THE INDELICATES "David Koresh Superstar"

“David Koresh Superstar” is the third album from Sussex's The Indelicates released last week on their own label Corporate Records. Not having heard their first two records, I’m endeared to the band simply by their label “a new kind of record company that you can sign to anytime it suits you. You own everything, we own nothing. Take control, we're here for you to exploit”. Things only get better when I discover that “David Koresh Superstar” is a fifteen-song rock opera about the life and times of cult leader Koresh from his early years in Houston to the fateful siege in 1993 in Waco, Texas with the Branch Davidian sect (if you are unfamiliar with this event, the band have provided a handy pictorial guide). And things really get better when I listen to the album.

“David Koresh Superstar” is a compelling musical tale, recounted through outlaw country story-telling and art-rock polemic, giving voice to each of the key protagonists in this tragic tale. Koresh tells of his early life (“my father was a carpenter, my mother was just fourteen”) and embracing the church in the strummed country-hick lilt of ‘The Road From Houston to Waco’. He proclaims his divinity in the rock swagger of ‘I Am Koresh’ (letting slip his dubious practises along the way: “come to thy God’s caress / with my hand inside in your dress”) and then voices his doubt over bowed saw in the quieter ‘What If You’re Wrong’. A woman (wife? Follower?) sings of falling under the spell of Koresh in the piano ballad ‘The Woman Clothed With The Sun’ and then pledges herself to the sect’s cause in the gentle skiffle of ‘A Single Thrown Grenade’. The Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms whose botched serving of a search warrant started the siege sing of their need to prove their worth in a changing world (“I miss the Russians, I miss Vietnam”) as a massed chorus in ‘The Ballad of the ATF’ (a highlight) and even Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma bomber (“God you people make me sick”) gets a song.



Unlike the formulaic stage musical this record never becomes cheesy or repetitive or lapses into trite pastiche. It’s ambitious and clever, darkly humorous and theatrical, and deeply, deeply inventive. The fact that Simon and Julia Indelicate met at a poetry slam and their combined background includes documentary photography, book-writing and performance poetry (“Too schooled for cool” as an Indelicates T-shirt proclaims) gives you flavour of what they bring to this project.

The first half is stronger musically and more creative; the siege and its aftermath are more downcast and drawn out. But the chilling piano-and-violin Biblical thump of final song ‘John The Revelator’ reminds you of the power of The Indelicates to turn a ridiculous proposition into a triumph. “David Koresh Superstar” has many virtues – not the least a clutch of fine, intelligent songs – but its real success is in humanising the flawed Koresh and his cause, dramatising each sad stage of his history as it moves towards its inevitable tragic end. In a 65 minute (art-)rock record “David Koresh Superstar” tells you more about the Waco siege and its participants than wading through contemporary newspaper coverage, investigative studies or TV documentaries ever could. Less a review, more an instruction to buy forthwith.

Something Goin' Down In Waco - The Indelicates

The Indelicates David Koresh Superstar [BUY]

LOW @ CLUB ACADEMY 19 May 2011

I’m one of those Low listeners who is more familiar with the Minnesotan band’s Christmas EP than their 9 album career proper. So with several listens to this year’s album "C’mon" and then a hasty, selective toe-tip into their 18 year history under my belt I approached tonight, my first time seeing Low, with trepidation. I expected it to be neither Christmassy nor familiar and therefore possibly inaccessible. But first the support.

sleepingdog is the musical vehicle for Chantal Acda of Belgium. Tonight performing as part of a duo, she sat upright at electric piano; he (Adam Wiltzie of Stars of the Lid I think) stood with guitar and effects pedals, the pair facing each other centre-stage. sleepingdog played under a harsh, cool blue light – this and the ethereal sounds came across as more Scandinavian chill than Belgian chocolate-box warmth and cosiness. Echoing piano, gentle drones and extended notes provided the backdrop for Acda’s haunting vocals and even when she switched to acoustic guitar for a few songs, and the lighting warmed to a rosy orange-red hue, the mood was still cool and restrained. There was not much variety across the six songs they played but an impressive, powerful consistency. At one point I noticed that Acda had goose-bumps on her calves. She was not alone. My new favourite Belgian band.


For Low the stage clutter was stripped away: instruments and amps pushed to the back of the wide, shallow playing area leaving an expanse of wooden flooring between them and the bank of stage monitors at the front. With Sufjan Stevens playing a sold-out show on the other side of town, and a small-in-numbers crowd for sleepingdog, I was worried about the turn-out. But by the time Low took to the stage it felt packed at the front. The trio of Alan Sparhawk, Mimi Parker and Steve Garrington were made up to a four-piece with a seated keyboard player stage-right. If the crowd had been quiet for sleepingdog, the patient hush as Low took the stage was beyond reverential, as though no-one wanted the silent spell to be broken before a note was sounded.

And that spell-breaking note came from Sparhawk on guitar. He may be of average height, playing a cream Gibson Les Paul that appeared three-quarter size, but he drew a cavernous, loud, crunching single note out of those guitar strings to usher in ‘Nothing But Heart’. From that moment on I was magnetized throughout by Sparhawk and then Parker’s playing and singing.


The first half if not most of the set drew largely on ‘C’Mon’, playing all but one song. For these or the later smattering of older songs, the effect was similar. Sparhawk and Parker’s voices, either singularly or combined (hers a little under-amplified here?) were hypnotically sweet and lingering; and then underneath the sound was more muscular and intense, whether loud, quiet or gradually building up a head of steam. The four were all dressed in black and performed with eyes-closed rapture or simply looking downwards. There were no frills or antics to their performance with an almost casual as well as minimal stage set-up: the two guitars used were simply propped against the wall rather than racked or sitting on stands. However the precision and intensity of the playing of a (to me) largely familiar set, and the astonishing range of Sparhawk’s facial expressions (agony? Ecstasy?) that matched the shifting moods of the music was an impossible-to-resist combination. I can’t think of a recent gig which kept my concentration so intently as tonight's.

