Record Review - Head South By Weaving & Alison O'Donnell

HEAD SOUTH BY WEAVING & ALISON O’DONNELL

The Execution Of Frederick Baker

Ritual Echo LP

Following on from their 2008 single covering Nico and Nick Drake, cult prog-folk icon Alison O’Donnell (formerly of Mellow Candle) and Hampshire’s Head South By Weaving reunite for a full album.

Marking O’Donnell out from many of her generation is her willingness to experiment with a range of current musicians, including the experimental Irish free-folk collective United Bible Studies and the glassy brilliance of The Owl Service. Here, she and HSBW are generally in measured mood – the overall musical feel is of gentle folk-rock, but the music is awarded complexity through some striking lyrical themes.

Throughout her career, O’Donnell has always bitten and scratched her material with her voice. Songs like ‘Fleeing Limbus’ continue this tradition, mixing some violent and chaotic imagery with a stinging vocal delivery, all underpinned by a mellower musical base. Elsewhere, such as on ‘Bird In A Cage’, O’Donnell and HSBW interact with folk tradition, coming up with a Trees-esque beast of epic ambition.

Jeanette Leech

Record Review - Mondo Jet Set

MONDO JET SET

Provincial Drama Club

Pink Hedgehog CD

Double albums, eh? Isn’t the traditional reviewer response to say ‘well, this could have made a great single album’, and lambast the self-indulgence of the creators? Indie duo Mondo Jet Set seems like the least self-indulgent band going. Provincial Drama Club does offer 23 tracks, yet none top four minutes, and most come in under two. Boredom isn’t really an option with this particular double album.

Firmly in the C86 tradition of shambolic cuteness, the melodies are joyous, and the vocals are extremely appealing; the sweetheart male voice stays the right side of wet even when the music itself gets a little too cloying (notably on ‘We Are Having A Pyjama Party’). There’s also room for more strident songs, like the great ‘Moth Attack’ which recalls something from the late ’90s on the Kill Rock Stars label, and the rhythmic ‘Cadaver In Motion’, its New York post-punk aesthetic charmingly filtered through polite English delivery.

So, no – it shouldn’t have been a single disc. Provincial Drama Club is an album that deserves its running time.

Jeanette Leech

Record Review - Elephant9

ELEPHANT9 WITH REINE FISKE

Atlantis

Rune Grammofon CD/2-LP

Atlantis sees Scandinavian trio Elephant9 tackling their fourth album with the aid of Swedish guitarist Reine Fiske. And it’s a beauty – a steaming full-throttle mash-up of rock and jazz that could strip paint.

Imagine Soft Machine or King Crimson at their dizzily inspired free-form best, with a shot of ’70s Miles Davis thrown in for good measure.

Opening track, 'Black Hole', sounds like it’s about to collapse under the weight of its own momentum, its layers of analogue keyboards sounding deliciously fuzzy and distorted over furious drumming - genuinely exciting stuff.

'A Foot In Both' is gently bucolic, spidery guitar skittering over glasslike keyboard shimmers before 'Psychedelic Backfire' kicks up the dust again with an almost Sabbath-like riff of pile-driving heaviness built over a two-note bass hook. Despite the furious technical chops on display, things never get too cerebral or too clever. This is music which aims for the gut, rather than the head.

Neil Hussey

Record Review - The Lemon Clocks

THE LEMON CLOCKS

Now Is The Time

Jam Records CD

The Lemon Clocks wedge themselves firmly in the lineage of illustrious Liverpudlian psych-pop bands. They’re a trio of multi-instrumentalists who sport their ’60s influences proudly, melding them with a ’90s indie aesthetic so seamlessly that 'Life Is Like A Dream', for example, sounds rather like Teenage Fanclub covering The Beatles.

If that kind of thing appeals, then you’ll like this album a lot. 'The Bright Side' and the title track both have a pleasing Byrdsian jangle, and it’s only the odd squelchy synth sound and the polished production values that locate this record in the present.

