Music to drink tea by
Archive for September, 2009
New Stagecoach – Break
12 years ago
in MP3s
Each time I hear a new song from Stagecoach, they seem to have planted themselves even more firmly at the heart of 90′s US indie. This could easily be seen as a lazy thing to do, but I suspect we’ll see more of this as the people that grew up with The Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer and, yes, Pavement form and refine their own sounds.
The funny thing is, I probably would have hated this back in those days. Break is a little more bombastic and aggressive than what I listened back then. Rivers Cuomo singing about “kicking in a face” would have been mildly absurd. It sort of works here though. Break is very much a song that has a feel of “we don’t give a shit”. It is what it is.
It’s an incredibly efficient little number too. Barely reaching three minutes, it manages to get a couple of verses in, rise, fall, show off some impressive guitar work, and still finds time for a shouted “Go!”. It’s all done before the bands of the indie “scene” these days are halfway through their “moody” instrumental introduction.
I’m doing a terrible job of selling this band, partly because there isn’t one particular hook here that works. It just all comes together into a perfect bit of powerpop.
The We Got Tazers! EP will be released on October 5 via Alcopop.
New Joy Formidable – Greyhounds in the Slips
22 years ago
in MP3s
It seems that the time of The Joy Formidable has finally come. From near obscurity last year, the band are now packing out venues, and touring with some rather large bands. Strings of dates with The Temper Trap, Passion Pit and even the sodding Editors are in their near future.
Which of course means it’s time to, er, release a live album. A slightly odd move for a band that has only really released an EP up until now, but there you go. The band’s set at the Garage in London this coming Wednesday will be recorded and released as First You Have To Get Mad. I’m sure it’ll be good as the band do put on hell of a live set, but I’d rather have some new songs.
Step forward Greyhounds in the Slips. I don’t think it’s an actual single or anything, but it has a proper video nonetheless, and vocals from Paul Draper of Mansun. Quite exactly how that combination came about I have no idea, but the added male-female vocal inerplay certainly adds a little something to the Joy Formidable formula.
Cover: Pet Ghost Project do Pavement
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I wonder just how many posts in a row can have at least some tenuous Pavement connection on here.
Today we have a cover of Box Elder from Pet Ghost Project. I have to admit to not being familiar with with Pet Ghost Project, which is apparently just one man by the name of Justin Stivers. Which is pretty remarkable given the kind of full band sound that he manages to evoke with this cover. Box Elder is one of my favourite Pavement songs, ticking all of the boxes of what made the band great. It takes a hell of a lot to come up with something even half as good as the original, but Stivers manages to make it his own.
For those keeping up with the Pavement reunion scores at home, it’s now confirmed that there will “definitely will be” UK gigs in the “summer time”.
Fitten Trim – Geek Rock For Geeks Who Like Rock
02 years ago
in MP3s
Spend hours in record bins
Even though Pavement won’t record again
As badly timed lyrics go, they don’t get much better than that.
It’s difficult to take this album seriously at the start. The cover art is a bit silly. When you look at the back you see titles like Pissed Off Bon Jovi Cover Band. Then there’s that title. Part of you thinks it’s a wry, self-depreciating comment about the band. The other part thinks it’s entirely serious.
This is a remarkably earnest record. It’s silly at times, and the songs include brief little fragments and random tangents. But there is a genuine love for the subject matter here. The line above isn’t the only Pavement reference. The liner notes (possibly the greatest I’ve ever read) include a wonderful story about meeting Larry David. Which I’m sure is something we’ve all pondered at one point or anything.
The music here isn’t showy in the least. Every song is direct and to the point, merely there to service the words. The fact that it takes until the finale on a 19 song album to find something longer than four minutes speaks to the efficiency involved. You have to go back to some of the great power pop records of the 90s to find much to compare with this. It’s not a perfect album, and there are certainly a handful of ill-judged songs. By and large though, Geek Rock: For Geeks Who Like Rock is a thoroughly enjoyable little romp.
Geek Rock: For Geeks Who Like Rock is out now on Caveat Emptor
Website / Myspace / Twitter
Pavement reform; ageing hipsters rejoice
22 years ago
in MP3s
I wasn’t a fan of Pavement when the band broke up in 1999. It was around then that I discovered them after a friend scribbled the words Date With Ikea on a list of musical recommendations. Two or three years after that I’d collected each album and would be brave enough to consider myself a “fan”. Even if I never owned this awesome t-shirt.
Even amongst the recent glut of bands getting back together, Pavement weren’t one of the ones I saw it happening with. Indeed, the original break-up was so acrimonious that some of the members only learnt of the split by reading about it online. Yet over the last couple of days, news has appeared from nowhere that the band will reform for a festival in New York next September and embark on a world tour of “major cities”. Quite how extensive this tour will be, I have no idea, but if it doesn’t at least include a London date, a lot of people will be marching on the Domino office.
