I can’t think of another band like Tortoise. They’re a one off. Effortlessly straddling multiple genres (dub, jazz, hip-hop, electronica), and revelling in their sense of experimentation they still manage to retain a sheen of cool, and more to the point still function as a capital R Rock band. What’s more, they seem to be well and truly in it for the long haul – if Beacons of Ancestorship, their dazzling new record, is anything to go by, then they are still very much bursting with ideas and new sonic angles. They sound more vital, and younger, than ever. Well, I say younger… Continue Reading
When the narrative comes to be written for standout albums of 2009, there’s going to be a whole heap of Scottish bands involved. And they just keep coming: The Phantom Band, My Latest Novel, Meursault, We Were Promised Jetpacks, the live Frightened Rabbit Album, Broken Records… There Will Be Fireworks are the latest to well up from the fertile Scottish plains, and I suspect, come the end of 2009, they’re going to be somewhere near the top of that ragged heap, if not at the very top.
The facts are these: There Will Be Fireworks are four Glaswegians – old school friends – Adam Ketterer (drums, glockenspiel), David Madden (bass), Gilbran Farrah (guitar, violin, piano) and Nicholas McManus (guitars, vocals, organ) and this is their first record, though it has been a fair while in the making. It was recorded pretty much live in a huge 17th century mill in Stratharven and it’s hard to miss the fact that the circumstances of the recording have invaded the record’s very weave – it sounds huge. What the band have done is taken the dynamics of a certain strand of post-rock (think Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky) and squashed them into throbbing, explosively passionate songs, and in doing so have channelled something of a new sound – a propulsive, widescreen sound that seems at once born of the organic live recording situation and something else, something deeper. There are lives packed into these songs, and at times it feels as if the skin is close to ripping. Continue Reading
We love Rock Plaza Central. They’ve been a bit quiet since they released their previous album, Are We Not Horses, a couple of years ago, to critical acclaim not just on a very young TLOBF, but also on Pitchfork. They’ve shed a few members, left their record label, but have returned with …At the Moment of our Most Needing, a stripped back, inspiring slice of Americana that adds plenty of Brass to their ramshackle sound.
With the album released in the U.S. this month, and a UK tour and release being muted, we got RPC main man Chris Eaton to provide us with some insight to the tracks on his latest masterpiece… Continue Reading
Fresh from reviewing the new second album from Future of the Left, I leapt at the chance to have a chat with the band’s frontman Andy Falkous. We talked about the writing and sound of Travels With Myself and Another, as well as the complexities of music piracy and merits of the words “ace” and “psyched”. Continue Reading
A couple of days after their sold out show at the Islington Academy, I’m sitting in the offices of Warner Brothers Records awaiting Mastodon. In true rock and roll fashion the band seem to have gone missing in London, and I’m reassured now and again that they will eventually turn up. The wait gives me enough time to have a look around the place. Colouring the boorish white of the walls are framed posters of all of WB’s big, and not so big, artists. The Enemy, Gnarls Barkley and Greenday are all proudly on display, and yet there’s something puzzling me. It seems strange that despite their rather remarkable success (Grammy nominations, big sales and almost entirely positive critical feedback) there are no Mastodon posters on the walls at Warner Brothers. Continue Reading
I suddenly realized that in the language, or at any rate in the spirit of the Glass Bead Game, everything actually was all-meaningful, that every symbol and combination of symbols led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with truly a meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created.
Herman Hesse – The Glass Bead Game
James Blackshaw has been prolific since he first appeared on record in 2004. There are currently at least 15 releases bearing his name – a mix of his own solo records, split recordings or collaborations, or, like last years’ The Garden of Forking Paths, where he appeared in a curatorial role. One thing that spans these releases is an astonishing level of dexterity and passion, and everything he seems to come into contact with is lit from within by his questing spirit. Blackshaw’s style – a mesmerisingly fluid and intricate study of the 12-string guitar – is one of exploration through iteration and repetition, and though a distant relative of the old Takoma school of finger picking, his recordings are more at home alongside modern composers and experimentalists such as Morton Feldman, Steve Reich and Charlemagne Palestine. His longer pieces are immersive and near architectural in there structure and at times the move into the hypnagogic -inducing a state of bliss or rapture. At times, on tracks such as ‘Stained Glass Windows’ from The Cloud of Unknowing, there is a sense of almost monkish devotion to his cause. He possesses a rare sense of grace and purpose.
