Slow Thrills

review: Bonnie Prince Billy, Hackney Empire, 25th January 2012

2012-02-11T11:00:00.000Z

words: Jonathan Greer photos: Sarah Dorman

The four musicians that make up Bonnie “Prince” Billy's band tonight make the most unassuming entrance, shuffling on stage and effectively rigging their own equipment in front of us. Maybe it is a deliberately amateur move to distract us from just how special their performance is going to be, or maybe it's just something that they do, and the fact they are about to play in front of a sell out crowd at this ornate old music hall doesn't bother them at all.
Over the years, Will Oldham has performed his music under many aliases, and although tonight is billed as simply a Bonnie “Prince” Billy show, his fully acoustic band comprise two regular members of the Cairo Gang. Emmett Kelly is there with his excellent guitar skills, as is Angel Olsen who acts as a co-vocalist with Will himself and nearly steals the show a few times.

They play material from all stages of Oldham's career over the course of their lengthy set, although the song choices do tend to favour material from their most recent albums. The soaring vocals on “Beware Your Only Friend” set the tone and show from early on how well these musicians gel together. Will is on fine form throughout, full of humorous stories and anecdotes about the horrors of the ageing process, the forecasted Mayan apocalypse and the posturing of RnB star Jason Derulo. He is also openly delighted at discovering the taste of whisky in his moustache.

There are many, many highlights, such as the old Palace Brothers tune “Pushkin”, a lovely version of “Master and Everyone” and the intricate duet between Will and Angel, “You Want That Picture”. Arguably his best known song “I See A Darkness” is given an uptempo treatment and he admits that due to the ad-libbed approach to the set-list he doesn't get around to anything from the new album “Wolfroy Goes to Town” until 40 minutes into the set. That approach also means that the extraordinary “So Everyone”, which would be fit to close anyone's show, is played mid-set and brings forth such rapturous applause that it's actually hard to follow.

They're undaunted by this and they peak again with the intense American gothic “The Seedling”, only to contrast sharply with a very moving version of “Three Questions” which closes the main set. When they return for “Merciless and Great” it becomes clear what a skilful guitarist Emmett Kelly is, but also how impressive Oldham's voice is these days. It has come far from the fragile warble of his early days and is now a much more powerful and controlled style of singing, and in combination with Angel Olsen, their voices totally fill this hall.

He finally brings the show to an end by announcing that he has a train to catch to Scotland as it is Burns Night, and then the band launch into Richard Farina's old folk song “Pack Up Your Troubles”, which is about as Scottish as Greenwich Village, but it's a great carefree tune to go out on.

So well over 90 minutes after shuffling onto the stage the band are gone; Will Oldham the last one to be seen, shuffling towards the back of the stage, guitar still around his neck, coiling his own cables. A remarkable songwriter and showman as well; tonight we were privileged to be here. This was one of those shows that just stays with you long after it is over.

Friday guest mix by Robin The Fog

2012-02-10T16:00:00.000Z

As I explained in previous posts, Friday is "mix-day" here at Slow Thrills, and today I am delighted to be hosting the first in series of guest mixes. This one is by the London-based sound artist and DJ Robin The Fog and is EXCLUSIVE to this website. I asked him to do a mix as a bit of promotional activity for his new cassette release in collaboration with Guy J Jackson, "Notes on Cow Life", as this is also the first release on his new label The Fog Signals. Well, he has done that, and so much more! The 35 minute mix includes a unique remix of some tracks from the album, as well as audio from the likes of the Focus Group, Imbogodom, Hills Have Riffs, Gum Takes Tooth, Roj, Gregory Whitehead, Ekoclef and Ken Nordine. Put some headphones on have a listen, I think it's fantastic.

Notes On Cow Life, Sales Presentation - A Slow Thrills Mix By Robin The Fog by Robin The Fog forSlowthrills on Mixcloud

So, Robin The Fog has set the bar a bit high with this, but if you would like to contribute a Friday mix please email me at slowthrillsj-blog@yahoo.co.uk. It needs to contain at least eight tracks and musically it should fit in with the overall content of the site. If you enjoyed Robin's mix, be sure to wade through his extensive website robinthefog.com, as there is plenty going on over there.

"Notes on Cow Life" by Guy J Jackson and Robin The Fog is available as a digital download or a limited cassette from The Fog Signals website.

Review recap, and a link to my François and the Atlas Mountains interview

2012-02-09T11:55:00.000Z

Today I am in the land of nod after an eighteen hour shift, so there will be a slight intermission. Happily, the 405 have published an interview I did for them with François, from François and the Atlas Mountains. Click HERE to read it.

Meanwhile here's a summary of some recent reviews....

Album reviews

Sharon van Etten Tramp

The Twilight Sad No One Can Ever Know

Gonjasufi MU.ZZ.LE

Darren Hayman January Songs
Guided By Voices Let's Go Eat The Factory
Imbogodom And They Turned Not Where They Went

Live reviews

Tim Hecker, London 6th February

Public Service Broadcasting, Tooting Broadway Market, 28th January

Eleanor Friedberger, 1st December

.... and here are some reviews and articles I wrote in the latter half of 2011. Most of those link to the 405 or Huffington Post UK.

review: Sharon van Etten 'Tramp'

2012-02-08T12:52:00.000Z

Brooklyn-based Sharon van Etten has been steadily establishing herself as a folk-rock songwriter with two fine albums, Because I Was In Love and Epic. For her third album Tramp she finds herself with a wider musical palate to work with, courtesy of producer Aaron Dessner of the National and a stream of indie-rock collaborators including Zach Condon of Beirut, and members of Wye Oak and the Walkmen.
All the pre-publicity for Tramp has dealt with the album's difficult gestation period, as it was largely written and recorded when van Etten was not in a relationship and was living a transient existence, touring and sleeping on sofas.
It initially comes across as a very bleak album and it took a few listens to click with me. Doleful and dirge-like are two words to describe this, and that isn't meant as an insult. A quick glance at the track listing shows the titles are all short, and are often just mono-syllabic words. In contrast, the overall sound of Tramp is fuller than her previous releases although Dessner's production is very subtle and this clearly isn't a National record with a female vocal. Far from it in fact. Van Etten comes across as assured though slightly fragile in her delivery, and the overall sense of bleakness is only lifted by the odd lilt in her voice and some very striking lyrics.
'Give Out' is the finest example of her lyrical craft, and much like the rest of these songs it sees her lost and alone and over-analysing her past relationships. One verse in particular in worth quoting in full,

“I’m biting my lip as confidence is speaking to me. I loosen my grip on my palm, put it on your knee. In my way, I say, you’re the reason why I’ll move to the city or why I’ll need to leave."

Those two lines in themselves are enough of a reason to investigate this album; the way that they sum up her feelings about that relationship in such brief detail is a skill rarely found outside prime-period Go-Betweens, for example.
Next track 'Serpents' is the rockiest arrangement and it works really well, and the sad but pretty 'Kevin's' brings the tempo back down. 'Leonard' is another beautiful song and her vocals weave such a great folky melody over more relationship analysis. “I am bad at loving you,” she sings on the refrain.
Her vocals are often double-tracked or accompanied and I actually think that this larger sound works well for her, although I guess some may complain that the rawness is diluted. I wouldn't agree, I don't think Tramp is an easy listen at all.
“We Are Fine”, which is essentially a duet with Beirut's Zach Condon, is musically more upbeat but the refrain of “I'm alright” seems to be coming from the perspective of a best friend or a professional counsellor, it's more a case of “we will be fine”, really.
“Magic Chords” is musically a bit different, built from basic snare drum and keyboards into a sing along refrain of “you got to lose sometimes.” It's also one of Sharon's strongest vocal performances here.
“I'm Wrong” is a gentler song which just floats without any rhythm track to anchor it; the lyrics are adrift with daydreams about someone else, she is letting us hear her thinking aloud.
There is an old adage about albums "growing on you" or "warranting repeated listens". In my experience this is very true of Tramp. Brutally honest and self-analytical, it sounds best when you are on your own late at night. I'm reminded of that old discussion about “who sings better in the dark?” The answer, at the moment, is Sharon van Etten.

Tramp was released in the UK yesterday, 7th February 2012. Sharon van Etten will be playing ATP's next Nightmare Before Christmas curated by the National, in about 10 months from now.

review: Tim Hecker, St. Giles-in-the-fields church, London, 6th February 2012

2012-02-07T11:00:00.000Z

Tim Hecker's most recent full length album, Ravedeath, 1972, has been one of my most listened-to albums of the last year. It is based around a single day's recordings when Hecker played the organ in the free church in Reykjavik, so when it was announced that he would be playing the pipe organ in St Giles-in-the-fields I jumped at the chance to go along. A bit of research into the organ at St Giles reveals that it is as old as the church itself (1734) and some of the existing pipework pre-dates this. An ideal setting to hear the battles between ancient sounds and modern digital processing that make Ravedeath, 1972 such a rewarding listen.
Due to demand Tim Hecker played two shows tonight and I went to the earlier one. In keeping with the previous times I have seen him, there were no lights at all and a no photography rule, hence my hasty snap of the church chandeliers as I walked in. Just before we heard the first breaths of the pipe organ, these lights were turned off and we sat in darkness for the entire performance.

This show must have been a challenge for the PA company. Obviously a church organ is loud enough to fill the church but it is at the back of the audience, and they needed to balance Hecker's own processed sounds through a PA which faced the crowd. I sat at the centre near the back, pretty much underneath the organ, and I was impressed at how well the sound enveloped me.

In terms of running order, this is pretty much the Ravedeath we know and love, and although I was aware at the beginning of the difference between the organic organ sounds and the electronic treatments, as the set progresses it blends so well that you stop noticing. The music gradually grows into a warm over-powering noise. I shut my eyes for a lot of the set, and when I opened them occasionally, I was reminded about the contrasts between ancient and modern as flashing lights from the street outside streaked across the large stained-glass window.
The music underlined this contrast too, as this wasn't a case of someone making pleasant ambient sounds and treating an ancient instrument with reverence. There were times when the layered distortion became so powerful it was almost like the ancient sounds were being attacked. It is fascinating to hear an old instrument being manipulated like this, as vintage instruments are often thought of in terms of old crackly recordings or decaying tape. Here, the eighteenth century organ sounds were being pulled and shaped into something new.

The lack of light and the extreme volume created a heightened sensory experience for the audience. Much like the first time I saw My Bloody Valentine overwhelm me with their wall of noise, I lost all track of time when Hecker was performing and I was stunned to find that he had played for 50 minutes. I wasn't surprised near the end to find a lot of people around me had their heads bowed. Some of us had had a religious experience; how fitting that we were in a church at the time.

review: The Twilight Sad, No-one Can Ever Know

2012-02-06T15:51:00.001Z

This third album from the Twilight Sad is a slight departure from their earlier records. The powerful, distinctly Scottish vocals of James Graham are to the fore as always, and the intensity of their stark songs is still intact; the main difference is the guiding hand of Andrew Weatherall and the presence of some heavy synths and driving beats in place of the shoegazing wall of guitars found on their previous album.
It's a change that has worked well for them. At the heart of it all, the Twilight Sad are the same band and their songwriting is distinctive, often using long melody lines that seem rooted in folk music. In fact this was underlined by a recent interview where they stated that all the songs here can be played and sung with just an acoustic guitar.

'Alphabet' is a subdued opening track, with creepy synths from the start, but this is still unmistakably the Twilight Sad. 'Dead City' ups the pace a lot, and although it's the longest piece here, it throbs along with a pounding Krautrock pulse and a soaring refrain. It's one of the most immediate highlights here. I try not to compare bands to others, but the single 'Sick' does strongly evoke Radiohead with its opening guitar passage and muted beats. It slowly layers more instruments into the mix and builds into yet another highlight.
They return to the motorik beats for the taut, claustrophobic 'Don't Move', a typical Twilight Sad lyric which hints at a story but gives little detail away. This is about a couple “paired off in the violence”, and it hints at the album title with the couplet “I want you more than you will ever know/ I'll hurt you more than you will ever know.” This creepy theme is continued on the uptempo 'Don't Look At Me'.
'Nil' begins with an edgy synth backdrop, not unlike a Trent Reznor soundtrack piece, while James gives another strong vocal performance as the music builds again. It sits at the heart of the album and is one of the best songs here, coming across as a strong story song with something sinister at it's heart and much tension in the refrain “I won't let you out through the day again.”
'Not Sleeping' is also atmospheric and layered, and once again those lyrics draw you in. “Be careful who your arms are around” is a great line I think.
'Another Bed' is actually reminiscent of someone like Giorgio Moroder with it's danceable beats and big soaring synths. I can see why it's a single, although it isn't typical of the slow-burning nature of the rest of this album.
'Kill It In The Morning' was the first track they previewed from the album late last year, and in a way it announced this new direction. It sounds less like the Twilight Sad than the rest of this album, coming across more like Liars in its intensity and hints of discord, but it's a pretty strong way to round this album off. It leaves you wondering where they are going next on their musical journey.

Perhaps this making this album was a risk but I think it has paid off. I can't see many fans being disappointed with this as they have updated and added new dimensions to their sound, whilst still managing to sound like themselves. James Graham's lyrics are still intriguing and his vocal delivery totally works within these arrangements. The voice isn't lost within multiple noise guitars, instead it soars above a wall of synths. Impressive from start to finish, they can certainly consider this a success.

'No-one Can Ever Know' is out today on Fat Cat.

Great lost bands: A.R.Kane

2012-02-05T19:11:00.000Z

It's often hyperbole to suggest a band is ahead of their time, but in the case of A.R.Kane I think it's a fair comment. Essentially a duo comprising of Alex Ayuli and Rudi Tambala, they were most active between 1986 and 1990 when they released a string of EPs on One Little Indian and 4AD plus two highly regarded albums on Rough Trade. In that short burst of activity they managed to touch on shoegaze, trip hop, ambient dub and post-rock before anyone knew what those things were.
Early releases such as debut single "When You're Sad" were often filed under an inadequate "black Jesus and Mary Chain" tag, but A.R. Kane had much wider influences behind their work.
When You're Sad

It's true that JAMC and the Cocteau Twins had a major effect on them, but, speaking personally, A.R.Kane's music made me want to check out Sun Ra and 'Bitches Brew' by Miles Davis for a start.
They also had a notorious alter-ego in the guise of M/A/R/R/S, which was a collaboration between them and Colourbox, CJ Mackintosh and DJ Dave Dorrell, and of course had a gigantic hit in 1987 with 'Pump Up The Volume'. This was the first UK number one on a totally independent label (4AD) and a major source of funding for future, more experimental activities. The EP 'Lollita' was their first classic release; it featured three of their best songs - the title track, as well as 'Sadomasocism is a Must' and 'The Butterfly Collector', and showed their edginess as an uncompromising noise band with jarring psycho-sexual themes, a lyrical interest that would continue over the next few records.

All of the EPs are worth checking out, and they paved the way for their extraordinary debut album "sixty-nine" (1988). On the EPs they had sounded like an indie-guitar band with some experimental ideas, but with sixty-nine they threw jazz and dance music into the mix, as well as exploring both extremes of ambient music. Some times it was pretty and dreamy, other times it was edgy and violent. The radical mix of styles on the album is illustrated by its most popular track, Baby Milk Snatcher, with its mix of dub reggae and blissed-out noise. The title is a deliberate reference to Thatcher, but it isn't a jarring political song. It also fits "sixty-nine"s obsession with breasts, as evidenced on the inner sleeve art, and in particular the mother and body bond, as heard on the unsettling 'The Madonna Is With Child.'
Baby Milk Snatcher

The follow-up album "i" was a complete curveball. 26 tracks, ten of which are short noise-based interludes, it was almost too much of a mix of genres for some. Some of it is complex, multi-layered pop such as lead track 'A Love From Outer Psace' and the single 'Pop', some of it is discordant and difficult, and the closing track 'Catch my Drift' manages to mix heavy dub with Pavarotti.

A Love From Outer Space

It was a hard act to follow and they never tried to top it. They signed with David Byrne's Luaka Bop label but this only yielded a compilation of previously released material called 'Americana'. The only new material to come out was a 1994 album called 'New Clear Child' which received a very tepid reaction from fans and critics alike.
The band had nurtured some new talent through their own H.ark label (Belfast bands Papa Sprain and Butterfly Child released 2 EPs each on it) and Rudi Tambala went on to record under the name Sufi, and with Alison Shaw of Cranes as In Rain. Alex Ayuli had a career in advertising prior to A.R. Kane (with TBWA amongst others) and became a museum curator in the US afterwards. I haven't known them to make any music together since 1994.

----------
previous Great Lost Bands
No. 4: Loop
No. 3: Bongwater
No. 2: Prolapse
No. 1: Bowery Electric

review: Gonjasufi, 'MU.ZZ.LE'

2012-02-04T11:00:00.000Z

I'm fascinated by Gonjasufi. This alter-ego of Californian yoga teacher Sumach Valentine emerged out of the San Diego hip-hop scene on the '90s, and nowadays his music is more of a psychedelic blur caught between genres. On his full length debut A Sufi and A Killer he worked with the Gaslamp Killer and Flying Lotus to create a mix of hip hop beats and 60s psych rock, and when I saw the Gonajsufi live show last year it had more common with the Stooges and MC5 than hip-hop. The constant factor was Sumach's voice, which is a spooked, cracked, almost otherworldly instrument, often heavily processed to sound even more distant.
MU.ZZ.LE follows hot on the heels of the freely distributed EP The 9th Inning, which was a brief collection of older tracks that had never been released, and it had more of a hip-hop vibe although it still drifted through a variety of sounds. MU.ZZ.LE contains ten tracks though it only runs for 25 minutes and the songs seldom get past the 3 minute mark. This time around production duties are split with San Diego's Psychopop and the overall sound has moved away from both straightforward hip-hop and psych rock towards something more coherent and individual. The voice is central to it all, in turns creepy and sinister, then warm and smooth, it's no wonder that he is often mentioned in the same breath as other unique voices such as Tom Waits, Leadbelly and Bjork.
'White Picket Fence' is a startling curveball of an opener, the overall mix of vocals, drums and electric piano is skewed and stretched and heavily reverbed so that it's immediately unsettling and attention seeking. 'Feedin' Birds' is equally striking, early Magic Band style dynamics accompany a duet with his wife, their vocals both treated telephonically.
'Nikels and Dimes' is the stand-out track; it's a multi-layered piece with some relatively uptempo beats underpinning a swirling, circling melody.
The likes of 'Time Out' and 'Skin' are abrasive and edgy, while 'Venom' is downbeat and soothing and 'The Blame' owes most to his hip-hop roots. Brief closing track 'Sniffin' is the most experimental, with disjointed bursts of electric guitar contrasting with a dreamy vocal.
When I heard MU.ZZ.LE was only 25 minutes long I thought that it would feel like a tease but it's actually pretty satisfying. It makes me hunger for what Gonjasufi will do next.

MU.ZZ.LE is out now on Warp records.

Slow Thrills Friday mix no1: Wintering Out

2012-02-03T14:06:00.000Z

Yesterday I uploaded the first of my old fanzine's archives to a new site, weedbus.posterous.com, and they will be appearing at the start of every month for most of this year, as a PDF book and a Soundcloud audio stream.
So far this year, Friday has meant Spotify playlist day so, following on from that run, I am introducing our mixcloud into the grand scheme of things. From now on Friday will feature either a playlist OR a guest mix, and to start the ball rolling (and test the systems of course), I have uploaded my own short mix. It is deliberately downbeat and wintry, it is not intended for dancing; a bit like myself a the moment. The mix is embedded below.

Slow Thrills mix no.1: Wintering Out by Slowthrills on Mixcloud

The guest mix slot is open to anyone and I have invited a few people so far, but if you feel you can do one please email me at slowthrillsj-blog@yahoo.co.uk for more details. Music-wise I am very openminded but it will have to fit within the broad musical remit of this blog, so go easy on the funk/metal crossover tunes.

Re-introducing: The Weedbus archives

2012-02-02T21:33:00.000Z

Now that January's posting-binge is out of the way I can start to upload little project I have been working on. Last Spring I begun to review music again after a very long break, and some people with long memories were kind enough to say that they were glad I was 'back'. Anyway, last July I was sorting through boxes and I looked at some issues of the old fanzine I used to edit and publish. The zine was called the Weedbus, it was made in Belfast and existed in print form between 1993 and 1998. Some of the early issues were cringeworthy but some of the later ones were genuinely good, and it got me motivated to try and re-publish them as PDFs.
I have some of the interviews online in the archives of this blog, but they are re-versioned from the printed editions and there are quite a few missing from the internet. This project will republish all of the interviews we ever did, yes, even the time we had a game of 'slaps' with Greg Dulli from the Afghan Whigs.
Following on from finding those issues in that box, I have also unearthed many of the original interview recordings, many of which were done on a portable cassette recorder with a built-in mic. Most of these need substantial audio work and they are of little editorial worth, but they have given me the impetus to try and make an audio companion for each time I upload a scan of a back issue.
For the first archive re-issue I have only been able to scan the interview pages, the cover, and the singles reviews (!) from issue 3. Issues 1 and 2 are nowhere to be found and I'm in no hurry to look for them to be honest. All of the other scans are larger than this, in fact one later issue is 40 pages long, so this is very much the light version to start with.
The recordings salvaged from cassette are now part of a bigger mix with music from the time. This will be hosted on soundcloud for a month then removed to make way for the next one.
It's obvious that the zine improved the longer we did it, and this goes for the interviews too. The very first one we ever did, with Martin Carr from the Boo Radleys, is included for posterity and also because it clearly illustrates that I had no idea how to interview anyone, aside from chatting to them like they were my mate. In retrospect I guess that's not the worst approach to have.

