Photographs by Annah Legg

So you’re having a bunch of shows in Hyde Park, during the (brief) height of the Great British summer, and what do you do? Why stick it in a tent, of course. Granted, everyone would be eternally grateful if, true to form, it was pissing it down tonight,  but it’s not and it seems a damn shame having to shuffle inside a big old circus tent when it’s so nice lazing around outside on the grass. Which may explain why there’s a fairly small crowd for folk-tress Alela Diane, tonight’s main support act. Those who did head inside were rewarded though, as she delivered a warm, glowing rendition of highlights from her debut To Be Still. With her dad on mandolin duties, and a full band, she pulled of a gloriously golden sound that rivalled soaking up the sun outside.

The tent did, of course, fill up though, as Bon Iver took to the stage around 8:45pm. Opening with a long, anticipation-building intro to ‘Lump Sum’, it was a fairly low-key beginning to the proceedings, even by his low-key standards. But after he’d eased in gently he whipped out that battered old steel guitar and smacked the audience round the face, dropping what must’ve been the track most them bought their ticket for –  the trademark ‘Skinny Love’. It wasn’t wasted early on in the set though, but set a very very high bar for the rest of the show, which Bon Iver cleared easily. And, of course, it was bloody beautiful. There was a rare outing for’ Brackett, W9’, featured on the Dark Was The Night compilation. The warm, fuzzy guitar sounds combined with swelling vocals were lovely to hear live, and then progressed surprisingly well into ‘Blood Bank’, as though the two songs were brothers. 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

4AD’s shoegaze wunderkinds The Big Pink are currently in New York putting the finishing touches to their as-yet-untitled debut album. In the mean time, the band are due to release their next single “Stop The World” on 29th June and will return to the UK in time to play a pre-Glastonbury Festival warm-up show at Bath’s Moles on Thursday 25th June. The band have also confirmed they will play a 10-date UK tour in October in support of the album.

Summer festival dates are as follows:
25-Jun : Moles, Bath (Glastonbury warm-up show)
26-Jun : Glastonbury Festival (Queens Head Stage)
27-Jun : Glastonbury Festival (John Peel Stage)
01-Aug : Field Day, London
28-Aug : Reading Festival
30-Aug : Leeds Festival
11-Sep : Bestival, Isle of Wight

October tour dates:
08-Oct : Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
09-Oct : Digital, Brighton
10-Oct : Academy, Oxford
11-Oct : Kasbah, Coventry
14-Oct : King Tuts, Glasgow
17-Oct : Duchess, York
18-Oct : Cockpit, Leeds
20-Oct : Academy, Liverpool
21-Oct : Academy, Manchester
22-Oct : Electric Ballroom, London

The Big Pink are playing at O2 Academy 2 Liverpool in October. Remember if you’re on O2 you can get Priority Tickets to other great gigs like this up to 48 hours before general release. Click here to register. Terms apply.

Deerhunter have been accused of many things in their time in the limelight, but being slackers can hardly be one of them. The seventh release related to the band to emerge in the past two years, following three full-length albums (and two under the Atlas Sound and Lotus Plaza monikers) as well as an EP, Rainwater Cassette Exchange seems to exist as a microcosm of Microcastle. The EP’s five tracks are all muscle and no fat; only two tracks go past the three minute mark, seemingly building on the last album’s diversions into taut, yet dreamy, pop music. 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

You get the idea that 4AD’s latest signings Broken Records are so proud of the orchestral grandeur present throughout their music  that they walk through the streets of their native Edinburgh with their violins in machine gun cases, these archaic strings and bones are their weapons. Not dissimilar in scope and scale to countrymen The Twilight Sad, Before The Earth Begins To Part is unashamedly epic from it’s title onwards.

