Efterklang are a group from Denmark who have been making their own unique blend of minimalistic, glitchy, modern classical, post-rock for 7 years. Not dissimilar to Múm, Sigur Ros or Jeniferever, who all hail from the more northerly parts of Europe, this is their fifth release and it’s for Yorkshire-based The Leaf Label. 2004’s Tripper is the only album I’m familiar with, so it was a nice surprise to find they had expanded on a sound that I was already quite fond of already.

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No genre can be quite as transcendental or quite such an ordeal as noise music. In self indulgent hands, a noise gig can be an endurance test; an interminable, chronically limited spectacle of musicians blowing their load through a rack of effect pedals. But when creativity is applied, noise music can break through the glass ceiling of anger-channeling and sonic nihilism and blossom into something more.

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Nineteen Ninety Five, it sure doesn’t seem that long ago. Cares in the world were few; cheap beer, ciggies, living for the weekend. I’m welling up just thinking about it. Of course such heady days were acompanied by the juggernaut that was Brit Pop and Supergrass were the teenage kings of the airwaves. Everyone knew them from the most savvy clubbers to the floppiest haired indie kids, I Should Coco soundtracked everything that epitmoised the summer of Brit Pop.

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Somewhere, in Seattle, there is a factory churning out records specifically for me. Say Hi are the type of band I dream about being in late at night, when I can dare to do so- the type of band that combines the scratchy hooks and slacker ethics of early 90s US indie rock and the navel-gazing musings and new romantic synths of 00s indietronica. And if in this particular case the balance maybe skews a bit too much towards the wrong side of the -tronica half of the equation there, well, no matter. Yes - there is definitely something distinctly Postal-y and Service-y about this record, but again - that’s no bad thing, as any eared and rational person will testify. I mean, how can you resist The Postal Service’s charms? (probably less open melodrama, though- less polish, too) Continue Reading

California may not be as inexorably linked to surf music as it was before the collapse of The Beach Boys but tenuous threads still connect the waves with the Golden State. The Botticellis’ debut, aptly titled Old Home Movies, is a shimmering analog paean to sun-bleached daydreaming. And like those Super 8 movies your parents dust off, the grainy pictures blur at the edges. Movies was recorded at Tiny Telephone at at the ensemble’s communal home in the foggy Outer Richmond district in San Francisco. Guest musicians include violinist Anton Patzner (Bright Eyes) and Jason Quever (Papercuts), who played drums on one song and helped the band commit the album to analog tape.

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The wonderful noise of A Place to Bury Strangers finally comes to the UK. The US act whose debut is marvellous blend of My Bloody Valentine swathes of feedback and Joy Division’s ear for a pop melody, have announced a number of dates around their ATP v Pitchfork festival appearence (bit miffed they’re playing Luton and not Cambridge)…

May
07 London, England - Barfly
08 London, England - Industry
09 London, England - KOKO
09-11 Rye, England - Camber Sands Holiday Centre (ATP vs. Pitchfork)
12 London, England - Legion
13 London, England - Madame Jo Jos
15 Hull, England - Welly
16 Brighton, England - Providence
17 Leeds, England - Faversham
19 Glasgow, Scotland - Captain’s Rest
20 Nottingham, England - Bodega
21 Birmingham, England - Jug of Ale
22 Luton, England - Luton Sub Club

Links
A Place To Bury Strangers [myspace]

Looking forward is as good, if not better, than looking back. This months veritable delight of aural pleasure not only gives you the top tracks from the month that’s behind us, but some choice picks of the best tracks to come!! Don’t say we don’t give you anything… Enjoy our late-for-Easter playlist.

Look out next week for an exclusive label sampler from the fine people at Something In Construction records, only available at TLOBF.

End Of Radio: TLOBF March/April 2008 Playlist
1. Mystery Jets - Veiled In Grey [download]
2. Ladyhawk - I Don’t Always Know What You’re Saying [download]
3. Neon Neon - Racquel [download]
4. John & Jehn - 20L07 [download]
5. Peter Moren - Social Competence [download]
6. The Sound Of Arrows - Danger! [download]
7. MIT - Park [download]
8. The Accidental - Illuminated Red [download]
9. Destroyer - Dark Leaves Form a Thread [download]
10. The Sword - Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians [download]

[DOWNLOAD ALL TRACKS] - right-click and choose save-as Continue Reading

The first time I heard the opening track from Population a smile shot across my face. After you hear something akin to an orchestra warming up in a grand concert hall, a three minute instrumental shines on you like a beam of sunshine through the darkest of clouds. Sounding like the dawn of a new day, it’s a wonderful way to start the album.

