Dots & Dashes

On the Horizon: Clarinets & Kayaks, Clean Bandit.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Whilst the video to Clean Bandit's UK Shanty, the title-track off the 'classico-electronical doghouse' outfit's debut EP expected February 27th may feature Lily Cole of twig-like, Soho-lurking fame it's the string-laden flurry what soundtracks it that sets the sextet apart. Comprised of bassist/ saxophonist/ single turntablist Jon Wandeck, drummer Luke Patterson and The Chatto Quartet, its venomous synth lines that sink teeth deep into the brain rush around agitated string flutters and gently puffed vocals that disconcert like breath down the back of the neck to culminate in their most formidable and focussed work to date.

Clean Bandit's Soundcloud.

Live: Denting the Can. Kathleen Edwards, O2 Academy Islington.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:46:00 +0000

"Oh yeah, I'm just like Neil Young. Except shittier" Kathleen Edwards self-effacingly confesses as a persistent squeal of feedback delays a perfectly crestfallen Pink Champagne. Although the song itself (containing "shit" she's oft known to have wished she'd kept quiet) may not instil any great urging to pop corks and let the fizz flow, her return to the capital, allegorically, does just that. And as she painstakingly warbles of "thinking the grass could be greener at last", Edwards finally seems to be sprawled out upon the most viridescent riverbank thinkable.

Thus although the evening may prove intermittently mawkish Edwards has no further need to cross bridges sat atop slush and sludge and tonight, drawing extensively from her subtly majestic latest record Voyageur, from the acoustic slither of Chameleon Comedian to the reconfigured Adam Wiltzie-ish avant-garde twilight skulk of A Soft Place To Land Edwards' songs here find fixed abode, shacking up in the swoonsome sway of an anxious, baying throng. Although unlikely to evoke such sensationally rabid following, you sense many would shadow her over the entirety of this tour and, funds permitting, back to the cradle that is Toronto given a smidgen of an opportunity. They're thanked profusely over a bewitching hour-plus, echoing back the emotivity produced onstage amidst ethnic rugs and regalia and, as Edwards professes: "Singing songs doesn't come easy any more", they provide the support upon which she thrives, ingraining a previously sequestered conviction within her svelte figure. Irregardless of whether or not it pains her to rock and stroll through the likes of In State, Asking For Flowers, or a pertinently intimate and almost muggy Goodnight California the overriding despondency that loiters within much of her work is hurled victoriously in the backseat (or Sidecar as it were, the track itself tonight sounding particularly well-oiled).

Whilst her musical versatility may dumbfound as she flitters between acoustic, electric and violin, whether bearing teeth and roaring or issuing a perfectly smooth croon, astoundingly, Edwards' voice rings as beautifully in this extravagantly branded, vaguely slipshod venue as you suspect it would off the back of snow-capped mountain range or dust-hued escarpment. Although of Canadian origin and affirming the concept of "moving to America" to be nothing but "an empty threat", Edwards' music pertains to great Americana propensities and on tonight's evidence it's starry and stripy enough to enthral the Hollywood Bowl, with a set length to validate such booking. However she also squeezes in some quintessentially British etiquette, thanking this most divided and dislocated of United Kingdoms for the conception of the Vox amplifier, before shooting our beloved meteorological shit prior to a stirring solo take on Hockey Skates. As with the song itself however this acoustic interlude is bittersweet for although Wapusk is considered by Edwards herself to be "rooted in a different experience" to Voyageur, its wispy sparsity would've befitted this section of her set appositely. She wipes away a wayward tear, before hurling herself into Mint, a song – as Edwards brashly accentuates – about "brushing your teeth with someone else's face", her habitual sexual reference seeping into proceedings. And, as she expends all breath on its "sha-la-la" chorus her impassioned yodel whisks ours away.

The typically devastating House Full of Empty Rooms follows, accompanied by a rousing speech on how "a house is not an accomplishment" in reference to Edwards' temporary status as a homeowner. It descends into teary Academy Award-ish fare and although a day or two late, you can immediately forgive her that as trumpets and mandolins tug them heartstrings like never before. Indeed with the vocal aid of a backing singer and propped up by the forceful impact of a full band Voyageur comes to a vibrant sense of vivacity with Going To Hell too intensified fiendishly. Dedicated to her record company, synths modulate and oscillate wildly over extended yet never exasperating guitar solos although as Edwards gazes on avidly you intuit she's pining to take one here or there and you wind up wishing she would. As it's concluded in maddened frenzy she yells possessedly, repeatedly: "Do I sound like fucking country music?" and the great reality is that she really no longer does and, barring the clumpy stadium stomp of Back To Me, parallels between she and Young are tenuous at best. Voyageur is a truly special record although the live show has been moulded into something unabashedly spectacular, imbued with an affecting poignancy and if it occasionally sounded as though all hope had faded it is jubilantly restored tonight. From vagabonding troubadour to veritable triumph, if this really is her "last kick of the can" then she well and truly dented it.

On the Horizon: Steeled Breeze, Modern Air.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:03:00 +0000

Whether a result of pandering to the contemporary infatuation with the enigma or of purely not possessing any further relevant information besides the fact that they're comprised of just two and function out of a nondescript niche of London, the realities of Modern Air are concurrently, well, up in the air. A four-track EP of sorts inventively denominated 'Debut' can be located on the still-stark Soundcloud page and above and beyond the Fever Ray-infused celestial soar of Ascent or below the forbiddingly penetrative industrial throb of its Intro, its most striking slab is dubbed Industry. Clicking and clacking redolent of Blue Lines-era Massive Attack shuffles shadily beneath echoing coos on its opening salvo, before the beast is beefed and bruised 'til bloodied on a four-to-the-floor breakdown that brawls with glass plinks and synthetic pounding robust enough to shatter said glass.

Modern Air's Soundcloud.

Dent May the Magnificent Returns.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:38:00 +0000

Having enchanted with the astoundingly hi-fi barbershop pop of The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele, May's evidently ditched the four-string in favour of lethargic funk fuelled by propulsive drum machine patterns and shimmering synths that smack of 'chillwave'. Fun is one of two tracks, along with Wedding Day, to have been outed off sophomore LP Do Things (expected June on Paw Tracks), and sounds like Gruff Rhys and an infinity of funk/ soul records eloping to the sort of paradisiacal realm incarnated on May's Do Things cover with Connan Mockasin, having fallen for his girlish charms and general, genuinely overpowering androgyny.

Dent May's Soundcloud.

Irradiate Eventide. Dirty Three, Toward the Low Sun.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:50:00 +0000

Dipping out of the gritted-toothed discord of Grinderman to return to avant-garde instrumental outfit Dirty Three, multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis reconvened with guitarist Mick Turner and drummer man Jim White over yonder atop Antipodean isles to cobble together Toward the Low Sun, the Australian trio's ninth and, hush hush, highly plausibly finest studio long-player to date.

