The first Bon Iver LP, For Emma, Forever Ago, appeared complete with a rather romantic back story. The mental image created was of a collection of songs recorded by Justin Vernon on his own in monk-like seclusion in a remote log cabin. Whatever the actual conditions of the recording of For Emma, songs like “Skinny Love” certainly conjured up the backwoodsy, heart-on-sleeve feel of sincere and home-crafted folk music. … Continue Reading
Aidan Baker is a prolific man – a very prolific man. Whether churning out ambient soundscapes under his own name, laying down semi-improvised droning doom epics with his main band Nadja or releasing material in collaboration with other like-minded sound artists or other fringe projects, Aidan Baker releases more material in a year than many bands or artists release in their entire careers. Unless you are a Baker completist the question that arises with each new release is ‘is this an essential one?’ … Continue Reading
Grinderman - Grinderman 2
The first Grinderman record, for all its successes, left many questions unanswered from some quarters. Was the ‘Grinderman’ project one with any future or just a fun one-off? Was it just Nick Cave and a few of his cronies messing around? Songs that weren’t good enough to make it onto a Bad Seeds record? Grinderman 2 (has there been a lazier attitude towards naming records since the early days of The Tindersticks?) doesn’t exactly answer all of these questions, but it goes a long way towards making the listener not give a damn either way about them. When a record sounds this good who cares? … Continue Reading
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Hawk
Isobel Campbell has released several solo records, both under her own name and as The Gentle Waves. Though they all have their charms, especially 2003’s superb Amorino, they all suffer from the same problem – though she’s clearly a talented songwriter and she is unarguably possessed of a beautiful voice, her vocals do lack the bite and the presence to really hold the listener’s attention for the length of a whole LP. Kristin Hersh she is not.
Which is why her first collaborative LP with Mark Lanegan, Ballad of the Broken Seas, was such a triumph. Campbell took charge of the bulk of the songwriting and arranging, Lanegan brought his trademark gravel-throated vocal swagger and the end product was a Mercury-nominated minor classic. However, 2008’s follow up Sunday at Devil Dirt seemed to have a bad case of sequel-itis. Sticking rigidly to the same formula of Campbell’s soft high voice floating above Lanegan’s deep rough one whilst the Americana-tinged rock played subtly beneath them, it seemed like a less-inspired version of its predecessor. … Continue Reading
1234 Festival
July 24, 20201
The 1234 Festival has a rather unusual ambience, set in a smallish London field and overlooked by the Hackney council estate tower blocks. It has a very definite selling point though: it is the festival for the credit crunch. Twenty quid is all it takes to gain entry to a day of musical treats ranging from Peter Hook galloping through ‘Unknown Pleasures’ to hardcore favourites Fucked Up and Rolo Tomassi tearing it up. … Continue Reading
Sun Kil Moon - Admiral Fell Promises
“No, this is not my guitar,” sings Mark Kozelek on ‘Alesund’, the opening track of Admiral Fell Promises, and listening to the guitar work on the album you are more than inclined to believe him. The first thing that stands out about the new Sun Kil Moon album is the guitar work: completely acoustic and intricately picked out in true ‘classical guitar’ fashion – Kozelek sounds like an indie version of Julian Bream throughout the record. … Continue Reading
The Wave Pictures - Sweetheart EP
“When the sheet slides from your chest / It helps to have a reason when you’re fondling the breasts / of the wife of the guy with the knife across you neck.” Peddling the kind of guitar/bass/drum straight-ahead indie that you’ve probably been listening too for a very long time, The Wave Pictures need something to stand out in this most crowded of crowds. Where a lot of ‘guitar music’ has homogenous and anonymous lyrics, The Wave Pictures revel in specifics and story telling: the words tell a story and the stories are always worth listening to. … Continue Reading
The Dodos – Time to Die
I’m not embarrassed to admit that I still love the Pop Will Eat Itself song ‘Wake up! Time to Die!”. I probably haven’t heard it played for about a decade but I can still hum you the chorus. Similarly, It’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen Bladerunner, but that line “Wake Up! Time to Die!” delivered with such gleeful venom by Leon the rogue android will probably stay with me until I die. In stark contrast to thisTime to Die, the new Dodos album, is utterly forgettable. I’ve listened to this record at least twice a day for the last week but I honestly can’t recall much about it.
The sound of the album is (breathe) polite indie and it remains so unvaryingly throughout. The sound is that of a few young men enjoying playing their music, but ultimately without anything whatsoever to say. You feel like this should be a very promising time for The Dodos: the popularity of bands like Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear with whom they loosely share a musical bracket (and a penchant for animal names) should give them a leg up to success. Unfortunately there is none of Fleet Foxes soaring anthemic quality or, for example, Bon Iver’s yearning lyricism; nothing to raise this record out of the ‘bog standard’ camp or to make it live up to its predecessor, the far superior ‘Visiter’. … Continue Reading
Lounge On The Farm
Festival season’s truly in, so here’s another in our comprehensive series of reviews before we swan off to Latitude tomorrow morning…
Friday July 10
Lounge On The Farm is a small festival but there is no mistaking that it is a real festival. Within two minutes of arriving I’ve seen a large man in a pink t-shirt playing slide guitar blues, used a fresh air urinal and been assaulted by street-teamers promoting the next young band. I’m only in time to catch the very end of Casio Kids but even a short blast of their high-energy positivism is enough to set me up for the weekend.
