, which makes The Brothers an unusual proposition. They burst onto the stage in a flurry of mid-80s funk rhythms and oodles of glistening Rhodes, headed by a frontman strutting about like a bantam impersonating John Inman. At times it's somewhat uninspired, but the best tracks sound like The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" played in the style of Beck's Midnite Vultures LP, which is something you don't see every day.
Shirley's music is a frightening mixture of Bryan Adams, Los Lobos and McFly wth occasional Santana guitar solos and fists aloft choreography. Risible on paper, but in a weird inversion of the Baby Gravy principle, Shirley get away with it by putting in the hard work. Thus their songs are impeccably arranged, convincingly performed and all a neat two minutes long, with barely enough space for their adulatory fans to catch a breath in between. Four grown men throwing shapes and singing about their outlaw status is clearly ridiculous, and Shirley's relentless chirpiness is guaranteed to make the more straight-faced music fan physically sick, but I'll admit they made me grin for thrity minutes. Which is no mean feat, when you think about it.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Null Points
There are some good points in this review, but I feel it's too long and the tone is wrong. But it's still better than anything you could come up with, isn't it? Minnow.
KK NULL & Z’EV/ THE EVENINGS/ THE DIVINE COILS – Oxfordbands, The Wheatsheaf 12/4/06
Collaborative music-making is often described as “instinctive”, especially if it involves some degree of improvisation. However, after seeing The Divine Coils (essentially a deluxe Holiday Stabbings), a redefinition of “instinctive” is required. Picture four performers hunched over a sprawl of instruments which takes up half of the venue’s floorspace, batting at them, bashing them, scraping them and twisting them in a manner that looks so exploratory it calls to mind the apes at start of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not that comparing them to monkeys is supposed to be parodic or dismissive, as tonight they produce music of hypnotic delicacy that should be applauded.
Those searching for melody and structure will have gone home downheartened by the performance, but anyone with an ear for the infinite subtleties of drones and textures will be very content with this extended improvisation. Over roughly half an hour guitars are attacked with tools, effects pedals are manhandled and piles of maltreated cymbals are tossed around the room - we’re guessing this is one band without a lucrative Zildjian sponsorship deal. OK, perhaps the music is a tiny bit climax happy, and one can almost sense the performers mentally regrouping for a few moments after particularly tumescent passages, but the organic flow is in general deeply impressive, calmly wafting listeners along (and those expecting a Wolf Eyes meets Merzbow racket will have been surprised by the beauty and warmth of this gig, despite the crashes and shrieks). A recent Holiday Stabbings review claimed that their music is overly complex, “like multi-dimensional string theory”, but I’d argue quite the reverse. The Divine Coils don’t make particularly intellectual music, and again that isn’t a criticism: despite its abrasive edge, this performance is a sensual experience, like an immersion into a warm bath. Oh, alright then, a bloody hot and dangerously turbulent bath that may contain piranhas and shampoo bottles full of hydrochloric acid.
The sleevenotes to Miles Davis Live At The Carnegie Hall have a clear idea of the best thing about live jazz: “mistakes”. A bit of a one-liner, perhaps, but it’s true that creative art ought to ride the borderline between inspiration and disaster, and that there’s nothing so inspiring as watching an artist take a chance. One could apply this dictum to The Evenings, a band that never seem content to rest and always strive to present the listener with something fresh. The downside of this approach, of course, is that not every performance is a bankable success, but this is more than offset by the excitement of discovering what they’ll do next. That a band whose music is based around prerecorded rhythm tracks can approach performance in so many different ways is a minor miracle. So, tonight’s gig is something of a B- when compared to earlier triumphs, but it sees them approach their material in a healthy new light once again.
The recent departure of Stuart Fowkes on electronics has left The Evenings as a fourpiece. Perhaps unsurprisingly in a band that’s now 50% bassists, the music has become that much more solid and serious. It’s not the “folk metal” we were promised online, but it builds around relentless kraut basslines and unstoppable row-yer-bastards drumming like dub for molluscs. In fact, when Mark Wilden eventually launches into one of his signature kit workouts, the effect seems suddenly revolutionary and shockingly light-footed. It’s like Gene Krupa auditioning for Killing Joke. Only “Fizzy Piss” refers back to the old Bentley Rhythm Arse electropop playfulness, the rest of the set is an impressively sturdy lumbering beast. There may be the usual peccadilloes – Seb’s keyboards could do with a little more restraint, and it’s a pity Mark doesn’t have the vocal prowess to match his impassioned delivery – but one of Oxford’s best bands have raised eyebrows once again…not least with the serious volume of the set, which easily drowns out The Divine Coils! We’ve been listening to The Evenings for years now, and the fact that we’re still excited to be guessing what they’ll do next is comfortably the best tribute we can give.
