Despite beavering away for over two years Birmingham’s Ace Bushy Striptease have criminally not received the recognition they deserve.  If their ramshackle, yet adorable outpourings haven’t reached you yet, fear not as ‘Let Us Sit Quietly And Listen To Pop Punk’ is our SOTD.  Its collision of giddying girl/boy vocals with crash-bang-wallop lo-fi musicianship will guarantee an ambulance ride to St.Sebastian’s hospital for the terminally twee.

It’s just one of the wonderful tracks from their exciting new album A Little More Suspicion In Our Fairytales Plz. Where the shenanigans continue on the RSI inducing ‘All I Wanted For Christmas Was Alan Gow But He Had A Bio-Mechanical Spine Problem’ and the pre-school sing-a-long of ‘Children’s Eyelash Trimming Device’.

These tumbledown terrorists have all the materials to blow your mind, you just need to click the link below to light the fuse.

Ace Bushy Striptease: ‘Let Us Sit Quietly And Listen To Pop Punk’

Ace Bushy Striptease are one of my favourite bands in the world. When I first heard them, I mean, I hadn’t felt that way since Cats In Paris, and they’ve even like gotten actually better since. I once described them as ‘This Generation’s Beatles’ but I don’t think they’ve quite made it yet. I mean, for example, they haven’t sparked a wave of immitatory Ace Bushy Mania. And technically they’re two records in, although both records have been under half an hour and mostly released for free. This shows that in marketing terms Ace Bushy are well ahead of the curve- in the future, all music will be free and released largely to a dedicated audience of enthusiasts as opposed to involving marketing, paying for music, bothering people who run blogs with press crap they don’t care about etc etc (well over a year after I stopped blogging about music, I still get all this shit- please stop sending me stuff I don’t want, oh except the person who sent me all that Meho Plaza stuff recently, I liked that, and the guy from Art Sorority For Girls who told me my nice blog post pushed him towards finishing his record or I think it was that I got that e-mail when I was travelling round Europe so I’ve sort of forgotten but either way, I want stuff from you two still because you’re good but like, I don’t want to host your Florence and the Machine video, OK?).

Anyway, to recap: Ace Bushy Striptease are conceptually perfect. They all sing, they all dance, and they make old-fashioned lo-fi guitar pop the way your grandfather used to like it back when him and your granny were still courting, you know without all that added distortion that makes it sound like a hipster’s arse crack bullshit. I’m looking at you, guy from Wavves, you actual fucking degenerate you. (OK, so all the extra distortion on ‘Westing’ sounded good but that was Pavement, and eventually they did make it clean, just because Jesus walked on water doesn’t mean you should attempt to jog the Atlantic) Also, sometimes they even use a particularly amazing variant of Casio (I’ve played on it, its brill).

The first record is Toadstool Ellipsis On The Grass and it has a picture of Simon’s brother going down a hill on a tricycle on the cover. It came out in July, and if you don’t have a copy yet you should really pick one up. It contains such pop hits as ‘Arrogance Is My Middle Name, Said Will Davies Arrogantly’ and of course ‘Post Hummus’ which is one of the songs of the decade, just under ‘Hey Ya!’ on Pitchfork’s list I think in my head. ‘Post Hummus’ is in particular a showcase for the vocal talents of bassist Simon, who doesn’t usually sing but definitely has the most distinctive voice of the foursome. The girl singer is Emma Champion (of ‘Champion of our <3s’ fame). She was, like, an actual music student and stuff, and thus has the most obviously in-tune voice of the four. Mainly, its is her and guitarist Basith who sing, but later on ‘Brown Eyes Be Careful’ on the second record (soon to be discussed shortly) Jeremy (the drummer who is also in We Aeronauts- another key theme for the second record) takes the lead. They all have lovely voices and should all be proud of themselves. In all the best bands, everyone sings. Well, in Pavement they didn’t and they WERE the best band, but I didn’t mean it literally. In the Beastie Boys, they all sang.

My final note about the first record is that it ends with this remix Jeremy did which is just about perfect in musical terms generally, its all spliced with dance-pop stuff, its brill, and sounds like Teen Anthems, who is this guy who made music in the mid-90s I guess because he’s certainly obsessed with mid-90s cultural touchstones like Boyzone and Jamie Theakston, and anyway he hates it all, and is like some amazing Britpop ennui genius, only ALSO the music he makes is like this completely perfect happy hardcore/chart pop pastiche, but I’m not reviewing him, I’m just saying it sounds like that and you should CHECK IT OUT.

