Epigram Music

James Blake - James Blake

2011-02-08T23:07:00.001Z

A&M
Released: February 7th 2011

James Blake is virtually peerless. This is not to say that his debut album is wholly original. On the contrary, it draws inspiration from a variety of sources. It is to mean that James Blake works solely on his own terms and isn’t afraid in the slightest to delight, surprise, or disappoint listeners. Blake’s growth has been nothing short of phenomenal and not even the most astute in the dubstep scene could have initially predicted anything so markedly diverse as this self-titled release to come from the 22-year-old producer. But 2010 was a definitive year for Blake. His CMYK EP propelled him to the forefront of the underground, while the piano-driven Klavierwerke hinted strongly at the artistic direction of his successive full-length.

Even from the album’s cover art you get a sense of the split personality of Blake’s music, encapsulated by the ghostly overlaying of his image. On ‘The Wilhelm Scream’, Blake’s voice is almost lost in a haze of distortion and pulsing sub-bass, haunting the back of your mind while he sings about yearning and loss: “I don’t know about my dreams / I don’t know about my dreaming anymore / All that I know is I’m falling, falling, falling - might as well fall in.” The track that follows, ‘I Never Learnt To Share’, builds around the sparseness of a simple drum kick and what sounds like an askew Ben Frost melody, along with the repetition of a two-line stanza: “My brother and my sister don’t speak to me / But I don’t blame them, I don’t blame them.” After 3 minutes and 41 seconds of barrenness, the song bursts into a mind-warping mental breakdown with a drop of warbling bass.

Bon Iver-inspired tracks ‘Lindesfarne I’ and ‘II’ precede the beautiful lead-single ‘Limit To Your Love’, exhibiting the same vocoder/acoustic guitar dynamic that Justin Vernon employs on ‘Woods’. ‘Give Me My Month’ is a highlight of the record’s more vocally- driven and sonically-subdued second half and the album’s gentle close provides a pause for thought about where Blake will go next. Like 2010, this coming year will be a shaping one for Blake as he juggles his new role as an emerging mainstream artist with his already established life as an electronic producer.

Luke Morgan Britton

Rolling with the blackout crew

2011-02-08T22:35:00.002Z

Jon Bauckham meets The Go! Team’s Ian Parton to discuss the band’s adventurous third album, Rolling Blackouts

It is six years since The Go! Team earned themselves a Mercury Prize nomination for their debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike. In a shortlist that included Hard-Fi and the Kaiser Chiefs, it was not particularly challenging to stand out as something ultimately refreshing from their contemporaries. Starting life as a solo project for Brighton resident Ian Parton, their debut embraced a cut-and-paste aesthetic, plundering samples from a variety of different sources and combining them to create something new altogether. “I’m a bit of a hoarder!” laughs Ian, when recalling the initial stages of the songwriting process. “I gather loads of ideas and listen back before whittling it down to my favourite bits. By then, even to your own ears, it can feel almost like someone else has done it.” New album Rolling Blackouts continues this trend by taking conventional song structures and melding them with a mishmash of different influences, incorporating soundbites as diverse as old school hip-hop and Bollywood soundtracks.

But with a stronger emphasis on live instrumentation rather than sampling, it also stands as perhaps their most accessible record. “I think the main thing with this album was that I really wanted to make it more ‘sing-y’. I think that The Go! Team had become synonymous with just having a girl shouting over the music,” explains Ian. “I definitely wanted a bit more light and shade, a bit more variety and some space to breathe in between the songs. The last album was a bit fucking relentless. It was like someone poking you for half an hour!” That album was 2007’s Proof of Youth, notable for its guest appearances from Public Enemy’s Chuck D and electro diva, Solex. Four years down the line, however, Rolling Blackouts picks up from where its predecessor may have faltered – and it hardly begins with a whimper. On ‘T.O.R.N.A.D.O.’, frontwoman Ninja spits tough-tongued cheerleading chants, layered over knockout brass arrangements. Such an opener reassures us that the band have not lost their swagger, drawing the listener into a globetrotting collection of songs, taking ideas from around the world and experimenting with unusual new instruments such as kalimbas and Omnichords. “I hate the word ‘journey’, but the album puts you in different places,” says Ian. “One minute you find yourself in a ticker tape parade with a marching band, and the next minute you’re in an office in Tokyo.”

The latter scenario refers to ‘Secretary Song’, featuring lead vocals from Deerhoof frontwoman Satomi Matsuzaki. “The idea for that really just came from the song backwards. You think about what kind of voice you would need to bring it to life and who you would imagine singing it, so you pull out all the stops to make it happen.” With the addition of typewriters, the track captures the buzz of Tokyo as a city at work, present also in the internal dialogue of Matsuzaki’s frustrated office assistant, counting down the hours until the end of her shift. In contrast, lead single ‘Buy Nothing Day’ shifts continent and drives the listener “straight down the Pacific Coast Highway”, with Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino at the wheel, adding the same sun-kissed Californian splendour that characterises her own output. ‘Ready To Go Steady’ is of a similar vein, the chorus of which could easily have been retrieved from a time capsule buried by Phil Spector, with its coy ‘60s girl group leanings and Wall of Sound drum fills. “When I hear tracks like that, I think of high school proms, with the Prom Kings and Queens dancing like they’re in Carrie or something like that.”

Though perhaps without the blood and electrocution, there is definitely a romanticised, inherently stateside feel to fragments of the album. But Ian is keen to point out that there was no geographical agenda when he first began writing. “I wasn’t particularly fussed about making the record sound British,” he explains. “I liked the idea of it sounding global and international, but at the same time, I don’t kiss Yankee ass! I don’t think everything’s better in America.” But if there is one thing that can be agreed about the direction taken on Rolling Blackouts, it is that it offers a darker dimension than previous outings. With the title track’s minor inflections, it shows there are more to The Go! Team than first meets the ear. “Everyone says that ‘Rolling Blackouts’ sounds like My Bloody Valentine, but it actually started life sounding really Ennio Morricone. I think I like the fact that you’re able to confuse people by putting such wildly different things next to each other.”

Soon, Rolling Blackouts will take to the road. However, the prospect of an intensive touring schedule does not threaten to rid all six members of The Go! Team of their on-stage energy; swapping instruments and generally making a lot of noise. “It’s the highlight of the day, so everything is building up to that moment,” explains Ian. “We still have as much energy now as we did on the first album - more energy possibly. Ninja treats it like a marathon. Her commitment is just ridiculous.” Despite ready to unveil a collection of brand new songs to the world, Ian is merely of proud the band’s greatest existing achievement - to have forged a unique and instantly recognisable sound. “I think it’s just about putting a stamp on your music,” he concludes. “I’m not massively fussed to be honest about getting really big now. But I definitely think we have created a sound which is distinctively ‘Go! Team’ – whether you like it or not.”

Mystery Jets turn luminescent

2010-01-25T13:52:00.000Z

Jon Bauckham gets an exclusive glimpse at the freshly recorded Mystery Jets LP, courtesy of lead singer Blaine Harrison.

Mystery Jets have been keeping rather quiet lately. Only having recently emerged from the studio after nine months of recording their third long player, the band have spent time road testing new material in Berlin, playing impromptu gigs in bedrooms and art spaces under various guises, turning up at whatever venue available. Lead singer, Blaine Harrison, recalls these unusual shows with fondness. “It was quite simple really. We just wanted to play the songs before recording them to get an idea of their character and where they would stand amongst the others. Playing with a different stupid made-up band name each night took the away the pressure really. In many ways, it was very liberating.”

With the working title Luminescence, the new album is set to mark new musical territory for the band. “When I think of the word, it has these otherworldly connotations, and I think this applies to some of the new songs,” explains Harrison. “It sums up the sound and those feelings the sounds give you. It’s uplifting and it suits what we’ve made.” A band not afraid to wear their influences on their respective sleeves, he explains his current fascination with ‘70s bands, citing the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Supertramp, musing over an era that saw significant technical advances in studio recording. “They were probably seen as really commercial back then, but listening now, there’s a lot going on in there. It’s all very ahead of its time.” Perhaps rather coyly, he also declares the band’s current penchant for ELO. “If you can just look past the poppy falsetto vocals, there’s a lot to be taken from them. Time for example… it’s a concept album about time travel, which is not actually as pompous as it sounds. It’s incredibly subtle in a lot of ways, but also really beautiful”.

Formed whilst still at school, Blaine and his father Henry, a former architect, began writing songs together along with guitarist William Rees. After a few shifts in the line-up and instrumental duties, Kai Fish joined on bass and Kapil Trivedi was recruited as a drummer. It was in 2005, after gaining notoriety for hosting a series of illegal gigs and parties on Eel Pie Island, a small chunk of land in the middle of the River Thames at Twickenham, that they were signed to 679 Recordings and unleashed their debut, Making Dens the following year. A wildly eccentric, prog-infused record that quite clearly demonstrated their love for Syd Barrett, Making Dens featured perplexing tales of imaginary characters caught up in the complications of childhood, loneliness, unrequited love, and even unrequited love for transvestites.

The release of Twenty One in 2008, notable for its unashamedly ‘80s direction, exhibited in the highly successful single ‘Two Doors Down’, saw the band’s live presence reduced to four members, with Henry Harrison stepping into a ‘back room’ role, limiting himself to the studio. Blaine is adamant that things haven’t changed. “We still write lyrics together and the collaboration is still as strong as ever.” Yet, the inclusion of Henry as a full-time member in the band when they first arrived on the scene often overshadowed their music when featured in the press, a journalistic attribute which Blaine hopes has been shaken off. “It was definitely a weight on our shoulders at the end of touring the first album and we really didn’t want the music to be overwhelmed by it, even though it’s because of him the band came about in the first place. But I think people do now listen to the records because they know it’s Mystery Jets, not because they’ve read some funny article in The Times about a dad who plays music with his son.”

This sense of freedom has also been influenced by their recent move to legendary label, Rough Trade, “a tremendous privilege to be part of that legacy” explains Blaine. Yet, something that has always remained endearing about Mystery Jets is the heartfelt lyrical content and clear attachment to their work, most songs dealing with personal experience (“It’s the only way I know how to write really” explains Blaine). Whilst tracks such as ‘Little Bag of Hair’ on Making Dens dealt with Harrison’s own experiences of a hospital childhood, having been born with spina bifida, Twenty One was a “coming-of-age album, about growing up, making relationships and having your heart broken for the first time”. However, Blaine insists the new record is a more mature effort. “Sonically, it’s a step-up” he explains. A step-up then, may have been the outcome of working with veteran producer Chris Thomas, famous for his work with The Beatles and Pink Floyd, even producing The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks. With both Making Dens and Twenty One produced by young upstarts, Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford and Erol Alkan respectively, working with a producer from a different generation has been a humbling experience. “You don’t take it lightly. There’s definitely a lot of respect involved.”

With Luminescence (if that is its final title) due in spring, Mystery Jets are set for a busy year. Soon to be touring Europe with Arctic Monkeys, they are as keen as ever to do the usual round of summer festivals. “The record was originally going to come out in January but we felt that was too soon. This way, it’s out just in time for the festivals.” When asked how he feels home crowds will react to the new material, Harrison returns to the opening topic of conversation, expressing a desire to recreate the experience of last year’s Berlin shows. “Well actually, we were thinking of doing that again, it was so much fun!” he laughs. Now ready to come out of hibernation, it seems that Mystery Jets are more than ready for radiance… whether it’s in the guise you expect to see them or not.

Twee no more: Los Campesinos!

2010-01-25T13:47:00.001Z

Gareth Campesinos! checks in with devoted fanboy Dylan Williams to chat about his new philosophy: Romance is Boring.

With a mission statement centrally covering sex, death and football, if new release Romance Is Boring does nothing else for Los Campesinos!, it should finally put to rest the unwelcome ‘twee’ tag that’s dogged them since their saccharine, clamorous debut two years ago. Grave, and with a diminishing sense of geographical identity; the album focuses on figures drifting apart whilst living on the move, whether through the American South, Mexico or across the Alps and the Andes. Along the way, relationships are enacted and dissolve in church pulpits, on front lawns, on the road, by the sea. Gareth Campesinos! (each member adopts Campesinos! as their surname), the band’s singer, glockenspiel player and emotional core relates the frustrations that inspired their work: “A lot of the record is about loneliness and separation and they are two things that are prevalent for me when on tour… it heavily affects the ability to live 'a normal life'…and it makes it an impossibility (for me) to start a relationship”.

The (English) septet formed in Cardiff in 2006, sounding peppy, literate, and sweetly punk. With their first full-length Hold On Now, Youngster, full of off-beat rhythms and dense wordy interplay between Gareth and Aleks, the band were bursting with vitality and ideas. But despite all the giddy, skittering songs, there were always sad undercurrents present. A prime example was ‘Knee Deep At ATP’, where the sharp guitar solos are interspersed with a violin and Gareth beautifully documenting a boy’s discovery that his girlfriend cheated on him at the Butlins music festival. And while the stopgap We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (an EP that inflated to LP length) signified a move into grievous territory for the band, Gareth’s lyrical lead set an altogether darker tone for RIB, with death creeping in and the characters often settling for lust over love. He admits the progression toward the album’s caustic tone was assured: “I've changed a lot since writing the lyrics to [Hold On Now, Youngster], which was written in the excitement of being in a band and skipping lectures to rehearse and play shows…it's the experiences and emotions of the last few years that have doubtlessly led me to this point.”

All tracks on RIB are conceptually linked and form a loose narrative, but the scenes are staggered, almost adhering to the cut-and-paste technique. Tellingly, the album opens with ‘In Medias Res’, a soft song following a couple with their relationship in mid-flow, the narrator waking from a nightmare in a car’s backseat and realising things are probably too good to last. Gareth realises the album’s plot may be hard to follow: “I've convinced myself that if the album was listened to in a certain order…tells the story of one relationship from beginning to end. It does, I'm sure. Some songs veer closer to the narrative than others, but the events unfolding in each song are relevant to where things end.”

The scattered narrative is both an interesting ploy and a necessity, because the pace of RIB varies frantically. For every sharp, rousing song (‘There Are Listed Buildings’) or quick searing dose of punk (‘Plan A’), there’s a gentle interlude or hazy waltz (‘Heart Swells’ and ‘Who Fell Asleep In’ respectively) and the need to manage all these styles is clear: “This is the first record we've made where we actually entered into writing songs knowing that there was going to be an album at the end of it. So we wrote songs considering how they'd sit together on a record, and how they'd play a part in [both] the oral, and aural, story of the album.”

Lyrically, the cast of “maybe three” unnamed figures are mere outlines, their recurrence being intentionally opaque and easy to miss. But the occasional turn of phrase serves as a reminder of a character visited repeatedly, floating in and out of focus, akin to those of The Sound And The Fury. So the girl nonchalantly dreaming of a sea burial in ‘Who Fell Asleep In’ at the record’s mid-point re-enters with an eating disorder and flippantly toys with the idea of drowning herself in ‘The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future’, the album’s thematic crescendo that overflows with melodrama. Death (or considerations of it) is persistent and pursues the cast despite the general assertion of their youth. Clearly, Gareth’s choice to work in a graveyard between tours doesn’t help to dispel his sense of mortality: “I think I write the songs and worries about death so that I don't have to talk about them. I'd love to be in a mindset where I'm not plagued with morbid thoughts, I really would, but it's a lot more difficult to write a happy song that people like…there's much more of a consensus on what sadness is, than what happiness is, so, really, writing a sad song is a lot more of a banker.”

And really, looming dread doesn’t seem so out of place when the central figures view human connections so deplorably. If there was ever an embittered scene to represent the cold attitude of someone in a stale relationship, the title track surely has it: a lover too lazy to do favours in bed, to prove that the effort, ultimately, isn’t worth it. Yet in spite of the hardened approach to love and sex, that sad reflection on the difficult search for permanency in connections whilst living on the move keeps returning, and never better put than in ‘I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know’, the album’s grandiose high point, where the longing for a lasting relationship is expounded in figure’s desire to keep track of the moles that’ll appear on the object of his affection. Finally though, assuming ‘Coda’ rightfully bookends RIB’s tale, then lost opportunity is the conclusion; the characters on diverging paths, with no coincidence in their destinations. No-one wants to see that happen to partners, even when the results yield a statement as compelling as Romance Is Boring.

Night Slugs

2010-01-25T13:26:00.000Z

Having run for just shy of two years, L-Vis 1990, Manara and Bok Bok's Night Slugs clubnight has charted the cutting edge of bass-heavy gutter music with admirable consistency. With an ethos that stays true to club music's function as floor filling party music as well as continually highlighting innovation and experimentation, Night Slugs has successfully surfed developing trends in UK bass music whilst boasting ridiculously fun line ups and parties. Over its short history the London party has hosted grime legend Terror Danjah, the relentlessly boundary pushing Zomby, hype party crew Trouble & Bass and a who's-who list of UK Funky's best proponents: Roska, Lil Silva and Scratcha DVA to name a few.

As with all such endeavours, it was only so long before the night made the leap into becoming a label. Bok Bok's essential Sub.FM radio sets have always showcased a dizzying array of unreleased dubplates, many of which not just totally awesome, but also lingering in obscurity and label-less. With their first release the crew show themselves to be excellent selectors as well as party DJs, with Night Slugs 01 being headed up with the much hyped debut release from Mosca. Square One's tell tale synth hook might ring some bells having spent the last few months being rinsed by every DJ worth their salt. Even more excitingly, the EP boasts a jaw droppingly good remix package from a laundry list of the UK's best rising stars. Bristol's own Julio Bashmore makes an appearance off the back of the Dirtybird released Um Bongo's Revenge, Roska continues his ubiquitous presence around every release worth owning and the Night Slugs guys both contribute their own rerubs. A fairly essential purchase for any fans of remotely funky party music.

And it doesn't end there either. Remarkably good producers in their own right, L Vis 1990 and Bok Bok have tons of devastatingly good dancefloor destroyers on the brink of release. Continuing to fufill his role as UK bass ambassador to Mad Decent, L Vis releases the remix package of last year's excellent United Groove. MJ Cole's refit bolster's the original's haunting tribal stomp with some serious bass weight whilst TRG ups the groove with some of his textbook percussive flex. On the brink of release for Bok Bok is the brilliantly off-kilter Citizen's Dub, coming via Blunted Robots. A disorienting, rising and falling rainbow coloured synth line lends some psychedelic power to the funky template whilst Bubbz lends a few gurgled bars, fittingly about being too drunk to stand up straight. At Numbers' ridiculous take over party at Fabric at the beginning of the month it got numerous airings in every room, its pretty nutso and looks set to really bring Bok Bok out of L Vis 1990's Diplo endorsed shadow.

Simon Docherty

Everything Everything in their right place

2010-01-25T13:22:00.000Z

The multi-regional pop-bastardisers chat to Jon Bauckham of the great expectations placed upon them ahead of their debut.

“Imagine an episode of Friends called ‘The One Where Joey Gets His Fucking Head Blown Off By A Drone Aircraft’,” explains Everything Everything frontman Jonathan Higgs, attempting to describe the thought process behind recent single ‘MY KZ, UR BF’. “It’s a fairly surreal comment on U.S. foreign policy, using the idea of a bombing raid onto a Hollywood sitcom-type situation. Also there is this relationship sub-plot which was heavily influenced by R. Kelly’s ‘Trapped in the Closet’.” Perhaps a more surprising addition to this year’s ‘BBC Sound of…’ poll, Everything Everything have been gaining attention for their witty, wonky and often proggy indie pop. The accolade, however, has sometimes proved to be a curse rather than a blessing, with artists failing to live up to expectations. “It’s great to be in the top 10 or 15 or whatever it was and not in the very top bit,” explains Jonathan. “If we had been top 5, the pressure would have increased tenfold. The exposure is nice, though these lists actually mean very little in reality.”

With members hailing from both Newcastle and Kent, Everything Everything formed when Jonathan met bassist Jeremy Pritchard at university in Manchester, recruiting old school friends Alex Niven and Michael Spearman to complete the line-up. Having recently signed a contract with Geffen, being a band in Manchester has certainly opened them up to opportunities. “It’s probably the best city in the country to form a band and take it further, without being swallowed up as you would in London.” Hardly compatible with Manchester’s boozy, lad rock heritage, Jonathan does express the difficulties faced when trying to gain recognition in a post-Gallagher era. “The parka does still squat on the city like a giant toad kebab, but we are actively trying to shake it off along with a cluster of other new bands.”

Still “four or five months away” from releasing their debut album, Everything Everything were tipped for stardom at the beginning of last year by The Observer, highlighted for their “sexy indie pop with multilayered vocals” on the strength of debut single, Suffragette Suffragette. Yet, with hype comes the inevitable journalistic practice of pigeonholing, something the band are highly cautious of. “We don’t want to come across as deliberately anything,” explains Jonathan. “I think we are just very tired of musical cliché, particularly white men with guitars, which, try as we might, we can’t help but be. We don’t go out of our way to be different, we just find that there are a whole world of far more interesting ways to combine and present the few ingredients of music that exist in pop.” Admirers of Destiny’s Child and Michael Jackson as well as Radiohead and Kraftwerk, their music manages to exhibit this delightful bastardisation of mismatched influences perfectly. With intricate, angular guitar figures complemented by shimmering synths and a smattering of cryptic lyrics (“I put a rainforest in an Oxo cube”, anyone?), there’s certainly a lot to digest. “There’s actually a lot of humour and word-play in all our songs, even the most serious ones. We don’t worry about what people will think. If they read the lyrics and listen to the music and interpret us in a serious way, it’s fine”. This playful aesthetic is also captured in the band’s surreal self-produced promo videos. Photoshop Handsome for example, itself a musical assault on vanity-imbued image manipulation, gives the band the green screen treatment and sees them under attack from a violent form of image manipulation themselves. “The juxtaposition of the serious and the unserious is what we’re all about. It’s music for humans.”

With so much expected of them this year, Everything Everything have modest ambitions. “This year will hopefully bring an album to our ears that we are really, really proud of. That’s honestly it.” If that’s all they hope to achieve, that alone is a blessing.

Promised Works - Nick Drake's Pink Moon

2010-01-25T13:17:00.000Z

By 1971, the English singer-songwriter Nick Drake was reaching the end of his metaphorical tether: depression, insomnia and the near-crippling shyness that marked his earlier career combined with an increasing dissatisfaction at the poor sales of his two previous records, (1969’s Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter, released in 1970) and culminated in an almost total withdrawal from public life. This withdrawal, however, also resulted in the recording of his final album, Pink Moon, a collection of songs of such beguiling, unique beauty as to place them amongst the finest ever written. Put to tape over the course of two, two-hour long sessions beginning at midnight, Pink Moon is, quite literally, extremely

sparse: across its twenty eight minutes, the only thing interrupting Nick’s singing and guitar comes in the form of a piano lightly decorating the title track. What’s left behind, after all else is stripped away, are the winding, ever-shifting melodies that struggled to escape over-orchestration on Drake’s previous work.

On Pink Moon, the focus is squarely upon eleven intricately written guitar parts, and the lilting, haunting

softness of Drake’s voice. It is, without wishing to descend to hyperbole, a completely realised, utterly cohesive set of songs: each perfectly complementing both the track previous and the song to come.

Lyrically, too, the album coheres around two central themes: recurrent images of nature, and of a continuous, quiet hope for the future. It’s tempting, as with any artist that dies young, to view any final

work as a kind of ‘early warning sign’ of things to come, (and, indeed, Nick Drake passed away in 1974, two years after Pink Moon’s release, overdosing on anti-depressants) but to do so in this case is to do the album a great disservice. Its gentle, understated feel, though conceived in a state of increasing

turmoil, stands as testament to the ability of an individual artist to create something moving. As Nick sings on the final track ‘From The Morning’: “the day once dawned / and it was beautiful”. A simple statement, but sometimes it’s the simple things that are the most powerful - and therein lies Pink Moon’s ineffable power.

Mathew Pitts

No need for alarm

2010-01-25T13:10:00.000Z

Bombastic Danish dreamers Oh No Ono converse with Laura Snapes.

It’d be all too convenient to be able to liken Oh No Ono’s hypnagogic sound to the fairytales of fellow Dane Hans Christian Andersen. In reality, they’re far more Grimm than that, creating terrible Freudian prog dreamlands of watery metaphors where snowy mothers melt away and a shoal of siren ballerinas lure wretched souls down to their depths. Their latest release, Eggs, is a world away from the shiny, Clor-like new wave of Yes, their second record, instead dealing in hauntingly glam, proggy Arcade Fire orchestral bombast, the most polarizing high notes since Joanna Newsom and intriguing tales of mystical tragedy, steeped in the history of the locations where it was recorded.

“We started recording on the isle of Møn in an old farmhouse,” says keyboardish Nicolai Koch, on the phone from Denmark. “Then afterwards, we went to Sweden to record some of the strings, and then to this church that we rented in Copenhagen – they have two really old church organs, that you hear clearly in the beginning of ‘The Wave Ballet’. Then we recorded ‘Beelitz’ in a disused military hospital of the same name, in Germany. I think it became a mental hospital during WW1, and it was used afterwards by the Soviet Union. Apparently Hitler had been there. We had this myth of abandoned buildings that we wanted to check out.”

Recording in these historically marked places led Oh No Ono to create a troubled landscape of their own, where stray vespers of thought marry into dreams of gravity-defying queens, gothic images of blood and bridges, of sleep and Sisyphus. At times, Malthe’s falsetto obscures the intricacy of the lyrics, adding to the fractured sense of reality abound in Eggs.

“It’s about these very unconscious thoughts that you have when you’re a child, like, ‘I would never go into the wrong house and help the wrong mother,’” says Nicolai of the fraught mother-child relationship described in ‘Icicles’. “It’s the feelings you have when you’re a kid, like when you’re in a supermarket and you pull the wrong woman’s leg to ask for something; that scary idea when you start to realise that your mother’s just another person.”

It’s fair to say that a certain Sigmund would have a field day with the lyrics on Eggs – even when they move from the dystopian fairytale landscape to fret in domesticity, they’re crossing off numbers on an imaginary psychologist’s bingo card. Take ‘Eve’, lachrymose with depths resonant of Anthony’s rich timbre, a six-minute paean to both a marriage that breaks down “before the in-laws got their pictures”, and the relationship between two robotic Pixar protagonists.

