Archive for the 'Music' Category

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¡Forward, Russia! Live at Fat Sams, Dundee, April 17th 2008

Published on April 18, 2008 in Music, gig and review. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I think its fair to say that Fat Sams is quite a different place than King Tuts. While I don’t quite share the opinion that King Tuts is the best live music venue there is, it certainly comes close. Fat Sams? Well, it’s a club. This immediately alters the mood, the bouncers have inflated egos, the atmospher is generally a bit worse. This wasn’t helped by the fact that it’s a club in Dundee. So far as I can tell Dundee doesn’t have quite the same music scene as somewhere like Edinburgh or Glasgow. In Edinburgh and Glasgow people go out to gigs fairly regularly, at least some people do, in Dundee this is not the case. People go to gigs to see local bands in Dundee.

Speaking of which, the local band that opened last night were terrible. I actually had to leave the room a couple of times because the music was so poorly conceived. Indeed as someone I was at the gig pointed out, one of their songs didn’t end. This was not in a good way either, for instance on The Mars Volta’s Amputechre many of the songs are literally amputated, this song however meandered on after it should have finished, then suddenly with no warning they stopped playing. There was no feeling that the song had finished. Then there was the awful pairing of Meg White style drumming to a song which didn’t suit it. I like The White Stripes a lot, but Meg’s drumming suits the style of music they play. When you insert that style of drumming into a song that is not in that style, it does not work.

Moving swiftly onwards and back to Johnny Foreigner. Another excellent set from the best thing to come out of Birmingham in along time. Again they played with an energy, and their songs were so dynamic that you couldn’t help but get really in to the set. The inter song banter continued in the same vein as that in Glasgow. This time it was more outrageous though, at one point they apologised for their lack of organisation and proceeded to talk at length about what to play next. When this got a heckle from the crowd the instant response was: “Could you be quiet, we’re trying to have a conversation here!” I think I’m in love with the song they finish on, excellent set finisher. Suffice to say, I will be getting their album when it’s released. Despite their candid admission that they steal music from the internet, so they can’t expect us to buy it. I certainly will be buying it though.

After the band once more walked on to the sounds of That’s Amore, Tom announced that he was having problems with his throat. It’s to his credit that he soldiered on through the performance, especially as the band had to cancel today’s Newcastle date after a reccomendation from a doctor. The band were on fine form again, once more opening with the excellent Spring Is A Condition. The setlist was largely similar to the Glasgow gig, only this time we did actually get A Prospector Can Dream. Unfortunately the technical problems meant that once more Nineteen wasn’t played. This did however mean that Whiskas dedicated Gravity And Heat to me, which was a really excellent thing for him to do.  Again the set took in the epic Don’t Be A Doctor and finished on Spanish Triangles. Spanish Triangles is easily the best finisher I’ve seen, the opportunity for group vocals at the end during the epic guitar, where Bentley the guitar tech comes on stage to play extra guitar, is immense. I was left once more wanting much more and tempted to go to Newcastle, thankfully for me that was cancelled; preventing me from doing something irresponsible.

¡Forward, Russia! Live at King Tuts 15th of April 2008

Published on April 16, 2008 in Music, gig and review. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

First up a small note on King Tuts itself. This was the first time I’ve been at King Tuts where there was a barrier, and I have to say this disappointed me. Barriers at gigs are always really poorly thought out, I’ve never understood why they don’t pad them. Sure there are practicalities involved with padding them, but it just makes sense. Anybody who has been to a gig will be faimiliar with the idiots who form a mosh pit, and cause general harm to all around. I’ve been in many situations where I’ve been crushed up against a barrier for large parts of gigs, believe me a little padding would go a long way. Anyway, I saved myself the trouble by standing at the front right of the stage, just beyond where the barrier comes to. This gave me a perfect view of the gig, close up but not being crushed and with room to dance.

As always seems to be the case when I visit Glasgow, there was a local band of dubious quality up first. I honestly don’t know how Glasgow generates all these bad local bands, but it does. To be fair top This July, it’s not really that they were bad; mediocre is probably a better description. Beyond the vocals, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong. To me it just seemed that they played a number of poorly conceived songs, lacking in any real hooks or personality. Again they had the local Glasgow audience lapping up the Glaswegian band, something I find happening only in Glasgow really. At one point between songs I said to my friends: “Please say this is going to be your last song.” Fortunately, this is exactly what the frontman said not 5 seconds later.