The Wheatsheaf is bombarded with the sound of a dog licking Rice Krispies from a close-miked blanket under Shitmat’s sofa. That’ll be KK Null starting off the final set, then. His position on the stage means we have no idea exactly how he’s making his sounds for the entirety of the gig, but we’re guessing it involves lots of electricity and plenty of buttons. Before long he’s joined by improvising percussionist Z’ev and a vast array of toys for a lengthy and exhausting workout. It’s incredibly difficult to describe purely abstract noise performances, and this duo make The Divine Coils’ tonal wash sound like Debussy by comparison, but despite some brief flashes this gig is pretty disappointing.
The main stumbling block is the apparent lack of communication between the performers. There are some glorious moments, but it feels like they’re reached by pure chance, before being discarded. Perhaps this is evidence of an exciting aleatory approach, but it sounds more like two musicians who aren’t sparking off each other too well. Highlights include a passage marrying gorgeous rubbed gong tones with electronic bird song over spooky theremin lines, or the sound of someone playing Defender next to an imploding junkyard, but there’s equally lots of sonic mulch and water treading on display. Tellingly, Z’ev starts off knocking away at one end of his percussion rack and, hey ho, he’s made it exactly full circle 55 minutes later. One gets the impression he would have doggedly worked his way around his kit in the same manner whatever Null had been doing, and conversely we’re not convinced Null’s paying much attention to the percussion.
In other settings we’re sure these musicians could knock out something special – just check the list of their collaborators - but tonight it feels rather flat. A disappointingly one-dimensional end to what promised to be the most exciting Oxfordbands booking this year.
KK NULL & Z’EV/ THE EVENINGS/ THE DIVINE COILS – Oxfordbands, The Wheatsheaf 12/4/06
Collaborative music-making is often described as “instinctive”, especially if it involves some degree of improvisation. However, after seeing The Divine Coils (essentially a deluxe Holiday Stabbings), a redefinition of “instinctive” is required. Picture four performers hunched over a sprawl of instruments which takes up half of the venue’s floorspace, batting at them, bashing them, scraping them and twisting them in a manner that looks so exploratory it calls to mind the apes at start of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not that comparing them to monkeys is supposed to be parodic or dismissive, as tonight they produce music of hypnotic delicacy that should be applauded.
Those searching for melody and structure will have gone home downheartened by the performance, but anyone with an ear for the infinite subtleties of drones and textures will be very content with this extended improvisation. Over roughly half an hour guitars are attacked with tools, effects pedals are manhandled and piles of maltreated cymbals are tossed around the room - we’re guessing this is one band without a lucrative Zildjian sponsorship deal. OK, perhaps the music is a tiny bit climax happy, and one can almost sense the performers mentally regrouping for a few moments after particularly tumescent passages, but the organic flow is in general deeply impressive, calmly wafting listeners along (and those expecting a Wolf Eyes meets Merzbow racket will have been surprised by the beauty and warmth of this gig, despite the crashes and shrieks). A recent Holiday Stabbings review claimed that their music is overly complex, “like multi-dimensional string theory”, but I’d argue quite the reverse. The Divine Coils don’t make particularly intellectual music, and again that isn’t a criticism: despite its abrasive edge, this performance is a sensual experience, like an immersion into a warm bath. Oh, alright then, a bloody hot and dangerously turbulent bath that may contain piranhas and shampoo bottles full of hydrochloric acid.
The sleevenotes to Miles Davis Live At The Carnegie Hall have a clear idea of the best thing about live jazz: “mistakes”. A bit of a one-liner, perhaps, but it’s true that creative art ought to ride the borderline between inspiration and disaster, and that there’s nothing so inspiring as watching an artist take a chance. One could apply this dictum to The Evenings, a band that never seem content to rest and always strive to present the listener with something fresh. The downside of this approach, of course, is that not every performance is a bankable success, but this is more than offset by the excitement of discovering what they’ll do next. That a band whose music is based around prerecorded rhythm tracks can approach performance in so many different ways is a minor miracle. So, tonight’s gig is something of a B- when compared to earlier triumphs, but it sees them approach their material in a healthy new light once again.