“They’re Aske’s lyrics. You know, in a way we always try to mix everything up, to give the music some sort of twist, and this song became ‘Eve’ after Aske went to see Wall-E! And he really loved that, so that’s in there as well. It’s a very serious relationship song that somehow was also inspired by this Pixar children’s movie! I think that’s a good way to see how the songs are built up.”

Four Tet - There Is Love In You

2010-01-25T13:02:00.000Z

It's been over four years since Kieran Hebden released his last album as Four Tet. In the meantime he's been busy in almost every other way possible, cropping up everywhere as producer, remixer, label boss and collaborator, most notably on some intriguing and frequenty stunning work with jazz drummer Steve Reid. Amidst all that, he also reformed his old post-rock outfit Fridge alongside neo-folkster Adem, which must have felt like a slighlty awkward indie school reunion, each member having followed very different career paths.

There will, however, always be room for the uniquely mesmerising sound collages he makes under the Four Tet moniker. Having become the go-to guy for intelligent, often subdued electronica, previous effort Everything Ecstatic left us with a jazzy, often manic sound, despite coming up slightly short in comparison to the modern classic status enjoyed by his masterpieces, Pause from 2001 and 2003's Rounds.

There Is Love In You (an uplifting title if there ever was one) is just as lush as any of its predecessors, concentrating more on electronic and vocal samples than the earthier instrumentation which often shapes his work. The opening duo of 'Angel Echoes' and 'Love Cry' are both built around warped female vocals, creating a slight creepiness that nicely balances out the prettiness of the music. Elsewhere 'Circling' and 'This Unfolds' - as you'd expect from those titles - play around with loops to spellbinding effect. And nothing ever outstays its welcome: 'Love Cry' is the only epic here, and its nine minutes are far too entrancing to ever qualify as overblown.

Hebden has always been at the forefront of dance music, but on this album he's included a few songs you might actually be able to dance to. On 'Sing' he delves straight into techno, while the shuffling beats of 'Plastic People' sound crafted for the dancefloor in every way, minus the odd baby sample at the end.

There's a few nods to earlier albums. Closer 'She Just Likes To Fight' is the most gorgeous song on the album, an organic slow jam complete with cowbells and bongos. It resembles, well, 'Slow Jam' which finished off Rounds. There's nothing earth-shattering on here, but what's most important is that every track has the warm glow and instant likeabilty we've been missing all these years.

Mike Mantin

Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM

2010-01-25T12:55:00.000Z

It’s difficult to anticipate an album’s design when the daughter of an English Rose and Parisian love rat commissions a prodigious American purveyor of goofball funk to write music for her. So IRM, the collaboration of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck is, initially, a confounding one.

On cursory inspection, IRM plays like an out and out Beck record, albeit bleaker, more isolated and with Gainsbourg’s wispy vocals draped in place of Beck’s blocky rapping. Considering Beck took all songwriting and lyrical duties this is understandable, but with further scrutiny, the frequently quieting sternness suggests Gainsbourg anchored his hand in more remote territory. In the most apparent assertion of her influence, the title track features the cold buzzing of an MRI scanner (inspired by Gainsbourg’s experiences following recent head trauma) alongside a throbbing bass line typical of Beck. Though other examples are less overt, they are numerous: the restraint of the harp and murmurings of ‘Vanities’; the French poem ‘L’Adieu’ recited to close the album. The two songs (‘Trick Pony’ and ‘Greenwich Mean Time’) most congruous with Beck’s off-kilter back catalogue are actually the sorest detractors from an otherwise innately calm work.

Unsurprisingly then, IRM resembles Beck’s sombre past work, Sea Change. The cover ‘Le Chat Du Café Des Artistes’ could be inconspicuously twinned with Sea Change’s ‘Paper Tiger’ (which is itself heavily indebted to Gainsbourg Senior). In fact, with its slight, continental charm, IRM is superior to Sea Change. Gainsbourg’s hauntingly reserved whisper is a better match for Beck’s low-key approach than his own voice, which approaches a monotonous croon on his own slower songs. And whilst Beck’s production and instrumentation are always meticulous and lavish, they have never sounded this fragile or intimate.

Questions of accreditation aren’t necessary, as Gainsbourg didn’t hire Beck as a ghost-writer. IRM sounds like an artisan trying to convey the shy subconscious of his chanteuse, each song seemingly based on some fascinating idea plucked from the fog of an elusive persona. If Beck needs to piece together fragments of Gainsbourg’s thoughts to produce some of his best work, we’re better off for the collaboration.

Dylan Williams

Hot Chip - One Life Stand

2010-01-25T12:51:00.001Z

Hot Chip may have finally found the balance between synthy hijinks and melodic sincerity. Although less immediately gratifying than previous efforts, One Life Stand contains nine mature, well-rounded nuggets of pop genius, and one dire ballad (the aptly-named ‘Slush’).

The whole affair is decidedly understated, with really only the title track offering the kind of dancefloor potential seen in ‘Over and Over’ or ‘Ready for the Floor’. Everything comes together with artisan precision to create a rewarding journey that both calms and unsettles the ears, most adeptly through the looming pads, muted steel drums and half-mumbled vocals of ‘Keep Quiet’.

Whilst not in any way alien to existing fans, One Life Stand should finally attain Hot Chip the full scope of respect they deserve.

Matt Grimble

Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Bandit

2010-01-25T12:48:00.000Z

After a painfully inactive five year gap, this Norwegian nine-piece return to reclaim another maligned genre: prog. The accursed catch-all “electronica” and the substanceless “post rock” were transformed on previous offferings into marvelously eccentric and beautiful opuses; it seems with every influence of supposed ill repute they add to the palette, by some Nordish voodoo their scope and power widen without dilution.

Whilst there’s something distasteful about riff workouts, the kaleidoscopic title track is crass-free, psychedelic rather than overwrought. The spacey, ‘70s-aping polyrhythms of ‘220V/Spektral’ are enchanting rather than cheesy, and on ‘Toccata’ the band wrap themselves around some decidedly Reich-esque minimalism without breaking so much as a sweat.

Simon Docherty

Midlake - The Courage of Others

2010-01-25T12:40:00.000Z

A new decade, and a new start? Well, for Midlake in 2010 this rings only partly true. If the sound of their 2006 breakthrough album, The Trials of Van Occupanther dealt heavily in Fleetwood Mac stylings, then this new record is instead the result of long listens to retro English folk – think Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and Pentangle, all of whom frontman Tim Smith admits are integral to the sound of The Courage of Others. Gone is the bombast of ‘Roscoe’, replaced by the “fair maiden” sound of ‘Acts Of Man’ and, well, a number of… flutes. And yet this change sounds like a natural progression rather than a sea-change for Midlake, with the same haunting vocal harmonies and spacious guitar sounds making for an experience that is just as affecting as Van Occupanther if not more.

Tim Wong

Beach House - Teen Dream

2010-01-25T12:38:00.001Z

With our legs on the edge and our feet on the horizon" sings Victoria Legrand on '10 Mile Stereo'. Although it's possible she may have lost an octave to her cigarette habit, the tone of her voice - both delicate and androgynous - is invaluable to the Beach House sound, when combined with old-timey organs and the most melodic of guitar-playing. 2008's Devotion saw a bright awakening from the autumnal drowsiness of their debut, and although Teen Dream doesn't see a total retreat to their hazy beginnings, the sun is definitely setting on this album. It's a clash of colour and warmth, where more ambitious beats and spirited melodies have allowed Beach House to create a record of accessible pop songs with the charm and atmosphere they've proven time and again they can't shake.

Leah Pritchard

A volatile sound in the world after robots

2010-01-11T02:38:00.000Z

Dylan Williams dispels curiosity and gets inebriated with South African prog-explosion, BLK JKS.

Sitting in a dark booth in Start The Bus, Lindani Buthelezi, the singer and lead guitarist of South Africa’s BLK JKS, talks with an ease in his own skin that shirks the striking urgency of his band’s playing. He comments somewhat lightly on their volatile sound: “All of us as individuals coming together, we had a feeling of what we had to do. So it was a matter of getting it out…and that release happened, with a frenetic sense”. Whilst singing, Lindani slips from English into several African dialects, using his linguistic range to pair his intonation with the band’s music.

“African speech is very rhythmic, with a cadence. What comes out of the mouth can be translated to the guitar and vice versa, giving a circle between the guitar and our dialects and all the tunings we have.”

In short, the results are exotic, fluid and exigent. BLK JKS represent an epochal South Africa but have found plenty of muse in Western styles.

The four piece spent 2009 relentlessly touring the US and Europe, supporting their debut album After Robots (which, I’m told, is a local phrase said to signal a cab to stop after traffic lights, and not a reference to a post-post-apocalyptic future). Lindani’s feelings of the touring experience are expectedly jaded. “It’s been really enlightening to find out how much the human body can take…it can mess with anyone’s mind, you have to be above the fatigue and the confines.”

Despite attrition, the burgeoning series of explosive gigs have won over inquisitive newcomers. At home, crowds received BLK JKS with confusion (black bands dabbling in white music being a scarcity) and the band seemingly had a task ahead to impress Western audiences.

“The undertone [in crowds] has generally been curiosity, and from that they deduce their own conclusion as to what they think. We are super comfortable with what we do…and it stems to the general audience. But there is curiosity lingering about”.

As to whether the band sees well-worn comparisons (TV on the Radio, Mars Volta etc) as unwanted pigeon holing, they’re pretty nonchalant. “We’re at peace with everything that follows…if they are comparing us to such bands, we’re cool. Definitely we don’t sound anything like them. But I guess it makes it easier put bands into little compartments. It’s easier to write about it.” But Lindani agreed that categorisation could be a catalyst for popularity: “if it gets people through the door, so be it”.

To dispel curiosity and stamp their identity on crowds, BLK JKS play intoxicating shows that jump and jitter in pace. It was well encapsulated that evening during ‘Skeleton’, with guitarist Mpumi repeatedly uttering “start the bus…” as an ominous, dirty instruction over slinking ska tones, before the song built to a grandiose chorus. Throughout the show, they played a thick mesh of jams, which never veered towards self-indulgent.

Lindani emphasises the need to return home, to re-adjust in Johannesburg and get back to recording in the first quarter of 2010, while they “still have that energy inside”. BLK JKS’ global reputation is growing, and Lindani embraces the fact that their next album can be borne out of Africa, but refined anywhere in the world: “It’s a new age, hence the song ‘Cursor’. Anything can happen.” That’s the real allure.

Ohio's Death Cab for Fruity

2010-01-11T02:33:00.001Z

Jon Bauckham chats to sprightly US shoegazers Pomegranates.

Producing sprightly indie pop lacquered with shoegaze guitars and exuberant, youthful vocals, critics have been quick to compare Ohio’s Pomegranates with the likes of Death Cab For Cutie and The Shins, a journalistic convention that does not surprise drummer Jacob Merritt. “I think sometimes critics can be quick to make comparisons between an ‘indie’ sounding band with other sorts of touchstone indie bands without really digging into the songs a little more to see what might really be in there.” Indeed, under the surface water of shimmering guitars and vocals delivered with wide-eyed wonder, lies an array of more unexpected influences such as Brian Eno and even Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, something which Merritt hopes will be noticed over time, acknowledging that it is often the reaction for bands relatively fresh on the scene. “As we keep writing, we hope our songs get to the point where people want to spend a little more time with the music”. Hoping for success across the pond, the band recently secured their first UK deal with Heist or Hit, releasing their second album, Everybody, Come Outside! in November following its release stateside last April.

Formed in late 2006 by Merritt with guitarist Isaac Karns, little time was wasted once vocalist and guitarist Joey Cook completed the lineup. Having found a suitable band name (Pomegranates was the first suggestion that didn’t sound cringe-inducing or super trendy, apparently), they were signed by Lujo Records and finished recording their first EP, Two Eyes, just four months later. With the addition of bassist Josh Kufeldt, Pomegranates released their debut album, Everything is Alive in May 2008, garnering a sizeable number of fans and a collection of positive reviews along the way. Achieving more in three years than most bands would achieve in six, they are still conscious of progressing too quickly and running dry of ideas. Such prolificacy in their writing is a topic that appears to strikes a chord with Merritt, who expresses a fervent desire to refine ideas further. “I think we want to pace ourselves and try to hone our songs a bit in the future, and try writing in a different way that might take a little longer. I’m not sure if that means they will be better songs, but hopefully thoughtful and a bit progressive and more focused.”

In the small window between albums, it would appear that this progression has already begun. Their second record comes across as a more mature, self-aware record than its predecessor, while still channelling the sort of optimistic aura that would be expected of most twenty-something indie bands. It even works as a concept album, a loose narrative concerning a disenchanted individual’s escape from the humdrum of everyday life by being taken on a journey through space and time, a story that deals with “discontentment, hope, and appreciating life and the opportunities you are given”. Such themes are expressed more fully when the band are at their most experimental, tracks such as the thought-provoking thirteen-minute album closer ‘I Feel Like I'm a Million Years Old’ a significant leap forward from any previous material. “We just wanted to have a format that sort of pushed us and stretched us, and working within a narrative seemed like a good way to do that”.

Exciting but not overpowering, sensitive but not saccharine, Pomegranates appear to have found a suitable formula that will surely please crowds both home and away. It is highly possible that they could be a popular fruit this year.

The death of a Starfucker

2010-01-11T02:24:00.000Z

Portland’s premier rad-rockers Pyramiddd party on with Susana Pearl.

Hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned. When Portland’s former Starfucker decided to cast off the moniker ball and chain that had been holding them back in order to become Pyramiddd, the musically credible but cliquey local online press were scornful. “Portland electro-rock band Starfucker are changing their name so they can really ‘make it’ in the music world,” sneered The Stranger, and the first commenter on the Portland Mercury’s story simply said, “And…this band is over. Poof.” Hey, at least they didn’t call themselves Rad Stewart, one of the mooted options.

“It wasn’t so much that we got asked to change it,” said Josh, the guitarist and originator of the band. “We didn’t really like the old name anyway.”

“Josh just started it as a joke and we didn’t expect it to go this far,” adds singer and decks man, Ryan. “It’s like getting married to your friend. Or getting married at all! It’s a joke that went too far.”

The band laugh knowingly. This seems like a story for another time. For a band who’ve successfully broken out of the bedroom only to have success denied to them on account of their name, it’s hard not to feel indignant on their part for the amount of nonsensical “sell out” shit thrown their way from self-righteous bloggers, particularly when they all keep day jobs and live off food stamps when not plying their wares as a goofily fun electro pop band with a neat line in the good bits of MGMT and of Montreal’s less psychotic moments. Oh, and aerobics gear and drag.

“We just like to be silly and not really serious on stage, to have fun and wear stupid things that we wouldn’t ever normally wear!” drawls Shawn.

“It just feels like a good opportunity to wear a dress if you ask me,” adds Josh.

Jupiter, the EP that made for the last release under their old name, bounds psychotically with the nervous exhilaration of having necked a few too many Pro Plus whilst samples of Alan Watts’ plummy British neo-Buddhist philosophies tease with the promise of some strange other world. Live, they’ve got that same potent vibe as a !!! show, springing gaudily back and forth whilst Ryan leaps into the crowd to face off with the audience during their cover of ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’.

They’re coy about the release date and machinations of its follow up – “probably in the middle of 2010 sometime,” says Ryan.

“We don’t want to rush it, that’s for sure,” adds Shawn. “The last records were pretty rushed, we just want to take our time and make the best album we can.” Although it’s apparently “darker musically,” there’s no chance of it becoming the “mellow sad bastard music” of their Josh and Ryan’s previous band, Sexton Blake.

“I don’t even like to go see live shows very often unless it’s a friend’s band or someone I really love, and I feel like if you’re bored of a show then just dancing can make it more fun, so that’s what Pyramiddd is, it’s more fun to dance even if you’re not into the music.”

You might have noticed that Pyramiddd are pretty into having fun, and if that comes at the expense of riling a few po-faced bloggers into disowning them, fuck it. We’ll have ‘em.

Mad Geordie, playful princess

2010-01-11T02:22:00.000Z

Dimitra Taslim meets teenage newcomer Beth Jeans Houghton.

“The only ones for me are the mad ones… who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn… “ Jack Kerouac

Beth is a mad one. She makes Lily Savage look like a librarian. She charms and reminds you of anything delirious and beautiful, anything lavish and colourful. She reels people in with her extravagant pronouncements and witty self-deprecation. She prefers the unreal to dull facts.

“When I was little, there was this arctic fox that always came to see me while I’m upset. It’s not physically there; it’s like a see-through, spirit animal kind of thing.”

Displaying immeasurable enthusiasm, Beth has an endearing ability to start most answers with “I like” or “what I really like.” She effortlessly shoehorns excitement about her chocolate obsession (Double-Deckers), Billy the Kid (they’re related), gospel music (future musical direction) and photography (a hobby) into a single conversation.

Her music might not be immediately convincing, especially one particular melody that initially brought to mind the cloying kitsch of anti-folk. But maybe that was Beth’s impetuous element; she has a lot to say and refuses to linger. Beth sings and skips along the ethereal plane between American lo-fi and oddball Brit-folk, in a footloose and fancy-free way. It’s contagious.

“I have favourite musicians, but my influences come from people around me. I get different feelings from people and I translate that into music easily, rather than recreating something I like.”

Her band hums her frequency while enjoying themselves. They accord the girl that extra confidence, the sort of room and ease that help a young singer-songwriter loosen up. They’re refreshingly unpredictable: an old suitcase doubles as a kick drum.

Once she's done with the first song, the crowd whispers. It's about the voice, you see. There's genuine perplexity that a voice so full should come from a young, petite girl. Beth’s voice is ravishing, strikingly choral and not miles from Nico at her less austere.

Her intricate arrangements with her use of keyboards and loop-pedals blur the lines of categorisation. She's neither Joni Mitchell nor some new acoustic-folk queen. She’s a playful princess, with an evanescent and experimental edge to her craft. Songs like ‘Francis’ prove she's au fait with a catchy pop hook.

Beth wouldn’t attend university. She shouldn’t want to. She recalls music at A Levels as being “rubbish”, learning about “where different players sit in an orchestra”. Putting Beth in a studio with Ben Hillier (Blur, Doves) for her debut album suggests serious intentions on the part of her record company.

This girl would have Nico’s ‘The Fairest Of The Seasons’ for her death anthem: “I think it’ll make me contemplate my life, be calmer, and appreciate the fact that I’ve lived rather than worrying about death.” She quells any serious doubts about the depth and maturity that a famous 19-year old could show, with class and candor.

“I hope that I’m alone when I die, for fear of seeing the end in another person’s eyes.”

The year ahead in bass

2010-01-11T02:18:00.000Z

The most exciting prospect for this year has to be the transformation of Dress 2 Sweat, Wireblock and Stuff Records into Numbers, a new label to partner with its Glaswegian clubnight namesake. Over the years all three have done their utmost to break now established beatmakers Rustie and Hudson Mohawke as well as release all manner of righteous club über bangers - a quick glance over their discographies should give some idea of the quality to be expected of this new incarnation. Forthcoming releases should encompass all kinds of rainbow-tinged, off kilter hip hop and future dubstep, but the most anticipated 12" is the magnificient ‘If You Want Me’ by the hotly tipped Deadboy. Combining the synthetic colour of Joy Orbison with the lonely garage heartbreak isolated by Burial, Deadboy's productions have heaps of soul as well as devastating dancefloor potential.

A trend looking to continue into 2010 is Nottingham's unlikely new status as a home for forward thinking dance producers. Two labels in particular will continue to smash it into 2010 - Berkane Sol and Wigflex. Loosely involving releases by the same group of Nottingham producers (as well as some further flung), both labels have an anything goes approach to 140bpm, whether its Hizatron's amazing acid house and minimal excursions or Geiom's increasingly more unclassifiable nexus point between UK garage, funky, and dubstep. Forthcoming releases from other hot tips Brackles & Shortstuff (former Nottingham residents with their own brilliant label, Blunted Robots) place the labels right at the forefront of the bass music zeitgeist right now.

Throughout ‘09 Brainmath remained a mysterious proposition, bubbling in the background throwing out a series of incredibly high quality 12"s, some under pseudonyms and mostly one sided. It’s still unknown who helms the label (my money's on the man behind Brainmath 01 and 02; the ever elusive Zomby), but what's certain is that 2010 should yield a similar quality-over-quantity approach. Forthcoming releases are announced for RnB-cum-jazz-cum-G-Funk wonderkid James Blake following his dancefloor destroying remix of Untold's "Stop What You're Doing", as well as huge tip for 2010 sbtrkt, whose excellent productions have been reaching as far flung ears as fidget don Sinden and experimental post-punk band These New Puritans.

Excitingly, the collective output of these labels and producers is only the tip of the iceberg; underground UK dance music looks set to continue its inexorable march onwards.

Simon Docherty

Label Obsession - Brainlove and ILL FIT

2010-01-11T02:16:00.000Z

Tell us about your label!
David Laurie: It is a brand new oh-so-modern global digital label. We aim to take brand new bands and launch them around the world, strictly through the net, and directly into the heads of kids all over the world. We'll be signing bands, licensing albums, one-off singles, remixes, EPs, short films and anything that inspires us along the way.

Richard Thane: Because we also run a monthly club night here in London (under the same ILL FIT umbrella), we're also going to start releasing a digital EP, once a month from the bands playing the night. It's just another form of flyering a show - just more tuneful!

Who are your acts, what's your ethos and why should we pay attention to you?
DL: We are opening with a pair of acts. Sweden's The Forest And The Trees, a beautiful folky pop group, plucked from the world of our great friends Loney Dear (David Lindvall and Ola Hultgren both feature on the album). Uplifting and life-affirming, and Scotland's There Will Be Fireworks. Intelligent, heartfelt, honest, searing beautiful, viscerally brutal music that will lure you in and take an axe to your heart.

What do you look for in acts, and how do you sign 'em? Do they sign in blood, or do you run more of a loose communal vibe?
DL: We look for tunes, talent and things we can't turn our backs on. It's a love thing and yes, blood signing is encouraged. This 'aint casual.

Which other labels do you most admire?
DL: Motown, Factory, Service, Universal.
RT: I'm a huge admirer of Bella Union. Also, Labrador Records who are based in Sweden. They've put out some of the greatest pop songs of the 21st Century.

What are you going to be up to in 2010, release and gig-wise?
DL: The debut albums form those two acts are our opening salvo. More will follow. We are in no hurry. Quality not quantity innit.

If you could've signed anyone in the past, who would that have been?
DL: Radiohead, El-P, Human League, PJ Harvey, The Shins
RT: Taken By Trees, jj, A Sunny Day In Glasgow.

And which of your acts will people be saying that about in 30 years time? (If you don't want to single out one, feel free to list a few/all/be diplomatic etc)
All of them.

What's your approach to artwork and videos?
Super important. Absolutely a part of the package. A part of the art. Always was. Always will be. Vital.

Are you a co-operative or an evil svengali?
We are communists

Complete this sentence: "If I could get one of our acts on the cover/online front page of _____, that'd be all my Christmases come early!"
The Christmas Edition of The Radio Times

Tell us about your label! Who are your acts, what's your ethos and why should we pay attention to you?

Brainlove is a DIY-indie label. We at the minute have eight main bands on the label and an extended family of over a hundred. We do gigs and an annual festival, and put out an annual compilation that represents what we think is the best of the underground at any given moment... and generally try and help out and positively coexist with all the awesome bands and artists out there. Most of them are doing it for themselves, so it's good to act as a resource or a meeting point or a community, or all of the above.

With our main guys, we kind of do a rotation where one band has a big release and we really push them, while others are songwriting or recording... it works pretty well. Pagan Wanderer Lu, Napoleon IIIrd, Keyboard Choir and Kippi Kaninus had big releases for us in 2009, and we are gearing up for Stairs To Korea, Mat Riviere and We Aeronauts in the early part of 2010. They are all amazing potential world beaters. It's pretty exciting.

They're not from any one genre. There's a bias towards one-man-bands, for some reason. Maybe because the raison d'etre of the label is to promote music that's artistic, creative, visionary even, and always with a good heart. There has to be a sparkle or a spark, something magical, or something beautiful, or something fun...

What do you look for in acts, and how do you sign 'em? Do they sign in blood, or do you run more of a loose communal vibe?

It's always different. Pagan Wanderer Lu I met through a message board, he sent me a scruffy CD-R of some profoundly lo-fi recordings, but the songwriting and the lyrical talent was just astounding. We put him together with a couple of awesome producers like Dreamtrak Studios, and his new stuff is sounding amazing... Napoleon IIIrd I saw at his second ever show, and was just blown away by it - he had surround-sound speakers around the dancefloor and there were beats coming from everywhere. His voice was this... impassioned roar, but self effacing too. I loved it instantly, just so many ideas at play. Mat Riviere I watched with a bunch of friends, and basically during the show every single one of them made some comment about how he was the perfect thing for Brainlove. They were right, his stuff is somehow heartbreakingly simple, but in some ways like a total Pandora's box.

Sometimes we do contracts, sometimes we do handshakes, but mostly we do simple licensing deals - I think song rights should stay with the author, and that the olde world record label system of stripping rights was exploitative and unbalanced.

Which other labels do you most admire?

I like homemade labels like Cherryade, who really are in it for the love. I like Warp obviously - both the 'house style' electronica period and now that they've broadened out to include stuff like !!!
and Nice Nice. Art Fag in the US are doing a splendid job. Have been watching Merok and buying some of their stuff. Upset The Rhythm are great, love them lots. I bought a snake-skin textured Graffiti Island 7" the other day but I can't remember the label. Pretty awesome, anyway.

What are you going to be up to in 2010, release and gig-wise?

The first quarter of 2010 is massive for us - we have Stairs To Korea's "All Of Your Friends" coming out with a big push to try and get radio to sit up and take notice... and we have Mat Riviere's
amazing album "Follow Your Heart". I am very proud to be releasing both of these things. It's amazing music by amazing people. We're booking a bunch of dates for Mat & Will in January and looking at a label tour in February.

If you could've signed anyone in the past, who would that have been? And which of your acts will people be saying that about in 30 years time?

There are very few artists we've made offers to who said no, but those who did went on to great things: Fuck Buttons signed to ATP, and Simon Bookish signed to Tomlab, and both went on to make classic records. From our guys, I think the most people might remember Napoleon IIIrd, but only because he's toured like some kind of motorway guzzling machine for the last 3 years and played Leeds fest, Wild Beasts tour support, Club NME etc. The other guys have different kinds of profiles, some are at very early stages.