Some songs memorably broke the mould of the rest of the set: Sparhawk’s lidless, blue eyes remained fixed open with a piercing almost scary honesty for ‘$20’; ‘Canada’ rewarded the whoops of recognition with a visceral, thudding Velvets-like rhythm, and there was even some bleak humour in the intro and lyrics to ‘Something’s Turning Over’. The crowd only broke ranks on the silence when Sparhawk asked if there was “anything specific” anyone wanted to hear during the encores. The clamorous, overlapping shouting was deafening. On the other side of town, Sufjan may have been dazzling audiences with feathers and day-glo but here on a plain stage with minimal trimmings, Low made a powerful impression with just the simple, fundamental power of their music. There’s a first time for everything; I’m now just regretting I left it so late with Low.





The Set List:

Nothing But Heart
Try To Sleep
You See Everything
Monkey
Silver Rider
Witches
Especially You
$20
Sunflower
Majesty/Magic
Nightingale
Something’s Turning Over
Murderer
Canada
Laser Beam
---
Two Step
California
Violent Past

KING POST KITSCH "Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone"

There’s nothing wrong with the name Charlie Ward but it’s not a patch on King Post Kitsch. What a monumentally brilliant name to be releasing records as: a whiff of stage-swagger, an aura of grand mystery but also faintly ridiculous and self-mocking. After a free digital EP, the second King Post Kitsch release “Don’t You Touch My Fucking Honeytone” is out this week.

The title track sounds as raw and loud as the portable guitar amp in its title: fiercely twanging rockabilly-garage power-pop – Johnny Burnette with a razor tie? – filled out with a sharp dash of 60s organ. Although ‘Penny Red’ maintains the home-studio rough-and-ready guitar sounds, albeit easing off the pace slightly, the third and fourth tracks spin off elsewhere. ‘Alaska’ opens with lo-fi ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ mellotron before resembling a stripped-back, off-kilter take on ‘I Am Walrus’ as though Lennon was recording in a Glasgow flat on his own rather than at Abbey Road with George Martin, and swapping orchestral accompaniment for some film dialogue about bears and Alaska. The older ‘Monomaniac’ sounds precisely what Low covering a Broadcast song would, again if they were in a small Glasgow flat... well you get the idea.



From vintage guitar riffage to retro-futurist sounds in four tracks is an impressive but cohesive span. Given this and the initial coarse feel to the songs it therefore came as a surprise to learn Charlie Ward is a professional sound engineer. But then again... maybe not such a surprise. As King Post Kitsch he has a very clear audio aesthetic he wants to create - an old-fashioned roughness with a mellow immediacy - and knows how to get the best out of bedroom studios set-ups to achieve this. And in doing so has fashioned some damn exciting music.

This debut release on the excellent Song By Toad Records is handsomely presented in 7” white vinyl (with download code) and a delicious appetiser for the long-player from King Post Kitsch to follow in June (pre-order here) with only one of these songs on that ten track album. If you require further evidence of the quality and range of output from Song By Toad Records you should also download the free 14 track digital label sampler for 2011.

King Post Kitsch - Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone by Song, by Toad

King Post Kitsch Don’t Touch My Fucking Honeytone [BUY]

THE DOUGLAS FIRS "Happy As A Windless Flag"

The opening track to The Douglas Firs debut album is called 'I Will Kill Again'. Glad to report it is not satanic Norwegian metal but instead a delicious slice of gauzy bliss-pop perfection. It ripples and glides effortlessly touching on several genres - delicate orch-pop, C86 fuzz-and-crackle and swooning shoegaze - without ever alighting on one but keeping its happy face on throughout (I suspect the lyrics may be darker but they are never clear or prominent enough - to these cloth-filled ears - to interfere with the mood of rapture). Don’t expect the rest of the album to follow suit though.

The pattern of song titles that gently mislead is maintained: ‘Sepulture’ is not as deathly and morbid and ‘Soporific’ not as drowsily sleepy as their titles suggest. But instead of nine re-treads of its opener, “Happy as a Windless Flag” proves to be subtly shape-shifting (but engrossing) beastie. If I pegged it down as ‘post-rock’ you might expect glacially slow and detached soundscapes. If I labelled to it as ‘experimental’ you might expect the wiful and obtuse; but it is none of these things. Instead these short, restless instrumental and vocal pieces are woven into a deeply satisfying journey of lush textures and ragged beauty.


Songs can be as sparse as ‘Nature and Nurture’ (simple chimes then woodwind over eerie fielding recording) or as complex and richly detailed as ‘A Military Farewell’ – which surrounds a mid-section of gentle ukulele strumming with the pomp of marching drums, accordion and massed choral singing in a bastardized American Civil War anthem. ‘Sepulture’ is a quieter, flickering minor-key instrumental that is one of the loveliest pieces of acoustic post-folk this side of Eagleowl. ‘The Shadow Line’ is a noisier three-part affair that starts with epic crunching guitars; ‘The Quickening’ is a folky village hall hoedown with sweet King Creosote-like crooning. No comparisons really stick to this twisty, elusive record but at times I can’t help think this is what Lone Pigeon re-recording Sufjan Stevens’ “Seven Swans” might sound like.

‘Balance of Halves’ contains the clearest lyrics (“ineffable sadness... one thousand freedoms we left behind”) before its propulsive drumming and scuzzy strained guitar leave the song to finish more joyful than devoid of hope. I suspect there is morbidity and disillusion just below the surface on “Happy As A Windless Flag” but I’m still picking my way through the rich seam of invention and sonic variety above this sub-strata to notice.

This debut took seven years to come to fruition. But this speaks of a patient stitching together of its constituent parts rather than indecision or prevarication. Head Fir Neil Insh claims that the album was “created not by technical skill, but from a synaesthetic love of pure sound”. He’s right on the second part (see this) but is wrong on the first. It takes talent to create a record of introspective, ambient post-rock but give it such emotional depth, such richness and variety and then bathe it all in a glorious pop sensibility.

I Will Kill Again - The Douglas Firs

The Shadow Line by The Douglas Firs by Armellodie

The Douglas Firs Happy As A Windless Flag [BUY]

DIAGRAMS "Antelope"

Here’s another is-it-a-band-or-is-it-a-person musical project sat behind a name that renders internet searching futile. A single song on Soundcloud with minimal supporting information does little to shed further light. And the song itself?

