The chosen name for this Glasgow-based sextet could easily suggest a faceless, politically-steered apparatus for barking pronouncements and transmitting propaganda. But State Broadcasters are a much quieter, more human and more domestically focused collective. Opening song here ‘The Only Way Home’ is imbued with the spidery mournfulness of Sparklehorse as it sings of the drawn-out agony of awaiting telephone news – and it has that same quality that Mark Linkous mastered of being able to sing of deeply sad things but as though with a beaming yet cracked smile. Second track ‘Trespassers’ has a more jaunty Caledonian lilt to its velvety soft orch-folk meander that recalls a more frugal version of The Delgados with the orchestral grandeur turned down and replaced with a quiet sense of dislocation.
“The Ghosts We Carry” reminds me of the poignant nostalgia and keen sense of place that both Lanterns On The Lake and King Creosote and Jon Hopkins demonstrated on recent albums - but without the surging crescendos or electronic textures of "Gracious Tide Take Me Home" and without the rural seclusion and field recording ambience of "Diamond Mine". It is filled with tender, hushed moments of simplicity and reminiscence, of sharing warm pastries, weekend walks, flasks of tea and empty landscapes. In the sparse plucked harp strings of ‘Outside The Bakery’ or the waltz-like delicacy of ‘Takeshi’, in the soft folky elegance of the re-working of Billy Bragg’s ‘The Only One’ (sung by Gillian Fleetwood) or the antique group harmonies and accordion murmur of ‘This Old Table’, it sounds as though instruments are not mechanically strummed or played so much as lovingly and slowly stroked to life. Piano, trombone, banjo, cello and piano all gently serve the down-trodden romanticism of each song, never overpower it. There is a confident restraint to the album that many bands, especially with six players, would not be able to achieve. Lambchop strikes me as a comparison for achieving such quiet precision with so many hands.
‘The Writing’s On The Wall’ is a minor departure in its (slightly) more forceful loudness and glossiness but to these ears is not as strong or as convincing as the delicate despondency elsewhere on show. This, the band’s second album after 2009’s “The Ship And The Iceberg”, is not an icy plunge-pool of despair but a graceful slide into balmy spa waters that gently wash you with feelings of doubt and loneliness. “Don’t mistake the kittiwake for the common gull” plaintively sing State Broadcasters in the sea-bird titled song. There are familiar components and sounds on offer here but there is no mistaking this is an uncommon - and highly accomplished - achievement.
I spent a good part of this evening trying to work out where the name Thugs On Wolves comes from. Or even if it makes sense. Nope I just couldn’t figure it out. However cryptic or nonsensical their nomenclature may be the Manchester four-piece are a delight on stage – twin vocal harmonies, twin acoustic guitars, acoustic bass plus keyboards and floor tom all mix into a dreamy Local Natives/Grizzly Bear vibe meets The Travelling Band wistfulness. They finished with two songs “only written yesterday” – the solo ‘Esmeralda’ and then ‘Jackdaw’ involving stop/start sections and complex vocal interplay. I’d already concluded Thugs On Wolves were accomplished but
to deliver ambitious new songs with such assurance... definitely worth tracking down.
“Call Me Dan”. Withered Hand aka Dan Willson is looking fit and trim tonight as well as being personable. But alas he is full of cold and by the second song his unruly hair has taken on a life of its own. Coughs and apologies aside though this is a damn impressive and powerful show in the intimate setting of the upstairs room of the Kings Arms. Opening with three solo songs including the “not yet recorded” ‘Life Of Doubt’, he is then joined by his three-piece band (“I must thank them now because I never do in the van”) for the remainder of a set which intersperses heartfelt renditions of classics (yes they are classics) from 2010’s "Good News" with new songs – either unrecorded or from the forthcoming vinyl EP ‘Inbetweens’.
Introducing the title track of that new EP, Dan Willson drifts off into a tale about the boring bits of life but it just fizzles out. If he appears distracted or talks askance into the microphone between songs, the ugly beauty of Withered Hands is they are so direct, personal and intense. And when he occasionally stares out from sweat-soaked hair during songs, his wide-eyed gaze is fierce and unswerving. The fast-paced ‘bad gene’ song ‘New Dawn’ may have held back a little tonight and there was no ‘Heart Heart’ to allow for a suffering throat to recover (“good job it’s not the beginning of the tour...” It is) but this was a delicious masterclass from Edinburgh’s anti-folk maestro and torch-bearer of the maudlin and downtrodden. How, how has Withered Hand world domination not yet been achieved? The tour continues – voice and health allowing – to Cardiff, London, Sheffield, Newcastle and Glasgow. Do not miss.
The Set List
Cornflake
No Cigarettes
Life Of Doubt
Inbetweens
New Dawn
Providence
Love In The Time Of Ecstasy
I Am Nothing
Gethsemane
Jubilee
Religious Songs
Tonight’s gig – the 499th of Jens Lekman’s career, if he is to be believed – starts with the instrumental prelude of ‘Every Little Hair Knows Your Name’ and finishes with the full song, as does this year’s album "I Know What Love Isn’t". But tonight’s show is more than an album play-back. Although the first half of the ninety minute set draws heavily from the globe-trotting Swede’s current long-player, it never feels as maudlin or introspective as that record can. And increasingly the set played by the four-piece backing band – violin and keyboards stage left, bass stage right and drums centre behind Gothenburg’s most famous retired bingo hall employee - blends older material around the new songs to increase the familiarity but also soulful geniality and witty theatrics. The segue of ‘The Golden Key’ (“about my failed jewellery career”) into ‘The Opposite of Hallelujah’ complete with Chairman Of The Board samples, choreographed hand movements and playing invisible chimes is seamless, clever and draws a gasp – literally – from the crowd. Or for a lengthy spoken word preface to ‘A Postcard To Nina’, as well as raconteur Jens acts as band leader counting the band out instrument by instrument before they – again seamlessly – reunite for the opening of the song proper. During ‘Sipping On The Sweet Nectar’ he halts the song, staring at the ceiling for an achingly long silent pause, before it re-starts. Little moments of drama but they add so much to the songs. And like the way the band are dressed – you don’t at first notice that they are all dressed in black with matching white plimsolls – there is a clever, casual organisation to what is happening on stage that is never overtly controlling or regimented just subtly applied and allowed to take shape naturally.
And although there was something joyful on-stage dancing for the tropicalia of ‘An Argument With Myself’, well-cheered old classics (‘Black Cab’ and ‘Maples Leaves’) and even some arms-held-wide aeroplane moves from Mr Lekman, there was also hair-tingling quiet and poignancy – an acutely hushed ‘I Want A Pair Of Cowboy Boots’ played with the lights down and then the final encore. If new album ‘I Know What Love Isn’t’ wears its heartbreak a little too heavily and continuously, here it felt as though Jens is putting it behind him and can dip in judiciously rather than wallow.
