Yet More Singles...

Five more gangs of salty customers trying to make our hair stand on end.

Drunkdriver – Knife Day b/w January 2nd
(Fan Death)

Good grief, this is horrifying. Starting with a long drawn out scream, “Knife Day” launches into a pile of sloppy, violent, sociopathic hardcore being blasted out the other end of a wind tunnel and EQed to death, harsh frequencies pummelling like a wifebeater’s fat fists through the tape hiss. “January 2nd” meanwhile sounds like a giant pig monster just stumbled upon punk club and started fucking it with slow, grinding determination as the punks within scream in terror and confusion. I know it’s naïve of me to listen to a basement hardcore/noise record and think “gee, these guys are pissed off about something”, but gee, these guys are pissed off about something.

http://www.myspace.com/drunkdriverusa
http://www.myspace.com/fandeathrecords

Florida – Icarus b/w Once Yr In It (Shadowplay)

Spooky homemade mutant rock here from…. well, Brooklyn actually – fancy that. These guys have a pretty distinctive sound going on though, centred on ominous, slowed-down vocals combined with normal speed instruments and quite crisp recording, to eerie and dramatic effect. Really strong song-writing here too; ‘Icarus’ could almost be some bastardised Duran Duran/Depeche Mode hit, veering briefly toward a declamatory Sabbathian sing-song metal chant on the chorus, with backing that clanks and hisses more like some lost Pere Ubu-worshipping art-punk ensemble from the dawn of time. I know that doesn’t really make much sense as a description, but neither does trying to jam a band like this into any of my critical reference point boxes, so you’re just going to have to put up with it. On the other side, ‘Once Yr In It’ is a more strung out and distant affair, with slithering hand percussion and low acoustic strumming, like an admirable attempt to fuse the sound of this decade’s surplus of avant/creepcore ensembles with, like, y’know, a band that does songs, until a truly majestic lead guitar rises from the campfire halfway through to take us home. When I say ‘majestic’ of course, I also mean creepy. Everything on this record is creepy, and creepy is good. It’s all out-of-time, hard to nail down, like someone’s attempt to make a haunted band. Basically, if you like the wonderful vintage Halloween photo on the cover, you’ll probably like the music within. It’s an inspired image/sound combo.

http://www.myspace.com/plasticpalms

Girls of the Gravitron – Malthusian Love Song EP (Boom Chick Records)

Band from Memphis. Debut 7”. The song on the A-side immediately hits all the warning buttons, sounding on the surface like a hideous, don't-give-a-damn basement-fi fuck-around that makes me want to yell YOU GUYS ARE JUST SPOILING IT FOR THE REST OF US, and go and listen to something recorded with more than one microphone. It would have been unwise of me to do that though, as the two offerings on the B-side soothe and surprise in an extremely pleasant manner, causing me the return to the A with fresh ears. Recording is still needlessly muffled, over-compressed scuzz throughout, but there are some really beautiful, twisted tunes going on here, sung by a guy who sounds like a gently lethargic alien hillbilly and backed up by a rollicking good band mixing foot-tapping garage rock n’ roll with some lovely, light-of-touch psychedelic slide guitar moves zapping out of the top of the mix like shiny eagles, sounding for all the world like some previously unheard wonder-juice guzzling ’67 session excavated from the International Artists vault alongside all those 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola rarities. And you’d better believe that’s a recommendation. Third song ‘Violent Appetites’ gets a particular thumbs up from me. I wish the vocals weren’t so distorted, because I’d like to hear the lyrics that go with the oddball song titles, but that aside this is effortless freak-rock goodness, and well worth a listen.

http://www.myspace.com/girlsofthegravitron
http://www.myspace.com/boomchickrecords

Topaz Rags – Tarot Harem (Not Not Fun)

Yes, Tarot Harem. If that doesn’t give you a pointer re: where these guys are coming from, nothing will. As you might expect, this initially sounds like music to accompany somebody’s tiresome idea of a sinister, LSD-fuelled Mansonite occult happening. Apparently the first 78 copies came with a free tarot card taken from the Crowley deck. What larks! “Tarot Harem” mixes disembodied Pocahaunted style female moaning with clattering, vaguely free drumming and a hypnotic five note bass figure that’s really annoying me, because it sounds like a total rip from another piece of music that I know I know really well, but I just can’t place it.

