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The Weekly Review (24 Sep, 04)
Folks.. here's some info re some gigs in Oxford and the Audioscope gig which raises money for Shelter. Which is a very very good thing. Here you go
FRIDAY 24 SEPTEMBER - THE WHEATSHEAF, OXFORD
PART CHIMP
THE EDMUND FITZGERALD
SEXTODECIMO
WEDNESDAY 29 SEPTEMBER - THE PORT MAHON, OXFORD
THE YOUNG KNIVES
THE EVENINGS
THE THUMB QUINTET
THE MONEYSHOTS
AND THE BIG DAY IS SATURDAY 2 OCTOBER - 2PM-2AM, THE ZODIAC, OXFORD
DAMO SUZUKI
OXES
THE TELESCOPES
BIKINI ATOLL
VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA
LARGE NUMBER
YOUTHMOVIE SOUNDTRACK STRATEGIES
QUERELLE
SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT
Tickets for the main day are available online at www.wegottickets.com/event/3595 at £7 in advance (it's £8 on the door). Bargain!
Tickets for the warm-up gigs are available on the door only for about four quid.
phew!!
The office cuckoo has been shitting It's pants with fright at the following noize...
Shitmat 'Vengeance Of The Whitehawk Townies' (Piss funny 7" on
Death$ucker)
The Rakes 'Strasbourg' (Wicked 2nd single on City Rockers - 7"/CDs)
Help She Can't Swim 'Bunty Vs Beano' (See above but change the label to
"Fantastic Plastic")
Milanese '1 Up' (Warp heat up the Grime Gravy - Double wax & Compact risk)
Six By Seven '4' (The Chubby Notts boys return - CD only)
Flotel 'Kelp' (Spiffing little 3" on Cactus Island - only 100 of these, IDM
nuts beware!!!!)
Interpol 'Antics' (Eagerly anticipated return from themeninblack - Matador Ltd
vinyl & CD)
Ra 'Raoul Loves You' (fantastic forthcoming CD on Coredump)
.......and promptly died when it saw me pick up the sleeve of the Music's album, so to be fair to all future pets, the greasy Leeds monkeys have been banished forever from the office ghetto blaster.....
Righto you big set of music junkies. We have another Autumn bumper week of delights here on our bulging shelves & first up is Mr. Brian.......
It's not often that a track played on commercial radio by a popular artist completely stuns me into awe struck silence but we've just got 'Blinded By The Lights' in by The Streets & It's one of those tracks for me. The absolute highlight on 'A Grand Don't Come For Free' as far as I'm concerned. A tripped out & bittersweet paean to popping little fellers in a club, getting all disorientated & losing yr mates with a spine tingling female backing vocal, this is a million miles away from the sweet but mawkish 'Dry Your Eyes'. & is more in spirit sonically with something off Leila's groundbreaking 'Like Weather' LP on Rephlex. Absolutely stunning. The 12" has some quality garage MC mixes of 'Get Out Of My House' & 'Fit But You Know It' for the bling bling, Hennessey quaffing chavers amonst you (snigger) My single of the week hands down.
Six By Seven tore my heart out with their debut six years ago. "Nail to the gut terrifying music" said one paper & they were right. A blistering set of slow burning, high tension epics that floored the listener. And then they released another two rather lacklustre albums that came nowhere near (bar the odd tune) Now trimmed to a 3 piece of ever widening proportions (they must have eaten the miserable looking bass player), this here new CD is as strong if not better than the last two & is entitled '4'. At times veering too close to Spiritualized territory for (my) comfort & forgetting that the last single was a complete fucking joke, this will appease most fans of the band who are eager for fresh material from the Nottingham troubadours. A relief if I'm to be honest.......
The Music have a new CD/Double vinyl set out on Virgin entitled "Welcome To The North". If these muppets are your tour guides for this part of the world then I wouldn't blame any of you for scampering back to the comfort of yr Camden boozing hovel or Cornish tea room etc claiming what you've encountered to be "grim as fuck". Blood & sand.....Nice Zoot Woman rip-off futurist artwork for this most retro of rubbish sub baggy toss, boys. Probably a favourite of Zane Lowe's, bless him..
Title of the week comes from the excellent (& wonderfully monikered) Help She Can't Swim. 'Bunty Vs Beano' is a whirling, spiky post punk racket that makes me wanna throw myself around a sweating moshpit of hairslides & greasy fringes. Like somewhere between Uresei Yatsura & Placebo being shafted by Erase Errata after taking a load of methamphetamine. Also a small dose of Prolapse somewhere in there. A joy to behold. Apparently the LP (which I can't wait to hear...HINT!) has a song called 'What Would Morrissey Say?' which had my girlfriend in stitches as that's one of her catchphrases...Class. On Fantabulous Plasters, pink vinyl 7" & CDs with totally different extra trax, multi formatting bastards...
