Künstlicher

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2009-07-29T16:55:00.006+01:00

Künstlicher has moved! From now on, all new content will appear HERE! Bookmark the link if you fancy reading some musical musings, or leaving a comment (nice or nasty!). The old content is slowly being copied over there too, and will stay here for the forseeable future.

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(PS - If you came here from that Company article, they put the wrong address in the magazine...)

Review: Deerhooof @ Tivoli De Helling, Utrecht, 19.07.09

2009-07-29T11:29:00.002+01:00

"Dankuwel!" says Deerhoof's lanky drummer, Greg Saunier. "Dankuwel met... slagroom?!" Thankfully, what Deerhoof lack in Dutch proficiency (he just said "thank you with whipped cream"), they more than compensate for with their hyperkinetic stylings. Before 'Twin Killers', pocketsized singer Satomi Matsuzaki and goofy guitarist Ed Rodriguez ape the primitive artillery of Space Invaders, 'Basketball' is a Hallowe'en bastardization of a cheerleading routine, and they reinvent aerobics on a fervent 'Panda'. Bounding around as if the stage were made from flubber, the calmer, vocal-led numbers are sweetly benign, but merry pandemonium re-errupts as Matsuzaki leaps to the floor to put the proverbial cherry on top too.

Review: The Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away

2009-07-29T11:25:00.002+01:00

Originally published in NME

Considering that The Fiery Furnaces' last two proper albums were respectively a conceptual biography of their grandmother and the squelchingly dissonant and occasionally terrifying 'Widow City', the direction of their sixth was to be anyone's guess. A sprawling narrative entirely in the key of F minor about radioactive sewer rats? An electronic paean to Edgar Allen Poe's early work? Either would be less surprising than how 'I'm Going Away' has actually turned out: it's astonishingly normal. Well, at least for the avant garde Friedberger siblings.

But that's not to say it's pedestrian or predictable in the slightest - it's easy to imagine Captain Beefheart growling lasciviously over the bendy psychedelic fuzz of opener 'I'm Going Away', where Eleanor sings with the irritable vehemence of a woman wronged, a comic anger that's reignited on 'Cut The Cake'. Like Patti Smith doing her best Dylan impression, she rails sardonically against the press over Matt's enveloping baritone harmonies. The gorgeous 'Drive To Dallas' is a smoky, sensual image of rainy pathetic fallacy ("I'm not gonna drive to Dallas with blurry eyes ever again") that recalls the slow jam of 'Evergreen' from 'EP', and after the heavy resigned piano chords at the start of 'The End Is Near', the outro leaps and whizzpops as if drunk on a vat of spiked frobscottle. 'Charmaine Champagne''s ripped guitar sounds like a battered saxophone made from a rusted exhaust pipe, and Miss Champagne's rambunctious Soho showgirl verve is reignited on 'Cups And Punches', yelpy, progressive and daubed with grinding nods to the electronic stylings of 'Blueberry Boat'. Much like the great Don Van Vliet going from the absurdist 'Trout Mask Replica' to the more conservative 'Clear Spot' three years later, 'I'm Going Away' sees The Fiery Furnaces abandon their surrealist tendencies to work outside of their comfort zone, experimenting with conventional notions of structure and euphony like naturals.

8/10

Interview: St Vincent

2009-07-17T11:07:00.002+01:00

Originally published at TLOBF

"I can't see the future but I know it’s got big plans for me,” sang Annie Clark on Actor, her latest record as St Vincent. Judging by the coy smiles and avoided looks as we ask her about collaborations and film soundtracks, it’d seem that the musical world is now her oyster, but frustratingly, she’s not allowed to spill the beans. However she’s more than happy to discuss R Kelly’s oeuvre, preconceptions and community with Leah Pritchard and Laura Snapes on a rainy afternoon prior to her phenomenal show on Bristol’s Thekla.

We heard you soundchecking earlier with some crazy vocal warm ups, and your voice live sounds pretty different to on record. Do you have to work hard to keep it in shape? I do vocal warm ups, just so I can make sure I get the whole range. I took a couple of singing lessons in Dallas when I was about 20, from a gospel teacher, but earlier I was just riffing on an R Kelly song – R Kelly and Sparkle, from the late, mid 90s? [1998] It has typical R Kelly style, the funniest most ridiculous lyrics. We were riffing on Real Talk too, it’s them in the studio fighting – it’s so hilarious, he’s singing along to the record, the words are just special – “Bitch I wish you weren’t wearing my clothes!” I think it’s pre-Trapped In The Closet. ‘Sex in the Kitchen’ is another good one to YouTube, it’s incredible!

Have you ever thought of doing some R Kelly covers in your set?! Oh man…! I might work up that song he did with Sparkle. It’s a male female duet, so I’ll have to find someone to do it with me.

Did John Congleton have a lot of influence on the sound of your record? His stuff with The Paper Chase is really intense, using scissors as percussion and so on, and to a certain extent that comes through on your record, but it’s a lot more toned down. We certainly had dialogue about all the sounds, he’s so fast at getting sounds and so creative at sound, it was very effortless sonically. He’d say, “that’d sound cool”, and it did! I think everyone should make a record with John Congleton, he’s the best.

So was the process a lot quicker than when making Marry Me? Yeah, Marry Me was made over more time. All told, minus me doing some days on my own with woodwind, and little bits of tracking, I think altogether we had about 30 days including 10 days break. So we did about 20 days of studio time, which is not a lot. We had to break it up ‘cos of John’s schedule, so we’d have six days here, three days here. He’s the busiest bee on the planet. I’ve never met somebody who works as hard! He fit me in every day he could.

Did many of the songs change a lot from their Garage Band origins? Oh yeah. I could pull up MIDI files right now on my laptop, of like, the clarinet parts in ‘The Strangers’, or all of the notes in ‘Marrow’ I have sketched out, but it all got transposed and rearranged and given to different instruments. So they were more just notational templates as opposed to sonically fleshed out.

Are the sound limitations of recording like that frustrating? Well, John was instrumental in making the music tangible, because it was very esoteric for most of the writing. He’d talk about songs feeling good to play, or sounding good but not feeling like anything. So he brought it to life.

Your technique of soundtracking Disney movies on mute has been referenced a lot. What do you make of the whole new wave of CGI, 3D Disney animation, in comparison to the romance of the films from the ‘30s and ‘40s that inspired Actor? You know, I saw ‘Wall-E’. Is that Disney Pixar? I cried at ‘Wall-E’. It was so good, right?! “Wall-E! Eva!” Other than that, I don’t really have much of an opinion on them, the ones from the ‘30s are my favourite brand of cartooning, but yeah, I cried at ‘Wall-E’, so there’s some emotional resonance there!

Did you get any offers as a result of showcasing for people who commission soundtracks? The next Michael Bay movie, right? Got my fingers crossed! I think if I did have something in the works, I couldn’t talk about it…!

Ohh! Well moving on, are the people in the songs intentionally characters? Haha… [looks down]. Umm… Yeah, I found it was helpful to be a little bit…not removed, but to try to look at a situation from a lot of different sides, and often in the writing of the new record, even if I’ve experienced something emotionally similar to what’s going on in those little stories, I’m not necessarily the narrator. I might be the antagonist…

With the darker lyrics especially, do your parents ever worry about you? My mom used to be cute about it. “Are you ok?” [sulky teenage voice] “Shut up mom, it’s art…come on!” I never tell my mom to shut up, by the way. I don’t really get asked by them any more!

On Actor, domesticity is presented under quite a bleak light. Do you miss the vagabond touring way of life when you go back to that? I don’t miss domesticity at all. I like touring. I was home in New York for about seven days after the US tour, just a little time. I didn’t even really unpack, just did the laundry. We recorded Letterman in that little window. How are people responding since Letterman? Well I don’t get followed or anything! I was eating dinner in New York, and a guy came up and said, “I saw you on Letterman, I loved it so I bought your CD,” which was really cool. No one has yet come up and said, “I saw you on Letterman. It was terrible, I did not buy your CD!”

With people like you, Bat For Lashes and Beyonce, there seems there’s a lot of negativity towards women who take on alter egos. How do you find people respond to your pseudonym? I find that sometimes when women who go under their own name there’s more preconceptions, but if you hear…I’m trying to make up a name…“Jane… Whatever!” that carries a different sort of connotation, that that’s going to be an acoustic guitar, I feel like that’s on a lot of people’s minds. Aside from getting asked over and over where the name comes from, there’s no backlash to it.

I read Marnie Stern saying that often when she goes to play shows, a stool is put out for her ‘cos they think she’s going to play acoustic guitar! Aww! She can shred people’s faces off…

I wanted to ask about ‘Chinese Democracy’, I heard you were playing it a lot in the studio because it was so bad. Did you seek out a barometer of bad taste to work against?! Yeah, John and I were talking about it, whether we’d heard it or not, so he put it on, and we were listening through really nice hi-fi speakers, and you can just hear this huge digital mess! I’m not a digital/analog snob or anything, but it sounds like somebody let this man play with a hamster until it was dead. It sounds modern and confused, like they didn’t make any decisions anywhere. I’m gonna get hate mail from Axl Rose, I’m sorry! It’s tricky. We listened to the whole things a couple of times, and usually you can say, “sing me that tune!” and get some idea of melody, but I don’t know what happened, it was so confused! Axl Rose is gonna hate me! All of it was terrible. And I’m not a hater, but it was remarkably bad.

Have you been back to Texas or Oklahoma since the Bush administration’s been over? Yeah, I was there for Christmas. Dallas went for Obama, Dallas is blue!

With songs like ‘Jesus Saves, I Spend’, if you find yourself playing in the Bible belt, do you have to adapt your set at all? I think on the first tour it happened a couple of time, people gingerly asked, making sure that I wasn’t being irreverent. So much of that is word play, not that it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s subtle enough.

The idea of preconceptions about names reminds me of Queens of the Stone Age, they got sued by a group of deaf people who thought that ‘Songs of the Deaf’ was an album of vibrational music. Ohh! I was wondering about that actually, because when we played Bonnaroo my sound engineer asked if I wanted someone interpreting, signing the words of my set! I was thrown! But that was awesome. I don’t remember if we actually had the person doing it. But it would have been very cool.

Is there a particular movement or group of bands that you associate or align yourself with? A lot of the people you’re compared to don’t actually sound at all like you, like Grizzly Bear or Dirty Projectors. I’m glad to be thought of in the same vein as them. The Dirty Projectors are probably my favourite band ever. I think there’s something really vital happening in New York with Grizzly Bear and the Dirties.

How do you find NYC as a place to live in terms of music, the way that trends come and go? Or is it quite supportive? It’s wonderfully supportive. My friend Bryce Dessner, who’s in The National, he’s like a powerhouse. He curated ‘Dark Was The Night’, he’s a mastermind, doing stuff with Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, he’s kind of a genius. He has his hand in this established New York minimalist compositional thing, and he’s also in a fucking great rock band. Nico Muhly’d be in there too. This new wave minimalism! It’s really sweet – you don’t think of it as such a scene, but these are friends or people you’re friendly with, they’re all so talented and “wow!” that we all want to do stuff together.

Do you have any exciting collaborations coming up? I do! But I can’t say! But it’s a very exciting time to be in New York.

Review: Various Artists - Palermo Shooting OST

2009-07-08T19:16:00.002+01:00

Review: St Vincent, Bristol Thekla, 06/07/09

2009-07-08T16:06:00.005+01:00

Photo by Leah Pritchard

Originally published in NME

If there’s one thing more sickening than the recent deluge of jaws agog at the notion that two X chromosomes do not an insuperable musical deficiency make, it’s the fact that some of the most innovative and crucial female musicians remain underrated in favour of certain mould-fresh synth-poppers. Step forward Annie Clark, the chaotically coiffed Oklahoman who goes by the name of St Vincent and sounds nothing like The Human League, Kate Bush or Björk – suck on that, pigeonholers! Yet despite the near universal acclaim of her equal parts 1930s Disney OST and King Crimson-inspired second album, ‘Actor’, it’s comparatively quiet aboard Bristol’s Thekla this evening, and there’s the sweet scent of schadenfreude in the air for those who are missing out.

From the thrusting jazz lounge bop of ‘Marry Me’ in all its live syncopated wonder, it’s pretty clear that Clark’s interest in glitter and theatrics lies solely within the music; the perfectionist intuition between her and her band of beardy merry men is such that the flicker of an eyebrow or drawing of breath acts as a sort of Morse code for speed and sparkle, but it never feels clinical or rehearsed. On ‘The Strangers’ she coos her own spacey “backing” vocals on dual microphones, harmonizing eerily with the woodwind, and ‘Save Me From What I Want’ corrupts its recorded beauty with a jarring time difference between guitar and vocals.

Incongruity is perhaps one of Annie’s greatest strengths – waifish and poised, during the demonic shredding on ‘Now Now’ and single ‘Actor Out Of Work’ she convulses as if trapped in a lightning bolt, and forcibly beats her guitar during the sax propelled thumbnail screw riff of ‘Marrow’ to make it scream louder. The encore’s a perfect juxtaposition of celestial beauty and gnarliness with ‘The Party’ and the rapturously received ‘Your Lips Are Red’, but she’s humble to the last. Never mind the showgirls – it’s always the quiet ones.

Review: Kasabian, Eden Sessions, 04/07/09

2009-07-08T15:52:00.001+01:00

For thousands of years, the heated debate between creationists and those of us with bloody common sense has raged; is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution the reason we’re all here living and breathing, or was woman created from Adam’s rib and let loose in a garden of riches only to cause humankind’s eternal condemnation? (If you’re having trouble deciding, you might not want to read much more). However, tonight at Cornwall’s majestic Eden Project, a surreal and disturbing rewriting of the time/space/belief continuum is occurring as Neanderthals invade the verdant former clay pit to see Kasabian become the least fitting band to grace a stage since John Mayer at MJ’s funeral. Crowd highlights include a chap wearing a t-shirt wondering “Is it necrophilia if it’s still twitching?”, blokes comparing how many midgets they know (two apiece, apparently) over their respective six pint trays of cider, and hordes of delightful types dropping empty beer cups and fag ends in the sweet pea patches. If we’re searching hard for silver linings, at least they’re ignoring The Hours, whose dulling tones make it seem plausible that Kasabian might actually provide some sort of musical relief.

Please, someone pinch me. As Kasabian strut on stage seemingly in order of self-perceived importance, the only relief they could offer might be to an stratospherically obese person thinking about getting back into exercise, as they demand that we put our hands in the air for the first of more than 20 times in a 15 song set. The command constantly spills from Tom Meighan’s lips as if he has attention-seeking Tourettes, joining his messianic spread arms in an hubristic display that’s embarrassing to watch. They boom on with ‘Underdog’, the opener of ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’, which psyches up the crowd with pithy sentiments like “lost in a moment” and easy to grasp expansive concepts such as “sky” and “future”. Profound. The empty sentiment omnipresent in their songs forms a vicious circle live – they sing about “doing it for the people”, who in turn respond with unabated glee (throwing nine pint cups per minute due to the wanton abandon that Kasabian provoke), spurring Meighan’s foolhardy ego on. It makes pooping back and forth forever look appealing…

By second number, ‘Shoot The Runner’, it becomes pretty clear that this is The Tom Meighan Show – the lesser band members know their place, occasionally twitching like press puppets yet utterly unresponsive to the crowd, without a hint of interaction or intuition between them. Whenever it’s not Meighan’s turn to take the limelight – during an instrumental part or song led by Serge’s nasal tones – he disappears offstage. You can only hope it’s a sign of inner band strife that’ll cause them to split within a few years.

“This place is fucking like Tracy Island,” contributes Meighan by way of the obligatory wonderment bands must show at playing in front of the two space age biomes. “Like Thunderbirds.” Jolly glad you cleared that up for us, cheers. He misses his cue to come in on ‘Processed Beats’ yet struts on smug and self-satisfied, asking for hands in the air again, then tells us we’re “fucking empire!” (no prizes for guessing what comes next). A trumpeter appears for the mildly Baltic influenced ‘Where Did All The Love Go’, which has all the cultural nous of a football fan who’s been to Latvia once for a match, ‘Thick As Thieves’ is a note for note rip off of The Beatles’ ‘I’m Only Sleeping’, but the crowd’s swaying, men are topless and hugging and there’s a thousand mobile phones in the air. What’s wrong with people?! ‘Fire’ has the tuneless football terrace roar of 90% of their songs, a technique defended by a bloke next to us – “they don’t need words, their songs are so fucking brilliant that they can really tug your heartstrings without them y’know?” Mm. By ‘Club Foot’, Meighan’s caught on to exactly the same thing, so doesn’t even bother articulating the lyrics. To avoid the crush for the car parks, we escape the encore, but hear the notes of a cod ‘You Got The Love’ cover float up past the visitor centre (first line: “sometimes I feel like putting my hands up in the air”), the crowd roaring along euphorically. Debate over monkeys and clay figures aside, this is a cultural devolution that must be fought, defeated and crushed.

Interview: !!!

2009-07-02T16:27:00.002+01:00

Originally published at TLOBF

Photograph by Rich Thane, taken at ATP The Fans Strike Back, May 2009

There aren’t many bands that can whip a tired Sunday afternoon festival crowd into a throbbing mass of pheromones and adrenaline, but NYC by way of Sacramento gents !!! did exactly that at ATP The Fans Strike Back this May, and will undoubtedly wreak the same sexual wrath next Tuesday (7th) when they play Camden’s Electric Ballroom. Over email, exuberant frontman Nic Offer discussed a refreshing devil may care attitude to money, being grabbed in the biscuits, and whether the Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act has taken any ostensible hit on the scene…

This is probably a fairly common response, but your set at ATP was one of the most ecstatic gigs I’ve ever seen. How was the festival for you, did you get to hang around and catch many other bands?
Paul bought me a massage during Spiritualized and it was worth every pound he paid for it. The Jesus Lizard was for dickheads with clean rooms, but I bet David Yow’s room is dirty. The only time I ever heard Sleep was years ago on an acid trip and they were not quite as slow as they seemed then, but just as amazing. Killing Joke was kinda funny.

Considering that you formed to play an all-night party in Sacramento, it wouldn’t appear that you’ve changed your live approach that much – do you miss the debauchery of those more intimate settings in comparison to sanitized venues?
We bring the debauchery. I never noticed it was gone.

Do your parents ever come to watch you play? What do they make of your shows?
The first time my mom watched us, I thought she left early but finally at the end of the show I spotted her, she had made her way to the front and was dancing. I just tracked my dad for a vocal part on the new record yesterday. It was a part only he could sing, you’ll have to wait for the record to find out why that is.

Is !!! a full time job for you all? What were your last jobs?
I was a babysitter, or as they’re called in NY, a “manny”. Most of us still have real jobs, but I don’t ‘cuz I think spending money is tiresome and I need to save my energy for the stage.

It’s been two years since ‘Myth Takes’ – how far are you into the next record? Do you know where you’ll be recording it?
1/3 in Berlin, 1/3 in Sacramento, 1/3 in NY. I have no idea how finished it is. Pretty finished, but not totally. More finished than it was yesterday, how’s that?

Have you managed to perfect a method of cross-country collaboration yet, or does putting the record together still take its time?
We don’t perfect.

I heard you use audience response to determine the future of new songs – have you had to change anything based on their reactions so far?
Response has been good, and yes, there was one part that wasn’t slammin’ enough and you could feel the audience want more, so we slammed it up.

From the fairly cheap crude recording origins of ‘Myth Takes’, has its success given you more money to spend on recording, or is that primitive recording process something you’re keen to retain?
Success has not given us anything that we can count.

You said previously that after ‘Louden Up Now’, the criticisms spurred you onto your next record, but ‘Myth Takes’ was acclaimed pretty much across the board. Have you felt any pressure in writing its follow-up?
Myth Takes was slammed pretty much across the board in England, what board do you read? (Metacritic, which puts it at a pretty solid 8.1)

You have such a vast frame of reference, from James Brown to Sonic Youth. Before you start making a record, do you actively spend time with the kind of records that influence you?
Kinda. I always consider that what I’m listening to may end up an influence and I try to have a broad palette subsequently. Did you ever hear about the record Peter Murphy [of Bauhaus] made after a year of listening to no music but his own? It still sounded like David Bowie, bless his heart.

What are you all listening to at the moment?
Tones on Tail [Bauhaus side project].

You once said in an interview that you hoped African music would become the new hip thing. What did you make of the supposed Afrobeat phenomenon last year, with everyone from Vampire Weekend to Franz Ferdinand appropriating it? And which records would you recommend as starting points for people unfamiliar with the real genre, as opposed to Urban Outfitters’ appropriation?
I think it was as refreshing as I had hoped, though not quite a musical revolution. I mean, Vampire Weekend caught a lot of hype, then flack, but I thought they were kind of fresh. They sound a bit like a Shins record or something, but without the African influence it would have been rather bland, now wouldn’t it have? I’m hoping they got just enough flack to scare them into making an even better record. They’ve got a great pop sense and I’d like to see them go even deeper. I think the Golden Afrique compilations are pretty great, especially Vol. 1. My summer jam is “Sweet Music” by Dizzy K. “Excuse Me Baby” might be easier to find. He kinda sounds like a Nigerian Ariel Pink, not just ‘cuz of the reverb on his vocals, but the freeform cheesy ‘80s sense of melody as well.

