It’s dark tonight. Above my head in the clear sky, there are a million stars dusted across the inky blackness. Down here on the ground, blank rolls of mud-brown hills stretch out in front of me. Somewhere close by there is water, a huge amount of it, a crushing weight of water being pulled back and forth by the gravity of the moon. I can hear the crashing sound as it flagellates the shoreline. Somewhere far below my feet, I’ve been told there is a hot, molten core of fire in the heart of this planet, but up here above the earth’s mantle a cold breeze breathes onto my face, past me, through me. My attention moves to my own breathing, the air being consumed by my ravenous lungs, and I listen to my heart as it beats the blood around my body. My eyes stare outwards, and somewhere in the space behind, my consciousness realises itself once again.
Dark skies, inky blackness, soft mud, roaring oceans, fire, nature, blood, and selfhood in the face of an unknowably vast universe - quite a palette of evoked imagery and invoked subject matter. But entry into this grand exploration is just one of the things offered up by Fuck Buttons’ astonishing debut album, Street Horrrsing.
‘Sweet Love For Planet Earth’ begins with a tinkling electronic windchime that gradually gives way to a tidal flow of distorted keyboard, layered up into a gentle repetition, buffeted by waves of semi-comprehensible screamed vocals, and lifted further by crashing aural fronts and eddies. It summons up a sense of celestial wonder and draws out the spirit like a full moon. It’s an adrenalising experience, and it flows straight into the tribal percussion of ‘Ribs Out’, with preternatural vocals cawing and hooting and coming off like an alien bird of paradise. ‘OK, Let’s Talk About Magic’ introduces a rasping mechanical beat and pulsing synth; ‘Bright Tomorrow’ is the most anthemic track here, light-hearted and giddily emotional, and a fitting melodic counterpoint to some of the denser slabs of distortion. The album unfolds through different combinations, structures and sequences drawn from this sound palette, intelligently exploring and mapping out the transcendental possibilities contained therein.
Possibly the most notable aspect of Street Horrrsing is the breadth of subject matter it manages to evoke. For a largely instrumental album with an absolute minimum of coherent lyrics, it’s teeming with content. Whether or not the specific subjects are something that come from within the listener, or something presented as an intrinsic element of the music is a question from philosophers not humble music journalists, so I won’t go into specifics - but I found my mind wandering far and wide under it’s influence.
Fuck Buttons’ music explodes what is expected of it to fire the imagination, and the resultant album is the most fully realised debut of recent years. Their imminent success (including a sprawling tour of the US with Caribou) will hopefully bring them some richly deserved wider recognition.
And so, friends, we go bravely into the breach once more. The booze 'n' blood splattered noise party that is All Tomorrows Parties' annual Release The Bats is upon us again like a still-warm technicolor zombie drug bastard lurching from a pukey Shoreditch doorway. The promise of a free ATP chalet for the best outfit is enough temptation for a good proportion of the assembled hipsters to make the effort, and the bands don't let the side down either. First stop on the highway to hell: NYC's Lightning Bolt.
Lightning Bolt: "Do You Don't Me Want Me To Love You?"
A masked man pummels the drums like they're trying to take his life. Another masked man wrestles his guitar, flipping out tangled distorto-riffs and chunky chords. Both are positioned on the venue floor, surrounded by the zombified audience. From the balcony, we're afforded a decent viewpoint of the action; the slightly polite moshing from the assembled noisenik sausagefest; the regularity with which the guitar's headstock nearly gives someone a facial gash they won't be able to peel off; the entertaining panic of the security guards as they realise the band have no protection from an increasingly active crowd. Every song sounds like a speeded-up, beaten-down, messy version of the Beatles' Helter Skelter. Good shit.
Pissed Jeans: "Do You Love Me?"
Pissed Jeans win the wooden spoon for fancy dress, but are saved by a frontman who's all twitching, seething awkward angles, knees and elbows and hips and shoulders. He's clearly graduated the Nick Cave school of showmanship with honours, and his band from The Birthday Party school of nasty old bastard fuzzrock. Heavy, sludgy riffs ripple outwards while he rants and wails and paces the stage. This is nasty, violent music: more good shit.
Wooden Shjips: "Dangerous Magical Noise"
Slowing things down a bit, Wooden Shjips run riot with a choice selection of bass-led grooves and hazy psychedelia, coming on like Spaceman 3 playing the blues. I can't remember if they dressed up, but there was at least one awesome beard on the stage, so they're let off the meathook on that front. I'm not massively into their set, but am very aware that they're occupying the "Deerhunter slot"... said band played here last year and quickly went from zero to hero when I heard their recordings, so Wooden Shjips are a band I plan to check out again soon.