This is the fourth time I’ve seen Jens Lekman live. He never fails to impress. And no-one can segue two songs together live better than he can. Yes I’ve seen some of the tricks with samples and theatrics before so it lacked that element of surprise. Yes there was no secret set afterwards (or if there was I wasn’t invited). Yes I’ve heard that tale about stalking Kirsten Dunst in Gothenburg before, and not just once. But none of that mattered or took away from how engaging, charming, and witty the man and his lovelorn songs are. He described the making of the new record – a long five years – as a circle. Like tonight’s gig he said, as he introduced that final encore of the vocal version of ‘Every Little Hair Knows Your Name’: “starting as we began... another circle”. And what a perfect circle it was.
The Set List
Every Little Hair Knows Your Name
Becoming Someone Else’s
I Know What Love Isn't
The End Of The World Is Bigger Than Love
Some Dandruff On Your Shoulder
The Golden Key
The Opposite Of Hallelujah
Waiting For Kirsten
Black Cab
I Want A Pair Of Cowboy Boots
The World Moves On
Maple Leaves
That's The Way Love Is
Sipping On The Sweet Nectar
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An Argument With Myself
A Postcard To Nina
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Every Little Hair Knows Your Name
Sample-based music can often relish untidy splicing and ragged loops – look at the joins! – as though emphasising its synthetic creation. Roman Bezdyk (aka Sone Institute) on “A Model Life” delivers a seamless, richly organic sound-world where it’s difficult to spot the joins but also to see what is appropriation and what is invention, what is studio reproduction and what is real, live instrumentation. These fourteen songs also come across like a genre-hopping, carefully sequenced mixtape –dense, vocal-laden songs gliding into looser instrumentals and retro-lounge playfulness over the course of a 54 minute excursion from J Dilla beats (‘The World Is A Confusion’) to Ryuichi Sakamoto revery (‘Little Walsingham’) to Sergio Leone re-wiring Alan Hawkshaw (‘M’Ling’) and back again. There are occasional glitchy hiccups in the smooth flow just to catch you out but mainly an astonishing, shape-shifting variety.
The album lurches into life with hairy rock guitar work-out in ‘Witchcraft and Pornography’ and ends cryptically with slippery psychedelic guitar and distorted vocal samples in the sleep-deprived ‘Fear and Nappiness’. In between there’s 60s spy intrigue as soundtracked by Blue Note in ‘Frozen Leaves – Falling From Trees’, the silky strings library music of ‘Back At Yesterday’, the torch soul meets scrap-yard folk stirrings of ‘Struck By A Rock’, the poignant whistling of Sparklehorse instrumental out-take ‘A Model Life’ or the gauzy ambience of Boards Of Canada in ‘Cars And Rain’. And more.
Being released on Front And Follow, home of undefinable esoterica, and with plaudits from The Wire (who also stream a companion track to this album release on their website) could lead you to label Sone Institute’s second album as 'experimental', as iTunes Gracenote service does. But this does not mean obtuse or difficult. Far from it. Like the cover artwork – from a photographic series ‘The Car Park’ by Nick Cobb – your perspective changes frequently, it is difficult to divine what is real and what is a model in this hazy trompe l’oeil but "A Model Life" is a refreshing, revitalising listen that constantly draws you in, revealing more detail and surprise in its elegant, serpentine unwinding.
Eat Lights Become Lights have changed labels for album number two – swapping Enraptured Records for Rocket Girl, with The Great Pop Supplement releasing the vinyl edition of “Heavy Electrics”. But rest assured there is no mechanical overhaul for Eat Lights Become Lights, instead a precision-tooled progression to their instrumental juggernaut krautrock sounds. If 2011’s “Autopia” was heavily themed around travel and often acted as a sound-track to a neon-lit, open-throttle dash along the long, empty concrete autobahn, “Heavy Electrics” is a dark sci-fi rocket-trip, sometimes firing on all thrusters, at others coasting in the spooky tranquillity of deep space. The intricate patterns of the album cover also seem to point sinisterly to HR Giger ‘Alien’ designs.
I suspect opening track ‘Bound For Magic Mountain’ is more likely a reference to the Los Angeles theme park than the alpine sanatorium novel by Thomas Mann, if at all. It is a fearsome and speedy roller-coaster of a ride, more of a plummet than undulating peaks and troughs, ushered in by bleeps and urgency, powered by sheet metal drum clatter and insistent stabbing synths before culminating in a mind-melting frenzied noise.
This hard-edged collision of rock and techno pulse is revisited in ‘La Kraut III’ and the roaring guitar squall of the title track. Overall the album is shot through with less of the motorik of Neu and more the freedom of Can – or maybe the propulsive drive of Holy Fuck. Easing off the accelerator pedal slightly is the low-budget 80s sci-fi soundtrack of ‘Syd Mead Cityscape’. ‘Sunrise At Marwar Junction’, is as mysterious, evocative and even as spiritual as the title suggests in its tinkling splendour and chimes. The ten minute ’Terminus IV’ demands more patience as simple loops of guitar and synthesizer coalesce over a slow five minute escalation into a dark, crunching tempest.
It is astonishing that Eat Lights Become Lights is mainly the studio product of one man Neil Rudd. Live the band is filled out by “the Eat Lights collective, a constantly shifting tableau of gifted musicians” but the sonic onslaught and depth of “Heavy Electrics” on record sounds as though it has taken an Olympian army to create. Heavy electrical storms predicted, delivered and very welcome to stay.
‘Love Hz’. Is that as in hertz the SI unit of frequency? Or a down-with-the-kids plural of H? Or is it an abbreviation for haze? If it is meant to be the latter, there’s nothing hazy about the music of Manchester’s art-rockers New Hips. Formed from the ashes of Deaf To Van Gogh’s Ear, the four piece are releasing this double A-side vinyl single in partnership with Baptists And Bootleggers. As you will remember the label, launched with support from Umbro Industries, has a mission to not only champion and release new music but to distribute it free of charge. So if you turn up for tonight’s free gig at 2022HQ in Manchester’s Northern Quarter you will also receive a free copy of said vinyl release (packaged in a 12” re-sealable polythene record sleeve with hand screen printed 36” x12” poster, an A6 insert and A3 wrap around sleeve. Art work is by Zia Chan and with band photography from Martin Wilson). To negate the need to read any further: it would be worth your while doing so if in the vicinity.
