Muso’s Guide presents headliners Spiral Beach: “we can’t wait to be back!”
Muso's Guide presents... Canadian Blast
Spiral Beach are sonic rebels unafraid of breaking all the rules and having a party in the process! The band’s love of exploring different sounds and song structures is offset by their sophisticated sense of melody and elaborate vocal harmonies. And what’s more, we’re putting them in two weeks today! Spiral Beach are headlining our London Queen of Hoxton show on Tuesday November 24, playing alongside Hey Rosetta!, The Argument And How It Started and Redbluegreen.
The band has spent the last three years touring across the the United States and Canada with bands like the Hidden Cameras, The Go! Team and Tokyo Police Club, as well as performing in the UK in 2008 to celebrate the release of the ‘Voodoo’ single. They have also gained a devoted following in their hometown of Toronto thanks to their innovative live performances, putting on DIY all-ages shows in unusual venues such as art galleries, theatres, loft spaces and outdoor parks, which often feature audience participation and interactive visual projections.
The band has released two albums on Sparks Music in North America, 2007’s Ball (recorded by ex-Hidden Cameras and Arcade Fire member Michael Olsen) and their most recent album The Only Really Thing.
Are you looking forward to returning to the UK?
Yes of course!! It’s been over a year since we were in London, we can’t wait to be back! … Continue Reading
Much is made on Threatmantics use of the viola in place of a guitar, and rightly so. Whilst the instrument has seen a renaissance in recent years with the burgeoning London folk scene and the likes of Arcade Fire using one on stage, here it’s used in a slightly different manner by the band. Instead of being an additional part of their sound it’s very much centre stage. So while ‘Get Out of Town’ sounds like it could snugly fit on The Wicker Man OST elsewhere they sound more like Fairport Convention or Creedence Clearwater Revival playing in the same room as Physical Graffiti era Led Zeppelin. The heavier, thrasher feedback friendly nature of their side is played up heavily on stage and it’ll not surprise you to hear the occasional bit of Welsh might be slipped in.
Alessi’s Ark is the stage name of Alessi Laurent-Marke, whose debut album Notes from the Treehouse is due out next month and was recorded with the help of Mike Mogis (of Bright Eyes). Like the best pastoral folk music, Aleesi’s Ark seems to spend it’s time with a permanent sense of autumnal dusk. Augmented by Ohama’s finest strings, harps and brass which bring the best out of Laurent-Marke’s otherworldly songs, subject matter includes the weather, horses, kite-flying and freckles. There’s much to be enjoy here and plenty to look forward to with comparisons to a Cat Power fronted Thrills or even (though no less warranted) to Joanna Newsom or Syd Barrett’s wide-eyed, child like song writing being thrown up. She’ll be backed by members of Mumford and Sons this weekend.
One of the more surprising acts to qualify for this list, we were sure they’d be above the capacity for The Roundhouse. Whilst comparisons to Battles can and should be made, the majority of their numerically numbered songs include moments that bring to mind the electronic pulse of Holy Fuck as well as some much calmer post-rock interludes. Like and good live act they don’t thrive on volume alone, the tonal shifts and gaps between peaks and troughs are what make it all so thrilling. Might be worth earplugs if you are near a speaker, we wouldn’t want you to step out in front of a car on Camden High St now would we.
It’s reassuring to hear a band that has a fantastic, powerful vocalist who really does bring each and every song he sings up a level through sheer brute power. Not just by being loud either, there’s a sense of direction and unleashing it when appropriate. Mixed in with some sky-scrapping guitar work and cacophonous drums it adds to a thrilling prospect. Setting their sights on the Big Music of Echo and The Bunnymen and thrashing din of The Jesus and Mary Chain does them no harm and even in demo form a call to arms like ‘Middle of The Night’ begs to be ringing in the ears of as many punters as can be crammed it to hear it. Think White Lies but better.
It’s good to hear such a new band so in love with the sound of Young Scotland but not restricting themselves to solely aping Josef K and Orange Juice, recent EP Bred for Skills and Magic showcased not just a penchant for the styling of Postcard Record’s finest but throwing a dash of US indie in with nods to Pavement, particularly on ‘Bad Blood’, amongst others. They do the whole pared down; quiet introspectiveness as well as they do the choppy indie disco shuffle. One is tempted to point out that this is what early REM were so good at doing. Thankfully not really picked up in the crush to crown the next big thing at the start of the year, they’ve continued to tour hard in the first part of the year and we are eager to hear any new material they have to offer.
Your Twenties lead singer Gabriel Stebbing is currently best known as a sometime member of Metronomy, if his band’s forthcoming debut contains many more tunes like ‘Caught Wheel’ then that won’t be the case. Sounding like an electronic bubble fuelled 21st century take on a lost, blissed out Fleetwood Mac or even Crosby, Stills and Nash number if one can imagine such an aural treat. Other demos pride themselves in being catchy, hummable and full of swooning backing vocals as well as ringing, chiming guitar micro-riffs. Will be equally at home getting people to move their feet late at night or to have them wistfully dreaming of the warmer days just around the corner.
As winners of the NME Phillip Hall Radar award many words have been written on The Big Pink already. Following in the footsteps of Glasvegas, The Twang (No, really.), The Long Blondes, Kasier Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand it’s clear there will be plenty more. With the current folky flavour coming through in a many a new band taking their name from the title of The Band’s debut album may lead people to expect a certain sound from them. Well don’t. Instead they mix the processed, out of this world, woozy electronic pulses with the stoned, drone rock familiar to both of Jason Pierce’s bands and add in the sound of John Cale’s viola to (them again) The Jesus and Mary Chain’s early shoegaze template.
With the deluge of New York bands that sound like they are from Africa it’s only fair that we give the spotlight to a South African band that sound like they are from Brooklyn. The most thrilling thing about BLK JKS is that they don’t sound like the earnest elements of TV on the Radio’s output where they are striving to be considered as successors to Radiohead but more akin to the one those found on ‘Wolf Like Me’ The drums, the yelping multi-tracked vocals are only going to make you think of David Sitek and Tunde Adebimpe, but you can dance your arse as much as you can stroke your chin to it. They have just started their first UK tour but the loose tightness of the band on the Mystery EP from earlier this year can be put down to a decade of playing together. I realise that loose tightness is an oxymoron but the songs vary between arty sound colleges and close knit, rumbling, riff roller-coasters.) . On ‘Mystery’ they crash out like Purple Rain era Prince being backed by The Stone Roses’ Reni. The rhythm section is just as tight on their other songs fellow Manchester band The Smiths and on ‘It’s In Every Thing You See’ they bring to mind the gloomy hiss of Joy Division’s ‘The Eternal’ and the guitar guest work of Robert Fripp. Expect them to showcase material from their being worked on debut, After Robots which might sound more world music than Roxy Music in a live setting.
Named after the Underworld lyric from ‘Cowgirl’, Everything Everything dip their toes into so many genre rivers that twiddly art-rock disco doesn’t begin to do them justice. On demo ‘Weights’ they alternately sound like The Beach Boys hanging out at Studio 54 then The Futureheads via the more childlike rhymes of the Aphex Twin then The Beach Boys again via Daft Punk. On ‘Photoshop Handsome’ they mix a glorious new wave hooks full of video game references with post DFA guitar sunbursts. For anyone looking for a math-rock band who have heard some records this decade, sing like they mean it and allow you to move your feet (if you can lift them off the floor, it is Camden) this is the band for you. 
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