What's your approach to artwork and videos?

I do all the art and design for our BRNLV compilations, posters, websites etc and usually sit there sniggering trying to fit on more elephants or whatever. I'm from an art background so it's important to me that the label has a fitting visual identity. Almost always, our bands have very strong ideas about their artwork - I like it to be that way, they're all way creatively engaged. It's good. It says something about the kind of people we work with.

Are you a co-operative or an evil svengali?

Brainlove is as much a family as a record label, in my mind at least.

Complete this sentence: "If I could get one of our acts on the cover/online front page of _____, that'd be all my Christmases come early!"

I dunno. Ummmm... can we get Stairs To Korea on page 3 of The Sun?

Delphic - Acolyte

2010-01-11T02:14:00.000Z

A glance at previous occupants of the BBC’s annual ‘Sound of...’ wagers for musical domination in the ensuing year would seem to suggest Auntie knows best. Bloc Party, Klaxons, Foals, Vampire Weekend, McFly and La Roux had barely bothered the public conscious when they appeared in their respective years on the poll, but all have gone on to define the direction of pop music in one way or another, for better or worse. The prophecy is not necessarily self-fulfilling though, with many of their tips struggling to break beyond the initial hype. Either way, earning a healthy bronze position in this year’s list is a big deal for this six-legged Manchester outfit, and a great deal of their future is riding on the success of Acolyte.

Album opener ‘Clarion Call’ sets the scene aptly with a punchy, theatrical progression of climatic synths and choppy guitar, filled with desperation and ambition. Anyone who has been following the band and the three singles this album has spawned until now will be familiar with their brand of spaced out euphoric pads, massive hooks and ping-pong clicks and blips, a sound they coherently abide by throughout. In doing so, they manage to effectively channel the spirit of 90s acid house and earnest 80s synth groups through a strong grounding in modern indie songwriting. Beyond the three singles released in the buildup to this record, the highlight is certainly the pulsating ‘Halcyon’, a future hit for sure.

Unfortunately the boldness of the instrumentation is let down at times by the lyrics which, although well delivered, grope slightly too often at vague concepts without really saying anything deep. Likewise, in places the dynamic shifts and build-ups are too abrupt and unsubtle to give this release the immersive qualities it calls for.

Although not without flaws, Acolyte is a robust and well-crafted collection. It has the potential to cement Delphic as a formidable entity in the British music scene, and may lead them to fill a position which has been conspicuously vacant of late in the world of mature English pop. If Acolyte is indicative of the sound of 2010, we should be in for a good year.

Val Thomas

Laura Veirs - July Flame

2010-01-11T01:55:00.000Z

To date, Laura Veirs hasn’t topped the songstress stakes. She lacks some of Cat Power’s sultry passion and she’s a little more bookish. She doesn’t possess the vocal tempest of Neko Case (who literally sang as a tornado last year), but Veirs has never sounded like one to pitch a disaster movie. She puts out slow-burners like July Flame, and with it she deserves a place amongst the best of them.

Thematically, the album is strongly grounded in mid-summer. The balmy images are ample - buzzing fireflies, daffodil fields, riverside dances - but Veirs can’t quite break her slight forlorn streak and the music doesn’t relay the straightforward, hazy connotations of an August campfire. Instead there’s an underlying delicacy, an awareness of the temporality of the season.

In fact, occasionally troubled times are more focal, as with the lyrics of hornet poison and lashings on ‘Wide-Eyed, Legless’, and there’s a sense that Veirs has recently dealt with emotional upheaval. But if there’s a message underpinning July Flame, it’s that she spent the summer convalescing - canning windfalls and bottling hone - and by the song’s end she’s proclaiming “No more looking back/faded epitaph”. Eventually she’s even idolising Carol Kaye, the bassist who played on the most unabashedly jubilant music of our time.

Regardless of what bought it on, the peaceful resolve suits her. The best songs here (the title track, ‘Life Is Good Blues’, ‘Summer Is The Champion’) all combine sweet temperate odes, hints of the organic and a little edge of fragility. If it’s possible to write a soft, reserved paean to living through the summer, Veirs has it here. It's a hard trick to make economy seem meaningful; where the simple plucking of a banjo is more moving than a claw-hammered solo, where understatement is still effusive, where essentially sparse songs speak volumes. At the centre of July Flame’s success is well-crafted reticence.

This is Veirs’ seventh album, but it still seems as ripe and abundant as the peach of the title. When she’s writing songs this good, I don’t see July Flame signalling a fade into the autumn of her career.

Dylan Williams

Live Review - 10 Years of ATP

2010-01-11T01:46:00.000Z

To celebrate its tenth birthday, ATP has pulled together a line-up rich with bands from their own label, past curators of the festival and legendary ATP performers.

With such prestige, one can only imagine that bands playing here must feel like bedroom artists did when John Peel got their name wrong or when the NME listed a gig they were playing for the first time. Indeed, some bands are less coy than others: Afrirampo babble near-English gratitudes while performing a special ‘Happy Birthday ATP!’ dance/semaphore intro, Stephen Malkmus is visibly heartened by the crowd’s affection for him and Deerhoof are delirious - though this could be due to Satomi Matsuzaki’s sunny disposition, the frontwoman wheeling around the stage like her rider is made up entirely of Smarties.

Fever To Tell by Yeah Yeah Yeahs was released, many present would’ve been too young to attend this festival, but not too young to revel in its punky vitality. The record is the first to get the Don’t Look Back treatment this weekend, a complete play-through on stage – one of ATP’s calling cards. Karen O’s chutzpah must be admired – she combats arriving on stage forty minutes late to a torrent of boos with “WE ONLY JUST GOT HERE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS,” spraying champagne over the photographers in the pit and howling her way down the tracklisting with reckless abandon. ‘Maps’ proves the most touching moment of the weekend – a calm after the storm, a time for tears, kisses and heartbeats so big your ribcage can barely deal with them.

By contrast, Sunn O))) are utterly terrifying, Attila Csihar coming on half-man, half-tree with the lasers embedded in his gloves piercing the thick fog the stage is constantly filled with. The sub-bass growl vibrates every part of every body in the room, sending us off to sleep on the Sunday night feeling thoroughly disturbed by what has occurred. Another weekend of fascinating spectacles, frenetic Crazy Horse dancing and limit-stretching feats of bodily/auditory endurance – only 145 days til the next one!

Jon Fisher

Owen Pallett - Heartland

2010-01-11T01:41:00.000Z

Former Arcade Fire member and string arranger extrordinaire Owen Pallett has always had a nerdy streak, but Heartland might well be his opus for dorkiness. Based on a sprawling narrative that charts a scrappy hero's quest to traverse a fictitious land and murder the author of his world, it seems slightly ironic that he chose to retire his Final Fantasy moniker. In spite of this, Pallett's third album is his finest to date; true, the concept might rob it of the emotional tether that gave previous releases so much power, but at its expense we're awarded with his most beautiful work thus far.

Bolstered by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestera, Heartland marks a grand broadening in scope. Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara lends Pallett previously unrealised kineticism, whilst the myriad intricacies in the arangements give his orchestral pop as much depth as it has beauty.

Its unfortunate that the convoluted story might be off putting to some, as Heartland has enough fragility and scope to rival the best of Sufjan; alas, such is the curse of nerdiness.

Simon Docherty

Race Horses - Goodbye Falkenburg

2010-01-11T01:34:00.000Z

As lazy as it sounds, it is hard not to compare Aberystwyth’s Race Horses with fellow Welsh eccentrics Super Furry Animals. Like the Furries’ earliest works, Goodbye Falkenburg presents the listener with an almost intangible melting pot of influences, tracks such as lead single ‘Cake’ evoking 60s garage and psychedelia as it ponders on the joys of girls and home baking. However, such idiosyncrasies mean Race Horses find themselves running risk of self-indulgence towards the final furlong; faux-naval ditty ‘Captain Penelope Smith’ certainly succeeds in inducing seasickness. But there is still much to be content with on Goodbye Falkenburg. Maybe it’s guitar distortion that recreates the moment Ray Davies first took a razorblade to his amplifier speakers or the unashamed abundance of electric organs and studio-reversed pianos. Either way, there’s enough promise on here to suggest Race Horses may one day gallop alongside the Furries.

Jon Bauckham

Promised Works special: Epigram's favourite albums of the decade

2009-11-30T01:12:00.006Z

Asthe first decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close,Epigram's music writers look back on their favourite releases from 2000to 2009.

SINCE I LEFT YOU

The Avalanches
November 2000
XL Records

SinceI Left You, the only long player from Melbourne’s finest plunderphonicscollective The Avalanches is an album that has rarely left my sidesince uncovering a copy in my local library several summers ago.Released at the start of the decade, it is an album that manages tosound so overwhelmingly fresh on every listen, brimming with sheerenergy and charm in equal measure, a quality that few dance albumssince have managed to achieve.

Moreover, it is difficult not toappreciate Since I Left You as a technical masterpiece, painstakinglyassembled from over 3,500 vinyl samples seamlessly woven together,twisting, turning and metamorphosing through an infinite number ofgenres in little over an hour. From ‘70s funk outfit Mandrill toMadonna, Boney M to foul-mouthed rapper Blow Fly, everything is here.But it is when these scraps of nostalgia are brought together under thehelm of The Avalanches that something beautiful, danceable anddownright brilliant is born.

Jon Bauckham

BURN, PIANO ISLAND, BURN
The Blood Brothers
March 2003
V2 Records
Allsnarling, barbed wire guitars and shrieking dual vocals, Burn, PianoIsland, Burn is a fairly divisive listen. For my money it’s the apex ofhardcore and nothing since has come close. Its relentlesslyexperimental, surreal stream of conscious poetry is matched by a tourde force of unbridled decaying youth chaos that barely lets up inintensity even in its most introspective moments.

The BloodBrothers had no qualms with following the San Diego punk scene’sreactionary adoption of femininity; none more represented than JohnnyWhitney’s half screamed falsetto. Paired with Jordan Billie’s baritonevocals, the whole record exudes an almost sexual menace which up tilthen was completely foreign to the genre; one of many interestingcontradictory dualities. Out of the chaotic discordance come strangelycatchy repeated mantras, whilst bizarre avant punk freakouts arerecorded with almost radio friendly precision and clarity. It’s adifficult but ultimately rewarding listen, a complex piece of art punkunrivaled in this decade and unlikely to be in the next.

Simon Docherty

I AM A BIRD NOW
Anthony & The Johnsons
February 2005
Secretly Canadian

IAm A Bird Now is a punishing album emotionally, painfully involving thelistener with intimate lyrics dealing with sexuality and the longingfor a new life incarnated in the body of the opposite sex. Antony’scharacteristic voice, strongly influenced by the equally tormented NinaSimone, allows for the delicate yet powerful delivery of the lyrics,which together with the tactful musical accompaniment presented by TheJohnsons makes every syllable resonate in your heart. Musically, thealbum is timeless combining new and old with an impressive list ofcollaborators ranging from the contemporaries Devendra Banhart andRufus Wainwright, to the icons Lou Reed and Boy George. Particularlyimpressive is the manner in which every collaborator has his distinctplace in the album and can clearly be identified while the albumremains unified and constant throughout, with a sound that will beforever accredited to the Johnsons.

Daniel Sanchez Clemente

TOMAHAWK
Tomahawk
October 2001
Ipecac

Whatdo you get when you mix the Jesus Lizard, the Melvins, Helmet and alt.rock titans Faith No More? The answer: Tomahawk, a band that lives upto its frightening potential on paper. Their eponymous debut camescreaming onto the scene in 2001, and remains one of Mike Patton’s mostconsistent post- Faith No More projects to date. Sonically the album isa journey through America’s sordid underbelly; windswept deserthighways and serial killer fantasies are evoked through dirty lo-figuitars that jut out across huge, distorted bass riffs whilst JohnStanier (now in Battles) lashes out lethal rhythms befitting of theschizophrenic visions of Mr. Patton. Vocally he lets rip with trademarkintensity, yelping, screaming and melodising his way through an albumfull of dark twists and turns, from the grinding nightmare of ‘GodHates a Coward’ to the poignant release of ‘Cul De Sac’.

Mike Hine

LONDON ZOO
The Bug
July 2008
Ninja Tune

TheBug, AKA veteran electronic producer and dubstep pioneer Kevin Martin,manages to effortlessly blend dubstep, dancehall, ragga, and a touch ofBasic Channel-esque techno to create one of the most unique and leastforgettable albums of the last decade. Featuring some of dancehall’sfinest MCs, musically it’s unpredictable, with jumpy unquantised beatsand shifting rhythms. Every time you think you know where the music isgoing, it changes again. It’s chock full of wobbling synths, slickbeats, intense bass, inviting grooves, and great MCs. What more couldyou want?

David Biddle

LE FIL
Camille
February 2005
Virgin France

Withits squelching mix of percussive mouth raspberries, gulps and erraticvocal ticks, Le Fil is unlike any album made this decade. True, itshares a similar ambition to Björk’s Medúlla, to investigate the mostmeandering possibilities of the human voice (coincidentally, they bothcomment on the American government’s response to 9/11), but ittranscends its self-imposed conceptual limitations. Working around asingle note (“le fil” means the thread or wire) a double bass andkeyboard, Camille moves between beatboxing like a new wave JT, emotingin powerful, wave-like swoops and fiercely spitting contradictions onthe three parts of ‘Janine’ as if embroiled in a battle rap with adictionary. But that’s not to say you need to know any French toappreciate this record – you can stop and start at “magnifique”.

Laura Snapes

BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA
The Hold Steady
October 2006
Vagrant Records

TheHold Steady are unjustly tagged as a bar band. When have you ever hearda bar band reel off literate tales of John Berryman conversing with thedevil before diving into the Mississippi, a girl who can predict theoutcome of any horse race but gets too high to reap the benefits, or oflovers who meet in the first aid tent after ODing at a festival? Boysand Girls in America represents the ebullient spirit of youthfulexcesses better than any other album this decade, and the kaleidoscopeof bright confetti falling on screaming, sweaty teenagers is perhapsthe most pertinent album cover of the 2000’s. Kerouac was clearly moreof a jazz man, but if he’d have heard The HS playing songs from Boysand Girls in America (even in a bar) somewhere, I know he’d have beenreal proud of these guys.

Dylan Williams

HISSING FAUNA, ARE YOU THE DESTROYER?
of Montreal
January 2007
Polyvinyl

Anendlessly imaginative indie band that knows how to make people dancemakes a disco-pop album which is thoroughly depressing: of Montreal’sastonishing Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? delivers on allfronts. Wildly creative and original, especially for a band’s eighth(!) album, this saw frontman Kevin Barnes write and record most of therecord himself, turning it into an outlet for the personal demonstearing him apart. But while the lyrics are bleak, there’s not a dirgeto be seen. ‘A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger’ begins with aninfectious ice-cream-van synth riff, only to deliver the sucker punchof, “I spent the winter on the verge of a nervous breakdown whilstliving in Norway.” And the second half, which sees him transform intohis latest alter-ego, 40-year-old black transsexual Georgie Fruit, addsan even weirder dimension to the catharsis. Immediately loveable yetrewarding on multiple levels, this album takes pains to stand out inevery possible way.

Mike Mantin

SOUND OF SILVER
LCD Soundsystem
March 2007
DFA

Withan album-opener like ‘Get Innocuous!’ it’s hard to imagine Sound ofSilver getting any better, but LCD Soundsystem visionary James Murphy“sets controls for the heart of the sun” and comes out with a seminalsound in electronic music. Sound of Silver adds layer upon layer to anup-tempo beat until you think it can go no further, ‘Us V Them’ and‘Get Innocuous!’ being prime examples of this ever-growing euphoria.Sound of Silver is a definitive party-starter but would not be out ofplace for more intimate moments, especially in delicate tracks ‘SomeoneGreat’ and ‘All my Friends’, two songs about longing that become allthe more raw in such surroundings. Both tracks remain so touching inthe unique juxtaposition of electronica and emotion that defines thisalbum of the decade.

Laura Richards

AMNESIAC
Radiohead
June 2001
EMI

“Ijumped in the river and what did I see? / Black-eyed angels swam withme”. Such is the nature of Amnesiac, denounced by many as ‘Kid B’, acollection of also-rans to the majesty of Kid A. Get beneath thesurface of this record, however, and you will find yourself in a potentand disquieting world of funereal passion and unscaleable intrigue.Some of Radiohead’s greatest compositions are present on this release,with the off-kilter apparitions in ‘Pyramid Song’, the menacing ‘YouAnd Whose Army’ and the desperate beauty of ‘Knives Out’, but it is inthe album’s three closing songs that the true baptismal power ofAmnesiac is realised. Commit yourself to ‘Hunting Bears’, ‘LikeSpinning Plates’ and ‘Life In A Glasshouse’ with attentive ears and youwill be duly rewarded with the decade’s most commanding and immersivemusical architecture.

Matt Grimble

YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT
Wilco
April 2002
Nonesuch

Singer/SongwriterJeff Tweedy’s guitar-based songs have seen many different styles overthe years but have never been both as simple and as captivating as onWilco’s fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. With traditionalinstruments, sampling of everyday noise and electronic effects - themusic sums up a band at a creative peak looking at past, present andfuture for inspiration.

Lyrically, Tweedy considers the oftensmothering effect of modern technologies on 21st century life - “Mymind is filled with radio cures, electronical surgical words,” whilstalso contemplating morality with a healthy dash of mortality “All mylies are only wishes, I know I would die if I could come back new.” Butit’s not all serious: pop song ‘Heavy Metal Drummer,’ recalls summerydays of ‘Shiny shiny pants and bleached blond hair.’ Few albums blendthe profound with the light-hearted in such a way that there’s a songfor every mood, and this is one of them.

Tom Holcroft

Decoyrocktopus: Focus on the tube

2009-11-30T01:11:00.007Z

Located just off Park Street, The Tube is a fairly cosy club of about200 capacity responsible for some of the best nights in Bristol,regularly smashing it with a group of promoters who bring unfeasiblybig line ups to such a tiny club. Bafflingly, countless people I’ve metavoid the place as a rule of thumb. In the interest of overturning thisstrangely prevalent opinion, here’s a laundry list of what’s coming up.

Firstup is shop-cum-clubnight Donuts, responsible for bringing some seriousfire to Bristol, grabbing an intimate set from Four Tet, as well assets from L Vis 1990, Joker, Jammer, Silkie, Ikonika, Jackmaster andall manner of excellent dubstep, garage and UK funky. On December 11ththey have a ridiculously great line up with UK funky main man Roska andthe much hyped Jam City heading up proceedings.

For out and outparty music, Hype Society are doing silly things with a venue so small.So far this term they’ve seen the likes of Tempa T (Next Hype), DropThe Lime (Trouble & Bass) and Dexplicit (Pow (Forward Riddim)) takethe club to its limits. Bristol badman Gemmy is going throwing down aset of his trademark warped and purple, future R&B infused dubstepon the 10th December.

For some of the most forward thinking,introspective bass music, the ever excellent Seasonfive heads up thesecond Saturday of every month. Past nights have seen the likes ofMartyn, Peverelist and Ramadanman, as well as column favouritesBrackles and Untold. On 12th December they celebrate their secondbirthday in style with a two hour set from Hotflush head honcho Scuba.The label’s been around since dubstep’s inception, most recentlyresponsible for propelling the careers of Joy Orbison, Untold and MountKimbie as well as releasing Scuba’s own startlingly deep two step.

Simon Docherty

Fiery filibustering and feuding

2009-11-30T01:11:00.005Z

As the Senate votes to debate a landmark bill proposing universal healthcare, Laura Snapes meets a shocked Matt Friedberger.

It’san historic weekend in the US Senate. The majority leader, DemocratHarry Reid from Nevada, garnered exactly the 60 votes he needed to getan official government debate on landmark health care reformlegislation in motion, one of the most viciously and idioticallycontested priorities of Barack Obama’s presidential agenda.

Healthcarefor all Americans irrespective of their financial status is still along way off – it’s only the move to debate, not to officially pass thebill that the vote heralded – but it’s news that’s sure to give Matthewand Eleanor Friedberger cause for mild fraternal jubilation, seeing ashow they turned a number of their shows into health care reform ralliesaimed at motivating the oft too nonchalant youth vote, and urgedwebsites and fans to CALL THEIR SENATORS!
But it’s all too easy toassume that fans of the Fiery Furnaces’ absurd and unconventional yieldare kindly minded, liberal folk with a nose for progression in politicsas developed as for avant-garde music.

“Preaching to the choir,”is how Matt puts the response to the shows. “But preaching to the choiris never much what’s needed now. Galvanizing. The audience to this sortof music is overwhelmingly part of the cultural left, but theirinvolvement in mainstream American politics is…minimal. The humiliationof the Bush administration has not had the effect it might have, itseems.

“[I’m] very disappointed that the music websites have notdone their part in this regard. They have absolutely nothing to lose.Pitchfork in particular. They really could have an impact. But, no.Very disappointing. The atmosphere around this issue is trulyincredible, truly shocking. Well, I suppose I am not shocked…”

Reid’ssuccess in winning the vote prevented the Republicans from being ableto filibuster the debate, to string it out with endless soapboxingagainst the subject to stop it from ever reaching cloture. Itspolitical connotations aside, filibustering seems like an apt metaphorfor the Fiery Furnaces’ inimitable approach to music, and morerecently, polemic, given Matt’s lengthy and increasingly obscureripostes to their “feud” (“it’s not a feud,” says Eleanor) withRadiohead, and now Beck. The former didn’t react; the latter recordedprobably the most interesting song he’s made in the last ten years asresponse.

But to the music. They’ve just released a self-coversalbum, Take Me Round Again, where Matt and Eleanor take six songs eachfrom the original record, I’m Going Away, released in August this yearto wide acclaim. It’s by far their most accessible record to date - “soplain and soft and casual,” according to Matt, in response to the“complicated and aggressive and organised” Remember, a double live CDthat even the band admitted was not designed to be listened to in onego.

Mostly written by Eleanor, I’m Going Away was the sound ofretrospectively modern downtown ragtime, all rambunctious dancing andan array of seedy characters like ‘Ray Bouvier’ and ‘CharmaineChampagne’ who seemed to lead her character astray.

“I asked herabout this, and she said, ‘What the fuck sort of world does she think Ilive in?’ She was smiling when she said it. That’s her world, she says.Very bar-centred. It’s all true, she says.”
If I’m Going Away is thesmoky night before, Take Me Round Again to a certain extent feels likethe Friedbergers are still in the pub at 11am the next morning slightlythe worse for wear, with a loose hold on where the piano keys are andthe stale tang of whiskey in the air – it’s very much a fan artefactonly, a quixotic and explorative recording reminiscent of the ethos oftheir live show, where simple songs become drawn out medleys, temposstop and start like a pogo stick on an accelerator and nothing issimple.

“I don’t have any set way to change, or derange, thesongs for playing live. I think first about the opposite direction,though. Always the opposite direction. The slow song should be fast,and so forth. But as you might imagine, sometimes I ‘opposite’ myselfback to where I started. I try to do the opposite of the opposite -which sometimes, though only sometimes, turns out to be the ‘same’.”

Baffled yet? We’re still on training ground when it comes to how oddball the ‘Furnaces can possibly get.

Nextspring, they’re set to release a silent record in book form, for fansto interpret their own versions of the song. “Since bands can no longersell audio, FF decline to provide it,” they announced, in a similarapproach to Deerhoof’s free release of the sheet music of ‘Fresh Born’last summer.

“I’m inspired by everything Deerhoof does,” saysMatt, “but in this case – well, this ‘record’ has many, many different‘anticipatory plagiarisms’!”

There’s a while yet to brush up onyour sightreading skills (though knowing these guys, who’s to say thatthey’ll order their compositions with a staff and clef), and inbetween, the re-release of Matt’s solo album, Winter Women/Holy GhostLanguage School to contend with, a double record dedicated to Eleanor.

Whetherthe once mooted rock opera will ever come to fruition is yet to be seen(Matt brought up their admiration for the genre again in the Radioheaddebacle, stating (perhaps tongue in cheek) that “lots of The FieryFurnaces work is dedicated to imitating The Who’s ‘Tommy’), but theband’s virile relationship with productivity brings to mind LesterBangs’ article on the Count Five, a ‘60s garage band from Californiawhose one single, ‘Psychotic Reaction’ was canonised in an article forCreem magazine that saw Bangs so possessed by his gusto for the songthat he invented a back catalogue of waxing and waning quality for them.

“I’mgiven to fabrication of albums sometimes, like if I wish a certainalbum existed and it doesn’t I just make it up,” he said.

Have the Friedbergers had to admit defeat on many projects?

“Defeat? Never. Projects never die, they just wait.”

Matthew Friedberger’s Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School is out on Thrill Jockey on 30th November 2009

Christmas in the heart, the wallet and ears

2009-11-30T01:10:00.007Z

As Bob Dylan releases Christmas In The Heart, Leah Pritchard looks at other less traditional takes on the genre.

Witheach year that passes, it becomes harder and harder to distinguishbetween Bob Dylan's rasp and that of say, Tom Waits or Louis Armstrong.And so it seems only natural that he lend this to an album full ofChristmas classics such as 'Winter Wonderland' and 'Little DrummerBoy'. In fact, knowing Dylan and his chameleon-like personality, itwould have been a downright waste not to record this album at thispoint, as he'll probably be singing with the buttery smooth stylings ofJeff Buckley come next year.

Unlike other periods in Dylan'shistory, such as the moment he went electric on 'Bringing It All BackHome' or his born-again Christian years with 'Saved' and 'Shot ofLove', this is not an album which needs context in order to beappreciated. This album would sit more happily on the Christmas musicshelf at Sainsbury's than amongst the majority of Dylan's discography.That's not to say it belongs in a place where the most artisticcreation on show is the latest chronicle of Katie Price's biography,just that this is most certainly a Christmas album, and does notnecessarily bring anything new to the immense palette Dylan haspresented us with over the years.

With the American traditionrooted so heavily in religion, it's no surprise that so many folkmusicians have taken on some of the season's classic songs. BrightEyes' Conor Oberst, an atheist who references Christianity a lot in hismusic, released 'A Christmas Album' back in 2002. "I went to a Catholicschool, that kind of thing, so that was my childhood for sure. And notthat I’m an expert on all these religions, but all the other majorreligions just fall a little flat in their narrowmindedness. I feellike there’s something much more basic than what all these people areworried about. And dogma and all that stuff, to me it’s anti- whateverI would consider god-like. Which is, I think, a connectedness and anall-encompassing sort of love for things." Oberst's beliefs are evidenton the album which - whilst remaining reasonably true to the originals- exists for those who wish to participate in the Christmas traditionsour modern culture insists are necessary, without having to listen toany Wham! songs. "You'll be doing alright with your Christmas of white,but I'll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas."

