CHRIS DEVOTION AND THE EXPECTATIONS Amalgamation and Capital

This year BBC4 are repeating, week by week, Top of the Pops from 1977. Next January when they get to 1978 I wouldn't blink an eye to see Chris Devotion and the Expectations on screen. The music of the Scots four-piece fast-forwards from lively new wave guitar pop of that era (‘Tell The Girl’) to the ferocious garage revivalism of The Hives (‘I’m Already Home’ ) and the rapid, righteous rock ‘n’ roll of Rocket From The Crypt (‘Pinhole Suit’, ‘You’ve Got It All’). Along the way there’s some variety – the brief ballad ‘Eyes Open Now’, a Woody Guthrie cover plus the strummed acoustic and double-tracked lead guitar of ‘Blister’ wouldn’t sound out of place on Sugar’s “Copper Blue” – but most of these sixteen short songs (two have the impertinence to break three minutes) tend to fired-up feistiness.



Despite an album title that sounds like an Economic Studies primer, the band’s loud drainpipe-jeans pop majors on girlfriends and failed relationships rather than fiscal policy. Chris Devotion does link the two (“relationships (amalgamation) on a subconscious level are a matter of what we want from the other person (their capital); what they offer us”) but relationships – starting them, leaving them, wanting them – prevail with the political bite being left to the caustic ‘Surveying the Young Professionals’ and the rowdy folk-protest anger of Woody Guthrie cover ‘I Ain’t Got No Home’.

Full-bodied and fiery, "Amalgamation and Capital" packs a potent punch for 38 break-neck minutes even if not all of its many hooks stick in the mind once it’s over. But at its best, caught in the (two minute) moment of punky exuberance and pop hooks, it is a refreshingly off-trend and fine place to be.



Chris Devotion and the Expectations Amalgamation and Capital [BUY]

LAURA J MARTIN @ DULCIMER 22 January 2012

Tonight’s gig opened with Jo Gillot playing finger picked acoustic folk-blues that sang of red and grey squirrels, travelling rafts and the stealing rich in sweet and crystal clear tones. She may have been using a borrowed guitar (“mine’s in Preston”) but if she hadn’t told us, I don’t think anyone would have been the wiser. Lovely stuff played to a sold out crowd at this Imploding Inevitable Festival Night.


By the time Emily and the Faves took the stage, things were definitely cosy if not imploding. The four-piece play a punchy psyche-pop – a limber and funky rhythm section given an added emphatic thump from a single band member dedicated to percussion and backing vocals. Over the top, Emily Lansley (one third of Stealing Sheep in a different life) plays guitar that alternated between rapid pop strumming and languid psychedelic twang, all delivered with precision and confidence. It was odd then that Emily was less confident between songs – checking the sound levels, apologising for consulting a hand-written set-list and confessing to have forgotten to bring any of their CDs to sell (a shame because I had cash in hand). A beat group for Liverpool to be proud of.



Tonight was part of a short tour marking the release of Laura J Martin’s debut album “The Hangman Tree”. Having repeatedly missed her at Green Man festival for the last two years it was a delight to catch her in somewhere as intimate as the packed upstairs room of Dulcimer. Also having not seen her live I wasn’t sure what to expect – solo performance or large backing band? Laura was accompanied by Pete Williams on drums but only for three songs. For the remainder she played on flute, mandolin or keyboards expanding the sound through live looping or pre-programmed backing tracks. The effect – with projected backdrop – was nothing less than stunning.





Opening with instrumental ‘Doki Doki’, Martin showed off both her skills on the flute and the looping stations, adding in layers of sound with a stockinged foot whilst hardly pausing for breath during highly animated playing. Following songs saw her seated at the keyboard or switching between mandolin and flute – often in the same song. She may be a diminutive figure but alone on stage she is a powerful presence. Songs were given an extra theatricality through hand gestures, rolled shoulders and hip shimmies, or wielding the flute like a Kendo baton, repeatedly punching it towards the audiences. Nine songs including an encore sounds a slender set but it felt rich given the variety of instrumentation and the swing from the quiet (‘Tom’) to loud (‘Spy’) plus a new song too in ‘Sour Grapes’.



The final song of the main set was ‘Salamander’ which on the album is sung with Euros Childs – I can think of no higher compliment than to say tonight he was not missed. The song finished with solitary repeated notes on the mandolin and a dramatic flourish and then silence – spell-binding. The encore was a Kathy Smith cover (“discovered thanks to Andy Votel’s ‘Folk is a Four Letter Word’ compilation”). I don’t know the original but Laura J Martin made it sound convincingly like her own. A very talented woman. Her album alone is worth chasing down. But finally based on experience I can say that seeing Laura J Martin live is equally essential.