I saw New Hips live supporting I’m From Barcelona last September and though impressively energetic there was also an all-over-the-map unruliness to their songs at this first live encounter. Here on record they retain the prog-leaning bounciness and a lots-happening-at-once busyness but with more focus and more fun.
‘Split Milk’ lurches forward on cascading and duelling guitars - sometimes African jit, sometimes squally freakout - with breathy/breathless full-pelt vocals, and even a jazzy synth break AND a xylophone interlude. It’s like Battles or even Islet contained in a 4 min pop template. ‘Love Hz’ bundles pneumatic vocals with cowbell and bass line bounce, offset with cooing female backing harmonies. It holds back from Battles electronic glitchiness or Deerhoof angular waywardness but has the restless punch and explosive vigour of both. A bite-size (and free) introduction to the world of New Hips, this double AA side single delivers some infectiously joyful, cerebral music aimed at the feet and the fidgety. Highly recommended. And if you miss out on the vinyl, there's also a limited CD release of both songs with remixes. Also free.
Anja McCloskey has a distinctive and far-from-average background: a German-American accordion player raised in Northern Germany and based in Southampton for the last decade. She is also a well-seasoned musician – moving from childhood orchestral playing to two previous UK bands (“avant-garde performance orchestra The Irrepressibles and folk-rock trailblazers Haunted Stereo”). Despite her debut album "An Estimation" being released on alt-folk independent label Sotones, she was first introduced to me as "if you like Sharon van Etten...". And indeed she straddles both these reference points, from moody, thoughtful baroque-pop through to earthy folk polkas and more.
The twelve track album, released on CD and digitally, starts with a rousing, strident flourish: the thickly European, almost Balkan, instrumental stomp of 'Decision'. For the remaining tracks, McCloskey and her band - double bass, violin, electric and acoustic guitar alongside the accordion - keep these wild gypsy cabaret impulses more in check to provide a tense, compressed underscore. The energetic wheeze of the accordion, the dramatic twitching of the violin and the insistent percussive tap all contrast with McCloskey's sweeping, romantic tones – although I did get swept up in mood rather than lyrics for many songs.
The songs are a cohesive, balanced collection, a set of well-ordered folk-dances that appear alike on first encounter but slowly reveal the subtle differences in tempo, mood and pattern. Amongst the slower numbers are the eerie glide of ‘Tornado’, the sighing poignant drone of ‘And Her Head’ and the regal piano of ‘Tagetes’. Amongst the more continental, mid-tempo repertoire is the woozy cafe-bar chanson of tragic lover’s tale ‘Blinded By Blue’ and the jaunty ripples of ‘Italian Song’. Elsewhere the countrified, flightiness of ‘Instigate It’, the delicate mournfulness of ‘Quite Low’ or the alluring flutter of ‘Ivory’ could easily sit in a collection of femme freak-folk, antique or otherwise. Stand-out track for me and released as a single earlier this year is ‘A Kiss’ when the gypsy swirl, allure and danger previously held in check is spun out to dramatic effect.
“An Estimation” is a distinctive and highly accomplished record and one I'd recommend trying out. Anja McCloskey may not trouble Sharon van Etten in the Pitchfork hipper-than-thou sweetheart stakes but with moments like ‘A Kiss’, when you feel the passionate concentration of her disparate influences in full force, such a moment may yet come.
"You don't get over a broken heart / you just learn to carry it gracefully". The theme of the fourth album – or rather ‘collection’ - from globe-trotting Swede Jens Lekman is never in doubt. “I Know What Love Isn’t” is most definitely about heart-break: nine tracks plus an opening instrumental prelude that gently, lushly unpack reflections on, and feelings of, loss and the end of romance. I had heard before listening to this record that it was ‘stripped back’ but don’t expect harrowing Josh T Pearson style acoustic renditions. True there are less samples and less instrumentation than on its immediate predecessor “Night Falls Over Kortedala” but the full-blown orchestral swoon of ‘The End Of The World Is Bigger Than Love’ could easily find a home on that record. Elsewhere wispy flute or glossy saxophone can be found plus elegant aching strings underscoring ‘The World Moves On’ and the title track. It’s also not stripped back as in simplified: the shifting time signatures and patterns of ‘Erica America’ with its ornate alternating arrangements of sax, piano and strings verge on cumbersome.
Rather this album is stripped back of some of the wry humour and debonair chic of earlier collections, displaced by a sense of palpable sadness. The lonely image on the cover is the most distant Jens Lekman has appeared on one of his records; ironically because musically it feels closer to the man behind the lovelorn, selectively loquacious troubadour. “I Know What Love Isn’t” re-kindles the emotional, quiet intimacy of early songs like ’The Cold Swedish Winter’ or 'Someone To Share My Life With' but here saddled with wearied experience and a heavier heart.
Although gently mournful this is not a depressing record. These sob stories and not-so-bitter reflections contain trademark witty story-telling and domestic detail a plenty and there’s an undeniably upbeat cheerfulness in the latter half of the album with ‘The World Moves On’ and ‘The End Of The World Is Bigger Than Love’. The lines from the latter on charting dimensions are particularly sublime: “And it's bigger than an iceberg / Than the plume of a geyser / And it's bigger than the spider / Floating in your cider / And it's bigger than the stock market / Than the loose change in your pocket”. And the boast about push-ups in ‘Every Little Hair Knows Your Name’ is incongruously hilarious despite the hushed pathos.
We’ve heard similar songs from Jens before in his career but this time it feels more genuine, more personal; his arch, knowing smile is a little crumpled, somewhat downturned and with no let up from this mood over thirty nine minutes. Its delicate lushness is appealing but I’m not sure based on these tender, earlier listens that this is the record I’d introduce a non-listener to the world of Jens Lekman (unless they were a mildly masochistic depressant) but for converts it’s a fascinating and essential insight. And damn beautiful music. The highs - ‘The End Of The World..’, ‘Becoming Someone Else’s’ and ‘Every Little Hair Knows Your Name’ – easily stand alongside his best song-writing. Oh You’re So Heart-Broken Jens.
After the August lull, a much fuller and more eclectic month ahead gig-wise in Manchester. Just the mixtape itself veers from Vermont freak-folk to Swedish tropicalia, from New Zealand charm-pop to Mancunian math-rock, from Danish post-rock to harmony-pop from Teeside. Also this month two all-day events: the return of Rowf! Rowf! Rowf! to Islington Mill and the new dual-venue All Dayer from Mcr Scenewipe. Sadly both are the same day. Doh.
As ever a mixtape of bands playing Manchester this month to help inform your gig-going decision-making - link in the post below this one
Manchester Gigs In Music Mixtape: September 2012 [53 mins / 60MB] - download here.