Once upon a time there were inspirational minstrels from Melbourne – one with half a bear of a beard dangling from his chin – who ignited every ear their melancholia touched. Then one day things got more melancholic still, as the trio began to question whether they'd "said about as much" as they could. Like many wed beings who stick together for the kids, they clung together to feed off this inexplicably exceptional energy that sparked into radiance every time they stalked a stage and it was this unique force that eventually drove them to hang on in there. Thus as they clutched at their very existence as though dangling precariously from some shabby precipice, Toward the Low Sun fell to earth.

Commencing with the agitated cacophony of clanging drums and a rampantly grisly riff this sense that Messrs Ellis, Turner and White once drifted close to extinction is elucidated in sheer and undiluted recklessness on opener Furnace Skies. Then, after approximately 150 seconds, the inimitable warble of a dusty old organ wrestles Ellis' haywire horsehair rasps into submission, before the track eventually recedes in cataclysmic exhaustion. The calm after billowing storm, the positivity salvaged from horrendous wreckage is the gentle piano refrain that harnesses the still-shocked rhythmic clatter to propel Sometimes I Forget You've Gone, clamour that suggests an irreconciliable dolour.

A sense of serenity and with it parity only arrives with the creaking roll of Moon On The Land, five-odd minutes that expose the almost improvisational nature of the record. For Ellis previously stated that upon entering the studio "very little" was premeditated nor in any way predetermined in order that they "make it more challenging again, take more risks, and really open it right up." And ready to tear your heart right open is the splurging emotivity of Rising Below, its seesawing strings extremely doleful to the point of languishing out in extremis yet haunted by an underlying hopefulness as the warmth of feeling begins to really simmer. That Was Was returns to staggering distortion-slung dementia whilst it takes the shivering flutter of Ashen Snow to prompt the realisation that although suffused with the masqueraded vocal lines that emanate freely from Ellis' despondent violin, Toward the Low Sun remains a strictly instrumental opus. And although the concept of Ellis' foreground scraping is perhaps neither new nor innovative (it's frequently redolent of Stéphane Grappelli's wistful work alongside Django Reinhardt), the Dirty Three have here conjured a record to linger at the forefront of memory and one to inspire whilst it loiters so.

Hey Shooter! Rocket Juice And The Moon.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:41:00 +0000

If Albarn may have been unusually unreserved over the releasing of much contemporary material (be it for the superb DRC Music project, Gorillaz' stilted DoYaThing, or Blur's understated Under The Westway) he's certainly been rather more tentative when showering us with stuff from Rocket Juice & The Moon. Indeed Hey Shooter, a track featuring notorious R&B vocalist Erykah Badu, is the first fully-formed insight to emerge online and can be heard for the first time below. For reasons revolving around Badu's absence or otherwise, Hey Shooter was also neglected from Another Honest Jon's Chop Up back in October so its free-funk stylings here accrue further intrigue. Emerging amidst a flurry of slapped bass and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble's routinely jubilant brass, Badu's hypnotic vox add smooth and sultry qualities to the elaborate wig-out as she huskily drawls of wishing a nondescript voyager well on a similarly imprecise "journey to the sun". Tony Allen's skittering jazz-torched rhythms meanwhile add both a bottom layer and further instrumentation, so prominent and florid is his debatably improvisational involvement.

Rocket Juice & The Moon.

Live: Keeping NME Close. Metronomy, O2 Academy Brixton.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:01:00 +0000

Having sold out the Royal Albert Hall a mere few months ago, Metronomy may be forgiven for some self-catechising as to the pertinence of their place on this year's NME Awards Tour. Playing second fiddle to faintly irksome Northern Irish trio Two Door Cinema Club and to an overexcitable, if unorthodox societal cross-section in pristine Converse and naïve expressions it's a night to perhaps relegate to the dingiest recesses of memory as swiftly as that over in Belgravia was elevated to the apexes of esteem. Conversely, upon entrance the vomitous odour of inconceivably poorly aerated plimsolls slithers up the nostrils to provide an appositely grotesque welcome to an increasingly grim venue, and one that is to befit the ensuing exuberance of yoof.

Already established as a quintessentially perky British pop outfit with understated successes charted somewhere between those of them infamous Arctic Monkeys and the now-anonymous Llama Farmers or the abominable Does It Offend You, Yeah? tonight smacks forthwith of insignificance for the affable Joseph Mount et al. Previous to any action whatsoever however, we wait. Patiently; anxiously; impatiently; exasperatedly. Cooped up in the claustrophobic stalls of the Academy for nigh on ninety, tonight's promoters must do some stirring trade in exorbitant pints – predominantly of Coke or equally effervescent quality – as pepped-up conversations spew: "I've never been to anything like this. Never", and so on and so forth. Truth be known, nor have we.

Thus with the night already deemed commensurate with that irrevocably awful 'first time' we're all destined for disappointment; doomed to be left feeling unfulfilled and slightly awkward. Indeed even gazing sheepishly about the place all and sundry over twenty must be left feeling not only crustily fossilised but alas also mildly paedophilic whenever any two sets of eyes converge. To quote our eulogised Mr. Mount, even attendance at this point feels like something of "a big mistake".

For years we've witnessed a phenomenon of poor attendance figures for the first act on as the hordes attempt to heave and ho through cluttered doorways yet with regard to Azealia Banks, the lack of queue out in the astonishingly clement February air suggests the masses have minimal interest in the vulgarity of this New Yoiker. That she engenders all manner of bemusement reinforces such musing as her potty-mouthed yapping appears to be promptly potty-destined. A purely extraneous, if potent exhibition of Banks' superlative vocal ability comes in the form of a cover of Wino's most lionised cover prior to alarm bells ringing in 212, the standout gratuitously and gruesomely mangled with The Prodigy's Firestarter. She barks of genitalia "getting eaten" and on this sort of showing you don't doubt she'd devour three or four TDCC aficionados alive.

The groggy bloke rawk of Tribes only accentuates the seemingly unnecessary endurance fest Metronomy have enrolled in and, over forty minutes, they're not merely workmanlike in attire but also in approach: they open with the bossa nova beat of the ever-slinky Some Written, prior to rattling through some of their finer moments with minimal fanfare yet maximum fervour. With adolescent amorousness abound, Mount's lyrics of exchanging numbers comprising only eight digits ring particularly germanely in this single sex and consequently sex-starved school social setting. The placid, buoy-like bounce of The Bay follows, and is abruptly succeeded by the disquieting thuddery of Love Underlined, Gbenga Adelekan's prominent bass octaves resounding as emphatically as the Grecian pillars that flank the Academy's monumental plinth. However having witnessed Mount gush his little Totnes heart out but last October all specialness is here stripped as he disparagingly murmurs: "We're called Metronomy."

