The Daily Growl

The end of this road

2008-11-25T13:56:00.002Z

Hey folks. This is the last ever post on thedailygrowl.blogspot.com

If you care anything about this blog, don't worry. All the action is continuing over on the all-new Daily Growl site, so point yer browsers at www.thedailygrowl.co.uk and have a look.

It's still a work in progress, because unlike Blogger, the Wordpress interface requires a bit of technical knowledge, particularly if you're self-hosting. But I'm assured by people more clever than I am that this is a good move, and as I require the necessary knowledge, the look of the site will no doubt improve. The main plus point for me at the moment is that it will provide some protection from the DMCA gangsters who kept raiding my Blogger pages and deleting posts without any warning. Let's see how it goes.

If you've got any links to this here site, could you take a minute to update them? This message (and blog) will be eventually replaced by a redirect message, so it would ease the linkage process a little.

So it's the end of an era of sorts, but not really. The Daily Growl continues, just in a different location. See you on the other site.

The evil empire strikes again

2008-11-11T12:24:00.005Z

Yes, it's happened again. In the past week, I've had two more DMCA-related deletions from this blog. I wouldn't even mind if it was a fair cop, but the posts that were targeted make no sense at all. One of these was on Glasvegas from last year using demo mp3s that were freely available on the band's myspace at the time, and before they signed with Columbia. Given other bloggers' experience, this retrospective targeting was only to be expected. The other was a post featuring tracks from Esser and Calexico, BOTH of which were sent to me by PRs with the express purpose of posting.

I'm getting fed up of this, and before any posts that I really value get deleted, I'm going to suspend activity here until I work out how to migrate The Daily Growl to a self-hosted blog, which should give me some breathing space. I'm no technical whizz, but I've got to learn. So bear with me. Normal service should hopefully be restored before too long...

Lambchop @ The Union Chapel, 3 November 2008

2008-11-10T17:18:00.003Z

I was having a chat with a friend recently about the value of consistency in music. Is consistency a good thing and when does it just get boring? How much are we comforted by a familiar sound and how much do we want our favourite artists to try something new? Answers in the comments if you may, but the aforementioned conversation was prompted by the new Lambchop album OH (Ohio), even though at that point I hadn’t heard it. However I sort of knew what to expect. It's now their third album since their 2002 masterwork Is a Woman, and Kurt Wagner and co. seem to have settled into their own gentle groove. The previous two albums haven’t moved me as much as their previous works – Aw C’mon / No You C’mon too sprawling to engage properly and Damaged slipping past rather anonymously. So I thought I knew what to expect from a new album. Consistency at least.

On stage at the Union Chapel tonight there’s more consistency. You know what you’re getting with Lambchop. Kurt Wagner as the genial, yet slightly retiring host, gracious, understated, with occasional bursts of passion. The band behind him making far less noise than you’d expect six people to make, but doing it very skilfully and beautifully. Then, just when you expect it, Kurt turns and says “Mr Tony Crow on piano” and the pianist launches into one of his terrible jokes. But he’s nothing if not self-aware. This is all part of a Lambchop show, and we get all of this tonight.

One thing that’s different is the set list. The new album is played in its entirety, in order, save an interlude towards the end, started by a storming cover of Once in a Lifetime, the only time in the whole set where Wagner rises from his chair, followed by a few songs cherry-picked from their back catalogue. They encore with I Believe in You, Ohio’s final track. This is not a night for the casual Lambchop observer, though as ever, the rendition of Up With People should keep most people happy. The new album does sound familiar and there is that aforementioned consistency. But it sounds warmer, more soulful, without employing the strings of the past, and the band are on top form. So tonight, consistency, familiarity and comfort are definitely good things, and in the beautiful sacred space that is the Union Chapel, with its flickering candles and reverent crowd, it even becomes quite magical.

mp3: Lambchop – All Flowers and Mariachi
mp3: Lambchop – Slipped Dissolved and Loosed

Lambchop myspace / website.

Buy OH (Ohio) from Rough Trade (with a bonus CD!) or download from emusic.

Fireworks Night - A Mirror, A Ghost

2008-11-05T23:55:00.008Z

It's the 5th of November, the night when people all over Britain celebrate the gruesome death of some Catholics in 1605. Or just go and build a bonfire and watch some fireworks going off. It's also a good day to release a new album. Especially if your band's name is Fireworks Night.

Fireworks Night have been round these parts before, after they released their second long-player As Fools We Are last year. It was a fine album, but didn't get the attention it deserved, a fact which seems to have left main man James Lesslie a little downhearted. A slightly turbulent period in the band's history followed, but thankfully now things are back on track following the recruitment of some new members, including The Mules' Ed Seed, and the recording of six new songs to form the rather splendid A Mirror, A Ghost EP.

I say new, but two of the tracks are re-recordings of older FN songs. But these, combined with the four really new ones comprise what feels like their most substantial work to date. Sure, part of the appeal is in the record's brevity and trim-ness, and even though i prefer the older version of Echo's Swing with its explosive post rock wig-out ending, there's a general meatiness to the songs here, and you feel that there's something fresh to return to each time.

I've listened to the EP several times now and still don't feel that I've got a full grasp on the songs. I mean this in a good way, because each time I return, there's something different to enjoy. Sometimes it's a piece of haunting strings, other times I note someone's got a liking for noisy guitars. I heartily recommend these songs to you and hope you'll find their company as pleasing as I have. They'll warm you like a bonfire for sure. Sometimes they might even be exciting like the fireworks that have been popping away outside my window all evening. But what's guaranteed is that this EP will stick with you for much longer.

mp3: Fireworks Night - The Fire

Fireworks Night myspace / Organ Grinder page

Buy A Mirror, A Ghost from the Organ Grinder shop. Oh, and hurry. There were only 500 made, in a lovely hand-printed cardboard box sleeve (a painstaking process, as this testifes).

Byron Lee 1935 - 2008

2008-11-04T23:52:00.005Z

It's been a bad year for reggae legends. By my counting, at least three have passed away. Joe Gibbs a few months back, Alton Ellis last month and now Byron Lee.

Most famous for his group The Dragonaires, formed in 1950, Lee was a veteran of Jamaican music and one of its more tireless ambassadors. As well as being a ska pioneer, Byron was also a studio owner, producer (producing a lot of The Maytals' music) record distributor and carnival organiser, actively active in his island's music scene right up to his passing away yesterday. One of the greats. RIP.

mp3: Byron Lee - Hot Reggae
mp3: Byron Lee - Frankenstein

Buy Byron Lee albums from Sounds of the Universe.

Bugged Out

2008-11-04T23:24:00.004Z

The Daily Growl has love for The Shortwave Set, particularly their ace debut album The Debt Collection. The love was a bit more muted for their second long-player Replica Sun Machine. However, the love remains strong for Glitches 'n' Bugs, one of the best tracks on the latest record. Here, some dodgy-sounding character called Marshmellow Mike adds woozy psychedelia, funky drumming, wobbly bass and barrelling rock 'n' roll piano to take the song to new foot-stomping heights.

mp3: The Shortwave Set - Glitches 'n' Bugs (Marshmellow Mike remix)

The Shortwave Set myspace.

The Glitches 'n' Bugs single is out on 8 December, including various remixes. The 7 inch has a version of Grace Jones' Slave to the Rhythm.

Tilly and the Wall @ ULU, 25 October 2008

2008-11-03T17:11:00.007Z

Things have changed in the world of Tilly and the Wall. The last time I saw them was back at the first End of the Road festival in September 2006, and I look back to then and the previous months with some nostalgia. Fun times, watching the Omaha quintet all over the place at a time before the the Baby Growl arrived to change our lives forever. Perhaps it was fitting that this was the first time Mrs Growl and I have been at a gig together since our lives were changed.

Then again, things haven’t changed that much. There’s still the dayglo exuberance (surely in parallel universe, most of the band would be children’s TV presenters). There are still the highly infectious tunes. And of course there’s the tap-dancing. The things that have changed are exactly what caused the problems tonight. If had to review this gig in less than 10 words, they would be: GET RID OF THE BASS PLAYER.

There are two extra members in T&TW now – a bass player and a drummer. They’re touring their new album (is it really called ‘O’ just because there’s a circle on the cover?) which is another fine addition to the Tilly canon. But from the start of this gig there’s a problem. The new beefed-up bass sound swamps almost everything else. Now I know that there’s an issue of bad sound mixing, and it does get a bit better as the gig progresses, but generally, the sound of Tilly cranking it up is just not fitting. Their songs are shiny pop nuggets that don’t benefit from The Rock.

Then there’s the vocals. What seems so sweet and harmonious on record is often strained and tuneless as the various singers shout out their parts. Now, I’m not talking about guitarist Derek Pressnall here – he can’t sing for toffee and should never be allowed to do so – it’s the girls that I expect more from. Particularly on a shocking cover of Erasure’s A Little Respect, which could have been so much better. But ultimately, I guess I should just relax a little. I suppose you don’t go to see Tilly and the Wall for a highly competent, slick performance, you go for FUN. And Fun was had. New songs were played. Old songs are played to much cheer. And there are smiles on faces, particularly during The Freest Man, Reckless and cracking new single Beat Control. So all in, a bit of a mixed bag of an evening. Still, I can highly recommend the new album, which comes with all tonight's creases ironed out.

mp3: Tilly and the Wall - Tall Tall Grass
mp3: Tilly and the Wall - Sing Songs Along

Tilly and the Wall myspace / website

Buy O and other T&TW releases from Rough Trade or emusic.

Deerhunter - Microcastle / Weird Era Cont.

2008-10-31T13:18:00.004Z

It’s been a prolific year from Bradford Cox. He’s released his solo debut album as Atlas Sound, and followed that up with a run of ‘virtual seven inches’ on his blog. And just to prove that he just can’t stop recording, with his ‘proper’ band Deerhunter he’s released not one, but two albums, hitting the streets this week as one big juicy package.

The fact that there are two albums is related to the aforementioned blog. As all fans will now know, over the summer, when posting one of his Atlas Sound virtual sevens, someone accessed a whole album’s worth of songs in an unsecured folder in Cox’s mediafire account. So given that this material was out there anyway, it’s been appended to the planned release of Microcastle. The good thing is that we now have two Deerhunter albums instead of one.

I say a good thing, but this doesn’t mean two amazing albums for the price of one. Somewhere in the collection of 25 songs, there is one great album. If Cox has a weakness, it’s self-editing. It’s fine enough to have tons of material available, but if you’re lazy like me, you’ll object to having to put some work in, weeding out the fine from the not-so-fine. Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing bad on either Microcastle or Weird Era Cont. but some of it just drifts innocuously past, as if it can’t really be bothered to grab your attention.

Thankfully, there are plenty of songs which do make you sit up and take notice. Deerhunter are best when cranking up the warm, fuzzy guitars and Cox knows how to craft a good song, and also crucially how to rock out whilst keeping the tunes intact (see the particularly excellent Nothing Ever Happened). When these albums are good, they’re very good – particularly Microcastle – and if Cox is slightly more discerning he’ll write a classic album very soon.

mp3: Deerhunter – Nothing Ever Happened
mp3: Deerhunter – Twilight at Carbon Lake

Deerhunter myspace / blog

Corporate hacking and the war on bloggers

2008-10-30T14:28:00.005Z

For me, it started back in September. Just after returning to blogging post-holiday, I noticed that something wasn't quite right. I was sure I had done a post about Richard Hawley side project The Feral Cats, but it wasn't there any more. Strange, especially given that the song still appeared on my Hype Machine listing. My first thought was that I had been hacked. But by who? An outraged Richard Hawley fan, furious that I had posted a track only available on a very limited edition 10 inch single? Surely not. Slightly worried though I was, I changed my login and password and left it.

The next one to disappear was much more noticeable. A day or so after I reviewed the new TV on the Radio album, the post also disappeared, with no warning. Now something was clearly going wrong. If it was a hacker, why so discriminating? If they wanted to harm my blog, they could just have deleted the whole thing.

Things got a bit clearer when I read this post on To Die By Your Side. It seems that Coxon (who writes TDBYS) had been targeted in a similar way and his posts on The Verve and Cold War Kids had been ghosted away. So it's clearly been coming from the record companies. But hold on... I was sent the TVOTR album by the blogger-friendly 4AD (though admittedly they never give explicit permission to post). But a quick look at their website shows that TVOTR are on DGC in the US, which is part of the evil empire that is Universal. That explained a lot. Then I found out that this was happening to a lot of bloggers and it's continuing daily, even in the time that it's taken me to write this long-winded post, more bad shit has happened.

In the past, any record company complaints were usually directed via file hosts - mine would either ask me to take the offending mp3s down or delete them themselves. Earlier this year I had my account closed by one host, but I guess that's just part of this borderline game we play. There's also Web Sheriff, which although strident in tone, was similar to a record company or PR simply asking you to take something down, which is the way I prefer it. But the tactics have now switched. By going straight to Blogger and deleting the offending item is a lot more direct and painful. Plus, if you're a blogger who values writing rather than just posting mp3s, you lose something that you may have spent good time putting together.

Over the last week or so, things have taken a decidedly nastier turn. In the past eight days, I've had a further two posts deleted. This time I received an email about these, otherwise I may never have noticed. That's because one of them was from over TWO YEARS AGO. That's October 2006. The deleted post was about a FREE CD I picked up in Rough Trade, featuring a load of young folky types, none of whom are very well known, even now. However, one of them was Johnny Flynn, now signed to Vertigo, a subsidiary of our old friends Universal. The notion that they're trying to clear the internets of Flynn mp3s was confirmed on Monday when another Johnny-featuring post, this time his appearance on Jeremy Warmsley's Welcome to our TV Show, was also deleted. This is all bad stuff, not to mention pretty stupid given that the mp3s had long since been taken down. But let's think about this further for a minute:

- The live track was recorded in Jeremy Warmsley's living room and sent to me by the man himself. I'm sure it is (was?) also freely available on last.fm.

- The song on the free CD was from when Johnny Flynn was just starting out playing solo stuff and long before anyone at Universal had ever heard of him.

The latter point is compounded by fellow-blogger Ed from 17 Seconds, who had an interview with Glasvegas from January deleted last week. This was before the band had signed with major label Columbia (part of Sony BMG) and the mp3s Ed posted were with full approval of the band.

So does this mean that even if us bloggers stick to the indie and unsigned artists, and post everything with full permission, that sometime in the future some bastard is coming to come crashing down on us because in the past we've had the temerity to write about and post songs from an artist that they have gone on to sign? Does that mean that nothing is safe? Surely one of the sources of information that major labels use to find out about new bands is blogs. That's just having your cake and eating it.

But anyway, I could go on in an indignant fashion, but that would be pointless. There are a lot of bloggers out there feeling a bit vulnerable, though some have suggested some fightback action. Matthew Song, By Toad is writing to a Columbia bigwig, which should be interesting. But ultimately there's probably not much we can do against heavy handed, idiotic people who have money and legal power on their side. Actually, there are a couple of things I can to to mitigate things a bit.

1. Avoid anything on a major label. This isn't going to be very difficult, given that I don't much anyway. However the fear of future action as noted above remains.

2. Move away from Blogger. I actually tried to do this earlier in the year and move to a self-hosted Wordpress blog, but found the process horrendously complicated. However, I'm determined to do this now, because though it won't provide complete security, I'll feel a wee bit safer. Those who have this set-up (like Matthew) seem to have survived so far.

Anyway, this post is way longer than it than it has any right to be, so I'll stop now. The next few weeks in blog-land should be interesting.

Before I go, here's a song which I've been given explicit permission to post. So it should be OK. I hope.

mp3: Rod Thomas - Same Old Lines (James Yuill Remix)

Alton Ellis 1938 - 2008

2008-10-29T22:57:00.003Z

When Isaac Hayes died earlier this year, everyone knew about it immediately, and rightly so. However, 10 October saw another reggae legend pass away with seemingly little comment. I can almost understand Joe Gibbs' death being widely ignored several months back, because he was more of a backroom man (even though hugely influential), but I'd have thought that someone as well-known in the world of Jamaican music as Alton Ellis would have generated a bit more column inches.

Maybe it's just me not being more aware, but it was a week or so after his death that I first read about his passing in the relative backwater of the Guardian's 'click to download' column. First sadness on hearing this, then mild outrage about not hearing before.

Still, looking around the internet now, there are plenty of tributes to this great pioneer of rocksteady, and as I type this, he's number 3 in The Hype Machine 'most blogged artists' list, so there are plenty of music fans out there who aren't letting his departure go unheralded. And rightly so - he was a giant of the genre. Although he's best known for rocksteady, he's recorded a variety of music including a bit of funk, and given that London was his home from the mid-70s, it's perhaps no surprise that he dabbled in lover's rock. There's little that i can say more to the many words that have been uttered so far, so I won't. However, if you're unfamiliar with the great man, you can read the brief bio on Wikipedia, get this compilation, or just listen at Hype.

One of these tracks below - Let Him Try - is my favourite Ellis song, and probably one of my all-time favourite songs. Ever. Call me a big softie, but just listen and tell me it doesn't make you feel all gooey and tingly inside. RIP Alton.

mp3: Alton Ellis - African Descendants
mp3: Alton Ellis - Let Him Try

True Story

2008-10-28T22:24:00.006Z

You know how sometimes an artist who has never really been properly on your radar (or has been out of mind for a long time) in short space of time keeps on cropping up, as if to say "hey, listen to me". Or something like that. Anyway, it's happened to me recently with Matthew Herbert. Firstly, a couple of weeks ago, I rediscovered his amazing 2001 album Bodily Functions in my CD collection. Shortly after that I when I found out about ace new band The Invisible, I saw that he is their producer. Then last week I got an email about his latest project.

He's getting his big band back together, which is perhaps not surprising given that it's been his most commercially successful venture to date (or at least the most high-profile). But this isn't really about cashing in. Matthew's a man with many serious points to make, so he's still managing to get messages into the swing-band jazz. Take this preview track The Story, which contains lyrics about Cambodian refugees, Indian farmers and paying the right price for coffee. And being a man who also likes a bit of performance art in his socially conscious dance music, there's more to the track than meets the eye.

Honestly though, this is what you need liner notes (or a press release, in this case) for. Listening to The Story, you'd never realise that it features the sampled sound of 70 copies of The Sun newspaper. 70 celebrity gossip magazines. one copy of the NME, one Madonna album and one copy of Wallpaper* magazine. But it does. There you go.

mp3: The Matthew Herbert Big Band - The Story (edit)

Matthew's new album There's me, and then there's you is out on 10 November. The Big Band play at the Royal Festival Hall on 21 November.

Oh, and one classic for old time's sake.

mp3: Herbert - Suddenly

Buy Matthew Herbert stuff from Amazon

Sugar baby

2008-10-26T15:27:00.004Z

It's a a damp autumn afternoon. The Baby Growl is asleep and a measure of peace has been restored to the house. What better to do than spend some time making Nigella's amazing chocolate banana loaf? With added rum of course. And the soundtrack to a Sunday afternoon of domestic goddessness? Van Morrison's Astral Weeks of course.

mp3: Van Morrison - Sweet Thing

Further Education

2008-10-24T16:34:00.005+01:00

A Classic Education are one of these perfectly-named bands. In the sense that theirs is classic indie rock, informed by three decades of classic indie rock. You don't have to listen too too hard to sense their influences - seemingly everything from Echo and the Bunnymen to Arcade Fire and everything decent in between.

I've been on about them here before, but today there's two good new things. One is that they're in town this weekend for a couple of gigs. So if you're in London, and are looking for some gig action, you could do far worse than to head down to either The Fly tonight or Dalston's premier former furniture store basement Barden's Boudoir tomorrow night to see Bologna's finest play. I can't make it unfortunately, so if you do go, say hello to Jonathan and the boys for me.

The other thing, is a new song. Freshly recorded this week. It's good of course.

mp3: A Classic Education - We Can Always Run to Hawaii

A Classic Education myspace / website

Bodies of Water @ Cargo, 14 October 2008

2008-10-23T00:00:00.009+01:00

I don’t want to start a review feeling sorry for a band, but lastTuesday night at Cargo there was something lacking. It was nothing to do with the band’s performance, which was superb. It was the audience. Not even their enthusiasm for the band, just the number of people. Cargo’s not even a particularly big venue, but there were no more than 30 people in there, which dampened the atmosphere somewhat. I know it’s the first UK tour for Bodies of Water, and they’re relatively unknown here, but surely more could have been done on the promotion side. There wasn’t much info to be found anywhere other than Cargo’s own website, and I didn’t even know who the support band were until I asked the singer after their performance.

