Well, here I am strapped into my capsule in preparation for another blast off to the planet of the Acid Mothers Temple and this album doesn’t disappoint. A large crash and we are straight into “Space Speed Suicide.” Immediately Kawabata Makoto’s Hendrix style guitar solos assault our ears over a massive Pink Fairies-like riff underneath and some wildly clattering drums. This is the violent explosion of Saturn five rockets at the beginning of the journey into space with a big head-banging tune to boot. This is the moment you are down the front at one of their shows doing ape-shit hippy dancing while lights and smoke flash around you. It’s take off time!

“Born Free Stone Free” has a punchy sixties style riff similar to something the Edgar Broughton Band would have knocked out. Its vocals drenched in acid-sounding reverb, this is the sound of the UFO Club in one song. The guitar solo is totally out there and is a true wig-out performance. This could easily be background music for some groovy club scene from a film made in 1969. Shimura Koji’s drums keep pace wonderfully under the massive chords kicked out by Tabata Mitsuru, one of AMT’s best-ever tracks. “Babe I’m Gonna Reave You” has big blues chords under some chaotic lead guitar. The track begins to sound as if someone is doing a comedy version of a Led Zeppelin-style standard blues song. Here the guitar solo dominates so much in the mix it pushes the other instruments into the background. This is certainly Acid Mothers with the tongues firmly in their cheeks, but it still manages to capture that early ’70s sound as well as destroy it.

With this album AMT dip their toe into wider sound structures and come out the other end making a superb pure acid-soaked album. The only weak link is “Babe…” but seeing as its one of the shortest tracks on the album don’t let that put you off grabbing this release. The album is full of incredible music; I would suggest lava lamp on and some of Dr Hoffman’s finest and let the music carry you away to some ancient temple on Mars, by the time you return everything would have changed…

-Gary Parsons-

> Print this page

Bearded Theory is, pretty much by definition, a party that got out of hand. It started out as a birthday bash, and is now in its sixth year as a music festival. Somewhere in among this tangled web of history is an obsession with beards, and on the Sunday they have an attempt at the world record for the most fake beards gathered in one place. Which is… definitely a thing. It’s also a sign that it doesn’t take itself too seriously – although everything’s handled incredibly professionally and there are few problems, there’s never a sense that anyone, including organisers and security, aren’t actually enjoying themselves at the same time.

Friday

As we arrive, with The Hummmingbirds‘ jangly Beatles-esque indie pop soundtracking our surprisingly successful attempt to put the tent up, the prognosis for the weather isn’t looking too great, despite some not-entirely-convincing assertions on the festival’s Facebook page that the wind was “drying the ground,” everyone’s pretty good-natured and stoical about the possibility of rain. Turns out there’s a very good reason for this – a few years back the main stage, having just hosted Hawkwind, disappeared into space. Well, was blown away, at any rate. I guess once you’ve had that happen, a bit of rain ain’t no thang, really. This is presumably the reason for the second, indoor stage being called Tornado Town, and having a ceiling bedecked with inflatable clouds, complete with lightning bolts. It’s a great little venue, and will play host to some of Bearded Theory’s more surprising acts over the weekend.

As we walk in Whisky Stain are playing – a two-piece, with a drummer and a vocalist/guitarist/bassist, who crank out a rather splendid brand of grungy, bluesy Americana which goes down a storm with the crowd, especially when they’re joined by a troupe of wandering trolls, briefly giving the whole thing the feel of hopping a boxcar in Middle Earth.

And drinking cider is perfect for Ned’s Atomic Dustbin on the main stage. I was never a huge fan, but it’s pretty nostalgic anyway, because they’re essentially unchanged, and remind me of a lot of old friends, drunken nights and cheap ciders. They play “Kill Your Television” and everyone goes mental. Job done.

And then… well, OK. If you want “fair and balanced”, you’re reading the wrong page. I’m about as fair and balanced about New Model Army as Fox News are when it comes to the subject of anything else. And New Model Army, I can objectively state, basically OWN Friday at Bearded Theory. Just amazing. Not a note wrong, not a misjudged choice in the setlist, just track after track after track of pure awesome. “Rumour And Rapture,” “Green And Grey,” “States Radio”… every one a winner. Justin Sullivan‘s clearly having a wicked time, belying the band’s grim Northern bastards reputation, introducing “Today Is A Good Day” with the observation that Margaret Thatcher died on his birthday, and “sometimes in life you do get what you want,” and clearly loving every second of their hour-long set. Thirty years and a few line-up changes have done nothing to damage their guitar onslaught, and even less to damage my conviction that they are still the best live band in the country. It’s… emotional.

Where do you go after that? Reverend And The Makers are headlining the main stage, and while they’re not really my cup of tea, they certainly seem to be getting the crowd going. And earlier in the day they launched their own beer, which is pretty cool whichever way you look at it. But in Tornado Town there’s an only-slightly-less-massive party going on with Buster Shuffle, a huge celebration of ska with piano-top dancing and everything.