The scans and the relevant audio can be found at weedbus.posterous.com A new one will be added in the early part of each month until we have reached the end. Incidentally, if you go to the PDF, view it as 'book' on the drop down menu; that little feature made my day.

The post-a-day effort is done: A big letter to all you lovely people

2012-02-01T21:30:00.000Z

January is a terrible month, it always is. In the past I have been a bit seasonally affected so this year, to avoid the short dark days, the post-Christmas money worries and the general malaise I embarked on this post-a-day effort.
I've had this blog for years but it has been neglected for a long time. In 2011 I was encouraged to start writing properly again and I was published by the 405 and the Huffington Post. I wanted to do more, and I figured that if I could write something new every day during the most boring month of the year that would be a start. To be honest I have had this sort of idea before but it ran out of steam as I have had no readers and no interaction with my 'audience', so I said to myself, if I can get 30 or 40 hits per day that would be a start. I am currently getting over 100 per day and I could kiss the lot of you.
So, I may as well give you a recap of what has worked out and what hasn't. The most read page was my report on the unfortunate demise of Head records in Belfast which was a very sad story to have to write, however it gave my month a huge boost and it also made me reluctantly realise the great power of Facebook. (Go and 'like' me if you haven't already, I like you, honest I do!) I have pledged to update the story whenever there is any news by the way.
Music wise, the most popular posts are the 'Great Lost Bands' series, so those will definitely continue, although I'll warn you that they are going to get more obscure. The least popular was the weekly gig guide which I quickly killed off, but really that was only in place in case I ran out of content! Spotify playlists have also proved popular and a playlist or mix of some form continue on Fridays although that slot will be shared by guest mixes by other writers and musicians. I'm pretty excited about that one. The 'Music I discovered today' page will also continue though it will be 'as-and-when', rather than on a set day. If anyone can think of a better name for it that would be great too!
Future plans? Well, there were meant to be more reviews and at least one interview during January but I am committed to reviewing for other people and there are a few pieces I have written that would've been lovely to to post here, but the other sites made them possible so I gave them to them first. I will link through to them when they are published. It's probably obvious to state, but there will be interviews and reviews published exclusively here in the near future.
I'll also be posting bite-size news items and album streams through Facebook regularly, so that's another reason to head over there.
There is another future plan that is firmly focused on my past. In 1993 I published my own fanzine The Weedbus. It ran until 1999 when a planned 14th issue failed to make it to print and then it ground to a halt. Various people have expressed an interest in seeing it over the last year, so during 2012 I will be re-publishing what I can find from the Weedbus archives. These will take the form of PDF scans of most issues (no6-no13 will be published in full) and they will also be accompanied by a streaming audio file which will feature interview clips from my old cassettes as well as some music of the time. I'll probably be talking far too much as well. The first one will be online tomorrow (Feb 2nd) and they will follow at monthly intervals. Guests will definitely include Martin Carr (Boo Radleys), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Will Oldham, Michael Gira (Swans) and the late Vic Chesnutt. There are many more but I can't guarantee the quality of the original audio just yet.
Meanwhile, I would like to thank all of you for reading over the last month, and in particular I'd like to thank everyone who has helped out by re-tweeting and sharing my writing, and everyone who helped with content for the site. I'm not going to name individuals as I'm sure I will miss someone out, but if you've helped in any way it is much appreciated.

Finally, I do accept contributions if they are within the overall feel of the site, so feel free to chat to me about that. The contact email is slowthrillsj-blog@yahoo.co.uk or you can message me on Facebook or Twitter.

Listen: 11 of the best album releases of the month

2012-01-31T22:10:00.002Z

Django Django 'Django Django'
Listen via Spotify
The long awaited debut from this arty four piece doesn't disappoint. Packed with tunes, some of which will be familiar to anyone who has seen them in the last few years, and rich in ideas, this is really only the start for these guys.

Francois and the Atlas Mountains 'E Volo Love'
Listen via Spotify
My review of this (for another website) is still to be published, but I concluded "Ultimately E Volo Love is a collection of pretty and occasionally melancholic tunes weaved over a backing of skilful percussion and shimmering guitars. It is remarkable as it is the sound of an indie-pop band immersing themselves in European and African music and getting it totally right. "

Guided By Voices 'Let's Go Eat The Factory'
Listen via Spotify
A fine comeback album from the 'classic' mid-90s line-up. I reviewed it here and I said "Although the prolific output of Robert Pollard and his many varied offshoot bands has kept a lot of Guided By Voices fans satisfied in the last few years, there is something pretty great about having the real band back together. I did approach this album with trepidation, but it is rewarding me with each new listen. I'm unsure if it will win many new fans, but those of us who love those mid-90s albums should find plenty to enjoy here."

RM Hubbert 'Thirteen Lost and Found'
Listen via Spotify
A collaborative effort from this Glasgow based guitarist. The list of guests reads like an A-list of Scottish indie cred, with Alex Kapranos, Emma Pollock, Alastair Roberts and Aidan Moffat all lending a hand. Moffat steals the show a bit on 'Car Song' but all of the tracks gel together as a whole.

Leonard Cohen 'Old Ideas'
Listen via Spotify
I wonder did Mr Cohen ever think he would be releasing new material at the age of 73? This is a new recording collected from some 'old ideas' that have been kicking around as long ago as 1970. His voice has actually got deeper with age, and this is his most immediately impressive album for a few years.

Islet 'Illuminated People'
Listen via Spotify
Debut full length from this Welsh band. There's a lot going on here, from abrasive indie-pop to challenging prog-style time changes, and occasionally folky vocal lines, it certainly rewards repeated listening.

Errors 'Have Some Faith in Magic'
Listen via Spotify
Probably the album I've listened to most this month, this latest release from the Glasgow band sees them adopt a more melodic approach to their music, with emphasis on anything based tunes not unlike New Order. Initial reservations that this may have softened their edges have gone, and this is well worth your attention.

Imbogodom 'And They Turned Not Where They Went'
Listen via Spotify
The most experimental release on this list. I reviewed it here. I said "This is a sinister, challenging listen, but one that stretches the boundaries of post-rock or psych-folk. However you wish to label it, these guys have taken that kind of music somewhere else and are moulding it into strange new shapes."

Darren Hayman 'January Songs'
Listen via Spotify
I listened to this double album a lot this month. I wrote some words about it here, and said "January Songs is uneven but fascinating. Anyone who enjoys the work of Hefner or the solo Hayman should investigate."

Chairlift 'Something'
Listen via Spotify
I'm not as gushing in my praise for Chairlift as some other blogs, but there are some great pop songs on this second album. Slightly wary of the glossy 80s influence, but this album will be one that we will be talking about all year.

First Aid Kit 'The Lion's Roar'
This second album from the Swedish sisters is a much more countrified effort than their delicate folky debut. Their harmonies work so well together and are a joy to behold. The album has a gloriously retro production feel, it's warm and full of reverb on the voices. I keep thinking about Lee Hazlewood's 'Cowboy in Sweden' when I hear this. Country songs set in Stockholm, no less.

The observant ones amongst you will now notice that there are 11 albums in the list, as First Aid Kit is back on Spotify. The only album I haven't got around to hearing is Gonjasufi's new one, and I will give it a review when I've finally got my hands on it. Looking forward to February and the likes of Sharon Van Etten, the Twilight Sad, and of Montreal to hear yet....

Review: Darren Hayman, January Songs

2012-01-30T22:03:00.000Z

So here I am, nearly at the end of my post-a-day effort. Some of you may think that I had a grand scheme to do this months ago and that I was waiting for New Year's Day to come so I could get on with it. In truth, although I had a plan to re-publish some old fanzine stuff, I only realised that a daily post might be possible whilst sitting in the upstairs bar of the Lexington on the afternoon of January 1st.
I was watching Darren Hayman play a short free set as part of the Hangover Lounge, and I bought a copy of his new double album January Songs. For those of you who don't know, in January 2011 Darren undertook what he now calls a 'stupid' task. He decided that during the 31 days of the bleakest month of the year he would write and record a song per day, and upload it to the internet with some visuals to accompany it. Amazingly he achieved this, and I bet his January went very fast. All of the January Songs and their accompanying videos can be found at januarysongs.tumblr.com/ and just to make himself busy this January, Darren has thrown himself into the release and promotion of the CD by playing a couple of shows and drawing each CD sleeve by hand. You can watch him doing this in the video below!

Film about January Songs Cover Art from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

One of the best things about the whole project is how Darren was able to work with different musicians every day. There's around 100 minutes of music over the two CDs, and during that time it manages to sound like the most varied band in the world. Darren even allows others to sing his songs, which just adds to the variety.
Given the fact that a lot of the songs were recorded impulsively, straight after they were written, the quality is remarkably strong. It's the true that some songs would never have seen the light of day if there had been a diligent editing process, but there are quite a few that rank amongst his very best.
The real diamond is 'I Know I Fucked Up', a beautiful song with vocals by Elizabeth Morris from Allo Darlin, although the likes of 'Shhh' (with Litoral) and 'Ventriloquism' (with Ghostwriter) are superb too. It's good to hear Darren with a band again, and even though it's a different band every track, the voice and the writing style do remind me of Hefner. This is most evident on the catchy sing-along tracks like 'Who Hung the Monkey' and 'I Can't Control Myself' although 'It Was Over' explores their familiar themes of love and regret and 'Bad Technology' recalls the Dead Media-era Hefner with it's analog synth textures.
It's not all familiar ground though; 'I Can Keep a Secret' (with Harvey Williams) is built entirely around vocal tracks whilst 'the Return' is a short spoken word tale with a jazzy backing track.

Finally, on a serious note, Darren's sleeve notes say "what I've discovered as I get older is that hard work stops me feeling nervous and that feeling exhausted is better than being frightened." I took this as a reference to what happened in November 2009 when Darren was badly beaten up in Nottingham in the middle of a UK tour. The attack left him hospitalised for three days with a linear fracture of the skull and a condition known as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo which meant that small crystals were dislodged in his inner ear, causing him to feel dizzy. He also lost some of the top range of his hearing in his left ear and was advised to rest and do as little as possible in order to recuperate. Being a very prolific musician, it was hard to do nothing and Darren found that he had to continue to write songs, although he experienced discomfort when faced with loud music. His first solution was to purchase a ship's piano for around £70 on ebay and begin to write songs on that. The resulting efforts were released a few months ago as The Ship's Piano, which I reviewed on the 405.. I think it's fair to say that he intended it to be a 'proper' album, whilst these 31 January songs were more of an internet experiment.
The other aftermath of being beaten up is of course psychological and Darren was worried that he would have difficulty leaving the house, never mind perform in public again. I've been fortunate to see him three times in the last few months and he has seemed like his old self. Amiable and amusing in between songs, and not afraid to trot out back catalogue rarities as well as showcase his new material. There still aren't any loud noises but he did play through a small amp at the Lexington, and the January Songs showcase in the Hideaway in Archway did feature a small drum kit as well.

It's tempting to see January Songs as an exercise in self-discipline; a way of turning your songwriting craft into a day job, like those of the writers who worked at the likes of the Brill Building in the 1960s. Whereas The Ship's Piano was a fine collection of songs with a uniform sound, January Songs is uneven but fascinating. Anyone who enjoys the work of Hefner or the solo Hayman should investigate both.

review: Public Service Broadcasting, Professor Penguin at Nights at the Market, Tooting, 28th January 2012

2012-01-29T22:43:00.000Z

This show is part of Nights at the Market, essentially a live band night in the heart of Tooting Broadway Market. The London based duo Public Service Broadcasting were the hosts for the evening and, rather charitably, they took the stage first.
Although local Tooting boys Bear Response Team get a good response to their set of uptempo indie pop, and headliners Professor Penguin play a thoroughly professional set complete with a horn section and a percussionist, it was PSB's night in more ways than one.
The performance space is right in the heart of the indoor market, which although it is covered it certainly doesn't keep the heat in and despite an impressively large crowd it is fairly freezing. Bear Response Team's singer wears a buttoned up coat and scarf throughout his performance and although they play a very lively set, he shows no signs of taking it off.
I think it's important to mention the venue and the high standards of performance because the organisers had a set back during the course of the gig when they had a couple of visits from the council's noise control people. Although Professor Penguin have nine people in their band, it's quite possible to carry out a conversation directly in the front of the PA without shouting so it definitely didn't feel too loud in the market. I guess they have to carry out a survey to measure the decibel level at residential areas and I hope that something can be done to stop the market leaking out sound, because it would be a shame to lose such a vibrant and interesting band night.
Anyway, back to the music. I hadn't heard Professor Penguin before so I had no idea what to expect. Their large line-up gives them the luxury to expand upon some strong songs by adding horns and extra percussion and keyboards, and they all come across as very skilled musicians. At heart I reckon they are an indie band but with extra width and colour, and they could well be ones to watch in the coming months as they release their debut album 'Planes'.
When I think about this gig though, I keep returning to the early evening performance by Public Service Broadcasting. Now expanded to a duo with the addition of drummer Wrigglesworth, their live show is just getting better all the time. Tonight the now familiar old television which sits centre stage was actually upstaged by a large projector screen relaying the same visuals, which as usual are impressively in sync with the beats. PSB began as the solo project of J. Willgoose, Esq, and live he plays guitar, keyboards, banjo, whilst triggering samples of found speech and audio from public information films which take the place of any vocals. They play an impressive half hour set which ends with the new single 'ROYGBIV'; a melodic piece of electronica which celebrates the birth of colour television. They are showing tremendous promise, and although tonight was lovely and local and intimate, I can't wait to see their audio-visual show somewhere much bigger soon.

Great Lost Bands no 4: Loop

2012-01-28T17:42:00.000Z

Today's addition to the list of lost bands is probably the most well known one yet. I'm including them as a 'lost band' mainly because of the time that has passed since their last new release (1990), but more specifically because of their huge influence on one of the best albums of last year, Wooden Shjips's 'West'. I have been met with a few puzzled expressions when I've stressed the similarlity between Wooden Shjips and Loop, but for those of us who know them and remember them, the comparison is an obvious one. Here is 'Collision' from 1988, which was practically an indie chart hit!
Collision

For those of you who don't remember them, Loop were active between 1986 and 1991. They were based in London and released three studio albums as well as a few collections of EPs and Peel sessions. The band were inspired by garage bands, Krautrock, heavy drone based rock and the minimalist side of Suicide, and were often, perhaps unfairly, thought to be following in the aftermath of Spacemen 3. The two groups didn't get on and in 1989 Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 claimed in an interview with Lime Lizard, that "they really ripped us off!! Their first record sleeves, their sound, their live shows, just about everything. Their first few gigs were supporting us. The first time they had acid was when we gave it to them. Then they started calling themselves Loop. The first album was alright but it wasn’t anything we hadn’t done already."
Obviously there were huge similiarities but I always thought Loop had enough edginess and abrasiveness to sound distinct. They built up a strong live following, and when I saw them in Belfast Art College in 1990 they were the loudest band I had ever heard. They only held that title for a few weeks until My Bloody Valentine rolled into town, but still... There are a few amateur live videos of them on the internet, and this one below illustrates the intensity of their show.
From Centre to Wave

The band were getting popular in 1990 and the album A Gilded Eternity was released on Beggars Banquet offshoot Situation Two. It was more experimental and difficult than the garagey sounding early singles, but it has proved to be a lasting epitaph for the band. The first single from it was Arc Lite.
Arc Lite

Loop ceased to be a band in 1991, although a collection of Peel Sessions, 'Wolf Flow' was released the next year. Founder member Robert Hampson went on make music under the name Main, which continued until 2006 and was based more around experimental noise and sound art. Drummer John Willis and bassist Neil Mackay formed the Hair and Skin Trading Company whose first couple of albums carried on where Loop left off, but their last release Psychedelische Musique took influences from Faust and musique concrete.

Previously in this series
No 3: Bongwater
No 2: Prolapse
No 1: Bowery Electric

Spotify playlist: January

2012-01-27T10:14:00.000Z

Slow Thrills January Spotify playlist
For the fourth in the series of my Friday Spotify playlists, I've combined the previous three and added some new stuff to make a big chunky 2 hour+ playlist. It's not a compilation of all new releases that came out this month, it's more a mixture of acts that have been mentioned on the site throughout the past month. The new additions are the new Sleigh Bells single, that Deerhoof/ Bazan collaboration, Aesop Rock, Broadcast and the Focus Group, an old one from Bongwater, a rarity by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney, and tracks from the new albums by First Aid Kit and Islet. There will be a similarly themed playlist at the end of February, but other Friday slots may well be given over to guest mixtapes which will be available on Mixcloud. Enjoy!
Listen here

music I discovered today: Public Service Broadcasting

2012-01-26T11:50:00.000Z

There is a definite buzz building around this band at the moment, and the other day I had to write 50 words for an 'established weekly music publication' about them. Well, as you may be noticing by now, 50 words ain't my style so I'll embellish it a little bit here. They are about to release a new single 'ROYGBIV', due on March 4th. It's named after all the colours of the rainbow and it skilfully manages to combine melodic electronica with some very poetic audio clips from the middle of last century which praise the birth of colour television. Phrases like "The vivid pulsating miracle that gives substance to shadow" and so on... Despite this huge dollop of retro footage, PSB still sound very much like they belong in 2012.
The lovely video is below

Public Service Broadcasting began as the solo project of one J. Willgoose, Esq, which saw him using guitar, keyboards, banjo, samples and footage from public information films for what was essentially a one man show. The live set up nowadays includes drummer Wrigglesworth and, in order to give those old films pride of place, an old television is centre stage. This video, for the unreleased song Signal 30, captures their live set really well.

PSB Live from Owain Rich on Vimeo.

The duo are currently playing quite a few gigs, mostly around London, and you can find a list here. They are fresh from a well received support slot with Plaid and Hexstatic in Koko a few weeks ago, and this Saturday they appear at Nights at the Market in Tooting as part of a three-band bill.

Previously in this series
Django Django
Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands
Idiot Glee

gig preview: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy aka Wolfroy aka Will Oldham

2012-01-25T14:22:00.000Z

Well, it looks like I'll be going to see Bonnie Prince Billy tonight at the Hackney Empire. His current album 'Wolfroy Comes to Town' is great and hopefully his gig will be along the lines of this recent French TV performance.

Bonnie Prince Billy en session privée au Trianon by telerama
This whole Wolfroy thing intrigues me though. A recent web-chat curated by the Guardian saw Bonnie Prince Billy aka Will Oldham answer his questions as 'Wolfroy', and the token weird music news item of the week is that Drag City are now selling Bonny Billy Blend coffee which comes with the "Wolfroy seal of approval" and is certified 100% organic. It comes in a half-pound bag of whole beans for $20 direct from the record company so I guess that means there won't by any on sale at the merch table tonight!
I met Will Oldham once, on his first UK tour in 1993 when his band featured David Pajo and were called the Palace Brothers. His trousers fell down mid-set and I had the memorable pleasure of interviewing him afterwards. The transcript of the interview is here, but I may as well tell you now that you will be able to hear some of that interview as part of my future plans to publish my archives. I will be banging on more about that nearer the time, though I should say the ball starts rolling on that once January's mission is over.
Meanwhile, I have a gig to look forward to....

When musicians collaborate: a cautionary tale

2012-01-24T18:59:00.000Z

Yesterday I posted a bite-size review of a collaboration between Deerhoof and David Bazan, which is the latest in the series of releases featuring Deerhoof and invited guests such as Xiu Xiu and Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. The idea is that the guest works new words and vocals around an existing Deerhoof tune.
It struck me collaborations are very much in fashion at the moment. Two of my favourite albums of last year were Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat's 'Everything's Getting Older' and King Creosote and Jon Hopkins's 'Diamond Mine'. Although in both respects the musicians involved are from slightly different genres of music, they blend together beautifully to create something unique and distinct from their other work. In Creosote's case in particular, the finished work is essentially studio-wizz Hopkins's re-arrangements of existing songs from KC's extensive back catalogue. On 'Bubble' for instance, Hopkins's percussion tracks are built from recordings of balls of paper being flicked around a table top.

