There's something quite wonderful about a week off work, when you don't have any other plans. Yes, at first I was going to go away, but that fell through, and I was disappointed, but I'm getting loads done and seriously relaxing. Plus, it gives me time to write unplanned little reviews like this one. A fun night, and I hope Audiograft returns next year, but it did run the gamut from atrocious to sublime.
RHODRI DAVIES & MAX EASTLEY/ AUTOMATED NOISE ENSEMBLE/ STEPHEN CORNFORD & PAUL WHITTY/ JAMES KELLY/ SHIT! I CAN DJ, Audiograft, Modern Art Oxford, 19/2/11
Opening the final night of Oxford Brookes University’s Audiograft festival of sound art, the Shit! I Can DJ collective promise an experimental blind DJ set, in which nobody involved knows what the next segue is going to be. Hey, it’s aleatory! Anything could happen! Although, inevitably, all that does happen is that five self-satisfied hipsters chuckle smugly to each other as the Sylvanian Families theme plays infuriatingly over Archie Shepp, whilst the audience grows visibly restless.
By contrast, James Kelly’s problem is that his sounds are too consonant. Pressing your own themes, motives and textures onto vinyl and mixing them live is a neat idea, but if the sounds are too prettily open-ended there’s no challenge. Biosphere drones, Garbarek sax and Liz Fraser glossolalia sound pleasant together, but they’d sound equally pleasant in any configuration, and the long set soon becomes an unstructured stream of sugary, soporific segments: nice enough for a brief visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
Stephen Cornford & Paul Whitty’s “...it pays my way and it corrodes my soul...”, on the other hand, is conceptually strong and sonically captivating. Cornford places a vintage reel to reel machine onto a table, attaches two contact mikes, picks up a screwdriver, and proceeds to methodically dismantle it, whilst Whitty turns the whirrs, scrapes and bumps into powerful noise with a selection of FX and treatments, galvanic screeches and angry buzzing sounding like Merzbow eating a plate of bees. The arresting piece could be read as a satire on the fetishisation of vintage hardware, and it’s amusing to see people staring intently at a pair of pliers and some 50s technology, whilst rows of shiny Boss pedals across the table create the actual sounds. The conclusion is witty too, as Cornford tries desperately to cram all components back into the casing, like someone with an overstuffed holiday suitcase.
After this theatrical spectacle, the Automated Noise Ensemble’s lightly modified turntables seem unadventurous. Two decks are adorned with pieces of string that hit a contact strip every rotation, whilst another pair play scored vinyl to create a skein of clicks and skitters. It’s rhythmically enticing, occasionally evoking trains or horses’ hooves, but there’s not much that can be done once the rhythms have been built up, so perhaps the brief set duration was advisable.
Veteran instrument builder Max Eastley brings along a hinged plank of wood with a single bowed metal string, which allows him to bend notes to an extreme degree, even as they decay. The range of sounds he can create is truly astonishing, alternately aping a ‘cello, a clarinet and a swanee whistle and in one harrowing sequence, a wailing voice with ultra-portamento, the lament of the Hawaiian damned. Rhodri Davies takes an accompanist’s role, seemingly pathologically averse to plucking his harp. Instead he rubs it, tickles it with e-bows, taps it with soft mallets, and spends a while shaking it at different angles, like a man trying to retrieve a plectrum from an acoustic guitar. It’s a brilliantly intense, oppressive set of eerie Lynchian hums and ghostly glissandi, and even Eastley seems a little shocked by the unsettling atmosphere at the conclusion. Perhaps they were trying to eradicate the memory of the ill-conceived wackiness at the start of the evening.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
The Musician's A Prentice
The Doctor Who Decide Your Destiny series is atrocious. God, how hard can it be to do a Choose Your Own Adventure riff on the Dr? Who ever heard of a solo role play book where you can't bloody die? Rubbish.
I know, I should spend less time in charity shops.
