The Art Of Noise

2011: 25 gig salute

2012-01-03T09:38:00.000Z

An appraisal of the highlights of a year's gigging by this correspondent can now be found at the Vanity Project site.

CD Review: FAC. DANCE: Factory Records 12" Mixes & Rarities 1980-1987

2011-12-28T14:18:00.001Z

Those forking out huge amounts of money to see The Stone Roses’ reunion shows this Summer might be surprised to learn how unfashionable indie music was in certain quarters during the Eighties. While admitting to a liking for The Chesterfields of The Brilliant Corners was never something to be entered into lightly, even a penchant for the decade’s big hitters was often sneered at – The Smiths, Bunnymen and company were ‘white boy indie’, music for bedroom dwellers (as opposed to Alan McGhee’s later bedwetters) and often played out to sparse audiences.

This was never more the case than in Manchester itself. While the Roses and Mondays have been afforded retrospective credit for firing up The Hacienda, the boom that nonetheless failed to save such a poorly run concern was largely the result of Music of Black Origin – achingly trendy nights like Nude and Hot brought acid house and funk to the masses while Thursday’s Temperance night was a poor third in the hipster canon.

Given that Joy Division were already abandoning the post punk template on tracks such as Isolation, their successor band’s swift embracing of dance music should have come as no surprise. Sure, it was always leavened with a dose of guitar – not least from Mr. Hook himself, but interviews with the foursome have always seen them quick to distance themselves from their indie roots.

As the primary act on a label whose other main assets, A Certain Ratio and the Mondays also owed little to Swell Maps or the Buzzcocks, New Order’s influence in Factory was profound. As a unquestioning fan of the brand, I was quick to lap up anything to do with it – the rectangular cassette boxes drew me in and I was soon investigating every obscure act the label could produce.

Pre-internet, this was always difficult – so the release of a double album of early Factory rarities brought back a few memories. It’s not one for completists – the accent is largely on dance music (Stockholm Monsters do not appear) and all the songs are twelve inches . Also, neither New Order nor the Ratio feature – one suspects more box sets could be in the offing.

The result is a fascinating breakdown of the influences on early Factory from a host of acts which, given they nearly all hailed from the one city, represent a robust musical scene. An array of former punks, purveyors of industrial experimentation and other assorted council house kids and scenesters make up the dramatis personae and if the music seems raw in comparison to post-1987 house and techno, it’s a good overview of how England came to be influenced by the sounds of Detroit, Chicago and New York, while applying its own rain addled spin on things of course.

Several tracks are straight up commercial – Shark Vegas’s Pretenders of Love sees a soul diva wailing over a vaguely New Orderish beat but isn’t that far away from Go West territory, and three tracks from 52nd Street nod vigorously towards The Big Apple. John ‘Jelly Bean Benitez’ remixes the version of Cool as Ice herewith included and Diane Charlemagne (later to provide vocals on Goldie’s Inner City Life) lends vocals to a track that Paul Morley announced as NME Single of the Week on its release.

There are anomalies – The Durutti’s Column’s plaintive fretwork is out of place in a dance compliation, good as it is – but many of the oddities provoke respect at the breadth of the Factory roster – from the Trojan records style dub reggae of X-O-Dus to Blurt’s Beefheartian work-out on Puppeteer; from twelve minutes of minimalist clubby beats on The Hood’s Salvation to Swamp Children’s warbling that recalls a range of acts including The Beatles of Revolution Number 9 and The Slits.

Most rewarding ultimately though are Section 25 – especially on their album opener, Looking from a Hilltop and the curious Royal Family and the Poor, a front for the projections of just one man in Mike Keane and critically berated at the time. John Cooper Clarke lends vocals of a seriously situationist bent to Art on 45 and Motherland contains a breathless vocal croon over low key but luscious synths.

So, it’s a real pot pourri and naivete is very much to the fore – angular skinny white kids attempting to conjure up the spirit of The Paradise Garage while remaining in thrall to Throbbing Gristle doesn’t sound like a great combination, but it largely works and just about every track stands up as a historical timepiece. Congratulations to Strut Records for making it all available.

Film Review: Anyone Can Play Guitar

2011-12-19T21:05:00.000Z

What constitutes a scene? If Madchester and Merseybeat were defined by a restricted time period, the argument put forward by the makers of Anyone Can Play Guitar that Oxford had an identifiable flowering of talent – enough to define a city – seems unconvincing. A tradition maybe – after all, the bands that made up this grouping operated over a good ten to fifteen year period. Nonetheless, as a Berkshire boy trained to be suspicious of anything from the shadow of the dreaming spires (Joey Beauchamp included) , I was a little cynical on pressing ‘play’ – this despite having recently moved to the city and been talked into purchasing a copy of the DVD by the salesman at the marvellous Truck Store.

Add to that the paucity of the goods on offer. Radiohead? OK – genuinely good. Ride? Decent also – the commercial end of shoegaze they may have been and not a patch on My Bloody Valentine, but in retrospect a clear link between C86 and Britpop with some rattling good wig outs. Talulah Gosh? Vilified at the time for overdoing the tweeness – I liked them but then again I was a saddo. Supergrass? A sugar rush of singles but ultimately a trifle cartoonish. Foals? A ‘haircut band’ as Pitchfork would sniffily define them. As for the others - the acts that form the lion’s share of this documentary – the Candyskins, Swervedriver, The Unbelievable Truth, Rock of Travolta and some band called Dustball whom we were led to believe could have altered the whole course of musical history – footnotes surely.

But the brave attempt to start a record label in Shifty Disco, the establishment of the Zodiac as a premier live venue and club and those mainstays The Wheatsheaf and Jericho Tavern playing the Eric’s/Boardwalk role all provided a focus for Christminster’s disparate musicians to huddle around, and the thesis gradually becomes more convincing as the film continues, lugubriously narrated by Stewart Lee and starring a bevy of talking heads.

The result is a satisfying exploration of twenty years of indie music – a microcosm of the world at large with all the musical styles represented. Ed O’Brien represents Radiohead and there are engaging interviews with Mark Gardener of Ride and Gaz Coombes of the ‘Grass, as well as the movers and shakers from Shifty Disco itself. Sure, there’s no Thom Yorke but the movie ends up navigating the shark infested waters of copyright law rather well – Radiohead’s choicest cuts were presumably too expensive but other classics are present and correct. Fascinating too is the portrait of an eighties and nineties Oxford of a more down at heel tinge – not at the doorstep of the Bodleian I’ll grant you, but along the now suffocatingly gentrified Walton Street in particular.

But even more fascinating are the extra on the DVD with Andy Bell talking regretfully of his decision to allow The Sun to use Hurricane No. 1’s music and Mark Gardener trying to conceal his financial jealousy at his mate ending up in Oasis. Then, the Young Knives are wheeled out for a eye poppingly embarrassing interview – having initially refused to take part in the piece, they had a change of heart and treat us to half an hour of explaining why they are an Ashby-de-la-Zouch band as well as bemoaning the fact that their countryside homes disallowed them from properly exploring the Oxford nightlife – Keith Moon probably wouldn’t have let that stop him.

Magic moments

2011-12-11T11:46:00.003Z

The Magic Band.
London Scala. 30nov11.
Dublin Button Factory. 02dec11.
Nottingham Rescue Rooms. 07dec11.
Leeds Irish Centre. 08dec11.

What sells the Magic Band as being something more than merely a Captain Beefheart tribute act is the fact that they contain some genuine ‘originals’, people who recorded and played out Don Van Vliet’s music with the man himself at the helm.

The stories around the recording of their most celebrated LP, Trout Mask Replica, where the band were essentially contained within a house under Van Vliet’s sometimes brutal dictatorship for nine months until the complicated sounds were tightly perfected, are sometimes exaggerated, but not by much. Two of the soldiers that went through those productive, but harrowing, POW-like experiences are represented here in the form of bassist Mark Boston (named ‘Rockette Morton’ by Van Vliet) and drummer John French (aka ‘Drumbo’).

With Van Vliet not only retired from the music business since 1982, but also departing this mortal coil in December of last year, you have a team without their captain, but with French as the most ‘loyal’ Magic Band member (in terms of albums recorded and tours undertaken, and the man often charged with turning Van Vliet’s unorthodox creativity into a readable musical ‘score’), it is appropriate that he should fill those big shoes.

Thankfully, French is an excellent blues singer in his own right, taking his cue from Van Vliet in much the same way as Van Vliet did from Howlin’ Wolf. Whilst he hasn’t got quite the same range, the growl is as hearty as you need to capture the essence of what watching Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band live must have been all about.

I was four years old when Beefheart retired and as such relish any opportunity to witness what is as close to the real thing as you could get. Okay so previous ‘Magic Band’ tours have seen a full complement of former colleagues in the Beefheart line-ups (Gary Lucas and Robert Williams no longer being involved), and are now augmented by drummer Craig Bunch and guitarist Erik Klerks, the latter of which was just one when the last Beefheart album was released, but with French, Boston and Denny ‘Feelers Rebo’ Whalley still in place, ‘experienced’ hands still remain on the tiller.

John French reported two years ago that there would be no further Magic Band tours as it was just too complicated to generate sufficient interest from promoters. However, a calling to play at another All Tomorrow’s Parties event has meant a return to touring action. However, with the prospect that the curtain may come down again at any point, I was determined to make the most of this seven date tour, arranging to attend four.

One thing you notice when witnessing the same set four times in eight days is that the highlights will not always be the same. In London, When It Blows It Stacks was of most significance as it marked the point the band settled into their rhythm. Prior to that, for the first twenty minutes, they looked very much like a band who hadn’t played on stage together for a good couple of years, and were undergoing some first night nerves. After that hurdle was overcome however, we were treated to nigh on a further two hours of Beefheart music played beautifully.

The roar after Big Eyed Beans From Venus closed the set, well after curfew, was testament to the excitement with which this return to the stage was being met. Naughty boys that they are though, as French attempted to meet the demands for an encore with an un-set-listed version of the a capella piece Orange Claw Hammer, the plug was pulled on the amplification. Does what is essentially a spoken word piece actually count as breaking the terms of the live music license?

It was over to Ireland for the second date of the tour, and here Clear Spot was raising its head above the parapet, whilst it was also becoming clear that while the start of the set was now coming out with requisite confidence, Steal Softly Through Snow might not be the most effective set opener, even if it does set up some of the more intricate playing that we can come to expect later on.

Whilst tunes like Click Clack are in the set for fans of the bluesier end of the material (French: “they say you’re not a blues band unless you got a train song”), there is also Hair Pie and Smithsonian Institute Blues for those keener on the jagged psychedelia side. Midway through the set, during a winding coda to Kandy Korn, French takes over the drum-stool for an instrumental set. Rather than being half an hour for the musos, for me this is one of the most exciting parts. After all, if you’ve paid, partly, to see ‘Drumbo’, Captain Beefheart’s ‘senior’ drummer, you want to see him, well, drum. In the midst of this is a solo which might be viewed as indulgent but actually fits perfectly between On Tomorrow and Alice In Blunderland. French’s drum stool slot ends with My Human Gets Me Blues which in combination with the subsequent Suction Prints would probably be my favourite part of the set, taken over all four nights. Two pieces which fly off in odd directions and go atonal to a certain degree and yet make the feet twitch. Who says you can’t dance to Beefheart? This is the finest dance music ever made.

In Nottingham, the band added Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning to the set to pay tribute to Wolf’s guitarist Hubert Sumlin, who had died earlier that week; their anecdotes about meeting him touchingly showing that, at heart, they were as much giddy fanboys as those of us turned out to watch them.

On the final night of the tour, in Leeds, French admitted to pulling on the glottal reserves after a heavy personal workload on stage over the course of the jaunt, but the on stage energy did not lapse. Taking place in a working mens club style venue with Christmas decorations obliterating the ceiling, and festive trees upon the stage, the atmosphere took on an added sense of celebration. Here, Nowadays A Woman’s Gotta Hit A Man took on highlight duties, possibly helped by the fact that more ladies were evidence in the audience, and indeed down the front in Drumbo’s eyeline, than at any other show.

Further quality moments were ones we’ve come to expect from a Magic Band set: Floppy Boot Stomp heaving into view like a Fiat Punto through a front room window; Circumstances taking cheeky liberties with two false endings but also taking no prisoners with the force of the inhale/exhale harmonica; Electricity which isn’t hurried, allowed to ebb and pulse tantrically, elongated as though it is suddenly a new age club anthem, and finally Big Eyed Beans From Venus where Denny Whalley’s lunar note floats with a similar sense of forthcoming ‘release’.

So, was it worth seeing them so often in the space of just over a week? Without doubt, as Beefheartian sounds are always ones which reward repeated listening, and the Magic Band perform that material with a real gusto, making it come alive in a way that records can only suggest.

Let's have a party? Go on then

2011-11-09T12:16:00.002Z

Wanda Jackson.
Kings Cross Scala. 07nov11.

“I’m ready to rock. I know you are” purrs rockabilly grande dame Wanda Jackson as she glides on in a tassled jacket of eye-gouging pink and beneath a suspiciously jet-black bouffant. In her field of vision as she surveys her crowd are younger ladies with a vintage fashion fetish; psychobilly thirty-somethings looking for an insight into the gentler beginnings of their favoured fare; senior girls (around our star turn’s age bracket) in leather jackets and heavy eyeliner; and old lads still displaying their 50’s pompadours like peacocks, albeit with a little more room in the quiff for air to circulate.

Her backing band for UK dates, Wes McGhee’s London Partytimers, are suited, booted and well-drilled. “Finest band I work with” says Wanda, causing one of her charges to remark “I bet you say that to all the boys”. Not so apparently, “You should hear what I say to the others… I’ve only killed about three drummers” she retorts, the wit every bit as sharp as the voice.

Indeed that voice is remarkably well preserved in its 75th year; grazed yelps, glottal howls and country-gal yodelling all still within range, and kept just on the right side of a Sunday night knees up at Joe Maplin’s. Funnel Of Love in particular, as it sashays about on tiptoes, is magnificent.

Riot In Cell Block #9 is an ideal opener for establishing the spirit of the evening, and Let’s Have A Party hardly pushes a stick between the spokes in this regard. As much as parade of ‘hits’, it is a night for storytelling and although the strolling oratory sometimes gazes at the trophy cabinet for perhaps overly elongated periods, you can hardly blame a Rock n’ Roll Hall of Famer who has both worked with and dated Elvis, scored #1’s in Japan and had a street named after them in Oklahoma City for not hiding their light under bushel when it can be brought out and used to illuminate the evening of their career.

Indeed it was Elvis who dragged her from the security blanket of country music into the hazards of the “new stuff, as we called it then”, but she was to flit between the genres many times, and Hank Williams’ I Saw The Light is a mood shifting moment of the set when she lays on the line her religious beliefs and pinpoints the moment, 40 years ago, when she took the Lord into her heart.

However in terms of ‘how I got where I am today’ influences, Jack White takes almost equal billing with Jesus Christ. His production of her recent, and fabulous, LP The Party Ain’t Over (released earlier this year) is represented with a suite of numbers as we come into the final stretch of the set.

There might be a slight glitch with the pitch on Rip It Up, with Wanda apologetic (but no-one minds), but the manual fade out and back up on Nervous Breakdown is thrilling, whilst the version of Amy Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good is performed with a brilliantly unsettling septuagenarian lasciviousness. Despite asking Jack White to tweak the lyrics of the second verse to make them more “age appropriate”, Wanda keeps with the carpet burns line and also suggestively rests her index finger on his bottom lip, her mouth forming a roguish O as the song comes to its instrumental close.

There is a huge cheer as she reveals she has been recording for 57 years, a keenness to bop as her big in Japan moment Fujiyama Mama plays out, and a slight retreat as she flings unsolicited water at the front row. Despite the worn-on-the-sleeve Christianity, Wanda Jackson clearly retains a mischievousness from her salad days. Thus, performing in front of several generations at once, she remains right at home.

After the wheel

2011-10-31T20:31:00.003Z

Blurt.
Deptford Bird’s Nest. 28oct11.

Given that guitarist Steve Eagles and Ted Milton (vocalist, saxophonist and the sun around which the world of Blurt orbits) have turned out in suits (albeit with t-shirts rather than ties beneath), it seems slightly wrong that Blurt should be playing out in the alcove of a South London boozer with a gap of about five feet between the stage and the sound desk.

Whatever the space available, it is well filled with bodies gazing intently at the band leader, as his jaw juts out, his face contorts and he taps about like a chap who’s taken a bag of poppers to a tea dance. It’s a home town show for Ted though so he doesn’t have far to walk to sleep it off comfortably.

“Yes! I hear they’ve invented the wheel, since you’ve been away from me” goes the lyric of ‘Plunge’, a highlight of the evening’s set, and indeed most inventions post that epiphanous moment in human history have occurred since Blurt first began troubling audiences. Thirty two years on stage has certainly not diminished Ted Milton’s energy, being the squalling scattergun over the bedrock provided by Eagles cyclical guitar and Dave Aylward’s angsty, shuffling drum beats.

Ted moves between sax and singing regularly with both his instrument and his vocal chords undertaking the same role; howling, wavering, slaloming, shooting and flailing over the sturdy brickwork put up by his bandmates, like a manic Jackson Pollock artwork being superimposed over a stubborn Rothko.

Tonight’s set was less reliant on tracks from 2010 LP ‘Cut It!’ than I’ve experienced in the past, but Blurt have a fine body of jazz-spattered post-punk work upon which to draw and show no signs yet of being satisfied with resting on their laurels.

Drum lift me up

2011-08-26T11:12:00.003Z

Charles Hayward
Shoreditch Catch. 25aug11

In the mid-70’s, This Heat provided a bridge between the German progressive rock scene and UK post-punk, incorporating loops to advance a pre post-rock, eerie industrial sound. Following their disbanding in 1982, drummer Charles Hayward went on to play with Camberwell Now, Gong, About Group, Monkey Puzzle Trio and Blurt, as well as undertaking session work with groups ranging from Everything But The Girl to Hot Chip to Crass. In addition, he has performed in a number of free improvisation collectives, as well as performing solo.

To some the idea of a drummer doing a solo show will no doubt bring one of two thoughts to mind; noodling prog acts giving their sticksman an ego boost and their guitarists a fag break; or a council- funded community rhythm workshop. Charles Hayward fits neither profile.

First of all one must disengage from the idea of the drum solo which tends to be a case of “let me show you how quickly I can hit all these drums”, and into the idea of the drum lift, where the vocal is of equal prominence. Indeed, the drums are never chaotic, every beat and fill dovetailing with the pre-recorded bleeps and synth washes; Hayward staring roguishly into the middle distance whilst projecting his fragile vocal.

“My maaaaad-ness” he begins, the glint in his gaze increasingly vivid, before moving smoothly into a groove that feet can respond to. A kindly, mildly eccentric presence, he later rises from his stool to pause one song for a good thirty seconds just so that he might peer out at us incredulously.

Rather than showcase lightning speed, he is unafraid to use space and the pregnant pause, whilst his experience of free improvisation means the catatonic beat is consistently side-stepped whenever a full-on groove threatens to take-hold.

The lyrics tend to be the repetitive hook, cycling around a kind of 21^st century paranoia; “information rich, information poor” he intones as mantra, at one point backed only by shaken maracas. He may only be one 60 year old man inside one drum set but Charles Hayward’s sets not only engage, they haunt.

*photo found online and was taken at Sonar Festival in 2007.

Shout, shout...job done

2011-08-16T11:18:00.004Z

Bearsuit.
Old Blue Last. 14aug11.

Time was there were six of these bears, with flutes, horns and all kinds of caper that clattered about like prodigious toddlers high on sugary contraband. They had a disarming tweeness to beckon people towards them, to wriggle under stroking hands like a playful kitten, only to then morph into a beast of pure malevolence, launching the suckerpunch assault of caterwauling chaos.

Now there are five of them and the wind and brass have been replaced with a greater emphasis on synths and while it’s not different per se, it’s certainly not entirely the same. Not that singer and guitarist Iain Ross sees it this way, suggesting by way of introduction here into Foxy Boxer (an atypical ‘oldie' this evening) that “we’ve only got six songs, it’s all the same formula isn’t it – shout, shout.”

However, if they do only have finite methods, they are clearly keener to play the newer versions born of them than delve into the back catalogue. As if to plant a big new footprint down upon the world of pop, their set is top heavy with material from their latest LP The Phantom Forest with popular singles from their earlier years, such as Drink Ink, Stephen F****** Spielberg and Itsuko Got Married, seemingly put out to pasture.

Amidst Joe Naylor’s frisky drumming and the vocal and instrumental fidget provided by three original members Ross, Jan Robertson and Lisa Horton, Charlene Katuwawala is a fairly low key presence but her gritty bass is vital in underpinning the ever increasing maturity within the Bearsuit sound.

With an electro-pop tune like When Will I Be Queen, so bright you could floodlight a goods yard with it, and in A Train Wreck a glorious song which marries a hymnal harmony with both ripening art-pop and post-punk thrust, it is clear that Bearsuit have added plenty to their toolshed since their salad days.

Thankfully though, we cannot look at the Bears and consider them all grown up as fundamentals of the Melt Banana-esque whizz and skid which dictated the pace of their early tunes are still extant in Princess, You’re A Test and, even more vividly, Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop which top and tail tonight’s set.

While there appears to be less of that well defined cutesy-abandon-leading-to-frenzied-assault element, there is still a roughness around their edges and a sense of requiring to surrender to them; that to not be seen dancing during their sets is to meet with their eye-narrowing displeasure.

2011-05-22T14:22:00.003Z

Donaufestival
Krems, 05-07may11

The donaufestival plays out over two consecutive weekends in Krems, a town sixty minutes away from Vienna by train. Krems has been transformed in recent years with cultural spaces breaking out in an old tobacco factory (Kunsthalle) and a former monastery (Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche) and has dragged a type of city-based arts culture to a picturesque town on the banks of the Danube or, as they would have it, the Donau.

The previous weekend’s line up included esoteric delights such as John Cale, WU LYF and James Blake as well as the gallery exhibitions, performance art and theatrical pieces that continue over to this weekend.

News at the end of last year that Carla Bozulich (formerly of Ethyl Meatplow and The Geraldine Fibbers, now a sonic adventurer both solo and with her Evangelista group) would not only be curating parts of the second weekend, but also putting together a one-off performance to take place in the Minoritenkirche was certainly the hook that reeled me in.

Entitled ‘Eyes & Ears 5: Under The Skin’ it would continue a series of site specific performances that Carla has put together, and use the resonant monastic space to its full potential, rather than having the stage as the sole focal point. In that respect it worked wonderfully, the audience on being allowed to enter wandering between players arranged around the room, with films projecting across the space onto side walls, and also so that flickering images cascaded down the central pillars, encasing us as though in a cage of static electricity.

Then, with the rap of a drum, Carla entered dragging a gong, the musicians leaving their perches to join the full collective on stage (some returning to the floor later to mirror on-stage drum clash, or to offer a mid-set trumpet vigil). Following the entrance, elements of her regular performance weaved in, such as using a child’s mini-microphone toy to sing through her guitar pick-ups [below] like a wailing widow about to turn her mind to vengeance. Baby, That’s The Creeps from the astonishing 2006 Evangelista LP allowed her to go walkabout, descending into the crowd like a preacher; all that’s missing is the hand placed on foreheads and the subsequent flailing limbs.

That is what Carla captures so well in her music, an outsider-art hunger firing practically Pentecostal turbulence. If you’ll forgive me quoting myself, I said in a prior review that “When fully flaunted, [Carla’s voice] is like a feral growl contained in a rickety cage; burnt yet eager, sharing the kind of ragged timbre one might associate with the Rev. C.L. Franklin as he looms over a pulpit roaring the gospel.” That gives a sense of the dark and tattered melodrama just within the music and thus a visual theatricality can be interlaced without it feeling too ‘forced’.

As I say though, as much as it is a chance for Carla to perform this exclusive work, the festival also allowed her the opportunity to showcase both her contemporaries and her heroes. In the case of the latter, the first night was top heavy with them, both Laurie Anderson and Lydia Lunch appearing in the Messegelände main hall: Halle 1.

In what was essentially a full live performance of Laurie Anderson’s latest album Homeland, washes of slender synth ambience underpinned stories, parables and jokes essaying the ten post-9/11 years. At one point, Anderson sat in an oversize armchair speaking to us as though we were grandchildren eager to learn about life during wartime mostly through being on a promise of some toffees. The piercing moments when Anderson picks up her violin act as the start, finish and ‘turn-tape-over’ moments for a set that is otherwise like a ninety minute hypnosis reel.

Later Lydia Lunch also offered a performance of an entire LP, in her case her 1980 debut Queen Of Siam (apparently for the first time, although a tour will follow), and was a much livelier watch; ‘no wave’ era rock n’ roll delivered with a strident PVC boot. Lunch’s group offer a post-punk take on Broadway swing, a gothic cocktail jazz, over which Lunch growls and sways. The highlight of the set was when Atomic Bongos fired out, inspiring here a dancing stage invasion from our curator.

Offering a similar vibrant spirit, despite also now being of ‘veteran’ status, was Marc Ribot and his group Ceramic Dog ( Messegelände Halle 2). Ches Smith running his drum stick along the edge of a cymbal, Shahzad Ismaely pressing at his bass guitar and Ribot tickling his strings so they twinkle; such were the beginnings before they moved into more robust territory, unleashing an unhinged part-surf-part-Hendrix-part-fusion-freak-out stripped down and sinewy blues.

Ribot’s set was certainly a fine way to close the first evening but possibly not quite as impressive as its opening act. Cult-like propaganda videos, golf tutorials, the dark thoughts of unknown children captured on found Talkboy tapes featured among the collaged ‘samples’ that play out in synchronicity on a screen behind The Books (Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche) [above]. These found visuals and sounds are the kind of foundations upon which our three players build their jazz-trained whimsy beyond-New-Age expanse towards a 21st century folk music celebrating the technology as well as the spirit of the age. For Free Translator, the lyrics of an old folk song are filtered through a number of online translators, through many a language, a dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards phrasing coming out the other side.

Pretty sprightly stuff but, despite this as the kick-off; dense noise and intense sound collage was also well represented at the festival. Hiss Tracts (Minoritenkirche) grouped members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Fly Pan Am and Growing to offer chimes, rolling bells and a terrifying haunted rush. Their half hour piece wandered shimmering like a river and before too long the drone was all enveloping, before eventually petering out to bird song and black.

The darkness continued over at the Evangelische Kirche. Like Hiss Tracts, Tim Hecker has a dark undercurrent but with far more glimpses of light, a sense of hopefulness shimmering out of his deep-think drone. Moving between apocalyptic lows and ethereal highs, a strange divinity occurred perhaps through his interactions with the organ sound.

The following day at Minoritenkirche, Barn Owl would also offer dark soundscapes, although these were evocative of the desert, and of tribalist mysticism. One guitar delved into the underbelly, whereas the other overarched a light swirling with the occasional vocal howl; like Morricone in a dust bowl sky darkened by the swirl.

Another intensive sonic experience the festival offered was former Cabaret Voltaire man and field-recording troubadour Chris Watson who offered a live performance (Kunsthalle) entitled ‘A Journey South’. Less a gig than it was lecture and slideshow, Watson talked through his experiences recording on location in the Ross sea, Antarctica, at the start of last year detailing the transformation of sea ice from solid to fluid in the Austral summer season. Interesting as this was, his collection of recordings such as pressure ridges, glacial caving, melt water and deep ocean current were best experienced as a sound collage installation running throughout the festival in the same room. Invited to lie down on cushions, the quadraphonic sounds attacked and doused as water and ice collided, capturing the ebb and flow as a force of seismic change rather than something gentle and calming.

Another act at the festival offered a similar intensity to the likes of Hecker and Barn Owl, only adding a sense of playfulness, was Gambletron and her ‘Extreme Karaoke set’ ( Messegelände Halle 2) where members of the audience chose the tracks that they would then re-interpret live with noise artiste Lisa Gamble. Watching a keen Carla Bozulich throw herself into a George Michael re-invention was certainly the highlight, despite the best efforts of the lay punters. Certainly a niche product but the right environment for it.

If anything, what the ‘noise’ acts were missing was a beat. Factory Floor [above], however, were on hand (Halle 2) to offer both intensity and pulse; their incessant palpitations underpinning a detached brutal malevolence. Bows attack guitars, vocals are moaned out like injury, beats pulsate like heart attack and when they are on form they ensnare like a venus fly trap.

If this festival bill sounds a bit unyielding dark, then acts later in the weekend offered some lighter relief. Electro flavour of the month, Gold Panda (Halle 2) [below] uplifted without being mindlessly euphoric, Snow & Taxis being a giddy highlight in this respect, while Mount Kimbie (Halle 1) overcame technical difficulties and a dull first impression to seep themselves in slowly.

The Irrepressibles (Halle 1) were certainly very different from anything else on the bill, but went down a treat. My only previous encounter with them was at a cold and wet Bandstand Busking event at Victoria Park last year. There were only about thirty watching, but even in more stripped down conditions it was clear from their choreographed movement that there was more to them than just (just!) the grandiose chamber pop sound. So here they presented their ‘Mirror Spectacle’, reflections making it appear as the more than just (just!) the 9 of them, in their full fallen angel/marionette kit and make-up caboodle.

Death From Above 1979 used the same space (Halle 1) with just the two in the personnel. Back five years after calling it a premature day, bass (and sometimes synth) combined with the drum set to fire out a red hot pop thrash. In Halle 2, Candelilla also offered a power pop style, without being as one dimensional in pace. From the Heavens To Betsy end of Riot Grrl in spirit, the interweaving vocal lines captivated with the simplest of tools.

As the festival drew to a close on the Saturday night, electro and synth ruled the roost, with Ladytron (Halle 1) promoting their new ‘Best Of’ LP with, as you might imagine, a set crammed with career highlights. Had they asked me to write their set list to my specification, I’d have likely come up with something similar to them (although I’m Not Scared would have been very welcome). Early numbers betrayed a slight rustiness, their last record proper ‘Velocifero’ having come out three years ago with live performances few and far between in the last two years, but they soon warmed up to the task, Discotraxx and Destroy Everything You Touch being distinct highlights.

Three days in then, one o’clock in the morning and Bordeaux’s Kap Bambino (Halle 2) are tasked with closing out the festival. No wind down is allowed though as Caroline Martial rips across the stage, like a pocket version of bubblegum and biker leathers period Madonna, bouncing incessantly and making an astonishing impact for their time slot as the room succumbs to dancing with an abandon not seen in the three days hitherto. So, after a weekend that has often been about the art of music, we are brought to a flurrying dervish of a climax by a band for whom the body response is of equal validity to the effect upon the mind.

Nimble round the neck

2011-05-13T21:31:00.003Z

Meaghan Burke, Dead Western.
Vienna Rhiz. 04may11.