The first CD I got in 2012 was Darren Hayman's January Songs, his ambitious internet-based effort from this time last year, which took collaborating to new height, enlisting the services of others to help write and record (and make a video!) every day during January. The project's tumblr has over three hours of audio and visual content.

In contrast to these efforts, there are two elephants in the room when we talk about collaborations. One is the very recent release from Skillrex and the Doors 'Breakin a Sweat', which is remarkable for the fact that the Doors are still making music 42 years after their frontman died, but also for the astonishingly poorly edited (and constantly used) sample of Ray Manzarek saying “C'mon baby light my fi”. It's just NOT GOOD!
The other one is the much talked about, and much reviled, collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, 'Lulu'. It was a sitting duck for critics and fans alike, and it has been savaged all over the media, although there is a small school of thought that thinks Lou is back at his impish streak and is delighting in pissing people off again, much like he did on Metal Machine Music, or when he reversioned his classics on his Rock n Rock Animal live album, or when he tried to rap on the Original Wrapper, etc etc...
Never mind his past efforts though, this current album 'Lulu' doesn't really work for me. Both camps are well past their best and Metallica especially just sound so compressed and slick that they bore me, and unfortunately some of these somgs are very very long. It's also unfortunate that they chose the most easily mocked tune as the lead track, here it is complete with arty video by Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream)

The View is at least amusing because he has made James Hetfield sing “I AM THE TABLE” over and over. My problem with it isn't necessarily with Lou's lyrics or monotone delivery - hell, those are two of the best things about him! - it's really to do with the way the musicians collaborate. Over the course of the album they don't sound like they are in the same room. This was exacerbated by their appearance on Later and their attempt at White Light White Heat, which sounded like a lost old man wandering in on a metal band rehearsing and playing cover versions for practice.

Anyway, It's not like me to be negative on these pages. Here are some collaborations that I actually like.

Broadcast and the Focus Group. Two distinct units coming together to do something unique.

Aesop Rock featuring John Darnielle. You can argue that these guys don't sound like they are in the same room either, and this is more of a cameo from chief Mountain Goat John Darnielle than a collaboration, but I just wanted more people to hear it. (Warning: vid is an OTT horror spoof and may make you queasy)

Gang Gang Dance with Tinchy Stryder. I just love the way these guys fire off each other, although this for me was an unlikely collaboration at the time, it totally works.

new releases update: Islet, DeerBazan, Lambchop, Leonard Cohen

2012-01-23T15:22:00.001Z

January is gradually getting busier and I have lots of bits and bobs to share today; a review of the Deerhoof/ David Bazan split 7", a couple of (very different) album streams and a free download of a new Lambchop track. First of all here is a stream of the new Islet album, released today. The album has already been getting great reviews like this one on the 405. Judge for yourself below.

album stream: Islet 'Illuminated People'
Illuminated People
Illuminated People by shaperecords

review: DeerBazan, limited edition 7" collaboration between Deerhoof and David Bazan

Limited to 2000 copies on translucent blue vinyl, this is the latest in a series of collaborative releases featuring guest vocalists singing their own vocals and words over a Deerhoof composition. Previous releases in the eries have included collaborations with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Xiu Xiu. This time it's turn of Bazan, which is essentially the band of David Bazan, formerly of Pedro the Lion and Headphones.
The Deerhoof song they are working with is 'No One Asked to Dance', which was originally an atmospheric and pretty acoustic piece from Deerhoof's last album 'Deerhoof vs Evil', featuring gentle guitars and something resembling a harpsichord. Here they have kept the distinctive guitar parts but Bazan's new words and baritone delivery transform it into something very different, hence the re-titling - 'No One Asked Bazan to Dance'.
The flip side is a cover version of the old Headphones song 'Gas and Matches', which sounds more angular and, well, it sounds more like Deerhoof than the original synth-based tune.

free download: Lambchop 'Gone Tomorrow'
Another track has surfaced from their forthcoming album Mr. M, and this time it's available as a free download from soundcloud.
Lambchop - Gone Tomorrow by cityslang

album stream: Leonard Cohen, 'Old Ideas' via NPR

A brand new album from the 73 year old legend, available as a first listen via NPR and sounding pretty good so far. Click this link to listen

Great Lost Bands No.3: Bongwater

2012-01-22T23:47:00.001Z

This week's great lost band are Bongwater, who were essentially a psychedelic noise band formed around 1985 and dissolved acrimoniously in 1992. The core of the band was vocalist Ann Magnuson, a professional actress who had been in such movies as Making Mr Right, starring opposite John Malkovich, and guitarist and producer (Mark) Kramer, who ran the Noise New York studio and was the founder of the highly regarded Shimmy Disc label.
Magnuson's musical adventures prior to Bongwater had involved the band Pulsallama (try to find their song "The Devil Lives in my Husband's Body"), whilst Kramer had formed Shockabilly with Eugene Chadbourne and had toured with a mid-80s incarnation of the Butthole Surfers.
The early Bongwater albums sat fairly close to those of the Buttholes in terms of sound and weirdness, as you can hear on these two tracks from their 1988 double album Double Bummer.
Jimmy/ Lesbians of Russia

Their sound was sludgy, abstract and trippy. I'm not going to overload the page with unauthorized video clips, but you should investigate 'Dazed and Chinese' which is a fairly faithful interpretation of Led Zeppelin's 'Dazed and Confused' except Magnuson's grating vocal is in Mandarin. There was also a very edgy sexual side to their music, and one of their most memorable early songs was 'U.S.O', which features the refrain, "give me a marine and some bloody sex."

Bongwater's masterpiece 'The Power of Pussy' was even more sexually charged. I bought it when it came out thanks to hearing it on John Peel and reading a fascinating review of it by Everett True in Melody Maker. Unfortunately I can't find his review, but in his book Nirvana: The True Story, he writes "The Power of Pussy has an undeniable sadness, as well as a rampant carnality, obscenity and pornography." Almost all the songs are about real or imagined sexual adventures, but any playfulness that rears its head is immediately checked against the spectre of AIDS. Magnuson's brother Bobby had recently died from the disease. In twenty years since it's release I have listened to it maybe more than any other album. There really isn't anything like it, and some days I think it may be my favourite album ever.
The band made a video for the title track, which was funded by the Playboy channel and is therefore age-restricted on youtube. I'm not going to embed it but, unless you are offended by women in lingerie and animated hand-drawn cocks, please watch it here.
I could go on all day about 'The Power of Pussy' and maybe I will retrospectively review it here someday, but time is against me today (this post is part of a January post-a-day mission folks). I'll leave you with two fan-made clips. The first one is for 'Junior' where a woman films herself lip-syncing along with the track,

and the second is Magnuson's tour-de-force, the 9-minute plus 'Folk Song'. There are some howling spelling mistakes in this amateur video, but what an incredible song.

Bongwater made one more album, 'The Big Sell Out' in 1992, but they had a hard act to follow. The duo split acrimoniously soon after, with Magnuson suing Kramer for over $4m, and although they settled out of court some years later, they never worked together again. Some of Kramer's solo records, such as the epic 'The Guilt Trip' are well worth hearing.

Previous posts in this series
No 1: Bowery Electric
No 2: Prolapse

Spotify playlist no.3

2012-01-21T10:59:00.000Z

The one regular feature on this site that I have managed to stick with is the weekly Spotify playlist. The third instalment features acts that have been mentioned on the site over the last week. There's a live track from the National, Josh T Pearson plays an electric version of a song from his album, there's another Guided By Voices album track, new releases from The Shins, Francois and the Atlas Mountains and Django Django. This week's token oldie is from Prolapse. Next week's selection will have 30 mins and join up with the others to make a 2hour playlist of highlights from the month on here. Listen up!

Review: Imbogodom (via the 405)

2012-01-20T10:24:00.000Z

I couldn't do a post-a-day in January without sharing some of the material I've written for other people. The site that got me back into music writing was The 405 and I'm continuing to enjoy writing for them. So today, my post for the day is simply a link through to my review of the new Imbogodom album on the 405.
For those of you who don't know the name, Imbogodom is the collaborative project between Alexander Tucker and Daniel Beban. Also, for those of you who don't me, I should say that Dan and myself have worked together in our 'proper' jobs and some of this album was recorded in my workplace - I've seen the physical piece of tape they made some of the loops on! I think I've kept my distance with this review, I hope I have anyway. Have a read and find out.

Watch: Django Django, 'Default'

2012-01-19T20:18:00.000Z

In my great blog plan, Thursday is new music day. So far this has involved searching the recently played list of my last.fm friends to discover Idiot Glee, and trawling through the shortlist for Ireland's Choice Music Prize to chance upon the impressive but new to me Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands.

Today is a little different, because although Django Django are new to some people, they have been around a couple of years and have released some decent singles. Their last show in Hoxton Bar & Kitchen was a sell out and I raved about it here. If there's any justice, by the end of 2012 they will be very well known.

I need no excuse to write about Django Django, and I'm including them today because they have released a stunning video for new single Default, which is easily the best promo video I've seen this year so far. It must have been a headache to edit, as it includes over 4000 stop-motion images which have been painted over. You can view it below or at www.nowness.com

Django Django: Default on Nowness.com.

The National to curate ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas 2012

2012-01-18T14:24:00.000Z

Whilst some of us are still waiting to go to last December's Jeff Mangum curated event, the finest festival promoters in the land have announced plans for this year's Nightmare Before Christmas. The event will run between December 7th-9th, 2012 at Butlin's in Minehead and will be curated by the National. This will also be the National's only UK performance in 2012, therefore almost guaranteeing a sell-out. Tickets are on sale from Friday 20th January at 2pm.
I'm pretty excited about ATP announcements in general and I've definitely got a buzz out of this one too, despite hearing a pretty strong rumour about it last Friday. I see there are a few grumbles from regulars already on various threads but I reckon the National will put together a good ATP. The line up so far is
The National
Kronos Quartet
The Antlers
Owen Pallett
Boris
Tim Hecker
Sharon Van Etten
My Brightest Diamond
Wye Oak
Lower Dens
Megafaun
Suuns
Dark Dark Dark
Buke and Gase
with many more to be added. Also, after the panic surrounding the Mangum event being rescheduled I reckon ATP needed to nail someone with a huge fanbase who could shift tickets quickly. So enough of the moaning folks, you wouldn't want ATP to go under now, would we?

Album review: Guided By Voices, Let's Go Eat The Factory

2012-01-17T23:34:00.000Z

For me, one of the best live experiences of 2011 was a show that I only saw streamed on the internet; it was Guided By Voices so-called 'classic' mid-90s line-up at the Pitchfork music festival in Chicago last July.
Disappointingly they have cancelled their planned European dates for 2012, allegedly due to a fear of flying, this line-up are planning on releasing two albums in the first half of the year.

The first of these, 'Let's Go Eat The Factory', is a sprawling 21 track affair. I was a huge fan of this incarnation of GBV and the more I listen to this album the more I think it fits in well with the likes of 'Alien Lanes' and 'Under the Bushes...'.

The trademarks of mid 90s GBV are here. Lots of short songs that tease you with a great melody then end suddenly ('God Loves Us'), sweeping psychedelic tunes that sound like they have fallen off a lost 1960s recording ('Laundry and Lasers'), and some curious little oddities that are more sonic experiments than songs ('The Things That Never Need').

The two tracks that were all over the internet prior to release made me think that this album would deliver. 'Doughnut for a Snowman' is pretty and REM-like and 'The Unsinkable Fats Domino' has classic GBV written all over it. This isn't just a case of a band finding a winning formula and sticking to it though. 'Hang Mr Kite' sees Robert Pollard singing in a deeper voice accompanied only by a string arrangement, while 'Big Hat and Toy Show' is a strange bluesy tune not unlike Captain Beefheart. Although it's hard to choose highlights from the 21 songs, the two standouts for me at the moment are 'Spiderfighter', a song built around a cyclical grinding riff which changes tack into a wistful piano coda, and 'Waves', a droning throbbing tune which sounds like a collision between the best of Guided By Voices and someone like Wooden Shjips.

Although the prolific output of Robert Pollard and his many varied offshoot bands has kept a lot of Guided By Voices fans satisfied in the last few years, there is something pretty great about having the real band back together. I did approach this album with trepidation, but it is rewarding me with each new listen. I'm unsure if it will win many new fans, but those of us who love those mid-90s albums should find plenty to enjoy here.

Here's a clip of them performing 'The Unsinkable Fats Domino' on the late show with David Letterman recently.

Great Lost Bands No.2: Prolapse

2012-01-16T22:08:00.000Z

Great Lost Bands No.2
The second in this occasional series is the Leicester based band Prolapse, who were active between approximately 1992-2000. Despite having the worst name, they first came to my notice in 1994 when I heard them on Radio 1's Evening Session.
The tune was "Pull Thru' Barker" and I wrote the name down with 'Stereolab, The Fall, Huggy Bear' scribbled beside it in case I forgot what they sounded like. They also sounded like a couple having a row over a krautrock-backing track, but I didn't write that down at the time.

Pull Thru' Barker (vid goes dark after a while, but the track is pretty rare so I'm sharing it!)

I managed to find a copy of their debut album, the excellently titled "Pointless Walks to Dismal Places" and it clicked with me immediately. 1994 wasn't a great year for me, and Prolapse sounded exciting whilst managing to come across as depressing and intense, so they suited me perfectly. I played it a lot and for me it became one of my favourite albums of that entire decade.

Doorstop Rhythmic Bloc (single release from Pointless Walks)

I tracked them steadily over the next year, when they played a blinder at the Reading Festival culminating in the mock violence of "Tina, This Is Matthew Stone" which was so convincing one friend thought it was for real!
They released records on all sorts of labels, mostly singles like the brilliant 'T.C.R', including a mini-album called "Backsaturday" which is worth tracking down alone for the epic side-one-filling "Flex".

T.C.R.

Prolapse proved so popular with the fanzine that I edited at the time ("The Weedbus") that they actually won Best band in our reader's vote. I attempted to interview them; a messy activity co-ordinated by Linda from the band vis post. It ended up like this.
The band signed to Radar records and were given a decent recording budget and some money for promotional videos. They released a fine second album "The Italian Flag" in 1997 which increased their profile and got them some radio play. It was produced by Donald Ross Skinner (of Julian Cope fame), who actually joined the band for a while. Unfortunately the album never sold in the quantities required and they parted company with the major label soon after. Their live shows were still a sight to behold, and I have fond memories of a dream double bill with the Delgados in Dingwall's in Camden, and a superb headline show in Highbury Garage, which in retrospect must have been near the end of their life as a band.
This chaotic clip of them performing Flex is probably my favourite amateur gig footage ever.

In my memory, Prolapse gigs were always like that! The band made one final album, The Ghost of Dead Aeroplanes, in 1999 on Cooking Vinyl records, which failed to make much of an impression but it still hit the spot for me. The band drifted apart, Scottish Mick moved to Norway and went back to being a field archaeologist, Linda got a proper job as a journalist with the Leicester Mercury, whilst guitarist David Jeffreys is a professor at the Art College in Savannah in the USA. They are fairly obscure to today's music fans, but there is still a hardcore fanbase that would love to see them reform. This thread over at ILX is always worth having a read if you are curious for news of the band. All I can say is that, for a large period of the mid-90s, I LOVED them, and I still listen to them regularly now.
I nearly forgot to link to Pointless Walks blog, which is your main resource for Prolapse facts and fun

2012-01-15T23:39:00.000Z

A word about today
As a few of the regular followers of this blog will know, I am in the middle of a post-a-day effort this January. However, today I was overwhelmed by the response to my piece about Head Records closing so I felt that I couldn't go on with my regular schedule. Yesterday's page has been viewed over a 1000 times and shared all over twitter, facebook and even google plus! I will endeavour to keep you all up to date on any news about the shop returning, and if you don't already know about the Save Head Facebook page then check it as well.
Head is now closed and Tom McShane posted this heartbreaking photo on twitter earlier. Sometimes a picture says it all....

Trying to save Head in Belfast: why did a successful record shop have to close?

2012-01-14T21:57:00.000Z

Last year for Record Store Day, I wrote a blog post about the records shops I grew up with in Northern Ireland, and how they helped me gain a sense of identity through my teens and into my twenties. None of them that I mentioned exist now, but recently there was a glimmer of hope for Belfast's record buying public with the emergence of two new shops - Dragon records, which is small and independently run from a first floor space above a tattooists - and Head, which is much larger and part of a small chain of shops, and until today it was leasing a large space in the lucrative Victoria Square shopping centre.

However, this is not simply another story about the slow death of the high street music retailer. Instead it's a tale about how a large shop filled a gap in Belfast's cultural community and became a commercial success in the process. Unlike most record stores in the current climate, Head had traded very well over Christmas and the management are on record as saying that it beat its performance targets.

For those of you who don't know Belfast, I should explain that Victoria Square is a very upmarket shopping centre right in the centre of the city. It cost £400m to build and opened in March 2008. It has the largest House of Fraser in the UK and has approximately 17 million visitors a year, a figure which places it in the top 10 shopping centres in the country. Even if you don't go there to shop, its distinctive glass dome offers the highest public views across the city.

On a visit back home last year, I was delighted to find that there was a brand new - and very large - record shop trading there. I wandered in and expected to find the usual bland mix of CD and DVDs that is so common in the remaining high street music retailers. Instead I found the widest range of specialist music and DVDs I have seen outside London in a long time. I spent over an hour there, talking to the staff and buying so many hard-to-find CDs that I needed a basket.

That was January 2011 and Head had only been open for a month. The shop quickly established itself as a place to find almost any release, and, unusually for a chain store, it became a focal point for the local music scene. It stocked local releases whilst only paying the VAT, thereby passing the profit straight back to the artist, and it was happy to publicise small gigs and music and film club nights across the city. They arranged in-store performances and signing sessions from both local acts and visiting bands of the stature of Bombay Bicycle Club and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club; though the real scoop was getting Josh T Pearson to play a song from inside that glass dome!
Although they were only in their first year of trading they won a Best Record Store in Ireland award, and were recognised by Mojo magazine as their record store of the month.

So what went wrong? Well, it reads like a case of the big company squeezing the little company out of its space, as Head's lease had come to an end and a large clothing company had made a better offer. The management had put in offers for other spaces in the city centre, including one that was only a third of its current size, but all of them were rejected. It seems crazy in the current climate with units sitting empty, but these landlords were expecting the store to commit to a five year lease with full rent and rates and service charges, which is all but impossible for a CD retailer. Belfast is now without a specialist music shop, and not through any lack of demand.

In fact the passion to save Head was so strong that it led one customer, Tracey Gibson, to set up a Facebook page dedicated to that cause. Like many of its customers, Tracey was impressed with Head's hugely varied stock and its knowledgeable and helpful staff, and with around 1500 joining that Facebook page in less than a week, it is obvious that she is not alone.

It seems Head had reached that point where it was more than just a shop. The staff had been recruited for their musical knowledge and a lot of them felt at home there. When you have a job like that, not only are you fortunate, but you just don't want it to end. It's sad fact that in Northern Ireland they could struggle to find something similar. Good luck to them, because in one year of trading they helped to change the cultural life of the city, and they can all be proud of their achievements.

words by Jonathan Greer
pics taken on the last day of trading by Tom McShane

2012-01-13T11:53:00.002Z

Slow Thrills weekly Spotify playlist 002

Slow Thrills list 002

The second week of this, and it's a good one! It's compiled by myself (Jonathan) as I haven't got quite got on top of the contributions just yet. I think I will do a longer list on the last Friday of every month as a bit of a round-up. Again, I've just featured music that's been relevant to my week, hope you enjoy. The playlist includes new singles from Real Estate and Dad Rocks!, a track from the new albums from Guided By Voices and Darren Hayman, plus Eleanor Friedberger - a live review of her went up this week - and Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands - who were my new music post this week. There's also Gonjasufi remixed by Oneohtrix Point Never and a track by Blanck Mass, who have bagged one of the support slots to Explosions in the Sky later this month and have just been added to Jeff Mangum's ATP

Listen to Slow Thrills list 002

Last week's edition is here

Music I discovered today, no.2: Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands

2012-01-12T14:10:00.001Z

Music I discovered today, no.2: Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands

As you may have read, I am using this series to talk about music that is brand new to me; not necessarily a new release or a fledgling band. Last week I trawled through my last.fm friends lists for bands I hadn't heard of, this week I was reading about Ireland's Choice Music Prize shortlist which aims to find the best Irish release from 2011. As I am Irish I knew most of the acts, and my initial favourites for the prize would be Cashier No.9 or Jape (whose album I reviewed for the 405) but I spotted a couple of names I didn't know on that list. One was Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands so I searched spotify and delved straight into the nominated album 'Golden Syrup'. (There's another album on there called 'You Look Cold' which is credited to Patrick Kelleher only, I will investigate that one later.)