Les Savy Fav
Les Savy Fav: "It's good to be alive, but it's better to have died.."
The rock 'n' roll spectacle of the night comes from Les Savy Fav, who proceed to tear it the fuck up with more gusto than anyone could reasonably expect from an aging, bearded, pot-bellied frontman. Within the first song he's in the crowd, then he's simula-boning a decorative zombie mannequin, then pogoing in his pants... song two and he's off around the vast Forum balcony, the mic lead taut above the rictus grinning heads of the audience. Before the gig is out, the air is full of flying toilet rolls, and he's doing a coordinated dance with a fan dressed in a paper mache Les Savy Fav head. I can't really remember what it sounded like, but this was fucking rad.
Shellac
Shellac: "BITE!"
Steve Albini's Shellac win the costume prize, easily. Their drummer is a hissing dracula who stalks the stage between apoplectic explosions of rhythm; the bass player chugs along dressed as a green, bolt-necked Frankenstein, and method acts through the show, emitting no words except for a deadpan "RAAARRRRGGGHH". Albini is a lurching mummy, bandaged from head to toe, with his glasses operched on the end of his bandaged nose. The music spits and snarls despite the comedic get-up, misanthropic and endlessly, powerfully negative. The lyrics cancel themselves out regularly: "this song is for our sponsor / we don't have a sponsor / this song is for a special girl / there's no such thing as a special girl". Shellac is relentlessly, refreshing nasty, from the counter-intuitive rhythm changes to the scowling, menacing guitar lines. This music bites and leaves a mark.
Om close the night, but the room is emptying faster than a mass grave on Halloween, so we decide to catch them another time go pouring out into the night alight with excitement at the spectacle we've just seen. Roll on ATP, and roll on Halloween 09.
The Union Chapel is one of London's most beautiful venues. The flickering candles, wooden pews, glowing stained glass windows and arched vaulting combine to provide a venue as thick with expectant atmosphere as it is with dreamy natural reverb. It's a great setting for the borderline narcoleptic mellowness of Lambchop.
Lambchop (tonight a seven-piece on guitars, percussions, piano, bass and keyboards) play their new record, "Oh (Ohio)" in full, clearly relishing the chance to give the new material a spin. The new record is typical fare from a prolific band who never really change that much; and while this might sound like damning with faint praise, in this case the continuity is becoming. Lambchop don't make bad albums, and their ever-attentive fans continue to lap up their output.
Tonight, Kurt Wagner's paper-dry voice is softened by the sound of the room, to the point at which the echoing lyrics are hard to decipher. His voice is reduced to another instrument, a comforting drawl of echo that sits in the foreground of the sound. It's a slight shame - Lambchop's lyrics are great - but easily forgivable in the context of the evening. The still, echoey, pink-lit space of the Union Chapel provides a dreamy backdrop to Lambchop's subtle, domestic style.
Wagner is ever the charismatic performer, rocking in his seat with his knees clenched together, arching his back and running his fingers over the strings with a flourish. For the rousing finale of the "Oh (Ohio)" set, he ditches the guitar, pulling himself up with the mic stand and jabbing his finger towards the crowd, his deep, croaking old voice rising up to the back of the balcony. These few moments of movement are accentuated by the stillness of the performance; Lambchop can lift the roof off of any venue when they get into full swing.
They finish with a few fairly obscure older numbers - even though I own five albums I'm nowhere near familiar with everything they've done - and a rousing version of their signature song 'Up With People'. Lambchop are as assured, consistent and accomplished as ever, and with performances like this coming as naturally as breathing, they ain't going anywhere fast.
Download this mix of shimmering drone, ephemeral pop, Iceland field recordings and weirdo-disko by clicking below. Second podcast, a best-of-08 mix, will go live in December.
John Brainlove met Kevin Barnes (right) after a packed out Rough Trade instore to talk about autobiography, inspiration, the differences between dreams and reality, and the fantastical world Of Montreal...
John Brainlove: So, I was googling Airwaves and I got really excited to see you were playing, but it turned out to be a lineup from last year... how was that?
Kevin Barnes: It was great. It's always a bit scary when you're playing a festival, and there's like so many bands and you never get time to set up your stuff, and you get thrown out onstage and it's chaos, and inevitably something sets on fire or breaks... in this instance my amp was making a horrible sound, so I kinda freaked out for the first four or five songs, then I kinda got into it and it was fun, and then the next thing I know I'm being pulled offstage...
