SINGLES APOCALYPSE:
March – June 2010, Part # 1

My 45s habit has been getting pretty chronic recently, so plenty more of these to come.

The Bitters – East b/w Foreign Knives
(Captured Tracks)

The Bitters are a lo-fi pop type projected helmed by The Young Governor, also of Fucked Up. This particular single is kinda old – they’ve done an album and no doubt a shedload of other stuff subsequently – but I only just got it.

And… well I dunno man, I’d love to tell you I love The Bitters, but there’s something real off-putting (bitter, perchance?) about what they do. Strung out female vox, cavernous, weary sounds, no memorable tunes on the horizon. Captured Tracks have put out a bunch of great stuff over the past few years, and will put out a bunch more no doubt, but in between times I fear the label is suffering from a highly specific aesthetic malaise into which this neatly falls.

Listening to The Bitters puts me in mind of Royal Trux, minus the classic rock fixation, and the humour and the guts. And like those more distressed Trux outbursts, the best thing you can say about them is that they pose some uncomfortable questions for their listeners. Like: is there is some kind of hidden value within this music that the smart kids are picking up on but I am missing, something that would convince people to keep on making it, and labels to release it? Or is it actually just a load of crap? Answers on a postcard with a picture of something gross and dreary on the front.

But, pffff, wouldn’t you know it – listening to the single again as I write this, I’m starting to get into it a bit more. “East”, at least, is pretty decent, with some crisp drumming, some good, weird noises in the middle and a pleasantly melodramatic, almost goth-y, feel as the noise builds up towards the end. Not bad.

I dunno… bloody music. I’m always patting it on the head and letting it go when I should be giving it a right telling off. Some critic I am.

http://www.myspace.com/bittersband
http://capturedtracks.com/

Brilliant Colors – Walk Into the World
(Germs of Youth)

I may have ripped on the other recent Brilliant Colors single, but rest assured, I like this one a lot better.

Maybe that has something to do with the fact I’ve seen the band live since then, and perhaps better understand where they’re coming from. They were sweet, and reserved, and somewhat wary on stage. The guitarist played a very cheap looking strat copy with the cover of The Feelies first album pasted on the back, and… in there is the kernel of what you need to know really.

Refusing to play up to either the distorto fizz blast of their album or the shaky acousticism of some of their singles, Brilliant Colors played tightly focussed, heavily rhythmic music, imaginative but not at all showy about it, with an appreciation of the way their instruments gel together that betrays a wealth of practice and deliberation rare indeed in the field of current garage/punk rock.

Like a determined kid spending eight hours on a single pencil drawing in art lessons, what they do is extremely simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth working on, polishing ‘til every line shines.

They were brilliant in short, and, listening with fresh ears, that’s the music I hear on this European tour 7”.

Mine is number 10 of 300, and at the time of writing they are still adventuring ‘round the wilds of the UK, presumably with a few boxes left. GO GET.

http://www.myspace.com/brilliantcolorssanfrancisco
http://www.myspace.com/germsofyouth

Burning Yellows – Urinal Cakes b/w Drought
(HoZac)

Startling new sounds here from HoZac, you might be tempted to think, but sounds can only really get *so* startling when they sound like the tepid shiftwork of some guys raised on the same Sonic Youth and MBV records I was, y’know?

It’s not dreadful by any means, but… shit, what can I tell you – the A side here sounds like a mid-period Television Personalities track played backwards. The B side sounds like Stereolab if they were born in 1988 and make a big show of not giving a fuck. Either could be the opening section of a more interesting long-form drone/jam, but both end before anything worth reporting happens.

A big SHRUG from the peanut gallery here I’m afraid.

I love ya HoZac, but there are cheaper and more enjoyable ways than this to block out the neighbours for five minutes.

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

The Cave Weddings – The Last Time
(Bachelor)

Now here’s a sad story; I popped by the Cave Weddings myspace page a couple of weeks back to have a few more listens to “The Last Time” and see if they’d got the 7” out yet, and…. The Cave Weddings myspace page no longer exists. Falling back on a google search, this brief interview with Erin from the band confirms the worst. The Cave Weddings, whose joyous guitar-pop I was giddily comparing to the sound of contentment and marital bliss last year, are no more.

It seems Erin finished off the b-side to this single herself with the help of some guys from the band The Midwest Beat, quietly sent the whole package to the excellent Bachelor label in Austria, and…. that’s all folks.

The good news is that “The Last Time” is still one of the flat-out greatest songs I’ve heard in years. Nothing special in terms of composition/innovation I suppose, but what can ya say? If we’re to take Billy Childish’s formula for what makes a great record – THE SONG, THE SOUND, THE PERFORMANCE – as gospel, well “The Last Time” is just one of those numbers that aces all three. Top of the class. Every time I hear it, it’s a rush, every time that lead guitar hook kicks in, I want to jump around. I must have listened to this song literally 50+ times when it was streaming on myspace, and finally having it on vinyl is a great thing. Taking it off the turntable hurts.

I guess the song’s rather downbeat lyric fits the circumstances of it’s release quite well, but that’s wholly accidental, and the scissor-kicking, power-pop exuberance of these drums and guitars bears no hint of malice. B-side “Never Never Know”, with Erin taking the lead vocal, is inevitably a slightly shakier affair, with the overdubbed bass and backing vox failing to really fill the space left by the absence of the band’s rich rhythm guitar sound. By anyone else’s standards it would be a great song, but it is by necessity the poor relation here.

So let us not shed a tear for The Cave Weddings – their legacy may only consist of eight songs split across two singles and a self-released CD, but they are eight of the most perfectly realised garage-pop songs you’ll ever hear, and I bet that somewhere they’ll still be gladdening hearts and making people dance decades from now. If only more of the world’s rock bands were as concise and considerate.

In the meantime, time to move on. Eric has a new LP as Eric & The Happy Thoughts coming soon on HoZac, and sounds like Erin’s getting some new stuff on the go in Milwaukee. Looking forward to it dudes.

http://www.bachelorrecords.com/

Labels: Brilliant Colors, Burning Yellows, singles reviews, The Bitters, The Cave Weddings