Save this little number from Mazes for those inevitable moments throughout the week when productivity begins to wane as you begin to question the very nature of your everyday existence. Unless, of course, you don’t suffer from such negative introspection, in which instead it may act as a forceful prod to keep the fire roaring. ‘Most Days’ clocks in comfortably under two minutes, but we’re often told – by scientists and who’s to argue with them, huh? – that’s all it takes to keep the serotonin levels in check. Something like that anyway.

London via Manchester fuzzy funsters Mazes have been conquering the seductive melodies above a driving distortion scene for a while now, but April 11 will finally mark the release of their debut long-player A Thousand Heys. ‘Most Days’ will be the first single from the album and if this is anything to go by it will be prove to be a delightful serving of scuzzy goodness.

There’s a reason so many contemporary composers are being drafted onto the film scores of Hollywood blockbusters. Few genres convey so much with so little. Take Shutter Island: no amount of words could suggest the sheer, heartstring tugging emotion encapsulated in the simple, devastating arrangement of Max Richter’s ‘On The Nature Of Daylight’. Berlin via LA composer Dustin O’Halloran joined this elite club when three of his early tracks were chose for the superb soundtrack to Marie Antoinette in 2006, and with good reason.

Within the illusory minimalism of O’Halloran’s compositions lies absolute gravitas. Even the breezier tracks from his forthcoming Lumiere album (released in February 28 2011) are loaded with intensity and beauty. ‘We Move Lightly’ is the record’s immediate highlight. It enters with a straightforward, recurring piano arpeggio – reminiscent of Wim Mertens. As the track progresses, strings well around its epicentre, bringing (depending on your mood at the time of listening) exquisite urgency, foreboding and euphoria.

Therein lays the singularity of music like this; like Richter, like Hauschka. They possess an inherent flexibility that can be moulded by producers and filmmakers to pique whichever emotion they so wish. ‘We Move Lightly’ is a classic, gorgeous example. A man much wiser than me, Pete Seeger, once summed this sentiment up much more succinctly when he said: “any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.” I rest my case…

Dustin O’Halloran: ‘We Move Lightly’

Adverse weather conditions may have stranded opener Library Tapes in Sweden, but neither rain nor snow nor gloom of Shepherd’s Bush could stay Volker Bertlemann from another exquisite performance. Modern classical music is a genre that’s sometimes easier to admire than enjoy, but for all the sophistication and technical qualities of Hauschka’s music, it’s never less than accessible. He’s capable of evoking a variety of moods and atmospheres – brooding and urgent; serene and languid – but there’s always passion there, open and unpretentious. For every sombre moment, there’s a playful one, and his heavy use of prepared piano lends even more charm to his compositions. At one point he places ping-pong balls on the piano strings to create a rattling, mechanical effect; at other times he changes the timbre to be softer, more delicate.

Given the limited amount of rehearsal time, the ensemble did well to keep the sometimes complex arrangements together, although the strings did occasionally fumble the odd syncopated rhythm or flourish. Hasuchka himself comes across as an eccentric, affable fellow, full of rambling but insightful anecdotes about the composition process; one piece, he tells us, was inspired by the hour-long sitdown he has to take to acclimatise himself to the hustle and bustle of East London. He also revealed that his next project will be a “techno” album, based entirely around the piano, which should make for some interesting live performances. But for him to continue on a more conventional path would be no bad thing – as long as he continues to experiment, innovate and delight.

The New York based dramatic folk chanteuse Nina Nastasia is due to release her new two-track digital single ‘You Can Take Your Time’/‘One Turned In’ on Dec 6 via Fat Cat Records. Taken from her critically acclaimed summer album Outlaster, ‘You Can Take Your Time’ has existed as a live favourite in various guises for quite some time now. Drenched in sweeping orchestral harmonies the most recent incarnation will be accompanied by the brand new, sparsely arranged b-side ‘One Turned In’, exclusive to this release.

Fresh from the European leg of her tour, Nina will kick things off in the UK on November 29 with support for all dates coming from experimental folksters Sons Of Noel & Adrian.

November
29 – Cardiff, Glee Club
30 – London, Scala

December
1 – Bristol, Thekla
2 – Oxford, Jericho
3 – Brighton, Audio
4 – Nottingham, Glee Club
5 – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
6 – Cambridge, The Haymakers
7 – Manchester, Deaf institute
10 – Dublin, The Workman’s Club

Tickets for all shows are available now from www.seetickets.com.

Meredith Godreau (aka Gregory And The Hawk) returns on November 15 with new album Leche – the follow-up to the much acclaimed 2008 debut Moenie and Kitchi. Here’s the first look at the brand new video for ‘Soulgazing’ – perhaps Godreau’s most accesible straight up pop song to date. Although a natural successor to Moenie and Kitchi and indeed the EP that preceded it (Boats & Birds), the new material has an even bigger scope; both sonically and melodically.

It’s taken nearly two years, but Silje Nes is back with a new album. The Norwegian multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter will release Opticks this September and ‘The Card House’ is our first chance to hear what it’s going to sound like.

And it’s been worth the wait. The wonderfully and intricately pieced-together charm of ‘The Card House’, complete with Nes’  warm and homely vocals. make you feel as though you’re curling up in front of a roaring fire with a gale blowing outside. Why would you want to brave the wind and the rain when everything is so cosy here?

Whilst there’s currently a glut of this slightly wonky folk music being released, what makes Nes stand out is her child-like charm. It all looks so simple, so uncomplicated, and yet it’s so beautiful. Its simplicity is its strength. The gentle rhythms allowing the vocals and the guitars to take centre stage. In fact, it’s the vocals that are the anchor, floating from left to right through centre stage, Nes’ child-like and delicate delivery is all you need to focus on.

Silje Nes: ‘The Card House’

We’ve got one of only 100 copies of Nes’ Tour CD that features two tracks that were on her last single (‘Crystals’, ‘Foggy Windows’) and two exclusive tracks (‘We Attived By Car Late At Night’, ‘Our Rooms’). To be in with a chance to win, just email competition@thelineofbestfit.com with your name and contact details!

The theme of a love lost is one oft-tread in the world of popular music. In 1969 the Jackson 5 sang that: “Trying to live without your love is one long sleepless night,” in 1988 Bananarama’s polished pop called out: “I want you back, don’t care what I have to do,” and in 2008 Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchinson spat: “You’re the shit and I’m knee deep in it.” The Midnight Organ Fight dealt with the break-up of a long-term relationship in a way that was brutal, honest and identifiable. This heart-on-sleeve account of a relationship gone sour was delivered at a level which connected with its audience and saw the band gain much critical acclaim — including The Best Album of 2008 right here on TLOBF. With Midnight Organ Fight so focused around one central topic it was always going to be interesting to see what the band did on its follow up.

With demons already exorcised, The Winter Of Mixed Drinks is an all round more optimistic affair than its predecessor. ‘Living In Colour’ pounds with choral voices and arms aloft; ‘Skip The Youth’, the album’s longest track by almost two minutes, is a slow building anthem that, although finding itself in the number five slot, would be closing any lesser band’s album; and ‘The Wrestle’ is driven by purposfull bass (Bass? On a Frightened Rabbit record?) and urgent rhythms.

It would perhaps be asking a little too much to expect no residue of Midnight Organ Fight creeping. ‘Nothing Like You’, perhaps the band’s most radio-friendly pop single to date, deals directly with the relationship we’re all so familiar with “She was not the cure for cancer,” and ‘Not Miserable’ requires no more exposition than a look at its title. If Midnight Organ Fight was the catharsis then these could be seen as the closure.

Musically, TWOMD gives us familiar Frightened Rabbit but, this time, with the added flesh of having two more full time members — bringing the tally up to five. Where on previous records the band’s sparse arrangements and lo-fi production provided an identity — Scott and Grant using just drums and guitar for the most part — here that character has been built on, this time with consideration to dynamics. The record is still alive with vocal loops, chanting and effects but thankfully no one tries to steal the lime light. Everything feels considered. Even the vignettes which sat amongst previous albums have been reduced to a single reprise of ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’.

Following what many considered to be the album of 2008 can only be a daunting task. The Winter Of Mixed Drinks doesn’t quite match up to its predecessor and that shouldn’t come as any surprise. Many may lament the band’s shift toward more polished production and optimism. Many may prefer Scott when he’s angry and says “fuck” more often (this is, unless I’ve missed it, the first FR record that doesn’t feature the word cunt). What shouldn’t be overlooked is that Frightened Rabbit have produced a solid album that, even though it may not repeat past glories, still stands head and shoulders above its competition.

Alexandar Tucker

FatCat records, Brighton’s finest venerable left-field indie institution, have been facilitating their Furballs sessions in the bohemian seaside enclave of Brighton for a while now. These aren’t just ‘gigs’ though. There are visuals, spoken work interludes and laudable attempts to make The Freebutt – a grim, uninviting venue at the best of times that inexplicably seems to have the monopoly on the best bands that pass through town- look welcoming via the use of kitsch empheria. Then there’s the music which showcases up and coming talents with established alternative acts.

In keeping with the off-the-cuff vibe that characterises a Furballs throw down, Thomas House, former front man of soulful math-rockers Charlottefield, played an impromptu set. Houses’ set was terse and tense un-easy listening like Chavez unplugged. Ugly in a very beautiful sort of way. Representing the evening’s fresh talent were Brighton hipsters, Cold Pumas. Alan McGee has championed them and on the day of this show, The Guardian posted one of their songs on their music blog. It’s easy to see why they’re causing something of a stir. Their guitarist is resplendent in tapered trousers complimented by an exquisite pair of desert boots. Their singing drummer sports the type of moustache beloved of Pitchfork bloggers and pedophiles alike. Enough about the really important stuff, what about the music? Simply put, even the utterly woeful PA system of the ‘butt couldn’t detract from Cold Pumas’ vicious, infectious sonic snarl. This is day-glo, psychedelic flower-punk, all tribal beats and off kilter harmonies. Imagine Shellac with a sense of fun and you’re nearly there. Cold Pumas are neither subtle nor clever and it works just fine for now. It’s a testament to how spot-on FatCat can get it when Cold Pumas are followed and complimented by the wildly different Alexander Tucker.

Tucker’s music is suffused with integrity and intelligence but is never gratingly high-brow – he loops his cello and the riffs he pulls off sound like Kim Thayil’s. A one man wall of sound, Tucker’s guitars and cello conspire to synapses soothing heights as his spiritual incantations ricochet around the venue and through your cranium. It’s transcendental, for sure, and by the time he plays ‘Veins to the Sky’ the hairs on the back of my neck are creeping upwards. For at least half an hour, I forgot where I was – which is more than you could ask for on a cold, February night.

We Were Promised Jetpacks, it could be said, have had some fairly lucky breaks recently. Signed to the brilliant FatCat label, they’re currently bumping along nicely on the coat tails of The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit, supporting both of them in a rather stellar US tour.

But this headline tour sees them back down to earth with a thud, playing teeny tiny sweatboxes to only a handful of people, three of whom are actually interested. And tonight’s venue is a particularly sweaty sweatbox (they weren’t joking with a name like Boileroom). Granted tonights crowd is probably larger than an average night here, and the band seemed genuinely chuffed with the turnout. No delusions of grandeur there.

Tonights show really needed to pack a punch– a show for 20 year olds by 20 year olds. And whilst the show certainly ticked those boxes, unfortunately it took a bloody long time to get there. The opening track didn’t kick off until a good couple of minutes of ‘atmospheric noise’ had been dispensed and eventually a decent guitar line appeared from the fuzz – hardly an energetic start to proceedings. And that seemed to be the order of the night – meandering, lack-luster intros and wandering middle eights that disrupted the momentum of what should have been a blistering set. ‘Quiet Little Voices’ and ‘It’s Thunder and It’s Lightening’ were definite high points – thundering drums, shouty sing-alongs and ripping along a breakneck speed. But more intense tracks like ‘Conducter’ fail to launch, with Adam Thompson delivering the vocals like a shopping list being shouted down a flight of stairs.

So WWPJ finish their set looking very much like a one trick pony. Albeit a damn good trick, but just the one nonetheless. Perhaps a little more research was required for this tour – they’re no longer playing to cavernous 1000 capacity venues whilst everyone’s at the bar but pubs and music rooms where the audience expect a set that goes at full pelt.

The Twilight Sad are set to play their biggest London headline show to date this Thursday (29th October) at Scala in Kings Cross. The band are currently touring the UK after completing a triumphant tour of the States in support of new (TLOBF Recommended) album Forget The Night Ahead.

We’re giving away two pairs of tickets, plus a copy of Forget The Night Ahead. To be in with a chance of seeing one of the finest live acts this country has produced in years, simply answer the following question:

The Twilight Sad released a limited edition album in 2008 to help fund their tour with Mogwai. What was the album called?

Email your answer, along with name and address to ret@thelineofbestfit.com with the subject line: The Twilight Sad @ Scala. Closing date is Wednesday 28th October at 12pm. Winners will be notified via email.

Buy music on [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=207937295&uo=4" title="Buy music on iTunes" text="iTunes"]

It’s inevitable, really, given the size of our puny human brains, that we should attempt to break things down, create boundaries and defining divides, impose the illusion of structure upon the chaotic world that we inhabit. Nostalgically we look back across the years, and assume that, with the release of the last Beatles record and the turn of the decade, the sixties came to a crashing halt, and people awoke into a new world filled with flares, spacehoppers, and Elton John.

