Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, from near the front of main stage: atop a sign, below a screen
August 28-29, 2010
Leeds Festival is a sheer delight. The crowd isn’t necessarily dead excited for one band in particular, more enthralled by the sheer amount of things at its disposal. … Continue Reading
My offshoot Pic ‘n’ Mixx is putting on its biggest show to date!
Tuesday 10 August, Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen
Pic ‘n’ Mixx presents… Lucky Soul + The School + The Lodger with How Does It Feel To Be Loved + Pocketbooks DJs
Tickets (£9): http://www.wegottickets.com/event/86890
After a storming DJ set at Indietracks Festival over the weekend (review coming soon), it’s now time to formally announce this amazing show – I’ve been trying to put on Lucky Soul for ages! It’s a welcome return to the Pic ‘n’ Mixx stage for The School, and a new ‘n’ shiny ‘yo’ for The Lodger. And I’ve got Ian from How Does It Feel To Be Loved (one of the best nights in London, I’ll have you know) playing tunes between the bands, and Dan from Pocketbooks spinning some stuff after the headliners. Woo yeah!
Ne-Yo
Last night I was invited along to posho members’ club The Hospital in London town’s trendy Covent Garden, to listen to bits of Ne-Yo’s upcoming album Libra Scale (to be released in September – the 21st, i do believe) and watch him do the very same while sat on a stylish leather desk-chair.
Oh and in case you were wondering what exactly an album playback entails, it goes a little like this: we are sat in rows, with Ne-Yo on the stage in front of us telling us stuff about each song before we’re played it back while he sits with his into-the-music eyes closed, just taking it in; chilling. And so on, for half of the album’s tracks – or thereabouts, it’s unclear.
And then after the tracks are played, there is somewhat of a Q+A session, where I choose to interject and splutter into a microphone with a voice unable to project and certainly unused to hearing itself that loud, that SOFT. But more on that later, for it is not your main reason for being here. Alas…
I took a notepad and was going to make my report rather pretty by doing some more research and doing proper sentences and that sort of thing, but instead, I will merely transfer the scrawls to a more intelligible and computerised font, so that you can read it, oh readers. … Continue Reading
James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem
July 3, 2010
Levels of apprehension aside, for being in a space with so very many other people, the line-up for today is patchy, sure, but better, home to some of the mega A-list; a seemingly once-in-a-lifetime appearance from Missy Elliott is placed midway down the bill in an absolutely puzzling move, with even ultra-celeb Snoop Dogg lower down than LCD Soundsystem. While ‘big’, two-nights-at-Brixton-Academy big doesn’t seem to run straight with the night before’s headliner P!nk, and the night after’s Jay-Z - let alone in terms of genre/audience-consistency running throughout each day’s programme. But this much is obvious, and it makes the events enfolding after the backdrop was laid down all too predictable. … Continue Reading
Janelle Monae - Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
July 1, 2010
Beware: Janelle Monáe has her sights set far broader than the confines of Hoxton Bar & Kitchen.
Entering the stage to the left of two be-cloaked dancers wearing long, pointy-nosed masks recalling both Eyes Wide Shut and something more sinister, more shadowy and more Illuminati, anticipation is high and the temperature is higher on this hot summer night. And this era-less imagery in combination with Monáe’s taut, asexual monochrome dress is just one vehicle for expressing not only the characterisation at the heart of The ArchAndroid, but also her desire to be the next biggest and most undivisive star. … Continue Reading
tUnE-yArDs
June 23, 2010
Make no mistake: tUnE-yArDs‘ show displays the sort of oomph, pizazz and prowess to induce full-on obsession. And this higher-than-ceiling level of intense fangirling is not just emitting from me, on a whizzaround analysis of whoop-levels and dropped jaws. This hyperbole isn’t unexpected either, with Merrill Garbus performing like she’s got just five seconds to impress. From the moment she launches, she’s connecting and giving it everything with her phenomenal vocal range, blinding arrangements and an immense helping of charm presented near-aghast, with bulging eyes and direct calls to the crowd to interact. They’d do anything for her by the time the first song’s over…
From the beginning of the set to the grand finale of ‘Sunlight’, there’s never the sense of a momentum waiting to kick in, or the foreboding feeling that the next gear’s about to be reached; the entire show runs at optimum power. There is, however, a lurching feeling for each break and Mariah-high squee – just like Garbus‘ phenomenal show at Cargo earlier in the year, these frequent ‘moments’ are received with whoops, hip-shakes and wordless glances between audience members.
There’s the sense that we’re watching tUnE-yArDs as a ‘we’ rather a solitary ‘I’, in the presence of a performer with a blindingly unusual talent. The concept of layering one voice, tapping out African-influenced patterns on a single drum and picking out histrionics on the ukulele appears divisive at first, but Garbus breaks it down to make her mix look the norm. And the self-effacing yet super-confident nature of Garbus‘ show takes a hammer to the canon by showcasing the personality and drive at the heart of her vision.
