I recently edited footage of myself naked with film of two ladies. It was my first montage a trois.
HOT HOOVES – AVOID BEING FILMED (Rivet Gun LP)
Indulge in cults, embrace hegemonies:
Amuse your friends! Enrage your enemies!
Sounds a bit like a Hot Hooves lyric. Not equal to the sterling opening couplet to “Help Shape The Future” (“Your overactive thyroid gland/ Is pumping like a silver band”), but close enough. And it’s fitting, when you consider how many young, excitable or simply paranoid people believe some shadowy clique controls Oxford music. With a band like Hot Hooves, bringing together veterans from cult local bands like ATL and Talulah Gosh, you almost want to see a bad review to dispel any fears of back room favouritism.
Well, tough luck, chum, because this is a cracking little album (and little it is, ten tracks that never reach the heady prog heights of three minutes). Any gin-soaked old hack who has heard of YouTube and got a deadline looming will tell you that our culture is an embodiment of Warhol’s prediction that “in the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes”; Avoid Being Filmed seems to ask what happens for the rest of their lives. This brief spasm of an LP could be read as the memories and opinions of someone who was briefly feted by the music scene some unspecified time ago, an unstable mixture of bile, supercilious amusement and nostalgic fondness for an awkward, illogical industry. A sort of cross between John Osborne’s Archie Rice, and Creme Brulee’s Les McQueen, perhaps. Indeed, the LP draws a line from the clarion call of “This Is It, This Is The Scene” to tales of fights, breakdowns and post-gig boozing on “The Plot”, euphoria to “artistic differences” in ten short tracks.
But, whilst we aren’t sure if Hot Hooves are saddened, tickled or frustrated by rock music, we know they have a bloody good crack at making it. Each tiny nugget of a tune is a tough alloy of dirt simple rock rhythms and cheekily catchy melodies that is immediately accessible but sculpted with enough pop nouse to remain memorable. “This Is It, This Is The Scene” is a bit like “Something Else” swimming at half speed through a vat of custard, and our favourite “The Sparks Up Agenda” barrels along like a schoolyard winger hurtling towards an open goal, unaware that the bell has rung. Occasionally the feel is new wave in inverted commas, and can seem somewhat third hand – “The Plot” veers rather close to Elastica, and the album’s only real misstep “Hot Hooves” sounds like a mildewed old Family Cat record that has been gathering dust under the bed for twenty years – but in general it’s impressive how visceral and sweatily enjoyable this album is. The tunes Pete Momtchiloff sings are perhaps the best examples of Hot Hooves’ space between the nihilistic romanticism of Guided By Voices and Half Man Half Biscuit’s pub carpet cabaret.
To say that this record sounds like the vibrant work of musicians half Hot Hooves’ age would be patronising. To say you’d be hard pressed to find rock music in Oxford that packs a good old fashioned punch whilst peppering the lyrics with archly acidic little witticisms seems redundantly self-evident. Let’s just say this is a lovely little collection of high quality, scuffed tunes that anyone with an interest in Oxford pop should listen to...fuck’s sake, it only takes about twenty minutes, what have you got to lose?
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Nothing Gonna Stop The Floe
I have to write a "best of 2011" for one person and a "ones to watch for 2012" for another. I hate that kind of stuff.
I also hate it when adverts say "Terms & Conditions apply". Of course they do, otherwise there would be chaos; there's no way I could make you an offer without delineating it in some fashion. "Buy one bottle of Head & Shoulders and get...whatever your mind can conceive of absolutely free - the accepted parameters of scientific governance notwithstanding". Idiotic.
TERJE ISUNGSET, OCM, The Northwall, 5/11/11
We don’t normally care about a musician’s equipment - start talking like that and before you know it you think Stevie Vai is better than John Lee Hooker – but we watched Terje Isungset’s Ice Music desperate to know what gear they had backstage. What sort of refrigeration rig is required to bring instruments carved from Norwegian glaciers around the UK?
