washing machine

These New Puritans - Hidden

2010-04-20T00:02:00.004+01:00

Heralded as a masterpiece upon its release in 2005, Liars' Drum's Not Dead often finds itself in a laundry list of esoteric influences for any number of young pretenders to namecheck in interviews and to replicate on record - but in These New Puritans' Hidden, we may have found the rightful heir. Forever dogged by unfavourable comparisons to The Fall, These New Puritans have (almost entirely) ditched the guitars, and created the album we never knew they had in them. Pounding, thrumming and pulsing from beginning to end (save for some beautifully sedate arrangements from a brass and woodwind ensemble), Hidden employs bass and percussion like indigenous drums of war, striking fear into the heart of man. On Where Corals Lie, Jack Barnett's alternately welcoming and menacing articulation (somewhere between Gang of Four’s Jon King and Medúlla-period Björk) reinforces the album's ambitious dichotomy of ideas that, unlike the underwhelming debut, does not suffer from lack of focus.

review - Fuck Buttons

2009-10-22T17:01:00.004+01:00

Arriving hot on the heels of last year’s gloriously hypnotic skull-rattling debut Street Horrrsing, the quick turnaround of Fuck Buttons’ second album is not to be mistaken for a lack of musical development. In fact, just a moment's exposure to the auricular irrigation of opener Surf Solar will prove how far the duo have come in just 18 months.
But rather than totally doing away with the familiar Buttons template of build, tension, and explode, Andrew Hung and Benjamin Power are tearing it up and rewriting - colouring outside the lines to paint wildly vivid futurist noise that makes the debut look about as forward-thinking as a 17th century civil war reenactment.
The distinctive 4/4 house pulse which kicks off the aforementioned "Surf Solar" at first seems reminiscent to Street Horrrsing highlight "Bright Tomorrow", but once it starts to bounce and stutter it takes on a sonance all its own, one that can only be described as if Black Dice and Underworld had been commissioned to collaborate on a song to shake the foundations of the Tate Modern's turbine hall. So compelling is it, that the ten minute duration seems to pass by in half of that, and it begs for repeat listens.
You'd think the following cuts had a tough act to follow up, but "Surf Solar"'s raw sunlight is quickly eclipsed by the aptly-named "Olympians". The track's omnipresent drum loop grips the listener quickly and mingles with effervescent church organ drones, before it blasts off at the seven minute mark and never comes back down. "Olympians" is the perfect crystallization of Tarot Sport’s progressive next-wave dance sound - everything segues perfectly like a great DJ set, but one that can be enjoyed with headphones at home or in dark confines of the club.
The album's producer is Andrew Weatherall, who, if you don't know by name, you will know by his decorated CV with Primal Scream and Two Lone Swordsmen. His influence looms beautifully over these seven tracks, and in a way that's completely in keeping with Fuck Buttons' aesthetic - no doubt the result of spending their formative years listening to Vanishing Point and Tiny Reminders.
It's an utterly refreshing sound, one that's destined for crossover success - if not now, then surely retroactively. If the unseen alien race in 2001: A Space Odyssey had been thoughtful enough to equip the monoliths with MP3 players, Tarot Sport would've been the album preloaded with it. Forget Thus Spoke Zarathustra, this is the kind of next generation noise to inspire early man to use tools, go bipedal, and conquer space. In a (somewhat paradoxical) word: divine.

mp3: Fuck Buttons - "Olympians"

review - A Sunny Day in Glasgow

2009-10-07T07:19:00.003+01:00

From rapid-boil kettles to omnipresent wireless broadband, the 21st century has proven itself to be one of instant gratification - much to the detriment of up-and-coming musicians everywhere. These days, no sooner is a debut EP or album mixed down, than it's hoovered up by the tastemakers and over-enthused bloggers - while follow-ups are chewed and spat out, left to flounder in a sea of lukewarm-at-best reviews and “Two for £10” stickers.
A Sunny Day In Glasgow were part of that indie darling set of 2007, their debut Scribble Mural Comic Journal attracting acclaim from all the right corners of the web - but all the web wants now is for the other shoe to drop. Who will be the first Tapes ‘n Tapes of 2009? Though the recording was fraught with line-up changes owing to university and a broken leg, Ashes Grammar is the most self-assured sonic statement the Philadelphia dream poppers have made yet. Sure, it’s slow to start - but once the Cocteau Twins-via-Animal Collective tribal thump of "Failure" kicks in, it doesn’t let up.
After "Close Chorus" lulls the listener into a daydream, each subsequent song serves to heighten the immersion. On "Shy", the only thing pinning the gorgeously ethereal vocals from Annie Fredrickson to the ground is the driving motorik beat. Scattered across the album’s 22 tracks are short mood pieces - which, rather than breaking the stride, act as little bookmarks for key songs, highlighting certain loops and motifs. But by far the most remarkable thing about A Sunny Day In Glasgow’s latest is that it packs the same emotional weight as genre touchstones (Deserter’s Songs, Loveless) but without the usual trappings of artistic vanity and studio excess. I wonder… is 2009 a leap year for second album syndrome?

mp3: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "Shy"

review - HEALTH

2009-09-16T16:21:00.004+01:00

Upon its release in January last year, the eponymous debut from L.A. noise botherers HEALTH polarised opinion. Those Crystal Castles fans who bought it in the hope of an electro-pop reappropriation of "Crimewave" were largely united in their discontent - but one man’s ungodly cacophony is another’s divine drone of tribal drumming, incorporeal chanting and wild frequencies.
Get Color’s opening gambit "In Heat" keeps up that same confrontational spirit, but only for 110 seconds. Once the industrial disco of "Die Slow" starts to throb, you’ll realise Get Color isn’t paper-thin sloganeering - it’s a declaration of intent. It’s this track’s cohesive colour (with a 'u') that informs the whole record, smuggling pop song conventions underneath caustic hits of static and pounding rhythms.
Although, on the closing "In Violet", the listener is let down gently. Sounding like a disembodied voice from Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker, Benjamin hums over a valium-spiked loop until fade-out - a rare moment of pure beauty, like watching space debris burning up on re-entry. Sublime.

mp3: HEALTH - "Death +"

review - Lovvers, Divorce @ Sneaky Pete's

2009-09-09T18:08:00.006+01:00

some of the more astute among you (who?) may have noticed I've not posted anything in forever, but I have good reason. I've been writing a healthy amount for Scottish paper The Skinny, and that and just generally having a good time have taken up all my blogging hours. but because i just love holding court here, i'll keep posting - mainly unedited texts of reviews and interviews, MP3s, mixes, and unwarranted amounts of either hype or contempt for whoever i bloody well feel like.

Kicking things off not with a bang but an ear perforating torrent of noise, is Glasgow’s own Divorce (****). Vocalist Sinead immediately alights the stage, growling vehemently and crawling between puzzled onlookers legs - while the four remaining members onstage channel the combined spirits of Teenage Jesus and DNA. This is the kind of glorious racket Steve Albini was born to commit to tape.
Never to be outdone, Lovvers (****) pack the same healthy dose of aggression into their own set. For this tour the band have added an extra guitar into the mix, and have beefed up their wiry studio sound with a Hüsker Dü-sized reverb - the end result is a dizzy swarm of pop-punk dissonance, turning album highlights "Human Hair" and "Creepy Crawl" into charred corpses, identifiable only from their dental records. Though there is order in their chaos: the advances they’ve made since 2008 as musicians and songwriters (check out the OCD Go Go Go Girls LP for proof) are crystallised in the live setting. Where a year ago they would be clumsy and inconsistent, they are now taut and focused, without losing any of the abrasive charm.
Reception among the crowd ranges from sweaty enthusiasm to outwardly hostile, but it’s this kind of delight in being divisive that makes Divorce and Lovvers (there's a pun in there somewhere) play as fiercely as they do - and confirms them as two of the best contemporary punk bands the UK has to offer.

mp3: Divorce - "Early Christianity"
mp3: Lovvers - "I Want To (Go)"

interview - Stewart Lee

2009-08-06T17:36:00.003+01:00

though TV schedules this year haven't been this drab since the wartime hiatus imposed on all VH frequencies in 1939, there was one programme that made it worth pointing all your furniture at the dusty box in the corner. it was Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. probably the hardest working stand-up comedian still touring, Stewart Lee's solo television debut was an all-round success - not only from a critical and viewing figure stance, but a creative one too. those who have been keeping up with his almost 30-year career will know that none of his trademark "deadpan but angry" delivery was toned down for a mainstream audience. not only an accomplished comedian, he's also a (you might say struggling) writer and director - his most famous co-creation being the critically acclaimed but controversially "blasphemous" Jerry Springer: The Opera.
he's now back on the circuit with a show (titled If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask for One - more on that later) that's starting tonight (August 6th) at The Stand in Edinburgh. so being in a mini-celebratory mood over more new material, i exchanged internet letters with Stew to ask about the TV shows, his novels, Richard Herring, his favourite records, and just to see if he was alright.

First of all, congratulations on a highly successful first series of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. On top of the viewing figures, I heard the day after it aired it was the most watched show on BBC iPlayer. Apart from Eastenders. But no one can topple Eastenders. How successful was the show, from your point of view?
Well, people watched it, it got good reviews, it worked in the way I wanted it to work, and I got paid. So, great really.

Any word on a second series?
Nope.

Has the TV exposure brought about any significant changes to your personal and/or professional life?
It has given me enough money to get a mortgage on a flat / house with enough rooms for us not to have our son in with us, so that will make a huge difference to my personal life. Also, I can probably afford to carry on living in London now, so that's great. Professionally, it's too early to say. I hope more people come and see me live so I make more money, but I also hope that I'm not so popular that it compromises the degree of autonomy I have enjoyed for the last decade.