‘Antelope’ is a very English, almost pastoral piece of bouncy math-pop. The flat-vowelled, breathy vocal mirrors the jaunty rhythms in comparing a woman to the eponymous animal (“elegant..with the majesty of the night” but “she can fight with the big cats”) whilst referencing Big Bang Theory and the Matterhorn along the way. It makes less sense written down but located within the joyfully layered synths, elastic funk bass, sparing horn section and scatting backing vocals it works perfectly – still very English but with a freedom and spring that is more Kilimanjaro foothills than Kidderminster.

The website-cum-blog for Diagrams yields a little more info: ‘Antelope’ is from an EP due to be released this July (with artwork by Chrissie Abbott). It does seem Diagrams is a single person and is using the blog to talk not just about the making of this EP but to link to music, books and art he likes. Music includes the (excellent) Table on Static Caravan, the folky guitar of John Smith and bedroom folktronica of Broadcast 2000. Elsewhere Diagrams references visual artist Gerhard Richter, break-dancing, New Orleans funk, French chronophotographer Étienne-Jules Marey and a recent book purchase on harmony and numbers (“Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music")

Learned without being smug, quirky without being too obtuse, it’s an intriguing insight into the mind of Diagrams without giving too much away about the man himself. Look forward to more music and more information this July.

Diagrams 'Antelope' by diagrams

THE LEISURE SOCIETY @ BAND ON THE WALL 9 May 2011

My only knowledge of Sarabeth Tucek before tonight was confined to a few plays of this year’s album "Get Well Soon". I missed the beginning of her support slot here and walked into a reverentially quiet but small-in-numbers audience. Tucek and guitarist Luther Russell were both seated – she playing electric guitar with a delicate downward strum that was so casual it appeared absent-minded whilst Russell pulled an amazing array of sounds out a simple acoustic guitar. But what really held the attention was Tucek’s mesmerizing voice, deep, steady and projected to the back of the room without barely trying: Cat Power with a distinct country twang, a more poetic bent and a deep understanding of the early 70s singer-songwriter oeuvre. I might have only caught 25 minutes but it was more than enough to tell me I need to complete my homework on Tucek and fill in those gaps in my knowledge.



“C’mon you murky bastards” came the enthusiastic shout as The Leisure Society took to the stage, an unsubtle reference to second album “Into the Murky Waters” released last week. Now The Leisure Society strike me as neither murky nor bastards. Instead the seven-piece Brighton band project a polite, English coastal gentility perfectly suited to their exquisite Ivor Novello award-winning pop classicism. And in publicity shots they look more like a well-dressed Oxbridge boating party than a down-and-dirty touring band of dubious parentage. However if not exactly murky there is a bittersweet undertow to their songs and I was intrigued to see how this would all translate live particularly in the setting of Band on the Wall. This much-loved Manchester institution has managed to hold on to its jazz / reggae-dive bohemian heritage despite a spanking smart Lottery-funded makeover (the broad appeal of both band and venue was reflected for me in the span of ages and of T-shirts on show – from Daniel Johnston to Mott The Hoople by way of My Morning Jacket).

Tonight The Leisure Society boat party was in dress-down mode: open-necked shirts, deck shoes and Converse. There was a relaxed feeling to proceedings despite the evident concentration of the band on the intricate arrangements to these multi-part songs and the fleet-of-foot versatility required: in the blink of an eye three percussionists would appear before equally swiftly returning to cello, violin or flute. Between songs band leader Nick Hemming concentrated on tunings: if it was perfectionism rather than reluctance or shyness it never interfered with the smooth flow of the evening and allowed keyboard player Christian Hardy to lighten the mood with casual banter (“this is just a fucking good song”).

The set neatly mixed songs from the new and the older albums. And which stringed instrument Hemming played told you want to expect: ukulele for the sparser, more twee numbers from the first album such as ‘The Last of the Melting Snow’ or ‘The Sleeper’ (the latter complete with elegant, gliding strings), acoustic guitar for the ballads (‘This Hungry Life’) and wide-bodied Gretsch for the more rocking numbers mainly from the second album. Yes that’s right ‘rocking’. True The Leisure Society were not going to turn in a live set of intense, pulverising noise but ‘This Phantom Life’ and ‘Dust on the Dancefloor’ had an intensity I was not expecting – more feisty than ferocious. And a side of the band I would like to have seen more of – it suited them and was a delicious foil to the more precious numbers.



The final three songs – all segued into each other – returned to this feistiness (the hoedown at end of ‘Save It For Someone Who Cares’ could have been spun out with ease). A Paul Simon cover as part of the encores was fun and continued the upbeat, celebratory mood but I found it lacking compared to the depth and complexity of their own material. A summer of festival appearances awaits The Leisure Society. Even if the weather is foreboding and the ground muddy, you wouldn’t bet against this polite bunch winning more fans over with these distinctly unmurky sounds.



The Set List:

Into The Murky Water
This Phantom Life
The Hungry Years
The Sleeper
We Were Wasted
Dust on the Dancefloor
You Could Keep Me Talking
The Darkest Place I Know
The Last of the Melting Snow
Better Written Off (Than Written Down)
I Will Forever Remain An Amateur
Save It For Someone Who Cares
Just Like The Knife
---
Me and Julio Down At The Schoolyard
A Matter of Time

BILL CALLAHAN @ CENTRAL METHODIST HALL 6 May 2011

After a warm, sunny afternoon, a torrential downpour from ominous thick, black clouds hit Manchester about 7.30pm. Precisely the time a long line was waiting patiently outside Central Methodist Hall for doors to open for Bill Callahan. Doors did not open until 25 minutes after that advertised time when a damp and bedraggled line had to file slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, through the narrow entrance and the diligent security bag-checks. Once inside the building, it was up two flights and stairs and into the auditorium to find only a handful of people watching support Sophia Knapp who had already started playing on time.

I’m telling you all this because it may in part explain my poor mood and why I took against the venue. Central Hall is a large rectangular wooden-panelled box with a separate seated balcony set back behind the level standing area. Standing in front of the raised stage for Sophia Knapp the first thing that struck me was how poor the sound was. Moving back to the middle of the standing area away from the stage monitors was an improvement but not a great one. Things weren’t looking good. Plus the venue was dry – not a single alcoholic drink to be had (later someone said to me: “of course, it’s the METHODIST Hall” but I do not know enough about the peculiar sub-divisions of Christianity to know their individual stance on alcohol PLUS at Sacred Trinity or St Philip’s Churches you can get a pint of cask ale often hand-pulled by the vicar himself. Go figure).