The recent departure of Stuart Fowkes on electronics has left The Evenings as a fourpiece. Perhaps unsurprisingly in a band that’s now 50% bassists, the music has become that much more solid and serious. It’s not the “folk metal” we were promised online, but it builds around relentless kraut basslines and unstoppable row-yer-bastards drumming like dub for molluscs. In fact, when Mark Wilden eventually launches into one of his signature kit workouts, the effect seems suddenly revolutionary and shockingly light-footed. It’s like Gene Krupa auditioning for Killing Joke. Only “Fizzy Piss” refers back to the old Bentley Rhythm Arse electropop playfulness, the rest of the set is an impressively sturdy lumbering beast. There may be the usual peccadilloes – Seb’s keyboards could do with a little more restraint, and it’s a pity Mark doesn’t have the vocal prowess to match his impassioned delivery – but one of Oxford’s best bands have raised eyebrows once again…not least with the serious volume of the set, which easily drowns out The Divine Coils! We’ve been listening to The Evenings for years now, and the fact that we’re still excited to be guessing what they’ll do next is comfortably the best tribute we can give.
The Wheatsheaf is bombarded with the sound of a dog licking Rice Krispies from a close-miked blanket under Shitmat’s sofa. That’ll be KK Null starting off the final set, then. His position on the stage means we have no idea exactly how he’s making his sounds for the entirety of the gig, but we’re guessing it involves lots of electricity and plenty of buttons. Before long he’s joined by improvising percussionist Z’ev and a vast array of toys for a lengthy and exhausting workout. It’s incredibly difficult to describe purely abstract noise performances, and this duo make The Divine Coils’ tonal wash sound like Debussy by comparison, but despite some brief flashes this gig is pretty disappointing.
The main stumbling block is the apparent lack of communication between the performers. There are some glorious moments, but it feels like they’re reached by pure chance, before being discarded. Perhaps this is evidence of an exciting aleatory approach, but it sounds more like two musicians who aren’t sparking off each other too well. Highlights include a passage marrying gorgeous rubbed gong tones with electronic bird song over spooky theremin lines, or the sound of someone playing Defender next to an imploding junkyard, but there’s equally lots of sonic mulch and water treading on display. Tellingly, Z’ev starts off knocking away at one end of his percussion rack and, hey ho, he’s made it exactly full circle 55 minutes later. One gets the impression he would have doggedly worked his way around his kit in the same manner whatever Null had been doing, and conversely we’re not convinced Null’s paying much attention to the percussion.
In other settings we’re sure these musicians could knock out something special – just check the list of their collaborators - but tonight it feels rather flat. A disappointingly one-dimensional end to what promised to be the most exciting Oxfordbands booking this year.
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Veteran Poppy's Day
I guarantee you there are no Pulp-based errors in this piece, you knowitall fuckers.
ANDREW POPPY’S SUSTAINING ENSEMBLE, OCM, Northwall, 3/12/09
We first came across Andrew Poppy in the mid-80s, playing a cheeky breed of pop-minimalism, injecting a little classical rigour into the ZTT roster, whilst puncturing the solemn salon atmosphere of British composition with situationist jokes and artrock packaging. We lost track of Poppy some time ago, but aside from growing a cascade of beautiful bone-white locks, like some posterboy for new Timotei Goth, it would appear that little has changed. His music is still indebted to the giants of minimalism, and still features absurd texts intoned over slowly shifting sonic weavings.
The set, a selection of quartet arrangements of pieces from his last album, …And The Shuffle Of Things, is a definite success. In some ways Poppy has honed his strengths over the years. Firstly, he has embraced the development of electronics in the past quarter century, and the prerecorded parts of the performance are intricate without being needlessly flashy, often adding a disquieting Lynchian buzz to the pieces. Secondly, Poppy’s vocals have matured noticeably: where his delivery was a tad smug and portentous in the 80s, it has mellowed into a stately, melancholically comic recitation. At times he sounds like a cross between Laurie Anderson and John Hegley, and “My Father’s Submarines” or “The Head Of Orpheus Football” are truly hypnotic, at once hilarious and mystifying.