And now everyone’s talking about Sicknote. Who the fuck are Sicknote? I have no idea. But they’re on in the Magical Sounds dance tent. And they’re utterly, utterly bonkers. It’s hard to put into words how bonkers they are, but there’s something of early Sheep On Drugs to their punky, theatrical stage presence and unreconstructed bangin’ techno, only a lot more camp, and with more gas masks and tutus. Basically, they’re exactly what needs to be playing RIGHT NOW. And they’re ace.

And then it’s time to go to bed. It’s been a long day, and there’s been a lot of carrying stuff involved. Mostly drinks.

Saturday

It sounds like it rains all night. I don’t think it actually rains all night. But it sounds like it rains all night. I’m expecting to be up to my eyes in filth, but when we emerge from the tent it’s actually fine; a bit grey overhead, but mostly okay. And breakfast is definitely a thing that must happen. So it’s time to wander around the site while everything’s opening up.

And it’s lovely, really. I must admit, one of the things that had filled me with trepidation before coming here was the fact that Bearded Theory makes a great deal of its family-friendly credentials, and I had visions of the place being swarmed with annoying kids. But it turns out kids are FAR less annoying when they’ve got loads of cool stuff to do. It’s actually quite charming, and that’s not something I expected to be saying. (Seeing a tiny kid doing the bro fist with his dad during The Quireboys later on is quite sweet, to be honest). And there’s definitely loads of cool stuff to do, for adults as well as children. Although I’ll really never understand the festival obsession with face painting. I think I’ve missed my window of comprehension on that one.

And at midday it appears in the shape of Zombie Met Girl. Unapologetically lifting from The Stooges and The Cramps, they’re half an hour of rockabilly horror punk, with a front man who dances like Iggy and wobbles his voice like Elvis, and a bunch of zombies (and at least one Frankenstein’s Monster) dancing down at the front of the stage. And then we’re wide awake. Just as I’m writing “The Ramones” in my notes, they finish with a cracking cover of “Blitzkrieg Bop,” which is not only great, but also illustrates the fact that I, like pretty much everyone else in the world, have an uncanny ability to spot when a band sound a bit like The Ramones. Yay me!

There’s a surreal moment during Ahab‘s set when one of the vocalists (they all take turns) spots me in the crowd and recognises me from my day job in London. This puts me in mind to be quite favourable about them, but it doesn’t really need to. Their melodic, folky guitar pop drawing in John Lennon, The Waterboys and a far less mawkish Crowded House turns out to be a bloody good thing, and they come across as being an affable enough bunch of lads, with a lot of between-songs banter. And one of them accidentally kicks his beer at a dude in the front row, which is funny, and then spends ages apologising about it, which is sweet. Even more so when you consider that he only kicks it at the guy because, having knocked it over, he’s only trying to push it off the stage so nobody slipped in it. What a nice man.

In Tornado Town are Bootscraper. Which is a great name for a band. And which works best if you say it in a very gruff, growly voice. One of the two vocalists has this voice, though he doesn’t use it to say “BOOTSCRAPER”. He does, however, use it to sing about half the songs, which in the space of about forty minutes manage to emrace Tom Waits, Gogol Bordello, klezmer, polka and hellbilly outlaw country, as well as corrido and, because it’s almost compulsory for a festival, ska. Basically, they’re ace; like a Balkan hoedown.

And talking of ska, Citizen Fish, back on the main stage, still sound very much like Citizen Fish. Which is great news if, like me, you like Citizen Fish. Big, brassy, ballsy anarcho-punk made for skanking as much as it’s made for rioting. Dick‘s still as engagingly crazy as ever, flinging himself about the stage and rattling off his anti-consumerist diatribes. It’s all fantastic stuff, and you wouldn’t expect anything less.

Suitably punked-up, we decide to check out the wonderfully-named Far Cue in Tornado Town. And they are, indeed, Punk As Fuck. And sweary, filthy and hilarious. Whether they’re singing about Wombles (the Wimbledon Common ones, not the anarchist collective), covering Cock Sparrer or rattling through The Proclaimers‘ “500 Miles,” they’re exhilirating. When they finish with “Ode To Joy,” I’m put in mind of something like a cross between Snuff, and Bill Bailey fronting Conflict.

So after all that, how could The Quireboys come close? I was never a fan at the time, and they haven’t changed, and… somehow they’re a huge amount of fun. Far more fun than they have any right to be, quite frankly. Turns out their brand of Stonesy glam sleaze rock was just what I needed right now. OK, so they’re not as pretty as they used to be, but bizarrely I end up enjoying them a humungous amount. And so did everyone else, as far as I can tell. Especially the band. Don’t tell anyone I had such a great time, though. It’ll be our little secret.

Pussycat And The Dirty Johnsons fill Tornado Town with their sleazy rock’n'roll with a furry act, and it’s pretty fun, Pussycat molesting the audience while the Dirty Johnsons crank out the riffs. Something about them reminds me of Eagles Of Death Metal - maybe it’s the lack of seriousness, maybe it’s the grooves, maybe it’s the dedication to old-skool rock’n'roll- but whatever it is, the drummer looks alarmingly like a cross between Animal from The Muppet Show and Saxondale.

