Young, Free, With Singles, Part # 2.



Manic Cough – Eggs & Chips (Purr)

Oh man, how could I possibly not love this? Sounding like the early Slits if they’d discovered a little bit of ‘60s basement funk instead of the reggae, Manic Cough dispatch the a-side here in about eighty seconds, letting us know their penchant for “eggs and chips and weetabix” early in the morning. “Fuck the euro, fuck the euro!” they inexplicably yell in the middle. The rather convoluted song-writing credits on the back name four different people, only one of whom is in the band, as contributing lyricists, making me think they perhaps gave a credit to everyone present at the breakfast meet-up where the song had its genesis, and threw in a passing euro-sceptic waiter for good measure. What larks! B-side ‘Get Some’ is even shorter and even better, a girl-punk twist party classic with massive bass-line, gang vocals and really well-developed melody, like Kenickie hitting the beach in a cadillac or something. I’ve never bought a record on Purr that’s been anything less than a bona fide winner, and this is no exception. MORE PLEASE!

http://www.myspace.com/maniccoughh
http://www.purr.org.uk

Dean McPhee / Chapters – split 7” (World In Winter)

Here’s an unexpected treat I found on my doorstep this week – seven inches of low-key psychedelic beauty from the appropriately named World in Winter label. I heard on the radio this morning that the temperature’s going to hit -7 in the Uk’s city centres tonight, and the radiator in my room’s not working too good, so this whole package suits the circumstances quite well, I feel. On side one, loop-happy guitarist Dean Mcphee gently entwines some deeply comforting, sorta-melodic Sitar-tinged guitar lines over a steady interstellar bass pulse, cocooned within a mist of dense analogue echo, tape delay and tremolo, recalling both Sandy Bull’s electronic excursions on his Valentines Day ’69 record, and Tom Carter’s more laidback work on recent Charalambides albums, but with an odd, inexplicably British flavour about it, a potentially perfect soundtrack to some hauntastic Sunday afternoon visit to some icy hilltop ruins. On the flip, Derbyshire trio Chapters continue in a broadly similar vein, looped phrases merging into crystalline echo-fog, a thick, enveloping sound and Eno-like attention to detail preventing it from ever sinking into sub-ambient drudgery or post-rock nowheresville. Like feeling reality return as you sit in the car and wait for the heater to kick in? A pretty great record anyway, bringing back happy memories of freezing & dreaming in my lonely garret to the sounds of Flying Saucer Attack’s ‘Mirror’ and the darker reaches of the Ochre records back catalogue…. so if that particular, indefinable strand of British soundscaping has ever been your cup of warm, warm tea, I’d deem this one well worth tracking down.

http://www.myspace.com/worldinwinte
http:// www.myspace.com/deanmcphee
http:// www.myspace.com/chapterswiw

Projekt A-Ko / Horowitz split 7” (Filthy Little Angels)

Projekt A-Ko, you’ll recall, are the band formed by three quarters of my teenage idols Urusei Yatsura after UY called it a day back in about 2001-ish. They’ve always kept a pretty low profile though, and to be honest I had no idea they were still in operation, so to find ‘em popping up on this split with popscene heroes Horowitz is a glorious and unexpected surprise. And I’m pleased to report that despite the apparent years of silence, they’re pretty much picking up right where they left off too, as their first tune here, ironically entitled ‘Nothing Works Twice’, kicks straight into a fuzzed up Slanted-era Pavement riff, working downbeat verses hinting at some kinda dystopian sci-fi scenario into a huge, rollicking pop chorus complete with all the ‘ba ba ba’s you could ask for. It’s all here; those sneery, transatlantic vocals that have apparently worked their way so thoroughly into my DNA over the years that I sing like that automatically, and plenty of that rampant, string-breaking guitar scuzz too. It’s a fucking winner, and reassures me I was no fool back when I was obsessively taping every repeat play of UY songs off Steve Lamacq when I should have been doing my homework. Their other song here, ‘Goodbye Sunlight’, is a touch more subdued, starting off with acoustic strumming, even more ‘ba ba ba’s, and some lovely female backing vox… presumably the work of previously silent bass player Elaine? It’s another good song anyway – great to have these guys back.

