Posts Tagged ‘Physical Education Recordings’

CAGEWORK – ” Cagework “

Posted: July 5, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Cagework dropped ‘Simmer’ in April 2018, receiving praise and support from the likes of So Young, Clash, Too Many Blogs and Rough Trade, with repeated spins from Huw Stephens, Gideon Coe and ‘Night Tsar’ Amy Lamé.

But what about since then? “We played through the initial excitement around the release of Simmer, which was really encouraging,” says Sam Bedford, principal songwriter of the trio. They went out on the road for spot shows and short runs of dates.

“After a while though, we needed to reassess what we wanted to do next and how to approach that.” The band took a step back from live after the summer to take stock. Cagework started as a bedroom project in the South West of England and it slowly got out of hand. So out of hand, in fact, that it became a band.

Taking inspiration from odd, lo-fi indie, post-hardcore and early emo, with smatterings of avant-garde folk, the band drew these somewhat disparate influences together to create an equally juxtaposed sound; dissonant, atonal and yet somehow hook-driven. Coming into Autumn, amidst growing global anxiety and fidgetiness of their own, a release began to take shape. The band recorded six tracks to a length of just under 15 minutes in their makeshift basement studio.

“It seems strange to want to draw a line under such a short period of time, considering we’ve been a band for less than a year,” says Sam. “But we were looking ahead and really wanted to have these songs documented, with so many more being written all the time.”

The EP was intended to be a self-release in early 2019, but through fate and good fortune, the home recordings found their way to Physical Education Recordings.

The band travelled up to Phys Ed founder Justin Lockey’s South Yorks studio to track their EP in much more compassionate and enabling surrounds.

The resultant self-titled debut is 16-and-a-bit minutes spread across seven tracks. There’re temporal and dynamic shifts, but there’s a thread of continuity. Sure, it’s not furiously angry, but who can sustain anger like that?. This EP reflects the familiar, pervasive malaise of 2018 and, by the looks of things, 2019. It also responds with a message of the need to reflect, a process the band spent enough time on to be relatively authoritative providers of such advice.

MASTERSYSTEM – ” Dance Music ” Best Albums Of 2018

Posted: December 28, 2018 in MUSIC
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May 10th, 2018 is a date that many indie music fans will never forget. It is the day we learned that Frightened Rabbit front man Scott Hutchison said goodbye to the world. Unfortunately, we never got the opportunity to say thank you for being the best friend we needed in our most difficult times. He did, however, leave one last parting gift, which he crafted with his brother and fellow Frightened Rabbit Grant Hutchison and siblings Justin Lockey of Editors and James Lockey of Minor Victories. Together, the four formed the super-sibling rock band mastersystem. Their one album, Dance Music, is, well, a modern-rock masterpiece.

Opener “Proper Home” leaves no doubt that Dance Music is meant for cavernous rock halls. The stormy fervor of “Notes on a Life Not Quite Lived” is the closest thing to a Frightened Rabbit track on the record. It roars like a full-throttle engine that spews reverb-heavy dueling guitars and propulsive percussion. Scott’s lyrics are poignant and heavy, as he sings of “lessons learned”, being “lost in a deep abyss”, and finding “hope in hopelessness”.

The final album by the late, great Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison, this side-project with members of Editors, Minor Victories  took his brutal and introspective poetry into gnarlier terrain to create something much like its Sega console namesake: simple, free of frills, nostalgic, and yet weirdly futuristic at the same time.

Frightened Rabbit, Editors and Minor Victories combine for maximum heavy riffage. For more: Debut album released 6th April 2018 on Physical Education Recordings

Mastersystem go full bore The Pogues with a heavy dose of A Place To Bury Strangers on “The Enlightenment”. As Grant’s militaristic drumming leads the way, Scott poignantly tackles his own existence and purpose. A similar introspective tone percolates on “Must Try Harder”, which wails with the ferocity of Smashing Pumpkins in their prime. A moment of brief reprieve occurs on the pulsating, politically-driven “Teething”. Meanwhile, a more melodic approach is adopted on the grungy “Bird is Bored of Flying”, which highlights Scott’s philosophical songwriting style. As his band mates quietly rage, he smartly confronts people’s obsession with wealth. He hollers, “We all want fire until it starts to burn”.

The album’s peak, though, is “Old Team”. It is a song for the underdog and all seeking to “get it right”. The Hutchisons’ trademark fervor is brilliantly meshed with the signature Lockey scorching depth, resulting in an epic anthem. It’s a fist-pounding, tear-down-the-walls number that will have people yelling, “Nobody fuck with me!”. These words seem apropos for Mastersystem, who unleash a sonic fury reminiscent of the great alt-rock bands of the past. It’s an LP that is among the very best rock outputs of the year and one that rivals the very best of the ’90s.

Dance Music is out April 6th via Physical Education Recordings,

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