(Oh yeah, I’ve got it now – it’s, er, the guitar bit that underpins “Your Cells Are In Motion” by Jackie O-Motherfucker? Clocking that and then actually bothering to write it down perhaps counts as the geekiest moment of my life thus far. I mean, I don’t even like Jackie O-Motherfucker, aside from that one song, that I used to listen to a lot on a mix CD. Christ.)

Anyway, the other song here, “Black Honey” (ooh, those titles), is effectively identical to “Tarot Harem”, but with the bass and drums hitting a different, ‘slowly trailing victim through the streets’ kinda groove, and the addition of sparse, creeping piano notes. As on Pocahaunted’s recent ‘Passage’ LP, (which I couldn’t really get into), the free-form vocals here are largely devoid of effects and allowed to roam free, rendering them deeply silly in places. I mean, it’s just a few steps away from throwing in some whistling wind and clanking chains from yr sound FX records really, isn’t it? Still, all adds to the atmosphere I guess. And, without wishing to sound like an old grump, it’s actually the straightforward instruments rather than the ghostly groanings that are doing the bulk of the work in Topaz Rags, and they’re doing it very effectively too, and with a lot more subtlety than you’d have reason to expect. Do I hear some ghosts of distant LA noir jazz creeping in around the edges….? Let’s hope they stay around the edges; that’s where they work best. Peer at Topaz Rags from the right angle and you might even find them soundtracking some Maya Deren instead of some Ted V. Mikels. Even within the mightily oversaturated realm of avant-freaky creepscapes, this stands out as a pretty decent and well thought out addition to the catalogue of such things. Nice work.

>http://www.myspace.com/topazrags
http://www.notnotfun.com/

Vermillion Sands – In The Wood (Fat Possum)

I’ve played this single many times of recent, and I can’t quite get an angle on it, although I think it is very, very good and unusual. Hailing from Italy, and winning points from the outset for the J.G. Ballard reference, Vermillion Sands are led by one Anna Barattin, who possesses a raspy, gutsy singing voice that’s faintly reminiscent of Drugstore’s Isabel Monteiro. Having said that, I just listened to some old Drugstore stuff to check, and actually there’s not THAT much similarity, but nonetheless, the comparison may serve to give you some idea of where Vermillion Sands are coming from, emotionally speaking. This 7” sees Barattin and her band bust through three wonderfully idiosyncratic, low-key garage-folk-punk tunes that combine a slightly eerie rural ambience with ramshackle, Basement Tapes good cheer and choruses slow n’ steady enough for you to sing along before you’ve even clocked the words. Powered along by clanging hollow-body guitars, rough fuzz riffs, tambourine and meaty Vox organ swirl, these are some really great songs that demand repeated listens, their exuberant three-sheets-to-the-wind execution belying some dark and foggy feelings buried beneath. “I always felt sick and sad and lonely,” Barattin sings on the chorus of ‘May’ as the band whoop it up behind her, “if only I could move from my bed”. In the wood indeed. Getting more compelling as it gets more familiar, this one’s a flat-out winner.

http://www.myspace.com/thevermillionsands
http://www.myspace.com/fatpossumrecords

Labels: Drunkdriver, Florida, Girls of the Gravitron, singles reviews, Topaz Rags, Vermillion Sands

New 8 Track: Clowns & Locusts

Yet another one I'm afraid; just another bunch of great songs - no theme, although you could probably sum it up as new weird garage vs. old weird garage. I'd also like to take the opportunity to congratulate The Fresh & Onlys on coming up with my favourite stupid/genius song of the year so far (although I'm not really sold on their output as a whole).

Clowns!



(Link.)

Labels: 8 Tracks, Clowns, mixtapes, The Fresh and Onlys

Um Tributo ao GBV!

This week, for reasons hazy at best, I found myself listening to a Guided By Voices tribute album put together by a bunch of unknown Brazilian bands.