Euros Childs Be Be High [2.09] (5 Sep Kings Arms BUY TICKETS) Jaill Waste A Lot Of Things [5.04] (27 Sep The Castle BUY TICKETS) Deep Time Clouds [7.43] (20 Sep Kraak BUY TICKETS) Dan Deacon Lots [10.31] (28 Sep Islington Mill BUY TICKETS) New Hips All Prologue [13.41] (14 Sep 2022NQ BUY TICKETS) Secretaire Prick On The Racetrack [16.45] (1 Sep Fuel BUY TICKETS) Crybaby True Love Will Find You In The End [19.32] (18 Sep The Castle BUY TICKETS) Hurray For The Riff Raff Look Out Mama [22.52] (6 Sep Night & Day BUY TICKETS) The Cornshed Sisters Dance At My Wedding [26.56] (2 Sep Odder BUY TICKETS) Lawrence Arabia Travelling Shoes [31.06] (13 Sep Ruby Lounge BUY TICKETS) MV and EE Sweet Sure Gone [34.13] (22 Sep Islington Mill BUY TICKETS) Jens Lekman An Argument With Myself [37.58] (19 Sep Ruby Lounge BUY TICKETS) Sleep Party People The City Light Died [44.30] (4 Sep Soup Kitchen BUY TICKETS) Memory Drawings Chinese History Of Colden Water [48.31] (16 Sep Sacred Trinity BUY TICKETS) Meg Baird The Finder [53.12] (12 Sep The Castle BUY TICKETS)
And not forgetting: 1 Sep June Brides Kings Arms / 1 Sep Queer’d Science + Klaus Kinski Fuel / 1 Sep Poor Moon Ruby Lounge / 1 Sep Colorama The Castle / 4 Sep High Wolf Night & Day / 4 Sep Blue Rose Code The Castle / 4 Sep Lesbian Kraak / 5 Sep A Sky Jet Black Kraak / 5 Sep The Step Kids Deaf Institute / 6 Sep Danny George Wilson The Castle / 7 Sep Deap Valley Soup Kitchen / 7 Sep Allo Darlin’ + Just Handshakes We’re British Deaf Institute / 7 Sep Patti Smith Academy 1 / 8 Sep Nothing But Abbatoir Blues Festival The Castle / 9 Sep Husky The Castle / 14 Sep The Necks Band On The Wall / 15 Sep Rachel Sermanni Soup Kitchen / 15 Sep The Logicals Deaf Institute / 15 Sep Manatees Kraak / 16 Sep The Sun Devils Odder / 16 Sep A Place To Bury Strangers Ruby Lounge / 17 Sep Butch Walker Night & Day / 17 Sep El-P Academy / 18 Sep Macklemore + Ryan Lewis Deaf Institute / 19 Sep Frightened Rabbit Deaf Institute / 20 Sep Withered Hand Kings Arms / 20 Sep Last Dinosaurs Trof Fallowfield / 21 Sep Dexys Bridgewater Hall 22 Sep Mcr Scenewipe All Dayer including Temple Songs Eagulls Kraak + Soup Kitchen / 22 Sep Young Knives Sound Control / 22 Sep The Fall Lower Kersall Social Club / 23 Sep The Dunwells Soup Kitchen / 23 Sep Cult Of Youth Kraak / 24 Sep Ken Vandermark Kraak / 25 Sep Telepathe Soup Kitchen / 25 Sep Venetian Snares Sound Control / 25 Sep Beth Jeans Houghton Deaf Institute / 26 Sep Richard Hawley Academy / 27 Sep Omar Rodriquez Lopez Group Deaf Institute / 28 Sep Pale Seas + Kult Country Roadhouse / 28 Sep The Rubys Night & Day / 28 Sep Thomas Truax The Castle / 28 Sep Devon Sproule Band On The Wall / 28 Sep The Portlands Ruby Lounge / 29 Sep Cave Painting Trof
Reunion gigs. Never a good idea. And so the unwritten rule is avoid them. Remember how much hand-wringing I went through at Dean Wareham Plays Galaxie 500 night and that wasn't even a reunion. So when Grandaddy announced earlier this year they were reforming for a short tour, even though I'd never seen them live first time round, I thought good on you to get a bit of adulation and cash - but it's not for me. Even if one of only four UK gigs was in Manchester. Remember the rule.
So I gladly ignored the tour despite writing a few words as a preview elsewhere. Until earlier today when I got offered a ticket to tonight's sold-out gig. Principles and The Rule be damned.
A Randy Newman-esque 'welcome back' show tune presaged the band taking the stage. The affection from the crowd was palpable even delirious but the demeanour of the five band members was a little cooler. There was no back-slapping camaraderie here – chilled Californians and ex-professional skateboarders remember - and other than referencing Manchester and asking for requests, Jason Lytle’s stage banter barely expanded from ‘thank you’ to ‘thank you a lot’ over the ninety minute set. But what impressed from the outset – a feisty opening duo of ‘El Caminos In The West’ and ‘Now It's On’ - was how muscular and crisp the sound was. The loud guitars were all low-end growl, the keyboards and robotic bleeps pin-sharp and alive and Lytle’s voice was strong and unbroken whether for the halting frailty of ‘Underneath The Weeping Willow’ or the rough-edged ‘Chartsengrafs’. Grandaddy was largely - and certainly became - a Jason Lytle solo studio project so it was good to hear how in tune and interdependent with each other the five musicians were. And the set ransacked all corners of their back-catalogue rather than just focus on the millennial sadness of "The Sophtware Slump".
For the first of two encores, Grandaddy played a rocking version of Pavement’s ‘Here’ adding in some lines about their reformation with Lytle singing “we’re so fucking stoked to be HERE”. But as the final words of the song echoed around The Ritz (“last time...last time”), a sense of passing, of ending returned. There are only fifteen dates on this tour and especially for a band who sing of decommissioning and technical obsolescence, I sincerely hope they stick to this. Repeated global treks and no new material smacks of pure mercenary cash-in (hello Pixies). But also because after this evening’s excellent performance, if Grandaddy do continue their reunion touring, I might have to sacrifice my principles. Again.