Heartbreaker resurrects some zest, twisted with a hint of creeping anthemia although whether it be born of apprehension and/ or agitation the oft-imperious She Wants is left wanting. Off-kilter and out of time, it merely provokes further languor, its intricate lyricisms lost as though in foreign lands. The tide of The English Riviera then shifts in their favour as the rejigged acoustic lull of Everything Goes My Way tonight proves engrossing: Anna Prior, adorned in scale-like mermaid sequins, demonstrates she not only has two fully functioning legs but also a quite seductive swoon in her song. Its cuckoo-cooed backing vox and progressive lighting out of Bruce Gowers' pioneering Bohemian Rhapsody video lend it an element of the outwardly striking, whilst the sporty plod of Corinne is boosted by Guitar Hero crunch. Again however the feel is rough as if never ready, with the levels askew and its newfangled solo lackadaisical. A Thing For Me is introduced by an extraordinarily ominous intro, the quartet's chest lights oscillating wildly like wayward sky lanters frazzling on unearthed power lines. Its pastiche falsetto interlude recalls Vaughan's viral texting spree sketch, imbuing the accompanying smorgasbord of wild strobes with comedic edge. It fizzles out in a newly fitted Nintendo-esque outro, before Mount affirms to feeling "like Nirvana" in such celebrated surrounds. However the overriding disaffection of the set is compounded by his urging us to enjoy "Two Cinema Club [sic]" and although a typically celebratory The Look is greeted with merited jubilation to result in overwhelming exhaustion as they slump over the finishing line of a twelve-date jaunt, this wasn't the Metronomy we've learned to know and love. Call it an atypical evening; one "spent disappointed on dancefloors".

On the Horizon: Something to Believe In, Novella.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:36:00 +0000

London trio Novella are starting to snatch the plaudits their brand of mild raucous merits and they're at their most forbidding and indeed formidable when wrapped up in a live context (wham, bam). Perhaps the jewel in the inferred crowning displays is Don't Believe Ayn Rand, a temperate swirl of restrained guitars and roped-in drums, all slathered in a pleasing sense of distortion. It serves as the lead track from a forthcoming EP out on Italian Beach Babes (expected March 19th), and streams below.

Novella's Soundcloud.

Spectral Chronicles. School of Seven Bells, Ghostory.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:10:00 +0000

For an act so intangibly ethereal, Ghostory is as aptly entitled a latest chapter as School of Seven Bells could dream of scoring into their spectral history. Claudia Deheza has departed, leaving identical twin Alejandra and recomposed Secret Machine Benjamin Curtis to their own devices, and said devices seem to have remained divinely oneiric.

Whilst the circumstances of Claudia's egress may remain suitably obscure ('personal reasons' were ambiguously touted as motive), if there were ever any smouldering animosity between brothers Benjamin and Brandon the reddening hatchet's indubitably been shoved six feet under as the latter contributes additional production and aids the former in the impeccable mixing of Ghostory. Perhaps as a direct consequence of this sibling reunion, the record instantaneously begins to assimilate to the atmospheric space-rock ambience of the gravely undervalued Ten Silver Drops as opener The Night blips into irradiate combustion. With Alejandra's vocals carefully layered and looped atop gloriously propulsive percussion and chunks of guitar that hurtle through its every empty space like the most lustrous of meteorites, all thoughts of her dear-departed sister disintegrate prior to Love Play, a track that unabashedly harks back to the warming chill of debut Alpinisms thus simultaneously sounding as if it were cryogenically frozen in the most beautiful of timeframes. Reappear reawakens The Weeknd's Wicked Games via The Fragile-era NIN; Low Times clunks to a more vibrant, disco-laced velocity via monosyllabic monastic chorus; and Show Me Love emulates '80s power balladry were it swirled and whipped up into some demonic blizzard hellbent on sweeping every contemporary under carpets of powdered rime. In its closing moments Ghostory fades out of focus a little – whether it be the unnecessarily obstreperous White Wind or the unusually expansive When You Sing – yet in Lafaye they've a single to deliquesce Rich Costey's heart, melt many a mind, and maybe a mountain. Maybe.

Roland Dronage, Gold Panda.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:01:00 +0000

Here's a pretty hazy photo of Derwin 'Gold Panda' [unknown surname here] playing what looks like Space Invaders in a rather rad arcade. Infinitely more lucid is Thailand Chord Droner, a self-confessed 'fuk about' on an Akai MPC-2000XL, a TR-606 Drumatix, and a TR-808 Rhythm Composer. Whether or not these be new acquisitions we've not even the foggiest of notions although even in flexing the Roland analog synth catalogue the Midas touch remains.

Gold Panda Soundcloud.

Live: Watch The Throne. THEESatisfaction, HMV Forum.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:24:00 +0000

Swaggering out in synchronicity to make continual collaborators Shabazz Palaces proud, subversive girlfriend-girlfriend Sub Pop duo THEESatisfaction, within the context of an NME Awards show at the rather regal HMV Forum in support of chameleonic electronica Swedes Little Dragon, are unconventional to the point of the uncomfortable.

Devoid of live band and with Yukimi, Erik, Fredrik, Håkan and Arild's gear forming something of a ghostly, entirely inanimate backdrop it's a big ol' stage up there for the two diminutive Seattleites to occupy. However they practically over-compensate for this lack of aiding legs and limbs in the thunderous sheet of bass into which each fresh hip-hop number is slashed, said sheet draped over all to induce a vague state of woozy delirium. Indeed, so stentorian is the lower end that pocketed phones quiver like those of wayward thread-like B-listers as the pair skitter freely through what is effectively a direct translation of the acclaimed mixtapes that precede their half eight arrival. Live however, they pertain to the ADHD whimsy and roister of OFWGKTA, MC Stasia Irons visibly resembling Syd Tha Kid from the lofty vantage point of the upper deck – an outer echelon unfortunately filled with an overriding sense of apathy. Irons' partner, partner in crime, and boomer of sugar-dipped vox meanwhile, Catherine Harris-White, rocks and wobbles a perm last incarnated on the cover of the seminal Maggot Brain as the duo's inviting rap/ warble dynamic is undermined slightly by lyrical incomprehensibility, backing track dictatorship, and awkward reverberations in such a vast setting. It is therefore when the cued juice runs dry and the bass subsides that THEESatisfaction truly come into their own, with sublime vocals and snug raps forcefully showcased.

Truthfully the Forum is too great, grand, and ultimately grandiose for THEESatisfaction's brand of charmingly scuffed throwback hipping and hopping, a brand that resembles Irons' well-worn Converse that perennially retain all pseudo-chic originality. However, from the squelchy thump of the perfectly lethargic Cabin Fever to the groggy, oomphed-up soul of Do You Have Time the success accrued off the back of Bandcamp is both impressive and quite impressionable and, although the mixtape vibe eliminates much opportunity for personalisation and consequent interaction, their unflappable assuredness proves infectious. Incessant referencing to their typographically gauche title nods to typical rap collective etiquette and although a gang of just two, they pack quite the meaty punch. For whilst tonight may resound somewhat chaotically in places, at this premature phase, all's as it should be. Irons and Harris-White typify a modern-day Thelma & Louise, delivering lightly empowering feminism-tinged rhymes over a brief history of hip-hop as if clanging through the speakers of a '66 Thunderbird whilst their punctiliously fashioned coifs gradually uncurl in blustering gale. The Zeus-like figure of Håkan Wirenstrand is hauled down from his exalted dressing room to sway enthusiastically and, one may hypothesise, many more will soon be joining him.