The instruments not only look gorgeous in subdued theatre lighting, but they sound phenomenal: an ice marimba is somewhere between a balafon and a tabla, and a pair of glistening ice horns sound like Jan Garbarek mournfully morphing into an elephant seal. But, once you’ve marvelled at the logistics and the concept and the beauty of ice instruments, you’re unfortunately left with something aimlessly pretty. Take Lena Nymark’s breathy vocals: she may be adept enough with her effects pedals to build a wash of Cocteau Twins ambience, but her voice is rather thin when what the show needs is a steely soprano or a gutsy folk chorus to raise it from the morass of politeness.
To be honest, we far preferred the first half of the concert. Tribute To Nature is a piece for drumkit augmented by elemental wood and granite percussion, but the rough-hewn instruments offer more than earthy novelty. The click of stone on stone is a Neanderthal telex, and a Jew’s harp passage sounds like a Tuvan version of Aphex Twin’s “Didgeridoo”; at times the windswept stillness is Biosphere unplugged, at others the frenetic crackling rhythms are bebop played by a huge insect. A Max Roach, maybe? No, no, you’re right, we’re sorry.
Tribute To Nature may be too long, and the shamanistic groove is too Howard Moon (“Coming at you like a jazz narwhal!”), but the piece is hypnotic and evocative, and Isungset is modest enough to break the sonic spell and make people giggle by creaking his drum stool: ice is nice, but sometimes a musician finds their best material in jokes and accidents.
I also hate it when adverts say "Terms & Conditions apply". Of course they do, otherwise there would be chaos; there's no way I could make you an offer without delineating it in some fashion. "Buy one bottle of Head & Shoulders and get...whatever your mind can conceive of absolutely free - the accepted parameters of scientific governance notwithstanding". Idiotic.
TERJE ISUNGSET, OCM, The Northwall, 5/11/11
We don’t normally care about a musician’s equipment - start talking like that and before you know it you think Stevie Vai is better than John Lee Hooker – but we watched Terje Isungset’s Ice Music desperate to know what gear they had backstage. What sort of refrigeration rig is required to bring instruments carved from Norwegian glaciers around the UK?
The instruments not only look gorgeous in subdued theatre lighting, but they sound phenomenal: an ice marimba is somewhere between a balafon and a tabla, and a pair of glistening ice horns sound like Jan Garbarek mournfully morphing into an elephant seal. But, once you’ve marvelled at the logistics and the concept and the beauty of ice instruments, you’re unfortunately left with something aimlessly pretty. Take Lena Nymark’s breathy vocals: she may be adept enough with her effects pedals to build a wash of Cocteau Twins ambience, but her voice is rather thin when what the show needs is a steely soprano or a gutsy folk chorus to raise it from the morass of politeness.
To be honest, we far preferred the first half of the concert. Tribute To Nature is a piece for drumkit augmented by elemental wood and granite percussion, but the rough-hewn instruments offer more than earthy novelty. The click of stone on stone is a Neanderthal telex, and a Jew’s harp passage sounds like a Tuvan version of Aphex Twin’s “Didgeridoo”; at times the windswept stillness is Biosphere unplugged, at others the frenetic crackling rhythms are bebop played by a huge insect. A Max Roach, maybe? No, no, you’re right, we’re sorry.
Tribute To Nature may be too long, and the shamanistic groove is too Howard Moon (“Coming at you like a jazz narwhal!”), but the piece is hypnotic and evocative, and Isungset is modest enough to break the sonic spell and make people giggle by creaking his drum stool: ice is nice, but sometimes a musician finds their best material in jokes and accidents.
Friday, 4 November 2011
Alter Boys
One of the few times I've ever written a review at 20.00 on deadline day...and I think it shows. Not bad, as such, but disjointed. I wanted to put bits in about the keyboard playing, the relationship between The Marshall Suite and The Mayor Of Casterbridge ("It just goes down and down, that book" - MES) and why Hollywood never latched on to The Metamorphosis ("Right, so you got this cool giant bug and all he does is moan about the office?!")
