35. Crawling Age – CDR (self-released)

From October:

“I think Crawling Age are one of those ‘get together for one day a year / write and record a bunch of stuff in an afternoon’ kind of deals, and indeed, they seem concerned with little beyond having a laugh, swapping instruments so that everybody gets to have a go at everything, and making a lively bunch of oven-ready less than 2 minute songs, putting seven of the best of ‘em on this CD-R, and giving a free copy to anyone who’s interested. A fine approach! A happy racket!

Live, they lengthened their set to the requisite twenty minutes with much mucking about and a great version of Jowe Head’s immortal ‘Cake Shop’, and the spirit of Swell Maps indeed hangs heavy over these recordings. Hard to put your finger on exactly *where* it hangs amid the murky din of Crawling Age, but when the certain nameless, inexplicable something that Swell Maps forever defined is present, you can never mistake it. It’s there, creeping through the cracks, coagulating amid the background shouts and between song chuckles. Introduce it to the blaring, belligerent murk these men call home in their main bands, and a good thing is born, somewhat not dissimilar to that great Human Race CD I wrote up last year.

[…]

In conclusion: I really like this CD. It’s stupidly fun, fulla random, crazy noise, inspired, off-the-cuff song ideas and goofy four-track tangents, and it asks nothing in return. I wish I was in a band like this – sounds like a blast.”

Soundcloud > (You Crossed Over To) The Other Side



34. Amen Dunes – Through Donkey Jaw (Sacred Bones)

Didn’t know what to make of this one when I first picked it up as a blind buy. First listen put me off to the extent that it was almost heading for a one-way trip to Music & Video Exchange, but repeat spins have crept up on me nicely. Damon McMahon’s bedroom psyche opuses (which make up the entirety of this hour long audio doorstop) have an irritatingly distant, unknowable air about them, his reedy vocals whining away throughout, sounding mildly tormented but forever failing to actually wrap themselves around anything that might be recognised as a human phrase or emotion, whilst the instrumentation mostly takes the form of a homogenous swathe of drifting strong textures, man-size reverb and ‘ritual’ percussion, remaining gentle and roughly harmonic, rarely feeling to the need to up the stakes with the kind of experimental gestures and big noises that usually serve to push this kinda music into the foreground. In its most fully-formed moments, it starts to revert back into more palpable indie-rock shapes, verging onto something kinda like Greg Ashley if he got really whacked on something heavy, or some fucked up ghost of Tim Buckley or something… dunno whether that sounds much like a recommendation..?

Give it some time though, and this is a real grower. The somnambulant logic of McMahon’s songs slowly starts to become clear, revealing a kind of shy, shadowy drift that can spill over into moments of burning atmospheric splendour, exulting in a kind of lysergic alienation that (for no particular reason) pulls my cultural compass straight back to the more benighted realms of late ‘60s & ‘70s Japan - to the warped un-folk desperation of The Jacks, Onna and Takashi Mizutani’s solo recordings. Either that, or some of the eerie post-Skip Spence private press type shit that I’d imagine McMahon so covets. More unhinged moments like ‘Jill’ and ‘For All’ speak more of a kinda Mutant Sounds Shadow Ring/Jim Shephard deconstructive agenda, whilst one of the best tracks here, ‘Swim Up Behind Me’, even recalls one of Arthur Russell’s perfect pop miniatures, as filtered through heavy ashram/sitar/velvet curtains type vibes.

If ‘Through Donkey Jaw’ had emerged from one of those times and places, I’d doubtless be hailing it as some kind of haunted, troubling masterpiece, and as such it seems unfair to wallop McMahon with the accusations of pretension and tedium that hang heavy over a record like this, just because he happens to be contemporary, American, and presumably self-conscious in his exploration of these kinda outsider-ish cultural backwaters. And, frustratingly vague as they might initially seem, the pieces here can really get under your skin after a while, filling your room with the kind of rich, smoky fug only found in the very best psychedelia. So light a black candle, smoke something pungent, observe the last glimmers of golden winter light creeping through the blinds, generally GET THE MOOD, and you will find much wordless melancholia, dusty floorboard scrape and translucent Evil Beatles blather here to enjoy.

Soundcloud > Swim Up Behind Me



33. Fungi Girls – Some Easy Magic (HoZac)

Veterans of several singles that I very much enjoyed, Texas teenagers Fungi Girls turn in their first long player, and I’ve very much enjoyed it also. They’re still a weirdly low-key band, their appeal undeniable but at the same time kinda elusive. They still specialise in hiding brilliantly inventive gtr/bass/drums playing and mischievous energy behind somewhat hesitant, disinterested vocal delivery and a particularly morose strain of melodicism. And they still sound like boys who have listened to a lot of good records very, very closely – to the extent that they’ve managed to internalise the essence of what makes them good, rather than simply taking on an urge to copy them.

