Beatific International

I'm listening to a full length CD of radio jingles from Coldseal Windows. I should stay out of charity shops.

THE KILL CITY SAINTS/ HOT HOOVES/ ZEM/ RAISING HARLEY, It’s All About The Music, The Bully, 14/4/11

The difference between most US sit coms and their British counterparts is the writers. In this country we have shows penned by a single author, probably in a four week blast in some provincial town, fuelled by tinned soup and Cash In The Attic, whereas American shows are thrashed out by huge rosters of writers, sat round a big glass table somewhere vastly important. It’s why an episode of Friends may have rafts of clever lines, but can feel distant, disconnected and arid. We’re reminded of this by Raising Harley, not only because he plays the theme to Scrubs (turns out after those eight bars it gets quite dull, and you really miss the theremin), but because his amiable busking is promising, but needs a little more character to snag our attention.

Similarly, new trio Zem have a lovely chunky rhythm section – despite injuries – but the chap strumming and moaning at the front is drabness personified. Seriously, it’s like someone won a competition. The arrangement of Paul Simon’s “Richard Cory” is a strong start, but again anonymity is their worst crime. Still, it all pales compared to crass Southern fried rockers Kill City Saints, a band so generically dire it looks like they’ve been created by committee to supply “Blues Rock Solutions”. The truly hideous renegade skull backdrop, lyrics about midnight trains, and adept but charmless guitar solos indicate a band with a huge taste deficit; the fact the singer is swigging vodka and Dr Pepper only confirms suspicions.

And somewhere in this sea of Not Quite Finished and Hideously Ill Conceived fall Hot Hooves, a band featuring members of Oxford favourites ATL and Talulah Gosh, bursting with approachable character and short on self-consciousness or pretension. Their melodic new wave thrives on taut concise structures, but if that suggests Wire they’re as much Eddie & The Hot Rods. The music’s thumping economy comes balanced by an wry airiness (Sample lyric: “My telekinesis/ Is falling to pieces”) whether it’s delivered in Pete Momtchiloff’s spasmodic mumble or with Bash Street cheekiness by Mac. At points Hot Hooves remind us of bands as disparate as The Auteurs and Ten Benson, but they doubtless have better, more obscure bands influencing them. Hell, they were probably in them.

The Sharron Nights

Morning, morning, Jameson here.

No, it's not, it's me. And it's lunchtime. Sorry, as soon as I started typing, Derek Jameson popped into my head, how unpleasant.

Anyway, here's a review. To be honest, this is a deadline day review, and I think it reads like it. Sorry about that, Nightshift and Kraus deserve more, to be frank. But I'm a busy and/or lazy man, what are you going to do?


SHARRON KRAUS – THE WOODY NIGHTSHADE (Strange Attractors Audio House)


The sleevenotes to this new CD are a paean to the album format, eroded and endangered in our MP3 playlist era. We couldn’t agree more, but, like those scientists who try to explain how miniscule a fraction of the universe’s lifespan human beings have existed in, we would expect a folk singer to be unconcerned with a format that has been around for only fifty odd years, a tiny fragment of the history of song.

But this is definitely an LP, not a random selection of songs, and it’s a record with a constant, misty atmosphere. Kraus’ voice high and delightfully reedy, but it lends itself more to ghostly melody than cracking out a rousing folk narrative: her allusive singing and vaguely evocative lyrics are more Bert Jansch than Norma Waterson. There are even hints of PJ Harvey’s recent recordings. Musically it’s ethereal and unsettling too, from the keening feedback that opens the album to the woozily plucked strings on “Two Brothers” that sound like a weary traveller pushing through a dense forest: it’s like the sound a night at the Twin Peaks Folk Club. All drums on the record are reverbed and stately like the faded memory of percussion, the washed out toms of the title track a resigned, slow walk to the gallows (roll over, Berlioz).

Individually these songs may not be startling, and it’s certain that Kraus couldn’t challenge Spiers & Boden for the Oxford oral tradition trophy, but The Woody Nightshade is a gorgeous, immersive listen, that you want to start again as soon as it’s finished...which is about the best definition of a good album we can think of.

Dawn An Hour Later

Been enjoying a lot of 2nd hand classical vinyl recently. Especially good are multi-disc sets, Karajan doing Brahms' German Requiem is going on the deck later. One thing troubles me, though. Why - why in the name of fucking bastard hell - do so many classical boxsets split the sides between discs? I mean, you might get two records, the first fo which has side 1 & 4, and the other side 2 & 3. Seriously, how does that make even the tiniest whiff of sense to anybody?

