Spectrals/Fair Ohs Split 7″

Spectrals/Fair Ohs

The current D.I.Y scene in East London seems to be producing quality bands and recordings at an incredible rate, with a range and depth of sounds that means if one of these bands aren’t for you, then the chances are two or three others will be. A few of these artists have recently been brought together on the Italian Beach Babes/Paradise Vendors Inc compilation available here, which serves as both a summation of and introduction to what has been going on. While the scene’s most prominent band and driving force behind Paradise Vendors Inc, Male Bonding, are off to tour the U.S. with Vivian Girls before the release of their debut album on Sub Pop, back in the UK Fairs Ohs and Spectrals are busy building up their own followings with limited releases like this split 7”. … Continue Reading

Kubla Khan – London Indigo2

Kubla Khan

February 19th 2010

Kubla Khan have transformed over the last few months.  Their last London gig, at 229 Great Portland in November, showcased a good band but lacked a decent frontman.  That’s not to say singer Matt Heanes was bad – far from it, in fact.  He just lacked that showmanship quality that a nine-piece band needs.

Fast forward to February, then, and how things have changed. Matt was visibly more relaxed, and interacted much better with the audience. Wandering about the stage and shouting “How you doing?… I said how you doing?!” it was evident his confidence has grown since the last time they were in London, and rightly so.

Heanes has a great voice, and Kubla Khan are a very tight band musically. Funk should be something you can move to, and the band as a whole seemed to be juxtaposed between chilled out and high on adrenalin. ‘Karma Comes Around’ is a catchy song which I still find myself humming to a week after the gig, and it was good to see the band having fun on stage whilst they played; the horn section were rocking out when they weren’t playing, laughing and joking with each other.

… Continue Reading

Shearwater, London Scala

Shearwater

February 25, 2010

The Scala is almost its own death knell for anyone fortunate enough to have seen Shearwater play the Union Chapel in ‘09, where the fluidity and sky-scraping power of their repertoire peaked in a setting so perfect it was as if custom-tailored. The audience sat on pews like a dedicated congregation, the stage spot-lit to maximum effect with every movement and sound microscopically audible. … Continue Reading

Midlake – The Courage Of Others

Midlake - The Courage Of Others

In the three and a half years since the release of what eventually proved to be their breakthrough record, The Trials of Van Occupanther, Midlake have seen the musical landscape shift in a manner which is unquestionably favourable to them. The sort of beardy, woodsy Americana they specialise in has swelled to a wider popularity with the successes of the likes of Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and Bon Iver. It could reasonably be argued that the slow-burning success of Van Occupanther paved the way for these artists to reach mass acclaim. This has made The Courage of Others a much-anticipated album, all the more when you consider the lengthy wait we have endured for its arrival.

And really, there’s no doubt that it has been worth the tantalising wait. What they have delivered to us is a quite different record from Van Occupanther, but one which is ultimately an even more enriching and rewarding listen. It might be less immediately obvious than its predecessor (which in itself is hardly an instant hookfest), but the more it slowly seeps into your consciousness, the more spellbinding it is. … Continue Reading

Yeasayer – London Heaven

Yeasayer

February 23, 2010

In Heaven, not everything is fine. The beer tastes like ass, and the men’s toilets smell worse than ass. But ass isn’t important here, not tonight anyway, because the sound at least is near divine.

There’s a hell of a lot of people, a varied grouping at that. Not surprising given the fervent hysteria Yeasayer’s Odd Blood is currently stirring among the music press. If All Hour Cymbals was Dad’s little folk secret, Odd Blood is the electro-psychedelic party music for da yoof, and all have gathered this evening.