And so we also like to imagine an increased significance on events that take place as our temporal structures come to an end, or begin anew. While we were all partying like it was 1999, the Flaming Lips dropped their masterpiece, The Soft Bulletin, which would go on to become a bona fide document of the time. It was a record that was so full of unspoken hope and promise for the future, an album that allowed us to metaphorically lift up the sun and look forward to the new millennium, and a changed world. And then, as we arrived there, Radiohead slapped us all around the face with Kid A, reminding us that nothing had changed after all. Everything was in it’s right place, but that’s not necessarily where we wanted it to be. Both these albums come with increased historical significance, perhaps by fortune, perhaps by design, because of their release at times when we look back and demand some sort of definition. Pre-millennial hope followed by post-millennial depression. And as we come to a close of the first decade of the new millennium, enter The Twilight Sad.

Predictably, Forget The Night Ahead isn’t an album that looks forward with much hope, or indeed, at all. Given that the band’s previous record was a loose-concept album about childhood, it would be foolish of us to expect anything that gave the future much more than a cursory glance. But that makes even more sense – given what’s happened this decade, and the over-riding feeling of pessimism that descends upon us, it only makes Forget seem even more era-defining.

And this does feel era-defining. There’s an epicness to every single song on this album. Not in the Coldplay, U2 definition of epic, meaning “as many guitar effects as possible”, but in the sense that they will fill the room, it feels limitless and, in a truly poetic way, like every song could mean something entirely different to every single listener. And while you will doubtless be happy playing this to yourself through headphones, it’s sure as hell not the kind of album you’ll be happy keeping to yourself.

The opening ‘Reflections of the Television’, with it’s descending minor bassline that just keeps descending, and you keep falling into it, sets the tone. “You told me it’d get better, but I know you’re wrong.” As far as trying to define our decade goes, I’m not sure it comes much more pithy than that. It’s claustrophobic, and you’ll feel trapped and scared and alone, by the second verse you’ll be totally engulfed in this experience. Take your pick of who James Graham is accusing on ‘The Room’ when he sings “look what you have done” – lying politicians, Islamic fundamentalists, city bankers, cheating lovers? If I’m making this sound depressing, I apologise – it’s certainly bleak, but at no point does it’s oppressive sound become anything less than a monumental artistic experience. The finest art reflects the world around it, and there’s no doubt that this album is one of the finest. No-one said it should leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. Guitarist and Graham’s co-song-writer Andy McFarlane summed up the entire album in a recent interview when he said, of tail-end track ‘Interrupted’, “James is singing about killing and burying people. It’s accessible, if you don’t mind that.”

Its release so close to the latest resurgence of Beatlemania is also significant. The Beatles crowing achievement was to set down what it meant to be a “band”, writing their own songs, playing their own instruments, creating the template for forty years and more of rock music. The Twilight Sad remind you of what can be achieved entirely within that set up. There is no computer trickery here, no electronically synthesized noise, nothing beyond the traditional rock band instruments, in a climate where, recently, the very best music has made use of more modern technologies. Forget the Night Ahead is a love letter to rock music, a timely reminder that despite regular announcements to the contrary, the genre is alive and kicking. And, indeed, thrashing and screaming.

Of course, it’s up to the passage of time to decide whether, in ten years, we remember this album as fondly as the two I mentioned at the start of this review. Or if we look back and remember it as the moment where British rock music was saved from the post-Libertines mire. At the moment, it certainly feels like we should, though of course, it all depends on it getting the attention it deserves. Like all the greatest records, there is no discernible highlight, no single standout, and no track you could pick on as the weakest. It’s a consistently majestic album, that brings something new to the table with each new song. An album you really, really shouldn’t miss out on.

mp3:> The Twilight Sad: ‘Reflection Of The TV’

FatCat Records Official Site

The Twilight Sad have finally announced the details of their hugely anticipated sophomore album Forget The Night Ahead. Trailed by opener ‘Reflections Of The Television’ – which dropped on Pitchfork during May, and forthcoming single ‘I Became A Prostitute’ which is out on August 3rd, the new album will be released in the UK on 5th October via FatCat Records. The full track list is as follows:

1. Reflection Of The Television
2. I Became A Prostitute
3. Seven Years of Letters
4. Made To Disappear
5. Scissors
6. The Room
7. That Birthday Present
8. Floorboards Under The Bed
9. Interrupted
10. The Neighbours Can’t Breathe
11. At The Burnside

As long-time supporters of The Twilight Sad, TLOBF have been given the video to the new single ‘I Became A Prostitute’ days before anyone else. Along with ‘Reflections Of The Television’ (which you can stream here), ‘Prostitute’ marks a visceral return for the Kilsyth quartet. According to sources close to the band, Forget The Night Ahead material is even more harrowing than predecessor Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters – so if you think lines like “the kids are on fire in the bedroom” were dark, prepare to scared shitless.

The video for ‘Prostitute’ is, unsuprisginly, harrowing in it’s own right. A montage of what looks like 1920′s footage of Burlesque clubs from Eastern Europe set against the unmistakable backdrop of James Graham’s Scottish howl and primal force of rhythm section Andy MacFarlane, Craig Orzel and Mark Devine. Never have the band sounded so vital.

Speaking to The Skinny at the start of 2009, James Graham cautioned; “We have definitely moved on from Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, musically and lyrically. One thing that I can promise is that the lyrics are very dark, but you might have to look into them a bit to realise [that]. They are mainly based around things that have happened to me over the past two years, revolving mainly around losing people and being none too proud or happy with myself about my antics and situations I’ve found myself in.” Guitarist Andy MacFarlane concurs, “It is a step forward from the first record, the song writing and the sound of the band has moved on from that time, which is something we’ll always try and do, we don’t want to ever stand still and make records that sound like each other.”

Forget The Night Ahead was produced and mixed by ex-Delgados’ man Paul Savage and guitarist Andy MacFarlane at the legendary Chem19 Studios in Glasgow.

Any London-ers out there might be interested to know that The Twilight Sad are headlining a FatCat / One Little Indian label night at ICA on 9th July. Support for the evening comes from fellow Scots We Were Promised Jetpacks and One Little Indian’s latest signings Kill It Kid.

Carpet Madness is the debut album from latest Fat Cat signing, Get Back Guinozzi. Full of colour and character, it comprises a unique blossoming of hybrid sources – infectiously poppy, quirky and breezy, with a strong French slant and a wide range of influences taking in the likes of Talking Heads, The Feelies, The Smiths, early B-52′s, King Sunny Adé, Lee Perry, Rip Rig & Panic, Ariel Pink, The Slits, The Cure, Animal Collective, Jonathan Richman, and Serge Gainsbourg.

Infused with the exoticism of reggae, dub, African music, Tropicalia, and Cambodian music from the ’60s, the breadth of sources GBG draws upon, allied by singer Eglantine Gouzy’s skewed narratives and heavily-inflected English, give the project a distinctive individuality. Now comprising a 5-piece band based between London and the South of France, Get Back Guinozzi is driven by two French friends, Gouzy and Fred Landini.

Get Back Guinozzi will undertake their first proper bout of live touring this Autumn. The band’s debut single ‘Low Files Tropical’ will be released on September 14th.

Sample this delightful band below, with their cover of the Junior Mervin classic ‘Police & Thieves’.

mp3:> Get Back Guinozzi: ‘Police & Thieves’

Even to people familiar with avant-garde music, Stórsveit Nix Noltes (translation: “Nick Nolte Big Band”) sound like an intriguing proposition. Made up of between 9 and 12 Icelandic musicians depending on who is available at any given time, Stórsveit are an Eastern European folk music arkestra with a punk-rock aesthetic. Taking the kind of stomping Balkan rhythms that have been so popular in certain circles recently, notably via bands like Beirut, Devotcha, Dresden Dolls and A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Stórsviet take traditional arrangements and turn everything up to eleven.

Which isn’t as crazy an idea as it might sound – much of this music is traditionally played at moments of celebration or mourning, and comes with a certain element of celebration or intensity. What Stórsveit do is develop the potential of this potently combustible sound to mix with a primordial paste of other genres. Sludgy metal riffs rise up out of nowhere, free jazz trajectories intersect and clash with squalls of feedback, all scraped over groaning accordion and screeching violin. It’s full on, totally unpredictable, and pretty much relentless.

Stórsveit started as a collective of music students in Reykjavik who wanted to explore possibilities and just play out. They manage to translate that excitement energy into a frenetic live show. They now live and work in bands all over the world, so it’s quite an undertaking to get them all together – providing just the sense of occasion they need to keep their excited energy going. That kind of group mentality is not an easy thing to translate and express as recorded music sometimes, but this album is a fair summation of Stórsviet’s sound – and will hopefully draw some richly deserved attention to this fascinating oddity of a band.

They’re due over in the UK in 2009 – don’t miss them.
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Stórsveit Nix Noltes on MySpace

The story of You Decide is one of a band frequently at war with itself, but some credit is due to The Rank Deluxe because that doesn’t show in the record itself. Even though the band have apparently fought on stage on multiple occasions, and their music juggles rock, punk and reggae influences, they’ve somehow managed to create a fairly cohesive set of songs here. The problem is that too many of these tracks are themselves lacking a concerted direction, and are instead content to send guitars sprawling around aimlessly under the frankly loutish-sounding vocals – on “Even No-one Can Be Someone”, the music only periodically crystallises into the  propulsive rock that the band are trying to achieve, the rest of the time it wriggles and squirms on the edges of its ambition. And that’s true of much of the album – You Decide wants to be aggressive and exciting, but the songs don’t hang together well enough to achieve that.

Take “Rapid Eye” as an example. It’s a total mess, really – a clumsy rock/reggae hybrid with cringeworthy faux-rasta vocals, it sounds more like a ham-fisted studio bash-about than it ought to. “Punk fury” is all very well, and a healthy dose of ramshackle aesthetics has improved many a record over the years, but the shoddy feel here is to the detriment of the songs, which aren’t classics to begin with.

There are moments where You Decide does work – the opening bassline to “Stereotypes”, for example, or the admirable brevity of “Save It For Tomorrow” – but for all its social awareness and attempts at guitar heroics, this is a below average rock record with no real stand-out songs. Plenty of superior rock records have come out recently, and there’s probably a better one even in the narrow “London-lout-rock-reggae-opus” remit which The Rank Deluxe patrol.
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The Rank Deluxe on MySpace

There was a shard-sharp moment during this gig when everything that Frightened Rabbit stand for was frozen into a blinkless instant of time. The band had left the stage after a crazed hour of redrawing the sainted contours of The Midnight Organ Fight and in that low mumbling hum before the encore Scott Hutchinson had evidently snuck back out with an acoustic guitar. I heard him before I saw him – the first strains of ‘Poke’ ‘poke at my iris, why can’t I cry about this’ – and sought out the source of the sound. Once it became apparent that he was at the lip of the stage, alone and washed in blue light, a total silence fell across the room – it bred, the way noise does sometimes, quickly enveloping everyone. I’ve seen reverence at gigs before but this was something else, a giving over, an open gesture of respect for the song and for Hutchinson’s lyrics. Whatever the reason for this – and it might just be something as simple as an honest band writing superbly well about the universal theme of feeling like shit, mostly – Frightened Rabbit have dug their way into people’s hearts. It’s an immense thing to behold.

There had been an odd humid haze about London all day, a softened focus. St. Pancras Station, always looming, looked awry, tilted at an awkward angle – it dragged the eye upwards; the rest of Kings Cross by contrast, always a haunt of street-babblers and wall-eyed nasties was seething, crouched. In the heat it was like a hair-clogged plughole. It was almost a relief to get into the gothic splendour of The Scala…

We Were Promised Jetpacks looked wired up there, tense. And so young. I assume this was the biggest place they’d played up until now. I suspect it won’t be for long. They sounded huge, starting with ‘Keeping Warm’ – the eight-minute epic from their soon-to-be-released debut album. They followed it with their new single, ‘Quiet Little Voices’ which is a great shovel of a song with Adam Thompson roaring out the chorus with real passion. It was a common theme, and you get the sense that this band really means it. There’s a point during ‘Thunder and Lightning’ where Thompson backs off from the mic and bellows ‘your body was black and blue’ and he’s shaking with the delivery of it and looks like he might buckle under the weight of the thing. The effect on the crowd is palpable and by the end of their set they get a dirty great roar of approval.

By the time Frightened Rabbit came on the Scala had filled to bursting and the heat had nearly doubled. You could feel it rising from the concrete floors. The band started with ‘I Feel Better’ from The Midnight Organ Fight and to be honest the sound wasn’t quite there. But the initial moments were all about the response, and at the end of ‘Fast Blood’ which again sounded a little thin, you could see from the band’s reaction that this was a special moment, the end of a special era. Hutchinson announced that this was the biggest crowd that had ever come out to see them and that, as it was almost exactly a year since the release of …Organ Fight, they were celebrating.

They proceeded to play pretty much the entire record, most of which was at an odd sort of half-tempo, with Scott and his bearish brother seeming to live every minute of every track. Which I guess is a kind of perfect representation of what Frightened Rabbit are – a ramshackle, dishevelled, waywardly talented band making raw, honest music into which people seem to be able insert themselves wholly, carelessly. And Scott Hutchinson is the personification of this: a shambling figure, yet a man who seems to inspire a rare kind of warmth. And when ‘The Modern Leper’ had come and gone, and ‘Floating in the Forth’ – to date, the single most uplifting suicide song I can think of – had filled the air with its pulsing warmth there was such a sense of camaraderie in the air that the band could seriously have done anything and it wouldn’t have mattered. What they did do was to play two tracks from Sings The Greys (‘The Greys’ and ‘Square 9′) and proceeded to sound the best they had done all night and became, for a time, a fucking huge rock band.