Despite being a native of New York, Meaghan Burke is, as a result of living in Vienna for a number of years, being asked to represent the city’s pop scene at the Popfest Wien free festival. This is the warm-up and it is clear that the anomaly is two-fold: her being merely an adopted daughter, but also that the music she makes is only on the barest of nodding terms with ‘pop’.

That said there are hi-jinks in her business, an embroidered, fresh-faced charm; the manner in which she beams, sporting the ivory being a facial equivalent of Doris Day greeting the day’s business with a windmill slap of a thigh.

Yet she marries this innocence with regular dips into Diamanda Galas style melodrama, the voice flitting and swooping like a swallow, elasticising from trills to treacle. The other act this evening, Dead Western, do something a little similar in that respect, but their singer Troy Mighty’s facial mugging whilst exaggerating his vocal depth only succeeds in grating rather than beguiling. Meaghan Burke’s singing style feels much more natural, and it thus follows that her lyrics about bed bugs and such pass under the radar of irritation.

What might not beat the radar for some listeners is that this is very much a voice and cello performance, with no looping and no gradation. There is not even a reliance on heavy bowing to layer a warming underbelly, the neck of her instrument more often plucked or beaten.

Yet despite this plain set-up, the sound is agile and lively, moving across smoky blues, nimble jazz and scattergun torch song and back with barely a blink.

goodbye dry eyes...

2011-05-10T06:41:00.002Z

Notes from the Departure Lounge:

John Maus died over the weekend at the age of 67 after losing his battle against cancer. The name might not mean much to you, and it's possible that his stage name of John Walker won't reverberate that much louder to your ears.... but Maus was the founder member, guitarist and original lead singer of the Walker Brothers. The band was subsequently, and more famously, fronted by the honeyed baritone of their bassist, Noel Scott Engel.... that's Scott Walker to you and me.

Scott Walker is probably my favourite singer of all time. I love the way that he turned his back on a life of proto-Beatles pop adulation to write and perform songs of existentialism and death and Brecht and Brel covers to an increasingly baffled teen audience; an audience that, not surprisingly, soon deserted him for less complicated pleasures. Scott Walker's later career has seen him become a virtual recluse, producing an album at a rate of less than one a decade, chasing a muse that seems increasingly bleak and inaccessible and, famously, uses things like a side of pork as a percussion instrument. All a pretty far cry from the golden years of the Walker Brothers. Songs like "Make it Easy on Yourself" and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Any More)" are certainly melancholy, but that lush instrumentation and the golden voice meant that the band reached an audience of millions.

Knowing the direction that Scott Walker's career took, it's tempting to see John's role in the band, together with drummer Gary, as being nothing more than supporting musicians who got very, very lucky. There's a scene in the Scott Walker documentary, "30 Century Man", where the band are sitting enjoying tins of brown ale and talking about why they're in the band. John and Gary talk about the money and the girls; Scott looks straight down the camera, unsmiling, and says that he's in it for the music, and I believe him. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was "musical differences" that broke the Walker Brothers up in 1968. They reformed successfully with "No Regrets" in 1975, but the different agendas of the band members were laid bare on 1978s "Nite Flights". There are 12 songs on the album, and each member of the band contributed four. The first four were by Scott, and they are a clear signal of the direction that was to shape his subsequent career: dark, oblique and featuring a song ("The Electrician") that seems to be about torture. The jump from that into far more conventional "The Death of Romance" by Gary could scarcely be starker.

Of course, for all that their might be more than a grain of truth in that assumption about the roles played within the band, John tells a different story in his version:

"I was always the leader of the band. I was the one who said, 'Let's do this, let's do that.' I spent a great deal of time making sure that the group would make incredible music. Most people don't realise that it was I who chose the songs that would become The Walker Brothers' biggest-selling singles..... I was aware that things had changed a lot: Scott had become the lead singer of the group... Now that he was singing lead, I enjoyed the opportunity to create some unusual harmonies, something I had never done before. We knew that we each had an important role, and felt responsible to each other, with one goal in mind, which was to make good records that were unique for the time."

It's also worth nothing that John recorded a version of Jacques Brel's "If You Go Away" in 1967 (it's the title track of his album of that year).... Scott recorded his much more famous version for Scott 3 a whole two years later in 1969......

RIP.

House music

2011-04-25T11:09:00.005Z

No Babies, Meddicine
Dalston Lane house show. 23apr11.

With galactic projections ebbing and flowing on the back wall of what was once someone’s lounge, one might expect an ambient swirl from Meddicine but not a bit of it. Instead the beats are uncomplicated and firm of wrist, Monika’s treated vocals colliding with synth stabs and drones. However she seems to suffer both from technical difficulties and the short attention span of a grindcore goldfish, as the pieces are too limited in their length to really bed in. As a groove begins to flow, it’s cut off in its prime; a row of electro ox-bow lakes. As a set of short, sharp vignettes it’s a little slender and would certainly benefit if the set were to be more cohesive with a touch more bob and weave.

Meddicine uses the back wall projection to divert from her retiring stage presence. If No Babies were to do the same, it would be a shameful waste of electricity as at no point would anyone be looking at it. Indeed audience eyes rarely rest even upon drummer Sean simply for the fact he’s somewhat anchored to his post. The others meanwhile seem keen to mingle.

It is abundantly clear when one watches a band make like amateur joggers and undertake a series of stretching exercises and pumps, that what you’re about to watch will not exactly be like Van Morrison tilting his fedora as a single concession to movement.

All five members raise the arms in the air to synchronise their body clocks and provide a fleeting calm prior to the storm they are about to unlock. When it comes it’s like being hit, and for those in the front row it’s more than a simile, as the mobile members of the band treat their audience as a boundary that has to be tested. For singer Kim, we are like the hedges at Hampton Court maze, darting in, out and around, disappearing for some time then crawling out between some legs.

For guitarist Yacob and saxophonist Misha we are more the rubber coating on their Bedlam bedroom, hurling themselves backwards into the watching collective as if oblivious to the hefty instruments they’re twirling about.

For twenty minutes they unleash a kind of Melt Banana meets Black Flag stop/start hardcore aligned with When Big Joan Sets Up bath-tub-down-a-hill jazz chaos, and then down tools, possibly as an act of mercy. No Babies create a twitchy angst funk, an utterly beastly racket twinned with a rather invigorating noise.

Here's the science bit...

2011-03-25T12:04:00.005Z

Matt & Kim.
Highbury Garage. 23mar11.

Matt Johnson & Kim Schifino first sprung out of the Brooklyn scene in 2004 and it’s hard to imagine that they’ve changed much in the past seven years. After all, the synth playing never sweeps into show-pony virtuosity, the singing is not rich with variation and if Kim is drumming on a track, it is likely to fire out like a buffalo stampede.

Incidentally, if Kim is NOT playing on a track, she will most likely be found stood atop her drums with arms raised, or stepping out onto the supportive hands of the crowd to dance above their heads. While doing this, and even when playing her instrument, an extreme grin never leaves her face, as though the corners of her mouth have been introduced to her cheekbones by way of a staple-gun.

Clearly Matt & Kim learned their trade playing loft parties and front rooms but their skill comes in translating that experience to larger settings. I have seen them twice now, here in a sold out 650 capacity room, and in front of thousands on the Vice stage at Primavera Sound last May. On both occasions, a sizeable body of onlookers have responded like a drunk teen bouncing over the heads of their friends in their parents' garage.

The Principle of the Conservation of Energy tells us that energy can never be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another. In keeping with this principle, Matt, Kim and their audience rebound the revving oomph between each other; the room effervescing to a critical mass. At which point the balloons are released. Not from the ceiling, no – that would be a bit too glitzy showbiz – instead, balloons are thrown into the crowd to be inflated individually and later released on cue.

This is not to say that Matt & Kim don’t use that old showbiz trick of making the audience feel as though they are more involved than any prior audience – and are seeing something different, more intense, than anything the band has hitherto delivered. They claim their last visit to London, at the tiny Old Blue Last, was their sweatiest show. They reference it often, as though the perspiration levels are on a Blue Peter totaliser, until Kim announces after a while that a new bar has been set.

Canard it may be, yet when Matt exclaims “it’s never been like this” several times late in the set in response to the wild enthusiasm of the crowd, he does appear genuinely moved and overcome by delight. “This makes us realise we have to come here more often” he says, at which point the room registers its clear interest in keeping in closer touch.

Photo by wumpie woo (taken 2009)

Behind the counter

2011-02-27T09:35:00.003Z

Veronica Falls
Islington Flashback Records. 25feb11.

The time not to make an in-store appearance at a record shop that deals only in second hand merchandise is about a year after releasing an LP. Seeing twenty copies of your magnum opus stacked up with ever decreasing amounts stickered onto the cover would, I imagine, do little for the collective morale.

As such, Veronica Falls pitch up at Flashback at an ideal time, as their debut LP has yet to appear, despite their spending the last 18 months being a support band of choice for Teenage Fanclub, Vivian Girls and Slow Club amongst others as well as being followed and tipped by various players in the radio and press.

Tonight we crowd into this tiny outlet, pushing the band back not only behind the counter but into the office section further beyond. On the cluttered mezzanine, the four members huddle together as though having been cornered by a gang of cosh-wielding muggers who’ve at least given them the chance to busk their way out of a beating.

Even with the matter of the staging put to one side, this is a show that captures a band out of their comfort zone. Ordinarily their shows will often see the reverb pressed to the metal, but tonight the guitars and bass work out of practise amps turned way up to, well, about three, the drums are quashed with a couple of gaudy beach towels whilst the vocals are amplified only by theatrical instinct.

Yet, this challenging environment brings out the best of them as they are forced to work that little bit harder, trying out slightly different harmonies on tunes such as the great Beachy Head where it appears, on the approach in, that the lack of their more natural volume might render the usual punch in these tunes a little flaccid in the wrist.

Instead, they turn a potential crisis of performance to an opportunity, on the quiet, to peacock their janglist nous.

Here Zea gear

2011-02-02T13:15:00.004Z

Zea
Dalston Café OTO. 30jan11.

Sweat surges from Arnold De Boer’s forehead and scalp, dripping from his chin with such regularity that a stalagmite begins to form next to his floor monitor.

When I first saw Zea, back in 2003, there were two of ‘em, but a 50% cut in manpower means Remko Muermans is no longer involved. The songs were always Arnold’s in the most part anyway yet you’d have thought with his workload playing and singing with post-punk heroes The Ex, he’d have welcomed a bit of help on stage.

However for yer modern day Zea experience Arnold is handling all duties: vocals, guitar and electronics. Thus it is should be no surprise that his face appears to process more water than the Grand Coulee Dam.

This tour is supporting his fourth LP The Beginner and as a result the vast majority of the set comprises material from that record. Which means no Counting Backwards Leads To Explosions or We Buried Indie Rock Years Ago; two fine singles which, if they were mine, I’d rather be inclined to show off.

Yet this LP has signalled a growth, and a sound clearly influenced in part by Arnold’s recent excursions to Ethiopia and Ghana with The Ex and where his Zea gear was also toured. Traditional elements of his sound, bringing a They Might Be Giants lightness of touch to Chinese-burn fuzz-punk and hectic electro are present and correct, but are joined in the new stuff by a gonzo Africana on tracks like Song For Electricity (a track based on Bogiye by Abonesh Andrew) and I Follow Up Front.

Both are highlights this evening, as are Staande ben ik vergeten wat ik dacht toen ik lag which works a desert baggy groove, and Armpit Elastica where an almost happy hardcore beat is thrown down with lyrics that don’t stretch far from a repeated “I got this itch…”. During this, with no need to carry a guitar, Arnold is free to dance about, and uses this opportunity to hammer out tippy-toe pigeon steps, like Scooby Doo trying to sneak quietly but quickly into a snack-laden pantry.

The real treat though is Bourgeois Blues where the Leadbelly track is updated using the lyrics from The Fall’s Bourgeois Town version, but with a sparse, isolated arrangement where Arnold obtains his pulsing beat by working the fret-board.

Not allowed to leave until putting down two encores, one including the fiery Parked Forever, Arnold beams from ear-to-ear as he insists we all stick around to join him for a drink.

Think it’s fair to say he can chalk this one up as a triumph.

Popping up, early doors

2011-01-02T14:52:00.004Z

Shellac.
Highbury Garage. 01jan11.

Shellac are not indefatigable tourers by any means, indeed playing live often just means a little time away from the office for guitarist and vocalist Steve Albini and bassist Bob Weston, the pair being respected recording engineers in the day-to-day.

So, to find them playing their first show of 2011 just 12 hours into it, and just 13 hours after their last show of 2010 (playing for All Tomorrow’s Parties with Sonic Youth and The Pop Group at Hammersmith Apollo), should probably not be taken as them starting the year as they mean to go on.

A mercantile machine they certainly are not. There is nothing in the merch booth this afternoon except for members of ATP staff, Bob Weston’s wife and a couple of toasters, as they distribute Pop Tarts, for free.

Like their gigs, the usual schedule anyway, Shellac’s albums are also sporadic concerns, although Weston claims that there will be a new record “at some point in the future”, and that it’ll be called Dude, Incredible. One heckler then offers Electric Sledgehammer as an option, which is immediately shot down as being ludicrous.

This banter is a fairly regular feature of the afternoon, with more bonhomie than one might expect. From afar Albini can appear to be a thorny, obsessive compulsive type and one heckler asks why Steve “was in such a bad mood last night?” “I was positively sparkling” he replies.

Indeed, you would imagine there would be plenty of bears-with-sore-heads here given the nature of the night before. When Albini asks “hands up who’s not been to sleep yet”, stringy, haggard drummer Todd Trainer raises his arm and smiles like someone who’s spent the last few hours staring into the sun. Clearly, with Bloody Mary’s on offer at the bar, this noon set is regarded as a hair-of-the-dog effort.

What better way to blow away the cobwebs, though, than a 90 minute Shellac-ing where the music will always be as lacking in frills as a hod-carrier’s hankie and as uncompromising as Nicolae Ceausescu’s retirement do.

2010: 21 gig salute

2010-12-27T10:16:00.002Z

My top 21 gigs of 2010 run-down can be found over at Vanity Project.

Bowlie II: one-liners

2010-12-18T11:53:00.004Z

All Tomorrow’s Parties: Bowlie II
Minehead Butlins, 10-12dec10

Continuing this site’s tradition of half-assed commentary on musical events, we present one-line reviews, in chronological order, of the second Belle & Sebastian curated Bowlie weekender.

Friday December 10th

Daniel Kitson & Gavin Osborn Centre Stage
Comedian and storyteller tells one of his whimsical comedic stories punctuated by singer-songwriter singing whimsical songs that he’s written, following suit.

Teenage Fanclub Pavilion Stage
So solid and unpretentious, they are the nuclear bunker of West Coast style harmony pop.

The Zombies Centre Stage
Colin Blunstone’s hair is as pristine as when they started 49 years ago, while Rod Argent has clearly kept his trousers from that mid-60’s heyday.

Saint Etienne Centre Stage
A funeral, a long drive, a traffic jam and being half an hour late as a result is probably not ideal prep for a set but Saint Etienne turn around their early disadvantages by displaying their hits like a peacock; a belated disco peacock.

Saturday December 11th

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan Centre Stage
A Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood tribute act, but without any of their humour.

Edwyn Collins Centre Stage
Because of his triumph of the will, Edwyn could be said to be immune to criticism, but it is with no concession to his circumstances, yet with nods to Teenage Fanclub’s role as backing band and guest appearances by a Crib and two of Franz Ferdinand, when I say this was one of the best gigs I’ve seen all year.

Julian Cope Pavilion Stage
Dirgey on guitar, sprightly on the mellotron – next time: more mellotron.

Dean Wareham Centre Stage
With Galaxie 500’s gear re-released, Dean Wareham has gathered up his wife and new bandmates to perform songs by his former self, but without any real pizzazz.

Dirty Projectors Pavilion Stage
Struggled to understand the hyperbolic reaction to album Bitte Orca but on the basis of this set, I will need to go back and immerse myself in it once more.

The New Pornographers (above) Centre Stage
Despite watching several stream out to get a good spot for the weekend’s headliners downstairs, The New Pornographers respond to keeping chins up and delivering one of the very best performances of the weekend.

Belle & Sebastian Pavilion Stage
The best set I’ve seen them do since their triumphant homecoming free show at Glasgow Botanic Gardens in 2004.

Jenny & Johnny Centre Stage
Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice collaborate on a set of brisk alt.rock gear.

Franz Ferdinand Centre Stage
A set on the smaller stage that went unbilled in the event’s advance press and, as is often the case, Matinee’s gear changes were the highlight.

Crystal Castles (above) Centre Stage
Alice Glass staggering onto the stage on crutches means restricted movement for both her and the crowd as the energy doesn’t swell quite enough for those watching on eagerly to ‘go off’ in the usual manner associated with Crystal Castles shows.

Sunday December 12th

Stevie Jackson Reds
Stevie Belle & Seb goes partly solo and partly in tandem with Roy Muller for some ideal Sunday lunchtime acoustic fare.

Vashti Bunyan Centre Stage
Possibly the quietest, gentlest gig in history.

The Amphetameanies Reds
Alex Kapranos follows up his appearance with Edwyn Collins with another guest slot in a festival highlight set, but this is merely coincidence as this party 2-Tone outfit are infectious enough to stand on their own 18 feet.

Peter Parker Centre Stage
Glam pop that, as yet, hasn’t really found a distinct voice.

Jane Weaver (below) Reds
Former Misty Dixon frontwoman doing a Gruff Rhys-esque guitar and table-full-of-tricks post-folk thing.

Sons & Daughters Pavilion Stage
Still striking me as a little lumpen, perhaps I’m missing something.

Mulatu Astatke Centre Stage
Ethio-jazz so becalming, the seas around Minehead took the opportunity for an afternoon nap.

The Vaselines Pavilion Stage
Spikiness in the tunes as well as Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee’s on-stage banter.

Camera Obscura Pavilion Stage
Any stage seems classier with Camera Obscura’s Spector-esque pop playing out on it.

Unlucky for none: Truck 13 2010

2010-12-09T14:19:00.002Z

My fourth summer in Oxfordshire: high time this festival fun-seeker paid a visit to the one right underneath his nose. Truck is held in one of the two villages my bus passes through on the way to work in the morning, so my previous non-attendance is shameful. Even now, the 1-2-3-4 means I'm only set to experience the second and final day of the bash, though will in the process be setting a new first: two festivals in one weekend...

The day begins in fine fashion: blue skies (again), a lift to the site from my neighbour, no queue whatsoever, a cheerful and welcoming security guy, coffee for a mere quid courtesy of the Didcot Rotary Club, a hook-up and catch-up with a couple of work colleagues, a refreshing (after yesterday) absence of ridiculous and punchworthy outfits and haircuts... How very genteel, becalming and civilised.

So one of the first outfits pressed into Sunday service, Oxford's own PHANTOM THEORY (Barn), are the equivalent of Brian Blessed bellowing "Morning, campers!" through a loudspeaker directly into your lughole. The pair have applied to play twice before, so it's third time lucky - and they're grateful for the company: "Thanks for coming - you could be sleeping. You're missing out". Us early risers are treated to a new song called 'Gary' - "If you can think of a better name for it, come and tell us" - as well as vicious opener 'Trancedog' and a closing track which sounds pleasingly like the Smashing Pumpkins' 'Silverfuck' given a meaty metal makeover. The duo's impact is magnified by being within the concrete confines of the Barn, which may stink of shit but which permits an effective light show at midday and actually makes for a tremendous venue.

Certainly it is compared to the legendary Truck Stage itself - still a flat-bed trailer underneath it all, for old times' sake, but curiously positioned so it's uphill of the audience and coming up a bit short in the amplification stakes. The thankless task of entertaining a listless crowd sunning their way through hangovers falls to BORDERVILLE, who more than compensate for Phantom Theory's lack of pretension with a pronounced theatricality borne out as much by their dress shirts as by their string section and musical eccentricities. It's as if Tim Burton was one of Mumford's sons (actually, he lives in a neighbouring village...). As laudable as it is to be raggamuffins dreaming of being royalty, I'm more interested in procuring a pint of Truck's very own lager, from the Cotswold Brewing Company - at £3.50 a pint a marked improvement on yesterday's £3.80 for a San Miguel.

From dress shirts to no shirt. Having also busied himself drumming with La Roux, I Was A Cub Scout and Young Legionnaire, it's little wonder that William Bowerman should have precious little time for upper body clothing. He's here with BRONTIDE (Barn), whom I glimpsed all too briefly at last year's Southsea Fest and whose taut and muscular (if occasionally self-indulgent) math-metal is a bruising joy. Frontman Tim Hancock, wearing a snapped string round his neck, announces "I've lost my voice - if anyone finds it, can they give it back" - good job they're instrumental, then - as assorted Nightshift scribes look on. What's the collective noun - a hackle?

To the "food hall", which turns out to be a less-grand-than-anticipated tent staffed by an army of Rotary Club members of varying ages and degrees of senility. The construction of my burger leaves a lot to be desired (the cheese is more out than in, for a start), but you can help yourself to as much salad as you want, it's good value and it's all for the benefit of local charidees.

I've read plenty about DEAD JERICHOS (Market Stage) and now finally come face to face with Drayton's answer to Arctic Monkeys indulging in a bit of fisticuffs with Foals. They've certainly got the cocky spoiling-for-a-scrap attitude, a dynamic (if vocally limited) frontman in Craig Evans and a handful of decent enough songs ('She Says The Word', for instance) but they've got some serious tightening up to do if they want to fulfil any potential. Not that the crowd seems to care, a combustible congregation of teens buzzing on youth and booze.

Speaking of which, nearby there's a chap selling Butts beer out the back of a white Transit van. I get a pint of the rather lovely Barbus barbus for £3 and smile at the fact that although he sells proper cider (none of your mass-marketed pear nonsense), he confesses to gritting his teeth when serving it in preference of real ale.

Time to venture a hypothesis: when it comes to band names, "Wild" is the new "Black", "Blood" or "Dead". Wild Beasts, Wild Palms and now WILD NOTHING (Village Pub). Jack Tatum's influences - The Smiths, New Order, C86 - are transparent in the basslines and the gentle jangle of the guitars. Pleasant enough, but not much to stir me - though it does rouse a couple of toddlers with ear defenders to dance around the ubiquitous loon at the front (Big Jeff from Bristol, apparently) like he's some kind of poodle-haired maypole.

Strange and wonderful things have clearly been afoot in Cardiff since I left. It might be stretching the term a bit far to describe ISLET (Barn) as a "supergroup", but they do feature former members of The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, Attack + Defend, Fredrick Stanley Starr and Sweet Baboo. Cardiff indie royalty are also represented in the audience by Harriet Los Campesinos! and Carl of Forecast. Trying to make sense of Islet and piece together what happens is impossible, so I won't even try. Here's a list: one naff brown jumper, one supremely ridiculous moustache, a lot of tambourine abuse and wandering around the crowd, fluid and frequent movement between instruments like some kind of circuit training for musicians, the odd sample, some songs that are almost purely percussive, one song that starts off as reggae and ends up like Rolo Tomassi. They leave us with an exhortation to stick around for Future Of The Left "despite their new members" and me with a curiosity as to whether I really enjoyed them but also a certainty that I want to experience them again.

Poseur cocks in aviator shades and "I Heart NY" T-shirts who worship the ground Kasabian's Serge Pizzorno drags his knuckles along and who declare of the Village Pub: "This is the main stage and we're headlining". Yes, SOUND OF GUNS need shooting. Sadly, a glittering career probably awaits. Locals are just as guilty of Big Rock Bluster, though - as A SILENT FILM (Truck Stage) prove. Once upon a time they were a metal band, Shouting Myke, but listening to this ~~blandly epic~~ epically bland guff it's hard to imagine it.

Oh how clever I thought I was yesterday, deliberately missing Veronica Falls (aka The Pains Of Being C86 Revivalists With Morbid Fixations At Heart) at the 1-2-3-4 in favour of other things as I'd be seeing them today. Not so - they're running late due to traffic and might not make it at all. Worse still, does that not also spell trouble for Fucked Up, who'll be making the same journey? It doesn't bear thinking about, I decide, trying to avoid eye contact with the scary checkout girl from Waitrose.

Nottingham's DOG IS DEAD (Village Pub) are a welcome distraction: a rather unlikely but intriguing concoction of vogueish Afrobeat guitars, hollered harmonies borrowed from the Futureheads (particularly on set-closer 'The Zoo'), a generous dash of pop classicism, some Dexys sax (the latter supplied by a chap sporting the most extraordinary ginger Tory Boy bouffant) and - on 'Glockenspiel Song', at least - the irrepressible youthful vigour and barely contained chaos of early Los Campesinos!.

Sandwiched inbetween Foals and Stornaway - who were by all accounts surprisingly upstaged by Bellowhead last night - LITTLE FISH (Barn) were the local scene's darlings. Through signing to hitmaker Linda Perry's Custard Records and decamping across the Atlantic to record a debut LP (Baffled And Beat) which is at long, long last on the verge of release, the duo have become somewhat detached from their original Oxford fanbase, and so this is a chance to reconnect. How will stints on the road with Blondie, Alice In Chains, Supergrass, Eagles Of Death Metal and Juliette Lewis (amongst others) have honed their garage rock craft? Not having witnessed them before, perhaps I'm not the best to judge - but my report card reads contrived, derivative and flat. Julia "Juju" Heslop is a naturally talented frontwoman but her affected accent immediately grates, any edge they may have had has been sanded off and their gurning waistcoat-clad keyboard player looks to have been parachuted in from a limp cabaret act. In short, not worth the wait.

In need of a drink and with the main bar temporarily sold out of Truck Lager, I toddle off to the Butts van and find myself shoulder-to-shoulder with Whispering Bob Harris, Market Stage curator for the day. Could have guessed he'd be an aficionado of foaming ales.

Back in the main arena, I'm confronted by the frankly terrifying sight of Pulled Apart By Horses' pitbull of a drummer Lee Vincent heading directly for me - it always pays to be wary of a man with a big tattoo on the front of his neck, I find. Meanwhile, fellow sticksman Jack Egglestone of Future Of The Left is engaged in conversation with a couple of small children - schooling them in the art of the paradiddle, perhaps, or explaining the lyrics to 'Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues'...

But before Vincent and Egglestone's bands set out to raze the Barn, draw the curtains and light the candles for it's Indie Noir Hour courtesy of CHAPEL CLUB. It's not clear what burden these youngsters are laden with - other than hundreds of single of the week awards and the pressure that comes with significant record label outlay - but burdened they appear to be. That the quintet spend an eternity setting up is symptomatic of a band who take themselves far too seriously and yet never really get beyond moping around in Editors' shadow. At least they have the good grace to endorse Islet, though.

And now there's a tough decision: Los Campesinos! and Blood Red Shoes vs Pulled Apart By Horses and Future Of The Left. The growing queues for the Barn mean it's effectively an either/or situation, not both, and the indoor venue's merits sway me towards the latter pair. Filing back into the Barn after a snatch of fresh air, someone else who's made the same decision observes to his companion: "I've got loads of scars. I'm basically just scar tissue". Well, you've come to the right place for more, my friend...

"So, we're Kula Shaker from Leeds". Enough of the taking yourself too seriously, then. "It stinks in here. You Oxford types..." Pay close attention, Little Fish - PULLED APART BY HORSES (Barn) are dishing out a free lesson in what the result of incessant gigging should be: an eyeball-popping intensity. Showing admirable disrespect for his own wellbeing, guitarist James Brown plunges off the speaker stack, and the crowd bump and jostle as an inflatable cow is batted back and forth over our heads. Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter emerge to add extra clout to the climax of penultimate song 'I Punched A Lion In The Throat', and we're left nursing bruises and bangs with hardly enough time to get patched up before the next wave of attacks.

An ill-advised toilet visit means I'm stuck queuing to get back into the Barn - like cattle in a holding pen, appropriately enough - when FUTURE OF THE LEFT bust out Mclusky's 'To Hell With Good Intentions'. Damn it. Founder bassist Kelson Mathias recently defected to join former FOTL and Jarcrew bandmate Hywel Evans in Truckers Of Husk, but if Andy "Falco" Falkous and aforementioned drummer Egglestone have found his departure difficult, destabilising or traumatic, then it certainly doesn't show. Stepping into the breach (temporarily) is Oceansize bassist Steven Hodson, while they've also added a second guitarist, Jimmy Watkins, to their attack: "I'm not even on Wikipedia as being in the band, so do change that". That Falco's outfits remain a British riposte to Shellac is evident both in the juddering riffs and savage bite of the material - which includes a new track about destroying Whitchurch and another pair of Mclusky's songs mischievously advertised as being by Suede - and in the quality of his banter, whether conducting a conversation with Cardiff legend Jon Rostron in the crowd, describing mixing new material with old as "like letting your kids battle it out with swords" or, when someone answers a question with a smug "The latter", responding "That's what your dad told you to say"... The disassembling of Egglestone's kit as he plays would be an even more marvellous spectacle if it wasn't for the fact that it indicates their time's up.

So, where exactly do you go from there? Well hello there FUCKED UP, for the second time in two nights... The Torontonians may indeed have arrived late from the Big Smoke, as anticipated, but they definitely mean business. The way the guitarist carefully removes his glasses just before they kick off suggests he's either about to get smoochy or instigate a fight - thankfully, it turns out to be the latter (cheers Dad...). Drinks can meets cranium by force, and as the blood cascades down Pink Eyes' face, later wiped on those at the front, I suddenly realise the origin of his nickname. Kids have been drawn from far and wide (probably after sniggering at the band's moniker) and immediately I'm on the fringes of a good-naturedly violent circle pit, giving the youth of today a gentle nudge in the right direction now and again. This venue's probably used to containing charging bulls, and Pink Eyes is soon out meeting and greeting his sweaty public. As people clamour to touch him like he's some kind of lucky charm, he finds the time to pause and pose for photos mid-rampage. Among those caught up in the mayhem (or flattening themselves against the walls) are Islet, Wild Nothing and a fresh-from-the-Truck-Stage Blood Red Shoes. 'Crooked Head', 'Police' and 'Son The Father' form a devastating final trio and we're left to reflect favourably on the carnage wreaked at a generally well-mannered festival thanks to liberal security - and on the fact that tonight's performance in a cowshed in rural Oxfordshire was light years better than yesterday in the cooler-than-thou heart of the capital.

All of which means that TEENAGE FANCLUB (Truck Stage) are the musical equivalent of St John's Ambulance staff, brushing off the broken glass and applying some soothing balm to the lacerations. The age divide is obvious, Fannies fanatics being Radio2ophiles content to snuggle into a nice pair of slippers while Fucked Up ironically attracted the festival's teenage fanclub. But as children gambol about chasing bubbles and the sun slowly sinks, it's hard to imagine a better way for the festival to finish than with their bright harmonies and gentle, graceful Byrdsian guitar pop. 'Ain't That Enough'? Yes, it is.

