Another Form of Relief

I can’t remember the last time a band grew on me in the way that Sky Larkin have. When I first heard their songs a couple of months ago, I didn’t really find them all that great. Since then, the new songs they have put out onto their Myspace page have blown me away and the older songs now find them getting regularly play on my iPod. It’s hard for me to pin down exactly what I didn’t like about them now as they are really good.

Continuing their run of fantastic demo recordings, we now have ‘One of Two’. One of the best things about the way Sky Larkin releases these is that you can actually hear the development in their sound. The instrumentation here is richer and more layered than in the previous songs (and it was damn good there too) and Katie Harkin’s voice just continues to sound more and more assurd with every new song. Sky Larkin have to be one of the most talented unsigned bands in the UK, and there’s no sign of that changing anytime soon. Somebody needs to get these kids a recording contract quick. They have the potential to be huge.

MP3 Sky Larkin - One of Two (expired)

Sky Larkin: Website || Myspace

Warning: This post contains content of a political variety. Granted it’s the kind of important politics that will infringe on the way of life of every British citizen, but if you’re one of the apathetic millions who doesn’t give a shit about anything important, feel free to skip this post. Music based posts will resume shortly.

So it looks like plans for ID cards and the National Identity Register are falling apart completely. This is just about the best news I’ve had in a long time, and something that makes me feel a tad safer about this country. The only sad part is that it’s falling apart based on the technology to implement it not being available rather than some sudden discovery of morals by the government, but I’ll take what I can get on an issue this big.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the risk of ID cards will go away entirely. This government has staked far too much on their success to ever let the scheme completely disappear. Some kind of face saving exercise will have to be implemented, which means there is still a risk of the most dangerous parts of the database remaining. I’ve maintained for some time now that the biggest threat facing this country isn’t terrorism, illegal immigration or even that fun scapegoat: anti-social behaviour. No, the biggest threat to our very way of life came from our own government as part of the National Identity register.

If you’re unaware of exactly what the ID card scheme, and by extension the database entails, there is an absolutely stunning piece in yesterday’s Guardian by Henry Porter, who describes the danger far more eloquently and concise than I could ever achieve.

If after reading that, you have even a single positive use for ID cards or the database, I’d love to hear it. Seriously, this isn’t a sarcastic comment or anything. I just genuinely can’t think of argument that could possibly be used in their favour. I know a lot of people “support” ID cards as it stands. This is largely because they don’t understand the system that will come with them. Explain to people the full details and motives behind such a system and they suddenly find themselves opposing it. If there’s one thing this government is good at, it’s feeding misinformation to the public.

Which means there’s a two year window to make as many people as possible aware of exactly what this government is trying to do. Once this database is in place, it’ll be near impossible to dismantle again, so it’s absolutely vital that it never sees the light of day. I’m one of over 11,000 who last year pledged to not register for an ID card, so on a personal level, this draconian legislation must be stopped. I can’t afford to keep paying a £2,500 fine.

MP3 Of Montreal - Forecast Fascist Future (expired)

Release: 19 September 2006
Label: NachoBake Records

‘Kelsey Grammer Loves Us’ is the second release from San Francisco’s Cult of Sue Todd, following last year’s ‘Nothing Noteworthy Happened Today’ EP, a six song banjo enhanced indie-folk record that quickly became one of my favourites of the year. Their often non-sensical but usually witty songs got under my skin in the way that few bands could manage. As such, ‘Kelsey Grammer Loves Us’, their first full length album, was one of the releases that I was most excited about for 2006.

Cult of Sue Todd’s website describes their sound as “anti-social songs for nervous folks”. It’s a surprisingly simple yet very appropriate description. This is the kind of band that I could imagine sitting out on their porch on rocking chairs yelling at the ‘dang kids’ to ‘get off our lawn’. But only if they didn’t look too intimidating. If you’re like me, that description alone would be enough to have me checking out a record, but I guess I should write a little more.

This is a considerably darker album than ‘Nothing Noteworthy’. While that record was made up of largely fun songs with odd flashes of cynicism, ‘Kelsey’ is almost the opposite. A darker, more paranoid sound is at the forefront here, with witty flourishes occasionally breaking through to the front. The gleefully shambolic ‘ExBoyfriends’ (mp3 below) throws us straight in at the deep end, giving us a rambling, witty and yet still grounded tale. Second song ‘Chatterbox’ opens with what should be quite depressing content: “I’ve been told that I’ve only got a year or so / So I’m writing down these stupid lines / As murky fluids fill my eyes”. The song is played with such an appropriate sense of urgency though that it never feels miserable at all.