Pitchfork remarked that the abandon of Nic’s behaviour makes people forget themselves in the crowd, and totally let loose. Have there ever been situations jumping into the crowd where someone’s tried to get a little too fruity, or does anything fly?
There’s always that one girl who grabs me in the biscuits and is surprised to find out the yeast hasn’t risen. But that’s fine, if you feel can do that, do it. If you feel like doing something else, do it.

Considering the craziness of your gigs, much like people thinking actors are their characters, do you find that people expect you to be wired all the time?
Yeah, sometimes I feel like I’m disappointing people when I’m mellow. Like Iggy doesn’t read a book sometimes?

Do you ever consider changing your name? Does it ever get to the point where you want to make up a new story about its origin?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Actually, no to the first question, but the record company does. Wait a minute, they did.

The ‘Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act’ has seen a number of New York clubs shut down in the past couple of years, for seemingly tenuous links with drugs – selling water at large prices, or even glow sticks. Particularly given that as a bill it was sponsored by Biden, who’s now VP, has there been much of a noticeable influence on the scene?
I don’t look as often as I used to, but last time I needed it, I found it. But drugs like that have always been more underground in the States compared to the UK and Europe.

Finally – were there any legal repercussions of throwing the piano into the river?
Shhhh.

Review: Eagles of Death Metal, Princess Pavilion, Falmouth 25.06.09

2009-07-01T17:41:00.003+01:00

Photo by Ben Peter Catchpole www.benpetercatchpole.com

“Literally, the coolest phrase I’ve ever heard is ‘alright my loverrrs,” drawls Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes to a rammed Princess Pavilion. With the Pavilion’s quintessentially English tearoom charm usually home to such greats as the St Stythians Band, T Rextasy and Sgt Peppers Only Dart Board Band (oh yes, really) it’s pretty fair to say that the crowd and the band are equal parts bemused and enraptured by their respective cultural heritages. The look on Hughes’ face when everyone starts shouting the local rallying cry of “Oggy oggy oggy! Oi oi oi!” to pay their respects to the free love smoulder of ‘Now I’m a Fool’ is priceless – flabbergasted, yet clinging to his grizzled, snarled cool by trying to look nonchalant – and the audience’s giggles at the band’s wide-legged posturing, biker bar talk, and habit of introducing songs via rhetorical questions made out of titles (“Are you just 19?!” he leers at one front row minor) suggest just how long it’s been since our musical G-spots have been tickled.

Strutting onstage to Kool and the Gang’s ‘Ladies’ Night’ whilst cloaked in the St Piran’s flag, it becomes clear quite quickly that subtlety doesn’t feature anywhere on former Republican speechwriter Hughes’ radar. His bullish smarm is well matched by that of certain wags in the audience who insist on shouting out “Josh!” between numbers – Joey ‘The Sexy Mexy’ Castillo is on drums tonight, and his ripped destructive playing is a machine-like two fingers up to those who came celeb crawling. Despite the rarity of decent gigs in Cornwall, they don’t always sell out, so it was eye-rollingly disappointing to talk to a guy in the bar afterwards who complained that he felt ripped off due to Homme not putting in an appearance (EoDM didn’t say why), despite having loved the gig and been full of praise for Castillo. The heckles subside as ‘Bad Dream Mama’ deploys a riff that’s Hunter S Thompson reincarnate shortly before the irresistibly sexy paean to youth and young corruption that is ‘I Gotta Feeling (Just Nineteen)’, all girlishly high falsetto and snake hips.

Around the middle, a few songs start to drown in the bombast of the set, but after Hughes downs a pint and introduces his extraordinarily young looking mum and brother, suddenly we’re back in a gay cowboy bar shaking it to a cock rock cover of ‘Stuck in the Middle’. They play less an encore, rather than an entire solo set from Hughes – ‘The Boy’s Bad News’ sounds like a crazed b-movie zombie chase with sexy consequences, his cover of ‘Brown Sugar’ is perhaps a little half-assed and could do with Dave, Brian and Joey to back it up, and the only problem with ‘Wannabe in LA’ is that this evening, Falmouth’s where rock’n’roll hedonism is laying its addled head.

Review: Bombay Bicycle Club - I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose

2009-07-01T17:19:00.003+01:00

Originally published in NME

Review: Magnetic Morning - A.M.

2009-06-29T21:52:00.002+01:00

Originally published in NME

Considering Magnetic Morning’s pedigree – Interpol’s Sam Fogarino and Swervedriver frontman Adam Franklin – it’s astonishing how much their debut sounds like Doves covering My Bloody Valentine, and largely every bit as ill-fated as that sounds. Unrelentingly maudlin and hell bent on ramming every potential silence with soporific guitars and proverbially pathetic fallacy, ‘A.M.’ only perks up on its two covers: ‘Motorway’, an adaptation of Kraftwerk’s ‘Autobahn’, with the Super Furries’ harmonies and the segues of Secret Machines happily trapped in a Krautrock time machine, and a cover of ‘60s girl group The Shangri-Las’ ‘Out in the Streets’, which imbues a welcome swathe of malevolence into the original’s saccharine chutzpah. For the most part though, there’s probably more life in your post-Glasto socks than is to be found anywhere in ‘A.M.’.

3/10

Review: Deastro - Moondagger

2009-06-22T21:52:00.004+01:00

Originally published at TLOBF

There is no possible redemption for a band that names one of their songs ‘Daniel Johnston Was Stabbed In The Heart With The Moondagger By The King of Darkness And His Ghost Is Writing This Song As A Warning To All Of Us’. Come back, Panic! At The Disco, all is forgiven. Even if ‘Moondagger’ were as sublime as ‘Veckatimest’ or as revolutionary as ‘L’Histoire de Melody Nelson’, that title alone would be suffice to guarantee them a lifetime’s entry in the annals of indie wankerdom, but their music’s practically a fast-track pass to the front of the queue.

Hailing from Detroit, Randolph Chabot Jr has probably never heard The Enemy or even been to Coventry, yet ‘Moondagger’ sounds suspiciously like Tom Clarke and his mullet-topped brethren frotting with Deerhunter to the tune of the Tesco Value version of ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’. All the requisite synth-pop elements are there – disco beats, programmed kids’ toy beats, and tsunamis of haze – but intermixed with the musical equivalent of breadcrumbs and pork starch. Opener ‘Biophelia’ might border on poignant, were it not for a ‘heard it a million times’ Pikachu bleep and the numb urgency of its soaring chorus, all sterile rockets and fireworks taking off in quick succession. It dives into ‘Parallelogram’ (I wonder where he got the idea for that song title), with vocals straight out of MPP – saccharine and rushing atop an all-enveloping wall of tropical sparkle and stormy crashes – but it never builds to those same euphoric climaxes that Animal Collective do so well.

‘Greens, Grays, and Nordics’ makes plain that Deastro needs to attend lessons alongside classmates VHS or Beta, The Departure and The Bravery about why some musical trends were left in the ‘80s for a reason, and the offensively garrulous paean to Daniel Johnston mines the same grating vein. Despite starting in the same bland, dreamy way as a number of other songs present, it builds into what’s possibly the worst chorus of any song this year – think Tom Clarke joining PoP!, Hugh Grant’s fictional band from ‘Music & Lyrics’, attempting to write a Thatcherite protest song. Wincing yet? Try the chorus for size - “We’re gonna build this town / We’re gonna build it right / We’re gonna save this world / We’re gonna make some right”. It’s almost enough to make John McClure (Reverend & The Makers) sound like Dylan. I said almost.

18%

Review: John Vanderslice - Romanian Names

2009-05-17T11:21:00.003+01:00

Originally published in NME 13/05/09

Review: The Wooden Birds - Magnolia

2009-05-12T15:07:00.005+01:00

This record shouldn’t be coming out in May. It should be snuggled away in the nooks and crannies of sepia November to glow with its dappled autumn light, to flicker like Super 8 film and warm chilled cockles. However, spending summer with American Analog Set frontman Andrew Kenny’s gorgeously melancholy new project certainly won’t go amiss. The Wooden Birds touch on familiar AmAnSet territory, but with production pared down to the most minimal, lo-fi acoustic guitar hiccupping with a metal scratch as the exquisitely balanced voices of Kenny and Leslie Sisson whisper in your ear. On first listen, its anodyne sexuality and obsessive romanticism might seem as commonplace as the face of a friend, but it’s only getting close after a few listens that you notice its idiosyncratic freckles and scars.

8/10

For an exclusive live SXSW session from The Wooden Birds, head over to WOXY.

Review: St Vincent - Actor

2009-04-29T17:24:00.007+01:00

Originally published at TLOBF

“Alas! When passion is both meek and wild!” John Keats once wrote. It’s the epigraph that Richard Yates, that great chronicler of the darker side of the American suburban dream, used to introduce Revolutionary Road, and it’s no less befitting an overture for St Vincent’s second record, ‘Actor’. For all Annie Clark’s doe-eyed physical delicacy and gentle vocals, there’s a fiercely shredded guitar riff and distorted beat that heads straight to the jugular, uprooting the white picket fences of the domesticity where she lays her less than rosy scene. Conceived by watching films such as The Wizard of Oz and Disney’s Sleeping Beauty on mute and reimagining their soundtracks, the follow up to 2007’s ‘Marry Me’ eloquently negotiates the narrative arc of a relationship in freefall to the tune of a glorious orchestra redolent of Paul J. Smith’s work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

But despite all of Annie’s humbleness, and self-dismissing as “a wife in watercolours” easily washed away on ‘Save Me From What I Want’, this is a record in full Technicolor that demands your attention; it’s impossible to work to, to ignore it when you’re in the room together, and blasphemously futile to try and use as background ambience, taking you back to what seem like ancient times where a whole afternoon could be passed just laying on your bed, wallowing in a record. Every second of music and quirk of vocal tone implies a nuance that goes beyond what’s being said, whether the acute kindly reprimand of a former lover, again on ‘Save Me…’, whose fuzzy percussion skips like Dick Van Dyke as she sings, “Honey what reveals you / Is what you try to hide away”, or during ‘The Party’, soul destroying with its soaring “oohing” chorus, where she exposes the rigmarole at the heart of social engagement that April and Frank Wheeler no doubt knew well – “Oh that’s the trouble / With ticking and talking”.

Whilst the lyrics to ‘Actor’ remain often sombre, its chamber pop sensibilities mixed with King Crimson style guitar gravel bring it firmly into the realms of euphoria. ‘Laughing With a Mouth of Blood” is mindblowingly sexy (though it feels crass to call it so), as what sounds like whale magic chimes into the lines “Just like an amnesiac / Trying to get my senses back” melting from her lips over a grimy drum beat, before singing, “Laughing with a mouth of blood / From a little spill I took”. When was the last time you heard someone take a “spill” in a pop song?! The charm offensive continues with single ‘Actor Out of Work’, where she takes control, belittling whoever’s wronged her with saccharine vehemence, a contrapuntal mix of her sweet aria and stinging guitars that act as the choric illumination for ‘Marrow’ - if when December comes there’s been a better riff, I’ll eat my proverbial hat, shorts and ears. In fact, I can hardly bring my fingers to the keyboard to write about just how good it is - they’re too busy dancing to this ecstatic mix of load, shoot and fire dirtiness, all razor sharp filthy guitar and melodica exuberance atop oscillating shimmer. Kanye West is going to be all over it.

It really wouldn’t be hard to wax lyrical for a dissertation’s length about the sheer brilliance of this album. There’s not a dull note or word out of place, and the only annoying thing about it is how consistently perfect Annie Clark manages to be (she’s far too sweet to tread on even the tiniest nerve), but to detail them all would deprive you of the pleasures of discovering them yourself. She’s not nearly hubristic enough for this lyric to be intentionally self-referential, but when on ‘Save Me From What I Want’ she sings, “the future’s got big plans for me”, you can only hope that’s an understatement. Flawless.

10/10

Review: Fink, Gomez, O2 Academy, Bristol 26.04.09

2009-04-27T01:02:00.004+01:00

Musicians like Newton Faulkner are bad enough for any number of reasons (let’s cite his cover of the Spongebob Squarepants theme tune as primary evidence), but when they succeed over far more talented artists from the same genre, all hatred borne toward them can be fully justified. Case in point: the lovely Fink (aka Cornish-born Fin Greenall), who bears the same luscious, woodsy guitar style and soulful voice (at a deeper timbre), but executes the two with a dark vocal intensity that contrasts beautifully with his relaxing instrumentation (which on this balmy Sunday evening is just two guitars; no band). A distracted frown crosses his brow on ‘Blueberry Pancakes’, as he sings, “everyone else is secondary, everyone else is temporary”, ostensibly about a departed lover, and proves that acoustic guitar-toting folkies needn’t just sing about the surf and good times with the bluesy ‘Sorry I’m Late’, his voice blistering at “she fucks me while the sun goes down”. “I’m nervous because the guy who inspired me to play guitar is stood over there,” he worries, but he needn’t. Especially considering the arrival of Gomez.

Despite looking astoundingly youthful for a band in their thirteenth year, every other aspect of their set sounds so dated in its embarrassing pub rock predictability that it’s a chore to watch. ‘Whipping Piccadilly’ rattles its de facto groove, but their new material is atrociously boring, and not at all helped by singer and keyboardist Tom Gray goading the crowd into eliciting praise, though the audience seems to think differently – there’s many a couple smooching to the slowies, and reminiscing back to the halcyon days of 1998 when ‘Bring It On’ came out, and they’d never heard Newton Faulkner butchering ‘Teardrop’. Probably.

Review: Hanne Hukkelberg – Blood from a Stone

2009-04-26T13:02:00.007+01:00

Originally published at TLOBF

To say that ‘Blood From a Stone’ conjures soundscapes where Bat For Lashes’ moody beats meets Grouper’s ethereal swathe coated in the glow of Beach House’s sexy haze makes it sound like a much more exciting proposition than it really is. All these similarities are hugely palpable in Norwegian Hukkelberg’s third album, but the problem is that they’re executed with such minimal panache and effort that it’s a chore to make yourself listen all the way through.

The majority of songs have exactly the same structure – verses based around a facile programmed drumbeat, cheeping synths that sounds as though they were made on Brian Eno’s iPhone application, Bloom, some incoherent mewing and inconsequential choruses so dull that even her backing singers sound like they’re falling asleep (case in point – ‘No Mascara Tears’). It’s a baffling concept, but ‘Seventeen’ sounds exactly like Kelly Rowland’s ‘Stole’ (remember, the one about teenage suicide?) put through Tegan and Sara’s synthesizers. Don’t believe me? Try Rowland’s lyrics for size – “the brightest kid in school / He’s not a fool / Reading books about science and smart stuff” – and then Hukkelberg’s – “He didn’t fit in at school / The stupid rules / Made him a fool”, later singing about taking “the easy way out”. It’s unwittingly funny, and a perversely welcome lift halfway through a largely dull record.

The frustrating thing is that there are a few good songs on here, and condensed thus it’d make a promising EP. Opener ‘Midnight Sun Dreams’ does TLOBF the very kind job of reviewing itself in its title – it’s every bit as sensual as you’d imagine, with her voice flaring gently amidst an ebb and flow of the disquieted sleep patterns a Norwegian summer must bring. The way she sings, “I’m no temptress” makes for a reaction of lust at odds with aching beauty that makes you realize what The National were on about when they sang of a “feathery woman” on the incredible ‘Mistaken for Strangers’, so it’s a shame she can’t maintain the allure throughout. ‘Bandy Riddles’ builds to a climax where Grizzly Bear’s rhythm section meets the cathartic yells of Camille, and in the celestial closing number, ‘Bygd Til By’, the only song here in her mother tongue, she lets the mysterious (to us at least) lyrics roll deliciously from her lips. Less than a month after the release of Bat For Lashes’ ‘Two Suns’, however, you probably don’t need this in your record collection.

4/10

Review: Earth @ The Croft, Bristol, 23.04.09

2009-04-24T19:32:00.005+01:00

Originally published at TLOBF

“This is about how you get a medical condition where you can’t look at flashing lights, so lift your glass to your favourite method of self-destruction,” jokes Dylan Carlson before Steve ‘Stebmo’ Moore plays the fateful opening salvo of ‘Engine of Ruin’. Judging by the submissive head bowing and enraptured half-shut eyes of the audience, it’d seem that the preferred road to aural wreckage of everyone present is letting Earth attack their ears with their dismal grace and perturbing volume; like the slow erosion of Chinese water torture. This is one of those gigs that’s so close and impending that it’s left down to booming exhalations from the amplifiers to act as air conditioning for the night; despite Moore’s Wurlitzer blooming a lazy song beneath Carlson’s judgment gavel of a guitar, each note is so elongated and weighty that even contemplation begins to feel like physical exertion, so the occasional blasts of oxygen are gratefully received.

Their six-year hiatus not included, this year and tour mark the 20^th anniversary of Earth, and they’re on fine form. To call them forceful, dark and hypnotic would be a crass understatement of their intensity - as they burn slowly through the embers of ‘The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull’ the emotional autonomy of the audience is lost to what feels like an ancient brainwashing ritual, Carlson excavates the protracted depths of ‘Miami Morning Coming Down II’ like he’s after Howard Carter’s prestige, and the Croft’s ceiling tiles give up their hold and tumble to the floor. Neither drummer Adrienne Davies nor Carlson bats an eyelid. ‘Bees…’ vinyl bonus track ‘Junkyard Priest’ raises the set’s brontide to a more aggressive level, with Stebmo taking on trombone duties to flesh out the night’s sleepy dynamic, and to recover a little soul just when it starts to feel like you’re watching a band in slow motion. The same pounding rant appears in an as-yet untitled new song in E flat minor (simultaneously frustrating and gratifying for fans, it’s the only non-‘Bees…’ track they play tonight). Playing with the resounding motifs from what will become its predecessor, it takes a more passive-aggressive turn of events, refusing to satisfy neat crescendos or cyclical melodies with a petulance so ear-ravishing that all you can do is raise your glass as high as you can, and weather the storm.

Review: Soap&Skin - Lovetune for Vacuum

2009-04-22T22:33:00.005+01:00

Originally published on The Line of Best Fit

Don’t let the soft, scented domesticity of Anja Plaschg’s stage moniker or album title fool you; ‘Lovetune for Vacuum” is a mournful Frankenstein of a record – a young woman attempting to come to terms with the often twisted depths of her own feelings by imprisoning them within a fortress of ticking shutter sounds and mandrake violins. With a beguiling voice pitched somewhere between Anthony and Karin Dreijer Andersson (Fever Ray/The Knife), 18 year old Plaschg (who grew up on a rural pig farm in her native Austria) cuts an emotionally bruised, shadowy figure on her extraordinarily precocious debut.

At the heart of the record is a shy, elegantly mechanical android, that ticks and whirrs with the sounds of typewriters, camera clicks and children’s toys, gradually expanding and dominating with each song. On the childlike ‘Cry Wolf’, it cowers reticently behind a background of Múm style vocals and a naïve flute, but gathers strength by ‘Turbine Womb’ (the lyrics can be a little sci-fi Sylvia Plath, but impressive for a second language) to sound like Optimus Prime doing the ballet; indeed, Plaschg’s strengths reach far beyond the stereotype of the quirky musical ingénue to join Peter Broderick, Hauschka and Max Richter as part of the exciting European scene of young classical protégés, such is her impressive piano work. Come the penultimate track, ‘DDMMYYYY’, the machine is fully-fledged, as industrial and aggressive as Leila or any of Richard D James’ Warp brethren as it drowns out a woman’s crazed histrionics – it’s no surprise that both Fenessz and DJ Koze have remixed her.

In parts, this is a terrifying record, and you can only imagine what it’s like to be her parents – an unpredictable raven haired pearl looming from the shadows of farmhouses in her press photos, even crouched naked amongst the pigs; with tortured scientific lyrics about the Greek daemon of death (‘Thanatos’, not dissimilar to the rousing layered vocals of Electrelane’s ‘The Valleys’) through to the slightly sixth form poetry words of ‘Extinguish Me’ (“I search in snow, in vain / For your footsteps’ trail / I have to kiss them / With my scalding tears”) and childhood pain (‘Spiracle’). It’s not always a pleasure to listen to, particularly as the tangle of piano and icy church intonations of ‘Fall Foliage’ rumble into that familiar elegant clunk of clockwork and whirrs, but it’s to her credit that she rides the motif through to the end of the record, and proves its worth – her bleak electronic dystopia could easily soundtrack Watchmen or similar. If this is how she sings ‘Lovetunes…’, heaven help us when she turns her pen to less starry-eyed subject matter.