Blackshaw’s new album, The Glass Bead Game – his first for Michael Gira’s label Young God – might just be his best yet. It features some of his beautiful rolling signature guitar playing but expanding on the short piano pieces on last year’s Litany of Echoes, it also moves into new territory with ‘Fix’ and ‘Arc’ – two longer piano studies. The latter is a genuinely astonishing track – 18 minutes of raw piano playing overlain with vocals from Lavinia Blackwall and, for the first time, a string section. The climax is a soul-deep vortex of sound. Michael Gira has called it “one of the most thrilling pieces of music I’ve heard in years”. Amen to that.
Matt Poacher spoke to James a month or so ago about the new album, piano-endurance tests and ah, Bromley. Continue Reading
Such is the strength and depth (to borrow a football cliché) of music Stateside at the moment that I find myself with three acts on heavy rotation at the moment from Austin, Texas, alone. OK, so Spoon haven’t done anything lately but they’re a band I revisit frequently, while Bill Callahan’s Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle is one of my favourites of 2009 thus far. White Denim is the latest addition to my Austin catalogue and some casual Googling reveals other familiar names that have breezed through my ipod shuffle at one time or another: The Octopus Project , Okkervil River, Explosions in the Sky, to name a few. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, Austin is the self-styled ‘Live Music Capital of the World’, a bold claim for only the 16th-largest city in the US (thanks Wikipedia). I haven’t seen White Denim live, but if Fits is anything to go by, they must be an exciting prospect. Continue Reading
Maybe it’s something to do with shadows. Like, living in one. I can’t be the only one who struggles to differentiate a Canadian accent from an American one. Do Americans know the difference between a Scottish accent and and English one? I dunno, but it seems that this weird subverted national identity stuff has its upsides: a few years ago, all of Canada seemed to get their shit together and collectively “fuck this” and make some fantastic records, roughly starting with Funeral and going through various degrees of awesomeness, and, as evidenced by TLOBF’s recent Oh! Canada compilation, they’re still going.
Sometime recently, a similar thing seemed to happen in Scotland. It’s hard to tell quite where it started or when, but in recent times The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit released probably the best albums of 2007 and 2008 respectively, and so far in 2009 Scotland has produced at least three of the year’s finest, from Camera Obscura, My Latest Novel, and now, We Were Promised Jetpacks. Continue Reading
Future of the Left’s lead singer Andrew Falkous recently made a blog post on the band’s myspace page in which he vented his frustration at how early the band’s second album, Travels with Myself and Another, had leaked to the internet. I found the post interesting partly because of how it occurred to me that few people could avoid feeling some sympathy for the band’s feelings about the leak; but also because, having already heard the album, the way the post was written immediately clicked into place with the tone and style of the album itself. There’s something a little angsty about this album - tense, tightly coiled, highly wrought, sometimes quiet but always liable to explode at any minute. They’re controlled explosions though – this is taut, cohesive noise rock, comprising an approachably concise album (under 33 minutes) which has been carefully thought out to make sure it can hold our attention from the beginning until the end. Continue Reading
“Good at songs, bad at fidelity“. That’s the tag line on their Myspace page. And, would you believe it, it perfectly sums them up. What we have with Internet Forever is the indie-pop sound of youth being recorded in a basement, with the lights off and a mini tape recorder as their own mechanism of capturing the sheer sound of joy and wonder that these indivuals create. Continue Reading
Those of you who have been loitering around the security doors here at TLOBF Towers for a while now you have probably noticed the frankly phenomenal amount of great new music coming from Canada over the last few years. From the classics (Joni, Neil and Laughing Lenny), the big hitters (Arcade Fire/ BSS/ Feist) to the up and coming (The Acorn, Woodpigeon, Ohbijou) TLOBF has been committed to bring you the best of what the Great White North has to offer. So we figured it made sense to start a new column dedicated to uncovering the latest new talent emerging from Canada, to showcase some of the lesser sung acts, labels, and events that may not have shown up on the collective radar over here in the UK. So from The Acorn to Zumpano TLOBF brings you: Oh! Canada.
