Yo! Rushil's Bum Show

It was quite hard to write this review.  I don't like reviews that get unecessarily aggressive, and I certainly don't like anything ad hominem, but, then again, I did (and do) truly abhor this man's music.  Quite tough to express my utter displeasure at listening to his record without doing it in such a way that it appears personal.  So, this was my attempt to be vicious, but along one parameter only.

There's a really clumsy sentence in here, but I'll leave it in just to show Rushil that I know my own limitations.  I certainly know his...

RUSHIL – OSCILLATIONS (Apple Jam)

Rushil’s website says he grew up with music.  “Rushil cherished being at the center of all the creativity”, we’re told.   He goes on to say that as a grown up performer, “Nothing was more important than the experience I got from playing live.  The mind struggles to ever totally be present at any given time; playing live allows for nothing less than total immersion”.  That’s great, isn’t it?  Scientists and philosophers still don’t really understand why music can feel so personally special, so soul-scrapingly intimate, beyond even other art forms, and it’s wonderful that Rushil loves his music.  Nothing can take that away from him; like the charity money on Bullseye, that’s safe.

Luckily.  Because, Jesus felched, from outside the “center of creativity” this record brings no comfort whatsoever, and is more likely to inspire the primary symptoms of gastric flu, dragging itself from the mire of stodgy faceless rock to the stinking nadir of passive-aggressive wheedling.   There are points on this record where the music gets away with simply being blandly generic and vapid: “Here And There” throws its big, yearning chorus over an acoustic intro with all the perfectly controlled abandon of an advert for sugar-free beverages full of slo-mo bungee jumps, and other more introspective moments could soundtrack the sort of sidebar ad for toothpaste or something in which friendship is defined by fannying about on a twilit beach that you click by mistake and can’t shut up for 8 minutes.  At other times, sadly, the album is nowhere near as good as this.

“Three” is an ugly, lachrymose slur over rustily distorted guitar and thumping toms, that sounds like a maudlin constipated drunk moaning his way over the soundtrack to a cut-budget TV western, and “No Way Out” is dollop of over-egged emotive keening, rather like Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, with all the tune liposucked out and left to quiver in a self-pitying heap in the clinical waste bin.  The title track is essentially the same, but has the advantage of being 39 seconds shorter.  And, what’s this?  We’re only 6 bloody tracks in, there’s still the melody-free cross between Chad Kroeger and Semisonic called “Never See The Light” to go; we’re nowhere near the chicken in a bucket Counting Crows of “Sometimes”, let alone the fading adenoidal caterwaul of “E22” that marks the finish line. 

Rushil is obviously a bright lad – he’s reading Law at Oxford, which is no intellectual holiday – but this record just goes to show that academic and artistic intelligence are entirely separate entities.  Then again, what was it he said?  “The mind struggles to ever totally be present at any given time”.  Ah, perhaps that explains it; maybe he made this record whilst under hypnosis, or veterinary sedatives; maybe he was making 9 albums simultaneously, each of which might contain enough material to build a slightly passable  gestalt.  Or maybe it’s just utter rubbish.  Yes, the simplest option is probably the best - remember Occam’s Razor?  And can we use it on our ears when you’re done with it, please? 

Totalitarian's Turns (It's Sow Or Never)

Ocelot thing, and Nightshift thing.  Two (2) things.

The singer runs offstage, and comes back as a nun.  Halfway through the next number, a melismatic gospel paean to the saviour, the nun costume is off.  The singer finishes the song wearing nothing but some (rather snug) knickers.   During the following tune, a man in a mysterious shiny mask dresses her in a tutu.  The set ends with the singer sitting on this vaudeville gimp, playing guitar and singing through a gas mask.  This is not the sort of theatre one usually finds at bottom of the bill at The Wheatsheaf, and for thinking about stage presentation to a greater extent than “Will these pizza stains show up under the coloured lights?” Gemma Moss deserves credit.  But, frankly, even the most interesting presentation won’t rescue a whole set of unconvincing music, and luckily Gemma’s dark cabaret songs and vocal acrobatics impress without the Ken Russell trappings. 

Her style is somewhere between smouldering and emphatic, like an R n B diva doing Jacques Brel in the waiting room to Hades.  There is a lot of despair in Gemma’s music, words like “help” and “crazy” seemingly only ever a chorus away, but her voice has a rich soulful warmth that dispels any fears of a hectoring miseryguts (there are quite enough of those on the solo artist scene already).  It’s early days for Gemma, who came out of the friendly crucible of Oxford’s open mike nights, and she’s only done a handful of full gigs, but we suggest you seek out the next one.  Unless you actively like mediocrity, that is.

OVERLORD/ XII BOAR/ 13 BURNING. Port Mahon, 8/2/14

Metal is a music of extremes.  Nearly all the best bands are too fast, or too slow, or too loud, or too Nordic, or too dressed as decomposing priests, whereas 13 Burning are just too pallidly anonymous to make much impression.  There are definitely positives to note, especially the vocalist who has a powerful keening high tenor, like a crooner version of Bruce Dickinson, but then again he also mimes along to the plodding guitar solos whilst looking like George Michael circa 1988, which reduces our good will noticeably.  As this is their second gig, we’ll not write them off, but they need to become more...something.  More anything.  More metal.