Loved that Milanese 12" on Arcola a few months back. 'Vanilla Monkey' it were called. Now daddy label Warp have signed the dude up for a mini album. And the first track sounds like the recent Vex'd 12" eating Flat Eric. So you got Grime-y dancehall followed by jittery, harsh abstract-core dub that recalls Autechre slicing up The Bug in a deserted East London warehouse. Said nothing to me this afternoon as we have to play shit quiet to hear deliveries but turned up LOUD, we have here a rather shit hot 6 track slice of rock hard edgy dub-step or whatever the fashion nazis are gonna label it next. Wicked er...dude. Double vinyl pizza pie or mini silver garlic bread, innit.
Here we go. You know those Interpol guys? They made one of the best albums EVER a couple of years back. Out of the blue. Totally flattened The Strokes with their dark & doomy take on 80's overcoat rock smeared in New York grime & stunning claustrophobic production. Like Pixies & QOTSA, a band who'd made an album I could live with forever. Now they're back with the sequel, 'Antics' & those lovely people at Vice think It's "better than the last one". Believe them if you like. It might be. But not to these ears. It's still head & shoulders above most bands but the 10 tracks here veer from the underwhelming to the nearly-as-good-as-Leif Erikson to the one that The Departure probably will rip off next. If you love Interpol then you'll really dig this loads but I'm such a fussy bugger that I'll be pouring over this for months to come trying to suss out why I feel a bit cheated. The vinyl is ultra limited (A 1000 only, exclusive to us indies!) & slipcase CD with some high tech gubbins on there for folk who wank all over their computers at night instead of going out to the pub.
Those Vector Lovers chaps have their debut CDr properly released by Scots deep house label Soma & bar a little tweaking & polishing here & there & a couple of tracks omitted/remixed & possibly replaced by other more clubby cuts (I was listening to the original last night) it still sounds like the chill out cyber disco party in your head. And It's now on sexy double vinyl for those amongst you who like to partake in a bit o' jockeying of a weekend or just hate CDs.... ;o)
Accelera Desk are the latest participants in the dog themed Piehead 2004 series. Top cute looking pooch on the sleeve, albeit a despondent looking one that could have been bullied by a big rottweiler at pup skool & had it's lunchtime tin of pedigree chum demanded with menaces. 5 tracks ranging from dark ambience with a tropical jungle fever to dark ambience inside a cement mixer before heading into Kieran Hebden's stuttering psyche after too many shandies. Track 4 is the sound of a gang of psychotic gibbons ripping out the intestines of Squarepusher's equipment & eating it (& probably him too) culminating in a gorgeous piece of blissed out electronic drifting with nods to Flying Saucer Attack, Flowchart & the NZ drone scene. Simply lovely that 'un & worth the price alone for that!
What is it with you Swedish? Why are you so happy? Do you know something we don't? Famous for some of the world's most irresistible chirpy pop moments is this Scandinavian bouncy castle of a country & The Concretes are no exception with their latest single 'Seems Fine'. Like Hope Sandoval finding a million quid in the street & running off to join The Cardigans, such is her euphoria. A great tune, no messing! 7"/2xCDs We also have a very lovely one sided etched remix 7" of 'Chico' done by a dude out of The Avalanches. a very collectable companion piece!
That man, Shitmat, not content with unleashing 5 12"s of insane twisted comedy terror (review for Volume 4 below....), also has a sneaky 7" out on the Death$ucker imprint & It's just as fine as his Planet Mu releases. Tarzan samples entwined around big thick trees of distorted jungle breaks & mangled ragga-gabba on side one & the delightful 'Let's Hear It For The Boy' by Denise Williams is erm......sonically re-structured on side 2, like V/VM for glowstick kids or summat. A work of genius.
Christ on a flipping bike. Mansun are back even though they've split up. With unreleased material that sounds like erm....Mansun. I used to love these a few years back. Thought 'Six' was an amazing attempt at pissing off their record company & 'Legacy' sent shivers up my spine. But this 7", 'Slipping Away', is just Draper & Co by numbers & I've decided his voice gets on my tits. Well what was his voice. I think he sold it to that twat from Lost Prophets to buy more eyeliner.