Horowitz’ two songs on the other side are entitled ‘Hug Target’ and ‘Sweetness I Could Die In Your Arms’, and your kneejerk reaction to those titles will likely mirror your reaction to the music. Predictably, I love it. As with all Horowitz stuff, it’s about the most perfectly realised homemade guitar pop imaginable, rejecting sadsack indie cliché in favour of compressed doses wideeyed, swooning, naïve love-joy, graced with the kind of melodies the skinny tie power-pop contingent would kill for. Like the sound of a geeky schoolboy gazing in wonder at the departing back of the girl who just kissed him for so long that he accidentally gets hit by a bus and floats off to a heaven where Dan Treacy joined Big Star and Boyracer rule supreme.

So, in conclusion, both sides of this record make my tummy feel funny and bring a tear to my eye, and you should get a copy! It’s limited to 200 though, and mine is number 186, so assuming Filthy Little Angels opened the box the right way around, you might have to get a move on.

http://www.myspace.com/projektako
http:// www.myspace.com/horowitzband
http://filthylittleangels.blogspot.com/

Used Kids 7” (Salinas Records)

Tons of good vibes exploding out of the debut(?) single from these funloving punkers, apparently based in Brooklyn, although they celebrate the Midwest in song and their label is based in Ferndale, MI. Anyway, the score is some distinctly un-Brooklynlike good, old fashioned six pack on the lawn pre-hardcore rock n’ roll, and that’s certainly no bad thing. Musically, things manage to be sorta simultaneously sloppy and tight, but happily rockin’ either way (think Replacements). A-side ‘Midwest Midsummer’ is an absolute BLAST anyway, a mighty, widescreen feel-good beast of Springsteen proportions on a Ramones budget, and near five minutes of it too, complete chorus repeats, ‘na na na na na, na na’s, solos and exhortations – I mean more than one - to “sing it!” and to “keep on rocking!”. Wowza! High fives all round! Fantastic stuff! The b-sides aren’t quite as good, and reveal the band’s primary weakness; namely, the vocals. Although the three fellas in the band take lead on one song each (“..and Kate screamed”), only the guy who sings the A side really seems to have a strong enough voice to get the point across, which is a shame cos the other songs are still pretty good, and have some great lyrics (as printed on the back); “Cupid’s landlord would keep your deposit / you would get the horns if you did this to Odin / it’s true you don’t need a licence to drive in Wisconsin / but you still gotta pay if you cause a wreck”…? Just tighten up the recording and playing a bit, tweak the vocals, and I’m with you guys.

Just checked the Used Kids myspace, on which they describe what they’re going for musically as follows:

“Like when it's midnight and you're at a dance party with your friends, maybe some enemies, and someone's been hijacking the stereo and playing shitty ironic indie dance music all night. Maybe you've just cracked open a can of Schlitz, or passed around a fifth of Evan Williams, but whatever you're doing, you're ready to really cut loose, and suddenly the Exploding Hearts are on the sound system and you're running around the place, knocking over chairs and preaching Gospel-style to all the clueless hipsters how you're a Pretender at the Game of Love. And as you rampage and thrash around the place, you feel once more what it was like when you heard the Ramones for the first time and there was a nuclear detonation in your brain. Or maybe the songs of the Used Kids recall for you how it felt that time when you and your roommate were driving straight from Seattle to Minneapolis, the tape deck broken, and as you searched at dawn through the toxic waste on the FM dial in the badlands of Montana, you heard the riff from Tom Petty's "Running Down A Dream" and you punched the ceiling of your car as you both sang along with every word.”

*blinks *
*reconsiders *

The Used Kids can be my friends forever. I’m sorry about the stuff I said about the vocals. I was wrong, and everyone should buy this record and give these guys money and/or beer. SING IT!

http://www.myspace.com/usedkidsny
http:// www.myspace.com/salinasrecords

POST-SCRIPT: The temperature didn't actually hit anything like -7 on the night I wrote that Dean McPhee/Chapters review, I think a young weatherman on Radio 4 just got overexcited. So I didn't freeze to death in the end, which was nice.

Labels: Chapters, Dean McPhee, Horowitz, Manic Cough, Projekt Ako, singles reviews, Used Kids