7/10

Review: Alessi's Ark - Notes from the Treehouse

2009-04-20T22:32:00.004+01:00

Originally featured at The Line of Best Fit

Despite the wandering loveliness of 18 year old Alessi Laurent-Marke’s debut album, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want other people to hear it. And not for reasons of selfishness or wanting to be cooler than thou – rather the desire to protect her, to tuck her and the swooping warmth of her voice away from a press that’ll to turn her into the next poster girl for an untapped genre; to save her from the potential ignominious fate of a major label getting her to make the same album over and over until the cash cow’s bled dry and all inspiration stifled; to keep her away from the naysayers who’ll nitpick at her for being an arcane young Londoner with tangible influences that unabashedly bob their pretty heads above the surface of ‘Notes From the Tree House’.

Fortunately or unfortunately, whichever way you look at it, with an album this strong there’s absolutely no chance of it staying under the radar – especially when you consider that she walked straight out of senior school with her GCSE Music compositions and into the arms of EMI, and Saddle Creek rabble rouser Mike Mogis. It’s a worry from the first song, ‘Magic Weather’, that the soaring weight of ornate instrumentation befitting of Van Dyke Parks might overwhelm Alessi – the strings pop up in nooks and crannies, and reveal themselves sparkle by sparkle to be a vast Narnia of wonderment - but she coolly holds her own amongst the perhaps over-lavish production, smoothing out inconsistent vocal ticks to eventually swoon like Alela Diane or Nina Nastasia.

This could come across as patronizing, but considering that most of the recent soup of young singers are possessed with a gift for lyrics that makes Twitter look profound, Alessi’s Ark deal an impressive hand in succinct, measured wistfulness that can’t help but raise a smile – on ‘Over the Hill’ she sings, ”I know we’ll get there eventually / but I’m English, so bear with me” with dreamy sagacity, and rolls through the hazy lullaby of ‘Constellations’, turning “she loves you, yes she does” into “Hell I’m in love with you, yes it’s true”, conjuring the beautiful, all-engulfing moment of being magnetized by the face of a hoped-for lover.

‘Notes From the Tree House’ isn’t a perfect album, but what use would that be? The most pertinent comparison in terms of early ability would be to Cat Power – but whereas Chan Marshall developed her often difficult angst into lustrous showmanship, it’d be lovely to see Alessi go the other way, and steer this polished sunrise into even more experimental territory. Little pockets of eerie sonogram echoes and dissonant film dialogue hide below the record’s surface like buried treasure, proving that Alessi is more than capable of keeping her own secrets.

7/10

Review: PJ Harvey & John Parish, Bristol Anson Rooms, 18.04.09

2009-04-20T01:06:00.003+01:00

Originally featured on The Line of Best Fit and Epigram

There’s a terrifying stillness about PJ Harvey. At the end of each song, it’s as if a dark shadow has imprisoned her in celluloid, before the shutter release of John Parish’s tremendous guitar again liberates her diabolical wide-eyed rapture, gesticulating and wild in eldritch white. The three straitjacket-esque straps around her chiffon-swathed legs cannot contain her, as black heels occluding alabaster ankles dance in tongues around the defenceless boards of the Anson Rooms.

If this all sounds a little overblown, it’s because there aren’t words nuanced or physical enough to express the intense bliss evoked this evening. Yeah, we could steal some of Polly and John’s own, like the sumptuous, “you move me, like music” from ‘Rope Bridge Crossing’ off ‘Dance Hall at Louse Point’, but they wouldn’t be nearly as devastating as when emitted from red lips to lie on the nail bed of Parish’s awkward flinching guitar, and Künstlicher's no cuckoo.

Playing in support of their second album together in 13 years, PJ, John and their regular band of collaborators might look foreboding in their respective ghostly moll and gangster ensembles, but, just as on record, tonight’s performance is the sight of two old friends having fun, dismissing the common perception of them as serious artistes drowning in the gravitas of their craft. Single ‘Black Hearted Love’ is all visceral guitar and silky, butter-wouldn’t-melt rhetoric that’s the perfect contrast to wonderful surprise support act Howe Gelb’s (of Giant Sand) gravelly acoustic drawl, and snaps into ‘Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen’, whereby Harvey’s meticulously controlled voice hops from craggy wails to staccato counting, a cliff top siren call and girlish hiccoughing. The five of them lead an exquisitely balanced set, dipping into ‘The Soldier’, whose words hang like a tangled marionette over Parish’s childlike yet demented ukulele.

Despite unabashed dancing, inquisitive birdlike looks to John on her left, and a neat red grin a million miles from the Joker-ish make-up of her ‘To Bring You My Love’ era, at this stage it’s still hard to believe that this almost translucent woman has either the dint or desire to let forth the raw whoops of their oeuvre’s more scabrous works. However, with ‘Taut’, Harvey inflicts mirth and mild apprehension upon the audience as she spits “Even the son of God had to die my darlin’” like Pazuzu by way of Dorset, but curtails the outburst before embodying madness that’d see Mr Rochester hunting out the ladder to the attic hatch.

The only downside to letting PJ Harvey mesmerize you into forgetting that you’re stood in the dingy Anson Rooms (which have all the charm of a rotting grammar school gymnasium) is that it’s sometimes hard to remember to snap out of it to appreciate the astounding work of her dapper bandmates. In matching trilbies and suits (and pianist, bassist and guitarist Eric Drew Feldman’s shiny red brogues deserve a mention too), they look as though they’ve just stepped out of the Coen Brothers’ ‘Miller’s Crossing’, and sound just as ominous.

“I have another story to tell you,” says Harvey, polite as a school mistress, before wreaking prurient havoc on the crowd with ‘A Woman A Man Walked By’ – every time she roars “I want his fucking ass!”, she jerks her own derriere, howling like a castrated werewolf, and dancing through John and Giovanni’s exorcism of a guitar solo with vigour that belies her maraca-induced shoulder injury.

The night seems fleeting, and the final song comes all too soon. After a thirteen year break between albums, it’ll most likely be at least as long again, if ever, before the next one; a thought as disquieting as the shadowy stillness that engulfs the rocking chair creak of ‘April’.

Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard - 'Em Are I

2009-04-01T00:02:00.005+01:00

Originally featured in NME 15/04/09

What with New York’s most idiosyncratic neurotic upping sticks to Europe for his past few films, Manhattan musician and illustrator Jeffrey Lewis has stepped in to chronicle the detritus of the human condition for his amicable fifth full length album. To fans, the majority of this lovingly crumpled bundle of nerves will be happily familiar from Lewis’ self-flagellating live schedule, as wearily explored on ‘Roll Bus Roll’, an unapologetically downbeat ditty about Greyhound buses, cheered on by a frayed backseat choral line and a picaresque ukulele that reignites the joyful spontaneity of touring. Lewis peeps through warmly looping guitar layers at anxious existentialism on ‘If Life Exists?’, and self-deprecates with ‘Broken Broken Broken Heart’, all handclap-propelled rollicking ‘60s pop which belies its bitter sentiment, and ‘To Be Objectified’ (“going bald is the most manly thing I’m ever going to do”). Meanwhile, ‘Whistle Past the Graveyard’ resurrects the madcap hyperactivity of ‘Systematic Death’ (off the album ’12 Crass Songs’) to quack and cluck with banjo-led insanity through the realms of the zombiefied absurd. His comic book sensibilities burst from the record with technicolour verve, particularly as the titular erudite swine of ‘Good Old Pig, Gone to Avalon’ wiggles with Muppet-like bounciness to the Arthurian city. But no comic book hero is complete without his trusty sidekick – Jeff’s brother Jack plays bass throughout, and wrote ‘The Upside-down Cross’, a torrid, eight minute song about marriage and ecology where Calexico race Do Make Say Think up a mountain only to find that Sonic Youth have beaten them to the top. With the Brothers Lewis’ dry delivery, worry of impending baldness and mounting collection of romantic woes, it seems that Woody Allen needn’t bother going home.

7/10

Papercuts – You Can Have What You Want

2009-03-25T13:12:00.003Z

Originally featured in NME

Bunkering down with a box set of ‘The Twilight Zone’ might not seem the most obvious way to craft an album of hazy summer dreams, but Papercuts’ (aka Jason Quever) third record hugs the emotionally mysterious in a swathe of somnambulant romance embracing bumbling lo-fi guitar trills. All crackling shimmer and Mercury Rev syrupiness, it’s as much summer as the smell of Hawaiian Tropic, and therein lies the problem; ‘You Can Have…’ is, on occasion, a beautiful, densely crafted album in respectful debt to the ‘60s (aided by the guys from Beach House) - at times Van Dyke Parks meets Grizzly Bear (‘Once We Walked in the Sunlight’), at others, so nonchalantly français you half expect Serge Gainsbourg to appear – but the slow, dusky familiarity and sobering lack of dynamics (disappointing when Quever shows what he is capable of on ‘Future Primitive’) make for more of a groundhog day than transcendence into any fifth dimension.

5/10

Review: Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

2009-03-14T13:45:00.005Z

Originally featured in Epigram

“It seems to come from the world of Grimm’s fairytales,” said Thom Yorke of Natasha Khan’s enchanting music when he chose Bat For Lashes to support Radiohead, and on ‘Two Suns’, the fantastical elements that danced through her debut remain, but with a poetic maturity and strength that rather more resemble the complex stories of Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’ than childlike naivety - bewitching the listener with her haunting, almost lonely exploration the duality of self, gender, and psychogeography.

Lead single ‘Daniel’ arrives on a cinematic sunrise fanfare, building tentatively with Khan’s sultry English diction and the dark glamour of a 1980s music matriarch. Moments of macabre formality surface on ‘Sleep Alone’ as a looping sitar courts a proud bass note, and again on final track, ‘The Big Sleep’, an eerie coda where Scott Walker moans the ghostly lament of a drag queen’s last hurrah. Yeasayer appear on beat duties throughout, firing booming tribal canons across the sparkling dual landscapes that Khan so vividly conjures – she celebrates the “thousand crystal towers” of her former home, New York, on the piercing ‘Glass’, and orchestrates a dusty spiritual ‘60s ritual on ‘Peace of Mind’, guitars rattling with ramshackle familiarity. There’s a newfound strength in her vocals too, which glower lupine and sensual through the forests of ‘Moon and Moon’, accompanied by a chorus of haunting sylphs.

“I got fed up of everyone thinking I was this mystical creature that drinks unicorns’ tears for breakfast!” she said of her debut, and as she smoulders, “I’m evil” at the end of the arresting ‘Siren Song’, it’s clear that on ‘Two Suns’, Natasha Khan is the wolf in grandmother’s clothing not to be underestimated.

4.5/5

Is music consumption as we know it imploding?

2009-03-14T02:27:00.006Z

As The Pirate Bay founders await a court verdict and YouTube removes premium music videos from UK viewers, is Spotify the life raft the music industry’s been waiting for?

Originally featured in Epigram

When asked whether each MP3 file shared online represents a lost sale for the record industry, John Kennedy of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries answered, “yes”, much to the amusement of the founders of Sweden-based The Pirate Bay. The two sides are currently awaiting the verdict (due on April 17^th) of a much-publicized trial that has seen the Swedish authorities file charges against the torrent sharing website for “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws”.

While Kennedy’s position on the download to sales ratio is laughably ill thought out, given the amount of reasonable file sharers who download for sampling purposes prior to committing to a purchase, the case itself has reached a cliffhanger which will resonate with profound consequences across the world whatever its outcome. The Pirate Bay representatives were in the dock for over two weeks, proving that the line between legal and illegal downloading is not as defined as the authorities might like to think. If the prosecution wins, it’s a step towards realizing the dreams of the ‘Big Four’ record labels (Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI, Universal) and international governments, where illegal P2P networks are forced to compensate those whose copyrights have been breached. However, if The Pirate Bay’s arguments about being merely a search engine rather than the source of copyrighted material hold up, then the authorities face further obstacles in their fight to reduce illegal downloading, an activity that the UK government aims to cut by 80% come 2011.

On 29^th January 2009, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published an interim report entitled ‘Digital Britain’, detailing government proposals to mirror France’s three step plan for tackling repeat downloading offenders. By teaming up with major Internet Service Providers (ISPs), offenders would first receive an ‘educational letter’ informing them of the illegality of their actions; followed by suspension of services until you sign a contract agreeing to cease such activity, and the potential to lose your internet connection for a year if you persist. It is estimated that as many as 7million people in the UK share files illegally, and in December 2008, the Entertainment Retailers Association found that piracy of music and film accounts for up to £1.5bn in lost revenue each year. The government has pledged £8million to cut intellectual property theft, and hopes to implement public awareness campaigns and education in schools about the value of intellectual property.

Most people would be surprised at the little amount of money that most musicians earn from selling records. SClub7 famously worked for a comparative pittance, based on a blanket wage agreement they signed with their label at the start of their career. New York experimentalists Gang Gang Dance were recently forced to cancel a tour they couldn’t afford to continue when all their equipment was lost in a fire in Amsterdam, and guitar goddess Marnie Stern resorted to a kisses for cash scheme to pay off a parking fine that threatened to cripple her recent tour. This surprising and kinda saddening news makes it all the more laudable that governments across the world are taking pains to educate young people about intellectual property (despite the capitalist structures at play behind the scenes), but the moot point is, what other methods (apart from traditional purchasing) will be put in place to sate the musical needs of culturally voracious downloaders?

When MySpace launched its assault on the web five years ago, the New York Times called it “a marvelously efficient, remarkably cheap and not terribly invasive means of spreading buzz.” Shortly after, in November 2005, YouTube exploded into homes across the world, and together, these sites seemed to pave the golden path for on-demand music consumption; to provide an exciting remedy for an ailing record industry. However, the musical content of both sites is now under threat in the UK from YouTube’s dispute with the Performing Rights Society (PRS) (which could extend to Myspace), a non-profit collection agency which distributes royalties to its members. The existing license between YouTube and the PRS is up for renewal, and the PRS wants more money for its members than YouTube’s parent company Google claims it is able to give. This has led to YouTube removing a number of ‘premium videos’ from UK access. YouTube profits from the adverts that appear by videos, the monetary gain of which they are not obliged (thus do not) share with the artists. Although Patrick Walker, YouTube’s director of video partnerships, told the Guardian that, “if the next Arctic Monkeys is going to surface, we need to get this [relationship] to work”, his shtick about nurturing talent is pretty transparent, and as this mercenary debate continues and online music licensing becomes more complicated and expensive, fans searching for music to enjoy legally are being driven elsewhere.

It would then seem that we should be thanking the heavens for the advent of Spotify, free software with an instant streaming library of music so exponentially vast that one blogger nicknamed it “God’s iTunes”. Just like The Pirate Bay, Spotify was launched by a group of Swedes (one of whom ironically created uTorrent, a client for downloading largely illegal torrents), in October 2008, and so far has been almost whole-heartedly supported by all corners of the record industry. The UK government loves it so much that their Central Office of Information is one of the main clients of its advertising service, whereby every 15 minutes or so, a short ad interjects your stream of choice. Its low demand on bandwith also marries tidily with a proposal from the ‘Digital Britain’ report, whereby the government wants to ensure a minimum 2mb broadband connection to every home across Britain by 2012.

It’s supported by the ‘Big Four’, and Merlin, an umbrella company established to give independent labels the representative force of their conglomerate rivals, thus Spotify claim that up to 10,000 new tracks are added to their library each day. The back catalogues of labels Domino, Fat Cat, Warp, the Leaf Label amongst others appear almost in full, as does Radiohead’s oeuvre, and U2, Morrissey and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs gave Spotify users exclusive dibs on their album prior to release. With its clean interface, purely genuine content, reassuring images of handsome Swedes reclining on concept Ikea furnishings, and promise that they “respect creativity and believe in fairly compensating artists for their work,” it’s not hard to see why over a million users have signed up since October; surprising even, given that it was invite only until February. It even accounts for the community aspect of downloading – you can share your personalized playlists with your friends, and it’s still only in Beta (trial) form.

The biggest downside to Spotify is that you can’t download music from it. At present, songs can only be streamed from your computer; you can’t add them to your iPod or similar. However, they’re currently hiring a developer to enable the application for iPhones, and contemplating a portable future. From a romantic perspective, it might neatly do away with the idea of owning a record collection. Heck, it’s so damned cutting edge that it pretty much renders owning MP3s obsolete – why fill up your hard drive when you can stream from an endless library to your heart’s delight?

However, it still doesn’t quite have the answer for making up those lost sales that John Kennedy’s so worried about. Although Spotify defeats the point of illegal downloading with its extensive back catalogue and sparkly pre-release exclusives, why bother buying a record when you can access it for free? What Spotify doesn’t do is address the issue of getting something for nothing, summed up eloquently by a pro-downloading musician (who wished to remain anonymous):

“There are hardly any bands confident enough to just put their album on the shelves without giving it a preview somewhere. Seeing as most bands have something out there for free, to an extent I think that we do have a right to free music, but it depends on the intention the listener has – whether they’re going to invest in the band in the future somehow. There are a lot of people who don’t spend a dime on music, and that’s completely immoral.”

Whether The Pirate Bay’s actions are judged thus remains to be seen, but the future of music consumption is indubitably on the cusp of profound change.

Review: Amadou & Mariam, Bristol Academy, 26.02.09

2009-02-28T13:06:00.005Z

As a grinning bongo player slaps out a hummingbird rhythm with oceanic force, the Jean Réno-lookalike bassist (who’s oozes French cool from his wide meerkat eyes and jazzy head jerking) seduces a puissant groove from his bass, and the girls on backing vocals shimmy with ululating physicality, Mariam stands peacefully still at the heart of it all in a sight that’s almost sad to behold. Amadou and Mariam met in 1974 at an institute for blind young people in Bamako, Mali, married in 1980, and have been making infinitely joyous music ever since, blending traditional African sounds with electric blues, les chansons françaises, and poignantly simple messages about unity and trust in human kind. For them to not be able to behold the carefree celebration and unabashed dancing of people of all ages that their music provokes seems almost an injustice, despite the fact that there would be none of this jubilation had they been able to see. However, where their disadvantage lies in sight, the majority of the audience’s lies in language - “the blind couple from Mali” sing mainly in French, but the power of their message, and cheesy as it sounds, of their love, bursts through communicative barriers with glittering, kaleidoscopic aplomb as the stage becomes a truly synaesthetic experience – the sense-assaulting storm of their sound marries with the vivid pink of their robes, reflecting off Amadou’s gold telecaster to translate into whoops of joy from the crowd, and back into wide smiles from the couple. “Est-ce que ça va?” booms Amadou. “Do you feel alri-ight?” And as shivers rattle down spines across the room, there’s no doubt about that we do.

There’s something about the natural cool and sweet tactile interaction of Amadou and Mariam that means they can get away with songs such as ‘I Follow You’, an English-language track from their latest album, ‘Welcome to Mali’ whose lyrics are disarmingly simple, and all the more affecting for it– “I think of you, every time, everywhere,” he faultlessly sings to his wife, as she strokes his head, swaying her hips, poised as the proud matriarch of the stage. Amadou falls to his knees for a tongue-in-cheek guitar solo that’s so impressive for a 54 year-old man even he seems surprised, bending its sound between jaunty regularity and a skittering jam so euphoric that even the roadies are high-fiving. He’s led off to deservedly rest by the side of the stage as Mariam performs an astonishing version of ‘Sabali’ (named by Pitchfork as one of their 100 Best Tracks of 2008), whose introductory notes are so high-pitched that I’d assumed they were processed on the record, but she sings unaided, like an equatorial sunrise, before ‘Ce n’est pas bon’ plink-plonks in like dew drops on a glass xylophone, and Amadou returns to sing, “Bonheur, bonheur pour le people” (wellbeing for the people) in earthy, rallying tones. After an ecstatic, carnival-spirit version of ‘La Realité’ from the album, ‘Dimanche à Bamako’, the duo return alone for the encore to sing ‘Je pense à toi’, a touching tribute from each to the other that sums up the message of the evening – their music seems to destroy silly cares and trivialities, and unite crowds spiritually. The musicianship this evening rings as if choreographed by some divine being, magical and glittering, with Amadou and Mariam at the centre of it all, gold-rimmed sunglasses glinting with pride as simple messages from Mali soar into consciousnesses the world over.

Live: Elmore Judd, Bristol Academy, 26.02.09

2009-02-27T17:56:00.005Z

Any band that even contemplates the risky business of covering Can is alright by our book, so for Elmore Judd to tease ‘Vitamin C’ into a Teutonic tryst between lovers in a David Lynch film noir set on the first spaceship to leave earth is oh-so-welcome. Up there with Fujiya & Miyagi and Jamie Lidell when it comes to stamping their names on offbeat genres, nonchalantly cool keyboardist Jesse Hackett croons like Alexis Taylor blowing Prince geometric kisses, the band perverting African coconut-tapped rhythms with no-wave New York bass and bent synths that glide like smoke trails from illicit substances across an inter-planetary Serengeti.