Yeasayer’s support comes from fellow Brooklyn twosome Javelin. Their set is accompanied by an ’80s movie montage of assorted promo videos featuring Casio keyboard demos, tennis lessons with a mulleted Andre Agassi and BMX biker clips. Javelin’s synth and drum pad shtick provides quite the novelty soundtrack, and while I’m sure this ironic gimmickry goes down a storm in Brooklyn, here the 80s was an achromatic time, and the two dimensional songs do little to stir an attentive audience now cramming into the vault of Heaven. It’s the curse of the support act. In their defence, Javelin play with genuine moxie that keeps the audience captivated. But that’s not why we’re here.

… Continue Reading

Archie Bronson Outfit – Coconut

Archie Bronson Outfit - Coconut

You would never mistake a track by the Archie Bronson Outfit as a Bob Dylan number. Yet whatever the “thin, wild mercury sound” Dylan strived to create for all those years actually sounded like in his head – or on Blonde On Blonde, the record on which he felt he came closest to realising his musical imaginings in exterior reality – it’s a description that seemed equally fitting for this Wiltshire trio’s previous album, Derdang Derdang.

In tracks such as ‘Modern Lovers’ and ‘Got To Get (Your Eyes)’, it was frequently a fraught, claustrophobic affair that could leave listeners’ stomachs feeling tight and skulls tighter still. Guitar lines sparked, drum beats cracked, vocals cut through the air. It was a thrilling LP that seemed to capture the cold light of an overcast morning reflecting off smashed glass and shattered mirrors. … Continue Reading

Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

Reviewing the new Joanna Newsom record mere days after its release feels like a self-defeating task.  While all music writing is essentially various attempts to express the inherently inexpressible (and you can either fail well or badly), the sheer size, scope and intricacy of Have One On Me guarantees failure – at this stage, fans, musicians and critics are still just listening; there should be no writing – I should probably stop here. This is an album that unwittingly acts as a retort to the people who bemoan the speed at which music is consumed nowadays – it’s a triple album, composed largely on a harp, and the second track is an eleven minute song about a daddy long legs. You can’t blog Have One On Me; you can’t cherry-pick the singles and delete the rest. Welcome back, Joanna Newsom. … Continue Reading

Spoon, Amsterdam Paradiso

Spoon

February 18, 2010

If you would look at a photo taken at this gig you might be led to believe that Spoon is a band of middle-aged indie-rockers standing on a stage and simply playing their own instruments to no theatrics at all. I mean, there they are, these men around the forty from Texas, standing there without much ado. They are dressed reasonably sharp, I’ll give them that. No Interpol antics though. However, the venue is almost at full capacity, and it would be absurd if all these people paid 20 euros to see some guys simply play their own instruments, right? Right? Luckily Spoon isn’t just any old indie-rock band. In Amsterdam they give three convincing reasons as to why they are at the head of their class: their oeuvre, their ability to play, and the “secret” theatrics and literary elements to their music. … Continue Reading

New Young Pony Club, London Islington Academy

This is really NYPC - image by Natalie Shaw

February 22, 2010

Before being given a sneaky preview of New Young Pony Club’s new album (due out March 8th) The Optimist, I’d have cowered at the idea of their new material forming the backbone of my listening habits for longer than 10 minutes. That’s not to say the debut Fantastic Playroom was insubstantial, more just temporary and self-imposedly limiting; its aping of the ‘78-’81 was niche, sure, but more than that – it failed to whet the appetite for much more. And this contextual cherry-on-top adds even more fervour to Tahita Bulmer and her band’s charming comeback in a show where they fully free themselves from the restrained sound of yore. … Continue Reading

Race Horses – Goodbye Falkenberg

Race Horses - Goodbye Falkenberg

In these lands we traverse, we find certain regional musical similarities some would consider clichéd: the cheeky English, the dramatic and sometimes miserablist Scottish and the zany, somewhat psychedelic and slightly tongue-in-cheek Welsh. I’ve missed out the Irish because it’s saved me a further generalisation, and the risk of potentially alienating another nation for the sake of some tenuous regional cohesion. Race Horses, formerly Radio Luxembourg, being Welsh, of course fit snugly into their respective camp – and this is no bad thing. … Continue Reading