Sometimes I think that, if I ever invented a time machine, I'd never use it, because people in the past were STUPID.


DAWN PENN/ JAMATONE, Skylarkin’ Soundsystem, Cellar, 3/3/11


The night is running just shy of an hour late. “But that’s all the better, you get to see the support”, says our host Aidan “Sky-” Larkin. Yeah, brilliant, hooray – less exciting for those of us who actually turned up on time, of course. And doubly depressing when the support aren’t actually that good. Their chunky, approachable roots sound is solid and melodic, something like a supermarket brand Black Uhuru, but Jamatone don’t ever quite achieve the cohesion of a good reggae band. They spend most of the gig standing on the edge of the groove, peering in. The vocalist keeps our interest, with a warm, unhurried style and a stage presence with plenty of character - which is good as the hackneyed lyrics can’t be said to have any – which is all good until half way through the set when he cedes the mike to a younger model. The new singer has a staccato style that is an interesting contrast, but it grates awkwardly against the band’s rhythms, which is ironic as the band actually improve noticeably for the last couple of tracks; perhaps adding a little dancehall phrasing to a straight pop reggae style might work, but as it is he just sounds like a clumsy version of Eagle Eye Cherry.

Compare Dawn Penn’s delivery. Within seconds of climbing on stage, she reveals a mastery of phrasing that makes every line matter, and gives every word weight. Each tiny portamento at the start of a phrase, every subtle vibrato at the end make the songs sound natural and conversational, as so many great pop songs should be. Penn’s voice, as befits a woman nearing 60, doesn’t have the sweet clarity of her early rocksteady recordings, but it has a deeper timbre and air of experience that is, if anything superior, reminding us oddly of Johnny Cash. The Man In Black is also a good reference point for Penn’s ability to recreate a song, and give a trite ditty an air of gravitas and richness you’d never expect was there. It took us a good few bars to realise that one naggingly familiar tune wasn’t a soul classic, but All Saints’ “Never Ever”! Of course, a healthy attitude to found material is one of the pillars of Jamaican music, from the endless and inventive versioning of rhythms to the unpretentious approach to melody that says that any track is worth covering if it has a tune that can be used, but Penn is a master of the art.

In case this sounds impressive, but somewhat honed, like a seasoned cabaret performer, we must also note the wonderful spontaneity of the gig. Second to Penn’s easy melodic sense is her understanding of musical space. She twists and elongates lines as the whim takes her, but is also content to drop the vocal for bars at a time, remixing the songs from the inside. If you thought that late Johnny Cash was a weird reference point, then you’d better sit down before we tell you that technique somewhat recalls latter day Mark E Smith (although we are certain that Dawn would be a better person to have a drink with). When she does “You Don’t Love Me” as the inevitable closing track, we are stunned by the liberties she takes with it, improvising lines and melodies, giggling and narrating ad hoc sections, as if it’s the first time she’s ever sung the song. Pretty audacious when you consider that it’s the one piece half the audience has specifically come to hear. We’ve seen some of Jamaican music’s greats play live – most, it must be said, at Skylarkin’ events – but this is the best, an effect heightened by the intimate atmosphere, which stops the music slipping into empty gestures (although the guitarist does smuggler in some overwrought Dire Straits solos whenever Penn’s back is turned). Why wasn’t this gig sold out ten times over? Has nobody heard of Dawn Penn? Wake the town and tell the people!

Interesting Developments

Vaughan Williams is ace. That is all I have to say today. Ace.


FIXERS – IRON DEER DREAM 7” (Young & Lost)


Jack Goldstein from Fixers claims that he found the title “Iron Deer Dream” in a book about Sylvia Plath, was unable to discover what it might mean, and subsequently found he couldn’t locate the passage again. It’s not essential, but it helps to suspend your disbelief and imagine that a suicidal poet’s biog sent an esoteric message to the band, it chimes well with their self-professed spirituality, and it certainly goes with the single’s cover, a tye-die fractal Masonic mystery that inhabits that wonderful space between beautiful and truly hideous.

It’s also useful if you manage some other mental dislocations. It’s handy to forget Fixers’ clumsy involvement with Blessing Force, a movement nobody can actually define, except to the extent that Fixers think they’re not in it anymore, and it sort of helps to try not to think about the extent to which the single sounds like latter day Animal Collective. Because it does. A lot. Which is fine, because not only have the Collective made some wonderful records, but their sound was only a rough collage of borrowed tricks anyway. In actual fact, “Iron Deer Dream” is better than Animal Collective’s recent recordings, although probably not quite on a par with their best work. Finally, in your Fixers reception yoga meditation, endeavour to ignore the way the track fits in with the already stumbling Hypnagogic Pop movement. Because if you start thinking about any of these things, you’ll dismiss Fixers as a zeitgeist scavenging trend parasite, and fail to notice just how brilliant a band they are.