Saturday night on the main stage is torn apart by Asian Dub Foundation. And they are intense. And loud. And intensely loud. They still sound like someone got some hip-hop, some drum’n'bass and some banghra and chucked them all in a liquidiser, and they still sound like that was the best milkshake recipe ever. Add in some simultaneous flute-playing and beatboxing (with the same mouth) and some righteous rabble-rousing, and you’ve got a spectacular gig. If they weren’t playing outdoors, they’d tear the roof off the sucker. As it is, they’re just wonderful.

Sunday

And maybe they did tear the roof off after all, despite there not being one. (It’s a metaphor. A roof of clouds. Do you see? Do you? DO YOU SEE???) Because Sunday is gorgeous. Hot and sunny. All day. I finally break out my Hawaiian shirt. And then put it on. And then put on some sunglasses, because the shirt is too bright. Eventually I get it all figured out and it’s time for the last day, which seems to have rolled around alarmingly quickly. But not to worry, there’s still a lot of cool stuff left to see and do before real life has to start up again.

Whether they’re coming on like a pognophile Tenacious D, or singing a folk song beginning with “there once was a man who had a beard, he shaved it off and now he’s dead” and ending with the crowd joining them for a rousing chorus of “Kings Of Leon are shit”, they’ve certainly got beards. “You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man” is another of theirs, but my personal favourite is “If Your Dad Doesn’t Have A Beard, You’ve Got Two Mums.” And they’re definitely not pleased about the existence on-site of a cut-throat shaving stall. Despite all this real-beard malarkey, they’re also choosing the winner of the best fake beard competition on the main stage, a prize which goes to two people dressed as robots with beards. Obviously. Robots win everything.

And then Goldblade take the main stage, and the place goes utterly apeshit. Full-on punk mayhem, with a healthy dose of good-time rock’n'roll and audience participation of the kind that was once commonplace but these days is sadly all too rare, and usually, as today, accompanied by the security staff looking hilariously anxious. Frontman John Robb climbs the barriers, gets us to sing, drips sweat on us and basically does all that stuff you’re supposed to do. It’s epic.

OK, time for a confession. I’ve never really “got” Stiff Little Fingers. I know they’re a legend, and I know they’re great blokes, and on stage they’re immensely likeable, and all their songs sound like exactly the sort of thing I know I should love, but I’ve just never really “got” them at all. It’s frustrating, in a way, because everyone else at the main stage seems to be loving it, and I feel a bit left out… but by the same token, if everybody else is loving it, I don’t need to feel too bad about not giving them my support; it’s not exactly like they need it.

Coda

Leaving the next day feels genuinely sad. Getting home and not having awesome home-made chips from the Welsh breakfast stall for my tea is potentially heartbreaking. And we’re still none the wiser about Ferocious Dog, who nonetheless deserve a mention even though we didn’t see them, as their secret gigs meant they were the talk of the festival.

It’s been a great festival. Great line-up, and the perfect size. And the crowd are by far the friendliest festival crowd I think I’ve ever seen – maybe it’s because we’re all older now, or something. But that’s not to say that it’s sedate. Basically, although it’s an older crowd (apart, obviously, from the children, who tend to be younger as a rule) everyone’s still having just as much fun as a young crowd would, and nobody’s being a dick. It’s a very laid-back vibe. Cheap beer, good company, great music – what’s not to love?

Maybe next year I’ll even grow a beard.

-Words: Deuteroneumu 90210 the beardless-
-Pictures: Zoë Gillard-

> Print this page

It seems as if Nick Edwards, sometimes known as Ekoplekz,  must sleep in his studio, nestled in tangles of thick rubbery cables, lulled by blinking red-and-green LEDs. He’s released 12 albums and six EPs under that guise since 2010, while recently instating the Nunton Complekz and Ensemble Skalectrik projects, as well. The man clearly has something to say. In a way, he is an Archetypal Noise Dude, releasing reams of semi-obscure/anonymous tape sculptures and concrete hymns, festooned with grim, gritty SF dystopian wrapping. It’s mysterious, ya know, not clouded with a bunch of personality. Yr not entirely sure WHAT’s going on, and in that, it makes you want to know more.

Edwards is in love with machines. I would give one of my rotting teeth to get a look at his rig, to write down his signal chain, because it can be damn murky in here, and hard to tell what exactly the heck’s going on. You can realistically expect to hear shifting, dubby rhythm boxes, which he hand-manipulated and modifies with analog echo and delay devices, making an echoe-y dub drone that reminds me of the Stefan Betke, aka Pole‘s, deteriorating machine riddims.

The thing with Ekoplekz’s music, and a whole breed of ashen producers, is that much of it is handmade, putting it in the noise realm, analog and irreproducable, related to experimental improvised musics of the 20th century. This is where the art gallery and the dancefloor come together, as a generation of folks reared on a whole continent of experimental sounds come to grips with all the potentialities and methods at our disposal, and decide for one’s self, and for once and for all, what you personally are trying to say.

