Posts Tagged ‘UK’

The SPOILERS – ” Nothing “

Posted: April 23, 2017 in MUSIC
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Released months after their debut LP, Spoilers skip the distorted tones of their ‘Anti Vibe’ 12″ and choose to take a direct, focused response to single-issue voters, echo chambers and e-activism with ‘Nothing’.
Sharp-sounding clangy guitars strum out this catchy punk rock, reminiscent of early Wire, Parquet Courts and Uranium Club. Recorded and mixed by the band’s bassist Christopher Smith at their rehearsal space/studio Kluster Rooms and self-released by the band’s own label Anti Vibe Music Group on limited edition orange cassette.
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released April 21, 2017

Mario Daddabbo (Drums), Craig Sharp (Vox & Guitar), Chris Smith (Bass) & Eddie Whelan (Vox & Guitar).

SPECTRES – ” Threshing Machine “

Posted: April 16, 2017 in MUSIC
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Spectres are a noise rock band from Bristol. Slowly gathering acclaim with their uncompromising sound, they won Artrocker Magazines ‘Unsigned Act Of The Year’ in 2012, the magazine describing their live show as ‘a tornado tearing through a nail factory; a bracing experience indeed, and teetering on the brink of beauty’. Following their crowning of the ‘Artrocker Unsigned Band of the Year’ award, the band take their visceral live sound into a squat bedroom for a couple of days, set up a few mics among the mattresses, plug in, play and see what happened. Recorded by members of the blossoming Howling Owl Records family (Oliver Wilde and Dominic Mitchison (Velcro Hooks)); Taken from the Hunger  EP somehow manages to knead the squalls of feedback, distortion and noise, whilst leaving room for the vocals to float around at will.

DESPERATE JOURNALIST – ” Resolution “

Posted: April 1, 2017 in MUSIC
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Desperate Journalist have just released latest single Resolution, a mix of noir power chords.

Singer Jo Bevan said, “The song was written in a hotel room after a New Year’s Eve party when I was feeling particularly peculiar, unable to drink and on a lot of codeine. New Years Eve is obviously an unusually heightened time to feel completely out of the loop with a group and when that happens to me, like everything else I can’t really cope with, I romanticise it into filmic fragments.

“The countdown to midnight was dramatized massively by the band we were watching (as is standard), and I couldn’t escape fixating on teenage thoughts like: how many cliched repetitive conversations/Fun Times you have with people on Significant Days of the Year, how emotionally awkward the midnight kiss was for so many of us, the people making big pointless romantic gestures, and the general warm frenzy of everyone else from the weird cold bubble of where I was. So broadly speaking, the song is about being detached and overstimulated.”

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Glowering indiegoth melody crunchers Desperate Journalist have announced their biggest headline show to date at the Scala in Kings Cross on Thursday April 6th. Their terrific new single called Resolution is out now

 

 

HORSEBEACH – ” Beauty and Sadness “

Posted: March 18, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Horsebeach is the Manchester-based project masterminded by multi-instrumentalist and producer Ryan Kennedy. Two years on from the chiming majesty of II, he returns with “Beauty And Sadness” – ten rain-soaked vignettes touching on love, loss, regret and remorse. Conceptual, confessional and boldly melodic, it’s a deeply textured LP fusing the familiar C86 jangle with chirping synths, grooving rhythms and expansive ambience whilst meditating on break ups and fuck ups with striking lyrical honesty.

Melancholic, but never miserable, “Beauty And Sadness” is a celebration in the exquisite pain of longing. Named after Yasunari Kawabata’s 1964 novel of the same name – a book which helped Kennedy through a difficult breakup – the source of the album’s title gives a clue as to what lies within, as Ryan explains; “It’s about regret and an overlaying sense of loss but also a realisation of the beauty of starting again. I found some beauty in sadness, as it forced me to re-evaluate everything.”

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Although the sound may be a departure from Horsebeach’s norm, the recording process remains the same with Kennedy overseeing all aspects of production. Taking full control of his melodic output, Beauty And Sadness is the third record to be released on Horsebeach’s own Alone Together imprint.

Drawing on inspiration from either side of the Atlantic, both new and old, Horsebeach’s music retains a certain appreciation to classic British guitar bands – The Smiths, Felt and groups from the C86 era are all indebted here. But Kennedy gives it a unique twist by delving into ambient electronics inspired by the likes of William Basinski and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. From the album’s dream-like intro – soft with velveteen pads and the delicate romanticism from a speech sample of Japanese author, Yukio Mishima – hazy synths give way to propulsive percussion, rippling guitars and soaring chord progressions as the band’s bittersweet signature sound evolves with newfound poise and purpose.

The PROPER ORNAMENTS – ” Creamated “

Posted: February 9, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Album number two from this trippy Velvet/Chills loving band. Not sure they’ve ever surpassed that first EP, but I love to hear them keep trying. Proper Ornaments is the project of James Hoare (Ultimate Painting, Veronica Falls) and Max Oscarnold (Toy, Pink Flames). The band germinated slowly from their friendship, which began when Max distracted James from shop-keeping, as his then girlfriend attempted to steal shoes. Max was freshly arrived in London from Buenos Aires.

The chance meeting blossomed into an epicurean riot of luminous highs and cold, dismal crashes that conversely produced music that was very well ordered and faintly angelic. It was so much deeper and more refined, serious, simple and affecting .