Comparisons and contrasts with yesterday's 1-2-3-4 Festival have been hard to avoid, and I head for home mentally chalking up a knockout victory for Steventon over Shoreditch.

Know Your Enemy

2010-12-09T14:19:00.001Z

"I suppose anything that keeps Pete Doherty quiet for four-and-a-half minutes can't be a completely bad thing."

My friend Matt on the news that the visionary poet of Albion and assorted other no-marks (the sodding Kooks, for a start) are going to be involved in the official version of John Cage's '4'33', vying for the Christmas #1 spot with whatever cack Cowell cranks out of The X Factor. Needless to say we've both now reneged on our decision to buy the single when it's released.

Just Philling in

2010-12-09T14:18:00.003Z

Nice to see Spillers staff getting a helping hand last week - from Phill Jupitus. I suspect there might just have been some Blockheads played over the course of the day...

Quote of the day

2010-12-09T14:18:00.001Z

"Ever heard howling at the moon like the mongrel dogs of Comets of Fire? Yeah, it’s everyday for me too, rock fanatics, gorging myself on their errant aberrant muse. A solar wind blowed through the aching heart of their last studio colossus, but the newie grabs handfuls of the moon and snorts at the gusset of the menstruating Muse. This ain’t no garage band, grandma!"

Thus commenceth Julian Cope's review of what was (perversely) the first album I chose to play in celebration of the above triumph, Comets On Fire's Blue Cathedral. You know what, I think he likes it...

Alive and kicking (out the jams)

2010-12-09T14:16:00.000Z

When Spillers announced in the summer that they'd be leaving the premises on the Hayes in Cardiff that they'd occupied since the late 1940s, the future didn't look too bright for what is officially the world's oldest record store. So it was with some trepidation that I went along to their new home, a stone's throw away from the old one in Morgan Arcade - but I'm pleased to report that it might actually be an improvement.

No longer exposed to the plate glass consumer porn of the new St Davids 2, the shop actually feels more at home in one of the city's many unique arcades, in amongst a clutch of independent brethren. There are two floors (the upper one being affectionately nicknamed the VPL - the Vinyl Perusing Level - by staff), but otherwise it's business as usual: healthy prominence for the offerings of local bands as well as the recent Matador promotion (cheap Guided By Voices albums? Don't mind if I do...), knowledgeable and friendly staff, excellent choice of in-store music. Cat Power's 'The Greatest' started up the minute I stepped over the threshold and was almost instantly sold to an intrigued punter who'd never heard her before.

So, great to see it thriving - long may that continue.

Take on me a slightly critical reviewer

2010-12-09T14:15:00.002Z

Hell, it seems, hath no fury like an A-ha fan from Derby scorned - or at least upset by a perfectly reasonable live review...

Slay bells

2010-12-09T14:15:00.001Z

Lights! Camera! Slayer!

Know Your Enemy

2010-12-09T14:14:00.001Z

A musical double bill today...

"Just found out [Smashing Pumpkins are] playing with Pavement in Brazil. It's gonna be one of those New Orleans-type funerals. I say that because they represent the death of the alternative dream, and we follow with the affirmation of life part. Funny how those who pointed the big finger of 'sell out' are the biggest offenders now. Yawn. they have no love ... We'll be the band up there playing NEW songs because we have the love."

Billy Corgan does his reputation as an unsavoury, whining streak of bitterness a power of good by reigniting a 15-year-old rock feud with Stephen Malkmus and company. I remember, back in the day, being aggrieved at discovering one of my favourite bands had poked fun at another...

"3 things visible from space, great wall of china, peter hooks wallet stuffed with ian Curtis blood money, man citys empty trophy cabinet!"

"used to adore the man, now he's a self centred sellout reduced to hawking his mates corpse around to get paid. And he can't play."

A couple of recent tweets from Mani, who it seemed has the same opinion of Peter Hook, his former bandmate in vanity project Freebass, as I do - though he's since retracted the comments and attempted to repair the damage.

Well, kind of weapon: The 1-2-3-4 Shoreditch 2010

2010-11-18T00:28:00.001Z

Shoreditch: a place habitually prefaced in the media with "London's trendy" which, thanks to Nathan Barley, is synonymous with twattery of the highest order, but which also plays host to an annual one-day music festival for the intriguingly bargainous price of £20. With genial company guaranteed in the form of Skif and Tobi, and me at a loose end owing to my better half being off in Scotland, attendance was a bit of a no-brainer.

The day doesn't get off to the best of starts, with an unfriendly cash machine around the corner from the Old Blue Last charging me £1.75 for the privilege of withdrawing my own money and then petulantly spitting it out on the wind. Cue much dancing about the pavement in an undignified fashion frantically grabbing at fluttering notes like a contestant at the end of The Crystal Maze.

Fortified by Co-op sandwiches, we enter the site to find PRIZES (Main Stage) performing to a handful of early arrivals. No prizes for singing. More agreeable are NECRO DEATHMORT (New Bands Stage), who come across like a warp-speed Sunn O))) (i.e more than three chords a minute) armed with electronics. Tobi ponders whether they've started yet before we both realise that the long-haired guitarist in the black wifebeater is Matt, the former flat-mate of a close friend of ours. Small world.

ACTION BEAT (Main Stage) declare themselves to be "the noise band from Bletchley" - presumably to distinguish themselves from another Action Beat, given that surely there could only be one noise band in Bletchley? Despite the several-strong improv mob being regular visitors to Oxford (at the invitation of local promoters Poor Girl Noise or Vacuous Pop), I've always contrived to miss the Beat - so it's good to finally witness their battering of Sonic Youth and Oxes. The drummer count is variable and today stands at three - how, you have to wonder, do they all manage to squeeze onto the stages in the Port Mahon or the Cellar?

"Shoreditch wankers" is Matt's curt assessment of the clueless festival organisers, who changed Necro Deathmort's set time and length and yet insisted on them being punctual. They've got a label and a good booking agent who scored them a memorable slot at Sonar in Barcelona last month, but who has also set up "shit like this". Still, at least there was one person in their crowd who looked like he might just listen to Slayer in a non-ironic way - some compensation for the fashion victim wearing his trousers practically up to his chin...

Speaking of Slayer, here are a band for the genuine metalheads in search of something a bit different. INVASION (Now Music Stage) are like Chrome Hoof without the glitz, glam, disco and platform shoes - which figures, given that cowled vocalist Chantal Brown used to be one of their number, as well as fronting one-time Darkness support act Do Me Bad Things. Backing her strident Motown stylings in Invasion are guitarist Marek Steven, who worships at the altar of Iommi, and feisty drummer Zel, whose insistence on stripping down to her bra effectively prohibits the gentlemen among us from taking any photographs for fear of being frowned upon. A righteous racket, and the first thing to genuinely grab us by the lapels.

On the subject of photos, a goon from festival sponsors Converse wanders around snapping pics of punters - all the while sporting a pair of Reeboks. Strange to think that the most corporate festival I'll go to all year - Converse and Kopparberg branding everywhere - is being headlined by Fucked Up...

VIC GODARD & SUBWAY SECT (Main Stage) are that rarest of things: an old-school punk band who HAVEN'T reformed at the behest of an ATP curator for a late-night appearance on Butlins Minehead's Centre Stage. The reason they haven't been asked, though, is that they're both as safe as houses and pretty darned awful. The only band other than the Sex Pistols to emerge with much credit from Jon Savage's England's Dreaming amble along like weary methed-up tramps sticking the boot into Dexys Midnight Runners.

Far more focused are SHARKS (New Bands Stage), who, when it comes to the Indie Big Time, are clearly intent on going in for the kill but whose songs are too toothless to leave much impression. I find myself transfixed by the guitarist's tie-pin - it's not attached to his shirt and so purely decorative. Still, not as daft as the bloke we pass soon afterwards: Clint Boon's bowl haircut, black wifebeater with Bundeswehr logo, flannel shorts worn around the waist Cowell-style, socks and brogues. Fucking hell, Nathan Barley really didn't go far enough, did it?

By comparison, Brooklyn duo VON HAZE (Now Music Stage) are significantly less of a spectacle, but - it soon becomes apparent - very definitely worthy of investigation on record. Shoegazery drones are channelled into something sinister and foreboding (call it goth if you must), the result akin to being stalked by a zombified Beach House in search of a good meal. Sod destroying the head or removing the brain - I'm paralysed.

OK, time for a spot of mood lightening. MARIA & THE MIRRORS (New Bands Stage)? A 60s-influenced soul band - just the ticket. Except they're not. Oh no, they're a painfully arch art school project that's been allowed to fester out of control - a car-crash of New Romantic fashion, tribal drumming, electronic scree, blank-faced 'Addicted To Love' dancing and crass exhibitionism (flagrant tit-jiggling, if you want to dispense with the euphemisms). When the power cuts off (blessed relief!), one of the drummers looks as though she's about to cry. Note to self: best avoid Thrush Metal (aka Alice Dellal and her spoilt-little-rich-girl model/socialite friends playing at being the Slits)...

S.C.U.M. (Main Stage) may have the right alleged influences (Suicide, The Birthday Party) and the right connections (keyboardist Samuel Kilcoyne's dad is Barry 7 of Add N To X, bassist Huw Webb's brother is in the Horrors), but their docile post-punk fails to deliver on the confrontational promise of their moniker. A good thing that A GRAVE WITH NO NAME (Now Music Stage) don't deliver on theirs - teenybopper goths, nothankyou - and instead conjure up impressions of Dinosaur Jr or Guided By Voices covering Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque, but the brevity of their songs and set means they never truly seem to get going.

Hurrah, then, for Skif-endorsed master insurrectionists THE PRE NEW (New Music Stage), whose besuited frontman Jim Fry - brother of ABC's Martin, unbelievably - announces his arrival on stage by removing all the coloured filters from the lights and frisbeeing them into the crowd, before swinging on the lighting rig and swaggering about like a drunken father of the bride spoiling for a punch-up with a member of the groom's family. In their previous incarnation Earl Brutus, Shinya Hayashida's sole role was to stand onstage drinking and smoking - now he appears to have been handed bass duties, though it's not clear whether it cutting out repeatedly is accident or design. Two Earl Brutus numbers end a chaotic set, the disgruntled stage manager switching off the mics. And there you have it: the elder statesmen needed barely twenty minutes to show all the festival's pretenders and poseurs How To Do Rock 'N' Roll Properly. One fancies Nick Sanderson may just be looking down and smiling.

And now a word of advice for Akiko Matsuura: ditch your moonlighting on drums for dullards The Big Pink and concentrate on your day job - that day job being the focal point of COMANECHI (Now Music Stage). The duo - completed by guitarist Simon Petrovich, whose face is permanently veiled behind hair - sound like a horny Karen O and a horny Satomi Matsuzaki racing Sonic Youth-shaped bulldozers into your face. I suspect that they might be even better in a confined space - but then the bow on Matsuura's head might not fit through the door.

One thing's for certain, though: 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' should never, ever be performed by a man in a white T-shirt and desert camouflage shorts. While an Old Hooky beer would have been welcome respite from the overpriced lager, OLD HOOKY (Main Stage) the man is most definitely not when he's intent on butchering Unknown Pleasures and thereby discharging a mighty racehorse-length piss from a great height onto Ian Curtis' grave.

One restorative organic burger later (five quid exceedingly well spent) and we're back in front of the Main Stage, where all eyes - including those of The XX's Oliver Sim, Fucked Up's Pink Eyes, Vivian Girls and Glen Matlock, wandering about with a carrier bag that I speculate contains a four-pack, 20 fags and a Pot Noodle - are on WAVVES' Nathan Williams. Williams notoriously suffered a drink-'n'-drugs induced onstage breakdown at last year's Primavera, and if I didn't know better I'd think the stage crew are trying to bring on another one. One song is halted when he thinks the soundman is waving at him ("We're not rude, we wave back - that's why we're called Wavves") and another is interrupted by the soundman chuntering on in his monitor. To add insult to injury, the stage manager - the same beleaguered jobsworth who was outflanked by The Pre New - tries to cut them off after barely 25 minutes, and when the band - understandably annoyed - don't comply Williams receives a stern, headmasterly talking-to. There's some music too, 'I'm So Bored' and 'Beach Demon' pleasingly resembling The Vines playing Beach Boys covers in an echo chamber.

The heated and fractious relationship between performers and crew comes to a head when ROLO TOMASSI set about finishing the job The Pre New started: destroying the New Bands Stage. Skilfully deploying the art of innocent disguise, the Sheffield quintet are a rabid, shape-shifting post-hardcore assault whose next move is impossible to second-guess, as underlined by the fact that second LP Cosmology - described by a friend as "terrifying" - was produced by Diplo. As songs veer off at jaw-droppingly obtuse angles and ongoing microphone issues leave Eva Spence's unholy growl unamplified, a pole-dancing competition ensues, encouraged by the band's offer of a free T-shirt. After a procession of loons scale the central tent pole and drop ten feet onto the heads of those below, two security staff rush in and bundle away one unfortunate punter, his arms pinned behind his back. Stable doors and bolting horses spring to mind, and it doesn't take long before the skydiving recommences.

Talking of things flying through the air, I'm still gutted I missed Bobby Gillespie being hit in the face with a full pint at the My Bloody Valentine-curated ATP. No projectiles for him today, though there should be - THE SILVER MACHINE (Main Stage), his side-project supergroup with Glen Matlock, Zak "son of Ringo" Starkey (of The Who) and Andrew Innes, look like Kasabian and manage to render classic rock 'n' roll songs by the likes of The MC5 and The Troggs banal and boring. VIVIAN GIRLS (Now Music Stage), meanwhile, are actually more competent than I'd been expecting (both in time and in tune) and pleasant enough in a jangly Pains Of Being Pure At Heart kind of way, but not really what I'm looking for.

No, what I'm looking for is unapologetic punk rock and a man who crushes a metal can into his forehead until it bleeds, announcing with a mischievous grin: "Don't worry, I'm clean - or am I?" Hello FUCKED UP (Main Stage), you'll fit the bill. Pink Eyes is soon satisfying his wanderlust, out and about in the crowd where people gripping the mic cable rather than lifting it up hint at the prospect of a tug-of-war situation developing. There are shout-outs to Wavves, Comanechi and Vivian Girls, and also Rolo Tomassi with whom they're set to play a no-longer-secret afterparty show at the Macbeth. An endurance test? Pfft. All in a day's work for a band who launched The Chemistry Of Common Life with a 12-hour gig in a Brooklyn record shop.

And there's still time for one more: androgynous, psychedelic, Japanese-via-London weirdos BO NINGEN (New Bands Stage). Krautrock dons some sparkly flared slacks, lets its hair down and wigs out to Black Sabbath, and a howling guitar ends up on the lighting rig. Job's a good 'un.

So, the verdict. On the rap sheet we have the generally poor sound mix (though the Now Music Stage was largely decent), the bad stage management (either over-officious or ineffectual), the heavy-handed security, being held to ransom by brands, and my fellow festival-goers and their ludicrous fashions (though Team ElleUK.com later squeals on Facebook that it "was like a catwalk in a field. Best dressed fest ever!" - so that's me told)...

But (and this is obviously thanks to the heavyweight sponsoring) the tickets were an extraordinarily low £20 - at that price, I can't really have any complaints. It costs me £25 to get a cab home from the train station back in Oxfordshire...

The Great Scots are back

2010-11-06T13:29:00.001Z

2008's The Hawk Is Howling, featuring such marvellously titled ditties as 'I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead' and 'I Love You, I'm Going To Blow Up Your School', was arguably the first time Mogwai's powers of naming had outshone their music. Let's hope that's not the case this time around, given that the new record - their seventh, featuring a reunion with Paul Savage - is called Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will and contains tracks such as 'George Square Thatcher Death Party' and 'You're Lionel Richie'. By the sounds of it, the album'll be out in advance of their UK tour in February, when I'll be sampling its wares at the Regal here in Oxford.

In other music news, following on from the revelation that she's a Tea Party sympathiser, the Velvet Underground's Moe Tucker has spoken at greater length (and more animatedly) about why she's a card-carrying member of the movement. Just don't suggest she might have been in the closet about being a conservative (or "independent", as she prefers)...

Forty years young

2010-11-01T23:40:00.003Z

Better late than never - that'd be the Glastonbury 2010 Diary, finally completed on Silent Words Speak Loudest a mere four months after the event... Five and a half days of sun, cider and bands/performers (36 of 'em), all lovingly recounted from scrawled notes and increasingly faded memory:

Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

I wish I could report that there was no leaving-Neil-Young-to-watch-Animal-Collective lunacy this year, but sadly there was: plumping for England v Germany over Grizzly Bear, Holy Fuck, The Drums and Slash. I may never forgive myself.

New Zero Kanada

2010-10-26T12:00:00.005Z

Paying three separate visits to Canada recently has allowed me to catch up and seek for myself reasons why that country’s music scene has improved so dramatically in the past decade or so. A few years ago, the lamentably slim pickings only served to confirm the prejudiced thinking of southerly neighbours: a well run, well adjusted country, but one without even a cuckoo clock to shout about.

Sure, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and, very occasionally, k. d. Lang formed a batch of reliable bass hitters (with Young an all time home run specialist) but their star had faded in the popular consciousness as Alanis Morissette, Bryan Adams, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Avril Lavigne and the Barenaked Ladies got the radio play. Even the Maple Leafers’ vaguely alternative offerings were nothing of the sort – Cowboy Junkies and Steppenwolf anyone?

And yet post 2000, the quantity of pathbreaking Canuck music has been dollar for dollar as large as any in the world. In the Kingdom of Indie, Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire, the Hidden Cameras, Wolf Parade and the New Pornographers have all been several cuts above the average, while Holy Fuck have reinvigorated the motorik beat of Krautrock, Rufus and Martha Wainwright have crooned, Fucked Up and Crystal Castles have screamed with intelligence and Godspeed You! Black Emperor have made a serious bid to be considered the band of the last decade, as well as keeping us guessing with the positioning of exclamation marks.

Why the improvement? This is no empirical study but my recent trips have revealed Canada to be…well…just a little frayed around the edges…and I’m not talking about traditional economic indicators like Inflation, Gross National Product and Employment – Canada still rides high by all these measures and has, superficially at least, ridden out the financial crisis rather well.

But the Alberta oil boom and the continued prosperity of its trio of megacities – Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – have masked a widening disparity when it comes to provincial development. My travels have taken me to the capital Ottawa as well as the easterly Maritime provinces and these areas have been savagely hampered by job losses, increased homelessness and nagging poverty. Ottawa seemed edgy in certain neighbourhoods after dark and it’s clear that wealth among the top echelons of Canadian society has failed to trickle down. Even the large conurbations have their problem areas – Vancouver’s East Hastings district (immortalized by Godspeed) rivals San Francisco’s Tenderloin district for grimness and the westerly reaches of Montreal’s main shopping street, Sainte Catherine evoke 1980s Liverpool.

This review of the Manchester band Delphic’s album on Pitchfork made some spot on conclusions about the damage economic prosperity can do to a music scene and I can only think the reverse is true in Canada. With regional and urban development carried out patchily, there is a growing pool of have-nots north of the Great Lakes and this may have helped innovation to flourish. If we’re lucky, Michael Bublé may disappear soon too.

Puppets, wimples and traaaaahsers

2010-10-24T13:29:00.004Z

Quintron & Miss Pussycat, The Nuns, Private Trousers
Tufnell Park Dome. 22oct10.

Private Trousers work around all kinds of rinky-dink, clatter and smiley business in their opening few numbers, then all of a sudden it pulls back and reveals a further depth, one that suggests the macabre carnival, brooding like a clown plotting a murder. Then it’s back up again to knockabout end-of-the-pier wonky bobs and the kind of tunes you might found soundtracking the capers of a vaudeville tumbler.

Next up, The Nuns. Well, what else would you name an all female Monks tribute act? Mind you, where the act they are attributing to shaved large monk-style tonsures into their scalps, The Nuns show a little less commitment to the cause, with only four of the six turned out in wimples. That said, their commitment to the music is not in question, and is not a kitschfest either, being a by-and-large straightforward, and thus delightfully lively, homage (albeit with the bend on the gender).

Sister Lolo Of The Five Wounds’ vox are a lot drier than Gary Burger’s original careering style that sounded like a tyre revving smoke out of asphalt, but otherwise it’s all pretty faithful. The highlights of their half hour are a particularly vigorous Higgle-Dy Piggle-Dy and a terrific Oh, How To Do Now dedicated by banjo strummer (and former Curve and Echobelly guitarist Debbie Smith) to the recently passed Ari Up.

Embracing a Monks-like spirit in their music, Quintron & Miss Pussycat shows are, however, not just about tunes, as they also embrace puppetry. Well, I say embrace, it’s a crushing bear hug really as the first ten minutes of their set is a full-on seaside style show, Punch & Judy in the most Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds sense. It’s the psychedelic end of twee, often thousand-yard-star creepy, and no half-assed effort either. There are tigers, elephants, car chases, spilled blood, beheadings, prison breakouts and ‘secret pizza’ while their large puppeteer’s booth eventually becomes the puppet itself. If tonight is to cuddle up to kitsch and novelty, this is the point we break out the pyjamas and start to spoon.

Still, this is all part of Quintron/Pussycat experience, and after something for the child within us, Quintron walks out suited and booted, slides onto his stool, brings down his palm on the button to start up his own patented Drum Buddy drum machine, stabs repeatedly at his hi-hat pedal with his left foot and lets loose his hands across the keys of his Hammond/Rhodes combo organ like two puppies chasing each other up and down stairs.

Next to him, the maraca-wielding Miss Pussycat hops about like a toddler trying to stamp conkers into wet turf, contributing sharp vocals against and around Quintron’s unbuttoned-shirt rock n’ roll howl. Theirs is a music for garage dance parties, for nightclubs not afraid to set the mirrorball rapidly spinning and, in future, for a youth schooled on episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba.

MORE GIG PICS HERE

Quintron & Miss Pussycat @ MySpace
The Nuns @ MySpace
Private Trousers @ MySpace

Brothers beyond

2010-10-19T00:30:00.001Z

As some of the ensuing comments pointedly suggest, it's not exactly a revelation that the music industry hungrily gobbles up and spits out boybands, but this article on the fall from gravy train to graveyard is still worth a read - not least for the breathtaking hypocrisy of Mike Stock of Stock Aitken and Waterman, advising financial prudence at the same time as living on the creamed-off profits.

All tomorrow's (tea) parties

2010-10-19T00:29:00.002Z

The Guardian's Alexis Petridis may have tried defending her and the Independent's Luke Lewis may have pointed out that right-leaning rockers aren't all that unusual (Johnny Ramone and Ian Curtis being prime examples) - but I'm afraid there's still something profoundly bizarre and wrong about former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker coming out as a member of the populist Tea Party movement in the US.

So Obama's healthcare reforms constitute the nation "being led towards socialism", do they, Moe? It's one thing mistrusting hippies - it's quite another to throw your hat in with that mob of self-centred, delusional xenophobes...

Classified information

2010-10-19T00:29:00.001Z

Worth a read should you come across any on your travels: The Field Guide To North American Hipsters, Vol I.

Anyone who wants to call me an indie fan (in this pejorative sense) can get stuffed - I didn't like the Shins UNTIL Garden State. So there.

(Thanks to Brian for the link.)

Great apes

2010-10-19T00:28:00.001Z

On the subject of Britpop (see below), has anyone else noticed that Damon Albarn and Gorillaz have been recruited to endorse the Times' website? I wonder if Albarn's got confused and thought he was working with Murdoc rather than for Murdoch?

Incidentally, the fact that the Times has now reintroduced the opening offer suggests that its paywall gamble isn't paying off...

Quotes of the day

2010-10-19T00:27:00.001Z

"Britpop secret: Jarvis Cocker’s first break into the music industry was when he appeared as one of the Wombles on TOTP in the late 1970s."

"Britpop secret: Ian Brown has a parrot which he has taught not to say anything. He doesn't like jib from animals."

"Although I pay minimum wage for Richard's services, I am forced to pay the going rate for Codling. Works out about £1.80 per kilo."

"Brett Anderson" dishes up the backstage gossip for his Twitter followers.

(Thanks to Swiss Toni for the link.)

Nawty nawty

2010-10-17T18:31:00.001Z

Crystal Castles
Camden Roundhouse. 15oct10.

If some of the heat created by HEALTH’s tribal, brutal yet oddly ethereal sound and turbulent performance style has dissipated by the time Crystal Castles hit the stage half an hour later, it returns double quick with an en masse surge forward and a swell of bodies eager to wax hectic. It was a bit like this the first time I witnessed the group, at this past July’s Latitude Festival where the bright young things down the front revelled in their frankly mischievous main stage billing between the far more sedate charms of The Maccabees and Belle & Sebastian.

To borrow the phrase John Peel once used to the describe the atmosphere at an early Fall gig (and which often still applies), that Latitude set ‘crackled with malevolence’. Partly this was in terms of the pubescent members of the audience getting a little rowdy and letting off some steam. One young fella was seen walking out of the main throng clutching the remaining half of his glasses to his left eye like a makeshift monocle to find his way out. It was like the watching an indie-fest version of Saving Private Ryan's opening salvo.

In addition to this, I was hit in the face during that set, not by an empty pint glass or a misplaced shoe, as one might reasonably expect, but by a clear pencil case containing a ruler and Pritt Stick amongst other things. Clearly this was the kids throwing off the trappings of youth; those trappings apparently being metaphored by WH Smith’s ‘Back to School’ stationery promotion. We won’t even get into the fighting that went on. Especially as it was vocalist Alice Glass who was responsible for the punches thrown.

That festival appearance gave them something to confront though, if nothing else then an army of pushchair wielding parents retreating to the back of the arena to boo in relative comfort, and Crystal Castles clearly revel in that situation. Tonight, though, they are most certainly on home turf, with no immediate ‘pricks’ to kick against, so we’re left with Alice’s flouting of the smoking ban as a symbol of defiance.

If anything this desire to be seen as ‘propa nawty’ is the one grating aspect about them, their being too much of an appeal to the vain rebellion of their teenage demographic. The bottle of whisky she staggered around with at Latitude still having a large supermarket security tag on it would be a further example.

Yet there is no denying the energy that comes from Ethan Khan’s barbed electronics, and certainly Christopher Chartrand’s drumming helps to flesh it out beyond the machines for the live presentation. Alice herself stalks the stage like a Spectator cartoonist’s approximation of a heroin enthusiast; not so much ‘death warmed up’ as ‘death repeatedly dipped into a toaster that’s not plugged into the wall’.

Alice’s presence within Crystal Castles as a live act is much more as rabble-rouser than as vocalist which is perhaps just as well as, if we’re honest, she’s not much of a singer really, apart from perhaps on ‘Celestica’, what one might term their concession to balladry. Mind you, barreling about screaming is just the ticket on pieces such as ‘Alice Practice’ and the startling, brilliant ‘Baptism’.

Alice repeatedly leaves the stage to be amongst her people, striding at points across a sea of hands and shoulders, distributing Jack Daniels straight from the bottle to eager, thirsty mouths, like a kind of boozy Jesus.

There is no denying that Crystal Castles know their audience. Equally their audience knows this band has more than enough fuel in the tank for evenings in their company to explode.

If you're looking for devotion

2010-10-04T12:23:00.005Z

The xx.

New York United Palace Theater. 2oct10.

Ever since their emergence on the scene in 2009, The xx have been doing their darndest to dissociate themselves from the indie landfill. Early notices were more apt to liken them to Aaliyah or TLC than Pigeon Detectives or the Killers, their R n B credentials were talked up at every turn and their alma mater Elliott School has been portrayed as a South London voice for "the streets" rather than a partner to the Old Vic Theatre and the setting for the Christmas Pageant in Love Actually.

The venue for their latest New York venue seems to have been equally carefully chosen. Spurning the hipster alternatives of the Lower East Side and Brooklyn, the band were booked in at the United Palace Theatre on 175th Street and Broadway, way up in the Uptown neighbourhood of Washington Heights which, despite being namechecked in Vampire Weekend's ditty A-Punk, is a place to get your hair braided, tuck into a dish of Dominican fried pork or purchase a knock off New York Yankees baseball cap; not to enjoy a Stumptown coffee whilst flicking through pages of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. The venue itself is so ornate it hurts - a temple in every respect and a riot of Moorish trimmings.

Mindful of those watching journalists, the band's cover versions were also impeccable - and the only occasions where the band strayed from the straight and narrow of their wondrous first album. Robin S is a gospel powerpopper it's OK to like and her Show Me Love was reinterpreted with wit and flair. Similarly, Womack and Womack's Teardrops proved itself to be aptly suited to the band's low key format, even if one still cannot get away from the Young Marble Giants comparisons; and the audience, encouragingly young in this era where one despairs of Generation Y, seemingly being comprised of the folks poked fun of in the website Stuff White People Like (I am one of these, I should add.)

As for the music, it was as haunting and echoey as one could hope for and occasional mini-wig outs, most notably at the beginning and the very end, hinted at future enlargement of The xx's sound. Despite the excellence of the cover versions, the paucity of new material was disappointing and Baria Qureshi's departure from the ensemble is still noticeable, primarily in the absence of rhythm guitar and keyboards to flesh out the band's sound: sparse to begin with, now positively emaciated. Vocally, Romy Madley Croft's voice was stunning and more effective on the night than Oliver Sim's rasp.

So, all in all, a triumph gracefully acknowledged by an unassuming band. I am still struggling to get used to $7 for half a pint of lager though.

The hills have ayes

2010-09-24T18:29:00.001Z

BLACK MOUNTAIN / WOLF PEOPLE, 4TH SEPTEMBER 2010, OXFORD ZODIAC

How can one roomful of people be so collectively bald and yet simultaneously so collectively hairy? It’s like being hemmed in by Pink Eyes of Fucked Up, Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav and the Hairy Bikers.

We’ve all been drawn here by one of the Jagjaguwar label’s leading lights, but first up are one of their latest hopes – and given their roster currently boasts everyone from Dinosaur Jr and Bon Iver to The Besnard Lakes, Oneida and Women, we’re inclined to trust their judgement on such matters.

Wolf People sound just as the name suggests they should: as if they’ve been raised in the woods by wolves on a diet of deep-fried stoner boogie, classic rock and psych-folk. And let’s face it – wouldn’t you want to sound like that too, if you’d actually been raised in Bedford? Opening for their more illustrious labelmates might be something of a double-edged sword, but there should always be room for a band who, with the likes of ‘Silbury Sands’, come across like Pentangle being buggered out of their boredom by Dead Meadow.

