Pubcast - Episode #1

Here's a podcast recorded in The Cheshire Midland last Friday. If you want to leave comments on how it could be improved please do as this is effectively a pilot episode. It's on Dundee indie rockers The View

Pubcast - Episode 1 (right click to download)

Feature - James Yuill

James Yuill has got to be disappointing live. It's the same old routine that you get with the more -tronica than folk- of the folktronica lot. They shift into little venues with all their tech, the sound engineer can't for the life of himself understand why a folk artist would want to play loud; they set-up the monitors poorly so that come the end of the first song when the artist asks them to "turn it up", the engineer can't because of feedback and the gig is shit.

According to his myspace he is currently unsigned... tuff shit.

Fortunately, this song sounds good, here's the video

News - Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 - 2007)

Some quite upsetting news today: Karlheinz Stockhausen has died. The composer of some if the most influential music of the 20th Century, received great acclaim from a cult following throughout his career. I am sure over the next month we will see many fitting tributes to the man. The Guardian, in all their preparation, have posted an obituary, here.

Feature - Sylvain Chauveau

Frittering electronics, as the drones expand like a child inflating a balloon, then snap, the sound bursts leaving nothing but the crackling of air and the churning vibrations that open the song.

Classical composition features heavily in the output of Sylvain Chauveau. Orchestrations are the blueprint for this renaissance of endeavours in the world of electronica.

Track A_ sees an inversion of medieval music, with two independent themes, or melodies, interspersed to create one entity. The purist out of his contemporaries, (who are here and here) Chauveau subtly implements minimalism through the texturing of sparse sound. One of the most distinguishable aspects of this music is that the distinct musical forms resemble film score. Every piece begs out for David Holmes, or whoever, to lean down from the heavenly clouds of Hollywood and grace them on some soundtrack.

Here’s the translation from an interview Chauveau did back in 2003 with popnews.com:

"I want a poetic aspect in my music. But as there aren’t any songs in my work, it tells me that the poetry must be in the titles. Like one-line poetry. As if these discs were collections of poetry and sound. That’s really what I’m looking for. From the end of the nineties to the beginning of the noughties, during 3 or 4 years I read Henri Michaux almost exclusively, that’s been an enormous source of inspiration for me. That left me to imagine so much musically. I read a list of titles in collections of Michaux and I say to myself that my pieces became closer to that."

So the new record released on Type is called 'S' and here is a song called A_. Got to love poetry.

Sylvain Chauveau - A

Monday Record Review - Great Dane?

Efterklang – Parades LP (The Leaf Label)

Causing much of a storm at the moment as some journalists frantically modify their best of 2007 lists to accommodate the album, Parades is - all in all - sickeningly sweet. (I am currently blaming this album for the cultivating mucus blocking-up my head.)

The facts: Efterklang (translation, Reverb, according to my flatmate – who actually had to enquire off a fellow Dane.) hail from Copenhagen and they’ve been going at it since 2001. They released an EP earlier this year, which topped the charts in their home country and are now on their second full length LP. There are five members in the band, who are joined by four others on stage.

Reading the beautifully packaged CD case, Parades features more than thirty guest musicians. Just consider it, thirty people who would attend rehearsals, require a briefing about the song they’re featured on, then musical direction / redirection / accommodation. What a monstrous undertaking! Subsequently, the band weren’t able to play any of the songs together prior to the record’s release.

Parades is practically indecipherable. Early listens feel like being dragged blindfolded into Charlotte Church’s home and being bombarded by sustained vocals (namely ‘aaaaaaa’) whilst a gaggle of Welsh girls shriek, “Oooh, lush, I like that, that’s lush that ‘ennet.”

Seriously though, whether the album is meant to be viewed as ambient / experimental / post-rock, or whatever the sound requires some aesthetic wealth. Theoretically, this may be the case, ‘rich textures and intricate sounds,’ but the result is undirected mush. The sound never looks forward nor is it at any point self-sufficient, that’s to say that this listener neither anticipates nor appreciates a moment.


Fuck Buttons – Bright Tomorrow 7" (ATP recordings)

Thud Thud Thud Thud, Dooooo Do Dooooo Do Do Dooooo, Durrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Opening with a pounding bass drum, which is then over-powered by a dazzling Hammond loop. Then whilst the listener gravitates away into their own world, devastating guitar overdrive soaks up the moment, climaxing with some scream-core gibberish.