Sadly, some of the experience simply feels second hand. The stage is an array of pitched percussion, and everyone knows that massed marimbas are the new music equivalent of Marshall stacks, and the ensemble play behind moody projections on gauze, the arthouse version of dry ice. Also, “Periscope” is just those same old Glass Reich melodic cells jumbled together on two keyboards, and seems to last most of the week (an effect not helped by the hackneyed projections of clocks running backwards – cheers for that). Frankly, the world has changed, and what sounded pretty radical in 1986, now sounds like the soundtrack to a Barclays ad. Whilst the show is wonderful, we’re concerned that Poppy is creating a heritage industry for a contemporary classical movement in which he never felt comfortable to begin with. We love him, but we hope he takes more inspiration from the restless individuality of his ex-teacher John Cage, and less from the reductive autophagy of his ex-colleague Genesis P-Orridge. Stop shuffling, try a new deck.
ANDREW POPPY’S SUSTAINING ENSEMBLE, OCM, Northwall, 3/12/09
We first came across Andrew Poppy in the mid-80s, playing a cheeky breed of pop-minimalism, injecting a little classical rigour into the ZTT roster, whilst puncturing the solemn salon atmosphere of British composition with situationist jokes and artrock packaging. We lost track of Poppy some time ago, but aside from growing a cascade of beautiful bone-white locks, like some posterboy for new Timotei Goth, it would appear that little has changed. His music is still indebted to the giants of minimalism, and still features absurd texts intoned over slowly shifting sonic weavings.
The set, a selection of quartet arrangements of pieces from his last album, …And The Shuffle Of Things, is a definite success. In some ways Poppy has honed his strengths over the years. Firstly, he has embraced the development of electronics in the past quarter century, and the prerecorded parts of the performance are intricate without being needlessly flashy, often adding a disquieting Lynchian buzz to the pieces. Secondly, Poppy’s vocals have matured noticeably: where his delivery was a tad smug and portentous in the 80s, it has mellowed into a stately, melancholically comic recitation. At times he sounds like a cross between Laurie Anderson and John Hegley, and “My Father’s Submarines” or “The Head Of Orpheus Football” are truly hypnotic, at once hilarious and mystifying.
Sadly, some of the experience simply feels second hand. The stage is an array of pitched percussion, and everyone knows that massed marimbas are the new music equivalent of Marshall stacks, and the ensemble play behind moody projections on gauze, the arthouse version of dry ice. Also, “Periscope” is just those same old Glass Reich melodic cells jumbled together on two keyboards, and seems to last most of the week (an effect not helped by the hackneyed projections of clocks running backwards – cheers for that). Frankly, the world has changed, and what sounded pretty radical in 1986, now sounds like the soundtrack to a Barclays ad. Whilst the show is wonderful, we’re concerned that Poppy is creating a heritage industry for a contemporary classical movement in which he never felt comfortable to begin with. We love him, but we hope he takes more inspiration from the restless individuality of his ex-teacher John Cage, and less from the reductive autophagy of his ex-colleague Genesis P-Orridge. Stop shuffling, try a new deck.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Grant Student
Wierd. I kept thinking of Pulp when writing this review. I quite like them, and al, but I generally don't think about them from one month to the next, yet here they are. And here you are. Happy days.
RIP Videosyncratic.
GRANT - SKIRR (Big Red Sky)
“Yeah, it’s a great start, boys; so, when’s the real singer going to finish it off?”
A smidgen harsh, we’ll admit, but Skirr is an LP that has clearly had lots of thought and expertise poured into its creation, but which falls down for us whenever the vocals start. It’s a praiseworthily varied record, impossible to sum up in a pithy description, but sophisticated electro goth would be the closest we could get to swiping at the truth in a snappy soundbite, and we really, really want to like it more than we do. But we don’t, and sometimes you just have to admit these things straight.
The opener “Null” is brief burst of Future Sound Of London garnished with a snatch from “Never Can Say Goodbye” for no obvious reason, but thereafter “Exeat” sets the tone for the record, with chubby 80s bass and a portentous vocal line occasionally exploding into hissing guitars, leaving a slight aftertaste of Psychedelic Furs. Elsewhere “Isthmus” (blimey, Grant, is this a tracklist or a championship game of Scrabble?) is a darkhearted ballad dusted with synth oboe, loosely recalling Depeche Mode’s Violator, whilst “Acres To Hectares” is an improbable industro-rock rave up from 1990 with a caffeinated baggy beat and some wobbly keyboard squiggles suspended between the first flushes of techno and Radiohead’s Amnesiac, all underpinning a tune that surreally threatens to morph into “It Was A Very Good Year”. This is nothing if not eclectic and adventurous recording!