It seems Black Mountain are also out to underline their untamed animalism, judging by the title of new album Wilderness Heart. Its predecessor was christened with the curious moniker In The Future – curious in that the Canadians don't immediately strike you as the types prone to forward-thinking, except maybe to entertain, in between hits on the bong, whimsical imaginings of what the world might be like when ruled by giant ants.

Misadventures on the internet have taught me that dudeism is now an officially recognised religion, albeit the slowest-growing in the world, and here among us tonight appears to be its high priest, Jeff Lebowski. It hardly takes a leap of imagination to picture Black Mountain ringleader Stephen McBean sniffing milk in a supermarket aisle or dropping a lit joint between his thighs and subsequently crashing his car into a tree.

But, unlike fellow Sabbath fiends Sleepy Sun, McBean and his companions aren’t really spaced-out peaceniks (‘Stay Free’ the exception that proves the rule, perhaps), regularly preferring galloping riffs that Iron Maiden would be proud to call their own. The opening to ‘Tyrants’ and the entirety of newie ‘Let Spirits Ride’ make us feel like we’re being trampled by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

They remain something of an enigma, though. You wouldn’t catch Maiden all drinking wine and being tended to by a "goblet-filler". Amber Webber – in many ways their secret weapon, possessed of a quite extraordinary voice that is both strong and tremulous – continues to be frustratingly underused, too often a spare part left to bash her tambourine or stare out into space while the Mountain men do their thing. The fact that her mic is rarely loud enough doesn’t help, and has me wanting to urge even more enthusiastically investment in 2009’s Infinite Light by Lightning Dust, her side-project with Joshua Wells. For his part, Wells’ keyboard lines, though often effective in context, occasionally have a tendency to clothe the songs in a dubious star-spangled cape that punk principles would deem snigger-worthy.

Still, you won’t find a much unlikelier Coldplay support band anywhere (yes, they really did, back in 2005) – and if that’s not reason to recommend them, then I don’t know what is.

You couldn't make it up - or could you?

2010-09-21T19:38:00.000Z

Back in January last year, I kicked off a light-hearted series on imaginary bands with the tale of the dramatic rise and equally dramatic fall of Nautical But Nice, five trawlermen plucked from their day jobs by a major label to become a heart-throb boyband beloved by housewives and tweenagers.

Laughably far-fetched, you might have thought. Er, no - forgive me for tooting my own trumpet, but it's turned out to be rather prescient.

A career in A&R awaits...

Well I wonder

2010-09-12T14:42:00.007Z

After being honoured to accept the invitation to write for The Art Of Noise, it’s not perhaps the most original way to begin my contributions by declaring The Smiths the greatest ever band; but you can forget the Beatles and the Stones, even The House of Love. Though still embarrassed not to have “been there” from the off and the first Peelite airing of Hand in Glove, I remain captivated by memories of Morrissey prancing to What Difference Does it Make? on Top of the Pops, a curious 1950s vision among the coiffeured commercialists of the age.

I anticipated each single with anxiety and was one of those who helped to create a pattern of high chart placing one week; nowhere the next. The albums were treasured to an even greater degree and the lyrics have still never been equalled in subtlety, at turns oblique and truthful to a suburban 15 year old.

But I’m not a card carrier. Early hair loss as a teenager denied me the opportunity to sport a quiff, I wouldn’t be able to identify a gladiolus under a microscope, and I never bought a single T-shirt. My first weeks at Manchester University in 1987 coincided with the band splitting and I often had to stress to people that I was a proper fan, despite the unfashionable jeans and M&S Polo shirts. When Morrissey produced Viva Hate a year or so later, I taped it from a friend with enthusiasm but the lack of Marr sparkle was already evident and if Your Arsenal and Vauxhall and I remain splendid, I have usually devoured reviews first before any unquestioning purchase of the Mozza oeuvre.

And then there is the controversy. Two years ago, in a New Orleans bar at 3am (things have moved on since 80s Rusholme), my friend Gerschenkron and I stunned our American work colleagues with a stand up row over whether Morrissey is or isn’t a racist (other ding dongs have debated the character traits of Yoko Ono and the true meaning of John Lennon’s Working Class Hero). My indignant contention was that he most certainly is not, that people should understand the notion of a singer acting a part and that he should not have to explain himself to lesser lights, especially intelligent but shit stirring ones like the New Musical Express.

I agree with Tom Clark in giving Morrissey the benefit of the doubt as far as Bengali in Platforms and National Front Disco are concerned: these no more brand the man a racist than that Brass Eye special indicate Chris Morris is a paedophile. I’ll even forgive him cavorting with the Union Jack – nobody has a pop at those Last Night of the Proms denizens, annoying though they may be – it wasn’t the Moz’s fault that a bunch of skinheads showed up at Finsbury Park that day.

But as something of a Sinophile and as someone who has been learning Mandarin for a couple of years now, even I stopped short at his most recent comments; bafflingly aired in an interview with the estimable Simon Armitage in the pages of The Observer recently. Aside from the truculent tone (yes, hard not to echo the phraseology of one particularly lonely High Court Judge), his wondering if the Chinese are a subspecies or not, while fuelled by his admirably tough stand on animals rights, was an ill chosen move indeed. Following on another discussion in the same organ half a decade ago, Morrissey’s public pronouncements are becoming more and more addled and yes, that’s the word I would use.

This may seem soft – I refuse to entertain any praise of Queen because they once played apartheid South Africa’s playpen, Sun City, although I’ll admit that their being dire as a band helps fire my rage. You’ll ask me what Morrissey has to do for me to properly and unequivocally condemn him and yes, I’m having my doubts. But verbal diarrhoea, particularly from one now too used to spending time in his own company and clearly assailed by the ravages of the ageing process isn’t necessarily evidence of deep ill will. John Harris feels that his pronouncements are a symbol of the insularity of indiedom in general and it’s sadly now desirable that Morrissey, as the High Priest of that type of music should probably be kicked upstairs to Akihito style figurehead status now.

Bald, beard, belly and birthday

2010-09-11T09:36:00.000Z

Les Savy Fav.
Shoreditch Cargo. 10sep10.

“So what are you going to sing for me, then”, says Suzanne to Les Savy Fav’s bald, bearded and bellied singer Tim Harrington. Not unreasonably, you might think, but, thing is, Suzanne hasn’t paid to get in.

However, you might want to temper the haste of your indignation and opprobrium as, to be fair to Suzanne, the reason she hasn’t paid to get in is, well, because she isn’t ‘in’. She is celebrating her birthday in the bar adjacent to Cargo’s live room, and Tim has gone on one of his many walkabouts.

After aborting the attempt to commandeer one of her helium-filled festive balloons, he reveals his identity as the singer from next door and she makes her request into the mic. Naturally, “Happy Birthday To You” is forthcoming, with accompaniment from a couple of hundred hidden punters currently bobbing about on tip-toe but essentially staring at the back of a partition curtain.

On this occasion, he comes back through with nothing new to hand but on a previous visit, he had returned to view walking gingerly whilst balancing a rust-hued whisky glass containing a tea-light on his damp, glistening pate.

This is pretty standard fare for a Les Savy Fav live show, bassist Syd Butler’s crowd surf with instrument later in the set merely a cherry upon his singer’s wanderlusting cake.

Harrington prowls the stage, indeed the entire venue, like a bloodthirsty 19th century Russian sailor hunting down fresh competition at a bareknuckle club in Omsk. Or perhaps like an artist trying to seek out the bloke who leaked his band’s album online, requiring them to rush release the official version. The latter would at least represent Les Savy Fav’s recent experience.

At the start of this set, Harrington appears from inside a giant white inflatable sphere wearing pink sunglasses, a beret, leg warmers on each arm and an orange fake fur poncho, however he is soon down to just a set of yellow briefs that, and I’m being gentle to your mind’s eye here, have seen better days. However this is what Fav punters pay to see, a solid boo greeting his return to trouser.

Thankfully for all this play-time, there is plenty tuneage, and tight playing from the rest of the band. Neither is it one-dimensional bluster either, with the tip-up-and-blam aspects counter-balanced by agile alt.rock guitar (as on Patty Lee) and songs which can often have as much of a pop tilt as a hardcore one.

This was supposed to be a low-key album launch show but, really, how low key can a Les Savy Fav show ever really be?

Offset festival: one-liners

2010-09-10T15:47:00.000Z

One-liner reviews from the two-day Offset festival (35 acts including Blurt, above), appear via these links.

Offset day one

Offset day two

Don't judge an album by its cover

2010-08-18T23:28:00.002Z

I'm sure some of these are really good, honest. But I wouldn't want the Ministers to lay their hands on me, nor to witness Gary getting down to business, nor to know what John Bult gets up to on Julie's sixteenth birthday. And if the Faith Tones wanted to use me, I'd be terrified, quite frankly.

And while I'm on the subject of the collision between the musical and the ridiculous, take a peek at the video for 'Heathen Child', the first single to be taken from the forthcoming second Grinderman album.

Update: And there's more...

(Thanks to Gareth and Mhairi for the links.)

Flaming good

2010-08-18T23:27:00.003Z

Four early observations on new Arcade Fire album The Suburbs:

1. It's more measured and subtle than its predecessors - less full-on, less overtly apocalyptic, less pomp and circumstance, but not necessarily the worse for it.

2. A lot of the songs sound like Springsteen, except for the single 'Ready To Start', which sounds like the Strokes.

3. Wyn Butler really is obsessed with the youth of today, isn't he? "The kids" recurs like a mantra.

4. It's rather a splendid comeback, whichever way you look at it.

Rapped on the knuckles

2010-08-18T23:27:00.001Z

No sooner have Goldie Lookin Chain responded to 'Newport (Ymerodraeth State Of Mind)' with a diss track that might ignite a US East Coast v West Coast style rap feud than the original has been forcibly taken down from YouTube. All rather petty and ridiculous, really.

Gold soundz

2010-07-29T23:44:00.002Z

Fashionably late: the Silent Words Speak Loudest three-part write-up of Pavement's All Tomorrows Party in May.

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Your Majesty, they've come back

2010-07-04T13:25:00.002Z

The Pre New
Islington Lexington. 03jul10.

In April 1998, I went to see Earl Brutus at the University of London Union. We had travelled up from Portsmouth for it, got lost for two hours trying to find the venue, then our headlining heroes did just 30 chaotic minutes and cleared off, with no encores. All killer, no filler and no feeling of being short-changed; in short, it was one of the greatest gigs I’ve ever seen.

At this point they had made two albums and had built up a decent cult audience. However no more records were to follow and gigs slowly trickled to a halt in 2004. Four years later, singer Nick Sanderson succumbed to terminal illness, having spent his final years driving trains on the London to Brighton line.

Those of us still holding out for one more great show naturally believed that this sad turn of events would draw a line under it for good. However while Earl Brutus, quite rightly, cannot exist without their front man, Shinya Hayashida, Gordon King and Jim Fry from the group have come together once more as The Pre New to be both a tribute to the fallen, as well as a creative force in their own right.

As such Earl Brutus songs such as East, Navyhead and The S.A.S. & The Glam That Goes With It appear alongside a good mini-album’s worth of new material as well as a version of Sons Of The Stage by World of Twist, another of Sanderson’s former groups.

During their performance of Brutus’ Universal Plan, the changing of the line “I get up/go to work/eat my lunch/come home/cure cancer” to end “wish I’d cured cancer” is a subtle, and poignant, reminder of the “absent friends” mentioned by way of dedication earlier in the set.

However this was not an evening for melancholy as The Pre New more than capture the unruly, bundling spirit of their previous incarnation. Jim Fry, looking like a terrace bruiser in their court suit, does an admirable job of filling shoes and channelling some of the anarchic spirit, spiking his band mates with the mic stand, frequently dropping his burly frame into press-ups and straddling the drum set mid-song as his tubsman Gordon Phillips repeatedly tells him to “fuck off”.

The Pre New are to all intents and purposes an art-school glam band, but one that is piloted by a combination of boilermakers, dockworkers and granite-faced shop stewards, in a dance hall where the glitter balls are lined with asbestos.

“I like our band” says Jim Fry, as one song draws to a close. He’s right to do so.

Come for the review, stay for the raffle

2010-06-18T14:19:00.002Z

Gaggle, Viv Albertine, Fiction.
Bush Hall. 17jun10.

Following Fiction’s lively set where post-punk met 80’s sheen-pop head on, former Slit Viv Albertine ascended the stage got up in a dress that had the elegant sweep of something pulled from Pan’s People’s mothballed wardrobe. Stood alongside Viv as she played guitar, sang and waxed cheerily scornful, were a cellist and a player that moved between Theremin and cool sharp harp. A promising arsenal but one which proceeded to condense an apparent mid-life crisis into thirty minutes that was too often trite (see Couples Are Creepy, particularly) and too infrequently adventurous.

No such problems with Gaggle, who alighted upon the stage via a procession through the audience whilst bearing flags and a large standard that read “This is merely a distraction from the inevitable.” All in all it appeared to be some kind of anti- shuffling-on-from-behind-the-drum-set protest march.

Wearing face paint and outlandish colours, Gaggle are a colossal 40-legged voicebox aided an abetted by a live drummer, a laptop firing off low rumbles and euphoric blasts, and a choirmaster issuing important instructions like “sing louder!!”

What do they sound like? Well, the following options will be placed in the sweepstake beany for you to select from…

*A cyberpunk Gospel choir.

*A multi-tracked Lady Gaga having a live mash-up with Trash Kit and The Slits.

*An Afrobeat bonfire-side ceremonial.

*David Byrne putting on a for-the-community-by-the-community concert for women living in a Welsh mining village in the 60’s.

*A shamanistic Bananarama.

*Dull-arse bint-collective.

If you pick out the latter: llllll-loser. Any of the others, well, you are in possession of a winning ticket.

There will, of course be Polyphonic Spree comparisons but where Tim DeLaughter’s mob were more Branch-Davidian-cultish in spirit, Gaggle are much more vibrantly tribal.

Empty promises

2010-06-14T10:24:00.000Z

SENNEN / MATT WINKWORTH, 6TH MAY 2010, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

Some people are natural born performers, and Matt Winkworth is without doubt one of them. Some people would be discomforted by the spartan crowd, but the silence suits his clever, theatrical, idiosyncratic compositions and he actually seems to revel in the circumstances.

He can do whimsical wordsmithery ('We Buy Your Gold'), but better are those songs - such as the one about discovering "a cure for death" - whose jovial smile seems to slip at times to reveal an altogether darker and more sobering insight. '4am' takes it further - it could, I suppose, be artfully affected artifice, but it certainly feels more like naked and heartfelt confessional, suggesting that this consummate performer also has the confidence to lay all of the masks to one side.

Hailing originally from the Isle of Wight and now resident in Norwich, Sennen must surely be used to splendid isolation by now - and yet, in contrast to their support, they're visibly dispirited by the turnout. I suppose it's their party - a tour to coincide with the launch of new single 'With You' - so they can sulk if they want to, but it strikes me as taking shoegaze a bit too literally and hardly does much to fire the enthusiasm of those of us who have bothered to come along.

What tempted me were the comparisons to Explosions In The Sky, but having reacted like one of Pavlov's dogs hearing a ding-a-ling, I'm disappointed to discover that they only really hold true for opening epic 'I Couldn't Tell You', with its neatly chiming guitars and blistering climax. In reality, they're far more akin to the dearly departed Six By Seven - aforementioned single 'With You' being a bristling, insistent case in point - but generally lack the spark and sparkle that would suggest they're capable of anything more than skulking along in the Nottingham band's shadow.

My overall impression of Sennen is much the same as it was for The Joy Formidable last year - they press some of the right buttons, but hamfistedness means that all too often they get the wrong number.

The soft beating

2010-06-11T09:57:00.000Z

EFTERKLANG / HEATHER WOODS BRODERICK, 22ND APRIL 2010, OXFORD ZODIAC

For the majority of her set, it's a case of being unable to see the forest for the twee with Heather Woods Broderick. Everything is couched in such slight, delicate terms that it feels like having your ear gently tickled with a feather - in theory faintly soothing, but in practice and over time mildly irritating. But her switch to keyboards, dulled beats and electronic fuzz for the finale signposts a welcome shift away from the well-trodden paths of singer-songwriterdom and into more interesting virgin territory, in which her actual and musical voice suddenly seem more distinctive.

Broderick's work isn't done there, though. She's followed in her brother Peter's footsteps in becoming a touring member of headliners Efterklang. Indeed, far from being a peripheral contributor, the "little lady" - as she's referred to by frontman Casper Clausen (but we'll excuse him on the grounds of being a non-native speaker) - has an integral role in bringing to life their latest album Magic Chairs.

The last time the Danish troupe found themselves in this parish, just down the road at the Bullingdon, they were on tour in support of second LP Parades, a record which they've noteably performed with their homeland's National Chamber Orchestra. Judging on the reception they get, that show obviously won them plenty of admirers - much to the evident joy of a group who describe themselves (accurately) as "nice and friendly people" and who spend the evening with faces fixed in permagrins. None more so than Clausen, who expresses his delight at achieving the lifelong ambition of having drumsticks with his band's name on them, which (he says) take him back to playing Guns 'N' Roses covers as an eight-year-old and which he subsequently raps against the over-stage scaffolding to supplement Thomas Husmer's percussion.

Magic Chairs, Efterklang's first release for the resurgent 4AD, finds them making a pitch for wider recognition - albeit very much on their own terms. Far from being muted or abandoned, experimentation and invention are actively harnessed in the service of songs which seem like organic and perfectly fused wholes, sufficiently linear to hold mainstream appeal but revelling in their own eccentricities. The whole album exudes an inviting warmth and humanity that flatly contradicts the convenient oft-regurgitated stereotype of Scandinavian music as chilly and austere. The closest touchstones, should you want some, would probably be Anathallo or Grizzly Bear, with whom they'll be performing a Serpentine Session in London at the end of June.

The occasional snatches of their leftfield electronica-with-a-heartbeat past (which present an opportunity to show off their new light blocks beneath synthesiser and laptop) are a close match for the new material, but set closer and album highlight 'The Soft Beating' says it all - Efterklang wield a cushioned clout that leaves you dazed. The name, incidentally, roughly translates as "resonance" - and resonate is exactly what their live show does, long after they've packed up and moved on to lay subtle waste to another town.

Sonic youth

2010-06-07T17:56:00.001Z

JAPANDROIDS / PHANTOM THEORY / KEYBOARD CHOIR, 18TH MAY 2010, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

Comprised of members of The Evenings and Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element, and orchestrated by one chap with his back to the audience and arm outstretched in signal, Keyboard Choir are for the most part Fuck Buttons ransacking a Korg factory in search of a tune.

But then, at the very end, the ear-chafing electro terrorism gives way unexpectedly to expansive star-scuffed twinkliness, the tender caress of a robot whose setting has defaulted from angry to amorous. Though in all likelihood that'll probably be the song they've christened 'Death Wank In Toy Town'.

It seems perverse to talk about Winnebago Deal being quiet, but that's exactly what they've been of late - and, what with the demise of fellow two-strong noiseniks and Nightshift favourites 50 Ft Panda, Phantom Theory have clearly sensed a local situation vacant.

In between cranking out riff-roaring beasts that borrow from the weightier end of Nirvana's back catalogue as well as alluding to Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age, the duo have managed to find the time to reflect on how hard life must be for multi-millionaire twat Phil Collins, whose daily struggles they pay tribute to in a new song. 'Phil Collins Vs The World' they've called it, but 'Sympathy For The Devil' might have been more appropriate.

The Clash. Crass. Minor Threat. All "true" punk rock is political, right? Wrong. Canadians Japandroids are political only in the very loosest sense of vociferously proclaiming personal freedoms, and are far more emblematic of the real reasons why punk holds such appeal for teenagers in the first place. Namely, that it's fast, loud and as such has considerable potential for annoying parents and neighbours. There are slogans, sure - but they're all about going out, getting drunk and wanting to French kiss some French girls.

Neither, though, are they shallow squeaky-clean corporate-mall-punk dweebs. For a start, they're much too abrasive and loose - even more so live than on what is already a deliciously unrefined record, Post-Nothing. And there's a curious sort of naive but sincere profundity in lyrics like "I don't wanna worry about dying / I just wanna worry about those sunshine girls" ('Young Hearts Spark Fire') and "It's raining in Vancouver / And I don't give a fuck / 'Cos I'm in love with you tonight" ('Sovereignty').

So it's a terrible shame that this turns out to be a case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Guitarist Brian King leaps around on his guitar case, blurs his face with head-shaking, thrashes through a meaty cover of Mclusky's 'To Hell With Good Intentions' but all to no real avail - most of those assembled seem to have come just to gawp. "Is this a school night?", he asks, visibly discouraged. "Every night's Friday night for us", chips in drummer David Prowse cheerily.

And so it is for these two garglers on the elixir of youth, this pair of apostles of the hedonist's credo, whose message does at least spark one not-so-young heart into flame tonight.

Many happy returns

2010-06-05T12:31:00.000Z

FOALS / JONQUIL, 12TH MAY 2010, OXFORD ZODIAC

(Forgive the laziness, but this is an unedited version of the review I've put together for the next issue of the local Oxford listings mag Nightshift.)

Before the homecoming heroes, the homecoming heroes. Just as folk has somehow fallen back into popular favour with Noah And The Whale and Mumford And Sons, Jonquil appear to have abandoned the idea of carving out a niche for themselves as a pastoral folk-indie troupe. Tonight the only real nod to their former incarnation as an Arcadian Arcade Fire is holler-along anthem ‘Lions’, received fittingly enough with the biggest roar of the set.

Not that the brighter, bolder Jonquil 2.0 – an unusually on-the-same-page Broken Social Scene merrily marching along to Afrobeat – could be said to be fleeing from fashion. There remain some constants: the strength of Hugo Manuel’s vocals; Kit Monteith’s fluid, loose-limbed drumming; the sextet’s status as one of the most accomplished and consistently fascinating bands Oxford has produced in recent years.

And so to another. Nightshift has long championed the various projects of Yannis Phillipakis, only for his latest to schedule (and sell out) a gig on the same night as our very own Punt. There’s gratitude for you…

Tongue removed from cheek, though, the timing couldn’t really be much neater. Not only have Foals graduated from the local scene in the same way that all those playing the Punt are aspiring to do, but as revered alumni they’ve also gone on to shape it. And you will know them by the trail of influence, and all that. Yannis takes time to express his thanks for our support along the way, even if he can’t quite bring himself to crack a smile.

So, what of the reason that’s brought them back home, second album Total Life Forever? Interviewed in the last issue, Yannis stated “We didn’t feel like we needed to repeat ourselves” and alluded to a new-found appreciation for “the traditional craft of song-writing” – both of which claims seem, on first impressions, to be borne out by the new material.

Every element feels as though it’s on a shorter leash, operating within itself, reined in in the service of a greater good. The portentous swell of ‘Spanish Sahara’ is typical of the album’s grander gestures, but compared to the songs that won them such a fervent fanbase – like tightly-coiled springs, compact but full of potentially explosive energy and force – the likes of ‘This Orient’ come across as (sacrilege alert!) a touch bland. Might ‘Big Big Love (Fig. 2)’, Antidotes’ tantalising toe-dip into electronica-of-sorts, not have signposted a more interesting alternative future?

Perhaps that’s yet to come. For tonight, though, as well-received as the new tracks are, Antidotes continues to supply the cornerstones of the set – the pinpoint rhythms of ‘The French Open’; the whipcrack snare and unexpectedly heavy guitar interchanges of ‘Cassius’ and ‘Two Step Twice’; the exhilarating drum-and-strobe frenzy of ‘Electric Bloom’ – and helps ensure that Foals end the night exactly as they started it: the Crown Princes of Cowley Road.

Lakes superior

2010-06-03T20:30:00.001Z

THE BESNARD LAKES / ERLAND & THE CARNIVAL, 26TH MARCH 2010, BRISTOL ARNOLFINI

An imposing stone building in a harbourside location? A selection of fine continental lagers and real ales? A gourmet bar menu that if you look hard enough must surely include the words "drizzle" and "jus"? The Arnolfini is certainly some way removed from your average Academy, and naturally all the better for it.

The stage, which occupies a generous proportion of what is a relatively intimate gig venue, first plays host to Erland & The Carnival. This unlikely-looking quintet feature a frontman (Erland Cooper) and bassist (Danny Wheeler) apparently on loan from a youthful haircut indie outfit straight from the pages of NME and, on guitar, a coolly bejacketed and slightly slimmed-down John Sessions who turns out to be Simon Tong, whose CV credits include The Verve (most famously) but also more recently Blur, Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad And The Queen.

Tong's latest vehicle's musical vision is a vaudevillian one which lurches rather uneasily between ponderous Pentangle goth-folkiness (at their worst) and mannered 60s psychpop (at their best), set closer 'You Don't Have To Be Lonely' pleasingly recalling something from The Coral's first record. More curious still is exactly why they've chosen to half-inch the chorus to The Connells' '74-75' for their own 'Trouble In Mind'...

The Besnard Lakes' last album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse, couldn't have been much more aptly named. They came from out of nowhere to steal up on the rails and - if you'll allow me to rewrite history as it should really have been written in the first place - claim the #1 spot in the SWSL Top 10 Albums Of 2007. From the instant the gentle strumming, violin and falsettoed opening couplet ("Baby, I've got some words for you / When you get up in the afternoon") of 'Disaster' hit my ears, I was utterly smitten and realised - not for the first time - that I'd forever owe a debt of gratitude to the esteemed blogger who'd pointed me in their direction.

Skip forward three years and there was no chance whatsoever that ... Dark Horse's successor The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night was going to catch me unawares. What could potentially have been a major let-down has turned out to be a triumph - another masterclass to all the current legions of lame chancers on how to take My Bloody Valentine's legacy and do something genuinely interesting and creative with it. Inclined almost as much to post-rock and baroque pop as to shimmering shoegaze guitar washes, Besnard Lakes songs are carefully textured, rich and enveloping, and seem to exist in their own universe, operating according to their own rules and at their own stately pace.

At the heart of the band are a husband and wife combo - guitarist/vocalist and Les-McQueen-gone-to-seed-in-a-cowboy-shirt Jace Lasek playing the Thurston Moore to woolly-hatted bassist Olga Goreas's Kim Gordon. At first Goreas isn't quite in sync with drummer Kevin Laing, and neither is the sound perfect, the dramatic shifts in opener 'Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent Pt 2: The Innocent' somewhat blurred.

Meanwhile, 'Devastation' - which on record gives The Arcade Fire's 'Wake Up' a run for its money in the sounding fucking ENORMOUS stakes - might have been expected to shake the walls and rip the roof off, but it comes across a little tame, shorn of the extra instrumentation and choir of the recorded version. Perhaps what we're witnessing is only going to underline the importance of the production craft of Lasek and Goreas? Perhaps, outside the studio, the band are the proverbial fish out of water?

But, as the set segues through recent single 'Albatross', 'Land Of Living Skies Pt 2: The Living Skies' and bobbing rocker 'And This Is What We Call Progress', there's a subtle but incremental improvement. And, by the time we arrive at the aforementioned 'Disaster' and its splendid and similarly epic cousin from ... Dark Horse 'And You Lied To Me', they're firing on considerably more than all four cylinders, the magnificence of their records replicated to awesome effect.

But - "thanks" to the fact that Tunng are to follow and so they've only got a short slot - that, sadly, is that. As if I needed another reason to dislike the headliners...

So we flee the Arnolfini before Tunng unleash their surfeit of wacky instruments on us, and I find myself wondering why. Why aren't The Besnard Lakes better known? Why has their genius largely only been recognised by the critics? Why the hell are they being forced to play second fiddle to Tunng? And then I'm reminded of the words of Lasek's alter ego: "It's a shit business". That it is, Les, that it is.

Primavera Sound 2010

2010-05-27T11:53:00.002Z

The thing about the Primavera Sound is that it's not even just the nine gigantic and wee stages on the actual festival site. A number of smaller showcase gigs featuring homegrown and international artists pop up all over the city in the week surrounding the mainstream fest.

Wanting to squeeze out all the goodness available in that one wristband I turned up to as many of these as possible but, as you might imagine, this means an obscene number of bands. In terms of writing it up, you're looking at one heck of an essay, and my shtick is verbose enough as it is.

Thus this review will give each band witnessed for a decent length of time (20 minutes plus) a line to call their own. No more, no less; equality writ, err, small.

To break it up into bite-size chunks, you can find the various days linked here:

Days 1 & 2
(covers Atleta, First Aid Kit, Los Campesinos, Montañas, Nacho Umbert, Peggy Sue, Pelea, Toundra and Two Dead Cats)

Day 3
(covers Bis, Biscuit, Broken Social Scene, Chrome Hoof, Edredón, The Fall, Fuck Buttons, Macaco Bong, Mission of Burma, Pavement, Superchunk, Surfer Blood, Tortoise, Ui and The XX)

Day 4
(covers Beach House, Cuerpos, Forzudo, Fuel Fangando, Les Savy Fav, Low, Shellac, Wilco and Wire)

Days 5 and 6
(covers The Antlers, A Sunny Day In Glasgow, The Big Headed Trouble Boy, The Bundles, Circulatory System, The Clean, Dum Dum Girls, Florence & The Machine, Ganglians, The King Khan & BBQ Show, Matt & Kim, McEnroe, Mujeres, Pet Shop Boys, Rother/Shelley/Mullan, Thee Oh Sees and Thelematicos)

...and now to sleep for a week!

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

2010-05-23T23:41:00.001Z

THE ANTLERS / MORNING PARADE / CHAD VALLEY, 4TH MARCH 2010, OXFORD ZODIAC

Question: if no one is here to hear Chad Valley aka the electronic side project of Jonquil's Hugo Manuel, does it still sound like a budget Animal Collective? Answer: a resounding yes. A psychedelic maelstrom of electronics topped with heavily treated vocals - the comparisons are inescapable. Like Panda Bear and company, he could do with doing more in terms of a stage presence, but when you're trying to spin an array of musical plates at once and ensure none of them crash to the floor, his preoccupation is understandable.

And now for one of the 100% Cast-Iron Rules Of Live Performances: if a band take to the stage with a cocksure swagger and a sample of some bloke chuntering on about the music on the radio all being shit, then you can guarantee that they'll turn out to be the embodiment of EXACTLY what they purport to stand against. A spectacular lack of self-consciousness is just one of the reasons Morning Parade irritate the fuck out of me - others include the Kelly Jones vocals, the superfluous keyboards bussed in from another planet to add "depth", and the airbrushed, vacuous and soul-sappingly boring songs. "You're becoming someone else", the last song declares - if only they were.

But thankfully salvation is at hand - in the unlikely form of a band performing songs from a concept album about terminal illness.

2009's Hospice, the third full-length release from The Antlers, drew a rapturous reception from the critics but somehow passed me by until earlier this year. That title says a lot - not Hospital, which might suggest a place of frenzied activity in pursuit of recovery and cure, but Hospice, a peaceful place where death is awaited helplessly.