Other tracks like ‘Present of the Future End’ draw out similar upbeat emotions, though perhaps from listening to the lyrics, all may not be as pleasant as it seems. “Eager skins that light the fires. Autists hungry for the match. Drinking fossils of the liars” and “Human beings have been solved and now they want to fake us” point towards deeper issues than the blissfully unaware music suggests. Continue Reading

“An Evening with Eels“. That’s what was on my ticket. However, it might have been better marketed as “A Night with Mark Everett” or “E” to his mates. This was a stripped down and quite personal evening. No support act, just the recent BBC Four documentary about E’s father, the originator of the theory about parallel universes. A nice idea but it’s hard to believe that any Eels fan hasn’t already seen it.

I was a little concerned with E strode onto the stage, in a rather fetching boiler suit, by himself and no band. “This could be a very quiet and dark evening” I thought to myself. However, after the opening pair of songs, including a thread bare version of ‘It’s a Motherfucker’, The Chet joined the stage. This multiple instrument playing genius, and later book reader, helped add a certain something to the songs. No longer just an electric guitar or piano, the songs were still stripped back to their dark, cold and sinister hearts, but the extra elements of Saw, guitar and drums just gave the songs the sufficient twist they needed to break out of the mundane. Continue Reading

“Pushing thru the market square, so many mothers sighing
News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying”

If there is a greater album opener than this song, I am yet to find it. ‘Five Years’ represents Bowie at his very best, at his most challenging and artistic, opening his most flamboyant album to date with a song that at first sounds rather dour and oppressive. The brilliance though is in the writing, defying you not to imagine your own thoughts in similar circumstances. Five years is actually a long time. In the year of writing, 2013 is quite a way ahead, a mythical, far off land. Should news of the earth’s demise in that year come through today, you can imagine similar events unfolding.

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Young German band MIT are shaping up to be a quite a hot commodity in 2008. In the weeks leading up to the release of their debut album Coda, interviews and reviews of the trio have been steadily creeping into all corners of the indie music blog-o-sphere. So let’s go ahead and get the inevitable out of the way: MIT are a German electronica band. As such, they have been - and will continue to be - likened to Kraftwerk and Neu!. Such comparisons are indeed understandable, but perhaps also a bit lazy, as MIT have crafted a sound that is more punk than Kraftwerk and less Krautrock than Neu!. In fact, the band itself rather aptly describes their sound as electro-punk.

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One of our favourite bands at TLOBF, Elbow have yet to release a disappointing album. So, when those lovely people at their label suggested they’d be game for our 20 Questions, we jumped at the chance. Lead guitarist Mark Potter took the plunge and left us wondering what a different world we’d be living in if he carried on with is first career… Continue Reading

Exeter Cavern’s low black ceiling, brick walls and brick arches was the subterranean setting for tonight’s gig, a pre album release headline tour for The Long Blondes. The crowd were mostly made up of 20 somethings, somewhat unsurprisingly about 80% were going with the librarian look, tight fitted cardigans, jumpers, jeans and t-shirts, all in various pastel shades, which didn’t really match up with the opener, Kid Acne.

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Kim Deal has been part of my life for almost 15 years now. I first heard her voice on a tape recorded for me by a friend who was less than impressed by my musical taste at the time, and decided she would educate me. Through this tape I stumbled upon a whole world that I never knew existed, away from the shallow brit-pop and pub bands that came through my radio. Even today I still rate ‘Divine Hammer’ from The Last Splash as one of the most perfect pop songs ever written. As the years have passed barely a week goes by where I don’t hear her voice calling to me from my speakers. It is safe to assume I count myself as a big fan of The Breeders.

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This April and May on of TLOBF’s favourite new bands, The Wave Pictures, will be playing shows in support of their debut album for Moshi Moshi. Instant Coffee Baby will be released, finally, on May 5th and can be pre ordered from the Moshi Moshi shop. The album includes recent single ‘I Love You Like A Madman’ as well as forthcoming single ‘Strange Fruit For David’, out April 28th on glorious 7”.

The band have also been nominated for an Indy Award thanks to the promoters at End of The Road Festival. To access more details about the awards and vote for The Wave Pictures, please click the following link:

http://www.indyawards.co.uk/2008/artist_voting.php?artists=The%20Wave

Here are those Instant Coffee Baby tour dates in full:

March
28th ‘Tapestry presents’ @ Aloyius Church, NW1, London
30th London Luminaire supporting Darren Hayman
31st The Enterprise, Camden supporting Slow Club

April
7th ‘90 Free cds’ @ 93 Feet East, London
20th Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire
21st Aberdeen Tunnels
22nd Glasgow Brel
24th London Luminaire
26th Leeds Faversham
28th Nottingham Bodega (formerly The Social)

May
3rd Manchester Night and Day
4th Coventry Taylor John’s House
8th Bristol Thekla
10th Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach

Would you believe it, a new feature on TLOBF! We’ve put our thinking caps on and come up with this - After Hours - a means of finding out what those mysterious bands and artists get up to outside of the day job. What do they watch? Do they spend hours on Facebook? We find out so you’re better informed… First up is the Prince of Depression: Malcolm Middleton who’s Sleight Of Heart album was recently released and embarks on a tour of the UK NOW (dates belows)…

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