BORDERVILLE – METAMORPHOSIS (Own release)
Sadly, we don’t get sent records any more, just links to downloads and audio streams. That’s OK, we understand the advantages in terms of ecology, energy and economics. Borderville, however, eagerly sent a hard copy of their latest, perhaps indicating their love of a holistic artwork, and their pride in a deeply considered package, rather than a string of ditties. Of course, anyone with cash can create lavish CD artwork to detract attention from drab music, but the mandibular folds of Borderville’s CD box fit the insect theme perfectly, and the flea image echoes Joe Swarbrick’s assertion that the German “ungeziefer” doesn’t necessarily imply the giant roach most publishing illustrators leap on for editions of The Metamorphosis.
Because, yes, this album is a musical retelling of Kafka’s novella. If you think that sounds pretentious, do yourself a favour and turn the page now. Go on, there’s plenty for you later: there might be some big pictures, or ads for gigs by tribute bands like Saxon & On, or Junior Doctor Feelgood. Anyone who isn’t put off by theatre or erudition will happily discover how approachable Metamorphosis is. In fact, you don’t need to know anything about the book, because what’s great is that the album has the shape of a story, the taut arc of ineluctable tragedy, the encroaching claustrophobia of macabre fiction. It’s fantastic that Metamorphosis sounds like a tale being told, rather than a band noting how clever they all are.
It’s perhaps inevitable that Metamorphosis shall be labelled as Prog. That’s fine, but inaccurate. Most of the music is built on material from the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, be it the Rocky Horror cod-jiving of “Open The Door”, or “Anchor”, where a soda hop ballad is suspended in - sonic zeitgeist alert! - cold reverb. Rather than ELP trickery, Borderville take scraps of everyman rock, like Richie Valens or Queen, and cover them with black dramatics and queasy dissonance – from the infected cicada swoon of the opening moments, the record is held together by synthetic hums and electroacoustic dizziness. Perhaps, because of this, “Capitalypso” doesn’t quite fit. Sure, it’s got a portmanteau title, funky guitar and a clever link between insectile chitin and workplace relationships in the line “toughen up my skin, sir”, but it almost derails the record by being too good a rock song: we need soliloquies not melodies, Greek chorus not pop chorus. Forget tunes, it’s the rhythm section’s album anyway: check out the Rolling-Stones-play-Aphrodite’s-Child stomp of “I Am The Winter”.
Add some balletic keys and a thespian vocal that can convince in both the dark bombast of “The Human Way” and the resigned resolution of the closing track, and you have an album of the year. If some will turn away in the opening minutes, everyone else will adore it till the final curtain.
BORDERVILLE – METAMORPHOSIS (Own release)
Sadly, we don’t get sent records any more, just links to downloads and audio streams. That’s OK, we understand the advantages in terms of ecology, energy and economics. Borderville, however, eagerly sent a hard copy of their latest, perhaps indicating their love of a holistic artwork, and their pride in a deeply considered package, rather than a string of ditties. Of course, anyone with cash can create lavish CD artwork to detract attention from drab music, but the mandibular folds of Borderville’s CD box fit the insect theme perfectly, and the flea image echoes Joe Swarbrick’s assertion that the German “ungeziefer” doesn’t necessarily imply the giant roach most publishing illustrators leap on for editions of The Metamorphosis.
Because, yes, this album is a musical retelling of Kafka’s novella. If you think that sounds pretentious, do yourself a favour and turn the page now. Go on, there’s plenty for you later: there might be some big pictures, or ads for gigs by tribute bands like Saxon & On, or Junior Doctor Feelgood. Anyone who isn’t put off by theatre or erudition will happily discover how approachable Metamorphosis is. In fact, you don’t need to know anything about the book, because what’s great is that the album has the shape of a story, the taut arc of ineluctable tragedy, the encroaching claustrophobia of macabre fiction. It’s fantastic that Metamorphosis sounds like a tale being told, rather than a band noting how clever they all are.