Executive producer Armando Iannucci said the "Religion" episode, originally lined up to be shown on 13th of April (Easter Monday), was rescheduled to the week after lest it offend any viewers. Is this true? If so, do you think it had anything to do with your track record on that particular subject?
I don't really know why they changed it. It don't know what the problem was. It was a shame as COMEDY really was meant to be 6 - there was a kind of theoretical through-line to the series about how and why and what stand-up is which the rescheduling sort of messed up. That said, the BBC is under attack at present from all corners and one has no wish to add to its woes.

The Comedy Vehicle show has had a bit of a laboured history, which was well documented on the 41st Best Stand Up Ever! Show, culminating in a comedic onstage (or offstage, rather) "breakdown". But how much of that breakdown was genuine frustration at the TV industry?
It was all genuine. It is a Kafkaesque nightmare. I can't believe the show got on and survived intact. Everyone did a marvellous job.

The "red button" segments with Armando Iannucci were as hilarious as the show itself, in my opinion. How did those develop? Was it just you and Armando trying to make each other laugh, or was there more to it?
Armando came in and asked me questions, which I didn't know anything about, for about 4 hrs, of which about 1 1/2 hrs was used. There was no real discussion before hand, but I had requested to be treated in quite a hostile way. I had no idea they would come out as well as they did. I am very happy.

I noticed Chris Morris was credited as a script editor for the series. Beyond the literal meaning of "editing the script", what was Morris' input on the show? What's he like to work with?
CM was very good on making sure everything in the sketches made sense. His input, for example, on the Samuel Beckett one, made it accessible to all rather than wank. He talked through the themes of all the episodes with me at length, and tried to help me focus on the ideas. He was very good and very inspiring to listen to.

On the subject of Morris and Iannucci, one of your first projects with Richard Herring was writing for Radio 4's On The Hour - when the show made the jump to television in the form of The Day Today, why were you and Richard not on board for that?
We were offered a big commission to write 10 mins or so a week for the TV show, but we and our manager Jon Thoday felt we had co-created some of the characters and should have got a format share of the show. In retrospect, having been on the other end of this, we were in no way responsible for the format, though I do still find it galling that Patrick Marber somehow managed so emerge with shares in Alan Partridge, which we were the initial writers for. But then it was all down to Steve's voice, I suppose, anyway. Bridge, water etc.

Your last proper collaboration with Herring was the This Morning with Richard Not Judy show, broadcast live on Sunday mornings. Was that not a bizarre time to be transferring the characters you'd perfected during stand up gigs at night to? How did your comedy body clock cope?
It was very tiring and confusing. Nothing in the show had been perfected in late night stand-up gigs though, apart from some of my lines, as Rich never did stand-up then, and we didn't perform together apart from little tours.

Why did the Lee and Herring double act come to an end? Are you still good friends?
We are still friends. The double act came to an end because anything we made on TV we always lost touring, and no-one wanted to pay us to do anything else or develop anything else. To be honest, I wish we had stopped sooner, as Rich in particular is much better on his own, but it was fun. I am very proud of the 1st series of fist of fun. The rest I have mixed feelings about, especially FOF2.

The title for your latest show is If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One. What's the story behind that?
It's from a Cafe Nero loyalty card. I had a run in about my Nero loyalty card. The show will be about that in part.

On a rather serious note, about comedians provoking controversy - I remember reading your article in the Glasgow Herald a while back in defence of Billy Connolly and the Ken Bigley comments. This was written in 2004, about a year or so before the protests and picketing took place outside tour venues for Jerry Springer - The Opera. Has your experience with hate campaigns and situations taken out of context affected your outlook on the Billy Connolly media storm in 2004 at all?
No. Only strengthened it.

You've developed somewhat of a reputation as being one of the hardest working stand up comedians. You've been "in the game" about 20-odd years - what is it about being a stand up that you love so much? And what do you hate about it?
I like the autonomy. You are responsible for everything creative. I hate the stress and the loneliness. I hate being looked at by people and judged.

What's been your favourite crowd/venue so far?
I dunno. The Classic, Auckland, New Zealand.

And where have you least enjoyed performing?
Acoustically - Underbelly’s Udderbelly tent. But generally, in Maidstone.

I saw you played a gig at Bom-Bane's cafe in Brighton on 25th of May. I go back and forth to Brighton from Scotland, and I've never been inside Bom-Bane's - but I know it's a tiny place with an official capacity of about 30. What drew you to performing there?
The man who's wife runs it asked me, and I didn't have a big new show ready yet.

You also have a distinguished career outside of the stand up comedy. Taking into account your theatre work, your novel, short stories and everything else, what aspect of all this are you most proud of?
JSTO at the National, the 90s Comedian stand-up set, directing Simon Munnery's Attention Scum, the Pea Green Boat CD, and the Comedy Vehicle TV show.

Is there another novel in the works?
I've done 20 000 words of one but no-one is interested. If you're on telly publishers want junk to flog in Tescos.

You published a "recommended listening" list to accompany your novel, The Perfect Fool. How important is music to you in terms of influencing your work, whether it's the writing or the stand up?
More so as the years go on. I like the single-mindedness of Dylan, The Fall, Howe Gelb and the risk-taking of free-jazz.

Are you a musician?
Not really. I played guitar and shouted in a band in the early 90s, and I was in Simon Munnery's Alan Parker's Urban Warriors, a parody of Crass type bands which once opened for The Lightning Seeds. I may sing a country song in the new stand-up show.

What are the other prime influences on your work? (Film, books, events?)
Music, books, devised theatre, some stand-ups. Not really TV or much film.

And finally, something lightweight to go out on - what are your all time top five favourite records?
HEX ENDUCTION HOUR - THE FALL
KIND OF BLUE - MILES DAVIS
PRARIE SCHOOL FREAKOUT - ELEVENTH DREAM DAY
HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED - BOB DYLAN
HANDFUL OF EARTH - DICK GAUGHAN

2009 - so far (part 2)

2009-07-28T00:42:00.020+01:00

the world hates me. after making a rubbish joke about swine flu last week, the fates have decreed i need to be brought down a peg or two. i've been cursed with one of the worst colds i've had in years, fucking my sinuses around with a substance so viscous it may as well be Play Doh. but, even though i've only one functioning ear, i'm soldiering on with my top twenty records of 2009 so far. picking up where we left off...

10. The Sight Below - Glider
Seattle, WA native The Sight Below's debut LP washes over you the first time you listen to it. the primary instrument being guitar filtered through delay pedal doesn't do much to hang on to yr brain, and it's only when it goes through second plays and third plays, that the whole record starts to make itself noticed. it's a delayed reaction of an album - the post-rock-on-valium guitar colludes with the the persistent 4/4 pulse (the latter lifted straight out of Gas' songbook, if he has one) that almost has an urgency to it, all adding to the ultimately relaxing slow release effect these songs have on yr senses. following in the footsteps of the new school atmospheric ambient artists like Deaf Center and Belong, Glider is a welcoming, dizzy swarm of sound - keeping all the secrets to itself until it knows you well enough to tell them.

9. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career
returning in April with the best album of their (maudlin) career, Camera Obscura ditched all remaining traces of comparisons to Belle & Sebastian to fully embrace their triumphantly bookish chamber-pop side. some old trappings still remain, but ones that the band have expanded upon and hold up far better to repeat listens - Phil Spector, Leonard Cohen, The Beach Boys.
the first thing you'll notice on the opening one-two punch of "French Navy" and "The Sweetest Thing" is not only Tracyanne Campbell's inconcievably improved voice, but the sweeping string arrangments dominating the bridges and choruses. written by Björn Yttling (of Peter Bjorn and John), they're thoroughly indebted to the genius of Scott Walker, and are a delight for the ears of anyone who thought that We Love Life was Pulp's best album (i.e. me). Camera Obscura were a band i had all but written off after the thin-blooded flops of Underachievers... and Let's Get Out... - and i've never been more glad to be proved wrong.

8. Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol. 2
minimalist composers and sound artists are not musicians that i pretend to know anything about - my familiarity with them is superficial at best. my appreciation for artists like Aphex Twin, Sonic Youth and Fennesz has led to me being recommended the works of Steve Reich and Ryuichi Sakamoto, but it never gets much deeper than that. the vast back catologue of these people has always warned off the casual listener, and as such i've always found it a bit impenetrable.
but then along comes Germany's Carsten Nicolai, with his second instalment in the Xerrox series. Sampling from external sources like Stephen O'Malley and Michael Nyman, he's sonically bridging that gap between the innovative techno and the avant-garde composers they owe to by reworking these human motifs into a cushioned symphony of telephonic noise - he gives electricity such a personality that you won't be sure if the background popping and hissing is being made by a fax machine or a campfire. Xerrox Vol. 2 seems to unvravel and reveal itself more with each repeated listen, and i can only imagine it moving up in my estimations by the year's end.

7. Kurt Vile - Constant Hitmaker/God Is Saying This to You
being a member of one the band that produced one my very favourite LPs of last year (that's The War on Drugs' Wagonwheel Blues), Vile was pretty much a shoo-in for '09 from the moment i heard his gliding country guitar again on the killer opener "Freeway". these two albums bear much the same boy scout badges that The War on Drugs do - Dylan-style vocal inflections, an almost unhealthy obsession with Springsteen, and a predilection to making noise that veers between Devendra Banhart's acoustic wisdom and a My Bloody Valentine sized racket. but he's not done yet - Matador have picked him up and plan to give his third record (named Childish Prodigy) the commercial release treatment in autumn, so expect to see the man recieving more rave reviews from me before the year's through.
when placed alongside the Lotus Plaza and Sore Eros debuts (the latter described as "cosmic country" in part 1 - coincidentally, there's a track on God... named "Beach on the Moon"), these albums make a strong case for dream pop as a genre in rude and beautiful health in 2009.