The very existence of such a thing brings a tear to one’s heart and warms the cockles of your eyes, doesn’t it? Just to think that fifteen or twenty years ago, a bunch of scraggly lookin’ 30-something dudes in a nowheresville rustbelt town were getting together in a windowless basement to write and perform a seemingly endless series of weird rock n’ roll classics called things like “Jar of Cardinals” and “At Odds With Dr. Genesis”… and a decade or two later a whole community of kids on a whole other continent (well, kinda) who were probably in primary school when ‘Propeller’ came out, with English as a second language at best, are sufficiently inspired to collectively pay tribute to their efforts. That’s a pretty good measure of musical success for you, right there.

Of course, such is the power of Guided By Voices. My own GBV fandom has been growing steadily ever since Matthew of Fluxblog first introduced be to their stuff via the wonders of a 120 minute mixtape around the dawn of this decade, from initial 'hey, these guys are ok' interest to the point where it now borders on obsession. Just as British music fans of a certain age will never, ever be able to get enough of (or stop talking about) The Fall, instead I have GBV. Man, just don’t even get me started on them, if you value your wakefulness. I guess they’ll never be my #1 Official Favourite Band, so long as The Ramones and the Velvets exist, but given their voluminous output, I almost certainly listen to them more frequently than any other band; all the more so since the internet has allowed me to track down a whole secondary canon of rare EPs and odds & ends releases, Fading Captain side-projects, fan-curated rare tracks compilations and the like. According to iTunes, I know have 2.5GB of GBV/Robert Pollard related material stashed away, and I don’t even have any of those ‘Suitcase’ box sets yet. I’ve actually been thinking about putting together an all-GBV Mp3 player that I can carry around and just stick on ‘shuffle’ whenever I feel the need. I should be pitied, probably, but clearly I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think the band were consistently amazing, exhilarating, moving, funny, majestic, fascinating etc. etc. to an almost unprecedented degree.

And it’s always good to be reminded that I’m not the only one still in that frame of mind, even as Bob Pollard’s recent avalanches of disappointingly dreary new material are scarcely helping to win him any new admirers... so let’s get back to this Brazilian tribute album.

Look, here’s the back cover:


Amazing stuff.

As is inevitably the way with these things, the vast majority of the tracks are pretty underwhelming. Many of the bands represented sound like fuzz guitar/drum machine/4-track solo projects, and few of them add much to the GBV legacy, just running through basic chord n’ lyric arrangements with less gusto and conviction than the original recordings. Perhaps taking advantage of GBV’s rep as ‘godfathers of lo-fi’, some contributions sound hasty and tossed off to the point of embarrassment, with a first take, ‘reading lyrics off the screen’ quality to them; poor Grasiela Piasson in particular sounds like she’s being forced to get to the end of ‘Motor Away’ at gun point. Most of the tracks are pretty good natured and vaguely enjoyable though, and it’s nice just that this album exists.

And as is also inevitably the way with these things, when genius strikes, it strikes hard.

To wit:

Sabia Sensivel – June Salutes You

I’m also rather fond of Telerama’s version of ‘Game of Pricks’. It’s just real nice; reminds me a lot of The Breeders take on Shocker in Gloomtown. And is it just me, or does a female vocal put a nice twist on this weirdly universal anthem of open-heartedness vs. cynicism? Neat little melodic guitar break too.

Telerama - Game of Pricks

Of course, this album also allows us the fun of spending a few minutes going “Wot, no ‘Postal Blowfish’? No ‘Do the Earth’? No ‘Shocker in Gloomtown’? No ’14 Cheerleader Coldfront’?” etc. etc., but criticizing a GBV tribute album for not finding room for everyone’s fave songs is like criticizing a paperback movie guide for no including every single motion picture ever made.

Ok, one more: I like this version of “Unleashed! The Large Hearted Boy”. I dunno why really, it’s pretty much just a slightly less good version of the original, but it makes me think more bands should play this song. The way those wrecked guitars plunge in over the opening bassline in that completely dissonant yet completely awesome way: who wouldn’t want to hear a live band unexpectedly launch into that? It’s just ON.

Tape Rec – Unleashed! The Large-hearted Boy

Anybody want to start a Guided By Voices tribute band? Aptitude for transcribing chords and drinking beer an obvious advantage – give me a shout.

“Don’t Stop Now: Um Tributo ao GBV” can be downloaded for free from Transfusão Noise Records.