Review: Polly Scattergood - S/T

2009-02-27T16:30:00.006Z

It’s despicable to lump female singers into one sexually defined genre, but there’s something so intentionally pathetic, so little girl lost that only a big strong man can save Brit School graduate Polly Scattergood from her brain-numbing misery that it’s jolly well the only categorization she deserves. On the absurdly MOR ‘Unforgiving Arms’, she comatosely intones, “I try my best to make him happy, but it’s not a piece of cake”, in spoken tones that are less independent glassiness, more double glazing housewife doldrums that would make Emily Pankhurst turn in her grave. Opener, ‘I Hate the Way’ is a tortured SEVEN MINUTE trudge through her nursery rhyme Evanescence emotions, wallowing in a kind of cheap Muse-on-helium lullaby that wouldn’t pass GCSE music. Her desperation to be a metropolitan Bat for Lashes is so palpable that you can practically hear the percussive ping of her gold American Apparel headband under the thin, tinny instrumentation, where cackhanded violins jab over micro electropop so dull and inconsequential that La Roux could no doubt burp a better tune. Her lyrics are a stream of self-obsessed, empty metaphor twitters that only pick up on the bizarre ‘Bunny Club’, a jarringly sleazy number inviting someone to “spit on my French knickers” in a voice that’s part pre-pubescent orphan Oliver, part Sweeney Todd’s Mrs Lovett narrating a Rampant Rabbit instruction manual for fey indie kids who give their genitalia pet names and cry during intercourse. Sadly for us listeners, the only carnal pleasure inherent in the record comes from trying to work out whether "you tell me what the sunset looks like from your brother's back yard" is some kind of euphemism…

0/5

Filthy Dukes @ Thekla, 15.02.09

2009-02-23T18:51:00.002Z

Review: Wendy & Lucy

2009-02-23T18:34:00.003Z

Director Kelly Reichardt’s second full-length film is a shy, poetic but not optimistic vignette of a young woman travelling without moving through the fringes of backwater America. Played with piercing tact by Michelle Williams, determined drifter Wendy gets stuck in a tumbleweed Oregon town en route to Alaska, where she hopes to find employment. At her side is dog Lucy, her best friend and emotional anchor, whose disappearance, along with Wendy’s deepening financial straits, derails the young Indiana woman’s journey.

Despite weighing in at only 80 minutes, ‘Wendy & Lucy’ is no blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair, nor does it suffer from a lack of closure. It’s paradoxically bolstered by its slow pace (which does occasionally border on becoming dull) – Wendy’s every eyelid flicker emphasizes the slow tick of time in this backwater town, where she’s slowly becoming a cog in the tedious machinations needed to get through these groundhog days. With its soundtrack-free, honest documentation of a town in stasis, ‘Wendy & Lucy’ is matter-of-factly political in its examination of monotonous, grey small-town life, silently questioning how places like this and its inhabitants survive – even the fruit in the supermarket has despaired of its vibrancy. It also takes a timely shot at the bureaucracy of employment – “you can’t get a job without an address; you can’t get an address without an address,” mocks the car-park attendant that Wendy encounters.

Made by a different director, ‘Wendy & Lucy’ might have ended up a clichéd portrait of a vibrant young woman lighting up a small town ‘Little Miss Sunshine’-style, or an emotionally-overwrought revelation of the kindness of strangers to the tearful tune of Bon Iver, but Reichardt’s minimalist direction and Williams’ vulnerable but dignified performance make for a sympathetic treatment of an aborted road movie.

‘Wendy & Lucy’ is an engaging examination of the human condition in times of utter hopelessness. As slow as it is, the film nor its protagonist never wallow in self-pity, or manipulate with overwrought emotionality or closure; if ‘Marley & Me’ was canine cinema’s prize poodle, then ‘Wendy & Lucy’ is its trusty sheepdog, revealing a seldom-tapped side to female companionship.

3/5

Review: Confessions of a Shopaholic

2009-02-18T23:29:00.004Z

When ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ asks its friend, “how do I look?”, said faithfully kooky, wisecracking BFF will say without hesitation, “oh hun, you look like a visual orgasm of delectable, sensual and frivolous femininity doing what you do best: reassuring despondent women everywhere that shopping need not be a myth in these tricky economic times.” It’s at this point that you can only wish ‘…Shopaholic’ had friends like Carrie, Samantha and Miranda (and that’s coming from an ardent SATC hater) to straight-talk it out of such delusions. Without any reservation or doubt, ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ is utter claptrap, its painful attempts to encompass every chick-flick cliché resulting in an almost misogynistic portrait of women at their worst.

Following the astounding successes of the SATC film and ‘Mamma Mia’, it’s no surprise that cheesemonger Jerry Bruckheimer decided to capitalise on the rise of female cinema-going by developing author Sophie Kinsella’s bestselling tales of one woman and her credit card into the ultimate chick-flick. However, not only does he capitalise thereon, but unashamedly steals the trademarks of iconic female characters who paved the way for this dungheap of a film – the seemingly ditsy girl outsmarting a seasoned businessman à la ‘Legally Blonde’? Check. Bridget Jones-style waggling of peachy bottom in the charming Grant/Firth-style boss’ face? Right on cue. And cat-fighting over dresses in a scene straight out of ‘Friends’? They’re all there, along with nods to the infinitely more intelligent ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ that are as unsubtle as some of Becky’s hideously garish outfits. Although she can’t be blamed for their physical similarities, Isla Fisher’s portrayal of Rebecca Bloomwood is an unsophisticated bastardization of Amy Adams’ excellent turn as naive Giselle in Disney’s ‘Enchanted’ – stumbling slapstick into every glass door, and simpering nauseatingly as an excuse for not knowing simple answers.

The film is an insult to women on so many levels – it paints its lead as hysterically and blindly addicted to consumerism without thought for the consequences, downtrodden and unmotivated in the face of male rejection, and despite any supposed university education, as having a distinct lack of social or professional skills. The female protagonists shriek and fawn sickeningly at every designer label, and despite a flimsy moral to the story it’s indubitable that Bruckheimer’s release schedule couldn’t have been much more distastefully timed. Despite its attempts to paint shopping as a divine occupation, ‘…Shopaholic’ is little more than a Pandora’s Box of hideous vices and ridiculous stereotypes.

0.5/5

Bashing it out...

2009-02-12T16:31:00.005Z

In news that’s hardly about to delight your neighbours, landlords and housemates, scientists and therapists have recently been highlighting the health benefits of drumming on mental and physical wellbeing. Experts and musicians alike have been singing its praises, with former drummer for The Clash, Nick “Topper” Headon, citing percussion as being partially responsible for his recovery from heroin addiction. He recently told BBC News, “Its a physical activity, it stimulates parts of the brain keeping the four limbs doing something different, and it is primeval as well - drums were the first instrument: before music, people were banging things together."

From group sessions patting out gentle African djembe rhythms to letting rip with high hat-assaulting punk, it is believed that drumming reduces stress, thus lowers blood pressure, and can also trigger specific brainwaves which foster clear thinking. It’s nigh-on impossible to sit behind a drum kit and not want to bash out a cack-handed fill, possibly stemming from bashing on saucepans with childish abandon all the way back to a more primitive, primal instinct. Indeed, Dr Bobby Bittman, neurologist and CEO of the Yamaha and Wellness Institute in Pennsylvania, believes that we are born with an inherent musical ability. “I believe we are hard-wired for music. There is evidence that even in the womb, the foetus has rhythm,” he said.

Of course, the idea of music as therapy is nothing new – testimonials of music’s effect on the psyche are innumerable, and evident in any part of daily life – revising to calm music, throwing shapes to 120bpm tracks, and amplifying a wallowing mood with equally downbeat music. But research undertaken by Guys Marsh prison near Shaftesbury, Dorset, puts forward the idea that music therapy can be strongly linked to reoffending rates amongst prisoners – the average prisoner is 61% likely to reoffend upon release, whereas, according to the study, the rate drops to around 15% with regard to prisoners who regularly attend music therapy sessions. Evidence has shown that self-expression via music and positive activity increases confidence, and helps offenders associate with crowds outside of troubled social spectrums.

Upon discovering this information, folk legend Billy Bragg established Jail Guitar Doors, an initiative intended to provide HMP prisoners with instruments. Named after a Clash b-side, one of the initiative’s most financially successful gigs paid tribute to the fifth anniversary of Joe Strummer’s death. Bragg said, “Hearing the Clash as a 19 year old had changed my life, so I guess I was looking for a project that underscored the transformative power of music.” Since its conception at the 2007 NME Awards, Jail Guitar Doors has donated instruments to more than 20 detention centres, at a cost of just under £500 per prison.

Although Daily Mail readers might be quick to cite the number of times that Pete Doherty has dragged his battered acoustic through Pentonville’s doors, Bragg’s project has seen some undeniable success stories. Theone Coleman, a former Guys Marsh inmate, was awarded the Young Achiever of the Year award from the Prince’s Trust, for his work in establishing and running a youth music project in Bournemouth. So next time you’re feeling frustrated or at loggerheads with the world, try sitting down, rollling up your sleeves, and bashing out a different kind of relief.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2009-01-28T23:15:00.005Z

About a decade ago, I spied on my younger brother as he furtively watched and rewound Kate Winslet’s nude scene in Titanic, him repeating this process to the extent that said scene is now unwatchably fuzzy due to his pre-pubescent yearnings. It’s not especially hard to imagine him reliving the process with a scene from Woody Allen’s latest, as María-Elena (Penélope Cruz) strokes Cristina’s (Scarlett Johansson) apple-cheeked face with smouldering seduction in the velvety red hues of a photographic darkroom, and the two embrace, dropping out of shot to make love. Given Allen’s lascivious history, you’d be forgiven for thinking that he might exploit the moment’s lust, but fortunately (perhaps surprisingly), the kiss is part of a rich, sympathetic tapestry exploring the dynamics of love in its every form – repressed, unrequited, desire and anti-desire, monogamy and polygamy.

The lead females blaze through Spain – Vicky (Rebecca Hall), engaged to be married, and pursuing a Masters in Catalan Identity (which conversely enough, unearths her own), and Cristina following in the pursuit of love and discovering her desires. She enjoys the work of Gaudi - the architect’s unfinished works, much like herself, alive with the vivacity of their lauded curvature – and impulsively decides to follow painter Juan Antonio to an historical village, setting off a chain of emotionally and physically explosive events which make both girls re-evaluate what they held dear.

The film starts off oddly charm- and quirkless, seeming as though it’s going to be a perfectly obvious rom-com and continuing evidence that Allen’s losing his touch, with (Don) Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) the chancing charlatan, and the female leads acting mock-coy whilst swirling enormous, clichéd wine glasses – but it develops into a sensual, sensitive portrait of sexual experimentation with the arrival of Juan Antonio’s passionately erratic artist ex-wife, María-Elena, equal parts spiteful and seductive, spitting her words with hysterical fury and jealousy at Cristina’s usurping of her position.

In ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’, Allen riles against the conventions of love, the expectations and nomenclature that surround it, and only seeks to criticise Doug, Vicky’s smarmy, stereotypically yuppie fiancé, who longs for a life of expensive suburbia and bridge games, refusing to open his mind to the idea that love isn’t just marriage and financial security. Although ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ may not be one of Allen’s finest, it’s sure to be considerably more poignant and lasting than anything else you’re likely to see at the cinema this Valentine’s Day. Let’s just hope you’re not sat next to my brother…

3.5/5

Under the Influence: Lykke Li

2009-01-28T20:23:00.002Z

"I don’t normally get influenced by a song or a beat. If I hear a tragic story, someone talking about something that went wrong, that’s what influences me, broken destinies and broken souls. I can’t listen to anybody for long, everything from hip hop to jazz and soul, the Velvet Underground and that kind music, but I don’t have any pop artists that I think are amazing. I love Lauren Hill, but I don’t think of her when I write a song. I’d like Usher to remix one of my songs. It’d be really funny to hear.

I’m listening to Bon Iver a lot at the moment, I’m a big fan. For the next record, I think I’m going to lock myself out from the outside world, drink whisky, and take it slowly, like Justin did.

I like On the Road, The Catcher in the Rye, biographies – I read Edith Piaf and Nina Simone’s – some Paulo Coehlo when I was younger and trying to find myself. I read a lot of the classics too, the Master and the Margarita.

My first records were the typical Madonna, Michael Jackson, probably some shitty mix music compilation.

Everyone asks me about Madonna – I liked her when I was seven – everyone did – so I don’t want to cite her as one of my influences, as she’s not. I think she’s a completely other person now than she was then.

I’ve always had such a strong desire about myself – I think it was mostly that which inspired be to become a musician. I’d like Usher to cover one of my songs."

The Day the Earth Stood Still

2009-01-28T20:22:00.001Z

If there were an award for the most ridiculously overblown environmentally-conscious film of the year, The Day the Earth Stood Still would be a strong contender to knobble The Happening from its throne. Keanu Reeves phones it in as Klaatu, reprising his role as a bland slimy embryonic automaton, hellbent on saving the earth from the vaguely hinted-at traumas that we’ve inflicted upon it (despite at no point conveying the sagacious solution he seems to possess). Jaden Smith is bratty and annoying, and Jennifer Connolly’s turn as scientist Helen Benson is about as emotionally rewarding as the incessant product placement which undermines the scarcest chance of engagement in each scene. One of the film’s most eye-rollingly, inadvertently comical moments comes when the ever po-faced Klaatu orders Helen to pull over, to decide the fate of the world in a McDonalds, whose logo, specific meals and drinks radiate from the screen.

It’s dismally generic, using every tried-and-tested disaster movie technique from shots of TV news reports to US government types waffling technical war/science jargon in an attempt to lend the film credibility. As is the wont of most big-budget remakes/blockbusters this year, The Day the Earth Stood Still is rendered ever more bland and lifeless by the CGI that infests each scene – from the swirling balls of gas which pop up across the world, extending needlessly to entire cityscapes, and robots which look so low budget they wouldn’t even pass an audition to star in Doctor Who. There are so many gaping plot faults that it’s hard to know where to start, the most startlingly obvious being the abject lack of day to night consistency as the characters move from in- to outdoors. And most typically of all, despite the colossal disaster engulfing the world, the day is saved by a handy, seemingly deus ex machina change of mind on Klaatu’s behalf. Avoid at all costs…

Beirut - March of the Zapotec/Realpeople Holland

2009-01-28T20:18:00.002Z

Zapotec/Realpeople is a total identity crisis of a record, which deepens the furrows of the conundrum surrouding Zac Condon – is he a genuinely talented, tortured artist, yet to find himself in any corner of the world? Or, should the spell of his truly glorious first album, ‘The Gulag Orkestar’, be lifted, would he be nothing more than a disaffected rich kid, traveling the world in search of indigenous musical dialects to pilfer and plagiarise as his own? On ‘March of the Zapotec’ (named after a Mesoamerican people) a rambunctious, carnivalesque array of trumpets and percussion erupt on ‘El Zocalo’ as if leading a merry band down a sunlit dusty Mexican street, while ‘La Llorona’ deepens to more sophisticated, crepuscular tones, Condon’s languid voice swimming amongst elephantine horns in search of a girl, and ‘The Akara’ wordlessly mourns a nameless monarch in the court of Beirut, before a picaresque ukelele flamencos in. Take away the traditional Mexican band on this EP, and it’s hard to know what the songs would otherwise amount to. ‘My Night with the Prostitute from Marseille’, the first track from ‘Realpeople Holland’, is a whole different kettle of fish – magpie-attracting charms of the glimmeringly electronic, sleepy Eurodance beneath contrast interestingly with Condon’s sympathetic, fathoms-deep élan – it’s not dissimilar to the Postal Service gone Europop. Closer ‘No Dice’ could be the demure cousin of post ‘Hissing Fauna…’ of Montreal, a thumping, engulfing assault of reverberating drums, pretty camp, and were it not for the picture on the sleeve, entirely unrecognizable as Beirut. Desirable as it is to be objective, it’s extraordinarily difficult not to be won over by the self-effacing charm of this picaresque young gentleman.

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

2009-01-27T23:50:00.004Z

Andrew Bird is as delightfully neurotic about musical perfectionism as they come. Over the last nine months or so, he blogged meticulously for the New York Times about the gestation period of his 11^th album, ‘Noble Beast’ – partially recorded in Wilco’s studio, inspired by the helplessness of children crying on planes, and deliciously obsessed with the consonance of words, even making them up, if need be, to rumble pleasingly down his ornate, violin-led beautiful songs.

As the sun rises over opener ‘Oh No’ (influenced by aforementioned child), it becomes clear that the production on ‘Noble Beasts’ is towed by clarity; crisp and nurturing of the warmly defined sounds within, particularly the percussion – every kick-drum thump resonates accordingly, and every ting tickles the ear, whilst its idyllic, vintage string opening conjures images Van Dyke Parks soundtracking a 1940s Disney film. ‘Masterswarm’ could be Rufus Wainright covering Nick Drake’s ‘Bryter Layter’ era, powered by ticking handclaps and a skittering violin, in constant conversation with the more grounded, mature cello parts. “This is sure to misspell disaster”, he eloquently mumbles, highlighting his flair for clever (but never clichéd) lyrics.

On ‘Tenousness’ (one of his many experiments with word construction), Bird comes across like the late Arthur Russell, making African-influenced guitar twangs chatter with pastoral English-sounding folk, whilst still remaining the intrinsic, yet trickily indefinable qualities of intelligent American alternative music. He often plays a trick that chews its way into the depths of your soul, without you being able to articulate why such a simple guitar line has such an effect – take ‘Anonanimal’, where his biological mutterings lollop into each other, an elegiac, sophisticated tongue-twister atop a pensive drum and needle sharp xylophone and strings.

Equally affecting is ‘Souverian’, which Bird himself confessed to Drowned in Sound that it remained a mystery to him – his master instrument shudders as he whistles across a desolate landscape that Cormac McCarthy might be proud of, breaking into a conversational piano line which knows it’s all over; Souverian has gone. His ability to transform language burns to a piercing, mournful cry; his Chicago accent filtering through like smoke trails. Although ‘Noble Beast’ was born from Bird’s neuroses and uncertainty, he should rest easy that it’s certain to grow gratefully-received into the lives of many.

4.5/5

Interview/Review: Franz Ferdinand

2009-01-18T01:42:00.003Z

Although ‘Tonight: Franz Ferdinand’ hasn’t been a long time coming in the ‘Chinese Democracy’ stakes, the nigh-on four years between ‘You Could Have it So Much Better’ and its follow up mean that the band are jumping into the depths of an unfamiliar scene – no longer are they the doyens of the charts, atop every NME reader’s cultural compass. When they assaulted the charts with ‘Take Me Out’ in 2003, they sat alongside Razorlight and Keane as part of a triumvrate of intelligent (that might be generous with regard to Razorlight…) alternative music set to rescue the charts from manufactured pop pap, but as frontman Alex Kapranos sighs, “when we first appeared there weren’t many guitar bands in the chart, just a lot of formulaic pop music, and now, there seems to be a degree of formulaic guitar bands kicking around.” The question seems to be, will the dandified, articulate Glaswegian quartet be able to stand out in a scene of brash, meatheated dirty ladrock?

As the ominous, seductively arch bassline of ‘Ulysses’ kicks in, it’s quite apparent that the pastoral tendencies we saw Franz exhibit on their last album have been left to lie fallow for a while. “Let’s get high,” pouts Kapranos, making way for a filthy, indignant 8-bit electronic riff which writhes contorted like a straightjacketed dancer. The band described their last album as “teenagers having sex” – “magic, but frantic and over quite quickly” - you get the impression they’re trying to restrain themselves, attempting to hold back on a magnificent climax (and boy do they come later on…).

“The story of Ulysses or Odysseus is a great tale, and you can still read it two and a half thousand years later – you really empathise with his characters, and get the feeling he’s never going home – there are always times in your life when you feel a bit like that, certainly when you’re in a band,” says Kapranos. “If you let that get you down, it’s a disaster, but if you can see it as an adventure, then great. It’s more about how you can consider yourself to be a hero when you’re not.”

Unfortunately, they seem to have acquired a horrible production habit on this song which manifests itself throughout the album – disconnected, jarring, echoey middle-eights, with all the panache and subtlety of a horror B-movie. It crops up again on ‘No You Girls’, and ‘Live Alone’, the latter of which is the type of mid-tempo Franz song which just really doesn’t work, straight disco which could have been prised directly from the monochrome bars of Blondie’s ‘Parallel Lines’ LP.

The build-up to this album almost broke the rumour mill – ‘Franz Ferdinand make Afrobeat album’, ‘Franz to record pop album with Xenomania’, but they’re quick to correct the record on the influences which have been foisted upon them.

“When we came offstage from African Express, someone asked me if we like African music, so I said, “of course we do, we’re playing with a bunch of African guys, of course we like African music,” and then that, through a series of Chinese whispers, and the internet, became, ‘Franz Ferdinand to make African album’,” says Alex.