Arcade Fire's Funeral and Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago have inevitably been singled out as reference points, but to me it feels closer kin to Eels' Electro Shock Blues - claustrophobically sombre and personal at times but shot through with passages of pure catharsis, like the shimmering washes at the beginning of 'Thirteen'. Sober and serious? Not the sort of thing we've come to expect to hail from New York.

But how well such a record - haunting, harrowing and almost unbearably intense in a one-on-one situation - would translate to the live environment was anyone's guess. The answer is, emphatically, with great success.

The crowd's silence is right and proper, respectful in particular of the fragility and nakedness of Pete Silberman's falsetto - but the fact is that, augmented by all manner of pedals, electronics and effects, the songs puff themselves up to epic proportions. I'm not ashamed to say that Silberman's most memorable lyrics - "You're screaming, and cursing, and angry, and hurting me" ('Epilogue'), "Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve them" ('Wake') - take on an added urgency and passion that come close to reducing your humble correspondent to tears.

Silberman now finds himself in the unenviable position of having to follow Hospice up - but, for now, he can rest assured that he and his band are busy ekeing the very best out of what is an astonishing album (and, with hindsight, a heinous omission from last year's SWSL Top 10).

Omar goodness

2010-05-18T10:17:00.006Z

Omar Souleyman
King's Cross Scala. 17may10.

Call me superficial if you like, but my understanding and desire to witness Omar Souleyman was largely based on his enigmatic appearance, on a poster seen during his last UK tour, in 2009. The fact that his London shows are promoted by the Upset The Rhythm folks sealed the deal that it was probably worth checking out on his return. His actual sound though? No idea. I imagined though, judging a book by its cover, a kind of dusty folk-rock, kind of in the Tinariwen mould.

library pic by Crimson Glow Photography taken from Sublime Frequencies website

What I hadn’t expected was dance floor scenes that couldn’t have been more rave if a giant yellow smiley had been rolled onto the back of the stage and the head-scarfed Syrian gentleman in the middle of it had started squealing “ACIIIIIEEEEEED’ and blowing a neon whistle.

Not that there wasn’t similar punctuating intonations in each tune, yer ‘yallah’s and ‘aaaaahhhhyyyyy’s, regular as clockwork. Indeed, a great deal of Souleyman’s time was spent with the microphone tucked under his arm as he geed the crowd with soft ‘come with me’ gestures, fingertip-led hand-claps or genial waves.

You’ll appreciate; this is all pretty incongruous behaviour from a middle aged chap looking like a cross between Scatman John’s desert-dwelling cousin and a prototype mould for a Middle Eastern version of the joke shop Groucho Marx kit, yet all the more beguiling for its eccentricity.

Turns out the Souleyman set consists of a variety of musical styles from Syrian Dabke to Iraqi Choubi, and since his debut in 1994, he and his group have issued over 500 studio and live cassette albums in Syria. On this form, you can understand the demand for it.

For when the hard beats kick in over Rizan Sa'id’s chaotic dual-keyboard playing; when one of the bands associates removes his suit jacket to take centre-stage and, like a quiet and reserved uncle startling his family at a wedding, begins to gradually work up a slinky sweat; when Ali Shaker barrels out notes on the electric saz as though doing so whilst falling down a staircase; and when Omar takes time out from low-key cheerleading to fire out the poetry, it’s virtually impossible not to be exhilarated by their projected joie de vivre.

Omar Souleyman @ MySpace

(Mis)take that

2010-05-11T00:33:00.001Z

ERRORS / SO SO MODERN / JONNY DARE, 2ND MARCH 2010, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

It's such a rarity to be able to say of a band that more conviction and self-belief would be both welcome and justifiable - so step forwards (rather than shuffle tentatively) Jonny Dare. The outfit formerly known as Space Panthers bear the mark of prolonged exposure to the subtle rhythms of Vampire Weekend's debut album as well as a faint echo of Franz Ferdinand's stomp, while the band currently playing across town at the Zodiac, avant guitar pop whizzes Field Music, are also called to mind. Particularly impressive are the brave, exposed vocals and the quiet, measured song referring to superglue which is heavy on the glockenspiel and which manages to be humble and yet pregnant with anthemic potential at the same time.

Next up, another rarity: a New Zealand band who've made it over to Blighty hell-bent on proving to those who get misty-eyed about Flying Nun's mid-80s roster that their homeland scene is alive and kicking more than two decades later. So So Modern are quite an affront, a markedly louder blur of electronics, feedback and snatched choruses of "We don't sell drugs" performed by two men wearing sashes emblazoned with the title of their debut LP, Crude Futures. Genuine grooves are in short supply while misfiring samples cause some consternation, and I think it's safe to interpret the audience's reaction as non-plussed rather than astounded.

It's no surprise whatsoever that Mogwai took such a shine to the headliners that they decided to release their recorded output on Rock Action and give them an opportunity to showcase that material on tour. After all, Errors do sound like the result of the 'Gwai outsourcing the all-too-rarely-glimpsed electronic facet of their personality (think 'I Know You Are But What Am I?' from 2003's Happy Music For Happy People) for it to be refracted through rave, beefed up and squelched up. And that's not to mention that they've got their patrons' way with titles - see 2006 EP How Clean Is Your Acid House? for evidence...

In truth, a closer comparison for the likes of 'Mr Milk' and 'Pump' - the latter very much the high point of first LP It's Not Like Something But It Is Like Whatever - is probably Holy Fuck, but in many of their songs the euphoria is kept in check, at times by the same Glaswegian chill and drizzle in which Arab Strap's The Red Thread was steeped.

Tonight it takes a little while for the lovechild of Jarvis Cocker and Ross Millard in the Prince T-shirt and his accomplices to warm up - during which time I find myself wondering whether all Glaswegian bands are contractually obliged to use the word "pish" at some point during proceedings. But once they do, Errors really are quite something, sending punters skittling and bouncing off the walls of the Tavern like caffeinated toddlers, even on a school night.

There is power in a union part 2

2010-05-05T09:45:00.004Z

Carla Bozulich & Francesco Guerri
Dalston Café Oto. 03may10.

Each time Carla Bozulich brings her Evangelista band to the UK, it is rarely with the exact same personnel. This tour is a little different still, seeing her on equal billing with the cellist Francesco Guerri. The fact that they used to group themselves under the name Bloody Claws might give a few clues as to the coarseness of the music. Guerri bows and plucks with free-improvisational dexterity, whilst Carla works over her guitar and effect pedals to parade a dissonant, abrasive blare.

These passages, it might be fair to say, can meander a bit, particular when both Carla and Francesco, at various points in a set attacked at the shins by technical issues, are forced to cover the frantic swapping of leads and desperate sound-seeking strum of the other with some hectic noise on the fly.

Pic: Carla Bozulich (Evangelista) at Café Oto in October 2009

When it works, it’s powerful stuff but, as with any Carla Bozulich performance, it is when she opens her mouth to sing that the performance really comes alive, and particularly when it is just her voice in unison with Guerri’s innovative, thorny playing. In this duo scenario, one might suggest she ditch the guitar altogether, as the best moments, and some of the more inelegant ones, happen when it is sitting untouched at the back of the stage.

Without it hanging from her neck, Carla instead trails the mic around as she weaves in and out of the crowd. One initial foray ends awkwardly as she catches an ankle on her foot monitor and falls dramatically backwards, like David Jason through an open hatch.

This does not curtail the abandon of her movement though as she continues to venture out, commandeering chairs, pirouetting like a toddling ballerina lost in a daydream or leaning her entire body weight onto the back of one chap sat in the front row whilst unleashing the full callused power of her vocal range.

When fully flaunted, it is like a feral growl contained in a rickety cage; burnt yet eager, sharing the kind of ragged timbre one might associate with the Rev. C.L. Franklin as he looms over a pulpit roaring the gospel. It is torch singing as though from the gaping mouth of a fiery apocalypse.

Whether layered over cello drone, guitar spite or just unaccompanied, Carla Bozulich as a performer and as a vocalist is arresting, spell-binding and not a little haunting.

Previously, on the Art of Noise.
27apr08: Evanglesita @ The Old Blue Last.
06jun07: Carla Bozulich @ The Spitz.

There is power in a union part 1

2010-05-05T09:34:00.001Z

Micachu & The Shapes with The London Sinfonietta.
King’s Place. 01may10.

When a piece of work provokes what the cynical might call ‘the law of diminishing returns’, there is a positive spin that can equally be applied, relating to the strength of that initial impact.

For example, in the four times I watched Micachu & The Shapes in 2009, they were never so good as they were the first time around. The only exception to this rule was during the encore to that fourth show when they hooked up with tour-mates The Invisible for a collective cover of Paul McCartney’s very-80’s electro single Temporary Secretary, which was astonishing. Thanks, one assumes, to that element of surprise.

This is perhaps The Shapes’ greatest weapon in much the same way the first Fall album you come across tends to remain your favourite. However, it does put pressure on them to turnover the material, and indeed their style, at a rapid rate. Although, of course, this is no guarantee of artistic success.

Indeed, the non-album material that was aired on those later dates last year hinted at a more dirge-based direction, rather than the scratchy giddiness of great album tracks like Lips and Vulture. If I’m honest it didn’t quite seem to fit.

However, this collaboration with the London Sinfonietta, as part of the latter’s ‘Experiment’ festival, makes sense of it. Mica Levi, Shape-leader, is a classically trained musician and composer and, despite her youth, has already composed for the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

This is her 50 minute score, Chopped & Screwed, essentially a brand new set-list weaved together like the Bayeaux Tapestry; an avant-garde symphony sharing its aesthetic quality in places with both the austere and the more aggressive moments in Scott Walker’s string score for ‘The Drift’.

There are sparse moments which complement the John Cage and Christian Wolff pieces that five of the Sinfonietta had performed in the first half by way of warm-up, whilst other interludes see all the players tapping at their violins, cellos and wind instruments like amphetamine-fed woodpeckers. Reflective vocals and samples weave in and out whilst one passage is reportedly anchored on the speech patterns from slowed-down hip-hop records.

It’s never been in doubt that Mica is brimming with musical ideas, perhaps too many for a common-or-garden band making an assault on the pop charse or even just the indie/alternative consciousness. As such, so you can well see her and the Shapes (whose contribution should not being ignored, drummer Marc Pell doing a fine job of conducting the pace of the Sinfonietta players at various points) ploughing a more ambitious furrow than merely the indie toilet circuit.

Then again, you can imagine that that ambition might not necessarily manifest itself orchestrally, it could equally be a hardcore grime record, an album of ‘English folk music’ to reflect the modern shape of East London, or the pursuit of the perfect avant-pop sound.

Hopefully it won’t be any of those and Micachu & The Shapes will continue to strike out with the shock of the new.

Hot - or, rather, not

2010-05-03T22:55:00.001Z

HOT CLUB DE PARIS / THIS TOWN NEEDS GUNS / FROM HERE WE RUN, 24TH FEBRUARY 2010, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

What difference does six months make? In the case of From Here We Run, not that much. Sure, there's been a bit of an improvement since our first rendez-vous, at the Cellar at the tail end of August last year, but the same criticisms still apply - they're not tight enough or at least are too fussy and overcomplicated (laudable though their ambition is), and frontwoman Pieteke still sounds as though she's stumbled into a boys' club rather than being fully integrated within the band.

So much for the proteges - now for the real deal. But tonight This Town Needs Guns - purveyors of mathy emo, or "tappy tappy" as a friend has christened the genre - are a bit off target themselves, bungling one song half way through and sheepishly having to pick up the pieces. The fact that I can't remember there being vocals or that Jamie Cooper of fellow Oxonians Hreda plays bass suggests I may have been more drunk than I thought at Southsea Fest in September. Either way, This Town Needs Guns could perhaps rechristen themselves This Band Needs Hooks without fear of false advertising.

Which means it's all down to headliners Hot Club De Paris - who, it turns out, aren't really up to the job. You'd have thought that sounding like the Futureheads as interpreted and performed by Lily Savage would be more entertaining and diverting than it actually is, and sadly there's precious little of note other than the guitarist's complaint about being refused tobacco at the age of 29 (among a few other snatches of barely audible banter) and the two songs delivered a cappella by the three of them clustered together at the front of the stage. Lukewarm or Tepid Club De Paris doesn't really have the same ring to them, though...

No pigeons. Fewer holes.

2010-04-22T09:56:00.002Z

Caribou.
Manchester Deaf Institute. 19apr10.

Easy comparisons do not flow as easily towards Caribou as gripping rhythms do from them, which is probably how they would want it.

When I say ‘they’, I guess one has to mean ‘he’ as Dan Snaith is as much the recorded ‘Caribou’ as a caribou is a French-Canadian’s reindeer. Not that it was always thus, as Snaith previously worked under the name Manitoba until Richard Manitoba of The Dictators sent round some geezers. Geezers with law degrees anyway. Is that a court subpoena? No, it’s just the way his trousers hang, and so on.

In the live environment, Snaith works with Ryan Smith, Brad Weber, and John Schmersal, and they create a big sound for Caribou, bigger than would be within credible reach of one man. Certainly tunes from the latest Caribou LP Swim are given a little more grit. If it sounds a little submerged on the record, it bursts through the waves like an angry whale when put in these eight capable hands.

Certainly when Snaith joins Weber for a double-drum set assault, the whole Caribou experience ratchets up a notch or two, as well as when Ryan Smith’s guitar is occasionally given license to squall.

While the pinning motifs are the warp and bubble of programmed electronics, and Snaith’s forlorn howl (the plaintive wail over Kaila’s pulsing deviations being a particularly fine example), let nobody say that Caribou have not got a captivating rock band show in them, nor that they don’t have bona-fide pop songs. Cos, they have, and they do (see Odessa, particularly).

In places you could say what they do is a kind of a cool, dry, Tefal-egg-head kinda funk, all gathered up betwixt beat friendly soundscapes, or you could say they hold their ear to a glass to a wall on the other side of which Magma-style space-prog occasionally plays.

Too much shoe-horning doesn’t do anyone any good though, so let’s just say Caribou give good live show.

Caribou @ MySpace

review also appears at Vanity Project

Ba-da-bada-da, Ba-da-bada-da...

2010-04-02T11:59:00.004Z

Therapy?
Kings Cross Monto Water Rats. 30mar10.

Several have come from overseas for this. There are Czechs here, Fins, Americans; all making the effort to experience three consecutive nights of Therapy? in the tiny back-room of a London boozer, as they record a live LP.

The band appear to be hedging their bets on what’s to be on the eventual album too, with each night featuring a radically different set-list. Although the big crowd pleasers like Screamager (see below) and Nowhere are ever-present, of course.

Many here have bought into all three gigs but I gambled on the middle one, slithering tactically between the potential for both ring-rustiness and demob happiness. A further element of risk was the chance that I’d miss them playing my particular favourite tune, Innocent X as well.

Thankfully, only the Monday punters missed out on that particular treat, and treat it was. The sound of the ‘heavy-breathing-down-the-phone-line’ sample that signals it appeared as the final note of If It Kills Me dissolved, and triggered the kind of giddy physical abandon that I had thought locked away in a teenage time capsule.

I guess coming to see Therapy? again after all these years is an exercise in nostalgia, given that I’ve not bought any of their albums since 1998’s Semi Detached. However a gig at the Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms last October reminded me just how thrilling they can be live.

Whilst it’s interesting to hear the new stuff played out, and some of it, such as Enjoy The Struggle and I Told You I Was Ill is pretty rigorous stuff, and as good as current drummer, former Cable thumper Neil Cooper, is, I’m not sure they ever recovered from the loss of Fyfe Ewing. His snare-snap, rave-beat drum style was what really made those early albums and EPs special, and on record nowadays it feels as though Therapy? are content with just being a solid 4K’s in Kerrang! rock band. There are certainly worse things to be.

Looking at the set-lists of songs chosen for recording live over the three nights would suggests though that, in their heart of hearts, core members Andy Cairns and Michael McKeegan might also feel that 1995’s Infernal Love whilst dripping in addiction to both cocaine and the sartorial combination of false moustaches and frilly shirts, was their last really good record, certainly in terms of ambition anyway.

Indeed, tonight’s stand out moments all date from the early-to-mid-90’s; the mashing of their Joy Division cover Isolation with Loose; ancient b-side Evil Elvis; the Babyteeth debut album combination of Innocent X and Skyward from 1991 and the always thrilling Teethgrinder, prefaced here by the audience being required to vocally supply the “ba-da-bada-da” kickstart riff.

There’s plenty of this audience participation littered throughout, all screaming our names at once to see if we can pick them out on the record being one, but they needn’t worry about the music hall gambits, the tunes selected are more than enough to send those of us here with eager anticipation to the record shops when the eventual live opus appears.

SWSL Top 20 30 Live Performances Of 2009

2010-03-12T20:45:00.002Z

News just in: list-making is both an art and a sign of an obsessive and controlling personality.

So, anyway, where was I? Oh yeah - kicking off the SWSL end-of-year lists for 2009, a mere two-and-a-bit months into 2010...

I speculated at the beginning of last year's list that the move back to Abingdon from Oxford would curtail gig-going exploits, but the reality was that I actually saw more live music in 2009 than ever before. Perhaps not quite so surprising when you take into account my presence at Glastonbury, Southsea Fest and no fewer than three ATP festivals...

So, without further ado, here's the shakedown, extended by another 10 to 30 this time around (look, I make the rules, OK?). Click on the links if you want to read the reviews.

30. THE SPECIALS, Glastonbury Festival, 26th June

29. ZU, Oxford Wheatsheaf, 4th October

28. LOS CAMPESINOS!, Oxford Zodiac, 29th October

27. MELVINS, 10 Years Of ATP, 12th December

26. NEIL YOUNG, Glastonbury Festival, 26th June

25. BON IVER, ATP curated by The Breeders, 15th May

24. STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS, 10 Years Of ATP, 11th December

23. DIRTY THREE, ATP Nightmare Before Christmas, 6th December
(Also seen at 10 Years Of ATP)

22. IT HUGS BACK, Southsea Festival, 19th September
(Also seen at the Oxford Zodiac)

21. ELECTRIC EEL SHOCK, Oxford Zodiac, 20th October

20. RINGO DEATHSTARR, Oxford Jericho Tavern, 30th November

19. YO LA TENGO, ATP Nightmare Before Christmas, 4th December

18. SPINAL TAP, Glastonbury Festival, 27th June

17. EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY, 10 Years Of ATP, 13th December

16. J MASCIS & THE FOG, ATP Nightmare Before Christmas, 5th December
(Also seen at 10 Years Of ATP)

15. SHELLAC, 10 Years Of ATP, 13th December
(Also seen twice at ATP curated by The Breeders)

14. THE DRONES, 10 Years Of ATP, 12th December

13. SLEEPY SUN, 10 Years Of ATP, 13th December

12. FOALS, ATP curated by The Breeders, 17th May

11. FUCKED UP, Glastonbury Festival, 26th June
(Also seen at ATP Nightmare Before Christmas)

10. FUCK BUTTONS, 10 Years Of ATP, 11th December

9. NO AGE, ATP Nightmare Before Christmas, 5th December

8. BAT FOR LASHES, Oxford Zodiac, 8th October
(Also seen at Glastonbury Festival)

7. DINOSAUR JR, Oxford Academy, 19th August

6. JAPANDROIDS, London Madame Jojos, 27th October

5. YEAH YEAH YEAHS, Glastonbury Festival, 28th June
(Also seen at 10 Years Of ATP)

4. DEERHUNTER, ATP curated by The Breeders, 17th May

3. HOLY FUCK, ATP curated by The Breeders, 16th May
(Also seen at the Oxford Zodiac)

2. SONIC YOUTH, ATP Nightmare Before Christmas, 5th December

1. NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS, Glastonbury Festival, 28th June

An A-Z of every other band / artist I enjoyed (or, in some cases, endured) in 2009 - every single one reviewed somewhere in the sidebar:

4 Or 5 Magicians
Aeroplane Attack
Afrirampo
Lily Allen
And So I Watch You From Afar
Animal Collective
A Place To Bury Strangers
Apse
The B Of The Bang
Balls Deep
Battles
Bear Hands
Bjorn Again
Blur
Brand New
The Breeders
Broken Records
Brontide
The Bronx
The Buzzcocks
Calories
Cat Matador
Tony Christie
Gabriella Cilmi
Jarvis Cocker
Copy Haho
Cougar
Crosby, Stills & Nash
CSS
Dananananaykroyd
Dead Confederate
Deerhoof
Distortion Felix
Dizzee Rascal
Dr Slaggleberry
Drunkenstein
Eagles Of Death Metal
Einstellung
Elapse-O
Enter Shikari
The Fiery Furnaces
Final Round ... Fight!
Fleet Foxes
From Here We Run
From Light To Sound
Gang Of Four
Giant Sand
The Gullivers
The Halcyons
Harmony Rockets
Hockey
Hold Fast
Hoodlums
The Horrors
Howling Bells
Hreda
Sam Isaac
Ivy's Itch
Japanese Voyeurs
Johnny Foreigner
The Joy Formidable x2
J Rocc & Madlib
Jumping Ships
George King
The Levels
Lightning Bolt x2
Lilys
The Magic Band
Mariachi El Bronx
The Mars Volta
Maximo Park
Melt-Banana
The Membranes
Micachu & The Shapes
Minnaars
Bob Mould
Mudhoney
Mum
My Bloody Valentine
N.E.R.D.
Nitkowski
One Unique Signal
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Passion Pit
The Pastels
Josh T Pearson
Peggy Sue
Peter Bjorn And John
Polvo
Porn
The Prodigy
Pulled Apart By Horses
The Ramblings
The Roundheels
The Rumble Strips
School Of Seven Bells
Sealings
Serena-Maneesh
Six Organs Of Admittance
Sky Larkin
Smilex
Dan Smith
The Soft Pack
Sparky Deathcap
Bruce Springsteen
Status Quo
The Strange Death Of Liberal England
Sunn O))) x2
Sun Ra Arkestra
Swervedriver
Talk In Code
Tellison
This Town Needs Guns
Throwing Muses
Yann Tiersen
Times New Viking
Trembling Bells
Tricky
The Tupolev Ghost
Villiers Terrace
The Virgins
Wavves
We Were Promised Jetpacks
William
Matt Winkworth
Wire
Wolves Of Virginia
X
Yeasayer

Of all those, the worst would probably be Enter Shikari - but the most disappointing (where the gap between expectation and reality was largest) would have to be Animal Collective.

I really can't see 2010 turning out to be quite such a glut of gigs and festivals. All the same, part of me thinks I should just print this post out and hand it to anyone taking issue with one of my reviews who has the gall to suggest (as has happened on occasion, and indeed did happen last year) that I can't possibly be either a music fan generally or a lover of live music more specifically...

Know Your Enemy

2010-03-12T20:45:00.001Z

"Maybe U2 could pay back all the free advertising they got for their last album by funding 6 Music."

James Walsh of Starsailor (remember them?) attempts to forge himself an unlikely reputation as a sharp-tongued voice of wisdom in his reaction to the news that the BBC are axeing 6 Music.

Danny Wallace, who regularly appears on the station, phrased his disgruntlement more delicately: "Today I fell a little bit out of love with the world's most fantastic organisation, which is now less fantastic".

You can register your own displeasure at the proposed loss of both 6 Music and the Asian Network by signing a petition here (though I'm sure there are others elsewhere).

Blocks party

2010-03-10T23:35:00.001Z

The Manganiyar Seduction
Barbican Theatre. 06mar10.

To put it trivially, it’s like Celebrity Squares, but instead of nine celebrities you have 38 Manganiyar musicians in 33 compartments of a giant, but still relatively cramped, dolls house hidden behind curtains until their turn in the spotlights dotted around their segment comes around.

The Manganiyars are a company of Muslim folk musicians who historically were employed as court performers for the kings of Rajasthan. Director of this theatrical presentation is Roysten Abel who became so enamoured with their sound after working with two of them on a play in Spain in 2006, that after leaving for his next job, he found himself missing their music so much that he called them up and asked them to sing to him down the phone.

Thus the seeds of the Seduction began. You can certainly understand Abel’s thought process too, he was removed from the sound, and found himself craving it and thus in this 75 minute performance we are held back from the full experience of all 38 musicians and vocalists performing together until ten minutes from the end. Having it cascaded so stealthily, rationed out like wartime cheese, causes the intrigue and imagination to effervesce and to become enraptured, sucked in by the consistencies of the rhythms, the subtle undertones and the vocals that sound like the issuing of an ultimatum.

In a way, the swish of the curtain rail is part of it, part of the ‘reveal’ of course, but also an aspect of the excitement of the sound diverting and layering. It begins with just one musician, bowing a kamancha slowly, establishing a base drone to which dholak players add percussion before the vocalists are introduced largely one-by-one.

As the piece continues, different instruments such as the murli, dhol and sarangi are brought into play; introduction and re-introduction to the arrangement highlighted by the increased lustre of the lights that box them in, the bulbs fading out as their instrument falls to rest.

Certain instruments are given the chance to solo, or trade off with each other. Daevo Khan not only conducts from in front of the box structure but also works the kartal, a percussion instrument similar to a castanet, and at one point engages in a duel with Kutla Khan’s morchang (similar to the jaws harp) that has a jazz-like fortitude.

Eventually an intense four-drum breakaway builds the pulse-rate, a down-tempo diversion then cleverly counters expectation of this being a non-stop race to the summit before the entire ensemble comes together as a whole for the first time. Naturally, the breath is stolen from us at this point.

The deliberate and hesitant exposure, the red boxes and the lights betray the burlesque aspect that Abel had in his vision but it seems unbecoming to refer to it as a ‘tease’, strip or otherwise; to introduce a seediness that doesn’t do justice to the majesty of the music. Abel’s suggestion that he also had the windows of Indian palaces in his mind’s eye appears much more in keeping with the intricate and ornamental nature of the visual spectacle

The Manganiyar Seduction @ YouTube [5 mins]

Many happy returns

2010-02-26T01:36:00.002Z

A mere two-and-a-bit months after the event - the Silent Words Speak Loudest write-up of ATP's 10th birthday party, in three installments:

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Two night stand (and a lunch date)

2010-02-20T16:50:00.003Z

Think About Life
Shoreditch Cargo. 15feb10.
Farringdon Pure Groove. 16feb10.
Spitalfields 93 Feet East. 17feb10.

Montreal’s Think About Life stop in London lasted but four days but in that time they were able to squeeze in five shows. So taken was I with their first, I attended the second and fourth as well. Never let it be said that I don't put in the leg-work when appraising a band.

Their week began with an opening slot supporting tUnE-YaRdS (who, incidentally, was just astonishing from her very first vocal note) in front of a red hot sold out crowd at Cargo. London crowds tend to need more than a little ‘warming’, so thankfully we were met square in the eyes by a band that project an exuberance you could spring a mattress with.

For the other two gigs they had much less to work with, 93 Feet East being largely empty, whilst their lunchtime set at Pure Groove saw them delivering tune to about twenty seated customers sipping tea and weighing up the merits of the homemade millionaire shortbread. Yet the bigger gaps in the room didn’t lead to holes being torn in the energy of their performance.

In terms of that, they remind me a bit of Baltimore’s Future Islands who in similar way, I became instantly fond of last year. Like them Islands, there is the almost relentless enthusiasm, the child-like bounce, and the ability to prompt an espirit du corps involving both band and audience, regardless of how big it is.

This is also partly thanks to frontman Martin Cesar’s rascally giddiness and ability to get carried away. Within a couple of songs at Cargo he was telling us “London, we love you!” before pondering that he may be coming on too strong too soon and reappraising that to ‘like’. Recounting this tale less than a day later at Pure Groove, he decided that we happy few sitting attentively and nursing a hot drink had convinced him to fall in love after all. Mind you, we might partly attribute this bundling of effusive affection to the jet-lag as they later took time to laud British coverage of the Winter Olympics over their equivalent at home; thus spoke bassist and fellow vocalist Caila Thompson-Hannant, “No commercials!!…you got your TV down!”

Scatty wittering aside, Cesar is a commanding presence with his burly frame, dark glasses and soul-soaked voice that recalls TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe. He bounds around, often in a vaguely choreographed manner with Thompson-Hannant. For example, they power down like sharply unplugged androids when Johanna collapses in on itself, before firing up again amidst sparks and flicker as the song reboots.

Band leader Graham Van Pelt throws shapes with his guitars but never loses sight of his sampler duties, at one point during the 93 Feet East show depressing one switch with his nose whilst mid-riff. Behind all three, drummer Matt Shane ripples like trees in a breeze.

In terms of tunes, they’ve got a good set of eccentric pop songs to tout. Havin’ My Baby and Sweet Sixteen cycle amphetamine vocal samples to underpin some grandstanding work from Van Pelt and Cesar while fuzz-funk piece Young Hearts pauses twice for mystical spoken word to saunter out of the speakers. However, Wizzzard is the big high, as the main synth motif scythes like a young Amish farmhand eagerly getting amongst his first harvest, stabs like a staccato Psycho and swings like one whose car keys have taken their chances in the party punch bowl.

Hopefully they’ve returned to Canada with enough London love left to warrant their swift return.

Think About Life @ MySpace

Sons, and a daughter

2010-02-01T00:02:00.004Z

Sons Of Noel & Adrian, Alessi’s Ark.
Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen. 27jan10.

Alessi Laurent-Marke might have a lot in common with hippie-era folk musicians of the 1960’s but she knows nothing of your 1980’s, let alone two decades prior, being only four days older than Gazza’s Turin tears. Her onstage mannerisms often betray this, all scampishness and whimsy, little sisterish I guess, shy and self-effacing. Looking out into the attentive crowd, a mirror-ball whirling, she says, semi-awkwardly, “it’s like a disco, but without uplifting music…but it’s coming…this one’s about a dog.”

Her vocal is pretty distinctive as well, seemingly quite affected, pushed out on a breath but all chewy and purring. The general demeanour does suggest she might be the type to go all Vashti Bunyan, release one record then go to ground for thirty years, sheltering feral cats and knitting shreoes.

While the tempo of her music might not be high-octane, it is certainly more mature than her mannerisms might imply, and for her to suggest it is not uplifting is to be a little too self-deprecating. Her work evokes flickering embers, snapping twigs and dark clearings, and if there is a coolness, it is one which is made cosy; tucked up inside a blanket, particularly when she is joined by several members of the Wilkommen Collective to flesh out her brittle acoustic sound.

The Collective are a Brighton-based musical community and Sons of Noel and Adrian are, like The Leisure Society, Shoreline and The Miserable Rich, one of the acts to come from within their creative kibbutz. One might argue the Sons pull on a disproportionate amount of the collective resource, given that they are ten members strong. Amongst the instrumentation this evening can be found an oboe, a trumpet, a flute, a cello, an accordion and an additional bass drum plinthed on two multipacks of toilet roll. However, this is a best case scenario, as they have been known to turn out with half that number in their ranks.