Speaking of which, the unknown support band turned out to be a Danish duo called the Choir of Young Believers, and they were very impressive. It’s not often these days that I’ll attend a gig where I see a support band that I’ve never heard, or even heard of beforehand. And it’s a pleasant surprise when they’re good.

Their set on Tuesday night was performed as a duo comprising COYB main man Jannis Noya Makrigiannis and cellist Cecilie Trier. The songs were slow and measured, with Jannis’s electric guitar and vocals beautifully complemented by Cecile’s haunting cello and gorgeous harmonies. They reminded me of a less dark Low, and their half-hour slot glided gracefully by. I bought their debut album This is for the White in Your Eyes off their manager afterwards, and it’s a fine piece of work, though I wasn’t quite expecting the much fuller, orchestrated sound present on record. It seems that COYB are a bigger outfit than I thought, and it’s likely that resources reduced their touring band to two. On hindsight, this was a very good thing because, although White in Your Eyes is a decent album, I much prefer the stripped-down torch songs from last Tuesday night.

This was Bodies of Water’s first London headline gig, and I was full of anticipation. Ever since succumbing to the wide-eyed euporhia of their debut Ears Will Pop and Eyes Will Blink last year, I’ve thought that they’d be an amazing live band. But it's been was almost a year till I've got to see them in the flesh.

With such high levels of anticipation, it would be easy to be disappointed, because anything less than mind-blowing just wouldn’t do. Which is why the small crowd was annoying – a packed arch at Cargo would no doubt have generated an electric atmosphere. The other little disappointment for me was the lack of material from Ears Will Pop. But that’s a minor gripe – BoW had their new album A Certain Feeling to plug, and boy did they do that well. I haven’t warmed as much to the new record as much as I’d hoped, until this gig. The songs from A Certain Feeling came alive in new ways, with the band’s enthusiastic everyone-sing-at-once style, and songs that seemed to contain three or four songs in one, shifting tempo efforstlessly and thrillingly.

Even though they were nearing the end of a long tour, the folks from LA still managed to muster smiles, humour and good spirits throughout, even broken guitar strings near the end couldn't stop them from coming back with a spine-tingling set closer of These are The Eyes. They seemed to have some sound problems on stage, but I didn’t notice. A brilliant gig, though I'll be hoping for more people next time. As we left, my friend said that if he could put together his ideal band, it would be Bodies of Water. For a moment at least, it was hard to disagree.

mp3: Bodies of Water - These are the Eyes
mp3: Bodies of Water - Even in a Cave

BoW myspace / website

mp3: Choir of Young Believers - Action/Reaction
mp3: Choir of Young Believers - Hollow Talk

COYB myspace

Buy Bodies of Water albums from Rough Trade or download from emusic. Buy COYB's This is for the Whites in Your Eyes from their myspace.

Alessi’s Ark

2008-10-22T17:14:00.004+01:00

Estimates of the prevalence of opiate use

The Daily Growl is a modest blog, and I have no big ambitions for it. Apart from continuing to write about music that I like, which hopefully others will like too. I’m under no illusions about how influential or cutting-edge I am. Heck, this is just a hobby, although most music bloggers (myself sometimes included) take themselves too seriously to admit that.

That said, one of the greatest pleasures of this business is to get positive comments about what I’m doing. This is the sort of thing that makes my hurried lunchtime scribblings seem worthwhile. I got some compliments today from Alessi Laurent-Marke, a 18-year old from North London. While that may be unremarkable in itself, the email came with a nice surprise – a song to “fill your ears".

Alessi, who seems like a modest soul herself, has recorded under her first name, the more awkward Alessi (music) and now seems to have settled on Alessi’s Ark. But it’s still the same person, still playing her unfussy and lovely acoustic folk-pop tunes, some of which have stings, some of which have a little country tinge. Her voice may get some references to Joanna Newsom, but let’s stay away from that, eh? The song from the email –The Horse – is one of these lovely folk-pop songs. I've been enjoying it a lot. Hope you do too.

mp3: Alessi’s Ark – The Horse

Alessi's Ark myspace

You can buy Alessi’s Bedroom Bound EP from her myspace now. She’s on tour with the Pirates-less Peggy Sue and Derek Meins from 31 October. These are guaranteed to be fine gigs.

Friendly fired up

2008-10-21T13:08:00.003+01:00

Here, Friendly Fires prove again what an awesome live band they are. And that having two drummers makes you sound amazing. Snow Patrol, who appeared on the same TV show last week, should take note.

mp3: Friendly Fires - Paris (Arto Mwambe Remix)

Friendly Fires myspace / website

XL releases Paris as a single on 10 November, on download and 12" with some remixes.

(PS. If you're thinking that this blog should rename itself The Daily Remix, fear not, normal service will be resumed soon. The proper job and real life are making me busy right now.)

Let the Spirit Move You

2008-10-17T17:02:00.008+01:00

Let's round off a week of (lazily posted?) remixes, with another. I haven't got round to reviewing Roots Manuva's Slime and Reason album yet, mainly because I haven't given it enough listens, though what I've heard sounds pretty good. What I do know is that his new single Let the Spirit is totally ace. I can't imagine why there needs to be a radio edit of the Hot Chip remix, but whatever the reason, it still has the word FUN plastered all over its little truncated face.

mp3: Roots Manuva - Let the Spirit (Hot Chip remix radio edit)

Roots Manuva myspace / website

Down the Tiny Steps

2008-10-16T13:25:00.003+01:00

Today we're going to Glasgow via Manchester and Fife. That's because Down The Tiny Steps are from Glagow, part of the feted Fence Collective, but have just had their latest release put out by Manchester's Red Deer Club records.

On their website, DTTS describe themselves as a "Glasgow-based electro-folk-pop trio." This gives you a rough idea of what they might sound like of course, but they're worried about how that may be understood. "That sounds cack" they add "but they are not". They protest too much. It doesn't take long listening to their er, electro-folk-pop (look, it's no better or worse than 'folktronica') to realise that they're onto something good.

The band consist of main man Jonnie Common, and his mates Craig Rankine and Graham Norris. They've yet to release a 'proper' album, but have put stuff out on various compilations and CDRs through the likes of the Fence folks. I guess the new album is the closest they've come to a full-length release. It's a download-only live recording of a gig they did for Red Deer Club at a church in Salford in May this year, and it's a nice little sample of what they do. Reminds me of a more lo-fi Beta Band. Nice. Here are a couple of tracks.

mp3: Down The Tiny Steps - Summer is for Going Places
mp3: Down The Tiny Steps - Handstand

Down The Tiny Steps myspace / website

Buy Live at Red Deer Club 2008 from the Red Deer Club site.

Want another remix? Here's James Yuill

2008-10-15T23:55:00.004+01:00

Yesterday, I got a complaint about remixes. It went:

"I think it's pretty ridiculous to post 2 remixes and not a single original song from the artist. You've done this before, and it makes me think that you care more about your ranking on hype machine than about respect from your audience."

Now it's clear to anyone even half-acquainted with The Daily Growl that this isn't the place to come for either remixes or Hype Machine-hot bands. All you need to do is scroll down to discover that. But that said, I have posted a few remixes this week, and I've been known to slip the odd one up from time to time. I hope you don't mind folks. The sort of comment above deserves all the ridicule it can get (and thanks Neil for helping with that), but to keep things straight for now, there are at least three good reasons for posting remixes.

1. I get sent quite a lot of remixes. They're quite handy promotional devises for PRs and record labels, which suits them, and it suits me because they're entirely legit to post. In a climate where (major) record companies seem to be getting more and more paranoid and start targeting blogs in new insidious ways (more on that chestnut later), the more approved stuff I can post the better. Particularly if it's good.

2. Whilst I regularly post a couple of tracks from albums I review, I almost never post current singles. Simply because a couple of tracks from an album is a taster, and is more likely to encourage someone to buy it than not, whereas posting the main track from a single most likely means that you won't buy it unless you're a vinyl collector. This is not what I want. Remixes of singles can provide a decent taster, and encourage further exploration. Remember, although you can get free music from blogs, this is not what they're about. We (and I know I speak for all good bloggers here) want to encourage enthusiasm and promote artists we like. Comments about wanting 'original tracks' just make me think someone's on the scrounge for freebies.

3. I post remixes if I like them. I get sent a lot of these and only a few actually make it onto my posts. This is the radical concept of bloggers posting music that they like. Amazing.

And although it's clear that I don't crave big Hype Machine hits, the occasional top 50 track is very welcome, because hopefully people will stop by and check out the likes of James Yorkston, Gossamer Albatross and Sky Larkin (to name some recent less Hype friendly acts).

Anyway, enough of all that, because folks, we have another REMIX to post. Oh yes. This time it's from ace computer-folkster James Yuill. He's just had his debut album Turning Down Water for Air released by Moshi Moshi, which I haven't heard, but if it's as strong as his previous singles, it'll be a good listen. Given that James is know for mixing up electronics with acoustic guitar, this fine remix from space-disco king Prins Thomas isn't a radical departure from the norm, Just a bit longer, and very tasty.

mp3: James Yuill - This Sweet Love (Prins Thomas Sneaky Edit)

James Yuill myspace / website / blog

Buy This Sweet Love 7 inch and Turning Down Water for Air from the Moshi Moshi shop.

They want to break free

2008-10-15T14:57:00.007+01:00

The Absentee love continues right here, courtesy of an amusing cover I acquired yesterday courtesy of the good people at Pure Groove. The first shock is the huge difference in expected vocal pitch, and the silliness continues from there. And yes it is that I Want to Break Free.

mp3: Absentee - I Want To Break Free

Absentee myspace / website.

Loads more free download goodness from Pure Groove.

The Music Alliance Pact

2008-10-15T13:32:00.010+01:00

Here's something different today. A while back, I got a message from Jason who runs Scottish music blog The Pop Cop. His plan was to form a sort of worldwide alliance of blogs which each month would post songs from their country, and so, after a bit of prompting we have the Music Alliance Pact.

It's actually been quite a good way for me to listen to artists from other countries, which is something that I'm often quite rubbish at (apart from North American acts naturally). There's some good stuff here, and others that I don't like at all, but it's worth giving Jason's project a whirl to see how it goes.

There are 12 blogs from different countries at the moment (the UK has been split up, and I'm representing England, which is a funny position for a Scot to be in) but more may follow in time. The list of participating blogs, tracks and some blurbs follow right now...

USA – I Guess I'm Floating
Arizona - The Glowing Bird

The title track from their sophomore album which came out on October 14 on Echo Mountain.

ARGENTINA – Zonaindie
Brian Storming – France

France is the new single by Brian Storming, a psychedelic pop orchestra from Buenos Aires. This band was the support act for Coldplay and Björk when they performed in Argentina. The song is included on their new EP, Brian Storming Avec L´Enchanting Device.

AUSTRALIA – Who The Bloody Hell Are They?
Miami Horror – Don't Be On With Her
Miami Horror pretty much blew everyone's mind from the start, just by being called Miami Horror even though he's a producer from Melbourne (kinda like when everyone freaked about The Streets being just one guy). Then he cemented the name he had made for himself with unapologetically synth-heavy remixes - bootleg and official - of a crazy-wide array of artists from Perth's The Dirty Secrets to France's Stardust. And now here he is with the official release of his first single.

DENMARK – Pastries, Peppers And Canals
Diefenbach – On The Move
Diefenbach have been long-time stalwarts of the Danish indie scene, starting out as a post-rock band and gradually evolving into what they are today. Think Beach Boys meets Mogwai meets...well, Diefenbach, actually. The new album, Dark Spinner, is due in late October but the track we're presenting is from 2005's Set And Drift.

ENGLAND – Me
Absentee – Bitchstealer
Absentee’s debut album proper Schmotime was one of my favourites of 2006, and new record Victory Shorts is a direct continuation of what the East London band does best. Singer Dan Michaelson's ravaged drawl, the sweet boy-girl vocal play-offs with keyboardist Melinda Bronstein and hugely pleasing riffs from Babak Ganjei all call to mind a much less polished Teenage Fanclub or a poppier Pavement.

ICELAND – I Love Icelandic Music
Plúseinn – Shake
The man behind the band Plúseinn is Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson also known as Árni Plúseinn (a.k.a. Árni +1). He recently released an album called Lettuce And Tomato, made in his apartment in Brooklyn, New York under the name Hungry And The Burger. Árni Rúnar is and was involved in a lot of Icelandic bands and projects (e.g. Hairdoctor, Motion Boys) and is a founding member of the band FM Belfast.

IRELAND – Nialler9
Fight Like Apes – Digifucker
The band have just released their debut Fight Like Apes And The Mystery Of The Golden Medallion in Ireland and the UK. The album was produced by John Goodmanson in Seattle over the summer. They are currently touring the UK with The Ting Tings.

ITALY – Polaroid
Le Man Avec Les Lunettes – The Happy Birth Of You And Me
LMALL's new album Plaskaplaskabombelibom is free to download from their website.

PERU – SoTB
ERA – Opium
Taken from the band’s second album Ufocalipsis which was released last year.

SCOTLAND – The Pop Cop
Roddy Hart – Dead Of The Night
Roddy Hart made the folk-rock masterpiece Bookmarks, arguably one of the best albums to have come out of Scotland. Dead Of The Night is the first fruits from its follow-up due out in 2009. It’s a live favourite and easily the most immediate pop song the Glaswegian has ever written.

SPAIN – El Blog De La Nadadora
Blacanova – Los Remedios
Blacanova is a band from Seville and this song is from their second demo, Perro EP. They are influenced by Joy Division, Seefeel, The Cure, Spanish band Sr Chinarro, David Lynch and Tod Browning films, and the writer Alejandra Pizarnik. Their music is a cross between dark pop, IDM (intelligent dance music) and shoegaze.

SWEDEN – Swedesplease
Tvärvägen – September
Tvärvägen is an eclectic one-man orchestra from Gustavsburg, Sweden. Notice both the clattering instrumentation and hummable melody. It's that dichotomy that makes Tvärvägen so unforgettable. The band's debut record is out November 6 on the small label Knoppar.

You can download all the above mp3s in one zip file here.

Let me know what you think. If you want my quick opinion, the best ones are from Iceland, USA and Sweden. Iceland is particularly awesome.

Take me to the Promised Land

2008-10-14T16:05:00.006+01:00

You know how being on an advert can be just the thing to send an artist from unknown to everywhere. That's not always the case though. Consider Findlay Brown whose song Coming Home featured on a cheesy Christmas ad for Mastercard a couple of years ago. But instead of getting that track playing from every commercial radio station in the land, he concentrated on releasing his debut album Separated by the Sea. It was a decent record, full of poppy folky nuggets, but alas no stratospheric sales. However, that may be about to change, with no help from credit card companies. They have their own troubles to seek at present.

Findlay's new single sees him getting some slick production, which is not as bad as that sounds. He's drafted in some brass and backing singers on All That I Have to give it a pop sheen which has HIT written all over it. We'll see. What I'm more interested in is his cover of Joe Smooth's Promised Land, where he turns the 1987 house classic into a 2-minute acoustic pop song. And then there's the Polooski edit where the French wizard takes the cover straight back onto the dancefloor. While we're talking remixes, the Lord Skywave mix of the single is quite tasty too.

mp3: Findlay Brown - Promised Land (Pilooski edit)
mp3: Findlay Brown - All That I Have (Lord Skywave remix)

Findlay Brown myspace

The Invisible

2008-10-13T17:02:00.004+01:00

Dave Okumu, Tom Herbert and Leo Taylor have spent too long in other people's bands. Not that their contributions to the likes of Jade Fox, Polar Bear, Zongamin and Hot Chip are unwelcome or begrudged. It's just that now they're getting on with their own thing, and it's shaping up to be a very good thing. If you know that they've got their mate Matthew Herbert behind the production desk, you'll be expecting a guaranteed high quality of tunage, but who'd have thought that they'd end up being Britain's answer to TV on the Radio?

All this bodes well for their self-titled debut, out sometime soon. Before then, they've got an ace new single Monster's Waltz coming out on Accidental Records and they've given the song to hotly-tipped new disco popstrels Micachu and Kwes to rework. Here are the results.

mp3: The Invisible - Monster's Waltz (Micachu remix)
mp3: The Invisible - Monster's Waltz (Kwes rework)

The Invisible myspace

Jay Reatard - Matador singles

2008-10-13T14:06:00.004+01:00

After all the tales of on-stage punch-ups and kickings, it would be easy approach the new Jay Reatard album with a certain prejudice. Does this guy need a lairy rep to cover over the obvious flaws in his music? And then there’s his name.

But put these things aside for a moment. You can return them to them later, but for now let’s have a look at Jay. He’s not a complicated guy. He likes living the rock dream. His needs are simple. Sex, drugs and rock and roll is all he asks for. And the music’s much the same. Uncomplicated, shouty three chord guitar action, greasy riffs and songs that last about two minutes in order to fit in as much energy as possible without blowing a fuse. And most importantly, in the frenzy he hasn’t forgotten the tunes.

The man from Memphis is nothing if not prolific and has a huge back catalogue, stretching back to 1998 and numbering about 15 albums through various bands and solo and side projects. But this new album, which is a collection of the a and b sides from the series of 7 inch singles released on new label Matador this year already, is surely as good a place to start as any. You always need some short shouty songs with good tunes in your collection, though I can imagine that live is really where Jay needs to be experienced. Just don't get too close to the stage.

mp3: Jay Reatard – Always Wanting More
mp3: Jay Reatard – Hiding in My Hole

Jay Reatard myspace / blog

Matador Singles 08 is out now. Buy from Rough Trade or download from emusic.

Gossamer Albatross

2008-10-10T14:02:00.003+01:00

Just after I got back from my post End of the Road Festival holiday, catching up on my emails I read:

“I noticed that you're heading down to the festival this weekend and thought you might be interested in checking out Gossamer Albatross, i think you'll be pleasantly surprised.”

Ah. Too late. Mind you, I seem to recall that they played on the Friday afternoon, probably around the time when we were struggling with the rain falling down heavily outside our tent and The Baby Growl throwing her food about inside. So I might not have been able to make it even if I wanted to.

Still, Simon Sweeping the Nation seemed to enjoy their EOTR set, and listening to them now, I reckon I may well have been pleasantly surprised. There may seem to be an increasingly crowded room full of orchestral indie types these days, but there’s certainly room to squeeze in the members of Gossamer Albatross. Actually ‘orchestral’ might be slightly misleading given that there’s only four of them, but despite the relative lack of personnel the classically-trained Hereford youngsters manage to create a sound of remarkable depth and maturity. While their peers are no doubt jumping round shouting with guitars, these kids are tuning up their violins and cellos to fine effect.

The songs I’ve been sent show plenty of promise and any lack of weight that you might detect is likely due more to resources than a lack of ambition. I await further songs with anticipation, particularly since they’ve been working with Daily Growl fave Jeremy Warmsley in the producer’s chair. That should be well worth a listen.

mp3: Gossamer Albatross – Elizabeth, Queen of the Sea
mp3: Gossamer Albatross – The Ground Will Take Us Down

Gossamer Albatross Myspace/ blog

Buy the 7 inch single containing the two above tracks from their myspace or Pure Groove.

Sky Larkin

2008-10-08T17:40:00.008+01:00

It’s been a while since Sky Larkin have been mentioned around these parts. In February last year I saw them supporting Los Campesinos! at the sadly missed Spitz, and was impressed by the noise that they made, along with the cute guitar poses and madcap drumming. More than a year and a half later the Leeds trio are on my radar again, courtesy of a couple of tracks leaked out by their new label Wichita. Seems like they’re still on fine form, busy channelling the spirit of classic American slacker indie such as Pavement and Guided By Voices and marrying it to Northern wit and charm. Promises well for future full-length recordings.

mp3: Sky Larkin - Molten
mp3: Sky Larkin - Antibodies (demo)

Sky Larkin's Wichita debut single Fossil, I comes out on 20 October. Pre-order at the Wichita shop.

For a bonus, here's their ace 7 inch single One of Two from last year.

mp3: Sky Larkin - One of Two

James Yorkston - When the Haar Rolls In

2008-10-08T17:38:00.008+01:00

Back in 2002, the NME sought to assure its readers in the review of James Yorkston’s debut album Moving Up Country that here was folk music that it was OK to like. Fast forward six years and it’s hard to imagine them saying the same thing in the midst of a landscape where every elfin-featured young thing with an acoustic guitar is touted as ‘folk’. Maybe what they were thinking of back then was that Yorkston was OK because he was on Domino Records and wasn’t like that old-fashioned musty British folk, redolent of men with beards, Arran jumpers, weirdly named real ales and songs with 160 verses. In the middle of a New Rock Revolution, that was not what the kids wanted.

