Wildbirds & Peacedrums
August 26, 2010
On the way to this gig, a friend asks for a description of Wildbirds & Peacedrums. “They make your insides shake,” we tell them. He raises an eyebrow. Another friend adds “but your heart is in your mouth.” He looks faintly suspicious as we arrive at the (lovely) Lexington.
Reading Festival
August 27-29, 2010
When the music at Reading Festival begins on Friday (following a boozy Thursday session in the town centre), a hangover is as welcome as the evacuation of vomit that preceded it (said sickness is still being blamed on an salmonella-friendly campsite BBQ on Thursday night). As the phrase goes, time stands still for no man (even one with a hangover) and a now-successful remedy is to get a cold pint of Gaymers (other ciders are available, just nowhere near the festival site) and head off to see some bands. … Continue Reading
Altar Eagle - Mechanical Gardens
Mechanical Gardens is the latest release from husband and wife Brad Rose and Eden Hemming’s Altar Eagle. It’s a soft lit romp between warm, fuzzy synthesisers and glassy techno bathed in the saturation of a super 8 camera. It could be the soundtrack to some hazy evening lost to the corner of an ATP chalet, or a dusty field filled with summer time, hangovers and the peaceful slow motion of an over heated, relaxed mind.
Considering his other projects (The North Sea, ajilvsga, Alligator Crystal Moth) Rose isn’t the first name you would naturally associate with soft focussed alt-pop but Mechanical Gardens is a triumph of rich, flowing electronic dream pop that offers ease of access into its nine crumbling, colour-bled tracks without resorting to gimmickry or forfeiting its calm, ethereal qualities to po-faced demands for melody. … Continue Reading
Ten Kens - For Posterity
Following a couple of personnel changes within their ranks the Toronto noiseniks Ten Kens locked themselves away from the world for a number of months to gestate this, For Posterity, their second album, and boy does it sound like it. Loud is definitely the word of the hour here whilst the sense of the frustration born of too much time in each others’ company is palpable throughout, so clearly they fed off the self-imposed studio confinement. … Continue Reading
Fan Death - Womb Of Dreams
We’ve all been there – wondered if Dave Grohl has died again this week and ended up three hours later stuck in a never-ending carousel of Wikipedia entries. Criticised for its lack of accuracy (although for reliability, the BBC has it only a gnat’s chuff off the Encyclopedia Britannica – but then, I found that factoid from Wikipedia itself), as “free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual, encyclopedia projects” go (again, lifted from Wikipedia’s entry on itself, which is already some fucked up feedback loop), when it comes to binging on pointless information, it’s a pretty cool resource to have. … Continue Reading
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
L.E.D. Festival
August 28, 2010
Competing with established gurnfests SW4 and Creamfields, not to mention the might of Reading and Leeds tempting tens of thousands out of the capital, it is somewhat of a bold move for L.E.D. Festival organisers to launch a new two-day dance event on the August Bank Holiday weekend. Reports from Friday were ominous; an extremely patchy bill topped by the horrifically turgid David Guetta was matched by a low turnout, mud and a barely audible soundsystem. Boasting the likes of Aphex Twin, Friendly Fires, Leftfield and everyone’s favourite comedy South African rappers Die Antwoord, surely the Saturday would fare better? … Continue Reading
PVT - Church With No Magic
While being robbed of their vowels by similarly-named Yank band Pivot would present something of an issue on Countdown, it seems to have proved a blessing in disguise for Aussie electro three-piece PVT. Not only does their new handle sound more like a physics equation, sitting comfortably with their bleepy maths rock output, they’ve used it as an opportunity to start over. And from the title onwards, this is an exercise in spiritual rebirth.
Beyond the name, the most obvious new development is that they have literally found their voice on Church With No Magic. Rather than applying vocal noises as just another layer of instrumentation, the songs are increasingly shaped around frontman Richard Pike’s actual singing, and his talent is such that you wonder why he didn’t pipe up earlier. … Continue Reading
Dylan Leblanc - Paupers Field
What Paupers Field does so beautifully is show that true anguish is weary and unhurried; heartbreaking in its resignation. Born-in-the-90s Dylan Leblanc, and indeed the album itself, are preceded by an impressively dramatic bio: dropping out of school to hang out with musicians, the murder of his grandfather, and his own drinking and depression all vie for pole position in his list of influences. As he sings on the opening track, “Are you feeling alright? Are you feeling low?”, you can’t help wonder who he’s talking to – us or himself. … Continue Reading
Magic Kids - Memphis
I don’t know whether it’s jealousy mixed with sheer admiration but I’m always quite wary of good music made by kids and at the same time incredibly envious of their youthful optimism and wide eyed innocence, as yet uncorrupted by the fickle music world. A great example of one of those bands is Magic Kids, a young band from Memphis who are attracting huge online attention for their sunny update of the ’60s California pop/Beach Boys sound despite only having had a few songs hit the blogosphere over the past year or so. That’s all it takes these days though and it has secured them a signing with True Panther Sounds and a debut album, Memphis. … Continue Reading
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