Hinterland Festival: Make Sparks, Spectrals, Mystery Jets and more

Hinterland

April 3, 2010

In the current financial climate it’s always good to welcome back an urban music festival for a second year, especially one that has been refined to make it better than the previous one. Glasgow’s Hinterland is this year centred on The Arches and five other small venues, three within five minutes of Glasgow Central Railway Station.

Make Sparks are first on my radar, a band who like most bands within a 20 mile radius of Glasgow, will get rightly or wrongly get compared to Frightened Rabbit. There’s more to them to that and although I do indeed hear shades of We Were Promised Jetpacks and Franz Ferdinand. Their chiming, charming single ‘Rewind’ even throws a bit of a Postcard Records sound into the mix. If they write a few more songs like that with a little more of their own voice, their cover of Eminem’s ‘Just Lose It’ might well end up making its way onto Radio 1′s Live Lounge.

On the other side of Scotland, there seems to be more of a leaning towards Montreal, specifically  of Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene. The Kays Lavelle are one such example of this, half an hour later in Sub Club. With the fiddles, banjos and pleasant nature of their songs it would be easy to lump them under a big tent with The Wilkommen Collective, Mumford and Sons and Broken Records – especially after these charming young men politely converse with the crowd about such pleasantries as their own weddings. That though would be sidelining the icy, elastic snap that their better songs employ.

Completing the lazy up-and-coming Scottish-band-what-sounds-like-current-established-Scottish-band bingo are Little Yellow Ukuleles who aim beyond The Wombats and Dananananaykroyd and towards Biffy Clyro with their angular, anthemic, stadium-aimed rock. “Unamazing, but with bold drum sounds” is my verdict.

Warrington’s Spectrals really impress me, with their laconic, louche Jonathan Richman-esque vocals, and that Moshi Moshi are releasing a single of theirs is no surprise. In spite of earlier Mary Chain comparisons (c’mon, this band isn’t even from Scotland! [Ed: he wrote that bit himself]), they will end up being put in the same pigeonhole as Girls, The Drums and The Strange Boys – check out the surfy instrumental and early rock ‘n’ roll aping for the reasons why. With some self released tapes in their discography, they might even get picked up by glo-fi aficionados broadening their palette this summer.

The main events back in The Arches are British Sea Power and Mystery Jets. A snazzy attired British Sea Power give a stirring, if short, performance of songs mainly from their debut – and a little from 2008′s Do You Like Rock Music? The set is bookmarked by ‘Scottish Wildlife’ from the Man of Aran soundtrack, and ‘Spirit of St. Louis’/ ‘Rock In A’ which sees a welcome, if inhibited, role for BSP’s Ursa Major, a 7ft bear-costume (with Jeffrey Lewis inside it) pawing at the band.

Dismayed with the way that should-have-been-hit-filled 21 was badly promoted by 679 before they dropped them, Mystery Jets‘ new songs are a welcome relief. Those that unfamiliar with their last album are converted by ‘Half in Love with Elizabeth’, ‘Young Love’ and a storming rendition of ‘Hand Me Down’, but in their armoury they seem to move on from Haircut 100 to wanting to soundtrack Top Gun. 3rd album Serotonin sounds like it’s going to be the soundtrack to the summer with massive soft rock, Blur circa Modern Life Is Rubbish, and even New Order on ‘Dreaming of Another World’ at hand.

It would be good to have the festival back next year, maybe roping in a few more venues and bands both local and national to compete with Stag and Dagger for dominance of the Glasgow festival dollar.

LCD Soundsystem, Brixton Academy

LCD Soundsystem

I’ve been reading about James Murphy rather a lot, of recent. Much of the commentary is preceded with a “but he’s hardly New York cool, is he?”, or a “lawks! he’s a right self-depreciating geek”-type proviso, which is true visually (wow) but strikes me as journalists falling down the trap he’s laid out for them. His songs mince up and freeze and re-shape this ‘cool’ thing near-academically, de- and-reconstructing vogue like maths, which may be ‘geeky’ if you’re a one-gig-a-year punter but for those falling into the other camp, it’s something far more substantial. It’s music, and an intimate understanding of its power. … Continue Reading

Caribou, London Corsica Studios

Caribou - photo by Natalie Shaw

April 20, 2010

Caribou rip apart Corsica Studios tonight. Dan Snaith‘s web of sound gets so fraught and tight that it explodes, leaving a formerly modest crowd fixated on a lengthy set. There’s not enough room in the sold-out venue to physically express this, so a crazedly-focused silence has to do. Snaith is joined by a drummer, bassist and keyboardist, and himself switches between keyboards, guitar and a second drum-kit, mixing old and new input.