It’s difficult to say precisely what Nick Edwards and his contemporaries are saying, exactly, (it’s like on the tip of the tongue), but their music sure seems to conjure visions. So what about Devesham Dub? What does it sound like? Difficult to surmise, to say easily. It’s 16 tracks, and was originally laid to cassette by Sex Lies Magnetic Tape in March, before quickly morphing into Ensemble Skalectrik and releasing Trainwrekz to much praises on Editions Mego. Devesham Dub could be seen as warming up for the main event, if not for the fact that most, if not all, of Nick Edward’s music is improvised, the man jamming with his machines down in his basement, and then doing some form of processing and post-production, adding further layers of degradation and grit. As such, it seems like Ekoplekz’s music may be of a whole, interchangeable, and I don’t yet possess enough information to report how he has been progressing as an artist, over the duration. I intend to find out.

The one last touchstone I will leave you with is the legendary Wolf Eyes, who have plied their brand of rustbelt horrorshow over 15 years and hundreds of releases, many of which they have released themselves on their very own Hanson Records. It seems like Nick Edwards has something similar in mind: he just wants to jam, man. He wants to make his records, and people can buy ‘em if they want, but he’s too busy moving FORWARD. It seems like he is leaving behind an engrossing soundworld of CCTV and burned-out cars in a back alley, John Carpenter meets Derrick May to ward off a demon infestation. It stands at a crossroads of arthouse futurism, degraded SF, dub, techno, industrial, and improvised musicks, and finally, we meet.

Ekoplekz’s music can lead you to all kinds of good shit, to get lost in for days and weeks at a time. It’s like living in a Tarkovsky film.

Very much recommended.

-J Simpson-

> Print this page

-Gary Parsons-

> Print this page

Stuck in traffic, time was slipping away from us like a buttery thing, a total nightmare as impatient idiots decided to forge an extra lane in front, and I’m behind this person in a huge sports car that was probably twice the price of my house! He’s busy checking the mirrors – for gazes of envy, no doubt – I feel like making silly faces in response, but Robby Shackleton‘s E-jack was on the stereo, those wayward charms drifting out through the open windows, doing an ace job of crushing any sort of misconception.

It was a blur of satisfaction: “Driving Blind,” “Love Cuts,” “Trust,” “Beatbeatbeat,” “Dancing On Your Grave” and plenty more unfamiliar gems; this was certainly a trailblazing romp through their greatest hits accompanied by an amazing menagerie of visuals. Shapeshifting bogey man in molten ambers and puss flowing yellows, hypotonic patterns and colourful slipstreams with the odd montages of erotic suggestiveness. The dead donkey-laden piano of Un Chien Andalou didn’t go unnoticed either, to a catchy industrialised jackboot.

The energy oozing out of this duo was unreal, grabbed you by the chest and riffled your mind in vast splashes of bassy dynamite, with a slight respite of in the form of “October Love Song” before the airing of the brand new “Coolicon,” its addictive qualities definitely showing us that this was more than just a historical trip down memory lane.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-

> Print this page

So, here we are again. I think I’ve reviewed in some way every Ekoplekz release – even if some of them were just 140 character yelps in the empty rooms of Twitter – and now, for the first time there’s signs that Nick’s relentless pursuit of his sound is cracking. Slightly.

Okay. It’s not really cracking. I’ve heard marketing gloop that suggests that this sounds nothing like his previous stuff. You’ll probably be pleased that this isn’t the case. This still (mostly) sounds like a Nick Gutterbreakz (I met him when he was still Gutterbreakz; he’ll always be Gutterbreakz) production. The characteristic DNA is here: the wobbly electronica, the arching loops, the dissolves and the static, the hums, the Lee Perry segues into dubDubdub but there are some changes, to the method if not the madness.

At one point, I think someone’s shouting “Doctor” and I’ll bet it’s Jo from the Jon Pertwee years (since Nick is at least as influenced by Jo clinging naked to the Dalek as he is by Delia Derbyshire hovering over gigantic tape machines) and there’s some beautiful bird sounds in a track that annoyingly sounds almost exactly like the middle portion of a track I’ve been working on for the next IX Tab album. Cheers for that distemporal psychic theft, Nick. You got there before me. Again.

-Loki-

> Print this page

The Sprummer has burst out in full bloom here in Blighty. That’s no typo. Spring forgot to happen this year, so we’re enjoying blossom trees and warmer evenings. Saying that, we had a hailstorm yesterday. Never the less we’re enjoying abundant daffodils growing in our parks and meadows. My Garden State is the perfect music to listen to whilst riding a bike and looking around at all this sprouting nature and being reminded that once again “Oh yer, summer actually exists!”

“Alcouer Gardens” starts with gentle roaring thunder, which on paper (computer screen?) might sound foreboding, but the sweet accompanying guitar gives us the impression that the dark times are rolling away in the distance and sunnier times are ahead. “My Garden State” is a little banjo ditty that flutters in and out like a garden butterfly. The title of “Like a Sick Eagle looking at the Sky” sounds like Glenn’s impression of guitarist Robbie Basho‘s last days on earth. It doesn’t get as deep as Basho, but hey, what other guitarist truly has? A Kickstarter campaign raising funds for a documentary about Robbie Basho has been started and if the trailer is any thing to go by, which features Glenn Jones, it truly deserves your support.