Website / Myspace / Twitter
Great British Hopes: Hold Your Horse Is
12 years ago
Great British Hopes features the very best in new British music. You know, stuff that doesn’t sound like James fucking Blunt.
I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to decide whether or not Hold Your Horse Is is a good name for a band or a bloody terrible one. I’m still not entirely sure, but the more I think about it, the more it’s growing on me. The band come to us from the mean streets of Hampshire. So mean in fact that they rarely tend to produce decent bands.
Hold Your Horse Is are a very loud, very fast band with more than a little in common with those other unwieldy band name scamps Dananananaykroyd. Perhaps not quite as all over the place as that band, as indeed here each element has a little room to breathe. It’s rough and ready, yet the vocals, guitars and drums all get their chance to shine.
There seems to be a lot of these bands popping up at the moment. The aforementioned Dananananaykroyd seem to be at the forefront of it. The wonderful Pulled Apart by Horses are certainly up there too. It’s a fine line to balance a lot of noise while still sounding good. Hold Your Horse Is fit right into nicely with this lot, and it’s a fine stable (ha, I’m hilarious!) to be a part of.
The Everyone Runs Faster With A Knife EP is out now and available directly from the band for just three of your English pounds.
Website / Myspace
New Johnny Foreigner video – Criminals
02 years ago
in Videos
S’alright I suppose. I like the black and white bits.
Grace and the Bigger Picture will be released on October 26 (possibly the best record release day of the year) on Best Before.
New 4 or 5 Magicians video – Nice Little Earner
02 years ago
in Videos
It’s been a while since we heard anything from 4 or 5 Magicians, but finally, over three years after they were first featured on this blog, they have completed their debut album, which will be out next month. No album is complete without a single just before and an appropriately wacky video, so here’s the video for Nice Little Earner.
I wasn’t entirely sold on the song as the choice for a single (I’d have run with Behind Each Others Backs personally), but it’s growing on me with each listen. The video is helping that a lot though. A stupidly fun romp clearly made on the cheap and damn proud of the fact, we get a chase around the sights of Brighton from the indie venues down to the iconic pier. The whole thing has a delightful air of the 90s about it, which works perfectly as the band do too.
The album should be one of the highlights of the year, and serves as something of a “best of” package for those that have followed the band over the past few years. Your Fictitious Character, I’m In The Band, Change the Record and the legendary Forever on the Edge all make the cut. A bunch of new songs round out the package from the band that have taken so long to get here, but have the potential to go so far.
The debut album from 4 or 5 Magicians, entitled Empty, Derivative Pop Songs will finally be released on October 26 via Smalltown America. Nice Little Earner will be released as a download single on October 12, and will apparently be free from “selected outlets”.
New Los Campesinos! – The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future
02 years ago
in MP3s
At times, it’s difficult to believe that Los Campesinos! are the same band that leaped onto the scene a mere three years ago with You! Me! Dancing!. Since then, it’s seemed as if the band wanted to get away from that song, or rather that general sound of slapdash joy. Second album We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed seemed to suggest that a move into darker, more complex territory was inevitable.
Which leads us to The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future. It’s certainly bleaker than previous efforts, both lyrically (battles with anorexia, drug use, kissing Tories) and musically. This is all slow builds with strings dominating, into the occasional explosion of noise. It’s never excitable like their previous work though. This is a song that has been precisely arranged into a thing of beauty.
I don’t know if this is what we can expect from Los Campesinos! going forward or whether we’ll be getting a mixture of this and the old shouty chaos, but on the basis of this, either one would be fine with me.
The third, currently untitled, album from Los Campesinos! is due to be released, er, sometime in the future. I think I read January somewhere. Whether or not this song is on it I couldn’t tell you. I’m a fountain of information me.
Projekt A-ko – Hey Palooka!
12 years ago
in MP3s
I covered Projekt A-ko six months ago just before their album Yoyodyne was released. In the time since, I’ve discovered that album is superb, and certainly in contention for best of the year. I don’t have any reason to write about them again now (no new single or anything), but hey, some of you might have overlooked this on release. You’ll be doing yourself a large disservice if you continue to do so.
Projekt A-ko utilise all of those elements that made the 90s indie rock scene so interesting. Vocals that don’t tend to give a shit are mumbled out over guitar work that is as lazy as it is intricate. It’s the kind of thing that should work against itself, just sounding like a throwback to an earlier time. Instead, Projekt A-ko make it their own.
Hey Palooka! is the opening track from the album, and does take a good thirty seconds or so to actually build into anything, so don’t be put off by the sounds of silence at the start. So in a time where there isn’t a great deal of exciting new material coming out, it’s worth exploring this stunning piece of work.
Yoyodyne was released back in April and is available directly from the band.