It’s perhaps inevitable that Metamorphosis shall be labelled as Prog. That’s fine, but inaccurate. Most of the music is built on material from the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, be it the Rocky Horror cod-jiving of “Open The Door”, or “Anchor”, where a soda hop ballad is suspended in - sonic zeitgeist alert! - cold reverb. Rather than ELP trickery, Borderville take scraps of everyman rock, like Richie Valens or Queen, and cover them with black dramatics and queasy dissonance – from the infected cicada swoon of the opening moments, the record is held together by synthetic hums and electroacoustic dizziness. Perhaps, because of this, “Capitalypso” doesn’t quite fit. Sure, it’s got a portmanteau title, funky guitar and a clever link between insectile chitin and workplace relationships in the line “toughen up my skin, sir”, but it almost derails the record by being too good a rock song: we need soliloquies not melodies, Greek chorus not pop chorus. Forget tunes, it’s the rhythm section’s album anyway: check out the Rolling-Stones-play-Aphrodite’s-Child stomp of “I Am The Winter”.
Add some balletic keys and a thespian vocal that can convince in both the dark bombast of “The Human Way” and the resigned resolution of the closing track, and you have an album of the year. If some will turn away in the opening minutes, everyone else will adore it till the final curtain.
Friday, 30 September 2011
The Hemp Brothers
When I was younger I used to get angry about people discussing the weather. Now I disagree, all I can think today is "Fuck me, it's hot for September". You can scoff, but you're thinking it too (unless you're one of the people from other continents who visits this blog: hello, foreigners! Youre not real, of course, are you? Just web-bot type things I suspect).
DUOTONE – ROPES (ECC Records)
There’s a sense of retreating into safety about Duotone. Not only are the band named after an old printing technique, but their promotional material is steeped in sepia Edwardiana, and despite copious use of loop pedals their music nods towards well-behaved salon folk. Add a few lyrics about the hermetic safety of an old-fashioned middle class childhood, all bedtime stories and warm nurseries, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Duotone are a soppy panacea for delicate wallflowers who think the world is moving too fast and who wish they were back at prep school.
But you’d be wrong. Comforting and hushed the music might be, all deep in the womb of Barney Morse-Brown’s impeccable cello, but this is far more than insipid ambience. Not only are there moments of chilling eeriness throughout the album, but the music is restlessly inventive. When it might have been easy for Duotone to stick with some whispered melodies and a few pretty James Garrett guitar parts, they slip some eclectic elements into the album: “Walking To The Shore” starts with a stately promenade that owes something to British minimalism, before introducing a spikily elegant vocal line that reminds us of The High Llamas. Later, “Alphabet” leaps halfway through from bucolic lullaby to something that isn’t far from a Knight Rider chase theme. “Broken Earth” is a high point, a “Hansel & Gretel” referencing chunk of goth folk that reminds us of an urbane take on 60s experimental folk, a clean-shaven Comus if you will.
There are a couple of mis-steps on Ropes, from the fluffy Disney refrain of “’Till It’s Over” to the directionless doodle of “Powder House”, wordless female vocals flitting politely about like “The Great Gig In The Sky” repackaged for Habitat, but these are minor blemishes. Ropes is a gorgeous record that is immaculately performed and recorded, but which still retains an enticing air of melancholic mystery: for all their abilities, this is the important element most Sunday supplement boutique folk acts seem to be missing.
DUOTONE – ROPES (ECC Records)
There’s a sense of retreating into safety about Duotone. Not only are the band named after an old printing technique, but their promotional material is steeped in sepia Edwardiana, and despite copious use of loop pedals their music nods towards well-behaved salon folk. Add a few lyrics about the hermetic safety of an old-fashioned middle class childhood, all bedtime stories and warm nurseries, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Duotone are a soppy panacea for delicate wallflowers who think the world is moving too fast and who wish they were back at prep school.
But you’d be wrong. Comforting and hushed the music might be, all deep in the womb of Barney Morse-Brown’s impeccable cello, but this is far more than insipid ambience. Not only are there moments of chilling eeriness throughout the album, but the music is restlessly inventive. When it might have been easy for Duotone to stick with some whispered melodies and a few pretty James Garrett guitar parts, they slip some eclectic elements into the album: “Walking To The Shore” starts with a stately promenade that owes something to British minimalism, before introducing a spikily elegant vocal line that reminds us of The High Llamas. Later, “Alphabet” leaps halfway through from bucolic lullaby to something that isn’t far from a Knight Rider chase theme. “Broken Earth” is a high point, a “Hansel & Gretel” referencing chunk of goth folk that reminds us of an urbane take on 60s experimental folk, a clean-shaven Comus if you will.