'Rainbow Bridge' breaks the spell – its trippily repetitive riffs and rhythms and thickly applied smears and smudges of heavily reverbed guitar recalling ’80s/’90s riff-heavy psychonauts Loop. 'Better World Beyond' has the requisite backwards bits and phasing effects, but the overall quality of the material marks them out as more than clueless pasticheurs.

         

Neil Hussey

Record Review - The Luck Of Eden Hall

THE LUCK OF EDEN HALL

Alligators Eat Gumdrops

Self-released CD

What strikes me about this, the fourth LP from The Luck Of Eden Hall, is how English much of it sounds, despite the band’s roots in deepest Michigan.

Admittedly, the title track combines garage band riffing and self-consciously trippy lyrics into its brief lifespan, and Bangalore mixes up heavy ’70s drums and guitars with spidery sitar embellishments, (“Batgirl does Bollywood” is how the band themselves describe it). 'Ten Meters Over The Ground' though, has a catchy, sax-driven Bowie/Mott style chorus, and 'Amoreena Had Enough Yesterday', with its swathes of cosseting Mellotron, evokes nostalgic reveries of a fabled Englishness that possibly never even existed.

The band have a winning way with a melody: 'A Carney’s Delerium' layers guitars and mellotron in a lovely, evocative soundscape; and 'Summertime Girl' is a pleasingly warm and fuzzy mix of acoustic guitars and organ which generates enough warmth to ease the winter chills outside.

Neil Hussey

Record Review - Lord Fowl

LORD FOWL

Moon Queen

Small Stone CD/LP

Connecticut four-piece Lord Fowl are a stoner-rock act with classic rock leanings and a real eye and ear for quality riffs and melodic songwriting. What I didn’t really get from this album, however, was a sense of anything particularly original or groundbreaking.

The band has clearly mastered the formula on tracks like ‘Woman King’, where the riffs, vocals, powerful rhythm section and mood coalesce into something genuinely incredible. All too often however, the band just seem super-competent and self-assured rather than utterly transcendent.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical here. Chiding a stoner-rock band for unoriginality is like complaining your plate of fish and chips isn’t a bowl of snail porridge. While I would unreservedly recommend this album to any fans of stoner-rock, if you only occasionally dip your toes into the genre then you might want to wait for the next bus to come along.

Austin Matthews

Record Review - The Condors

THE CONDORS

3 Item Combo

Vital Gesture CD

Imagine you and your mates are holidaying in LA and stumble across their equivalent of the Dog & Duck, advertising ‘Live Music Tonite’. After a few sharpeners, you hear the familiar crackle of buzzing amps being switched on and mics being tapped.

“Pretty f***ing good”, you all agree as local boys The Condors race through a set of tight, gruff-ish, powerpop originals. A couple of sherbets further down the line you reckon you’ve discovered the new Fountains Of Wayne and snap up a copy of their new album 3 Item Combo (which sits alongside the first two on the tiny merch stall by the bog – “all complete classics”, according to beefy chap running it).

Next morning, you can’t wait to stick it on, which is when your fuzzy head suddenly realises The Condors remind you of that bloke Derek from Southend and his bluesy, new wave outfit, The ’Triffics, back in the ’80s.

There’s no doubt The Condors can kick ass, it’s just that they sound too uncomfortably close to yet another Feelgood-inspired British pub rock outfit – even with those jen-you-wine American accents.

Chris Twomey

Record Reviews - Surf-Age Nuggets

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Surf-Age Nuggets: Trash & Twang Instrumentals 1959-66

Rock Beat 4-CD Box Set

100-odd selections of beachy twangdom are on offer here. There’s enough drum rolls, coiled guitar runs, and doses of maximum treble to fill up both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. I was delighted to hear so many gems that were new to my ears (the emphasis being on relative unknowns of the genre, thus the “Nuggets” in the title), in addition to old favorites like The Vistas’ ‘Moon Relay’ and The Cherokees’ ‘Uprisin’’.

