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And so to the second instalment of My Life Inside A Beer Advert (first part is back here; note that by the time of this second instalment the price of said beverage had risen to an outrageous £3.90 for 330mls; approaching £7 a pint…I thought this was a celebration of Brazilian not Norwegian culture). I arrived to near-Brazilian sunshine, and in plenty of time, so much so in fact that I was able to indulge in a quick game of Mornington Crescent (tipping my hat deferentially to Willie Rushton’s blue plaque on the station), and to have a cheeky non-sponsored pint in the pub next door to Koko; the entire King Creosote entourage appeared to have had a similar idea by the look of the place.
This did mean that I missed the solo set of Tony Da Gatorra – more of him later – and another capoeira demonstration. The first act I saw was Sao Paolo’s Romulo Froes, who did an interesting job of blending classic tropicalia’s wistful bossanova with more modern influences. The band were a bit mid-period Radiohead in parts, with particularly squalling and proggish guitar, but Froes’ vocals fitted perfectly into that gorgeous Gil/Veloso/Gilberto lineage. Most interesting.
I’m not even a fan of the Super Furry Animals, but I appear to have accidentally seen Gruff Rhys twice now in just over a week. He appeared helmeted, as is his wont, and accompanied by the aforementioned Tony The Guitar, who looked fresh from playing at some small venue somewhere in, um, the late 1960s, and who was jabbing at some sort of home made electronic guitar-shaped synthesiser whilst shouting “Peace!”. Quite often.
The logical progression from this madness was for the remainder of Rhys’s set to take place inside a television set diorama. Oh, and in some airplane seats for the epic narrative of the closer which set some story about aircraft terrorism to the bass line from (appropriately enough) Os Mutantes’ “Bat Macumba”. I particularly enjoyed the track they built from lots of looped samples until it became a cacophony of screams and noise, and the one which went “we’re driving driving driving driving driving driving driving”. But in Welsh.
King Creosote was given the task to follow this, and did so with a surprisingly raucous band which featured fellow Fence artist Johnny Pictish. They played some new stuff from forthcoming album Bombshell, and some tracks from last album KC Rules OK, including “Bootprints” and a marvellous “Not One Bit Ashamed” which featured Romulo Froes adding shiver-inducing Brazilian harmonies to KC’s melancholic Fife burr.
Inevitably, Tony Da Gattora stumbled back on stage, prompting a cheeky chorus of “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” from Johnny Pictish, prompting fits of giggles all round. By the end of the gig, pretty much everyone was on stage at once (about ten people, all very Earth Wind and Fire) for a cover of his brother’s band The Aliens’ “Happy Song”, including a bewildered-looking Gruff Rhys stomping from side to side of the stage shouting into everyone’s microphones. It all seemed a suitably happy conclusion to a very happy evening. At least until I left to get the tube home, that was…
A fairly rum thing this, I couldn’t decide if I was attending a gig, or had descended Tron-like into the bowels of a beer advertisement. A certain Brazilian beverage (£3 for 330mls, if you please) was sponsoring a few days of gigs in London, plastering their name all over the tube and (with epilepsy-inducing flashes and colours) all over the innards of the Kentish Town Forum for this one.
There was a display of the Brazilian is-it-a-dance-or-a-fight capoeira (a square dance or a square go?) beforehand , with two men tumbling about in an ever-decreasing circle for an ever-decreasing number of viewers. By the end probably only about six people got to see any more than the occasional flash of foot emerging with admirable dexterity from the crowd at over head height.
Brazilians Bonde De Role had a rapper touching herself in all her rude places and shouting at us over a selection of naff records, including the Grease soundtrack. Really, I thought to myself, did Salt’N'Pepa die for this?
Os Mutantes were rather more enjoyable. Featuring original members Sergio Dias and Arnaldo Baptista, although not original vocalist Rita Lee (who has denounced this comeback as an attempt to “earn cash to pay for geriatry”), they cantered with good humour and confusing ‘twixt-song banter (did I really hear a song being dedicated to Henry V? And what was all that stuff about Tony Blair?) through their catalogue, with “Tecnicolor” and Mendes tribute “Cantor De Mambo” being personal favourites.
They saved the big ones for last, with a bafflingly sludgy “A Minha Menina” and a gloriously batty “Bat Macumba” sending the whole audience batshit. It has been about 40 hours since the gig has ended, and those crazy cross-cut lyrics are still arguing with themselves in my head. Batmacumba ê ê, batmacumba oba!