For the most part the music is highly intriguing, if perhaps evidence of too many dips into the Pick ‘N’ Mix counter of recent rock history, and there are only a couple of truly duff tracks: “Below The Seal” welds outdated guitars onto an Isaac Hayes conga rhythm, something in the manner of a blaxploitation theme as envisioned by the Sounds staff in 1988 – horrible, in other words – and “Shellac Skin” is a heavy, doomy trudge over a finger-in-ear folk club vocal melody about addiction that ought to be blackly imposing, but just sounds silly.
Aside from these two mis-steps, his is a collection of ear-catching oddments crying out for a great voice to bind them together, and if Scott Walker were to add his creamy voice to this grab bag of neat ideas and production tricks it might really work; if Bryan Ferry were to drape a few louche vocal takes over the top it might be pretty fascinating; hell, even if someone who can’t really sing but who has a grasp of storytelling and drama, such as Jarvis Cocker, were to hove into view we’d love this LP. But, sadly, Grant isn’t any of these – in fact, he sounds much more like Russell Senior’s wayward vocal attempts on Pulp’s misfired second album, Freaks.
Let’s cut some slack, Grant doesn’t have a bad voice at all – you could imagine him fronting some grown up indie band, on Pink Hedgehog Records or somesuch - but he doesn’t have the gravitas or depth to his singing to pull off this rich confection. The closing track, “Scent & Snow” a simple piece of pop euphoria that sounds like the work of a band locked up for 5 hours with their management shouting “Write a hit!” through the keyhole, perhaps encapsulates the paradox of Skirr: it’s not a particularly good song, although it is bouncy enough, but Grant’s vocals work so much better in this unfettered environment. Just when we’re having fun, the record ends with over ten minutes of a single slowly oscillating keyboard tone, infuriating and fascinating in equal measure. Come to think of it, Pulp did this too, at the end of This Is Hardcore. But they’d learnt not to let Russell sing by that time, of course.
RIP Videosyncratic.
GRANT - SKIRR (Big Red Sky)
“Yeah, it’s a great start, boys; so, when’s the real singer going to finish it off?”
A smidgen harsh, we’ll admit, but Skirr is an LP that has clearly had lots of thought and expertise poured into its creation, but which falls down for us whenever the vocals start. It’s a praiseworthily varied record, impossible to sum up in a pithy description, but sophisticated electro goth would be the closest we could get to swiping at the truth in a snappy soundbite, and we really, really want to like it more than we do. But we don’t, and sometimes you just have to admit these things straight.
The opener “Null” is brief burst of Future Sound Of London garnished with a snatch from “Never Can Say Goodbye” for no obvious reason, but thereafter “Exeat” sets the tone for the record, with chubby 80s bass and a portentous vocal line occasionally exploding into hissing guitars, leaving a slight aftertaste of Psychedelic Furs. Elsewhere “Isthmus” (blimey, Grant, is this a tracklist or a championship game of Scrabble?) is a darkhearted ballad dusted with synth oboe, loosely recalling Depeche Mode’s Violator, whilst “Acres To Hectares” is an improbable industro-rock rave up from 1990 with a caffeinated baggy beat and some wobbly keyboard squiggles suspended between the first flushes of techno and Radiohead’s Amnesiac, all underpinning a tune that surreally threatens to morph into “It Was A Very Good Year”. This is nothing if not eclectic and adventurous recording!
For the most part the music is highly intriguing, if perhaps evidence of too many dips into the Pick ‘N’ Mix counter of recent rock history, and there are only a couple of truly duff tracks: “Below The Seal” welds outdated guitars onto an Isaac Hayes conga rhythm, something in the manner of a blaxploitation theme as envisioned by the Sounds staff in 1988 – horrible, in other words – and “Shellac Skin” is a heavy, doomy trudge over a finger-in-ear folk club vocal melody about addiction that ought to be blackly imposing, but just sounds silly.
Aside from these two mis-steps, his is a collection of ear-catching oddments crying out for a great voice to bind them together, and if Scott Walker were to add his creamy voice to this grab bag of neat ideas and production tricks it might really work; if Bryan Ferry were to drape a few louche vocal takes over the top it might be pretty fascinating; hell, even if someone who can’t really sing but who has a grasp of storytelling and drama, such as Jarvis Cocker, were to hove into view we’d love this LP. But, sadly, Grant isn’t any of these – in fact, he sounds much more like Russell Senior’s wayward vocal attempts on Pulp’s misfired second album, Freaks.