Vocalist Jamie Sutherland sings like a great big Scottish bear of a man, genuine passion and gusto dripping from each and every raw syllable and he can do falsetto just as adeptly as son of Edinburgh. Continue Reading

Following the release of sophomore album Actor (which received a rather controversial 100% score when reviewed on TLOBF), St. Vincent will return to the UK this summer for a spate of shows, including a headline slot on the Bella Union stage at London’s Wireless Festival on 5th July. Unlike her most recent trip to these shores (a sold-out solo affair at London’s Hoxton Bar & Kitchen), Annie Clark will be aided and abetted by a four-piece band and together they’ll be visiting the following locations…

July
Sunday 5th – Wireless Festival, London (Bella Union stage)
Monday 6th – Thekla, Bristol *
Wednesday 8th – ICA, London *
Saturday 11th – Oxegen Festival, Ireland
Monday 13th – Night & Day, Manchester *
Tuesday 14th – Nice & Sleazy’s, Glasgow *

* Support from Blue Roses

“Alas! When passion is both meek and wild!” John Keats once wrote. It’s the epigraph that Richard Yates, that great chronicler of the darker side of the American suburban dream, used to introduce Revolutionary Road, and it’s no less befitting an overture for St. Vincent’s second record, Actor. For all Annie Clark’s doe-eyed physical delicacy and gentle vocals, there’s a fiercely shredded guitar riff and distorted beat that heads straight to the jugular, uprooting the white picket fences of the domesticity where she lays her less than rosy scene. Conceived by watching films such as The Wizard of Oz and Disney’s Sleeping Beauty on mute and reimagining their soundtracks, the follow up to 2007’s Marry Me eloquently negotiates the narrative arc of a relationship in freefall to the tune of a glorious orchestra redolent of Paul J. Smith’s work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Continue Reading

Photos by Anika Mottershaw

“I’m very suspicious of some of you” declares St Vincent (known to her mother as Annie Clark) with a wry smile to a hyper-enthusiastic sold out crowd of Hoxton Bar & Grill. A large portion clap a bit too whole heartily to the introduction of new song, ‘The Strangers’. It’s almost as if she’s genuinely surprised that people are already aware and well versed in her new record Actor, a full 2 (that’s right, count them, 2) weeks before it’s even hit the shops. “Some of you have been  downloading, I think”. To be fair, she can hardly be surprised people have heard it in this day and age. People are thieves! They are impatient! They want a free lunch! They want things NOW and they know how the bit-torrent sites to get them! But it’s okay, she still loves us. And she looks like she’s having a blast up there. During new track ‘The Strangers’, she sways from side to side, eyes closed and jerking in time as she boldly and fiercely assaults and jabs at her guitar to reach the desired tones, like a woman possessed.

Having plied her trade as part of the large ensemble of touring bands for  The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens (insert heart icon here), you might think Annie Clark would feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights, exposed to the World as she performs with just a guitar in hand and a sample/drum machine. But this is simply not the case. She freely banters away between songs, genuinely thanking the audience for their generous applause, and oozing an incredible laid back confidence which makes her so darn charming. Hell, she even cites severely underrated US comedy Arrested Development as one of her favourite shows [Her debut, Marry Me was a coy reference to a regularly spoken phrase on it - seriously if you haven't seen it, make it so. One of the Best. Shows. Ever. One small reason why Annie and I should be together, I feel…]

When she does drop the delightfully tongue-in-cheek ‘Marry Me’, (“Marry me John, come on, we’ll do what married people do…without the kid”) people warmly laugh in appreciation. “Try singing that in the bible belt!” . The latest single ‘Actor Out of Work’, sounds totally exhilarating with it’s thickly reverbed-drenched noise, echoing over the looped main riff that she laid down and sampled at the start. She drums out a beat then lets the keyboard take over repeating it, before she can get down to playing the guitar and singing – ensuring everything is in complete synchronicity, proving to be quite the multitasking queen. ‘Landmines’ sounds distinctly ethereal and other-worldy whereas ‘The Party’ was a mixture of delicate, brittle blues, brimming with a sad fragility her voice. Most people seem enchanted and spellbound as she spins her webs of aural splendor. Apart from the venue lights guy who was standing on the side of stage. His arms constantly raised up to the switch deck, tweaking knobs to fit the mood. That poor guy.