Then came the time of ‘Poke’ and everything reached a perfect sense of peace. We were thanked again for coming out, and for supporting the band through everything. We were even thanked for being nicer than a London crowd ever should be. We know that Hutchinson has been off writing the new record at a sea-side house in Fife, and we can probably infer that the collective exorcism of The Midnight Organ Fight is now complete. It’s time to move on and now I guess we wait for what comes next… They finish, inevitably, with ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ and again they sound immense – especially Grant Hutchinson, belting at his kit like a raging animal. It’s been a triumphant evening and it’s impossible not to feel happy for the band. The roar that comes as they leave the stage for the final time mingles with all that trapped heat and is carried out through the doors into the waiting fists of the Pentonville Road.

Perhaps it’s something about PJ Harvey’s crowds. Every time I have been to see the Dorset songstress play, the support act has been largely ignored and rudely talked over. The fact that tonight I have specifically come to see North Dakota singer songwriter Tom Brosseau makes this doubly annoying.

Blinking into the lights, Brosseau acknowledges the fact that his is a thankless task, with a declaration of hope that he doesn’t bore anyone in the half empty hall. Performing solo, Brosseau’s delicately picked guitar rings brightly as he airs material from forthcoming album Posthumous Success. Stripped of the shuffling drums and extra guitar parts the songs reveal a simple beauty, and make Brosseau’s guitar work and frequently witty lyrics stand for itself, his gentle, occasionally nasal voice calling to mind the earlier works of Turin Brakes.

The biggest cheer of the night comes as the softly spoken American introduces new album opener (and closer) ‘Favourite Colour Blue’, a charming fingerpicked ditty about, er, a recurring dream about having to rescue Dave Grohl from drumming in Hole. While this raises some cheers from the crowd, by the third or fourth song the double denim wearing troubadour starts loosing his battle against the chatter of the slowly filling room. On other nights, in other venues, Brosseau has the ability to silence even the most unwilling of audiences, but tonight’s show is slightly too big for his delicate and fragile love songs to weave their spell, his clever wordplay lost on a largely ambivalent audience. Twenty minutes after first stepping on stage he departs from whence he came.

Quite why it then takes a further 40 minutes for Harvey, Parish and their finely be-hatted cohorts to take their stage is inexplicable. Skipping on stage theatrically, Ms Harvey thanks the audience for their patience before launching into the evenings main event. Drawing solely from Harvey and Parish’s two collaborative albums, the show is somewhat of a let down, devoid of the fire and heart that Harvey has previously been known for. In it’s place is a set full of droning dirges with quasi mystical spoken word pieces added. Elsewhere, there is sub-Sonic Youth jangle and proto-Mary Chain-isms. For all Harvey’s theatrical shimmying there is something clearly missing in tonight’s performance- at times Parish and the other members of her band seem bored. Even the notorious title track of ‘A Woman a Man Walked By’ fails to deliver, the snarled threat of ‘I want your Fucking Ass’ falling flat against the lumpen, muted backing that never delivers on it’s threat to explode into life.

As I join many others making an early exit from the show, Harvey intones the lyrics to ‘Passionless, Pointless’. Sadly, it sums up the show rather well.

What’s the point of Brakes?

Not a conventional way to start a review, granted, especially one of a band whose previous two albums and a good number of live shows this writer has admired a great deal, but one that comes to mind a couple of times during this album. This is their first since moving from Rough Trade to the ever developing tentacles of FatCat. It’s tempting, see, to wonder how they see themselves at this stage. First LP Give Blood was very much a gonzoid, recorded as-live sideline for four men taking time away from other bands – Eamon Hamilton still playing keyboards and banging a big bass drum in the crowd for British Sea Power, Tom and Alex White just about hanging onto the Electric Soft Parade’s major label status, Marc Beatty’s The Tenderfoot at the time on the periphery of joining his bandmates’ bands and plenty of their Brighton peers on the fast track to indie world stardom. As such, as properly great as it was, it still came across as a gang show with its short songs and punk/country split personality. A year later Eamon had made Brakes his sole outlet and The Beatific Visions kept the momentum and gigging velocity curves heading upwards.

As such there are times when Touchdown feels like an attempt to funnel their country-punk approach into a more approachable, if not entirely commercial, form with the long run in mind. There’s no tracks shorter than one and a half minutes, for one thing. For another, some of the most directly affecting tracks come across as not so much business as usual as something we’ve heard Brakes do before. Single ‘Hey Hey’ is in the hard riffing compact swaggering charge style of ‘Cease And Desist’ and ‘Hold Me In The River’, while opener ‘Two Shocks’ is not dissimilar musically to a stretched out take on Give Blood‘s ‘The Most Fun’, albeit darker in intent and with Hamilton claiming he “covered my body in Vaseline and learned how to slip through the gaps”. Point made, fun had, are they wearing their sources thin already in trying to become that bit more serious?

Well, yes and no – with more emphasis on the latter. On the one hand, it’s the least directly effective of the three albums. Producer Paul Savage has just done a very good job of shoehorning the Phantom Band’s myriad styles into a cohesive album, but it’s not entirely convincing that becoming less raw (if not quite totally becalmed) suits Hamilton. This is a man who on stage always looks on the edge of aneurysm. More than previously there’s parts of Touchdown that drift by without touching the sides, and the most noticeable attempt to broaden the palette leads to ‘Oh! Forever’. You may have heard this as it was given away free under the title ‘Crystal Tunings’, and is a pretty straight ahead take-off of Darklands era Jesus And Mary Chain to no great lifting effect.

However, as there’ll always be complex music that burrows into your very soul, equally there’ll always be a part of you that desires if not dumb thrills then certainly thrills that don’t need to work on a million layers of analysis. And when they’re not being monsters of alt-rock the countrified songs which at first felt smoothed out, far from the hotwired British Violent Femmes effect of earlier work, on repeated listening grow well in the retelling. This is especially true for the closing dusty Nashville road song ‘Leaving England’ and the hoedown ‘Eternal Return’, surely pop’s first song about the frustration that comes with being continually reincarnated.

Elsewhere ‘Ancient Mysteries’ was written by one Charles Douglas, who has recorded with Pixies’ Joey Santiago, and accordingly sounds like early solo Frank Black as it details lives going wrong.  ‘Red Rag’ stomps on a manaical guitar riff somewhere between their compadres 80′s Matchbox B-Line Disaster and Pixies at their most crazed, and ‘Don’t Take Me To Space (Man)’ is pretty much Kings Of Leon with grit inserted, the most straightforwardly potentially pop-anthemic thing they’ve done even if it is a tale of true love in the face of potential alien abduction. The answer, then: even if this is more place holder than dynamic progression for the new label, it’s always more than fine to have Brakes around and Touchdown goes to prove that they’ve outgrown their side project origins to assert themselves as beloved entertainers.
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Brakes on Myspace

I have a new love in my life. Just don’t tell my fiancee. They’re a bunch of lads from Scotland… so she might not get TOO jealous… but they’ve convened under the title of We Were Promised Jetpacks (quite possibly one of the best band names for AGES), and they create some of most emotive and stirring music I’ve heard for ages.

Their sound finds itself charging through the middle ground of The Twilight Sad’s dense, atmospheric sheen’s of music and Frightened Rabbit’s guitar-pop and meaningful lyrics of real-life problems and moments. They’ve signed to Fat Cat records as well, which suggests that someone knows what they’re doing on both sides. I’ll be honest, since their debut album These Four Walls was sent to me, I’ve listened to very little else. I love the charging guitars, the soaring choruses, the sheer ENERGY that they’ve got going on. It makes me want to drown in their music. Their wall of guitars sounds like a massive torrent of rain – covering every part of your being, drenching you to the core in their atmospheric wall of noise.

So, I thought, I’d hassle Mike Jetpack and find out a bit more about the band.
For people out there that have never heard of you. Give us three reasons why they should…
1; You might like our music, which is fun.
2; You might hate our music, which is also fun.
3; You might have no opinion of our music, which isn’t really a reason, so I guess there’s only two.

Can you recall the moment when you first decided you wanted to become a musician?
There was a time when we first moved to Glasgow (we grew up and went to school in Edinburgh, then three of us moved to Glasgow and one of us to Stirling) and started playing proper gigs in proper venues. Playing in Edinburgh before was weird as we were underage, so ended up playing some odd nights. Which was cool, but when we moved to Glasgow we were of drinking age and we started playing places likeSleazy’s and whatnot. We felt like a proper band, so from about then, probably.

Where do your songs come from? What’s your inspiration?
Really we just try and write a song that’s better than the last one we wrote. I suppose we started trying to write songs that all four of us liked, which was pretty unusual. These days we usually try and do something in particular, like “lets have loads of noise in this one”, or more recently “this make this one really rock and roll!”. In the end they all end up sounding pretty much the same anyway…

Name your Top 5 records.
From a band point of view, stuff that all four of us like:
The Midnight Organ Fight – Frightened Rabbit; Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters – The Twilight Sad; Red Yellow and Blue – Born Ruffians; Boxer – The National; and the new demo by an Edinburgh band calledDupec.

What was the first gig you ever played and was it a success?
The first one was a battle of the bands at our school in Edinburgh, and it was a success!

What one piece of criticism has stuck in your mind and was it justified?
There’s no one particular incident, I don’t think. We’re pretty good at getting criticism, we can take it pretty well. We know we’re not the best band ever or anything like that, so when people say we’re not, we kind of agree! We get more annoyed when the person doing the review has clearly put no effort into giving us a proper listen. Or has just lifted comparisons that they’ve read somewhere else and assumedthats what we’re like. So, we’re fine if you hate us, as long as it’s not lazy journalism!

What one thing has caused you to waste your free time in the past 6 months?
University. It really gets in the way sometimes. It’s been ok though, Fatcat have been great about us pacing ourselves so we can finish off at uni.

If you weren’t making music, what do you think you’d be doing?
Oh, so little. Nothing at all, I’m sure. We’re all still pretty young, so haven’t had to look for a “career” yet. So propably starting to do that.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Our bassist Sean once worked ridiculous hours at a bottle factory. He’d have to wait by the belt as boxes came along and move them to different positions. It soundedmonotinous for five minutes, but he was at it for hours on end. We woke up one morning when we hasn’t working and found everything nearby at the the end of the room, as he’d moved it in his sleep. True fact!

We’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
Ok, the theme is “Bands that are our friends, and are completely brilliant and you can listen to the songs on myspace or on the internet or whatever”:
1. Seek Cover – Endor.
2. Sapphire – Lyons.
3. Guts – Over the Wall.
4. Therapeutic Song – John B Mckenna.
5. I can count to twelve – Dupec.

We Were Promised Jetpacks on Myspace

The opening question to ask when presented with any live album, and especially a live album that replicates track for track an already existing album (The Midnight Organ Fight [TLOBF review]) is a big WHY? The natural thing to do would be to try to take the record as it is, as something new, and to ignore the studio recordings. Quietly Now, which features mostly acoustic versions of the Midnight… tracks, in the same running order, makes this impossible – you have to look backwards to the studio album and make comparisons, it’s inevitable, and it might be painful. I don’t mind admitting that there’s a lot at stake here for me, I’m uncommonly fond of The Midnight Organ Fight. What to do if this detracts from the genius of that record? What to do?

To give the facts first: Frightened Rabbit are a clattering folk band from Selkirk in Scotland; they make guitar based music, but with it’s chest ripped open. This is their third ‘album’. This was recorded at The Captain’s Rest in Glasgow in July 2008. The Captains Rest is by all accounts an intimate venue, and this was something of a summing up of where the band had got to so far, and a present to those who had followed the band from the beginning. Which tells you pretty much all you need to know, really – it accounts for the triumphant feel of the recording, the buzz between the band and the audience and also the buzz of the strings, the reverberations off the four walls. To all intents and purposes, this is a gesture of a band that has outgrown itself, a CDR tossed away at the end of a gig. It’s testament to the band’s integrity and power, and to the indestructibility of these raw, potent songs that they’ve to all intents and purposes, managed to get away with it.

So, having lived with this since it was first given a US release some time late last year, and to get it over with – no, I don’t think these versions do match up to those on The Midnight Organ Fight. But given the time period, and given the band I a) don’t care and b) am glad they exist. These are the skeletal brothers of those songs, but animated, throbbing with all that dumb love that Scott Hutchinson seems to bring to whatever he touches; and what’s more, in this setting, you’re ever more drawn to the quiet magic of Hutchinson’s lyrics, his phrasings.

Unsurprsingly it’s the versions of the more acoustic based tracks that work best in this context. ‘Good Arms Vs Bad Arms’ is sublime, with the richness and thickness of the chord pattern driving everything forward. The song’s coda, with Hutchinson going after his ex missus’ new fella, is dazzling: ‘just roll over boy, don’t make me do this… I am armed to the teeth and I’m heavy set’. ‘Backwards Walk’ is equally affecting. You have to wonder just deeply the breakup that birthed The Midnight Organ Fight bit into Hutchinson for these songs to still sound so full and alive, when he sings ‘i’m working on erasing you, I just don’t have the proper tools, I get hammered, forget that you exist’ the pain sounds fresh. The same applies to ‘Poke’ (the one version here that outstrips the studio counterpart) which has some of his best lines, not least: ‘I should look through some old photos I adored you in every one of those/ If someone took a picture of us now they’d need to be told that we had ever clung on tight’.

Then again, ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ (sung by James from The Twilight Sad) and ‘Floating In The Forth’ are both immense. The nakedness of both tracks comes across doubly so in this environment. The latter, the end of a long journey, despite it’s subject matter is just the most stirring and uplifting song I can imagine. It burns with intensity. And that sums up this band, and Hutchinson. And in reality, this is his record. He’s on record as saying he doesn’t really care for touring all that much and you sense this is probably a perfect halfway house. This feels like the end of a chapter. And I for one can’t wait to see what comes next.
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Frightened Rabbit on MySpace

First things first.