This fatigue with the press reveals itself on ‘What She Came For’ – “I’ve got a question for ya, where d’ya get your name from?” snarls Alex, mocking journalists’ lack of imagination. Unfortunately for the band, ‘What She Came For’, although biting in message, is one of the record’s weakest tracks – Kapranos’ delivery is affected and whiny, and the chorus breaks into what’s seemingly the band’s unconfident-sounding attempt at a football terrace shoutalong chorus – if the rest of the songs on the album weren’t so strong, you could be forgiven for thinking this song a glib attempt at staying relevant.

Those strengths reveal themselves when Franz are at their sparsely arranged best - on ‘Turn It On’, the bass kicks its pointed-toe brogues under call and response vocals, and a screeching, cricket-like alarm sound. The sessions with Xenomania obviously paid off – it’s not hard to imagine Girls Aloud covering this track in the Live Lounge, nor ‘Can’t Stop Feeling’, with its dub bassline contrasting stylishly with Kapranos’ purred Scottish brogue. ‘Bit Hard’ is all pseudonyms and kissers, regrets and revelations, stalkers and dirty looks on the dancefloor. “I won’t resort to kissing your photo,” they sing, proving that we can always rely on Franz Ferdinand for decadent dandified aesthetics in an instance where Arctic Monkeys might bookmark your Myspace photos.

The imagery of the lyrics is as rich as ever – ‘Send Him Away’ sounds influenced by Merseybeat, which works well, and it’s imbued with rich jealous scenes, to the extent that you can almost feel “his breath in your hair”, the Wurlitzer jittering like an envious hand trying to focus all its energies on holding a glass as you watch someone muscle in on your girlfriend. ‘No You Girls’ wouldn’t sound out of place on their first album, with its film noir imagery put through a 21^st century art-pop wrangler. “Kiss me, lick your cigarette then kiss me,” say Alex’s louche vocals, under an insouciant metronic ting. Built around simple motifs, the bassline could fit under ‘Take Me Out’, and the massive chorus and sexual frisson could amount to a kind of modern day ‘Girls and Boys’. Despite these rich images, however, the band have taken a step away from the Russian construtivist artwork which bound their first two records.

“We definitely wanted to change our aesthetic this time around, just because those first two records really reflected the sound of the music, that bold geometry – it looked like the record sounded, those strong jerky movements. This record has a different feel to it, there’s a dirtier, nighttime vibe,” says Alex.

Although whether the record is a massive departure from their previous work is contentious, ‘Tonight’ does mark the band’s first foray into the concept record, supposedly soundtracking the events of an evening out, climaxing in ‘Lucid Dreams’, a massively unpredictable departure from their usual work. Starting as a sickly, heartthrob ballad, it’s a great experiment with structure, an uncharacteristic wall of sound bursting at the seams. Just as Gregor Samsa awoke metamorphosed one morning from troubled dreams, it seems that Franz have undergone an equally profound transformation on this seven minute track. It’s the least lucid, most frenetic, worrying of dreams, chopping and changing every few minutes – from standard Franz, to a kickdrum worthy of a Grace Jones track – it’s not hard to imagine her singing over the crazy electronic ending of the song, sounding like Kraftwerk playing Pong with Kernkraft in the midst of the sort of ear pounding club confusion that we’re all familiar with. Simmering down to an almost minimal techno ending, the closing notes of the song sound as though they’re gasping for breath over a pounding heartbeat. What Kitsuné Maison’s cohort will make of this, I cannot wait to hear. It’s undoubtedly the best song the band have ever made. However, despite ‘Dream Again’ acting as a kind of hazy, hungover epilogue to ‘Lucid Dreams’, any suggestion that this is a subtle hint to the next album being equally experimental was sadly refuted.

“It was supposed to represet the idea of a night out, and ‘Lucid Dreams’ has that climax, where it really comes up, and the come-down is ‘Dream Again’ and ‘Katherine Kiss Me’,” says Alex. “With both of those songs, the lyrics and the music, we wanted to give them a dreamlike quality – but different types of dream. ‘Lucid Dreams’ is obviously that kind of chaotic, semi-nightmare of a dream, whereas ‘Dream Again’ is much more positive.” ‘Dream Again’’s romanticized, out of focus vocals, and mildly psychedelic synths lend ‘Tonight’ the feeling of a really complete pop album, the notion of which the band are eager to protect.

“Nowadays, we talk about downloads rather than albums – this is supposed to be listened to in the order it’s put together. A lot of work goes into building the dynamic within a song, and the same amount goes into an album – it’s like making a compilation for somebody, you can tell how much someone loves you by how good the compilation they make for you is, whether it flows well,” says Alex.

The record’s coda, ‘Katherine Kiss Me’ might be to Franz Ferdinand what ‘Songbird’ was to Oasis – a surprisingly sweet, honest take on love which avoids the nightclub bravado of its album predecessors. It’s a sister song to ‘No You Girls’, as Alex explained:

“Both songs are about the same event – kissing somebody for the first time. We’re trying to show how we recall big emotional events in our lives depending on the circumstances in which we recount them, and who we’re telling them to. ‘No You Girls’ is how you might tell it to your friends in the pub, where you exaggerate something, everything becomes more glamorous, you make a story out of it. Whereas ‘Katherine Kiss Me’ came from the same events, where you remember how emotionally fragile it was, and how you felt.”

The gorgeous, almost Kinks-esque acoustic ballad features rolling lyrical contradictions – “yes I love you, I mean, yes, I’d love to get to know you”, and the fragility of “how the boy feels” is a welcome shy away from their usual enigmatic bravado.

During the writing of the album, they played the club circuit, testing out new material on audiences to see if they approved, and amending accordingly. The band are about to begin touring the new material in its finite form, supported by Metronomy. Despite the homogenization of London venues in particular, and the current economic climate, the band are optimistic about the future of live music.

“I think people will always want to hear live music,” says Alex. “There have always been press stories about the death of live music – I’m sure they were doing it in 1962 or whenever the jukebox was introduced. I don’t like seeing the homogenization of the venues – that’s definitely happening with Live Nation. It’s nice when you come to a town, and it’s got these quirky little venues that you wouldn’t see anywhere else.”

“Someone asked me earlier today if streaming live gigs on the internet meant the death of live music,” adds Paul. “I thought, “you don’t go to many live gigs, do you…””

After a drop in form with ‘You Could Have it So Much Better’, ‘Tonight’, and in particular ‘Lucid Dreams’ seem as though they’re not only going to be a saving grace for the band, but “formulaic guitar music” in general. From a personal perspective, I’ll never forget the excitement I felt when Franz Ferdinand came around the first time – they were undoubtedly many tentative teenage music fans’ first foray into guitar music, a band to be admired with their defined aesthetics and cerebral knowing. Hopefully, ‘Tonight’ will inspire a whole new generation of music fans to abandon generic scally rock for something significantly more fulfilling.

Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP

2009-01-02T13:05:00.002Z

It’s hard to write about Bon Iver without disintegrating into plaid shirt cliches and log cabin metaphors (not to mention melancholy), but there’s something so whiskey-hazed warm and familiar about the opening hymnal notes of ‘Blood Bank’ that it’s hard not to. Throw in some trademark gruff falsetto crooning about kisses in the snow and the creak of Christmas morning, and you’ve pretty much got a Pitchfork reader’s wet dream right there. But all crassness aside, this is the kind of EP that makes you want to embrace under the covers all weekend, avoiding the harsh chilling bite of reality whilst swooning to the ‘Wolves Pt. I & III’-esque “I know you well” refrain. The identikit reviews which trailed ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ labelled it as being haunting, but rather than pressing you to confront ghosts and skeletons that you’d rather forget, ‘Blood Bank EP’ is more akin to the comforting spirit of a lost friend, there to hold you through lock and key protected feelings and make you realise that it’s not so bad after all. The folorn romantic of Justin Vernon’s debut remains only in tone (there’s seemingly a Mrs Iver on the scene), as he heavily accepts the reproductive purpose of humans on ‘Babys’ (sic), which opens with a peculiarly detached cinematic feel. It’s only ‘Woods’ that jars, a vocoder-ed baying at the moon that’s so uncharacteristically Bon Iver that you wonder whether it’s a flippant musical two fingers up to the critics who pigeonholed his debut. But that aside, anyone who’s spent 2008 holed up in their bedroom trying to stop tears falling into their keyboard whilst listening to ‘For Emma…’ isn’t about to be granted a reprieve with ‘Blood Bank’.

Interview: Chris Walla, Death Cab For Cutie

2008-11-22T15:50:00.005Z

(Interview by Laura Snapes and Mike Mantin, article by Laura Snapes)

“The only real conversation I had whilst on tour with Neil Young involved woodfired pizza, in Everett, Washington. It was a really nice day so they set up catering outside, and he came over. He had his mouth full, and goes, ‘Man! Fucking great pizza!’ and I said, ‘It is awesome isn’t it?’. ‘Fucking great!’ And that was about it!” laughs Chris Walla, on the afternoon of Death Cab For Cutie’s Colston Hall date.

It takes balls to open for a legendary musician whose career has spanned almost half a century, especially when you consider that to diehard Young crowds, you’re the enemy whose every minute on stage is a minute that you’re keeping them from seeing their idol. However, Young’s fans could do worse than to realise that their stories aren’t a million miles apart – following the success of Harvest in 1972, Neil Young and Crazy Horse almost imploded due to drummer Danny Whitten’s drug abuse and subsequent overdose. While Death Cab’s breakdown wasn’t nearly so fatal, it nearly spelled the end for the Seattle-based band.

“We’ve been doing this for a long time now, about 11 years. We almost self-destructed about six years ago because we couldn’t keep the balance right. We all learned after that series of experiences – we all decided explicitly, verbally and consciously that we just didn’t want to operate like that, and to make sure that everyone has the space they need. We’re all really good friends, but sometimes it takes having a total blowout to remind you of that.” Worries about his thin, reedy voice plagued Young for years, but it went on to become as much of his identity as DCFC frontman Ben Gibbard’s instantly recognisable intonation – later that evening, singing ‘Title and Registration’ (from 2003’s Transatlanticism) during the encore, his voice becomes a warm approximation of his idiosyncratic Washington drawl, and a bitter spit singing, “you were so condescending” on ‘Photo Booth’.

But one aspect that certainly differentiates between the two is the economic musical climate from which they were respectively born. Although ‘Narrow Stairs’, Death Cab’s latest record, reached number one on the Billboard charts in its debut week of release, attracting claims of ‘selling out’ from so-called fans (abetted by their signing to Atlantic in 2004), the implications of a number one album are contrary to the assumptions of many.

“People aren’t buying records in the quantities that they used to, there is so much entertainment, that having a number one record doesn’t guarantee much in terms of fame and fortune anymore, which I am perfectly fine with – I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be Bon Jovi in 1987, that seems miserable to me! But saying that, it’s a really big milestone, and an amazing thing to have accomplished, but it’s not one of those benchmarks that has any weight to any of us.

“It wasn’t nearly as important or as big and gravitational as being on Saturday Night Live was. That was a big deal, we got really excited and totally freaked out about it.” Until recently, SNL and its band of merry mirth-makers was largely unknown among English audiences, save for Tina Fey’s turn writing and starring in ‘Mean Girls’. That is, until a certain nuclear Mrs Palin exploded onto the political scene faster than you can say, ‘we have the facts (unlike Palin), and we’re voting Obama’. But in an election where the youth vote was such a critical one, was this kind of commentary useful in turning the campaigns into even more of a cultural phenomenon?

“There’s not a lot of commentary to it any more. It’s basically just straight impressionism. Nobody’s pointing out any subtleties about any of these people that you couldn’t have already gleaned from watching press conferences, or in Sarah Palin’s case, the lack thereof.” Walla pulls his green woolly hat down over his eyes, grimacing. “That made me kinda sad, especially when some people saw the sketches before they saw Palin.”

Walla started blogging about the election for Rolling Stone over the summer, attending and performing at the Democratic Convention in Denver, along with Ben, and Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis. It comes as no surprise that every point of conversation we touch on comes back to the election – on November 2^nd, two days before election day, Chris turned 33, and got “everything that I could have wanted, save for three senate seats and two congressional seats.” Ensconced in over a year’s whirlwind – or rather a hurricane – of touring and producing without a break, the election pulled his thoughts home daily wherever he was in the world.

“I’m totally in withdrawal right now, it’s really freaking me out! Now that the election’s over, I don’t have anything to obsess over from day to day! The first two and a half hours of my day, every day, was spent trawling political blogs.” Despite this boyish yet utterly informed exuberance for all things election and Obama (Walla wrote for Rolling Stone that, “It’s simple: We much elect him president. I very much doubt I’ll live to see another leader who fits the zeitgeist so perfectly.”), the band’s politics don’t pervade their performance, unlike many who use the stage as their own personal (and often misinformed) soapbox.

Live, the band is a measured tour de force, paying equal heed to their three most recent albums, and delighting by delving into tracks from their first three records and EPs. For ‘We Laugh Indoors’ from 2000’s ‘Forbidden Love EP’, The band play momentarily to the back of the stage, accompanied by an orchestra of facial expressions – Ben almost visually goading the others, Chris intently focusing on his guitar, tension flashing across his face when he jabs the foot pedals, drummer Jason squinting at every beat, and bassist Nick Harmer rocking the fuck out – the song adopting a little of the Krautrock spaciness which smatters ‘Narrow Stairs’.

“We’ve always been Krautrock fans, at some points latent, and at some points right here (taps forehead). Jason especially is obsessed with Jaki Liebezeit (the original drummer of Can) – his last name literally means “love time” which is pretty funny. Kraftwerk is part of the reason I play music, and that probably doesn’t come through so much in what we do. That linear minimalism is something, more than anything else probably just in form, is something that we’re drawn to.”

That minimalism came through starkly on ‘I Will Possess Your Heart’, released to radio in March 2008. An eight-minute “Can Jam”, as Chris previously termed it, fans and critics alike were shocked to hear their favourite dependable indie band breaking experimental territory. Despite a proliferation of “WTF?!” from some fans, the band didn’t stop to worry about changing their well-known magic formula.

“When we first started talking about Narrow Stairs, it was still a bunch of instrumental basic tracks, it was really bloody and weird, and as we finished it, it got less weird. By the time that the lyrics got written, and the vocals ended up on it, it’s pretty much a Death Cab record,” he lilts matter-of-factly. “We’re all lovers of pop songs, it’s what we do, and I think that for us, even at the points where we tried intentionally to be bloody and ridiculous and over the top, it’s not really in our nature. Somehow or another, whatever we did individually lead us to guitars and destruction pedals, and making a big bloody mess when we finally got back into the studio!”

The members of Death Cab are almost as well known apart as together. Together with Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel, Ben Gibbard makes up The Postal Service (whose unannounced second album might be one of the most hotly anticipated “indietronica” records ever). Jason taught Smoosh how to drum, and Chris has produced albums for The Decemberists, Tegan and Sara (and will be working on their next record), and his own solo effort, ‘Field Manual’, amongst others. After the experience of committing ‘Plans’ to all-digital technology, he said that he wanted to take a break from producing Death Cab records, but it was working with an almost unknown, young prog-rock band from St Louis that convinced him he was the man for the job.

“I made a record with a band called So Many Dynamos - they’re really into Battles, early Trans Am stuff. They tracked that whole thing pretty much live, which was something I hadn’t done in a long time. It was such a screaming success, such a good record! So I started to feel like that was something I could bring to my band, something that we’d never tried. We set out a bunch of rules – nobody stops a take under any circumstances, and if we can’t get something done from top to bottom in two days, we have no business recording it. And it all stays on tape. If there’s cutting and pasting, it’s physical cutting and pasting.”

With his skills as a producer in constant demand, and Death Cab’s star on a seemingly exponential ascent, it’s not hard to imagine a future where young bands supporting DCFC are hanging on Walla’s every pizza-muffled word too.

On political songs…

It’s not exactly a political song, but a patriot song that every kid in America knows all the words to, and it’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’, a Woody Guthrie song, it’s pretty amazing. Ted Leo’s (and the Pharmacists) got some killers. A few are specific to English or Australian politics, which I’m really into, but in terms of modern relevant American political songs, I think that he has some of the best, and there’s particularly a song called ‘Counting Down the Hours’, from ‘Shake the Sheets’, that’s totally devastating, so beautiful and so well written. That guy’s my hero, he’s amazing, so good!

What they get up to on the tourbus…

I catch up on TV shows, I binged my way through all four or five seasons of Lost, in a matter of…god, that probably took 11 days! It’s kind of…uh…I don’t know what’s going on! And anyone who claims to know what’s going on is lying! (laughs) Ben is a voracious reader, and I have so much envy, moving in on jealousy for that, because I can’t finish anything. I carry around, like, five books at a time, but I’ve been carrying around the same five hoping I’ll get through the first one for about a year now. On this tour, every three days, I’ll pull out ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’ by Michael Chabon, and crack away at about ten pages, then fall asleep. Or I’ll put it away and watch Lost or something!

On producing…

I just try and make sure that if somebody’s excited about something, that there’s a microphone ready to get it, to keep the feeling of “anything can happen at any time” – if you’re into something, pick up an instrument and let’s do it, that’s cool. So trying to keep things moving, and also to try and foster this idea that nothing is sacred. If we put a ton of time and a ton of work into something, and four days later somebody’s not feeling something, and wants to veto it, that’s fine. We don’t have to erase it, but to take the reel off and put it in the other room.

On intelligent American satire…

‘The Colbert Report’ is pretty amazing. The thing that Colbert has nailed is the fact that his vehicle is the Fox news machine, the fact that he is playing the part of a pundit, it’s a Bill O’Reilly send-up, and it’s great, he’s so good at it, and he’s so smart. He’s kind of one of my heroes. When all we were fucking hearing about was Joe the Plumber, for a week and a half, it was the only thing coming out of John McCain or Sarah Palin’s mouth, he did this amazing thing – it was a Stephen Colbert comment, mock-supporting McCain for bringing Joe the Plumber to the people, and he said something like, “I, Stephen Colbert, am simply longing for a simpler time when we can identify everyone on the streets by the hats they wore. When people didn’t need real identities, last names…!”

On album art…

I met Emy Storey, who designed ‘Narrow Stairs’, by way of Tegan and Sara. She was really fun to work with, she works so fast, and gets so excited! The first time I saw it I gasped, and took it to everybody. They were like, “huh?”, but on second look, “yes!” It’s noisy and chaotic, but it’s not off-putting. There’s something really inviting about it to me, and I still can’t figure out what that is. It’s a collage and computerised. She was really intending that it’d be something buried in the cassette version of the record, if anything at all. It’s a really shitty little low-res jpeg, and she was mortified when we blew it up as a stage backdrop, the pixels are huge!

Britney Spears - Circus

2008-11-22T15:30:00.005Z

“For me, art is therapy, because it’s like you’re expressing yourself in such a spiritual way,” says Britney Spears in her forthcoming MTV documentary, ‘For The Record’. Such spirituality can be found in the video for ‘Womanizer’, the arch first single from ‘Circus’, as she writhes away her worries, naked and oil-slathered over some steaming hot coals.

But everyone knows you don’t listen to a pop album for spirituality, nor usually soul-searching – yet on ‘Circus’, Britney’s lived up to the public information announcement given at the start of the confident, paparazzi-baiting ‘Kill The Lights’ – “our very own pop princess, now Queen of Pop” has created an intelligent, honest (and most importantly, brilliantly danceable) record with an intrinsic duality – the chorus of ‘Blur’, where she sings, “can’t remember what I did last night”, could be anyone’s hangover - but Britney’s well-documented personal history, and sweet natural voice breaking through the raspy processing lends it a strata of sad frankness - it’s perhaps her most accomplished ballad to date.

‘Circus’ isn’t a record where Britney makes any bones about her newly rediscovered self-esteem – on the subliminally filthy ‘If U Seek Amy’ (do I have to spell it out?), she defiantly sings, “love me, hate me, say what you want about me”, her roboticized voice leading the synth-heavy artillery beneath; challenges pretenders to her throne on ‘Rock Me In’ (which sounds more than a little like DFA’s ‘North American Scum’), and never makes the rookie mistake of working with big-name producers who could upstage her by rapping their territory across her songs. ‘Mmm Papi’ sees a playful Britney giggling “let’s make out” over a jaunty guitar line and fizzy cymbal ting which tickle the edges of Bollywood OSTs, and ‘My Baby’ is a ballad to her children, which, despite being more sickly than a Christmas Quality Street overload, is the most honest song on the record, so personal it almost feels intrusive to listen.

On ‘Blackout’, we saw Britney goading and wildly confronting the eyes that follow her every move, but just over a year later, ‘Circus’ sees her take a more reflective turn on events. Although musically, it’s neither groundbreaking nor particularly innovative, it’s Britney’s bold, raised-eyebrow risqué delivery and refreshing honesty that might give dirty pop music the spiritual re-awakening that it’s long been in need of. Madonna, step down. Britney’s back.