And thenthere's Sufjan Stevens, a deeply religious anti-consumerist, whoadmits, "Sometimes, I don't even celebrate Christmas." Stevens beganexperimenting with Christmas songs in 2001 and has released eight EPsto date. "It's a sacred form and yet it's also incredibly annoying andprofane because it's the soundtrack in shopping malls across thecountry." Amongst 'O Holy Night', and 'Jingle Bells', Stevens hasoriginal songs like 'Did I Make You Cry on Christmas Day? (Well, YouDeserved It!)' ("Did I make you cry, like every other day?") and 'ThatWas the Worst Christmas Ever!', which put a refreshing spin on asubject which is so often assumed to be synonymous with goodwill andcompassion, "Our Father yells, throwing the gifts in the wood stove,wood stove."

Whilst Dylan's intentions might not be as true asOberst or Stevens' - the subject of this album being a tenuous link toits main purpose of raising money for Feeding America - if you buy intothe shopping mall/Hollywood soundtrack version of this "celebration ofmankind" we like to call Christmas, this album will easily receive someheavy rotation come Christmas day.

Infinite Light in the ever darkening evenings

2009-11-30T01:10:00.006Z

Lightning Dust wrote their first songs for Christmas presents. Leah Pritchard meets member Josh Wells.

Asidefrom Nat King Cole or Santa Claus himself, there are very few peoplewho it is more appropriate to interview at Christmas than LightningDust's Josh Wells. Consisting of Wells and fellow Black Mountain memberAmber Webber, this is a band who realised their potential outsideVancouver's classic rock revivalists when they recorded a six-song EPtogether to give to family and friends as Christmas presents. Theirsecond album, Infinite Light, evokes the wintry nostalgia we so oftencrave during the holiday season, without the contrived feeling offaux-religious sentiment.

"I usually can't stand Christmasmusic. If you can bring a new sentiment to the holiday season, whateverit is – Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa – then that's cool."

Wellshas been touring for close to fourteen years - ever since he was oldenough to leave home - and Lightning Dust have just finished a tour ofthe US and Canada with fellow folk musicians The Cave Singers.

"Weget along really well, this was a really smooth tour for us. We hadtime to eat some good regional food and go gambling. Go to someswimming holes and hot springs."

Joining the band on tour wereAmber's sister Ashley on bass and harmonies and Ryan Peters of Ladyhawkon drums and guitar. "Our first album was comprised mostly of songsthat could be performed as a duo. We got a little bit more ambitiousand it seemed like it was a good thing to orchestrate them. We startedwith the foundation and then built just to where we thought it wasenough for the song."

Wells is no stranger to performing withother musicians, being a member of the Black Mountain Army, whichcomprises a huge number of musicians, artists and friends in Vancouver."We're very isolated from the rest of Canada. We wanted to celebrateall the people around us who have been doing such great work for yearsand years and years and this was our little way of paying tribute tothem. Canada's a large country geographically so there's a lot ofseparation between the cities. Broken Social Scene have their own thinggoing in Toronto, they seem like cool people."

With their latestalbum, the band has been receiving a lot more attention as an importantproject in its own right, instead of just an offshoot of thiscollective. "There are people coming out who aren't fans of BlackMountain and who discovered us first. It's kinda cool that way."Amongst these fans is former Sleater-Kinney guitarist and NPR musicblogger, Carrie Brownstein, who recently filmed an interview with theband which only saw the light as part of an elaborate apology video."She came to our show in New York and she had an idea for an interviewand it... well, it didn't really work out. We definitely have noregrets! The editing is great, the video is hilarious."

Daniel Johnston - Trinity Centre, Nov 8th 2009

2009-11-30T01:09:00.004Z

Intotal contrast to the flowing cleanliness of support Laura Marling,when Daniel Johnston first takes to the stage with just his guitar anda book of lyrics, it’s an entirely unrhythmic affair. Having lost muchof his musical ability due to his battles with manic depression andobesity, every minute spent onstage is a battle for him. As if toconfirm Johnston’s cult status, one fan even escaped from a Bristolhospital, ticketless and on crutches on the off-chance he could get in.(He did.)

After a fewsongs, Johnston’s joined onstage by an old college friend who takesover guitar-playing duties, allowing the crowd to appreciate Johnston’sbest asset, his timeless, sensitive and simple songwriting, made evenmore transfixing with his quivering voice and shy delivery.

Aftera short break, Johnston returned to the stage with support band TheWave Pictures as accompaniment. Consisting of the lo-fi gems that madehim famous, a healthy dose of Beatles covers, and new material, the setwas brought to life with a band and audience that felt honoured to bethere, ending with a sublime take on the quintessential Daniel Johnstonsong, ‘True Love Will Find You In The End,’ after which a beaming,tearful audience rushed to hug their idol.

Tom Holcroft

Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Have Yourself A Meaty Little Christmas

2009-11-30T01:09:00.002Z

Tosay that this is the most significant contribution to the institutionof recorded popular music of our lifetime is no overstatement. An albumof this cultural magnitude could surely have only been birthed inresponse to the arrival of our lord and saviour. Praise Jesus for thegreatest gift he has given unto us – a milkshake, a packet of fries anda ball of meat. Meet Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Have yourself ameaty little christmas distils two millennia of festive folklore andsongcraft into thirty five cohesive minutes of audio revelation for thewhole family. It is deeply shocking to discover from a glance over theliner notes that no angels were present in the construction of thismasterpiece.

No christmas album is complete without 'Santa LeftA Booger In My Stocking', and the rendition featured here with guestvocalist Neko Case brings unprecedented depth and layers of meaning tothe old standard. Where did the booger really come from? Those of afragile disposition are not advised to enquire.

Master Shake'sdecision to eschew the traditional orchestration of 'Jingle Bells Deep'has left him exposed to an extent that would see a lesser artistcrumble. Over a humble backing in the tradition of Microsoft'sSongsmith, the giant cup's delivery brings naked honesty to theever-sage “Jingle BALLS / Where's that lyrics sheet? / Take that sledthrough the snow / And hit your grandma in the face”. Casual listeningis simply off the cards.

Offering respite from the epiphanicsplendour which risks fatiguing the listener is a welcome cameo fromeveryone's favourite cardboard black power activist, Boxy Brown. Waxinglyrical on Jesus' ethnicity, it all boils down to the old adage -“crackers like to crack”. The profundity of wordplay present is surelybeyond the grasp of even HRH Joe Pasquale.

Naturally, a recordof this beauty escapes critical acclaim. Criminally absent from anyrespectable publication's retrospective coverage, this will inevitablybe destined to underground notoriety until it attains the recognitionit truly deserves. Never before have dick and fart jokes been socelestial.

Matt Grimble

Helen Llewelyn Product 19 - Christmas Blues EP

2009-11-30T01:07:00.005Z

Whena young John Peel was still John Ravenscroft, his original intentionwas to be known as ‘Helen Llewelyn Product 19’. It seems fitting then,that a small independent label founded by a self-confessed group of‘obsessive’ music fans should lovingly adopt this bizarre moniker.

TheMIDI keyboard soul of Filipino Dream Girls and gentle acoustic musingsof Brighton songstress Mertle feature on this charming festiveoffering, a ramshackle concoction of triumphantly anti-Christmas poptunes, complete with an abundance of ironic sleigh bells. Lost BoyScout’s rant of ‘Bring Me the Head of the Man in Red’ captures thisethos perfectly as the musical equivalent of a stubborn child’swhinging about not getting everything on ‘their list’. I challengeanyone to find another Christmas song that threatens a certain SaintNicholas with a ‘bazooka in his belly’.

Jon Bauckham

Olivia Newton John - Christmas Wish

2009-11-30T01:07:00.001Z

HasOlivia Newton John managed to churn out yet another appalling genericChristmas release to add to January’s bargain bucket? In all honesty,yes; listening to Christmas Wish is like being given leprosy by Santainstead of that camera you asked for. You know you’re on to a winnerwhen all you have to look forward to is a duet with Barry Manilow,nauseatingly titled ‘Gift of Love’. ‘Christmas On The Radio’ helps thepackage reach new lows of lyrical tediousness. The running order isalso mind-numbingly unfortunate, offering a torturous instrumentalinterlude after every song. It must have been testing to produce twentytwo tracks that sound like Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, but byGod they managed it The only thing remotely pleasing about this albumis that it heralds the imminence of Christmas, and imagining NewtonJohn and Tori Amos competing to see how could look waxier than anadvent candle on their respective covers.

Amy Zachariah

Tori Amos - Midwinter Graces

2009-11-30T01:06:00.001Z

Theysay that when the baby Jesus was born, he didn’t let out a bawl or awhimper. The Lord’s arrival clearly wasn’t serenaded with a Tori AmosChristmas record. If only the Wise Men had had the foresight to forgetthe gold and bring this instead.

OnMidwinter Graces, we get a scattering of bizarre originals and a seriesof bastardised carols, not least ‘Pink And Glitter’, ripe with thetraumatic memories of an auntie getting too frisky under the mistletoe.When the Amos compositions aren’t immediately forgettable, they’recongealed like bad eggnog.

To highlight the licence taken on thecarols: Tori’s take on ‘Silent Night’ sounds just about seedy enough tomake the seasonal playlist of a strip club. In order to maintainneutrality, I’ll state that it’s not all useless: ‘Candle: CoventryChoir’ is an ugly mess of a cover, but it did helpfully remind me tobuy some candles in case of a power cut.

More sincerely, credit to her for not rehashing well-worn classics and testing conventions with her re-imaginings.

Withjesting scorn momentarily aside, the album is unhinged by a seriousdifficulty: it hazardously avoids all three elements which lead to anenjoyable Yuletide album. It isn’t endowed with the propensity for funthat you get from a drunken ol’ Bob Dylan cawing jingles through aroguish grin, any incandescent festive warmth you’d find on a scratchyBing Crosby record, or some degree of spirituality the best choralrenditions may evoke. That crux means the album is susceptible to theinherent danger associated with a holiday album - direct competitionwith the products of other musicians.

However specific the usualstyling of an artist or band may be, they’re all tackling the sameterritory to vie for a share of the Nativity cash cow, rather thanappealing to a broader range of niche markets. Ultimately, Tori’s faultis that her record falls flat at the feet of rivals, even during aperiod when Sting is singing about soul cakes.

So I’mstruggling to think why Amos made this album. Sure, she’s probably justchasing sales to put a fatter turkey on the table over the holidays.But maybe it’s a case of idle thumbs and Midwinter Graces is actuallythe Devil’s most insidious assault on the joys of Christmas to date.

Dylan Williams

Delphic find their Counterpoint

2009-11-16T08:00:00.016Z

On the Bristol stop of their Kitsuné Maison tour, Delphic talk to Matt Grimble of their plans to resuscitate the album

Delphic have been enjoying an ever-mounting wave of success of late. Their music has taken them across Europe and to Japan for a hectic festival schedule over the summer, and they have earned prestigious tour support slots for Bloc Party and Orbital, all before the release of their debut album. As their headline slot on the Kitsuné Maison tour brings them to Bristol for the first time, guitarist Matt Cocksedge seems blind to the following they have garnered.

“We just turn up at all the gigs and expect there to be five people scattered around the room and some dodgy looking old guy with a long mac with his notebook. When there’s people there it’s just absolutely brilliant.”

This Manchester-based three-piece have just returned from Berlin after working on Acolyte with Ewan Pearson, a techno DJ with a relatively short production CV, having proven himself through his work with m83 and The Rapture.

“He just got it immediately, just understood the tunes. There’s such a big scene over there and we kinda got immersed in a different side of music, it just seeped into the record. But it’s not really a techno record. It’s a record full of songs, with bits of programming which hint at different styles,” explains synth man Rick Boardman.

Despite similarities in their live performances, Matt insists that they haven’t merely created a Chemical Brothers record for the decade to come.

“We have a real love for the album, and what albums can be as a whole body of work - It’s something that we feel has been missing for a while. If we’d tied all the tracks together then it just wasn’t gonna work on that level, and that’s the level we really wanted to try and attain. You’re in a band because you just love music, and you wanna be involved on the deepest level you can. I really think it’s the pinnacle, like a movie director making a film, or playing in the world cup final. You’ve got to get it right.”

So what is the grand design to Delphic’s output?

“The music we make is just made for the night time. One of the things we really wanted to do when we were conceptualising the record was to make a record for that time just at 5 o’clock in the morning, when the skies are bluey-purple, and the streets are still empty but it’s kinda day, and you’re all on your own.”

The Delphic package is deftly and passionately crafted, with every aspect from the artwork to their well-turned-out stage presence and light show meticulously tied into their grand aesthetic, as Rick explains.

“For us, the music and the visuals, it’s all part of the overall concept of Delphic. We all have really strong ideas of what we wanna do, and what we wanna try to be. We look up to artists like Björk and Bowie, who really embody the whole being of what an artist can be. I think there’s a definite aesthetic running through our first album, with everything connected, and I can’t wait now to do the second album and just fuck it all off for something new! That’s what keeps it interesting.”

The Cooler is transformed into a smoke-filled neon paradise, decked out in a purple haze which appears to stretch the horizon of the stage to infinity. With each soaring arpeggio and every rumbling build-up, Delphic prove themselves as masters of multi-sensory immersion.

“We really try to go to town live so we tell our light guy just to make it like a rave, just to take it out of context. We try and make it different from other bands that we see. It all gets a bit boring. We just went and got these mad lights, and a lot of it’s being done on a bit of a shoestring budget – we got all these things from B&Q, then we somehow connected it all to the midi notes, so when the synths are playing various arpeggios they’re triggering the lights in real time. It’s a real visual experience.”

It isn’t just for the benefit of the audience, however.

“I think live you have to think about all the auxiliary elements of the performance, even at the stage we’re at. It means we enjoy the gig more as well. There’s a certain vibe to being temporarily blinded a lot of the time!” Laughs Matt.

Amid the inevitable demise of Manchester’s grumpy uncles Oasis, Delphic seem at home in a city with one of the richest musical heritages in the world.

“I think we’re a Manchester band, just a different side of Manchester. It’s so easy to fit into any Manchester stereotype because it’s produced so many good bands that almost any musical genre’s been covered by a Manchester band. You’ve got Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, Oasis, then if you’re a pop band you’ve got Take That and Cleopatra.”

Rick adds, “Especially when Manchester was so huge with the Factory thing, and all the acid house that Manchester really embraced, and dance culture, as much if not more than any other city in the world. Then that obviously all died out, and there were the Oasis-type bands, and then just nothing really. You’ve got Doves and Elbow, who are cool, but there’s nothing really just grabbing the city by the balls.”

As with everything they do, it all comes back to the music.

“We just want to make music that interests us and keeps us excited. Just being music lovers and listening to so much music, we try and take that all in, process it and come out with something that’s more than the sum of its influences. We try and make something new, something fresh, and if it excites us then we hope it’s gonna excite other people.”

It’s deeply refreshing to see a band with such uncompromising ambition, going against the current swathe of kitsch throwbacks and token synths. In the enveloping euphoria of their performance this evening, they surely signal the dawn of a new decade in British music.

Grizzly Bear migrate to the east

2009-11-16T08:00:00.015Z

On the final date of their UK tour, Laura Snapes talks to Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor about orchestras, Jay-Z and personal loss.

Following in the footsteps of Hole and Spiritualized, Grizzly Bear are the latest in a long line of bands to interpret ‘He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)’, written by Carole King and renowned songwriter Gerry Goffin in the 1962 as a response to singer Little Eva’s defence of the domestic violence she experienced at the hands of her boyfriend. As Daniel Rossen, Ed Droste, Chris Taylor and Ed Bear close their show at the Anson Rooms with their interpretation of the song (taken from 2008’s Friend EP), it takes on a new meaning similar to that inferred by former Sleater-Kinney luminary Carrie Brownstein about Bon Iver’s debut album – “it’s like being punched in the heart, in a good way.”

Grizzly Bear are a genuine example of the sum being greater than its parts, particularly live – their awkward, almost broken-sounding chord transitions combine with visibly manifested classical sensibilities and perhaps the greatest group male harmonies since the Beach Boys to create an otherworldly experience, one whose urgent, crashing punctuations deliver an indescribable emotional blow.

In a way, Bristol gets off lightly – there’s “only” the stage-wide improvised chandelier of suspended jars lit beautifully from the inside and a hard-driven set perfected by a summer of touring festivals across the globe to contend with – the weekend previously in London, the band played to the stirrings of the London Symphony Orchestra, as arranged by their friend and accomplished Julliard graduate, Nico Muhly. The show won near-universal acclaim.

Orchestral accompaniment seems to have been thematic amongst cerebral indie groups this year – from Sufjan Stevens’ BQE project with the Brooklyn Academy of Music to Brooklyn’s Dirty Projectors announcing a show with the LA Philharmonic next February – but as the band’s bassist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor explains, such organisations usually provide the impetus for collaboration.

“From my understanding, it’s more of their attempt to bring classical music to a younger audience, it’s not like we go out searching symphonies! I don’t think Dave Longstreth from Dirty Projectors wrote an email to LA Phil’ and said, ‘Hey, will you guys play with us?’ They asked us, it’s a really cool thing.

“I played in symphony for eight or nine years and there’s so much amazing classical music out there that no-one ever checks out, they just know like, Vivaldi, Mozart, and maybe they know Bach and Beethoven, but generally it doesn’t seem to go farther than that. Oh man, there’s so much cooler stuff that would be really great if people knew about it – Alban Berg, Bartók, Debussy and Stockhausen, those are the heavyweights. So I think it’s just their attempt to revive the classical music world a little bit by bring in a younger audience to meld the two together.”

Playing with orchestras of this calibre is an honour doubtlessly afforded to them by the remarkable success of their second album, Veckatimest, named after an uninhabited island off Cape Cod near where they recorded. It found itself at number 8 in the American Billboard charts in its first week of release and brought the formerly quietly known indie band into the bedrooms of teenagers worldwide when they were asked to contribute to the New Moon soundtrack. And just in case you hadn’t seen the much-retweeted and blogged video of them dancing to ‘About Face’ in Williamsburg this August, Beyoncé and Jay-Z are fans.

“It was really cool that that happened, but at the same time I don’t really need people gossiping about it.”

I moot a theory that the surprised fervour surrounding their presence had subconsciously racist undertones.

“Hmm… That’s probably going too far. I think the novelty of it was that one, it’s not only one of the most famous musicians in the world, but two of them! And then from a different genre as well – so I think it was an open-minded nod from another genre.

“[Jay-Z saying that indie can push rap forwards] was amazing. I couldn’t believe it – I’m such a huge fan, I remember thinking a lot about hip hop and R’n’B when producing this last record, and really trying to get as much of that to work without sounding forced, and I don’t think it comes across but the fact remains.”

Hanging with the Knowles sisters and the Hova aside, there’s nothing starry about Grizzly Bear. There’s no pretence or loftiness despite Taylor’s classical training and Chris Bear and Daniel Rossen’s jazz backgrounds, and they come across as genuine friends. Their lyrics are weighty but vague, allowing fans to posit their own meanings onto them, with their meandering descriptions of social situations recalling advice that Annie Clark, who supports magnificently tonight in her St Vincent guise, was apparently once given by one of the aforementioned Dessner brothers – to write about the less obvious, tangential parts of a personal situation.

Live, there’s a congregational feel to their sound that provokes visceral reactions in fans, and, as Chris explains, occasionally the band as well.

“Some of the songs in particular come from a very personal place, and I have been caught off guard thinking about it more than usual. This kid threw this little note on stage before a show the other day, and asked us to play ‘While You Wait For The Others’, and he had had a loss in the family in a similar way to a loss I experienced in my family, and we dedicated this song to him.

“I remember playing through it and thinking about his situation and having been there myself, I was really choked up. It was really tough not to lose it a little bit - that was really hard.

“I feel that what keeps playing the set interesting and fun for me every night is actually remembering where the songs come from - that’s the only way to keep the music sounding musically from the heart, is to think about where it came from or where you might wanna take it. That’s in your head, you know? These sort of inspirational cues.”

Promised Works: The Wrens - The Meadowlands

2009-11-16T08:00:00.011Z

Dylan Williams on The Meadowlands from New Jersey’s eternally uncompromising The Wrens, who really shouldn’t stick to their day jobs

Readers can be forgiven if they haven’t yet encountered The Wrens. A seven year break followed their frenetic second album and 2003’s The Meadowlands, with poor label relations killing any momentum gathered by the brilliance of their previous effort.

They rarely leave New Jersey’s proximity for scarce live performances and The Meadowlands is their sole album released this decade. They’re prolific by the standards of Axl Rose, but are bordering hermetic by anyone else’s. Judging by either productivity or popularity, they are not The E Street Band.

When they finally pushed out The Meadowlands, the trajectory of The Wrens had rifled destructively off course. They appeared as a promisingly fervent band in their 20s but after the myriad of difficulties they faced, they re-emerged tired, defeated men approaching middle-age.

It is, primarily, the documentation of a band reflecting on the failures in their lives, and one of stark, humourless clarity. Their marriages have died and they are selling houses or working in construction in Secaucus these days, not playing stadium tours or breezing through the summer festival circuit.

Chillingly sensitive letters to former partners are dispersed throughout: ‘Hopeless’, ‘She Sends Kisses’, ‘Ex-Girl Collection’. After all, this album is chalking up their disappointments, where going through lists of ex-girlfriends is “how men mark time”.

But by no means is The Meadowlands a morose listen or painfully self-deprecating. They may be recording through dusty pick-ups in some basement- maybe of the amber-toned house gracing the cover- but they’re often fiercely using their music to vent emotional exhaustion.

‘Boys, You Won’t Remember’ displays open resilience and the grainy, savage guitars of ‘everyone chooses sides’ is a final, rousing stand before the album slides to its conclusion in a beautifully sad crawl into the sunset of another doomed relationship with ’13 Months In 6 Minutes’.

For me, The Meadowlands transcends a truly accomplished album; it’s a testament to the stifled genius of a band who never made it, but who still love music enough to hone their rusty talents and channel the weary sense of lost opportunities and nostalgia creeping in with age. This fate faces all but a few lucky bands, but none have addressed it on record like The Wrens.

Musical collaboration horizontale

2009-11-16T08:00:00.009Z

Their latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix deserves to be piped from the heavens. Laura Snapes meets Phoenix’s Christian Mazzalai

“It’s part of our French culture, to make artists suffer and then you accept them, and then you help them, you know!” jokes Christian Mazzalai about the amount of time it’s taken the French press to welcome Phoenix with open arms. Along with Deck D’Arcy and Thomas Mars, and later on his brother, Laurent Brancowitz, he’s been a member of the Versailles quartet since their early 90s school days, but it’s only been with the release of their almost universally acclaimed fourth album this year, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, that their native critics have bestowed upon them the rightfully deserved amount of praise.

From the French perspective, it’s almost possible to understand the distaste at Phoenix’s musical collaboration horizontale. Long the butt of many jokes, French pop music’s goat could have been saved by the band’s 2000 debut, United – had they not eschewed their mother tongue to sing in English, thus losing the République’s famed support for native musicians and falling foul of the Tourbon law, a quota which stipulates that 40% of music played on the radio must be in French.
“We are like strangers,” says Mazzalai. “The law was good at the beginning because it helped electronic music and French hip hop, but afterwards it was digested by mainstream crappy music, so now it’s not a good law. I think that law doesn’t help us.”

“When we did our first album it was very new, we were the first to sing in English and our music was very shocking. But now the new generation of journalists are with us and since two albums, we are getting bigger and bigger. It’s cool because in the 60s, all the French bands were singing in French, but they were doing covers of American music. Now we are doing the opposite, we are singing in English, but we are talking about French culture, about Napoleon and New York and things, and France has accepted us.”

They’d have been foolish not to. Produced by Philippe Zdar, one half of Cassius, WAP is an alluringly slick distillation of their previous three albums – although the lyrics are occasionally melancholy, the ballads have been swept aside for eight life-affirmingly upbeat and nigh-on perfect pop songs, and ‘Love Like A Sunset’, a curious two-part incandescent krautrock interlude in homage to Can and driving through the dark tunnels that lead to Paris.

Later on tonight at Bristol’s O2 Academy, their long-term friendship manifests itself in an intuitive performance, but one where any visible traces of camaraderie are set aside to allow the audience’s unceasing joy to come to the fore. Christian and his brother Laurent start the instrumental number alone, weaving guitar strobes before Deck joins in with a pulverizing bassline, and all the while singer Thomas lays supine between them all, resting his head on a pulsing monitor. On record it serves as a division between the album’s two geographic halves, the notion of which couldn’t be more romantically French if it tried.

After deciding not to renew their contract with EMI following the release of their third album, It’s Never Been Like That, the band relocated to New York to try and work Truffaut-style from a “crazy, expensive” hotel room, before uprooting to a boat on the Seine within sight of the Eiffel Tower, then an 18th century French painter’s country house, and Zdar’s Montmartre studio. This indulgently artistic way of working was in stark contrast to the recording of It’s Never Been Like That in a disused former East German power station.

“In Germany we went there with no songs, nothing, and very short limits of time. We just had two guitars, a bass and a drum. This one, we had no limits of time or instruments, no boundaries – both are very interesting ways [of working].”

“With this album we’ve done things we could not have been doing with a major label, for example we spent all of the budget on creation! Our record company wouldn’t have allowed us to work that way, but we didn’t care because now we own our own record company. So we like the idea, we think it’s very romantic to spend all the money on stupid things!”

Named Loyauté for obvious reasons, their newly founded label’s first action following the completion of the album was to give away ‘Lisztomania’ for free from their website – fans didn’t even have to exchange their email addresses for a high quality download, which fast became the most blogged track in the world according to blog aggregator Hype Machine. Whilst conquering America as the first French band to perform on Saturday Night Live and selling out two nights at Central Park, it was surely an added pressure to have to control a label at the same time?

“To be alone? No, it has been easier. Even though we are now collaborating with indie labels, we can still do all our crazy ideas that we have, like to give a song for free but without any things in exchange, which is very stupid for a big major company!