6. The Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
the fifty-four minutes and fifty-four seconds of Checkmate Savage, the Glasgow sextet's debut album, is pure self indulgence, in the best possible way. in a way that's so self assured and canny, they've arrived with a set of songs that sound like the work of several albums worth of file grinding and skill honing. either that or years of listening to nothing but Neu!, Can, The Beta Band, and The Doors. on key tracks like "Throwing Bones", "The Howling", and the Magic Band-via-Arcade Fire of "Burial Sounds", they have no qualms with sticking a folk'y motorik (motofolk?) arrangement on repeat until it falls aparts at the seams and all that's left is the psychedelic guitars or incredible vocal work, ranging from barbershop melodies to monk cantillations.
not only have they released one of the year's best albums, but The Phantom Band also put on the best live show i've seen all year at Glasgow's Art School. despite quite a sparse attendance, they played like they were headlining an outdoor festival stage. everything was perfectly mixed down, and they seemed to exchange a quiet telepathy that comes with constant touring - each member knowing exactly when to put down their guitar and pick up the frog block without so much as a nod from a bandmate. i forsee only great things for these six Scottish songmongers.

5. Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective
the announcement of a solo effort from Deerhunter's lead guitarist Lockett Pundt was not met with rabid anticipation from me, despite the band's 2007 LP, Cryptograms, being my favourite released that year. since that album they've only gone downhill, each successive release failing to recapture that mad indulgent brilliance that made them so fascinating when all that was being played was a guitar through a loop pedal. it came as a great surprise (and joy) then, that The Floodlight Collective is actually the closest any Deerhunter member has gotten to lighting that fire.
the word "light" is important here, as that is what the album appears to have been inspired by, inside and out. from fond childhood memories to celestial eclipses, from photography to luminous pollution, this record exudes light from every corner. noise haze washes over a techno pulse on "Sunday Night", affecting vocals ride high on a Motown beat on "Quicksand", and kiwi indie-pop collides with Yo La Tengo clamor on "What Grows?". it's the auditory equivelant of a confusingly multicolour'd Franz Kline painting left out in the sun, revealing its strengths and conceding its flaws as it plays - and by the time the epiliptic outro to "A Threaded Needle" calms down, you'll want to play it from the beginning again.

4. The Field - Yesterday and Today
it was always going to be hard to top The Field's incredible 2007 LP, From Here We Go Sublime, so it's no surprise that Yesterday and Today just falls short. but only just.
Kompakt hyped up Axel Willner's second album as "more organic than its predecessor" - and they are not wrong. From Here We Go Sublime was fashioned from bits and pieces of clipped and atomised but still recognisable parts from Kate Bush, Lionel Richie and Coldplay to create whole new songs - Yesterday seems to all but abandon this process. indeed, the only sampled material here is from the Korgis' "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime", but the use of the original track title asserts that this is a proper cover rather than a chopped-up reappropriation.
he's not thrown out the old template entirely though - any occasional listener would be able to identify these as Field songs; that throbbing persistent beat and the live mixing always creating a build-up of trance anthem proportions. but the charm behind Yesterday seems to be Axel letting his natural songwriter side out to play, embracing a New Order style bassline on "Leave It", implementing full vocal takes on "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime", and even letting Battles' John Stanier bolster the percussion with his own set of skins on the title track. what remains to be seen is if he can find the perfect balance between his winning formula of minimal techno and songwriter ambitions to satisfy both his fans and himself. i have every faith in The Field.

3. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
trying their hand at everything from classic suites to Black Flag covers, David Longstreth's art rock outfit have always had a classic case of band ADHD - one that's treated with blue smarties instead of ritalin. they skip and dodge the catch-all nets of "indie" and "rock" so often with each album, it's a waste of time even trying to describe their attitude to music here. even the name "art rock" is a massive misnomer in this case, it only felt appropriate because of the bands the Projectors find themselves aligned with - Talking Heads, Battles, Grizzly Bear - part of the NYC camp of the avant-garde, creating indefinable pop for the underground masses.
but, try as they might, never before have Dirty Projectors sounded so focused and cohesive than on Bitte Orca. they still curb from a wide and ever-eclectic range of sources - Björk's vocal gymnastics, Scritti Politti's erratic post-punk, and fuse it at the spine with Nico (whose version of "These Days" is liberally borrowed from on "Two Doves") and radio friendly hip-hop like TLC and Aaliyah (which provides the foundation for standout track "Stillness Is the Move"). they're still as peculiar as ever - too peculiar for some no doubt - but they've gone some of the way to make their distinct pop character palatable to people besides themselves, with a career conquering album.

2. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
beginning with the tense, low rumble and Karin's uniquely pitch-shifted "is-it-a-boy-or-a-girl?" vocals on "If I Had a Heart", fans of The Knife will love this record from the off. not only does it keep similar musical notions intact, it reinforces The Knife's strategy of diminished identity and confused gender - and in keeping with the aesthetics, employs a cover artist whose work bears more than a passing resemblance to Black Hole author Charles Burns, the primary inspiration for incredible 2006 LP Silent Shout.
it's after that first track though, that the similarities start to taper off. personal favourite "When I Grow Up" embraces an array of previously untested ground for Andersson, like unobscured vocals, big beat breaks, and an electroclash riff that pops up quarterway through. the lightsome "Seven" could find a happy cousin in 2003 single "Pass This On", though it seems to take a more 80's tempered, Miami Vice-on-VHS spin by the time the chorus kicks in.
the overall anthemic quality to the albums "big" sound reminds one of more personal, domesticated takes on Underworld's dubnobasswithmyheadman and Kate Bush's Hounds of Love. but more importantly, even though she's talking to us about dishwasher tablets and her children, she never loses that cryptic quality that makes her and her brother's albums as special as they are.

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
the first hype juggernaut of 2009 to blow everyone and their parents' (with great taste in music) socks off arrived in January in the form of Baltimore-via-NYC trio/quartet's eighth album. it was written and recorded with the intention of capturing the spirit of live, "outside" music, and it pours into your ears like teenage memories of summer fun recalled in 1020p HD resolution.
nowhere is this more prevalent than on one of the singles released from the album, "Summertime Clothes". Avey Tare details a perfect twenty-four hours of sun enjoyed with a friend like only his Wayne Coyne'ish shriek can, peaking with a manic chant of "When the sun goes down we'll go out again!!" it's not all beers at the beach though, another recurring theme (most frequently indulged by Panda Bear on "My Girls" and "Daily Routine") is loving homelife with the wife and kids. but where Fever Ray's Karin Dreijer Andersson made these activities sound like paranoid witchcraft, Noah Lennox makes it sound like the most fun in the world. all these songs are carefully stitched into the beautiful patchwork of Animal Collective's best technicolour dreamcoat, the wonderful Merriweather Post Pavilion.
i've been keeping up with some of the songs collected here since 2007 (that's ages ago by AC standards), but it's still an album that's always as fresh as your latest listen - i've never anticipated an LP so greatly and been so 110% satisfied with the end results. this is a mellow, catchy, happy, beautiful summer's day of a record.
remember that Bill Hicks joke about the perfect world? everyone is legally required to smoke weed so there'd be no traffic jams, fights or wars - just everyone being friendly to one another, and Domino's trucks passing each other on the highway. well if everyone was legally required to own Merriweather Post Pavilion, there would be no need for weed.

so that's it! all that remains is to enjoy the next six months of records, which i'll no doubt be tirelessly cataloging by December so i can write a whole 'nother one of these bad boys. if you've read this far - check out the mix below, and make sure that if you dig a song you hear, support the band by going to a gig or buying a record.
tracklisting:
1. the sight below - at first touch
2. camera obscura - my maudlin career
3. alva noto - xerrox soma
4. kurt vile - best love
5. the phantom band - folk song oblivion
6. lotus plaza - whiteout
7. the field - yesterday and today
8. dirty projectors - no intention
9. fever ray - now's the only time i know
10. animal collective - lion in a coma

download via MediaFire

2009 - so far (part 1)

2009-07-20T23:48:00.013+01:00

we're now halfway through the magnificent year of two-thousand-and-fine, and what a fine six months it has been. though genuinely, i'm struggling to remember a single thing that has happened. most of my sociopolitical awareness comes from Charlie Brooker columns and my Facebook feed - just a quick glance at Wikipedia screams back a litany of important dates and events that my poor caffeine addled brain can barely recall. global economic collapse? what government expenses scandal? i didn't know what swine flu was until five minutes ago, i just thought everyone in Mexico was wearing surgical masks in tribute to Michael Jackson. they should take the internet away from people like me.
one thing i like to think i do know a thing or two about though, is music. (and you, devoted reader, should be nodding in agreement. otherwise, this entire blog is moot. and what are you doing reading a moot blog?) so after careful deliberation, here follows the first part of my top twenty favourite full-lengths of 2009 so far.
current convention dictates that any "round up" or "retrospect" article be fully numbered and bullet-pointed with pretty pictures and sample MP3s, otherwise the list police will delete yr internet identity for being a countdown heretic and replace every blog entry you've ever written with a YouTube clip of a cat playing the keyboard. just to be on the safe side then...

20. Clubroot - Clubroot
comin' straight outta St. Albans, Clubroot's unique brand of sensual dubstep is like a siren ringing through the fog - beautiful and deadly. the roiling rumble of the bass and the lightning crack of the snares, washed over with sad angelic voices instantly bring to mind contemporaries 2562 and Burial. upon repeat listenings though, it becomes apparent Clubroot's style is one all of his own. not suitable for the club and too mournful for party mixes, this is strictly a home listening record. while it may lack the hooks to make a crossover hit, it has the distinction of being the first great dubstep LP of 2009. a gorgeous ghost ship of a record.

19. The Horrors - Primary Colours
onetime saviours of gothic proto-punk The Horrors' second album was not as much of a stylistic one-eighty as the music press made it out to be. they're still tugging on their influences sleeves like a toddler begging for a hot ribena, Faris Badwan still tries to sing like The Three Ians (Curtis, McCulloch, Brown) on nearly every track, and they still cut their hair like they're actively trying to get an eye infection. it was, however, as great as the music press made it out to be. taking all the best (and worst) bits from 80's space-gazers (Spacemen 3, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine) and leftfield post-punk (Joy Division, Suicide, The Fall) and turning it into something as fiery and karaoke'able as key tracks "Scarlet Fields" and "Who Can Say", is enough to warm the cockles of any emotionally detached self-appointed music critic.

