New Stuff Round Up:
Jan/Feb 2012

Reluctant as I am to tip the balance away from ‘substantive piece of writing’ type posts to the more contemporary ‘faux-insider tip-off & youtube link’ approach to music bloggage, needs must when I can’t be bothered to write anything, and I want to get all this down in html before one of the groups mentioned below ‘takes off’, and everyone’s like “hey, have you hears so-and-so yet?”, and I’m like “yeah man, I heard them like DECADES ago… but I forgot to tell anybody”, and nobody believes me.

(I don’t actually have conversations like that with anyone, by the way.)

So without further ado, here’s a bunch of stuff that’s grabbed my attention, either in person or via the sickly light of a laptop screen, since the start of this year.

Grey Hairs.

New outfit from a bunch of Nottingham veterans whose ‘ex/currently-of’ list would probably make a really nice free-form poem, playing a great example of the kind of non-denominational heavy music I’m really into at present. It sounds as if they take as their inspiration a lot of bands who favoured very little bullshit, and cut the bullshit level yet further. Hell yeah, etc. Look forward to catching them live at some point in the future.

The sound on these rehearsal videos pleases me greatly.





Sapphire Slows.

Latest in the seemingly endless line of precocious bedroom savants discovered by the Not Not Fun label, Sapphire Slows’ bandcamp page informs us that “born in 1989, she started her solo project in Tokyo, spring 2011. Tracks are all recorded in her bedroom, simply with one lap top and some keyboards.” So there ya go. One of the central threads running through NNF’s releases in recent years seems to be an attempt to combine obsolete forms of commercial dance music with an aura of psychedelic witchiness under strict DIY circumstances, and that’s a concept Sapphire Slows absolutely *nails* across the six tracks on her debut EP/12” on the label, mixing up comforting, analogue-y fragments of house and techno with breathy, ultra-verbed vocalisms amid a nest-load of other magpie borrowings, all coming together to form one of the flat out bestest things NNF have put out to date. Solid goodness that’s up there with Peaking Lights and Blues Control in the modern day pantheon of this sorta thing, it’s rarely been off my digital un-turntable in the past month or so.




Loveover.

New band featuring Ayako from Bracelettes – only a guitar/drums duo, but I was lucky enough to catch their first gig last month, and can report that the need for further instrumentation was pretty much annihilated by means of running the guitar through guitar and bass rigs simultaneously. Pretty gnarly. Fast, riff-based punk rock with a great melodic sensibility, touching on Wipers/Milk Music territory in places – I was well impressed.

Here’s their demo:




Heroin in Tahiti.

You know it’s the future now, right, so we should probably get used to groups calling themselves things like ‘Heroin in Tahiti’. I mean, I’m fine with that. Nothing weird and obscurely offensive going on there at all, no sir (whistles to self and looks the other way).

Anyway, I can’t possibly try to beat the blurb of this Italian duo’s label Boring Machines, who claim that – hold on to your hats for this one guys – “inspired by the classic Italian “spaghetti sound” turned into a depressed and paranoid version of the typical twang-surf of Morricone’s scores, “Death Surf” is an hypothetical soundtrack of an old mondo-movie gone bad. The album drags the oppressive heat and bad habits of the Mediterranean to the radioactive beaches of Polynesia, discovering non-existent tribes, invented costumes, misplaced traditions and colonial exoticisms. Think of drinking a frozen Daiquiri on a solitary beach while watching a poorly tuned TV broadcasting loops of “If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death”, while Mururoa tests are happening at the horizon.”

So that saves me the effort of hammering out some guff along broadly similar lines, at least. On a more prosaic level though, I would like to highlight the way that their silly, made-up genre tag of ‘droneabilly’ takes on worryingly literal form when the entire guitar line from The Cramps ‘TV Set’ can be heard rattling away behind the cough syrup haze of ‘Death Surf’ – a truly odd affectation that is replicated in some form on most of their tracks. Curious stuff – I like it.




Young Romance.