And what better way to start off our new column than a review of the Canadian Blast! showcase from this years recent Great Escape festival. Continue Reading
OK, so the title might be a bit misleading… but this week’s interview features two of Big Scary Monsters label mates having a bit of a chat. Which is nice, as they’re heading out on tour this week, so I hope they get along…
It’s the all-knowing James Parrish from TheTupolev Ghost who’s having to answer a set of questions dreamed up by the lads from Wintermute.
To give you a taster of their style, we’ve got a track each from The Tupolev Ghost and Wintermute to giveaway. Though, if I was you, I’d do yourself a favour and just catch these guys live.
On a lovely May spring evening I head from the grimey surroundings of Hackney and cut across town to London’s affluent Holland Park for an engagement with one of TLOBF’s favourite new artists – Alessi Laurent-Marke. Still only a baby at 18, Alessi carries herself as someone a lot older than her years – her lyrics and compositions show a maturity of someone perhaps twice her age. Roaming through the leafy pathways we talk about the making of debut album Notes From The Treehouse, her early influences, her brief foray into music journalism and her love of Heartless Bastards. Continue Reading
Richard Skelton is an artist from Lancashire in the UK. He started his Sustain-Release Private Press in 2005 as a commemorative tribute to his late wife Louise, with the intention of publishing her artwork alongside his own musical offerings. Since its inception he has released a slew of raw, beautiful recordings presented in lovingly-assembled, individualised editions.
Operating under a variety of guises, including Heidika, Carousell, Harlassen and Clouwbeck, Skelton creates powerful, instrumental music out of densely-layered acoustic guitar, bowed strings, piano, mandolin and accordion, often laced with delicate, shimmering percussion. The result is something utterly unique – a music which is both life-affirming and yet etched with memory and loss, evoking equal parts Arvo Pärt and Ry Cooder, Nick Drake and Henryk Górecki.
It is with A Broken Consort, perhaps, that Skelton most-assuredly draws these elements together, creating an ever-changing drift of rich textures and interleaved melody that effortlessly evokes the landscapes which inspired it. Box Of Birch, his second album in this guise, was originally published in a boxed edition that contained, among other things, birch twigs collected from the West Pennine Moors. For Skelton these things act as a synecdoche for the landscape itself, a physical connection to the places in which much of his music is recorded. In this new edition for Tompkins Square, Skelton has created an exclusive series of artworks which draw on the hidden histories of the English landscape, and their narratives of displacement and loss. The result is something which perfectly complements the music whilst adding another dimension, providing a fuller picture of the artist’s vision.