The 60-page booklet is a treasure that contains images of record covers, gig posters, comic strips, magazine ads, etc. all of a nature in keeping with the sounds on the discs. It’s odd to be listening to a box set of surf music here in November, so for now I’ll suffice with the couple of much-enjoyed spins I’ve given the set, and in the meantime I’ve informed my friends that I’ve got first dibs on the stereo when we meet up for our annual beach vacation next summer.

Brian Greene

Record Review - Singing Adams

SINGING ADAMS

Moves

Records Records Records CD

Singing Adams is the vehicle for Steven Adams, formerly of The Broken Family Band. This, the group’s second album, is a loosely connected suite of songs related to modern life in London: not the most original concept, one might reasonably claim.

However, Adams finds something fresh in Britain’s over-exposed capital city. He does this by being what could be termed ‘old-fashioned contemporary’. His subjects are up-to-date, and include two mediations on the 2010 riots (‘Black Cloud’ and ‘London Trocadero’), yet his tart-but-humane songwriting style has a long lineage. Adams, rather than sitting easily with the current crop of indie troubadours, has more in common with the generation before him: the latest albums by The Weather Prophets’ Pete Astor and Gene’s former frontman Martin Rossiter are its bedfellows.

The jangle is solidly played, and it’s not solely serious reflection; in fact, Moves is at its best when it allows itself a certain cuteness, notably on the Belle & Sebastian-ish ‘Theme From Moves’.

Jeanette Leech

Record Review - Desert Ships

DESERT SHIPS
Control/We Write The Sound
self-released D/L


Londonʼs dream-pop three-piece Desert Ships have that 80s/90s psychedelic indie sound just right. I suspect this is partially achieved by their producer, one Mark Gardener (Ride). Decamping to record ʻControlʼ and the rest of a forthcoming debut album Doll Skin Flag in an Oxford farmhouse with him sounds like a hoot, and this confident-sounding single should win them even more deserved fans.

ʻControlʼ is all cinematic swirling guitars, equally light and heavy - a true sonic cathedral of noise allied within a three-minute pop song. The strings are tasteful enough to come in only towards the end. The drum sound is very much in the Ride vein, carrying the song forward without ever overwhelming. Everything just sounds right. Close your eyes and it’s 1991, the sun is out, and your new beau hasn’t yet deemed to dump you, but the signs are already there.

B-side ʻWe Write The Soundʼ is different. An angry bass riff is drowned out by star-sailing warm guitars and that immense drummer again and his life-affirming beats. It’s got that early Mercury Rev feeling, which I’m glad to hear back in my life. The hypnotic, repetitive vocal line is irrepressible and a tasty as a summer wine.

It will take you mere seconds to downloads this excellent single - go do it, now.

Phil Istine

Record Review - Le Kid & Les Marinellis

LE KID & LES MARINELLIS
Les Jolies Filles
P Trash LP/DL

These Montréal, Canada super-rock indie-garage kids have released their sophomore effort. Singing in their native French is admirable, but my GCSE level understanding means I have no clue if they're singing about revolution, sex or their supermarche shopping list.

The songs are mostly a rather innocent take on the classic, infancy period of rock’n’roll. My favourite songs are the Elvis at Sun meets The Coral rumble of ‘Dis-Moi’ and the 60s harmony folk-punk of ‘Je Ne Grandirai Pas’. Elsewhere are touches of Bolan/Bowie (‘Personne Ne Dit’), rockabilly(‘Homme Soixante’), Ramones-style punk (‘Les Jolies Filles’), Libertines-y gypsy skiffle (‘20 Ans’), and Strokes-indebted new wave-garage (‘Gina’).

The playing from everybody is excellent, but the songs aren’t finished in a way I haven’t heard before. A lot. I like that they can be accomplished with many styles, but where you sit on the diversity versus lack-of-focus side of the fence will decide whether you want to delve into this fun-packed smorgasbord. In conclusion: you should go have a listen, for you’re likely to find something that tickles your fancy.