With her set complete, she found it impossible to leave the stage. Her pathway obstructed by fans and photographers (with there being no backstage at the Hoxton Bar & Grill.) “The plan was to go backstage, let you guys rapturously clap, begging for me to come back, while I’d be back there being fanned and fed grapes”…. Oh, what I’d give to provide her with that service… So anyway… She strapped back on her guitar and rewarded our faux-patience and fervor with ‘Paris Is Burning’. A song that sounds sweet and sinister in equal measures, and exudes a leaden tension delivered through waltz. A popular choice amongst the crowd who left with their hearts content as they filtered out onto Hoxton Square.

Setlist:
Jesus Saves, I Spend
The Strangers
Actor Out Of Work
Marry Me
Landmines
Black Rainbow
Your Lips Are Red
Marrow
The Party
==
Paris Is Burning

Deerhunter are set to release a new EP, Rainwater Cassette Exchange, digitally on May 18th and on CD and 12″ on June 8th.

The EP was recorded in February with Nicolas Verhes at Rare Book Room studios in Brooklyn, NY and features five new tracks from the band.

Tracklisting:
1. Rainwater Cassette Exchange
2. Disappearing Ink
3. Famous Last Words
4. Game of Diamonds
5. Circulation

You can hear the lead track now on the radio player on the 4AD homepage.

This release coincides with a European tour from Deerhunter (see below), which will be swiftly followed by a string of dates in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. They will be announcing summer US festivals and tour dates in coming weeks.

16th May : All Tomorrow’s Parties (curated by The Breeders)
18th May: The Scala, London SOLD OUT
19th May: Deaf Institute, Manchester (Matinee Show)
19th May: Deaf Institute, Manchester SOLD OUT
20th May: Stereo, Glasgow
21st May: The Black Box, Belfast
22nd May: Whelans, Dublin
23rd May: Sound City Festival, Liverpool
24rd May: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
25th May: Concorde 2, Brighton
26th May: Noveau Casino, Paris
27th May: Paradiso, Amsterdam
28th May: Botanique, Brussels
29th May: Primavera Festival, Barcelona
1st June: LuxFragil, Lisbon
2nd June: Travasita, Helsinki
4th June: O-Nest, Tokyo
5th June: Club Metro, Kyoto
7th June: KD Japon, Nagoya
8th June: O-West, Tokyo
9th June: Fandango, Osaka
11th June: Manning Bar, Sydney
12th June: Corner Hotel, Melbourne
13th June: The Zoo, Brisbane
15th June: Kings Arms, Auckland
16th June: San Francisco Bathhouse, Wellington

This feels like a critical moment for Camera Obscura. These most unassuming six men and women of Glasgow, for so long seen as merely Belle & Sebastian’s Mini-Me playthings – Stuart Murdoch produced their first album – made the great leap forward in 2006. Let’s Get Out Of This Country came with a single that got radio interested and saw them cast off their unassuming past and fully embrace the Wall Of Sound. Marrying uplifting 60s-tinged skewed pop to Tracyanne Campbell’s lyrical ideas of vulnerable romance and empathetic self-absorption. Now they’re on 4AD and Steve Wright is playing the first single. Continue Reading

So It Hugs Back are four dudes (Matthew Simms – guitar + vocals, Jack Theedom – organ + backing vocals, Paul Michael – bass, Dimitri Sudell – drums) originally from Maidstone, now London (of course), who take a DIY approach to their music. Releasing 7”s on small – and even their own – labels, producing the handmade and stitched records themselves, and recording Inside Your Guitar in their own studio. This is their debut full-length and they’re lucky enough to have joined up with the mighty 4AD to release it. Continue Reading

Photo by Crazybobbles

Veterans of the Scottish indie-pop scene they may be, but Camera Obscura were still visibly nervous tonight. Although the Lexington’s a tiny venue by their standards- they’re playing the much bigger Shepherd’s Bush Empire next month- it’s the first time they’ve performed most of their new album My Maudlin Career (what a wonderfully fitting title!) in a live setting and they’re obviously worried. But despite Tracey-Anne Campbell’s perpetually apologetic demeanour, it soon becomes clear there’s little to worry about.

It could be argued that they rarely write dud songs, but then again, they’re not a band much noted for their adventurousness. They have a formula (Melancholy Tales Of Heartbreak + Twee-Orientated Indie Melodising A La Belle And Sebastian = PROFIT) and rigidly stick to it; there’s nothing from the new album that would be at all out of place on Let’s Get Out Of This Country. But as long as you can accept the lack of originality, there’s much to enjoy here.