The Set List:

Doki Doki
The Lesson
Fire Horse
Tom
Jesse
Sour Grapes
Spy
Salamander
---
It’s Taking So Long

LAURA J MARTIN The Hangman Tree

In June 2010 I wrote about Laura J Martin for this esteemed organ when she only had one single to her name. By the end of 2011 that had risen to three singles. Now, on possibly one of the most depressing days of the year, comes her debut album on Static Caravan. “The Hangman Tree” bundles three songs from those singles - the title track being one of them - into this sixteen-song flighty folk odyssey that is the perfect antidote for lifting spirits flagging with the January blues.

If you are familiar with the singles you will know to expect: intricately arranged, jaunty folk-jazz excursions, mixing eastern vibes and a percussive, soulful swing, all powered by flute, mandolin, xylophone or piano with Martin’s vocals switching from child-like (but never infantile) innocence to breathy sultriness. What you might not expect is how far-ranging these excursions go in their allusive, magical story-telling – from deserts to Morecombe Bay to Japan – and aided by some curious collaborations and pairings.


‘Spy’ is a delightful blend of Lalo Schifrin espionage soundtrack with savage Ted Hughes bird of prey imagery in a tale about a careless ninja. The sparse mandolin and girly-voiced folk whimsy of ‘Tom’ sounds as though it was plucked from a Trunk reissue of an obscure 70s children's TV show music if a lyrical reference to “Superman 3” didn’t give it away. ‘Silent Maria’ turns harpsichord elegance and clockwork winding noises into a one-Mississippi counting song. ‘Jesse’, a song about a murderer, alternates clip-clop rhythms and piano with a serene string passage; the equally rhythmic ‘Fire Horse’ tells the tale of 17th century Japanese arsonist Yaoya Oshichi complete with hand-claps and more of that exceptional flute-playing. These odd-couple/inventive collisions are followed through with her guest collaborators. A duet with Euros Childs on the dusty ‘Salamander’, all quivering tension, halting piano and a kazoo solo, may not be a surprise but sparring with granite-voiced Canadian rapper Buck 65 on ‘Kissbye Goodnight’ is.



In its scope and strange story-telling, “The Hangman Tree” reminds me of a richly illustrated book of fairy stories, exotic and slightly magical, blending innocence with darkness hidden in corners and unexpected places - and is utterly beguiling. This time last year Static Caravan released Hannah Peel’s “The Broken Wave”, another inventive album by a solo female multi-instrumentalist with Liverpool connections and an impressive address book. Twelve months on, Laura J Martin trumps that excellent record with her debut and may just provide the Birmingham label with a commercial as well as critical success.

Spy by Laura J Martin

Laura J Martin The Hangman Tree [BUY]

DAN HAYWOOD'S NEW HAWKS @ DULCIMER 19 January 2012

Mikey Kenney aka Ottersgear, here performing solo, opened tonight’s Now Then Manc evening. He played an intense acoustic folk that felt quite traditional in many ways – songs about snowbells, phantoms of the fog, huntsmen and nature's armies – but he could also up the tempo to lost-in-the-moment thrash or shift his voice from deep burr and off-mic yodel to a crisp falsetto on a song about frozen Michigan (a cover I thought but later discovered was an original composition). He finished with a celebratory fiddle reel that was neither Christian rock nor about paedophilia (as had unkindly been suggested). Captivating stuff.


“We’re Samson and Delilah and we’ve come all the way from....Whalley Range”. Somehow I’ve managed never to see Manchester-based Samson and Delilah (or hear their two albums) and, duped by the name, I expected a duo. Here they performed as a five-piece: upright bass, keys, drums, acoustic guitar and accordion with flute thrown in too. They played dark, dramatic folk which from quiet beginnings took off to a steady processional marching beat. A little too earnest at times (“this is about genocide in Africa”) they deserved better than the disrespectful and overly chatty crowd gave them.



For tonight’s headliners, the nine-piece Dan Haywood’s New Hawks, the distracting chatter seemed to vanish. They weren’t a particularly intimidating group but as the roll call of names and home towns showed they were an eclectic ensemble and not, it has to be said, looking like they were all in the same band. Opening song ‘David in Cedars’, all Eastern shimmer and mystery punctured with the barked name “David!”, however showed just how cohesive they were from the off. There was a loose jam-band vibe to proceedings, not the least from a Korg synthesiser player sat cross legged on the floor rug and bongo drums throughout, all overseen by the loose-limbed band leader signalling changes with a nod or a waved hand, even consulting the crowd (“shall we finish here or go round again?”).