There’s an incredible contrast between the complexity of this set’s genre-hopscotch, and the fresh and simple way it’s presented. Each slice of vocal is precisely slipped atop the previous, forming a tUnE-yArDs choir, and just how raw and exposed the processes are on stage automatically breaks down the obscurity. The construction of songs from BiRd-BrAiNs and Garbus‘ frankly astonishing new material (’Gangsta’ and ‘Business’ the highlights) is clean and simple, with her dense vocals propelling the songs to impossible levels of exciting. ‘Hatari‘ is played out with deliberately ugly facial expressions, mirroring the often uncomfortable, personal lyrics in tUnE-yArDs‘ music, and each move feels perfectly placed.
Another striking observation is the guises Merrill Garbus conquers. She plays the sultry soul singer on ‘Real Live Flesh’, the hip-hop guest vocalist on ‘Gangsta’, the torch singer on ‘Fiya‘, the Alp-dwelling yodeler on ‘Hatari‘, even slipping into a punk frontwoman persona on ‘Do You Wanna Live?’. It’s more than just vocal stylism, adding a degree of acting and conversely childlike role-play, pinpointed by repeated sounds and call-and-response vocals.
The fun is replicated by the band she’s got with her tonight (as a one-off), comprising two almost-choreographed drummers, a guitarist and her regular touring bassist – they come in for occasional songs to add power and provide a human spotlight for tUnE-yArdS. Even as a heftier line-up, the additional members thankfully never overpower the main act, but they certainly do test the limits of the venue’s sound technicians.
Sitting somewhere over tUnE-yArDs‘ live show is an intense sense of relief, one where I realise I’ve found my new favourite. Each of her enormous strengths are so concentrated and visible, so when the songs are delivered, it’s a touching experience to gaze around the room at an audience wrapped up in the warm blanket of Merrill Garbus‘ vision. The excitement never dips, making the second album my most anticipated release in the limitless future. And watching this crowd move between rapture, open-mouthed wonderment and sheer, unfettered delight at not just the familiar songs but the new, suggests I’m far from alone in that thought.
The Drums
June 7, 2010
There’s a marked contrast between the simplicity of pop put out there by Summer Camp and The Drums. The Drums’ music – save being heard in isolation, for ‘I Feel Stupid’ is a great big chunk of fun-pop – is ungraciously distilled if you’re vaguely familiar with the 1960s, Sarah Records, C86, Labrador Records, Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, Beach Boys or The Smiths. Their main trick is in producing a stream of concussed-simple lyrics encouraging dumb dancing as reflex. Summer Camp, on the other hand, offer pure pop key changes, beautiful nostalgia, two entirely distinctive vocals and intricately put-together songs so adorable they feel like they’re soundtracked the ’80s I imagine my older (, dafter) incarnation to have lived. … Continue Reading
Our Lost Infantry - The Arsonist/Scissorfight
A bias is one thing, and a love is another; I chose the brilliant Our Lost Infantry to open our show in January at The Lexington in London, based – primarily – on a few scratchy recordings.
It turns out that they put on an incredible show, piling in their energies and excitement into a blinding set. And then it turned out that WET Records – the label of John Earls, former main man at Teletext’s Planet Sound, where I used to write once upon a time – had decided to put out OLI’s double A-side. … Continue Reading
Wax Fang at Pavement ATP - photo by Laura Scott
May 14-16, 2010
Why ATP is awesome
So to All Tomorrow’s Parties, the discernibly indie cousin of Booze Britain. Welcome. A welcome to endless silliness, chalet parties into the dawn and fairground rides with strangers. A festival with a bonus prize of beds, showers, and power naps (recalled in hindsight) on the barriers of ear-piercingly loud Times New Viking sets. Of lots and lots of fun, and week-long hangovers and eyesight-deterioration after it’s all over. Of really long reviews… … Continue Reading
Everything Everything - photo by Jonathan Fisher
May 10, 2010
It’s with some intrepidation that I head through Koko’s doors, for I’ve not only fallen harder still for Everything Everything, but I’m tinged with doubt and fear following their disappointing turn back in November at the ICA. Thankfully, I’ve not added a hyperlink to my own review of that very show because on this showing tonight, the words just make the both of us look weak. We need not make reference to the near-immediate past.
The four-piece’s awkward beats and crazily intricate arrangements are perfectly pitched behind lead singer Jonathan Everything’s dizzying falsetto tonight, Koko surprisingly rising to the clarity test. That they make the whole mix sound this simultaneously dippy as crystal-clear is insane, as the unpredictability of ‘Suffragette Suffragette’ bears not only surprise after surprise, but a race through a mind at breakneck speed. … Continue Reading
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