I'm amazed that these guys were never on my radar before. I like to think that I am fairly aware of what is happening in the Irish music scene, and, even worse, they actually played one of the Upset the Rhythm events in the Bussey Building in Peckham last year. This is bad because I'm on UTR's mailing list and I actually went to one of those events. Must try harder!

Anyway, google Patrick and co and you will find a lot of reviews lumping them in with 80s bands like Visage and A Flock of Seagulls, and whilst there is an undoubtedly huge synth-pop influence, these guys are closer in sound to the likes of John Maus, Ariel Pink and Dan Deacon; there is much more of an abrasive edge and psychedelic twist than those lazy '80s comparisons suggest. 'Miracle Candle' (below) is a cracking tune, although in contrast songs like 'Broken Up Now' go into downbeat lo-fi territory, and 'Contact Sports' combines that vibe with a strong melody. I've only listened to the album twice but it has clicked with me immediately. There's an arresting spoken-word style piece called 'I Don't Remember' and the closing track 'Still in School' is a spooky little acoustic song.
If a music prize is good for anything, it's that the shortlist can introduce you to something you have missed.

Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands - Miracle... by BangOn

Previous posts like this:
Music I discovered today, no.1: Idiot Glee

2012-01-11T22:56:00.000Z

Watch: video for Colin Stetson's Those Who Didn't Run

Colin Stetson is a name that cropped up in a lot of album of the year lists for 2011 with his 'New History Warfare Vol II; Judges'. There was a two song EP which came along later in the year, which I reviewed here
I hadn't seen the video for lead track "Those Who Didn't Run" until a few hours ago, so here it is. Take ten minutes and let it hypnotise you. You may like to go full screen on this one!

Colin Stetson "Those Who Didn't Run" from Isaac Gale on Vimeo.

Live review: Eleanor Friedberger Band

2012-01-11T16:27:00.000Z

Live Review: Eleanor Friedberger Band/ Weird Dreams

[explanatory note: this review was intended for publication elsewhere. It never appeared, but I found it on my hard drive today and whilst it is well after the date, I thought it was decent enough to share]

Eleanor Friedberger Band/ Weird Dreams
London Bethnal Green Working Men's Club 1st December 2011

This is Eleanor Friedberger's first visit to London with her new band. Since the release of her solo album Last Summer whilst on a break from her main band The Fiery Furnaces, her earlier two shows in the city had been solo efforts. Tonight she and her band are in the cosy surroundings of this Working Men's Club in London's East End, a venue which has a touch of faded glamour about it. The stage backdrop is a giant heart-shape lit by coloured lightbulbs, some of which are missing.
Before Eleanor though, we have half an hour set from Weird Dreams, a four piece firmly in the classic indie pop mode, fresh from supporting Stephen Malkmus on some of his recent UK dates. They are quite open about having a David Lynch influence to their music, they even play a song called Weird Dreams which is about Blue Velvet, but the rest of the live set owes more to 60s Northern Soul and 80s bands like Orange Juice and the Smiths. Some songs which stand out are the single 'Holding Nails' which has some bright Marr-esque guitar lines and closing song 'Suburban Coated Creatures'.

On to Eleanor and her Band - this time comprising Matt Asti from MGMT on bass, James Eatherley (ex- Be Your Own Pet on guitar) but not not featuring regular drummer James Canty (the Make-up, Ted Leo's Pharmacists). He is replaced by Ahmed Jalil who I know nothing about, other than he is playing only his third show with Eleanor, although you would never know from the way this band gel tonight.
She opens with 'My Mistakes' - her first single and a giddy reminiscence of her early days in New York - although in contrast to the recorded version which goes straight into the story song, they play a two minute instrumental intro. This song is one of quite a few from the album that gets re-arranged, a habit that the Fiery Furnaces often had, and one which occasionally didn't quite come off. Tonight though, any reversioning works a treat. They slow down current single 'I Won't Fall Apart Tonight' and make 'Glitter Gold Year' sound like the bleak New Year message it was intended to be, whilst 'Early Earthquake' is performed almost solo by Eleanor and is very lovely indeed. 'Roosevelt Island' may not have the big arrangement of the recorded version but it is definitely one of the highlights of the set.
Should anyone think that Last Summer is a one-off, she introduces many new songs tonight, songs with simple titles like 'I don't want to bother you' and 'I'll never be happy again', which on first listen can hold their own with the material on Last Summer. She performs a Dylanesque new song 'Don't let it Worry You' solo whilst the guitarist attends to some re-stringing. Best of all the new ones is 'When I Knew' – which is instantly catchy and a future classic, although the main set closer 'Stare at the Sun' runs it close. She comes back out for the encore without her lime green stratocaster and sings Bob Dylan's 'True love tends to Forget' and leaves us with a fast version of 'One Month Marathon', yet another highlight from Last Summer.
When Eleanor and her brother Matthew decided to do their own projects this year, away from the Fiery Furnaces, some may have assumed that the classically trained musician Matthew may outshine the efforts of his untrained sister. Thankfully her stage presence and knack of writing some incredibly strong tunes have made sure that she can hold her own with anyone. Tonight she reminded us what a great debut Last Summer is, and gave us a glimpse into her bright future by unveiling those new songs.

review by Jonathan Greer
photo by Liz Lawes

2012-01-10T18:42:00.002Z

New War on Drugs track Don't Fear The Ghost streaming on Soundcloud, plus Fallon performance

I like it when the War on Drugs go a bit ambient and shoegazey, which is pretty much what they are doing on this new track, 'Don't Fear the Ghost' which is streaming below. It will get a physical release at the end of January as the B-side to 'Come to the City'. The band are playing quite a few dates in the UK and Ireland in the last week of February.
23/02//12 Livepool, UK - The Kazimier
24/02/12 Dublin, IE - Whelan's
26/02/12 Glasgow, UK - Stereo
27/02/12 Manchester, UK - Sound Control
28/02/12 London, UK - Electric Ballroom
29/02/12 Brighton, UK - Concord 2
01/02/12 Bristol, UK - Thekla

The War on Drugs - Don't Fear the Ghost by DOJAGSC

I've edited this to include the War On Drugs fab performance from late night US TV show Fallon last night. Their extended line-up featured Questlove from the Roots on drums!

Gonjasufi: teasers from new album

2012-01-09T21:43:00.001Z

Gonjasufi teases new album release/ download track 'Nikels & Dimes'

*UPDATED* now you can download an mp3 of 'Nikels and Dimes' when you submit your email at Warp Records site

I was struggling for something to write about today - well, it is still January, but lovely Warp records dropped some teasers for the forthcoming Gonjasufi mini-album MU.ZZ.LE here

As well as lots of choices of format and artworks, they released a stream of "Feedin' Birds", a short but perfectly spooky duet between Gonjasufi and his wife, which hopefully sets the tone for the album

Great lost bands: No.1 Bowery Electric

2012-01-08T19:51:00.001Z

Great lost bands: No.1 Bowery Electric
It makes sense to kick off this series with Bowery Electric as they are the band that gave this blog its name, their epic tune 'Slow Thrills' seemed to perfectly describe the kind of music I wanted to get lost in around the time I set this up. (For those who don't remember, we used to have a .com address and posted content between 2001-2003, some of which can be waded through at slowthrills.blogspot.com.)

Bowery Electric were essentially a duo from New York City, comprising Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener, who released most of their work on Kranky and Beggars Banquet to little sales and a lot of credibility. They straddled the washed out end of 'shoegaze' and got lumped in with the music which was getting labelled 'post-rock', but they had a wide range of influences behind their sound, in particular trip-hop beats and electronica, and they were one of the first to integrate a laptop and samples into a live rock band set up. I have no idea where they went or what they do now, and their wikipedia entry doesn't give a lot away either.

2012-01-07T22:47:00.000Z

Slow Thrills Gig Guide (7th-13th January)

Monday January 9th MILAGRES, Vadoinmessico the Old Blue Last, 8pm, £7
Milagres come from NYC and released their debut 'Glowing Mouth' on Memphis Industries last year. Tipped to be very big this year, catch them while they are still playing venues this size. Listen here.

Thursday 12th LANTERNS ON THE LAKE, Cargo, 8pm, £10
From Newcastle-upon-Tyne, this ambient folk six piece are touring on the back of a very positive reception for their debut album 'Gracious Tide, Take me Home'.

Friday 13th DARREN HAYMAN, The Hideaway, 7pm £10
Part one of his January Songs shows, this gig will feature songs from the first 16 days. Next week he will play songs from the last 15 days. There are different supprot slots on each night and you can buy a combined ticket as well. Click the link for details.

If you would like to have your gig mentioned email slowthrillsj-blog@yahoo.co.uk

2012-01-06T12:29:00.000Z

Slow Thrills weekly Spotify playlist

Slow Thrills list 001

This is going to be a weekly fixture, usually on a Friday. I'm doing today's list but I'll be inviting others to compile lists from now on, hopefully I will only being doing every fourth week in the interests of variety.
There is no set criteria for this playlist, it simply has to be something you want other people to hear. I've chosen some new releases, and just some stuff that was in my head this week. Both Peepholes and Darren Hayman are new releases, Young Magic and Idiot Glee are new to me this week, and I'm probably going to see Lanterns on the Lake and Fuzzy Lights next week. Apologies for starting off with a 10 minute song, but the Bowery Electric tune is the song that the site is named after. I had a bit of trouble deciding on the order, but you can always shuffle it of course - enjoy!
Listen to Slow Thrills list 001

Music I discovered today: no.1: Idiot Glee

2012-01-05T14:09:00.000Z

Music I discovered today: an occasional series

During this period of increased output I am trying to write about a 'new' band every week. If you know anything about music blogs you will know that there is often a rivalry to try and write about the latest 'buzzband' first. I find that annoying; discovering music that's new to you shouldn't be a race or a contest. In fact it doesn't even have to be new, though the shame of titling a post 'new band of the day' and finding they were in some people's top 10 of 2011 would have some bloggers dying with embarrassment
I find new bands all sorts of ways. Obviously I pay attention to other blogs, people I know on twitter recommend new music to me and when I go out to a gig I try to make it time to watch the support bands. If I get emails from bands with links to soundcloud or bandcamp I will listen, and I regularly search spotify for 'what's new'.
I think it's significant that I rarely use the two methods I used when I was growing up – printed media and the radio – as time's tide has turned against them.

I'll tell you one thing that I like doing which proves very useful, is looking at what other's listen to on last fm. I've 27 friends on it, not many, and there are only a handful I actually know, but we are friends because we have initially similar tastes. I looked at it this morning and the last 7 people who had listened to something had played something I'd never heard of! So for the first 'new music' post I decided not to list an up-and-coming act – many other music sites have already done this for 2012, and many of my choices would be duplicated. Instead I am posting something by an act I have just discovered today by looking through my last.fm friends list, listening to music I didn't know and choosing the one I liked best. Which is....

Idiot Glee. This came out in April 2011, but I only discovered it this morning. It seems to be the solo project of a Kentucky based guy called James Friley, and it has lo-fi echoes of the Beach Boys and Eno's Another Green World, as well as a ghostly, hymnal quality. Fans of Animal Collective and Perfume Genius should go for this, I reckon, but then I have only heard of him today.

2012-01-04T13:18:00.002Z

An excuse to buy a print magazine
Over the last two years I've almost completely stopped buying printed magazines and newspapers. In 2011 I bought one copy of the Wire, mainly because it had a new Wire Tapper CD included. Now, in the first week of 2012, I have an excuse to buy Mojo, as they have included a tribute to New Order's classic album Power, Corruption and Lies as a cover mounted CD in the new issue. Amongst the acts involved are Errors (who cover 'The Village'), Tarwater ('We All Stand'), S.C.U.M ('586'), Walls ('Ecstasy'), Fujiya & Miyagi ('Your Silent Face'), whilst Biosphere have the unenviable task of covering 'Blue Monday'.
As you can hear below, Destroyer has done a great job with 'Leave Me Alone', which is a decent cover version which also sounds like it could easily have come off his last album Kaputt. Enjoy...

2012-01-03T17:01:00.000Z

Help!

I have formulated a plan for my production drive and I will need your help. I reckon I am going to post something every day in January and see how that goes - if it goes well I will also consider a redesign very soon. To make this happen I am working around a weekly template which will consist of regular content for 4 days a week, leaving 3 days free for new posts, although one day a month will be reserved for my archives project I posted about on January 1st.
The regular content will consist of...

A New Band of the week, and by that I mean 'new' to me; it's not an attempt to trump other blogs by being the 'first' to hear something. I'm too old for that nonsense to be honest.
A dedicated Spotify playlist day. For the first one I will build a 30-40 minute playlist, which I intend to do every month. The in-between weeks I will throw open to you guys, the only criteria is that it should be music you want others to hear, and it should be under 40 minutes in duration.
A Gig Guide - a round-up of forthcoming gigs over the next week,
and an Extinct Band of the week. This will feature a band that time (and maybe the internet) has forgotten. I've been at this a long time and I may as well share some of my rare goodies with you youngsters.

So, if you have anything you wish to contribute or suggest anything please email me at slowthrillsj-blog@yahoo.co.uk.

2012-01-02T18:37:00.000Z

A resolution broken
I had this idea that I would go to less gigs in 2012 and concentrate more on multi-band bills and festivals. This plan didn't even last a day, because by late afternoon on New Year's Day I found myself at the Hangover Lounge event in the Lexington, watching Pete Astor and Darren Hayman.
I hadn't seen Pete Astor for years, not since he was active as the Wisdom of Harry. In contrast to a lot of his work with his various bands, today's set was so intimate that he performed without amplification. It was just him, his acoustic guitar and a notebook full of lyrics, but the intimate nature of this reminded me how good his songs are.

Lack of amplification has been a feature of Darren Hayman's shows for quite a few years now, and today is a tiny bit different in that he is using a tiny Vox amplifier (I'd say 5W output) so he can use his four string semi-acoustic guitar. He now has such a huge catalogue of songs that he plays a completely different selection than the last time I saw him a few months ago. 'Little Arrow, Little Squirrel' - the charming song about the dogs in space - is the only overlap from the Ship's Piano set.
Today is also about January Songs, the project that he undertook this time last year when he succeeded in writing and recording a brand new song every day during January 2011. He only includes a couple of these in the set as the 'proper' January Songs shows are a couple of weeks away, but he does get Elizabeth from Allo Darlin to sing on I Know I Fucked Up, which may actually be the best song of the whole album and it was a definite highlight today. The really special thing was that he had brought a box of the January Songs CD, with each cover hand illustrated by himself whilst sitting downstairs in the Lexington. We could choose between pen and ink sketches of the Lexington's decor or Darren's lunch, but I have to say I'm very pleased with the hand drawn chandelier on my copy!

2012-01-01T22:41:00.002Z

Hello 2012: A tentative plan
I'm going to make myself busy. I almost hate to say it in public, but I actually think that I could do a post every day this year. I have a ton of new music to wade through and I will be continuing to write for the 405 and The Huffington Post, but I have some archive material to deal with as well.
Due to a slight flicker of interest from a a few people, I will be putting the majority of my old fanzine The Weedbus online in the form of scanned PDFs. There are 13 printed issues and a final 14th one that never got as far as the friendly neighbourhood copy-shop. As the first five issues really see us just learning as we go, I'm not going to share all of that content, and anyway, issues 1 and 2 are no longer in my possession! So the plan is to combine issues 1-5 as a single PDF release, whilst the other later, stronger, issues will have a PDF to themselves. The new development with this is that the PDF releases will be accompanied by some sort of audio companion which will feature rare tracks (largely from the period 1993-98) and, where technically possible, some audio from a major interview in each issue. These will come out at the rate of one a month in 2012 and will run up until October I reckon.
I can tell you now that the audio files will definitely feature myself talking with Martin Carr from the Boo Radleys, Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, Will Oldham, Michael Gira of Swans and the late Vic Chesnutt, as well as a few others. Coming very soon!

That difficult "album of the year" post

2011-12-30T23:10:00.003Z

Despite what some might think, I found 2011 to be a cracking year for music; in particular for good old fashioned album releases. Since I also started reviewing music again after a long break, I heard more albums this year than I had for a while, and my long-list of those I liked came to 56.

I've already contributed to a few end of year lists and votes, changing my mind every time! So, for my own purposes, I've selected five albums that could easily be my album of the year, and I've listed some more which received heavy rotation and attention from me over the last year.

Albums of the year
Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat 'Everything's Getting Older'
Moffat is one of the finest lyricists of his generation and his voice is sounding better than ever, working well with Wells's jazz-influenced arrangements.

King Creosote and Jon Hopkins 'Diamond Mine'
An album that I heard very early in the year and it stayed with me throughout. Great songwriting, plus the clever audio manipulations that Jon Hopkins adds tend to yield something new with each listen.

Eleanor Friedberger 'Last Summer'
The album that the Fiery Furnaces should've made after Gallowsbird's Bark. I reviewed it here

Fucked Up 'David Comes to Life'
Billed as a punk-rock-opera, this epic album tells the fictional tale of David and Veronica. The strong tunes and cracking guitar sounds mean that you can easily give it a couple of listens to let the abrasive vocal style get under your skin. Once you have got it, it's hard to put down.

Colin Stetson 'New History Warfare Vol 2: Judges'
Essentially a solo bass saxophone performance, this record delivers so much more than that description suggests. A stunning album.

and the runners up in no particular order...
Gang Gang Dance 'Eye Contact'
Tim Hecker 'Ravedeath 1972'
Low 'C'mon'
Wild Beasts 'Smother'
John Maus 'We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves'
Oneohtrix Point Never 'Replica'
Thurston Moore 'Demolished Thoughts'
Slow Club 'Paradise'
Destroyer 'Kaputt'
EMA 'Past Life Martyred Saints'
Wooden Shjips 'West'
Real Estate 'Days'
Summer Camp 'Welcome to Condale'
Lanterns on the Lake 'Gracious Tide Take me Home'
Fight Like Apes 'The Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner'
Thee Oh Sees 'Carrion Crawler'
Atlas Sound 'Parallax'
Bonnie Prince Billy 'Wolfroy Comes to Town'
Wilco 'The Whole Love'
Peaking Lights '936'

My top 20 gigs of 2011

2011-12-29T22:58:00.004Z

I went to around 48 gigs and saw 91 bands, most of the details have been automatically logged here. Here is my top 20, complete with the odd review, setlist link and amateur video.

1 The Mountain Goats, London Koko, 25th May
For me it takes a lot to beat a Mountain Goats gig and this one saw them on cracking form. Set list here, and here's a bit of the solo performance mid-set.

2 Fucked Up, London Scala 31st October
Hallowe'en night, all of the band dressed as giant babies and a cracking atmosphere. This video clip was filmed by my friend Liz from our vantage point just above the main mosh-pit. Lovely.

3 Aidan Moffat/ Human Don't be Angry (Malcolm Middleton), Cambridge Haymakers, 18th March
Most definitely not an Arab Strap show, though Aidan did do one tune from Philophobia. Malcolm's new instrumental set was followed by Aidan's collection of songs, most of which were brilliant and some have (still) to be recorded. Review (not by me) on the Liminal here

4 King Creosote and Jon Hopkins/ Francois and the Atlas Mountains, London QEH 9 September
In the week they didn't win the Mercury prize (who cares), they played their largest gig to date. Very special. Read my review (the405)

5 Wild Beasts/ Dutch Uncles, Cambridge Junction, 25th November
This gig completely convinced me that Wild Beasts are the finest band in the land right now. A triumphant, inspiring performance which brought Smother to life. Setlist here

6. The Fall, London IndigO2, 24th November
I was nervous about this as there had been some very mixed reports of this tour, but this turned out to be one of the best Fall shows I had seen in years. The band were tight, MES was in great form and his 'live-mixing' (i.e. fiddling with the musicians' amp setting mid-song) actually worked. Setlist here

7 Oneohtrix Point Never, Ford and Lopatin (Games), London QEH, 9th April
A memorable experience from start to finish; a late show in the foyer of the QEH, with two very different sets and visuals bouncing off the architecture.

8. Gang Gang Dance, London XOYO, 16th May
One of the bands I listened to most this year, I was pleased to report their live recreation of Eye Contact was every bit as thrilling as the album. It was dark in XOYO though, as this truncated video clip shows!

9. Braids, London the Lexington 24th May
Possibly my new favourite band, this show in the Lexington was so mesmerising I almost went to see them again later that week. I didn't make it, but I wanted to!

10. Thurston Moore, London Union Chapel, 31st May
A beautiful show in a great setting, this set was almost entirely the Demolished Thoughts album, although it would have been higher up my list if he hadn't attempted some poetry reading near the end.

11. Yo La Tengo/ Condo Fucks, London Royal Festival Hall, 12 June
They spun their wheel and gave us a Condo Fucks show as support. That wouldn't have been my first choice but as this was part of Ray Davies's Meltdown, it suited the overall vibe. my review (tumblr)

12. Eleanor Friedberger, Bethnal Green Workingmen's Club 1st December
I missed her first two solo appearances in London, but this show with her band was excellent.