I’m wondering if Sam Jones, big brain behind The Balky Mule and the album The Length Of The Rail is getting bored of the ‘home recording’ tag. A lot of reviews have branded him as a mad professor of sorts, tooling away inside his Melbourne home, connecting, unwiring and re-imagining all sorts of instruments and creating all sorts of obscure sounds to layer his music to the hilt with. It’s not like he’s the first, or indeed the last person to have done this, and while it is a true description, it also ignores the fact that The Length Of The Rail is essentially an album of cute, well thought out acoustic music. Yes, there is something new and distracting going off every two seconds in the background, but it’s like an adolescent getting distracted by fireworks at a fair and not noticing the carny stealing his wallet. Some things matter more than flashiness sometimes.

‘Jisaboke’ is instantly very delicate, but at the same time quite persistent in its guitar work and percussion. Sam’s vocals are syrup thick and paper thin at the same time, threatening to bend pitch or crackle out at any point. Drums pitter-patter like rain across ‘Wireless’, with singing floating in and out in a lazy and effortless fashion.

For all the touted complication, The Balky Mule is a master of the sparse masterpiece. Title track ‘The Length Of The Rail’ doesn’t have any sort of lyrical input for the first third of the song, but you don’t feel like anything is missing. The build-up is necessary, but not necessary in a prog-rock 5 minute dirge way. It just feels right.

And then there’s the jolly pop. ‘Range’ is one of the prettiest songs I have heard in a long while, with some chromatic guitar lines almost sounding like mistakes (but coming off very endearing), and a stubborn woodblock knocking at the inside of your head whenever it feels the need.”Baby I need your loving, it’s a long way, I can take you there.” Not anywhere near being left field, but instead simple and complimentary to the mood.

Another talking point amongst music critics is Mr Jones’ past life in the Bristol music scene. The use of extended and repetitive musical phrases accompanied by SFX may hark back to Sam’s post-rock previous, but The Length of The Rail is an entirely new beast and not at all comparable. This is music that would sit equally well on U.S. Soil as it does on Australian. Hopefully a release across the pond will follow suit after us in the U.K. get a hold of it.

The Balky Mule’s debut album is a definite must for anyone who likes anything acoustic, subtle pop tunes, or just quality song writing in general. Yes, it’s full of many year’s worth of musical experimentation, but it’s more packed with pretty melodies and lyrical grace and style, and its these elements that deserve your recognition far more than the random aural fireworks which punctuate the songs contained in The Length Of The Rail.

Kids these days.  No attention span.
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The Balky Mule On Myspace

We welcome Sam Jones, audio home cooking expert and self taught muli-instrumentalist who writes/records/performs under the moniker The Balky Mule. Although one of FatCat Records newest signings Jones is no stranger to the industry:  over the past decade or more he has been a key figure in Bristol’s vibrant post-rock scene, playing alongside his brother Matt in both Crescent and Movietone, as well as in Flying Saucer Attack, Minotaur Shock, and Third Eye Foundation. There are no post-rock flourishes on debut The Length Of The Rail though, the record (which has taken 5 years to complete) is the sound of one man experimenting with his own musical surroundings. Seemingly throwing every instrument lying around into an organic lo-fi melting pot of sweet pop ditties and wyrd folk.

We caught up with Sam a few weeks ago to find about a little more about his sound, influences and inspiration. You can download an exclusive never before heard song ‘Cymbet’ at the bottom of this post.

For people who have never heard of you, give three reasons why they should.
Because I stuck posters for my last gig around their neighbourhood.
A record label (Fat cat) thought my stuff was good enough to put on a CD.
Because they like inventive home recording™.

Can you recall the moment when you first wanted to become a musician?
I didnt think of it as being a musician,but when my parents got a tape recorder I realised I could make ‘radio shows’ and sound collages like the beatles’ Revolution number nine.

Where do your songs come from,whats your inspiration?
I find making a song is very similar to doing a crossword puzzle.for me,normally the music comes first,which often sounds like it needs words.
I find a line from my note book that seems to fit the mood.this would often be a little insight gained from observing really everyday things. Then I peice it together from there.

What are your top 5 records?
Lately I’ve been listening to:
Maher Shalal Hash Baz : Blues du jour
The Curtains : Vehicles of Travel
Alisdair Roberts : The Crook of My Arm
Brother Danielson : Brother to Son
The Velvet Underground : The Velvet Underground

What was your first gig & did it go well?
For my first gig as the Balky Mule, I played drums & sticks with wires taped to them so that when I hit things various circuits got completed. It was a big noise. I had told the promoter/DJ it might be a short show. At the first gap, about 4 minutes in, he happily launched back into his set and everyone cheered, so I left it at that, everyone happy. Someone said to me : “that was great…..do you know what you’re doing!?”

What one peice of criticism has stuck with you & do you think it was justified?
“I hate your music, it’s just ‘poor me,poor me’ .”
While I dont think it’s justified, it’s always worth gaurding against. But I dont think it was really my music that had pissed her off…

What one thing has caused you to waste the most time over the last 6 months.
Heat. I’ve been living in Melbourne, but not close to the fires. I’m lucky, the worst of it for me has been lethargy from sleepless nights, and heat blistered hands that make playing guitar painful.

If you werent playing music what would you be doing?
Having to face up to the other parts of my life, making dinosaurs out of cement in the back yard, or coming up with slogans for supermarket competitions.

What was the worst job you’ve ever had?
My worst job and its reasons for being so are too dreary to go into. Where I’m working now there are four waiters who are also trainee pilots. It’s funny to see them rushing about carrying plates for people who dont know that they spend their days flying round practising to be jumbo jet captains.

We would like you to make us a mix tape.pick 5 songs on a theme of your choice.
The theme is : The messy part of the party.
1.Jeffrey Lewis: ‘We don’t want no LSD tonight’
2.Gilberto Gil: ‘Back in Bahia’
3.Deerhoof: ‘Kidz are so Small’
4.Ornette Coleman: ‘friends and Neighbours’
5.Sun Ra: ‘The Perfect Man’

mp3:> The Balky Mule: ‘Cymbet’ (TLOBF Exclusive non-album track)

The Balky Mule’s debut album The Length Of The Rail is out now on FatCat Records.

Posthumous Success, Tom Brosseau‘s first new album of studio material in two years and his third FatCat full-length release (8th in total), is due for release May 11th.

Posthumous Success marks development in recording styles for Tom: 2006’s Empty Houses Are Lonely was collected and compiled from previous releases, while 2007’s Cavalier – Brosseau’s acclaimed 2nd FatCat release – was produced by John Parish (PJ Harvey, Eels, Tracy Chapman) and recorded in one week in one studio, Toybox Studio in Bristol. For this record, however, Adam Pierce produced half the tracks on Posthumous Success in upstate NY, alongside Ethan Rose’s work on the other half of the record in Portland, Oregon. Two producers, two sets of guest musicians, recorded on separate US coasts, the album’s effect is a collection of different styles, different instrumentation, different intricacies in different places, but always held together by Tom’s captivating, vibrato-soaked voice, his ability to let single notes gently resonate with a near-unearthly emotional grasp and his evident, laudable reluctance to bow to fleeting trends.

Brosseau recently spoke of the inspiration behind the album title: “The title of the album I’ve been carrying around since my freshman year. It’s of the last chapter in the life of Albert Camus, the Nobel prize French author who died in a car wreck. Camus had been working on something at the time. It would not be published for 35 years – The First Man.”

Here’s a recent Bandstand Busking session from Brosseau, ‘The Cut, part 2′ recorded last winter at Arnold Circus in London.

mp3:> Tom Brosseau: ‘Favourite Colour Blue’

On a cold, icy, and transport infringing evening, the two Rich’s at TLOBF Towers convened for their first 2009 meet up. Replenished by a wonderful curry and accompanying Cobra Beers, they felt, initially at least, out of place at the all-ages show at The Junction.

With no queue at the bar, we propped it up commenting on the yoof of today and their never changing like for all things EMO. Alas, by the time Brakes turned up to finish the night, the crowd had thinned. Where many an act might have grumbled, Brakes gave it even more, engaging the crowd and taking requests. Eamon was resplendent in his NASA spacesuit which, at times, dangerously caught the light and illuminated the Junction. Playing older material, plus tasters from their highly anticipated debut on Fat Cat records, those that stayed were treated to a live band at the very peak of their powers.

Brakes on MySpace

When it comes to a short, sharp and sweet attack of the senses to blow the winter cobwebs away – nobody does it better than the mighty Brakes. Their 2005 debut album Give Blood was a master class in 30 second seething pop punk energy – 16 songs in 25 minutes – amazing. Whilst  2006 follow up The Beatific Visions veered towards a more standard song structure approach (whatever that is). Regardless, they’re back and judging by the sound of the new single ‘Hey Hey’ in very fine form indeed. With a freshly inked deal with FatCat Records, the new Brakes album Touchdown will be released on April 27th.

Enjoy the video for ‘Hey Hey’ below – It features a giant pink doughnut rolling down a hill so it’s frankly essential viewing. Catch Brakes live at the following shows:

28 Jan – Proud Galleries, Camden, London,
30 Jan – The Boiler Room, Guildford
01 Feb – Moho Live, Manchester (After Show)
02 Feb – Tommy’s Bar, Cardiff
03 Feb – The Cavern, Exeter
05 Feb – Fuzz Club, Sheffield
06 Feb – Radar Club, Cambridge
07 Feb – The Albert, Brighton

Click here to view the embedded video.

mp3:> Brakes: ‘Crystal Tunings’
(taken from the forthcoming album Touchdown, released 27th April via FatCat) 

Well – Brakes news seems to be like buses – you don’t see any for ages and then three come along at once!

Brakes have found a new home on Brighton’s favourite indie label, FatCat Records. After two successful releases with Rough Trade Records, Brakes will appear, on April 20th, on their new home, FatCat, with the release of Touchdown. The album is preceded with two singles, ‘Hey Hey’ and ‘Don’t Take Me To Space (Man)’.

Brakes is Eamon Hamilton (vocals/guitar), Thomas White (guitar/vocals), Marc Beatty (Bass) and Alex White (drums). Containing previous and current members of British Sea Power, Electric Soft Parade, Tenderfoot and The Pipettes.

For a short period of time, you can download a brand new track off Touchdown, titled ‘Crystal Tunings’ here!

Tourdates:
Jan 28 @ Proud Galleries – London
Feb 5 @ Fuzz – Sheffield

Frightened Rabbit at Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, 02/10/08. Photo credit: Lucy Johnston

Up and coming folk troubadours Frightened Rabbit played to a sold-out crowd at the ever-trendy Hoxton Bar and Kitchen. Crowd and industry alike were clearly amused by the eclectic choice of supports, but obviously blown away by the headliners.

Baddies opened proceedings with their spin on what can only be termed as Kaiser Chief-rock. Before any of you shrink back at fear from that suggestion, it isn’t intended as criticism, only description. In reality, Baddies are comparable to the Kaisers when they were on good form, ‘I Predict A Riot’ era, before the public realised that loving a band too much ultimately leads to hating them even more. Shouty, adrenaline pumped Oi-pop seemed to be the overall vibe of Baddies’ set. Their songs were well written and came across as powerful enough live, taking a pop sound but throwing in the occasional unexpected guitar flick or Klaxons-esque vocal harmony here or there. However, as with the Kaisers, there were times when Baddies did come across as slightly cliche, with their lead singer constantly feeling the need to point at a largely non-moving and ambivalent crowd in the style of a military dictator. The smart shirt/retro instrument image did nothing but solidify the indie stereotype as well. All in through, Baddies played a solid set and if, like the audience, you can look past the surface flaws, it’s easy to see a band with a hell of a lot of potential in the pop world.

After an over-long period of preparation, where your erstwhile reviewer took the time out to marvel at how expensive drinks in Shoreditch really are, Dan Black and his cohorts took to the stage. One word, and one abbreviation.

Male M.I.A.

That was the instant impact of Dan Black and his live band. The set was lathered in synth, and had songs ranging from down-tempo heavy jams to dancier future pop classics. Heavy use of sequencing and digital drums, normally well renowned for falling flat on its face during an actual show instead sounded remarkably good, with Dan showing himself to be an interesting and passionate frontman. London shows being as they always are, only the front row was truly moving in time to the music, with the rest of the audience reduced to head nods and foot taps. That didn’t seem to bother Dan Black though, no sir, as he sung with enough gusto to fill a venue much larger and more ‘up for it’ than the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen. The bassist frequently abandoned his traditional instrument in favour of a tiny synth strapped around his crotch, and the laptop wizard was always turning one knob or another. Whether that actually had any impact on the music is debatable, but if it keeps him happy, then who are we to judge? Aside from petty criticisms (all the band members had one or two repetitive gestures which got very annoying very quickly), Dan Black and his band didn’t fail to impress.

However, there was only one band the audience were here tonight to see, and that was Selkirks finest export (aside the bannocks, so I’m told), Frightened Rabbit. Suddenly the air was thick with Scottish accents, like 30 hidden north of the border ninjas had revealed themselves just in time to enjoy a bit of national pride.  Songs like ‘I Feel Better’  had large amounts of the crowd singing along, albeit in a self-conscious, half-muttered way. ‘Good Arms vs Bad Arms’ was sung with much more fire and bile than on recording, with Scott Hutchison sweating profusely, clearly wilting under the stage lights but still managing to put in a super-human level of conviction into his voice. Prolific use of swearwords were also his forte throughout the set, with his front monitors and the band’s soundguy receiving the majority of it for not delivering enough of their joyful folk back into their ears. Can’t really blame them for this though, as listening to Frightened Rabbit live is an affecting and endearing thing.