The Set List (‘Chartsengrafs’ may be in the wrong place)
El Caminos In The West Now It’s On “Yeah” Is What We Had Fare Thee Not Well Mutineer The Crystal Lake Underneath The Weeping Willow AM180 Lost On Yer Merry Way The Go In The Go-For-It My Small Love Levitz Chartsengrafs Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground) So You'll Aim Toward The Sky Stray Dog And The Chocolate Shake Hewlett's Daughter Laughing Stock --- Here He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s The Pilot
The second God’s Little Eskimo album, “Said The Owl To The Mouse”, arrived in January last year and was distinctly arboreal. The third, “Dives Of Lazarus”, is out this week and is distinctly marine. Or rather submarine. If “Said The Owl To The Mouse” mimicked the jaunty scurrying of nocturnal woodland creatures or the sweeping flight of owls, “Dives Of Lazarus” follows the slow, graceful arc of denizens of the deep, most explicitly on ‘Leviathan’ in which surging, majestic piano suggests the gentle poise and power of the whale ("joyous and fearful"). Piano appears (almost) consistently on each of the half-dozen songs here, another departure from the previous album, but the mood of whole is closer to sparse atmospherics and minimal instrumentation of ‘Goodbye Great Auk’ from the 2011 album.
‘An Island’ is an impressionistic ten minute suite that alternates intense and airy sections with just piano and octave-shifting voice like the hovering then soaring sea-birds it sings of. It is so engrossing the duration is unnoticed. ‘Sea Mist’ combines piano, bass and bowed saw in a hauntingly atmospheric, not-quite-jazz-noir instrumental ending in long wave radio crackle. The song without piano (or maybe it is snuck in somewhere) is the opening track, the dream-like ‘Scapa Flow’. This begins with the ping of sonar but is constructed mainly of multiple, echoing vocal harmonies to relay the watery fate of a sailor (“torpedoes slammed our sides / no time / no time at all”).
But what really makes this collection so compelling beyond the judiciously spare arrangements and poetic tale-telling is the confident use of John Eskimo’s richly timbred voice. If the instrumentation and atmospheres tend to aquamarine chill, his voice is warmly emotive and alive even at its most poignant. The closing eight-minute ‘Dives Of Lazarus’ like ‘Scapa Flow’ is another song foregrounding John Eskimo’s voice front and centre, here with only minimal accompaniment from autoharp, guitar and wine-glass chime. All are used delicately for a deeply moving tale of a dead man making his grave beneath the waves “crabs scuttle along my spine / now a marble bridge from A to B / seahorse caper through my bones / the males rest pregnant at my side”. This spellbinding conclusion to the album similarly scuttles up your backbone.
God’s Little Eskimo appears as reticent and shy as some of the ghosts and creatures he sings about. I only discovered his real name via an obscure Dutch psych-folk site before spotting it modestly in copyright small print on the album sleeve. I remember his name on a poster several years ago but am not aware of him playing live recently and he has very little active social media presence other than some You Tube videos and an irregular blog. But on this record his presence is utterly alive and intimately real despite singing of the dead and decaying. On that blog he says this is the “third and final God’s Little Eskimo album”. A damn shame if this comes to pass. “Dives of Lazarus”, his best record so far, is a haunting triumph of imagination and execution. I cannot recommend this self-produced collection of eerie elegies highly enough.
"I'm not going to lie to you...it's going to be slow". But actually the meditative folk musings of Fence Records’ Seamus Fogarty were the perfect start to the final day of Green Man. The mud and two long days of excellent music plus the Growler ale had taken its toll and rather than launch noisily in, songs from the excellent “God Damn You Mountain” performed with accordion from brother John, vocal harmonies from friend James and from Rozi Plain (also on ‘shaky egg’) was a great entree to the brightening but long day ahead. The accompaniment took the songs closer to the album versions than the solo versions I’d seen but in any configuration and live or recorded, the music of Seamus Fogarty is highly recommended. And not just for festival Sunday lunchtimes.
Seamus Fogarty Set List The Evening Lay Down Upon Us / Down By Waterside / Little Mama / The Undertaker’s Daughter / Train To Mexico / Heels Over Head / God Damn You Mountain / The Wind / The Question
Knowing I was going to miss Tiny Ruins later, I hot-footed it to see her in the Rough Trade tent. Songwriter Hollie Fullbrook with double bassist Caz have been touring Europe constantly since I saw them last at No Direction Home. However they have used the time wisely, writing songs on the road and using this session to air some of them – plus ‘Little Nose’- saving “the greatest hits for our main set”. Gorgeous.
Alaska make an offer too tempting to miss: “reverrrrrrb-heavy, B-movie-influenced psychedelic garage rock with a surf pop twist”. The Leeds four-piece, all dressed in white (at a festival?!), were not quite as quirky and blatantly B-movie kitschy as they claimed on this boisterous encounter but have done enough to send me in search of their EP.
I caught three songs of dark, electronic angst from Ghostpoet on the Mountain Stage - was pleasantly surprised how well it worked in the open air festival setting – before heading for Crybaby on the Walled Garden stage. With a stage name taken from a Garnett Mimms song, Danny Coughlan writes soulful balladry that occupies a similar space to Richard Hawley. Here with three piece backing band Crybaby suggested "we’ve brought our rainy set not the sunny one" but whatever the weather (the sun came out for final song ‘Twist Of The Knife’) these deceptively simple songs of heartbreak were neatly engaging.
More weather references from Damien Jurado: “I’m from Seattle, Washington. I like the rain”. After hearing Jurado on various compilations a decade or so ago, I’d wrongly ignored him until this year’s excellent ‘Maraqopa’ album. On the Mountain Stage, seated, he played songs from that album plus much older ones to a hushed crowd – compact stories of heartbreak, departures and failings. Entrancing. Before he brought them on he introduced Megafaun as a band “seeking marijuana”. The North Carolina band then backed him for two noisier final numbers including the “psychedelic rock jam” that opens the latest album to close with. One of the highlights of the weekend for me and now I have a ten year plus back catalogue to catch up on.
King Creosote and Jon Hopkins make an odd couple physically – one tall and neat even severe, the other shorter, rounder and more – well – cuddly. Musically however it is an inspiring musical partnership. With Hopkins at grand piano and harmonium, King Creosote at the front of the stage plus backing vocalist and drummer, they navigated the “Diamond Mine” album plus a cover of ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’ with graceful aplomb to huge cheers.
I stayed at the Mountain Stage to secure a front-rail view for Tune-Yards and glad I did because there was a hefty throng waiting for them when they came on. “This mud’s for you”; Merrill Garbus had used Green Man mud in place of her familiar warrior face-painting but I think most people missed this reference as her band launched into ‘Party In A Can’. I’ve written before (here and here) about the inventiveness, fun and energy of Tune-Yards live and today it remained fresh despite this being the last date of a “very, very long” world tour but it was even more energetically charged. The loud mock-angry shrieks of Garbus drew equally loud responses from the crowd. It really was a party, finishing with a mighty segue of ‘Killa’ into ‘My Country’ featuring heartfelt thanks, a dedication to Pussy Riot, posing saxophone players and a dancing tour manager. Of course the band could only be called back on stage for an encore.