13. Low, London Barbican, 3 June
I don't think I've ever seen a bad Low gig, and the hushed atmosphere in the Barbican really worked for them. Setlist here

14. Destroyer/ Amor de Dias, London Heaven, 28 June
A fine double bill, it was quite a treat to see Amor De Dias (featuring Alaistair from the Clientele) in support, and it was my first time seeing Destroyer, who managed to do justice to the lavish, brassy arrangements on Kaputt.

15. Bitch Magnet/ Smallgang, London the Lexington 12th December
Over the last few years I've been able to see a few bands I would have thought were gone for good. Bitch Magnet are the latest addition to that list and their Lexington gig was great.

16. Wooden Shjips/ Wolf People, London Scala 4 September
Quality psychedelic fuzz, or a homage to Loop with an Americana twist, either way, Wooden Shjips were on great form at this. Keyboards wrapped in tinfoil as well!

17. The Besnard Lakes/ Suuns, London Scala, 22nd November
Poorly attended but a cracking double bill, although Suuns could've treated us to another 10 minutes just to even things up. The sparse crowd meant that we could go right up the the front.

18. Zola Jesus/ EMA, London Heaven, 23rd November
Not as dark as I had been expecting, and actually coming across as a bit club-friendly, ZJ's live show had tons of energy and an absolute (unnamed) powerhouse on the drums.

19. The Sonics/ Wire, London Royal Festival Hall, 18 June
On paper this was an odd double bill as part of Ray Davies's Meltdown which worked very well. Read my review (the405)

20. Arbouretum/ Alexander Tucker, London Borderline, 24th March
Another quality double bill, Tucker was full-on psych-folk mode with cello and loopstation and all, Arbouretum brought guitar wig-outs to their alt country tunes.

A final word about support slots/ special guests. As well as some of those mentioned in the list - Francois, Wire, EMA, Suuns and Smallgang, I have to give an honourable mention to Fennesz, who came on before Emeralds at Union Chapel in September and stole the show, and John Maus who left Washed Out with the impossible task of following him at Heaven in November. It has been a good year!

A choice of music videos from 2011

2011-12-23T16:32:00.001Z

I'm not a huge fan of music video as a medium, but this year I found myself discovering some that I liked via Youtube and Vimeo. I've selected them below, in no particular order. As a list it is slightly more lo-fi and pyschedelic than some others I guess, but that's just my personal preference.

A visually stunning effort to accompany this Timber Timbre song, I watched this for the first time in Halllowe'en week. Pleasantly spooky.

A Summer Camp video made using only animated GIFs.

A race around Glasgow featuring hundreds of people, capturing Mogwai's home city in its daily flux.

This video is the perfect companion to John Maus's music, its psychedelic imagery is fuzzy and puzzling but suits this song so well.

I love animation and this Mountain Goats video hits the spot.

Slightly sentimental reasons for including this Cashier no9 video. The Ulster Hall looks great and the dancer - the reknowned Northern Irish artist Jack Pakenham reminds me of going to gigs in the Empire Music Hall in Belfast, as he would dance like this at the end of the night.

Destroyer made the first video I can remember making an impact on me this year.

On her album Last Summer, Eleanor Friedberger looked back at the time she first moved to New York and this videoo underlined that by inter-cutting old and new footage. Unusual and maybe annoying for some, but it worked for me.

Pretty cut-out animation for a pretty Amor De Dias tune.

As anyone who is aware of Sarah Lund in the Killing knows, jumpers are back!

Again, another video that suits the music perfectly. A cinematic feel to this, but the visuals are disjointed and psychedelic, just like the Shabazz Palaces record.

The first time I saw this Fucked Up video I thought it was ridiculous, by the third time I was hooked and intrigued by the story. Clearly there are more films to come in this sequence.

These videos are a companion to my Spotify top 50, which I posted yesterday. Enjoy!

My Spotify top 50 from 2011

2011-12-22T20:31:00.000Z

I've compiled a top 50 of my favourite Spotify tunes of this year. It's been such a good year it was very hard to trim it back, but I decided not to include very long tracks and also to omit songs that worked better as part of a whole album, hence the absence of notables such as Josh T Pearson and Kate Bush. There are a lot of tracks here you will all know, but I've to keep it varied and include a few 'unknowns' as well. Enjoy!

Link to slowthrills spotify top 50 of 2011

2011-09-28T15:19:00.013+01:00

My 2011 writing

December
The 405 interview: "More Thoughtful, Less Brutal" The 405 meets Robyn Hitchcock
The 405: review: Dan Mangan, Oh Fortune

November
The 405: live: Django Django, Hoxton Bar and Kitchen
The 405 review: Eleanor Friedberger, Last Summer
The 405: review: Le Volume Courbe, Theodoraus Rex EP

October
The Huffington Post: 'Keeping it Peel, remembering a broadcasting legend'
The 405: live: Meursault/ Dark Captain, Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
The 405: Q&A: Bardo Pond
The 405: review: Darren Hayman, The Ship's Piano
The 405: review: Jape, Ocean of Frequency
The 405: review: Zun Zun Egui, Katang

September
The Huffington Post: 'Come as You Were: Nirvana's Enduring Influence'
The 405: review: Colin Stetson, Those Who Didn't Run EP
The 405: live: King Creosote and Jon Hopkins/ Francois and the Atlas Mountains, London Queen Elizabeth Hall
The 405: review: Wolves in the Throne Room, Celestial Lineage
The 405: live: Trembling Bells and Mike Heron, Vortex Jazz Club

August
The 405: review: Wooden Shjips, West
The 405: review: Foot Village/ Super Khoumeissa split 12"
The 405: live: The Murder Act/ Blood Music, Archway

July
The 405: review: I Like Trains, Sirens EP
The 405: review: The Ladybug Transistor, Clutching Stems

June
The 405: Review: Sorry Bamba 1970-1979, a retrospective of the Malian band leader

The 405: Live: the Sonics and Wire, London Royal Festival Hall

2011-09-28T14:57:00.002+01:00

Major update
Hi folks, I just thought I would post up some details about what I'm up to at the moment. Early this year I made the decision that I was going to write for other websites - I was getting on a bit and decided that I wanted my material read by a wider audience.
At the moment I am a regular contributor to the 405 and I have just started blogging for the Huffington Post.
I'm collating the pieces I've written as links here, so if you haven't seen any of my new material yet, feel free to have a look. I'm adding a few things to the archives here as well - what I call leftover reviews - which didn't quite make it in time to the other publications. Nothing too epic, just a Yo La Tengo/ Condo Fucks live review, and two album reviews - Thurston Moore's Demolished Thoughts, and the Sebastian Rochford and Pamelia Kurstin's recent collaboration Ouch Evil Slow Hop. The latter was supposed to be my debut on the 405, and my little joke was that it took an album of improvised theremin and percussion to get me writing about music again! Anyway, it missed its slot but it's here now. And yes, all those new pieces are on tumblr. It's the new style, haha.

Oh, and all this new wave of writing has sparked a slight ripple of interest in my old fanzine The Weedbus. There is now enough demand to enthuse me to finish scanning in the rest of the editions as PDFs. They will be coming soon, via posterous.com.

Follow me on twitter or Google+ if you want to get in touch.

2011-06-19T04:08:00.000+01:00

Changes!
Well, I have started writing for another online magazine, so I am unlikely to be updating this site very much at all. If you like reading what I write in 140 characters or less you can follow me on twitter. Or if you prefer me being a bit visual and more long-winded, I am currently in the process of building a tumblr page. My new iphone copes with tumblr better than any other blogging sites, so it wins for now.

2011-05-17T16:18:00.000+01:00

Planningtorock "W" album stream
Electronic artist and affiliate of the Knife, Planningtorock, releases her second album W on May 24th. The people at the Hype Machine have made available the stream below. Enjoy!

2011-05-04T23:09:00.000+01:00

Archive interview: Will Oldham (Palace Brothers), 1993

The Palace Brothers first visit to Ireland at the end of 1993 was a brief but busy affair, as they crammed in three shows in Dublin, plus one each in Cork and Belfast. To put things in context, they had released some great music that year - the debut album 'There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You' and the masterpiece single 'Ohio River Boat Song'. The line-up at the time included the ever present Will Oldham as well as ex-Slint (and future Tortoise, Royal Trux, Papa M) guitarist Dave Pajo. It's also worth bearing in mind that Oldham is one of the most awkward interviewees I've ever come across. Clearly he has no time for the publicity machine which drives the music industry, and back then I found him a bit childish and annoying, although I subsequently heard about his background as a method actor and it makes a bit more sense. Maybe he was just playing with us. Here's the interview then.....

- Will Oldham, the central figure in the Palace Brothers set up is clearly a man only interested in writing and performing his music. The peripheral elements of the music business have no interest for him, and who can blame him? We met up after his band's brilliant gig in Queen's Student Union Speakeasy. He's a notoriously difficult interviewee, he prefers to ignore questions and talk on random subjects instead. Bizarrely, psychoanalysis rears its head first.

Will: "If you want to talk about the songs we're going to need to talk pyschoanalysis. Do people do that still? Are there still Freudian analysts? I would love to set that Freud guy down for about a month and just talk things over."
- He's kind of discredited now though, a lot of his theories don't hold much sway anymore.
W: "You mean he's disbarred? He doesn't practice anymore?"
- Erm, he's actually dead, he died in the 1930s, I think.
W: "Oh never mind, I'll just go and see another analyst I guess."

- Do you think acoustic music is a reaction to more hi-tech stuff?
W: "It's more economical. It's much cheaper to record like that. You can buy a four track recorder and an acoustic guitar, or you can go into an expensive studio. The album ("There is No-one...") was done on 8-track really cheaply, although the next releases have been on 16 track. With the line-up changes the songs always have different people playing on each one - the line-up changes on virtually every song. Although tonight's line-up bears little resemblance to the records, that gig tonight is as hard as we rock!"

- Tonight's gig was free and there were some puzzled jocks behind me who were booing.
W: "They were booing! Would you recognise them if you saw them again? If they had any balls they would have come down the front and faced us. That's one of the drawbacks of having a free gig. They're probably students anyway, they're living the high life - it's Disneyland in high school."

- How has your music been received generally on this Irish tour?
W: "Cork and Dublin were really good, Cork was wild, it was like America! We didn't go on til after midnight. There were people listening to the music and dancing - they weren't just there for late drinking."

- What about America? Is it is easy to get your type of music heard?
W: "The advantage of Britain is that it is much more concentrated, in America it's quite hard to get anything out of your own area. There are some worthwhile outlets - fanzines like 'Forced Exposure' have been going for a while - it would have things like tour diaries from Thurston Moore and Steve Albini - it's a real Homestead ghetto."

- Were you involved with any of those musicians before the Palace Brothers?
W: "I was around, on the edge of things, in Louisville Kentucky." (trivial fact: check the credits on Slint's 'Spiderland' - Will took the cover photo!)

Talk returns to tonight's events and Will learns of a few parties and 'a dance' (he's playing with us again I think- that's a disco to you and I) going on downstairs. He seems surprised at the level of activity in Belfast which is at odds to what he has heard from recent news reports. If my memory is correct, this gig took place a few days after the Shankill Road bomb, so things are actually rather subdued. Having said that, the Palace Brothers played for ages and got a great reception - most of the first album and a few yet to be released songs. They are pretty special, and they certainly don't pander to the whims of the press.

interview by Jonathan Greer (modified from Weedbus issue 6, early 1994)

Archive Interview: Matt Sweeney of Chavez, 1996

2011-05-04T01:48:00.001+01:00

This interview was first published in Weedbus fanzine issue 12.

Pigeonholes are a real nuisance aren't they? New York's Chavez have been struggling with metal and hardcore accusations since their fine debut 'Gone Glimmering' came out in mid-'95. These are puzzling comparisons, especially when you hear Chavez creating their mesmerising psychedelic free-rock, with good tunes and high-end parts a speciality. The fab recent album 'Ride The Fader' (Matador) should go further towards the band being appreciated in the right light. We let Matt Sweeney (gtr/ voc) out us straight on a few things.

Yourself and Clay started off the group -were you in any bands previous to this?

"Yes, Clay was in Bullet Lavolta. We both had been in bands, and we hated being in bands after a while, so we tried to make a band that was something that we liked doing. We just talked about doing something different, and then the two of us played together for about six months - just droney weird stuff, holding one note for ages, more on the high end spectrum to Earth and the like! There was no low-end rumble at all, but we started doing low-end stuff because we didn't have a bass player. Myself and Clay had a lot of nerdish conversations about how we liked stuff like that. We had been playing for a long time when James Lo (ex-Live Skull) offered to play drums with us. After about a year we finally had a line -up as my friend Scott who I'd known for about ten years decided to move to New York, so we had a bass player. Ironically we started playing together the week that Kurt Cobain killed himself."

How has the UK responded to Chavez so far?
"I don't know. We've gotten some nice reviews but I'm not sure if people really get what we're about. We either get treated as another Matador band or else we're put in a Heavy Metal bracket which in particular is baffling to me. We would get these favourable live reviews, but they'd be comparing us to Husker Du or Helmet, and with all due respect to that shit, I don't ever listen to it! When we played here we were expecting a chilly reception (Guided By Voices tour early 95) but the shows went fine - Scotland was especially good, I think we were the best received out of GBV and the Amps! There was this one guy who came up and said 'my friend said you're a bit like the Grifters but I think you're more like My Bloody Valentine with those effects pedals you're using', and I had to tell him that we don't use any effects pedals. We seem to get compared to everything under the sun. This only happens in England - in Holland we get treated like a proper art-rock band! It's strange because we've only played four shows this year - we're not a full-time band, but I think since people have started to hear the new stuff they've been a bit more accepting and understanding that we do our own thing. People are now saying 'You're sort of psychedelic, aren't you?' and that's a step in the right direction! It's such a mystery why we get lumped in with hard rock. Maybe it's because Clay was in Bullet Lavolta and they were often misnomered as a hardcore band. People are now thinking more along the lines of the Soft Machine's first album or Wire, stuff that we don't really sound like but is definitely within the ball park of what I like, which is kind of out-there, free rock!"

What do you listen to then?
"I'm the guy in the band who listens to the most records, I think! The record I've been listening to most recently is 'Or' by Skip Spence, I have pretty diverse tastes but it's usually rock oriented stuff with some kind of a beat! I've also gotten seriously into 'The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' by the Incredible String Band and I love bands like the Creation and the Who, and that definitely has a bearing on what we do. I also love teenage garage rock bands like Crypt records 'Back From The Grave' compilations. It doesn't have anything to do with how we sound, it's just something I'm into."

Have you a songwriting interaction with Clay?
"Kind of. This new record was very democratic, James (drums) was very involved in it, to the point where he has a lot to say about melodies and arrangements. He wrote the piano song on the record ('Ever Overpsyched') which is pretty much the first song he has ever written. It's weird because he knew how play piano and stuff but I've been pushing him to write. He was really turned on by Roxy Music's 'Stranded' and the piano piece 'Sunset'. Usually the songs start out with one guy having an idea and the others helping him out - we all react to each others ideas. Half of it is totally improvisational and the other half is totally tight-assed and humourless, trying to make sense of what we're doing!"

Glancing through the track names on your debut release 'Gone Glimmering', you could be forgiven for assuming that you have a fondness for 70s progressive rock - 'Wakeman's Air', 'The Flaming Gong'. Who came up with these?!
"All of our songs don't have titles when they get written, and especially on the first album they probably wouldn't even have had a vocal line for a while. Those titles are a little more flippant than I intended. I don't think we realised how silly we were being!"

Your drummer, James Lo, is known for having a bit of a reputation. Is it all true?
"When I was in high school and buying Live Skull albums, James was the definition of a scary downtown art-rock drummer! When I finally hooked up with him years later he turned out to be an incredibly nice guy. His attitude towards making music really affected me- has this 'don't think about it, just do it' way of working, but not in a straight ahead rock n roll way. Make it different, make it interesting. His background is that he was regarded as some sort of drum prodigy and when he was in high school he was allowed to leave whatever class he was in to go and practice his drums. He was groomed as a percusion genius and sent to New England Conservatory which he hated. He was totally turned off to the Classical approach and he developed a liking for playing with people who didn't know how to play. Any music that he could identify immediately and see the logic behind it lost interest for him, he's far more interested in stuff that confuses him."

So what's next for Chavez?
"We're going to do some proper touring in the States, hopefully with Fuck and the Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, who are really great, but essentially we're going out on our own. Future plans are basically to support the new record, and to have as much fun doing it as possible. We don't make any money off this band, everyone has gotjobs so we slot Chavez in around those, so there's not really a lot of pressure to be successful. It was hard when we were recording this album because we couldn't all be in the same place at the same time, but it turned out great considering that."

Interview by Jonathan Greer

2011-05-03T23:48:00.000+01:00

stream forthcoming Gang Gang Dance album: Eye Contact

I haven't forked out for Spotify premium yet, so I'm getting a lot of this week's new music fix from web streams. Here is the new Gang Gang Dance album, which is out in the UK next week. I was a bit obsessed with them when I was in New York when Saint Dymphna came out - they played everywhere, and achored the NY leg of Boadrum 88. UK dates this month as well - Manchester 11th, Great Escape in Brighton 12th and the Animal Collective ATP that weekend, finishing up in London on the 16th (XOYO)

Record Store Day(s): down memory lane

2011-04-16T17:09:00.000+01:00

There has been much debate about Record Store Day this year, a fact which has no doubt helped contribute to amazing queues outside some independent record shops across the country. Rough Trade East in London had a queue of nearly 1000 people! Personally, as a parent of two young children, with very little disposable income, the days of spending £7 on a limited edition 7" or £20+ on vinyl lps are pretty much over. I'm still an obsessive music fan, but these days I mostly get to listen on my laptop, so Spotify and my ripped CD collection does just fine. Also, I recently moved my 1000+ record collection and it damn near wrecked my back ( and I've been on a heavy lifting course!) Having said all that, I should add that Record Store Day fills me with hope. In my teens and 20s visiting record shops was the main thing I did in my spare time, and the first thing I did when I visited any new town. I knew most of the decent shops in Belfast and Dublin, and I have fond memories of visiting shops in London, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow - I even went through a stage of keeping the plastic bags from the shops I bought the records in. Although it's not quite in the spirit of RSD, but I was also a voracious bargain hunter.

This whole day - especially when relayed through tweets from round the world - makes me nostalgic for the record shops I grew up with.
During my high school years in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, there were four independent record shops - IT in Bow Street (which got taken over by another indie Harrison Musique), Sounds, Caroline Music, and the slightly shorter lived Punch & Judy.

"It" - presumably named after the It girl
Clara Bow whose image adorned the record bags - was probably the first one to become an essential stop-off on my walk to the bus-stop. It had the widest range of stock and you could get
slightly obscure items in it, though the people who worked there weren't necessarily that obsessed with music the way a lot of us school kids were. The oldest record I still own that I bought there is a 7" (non pic sleeve) of Reward by the Teardrop Explodes.

I bought Dare and Kings of the Wild Frontier in there, my first 2 proper albums. "Sounds" in Bridge Street was a bit more of a music fans hang out, though it was slightly off my walk home and tended to concentrate mostly on heavy metal of the NWOBHM variety. It was the first place I heard Slayer and Metallica for instance. Punch & Judy was round the corner but never really caught on with my crowd, though it had a 'record fair' for collectors upstairs on a Saturday, and Caroline Music was huge and a good place to hang around and get indie chart stuff really cheaply, but it was a lesser relation to its original shop in Belfast. It was also home to my first record shop crush - hello Amanda wherever you
are, and I still have a huge collection of 12"s all picked up cheaply there - MBV, Saint Etienne, Boo Radleys, etc.

None of those shops are there anymore, although the Caroline site is home to a music/ game/ DVD exchange place, and an even sadder fact is that the shops I loved and hung around in Belfast a few years later are also gone.

I know that the shops I frequented in Belfast during skiving off sixth form studies, and later whilst at university, played a major part in shaping my musical tastes and building my social life. Of these I narrowly preferred Heroes and Villains and Caroline Music to the semi-legendary Good Vibrations, but the best one, in my opinion, was Dr Robert which didn't start trading until 1992 but soon established itself by having the coolest records first and acting as a hub for local music fans to interact and sell their own releases.

Schoolboy visits to Belfast on Saturdays invariably took in a trawl around the city's wealth of independent shops, from the cool ones - Good Vibes, Caroline, Makin Tracks - to the never fashionable Golden Discs and the Gramophone Shop.

Makin' Tracks was right in the heart of Cornmarket next to British Home Stores and was often the only place to get gig tickets. In fact any decent gig poster during the 80s bore the legend Tickets: Makin Tracks and usual outlets. You knew where to go. Bear in mind that this was Troubles era Belfast, there were heavy security restrictions within the city centre and many of the larger department stores searched their customers and their bags on arrival. We had no Tescos, Asdas or Sainsburys, never mind a Virgin megastore or HMV. Mainstream chart records could be bought in Woolworths and that was that, so it is no wonder that the indies flourished. Remember these were the days that singles used to sell in six figure quantities.