Token indie-pop type inclusion for this month, I caught this London-based, M/F guitar/stand-up drums duo the other week and they were bloody terrific. I’d make some iffy suggestion about them fitting nicely into what may be turning into a whole tidal wave of icy, floppy-haired, Gretsch-wielding winter jangle type stuff alongside Veronica Falls et al, but… why would I even countenance such a snidey, NME-like dribble of a thought just for the sake of something to say? Fuck it, I dunno, let’s just cautiously say I think these lot are good and leave it at that.




Divorced.

Not to be confused with the Scottish group Divorce, Divorced with a D are another bunch of Australians making no nonsense punkoid rock music that is powerful and fun, somewhat akin to Eddy Current Suppression Ring if they were angry, uncouth teenagers rather than grown up, responsible men, but also drawing on a tradition of solid rhythmic pound that takes them all the way back to Radio Birdman and The Saints. Hopefully I’m not just comparing ozzie to ozzie here to perpetrate some sorta unfounded cliché – like many current Australian bands (see the faultlessly self-aware top ten from Brisbane group Slug Guts alongside Comet Gain’s one here), these guys seem to be consciously embracing their country’s rich heritage, managing the surprising feat of making guitar/bass/drums/singer music that you could instantly pinpoint on a world map. Or at least, I think that’s what they’re doing. Whatever they’re doing, it’s great, and can be easily enjoyed without the benefit of a brain – a consideration I always appreciate.

Labels: Divorced, Grey Hairs, Heroin in Tahiti, Loveover, Sapphire Slows, Young Romance

M.T. VII: Mystery Ships.

Sorry as ever for the recent posting lapse. What can I say? Life, y’know – what a pain in the ass. If only I could skulk in a crypt and review 7”s all day long. But how would I get them, when the sunlight hurts my ossified limbs? Have you ever tried to get decent broadband connected in a cemetery? So you see my dilemma.

Anyway, to keep things hoppin’ whilst I try in vain to coax some words on this year’s Hot New Acts from their mental hiding place, here’s another hogshead of quasi-psychedelia to liven up a drab and greasy February.

I dunno much what anyone thinks of these comps, but I certainly enjoy making them, and their gradual formation as I plough through hours of random play, selectively dragging & dropping, has become a big part of my listening routine.

I fear that by this stage, the mixes that emerge are tending to get a tad predictable – some 60s/70s fuzz guitar obscurities, a token African track, one or two Japanese tracks, a bit of Italian film soundtrack stuff, post-New Thing hippie jazz interlude, some weird noise collage and something a bit post-punky just to mix it up a bit, a bit of basement genius from one of those lost mid-west rustbelt savant type characters (three for the price of one this time round, with Tommy Jay, Mike Rep AND Michael Yonkers), something a bit Witch House-y to show I’m hip to the exciting new rhythm-type musics of today, and bob’s yr uncle.

Never mind. I still like it all. It still makes for a pretty representative sample of the kind of stuff I like listening to beyond the realms of new-ish punk/pop/rock, and I'd like to think that the open-minded listener should be able to find at least one or two flat out killers to suit their particular tastes on each of these. I mean, don’t even get me started on that Marsha Hunt track – oh MAN, it’s like all the good stuff on that biker-rock comp I made a while back compressed into three minutes of pure carnage – maybe even beats Betty Harris’s ‘Break in the Road’ for the coveted ‘best feedback soul song ever’ title. And if you’re unfamiliar with D.R. Hooker’s ‘Forge Your Own Chains’, well… better get on that! Approach the reissue of his album in your local record shop in a slow yet forceful manner, and put your money on the counter. Oh, and yeah, there’s a near-ten year old Dead Meadow track on there too, of course. Say what you like, I’m still digging it.

Hopefully on the next instalment we’ll shake things up a bit. I mean, it’ll probably still have Ennio Morricone and Serge Gainsbourg and Don Cherry on it – let’s not go nuts, right? – but in-between hopefully I’ll come up with some stuff to plunder new realms, frighten the horses etc too.