The clear standout from the new LP (and indeed, the whole show) is the irresistible ‘French Navy’, which takes the band’s obsession with Northern soul and runs with it, resulting in one of the very finest entries in their canon. Even though it lacks the luscious strings of the recorded incarnation, the trumpet flourishes and sheer vitality of the thing prove exactly how good Camera Obscura can be when they’re on form.

Alas, they struggle to achieve quite the same highs throughout the rest of the set, although ‘The Sweetest Thing’ and ‘Honey In The Sun’ come tantalisingly close. ‘Swans’, with a melody that sounds like it was swiped from some 1980’s kids TV show, is a disposable if pleasant bit of fluff; the title track’s essentially a slowed-down ‘If Looks Could Kill’ (also played) which highlights the sense of over-familiarity that often creeps in during the lesser tracks. And although they play well, there’s still a certain “session band” quality about them. They’re not the most exhilarating viewing experience even at their most impassioned. Even the glorious ‘Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heart-Broken’ came across as a bit too gauche – a little awkwardness suits their style, but their restraint too often works against them. But ‘Razzle Dazzle Rose’ ends the night on a high note and despite my quibbles, come the end there’s definitely a feeling of “a job well done”.

Solid, dependable and blessed with occasional flashes of genius, Camera Obscura won’t ever change your life but they may very well make it that little bit better.

Photographs by Ama Chana

When did Matt “M.” Ward become so popular? Perhaps his musical dalliances with Hollywood actress Zooey Deschanel (A.K.A. She & Him) have raised awareness of the curly haired one, but it came as a bit of a shock to witness the sheer fervour that awaited him at London’s intimate Borderline. The attention’s obviously well deserved- the man’s got a fantastically characterful voice, but it’s a shame it was given so little time to breathe in a set that too readily traded substance for style. Continue Reading

The sheer volume of “kooky” female solo artists being served up for the indie listener has been well reported, you don’t need to hear those names again. Anni Rossi is signed to 4AD however which would appear to give hope that she may have more to offer than most of her contemporaries. Last year’s Afton EP seemed to hint that this was the case; six tracks of viola-led acoustic folk-pop featuring some seriously off-kilter melodies and some wonderfully individual vocal fluctuations. Continue Reading

On May 4th, 4AD will release Actor, the highly anticipated new album by St. Vincent (née Annie Clark), and the follow-up to her first album Marry Me.

Speaking for the first time about Actor, Annie Clark commented, “I wanted to make these songs technicolour animatronic rides.”

Preceding Actor will be the single ‘Actor Out Of Work’ (out April 20th).

St. Vincent will preview songs from Actor with two shows at this year’s South by Southwest conference in Austin: Wednesday, March 18th at the Central Presbytarian Church as part of the 4AD showcase, and Friday, March 20th at Antone’s as part of the Billions Corporation showcase. Clark will also tour the U.S. and Europe this year and a full itinerary will be announced shortly.

Tracklisting:
1. The Strangers
2. Save Me From What I Want
3. Neighbours
4. Actor Out Of Work
5. Black Rainbow
6. Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood
7. Marrow
8. The Bed
9. The Party
10. Just The Same But Brand New
11. The Sequel

I’ll be frank. Over the years, I’ve had a somewhat love/hate relationship with Matt Ward. He, without question, possesses an uniquely timeless voice whilst his ditties float along crackling, hissing analog radio waves from a time, long ago. I remember when I first heard Transistor Radio and fell hook, line and sinker for the warmth and intimacy it exuded. But in small doses I hasten to add. Too much, I realized and I’d be grating my teeth to dust alá The Joanna Newsom Syndrome. I gave his previous offering, Post War, a couple of spins before resigning it to the “Good, but not OMG must include songs on future mixtapes for pretty girls” shelf. It was safe middle of the road territory for such a talent and unsurprisingly propelled him into mainstream acclaim as a result. Finger crossed, Hold Time will be more memorable, if not more challenging. Continue Reading