18. Lukid - Foma
those among you who frequent this blog (there has to be some), will probably know by now i'm no stranger to hazy, rainy day, laid-back ambience. after such a stellar year for releases in this vein in '08 (Actress, The Fun Years, The Caretaker), i was actually quite glad when nothing popped up in '09 that was as standout excellent - i could devote my time to all the genres i'd been neglecting the past year. that was until this little beauty, along with the new Alva Noto (see part 2), ended up consuming most of my dedicated listening hours. if the prospect of Boards of Canada collab'ing with the new school wonky producers (FlyLo, SamiYam, Hudson Mohawke) sounds too good to be true, it's because it is. Foma, however, is the next best thing.

17. Mount Eerie - Wind's Poem
finally, Phil Elverum's much talked-about dalliance with black metal and Twin Peaks bears some fleshy and delicious fruit. various single and EP releases have been showcasing the man's recent musical flirtation - on Wind's Poem it all comes full circle, frail indie atmospherics join hands with cavernous, delay pedal'd electic guitar and haunting organ drones. think Mount Eerie, meets Jesu, meets Angelo Badalamenti. it's still distinctly a Mount Eerie record - there's no mistaking the arrangements, that voice - but there's a freshness to this LP that will take you back to the moment you first heard The Glow, Pt. 2 or Mount Eerie. take a listen of the epic, humming "Through the Trees" (the 7" of which featured some 'Peaks aping cover art) or "Between Two Mysteries". you can almost smell the log mill.

16. Women - Women
there's been no shortage of "lo-fi no-fi scum-punk noise-pop" records in 2009. it seems like all you have to do to get some Pitchfork hype these days is learn the guitar in a week, practice a couple of Guided by Voices demos that no one will recognise into a boombox recorder, think up a one or two syllable name and hey, presto! you're getting taken out to dinner at SXSW by Columbia records and you haven't even lifted a finger. so it begs the question: how, in 2009, an information-overload year of endless YouTube'ing and Twitter'ing of everything that's happened to anyone ever, do you sort the wheat from the chaff? answer: just listen to one of them. Women.

15. Nathan Fake - Hard Islands
from the terrible cover art to the lack of any promotion whatsoever, nothing about Hard Islands (Fake's second LP for slow coach label Border Community) should've worked. moreover, he'd taken the cozy, slow wave computer shoegaze exhibited on critically acclaimed Drowning in a Sea of Love, and thrown it into... the sea (?), in favour of a more club oriented, back-to-basics electro sound. it shouldn't've worked, but it did. the six tracks listed here hit you on the head with their 4/4 beats and ear-catching hooks, and are among the best the young producer has ever released. much like The Field's 2007 LP From Here We Go Sublime, he uses live mixes and leaves it all hanging out, audio glitches and all. if Fake was aiming for a staight-up techno record, he got one - but it has a human heart. it's a club record, made in the bedroom.

14. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains
Cymbals Eat Guitars know their American indie rock history. at least, as far back as 1997 - a vintage year. it's a special kind of band that can make an album that sounds like it was recorded and released in one very specific year, but Why There Are Mountains manages it. Pavement's Brighten the Corners. Perfect From Now On by Built to Spill. Modest Mouse's The Lonesome Crowded West. but it takes more than a great record collection, a flannel shirt and a grizzly beard to play indie rock, something else Cymbals Eat Guitars know well. it's an album that constantly keeps you on your toes - an ever-changing, eroding and adapting landscape of songs, fucking up the verse-chorus-verse format for everyone else and keeping it fresh for themselves. one of the most promising debuts this year, and i can't wait to see what happens next. who knows, maybe twelve years from now people will be making albums that sound exactly like 2009.

13. Universal Studios Florida - Ocean Sunbirds
somewhat of a glaring omission from last month's summer mixtape, Seattle's Universal Studio Florida bring the sun-kissed blissed out tropical vibes like no one else this year. armed with an un-googleable name that's just begging for a lawsuit, and some sweet golden synth hooks and big beats, Ocean Sunbirds is fast becoming one of my favourites for this year. they're taking the template that artists like Panda Bear, El Guincho and High Places laid out in 2007/08, and splicing it with the propulsive percussion of The Field and Studio, making it essential summer listening. in a just world, this would soundtrack beach BBQs and volleyball games everywhere.

12. Sore Eros - Second Chants
one of a crowd of fantastic dream pop records this year (see part 2 for some of the others), Sore Eros' debut album sees a lot of different ground covered for only being 40 minutes in length. from the The Clean-esque driving fuzz of opening track "Smile On Your Face", to the chamber pop-via-The Velvet Underground moments buried deep in the reverb on tracks like "Whisper Me" and "Lips Like Wine", everything about Second Chants feels like you're listening to about fifteen different bands at once, in a really good way. i think Boomkat called it best when they tagged it with "cosmic country". this quiet gem of a record should be on every would-be farmer astronaut's iPod.

11. Sonic Youth - The Eternal
for the NYC veterans first independently released LP since 1988, the Yoof dug deeper into their 28-year career than ever before to put out an record that wouldn't sound of place on a mixtape of some of the bands 90's classics. just one listen of blink-and-you'll-miss-it opening track "Sacred Trickster" indicates that you're dealing with a leaner, meaner SY - from this song onwards, Kim Gordon's incredible presence sticks out like a sore thumb on The Eternal, making Moore and Ranaldo's contributions sound almost lazy by comparison. not to fault the boys though, album highlight "Antenna" features one of Thurston's most full-on singalong vocal takes, and "What We Know" sounds like the Lee track that should've been on Experimental Jet Set. Kim's ten minute torch song "Massage the History" takes things to a bluesy close, rounding off an incredible twelve tracks that veer from the confrontational riffs and hooks from Dirty, to the introspective dissonance of Murray Street. here's to another 28 years.

here's the album samples as promised, in the form of another mix. though there's no beat-matching or syncopating here - it's just the ten tracks as they are. and it's down to you to decide whether that was worth reading all that awful hyperbole for. anyway, check back next week for part two.
tracklisting:
1. clubroot - talisman
2. the horrors - scarlet fields
3. lukid - ice nine
4. mount eerie - ancient questions
5. women - shaking hands
6. nathan fake - basic mountain
7. cymbals eat guitars - cold spring
8. universal studios florida - sun glyphed comanche kissed
9. sore eros - smile on your face
10. sonic youth - calming the snake

download via MediaFire

mix #2 - one very important thought

2009-06-17T19:37:00.004+01:00

1. ESG - Moody
2. Aphex Twin - Bbydhyonchord
3. Benga - Night
4. Actress - Ivy May Gilpin
5. Gui Boratto - Chromophobia
6. Boards of Canada - Amo Bishop Roden
7. Arthur Russell - This Is How We Walk on the Moon
8. The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows
9. Banjo or Freakout - I and Always
10. Lukid - Chord
11. Leila - Daisies, Cats and Spacemen (feat. Roya Arab)
12. The Avalanches - Tonight May Have to Last Me All My Life
13. J Dilla - Lightworks
14. Dusk + Blackdown - Con/Fusion feat. Farrah
15. El Guincho - Kalise
16. Flying Lotus - RobertaFlack (Martyn's Heart Beat Mix)
17. Animal Collective - Brother Sport

all the other mixes i've posted on this blog have revolved around the ambient side of things - hazy, distant tunes drowned in noise and sad human voices - but recently i've been going mad for skewed samples, heavy drums and low bass. this mix represents a collection of the warped pop and laid-back electronica i've always had a taste for, but throws it in the ring with heavy dubstep and minimal techno.
i was originally going for a tribute to the summer, all bliss'd out beats and sunny melodies. but when the hissy IDM and cut-up hip-hop started to come in, i was afraid i'd lose that vibe altogether - so i've included my recent feel-good hits of the summer (El Guincho, Animal Collective), and after seeing how well they sync up with Martyn and Dusk + Blackdown, i think my fears were unfounded. i guess including the rain-and-clouds from musicians like Actress and Lukid makes it more representitve of a Scottish summer anyway. not every day is a sunny one.
download via Sendspace

more sleep

2009-06-08T21:46:00.003+01:00

mount kimbie

2009-06-02T20:53:00.006+01:00

just to kick things off with a nice little bit of journalese hyperbole to get yr teeth gnashin, this 12" record from Peckham, London's Mount Kimbie, called Maybes, is without a doubt one of the best debut releases i've heard in a long time.
the four tracks found here reach inside to grab you, tickle yr trout until yr eyes are rolling in the back of your head, and when all thats left is the sound of the locked groove at the end of the side, casts you out onto the nearest dry land.
try taking all the underwater city ambience of Burial and The Fun Years, throw in some looping riffs in the style of Tortoise or Portishead, and rattle it all out over some wonky SamiYam beats - this just goes some of the way to pinning down their indefinable sonance. in fact, Boomkat had to go out of their way to coin a new genre to umbrellafy these guys: "post-dubstep". try explaining that one to your parents when it appears on the front of Mojo in a week.