9 to 3005. NZCA/Lines, NZCA/Lines.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:06:00 +0000

Michael Lovett – or at least his eponymous debut under the guise of the orthographically awkward NZCA/Lines – inhabits something of a zonal void as it lingers seductively somewhere between retrospective analog nostalgia and his own envisaging of a slipstreamed and shiny future that may or may never dawn. Whether or not it may be pinpointed, as Lovett suggests, between late R'n'B goddess Aaliyah and oft-canonised Italian journo-cum-romanziere Italo Calvino is a little less conclusive yet when it comes to the scribing of slinky pop songs the pen leaves a glistening snail-like trail worth getting stuck into.

Lovett's greatest strength, debatably born of his mildly nonchalant modus operandi, lies in his ability to imbue all manner of soul-shredding mundanity with an effortless effervescence: omnipresently blogged and quietly sensational single Okinawa Channels sees Lovett coo sensually of unhooking coat from hanger and leaving "the office to be home a little early for you" while he caws gawkily of formatting harddrives into 'Windows 95/98 partition' "FAAT 32" on Base64 Love, perhaps the quirkiest slither of electropop experienced this side of the ominous, infamous Millennium bug. Whilst Lovett's offer of a playful, if sexually tense rendezvous spent playing with cables may be something of a duff one, in transposing the monotony of computer technicalities onto wonky pitch-bent skronk he elucidates an audacious ingenuity that emphatically belies any previous involvement in indie-by-numbers outfit Your Twenties. Any faint recollections? NZCA/Lines will soon scribble out those remnants.

The flickering oscillations of Moonlit Car Chase accelerate and ease off nicely over four-plus that sound like the overwhelming wafting of gelid dry ice feels, accrediting a compelling theatricality to the silver screen stature of its washed-out funk whilst Atoms & Axes maintains a pace that's yet more pulsating still as synth throbs are fused sparkily with a maladroit chorus evocative of early Metronomy. That Ash Workman mixes the mélange (as he did with The English Riviera) would render such parallel self-explanatory and subsequently redundant were it not so prominent as falsettos flirt with particularly metronomic drum patterns on the sultry Patrol Late Back and beyond. With the grim monotony of many a life transformed into such simmering R'n'B erotica at every possible opportunity, Lovett's flagrant idée fixe with wage labour (and more specifically with the precise termination of each day) fascinates and, befitting such intrigue, the grandstand Human League-ish '80s swoop of Work provides the standout moment, the point to which the compass points. And having now put in the hard graft on a subtly glinting debut the moment has arisen for Lovett to play. Hard.

Sweet. Hey Jane, Spiritualized.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:52:00 +0000

The ever-chameleonic J. Spaceman baffled substantially when Spiritualized emitted an irradiate blitz of new material at the Royal Albert Hall late last year. Hey Jane was a standout then and it irrevocably stands above anything else you're likely to hear today: a swirling gospel spiral of magnetic intrigue, you can almost sense the sloshing of baptismal waters beyond its lavish choral backdrop and prominent whooshes of gently scuffed guitar. Infinitely more convincing than the above artwork for forthcoming LP Sweet Heart Sweet Light (released April 16th via Double Six), it's a celebratory resurrection of the divine rock locked within Let It Come Down. Pierce et al. play London's Hackney Empire next month.

Spiritualized.

Live: Love in the Basement. Baxter Dury, XOYO.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:35:00 +0000

Endowed with dad's curls and, on tonight's evidence, dad's crowd Baxter Dury's Happy Soup LP of yesteryear was quite plausibly the unheralded triumph of the twelve months we came to distinguish as 2011 and, more significantly, established Dury Jnr. as the unassumingly sensational songwriter that tonight swaggers before us. Adorned and embellished in debonair suits and sequined regalia (in the case of the spectrally voiced Madelaine Hart) Dury has come to exemplify a contemporary bastion of Britishness; a concise punk history of snot snared within a sole body. And whether or not we're here congregated to revel in nostalgia he's discernibly living for the here and now, and doing so to quite full and indeed invigorating effect.

Delving into his own personal archives, he opens with the ebullient Francesca's Party that, like a straggling balloon, drifts in most welcomely from 2005's Floor Show and moreover from the deepest recesses of memory. It's given a more hi-fi redux in order that it be more accurately aligned with more concurrent endeavours, including the segueing sulk of Isabel. As if slapped by some spanking rhythm stick its warbling organs engender all kinds of commotion down in the basement, Dury's lackadaisical Cockney vox perfectly offset by Hart's seductive, pseudo-orgasmic panting that trails every slur of the track's ulcer-inducingly tongue-in-cheek "I think my mate slept with you when you were in Portugal" lyrical refrain. Its tensile Stratocaster wibble evocative of Collins' A Girl Like You sparks rowdier gyrations still before Dury takes a breather, nonchalantly swills his 1664, swigs, and embarks on the the playfully motivational pop noir of Claire, lyrics of not wasting "your bus fare" dinging especially true on a night when TFL goes terribly doolally. Amidst the rainforest clicks and caws that inaugurate the resplendently crestfallen Leak At The Disco – during which Dury "does a Kanye" in affirming: "I love ya mamma" in cracked expression – he carves out his inner raconteur, regaling us with tales of recent Alpine hikes before later going on to conduct team talks, ambiguously dispel a potential latent nationalism, charmingly designate us his "little baguettes", and slam British cheese. Irregardless of Alex James' labours of love and lactation, French culinary delicacy has evidently been engraved on Dury's quintessentially British brain following jaunts just gone.

Hart glimmers to bedazzling fore to "bah bah bah" through infidel anthem Afternoon and swoon to Happy Soup like Beth Jeans Houghton were the Geordie lass left disillusioned with La La Land, seeking solace in an ethereal unknown. The elastane bounce of Trellic slaps all back into a lo-fi sense of security, led by Dury's gruff ashtray baritone and a bass line as tumid as any lager gut, while the breezy seaside waltz of Lucifer's Grain provides fresh respite from the dolorous dwindle of The Sun, from the inconspicuous squelch of Hotel In Brixton. The latter contains one of umpteen references to "daddy" over what proves a gently poignant hour for in numerous ways pater Blockhead has made him the man he is today, whether that be making him soup during Baxter's formative years or unwittingly giving tonight's soundtrack the hoist towards a more general public it so thoroughly merits. And although there may be a veritable Channel Tunnel's distance between older and newer material the despondent narrative of Oscar Brown (fortified by extended baked bean can slide guitar outro); the appositely shabby Velvet Underground-esque Cocaine Man; the expeditious punk of Love in the Garden all maintain indubitable swank.

Dury's preferred analogy when referring to father Ian is that of the 'beautifully made hotel, one side of which looks over an idyllic beach while the other looks over the Gaza strip' and whilst Baxter could be sat sunning himself on aforesaid beach until a redder shade of pale you sense he'd rather be enthralling out east, looking like an extraordinarily bedraggled Hergé character relishing the Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll of it all. For chaps don't come cheekier, chirpier, nor more royally endearing and long may he reign.