On to the main support act and I had plenty of confidence that we were going to be in for more of a treat. Even before Johnny Foreigner came on stage, I was pleased by their cute riff on the ghosts from Pacman accross most of their equipment. To say that I was impressed is an understatement. Their songs were infectious, with excellent interplay between drums, bass, guitar and ocassionally synth. For a band with only three members their sound was full and pleasing, no doubt helped by the boy girl tennis volley vocals. I was sad when their set finished, despite the fact that meant ¡Forward, Russia! would be on soon. Clearly they were good then.

So to ¡Forward, Russia! who had just released their excellent second album Life Processes (review to come later) the day before. This meant they had to tread the careful line between playing the newer songs, and the older ones. Personally I could’ve done with more of the new songs. Particularly when their technical gizmos went on the fritz taking both A Prospector Can Dream and Nineteen out of the setlist. These were replaced by Seven and Nine, two songs I love, but having seen the live so many times I couldn’t feel a little bit upset that the other two couldn’t be played. Opening with Spring Is A Condition was a masterstroke, for so long I can only remember ¡Forward, Russia! starting with Thirteen, even though the eventually migrated away from it, it was still nice to see it placed in the middle with a new perfect opener in place. For me the highlights were very definitely the new songs, in addition to Spring Is A Condition, Don’t Reinvent What You Don’t Understand, Gravity and Heat, and A Shadow Is A Shadow Is A Shadow were awesome to experience live. Gracity and Heat in particular was anthemic and truly felt like as much of an instant classic as Don’t Be A Doctor was.

¡Forward, Russia! are a band who have very much improved in almost every imaginable way since their debut album. Give Me A Wall was an extremely important album to me, but the band as a whole just seem so much more confident now, particularly playing the newer songs. Older songs are re-invigorated as well, which can only be a good thing. While they may be confident playing, Katie did take time to say that she wasn’t sure anybody would turn up. I guess it’s always a worry, but a band of such quality should never have to worry about that. The set finished with the epic Spanish Triangles, which is an even better set finisher than Eleven was back in the Give Me A Wall days. The way the song builds to the oh so singable refrain of “Turn your ships around, we are all armadas now,” truly astounds live. The band have to get credit for being willing to involve guitar tech Bentley in playing on Spanish Triangles, it helps keep it as brilliantly layered as it is on the album. We were even treated to an encore which is a relative rarity for ¡Forward, Russia!, though they may end up playing them more often now them seem to be more popular. Fifteen Part II was the song chosen, which is an excellent song for an encore, though again personally I’d have loved to see something newer. I understand that’s not how encores work though.

So an excellent gig, which left me angry at myself for not having sorted out a way for going to the Aberdeen gig. I would rate ¡Forward, Russia! as being at their absoloute best since I started going to see them live back in 2005, and Johnny Foreigner were an excellent bonus. Still, I have Dundee to look forward to. Though I can’t imagine the acoustics are very good in Fat Sams…

Muxtape: The latest cool web 2.0 craze

Published on April 13, 2008 in Music. 8 Comments Tags: , , .

I stumbled across Muxtape when doctorvee linked me to a cool litle Yahoo! pipe which utilised your last.fm charts to try to find suitable Muxtapes. Anyway, since then doctorvee wrote a really good post about muxtape, and mixtapes in general. Alex Navarro formerly of Gamespot also gave Muxtape some good coverage. I am also surprised that Muxtape hasn’t been shut down yet. It seems like exactly the kind of thing that the music industry would crack down on faster than Sonic The Hedgehog, yet it has survived so far. I can’t help but hope that perhaps the music industry is going to deal with this in a much more mature way than they’ve dealt with other aspects of the internet. As doctorvee pointed out, Muxtape’s saving grace may just be that there is no easy way to download the songs. Though it has to be said, you would expect the music industry to want some sort of royality even for streaming tracks. It falls directly into the area of the last.fm streaming deal, but Muxtape has no adverts to cover the royalties unlike last.fm. The recent appearance of a buy from Amazon link may just be enough to keep the industry at bay.