High Lonesome Electric anybody? No, me neither. Here's the latest installment in the, frankly, bizarre Earsugar Jukebox 7" series. All these blighters are limited to 300 & this one sounds like a looped (& stuck) folktronica tune sampled by some electronic boffin, forced back through a flutterflangephaze gribble extractor & pressed onto black wax. Absolutely lovely & completely intriguing. Don't play this at a house party though, cos you'll get the token thick plank stamping on the floor like he's in an old crumbly pub in Southampton. B-side's lovely too BTW.
It's the child in me I know but whenever I type Mercury Tilt Switch I always get the urge to omit the 'L' for some reason. Too many years reading Viz I'm afraid. This band, it seems, are only capable of releasing split records with other bands. The other band in this case are The A Forest, not named after The Cure tune, surely? What next? The Friday I'm In Loves? The Jumping Someone Else's Trains? For fucks sake. Anyway the Tit side is noisy emo-ish indie & The forest side is in French so they lose even though It's a really nice tune sung by a sweet sounding lass & whatnot. Sorry for being arsey but Paul Draper's whining voice is still reverberating around my head like the donkey from Shrek. Hmmmm.
That 1-2-3-4 label has another 7" of new-new wave fun out this week & It's by Cosmetique, an eighties inspired name if ever I heard one. This is a slightly krautrocky take on the whole post punk thing with a rather sinister lyric from a girl named Sarah & an irresistible motorik pop pulse. 'Horror Attack' It's called & I should imagine will be filling floors at yer local clued up discothèque in the months to come.
A single on the rather super Purr records has crashed in front of me by The Hot Puppies. A foot tapping bossanova indie number of catchy proportions that makes me think of Salad or something. 'Green Eyeliner' It's called. Something really good about it that I can't put my finger on but all in all I'd say this is just a fairly bog standard but quality female fronted ditty. 7" & CDs
I've just accused the gaffer of stocking this here 12" by Bogger because.....well! Wouldn't you with a title like that? Fair do's, it is from Germany & probably means Gravy or summat. 4 trax of strange techno shapes abound, Side 2 providing the real meat with stuttering mayhem & what sounds like locked grooves but I don't think is & finally a squelchy, skittering piece of teknokollaps to finish. A BIT like Kompakt actually releasing something fucking interesting instead of being the self indulgent, BORING bastards they really are. Come on you lot! Have a dig at me! Come on then! I'll have the lot of youze. Aahhm orf to tha pub then ya soft buggers etc, hic.
Righto. The Grime continues. What is essentially a harder, edgier take on garage is taking the country by storm & by heck, is it a mixed bag. What Dizzee n chums started a couple of years back has steamrollered into the alternative racks & onto labels such as Rephlex & Planet Mu who are proud to release the debut full length by Mark One, star of the 1st Grime comp vinyl. As sharper memoried readers will know, I reckon It's missing summat. You can't dance to half of it as it's really mong-ey & slo-mo plus a tad depressing, truth be told. However, about 4 or 5 of these tracks (the pacier ones) are brought to life with the addition of a bile spitting MC & really work. Condense these onto an E.P. then you've got a blinder. Industrial sub bass & sinister mechanical beats are the order of the day. Must say that the track 'Ready For It' is stunning, like a more paranoid, snakelike & vicious Dizzee. Worth owning is this, if only for the fact It stands as an historical footnote in the ever progressing genre known as electronic music.
Talking of Rephlex, they've gone & unearthed 2 ancient (1988) New Order remixes by 808 State. Norman Towers can honestly say it was never formed from the ashes of the acid house boom, being as we are a bunch of cardigan wearing indie pussies who thought drugs were what mum had in the bathroom cabinet for her migraines & acid was summat that made batteries work. But I know loads of munters & they inform me this embryonic, bleepy stuff is the dogs nads & ver state are utter pioneers of the groove. So you get 'Blue Monday' & 'Confusion' re-jigged into a mass of hypnotic bleeps that work on completely different levels depending on the volume of the sound system & how many narcotics you've gobbled. Top stuff!
Always thought The Moldy Peaches were a bad, childish gag of a band so how come almost everything I hear from the core members Adam Green & Kimya Dawson I think is great? It's like putting two talented & charming children together only to watch them descend into mud fights & uncontrollable tantrums. Kimya has a new CD & Big record out called 'Hidden Vagenda' (guffaw) on K. Her shtick is a brilliant sonic stew of skewed folk & lo-fi indie bliss & fits in with the K roster like mature cheddar & fine wine. I love her purring honeyed tones & way with a heartwarming tune, her kooky nursery rhyme lyrics & everything. Like a much naughtier Lois Maffeo I'd say. Absolutely great stuff.