Vraiment Belle is Sebastian, Reptar.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:37:00 +0000

Recalling Gauntlet Hair were the Lafayette duo reared on the surreality of Kevin Barnes and Paul Simon's Graceland and not the sound of reverb clanging back off garage doors, Sebastian marks the return of Athens, Georgia five-piece Reptar. The lead single and indeed opening track off an intriguingly entitled debut full-length, Body Faucet (slated for release May 1st), bristles with a deranged vocal urgency evocative of that yodelled by Isaac Brock that's stitched into a patchwork quilt of oohing, aahing, and a wild Flamingods-esque ethnic infusion that's as refreshing as the richest coconut milk. An exceedingly beguiling glimpse into a record more than likely to enthuse were it pumped through into the waiting room bursting with those rabidly awaiting Yeasayer's latest.

Reptar.

Live: A Little Piece of Splendour. The Jezabels, Koko.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:51:00 +0000

Swimming through a broth of thick Australian lilt, The Jezabels' status as national treasures is tonight gloriously flagrant and while they may be beloved by a distant nation – albeit one with substantial cultural similarity – on this sort of evidence we too ought to treasure them so. The Sydney four-piece emerge from the wings; enshrouded in twilight; exuding the cocksure swagger of anyone to have ever aspired to entertain. For over the following hour that's precisely what they achieve as lead vocalist Hayley Mary squats and thrusts through the eagle-eyed melodrama of opener Endless Summer and beyond.

The luscious melancholia of A Little Piece then ensues, Telecaster toter Samuel Lockwood stamping furiously on a floorboard's worth of pedals like a quitting smoker scrunching the umpteenth last one irately on gravelled sidewalk, its every chorus blossoming like an unforeseen spring indebted to global warming. It's then on to Nobody Nowhere which, quite appositely, nobody nowhere has previously experienced live. Clattering and a little clumsy, the sheen of indulging in its debut is quickly wiped clean as it fails to sparkle in the shadowy void left in the backwash of such a brilliant opening brace. It's perhaps an essay to add an extra sprinkle of glitter to what is a quietly monumental and moreover special eve for those onstage, and yet although about as far from home as geographically feasible there's a warmth already within this regal theatre that precipitates the precipitation of Lord knows what from above. Emphatic, if occasionally awkward arm gestures toward perspiring ceilings and impeccable hooting and howling suggest that if any sense of trepidation has ever instilled itself within Mary, it's tonight allayed conclusively, flung from her being like a hoary dove released from the slitted window of some lofty tower. Indeed her confidence perhaps crescendoes during sweeping comber City Girl and moreover if her body's telling a story it's precisely thus: an inviting page-turner that twists with her every wild gyration.

Rosebud attests to The Jezabels' arena-shaped aspirations to effectively inhabit stadia and inspires a concerted mania from barrier to bar while Mace Spray epitomises to all extensive purposes the construction of a consummate live show as strategised spotlight routines scintillate like those in the recreation yard during an exceptionally well participated jailbreak. Its clunky floor tom thuddery; its enticing singalong chorus conceived of heys, yeahs, et cetera; its gradually ebbing grandiosity all ensure men, women, and children (over the age of fourteen, naturally) scale shoulders with hysteria resumed and the air of a waterlogged, probably windswept field sodden in music during a quintessentially British summer consequently subsumed. Periodically it all gets a little too pristine as on the meandering Sahara Mahala or the pedestrian drive of Deep Wide Ocean, the relatively low DB level soothing through speakers lending the sounds of debut full-length Prisoner an even greater FM aesthetic as the murmurs of clutters inhabiting outlying recesses intensify. The gallivanting vaudeville balladry of Hurt Me shifts attentions smoothly back into gear however, galvanising the throng as Mary entreats you "maybe pat me on the back when you're able" before they recede only to reemerge for an encore of Dark Storm predetermined by a dotted line strewn across the width of a setlist. Its deep guitar-led groove and Mary's blackened vox combine to throw up a Yeah Yeah Yeahs effect that's appropriately all kinds of "yeah"; a conclusion to have us snaking up and down NW1 in anxious desperation to thwack all four backs up there. For The Jezabels stimulate international delirium through the medium of unabashed pop and guilty pleasure yet all self-reproach is here corroded away by a great communal infatuation rendering all delectation entirely shameless.

On the Horizon: Future's Dank. Deathday.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

So while the world didn't curl up into an ever more blob-like ball and quiver until it all ended the moment 2012 struck, the industrial apocalyptica of LA duo Deathday feels dank enough to coax doomsday out from even the most atheistical of mindsets. Comprised of brothers Alex and Giovanni Guillén, vox redolent of Ariel Pink at his most apathetic are smudged over murky, if metronomic backing on the glorious No Future, half of a split 7" with UK doom mongers The KVB. Like a more mellifluous Factory Floor meddling in the ominous psych of Suicide, we'd recommend wading into the murk to troll for these bright sparks.

Deathday's Bandcamp.

Live: Packing Sonic Punch. Gauntlet Hair, The Shacklewell Arms.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:35:00 +0000

So reticent, reclusive, and resultantly anonymous are Gauntlet Hair that when they swing by to hammer in an ear or two it's almost worth hiking to whichever far-flung nook it may be that they've been booked into to in turn wreck the crap out of just to witness firsthand who the enigmatic duo behind the sepia-doused Instagram snaps on their rather rudimentary website really are. Tonight the outlying cranny is Dalston's Shacklewell Arms, where Novella are unleashing a fierce grunge revival like it's last month all over again. They this time incorporate the excellent Santiago although never quite connect with a throng that's already had the bulk of it chewed up and spat out in the smoking area.

We reconvene for tonight's noise pop headliners (emphasis irrevocably lavished on that 'noise' prefix) who, in bobbled beanie hat and shaved back and sides, quite seamlessly fit into the subversive stylisation of the E8 postcode. Even during a rather chaotic soundcheck the boosted decibels are already ringing quite alarmingly: the dishevelled, hat-haired Craig Nice reels off devilish dub-slanted snare fills; idiosyncratic 'frontman' Andy R. demists his annular rims and thumps each of his nine pedals in turn and with increasing exasperation.

Eventually they begin, and together we're plunged deep into the dewy humidity of I Was Thinking, its warped Tropicalia appositely befitting the slapdash murals slathered on the wooden walls beyond. Each song swims past the previous, jostling effervescently like water vapour darting through muggy air, Heave recalling Pablo Díaz-Reixa's sultry Coconot offshoot. They're meanwhile most profoundly entrenched in avant-gaze daze and consequently most evocative of Strawberry Jam-era Animal Collective on the gloriously irradiate Top Bunk. Within what is effectively a tunnel of mirrors, the reverberating loops that whoosh through the backdrop are offered a reflective sheen as they're refracted through an authentic introversion: Rauworth is a rather unorthodox focal point as despite pausing for breath in every break and bridge out of genuine exhaustion, his glasses are geared away from the madding crowd, with all interaction minimised. Halting to question our welfare during one particular interlude, his query provokes the only semi-jovial retort of: "I'm deaf" and behind all the haywire strings, and the dropped tunings, and the harmonic-hefty harmonies, and the tumultuous samples you vaguely sense that that really is, as Rauworth affirms, "the desired effect." Irregardless, that which wriggles through in-ear foam is overwhelmingly affecting and on the night of the BRITs, it's the Yanks who really work it with a wall of sound in the shape of a proverbial middle finger.