Cool people will surely then baulk at the prospect of Yorkston putting himself firmly back in the ale and beards camp with his recording of Lal Waterson’s Midnight Feast, on his new album When the Haar Rolls In, with backing vocals provided by the Brit-folk establishment that is the Waterson clan. Actually, the cool people aren’t even interested in the latest offering from Fife’s premier songsmith. Let’s be realistic, this album is unlikely to win Yorkston many new fans, but it is equally likely to confirm to his existing fans his songwriting genius.

I don’t use the word ‘genius’ lightly either. James is a man who has now crafted four exquisite albums of melancholic and beautiful folk music, each one subtly different from the last, each one equally appealing. There’s certainly been a shift in style since the previous album Year of the Leopard and its stripped-down acoustic introspection. On Haar, Yorkston brings back his friends for a much fuller arrangements (the Athletes are still there, despite being dropped from the titles – mainly because continually playing with a full band isn’t financially viable) involving harpsichord, vibraphone, bouzuki and a host of more conventional instruments. The result is quietly spectacular. We're back in very similar territory to Moving Up Country and every track is excellent, from the long, story-song title track to the sparsely worded Would You Have Me Born With Wooden Eyes?, each song has a ton of loving care invested and there’s not a second wasted even when nine songs last 50 minutes.

It’s to the credit of Domino Records, that not only do they go on releasing James Yorkston albums despite lack of big sales, they even put together a lavish box-set edition of the album for the most committed fans. Me? Of course. I didn’t rush into it, because for £30 I wanted to be sure that I’d really like the album. Fortunately, it only took listening to the two songs posted by Toad to convince me that it was worth getting. Now, several weeks later, I know that it’s his best album to date. For those who have yet to discover the magic of Yorkston, it’s an ideal place to start.

mp3: James Yorkston – Would You Have Me Born With Wooden Eyes?
mp3: James Yorkston – Tortoise Regrets Hare (Down the Tiny Steps Remix)
mp3: Suzy Mangion – Are You Coming Home Tonight?

The first song is from When the Haar Rolls In. Buy from Rough Trade or Bleep. The second song is from the remixes CD, included in the box set and the cover of Are You Coming Home Tonight? by Suzy Mangion is from the CD of James Yorkston covers by the likes of David Thomas Broughton, Viking Moses and King Creosote, also in the box set. Buy the lovely box set from Domino Mart. It’s well worth it.

By the way, it you’re wondering what haar is, look here for the answer.

Twins Seven Seven

2008-10-03T13:52:00.004+01:00

You didn't think that what you needed for a Friday afternoon was a 15-minute long piece of spacey psychedelic madness, where a former UNESCO artist for peace leads a chant for the duration while synth-fuelled percussive Afro mayhem bubbles around him. No, neither did I, but now I know better. You may too.

mp3: Twins Seven Seven - Shandoroko

End of the Road Festival 2008 - Sunday

2008-10-02T13:06:00.005+01:00

Sunday’s musical treats started early for the Growl family. Well before the bands took to the various stages, we were thoroughly entertained by a guy in the cinema tent doing kids singing and other activities. The Baby Growl enjoyed it so much that she fell asleep immediately afterwards.

Main stage activity started for us with The Wave Pictures on the Garden Stage. They were excellent, with David Tatersall’s dry wit, both in lyrics and onstage chat shining as usual. I love the way that they so (deliberately?) fly in the face of musical fashion with Tatersall guitar-soloing away and even inviting a solo from drummer Jonny Helm. Again, what often seems so roughly-hewn on record sounds so expertly played and punchy live, and the east London boys certainly won over a host of new fans. Their box of CDs disappeared in super-quick time at the end. One of the new fans was The Baby Growl – she seemed impressed from the instant we walked into the Garden Stage area, dancing on my shoulders. She didn’t buy a CD though, mine will have to do for now.

More Baby Growl appreciation was shown later for Woodpigeon, as she ate her dinner to their main stage set. Coming onstage to a piece of classical music (Salut d'Amour by Elgar, it transpires) played by a couple of members of the band may seem pretentious to some, but it fitted in nicely with all that followed. Do we need another sprawling Canadian indie collective? From what I heard, I would say they’re certainly a welcome addition in a crowded market, but admittedly my full attention wasn’t the orchestral Americana sounds coming from the stage. Feeding the girl and chatting with Mr and Mrs Toad rendered Woodpigeon more of a pleasant backdrop, but still worth investigating further I think.

Mrs Growl and I were certainly looking forward to seeing Richard Hawley. Both of us (particularly her) are big fans, but haven’t seen him live since he appeared on the same stage two years ago. Since then he’s released his best album yet (Lady's Bridge), and hearing these newer songs played was retro rock(abilly) and roll treat. As anyone who has seen his shows will know, it’s not just about the songs, but also the onstage banter from a natural, rough-hewn entertainer. He’s still using some of the same jokes (“Let’s ballad”) but his normally expletive-laden chatter was oddly subdued. Maybe it was the presence of his family (the only festival he’s ever taken them to, he says) or maybe he was just in a mellow mood, but EOTR seems like a well-loved place to him. The Somerset Cider bus went down well the previous evening it seems. Although there were more child-related distractions for us, it was great to see Hawley again and no matter how many times I hear Oh My Love, it still sounds lump-in-the-throat wonderful.

For me, that was the end of my participation in this year’s festival. Save for a late-night dash to the Rough Trade stall for some last-minute purchases, it was only fair that having been out the previous two evenings, I stayed in the Baby Growl and let Mrs Growl have a musical wander. She flitted between The Mountain Goats, Charlotte Hatherley and The Smoke Fairies without finding much to her taste, before going to see Calexico’s headline gig “for old time’s sake”. If that sounds unenthusiastic, it’s because the last time we saw the Tuscon band they were a tad underwhelming, but that was when they were touring Garden Ruin, hardly their finest hour. This time was different. Mrs Growl came back enthusing about their performance, playing some fine new songs (from the just-released and much better Carried to Dust), Calexico classics and even ordering and passing around pints of cider from the bus. I actually managed to hear their usual set climax Crystal Frontier from the confines of our tent, so I can easily imagine how good it was. A fitting end to a superb festival.

Since I faced a long drive halfway to Scotland the next day, it was earlier-than-usual to bed, and I fell asleep with Zombie Zombie’s krautrock from the Big Top thudding gently through my earplugs. Roll on next year!

Download: The Wave Pictures – Just Like A Drummer
Download: Woodpigeon – Knock Knock
Download: Richard Hawley – Oh My Love
Download: Calexico – Minas de Cobre

Woodpigeon, Richard Hawley pictures (C) Rom Cemm
Calexico picture (C) Isabelle Adam
Wave Pictures picture by Song, By Toad

End of the Road Festival 2008 – Saturday

2008-10-01T17:23:00.014+01:00

Saturday started off (almost) where Friday left off when the Family Growl arrived, through the mud for the last couple of songs of Devon Sproule on the Garden Stage. The Garden Stage and the surrounding garden area was much easier to navigate than the glue-like mud in the adjoining field, so we hung around there for a while and The Baby Growl got her first proper taste of a festival (last year doesn’t count – too young). Perhaps it’s no surprise that she seemed to like Noah and the Whale, what with their bouncy pop tunes and up-tempo jigs, and she moved around as best as she could, joining in happily with the applause. Me? I liked them too. I’m not going to be sniffy about them because of recent chart success – I find their songs just too hard to dislike, and they seem well-suited to the bigger stage. Sunny weather and happy families it may have been, but all good stuff.

Half an hour and another Toad meet-up later, The Young Republic had graduated to their biggest stage of the weekend. What a difference a year makes. Not only has their line-up changed, but so has their entire set. 2007’s EOTR saw them playing largely songs from their 12 Songs From Winter City album. The intervening twelve months has seen a major line-up change and a definite decision to break with the past. Not only were all of the songs in their set from their recently-released Idiot Grin EP or even newer, they are definitely now a rock and roll band. None of the sweeping strings and sweet melodies that saw them compared to Belle and Sebastian. This was a country rockin’ band strutting their stuff. Their only concession to older material was the sublime Modern Plays – with an added rock jam ending of course. Julian apologised to all the fans for the lack of 12 Songs material and promised to play any of the old numbers to anyone who requested him around the festival over the course of the weekend. I didn’t manage to spot him though, so my personal performance of Goodbye Town is still outstanding. Next time, hopefully.

The Baby Growl’s teatime had to be maintained, so while I headed back to fill her belly, Mrs Growl stuck around for Bon Iver and one of the most talked-about sets of the whole festival. She and many others later testified to the brilliance of Justin Vernon’s set and having seen them at the wonderful St Giles’ church gig back in June, I have no doubts that they’re all right. This being a festival which also featured Bowerbirds on the same stage earlier in the day, Vernon brought them on to guest on the cover Lovin’ For Fools, which I believe went down pretty well too.

Later we tried to juggle the Baby Growl’s bedtime with Low’s main stage appearance. Being huge fans of the Minnesota couple’s music, we didn’t want to miss them, but getting the small one off to sleep wasn’t easy with all that noise going on. You may not think of Low as being a loud group, but you’d be surprised. She didn’t drop off till near the end of the set, so our full attention was not on the beautiful music coming from the stage, but what he heard was very fine. A Low ‘greatest hits’ set, if such a thing were possible – Sunflower, Dinosaur Act and other old faves were present and correct. The end of the show provided another one of the festival’s talking points. Alan Sparhawk had already complained of having a “crappy day” and seemed in a dark mood, which came to a head in the final song when in a noisy wig-out he attacked his guitar before swinging it and hurling it full-pelt into the crowd. Sparhawk may not be a well man, but this was an inexcusably reckless act which left too many people open-mouthed to muster much applause as the band left the stage. Thankfully it didn’t end badly – no-one was hurt, and one guy has a new, second-hand guitar. It may need some repairs.

Mercury Rev were the headliners, but given that I’m not a huge fan, I wasn’t that desperate to catch their main stage headline show. However, I did wander into the gardens later on and their encore of Goddess on a Highway sounded mighty fine as I walked around the spotlit trees. I’d forgotten what a great song it is.

Two Gallants in the Big Top provided a temporary distraction for me, and again were sounding like they were on good form. It’s easy to compare their drummer/guitarist line-up to The White Stripes, with less virtuoso guitar playing and better drumming, so I will. But the Gallants absorb country as well as the blues and it’s a heady mix, spoilt only by the drummer’s shocking haircut. I’m only familiar with their When The Toll Tells album but a couple of songs from that record got me going for a while before I had to get off to The Local for Shearwater.

Both Toad and I were keen to see Shearwater’s first UK gig since signing to Matador and releasing both an expanded version of Palo Santo and their latest album, Rook. The latter hasn’t quite grabbed me as much as I thought it should, but their live performance was spellbinding. Playing to a packed and expectant tent, they seemed to go down a storm, with Jonathan Meiburg hitting the high notes and the whole band brandishing a range of different instruments, none more so than drummer and multi-instrumentalist Thor who pulled out a bewildering range of (apparently hand-crafted) weird instruments. Despite having relatively short songs, Shearwater always manage to sound epic, and their set seemed just too short. Appetites are now well and truly whetted for future UK appearances.

After that, all that was left for me was some more chat with Toad in The Bimble Inn, with another Young Republic covers set as the background. If (perish the thought) I ever get married again, I’m booking them. As we made our way back to our beds, we ran into a very drunk man raving about Mercury Rev. We were having none of it. It was all about Shearwater.

Download: Noah & The Whale - Shape of My Heart
Download: The Young Republic – Green Hills Mall Blues
Download: Bon Iver – Lump Sum
Download: Low – Sunflower
Download: Two Gallants – Waves of Grain
Download: Shearwater – Rooks

Bon Iver picture (C) Ro Cemm
Low picture by Red_One

End of the Road Festival 2008 – Friday

2008-10-01T17:22:00.008+01:00

Although the whole EOTR experience is wonderful, it’s the music that most people are there for. My musical adventures started properly about 9:30pm on the Friday when I popped up to the Bimble Inn to see Devon Sproule play her wistful take on acoustic American folk music. There were songs from her Upstate Songs record, her latest Keep Your Silver Shined, a Neil Young cover and a triumphant ending on current album stand-out Old Virginia Block. A good start to proceedings for me.

After a while drinking and chatting with Mrs and Mr Toad, next up was Akron/Family, but unlike last year’s amazing Cargo show, I wasn’t feeling so tuned into their set. Maybe because it was at a festival, I was less tolerant to their hippy meanderings and I just wasn’t feeling the improv noodling. But after a wander through the magical gardens (made slightly less magical due to excessive mud) I returned to find them striking up Ed is a Portal, which with its all-singing, all drumming, all dancing madness was a real treat. They didn’t take the roof off like they did in East London last winter, but it was still a lot of fun. But then the hippy shit started again, and I was off to The Local tent more something more to my taste.

I knew very little about The Miserable Rich beforehand, other than that 6Music’s Marc Riley is a big fan, and it’s only now that I’m finding out that they’re from Brighton, but I was mightily impressed with their set. Lead singer James de Malplaquet cut a different figure from a lot of the performers at EOTR. Instead of bearded scruffiness, James’s nearly cropped hair, jacket and stage manner (and surname, come to think of it) suggested more of a gentleman and dilettante. They play a very pleasing chamber folk-pop, with cello, violin, double bass and guitar with nary a drum in sight. Which made it all the more remarkable when they launched into a cover of Hot Chip’s electro-pop classic Over and Over, which has to be heard live to be fully appreciated. It was one of my favourite shows of the whole weekend, and definitely a band to keep an eye on.

After hanging around The Local for what I thought was going to be Fence Collective types The Pictish Trail and Rozi Plain’s double act, I was surprised to see a familiar sight from last year’s EOTR – Julian Saporiti of The Young Republic with his Rolling Thunder Revue-style whited-up face, setting up his gear on stage. So no Pictish and Rozi (they ended up playing the following afternoon) and instead a YR covers set, which has now become an EOTR staple. Sure, you can think of this as throwaway karakoke fun, but I think that the songs that Saporiti and co perform offer something of a window into the soul of the band. When a first heard The Young Replublic, I had them firmly down as indiepop, but hearing them play Dylan, Chuck Berry and other rock classics, as well as Wagon Wheel by fellow Nashville residents Old Crow Medicine Show, shows off their true colours as a rock and roll band, with a dash of the ol’ country. But more on them later…

After that, I contemplated hanging around for what might have been Pictish Trail, and what might have been a set by last year’s festival favourite David Thomas Broughton, but tiredness prevailed, as did a suspicion (later confirmed by DiS chatter) that a late-night set to a well-oiled crowd might not be the best place to hear Broughton’s quiet songs and freeform theatrics, and I headed to bed. So far no more rain.

Download: Devon Sproule – Keep Your Silver Shined
Download: Akron/Family – Ed is a Portal
Download: The Miserable Rich – Over and Over
Download: The Young Republic – Isis

End of the Road Festival

2008-10-01T17:15:00.008+01:00

I’m back. It’s been over three weeks, the holidays and festivals are over and new bathrooms have been installed. I’m back to work, and more importantly, back to blogging. Given where I left off, he first thing that I should report back about is the End of the Road Festival, so here goes. There will be a full review of music to come, but it won’t be comprehensive. For a more detailed rundown on musical happenings, check out Sweeping the Nation’s reviews, or even Matthew Song, by Toad for a more equivocal opinion. There are also loads of other reviews out there (like this one), if you care about such things.

Before I begin in earnest, some general observations:

Less intimacy. Obviously this is relative, because if you’ve been to any of the country’s megafests, EOTR with its 5000 capacity is as intimate as they come. It’s just that compared to the previous two years, there were a lot more people around. Now, with line-ups as good as they have been, they should have sold out every year, but this was the first. I wish the organisers every success, because each festival has been excellent, but I guess it’s just me complaining that a couple of thousand extra people gatecrashed my festival. This is silly of course. I hope it sells out every year. I’ll just have to get used to it.

More people + rain = lots of mud. It was the first EOTR with proper festival mud. Although it was dry (and even regularly sunny) for most of the weekend, a three-hour downpour early on the Friday did for the site. Five thousand people tramping through two gates and around a field soon made a sticky bog. I’m so glad that I bought a pair of wellies during a wet camping holiday a few days earlier.

Still magical. Each year, the EOTR team make a fantastic effort to make the festival site look as lovely as possible. So we enjoyed the usual fairy lights in the woods, the piano in the clearing, the library in the woods and the various odd quirky decorations scattered about. It’s also good to see how they’re trying to make things a little different each year, so this year we had brightly-coloured papier-mâché masks hanging from the trees, a light-up dancefloor and a table tennis table.

Good food and drink. Being proper campers, we dined out mostly on the food I had lugged up from the car, though there were plenty gastronomic delights on offer. The Pieminister queue was longer than ever, so much so that come Sunday afternoon when we went seeking pies, they had sold out! However, the organic burgers were an excellent alternative and put most of London’s self-styled posh gourmet burger joints in the shade. At the bar, there was a pleasing lack of bland lagers and plenty decent beer to be quaffed. Result again!

Festival parenting. This was the Growl family’s first time as proper festival parents. Last year we stayed off-site but this year we returned to the full camping experience. The first thing we noticed in the family camping area was what terrible parents we must be, as our three-man tent was dwarfed by the über-tents of the über-parents around us. We were further shamed by our lack of tables, chairs and fully-equipped portable kitchens. But despite such neglectfulness, we had a great time. The Baby Growl seemed to enjoy both camping and the festival experience in general, and the little waterproof suit we bought her proved to be one of the best purchases ever.

I know that festival going non-parents often complain about the presence of families, as if that lowers the credibility of the occasion, but hey, starting to procreate isn’t always accompanied by developing a liking for Phil Collins and realising that one arena gig a year is enough. EOTR had plenty of good activities for kids laid on and although most of it was pitched for kids a couple of years older than ours, there was still fun to be had and future years can only get better. Mrs Growl has already started trawling the internets for a cheap, end-of-season deal on an über-tent.

Finally, there are a few complaints, as you'd expect. The sound mix was occasionally a bit dodgy on some of the stages. The toilets left a lot to be desired (more people + what seemed like the same number of toilets as previous years + lots of mud led to long queues and generally poor conditions inside), though the organisers are aware of this and have vowed to improve next year. We could have also done with some sawdust or suchlike substance thrown down in the gates and main thoroughfares just to make walking a little easier. But all in, as with previous years, there was little to quibble about. A great festival all round and my finger is already hovering over the ‘buy’ button for the early bird tickets for next year. Who needs to know the line-up? It's going to be good!

Off to the End of the Road

2008-09-06T21:54:00.004+01:00

I don't have the time to do a proper End of the Road preview (I never thought I would), so this is just a quick signing-off type post. As the very astute of you may have gathered, I'm off to the End of the Road Festival in Dorset next weekend, which if the weather improves a bit, should be brilliant. We'll be on holiday on the south coast for a few days before the festival and heading up to Scotland afterwards, so this will be the last post till at least 23 September, when I'll be back with a full festival review.

This year's festival should be a bit easier than last year's for us, since The Baby Growl is no longer three months, and is probably old enough to actually enjoy some of the music, and certainly whatever kids stuff is happening. So in between running after her, I hope to see some bands. The line-up for this year might be the best yet, and for the first time in EOTR's three-year history it has sold out. So that should ensure its existence for another year at least. Good news.

Anyway, here are some tunes by some of the artists I'm looking forward to seeing next weekend. I'm also hoping to see fellow bloggers Matthew Song By Toad and Simon Sweeping the Nation there at least. And if you're at the festival, say hello. I'll be the one with the 15-month old baby. Oh hold on....

mp3: Low - Breaker
mp3: Micah P Hinson - When We Embraced
mp3: Bon Iver - Flume
mp3: Pete and the Pirates - Mr Understanding
mp3: Devon Sproule - Old Virginia Block
mp3: Woodpigeon - Home As A Romanticised Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always And Forever

See you all in a few weeks!

Absentee - Victory Shorts

2008-09-03T17:30:00.005+01:00

The countdown to End of the Road begins here...

Absentee's Schmotime was one of my favourite albums of 2006. It was one of these records which was remarkable in its unremarkableness. Nothing striking or original, but there was just something in Dan Michaelson's gravelly vocals and the rough and lovely warm guitar sounds that totally charmed me. It's still an album that I return to regularly, and its place at the top of the artists list on my iPod only helps this.

It's been a couple of years and there have been some changes in the Absentee camp (drummer departed) and various members have pursued their own projects (check out Dan Michaelson and the Coastguards, Wet Paint and The Bronsteins for decent music that isn't a hundred miles away from the parent band). Now they're onto their second LP and if it initially seems like a bit more muted or low-key than before, that's probably because there's less of Schmotime's brassy exuberance. Only the ace single Bitchstealer features the parping horns that seemed so ubiquitous on the previous record. This time the tinkling of keyboard player Melinda Bronstein seems much more to the fore.