There are a couple of mis-steps on Ropes, from the fluffy Disney refrain of “’Till It’s Over” to the directionless doodle of “Powder House”, wordless female vocals flitting politely about like “The Great Gig In The Sky” repackaged for Habitat, but these are minor blemishes. Ropes is a gorgeous record that is immaculately performed and recorded, but which still retains an enticing air of melancholic mystery: for all their abilities, this is the important element most Sunday supplement boutique folk acts seem to be missing.
Monday, 19 September 2011
Enemy Brats
I enjoyed writing this review, because Secret Rivals, two scant years ago, were an awful, clunky band who spent most of their time being idiots online - and now they're really good. Nice work.
SECRET RIVALS – MAKE DO & MEND (Has Legs)
Roger Scruton and Brian Sewell probably disagree, but pop music can explore pretty much any concept or sonic vista, and attracts composers as original and adventurous as, say, opera. Having said that, as much as we like to lock ourselves away for a weekend to wrestle with Scott Walker’s Tilt whilst making notes in the margins of Dylan’s Tarantula, there’s something to be said for pop that simply offers bags of barely controlled energy and a bloody big tune. That’s where Secret Rivals come in, having knocked up a collection of bubbling pop mini-riots that should charm anyone with even a fractional propensity towards having a good time.
“Ghosting” ushers us in with a light, summery indie-funk beat and some ramshackle, chirruping Byker Grove vocals. This is pretty much the blueprint for the record: bouncy rhythms rushing hell for leather towards the end of the song, with occasional stately keyboard lines watching over them like an indulgent parent, topped off with a battle between Clouds’ smilingly tuneful female vocals and atonal Dickensian scamp interjections from Jay. If there is a fault with the record, it’s that Jay’s yelping can become wearing. On “Tonight Matthew...” the contrast between an affable melody on one side and a punky little anti-rap on the other works well, reminding us of the interplay between Bjork and Einar on The Sugarcubes’ “Hit”, but on “Blisters” you just want the squawking little urchin to shut up and leave the song alone. He’s like the annoying chumps waving signs saying “Hi Mum!” behind news reporters on location. But then he sings the mournful closing title track, and reveals an unexpected delicacy and all is forgiven.
Anyway, for the most part the unpolished exuberance of the music whisks the listener along in its wake so powerfully, that there’s simply no time to consider stylistic infelicities: it’s like asking a child to critique the label on their supermarket brand Sunny Delight rip off, when they’re too busy having a tartrazine meltdown. “These Are Only Obstacles” is the one that really grasps us, a scrappily charming little snatch of melodic positivity that makes us teary eyed for the loss of John Peel – it’s enormous fun, but has a quiet, emotional undertow, and there are also some effective touches of melancholy on “Me Vs Melodrama” and “Make Do And Mend”.
We do wonder whether Secret Rivals, who seem to be garnering some impressive attention recently, have got quite enough about them to forge a whole career, but for now this album comes highly recommended, especially for anyone who can’t bear to admit that the summer is over...and, perhaps, looking to the future and worrying about artistic longevity is for people who don’t fully understand the joyous fizz of Secret Rivals’ music. If you’re looking for sensible, grown up stuff, we hear Roger Scruton has a website.
SECRET RIVALS – MAKE DO & MEND (Has Legs)
Roger Scruton and Brian Sewell probably disagree, but pop music can explore pretty much any concept or sonic vista, and attracts composers as original and adventurous as, say, opera. Having said that, as much as we like to lock ourselves away for a weekend to wrestle with Scott Walker’s Tilt whilst making notes in the margins of Dylan’s Tarantula, there’s something to be said for pop that simply offers bags of barely controlled energy and a bloody big tune. That’s where Secret Rivals come in, having knocked up a collection of bubbling pop mini-riots that should charm anyone with even a fractional propensity towards having a good time.