Players often doubled-up instruments during a song - Paddy Steer on both lap-steel and bass pedals - or swapped them swiftly – the mandolin alternated for electric bass. The set-list appeared to be decided on the hoof and songs were often preceded by a leisurely tune-up that almost casually ushered in songs. But what songs. And what lush delivery. If you were over-awed by a triple-vinyl 32-track debut album, this 11 song set was a fine introduction that added a fiery spontaneity to the album tracks. Dan Haywood’s odd tales of the incidents and characters encountered during a year living in rural Scotland can be a curious and expansive listening experience on first encounter – as well as epic - but in a packed upstairs pub room it made perfect sense whether gentle country ballad or folky hoedown or any of the many points in between. The final two songs – a space-jam ‘Smiley Patch’ into dance-along ‘Superquarry’ may have been the two best closing songs I’ll hear all year. Shame not to get an encore but what a way to go out on a high.



The Set List:

David In Cedars
Spate River
John’s Shoes
Farewell Comeback
New Wool
Fear of Lightning
My Heart Was Set On Xmas Eve
Killer Of Men
Jackaroos
Smiley Patch
Superquarry

PORCELAIN RAFT Strange Weekend

There has been a raft (ouch) of one-man, two-word band name outfits surfing the spreading tail-end of chillwave in different directions: Washed Out, Memory Tapes, Neon Indian, even extending to the retro sythn-pop revivalism of Twin Shadow. The opening track on the debut Porcelain Raft album, ‘Drifting In And Out’ (followed by ‘Shapeless and Gone’ and later ‘Put Me To Sleep’) suggests another fellow traveller tracking this curve. Mauro Remiddi aka Porcelain Raft distances himself however from a reductive re-run of blissed-out balminess even on the first song. ‘Drifting In And Out’ is built on frail voiced melodies and compressed tinny bedroom-pop beefed up with crisply churning electronic textures - more The War On Drugs than Washed Out - and given the (post-)rock propulsion and epic sweep of say Sigur Ros with some darkly spluttering electric guitar and ecstatic yelps to boot. It sets the template for the album: melodic pop nuggets created on a laptop, draped in electronic effects and instrumentation and then projected on to a vast panoramic canvas.

“Strange Weekend” also does deliver blissed-out drift (‘If You Had A Wish’) and icy romance (‘Backwords’) but for most part feels as though it is turning the wistful into the epic and widescreen whether in the campfire-psychedelia of ‘Shapeless and Gone’, the catchy soul-pop shuffle of ‘Put Me To Sleep’ or the squeaky disco pleas of ‘Unless You Speak From Your Heart’ . The New York-via-London, Italian native’s voice is tiny amongst such surroundings but is never lost or dwarfed, instead it is the quiet core of the grandeur and scale around it.



The bedroom epics of “Strange Weekend” are not universally successfully: ‘Picture’ is a stripped back Lennon-esque strumalong that is too drippy and cloying, both lyrically and sonically, for its own good. A late whoosh of surging electronic crackle comes too late to rescue it. Remiddi shows he can do quiet effectively on the final track ‘The Way In’, a cosmic, heart-searching torch song closer. Here and where the dynamic between the lone performer and his large-scale panoramas is maintained, is where the expansive dream-pop rush tastes sweetest. “Strange Weekend” is out next week on Secretly Canadian and Porcelain Raft is supporting M83 on all UK dates this week.

Unless You Speak From Your Heart by Porcelain Raft

Porcelain Raft Strange Weekend [BUY]

A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN @ ACADEMY 3, 14 January 2012

There’s a video on You Tube of A Winged Victory For The Sullen playing at Unsound Festival in Krakow. The venue is uncredited but it appears to be a 18th century church, candlelit with rich burnt-orange colours. A hallowed and serene setting for the post-classical soundscapes of the musical collaboration between the composer Dustin O’Halloran and ex-Stars of the Lid man Adam Wiltzie. What to make then of the first calling station for A Winged Victory For The Sullen’s debut UK tour being Manchester Academy 3: a typically characterless and scuzzy student union venue with black drapes, dark concrete walls and a sticky floor (next booking the two day Academy Metal Festival)? Luckily neither support nor headliner seemed to find the venue a distraction from their entrancing music.

Belgium’s sleepingdog also features Adam Wiltzie in a separate musical collaboration with Chantal Acda. However their support slot makes musical not just practical sense: their “glacial moving, dark cough syrup pop music” providing the perfect warm-up (as with last year’s slot supporting Low). Acda alternates between piano or acoustic guitar accompanied by the carefully controlled drones of Wiltzie. For the second half of their six song set they are joined by two percussionists: one on brushed snare drum, the other on a variety of hand instruments plus ankle bracket chimes. Even performing as a four-piece they kept it all hushed and contained, allowing the songs to unwind around Acda’s serenely cool but warming tones. Delicious medicine indeed.

“And my name is Adam. And we're going to play you seven songs of death and heartbreak" came the declaration after each player had been introduced. The two core collaborators in A Winged Victory For The Sullen faced each other across the stage: O’Halloran on electric piano and Wiltzie on guitar and drones, the former the more serious looking, upright and dressed in black, the latter bent over, often turning his back to the audience in loose fitting cardigan and jeans. Between them sat an inner circle of the three piece string section – cello, viola and violin. The set started in near darkness with the main source of illumination being the reading light reflection off the string section’s musical scores. What followed was a richly evocative playing of the duo’s eponymous album in which the drones and strings create slow moving surges and swells, deep and majestic, interwoven with the reflective piano motifs and repetitions. It was mysterious and moving in equal parts. Each song was punctuated by fervid applause from one of the most attentive and appreciative audiences I’ve been part of. And further lightening the mood was the occasional footballing comment from American Wiltzie: “How come Man City got so good?”.


As the set progressed, the illumination increased - and so did the animation of the duo, each rising and surging as the music did. The extra lighting started to make the raw surroundings more evident but the concrete pillar-box framing of the ensemble actually worked to create a beautiful tableau effect. Finishing with a final new song that added a subtle layer of grit to its glacial progression, the five musicians left the stage to more of that rapturous applause. And all the house lights were flicked suddenly on to reveal the prosaic setting. For sixty absorbing minutes we could have easily been in Krakow. And realising we weren’t, we still had the sounds of A Winged Victory For The Sullen in our heads, which like death and heartbreak, take time to fade.

FREE SWIM Dennis

On last year’s two (free download) EPs, Free Swim tackled a man who decides to have two extra hands grafted on to this chest and the Himalayan adventures of a Giant Panda named Yolanda. Two more EPs are promised this year and today the first of those (not ‘officially’ released until “20 February 2012”?) is up for download on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. Although Free Swim are now a four-piece live band (visual evidence here) the “Dennis” EP was written, recorded and produced solely by Free Swim mastermind Paul Coltofeanu. And like the previous EPs it has a concept “A budding bromance is inadvertently derailed by an undeniably lovely girl called Sophie Buttercup”. If the concept doesn’t sound too promising (a PG Wodehouse short story? A rejected Divine Comedy B-side?), rest assured the delivery is.

Opener ‘Oh Dennis’ tells of the budding friendship-cum-infatuation with Dennis (“I met you one day in the park / playing tennis..”), all sweetness and yearning admiration over a chunky guitar riff and stylophone squiggles, like The Monochrome Set meets Momus. The relationship is cemented in the stomping ‘Croydon Fernandes’, in which The Monkees go laddish new wave and take on beat poetry. References to The Human Centipede, Geoff Capes, Ken Bates, air cello and then complaining about the shell in a Morrison’s Scotch egg come thick and fast and I have to confess to not being entirely sure what is going on in the rough-and-tumble of this song but at its climax our hero is informed - by text - that Dennis has met and fallen in love with Sophie (“I dropped my phone / left all alone”).

The nimble, even jazzy ‘The Smell of Pregnancy’, all dainty brushed drum tip-toe alternating with more churning guitar riffs, comes complete with the return of Quirrence the narrator and an extended spacey slap bass outro as the expulsion of our leading man is made complete. It also features references to Vienetta and National Trust properties. An air of soft-voiced resignation hangs over the mournful piano-framed ‘Cycling in the Ardeche’, set several years later, until Dennis gets back in touch (“we hugged like men”). And Dennis has a request for our would-be romantic.... Will it be a happy ending? I won’t spoil it – you know what you have to do to find out for yourself.

Not as immediately addictive or as off-the-scale surreal as “Yolanda The Panda”, this EP is still a nonconformist treat, delightfully swimming against the tide of current trends and mixing a fine English whimsy with muscular DIY pop. Highly recommended.

Free Swim - Oh Dennis by Free Swim

Free Swim - Croydon Fernandes by Free Swim

Free Swim Dennis [FREE]