UPDATE:

The kids in Ireland are way ahead of us on this one:



http://www.myspace.com/voidedbyponces

Labels: album reviews, Guided By Voices, tribute albums

Summer Singles, part # 3

Sic Alps – L. Mansion (Slumberland)

It’s an odd one to get a handle on, this Sic Alps thing. I kinda like them, I think I’m probably gonna go and see them at their London gig. If I see a record by them, I’ll buy it. Their music’s likeable, varied, fuzzy, rocking, vaguely tuneful and kinda interesting, but… I dunno, I mean, I doubt even their most vocal supporters could legitimately claim they were *brilliant* or, y’know, singularly extraordinary. Even in their very best stuff, there’s a certain… haziness, maybe… that makes them the perfect target for any preordained opponent of the new lo-fi hierarchy to jump on and cry WHERE’S THE BEEF?

As I say, I like ‘em, and listening to them makes me feel good, but at the same time they don’t seem like a band who under sane circumstances would necessitate instantly sold out singles or furtive online bidding wars, any more so than any other duo of dudes you might find working out some tunes on Californian beachfront one Friday night. And this particular single, redolent of the kind of pleasantly slapdash meandering that leads responsible adults to start referring to songs as “jams”, will likely prove more flagrantly offensive than ever to those out there who’d demand that the incoming generation should be taking names and blowing minds as a matter of routine.

Not to me though. I kinda like it. The two numbers herein find the Alps at their most melodic and overtly sixties-styled, with acoustic guitar and everything on the A-side, while the B's a bit more of a 'Mellow Yellow' pre-glam stomper. The idea of Sic Alps being hippies has never really clicked with me before (more like NZ-via-Ohio outsider rock warriors, surely?), but this is basically some nice hippie music right here, stripped of all the bullshit that makes hippies and their music so ghastly. It’s a bit like something a couple of the guys from Moby Grape could have banged out after a few beers when their management wasn’t looking. Only it isn’t, at all. There’s something intangible about these songs – and not just the recording or the guitar tone – that defines them as ‘modern’. This is music that couldn’t have happened before ‘punk’ became codified in the late 70s, maybe even before, urgh, ‘indie rock’ became codified in the early ‘90s. But it’s still essentially dumb, happy shit to sit out on the porch with.

A band like Sic Alps also raises some interesting quality vs. quantity issues; granted, there are only two short-ish songs here, but the heart of the underground rock fan is still warmed by the implicit knowledge that a group like Sic Alps will always have LOADS of songs like these kicking around, and by its very nature this knowledge raises the level at which the band can be valued/enjoyed. If you were to record just the songs on this disc and present them to the music world like some sort of achievement, you’d be lucky to raise even the smallest of collective shrugs. Record about a hundred of the things though, of comparable or lesser quality, and a lifelong cult following will surely be yours. It’s a funny old game.

http://www.sicalps.com/listen.html
http://www.slumberlandrecords.com/

The Specific Heats – Back Through Thyme EP (Total Gaylord/Hugpatch)

The Specific Heats were ridiculously, almost unbelievably, good when I saw them play in Nottingham back in July – the sort of band I was worried I might have accidentally dreamed into existence with all my basest impulses. Picture if you will a dancing virtuoso loon of a guitarist leading proceedings with a lovely Mosrite cranked up via a Fuzzrite stompbox, a rack-mounted Fender reverb unit and various other noise-making goodies, whilst three unfeasibly beautiful young ladies provide furious backing on echoed, descending bass-lines, clattering garage-punk drums and swirling, baroque/prog-infused organ respectively, birthing a veritable riot of explosive, expansive psychedelic surf punk pop bliss. Good grief, what a band.

For all their magnificent potential though, it seems that The ‘Heats have had tougher luck than they perhaps deserve translating themselves to record. A second album apparently still lays some time in the distant future, and their merch guy warned me against seeking out their debut (highly unrepresentative of what they do now, I’m informed), leaving just this 33-playing EP as a stop-gap to bring back the happy memories.

