Review: Various Artists - Palermo Shooting OST

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

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

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: !!!

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

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

Originally published in NME

Review: Magnetic Morning - A.M.

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

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

Originally published in NME 13/05/09

Review: The Wooden Birds - Magnolia

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.