JB: Have you been to Iceland before?
KB: No, that was a first...
JB: Do you find when touring that you get a chance to see places? Or is it just like, hotel, bus, plane, show...
KB: Every once in a while you do, yeah, if you get in early enough and the promoters are enthusiastic, a lot of times we'll be playing smaller stages in like Italy or Spain and the promoters feel like they have to fill this role of a cultural liason and show you a good time, and that's always great. But if you get into a place sometimes, you're just left on your own and wander around a little bit and find stuff out...
JB: Which I guess is never that nice, just a few alleyways and cafés around a venue...
KB: Yeah totally. To be honest, this is my first really really good experience of London. I've never had a bad experience, but I've never had a trip where I went to a whole bunch of different parts of the city and really got a good sense. It's always been in more run down parts of London, whereas this area is like super-hip and young, and where we're staying is kinda ritzy. I really like that the city has so much diversity, and I hadn't seen the good side of London before. And I was like "shit man, London's awesome".
JB: Yeah, in some parts it's like a different world, you go around in the day and all you see are decorators and nannies...
KB: ... and no artists live there, sure. What's this area like?
JB: Well I guess we're right in Shoreditch and Old Street, the first time I came here it was mostly just factories and closed up shops, but it's really buzzing now, the artists landed here like regeneration locusts and then got priced out...
KB: Yeah, it's like that in New York, and I guess everywhere. We were in Barcelona and we were like, we wanna move here, and they were like "no, don't do it! You'll raise the rent" and all the reporters will come...
JB: So tonight you're playing in Rough Trade in happening Brick Lane... I think the last time I saw you was ATP playing the Hissing Fauna show. That's obviously a very personal album. You've said that this one is a step away from the autobiographical approach, more fictionalized or written around characters...
KB: No, I didn't mean to say it like that. I don't want to propagate the idea that was writing from the point of view of a persona... I hope I didn't...
JB: (laughs) Maybe I missed some sarcasm or something...
KB: I better go back and read it! There was this character I created called Georgie Fruit, and now I wish I never did, because people are like, "is that a Kevin Barnes song, or a Georgie Fruit song?"... and really there's no difference. They're all Kevin Barnes songs, and I don't like that idea of people seeing a division. I think people would see that as less genuine, but it seems like it's not based in reality, like you're writing from the point of view of a fictional character. That's too much like a defense mechanism. I want all my songs to be like, really coming from the heart and maybe if they're not about something that's physically happened, like a physical experience that I've had, I don't really make a division between the physical and the dream state or the emotional state. I don't really make the division. If you fantasize about something that's just as real as if you really did it.
JB: I was interested in your ideas about identity, the idea of identity as a malleable construction, does that relate back to that fluid idea of characters and points of view... about your own self being a construction that you consciously work on changing or building. And in that sense having a character is presenting a front...
KB: I don't really think of it as a front... I don't think you can ever contradict yourself, even if you contradict what you said yesterday... it's just as real as it was yesterday. I don't think you have a really fixed identity. When people say "you're being phony" I don't agree with that because you can only be yourself. It's impossible to be phony. Whoever you feel you are at that moment... it's real. And whoever you want to be... I don't believe there's one true identity that's the fixed you. It's obviously fluid, and it's effected by your mood, your experiences, your dreams, what you ate... it's constantly changing. Nobody should believe that they only have one fixed persona or character or identity or whatever that's the real them.
JB: Do you think that's a scary thought, to have no sense of permanence? Everything as transitory..?
KB: I find it very liberating. You don't have to worry about being consistent. You just feel what you feel and act how you want to act, without having to worry "is this appropriate for who I am? Is this outfit appropriate for who I am?" ... it's more fun to have that malleable aspect to your character and be free to do whatever. And it's all real.
JB: Did you make a conscious decision about the change of musical direction? Skeletal Lamping seems like quite a deliberate swerve...
KB: I think I really wanted to make something that was constantly shifting, constantly changing, with no rules and no limitations, no structure really... it still has structure. Some songs have do have repeating parts, but repetition seems to me like laziness. A lot of people always repeat things...
JB: Do you think that's in contrast to Hissing Fauna, which had quite tight cycles repeating for a long time?
KB: Well, this time I was in the mindset that it's laziness to write a part, then do it again. It's a very common thing in pop music to verse / chorus / repeat. It's more creative that way.
JB: Yeah it's at the very heart of pop music... if you hear a song again and again and it has repeating parts, you just end up liking on some level through exposure...