And this is scarcely an accurate reflection of the band’s current line-up either it turns out, with production, song-writing and just about all the instrumentation being handled by guitarist/main guy Mat Patalano, with the rest of the live band only represented by Keira Flynn-Carson on drums. As such it’s a far more mannered and restrained affair than the live set, revealing a careful and perfectionist approach to recording, as Mat and Keira lay down a groovy ‘60s-focused sound that leans heavily on Zombies-esque baroque pop, some Stereolab/Monade style retro-futurist grooves, a bit of a surf twang, with a touch of Electric Prunes-ish studio-bound garage-psyche mayhem creeping around the edges. The result is a great listen, no doubt, inevitably recalling the work of Apples in Stereo’s Robert Schneider in both theory and practice, and imbued with the same irresistible positivity and pure love of sound too. All the same though, I can’t wait to hear what’ll happen when the brains and expertise behind this EP apply themselves to capturing the chaos and fury and wild ensemble playing of the group’s live show – I think it's gonna be pretty nifty.

Some killer live tracks / demos currently on their myspace though – check ‘em out!

http://www.myspace.com/thespecificheats
http://www.totalgaylordrecords.com/shop.htm

Top Ten – Girls Understand b/w Don’t Talk About Us (Classic Bar Music)

Classic bar music indeed! Keep me close to a bar for long enough, and I guarantee that before closing time this will be EXACTLY the kind of crap I’d want to hear, so let’s join Erin McDermott (ex-Bobbyteens, Trashwomen) as she and Top Ten bust through some cacophonous hard rock assaults on the world of power-pop, executed with all the nuance and restraint you’d expect. Only about two minutes per side here, but for some reason the pressing on this thing is pretty ppor, with thin sound, missing high end and a rhythm guitar track that sounds like an ape moaning along in time. I know that’s a weird thing to say, but seriously, you should hear it! The A-side has a good title and is pretty pacy, but a somewhat unmemorable tune, the B is a slightly unhinged bludgeoning of the Someloves classic. It’s ok, and kudos to them for covering such a great and relatively little-known tune, but it ain’t exactly too dynamic, y’know? I’m sure you could plot a graph pitting the potential enjoyability of this record against the number of cheap beers downed. Sounds like they’d had a few when they recorded it. I’m sober at the time of writing, so it could sound better.

http://www.myspace.com/topten
Classic Bar Music

Labels: Sic Alps, singles reviews, The Specific Heats, Top Ten

Summer Singles, part # 2

Mazes – Bowie Knives (Sex is Disgusting)

So it was essentially on the basis of mp3s of the songs from this 7” that I made my initial assessment of Mazes last month. To wit: “Guided By Voices and The Clean are the self-acknowledged chief reference points here, and whilst obviously Mazes aren’t remotely as revelatory as either of those groups, theirs is a straight up blend of roaring, rough-hewn subterranean power-pop that hits all the right buttons. At worst, file under “thoroughly satisfactory”, and at best, songs like "Bethesda" are f-ing superb; strong song-writing, goofy immediacy and a killer sound that recalls GBV’s ‘Propeller’”.

And all that still stands (hey, I don’t change my mind THAT quickly), but now that I’ve got these numbers on an actual disc (great cover art, and a really nice, good sounding pressing too – three cheers for Sex is Disgusting), I like ‘em even better. Mazes are just a really straightforward great band, making great songs that sound great, with (it seems) little in the way of ego, silliness or career ambitions getting in the way – they’re ditching the hassles and just getting down to it. The spirit of Greg’s basement circa 1993 lives on. ‘Bethesda’ really is a hit – the kind of spooky, self-explanatory, unbeatable singalong tune I wish I’d written; “There’s a witch in distance / and she knows what I know”. Sensational. So if like me you’re the sort of fool who’s prepared to regularly shell out £5 for four minutes of neatly packaged music, don’t let this one pass you by - it’s real nice. Limited to 250 apparently. Cor, you’d think they’d at least stretch to 500. Anyway, two thumbs up!

http://www.myspace.com/mazesmazesmazes
http://www.myspace.com/sexisdisgustingrecords

Miniswap – Whistler b/w Human Error (Cloudberry)

Miniswap is the band that the other three members of The Bats turn into when Robert Scott is off on his holidays, or serving time in The Clean, or whatever. So guitarist Kaye Woodward takes the lead vocal, song-writing duty is shared and the result is as gorgeous a pile of perfectly formed chiming kiwi guitar pop as you could hope for.