“But at the end, we realised it helped us a lot because the song – we didn’t want it to be a single, but it spread all around the world. It’s crazy, and this is beautiful because it’s controlled by music lovers, by blogs, you know? It’s the best, it’s a chaotic moment in the music industry, but we love it – there is less money, but there is more freedom, satisfaction. If I want to give a song to the world, in one hour all the fans could have access to it. And I won’t have to ask anyone, and this is beautiful.”

Blunted Robots and the Garage Revival

2009-11-16T08:00:00.006Z

As certain strains of dance music fall into formulaic habits and stagnate, a handy trick to push things forward is recontextualising something long abandoned. Years after its mutation into dubstep, grime and bassline, garage is experiencing a renaissance of sorts.

Earlier this year, Tempa released a retrospective of legendary producer El-B; if you ever wanted to know where Burial got his characteristic shuffling drum patterns, look no further. MJ Cole has broken his production hiatus and put out some of the best funky tracks of the year. Elsewhere Zed Bias’ massive ‘Neighbourhood’ received a massively anthemic remix from number one UK funky don Roska. If you’re drawing a blank on this tune just remember “I feel good good good / I feel good yes wonderful good” and enjoy trying to get that vocal out of your head the rest of the day.

More exciting than reruns of past glories however is a new school of producers taking on the garage template and warping it with all manner of synthetic colour and futuristic, broken beat patterns. None represent this new sound more than the excellent Blunted Robots crew, comprised of brothers Brackles and Martin Kemp, bolstered by like minded partner in crime Shortstuff. A string of year conquering releases on Planet Mu, Ramp Recordings, Apple Pips, Berkane Sol and their own imprint have solidified the Blunted Robots sound; intricate, driving garage beat programming that borrow dubstep’s sub bass and add twisted, pitch bent melodies that vary from lush AFX ambience to borderline feral.

Essential releases are the Street Fighter 2 sampling Brackles 12” ‘LHC/Sutorita Faita’ and Shortstuff’s party smasher ‘A Rustling/Stuff’, but nothing to date can match the forthcoming ‘I Love London Remix’. Chopping up the original Crystal Fighters track beyond recognition, Brackles cuts up the vocal on top of constantly warping and rewinding, euphoria inducing synths and an intense rolling beat that never lets up the momentum; incredible stuff.

Simon Docherty

Royal Bangs - Let It Beep

2009-11-16T07:58:00.013Z

With fellow Tennesseans Kings of Leon dropping their beardy, Jack Daniel’s-swilling garage rock persona and plunging into a world of supermarket balladry and fraternal rivalry little over a year ago, it would be quite easy to label Royal Bangs as their replacement.

However, Let It Beep shows that they’re entirely unsuited to such a Southern Comfort-tinged stereotype.

This is a record that somehow manages to cram just about any reference to a past popular music tradition in the past forty years in forty minutes, making quantum leaps between Thin Lizzy’s cock-rock, Kid A, and even disco - but manages to retain total coherence.

As opener ‘War Bells’ whirs into life, it would first seem as if we were witnessing a belated contribution to the garage rock revival, with raw, yearning vocals and punchy, overdriven guitars echoing the likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the turn of the century. However, as sizzling synths make an unexpected appearance, Royal Bangs begin to transcend expectation.

By the time we arrive at the undeniably sexy indie pop of ‘My Car Is Haunted’, complete with an abundance of disco cowbells, maracas and synth shrieks, it becomes clear that Royal Bangs are not a band afraid to show off.

Whilst tracks such as the vocoder-laden ‘Brainbow’ display ideas not too far removed from Super Furry Animals’ most recent meanderings into the bizarre, others such as ‘Shit Xmas’, a shouty, boozy, on-the-terraces sing-along, prove that they never threaten to lose their true rock and roll credentials; not many bands could pull off such a feat without sounding inherently crass, but somehow, Royal Bangs get away with it.

When you thought think album could not get any more ridiculous or successfully ambitious (as if you were not already convinced by track titles such as ‘Tiny Prince of Keytar’) ‘Gorilla King’ takes it one step further, staggering around and spewing out a delightful kaleidoscopic mess of hip hop beats, laser chops and desperate, angular guitar stabs.

There’s so much to be devoured here, and it would appear that this is purely the result of five men simply making music and having a good time – it’s this sense of unashamed self-indulgence that makes Let It Beep so irresistibly listenable.

Jon Bauckham

“I’m like a frog being slowly cooked in a pot of water!”

2009-11-15T08:00:00.001Z

Subhani Rawat meets Johnny Flynn to talk jazz, South American political authors and his forthcoming EP, Sweet William

“What kind of music does he play?”

If you’ve listened to Johnny Flynn, you will understand why this small question would precede an endless answer. His unique sound and style isn’t clear-cut, which in turn accounts for his appeal and diverse audience. He’s a bit of everything and has his own colourful blend of influences and thought, something that’s clear from the genuine enthusiasm he displays in Bristol’s offbeat Cube venue.

“I’m really into jazz. I started with Louis Armstrong and I’m slowly working my way through. I’ve got loads of Charlie Parker and just bought some John Coltrane records. There’s this church in San Francisco called The Church of Saint John Coltrane. They believe that all you have to do to gain enlightenment is to listen to his records. I’m not a Christian, but that’s a really amazing idea. The only teaching is to listen.”

Throughout the interview, Flynn casually slips in these bizarre little facts, all of which show a lighter side to him akin to the melody of ‘Tickle Me Pink’. His discussion ranges from the Kogi tribe and the psychoactive infusion of ayahuasca, to T. S. Eliot and the book he’s just finished, ‘The Savage Detectives,’ “a really incredible book by a Chilean writer called Roberto Bolaño Ávalos. He’s political, from a post Gabriel García Márquez era... more of a punk version of Márquez.”

On his approach to music, Flynn likes to keep things natural: “Every song I’ve ever written has arrived under different circumstances. There’s never anything similar about the way that they’re written, their influence or what has inspired it. They just happen free from process.” When asked about Sweet William, Flynn describes it as a project that he and bassist Adam compiled in his bedroom. Compared to his 2008 debut A Larum, “it has the same kind of voice and comes from the same place. I feel very behind the songs. They’re very much what I believe in.”

Since the launch of Flynn’s professional career in 2006, his fan base has grown dramatically; he’s received appraisals from The Guardian to Rolling Stone, who called his sound “[a] buoyant, spindly blend of fiddles, fingerpicking, soft-brass fanfares and pub-choir harmonies.” Despite his critical success and sell-out tour, when asked about how he’s coping with all the attention, Flynn somehow remains grounded and slightly bewildered by it all. “You know that concept of a frog being slowly cooked in a pot of water? That’s me.”

Butterflies and great Danes

2009-11-15T08:00:00.000Z

On the release of their fifth album, Katy Christianson meets Mew.

If Mew frontman Jonas Bjerre had to curate a fantasy festival, his three headliners would be Pixies, Kate Bush, and Magical Mystery Tour-era Beatles. Upon hearing No More Stories…, his choices make perfect sense.

This is, in many ways, a perfectly formed pop record, but everywhere within it are the familiar nods to the strange, the challenging and the unusual. Mew’s intention with this record was to “make something simple, that hits you first time.”

“For me,” Jonas says “‘Beaches’ is real pop song, but then I play it to people and they say they can’t get their head around it. I’m thinking, well if you can’t get your head around that then I just can’t write pop songs.”

But for every bit of attention Mew’s latest effort has received for its content, there has been just as much interest in its lengthy title, more familiar on post-rock epics, and its unusual artwork.

The decision to use a whole lyric for the title of this album came about “maybe for lack of a better idea”. The band were “growing tired of this prog rock label that we got on the last album. The titles on And the Glass Handed Kites were quite long and a little bit silly, and people thought we were really serious about that. Then we just couldn’t think of anything that would really fit.”

Jonas was skeptical at first of his bandmate’s idea to use a whole lyric, but warmed to the idea, and adhering to the band’s commitment to their visuals as well as their music, thought the long title would ‘look really cool graphically’. He didn’t anticipate the attention, saying that he “didn’t think it would be a big deal, but some journalists get really pissed off.”

The multi-coloured fusion of butterfly and clown-like face that graces the cover of this record is the work of French design duo MMParis, who are also responsible for the art work for And the Glass Handed Kites which Jonas himself thinks is visually “a bit dark, and a bit disgusting looking. This time we wanted something really colourful. The title is really bleak, almost like giving up on stories altogether, and we wanted something uplifting as a contrast to that. This butterfly face was a shock to look at, but that’s what you want in a cover.”

Shock us they may have, but Mew’s trajectory out of obscurity has been steady in recent years, perhaps helped by an impressive touring schedule. Jonas’s favourite touring partners to date have been R.E.M., Bloc Party, and of course Nine Inch Nails (apparently Trent is “really nice”). But the most exciting show is yet to come; opening for the Pixies in Washington in December. “If I could travel back in time and tell the 14-year old Jonas that he was going to be supporting the Pixies,” he says with a chuckle, “I probably would have fainted.”

Mayer Hawthorne live at Metropolis

2009-11-15T07:58:00.005Z

Mayer Hawthorne’s major appeal is his recreation of hip-hop’s pet fascination with soul, funk and R&B with blissful production on his first album, A Strange Arrangement.

The sounds emanating from the ex-comedy club Metropolis are audience-friendly: good old-fashioned rock’n’roll overtones, tight, true to the album and generally well received.

However, the disappointment is that that’s it. Ticking the fashion checklist written by Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - geeky glasses, white suit and silk scarf, and matching preparatory school red sweatshirts for the band - characterized Mayer Hawthorne as a disingenuous, unoriginal fashion victim, by pandering to retro-fashion without producing soulful music you can believe and relate to.

The band’s superb vocal harmonies and the more soulful tunes are well worth investigating, yet the evening failed to parallel the hype that has surrounded this musical polymath.

Jon Wiltshire

“We are a time bomb”

2009-11-15T07:58:00.004Z

Dylan Williams investigates Staff Benda Bilili

How far removed from the Afro-tinged, high-society capers of Vampire Weekend can you get?

Try Staff Bendi Bilili - a Congolese band led by a polio-crippled trio that consists largely of sheges (street kids) recruited from busking spots around Kinshasa’s dilapidated zoo. Considering the incredible deprivation surrounding the band, it’s amazing that there’s no trace of self-pity in their rumba/funk fusion. But that’s the real message of their album Trés Trés Fort, as singer Ricky explains.

“You have to be ‘very strong’ to survive in the streets of Kinshasa. This album is a tribute to all the people who live in the streets with us. We are the true heroes of the Congo and we are a time bomb.”

The band’s most stunning asset, who exemplifies both Staff’s unique sound and their central tenet of representing Kinshasa’s streets, is Roger; a former shege who plays an improvised satongé (a single-stringed lute fashioned from a tin can and a basket strut). Roger recognises his debt.

“[Before Staff] I was out in the street, I was busking on the markets…now I’ve got a real job- and respect too”.

The name Staff Benda Bilili translates to “look beyond appearances”. For such an atypical band it’s an apt billing.

As Ricky says, “The only judgement that matters to us is on stage, and we will rock the place wherever it may be”.

So to keep warm this November, I’ll be dancing to Staff’s ‘Moziki’, not Vampire Weekend’s ‘Horchata’.

Staff Benda Bilili play Fiddlers on 18 November

ATP - The Film

2009-11-15T07:58:00.002Z

At the end of November, the UK Festival Awards will name 2009’s victors in what will be a rare instance of democracy failing. There’s no dispute about which is the best festival in the country, or even the world – nothing can touch All Tomorrow’s Parties. Held at either Minehead’s Butlins or Camber Sands’ Pontins since 1999, bands such as Mogwai, Sleater-Kinney and Slint have curated the line-up, as will the newly reformed Pavement next May. Over the past decade, “All Tomorrow’s People” – from renowned cinematographer Vincent Moon to fans – have been lovingly documenting the escapades of spectators and bands alike, brought together in this heartwarming keepsake film from Warp.

Butlins and Pontins are like domestic gulags, but under an influx of beardy music lovers and a layer of fuzzy film, the documentary has the power to make them look nothing short of iconic – archive footage of marionettes set to Battles’ ‘Atlas’ is Grand Guignol for a Pitchfork crowd, Beth Ditto howling in a spectator’s face has all the white noise fervour of a deranged street preacher, and Animal Collective’s dynamic appearance is a faded souvenir of when they used to live up to their carnal nomenclature.

“It’s a festival for people who are seriously into the same kind of music,” a fan is overheard saying. It’s true – what sets ATP apart from other festivals is a total lack of conflict – go to Glastonbury and the genuine music fans are second to Grazia readers who’ve heard that wellies and jumpsuits are a good look, and even “boutique” festivals can at times grate with the arguably incompatible mix of families and hedonists.

ATP’s not like that – everyone’s there with the same agenda, often to see legendary bands coaxed out of hiatus by organiser Barry Hogan, and always to escape to a strange little corner of the country to dick around doing gymnastics off the balconies and hurtling down pathways in luggage cages.
Old footage of nuclear families visiting the holiday camps during their heyday is interspersed with the more modern scenes, and it’s easy to laugh at how comically quaint they look until you realise that in 30 years, your grandkids will watch this film and chuckle at the primitiveness of nan and grandad’s idea of fun. I look forward to that day.

Susana Pearl

My Robot Friend - Soft Core

2009-11-15T07:58:00.001Z

My Robot Friend is Howard Robot’s New York-based electronic music and art project inspired by the music of Le Tigre - yet Soft Core sounds more like Hot Chip, especially in the robotic delivery of its randomly pencilled lyrics and hand-clapped beats. Where the album flourishes is in collaborations; ‘The Short Game’ with Zombie Nation is a pulsating dance anthem with dark undertones, whilst ‘Waiting’ with Alison Moyet harks back to the golden age of 80s electronica, reminiscent of The Human League and more recent output from The Juan Maclean. Bonus track ‘23 Minutes in Brussels’ is an experimental instrumental that leaves you wondering why the rest of the album wasn’t quite so interesting. It seems My Robot Friend create sparks in live music shows where Howard features as a robot in his performance art spectacle - unfortunately Soft Core fails to galvanize the electronic music scene in quite the same way.

Laura Richards

Britney Spears - Singles Collection

2009-11-15T07:58:00.000Z

There can be no dispute as to who is the queen of pop. Who cares if she’s not cool, pioneering or edgy: she’s Britney, radiant and psychotic. So to build on 2004’s Greatest Hits: My Prerogative, the addition of sexually confident new release ‘3’ would suffice. But the difference between these two offerings is the addition of some of the newer songs, released in the midst of failed marriages, wanton car vandalism and shaven heads. What sets Britney apart from other pop princesses like Kylie is her songwriters’ willingness to incorporate genuine aspects of her life into her material to reflect her variable states of mind, here clearly showing Spears’ journey from clean cut pop princess, to sexual liberation, temporary insanity and finally the strong and empowered woman we know today. The tracklisting reveals just how many successful hits Spears has had, and this singles collection serves to remind us why Britney, for the time being, will not lose her crown.

Izzy Finbow

Shaping up with Micachu

2009-11-02T08:00:00.041Z

Possibly one of the most intriguing pop bands of recent times, Micachu & The Shapes’ debut album Jewellery is a ramshackle collection of such myriad inﬂuences and unusual instrumentation that it sounds as unclassiﬁable as it is catchy. Over the course of the last year Mica Levi and her backing band “The Shapes” (Marc Pell and Raisa Khan) have tightly honed their intensely creative live show to perfection, utilising all manner of equipment to recreate their unique combination of DIY pop and musique concrète; though according to Mica, not all elements could endure indeﬁnitely.

“We don’t really use the vacuum cleaner anymore, it made me really ill actually.”

The band are keen to downplay the relevance of potentially statement making tools that find their way into the music. “I was doing a lot of vacuuming in the house whilst listening to music and thought it would be nice to start the record with the vacuum cleaner. I don’t think its a massive musical gesture. And we can’t afford a sampler.”

And as Marc interjects, its clearly far more fun to work out how to play new objects than simply sample and go. The end result is drum kits bolstered with Stella bottles and all manner of strange droning devices. “That’s the Boss delay pedal actually,” Mica corrects. “I put my microphone in there and move the pitch of it to make it sound like two people are singing at the same time.”

This manner of experimentation is quite befitting of a band who cite controversial depression era composer Harry Partch as their key infuence. A keenly avant garde musician, his theoretical work on microtonal scale systems helped tear apart 12 tone convention in academic music while he constructed his own instruments to work with his new tunings and accompany pieces based around the inﬂections of the speaking voice.

“It was his philosophy really; I feel like I can relate to him because he was fresh thinking about writing music,” says Mica. “He was immersed in very different parts of society and handled it really
open mindedly. There was this difference of high society and people without jobs and he just dotted in between the two... He was just a brilliant inventor and great musician.”

Considering how easily this description could ﬁt Mica, its quite clear why Partch is such an inspiration. Equally at home studying composition at Guildhall as she is making beats for grime MCs in Bow, East London, Mica represents a meeting point of otherwise disparate musical stylings; though the combination can be a draining process as Mica experienced when they played with the ACME string quartet.

“They did a piece I wrote called ‘Bored’ for a string quartet, really short movements. It was a bit of a mess really; quite scatty and aggressive. It was just weird to do a gig, connecting that with the band. The listening process for the two things are quite different and you need it in context”.

Despite Mica’s modesty, her music has attracted some high profile attention. Recently Bjork featured the video for the band’s latest single ‘Turn Me Weller’ on her website. Also, legendary electronic musician Matthew Herbert was sufficiently impressed by Mica’s home recordings to co- produce the album, and his strict recording manifesto brings things full circle back to Mica’s Guildhall days.

“That’s one of the things we learnt at Guildhall; getting certain projects and being told to do this or that a certain way in briefs.”

The Shapes are certainly the kind of band who need to impose limitations to reign in the sheer wealth of ideas bursting forth. The next step from Jewellery could be in any direction, but it will be fascinating wherever it leads.

Simon Docherty

The best of British at SWN Fest

2009-11-02T08:00:00.039Z

Mike Mantin, Matt Grimble and Dylan Williams take to the caverns of Cardiff for the UK’s very own SXSW - SWN Festival.

TALONS Talons’ two violinists and two guitars take to the stage in a line, saying little but making a restless yet impeccably precise racket. From the first few notes it’s clear this Hereford outfit are enthralled by 65daysofstatic and other instrumental bands who eschew the classic quiet-loud-quiet post-rock template in favour of something more urgent; with a couple of twinkly exceptions, it’s pretty much loud loud loud for thirty minutes. Luckily they are all hugely talented musicians and weave some excellent guitarwork into the noise. When they do calm down, they reveal their delicate violin lines (they are barely audible when the band are in full swing), hinting that amongst the chaos there’s some true beauty to be found. Intensely powerful yet only just about to release their first single, we’re left with the exciting thought of what they might achieve next. MM

THEM SQUIRRELS Far too immersed in geekily fiddling with samples to work on their stage banter, Cardiff locals Them Squirrels nevertheless impress with their ability to invent and confuse. Their 30 minute set is packed with vocal quirks like chopping up samples of themselves whooping and sucking their microphones and opening a song with the drummer repeatedly slapping his mouth. The music’s varied too, with second track ‘Daddy Long Legs’ built around an Odelay-esque riff , and the final song concluding with an awesome freakout. In spite of their lack of overt charisma, it’s truly charming and surprising. They’re worth keeping an eye on, especially since they’re bound to reach their potential to match their creative energy with some truly great tunes soon. MM

YR ODS “Un, Dau, Tri, Padwar!” count in these six youngsters. Dressed in a variety of youth culture disguises, there is an inherent innocence to Yr Ods’ deft songwriting. It is refreshing to hear music this hooky yet completely lacking in contrivance, and the shamelessly catchy vocal melodies (complete with doo wop backings) spread a good time vibe over the crowd, even if two thirds of them can’t understand what they’re singing about. Their set encapsulates a wide range of manoeuvres - at times super danceable and cowbell-laden, yet at others highly sincere, displaying a level of songwriting beyond their years. The inclusion of newer English language songs may rob them of some of their charm, but will surely open them up to a much wider potential audience. With time they may prove to be the most charming Welsh export since Super Furry Animals. MG

EXIT INTERNATIONAL Three lads from Cardiff (two on bass, one on drums) who deliver a grinding onslaught that would be prudish to describe as anything less than f***ing brutal. The impassioned vocals come with primal energy from either side of the drums, whose skins are assaulted with precision blasts locking the whole outfit into a tightness rarely seen in the genre. Throughout their set, they mix the fuzzed no-nonsense balls of Shellac (whose frontman Albini is set to produce their debut) with occasional hints of disco pop melodic sensibilities, and the whole
package is put across with such conviction and sincerity that it’s practically impossible not to be dragged in by the sheer gravity of it all. As they finish their set lunging and screaming into their amps, the stunned audience prove that this band is clearly not for the faint of heart. MG

DANANANANAYKROYD It’s a strange sight seeing a band whose music often verges on hardcore initiate a ‘wall of cuddles’ - the crowd dichotomised by two meandering, wailing Glaswegians (singers Calum and John) and then each side told to run at each other until everyone is in the arms of a stranger. This is Dana though, and they’re all tweaking with delirious jubilation. They do what they want until madness ensues, only really slowing to untangle the mess of mic cords before they can dive back into the audience. If you’re lucky, any one of the band members could clear some space and you’ll get a one to one dance. It all borders lunacy, but a kind laced with unbridled festivity and you’ll have a hell of a time watching it all unravel. DW

DAEDELUS Alfred Darlington has produced some of the most stunning avant-garde hiphop and electronica tracks of the past decade. His other hobbies include dancing like a loon, sweating through a waistcoat and tie combo, having impeccable sideburns, and rushing through the annals of recent electronic music at breakneck speed, and all of these interests are given a healthy dollop of airtime in his post-midnight slot. His set maintains the dubstep tempo of his predecessors but, bashing away at a matrix style midi controller, his schizophrenic, multi-layered chop-up approach gives a cluttered energy to his mixes, sending the confused crowd bananas with every new addition, from Beirut’s Elephant Gun to tech house classic Flat Beat. He brings the tempo up slowly through the set, ending on a meteor shower of snares and stutters over his beautifully romantic ‘Denouement’. MG

Another beat in the wall

2009-11-02T08:00:00.038Z

On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Laura Snapes looks at how the former East Berlin’s newly deserted buildings became havens for an electronic musical revolution.

Flights for a week’s break in Berlin departing by budget airline on 9th November and returning a week later will only set you back about £80, even if you forget to book well in advance. A shared room in a kitchsy, cheap hostel in Kreuzberg will cost about €8 a night, and entry to the famed Tresor techno club off Berlin’s historic Potsdamer Platz around €10. Go back to early 1989 and tell someone about the notion of exchanging a unified European currency for unrestricted travel and non-government approved music, and chances are they’d laugh in your face.

9th November 2009 marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event which led to Germany being officially united almost a year later for arguably the first time in its long and often difficult history. It also brought about the explosion of techno in Germany, and more speciﬁcally Berlin.

The fall of the concrete barrier and the resulting transgression of East Berliners to the West left over 25,000 deserted apartment blocks, supermarkets and factories in the former East Berlin – around a third of the city’s buildings. In the wake of liberation from stifling government ideology, state approved music and living in fear of the Stasi, a wave of unlicensed, hedonistic parties sprung up in the empty shells, in a similarly spontaneous vein to the rise of acid house in British clubs during the 80s.

Born in the GDR in 1971, DJ Paul Van Dyk once stated that techno was the first area of the social life of Germany where unification took place. It’s not hard to believe – there were no rules, no discrimination between Ossies and Wessies, class or origin. The gay club scene boomed, and there were no difficult Western lyrics to understand or distract from partygoers’ new found shared German nationality – the only discerning quality required to integrate into the scene was a willingness to dance until sunrise.

Hundred of clubs popped up, some lasting longer than others – from UFO in a vacant Kreuzberg cellar (to become Tresor in 1991) to the recently closed Bar 25, a former squat, and Planet Nights in the empty warehouses along the bank of the Spree river, where sound, light and abstract performance combined to add to this new feeling of unhinged reality.

The diverse range of club nights and innumerable kitchen sink record labels founded was in stark contrast to the cultural monotony that had existed prior to that point.

There had been one state owned record label, AMIGA, founded in 1947 by Ernst Busch, which operated on thoroughly socialist principles – all record sleeves, irrespective of genre, had plain artwork designed by a government agency, and label releases were played on DDR Rundfunk, the national radio station.

The content of the music was subject to censorship by the government, so naturally any potentially subversive records did not see a legal release, although selected Western albums were put out on the label. To own one was considered a privilege, resulting in vast queues stemming from the record shops that were selling such holy relics.

Robag Wruhme of the Wighnomy Brothers grew up in a small East German town and told techno- bible Resident Advisor about covertly recording a Depeche Mode concert in Berlin broadcast on West German radio whilst he stayed with his grandparents.

“This was the way of getting into music back then; if the Communist system had continued, this whole club culture would not have existed, it would not have been possible. We had no contacts in the West, so we had no real idea about what was going on. Once the wall came down, we were in paradise, we spent every penny we had on records.”

This newfound wealth of freely available music led to a great diversification in the scene – hardcore, gabber and ambient sounds developed, and a symbiotic appreciation for the Detroit scene blossomed.

Techno quickly became Berlin’s cool currency – the first Love Parade in 1989 attracted 150 revellers; in 1999, 1.5 million, steadily increasing to 1.6 million on its last appearance in Germany in 2008.

Today Berlin is one of the coolest cities in the world. International DJs flock there in droves – Chilean world renowned DJ Ricardo Villalobos is now based there, along with Richie Hawtin, born in England and raised in Detroit, amongst many others.

Its status as the capital of club culture has inevitably attracted corporate attentions, and none so more potentially damaging than the Mediaspree, a €165 million creative industries project aimed at the “Intergration von Kunst und Medien” [integration of art and media] – a misleadingly inclusive motto.

East Berlin is still a haven for cheap living – predominantly for aff ordable housing in hip areas such as Kreuzberg; home to some 150,000 people of multiple ethnic origins. The area’s alternative credentials and low rent have led to a group of communications and arts conglomerates attempting to muscle in to bathe in its credible aura.

On the banks of the Spree where one of the last stretches of the wall stood, O2 are building a huge arena to seat 17,000 people and MTV Europe and Universal Music amongst dozens of others are establishing offices.

