Bit busy tonight, so no time to chat, I'm off out soon. I'm listening to the Royal Phil plays funk. It's great!
PIGTHE – WELCOME BACK TO VIRIDIAN (download)
Pigthe’s website contains little micro-stories about things like awkward conversations and trying to chat up women by asking what their favourite Pavement LP is. They’re well-written, but seem almost pathologically obsessed with not revealing anything. It must be hard to write prose when you’ve got all your fingers crossed behind your back.
And the music isn’t dissimilar. There’s a lot of quirky potential on this album, some dinky little tunes and a sense of fun encapsulated in antediluvian drum machine patterns, but Pigthe has gone as far as they can to obscure this fact, with wilfully lofi sound and aggressively unfinished arrangements. Oh, and lest we forget, there’s quite probably the worst use of auto-tune we’ve heard from a local act on this CD, opener “Carrion (Live)” – which is potentially a pleasing little Passenger-a-like ditty – turning each vocal cadence into the sound of the farmer leaping off a ladder in Chuckie Egg.
There are a whole raft of great things about this record – the melancholic guitar on “Fill In The Gaps”, the tiny guitar tickles on “Mephistopheles” that sound like Foals in a matchbox, the title “Hip Hop Saved My Life But Now It’s Killing Itself” – but overall the air is of an act that seems hellbent on hiding any quality behind fuzzy bedroom four track recording, perhaps in the paralysing fear that anybody might actually think they meant it. A track like “Any Other Name” is a perky nugget of pop somewhere between The Housemartins and The Wedding Present, and we truly wish that more of the record captured this sense of indie pop pleasure. Go on, Pigthe: you’ve got some talent here, stand up and go for it. Try to make something great, stop using whimsy and distance as a defence machanism. We think we could love this music, but only if Pigthe can learn to love it first.
Oh, and Pavement are shit, too.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Spires Like Us
If you think this review is interesting, you may as well go and download the record. Free, innit?
V/A – SPIRES (download compilation)
For the most part, twenty-first century culture leaves us enraged or mordantly amused, provoking spittle-flecked rants that paint us as some unholy cross between David Mitchell and Travis Bickle. But, when Aaron Delgado from Phantom Theory decides to get some of his favourite local acts together for a free download compilation celebrating Oxford music you’d have to say that this is what the internet age is all about: the record is free, effortless, and was all round the world in the time it must have taken the curators of the old OXCD album to cost the cover art. And what’s more, it’s actually damned good too.
From the opening trio of tracks that could be subtitled “the riff in Oxford”, there’s a pleasing variety to the selections, and there are even a few eyebrow raisers for jaded Oxford cognoscenti – we were pleasantly surprised that The Winchell Riots could ease off the bombast with the affecting “My Young Arms”, and gratified that Spring Offensive’s sprawling epic “The First Of Many Dreams About Monsters” works in bijou edited segments. Also, Secret Rivals’ “It Would Be Colder Here Without You” is a lovely chirpy ditty with fluffy vocals which is like being on a bouncy castle made of cappuccino forth, and goes some way towards eradicating the effect of some woefully slipshod live sets. Every listener will have their own favourites, but our highspots are Alphabet Backwards’ “Collide”, whose dual vocals and tinny guitar sounds like two siblings singing along to their favourite pop song, recorded by holding a tape player up to Top Of The Pops, and “Filofax” by Coloureds, a stutterjack dance track which is like a fax machine raping a ZX Spectrum to the sound of Korean synth pop.
Only Vixens, with their clunking off-the-peg indie rock and stodgily portentous TK Maxx goth vocals, let the side down. “The Hearts, They Cannot Love”? Nor these ears, son. It’s also a pity that Dial F For Frankenstein’s demise means that the record is already one step away from being a scene sampler, but “Thought Police” is a decent valediction, like a Mudhoney dirge retooled for maximum amphetamine effect by The Only Ones. In some ways, the greatest tribute we could give Oxford music in 2011 is that we love this LP, but it’s not the compilation we’d put together, which only goes to show how many good musicians are currently working in the city. And if you don’t like it? Well, it’s the twenty-first century, there are lots and lots of other things you could be doing. Pity they’re all shit, really.