Bill Callahan can be a contrary performer – I’ve experienced great – and not so great – performances. Tonight he was performing as part of a trio: drummer, often using brushes, side-stage, a guitarist, seated, in the centre and both musicians watching and taking cues from the standing Bill Callahan with acoustic guitar. It almost had the feel of a jazz trio and there was a looseness to their playing, particularly the drumming, but they kept relatively close to the tight repetitive patterns of the songs. However straightaway the limitations of the building’s acoustics became apparent: the big, booming sound lost any of the delicacy and subtlety of the songs from the recent record ‘Apocalypse’ and its immediate predecessors (the whole of the main set was from the last four albums starting with 2005’s “A River Ain’t Too Much To Love”. Hardly the advertised ‘career-spanning’ set given the first Smog record came out at the beginning of the nineties).

The songs that seemed to fare better were either the stripped back (‘Free’s’ with its off-mic whistling and drumming so quiet it was almost inaudible) or the more energetic (the loud, intense final section of ‘Say Valley Maker’). By the second half of the set my ears and expectations had adjusted to the sound and I was drawn in by the band’s playing. And it was a good performance from Callahan. He was unmoving and implacable with only the occasional ‘thank you’ – but the odd little jig or sway crept in during songs and then he even cracked a couple of jokes about the low light-levels. His deep, hypnotic voice was the element that managed to rise above the acoustics most successfully and his songs are spell-bindingly mysterious and beautiful. So definitely a gig I was glad I was at – and we did get ‘The Well’ AND ‘Let Me See The Colts’ - but when I compare it to his show at the Deaf Institute in 2009 it was sadly lacking, not because of the band but the venue. Central Methodist Hall has little to recommend it as a gig venue other than some good sightlines; I won’t be hurrying back.

The Set List:

Riding For The Feeling
The Wind and The Dove
America!
Baby’s Breath
Too Many Birds
Drover
Free’s
Eid Ma Clack Shaw
Sycamore
Say Valley Maker
The Well
Let Me See The Colts
Jim Cain
My Friend
---
Our Anniversary
Universal Applicant
River Guard

OWLET MUSIC Volume 1

Owlet Music is a micro-indie based in Carmarthenshire, run by Owain from Trwbador (the duo’s “It Snowed At Lot Last Year” EP reviewed here in January). Out next week on the fledgling label is this bargain-priced compilation “Owlet Music Vol 1”. Most labels use compilations as a showcase of their roster; here for such a new enterprise the net is cast wider to include friends, associates, kindred spirits and internet finds alongside their one label-mate currently (Telefair) and Trwbador themselves in the shape of their 2010 Christmas song. It is a gleeful/wilful mix of the feisty, the fidgety and the fey – in some ways just like Trwbador’s own music? And it covers not just Welsh bands either: Japan and USA (via France) are represented by Meimei and Vera Gogh respectively.

Most familiar here will probably be Das Wanderlust providing two (unreleased?) tracks of hyperactive, noisy wonky-pop. Joining them in the feisty corner is Super Cute Voices (a possible sub-title for the album?) mixing chip-core beats with a Los Campesinos boy/girl shouting match with ‘Camera Shop’. More C86-leaning is the stuttering guitars and punk-pop chant of‘A-OK’ by Violas.

Acoustic-led, fey fare includes airy, plumy-voiced folk-madrigal from Francesca’s Word Salad and two gorgeous songs of wide-eyed innocence from Gintis side-project Telefair. Elsewhere the album is given over to hazy, cute-as-a-button electronica: glitchy but unhurried summery rhythms and beats from Landslide, Thingsmakeelectric and Jangle (who shimmer rather than, err, jangle) with sweet, cooing vocals soothing your ears where applicable. And then one of the best saved for a final twist: ‘Home Town’ by Vera Gogh – woozy passions and soaring harmonies with a punchy country-rock backbeat, like Sea of Bees putting on her best Lucinda Williams impression.

At first listen, the shifting moods and pace don’t appear to hold together but as you get to know its elaborate twists and turns it all makes perfect sense: less an introduction to a label than to an idiosyncratic but highly enjoyable world-view. Not even a year old as a label but already I do not want Owlet to grow up; rather to stay perfectly formed and softly plumed. The 13 tracks and 43 minutes of “Owlet Music Vol 1” can be streamed on Spotify or bought on CD direct from the label for just £5.

Until The Chain Comes Off by Telefair by owletmusic

07 Dig Deeper In Logic (Trwbador Re- by owletmusic

10 A-OK by owletmusic

Owlet Music Vol 1 [BUY]

AWESOME WELLS "Carry On Awesome Wells"

The second album from the man known to the UK Passport Agency as Jonathan Palmer continues the trend of filmic adventure titles: first “The Highs and Lows of De Witt A Stanton” and now “Carry On Awesome Wells” (released last week on Red Deer Club). In this latest instalment our intrepid explorer has been picking up more stamps in his passport: “music and words written in Rangoon/Yangon, Mawlamyine/Moulmein and Steyning”. (I even had to Google Steyning: it’s in the South Downs where this album, along with Brighton, was recorded). It’s a nine track album – or a seven track one with two bonus cuts (more on this later). And my copy has a tenth track “Stickleback, recorded live in a field, October 7th 2010”. Which is ironic because the rest of the album has a dappled light and airy, outdoors feel, you’d swear it was all recorded in a field - but in the balmy summer months rather than crisp autumn.

Opener ‘Luchadora’ leaves our hero infatuated and bandy-legged-in-love (“Jesus Christ that smile”) and its gentle percussive clatter and mellifluous vocal harmonies remind you of an anglicised Panda Bear. Second track ‘BEARS’ is so laid-back and loose it sounds deceptively simple but is actually densely layered, its laconic brass and meandering bonhomie recalling Zach Condon’s Beirut - the Mexican sojourns rather than the East European ones. These two musical references collide in other tracks: the lolloping rhythms and soothing tuba of the more emphatic ‘Stickleback’, the South American horn quaver of ‘You’re Flogging A Dead Horse, Jon’ or the chiming ‘Norman’, all topped off with double-tracked vocals. Running the tags on the Awesome Wells Bandcamp page together gives you an alternative but accurate summary of what to expect: “brass band freak-folk loop music musique concrete”.