Given the power of their assembled sounds though, one imagines that the greater they number in terms of parts, the greater the whole. Tonight they sound burgeoning and beefy. Whilst they might be termed a folk band, they certainly do not share Alessi’s feyness, instead rolling and tumbling like a vessel through tempestuous waves, their arrangements as ambitious as a blueprint for a belfry.

These arrangements are vaguely reminiscent of the work Craig Fortnam does with the North Sea Radio Orchestra, with the lean towards the earthily muscular rather than light chamber operatics. Not that they are without fragility as Jacob Richardson’s vocal gnarled porch drawl is often filtered through a Devendra Banhart-esque petrified warble.

Like I say though the key is the collective and when they crash their heels to the floor for an additional percussive thump (during several songs, not least the wonderful opener Inside Olympia), or whistle in unison (as on The Wreck Is Not A Boat), it is a cooperative show of strength. By and large, with one or two exceptions, Sons of Noel and Adrian’s songs all come in at around the five minute mark, but all feel ‘epic’ in terms of their aspirations.

Sons Of Noel & Adrian @ MySpace
Alessi's Ark @ MySpace

Party time! Excellent!

2010-01-26T08:00:00.000Z

At long last - my hazy recollections of the My Bloody Valentine-curated ATP Nightmare Before Christmas are up on Silent Words Speak Loudest, in three installments...

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Ringo Deathstarr ate my hamster*

2010-01-26T00:42:00.001Z

RINGO DEATHSTARR / SEALINGS, 30TH NOVEMBER 2009, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

Another You! Me! Dancing! night at the Jericho Tavern (the third of the month, after We Were Promised Jetpacks and Wavves), so that must mean ... wot, no Japandroids?!! Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion instead? Oh well, one of SWSL's Top 10 Albums Of The Year for another - so can't complain. (The full line-up to be revealed in due course...)

Sealings - who (presumably) take their moniker from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' contribution to the Spiderman 3 soundtrack - are two young chaps by the name of Michael and Liam accompanied by their trusty drum machine. It's telling that said drum machine is probably the most dynamic onstage presence - neither of its human companions faces the audience directly (indeed, one has his back to us almost throughout).

Judging by the number of awkward nodding going on around me, either late-forty-somethings in Oxford have a penchant for a ~~poor~~ broke man's Big Pink with what seems like the odd bizarre speed metal interlude, or there are a lot of parents and relatives present. My guess is the latter. Y!M!D! clearly like them, though - they've been booked to support Vivian Girls in January. But if I end up going to that one, I might just have that extra pint downstairs.

As preparations for taking to the stage go, being accosted by a drunk in the toilets asking you if you're over here in search of your Scottish roots probably doesn't rank that highly. Elliott Frazier affably shrugs it off, though: "I've got a cousin in Derby. But he's a police officer, so he's probably a dick..."

I can't quite remember when I first came across Frazier's band, the marvellously-named Ringo Deathstarr - it may well have been on the ever-excellent Sweeping The Nation - but it was some time in 2007. One nibble of 'Some Kind Of Sad' - a rambunctious tribute to The Jesus & Mary Chain that sounded like the Texans chainsaw massacring Psychocandy - and I was completely nobbled. Their self-titled EP soon arrived complete with a lovely handwritten postcard from Simon of Spoilt Victorian Child (the personal touch - can't beat it), and an absolute delight it proved to be too, only denied the SWSL Single Of The Year award on a technicality (it couldn't actually be classified as a single).

Two years later (during which they've been taken under the wing of those louche Lord Henry Wottons the Dandy Warhols), and here they are - finally on these shores, fresh from a gig with the similarly influenced but rather more restrained The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart at the ICA, and finally with new material to bulk out the set in the shape of September single and My Bloody Valentine homage 'In Love' and its woozily sensuous B-side 'Summertime' (dedicated tonight to "the Princess of Oxford", whoever she is).

As you may have surmised, Ringo Deathstarr won't be winning any prizes for originality any time soon. Indeed, there are times on the EP where they seem to flirt with parody - the title of 'Down On You' alone is suggestive of a humourless brothers Reid oblivious to double entendre, and as for 'Some Kind Of Sad's lyric "You taste like honeydew, just like honeydew"... But, for the majority of the reverb-fiends gathered here tonight, they're a raw delight. Frazier, incidentally, once claimed his dream gig would be "one where people are there to see us" - so he should be happy.

Winding up as hoped with 'Some Kind Of Sad', and Frazier lying his guitar on the floor in front of the stage and then lobbing it back into the drumkit (missing leggy bass siren Alex Gehring by a matter of inches), the set weighs in at just eight songs long - so you could hardly accuse them of outstaying their welcome. Even Wavves stuck around longer (just). But in this instance that old adage about leaving 'em wanting more couldn't be truer.

* Not really. Just thought it made quite a good title.

Enough Buff

2010-01-17T15:41:00.004Z

The Buff Medways.
Tufnell Park Boston Arms Music Room. 15jan10.

It is not as though Billy Childish isn’t fond of a reinvention, having performed over the years as part of the Thee Headcoats, The Pop Rivets, The Milkshakes, Thee Mighty Ceasers, The Blackhands and most recently The Musicians Of The British Empire (The MBE's, pictured below at Rough Trade East in August 2009). However, for the past couple of months, there has been a kind of pre-invention, with the MBE’s immediate predecessor, The Buff Medways, rehabilitated for the stage.

Mind you, as reformations go, it’s hardly up there with Martin Luther nailing his ‘Top 95 reasons the Pope can do one, from Angry of Wittenburg’ letter to a church door. Nor is it Take That using the nostalgia market as a springboard for an AOR transcendence of teenage fashion. It is merely a product of circumstance with original Buff’s member Johnny Barker drafted in whilst MBE’s bassist Nurse Julie delivers her young.

Not that there’s a great deal in a name though as the dividing line between the Buffs and the MBE’s is so blurry you could go swimming in it. If The Fall can be summed up as Mark E. Smith + whoever (ex-girlfriend in tap-shoes, a load of blokes out the boozer or, famously, “yer granny on bongos”) then it’s fair to say Billy Childish’s last two incarnations share the same equation i.e. Billy + 2 (one of which is likely to be Wolf Howard on drums).

Both acts have also tended not to play too often outside the confines of the Dirty Water Club, the regular rock n’ roll night at the Boston Arms, amongst which they have long held a kind of monthly-ish residency. So, whichever bird’s plumage I was looking to admire I have, at least, caught them here in their natural habitat.

What you can always be assured of, whichever group is on the poster, is the witheringly dry between song wittering. This show began with a long Childish ramble about how, by way of protest about the quality of rider alcohol given to the band as opposed to the Dirty Water DJ’s, Wolf Howard would be making deliberate errors in his playing; “I don’t drink so it don’t affect me, but I ain’t no scab, so I’ll be making mistakes as well.”

Also, there is firm guarantee that Billy’s sartorial eccentricity will be on display, tonight being clad in Tam O’Shanter, fur vest and a nightclub comic’s ruffled shirt, his decorative rolling pin of a moustache still twirled proudly beneath his nose.

The musical blueprint is certainly very much the same for both groups, fired by an enthusiasm for Who and Kinks style beat rock n’ roll played punk; all frayed edges and a gung-ho lack of intricacy. Yet while the MBE’s set is usually chock heavy with songs from the Buffs era, there was little to nowt from more recent years in this Medways set.

Yet as Steady The Buffs was Billy’s finest recorded work of the last decade, it is hardly surprising that songs from it, such as Ivor, Sally Sensation and Archive From 1959 remain staples of his live repertoire.

However, with childbirth now wrapped up, and Nurse Julie due to return to the fold in March, The Buff Medways handle is coming to the end of its second shift. Rest assured though that the ringing of the bell and the changing of the guard will not see any discernable variation to either productivity or product.

Buff Medways @ MySpace
Billy Childish & The Musicians Of The British Empire review (March 2008)

Sine of the times

2009-12-21T02:21:00.001Z

WAVVES / FROM LIGHT TO SOUND, 18TH NOVEMBER 2009, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

Having failed in my quest to see From Light To Sound once before, back at the tail end of August, tonight proves to be second time lucky - I've actually read the bill correctly...

I could legitimately describe From Light To Sound as a "supergroup" if you'd actually heard of all (or even any) of the various members' other projects. So, just a plain group, then. It's also potentially misleading to describe them as a mellowed Mogwai who've cribbed notes on Holy Fuck's more blissed-out moments (you know - 'Lovely Allen') because, although that's certainly what tracks like opener 'Heart And Electricity' hint hopefully at, there are a few missteps along the way, the songs often tend to sag slightly (sometimes seeming almost to lose interest in themselves) and I get the impression that too many guitarists are spoiling the broth.

But their set is a far from disagreeable first half of the evening's entertainment, and it's hard to dislike a band who declare that one of their instrumentals is about "an imaginary civil war between Swansea and Cardiff". To use a characteristically South Walian expression in its more widely understood sense, tidy.

It's also second time lucky with the headliners. Due to play this very venue in June, Wavves pulled the plug on their entire tour following the very public plug-pulling that took place at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona in May and Nathan Williams' subsequent grovelling apology for being drugged out of his mind, so it's a relief just to see him take to the Jericho Tavern stage.

Not that they haven't continued to be plagued by disaster and misfortune - Zach Hill of Hella and countless other projects was due to be behind the kit (something of which promoters You! Me Dancing! had understandably made much on the bill posters), only for him to break his wrist just days before the tour kicked off. Williams, in his characteristically bratty/"whatevs" way, rubs his eyes theatrically in a boo-hoo gesture. The show must go on - and it does, for all of about 25 minutes.

I think I've mentioned on here before (and if I haven't, I certainly should have) my conviction of there being a musical lineage spanning decades and generations that began in earnest with the Beach Boys in the 60s and then passed through the Ramones in the 70s and the Jesus & Mary Chain in the 80s - a lineage which has seen sweet pop harmonies gradually submerged deeper and deeper beneath fuzz. And Wavves - essentially No Age if they'd listened to less My Bloody Valentine and more Nirvana and 50s/60s girl groups - are arguably the tradition's current torch-holders (though "deep" isn't an appropriate adjective). All of which is to say that, unlike From Light To Sound, they're very definitely not tidy. On the contrary, they're as loose as hell, and either instantly likeable or instantly detestable depending on your preferences.

Wavves were born as Williams' bedroom project - something to pass the five-minute intervals between spliffs, is my guess - and that's exactly where slacker surf-punk anthems like 'So Bored' and 'No Hope Kids' transport you: an oddly odoured enclave where you might have to step gingerly around crusty socks on the floor, but also a place of joyous youthful abandon, a refuge from adulthood.

As they kick off their single-song encore - it's the only one the current bassist and drummer know that they haven't already played - and the youngsters in front of me gleefully grab one last opportunity to throw themselves around, I wonder briefly whether this is a guilty pleasure, and how undignified it might seem for a 32-year-old like me to still get high on the smell of teen spirit. But then I realise I really don't care.

Three feet high and rising

2009-12-11T10:17:00.001Z

WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS / THE GULLIVERS / CAT MATADOR, 12TH NOVEMBER 2009, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

Being one of seemingly very few people in this godforsaken country who thinks Clinic are so criminally underrated that the record-buying public should be banged up for life (a kind of circular argument, that), I was always going to find my interest piqued by repeated comparisons between them and Cat Matador. In truth, though, with their de rigeur violin, the local hopefuls have more in common with those riding the recent wave of vaguely folk-influenced, fiery-eyed and epic indie from Scotland: My Latest Novel, Broken Records and The Twilight Sad.

A technical glitch which leaves them stumped for more than five minutes hardly helps their cause, while the rhythm section is too obtrusive at times, they're often somewhat disjointed and I'm not keen on Liam Martin's vocals. But that's certainly not to imply that they're not worth bothering with - on the contrary, there's enough going on to merit a confident tick in the column marked "Promising".

For The Gullivers, it's tempting just to put "See above". Certainly in terms of the flaws, the bass and drums again often force their way too far into the foreground, and while Mark Byrne may have the perfect frontman's stare (intense and permanently directed two foot above everyone's heads), sadly he doesn't possess the voice to match.

But, unlike Cat Matador, The Gullivers do at least have someone who CAN sing amongst their ranks, as keyboardist Sophie McGrath proves on 'Letters', her Bat For Lashes T-shirt giving some hint as to where their influences lie. What's impressive in a band so young is exactly what has struck critics and listeners alike as so remarkable about The XX - namely the careful and judicious restraint on volume and the beyond-their-years maturity and confidence to allow the different elements of the songs space to breathe.

Headliners We Were Promised Jetpacks, by contrast, are all about much broader, more aggressive brush-strokes within fairly familiar parameters - so their signing to FatCat (thanks largely to their association with two acts already on the roster, Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad) struck me as being a bit of a curious one.

The leftfield Brighton label has at various times been home to the likes of Vashti Bunyan, Black Dice, Mum, No Age, Animal Collective, Sigur Ros and post-rock supergroup Set Fire To Flames. Perhaps, then, the hope is that the Edinburgh quartet might turn out to be their Franz Ferdinand or Arctic Monkeys - both critically and commercially successful and thereby vital in underpinning some of the label's more esoteric releases.

Fierce dynamics and punchy post-hardcore guitars prevail (even when they reveal they've been bitten by the glockenspiel bug that's doing the rounds - it really doesn't suit them) but the secret weapon in their armoury, the thing that will really set the Jetpacks apart from the pack (if you will), is undoubtedly Adam Thompson. He's a vocalist of the vein-popping variety but never resorts to screaming, instead singing his lyrics with an almighty bellow, often delivering them stood well back from the mic.

Debut single 'Quiet Little Voices' - the oldest song still in their repertoire, the one with which most of us are familiar, and one that's patently not about Thompson - is fired off second, no longer the cornerstone of the set as I imagine it was in the early days. And that's because it's been displaced by the likes of 'Conductor' and 'It's Thunder And It's Lightning', the latter a recent single and the potent opening track on the LP, These Four Walls.

It's an apt album title - there's definitely a sense of the songs seething and raging within a confined space, like controlled explosions. Often a little too controlled for my liking, to be honest - I'd value less formula and a few more frayed edges - but, like set closer 'Short Bursts', undeniably explosive nonetheless. The modest foursome may be keeping their feet on the ground but, you sense, know that given the right conditions they might well take off.

Tuning into the future

2009-12-11T10:16:00.001Z

2009 is still a fair few days from packing its bags and taking a hike (and the SWSL end-of-year lists are a lot further away than that, let me add), but the BBC have already posted their ones to watch for 2010. Good to see Stornoway getting a mention, but on first impressions the band/act that grabbed me the most were definitely The Drums. As suggested, featured song 'Let's Go Surfing' does indeed manage to sound both breezily surf-pop and effortlessly 70s Noo Yoik. Wavves for people who are precious about their ears, basically.

They've also assessed the impact of 2009's crop - unsurprisingly, most met with significant success, not least because they were already being pushed vigorously and steered calculatedly. Lady Gaga, Florence And The Machine, La Roux and Little Boots - I'm looking at you. But there were flops, including a lukewarm response for Passion Pit - it seems I was roughly in tune with the general public when it came to my thoughts on them back in February.

Chroesawa at Cymraeg

2009-12-08T22:49:00.004Z

9Bach
Clerkenwell Slaughtered Lamb. 07dec09.

“When I say mostly sung in Welsh, I mean only sung in Welsh” says Lisa Jen Brown as an early disclaimer; “[besides] they’re all Welsh folk songs, they’ll all be about death.” She eventually contradicts herself on this point, prefacing each song with a plot synopsis in lieu of subtitles.

As it turns out, while Yr Eneth Gadd Ei Gwrthod follows a morbid theme, other numbers, such as Pontypridd, are about farmers up on their luck, or people gossiping about the town drunk.

All traditional songs they might be, but 9Bach’s method is to give them a bit of a contemporary makeover. However, crucially, they don’t oversell their twist, nor do they shoehorn in too much modernity, and as such the spirit of the original songs remains. Their one concession to a big showpiece comes during Lisa Lân when it all goes a bit Mariachi before curtailing its excesses for a series of receding false finales.

In the most part though, their arrangements are economical; managing to be uncomplicated yet seem opulent through a display of well-practised craftsmanship, particularly by Esyllt Glyn Jones on harp. While they might not blow any amps, they do manage to blow a lamp, the tall upright at the back of the stage flickering and fizzing into darkness mid-set.

Bwthyn Fy Nain announces its arrival with Martin Hoyland’s Gilmour-like unhurried guitar flex and a great many of their pieces have the same attitude to deceleration and allowing tunes to breathe as post-Barrett Floyd (without the verbosity), Nina Nastasia or Low in their Things We Lost In The Fire / Trust era. If anything, the tempo dictated by Ali Byworth’s drumming and Dan Swain’s bass is indicative of a trip-hop influence, rather than traditionalist dirge.

They appear sensitive to being seen as desolate though, to the point where they apologise profusely when the slowest of their pieces is imminent, promising that more upbeat music will follow. They needn’t worry, of course, as their stall was set out quite clearly from set opener Cweiriwch Fy Ngwely. This piece, whilst hymnal, also has a nursery rhyme twinkle in its eye; Brown’s Liz Fraser-like crystalline vocal working itself into the instrumentation like spring waters glimmering at the heart of a thriving vale.

9Bach @ MySpace

Know Your Enemy

2009-12-03T23:08:00.001Z

"Like most creative musicians, Matt Friedberger is not a fan of Radiohead and most of their chart busters ... Matt has not heard the Radiohead song about Harry Patch, but if he did, he is sure he wouldn't like it. No doubt Radiohead and their fans can ignore his opinion of this matter and continue with their triumphant artistic interventions. Matt would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists".

Matthew Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces publicly reiterates his dislike for Oxford's finest, while talking about himself in the third person.

Although I haven't yet got into I'm Going Away, I'm a big fan of theirs, and so this all seems a bit silly and unsavoury.

(Thanks to Gareth for the link.)

(Field) music to my ears

2009-12-03T23:07:00.000Z

Good news for all right-thinking fans of erudite British guitar pop: Field Music's hiatus is over - and how, with the release of a double album, Field Music (Measure), scheduled for 15th February.

Also spotted on recent perusals of Drowned In Sound: there's a new LCD Soundsystem album on the horizon ("spartan and muscular, the way LCD stuff often is", according to James Murphy), the obviously restless Animal Collective have followed up the end-of-year-list-conquering Merriweather Post Pavilion with a new EP, Fall Be Kind and Tom Campesinos talks about forthcoming third album Romance Is Boring (some samples of which were aired at their recent Oxford gig).

The rise of the machines

2009-12-02T00:59:00.001Z

JAPANDROIDS / 4 OR 5 MAGICIANS / WILLIAM, LONDON MADAME JOJO'S, 27TH OCTOBER 2009

Tell someone you're off to Madame Jojo's in Soho for the night and they'd be forgiven for thinking you'll be spending the evening naked and face down on a plastic-sheeted bed while a 50-something-year-old wench who looks like EastEnders' Mo Slater dressed up like Catwoman, with dinner lady arms and a fag hanging out of the corner of her mouth, slaps listlessly at your arse with a tawse for £20 an hour.

They'd be wrong, of course.

Madame Jojo's, on Brewer Street, may be surrounded by so many sex shops that its facade is bathed in a reflective neon glow, but it's actually a club, a gaudy underground lair much like the Rock Garden in Covent Garden which is far more kitsch and glitzy than seedy. Tonight, like every Tuesday, is a White Heat night. And tonight, unlike every Tuesday, all the bar staff (and some of the punters - not I nor Del, though, I should add) are in fancy dress and doused in fake blood. Something to do with Halloween, I presume.

William may sound like a bouffanted posho who's just stumbled in the wrong door and down the wrong stairs in search of somewhere to watch the rugger, but actually they're a ragged indie-rock combo beloved of XFM's John Kennedy who are among those Johnny Foreigner call "family", who have a split 7" with Calories lined up for release in the new year and whose debut album Self In Fiction features a track called 'Whoreditch' (woah - the knives are out!).

Think the Wedding Present, think the Strokes, think the Pixies - and then let your mind go blank, because William aren't as good as any of them. Their songs are largely unexceptional and often rather shapeless, 'South Of The Border' probably being as good as it gets.

Hey hey they're the Arctic Monkees, they like monkeeing around! Well, maybe not - Dan Ormsby of Brighton tykes 4 Or 5 Magicians may sing-talk his lines in a way that is pure Alex Turner, but tonight at least the lyrics aren't clear enough to judge whether he's as adept a wordsmith as the Steel City's Poet Laureate.

Simon of top-notch music blog Sweeping The Nation is so fond of them that he's decided endorsements on his site aren't enough and is actually putting them on in Leicester, while debut album Empty Derivative Pop Songs, out on Smalltown America, has garnered an impressive array of critical plaudits. A joke it may be, but it's certainly a very brave title - a little foolhardy, perhaps, as for me personally it has a ring of truth to it.

'Nice Little Earner' has hooks and melody but nothing much you couldn't find elsewhere, and there's none of the serrated edge you might expect from a band with their particular self-professed catalogue of US alternative rock idols. Not much magic either, disappointingly. What's more (and this is probably a sign of age), both Del and I instantly bristle at one track's insinuation that listening to Radio 4 is a crime. For that, sirs, I hereby sentence you to an eternity of being subjected to The Archers...

What Japandroids aren't: Japanese (they're Canadian) or droids (they're humans). What they are: an absolute fucking blast.

As a set-opener, 'The Boys Are Leaving Town' is perfect. The boys have indeed left town (you could say that two of Vancouver's 'droids are missing) and are a long way from home - this is the duo's first ever gig outside North America, and the beginning of a four-night residency in London which includes appearances at Rough Trade and in Hoxton. And what an introduction it is.

Guitarist/vocalist Brian King and drummer/vocalist David Prowse (no, not Darth Vader - though perhaps he could wear the outfit on stage?) list their influences as the Sonics, Mclusky and "your sister". If No Age reinvigorated punk rock in 2008 by cross-breeding it with My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, then this year Japandroids have stripped it down, roughed it up and smacked it out. The name of their album, Post-Nothing, says it all - this music brooks no journo's micro-classification, it spits in the face of those who would label and analyse, it renders any attempt to intellectualise it utterly futile. It just is. And it just rocks. (Their previous EP, incidentally, was christened Lullaby Death Jams.)

If you could take the one lyric that most succinctly sums up their raison d'etre, it would probably be from 'Young Hearts Spark Fire', the high point of both the album and tonight's gig: "I don't wanna worry about dying / I just wanna worry about the sunshine girls". Hedonism as a credo. Living in the moment. Fucking the future.

King leaps on his guitar case. He puts his foot up on the bass drum. He says dorky things between songs like "Can I get more English girls in my monitor?" and "I wanna go see Abbey Road - would anyone take us?". And he grins - as does Prowse. And as do we, from ear to ringing ear.

Dispatches from the tweeastern front

2009-11-28T10:53:00.005Z

Allo Darlin’, This Many Boyfriends, Of Mice And Mental Arithmetic, King And The Olive Fields.
Brixton Jamm. 26nov09.

Phillip Serfaty is the King amongst his Olive Fields, wearing a stately moustache worthy of a regent. Around him is his band of players; his occasional issuing of a musical direction between songs indicating the fact that they are constantly shape-shifting moons twirling around his gravitational pull. They take folk-pop at a gentle pace, allowing Serfaty’s captivating lyricism to be the main attraction. His voice is also one that demands attention, pitched between Jeffrey Lewis’s thirsty drawl and Calvin Johnson’s drowsy bass. Their final song, in particular, sounds like a Hidden Cameras 7” might if you pressed ever so gently upon it with a finger, reducing it’s r.p.m. to 38/39ish.

Following Serfaty’s bounder’s mo, Of Mice and Mental Arithmetic’s Tom manages to round out the full facial hair set by sporting an Eavis-style chin beard every bit as ramshackle and frothy as his band’s brash pop style. They wear their influences, such as Arcade Fire and Architecture in Helsinki, on their sleeves, but with those sleeves moving around the stage constantly switching instruments, it all blurs into something distinctly English (one song appearing to rather sweetly segue from a mention of “racism” to discussing the benefits of “a cup of tea” within a couple of lines) and very much theirs.

Coming in from Leeds, This Many Boyfriends are on only their seventh gig, and yet their third guitarist. Despite this they appear to have come a long way from their first gig, where two of their three songs were Ballboy covers. Thankfully, while taking on the spirit of Gordon McIntyre’s outfit, they have developed far beyond being a copyist turn. They retain a greenness, but charmingly so, singer Richard exuding nerves prior to their first number, stating how they weren’t confident of being able to follow OMAMA, nor of being the only band on the bill without a ukulele in their arsenal.

Yet that first number, I Don’t Like You Cos You Don’t Like The Pastels, is as powerful a statement as the heftily underlined “WE ARE NOT TWEE” that ends their online biography. All five players line up across the front of the stage, with the simple, effective rhythms from stand up drummer Lauren married to a cascading jangle, potent harmonies and the occasional performance ruse, such as Richard reading a random page of Marx during What I Know About Communism. A terrific performance on the road, three points away from home without doubt.

Yet if This Many Boyfriends win the battle, Allo Darlin’ have probably won the indie-pop wars in 2009. Not that indie-pop types have wars, the flowery and twee not exactly making for the most imposing battalion. If the genre had it’s own awards, then Allo Darlin’ would be a shoo-in for best newcomer, with best single also wrapped up. Henry Rollins Don’t Dance, about a punk rock boyfriend who refuses to get amongst it to Dancing Queen or the Grease megamix, attracted attention from newspapers, big radio and the fanzine community, and they are now signed up to the always excellent Fortuna Pop label. Rough Trade’s recently released ‘Indie Pop 09’ compilation is frankly incomplete without it.

For sure, the lyrics occasionally dip towards the trite (“when my baby holds my hand, it’s like heaven on land”) but it is all in keeping with their heartily sunlit demeanour. “I don’t know when we turned into a party band” says group leader Elizabeth Darling after several high-tempo numbers leave her blowing air off her bottom-lip up towards her facial glow. Thing is, they only really have a couple of slower numbers, and neither are exactly giving Low a, err, traipse for their money. Bands should play to their strengths though, and Allo, Darlin’s is, quite clearly, to give their joyous, guiltless veneer a Shangri-La shimmer.

Allo, Darlin' @ MySpace
This Many Boyfriends @ MySpace
Of Mice And Mental Arithmetic @ MySpace
King & The Olive Fields @ MySpace

Cool for cats

2009-11-28T01:38:00.001Z

COUGAR / ELAPSE-O / BALLS DEEP, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN, 21ST OCTOBER 2009

By way of a prologue, a general observation: the Jericho Tavern - or at least promoters You! Me Dancing! - have a serious love affair with the Japandroids album. Not that I'm complaining, of course - it's entirely understandable, gawd bless 'em.

"Like Bob Marley forcing out a 4am shitwank after a night on the smash with Lightning Bolt at Blackout Crew's pad"? Self-penned descriptions on MySpace sites don't come much better than that. So kudos to Balls Deep, the genetically malformed offspring of the late Prefontaine and Twat Trot Tra La. Ed Bates, last seen drumming for the former in an Oxford Utd goalkeeping top, is on bass duties but still looks like a lost archaeologist. Their kit set up on the floor in front of the stage Lightning-Bolt-style (though more out of practicality than choice, I suspect), they subject us to the best part of half an hour's worth of songs like 'No Arms, No Qualms' - obtuse, freaky, brutalist fist-funk. Not pretty - no, definitely not pretty - but pretty effective.

Another pair of local noiseniks follow in the form of Elapse-O. It might just be my ears, but the duo appear to have undergone something of an evolution since last we met, well over a year ago. Largely gone is the Suicide-in-a-dungeon clang, clank and drone of yore - and with it, sadly, my favourite track, the single 'Sonny Liston' - and in its place, for the likes of 'Tinseltown', has come a greater sense of urgency. Singularity of purpose was always key, but now the narrowness of focus seems to give their music a weightier anchor where before it threatened to spiral off into the leftfield stratosphere.

If The Big Pink tended more towards abstraction than pop, they might sound like this. Elapse-O still aren't totally convincing live - cranking up the electronic drums so they can compete with the guitars would be a start - but if you like Fuck Buttons, then these two might push yours.

After the locals' padded-cell funk and shoegaze apocalypse, Cougar can't help but seem, ahem, tame. Not that the Wisconsin outfit are pussycats, though, you understand - far from it, as they prove on more than one occasion, suddenly and breathtakingly abandoning the intricate interplay and letting rip. But that's the point - if songs like 'Your Excellency' and 'Stay Famous' didn't slink seductively or prowl with quiet understated menace for long periods, then the moment at which they pounce wouldn't have such devastating effect.

Touring in support of their second album Patriot, released on Ninja Tune, the preppy-looking bunch could I suppose be best compared to Fridge, at the cleverer (though never too clever) rather than the more abrasive end of the post-rock spectrum. There's a dash of jazz thrown in too, largely thanks to drummer, conductor and nominal frontman David Henzie-Skogen. Also a member of the Youngblood Brass Band, the band's affable mouthpiece is a virtuoso who treats the rim of his drums as as much a part of the instrument as the skins and who has found a novel use for sweaty tour T-shirts, stretching one out over his snare drum to muffle the sound before whipping it off mid-song as those around him shift smoothly through the gears.

At first there's a slight tension in the room, one which is heightened when a patently off-her-face-on-something-that-probably-isn't-booze girl barges her way to the front, moshes vigorously even to the slower passages and heckles between songs. The rude interruption is thankfully only brief, though, and after she's forcibly ejected the tension completely dissipates. Henzie-Skogen recalls a promoter in Hamburg telling them he'd enjoyed them but that they'd never amount to anything as the kids can't dance to their songs. "I want to send him a video of that girl", he chuckles - though he and his band have already made a persuasive case for being better known.

Los leaders

2009-11-26T01:27:00.001Z

LOS CAMPESINOS! / COPY HAHO / SPARKY DEATHCAP, 29TH OCTOBER 2009, OXFORD ZODIAC

Sparky Deathcap aka Robert Taylor describes his music as sounding like "ghosts in the night trying to get into a locked caravan" - which, in case you're lacking in imagination, sounds quite a bit like Jeffrey Lewis to most who’ve clapped ears on him. As you might expect from someone who's written a rock opera for ukelele composed in less than 24 hours and who draws cartoons to accompany his show (the headliners' frontman Gareth is performing PowerPoint duties tonight), he’s not your conventional singer-songwriter, possessed of deft and witty lyrical touches that illuminate deceptively simple songs like ‘Berlin Syndrome’. He begins another one about Halloween by claiming it’s the one night of the year you can go out on a date if you’re ugly. And less proves to be more, the gradual accumulation of Los Campesinos! members as the set progresses actually diluting rather than enhancing the quality of the performance.