Brass aside, it's a direct continuation of what Absentee do best - Michaelson's ravaged drawl and these hugely pleasing riffs from Babak Ganjei, all of which calls to mind past favourites - a much less polished Teenage Fanclub, a poppier Pavement perhaps. Victory Shorts has an energy and life of its own, and there's plenty exubarence too - Bitchstealer and Pips at least are proof of this - although it's maybe the more measured moments that linger the best. It's taken me a bit more time to appreciate this album - where Schmotime was pretty much an instant favourite, Victory Shorts has taken me longer. But it's been time well spent, and there are new pleasures to be found each time round. I suggest you try it out.

mp3: Absentee - Love Has Had Its Way
mp3: Absentee - Pips

Pre-order Victory Shorts from Memphis Industries. No doubt it'll be on emusic too.

Magic Arm - new single

2008-09-02T13:04:00.005+01:00

One of my favourite records of last year was Magic Arm's Outdoor Games EP, a delicious 10 inch on tiny Manchester indie Switchflicker Records. I haven't really been watching very closely though, because it's just come to my notice that Marc Rigelsford (Mr Magic Arm) sneaked out a cracking little 7 inch single in July. It's called Widths and Heights and it's nicely skewed pop in the Beta Band style (listen to it on last.fm). The b-side is a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg classic The Ballad of Melody Nelson, where in the tradition of all good covers, Rigelsford makes the song very much his own. The bonus good news is that there's an album on the way too.

mp3: Magic Arm - The Ballad of Melody Nelson

Buy Widths and Heights from the Magic Arm website.

Friendly Fires

2008-09-01T12:57:00.003+01:00

Since this blog is all about music that I like, I'm not much given to negative reviewing, but you might find the occasional jibe. If you have a cursory scroll down the blog, these jibes may sound a little like ...bah spiky guitars... bah skinny jeans... bah synth rock electropop... bah trendy scenesters/ no substance and so on. You get the message. All of this is very well, and generally this sort of attitude should be employed against many of the bands who inhabit Camden and Shoreditch, but sometimes it can get in the way of a good thing.

I had already dismissed Friendly Fires by the time I gave their debut album a half-hearted listen a few weeks back, but this was unwise. It was only on giving it a proper hearing at the end of last week that I perked up. Here is a band that doesn't just casually namecheck Talking Heads, but actually takes the best bits of David Byrne and co. and gives them a full 2008 makeover. Friendly Fires also take more than a few leaves from the books of James Murphy and even funk and end up crafting a hugely accomplished debut. This is proper punk-funk, whatever else that means. For a former hardcore outfit, this young Hertfordshire band know how to take indie rock and make it bang for the club. It's even more impressive to find out that they've produced the whole thing themselves - except lead track Jump in the Pool for which they enlisted uber-hot producer Paul Epworth, but amusingly that song is nowhere near the best on the album.

These are tunes that are equally happy coming out of your home hi-fi on a sunny afternoon as they are coming out of huge bassbins in some darkened, sweaty room. Although this isn't the sort of thing that I normally listen to, I can't really find anything wrong with this album - maybe the need for them to rein in their epic indie tendencies, but that's a small quibble - and it's all highly recommended. And I'm sure that they've even better live. So lesson learned - there may well be less sniping from me in future.

mp3: Friendly Fires - In the Hospital
mp3: Friendly Fires - White Diamonds

Friendly Fires is out today on XL. Buy from Rough Trade. Download other Friendly Fires tracks from emusic.

Paperplain

2008-08-29T17:17:00.005+01:00

Legendary record label Too Pure may be no more, subsumed into the growing 4AD empire, but it still lives on for the time being in the form of the Too Pure Singles Club. They've been putting out limited edition 7 inches since last November, and the latest installment in the series is by Paperplain.

Paperplain is the analogue-loving 18-year old Helen Page, knocking out bedroom songs on an old eight-track recorder. Two of these are on the single, and provide proof that even in a crowded market for sensitive female acoustic types, Page can more than hold her own.

mp3: Paperplain - Spin Wheel

11:30/Spin Wheel is released on 8 September. Buy it (and other sevens) from Too Pure.

Xrabit & DMG$

2008-08-29T16:11:00.003+01:00

Here's something else good and new from my inbox. I'm usually favourably disposed towards fellow Eastenders, so here's Dalston-dwelling (though German-born) producer Xrabit, recently signed to Big Dada (so recently that he hasn't even been added to their artists list yet), who brings some tough beats and lets the Texan MC duo Damaged Goods (DMG$) loose all over them. The press blurb says that these two are "Andre 3000 worshipping Texan MCs", though from the evidence of the photo, the influence doesn't seem to be sartorial. Anyway, I don't really go out dancing anymore but if I did, this is the sort of thing that I'd want to hear this weekend.

mp3: Xrabit & DMG$ - Killin' 'Em (Xrabit remix)

Little Boots

2008-08-29T12:33:00.004+01:00

These days, just releasing records isn't enough. All the cool kids are doing mixtapes as well, and not just the hip-hop ones. Here white-hot electropopstrel Little Boots (aka Victoria, formerly of Dead Disco) presents her latest mixtape as part of her ongoing quest for world domination.

mp3: Little Boots - Computer Fairyland Mixtape

You can buy Little Boots' new 7 inch single Meddle from Pure Groove. Debut 12 inch out in America in November.

"I'm really not a man, you see. I'm an angel"

2008-08-29T09:58:00.003+01:00

"...as an angel I can do a lot of things"

The other day, I was pointed to this interview with the mighty Sun Ra, which is brilliant. The interviewer is clearly out of his depth, but still does a decent job keeping a lid on things, because let's face it, interviewing Sun Ra is never going to be an easy task.

On a similar note, I'd also highly recommend tracking down a copy of the 1974 film Space is the Place, for some more wigged-out Sun Ra Egyptological and space-related craziness.

mp3: Sun Ra - Message to Earthman

Stereolab - Chemical Chords

2008-08-28T15:22:00.005+01:00

Some bands have such a recognisable sound that they always manage to sound like themselves no matter how much they experiment and play around with their core components. A good example is Low, who followed up the big, expansive, almost mainstream sound of The Great Destroyer with the stripped back minimalism of Drums and Guns. Yet all the time they remained quintessentially Low, sounding like no-one else. Stereolab are another good example of a band who are always instantly recognisable, mainly through the combination of their particular synth sound and Laetitia Sadier's vocals.

Like Low, the difference between Stereolab's two most recent albums is marked. The collection of 7 inch singles that made up 2006 compilation Fab Four Suture was Stereolab at their abstract best, making no attempt at commercialism, whereas new album Chemical Chords takes a very different approach. Where the previous record was low-key, the new one, on new label 4AD seems to have a much higher profile. It seems like I can hardly turn on BBC 6Music these days without hearing the title track. So they've definitely gone for radio-friendly. And it's all quite pop.

The songs are as carefully and expertly crafted as always, but this time there's much more focus on the tunes. Then comes along Sean O'Hagan with his strings and brass, and the whole thing ends up sounding, well pretty lush really. It's not like these are components that Gane, Sadier and co. haven't used before, but they've been embraced with fresh enthusiasm. It's a polished album, but in a very good way. The songs have catchy hooks, they swoop and soar and even when, as with all Stereolab records, the songs start to feel like they're replicating themselves, the band hit us with another curveball, like the deliciously bouncy Daisy Click Clack. It's all top-notch stuff and Chemical Chords is easily their best album since Dots and Loops, perhaps even better. Stereolab may always remain comfortingly familiar, but that doesn't mean that they can't thrill us afresh.

mp3: Stereolab - Daisy Click Clack
mp3: Stereolab - Chemical Chords

Buy Chemical Chords from Rough Trade.

Singles going steady 27: The Flaming Lips

2008-08-27T23:55:00.009+01:00

Time I got back again to raking through my old CD singles. It's been a while.

Next CD I come across is The Flaming Lips. And this is value for money. Now kids, please don't ever buy music on the primary basis that it offers value for money - that really isn't a good criterion. But it's sometimes a nice bonus. In this case, it's because back in 2003 Oklahoma's finest released an EP that not only boasted seven tracks, it seemed to be genuinely trying to offer something new. The title track Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell isn't even present in its original form, instead appearing as two different, both rather good remixes. Then there's a reworking of their classic Do You Realize?? and four brand new (at the time) tracks.

Musically, these newbies offer a stylistic as well as chronological bridge between Yoshimi and At War with the Mystics, though to be honest the latter wasn't exactly a huge departure from the former. Maybe just lacking in as many obvious big pop tunes. Anyway, I love the Flaming Lips - they're good value, even though they've been peddling the same live show for almost a decade now - and these are top-notch tunes.

mp3: The Flaming Lips - Assassination of the Sun
mp3: The Flaming Lips - Ego Tripping (Self-Admiration With Blow-Up Mix)

Buy the Ego Tripping EP from Amazon.

Singles going steady 1-26.

Minotaur Shock does a Radiohead

2008-08-26T17:29:00.009+01:00

...except he doesn't. Since last October, how many bands have been described as 'doing a Radiohead'? Artists from Cliff Richard to Nine Inch Nails have been said to have followed Thom & Co's footsteps into this brave new digital world. Yet, although some albums have been given away free online, as far as I'm aware, no-one has done the whole pay-what-you-want thing. Bloc Party releasing their album online first is hardly something that's not been done way before even In Rainbows came along.

As it turns out, what Minotaur Shock, aka David Edwards is doing is exactly the opposite of what Radiohead did last year. Yes, his new album Amateur Dramatics is available online, but he's dictating exactly what you should pay for it. It's not like he's only just stipulated a price for the whole album (£6.41 by the way) - he's actually specified what each track is worth, and they're all different - ranging from 33p to 77p. How'd you do that, then? The answer is quite complex - head over the the Minotaur Shock website for a track-by-track breakdown of the component worth of each, and through a detailed scoring system taking into consideration things like 'technical difficulty rating', extra musicians rating' and 'fun/replay rating', the price is arrived at. That may explain why Beekeeper is more than double the price of Two Magpies, if you're really interested. And if you think this is all a gimmick to increase sales, you might be right, but David needs it - reading between the lines it seems clear that there was no way 4AD was going to give Amateur Dramatics a proper release, so he's opted for an online one instead, but with an added quirk.

But what about the music? Well, it pains me to glibly refer to it as pleasant electronica, especially since Edwards has not only spent a long time crafting each tune, he's also put so much effort into classifying and describing each one. But that's sort of what it is. Nothing too frantic, the beats never really intend to whip the listener up into a dance frenzy. Instead they burble and glide past smoothly and carefully, electronics merged with real instruments, and even the occasional real human voice. Apart from a couple of more abrasive numbers, the whole virtual record makes a pleasant, if unchallenging listen. But then again, on my tube journey home tonight, I don't want to be challenged. I just want to listen to something soothing while I read and try not to get too crushed and sweaty on the Central Line.

Finally, I'm probably doing David a big disservice here by posting a couple of his carefully-priced songs for free, but they won't be up there for long, and if you care for this sort of thing, I'd strongly encourage you to show your love by buying Amateur Dramatics for the required price.

mp3: Minotaur Shock - Jason Forrest
mp3: Minotaur Shock - Snapdragon

Lykke Li - Youth Novels

2008-08-22T16:29:00.003+01:00

It can be hard to follow up a killer single with an album - expectations are usually very high, and if the album doesn't contain more stuff like said killer single, it will likely disappoint. Lykke Li was always going to have a tough task following up the brilliant Little Bit, and I'm not sure she's been talking to the right people about it either. According to the press release, her mentor is Bjorn 'Peter, Bjorn and John' Yttling, who has also produced her debut album Youth Novels. Although I'm not going to fault his production skills, is he really the best person to be advising on the whole following-up-the-big-tune issue? After all, Yttling's Young Folks, deservedly acclaimed and loved everywhere hardly led to an amazing album in the shape of (the appropriately titled?) Writers' Block, did it?

And there's a very similar picture emerging with Youth Novels. There's Little Bit, and previous single I'm Good, I'm Gone which is er, good. I'm also very fond of the lovely sunny vibe and surfing harmonies on My Love, but a lot of the rest of the album is, well, just alright. It's not a bad album by a long way (otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it here), but most of it just glides effortlessly by without really engaging. It's probably perfect for a balmy summer's evening outdoors, Lykke Li's cooing vocal soothing away in the background as you relax with your drink of choice. But it doesn't quite stand up to more rigorous scrutiny. However, it's still summer, so enjoy it while you can.

mp3: Lykke Li - My Love
mp3: Lykke Li - Little Bit (Loving Hand Remix)

Buy Youth Novels from Rough Trade. You can download the Little Bit single from emusic.

Two Thousand and ACE

2008-08-21T14:45:00.002+01:00

Contrary to the song, the best things in life usually aren't free. Though often the best things come in the smallest packages - whether's it's your local independent cafe or bookshop, magazine or record label. Speaking of which, they don't come much smaller and more perfectly formed than Brainlove Records. They've already released one of the singles of the year in the shape of the Friends of the Bride / Modernaire split seven, and now they've come up with a low-key monster in the recent compilation Two Thousand and Ace. It might not be free, but it's certainly cheap - at a fiver it's a total bargain for the 27 tracks of genre-hopping indie goodness including the aforementioned 7 inch partners, plus Cats in Paris, Capitol K, Bearsuit and Brainlove stalwarts Napoleon IIIrd, Pagan Wanderer Lu and The Keyboard Choir. In fact, instead of trying to pursuade you to buy albums that I've got free, like I usually do, I'm going to dig deep into my dusty pockets for that old crumpled fiver and send it virtually to the Brainlove people in return for one of their 1000 Two Thousand and Ace CDs. Not just because Brainlove is a great little label that could do with your financial support, but also because the clue's in the title, folks!

mp3: The Keyboard Choir - In This Situtation, Thinking Won't Help
mp3: Junkplanet 2 - The Half Life

I do have these two tracks to share with you. Enjoy, then buy from the Brainlove myspace (or the proper website, if you don't like these annoying myspace link guard thingys).

Left With Pictures

2008-08-18T17:22:00.004+01:00

End of the Road Festival is only three years old in September, but already it seems to be the place for me to discover great new artists, even if I didn't actually see them there. The first two years have seen performances by artists that I have gone on to love, then regret I had failed to see them the previous September, mainly because I had never heard (of) them at the time. So the inaugural 2006 festival saw me missing sets by the then-unknown-to-me Barbarossa, Frightened Rabbit and Pink Mountaintops. Last year's bash saw me missing Zombie Zombie, Dawn Landes and Woodpigeon.

The good folks from Organ Grinder Records were a bit more on the ball than me when they first saw Left With Pictures at the 2007 EOTR. Here was a band, new to them, who blew them away. As they explain, they "couldn't believe [Left With Pictures] weren't signed" and knew that they "had to work with them". And so, almost on the eve of this year's festival, the band's new EP, their first on Organ Grinder, is released.

Left With Pictures are three blokes, Stuart Barter, Toby Knowles and Robert Wilkes from London who play elegantly crafted songs that echo English folk, but are shot through with a large dose of pop. 'Chamber pop' proclaims their myspace and that about nails it. The EP in question - titled Secretly after its lead track - is a delicately played thing (you get the impression that these lads are pretty decent musicians), with lovely arrangments - all swooping oohs and aahs and carefully stroked violins. My current favourite track Super-8 reminds me a little of the recent output of Euros Childs, but with more strings. All in, it's a cracking little EP, six songs well worth 17 minutes of your time - then a few more once you realise how good they are.

So here's the tune. I'm now preparing for next month's EOTR by listening to as many of the bands and artists as I can in advance. I don't want to miss out on anything else great this year.

mp3: Left With Pictures - Super-8

Buy the Secretly EP from the Organ Grinder website once it's out on 29 August. In the meantime, you can buy previous LWP releases from their myspace, including their current collaboration with Peggy Sue and the Pirates, called Peggy Sue and The Pictures, natch.

Working overtime

2008-08-15T13:15:00.010+01:00

Here's a rag-bag collection of various remixes and stuff that's been rattling around in my inbox lately. I don't normally go for the whole remix thing, but there are a few I've been listening to which are worth sticking up here because I think they're good. Note: this is not just some vain attempt at getting myself top hits on The Hype Machine, but kids, if you really do want to get your blog into HM's top 50, you have to post a remix.

Anyway, first up we have Brit hip-hop veteran Roots Manuva. His new album, the dodgily-titled Slime and Reason is set to drop on 1 September. Before that comes the single Again and Again and from that, a couple of remixes have been doing the rounds. One's from Matt Helders, one of the guys from the Arctic Monkeys who isn't Alex Turner. If you're thinking that the Monkeys connection might be getting exploited for more exposure, you may be justified. But Helders acquits himself adequately on the mix, and there's not a choppy guitar to be heard. Better though is the Moody Boyz reworking who bring both the dub and the dancehall party. It's all shaping up nicely for the album.

mp3: Roots Manuva - Again and Again (Matt Helders Remix)
mp3: Roots Manuva - Again and Again (Moody Boyz Remix)

Keeping things in the Ninja Tune camp, here's on from one of their recent signings, The Qemists. I know little of them apart from this bangin' (oh, listen to me) remix featuring Mike Patton. How did that happen? Whatever the case, it's good and is cause alone to investigate this Brighton outfit further.

mp3: The Qemists - Lost Weekend feat. Mike Patton (Hot Pink Delorean Remix)

A little bit removed from all this is foot-stompin', harmonica-totin' blues nutter Son of Dave. You may not think that an electro reworking (by Michel Boombass of Cassius, no less) of this sort of thing would work, but have a listen to this and let me know what you think. I reckon it does. In other related news, the crazy dude has tackled Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Check it out at the SOD myspace.

mp3: Son of Dave - Hellhound (Boombass "Jack on the Rocks" remix)

I think that'll do for now. Back to pleasantly-strummed guitars soon.

Hollowbody - Inside the Wolves

2008-08-14T13:36:00.003+01:00

Just when you thought that there were too many young men with beards playing folky music, another one comes along and claims his place in the room labelled 'high quality folky music played by young men with beards'. This one goes by the name of Hollowbody, and I first came across him when his alias, Dan Weltman leapt from his Bristol home and into my inbox. A quick visit to his myspace confirmed that Dan's tunes were worth more than a cursory listen, and the arrival of his new album Inside the Wolves only confirms that he's a lot better than many of the other chaps playing a similar game.

Weltman recorded the album at his home in Bristol, and apparently he's "fascinated by the transition of musical tastes over the last century" and wants to explore the "middle ground" between the worlds of the "great old songwriters [and] the care they put into their work" and the "more expressionist things everyone listens to today". Whatever that means, the result is a pleasingly trim album - eight tracks with not an ounce of body fat. Mostly just Dan and his acoustic guitar. The highlights for me are the first two tracks. Opener Juliet, I'm Running is lovely little thing, with its banjo, sweet backing vocals, harmonica and subtle trumpet blending perfectly. It isn't so much running as sauntering happily over a hill on a sunny day. Possibly even better is Chains, with its infectious plucked guitar riff. That it reminds me a lot of James Yorkston probably enhances its appeal no end.

I'm not sure if Hollowbody has reached his goal of "walking a line from this imagined tradition towards a new sound", but his sound certainly is an appealing one. The beauty of the opening tracks is followed by six more consistently good ones. It's a solid album of delicate melodies, if that doesn't sound like a contradiction in terms. All very highly recommended.

mp3: Hollowbody - Juliet, I'm Running
mp3: Hollowbody - Chains

Buy Inside the Wolves from the Hollowbody myspace.

No Age / HEALTH @ The Scala, 11 August 2008

2008-08-13T17:29:00.009+01:00

A Q&A about Monday's Upset! The Rhythm gig.

Q: What's so great about HEALTH?

A: Unsure. I could use the well-known 'music to be admired but not loved' cliche, but I'm not sure I even admire HEALTH's much feted debut album that much. It sounds to me like a collection of good ideas not very well put together. I consistently fail to understand the adulation heaped upon them. The remix album HEALTH//DISCO was so much more up my street and made the disparate parts hang together much more nicely.

Q: HEALTH are amazing live, yeah?

A: Still Unsure. I was expecting quite a lot from this set, but came away a little unsatisfied. I'd seen the LA noiseniks once before, last summer and quite enjoyed the madness, but maybe the fact that this was the first time I had been a gig since the birth of The Baby Growl coloured my judgement somewhat. Sure, there were a couple of really great moments at the Scala, most notably the point where everyone seemed to be drumming (don't ask me for track names silly), but most of the rest of it was just like the album - lots of sonic blasts and random screaming - with added on-stage energy. Two points in their favour though: 1) The drummer is an amazing powerhouse. Not subtle or complex, but boy can he hit 'em! 2) There was more on-stage camp than I was expecting, mainly in the tall figure of John Famiglietti. If you've seen them live, you'll know what I mean.