Dark Was The Night is a fundraiser for the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS, comprising 31 exclusive tracks. Moreover, though, much like a previous Red Hot effort, 1993’s No Alternative (Nirvana, Patti Smith, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Pavement, Jonathan Richman), it acts as a snapshot of a certain time and place in North American alternative music (Stuart Murdoch, Devastations, Riceboy Sleeps, Antony Hegarty and Jose Gonzalez company excepted). The record takes in a healthy cross-section of the major players in the scene over the last couple of years; a period of unbridled creativity and critical hosannahs shone upon the music that not so long ago would have been quietly left to fend for its own cult following on the underground. So how do you approach something like this, with no thematic link or stylistic even keel, just a hell of a lot of proven quality intended, as the producers Aaron and Bryce Dessner (of The National) have reinforced, merely as a showcase for “the best in independent music, with an emphasis on traditional themes played and arranged in a contemporary way” (whatever that means)? By throwing traditional review narrative form out of the window and tackling it sequentially, I guess. Continue Reading

4AD have announced that they’ve been doing some wheeling and dealing during the recent transfer window.

The trio of Broken Records (hotly tipped by our good selves), The Big Pink and Camera Obscura have all penned deals with 4AD to release new material before the year end…

We’ll have more news on each of these acts, plus some interviews no doubt, in the coming months.

As previously reported here, the new 4AD compilation Dark Was The Night will be released next month and comprises of 31 exclusive tracks curated by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and the AIDS charity Red Hot.

‘Knotty Pine’ by The Dirty Projectors and David Byrne is just one of the many, many highlights on this fabulous set and has just been made available as a free download.

Also, as of yesterday, 4AD began a track-by-track premiere of the record. From January 15 through February 15, each track, in order will be streamed for one day only at www.myspace.com/DarkWasTheNight as well as on the relevant band’s MySpace page.

Tracks to look out for are Antony Hegarty’s stirring take on the early Dylan classic ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’, ‘Cello Song’ by The Books and Jose Gonzalez, ‘Deep Blue Sea’ from Grizzly Bear and a cover of Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’ by My Brightest Diamond – which really shouldn’t work but does in a quite fantastic way. Oh, and there is a stunning reworking of Bright Eyes’ ‘Lua’ where Coner Oberst is joined by Gillian Welch on vocals. Basically, there isn’t a duff track over the whole 2 discs.  Definitely an essential purchase for 2009 and for a great charity  to boot. Pre-order here.

Tracklist in full:

‘THIS DISC’

1. “Knotty Pine” – Dirty Projectors + David Byrne
2. “Cello Song” – The Books featuring Joses Gonzalez
3. “Train Song” – Feist and Ben Gibbard
4. “Brackett, WI” – Bon Iver
5. “Deep Blue Sea” – Grizzly Bear
6. “So Far Around The Bend” – The National
7. “Tightrope” – Yeasayer
8. “Feeling Good” – My Brightest Diamond
9. “Dark Was The Night” – Kronos Quartet
10. “I Was Young When I Left Home” – Antony with Bryce Dessner
11. “Big Red Machine” – Justin Vernon + Aaron Dessner
12. “Sleepless” – The Decemberists
13. “Die” – Iron & Wine
14. “Service Bell” – Grizzly Bear + Feist
15. “You Are The Blood” – Sufjan Stevens

‘THAT DISC’

1. “Well-Alright” – Spoon
2. “Lenin” – Arcade Fire
3. “Mimizan” – Beirut
4. “El Caporal” – My Morning Jacket
5. “Inspiration Information” – Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
6. “With A Girl Like You” – Dave Sitek
7. “Blood Pt. 2″ – Buck 65 Remix (featuring Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti)
8. “Hey, Snow White” – The New Pornographers
9. “Gentle Hour” – Yo La Tengo
10. “Amazing Grace” – Cat Power
11. “Happiness” – Riceboy Sleeps
12. “Another Saturday” – Stuart Murdoch
13. “The Giant Of Illinois” – Andrew Bird
14. “Lua” – Conor Oberst with Gillian Welch
15. “When The Road Runs Out” – Blonde Redhead & Devastations
16. “Love Vs. Porn” – Kevin Drew

mp3:> The Dirty Projectors and David Byrne: ‘Knotty Pine’