The second record (see!) is called Daniel Ershov Has Been Offered £100,000 By An Eccentric Millionaire To Step Naked From A Car Onto A Busy City Street, Walk 200 Meters And Climb Back Into The Car. Despite the completely awful title, it’s a really really good collection of songs and even better than the debut. All the songs are amazing and to dwell on any one on particular would be an insult to the rest but also the best ones are the second one which has again, like the album, a title that’s far too long but its about shapes trying to get with each other but they’re different sizes, and anyway the bass hook is perfect, and ‘Iluvya’ which comes in three parts, and ‘Brown Eyes Be Careful’, and the cover of ‘Yr Just A Flower’ by Sunset Cinema Club and also ‘James and James and James and James’ which contains several layers of pop culture references: 1. the title is a Johnny Foreigner reference; 2. is about We Aeronauts; 3. Because James from Keyboard Choir is one of the many Jameses in We Aeronauts, there is also a Keyboard Choir reference in there because they’re all like: “bleep bleep world war three yar aaargh aaargh”. So in short, its a perfect album. And it’s not even really an album, its only eight tracks and it’s 15 minutes long.

So yeah, you should get both records. Nay, must. Because they’re both free. And then, if you don’t think they’re amazing, say your goodbyes, go outside, and shoot yourself.

Download both albums, for free, here.

All photographs by Sonny Malhotra

If there’s one thing London label Brainlove Records could never be accused of, it’s being predictable. The label’s annual one-day festival and bro-down, held at Brixton Windmill on May 30th and now in it’s third year, featured a prismatic cross-section of amazing bands. Be it a massive misandric all-girl choir shrieking murderously about visiting violent revenge on a cheating man, or Gameboy metal riffing dissolving into an acrobatic geek-hop breakdown, or a primal mass singalong harmony in the sun, there was a seemingly neverending stream of things going on all around the packed out Brixton Windmill.

The spirit of cooperation and creativity ran throughout the day, with some musicians playing in 3 or 4 different bands, and fed into the general buzz of excitement, with people rushing between indoor and outdoor stages to try and catch glimpses of everything. Overall, it felt like more than just an all-dayer – it felt like a celebration of everything the Brainlove label is about. It provided a great platform and an enthusiastic crowd for some very deserving acts. You might think 20 bands in one day would be too many, but with a genuine festival atmosphere like this, I only wish it had been longer. Maybe next year it will be two days and we can camp under the nearby windmill.

www.brainloverecords.com

Ace Bushy Striptease are this generation’s Beatles.

I started saying that for LOLs on a music forum I post on but now I sincerely believe it and will maintain it to my dying day. Ace Bushy Striptease are four student type lads from Birmingham and one seemingly constantly rotating female singer who construct numerous ramshackle, somehow stylistically diverse guitar pop songs with wonderful titles like ‘Panda Love Unit’ (pre-Johnny Foreigner Alexei reference) and ‘Arrogance Is My Middle Name, Said Will Davis Arrogantly’. And ‘For A Star You Don’t Have Much Sparkle’. And ‘We Care For Each Other A Bit Still’. I’m not sure quite what it is that makes them this generation’s Beatles just yet, but its probably not entirely the songs. Its also the fanzines that they hand out at shows. And the fact, on a personal level, we clearly share the same musical ideology (their ‘cuddlecore’ is basically the Birmingham equivalent of my semi-imagined Manchester ‘tweexcore’). I put them on in a church in Salford and half expected them to tear up the place by accident, but actually they were surprisingly unflailing. This could be partly due to the fact their drummer is currently in India, though. But they’re still gigging, just with tapes and a drum machine or something, I don’t know. 

In short, Ace Bushy Striptease are the latest in a recently very consistent line of fantastic Birmingham-based guitar pop bands, flagshipped by Johnny Foreigner and Dystoph (and also with the likes of Sunset Cinema Club and Calories somewhere near behind). There’s something distinctly ‘un-proper’ about them as a band… the type of band that is just a bunch of mates who never practise and aren’t even quite sure what instrument they all play, but that’s just part of their magic. Part of me suspects that behind all the fanzines and cuddlecore, bassist Simon has the cold head for image of a veteran spin doctor or advertising executive. Although actually not. 

Realistically, I know in my heart of hearts that Ace Bushy Striptease aren’t *actually* this generation’s Beatles (that ‘dying day’ comment was, in hindsight, probably a bit hasty). But they might just be this generation’s Mekons. Give yrself up to their ramshackle magic. 

Ace Bushy Striptease on MySpace