Conversely, songs like ‘50cent’ evoke the first record with a fun, upbeat sound that sounds like the 2006 edition of previous best song ‘Burn Tampa’. Other songs like ‘Ohio2′ serve much the same purpose, and provide a welcome respite from the downbeat content on the rest of the album. Witty asides are what make these songs, like on ‘Gnome’ where lead Steven Perry sings “Make with the shitty chitchat so we can get out of here”. It’s a simple line, but one I can imagine everyone can relate to.

The instrumentation on this album is far more developed too. While the first album relied on catchy, yet relatively simplistic structures, ‘Kelsey’ isn’t afraid to experiment, at times flirting with the shambolic to the twangy upbeat banjo (’Genuflect’) and just throwing in a bit of everything (’Myth of Dirt’). The result of this is a lack of cohesion to much of the record, but an ultimately rewarding one as it’s hard to judge exactly what’s going to be played to us next.

This isn’t to say that the album is entirely without it’s flaws. ‘Nails’ drags a minute or so beyond it’s welcome, and there’s an over reliance on using vocal effects on Perry’s voice. While this works in a number of the cases, it’s a shame that his natural voice only shines through in two songs (’Fine Fettle’ and ‘17′). These are pretty minor quibbles on an otherwise very solid album though.

I spent a bunch of time before writing this debating who I could use to compare Cult of Sue Todd with, and I never really did find an answer. Beyond some instrumentation on ‘Fake Off’ that could have slid perfectly into the last Arab Strap record, there’s no one currently making music that I can really compare these guys to, which is much of the appeal to me.

Ultimately, while ‘Kelsey’ isn’t perfect, it’s still about as good as debut full-length albums get. There’s a unique sound, instrumentation that is solid without ever sounding overly practiced, and a strong songwriting talent behind it all. Assuming they keep doing what they are doing and can cross that gap to reach a larger audience, there are well deserved big things in the future of Cult of Sue Todd.

MP3 Cult of Sue Todd - ExBoyfriends Of The World (Unite And Take Over) (expired)

Pre-order Kelsey Grammer Loves Us: Insound

Cult of Sue Todd: Website || Myspace || AFoR Interview

Once again, we have another band that I have come far too late to the party on. Life Without Buildings have now apparently disbanded, but that doesn’t stop me writing about them, as they are really very good. The only problem here is that I can’t find out a great deal of information about them. Apparently they formed in Glasgow in 1999 and broke up in 2002, and that’s about all I can find. So let’s just focus on the songs.

At first, I actually found these songs rather jarring and didn’t really like them, but after a couple of plays I got used to the style and it really clicked with me. On the most part, this is conventional enough indie rock music. The guitars saunter along in the background, the bass serves its purpose and the drumming keeps everyone in the line. Who it doesn’t keep in line though, and where Life Without Buildings are unique, is in the singing of Sue Tompkins. She brings an almost manic energy to the proceedings, particularly on stand-out track ‘The Leaover’. Here, she rambles, at times almost incoherently, for the best part of six minutes, without any break. On other songs, like ‘Sorrow’ (which echoes Mazzy Star a little), you can here how well refined her voice actually is, but the insanity of the earlier song almost masks it entirely. Their songs are all rather long too, with these all clocking in between five and seven minutes. Yet at no time do they become grating though, mostly because Tompkins keeps things interesting by doing something unexpected just when they would be pushing their limits.

MP3 Life Without Buildings - The Leanover (expired)
MP3 Life Without Buildings - New Town (expired)
MP3 Life Without Buildings - Sorrow (expired)

Life Without Buildings: Website || Myspace

Following on from my top 10 songs of the year so far that I posted earlier on in the week, I thought I’d post up links to other people’s similar type lists. Mostly because I enjoy reading this kind of things myself, and there’s a hell of a lot of good music between them all.

The Air Strange: ‘Top 10 Albums of 2006 (so far)’ (inc. Band of Horses, Built To Spill and The Essex Green)

Chromewaves: ‘Mid-Term Reports’ (inc. Camera Obscura, Mojave 3 and a brilliant hybrid cover)

Good Hodgkins: ‘Seven essential albums from the first half of 2006′ (inc. Belle & Sebastian and Figurines)

Heartache with Hard Work: ‘Top 10 Albums of 2006 (so far)’ (inc. Mates of State, Voxtrot and Camera Obscura)

Largehearted Boy: ‘Largehearted 2006 Halftime Report’ (inc. Camera Obscura, Mountain Goats, Broken Social Scene and a bunch of good reading)

Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good: ‘The 12 and 1/2 best albums of the year, so far’ (inc. Belle & Sebastian, Islands, and best of all, The Mountain Goats)

Nothing But Green Lights: ‘Top 6 MP3s of the Year so far’ (inc. Sky Larkin and Voxtrot)

Skatterbrain: ‘Top 10 Of 2006 (…So Far)’ (inc. Voxtrot and Pants Yell!)