With Woodward’s softer tones, and some jovial recorder and whistling, things are sufficiently cutie to gain a release on Cloudberry (er… not that there’s anything wrong with that..), but the songs are also more upbeat and energetic than recent Bats material, with ‘Whistler’ in particular barrelling along like a lost Look Blue Go Purple song, carried forth by Woodward’s dense, shimmering rhythm guitar strummage as she seemingly takes on the role Scott plays in The Bats, rather than her usual quietly ferocious lead work. ‘Human Error’ meanwhile is more acoustic, but still catapulted forth by the band as Paul Kean’s muscular bass and the faintly Smiths-y melody take centre stage. A fine listen.

I really like the cover to this one too. Not that I’m some twee foot fetishist or anything, but it’s really pleasant to look upon… the Mazes one also. Heck, I even quite like the Mother of Tears one, and that's just plain ugly. I'm a pushover for covers.

http://www.myspace.com/miniswap
http://www.cloudberryrecords.com/

Mother of Tears – Little Ratty b/w In The Morning (Hozac)

Boy, this is sure not what I expected a band called ‘Mother of Tears’ to sound like. I wonder if they’re named after that notoriously awful Dario Argento movie? Whatever; just like that movie probably will when I get around to it, this hits my pleasure receptors with a dull thud, and life is alright. Well executed if ultimately undistinguished, it’s good natured, masculine ‘Punk Rock’ in a wouldbe sky-scraping, vaguely fist-pounding ‘anthems for barflys’ kinda vein. Close one eye and you could be listening to a demo of ‘Do The Collapse’ era GBV, but close the other and you could just as easily be hearing The Weirdos, or some other hardworking LA outfit on the cusp of that punk-becomes-new wave moment. The singers sounds a little like Gary Floyd of The Dicks in places, although a lot less OTT or distinctive. ‘Little Ratty’ goes on a bit too long, but has a great, dramatic ending with “are you ready to die??” yelled over a one note guitar crescendo. I think this band does drama pretty well actually; ‘In The Morning’ has a far more blatant New Wave thing going on, almost a vampy LA goth kinda vibe if it wasn’t simultaneously so macho – it’s got a real cool ‘80s horror movie theme song type stomp; good times, although it ends before it really gets going. Not bad at all!

It’s crazy isn’t it, how we (or at least I – dunno about you) have these so, so many accutely delineated little categories and cross-referenced tick boxes for each and every possible variation of dudes playing guitars and drums and hollering…?

So, I dunno, fuck it – this is some rock music. It’s a lot better than the majority of other rock music out there, so if you’re thus inclined you might as well give it a spin if you’ve worn out all your Alice Cooper records. But if you’re thinking of ordering some 7”s off ebay from overseas for mucho $$, I’m not sure I’d make it a priority.

http://www.myspace.com/motheroftears
http://www.hozacrecords.com/

Nodzzz – True To Life b/w Good Times Crowd (What’s Your Rupture?)

First new material from Nodzzz since their album, and…. straight in the back of the net! Or ‘home run’, or whatever your preferred crappy sports type expression of effortless success and exhilaration is. Seriously, this band can do no wrong for me at the moment, and these are two more beautiful little songs to add to the pile. The recording here is brighter and cleaner here than on the album, but correspondingly perhaps a little thinner. Who cares though, you can hear it all fine and these guys are definitely a ‘song’ band rather than a ‘sound’ band.

In ‘True To Life’, Nodzzz return to their familial home in the suburbs and sing to everyone about the things they’ve learned at the art school. “If you must make a picture, make it true to life”, they advise sagely. Sounds like a refreshingly down to earth approach to the arts to me – presumably this wasn’t the same art school that gave the world all those Lightning Bolt type dudes, or the subsequent generations of fluorescent bozos who hang around this neck of the woods.

On the other side is ‘Good Times Crowd’, wherein Nodzzz perhaps examine a different aspect of the art school life, communicating the thrills and disappointments experienced by a fragile fellow attempting to adjust to a new-found life of hedonism. It doesn’t sound like it ended well, but it doesn’t sound like it was entirely fruitless either.

Perhaps soon there will be enough Nodzzz songs for us to place them all in order and piece together a concise and comprehensive biography of an earnest young man making his way in the world and experiencing new things. And, rendered by way of the band’s insistent, twangy guitar lines and jaunty ‘nerd bounce’ sound (of which the A side here is another definitive example), it would be hard not to wed this unfolding tale to the mental image of our protagonist happily striding down the street on a sunny day with a mischievous look in his eye, his picaresque troubles overcome and a spring in his step as he marches on toward adulthood. Sort of like The Embarrassment if they’d taken some anger management classes, got a bit more fresh air and really sorted their shit out.