V/A – SPIRES (download compilation)
For the most part, twenty-first century culture leaves us enraged or mordantly amused, provoking spittle-flecked rants that paint us as some unholy cross between David Mitchell and Travis Bickle. But, when Aaron Delgado from Phantom Theory decides to get some of his favourite local acts together for a free download compilation celebrating Oxford music you’d have to say that this is what the internet age is all about: the record is free, effortless, and was all round the world in the time it must have taken the curators of the old OXCD album to cost the cover art. And what’s more, it’s actually damned good too.
From the opening trio of tracks that could be subtitled “the riff in Oxford”, there’s a pleasing variety to the selections, and there are even a few eyebrow raisers for jaded Oxford cognoscenti – we were pleasantly surprised that The Winchell Riots could ease off the bombast with the affecting “My Young Arms”, and gratified that Spring Offensive’s sprawling epic “The First Of Many Dreams About Monsters” works in bijou edited segments. Also, Secret Rivals’ “It Would Be Colder Here Without You” is a lovely chirpy ditty with fluffy vocals which is like being on a bouncy castle made of cappuccino forth, and goes some way towards eradicating the effect of some woefully slipshod live sets. Every listener will have their own favourites, but our highspots are Alphabet Backwards’ “Collide”, whose dual vocals and tinny guitar sounds like two siblings singing along to their favourite pop song, recorded by holding a tape player up to Top Of The Pops, and “Filofax” by Coloureds, a stutterjack dance track which is like a fax machine raping a ZX Spectrum to the sound of Korean synth pop.
Only Vixens, with their clunking off-the-peg indie rock and stodgily portentous TK Maxx goth vocals, let the side down. “The Hearts, They Cannot Love”? Nor these ears, son. It’s also a pity that Dial F For Frankenstein’s demise means that the record is already one step away from being a scene sampler, but “Thought Police” is a decent valediction, like a Mudhoney dirge retooled for maximum amphetamine effect by The Only Ones. In some ways, the greatest tribute we could give Oxford music in 2011 is that we love this LP, but it’s not the compilation we’d put together, which only goes to show how many good musicians are currently working in the city. And if you don’t like it? Well, it’s the twenty-first century, there are lots and lots of other things you could be doing. Pity they’re all shit, really.
Monday, 17 January 2011
Dis Figures
This was supposed ot be a double super review that carried on with the four acts at The Cellar. Well, I only only managed 2 and a half before I went to bed, because I've got the old winter chill, and I don't like gigs that go on till two in the bleeding morning.
For the record, The Cellar broke down like this: Coloureds, wonderful as ever; P-45 had nice varied ideas but it was a long an uneven set; Shitmat just seemed to be DJing some old Aphex tracks and things, not making his excellent breakcore live, which was fine but not what I hoped for; bed, very nice indeed.
WE ARE UGLY BUT WE HAVE THE MUSIC/ SPACE HEROES OF THE PEOPLE/ KINETIC WARDROBE, Psychotechnic League, Wheatsheaf 15/1/11
OK, it’s not snowing. But the other two major disasters that can hit a small time promoter have befallen the Psychotechnic League’s inaugural gig, namely the loss of two thirds of the lineup a few days before the event, and the presence of a similar, but more upscale event within jacking distance of the venue, in the shape of Audioscope’s Andrea Parker and Shitmat booking at The Cellar. It’s a tribute to promoting virgin Fred Toon that he not only managed to keep his gig afloat , but managed to draw in a decent, if not earth-shattering huddle of punters who were clearly enjoying the evening.