mp3: Mount Kimbie - "Maybes"

white on rice - The Wire

2009-05-15T07:42:00.007+01:00

Here begins a new section, that will be exclusively dominated by rambling, irrational, and un-spellchecked love letters to the things I’m addicted to that particular month. Things I can’t get enough of. Things I am all over, like white on rice.
And God help me, I’m addicted. But not to crack cocaine, or heroin, or alcohol, or oreo biscuits… but to The Wire. For those who aren’t on the take, it’s a TV show produced, filmed and set in Baltimore, Maryland, another original series put together by televisual giant of Olympian proportions, HBO (you know - The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm… just a few examples of the world-beating drama, comedy and documentary work they produce). On the surface, it seems like your average gritty crime drama. A workaholic loose cannon cop stuck between complacent, couldn’t-give-a-fuck higher-ups and a difficult family life, trying to do his job on the unforgiving streets of Anywhere, USA. Heard it all before, yeah? Sounds all a bit Andy Sipowicz, yeah? Big fucking deal, yeah? No, no and one two three times no.
Once you get caught up in it, The Wire unfolds like an engrossing novel, thrusting you into a world of gang conflict, institutional corruption, drug trafficking, murder, and some good old fashioned police work. From the corner boys to the mayoral candidates, nobody is spared beneath the spotlight of The Wire’s own brand of incisive social commentary. It carries a torch passed on by American noir of days gone by - ranging in film from Chinatown (1974) to Brick (2005), and in print from Raymond Chandler to Michael Chabon - but creating an altogether more “real” portrait of the cops and the robbers.
I know I’m a little more than fashionably late to the party - the final episode was shown in March of last year - but the BBC has just now decided to get their act together and give this incredible piece of work a proper airing.
I say proper airing, when what they’ve done is stick it so far up the arse end of the schedules, on a weeknight shift pattern as convoluted as the series’ labyrinthine narratives, they may as well have given the show its UK terrestrial debut in a little boxout on one of those phone-in quiz shows on ITV. What they’ve got going at the moment is one episode a night on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then repeat these three episodes all in a row on Friday night. “Three episodes a week? How generous of them!”, one might say. But you only need to watch one episode to know this show wasn’t designed to be taken in triple measures. Each season has a self-contained arc, focusing on individual aspects of Baltimore society - but all the while weaving an intricate weave of character development and plot threads to be tied up. You’re supposed to watch one episode and mull it over, let the characters and subject matter knock around in your brain for a while before moving on to the next one - not baffle yourself silly by trying to take in a machine gun blast of information from three episodes in a row then forget who was who and what was what and why he got capped and what her motivation was.
I urge you to pick it up on DVD (the first season has a sale price in most stores) and move with it at your own pace - your brain will thank you.

interview - LOVVERS

2009-05-11T18:27:00.007+01:00

in a bid to force myself to get some proper activity going around these parts, i've got my shit together long enough to get something of a first for this blog, an interview! and until i figure out how to create a summary post with a link to the rest of the text, yr just gonna have to scroll down all the entries like the good old days.
now on to the meat of the post - here's my Q&A session with Shaun Hencher, the vocalist for Nottingham's most abrasive kick-yr-teeth-and-nick-yr-wallet punk band, Lovvers. having just returned from the US where the band spent their time between gigs recording their debut album, i asked Shaun a few questions about the recording process, being on the road, the Lovvers' back catalogue, the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, and his record collection.

Your live shows vary wildly in terms of chaos. I’ve been at one of yr gigs that had a stage, when Shaun spent the entire length in the pit, getting the fans into it and frightening the guys who‘d come to see the headliners (Crystal Castles) - but in contrast to that, I’ve seen you guys when you were quite reserved in terms of stage presence. Not much kicking and screaming, but still an excellent show. Is there specific circumstances behind a decision to perform a particular kind of gig, or is it all just as chaotic as it appears?
HEY IAN. WELL QUITE SIMPLY I THINK ITS DEPENDS ON A PARTICAULAR MOMENT/MOOD. ITS BETTER KEEPING YOURSELF OPEN. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW TO PLAY A SHOW, WE JUST PLUG IN AND HOPE FOR THE BEST. SOMETIMES IT CAN GO GREAT, OTHER TIMES NOT WELL AT ALL. I DON’T REALLY HAVE ANY EXPECTATIONS ANYMORE. I REMEMBER VERY CLEARLY AT THE CRYSTAL CASTLES SHOW WE GOT TREATED LIKE ABSOLUTE SHIT, IT REALLY WAS DEPRESSING TO SEE A BAND ACT THAT WAY. ALL THE OTHER BANDS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF CADENCE WEAPON ( I DON’T REALLY KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT HIP HOP) WERE REALLY TERRIBLE, PLUS I WAS ATTACKED EARLIER IN THE DAY BY SOME MENTAL GUY WITH A BIG RED FACE WHO THOUGHT I’D CALLED HIS DAUGHTER SOMETHING SILLY ( OBVIOUSLY THIS GUY WAS AT THE STAGE WHERE HE WAS NOW HEARING VOICES) SO BY THE TIME WE PLAYED IT COULD BE DESCRIBED AS PRETTY HIGHLY STRUNG SITUATION.

You recently supported Yeah Yeah Yeahs in London - from the look of your blog entry it seemed to go down well. Previous “noisy” YYY supports (The Locust, The Blood Brothers) have had a hard time winning over their audiences at those gigs. What kind of audience response were you hoping to provoke, and what did you get?
WELL THIS WAS OUR FIRST SHOW IN ENGLAND IN OVER 6MONTHS, I DONT THINK THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE THERE HAD HEARD OR CARED WHO WE WERE WHICH PUTS YOU IN A KIND OF NO LOOSE SITUATION. FOR ME IT WAS GREAT TO PLAY A VENUE THAT HUGE AND THAT WAS SOLD OUT IN TERMS OF THERE BEING ALOT OF PEOPLE THERE. WE PLAYED AND SEEMED TO BE EXCEPTED BY THE MASSES. ASIDES FROM THAT I DIDNT REALLY READ TO MUCH INTO IT, THOUGH IT WAS DEFINATELY ALOT OF FUN.

What has been your favourite place to play so far?
WE’VE PLAYED A LOT OF SHOWS BUT FOR ME IS HAS BEEN BERLIN, LA, COPENHAGEN & BARCELONA.

What about least favourite? Like the biggest, down-and-out, low point on the road?
RECENTLY THE ONLY PLACES I CAN THINK OF ARE BASED IN THE UK, WE HAD A PRETTY TERRIBLE TIME IN GLASGOW, LIVERPOOL AND BRISTOL, ALL HAVE THESE PLACES HAVE SUCKED MASSIVELEY. IF I THINK FURTHER BACK THEN PLAYING IN PETERBOROUGH WAS JUST THE WORST, SAME WITH BIRMINGHAM . IT GENRALLY REVOLVES AROUND HAVING TO DEAL WITH IDIOT PROMOTERS AND AT THE END OF THE DAY NO PEOPLE. SAYING THAT WE DECIDED TO GO BACK TO BIRMINGHAM & IT WAS A TRULY GREAT SHOW.SO I THINK IF YOUR ABLE TO HAVE A GREAT SHOW IN APLACE LIKE BIRMINGHAM THEN YOU SHOULD LEAVE IT, NEVER RETURN AND JUST REMEMBER WHAT A GOOD TIME IT WAS . SO FROM NOW ON WE SHALL BE DOING JUST THAT.

You just finished your first full-length in Portland, Oregon. The Pacific Northwest is known for its rich history of noisy, grungy punk bands that have clearly been an influence on your sound, and its general vibe seems to be one of embracing all kinds of outsider art. How influential was Portland’s culture and musical history on your decision to record there? Or was it just a case of “right place at the right time”?
WE MADE THE DECISION TO RECORD THERE FOR THREE REASONS A) WE WERE IN AMERICA ANYWAY SO IT MADE SENSE BECAUSE ITS A LOT CHEAPER B) BECAUSE WE WANTED TO MAKE A RECORD WITH A GUY CALLED PAT KEARNS C) WE ALSO WANTED TO CHECK OUT THIS STUDIO CALLED JACKPOT WHICH IS RUN BY THE A CHAP CALLED LARRY CRANE WHO PUBLISHS TAPE OP MAGAZINE.

THERE ARE ALSO A FAIR FEW BANDS FROM PORTLAND THAT WE LIKE (WIPERS,HUNCHES, EXPLODING HEARTS, CLOROX GIRLS, EAT SKULL) SO IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD PLACE TO GO AND SPEND SOME TIME.

THINK was very much a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it straight up punk rock record. Did you employ any new recording processes while making the new record? Did you get into any experimental touches or is it all carrying on the same vibe as THINK?
THE NEW RECORD IS CALLED "OCD GO GO GO GIRLS" AND IT WAS RECORDED IN PRETTY MUCH THE SAME WAY AS "THINK" THE DIFFERENCE THIS TIME BEING THAT EVERUTHING IN STUDIO WORKED AND THAT WE TRACKED ALL THE INSTRUMENTS/VOCALS COMLETELY TO TAPE. NOT ONE COMPUTER. 100% ANALOG RECORD, RECORDED TO 24TRACK 2INCH TAPE.

AS FAR AS PROCESSES WE USED ALOT. THERES A TON OF NEW INSTRUMENTS ON THERE AND I ALSO DOUBLE TRACKED MY VOCALS WHICH WAS A FIRST FOR LOVVERS.

When’s the LP coming out? Is it coming out on Witchita?
LP WILL OUT IN AUGUST THROUGH WICHITA. SO WATCH THIS SPACE.

You’ve been together since 2006, but you just got THINK out last year - you put out a few singles in the years in between, but that’s quite a while for a band to get a commercial release under their belts. Was that because of a lack of label interest, or was it a conscious reaction to the MP3 culture by doing things the old school way?
WELL IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO BE DOING THINGS FOR THE CORRECT REASONS. OURS BEING WE WANT TO PLAY MUSIC AND TRAVEL. MEET PEOPLE. HAVE A FUN TIME. SO LABEL OR NO LABEL WE WOULD BE DOING WHAT WE'RE DOING NOW. ALSO FOR PRETTY MUCH THE WHOLE DURATION OF THIS BAND WE HAVE LIVED IN SEPARATE CITIES AND HAD JOBS. BEING SO SPREAD OUT MEANS THINGS EITHER COME TOGETHR REALLY QUICKLY OR THEY TAKE TIME, SO IN THIS SITUATION IT’S HARD TO THROW OUT COUNTLESS RECORDS. I THINK THE SINGLES SHOW THE PROCESS OF A BAND. “THINK” WAS AS YOU SAID STRAIGHT UP PUNK ROCK EP, TRYING TO CONVEY SOMETHING FUN AND CARE FREE. SO "OCD GO GO GO GIRLS" IS PRETTY MUCH THE CULMINATION OF EVERYTHING TO THIS POINT AND I THINK IT REPRESENTS OUR BAND PRETTY WELL.