Let’s cut some slack, Grant doesn’t have a bad voice at all – you could imagine him fronting some grown up indie band, on Pink Hedgehog Records or somesuch - but he doesn’t have the gravitas or depth to his singing to pull off this rich confection. The closing track, “Scent & Snow” a simple piece of pop euphoria that sounds like the work of a band locked up for 5 hours with their management shouting “Write a hit!” through the keyhole, perhaps encapsulates the paradox of Skirr: it’s not a particularly good song, although it is bouncy enough, but Grant’s vocals work so much better in this unfettered environment. Just when we’re having fun, the record ends with over ten minutes of a single slowly oscillating keyboard tone, infuriating and fascinating in equal measure. Come to think of it, Pulp did this too, at the end of This Is Hardcore. But they’d learnt not to let Russell sing by that time, of course.
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Inimitable Vowel Syndrome
This was my first review for Nightshift, a few years ago now. I miss The Point promotion. I miss The Zodiac venue. I miss The E Band's silliness. Pretty ambivalent about the memory of AOS, I'm afraid.
THE E BAND/ ASSASSINS OF SILENCE, The Point, The Zodiac
Enter, unexpectedly at a Friday night Point event, The Assassins Of Silence, a Hawkwind tribute act. Reviewing a tribute act without deep foreknowledge of the tributee is always dangerous work, but it must be said that the gig was rather more tame than I was epxecting. There may have been some dayglo amps, but where were the galaxy-swallowing synth washes? Where were the nebula-destroying phase pedals? Isn't this sort of mid-paced blues wailing just one small step away from facile roadhouse boogie? The Assassins are nice and tight, and play with an obvious respect for the canon they've adopted, but if this is spacerock it felt oddly earthbound. Esteemed passangers, take off has been delayed indefinitely; we shall be serving complimentary lemon scented napkins shortly.
In complete contrast, The E Band's music is open-ended and intriguing. They may only play in one key (no prizes for guessing) but manage a fair range of effects. The formula is simple: the guitar, bass and brass apparently improvise over an electronic backing, whilst a melancholy monologue is recited over the top. Clearly this could have turned into a 6th form exercise in self-congratulatory "experimentation", but luckily the beats could rock blocks in six dimensions, the guitarists wove variegated textures, and the vocals had a real sense of quiet drama. And they had a trombone, which is something we can't encourage enough.
Time will tell if this is a musical one-liner or a serious endeavour, but The E Band certainly have a knack with freeform soundscapes. In the end we got a little psychedelia after all.
THE E BAND/ ASSASSINS OF SILENCE, The Point, The Zodiac
Enter, unexpectedly at a Friday night Point event, The Assassins Of Silence, a Hawkwind tribute act. Reviewing a tribute act without deep foreknowledge of the tributee is always dangerous work, but it must be said that the gig was rather more tame than I was epxecting. There may have been some dayglo amps, but where were the galaxy-swallowing synth washes? Where were the nebula-destroying phase pedals? Isn't this sort of mid-paced blues wailing just one small step away from facile roadhouse boogie? The Assassins are nice and tight, and play with an obvious respect for the canon they've adopted, but if this is spacerock it felt oddly earthbound. Esteemed passangers, take off has been delayed indefinitely; we shall be serving complimentary lemon scented napkins shortly.
In complete contrast, The E Band's music is open-ended and intriguing. They may only play in one key (no prizes for guessing) but manage a fair range of effects. The formula is simple: the guitar, bass and brass apparently improvise over an electronic backing, whilst a melancholy monologue is recited over the top. Clearly this could have turned into a 6th form exercise in self-congratulatory "experimentation", but luckily the beats could rock blocks in six dimensions, the guitarists wove variegated textures, and the vocals had a real sense of quiet drama. And they had a trombone, which is something we can't encourage enough.
Time will tell if this is a musical one-liner or a serious endeavour, but The E Band certainly have a knack with freeform soundscapes. In the end we got a little psychedelia after all.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Scry Me A Riverside
I'm sure I went to the whole of Charlbury weekend in 2007, but for some reason I only reviewed one of the days, can't think why.
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FESITVAL, Saturday 16/6/07
“Got midgets on my mind”. “Sitting on a tall cushion”. Well, that’s what it sounds like Dave Ellis is singing, anyway. We can’t be sure, he has this slurred blues style that is as impenetrable as it is attractive. As his husky voice weaves its way around the slapped strings of his trusty guitar, it doesn’t take long to realise that Ellis isn’t doing anything too revolutionary, but it’s a good listen all the same. And, seriously, who doesn’t like that old John Lee Hooker boogie clomp just a little?