On the Horizon: Grand(ish), Pinebocks.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:32:00 +0000

Love is many things: a line in a Valentine's card; a verse in a poem; a collection of confectionary; a clutch of wilting hyacinths. For 21-year-old Cory Clifford, it's Springsteen; Edwyn Collins; lyrical idiom; double entendre. With February 14th over and done with for another year however, why would we raise such an irrevocably irrelevant debate? Well, because Clifford's great(est) work under the guise of Pinebocks is entitled Love is grand(ish): recalling Dent May howling over a reedy trumpet in Mangum's Aeroplane Over the Sea, it's love at first exposure.

Pinebocks' Bandcamp.

Live: All Gone Right. SBTRKT, La Machine Paris.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:19:00 +0000

Such is the ubiquity of Aaron Jerome's multi-faceted and indeed many-masked SBTRKT project that he and his faithful accomplice Sampha Sisay are dubbed 'Dubstep Dudes' even in the British Airways mags tucked snugly into the back of every chair as we commit to something of a pilgrimage in Jerome's honour. And while his role as an energetic and masterful, enigmatic 2step producer may have fallen somewhat he continues to gleam like the Génie de la Liberté stood triumphantly atop the Colonne de Juillet on the brightest of jours.

Jerome's forceful drumming capabilities have irrefutably become something of a tour de force and as the skins are rattled and clacked you suspect the mirrors reflecting all manner of misdemeanour in the neighbouring Moulin Rouge are quivering. La Machine meanwhile, with its strategically positioned balconies and poles, its urinals overflowing makes Madame Jojo's look like one of London's innumerable and inconceivably pure Jo Malone outlets. They're on early – possibly facilitating further pillaging of the depths of the disgraceful for some – and to set the stage quite definitively, SBTRKT's time to shine is now as the underground stalwart splurges through the pavements of Paris, twatting jazz kit to maximum, mesmeric effect. They emerge to a blanket of thick whooping, Sampha mumbles the intrinsically glamorous and moreover vaguely immortal phrase of "Hello Paris", and so it begins.

Following the rigid structure of the widely acclaimed eponymous debut long-player the undulating frequencies of a particularly humid Heatwave are followed up by an increasingly potent Hold On, Sampha's superlative vox hauled to the fore for the first time as they begin to acculturate to the profoundly deep and deeply meaningful, as if snatched from some lost soul record. A roisterous bongo breakdown of sorts and extended kalimba samples ensure the track accrues a mild sense of theatrical majesty, prior to descending into a monstrously blippy, slaughterous Chicago house whopper with bloody cowbells on it. What with it being vendredi soir it seems apposite that our wildest desires to get deep down and dirty be fulfilled by the gritty garage propensities of Living Like I Do, its hefty bass aggravated to an irate drone that instills a sense of shuffle in every static leg and ecstatic mind. With the tension allowed to build to the stature of sky-scraping multistory, the celestial and again soulful Something Goes Right dissipates any rigidity thus allowing all to swim into a both fluid and lucid "dream world". Something of an unorthodox clap-along ensues, clattering into the gently menacing Trials of the Past that sounds suitably énorme, Jerome's drums as fidgety and thunderous as lightning crackling down the Tour Eiffel.

However as with any act to tamper with and splash about in a Gorillaz-ish deoxyribonucleic acid, the set comes across as somewhat deformed when devoid of vocal cameo as on an otherwise startling Pharaohs, and here it begins to assimilate the deflating air of a DJ set. Arms are, however, hoisted aloft irregardless. Conversely however when they return to the bottomed-out womp of Step in Shadows, its hip hop drum machine rhythms – a nod to a "ghost of Christmas past" as it were – dotted with asiatic twangs à la Gold Panda, once-irradiate attentions fizzle somewhat for although Jerome demonstrates great inclination towards the aspirational he here remains true to he and indeed we as loyal consumers. Nonetheless every intention and expectation has been irrevocably altered almost beyond recognition to which a Sampha-led (and exasperatingly Nagano-less) Wildfire attests, purveying quite unerringly where they're at concurrently but perhaps more pertinently where Paris is at tonight. Plumped up with teasing drops, tumultuous '80s synths, and Drake's vexatious, vacuous garble it's evinced as the apex of crossover pop and one that's as grubby as it is great.

Both Jerome and Sampha periodically affirm: "We are SBTRKT" throughout, and this sense of holy musical matrimony is never more finely attuned than on Never Never on which lovelorn idiophone plinks are wondrously offset by Sisay's spiritedly promulgated plight of never having had so much to gain only to "throw it all away". They make for a puckish team, and the game they play is indubitably wicked: Right Thing To Do, on the continent, sounds as garishly Europoppy as never previously, pertaining to the brash naffness of Alexandra Stan's Mr. Saxobeat at points before flourishing in the most dubby moments of the night, Jerome coaxing a wibble and a great wobble out from a largely neglected theremin stage-right. Perceptibly roused by our every rabid reaction the pair exultantly splutter: "Merci beaucoup" as they depart, although the pleasure has been and quite conceivably always will be ours.

Hadreas Can Do It. Perfume Genius, Put Your Back N 2 It.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:44:00 +0000

If Michael Hadreas may have once been perceived as a rather introspective and emotionally ailing individual erring on the side of the ephemerally excellent, sophomore effort Put Your Back N 2 It – conceivably named after Ice Cube's infamous floor-filler of '91 – bathes in a vivid vibrancy, an effortless grandiosity, a puddle of glistening effervescence. Youtube bans and Beirut support slots aside, Perfume Genius' impressionistic and aromatic wafts of overwhelming melancholia and arresting melodrama now seem all but imminently all-pervasive...

Awol Marine heralds the record's heartstring-yanking, veritably artistic proem as a visceral hiss slithers beyond Hadreas' elegiac piano refrains and affecting trill. As foaming static subsides, a moment's silence enhances the overriding clarity of the segueing Normal Song on which Hadreas pleads us to hold his hand and pray for him, for he is "afraid". Rousing in every which way, it's enough to instantaneously send kneecaps crumbling helplessly to the floor in deferential praise and genuine consternation for if you'd ever regarded Hadreas as something of an intangible artist, by this point in the record he's already wormed his way into your heart, mind, and every waking thought. Immutably lugubriously, he continues: "Comfort the girl / Help her understand / No memory no matter how sad / And no violence no matter how bad / Can darken the heart / Or tear it apart." These are sentiments to wrench the most emotionless guts from the fleshiest abdomen and if they refer to the realisation of a transitional sexual orientation, well, they're phrased rather more gracefully and moreover poetically than the surreptitious inclusion of Diana Ross' I'm Coming Out on some carefully constructed mixtape. Again all mellifluousness recedes to expose a gentle whisper of quietude immortalised, before ever more morose keys tumble out from the listening experience like carmine blood gushing from the deepest incision in the darkest chamber of Hadreas' heart.