Q: How do you stage-dive from a low stage?

A: Climb onto the back of chair and fall backwards into the arms of your fans. Whilst playing guitar of course.

Q: How do you excite your fans without getting your gear trashed?

A: Can be tricky. The kids can get excited and storm the stage. This is the sort of thing that you're known for and would encourage. But it has its risks, like messing about with your guitar leads. It can cause problems, like stopping songs. But hey, it's punk rock.

Q: Do No Age live up to their fearsome live reputation?

A: Sort of. There were qualifying factors. First, I have a feeling that the gig might have been more thrilling had it been in a smaller venue, like Cargo or Bardens. But No Age have spent a lot of time playing London venues of that size and now their time has come to step up to the next level, which means places like The Scala. It's fine enough really, but the energy is obviously going to get dissipated more in a bigger space. Second, the sound was a bit rough to begin with. Now, with bands like No Age, that shouldn't really matter, but not hearing vocals is a bit of a problem. Still, the sound improved as the show progressed.

Q: So what's the No Age magic formula?

A: Punk pop energy. That's about it. On record, there's plenty of effects-drenched guitar bliss-outs, but live these are largely neglected in favour of straightforward fuzzed up two-minute power pop punk. Randy Randall's buzzing guitar, Dean Spunt's crashing drumming and shouted vocals and little messing about. Over the course of an hour in which they must have played most of their material from Weirdo Rippers and Nouns, the songs begin to sound a bit similar, but hey, it's a good song and when there's so much fun to be had, who's complaining?

Q: What next?

A: Bigger venues probably, which is not necessarily a good thing. Mind you, No Age do seem to have a bit of a bond with Upset! The Rhythm, so I don't see them running off in the direction of Live Nation any time soon. Despite the major label deal, Spunt and Randall's LA DIY roots still count for something.

mp3: HEALTH - Triceratops
mp3: HEALTH - Triceratops (Acid Girls RMX A)
mp3: No Age - Every Artist Has a Tragedy
mp3: No Age - Neck Escaper

Buy HEALTH and No Age albums from Rough Trade.

Video of No Age performing at the gig. More live action from HEALTH and (third band on the bill) Lovvers over at UTR's Youtube page.

pacific! - Reveries

2008-08-13T13:09:00.009+01:00

I'm not down with the whole Guilty Pleasures thing. Why should you feel guilty about liking music you love? Is there a need to hide stuff in case you're exposed as not cool enough? I like The Final Countdown by Europe and Careless Whisper by George Michael (there - said it!) and I can't see what there is to be embarrassed about there.

I mention this, because the new album by Swedish duo pacific! mines a rich seem of what might be called guilty pleasures. It's a proper Balearic record, but not in the sense of TOP IBIZA CHILL OUT CLASSIX compilations, but in the old-fashioned sense of anything goes as long as it's good and makes sense, an attitude that saw the likes of Chris Rea's On the Beach and other soft rock classics being blared from Ibizan terraces whilst addled clubbers went wild with joy. Danny Hogberg and Bjorn Synneby have amassed a lifetime's musical loves and influences on Reveries, and they're not ashamed of any of them, so they're as happy displaying affection for cheesy 80s synth pop as they are for more classic, 'credible' reference points. So we have the ghosts of terminally unfashionable groups like A-ha and ELO, sitting happily alongside The Beach Boys and other summery West Coast American idols. The song Disappear manges even to recall both Ticket to Ride and Maggie May within the space of a few seconds. Elsewhere, there are flavours of more contemporary lounge acts, like Air and Lemon Jelly.

So guilty pleasure it certainly ain't. It's a near-perfect summer album, full of shimmery electropop to cheer the spirits even in the dampest of London Augusts. I doubt that many readers of this blog have the opportunity to cruise down a palm-lined freeway in an open-topped car, but if you do, you know what to stick on the hi-fi.

mp3: pacific! - Disappear
mp3: pacific! - Silent Running
mp3: pacific! - Sunset Blvd (Popular Computer Remix)

The album Reveries is out in the UK next week on the excellent Half Machine Records. You can currently buy the import vinyl at Rough Trade. It's preceded this week by a single - a 12" release of Sunset Blvd, with a few remixes (buy from Rough Trade too). None of these can touch the glory of the original, but the Popular Computer one does a decent job of keeping the best bits without messing it up too much.

The Voluntary Butler Scheme

2008-08-12T00:16:00.005+01:00

Some more good new stuff now. Despite the oddly grand name, The Voluntary Butler Scheme is really just only bloke - Rob Jones - from the unfashionable part of the West Midlands known as Stourbridge, which back in the early 90s was famous for Pop Will Eat Itself, The Wonder Stuff and Neds Atomic Dustbin. But don't worry if you've lost your old German army jacket and DMs with purple laces, because Jones ain't no grebo. VBS trade in an altogether sunnier pop music, made all the more impressive from the fact that Rob does it all himself. It's perhaps not astounding that he can play various parts into a recording device, but what happens when you have to do it live? It's one man band time.

He's got a single out. It's called Trading Things In and it's a fine thing. The title track sports a riff that sounds like all these songs that take a cue from Brimful of Asha, but we're not talking lame copyists here. It's a sprightly little thing, with a huge singalong chorus and more than a little crossover appeal. Even better is is the b-side The Eiffel Tower and the BT Tower, with its cheeky horn parping and ever cheekier lyrics and it's one of the best straight-up pop tunes I've heard in ages. By the time he takes the pace down a bit for third track Hot Air Balloon Heart, and adds some country-style twanging, we already know that he's a major new talent - someone with a sharp ear for a great pop tune, a silly and irreverent way with a lyric, some good ideas about how to make things a bit more interesting and a sense of fun in what he's doing. How many new artists can we genuinely say that about right now?

mp3: The Voluntary Butler Scheme - The Eiffel Tower and the BT Tower
mp3: The Voluntary Butler Scheme - Turn Country Lanes Into Motorways (live on Xfm)
mp3: The Voluntary Butler Scheme - Trading Things In (live on Xfm)

The first track is from the single and the other two are for a session Rob did for John Kennedy on Xfm last month, including a brand new track. All good. I would recommend that you can buy his (download only) Trading Things In EP but it's not available from emusic, and I'm not sure where else people do the legal download thing these days. iTunes I suppose.

Isaac Hayes RIP

2008-08-11T13:53:00.002+01:00

I almost burnt my leg with the iron when I heard this news on the radio this morning. Tributes have poured in. Obituaries have been published. I'm not sure what I can add to the weight of these apart from to say RIP and point you to some footage of the legend that was, and still is, Isaac Hayes.

mp3: Isaac Hayes - Soulsville

Micah P. Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra

2008-08-08T14:08:00.005+01:00

The problem with creating an amazing debut album is that your subsequent work is always going to be held up against that first masterwork. Many artists have been in this position, and Micah P. Hinson is one of them. Mind you, his 'debut' album wasn't technically his first, though it was the first to get released. Micah P. Hinson and the Gospel of Progress was a gutsy, rocking soulful triumph, which set a very high standard for all its successors.

Though his next album The Opera Circuit was good, it may have been unfavourably compared with its predecessor. But the arrival of Micah's new album The Red Empire Orchestra heralds an exciting new chapter in his canon. He's in a different place now to the one which led to the anguished screams on The Opera Circuit. His lyrics and music may still be loaded with melancholy, but there's a lighter touch. There are positive, almost lovelorn lyrics which perhaps reflect his current happier and recently-married state, and there are plenty of strings. Sure, he's had strings on his records before, but they're so much more noticeable here - at times you could even describe the album as lush.

There's also a certain swagger and at least a couple of songs sound like a gruffer, American Richard Hawley. Other songs just ache with beauty. Then, just to show us that he doesn't need any embellishment to write a great tune, we have just Micah's glorious lived-in voice and quiet accompanying acoustic guitar on The Fire Came Up to My Knees. I'm not sure yet that Red Empire is up to the heights of his debut, but each listen reveals more brilliance and it's already clear that we have a classic in the making. And two albums of the year contenders this week already is pretty good going.

Here's my current favourite track off the album, plus three songs Micah did for a recent Marc Riley BBC 6 Music live session, with added banjo action and including a new, unreleased tune.

mp3: Micah P. Hinson - Sunrise Over the Olympus Mons
mp3: Micah P. Hinson - When We Embraced (live on BBC 6Music)
mp3: Micah P. Hinson - There's Only One Name (live on BBC 6Music)
mp3: Micah P. Hinson - Tell Me It Ain't So (live on BBC 6Music)

Buy The Red Empire Orchestra from Rough Trade (they have a special book-bound CD edition with two bonus tracks at the moment).

Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves

2008-08-07T14:26:00.003+01:00

In this crazy internet age, brand new music coming to me from a source other than the screen in front of me is a strange thing indeed. So last week, when I heard a guy playing a Merle Haggard cover with plenty of reverence on John Kennedy's Xfm radio show, I was actually being introduced to an artist that I had never heard of before. On the radio! How old school is that?

It was a good cover. Even better were his own songs, all soulful twang and gutsy yearning vocals. On a show which is usually dominated by spiky young things, he stood out like a sore thumb. So I go and find out a bit more about Eli "Paperboy" Reed and I like what I hear. His recent album Roll With You, made with his band The True Loves, seems to have been praised and panned in equal measure. It's hard to argue with the quality of Eli's voice, but some naysayers have sniped that it's just a pastiche of old soul and that if you want this sort of thing, there's plenty better, older music to be found. But this sort of comment is both totally right, and completely misses the point.

Sure enough, Reed's sound is a complete facsimile of classic Southern Soul, and lyrically he mines every cliche in the genre's book (you only need to hear lines like "I'm down on your knees / begging you please" once to know exactly where he's going), but what's wrong with that? Who says that soul is a sort of museum piece, only to be performed by someone 'authentic'? What we have is a young bloke wowing a new audience with some superb songs, and the fact that on his recent trip to London he was playing trendy venues like the Proud Galleries shows that The Kids are onto him. Surely this is a good thing. A whole new generation of people who wouldn't pick up Otis or Eddie Floyd albums are getting turned onto Memphis sounds by the chap from Boston and his all-singing, all-horn toting band.

The 11 songs on Roll With You certainly don't bring anything musically new, but they do display an ear from a sharp tune, a feel for a proper soul groove and perhaps best of all they showcase a brilliant voice that sounds very much at home in its retro surroundings. It's an album that won't change your life, but for 38 minutes, it's a total blast. That'll do me.

mp3: Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves - Stake Your Claim
mp3: Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves - Take My Love With You

Buy Roll With You from Q Division or download from emusic.

Benjamin Wetherill - Laura

2008-08-06T13:43:00.003+01:00

Here's another cracker from Manchester's excellent Red Deer Club Records. I've already written on these pages about the label's other artists Sara Lowes and Sophie's Pigeons, whose records have been good, but this album is surely Red Deer's best yet.

The artist in question in Benjamin Wetherill, who hails from Leeds and has created in his debut album Laura a thing of delicate and exquisite beauty. The term 'folk' is liberally applied these days and can used to describe anything from acoustic pop to proper old beardy man's finger picking. Wetherill certainly leans towards the latter despite being a youngster. His music has plenty nods towards old pastoral English folk, but there's a more cosmopolitan twist which comes courtesy of Jeremy Barnes of A Hawk and Hacksaw fame. Barnes spotted Benjamin whilst on tour and offered to produce his album, which in turned led to them hooking up with Jeremy's Hungarian mates The Hun Hangar Ensemble and recording Laura in a disused 19th century palace on the outskirts of Budapest. Their magic touch, all haunting trumpets and strings, give it a Eastern European flavour which combined with the inherent Englishness and Wetherill's quavering vocals, elevates the album from being merely good to something a lot more special. Already a contender for my albums of the year, I reckon.

Check out a couple of tunes.

mp3: Benjamin Wetherill - Kissing Under Poplars
mp3: Benjamin Wetherill - Oh Sorrow

The album is out now in the UK on Red Deer Club, and in the US on Ba Da Bing (the home of Beirut, natch). Buy from the labels via the links or download from emusic.

The Wave Pictures / A Classic Education @ The Borderline, 30 July 2008

2008-08-04T17:16:00.008+01:00

It was about time. My love for The Wave Pictures has been well-documented on the pages of this blog, but somehow I've never quite got round to seeing them live. It's not like Wave Pictures gigs are a rare thing either - they've always got a packed live calendar, and have probably played every small venue in London. But I've been absent from all of these until last week. And in a way, it was worth the wait.

Before I got to see Bethnal Green's finest, there was another band in the way - one that I was also fairly keen to check out.

A Classic Eduction, to my uneducated, Anglo-centric ears are a rare thing. A band based in Bologna, Italy, with songs in English sung by a Canadian frontman. This slight exoticism may give them an advantage over the scores of other new-band related emails I sift through every day, but happily they're a lot more than just an unusual set-up. By the time I saw their support slot, I had already warmed to some of the songs on their debut EP, without them really lodging in my mind. But that's fine because live, they were given bit of extra muscle and depth.

There are plenty of references to spot within ACE's songs. Stylistically, there's a healthy dose of Arcade Fire, with their outfits, the collective singing round mics and perhaps rather bravely, the band's a capella procession round the venue before going onstage. Musically, there are touches of Montreal's finest, but there's also some classic British indie as well, with nods to Wedding Present style urgent guitar playing, new wavey Interpol-like stylings and some classic shoegazey guitar effects. My friend Dan thought that there was a bit of dEUS in there too, but knowing next to nothing about that Belgian band, I can't say for sure. But they're more than a sum of their influences. There was a lot going on up on stage, and most importantly they write good songs - set closer Stay, Son in particular stood out as a tune that sounds comfortingly familiar, even if you've never heard it before. They must be doing something right.

mp3: A Classic Education - Stay, Son

So to The Wave Pictures. One of the things that struck me after only a couple of songs, is that their resolutely lo-fi sound on record masks the fact that they're actually great musicians. Franic Rozycki plays a mean bass, Jonny Helm hits the drums in fine style and David Tatersall has the makings of a bit of a guitar hero. He's perhaps necessarily reined in on the band's recorded output, but live he likes to cut loose a little, without ever crossing the line into cheesy guitar solo territory. Now virtuosity does not always good music make, but in the sweaty confines of the Borderline, it worked perfectly well. Unsurprisingly the songs come across even better live than on record with a beefed-up sound and guitar workouts only enhancing Tatersall's wry lyrics.

The other thing that struck me early on is that The Wave Pictures are not a cool band. Nor are they ever likely to be. They have the wrong clothes, haircuts and sound. They're not part of a media-friendly scene and they're unlikely ever to date Heat-friendly babes. They've not got any 'tastemakers' queuing up to proclaim them the next big thing, though maybe that's just as well because Tatersall and Rozycki have been playing together for ten years now. However, they do seem destined to be a cult outfit in the same way that their mates Darren Hayman and the Herman Dune boys have. Whatever the case, the quality of their music demands some sort of wider audience, and in a fair world, far more people would take them to heart.

The set list was short (only 10 songs) but they crammed in some recognisable favourites and a few new ones, which is relevant since they've got a new EP out today. A great gig then, and I'm going to get my act together to see them a lot sooner next time.

mp3: The Wave Pictures - Just Like a Drummer
mp3: The Wave Pictures - Cassius Clay

Buy the new EP Just Like a Drummer (appropriately featuring the "good looking" Jonny Helm on the cover) AND the ace album Instant Coffee Baby from Rough Trade. Or download from emusic. A Classic Education's First EP is available from their website or Rough Trade.

Waits for the weekend

2008-08-01T17:23:00.003+01:00

Just because I've been mainlining Tom Waits lately, here's some for the weekend. This one goes out to all those who have been scarred with what Rod Stewart did to Downtown Train. Here's the original and its video.

mp3: Tom Waits - Downtown Train

And in related news, there's a decent 'intro to Tom Waits' article at ace new site The Quietus. As a recent convert, I pretty much agree with all the recommendations there.

The New Young Republic

2008-07-31T14:20:00.002+01:00

Let’s continue with some more recent favourites…

It was inevitable really. When the initial line-ups for the End of the Road Festival were announced, The Young Republic were conspicuous by their absence. Surely EOTR would have a place for the main band on their End of the Road Records label? They went down pretty well at last year’s festival, so it would be daft not to.

Then reliably enough, once the final line-up was announced, there they were – the finest Nashville-dwelling ex-Boston band was slotted onto the main stage in the middle of Saturday. Nice.

This also means that they’re coming back over for a few UK dates in September (some of these on the myspace now). But it’s a slightly different band to the one we saw and loved last year. The former 8-piece have been slimmed down to a six-some as a result of some fairly rocky times earlier in the year. It seems that the move from Boston to Nashville last year didn’t suit everyone, and that plus no doubt other factors led to three members leaving, resulting in the five of Julian, Kristin, Bob, Nate and Chris in the photo above. Since that was taken, they’ve added one Dusty Jensen on drums to the line-up and that’ll be The Young Republic we’ll see in September.

There’s more good news in the shape of a new YR record. There’s a new 6-track EP Idiot Grin, named after the lead track, out on EOTR records around the time of the festival (I think). And that’s not all. In addition to their own songs, the band have been knocking out a regular run of covers, which have been freely available at their myspace. They’ve already tackled some of the greats (and personal band faves) – Dylan’s Isis, Neil Young’s Comes a Time and Tom Waits’ Tango ‘Til They’re Sore and the latest installment is their take on Television’s See No Evil. All decent versions, despite the weight of the originals. They can hold their heads up high. Here are the tunes.

mp3: The Young Republic – Isis
mp3: The Young Republic – Comes a Time
mp3: The Young Republic – Tango ‘Til They’re Sore
mp3: The Young Republic – See No Evil

You can still buy TYR’s fine UK debut 12 Tales from Winter City album from Rough Trade (on vinyl too!).

Back with the old

2008-07-30T14:43:00.010+01:00

So I'm back. I'm not going to apologise for not updating the blog for the past three and a bit weeks, because that was my intention. I wanted to take some time away from The Daily Growl, to avoid the self-imposed tyranny of daily updating, to take some 'blogging time' to do other stuff I need to do, and (something I've wanted to do for ages) to re-design The Daily Growl, including moving from Blogger to a self-hosted Wordpress blog. Needless to say none of that has happened. I've spent time fannying about, and found the Wordpress set-up process horrendously complicated. So much for their 'famous 5-minute installation'. More like 5 days. I'm going to have this as a much longer-term project, and be content in the meantime with a re-jigged Blogger template. Let me know what you think.

Anyway, in the time I've been away, I haven't been listening to very much new music. The promo CDs and mp3s have been piling up, and all I've wanted to listen to is old stuff. So I've been spending time with...

Some old Gospel:

A bit of Sister Rosetta Tharpe

mp3: Sister Rosetta Tharpe - This Train

a load of Washington Phillips

mp3: Washington Phillips - Take Your Burden to the Lord and Leave it There

A heap of Dennis Wilson

mp3: Dennis Wilson - River Song

But most of all - by a long way - Tom Waits. It's incredible to think that it's only just over a month since I started listening to this all-time great. I can't believe I never listened to him much before, but in the past few weeks, his songs have been on constant rotation on all my listening devices. Some proof of this can be found at my last.fm where Tom has come from nowhere to near the top of my artists charts, but that's only half the story. I'm enthralled, amazed and delighted every time I hear one of his albums. The only problem I've had is discovering his greatness at the same time as his only UK shows for another five years or so. People like this really make me jealous! Anyway, here are some tunes and I'll no doubt return to new music sometime soon.

mp3: Tom Waits - Singapore
mp3: Tom Waits - Earth Died Screaming

2008: mid-term report

2008-07-04T17:14:00.006+01:00

It's now four days into July (hey, happy Independence Day Americans!), but here, slightly later than most other people, are the results of me casting my eye over the music of the year so far. It's been a good, if not remarkable year of music so far. Nothing really standing out over the others as being the album of the (half) year. But there's another five months to go. We'll see.

Albums

Top-tenular style of course:

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Wildbirds & Peacedrums - Heartcore
Johnny Flynn - A Larum
White Williams - Smoke
The Wave Pictures - Instant Coffee Baby
Islands - Arm's Way
Things in Herds - Nothing is Lost
Zombie Zombie - A Land for Renegades
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

There are no numbers because it's not in order. I don't have one. Though if I was forced to choose, I think I'd go for Things in Herds. Like I said at the time, it's impossibly beautiful.