It may sound a bit like “You don’t sweat much for a fat lass”, but over on the main stage, Life Of Riley prove them selves to be pretty good for their age. Musically there are no great ideas, but the performance is tight and the vocals are surprisingly strong and melodic. I mean, I can’t remember a note of it now, but it sounded fine at the time.
A sudden downpour means that the Beard Museum tent is packed full for Lagrima, which is exactly the way it should be. You’d go some way to find an acoustic duo in Oxfordshire with more variation: Roz’ vocals can leap from sinister whispers to operatic howls (is she the rootsy equivalent to Ivy’s Itch’s Eliza Gregory, or am I getting carried away?) whilst Gray’s assured guitar work can recall The Cocteau Twins and Andres Segovia in the space of one song. And he has the best reverse reverb sound ever.
Is there anyone left who doesn’t revere The Family Machine? Not only are they movers and shakers behind stage hosts The Beard Museum, but they also write some wry country-inflected pop that can raise a grin and wring the heart simultaneously. Admittedly, there was nothing particularly special about this individual performance, but we can listen to songs like “Lethal Drugs Cocktail” and “Flowers By The Roadside” forever.
A dub band with a Tunisian vocalist singing in Arabic? Implausibly, that’s Raggasaurus. They get a huge response, but what impresses me is the control over their material. It would have been easy just to have everyone soloing at once, and to throw everything at the wall like a million crusty festival reggae bands, but Raggasaurus know exactly when minimalism works, and make sure that very little gets in the way of their taut bouncy rhythms and soaring vocals. OK, it might work a little better in a smoky dive than in a sunny field, and perhaps the keyboard could be toned down a little, but this is good stuff.
When my esteemed colleague Colin saw Earnest Cox recently, all he could see was some pub rock. Well, we heartily disagree, and can say nothing against their simple wired rock, which revels in draping a world weary vocal sneer over glorious endless two chord chugs. The lyrics to songs like “My Favourite Walk” and “State Of That” seem to recall tedious bar room conversations with spitting vitriol, and as ever we’re reminded of an amphetamine version of The Blue Aeroplanes; or we would if the fruity organ parts didn’t sound like they’d come straight from a Stax soul revue. A fascinating band.
We’re big admirers of Baby Gravy’s cubist prog-punk melange, but perhaps a balmy afternoon in Charlbury isn’t the ideal place to experience it. Iona (who may have had a couple of shandies) is swearing and insulting the crowd, desperate for a reaction, but ultimately we’re just too relaxed to plug into Baby Gravy’s abstract new wave. However, stick us in The Cellar and fuel us with cheap lager and we’ll be up there with the best of them.
Is it patronising to call a band “charming”? Well, fuck it, we don’t care, because we’re always charmed by Foxes!, especially Kayla’s honest and unadorned vocal. They have a home made bass, and in fact, the entire band has a wonky, school woodwork project feel, all odd angles and unplaned surfaces. But beneath all this lie some beautifully constructed melodies and a quiet sense of rock dynamics. Foxes! Is a band that has unobtrusively grown in stature to become one of Oxford’s favourites. We shall miss them when they move away later in the year.
If Foxes! slid into our consciousness slowly, then Witches did the opposite, bursting onto the scene with the whole package intact: baroque pop arrangements, dense and forceful live shows and even beautiful collaged record sleeves. By rights the prominence of the cabaret mariachi trumpet should become cloying, but somehow Witches never crumble under the weight of their own ornamentation. It’s odd to watch a live show with such a black density of sound, and still walk away humming the melodies.
Fearing we’d neglected the main stage, we leave the fine This Town Needs Guns to their own devices and investigate Souljacker. What we find is a bunch of young groovers giving it some chest beating wah wah rock action. They sound like Free, but they should be locked up. Ah, well, it’s a festival, let’s cut them some slack – plus they have a tune called “Jimmy Page Drank My Tea”, so at least they don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re perfectly good players, but it’s all somewhat stodgy, and we don’t imagine they’re a band who’ll be troubling us again soon.
Just goes to show, Charlbury is a fine day out, but the Beard Museum is the reliable option.