The opportunity to speak to Skelton was too good to miss, and thanks to Scott McMillan over at Mapsadaisical we fired off some questions via email. Continue Reading
Isn’t it just thrilling to say that pop music has rarely been in ruder health than it is, now in 2009? Pop music that sounds like it’s being beamed directly from a portal in the future to your ears, on a luxury space-colony on the Moon. And what’s more it’s actually, like, the mainstream and stuff that’s spearheading this trend. I’m still excited by the prospect of the forthcoming HEALTH and Dirty Projectors albums, of course, but arguably just as innovative and weird is what’s going on with the music of FrankMusik, and Passion Pit – overtly mainstream but with an obvious love of very specific electronic sounds, and glitchy stuff. It’s really thrilling that such great synth-pop music could exist and be being heard by the ears of huge swathes of people who will undoubtedly fail to understand it on as many levels as I do. Continue Reading
From the moment I embarked the 10am train to Taunton, it was obvious this ATP would be a very different kettle of fish to my previous excursion Minehead way. Whilst the journey to The Fans was like being trapped in a feature-length episode of Skins, all flannel-shirted youths sporting Converse and polka dots, the clientele this time was, let’s say, a little richer in years…and volume. But with ATP: Breeders focusing on more established acts than last week’s indie-schmindie extravaganza- over half the bands have been around at least a decade- that’s no real surprise. Neither is it a criticism; in many ways having a line-up I was far less familiar with (being but a twinkle in the milkman’s eye when Gang of Four and X were first around) made this a more interesting experience to review, and indeed, it also proved that these old-timers could show their more youthful counterparts a lesson or two… Continue Reading
Manic Street Preachers are a band with a story. Centred for many around the enigmatic and increasingly iconic figure of Richey James Edwards, who disappeared in 1995 and was declared presumed dead in 2008, that story has been revisited and alluded to countless times in interviews, magazine articles, and, especially at the moment – in the introductions to reviews of the ninth album by the band, Journal for Plague Lovers. The story is so oft-repeated that to mention it again here serves only to show some of the context of this album, and to underscore the enormous expectation on the shoulders of the band as they release and promote these songs. Continue Reading
Clockwise: Christopher Bear, Edward Droste, Daniel Rossen, Chris Taylor
New York post-folk chamber-pop merchants Grizzly Bear’s second full-length studio album Veckatimest is finally out on Warp records next week, and the band were recently over in Blighty to play Jools Holland and ATP v The Fans. Between these two things TLOBF’s Peter Bloxham met them on a fresh spring afternoon on Shepherd’s Bush common to talk about Veckatimest, touring with Radiohead and Twitter.
All questions answered by Chris Taylor (bass/woodwinds/electronics/vocals) unless otherwise stated.
All tomorrow’s parties this weekend. That’s a cultural experience in England, going to a Butlins in Minehead, really.
Haha, yeah?
Do you guys have anything like that in the US?
There’s nothing where you stay there… I mean 6 flags America has hotels nearby….
Chris Bear: Yeah but nothing out in the country like that.
I’m going to the Breeders one, I’m gonna miss you guys.
It seems that they do so many of those now there’s like every week or something! There’s a Halloween one? The Christmas one. The programming with the bands is crazy awesome.
Chris Taylor @ ATP 2009. All live photographs by Richard Thane.
I’ve been following Ed on twitter.
Oh, okay…
What’s this Snoop Dogg thing?
We… we really just wanna hang.
Yeah?
Chris Bear: We just really think he’d be cool to hang out with.
Is it because maybe he could do a rap with your band name? Like Grizzle Bizzle something…
Yeah that would work really well… hanging with the bizzle. And all that business.
Chris Bear. Yeah that could work really well.
I just like his phrasing! it’s just like… soothing… in a way.
Edward Droste
He got banned from the UK for a while.
Oh really?
Yeah I think there was some shit about drugs or something…
Oh that’s horrible, I just think it’d be cool to hang with him… He seems like a cool… I mean in terms of huge cultural icons, I think that he’s got a good vibe and I think it’s pretty admirable that he just remains like really mellow and stoned, like all the time. Like on the television.
Did he get in contact?
No, that’s the funny thing. Ed’s just kinda endlessly pestering him on twitter every day… just to see.
No reply?
No reply… I don’t really expect it. He might not even be the one twittering…
Yeah and I mean if Ed is doing it then maybe there are loads of people like… I don’t know actually. I don’t really know how it works, I don’t have twitter!
You need to get his mobile number or something.
Yeah.
So shall we talk a bit about Veckatimest now we’re here?
Sure.