Songs

Always harder to do, but there has been some solid gold this year. Here are a few of my favourites. Again, no order. A few select mp3s too.

Esser - I Love You
Jeremy Warmsley - The Boat Song (mp3)
Neon Neon - I Lust U (mp3)
Mystery Jets - Two Doors Down
No Age - Eraser (mp3)
Findo Gask - Va Va Va (mp3)
Thao - Feet Asleep
Lightspeed Champion - Tell Me What it's Worth
Broken Records - If the News Makes You Sad, Don't Watch it
The Mae Shi - Lamb and Lion
The Cave Singers - Dancing on Your Graves
Modernaire - Taste
The Bookhouse Boys - Dead
Stricken City - Tak o Tak (click back here for mp3)
Norman Blake - Baby Lee (click back here for mp3)
Hercules & Love Affair - Blind

So there you go. Will be interesting to see how these all play out in the end of year list. It's also an appropriate place to leave things off here for a while. Nothing major - just a few weeks off for holidays and other stuff. I'll be back by the end of the month, hopefully with a refreshed Daily Growl. Have a good July...

Let's get cool in the pool

2008-07-04T13:10:00.006+01:00

As my last post may suggest, I've been listening to a bit of High Places this week. The bonus has been that every time the end of Canary plays out, my iTunes here at work slips right into Cool in the Pool by Holger Czukay. It's become a much welcome treat in all it's oddball glory, with squeaky voices, rolling grooves and comedy Balearic twanging all adding to the appeal. Although, in this hot weather, it does highlight the need for a pool to get cool in - a scarce resource in central London unless you're a millionaire. Oh well, there's always London Fields Lido.

Download: Holger Czukay - Cool in the Pool

Download the rest of the album Movies from emusic. Believe me, it's worth it.

Photo from Bert#'s Flickr.

High Places / Telepathe / Mirror Mirror

2008-07-03T14:31:00.008+01:00

Because I don’t get out to so many gigs these days, it’s over a year now since I've been to an Upset! The Rhythm show. That’s a great shame, because their gigs are always ace. But I still check the website to see who they’re putting on, and have a listen to the bands. Most of them I haven’t heard of before and almost all of them are worth checking out.

Last month they put on a show by High Places and Telepathe. After some quick Googling and downloading, here’s what I found.

High Places are Mary Pearson and Robert Barber from Brooklyn. If I were being very lazy I would say ‘a bit Animal Collective’, and although that’s not quite accurate, they do share something of a kindred spirit with the other more famous Brooklyn band. They’ve got a very nice line in glitchy, burbling electronic backing on which they lay some lovely meandering tunes, some of which could even be described as pop. The tracks, most of them pretty short all blend together nicely, making the album 03/07 – 09/07 (guess when the songs were recorded?) a pleasing and continuously woozy listening experience. One for languid summer evenings I think.

Download: High Places - Canary

The sound of Telepathe isn’t a million miles away from High Places, just as their place of abode isn’t (Brooklyn too, natch). They have a similar aesthetic – electronica with tunes on top, but Telepathe are a bit more dancefloor friendly, particularly with their remixes. The name’s pronounced Te-le-path-ee apparently and I also hear that they’ve been working with David Sitek on some new material. That’s bound to be interesting at least, most likely great.

Download: Telepathe – Sinister Militia

And as a bonus extra we also have Mirror Mirror, the project of Telepathe’s Ryan Lucero, who have just released a 7 inch single on the increasingly reliable Half Machine Records. It’s a less electronic affair, with some gorgeous vocals and harmonies, echoey effects and a slightly spooky feel. Quite lovely.

Download: Mirror Mirror – New Horizons

Download High Places' o3/07 - 09/07 from emusic. They have a new 7 inch out on Upset The Rhythm records - buy it direct from UTR. Download Telepathe stuff from emusic as well. Order the Mirror Mirror 7 inch from Half Machine records.

Jay Jay Pistolet

2008-07-02T17:17:00.004+01:00

I thought that my recent post on Mumford and Sons was a fairly minor affair, but it turned out to be one of the most popular for a while. Certainly one of the most commented on. One of these comments came from a shadowy figure called Neil who complimented the post, but then commanded me to write about Jay Jay Pistolet. Well, erm…OK sir. The thing is, I’ve been intending to write about JJP for a while after hearing him play a live session on Marc Riley’s old 6Music show at the end of last year. I recorded the songs but have never got round to editing them, and since they’re on my old computer, I’m not sure when my tardiness will allow them to see the light of day. But thanks to Neil, I now have a bundle of songs on my computer which I have been enjoying lately.

So, Jay Jay Pistolet is Justin Hayward-Young from Hampshire, now resident in South West London. In the 6 Music interview I seem to remember he mentioned some other musicians that he lived with, whom I had never heard of at the time, but thanks to Neil I now know that one of these housemates is Marcus Mumford. He may or may not have tried to form a band called The Pistolets, before staying solo with a double prefix.

He comes across like a sort of English troubadour, a sort of young home counties M Ward, blending classic British and American folk music with relative ease. In that way he’s similar to Johnny Flynn, but there’s less of the violin-led hoedowns going on. The songs I have seem to be mainly demos, since JJP has only released one single so far – We Are Free on Chess Club Records last November. Although he seems to have amassed a lot of songs, he’s not ready to record his debut album yet. According to this interview, he’s “really keen for my first album to be great and I just don't think it would be if I was to record it any time soon!” This perfectionism extends to him dissing his own single in a recent myspace blog “I'm pretty ashamed of my songwriting on the 'we are free' single” he says, though he seems confident enough of other material to want to release an EP "in the coming months".

I await that with interest. On the strength of the material that I’ve heard he’s got nothing to worry about – even with We Are Free. He’s one of these songwriters who wields an acoustic guitar and treads a similar path to many, many more, but has that something special, that particular way with words and tunes which elevates him above the rest. In JJP’s case, pretty far above.

Download: Jay Jay Pistolet – We Are Free
Download: Jay Jay Pistolet – Let Them Grow
Download: Jay Jay Pistolet – Friend We Weren’t Even Lovers

So until I dig these BBC session tunes out, here are some of Neil’s tracks. Still, I guess it just gives me an excuse to do another Pistolet Post sometime soon. Good.

A kick in the teeth is good for some

2008-07-01T17:16:00.004+01:00

Every morning I come into work, fire up my computer and listen to this song. I hear the steady build-up, the ace fuzzy guitar solo and most of all Florence's amazing voice. It's all over in two minutes of pop perfection. Then I'm ready to face the day. I can take on anything. Almost.

Download: Florence and the Machine - Kiss With a Fist

Buy the 7 inch from Moshi Moshi.

Bodies of Water - A Certain Feeling

2008-07-01T17:13:00.002+01:00

Another thing that I picked up at Pure Groove the other week was the new Bodies of Water album. It’s not officially out until 22 July, but they’ve bagged some advance copies for sale (signed too, natch). Since having my pants charmed off by their wonderful debut Ears Will Pop and Eyes Will Blink last year, I was obviously keen to hear what the new stuff sounds like.

There’s a definite progression, which although necessary isn’t always a good thing. The reason I loved Ears Will Pop… was the sheer wide-eyed, almost naïve, joy of it all. The massed vocals and harmonies; and the perfect combination of intensity with the knack of a perfect pop tune totally nailed it for me last time. On A Certain Feeling these features are still there, but it’s less rough and ready, which was part of the appeal of its predecessor. It just feels a bit more slick and produced.

But this is a bit too churlish. Perhaps I complain too much, and give the impression that I don’t like A Certain Feeling. It’s still a great album, and will be better than most other stuff released this year. The vocals, harmonies, and the tunes still sparkle. They’ve got more horns, driving rhythm (Water Here), proggy ballad stylings (Keep Me On) and a definite tipping towards classic 70s rock. The euphoria is still there too (see especially Darling, Be Here). It’s all round a bit meatier, a bit more rocking, which is all fine really. So no damning with faint praise – this is an album which seems to get better and better as it progresses, and although tuneful, still improves with repeated listens.

In fact, the main feeling of lack that I get is imagining how amazing it might sound live, and then realising that Bodies of Water have never played over here and seem to have no plans to do so in the near future. So go on – fix up some dates. Please. I’d be very happy.

Download: Bodies of Water – Under The Pines
Download: Bodies of Water – Darling, Be Here

Buy A Certain Feeling from Pure Groove.

London record shops 1: Pure Groove

2008-06-27T17:01:00.011+01:00

So here’s another Daily Growl occasional series. It’ll probably be less regular than Singles going steady, but hopefully a lot more frequent than Whatever happened to…. We’ll see. As the title may suggest, it’s quite simple – all about London record shops. The plan is to compile a sort of guide to record shops in the capital and and buy some good stuff along the way. Some of them will be shops I frequent, others will be new to me, which will be part of the fun. So here goes.

First up is Pure Groove, perhaps appropriately, since they’ve recently closed their long-standing Archway store and opened a brand spanking new one, more centrally in Smithfields, with a fresh new concept, a sparkly new website and an impressive list of instore performances.

I’m going to fit the review of the shop into a sort of template that I’ll probably use for the other shops I’ll write about in future. Let’s see how it goes…

The bare necessities:

Pure Groove, 6-7 West Smithfield, London EC1A 9JX

What type of music?

Pure Groove has its roots in dance music vinyl, but for as long as I’ve known it (two or three years) it’s been providing an eclectic range of indie music to the citizens of North London and beyond. Basically the sort of music that say, readers of Drowned in Sound or Pitchfork would like. Or maybe readers of The Daily Growl. Or me. They’ve also been known for championing new bands, particularly bands from London, and have given prominence to them on the website and in the shop racks.

What’s the shop like?

Clean and bright, pretty boxfresh, though that’s not surprising given that it’s been open for less than a month. There’s good natural light coming in through the huge front windows. Given the unique stock / display concept (see next question), there’s a lot of space in the main floor, with all the CDs and records along one wall, leaving space for seats, magazines and temporary art exhibitions – on my recent visits there were early 90s My Bloody Valentine concert photos hanging from the ceiling in big frames. The walls were decorated with some fresh graffiti murals. Actually, all that I’ve described might make it sound like an upmarket boutique, which may be slightly off-putting to some casual customers. Who knows? Aesthetically, I quite liked it.

Good stock?

This is the most interesting thing about the new Pure Groove. They have a new concept which will either make or break them. Rather than having racks of the latest CD and vinyl releases, with a bit of credible back catalogue stuff, they’ve gone for a display of a pre-selected ‘Pure Groove 100’, which is 100 releases – singles or albums, on CD or vinyl – which they have deemed to be good and worthy of selling. That’s it. Nothing else. All are neatly displayed on a large frame running along one of the shop walls, like a gallery display with the copies for purchase in narrow racks underneath. So no point going in and asking for the new album from whoever, because if it’s not in the 100, it’s not in the shop.

On one hand I admire this kind of retail audacity. It’ll probably go down well with either the kids who want to be reassured that they’re listening to the best cool new stuff, of the slightly older person who just doesn’t have the time to check out all the latest releases, and wants quality recommendations which are both good and will give them some credibility. The latter's probably a similar group to those served by the Rough Trade Album club. It’s also good to see a shop not only making clear statements about what think is good, but actively promoting new music that they believe in.

On the other hand, it may be commercial suicide, with punters being put off by perceived snobbery and lack of what they’re actually looking for. Although West Smithfield is more central than Archway, it’s still off the beaten track, and given that they’re not going to be relying on passing trade (unless there’s a load of Smithfield Market butchers with a taste in HEALTH vinyl) they’re presumably relying on being a destination shop, where the customers either want to be surprised and recommended something new and exciting, or already know what’s on the sale list. Maybe the staff are trained in negotiation skills, so that when the kids come in wanting Pigeon Detectives CDs, they leave thoroughly convinced that what they really needed was a Collapsing Buildings 7 inch.

Friendly staff?

Given the pre-set stock list, opportunities for interaction with the staff are more limited than other record shops, since there’s none of the “Do you have any X?,” or “where do I find Y?” questions. However, in having brief chats on both my recent visits with staff there, they seemed amenable and friendly enough, and quite proud of their new top 100.

Other stuff of note

Instore gigs are a real strength. In the absence of any live action at Rough Trade East of late, Pure Groove are certainly filling that gap admirably. From their opening night sets from Mystery Jets and Jeremy Warmsley, they’ve kept up the quality live action with sets from Lykke Li, HEALTH and White Williams among others. Upcoming there’s Edwyn Collins, Micah P Hinson and Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip.

They also sell a range of merchdise – mainly t-shirts, postcards and other stuff. I wonder how much of a market there is for We Smoke Fags necklaces though.

The website’s pretty good. They’ve dropped the old Pure Groove Digital download shop and replaced it with a load of decent free downloads, with an accompanying featured free download every other day. There's more web action with PGTV which shows clips of live instores and other performances.

Points off though for not having a CD player and record deck for listening to music on. It’s all very well recommending the 100, but do we actually get to hear it? OK, they might put it on the shop system if asked nicely, but what if it’s a busy Saturday afternoon? Or maybe they’re just not expecting to be that busy.

My reservations aside, it’s definitely worth a visit. I found plenty stuff I wanted to buy, I parted with cash on both my recent visits and I will be back. Here are samples from some of the records and CDs I bought.

Download: Mystery Jets – Somewhere in my Heart
Download: Esser – Long Arms
Download: Fleet Foxes – Ragged Wood

Mystery Jets try but fail to capture the magic of the Aztec Camera Original on this Two Doors Down b-side, but hopefully this will raise the profile of Roddy Frames wonderful band with the kids. Long Arms is decent enough, but not a patch on the a-side, the brilliant I Love You. And here’s a song from the big-selling Fleet Foxes (number 11 this week, y’know). I should really do a proper review of this album, but can’t really be bothered. Suffice to say that I love harmonies and I love this album.

Radiohead @ Victoria Park, 25 June 2008

2008-06-27T13:30:00.008+01:00

It’s been an issue at Radiohead gigs since the start of the decade, but I wondered again on Wednesday night how many people in the 20,000-strong crowd in Victoria Park last night really just wanted stadium singalongs. If they did, they got a chunk of these in a crowd-pleasing first encore, but generally it wasn’t a sing-along type of gig. Radiohead gigs never are now– after all, there have been four albums since OK Computer, none of them populated with group song moments.

I also wondered if there are 90s-period Radiohead fans who keep on going to their gigs, in the vain hope that Thom Yorke and co will recant their wayward ways and give us the big chords again. Anyway, given all this, and despite a few complaints about the crowd by other folk, we seemed to land fortunately next to some hardcore Radiohead fans – the sort who sing along and jump around to Idioteque. My kind of people.

I thought I had given up on gigs of this size. I haven’t been anywhere bigger than Shepherd’s Bush Empire for a few years now, but I made an exception for this one, because it was Radiohead, because I love In Rainbows so much and was desperate to hear them playing it, and because it’s nice to go to a gig less than 10 minutes walk from my house. For a show on such a huge scale it was unexpectedly hugely enjoyable. Maybe it was the lovely summer’s evening and the way the site was set up that got me into a festival mindset, even though I don’t even go to festivals this big any more.

Up on the massive stage, we had a dazzling light and film display, the thundering bass and crazy dancing of Idioteque, the rockingly reworked Myxomatosis and 2+2=5, and the whole of In Rainbows – all of which sounded amazing but 15 Step and Bodysnatchers were particularly spine-tingling moments for me. Heck, I even sang along to Karma Police, and I never sing along at gigs. That’s getting into the spirit of things. 11 years on from OK Computer, Radiohead are still a band very much at the top of their game. It makes me happy that a band of this size is still so consistently exciting, intriguing and pushing new directions. In fact the more they go on, the more distance opens up between them and their arena-inclined copyists. Despite being in the middle of a huge international tour, the performance was energetic and spot-on, and the only complaint that I could possibly raise about the whole gig was Thom Yorke’s dodgy red trousers. So good times in Victoria Park, a thrilling show and excited anticipation of Radiohead's next moves...

Download: Radiohead – The National Anthem
Download: Radiohead – Bodysnatchers
Download: Radiohead – Idoteque
Download: Radiohead – Karma Police

Set list after the pic (hard to beat this, IMO)

1. Reckoner

2. 15 Step

3. There There

4. All I Need

5. Lucky

6. Nude

7. Weird Fishes / Arpeggi

8. Myxomatosis

9. National Anthem

10. Faust Arp

11. No Surprises

12. Jigsaw Falling Into Place

13. Optimistic

14. Videotape

15. Everything In Its Right Place

16. Idioteque

17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1

18. House of Cards

19. The Bends

20. Bangers & Mash

21. My Iron Lung

22. Karma Police

Encore 2

23. Go Slowly

24. 2+2=5

25. Paranoid Android

For more Radiohead tour-centric stats super-nerdishness, check out this. If you’re in Manchester or Glasgow, predict your set lists!

If you do it again, I'm gonna freak out

2008-06-24T13:20:00.004+01:00

This loose-limbed disco monster was one of my tunes of last year. Ever since it appeared on the b-side of All My Friends, it's been on steady rotation round my way ever since. This morning on the way to work I was reminded yet again of how awesome it is. So I thought I'd post it for your listening pleasure.

Download: LCD Soundsystem - Freak Out / Starry Eyes

In related news, I saw 45:33 for five quid in Fopp today. If you've not got it, you'd be mad not to.

Half-handed Cloud again

2008-06-23T17:13:00.006+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I plugged the upcoming event – this Thursday folks! – which is a collaboration between my friends David and Ping* aka The Henningham Family Press and Californian multi-instrumentalist and all round nice guy (I know, I met him last night) John Ringhoffer aka Half-handed Cloud.

Back then I had only heard the four tracks available off the Asthmatic Kitty website, but in the intervening period I’ve been lent a copy of his latest album Halos and Lassos and it’s been bringing me a lot of pleasure. 19 tracks in 29 minutes will give you an idea that Ringhoffer doesn’t lean in a prog direction. His songs are short, sweet and packed with tunes, various odd instruments and lyrics which take you from cars, to God, to sheep, to paper airplanes and beyond. It’s worth stopping and listening to what he’s singing about. And he plays the Omnichord. Anyone who plays the Omnichord is worth a listen in my book.

So, a great little album and it’s whetted my appetite for more. Thankfully the Asthmatic Kitty shop can meet that need. And though John’s back catalogue of experimental pop may be rich and impressive, he’ll be playing none of it down The Foundry on Thursday night. It’ll all be new stuff, and the whole music/printing/12 foot vinyl record-making thing is nothing if not intriguing. Should be a great evening.

Download: Half-handed Cloud – A Picnic Few Want to Attend
Download: Half-handed Cloud – Praise Awaits You

Whatever happened to… Ella Guru

2008-06-20T13:29:00.003+01:00

In March last year, I wrote the only previous post in this very occasional series, but it was quite successful. Back then I wondered out loud what had happened to Lincoln, north London’s finest Americana outfit and slowly, over time some news came in, eventually from some band members themselves. If you’re interested in that story, you can read it here, but today I’ve got another band that seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

They are (or were) Ella Guru, a seven-piece group from Liverpool who did a similar line in melodic low-key Americana to Lincoln, or maybe like a slightly fuzzier Lambchop without the soul stylings. I first encountered them in 2003 via a 3-track EP in a nice cardboard sleeve that I picked up in Flashback Records on Essex Road. It had three songs, all of them great. In a way, it’s a perfect representation of the band – there are two songs which are quiet and lovely, slow and measured, with a sublime blend of instruments and male/female vocals; and there's one track where they up the pace a bit and deliver a rolling country-pop gem. On Ella Guru’s 2004 debut album called – plainly enough – The First Album, there’s a similar balance. Mostly downbeat and gorgeous, but with the occasional foray into more up-tempo country. It’s mainly an album for late nights. Even the tracks with names like This is My Rock & Roll and Got My Mojo Workin’ can’t muster a roar or a guitar solo, but of course this is a good thing.

Although there was a subsequent single Park Lake Speakers, it seems that The First Album was also the last album. The Ella Guru website is still there, but there’s been no activity on it since December 2005. There’s no Wikipedia page either (or more likely, it’s been deleted – I’m sure I saw one a while back) and since the name Ella Guru is taken from Trout Mask Replica, Googling them gives a load of Captain Beefheart links, as well as info about the artist who’s taken the same name. So very little info out there on what happened to this great band. I’m assuming that they’ve split up, but would be delighted to hear that they haven’t. Whatever, hit me with the news – I’m all ears.