And as such, it would be harsh to be too critical of Kinetic Wardrobe, one of the stand in acts, left playing unusually early to encourage an attendance at both the Wheatsheaf and the Cellar, and certainly his late 90s, post-Orbient down-tempo techno set is full of well-turned moments, but some of the sampled gobbets (as The History Boys’ Mr Irwin might have put it, were he an aging raver) that stitch the set together are beyond hackneyed. What’s that? Fear & Loathing? Be still my beating heart. But in fairness, it’s a solid set, with some surprisingly approachable grooves, a couple of tracks with scratchy guitar parts sounding like lost De La Soul remixes.
Whatever you might expect from a band called Space Heroes Of The People, you probably don’t expect poise and delicacy, but this is exactly what the superlative duo delivers. Yes, the music is built on an insistent club thump, and Tim looks like he’s dressed as a day-glo swimming instructor, but the music is crisp, intricately thought out, and delivered with a surprising lightness of touch. That the fascinating Soviet animations projected behind the band are often perfectly in sync shows that the bad have thought carefully about the onstage presentation, but they still manage to retain a whiff of that old live magic, peppering the music with realtime drumfills, double bass and Wii remote waggles. Neither brainlessly retro nor obsessed by dance sub-genre novelty, neither gimcrack cabaret performers nor wheyfaced techno dullards, Space Heroes are purveyors of a polished, elegant electro you never knew you craved, an oasis between endless torrents of bedroom boredom low rate MP3s and Dadstep dance revivalists. Weirdly, with their tight quality control and the nouse to make classically simple music feel new with subtle arrangements, the local band Space Heroes most resemble is Little Fish. But Space Heroes are better.
We Are Ugly But We Have The Music, the promoter’s laptop acid project, in some ways retreads the drawbacks of Kinetic Wardrobe (such as a fucking stupid name, for starters), offering solid, but unsurprising dance throwbacks delivered by an awkward looking man with a laptop. But, whether it’s because the set is slightly more uptempo, whether it’s because Fred’s drum sounds are that little bit crunchier, or whether it’s because he has a smiley T-shirt and a big old strobe, the We Are Ugly set is more satisfying. It’s true that he hasn’t really worked out a reason to hear this rave-robbing music live, rather than on record, but somebody shamelessly reliving their youth is rarely this entertaining. Having made some strong music, and salvaged a gig that looked likely to collapse, Fred must have finished the evening with a self-congratulatory grin, even if most of the assembled finished their evening at The Cellar.
For the record, The Cellar broke down like this: Coloureds, wonderful as ever; P-45 had nice varied ideas but it was a long an uneven set; Shitmat just seemed to be DJing some old Aphex tracks and things, not making his excellent breakcore live, which was fine but not what I hoped for; bed, very nice indeed.
WE ARE UGLY BUT WE HAVE THE MUSIC/ SPACE HEROES OF THE PEOPLE/ KINETIC WARDROBE, Psychotechnic League, Wheatsheaf 15/1/11
OK, it’s not snowing. But the other two major disasters that can hit a small time promoter have befallen the Psychotechnic League’s inaugural gig, namely the loss of two thirds of the lineup a few days before the event, and the presence of a similar, but more upscale event within jacking distance of the venue, in the shape of Audioscope’s Andrea Parker and Shitmat booking at The Cellar. It’s a tribute to promoting virgin Fred Toon that he not only managed to keep his gig afloat , but managed to draw in a decent, if not earth-shattering huddle of punters who were clearly enjoying the evening.
And as such, it would be harsh to be too critical of Kinetic Wardrobe, one of the stand in acts, left playing unusually early to encourage an attendance at both the Wheatsheaf and the Cellar, and certainly his late 90s, post-Orbient down-tempo techno set is full of well-turned moments, but some of the sampled gobbets (as The History Boys’ Mr Irwin might have put it, were he an aging raver) that stitch the set together are beyond hackneyed. What’s that? Fear & Loathing? Be still my beating heart. But in fairness, it’s a solid set, with some surprisingly approachable grooves, a couple of tracks with scratchy guitar parts sounding like lost De La Soul remixes.