Self-titled albums, eh? Why go to all that trouble to write and record your new songs, pick a lovely cover photo, and then don’t bother to give it a title, annoying shop assistants and reviewers everywhere (should the title of a post such as this be Band X, Band X (label Y) or just Band X (label Y)? I’ve never been sure)? Leaving aside your pompous serial offenders on whom I’d rather not waste any words (your Gabriels, your Seals) I reckon the usual reason – whether stated as such or not – tends to be that of trying to create a sense of importance to the album it may or may not actually merit. As if to say: “We are this album. We live these dusty grooves.” Which kinda makes sense if it is your first album, and the record is very much the summation of your life to date i.e. you are The Clash. It is a bit different a few albums in though, and to me feels a bit like your previous records are being disowned somewhat. And that is a tough thing to do when you are following up a couple of terrific records. Which is where Liars come in.
So is this to be their flag-waving manifesto? Nah, but there is a definite repudiation of their past. There is a noticeable lurch to the centre ground, away from the witchy fragments and voodoo churn of their preceding two records. Liars positions the band somewhere in a distant and discordant corner of the pop universe; using their elbows to make some space amongst the likes of the Jesus and Mary Chain (“What Would They Know”, “Pure Unevil”) and even Gorillaz (I kid you not, check “Houseclouds” or “Sailing to Byzantium”). Digging themselves a trench. Or a grave. Is this self-titled thing a monument? Or a tombstone? Vote with your feet when this thing is released in late August.
I was quite pleased with a recent transaction which took place in the foyer of the Royal Festival Hall, in which I exchanged 3 GBP (in the form, I believe, of 3 x 1 GBP coins) for a 5” cardboard box and disc. This was a super super limited Matmos tour CD entitled A Paradise of Dainty Devices (interludes, micromedia and sound edits), with a cover compiled by Drew Daniel himself (as confirmed by the initials DD in the lower right back corner).
I’m not going to waste too much of your time on a record you will have some difficulty in actually procuring, but there is some neat stuff on this. Amongst the aforementioned interludes, micromedia and sound edits festooned all over the disc’s surface, there are a couple of brilliant tracks from their soundtrack to a BBC World Service radio version of Bram Stoker’s “Lair of the White Worm” (check the elegant reverse of “Mercy Farm”), and two from their first-ever cassette in 1994 (including the quite frightening collage“Living In That Wire House”). Oh, and I almost forgot: it includes a couple of jingles Matmos wrote for a shampoo commercial (entitled, amusingly enough, “Frizz” and “Puff Puff”), which despite clocking in at a combined 43 seconds are more than worth 3 units of any country’s currency.
Featured in photos: Tinariwen, Hot Chip, Tiny Dancers, Daddy G
Featured in photos: Super Furry Animals, Junior Boys, Malcolm Middleton, Fujiya and Miyagi, Dark Captain Light Captain, Sly and the Family Stone.
I’m tired, partially deaf (two loud ringing tones dominate – one high and shrill, one slightly lower and a bit crackly), a bit dizzy (probably due to said deafness), and feel a bit sick (probably due to said dizziness). It must have been a good night. In fact the only thing that lets down these Upset the Rhythm events is the cock quotient: the event was held in the trendy Old Blue Last, with its too-cool-for-school bar staff, roadkill hairstyles, ridiculous clothing (good news! It appears that the vest is in!), stupid hats and sunglasses worn indoors. The lineups for their events are rarely less than extraordinary. Even if something is rubbish, more often than not it is so rubbish that it is funny.
Which leads me to the support acts, and first to the cleverly monikered female foursome Back Stabbath. They were a bit angsty – “This next one is about the normalisation of abuse in the family” (oh, aren’t they all?) – and shouty, with the lead singer wandering the crowd yelling in our faces. Thankfully, with a set of about six songs, none of which were longer than 90 seconds, they could hardly be accused of outstaying their welcome.
The cock quotient was about to rise dramatically. Whitehouse were next, revelling in their Wire-sponsored return to the limelight by fiddling with their nipples and swearing at the audience in a manner that was probably very controversial and confrontational twenty years ago, but just put me in mind of a swingers party for pissed-up cab-drivers. Their equipment – laptop and air synth – worked fitfully; their performance did not work for me at all. Oh, for heavens sake, put it away.
Thankfully, Wolf Eyes were so good that they almost burnt out my memory of the preceding nonsense as well as blowing out my eardrums. Did I mention it was really loud? It was really loud. Commencing with “Driller” from last year’s fuck-me-I’m-scared Human Animal, they didn’t really let up for the next hour.