Not quite full-blown musique concrete, the minimal vocal loops and piano scales of ‘Sunday Evening’ and brass pulses and steel drum shimmer of ‘Mawlaymine’ provide the (largely) instrumental and quite blissful drifting interludes. 'Baby-boy' (one of the bonus tracks) is a quirky joy: strange, slowed-down vocals over shuffling drum pattern and tremeloed guitar, it should be quite sinister but feels more woozy with cider (to borrow a song title) than weird and creepy. Despite this minor difference in tone, it is a mystery to me why these are classed as bonus tracks, as they feel a good fit with the rest of the album. Late-in-the-day additions or is some strange internal logic at play I cannot divine?

“Carry on Awesome Wells” is a delightfully clever collection of postcards from exotic (even quixotic?) locations all neatly packaged in a single photo album. You never see the man himself in any detail which is a shame but his picture selection is excellent. The record’s instrumentation may include “a mandolin brought from a fortune teller just outside of Mandalay” but the whole feels as gracefully undulating and as reassuring familiar as the Sussex South Downs bathed in glorious, warm sunlight.



Awesome Wells Carry On Awesome Wells [BUY]

MANCHESTER GIGS IN MUSIC: May 2011 Pt.1

A naturally busy month for gigs is swelled to bursting point this May by a selection of highly recommended festivals. Starting the month is tomorrow’s Sounds From The Other City with 78 acts across 13 stages all for a (probably sold out) ticket price of £18. For my money, the Hey Manchester stage (The Wave Pictures, Darren Hayman and David Thomas Broughton to name just three) is worth the admission alone but the whole day is cleverly programmed delight and a superb advert for the city's independent promoters.

Future Everything brings an eclectic programme to the middle of the month (65daysofstatic soundtracking “Silent Running”!) alongside digital media and art happenings and the Dot To Dot one-dayer finishes the month with a less eclectic, more NME-friendly line-up. And also towards the end of the month is relative newcomer Chorlton Arts Festival with a bijou but smart selection of gigs in St Clements Church (site of last year’s gig from The Acorn) ranging from folk-pop from Leeds to summery psyche sounds from Australia plus more bands still to be announced.

As ever a mixtape [61 mins / 69 MB] 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: May 2011

The Radio Dept Heaven’s On Fire [3.28] (11 May Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
Thee Oh Sees I Was Denied [7.03] (28 May Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
Psychedelic Horseshit Pyramid Eyes [8.47] (5 May Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
Moon Duo Mazes [13.48] (12 May Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
Sonny and the Sunsets Too Young To Burn [17.06] (3 May Sound Control BUY TICKETS)
The High Llamas Fly Baby, Fly [20.07] (15 May Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
Clinic I’m Aware [23.04] (27 May Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
Conquering Animal Sound Maschine [26.58] (16 May Sacred Trinity BUY TICKETS)
Nathaniel Rateliff Shroud [30.26] (24 May Dulcimer BUY TICKETS)
Ra Ra Riot Boy [33.33] (18 May Ruby Lounge BUY TICKETS)
Ear Pwr Baby Houses [36.38] (12 May Night & Day BUY TICKETS)
Greeks A Ghoul! A Spook! [39.31] (6 May Fuel Cafe Bar BUY TICKETS)
Prince Rama Lightening Fossil [43.25] (16 May Islington Mill BUY TICKETS)
Parts & Labor Rest [46.32] (21 May Ruby Lounge BUY TICKETS)
The Black Heart Procession Rats [50.22] (12 May St Philip’s Church BUY TICKETS)
The Sun Electric Band The Last Time [52.45] (14 May Gullivers BUY TICKETS)
Julianna Barwick The Magic Place [56.32] (23 May Kraak Gallery BUY TICKETS)
Sarabeth Tucek Get Well Soon [60.32] (9 May Band on the Wall BUY TICKETS)

And not forgetting:
1 May Laura Cantrell Club Academy / 2 May Baths Deaf Institute / 3 May Frontier Ruckus Ruby Lounge / 3 May Delta Maid Band on the Wall / 3 May Deerhoof Club Academy / 3 May The Strange Death of Liberal England Roadhouse / 4 May Misty’s Big Adventure Jabez Clegg / 4 May Cerebral Ballzy Star & Garter / 4 May The Secret Sisters Ruby Lounge / 4 May I Am Kloot The Lowry / 5 May Spokes The Roadhouse / 5 May Fight Like Apes Night & Day / 6 May Bill Callahan Central Hall / 6 May Young The Giant Ruby Lounge / 6 May The Cute Lepers Night and Day / 6 May Horse Guards Parade Gullivers / 6 May Peter Case Band on the Wall / 6 May Brown Brogues + Ghost Outfit Fuel Cafe Bar / 7 May Anna Calvi + Grouplove + Big Deal Academy / 9 May The Leisure Society Band on the Wall / 9 May PS I Love You Night & Day / 10 May The Handsome Family Band on the Wall / 10 May PVT Ruby Lounge / 11 May Gang Gang Dance Ruby Lounge / 11 Map Group Doueh + The Brothers Unconnected Islington Mill / 12 May Fucked Up Islington Mill / 12 May Beach House Academy 1 / 12 May Steve Reich RNCM / 13 May Scout Niblett Ruby Lounge / 13 May Alela Diane Band on the Wall / 13 May Das Racist Roadhouse / 13 May Tullis Rennie Umbro Design Studio / 13 May Martin Rossiter Deaf Institute / 13 May The Antlers Academy / 14 May Jeffrey Lewis The Castle / 14 May Warpaint Ritz / 14 May Help Stamp Out Loneliness + The Louche FC Gullivers / 14 May The Kabeedies Night & Day / 14 May 65daysofstatic RNCM / 16 May Gonjasufi Band on the Wall / 17 May Perfume Genius King’s Arms / 17 May Chain and the Gang Deaf Institute / 17 May Explosions In The Sky Academy 1 / 18 May Team Ghost The Castle / 18 May Ariel Pink’s Haunted Grafitti Academy 3 / 19 May Idiot Glee Night & Day / 19 May Deep Sea Arcade The Castle / 19 May The Travelling Band Deaf Institute / 19 May Low Club Academy / 19 May Sufjan Stevens Apollo / 20 May Mercury Rev Bridgewater Hall / 20 May Jah Wobble & The Modern Jazz Ensemble Band on the Wall / 20 May Thomas Truax Night & Day / 20 May The Dodos + The Luyas Deaf Institute / 21 May Staff Benda Billi Bridgewater Hall / 21 May Poppy & The Jezebels Night & Day / 21 May Wave Machines Deaf Institute / 21 May John Smith St Clements Church / 22 May Toro Y Moi Deaf Institute / 22 May Blind Atlas Dulcimer / 23 May Three Trapped Tigers Night & Day / 23 May Rural Alberta Advantage Deaf Institute / 24 May Holy Ghost! Ruby Lounge / 24 May Dirty Vegas Night & Day / 24 May Villagers Sound Control / 24 May Mountains Islington Mill / 24 May Abigail Washburn + Sparrow Quartet Band on the Wall / 26 May Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Band on the Wall / 26 May Andrew Jackson Jihad Night & Day / 26 May Koboku Senju The Castle / 27 May The Kills Central Methodist Hall / 27 May The Mountain Goats Academy 3 / 27 May Ellen & The Escapades St Clements Church / 28 May Oneohtrix Point Never + D/R/U/G/S Islington Mill / 28 May The Answering Machine + Colorama Band on the Wall / 28 May Cloud Control + The Moulettes St Clements Church / 29 May Sparrow & The Workshop + Meursault Roadhouse / 30 May Emmylou Harris Bridgewater Hall / 30 May Rachael Sage The Castle / 31 May Phosphorescent Deaf Institute