Whatever you might expect from a band called Space Heroes Of The People, you probably don’t expect poise and delicacy, but this is exactly what the superlative duo delivers. Yes, the music is built on an insistent club thump, and Tim looks like he’s dressed as a day-glo swimming instructor, but the music is crisp, intricately thought out, and delivered with a surprising lightness of touch. That the fascinating Soviet animations projected behind the band are often perfectly in sync shows that the bad have thought carefully about the onstage presentation, but they still manage to retain a whiff of that old live magic, peppering the music with realtime drumfills, double bass and Wii remote waggles. Neither brainlessly retro nor obsessed by dance sub-genre novelty, neither gimcrack cabaret performers nor wheyfaced techno dullards, Space Heroes are purveyors of a polished, elegant electro you never knew you craved, an oasis between endless torrents of bedroom boredom low rate MP3s and Dadstep dance revivalists. Weirdly, with their tight quality control and the nouse to make classically simple music feel new with subtle arrangements, the local band Space Heroes most resemble is Little Fish. But Space Heroes are better.
We Are Ugly But We Have The Music, the promoter’s laptop acid project, in some ways retreads the drawbacks of Kinetic Wardrobe (such as a fucking stupid name, for starters), offering solid, but unsurprising dance throwbacks delivered by an awkward looking man with a laptop. But, whether it’s because the set is slightly more uptempo, whether it’s because Fred’s drum sounds are that little bit crunchier, or whether it’s because he has a smiley T-shirt and a big old strobe, the We Are Ugly set is more satisfying. It’s true that he hasn’t really worked out a reason to hear this rave-robbing music live, rather than on record, but somebody shamelessly reliving their youth is rarely this entertaining. Having made some strong music, and salvaged a gig that looked likely to collapse, Fred must have finished the evening with a self-congratulatory grin, even if most of the assembled finished their evening at The Cellar.
Monday, 3 January 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 27 December 2010
Hiss And Hearse
I know, I know, it's been ages since I posted anything. And you won't get much out of mwe now, either, I'm afraid. I have to unpack my bags from the obligatory family visit, and then go and watch the Only Connect final. I wonder if the other 7 regular viewers will be tuning in...
WHITE NOISE SOUND/ THE BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE – Pindrop, Bully, 12/12/10
By all that’s rational and reasonable, The Braindead Collective should an embarrassment. Imagine it, Seb Reynolds, ex-Sexy Breakfast and Evenings keyboard player, being smug enough to convene a loose improvised collective based around whichever of his old scenester chums is around on a given night. Imagine the self-serving tiresomeness, imagine the sickening in-joke winks. But, imagine is all we’re able to do if we want this band to be bad, because in actuality they’re excellent, not only a surprisingly well-controlled unit, but also one that can balance awkward noise with alluring melody better than many bands that have practised twice a week since the fourth form. They start with an eerie, reverby pulse of a piece that sounds like “Astronomy Domine” left out in the rain for six months, and develop a balance between Chris Beard’s chiming, ingenuous vocals and some oscillating keys. Over all this Seb spills reverby sax trills and Jimmy Evil throws in some ornery guitar figures that were left over from Suitable Case For Treatment. The reading from William Burroughs might be somewhat sophomoric, but in other ways the band is highly original, at one point sounding like exotic sonic mould growing on a forgotten Chris Isaak ballad. Irrational, unreasonable, and frankly wonderful.
White Noise Sound’s drone rock owes a fair amount to Spacemen 3, although the unexpected synth chugs also recall Add N To (X). Although the simple music might sound as though it just fell out of bed into a bigger bed, the material is actually carefully thought out, and it’s rare to find a band with three guitarists that can so effortlessly control the texture of a piece, especially when none of them go within a mile of soloing. The emphasis on song structure makes the band come off a little like Black Rebel Spaceship Club, and this is what lets them down a little. Nothing wrong with any of the vocals, but tracks stop because the song has finished , when it sounds like the music is just warming up. The final two pieces are comfortably the best, a pair of longer instrumentals that use the humming guitars as a launchpad for hypnotic repetition, rather than a peg on which to hang three verses. It’s not often you see a band, and wish they’d done half as many tracks in twice as much time, but if this is space rock, it helps to give it some space.