On stage, this foursome manage to inject a little punk spirit, a little anger and a shedloads of joy and raw human emotion into what by all rights should be just another folk band playing sad songs for the standard selection of semi-drunks. This of course was repaid by cheers and whoops aplenty after the end of every song (and even in the quiet bits of songs if you’re me and forgot when the song was supposed to finish, how embarrassing!). Thankfully, the rest of the audience were clearly well versed in the Frightened Rabbit canon, a testament to the solid fanbase they have amassed through their non-stop touring, convincing live performance and well-picked support slots. The Death Cab For Cutie tour was underway, and the band are due to support Biffy Clyro, but tonight’s show at The Bar and Kitchen proved to all gathered that Frightened Rabbit have the clout, knowledge and experience to dazzle crowds in a headlining capacity as well, not just playing second fiddle to an already well established act.  Frightened Rabbit have a rare ability to inspire strong feelings of emotion through their music, rather than just provide 45 minutes of entertainment. On their last song you could see couples huddling that much closer, friends embracing and jokes being shared, all the while enjoying the band in front of them. It was a palpable switch in atmosphere, and sealed the deal that tonight was indeed the night of the Rabbit.

Welcome to the second edition of our new monthly feature: ART OF NOISE. It’s a simple concept. We ask bands we love to make us a mixtape and tell us exactly why they picked each track. Thus, you get some free kick ass music AND find out more about some of your favourite artists taste. Everyone literally, is a winner.

This months mix tape was curated by Meredith Godreau, the brainchild behind FatCat Records’ newest act Gregory & The Hawk. Her beautiful debut album Moenie & Kitchie (TLOBF review) is available through all good outlets now and she is about to embark on a TLOBF sponsored tour of the UK. Click here for the dates.

The nine tracks here show clearly where Godreau’s roots lie.. The Sundays, Sebadoh, The Velvet Underground, plus tracks from TLOBF heroes The American Analog Set and Guided By Voices. Needless to say it’s an essential mix.

1. The Juliana Hatfield Three: ‘My Sister’
Juliana Hatfield was a role model of mine from the Blake Babies days.

2. Sebadoh: ‘Social Medicine’
I got introduced to Sebadoh last year through the song ‘Brand New Love’, which I couldn’t stop listening to. This song was new to me when I added it to the mix, but i immediately liked the slow unfolding.

3. Karl Blau: ‘Before Telling Dragons’
Mike and I first heard about Karl Blau this past August when we visited the Secretly Canadian office and Nick gave us a copy of the brand new album Nature’s Got Away. This track immediately stood out because of the funny way the melody goes with the words and the addictive drum beat.

4. The Softies: ‘Awful Mess’
Used to dabble in The Softies, but hadn’t listened to them in years. I found this song and remembered how pretty it was.

5. The Sundays: ‘You’re Not The Only One I Know’
The Sundays are the perfect band, Harriet Wheeler is the perfect singer, and all the songs are perfect. I picked this one cause I like the singing riffs at the end.

6. Mew: ‘A Dark Design’
I just heard mew last week and mistook it for mum doing a My Bloody Valentine cover version.

7. The American Analog Set: ‘Sharp Briar’
A nice song that sounds good loud.

8. Guided By Voices: ‘Everywhere with helicopter’
Another old favorite of mine, I think to love Guided By Voices involves listening to whole albums at a time, but this is maybe a good representation of their energy ad sound.

9. The Velvet Underground: ‘Stephanie Says’
A cheesy song for the end of the mix.

Download: Art Of Noise #2 : : ‘Gregory & The Hawk’ [.zip file]

Photograph by Lucy Jay

Frightened Rabbit have recorded a new song entitled ‘Last Tango in Brooklyn’ for Australian zine The Lifted Brow. Here is Pitchfork’s take: “It’s a view looking back after a relationship has ended, and what once seemed bright and lovely has now turned cold and lonely. Starting with an acoustic guitar and building to a sad hymnal, fleshed out with chanting and tambourine, ‘Last Tango in Brooklyn’ shows a quieter, less anthemic side of Frightened Rabbit. It’s a desolate ode to something gone, that feeling not so much that the world is over but that things used to be a little more fun.”

Grab the song here!

mp3:> Frightened Rabbit: ‘Last Tango In Brooklyn’

Toronto’s Ten Kens are about to embark on their inaugural UK tour, and to celebrate they have created a brand new animated video for ‘Spanish Fly’, one of the standout tracks on their eponymous debut. Instead of releasing a single, the band is giving away a free download of the song that inspired the video. The video was developed and created independently by close friends of the band, The Blackbelt Kids. It was directed by fellow Toronto native Kareem Thompson and animated by Peter Auld and Louis Norris.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can download an mp3 version of ‘Spanish Fly’ by clicking here. All they ask is that you sign up to their mailing list.. Not too much to ask, is it now??

We caught up with the guys a few weeks ago. If you happened to miss the interview, you can check it out here.

November
28 – London, The Lexington
29 – Birmingham, Barfly*
30 – Glasgow, Nice N’Sleazys*

December
1 – Edinburgh, Cabaret Voltaire
2 – York, The Duchess
4 – Manchester, The Roadhouse*
5 – Leeds, The Cockpit*
6 – Cardiff , Clwb Ifor Beach*
8 – London, ICA*
9 – London, Blow Up Metro
10 – London, 229**

* supporting A Place To Bury Strangers
**with Stricken City

A young American trio with the scope of Sigur Ros and the peculiar, organic ethereality of Efterklang, with a touch of Animal Collective and Boards of Canada for good measure, Our Brother The Native are a very exciting proposition. Their last full-length “Make Amends, For We Are Merely Vessels” was a promising slab of post-rock, if a little too in thrall to Godspeed You! Black Emperor and other purveyors of ten-minute slow-burn epics but this 5-track EP is a far more succinct, subtle and to my mind beguiling effort.

‘Augural Wraith’ is a perfect introduction to their smorgasbord of low-key delights, beginning with a simple guitar strum and a plaintive, unadorned female vocal before adding Animal Collective-style sound manipulation and harmonies. Before long, it’s starting to sound a touch like The Acorn and Mum at their most light-hearted- the ramshackle folk instrumentation, the handclaps, sleighbells and glockenspiel a mile away from the seriousness of previous works.  ‘Seminal Paws’ is a more haunting, studied experience, the clinking of bells underpinned by the chatter of children whilst slurring, chant-like vocals swell into a rush of accordion and sparkling percussion; the considered, tribal ‘Warm Refines’ furrows a similar vein, featuring hypnotic drumming overlaid with a shrill Arabic female vocal that’s a bit of an acquired taste. The luscious ‘Failed Panegyrics’ is the highlight of the album, the omnipresent, dimly perceived chatter overlaid with a solemn piano line and an heavenly female vocal performed with a delicacy that breaks the heart, concluding with a  post-rock snare and flute crescendo that sounds like a march to a better place.

It’s a shame then that the title track, the closer to the EP, is relatively generic; a mellow, minor piece that washes over the listener without achieving the emotional impact of what went before it. But it does nothing to dull the sense of otherworldly wonder this all-too-brief gem imparts. One feels that the formula might have got slightly staid over a full-length album (a bit more tonal variety wouldn’t have gone amiss), but as it stands ‘Parting Marrows’ is 22 minutes of low-key bliss no discerning music fan should miss.
81%

Our Brother The Native on MySpace

FatCat records’ signing of Meredith Godreau was actually a happy accident. Whilst on business in NYC enjoying a few sociable drinks, Meredith appeared on stage with her band and captivated them in seconds. Although she’d been going under the moniker of Gregory and The Hawk since 2003 and achieving cult success on the blogosphere she had in fact no record deal and no manager. That soon changed after the performance, FatCat had her in a recording studio a month later which resulted in the staggeringly beautiful album Moenie & Kitchie. If you’ve not discovered the kooky charm of Meredith, wander over to her MySpace page for a listen – the songs will have you in their grasp in seconds, and whilst you’re listening you can get to know Meredith a little better below. She doesn’t give too much away mind you. But when trying to explain her own sound she couldn’t have said it any simpler or truer…

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Friction, Electricity, Quilty blanket.

2. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
It was a Kim Fox record, I was obsessed. It was a flea market but what meant more to me was the Madonna record my aunt bought me that was Greatest Hits. It was so great.

3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
A sunny walk and a Bloody Mary

4. What’s on your rider?
Ok, now that I know what a rider is, I think… $12 and directions to a cool place in town.

5. How do you get ready for a live show?
Arm circles and tuning.  Intense tuning – which will soon be forgotten in a blaze of out-of-tune whirls. It is nice to sit down with you people you’ll be playing with and say “hey, we’re going to play this show. We are all ready. It is nice”

6. What’s your favourite song to play live?
I like to play when it’s already warmed up and you’re ready for the end but it’s not there yet. So maybe the fifth song

7. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Tiny things.

8. Who would win in a fight, a stoat or a goat and why?
I would say stoat, though I know not what be a stoat

9. Who’s your favourite new band at the moment? Tell us a bit about them.
Mamie Minch has a very powerful live solo presence. She is loud and down home. www.myspace.com/mamieminch

10. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
Thora Birch, but only if it was lucky.

11. Dead or alive, what 5 acts would you have play with you at a festival?
Blake Babies, Guided By Voices, Portishead, Robert Wilkins, No Doubt.

12. If push comes to shove, what is your all-time favourite album?
Pink Moon by Nick Drake

13. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
When I was riding with Jef Ratner, he is very sociable and also one of the most friendly people I have ever met – in Happy Valley, Oregon he met some tea vendors and was enjoying hot chai all weekend. It is such a good feeling to have fresh hot tea on a hillside with new people especially when you are away from home.

14. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
Canoeing on the Charles River, roasting marshmallows in the foothills of the Adirondacks, riding the green line to Allston, playing open mics at strawberry fields, talking to Cory about skateboarding, dropping binoculars on the deck in Medfield.

15. What’s the best piece of advice someone has ever given you and did you take notice?
Wait for things to change, and …no, but I should’ve….

16. If you had to leave a body part to science, what would it be?
Hands… forearms if necessary.

17. What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?
The Giver – I read that almost every year and it is always different and pertinent, as for film… what?

18. What three things could you not live without?
Walking, sky, fast moving.

19. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I am a seasoned cross country runner, and I’ve watched Finding Nemo about 100-1000 times.

20. And finally, we’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
Theme: Love Lost…
1. Small Factory – Valentine
2. Blake Babies – Lament
3. Lemonheads – Hannah and Gabi
4. Alice Coltrane – Govinda Jai Jai
5. Nick Drake – From The Morning

mp3:> Gregory and The Hawk: ‘Grey Weather’

Gregory and The Hawk on MySpace

Frightened Rabbit

Thanks to the enterprising souls behind London’s newest and most evocatively named inner-city festival, Concrete & Glass, a drizzly Thursday night spent bar-hopping in Shoreditch suddenly looked less like a punishment for a past life’s misdeeds and more like a chance to hear some genuinely exciting live music. TLOBF staked out a prime spot at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, cameras and pencils in hand.

Frightened Rabbit grow more out of their moniker with every show they play. At the start of the year they were a timid yet compelling live prospect, their performances echoing the neurotic, unstable, somewhat self-destructive nature of their songs. Since the release of The Midnight Organ Fight, however, their live shows have grown in confidence along with the size of their crowds. Where singer and principal songwriter Scott Hutchison would once have faced the side of the stage rather than the front, tonight, in front of a bustling, bursting audience, he stands proud and self-assured. Although the sound isn’t perfect in this strange box of a venue, it’s more than adequate to carry the emotional weight of their dark songs. “The Modern Leper”, “Head Rolls Off” and “Keep Yourself Warm” all tremble with the same intense insecurity as on record, and while Hutchison doesn’t appear to be suffering along with them as he once did, their honesty and emotional integrity couldn’t be stronger. A chilling rendition of “My Backwards Walk” spits and shivers with desperation and unwanted regret. Given that the majority of tonight’s songs come from the depths of despair – inspired by a break-up Hutchison endured – the only path Frightened Rabbit could have taken was up. Tonight is proof they’ve done just that, both emotionally and musically. They’re as good as they ever were, but now, live, they seem ready to accept that fact, rather than hiding behind their songs. Proof, perhaps, of the healing power of music.

Bodies Of Water

Next up are LA’s Bodies of Water. They’re soon to support Calexico across Europe and tonight is their first, eagerly anticipated UK show. Let it be said at this point that the all-in-one bodysuit isn’t seen nearly enough. Yet said item seems to be frontwoman Meredith Metcalf’s wardrobe item of choice and, true to form, she is sporting one tonight. As she approaches the organ and the band kick in, it is as if we are transported to a dingy Berlin basement in the early ’70s, with the churning riffs, keyboard swells and distorted guitar of “Under the Pines” filling the room. Meredith’s semi-cracking voice, which has something of the music hall or cabaret about it, adds a welcome theatricality. From the middle of a packed, boisterous crowd, some of the sonic intricacies fall by the wayside. When the band try to start a song with vocal harmonies, the voices of hundreds of Hoxtonites do little to help the situation. “Do you have ‘do-overs’ in London, England?” they ask. Yes we do, and a good job too, as they break into “Water Here”, which is built around a fairground organ and group vocals akin to a less jubilant Polyphonic Spree before segueing into some prog-folk riffage and then taut ESG funk. On record, they manage to fuse a seemingly endless range of styles and textures without becoming overblown, although much of the nuance is lost on this crowd and it is the more urgent material that comes to the fore. The excellent “Even in a Cave”, with its churning drums and guitar, comes on like the Velvet Underground sitting in with Dave Brubeck. (Yes, really.) With a Spector flourish here, a brooding, fuzzy guitar there and the occasional spaghetti-western twang, by the end of the set they’ve bewitched even this excitable, distracted crowd.