Phil Istine

Record Review - Little Annie & Baby Dee

LITTLE ANNIE & BABY DEE
‘State of Grace’
Tin Angel Records


Singer, painter and actress Little Annie (Annie Bandez) is cult stardom personified. Nearly 32 years after releasing her first single on Crass Records, the New Yorker is still, ahem, a well kept secret. Yet her fans and ‘celeb’ collaborators such as Kid Congo Powers and Marc Almond regard her as a legend who’s always pushing boundaries.

As various times the New Yorker has dabbled in punk, reggae, electronic, industrial – and other experimental musical forms. Now, though, Little Annie has teamed with composer Baby Dee, a transsexual who’s also a classically trained harpist and circus sideshow veteran, to create this collection of songs which sound as though they were nicked from a weird fringe show. Guests include Bonnie ’Prince’ Billy who duets with Annie on the title track, his singing providing welcome contrast to her theatrical EarthKitt-ish vocal style. It shouldn'’t come as any surprise that the pair are mutual admirers: they’re kindred spirits intent on finding back routes that will keep them well away from the big crowds hovering just around the corner.

Chris Twomey

Record Review – The Rolling Stones

THE ROLLING STONES

Grrr!
abkco

Fucking brilliant! It's the Stones. 'Doom & Gloom' is still edgy, and people like me can now even actually listen to shite like 'Harlem Shuffle' in context and get their way through three (or more on the expanded editions) CDs charting 50 blimin' years of Mick & Keef. It's the Stones innit? Grrr sounds great and the selections work wonders – from 'Little Red Rooster' to 'Angie' to 'Start Me Up'! Buy it, make these poor old fellas richer and knock some awful shite off the top of the charts this Xmas. Now that's an order!

Jon 'Mojo' Mills

Record Review – The November Five

THE NOVEMBER FIVE

If You Are Satisfied You Are Dead
Montauk Industries CD/DL

This London-based combo have been getting some good press and a fair amount of airplay over the last year or so are. Like many new UK groups that are striving to be seen and heard, The November Five look also to past rock ’n' roll noisemakers for a lot of their inspiration. This is evident on this, their debut long-play offering where their sonic palette takes in a whole assortment of influences. However, I can't say I'm overly enamoured with the resultant noise they make. Vocally, it's the same ghosts that the majority of yesteryear's indie-types professed allegiance to that are heavily in evidence. So the likes of Lou Reed-style tones and that particular ilk are quite prevalent here and certainly inform the more reflective pieces. 

With such as 'Picking Up The Pieces' (with its lyrical "echo" references) and 'Breathe', what really springs to mind more than anything else is, rather conveniently, the style of Echo & The Bunnyman's Ian McCullough. The guitars seem to be all well-effected by heavy use of reverb etc on most of the selections, but, unfortunately, I don't really hear anything here that's wild, great or special, or that makes me think this is anything to get one's self hopped-up about. I was also a bit disappointed to learn that there isn't much in evidence here that suggests that any kind of garage, psych or ’60s rock-style records have infiltrated their thinking or playing style any, which is a shame as that is what I thought I was going to be hearing, but of course that's my, and not their fault. However, for what it's worth, the overall sound and feel of the drums and bass are, for this writer anyway, just quite lifeless and rhythmically plodding really, rendering their efforts dull and ordinary. Mostly everything here has that horrible modern samey sounding flat-ness to it.

Whatever it is, I can categorically say that this is not for any of the fuzz-loving, or discerning garage / psych nuts out there.

Lenny Helsing

Live Review - Laetitia Sadier

Laetitia Sadier
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
November 12 2012

Commanding the small Ifor Bach stage with a casual chanteuse grace, Miss Sadier launches proceeding's tonight with 'Rules of the Game'. Immediately lulling all present into the sweet and prescient beauty of the new Silencio album. The last time she graced a stage in Wales...And indeed my last encounter with her, was when in 1999 Stereolab sent the legendary TJ's venue in Newport town into an ecstatic trance when they performed to a full house. Heady day's that seem a lifetime away now. Tonight thing's flow with an equally engaging but more eloquently displayed flow.