7/10

Clinic @ Thekla, 13.11.08

2008-11-15T01:19:00.001Z

Clinic’s ‘Planetarium of the Soul’ visually-aided tour sounds pretty lofty; Stephen Hawking meeting Richard Dawkins in some sort of metaphysical microcosm perhaps, but definitely not pretentious close-up shots of redcurrants and vintage Spirograph toys. Billed as a “Brand New Happening” by Thom Yorke favourites, Clinic, Clemens Habicht’s apparently acclaimed visuals were just the start of a wildly underwhelming evening – violin/guitar/drums support Threatmantics’ guitarist’s doe-eyed attempted to eke out approval from the crowd like a child at a nativity play (a pretty epic fail considering the simplicity of his parts), and despite Clinic’s 11 years of experience and avant-garde recorded material, live, they’re a generic flogged indie horse – they have all of Brakes’ style and succinctness, but none of their jittery energy and visual magnetism, ‘The Witch’ borrows the riffs of their Domino brethren, Archie Bronson Outfit, and ‘Free Not Free’ could be any woozy west coast American band. And yet they’re still smirking behind their face masks – perhaps they’d be better off paying heed to the musical content of their live shows before focusing on gimmicky embellishments.

Russell Brand

2008-11-05T09:48:00.001Z

As the world’s “most famous teetotal vegetarian sex insect”, Russell Brand has irked and delighted with his verbose cockney patois, making him Britain’s most imitated export since Manuel himself. Post-Sachsgate, Brand has quit the BBC, and disappeared to America to perform stand-up and reprise his Hollywood success. So should we be rejoicing that he’s off our screens? Or mourning the disappearance of an unpredictable burgeoning talent in British entertainment?

It’s not at all difficult to see why many find Brand so profoundly irritating – his Edwardian pimp image pervades TV, radio, cinema, the press, and literature, and when working within the constraints of the primetime, he’s rehashing the same wildly-delivered but forced and tired lines – “swines”, “ballbags” and “Hare Krishna” to name but a few. But in a television climate where permasmiler Fearne Cotton and the languidly “hip” Alexa Chung and Alex Zane hold the fort, surely it’s refreshing to have a loose canon on the scene, whose every move isn’t predictable sycophancy (as is the wont of Sachsgate’s other victim, Jonathan Ross)? And who didn’t get a sniggering sense of Schadenfreude, watching the Jonas Brothers weep as Brand ridiculed their chastity rings?

Stephen Fry, on his superb blog, recently wrote of the “pheme” theory with regard to fame, whereby the celebrity doesn’t necessarily seek to be well-liked or well-known, but the very act of talking about them, even in a negative or scandalous sense, exacerbates their notoriety. Andrew Sachs’ burlesque dancer granddaughter certainly seems to have caught onto this notion (besides, who has sex with Russell Brand, lets on that their granddad is famous, and doesn’t expect it to materialise in the act of a man whose whole career rests on innuendo and rudery?), and despite their apparent outrage, Auntie Beeb has perpetuated this theory by employing Brand in the first place – after his sacking from MTV and XFM, it’s incredulous to believe that the BBC thought he would tone down his act. To an extent it’s a safe bet – he can never be held up for drinking, falling out of clubs or taking drugs, as it’s old news.

Whether you like sex-obsessive Brand or not, it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that the Daily Mail are the biggest criminals in this tale – if they’re so morally affronted at Brand’s behaviour, why do they constantly reinforce his image? Their incitement of mass hysteria, leading angry Mail Online surfers to kiss the arse of “national treasure Andrew Sachs” and sales of Brand’s collection of excellent Guardian columns to dwindle, is exponentially more offensive than calling a president “that retarded cowboy fella”.

W

2008-11-04T11:56:00.002Z

Following on from 1991’s ‘JFK’, and 1995’s ‘Nixon’, it was inevitable that Oliver Stone might turn his hand to the story of a president who could effortlessly match the aforementioned in terms of scandal and notoriety. Stone stated that with ‘W’, he wished to emulate the achievements of Stephen Frear’s 2006 film, ‘The Queen’, to track “seminal events in Bush’s life.” An admirable quest, but whereas his two previous presidential biopics came over twenty years after the events had passed, ‘W’ appears in the final thickets of Bush’s presidency and lame duck period, instantly placing question marks over the validity and detachment between director and subject matter.

Stone doesn’t help himself by making Brolin’s lines as Bush what Juno’s were to youth vernacular – peppered with constant “cockamamie” and “nukes”, his speeches are laboured from the offset, coming across as a hybrid between Jon Culshaw and the sniggering Beavis and Butthead. He’s not the only character portrayed as a caricature – Thandie Newton’s transformation into Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is aesthetically brilliant (perhaps the film’s sole chance at an Oscar nod for Best Makeup), but the tension in keeping Condie’s trademark bullfrog pout extends to the rest of her body, which twitches like a Thunderbird puppet. It doesn’t take long for the notorious Bush-isms to start spewing forth either – “they misunderestimated me”, “is our children learning?” – Stanley Weiser’s script reads like a sixth form parody. It’s manipulative, estimating conversations from behind closed doors, but recycling genuine quotations in an attempt to seek low-blow laughs.

The film’s portrayal of Bush fails to weigh up – as a headstrong Yale graduate, he’s full of bravado, keeping his cool in grotesque frat boy initiation ceremonies (which are obvious in their redolence of the torture images from Guantanamo Bay), and as a young man, he’s cocky, self-assured and adaptable, taking control of his father’s successful presidential campaign. However, following his conversion into a devout Christian, Stone paints him as a bumbling fool. It’s difficult to know what Stone wants to achieve – sympathy for the young Bush, always his father’s second favourite son? Sneering laughter, as President Dubya chokes on a pretzel, and has to have Cheney explain the statistical possibility of biological warfare using a sandwich as a metaphor? Or learned and retrospective disgust, as Bush and his Cabinet decide to go to war over his gut feeling that there are WMDs in Iraq?

As students, we’re told not to just re-narrate stories, but to evaluate and offer new interpretations. Perhaps singed by the negative reception which plagued his acknowledgement of conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy’s assassination in ‘JFK’, Stone fails to enlighten the audience to anything they wouldn’t already know, or challenge their preconceptions of Bush, despite promising that “it will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors”. The film’s discussion of the Patriot Act and the “axis of evil” goes too in-depth for any casual punters looking for Michael Moore-style sensationalism, but it’s far too much of a chronological superficial parody for close observers of the two Bush terms. The very fact that not only is Bush still alive, but he’s still (by the string of his teeth) in the position he’s being lampooned for makes the line between fact and artistic license difficult to blur – to what extent should the scripts be based on real life? Despite the film’s timely release, it offers no new perspective on the election process, its sole links being a mention of everyone’s favourite paradigm, Joe Voter, and George Sr. smirking as he approves the “naughty” smearing of Democrat rival Dukakis. There’s no intelligible end to the film, which only manages to point out the idiocy and contradictions of the Bush regime by being equally idiotic itself.

2/5

Githead at the Arnolfini, 29.10.08

2008-11-03T17:36:00.001Z

It’s pretty culturally demoralizing that as post-punk supergroup Githead play the Arnolfini to a modest gathering of mostly 40+ men reliving their youth, less than a mile away the Mighty Boosh play the Hippodrome to a sold-out audience of screaming young fans going crazy for Vince Noir and Howard Moon’s overhyped hipster capers. It’s all a question of musical education, and Githead’s performance is an history lesson in itself – you can hear obvious nods to the work of each member’s former bands (although they never satisfy the vociferous desires of some eccentric crowd members to play Wire songs) – Wire, Minimal Compact and Scanner - similarities with the work of Factory Records (Joy Division, A Certain Ratio), Jesus and Mary Chain-esque walls of sound, and, despite Robin Rimbaud’s berating of the laptop for being “a really slow drummer!”, Battles would surely be proud to call Githead’s frenetic percussion their own. Next time you’re about to sit down for an evening with the Boosh, why not dig out Simon Reynold’s thorough account of post-punk, ‘Rip It Up and Start Again’ and realize what you’re missing instead.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year

2008-10-23T01:53:00.002+01:00

So, High School Musical 3, where the buff and glistening Troy (Zac Efron) turns to smack, gets expelled from East High, and pimps out Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) to feed his addiction. If only. It seems pointless to criticize HSM for the very reasons it became this pithy market-conquering phenomenon, but there’s something repulsively pious about Disney’s insistence that the Albuquerque high school remain completely devoid of sex (despite the perspiring homoeroticism throughout)– surely even the most conservative of mothers wouldn’t be offended by the leads sharing the odd kiss? Instead, the Wildcat golden couple are the frustrating human embodiments of magnets repelling one another, their emotions symbolised by the most trite of weather metaphors – from thunderstorms to dancing in the rain with youthful abandon.

It’s Disney through and through, thus by rights has incredibly high production values, aided by a considerably bigger budget for its move to the big screen – the set pieces are extravagant, and an electric visual magnetism perpetuates the whole film (it’s impossible to avert your eyes from the horror) – but the musical numbers which made the franchise’s name are weak, and heavily indebted – ‘A Night To Remember’ is ripped directly from Daniel Bedingfield’s ‘James Dean’, and ‘The Boys Are Back’ is ‘Greased Lightning’ for a post-JT generation – and tainted by brassy vocoder-ridden pitchiness, embarrassingly X Factor key changes, and sharp insights like “high school wasn’t meant to last forever”. Sadly, Disney obviously think high school should be never-ending – a fourth film is in the works. There’s hope yet for the smack storyline.

3/10

Interview: Foals

2008-10-19T17:52:00.001+01:00

In January, NME got it right, naming them one of eleven “New Noise” bands that would come to define 2008. (They also cited the Ting Tings and Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, but that’s by the by). But now, towards the culmination of an expansive 18-month tour that’s taken them around the world more than once, Foals seem weary of the lazy genre-appending hype lavished upon them.

“We’re all going to run away, not talk to each other, and write on our own, do side projects,” says Yannis Philippakis, switching between brushing the curly black asymmetric mop that straddles his Greek and musical heritage out of his eyes, and ash trails off of his ripped black jeans. “We never intended for Foals to be this monolithic, all-consuming thing that took over our lives, but it’s been very much the centre of our existence for a long time. Once we’ve finished the tour, it’ll make for a better record. It’s very easy to become part of this “rock world” where all that matters is your band – you end up crushing it, and becoming self-absorbed.”

Self-absorbed is hardly an accusation that’s easy to level at the Oxford-based quintet. The evening after the interview, the band play to a sold-out audience at Bristol’s Carling Academy, a gig they kick off with five minutes of Krautrock-indebted intensity that confirms the band’s intuitive nature. They stand as a five-pointed star, sporadically illuminated, looking inward at each other. How many other album chart-bothering bands would brave potentially alienating a hysterically excited audience in favour of launching straight into a crowd-pleasing hit? They teasingly drop hints to the interlude of ‘Cassius’, injecting the intertwining high-fretted motifs that have become a staple on indie dancefloors with heavier, more industrial explosive drumming, suggesting that ‘Antidotes’ could have been more of a brother to Battles’ ‘Mirrored’ than their supposed new-rave cousins Klaxons’ ‘Myths of the Near Future’.

“We seem to get slotted into pretty much every new genre – math rock, new-rave, Afrobeat – I find it funny. I think the next record will be a progression, but the fundamental chemistry between the five of us – I’d be wary of tampering with it too much,” says Yannis. “Some elements of the sound will remain the same, instinctively Foals, always with a big rhythmic emphasis.” Conversely, the singles that characterized their sound were left off of ‘Antidotes’ – namely ‘Mathletics’ and ‘Hummer’, laying bare an unwillingness to conform to expectations that has permeated their reputation. The most obvious example of this came with the band’s decision to abandon David Andrew Sitek’s original working of ‘Antidotes’ in favour of remixing it themselves. Philippakis was quoted as saying that Sitek made the record sound as though it had been recorded “in the Grand Canyon”. What with the TV on the Radio guitarist being the indie producer du jour, lending his talents to cultural luminaries such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Scarlett Johansson, wasn’t it a risky move to discard his work?

“I meant my comments about our dissatisfaction with ‘Antidotes’ in almost a positive way – in the sense that we can be better, that there’s an element of being unfulfilled. If you’re satisfied with what you make, surely the creative process is at an end. Unless David Sitek releases it as part of a box set – NME would call him “the greatest super producer!” – it’s not ever going to be released.” He puffs on an asthma inhaler, apologises, and continues, “If money and record labels were no issue, I wouldn’t have released Antidotes. I think we’ll be better at making records next time around, it’s been a pretty weird year.”

However much they attempt to escape the conventional, there’s one aspect of being in a band that Yannis seems totally at home with – the attention lavished on them by fans. He prowls along the monitors, tilting over the crowd, before launching his tiny frame over the photo pit and drowning in a sea of fans. There’s no denying the significance of this band to their followers – groups of neon paint-daubed teenagers (mostly girls) congregate outside the Academy from midday, and after the gig a girl exclaims to a friend that “they were inspirational, that’s the power of music right there.” Something in the imprecise despondency of lyrics such as, “these wasps’ nests in your head, these terminals in your head, these heart swells” makes it easy for anyone in the throes of angst and upset to adapt Foals into their own personal metaphor, visible as the crowd steal the words to ‘Cassius’ from under Yannis’ self-effacing on-stage stance.

He’s unambiguous when it comes to being comfortable with the power of influencing their younger audiences.

“Yep. Definitely,” says Yannis without hesitation. “If kids are at our shows and get to see bands like Holy Fuck instead of listening to bands like The Teenagers, then I see that only as a good thing. We feel at least that we have some sort of responsibility to promote some music that we feel might not otherwise get attention. We came from that same background, we had a lucky break – becoming more accepted, more mainstream, and there’s a lot of luck involved in that.”

Signed to Transgressive Records in 2006, Foals became mooted as the Next Big Thing^TMfollowing a performance at industry festival, South By South West, that caused music website Drowned in Sound to name them “a live tour de force, a band capable of twitching toes…disassembling modern indie-rock and redesigning it using broken rulers and shredded blueprints”. An appearance on Skins sent them stratospheric within the indie mainstream, and a US deal with Sub Pop buttressed their credibility within the Pitchfork community.

As for the next step, aside from piecing together the jigsaw loops that will form the predecessor to ‘Antidotes’, there’s a slight chance of a collaboration with one of the band’s most important influences – minimalist pioneer Steve Reich.

“We’ll see what happens when we stop touring. It’s difficult – I heard the first movement, it’s hard to play. None of us read music, so we’d have to tab it. If it didn’t happen, it’d be more due to our other commitments than not feeling capable, but we would have to dedicate a lot of time to it. I hope it happens, but at the moment it looks bleak.” You get the impression that Foals feel cheated – after a year of success based on an album they weren’t happy with, they still feel obliged to conform and release a second album while the iron’s still hot rather than pursuing pleasure projects. They neatly finish the year where they started – playing a homecoming show in Oxford, and at the end of the evening’s gig, aided by tour-mates Danananakroyd, they unleash a cathartic and symbolic destruction of the stage that suggests the end of this era is in sight. “See you in a year,” mumbles Yannis into the microphone. That should be about enough time for lazy journalists to come up with a new asinine genre to lump them into.

Anni Rossi, James Blackshaw, and the Ensemble Drones at Redland Park United Reformed Church, Bristol, 18th October 2008

2008-10-19T12:58:00.004+01:00

There’s something about drinking beer in a church that feels inherently wrong, particularly when surrounded by the friendly vestiges of church life; framed vicars smiling down from photos, and patchwork community projects about the walls. However, reverence is restored when the first bowed guitar of Duane Pitre’s Ensemble Drones trembles to the rafters, chasing the ebb and flow of blood through our veins. Violins, cellos, a harmonium and an accordion coax up the hairs on the back of necks the room over, inducing a strange physical tranquility that feels something akin to a warm head massage. The orchestra breathes and billows, hiccupping occasionally with the breathless parp of a clarinet, or voice-broken squeak of a violin, as light glints off the 14-strong orchestra like a starry constellation in the dark sepia magnificence of the church.

James Blackshaw’s 12-stringed fluidity recalls Radiohead’s lighter pessimistic moments, and is far softer live than on record (although punctuated by the fizz and crack of beer cans being opened periodically). His modest shyness is counterbalanced by the impassioned whooping and standing ovations at the end of each song – it’s a performance that could definitely see him join the Joanna Newsom-led roster of contemporary artists pushing the boundaries of folk. It’s safe to say that the cold, wood-backed pews of the church certainly weren’t responsible for sending shivers down spines this evening.

Anni Rossi is the first vocal act of the evening, her bobbing and weaving voice standing strong through an unusually (but pleasingly) swampy and dramatic sounding viola. She forgoes spindly stringed delicacy to adopt a tone more similar to that of Do Make Say Think, tapping out a beat on her stompbox, and trilling her lips as she sings of snow and deteriorating sentiment. Vocally, she’s a lot like Regina Spektor, with the same impetuous high pitch saving a song about liking “freezer pops and freezer units” from becoming overly twee. She sings “if I were to crack in half you would see, all of my bones and all of my teeth” so softly that the macabre image stands out a mile, and encores with a Nouvelle Vague-esque cover of The Cure’s In Between Days. They say you shouldn’t worship false icons, but a whole load of praise is indebted to these magical performers for such a beautiful evening.

Interview: Sara Quin

2008-10-15T01:56:00.002+01:00

If we lived in a just world, eating chocolate would make you lose weight, Kerry Katona would actually be working in Iceland, and Tegan and Sara would have been bothering the charts for some time now, given their cutely curious love songs, jesting sisterly repartee, and inherent self-worth which ignores all the narrow-minded maligning that they’re just “Canadian Lesbian Twins.”

In the ten years they’ve been peddling their wares, the quipping Quins have gone from post-riot grrrl acoustic punksters, to synth sweethearts covered by The White Stripes, and all round Good Eggs – their fifth album, The Con, features echoing paeans to the gay marriage debate, alongside disquieted thunderstorm-loud electronic crashes, and a plucky way with words all registering on the Joanna Newsom side of the sound scale. We had a chat to Sara about cocks, crying and critics…this is why we love them:

They couldn’t give a flying banana about what chauvinistic critics think

“NME reviewed our record twice, the first time giving it a positive review, then a really shit one the second time round – they said we were “only a modicum edgier than Kelly Clarkson”. I didn’t realise publications do that! The thing that bothers me about it is that this guy obviously thinks we’re the lamest, most boring regurgitated easy listening music, whereas he probably just doesn’t like what he thinks he knows about us. For our last record, they said that it was good despite the fact we “don’t like cock”. We sent them a press release immediately after, telling them how much we really love cock, so that was completely inaccurate!”

They’re relentlessly giving to their fans, even though they don't always return the favour...

"We’ve already done over 120 shows on this album, been out for over 200 days and we’re exhausted. I love playing music, and if there were Workaholics Anonymous, I would be at the front of that room! Early on, Tegan and I realised, especially when we started to get a little older than our audience, that we were role models for some kids. They weren’t just coming to hear music, but to see us, and what they see in us is what I saw in people like Ani DiFranco and Kathleen Hanna - outspoken honesty, and vulnerability. Fans show up hours before shows so they can all hang out with each other - they’re a community, and I think that’s awesome. If we can give them more access to us than they’re used to getting from other bands and people, I think the only danger is that when you do want to withhold or disappear a little, there’s a guilt. But on the other hand, when they start shouting, "I love you!", "take your shirt off!" you think, well did you come here to see me pole dance, or to sing the songs from the five albums I've put out?! It’s not a bad problem, but I don’t show up at your job, and ask you to take your clothes off while filing those papers!"

They're savvy business women, signed to a major label, but still in complete creative control

"When we went over to Sire/Warner, people thought we’d compromise what we do. I know bands who have no control over anything, nothing at all – their album artwork, their ads – Tegan and I control EVERYTHING, every little detail that we can. In five albums, there’s not been one record company person who's asked to listen to a track before it gets released – people have always given us money no matter what. We set the guidelines, and we control everything! I would never be ok with being censored. For the White Stripes to record and release their cover of Walking With A Ghost, we had to give them permission, but they can do whatever they want! When they finished recording it, we were on tour, passing through Detroit, and Meg came down and gave us the song, hung out with us, and said, “we hope you like it!” Even if we had thought it was shit, we wouldn’t have cared, it’s like, “oh my god, the White Stripes are covering our music!” "

They're not jumping on the political bandwagon; they actually know their stuff

"It’s warped – the class divide, racism, millions of people who are illiterate and have no health care, who really struggle. It's really shocking, that tens of millions of people don’t have insurance and can just die, not being able to be helped. I don’t understand a government that just turns its back on its people. And if the Democrats get into power, maybe we’ll finally see civil unions be legalised in America. I don’t think that Canada was necessarily ready for gay marriage, but the liberal government was listening, and the Prime Minister at the time, Paul Martin, gave a very profound speech. He said, “there is a time, as leaders, where we have to say, this is what we’re doing, this is fair. And the population may not agree, but we have to, as leadership, progressively advance this forward.” I’m hoping that as a bare minimum, with a democratic government, they'll recognise the rights of people in same-sex relationships – people who’ve been in these relationships for decades, they die, and their partners aren’t entitled to severance packages, they get their children taken away from them, and it’s outrageous. It goes against everything that most of us as human beings stand for, so I’m hoping that they will, god willing, move forward on that."