WHITE NOISE SOUND/ THE BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE – Pindrop, Bully, 12/12/10
By all that’s rational and reasonable, The Braindead Collective should an embarrassment. Imagine it, Seb Reynolds, ex-Sexy Breakfast and Evenings keyboard player, being smug enough to convene a loose improvised collective based around whichever of his old scenester chums is around on a given night. Imagine the self-serving tiresomeness, imagine the sickening in-joke winks. But, imagine is all we’re able to do if we want this band to be bad, because in actuality they’re excellent, not only a surprisingly well-controlled unit, but also one that can balance awkward noise with alluring melody better than many bands that have practised twice a week since the fourth form. They start with an eerie, reverby pulse of a piece that sounds like “Astronomy Domine” left out in the rain for six months, and develop a balance between Chris Beard’s chiming, ingenuous vocals and some oscillating keys. Over all this Seb spills reverby sax trills and Jimmy Evil throws in some ornery guitar figures that were left over from Suitable Case For Treatment. The reading from William Burroughs might be somewhat sophomoric, but in other ways the band is highly original, at one point sounding like exotic sonic mould growing on a forgotten Chris Isaak ballad. Irrational, unreasonable, and frankly wonderful.
White Noise Sound’s drone rock owes a fair amount to Spacemen 3, although the unexpected synth chugs also recall Add N To (X). Although the simple music might sound as though it just fell out of bed into a bigger bed, the material is actually carefully thought out, and it’s rare to find a band with three guitarists that can so effortlessly control the texture of a piece, especially when none of them go within a mile of soloing. The emphasis on song structure makes the band come off a little like Black Rebel Spaceship Club, and this is what lets them down a little. Nothing wrong with any of the vocals, but tracks stop because the song has finished , when it sounds like the music is just warming up. The final two pieces are comfortably the best, a pair of longer instrumentals that use the humming guitars as a launchpad for hypnotic repetition, rather than a peg on which to hang three verses. It’s not often you see a band, and wish they’d done half as many tracks in twice as much time, but if this is space rock, it helps to give it some space.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
'S'All Bellow
I just had to choose my favourite local records of 2010. I hate doing that every year. Firstly, because I hardly have the time and cash to listen to every local release so I'm sure there are some great records I could vote for (for example I suspect the new Bellowhead and the Colours CD are both brilloiant, but I haven't bought them), but I have to leave them out; and secondly because it's not the end of bloody 2010 yet.
And speaking of Bellowhead, here you go. Question: are they an Oxford band or not? The debate rages on...
BELLOWHEAD – Oxford Folk Festival, Regal, 18/11/10
It’s clear and light with a surprising fruity afterbite and – what’s that? We’re not supposed to review the beer? OK, but it’s damned unusual for a touring band to bring their bespoke ale along, especially in the gutted grandeur of The Regal, a gorgeous art deco hangar held together by a lick of emulsion and a few coats of Carling and party foam. Whilst we’re not naive enough to believe Bellowhead themselves nurtured the brew, any more than Christina Aguilera slaved long nights in a lab perfecting her perfume, in some ways a thousand pints of real ale on trestle stands is the perfect symbol of Bellowhead: it clearly communes with craft and tradition, but also says unequivocably, “we are here to party”.
And party we do. It’s unfair to judge any musicians by their fans – we’d have to throw out those Wagner CDs if so – but the Bellowhead massive are so infectious, swaying like a vast choppy sea to Jacque Brel’s “Amsterdam”, and leaping like randy crickets to “New York Girls” (not bad when the room’s average age is double that of many events), until it’s physically impossible to leave having had a bad time. But then again, the music would do that if the gig were in an empty undertakers.