Even though Stereolab always approached all of their art with a stylish, artful attention to detail, within Miss Sadier's work there seems to be an even greater attention to sophistication and space. The lyrical concern's continue the exploration of Socialist ideology, only now they are wrapped in a more Spiritual landscape. Filling the intimate venue with a luscious expanse of symphonic warmth 'There Is A Price To Pay for Freedom And It Isn't Security' is a prime example of this. It is a major pointer to why Silencio has made my Album Of The Year slot. Flowing majestically over the audience it is followed by engaging renditions of 'Auscultation To The Nation' and 'Lightening Thunderbolt' which a hit a more Motorik groove before lulling us into the beautiful exotica of 'Find Me The Pulse Of The Universe'.

The latent continental charm that underlines the performance tonight it's apotheosis with a riveting rendition of 'Silent Spot', before Miss Sadier is enthusiastically brought back for a spirited run through 'Statues' and a finale of 'Etoile'. An evening of assured but quiet dignity and engagement that assures us that from tentative beginnings, here is an artist now fully flourishing in her own kingdom, a place that can only point too more glorious heights that await.

Andi Edwards

Record Review - The Dancers

THE DANCERS
The Box EP
VID Records 7"/CD

Heads up! Italian bubblegum power-punk-garage trio The Dancers should probably be called The Pogoers, for that is what you feel like doing whilst listening to their fast-lane assault on the senses.

This white vinyl four-track EP has a lead song less than a minute long. How's that for confidence? 'The Box' is 80s/90s power punk classicism condensed to its purest form. 'Heaven Is Ok' follows the same path, with some cliched stop-start riffing. 'It's Because of You' has no hook to speak of. The gabbling 'Dance When You're Dead' rounds off a thoroughly monochrome effort. The singer doesn't sound too comfortable singing in English at any point. The drumming isn't without merit though, and indeed is a powerful force throughout.

You like Green Day? Go fill your boots here. As many of our readers probably hate them, you're best off trying before buying.

Phil Istine

Record Review - Liquid Sound Company

LIQUID SOUND COMPANY 
Acid Music for Acid People 
Rockadrome CD 
The mainman in Liquid Sound Company, John Perez, is also the guitarist in epic doom act Solitude Aeturnus, whose 1990 album Into the Depths of Sorrow is highly recommended if you like that sort of thing. Here, however, he turns his hand to a sort of psychedelic eastern-influenced jam music, a formula that has served the band well on two previous albums in ‘96 and ‘02. 

The tracks presented here are a compilation of songs of varying provenance – jams recorded with the full band, an instrumental recorded by Perez solo and two live tracks recorded in 2000. This leads to an obvious lack of cohesion, though the material is generally excellent, ranging from the heavy oriental psych of ‘Liquid Sound Freedom’, to the bell-clear ambience of ‘Morning Sun’ and the crazy live bombastica of ‘Preparation for the Psychedelic Eucharist inside the Acid Temple’. Some of the recordings are more lo-fi than others but all retain the deep mind-blown spark that makes this album so enjoyable.

One of the tracks here is called ‘Agitation Free’ and that band’s Malesch album is a good signpost to Liquid Sound Company’s sound. While there’s some unevenness here and the recording quality variable there’s always enlightening psychedelia abounding across every track. That’s real psychedelia rather than ephemeral pop music with a few silly noises on top. Outstanding stuff.

Austin Matthews

Record Review - The Cubical

THE CUBICAL
Arise Conglomerate
Halfpenny CD

Despite this being their third outing, I'm somewhat ashamed to say that The Cubical is a completely new name to me. But on the evidence of this it is also one which I'll be taking note of in future.

They're a group who are taking particularly engaging strides within their chosen medium, and bring with them a whole, if not new, then it's certainly a quite different slant to what most of us think we know already; for all intents and purposes, it's the blues really. But not for The Cubical the relatively safe road of the trusty twelve-bar turnaround, or the White Stripes and for that matter Black Keys minimalism, or the overly polished style of a 'Later with Jools' rootsy ensemble that the blues is much associated with today; vis a vis also what R&B now represents.