Christian Meyer, director of the Mediaspree enterprise, gave a statement to the volunteer-based news website Café Babel.

“We’re doing a lot to promote this neighbourhood. MTV is among one of our clients for instance. We want to have attractive and young tenants who watch MTV and Viva! and can be defined as ‘sexy’.”

The influx of mainstream media practitioners in their incongruously glossy buildings has led to a spike in the formerly cheap rates of the area, leaving its inhabitants at risk of being priced out of the market.

The exploitative gentrification and naïve idea that the organically creative neighbourhood needs promotion from capitalist organisations has seen a number of protests from local residents, but it doesn’t seem likely that that the Mediaspree can be stopped.

Perhaps another social uprising is in order – it certainly worked last time.

"Tourists are terrorists"

2009-11-02T08:00:00.037Z

Jay Haze offers Matt Grimble a glimpse of modern day Berlin.

Pennsylvania-born DJ, producer and record label impressario Jay Haze has been living in Berlin since the turn of the decade. In addition to the prolific output under his birth name, he has released records as Fuckpony, Sub Version and The Architect amongst others on Fabric, BPitch Control and Soma, and has been responsible for some of the finest techno and house tracks coming out of Germany and beyond in the past 10 years.

What drew you to Berlin in the first place?

"The reason I came to Berlin was because it seemed to be a city that had opportunities I could take advantage of in a positive way. It was quite cheap, it was very supporting of sexuality, in the sense that you can be gay, straight, it doesn't really matter. There's a very hedonistic vibe in that sense, and they're really relaxed about smoking weed, which is really important for me. I also had a direct connection with Berlin, because my label distribution was always here."

Has it had a big impact on the way you create music?

"My creative process is more based on my emotions than my surroundings. Of course, one could argue that my surroundings influence my emotion, but that's at a subconscious level so I can't really comment on that. I don't think anywhere I've ever been has such an influence on my music."

As the head of many record labels, the city must offer some great A&R opportunities...

"Yeah, there's a lot of great artists in Berlin, so it's perfect for me to have that sort of opportunity. I've been here so many years, almost 8 years, so I don't really pay as much attention as I used to to the electronic music scene - I think my life is more immersed with the city, and building new relationships and gaining new experiences."

Which Djs or tracks have been instrumental in your experience of the city?

"Dixon's been a very good Berlin DJ for me, but as far as tracks I would have to say Easy Lee from Ricardo Villalobos. Andy Baumacher or Boris, who are both residents at the Berghain have been great. Boris has been a big DJ on the gay scene for a long time, and the gay scene is one of the things which, in a good way, remains unchanged. In Berlin there's a lot of hipsters moving in who just want to ride off the coat-tails of the electronic stuff, but to be honest over the last four years they've just been coming and taking stuff."

Have things taken a turn for the worse then?

"My best days of Berlin are over. I hope there's more to come, but I think my personal days are gone where there were no aeroplanes full of tourists coming to go to all the clubs. We used to be able to go to the club on the weekends, and we'd have after-parties on Sundays where I would know everybody there. We would have an amazing time together, and we'd know that although we don't need to call each other, we'd see each other at this or that event. It seemed a lot more special, a lot more like our own thing."

"Nowadays, it's just filled with Italians in Armani, and Spanish plane-fulls who basically just wanna come and rave on the weekend. Which is cool all the same, but it's not what I'm into - it's definitely a personal thing. I would never say its glory days are over, it's just that right now the situation is very different – all the clubs are filled, almost every night, and I mean ALL the clubs. Sooo many tourists. And you know what they say, “tourists are terrorists”. That said, Berlin is a great city to be in. I think the more people come to visit it, the more intrigued they are by it. They keep coming back for more, so there's obviously something very special going on."

Do you have a favourite era for clubbing?

"Yes! BeatStreet! BeatStreet parties were legendary. I remember every single one. They were Sunday daytime after-parties, and they were just crazy. It was filled with Berlin, gay/straight, it didn't matter, and people just partied their ass off. That was just amazing. No tourists."

As an American who didn't grow up in the city, is the East/West divide still apparent?

"I'm in West Berlin right now, walking into the KDV, which is the big, expensive place where all the top top top name brands are. It's like walking into a Vogue wardrobe. In the East you don't have any of that. Berlin still has a long way to go before it's fully integrated - it needs a lot more colour; a lot more black and brown people, it's still a very white city. There's lots of white Europeans, but not very many Africans or Indians, and not even many Asian people for that matter."

Fabric 47: Jay Haze is out now

Various - Ghana Special [Soundway]

2009-11-02T08:00:00.036Z

Soundway Records exists to unearth rare and obscure music from a wide spread of diverse cultures. This latest double CD compilation offers a glimpse into the vibrant Ghanaian music scene of the 1970s. This is the music that time forgot - most tracks have never been released on CD - a historical snapshot and a sonic journey through the rise of an ‘Afrocentric’ cultural collision.

Western jazz/rock sounds blend with traditional local music, creating an image of a nation then teeming with progressive culture. Danceable African rhythms and Ghanaian vocals seamlessly merge with sweet toned mellow electric guitar lines and electric organs that evoke an entirely different world. Some tracks may only imitate more familiar Western sounds, but the diversity as well as the unique music produced in the marriage of old and new will satisfy fans of rhythmically rich and soulful music.

Mike Hine

Co-curator chatter

2009-11-02T08:00:00.034Z

Huw Stephens talks to Mike Mantin

SWN seems even more focused on upcoming British and local bands rather than foreign imports this year. Do you think there’s been a recent resurgence in British talent?
“There’s always been so many brilliant bands from Wales and the rest of the UK. We love inviting guests to SWN from abroad, and there’s still a lot this year, but I think with the recession maybe we get to hear more bands locally than before because American bands have less money to tour round here.”

I know a fair few ardent music fans who think that British music doesn’t have a lot to offer – where would you advise them to get looking?
“Well, get online to Drowned in Sound and Pitchfork. I would say this, but tune in to my show. Mary Anne Hobbs, Rob da Bank on Radio 1. Look at the line up for SWN this year. Check out Stool Pigeon and Kruger, both passionate magazines great at pushing new bands. Go to your local venue, check the local interesting promoters and see what’s on offer. Those who say there’s not a lot of good stuff going aren’t looking properly.”

Considering ‘Dark Was The Night’, a section of the American indie rock scene seems pretty uniﬁed and connected - do you think there’s anything like that here?
“I do, but maybe in smaller pockets. The whole scene that Los Campesinos! come from, their support of bands like Internet Forever that leads you to Brainlove records that leads you to Pagan Wanderer Lu that leads you to the whole Cardiff scene that has spawned Shape Records that is home to Evils who’s mates with other electronic acts. Maybe it’s a line rather than one big gang. I see the labels like Domino and Wichita bringing a lot of like minded musicians together to unleash them on the world.”

You’ve got an incredible knack of highlighting bands that go on to become huge the following year - what boxes does a band have to tick to play at SWN? Do you approach them or is there a lot of interest from bands to play?
“Bit of both really. We approach some, others make themselves known online or through agents if they have one. We simply go for bands we like and love, like Golden Silvers last year; their music is so awesome we simply had to have them on. We don’t intentionally go for ones that might make it big, because that would be pointless. It’s always an interesting line up, diverse and interesting.”

New directions in bass music

2009-11-02T07:45:00.006Z

Facing a splinter not entirely unlike the clownstep/liquid divide drum & bass saw years previously, dubstep is firmly splitting itself into different camps: hypermasculine, chainsaw bass and an indefinable other.

What’s particularly interesting about this split is the migration many producers are taking to shake the connotations that dubstep’s begun to entail. Whether it’s dropping the BPM and taking on house or looking back to the garage that mutated into what we have today, 2009 has seen seeds sown for many exciting new ventures in bass.

One such producer carving a bold new path is unquestionably Untold. Whilst earlier productions were pleasant sub-loaded two-steppers, the Hessle Audio 12” ‘Can’t Stop This Feeling/Anaconda’ double header changed the game completely.

‘Can’t Stop This Feeling’ was a tense techy roller with a seemingly endless melodic ascension, but it was the flip that was the real star of the show. Finding its way into the record bags of everyone from Kode 9 to Crookers, it was the beginning of an amazing ‘09 upgrade of Wiley’s eskibeat productions (see Wiley - ‘Icerink Instrumental’ for the prototype).

With a heavy sub bass kick drum hit at the beginning of each bar combining with subtle tuned percussive noises to provide an economic melody, the remaining space is filled with bizarre abstract rhythms that beg you to discover new ways to dance.

Like a robotic flipside to Zomby’s unreleased eski tracks, Untold replaces colour with complex interlocking rhythms that have a surprising dancefloor success rate.

An EP doublepack is forthcoming on Hemlock but even more essential is the accompanying remix 12” with the anthemic James Blake remix of ‘Stop What You’re Doing’, a track that surely would’ve surpassed Hyph Mngo’s hype levels had it been around this summer. The eski revival is sure to begin to show its influence over the course of the next year.

Simon Docherty

Bloc Party - October 20, Academy

2009-11-01T08:00:00.000Z

A few songs into their show at the O2 Academy, Kele Okereke opens a cut on his thumb and sullies the bodies of the next three guitars he uses. It’s a ﬁtting image as the band unleash a breakneck, jagged performance on a crowd who can smell fresh blood in the air.

They tore through their catalogue of barbed, frantic hits while the lighting blazed a deep red. There are no ballads (to which Bloc Party are ill suited anyway) and no respite. When Okereke crowd surfs during ‘Ares’, the surging front rows are in a fever.

The show’s not all tribal engagement. Okereke’s lack of poise in between songs serves as an unwelcome distraction. Through banal remarks and a slack jawed grin, he sways liberally on a fine line between goofy swagger and overacting.

But that’s a small complaint. The rhythm department is a pulsating, relentless and irrefutably brilliant backing for each cutting guitar solo, and when the front man’s drawl melts into his keen delivery, you’re left watching a band who have built their success on being one of the most visceral in rock music.

Given their carnal approach to live shows, the bloodshed comes as no surprise.

Dylan Williams

Lake Heartbeat - Trust In Numbers [Service]

2009-11-01T07:45:00.006Z

From the wondrous land of Gothenburg, Lake Heartbeat’s debut sends listeners on a cathartic journey of long summer nights filled with quiet introspection. Sincere but never saccharine, Trust In Numbers is sublimely bittersweet indie pop, complete with feathery strings, whispery vocals and harmonies reminiscent of a less dramatic Stars. This energy may be something that Trust In Numbers is lacking, but poignant lyrics detailing love’s transience in raw and simple terms offer an honesty that is hard to dislike. Clinging to the recurring theme of endings, the melodic synth-and-guitar closing track ‘Let It Die’ likens the sudden end of a relationship to a house on ﬁre (“first it’s there, then it’s gone”), echoing the sentiment of the album’s debut single, ‘Mystery’. Their sense of loss is palpable, making this is a pretty collection of songs sure to find a place in the hearts of those who like their music delicate and wistful.

Hannah Collins

Jason Molina & Will Johnson - Molina & Johnson [Secretly Canadian]

2009-11-01T07:45:00.004Z

Already certified doyens of Americana, Jason Molina’s collaboration with Centro-matic’s Will Johnson was always going to be powerfully accomplished, but none could have expected the achingly yet quietly beautiful result of Molina & Johnson.

Written just two months after the death of Molina’s Magnolia Electric Co. band mate Evan Farrell in December 2008, the album is clearly therapeutic, encompassing every element of grief. Wistful and nostalgic but at the same time accusing and confused, it is music to long for a lost lover to. This is epitomised in the heart wrenching ‘Now, Divide’ in which, though wordless, the listless anguish and fear can be felt through the pair’s melodic moans. The overarching sentiment is one of such human (though occasionally self indulgent) emotion, and the simple melodies and starkly bare instrumentation will linger within you for days. A gentle triumph.

Izzy Finbow

Choir Of Young Believers - This Is For The White In Your Eyes [Ghostly International]

2009-11-01T07:45:00.003Z

Choir of Young Believers, another Scandinavian super collective, is the alter ego of Danes Jannis Makrigiannis, Anders Rhedin and Fridolin. Their grandiose orchestra-driven pop culminates in the album’s opening four tracks, which properly display their innate ability for orchestral arrangement and talent for eerie but poignant lyrics.

However, the graceful sweeps of orchestration soon spiral out into arcs of melodrama and pretence as the musical landscapes of tracks like ‘Action/Reaction’ are replaced by an apparent assumption that multi-layering of instrumentation and profundity are one and the same. This Is For The White In Your Eyes reveals in COYB shades of talent reminiscent of Brian Wilson, however with scant indication of potential genius. Rather than imbuing the listener with a sense of expectation for their future work, these misguided talents are somewhat off putting.

Nick Harris

Julian Casablancas - Phrazes For The Young [Rough Trade]

2009-11-01T07:45:00.002Z

It’s late 2005, and ‘Juicebox’, the first single from The Strokes’ third album has leaked online, sending fans into paroxysms. Its driving, insistent riff and controversial video seem to indicate a reinvigorated band, but First Impressions Of Earth delivers little of this promise, and after an arduous touring schedule the time seems ripe for The Strokes to take a backseat to a range of other projects.

It’s perhaps strange that in the time it has taken guitarist Albert Hammond Jr to release two records, only now do we have a full length album from Julian Casablancas. But while Hammond Jr’s commitment to chugging guitar and summertime melodies arguably remains Strokes-like and rooted in the US West Coast tradition of yesteryear, previews of ‘11th Dimension’, the ﬁrst single from Phrazes For The Young, show Casablancas drawing on a retro sound of a different kind, with sharp 80s synth stabs and raindrop beats fighting for space over the top of that unmistakable gravel
voiced drawl.

So far, so different. But on opener ‘Out Of The Blue’ it would seem that old habits die hard, as warm trebly guitar tones give the impression of a more mature Casablancas as he croons “How could you be? / So perfect for me?”, taking one of the strongest melodies on Phrazes… to a soaring conclusion without venturing into the realms of pomp.

In Casablancas’ own words, Phrazes For The Young represents his attempt to juxtapose more modern sounds with “the power and seriousness” of older ones, but on ‘Ludlow Street’, promising faux Vangelis electronics somehow segue into Casablancas doing his best storytelling Billy Joel impression.

It’s an embarrassing moment, but thankfully it appears to be a momentary lapse as the angular guitars and urgent motorik drive of Casablancas’ voice (“Timing is everything/ Timing is everything”) on stand out track ‘River Of Brakelights’ usher Phrazes… into more experimental territory, with the ﬁnal moments of the record mercifully sounding more like fellow New Yorkers Ratatat in their Classics period than the Bronx-raised Joel and his tales of Italian restaurants. After all, Casablancas’ cool credentials have never been in doubt, and luckily for him, most of the influences worn proudly on Phrazes’… sleeve do little to harm them.

Tim Wong

Gentle Friendly - Ride Slow [Upset! The Rhythm]

2009-11-01T07:45:00.001Z

Their ﬁrst mainstream release since the lo-ﬁ noise pop racket that was last year’s Night Tapes EP (released on No Pain In Pop), London based duo Gentle Friendly’s debut album is a somewhat less frenzied affair than previous offerings.

Through a feedback-drenched haze, Ride Slow finds time to indulge in moments of both reﬂection and restraint inbetween some of its more cacophonous episodes. From the abused cassette-player whir of opener ‘No Infinity On’ to the almost anthemic ‘Lovers Rock’, such contrasts mean that Ride Slow is certainly a perplexing listen.

Though it is difficult not to compare Gentle Friendly with other purveyors of glorious DIY noise pop such as Wavves and former label mates No Age, there is something inherently unique about
their efforts on Ride Slow that separates them from their cousins across the pond.

Perhaps this is largely due to the sheer amount of variety and unpredictability contained within each of its 35 minutes. Whilst frenetic staccato stutters courtesy of vocalist David Morris permeate tracks such as album highlight ‘Rip Static’, it is the otherworldly tape squeaks and discordant Casio bleeps that breathe both energy and sincerity into the duo’s musical meanderings and mutterings.

However, it is also the undeniable warmth to be found in the analog fuzziness cloaking this record that makes it a great deal more listenable than much of the run of the mill ‘art’ rock that has emerged from the undergrowth in recent years. As Cocteau-esque vocals spiral skywards on ‘Illuminate His Face’ and album closer ‘Earths Move’ hints at Boards of Canada’s nostalgia induced electronica, it is difficult to deny that there is something strangely beautiful and enticing about Gentle Friendly’s music.

Though the pounding drums can often sound as if they have been rescued from a car boot sale and that parts of the record have been mixed with the aid of an Early Learning Centre tape recorder, this is certainly ‘lo-ﬁ ’, but with an added level of sophistication. Ride Slow is a surprisingly complex, but moreover, addictive record with new dimensions to be discovered on every listen. Gentle Friendly have quite clearly paid meticulous attention to detail – and all for the better.

Jon Bauckham

Hasselhoff’s quest to bring Mauer power to the people

2009-11-01T07:45:00.000Z

Laura Richards on the Hoff’s pivotal role in reuniting East and West.

In recent news it’s been back to rehab for the Hoff. Our hearts go out to him. After all, we owe a lot to a man who has given us so much over the years – those tight red Speedos, Burger-Eating 101 and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Yes, that’s right. Not content with a fan club the size of his libido, David Hasselhoff has attempted to recreate himself as some kind of political mastermind.

In an interview with Germany’s TV Spielfilm magazine in 1989 the ever modest Hoff admitted that sometimes he feels the part he played in Germany’s history has been drastically overlooked. “I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Checkpoint Charlie.”

At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall Hasselhoff’s euro-pop anthem ‘Looking for Freedom’ was number one in the German charts for eight consecutive weeks.

With rousing lyrics like, “I’ve been looking for freedom; still the search goes on… Still it can’t be found!” he may as well have put the words “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” into President Ronald Reagan’s mouth.

The Hasselhoff Foundation, David’s hugely dedicated fan base, is bafflingly in support of the pivotal political role their hero played in German reunification.

“People identified with both the sentiment of the song and the singer who personified in his real life and in his acting roles the American ideal of freedom.” One can only assume that the population at the time had a weak grasp of English.

Hasselhoff’s song tells the story of his formative years struggling to find his own path in life. It bears no reference to the Cold War, if only in the repetition of the word ‘freedom’ over and over and over again.

Yet, the Hoff was invited to perform on top of the wall on 21st July 1990 to celebrate the historic event and he will be returning this year to join in with the twentieth anniversary proceedings. So perhaps the Hoff is right, and his political involvement has been severely overlooked.

Or maybe he’s simply delusional. In a sweeping statement also in 1989 he claims: “Beyond its entertainment value, Baywatch has enriched and, in many cases, helped save lives. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to continue with a project which has had such significance for so many.”

And here was me thinking Baywatch was about slow motion shots of semi-naked rippling torsos. It seems poor old David is simply on another planet.

So where will he find his next ‘project of great significance’? In the last year David Hasselhoff has been focusing on jump-starting the music careers of his daughters Hayley and Taylor. With the three in collaboration, world peace may just be on the cards.

FAC51 The Haçienda: How not to run a club

2009-10-19T10:14:00.002+01:00

Laura Snapes and Matt Grimble compere a Q&A with Peter Hook at Borders to discuss his new book.

It's easy to be sceptical about a nightclub supposedly changing the world, but the motley crew behind the Haçienda and Factory Records revolutionised DJ culture, brought Manchester out of the cultural dark ages and produced several hugely influential bands in the process. One of the men at the centre of it all was Peter Hook, most famous as the bassist in Joy Division and then New Order.

The book itself is a chronological history of the Haçienda, from its inaustere beginnings in 1982 to its demise by dint of bankruptcy and un-policed gang violence.

Told with the affable verve of Hook's Salford accent, in between meticulously compiled events listings and accounts are self-deprecatingly told anecdotes that you couldn't make up. To ward a rival gang out of the club, the Haçienda's head bouncer (himself so notorious that the police wouldn't touch him) decapitated their dog, set its head on the table and said, "next time, that'll be a human head." True to the scene's hedonistic infamy, Hook describes how on a trip to Ibiza to record a new album, New Order wrote off 11 hire cars whilst high as kites.

But before the club became the druggy, acid house behemoth that made its name, the Haçienda was born from aspects of Situationist philosophy that inspired the late Tony Wilson, founder of Factory Records - that "the Hacienda must be built", a place where like-minded people could congregate in the pursuit of cultural awakening.

"We never set out to make money, and the club was opened because we didn't have anywhere to go, which was very noble," says Hook. "And it was very noble of New Order to stump up the money that entertained a whole city for 15 years!"

The club pulled Manchester into the modern age. Images of the city at the time are rarely lit with anything but monochrome or drab tones, but the Haçienda dragged it sharply into Technicolour.

"The strangest thing about Control was that someone said to me, "it's weird that it's in black and white,' and I hadn't even noticed! That's how true it felt to me, because y'know those old black and white episodes of Coronation Street, that's how I remember Manchester."

By the time he returned in 1983 for the release of Power, Corruption and Lies, there was fresh meat on the scene, whose indulgent, romantic stylings were as far removed from the clinical electronics of New Order as was possible: The Smiths. Five years ago, Hook formed Freebass with Mani (The Stone Roses), and Andy Rourke of The Smiths, which seems odd considering the ribbing doled out to Morrissey and co in the book.

He laughs, "Well the thing about The Smiths was that they were our competition, so there's no way that I could have liked them, and Morrissey's a twat anyway! He makes Mark E Smith look popular! What I do love about him is that if you have any legal problems with him, the only person you can speak to about them is his mother! And the first thing she says is, 'our Steven wouldn't do that!'"

To youth and young manhood

2009-10-19T10:14:00.000+01:00

During their biggest UK tour to date, Bombay Bicycle Club tell their former classmate Lara Tinay about life on the road.

With their big break in 2006 opening the V Festival after winning a contest, Bombay Bicycle Club have been working hard ever since. Two EPs, three singles, one full-length album and a whole lot of gigs later and it seems like they might finally have shaken off the 'Schoolboys' image they've been plastered with since they first entered the scene.

Contrary to his position as lead singer and guitarist in Bombay Bicycle Club now, Jack used to play his beloved bass guitar. When asked whether he gave up the bass willingly, he's emphatically wistful.

"No I wish I still played bass. It's still the best instrument in the world. And it means I wouldn't have to look after myself as much on tour because I wouldn't have to sing; I could just play bass."

However much he may regret having to look after his voice, it has most certainly evolved into one of the defining stamps of Bombay Bicycle Club's music, but he hasn't always been so confident in his vocal ability.

Initially recording solo instrumental tracks with his bass, Jack was pushed into vocals when Bombay Bicycle Club was formed and they needed a singer.

"It took a long time because I didn't think I could sing... but then if you keep trying you kind of realise it sounds OK. And then when we started a band someone had to sing... so I did," he explains with a wry smile.

Questioned on the origin of his unique singing style and any vocal influences, he replies simply, "I think your voice can sound like a lot of people but not on purpose. Because there is no way to sing; it's just how my voice is."

Passion from a lead singer is important to him and he mentions how he admires Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse's vocal delivery, stating that "he really believes what he's singing".

At the O2 Academy later on, Jack's yearning, quivering vocals fill the cosy upstairs of the venue, resonating with old fans and winning over new ones alike.

This is the biggest UK tour they've done to date, and drummer Suren happily reports that although they've been playing the same kind of venues for quite a long time now, this is the first time they're actually selling out. So this is an exciting time for the band, but how are they finding life on the road?

Jack doesn't sugar coat the experience.

"It's fun... It's absolutely exhausting and very claustrophobic because we're just on a tour bus with these tiny little bunk beds. It's really fun."

But Suren isn't quite so jovial: "I'm not enjoying it very much to be honest. I usually find it alright but for some reason on this tour I'm finding it too intense." The tight schedule makes it hard to get away, and Jack comments that although being on tour is a good time to write songs, it's also difficult to find a quiet place.

Perhaps a drawback of breaking into the business at just 16, Bombay Bicycle Club have had to put any ambitions for university out of their minds for the moment, even though Suren admits that they probably all do want to go t some point.

"Obviously we don't want to be really old, but yeah, one day..." It's a tricky subject since they are also determined to make the most of this unique opportunity.

Jack reasons, "I don't think there'll ever be a collective agreement so the question is if one or two people leave will the other two carry on? But we're not thinking that much about the future because there's no point. Just take it as it comes."

These boys though aren't the power-hungry world-domination types. When asked if they ever see themselves playing a venue such as Wembley Arena, Jack and Suren both shake their heads assuredly.

"I don't think I'd enjoy it that much. I really really like playing this size of venue where it's really intimate and you can reach out and the fans are actually just there," says Jack honestly.

Suren adds with a grin, "I think our manager was joking about booking a venue like Wembley Arena for three or four years' time."

Jack laughs, "I don't think we're that type of band; that's the simple answer."

Thank goodness for that. Tonight, for their sold-out Bristol gig, they were all smiles - contrasting with their melodies and riffs that so often have a melancholic edge. Intense as touring may be, this is clearly what makes it all worthwhile. Does it feel like a job yet?

Jack thinks for a moment.

"Hmm... a job where you wake up at like one in the morning, get lots of free alcohol, play to lots of people...," he pauses and adds grinning,

"No, it doesn't."

Limbering up with Wild Beasts

2009-10-19T10:13:00.004+01:00

Simon Docherty catches Wild Beasts on resplendent form aboard the Thekla.

To many Wild Beasts' debut was too bewildering to process; an hysterical, overly effeminate onslaught of screeching falsettos romanticising everything from chips and cheese to ill-fated football teams with an almost Wildean flourish. Despite critical acclaim Limbo, Panto went practically unnoticed, drowned out by a multitude of meatheaded British guitar bands without a fraction of Wild Beasts' subversiveness or intelligence.

With this in mind, its particularly affirming to be surrounded by an enthralled, close to capacity Thekla crowd.

Opening with Two Dancers highlight 'The Fun Powder Plot', the newfound preciseness of the rhythm section is even more pronounced, whilst away from the vocal-led production of the record there's more space to appreciate the guitars slowly building shimmering insect riffs into exquisitely layered interlocking patterns.

Whilst on record 'Two Dancers Pt I' and 'This Is Our Lot' are brimming with defeatism, on stage they bristle with defiance and sit remarkably comfortably next to the few old songs that get an airing. 'The Devil's Crayon' gets a rapturous reception and sounds all the more proto-Two Dancers amongst the new material.

