Small Engine Repair is a band that can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Every song from their debut EP, An Introduction To Small Engine Repair is shot through with an underlying sense of tragedy but decorated with a flurry of wryness. Take opening cut ‘Fall Down At Your Feet’; a track that speaks of a heart-broken pub landlord who find his wife ‘on her knees with the butcher’. … Continue Reading
The Phantom Band - The Wants
Proto-robofolk, alchemical art-rock and post-Stereolab krautrock; just three of the painfully pretentious genres dreamed up by journos to describe The Wants – the second release from Glasgow’s The Phantom Band. Yes, this Scottish sextet is as elusive to pin down generically as their name suggests. Yet unlike many other (often self-proclaimed) generic innovators, The Phantom Band are not just mindlessly hoovering up styles of music with the sole concern of how cool they will sound when some dweeb decides to hyphenate three equally crap genres and proclaim it the ‘hot new sound’. The Wants is a well-rooted album with a distinct flavour that, despite the generic undulations, maintains an industrial yet intelligent feel throughout. To put it bluntly, it’s bloody good. … Continue Reading
The Duke And The King - Long Live The Duke And The King
I am unemployed, and hence also very poor… and I live in the most expensive city in Britain. My intention in telling you this is not to invoke some sort of digi-pity (although any donations can be sent to paypal address), but rather to contextualise the warning I am about to issue about the latest release from the glam-soul-folk outfit The Duke & The King. Here goes…
If you are going through a directionless period of existence, do not listen to Long Live The Duke & The King, as it will stir a dangerous urge to move to a wooded area, live in a log cabin a begin a solitary existence where cute furry rodents are your only friends. … Continue Reading
The Dead Weather - Sea of Cowards
Prior to the official release of The Dead Weather’s second album Sea of Cowards the band decided to continuously stream the album on their website for 24 hours. This got me thinking, if you were to take a random selection of normal, well-toward, working folk, chain them up in a room and subject them to 24 hours of audio onslaught from Jack White and his alt-rock co-horts, what kind of twisted, haggard beasts would emerge? And just as every online White-aholic in the world decides to stop reading, I assure you, I ask this in a totally positive way. … Continue Reading
Jónsi - Go
“Life is better with the ash cloud”, mused one of my friends upon looking up at a smooth, uninterrupted blue London sky; a no go area for planes due to the gravelly discharge of an unpronounceable Icelandic volcano. This serene, enchanting sight of an empty, calm and pristinely natural sky is the perfect visual accompaniment to Go; the debut album from Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi, appropriately also from Iceland. … Continue Reading
Boris Dlugosch
When I loaded the latest single from the German deep house producer Boris Dlugosch onto my iPod I was half expecting it to go into a state of shock due to the presence of such a foreign body on its hard drive. Not that I have anything against German deep house but I guess I always tended to equate it to doner kebabs, brilliant at 3am when you’ve had a skinfull but not so advisable at any other time. Which is why I was somewhat shocked when I heard ‘Bangkok’… and actually quite liked it!
This German barrage of bass kicks off with a rather straight drum beat and synth line, however this is just regular façade of what is, on the whole, a rather edgy track. The main hook sounds like a Smurf with a hollow wooden arse having its head slammed in a door whilst being smacked on the rear end with a drum stick, well it does to me anyway…..and I love it, and you should too!
The background to this Smurf-related assault is provided by a deep, crunching bass beat so dark and murky it should be housed in London Dungeons; equally brilliant.
However, this track also seems to have one foot in the past as a vintage sounding ascending synth line conjures images of old Daft Punk albums, before being crushed by the London Dungeon bass blob and Smurf assaulting drummer.
Thank you, Boris Dlugosch, for giving me my first pleasant sober experience of deep house, and thank you also for deciding what I should have for lunch tomorrow… extra salad and garlic mayo please!
Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
So what exactly is a supergroup? Tracing the history of the supergroup it seems to exist less as a musical term than as a marketing strategy; bestowing members of bands adorned with the supergroup crown the luxury of being able to release an album of shoegaze Wham! covers and still guarantee that some sad git will buy it. One thing is for certain, however: whatever the hell a supergroup is, Them Crooked Vultures definitely are one. So what is the product of the Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul-Jones collaboration actually like?
On paper, Them Crooked Vultures’ self-titled debut album should be a prime cut of rock and roll steak, in reality it’s more a McDonald’s drive through; still good, but I couldn’t have it every day. The real joy of Josh Homme in QOTSA was always the unadulterated groove he could bring to even the most simple of riffs. It is this groove that a majority of TCV’s debut album lacks, riffs seem regular and regimented when they should be sleazy and sexy, album opener ‘No One Loves Me and Neither Do I’ is a prime example of this. … Continue Reading
Join the conversation...