“Bergen Country Farewell” again has a goodbye quality to it, but this time there is not so much of a sad nostalgic quality like “Across the Tappan Zee,” but rather we’re trotting off down the Farewell road that we’re happy to go down. Finally ,”Chimes II” chimes us away from the cold garden porch.

Having seen Glenn perform in Paris in February 2011 I can tell you the graceful tone and sparkling flow heard on his albums translates loud and clear in the live setting. I’ve never seen another player with such a precise glossy sheen to their sound, like Jim O’Rouke’s sound on The Visitor but without the numerous over-dubs and studio effects.

He’ll be coming over to the UK and Europe in November, go check him out.

-Harry Wheeler-

> Print this page

It had been a while since I was last at The Underworld in Camden. At one point I almost seemed to live there, seeing some great doom bands week after week, so it’s always good to come back here. And what a night to do it on, a night of diabolus in musica with three of the hottest bands around.

Up next is Purson promoting their début album The Circle and the Blue Door. Fronted by singer and guitarist Rosalie Cunningham, they kick start their set with the wonderful “Spiderwood Farm,” a rocker that seems seeped in some eternal thatched house within ancient woodland. The tune borrows as much from psychedelia as it does from classic doom riffs. The set moves apace with the two singles from the album, “Leaning on a Bear” and “Rocking Horse.” Rosalie’s guitar solos are fantastic and the new bass player does an admirable job, seeing it’s his first gig with the band, keeping the rhythm tight.

The guitar playing is huge, chords hanging in the air like flying demons and come crashing down with smashes from the cymbals the devil himself is dragging souls down below. They play a selection of tracks from the new album Horrible Night as well as crowd-pleasing favourites like “Tomb of the Blind Drugged.” The set ends with a screaming feedback chord that almost seem to go on forever until it is cut brutally short. This appeared to be their last date of the tour with a promise of more dates in the autumn.

All three bands were at the top of their game and made it a night to remember or a gig you wished you had gone too. Then we all have to slowly file out into the Camden night the sounds of screaming guitars ringing in my ears and somewhere the sound of demonic laughter.

-Gary Parsons-
-Pictures: Andy Oram-

> Print this page

There’s buckets of finely congealed empathy here, beautifully presented. Front And Follow is an unusual, old-fashioned label, not quite made for these times. And thank God for that.

But this is a collaboration in more ways than one. This is a packaged ideal, a little bit of ideology. These artists don’t sound particularly similar and most of them don’t know each other but they are kin and this box set is a series of statements around a common belief in music per se.

This set ought to lie alongside ‘mythical’ (for many of the pre-CD reissue years) compilations like the Elephant Table album. It is era-defining, even at a time when we’re beset with endless micro-genres and expected to simply accept that post-modernism has won and the grand narrative drives of music are gone, or have been subverted, or popularised. Well, bollocks. This shows that there is something bigger than the artists; there is still a functioning system of reason out there, people do still care about being in opposition.

Front and Follow need to be here. These artists are necessary and more or less sufficient. This album will be one that people will talk about. At the very least the cynical among you have an opportunity to buy your future bragging rights now, before they are gone forever.

-Loki-

> Print this page

Aptly titled, this latest album from Rennie and Brett Sparks is like a beautiful life sciences lesson. Packed with facts I presume are correct, and I wouldn’t argue with songwriter Rennie’s instructions – one can learn an awful lot about beasts of our world. The worst beasts being of course ourselves, mankind.

My favourite song is “Frogs”. The compelling plea to come outside and see the wonders of the night is achingly tempting. I think this is what The Handsome Family want us to do with their music: take a deeper look, a deeper listen, to that which is all around us. To watch the seasons. To hear the songs of the earth and learn her nature. I want to lie down in the dirt, as commanded, and be a mirror of the night.

-Maryna Fontenoy-

> Print this page

Aneira appears as one long track, and this time round it’s simply Aidan Baker on his own with a twelve-string acoustic guitar. This is a piece which is far more isolationist than that simple statement might at first appear, as Baker uses the instrument as a sonic generator to produce a whole host of glacial textures and tones. While the sound of steel strings is still evident in the rustling, shimmering noises, their twanging rustle sometimes brings to mind the wind rattling the ice-clad rigging of a wooden sailing ship stuck fast in ice, as do the ominous groans and drones which shudder and heave at the low end.

Melancholic and attenuated they might be, and all the while the harsh environment they enter continues to rage its uncaring storm, but tentatively, as the brightness strengthens, so the darkness inevitably fades and warmer colours start to spread. Waiting out the storm brings its own reward, and the relief that the uncoiling, thawing sound that these strings bent and thrumming provides is almost physical.

-Linus Tossio-

> Print this page

Oaken Palace is a different kind of a label, as for a start it’s a charity, and all profits from each of its vinyl-only releases go to an environmental cause of the artist’s choice. Since Nadja have decided to support Whale and Dolphin Conservation with their album, it only seems right and proper that the LP should be titled Flipper.