MANCHESTER GIGS IN MUSIC: May 2011 Pt.2

Mixtape: May 2011 [61 mins / 69 MB] - download here

TIMBER TIMBRE @ DEAF INSTITUTE 28 April 2011

Gloomy, subdued lighting and the Twin Peaks soundtrack. The screen at the rear of the stage set to start playing FW Murnau’s 1922 expressionist horror movie "Nosferatu". Then dry ice billowing on to the stage. It all made me think ‘surely this is a bit much?’ True Timber Timbre’s latest album “Creep On Creepin’ On” wallows in an even more macabre and swampy voodoo-blues than its predecessor but hey, nothing too spooky is going to happen. Is it?


On stage each of the three mic stands were adorned with antique inspection lamps glowing malevolently blood-orange. The three performers wordlessly took to the stage and from the outset it was clear they were out to chill our bones – and in a way that left the pre-show theatricals looking, well, stagey. Here the delicacy of the arrangements on record was swapped for a more intense pulsing rhythmic groove on these murky songs of shallow graves, dark magic, ghosts and demon hosts. And singer Taylor Kirk’s gentle crooning was swapped for a deeper and meaner growl.

It was a novel but effective set-up on stage: Kirk sat centre stage on a round stool with guitar; to his left Simon Trottier played lap steel and second guitar also seated and on the other side Mika Posen stood at keyboards or to play the violin. Drum kit parts and effects pedals were distributed liberally amongst the three – Kirk had a kick pedal attached to a tambourine and a separate bass drum, Posen beat out ominous rhythms with her left hand on a floor tom whilst playing keyboard with her right hand. During opener ‘Bad Ritual’ a lone press photographer made his way to the front but the intimidating shake of the head and scowl from singer Taylor Kirk was unmistakable in its intention (my own camera stayed firmly in my pocket). It may have just been the seriousness of the performance but I got the distinct impression that Kirk is not a man to be crossed. He sung mainly with eyes closed or looking down to the floor at first but when he raised his head and glared into the crowd with his deep coal-black eyes it was unnerving.

The band played all of the latest album (except the three instrumentals) together with four from its predecessor. It made for a short set (an hour and fifteen with encore) but delivered with such an oppressive intensity I’m not sure audience or band could cope with more. The moments of light(er) relief came from some of the earlier songs with their quieter passages and sparser arrangements. However it feels odd to describe the eerie scraping noises from both lap steel and violin and the pained yelps from Kirk during ‘Lay Down In The Tall Grass’ as relief, particularly given the lyrical reference to choking your children.

If the uniformity of the mood is a quibble, it’s a minor one. Especially so when that mood of Grand Guignol spine-tingle was so effectively created, cloaking the faux-Victoriana warmth of the Deaf Institute into something more sepulchral. Faithful to the record but also elevating its morbid, spooky side, it was a performance that, like the shadowy German expressionist horror screening behind them, managed to turn the sunny outdoors to dark and to fill our dreams with disturbing and stark images.


The Set List:

Bad Ritual
Creep On Creepin’ On
Too Old To Die Young
Black Water
Demon Host
Until The Night Is Over
Lonesome Hunter
Lay Down In The Tall Grass
Do I Have Power?
Woman
---
Trouble Comes Knocking

THE DOOMED BIRD OF PROVIDENCE "Will Ever Pray"

The Doomed Bird of Providence has a very clear purpose on its debut record released in the UK this week: to “bring to visceral life the forgotten stories of Australia’s earliest days, bathed in salt, blood and dark deeds”. These lurid tales of poisoners, embezzlers, murderers and convicts are delivered as dark, lurching folk-cabaret, laced with vinegar and ammonia, maggots and dead flies. It’s deliciously dank and sinister. The five-piece band led by singer Mark Kluzek create funereal, creaking rhythms using accordion, ukulele, violin, bass, guitar and piano (no drums here) that is a world and two centuries away from the sunny, carefree imagery of today’s tourist board adverts for the land Down Under.

Opener ‘On A Moonlit Ragged Sea’ features ominous piano, drawn out accordion and strings and a rasping, nasty croak from Kluzek that sings of “embers of misery”. The song finishes on distressed bowed violin - or is it the timbers of a boat being torn slowly apart? ‘Fedicia Exine’ (“ [her] mother was a murderer...her father was a whaler”) contrasts intensely beautiful string passages with more of that low guttural intoning over eerie atmospherics as it spins out the recounting Fedicia’s transportation to a tense and unnerving eight minutes.


“Will Ever Prey” is an album of two halves conceptually (but not in mood – that stays dark and foreboding throughout). The first four tracks are tales based on historical accounts of the lives and fates of specific characters; the last five tracks are all segments of a long suite about sea-borne slaughter and betrayal. The first half yarns appear so fantastical (a man chained to an island rock survives by eating offal thrown to him by passers-by in ‘The Wild Beast of Goat Island’) as to almost make the listener doubt their legitimacy. But to me what counts is not historical authenticity but the convincing and deeply spooky mood of the record.