Since the 3 Songs From Liverpool EP doesn’t seem to be available anywhere, here are all three tracks

Download: Ella Guru – On a Beach
Download: Ella Guru – On a Boat
Download: Ella Guru – Strugglin’ Horse in Hollywood

Download: Ella Guru – Park Lake Speakers

The last track above is from The First Album. You can download the whole album from emusic – I strongly recommend that you do.

Welcome to Our TV Show! Episode 5!

2008-06-19T13:23:00.004+01:00

If it’s another month, it’s surely time for another Welcome to our TV Show. This month Jeremy and Fay have gone for a corporate tie-in and given us a label showcase. Happily it’s the ever-ace Moshi Moshi records that’s getting the WTOTS big-up and we’ve got three of their best – The Wave Pictures, Hot Club de Paris and Slow Club playing in the Warmsley-Buzzard lounge.

I need say no more about The Wave Pictures, because they’re already big DG favourites and I’ve said plenty already. Suffice to say that the acoustic version of Now You Are Pregnant is reliably excellent.

Slow Club have been only mentioned in passing here before, though their track Sunday was in my list of top tunes of last year. Their thing is cute ‘n’ charming boy-girl indiepop and even though they’ll probably never blow your socks off, they’ll certainly put a smile on your face, and usually that’s all you need. Their quirky little song When I Go is another of these mouth-turning numbers.

Hot Club de Paris are a band that I’ve never really listened to – not that they’re bad or anything, just that there’s too much music in the world, and sometimes even the decent gets overlooked. Here the amiable Scousers joke their way through a couple of false starts to deliver an acoustic rendition of new song This Thing Forever. Sounds good. I should investigate further.

Behold the videos:

Wave Pictures and Hot Club

Slow Club and some Fresh Prince of Bel-Air tomfoolery

And again, thanks to the good man himself, here are the mp3s.

Download: The Wave Pictures – Now You Are Pregnant (live on WTOTS)
Download: Hot Club de Paris – This Thing Forever (live on WTOTS)
Download: Slow Club – When I Go (live on WTOTS)

Not seen WTOTS before? Check out episode 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The Wave Pictures album Instant Coffee Baby is out now. It's ace, like I said before. Hot Club de Paris' new album Live at Dead Lake is out this week - download from emusic. Slow Club don't have anything out at the moment that I can see, but you can download their 2007 single Me and You from emusic. They've also done a wonderful cover of The Mae Shi's Run to Your Grave - get it from funfunfun.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums

2008-06-18T17:11:00.002+01:00

Here’s something for folks who like their music a bit stripped down and raw. Regular readers of this blog will know that I often like my music unencumbered by unnecessary embellishments, but Wildbirds and Peacedrums take this ethic to (almost) its natural conclusion. Their template is simple: voice and drums. That’s it. But what a voice. Its owner is Mariam Wallentin, graduate of Gothenburg’s Academy of Music and Drama, and she’s got an amazing range – she can do everything from soaring soul inflections to tortured wail. And the drums, hit by Mariam’s husband Andreas Werliin are pretty impressive too.

I don’t need to give you any more info about the couple/band, because there’s heaps on this Drowned in Sound interview. What you do need to know is that their album Heartcore is a remarkable thing. It was actually recorded a couple of years ago, but only came out here at the end of April on The Leaf Label. If anyone was waiting for it, it was worth it. For the rest of us, we can be grateful that it’s got a release and we can hear it in all its rhythmic, haunting and soulful glory.

Sure enough, Andreas and Mariam throw the odd extra instrument into the mix – glockenspiels, sitars and zithers are used – but it’s still beautifully simple. From the gorgeous downbeat ballad I Can’t Tell in His Eyes to propulsive percussion of The Way Things Go it’s all stirring stuff. It may be a bit what Bjork would sound like if she lost the numbers of her hotshot producers, or what if Shara ‘My Brightest Diamond’ Worden would end up with if she was stranded on a desert island with only a drum for company. Highly recommended.

Download: Wildbirds & Peacedrums – I Can’t Tell in His Eyes
Download: Wildbirds & Peacedrums – Pony

Buy Heartcore from Amazon or download from Bleep.

Singles going steady 26: Franz Ferdinand

2008-06-17T22:46:00.006+01:00

It seems impossible now, but there was once a time when there was no myspace, when if you heard about a band you were interested in you had to go and actually buy their music to find out. And if they didn't have anything out, you had to go to see them live to discover what the fuss was about. Even more incredibly, this was the situation in the summer of 2003, when I started reading some exciting blurbs about this new band from Glasgow called Franz Ferdinand (along with that picture up top). They had just signed a record deal with Domino and hadn't released anything yet. So when they announced their first proper London headline show - A Night of Music and Dancing with Franz Ferdinand - at the Africa Centre in Covent Garden, I was there for sure.

When me and my friend got there at about half 8, there was no-one in the venue. It was the right night, just that folks hadn't got round to turning up yet. We supped South African beer and watched bemused as support act Simon Bookish threw some crazy shapes along to his laptop. Then a smattering of excitement across the crowd when four dapper chaps took to the stage in front of a projected black and white film. The music had many familiar touchstones - Talking Heads, The Fall, other new wave stuff, but was spun in a fresh and urgent new way. The set was short but thrilling and I knew I'd be hearing more from them soon. And no doubt seeing them in much bigger venues.

Sure enough, the first single Darts of Pleasure was released that autumn and I snapped it up quickly. It was as good as I recalled from the gig. The following January Domino released Take Me Out, with I bought along with thousands of others following a good few months of hype. It was a huge hit, and deservedly so. Though Franz have been consistently good since, they've never really topped these first two singles, which have surely become an aspirational template for thousands of skinny boys with guitars ever since. The next time I saw Alex Kapranos and co, it was at Brixton Academy, part of a triumphant sell-out national tour. Though I've consistently enjoyed their music, nothing has ever topped the excitement of five years ago.

You know the A-sides of these singles too well already. You probably know the b-sides too, but here are some of them anyway.

Download: Franz Ferdinand - Van Tango
Download: Franz Ferdinand - Shopping for Blood
Download: Franz Ferdinand - All For You, Sophia

Buy Franz Stuff from Rough Trade, or download from Bleep.

As you've probably read, the new album's been put back till next year, but they're still tearing up small venues across the country on their current tour. Check out some photos from the Macbeth show in London a couple of weeks back. Here's hoping the third album's worth the wait.

More singles going steady.

Glasvegas - Geraldine

2008-06-17T12:09:00.003+01:00

It seems at first like a heartfelt love song, about someone who will be there, even through the hardest times to help, (“I’ll be here at your side to console”), rescue (“When you’re standing on the window ledge, I’ll talk you back from the edge”) protect (“I will be the angel on your shoulder”) and even, against the odds, try to change (“I will turn your tide”). But then there’s the twist. “My name is Geraldine, I’m your social worker”.

It’s the new single from Glasvegas and it’s their already established blend of the confessional lyrics of James Allan and the band’s Ronnettes meets proper old fashioned fuzzed up noisy indie guitar sound. Business as usual there then, except this time it’s their major label debut, after a couple of very limited – now fetching a mint on ebay – 7 inch singles. And as such it’ll have a lot of money thrown at it to make it a hit. No doubt it will be. Good luck to them. I may not be as excited by Glasvegas as I was last year, but they’re still a decent band who sound like no-one else at the moment.

Download: Glasvegas – Geraldine (radio edit)

Pre-order Geraldine from Rough Trade.

The Beep Seals

2008-06-16T17:12:00.004+01:00

I thought that I’d like The Beep Seals when I heard that Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub had produced their debut album. I was right. It’s easy to see why they asked Norman to be the producer, as the Manchester band are cut from a very similar West Coast-pop-and-harmonies-loving cloth as the Glasgow elder statesmen. They thought that Norman would be just the person to get the harmonies right, but according to the man himself in a recent interview, he reckoned that they had it all pretty much worked out and he spent more time in the pub than guiding proceedings.

Although they’re a relatively recent outfit in their current form, the various members of the Beep Seals have a bit of history in Manchester bands – Ian, Phil and Jack were in the backing band for football and quiz show-friendly tune-maker Jim Noir and Sam used to be in the decent but never-quite-made-it Alfie. They got together as The Beep Seals in 2006 and have been making sweet music since, though the album Things That Roar is the first full-length fruits of their creative endeavours. The tracks that I’ve heard from the record are all effortlessly tuneful, soaring guitar pop, which as a big Fanclub fan is very much up my street. And yes, the harmonies are just right. Top quality stuff.

Download: The Beep Seals – Biting Glass
Download: The Beep Seals – Chariot Song

Things That Roar is out on 23 June. Pre-order from Heron Recordings.

Mumford and Sons

2008-06-13T17:22:00.006+01:00

Here’s some new folky goodness for you. Not folky as in the beardy sense, mainly because the kid in Mumford and Sons are probably too young to grow beards. Led by one Marcus Mumford, this west London band peddle a sparkly, breezy, bluegrass-infused folk-pop that’s very similar to Noah and the Whale, or at least what Noah and the Whale sounded like before they headed off in a more shiny pop direction. But hey, there’s plenty of room for both of these bands, particularly when they’re playing such fine music and providing the young folks with happy alternative to spiky guitars and skinny jeans ‘n’ Converse posturing. And for a band who have only been together for about six months, they've arrived remarkably fully-formed.

They've got a new four-track EP out on Chess Club Records on 7 July. All the songs are good. Here's one of them.

Download: Mumford and Sons - Roll Away Your Stone

Buy the Lend Me Your Eyes EP from your local good record shop (no click to buy links yet).

More White Williams, yeah

2008-06-13T13:36:00.004+01:00

It’s been just over a week since White Williams was on here, but it’s worth doing another post, because in the time since the last one, I’ve acquired a copy of Joe Williams’ debut album Smoke, and it’s a total cracker.

It’s chock-full of echoey electro-pop goodness with nods to Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Prince, krautrock, that classic 80s synth sound and even a dash of glam rock. And although Lice in the Rainbow should satisfy those who like a bit of experimental pissing about, the rest of the album heads steadily in a pop direction, with the odd curveball thrown in. There are plenty of hummable tunes on here – In The Club and New Violence have been reverberating round my head all day, with no sign of stopping any time soon. This is a good thing.

Download: White Williams - In the Club
Download: White Williams - Headlines

Smoke is out now on Double Six records. Buy from Rough Trade or download (the US version, which has more tracks) from emusic.

Half-handed Cloud and the Henningham Family Press

2008-06-12T15:22:00.004+01:00

Here’s a post on behalf of my friends David and Ping*, who are the Henningham Family Press. They’re putting on an event with Half-Handed Cloud at The Foundry on Old Street on 26 June.

It’s not a gig as such – they describe it as:

“a collaborative music and silkscreen printing project. This project will culminate in a live printing and sing-along event at the Foundry. Half-handed Cloud and the Henningham Family Press will transform the venue’s basement into a 12-foot wide vinyl record player, and use it to perform some new material - never before seen or heard. This event brings together the pressing of a print and the pressing of a vinyl record”

If you’ve not heard of Half-Handed Cloud, he’s also known as John Ringhofer, friend of Sufjan Stevens and sometime member of his backing band. He’s also recently been a touring member of Danielson. John is signed to Asthmatic Kitty who have released his seven albums and EPs, and last time he played in London, Sufjan guested on drums and percussion. This time his famous friend won’t be in tow, but the night at the Foundry promises to be an intriguing one. Hope to see you there…

I’m not very familiar with the music of HHC, but hope to remedy that over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, here are a couple of tracks. There are more of these free at the Asthmatic Kitty website.

Download: Half-handed Cloud – Animals Are Cut in Two
Download: Half-handed Cloud – We're Very Greatly Loved

Buy HHC stuff from AK. Here’s nice flyer for the event, printed by David and Ping* on their press.

You’ve either got it or you haven’t

2008-06-12T14:02:00.007+01:00

There are any number of young bands out there, featuring choppy new wave guitars, incessant drumming and attractive female vocalists. Most of them are a bit rubbish. Stricken City definitely aren’t. Just don’t ask me why. They’ve just got something the others haven’t.

Download: Stricken City – Tak o Tak
Download: Stricken City – The Traveller

On the other hand, I don’t think So So Modern have it. I’ve given the Kiwi band’s spiky electro guitar pop from their new compilation album a few listens now and though they come close, they’re not quite there. They tickle, but don’t really satisfy.

Download: So So Modern – Vulture Kisses
Download: So So Modern – The Love Code

Download the new Stricken City EP for FREE from their website. Two more ace free tracks on their myspace. The So So Modern compilation Friends and Fires + 0000 EPs is out on 7 July on Transgressive Records.

Stricken City video action time!

I'm in the Norman Blake fanclub

2008-06-11T11:52:00.004+01:00

I love Teenage Fanclub. They’re the first band that I really got into, way back in the heady summer of 1991, and their sun-drenched harmonies were the soundtrack to much of my 1990s. So it’s hardly a surprise that despite the disappointments of the last couple of albums, I still hang on their every word, keeping a watch out for movements and any possible good new things.

These days they’re far from prolific on the album front, with only two albums this decade and not much on the horizon. But there is the odd flurry of activity, and right now there’s stuff to report. Firstly, the band are taking to the stage at Oran Mor as part of the Glasgow West End Festival playing three nights – one electric, one acoustic, and one called ‘live obscurities’, which seems to be b-sides and suchlike. This set-up is a little reminiscent of the three nights they played at the Camden Underworld several years ago. I went to the electric one, and it’s still up there in my top five Fanclub gigs ever.

Secondly, Norman Blake is out and about, playing solo shows, mainly in support of Manchester band The Beep Seals, whose new album he produced earlier in the year. It perhaps comes as no surprise that The Beep Seals specialise in the same sort of breezy harmonies that we love the Fanclub for, but more on them another time.

Norman was in Marc Riley’s BBC 6Music studio last Wednesday to play some tunes and have a bit of a chat. The songs are at the bottom of the post, but before that, a couple of further pieces of Norman news from the interview chatter.

He’s about to do a UK tour as part of Daniel Johnston’s band – a veritable indie supergroup put together by Jad Fair, which also includes Scout Niblett , James McNew from Yo La Tengo and Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse. How's that for impressive back-up!

And – wait for it – he even mentioned that Teenage Fanclub were intending to do some recording later in the year. Here’s hoping…

What of the songs?

The first is understandably a Daniel Johnston cover. The second an old Scottish folk song called Banks of Strathdon, and the third is a Blake original, though it too is the fruit of another interesting collaboration. Baby Lee has come out of Burnsong Songhouse, a songwriting project where songwriters are locked in a house in Dumfries and have to write songs together to perform at a show at the end of the week. Norman worked with Jo Mango and Ziggy Campbell from FOUND to create this wee gem. Enjoy!

Download: Norman Blake – Sad and Lonely (live on BBC 6Music)
Download: Norman Blake – Banks of Strathdon (live on BBC 6Music)
Download: Norman Blake – Baby Lee (live on BBC 6Music)

Norman photo from poketo's Flickr.

Bon Iver @ St Giles' church, 4 June 2008

2008-06-06T17:25:00.007+01:00

Justin Vernon isn't much of a rock star. None of this 'aren't I great' posturing or strutting of any kind. Quite the opposite in fact. He seems quite humbled and bowled over by the response to his debut album as Bon Iver, the wonderful record with the romantic back-story that has had critics and fans slavering countrywide for the past few months.

There were couple of hundred or so of these fans in the beautiful St Giles-in-the-Fields Church on Wednesday, all part of the (over?) capacity crowd, many straining around poor sight lines to see the burly figure of Vernon on stage with his two-piece band. And what an amazing gig - full of both the expected and the unexpected. What we did expect was to hear For Emma, Forever Ago to be played in its entirety - after all, Bon Iver's repertoire isn't exactly huge. What I didn't quite expect was just how beefed-up and fantastic it sounded. I was ready for Vernon alone on stage with an acoustic guitar. Instead he was tooled-up with a rack of guitars, and his bandmates came with more guitars, multiple drums and effects pedals. The result? An amazing sound enhanced even further the church acoustics.

Justin was alone for only one song - Regard the Stacks (to give it its full name) - which was spine-tinglingly gorgeous, the church so quiet you could hear breathing. But elsewhere, the volume was cranked up, and sounded particularly impressive on the post-rock wig-outs at the end of Wolves and Creature Fear. In fact the last three songs - the aforementioned Re: Stacks and Creature Fear, followed by closing number For Emma, performed unamplified by Justin and the boys in the centre of the crowd, using the acoustics to full effect as they piled on the harmonies - are easily my live highlight of the year so far, maybe even longer.

The applause at the end, as it had been throughout was deafening, heartfelt and long. The standing ovation at the end was even more rapturous. No wonder Justin was bowled over. I wonder how he's going to take it when he plays Shepherd's Bush Empire in September to ten times as many people. He better get used to the praise, because even although this was a special evening that's never going to be replicated, if he keeps up this form he'll be unbeatable.

Download: Bon Iver - Re: Stacks
Download: Bon Iver - Wisconsin

Buy For Emma, Forever Ago from Rough Trade or download from emusic.

Photo from David Emery's Flickr. Have a look at his photos of this gig - they're great. I took some, but they were far from great - too many heads in the way, including David's I think.

Psychedelic Horseshit

2008-06-06T13:35:00.002+01:00

Over the past year or so I seem to have come across loads of great bands with bad names. You’ve got to overcome your initial prejudice through appreciating the music. With Psychedelic Horseshit it’s the other way around. You hope that the band’s music is really as good as their name.

The answer is a qualified yes. In talking about Psychedelic Horseshit we’ve got to remember to check all usual expectations of production values. I mean, I generally like my music stripped down and without unnecessary embellishment, but this is taking the piss. The Horseshit (as no-one calls them) share an aesthetic with their fellow Columbus Ohio natives and former labelmates Times New Viking (Matt PH did the sound for TNV on their recent UK trip) which is totally no-frills, hard-on-the-ears noise.

My favourite track off the forthcoming New Wave Hippies EP starts off like a cheap guitar playing inside a tin can, before switching into a decent fuzzy pop song, but even this can’t last – the beats soon overtake the song, everything gets out of kilter and it all collapses prematurely. I have to stress though that this is a GOOD THING. As long as you value some messiness in your music, the Psychedlic Horseshit boys are worth your time.

Download: Psychedelic Horseshit – Silent Speed

The New Wave Hippies 7 inch EP is out on 21 July on Half Machine records – get it from your favourite decent record shop. Download previous PH albums from emusic.

Living the High-Life: The Daily Growl goes all African

2008-06-04T17:18:00.005+01:00

When Vampire Weekend released their debut album back at the start of the year, it had many critics reaching for words like High-Life. I wonder how many of the people talking about these words actually knew what they meant. I couldn’t claim to know, so for me to start talking about High-Life and whatever other African genres were being name-dropped would have been a bit fake.

But now I’ve think I’ve got a better idea, mainly through the excellent new compilation Nigeria 70: Lagos Jump, which was recently released on the rejuvenated Strut Records. It’s a great record, with some amazing songs from little-heard artists, all active in 70s Nigeria, where traditional rhythms clashed with rock, soul and jazz coming from Europe and the U.S. What we get is essentially funk, albeit a unique African take on it. Right from the loping grooves of Yabis at the top of the comp, through more exotic sounds, jazzy stylings of Peter King to the seriously ass-shaking funk from The Faces (no that that lot), there’s so much to enjoy here. I may be no nearer to really understanding high-life, but at least I’ve got some brilliant tunes to enjoy.

Download: Sir Shina Peters & His International Stars - Yabis
Download: The Faces - Tug Of War
Download: Bola Johnson & His Easy Life Top Beats - Ezuku Buzo

The second African album of the day is another story altogether. Konono No. 1 from Congo, have ignored the lure of James Brown funk and jazzy sax for something a lot more traditional and inventive. When people get all excited by whatever ‘DIY punk’ scene is the current vogue, they should have a listen instead to these guys. Septuagenarian Congolese musicians with amped-up thumb pianos and various piece of junkyard equipment, complete with pickups, used for percussion. Combine this with crazy African rhythms, spellbinding vocals and even the odd whistle, and you have the recipe for possibly the most organic techno music you’ll ever hear. The first internationally-available Konono No. 1 album was released back in 2005 by Belgian label Crammed Discs. Possibly capitalising on the success of this, there’s been a second and last year they released the live album Live at Couleur Café. That’s the one I have, and it’s great. I get the impression that live is where the action really happens.

Download: Konono No.1 – Zey Isa Langa
Download: Konono No.1 – Mama Na Bana

Buy Nigeria 70 from Amazon or download from emusic. Buy Live at Couleur Café from Amazon.