It’s said that this album was more of a collaborative effort with the band with all you guys throwing in more – would you say maybe as far as Grizzly Bear as a band is, that makes it more of Grizzly Bear record than the last.
I think we were all throwing in but in different ways on Yellow House. It wasn’t by any means a singular effort. We had the same sort of thing with everyone just throwing in just coming up with much more songs y’know, from the ground up. But like… there are about five songs on Yellow House that are the same thing, like a two bar guitar loop, some lyrics (of which there aren’t that many) the band did the same thing but the process wasn’t quite as.. ‘trusting’ you know, with ideas and how we go about it and trusting each other to just do it.
So yeah, Ed was twittering about Paulo Nutini last night.
Oh he did?
Yeah he said something like ‘Known in the UK, new to us.’
Yeah, true.
So what do you reckon?
Great, actually yeah his stuff was really good! I’d never heard it before and I thought it was awesome and the band was good yeah cool.
Are there any other British bands that you’ve recently become aware of that you like?
Micachu and the shapes.
Chris Bear: Oh yeah, Micachu!
Oh cool yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing them at the Bella Union stage at O2 this year. They have this small stage on the grass with a double decker bus and tables and chairs and things…
Oh that sounds really cool. That sounds really nice.
Chris Bear: I didn’t get to see Micachu play at SXSW but apparently… yeah awesome.
Have you heard the new Noisettes record?
Yeah they’re like huge now. They had this pop breakthrough and they’re all over the side of buses and stuff.
That’s awesome for them, she’s awesome, too. So pretty.
So compared to Yellow House do you think that Veckatimest is going to be more of an accessible pop record? With songs like ‘Two Weeks’ that are more solid chunks of melody…
Yeah I think that it’s kinda clearer, clearer equals more accessible I feel like clearer equals more accessible in general as a rule.
I don’t think it’s bad to say that Yellow House was a grower album..
Oh yeah totally, I’m fine with that. I love that about albums, you know my favourite records are like hear it and you’re like ‘okay… this is cool’ and then there’s one day when the song comes along and you’re like …
…’I love this!’
Right! ‘I fucking love this song!’ There’s like this moment when the music really hits you, when something is just right and you can really deeply into it.
Oh god, so Johnny Greenwood said that you were his favourite band! That must’ve been awesome.
Yeah I mean Ok Computer definitely changed my life. And uh, I mean, I was mostly playing Jazz and it was the first Rock band that I could hear real depth in and that I could really fall in love with. So I mean, yeah there’s really no words, I mean gratitude. Really grateful that we got to play music you know alongside those guys.
What was it like touring with them, what were Radiohead crowds like?
Really good, really good. Very positive. Responsive. Before we got out on tour the it was like ‘Okay, this could just be like y’know…. Nobody cares about us, we should really prepare for a crowd that just doesn’t get us at all.’ and I was like yeah I guess you’re right because I was just so excited about playing shows with them and then I thought ‘Oh shit, maybe everyone will hate it’. We went out on the first show and the last thing Ed said to me before we went on stage was like ‘people might not clap, okay just remember that.’
Hahaha! What kind of thing is that to say?
No, it made me feel good! Cause I was thinking fine. That’s fine. I’m cool with that, I just had to be reminded not to expect rapturous applause and… yeah all that. But people were really were responsive so it was like ‘woah… cool!’
L-R: Daniel Rossen and Christopher Bear
It’s a good match actually because you put the two bands together and they’re quite different but I think there’s a definite crossover with fans.
Chris Bear: I feel like they out of any other band have the most open-minded diverse audience. I’m sure there’s probably some people who have like one of their albums but I feel like people who are fans of Radiohead have seen them go through albums like The Bends and all the way through to the new albums and have crossed over so many different styles…
I think they introduced so many people to electronic sounds and electronica.
Yeah in a way that was sort of when I first started even imagining that was one of the first ways or times I’d head electronic music intergrated into rock music in a really seamless way. It felt like a completely new fresh thing and you know it wasn’t forced.