BUG PRENTICE – Demo
“Ceilidh Dancer”, the opening track on this new set of demos tells of a man who “gave away the punchline” to a joke. To us that’s solid gold proof that Ally Craig doesn’t write autobiographically: if there’s one man we can’t imagine giving away the punchline to a joke, it’s Ally. Even when he’d got to the end of the joke, he’d keep the pay off secret, we imagine. So this is another selection of the mysterious, deeply intriguing little songs we’ve come to expect from Craig, with the addition of a rhythm section. Lyrically they’re as obtuse as his last batch, and musically they totter about always at the edge of over-balancing, like a girl trying out her Mum’s stilettos.
It takes a short while to get used to Ally with a noisy band, as we’re so used to his solo acoustic performances, but what we lose in intimacy we gain in intricacy, Ally’s wonderfully frail yet powerful voice flitting across “Ceilidh Dancer” like an injured insect, awkward yet still soaring. On “Nebraska Admiral” the vocals are even better, finding a space in the husky delivery between a dinky nursery rhyme and a yearning Broadway ballad – although he does rhyme “asking” with “Nebraskan”, which should probably be illegal.
If the band doesn’t add a huge amount to “Nebraska Admiral”, they sound fantastic on “Lovitz Vs Dick”, leaping up from a sedate intro to huge crunchy blocks of guitar that remind us unexpectedly of They Might Be Giants’ “Ana Ng”, then drifting back into a hazy lope, before the second half in which Ally’s chicken peck guitar strumming is underpinned by bouncy toms. Aside from sounding like a bad restaurant chain that specialises in kid’s parties and runny carbonara, “Chicago Baxters” is the only track that doesn’t wholly convince us as a composition, although we love the image it brings to mind of Sonic Youth playing a lounge ballad. If this were a random demo that had popped into the in box, we’d be pretty excited. As it is, judging from past experience, we can comfortably expect some more fantastic, elastic misshaped rock music from this outfit. The prentice work has been done, we’re waiting for the masterpiece, now.
I know, I should spend less time in charity shops.
BUG PRENTICE – Demo
“Ceilidh Dancer”, the opening track on this new set of demos tells of a man who “gave away the punchline” to a joke. To us that’s solid gold proof that Ally Craig doesn’t write autobiographically: if there’s one man we can’t imagine giving away the punchline to a joke, it’s Ally. Even when he’d got to the end of the joke, he’d keep the pay off secret, we imagine. So this is another selection of the mysterious, deeply intriguing little songs we’ve come to expect from Craig, with the addition of a rhythm section. Lyrically they’re as obtuse as his last batch, and musically they totter about always at the edge of over-balancing, like a girl trying out her Mum’s stilettos.
It takes a short while to get used to Ally with a noisy band, as we’re so used to his solo acoustic performances, but what we lose in intimacy we gain in intricacy, Ally’s wonderfully frail yet powerful voice flitting across “Ceilidh Dancer” like an injured insect, awkward yet still soaring. On “Nebraska Admiral” the vocals are even better, finding a space in the husky delivery between a dinky nursery rhyme and a yearning Broadway ballad – although he does rhyme “asking” with “Nebraskan”, which should probably be illegal.
If the band doesn’t add a huge amount to “Nebraska Admiral”, they sound fantastic on “Lovitz Vs Dick”, leaping up from a sedate intro to huge crunchy blocks of guitar that remind us unexpectedly of They Might Be Giants’ “Ana Ng”, then drifting back into a hazy lope, before the second half in which Ally’s chicken peck guitar strumming is underpinned by bouncy toms. Aside from sounding like a bad restaurant chain that specialises in kid’s parties and runny carbonara, “Chicago Baxters” is the only track that doesn’t wholly convince us as a composition, although we love the image it brings to mind of Sonic Youth playing a lounge ballad. If this were a random demo that had popped into the in box, we’d be pretty excited. As it is, judging from past experience, we can comfortably expect some more fantastic, elastic misshaped rock music from this outfit. The prentice work has been done, we’re waiting for the masterpiece, now.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Yeth, Monkey, What Ith It?
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.
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.
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.
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