More Los Campesinos!

You people can’t seem to get enough of Los Campesinos! at the moment, and if I’m honest, neither can I. All of their songs are getting a lot of play at the moment. I wanted to include the song below, ‘Death To Los Campesinos’, the other day when I wrote about them, but Myspace was throwing one of it’s fits and not letting me get the song. It’s all working now though, so here’s another fun song to enjoy by them. I’ve made no secret of my liking of back and forth male-female vocals in the past, so this song is an instant winner for me. Even if “I’ll be ctrl-alt-deleting your face” doesn’t actually make any sense.

MP3 Los Campesinos! - Death To Los Campesinos (expired)

Los Campesinos!: Myspace

I never actually got around to writing about Shapes and Sizes as I was pretty late to the party on them and it felt as if every other blogger in the world had already written about them. For any other latecomers though, they make wonderfully complex and surprising pop music, giving them a pretty unique sound. Nearly all of the band members write songs, meaning there isn’t any real consistancy to the whole project. This is one of the rare cases where it actually works though, and never goes so far as to alienate the listener. Anyway, it’s probably better if you just have a listen.

MP3 Shapes and Sizes - Wilderness

Contest!

Now the reason I’m bringing up Shapes and Sizes on here is because I’m going to be part of a panel judging an upcoming Shapes and Sizes contest from the good folks over at Asthmatic Kitty Records. This one is probably just for the more musically orientated of you, but it could be a lot of fun. Asthmatic Kitty want you to take the song above, ‘Wilderness’, and basically do something to it. Remix it, cover it, re-interpret it or mash it up, it’s pretty much up to you. What do you get for your troubles? First prize includes $300 and a complete AK back catalog (and a t-shirt!), as well as prizes for second and third place. You have until August 15 to get your submission to AK, so more than enough time to put something together. Assuming of course that you have any idea what you are doing. Which I certainly wouldn’t. But I’ll happily sit here and judge everyone else’s creations.

Best of luck to anybody that attempts it, and a salute to AK and Shapes and Sizes for coming up with a wholly original contest idea.

Shapes and Sizes: Website || Myspace || Asthmatic Kitty: Website

I adore The Young Republic. I gushed about them in my very first post on this blog. I even had a chance to interview them a couple of months ago, and I try and get a mention of them on here at any oppurtunity. This is mostly because I see them as the second coming of Belle & Sebastian. While I absolutely B&S, nothing they do seems to come close to their first two albums. The Young Republic to me feel as if they have picked off where those two albums left off. This isn’t to say they are a mere clone, as they do bring their own sound, it’s just a fair comparison. As for how they describe themselves, their website puts it the best:

When asked to describe our music, we generally say orchestral-folk-rock because that is the description that tested best with our sample audiences. If you look like the kind of kid who listens to Pavement we put indie in front of that description. We can’t really get to into detail about what we sound like because it would most likely be long winded and self-nullifying and our publicist told us just to stay quiet and show humility. We just enjoy playing music and are happy if you like it.

The Young Republic are made up of nine music students from Boston, who have already released several CDs, all while still getting on with their studying. That their sound is already so refined is all the more impressive. The reason for this post though is that they performed a set for WOXY back in May, which nobody seemed to blog about. WOXY themselves put their five song set up on their website as one long file, which I’ve split into the individual songs. At least I think I’ve done it properly. I’ve never tried any kind of editing like this before, so apologies if it’s all gone wrong. They all sound fine from a quick listen though.

The set itself sees them play a bunch of new songs, which all of which are rather good, particularly opener ‘If You Are A Salesman’. Also included is ‘Blue Skies’ from their latest release, ‘Modern Plays’, and all-too-country closer ‘Goodbye Town’ from earlier release, ‘Your Heart Belongs In Tennessee’. All of the songs are performed with record quality tightness, aside from the awesome conclusion to ‘Goodbye Town’, which seems to just turn into a very cool jamming session.

MP3 The Young Republic - If You Are A Salesman (expired)
MP3 The Young Republic - Autumn’s In The Trees (expired)
MP3 The Young Republic - Blue Skies (expired)
MP3 The Young Republic - Girl In A Tree (expired)
MP3 The Young Republic - Goodbye Town (expired)

The Young Republic: Website || Myspace || AFoR Interview || WOXY: Website

A hat tip to Nothing But Green Lights for discovering Los Campesinos! I don’t like to throw around a “next big thing” tag very often, but these guys could genuinely be it. Over the past week alone, they have picked up a ton of blog buzz. Something that I’m now going to obviously contribute to.