The Regulars have one of those limited jobs out on Bearos, limited to 100 copies. As is the case with these, we can't play it cos it's held together with card, plastic & staples. We had a promo but I can't find it anywhere, so sorry. It should be your gambling minds that lead you to purchase this then.......
Oh & lastly from me, just a mention the new issue of the damn fine Scots indie mag, 'Is This Music' which has the sultry looking Sons & Daughters on the cover & a FREE CD with Lucky Luke, Jupiter & Teardrop, Laeto & our local heroes (well from Huddersfield anyway) The Scaramanga 6. Plus the just as excellent Plan B magazine is in, with no free CD but frankly, having being pinned to the toilet for half an hour reading it, much to the gaffers disapproval, I'd say it don't need no freebie as the articles look pretty fine. Joanna Newsom on the cover if you fancy finding out a little more about the harp plucking (corn)flakey(y) girl.
Oh & we have The Beauty Shop 7" here too, on Shoeshine (see last week for review you archive shirkers....)
Phil here instead of Clint cos he's in London at the mo. Probably talking to the Queen or something. Yes he is that important.... you'd be amazed in fact. Anyhoo we have anew album by Grimble Grumble on Pehr. You may remember them as part of the space rock scene from years ago and they had split singles out with Fuxa, Windy & Carl as well as numerous releases of their own. It's quite pretty shoegazey space pop with some nice droney guitars. Bits of Flying Saucer Attack in there I think and it's a cross between Slowdive & Low. Lovely...
Remember we had that Verbose 3" CD in the cute sleeve on Cactus Island Recordings the other week. You all went utterly mental for it you did and it ran out quicker than I can type 'ran out'. Am a reasonably quick typist as well these days. Volume 2 of said series is in by Flotel and it's called Kelp. I used to take kelp supplements when I was a weakling teenager to make me stronger and more attractive to women. I can tell you they don't work and all they do is give you a spot of wind. Here we have some lovely melodic electronica of the highest order with a nice oriental feel to it. Up and coming ones by Maps & Diagrams and Stendec. How excited are you??
Manual and Syntaks? Manual I know but who Syntaks? Well together they have collaborated on a new album called Golden Sun on Darla. This is yr electronica along the lines of Ulruch Schnauss and Arovane's Tides with possible hints of later Boards Of Canada in there. It's got a palm tree and a sun on the cover and it does sound like an album you'd want to lie on the beach with and bliss out to the chilled out sounds. Maybe after you've been out partying for 2 nights and spazzed out on so many drugs you're body has changed colour/ shape and you're totally unreconisable. Which is what happens with these nasty modern drugs. Bring back LSD!!
Sylvain Chauveau anyone? He's a popular chap at the towers. His last CD did the proverbial and hoofed it out of the towers before we could get a copy ourselves. He has a new album under the name of On where he has collaborated with a chap called Steven Hess. This is ambient stuff. Pretty, dark and very ambient. It's on the same French label as his last release which is too long for me to type. Sleepy time music....
Some new things on Bearos. Here's one of 'em... By Inch Blue on ltd CD single type thing and it sounds exactly like early Echo & The Bunnymen. Exactly. So much so there's nothing more for me to say here apart from if you like the early Bunnymen then you'll probably be wanting this.
I really liked that last Rakes single. Here we have their 2nd single on City Rockers on 7"/CD. The guitars sound just like The Strokes. Brian has just piped up that he's gonna have to get one of these cos he likes it so much. It's fast catchy frenetic spiky punk pop which is pretty cocking damned good if you ask me. Kick ass....
Wagon Christ has a new single out on Ninja Tune of wobbly electronica with pretty female vocals bringing Groove Armada to mind. It's a pretty good tune and it's about as cutting edge as a pair of blunt hedge trimmers. It does the job though.
Got a nice comp in on Audio Dregs called Fork Ends featuring tracks by FS Blumm, Lullatone, Greg Davis, Nudge, Nice Nice, E*Rock, Baikonour, Lineland, Strategy, E*vax & Supersprite and lots more. Cheap and decent comp of decent leftfield electronic sounds. Blimey.
Something rather sexy now. A mini album on Worm Interface including long out of print tracks by Gescom, Gimmik. Freeform, Tom Jenkinson (yes that Squarepusher man), Baraki and Replicant. If that wasn't enough it's a limited type thing as these things are so be quick. Is there any point mentioning how great or rubbish this is? You're all just gonna buy it anyway? I could say it was the worst record ever or the best record ever and you'd still all buy it. Well not all of you like cos a fair bunch of you don't like all this electronic crap we sell and fair play like. Rambling aside this is actually a pretty lovely 6 tracker of some quality IDM. If I didn't wear glasses already and my head wasn't shaved I'd be running out the barbers and the opticians to get meself sorted. Christ that was one of the worst reviews I've ever written.....