I may only be young (20 for stat fans) but I used to delight in making mixtapes. Sure tapes were a bit past it by then, but that didn’t stop me from trying to make excellent mixes. As I grew older I became much more interested in track transitions, to this day I still wonder about possible permutations. I very rarely get the chance to make proper mixtapes these days though, I’ve made playlists for parties but nothing more really. The last big attempts were for the two mix-minidiscs (ouch that sounds cackhanded) I created for Krystal before I met her. Even these were created on computer however, it has to be said the ability to create quick playlists and instantly try lots of tracks when you’re trying to get the right sort of transition is a real boon to the mixtape creation process. It does take away some of the romantic aspect of it though.

Muxtape offered the chance to take time to create a mixtape again and even for that I’m happy. That it might give me the chance to stumble upon some new bands is merely a bonus for me. It has to be said though, to stumble upon new bands you pretty much do have to make use of this excellent Yahoo! pipe. Even then, you need a Last.FM profile to be able to take advantage of it. Muxtape imposes some interesting restrictions on the process though. You get 12 tracks and no track can be bigger than 10MB, the latter condition did pose some problems for me. Originally my muxtape, which was created at first in iTunes, contained songs of more than nine minutes from both Youthmovies and Cats And Cats And Cats, however they both clocked in at over 10MB and necessitated substitute tracks.

I had a theme in mind when I was creating my Muxtape, that theme is summed up in the caption: confusion. As a whole the tracks convery a feeling of confusion, to me at least. That’s not necesarilly a flow thing either, the muxtape was designed with a sensible flow; a natural beginning, middle and end. Indeed I started with my favourite opening track ever (it’s stereoscopic heaven) and ended with soemthing I can only describe as dance-tastic. It’s not just a collection of songs by my favourite bands either, indeed there are some notable omissions when you glance at my Last.FM charts and compare it to the tracklisting of the Muxtape. Indeed one track in particular, This Town Need Guns – 26 is dancier than 4, was included purely because I’d recently seen this awesomely cute video for it.

One last note on Muxtape though is that it doesn’t seem to work particularly well on Firefox, so I suggest you try it in an alternative browser if you have issues with it. It seems to work intermittently, but if it doesn’t work, really do try it in another browser. I’d love to hear your comments on my Muxtape as well, all are welcome.

Youthmovies on Channel M

Published on April 10, 2008 in Music and video. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

I’m going to have to keep an eye on Channel M, at least two bands I like have done sessions for Channel M and they all go out online as well as in the Manchester area it seems. The session which sparked this post however was Youthmovies. Whose debut album got a good write up from myself, not so long ago.  The session shows them playing four songs; Magdalen Bridge, Last Night Of The Proms, The Naughtiest Girl Is A Monitor and If You’d Seen A Battlefield. There are also short interview sections betwen songs wher ehte band reveal themselves to be funny and likable. A big thanks to Drowned In Sound for pointing this out. Here’s the video for you to enjoy.

iLiKETRAiNS – Elegies To Lessons Learnt DVD Release

Published on April 9, 2008 in Music. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

iLiKETRAiNS will be releasing a DVD version of their debut album, Elegies To Lessons Learnt on the 21st of April 2008. The DVD will feature a full length film, telling the stories of all 11 tracks on the album. This will be done with the aid of the stop motion animation shorts, that have served as music videos for the majority of iLiKETRAiNS’ singles. The band’s cornet player/projectionist, Ashley, is the one responsible for these great animations, and he deserves a lot of credit for the hard work and effort that has clearly gone into making them. The videos for the singles taken from Elegies… are starting to make more sense, as we are told that the film tells the story of one man travelling through the different events. The We Go Hunting video, for instance, shows a man in a sort of ghost train, and the video for Spencer Perceval has definitely become more clear. There was a third person in the scene where Perceval is shot, so now we can see this making sense in the context of the film.

Also, we will apparently find out the significance of the telegraph pole that seems to crop up in a number of the videos…

The DVD will also include videos from previous releases such as the fantastic Terra Nova, and lots of other extras. So it would seem that the DVD will certainly offer value for money, especially for die hard iLiKETRAiNS fans such as myself.

Here is the first trailer for your viewing pleasure:

There is also a second available here.

The DVD is available for pre-order from recordstore, and is apparently limited to 1000 copies, so get in there quick!