This subtle but important distinction makes it very difficult to really pin any obvious reference points to Fungi Girls for more than a bar or two before you have to grudgingly admit that actually they’re not really that much like whatever the name that just jumped out at you was - looking back on previous posts, seems I’ve ventured REM, The Feelies, The Clean, 13th Floor Elevators, Strange Boys and The Byrds at one point or another. Of that lot, the only comparison that really holds water is perhaps The Clean, particularly in regard to their early stuff – not because Fungi Girls sound like The Clean on anything like a consistent basis (they’re far more technically proficient and neatly recorded for one thing), but simply because they seem to be coming from a similar place, heading in a similar direction. Both seem wise beyond their years – like the cool, learned kids fading into the background in every photo, with the confidence to know that the path to great rock n’ roll lies not in wearing ridiculous outifts or making a fuss or putting something rude on the front of your record, and to realise that when you’ve got it cookin’ and the instruments are working together free of ego, it doesn’t take much more than a four track and some reverb machines to get you there.

Or maybe they’re not like that at all. I don’t bloody know. I’m just talking through my hat here, trying to fill space writing about some guitar-pop band who have great surfy drumming and neat guitar-playing and sound like they’d be perfectly happy if everybody went away and locked the door to their practice room and left them to it.

There’s a lot of neat stuff on this record. A lot of cool little bits of musical hoo-hah that I really appreciate. Occasionally something will venture above the parapets and knock your block off – the rollicking ‘Safe As Milk’ groove of ‘Doldrums’, the wild fuzz guitar break on ‘Velvet Days’ – but mostly it’s happy just keep it’s head down and enjoy being what it is. Which is: fun, smart, shy and good.

Soundcloud > Doldrums



32. Zombie Zombie – plays John Carpenter (Versatile Records)

Well this was always gonna be a hard one to summon up much of a word count for.

We’re in ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’ territory here really: discerning French analogue synth / drums duo explore the back catalogue of The Awesomest Guy in the World (or ‘John Carpenter’, as you might call him in your house), with instant hole in one results.

In fairness to ZZ, they do work hard here to take things in a direction we might not quite have expected whilst still delivering the synth-rocking goods. Whereas they could have just busted through a straight set of Carpenter’s most recognisable themes to the guaranteed adulation of everyone who’d conceivably buy a record like this, instead they open up with a scorching take on “Escape From New York” deep cut ‘The Bank Robbery’, before ploughing through the under-heard theme from the widely derided “Escape From LA”. Next comes the obligatory “Assault on Precinct 13”, and Zombie Zombie will no doubt have irked many purists by really doing a number on the ultra-minimalism of Carpenter’s classic, keeping the unfuckable-with central riff intact, but contaminating the brew with a syncopated live drum track, a euphoric house piano line that rises midway through and – heaven help us – a conga break. Against all the odds, it works pretty well. Next, “Halloween (main theme)” gets a bit of a disco makeover, retaining its essential menace whilst drawing a bead between Carpenter and Detroit techno, and proceedings close with a lengthy take on the Carpenter/Morricone showdown of “The Thing”s main theme, evolving here into a widescreen trance-out of glacial analogue splendour, and (I could be wrong but it sure sounds like) stately sustained tone brass drones.

Bon travail, Zombie Zombie!

Sadly no Coupe de Villes numbers, but aside from that I couldn’t be happier.

Soundcloud > The Bank Robbery (from ‘Escape From New York’)



31. Dignan Porch – Deluded 12” (Captured Tracks)

I’ve really grown to like Dignan Porch. I mean, I liked them from the start, when I heard their superb ‘Tendrils’ LP and assumed they were some mysterioso one/two piece American band from the middle of nowhere. But now that I’ve seen them live a few times, got used to the idea that they are a five person ensemble operating out of Tooting of all places, I like them even better.

This eight song 12” is, I’m assuming, a nice holdover before their proper second LP, and represents what I guess is the first evidence of the group recording as a full band, with drums and keyboard and bass and things backing up main guy Joe Walsh (no, not that Joe Walsh)’s simple, short, revelatory songs and his brother Sam’s politely tangled psychey guitar-work.

It’s a transition that works well.

And, uh, there ya go really. ‘Tendrils’ highlight ‘Like It Was’ is reworked here as ‘Like It Was Again’, clearer lyrics and rhythm section serving to enhance the weirdly anthemic power of the original draft without sacrificing its eerie earworm fascination. ‘Stream’ and ‘Yards’ are great full band originals, nailing yet more otherworldly melodies to generous bursts of the kind of mid-fi fuzz rock exegesis that Dignan can pull off as a live band when they’re on form. ‘I’m A Saint’ meanwhile takes the plunge into full-on psyche, sounding not unlike some faux-folky oddity you might find tucked away on side 2 of a H.P. Lovecraft or Country Joe & The Fish album. ‘I Threw Myself Off Tower Bridge’ heads off in the opposite direction, a straight-up, clean-vocaled tune that would probably have given the game away back when I imagined Dignan Porch came from Indianapolis or somewhere, with a recognisable strain of self-deprecating British indie shining through.

Possessed of one of best gifts for melody currently abroad in indieish-music-world, a welcome taste for thrift and conciseness and a beautiful, home-made bedroom world of psychedelic sound, Dignan Porch are really something. They do a form of music that I really like, and they do it really well. Almost every song on the 12” is flat out brilliant, not a second is wasted, and I am greatly anticipating anything/everything they do in 2012.

Soundcloud > Yards

Labels: Amen Dunes, best of 2011, Crawling Age, Dignan Porch, Fungi Girls, Zombie Zombie