More Shitmat. More Shitmat... That's all I ever hear Brian say. He's obsessed..... For you Shitmat obsessives out there volume 4 of the Full English Breakfast 12" series is in and it is marvellously stupid. I'll be starting a help group soon.....I kind of think once you've reviewed one Shitmat record you've reviewed 'em all. This is pretty damned quality though with the usual hilarious samples and mental splatterness happening on my ears. Only Volume 5 to go before sadness sets in. What will fill the void??
The Super Furry Animals precede their Best of (volume 1???) with a new single. Originally released on Creation in the days of 8 track cartridges and radiograms it's out on Sony as a limited edition 1 sided etched 12" or futuristic modern compact disc single. And... wait for it... it's a 20 minute long live version which consists of a few minutes of the regular version of the song live and then 16 minutes of banging techno made all super and furry...... and that's pretty much it. A nice document though if you went to any of their live shows.
Arguably the most famous non released album of all time is Smile by The Beach Boys. I'm given this to do as Clint is off which is a shame cos I feel like I'm depriving him. The man is obsessed.... Like Shitmat is to Brian, The Beach Boys are to Clint. Anyway the wait is over and Smile has been re recorded and finally released by the old duffer Brian Wilson. Many of you bought the 7"s which came out last week which feature 2 tracks from this and we've sold out now so please stop badgering us for 'em. This is ace. A mental cacophony of vocal harmonies and some of the most bizarre song arrangements your ears will here. Think I'll be having one of these.....
I used to love Jon Spencer. Well not love him as such, that's reserved for special people. I think possibly a more accurate description would be to say I was a fan of his work. Orange rocks.... what an album. Since then I've found his music to be slightly lackluster. His new album is more of the same pub rock blues with collaborations featuring David Holmes, DJ Shadow, Dan The Automator and the god Chuck D. You can hear a lot of David Holmes in it and it's got a funkier feel than his recent stuff. To be fair to it it's not actually that bad at all, I think I've just heard enough of his records now....
Gisli sounds rude. I can't help it. My puerile mind goes into overdrive whenever we get music in by 'em. Musically it's kind of Soul Wax ish (ie the band and not the mixes thing they do). Punchy rocky driving music to drive really fast down motorways to and get pulled over by over zealous cops. It's perfectly safe driving at 150 MPH as long as you're eating and using your mobile at the same time.
You heard of the Jonson Family? Well you should have done as they are fine purveyors of rock music. They have an off shoot label called Lone Hand specialising in lathe cuts and the 1st one is in. It's by Fupper and it's a lathe cut 10" of experimental soundscapes. There's bits of electronics, acoustics, drones, folk and some love chucked in for good measure. This is one of the most interesting records I've heard in donkeys. limited to just 100 copies so be quick tigers....
That debut Sigur Ros CD Von is finally available in the UK for the 1st time. In it's purple case as it was when it was initially released in Iceland. This is the same pressing on Smekkleysa or however it's spelt. It's all very gothic anyway..
Remember those Bronze Age Fox lathe cut shaped discs most of you never got cos we couldn't get enough. Never fear cos they have been compiled onto one lovely looking CD which includes the debut EP as well I believe. Lordy me..... And speaking of mentions the rather rare and lovely Eighties fan by Camera Obscura is back in print now for a wee while.
A top electro type comp in called The Electronic Bible Part 1 on White label Records (the home of ex Add N To X's Ann Shenton's Large Number). Not sure if that made any sense or not? On it you have exclusive and lovely tracks by Kings Have Long Arms, Large Number, Camp Actor, Relaxed Muscle, Mount Vernon Arts Lab, National Bandit, Sean O Hagan and many more. Damned classy lo fi electro comp is this. For fans of Add N To X and the Kings Have Long Arms type cheesey electro. Classy...
That Warp Vision DVD is tops by the way. As well as it having all of the Aphex Twin videos it's got all their videos' from '89 to '04. Yikes... Worth it for the John Callaghan video which is potty...
The Engineers...new mini album on LP/CD. I can't be arsed to review it....
And finally from me before I head off for the weekend is a new CD by Moco on Skinny Dog records. This is a direct cross between The Strokes and The Hives. In fact I'd say they should change their name to The Strives. It's a decent enough tune but I've heard it before like. See The Strokes, The Hives, The Strives and The Hokes.....
That's yer lot for the week.
Team Norman xx