¡Forward, Russia! Track By Track Video

Published on April 8, 2008 in Music. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

¡Forward, Russia! have released a track by track video talk-through of their new album Life Processes, which can be found at Last.FM. I found the roughly twenty five minute long video to be both interesting and offer some insight into the album and the recording process. For your viewing pleasure I’ve embedded the clip below.

I Was A Cub Scout – I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope

Published on April 1, 2008 in Music and review. 5 Comments Tags: , , , .

I Was a Cub Scout first came to my attention when they supported Onebrow’s personal favourites, ¡Forward, Russia! at Reading Rooms in Dundee. When a two piece ensemble appeared, wearing skeleton costumes, it was the 31st of October after all, I didn’t quite know what to expect. It is interesting to see what just two people can do with today’s musical technology, which IWACS certainly make good use of. What I experienced was a set that made me want to dance, and which made my ears prick up at the electronic aspects of the music which were certainly interesting, even to someone who is a self confessed musical ignoramus, of sorts anyway.

Seeing as the album, which I promise I will get onto soon, was not scheduled for release until the 18th of February 2008, I downloaded all the singles off iTunes. I could not get enough of the dancey beats of IWACS, especially Pink Squares, which I first heard in TopShop in Manchester of all places. Perhaps the fact that all the singles, apart from the double A side to Pink Squares, Echoes, were upbeat has skewed my opinion of the album slightly. But I shall leave that up to you.

I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope seems to be a very hit and miss album. Some tracks, IWACS have got absolutely spot on. While others, could have been so much better if they focused less on the complex structure, and more on the catchy goodness of the stronger tracks IWACS manage to make so memorable. One such memorable track is the opener, Save Your Wishes. It is very immediate and the drum beat hits you and makes you sit up and take notice. There is certainly talent shining through from the drummer, William Bowerman, who is actually only twenty. He has a quite a job in a two piece band, especially to stop himself from becoming the next ‘Meg White’. Meg White he certainly is not, but that’s not just because of his gorgeous long  blonde hair, (he has a fan on stage to keep it nice, bless him) it’s because he keeps the drums at the forefront of the music, as well as keeping them deliciously complex and varied. Meg White is a good drummer, in my opinion, because she fits so perfectly with the stripped down style of the White Stripes. Similarly, William is a good drummer because he can keep up with the pace and deliver an interesting style, to complement the extensive use of guitar pedals and synth gadgetry that lead vocalist/guitarist/everything else-ist Todd Marriott employs.

Lucean is the first real break from the dancey IWACS that the singles seemed to suggest. If only because I lack a word that seems to fit so well, I would describe the song as lovely. It has nicely implemented soft piano tones, glockenspiel, which is never a bad thing, and some excellent trumpet playing from Sam Scott of Youthmovies fame. (Nicely linking in to Onebrow’s recent review.) This song does show that IWACS can do slow songs well, but sadly, this isn’t the case for the rest. Especially the last two tracks of the album, which seem to be lacking in something. I cannot seem to put my finger on what, but there is certainly something missing. The more dancey songs from the earlier part of the album are so memorable, especially Our Smallest Adventures and Pink Squares. However, I find myself unable to recall which songs were which when I think of the later songs, and the songs in between the more upbeat offerings.

On a more positive note, the highlight of the album has to be Pink Squares. The more I listen to it, the happier it seems. It has an incredibly catchy bassline running throughout, accompanied by bouncing synth and some more excellent drumming, especially in the bridge. I defy anyone not to dance to this song from the immediacy of the opening to the brilliant guitar shenanigans at the end. Quality stuff, and proof that IWACS are a great band, who can write great songs. They just need to concentrate on the slower stuff in order for it to be able to match the standard of songs like Pink Squares.

Perhaps that is why the slower songs seem to be lacking. Maybe in the context of absolute crackers like Pink Squares, Our Smallest Adventures, Echoes and Lucean, the others just cannot match up. As an album though, IWACS have certainly come up with a good one, and I could never expect it to be an album of Pink Squares’. You can see what the band were trying to do with the last two songs in particular, moving away from the dance beats and closer to a more epic song that is interesting structurally. The structure is interesting, but seemingly at the compromise of other aspects.