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FESITVAL, Saturday 16/6/07
“Got midgets on my mind”. “Sitting on a tall cushion”. Well, that’s what it sounds like Dave Ellis is singing, anyway. We can’t be sure, he has this slurred blues style that is as impenetrable as it is attractive. As his husky voice weaves its way around the slapped strings of his trusty guitar, it doesn’t take long to realise that Ellis isn’t doing anything too revolutionary, but it’s a good listen all the same. And, seriously, who doesn’t like that old John Lee Hooker boogie clomp just a little?
It may sound a bit like “You don’t sweat much for a fat lass”, but over on the main stage, Life Of Riley prove them selves to be pretty good for their age. Musically there are no great ideas, but the performance is tight and the vocals are surprisingly strong and melodic. I mean, I can’t remember a note of it now, but it sounded fine at the time.
A sudden downpour means that the Beard Museum tent is packed full for Lagrima, which is exactly the way it should be. You’d go some way to find an acoustic duo in Oxfordshire with more variation: Roz’ vocals can leap from sinister whispers to operatic howls (is she the rootsy equivalent to Ivy’s Itch’s Eliza Gregory, or am I getting carried away?) whilst Gray’s assured guitar work can recall The Cocteau Twins and Andres Segovia in the space of one song. And he has the best reverse reverb sound ever.
Is there anyone left who doesn’t revere The Family Machine? Not only are they movers and shakers behind stage hosts The Beard Museum, but they also write some wry country-inflected pop that can raise a grin and wring the heart simultaneously. Admittedly, there was nothing particularly special about this individual performance, but we can listen to songs like “Lethal Drugs Cocktail” and “Flowers By The Roadside” forever.
A dub band with a Tunisian vocalist singing in Arabic? Implausibly, that’s Raggasaurus. They get a huge response, but what impresses me is the control over their material. It would have been easy just to have everyone soloing at once, and to throw everything at the wall like a million crusty festival reggae bands, but Raggasaurus know exactly when minimalism works, and make sure that very little gets in the way of their taut bouncy rhythms and soaring vocals. OK, it might work a little better in a smoky dive than in a sunny field, and perhaps the keyboard could be toned down a little, but this is good stuff.
When my esteemed colleague Colin saw Earnest Cox recently, all he could see was some pub rock. Well, we heartily disagree, and can say nothing against their simple wired rock, which revels in draping a world weary vocal sneer over glorious endless two chord chugs. The lyrics to songs like “My Favourite Walk” and “State Of That” seem to recall tedious bar room conversations with spitting vitriol, and as ever we’re reminded of an amphetamine version of The Blue Aeroplanes; or we would if the fruity organ parts didn’t sound like they’d come straight from a Stax soul revue. A fascinating band.
We’re big admirers of Baby Gravy’s cubist prog-punk melange, but perhaps a balmy afternoon in Charlbury isn’t the ideal place to experience it. Iona (who may have had a couple of shandies) is swearing and insulting the crowd, desperate for a reaction, but ultimately we’re just too relaxed to plug into Baby Gravy’s abstract new wave. However, stick us in The Cellar and fuel us with cheap lager and we’ll be up there with the best of them.
Is it patronising to call a band “charming”? Well, fuck it, we don’t care, because we’re always charmed by Foxes!, especially Kayla’s honest and unadorned vocal. They have a home made bass, and in fact, the entire band has a wonky, school woodwork project feel, all odd angles and unplaned surfaces. But beneath all this lie some beautifully constructed melodies and a quiet sense of rock dynamics. Foxes! Is a band that has unobtrusively grown in stature to become one of Oxford’s favourites. We shall miss them when they move away later in the year.
If Foxes! slid into our consciousness slowly, then Witches did the opposite, bursting onto the scene with the whole package intact: baroque pop arrangements, dense and forceful live shows and even beautiful collaged record sleeves. By rights the prominence of the cabaret mariachi trumpet should become cloying, but somehow Witches never crumble under the weight of their own ornamentation. It’s odd to watch a live show with such a black density of sound, and still walk away humming the melodies.
Fearing we’d neglected the main stage, we leave the fine This Town Needs Guns to their own devices and investigate Souljacker. What we find is a bunch of young groovers giving it some chest beating wah wah rock action. They sound like Free, but they should be locked up. Ah, well, it’s a festival, let’s cut them some slack – plus they have a tune called “Jimmy Page Drank My Tea”, so at least they don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re perfectly good players, but it’s all somewhat stodgy, and we don’t imagine they’re a band who’ll be troubling us again soon.
Just goes to show, Charlbury is a fine day out, but the Beard Museum is the reliable option.
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