Chris Taylor: It’s crazy to think about people who’ve just like for example heard Radiohead in their dorms… just the single from the album and are like ‘oh I never really checked them out before’ that’s so wild to me because they’ve been such a mainstay for me for so long.
Yeah it’s almost weird to hear things like ‘Pyramid Song’ on the radio.
Oh wow. That’s an awesome song.
Yeahh.. I know. It’s crazy that they’ve been around for song and managed to stay current so well too.
Yeah yeah, totally.
What other UK bands, like mainstay UK bands are there as influences for you?
Well y’know there’s The Beatles. Actually recently there’s apparently this divide, like, you like the Rolling Stones or you like The Beatles… You’ve heard this?
Well yeah..
And I was like definitely like Beatles very much and for a long time but I’ve kinda come around and I really dig the stones stuff a lot now. I am a very late bloomer.
Yeah I haven’t got on board with them yet…
Chris Bear: It’s just a different thing. [to the Beatles]
Yeah, I think I wrote off them initially because they sounded like they were trying to do something bluesy and y’know they’re from a totally different culture but it was really just them paying tribute to what they loved and y’know they really did love it. There’s this early photobook that my roommate has he’s a big stones fan and (…uh not really into the Beatles.)
Anyway it’s of their tour with Bo Diddly, they brought him over here to England. And there’s all these incredible photographs. They really did have a genuine respect and appreciation they weren’t posing. Unfairly I wrote them off as that at first.
Finally, any bands from your neck of the woods that we should know about?
Beach House!
Oh, we already love Beach House!
Dirty Projectors! The new album is really good.
Chris Taylor: The band I’m working on now might get love here if it goes alright, I’ve just finished mixing and producing the record they’re called the Morning Benders. They could do okay on this island.
What kind of stuff is it?
Uhhhh.. It’s just good!
Good stuff.
I mean it’s like rock but it’s got lots of awesome sort of arrangements and it’s pretty deep, pulling from a lot of classic rock sources.
You heard it here first!
Haha, yeah… Who else?
Oh Arthur Russell? His catalogue is incredible. You should really check out Arthur Russell.
“I can’t. Get out. Of what I’m into with you.” Comes the pleading refrain, the beautiful prison built from love, the acceptance of a commitment to the agonies and pleasures of throwing yourself into another person, a piece of bittersweet romantic honesty that floats so delicately out of the tail section of All We Ask that it almost seems possible to cup it out of the air and hold it to your chest. It’s easy enough to allow moments like this to float by, unnoticed. There is after all, a plethora of sweet, gentle melodic peaks and dramatic, rolling troughs to choose from besides. You don’t get smoke without fire. Veckatimest is here and crackling away under the billowing clouds of hype and hyperbole there’s a flame burning. Grizzly Bear have written an album with a beating heart. Continue Reading
Aaaaaah our favourite time of the year has loomed yet again. All Tomorrow’s Parties. The one event in the calendar year where geeks mingle with beardies and hipsters hold hands with hippies. There really is no other festival like it, and for those of you who couldn’t make it or even for those out there who want to re-live the shenanigans we like to give you the best coverage that’s humanly possible.
We’ve already published John Brainlove’s diary and even ‘twittered’ our way through last weekends events.. But as ATP round 2 kicks off this afternoon we’re pleased to unveil our bumper review!
Two perspectives. Boy and girl. Adam Elmahdi and Kate Price give a detailed look at last weekends The Fans Strike Back event accompanied with the photographs of Lucy Johnston and Rich Thane.
Enjoy! And if we’ve missed anything out – don’t forget to tell us about it in the comments thread below…
Look out for a full review of The Breeders weekend, plus a massive photo feature of both events. All that’s to come next week…
![Clockwise: Christopher Bear, Edward Droste, Daniel Rossen, Chris Taylor]](http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/wp-content/media/2009/05/grizzly-bear.jpg "grizzly-bear")