The Sheepdip tent hosts most of the rock action for the weekend and its here I head to watch It Hugs Back. It takes them a good while to set up, they have 15 effects pedals, a macbook, a synth and a sampler to organise. However, despite all the technology, when they come to take the stage the sound is straight ahead indie guitar inextricably stuck in the mid-90s. “When are they going to play ‘Kill Your Television’?”, my friend asks.
Ghost of a Thousand, Brighton based screamo upstarts, play the sheepdip tent next and generate far more energy in their soundcheck than the preceding bands managed during their actual sets. They then play an unrelenting set of hardcore with zero pretensions towards being ‘math’ or ‘tech’, they are all about the straightforward thrust of kick drum to sternum. They whip the young crowd into utter frenzy; until you’ve seen a hundred teenagers with asymmetrical haircuts slamdancing around a circus tent then you haven’t lived.
There is a similar circus tent further along hosting the weekend’s folk; I pop in and catch the Jonquil set as it disintegrates, ‘I think we’ve run out of things to play’ the singer admits mournfully before they salvage things with a stirring version of ‘Magdalen Bridge’.
A new addition to the festival this year is the Furthur Field, which is where the older festival-goers congregate to watch the acts aimed at a more mature audience. It even has a purpose built stage and a light show, although the endearingly amateurish atmosphere is maintained due to the fact that the sound-crew’s area is made out of hay-bales. It is here that we watch Gong, 1970s psych-freak survivors, on Friday evening. They certainly put on a show: the singer arriving onstage in a mirrored wizard costume making mystical benedictions at the audience. It almost compensates for the fact that he can’t actually sing terribly well. Almost. The band pump out meandering solos and quirky instrumental passages, you can imagine Mercury Rev listening to this lot 15 years ago and making lots of notes.
Back at the Sheepdip tent there’s time to catch Joe Gideon and the Shark. As they are a duo comprising a male singer-guitarist and a female drummer pedalling raw bluesy rock they are always going to struggle to escape comparisons to The White Stripes. They use a sampler, layered vocals, songs that tell stories and some very theatrical drumming and do end up convincing you that here is a band with its own identity.
The headline acts play in ‘The Cowshed’ which is exactly that. In preparation for the festival they’ve moved the cows out and decorated it with dishevelled Victorian chic. Tonight a packed cowshed crowd watches The Horrors loom out of the dry ice. They play a Primary Colours-heavy set that the majority of the crowd laps up although I am unconvinced. The vocals have so much reverb on them that Farris sounds like Brendon Flowers trapped down a very deep well. As the set continues you are left with the impression that The Horrors really only have one song and that is a song that has a stamp saying “if found please return to The Jesus And Mary Chain” on it.
The Headliners at the Folk tent are A Hawk and A Hacksaw, and tonight they’ve fleshed out their violin and accordion with trumpet and other strings to give themselves an engaging full gypsy folk sound which meanders across Europe and beyond in its influences.
Saturday July 11
Before their set I catch up with The Wave Pictures and chat to them about the festival (bit of a panic relating to equipment they didn’t bring and found out they needed, Jonny had a pie, it was good), the reaction to the success of Instant Coffee Baby (apparently there has been more of a gradual increase in their fanbase than a huge leap in popularity) and their recommendation for a pre-Instant Coffee record for their new fans to check out (eventually they settle on ‘The Airplanes at Brescia’). It’s then time for them to take to the stage and The Wave Pictures proceed to shred face. Well, at least as much face as a trio of skinny white boys playing indie rock can be expected to shred. Their audience is mostly static, neither moshing during the faster numbers nor (despite David’s insistence) slow dancing to ‘If you leave it alone’. It’s hard to see what else they could do to move the crowd: bass and guitar solos are traded amidst some frantic drumming and sing-a-long choruses about marmalade and sculpture. Maybe everyone is still exhausted after Ghost of a Thousand yesterday.
The Wave Pictures are followed onstage by The Temper Trap. This lot do get the crowd moving to an extent but then they have the advantage of a three guitar assault and a charismatic frontman prone to joining in with the drumming. Equal parts earnest, sweaty and fast: it’s not hard to see them getting huge.
Over in the folk tent there’s 6 Day Riot a six piece folk ensemble who (despite the guitarist’s gold lamé braces) demand to be taken seriously. The folk audience have been sitting on Hessian mats for the preivous bands but get to their feet straight away when invited to by the charismatic singer. Their last song also gets us singing along and almost morphs into ‘Teen Spirit’ at one point; quite a way to go out.