KB: Yeah, that's something that's very powerful about pop music, and I think in a way I'm depriving them of that relationship with the songs. On this record it's hard to tell where one song ends and another begins, I wanted to make it flow, and it's kind of random where I placed the track markers. Tonight when we played, the stop and start parts are random without the context of the album...
JB: After Hissing Fauna, which was so intensely and nakedly personal, Skeletal Lamping does seem more stylized or cryptic, even though it's just as lyrically dense...
KB: I think it's just as autobiographical. I mean, Hissing Fauna was like pain. And pain is the great equalizer. Everyone can appreciate pain, confusion, anxiety... these things are universal and easily relatable. But when you talk about more abstract things... Skeletal Lamping is definitely more abstract. I don't think it's less emotional or less autobiographical. Maybe it's a bit less accessible, but it's all about sexuality, gender roles, the politics of sexuality... the complexity of society and finding your way through it... navigating through it... getting through your childhood, your teenage years, your twenties, and then finding yourself in this place where you're like... "what the fuck happened? what's going on?". But I do think it's still a very introspective record, and where something is introspective it has to be autobiographical. It's deeply rooted in my experience, my fantasy world, my dream world... it's everything.
Skeletal Lamping is out now on some exciting new formats, including t-shirt, wall sticker, badge and lampshade. Oh, and CD. Find out more here.
Everything/Everything is the third studio album from London based composer and performer Leo Chadburn, under his nom-de-plume Simon Bookish. Famously evasive in his influences and techniques, Chadburn's output has skipped between dancefloor friendly electro-pop, ambient composition and abstract spoken-word infused electronica.
Everything/Everything is a watershed; a long awaited reconciliation with the many facets of his musical character. The complex backing arrangements are played on saxophones, brass, piano, harp and Farfisa organ and scored so tightly that when played live, the musicians visibly break out in sweat. They swirl in rapid syncopated eddies, mimicking the busy bleeping of Chadburn's previous work. This is electronic composition reinvented and reframed within a live context that relates to jazz as closely as contemporary classical and lounge crooning.
The lyrical content of Everything/Everything is also something of a departure from previous works such as Trainwreck/Raincheck. Emerging from the ramparts of arcane cultural reference points and surreal abstraction, this album feels altogether more personal, weaving encoded thoughts, ideas, sharp flashes of wit and autobiographical strands into an intoxicating whole. Ostensibly about living in the age of information overload, it's nonetheless a lyrical opening up for this most elusive of musicians. Chadburn has finally found a palette for expression he feels comfortable with, and this album feels immeasurably more assured as a result.
Channeled through Chadburn's sternly intellectual aesthetic, this "big band song cycle" is at times overwhelming, awash with timing changes, alive with discordant challenges at every turn, and chittering with the dissonant overlap of sounds colliding and shimmering with strict precision. It's a brave, ambitious, teetering construction of gravity-defying sonic pointillism that creates the disconcerting and exciting effect of an aural Bridget RIley.
This is one of the finest albums of the year, and another step in Simon Bookish realizing his potential as one of the most consistently creative, challenging and interesting contemporary UK solo artists working today.
Hey all... this is the latest Brainlove release, a 27 track compilation featuring all of our main bands and all our friends & family bands too. So there are songs from Napoleon IIIrd, Pagan Wanderer Lu, Applicants & Keyboard Choir alongside Bearsuit, Cats In Paris, Capitol K, Ratface, Winston Echo, Friends Of The Bride and many more...