All the elements of this, this, I don’t know what it was, became tangled in a ball of sound. Nate Young’s vocals, John Olson’s sax and single-stringed bass, Mike Connelly’s guitar, and all manner of devices in boxes, they all became enmeshed in steel wool feedback, which scoured the Old Blue Last with masochistic delight.
I was reminded of the quote by Don Ayler about how to listen to the music he was making with his brother Albert: “try to move your imagination toward the sound. It’s a matter of following the sound”. Amongst the dense undergrowth you could make out trails to follow, such as metal riffs or sick distorted pulses – you just had to trust your instincts. Wolf Eyes were following theirs, and to awesome effect – gig of the year so far, i reckon (judge for yourself: here is an mp3 of the whole damned thing).
The pictures look better at flickr; there are a few more there too.
Pleasant surprise, this. With his fourth album – two as the unhandsome and dickless Manitoba, and now two as Caribou – Dan Snaith has delivered a fabulous and unexpectedly poppy little principality. Andorra may have its footballing credentials questioned on a regular basis, but the musical credentials of this are unimpeachable
Right from the no-messing, pounding, so melodic, opening track “Melody Day” – which may be the finest thing Dan Snaith has signed his name to – this is up there with the best experimental pop. While electronic in nature, there are a whole lot of other sounds therein. I’m hearing a lot of Nuggets in this. Love’s ambition, with the flutes, strings and a certain Arthur Lee quality in the vocals too – check “Sandy”. There are echoes of psych-rock guitar and some heavy Tintern Abbey drumming. More modern hints of The Beta Band, even a shared song title in “She’s The One” (aficionados of the rom-com genre may protest that this is much more likely to be a reference to the Aniston vehicle of the same name). A couple of low key electronic tracks serve to build atmosphere for the nine brilliant and unmistakeably Who-influenced minutes of “Niobe”.
Available in August. Check Merge or Caribou’s Myspace page for more.
Where N-Collective family members Ultralyd’s Conditions for a Piece of Music luxuriates in its epic languor, Moha’s Norwegianism acts up like a particularly hyperactive and itchy child playing two shoot-em-up arcade games simultaneously whilst texting their mates about how they got thrown off the bus for shouting and throwing chips at their fellow passengers.
On a typical (well, typical for them) piece like “Daily Three”, Anders Hana’s distorted guitars and electronics howl whilst Morten J. Olsen’s drums tumble thrilling all around a core of spasmodic Lightning Bolt twitch. Tracks are generally fleeting (and ludicrously misnomered – nothing could accurately be described as “Jolly” or “Gay” here, unless they mean those words in their lesser-used senses of “face-melting” or “laced with explosives”); just enough time to rip into your brain and mischievously swap a few connections around. One a couple of occasions, such as on “Ibiza One” towards the end, a hole is briefly smashed in the sky through which Ultralyd’s monstrous groan emerges, and as undeniably exciting as Norwegianism is, it may be to the Ultralyd album I think I’ll find myself returning more rather than this; Norwegianism leaves my synapses sparking and burnt out.
Norwegianism is available from Rune Grammofon. Listen to more at their myspace.
Two fractions distilled from Norway’s N-Collective – the stable long-chain of Ultralyd and the more volatile short-chain of Moha – have spilled on Rune Grammofon. Despite Moha’s two members Morten J.Olsen (the J disambiguating him neatly from the head coach of the Danish national football team) and Anders Hana forming a crude 50% of Ultralyd, you would hardly know it, so different are the resulting albums.
Ultralyd’s Conditions for A Piece of Music is far less frenetic than their most recent release proper Chromosome Gun, a place where the 4/4 drum beat of “Saprochord” would have felt a bit underdressed. The influence of so-called stoner-rock bands such as Earth is obvious in the metallic drone undercurrent, to which can be added fiery space-jazz (“Comphonie III”, featuring honks from the notably restrained saxophonist Kjetil Möster, borrows from Joe Henderson’s classic “Earth”), and the lop-sided dark funk of This Heat (the brilliant “Low Waist”). Conditions for a Piece of Music is a hugely impressive dark and slow-burning record.
Conditions… is available now from Rune Grammofon. You can listen to more at Ultralyd’s myspace. A review of Moha’s Norwegianism will, as surely as a red sky at night brings shepherds’ delight, appear some time tomorrow…
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