Like a true 80s child, Sara's not afraid to cry at Madonna

"In my time off, I went and saw Madonna play, and I hadn’t been to an arena show in ten years – everything I listen to is indie rock, or hip-hop in smaller venues – but I went and saw Madonna, and I cried! I actually cried! Totally didn’t expect to! It was so loud, and so thrilling, when everyone cheered and she came out, I was overwhelmed. I don’t think I was crying in a sad way, but I had total sensory overload!"

Lykke Li at the Thekla, 6.10.08

2008-10-10T00:07:00.003+01:00

(photo by Leah Pritchard)

There’s a guy like Big Jeff at every gig; flailing around to the quietest ballads, rubbing their sweaty paunch on your face, and annoying everyone, but there’s the rare occasion they actually psyche up a flagging artist and transform the evening. “You have to stop dancing so much, I’m going to crack up!” giggles Lykke Li surprisingly, after singing ‘Melodies and Desires’ to her feet. Subject to a relentless tour since November 2007, you can’t blame her for being subdued, but suddenly she’s transformed; furiously thrashing a cymbal during ‘I’m Good I’m Gone’ with her left hand, and cutting jagged shapes with the other. She jumps to the floor during ‘Dance Dance Dance’ (for a face-off with Jeff), pumping her shoulders, reminiscent of pioneering XX-chromosomed dignitaries from new wave notable Lizzy Mercier Descloux to Bat For Lashes and Camille. The frustrated mews of ‘Little Bit’ float through the cage of her elbows, she clutches the air, frowning like a doe interrupted by headlights, but then breaks into the Justice-esque playground sing-along of ‘Breaking It Up’, slinking into A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Can I Kick It?’ Yes you can, Li. Maybe even better than Jeff can.

Interview: Lee May Foster of the Bonbi Forest Indie Emporium

2008-10-06T11:29:00.007+01:00

These days it’s nigh on impossible to buy any decent high street clothing without playing second fiddle to some Grazia-glorified celebrity, spotted paying their dues to Topshop in a vain attempt to retain that “girl next door” allure. And what with every which wagon-dismounting celebrity lending their name to a clothing range (Lindsay Lohan’s absurdly expensive leggings; Lauren Conrad’s pitifully plain “couture”), it’s a genuine relief to discover DIY, independent designers creating apparel for those of us who remain unphased by Agyness Deyn’s usurping of Kate Moss’ best dressed throne. Thrust into the limelight by the Chicago-based online community Threadless in 2000, the trend for independent design has intensified sufficiently that numerous designers have been able to abandon their day jobs, and wholly dedicate their efforts to the creation of exciting, eccentric designs a million miles away from the laughably generic designs of Topshop et al.

One of the frontrunners of the sparsely-populated UK scene is multi-talented Cornwall-based designer, Lee May Foster, who, at the age of 27, not only commandeers her own line of limited edition jewellery and t-shirts (as Bonbi Forest), but owns and directs the Bonbi Forest Indie Emporium, an online store selling tantalizing and quintessential wares of likeminded designers from around the world.

“Originally, Bonbi Forest existed as its own individually branded shop, but after a while, I realized I was struggling to fill the shop all the time, so I decided to expand. Consignment was the most suitable option available, whereby designers send me their things, and I sell them for a percentage of the cost,” says Lee May, sat in her neat white, sunlit studio, a farm outhouse transformed into an orderly haven of mood boards, inspiring CDs (as we speak, iTunes flits from electronic post-rock outfit Mice Parade to Mirah), and treasures waiting to be uploaded to her pretty, scrapbook-style website.

A vast number of Cornish designers draw inspiration from the pervading coastal heritage of the county (here, you’re never further than 12 miles from the sea), but Brighton-educated Bonbi Forest’s illustrations admiringly revere the county’s woodland mysteries, beasts and Celtic heritage. Woodland creatures gallivant through her illustration-based designs with ephemeral intricacy, the elegant lines of her deer motifs are as fleeting as a glimpse of the creature itself, and her charming willowy birds evoke the twitchy effervescence of Cy Twombly and the late Robert Rauschenberg’s work. It’s no surprise that she describes herself as “always having been a big animal fan” – her horse is stabled nearby, birds chatter inquisitively with the fake taxidermy on her windowsill, and the family’s beloved creaky old dog Jay Jay keeps a sleepy eye on proceedings from the conservatory.

Another huge boost to her label has been the creative partnership with Brighton-based musician Bat For Lashes, aka Natasha Kahn, who in the space of a year has been nominated not only for two Brit Awards, but also the Mercury Music Prize, one of Britain’s most prestigious and culturally reflective accolades. They became lasting friends at university in Brighton, Lee May studying Fine Art Painting; Natasha Film and Music, and combined their respective heritages to establish the band’s mysterious imagery of majestic animal hierachies under the spell of a full moon.

Despite drawing influences from an unfettered Cornish landscape, Lee May has contrastingly also taken advantage of the internet’s many benefits.

“Everyone says with Web 2.0 that everyone can be someone, but if you use the internet wisely, you can start to infiltrate people's ways of life without going over the top. I get customers from all over - Hawaii's the furthest west, and Japan and Australia the furthest east! Without Myspace and Facebook, I wouldn't have been able to reach out to those people as easily, I'd have to have had massive targeted campaigns, which wouldn’t fit with my business ethos.”

With tens of thousands of international visitors to her website each month (that number increasing without resistance), and gaining second place in American website Fred Flare’s Next Big Thing contest (think a higher profile contemporary site, showcasing cutesy clothes, trinkets and fripperies), Lee May is well on the way to realising her dream where the Bonbi Forest Indie Emporium becomes the biggest website of its kind in the UK.

“I’d like to establish more of a community around the site. A “bricks and mortar” shop would be lovely, but there are expenses involved. The nice thing about the online shop is that it runs itself, and that I can spend the rest of the time in the studio, drawing and making things. I love the DIY scene – the idea of people getting really passionate about something, regardless of its commercial prospects. It’s exciting to see creativity utilized in a really positive way.”

Import/Export

2008-10-06T11:29:00.005+01:00

The press may constantly highlight our country’s economic and social inadequacies, but it seems we have a lot to be grateful for after seeing Import/Export, a beautifully shot look at just how bleak life can be, and the lengths people go to to afford so little. Olga leaves her baby and the Ukraine behind, to find work as a nanny, a “live” on-demand internet porn worker, then eine Putzfrau (cleaning lady) on a geriatric ward. Director Ulrich Seidl authenticates these painfully affecting scenes by using what are ostensibly non-actors; frail old ladies muttering blindly to god, and playful men who pinch the nurse’s bottom. He switches, vignette-like, between Olga and Paul, machine-like in physicality and searching for personal “harmony”, but instead stuck working for his stepfather, a coarse man who tries to prove that money is power by taunting a 19 year-old prostitute. Seidl never shies away from discomfort or uncompassionate characterisation, focusing in on the violence inherent in desire (a customer riles angrily at Olga to “stick [her] finger in [her] asshole”), the fallen glory of old men having their nappies changed, and teeth removed as punishment, and the heartbreaking sight of Olga singing through silent tears about a starry wonderful life down the phone to her baby. Makes you think how much worse things really could be.

8/10

Islands at the Cooler, 03.10.08

2008-10-06T11:28:00.001+01:00

It’s hard to order the worst bands you’ve ever seen live, but Bristolians Sid Delicious would definitely be a contender. All buzzwords and formulaic song titles (“Vinyl”, and the neither seductive nor enticing “Synthesize Me”), their hackneyed and inarticulate Mark E Smith meets David Byrne polemic about the vacuous nature of modern culture backfires into accidental postmodernism as they perpetuate every cliché they’re mocking. Married to the Sea are to The Hold Steady what The Kooks are to The Kinks, bland and largely unremarkable, so it’s a relief when Islands slink onto the stage, in uniform black and with infinitely more energy and affinity than either of their predecessors. They’re as fun in spirit as The Unicorns, but the long set is marred by painful volume levels, exacerbated by the violins slicing precise oozing wounds to our ears. Pieces of You channels the nautical and mariachi, Don’t Call Me Whitney Bobby hasn’t aged in its 16 years, and The Arm should have been a perfect high note on which to end. Instead, the violinist throws chains against the ceiling, and they tease us with potential endings, but every crescendo crashes into noodly interludes or krautrock-esque lulls.

(6/10)

End of the Road 2008

2008-09-16T16:40:00.001+01:00

It’s a testament to End of the Road organisers Sofia Hagberg and Simon Taffe that not even the festival’s most professionally melancholy acts could contain their merriment at playing amongst peacocks, enchanted forests and parrots in the beautiful Larmer Tree Gardens, with everyone from Bon Iver to Warren Ellis singing EOTR’s praises. Squirreled away down the rabbit warren lanes of the Dorset border, this wonderland infant festival managed to command an amazing roster, and sell all 5000 tickets whilst keeping its friendly ethics and atmosphere intact. Canada’s The Acorn hit on a slightly guilty note, commenting, “so this is where white people come from”, but lifted the mood with their comfortable woodsy snow-capped songs (although they’re the first of the weekend’s bands to not do their album much justice). A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s intense jarring Baltic folk was sadly lost a little to the leafy heights of the Garden Stage and the drizzly afternoon, and the augmented band clustered together in a corner of the stage.

The many nooks and crannies of the festival only upped the charm quotient, from watching parents getting carried away in the kids’ bhangra dancing workshop to giggling whilst a hokey “peace healing practitioner” conned a gullible family into a trip around the woods to massage each other’s auras. Back on the Garden Stage, Bon Iver’s natural candour and emotional understatement made for many a lump in the throat, breaking away from his falsetto for a new organ-led song, Blood Bank, about “finding yourself trapped in the snow with someone you’re meeting for the first time”. This apparently is one of his last gigs touring For Emma, Forever Ago, and this aching song of missed opportunity and awkward encounters is an auspicious sign of what’s to come. His songs climb from burning embers to cloud-piercing firecrackers with The Wolves, the audience shivering as they sing “what might have been lost”, beaming with awe at our own mellifluous intensity. Brightonian Sons of Noel and Adrian, a self-professed “musical centipede”, are reminiscent of a more folk, less neurosis Arcade Fire, with their huge vocal harmonies and chorus of whistling glowing like the spirits in the woods, perfect for relaxing on a bin bag (as much as is possible) in the morning wake of far too much hot spiced cider the night before.

Low play what should have been a triumphant set, sad and redolent, with Dinosaur Act and Sunflower amongst others, but as the sky darkens so does Alan Sparhawk’s mood. He bitterly asks the audience if they’ve ever had a day where “everyone you love tells you that they hate you?”, and ends the set by violently hurling his guitar across the heads of the front row. Miraculously, no-one was hurt, but although the owner of the mangled instrument went away beaming, many of the audience left silenced with concern for his emotional wellbeing. It was an evening where many seemed let down by their heroes, as Sun Kil Moon followed with an esoteric, grumpy and indulgent set. Someone shouted, “play Glen Tipton”, to which an ostensibly bored Mark Kozelek replied, “jeez, three songs in and you’re criticizing me already?” Yep, three songs, and half an hour. However, their aloof monotony makes it even easier to be charmed by the cute, but never twee dancing of The Chap, who brought joyous angular poppy krautrock to The Local stage. They borrowed from Fujiya and Miyagi’s delicious cornered pronunciation, and Devo’s arch deadpan outlook on life, their manifesto for “proper songs about girls and clubbing!” making them a jolly good fun antidote to the weekend’s weightier bands.

The goofy fun streak shines brightly in Sunday afternoon’s bands too; The Wave Pictures aren’t particularly innovative, but frontman David Tattersall’s bashfulness at potentially offending his mum, and their slinky-like lyrical bounce lead nicely into Kimya Dawson’s busy set. She cuts an altogether different figure above the magic eye-esque sea of of checked shirts before her, starting bashfully with a song from her new album of songs for children, a cutesy actioned tale about bears which delights the beaming families in the crowd. Unbeknownst to them, it’s probably all a giant metaphor for skag. The parents in the crowd are quick to cover their spawn’s ears as she starts Alphabutt, the A-Z of animal poop – “d is for doody…f is for fart”, and the humour turns more puerile, comprising some staple festival Bush bashing, and her polite decline to ride an audience member’s cock. She completely epitomises the childlike wonder of the festival, and it’s brilliant to watch adults sniggering like Beavis and Butthead at the toilet humour inherent in her set.

Jason Molina is impossibly well presented given the gloopy mud, and slightly disappointing – he does little to lift the spirits – it’s more of a fan’s gig than anything likely to convert anyone, which is a shame considering the wealth of his back catalogue. Another berserk shift in tone comes from Bob Log III, who looks like Boba Fett phoning adult chat lines, and roars like Billy Childish should. His one-man band schtick and thankfully very layered striptease are funny for five minutes, but we escape before any mention of dipping a boob in his Scotch, bewildered at the reverie surrounding him. Both Darren and Jack Play Hefner, and Jeffrey and Jack Lewis are spirited manolescents, followed by the majestic grandeur of Calexico. The muddy camaraderie of the festival extends to a member of the crowd buying them a round of steaming ciders, which are subsequently passed around the front rows. Were it not so teeth-chatteringly cold, there’s no doubt that everyone would have been on his or her feet. Brakes end the festival on a frenetic, wired high, with Eamon Hamilton bringing his new wife on stage to sing Jackson (so new in fact that she seemed still to be wearing her wedding dress), and Comma Comma Comma Full Stop seems the perfect definitive cue to bite the cake reading “Eat Me” and slope back to reality.

Last Summer in Gothenburg...

2008-08-31T14:43:00.003+01:00

“So, what made you decide to go to Gothenburg?” enquired my family. At this point, I could have fabricated an elaborate admiration of a country that has resisted the onslaught of the Euro, and a lifelong fascination with trams and Abba. However, truth prevailed, and I had to admit that it was the result of a slightly inebriated game of “pin the tail on the Ryan Air cheap flights map”, with a little help from Gothenburg native Jens Lekman’s album, Night Falls Over Kortedala (which happens to be at the end of our tram line). But as we cycle serenely across a city basking in midnight silence, the cool air off the Göteborg Älv brushing our faces and the curvaceous reflection of the Operan swimming in our eyes, I’m convinced this is the start of a Scandinavian love affair.

Our hostel, Slottsskogen Vandrarhem, in inauspicious concrete turns out to be a bustling haven of Erasmus students frantically apartment searching, Asian backpackers blogging their experiences on Macbooks in the corner of the friendly book-laden lounge, the heart of the hostel, and noisy German school children (who one morning meet their comeuppance playing knock-a-door down the corridor, waking up an unimpressed 6ft 4 Finnish goth). We make friends with our Parisien roommate, Pauline, who takes us to a tacky but fun club in the heart of the city. We’d read that alcohol in Scandinavia is supposed to be extortionate, but a five hour long Happy “Hour” (about £2.20 a drink) left us sated when the prices jumped back up to 48SEK (about £4.30).

Belying its metropolitan status, the city is closed for business from about 4pm Saturday, and the whole of Sunday, so we borrow bikes free of charge from the hostel (“here’s three sets of keys – if you can make the bikes work, you can take them,” says the trusting girl at reception in perfect English), and meanderingly cycle sunkissed down 12km of clapboard coast to Saltholmen (from the air, the houses look as though they’re made from Port Salut), the ferry port for the Southern Archipelago, a cluster of eight verdant islands not dissimilar to the Isles of Scilly (but where the Scillonian costs close to £100, this ferry was £1.20). To say that we’re amateur cyclists would be far overstating our prowess on the pedals, but the clearly marked cycle paths and sit-up Dutch bikes make for an easy ride, with few mishaps other than chains flying off at high speed. We hop off the boat at peaceful Vrannö, the smallest island, comprising 382 residents (although we’re not sure where they were), a fleet of curious bicycles with huge loading pallets mounted on the front, and a crystal clear, unfettered coastline. We ferry back, and cycle a more direct route home, through Slottsskogen Park, where we see penguins, parrots and pelicans (and other animals that don’t begin with the letter P). Sweden is apparently in the midst of a baby boom, evident by the number of men made all the more handsome by the babies papoosed to their fronts. Whole families cycle together, and the sight of giddy blonde children racing down cobbled streets is affirming – we don’t see an advert for Wii all week.

Everyone had told us how expensive Sweden is, but the only things we pay for are food (the same price as in England), and travel – we spent 100SEK (about £8) on a joint travel card, and after taking 12 trips on it, still £2 remained when we left – beat that, National Rail!). Museums are free as we’re under 25 (not that they ever wanted to check – we were shrugged through without even the promise of ID), and really challenged our preconceptions of Sweden’s national identity (which, to be fair, we had guiltily only gleaned from Eurovision, Ikea, and Swedish pop music).

Our metonymic association of Ikea as representative of Sweden is certainly swayed – the fascinating Röhsska Museet contains a chronological exhibition of furnishings, with every corner questioning what constitutes Swedish design. When the exhibition reaches the seventies, great heed was paid to flat pack design, and the ugly uniform hegemony of homes across the world, with their generic Billy bookcases and Oslo beds. There definitely seemed to be an artistic rebellion against Ikea’s usurping of the homeware market, from Design Torget – a chainstore paradoxically dedicated to showcasing and selling the work of independent Nordic designers – to the beautiful and varying typography throughout the city (Times New Roman and Comic Sans seem unofficially banned from the city’s signage, thankfully).

With its beautiful, stoic university buildings and the romantic village feel of Haga’s cobbled streets, Gothenburg is reminiscent of Oxford and Paris, yet never feels pretentious, or that it’s trying to conform to rose-tinted expectations of how a city should be, it’s casually dismissive of trends, and artlessly welcoming both aesthetically and in spirit. On Monday evening, exhausted after walking miles through the town, we collapse waiting for a tram at Järntorget, and spot a club called Pustervik, advertising a “Pingisklubben” for that evening. A quick Babelfish search on the hostel’s free internet tells us that this is a ping-pong night (and mentions cottages and babies…never trust internet translations!), so we group together with six Germans, a Dutch guy, an Australian, a Lithuanian and an Italian for one of the funniest evenings I’ve ever had. Pingis is a ping-pong table in the middle of the room, with 20 paddles passed around the crowd – everyone takes one hit at a time, going out when you miss or hit the ball off the table, all to the tune of Radiohead, Sigur Ros, and Lykke Li amongst others. As more people go out, the remaining players run doggedly faster and faster around the table, eventually leaving two players to battle it out. We stumble home, to find a new girl asleep in our room, and she’s gone by morning. It reminds me of Lost In Translation, hotel rooms providing the possibility for romantic surprising encounters with people in a similar state of culture shock.

Tuesday takes us and a new Dutch friend around the city’s numerous museums, with highlights including a skateboard exhibition at the Röhsska, and Tomorrow Always Belongs To Us, a showcase of 11 young Nordic artists, whose work ranges from flashing light installations that you’re supposed to watch with your eyes shut, to lifesize gnarled papier maché humanoids twisted under the weight of their self-imposed capitalistic chaos. The museum is an aesthete’s dream, and a brilliant film called Surplus: Terrified Into Consumerism, by Swedish director Erik Gandini catches our eye – set to music by the Gotan Project, and other slippy techno/dubstep beats, he samples and loops excerpts of his interviews with people in the throes of consumerism, lip synching Cuban leader Fidel Castro into saying “I LOVE THIS COMPANY!”, taken from the sloppy mouth of a sweaty, hyped up Microsoft motivational speaker. We’re in stitches, and have to tear ourselves away before the museum shuts.

For our last night in the city, we decide to have a barbeque in the gorgeous Slottsskogen Park, surrounded by babbling ducks and our proud bikes silhouetted against the lake. We promise one another that we will definitely be playing “pin the tail on the Ryan Air flight map” again, for the thrill of the unexpected and the secret internal pride at our intrepid international trailblazing – we feel like pioneers, and leave Scandinavia’s biggest port exporting excited memories as our cargo.

I am in love with Sweden.