‘Melody Day’ from Andorra whips up a fever quite differently to how I’d anticipated. Why? Because the recordings sound so perfect, so compelling, I imagined much of the live show to be drawn from samples rather than this flatly laid-out live show. But no, I’m mind-blown – it’s like all of the layers have just found each other, somewhere deep below, and happened. … Continue Reading

Hafdis Huld/Bodebrixen/Katzenjammer, London Lexington

Bodebrixen

March 18, 2010

With Radio 1′s Steve Lamacq putting together the line-up for this episode of Ja Ja Ja, the regular celebration of Nordic music, the bill proves 66.6(recurring)% spectacular, one-third too whimsical. … Continue Reading

The Joy Formidable – Birmingham Academy

The Joy Formidable

March 20, 2010

With squinted eyes, it would be quite plausible for someone to mistake tonight’s support band, Baddies, for The Futureheads. With squinted (what is the aural equivalent of squint?) ears it would perhaps be more plausible to reach the exact same conclusion. The foursome’s high octane pop rock certainly shares the toe tapping and the head nodding qualities of said Mackems but despite being extremely polished and confident for a support in a gig this size, there’s something lacking here to elevate the band beyond just being an adequate appetiser to the oncoming main course. … Continue Reading

Wild Beasts, Newcastle Cluny

Wild Beasts

March 19, 2010

You may or may not have noticed it in the last year or so, but we here at Muso’s Guide are quite fond of  Wild Beasts. After a raft of thoroughly deserved acclaim for their second album Two Dancers (including their capturing of the number one spot in our writers’ collective top 50 of 2009, and the Editor’s), the Kendalians’ bandwagon is trundling merrily on with their current tour in support of the single release of ‘We Still Got the Taste Dancin’ On Our Tongues’. Ably supported by the darkly captivating work of  Lone Wolf, and Erland and the Carnival, whose bouncy, mildly pyschedelic pop invokes the untethered sense of adventure shown by the early recordings of The Coral, Wild Beasts are quite clearly in the form of their lives. … Continue Reading

The Tallest Man On Earth/Alessi’s Ark, London Bush Hall

March 15, 2010

A man and his guitar. A bearded man and his guitar. A Swedish bearded man and his guitar. A Swedish bearded man with a penchant for Bob Dylan and his guitar. A Swedish bearded man with a penchant for Bob Dylan and his guitar that I’m now head over heels in love with. The difference between all of its proceeding observations and the last one is its unlikeliness, in a world obliterated by folk musicians and their relative diluted incarnations. … Continue Reading

Memory Tapes, London Cargo

Memory Tapes

March 13, 2010

The first time I caught Memory Tapes was at the tiny Social, in the gig-desert that was January 2010. It was his second ever show and with zero-expectation, proved spectacularly invigorating.

Two months on, and Dayve Hawk is back in London on the stage of a sold-out Cargo. And conversely, high hopes are met with a flat atmosphere, a still-short set and just too much nonchalance. … Continue Reading

Islet, London Lexington

Islet - image from thisislet.com (the unofficial fansite)

March 5, 2010

I could prepare for writing this review by trawling endlessly, needlessly for track names, photos, and an overview of what the selected few hacks who’ve written about Islet have to say. I did, in fact, and it turns out that more’s been written about their decision – be it because of a lack of recorded material or otherwise – to shun the internet. They have no MySpace, sure, but the fact is that an image-search reveals their appearance, a look at their Last.fm or Songkick page (subject to gig promoters’ efficiency) tells of their upcoming tour-dates and press, just like this, is still filtering through. They’re proof that hometown-phenomena still happen. … Continue Reading

Field Music, London Scala

Field Music

March 3, 2010

Field Music are avant-pop doyens. That sure sounds pretentious but it’s shorthand for “Field Music should be selling out the Royal Festival Hall but audiences’ attention-spans just aren’t big enough to let that happen”. They sell out the Scala no sweat, which marks the well-deserved success of their comeback record Field Music (Measure), but tonight – while a great platform for their instrument-swapping skills, astounding musicianship and general loveliness – lacks magic. … Continue Reading