Lots of nice reviews have come in... "Brainlove Records have put together a mind shrinking collection of underground sounds... so very up to moment but incredibly special too." - Manchester Music
"The outlet for underground hero John Brainlove, his compilation is one of the most eclectic imaginable... the desire to find the bands who match the sounds in his head is laudable." - Planet Sound, Teletext
"You're pretty much onto a winner whatever genre floats your boat... the people at Brainlove have done us proud once more." - Contact Music
"Basically, it's amazing." - Kruger Magazine
"You can tell - just on looks alone - that with 'Two Thousand and Ace' you are are in for a kaleidoscopic, messy journey through all the most loony tunes Brainlove has to offer. Whatever the weather outside, this album is sure to bring the sunshine indoors." - Amelia's Magazine
"A compilation with its finger on the pulse... you'd be hard pressed to justify NOT buying it." - Death To Music
"27 tracks from Modernaire to Capitol K to Friends of The Bride, Napoleon IIIrd, Pagan Wanderer Lu... a really good label." - Huw Stephens
"One of the most varied introductions to underground music in 2008... there's literally something for everyone... you'll each have your own stars of the show." - The Beat Surrender
"Experimentation is lacking in modern popular music but Two Thousand And Ace is essential summer listening. Tap your toes, twitch your wiggle, it's teasingly wonderful. It's also limited edition, so buy it quick." - Music OMH
"the depth and breadth of sounds on this sampler proves why others are so excited by the fledgling label... proof that for all the panic in the industry, some independent labels are flourishing." - New Noise
"Given their track record when Brainlove Records place a record of theirs on a high shelf and ask we jump we willingly enquire how high. 'As high as the shelf' is the response." - Sweeping The Nation
S.E. Rogie - Dome Justice Bernard Estardy - Asiatic Dream Magazine - The Light Pours Out of Me XTC - Beatdown B-52's - 52 Girls Animal Collective - Brother Sport (live bootleg) Stereolab - Come and Play in th Milky Night Db's - Dynamite Gong - You Can't Kill Me Foals - Like Swimming Elton Motello - Jet Boy Jet Girl Germs - Lexicon Devil Faust - Party 2 Brian Eno - St Elmo's Fire David Bowie - Repetition Captain Beefheart - Tropical Hot Dog Night Flamingos - I Only Have Eyes For You
Also, a new piece of art I made this weekend. "Open Your Heart To Me", Animated GIF, 2008
Bradford Cox, the mastermind behind Deerhunter & Atlas Sound, is a very striking individual. He's toweringly tall, maybe 6'4", and stick thin; he suffers from Marfan Syndrome, a skeletal and muscular disorder than gives him a stretched, elongated appearance. His eyes move as quickly as his mind, and he talks and thinks accordingly fast. He's clearly steeped in music to an all-encompassing degree - as guest DJ recently in our Brainlove room at Koko he produced 4 iPods from an orange pencil case, and every single song he played was both amazing and something I'd never heard before. He was running on 2 hours sleep in the last 48, but he DJed happily for hours after a packed headline show at Tufnell Park's Dome venue. "I love music so much," he said, "I live for it. I love to DJ any chance I get."
Deerhunter and Atlas Sound could be described as presenting two very different takes on Shoegaze, although Bradford describes Deerhunter as 'ambient punk'. Deerhunter veer between extended atmospheric sprawls of sweet, warm sound and a soupy, embracing kind of rocking out - their new album "Microcastle" is out now digitally and available soon on CD. Atlas Sound present gorgeous, shimmering pop soundscapes, as seen on their album-of-the-year contender "Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Can Not Feel".
Any way you slice it, Bradford Cox is reinterpreting and reinventing one of the richest passages in recent music history. But even better, he's eclipsing the gems of the genre as he goes. Like Sonic Youth's recent purple patch, his prolific output is of a singularly high quality. Bradford Cox seems certain to quickly become a lasting and deserved outsider icon.
I'm interviewing him for TLOBF this week, so I'll link to it from here when it's done.
No genre can be quite as transcendental or quite such an ordeal as noise music. In self indulgent hands, a noise gig can be an endurance test; an interminable, chronically limited spectacle of musicians blowing their load through a rack of effect pedals. But when creativity is applied, noise music can break through the glass ceiling of anger-channeling and sonic nihilism and blossom into something more.
NYC trio Black Dice play in front of an imposing wall of speakers, bathed in projected patterns that flex, flash and ripple in time with with their ever-evolving rhythms. Rasping sonic scratches punctuate elusive, catchy repetitions that congeal and dissolve between shuddering slabs of distorted racket. There notably isn't any reference to tradition song structures, build/release or loud-quiet-loud dynamics. This is a micro-landscape built from sounds both mechanical and organic, chaotic and systematic, played at ear-shattering, bone-shaking volume.
The three often play sections that are ostensibly at odds with each other, but overlap fluently, creating a multi-layered composition with several narratives working in unison. Vocals are employed as part of the sound collage, and like the live drums and occasional guitar, what playing is visible bears little resemblance to the sound coming from the speakers. Everything comes through an effects array that warps and bends every aspect into the tangling maths of the whole.
The effect is a set that seems both familiar and impenetrably alien, strictly ordered and yet organic in construction, like a process found in nature. Put a microphone to the ground and amplify the sounds of the earth to the thunderous volume of a meteor strike, and you can start to imagine the noise Black Dice are making.
Welcome to the BRNLV blog: news from the label, festival and associated artists, new songs, videos, tour dates and the odd bit of bloggy music critique too. And lists. We love lists.