Shearwater - Rook

2008-06-04T17:14:00.004+01:00

At 1:30 into On the Death of the Waters, the first track on Shearwater’s new album Rook, there’s a bit of a surprise. It’s not that I’m unused to the quiet/loud dynamic in music – plenty of bands do it – but here, it seems almost out of character. The gentle opening sets you up for what you think is going to be a piano ballad, but then the guitars and trumpet crash in, jolt you upright, then retire leaving the song quiet and lovely again.

It’s a good motif for the rest of Rook. It's an understated album, but one that has a few surprises up its sleeve. It’s epic, but never in an overblown way. It’s got a quiet determination and a steely core and thankfully no stadium-friendly choruses coming soon to an enormodome near you. That said, Jonathan Meiburg deserves some sort of recognition for this impressive work. The songs on Rook feel very carefully considered, and although there’s a melding of piano, strings and Meibug’s decent falsetto amongst a heap other instruments, you get the impression that there’s nothing extraneous here, nothing has been wasted.

That may give the impression that it’s a technically good, but still quite dull record. No chance. It’s really quite beautiful in many places, it’s often the most pared-down songs that are the best and it’s a record that rewards repeated listens. If this is the work of a ‘side project’, now that Meiburg has officially left Okkervil River to concentrate fully on Shearwater, imagine how good it’s going to get?

Download: Shearwater – On the Death of the Waters
Download: Shearwater – Lost Boys

Buy Rook from Rough Trade (album of the week) or download from emusic.

White Williams

2008-06-03T13:55:00.002+01:00

White Williams is getting quite the buzz at the moment, though perhaps it’s for that very reason that I never got round to listening to him till today. It’s not easy to cut though hype and associated nonsense to discern is something is actually worth your time to take a listen. Two reasons for giving time to Williams though.

The first is that he’s doing a gig for the reliably ace Upset! The Rhythm, and it’s a general rule of thumb that anything they put on is worth checking out – even if it’s just having a listen to the artists. The second is that an mp3 hit my inbox yesterday. Despite the terrible name, it’s a good tune.

Download: White Williams – Fleetwood Crack

Other good stuff by the man Williams to be heard at his myspace and Hype.

Domino offshoot Double Six are releasing his singles and album Smoke.

Johnny Flynn - A Larum

2008-06-02T17:19:00.007+01:00

Although Johnny Flynn’s music is nothing like Vampire Weekend’s, I had the same problem with listening to both records for the first time – a certain over-familiarity. Just as the New York quartet’s debut was littered with tracks that had been previously released or been found kicking around the internet, so Flynn’s first long-player has songs culled from a good few previously-released singles as well as the odd tune I’ve heard elsewhere. But equally, as before, this didn’t really hamper my appreciation of the album.

I first came across Flynn over two years ago, but then I only knew him as Emmy the Great’s violin player. Since then I’ve watched him emerging as an increasing impressive artist in his own right, assembling his band The Sussex Wit (featuring both his sister Lillie and Matt Edmonds who used to be in Fireworks Night), and releasing 7 inch singles on Young and Lost before being snapped up by Universal for their Vertigo imprint, which released Johnny’s debut album A Larum last week. Since signing with Vertigo, the Sussex Wit’s name has disappeared from the record sleeves, but they’re still there in the ID3 tags and the CD booklet. Fear not, Johnny hasn’t dropped them just because some marketing man thought their name was a bit archaic-sounding.

Having been an avid consumer of Johnny’s music I’m predictably going to say that A Larum is good, and it is. There’s an almost effortless blending of American and English folk traditions to combine something that has its roots in dusty old places, but is also resolutely pop. Tickle Me Pink is one of my most-posted tracks on this blog, but here it is in the finished polished article, still sounding brilliant, like something Johnny Cash might have done if he’d spent more time in rural England. Elsewhere, the songs crackle and pop with youthful energy as Flynn and the 'Wit rattle through their rootsy, catchy tunes. Current favourites amongst the 'new' numbers include the mournful trumpet on Hong Kong Cemetery, the happy hoedown on Sally, and the fact that song which sounds like it might be about a footballer starts with "You're one of these elephant hunters from Ebbsfleet".

It’s not a Johnny Flynn review without mentioning that he’s also an actor, who’s appeared in Shakespeare productions at the Old Vic (even reportedly drawing the theatre’s director Kevin Spacey to one of his gigs). Some people are just too talented. Amusingly, I’ve also got Sweeping the Nation to thank for the factoid that Johnny is also the half-brother of Jerome Flynn, though I’ll not be expecting a cover of Unchained Melody in a gig anytime soon.

Download: Johnny Flynn – Sally
Download: Johnny Flynn – Wayne Rooney

Download a live version of Tickle Me Pink at my recent WTOTS post. Buy A Larum from Rough Trade.

Singles going steady 25: The Diff'rent Strokes

2008-06-02T00:05:00.002+01:00

This week, Woolies announced that it was going to stop selling CD singles. Should this be a big deal? Given that the shop in question was the UK’s biggest singles retailer, it’s being seen as another nail in the coffin of the physical single. I don’t really mind the demise of the CD single – I quite like the thought of going into a proper music shop (as opposed to one that I’d go to for cheap homeware) and seeing only vinyl. Then things would have come full circle.

But despite the imminent death of this crappy format, I’m going to continue on with my trawl through my CD singles tower, because there are many gems to be found there. Though I’m not sure this is one of them.

The what-the-hell-is-this expression on Mrs Growl’s face said it all when I played this CD the other night. What was coming through the speakers was a Bomtempi muzak version of The Strokes’ Last Nite, followed by similar preset-based versions of three other classics from This Is It. That’s about all I can say about it. I was unsure about posting this, as I don't know if it’s just a piece of cheesy junk to be tossed into the charity shop pile, or a curiosity worth keeping for future reference. Heck, I can’t even remember buying this thing – what was I thinking? But here it is, and you can let me know what you think. Top or tosh? Silly or sublime? Wonderful or worthless? With reference to the latter – if you think I’m mad, you should check out the dude who’s selling a copy for over twenty quid on Amazon marketplace. Now that’s real lunacy!

Download: Diff’rent Strokes – Last Nite
Download: Diff’rent Strokes – The Modern Age

If you actually like this, you can go to Amazon marketplace, where the lowest price at the time of writing is the none-too-cheap £5.99.

Sophie's Pigeons

2008-05-30T17:03:00.003+01:00

Here’s another little treat from Manchester’s Red Deer Records, the good people who put out the Sara Lowes album that I greatly enjoyed at the start of the year. Their latest release is by Sophie’s Pigeons, a four-piece centred round Sophie Nelson - she's the girl with the piano and the fine voice. The other three add further keys action, violin, glockenspiel, melodica, harmonium, clarinet, and a variety of children's toys.

There’s an EP that’s just come out – Say Play Sway, and it’s good. If you like your music unfussy, poppy and jaunty, with a big dash of Tori Amos and slightly skewed but top-notch tunes then this should be up your street. It’s breezy, highly infectious stuff.

They’re currently on a bit of a tour and playing a lot of gigs around Manchester, as well as a few places outside the North West. Appropriately enough, they played this week at the Local/End of the Road residency at Bush Hall in London with Woodpigeon. Check them out. I reckon there will be a lot more said about this lot before 2008 is out. There's an album slated for later in the year, which should be well worth waiting up for.

Download: Sophie’s Pigeons – Say Play Sway
Download: Sophie’s Pigeons – Stars and Garters

Buy the Say Play Sway EP from the Red Deer myspace.

Animal Collective / Atlas Sound @ Koko, 22 May 2008

2008-05-30T14:09:00.006+01:00

Last week I fulfilled a long-standing ambition – to see Animal Collective live. Somehow, in the couple of years or so that I’ve been listening to them, I’ve never managed to see them play, though it hasn’t been for the lack of opportunities. So last Thursday I headed to Koko with anticipation and a little wariness. Their live rep can be erratic, so I was hoping for not too much experimental re-interpretation. But I needn’t have worried.

Before Animal Collective I saw the last few songs of Bradford Cox’s set as Atlas Sound. When I reviewed his solo album (which I really like), I wondered how Cox would re-create the dense layered sounds of Let the Blind... on stage. The answer was alone, with loops, backing tracks and guitar. This sort of performance can often be none-too-exciting to watch, but he just about managed it through engaging with the audience, good use of his tricks and the quality of his songs. Not amazing, but certainly a worthwhile warm-up.

Download: Atlas Sound - Winter Vacation

I’ve often seen Animal Collective described as psychedelic folk, which is puzzling after just listening to their records, but after seeing them live it makes no sense at all. The first part may have some truth, but folk? How many folk gigs do you spend having bass reverberate through your guts and leave with your ears ringing? Any reservations I may have had about the live show were resoundingly blown away by an incredible performance. If anything, the set was a lot tighter and conventional than expected, with songs often clearly recognisable, and sometimes even ending before the next one started.

Peacebone was a riot, the segue from Fireworks to Essplode and back again was thrilling, the new songs sounded great and the main set closer Brother Sport (one of these new ones) took me somewhere else. They also played a fantastic version of Comfy in Nautica, which is as close to a Panda Bear gig as we’re going to get.

For what was mainly three men mostly standing behind equipment, it was an absorbing and exciting gig. When not fiddling with wires or playing guitar, Avey Tare prowled the stage like an energetic weasel. The Geologist remained behind his gear, headlamp bobbing around Orbital-style. And over on stage right, Panda Bear alternated between pressing buttons and thrashing a stand-up drum-kit.

Sure, there was time spent standing intently (but never bored) while the trio cruised though their more downbeat experimental moments, but then the huge beats kicked in and the crowd started up again. Animal Collective have such an impressive back catalogue behind (and in front) of them, and their live show, lights and all, is so enthralling, that this gig couldn’t have been be anything other than a pure pleasure.

Download: Animal Collective – Chocolate Girl
Download: Animal Collective – Leaf House
Download: Animal Collective – Fireworks

Setlist:

Chocolate Girl
Comfy in Nautica
PeaceboneLeaf House
Daily Routine*
Bearhug*
Fireworks/Essplode/Fireworks
Lion In A Coma*
House*
Song For Ariel*
Brother Sport*

Encore

Nomorerunnin'*
Grass (Feels)

*Denotes a new song. Thanks to the good people of Drowned in Sound for the setlist and other info.

Top photo from Sophie LH's Flickr. Other photos from Jodi Warren's Flickr. I had some myself, but I went and lost my camera SD card like the silly fool I am. But Sophie and Jodi's are much better anyway.

You Will Love Each Other

2008-05-29T09:01:00.002+01:00

HEALTH are a very blog-friendly band. Not just because they produce viscerally exciting records, or play slightly deranged gigs – though that should always be enough to get bloggers excited – but because it seems that not only are they happy to have their stuff promoted through blogs, they’re actually quite grateful to those blogs that have bigged them up. Which explains the ‘thanks’ list on the inside of the CD case of new album HEALTH//DISCO, even including my good self among a list of much more illustrious blogs.

HEALTH//DISCO isn’t a new album as such; it’s actually the fruits of a project (first seen here) which gathered a load of remixes, which are now presented in a full album format. The results are very impressive. Given the low-key process of putting this together, it’s no surprise that there’s a lack of current big name remixers, which is obviously a good thing because it eschews vogueishness in favour of good tunes. It’s an interesting beast all in, because although the original album was abrasive and thrilling, the remix set is much easier on the ears. It’s hardly light listening, but many of the LA band’s rawer edges have been smoothed out and swathed in beats and other effects, giving us an album that’s not just radically different from the original – it’s a whole new listening experience. And a very good one at that.

Since they’ve been nice to me, I’ll happily accept the posting restrictions to this one track. Luckily it’s one of the album’s best.

Download: HEALTH – Triceratops (CFCF mix)

Buy HEALTH//DISCO from Rough Trade.

Gilbert gets Stuffed

2008-05-28T13:34:00.004+01:00

Here’s a plug that I’m doing for my colleague Dan who runs the new Stuffed night with his friends at Ravenous Promotions. Their first gig under their new guise is at Ginglik in Shepherd’s Bush on 12 June.

This isn’t just a piece of opportunistic publicity though. It also gives me an opportunity to write a bit about Gilbert, who is the most intriguing of the four artists on the bill. Gilbert – who is both a person and a band – specialises in a delightfully woozy pastoral electronica which is reminiscent of Lemon Jelly in its use of quirky samples, and also less-well know knob-twiddlers like Pilote. The sample-based tunes are fun, but Gilbert’s music is even stronger when veering towards the ambient, more song-based tracks and the Balearic (like Willow, No Time to Talk, Away).

I’ve no idea what it’s going to be like live, but coming through my headphones it sounds damn fine. The myspace indicates that rather than the prospect of a man hunched over a box of wires, you’ll see a band comprising four or five people playing drums and percussion, bass, organs, violins, horns, singing, and speaking. That sounds well worth checking out to me.

In addition to Gilbert, there will also be decent acoustic tunery from Stages of Dan and Tenuto. Should be a good evening.

Download: Gilbert – Self-Help for the English
Download: Tenuto – Doesn't Always Go That Way

Buy Gilbert’s self-tilted debut album from Rough Trade.

Here's the flyer for the evening:

The Bookhouse Boys

2008-05-27T14:19:00.002+01:00

One of the definitive sounds of the year may well prove to be ‘big indie’, by which I mean large-numbered bands (say, more than five people) playing big-sounding music. I know that this type of thing can tread a thin line and very easily tip into ‘stadium indie’, which is very bad. But keep on the right side of the line and the results can be very good indeed. On this right side, my highlights of the year so far have been the new Islands album and the output of Broken Records. The fact that both of these bands have yet to make a major impact probably means that I’m barking up the wrong tree, but who knows.

Anyway, here’s another. The Bookhouse Boys are a large band, consisting of nine people, playing widescreen, epic tunes which manage to combine mariachi horns, strings, surf guitar, call-and-response singalongs, and snarling rock vocals and make them all seem like magnificently natural bedfellows. Their name, though not entirely accurate (their ranks include one solitary female), is after the secret society in Twin Peaks. If we’re talking films, I can’t think of a David Lynch movie which their music would be appropriate for, but I am imagining a sort of supercharged Sergio Leone soundtrack. Maybe a bit like a Spaghetti Western starring Steven Seagal. Now that would be quite something.

Download: The Bookhouse Boys – Dead
Download: The Bookhouse Boys – G-Surf

Buy the limited edition 7 inch singles Tonight and Dead here.

Singles going steady 24: David Devant & his Sprit Wife

2008-05-23T13:09:00.005+01:00

The next single in the series is by a band which I know very little about. Sure, I’ve searched the internets and read some stuff, and David Devant & his Spirit Wife seem to be still active (at least up till last year), but it was best to ask Mrs Growl. After all, this was her CD which I inherited in the post-marital merging of music collections.

If you’re looking at that band name and you’re thinking along the lines of Victorian vaudevillian freakshow, you’re probably not too far wrong. You may get an idea of that from the photo above, and certainly from the picture of lead singer The Vessel here. And not just in their looks – Mrs Growl informs me that during performances of Ginger onstage when she saw them back in the late 90s, someone would grate a carrot over The Vessel’s head whilst he sang. Hilarious. I guess you had to be there though – Mrs Growl remembers their shows with some fondness and says they were fun. A little eccentricity, without tipping over into outright silliness of course, is always welcome in the all-too-often po-faced world of indie rock.

Anyway, I’m posting about these guys mainly because I like this song, in all its rattling, organ-wheezing cheeriness.

Download: David Devant and his Spirit Wife – Ginger

Esser - live radio session goodness

2008-05-23T13:08:00.005+01:00

Another artist who’s been on here lately is Esser. A few weeks ago I raved, quite rightly, about his glitch-pop funbag of a single I Love You. Last week I got to hear what he sounds like doing his stuff live when he played with his band on Marc Riley’s BBC 6Music show. It was all good stuff, though he rocks out a bit more than I expected on Leaving Town, and there's that "she's never satisfied" moan on Satisfied - I'm always a bit suspicious when men come away with this sort of complaint. If she's really that unhappy with you, then you are doing something wrong - just sort it out. Still, ace tune though.

Download: Esser – Leaving Town (live on BBC 6Music)
Download: Esser – I Love You (live on BBC 6Music)
Download: Esser – Satisfied (live on BBC 6Music)

Download Esser’s I Love You single from play.com.

If you're uncomfortable with lots of perfectly good food being wasted, don't watch this video.

The Rosie Taylor Project - This City Draws Maps

2008-05-22T15:25:00.002+01:00

The Rosie Taylor Project have been on here before, just after I first heard them playing live on Xfm and recorded and posted the tracks for the world’s listening pleasure. Since then, I’ve received a copy of their debut album This City Draws Maps from the nice people at Bad Sneakers Records, and I’ve had a listen.

Back then, I recommend The Rosie Taylor Project to anyone who likes their indiepop with a melancholy flavour. I said:

“Think Belle and Sebastian's less upbeat moments with a bit of Tindersticks, a dose of sweet boy/girl vocals, and a dash of beautifully mournful french horn, the latter of which is the thing that really seals it for me. They may proclaim a love for Americana types on their myspace influences, but this band's sound is quite a British one. Downbeat and lovely, it almost seems like it couldn't be made anywhere outside the north of England.”

I repeat this again, mainly because there’s little point coming up with a new description when the previous one does the job nicely. It’s worth doing another post though, because they’re a good band and their album is well worth checking out. There are only eight tracks, but all of them are quite lovely. Here’s one of them.

Download: The Rosie Taylor Project – Black and White Films

Buy This City Draws Maps from the Bad Sneakers shop.

Lest we forget...

2008-05-21T13:26:00.007+01:00

Here’s a post I’ve been meaning to do for ages. Actually, if I had been quicker off the mark, it would’ve been three different posts, but my tardiness has given me the opportunity to combine them neatly into a single one. It’s basically an RIP to three giants of music who passed away in the past few months.

Klaus Dinger (1946-2008)

Klaus Dinger was a legend of German music, serving stints in some of that country’s greatest bands. He was in the original line-up of Kraftwerk as the drummer and percussionist for their first album, but left soon after, along with Michael Rother to form Neu! After the three albums by these fathers of Krautrock, where Dinger’s drumming gifted countless journalists the term motorik, he moved on to form La Düsseldorf, perhaps his least-appreciated outfit, but possibly his best. I’ve certainly been enjoying the latter band the most as I’ve been revisiting Dinger’s work lately. That first Kraftwerk album is brilliant, but much easier to admire than love. And though the best of Neu! Is amazing, there is a bit too much experimental pissing about at times. La Düsseldorf keep the motorik drive and combine it with good tunes for a winning combination. It’s a shame that their albums aren’t widely available, so grab a copy of the combined La Dusseldorf/Viva CD if you can!

Download: Kraftwerk – Ruckzuck (from Kraftwerk)
Download: Neu – Hallogallo (from Neu!)
Download: La Düsseldorf – Silver Cloud (from La Düsseldorf)
Download: La Düsseldorf – White Overalls (from Viva)

Joe Gibbs (1943-2008)

This was a such a criminally under-reported passing, so much that I first read about it on The Wirewool a week or so after it happened, and I’ve read precious little else since. Joe Gibbs was a legend of Jamaican music, producing some of that island’s best and best-known music encompassing rocksteady, dub, roots and a whole lot more. As well as producing some of reggae’s most instantly recognisable records (like Culture’s Two Sevens Clash, Althea & Donna’s Uptown Top Ranking) he did a bit of his own stuff as well along with Errol Thompson (as The Mighty Two) and studio house band The Professionals, which included Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar. In the past couple of decades he’s been less prominent and apparently even owned a chain of Kingston grocery stores (shocking though it may seem, people usually need food more than records), but now with his passing, time is right for a proper appraisal of his genius. If you’re interested (and you really should be) in checking out more, the excellent Soul Jazz compilation Joe Gibbs Productions is a fine place to start.

Download: Culture – Two Sevens Clash
Download: Joe Gibbs and the Professionals – Stonewall Jackson
Download: Althea & Donna – Uptown Top Ranking

Humphrey Lyttelton (1921-2008)

Humphrey Lyttelton is here not so much because of his musical output, but because of his long-standing role as chairman of the BBC Radio 4 comedy ‘antidote to panel games’ I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. He was always the genial host, and kept listeners constantly amused with just how far he could stretch his pre-watershed double entendres without attracting the censor. That’s how I know and love Humph, though he was also a legend of Bristsh jazz. On hearing of his death, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood blogged "We were all sorry to hear of Humphrey Lyttelton's death - he was an inspiring person to record with, and without his direction, we'd never have recorded/released Life in a Glasshouse. So go and find Bad Penny Blues, and celebrate his life with some hot jazz…” So I did.

Download: Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band – Bad Penny Blues
Download: Radiohead – Life in a Glasshouse (featuring Humphrey Lyttelton)