Tune-Yards Set List Party In A Can / You Yes You / Gangsta / Powa / Real Live Flesh / Es-so / Bizness / Killa / My Country / Jumpin' Jack
I didn’t last the full set from Jamie N Commons - a disappointing Brit School take on faux blues-rock-noir. But proving to be the real deal in the Far Out Tent was Jonathan Richman. It’s difficult to capture the playful fun of a man in his sixties acting the kid in such an idiosyncratic, slightly camp fashion accompanied by Tommy Larkins on drums and dark glasses. The opening song sung of Vermeer being better than Rembrandt but included a welcome message and some high kicking dance moves. The next song invited everyone to come to the party with verses in Hebrew, Arabic, Italian and Spanish at least. A snippet of 'Egyptian Reggae' led to a lengthy crowd singalong to ‘I Was Dancing In the Lesbian Bar’. Good to see someone live up to their legendary status.
I went to Daughter at the Walled Garden expecting some intensely moody noir-pop along the lines of Esben And The Witch. Instead it was cosily predictable and fairly dull fare. A major disappointment.
Several songs in Megafaun referred to their performance two years ago in the Far Out tent as “the most meaningful show of their career”. It was certainly one of the most joyous, surprising and life-affirming live sets I’ve seen - astonishing to be part of a moment when band, even wearing basketball vests, and the crowd felt indivisible. I’ve seen the band subsequently so I know that their Green Man festival appearance in 2010 was the exception not the rule. I think some here seeking a return to that communal spirit were disappointed. For others it was a good-natured and heart-gladdening - if short – set of laidback jams with the band making up the set-list as they went. It may not have matched previous festival heights but the off-mic rendition of The Band’s ‘I Shall Be Released’ to conclude did feel suitably celebratory.
So another Green Man over. There had been a few minor disappointments in what I chose to try out, mainly due a mismatch with expectations, but overall this was a very strong musical programme, much better than last year. As always what I missed could be a whole festival in itself but I saw will stick with me – unlike the mud which only now remains stuck to the soles of my unwashed wellington boots. Diolch Green Man!
There are always going to be clashes at festivals. But come on Green Man, Withered Hand and Sweet Baboo on different stages at the same time?! This was just too, too cruel. In the end I opted for the performer I’d seen least live: Withered Hand, here in full band set-up. Dan Willson said he had elaborate stage costumes planned but a late night got in the way and so they were “dressed like The Wurzels”. Self-deprecation can only be expected from the man who wrote ‘I Am Nothing’. But even with the sound in the Far Tent being far too echoey for my liking, this was a great, engaging set of pathos, humour, compassion and yes self-deprecation. Two new songs plus the “punk-rock number” ‘New Dawn’ left me very, very happy – and this even without ‘Religious Songs’ being in the set.
Withered Hand Set List: Cornflake / I Am Nothing / Gethsemane / Providence / Jubilee / New Song (Walls?) / New Dawn / Love In The Time Of Ecstasy / No Cigarettes / Heart Heart
And for completeness, I hear the Sweet Baboo set was all-new material except for 'I’m A Dancer' and 'Twelve Carrots Of Love'.
The Perch Creek Family Jug Band had come to Green Man from the Edinburgh Fringe which figures – they added a touch of chirpy Australian showmanship to their stomping five-part harmony hillbilly music. The band – two brothers and two sisters plus boyfriend James - used banjo-ukulele, bowed saw, washboard, tap-dancing and, as the name says, jug to whip up the Walled Garden stage crowd. And then produce the longest queue I’ve seen to buy their album. You would have had to be the worst kind of curmudgeonly indie-snob not to enjoy their performance. And to be very clear, I did enjoy it.
Back to the same stage for RM Hubbert. The bearded and tattoo’d Glaswegian actually looks like a metaller but plays intricate flamenco flavoured acoustic instrumentals about his ex-wife, his dog and a dead friend “so I get to think about him each time I play it”. He sang the Aidan Moffat part from ‘Car Song’ from his recent Chemikal Underground album plus a traditional folk song taught to him by Alasdair Roberts but I found the wordless songs deeply hypnotic and moving (and his between song chat very, very funny).
Each time I see The Wave Pictures I state that repeated viewing of the band cannot dent the view of what a brilliant live band they are. Today was no exception although that cavernous Far Out tent sound wasn’t ideal and a set-list spat did occur. One of my party thought it overly favoured the new album to the detriment of older songs; I didn’t. Plus if you are as prolific and relentless in your touring as the Loughborough trio, I reckon you have earned the right to play what’s newest and freshest.
Again the curse of multi-stage festivals: I’d missed Dark Dark Dark and then only managed to catch two songs of the Bowerbirds (one was ‘In Our Talons’ though). I did however get to see Dark Dark Dark do a short acoustic set in the Rough Trade tent. “So this is piano-based music...” the Minneapolis band joked hemmed in between trestle tables, before playing four songs on just banjo, clarinet, accordion and snare drum. It left me kicking myself I’d missed both their Green Man set and their Salford gig earlier that week.
I caught a few songs from Portico Quartet’s Nick Mulvey in the sun in the Walled Garden before heading off for a drink. Now the act I had no intention of seeing at this festival, and the sore thumb in the three day event, was Van Morrison, the Saturday night ‘headliner’ but here getting on stage at 7.30pm. Which meant I did inadvertently catch the opening four numbers of his set whilst in the main stage beer tent queue. “How can he mangle his own song so badly?” was the reaction to ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. All dues to his career achievements and admittedly I was inside a crowded, canvas beer tent but it did sound like Van The Man was turning in lame jazz-lounge covers of his most well-known songs. What a bizarre booking for Green Man.
You’ve got to give everyone you’re not familiar with two songs’ worth of your attention. And Benjamin Francis Leftwich in the Far Out tent got that from me but he’s not having anymore. More familiar and interesting territory was Liverpudlian flute- wrangler Laura J Martin. Despite several live encounters this year, I still find her performances fresh and winning and tonight’s felt the most assured I’d seen her. Maybe she was upping her game for Stealing Sheep who acted as her backing band for two songs plus drummer Lucy also joining her earlier for ‘The Lesson’. Classy, classy stuff.