Copy Haho take to the stage safe in the knowledge that they already have fans in Oxford, local label Big Scary Monsters having released their debut EP Bred For Skills & Magic. The Scots aren't exactly short of friends - they're named (along with the headliners) as being members of Johnny Foreigner's "family" in the sleevenotes to new album Grace And The Bigger Picture. Hook-heavy guitar pop with an abrasive underbelly is their modus operandi – comparing them to The Rakes wouldn’t be much of an endorsement, so let’s go for the neatly-turned-out offspring of The Wedding Present and Arctic Monkeys instead. Time will tell if the quartet have quite the skills and magic to become as famous as their home town Stonehaven’s other significant export, the deep-fried Mars Bar, but there’s no doubt which of them is the most nutritious.

As I'm sure you're all thoroughly bored of hearing, I’ve known Los Campesinos! since they were knee-high to a genuflecting grasshopper. So tonight is almost as surreal an experience for me as it is for them: some way from their birthplace of Cardiff, being pawed at by hordes of lust-eyed teenagers, playing the first birthday party for a promoter named after their signature song.

The fact that said song, ‘You! Me! Dancing!’, is sarcastically introduced as ‘Creep’ suggests (sadly) that it really has become the "embarrassing albatross around their collective necks" that I suspected a year ago - something that everyone wants to hear but that they’re increasingly reluctant to play. Nevertheless, party poopers Los Campesinos! are most certainly not (even despite having been officially diagnosed with swine flu, new vocalist/keyboard player Kim - a replacement for Aleks, who's returned to her studies - being equipped with a bucket in case of mid-set technicolour yawn). So play it they do and it’s met with the anticipated delirium. (No doubt delirium was also the order of the day when, a few nights previously, they curated a stage at Cardiff's Swn Festival, headlining a bill that also featured another member of Johnny Foreigner's "family", Dananananaykroyd.)

Los Campesinos! are no one-hit wonders, though – far from it. Debut album Hold On Now, Youngster continues to be well represented in the set ('Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks' remains the brilliant final act) and tracks like ‘Ways To Make It Through The Wall’ drawn from its darker, spikier successor We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed are really beginning to come into their own.

At the expense of some older gems (‘The International Tweexcore Underground’ is a particularly lamented omission) and others less fondly remembered by the band (a request for 'It Started With A Mixx' is met with a derisive "We're not playing our old shit songs"), there’s also room to showcase material from forthcoming LP Romance Is Boring, due out in the new year. The chorus of the title track has significant earworm potential, but 'The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future' - which finds Gareth muttering grimly about cutting off tongues and the fact that "she's not eating again" - hints heavily at a more contemplative, considered, grown-up future.

But – for the present, and especially given the circumstances – it’s the scatty, bratty, livewire Los Campesinos! we want, and that, largely, is what we’re delighted to get.

Shock and awe

2009-11-24T02:17:00.001Z

ELECTRIC EEL SHOCK / SMILEX, OXFORD ZODIAC, 20TH OCTOBER 2009

When Lee Christian admits he's gutted about being "unable to show Electric Eel Shock our A game", you sense there's an apology for us in there too - and, in truth, so there should be. Fair enough, tonight Smilex - who once upon a time released a split single with The Young Knives, dontchaknow - may have been deprived of two members by circumstances beyond their control (illness, I think). But all the same, boiled down to a duo of vocalist Christian and guitarist Tom Sharp, they proceed to inflict on us soul-sappingly dreary acoustic renditions of their scuzz rock repertoire.

If the set serves any purpose, it's as a public service announcement allowing Christian to plug their forthcoming gig at the recently reopened Port Mahon. "Hope you think we're better than the stereo would have been", he ventures optimistically as they wrap up, our collective disinterested murmuring and awkward shuffling delivering a cruelly blunt answer.

Collective disinterested murmuring and awkward shuffling are, it's safe to say, simply not an option when it comes to the headliners. As a friend witnessing Japanese nutjobs Electric Eel Shock for the first time once memorably opined: "This is what happens when you spend two thousand years worshipping your head of state as a god".

Japan seems to be to music what Madagascar is to animals. There, species (or genres) that were once familiar evolve into rather different and unique creatures, but nevertheless still to a degree recognisable. Evidence? Envy's take on Mogwai and post-hardcore. Devo as filtered through the prism of Polysics. The schizoid assault of Melt-Banana. Nissenenmondai's startling convergence of Krautrock, post-rock and disco.

Electric Eel Shock are no different, though it would be a tad misleading to refer to them as the product of any kind of evolution. They're old school, you see, as old school as they come - making a grand entrance to Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man' wearing Ozzy T-shirts, their free hands almost permanently contorted into devil horns, foot-on-monitor stance and machine-gunning move borrowed from Iron Maiden. And that's just guitarist Aki Morimoto and bassist Kazuto Maekawa. Drummer Tomoharu 'Gian' Ito is naked apart from a two-foot-long white sock on his cock, the end of which he occasionally beats on the drums - when he's not battering them with his four sticks, two in each hand, that is...

The songs - called things like 'Suicide Rock 'N' Roll', 'Sex Noise' and 'Bastard' - are loud, joyously stupid, subtle-as-a-brieze-block garage metal romps which make Motley Crue seem sensitive and cerebral, between which Morimoto (who, bizarrely, features alongside Chelsea and England captain John Terry in the latest issue of Angler's Mail - yes, really) sticks his plectrum to his forehead to applaud the audience before addressing us in perfect Engrish. To one person shouting out a request he responds "I'm sorry, I don't speak English", and towards the end of the set asks "You want one more song? YOU WANT ONE MORE SONG?! OK, OK, we play two more song". And off they go again, outtrumping Tap once more.

And they say the Japanese are repressed...

In the mix

2009-11-22T11:36:00.002Z

Transglobal Underground.
Bethnal Green Rich Mix. 21nov09.

Possibly never has a band been better named, nor played in a more appropriate venue in terms of mirroring their themes, the Rich Mix being an East End cultural centre and cinema located between the heart of the Bangladeshi community in Spitalfields and the arts-hungry populations of Hoxton and Shoreditch. Like this part of the world, Transglobal Underground’s music showcases a variety of backgrounds and influences all at once.

Multi-cultural worthiness designed to annoy readers of the Daily Express this is not however as TGU are, first and foremost, a party band. This is kind of why this appearance beneath a permanent roof is a relative rarity, their live show usually taken out on the festival circuit, in open fields and beneath vast marquees.

Yet it works just as well in this environment, perhaps better for keeping their energy from drifting off over heads and into the clouds. Yet despite their fusion of western, eastern, African and Caribbean musics, there is certainly no lack of focus in their compositions, a tightness held together by founder members Hamilton Lee (aka Hamid Man Tu) and Tim Whelan (aka Alex Kasiek), responsible for drums and keyboards/guitar/programming respectively, taking a relatively low-key role at the back of the stage.

With the core of the group providing a firm hand on the tiller, Sheema Mukherjee (on swirling sitar and lively bass) and Dhol-drummer Johnny Kalsi are thus free to add their colourful shadings to the paintwork, in their more eye-catching stage roles.

Not that they eye is short of players to focus on, with Godfrey Duncan (aka The Unorthodox Unprecedented Preacher) issuing his captivating proclamations as lead vocalist and MC, pitching his contributions somewhere between a gospel-roaring evangelist and a dubplate sound system tour de force.

In a supporting role, Krupa Pattini’s vocal style, at the classic Bollywood heroine end of soul, displays an impressive range but never to steal the scene. It’s simply a great ensemble performance tonight, highlights of the set such as The Drums Of Navarone and Emotional Yo-Yo effortlessly whipping the crowd into a gleeful dance collective.

Transglobal Underground @ MySpace

Scouting for drums

2009-11-15T00:15:00.004Z

Foot Village, Blue Sabbath Black Fiji.
Dalston Trinity Centre. 14nov09.

There is a tall, raised stage at the Trinity Centre but neither band tonight bother to use it. Better, it seems, to be amongst ones public, when one is trying to bludgeon their senses.

For Blue Sabbath Black Fiji, this does appear to be the intention of their starkly apocalyptic, caterwauling, nihilistic noisecore. Frankly they make Fuck Buttons seem like Brian Conley playing Buttons in a production of Cinderella at the Runcorn Brindley.

With distorted guitars set to stun, distorted samplers keen to mutilate and distorted vocal mics ready to serve whatever meat is left hanging from you in a seeded bun, Blue Sabbath Black Fiji, as they say in their native Glasgow, set aboot ye.

It is brief but brutal stuff with Charles taking time out to charge into the crowd during his screams. Clearly he’s not noticed the “No Running! No Bullying!” sign pinned to the wall.

For this is, essentially, a scout hut we’ve been lured into, and with no lighting rig, a keen thinker improvises by crashing their open palm continually over the wall switches, the strobing of the tube lights continually flickering being perfectly in keeping with BSBF’s fractured din.

Foot Village are similarly stark and powerful, but with the focus much more on rhythm. It becomes clear we’re in for a lively old throwdown when all the players start to limber up with stretching exercises before they get amongst the four drum sets they have hunched into a tight central heart. Heart of beats, if you will. The pit of hit.

The Village aren’t the only band around doing the whole drums and vox thing, but while Wildbirds and Peacedrums are made ethereal flesh by Mariam Wallentin’s vocal patterns, Foot Village are all about the bones, big bones at that, and taking the concept to it’s arguably logical scream therapy conclusion.

They supplement the drums with two megaphones, like the liveliest picket line ever, and the odd off-‘mic’ roar. Frankly, though, they had me at the first collective thump of snares, as it’s hard not to give into the primal energy of ol’ Doctor Beat. Although tonight the good physician has arguably been replaced by his brother, PT instructor Beat, repeatedly lobbing medicine balls towards our face.

The band are pretty tight when they want to be, when they’re not chasing round the circle, hitting drums as they go, crashing into the opening row of bodies peering into their hectic, captivating workout. As such, their time with us passes all too quickly and, thankfully, before any of them pass out.

Foot Village @ MySpace
Blue Sabbath Black Fiji @ MySpace

It's good, but is it as good as Phillip the Good?

2009-11-14T17:35:00.004Z

Circulus.
Borderline. 12nov09.

At Shakespeare’s Globe, they always perform in period costume, and have a band of strolling players playing music evocative of the era as you assemble in your seats or shuffle into the Courtyard. This is ‘re-enactment’, with the expressed intention to present the culture of an age in as close to the original manner as is possible without forcing the assembled punterage out of their jeans and pac-a-macs and into doublets, trunk hose and cannions.

With Circulus, you are never quite sure what they are aiming for. For a start they’ve employed morris dancers ‘The Belles of London City’ to add their handkerchief-wielding, bells-on-toes frolicking at regular intervals during their set. Some members of the band are decked out in slightly too-tight renaissance shirts, green tights that act as a relief map of the knees and groin; or in conical hats and tunics.

Group leader Michael Tyack has stated that he “pretty much” models his look on Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy between 1419 and 1467. Others in the band, however, adopt slightly more modern, but aesthetically aligned, dress.

The awkward banter between the three vocalists betrays another slight mis-match, with Tyack’s hippie-ish wittering about spaceships and, err, flu-jabs, jarring with Holly Jane-Shears cheeky bluntness (“I’ve been for a wee…nothing else” are her opening remarks after arriving late on stage) and Antony Elvin’s fruity wit. “Think we’ve said the wrong thing again” says Shears to Elvin guiltily behind Tyack’s back on more than one occasion. Nonetheless, one cannot help but be amused by their time-filling antics, when strings break and an effects-pedal succumbs to the insidiousness of a spilt lager.

In terms of instrumentation, there are citterns, crumhorns, lutes and shawms, yet electric guitars and modern drum sets also feature. Furthermore, the words ‘progressive’ and ‘psychedelic’ are often bandied around to describe their sound. This is largely fair with regards each term, but theirs is a relatively understated take on both. Nowhere near freak-out squalling nor melodically overblown, Circulus are an entertaining folk spectacle that marries the early-music sense of harmony with an occasional gentle waft of dusty Woodstock rock.

Their final number features the titular phrase “within you is the sun” repeated as lifestyle mantra which, in a way, places them as an Anglo-Saxon Polyphonic Spree given to music hall tongue-poking silliness and historically mish-mashed minstrelling.

Circulus @ MySpace

Uneasy does it

2009-11-13T00:24:00.001Z

ZU / DR SLAGGLEBERRY / DRUNKENSTEIN, 4TH OCTOBER 2009, OXFORD WHEATSHEAF

Tiresomely convoluted songs? Cursory nods to Faith No More overshadowed by gothy bluster and Chili Peppers style slap bass? A theatrical frontman who looks like the Bee Gees' Robin Gibb, who has a distressing penchant for a maniacal laugh that Dr Evil would think too contrived, and who reads some of his lyrics from crib sheets, explaining "I've just got back from Suffolk and still have the thousand yard stare"? Yes, Drunkenstein are gruesome all right - just not, I imagine, in quite the way they intended.

Far more unsettling are Dr Slaggleberry. Midway through the set my gig-going accomplice leans over to say: "I'm enjoying this, but get the feeling we might be about to get murdered". You'd call for the men in white coats - if they weren't already on stage, wearing blank face masks. "We all have court summons we're avoiding so we try to keep under the radar", they've explained in an interview - probably a joke, though I wouldn't be sure.

There are no shortage of local types for whom the adjective "mathy" is appropriate, but Dr Slaggleberry are the only ones I've yet come across who also take their cue from jazz and metal - all detuned guitars, double-bass pedal battering and odd time signatures - to impressive effect (i.e. I'm discounting Eduard Soundingblock). Unusual rhythms are probably only to be expected given that all three members started out as drummers. If they were to ditch the vocals and between-song banter, and borrow a bit of Drunkenstein's theatricality and (for instance) freeze when the riffs grind to a stop midsong, the trio really would be a frightening prospect.

Once they've packed up, the stage sits empty for a while - until the headliners stride in as if just arrived, set up and start playing, to dropped jaws. After an appearance alongside the likes of Mogwai and Fuck Buttons at Invada Invasion, the one-day festival organised by Portishead's Geoff Barrow, Zu are on a low-key tour of the country - certainly, the Wheatsheaf is rather more low-key than Bristol's Colston Hall, the reopening of which Invada Invasion was organised to mark.

Like Dr Slaggleberry before them, the Italian trio aren't exactly easy listening - needless to say, really, of a band endorsed by John Zorn who have collaborated with Can's Damo Suzuki, Fugazi's Joe Lally, Melvins' Buzz Osbourne, Nobukazu Takemura and the evening's spiritual curator Mike Patton amongst others. Tonight there are no collaborators, and not much in the way of electronics or nuance - just Massimo Pupillo's bass, ultra-deep and laden with effects; Luca Mai's sax, rigged to pack a punch more fearsome than your average distorted guitar - he plays what has been described as a "death bassoon"; and Jacopo Battaglia's extraordinary drumming, which shreds sticks and sends splinters flying.

The music is jazz-influenced, though definitely wouldn't be described as "nice" by John Thomson's Jazz Club presenter in The Fast Show. It's as dense and heavy as it is complicated - hardly surprising, given that latest album Carboniferous (their 14th, put out on Patton's Ipecac imprint) has been acclaimed as perhaps their most downright aggressive release to date. The only respite from the feeling of being simultaneously disoriented and steamrollered comes when a misfiring PA heckles with some incidental music during a quiet section, Battaglia suddenly as open-mouthed as those of us in the audience.

Link:

Another review of the gig - we may not agree on the merits of the various bands, but it's good to stumble across another local blogger who chronicles his gig-going activities

Diminishing returns

2009-10-30T01:48:00.001Z

TREMBLING BELLS / THE HALCYONS / THE ROUNDHEELS / MATT WINKWORTH, 3RD OCTOBER 2009, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

The Rules decree that singer-songwriters should be tedious drips who believe that listlessly strumming a guitar and moaning about something or other at the same time makes them the natural and inevitable heir to Bob Dylan. Thankfully, for Matt Winkworth, the Rules are made to be broken. Your average common-or-garden singer-songwriter he is not, channelling the (melo)dramatic flourish of Rufus Wainwright into a performance that takes in a song written from the perspective of A Midsummer Night's Dream's Puck and a tribute to tragic Eurotrash star Lola Ferrari which succeeds in being as poignant as it is witty, before wrapping up with a cover of Burt Bacharach's 'Anyone Who Had A Heart'.

Also making very good use of other people's songs amongst their own are folky types The Roundheels - tonight a stripped-down twosome of guitarist and vocalist, although some additional assistance is provided on mandolin and slide guitar by members of The Marmadukes. There's a nagging feeling that they're the sort of act who could be found performing in any number of pubs on a Saturday night (indeed their next gig is at the Malmaison), but justice is nevertheless very much done to dark material including Nina Simone's version of 'Black Is The Color (Of My True Love's Hair)' and Neko Case's 'Make Your Bed'.

At least one member of The Halcyons, keyboard player Colin Mackinnon, writes for the OxfordBands.com site, so he must be used to the difficulty (if not outright impossibility) of being positive or saying at least something constructive in certain reviews. As such, he might be feeling my pain right now. His band won't be responsible for me remembering this as a halcyon evening - let's just leave it there, shall we?

Trembling Bells: the name seems to say it all. Not Howling Bells - not desperate, full of fury or anguish. No, Trembling - nervous, quaking, trepidatious. As they shuffle uncomfortably before a crowd considerably thinner than it was half an hour earlier and begin a song called 'Adieu England', I conclude that perhaps they've bid adieu to their native Glasgow rather sooner than was sensible and would have been better off honing their art at home for a while longer. Certainly their stage presence is non-existent, the drums seem too loud and obtrusive, and I'm struggling to find much to admire in their rambling folk-country (and even less to like). Worse still, two friends confess the need to escape outside to the smoking balcony before the singer's nails-down-blackboard voice drives them to murder.

So it comes as something of a major surprise to learn that not only have the quartet been talked about in excited tones by those in the know, but that two members of the band (at least) have significant form. Alex Neilson is a much-feted drummer who's played with Bonnie "Prince" Billie, Alasdair Roberts and Six Organs Of Admittance amongst others, while vocalist Lavinia Blackwall was part of his Directing Hand free jazz project.

Thing is, though, I came across Directing Hand at Greenman two years ago, accused them of "just taking the piss" and agreed with a barman that Blackwall sounded like "'cats in a bag in the river'". And, personally speaking at least, Trembling Bells are hardly any better.

She put a spell on me

2009-10-20T00:15:00.001Z

BAT FOR LASHES / YEASAYER, 8TH OCTOBER 2009, OXFORD ZODIAC

You’ve heard of I’m From Barcelona, right? (In case you were wondering, they’re not – the lying buggers are Swedish.) Well, Yeasayer might as well be called I’m From Brooklyn, so brazenly do they wear their origins on their collective sleeve – and, anyway, hasn’t affirmative exclamation already been covered by Yeah Yeah Yeahs? OK, so some distance removed from Brooklyn’s current crop of C86 obsessives (see: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Crystal Stilts) Yeasayer may be, but they’ve regularly been bracketed with the likes of Vampire Weekend as Afrobeat aficionados at the cutting edge of cool.

On this evidence at least, all I can say to those who hailed Yeasayer’s debut album All Hour Cymbals as a musical milestone is that they really should know better than to endorse the kind of future where an MGMT sans hooks are king. If a postmodern, artily mangled mess of Fleetwood Mac and Hall & Oates and a vomit-splattered boilersuit with the sleeves rolled up and set off with a power balladeer’s mullet are where’s it at, then I for one would rather not be there.

Frontman Chris Keating attempts flattery, venturing that because this is Oxford we must be a "smart" crowd and thereby implying that we might get what they do. Not me, I’m afraid. Just say nay, kids.

Bat For Lashes should by rights be equally preposterous. Natasha Khan’s first album, 2006’s Mercury-nominated Fur And Gold, suggested someone for whom recording music was a rude interruption from wheeling around in crop circles barefoot, flower-garlanded and dressed in chiffon like a medieval waif or sylvan sprite, partaking in the odd pagan ritual to reaffirm her oneness with her Earth Mother.

But guffaws were stifled by the sheer power of the music: rich, emotive, captivating. Otherworldly, yes, but inclusive and enveloping too. It seemed impossible to look on disinterestedly from the outside - you couldn’t help but be drawn in. Tonight, everything from that period resonates with a dark sensuousness: ‘Horse And I’, ‘Tahiti’, ‘The Wizard’, ‘Prescilla’ and especially the single ‘Trophy’, its sinister edge sharpened by Charlotte Hatherley’s guitar and its omission from the Glastonbury set even more of a mystery.

So, how does Fur And Gold’s no less extraordinary successor Two Suns compare? Well, it’s a meditation on dualism and cosmology and Khan still sounds as though she spends too much money on healing crystals and too much time prostrating herself beneath the moon. But the difference, in the words of the Ting Tings, is largely the drums, the drums, the drums: the inventive percussion of ‘Glass’ and the tribal pounding of ‘Two Planets’ in particular, courtesy of New Young Pony Club’s Sarah Jones. Though that’s not to mention the encroaching presence of synths and electronics, most noteably on chart-bothering single ‘Daniel’.

In these respects, the fact that much of the album owes its conception and genesis to a period during which Khan spent living in Brooklyn is evident. It’s as much a surprise that her collaborators in Yeasayer don’t join her onstage at any point, as it isn’t that the infamously reclusive Scott Walker fails to show up for ‘The Big Sleep’, the duet-of-sorts that closes Two Suns, Hatherley instead providing his vocals.

One of the most affecting and intoxicating new tracks is called ‘Siren Song’, but in truth they could all be given that name. Khan is an enchantress and, quite simply, one of the few truly original stars in the pop firmament.

Johnny be good

2009-10-18T22:43:00.001Z

JOHNNY FOREIGNER / TELLISON / JAPANESE VOYEURS, 6TH OCTOBER 2009, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

Japanese Voyeurs, eh? Well, that would make us English Rubberneckers at a particularly gruesome car crash. But then, as cliche would have it, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and in the eye of Johnny Foreigner this thrashily vapid charisma-free Hole - old enough to be able to grow facial hair and drink beer, but young enough to make a bit of a show of it - would appear to be pulchritudinousness personified. Me, I'm struggling to get past Romily Alice's wail and have to pronounce them less arousing peep show and more grim horror show.

Stephen H Davidson's at pains to point out that his band are called Tellison, and not Television. Not that there's much chance of confusing this bunch of modest Get Up Kids devotees from the south of England with the louche New York art-punks behind Marquee Moon. When he says that the last time they played in Oxford, at the Exeter Hall, they broke everything, I strongly suspect what he actually means is that everything broke - they would probably still be apologising now if it was the other way around.

Studious and conscientious observers of the punk pop rule book, Tellison know that the way to be taken seriously (not to mention the way to a girl's heart) is through bookish lyrics - and you can't get much more bookish than a song called 'Edith Wharton'. In a set heavy on new material, there are the odd diversions from the established template, when multi-instrumentalist Matt Roberts is called into providing electronic beats, additional percussion or even sax (such as on 'Thebes'). But they're actually at their best when not trying too hard and instead sticking to what they know, the Jimmy Eat World-echoing 'Henry Went To Paris' being a case in point.

Twenty minutes later and I'm not sure what the burly brute of a guy to my left made of Tellison, but by the disbelieving shake of his head can well imagine how he feels about having been dragged by his girlfriend to see the headliners: "Johnny Foreigner? Coming over here [all the way from Birmingham]? In a van? Seducing our women? Subjecting our English eardrums to assault by all manner of foul foreign noise? Well, I tell you - we won't stand for it..." And the truth is that for the first three songs - an unbelievably sloppy stew, an unrelenting blizzard of sound - I can kind of see his point.

But then the fourth song starts (perhaps it's no coincidence that it's a new one) and suddenly, as if cured by a fast-working hypnotherapist, they're no longer tune-phobic or afraid to give the music time to breathe. And by the time we're into 'Eyes Wide Terrified', arguably the most dynamic single on debut album Waited Up Til It Was Light, they appear to have made the evolutionary leap it took Idlewild the best part of a year to manage (from Captain to Hope Is Important) in the space of just five minutes.

Now don't get me wrong - there's nothing much enlightened or revolutionary about sounding like Los Campesinos! with your fingers jammed in live sockets and firecrackers rammed up your arse. The longer of tooth amongst tonight's crowd (that'd be me, then) remember back to a time when Urusei Yatsura ploughed a similar furrow and when the aforementioned Idlewild weren't just an REM tribute band.

But still the electrified racket and yelping boy-girl duetting of new single 'Criminals' and other tracks from forthcoming second record Grace And The Bigger Picture (they evidently share a fierce work ethic with Los Campesinos! as well as inspirations and friendship) can't fail to stir me to paroxysms of excitement. And you have to doff your hat to an outfit who choose to recognise Spinderella's lamentably oft-ignored contribution to Salt 'N' Pepa's musical output by immortalising her in a song title.

Bassist Kelly Southern asks what we make of her dress (she's wearing it because she thinks "it's the sort of thing girls in bands should wear"); vocalist/guitarist Alexei Berrow claims that the tour's purpose is to encourage fans up and down the country to urge pocket-size Bright Eyes Sam Isaac not to quit music; and neither of them nor drummer Junior Laidley knows when the new album's out. Apologising for stinking, Alexei declares: "We had a choice between washing and playing a show." A round of applause for the right decision.

Flaming marvellous

2009-10-06T00:31:00.001Z

THE FIERY FURNACES / TALK IN CODE, 20TH SEPTEMBER 2009, OXFORD ZODIAC

Forgive me, for I am about to shoot some large and helpless fish in a very small barrel. With a bazooka.

"The world of Talk In Code", their MySpace blurb advises us, "is a world to be involved in". A sentiment I can heartily endorse - if, that is, you like your worlds soundtracked by plodding faux-profound corporate indie anthemicists from Swindon who set their sights on REM and late period Idlewild but end up coming across like the sort of tedious worship band that would have the Big Fella Upstairs, if he existed, cursing his own creation.

The spectacle of them crashing headlong into a wall of silence but remaining optimistically convinced that we're here to see them and not the headliners is even more excruciating than that fist-gnawingly awful bio (another choice line: "They are a band in demand and a band on the rise!" There's a free CD available, apparently - still a bit too pricey for me.

The kindest thing I can say is that they'd probably be lapped up by a different audience - a VERY different audience - and you have to point the finger at whoever chucked together such a horribly mismatched bill (even if it was done so at short notice) and threw Talk In Code to the lions rather than to people who think Keane are an edgy alternative rock outfit.

"I don't think we've ever played with a band whose name is in the lyrics to one of our songs", says Eleanor Friedberger, who it suddenly occurs to me bears a remarkable resemblance to our neighbour. The song in question - a blitzed rendition of 'Chris Michaels' from Blueberry Boat - couldn't be a sharper counterpoint to what has preceded and, even at around seven minutes long, is as succinct a precis as you'll get as to what The Fiery Furnaces are all about: oblique and frequently bizarre sung-spoken lyrics wound up with fragments of melody into a monument to idiosyncratic imagination that is all tangent, flitting ADHD-like between genres and styles while also laughing long and loud in the face of coherence and consistency of tempo.

That's not quite true, though - the indications from last album Widow City and the new material from I'm Going Away (in comparison with 'Chris Michaels', at least) are that they might perhaps be gravitating a little closer towards the straight and the narrow. But everything's relative, of course - 'Keep Me In The Dark', for instance, has a genuine chorus, but it still sounds like an experimental band doing the truly experimental thing and having a stab at a pop song.

Not that they haven't attempted something similar before, but none of their most accessible pre-I'm Going Away tracks are included in the setlist - there's no 'Tropical Ice-Land', 'Single Again' or 'My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found', and Widow City is represented by 'Duplexes Of The Dead', 'The Old Hag Is Sleeping', 'Ex-Guru' and 'Japanese Slippers' rather than 'My Egyptian Grammar'. This may largely be because, unlike on the two previous occasions I've seen them, Matthew Friedberger eschews the keyboard in favour of a guitar, with the result that the likes of 'Staring At The Steeple' pack a surprising punch to the ears.

Integral to this new full-on rock incarnation is the inventive drumming of the guppy-mouthed Bob D'Amico and the distorted bass of a cheery Jason Loewenstein, best known for his alliance with Lou Barlow in Sebadoh (is my Dinosaur Jr T-shirt an insensitive choice, I wonder, given that it's their reformation that's standing in the way of a possible Sebadoh reunion?).

Eleanor is as intense as usual, unable to decide whether to have her coat on or off and staring into the distance as if in a trance - but then just to remember all those hundreds of words must demand serious focus and concentration. Matthew, meanwhile, is enjoying himself, sharing jokes with the others and sarcastically telling some chatterers that they like the interruption because "it's like extra lyrics - and they're probably better than ours".

It seems somehow wrong that an evening in the company of such a resolutely non-linear band should have to reach a definite conclusion, but Matthew softens the blow: "Hopefully we'll be back again soon", he says, grinning, "probably playing different instruments". We hope so too - theirs truly is "a world to be involved in".

Blood, sugar, sex ... er, existential angst

2009-10-06T00:30:00.001Z

I'm probably the thousandth person to have cracked the gag, but presumably Thom Yorke's been sleeping with dogs to have got a Flea. Seriously, WTF?!

In other less surprising news, Nathan Williams of Wavves has found himself at the centre of trouble recently, with Jared Swilley of The Black Lips vowing to do him and his associates some serious mischief when his tour rolls into Atlanta following a fracas in Williamsburg. I'm just hoping he makes it to Oxford for the gig on 18th November without either being maimed or doing himself some damage (as at Primavera)...

Nautical but nice

2009-10-04T10:29:00.001Z

SOUTHSEA FEST, 19TH SEPTEMBER 2009

And there I was thinking piracy was supposed to be a bad thing for music. Not today.

For shiver me timbers if it isn't the annual Southsea Fest - a whole day of music courtesy of local and not-so-local acts at venues mere stumbling distance apart the length of Albert Road - which, by virtue of taking place in close proximity to the sea and on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, this year has a distinctly piratical theme.

So, there are three burning questions:

1. Who will lay claim to the day's bounteous though sadly metaphorical rich stuff?

2. Who will deserve to be flogged by the cat o' nine tails before being forced to walk the plank (again sadly metaphorical)?

3. Which intrepid reviewer is likely to hit the grog to the point of sickness that has nothing whatsoever to do with the sea?

Well, OK, so there are two burning questions...