I especially love all the individual sounds that have been created here: the vibrancy of the guitar tracks, the drums too are just how I like to hear them, open, rolling and with great natural resonance, their driver capable of coaxing the best from the kit.

In Dan Wilson, The Cubical also have a very strong vocal presence, and some (most even?) will immediately begin to compare him with such names as the late great Don Van Vliet, alias legendary weird-oh Captain Beefheart. Others may suggest a very young Tom Waits, or perhaps even Nick Cave? While that's maybe not too far off the mark at times, given the lead growl Wilson has been gifted with, there's also a little of the early Magic Band (Cptn B's musical compatriots) style beat-blues approach on certain numbers. Examples of may include the bouncy soul-fired opener 'On The Weekend', the more garagey pop sounding '123 Girl' and also the excellently placed, thoroughly cutting 'Moron Culture'. However, there's also enough of the group's own merit, grit and glue - in the above-mentioned titles and elsewhere - so as not to tie them down too much to what would be an all-too obvious source of inspiration.

Here and there they offer the odd, more melodious sentiment, and slow, mournful, almost dirge-like passages too that at times can almost lull the listener into a kind of false sense of security. But you have to beware as this Liverpool lot can just as quickly turn on a sixpence and their sharp teeth noise can bite pretty hard.

Lenny Helsing

Record Review - Thee Dang Dangs

THEE DANG DANGS

Stone Coast EP
self-released DL

First release from this 4 piece, female led outfit from Denver, Colorado that revels in loud guitar, reverb, fucked up surfer bluesand more reverb. Coming across like a banshee led surf/rockabilly band being recorded from the back of the hall Stone Coast's opening track 'Midnight Come Rolling' might steal its riff from The Easybeats but that's where the similarity ends as the vocals, smothered in reverb,take over and the sound gets progressively heavier and uglier. From there it's the rockabilly riffs of 'Cowboy' as the 60s are dragged out of the back room and put on display in a big empty beer barn with the sounds bouncing back and forth off the walls.

'Talk Talk' continues the vibe, a punk surf tune with a guitar riff that hooks you pretty damn quick before the wail and repetitive blues of 'Aldous Huxley' drags you down into the mud. 'Hourglass' finishes the set with what could have been a beautiful sixties pop tune if it weren't for the distance between Ray Koren's sweet guitar riff and the echo of Rebecca Williams vocals but it's still a sweet way to finish and to show that there's more to this band than just the power and raunch of the earlier tracks. Thee Dang Dangs are like a bunch of kids brought up on those 'Born Bad'/'The Songs The Cramps Taught You' albums being let loose in the local club with their dad's musical equipment and no boundaries and that has to be a good thing.

Kami McInnes

Record Review - The Prisoner Of Mars

THE PRISONER OF MARS

Gestalt
Self-released DL

Cambridge based one man band POM has put together an album that makes me thank the (dark) lord for eccentric English bedroom philosophers. What we have here are eight tracks of bizarro psych pop, new wave experiments and fey tunes that remind me of the glory days of the 45. Not the a-sides but the b-sides when bands would experiment and have some fun in the studio. Opening with the delightfully poppy 'One Day They'll Get You', the album soon moves onto the Gary Numan rehearsal riff married to a bedroom 80s new wave band of 'I Only Need Just You', the jamming pub rock of 'Dignified Dancer' and the new wave top of the pops of 'Super Duper'. There's more though, like the faux industrial tune 'Leaving Us All Behind' and the bizarro parallel world of 'Broken Record' and 'Just Can't Work It', which are the sounds of David Bowie if he'd never had another hit after 'The Laughing Gnome'.

This is an album for those bored with the lack of surprise in modern pop, this is an album of the b-sides, the experiments, the fun: short, sharp, fresh and always entertaining. Best of all this is an album that stands up to repeated listening. And he has plenty more where this came from, including his take on the Stones classic Their Satanic Majesties Request! Do yourself a favour, have some fun, you won't be sorry.

Kami McInnes