Moreso than ever before there is an intensity in the live show that propels the already strong material to even headier heights.

The British music press does have a nasty habit of jumping the gun on promising indie bands from these shores, possibly in the hopes of grasping back some control of an America dominated scene. This time though, there might just be something in it.

"We've exorcised the demons from last time"

2009-10-19T10:13:00.002+01:00

Following a winning support slot on Bat For Lashes' recent tour, Matt Grimble chats with Yeasayer.

"We met in Amsterdam. We were touring with Beck, she was touring with Radiohead" recounts shamanic frontman Chris Keating of the auspicious circumstances under which Yeasayer first hooked up with Bat For Lashes, eventually earning them percussion duties on her most recent album, Two Suns, and the support slot of her current UK tour.

Their 2007 debut All Hour Cymbals confounded critics with its frequent left-turns and myriad influences, but at the heart of it was a sinisterly upbeat response to the direction they saw the world heading in. The new tracks performed tonight take on a significantly unburdened vibe, with the four strictly on the floor.

"We wanted to make the last record all ambient, and influenced by a lot of folk music from the ë60s and ambient music from the '70s. Maybe our world view was a little pessimistic. On this record, we really wanted to be inspired by a lot of reggaeton music, with lots of dub and soul influences. We were into a lot of club music from all over the world, and we wanted to try and incorporate that with a lot of the new wave vibe that we were digging, slow disco shit," says Chris.

"We figured we'd exorcised those demons from the last record, and I think you should always keep moving. I don't think it's very exciting when a band keeps making the same record. A lot of people make a record that's the same dudes playing the same instruments and creating the same sounds, only this time it's just about a different girl."

Once again, the band have used their DIY approach to ensure their bounding creative freedom is not stifled in the production of their new record.

"We rented a house that belonged to an old drummer for Peter Gabriel and Hall & Oates in upstate New York, built a studio with a load of old gear and then got an engineer to come up with us - he's an engineer for Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, and he did some Beastie Boys records back in the day. It sounds more like a real record than our last one sounded; that one was washy, weird and experimental, whereas this one's much more like a pop record. We've just shot a video and it's going to be crazy - we shot it with a 360 degree camera, and you can be fully interactive, it's going to be sick. "

Their live incarnation has recently grown to a five piece, with triggered samples firing against traditional percussion filling the hall with commanding rhythms.

"When we made the record it was just the three of us up on the farm, and we wrote all the songs. There's a lot of percussion and a lot of polyrhythms on the new record, a lot of beat-heavy shit. We wanted to incorporate that into the live set and i'm really happy with the way this is working out now."

The band have emerged from a quintessentially Brooklyn scene, birthing the likes of Dirty Projectors, MGMT and Man Man. This is more than mere good fortune.

"To me, Brooklyn's home and I'm really happy there right now; we couldn't really exist anywhere else. There's a very diverse, very supportive community - whether you play to 50 or 2000 people, everyone still hangs out together."

If tonight's performance is anything to go by, Yeasayer may have just recorded one of 2010's most promising and exciting records. Miss their UK headline shows in the new year at your peril.

An Introduction to Bristol Bass Pt 2

2009-10-19T10:13:00.001+01:00

Rooted Records on Gloucester Road is an excellent place to pick up the best of Bristol's 12"s, boasting an amazingly comprehensive collection to dig through. Here's a selection.

Guido - Orchestral Lab
With an uncannily apt name, Orchestral Lab follows in the footprints of Joker as far as melodic emphasis goes, eschewing squealing synths for an array of electronic approximations of strings and brass that walk a line just the right side of cheese. 'Way U Make Me Feel' follows the same bass heavy r'n'b archetype at once looking to the future and the past with its '80s sax lines met by futuristic basslines that anchor it firmly in 2009.

Hyetal - Pixel Rainbow Sequence
Whilst the A side is a great appropriation of the Joker/Gemmy/Guido trifecta of "purple" dubstep from a very promising producer, its Rooted Records and Punchdrunk boss Peverelist's remix on the flip that is particularly intriguing. Mangling the original's colourful 8 bit blips into a kaleidoscopic gloop, baffling shuffle rhythms create a bewilderingly hypnotic effect that's more Stockhausen than sound bwoy.

Appleblim & Shackleton - Soundboy Punishments
Cheating slightly here with the inclusion of a compilation of 12"s, but it would be impossible to choose any single one anyway. Collecting the entirety of the Skull Disco label's output, Soundboy Punishments contains some of the most claustrophobic bass music ever committed to wax. Combining skeletal percussion with suffocating levels of sub bass, tracks veer from unsettling to zen-like. A fantastic remix by Ricardo Villalobos joins the dots between dubstep and techno and the whole thing walks a satisfyingly unclassifiable line between the two.

Mimeon Docherty

Promised Works: Elliott Smith - XO

2009-10-19T10:13:00.000+01:00

On the sixth anniversary of his death, Dimi Taslim considers the conflicting beauty and sadness inherent in Elliott Smith's XO.

"Haven't laughed this hard in a long time, Better stop now before I start crying."

- Elliott Smith, 'Twilight'

This sums it up best - my smile when his songs come on shuffle and the unbearable grief (the sort that I feel when listening to Buckley) from knowing that it's the last original I'll hear from him. It's like a Dylan fan walking home in the rain without 'Shelter From The Storm'.

Could Smith eventually have touched Dylan? Probably not. But the saddest part is how the question will remain unanswered.

One of the most difficult aspects of listening to one of Smith's seven albums is that amidst his angry self-loathing, fueled by ridiculous substance abuse (he reportedly had a $1500-a-day heroin-habit) and hints of harakiri, he had never sounded more alive on record.

He confesses with brevity and candor on 'Bled White': "Doctor orders drinks to take away this curse, It makes me feel much worse."

Smith sings to anyone dazed and confused (adapted from Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass): "I'm running speed trials/still standing in place."

In 'Independence Day', Smith's subtle use of drums and gentle strumming almost allow me to feel the stones of the bridges before they ruthlessly crash down to distant xylophone chimes and actual 3/4-waltz time in 'Waltz #1'.

He was wilting and desperate; yet acutely aware of the terrible glamour inherent in the mythology of the junkie-musician.

Producers Rothrock and Schnapf (Foo Fighters, Beck) crafted Smith's sixties-vibe. XO's acoustic baroque landscape seeps with the work of West Coast luminaries (Stephen Stills, The Byrds) and the towering edifices of Neil Young and The Beatles. Its authenticity takes me back. It makes me dream in Technicolor.

Smith cleverly exploited DreamWorks' lavish resources without sacrificing his hushed, morose universality, which sings my sorrow at every disappointment.

It's Smith's transition album. It's his Rubber Soul, his Highway 61 Revisited. It's like Jeff Buckley going from the little amp of the former ramshackle New York venue, Sin-É to the grandiosity of Grace. It's not what I expected; yet I end up loving it.

The antithesis of Oregon's celebrated grunge scene, Smith survived the onslaught of the Cobain kids, purring heart-wrenching acoustic ditties with unerring melodic sense. His response when the success of XO symbolically signaled the fall of grunge in 1998?

"Uhmm... It's just... I'm the wrong kind to be really big and famous."

Escaping the party with the xx

2009-10-19T10:12:00.002+01:00

The xx act coy about the success of their astoundingly beautiful debut made “for the after-the-party party” to Laura Richards.

When asked for three words to describe the xx's music, lead singers Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim are confounded. It comes as little surprise that they struggle with this conundrum. “Melancholic and uplifting” are two contrasting words often associated with the oxymoronic four-piece from South West London, and the group cite contemporary r'n'b and the likes of The Cure, The Kills and Pixies as their biggest influences. They really are quite a puzzle. But there is no question or confusion when it comes to the success the band have witnessed in the last few months.

“I'm sure once we do stop I'll kind of freak out a little bit, take it all in. But yeah, it's been good, really good,” gushes Oliver.

The last few months have seen them appearing on Later with Jools Holland, supporting Florence and the Machine at venues as renowned as Shepherds Bush Empire and filling the Festival Republic tent at both Reading and Leeds.

"Well that was just a shock. We were on at two and we thought everyone would have a hangover," says Romy. "When we walked out on stage the tent was full and actually the crowd were really responsive and so it was amazing," adds Oliver.

The xx formed during their GCSE music studies at a school whose alumni includes Hot Chip, Burial and Four Tet, but Oliver, Romy, Baria and Jamie had already started making music together before they had heard of these artists.

"The school's claim to fame was Pierce Brosnan," laughs Oliver. "I stole my sister's CDs and she was listening to a load of '90s American r'n'b. So we're into a lot of people like Aaliyah, Missy Elliot, TLC, Lauryn Hill and Ginuwine."

Sim would share his steals with Croft, his friend since childhood. They enjoyed the melodies especially, which is quite audible in their soft-spoken harmonies on debut album xx. Oliver and Romy are very modest when grilled about the sterling reviews of their debut album and it seems Oliver feels the great write-ups may almost deter listeners.

"I know sometimes I can react quite strangely to some really quite good reviews. With a band being forced on me in a way I can kind of not want to like them, but with such nice things being said it's more flattering than anything really."

Romy seems pleased just to have some feedback from people other than family members. She and Oliver both laugh approvingly when told that the Observer described xx as an album crafted for a come-down.

"I quite like that. I'm happy with it being for the after-the-party party."

It certainly seems that the xx aren't your average young band, and their recent stint as Florence and the Machine's support act saw them somewhat shy away from the rock and roll lifestyle of their peers.

"It's quite hard to keep up. We're all quite chilled as a band; we don't go out and seek the party afterwards. We just chill out when we do a gig."

Taking this minimal approach was a stroke of luck when it came to establishing their musical idiosyncrasies.

After working with acclaimed producers Diplo and Kwes, the band chose to self-produce xx. Oliver claims that although working with these producers was a valuable experience, they wanted to preserve the insular purity of their record by producing it themselves.

"Jamie's in the band, he knows how sounds should sound, we have no problem saying stuff to him and he has no problem saying 'that sounds crap, sing that better, do that better.'"

What is perhaps most interesting of all is the choice to use electronic drums in both performance and on record which, according to Romy and Oliver, gives fluidity and spontaneity to their live performances.

"If we want to play on for an extra verse on a certain bit, we can, whereas with a backing track you don't really have that option," says Oliver.

It's tangible in their live performance - on 'Islands' the group drift up and down in tempo, and 'Infinity' feels like it could go on for just that, with the climax continuing beyond the length on record.

Looking to the future, the band dream of gigs at the Natural History Museum, Brixton Academy and on the beach at dusk, a trajectory that it seems their success will naturally facilitate. After much deliberation Oliver and Romy finally decide on three words to describe their music: "Dark, laid-back, and pop!" Three simple words for an unassumingly complex band.

Metropolitan hermit

2009-10-19T10:12:00.001+01:00

On the UK release of their spell-binding debut, The Antlers talk to Leah Pritchard about overcoming the tragic circumstances in which Hospice was born.

It's easy to draw parallels between The Antlers' latest release and Bon Iver's much-loved 2008 debut. The reactions towards Hospice have become intrinsically intertwined with the backstory that inspired the record, much like with For Emma, Forever Ago for which Justin Vernon retreated to a cabin for several months.

Hospice is a deeply emotional ordeal, recounting in detail the story of a man losing a loved one to cancer, and was written by Peter Silberman during a period in which he moved to Brooklyn and unintentionally found himself separated from society.

"It was honestly just a time in my life when I wasn't seeing a lot of people. It wasn't a conscious decision and it wasn't like this self-imposed thing. It was the result of another situation."

Silberman is eager to avoid the "you can't fit six men in a cabin in the woods" criticisms that fell upon Vernon's latest project, Volcano Choir.

"I think the album speaks for itself more than the story of hiding out. You make the record that you would love someone to give you - then hopefully likeminded people will be into it. You just have to trust yourself a little bit."

Drummer Michael Lerner and keyboardist Darby Cicci were added to the line-up during the making of Hospice.

"I was really happy to start working with other people. I was so ridiculously sick of working by myself. I also didn't want to be like the headmaster of a band, I wanted it to be collaborative. I have a hard time enjoying a band when all but one person seem like hired guns."

The group understand the pressure associated with making a follow-up, but are determined to do things on their steam,

"It's always a problem when a band loses control and we're sort of control freaks. If we're not happy about it, we're not going to put it out."

As a listening experience, Hospice is introspective, haunting and tragic, offering itself up to private listening on headphones at night. However, as Lerner explains, the band believe that live music is a completely different beast.

"Records stand on their own sometimes and you can expand and explore different territory when you come onto the stage. You have options and we take advantage of that."

As a result, their live shows are loud, sweaty affairs, as they proved in a packed Lexington in September, during their first trip to London.

"It's not a controlled environment, it's not like watching a film," says Cicci, "Trying to get the same point across, the same emotional level- you just have to do it a different way."

With such a heartbreaking story to tell, it's difficult to imagine how Silberman is able to stand up and perform every night.

"It's not necessarily a detachment thing but it's more about portraying the mood and intent rather than every last line. The record has become much more everybody else's thing than ours and that's what I'm really happy about."

"I don't want people to focus on whatever aspects of the record are about me - I'd much rather it be theirs."

A remastered 'Hospice' is out in the UK on October 19 on Frenchkiss. The Antlers will play The Louisiana on November 29.

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains [Memphis Industries]

2009-10-19T10:11:00.000+01:00

It's hard to believe that the joyous screams of opener 'And the Hazy Sea...' kick off an album without a single chorus, but then first impressions with Cymbals Eat Guitars are never a great idea. It's true that the band wear their influences on their sleeves- initially sounding like a rejuvenated incarnation of Pavement, they gradually reveal a mesh of influences ranging from Wilco to Built to Spill and from Sleater-Kinney to New Jersey power pop outfit The Wrens. Yet there's an underlying complexity to their music which isn't immediately apparent when you first find yourself humming along to the buoyant, Malkmus-esque intro to 'Wind Phoenix'. The band construct verses so familiar and engaging that they could easily rely on simple pop structures, but they'd rather rip their ideas apart by changing the tempo or the mood, by throwing in an organ solo or letting the bass guitar take the lead.

The lyrics jump out from all angles - each line seems to bear so much resonance yet when arranged around the song structures, the meaning becomes far more difficult to decipher. It's this approach to songwriting that makes lines like "Without use of a pole, she swings / Her thighs clamped round infinity" really strike a chord when you're able to pick them out. Factor in that the instrumental crescendos rarely match up with the emotional meanderings of the lyrics and you have a collection of songs that will continue to surprise and beg repeated listens. On paper, even the most ecstatic parts of the album come across like the bleakest prose on roadtripping across America - it's only when you're in the middle of screaming along to a song like 'Indiana' that you realise just how much anguish is present on this album.

In a world where subtlety is so often replaced with obtrusive and insubstantial sentiment, you'll welcome the feeling of adolescent nostalgia that washes over you with every hum of guitar feedback and murmur of the warm, crackling Wurlitzer organ. This is far from the best we'll see of Cymbals Eat Guitars, but their energy makes this album so much more than just an homage to the bands they seem so eager to pay tribute to.

Leah Pritchard

Efterklang - Performing Parades [The Leaf Label]

2009-10-19T10:10:00.001+01:00

The release of a live album from one's favourite artist can often provoke mixed reactions. For the obsessive: Joy! Another release to make that previously complete collection somehow more complete! For the cynic however, snobbishness reigns: tacky packaging. Bonus DVD. Self-indulgent extended instrumental solos. Sell outs.

With this in mind, Efterklang's release of Performing Parades, a live, track-order recording of their critically acclaimed 2007 album Parades, might seem a slightly strange move for the Danish collective to take. Quite simply, the majesty and sheer beauty of the original record made it outstanding in its own right - why risk spoiling this?

To those who have witnessed Efterklang live, the answer is rooted in the fact that it is in the live arena where Efterklang's otherworldly chamber folk is at its most affecting - Parades, after all, is essentially a record that demands to be imagined in a concert setting, as horns blare, strings quiver and harmonies engulf from all sides, creating a cacophony of sound indigenous to an orchestra.

Aptly enough, Performing Parades sees Efterklang joined by the Danish National Chamber Orchestra in their entirety, with composer Karsten Fundal having prepared vast orchestral arrangements for ten months before the concert recording in Copenhagen. Such grandiosity works perfectly, adding new layers to 'Mirador', while 'Frida Found A Friend' builds with a slow, menacing groove and intensity that can only come from fifty-odd musicians sharing the same mental and physical space. The album climax, 'Cutting Ice To Snow', is quite incredible; effectively a child's nursery melody stretched out and turned into a sound so gigantic, so ecstatic, that the effect is emotionally taxing.

Indeed, such is the sonic majesty of Performing Parades that the accompanying video footage of the original performance actually adds relatively little to the whole package, although a behind-the-scenes documentary on the concert preparations will please classical music geeks no end, with some of the orchestra members adding a more austere atmosphere. This is a reminder that Efterklang are making Serious Music. Serious perhaps, but Performing Parades' real triumph is its inherent sense of joy.

Tim Wong

Beak> - Beak> [Invada]

2009-10-19T10:07:00.000+01:00

Neu! are the first band that springs to mind when listening to BEAK>'s debut. With chugging basslines, slowly evolving songs and the inclusion of a Casio keyboard into the traditional rock band setting, it's hard to believe that BEAK> are in fact from Bristol not Düsseldorf (and that this album is being released in 2009, for that matter!). Geoff Barrow, Billy Fuller and Matt Williams stipulated that the record wouldn't be overdubbed, and that everything would be recorded in one room.

The album entrances the listener with its repetitive bass lines and distant vocals, leading you by the hand to an obscure cold room where the band is playing the music personally for you. With the vast majority of song titles in the album referring to local places and the cold ambience of the record reflecting the time of year in which it was recorded (January 5 - 17), BEAK>'s debut seems set to be the soundtrack for this winter in Bristol.

Daniel Sanchez Clemente

Richard Youngs - Under Stellar Stream [Jagjaguwar]

2009-10-19T10:06:00.000+01:00

Richard Youngs' latest offering from an extensive 20 year career explores the bustle of everyday life through the medium of the solo chant, accompanied by detached organs and droning bass softly punctuated by the occasional clinking of bells.

In 'Cluster to a Star', Youngs conjures up the image of a medieval horseman under a clear night sky, only to reassert the song's modern sensibilities with lyrics such as "I rode out this morning down an ozone corridor". Elsewhere, the record is absorbing, but seldom captures the imagination this well.

With few changes in texture or volume, the album can send the listener into a dreamy trance that hypnotises until the last distant chord of 'The Bells Of Spring.'

Whilst by no means possessing instantaneous allure, Under Stellar Stream should please fans of minimalism and ambience, offering a trip to a poetic and ethereal world.

Tom Holcroft

Do Make Say Think - Other Truths [Constellation]

2009-10-19T10:05:00.000+01:00

Do Make Say Think appear to be stuck in some sort of collective rut. Member Ohad Benchetrit has just released a hugely refreshing, varied and - most importantly - boredom-free instrumental indie record as Years. Yet the band he calls his day job has delivered a bloated (it spreads four tracks over 43 minutes) album content on burying its highlights amongst post-rock-by-numbers meanderings.

When those highlights arrive, however, you'll know. Second track 'Make' ends with a fireworks display of screeching guitars and screaming horns, but the long, drawn-out intro saps your interest before it finally arrives. After the excellent 'Say', which warps its melody into chaos, it closes with an unremarkable slow jam called - yep - 'Think'. It's a shame to close a promising album with a damp squib, but more so that, when their individual members are all still bursting with ideas, they're spread out so thinly here.

Mike Mantin

Emily Loizeau - Pays Sauvage [Bella Union]

2009-10-19T10:04:00.000+01:00

Emily Loizeau's second offering, Pays Sauvages impresses and frustrates in equal measure. At its best the album blends Regina Spektor's quirkiness with Randy Newman's bold songmanship, yet at times Loizeau contents herself with purposeless filler ("Fais Battre Ton Tambour") and substandard Velvet Underground rip-offs ("In Our Dreams"). The justification, surely, is that a modern folk singer must employ innovation to stretch her genre in interesting enough ways to occupy a listener for 45 minutes, but diversity is not always a virtue. Much of the record is a tour-de-force of rhythm, instrumentation and popular harmony, as witnessed by the excellent title track and the Beirut-esque "Sister". Loizeau's voice carries well and grows warmer with every listen. But too many of these sixteen songs conform to exactly what you'd expect from a 21st century chanteuse, leaving you only half a record to enjoy over petit-dejeuner.

Amber Scott

UK Festival Awards

2009-10-13T13:24:00.000+01:00

In association with Epigram, the UK Festival Awards 2009 is offering the chance to win VIP tickets to all of this year's winning festivals. Simply vote below to be in with a chance to win.

The Drums - Summertime! [Moshi Moshi]

2009-10-04T18:47:00.000+01:00

As the nights set in ever earlier, it’s a strange time for NYC surf-rockers The Drums to unleash their debut EP on British shores. However, in terms of sunny enthusiasm and proudly worn West Coast inﬂuences, The Drums endear themselves, with the boyishly simple refrain of ‘Let’s Go Surﬁng’ accompanying buzz-saw guitars and Peter, Bjorn and John-esque whistling to make a charming 1950s pop gem. It’s this retro formula that The Drums frequently return to, with nods to ‘80s shoegaze on the eerie ballad ‘Down By The Water’. As beautiful and heart-wrenching as its reverberating calls of devotion are, these moments are all too rare on a record that feels a little hackneyed at times. Of course, borrowing from yesteryear is an oft-used trick, but on Summertime!, The Drums err on the kitsch side of things.

Tim Wong

Califone - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers [Dead Oceans]

2009-10-04T18:44:00.000+01:00

Much like Howe Gelb and Sufjan Stevens, Califone’s sixth album accompanies an eponymous feature ﬁlm (out 2010), a tale of a woman living in a house full of ghosts who begin to destroy her life. But the interchanging ectoplasm fuzz and poltergeist grind that entrap Tim Rutili’s mournful husk along with the record’s unusual progression from jarring, dissonant percussion to almost reluctantly fecund Americana translate the notion of feeling ill at ease in familiar territory stunningly; not least on the hummingbird wing fragile ‘1928’, melancholy to the point of being lyrically disoriented, and the memory sullied “white dress” of ‘Evidence’. Although its initial disinclination to engage may deter those unfamiliar with Califone, for those accustomed, All My Friends… represents the apotheosis of their work.

Laura Snapes

Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong [In The Red]

2009-10-04T18:39:00.000+01:00

Fence-sitters everywhere beware, because Vivian Girls are back. If the Brooklyn trio’s self-titled debut album of last year divided opinion, then follow-up effort Everything Goes Wrong fosters the same love and hate divide all over again. Indeed, the lack of sonic progression on this record just leaves the same question as before – are Vivian Girls exciting lo-ﬁ heroes, or simply untalented chancers undeserving of your attention? The arresting drone-assault of opener ‘Walking Alone At Night’ lends weight to the latter argument, before the bubblegum sweet ‘Can’t Get Over You’ charms all over again, only for the Jesus & Mary Chain rip-off ‘Tension’ to disappoint further. Hate might be too strong for a band as innocent looking as Vivian Girls, but as the squalling feedback and off-key vocals fade, you might decide they’re not so loveable either.

Timothy Nicholas

Nancy Elizabeth - Wrought Iron [Leaf]

2009-10-04T18:21:00.001+01:00

Nancy Elizabeth’s second album with the Leaf label achieves a sense of endless space and stillness that makes your surroundings disappear. From Greater Manchester, Nancy Elizabeth temporarily escaped to Aragon to write in solitude. The organic hand clapping in ‘Lay Low’ and vocal layering in ‘Feet of Courage’ is redolent of Steve Reich’s minimalist tendencies, and adds edge to earthy meditation. The piano’s melancholy chords whisper underneath Nancy Elizabeth’s outpourings of emotion, with lyrics such as “don’t run away, please don’t follow” trembling like vulnerable apologies. ‘Canopy’ feels as if you’ve returned to the elements, as glistening cymbal taps brush the skin like long grasses. Wrought Iron soothes as the warmth of Nancy Elizabeth’s voice sails through your ears and you drift on this ethereal river of sound.

Emma Wood

Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport [ATP]

2009-10-04T18:13:00.000+01:00

Bristolians Fuck Buttons arrive with a weight of expectation after the critically acclaimed Street Horrrsing. Despite dividing opinion on quite how groundbreaking they really were, the foundations were laid for a promising forage leftﬁeld. disappointingly, it seems little progress has been made in the interim between albums.

‘Surf Solar’ starts promisingly with Zomby style 8 bit bleeps and rhythmic ticks cribbed from Black Dice, but soon devolves into a by numbers rehash of their previous output; a theme with disappointingly few reprieves. ‘Space Mountain’ rides a gnarly rollercoaster rhythm but ducks out of meeting its full potential by regressing into an endlessly looping post rock refrain, never really justifying its near nine minute length. Elsewhere ‘Phantom Limb’ is a pointless retread of sonic territory This Heat pitched 31 years previously with ‘24 Track Loop’.

Despite Fuck Buttons’ drone being drawn back in favour of danceability, they’re still yet to write a piece of music evocative of anything but “urgency”. Combined with their inability to structure tracks in any way besides an unclimaxing slow rise in intensity you begin to get the feeling that each track is a reprise of the last.

Despite this, with Andrew Weatherill on production duties Tarot Sport doessound gorgeous from top to bottom. Even where ideas start to wane, synths positively shimmer and the whole album is bolstered with ear pleasing levels of bass. The combination of drawn out, high pitched synths and a new danceable slant does sometimes evoke the horror of some Mogwai ﬂavoured Swedish House Maﬁa, but Weatherill is almost certainly Tarot Sport’s saving grace.

With hindsight, any dismissal of debut Street Horrrsing was because they never lived up to the image of paradigm smashers forced upon them, which now seems besides the point. The fact that their follow-up is equally unfuturistic isn’t the problem. Even removing that burden from them it’s apparent they’re still struggling to move past the first ideas that worked for them; even the greatest track in the world will feel tired in its 10th permutation.

Simon Docherty

Less tribal, more experimental

2009-09-27T19:02:00.001+01:00

As NME's first female editor, Krissi Murison explains how we're going to fall back in love with the magazine to Laura Snapes.