Los Campesinos! are a seven-piece from Cardiff who have seemingly already mastered how to make the perfect pop song. Best of all, they manage to bring a glockenspiel to the proceedings. Standout song ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ is just sheer joy from start to finish, it’s six and a half minute runtime actually feeling like half that. Jangly guitars combined with harmonising combined with witty, gleeful lyrics, and you’ve got a winning comnbination. Don’t allow that to overshadow the other songs though. ‘It Started With A Mixx’ is a 90 second song covering the risks of a new band (”Trying to find the perfect match between pretentious and pop / Some crappy artwork that took way, way too long to draw”), while ‘Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks’ is one of the best lyrical presentations I’ve heard from any new band in a long time.

There will be big things in the future of Los Campesinos! if they keep putting out music like this, and it’s well deserved. It’s not often that a new British band comes along that has a pretty unique sound that I really like, so these songs are a real treat. That said, it does seem that British bands are finally breaking out of the stereotypical mould and playing around with original ideas. The last month or so has seen me find a number of genuinely interesting and talented new bands, a couple more of which will be coming up in the next few days.

MP3 Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing! (expired)
MP3 Los Campesinos! - It Started With A Mixx (expired)
MP3 Los Campesinos! - Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks (expired)

Los Campesinos!: Myspace

So the heat is back with a vengeance, making sitting at my computer for prolonged periods rather unpleasant again. Which gives me an excellent excuse for the roughly fortnightly covers post!

MP3 Ben Folds Five - She Don’t Use Jelly (expired) (The Flaming Lips)
Ben Folds Five covering The Flaming Lips may seem like a pretty strange thing, but somehow Folds and his merry men got away with it. Taking a whimsical song and making it, well, whimsical with a piano, lets the song remain just as fun as it originally was, while also stamping it with the typical Folds kind of sound. The end result is such that you probably wouldn’t know it wasn’t one of Folds’ zanier songs if you had no clue about the original. I’m actually starting to think that Folds should release a covers album. Given how often he pops up in this feature, I’m guessing he’d have enough to fill one even without recording any new material.

MP3 Johnny Cash - Hurt (expired) (Nine Inch Nails)
Actually, speaking of strange choices for covers, on paper Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails seems just about the craziest thing possible. So how on earth did he end up putting together an absolutely fantastic song that, dare I say, kicks the ass of the original. Cash’s version is just so full of emotion, so raw, that it’s just about perfect. Hell, I’m not even a Cash fan and this is just about one of my favourite songs. His voice, the subtle build of the guitar, it just doesn’t put a foot wrong from start to finish.

MP3 Elliott Smith - Thirteen (expired) (Big Star)
I just realised that this week’s edition is slightly morbid, featuring almost the very last songs of both Johnny Cash and Elliott Smith. Smith’s offering of the Big Star classic is a solid enough end to his career, even if it doesn’t come close to his best work. Taking a nostalgic song and running it through the Smith-o-matic leaves us with an incredibly mournful song, which is quite some feat given very little actually changes within the song itself. I often find that the critics of Smith pick on his voice as being the problem with his music, but anyone who can change the very nature of a song simply with their voice must be doing something right.

I’ve got some good stuff coming up over the next few days, including a bunch of new bands that are making some great music, and maybe a closer look at a couple of albums I’ve been sent lately. I’m still not sure whether to actually play around with actual album reviews, so we’ll just have to see what comes of it. Right now though, I’m going to go and melt or something. Fun!

So The Sun and ignorant people everywhere are “up in arms” about Alton Towers having a ‘Muslim-only’ day.

BRITAIN’S biggest fun park has sparked a race row — with a MUSLIMS-ONLY day.

Non-Muslims phoning the Staffordshire park have been refused tickets.

Except wait, it isn’t a Muslim-only day at all. This is just reactionary journalism at it’s very worst. We’ve got two statements there, one is a lie, and one is deceptive. First of all, anyone is welcome to the park on the day, assuming they buy their tickets from Islamic Leisure. They are working very hard to point out that anyone is welcome to the park, as long as Muslim customs are respected. Secondly, while it is technically true that people phoning the park will be refused tickets, this is because the park doesn’t sell tickets when any private group rents it for the day.

Gay people have a day too.

Naturists get an entire weekend.

Oh look, even Christians do it.

Anyone want to start complaining about these days too? No? I’m shocked.