O’Death seem to fill the stage with about 20 members, though there are actually only six of them, rambunctious and bearded and clearly ready for all sorts of naughtiness. They’re old favourites live, noisy as the venue can handle and bouncing around in what looks like a total shambles. But the tightness of the percussion and precision of the twangy strings – ukulele, banjo, fiddle even – tells of a deep familiarity with one another and a catalogue honed to deceptive perfection. “Down to Rest” is a stomping standard of their live shows, Greg Jamie’s nasally whine sliding into a hoarse roar over the four-to-the-floor thumped-out beat as the strings build into a frenzy. They could be Satan’s own in-house band, fiddling with evil glee as the flames rise higher. It’s a triumphant end to a darkly exhilarating night.

Words: Emily Moore, Ro Cemm and Mischa Pearlman
Photographs: Lucy Johnston

Frightened Rabbit

Bodies Of Water

Frightened Rabbit on MySpace
Bodies Of Water on MySpace
O’Death on MySpace

We expect a lot from music, at times. Songs can lift moods, express sympathies, or calm fiery tempers. One my first listen to Gregory and the Hawk, I’d just come home from work and was in a foul mood. (I work with children, enough said really.) The aim was to distract myself rather than get rid of my current agitated mental state. However, I’m please to report that Gregory and the Hawk did exactly that. Despite my complete unfamiliarity with it, Moenie and Kitchi managed to turn my frown right upside down, courtesy of haunting vocals, humble but powerful melodies, and exuding the general feeling you get when you let out a big sigh. Aaaaahhh…

Album opener ‘Oats We Sow’ is a pleasant, quaint number, that’s melancholic and yet rather cheerful at the same time. The child like vocals from singer Meredith are gentle and delicate, augmented by a complex rhythm section.

‘Doubtful’ shuffles along nicely, sounding like a Fionn Regan track but with a more charming vocalist and with hints of Regina Spektor.  If this album had been made before the film ‘Juno’ was released, I imagine Kimya Dawson would’ve been out the door to make way for these guys. Catchy, but not over-whelming or obvious, these songs make you want to lie back and just listen whilst your troubles ooze away.

‘Wild West’ begins as another acoustic guitar and vocals led track, and then builds into almost an anthem, with piano riffs, crashing cymbals and trembling strings. The track that follows, ‘Stonewall, Stone Fence’ has a more menacing feel than the rest of the album, with vocals that have a strong warning tone in them, before it descends into an percussion heavy almost industrial sounding instrumental. It seems this is a turning point in the album, marking a shift in direction and mood. Now they’ve got you all relaxed and in a happy place, they’ve upped the ante, providing songs that require a little more thought and concentration, and a departure from the album’s earlier light-hearted sound.

In a nutshell, this is lovely, lovely music. But not in a ‘what’s a cute word that rhymes with rabbit way’, in a simple, pure way. No aims, no agenda, just an album to take you to another place where everything’s just a little bit better.

Expect a lot.
85%

mp3:> Gregory and The Hawk: ‘Grey Weather’

Gregory and The Hawk on MySpace

In this, the second part of our Twilight Sad/Frightened Rabbit feature, TLOBF moves on from the ‘C’ word filled spewings of Part 1 to chew the fat with Scott Hutchison and James Graham on why both bands were overlooked at T In the Park, where they think their standing is in the current Scottish Music scene and what the pair have planned for the future.

I noticed that at T In The Park you were both in small tents. What did you make of that?
James Graham: Yip, we were in the Unsigned Bands tent. I was quite happy to play it but I saw it as a kick in the nuts because we’re not unsigned and there were bands on that bill who weren’t where we are and hadn’t put in as much work as we have.
Scott Hutchison: You feel like you’ve produced good enough music that you could be treated as a real band and not be lumbered into one of those tents. There’s a lot of promoter politics to get a good slot at T In The Park.
JG: It worked out well but at the time it felt like ‘for fucks sake’.

So will you be looking for a bigger stage next year?
JG: I’d be happy never to play it again.
SH: I preferred Belladrum, it had a much more hospitable atmosphere.
JG: I don’t like T In The Park at all – it’s pish. Connect was good but the line-up’s shite this year as well. It’s really disappointing that it’s gone down that road.
SH: It’s not really healthy to see your career in terms of the size of the tent, what’s important is who was there and who has enjoyed themselves.
JG: After we’d done an interview at T in the Park I saw some band on the NME stage and I said to the guy ‘I never want to be like that’. I’d be quite happy to stay on a smaller stage for the rest of my career.
SH: It’s quite rare for a band that explodes to ever make a long term success out of their career. I’d rather see it as a job. It’s a particularly fun one but it should be work at the same time and I wouldn’t want to have anything that I hadn’t earned. So although I thought we’d earned a stage bigger than what we got at T In The Park, we actually earned an audience there.

It’s rare to see a critical word said against you and you’re pretty well renowned on both sides of the Atlantic. Did you ever envisage this is where you would be when you started out?
JG: I think there’s an element of luck, hard work and timing.
SH: I don’t know how this will read when you print it but I knew when we’d made our second album [The Midnight Organ Fight] that it was really good and I expected it to make us more popular. I think you visualise where you would like to be and I’m happy where we are currently.
JG: I wanted to be doing this and I wanted people to like the band but I just didn’t know whether the songs were good enough. The fact that people are enjoying what we’re doing is amazing. Some more money would be nice. In fact, any money would be good.

Surely you guys aren’t doing too badly cash-wise?
JG: I’ve been on and off the dole for the past two year – mostly because I haven’t signed up for the PRS or anything like that.
SH: Well, that’s your own fault isn’t it?!

So did you guys know each other before ‘the fame’?
SH: I definitely knew who they were when they were at demo stage because I was playing them to everyone.
JG: Aye, I would go round to his house and play him our demos and he’d play me his – [laughing] it was quite gay actually.
SH: Ahh…memories. But – and this is going to sound really bummy – I actually don’t think there’s a band I enjoy listening to and enjoy spending time with as much as them. I don’t know if it’s because it started happening at the same time for us both. I remember when Alex from Fat Cat told them that Frightened Rabbit were playing at the old Stereo [Glasgow venue] and they came down to see us. Afterwards there was this group of drunken lads talking to my girlfriend and I was saying ‘what the fuck are you doing? Who are you?’
JG: We were like [Swings arms in air and puts on a particularly impressive drunken slur] ‘Alex fae Fat Cat said we’ve got the same spirit’.
SH: Aye, from then on we just went to each other’s gigs and I don’t think I missed a show until they fucked off to America. I don’t think I’ve heard a Scottish record I’ve liked as much since they released [Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters].
JG: Cheers. It’s the same for us. This is a bumfest isn’t it? You do know we’re going home together after this gig?
SH: We’ve already spooned.
JG: [Cracks up] Aye watching The Bodyguard drinking mouth wash.
SH: [Almost choking with laughter] Can I get a gammy?

Erm..moving on then. Do you think the spotlight is too heavily focused on the Glasgow scene, almost to the detriment of other areas in Scotland?
SH: No, I think it’s a good thing. It’s the one place that’s constantly maintained a presence with its music scene. Y’know Dundee came and went with The View and Aberdeen never really happened either. Not too slag Aberdeen off, it’s a nice city and all that.
JG: I’m a shareholder at Aberdeen football club.
SH: [Shocked] Are you? Really? And you’re complaining about being poor?
JG: Oh aye, the champagne’s on me. I’ve also got shares in Euro Disney as well.
SH: What the fuck? Check out stock market boy. [Mimics James’ accent] ‘Oh I’ve got nae money but I’ve got shares in Aberdeen Football Club and Euro Disney’. You’ve probably got some sitting in Microsoft too.
JG: [Laughs] I wish!

I’ve interviewed a number of new Scottish bands recently and they’ve cited you guys as the main influences in their sound. It must be quite flattering to have taken the reigns from Franz Ferdinand and stopped the glutton of slanty-fringed guitar bands we had a few years back?
JG: I really don’t think anyone should look up to us at all. We’ve only released one record and that’s nothing really.
SH: I mean it’s very flattering and I think it’s a more substantial well to drink from than Franz Ferdinand. I don’t really hear the influence in these newer bands – it must be very subtle – but it’s a nice shift in the way things sound and bands like El Padre and We Were Promised Jetpacks are pushing that forward. I feel like Glasgow has a bit more romance now and [looks lovingly at James] we’re part of that.
JG: Well there’s a lot more spooning going on. Go to [Nice ‘n’] Sleazy’s one night and you’ll end up going home with someone and spooning.
SH: [Despairingly] This is going nowhere… move on please. Please.

Have either of you noticed a change in the grassroots of Scottish Music since you set out?
JG: We didn’t really gig about a lot so I couldn’t tell you. I’m not really sure what it was like to begin with.
SH: I think it sounds a bit different. There was a lot of electro and twee going on and I think that….[tails off]. Actually I don’t really know what’s going on in Glasgow these days, I’m rarely out.
JG: I couldn’t tell you what Glasgow was like but I could tell you what the scene is like in Banton [small town outside Glasgow].
SH: So what’s going on in Banton then?
JG: Well we’ve got a jukebox in the Swan and our drummer used to be in a band called Stone Whisper. They were amazing.

There was a lot of pressure on Scottish bands to move to London a few years back…
JG: S-H-I-T-H-O-L-E: Shithole.

…I take it that’s not something you’re going to consider in the future?
JG: Nah, I’d rather be miserable up here than down there.
SH: I don’t think it’s the centre of the universe and there’s a lot of…
JG: Arseholes?
SH: Aye, but there’s a lot of arseholes everywhere. The difference between the arseholes up here and those down there is that they don’t see anything outside of their big, huge playground. You do put a lot of pressure on yourself when you first play down there but I would urge new bands not to consider London as the end of the yellow brick road.
JG: I just get really stressed there.
SH: We were playing that White Heat and I never knew the audience but the moment they walked in they oozed were proper hipness.
JG: Like Nathan Barley?
SH: Aye, exactly like that.
JG: I just end up sitting in the corner trying to avoid eye contact with people when that happens.
SH: Places like Leeds – that’s my favourite city to play in the world I’d say – have much more atmosphere and the crowd are with you constantly.
JG: Aye, the first two rows in London are like that [wildly waves arms in air] while the back rows are just looking at you like [sits perfectly still]. Christ, I don’t know how you’re going to write that up.

Aye, I’m starting to wonder. Now you’ve grown in stature, what’s the craziest commercial offer you guys have had.
JG: Naebody’s really offered us anything yet.
SH: Well we had Hollyoaks and the one that’s coming up that’s really fucking big [TLOBF has been sworn to secrecy].
JG: Nobody likes us; they’ve nae offered us anything. Nae tampon adverts or sexual favours. Although our bass player does offer them out.
SH: All we do is sit about and say ‘Ah my life’s shite, naebody comes on to me. May as well go and write another album’. So going back to the start, that’s where the misery comes from.

What would it take the for you guys to produce a chirpy, up tempo pop song?
SH: I would say that ours are poppier than theirs. I wouldn’t class them as pop but if you take the words away they’re definitely a bit poppier.
JG: We definitely won’t be writing one.
SH: He and I are going to do something together when we get a bit of time. We’ll try and take each other out of what we’ve been doing; removing me from lyric writing process to concentrate on the music, whereas he can concentrate on writing music that’s a bit quieter and a different background for his voice. That could be a pop sensation.

Is this definitely going to take place?
SH: I’d like it to happen. My mate has a place up in Fife which is always empty so hopefully we can sort something out.
JG: I’m up for that.
SH: I’m up for it as well. It’s just a nice holiday for us.

Read Part 1

Frightened Rabbit on MySpace
The Twilight Sad on MySpace

If you haven’t noticed, the Scottish music scene’s thriving. There’s a new sense of worth emanating from the nation’s sweat soaked venues and acts like We Were Promised Jetpacks, Broken Records and El Padre are creating sounds with the potential to shoot beyond the country’s towering trajectory and out over the Atlantic. And the reason for this tartan-clad revival? Well, there’re two: Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad.

Over the past twelve months the uniquely home-grown sonics of the ‘Twilight’s magnificent Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters and Frightened Rabbit’s equally elegiac The Midnight Organ Fight have pulled relentlessly on the UK public’s heartstrings. Forget the grating art school chic of Franz Ferdinand, these acts truly encapsulate the sound of modern Scotland: vehemently sarcastic, bitterly morose and absolutely, unflappably honest.

So in the first of a two part interview, The Line of Best Fit caught up with Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison and The Twilight Sad’s James Graham before a gig in Edinburgh during the Fringe to discuss their morbid disposition, the increased popularity of the Scottish brogue and, of course, Gwen Stefani…

Well, we’re in Edinburgh and it’s the Fringe Festival. Have you had any chance to see shows?
James Graham: Nah, I’ve no money at all.
Scott Hutchison: I went to see Limmy last week.

Who?
SH: You don’t know Limmy?? Aw man, where’ve you been? If we’re talking about Scottish stuff he’s the funniest guy about at the moment. He’s got a website and he does all these podcasts and videos. It’s just wee characters that you’d definitely know if you lived in Glasgow or anywhere in Scotland really. He’s got this one character whose an ex-junkie called Jacqueline McCafferty.
JG: [shouting in coarse Glaswegian accent] Jacqueline, Jacqueline McCafferty.
SH: And he’s got another character called John Paul the Ned who’s brilliant. You should definitely go check him out.
JG: I can’t afford to.
SH: I’ll take you as a wee treat then.
JG: Aww… thanks.