Laura J Martin Set List: Fire Horse / The Lesson / It's Taking So Long / Tom / Red Flag / The Hangman Tree / At The Close Of The Day / Spy / Salamander
Much-heralded, passionate American troubadours with a good back-story are two-a-penny and most don’t live up to either the hype or the myth. Ex-carpenter Joe Pug on acoustic guitar and accompanied by Greg on electric guitar, managed to combine some Springsteen heart-on-the-sleeve moments with raspy Dylan-like story-telling as promised and neatly so for his first visit to Wales and appearance before Willy Mason on the Walled Garden stage. He was entertaining without being exceptional and warmly witty: “my father who is a teacher is nervous about calls from The Authorities when I play the next song. It’s called ‘I Do My Father's Drugs’...”. Although as one sage man observed: could he just turn the sincerity down by one?
It was two years ago at this festival that grown men wept during the afternoon set from The Tallest Man On Earth. Here he was back with a larger following (check the venues for his UK autumn tour) and a 2012 album which relies heavily on piano to headline the Far Out stage. However the approach to his performance was similar to his previous one here: using just a – large – bank of acoustic guitars and a chair as prop, the vest-wearing Swede swept to every corner of the stage in a semi-crouch whilst playing. Was my memory playing tricks or had he made it even a touch more theatrical? Teasing the crowd by pausing between familiar lines, throwing a plectrum dramatically over his shoulder to flutter beneath the vari-lights or letting the crowd sing the final line for ‘The Gardener’ before returning to repeat it himself. Either way the packed tent lapped it up. I didn’t see any tears this time but a lot of happy faces. A star performer.
Day two at Green Man done and I didn't even mention the mud and rain.
"And if you can't stay dry, have a good time getting really wet". Well that late afternoon stage announcement at Green Man Festival pretty much summed up the whole weekend to come. Having got the tent up in a fierce downpour (again), the first band I got to - two hours into the tenth edition of the festival in the Brecon Beacons - was Welsh youngsters Sen Segur in the Walled Garden. Their chugging pysche-rock was quirky and inventive in equal measures - one song title's English translation got it right: "It's Angular". Impressive start to the weekend.
Next saw M J Hibbett and “my friend Steve” present their science fiction rock opera “Dinosaur Planet” featuring acoustic songs, multiple headwear changes, plastic dino masks, a guest appearance from Van Morrison and the total destruction of Peterborough. Silly but very entertaining.
Two songs of King Charles on the Mountain Stage was enough to send me back in search of some noisier, more interesting fare. Step up Mowbird from Wrexham. The four-piece complete with new birthday guitar play a zippy surf-punk mixing the energy of the current nofi movement with some of the wayward melodicism of Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee” - plus they also covered Sex Hands who they have a split single with out soon. Excellent stuff – one of my highlights of the weekend (and it was still only Friday afternoon).
After a pit-stop to check out the festival ale Growler (OK and to stand under cover for a few dry minutes), it was back to the same stage for Joanna Gruesome (and if Sen Segur were youthful...). The Cardiff five piece - “piledriving indiepop fans since 2011”- had a loud Dinosaur Jr-like sound complete with blistering guitars and topped off with male/female vocals. Again another excellent live set from a noisy Welsh band early in the day.
Over at the Rough Trade tent Cate Le Bon played a short four-song solo acoustic set in which I may have been standing inappropriately close. Truly entrancing and a perfect warm-up for the later, headlining set.
The reformed – and name-shortened – Dexys on the Mountain Stage turned out to be an unexpected treat: dapper soul revue theatrics meets personal therapy. The in-song dialogue between Kevin Rowlands and Pete Williams acknowledged the former’s problems and struggles but in a playful almost light-hearted manner. And they even managed to return one of most overplayed songs ever to its original desire-riddled angst by making ‘Come On Eileen’ a deep soul song complete with extended pleading finale. Last song ‘This Is What She’s Like’ saw Kevin Rowlands stomping across the stage, saluting the audience and repeatedly chanting “this is our stuff” with utter conviction – and rightly so. A welcome return.
Last time I saw The Felice Brothers, singer Ian Felice was so intense and scary-looking I had him pegged for a convicted murderer on the run. Tonight and especially on the larger Mountain Stage the New York stage quintet were a less ominous - but still thrilling – presence, mixing the idiosyncratic moodiness of songs from their latest album like opener ‘Honda Civic’ and ‘Cus's Catskills Gym’ with earlier and more rowdy and rootsy singalongs like ‘Whisky In My Whisky’ and ‘Frankie's Gun’. Good raucous fun.
Next a band whose stage show you would never describe as raucous: Eagleowl in the Cinema Tent. The Edinburgh ensemble now expanded to a six-piece with drums and cello and freshly signed to Fence Records played a typically exquisite slo-core set to a group of soggy but attentive festival goers enjoying a rare sit-down on the matted floor. “This will be our last song but don't worry it's very, very long”. Eagleowl: not only not raucous but a group who know how to take their time.
The night finished for me back at the Walled Garden stage with the headlining set from Cate Le Bon and band: Huw “H. Hawkline” Evans on keyboard and guitars, Steve “Sweet Baboo” Black on bass and Andy Fung on drums. The first time I ever encountered Cate Le Bon was at this very festival four years earlier. My obsession has grown steadily since and been cemented by the excellent second album ‘Cyrk’ from earlier this year. The set drew strongly from that album and was similar to the one I was at in April at The Soup Kitchen in Manchester but, even with senses a little dulled by steady drinking, felt beautifully darker and more intense. Mesmerising and an utter joy.
The Set List: Julia / Fold The Cloth / Cyrk / Carmelo / Eyes So Bright / Falcon-Eyed / Puts Me To Work / The Man I Wanted / What Is Worse / Ole Spain
The last album review here was for a record called “Levitates” which had a subterranean sound. Now here is an album called “Flying Simply Explained” which was recorded at The Sub Station in Rosyth. I’m not sure if The Sub Station is actually subterranean but despite occasional moments of darkness, the second album from Ambulances is a much more of an airy, overground record than the one from Devoted Friend.
The Fife four-piece have re-grouped in the wake of band members departing and even dying and produced a crisp, shiny collection of largely sunlit alt-pop songs. Never purely synth-pop despite the synthesizers and drum effects; never fully indie-pop despite the bitter-sweet male/female vocals; and never backward-looking despite its 90s sheen and musical reference points. The double-sided single in April (both sides included here) was a neatly upbeat package that drew comparisons from me to King Biscuit Time for ‘Feeling Sick’ (of which Steve Mason has now created a dub version) plus Ladytron and The Dandy Warhols for ‘Shine On My Shoes’. The remaining songs on this eleven track release are a cohesive grouping but mix wider sounds and styles with a tendency to more occasional downbeat moments.