“Ghosting” ushers us in with a light, summery indie-funk beat and some ramshackle, chirruping Byker Grove vocals. This is pretty much the blueprint for the record: bouncy rhythms rushing hell for leather towards the end of the song, with occasional stately keyboard lines watching over them like an indulgent parent, topped off with a battle between Clouds’ smilingly tuneful female vocals and atonal Dickensian scamp interjections from Jay. If there is a fault with the record, it’s that Jay’s yelping can become wearing. On “Tonight Matthew...” the contrast between an affable melody on one side and a punky little anti-rap on the other works well, reminding us of the interplay between Bjork and Einar on The Sugarcubes’ “Hit”, but on “Blisters” you just want the squawking little urchin to shut up and leave the song alone. He’s like the annoying chumps waving signs saying “Hi Mum!” behind news reporters on location. But then he sings the mournful closing title track, and reveals an unexpected delicacy and all is forgiven.
Anyway, for the most part the unpolished exuberance of the music whisks the listener along in its wake so powerfully, that there’s simply no time to consider stylistic infelicities: it’s like asking a child to critique the label on their supermarket brand Sunny Delight rip off, when they’re too busy having a tartrazine meltdown. “These Are Only Obstacles” is the one that really grasps us, a scrappily charming little snatch of melodic positivity that makes us teary eyed for the loss of John Peel – it’s enormous fun, but has a quiet, emotional undertow, and there are also some effective touches of melancholy on “Me Vs Melodrama” and “Make Do And Mend”.
We do wonder whether Secret Rivals, who seem to be garnering some impressive attention recently, have got quite enough about them to forge a whole career, but for now this album comes highly recommended, especially for anyone who can’t bear to admit that the summer is over...and, perhaps, looking to the future and worrying about artistic longevity is for people who don’t fully understand the joyous fizz of Secret Rivals’ music. If you’re looking for sensible, grown up stuff, we hear Roger Scruton has a website.
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Truck 2011 Sunday Pt 2
The Go! Team’s performance, on the other hand, would be invigorating at any time, but after the staid afternoon we’ve had, it’s like the second bloody coming, a vast ball of energy rolling from the main stage. Ninja may not be the greatest vocalist nor gymnast in the country, but she can put them together better than anyone we’ve seen in many a year, and the band leap into the music as if it were a swimming pool of chilled champagne. Aside from a moment or two like “Security Song”, which is like Stereolab without the Marxism or the krautrock collection, their tunes all have an old school hip hop joie de vivre performed with irrepressible positivity: Sugar Hill played by Grange Hill, if you will. We are also reminded of The Cookie Crew, Polysics and Rip, Rig & Panic at various points, but primarily the Go! Team are idiosyncratic and original, and we salute them for it.
This year we decide to take up the offer of a lift before the annual snooze through The Dreaming Spires’ set, and it seems wise to leave the festival on a high. The conclusion is that this larger, longer Truck has been a resounding success. There are inevitable criticisms. Firstly there’s still too much toothless country for our liking – some of this strumming could have been swapped for just one or two metal bands, surely – but we suppose that’s part of the deal. Secondly, as this is now a three day concern, there could have been more musical options on Saturday and Sunday afternoon; plenty of local acts would have been happy to fill the empty space on that lovely Wood stage free of charge, we’re sure. But, in effect, Truck has made itself bigger to keep itself small. This year was the biggest turnout ever, and yet for the first time in a long while we found that there were rarely queues for anything, and one could nearly always get close enough to a stage to enjoy it. Naturally, there were some Truck veterans who had a moan – it’s kind of a hobby for music fans of a certain age – but conversely we met many Truck virgins who couldn’t believe how great it was. In an era when most music festivals are horrible drinks advertising gulags or thinly disguised food fairs, it’s easy to see what makes Truck special, and no matter what small mistakes they might have made, we still believe they provide a uniquely excellent service.
Just don’t mention Groupon.