Caroline in Ann St had probably the best range of interesting independent releases, very in tune with 80s punk, c86 and pre-Grunge US underground. Whilst watching a very early Therapy? gig in the Art College they were joined by a sax player for the wig-out that was 'Loser Cop'
(sadly not a direction they followed) and me and my friends just knew him as one of the guys from Caroline. Ahh, those were the days.

Heroes and Villains followed Good Vibes lead in naming their shop after the Beach Boys and it occupied the southern end of Bradbury Place, and as part of the independent Chain with No Name it was a valuable source of indie chart and new releases during the shoegaze era in particular. I ended up getting friendly with some of the people who worked there, and I often DJed with them in QUB and the nearby Laverys.

Good Vibrations had the coolest history, as it was home to the label that released 'Teenage Kicks' and quite a few tasty pop/punk 7"s but by the time I got to know it, GVs had moved premises quite a few times and was being reborn in a small first floor space above a travel agents/ insurance place on Gt Victoria Street. Happier times were ahead when it moved across the road, nearly next door to the new dole office and, after the large Caroline Music died a death around 1990 it carried an impressive range of American independent releases (Touch and Go,Sub Pop etc). This section was largely the effort of the infamous Angus, who went on to work in Dr Robert and became known hereafter as Angus from Dr Robert.

Dr Robert struck a blow for the indies and the Belfast music scene at the beginning of a transition period. By the time it opened there was a Virgin megastore, though the main supermarkets had still to arrive. It dominated Church Lane, just off Ann St where Caroline had been, and quickly became the place to get your independent new releases as well as local releases and just to hang out, read the notices, get members for your band etc etc. When our fanzine The Weedbus came out, it flew out of the door in Dr Roberts, but we always got returns from Good Vibes or Heroes and Villains.

Time passed and the respective owners of Heroes and Villains and Dr Robert left the country for foreign pastures, the other shops died away and Good Vibes was eventually closed following an epic headache-inducing tax investigation which meant that they couldn't carry on. Undaunted, Terri Hooley reopened a shop as Phoenix records near Smithfield and soon changed it's name to Good Vibrations.
The colour and vibrancy which these shops added to the city's music scene - particularly during the really bad times - has to be celebrated. That's why I wrote this. There is precious little about any of these shops to be found on the internet. When I get a chance I will try and scan in their logos as a lasting reminder of their existence.

Surprisingly, consider the country's economic fortunes, this last year has been more positive for the smaller shops in Belfast. Recent visits there have led me to two new arrivals. The small but very cool Dragon Records above a tattoo studio near the city hall. I bought some records by Destroyer that I hadn't seen before the last time I was there, and I'm glad I could spend some money as they opened the shop up for me as I think the guy was going for his lunch! Head records is also new, it's much bigger, in a shopping centre and part of a small chain. I spent over an hour there last time - the thrill of a fresh record shop came back to me. I spent a lot of that hour talking with local musician Tom McShane, who also works there and is responsible for organising their RSD event. I exited with 7 CDs though I had a basket of 12 at one point. A tasty haul of American indie, all cheaper than I would have found it in London. I hope they all had a good day's business and they will be around for Record Store Day next year.

Morvern Callar: the music from the book

2011-03-26T10:50:00.000Z

Many years ago, when Lynne Ramsay's film of Morvern Callar was released, the impressive soundtrack didn't have much of an overlap with the music mentioned in the book. I've recently re-read the book and got the idea to seek out as much of the music as I could and build it into a Spotify playlist. Click this link to listen to the entire 5 hour effort. Unfortunately it doesn't have everything, I wish all of the Last Exit tracks she listens to were on Spotify, and whilst there are a lot of Ronald Shannon Jackson tracks on Spotify, there are none of the ones that Morvy likes! Strangely there is no PM Dawn on it either, though I did find their Morvern approved track So On and So On, on an old Island records compilation CD in my vaults - the one where My Bloody Valentine do We Have All The Time in the World! And sadly, but unsurprisingly, there is no Spiral Tribe on Spotify. I always associate Spiral Tribe with public protests, mainly around the time of the Criminal Justice Bill in 1993. Considering that protests are very much back, here is Breach the Peace and Sirius 23. Enjoy.

New Robyn G Shiels video: Look What You've Done

2011-03-14T23:54:00.000Z

It's nearly 20 years since I first bumped into this fella on the streets of Belfast, and I was lucky enough to see him play a thoroughly decent gig when I was back there at Christmas. I have to say I'm delighted he's still doing music, and I'm equally delighted it's as good as this. Just watch the video, folks.

2011-02-16T15:31:00.000Z

First ATP December curator announced - Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel!
Funnily enough he was one of the names I predicted for last year's ATP, but now he has been chosen as the curator of the first of this December's ATP festivals

I reckon tickets for this are going to go fast, they are on sale from Friday, 18th February. Full details here. The initial line-up seems incredibly strong to me

JEFF MANGUM (from Neutral Milk Hotel)
SUPERCHUNK
THE OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL
YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS
THE MAGIC BAND
THE RAINCOATS performing The Raincoats (debut LP)
A HAWK AND A HACKSAW
TINARIWEN
THE APPLES IN STEREO

Some of my favourite bands here, and out of that list I've only seen the Apples in Stereo live before. Although there is a second weekend being announced in a fortnight's time I'm thinking this is essential.

2011-01-10T23:30:00.000Z

How we listen now
I haven't had my hands on a physical album release from 2011 yet, but I have heard lots of new albums through the magic of internet streaming. This was a problem when I came to think about the best albums of 2010, as I realised I had only heard a few through streaming them over the net. I was absolutely convinced I had the Brian Eno but it seems I had just listened to it a lot online. Anyway, here are some decent ones so far

Wire's 12th album 'Red Barked Tree' and the Decemberists 'The King is Dead' can be found at NPR's First Listen page

Hotly tipped Anna Calvi's debut album is exclusive to the Guardian here

And finally the return of British Sea Power with Valhalla Dancehall at the AV Club

Best gigs of 2010

2010-12-26T17:13:00.000Z

Godspeed You! Black Emperor Minehead All Tomorrows Parties and London Troxy December

In the years between 1998 and 2002 I saw Godspeed five or six times, and at least a couple of these are in my top 10 gigs of all time. Needless to say I was attending ATP for the whole experience, and I was not expecting GYBE to rise to their earlier peaks. I was wrong, they were amazing, at least the equal of those legendary gigs if not better. It was the East Hastings/ Sad Mafioso section on Saturday that floored me, and it was equalled by the back to back coupling of Moya and BBF3 on Sunday. It was excellent that they played different sets throughout the weekend, and the icing on the cake was the epic performance at the Troxy 10 days later when they opened with the Dead Flag Blues and closed with the beautiful little closing piece 09-15-00, some two and a half hours later. Some of the best gigs of this of any other year.

The National Brixton Academy December

I had a new year's resolution not to go to any big gigs, but I made an exception for this as I had wanted to see the National since 2002, when I last saw them in a pub in Belfast. Simply this was just a great show, they didn't make it feel like a big cavernous venue, they chatted to us and played a wide range of material from their last 3 records. Lovely visuals too. And the ending Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks was something to behold.

Boredoms Kentish Town Forum May

Colossal Boadrum show, not quite as spectacular as the 88 drummer event I saw in Brooklyn on 08.08.08, but still amazing. This was DJ Eye and his specially modified 'guitar tree' plus nine drummers, one of whom entered through the crowd on a platform. It was a set which embraced trance, dub and noise, but it was all about those drummers gelling together. This was my gig of the year til December although my mate (who has even more extreme tastes than me!) hated it. I felt euphoric until I got outside and was told we had a new government, and everything changed.

Swans Camden KOKO October
Ok so this video is from Dublin, but it is pretty much exactly how they performed this song in Koko.

I had never seen Swans before and this was a big deal for me. I love both the Soundtracks for the Blind album and the early 90s White Light/ Love of Life material, and this newer material and this show seemed to blend both of these together. An epic show - quality noise abuse and some amazing songs too.

No Age 'secret' show at Stockwell Grosvenors Arms August

A 'secret' gig on the back of their Field Day performance, this took place in the back room of a pub in Stockwell and the intimate atmosphere made it something very special. The set was largely drawn from 'Nouns',the 'Losing feeling' Ep and the (then) forthcoming 'Everything in between' album, and this was the first time I had seen them as a three piece with some extra electronics in the mix. I'll never see them anywhere this small again, amazing.

Japandroids London ICA February

I was cautious about this lot as I had heard they were ropey live. Nothing could be further from the truth, this was an exceptionally tight set, and surprisingly they played for nearly 90 minutes. Bags of energy and great songs from this duo, anda couple of crowd pleasing covers too (McLusky and Big Black). A great review and photos can be found at The Line of Best Fit

Hallogallo 2010 Barbican October
Krautrock gig of the season for sure, in case you don't know, Hallogallo 2010 is the formal title for Michael Rother and friends playing the music of Neu! This is bascially a Neu! gig and the friends are Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth as steady as a rock on drums, and Aaron Mullan of Tall Firs on bass. As close to Neu! as we are ever likely to get these days.

Low Cambridge Junction 2 November

Part of a curious 6 date European tour, this was an inbetween albums set from Low, though there were some impressive new tunes given a first airing. and lots and lots of great back catalogue material.

The Wilderness of Manitoba Cambridge Wish You Were Here festival September

It's always a pleasure to wander into a gig and be completely blown away by someone you have never previously heard of. This was what happened at the Wilderness of Manitoba's early evening set in the Portland Arms. Part of a varied and interesting bill at this one day multi venue festival (Sad Day for Puppets, Pulled Apart By Horses, Alessi's Ark) they were the undoubted highlight.

Oneida present the Ocropolis at All Tomorrows Parties

A ten hour collaboration between Oneida and a lot of other musicians also playing at Godspeed's All Tomorrows Parties, this was one of the undoubted highlights. An extended jam with people like Mike Watt, Greg Saunier of Deerhoof, Chris Corsano, White Hills and many many more. More of this sort of thing please, ATP!

Honourable mentions for Allo Darlin (Cambridge Portland Arms), Dinosaur Jr (Cambridge Junction), Liars/ Factory Floor (shepherds bush empire), Serena Maneesh (ICA), School of Seven Bells (heaven) Not Squares (Kings Cross water rats)

Captain Beefheart (Don van Vliet) 1941-2010

2010-12-19T00:50:00.003Z

Captain Beefheart (Don van Vliet) 1941-2010

On Friday I returned home to the sad news that Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) had died, reportedly from complications from multiple schlerosis. He would have been 70 next month.
For me Captain Beefheart is one of the big guys, one of the major players. His influence is widespread and many of my favourite bands would not exist without him. I go through periods where I listen to his music over and over, sometimes I go a few weeks without hearing him at all, but he is never far from the top of my listening choices.
The Captain hadn't recorded any significant new music since 1982, so it is easy for anyone under 40 to miss him altogether. I was always distantly aware of the name, but as a teenage boy I found the dodgy humour of his school friend and collaborator Frank Zappa of to interest me.
However, whilst I was immersed in new and experimental music at university, I discovered his work by accident on a night out. I was in a taxi with a friend and the driver was playing his own music, not just the local radio. A song came on which was so beautiful yet it had something jarring, something that made you want to hear it again and again to work out what was going on. The song was 'Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles' from Beefheart's 1972 album Clear Spot and within a few days I had found a vinyl copy in Belfast's Good Vibrations record shop. It was the first Beefheart album I got and it's still my favourite. Some Trout Mask Replica devotees often sneer at my choice of fave Beefheart album as too mainstream (it's produced by Ted Templeman who went on work with Van Halen and Aerosmith amongst others), but it's actually the perfect way in to his world.
There are some conventional pop/rock songs (Too Much Time), some jerky time signatures (Sun Zoom Spark), some dadaist poetry (Golden Birdies) and some freeform guitar noise (Big Eyed Beans From Venus). After Clear Spot the floodgates opened and I explored his other work, embracing it all, always intrigued and rarely disappointed. Even the maligned Blue Jeans and Moonbeams starts with a beaut in Observatory Crest.

It is of course Trout Mask Replica that people hold up as the career highlight, the album to judge him by. What I'm trying to say is that there are other ways in to his work, and I would encourage anyone who is put off by TMR to dig deeper. I love Trout Mask Replica but every time I hear it I am reminded of Brian Eno's comment about it - "they sound like they never heard music before." So perceptive.
Not only did it stretch the boundaries of 'rock' music, but it played a major part in creating today's post-punk post-rock music world. Lester Bangs said that Beefheart was the most important artist to emerge from the '60s, more important than the Beatles, and he has a point. I know who I listen to more.
Captain Beefheart, (or Don Van Vliet) was a unique musician and artist. He had a prodigious talent for sculpture and won a scholarship to Europe when he was just 13, although he didn't take it up as his family relocated to the mojave desert. He also made more money from painting than he ever did from his music, though it is for the latter he will be remembered. With the Magic Band he was able to pull apart and reassemble the very structure of rock music and to follow his own vision. We can only hope to find someone with such a singular vision again.

review: All Tomorrow's Parties - Nightmare Before Christmas curated by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, 3rd-5th Decemeber 2010

2010-12-17T13:53:00.000Z

All Tomorrow's Parties - Nightmare Before Christmas curated by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, 3rd-5th Decemeber 2010

Another ATP festival, another return of a legendary alternative group. Godspeed You Black Emperor chose to fill it with the classic and the obscure and their curation threw up some curious surprises, drone, electronic music, improv, krautrock and even Weird Al Jankovic.
In their first incarnation GYBE left us with memories of some great shows, but really only something like 15 songs over the years, yet like all of the good curators of this mighty festival, they put together a line up that reflected their influences and inspirations.
GYBE's music is often referred to as being apocalyptic, a symphonic reflection of urban decay and societal disorder. Appropriately the choice for the inagural ATP book group at this festival is JG Ballard's excellent High Rise, the tale of collapsing society told from the location of a self-contained state-of-the-art tower block, and the cinema choices are .... very challenging indeed.
Musically, the event doesn't get off to a great start with the unfortunate withdrawal of the Friday night headliners Throbbing Gristle or X-TG as they recently become, beset by bad luck in recent weeks with the retirement of Genesis P Orridge and the untimely death of Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson. ATP chose not to replace them as headliners and played their music in the Pavilion stage instead, a few hours after Sleazy was cremated in Thailand.
The first band I actually see are BLACK DICE in the Centre stage who, as far as recent releases are concerned seem to have fallen back from the advances of Creature Comforts in the mid-00s. Tonight they are simply crunchy electronica providing little for the audience to click with. They aren't bad, but the oppressive volume means a lot of the casual observers wander away.
WHITE MAGIC are up next in Reds, and from previous encounters with this lady I have them down as one to avoid, however this is an improved performance though it's clear she owes much of her act to Grace Slick and Nico.
GYBE are doing the same trick as MBV last year and playing three times on the Centre Stage, so I opt to avoid the queues and wander in just after they start. As an ATP veteran I always consider there is too much to do to be queuing up for any act, in fact the only time I queued was for coffee on Sunday morning. It is their first gig anywhere in seven years though and the crowd are reverential for the opening salvo of Gathering Storm/ Monheim. Everything is in place, although on reflection I thought this was the most subdued of the three shows. BBF3 is a collosal ending though, and am I right in saying this may actually be the first time it has been played with the spoken word pieces included? Whatever, it was a pretty big deal, though it was clear GYBE could take it up a few gears yet.
Poor Daniel Higgis had major snow related problems, suffering the same travel chaos that has affected some of the crowd, so TIM HECKER's slot is moved to an earlier 1am start on the Centre stage. Curiously he seems to have not been given any stage lighting so it's fortunate his music is so strong. Pleasantly abrasive electronica which actually seemed a bit brief, he is one act who ought to have played longer.
So whilst day one was a little underwhelming, the rest of the festival proved to be relentlessly busy.

Day two began with an intense improvised set by Michael FLOWER (Vibracathedral Orchestra) and Chris CORSANO, the latter setting out on a bid to become the performer with the most appearances this weekend. For this one his incredible drum skills are coupled with Flower's string work on his Japanese banjo (or shahi baaja if you are being exact). It doesn't really click with me until I can get closer and actually see what they are doing, so I guess I was more impressed by the technical skills than the music. Having said that, their middle piece sounds like it has been lifted from the end of Marquee Moon and it spirals and twists into some lovely territory.
BARDO POND are even lovelier upstairs on the centre stage. They sound eactly like they did when I last saw them in 1999, in fact they sound better as this venue is one of the best places to see a band like that. Nice lights too. I was amazed at the end to find out a lot of the set is from a new album as I could have sworn most of it was from the Amanita/ Lapsed era. One of my definite highlights.
A quick first visit of the day to ONEIDA's 10 hour 'jam' in their recreation of their studio The Ocroplois. They are on the stage but it's curiously intimate and white sheets with holes cut in them are draped around the venue, and stunning visuals throughout from the Secret Project Robot crew. An ambitious step for them to take over the area normally reserved for the bingo and the quiz, but this turned out to be one of my major highlights of the whole weekend. I was delighted enough to see Greg Saunier from Deerhoof playing drums with them on my first visit.
Back upstairs for the bleak noisescapes of New Zealand's THE DEAD C, a group I had almost forgotten about. I really liked this, but they proved a bit divisive and a lot of the audience were worn down by the drone, to be honest a drone that had been present from the Flower/ Corsano set a few hours before. Two guitars, one drummer, and nothing really resembling a tune – just a noise/ drone workout.
I have a bit of a chill-out and get a seat for MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ, and I feel sorry for them that their crowd is decimated by a four way clash – Mike Watt, the ongoing Oneida, and Hanged Up – the latter duo cited by many as a festival highlight. Maher are delightfully wrong, it takes skill to miss the beat over and over again in the same place for their opening 15 minute jam, and they keep this level of strangeness thoughout the set. There are 14 of them, including a child who can't be much more than 3 years old and it all comes across as a weird mix of the Magic Band and the Shaggs, and even this audience are bemused!
SCOUT NIBLETT also does a nice line in audience bemusement, but tonight she is just great. She is on the largest stage, the Pavilion, possibly the biggest crowd she has played to. It's been so long since I've seen her, she rarely plays the drums now, and the set is mostly her on guitar and a drummer. She wears a vis-vest throughout, which I'm told is just her 'thing'. A highlight.
I should chill out and eat something but instead I'm tempted to see what ONEIDA are up to next door. This was an amazing sequence – two of the Dead C were just finishing up then Chris Corsano joined them, entering into some amazing drumming with Oneida's own Kid Millions, the latter by the end of the day surely deserved some sort of medal. Then MIKE WATT pops up again to add some noise guitar. If Oneida had done this event on Friday night I wouldn't have watched anyone else, but Saturday is busy busy busy.
All that activity means that I miss the start of TINDERSTICKS, and I end up finding them dull and disappointing, though they were redeemed by a lovely closing Raindrops.
Meanwhile back at Oneida they are entering a krautrock/ motorik groove, helped along by Aaron of Tall Firs/ Hallogallo and some excellent psychedelic visuals, and that morphs into an extended jam with two of WHITE HILLS which is yet another highlight. An appointment with Godpseed means I don't stay for the very end, which is unfortunate as Oneida make the last hour the set their own and end up closing with 'Sheets of Easter'. You’ve got to look into the Light Light Light Light Light Light Light Light Hard to believe they chose something so epic and intense to close out their ten hour set, and a random audience member gave them a trophy! Amazing.
That would finish any normal gig-goers fun for the day but the best is yet to come. I almost wavered and didn't go to Godspeed tonight, but I did wander in about 15 minutes late. Now, I've seen GYBE many times between 1999-2002 and some of those shows rate amongst the greatest gigs I've ever seen. Tonight's show is equal to any of those, the band really gel, the back projections are superb and they actually change the set from the first night. It's the East Hastings section which floors me tonight, BBF3 is omitted but isn't missed. It's all just too good and I have to retreat to the chalet just to clear my head afterwards.
I catch a little bit of NOMEANSNO and they are impressively edgy after all these years, closely followed by a burst of THE EX who are punky and fun and crowdpleasing – I'm sure they do a Konono No1 song too! Both those bands took me back 20 years to the squat punk gigs that warzone used to put on in Belfast, pretty sure it was the last time I saw either!
The other real highlight tonight was THEE OH SEES late set in Reds. Rattling through some fine spiky pop songs and coming across much better live than on record, though maybe that's just me. Impressed that they held the crowd until 3am as well! I catch a little bit of DJ PARASITE before bed, yet another fresh sound, crazy gabba mixes into the wee small hours.