Do you need to pay? Can’t you guys play the ‘don’t you know who I am’ card and stroll in to anything you want these days?
JG: They’d probably just laugh us away.
SH: Have you ever tried that? I mean, it’s easy to get on guestlists but have you ever actually rocked up to somewhere and tried it?
JG: Nah, I’d be too embarrassed – it would be awful. There was a guy going about in Glasgow saying he was our manager at one point and getting into places. Why would you even say that? You wouldn’t get in anywhere. I think the doormen just laughed at him.

Talking of japes, why do so many Scottish bands – and I count both your groups in this – have such a morbid sense of humour when it comes to lyrics?
SH: I think Scottish life can be a bit dark and miserable. I mean it’s not California here and I think it’s been bred into us. I’m always asked if I listen to Arab Strap records in my room all my time but I’ve never listened to an Arab Strap Record all the way through.
JG: [genuinely stunned] Honestly?
SH: I’m not kidding, I’ve listened to about three songs.
JG: Christ, I listened to one the other day.
SH: Aye, it’s not that I’m not interested in them but I think it confirms that it’s an innate Scottish quality to look on the bright side of darkness. [Looks at James] But you’re not very funny.
JG: I’m not funny – there’s nae uplifting parts to me at all.
SH: I went round to his house the other day and it was a beautiful summer day – one of the hottest of the year – and James was sitting by his laptop in his bedroom with the blinds down and one wee lamp on. I think he’d just closed a very rude window as I walked in.
JG: Aye so it was: YouPorn.com, I think. But I don’t really like hot weather so that was why I was sitting in my room in the dark. I just fucking hate the summer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hear you, especially in Scotland: a combination of pissing rain and sweaty buses equates to an omnipresent stench of wet dog.
SH: I know what you mean. You know those t-shirts you forget to wash after a particularly stinking day and then when it rains a few weeks later the dog smell comes back?
JG: I’ve nae idea what you’re talking about.
SH: You’ve never had that? I guess that’s because your mother does your washing for you.
JG: [Sarcastically] She does, aye.

Right, back to the topic fellas. Why do we Scots write such morose songs?
JG: I dunno, I just don’t like happy songs so I wouldnae write any. I hate happy people who go about smiling all the time, pretending that life’s great. That’s just not me and I don’t think many people are like that either – the Scots are just as miserable as fuck.
SH: I think the dark side is more interesting; no-one likes people who think everything is great.
JG: Like that woman from the T In The Park coverage, the one who used to be in El Presidente. She spent the whole festival saying: “amazing, amazing, amazing”. Fuck Off.
SH: Aye, amazing as a word should be used considerably less than it is at the moment. Not everything can be amazing.

There’s a fair amount of brutal colloquialism in your lyrics – I’ll use ‘puttin’ the boot in’ and ‘kicking your cunt in’ as prime examples. How does that go down outside of Scotland?
JG: In America it worked just as well.
SH: Yeah but your ‘cunt’ [in That Summer At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy] is quite a subtle one.
JG: We also got away with it on the Gideon Coe session during the day. Nobody noticed at all.
SH: We’ve got one of our songs coming up in a mainstream American TV show that has a cunt and a shit in it and they’re playing it whole. I don’t know how it’s going to work, I don’t know if they’ll voiceover it with ‘jobby’. They really hate ‘cunt’ over there and when I use it they think I mean kicking a woman in a vagina or something equally as horrid; yet over here it’s acceptable.
JG: My mum and dad asked me about the lyrics but we’ve just never, ever spoken about ‘that’ lyric.
SH: So, is that ‘cunt’ someone I know?
JG: [Laughs] No, it’s a generalisation that signifies a whole lot of people.
SH: You mean it’s an umbrella over one person so they can’t be identified?
JG: Aye, a cunt-brella.

Have you ever seen the American website that tries to decipher your lyrics James?
JG: Oh aye, it’s amazing. It’s a shitty website that someone’s made up and it’s got stars and shit all over it.
SH: Is it that one that looks like a My Little Pony website or something. As if they needed to say ‘Unofficial Twilight Sad website’ when it’s covered in stars and glitter. Although, it might have been Andy’s doing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With the brogue being ‘in vogue’, so to speak, I take it you see it as a good thing that folk here are singing in their own accents rather than using that faux-American drawl bands used to put on?
SH: I don’t sing in the same strength of accent as [James] does but I find that when I’m singing one of their songs I start [puts on his finest Weegie accent] strengthen’ it up a wee bit, eh. But I think there’s no other way of singing [The Twilight Sad] songs than like that.
JG: I do roll my r’s a wee bit but I never really think about it.
SH: You know there’s these American bloggers out there who call him Groundskeeper Willie?
JG: Aye, Groundskeeper Willie – fucking brilliant eh? But I’ve never really thought about singing in an accent.
SH: I don’t know why I sing with an accent either – I’d never heard his band before I started Frightened Rabbit and I’d never hear Popup either.
JG: Nah, I’d never heard Popup either, in fact I don’t think I’ve heard them to this day. Or have I? I think we’ve played with them…[ponders this for a minute].
SH: Anyway, moving on…If I’m singing about things that are happening in my own life then there’s no way I could be honest about it if I’m singing in another accent. If I put on an American accent then it wouldn’t work at all and people wouldn’t believe it.
JG: Aye, these songs are about us and there’s nae point in trying to do it any other way.

It’s well known that The ‘Twilights’ rose to prominences in the States before being picked up here, whereas I remember seeing Frightened Rabbit a multitude of times in various venues over the past few years. Considering your pathways, is it strange you’re now both on an equal par now in the States?
JG: Aye we had an American release out before we’d put anything out and then we toured there for a bit and then we came here. I quite glad we did that in many ways.
SH: It’s kind of unique to Fat Cat to be honest. So many labels think you have to work on the UK before you have a chance of making it in the States and that’s why you have the stupid pressure of cracking America or whatever. If you just go there and work like you do over here it’s probably going to happen – they fucking love Scottish music, in fact they love Scottish ‘things’. [James laughs] They do man, they love everything about Scotland.
JG: The thing is; if there’s a buzz about a British band in Britain the American’s don’t really give a fuck. But if there’s a buzz about a British band in America then it all filters back.

You mean like Bush?
JG: Aye, we’re the new Bush apparently. [Raises fists in celebration]Yes!

Could be worse, I’m pretty sure most folk would be chuffed waking up to Gwen Stefani in the morning.
SH: [Laughs] I had to do this blog thing on the Guardian and I talked about pumping Gwen Stefani from behind. I’m not sure it will ever be published.
JG: We had to do a single review column for The Skinny [local culture magazine] and we gave Bush’s new single five stars for boabin’ her and two for the song.

Okay, I’m sure Gwen’s getting the divorce papers sorted as we speak. So, how different are the American crowds to those in the UK. I’m assuming Frightened Rabbit don’t quite have the same scale as the Twilights just yet?
JG: Nah, they’re much bigger than we are over there.
SH: We sell shows out in the States all the time but I don’t think we’ve sold one show out over here. So, yeah, we’re doing pretty well over in America.
JG: We haven’t been out there in a while so I really don’t know. I think the only significant thing for us, was playing the Pitchfork festival. All the other shows were pretty small, at about 200 – 300 people.

That’s still pretty good I’d say, considering I saw The Ruby Suns over there and there must have been about twenty people. It’s odd they don’t seem to support their own, don’t you think?
SH: Yeah but it can be really random as well. There were some pretty dead shows initially.
JG: Aye, you have to get through the shit to get to the good.
SH: People over there find music a lot more independently than they do here – there’s not quite so much external influence. I find the NME governs what people think all too much here and they don’t really have that in the States.
JG: They’ve got Pitchfork but quite lot of people look down on them for being cuntish to bands. They’ve been really good to us but I think there’s a lot of negativity towards them because of how harsh they can be. If you look at the Black Kids review or even the Jet one where a monkey was drinking its own piss – it’s pretty funny but if it was your band you’d be like [puts on mortified expression].
SH: Pitchfork are capable of ruining bands careers.
JG: Aye they are: British Sea Power got U.2 for their new album. I really think that’s worse than a monkey drinking its own piss.

Look out for part two of the interview next week!

Frightened Rabbit on MySpace
The Twilight Sad on MySpace

We recently hooked up with Ten Kens – Toronto, Canada’s latest exports. They signed to Fat Cat earlier in the year and have just released their self-titled debut..to a mixed reaction it has to be said – including a lukewarm response by TLOBF. Here, we find out a little more about the band, what makes them tick and how they’ve reacted to the mixed responses to the album..

For people out there that have never heard of you. Give us three reasons why they should…
1) Sonic Youth meets Liars meets Arcade Fire meets Black Sabbath meets Yanni.
2) Enough reverb to drown a rat.
3) We apparently have the worst band name since ‘Rainbow Butt Monkeys’.

Can you recall the moment when you first decided you wanted to become a musician?
After the first time I tried to be one. Had it not worked, that would have been it.

Where do your songs come from? What’s your inspiration?
Such a difficult question to answer. Basically everything. Sometimes we attack themes, other times we simply spill out what we’re feeling on a particular day. And sometimes, inspiration just comes from out of nowhere, and you seize the moment.

Name your Top 5 records.
1) DJ Shadow – Entroducing
2) Sigur Rós – Ágætis Byrjun
3) Frank Zappa – We’re Only In It For The Money
4) Nirvana – In Utero
5) Beastie Boys – Check Your Head

What was the first gig you ever played and was it a success?
Ha. There was nothing successful about our first show. We hadn’t properly researched the venue, it was more of a coffee-house. They weren’t capable of handling our equipment and our volume. We played for 20 minutes and did nothing but create a wall of noise. The bewildered looks on the faces of the few people in the crowd were priceless. We didn’t even get paid afterwards. Good times.

What one piece of criticism has stuck in your mind and was it justified?
Our album is said to include too many varying styles and lack flow. Which is true. However, this was intentional. We wanted to treat each song as it’s own separate entity. Basically create an album of singles, at the expense of flow. We knew it wouldn’t be for everyone.

What one thing has caused you to waste your free time in the past 6 months?
Free cable.

If you weren’t making music, what do you think you’d be doing?
Working as a graphic designer/illustrator. That’s what I was doing before all this. I quite like it.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Fetching cases of beer in a giant cooler for 10 hours straight. Hated it.

We’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
Happy Summer Day Music
1) Moda – Ennio Morricone
2) This Is The Way – Devendra Banhart
3) Beirut – Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)
4) Brian Wilson – Vega-Tables
5) Peter Bjorn and John – Amsterdam

Ten Kens on MySpace

Recently, Canada, after years of Alanis Morisette, Bryan Adams and Shania Twain, has suddenly become the ultimate go to place for good music. They’ve got The Acorn, Broken Social Scene/Feist, The New Pornographers… And Ten Kens. So no pressure then, when it comes to their debut album, determining whether it’ll achieve the dizzyingly high standards set by their incredibly talented contemporaries, or the embarrassing skid mark made by the more dubious end of Canada’s musical spectrum.

Or, maybe rather boringly and predictably, it’ll just fall somewhere in the middle. Not horrific, but not anything that’s going to make you see god either.

Album opener ‘Bearfight’ gallops along nicely once it stops messing about and the vocals kick in. When the distortion kicks it it’s a menacing, heavy track, but as they change back to a cleaner sound, the track starts to sound more like an indie anthem. ‘Downcome Income’ also becomes an entirely different song towards the end as it fades away and then restarts double time into an unchecked instrumental.

It seems that this is a recurring theme through-out the album. By the end of most tracks, the sound has morphed into something completely different that has nothing in common with the start. There’s an underlying sinister feel that makes it hard to really get into this album. The jumpy, stilted nature of the tracks (particularly ‘The Alternate Biker’) means they can drift over you unless you’re paying good attention, otherwise the song’s lasing impression is really only one of bewilderment and wondering what the hell just happened.

On the flip side though, if you give Ten Kens a little love, affection, and concentration, there are some truly great moments on this album. They certainly know how to utilise the humble guitar, from gentle Spanish riffs, to big U2/The Edge like riffs, to over the top overdrive, sometimes in the same song (‘The Whore Of Revelation’).

Another Canadian masterpiece this is, perhaps not. But with each listen something more is uncovered with each track. It won’t hit you instantly, and these certainly aren’t catchy-riff laden 3 minute pop gems. But, as with other recent Canadian exports, the standard is high.
64%

Ten Kens on MySpace

The absolutely brilliant Frightened Rabbit are to release an album of mostly acoustic live versions of (some) songs from their astounding album The Midnight Organ Fight from earlier this year, set for release on October the 21st in the States and sometime in April for the UK. The recordings come from a gig at Captain’s Rest, Glasgow on July 30th this year, with a guest appearance from FatCat label mates The Twilight Sad’s James Graham on ‘Keep Yourself Warm’.

If the Pure Groove in-store they played on Moday is anything to go by, just… oh my god, oh my god.

Tracklisting for Liver! Lung! FR!:
1) The Modern Leper
2) I Feel Better
3) Good Arms vs. Bad Arms
4) Fast Blood
5) Old Old Fashioned
6) The Twist
7) Head Rolls Off
8) My Backwards Walk
9) Keep Yourself Warm
10) Poke
11) Floating in the Forth
12) Who’d You Kill Now?

Photographs by Ama Chana

Well, they really pulled out the stops at the Roundhouse. For their “Colour Your Summer” season, the impressively modern, if slightly sterile Chalk Farm venue has been transformed into something more akin to a high-class Parisien jazz club- thick red curtains draped around an enclosed, intimate circle of candlelit tables, disco balls reflecting the light of a velvet black backdrop sparkling with pure white light, table service on hand all night to refresh your drinks. It’s a shame, then, that the music couldn’t quite live up to the opulence of the venue. New York “gothic-bluegrass” five-piece O’ Death were an enjoyable entrée but the Roundhouse certainly wasn’t the venue to bring the most out of their rowdy, marvelously sinister Appalachian folk. Sprinkling some new tracks in amongst old favourites like ‘Adelita’ and ‘Only Daughter’, it’s always a pleasure to see a band who put so much fierce energy into their performances but in truth it wasn’t a patch on their sublime Luminaire set last year.