Mamma Mia

2008-08-08T16:56:00.004+01:00

That the two biggest chick flicks of the decade contain subtle allusions to the economic recession should be wholly implausible, but where the Sex and the City film was a climactic exhibition of material excess in the face of the credit crunch, Mamma Mia retorts with a “make do and mend” attitude familiar to the older generation, gently ridiculing its sole socialite and her moisturiser containing “flakes of 24 carat gold and extract of donkey testicle, at $1000 a dollop”. That’s not to say it constitutes cutting edge social commentary by any stretch of the imagination – it’s a film so saccharine and wholesome that the off-key singing of the protagonists is as close at it gets to gritty realism. In case you’re blissfully unaware of the plot, wide-eyed and fatherless Sophie (a spry Amanda Seyfried) is getting married to Sky (Dominic Cooper, who’s about as dreamy and exotic as an Any Dream Will Do contestant), and using covert information gleaned from her mother’s diary, has invited along the three men who could potentially be her father. Cue hilarious conversations at cross purposes and far too much menopausal camel toe for anyone in their right mind to stomach, all to the tune of ABBA’s finest…
There’s a great deal to loathe about this film (not least the soundtrack if you’re not an ABBA fan), from the horrible soft-focus cinematography to the repetitive pratfalls into the glorious Mediterranean, and the pithy script (particularly Pierce Brosnan’s polemic about respecting the rights of the father). The casting is as off-key as the singing – Colin Firth is so embarrassingly unconvincing as a gay man that come the end of the film, the director included an apologetic slow-mo homage to Pride and Prejudice where the abundance of wet-shirted men is in direct inverse proportion to the amount of sex appeal Firth exudes here. It suffers a lack of balance, dedicating little time to the relationship between Sky and Sophie (although we should be grateful for small mercies – their relationship makes that of Troy and Vanessa from High School Musical look transcendent and intense), and its only success at subtly acknowledging Greek mythology (shoehorned in by director Phyllida Lloyd at every opportunity) comes with faintly disturbing shades of the Electra complex that Sophie threatens to develop against Donna pre-wedding.

However (and it’s an extremely begrudged however), Mamma Mia’s greatest success lies in its impeccable knowledge of its target audience – the older generation (or the “BBC crowd” as the film’s marketing manager labelled them)- and part of the film’s indirect charm is to see largely senior audiences one minute acting giddy as school girls (you’ve never heard anything like the screams when the male contingent appear in shiny blue leotards), the next empathising with Donna’s self-confessed technophobia, then cooing with grandmotherly affection as the youth make impassioned decisions. It’s visually addictive HRT, and an older crowd will appreciate a cast that’s not American by majority.
Your average teenager understands that singing in front of people is a mortifying pastime reserved for delusional X Factor contestants, public displays of affection are for saps, and that you should never trust a girl who says her mother is her best friend - but for the older generation, the sentimental decency of the plot recalls a time when entertainment came from making the best of what you had, and not compensating for emotional voids with capricious capitalism. It’s good clean fun, with old favourite Julie Walters delivering the film’s sharpest and most risqué line – when discussing Donna’s sex life in a cringeworthy scene starring a power drill (no prizes for interpreting that metaphor), she upholds that “it’s just more plumbing to be maintained”, and often steals the show with her wired delivery and unabashed willingness to send herself up in the stickiest of situations.

Only people who bandy about the word “trendy” could ever see this film as cool, but happily, the film never pretends to be anything of the sort. It’s a self-indulgent and undignified farce, but the original ingenuity of the ABBA-led narrative still shines through, despite the gaping plot error (the oldies reminisce about flower power and the good old days, making Pierce Brosnan a latent hippy, or Sophie the world’s youngest-looking 39 year old). Where Sex and the City failed to emphasise the so-called empowerment of feminist, liberated modern women, Mamma Mia thrives by discouraging subordination to a life of domesticity and emotional materialism, promoting independence, and self-discovery. Which, when you think about it, is far cooler than desperately chasing romance and $250 cushions…

Sunburned Hand of the Man & The Rosemarie Band @ Miss Peapods, 10.06.08

2008-06-13T12:34:00.000+01:00

With Miss Peapods still reeling from Monotonix's sweat-drenched assault a few weeks ago, Sunburned Hand of the Man's second gig in Penryn initially looked to be a far less life-threatening affair. Elegant Falmouthians The Rosemarie Band complemented Cluster-esque shades of Krautrock with a Celtic chirruping flute, and a calmly liturgical rhythm akin to the post-rock instrumentation of Do Make Say Think. Their first song an incongruous vocal number, the set improved incrementally as words were cast aside, and a burring guitar met with the sun setting over the Fal for a demure crescendo. Resonant with promise, The Rosemarie Band could follow in Thistletown's footsteps and become Cornwall's brightest slow-burners of 2008.

Appearing shortly after to a crowd buoyed by Peapods' potent organic cider, Sunburned Hand of the Man precipitated potential danger in their set when they strewed shock-absorbing foil sheets across the stage; it wasn't immediately obvious whether these were intended for the benefit of a venue bruised by Monotonix, or audience members of a nervous disposition. Either way, songs ranging from primal lycanthropic yelps to more cosmic percussive drones passed by without making much of a lasting musical impression - most memories of the evening will recall freakish totem masks looming through alien euphonies rather than any mind-blowing brilliance. However, as with each and every gig put on by Lono, it marked a thoroughly memorable night better than most, and to echo the thoughts of many, it's a shame that the next date in Lono's calendar isn't until August.

MV&EE @ Miss Peapods, 11.02.08

2008-02-15T00:31:00.000Z

After a run of quietly spectacular gigs in 2007 (Jack Rose, Jeffrey Lewis et al), Falmouth-based Lono Records' latest coup (and their list of forthcoming dates) only added to the unanimity that they're the saviours of truly alternative music in Cornwall. Preceeded by the yodelling, herb-referencing Simon Drinkwater, and Andrew Hockey's off-kilter pop-psych jams, MV & EE delighted the largely bearded crowd (the male contingent at least) with sprawling, 20-minute renditions of songs from their exponentially expanding back catalogue (anything written about the band will undoubtedly feature the word "prolific").
Both the more subtle, woody songs from recent album, "Gettin' Gone", and its crunchy Americana-tinged numbers were similarly burnt by an intriguing conversational drone and lysergic pounding rhythm, which, at times, could rightly have been labelled self-indulgent, but under the head-nodding influence of Miss Peapod's potent organic cider, a harsh stop to a song might have seemed unfair, and amputative. However, it'd be unrealistic to state that every 20-minute opus was a pleasure to hear - whilst the set seemed impressively built around intuition for the other musicians, it would perhaps have been more satisfying to hear them draw from further into their past recordings, with a little more tonal texture.

Tegan et Sara - The Con

2008-01-31T13:36:00.001Z

Quand son dernier titre est devenu populaire seulement parce que les White Stripes ont enregistré un des chansons (le fantastique "Walking With a Ghost"), c'est comprendable qu'on serait amer. Naturellement, ce n'est pas probablement la raison du changement de la tonalité, mais il est indéniable que les jumeaux canadiens cinquième titre est lyriquement plus sobre, et moins "pop" par convention que son prédécesseur. 26 ne nous semble pas vieux, mais les rêveries sur l'âge brillent par le disque le plus musicalement expérimental de T&S - sur "Like O, Like H", et "Nineteen", relaté par le lyrique typiquement idiosyncratique - "je vous ai senti dans des mes jambes, avant que je vous aie jamais rencontré". Des quelques moments optimistes, "Back In Your Head" discute l'engagement très ouvrir - "je ne suis pas infidèle mais je vaguerai", s'ajoutant au type d'honnêteté rare et beau qui est sûre de permettre ce titre de parler pour lui-même, sans aide des amis célèbres.

Red Stripe Music Awards: Falmouth Heat

2008-01-29T13:52:00.001Z

So it’s awards season again, and with the NME Awards making the Brits look more alternative than Britney doing gabba, it’s up to Red Stripe to revolutionise recognising unsigned talent (despite ignoring last year’s finalists, our resplendent Rosie and the Goldbug, in favour of another identikit guitar band). Kicking off the first of Cornwall’s three heats is The UPS, four skinny young chaps in full uniform (Topman’s Winter collection) with a nice line in explosive drumming. However, they let themselves down with the other members’ failure to concentrate on the job in hand, instead remembering to don one’s all-important white Wayfarers mid-set. All stuttering guitar and drums, most of their repertoire bombed with weak verses, and generic football terrace “oh-oh-oh-ing” about that much-mooted cliché, “reality”.

Less on-trend of disposition, Nervosa take to the stage, looking promisingly like a supergroup made up of Lemmy Motorhead, one of Arcade Fire and Glass Shark. However, they disappoint with their rankling, dated mid-90s rock sound, often evoking the hairy soul of Nickelback. To give credit where it’s due, they were significantly tighter than The UPS, but in no way comparable to their stage successor.

“Now for some fopp rock,” purrs the dandyish Andrew Bate, with the first sign of any charisma or real presence of the evening. Since first appearing two years ago, Andrew has developed remarkably, crafting an enigmatic, seemingly innocent onstage persona, and lending his songs a sweeping tonal grace akin to Radiohead’s acoustic moments. The rhythm section led by his waltzing eyebrows, ‘Trust’ writes the evening’s most thoughtful lyrics (although the competition’s not hard when up against nonsensical trend-chasing tales of reality).

Unfortunately, the embers of Andrew’s set are soon stomped on by the boisterous, hardcore Disco Pip, whose set was hampered by the presence of a great big Gaye albatross, and their every song ending in a crashing sonic wall of oblivion. However final song, “Even the Brake” was undeniably satisfying, all synthetic sirens and visceral yowls, erasing all memory of the one-chord wonders they played previously.

It’s hard not to take the bait in Tom Pitts’ opening statement – “Hello, I’m The Pitts” - especially when his first number sounds like a male Kate Nash with terminal screaming PMT, followed by an appalling cover of Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?”, which, like the rest of his set, attempts to be ramshackle and twee, but just comes off as unadulterated tosh. There might have been a certain charm lingering in his profusely perspiring nerves, but certainly not the addictive allure of the Moldy Peaches, Bill Bailey, or any other comedy acoustic troubadours.

Thank goodness then, for My Elvis Blackout, who despite a year away from the scene, are razor sharp of wit and shirts, without a dated note in their ‘50s surf-rock heavy set. Their thumping, swaggering sonic beast would leave the Cloverfield monster pleading for mercy, and they’re the only band tonight to whip the crowd into mid-song whoops of joy. Old favourite “Elsie Elsie” rears its head, steaming with pheromones and the scent of sticky young lust. Set-closer “Back In The Food Chain”, with its bullish feudal lyrics, sent a message to all the young pretenders to their throne, but it’s not one to be printed here...

Stars of Hope Charity Gig at Princess Pavillions

2007-11-03T18:55:00.000Z

A group of local teenagers are organising a charity concert in Falmouth to raise funds for Kenyan children. The gig will take place in Princess Pavilions on 23rd November, in order to raise funds for the Cornwall-based charity, Stars of Hope.

Performing will be popular local bands such as Rosie and the Goldbug, Ammunition, and The Reels, in addition to young newcomers Harry and the Hermits, and the alternative girl band, Shagrat.

“We started off as a bit of a joke, now we’re playing at Princess Pavilions! It seems farfetched, but now it’s dawned on us properly, we’re scared but really proud!” said Georgia Gendall (16), of Shagrat. “I’m very impressed that a fair bit of the success is down to some teenagers.”

Rosie Henderson, Emily Knuckey, Tim Petherick and Rachel McKie (all of Truro College or Truro High School) are in charge of the night, which succeeds a similar, extremely successful gig at Truro High School.

“At our first gig, we had seven young local bands playing, which we discovered through friends and the internet. We raised over £850, and instead of donating it straight to the charity, we asked if we could invest it in another, bigger gig, which they allowed,” said band-organiser Emily Knuckey (16). “This time, we’re aiming to raise at least £2000, hopefully nearer £3000!”

Second on the bill is My Elvis Blackout, who have enjoyed a stellar 2007: “We’ve done a few charity do’s recently because we’re extremely altruistic, well-adjusted, modern individuals. We’re also doing this one because we don’t play in the mother land very often.”

Despite the young age of the organisers, they appear to be coping well with the demands of such a huge task, as recognised by their performers. Rosie Vanier, frontwoman of headliners, Rosie and the Goldbug, said: “They are doing an amazing job of getting everyone together! We are looking forward to the show and seeing all the other bands – it will be a great night, and a good opportunity to get together and have a few drinks!

“We were not aware of the charity before, so it just goes to show that events like this are great for raising awareness and funds. It sounds like a great cause, and we are delighted to be playing.”

Georgia of Shagrat also praised the organisers for their inclusion of fledgling bands: “I think that Cornwall should give new bands more opportunities like this, because it’s something to strive for. This is huge for us!”

Stars of Hope is a Cornwall-based, non-profit organisation working locally with young people. Proceeds go to their centre in Kenya, which supports vulnerable children in poverty-stricken countries, and aims to help local people to help themselves. Their latest project is in Bali, to raise awareness and care for disabled children.

Tickets are £8 on the door, or £6 in advance, available from Princess Pavilions on 01326 211222. Apart from the small percentage of money which the Pavilions receives for tickets sold from their box office, every penny goes to charity.

Cuckoo Flies the Nest

2007-10-26T11:17:00.000+01:00

The people behind a recently-closed Truro bar have relaunched the brand as an alternative club night.

Cuckoo, formerly of Old Bridge Street, was closed in September due to the proprietor's ill health. It is now manifesting itself as 'Club Cuckoo', which kicked off in Truro's Bar 200 on 20th October, and will move around the clubs of the area. Liam Jolly was the bar's live music promoter, who, with his company 'Suave', will be journeying the night around Cornwall:

"At Cuckoo we created a very identifiable brand, so now we can take that to those who couldn't make it to Truro due to Cornwall's awful public transport! We wanted a friendly, non-cliquey environment in which to listen to the best in alternative music at loud volume.

"We had great feedback from the first night, although it was quite stressful as we coincided with the rugby world cup final."

A customer from the first night seemed to agree: "I'm so glad that Cuckoo hasn't gone completely - we need this kind of thing to cater for people who don't like 5000 beat-per-minute dance rubbish, which is the only taste that other clubs in the area seem to cater for. The mixture of live music and DJs is obviously a winner, and going by their track record with getting bigger names to play, I for one am excited."

During its time at a permanent location, Cuckoo was renowned for supporting bands from Cornwall and further afield, with over 80 bands performing on their stage in the five months they were open. Many of these nights were filled to capacity. Live music is also a feature of the new night, which will take place across the county.

"We're opening in Falmouth on 12th November in the upstairs of MI Bar. We have some great bands lined up for it, and with the student population in and around Falmouth at an all-time high, it should be great. It's a very arty night, so where better to do it than Falmouth? There will also be a one-off night in Redruth soon," said Mr Jolly.

Under the proprietors of Kazbah, the Barley Sheaf became Cuckoo in April, and was suceeded by The Riverside, a new gastropub, in September.

The next night will take place at Bar 200 on 27th October, featuring A Day At The Movies, King Furnace, and The Venton Gimps, in addition to resident DJs The Earls of Suave (aka Liam Jolly and Frank Gane). Entry is £3 and strictly 18+.

Harmonia - Live 1974

2007-10-25T16:07:00.000+01:00

Comprising members of Krautrock superstars Neu!, Cluster, and, at times, Brian Eno, Harmonia helped to redefine and rebel against the cultural wasteland of a Germany in the process of renewed self-discovery. On ‘Live 1974’, they’ve taken the moody mechanical side of the genre, lacing it with determined soaring intricacies and synths which inspired bands from Battles to Radiohead, potentially making Harmonia one of the most important supergroups you’ve probably never heard of.

9/10

(as printed in NME 17.10.07)

Listen to: Laura Gibson

2007-10-25T08:37:00.000+01:00

If alternative and challenging culture needed a mecca, one need look no further than Portland. From the legacy of Riot Grrl, Matt Groening's take on American suburbia and Chuck Palahniuk's defining work springs Laura Gibson, whose waltz-imbued 'Nightwatch' brings to mind staticky super-8 films of fun in snowy parks and coffee by dappled light. The four tracks on her Myspace challenge Bright Eyes' 'I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning' for the crown of exquisitely-interpreted acoustic Americana, and her voice laps with natural nonchalance such that Kate Nash only wishes she could accomplish. The sepia fanfare on 'Come By Storm' wouldn't sounds incongruous on a Sufjan Stevens album, nor Nina Nastasia. Luckily for us, she's playing in London in December, so there's no need to buy a ticket to Portland for the pilgrimage.

Lethal Bizzle to play in Falmouth

2007-10-24T20:48:00.001+01:00

Grime star Lethal Bizzle will be performing at University College Falmouth’s (UCF) Stannary in November as part of his ‘Back to Bizznizz’ tour.

Bizzle (real name Maxwell Ansah) will be playing the Stannary, one of Cornwall’s biggest music venues, on 27th November. He was due to support punk band Gallows on the Falmouth leg of their tour, but had to pull out due to a video shoot which ran over-schedule.

“We knew that a lots of people had been disappointed when Bizzle was a no-show on the Gallows date at Princess Pavilion last month, so we have been talking to his agent ever since about getting him a date in Cornwall,” said Katy Thomas from SW1 Productions, who are promoting the event.

‘The Hook Up’ are presenting the tour, which will also feature music, film, fashion, technology and more, and is said to “reflect what is happening” in the UK scene at present.

Lethal Bizzle came to prominence in 2003 when his single, ‘Pow! (Forward Riddim)’ was banned from UK clubs for supposedly inciting riots. He is part of the East London ‘grime’ scene responsible for the careers of Dizzee Rascal and Kano, and has released two albums to critical acclaim.

Tickets are £11 and available at www.seetickets.com, or £10 for students, available from Woodlane and Tremough FXU offices. The show is strictly over 18s.

Fruit juice and smoothies are taxed; hot dogs and all other foods are not.

2007-10-24T13:10:00.000+01:00

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/fruitjuiceVAT/

Please sign this petition to encourage the government to lift the 17.5% VAT on fruit juice and smoothies. If they are as committed to decreasing the rate of obesity in this country as they say they are, they should also switch the tax around to make unhealthy foods more expensive. It seems ridiculous that people who make a healthy choice in their purchases are being penalised.

Research conducted by Innocent, the people behind Innocent Smoothies and This Water, has established that at least 500 million more portions of fruit would be consumed each year if this tax was lifted.

How many times have you gone for a cheaper carbonated drink after being put off by the price of smoothies etc? Sign this petition so everyone can enjoy the benefits of drinking fruit (it's quicker and easier than eating apples as well as being healthy!).

of Montreal at The Scala 02.08.07

2007-10-17T17:13:00.000+01:00

In any land far far away, it would take a powerful and exotic creature to turn torture festive, but electro pop chameleon Kevin Barnes's flamboyant psychosis did just that at the Scala, lacing the mental unrest that permeated most recent album Hissing Fauna with twisted nonchalance, and a gaudy stage show that made the comparable Rufus Wainwright look positively conservative. Dancing in front of images of duck-horses fondling each other (seriously), chic basslines rumbled around Barnes' pouting, often downright bitchy (yet comical) delivery (on "She's A Rejector" in particular), whilst a whole host of post-Brothers Grimm characters fought around him. "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal", "Hissing Fauna"'s 10 minute brainstorm, toned down the vibrance of the set as Barnes spat his personal dissatisfactions out to richochet inside his crystal encrusted bell jar, coming on like a rainbow-coloured Ian Curtis. Returning for an encore of older songs, Of Montreal blew the roof off their fairytale kingdom.

Tegan and Sara in Bristol 12.08.07

2007-10-17T17:12:00.000+01:00

“We took a course on how to make people like us,” says Sara, totally deadpan, her diminutive frame perched on an amp so the crowd towards the back of the criminally tiny Academy 2 could see her. “Lesson six is this: con-nec-ting with your people.” Supporting the release of their fifth record, “The Con”, the Canadian twins (and their band of “Sting and Paul McCartney”, according to Sara) kicked off their first proper jaunt around the UK to a crowd who made Glastonbury sing-a-longs look amateur, whilst they performed songs from their increasingly experimental repertoire with such aching charm and musical versatility that it beggars belief as to why they don’t currently have a UK label. Sometimes unfairly stereotyped as dreary singer-songwriter “lesbiancore” performers, the grinding yet elegant synthesis of “So Jealous”, science-questioning urgency of “Like O, Like H”, and the now anthemic (no thanks to the White Stripes) “Walking With A Ghost” shattered this ludicrous theory, along with the affable sisterly banter that permeated the performance; never mind taking lessons in likeability; T&S are already prodigies of their subject.

Kitsuné Maison - Mixed By Jerry Bouthier

2007-10-01T21:24:00.000+01:00

Apparently, London club BoomBox is populated by a bunch of Nathan Barley types who “care more about the guest DJs than the music”. Let’s be thankful then, that when Frenchies Kitsuné Maison translated the club to CD, they weren’t as shallow, as illustrated by this titillating collection. From the cut’n’paste shenanigans of Chromeo’s ‘Fancy Footwork (Guns’n’Bombs remix)’, to Van She’s house retake of Feist’s ‘1234’, this’ll have you chanting “vive la France!” until the early hours.