The second half song-cycle is 'The Massacre of the Whole of the Passengers and Part of the Crew of The Sea Horse on Her Homeward Passage from Sydney'. Again based on a contemporary broadsheet narrative, it tells of a small criminal element who hijack a ship and murder everyone else on board to ensure a greater share of the rewards when they land. This is as macabre as the first half but adopts a slightly different tack with many of the movements (including all ten minutes of ‘The Massacre... Part 1’) being instrumental. If the earlier songs recall the sinister cabaret of The Tiger Lillies, this song-cycle reminds me of the spare atmospherics of the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis scores. ‘The Massacre... Part 2’ may briefly introduce a ragged shanty but the overwhelming tone is more abstract, more filmic.

“Will Ever Pray” is an intense and immersive listen and quite unlike anything else I’ve heard so far this year. Despite its quite disturbing sounds it is also beautifully packaged. And if it all sounds too grim for you, there is an album of remixes of ‘Fedicia Exine’ coming in June (but I suspect these won’t be poppy dance-floor fillers).

The Doomed Bird of Providence support Last Harbour this Thursday at Sacred Trinity Church in Salford and next month play Nottingham, Ipswich, London and Shedfest in West Mersea.

The Doomed Bird of Providence - Fedicia Exine by frontandfollow

The Doomed Bird of Providence Will Ever Pray [BUY]

VIVIAN GIRLS "Share The Joy"

Anyone remember ‘difficult third album’ syndrome? These days you are more likely to encounter difficult first album syndrome as groups struggle to live up to the hype and expectations that can smother them from the get-go. However Brooklyn’s garage trio Vivian Girls have not only survived the (new) media frenzy around their debut and two changes of drummer but also made it to that difficult album number three with the release this month of "Share The Joy".


The second Vivian Girls album was released just 11 months after the full release of their self-titled debut, although actually recorded 18 months apart. This plus the brevity of their songs gave the impression of a band in a rush. So now the full 18 months from ‘Everything Goes Wrong’ to the release of ‘Share The Joy’ feels almost leisurely. Opening song ‘The Other Girls’ starts with a reassuringly familiar and pacy garage racket but quickly eases back into a slower more meditative pace. It seems Vivian Girls are looking for leisureliness elsewhere too. This curious anthem of alienated independence stretches to six minutes and has a spacey, almost psychedelic feel to its lyrical repetitions (“I don’t want to be like the other girls / I don’t want to see like the other girls / I don’t want to try like the other girls / I just want to spend my time inside my mind”) and its extended guitar soloing and astral harmonies that fill the final minutes. The threesome - guitarist and vocalist Cassie Ramone, bassist Kickball Katy and new drummer Fiona Campbell – are clearly not allowing themselves to pegged down as exponents of sub-two minute garage-thrash.



As if to confirm this Cassie Ramone said on Twitter as the album was launched: “Just an FYI: Vivian Girls was never influenced by C-86, K or Slumberland. We were influenced by The Wipers, Dead Moon and 60s girl groups”. Indie-pop pedantry aside this is quite illuminating. And the latter of those influences is apparent on the spoken word intro to ‘Take It As It Comes’. with its Mary Weiss imparting of wisdom - just with added reverb (“Should I call Johnny? What else to do alone on a Saturday night? Well let me tell you one rule I always live by..."). The melodramatic and morbid ‘Death’ (“I want to stay alive...ten years from now, I want to be his bride”) continues The Shangri-Las homage but with buzzing lo-fi guitars. In a post riot-grrl garage-rock world the vulnerability and dependency in these songs is surprising but displays a deep appreciation of the complex and intense emotions in the epic pop miniatures of the girl group era.

Elsewhere Vivian Girls are more muscular and feisty: the rapid and rattling (despite a quietly jangle false start) ‘Trying To Pretend’ or the midnight outlaw blues of ‘Sixteen Ways’. The final song ‘Light In Your Eyes’ alternates pulsing bass and shuffling rhythms with more energised ramshackle noisiness but with easy-going balmy harmonies throughout. Again this song clocks in at over six minutes - nearly a third of the length of their debut album.

“Share The Joy” has an amiable confidence underneath its shifting moods and styles. It is a record still firmly in the DIY aesthetic but it is clear that Vivian Girls aren’t simply going to re-tread their debut every new outing. Sweet, spiky and spacious, this is the sound of a group that has not just passed that difficult third album stage deftly but is settling in for the long-term. I look forward to difficult album number six (but let’s keep those songs reined it at a six minute maximum please. Anything longer would just be too prog-rock).

Vivian Girls Share The Joy [BUY]

SINGING ADAMS + DEER PARK @ DEAF INSTITUTE 17 April 2011

Mark Christopher Grassick introduces himself plainly as “one-third of the band Deer Park”. On this showing one-third is pretty powerful. The bruised and battered Americana of the band’s 2009 debut and several new songs (some featuring on the limited tour EP on sale tonight) are all delivered with stark emotion on just acoustic guitar and harmonica.



Given the nature of these tales of grizzled reprobates, failed lovers and sinning drunkards I was expecting a downtrodden Charles Bukowski figure. What surprised me was how wide-eyed, youthful and in good health Grassick appeared. To finish his set, he was joined on stage by three quarters of Singing Adams to play a slowed down version of ‘1961’ (rehearsed for first time together in the sound-check apparently) and then a delightfully jangly version of Camper Van Beethoven’s ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling’. From the pathos of failed relationships and bitter experiences to joyously uplifting covers in little under 30 minutes. Why Deer Park is not a bigger noise remains a mystery to me.





If Mark Grassick was fresh-faced and freshly pressed, the checked shirts of Singing Adams looked a little more crumpled, a little more careworn. The sign of a band coming to the end of a tour (“we’ve done twelve gigs in eight days”)? Or just the world-weariness that sometimes attaches itself to the songs of Steven Adams as with tonight’s bitter-sweet opener ‘The Old Days’? This poignant tale of the midlife hipster trying to mix it the “beautiful young people” drew a particularly high arched eyebrow from wry Mr Adams at this line (let’s just say most of tonight’s crowd were not in the first flush of youth). However for all its initial maudlin and mid-paced jangle, the final section of the song finished with an emphatic thump that shook off any signs of tiredness. And this was the same for rest of the evening with the songs from debut album “Everybody Friends Now” feeling as crisp and fresh as on record but given added punch: ‘Injured Party’ with (as requested) unrestrained whoops of joy from the audience and “our newest song” ‘Mint Tea’ were particularly intense and pacy.