From the nagging organ that sounds like Steve Reich arranging “California Girls”, “Iron Deer Dream” is a lovely little song, and may be Oxford’s first glimpse of summer. In truth, it’s barely song at all, it’s a cycling fade-out from a half-recalled childhood radio broadcast (as the references to the Berlin Wall seem to confirm). Over and over the melodic fragments turn, and immersing yourself in the song feels simultaneously like riding a powerful swell of sound, and drifting safely in amniotic fluid. If you could surf in a hammock, “Iron Deer Dram” would be your soundtrack.

Ironically, the song actually has its own little outro, and to be frank it bows somewhat overly deferentially at the altar of the Beach Boys (and we say this as proper Wilson worshippers ourselves). Our other issue is that the vocals are slightly too yearning, and there seems to be too much energy going into expressing barely decipherable lyrics that don’t appear to mean much. Perhaps they’re casting a spell. We wouldn’t put it past them.

“Iron Deer Dream” is Fixers’ calling card, and a fine one it makes. However, glorious listening experience though it is, it actually adheres slightly too much to their own template, a template that live sets indicate they may already be growing out of. If absolutely pushed we shall admit that we prefer the B side, “Egyptn Aberration CULT”, a tip of the hat to Detroit techno legends Drexciya, who don’t get nearly enough recognition (slightly confusing tributes from Turner Prize nominees notwithstanding), that also reminds us of the wonderful Model 500. The crisp handclaps are just as hypnotic as “Iron Deer Dream”’s reverby melodies, and less woozily dizzying. It reminds us of that bit in The Bell Jar that says “went batshit at a rave to ‘Strings Of Life’”...or did we imagine that?

Bayou Chemistry

Here's my review from the latest Nightshift, which is fresh on the shelves this weekend. I'm keeping my reviews pretty much down to 2 or so a month at the moment, as I have another writing project on the go. Probably not something for these pages, but it's shaping up quite well so far. Nice to be kept busy. Pissing it down out there, think I'll stay in my cosy study for a while.


THE BAYOU BROTHERS, The Famous Monday Blues, Bullingdon Arms, 7/2/11


We’ve seen some outstanding performances at The Famous Monday Blues over the years, along with some of the worst gigs ever. In the former category, some spotless musicians have treated the blues form as a lingua franca, using it to communicate ideas and emotions of great subtlety with a deft touch and original variations; in the latter, we find hordes of denim zombies ploughing through the same clunky rhythms, the same threadbare lyrics and the same crass wailing axe solos. With bad blues guitarists, a few simple things are repeated over and over, and quality is judged solely on how swiftly they do so. Is this art, or a game of bloody Tetris?

Thankfully, tonight these po-faced pentatonic widdlers are far away, as a righteous zydeco party is whipped up by The Bayou Brothers, a Louisiana Cajun band from San Diego (which is a little like a band from County Armagh called The Bleedin’ Bow Bell Cockneys, but never mind). Cajun music is a rough melange of black blues and French song, typified by fluent accordion passages and clattering rhythms played on metal washboards, and is one of those genres that always works so long as it’s played with enough conviction. And despite this being a Monday night with an average crowd that’s slow to thaw, the Bayou Brothers certainly can’t be criticised for a lack of energy, grinning their way through two invigorating sets, and regularly doling out spare washboards to audience members of varying rhythmic ability.

At their best the band’s evident enjoyment of the music is infectious, and their openness to random punters’ interventions reveals a relaxed unpretentiousness that makes us feel like we’re at a gig in some deep South commune. On the reverse, the band sadly has a taste in cheesy ersatz gestures, from the so-called “squeezebox” which is really a disguised Roland keyboard that needs nary a squeeze (basically the much maligned keytar resurrected for folkies), to the percussionist in the golden blouse who smiles manically throughout in a way that nobody does outside Disneyland without severe medication. Her “name our cute ‘gator” competition just about tips us over the edge. Do they have Butlins in California?

A straight cover of Ray Charles’ “Hallelujah I Love Her So” is generic, and perhaps without the zydeco sprit the band is no great shakes. But then again, who cares? For tonight, all too rarely at a blues gig, we’re not here to polish the traditions or venerate technical musos, we’re here to dance, drink and get lost in the clockwork hoedown of washboard blues...and on a cold Monday within the Bully’s ugly breezeblocks, a little escapism is no bad thing.

I Can DJ Shit

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.

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.