Often sounding akin to Sufjan were Stevens bereft of all confidence Hadreas is, somewhat inexplicably, all the better for it and Put Your Back N 2 It irrefutably increases in stature as its state of well being seems to gradually decline over an engrossing half hour. While No Tear – overly evocative of Antony and the Johnsons' more glammed-up slabs of glumness – disillusions and Dirge proves just that and all too dolefully so, here we've an LP with as many towering peaks as the Adirondack Mountains, the likes of the spiritual and soulful Take Me Home and the wistful and wallowing All Waters protruding through allegorical cloaks of cloud. The tenderly hymnal 17 too stands tall, whilst simultaneously proffering a rather squirmy and discombobulating listen with a particular, particularly well-documented lyric sticking viscously to any and every interpretation. With Hadreas indisputably not harping on about wayward seafarers nor a certain illustrious Arsenal shot-stopper strung up on his figurative fence, the self-deprecation is a slightly unwelcome return to the irrepressible dejection of the debut, Learning. Yet while still revelling in gloom, it's the desolate humidity and devastating humility of Floating Spit and the sparse, Amazing Grace-indebted closer Sister Song that ensure Put Your Back N 2 It shacks up in memory and irrespective of however much of Hadreas' vertebral column went into it, expect a shiver or two to ripple up your backbone.

Live: Game; Set; Match. Tennis, Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:52:00 +0000

While Wounded Rhymes soothes as it slithers through hissing speakers at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, the digitalised time on the vibrant screen of an unattended Blackberry ticks over all anticipated minutes and hours quite exasperatingly like a courtside clock whose face is vapidly emblazoned in the gaudy glimmer of Rolex. Today sees the release of Young & Old – an explicitly, if timorously romantic record and the antithesis of Lykke Li's implicit salaciousness – and tonight sees its creators, Tennis, take to this mildly picturesque slush-strewn square.

For Alaina Moore, Patrick Riley, and James Barone to grace us with their presence on the night of the day upon which their sophomore effort is outed – or perhaps more significantly that upon which they come of age as a band – instills a vague sense of honour within, as if we were present at the birth of Moore and Riley's firstborn. That we're within an hour of Valentine's Day by the time they sweep off stage only heightens this loved-up, eyelids-aflutter ambience. Moore dotingly plies Riley with Corona as a recalcitrant Hammond organ that halts play frequently throughout their hour-long first set is initially tinkered and later thumped irately when it fails to plump up the red-chested sentiments of Robin and the now-whopping whooping of Marathon. Expanded to a four-piece Moore, stranded stage-left, appears more peripheral than ever before as Riley's guitars are afforded a prominent, if perhaps all too dominant function with almost every kitsch lyricism on the swoonsome Baltimore drowning in tumbling swathes of treble. As such Riley is central in nigh on every respect, occupying both physical and metaphysical fore, wedding ring glinting beneath glaring spotlight, his chimerical chimes of guitar batting back Moore's more audible coos to assimilate a perceptibly vocal quality. However with every bass line coaxed out from one string on a heavily processed guitar, the low-end oomph is oft rendered mellow and is indeed intermittently lost (My Better Self lacks stomp; High Road becomes all but bereft of its customary pomp), allowing key melodies to frequently come from, well, Moore's keys as on the sportive thrust of Traveling.

While it may feel somewhat paradoxical to indulge in the resurfaced surf aesthetic of Seafarer at this time of year, with the set dedicated to the late Whitney it makes consummate sense for Moore to emerge from out behind the keyboards to belt out the shimmering R'n'B sass of Petition, her straightened goldilocks swaying as we sweat. Visibly elated both by our reaction and their recent promotion to playing "more than thirty minutes", they experiment with an almost ABBA-esque new one on which Moore croons: "You're the one that I've been looking for" over a seductive pop hook. She concedes that they'll "probably fuck it up" although if it were tarnished with any such imperfection it's barely a blemish for it's yet another supreme step forward. It follows on from a particularly succulent take on Pigeon that suggests the trio ought to be instantaneously installed as the Primavera Sound house band. If not, they can fulfil the same roll round ours. Alaina; Patrick; James: if you're reading, see the below address.

They reemerge for a second set (or at least an unprecedented encore) during which they fumble for another, a "secret ending" as it's enchantingly designated, adding an air of fantasy to an already fantastic showing. It is to be the squiggly, rippled Long Boat Pass and whilst paradise may not be all around concurrently, a great happiness is indubitably abound.

Positive Attraction. Bitch Magnet, Bitch Magnet.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Oft earmarked – quite incomprehensibly – as indispensable progenitors of the equally frequently derided 'post-rock' genre, Bitch Magnet were always sparkier than the anaesthetised references hurled their way during their lamentably brief sojourn in the heart and ringing ears of the American independent underground. A formative band for Don Caballero and consequently for contemporary heroes Battles, the trio initially comprised of bassist and lead vocalist Sooyoung Park, drummer Orestes Morfin and guitarist Jon Fine (who coincidentally toured with the former) last year reunited to tour the fuck out of a world that's sorely missed their ravaging presence and in something of a compensational move, were coaxed down to Minehead for the latter's curation of a brutal ATP Saturday. Irregardless of how and indeed where they slide into a concurrent musical consciousness and indeed irrespective of the reality that this bumper collection of extensive, extended, and expansive cacophony isn't a 'new release' per se but instead an 'entire recorded history' – the chapters of which have all clocked up twenty-odd years of earthly existence – it's an unrefined joy to have them back at the forefront of living memory and, as such, the above brittle bones of contention shatter into insignificance. Welcome back, Bitch Magnet.

As with any comprehensive remaster, with interest resurrected Bitch Magnet are here afforded the opportunity to introduce themselves to, and in turn educate a more youthful audience previously unaware or perhaps unappreciative of the unadulterated raucous they once channeled. For others it proffers an occasion to return to revel in perhaps some of the most impactive hardcore-styled stuff ever to have dribbled out of America and for those last year fortunate enough to have subjected themselves to the onslaught within a live context, to right a fundamental wrong or two.

Whilst we may inhabit an actuality of unfeasibly swift musical fluctuation in which tastes and tendencies change in the time it takes to stamp on a distortion-disgorging stompbox, this comparatively positively antiquated material holds a present pertinence, as mutated strands of its DNA can be heard in anything and anyone from ATP faves Les Savy Fav, No Age, Mudhoney and so on and so forth through to Sonic Youth and beyond, not unrealistically to mainstream sludge pluggers Foo Fighters and obscene funk-rock outfit RHCP. Its packaging meanwhile, despite containing some of the best bits of the late '80s, is something of a modern-day wonder: housing three discs in a rather nifty and quite slight gatefold card thing also containing an abridged Bible of flyers and previously unseen photos, a reinterpretation of the sleeve artwork to third and final effort Ben Hur adorns its cover and equally niftily, this is as good a place to start as any.