Spiers and Boden’s folk cabaret juggernaut has been rumbling for six years now, but we’ve only just realised the genius twist that makes them unbeatable. Yes, the vocals are seedily dramatic, yes the rhythms are thumping and carnivalistic, but it’s the four brass players who add the secret spice, pitched somewhere between Oktoberfest oompah, jazz abandon and Stax horn stabs: they turn folk standard “A-Begging I Will Go” into a taut blaxploitation theme, a stakeout outside Cecil Sharp House. At moments like this, Bellowhead remind us oddly of Blood, Sweat & Tears (owners of the greatest funk tuba solo ever recorded), being as they are a huddle of kickass musicians who don’t let their chops obscure their sense of fun, but who don’t let the craic prohibit intricate arrangements and sensitive playing. It’s a week where Oxford’s self-styled Blessing Force movement dandles the London media like a Machiavellian puppeteer; best of luck to them, but how many of the thousands of people reading encomiums of bands barely out of the bedroom stage know that one of the best acts to come from Oxford this millennium is currently touring the nation? If they gave Bellowhead a chance, they’d never look back: trad, bad, and euphoric to know.
And speaking of Bellowhead, here you go. Question: are they an Oxford band or not? The debate rages on...
BELLOWHEAD – Oxford Folk Festival, Regal, 18/11/10
It’s clear and light with a surprising fruity afterbite and – what’s that? We’re not supposed to review the beer? OK, but it’s damned unusual for a touring band to bring their bespoke ale along, especially in the gutted grandeur of The Regal, a gorgeous art deco hangar held together by a lick of emulsion and a few coats of Carling and party foam. Whilst we’re not naive enough to believe Bellowhead themselves nurtured the brew, any more than Christina Aguilera slaved long nights in a lab perfecting her perfume, in some ways a thousand pints of real ale on trestle stands is the perfect symbol of Bellowhead: it clearly communes with craft and tradition, but also says unequivocably, “we are here to party”.
And party we do. It’s unfair to judge any musicians by their fans – we’d have to throw out those Wagner CDs if so – but the Bellowhead massive are so infectious, swaying like a vast choppy sea to Jacque Brel’s “Amsterdam”, and leaping like randy crickets to “New York Girls” (not bad when the room’s average age is double that of many events), until it’s physically impossible to leave having had a bad time. But then again, the music would do that if the gig were in an empty undertakers.
Spiers and Boden’s folk cabaret juggernaut has been rumbling for six years now, but we’ve only just realised the genius twist that makes them unbeatable. Yes, the vocals are seedily dramatic, yes the rhythms are thumping and carnivalistic, but it’s the four brass players who add the secret spice, pitched somewhere between Oktoberfest oompah, jazz abandon and Stax horn stabs: they turn folk standard “A-Begging I Will Go” into a taut blaxploitation theme, a stakeout outside Cecil Sharp House. At moments like this, Bellowhead remind us oddly of Blood, Sweat & Tears (owners of the greatest funk tuba solo ever recorded), being as they are a huddle of kickass musicians who don’t let their chops obscure their sense of fun, but who don’t let the craic prohibit intricate arrangements and sensitive playing. It’s a week where Oxford’s self-styled Blessing Force movement dandles the London media like a Machiavellian puppeteer; best of luck to them, but how many of the thousands of people reading encomiums of bands barely out of the bedroom stage know that one of the best acts to come from Oxford this millennium is currently touring the nation? If they gave Bellowhead a chance, they’d never look back: trad, bad, and euphoric to know.
Friday, 5 November 2010
The Slip Case
I'm going to Klub Kak tonight and Audioscope tomorrow, and I saw local heroes Stornoway and old chums Foxes! last night. Some other people shall be watching explosions in the drizzle, but I think I've got the better deal.