On Sunday I'm supposed to be in the venue at midday to see Marissa Nadler but I am just not able to get moving in time. I also opt not to attend the early and final GYBE show as it couldn't be as good as the previous one, but reports say it is and I can't resist. This was the quietest the crowd has been during their sets here, at some points you could actually hear the whirr of the projector. I actually miss the opening Dead Flag Blues, which was the first time they have played it this weekend. I was impressed they chose to vary the set each time they played and to be honest, this was on a par with last night's performance. Seeing them be so amazing barely 12 hours apart was priceless really.
Meanwhile next door I was missing Francisco Lopez's sound experiments, which lots of people had chosen as a highlight, even if it did mean being blindfolded as soon as you enter the venue.
Back on the centre stage, next is RANGDA, a kind of post-rock/ improv 'supergroup' comprising of Chris Corsano (again) on drums, Sir Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls) on guitar and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) on even more guitar. Again, like the Flower-Corsano duo yesterday, they were hugely impressive technically, though some of their wig-outs may have passed over the heads of the audience. I thought it was powerful stuff though.
I have a quick look at the COUNTRY TEASERS in Reds who happily sound exactly like their records, fuzzy vocals, slightly shambolic take on country-punk and some pleasantly offensive lyrics!
German legends CLUSTER are next on the big stage who, as well as being the most senior act here in terms of age, they also make some of the loudest sounds of the entire weekend. They play a set of dense dark electronica, it's good down here in the Pavilion but it would have been amazing in the centre stage.
This is most certainly the only time that a festival will feature Cluster on just before WEIRD AL YANKOVIC, but that's one of the beautiful things about ATP. I was puzzled by this choice, although I reckon his status as a top Canadian meant that some of Godspeed liked him when they were growing up, and as curators they asked him and he said yes. This reminds me of the story that the first band the Dirty Three asked when they were curating was AC/DC! I haven't much interest in him to be honest and I watch a little bit and have a smirk. I did spot Godspeed in the crowd, so I guess that explains their earlier stage time. They deserve the night off after all!
I spend most of the rest of the evening in Reds, I'm curious to see what guitar noises KEIJI HAINO can conjure up. Conjure is probably the best word to use as there is something spooky and otherworldly about him. As well as all the cacophony he manages to unleash by himself, I am also wondering how does a man in his late 50s have such flyaway hair.!
I stay in there to watch EMERALDS who are one of the bands I have been really looking forward to, unfortunately this means I don't get to see any of BOBAN I MARKO MARKOVIC ORCHESTRA who most people rate as a highlight. It seems carried on the party that Weird Al started and one of their refrains ends up being randomly chanted around the site all through the night. Emeralds are good though, they dedicate the opening song 'Passing Away' to Peter Christopherson and proceed to play it and 'Genetic' the best track from their recent album. They are entertaining to watch as well, their stage histrionics makes me think they are listening to different music as they play; noodling ambient drone whilst punching the air looks weird but fun.
A brief visit upstairs which is packed for WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM, who play exactly the sort of epic metal I was expecting them to. They have soo much smoke/ dry ice on stage that I don't actually have any proof that they are there at all!
More venue hopping for THE SADIES back in Reds who wear a lot of 50s/ 60s influences on their sleeve with their set of country tinged rock n roll. Refreshing to hear some old fashioned tunes and the band are super tight – nice suits too!
It's perhaps strange for DEERHOOF to be tucked away so late on the Sunday night (actually Monday morning), but a lot of people are hanging on for their 1am start and they don't disappoint. Despite a new album looming, they play tracks from a lot of their back catalogue. Panda Panda Panda' and 'Desaparacere' are there, and their set is one of the real highlights. Amazing drumming from Greg Saunier, although some people don't quite get his stage announcements 'act'.
I do check out one DJ before saying goodbye for another year. AWESOME TAPES FROM AFRICA is a guy who is mixing music on found cassettes from his African travels. It goes down well too, but those of you who know what I currently do for a living will appreciate that I found the set a bit of a busman's holiday!

Overall a very good ATP, which for me was more enjoyable than it looked on paper. There was an incredible variety of music on offer, and my only slight grumble was the unfortunate balance of the barren Friday with a rammed Saturday and Sunday. Still that's a very minor point and there is a good reason for why that happened. For a festival that started under the shadow of the untimely death of Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle, I think ultimately it had a spirit and verve which he would have enjoyed. See you next year.

2010-10-01T23:07:00.001+01:00

those damn archives
It is with a great sigh that I have to announce that the archives I moved over from geocities earlier this year have vanished off the face of the web.
There now begins a tedious reposting of these, and hopefully I can fancy them up a little bit by embedding video and updating links, etc.
I'll keep you posted...

INTERVIEW: Adrian Sherwood

2010-09-11T23:50:00.001+01:00

The respected English record producer (On-U Sound, Pressure Sounds) and member of Tackhead talks at length to Francisco Scaramanga about his musical life, and his work with artists such as The Fall, Lee Perry, the Woodentops and his relationship with folk music. Contains embedded clips from the Fall, Tackhead, the Woodentops and Ian King.

The first time you worked with The Fall was the Slates album. How did you first hook up with The Fall?

It was through the Rough Trade offices. They distributed all the independent records in Britain at the time. I met Daniel Miller there prior to his founding Mute. The Fall were doing stuff for Geoff Travis (Rough Trade label boss) at the time. They'd done stuff for Miles Copeland (brother of Stewart from The Police) on Step Forward previously. I was only 22 or 23 years old at the time -learning my trade so to speak. Geoff Travis said that I could help with additional production. I mainly contributed in the recording of the song 'Middlemass'.

Middlemass was apparently written about the soon to be fired from the band Marc 'Lard' Riley. "The boy is like a tape loop".

I didn't know that. Myself and Mark became friends later. My wife at the time Kishi became friends with Kay Carroll - Mark's girlfriend and The Fall's manager at the time. I think the song 'An Older Lover' is about her. Myself and Kishi went to see The Fall in Berlin and that cemented the friendship.

I asked Paul Hanley and Grant Showbiz if they had any recollections of the recording of Slates.

Grant Showbiz: Does he remember setting up a speaker in the toilets at Berwick St studio during recording of Slates and why? (it was for a snare sound).
Paul Hanley: When we recorded with Adrian he got the reverb he wanted on the bass drum by playing it through a speaker at the top of the stairs and then re-recording it at the bottom. Does he still do stuff like that or would he just press a button now?

What was almost unique about The Fall is that they never used any studio effects. It was almost antiproduction. I didn't do that much on the record. The one thing I can claim is the idea to record through the toilet. It was in the boiler room so we had to switch the boiler off. Mark wanted it to sound crunching. He wanted it to sound like something on Sun records or a Link Wray record. I did it by using an off-mike recording of a speaker in the bathroom. He didn't want any reverbs or effects. He wanted it to sound 'dry'. I learnt a lot from him. I learnt less really is more.

The Fall - Middle Mass

The toilet recording sounds a bit like something Joe Meek would have done.

Not quite. He'd have put the drummer in the bath tub.

Tackhead covered The Fall's 'Repetition' as the B-side of Dangerous Sex. Dave Haslam (music journalist) maintains this is the Fall's most important song. Were you happy with the result?
Yeah that was my idea. I wasn't completely happy with the result but I'm glad we did it.

Repetition (Dub)(1990)(AUDIO ONLY) - Tackhead

You've worked with three of my heroes - Lee Perry, Mark E Smith and Shane McGowan. All three individuals are beloved by music journalists because there are so many stories about them...so much you could write. Is Mark E Smith more like Shane McGowan or Lee Perry?

And yes there are some boring sods who sell lots of records. Well if I had to choose...I'd say Mark E Smith and Shane McGowan because they both like a drink. All three are alike in that they're incredibly creative and they DON'T suffer fools gladly. Shane McGowan has his Behan thing. Mark E Smith has his northern working class thing. Lee Perry is different in that it's not just the recorded output. He believes that every movement or emotion that he experiences is part of one huge work of art. He's like Salvador Dali or something. McGowan is obviously a poet and when you look at something like 'Deerpark' you realise what a wordsmith Mark is. All three are tied together by a sense of humour - they're mischievous madmen.

I recently heard the famous Tommy Vance Capitol Radio interview where John Lydon played his favourite records. Mark E Smith wouldn't credit it but surely he's got to have taken some influences from Lydon. Not many people back then or now like dub reggae, Can and the Velvets.

Oh you mean the show where he played Dr Alimentado. I think what everyone took from reggae was the lyrics, whether they were talking about 'babylon', 'bomb the church' or even 'don't eat pork'. It was completely revolutionary to British people's ears. If you were living in London or Manchester at the time you heard it. Whether you liked it or not - and a lot of people didn't like it. Even if you didn't like the "chickey chickey" reggae rhythm you absorbed it. Mark was a big fan of Big Youth and I would later turn him on to some other stuff. Whether he liked it or not he respected your enthusiasm.

Mark E Smith has recently taken to describing himself as a producer. Is this an accurate description?

Mark is the real deal. Something that I've always thought and you can quote me on it is this...Mark knows the album he's going to end up with note for note before he even steps into the studio. He's a one off in Britain that way. You're wondering whether Mark is correct in describing himself as a producer. He's a producer alright. In that respect Grant Showbiz was like a co-producer. I was just an assistant. He knows EXACTLY what he wants the guitars and the drums to sound like. In those early 1980s records he wanted a tension.

He apparently would stay longer in the pub to piss the musicians off and make them tense when they played.

Well he might have done that, but I think he wanted to create a healthy tension and you can hear it on those records.

You also worked on the Fall's Extricate album. Did you work on 'Telephone Thing' (with Coldcut) or 'Popcorn Double Feature'?

No. I did stuff like 'British People in Hot Weather' and 'Extricate' (the title track). They tried a lot of new things on that record. I didn't really know Coldcut but they went to the same college as me. Sometimes producing is just about creating an ambience for other people to work in. I mean if I'm producing a dub record I might aim for the 'Black Ark' (Lee Perry's legendary studio) sound but that certainly wasn't what was required with The Fall. A producer should add his two bob when required...when things grind to a halt. But they never asked for my 'signature' sound and it wouldn't have worked with The Fall.

The Fall - Extricate

Is Lee Perry the greatest musical artist to ever come out of Jamaica?

Well he's the greatest producer definitely. He's not a natural singer. He's like a conductor or magician. I keep going back to comparisons with Dali really. His influence is immense.

The Fall - Kimble - Peel Session (Lee Perry cover)

Simon Reynolds wrote an article in The Wire later republished in the book 'Bring The Noise' postulating that as the years have passed Bob Marley's reputation has diminished and Lee Perry's has increased.

Are you crazy? Bob Marley is as big as Elvis. You travel anywhere and you'll hear Bob Marley. Lee Perry doesn't sell that many records...certainly not in comparison with Bob Marley.

I'm not disputing that Bob Marley was the first 'third world' superstar. I'm thinking of when someone like The Beastie Boys devoted their magazine 'Grand Royal' entirely to Lee Perry. Some people have already entitled the noughties the decade of the producer. Also the cult of the 'mad producer'...be it Phil Spector, Joe Meek, Brian Wilson or Lee Perry is a relatively recent phenomenon. People didn't think about music in these terms in 1980 but most the music we're talking about had been released by then. Music journalism nowadays isn't really about new music rather constant reappraisal of the past in magazines like Mojo or Uncut.

Well actually I think it's a matter of continuity. People get interested when they discover that lots of records in their collections are by the same producer. With Lee it's continuity to the present day. I think the fascination only really extends as far as Lee Perry and King Tubby. They were soundmasters as well as producers. Augustus Pablo to a lesser extent but he was a musician/producer. I think Lee Perry just got tired of sitting in a bloody studio working on other people's records and that's why he mainly works as a vocalist now.
------

“In the old days, writing about reggae focused largely on the singer/songwriter/frontmen - figures like Marley, Toots and so forth. There was acknowledgement of the importance of a producer like Lee Perry...but little in the way of analysis of what they did. Today, a near-complete reversal has occurred, with producers and engineers usurping the status of auteurs. In the last decade, thousands of words have been spilled on the wizardry of Perry of Tubby, but surprisingly little on reggae vocalists or the role of drummers, bassists, rhythm guitarists ,keyboardists in building grooves.
The totem and touchstone for this form-not-content version of reggae is Lee 'Scratch' Perry. As the new consensus about dub has solidified over the last decade, he has been elevated to become the auteur-producer par excellence, at the expense of some of his less flamboyant yet more consistent peers (King Tubby, Keith Hudson, Jack Ruby, Augustus Pablo, Tommy Cowan, Joe Gibbs, Harry Mudie, et al.). Perry is often contrasted with Bob Marley by critics of the Afro-Futurist persuasion: the two are almost a binary pair, conceptual twins with Perry always bigged up as 'mad scientist' producer-genius and Marley always denigrated as dull 'n' worthy statesman.

Quote from a Simon Reynolds piece published in The Wire (addressing arguments at the time to do with reggae going on in highbrow music culture) (1999) and republished in the book Bring The Noise-with kind permission.
Take an act like the Orb for instance. They come from a similar punk background and they make electronic dub. Did you ever get jealous of their success?

No...not at all. Alex (Patterson) is a good friend. If sometimes I haven't had as much commercial success as another artist that's all down to me. It really doesn't bother me. I'm proud of my output if my business savvy ever let me down...so be it.

Were you aware that Orbital recently did a mix on Radio 6 entirely made up of On-U Sound material?

No I wasn't. That's great though isn't it. That's real respect.

PAUL HARTNOLL ON U SOUND MIX FROM 6MIX. 2009-08-15
Dub Syndicate – The Show Is Coming
Mark Stewart And The Mafia – Learning to Cope With Cowardice
Tackhead – What’s My Mission Now?
Gary Clail – Half Cut For Confidence
Keith Le Blanc – I’ll Come Up With Something
Tackhead – Mind At The Tether
Keith Le Blanc – Get This
Mark Stewart & The Mafia – As The Veneers Of Democracy Starts To Fade

You really do have a lot of connections in a lot of different scenes don't you?

Well I try to do a good job when I'm working with people. And if you don't act like a dickhead a friendship can develop on down the line. If I was in Manchester I might give Mark a call. If I was in Sheffield I might give Rich from Cabaret Voltaire a call. Primal Scream are all good friends. I see Andrew Innes every couple of weeks.
I'm in my early fifties and I know this business used to be better. The record shops are nearly all closed. People used to meet each other in the record shops...they were like a cafe. The music industry has lost all its innocence. You make a new track with something innovative on it nowadays, then someone else posts it online before it's even released. Next thing you know someone's stolen it and released a sanitized and watered down version of the same thing. I'm quite aware that I sound like an old fart but it's a terrible problem. I mean why would anyone bother in the first place.
You can ask Youtube to take stuff down but it quickly finds its way back up. Why is Youtube worth 400 million? I also really dislike the way the stuff that ends up on Youtube can be totally unrepresentative of your body of work. I have to confess I do use Youtube to watch comedy and stuff but I think all the innocence has been lost.

You produced the Woodentops records that subsequently got played by the Balearic DJs. All the Boys Own / Shoom DJs (Weatherall, Farley and Rampling) went on to enormous success. Why didn't you latch on to that scene?

Well anything that I did that was house-y did make money. Gary Clail (signed to On U Sound) was successful at that time. I just couldn't hack the 4/4 beat all night. We used to call it "Butt Butt Butt" music. It would have driven me mad in the long run. I just couldn't stick it. You've got to be true to yourself.

The Woodentops - Why (Extended Mix) 1986

Are you a fan of Irish music?

Well I've worked with Shane McGowan, Sinead O'Connor and Sharon Shannon. I like the flute and accordion. I like rebel songs. My grandfather was an adopted Irish opera singer?!? I can't really sing myself. One of the reasons I work with folk artists is because I don't like to be pigeon holed. The last album that I recorded was 'Ian King-Panic Grass and Feverfew' and it's doing really well commercially and critically. Shirley Collins...have you heard of her...she's a friend.

Ian King - Air in D with Old Irish Melody

Well English folk is definitely in the ascendency at the moment.
How did an English bloke get so well entrenched in the reggae scene? I saw you doing the sound for the Congos, Max Romeo and Lee Scratch Perry in Dublin recently. Possibly the biggest cheer of the night was when Lee Perry bigged up on the stage. Were you never intimidated by the reggae scene? Reggae as a genre sometimes seems so huge and impenetrable.

I've been DJing since I was thirteen. I've been releasing Jamaican records on my own label since I was seventeen. People can be initially suspicious but when you don't shoot your mouth off...when they see your genuine enthusiasm they don't fuck with you.

“I knew John Lydon well, and it was through John that I got to know Keith Levene and Jah Wobble. I got to know John better after Sid had died. Ari Upp, Neneh Cherry, Junior and I, we all lived in a squat down Battersea way, and John Lydon was living with Nora [his future wife and Ari Upp's mum] round the corner. John Lydon used to visit us, and we all hung out together. John was just so hip you know, a lot of people really looked up to him at that time. John really knew his reggae, he loved his reggae. I can tell you that John Lydon really helped the progress of roots and culture in Britain at that time.”

Excerpt from an interview with Adrian Sherwood Gregory Mario Whitfield.http://www.uncarved.org/dub/onu/onu.html

You used to hang around in the same scene as John Lydon. Have you seen the reformed Public Image Limited?

Public Image Limited haven't reformed. PIL are Jah Wobble and Keith Levene.
(He's quite forceful about this).

Are Tackhead reforming?

Yeah Tackhead are doing a festival in Poland in September. Tackhead back in the day were an amazing live outfit but I don't want to do a load of dates performing to blokes in their forties and fifties.

Have you any albums coming out soon?

Well there's the IAN KING "PANIC GRASS AND FEVER FEW" album. It's an On-U Production released on the Fledg'ling record label. "DUBSETTER" by LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY and ADRIAN SHERWOOD is a new Dub album from The Upsetter and myself and it's on vinyl and cd.
Just completed and mastered is an album by singer/songwriter/artist JEB LOY NICHOLS "LONG TIME TRAVELLER". This is truly wonderful and features live rhythms recorded during last summer and classic re modelled ONU/Radics/Dub Syndicate rhythms.
"THE ROYAL VARIETY SHOW" (the best of..) DUB SYNDICATE a double cd of pure gems.
Also due for release is "DUB ... NO FRONTIERS" this is a true epic. It is a fresh and original 16 track double vinyl/cd release of all women vocalists from around the world, all singing in non English. it is a labor of love and is becoming one of my proudest productions it features vocals in Chinese, German, Arabic, Eritrean, Italian, Polish, Samoan, French, Japanese, Russian and more in progress.
"Suck on this planet of noise" Currently in production and well underway is "LET THE ROBOTS MELT" - ONUSOUNDSYSTEM featuring Primal Scream w.Lee Perry, Dennis Bovel, Pempi, John McClure, Carl Barat, Mark Stewart, Deeder Zaman, New Age Steppers and more, a truly wonderful sheet of noise "Listen up real close now"
Also currently in production for a 2010 release is a new NEW AGE STEPPERS album (the first for 25 years !) Recordings were done in Jamaica last year and hopefully it will be finished soon
There is also "CRISPY HORNS MEET ROOTS RADICS AND DUB SYNDICATE" a classic new dub/horns album, and work is well underway on GHETTO PRIEST "SACRED GROUND" this is the On-U follow up to "Vulture Culture" the debut Priest album from a few seasons back. Plus DEEDER ZAMAN brand new album from the original Asian Dub Foundation front man.
There are lots more. SKIP "Little Axe" McDONALD has a brand new authentic collision of Blues meets Dub live rhythms with Style Scott and the crew with Skip on Dobro in true Blues National style this is well underway and sounding "proper"

Also in our studio (and their own) LSK is working on new tracks. BROTHER CULTURE has voiced new tracks and also my daughter DENISE SHERWOOD is producing herself {and sometimes with dad and other "family"} check her on her myspace.

DECEMBER 2010 MARKS 30 YEARS SINCE THE RELEASE OF the 7" single "FADE AWAY" by NEW AGE STEPPERS cw "Learn a Language" by LONDON UNDERGROUND - However early 1981 saw On-U SOUND's first album releases, so we are planning to put on events all round the world throughout 2011 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the label. we will also issue a box set with music dvds, a book and many other goodies so hopefully after such a long wait, for those interested there will be lots of things to buy (or copy) and lots of live shows to catch.

Also (finally) a new Adrian Sherwood album will be released in 2011.

Finally, having seen Lee Perry in the last month. I was amazed at how sprightly he was. Do you have any inside information that might act as diet or exercise tips for us mere mortals.

Well, you know his mother is still alive! He comes from the countryside and I think his mother still lives in the countryside. His posture is incredible. The only time he ever sits down during the day is to eat. He's always on his feet. Obviously he did drink and smoke in the past but he's cut all that right out. He's a total vegetarian and he dances a lot. I think it helps that he's not a big man. Oh and he never moans, complains or whinges. I've never heard him say..."I'm tired".