There’s a tender jazzy undertow to “Wrapped in Plastic,” surely one of the most gentle meditations Nadja have recorded in a while, though as ever the ascent into voluminous mass is soon all-encompassing, joined by the strings’ Velvetsy drone and scrawl to end in a characteristic plateau and fade to the almost literally breathtaking “Hands.” By now, the low end has become almost physically present, shifting cavernous units of air away from the speaker cones and thrumming upwards via nearby vibrating objects while patient cymbals tap time, the whole making for a soothingly minimal conclusion.

Caudal‘s album in the series (and also their first, as it happens) makes cause for the Austrian Union for Nature Preservation, helping protect the European ground squirrel. The band consist of Aidan Baker from Nadja alongside Gareth Sweeney of  Gout  on bass guitar and Felipe Salazar of Muerte En Pereira at the drumkit. Their playing together on opener “River’s Edge” is a loose instrumental flow, unwinding on the languorously present bass and swelling drums as Baker’s guitar accretes in multiple layers, some so processed as to sound like synth accompaniment. Hypnosis on the rising and falling tides the trio generate is the order of the day for “Threever,” though here the tempo shifts up a gear into post-motorik mode, the bass throbbing with the sound of New York No Wave traffic pulsations as much as it does to the autobahn’s sharply-defined, no-limits groove.

There’s a lot of excellent guitar-bass-drum instrumental trios out there; it’s a classic format that never seems to tire of rejuvenation, and Caudal make an excellent addition to the form, their début leaving no doubt that they’re one to watch.

ConSouling Sounds

Aidan Baker also turns up as half of Adoran, with Dorian Williamson of Northumbria and Holoscene on bass. This time, Baker takes the drummer’s seat, and pounds out the doomy rhythms with an intensity which easily matches that of his guitar playing.

It’s their ability to turn the dynamics on a proverbial sixpence (even if the coin in question might sometimes be a metaphorical metre or two wide) which keeps what Adoran are doing at the forefront of the listener’s attention; and with this music, it’s not really worth having it as background – it demands immersion, or nothing at all. While the live stage is always going to be the best place to experience this kind of sound – apart from anything else, the volume levels possible are so much weightier – it’s still a profoundly large experience on record.

-Richard Fontenoy-

> Print this page

Bath Salt Zombies sets out its stall pretty early on; which is just as well, seeing as how it’s probably not really for everyone. It opens with a great animated spoof public information film about the dangers of bath salts (the drug, not the actual toiletries) which sees a trashy teen given the drug by a foul-mouthed Satan, with predictable murderous consequences. By the time the announcer says “Bath salts may seem like a crackerjack time, but believe you me, sonny Jim, they’re nothing but a menace”, you’ll probably have a fair idea of whether you’re going to like this one or not. And then, before the opening credits, we get some drugs, some gratuitous nudity, a couple of murders and an idea of just how low-budget this movie is.

Doughnut-munching DEA agent Forster sums up the plot nicely when he says “someone is selling a military-grade chemical weapon on the streets to junkies”. With, he should probably add, hilarious consequences. Bath Salt Zombies may be a cheap date, but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable one, for those of us who like this sort of thing. Director Dustin Wayde Mills plays the Minecraft-addicted chemist Sal, who’s used some stolen military chemicals to create an ultra-addictive smokeable form of bath salts, which of course has the unfortunate side-effect of turning everyone who takes it into a psychopathic cannibal. Peeled faces and severed arms, heads, tits and even a dick fly as the bath salt zombies run amok in New York City.

Personally, I loved it; it’s trashy on every level, and not only does it know it, it positively revels in it. It’s a movie that puts all its cards on the table – if it sounds like your kind of thing, then it probably is. Give it a sho t- I reckon you’ll have almost as much fun watching it as the guys seem to have had making it. With enough change left over for a bag of chips on the way home.

-DEUTERONEMU 90210: ALL HOPPED UP ON GOOFBALLS AND READY TO EAT YOUR FLESH-

> Print this page

It’s been a while since 2010′s I Am a Dancer/Songs about Sleepin’ LP and the following Girl Under a Tree 10″ EP, but SB has been regularly performing live, both solo and as bassist in both Cate le Bon and H Hawkline’s bands. In fact it’s largely this frenetic activity that has delayed the release of Ships (Moshi Moshi), which was apparently finished a year ago.

Live, solo, Sweet Baboo is a spectral pre-rock ‘n’ roll presence, a plaintive voice crackling from the grooves of a Victrola 78, set against musty old-time fingerpicking. It’s as if Al Bowlly and Blind Boy Fuller got together in the Welsh hills to form an Appalachian folk blues duo. This is just as great as it sounds and many of the songs on Ships first entered my consciousness in this form back at a festival appearance in 2011.

Daniel Johnston has written hundreds of great tunes/and I’ve got six/so I guess there’s some catching up to do/to tell you that I love you/to tell you I’m sorry for what I am?

…although surely if SB had six great tunes when the song first appeared back in 2010, then on the strength of this LP, it can be safely doubled by now.