Will those early singles see a re-release of some kind, like a CD or compilation?
I DOUBT IT WILL.

Like bands such as HEALTH and No Age can’t really have an article written about them without a mention of The Smell venue, Crystal Castles or Times New Viking, Lovvers are frequently compared to bands who have a lo-fi, punk vibe but in reality sound nothing like you. For example, I’ve seen you being compared to Wavves in the press, even though the only similarity I can see is that you both have an extra V in your name. Do you see the trend in the press and in the blogs to group bands together in neat stables as a hindrance or a benefit?
WELL I GUESS PEOPLE HAVE TO COMPARE THINGS AS A WAY OF PUSHING THEM INTO CHECKING IT OUT. ALSO IT HELPS IF PEOPLE HAVE NEVER HEARD A BAND AS IT GIVES THEM A REFERENCE. EVEN THOUGH THAT REFERENCE COULD BE PRETTY FAR OFF THE MARK. I CANT THINK THESE THINGS ARE A HINDRANCE, THEY MAINLY PROVIDE THE BAND WITH AN ENTERTAINING MOMENT FOR EXAMPLE WE RECENTLY GOT COMPARED TO THE SEX PISTOLS. NOW THERES A PRETTY SPOT ON REFERNCE.

I know you guys have been in other bands before, that have ended up dissolving before finding proper success. Are you surprised at all at how far this band has come, compared to the others? Did it start as a fuck around in a practice space that eventually turned into a full-time option, or has it always been about Lovvers as a career?
I STARTED LOVVERS WITH THE AMBITION OF TRYING TO ACHIEVE THINGS THAT I HAD PREVIOUSLY NOT BEEN ABLE EXPERIENCE. I WANTED TO DO THIS WITH LIKE MINDED INDIVIDUALS THAT WERE CARE FREE ENOUGH TO DROP ALL THERE COMFORTS AND PRIORITES AND LIVE OUT THIS ROCK N ROLL FANTASTY. SO MINUS NEARLY DYING AFTER THE FIRST SHOW ITS GONE PRETTY WELL.

A WAY OF LIFE AND DEFINITELY NOT A CAREER.

Apart from all the SST and Sub Pop records, what are the other prime influences on your music?
FOR ME (SHAUN) I LISTEN TO LOADS OF OLD STUFF, I LIKE SOME NEW BANDS BUT MAINLY THINGS FROM THE PAST OR A FEW YEARS BACK. A FEW THINGS I HAVE BEEN INTO LATELY ARE MARK SULTAN, BAD SPORTS, COLA FREAKS, ELVIS COSTELLO, NO BUNNY, BUZZCOCKS, MIKA MIKO & WAX MUSEUMS

The lyrics in your songs, they’re usually drowned in feedback and crashing drums, (and are even more indecipherable when heard live) but when you do get through to them, they’re usually quite eloquent! How important are the lyrics to you?
WELL TO ME I CAN GENRALLY HEAR THE WORDS TO OUR SONGS BECAUSE I WROTE THEM & I UNDERSTAND THEM. THIS HOWEVER ISNT THE CASE FOR OTHERS AND I FIND IT HARD TO PUT MYSELF I THERE POSITION. WE’VE NEVER HAVE A LYRIC SHEET IN ANY OF OUR RELEASES, I’M CONSIDERING THAT FOR THIS RECORD BUT THE WAY I WRITE THE WORDS IS THAT I NEVER RIGHT THEM DOWN, THERE CONSTRUCTED IN MY HEAD AND IF THERE GOOD ENOUGH THEN I WILL REMEMBER THEM, I’M AFRAID IF THESE ARE WRITTEN DOWN THEN THEY WILL LOOSE SOME OF THERE FEEL. A FEW PEOPLE IN THE PAST HAVE MESSAGED ME WANTING LYRICS AND I HAVE JUST SENT THEM OVER SO MAY BE IT WOULD BE WORTHWHILE. I’M NOT SURE. LYRICS SHOLD REFLEX SOMETHING, THEY DON’T ALWAYS HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING, THERE A LOT OF WORDS OUT THERE SO IT CAN BE A LOT OF FUN.

“I’M SICK TO DEATH AND I’M SO BORED. WHICH OCD DO I LIKE MORE, YOU AND EYE EYE DON’T KNOW EVERYBODY WANTS TO GO GO GO”

OCD GO GO GIRLS.

Finally, what’s your all-time top five favourite records?
DOSENT GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS IN MY OPINION.

1.BLACK SABBATH (1970)
2.PARANOID (1970)
3.MASTER OF REALITY (1971)
4.BLACK SABBATH VOL. 4 (1972)
5.SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH (1973)

get some sleep.

2009-04-03T05:46:00.003+01:00

this is a photography slideshow for a recent narrative project @ college, carrying on the theme of sleep that i've been researching. it revolves around the changing brain waves with different stages of sleep, my experiences with sleep deprivation, and that hazy, almost hallucinatory "drifting in and out" vibe that goes with erratic sleep patterns. the text might not appear very sharp due to hideous youtube compression, but i guess it's a necessary evil. i'll be uploading all the pictures i used soon, with all the lovely visible grain that just looks like shit on youtube.
the music is an extra long edit of "keechie" by no age.

mix #1 - electroencephalograph

2009-03-11T16:06:00.002Z

a mix designed to turn your beta waves into alpha waves.
oscillating motorik beats contrast with comedown blues, sombre ambience and lulling human voices.
get yr slow-wave on.

tracklisting:
1. chet baker - the thrill is gone
2. radiohead - packt like sardines in a crushd tin box
3. nathan fake - peary land
4. shocking pinks - this aching deal
5. primal scream - autobahn 66
6. the fun years - auto show day of the dead
7. léo ferré - la chanson du scaphandrier
8. this heat - sleep
9. the caretaker - von restorff effect
10. nina simone - i got it bad (and that ain't good)
11. the beta band - al sharp
12. holden - 10101
13. klimek - for marvin gaye & russel jones
14. high places - from stardust to sentience
15. new order - dreams never end
16. spacemen 3 - big city (everybody i know can be found here)
17. pyramids - the echo of something lovely
18. leadbelly - goodnight irene

download via sendspace

the internet...

2009-03-11T14:56:00.007Z

...it still exists! i naturally assumed in my absence it would just decay and wither in the ether, unable to cope with the loss of one of it's many billion unnecessary bloggers. but i have returned, to resuscitate it from its lifeless stupor and make it somewhat readable.
after my computer started to fail to do the most basic of tasks (start up Windows) i had to get the whole thing gutted and stuffed again. and it's in brand spanking new working order - at least it is until all the programs i willingly download then never use (Google Earth? wtf) clog its pores and it goes catatonic again. until that day, i'm going to try and post as many entries as i can, hopefully at a more regular rate than last year.
it's been almost two and a half months since my last post, the first half of a year-end list of things that i dug the most. i'll not be continuing with that, as it's now march - and my ears, eyes and brain are so oversaturated with new media that to dwell even further on 2008 would be counterproductive, and probably cause some kind of tumor. look out for posts over the next couple of days on new music i'm obsessing over, and a mixtape or two of some old favourites. i'll still be posting my photography from the past couple of months when i get the chance - if you can't wait 'til then (who can?) then here is my flickr link - http://www.flickr.com/photos/_washingmachine/
it's good to be back, i suppose.

2008 - in retrospect (part 1)

2008-12-20T01:27:00.006Z

cast yr mind back to midnight, december 31st, 2007, and - that's if you remember anything at all - you'll remember after all the drunken kisses and well wishes for the year forthcoming. what immediately followed (for me, anyway) was puns of varying degrees of quality on the year 2008. 'two-thousand-and-mate' was a popular one. 'two-thousand-and-hate' rhymed well enough, but didn't feel right. but the best one, and the one that stuck 'til way past the cider 'n' wine new years day hangover faded away, was 'two-thousand-and-great'. aside from being just an effective play on words, it made me feel genuinely confident and optimistic about the twelve months ahead. and in retrospect, that confidence was completely justified. pretty much everything about this year went great, from personal accomplishments, experiences and relationships, to the little extras that make life better - like music, books and film.
what follows is a list of those extras that made '08 great for me, starting with my favourite album and favourite gig. i'll try to steer away from the usual chutney you'll be reading on every blog, webzine and publication this time of year, cuz no one wants to read about Vampire Weekend and/or Fleet Foxes for the 643rd time this year, even if good things is all i'd have to say about them. however, one concession i will make is...

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (12th of May, UK commerical release)
my dead cert, all round favourite album of this year. i know, i know technically it was self-released in '07, but the general public (me, obv) didn't know about it til the commercial release from Jagjaguwar in May of this year. it took me a surprisingly long time to get into this album, considering how fond i am of it now. i bought it completely on a whim after reading the five-star review in Mojo, because it seemed to tick all the boxes i have for my lovelorn, one-man-and-a-guitar singer/songwriters. just like the critics and record-buying public, i was drawn in by the "recording in hibernation" PR story (which i'm sure i don't need to reiterate in detail here), and felt i had to get to know his songs. since then, it's had the same effect on me as 2005's Illinois by Sufjan Stevens - a life-enhancing album that you wish you could experience for the first time all over again. but its one of those records that, once you get beneath the surface of the songs and you know them inside and out, you won't be able to remember what life was like before you heard it.
which leads me on to...