Now, Aldershot’s XII Boar are not sonically extreme, playing a whiskey-marinated mixture of Sabbath riffs and Motorhead growls set against the slack depths of early Mudhoney, but they are extreme in their dedication to head-kicking numbnuts rocking.   Which makes them fantastic, obviously.  Whether they’re playing stoner thumps, Southern boogie or sloppy half-inched solos, they do it with that winning mixture of total sincerity and cheek-tonguing cabaret that only great heavy rock bands can pull off.  The guitarist also has an LED knuckleduster and the ability to shout “fuck yeah!” with the theatrical timing of a master comedian.  This shit is much harder than it looks.

Overlord are a young band – we’re informed that their guitar- and vocalist, Nightshift writer Tal Fineman, was legally allowed in the venue scant days ago – and they have an awful lot of talent to admire.  Unfortunately, as yet the overall effect is a little muddled.  Entertaining chugs suddenly turn awkwardly introspective, and infectious party-on cowbell parts are abandoned at frustratingly odd junctures.  The set is like a Rubik’s cube that might be rearranged into a number of quality tracks, but at the moment is a tantalising jumble, not quite Zep-rock, not quite classic metal, and with uncertain nods towards prog.  Their cover of Sabbath’s “Electric Funeral” shows how good they can be when they stick to one furrow.  It’s OK for a song to do one thing well, but lots of Overlord’s song try to do 12 things, and wind up a bore.

 

Yellow Jack Swing

2 gigs this weekend, in tiny venues: lovely mixture of the inspired, the enjoyable and the deeply (klub) cack.  And half decent beer.  Stuff yer bloody O2 arena shows, sonny.  Here's something from The Tossalot.

What sort of music do you like?  Oh, you know, bit of everything.  Since about 2004 that has been the only answer given by anyone to this question.  Without exception.   Perhaps it’s now international statute and we somehow missed the announcement.  Whatever the reason, I really miss a time when people were honest about genre affiliations, and happily, even proudly, stated their predilection for trad jazz, northern soul, baroque, drum n bass, or what have you, because most of these “bit of everything” types secretly only really go to one sort of gig.  That’s partly why I like Skeletor promotions: they just say, “screw it, we like metal.  So here’s some metal.  Did we mention the metal?” 

And not only do they provide a much-needed metal service, they do it bloody well, offering monthly gigs mixing high calibre local and touring acts, sorting us much-needed drinks deals in the rather pricy Academy, and making suitably crass metal posters with all skeletons and that on.   They’re also not afraid to give stage time to Oxfordshire’s younger metal fraternity, giving exciting Academy shows to teenage bands who wouldn’t even be allowed into the majority of Oxford’s venues. 

You want technical metal, progressive metal, death metal, some other sort of metal that you might not be able to accurately categorise, but which is definitely metal?  Good on you, go to Skeletor, it’s fucking great for metal.  Unless you want stoner metal, in which case go to Buried In Smoke, who are equally great, but perhaps that’s another article for another day.

YELLOW FEVER/ BRIGHTWORKS/ DUCHESS, The Wheatsheaf, 3/1/14

Anyone who has been to the wrong student parties is wary of percussion: witnessing a stoned gaggle attempt to recreate side two of Exile On Main Street using only bongos and kitchen implements can put you off for life.  Still, in the right hands it can be a powerful tool, and Duchess are at their best when three of them are bashing, scraping or rubbing away at something sonorous, whilst chirpy pop vocals and African-influenced guitars gambol gaily over the top.  From the “Wild Side” fret slides at the start , to the Bow Wow Wow does Taiko clamour at the end,  Duchess’ set is a bundle of bouncy, upbeat glee, and if it might feel as though they’d dropped through a timewarp from a UCL charity bop in 1986, one’s cynicism can only survive as long as one’s feet remain still.

Brightworks also swipe a few Ghanaian guitar licks, but are an altogether odder proposition.  The mathpop trickeries are an interesting addition, albeit not one to raise many Oxonian eyebrows, but the vocalist is what really makes Brightworks unique, crooning poetic fragments with an atonal angst, whilst occasionally poking out rinky-dink lines on a tiny keyboard, like an emo John Shuttleworth.   Occasionally they remind us of rubbery 80s pranksters Stump, but in general easy reference points remain elusive.  Brightworks are many things throughout their set, and, frankly, “any good” isn’t always one of them, but we need artists whose output can’t be boiled down to a single hashtag.  Now more than ever.

Yellow Fever have always been fun, but in their early days they were happy to base their sound on Arctic Monkeys’ rabble pop, which placed them firmly in a comfortable, crowded field.  Over the past couple of years they’ve refined this sound, removing the blokey, everyman wallop and replacing it with either a taut intensity that brings them in line with local heroes Spring Offensive, or a freeze-dried fake funk that is a little like early Foals.  At their very best Alexis Panidis’ woodblock-heavy rhythms underpin (yet more) West African guitar twiddles and Dele Adewuyi’s quietly emphatic vocals smuggle in an emotional subtlety, and you can’t help but feel that another year or so will see them as one of Oxford’s very finest acts.