BELOW THE FALL – COMMISSIONER (Witch Hunter Records)
Tinkering with Google in an attempt to find out who Below The Fall are, and how they’ve got a professional CD single with a really lovely inksplodge raven illustration when we’re sure they’ve never played a gig inside the county boundaries, we stumble across their record label’s website. There we discover that this record is one of five releases, two of which are by acts with the brilliant/atrocious (toss a coin if, like us, you’re not sure) names Trippy Wicked & The Cosmic Children Of The Knight and Bumsnogger; the other two releases are both by Year Of The Flood, a sludge metal act “based on the books of Margaret Atwood”, one of whom used to be in a band called – wait for it - Jesus Of Spazzareth.
Call us jaded, and enticed by the merest novelty, frippery or bagatelle, but all of these records sound as though they’re more interesting than the one we’ve ended up with. However, Below The Fall are clearly a decent act, especially considering they’d never played a gig together at the time of recording this pair of tunes, who have created a beautifully recorded and solidly played rock record with a strong melodic sense, and the tiniest hint of a goth billow to proceedings to keep the music atmospheric and on the right side of tedious emo bluster. Rhythmically it’s pretty spotless, if also somewhat earthbound, and Alex Breadmore’s drums exhibit precision without ever quite capturing the head-nodding power of great heavy rock. If the A side is an arching effort that loosely recalls locals Days Of Grace, the accompanying track “Just Run Away” is probably the better of the two, Dan Hunter’s airy voice surfing some crashing guitar on a preposterously catchy melody. He manages a convincing delivery, despite the fact that an odd Thames Valley Scandiwegian accent means he pronounces “change” as “chiynge”, and “memories” as (hyuck hyuck) “mammaries”.
If you like your rock music approachable, well structured and sounding a lot like it came from about 2001, then this could well be the band for you. This record is a great effort but, if there’s a choice between listening to an impeccably made piece of High Street rock, and just sitting back and imagining what Bumsnogger might sound like, then I’m afraid we’d choose the Eject button every time.
BELOW THE FALL – COMMISSIONER (Witch Hunter Records)
Tinkering with Google in an attempt to find out who Below The Fall are, and how they’ve got a professional CD single with a really lovely inksplodge raven illustration when we’re sure they’ve never played a gig inside the county boundaries, we stumble across their record label’s website. There we discover that this record is one of five releases, two of which are by acts with the brilliant/atrocious (toss a coin if, like us, you’re not sure) names Trippy Wicked & The Cosmic Children Of The Knight and Bumsnogger; the other two releases are both by Year Of The Flood, a sludge metal act “based on the books of Margaret Atwood”, one of whom used to be in a band called – wait for it - Jesus Of Spazzareth.
Call us jaded, and enticed by the merest novelty, frippery or bagatelle, but all of these records sound as though they’re more interesting than the one we’ve ended up with. However, Below The Fall are clearly a decent act, especially considering they’d never played a gig together at the time of recording this pair of tunes, who have created a beautifully recorded and solidly played rock record with a strong melodic sense, and the tiniest hint of a goth billow to proceedings to keep the music atmospheric and on the right side of tedious emo bluster. Rhythmically it’s pretty spotless, if also somewhat earthbound, and Alex Breadmore’s drums exhibit precision without ever quite capturing the head-nodding power of great heavy rock. If the A side is an arching effort that loosely recalls locals Days Of Grace, the accompanying track “Just Run Away” is probably the better of the two, Dan Hunter’s airy voice surfing some crashing guitar on a preposterously catchy melody. He manages a convincing delivery, despite the fact that an odd Thames Valley Scandiwegian accent means he pronounces “change” as “chiynge”, and “memories” as (hyuck hyuck) “mammaries”.
If you like your rock music approachable, well structured and sounding a lot like it came from about 2001, then this could well be the band for you. This record is a great effort but, if there’s a choice between listening to an impeccably made piece of High Street rock, and just sitting back and imagining what Bumsnogger might sound like, then I’m afraid we’d choose the Eject button every time.
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