Opener ‘Too High’ is a love-song about being broken in pieces that mixes a rich guitar twang and the seductive cooing vocals of Sara Colston with a feeling of dewy-eyed sadness. ‘Bimble Grimm’ is a curious fairy-tale slice of slow-tempo psyche-pop. Later the jubilant swing and gleeful horns of ‘Animal Song’ is the record’s most upbeat moment despite more stern vocals from Scott Lyon. Elsewhere I hear hints of Cinerama and Kirsty Maccoll in ‘Wee Beast’, more Ladytron in the crunchy electroclash-leaning ‘Weak Spot’, and even the romantic bar-room croon of an Edwyn Collins or Richard Hawley in ‘Falling Apart’. For all the hints of sorrow sitting beneath the sunny dream-pop, whether lyrically or in the contrasting voices of Lyon and Colston, ‘Telescopes’ does provide a moment of unequivocal optimism: ‘I’m in love with the future’.
‘Flying Simpled Explained’ is a mature, carefully constructed set of songs that doesn’t kow-tow to the zeitgeist or hip references but is confident in its own happy-sad, self-released sheen. The sound of a band coming up for air?
Last month saw the release of the fourth Free Swim EP "She Dreams In Lights". The previous three - I became a devotee upon hearing the second one last Februrary - are splendid cuts of English whimsy DIY pop that tell tall tales with utter conviction. The latest contains many familiar Free Swim motifs - deliciously clever wordplay, exotic animals ("a twist-necked turtle...from Venezuela") and surreal pop culture references (Leo Sayer's Fortune Teller?) but is a more cryptic and dream-like listen, beautifully encapsulated by Sweeping The Nation as a "cinematic, washed out haze, as if Felt had listened to latter Mercury Rev". Here band mastermind Paul Coltofeanu answers some questions to shed some more light on "She Dreams In Lights" and the world of Free Swim.
Earlier Free Swim EPs have had a strong - often surreal - narrative but "She Dreams In Lights" seems more allusive and reflective - and even quite sorrowful? What's the story here? Is it a conscious stylistic shift? I think I was totally ‘whimsied’ out after the last EP, "Dennis". As fun as it is to have fun and make fun music for fun, I think every once in a while it’s good form to try and create something with a little more substance. Also, ex-Christian Bob Dylan once said that it‘s important for artists to never stand still. He wrote ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ so I think we ought to take the bastard seriously.
On the surface ‘She Dreams In Lights’ is a simple tale about the dreams of a girl when she goes to sleep one night after a hard day doing whatever it is she does. The opening crash of ‘Records in the Basement’ is supposed to be the moment she falls asleep and then on the last track, ‘The Snooze Function’, she wakes up. In between, the songs recount the seemingly nonsensical dreams she has. I’m afraid I need to quote someone else here, forgive me I promise this is the last one, but Dali said “just because something makes no sense, it doesn’t mean it has no meaning”. This is something one needs to bear in mind at virtually all times when listening to a Free Swim EP, in particular this one!
On a deeper level I think it’s also a little about the self-important artist in me feeling slightly narked that despite the endorsement of a heap of respected BBC DJs, reputable music blogs and the Political Editor of ITV Wales, Free Swim can’t get a record deal, a manager nor even a bloody booking agent so we can take the bastard Panda out on tour. So I think there’s definitely an element of me just retreating into my imagination, throwing my toys out of the pram and roaring “FUCK YOU ENGLAND, FUCK YOU SIMON COWELL AND WHILE I’M HERE, FUCK YOU JOHN TERRY!”
Despite all that, I think 'She Dreams In Lights' is the most ‘beautiful’ Free Swim EP yet.
Will a Free Swim LP ever appear or are you sticking with the shorter 4 or 5 track format? When you end up writing, recording, producing, promoting and releasing an entire record yourself, from your bedroom, with nothing but six seasons of Dexter and the occasional Magnum Ecuador (I’m a man of taste) as a respite, I’ve learnt that if you try and do a fully-orchestrated 10 track album, the quality can suffer. I learnt that lesson from doing the three Android Angel albums – each was an enormous undertaking and I think they all have 3 or 4 truly charming ditties, but there’s an absolute ocean of filler and dross on there too.
Traditionally, concept albums are associated almost exclusively with bearded men and their penchants for ales, cheeses and farting loudly. Plus I think that over the last ten years or so the attention span of the music-listening masses seems to have crumbled in line with this whole ‘MUST HAVE NEW MUSIC ALL THE TIME’ mentality. Me and Dave (friend who does the spoken word parts on Free Swim records) meet every fortnight for ‘Album Club’ where we listen to three albums in their entirety. I tell people this and they often look at me like I’m insane, which I probably am, but is it so wrong to listen to and enjoy a body of work as it was intended?
Ultimately, I suppose I think that surreal concept EPs strike a balance and deserve a place somewhere in the grand scheme of thing.
How are you able to record and release all EPs free of charge? In terms of recording, it’s just evolved that way. Basically, I have ended up working as a Science Technician in a secondary school. It’s surreal (I am bollocks at Science), not ideal (I should, of course, be headlining Glastonbury every year) and phenomenally poorly paid, but it does give me 3 months off a year to create all this eccentric nonsense in peace.
I’ve lugged my computer and mic stands down to the school music department during school holidays a number of times and I have some very patient friends who kindly lend me unfathomably expensive microphones. Most importantly, I haven’t had a proper girlfriend for what must now be approaching an age of man so I’ve had innumerable Friday evenings to familiarise myself with the intricacies of Multiband Compression on Garageband.
I put out "Two Hands Is OK" for free because I thought an EP about a man who has two hands grafted to his chest to help him multi-task more efficiently would be of no interest to anyone other than myself and Dave. Bizarrely, early reviewers actually seemed to find it rather refreshing so I made "Yolanda the Panda" a couple of months later and the reviews, reception and radioplay for that were unlike anything I’d ever known.
I have been stubbornly reluctant to alter the creative process or the ‘price’ ever since for fear of compromising the ethic on which the whole project was founded. Will I be able to sustain this in the future? Who knows? Who bloody cares?
What are the differences between Free Swim and your other (solo) musical project The Android Angel? I think the easiest way to put it is that Free Swim is the music of my head, and The Android Angel is the music of my heart. That sounds gash. But it’s probably true. The creative processes are very different – Android Angel nowadays seems to involve me leaving England for a month or so every summer to drag my arse off to a far corner of the planet and fall in and out of love with a host of foreign women and then coming home and making a carefully constructed record all about them. Free Swim is the stream of consciousness sound of the farcical, giddy delirium my day-to-day life has become in middle-class suburban England! It’s going to be ok though because I think I might relocate to Vancouver next year and become a whaling enthusiast.