This year we decide to take up the offer of a lift before the annual snooze through The Dreaming Spires’ set, and it seems wise to leave the festival on a high. The conclusion is that this larger, longer Truck has been a resounding success. There are inevitable criticisms. Firstly there’s still too much toothless country for our liking – some of this strumming could have been swapped for just one or two metal bands, surely – but we suppose that’s part of the deal. Secondly, as this is now a three day concern, there could have been more musical options on Saturday and Sunday afternoon; plenty of local acts would have been happy to fill the empty space on that lovely Wood stage free of charge, we’re sure. But, in effect, Truck has made itself bigger to keep itself small. This year was the biggest turnout ever, and yet for the first time in a long while we found that there were rarely queues for anything, and one could nearly always get close enough to a stage to enjoy it. Naturally, there were some Truck veterans who had a moan – it’s kind of a hobby for music fans of a certain age – but conversely we met many Truck virgins who couldn’t believe how great it was. In an era when most music festivals are horrible drinks advertising gulags or thinly disguised food fairs, it’s easy to see what makes Truck special, and no matter what small mistakes they might have made, we still believe they provide a uniquely excellent service.
Just don’t mention Groupon.
Truck 2011 Sunday
Tate's Vorticism show today - just snuck in on the last day of the exhibition. Wonderful to see some of the stuff, but the show was a little thin for £12.70 - not their fault lots of it has been lost, but there was a lot of archival material amongst the actual artwork. Perhaps a little bit of Epstein & Lewis post-Vorticism would have filled things out.
Blasts & Blesses still one of the greatest pieces of writing/page design in the English language, and beuatiful to see wall-sized.
The bonuses were Nike Nelson's amazing The Coral Reef and a pleasant surprise in walking past Selfridge's on the way to the Oxford tuvge and discovering a new show from the fantastic Museum Of Everything. No, I don't have links. You heard of Google?
We’d be lying if we told you that Mat Gibson was an amazing, ground-breaking artist, but laying on our back, listening to his plangent, pedal steel drenched songs, watching the white clouds form and disperse as if we were submersed in a giant, freshly poured Guinness is a pretty great way to start Sunday. Cashier No 9 play comfy rootsy pop on the Clash stage, like a Northern Irish La’s, and they’re followed by Lanterns On The Lake, who make grown up indie folk with Sigur Ros crescendos, which isn’t seismic, but is actually better than Mew’s set at last year’s festival. And that’s the gist of Sunday: lots of good stuff, very little bad, but very little great.
Take Maybeshewill, for example. They have a dense, muscular sound, and we enjoy their set a lot, but there are only so many times one can get truly excited about this Mogwai tumescent guitar trick. Alessi’s Ark are also listenable, but help us to work out what Americana actually means. It means “leftovers”. It’s not folk, blues, country, rock, bluegrass or anything else that’s actually good, it’s just the offcuts you get when you’re making any of those. Ho hum.
As the music isn’t sparking any synapses, we drop in on the Free Beers Show’s comedy stage, who are quick to announce they can’t give out free beer because of licensing restrictions. Lucky it’s a well behaved crowd at Truck, they could have been lynched in other festivals. As a sort of object lesson in the value of delivery, we see Alex Clissold Jones, a man who strikes us as being potentially very funny, die on his arse, before being followed by Chris Turner, a comedian with inferior material, who is connecting with the crowd. In actual fact, the bays should go to compere Matt Richardson, who manages to keep coming back with funny, mostly improvised stand-up between every set.
Much as we respect it as an addition to Cowley Road, we have to say that the Truck Store’s selection for the Last.FM stage is noticeably the weakest of the three days. Tribes, for example, play a sort of CITV grunge, big-boned, melodic punky tunes lobbed skywards, as if to see where they land. It’s all pretty good, but doesn’t quicken any pulses. Islet should be the ones to turn things upsidedown, but they can’t capture the magic of their Barn set last year. The show is still a beguiling mixture of howls, whoops and keyboard washes, all held together by occasional dub basslines and percussion that sounds like an autistic class day out in a cowbell factory, but it is fun rather than mystifying. Last year we felt as though we were caught in a harrowing Branch Davidian ritual, this year it’s more like being in a training camp for a Chuckle Brothers franchise.
The main stage has been a bit of a parade of worthy solo and duo sets all day, so Tunng liven the soundscape somewhat, with Casio African rhythms, and well placed layers of sound a la vintage Four Tet. If we’re honest, we found the songs to be a bit less interesting than the soundscpaes underneath them, but it’s still a very strong performance.