Bon Iver, Wild Beasts & No Age @ Pressure Point, Brighton (15th of May)
...this. taking place as part of The Great Escape festival in Brighton's tiny (soon to be closed) Pressure Point venue, it's only in retrospect that i can genuinely appreciate what a special gig this was. at the time it just seemed like two relatively hip acts sharing the stage at a magazine-sponsered leg of a festival, nothing to blog about. but when the queue for entry started to form and snake along the pavement and up the street, often haphazardly spilling onto the roadside, i started to wonder. was everyone here just for Bon Iver? had everyone been enjoying the exact same listening experience as me for the past week or so? at this point i was still to find out the album had been available in some format for nearly a year, but even so, it felt like overkill for a one-man band with nine songs from out of Nowheresville, USA. it took until halfway through the set, for Justin Vernon to coax everyone in the room into singing along to the haunting refrain in "The Wolves" ('What might have been lost...'), that i was completely convinced the hype was justified. as if i needed further reassurance of the devotion he commanded, he took his acoustic guitar in hand and marched into the middle of the packed room and sang the album highlight "Skinny Love" without a microphone, and with every repeated bridge of 'My my my, My my my, My my', the audience contribution got louder, converting more unbelievers each time. without a doubt one of the best gigs i've ever attended, and i'm sure nearly everyone in attendence would concur.
such an act is hard to follow, and that unenviable task was given to Wild Beasts. another hyped-up band with a debut LP this year, the crowd had substantially thinned by the time they took the stage. their indistinct brand of Talking Heads'ish awkward pop definitely failed to impress. but i've since given a couple of studio recordings a listen ("His Grinning Skull", "The Devil's Crayon"), and they fare much better than the live interpretations. it's probably another case of a band who, when given the budget and studio time, can get their songs sounding exactly how they want, but the structures fall flat when they're faced with recreating them for the stage.
by the end of their set the crowd was filling out in places, the feverish anticipation starting to build for No Age. by this point i had been a No Age geek for some time, listening to Weirdo Rippers on a daily basis since '07 and tracking down every b-side from the limited vinyl EPs that had been cherry picked to make up that excellent compilation release. their debut album proper, Nouns, had been released earlier that month and i had been keeping it on repeat and soaking up all the tv static'y scummy noise pop it had to offer since it leaked to blogs earlier in the year. i hadn't seen them live yet and had high expectations, which had doubled since entering the venue and witnessing Bon Iver. the sheer volume with which they burst into action was startling, making opener and Nouns highlight "Teen Creeps" identifiable only by its dental records and a killer riff. halfway through the set came the first single "Eraser", a track i was one listen away from starting to skip on my mp3 player, was reanimated in a live setting. guitarist Randy Randall playing the minute-long intro riff wandering around the stage and into the crowd, before drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt chimed in, bringing the track to life by pounding on the drums with a force i'd not seen since watching Dave Grohl on my old Nirvana VHS. i soon realised that No Age are such a unique band, i felt instantly ridiculous for having tried to weigh them up against Bon Iver not half an hour before. they're two bands worlds apart in sense, style, and scene - but because they have the fortune of coming from similar DIY roots in one country (California and Wisconsin are close together when compared to the rest of the world), and both having debut albums in '08 on hip labels, they'll never be so far apart that a lazy blogger won't try and see a parallel between the two when they share a stage at a UK festival.

mp3: Bon Iver - "The Wolves (Act I and II)"
mp3: No Age - "Here Should Be My Home"

broken records, avalanche 6/11/08

2008-12-10T19:59:00.010Z

these were taken last month at an instore gig in Avalanche Records on Cockburn Street. the band is Broken Records, a nice little folk band from Edinburgh. they reminded me of other Scottish folk types like My Latest Novel, but with the added Guillemots'y brassy pop edge that a lot of the "hotly tipped for '09" bands are sporting. currently doing the familiar circuit of touring, releasing records, touring, recieving lukewarm-at-best press from NME, and more touring, i'd keep an eye out for them in the near future.
the 'cigarette burn' holes on the last photo - i don't know how they got there, but i think it's Boots fault. they scanned them, and i think the negative sheets ripped somewhere. anyway, i like the happy accidents and how it came out so i included it in the set.

mixtape #1 - cold music

2008-11-06T06:02:00.006Z

Mixtape #1 - Cold Music (Ambiance for Autumn and Winter) is obviously not an actual cassette tape or anything. but it's not a podcast as there are seperate MP3 files included, and it's not a full-blown mix as i haven't used a program to fade or sync the tracks to fit into one another - so a mixtape is the best way to describe it really. so says Wikipedia: "a compilation of songs in a specific order... which usually reflects the musical tastes of its compiler... a conceptual mix of songs linked by theme or mood". you don't argue with Wikipedia.
the picture (not taken by me) is of a Bed & Breakfast in Strathyre, Perthshire. it makes Winter in Scotland look idyllic and picturesque, when the reality of it is a dark, rainy, freezing couple of months, allowing for about eight hours of sunlight a day.
i've never been on the best of terms with Winter, in fact it's even injured me once or twice. the rest of the year i have an immune system like the Berlin Wall circa 1980, then December rolls around and i'm bedridden for the best part of it. the song choices reflect my relationship with this particular season - they weren't written to warm the cockles of yr heart on Christmas day. what follows is a selection of cold, hissing, clinical electronics and moonlit campfire songs that condense when exhaled.

Side A
1. The Radio Dept. - "Annie Laurie"
appears on Annie Laurie EP, 2002
2. Deepchord Presents Echospace - "First Point of Aries"
appears on The Coldest Season, 2007
3. Atlas Sound - "Headphones"
appears on Stereogum Presents Enjoyed: A Tribute to Björk's Post, 2008
4. Desolation Wilderness - "Come Over In Your Silver Car"
appears on White Light Strobing, 2008
5. James Blackshaw - "Past Has Not Passed"
appears on Litany of Echoes, 2008
6. Horse Feathers - "Helen"
appears on House With No Home, 2008
7. The Twilight Sad - "Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters"
appears on Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, 2007

Side B
1. Grouper - "Invisible"
appears on Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, 2008
2. Burial - "Night Bus"
appears on Burial, 2006
3. Spacemen 3 - "Feel So Sad (Reprise)"
appears on Recurring, 1991
4. Björk - "Cocoon (Instrumental)"
original version appears on Vespertine, 2001
5. Bon Iver - "The Wolves (Act I and II)"
appears on For Emma, Forever Ago, 2008
6. Explosions In The Sky - "What Do You Go Home To? (Mountains Mix)"
appears on All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone bonus disc, 2007
7. Windy & Carl - "Snow Covers Everything"
appears on Songs for the Broken Hearted, 2008
8. Do Make Say Think - "A Tender History in Rust"
appears on You, You're a History in Rust, 2007

Download Mix via zSHARE

it's meant to be listened to on decent speakers or headphones, so please don't rely on yr laptop's skinny pipes to push it out. it's only ten seconds under 80 minutes in length, so if your CD writer is a cruel mistress and refusing to write it, get hold of a C90 cassette and fulfill its Christmas wish to become a real live mixtape!

apple o'

2008-11-04T18:31:00.003Z

this is a set of digital photographs taken to test the timing, available lighting and suitable shutter speeds in my kitchen... as part of a film project exploring the freezing and blurring of movement.
the kitchen's not the ideal environment to be doing my first shots for this project, but i haven't been best prepared for anything recently and i don't have much of a choice! i'll be developing the film tomorrow so hopefully i'll get some prints up before the end of the week. if they never materialise then you'll trust they came out terrible.

i decided to do these shots involving apples frozen in mid-air in reference to Magritte's apple themed paintings (The Son of Man, The Listening Room, and This is not an Apple) - plus they're yummy. for the pictures that emphasise movement with blur, i've thought about exploring something with birds - but Man in the Bowler Hat is something i'll leave to the surrealists.
check out the irrefutable evidence of scary skeletal hands in that last pic. who needs halloween costumes with digits like that?

big city, bright lights, cool people

2008-10-29T00:24:00.007Z

the results of one day of nice weather in brighton, england:

yeah, there is a lot of Fern, but with such a photogenic person around it seemed churlish not to take advantage. the last one of the rock is badly out of focus, a result of not using my glasses when focusing. i still kinda like the way it came out, so i'm still using it for my flyer project in college, but if i could retake it i would.

currently bangin' on about:
Spacemen 3 - "Big City"
a cast of cool people who are easy to be around
Nathan Fake bootlegs
the raddest vintage shops on Earth being in Brighton
Charlie Brooker's Dead Set on E4
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Pink, the novel by Gus Van Sant
always travelling but never moving (the time i've spent sitting completely still on a mode of public transport the past two months is incalculable)
Lovvers - THINK
Burn After Reading
Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavillion bootlegs

totally wired

2008-10-02T23:36:00.007+01:00

there hasn't been any updates in weeks for legitimate reasons, though justifying to someone else why there hasn't been an update for a blog that no one reads is something i'm struggling to justify to myself. all paradoxical dilemmas aside, i haven't updated in an age cuz of one big fat hairy reason: studying photography @ college. it's on four days a week and it being in Edinburgh means i leave at 7am and i'm back at 7pm at the earliest - not a lot of time to listen, watch or read, let alone blog about any of them.
the first course i've attended that has an engaging subject to study and isn't completely full of plebs is something to consume oneself in, and i've done so up until this day. it's been a bit of a slow one this week. there's no deadlines until the middle of october, and i rarely do my best work unless i'm under pressure, so i've been copping it sweet - until i'm at breaking point, naked in a pungent bath of dev, stop and fix going up to my shins, hours before an evaluation. i'll be posting some of my work in coming updates.
other developments (lol) include me DJ'ing at the Cameo cinema/bar in Edinburgh soon, for a night exclusively centered around post-punk. the wildly varying forms that post-punk and its revivalists take on means i can legitimately put Bauhaus (pictured) then Altered Images one after the other without anyone batting an eyelid. if anyone tries to tell me one is actually goth punk and the other's actually new wave, i'll fucking glass them. i'll post a minimix of some the tracks from the night on here, so everyone can get totally wirrred. i'll post the date later on when i get a definite date - at the moment it's looking like 12th of November. keep yr calenders free.