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Taken from the album, Foxhole, out on January 20th through Slumberland (US) and Tough Love (R.O.W)

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The TELESCOPES – ” The Second Album “

Posted: January 21, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The Telescopes were among the most innovative and challenging yet successful artists in Creation Records‘ “middle period”, a leading part of the wave of sonic experimenters who included Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine, Spectrum and Spiritualized. Towards the end of their time with Creation, they made their most fully realized album yet, “#’ (untitled second). This is the first time this great psychedelic album is being released in the US, and it comes with 3 bonus tracks. “The songs are built on acoustic guitars, then the tricked-out electric guitars are laid on top and garnished with bongos, organs, pianos, and all sorts of classic instruments. Stephen Lawrie’s vocals are restrained and semi-emotional and female backing vocals add a touch of sweetness that might otherwise be missing from the record, as the overall atmosphere is very moody and introspective.”

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COLD PUMAS – ” The Hanging Valley “

Posted: January 1, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Their long-awaited follow-up to 2012’s ‘Persistent Malaise’ offers shimmering, inward, mulch-heavy ballads — ‘A Change of Course’, ‘The Shaping of the Dream’, ‘Murmur of the Heart’  showing a sensitivity that inevitably does nothing for the craft beer revolution. Cold Pumas distill their catholic music tastes into a familiar yet original racket that recalls Sonic Youth as often as it does Can and Neu. With new album The Hanging Valley set for June release

Across its 38 minutes, the ‘The Hanging Valley’ instead covers such further peripheral subjects as the imperceptible bow towards the thirty-something honours list, the vacuous, rising diphthong of the inner-city commute and the suppressed rush of blood towards vainglorious internet smear.

The addition of Lindsay Corstorphine on the bass guitar, ‘cascading down the woodwork, slapping the pegs’ as he goes, In truth The Hanging Valley owes us much to Corstorphine’s ample string manship as his encouragement toward loosening the conservative shackles of olde. Ballads stare teary-eyed out of windows towards rain-swept rivieras, vocals and guitars have pulled themselves gamely out of the reverb-soaked hollow and those ‘for the rockers’ — ‘Slippery Slopes’, ‘Severed Estates’, ‘Fugue States’ et al — no longer grasp for the safety of the halfway house but aim for the stars.

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BENTCOUSIN – ” Bentcousin “

Posted: January 1, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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After an EP and a few singles, Bentcousin are now releasing their official debut album on Team Love. The album starts with a simple narrative indie pop song about a boy and a girl, but quickly flips the script as it moves from a Postcard Records style jangle-pop number to a disco version of a Dinosaur Jr track. By mid-record we’re gone deep with a dark dance track that skips the third verse and pivots straight into rap. Another disco-ball stunner follows, only to see the band embrace some sonic guitar drones as it bows and exits the stage. It’s not the first time the Brighton, England band, fronted by twins Pat and Amelia, have created songs that mix rap with indie pop or disco with new wave. The band have always made a seemingly effortless stand on the borderlines between genres.

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TRUST FUND – ” We Have Always Lived In the Harolds “

Posted: December 19, 2016 in MUSIC
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With their previous releases Trust Fund, aka Ellis Jones and various pals, have firmly established a great reputation for crafting the catchiest of sad bedroom-pop songs. The kind of tracks that you want to dance frantically around the room to whilst simultaneously crying because Jones’ songwriting resonates deeply as he earnestly narrates the constant fluctuation of ups and downs that is everyday life. ‘We have always lived in The Harolds’ maintains this characteristically visceral candor just with less of the clattering, full-band sounds and more wavy synth effects. There’s a poignantly raw, imperfect beauty at the core of this self-released album that epitomises exactly what it is that makes Trust Fund so emotively compelling to watch live.

This is Trust Fund at their weird and wonderful best with Jones’ distinctive vocals coming to the fore, track titles that read like cryptic clues, and majestic little melodies weaving their way throughout. There aren’t many artists who can juxtapose rather bleak lyrics like “all we want is to not exist” with the chirpiest, upbeat harmonies and actually make it work as well as Jones does. In the all too ephemeral burst of sadness and splendor that is ‘We have always lived in The Harolds’ Trust Fund offer a refreshingly authentic and chaotic collection of songs that you will want to listen to over and over again . A true Indie band in every sense.

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thanks to goldflakepaint

The THIRD SOUND – ” Gospels Of Degeneration “

Posted: December 10, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The Third Sound’s new album Gospels of Degeneration shows a shift in style for the group, having toned down the shimmery psychedelia in favour of something a little cleaner. That’s not to say this is a barren sounding album at all, it’s still hypnotically layered with country-kissed reverb, and retains those itching guitar riffs that will keep whispering through your mind for hours after listening.

Founded by Icelandic frontman, Hakon Aðalsteinsson – an ex-member of Singapore Sling who are often hailed as founding members of the new psych sound – The Third Sound came into being in Rome in 2010 and have since relocated to Berlin. Since forming, The Third Sound have enjoyed the support of Anton Newcombe, who released their self-titled first album, on his label A Recordings, and chose the group to support his band The Brian Jonestown Massacre on tour in Europe. He also provided the studio for recording their second album The Third Sound of Destruction and Creation which was released on Fuzz Club in 2013. Most recently they’ve shared members with Anton Newcombe and Tess Parks’ band, which led to Parks’ appearance on the single “You Are Not Here” from this new album. What began as somewhat of a solo project by Aðalsteinsson, the new album sees The Third Sound stretching its definition with deeper levels of collaboration between band members and the influence of a new character in its story, the city of Berlin.

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The group’s sound has been described as “ebbing between light and dark, dream and reality, pop and experimentalism” and “ranging from hypnotic soundscapes to tweaked out and fuzzed up numbers.” In a recent premiere on Clash Music they were described as “lynchpins of the psychedelic underground.”

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