In the meantime, enjoy this one. Here’s the link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?4wh4825gya7jcss


1. John Fahey - We Would Be Building
2. Fallen Angels - Something New You Can Hide In
3. Marsha Hunt - Red Hot Poppa
4. Stark Reality - Rocket Ship
5. Houghas Sorowonko - Enuanom Adofo
6. Papa Celestin's New Orleans Band - Marie Le Veau
7. D.R. Hooker - Forge Your Own Chains
8. Golau Glau - Soft Silver Young
9. Swell Maps - Big Empty Field
10. Serge Gainsbourg -
Je N'avais pas Qu-un Seul Mot a Lul Dire
11. Ennio Morricone - Svolta Definitiva
12. Kangaroo Paw - Osusowake
13. Tommy Jay & Mike Rep - Learn to Ride
14. Don Cherry & The Jazz Composers Orchestra - The Queen of Tung Ting Lake
15. Dead Meadow - Babbling Forever
16. OKOK Research Bureau - The Sinister Pearl (remix)
17. White Ring - Suffocation (Haunted by Unison remix)
18. Michael Yonkers - Will It Be
19. Cheater Slicks - Mystery Ship

PS – I’m changing the name from this # onwards too. That ‘Mystery Train-ing’ tag seemed like a good idea at the time, what with the train pun, the whole ‘underground journey cross the world’ notion etc., but detached from that it sounds pretty pompous and it’s been bugging me, so – Mystery Ships. I like that phrase. I like that concept. (Try googling it for some fun stuff.) Let’s go with it. Bon voyage!


Prior instalments:

Volume # 1 (originally written up here)
Volume # 2 (originally written up here)
Volume # 3 (originally written up here)
Volume # 4 (originally written up here)
Volume # 5 (originally written up here)
Volume # 6 (originally written up here)

Labels: mixtapes, Psychedelia

6 for ’12:
Humousexual.

Another great band filtering into my consciousness late last year, (partly through the evangelism of Everard Records, partly via a great set I saw them play at Dalston venue Power Lunches), Humousexual are a London/Berlin duo who have seemingly been around for a few years, but, perhaps owing to the inherent problems of being a London/Berlin duo, have yet to make much of an impact on the wider world. This situation is hopefully soon to be rectified to a certain extent by the release of both a 7” EP on the aforementioned Everard, and a self-released mini-album type thing entitled ‘Grenzenlos’. Each copy of the latter is rendered unique thanks to cover art featuring locations torn straight off a collection of vintage postcards – a brilliant design decision that seems to perfectly exemplify the ethos of quality, self-sufficiency and personal connection captured in the band’s music.

‘Grenzenlos’ is seven songs, all loosely themed around travel and places, and all extremely good. Building on an unapologetically rough bedrock of OD channel guitar, stand-up drumming and this-is-my-speaking-voice-what’s-the-problem-w/-that vocals, Humousexual could be said to kinda split the difference between classic pop-punk, Messthetics amateurism and C86 bounce, but really I think their chief characteristic is more that of making music entirely devoid of affectation. A rare occurrence in rock/pop music, not necessarily always a good thing, but in this case, both disarming and… what’s the word..? ‘Refreshing’, maybe? Ugh, no – makes them sound like mouthwash or something, but I can’t think of an alternative right now – you get what I mean.

There’s a Billy Bragg-esque ‘blokes singing songs about stuff that matters to them’ sorta feel to what Humousexual do, but with the earnestness and miscellaneous twattery that blights most such contemporary ‘folk songs for modern times’ singer-songwriter type ventures cannily avoided – partly through keeping the pace fast and the punk grit foregrounded, but mostly just by being funny and elegantly constructed and generous of spirit and righteous of intent and just, well, good, y’know.

It’s hard to express the extent to which I’ve grown to love the songs on this CD over the past couple of months. Playing them all several times over during a long, cold walk down the Old Kent Road in December, I wanted to clutch them to my heart in some weird gesture of brotherhood, to do *something* to try to express my solidarity with these two voices in my headphones, who seem very much to be rising above the confusion and isolation and cultural disintegration of these dark days, cutting the crap and pressing forward (politically/aesthetically/morally/musically) in the RIGHT direction.

Recommended about as strongly as it’s possible to recommend anything, you can listen to and go shopping for both releases here.

Labels: Humousexual, I like