Certainly a band to check out if you want something a bit different in this era of bands that all look, and sound the same. I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope is successful in its attempt at something unique, but on creating a lasting impression, it seems less successful. The standout tracks are overwhelmingly the singles, so if they take your fancy, you can always buy them from iTunes. Alternatively, buy the album, support a band that are trying to make a difference to music, and feel happier having listened to it, maybe even dance a little. A band that encourage dancing are certainly not a band to be overlooked.

Youthmovies – Good Nature

Published on March 31, 2008 in Music and review. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

To say that 2008 has been an excellent year for music so far is something of an understatement. In its previous incarnation Onebrow hosted my review of The Mars Volta’s The Bedlam in Goliath, which in any normal year would probably have walked off with the album of the year crown in February. Not so this year however which has already hosted at least two albums which have topped it. The first of these to arrive was Youtmovies’ excellent debut LP. It’s a bit of a cliche when considering Youthmovies, but it really is hard to believe that this is their first album proper. They’ve been around for so long now you’d have though they were on at least their second album.

The album begins on a bit of an odd note for myself with the excellent Magdalen Bridge. The first half of which probably takes a little too long to get going, this is more than made up for by the excellent second half of the song however. This is perhaps the weakest track on the album precisely because of this slow start. I know gentle introductions can be nice, but it just takes too long to build. Additionally I found it a little disorienting at first as the song appears on Jonquil’s album Lions, albeit in a different form. As I’d heard that version first it took a few listens to re-adjust.

The next big point of contention for myself was the guitar at the beginning of The Last Night Of The Proms which was again a little odd at first. A few listens revealed it to be pleasing however. As a song it’s really interesting, it does achieve the remarkable feat of sounding like The Last Night Of The Proms while being an endearing and genuinely enthralling pop song.  That it can pull this off is largely due to the trumpet, which gives the feel of The Last Night without compromising any of the other instruments, or the composition generally.

Cannulae is an interesting case study, it’s the song on the album where the influence of Steve Reich is most obvious. This stripped down minimalist song has a fairly consistent guitar riff with fairly interesting percussion playing over the top of it. The song also ends with a pleasing refrain of “Rattle, snakes, snakes snakes.” Which is whispered wonderously.

If Cannulae was minimalist in terms of music, If You’d Seen A Battlefield does the same with lyrics. There are very few lyrics in the song, but a fair amount of singing. That this doesn’t seem overly repetitious is a neat trick to be able to pull off. If You’d Seen A Battlefield could easily be seen as the centerpiece of the album. It’s a pulsating song, and pulls off that particular Youthmovies trick of moving through a number of different sections but still remaining an extemely cohesive whole.

Something For The Ghosts has a habit of washing over me, it’s a very comforting song much like the album generally. With many interesting layers and again it’s a relatively song with a number of distinct, but related, sections. I always seem to pay attention as the song build to its climax and Andrew Mears can be heard singing “Motorway barriers make me feel like we’re going to crash.” The song seems to rouse from its slumber at this point and kick into a higher gear. Really from there the album never slows down.

The penultimate track; Archive It Everywhere was one of four I was familiar with before the album. However hearing the album version was a real treat. It’s another wonderuflly layered and sectioned song. With the ultimate for myself coming with the chanty vocals (it’s a recurring theme in songs I like) after a particularly dynamic section of singing from Andrew Mears. It’s such a delicate track generally, so melodic and with lots of wonderful little details. Yet being melodic doesn’t doesn’t mean songs lack punch, indeed Yotuhmovies land many more hits than any of their contemporaries.

I’ve not looked at every track here, and that’s definitely not my intention. I just wanted to highlight a few bits and pieces about the album. But more generally what makes Youthmovies so important is that they definitely don’t fit neatly into a genre. They deal with largely melodic music and more than a touch of the unusual and bizarre on terms of song structure. They have a good sense of dynamics more than anything, they know when a song needs to change volume, or pace to keep things interesting. Things march inexorably onwards, building towards a climx which never dissapoints.  They’re not post-rock, they’re not pure pop, they’re not indie. They just make good music, that this music is so beautiful and fragile while also being punchy and substantial is a remarkable feat. Good Nature is easily one of my favourite albums of the decade so far, it’s a wonderful little gem which will sadly probably be overlooked by many not willing to give it a chance.