Interview by Francisco Scaramanga

2010-09-09T23:14:00.001+01:00

Gold Panda - new album Lucky Shiner stream

It's already been talked about as one of the albums of the year, and you can listen to Gold Panda's new release 'Lucky Shiner' via the link to the embedded player below, which you can also grab and embed for your own site. Lovely.

For more info and a choice of formats you buy the album in, click here

2010-09-08T22:49:00.000+01:00

Moving back to Blogger
Well, after a few months of flirting and dabbling with wordpress, I have decided to revert to blogger once again. I never really warmed to wordpress, and there were some technical things I wanted to do here which the basic wordpress couldn't help with. The basic blogger can, so here I am.
As it is too much hassle to move the 20-odd posts from there to here, you can explore them for yourself at slowthrills.wordpress.com Quite literally dozens of people have already.
New content will be here soon, and I'm adding some plugins. Nothing fancy, just the kind of thing everyone else has!

That Petrol Emotion, Q&A with Steve Mack, 1993

2009-12-04T00:16:00.003Z

This interview dates from 1993 and appeared in Weedbus fanzine, issue 4.

After several years of slogging away releasing every new album with a different record label, That Petrol Emotion are back with their first release on their own label. We caught up with vocalist from the band, Steve Mack, coincidentally the only non-Irish member of the band as they played a show in the University of Ulster's Jordanstown campus.

These are the first Irish dates to promote the current album 'Fireproof', although you were playing a lot of the material live last year.
“A lot of the songs that are on there (ie 'Last of the True Believers') have been around for about two years. The band went through a huge period of change between records. We actually recorded this whole LP and spent an insane amount of money on it and then we realised that it sounded like shit. After that the band actually split up, although I didn't know this because I was in Seattle! We got back together and decided that what we should do is what we wanted all along, to make a simpler, more direct record. We knew we had a good album in us cos we had been playing these songs for two years, so we went back in the studio and did the whole thing in ten days.

The lyrics seem to be a lot less political than the last couple of albums.
“We've been backing slowly away from that because it did us a lot of damage in the past.”

Do you think people wouldn't play your records because of it?
“Well, that's what we would like to think! We could be wrong but there were memos being passed around certain radio stations saying that perhaps it wouldn't be a good idea to play bands that have sympathies to Sinn Fein, particuarly as this was the same time as the media ban on them.”

I noticed on the back of 'Cellophane' that you have Labour MP Clare Short's address printed on it.
“Yeah, it's all very noble and everything, but at the end of the day we slit our own wrists doing it because we weren't played on the radio and therefore didn't sell any records. To be simplistic, I've never lived in Ireland, the rest of the band haven't lived here for eight years, so they no longer feel qualified to comment on the situation.”

You've now set up your own record label, after many years releasing output an various labels.
“it was pretty easy to set up and it means we can make our own decisions now. We've only been with two majors (Polydor and Virgin) and we had our own label which I ran, and we released 'V2' on that. This time around though, we have worldwide management and licensing deals, whereas when we released 'V2' we kept the records under the bed! I think it's a good experience for bands to run labels because when you deeall with majors you know how much it costs to press a vinyl record and so on. They changed their approach to us when they realised we knew these things.”

The name of the new label is Koogat which we noticed is from Woody Allen's The Sleeper. A nonsense slang expression “It's beyond cool, it's koogat!” Are you big fans of his?
“you guys are the first to notice that! We've had to explain it too everyone else, and they've just had a blank expression. We're huge fans of Woody Allen, we've been throwing that word around for years, trying to work it into a song or album title, but then we realised it would be a great name for the label.”

What about the grunge backlash and your hometown of Seattle?
“well it was bound to happen, wasn't it? That's why Suede are so well timed, they are the most un-Nirvana guitar based band you could think of, but I've been in this too long to get excited over scenes or whatever. For instance all those 'Madchester' bands, all the Thames Valley shoegazer bands, are all taking a back seat already.”

What about songwriting within the band? Did it change radically when John O'Neill left in 1988?
“Not necessarily. Ciaran McLaughlin became the main songwriter after John left, while we all come up with bits and pieces, though I write the least probably, and everyone writes in their bedrooms and are very protective about their own songs.”

Interview by Jonathan

2009-10-31T00:24:00.003Z

Salvaged and up to date
I have saved and reposted nearly all the interviews and a selection of reviews from the geocities hosted section of this website. I was a bit brutal with the reviews as I thought some had dated too much. The interviews date from 1994-2003 and originally existed in print in the Irish fanzine The Weedbus, or post 1998 they had appeared on the web-zine slowthrills.com. Reviews are randomly selected from slowthrills.com's archives, and the salvaged ones are basic text files really. Nothing fancy!

Q&A Interviews
some random reviews

2009-10-30T22:43:00.009Z

REVIEWS: A selection from the past...
Acid Mothers Temple
All Tomorrow's Parties, curated by Slint (Slint, Melvins, Mogwai, Deerhoof, Mum)
All Tomorrow's Parties, ATP vs the Fans (Shellac, Modest Mouse, Les Savy Fav, Cornelius)
And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
Arab Strap
Ballboy
BelFEST 2004 (Tom McShane, Torgas Valley Reds, Duke Special, Driving by Night, The Embers, Desert Hearts, Contraband)
Belle and Sebastian
Beta Band
Brian Wilson
Bridge and Tunnel
Built To Spill
The Clientele
Cornelius
Delays
Dick Dale
The Evens
The Fall
Fennesz and Mike Patton
FIB 2004 (Kraftwerk, Belle and Sebastian, Air, Franz Ferdinand, Brian Wilson, Wire, Love, Einsturzende Neubaten, LCD Soundsystem, Lou Reed, Tindersticks, Teenage Fanclub)
Fiery Furnaces
Flaming Lips
Fly Pan Am
Giant Sand
Go-Betweens
Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Guided By Voices
Hefner
The Hold Steady
Hood
House of Love
J Mascis
Jacob Golden
Jad Fair and Teenage Fanclub
Jeff Martin
Kidd Dynamo
Low
Luke Haines
Mary Timony
Melvins
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Of Arrowe Hill
Oxbow
Patti Smith
Peaches
PJ Harvey
Pram
Quack Quack
Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3
Rocket From the Crypt
Six Organs of Admittance
Sleater-Kinney
Slint
Soft Boys
Sonic Youth
The Strokes
Television
Torgas Valley Reds
Tracer AMC
White Stripes
Wolf Colonel
Yo La Tengo

2009-10-26T23:29:00.003Z

Ignore those archive links in the side menu
Most of them won't work as they go to geocities pages, and they are dead and gone. All will be re-upped by the end of the week.

2009-10-21T23:53:00.003+01:00

Geocities is about to vanish!
Well well, Geocities will cease to exist from Oct 26, 2009 and all files held there will be deleted and no longer accessible. As a fair percentage of this site's archives are on geocities, I am going to be busy over the next few days. I will probably host them here, or on the space that comes with my broadband, I haven't decided yet. The important thing is that I have saved all the interviews I need tonight :)

2009-07-06T16:59:00.004+01:00

Hmmm
Well, I'm not quite sure why I have run out of steam on my production drive, but I have been in Africa twice and Germany once since I abandoned the website yet again. I have kept up with Facebook though, and even starting using Twitter a little bit.
Don't expect much in the way of blog posts til later in the year.

2009-02-12T16:14:00.002Z

Spotify!
Yes, the best thing since last.fm has arrived. Spotify is a music player which attempts to let you play whatever you like whenever you like. I just my account this last weekend and I've heard loads of albums I had been meaning to hear for ages. On the free account there are occasional ads, but I'm more than willing to put up with them.

2009-02-07T11:51:00.002Z

A foolish undertaking....
Without a laptop it hasn't been possible to do a blog-a-day, so I have to admit defeat at this early stage. I have some post still to finish from last month, and I will keep updating this very regularly, but it won't be every day. :(

2009-02-05T23:25:00.002Z

Lux Interior of the Cramps, 1946-2009
This has been a terrible year for music deaths already, with Ron Asheton and John Martyn already gone. Now news of Lux Interior's passing. Report here

2009-01-30T12:22:00.002Z

John Martyn 1948-2009
Sad news, and sadly no great surprise that he didn't make it into his retirement. I have recently been looking back to the music made 35-40 years ago, and Martyn's Bless the Weather and obviously Solid Air will surely live on.
I'd Rather Be the Devil here, nicely remembered here.

2009-01-29T14:09:00.002Z

Forty years ago today: Miles Davis Filles de Kilimanjaro
Unfairly overlooked by a lot of casual observers when glancing at the career of Miles Davis, Filles de Kilimanjaro is actually a pivotal album in his development. It's unusual in that the two separate sessions which the alum grew out of feature two distinct and separate group of musicians. The first recording featured Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, and can be seen as the last recording of the 2nd Miles Davis Quintet. The second recording retained Shorter and Williams, but Chick Corea replaced Hancock on keys and Dave Holland took Carter's place on the bass. This was the first time that either of these had recorded with Davis.
Despite these changes in personnel, Filles appears as a very cogent, together record. There are only five tracks, but all of them are very strong. It blurs the lines between acoustic and electric Miles as Hancock (apparently acoustic period) lays his Fender Rhodes all over the lovely 'Tout De Suite' and Dave Holland who was very much part of Miles's future, utilises acoustic upright bass.
It may not have the critical reputation of his albums from the same period, such as 'In A Silent Way' or the inevitable 'Bitches Brew', but this is an album well worth checking out for even a casual Miles Davis fan.
The album also hints at what might have been on its closing track 'Mademoiselle Mabry', which is apparently Gil Evans and Miles reimagining Hendrix's 'The Wind Cries Mary'. Both Davis and Hendrix were set to work together in the year after this record, but sadly that never happened. That track is also a tribute to Miles's wife at the time Betty Davis, who also graces the cover artwork.

2009-01-26T12:52:00.000Z

Mick Harvey leaves the Bad Seeds!
Another shocker, to follow on from the Florian quits Kraftwerk story earlier in the month, but co-founder of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mick Harvey, has left. The news story is here, and I have to say it seems so amicable you could almost consider it a retirement. It seems that Harvey will involve himself in the forthcoming reissues series planned over the next couple of years.

2009-01-25T00:28:00.001Z

Rough Trade East instore - Darren Hayman (Hefner)
Monday 26th from 7pm in the Rough Trade East store, Darren Hayman will be performing his 'folk-opera' (ahem) 'Pramtown'. Free in, details here

2009-01-24T11:25:00.001Z

A democratic albums of 2008 list
Yes, over at Drowned in Sound they have finally uploaded the listener's votes for albums of the year. Their no1 and no3 would have been fighting for my album of the year, so I was surprised that I was kind of in touch with a block vote so much. I have no idea who Johnny Foreigner are, so at least I can still continue to feel old.

GIG REVIEW: David Grubbs, London the Luminaire, 22nd January

2009-01-23T11:25:00.003Z

( <----I even took a good pic <----)
The last time I saw David Grubbs solo it ended up being a fairly low-key unengaging affair, possibly more to do with the venue and audience than anything Grubbs was attempting to do onstage.
Tonight, in the fantastically suited ambience of the Luminaire, he weaves a spell with just a goldtop Les Paul and an hour long set of songs. I was suprised to find that he sang on everything tonight, although that wasn't at the expense of any improvising. The first 'song' for instance, is 15 minutes long and he doesn't approach the mic until 5 minutes in.
His guitar sounds lovely and he drifts from post-rock improv, through jazz chords to the traditional progressions of the Carter family. He is also in an upbeat, post-Bush mood, which is understandable really. Some of the material is from last year's album and seems well worth another listen, while his faithful version of Gastr Del Sol's 'The Seasons Reverse' brings the most appreciative applause.

2009-01-22T14:28:00.000Z

ATP additions: The Fans Strike Back
Two years after that mighty ATP vs the Fans event, the line-up for the follow-up The Fans Strike Back is starting to flesh out. More additions from the fans vote today.

2009-01-21T12:26:00.001Z

So, I joined Twitter so I could be nosey at Sonic Youth
Yes, I read this on Pitchfork and investigated the whole Twitter thing. So far they are the only ones I have added, I like spying on their mixing process, but fail to see what else it is good for. I mean we already have Facebook.

2009-01-20T00:25:00.003Z

A troublesome challenge.

Well it's my own fault for saying I would have a post-a-day as my New Year's resolution. Sadly the New Year coincided with my laptop being stolen, and the post-a-day commitment is looking a bit daunting right now. Perhaps by mid-feb I will have things back on track, but right now I am making do with the odd post like this - the equivalent of ticking a box or filling an empty space. Damn.

2009-01-19T16:28:00.001Z

Pitchfork: Animal Collective interview
Nice rambling Q&A with Animal Collective over at Pitchfork today.

2009-01-18T11:29:00.002Z

Myspace
I only ever use my myspace to listen to music I have never heard before or that I can't get anywhere else. I have 138 friends on it and I know 11 of them, all but 4 of those have music pages!
Friend adds tend to get a bit lost. I add them then don't listen to them for months, so I have decided to regularly review some of the music I hear on there. The odds are that I will be praising the musicians, as most of my adds have been unsolicited and I always have a listen before I add someone, and if I don't like the tunes you don't get added, simple as that.
So, during my new increased blog output period, expect regular updates on the music I hear on myspace.

2009-01-17T10:28:00.001Z

Music downloads - 95% are illegal
Interesting, if puzzling, article over at Drowned in Sound on the state of the music industry and how much revenue is supposedly lost through illegal downloads. Of course, it is a skewed statistic, ignoring the amount of people who fill their boots with entire artist discographies as well as those who have been downloading just to hear stuff. Happily, websites such as last.fm and the new kid on the block, Spotify are catering to the latter type of freeloading consumer.
The writer suggests two solutions, the second of which - creating a license which increases in cost in proportion to the amount of data downloaded - seems entirely sensible and in sync with current web strategies addressing this problem. It was the first solution which shocked me though. Bearing in mind that DiS is (or sadly, should is say was) a promising independent record label as well as a music reviewing website, I can see their desire to claw back some of this money lost. However, restricting our internet freedoms to bring them in line with China and Cuba is an astonishing idea. Also, bearing in mind that DiS incorporates a busy and often useful message board, this is the one that will get the people talking and generate the most web traffic, therefore pleasing their advertisers.
Those guys are no slouches ;)

2009-01-16T13:28:00.002Z

John Peel's Record Box, delving back in.
Nearly TWO YEARS later, I'm saying it's time to pick it up again. Here is where I got to. Geater Davis here I come.

2009-01-15T13:29:00.000Z

The oldest rocker in town
Happily this guy is more than twice my age, good for him. Lovely report.

2009-01-14T10:31:00.003Z

Goodbye Astoria
As most of you know, the Astoria will be demolished soon to make way for the crossrail project. News story here. The final gig is tonight.
Here is a sketchy and pointless list of bands I saw there, in both the main venue and the downstairs venue (the LA2 or the Mean Fiddler depending on the time period)
The Fall, Urusei Yatsura, Sebadoh, Elliott Smith, Hefner, Quasi, Underworld, ...And you will know us by the Trail of Dead, Rocket from the Crypt, the Strokes (first UK show!), Peaches, Big Star, Posies, Boss Hogg, Guided By Voices, Animal Collective, Fuck Buttons, Dirty Projectors, Battles.
Some great shows, although I much prefered the larger main venue even though it could get far too warm. You could see nothing downstairs! Always sad to see a venue closing. The train work won't be finished for eight years.

2009-01-13T23:26:00.001Z

I picked a quiet month to post every day
Well actually I had planned to report on the Animal Collective show last night, but I didn't go as I have NO MONEY! January hasn't been great so far, and most of my daily entries have been downbeat, but I guess that suits the season and the current economic climate. It's probably also due to typing everything on the clunky old computer in the back room as I wait for the insurance company to replace our stolen laptops. Things will pick up soon, I'm sure.

2009-01-12T20:58:00.002Z

40 years ago today: Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin
This has stood the passage of time remarkably well. Recorded by Jimmy Page over 36 hours in late 1968 it still sounds good. Lots of facts surrounding the recording of the album are on its wikipedia page.
Around 1983 someone played Communication Breakdown on Radio 1, and that was my intro to this album. This sounded way more punk than anything else I had associated with the name Led Zeppelin, and even now it seems more in tune with the proto-punk of MC5 and the Stooges, both of whom also released their debuts (later) in 1969. It isn't very typical of the album though, which is a hugely eclectic mix of blues, folk, late 60s rock and what would become known as heavy metal.
They wear some of their influences on their sleeves, with two fully credited Willie Dixon covers (You Shook Me, I Can't Quit you Baby), and two lifted from the world of folk - the sublime Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, which the reissue did justice by including the original writer Anne Bredon on the credits, and the instrumental Black Mountain Side which has a Page credit despite being a straight lift from Bert Jansch's Blackwater Side. They kept up this trend of pilifering bits of folk and blues over their next few albums.
A few special things make the likes of You Shook Me stand out from the standard white-boy blues peddled by Zep's contemporaries. First of all it's the way the band gel together, there are fantastic individual performances but they play together so well for a relatively new unit. Secondly, it's Page's fantastically warm guitar sound, beefed up by some tape trickery he learnt whilst a jobbing session musician.
The blending of Page's sustained guitar notes with Plant's vocals influenced many early metal acts, as did the sinister passages on Dazed and Confused. This was the first one to give ammo to the right wing Christian lobby against Zep, that descending minor scale when we hear about that "soul of a woman was created below" was all too much for them.
Today the album is regarded as a classic rock centrepiece, surprisingly high in Rolling Stone's top albums of all time, although apparently it was poorly received by the initial critics. If you remember that this band was working under the title The New Yardbirds, perhaps Led Zeppelin was too big an eclectic leap for the older fans. Album closer How Many More Times starts like it could be late Yardbirds or the Jeff Beck Group, but those sneaky additional five minutes give LZ the opportunity for some improvisation and ad-libbing which was to become a feature of the live act until they called it a day. LZ's lyrics never were a highlight but on this extended section improvisation can be the only excuse for them. That said, this album holds up extraordinarily well. As well as being guilty for launching some heavy metal cliches, this also set a high benchmark for how rock music should be recorded, and for that reason it fits in well with many contemporary acts.
It may be 40 today, but I heard it about 25 years ago and I'm not sick of it at all. I wonder how many more veteran recordings I'll be saying that about in December.

2009-01-11T12:22:00.002Z

What's coming up
I sketched a few ideas into a notebook about where I want this blog to go this year.
Basically, it will still revolve around (mainly) left field music, though there may be some asides from everyday life as well as non-obvious travel. There will definitely be some new interviews and some mp3s dotted throughout the year and a decent long post (or feature if you like!) every week.
The John Peel Record Box trawl will belatedly continue, and I am planning a recap of where I'm at with it very soon.
There will be 'reviews' of new music, as well as a look back at some of the music from 40 years ago. Some classic, some not so. I am trying to include retrospectives of albums as close to their anniversary UK-release date as possible. The first one is tomorrow, Led Zeppelin's debut. I will try and do a couple per month, on occasions where I don't know a release date, I will tag a release in at the end of a month.

2009-01-10T15:38:00.001Z

More political opinion I'm afraid
It's a bit out of character for me but I thought Naomi Klein was spot-on as usual in the Guardian today.

2009-01-09T14:27:00.002Z

Mind your ears
An interesting piece in today's Guardian on loud music and tinnitus. I am very attached to my earplugs these days.

2009-01-08T14:29:00.000Z

Florian leaves Kraftwerk!
I always have to worry about a group when a founder member leaves, but apparently he wasn't around for the last USA tour. News story here, and also check their offical site

2009-01-07T23:10:00.003Z

Byebye Baby Bird
Many years ago, when I was important enough to receive hot new releases well in advance, I was sent all of Baby Bird's lo-fi recordings, assured that these would be limited edition sketches of a greater body of work to come. Naturally, I kept them, in fact lots of songs from them are still well worth a listen. It was sad today to find all five CDs in a box set in the Fopp sale, total price £5. For anyone who is mildly curious about Baby Bird's music, that would be £5 well spent.

2009-01-06T22:23:00.001Z

Ron Asheton of the Stooges is dead
Sad news. I was just listening to their first album the other day, bizarrely just after that Iggy Pop ad was on telly. Some great music to remember him by.

2009-01-05T21:04:00.001Z

I don't usually get into politics, but...
Brian Eno's words on the current disastrous situation in the Middle East struck a chord with me.

2009-01-04T02:18:00.001Z

1969, ok...
Spent this evening trawling through some music from 40 years ago, looking at some of the albums released in 1969. Some stunners in there, Happy Sad, Trout Mask Replica, Monster Movie. What set me off on the trek though that year was the sight of the 61-year-old Iggy Pop - a man synonymous with 1969 cos of the Stooges tune - advertising insurance by dancing around topless ad saying 'get a life'. It's better than Johnny Rotten advertising butter, but not by much.