We start at the Edge Of The Wedge with an assault that is airborne rather than aquatic. I've been led to believe that AEROPLANE ATTACK model themselves on My Bloody Valentine, but today at least they sound less like Kevin Shields and company and more like Helmet. Despite the inspirational presence of 2-D Cat perched on the amp, though, their heavy instrumental churnings never quite achieve take-off. The set over, Rusty Sheriff - a hip-hop DJ/producer when not behind the drumkit - is unsure whether to spew or have a large gin. It's barely 1.30pm.

FINAL ROUND ... FIGHT!'s appalling screamo - a billion times worse than song titles like 'If I'm As Good At Wrestling As I Am At Scrabble You're All Fucked' would suggest - prompts a very swift exit and it's off to the Fat Fox for THE LEVELS. Within thirty seconds of their first song, exactly the same thought has word-for-word popped into my head and that of my companion: the world doesn't really need another Reef. The Levels are cocks of the walk (or should that be swagger?), self-proclaimed "retro riffmongers" who aim at being Led Zeppelin (powerhouse drummer Sean Kenneally's John Bonham T-shirt makes an early claim to be the most redundant statement of the day) fronted by AC/DC's gravel-gargler Brian Johnson and who smell of testosterone and casual sexism. But, y'know, it's early, I'm feeling charitable and they remind me of The Datsuns marginally more than of Jet.

And I'm feeling even more charitable towards them as soon as I clap ears on their successor on the Fat Fox stage, GEORGE KING. King is a singer-songwriter who seems to believe that lyrics detailing more drugs, parties, booze and teenage bedroom fumblings than your average Skins script, if set to acoustic pluckings, make him a sensitive and edgy poet for the post-Doherty era and not a tedious whiny cretin. Give the man a girlfriend - or a good shoeing.

Their Southsea Fest stage in the Loft is local promoters Hong Kong Gardeners Club's swansong, so it's a shame we can't share their enthusiasm for VILLIERS TERRACE. That the name is taken from an Echo And The Bunnymen track should give some indication as to where the teenagers are coming from (or trying to) - the North, circa 1984 - and The Young Knives and The Futureheads are also evidently touchstones. But they're out of time and all over the shop - hopelessly so, even by the standards of music which makes no pretence of precision - and despite frontman Olic Asanovic spraying blood liberally over his white guitar for the cause, I can't help but speculate that Villiers Terrace must be a cul-de-sac.

Next comes proof that Oxford is considerably more pervasive and wide-ranging in terms of musical influence than a city of its size ought to be. To all intents and purposes, MINNAARS ARE Foals, just with inferior songs. But while it's difficult to imagine anyone wanting the likes of 'Are Lovers' when they could have 'Red Socks Pugie' and 'The French Open', there's no denying the quintet's energy, enthusiasm and self-belief. They and their de rigeur assymetrical fringes have come further than any other band we've seen so far (all the way from Leicester), and, judging by their selection for the BBC Introducing Stage at this year's Reading and Leeds Festivals, are destined to go significantly further too.

After all that frantic lurching to and fro, it's high time for HOLD FAST over the road in a rammed Little Johnny Russells, but local rag the News's Best Rock/Pop Band of 2008 aren't on long enough (translation: we're not there quick enough) for me to be able to comment on whether their Depeche Modish electro-noir really is as gripping as the moniker suggests.

A brief lull, during which a girl in a porkpie hat tries her darndest to knock my pint off a table, and then THE B OF THE BANG. Named after the the ill-fated and near-lethal sculpture erected in Manchester to mark the 2002 Commonwealth Games, they're a collective centred around one man, Wit, who also happens to have booked all the bands for this stage. Initial impressions are mixed - he's plainly a good lyricist, but musically the first song drags with the unwelcome lethargic anthemicism of Snow Patrol. There's a marked improvement, though, with the arrival of extra members, and we're suddenly transported into the everything-including-the-kitchen-sink psych-folk holler-along territory occupied by the likes of Oxford types Jonquil. All the same, as far as the bang goes, we don't get much further than the B.

Back at the Loft, it's one in one out. Thankfully there are a couple of punters on hand to assist our swift re-entry, both escorted off the premises by security when one decides to resolve a dispute with the doorman by distracting him and planting a smacker of a kiss on his cheek.

And why's it one in one out? That would be because arguably Pompey's most successful exports of the last couple of years (tour with the Manics; release through Fantastic Plastic; NME album review; festival appearances at Latitude, Greenman and Primavera) have entered the building. THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND owe their name to a book and their sound to The Arcade Fire. Keys, xylophone and brass are all called upon, but that additional instrumentation generally feels like a simple supplement rather than a constructive complement, and there's neither the fierce passion nor the fascinating idiosyncracy of, say, My Latest Novel to carry them through. Maybe I'm missing something, but the reason for their flirtation with the big time largely escapes me.

That said, TSDOLE are certainly more interesting than Brighton's JUMPING SHIPS, who soon have us, er, jumping ships to the One Eyed Dog. Immediately we're cursing ourselves for tardiness, as BRONTIDE are already well into their mission to command and conquer. They say "Pink Floyd for the scenesters", I say a maths class as taught by Shellac. Bare chests: two. Sinuous bass and tidy guitar patterns with a brutal thwacking follow-through: lots. Niceties: none - except between songs, when frontman Tim Hancock enthuses about the festival and their predecessors at the One Eyed Dog, Tall Ships (not just on the bill for the nautical theme, it seems). Little wonder Holy Roar - sometime label for Dananananaykroyd, Gallows and Rolo Tomassi amongst others - have taken rather a shine to them.

Next up here, on the stage curated by Meat Pie Promotions (which explains the bloke we saw earlier wandering about in a pie costume - unless it was a local with a very odd fetish) - is Malvern's answer to Bright Eyes, SAM ISAAC. He and his band have been holed up writing new songs, all of which impress, but then he already has a 2009 album (Bears) and neatly formed tracks like 'Sticker, Star And Tape' to call upon. On another day (perhaps had we seen all of Brontide's set, or had the Cider Of Doom not brought on a bout of sentimentalism), the politeness and slick professionalism of his cute emo-indie might have been offensive - and indeed the fact that someone in the crowd is quietly singing the "These problems matter" song from the Dawson's Creek parody episode of Family Guy makes me chuckle - but all the same I find myself easily won over.

Walking back past the Loft we spot our over-amorous bouncer-kissing punter being pinned to the pavement just as his taxi announces its arrival with a blue flashing light. Can't tell you much about THE RAMBLINGS (Fat Fox) or DAN SMITH (Wedgewood Rooms), as we catch barely two minutes of either - but, based on those two minutes, the former walk a bluesy walk but with the lolling gait of the Happy Mondays, and the latter is a solo loopmeister and multi-instrumentalist in need of a stage name.

In need of an identity of their own are Cambridge outfit THE TUPOLEV GHOST (Edge Of The Wedge), whose unremarkable post-hardcore wears its influences on its sleeve (or, in the case of the frontman's Black Flag T-shirt, on its chest) and rarely suggests it has either the brawn or brains to step out from the shadow of the likes of Bluetip and Sparta. But I'm prepared to cut them some slack for three reasons: firstly, they're just finding their feet again after losing two band members; secondly, the single 'Diagrams' has a corking chorus; and thirdly, their mini-album, released on Oxford label Big Scary Monsters, features a track called 'Giant Fucking Haystacks'. I'm assuming the "Fucking" is an adjective and not a verb - otherwise that would just be weird.

Now HERE's something: a rabble with a double-bassist and an extraordinarily barnetted showman called Lou Vainglorious who look like Dexys Midnight Runners lost in Shoreditch and whose secret weapon is a bizarrely effective cover of MIA's 'Paper Planes'. A cynic might venture that Southend's HOODLUMS (Wedgewood Rooms) are at least three years too late for the Thamesbeat scene, which in any case only really spawned Mystery Jets in terms of bands with any longevity. But nevertheless, the likes of 'Estuary Boys' and the glam-gone-gypsy-with-terrace-shouting single 'The Beat Bop' (released on Nude) intimates that they've definitely got a certain something about them.

I've repeatedly missed THIS TOWN NEED GUNS (Edge Of The Wedge) when they've played in their native Oxford, so gawd bless the Southsea Fest organisers for putting them on tonight. Labelmates of The Tupolev Ghost on Big Scary Monsters until recently, they're math rock flavoured with a little early emo (think Cap'n Jazz, The Promise Ring - ie back when emo meant thick-rimmed glasses, rucksacks and Smiths-loving US punks, not black clothes, self-harm and My Chemical Toilet) - which makes me just a little nervous that their song 'Wanna Come Back To My Room And Listen To Some Belle & Sebastian' might not be satirical after all. Judging by the handclapping of an excited crowd, their popularity with the locals is well established - but, while I can admire how busy and tight they are, I can't say I genuinely love it.

Strolling back through the main room en route for the exit I note that PEGGY SUE have dropped the "& The Pirates" since I saw them supporting Blood Red Shoes (well, since gaining a drummer, to be precise) - rather inappropriately, really, given the context.

Back at the Loft, it's cooler and quieter than earlier in the day - almost as if people don't realise that one of the festival's highlights are about to hit the stage. Not that IT HUGS BACK could really be described as "hitting the stage" - these four fresh-faced youngsters are far too polite and restrained for that, and it's hard to believe that they call legendary label 4AD home. But debut album Inside Your Guitar actually makes a virtue of being largely devoid of visceral impact; instead, it's the subtlety that seduces. Live is no different: 'Q' is a gorgeous wash of fuzz, and when they do work themselves up into a bit of lather (relatively speaking), on 'Don't Know' and set closer 'Now + Again' (which has my companion jigging around with the keyboard player's mum and sister - it's that time in the evening...), it feels organic and natural not like a forced teenage temper tantrum.

And so to the headliners. And So I Watch You From Afar, Band Of Skulls, Tubelord, James Yuill and Official Secrets Act are all playing elsewhere along Albert Road, but we opt to stay put for THE JOY FORMIDABLE. My first impressions were far from favourable - will time, another viewing and copious quantities of alcohol change my perspective? Not really, is the answer. They're certainly looser and not quite so buttoned up as they were supporting Howling Bells (Ritzy Bryan actually turns off the icy stare on a few occasions long enough to crack a smile or two), and coo-pop-in-a-hurricane single 'Cradle' has won me over. But I'm left unconvinced generally, not least because the rest of their material (presumably taken from the debut LP given the comically awful name A Balloon Called Moaning) is rarely up to scratch. All the same, it's pleasing to see speaker stacks shaking and feel the floor vibrating at the end of the night, as Hong Kong Gardeners Club goes out with a flourish.

The music over, there's nothing left but for two deafened inebriates to dissect the day's entertainment - all for the bargainous price of £12 - over a curry, awarding the rich stuff to It Hugs Back and the flogging and plank-walking to George King.

My guess is that Southsea Fest could become an annual fixture in my calendar as well as that of Portsmouth. I wonder whether the organisers will realise the potential in making it an all-weekend event to coincide with Love Albert Road Day, which this year takes place the following weekend?

Anyway, a sneak preview of next year's bill: Oceansize, Wavves and Fish from Marillion. Perhaps.

So much for your highbrow Marxist ways…

2009-09-26T15:20:00.006Z

White Town, Arthur & Martha.
Brixton Jamm. 24sep09.

Adam Cresswell and Alice Hubley line up behind their Moog and Korg synths as Arthur and Martha, with the confidence that comes with knowing they’ve got a triumphantly strong opening three. They put the same three at the start of their album Navigation so their ability to hook-in for the look-in comes as no accident. This is tried and tested sequencing.

Autovia, announced tonight as “I’ve Been Driving In My Car”, is a sauntering daydreamscape that evokes the open road; of late night journeys in icy climes. Musicforhairproducts, which follows, has a similarly reflective swish like, say, Kraftwerk’s Spacelab or Saloon’s Girls Are The New Boys. Cresswell’s vocals aren’t quite as successful in the live environment as Hubley’s, who often brings to mind Amelia Fletcher with her melodic cadence.

Third tune Kasparov is introduced by Cresswell by his asking “Has anyone been watching the chess? How’s Kasparov getting on? … seamless link there” which flags up Arthur & Martha’s innate sense of fun, yet doesn’t detract from the grandeur of their music.

There is also something beautiful about White Town’s sound as well, not that it immediately reveals itself, but there is something plaintive within Jyoti Mishra’s voice that give his songs an extra, subtle hook. Admittedly he looks quite incongruous as a perfomer, a long winter jacket worn on stage over a plaid shirt that billows over his paunch, whilst his face often breaks into a toothy grin as wide as all space.

Yet, and let’s not beat around the bush here, this man has had a bone-fide #1 hit which, in the old money anyway, makes him a pop-star. Not just any old hit either, Jyoti having taken bedroom indie-pop, the kind that usually got no further than the pages of a badly photo-copied fanzine, to the tip of the tip-top pop charse back in 1997 in the weeks between the Tori Amos Professional Widow remix and Blur’s Beetlebum.

You could argue that Baby Bird came from similar roots but he had stalled at #3 with You’re Gorgeous three months prior. White Town’ s Your Woman seemed to come from so far out of nowhere that copies of the single had snow on them. I grant you, it couldn’t have happened without Mark Radcliffe’s eager patronage (back in the great ‘Graveyard Shift’ days with the Boy Lard) or the work of Chrysalis records but the air brush wasn’t taken to it – no Fatboy Slim remix was required to seal the deal.

For many, it will be a long-forgotten one-hit wonder, for others the best #1 of the 1990’s, and what a treat it is to hear it again tonight, sung beautifully and greeted with the kind of cheer that goes beyond nostalgia, revealing a genuine and keenly felt affection for a significant moment in indie-pop history. I won’t crank up the hyperbole to say it’s the most significant #1 ever (to my mind that would be Ghost Town, anyway) but the Your Woman video being played out on TOTP? Thems were good times for the fanzine-writers, tape-compilers and charity-shop threads wearers of my vintage.

Frankly, it’s a treat to hear anything by Jyoti live, considering this is, apparently, his first live performance in London in White Town’s twenty-year history, and appearances anywhere are quite rare. Most of the other material tonight is taken from his most recent album Don’t Mention The War, and considering the live set-up is just Jyoti and his acoustic guitar along with a backing track, they remain compelling, especially Make The World Go Away and Whenever I Say Hello.

These are not the songs of a man chasing the zeitgeist, desperately trying for the burning attention of the spotlight once more. Instead, they show a man happy with his work and to appear at the fringe of the fringes as and when it suits.

White Town @ MySpace
Arthur & Martha @ MySpace

Feisty night

2009-09-21T16:38:00.003Z

Future Islands, Ear Pwr, Shield Your Eyes.
Brighton Freebutt. 15sep09.

Judging by their opening couple of numbers it might be easy to cast Shield Your Eyes as just another run-of-the-mill post-punk/hardcore band. However, little bits of Hendrix-like magic squeeze out amidst the only-vaguely-in-control scream of vocalist/guitarist Stef Ketteringham. The guitar work and the bass are lithe and intense, but it is drummer Henri George that is in charge here. Usually all eyes are on whoever has got their mouth to the mic but this evening it is the man with the sticks that demands the attention with his percussive dexterity. He raises the bar and Ketteringham and bassist Tobias Hayes come to meet his challenge.

A solid foundation for the evening having been laid, Ear Pwr then come on and immediately own the dance floor, if for no other reason than they set up their table-top operation in the middle of it. Devin Booze flails around the arc of punters to the point where the stale sweat of the sleeping-in-the-van-and-travelling-light-clothing-wise US-band-on-tour becomes all too evident. He ensnares several front-rowers with the loop of the mic cord, whilst Sarah J. Reynolds hops up onto the stage for a short visit, before collapsing to the commandeered dance-floor singing into her partner’s mic now dangling down by her face. The songs such as I Like Waterslide and Future Eyes swirl around, all echo and pulsating electro, morphing together into one long, chaotically exhilarating performance.

Baltimore’s Future Islands are returning to the UK not long after their long-stint travelling around as part of the Wham City collective with Dan Deacon, and continue to offer more bounce and durability than an inflatable castle at Fat Camp. A Future Islands show is all about the fling, both in terms of Sam Herring’s infectious physicality, and the way the playschool chirp of J. Gerrit Welmers’ synth lines and William Cashion’s bass collide with Herring’s lyrical melancholy and arresting vocal performance that veers from a Rex Harrison-like waspishness to a Joe Cocker-esque dry growl.

Welmers and Cashion are studious behind their instruments whilst Herring bounds around like an uncaged ape, a ball of energy dripping with a quota of sweat usually attributable to a nelson of wrestlers after a particularly rigorous battle royale. They require two attempts at single Pinocchio after the bass amp switches off mid-way through take one, Herring quipping, “if it doesn’t happen next time, that’s it for Pinocchio. That song will be dead to me.” Happily, the amp plays ball when the eventually return to it, as it is, along with Tin Man, a clear highlight of their set.

They finish with their haunting ballad, Little Dreamer but are then requested to return for “one more…and make it a feisty one” from a particularly demanding audience member. Clearly a giving band, Future Islands were more than happy to oblige.

More gig pictures at SongKick
Future Islands @ MySpace
Ear Pwr @ MySpace
Shield Your Eyes @ MySpace

Repeat to defeat

2009-09-18T00:56:00.000Z

EINSTELLUNG / ONE UNIQUE SIGNAL / FROM HERE WE RUN, 27TH AUGUST 2009, OXFORD CELLAR

Oh the perils of a lack of prior research. You'd have thought that by this stage in my gig-going career I might have appreciated its merits - whether that's so as to familiarise myself with the bands' latest releases or simply to be able to know who the hell's on stage.

But no, here I am puzzling at a bunch of kids playing overly fiddly mathy guitar pop with only a rudimentary grasp of the importance of being in sync, fronted by a girl who belongs to another type of band altogether, and thinking they don't sound much like I imagined they might. Only later do I realise that I've been watching From Here We Run and not fellow Oxford types and local post-rock supergroup From Light To Sound. Doh. Well, if they will both choose four-word-long monikers beginning with "From"...

And next, I suppose, are the headliners. Not so - the foursome (they must have recently shed a member) before us are actually One Unique Signal. The name is rather misleading in implying originality - they're clearly deeply familiar with the works of Spacemen 3, Mogwai and My Bloody Valentine amongst others - but the suggestion of a singularity of focus does ring true.

It turns out my companion and I aren't alone in being transported to pedal heaven by their narcotic and massively amped instrumental rock (well, it might as well be instrumental, the vocals being as lost amidst the chords as a small child in a dark forest) - their three-track LP Villains To A Man was recently selected as Album Of The Month on the Unsung site by someone who certainly knows his psychedelic onions, Julian Cope.

The arch drude's review finds him enthusiastically and in characteristic fashion extolling the virtues of repetition: "Many modern albums that contain almost all of the required elements for Inner Travel are let down simply by the brevity of the songs, and the indiscriminate manner in which half-hour jams stop dead, projecting the unsuspecting listener into a gargantuan (and highly useless) silence." I suspect, then, that Einstellung - yes, it's definitely them - might receive an even greater seal of approval than One Unique Signal.

To describe them as "interminable" would be to suggest negativity and criticism, but quite the contrary. Over the course of their three-song, near-hour-long set I find myself drifting from being impressed to being bored to being seriously amazed by what is a distinctively Brummie take on the Krautrock of Neu! and the like in that it's seen through the Sabbath-tinted glasses of a band who unashamedly hail from the Home of Metal. Of course, it's not to everyone's tastes or patience - my gig-going accomplice, for instance, votes with his feet and leaves mid-set - but for me there's something captivating about the way they shift ever so gradually from sounding like Yo La Tengo gently working themselves up a head of steam to resembling a stuck record round at Steve Albini's house.

It's readily apparent why they've been talked up by friends and acquaintances (Brum blogger RussL and Cardiff's Lesson No. 1 promoter Noel Gardner, who reviewed their latest record Wings Of Desire for Drowned In Sound, to name but two) and found a home on the label set up by Capsule, esteemed promoters of the Second City's annual Supersonic shindig.

(Incidentally, to say they've got a bit of an obsession with Wings Of Desire would be a gross understatement - not only is that the name of the aforementioned recent release, the Wim Wenders film is also where they take their name from and what's being projected, complete with subtitles, onto the bass drum for the duration of the set.)

When the set ends, I track down to the guy who was wandering about before the set trying to sell Einstellung merchandise. "What's on this one?", I ask, fingering a CD entitled 'Sleep Easy Mr Parker'. "That's one half-hour-long song - it's a tribute to the guitarist's father", comes the reply. "Ah, so it's the song they finished with." "Er, no, actually - that's a different half-hour-long song, but this one's just as good..." And so it proves.

A little bit of prehistory repeating

2009-09-15T00:17:00.001Z

DINOSAUR JR / DEAD CONFEDERATE, WEDNESDAY 19TH AUGUST, OXFORD ZODIAC

Last time I was here, the choice of support act was unfathomable. Tonight, it most definitely is not. Dead Confederate boast a guitarist called Walker Howle and a sound that could only possibly be made by hairy men.

The Athens, Georgia outfit are currently enjoying the patronage not only of tonight's headliners but also fellow early 90s luminaries Meat Puppets, with whom they're about to tour the US, but their dense stew of grungey riffage - largely instrumental, as the vocals seem deliberately obscured - is a tad too mild-mannered and pedestrian to really excite, the moment at which critical mass would be achieved never quite arriving.

While the scientific debate over how the dinosaurs died out rages on, what caused the extinction of the original Dinosaur Jr line-up is well known and well documented: a sharp cooling-off of relations between bassist Lou Barlow and dictatorial songwriting genius J Mascis. So the announcement in 2005, sixteen long years later after Barlow got the boot, that the ice age was over and that the pair and drummer Murph were back from the dead was met with surprise as well as cries of "Jurassic Park!".

Four years on, and they've chosen Oxford to open their European tour in support of second comeback album Farm - a decision they might be forgiven for regretting early on. It seems rather churlish to complain about Dinosaur Jr sounding sludgy - it's like complaining about a bear having a dump in the woods - but the Academy's set-up is doing them no favours whatsoever. The crowd - overwhelmingly male, wider of waist and thinner of hair than in the band's heyday, filling the sweltering venue with a thick fug of stale sweat and farts - shuffles uncomfortably.

A few songs in, though, and things improve, it all starting to come together with 'I Want You To Know' from the new record. The bespectacled Lou - shirt sleeves rolled up and a little hesitant like a nervy supply teacher - begins to relax, while Murph appears as untroubled by the perpetual loss of drumsticks as he is by the loss of his hair. Meanwhile J - who a couple of hours earlier wandered into Cycloanalysts to enquire about fold-up bikes in that voice that never seems to be able to bear dragging itself out of bed - stands to the left of the stage flanked by an imposing trio of Marshall stacks resembling no-necked bouncers, a plump wizard widdling his way through the herculean solo of 'I Don't Wanna Go There' as his long straight grey hair is buffeted by a fan.

No snoozy proggy noodling here, though - not for a band who are perfectly equal parts Black Sabbath, Neil Young and hardcore punk. That the tensions of the past are behind them seems clear from the fact that, to our delight, they not only mix classic early singles 'Freak Scene' and encore-closing Cure cover 'Just Like Heaven' in with recent highlights like the snarling rifferama of 'It's Me' from 2007's Beyond, but also a clutch of fantastic tracks from the non-Lou period including 'The Wagon', 'Out There' and (best of all) 'Feel The Pain'.

Sure they aren't winning many new fans - I'd bet those rushing to the merch stall at the end are mostly buying the iconic cow T-shirt to replace one that's been through the wash so many times it looks leprous, like mine - and sure Farm suggests that evolution is beyond them. But bollocks to that - having come back from extinction is enough.

Messin’ about on the river

2009-09-12T08:48:00.006Z

Lisa Knapp & Leafcutter John
London Canal Museum. 09sep09.

The programme for the evening’s entertainment describes tonight’s performance as a world premiere which, whilst undoubtedly true, seems a bit hyperbolical given this tour neither plans, nor often will be able, to stray far from the banks of the Grand Union Canal.

So, this is ‘Canal Music’, a collaboration between folk singer and instrumentalist Lisa Knapp, folktronic laptop hero Leafcutter John and a narrow boat called ‘The Chiswick’. It begins here tonight on the first floor of the London Canal Museum, situated on the Battlebridge basin near King’s Cross. It is certainly appropriate for them to begin surrounded by all these artefacts of history given that the two artists have saturated their recent lives with canal water.

This has involved listening to oral history recordings of ‘bargies’, meeting with surviving horse drivers from the early 50’s, truffling for canal songs in the Vaughan Williams folk song library at Cecil Sharp House (albeit largely fruitlessly) and sampling the sounds of the watery thoroughfares of today.

Tonight’s hour long performance is, as world premiere might have suggested to you, the first airing of their combined work which combines live sampling, improvisation and sonic manipulation with folk sung in a traditional style but with a contemporary edge, a kind of spoken word scat being played out by both performers at times. Vocal and sound loops are created live and cycled via pedals and the computer.

They blow air into a tank of water sat at the front of the stage, to loop the bubbles, trickle, clicks and dribbles. The sounds are recorded using a submersed hydrophone which was made by Leafcutter John from a discarded can of chick peas [see how to make your own here]. “Is that actual canal water?” shouts one audience member, dryly given the transparency of the H2Oand the fact that both performers are willing to dip into it. “Its actual drinking water” deadpans the Leafcutter in response.

There are great crashes as they accidentally touch the sides of the tank which are quickly edited out, and this opening gambit has rather the effect of sounding like an orchestra tuning up, only in full-view and as part of the performance.

Aside from manipulating these sounds on the lap-top, John often uses one hand to tap out some percussion or strap on a squeeze-box, whilst Knapp picks and bows at violin, banjo and autoharp. The pieces are gradually built layer-upon-layer, cool and metallic elements such as a sound like motors revving mixing with a fresh, flowing swish. Knapp’s ethereal voice adds at once both barrenness and a world-is-our-oyster troubadour calmness. Later in the set, singing wine glasses are also incorporated into a tune inspired by the ice pit within the museum building that was built in 1860 to store ice imported from Norway. Particularly haunting when fed through a subtle echo filter.

The performers and the Chiswick now move on, in probably the slowest tour since Moses led a Wallace Arnold package group around the Midian desert. The boat will essentially be a floating stage from here on in, pitching up bankside in Berkhamsted, Milton Keynes, Stoke Bruere, Hatton Locks and finally Birmingham.

That open-air bank-side setting will bring the best from this project I think, as I’m not sure what hardcore folkies turning up will make of it given the very modern, experimental approach to the concept which is sometimes unengaging, but often enrapturing. Indeed, this show is less about folk tradition and more of evoking an atmosphere of place, both geographically and historically, and the performers achieve that with some aplomb.

Leafcutter John website
Leafcutter John @ MySpace
Lisa Knapp @ MySpace

Rockin' all over the world UK

2009-09-10T21:54:00.002Z

OK, so I went to a couple of festivals this summer and then wrote about them. Extensively. Here are the links:

Breeders-curated ATP (15th-17th May)
Friday (Giant Sand / The Bronx / Throwing Muses / Yann Tiersen / Bon Iver)
Saturday (CSS / Wire / Shellac / The Breeders / Tricky / Mariachi El Bronx / Holy Fuck)
Sunday (Times New Viking / The Soft Pack / Melt-Banana / Deerhunter / Gang Of Four / Shellac / Foals / Distortion Felix / X / DJ J. Rocc & Madlib)

Glastonbury (24th-29th June)
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday (Bjorn Again / Gabriella Cilmi / The Rumble Strips / Fucked Up / The Virgins / N.E.R.D. / Fleet Foxes / Lily Allen / The Specials / Neil Young / Animal Collective)
Saturday (Peter Bjorn And John / Eagles Of Death Metal / Spinal Tap / Broken Records / Dizzee Rascal / Crosby, Stills & Nash / Maximo Park / Bruce Springsteen / Jarvis Cocker / 2 Many DJs)
Sunday (Micachu & The Shapes / Status Quo / Brand New / Enter Shikari / Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Bat For Lashes / Tony Christie / Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Blur / The Prodigy)
Monday

All hail the partystarters

2009-09-05T21:27:00.001Z

HOLY FUCK / IT HUGS BACK, 8TH MAY 2009, OXFORD ZODIAC

The last time Torontonian firewall-botherers Holy Fuck played in Oxford, back in October, watching the support band Kelpe was like being served a starter-sized portion of the main course before the main course proper arrived. By contrast, It Hugs Back are a bewildering choice, having very little in common with the headliners - except, that is, for the fact that they're really rather good.

Fans of Yo La Tengo circa Electr-O-Pura in particular will find much to love in the way songs like 'Q' unfold like a languid late Sunday morning stretch beneath a comfortingly snug duvet of fuzz, jangle and drone. Even when they get a bit louder, they could hardly be described as in-your-face - more tickle-you-under-the-chin.

The unassuming foursome look as though they might blush with shame at the mere mention of Holy Fuck's name, and afterwards, when I approach the merch stall and ask bassist Paul Michael for a copy of the album, he automatically assumes I'm referring to the headliners' LP, looking quite bewildered when I insist it's his band's debut Inside Your Guitar I'm after. Aww bless etc.

Kent isn't often associated with musical wondrousness, but 4AD is, and with the label also currently boasting the likes of Deerhunter, TV On The Radio, The National and Bon Iver, It Hugs Back are in good company - but company in which they can quietly hold their own.

This is a Friday night, though, and it's time for the band Friday nights were invented for.

Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh aka Holy Fuck are experimental and innovative but high-brow only in the sense that your brows are guaranteed to be raised skywards for the duration of their set. They should market themselves as an alternative to plastic surgery - not to mention ecstasy and Viagra.

Avant-garde electronica, funk, rave, Krautrock and punk are all grist to the mill of an outfit equally comfortable touring with Do Make Say Think and MIA, the disparate styles fashioned into aural smartbombs that target your pleasure centres and detonate to maximum effect. There are casualties all around me - a bloke in a panama hat, another in a pair of horizontally-barred red Klaxons glasses, a curly-haired first-time pillhead - leaping around unself-consciously, all self-control joyously offered up and surrendered to the band on stage. Getting an Oxford crowd to respond (let alone to dance) is so often like getting blood from a stone, but Holy Fuck appear capable of slashing open a vein.

While the majority of the material is drawn from LP - the pick being 'Super Inuit' and 'Lovely Allen' (their "ballad", they claim, not entirely disingenuously) which close the main set and a whiplash-fast 'Safari' which brings the curtain down - there are also a handful of unfamiliar, presumably new songs that up the funk, particularly via groovesome disco basslines and drums that suggest the rhythm section is becoming ever more integral to their sound.

A week later Holy Fuck will be playing the Breeders-curated ATP. To refer to tonight's show as a warm-up would be to imply that they can be anything other than positively molten. And that, frankly, would be very wrong indeed.