By the marching band/funk hybrid of second track “The Morse Code for Love is Beep Beep, Beep Beep, the Binary Code is One, One,” it becomes obvious that this is the work of an alchemist so steeped in the swelling river of popular music that he can effortlessly throw together folk, calypso, avant-noise, ragtime, vaudeville, soul, swing, country and anything else without seeming contrived. The pick’n’mix approach extends to cultural references – the wonderfully surreal “Twelve Carrots of Love” gives a melodic nod to Bob Dylan‘s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” much as Dylan did to his own predecessors while “8 Bit Monsters” contains a chorus seemingly stitched together from James Brown and Charles Manson:

Please please please/I will never learn not to love you

If you’re lucky enough to find one of the limited edition vinyl copies of the album, you’ll even get a bonus CD, Chips, featuring reworkings of four of the songs in a contemporary urban style – all auto-tuned vocals and sampled loops – the continuum of pop music for Stephen Black encompasses Kanye West and Flanagan & Allen in equal measures!

What makes Sweet Baboo great rather than merely clever, is the attention to detail – those little things in the songs that convince you that this is all true… that it is Stephen Black and not a literary construct singing the words. When I saw Sweet Baboo live back in 2011, I was spellbound by an as then unreleased song that documented his friendship with Cate le Bon via a string of mundane reminiscences of swapping shoes, singing harmonies to cassettes during the four and a half hour drive to practices at bandmate Siôn Glyn‘s house or meeting Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee at an airport. The understated conclusion that ‘I’m glad that we are friends’ makes it perhaps the most affecting musical articulation of affection since Matching Mole‘s “O Caroline” in 1972. The Byrdsesque jangling, brass-propelled version of “Cate’s Song” that closes the album loses nothing of the poignancy that I heard two years ago, and is the highlight of an album packed full of highlights.

This ability to frame direct emotional honesty in light hearted triviality is a rare treasure – precedents that come to mind being Jonathan Richman, the previously mentioned Daniel Johnston, and Dan Traecy of the Television Personalities. It’s been a long time coming, but in Ships, Sweet Baboo, with the able help of producer and multi-instrumentalist Rob Jones and regular drummer Avvon Chambers, has made an extraordinary and rewarding album that will only grow in status over the years.

After a week of having the album on almost constant rotation, I caught the train up to Chester on 30 April to see Sweet Baboo live at Telford’s Warehouse and cornered him for a chat over a beer on the nearby canal bank immediately before the show:

Are you happy with the new album?

I’ve known a lot of those songs from live shows over the past few years, but it’s nice to hear them in a different context.

Yes, I’m glad we made the album that we did. I like continuity – I like records that sound the same all the way through. The most conscious decision was to say right, we’ve got brass instruments, this keyboard’s on every song and this keyboard’s on every song and we’d ring modulate one thing on every song… I like order and rules. I’m really proud of what we did and I think Rob who produced it is proud of it – he worked really hard on this.

The attention to detail in your songs makes them sound convincingly truthful – they remind me of Jonathan Richman in that respect. Are you as honest and truthful in your songs as would appear or are you just a very good actor?

They’re all first person things, even the songs which are more kind of abstract or ones which don’t really make any sense to anyone unless they’re explained. If I try to write from a different perspective it sounds weird and I don’t feel any emotional attachment to it, so yes, they’re all first person songs really. Jonathan Richman is amazing because he’s got like, silly songs, but you always believe everything. Last time I saw him in Bush Hall in London, he was dancing around and joking and then finished with that song about his mum dying, no encore, and it was just heartbreaking.

So has he always been an influence on you?

Mentioning Euros, it seems to me from here up north that Cardiff has a scene which is almost like a collective, where artists all interact and help each other out – you, Euros, Cate le Bon, H Hawkline, Richard James. You all play on each other’s records and seem to share a sort of aesthetic… and of course Siôn Glyn also plays with most of you.

Yeah… I think that for me and Cate and Huw, that all comes from the Gorkys – when we do stuff for Euros and Rich, there’s still quite a massive fandom there. Especially with Euros’ productivity these days of releasing record after record after record and being so singleminded in what he does – it’s just a good example of how you should be. I think what’s nice as well in Cardiff is we’re all in our thirties basically; it’s not like we’re all 21 and trying to ‘make it’. It’s just that we like making records and playing.

I just think Wales in general has maybe an underdog kind of attitude so it’s quite a sharing community rather than somewhere like London where you maybe have to fight for your right to be heard.

It’s also a matter of motivation – whether you’re trying to ‘make it’ or are just driven to play music?

Everyone I know just doesn’t want to do anything else. We talked about this in the car the other day – it should be, number one: you make songs and record music and then number two: you go “OK I’ve done that now, maybe someone will release it… if no-one releases it who cares? We’ll just make another one.” You know the most important thing is making the record and everything else is secondary.

Ships opens with a new version of “If I Died” from your previous LP. Is that consciously passing the torch from one to the other, creating continuity?