The second half of the set saw the band settle into some easy-going showmanship too – getting those standing at the front to trade chants with the seated rear of the Music Room or putting on the giant mirror-ball and singing unrequited love song “Giving It All Away” to crowd member Megan (her sister was at the Leeds gigs the night before and put in the request). Then after final song (the glorious tribute to Norwegian songwriter ‘St Thomas’), Steven Adams and acoustic guitar went walkabout through the crowd to sing Pete Seeger’s ‘Passing Through’ with the band remaining on stage to provide harmonies and percussion from stage. Nothing exceptional or ground-breaking about these moments but they were done with such a casual but good-humoured bonhomie it created in instant sense of warm community and happiness.





Tonight was the third time I’ve seen Singing Adams and the first in which I didn’t even think about the Broken Family Band once. Did I say Singing Adams looked tired and at the end of their tour? Far from it. This felt like a band invigorated and a group who are only just starting to get up a real head of steam.

The Set List:

GRUBBY MITTS "To A Friend's House"

Grubby Mitts is a five-piece from Bedford led by Andy Holden who has a separate creative life as a visual artist. Actually it may not be that separate: as well as ‘normal’ gigs the band also plays multi-media pieces in gallery and cinema spaces including Tate Britain where Holden also presented a solo art exhibition. But is Grubby Mitts nothing more than a dalliance or a side-project for messing about with mates? The rousing conviction of new single ‘To A Friend’s House’ (released tomorrow on Lost Toy Records) suggests otherwise.


‘To A Friend’s House’ starts with pots-and-pan syncopation and disconnected voices each separately uttering snatches of the phrase “the way to a friend’s house is never long”. A wheezy harmonium is introduced to underscore and hold the fragments together. Further depth is added through layering in extra instrumentation (string section at 2.20) so by the three minute mark the multiple layers and phrases have become an emphatic, impassioned cri de coeur. Deceptively simple but utterly uplifting: an inspiring battle-hymn of honest friendship rather than violent blood-letting.

I included ‘To A Friend’s House’ in the March edition of the Cloud Sounds podcast I guest-hosted. You can also stream it on Soundcloud or download tomorrow from iTunes. However appropriately for the first Monday after Record Store Day the single is also available as a 7” vinyl single (the B-side is a solo clarinet rendition of The Beach Boy’s ‘God Only Knows’ – simple, charming but lacking the depth of the A-side). True one NME writer is decrying the need for physical product but the continued success of Record Store Day and the modest-but-steady increase in vinyl sales suggests there are many who disagree. There is a convenience to digital but the physical form is one which endures. Either way you purchase it ‘To A Friend’s House’ is a song to be cherished.

Grubby Mitts - To a Friends House

Grubby Mitts To A Friend’s House [BUY]

THE HIGH LLAMAS "Talahomi Way"

Hard to credit that The High Llamas have been releasing records, albeit with spacious intervals, for 21 years (a Microdisney reference now might sound like delving into antediluvian history). I last checked in with them at the end of the 90s so have missed out on the last decade when Sean O’Hagan’s band of chamber-pop stylists have been releasing records every 3-4 years via Drag City. Listening to the latest record ‘Talahomi Way’, on the face of it nothing much has changed: elegant, mainly instrumental lounge-pop, with flawless arrangements and with a great big nod to the shimmering late period Beach Boys with a hint of Sergio Mendes. However listen intently – which you should - and there are very subtle but noticeable re-calibrations. They may not be seismic changes but they underscore that casual pigeon-holing of The High Llamas is best avoided.

‘Berry Adams’ with its wistful, carefree pace opens and sets the tone for the album, conveying a blue-skies reassurance with its gliding strings, elegant harmonies and harpsichord. However as the layers fall away at its end, revealed is the very gentlest of motorik rhythms underpinning the track (long-time collaborator Tim Gane of Stereolab produces). The album’s predominant palette is warm but pristine sounds exquisitely wrung from chamber instruments; see second track ‘Wander Jack Wander’ with its tinkling marimba, the softest parps of trumpet and silky strings. It is so restrained in its elegance the effect is almost soporific. ‘Woven and Rolled’ with its references to The Riveria and London hints at jet-setting travel but is delivered at a tranquil ocean liner cruise pace. ‘Fly Baby Fly’ is more animated, pointing firmly to the pop-classicism of Jimmy Webb or Burt Bacharach. As the cover art illustration suggests, this is gilt-framed art-pop exotica, despite the electronic detail at the edges.


What surprises me however and which feels very different from the 90s High Llama recordings is the level of abstraction. ‘Ring of Gold’ has the most vocal content but it is so softly sung it is not just hushed but almost withdrawn, as though it was desperately trying not to draw attention to itself. The song finishes with a repeating string pattern that is much more dominant than the vocals ever were, as though they were a background prelude to this hint of contemporary classical minimalism. The character of Berry is referred to beyond the titular opening song which suggests some form of narrative or travelogue but nothing it is explicit; it’s like a concept album in which the concept has been faded out. And ‘Take My Hand’ relishes the sand, breeze and ocean spray in an almost conventional manner but the persistent repetition of that key phrase becomes less like a chorus and more like a looped sample in which meaning fades into pure mood and effect.

If 1996’s ‘Hawaii’ referred to a real place, ‘Talahomi Way’ appears to be fictional. The former had a more vibrant, electric buzz to it, the latter shifts to finely sculptured organic textures that can be almost dream-like. What could be dismissed as muzak has an enigmatic depth and graceful virtuosity that is not ambient music but sometimes feels as though it wishes it were. ‘Talahomi Way’ never feels arch or wry but I suspect some will find it deeply conservative or dismiss it off-hand as retro-fitted lounge. Others will hear and prize an almost experimental subverting of these bachelor pad transmissions.

FLY, BABY FLY (via Drag City)
The High Llamas
Talahomi Way [BUY]