Although remastered and consequently rendered as sonically clean as ever, the recording itself retains the magnificently grotty, scuzzy filth of old. From the doomsday tolls and unholy clatter of opener Dragoon right through to the brutal, if sublimely, startlingly melodic Sadie, here is a record that has not merely stood the test of time, but has voraciously trampled all over it in unapologetically muddy clodhoppers. Slapped bass and speak-sing vox perpetuate the gloriously malicious Mesentry and the brilliant ruination and devastation of Spite y Malice, simultaneously ensuring Park recites the role of the blood-handed hero-cum-villain of the piece, the mellifluous gunge of Crescent its highlight.

As card is then unfurled, debut EP Star Booty (heftily bolstered by industrial slabs of previously unreleased alternative versions) oozes from elaborate packaging, burrowing toward insertion in CD drive. It's a far more languid, intemperate, and ultimately unhinged collection of cruddy dissonance, Big Pining marrying resplendent chord progression to thoroughly dirgeful crunch and extravagant cymbal clangour. The pace relentless; the mood reckless, compositionally it lacks the maturity purveyed later on in their fleeting career: C Word pertains to a scatty punk aesthetic, while Sea of Pearls sounds somewhere along the lines of Marc Bolan smearing his guitar in tar to discharge a viscous power chord chug. This dilated take on Star Booty is a dish served bracingly cold and heartlessly, thrown in your still-unsettled grimace.

Finally, located within the deep, dark heart of both Bitch Magnet discography and this release itself is Umber, which opens up with the splurging, wild surges of Motor, its gargantuan guitar-led chorus sounding monumental enough to scrape the sky, ferociously piercing it to the point of precipitation. Like Henry Rollins fronting some alternative, distortion-streaked take on Leon Klatzkin's Adventures of Superman Theme, while Bitch Magnet may never have been fighting "a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way" Motor rocks and rolls at a rate that feels "faster than a speeding bullet; more powerful than a locomotive". The loud/ quiet dynamic of Clay (a rare pointer towards post-rock propensity) comes across purer than ever previously, its woozy bass lines and twitching drums accentuating an already-great sense of suspense. Thus we suggest you throw wide these reissues; unbolt the entrance to the chamber of your heart in which your all-time beloveds reside; and let Bitch Magnet wreak a most spectacular havoc.

Live: Loud, if Quiet. Kwes., The Garage.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:29:00 +0000

The last time we saw Lewisham's quirky hit conjurer Kwes. the ink was yet to dry on an illustrious contract with Warp and, truth be known, he could barely be seen across thirty truly invigorating and moreover quite informative minutes. Tonight, by contrast, is a little different: taking to the heavily-branded Highbury Corner hangout The Garage as part of this year's HMV Next Big Thing festival, despite having recently been plastered across the cover of Loud & Quiet it'd appear that all who crammed into The Shacklewell Arms' dimly illuminated back-room back in November like jittery bubbles jostling for escape from a Coke can, at this particular moment in time, have bigger fish to fry. Or bigger teeth to rot...

Upstairs in this mildly soulless space, Kwesi Sey is very much visible and having painstakingly confessed his aversion to singing before people (be it the fringes frequenting a heaving Dalston hideaway, plus brother or those to have slid atop the treacherous ice that lines the streets to a sparsely populated attic, plus brother) in the aforesaid L&Q interview, tonight epitomises a rather prolonged dunk in at the deep end. Sey instantaneously implores we draw closer, citing the gelid climes that have seeped into an already-cold and quite disarming arena as justification. Irrespective of the verisimilitude of this rather urgent urging, it demonstrates his fervent desire to affront the inherent issues he still patently locates within the context of 'performing', or at least performing his own songs, live. Backed by two wondrously capable girls on keys, drums, and a plethora of samplers they launch unassumingly into oneiric instrumental Canary, Sey romping with his diminutive bass guitar to dramatic effect, its milky, off-white frame jolted about exceedingly vigorously like a child attempting to wriggle loose a baby tooth. It's later thudded to a rather more ruinous tune on the chilling, phantom-like clatter of Hearts in Home that's here freed, funked up and out.

Anxieties manifestly overcome Sey at moments as on the electronica-infused R'n'B anthemia of Get Up or on "mellow one" Broke, an empowering shard of simplicity itself that leans toward conventional balladry. Perhaps somewhat oxymoronically in several respects, having professed singing his songs to be a requisite element of the trials, tribulations, and general bill-paying of life (that which keeps him 'in the money' as it were), it represents a necessary evil that here sounds almost angelic. Despite the odd lyrical erratum the track cleanly exhibits precisely what Kwes. is vocally capable of and whilst he's contemporarily at his strongest when keeping things intricate and instrumental (as is oft the wont of his Warp label mates) while indulging in jazzy keyboard interludes, were he to fall unrestrainedly into the stance of public speaking and singing, well, these events and his hugely anticipated (if still illusive) debut would indubitably be as beguiling as any of Friedensreich Hundertwasser's myriad canvases.

Of Heaven & Hell. Earth, Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II.

noreply@blogger.com (Dots&Dashes) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:02:00 +0000

From the doleful yet somehow somewhat celebratory initial notes shed from Dylan R. Carlson's mourning guitar onwards, Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II, the second record to be released from the recording sessions of the same name at the local Avast! Recording Co. is a dirgeful affair, and a superbly gruelling, if typically lugubrious one at that. So emotive and consequently so involving, mere moments into opener Sigil of Brass you're left exasperatedly awaiting some austere voiceover to earnestly utter something along the quintessentially contrived lines of: "Nothing could prepare me for what was to come..."

However what with this being Earth, Seattle's prime purveyors of the unabatingly doom-stricken, portent-laden instrumental, such human comfort never comes thus leaving the listener to wallow despairingly and occasionally wretchedly in a torturous quagmire of Lori Goldston's coarse cello scrapes and Karl Blau's deep-scarring bass incisions. However this is one sentimentally prickly and utterly viscid slough that's ultimately sadomasochistic to revel in, for supreme pleasure may be derived from squirming in the gallons of pain that you may discern – with a certain degree of unease – have gone into its conception. From the wearied folksy plod of His Teeth Did Brightly Shine to the hypnotic yet unnatural orchestration and crooked rhythmic skew of A Multiplicity of Doors, the experience engendered by arguably the finer of the two slithers of session is one of the gruesome distress of being encased in a hall of mirrors, stripped of liberty as you're left to inadvertently yet scrupulously survey your every blemish in the constant search for jagged-edged ending to the interminable horror of it all.

Then, around one third of the way into the debilitating, if laboriously concocted latter, as Carlson's fingers begin to slither forcefully over fretted string a lustrous gateway manifests itself and what sounds very much like homeless improvisation mutates into what sounds like irrefutable and indeed opulent majesty. For anyone never to have 'got' Earth this may quite conceivably be the moment when everything clicks into place, all grasped items and concepts are dropped, and shit is generally lost. The Corascene Dog scampers to a similarly intensifying sense of coherency, before attentions turn somewhat sensual on The Rakehell, a counfoundingly syncopated groove of a beast; a funked-up fiend that flutters to the leaden drone of Iron Butterfly. Of our many earthly pleasures the sounds emitted from these Seattleites remain rather foundational.