I think it ended up as that, but it started up when we were doing gigs around the last record as a band, and loads of the songs were just acoustic so we started playing it in a more upbeat kind of way. I just thought it was a nice thing and I definitely made a conscious decision to make a more upbeat poppy record and so we thought it was a nice idea to put a new version of what was quite sombre on the last record. And lots of the people that I like – Jonathan Richman and Daniel Johnston for example – will record the same song twice – it’s kind of like self-referencing a little bit.

Yes, and it’s getting away from that post-recording age idea of a definitive version – a song can exist independently of a recording.

Your music seems to draw on the whole continuum of popular music from ragtime, swing, folk… and with soul type brass on the new record. There seems to be references to other songs and artists, like “12 Carrots” musically references Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero.”

Ah, it’s that one is it? – my mum said “that’s a Bob Dylan song” but couldn’t remember which one…

…and the chorus to “8 Bit Monsters” lyrically cuts together James Brown’s “Please Please Please” with Charles Manson’s “Cease to Exist.”

You’re OK until he gets out of prison…

Exactly yeah… so that’s a direct reference, and then some things are subconscious and just seep in and other ones, I don’t know whether it’s deliberate in a good way – you just think “that’s cool, let’s just do that.” I think most people write songs like that don’t they, just steal someone else’s chords?

Yes, I think so – it’s fun spotting the references. We’ve grown up with these songs so they’re part of our environment really. It’s the same with the line in “If I Died” where you sing “Daniel Johnston’s written hundreds of great songs and I’ve got six, so I’ve guess that’s some catching up to do”… I don’t suppose you’d care to say which six songs you think are as good as his?

Ha… don’t know, that’s a good question though… err… no I’m not going to say!

We were talking about the traditional or historical element to the music, but you also throw in modern sounds, with dissonant synth breaks or noisy guitar solos, and the Chips bonus CD that you get with the vinyl version is just full of auto-tuned vocals and contemporary R‘n’B sounds…

Yeah, it was meant to sound like Kanye West or Frank Ocean, people like that.

The interface between genres is far more interesting than the pure forms, whether it’s pure folk or purely experimental – you listen to a Wire magazine CD and think “yes that’s interesting, but I never need to hear it again,” but some of those ideas can be put into pop music and made much more interesting… it’s like why would anyone want to listen to traditional blues these days?

Well, if you’re going to listen to traditional blues, you might as well listen to a recording from the 1920s. I’ve got a lot of friends who play jazz music and some play experimental jazz and they’re adding all kinds of elements and then you’ve got some people who just want to play traditional swing music. That’s a different thing entirely – that’s learning a skill, and I don’t know how you’d put your own emotions into that really.

I like to think that we’re in the middle of a third great upsurge of Welsh music, the previous one being Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and Super Furry Animals back in the mid ’90s and then before that Datblygu and those a decade previously.

Well I think they were the best two groups around at the time

Definitely yeah, and I think all of us lot owe a massive debt to them really. I get asked quite a lot in interviews “Do you think it’s hindered you coming from Wales, compared to London?,” but I can’t think of any bands from London that I actually like. All good bands come from somewhere provincial and make strange and amazing… well… pop music essentially, and I think Wales will always make amazing pop music because we’ve got nothing else to do, have we?

*

And with that, it was time for Steve to hit the stage and illustrate his final assertion. The live group is the same as on Ships: Avvon Chambers on drums and Rob Jones on bass, but minus multi-instrumentalist Jones’ brass and keyboard embellishments, the songs take on yet another life – a kind of garage power pop (dare I mention Big Star?). With a set comprising most of the new LP alongside a couple of old favourites and three brand new songs, it becomes evident that SB’s songs are able to adapt to almost any situation.

A larger than usual Telfords audience (all that Marc Riley airplay must be working) is kept enraptured for a concentrated hour of non-stop pop delight, punctuated only by Steve’s deadpan explanations of some of the songs. By the second encore of “Twelve Carrots,” when he follows up the line “I must confess that I am in the best band ever /and I make the best love ever last for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks” with two of the most blistering noise guitar solos, nobody in the room is inclined to doubt him.

Never a man to rest for too long, there is another Sweet Baboo tour in June, this time a solo acoustic one. The date is in my diary.

 -Alan Holmes-

> Print this page

Bureau B’s mission to ensure that one in every two CDs in the world feature Hans-Joachim Roedelius continues with the most unlikely collaboration of his career to date. Lloyd Cole is best known, in the UK at least, as the man who took a slickly polished dilution of ’80s indie-pop into the proper charts with hits like “Perfect Skin” and, err… I don’t seem to remember any of the others. It appears that he also released an electronic instrumental album in 2001, inspired by Cluster‘s Sowiesoso, which Roedelius heard and liked. It was another ten years before the two met in Vienna and decided to collaborate on an album by sending files back and forth to each other. Here is the result of that collaboration… or maybe only part of it, if the Vol 1 is anything to go by

The press release says that “Cole and Roedelius seek to present fantastic aural topographies in opposition to the dullness of the real world, inviting us to enter a friendly labyrinth of constant surprise, a place one can still leave at any time, without fear of getting hopelessly lost.” The fact that I’m back here to write this review proves just how successfully their aim was achieved.

-Alan Holmes-

> Print this page