“Someone please fire me if I ever so much as joke about a women in rock feature.”

“It's clear that a dramatic adjustment to rock criticism's one-sided gender power-balance is currently underway,” wrote tenebrous critic Maggoty Lamb in the Guardian this August as Kerrang! magazine appointed Nichola Browne as their second ever female editor, and Krissi Murison became NME’s first. Hearty congratulations to Browne and Murison are certainly in order, but perhaps less so to Lamb for his inversely sexist assertion that their respective appointments represent a paradigm shift for female music journalists. He wasn’t the only one at it – amongst others, former NME scribe Lucy O’Brien’s article about the change of hands at NME was featured in G2’s Women section rather than Music.

“The most interesting story about my appointment is that there is no story,” says Murison. “Obviously that angle was lost on the newspaper editors, so in the week my job was announced, we had lots of people speculating about my so-called triumph over adversity, which was a bit patronising to say the least. I don’t want to be dismissive of anyone’s negative experiences in the music industry, but I can only speak for myself. Seven years ago I was a student at Bristol and interning at NME, now I’m going back as editor – if there is still a glass ceiling, I haven’t hit it yet.”

That’s putting it modestly. Growing up in Yateley, a small town between Reading and Guildford, Murison graduated from Bristol with a degree in English in 2003, working as Epigram’s deputy music editor in her second year, and the main music ed in her third. She interned at NME for a week whilst still a student, wrote freelance live reviews for the magazine throughout her final year, and became deputy editor within three years of leaving university before crossing the Atlantic to become Nylon’s music director. Trying to name highlights from the period must surely be a difficult task?

“Being able to live in New York for the best part of six months has been incredible. Before that, I’d say my final project at NME before I left, which was organizing the NME Awards 2009. Sitting there on the night with Blur, Grace Jones, The Cure and Tim Burton altogether in one room was really special. If only Jay-Z had come, it would have probably been the greatest night of my life.” Not bad going for someone who started out writing about music because she was “too musically inept to play in a band.” Or for a mere woman…

But given NME’s recent slippery foothold on the magazine market (figures published in February showed circulation to be down by 24.3%) and the wealth of snide message board commenters and industry types alike who perceive a lack of focus and abundance of hype within the magazine’s pages, there’ll be no time to pay attention to any supposed great glass elevator going off trajectory.

“All I can do is put out the best music magazine possible and let [the naysayers] make of it what they will,” she says on attempting to win over detractors. “There have always been a lot of bloody-minded indie snobs out there desperate for NME to fail regardless of what it does – sometimes I think you just have to cut your losses and embrace the fact that you’ve both moved on. Plus, it’s also a bit of a compliment that you can still make them so worked up and passionate about something they’re so at pains to tell you they don’t care about anymore!”

Conor McNicholas edited NME from 2002 until August 2009, when he left to edit the BBC’s Top Gear publication. He fell prey to criticism for his steering the magazine into the stolid territory of the so-called ‘New Rock Revolution’, focusing on establishing a cross platform media brand rather than on content, and, amongst other things, describing Beth Ditto’s position at the top of the magazine’s Cool List in 2006 as “living proof that you can still rock a crowd whilst wearing stilettos.”

On the gender as journalism debate, Murison quips, “Someone please fire me if I ever so much as joke about a woman in rock feature,” but she otherwise defends her erstwhile boss with sincerity, whilst hinting somewhat poetically at the changes she sees as necessary. As to how her stint in the American publishing industry as Nylon’s music director will influence her position as NME’s editor, she’s respectfully opinionated. “It was great to go away and get some perspective. I had a copy of NME airmailed over every week, and it was really interesting to look at it from afar and realise what was working and what wasn’t. It’s true what they say about woods and trees sometimes.

“I’m pleased to report that in the six months I’ve been away there are already loads of really sharp new writers coming through [in NME]. I want to make sure they have the room to be as brilliant and opinionated as possible. There needs to be much more debate and outrageousness.”

She gives a firm, “You’ll have to wait and see!” when asked what her exact designs for NME might be (though with it being a weekly paper, they won’t all happen immediately), but it’s not hard to spot a pattern in the broader opinions that she voices on the magazine’s content. A frequently read criticism of the magazine in its past incarnation is of its apparent reluctance to focus on the job in hand; that of new music, instead wallowing in the uninspiringly trite doldrums of ladrock, and it does seem a hard one to defend – Kings of Leon and The Killers have each adorned the cover three times this year, and Kasabian twice.

“NME has a strong history of covering lots of different genres. It was one of the first places in the world to champion hip-hop in the 80s and the rise of dance music in the 90s. Yes, it’s true that it’s been in the indie rock ghetto for a good few years – and understandably so.” Perhaps revealing where her tastes lie, she continues, “After all, all the most exciting new music has, until recently, been coming from there. However, NME has always operated at the cutting edge of wherever the music scene is, and as artists and bands become less tribal and more experimental, so must it.”

Her clear resolve is refreshing to hear. In print, Murison’s never one to mince her words, happily biting the hands that many incorrectly believe feed the music press by pointing out the laughable content of po-faced goth lite posterboys White Lies’ lyrics and daring to question the hero worship at the totem of Animal Collective. She comes across as witty without descending into wannabe Vice snark, straight to the point, and most importantly, genuinely knowledgeable and in love with her subject, not just its circulation potential. There’s little reason to believe that she’ll lessen the dint of her honesty as editor.

“The reason I got the job was because the publishing directors were very excited about my ideas and vision for NME. They want me to make changes and have lots of fun with it. Obviously if I suddenly decide to turn it into a gardening monthly or start spending tens of thousands of pounds on elaborate photoshoots in Dubai each week they might change their minds and have a quiet word in my ear…but for now I have complete control.”

It’s a position that many would kill to be in – the chance to influence the music taste of a young generation – after all, that’s the magazine’s biggest audience at present – but although Murison credits her early years at the paper with introducing her to being “crammed into toilet-sized venues watching brand new bands called things like Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party and The Killers,” she flinches at the notion of NME acting as a guidance counselor to new ears. “Oh god, I think it would be awful. Though that’s not to say that NME isn’t going to tell you about a load of great stuff you don’t yet know about.

“Honestly, I don’t want to aim the magazine at anyone other than me and my friends. That’s not supposed to sound exclusive or cliquey, but I just think that when you start writing for an imaginary audience other than yourself, you run the risk of being patronizing to your reader, or coming off as out of your depth. My friends are all smart, passionate music fans – if there’s stuff in there that they find interesting and exciting then I’m doing the job right.”

Krissi on…
Blogs invalidating the work of the critic: I actually think blogs have made the job of music critic even more relevant. There are so many confusing and conflicting opinions out there that everyone could do with a trusted voice cutting through the white noise.

Disastrous occurrences at Epigram: The music editor before me accidentally broke the embargo on writing about ‘Kid A’, which meant we ended up running the worldwide exclusive review. In reality, it was a complete coup which should have seen them lauded for their brazen journalism, but it didn’t seem quite the same when EMI refused to send them any more records that year.

Student journalism: Epigram’s an amazing learning curve for any journalist. You’re given complete control over what goes on the pages, without any formal training for the most part. Obviously this means you make loads of silly mistakes – like libelling the union president, or having the printers refuse to go to work because you’ve used the word “cunt” in a headline, or receiving death threats from Palestinian groups after inadvertenty running a highly-politicised piece of Israeli propoganda (not all of these were the responsibility of the music section, I’d like to make clear). On the plus side, you don’t make those mistakes again and end up learning things that it would take years to if you joined a national paper and worked your way up.

What she’s listening to at the moment: I’ve been living in New York for the past 5 months so a lot of the bands I’ve been seeing have been American. A few favourites are: Crocodiles, The Phenomenal Handclap Band, Jeff The Brotherhood and So So Glos. The xx came over from London to play a few shows in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago and they were incredible. I’m also looking forward to getting the new album by The Very Best.

The qualities she looks for in new writers: Being able to string a sentence together is a good start (it would scare you how many published writers I’ve come across who still struggle with this). At NME, most new writers come through writing about new bands in their area, so a good knowledge of (and enthusiasm about) your local scene is always really useful. Also pitch as many ideas as you can. If you want to really stand out though, you need to have a fresh voice and perspective – avoid clichés to try and find something new and interesting in your subject that hasn’t been written about before.

The main pitfalls of student music journalism: Thinking big words will mask the fact that you have nothing new or interesting to say. If it’s hard work writing it, imagine how hard it is going to be reading it.

Laura Snapes

Urban regeneration, Sufjan style

2009-09-27T19:02:00.000+01:00

Sufjan Stevens tells Laura Snapes how one of New York’s many infamous bridges inspired his most ambitious project to date.

“I drove to New York in a van, with my friend, I don’t mind, I don’t mind,” sang Sufjan Stevens on ‘Chicago’. “I was in love with the place, in my mind, in my mind.” It’s an easy sentiment to grasp for those of us who have only experienced New York as the homey cupid of Nora Ephron’s films or Woody Allen’s nonchalant show-stealer, and the mildest lyrical evidence of Stevens’ meticulous obsession with psychogeography. Somewhat infamous for what’s become the ‘Chinese Democracy’ of the indie pop world, around the releases of ‘Michigan’ and ‘Illinois’ he announced that he’d be embarking on a project to chronicle the lore of all 50 American states. The project appears to be on an unofficial hiatus (as much as a potentially tongue-in-cheek concept can be seen as fitting a definite schedule), but his interest in the minutiae of human relationships to places is alive in ‘The BQE’.

A seven movement, predominantly classical yet eccentric dissection of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, Stevens’ typically blustering and intensely detailed titles have been replaced by quasi-theoretical terms like ‘Isorhythmic Nightdance with Interchanges’ and ‘Liner Tableau With Intersecting Surprise’, but the project is by no means a by numbers approximation of his previous work. Amidst ‘Fantasia’-like bursts of barely containable flute and skittering belches of ‘Enjoy Your Rabbit’ era electronica sits a composition that peals through the colour spectrum with the adult naivety of Wes Anderson curating a particularly fanciful coronation. What with a comic book detailing the adventures of the “Hooper Heroes” (a trio of extra-terrestrial superhero sisters, naturally) and a Viewmaster reel accompanying the release, its cinematic vibrancy makes it hard to fathom Stevens’ motivation to accept the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s invitation to compose a piece for the dull weather-coloured concrete slump, a film of which will accompany the release. Only the introduction, ‘Prelude on the Esplanade’, echoes the chaotic drone of the road.

Built between 1939 and 1964, the BQE was part of the manifestation of planner Robert Moses’ governmentally enabled vision of “lungs for the city”; the opportunity to equip New York with the roads to facilitate the notion born in the 1920s of driving as a leisurely pursuit rather than a necessity. However, his decadently utopian vision has been blamed for the ghettoization of New York’s outer boroughs. Biographer Robert Caro implied that Moses was racist, building bridges too low for public transport buses to drive under, thus excluding the poorer communities who couldn’t afford cars from travelling to the pleasure parks and beaches of NY’s surrounding islands. The 12.7 mile stretch of road is plagued with fatal accidents arising from its confusing entrances and exits, and is widely considered an eyesore – each year sees several plans to cover parts of it over.

“The BQE is a physical, literal impediment, in actual concrete terms, and a terrifying obstacle in psychological terms,” Stevens told Epigram. “One must walk around, below, above it. There is no give and take with these mammoth urban roadways that interrupt our ordinary lives in the city. Such a mess it’s created of multiple neighbourhoods: Carrol Gardens, Redhook, Williamsburg, Astoria.”

The beauty of Stevens’ perfectionist composition is quite at odds with the construction of the concrete nightmare, mirroring little in circumstance other than meeting their respective creators’ grandiose ends and coming to fruition in the wake of an economic downturn. Though neither of these aspects seem particularly consequential to Stevens’ work. Instead, ‘The BQE’ seems to share certain artful genes with Steve Reich’s ‘Different Trains’ piece. The Kronos Quartet commissioned Reich in 1988, and the resulting composition explored instruments performing the canonical repetition of human voices (a technique which surely prefigured Charles Spearin’s ‘Happiness Project’ and features instrumentally in ‘The BQE’) including Holocaust survivors ruminating on the single journeys millions of Jews were forced to take to Auschwitz.

“I travelled back and forth between New York and Los Angeles from 1939 – 1942 accompanied by my governess,” Reich once explained. “Whilst these trips were exciting and romantic at the time, I now look back and think that, if I had been in Europe during this period, as a Jew I would have had to ride very different trains.”

That’s absolutely not to say that Sufjan’s well-documented Christianity could have had the possibility to negatively impact on his life in the same way – to suggest so would be an insult to the memories of the millions of Jewish lives lost, and to imply prejudice against his faith. Rather, the comparison questions whether he accepted the invitation to compose ‘The BQE’ – which encompasses a number of jazz influences – as a comment on the racial divide that the road originally, and by all accounts intentionally, provoked?

“A road doesn’t compete, symbolically, with the Holocaust,” he says. “Of course this project should not be measured on those terms. It’s not genocide. It’s not life or death here [although the road is a frequent site of fatalities]. But road building in the modern tradition (landscaping nature with highways, etc.) is most certainly an assault on humanity. We’ve destroyed the natural sequence of events with our love of the automobile.”

Stevens has a history of making the extraordinarily ugly into a beautiful artefact – take ‘John Wayne Gacy, Jr.’ from ‘Illinois’, the tale of a serial child molester and murderer made ever more devastating by his faintly trembling half whisper – and complex instrumentation and theories aside, the allegories he uses to describe his relationship with the bridge suggest that the same simple and unerring faith in beauty lives on in ‘The BQE’.

“I no longer see this road as a means of funneling traffic. I tried to make sense of it, but it's only grown larger, taking the shape of Ahab's whale; I've been devoured by it. I reside in bowels holding fast to the memory of Jonah. “

Laura Snapes

Breaking free of the herd

2009-09-27T19:01:00.000+01:00

Two of British electronic music’s most exciting new proponents talk to Matt Grimble aboard the Thekla

With as much discerning them as unifying them, Gold Panda's mesmeric, sample-based performances are a spectral chasm away from Three Trapped Tigers' hyper-virtuosic, brash takes on precipitous electronica, but there's a warm sense of fondness between the two entities who are united in their failure to correspond to what have become the predictable norms of the artform.

Unlike the UK's more esoteric electronic artists, Derwin Panda is a thoroughly affable chap, and atop Old Profanity's bow he gladly discusses skinny-dipping and life in Japan over a steaming cuppa. Being fairly new to the stage, he's clearly still finding his (sea)legs.

“I find it really uncomfortable actually, getting up on stage and performing, and I don't really know what to do because it's essentially bedroom electronica. If you just take your laptop on stage, people are like 'huh, he's just checking his emails!'”

However, his live performance is far from disengaged. Crouched over a spaghettied network of samplers, delay pedals and effects units, he proceeds to deliver an hypnotic performance, building each track from a barrage of pad strokes, the promise of his trademark drum-thump ever-looming, elevating the boat skywards each time the songs find their equilibrium, soon to be ripped apart into a cloud of delays.

At the heart of the technical composition process, Derwin assumes a synaesthetic, borderline-spiritual approach to his creations.

“I quite like photos with no-one in, where it's just a building or an empty scene. I guess that's how I like to think of my music – as a picture maybe, or a colour. I don't really make tracks that are black, which I'd love to make, but they always come out a bit happy. I think for the new stuff I'd really like to get a juxtaposition of melancholy darkness, with these little bits of hope, which get taken away again - a bit like life, really..."

His observations appear despondent on paper, but they are delivered in a cheery manner, and he is clearly at ease with his domestic climate.

“Being brought up in England, I'm cool with the grey skies and the rain and the wind, and I enjoy that more for some reason than the sun; my tracks are usually made in the rain. There's something inside that I feel when it's grey and overcast. I usually have a lot of ideas and, as autumn comes, things start to come together.”

In spite of the bleak setting for the conception of his tracks, they all possess a quasi tropical cheer that exudes positivity, setting him apart sonically and socially from his peers, particularly the unrelentingly harsh sounds cultivated around Bristol.

“I don't really know any dubstep guys, and I don't know if we'd necessarily get on - It's quite closed really. I don't mind being on the outside of it. I've never fitted into anything really so I'd be quite happy just to be an outsider; a loner, doing whatever I do.”

And whatever it is he does seems to have been working out. Appearing as if from nowhere, he has been commissioned to remix tracks by Bloc Party, Telepathé and Little Boots on the strength of a few tracks posted on his MySpace profile. His recent EPs 'Miyamae' (named after a province in Japan he stayed with a friend “because it sounds like a shit version of Miami”) and 'Quitter's Raga', both released on the revered Various Production label, have garnered him lavish praise on Pitchfork and a spot on this Drowned-In-Sound-curated DIScover tour. Unsurprisingly, he's still self-deprecating about his early success.

“Blogs have been great. Everyone's been great, really - I haven't really had any bad press... I've had people hating it, but if I made music for everyone, it'd be shit. Or shitter.”

Later that night, Mr Panda's tabletop array of LCDs is swiftly replaced by a landscape of keys and knobs and Andy Betts' unmistakably analogue drums. The sheer amount of kit on stage is explained succinctly by unassuming synth-pianist and melodic prime-mover Tom:

“One of the absolute founding credos of this band is no backing tracks.”

Their line-up is completed by Matt, who alternates between a comparatively modest synthesizer stack and his ultra-effected guitar, which he plays with understated military precision.

Decked out in cargo shorts, jeans and cheap t-shirts, this is clearly not a band concerned with mirroring its ultra-hip Brooklyn (“and Norwegian”) sonic neighbours. When asked if they see themselves as belonging to a scene, Tom is quick to respond.

“We're not growing out of a scene because none of us are scenesters. We're all just geeky musicians who have actually spent a lot of time working on music, rather than worrying about the competition, as it were. Like you say, we've kinda come out of nowhere – I think that's absolutely correct. We all have a background in a myriad of different genres and styles.”

They also display a writing process which belies the coherence in their songs so inevident in many of the disposable math rock bands of their cohort.

“I think a lot of music in this genre is jammed with a tendency towards long-windedness, and I think that's an inherent problem with jamming. Normally, I have an idea, then I'll bring it to these guys who basically rip it apart and input a whole lot of their own stuff. Sometimes Matt or Betts will program drum beats for Betts to learn, so that he's not tied to what his limbs want him to do.

"It's weird, journalists seem to have a really high opinion of the British experimental scene, and I've seen a lot of bands who are prepared to think outside the box, and are really pushing it, but I haven't seen that many who are really nailing it, to be honest. So I'd like to know these bands who everyone is associating themselves with – I'd like to know who they're talking about and why they think they're good.”

Their travelling companion has clearly had no problems winning them over, however.

“I didn't really know about him before this tour,” Matt says of Mr. Panda, “and he's only really just emerged this summer, but we've got on really well with him; he's a really safe guy and I really like his music.”

Andy agrees: “He gets a really nice organic feel from his electronics. He just plays a couple of samplers, or whatever, but puts a great real-time spin on it."

“I'd only heard the one song before we came on tour, and I was wondering if he'd be really banging.” adds Tom “I thought it would be really funny to see how we'd cope going on after that, but actually it's just properly chilled-out electronica, which is my preferred type of that music. So it's worked out really well.”

As with every remotely challenging outfit, the music press has been clamouring to pigeonhole their sound. Andy points out that this is inescapably territorial.

“When I say I'm in an instrumental band that's slightly experimental, people go 'oh, that must sound like Battles!'”

“I don't think this band sounds anything like Battles” adds Tom “I think we're closer to U2 than Battles. That's so obviously the one-liner that's gonna get quoted!”

“It's easy to get misquoted.” Matt recounts “We recently did an hour long interview, chatted about everything, and the headline that came up was a joke that we'd said: “experimental jazz musicians playing rock to get laid...”

With two entities delivering such different brands of electronica, the DiScover tour could easily have come off as jarring and incoherent, were the featured artists less grounded in their musical vision and more inclined to posturing. Luckily for the under capacity crowd, tonight's line-up was one of uncontrived musical passion and sonic revelation.

Matt Grimble

Photography by Annie Lange - http://riskandconsequence.blogspot.com

Why? - Eskimo Snow [Anticon]

2009-09-27T19:00:00.001+01:00

The bromantic sing-alongs that occurred as a result of 2008's 'Alopecia' might be the closest Yoni Wolf's brutally honest and self-analytical poetry will ever get to having a place in a crowd. However, you can guarantee every single word he's penned since his lo-fi forays into rap has been memorised, blogged about and scrawled onto countless post-it notes to coat bedroom walls. Lines like "Even though I haven't seen you in years, yours is a funeral I'd fly to from anywhere" demand to be taken personally.

Whilst previous releases might have owed more to Pavement than they did to MF DOOM, it's undeniable that there was a rapper at the helm. The movement away from abstract hip hop and towards what the band themselves call "song-songs" on this record shouldn't mislead you into thinking it's any easier to listen to though. If anything, the subject matter here makes this Why?'s toughest record yet.

Those who have spent long nights trying to pick apart Why?'s cryptic lyrics in an attempt to get closer to Wolf can rejoice, as this record is the aural equivalent of his feelings on a platter. The middle section of 'Into the Shadows of My Embrace', which flows like Dylan on 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll', acts as a better synopsis for Eskimo Snow than any words could. The sunny organs, playful bassline and glockenspiel arpeggios drop out, allowing for the song to build up to new heights with the help of some snare rolls, climaxing as Wolf yells, "And I know saying all this in public should make me feel funny / But you gotta yell something out you'd never tell nobody."

It's clear that whilst the messages might be more obvious, no poetic license has been sacrificed. Wolf addresses his impending loneliness by contemplating the fate of his "unused seed" on 'Against Me' and his lack of worth by sensationalising his death on 'Berkeley by Hearseback' - "Lay me down in a hearseback / It's where my new best look is at." If you're looking for new ways to define your every fear; look no further. Whilst this record may be bleak, it doesn't serve to amplify self-pity, but rather as a place to seek solace in.

Leah Pritchard

Goan fish curry and Nordic free jazz

2009-09-27T19:00:00.000+01:00

Among the fields of Barley wannabes, Epigram separates the wheat from the chaff at the pick of Europe's finest festivals.

Hudson Mohawke, Pukkelpop: While numerous post-Dilla, hip hop maestros merely court wonkiness with their skittery, unquantised beats, HudMo pushes 4/4 to the absolute limits of danceability with his. And bizarrely, almost mystically, his tracks make you want to move in ways other beatmakers can only dream of. A ﬂawless set of rerubbed old classics (plus new cuts from forthcoming Warp LP ‘Butter’) is anchored with ear rupturing levels of bass and tracks like ‘Polkadot Blues’, ‘ZooOoooOom’ and ‘Oops’ are nigh on anthemic despite the distance from HudMo’s native Glasgow.

Simon Docherty

Zun Zun Egui, Green Man: After two days so bloated with sexless, wafty and dull acoustic acts that even your casual listener could have written a Dummies’ Guide to Folk Clichés, Bristolian Zun Zun Egui’s polyrhythmic yelpings and tribal thrust practically constitute a carnal pleasure. “We’ve noticed that to play Green Man, you’ve got to have an animal in your band name,” says frontman Kushal. “So for this weekend, we’ve renamed ourselves Sexy Worm.” Early Sunday should be far too tender for such raucous Magic Band by way of the Amazon squirming, but their howling and convulsing in fanciful tongues would make for a welcome bedfellow any morning.

Agnes Ball

Fever Ray, Lowlands: Karin Dreijer Andersson took to the largest of the dance stages at Lowlands late on Saturday night to promote the music of her latest musical project, Fever Ray. Opening with ‘When I Grow Up’, her distinctive singing voice cut through the hypnotic music perfectly, and the masks worn by the band, along with the green lasers and highly decorated stage full of lampshades, made for an otherworldly atmosphere and a transcendent festival experience.

Tom Holcroft

The Thing, Field Day: With such an inconspicuous moniker, attendance is surely bolstered by the sudden onset of inclement weather outside. Three Nord-Swedish crew-cut bandits take to the stage and from the very ﬁrst war cry it is clear that they will not be gracing a Sunday supplement easy-listening compilation any time soon. With an unrivalled level of musicianship, they proceed to deliver a relentless free-form assault of barking drums, skronking and wailing, baritone sax and belligerent upright bass. All this with an energy physically unfeasible for their stark formation, and a feel looser than a euphemism beyond inappropriate for utterance at a family gathering.

Matt Grimble

Mumford & Sons, Blissﬁelds: The intimate, garden party feel of Blissﬁelds is the perfect ampliﬁcation of Mumford & Sons’ intrinsic warmth and ramshackle communal bent. Refreshingly creative, Mumford and Sons captivate with the country-tinged by way of the Thames charm that weaves through their set. Four part harmonies complement an unlikely array of instruments that switch from being beautifully haunting to an uplifting congregational heft at a moment’s notice, lead by frontman Marcus Johnstone’s distinctive, rough voice. It’s hard to imagine anyone walking away unmoved.

Paul Berentzen

Delphic, Reading:

Being compared to New Order seems to be the crowning glory that many bands live for these days. The recent upsurge in electronic music has brought many comparisons to the late, great bands of the 1980s, but Delphic might just have earned it. Their impeccable mixture of impassioned vocals, swirling synths and bass lines Peter Hook would be proud of, see them create songs which pull you in right from the start and build to a frenzied climax.

Alex Groves

And the worst...

Marina and the Diamonds, Camp Bestival: Petronella and the Unicorns. Cordelia and the Antlers. Olivia and the Crystals. Middle Class English Girl and the Lack of Imagination. Actually, that last one sounds more like a Harry Potter book, and aptly so seeing as Ms Diamands sounds like something foul cooked up in a record label potions class. If Disney remade The Breakfast Club to the tune of Stacey Q’s nightmares and stage school glazed Kenny Ortega dance moves, you might be halfway to conceiving the excruciating triteness of Marina’s offerings.

Susana Pearl

Fresh Legs, Bestival: Meet Fresh Legs – a South Coast group caught so far the wrong side of the line between trend-setting and trend-following that you feel embarrassed for them. Their upbeat punk- pop irritates in spades and pleases no one but the tone- deaf, as Mockney vocals and hopelessly uninspired hooks distill everything wrong with new British music. ‘Chess’ is a particular lowlight, with frontwoman Ella Sullivan’s incessant staccato squeals hitting the senses like blows to the skull.

Tim Wong