Phil Selway also puts in a strong performance, but it leaves us entirely ambivalent. His voice is decent, which is a nice surprise, and he plays some well-structured, but slightly twee semi-acoustic numbers, one of which reminds us strongly of “Little Drummer Boy”. As befits a member of Radiohead, there are some subtly evocative touches in the arrangements, such as the “O Superman” backing vocals on the second number, but overall the conclusion is that this is music that would work better on midnight headphones, not in a tent on a sunny afternoon.
Blasts & Blesses still one of the greatest pieces of writing/page design in the English language, and beuatiful to see wall-sized.
The bonuses were Nike Nelson's amazing The Coral Reef and a pleasant surprise in walking past Selfridge's on the way to the Oxford tuvge and discovering a new show from the fantastic Museum Of Everything. No, I don't have links. You heard of Google?
We’d be lying if we told you that Mat Gibson was an amazing, ground-breaking artist, but laying on our back, listening to his plangent, pedal steel drenched songs, watching the white clouds form and disperse as if we were submersed in a giant, freshly poured Guinness is a pretty great way to start Sunday. Cashier No 9 play comfy rootsy pop on the Clash stage, like a Northern Irish La’s, and they’re followed by Lanterns On The Lake, who make grown up indie folk with Sigur Ros crescendos, which isn’t seismic, but is actually better than Mew’s set at last year’s festival. And that’s the gist of Sunday: lots of good stuff, very little bad, but very little great.
Take Maybeshewill, for example. They have a dense, muscular sound, and we enjoy their set a lot, but there are only so many times one can get truly excited about this Mogwai tumescent guitar trick. Alessi’s Ark are also listenable, but help us to work out what Americana actually means. It means “leftovers”. It’s not folk, blues, country, rock, bluegrass or anything else that’s actually good, it’s just the offcuts you get when you’re making any of those. Ho hum.
As the music isn’t sparking any synapses, we drop in on the Free Beers Show’s comedy stage, who are quick to announce they can’t give out free beer because of licensing restrictions. Lucky it’s a well behaved crowd at Truck, they could have been lynched in other festivals. As a sort of object lesson in the value of delivery, we see Alex Clissold Jones, a man who strikes us as being potentially very funny, die on his arse, before being followed by Chris Turner, a comedian with inferior material, who is connecting with the crowd. In actual fact, the bays should go to compere Matt Richardson, who manages to keep coming back with funny, mostly improvised stand-up between every set.
Much as we respect it as an addition to Cowley Road, we have to say that the Truck Store’s selection for the Last.FM stage is noticeably the weakest of the three days. Tribes, for example, play a sort of CITV grunge, big-boned, melodic punky tunes lobbed skywards, as if to see where they land. It’s all pretty good, but doesn’t quicken any pulses. Islet should be the ones to turn things upsidedown, but they can’t capture the magic of their Barn set last year. The show is still a beguiling mixture of howls, whoops and keyboard washes, all held together by occasional dub basslines and percussion that sounds like an autistic class day out in a cowbell factory, but it is fun rather than mystifying. Last year we felt as though we were caught in a harrowing Branch Davidian ritual, this year it’s more like being in a training camp for a Chuckle Brothers franchise.
The main stage has been a bit of a parade of worthy solo and duo sets all day, so Tunng liven the soundscape somewhat, with Casio African rhythms, and well placed layers of sound a la vintage Four Tet. If we’re honest, we found the songs to be a bit less interesting than the soundscpaes underneath them, but it’s still a very strong performance.
Phil Selway also puts in a strong performance, but it leaves us entirely ambivalent. His voice is decent, which is a nice surprise, and he plays some well-structured, but slightly twee semi-acoustic numbers, one of which reminds us strongly of “Little Drummer Boy”. As befits a member of Radiohead, there are some subtly evocative touches in the arrangements, such as the “O Superman” backing vocals on the second number, but overall the conclusion is that this is music that would work better on midnight headphones, not in a tent on a sunny afternoon.
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