The Aliens play over at the Cowshed and they could show Gong a thing or two about cosmic pych-rock and how it’s done in the 00s: faster, louder and with a wall of sound. Even the wackiness is more streamlined: the singer disposing of his comedy headgear a few songs in. He’s got the tunes. He doesn’t need it.
They are followed by the Dub Pistols whose sonic chaos attempts to put the trombone at the heart of a rap/rock crossover and almost succeeds. We are exhorted to “make some fucken noise” and we do. Everyone is happy. Happiness could well be a theme of the festival; perhaps due to the excellent weather almost all the bands seem to be bringing on the good times and playing with smiles on their faces. This is not the case however with S.C.U.M, they revel in misery as they wade through 80s goth sonic sludge of their own creation. I’m left wandering how flattered the Horrors must be to have already spawned their own tribute band.
There is some angst and insecurity also in evidence in the folk tent with The Sargasso Trio. The guitarist announces that the last song ‘my microphone’ is ‘about Emily’s stage fright. She craps herself before she goes onstage. Not literally, well sometimes it’s touch and go’. Nice. The song starts and it’s clear that she has the powerful voice that makes these insecurities totally unwarranted.
The weather has been good consistently during the weekend but it starts to rain in earnest just in time for the entire crowd to decamp to the shelter of the Cowshed for headliner Roots Manuva. On the way I pause in the rain to check out Figital, a violin and turntable duo whose cover of the theme from Knightrider is well worth getting wet for. Roots Manuva fits the headline spot perfectly. Despite starting slowly, a few songs in and Rodney Smith has us exactly where he wants us: chanting along to ‘Too Cold’ “Sometimes I hate myself/ Sometimes I love myself” . Roots Manuva certainly knows how to put on a show and we forget our fatigue and the rain outside for the length of the set.
Sunday July 11
Despite the meteorological doom-mongering, Sunday turns out to be the hottest day of a festival already blessed with (mostly) very good weather. Lounge on the Farm is proud of its accessibility to families and children so I bring my pair of under-five daughters along with me to put this to the test. First up we see Monday Street, a band they both declare are ‘too noisy’. They play straightforward bluesy indie rock and, yes, it is noisy. It has passion and energy, but it does not get the toddler vote. The kids retreat to the Little Lounge area where the eldest gets a princess painted on her face and the youngest does some abstract art and clay modelling; they both have a good time. Note to self, next time bring some mini ear-protectors. Or breed tougher kids.
Because of the relatively small size of the festival it is easy to do a quick circuit of the main stages and dip in and out of what they are offering. Delicious venison burger in hand this is exactly what I do. Today The Woodentops are chugging away pleasantly enough in a mostly empty Cowshed, while the Soundcasters rock away at the Sheepdip. With their cheery guitar led melodies, matching outfits and cello bodied guitars the Soundcasters look and sound exactly like a 60s boy band, for better or worse. Meanwhile in the folk tent Chris TT brings a more sinister edge to proceedings. Alone with an acoustic on stage he intones: “I broke her ankles/She was leaving me/Coming back to you/What else could I do?” The Lounge on the Farm festival doesn’t really do dark though and so he quickly cuts through the gloom by pointing out ‘I didn’t really’. He then sings a song about a hedgehog.
Bent also have a trombone but they don’t use it to the same effect as the Dub Pistols did on Saturday; mid set they are plagued by technical problems and sound more Limp than Bent. The singer salvages the set with some dreamy languid pop vocals towards the end. Trombones could be the closest that the festival comes to having a theme, Yearner Babies also employ one over in the Sheepdip tent. Although they could be backed by a 50 piece brass ensemble wearing fluorescent jackets and they still wouldn’t distract your attention from the singer for a second. During songs full of passion and energy she combines shape-throwing charisma with genuine singing talent. Worth missing Billy Childish for? Damn Yes. … Continue Reading
Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship
I really don’t dance. But listening to this new Tortoise album, damn I wish I did. In fact, listening to Beacons of Ancestorship for too long makes me get involuntary muscular twitches that could soon escalate into dancing. I’m guessing here a few people are going to be scratching their heads and wondering if I’ve got the right band. The Tortoise we all know and love are a cerebral instrumental rock/jazz/misc outfit more likely to make us think and soundtrack our sense of sophistication that tap our toes.
It was noticeable on their last release – 2004’s It’s All Around You – that they were starting to get themselves pigeonholed as a band more likely to affect your brain than your heart, your feet or your genitals. Tortoise always seemed to stray away from prescribed genres, to flirt with a bit of post-rock here, a bit of funk there and so on but always to carve out a niche for their own. The problem was that this niche was becoming so well-worn they were in danger of creating a genre all of their own and never escaping it. … Continue Reading
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