I’m going to see Nodzzz at the end of this month, and I can’t wait! *Claps hands in theatrical excitement*

http://nodzzz.blogspot.com/
http://www.whatsyourrupture.com/

Labels: Mazes, Miniswap, Mother of Tears, Nodzzz, singles reviews, The Bats

Summer Singles, part # 1

Boy, oh boy – what a fine haul of singles I’ve accumulated recently! For the first time, a couple of the items that follow are downloads/digital singles, but the majority are still ones I’ve got on plastic.

Cheap Time – Woodland Drive b/w Penny & Jenny (In The Red)

You may recall that I ranked Cheap Time’s debut album, like, 29th or something in my run-down of 2008 albums, but it retrospect it definitely deserved to place higher. It’s been growing on me ever since – a 0 to 60 masterclass in raucous, spiked power-pop. By contrast, “ After the Ball”, this year’s solo album by band leader Jeffrey Novak, won’t be making it anywhere near my 2009 best of list, for the simple reason that it’s quite horrible – a shrieking, hectoring mess of galumphing, harpsicord-addled Brit-psych whimsy, but one entirely devoid of the charm, tunes and wit that still keep us tuned to obvious inspirations such as messrs Ayers, Wood, Davies, Stanshall, Innes etc. forty years after the fact.

So, a potentially salty character, this Mr. Novak. And in view of the above, where exactly is this new batch of Cheap Time material throwing down? Answer, unsurprisingly, is somewhere between the two known poles of the Novak temperament. The strutting punk momentum and insensible racket of the CT album is present and correct, as is that record’s brevity (both songs are, like, seventy seconds or something), but here it finds itself combined with a strutting, stop/start theatricality and a faintly unhealthy ‘nightmare nursery rhyme’ approach to melody, particularly on ‘Penny & Jenny’, which starts off sounding almost like a lost Jennifer Gentle song, but swiftly sours our initial enthusiasm, bounding heedlessly into the arena of the irritating. ‘Woodland Drive’ fares better, a pacy ol’ mod stomper. Splitting the difference, let us conclude that Cheap Time 2009 = Todd Rundgren on a budget. I think we can agree that’s some kinda result. I mean, Todd’s been doing this shit for over forty years and his latest tour poster portrayed him as an axe-wielding barbarian standing on a rocky outcrop beneath a storm-wracked sky, so… I’m not gonna argue.

http://www.myspace.com/cheaptime
http://www.intheredrecords.com/

Julie Doiron / Calm Down It’s Monday – split 7” (K)

Ah, Julie Doiron – blessed in the books of all known gods; the eternally awesome, ever-comforting earth-mother to all of our converse-wearing, bespectacled brood. One of my favourite live music memories of recent years was seeing her play at the Windmill a while back. She introduced her cover of ‘Shady Lane’ SO wonderfully earnestly, like: “hey, do you guys know this song ‘Shady Lane’, it’s so good..”, and then she danced around the stage playing all the requisite Malkmus twiddley bits, pausing to join the whole grinning room in singing along off-mic with “…and the overfriendly concierge!” A magic moment rendered from elements that would have been cringeworthy on the part of any other performer, brought about by Julie’s awsomeness – all serving to demonstrate why she remains one of the few introspective singer-songwriter types that it’s always worth finding time for. Her achingly beautiful voice helps too, and, should you need further proof, the two unaccompanied songs on her side of this humble disc close the case, quietly crushing and reshaping the heart of any attentive listener with each spin.