by the end of the week hopefully, i'll have a post full of bands i've been obsessed with the past couple of weeks, packed to the gills with MP3s for previewing-purposes-only or some other disclaimer chutney. in other news, i just saw the Soulwax documentary, Part of the Weekend Never Dies. from what i've heard (i've never had the pleasure of seeing them), it doesn't fully capture the essence of the band as a kickin' live act and full-on remixing machine, but it certainly does try. the movie itself feels like a remix of previously existing footage, constantly splicing scenes, songs and interviews on top of one another to the extent where one would need to be on the same drugs as the crowd at Fabric to keep up with all of it. including interviews with the Dewaele brothers themselves - and other dudes from the disco-dance-punk scene, with hefty contributions from James Murphy ("what's wrong with the word "scene"?!" begs Murphy in one... scene), Erol Alkan, and Tiga - it tries to paint a portrait of a band who, in one of their many forms, have been on the road non-stop since 2005. their first incarnation as a pretty-fucking-good-actually dance'y alternative rock band is barely touched upon, all you get is the dullest member of Klaxons mentioning that Any Minute Now is one of the best albums he's ever heard, then it quickly cuts to someone gurnin' and gulpin' overly-expensive bottled water while "Funkytown" gets mashed up with "NY Excuse".
this problem aside, it's actually a pretty accurate representation of the 2006/07 dance explosion. which is a pretty hard thing to achieve these days, given the speed with which it grew from something to be ashamed of and try your darnest to keep off yr last.fm account, to the most hip, incestual and sickeningly in-yr-face scene on the planet. with each band, club, DJ, and minor MySpace celebrity remixing each other and blogging each other at such a furious pace, The Guardian didn't even have time to write an misspelled, ill-informed, and overwrought article about Londons flowering dance artists for their Sunday supplements. for this reason, it is necessary viewing if you have found yourself in a club at any point over the past couple of years, wondering if you should keep dancing during that middle section on the Erol remix of "Waters of Nazareth", just before the beat DROPS and you get yr groove back. you know what i'm talking about.

conor oberst

2008-09-02T04:34:00.009+01:00

this, the first solo album in twelve years by Bright Eyes' resident singer/borderline alcoholic/songwriter Conor Oberst, is a record that's been on my mp3 player and my mind in equal amounts. at first, i was a little dismissive - pre-release hype was giving me the impression this was another attempt at Conor's grand vision he had for 2007's Bright Eyes album, Cassadaga. its widescreen cinematic scope and overarching themes of religion, redemption and the rapture, along with the bleating female backing vocals and overbearing orchestral score, seemed to alienate every fan who'd been keeping up with him since those basement tapes recorded on four-track for the earliest incarnation of Saddle Creek Records way back in 1993.
his principal songwriting vehicle, Bright Eyes, had been attracting more public adoration and press attention with each album (the band's studio output includes seven albums and countless EPs), primarily due to the unsettling honesty of Oberst's lyrics - each song eloquently detailed family tragedy, heartbreak, clinical depression, drug and alcohol abuse, even suicide attempts. what came a close second was fans and casual observers like interest in seeing him drink and snort himself into self-destruction. he was perfect pop culture martyr material... Elliott Smith's face was too ugly for t-shirts and no one had left a good-looking corpse since Kurt Cobain. alas, the road to oblivion seemed to hit a cul-de-sac at the tail end of 2005 on the tour for Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. after a year spent constantly touring the two albums he had released that year (the other being I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning) and doing copious amounts of mushrooms, it collapsed into cancelled dates and press controversy due to a coked-up slur about then-recently deceased DJ John Peel at Glastonbury. rather unfairly, his barely comprehensible comments were blown out of proportion, and overshadowed what was the most successful year for Bright Eyes so far.
Oberst took a step back from the abyss, and following the conclusion of the tour, Bright Eyes remained inactive for the greater part of 2006. this rare lull in (musical) activity sparked a change in him, and subsequently his material. he travelled the US, visiting the community of mediums and clairvoyants in Florida called Cassadaga, hung out, relaxed, and grew his hair long. fuckin' hippie. when Bright Eyes came back in early 2007 with the Four Winds EP, the mellow, countrified sound he hinted at on I'm Wide Awake... came in full swing, fiddle 'n' all. the following LP, Cassadaga, attracted all the press attention and rave reviews that I'm Wide Awake... and Digital Ash... enjoyed, but the hardcore "'Creekers" didn't take to it. he seemed to have lost what made him so captivating in the first place, forgetting that the simple sound of his voice and a guitar was what made career-defining songs like "Lua" and "Waste of Paint" what they were. he exchanged the bleak naval-gazing for clumsy meditations on faith ("The Bible is blind, the Torah is deaf, the Qur'an is mute/if you burned them all together you'd get close to the truth") and the end of the world ("From the madness of the governments to the vengeance of the sea/Everything is eclipsed by the shape of destiny"). to his credit, he aimed high, but his words fell short of doing justice to the heavy subject matter, and the production seemed to hold the record back - Mike Mogis' slick 'n' shiny studio moves tried to convey lush landscapes to compliment songs more upbeat numbers like Make a Plan to Love Me and Cleanse Song, but came off sounding as barren as the "sterile soil" as described in No One Would Riot For Less.
so now, on Conor Oberst, he takes another step back, but it's not a regression. keeping in mind the heights he tried to conquer with his last album, he scales it down to the bare essentials to cover the terrain with ease.
Oberst retains the gift for careful wordplay that once again synchronizes with his deft guitar playing seamlessly, possibly better than it ever has. eschewing the multiple-studio engineering sheen (an absent Mike Mogis is the primary reason this is an album by Conor Oberst, not a Bright Eyes one), he seems content again to record rough live takes with his buddies and bandmates, only this time it's around a campire in the Mexican desert rather than Omaha basements. everything about it sounds so comfortable, the only way you'd know he left the country to record it is the lyrical references to crossing the border and running away with yr girlfriend in album highlights "Moab" and "NYC-Gone, Gone". these songs in particular are heartwarming listens, a perfect antidote to the stubborn sentiment Benjamin Gibbard conveyed in Death Cab For Cutie's "Blacking Out The Friction" ("I think that it's brainless to assume that making changes to your window's view will give a new perspective").
it's not all beer and sunshine though, as he evidently still has a little bit of the pessimist in him. the protest spirit of Bob Dylan takes hold of him on songs like "Lenders in the Temple", in which he conjures up wild imagery ("The starving children ain't got no mother/There's pink flamingos living in the mall"), and delivers more of the classic wunderkind meditations on the "Why Me?" nature of the music business ("The lights are out, where'd everybody go?"). this and a couple of other songs are filtered with the same empty-music-hall echo that plagued some of the worst songs on Cassadaga - it's put to slightly better use here, but it's still not as welcome as the intimate bedroom acoustics of songs like "A Song to Pass the Time" would be.
on a lighter note, on "Get-Well-Cards" and "I Don't Want To Die (In The Hospital)", he channels the 1966, rock 'n' roll "Judas!" Dylan spirit. again, both tracks sound like a band (namely the Mystic Valley Band) just having fun. the title for the latter might mislead some to believe it's another suicide-attempt ballad like those that featured on Fevers and Mirrors and Lifted..., but the truth is it couldn't be more removed. the song bounds along with burning hope that the song's protagonist might yet live to see the world outside his ward again, and begs you to help him get his boots back so he can "feel the earth against my feet/as the cold wind calls for me". it remains my personal favourite on the album, and one of my favourite all-time Oberst compositions.
i feel i should spare you all the PR cud chewin' for this album, debating over whether it's a Bright Eyes follow-up or a straight Conor Oberst record, and just treat it for what it is: a real chance for Conor to redeem himself, get his head screwed on straight and get on with making albums like how he used to. on this LP, he manages all three.
now if you've read this far, the chances are you're a Bright Eyes fan and have bought/downloaded/whatever this album already, and made your judgement. if that judgement is one of negativity and despair, missing the days when he'd spill his guts to you on CD like it was over the phone with a dear friend, i'd say get over it. he's almost thirty or something now, no one is that angsty forever. Cassadaga had it's low points, but one feels after listening to this record that was just a hiccup, a blip on an otherwise upward trajectory. give Conor Oberst another listen. hell, give Cassadaga another listen just to make sure you weren't cavin' in to fan-boy pressure when you said it sucked.

Conor Oberst - I Don't Want To Die (In The Hospital)

birchville cat motel

2008-08-24T03:38:00.008+01:00

every blog has a first post! may as well hit the ground running, with a one-man noise project that's so hip, so current, so earth-shatteringly NOW... that as of October 9th 2008, they will cease to exist. catch him while you can. if you live in Australia or New Zealand.
i've only just this week heard the skull rattlingly lovely LP Four Freckle Constellation from Wellington's Birchville Cat Motel (just one of the many banners this Campbell Kneale guy operates under), and upon looking up MySpace for some info on this complete non-entity, i discover he's "splitting up" after a four date tour of Australia and New Zealand in October. what timing!
the dude's also more prolific than Bradford Cox after a night of Red Bull and eight balls. while the world (well, me) hasn't been listening, he's chalked up innumerable releases on different labels in different countries, including collaborations with Lee Ranaldo and, another band who are gettin' while it's good, Yellow Swans. with music this loud, distorted and nigh on impenetrable, it's little wonder he's spent however many years recording and touring the world in relative obscurity. but the flipside to that harsh drone is a hypnotic, sweet blissful void, lulling you to sleep before it invades yr nightmares. it reminds one of recent exploits from Bristol's Fuck Buttons (albeit in a slightly less palatable format), and is even more reminiscent of all the Portland, OR noise crews who've been toiling in this particular musical field since the early 90's.
if you dig all that, or just want yr head to feel like it's burning up on re-entry, check out this 6 track LP from Conspiracy Records out of Belgium, or check his MySpace for info on internet-only releases.
meanwhile, here's an mp3 of the title track from the offending album...
Birchville Cat Motel - Four Freckle Constellation