Nina Nastasia also failed to live up to expectations. She’s blessed with a wonderfully warm, down-to-earth voice which although lacking in idiosyncracy never fails to impress. But her songwriting, although seldom damagingly clichéd sticks far too closely to the staple folk themes of love and loss and her melodies, although well-crafted, are often unexceptional. An odd setlist, too willing to wallow in mid-tempo filler didn’t help, and for the most part she lacked the arresting intensity of other singer-songwriters of her ilk. Part of that can be blamed on the no-frills set-up (just Nina and her guitar); she was really aching for some backing or even a change of instrument. But I think the more significant problem was her obvious shyness, which also came through in her forced and meandering banter (although getting the lighting man to mess about with the spotlight was a cute touch). It’s a real shame, as she really came to life on a couple of her edgier, darker-tinted numbers that also highlighted her underused talents as a guitarist- a few more of these could have transformed her performance as much as the venue she played in.

The follow-up to Edinburgh-based pianist/composer Max Richter’s last album comes the release of the gorgeous, intriguingly framed 24 Postcards In Full Colour (out in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world on 25 August – US and Canada get it on 23 September). Richter’s music has always seemed transient – like a dream wafting through the room – but his new collection adds another layer to the oeuvre he’s been building for himself since his time with Piano Circus in the 1990s. This time he tackles the oft-vilified musical realm of ringtones. The German-born composer/producer explains his M.O. well: “Thinking about how we listen to music today, I wondered why it is that ringtones have so far been treated as unfit for creative music… Who says ringtones have to be bad? It’s like saying LPs or CDs are bad – its just a medium.”

When the Internet’s tubes weren’t clogged, Kyle Lemmon interviewed Richter about his most recent explorations in sound. Subjects ranged from the upcoming premiere of 24 Postcards, to the allure of analogue technology and the touching story behind one of the songs off his new collection of classical ringtones.

What are you up to today?
I’m working on some sketches for a film I’m scoring – a fascinating drama about a honour killing – heavy stuff but beautifully made…though its always tough working when the sun is shining

I know you’re a very big fan of Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami from your last two albums. You’ve said before that you are fascinated by Murakami’s ability to make ordinary things magical. In many respects your music’s incorporation of found sounds employs the same base theory. Why do you see that as something musically important in this post-modern era where we are often at arms-length from reality?
I’m fascinated by the ways stories work on our imagination – I think of my music as really more like a branch of fiction writing – only written in music rather than text.

Tell me a little bit about your childhood after being born in Germany and moving to the UK? What did you enjoy as a young boy as far as hobbies outside of music?
I was a typically nerdy child – music music music. When not practising the piano for hours on end, I had the soldering iron out and was pulling apart some old synth.

24 Postcards in Full Colour is such a novel and timely concept. How and when did you first begin constructing it in your mind? Was there a particular event that sparked its genesis?
I just started to wonder how come all the tones I was hearing around me seemed to be so bland – why weren’t we thinking about this as an opportunity for music performance? It just seemed like a waste…

The ringtones certainly sound like lullabies (especially ‘Cradle Song for A interstate B3′). Since artists sometimes describe the creative process as trying to piece together bits of a dream how have dreams affected your waking life?
Writing music is a sort of dreaming out loud, thats true. Partly I find that the best things come together when I have really no idea what is going on with a project – a kind of hallucination sets in and ideas just pop up.

Since it seems so appropriate what do you have as your ring tone on your cell phone?
A fragment of Stravinsky – from Pulcinella.

Is it true that you use live sampling for your performances? If yes, why do you feel that is the best route for an electronic artist to follow?
I don’t use sampling live actually – there are a lot of electronics in my shows though – but they are more generated on the fly and played live. I think live performances need to be just that – as really live as possible.

Have the logistics changed for live sampling at all since you performed with Piano Circus? Any differences?
Everything is in the computers now! When we started with this stuff in Piano Circus it was a big rack of equipment each!

You recently played at Union Chapel with Jóhann Jóhannsson – an artist that often gets mentioned with your name in critical circles. What do you find personally resonating about Jóhannsson’s music? You’ve certainly followed a similar career trajectory.
I enjoy Jóhann’s work – I’m especially fond of Virthulego Forsetar – which is very beautiful.

[Virthulego Forestar is Jóhannsson second album on Touch Records. It contains a hour-long piece for 11 brass players, percussion, electronics, organs and piano.]

Actually I feel that, though there are similarities in what we are doing, there are at least as many differences – that is what really came across to me at the Union Chapel.

Many of your albums deal with the concept of memories or the lost snippets of them that we all claw at during our lifetimes. What is one memory that you wish you could remember it in its entirety?
Actually the partial nature of memory is what appeals to me most about it – by nature it is fragmentary and imperfect.

Why do you think ringtones have been sort of vilified in popular culture? Is it mainly the matter of sensory overload at this point?

Two reasons:
Crazy Frog

Let’s talk about the premiere of the 24 Postcards in Full Colour piece. How is that installation coming along? Tell me a little bit how it will all work as far as people playing back the pieces on their phones.
I am developing the technical side of this just now – people will log into the site, be sent the file, set it as their sms alert sound, and then just show up at the venue and receive the texts to trigger the sounds.

So the ‘audience’ is also the ‘orchestra.’ I’m looking forward to playing these shows…

For the collection’s microsite are the photographs going to be taken by many people or one artist?
The images are at the moment mainly by me and some friends of mine – I can imagine including other material though as things evolve.

Henry Purcell (a composer that I feel has a footprint on this collection) certainly wasn’t afraid to play with conceptions and genre barriers between stately church music and the theatre music. Do you feel the same sort of incentive to break down any remaining walls between classical music and electronica? Are there any walls at this point?
Not in my mind. I think its a completely personal thing though – mainly to do with how people listen, and what they bring to the music they hear…their notions of what falls inside and outside their own musical culture – these are very personal questions.

Ultimately i can’t really think about those things since its impossible to please every liestener – so I try write completely where the idea takes me.

Part of the allure of these new pieces and certainly your oeuvre is that aren’t simply rote mimesis of nature – classical music’s enduring stamp. Electronic music’s snapshot of modern chaos seems to be filtered through electronic equipment that are purposefully unreliable musical narrators. With the additions of found shortwave radio; vinyl clicks, and dust on these tracks what about nature are you trying to convey or deflect?
I enjoy the vulnerability of broken things, they seem to convey a sense of their own histories in their imperfections. This is part of the allure of analogue technology – it has a narrative quality inherent in it’s fragility. The noise that is on my records is an inevitable result of the various processes i go through to achieve the textures on the records – not something added as an afterthought. I guess its a slightly [John] Cageian way of thinking about the content – equal rights for ‘content’ and ‘noise’!

It’s easy to assign your music a strictly archetypal role, because of its grandiosity, but I’m sure there are some biographical elements or back-stories that we as listeners don’t pick up on. Is that the case for 24 Postcards in Full Colour?
Every track has a personal story for me – they are fragments of experience in a way – for example ‘Lullaby for the West Coast Sleepers’ was recorded in the far north west of Scotland, in the weird mid summer midnight light, while the children slept in the next room…so i had to play it really quietly! Though, I think that other people’s associations to these tracks will be more interesting than mine!

Your album covers always have striking grainy photos. Who took the photo for 24 Postcards? And where was it taken?
They are part of a continuing photographic process – just randomly snapping things wherever I am – also including pictures taking in the same spirit by friends of mine – the cover image is by Nyika Jancso

What is one of the biggest things you you hope to achieve with this new collection?
I can’t think in that way really – I can’t help writing this music – its really a compulsive obsessive thing!

24 Postcards can certainly be presented with varying tracklist orders. Do you think the all-powerful aegis of an album’s flow has shifted to self-contained individual songs in this Internet and cellular age?
The tracklisting is totally random – I don’t think of the CD as definitive in any way at all – its more like a ‘listening version’ of this material.

This is a total contrast to my previous albums which were composed starting at the beginning and track by track to the end.

How did you go about assembling the group of musicians for 24 Postcards. How long did it take to record?
It’s my usual wonderful band – we put it together over a few months at various sessions.

[Richter (piano), is joined on stage by Louisa Fuller (violin), Robert Mc Fall (violin), Natalia Bonner (violin), John Metcalfe (Viola), Ian Burdge (Cello), Chris Worsey (Cello), Sua Lee (Cello), and Preston Reed (Guitar).]

What audio tools were you really excited to work with on this new release?
Mostly ones that were absolutely the latest thing in 1972. 16 track 2 inch tape as always!

[Max also used a string quintet, solo piano, the aforementioned 16 track 2 inch tape, transistors, found shortwave radio, vinyl clicks, dust, scratches and rumble; and acoustic guitars.]

I find it commendable that you continue to limit your selection of instruments for each new release. It shows some definite restraint that pays off but is there another underlying purpose?
I try to do the most I can with the smallest number of elements – it feels like the right way to go for me – I guess im a minimalist at heart.

Do you have any plans on touring outside of the UK?
I’m playing the Unsound Festival in October in Poland.

How is your family doing? I was reading an interview you did with Boomkat where you mentioned your son raiding your CDs from your studio. He certainly showed some burgeoning (possibly random) good taste for a six-year-old with selections like The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois. haha
The kids do rock indeed.

Links
[myspace] [official] [label]

They’re one of our new favourite bands. They’re the missing link between Idlewild and The Wedding Present. They’re going to be huge. They’re Frightened Rabbit. That’s all you need to know… apart from the answers to our recently revamped 20 Questions…

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Nice thick jumper.
2. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
Vanilla Ice, the first (although sadly not last) album. I probably bought it in John Menzies before WHSmith barged in and ruined everything.
3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
1 glass bottle of Irn Bru and two Sainsbury’s scotch eggs.
4. What’s on your rider?
See above…
5. How do you get ready for a live show?
I like to turn the lights on and off three times in the dressing room before heading to the stage whilst counting the steps and clicking my fingers with each step singing ‘there’s somebody at the door’ over and over in my head.
6. What’s your favourite song to play live?
“Be Less Rude” (single out November on Fatcat records on 65″ vinyl and 1cm compact disc…).
7. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Cutting down trees.
8. Who would win in a fight, a stoat or a goat and why?
I actually saw a stoat fighting a goat once. Apparently the stoat had been beating on the goat’s kid. It was a walkover i’m afraid. Goat got game.
9. What was the last album you bought?
Vanilla Ice the first (though sadly not last) album.
10. If you could rid the world of one song – what would it be?
“Go Go Girls” by Frightened Rabbit. Not a fan.
11. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
I’ve been told Paul Giamatti would be a perfect fit.
12. Dead or alive. What 5 acts would you have play with you at a festival?
I would have Lil Chris, Simply Red, Dandy Warhols, 30 Seconds To Mars and Lily Allen. They would all be dead at my festival.
13. If push comes to shove, what is your all-time favourite album?
Brendan Benson – Lapalco.
14. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
We haven’t clocked up that many miles and stories as yet, but there was the time when we all took our trousers down in a hotel elevator in Salt Lake City only to be confronted by stern security guard as the doors slid open. He said ‘Get ya damn trousers on and go to your room’. Very fair.
15. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
The time I dyed my hair blonde. The fabulous jobby I took this morning. The night I killed Lil Chris.
16. What’s the best piece of advice someone has ever given you and did you take notice?
Stay away from that dog. It bites. I stayed away and did not get bitten.
17. If you had to leave a body part to science, what would it be?
The baby growing out of my side.
18. What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?
Book: The Big British Book of Birds Film: Teen Witch
19. What three things could you not live without?
The Wire, wire wool and the word ‘the’.
20. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I am a lifelong…….

Links
Frightened Rabbit [official site] [myspace] [tlobf loves...]

When our friends over at Fat Cat records started talking about frightened rabbits I was a bit concerned. Perhaps their water had become contaminated with LSD or they’d been watching some random remake of Watership Down. However, it was cleared up when a CD popped through my letter box and it became apparent that Frightened Rabbit was, in fact, a band who were releasing their debut single “Be Less Rude”.

It was clear from the first time I played it that I was falling in love. The lyrics delivered in a winning Scottish lilt, friends of the Twilight Sad and a love for all things indie rock, it was a perfect combination. “Be Less Rude” has all the hallmarks of a great indie-pop record. The opening riff should have Johnny Marr on the phone asking if he can have this signature guitar tune back. The vocals pained at the realisation that you’ve now fallen in love with a girl who’s frightfully rude, and who you might also have offended in previous meetings. There’s also a touch of The Wedding Present to it’s crashing guitars that mount up as the song progresses, the resignation in the vocals strikingly similar to David Gedge.

Flip side “The Greys” proves they’re no one trick pony either. It’s a futher charge of electric guitars that rush out of your speakers, coming on like Idlewild at their earliest, aggressive selves. The song lamenting those days when you just can’t get from underneath a dark cloud that’s following you around.

Do yourself a favour, hunt these guys down. Don’t wait though; the wave of support is growing. Listening to 6Music the other night and Mark Riley is already on about booking them for his show. If he has his way, they’d never leave, so make sure you catch them before they get locked in his cupboard.

Click here to view the embedded video.

mp3:> Frightened Rabbit: “Music Now”
[From Sing The Greys; 19th Nov 2007 Fat Cat] ]]> http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2007/10/tlobf-loves-frightened-rabbit/feed/ 2