“Oh Heavy Snow” is a solemn lament that strongly recalls our heroine’s collaborations with Phil Elverum, letting silence itself play the third man inbetween gentle, scuttling guitar notes. “Oh heavy heart / forgive me / make me feel like it’s all ok” Julie sings, taking words some bearded slacker could toss off like a paycheque, and making them a prayer sent down on the wind from a mountain fortress. Listening to the song for maybe the tenth time, I’ve only just noticed that that silence is quietly forming itself into some drums and organ towards the end, so the song’s not so unaccompanied after-all – that’s understated backing for you, I guess. “It’s Nice to Come Home” meanwhile is simpler, warmer, happier – a song nobody human could hate, as Julie sings about her after-work routine, how she imagines it compares to her man’s after-work routine over in New Brunswick, and how much she’s looking forward to seeing the two routines merge next time they’re together again. A real life love song, free of drama, free of artifice. It almost makes me cry every time. And now it’s time to sit for a minute or two, let the silence sink in, and then reach over to put the needle back to the start again for… well, who knows how many times I’ve played this side since I bought this single. A joy forever.

On the other side, Calm Down It’s Monday (featuring Julie on drums I think, and her drummer on guitar/vocals) do the kind of music you’d rather expect from some guys who called their band “calm down, it’s Monday”. Lethargic, faintly belligerent North-West indie-rock, like Love As Laughter on an off-day, Some Velvet Sidewalk in a bad mood. Not to worry though, Julie’s songs would be cheap at twice the price.

http://www.myspace.com/juliedoiron
http://www.myspace.com/calmdownitsmonday
http://www.krecs.com/

Golau Glau – Soft Silver Young b/w Heartland Half Seizure (Oddbox)

Interesting stuff from this somewhat hermetic Welsh outfit, with a homemade sound anchored somewhere between the eerie border country electronica of prime Ochre records output and the dalek torch songs of Broadcast. Although ostensibly still pop, and song-based, there’s something deeply spooked about Golau Glau. They sound like they’re broadcasting from some soul-dead, suburban seaside town, laptop and vintage mics hidden in the basement beneath a pebble-dashed bungalow where they sit in the dark, thinking about the cliffs down the road. Voodoo drums and Wurlitzer organ, together at last. Soothing sounds for weirdo.

Listen more closely though, and Golau Glau’s initially pretty, chanting space-songs are scarcely very reassuring, quietly addressing themselves to subject matter that would likely appeal to Luke Haines at his most ghoulish. “All our songs are about real events or things that interest us generally”, they say in the accompanying blurb, “not love songs or songs about how miserable we are or how to do a funny dance or anything, and the words can sometimes be abstract but always have meaning as well as sounding musical”. As such, ‘Soft Silver Young’ commemorates a couple who jumped off Beachyhead together with their dead baby in a rucksack, whilst ‘Heartland Half-Seizure’ concerns itself with “..Oswald Mosley, Jeffrey Hamm and the anti-fascist riot in Tonypandy in 1936”. Are you fascinated yet, or running for the exits? If the former, this single is still available as a free download from Oddbox here.

http://golauglau.wordpress.com/
http://oddboxrecords.com

Local Girls – EP (sourpuss)

This nifty little number (price: 99p!) includes six whole songs, a double-sided, fold-out photocopied sleeve with a picture on the back of the band with animal heads photoshopped over their own faces, a hand-stamped, multi-coloured inner sleeve, a download code, a locked groove at the end of side # 1, and a vinyl sticker featuring a picture of some fat, naked women (um, I'll pass on that one I think). Top marks for DIY gusto and value for money, but I’m afraid Local Girls don’t grab me overmuch. In the noble brit-pop tradition, they seem to be a bloke band with a girl singer who (probably) stands at the front in all the photos, and conveniently they also seem to make vaguely dancey, choppy indie-rock that is also very much in the brit-pop tradition. It’s none too bad. It’s got sludgier distortion than you’d have gotten for yr pound in ’97, at least. Lyrics take the default position of cynical bitching (song titles: ‘Eartha Shit’, ‘Nick and Ben are Cunts’), but none of it’s as sharp as it thinks it is. If your soul sighs for a band who sound a bit like Lovelife-era Lush, Powder and second album Elastica, you’ll dig the hell out of this one. I like that stuff just fine too and I love Elastica forever, but man… I lived through the mid/late ‘90s once already, and we have proper girl bands now, and the internet and stuff, so please, can I turn this off now? Local Girls sound like they’re trying to drag me back to that dark era, and that gives me the fear, like seeing the Witchfinder General striding down the high street. Make it stop!

http://www.myspace.com/localgirlsband

Labels: Cheap Time, Golau Glau, Julie Doiron, Local Girls, singles reviews