This might not be everyone’s favored music, (I wouldn’t hold it against someone if it wasn’t,) but for this strain of sound, Fuck Buttons will please more than most. Potentially more simplistic -hence accessible- than other noise artists, Bright Tomorrow is a sterling tune.

Feature - Jason Molina

“No! You listen! All my life, you have told me that the world is a dark, cruel place. But now I see that the only thing dark and cruel about it is people like you.”
- Quasimodo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (©Disney, 1996)

Jason Molina is one ugly son of a bitch; resembling a member of a freaky circus more than a heartfelt – slightly effeminate - folk singer. On stage, he looks a bit pathetic, rocking slowly from side to side and often sporting a camp neckerchief. He stares vacantly into the stage lights, happy to block out the presence of his ever-expanding audience.

It’s quite necessary to be self absorbed at a Jason Molina gig, shut your eyes and drift off to the music, just don’t for the life of it look into his eyes. After trying to read his expression for just under half an hour, the only conclusion is, a) he experiences agonising pain whilst performing and b) not even Man Friday could solve his loneliness.

New album Black Ram, released as part a Magnolia Electric Co. box set, started being recorded in November ‘05. During the initial studio sessions, Molina’s mother suffered a serious heart attack and has since been comatose. The sessions were completed the following February at Sound Of Music in Richmond, Virginia. The record was initially a collaboration between Molina and David Lowery -of legendary alt. country rockers Camper Van Beethoven. Before too long, Andrew Bird of Andrew Bird fame and the embarrassingly talented Rick Alverson had also joined in, amongst others.

Black Ram is a great representation of the emotional swill that travels with Molina on his yearlong tours. Lyrically it is as honest as ever. There are few like him. A major pitfall however, is that he occasionally adopts a Quasimodo complex, for instance on The Dark Don't Hide It…

Magnolia Electric Co. - The Dark Don't Hide It

Buy into it: Jason Molina
1. What Comes After the Blues by The Magnolia Electric Co.
2. The Magnolia Electric Company by Songs: Ohio
3. The Lioness by Songs: Ohio
4. Sojourner Box Set by Magnolia Electric Co.
5. A gig ticket

For more information, including tour-dates, go here and here.

Monday Record Review - Better late than never

Magik Markers - Boss LP (ecstatic peace)
In 2005, hipper-than-hip Magik Markers, - just look how they spell their name, they must be coolest band in the world? - signed to Thurston Moore’s trendy underground label Ecstatic Peace. Since then the band have nonchalantly chartered a career path between The Dead C and Lydia Lunch without having to be reverent or dismissive of links with either of them.

Renowned for their explosive live performances and the highly coveted CD-R’s of their shows, it was understood that their sound is lost in a formal recording studios. Although Boss is more diverse than their popularised noise rock, it is as articulate as anything that they’ve laid down previously. What distinguishes them from their contemporaries however, is their lack of pretence.

Axis Mundi opens the album with a defiant block of shimmering guitar Noise which isn’t revisited until much later in the album on Pat Garrett. In Empty Bottles singer, Elisa Ambrogio meanders nonchalantly in and out of key, delivered with an icy coolness that resembles Lisa Milberg of The Concretes. Two standout moments on the record are the melancholic country-tinged ambience on Bad Dream/ Heartford’s Beat Suite and the woo-ing pop on Taste.

The fluidity of the record is interrupted by the inherent search for tension between the spectrum of genres achieved on this record. Although Boss avoids being abrasive in this sense, the strain on stylistic breadth is noticeable and whilst entertaining, it could be interpreted as naïve or patronising.

However, such languid criticism –I’m sure –will not be long lasting; Magik Markers seem to be made of stronger stuff these days. Gone are the flailing vocals found on (2005 studio album) 'I Trust My Guitar, etc' and the cavernous drums on the live records, in its place is the sound of a band fighting.

Scout Niblett - Kiss 7" (too pure)
Gonna keep this sweet…

Great little single from Nottingham based songsmith Emma Louise Niblett, featuring the vocals of Will Oldham. Niblett’s music sounds like she’s been sucking Everett ‘The Legend’ True’s toes all of her career and for some reason or other, it works. This record in particular could be taken from 'Summer In The South-West' if Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy was less egotistical. Speaking of which, although we laugh and joke about Mr. Oldham’s jaunts into the world of Hip-Hop (examples, here and here), his presence on this record isn’t a mile away from the ilk of a rapper’s cameo. Which make’s me think when is this obsession of his going to end?

Anyway, for your own amusement, here’s the Kanye video featuring the G himself: