Truckers of Husk, who now include Kelson Mathias (ex-Jarcrew and Future Of The Left) amongst their talented angular ranks, are probably gutted about Sony’s recent decision to cease production on the ol’ cassette walkman – but we needn’t be!

Their new single, ‘Awesome Tapes From Africa’ (backed by the quite brilliant ‘Person for The Person’) is out available on cassette via the bands blog. On purchase of the cassette, you’ll automatically receive the mp3′s of the single, meaning you’ll actually be able to listen to the tracks without pretending you’re old skool enough to still own a tape deck.

Added bonus: place twelve individual tapes together to create a free elephant (see above)! Downside: may be hard to reconstruct this image without buying every single tape.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Realisations on the Sunday of Truck 2010 – 15 year-old girls were one of the biggest demographics at the festival for some reason, being asked by 17 year-old lads to buy booze from the bars for them makes me feel old, and waking up in a tent is as horrible as ever, starting my day with fitful stop-start sleep which would have made me madder than a sackful of angry badgers if it wasn’t for my sunny disposition and having been at such a serene festival.

Despite the unpleasantly early opening to my morning on the second main day of Truck 13, a number of petty distractions meant that the first band we really got to grips with was one Keyboard Choir at the Beathive, by then quickly becoming my favourite stage due to how fantastically bijou it is. It’s like being played to in half a grassy-floored golf ball, fractionally larger than normal, with coloured drapes hanging from the ceiling. Yeah. Unfortunately, I was less than impressed with Keyboard Choir, which to me consisted of a few blokes making a hell of a lot of electronic noise and not a lot of music, whilst failing to infect the crowd with their admirable manic enthusiasm.

Far, far better was Miaoux Miaoux, aka Glasgow’s Julian Corrie, who the afternoon’s next entry on the same stage. Completely unknown to me, Miaoux had the subtlety that Keyboard Choir lacked, and really impressed with his one-man-band skills, deftly looping and returning to his guitar as he laid out tunes on his keyboard. After the serious lack of artist-talk which had afflicted Saturday, Corrie was happily talkative, sounding genuinely happy to be at Truck – something he projected onto the few of us lucky enough to see him. He might even have pipped Visions of Trees to be my favourite act on the Beathive all weekend – thoroughly recommended.

Wild Nothing

After a little wander around and some well-timed sustenance courtesy of the incredibly friendly and well-organised Rotary Club staff (well I say courtesy, it did cost money), we found ourselves at the Truck stage catching the end of The Flowers of Hell. By 2pm it was very, very hot and I think I was a little heat-hazed but I vaguely recalled hearing of this “trans-Atlantic rock orchestra” before. Their sizeable squad helped them fulfil the “big band” niche Bellowhead had filled out so expertly the night before, and whilst they were a little tricky to get our heads round from the off, I chalked their cerebral rock up as something to check out later. A Silent Film, arguably one of Oxford’s best bands at the moment, followed Flowers onto the main stage. I’d seen these anthemic pop-rockers twice before three years ago, so I was eager to see how they’d developed. Suffice it to say I was more than impressed, especially by their enduringly huge choruses. They’ve had an album out for a while, The City That Sleeps, although I confess I’ve yet to hear it.

We next saw Summer Camp, of whom I was almost suspicious. I’d been turned off by the huge hype and the anonymity, and had only given them a serious listen just before arriving at Truck, not quite seeing the majesty of their warm, nostalgic but unspectacular popositions. Elisabeth Sankey’s sheer niceness made me warm to them right away though – “sorry about the wait” she said, “it’s all about tension”. Indeed, after half an hour, niceness was the main impression I had of the band. Through that and their tidy professionalism, they’d gone up a notch in my book, even if I’m yet to be convinced that the songs are worth shouting about from the rooftops, or even the ground floor windows, if I’m honest.

By about 5:30, we were really excited. We were entering probably the most exciting phase of the whole festival, which we would have to begin by choosing between Egyptian Hip Hop, Los Campesinos! and Pulled Apart By Horses. As formatting gives away, we went for the latter, who were playing in the Barn and we soon found to be being watched by a surprising number of really small children, probably more than in any other non-Truck stage set we’d seen. It was a good job the kids had earmuffs, mind, as not surprisingly the men from Leeds launched into a hellishly heavy set, with some jumping which would have even Nicky Wire envious. The earmuffs came in handy again for the swearing, too…

In a curious echo of past tour support slots, Horses were followed by the single band I was most excited to see, the mighty Welshmen Future of the Left. “You should be ashamed of yourselves” Andy Falkous quipped, “on the Lord’s day!” As I hoped, they played a stormer. Whilst the good folks at NME saw fit to more or less completely make the set list up, I can assure you that Falco and co played, amongst other things, “adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood”, “Arming Eritrea” and an awesome, hilarious rendition of Mcclusky’s beloved “Lightsaber Cocksucking Blues”, which was introduced as having been “made famous by Suede”. There was the wearing of army helmets thrown in by the crowd, there were great Welsh accents – you had to be there.

Pulled Apart By Horses

Conventionally, you’d never expect anyone to be able to top Future of the Left’s set, but we knew better in the sense that we knew Fucked Up were on next. Undoubtedly, Future were better musically but as an experience, the arrival of the Canadian post-hardcore band shook up the festival like nothing else. The Chemistry of Common Life remains a stunning record, but the songs from it were near-unrecognisable in live performance. The massive multitracked guitars of the record just can’t be replicated live, so this was an incredibly loud bastardisation of the band’s “real” sound. But don’t get me wrong – the set was excruciatingly good. Pink Eyes, the band’s amply big-boned frontman, is simply an absolutely extraordinary presence. He lurked around the stage at first, in a cap and t-shirt, only appearing on stage seconds before he needed to start roaring his intelligent, philosophical, but sadly inaudible lyrics. Before long he’d smashed a coke can into his head until he bled, stripped to his waist, and was wandering around amongst the blown-away crowd while the kids ran around their circle pit. He had to be careful, he explained, as “I notice that the crowd is pretty young and I’m a fairly large person. If I fell I’d kill three kids.” He had the packed room in his hands, completely and utterly. Everything he said was memorable – he thanked the security team for being “cool” and not shutting the band down, and told the frantic kids that above all, they should look after each other, make sure no-one was hurt. And they actually did – they high-fived and hugged. A staggering, unforgettable set.

No offence meant to Teenage Fanclub. They’re a professional, experienced band, totally deserving to headline festivals, but to a large extent by the time we caught the second half of their set the festival was over for us. Having seen Fucked Up, we felt like we’d been caught in a nuclear strike, putting us in a kind of happily catatonic daze, the Fannies were just a bit too sobering to wake us from.

And so ended Truck 13. I’m thrilled to have been there – this is an easy festival, a welcoming, family friendly, almost impeccably well-organised event, and yet for all that the music is never compromised, is always seen as the first priority. The mix of bands was fantastic and you could hardly wish for a more complete, enjoyable weekend. Far from an aimless layabout, Truck is a teenager that knows exactly where it’s going, and long may it continue.

Truck Monster

It was yesterday announced via a MySpace blog post that Future of the Left bassist, Kelson Mathias, was to be leaving the band with immediate effect. The blog post, which was a ‘goodbye’ message from Kelson himself, was soon followed by a second blog post from front-man Andrew ‘Falco’ Falkous confirming the news and outlining future plans.

Kelson said: “I’d just like to say thanks to everyone that’s supported me in this band over the past 5 years, everyone that I’ve met at shows all over the world and all the bands I’ve had the pleasure to play gigs with.”, continuing “I’d like to wish Andy and Jack the best for the future.”

The second post, written by ex-mclusky member and FOTL front-man Falco, stated that the band was “sad, happy, annoyed and relieved at the same time” at the departure of Kelson , also wishing his ex band-mate “good luck” and hoping that he “flourishes in whatever he ends up doing, unless it’s monster truck racing”. Steven Hodson, of Oceansize and Kong, will be “filling in” Kelson’s bass roll.

Falco also revealed that writing for the Cardiff band’s highly anticipated third studio album was well under way, and that a new member, whose role was to “play guitar and act like a fucking maniac”, had been involved in this writing process, though didn’t reveal who this elusive fourth member was.

The blog post revealed the following confirmed dates, and also promised more announcements to follow:

June
03 Rainbow, – Birmingham, UK
04 The Lexington – London,
05 580’s – Nottingham, UK
09 Tours Aucard de Tours Festival (main stage) – France

July
08 Pula Marelica Club, Art & Music Festival, Croatia
16 2000 Trees Festival – Cheltenham, UK
17 Central Station – Wrexham, UK
18 Moho Live, Aftershow Club – Manchester, UK
25 Trust Fest (barn stage) – Oxford, UK

A handful of acts have been announced for this years Truck Festival which is to take place at Hill Farm, Steventon on July 23rd – 25th.

The first thirteen bands to be revealed for the three day event are: Mew, Esben and The Witch, Egyptian Hip Hop, Fonda 500, Future Of The Left, Good Shoes, Lau, Little Fish, Los Campesinos!, Ms Dynamite, Stornoway, This Town Needs Guns and DJ Zinc.

More artists will be revealed over the coming months. Weekend tickets are on sale now priced at a modest £80, daily tickets are also available. More info here.

Lists upon lists, upon lists… It really IS that time of the year. We’ve been keeping ours closely under-wraps, but now the time is here to unveil TLOBF’s Albums of 2009!

This year, we got each of our writers to nominate their favourite albums of the year, we counted up the votes, and spewed forth the results below. Easy. Always discussion points, I think our Top 10 is certainly one of the most consistently great lists for a number of years. It’s FELT like a good year for music and, despite or, indeed, because of, the rampant consumerism and X-Factor dominating charts, 2009 has felt pretty fresh. Anyway, enough of my ramblings, here we go…

Key: read TLOBF review // listen on Spotify

50. Why? – Eskimo Snow
49. There Will Be Fireworks – There Will Be Fireworks
48. Teeth of the Sea – Orphaned by the Ocean
47. Sufjan Stevens – The B.Q.E.
46. Steven R Smith – Cities

45. Slow Club – Yeah So
44. Pink Mountaintops – Outside Love
43. Noah and the Whale – First Days Of Spring
42. My Latest Novel – Deaths And Entrances
41. Mount Eerie – Wind’s Poem

40. Micachu – Jewellery
39. Mew – No More Stories
38. Grammatics – Grammatics
37. Florence + The Machine – Lungs
36. David Sylvian – Manafon

35. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle
34. Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light
33. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz
32. St. Vincent – Actor
31. Manic Street Preachers – Journal for Plague Lovers

30. Loney Dear – Dear John
29. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
28. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
27. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
26. Russian Circles – Geneva

25. Future of the Left – Travels with Myself and Another
“The brevity and controlled fury of the songs and of the album as a whole keeps you constantly coming back. A very, very accomplished rock album.”
- Andy Johnson | June 2009

24. We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls
“Imagine if the Twilight Sad weren’t writing songs about their childhood and school years, but actually living them, and making that same epic sound, but with all the exuberance of youth.”
- Adam Nelson | June 2009

23. Pains of Being Pure At Heart – Pains of Being Pure At Heart
“It won’t change the world and it’s not trying to, but sometimes it’s necessary to stand up and assert the importance of the things in one’s own little corner of the world.”
- Angelica Tatam | February 2009

22. Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More
“Mumford & Sons ideals and personal philosophy seep through the lyrics of the record to make it a far deeper and overall more rewarding listen than those made by their more chart-friendly peers.”
- Andrew Grillo | October 2009

21. The Leisure Society – The Sleeper
“The Leisure Society take you on an awe-inspiring musical adventure.”
- Lauren Down | March 2009

20. The Horrors – Primary Colours
“Simply put, Primary Colours is the most satisfying surprise that 2009 is likely to deliver.”
- Alex Wisgard | May 2009

19. Girls – Album
“Album proves that Girls might just be the greatest sixties revivalists there has been since the Brian Jonestown Massacre.”
- Alex Wisgard | October 2009

18. Fanfarlo – Reservoir
“Aside from the lush production and ornamentation, these are simply great songs. Ease your feet up and let Fanfarlo take some of the burden for you.”
- Matt Poacher | June 2009

17. Do Make Say Think – Other Truths
“Managing to place itself as a pleasing progression for established fans and an interesting introduction for new listeners. Another fantastic forty-three minutes to shut yourself away with.”
- Peter Bloxham | October 2009

16. Bat For Lashes – Two Suns
“Arguably one of Britains leading talents at a time when most (that’s most not all) of the interesting and alternative music is being made across the Atlantic, we really should cherish her.”
- Andrew Grillo | March 2009

15. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
“Wilco have never put out a bad record, and Wilco (The Album) furthers this thesis. What’s more significant is the fact that the band knows as much. Wilco’s command of its own songwriting is as adept as any band in music, then or now.”
- Steve Lampiris | July 2009

14. Volcano Choir – Unmap
“Refreshingly inventive…stirs the emotions.”
- Leah Pritchard | September 2009

13. The Antlers – Hospice
“A spectral, messily humane work that is as sophisticated as it is affecting.”
- Tyler Boehm | November 2009

12. Fontän – Winterhwila
“Inventive and beguiling… Surely grounds for Fontän to warrant a chapter in the inevitable hot blooded tribute to the ever surprising and delighting Swedish music scene of the early 21st century.”
- Laura Snapes | September 2009

11. Atlas Sound – Logos
“An album that needs to be taken as a whole, it’s mood simply doesn’t lend to being chopped and changed. Suffice to say, it might be my favourite Cox release yet. Now that’s something special.”
Adam Nelson | November 2009

10. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
Wild Beasts’ sophomore effort Two Dancers tones down some of the old world camp and eccentricty of their debut without sacrificing any of their singular character. Frontman Hayden Thorpe’ gymnastic falsetto is still there but somehow less of a ‘deal-breaker’, tempered as much by tighter song structures as a reigning-in of their oddball personality. If singing about revelrous modern Britain with a romantic melancholy and humourous eye recalls The Smiths, musically Wild Beasts are also informed by the 1980s ‘Brit jangle’ of Morissey & Co and the propulsive basslines of New Order. There’s lush, epic pop (‘We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues’), dreamy sensuality (‘When I’m Sleepy’), twilight ghostliness (‘Underbelly’), the album is a heady emotional experience, ranging from the achingly nostalgic to the jauntily redemptive – particularly the raffish roll call to “Girls from Shipley, girls from Hounslow” on ‘All the King’s Men’. If you had lost belief in British indie, this is the best place to rekindle your faith.
- James Dalrymple

09. Japandroids – Post-Nothing
The first thing that hits you is the energy of it all. It’s difficult to believe that two people can create this much noise, so the comparisons to Death From Above 1979 are obvious. However, ‘You’re a woman, I’m a machine’ was heavy on bass riffs, Post nothing is a mixture of lo-fi and noise pop. There’s even a hint of humour in there, with opening track ‘The boys are leaving town’ being the perfect thudding antidote to its polished, dad-rock counterpart. In short, it’s an album about being young, and you can hear the passion and intensity running throughout. Live, they’re just as good and it’s hard to feel anything but compassion for two men who’ve made such a tight, compact record filled with lines like “You’re as cold as ice, girl/I should know, I’ve been to the north pole”. Chaotic, messy and utterly, utterly brilliant.
- Matthew Britton

08. Fever Ray – Fever Ray
Karin Dreijer Andersson, the witchier side of brother-sister duo The Knife, slip-skidded back onto our radar with this mechanically-minded dystopian disk, three years after the release of brooding synth-classic Silent Shout. No solo project could have come from a better place. Fever Ray takes a running jump from that cosier womb, peels back the duo’s dancier skins, and plumbs icier depths of the same alien waters. Producing what is undoubtedly one of the most melancholically personal releases of the year, female Swedish artists don’t get more extreme than Karin. Monstrous distortions see her stretched into a Mongolian throat-singer or a gravel-voiced phantom, a fitting herald for the menacing choruses and shivering industrial synths. From the girlish fantasies on ‘When I Grow Up’ to the uncensored cabin fever cries on ‘Concrete Walls’, this record is both inward-looking dream vision and outward-facing excavation. Rarely do we want to listen again and again to death, decay and dirty swimming pools.
- Rosie Jackson

07. The Twilight Sad – Forget The Night Ahead
Forget The Night Ahead found Scotland’s most serious young men using the critical success of debut Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters as a springboard to make a record even deeper, darker and more brutal. While their debut found an almost gleeful abandon in it’s intensity, this follow up was perhaps even more terrifyingly claustrophobic. James Graham’s Glaswegian brogue here recounted tales of “the people downstairs” and sounded at his most content as he promised “you and I will bury them all”. It was clear that the teenage discontent that had previously dominated his lyrics had matured somewhat. From the serrated shards of guitar that envelope lead single ‘I Became A Prostitute’ to the doom laden piano of ‘The Room’ this was a second album that was dense and initially impenetrable but numerous listens revealed glimmers of hope and eventually proved itself engagingly vital.
- Andrew Grillo

06. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix have been darlings of the indie and beautiful set since Alphabetical in 2004, but until this year the albums never seemed to live up to the singles or the band’s sexy aura. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is the sort of definitive statement that comes when a band embraces its sound in a big way. From ‘Lisztomania’ to ‘Girlfriend’, Phoenix stay locked in on their own brand of disco rock: instantly memorable melodies sung with a slight melancholy and the faintest French accent dart through bright synths and sharp guitars, while the laser-focus rhythm section keeps each song as danceable as it is cathartic. It isn’t that Phoenix is doing anything different than before, it’s just that on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart they do it better.
- Tyler Boehm

05. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
Following the bizarre intensity of Street Horrsing, sophomore effort Tarot Sport was very much the altered beast. Cruising along crushing waves of euphoric static, it’s an album characterised by luscious, spectral interludes and starlight melodies dancing around gargantuan planets and black holes. Both bleak and panoramic, rangy masterpieces ‘Space Mountain’ and ‘Surf Solar’ demanded their own gravitational pull – their insistent electronic pummel succeeding to orbital sound waves that energise the air around you, infinitely marching onwards into the next Solaris film score. Fuck Buttons instilled a surging beauty and harnessed a permeating, lucid power in Tarot Sport that few albums rarely possess – it was the transcendent siren call of oblivion, bewitching and beguiling you, enticing you to lose yourself in its dreamy vista. “Create your own narrative,” they said. And from the glorious slow motion dramatics of ‘Olympians’ to the fizzing synth-fuelled junkyard clatter of ‘Rough Steez’, Tarot Sport’s sonic monsters indulgently deliver on an album of truly biblical proportions.
- Reef Younis

04. The xx – xx
The xx were indisputably the buzz band of the year in 2009. They arrived so perfectly formed that people muttered about them being some put-together producer project, but scraping beneath the surface just revealed a huge songwriting talent, a minimalist’s knack for leaving out the right sounds as well as putting them in, and an intriguing empathic childhood friends story at the band’s core. The album, xx, smoulders away beautifully and wears it’s influences on it’s sleeve, coming on like a stripped-down Cure playing passages from the reverb-ridden hits of Chris Isaak. xx is a perfect late night record – sensual, subtle and spacious. Practically perfect, in fact.
- John Brainlove

03. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Surging from Brooklyn in a tangle of primary colours and wacked-out harmonies, Dirty Projectors continued to stake their claim as The Most Exciting Band In Indie Rock Right Now with the triumphant Bitte Orca, who’s skewed, oddly mathematical guitar lines, fluttering croon and yelping, sprawling female harmonies proved itself the most compelling listen of 09. At first listen, Bitte Orca may seem like an artsy, undisciplined mess, but repeat listens reveals a taut logic behind Longstreth’s chaos, each guitar chime perfectly refracted by an impenetrable wall of caterwauls, courtesy of Amber and Angel. It’s no surprise then that such an off-kilter gem of an album has been lauded by almost every artist with a creative bone inside them – it’s sprawling influence ranging from from Icelandic chanteuse Bjork, who performed with Dirty Projectors in New York, to a collaboration with David Byrne and a highly-bloggable R&B re-work of ‘Stillness is The Move’ courtesy of Beyoncés quirky kid sister Solangé.
- Katherine Rodgers

02. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
It’s warm, it’s inviting, it’s joyful. Merriweather Post Pavilion is Animal Collective’s “pop” album. From the arena-size synth line of opener ‘In The Flowers’ to the swirling samples of ‘Bluish,’ it’s obvious that Merriweather is meant to be AC’s definitive record, a towering statement of candid existentialism: one level of enjoyment is the collection’s propinquity to humanity via childhood glee. That is to say, the songs haven’t become any less complex than previous outings (so some might take a listen or two to stick); instead AC paints its dense compositions with kid’s eyes, something not seen from the band in a long while. When Avey Tare sings, “I want to walk around with you” during the wonderfully elated ‘Summertime Clothes,’ you know he’s being nothing less than swear-on-the-Bible honest. Few albums of the year are able to satisfy listeners immediately while simultaneously rewarding them with repeat spins. Merriweather is one of those. Hell, it’s the best one.
- Steve Lampiris

01. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
It’s hard to be subtle when the entire music world is waiting to hear your record. But Grizzly Bear managed to not let the hype or anticipation affect them in any way, exceeding all of our grand expectations with the lush elegance of Veckatimest, which is so warm and inviting an album that the only thing inscrutable about it is the title. The songs are gorgeous and restrained; never reaching for anything more ambitious than their structure allows while crafting a sense of tranquility that still requires the listeners full attention. While ‘Two Weeks,’ ‘While You Wait For The Others’ and ‘Cheerleader’ garner most of the accolades, its the luxurious deeper cuts like ‘All We Ask,’ ‘Ready, Able’ and ‘Foreground’ that really makes Veckatimest a complete triumph. The production of Chris Taylor is understated and unobtrusive throughout, with the sonic flourishes added only to vitalize a mood or a movement while never getting in the way of the true spirit of the songs. Grizzly Bear have created a work of graceful refinement and tender charm that comes as close to being flawless as any record this year, without ever once trying to be perfect.
- Erik Thompson

Tonight is the second event of the A Fistful of Fandango 3 indoor festival. Residing at the 229, this line-up certainly promises to be the one that will leave you going deaf, and if there’s anyone in doubt it’s evening openers Kong who give the majority of the 229’s smaller room a heavy case of tinnitus. But it’s not just an aural assault the trio give us – disguised in eerie masks and wearing scrappy red clothing that gives the impression that this is a band that saw what Slipknot were doing 10 years ago, and stamped an eccentric British stamp all over it. Frontman ‘Magpie’ threatens cold blooded murder with his wild eyes and grinding voice, and the songs themselves must be what it’s like to be trapped inside a psychopathic, schizophrenic serial killer’s mind. Seriously off-kilter and troubling, Kong have already cemented themselves as something you just have to see before you shuffle your mortal coil.


White Belt, Yellow Tag

After that ear-bleeding experience, the audience idles into the cavernous main room to catch Justin Lockey’s new project, White Belt, Yellow Tag, to see if they’re anything like the much missed Yourcodenameis:milo. However, you would be more likely to see U2 filing a case for plagiarism with their set sounding far too similar to the aging arena rockers. And with the rather unchallenging music there is little to cover up the lacklustre performance on stage, despite drummer Tom Bellamy’s rather flamboyant drumming style, his arms flailing about like he was on fire. There’s a palpable sense in the audience tonight that all they really wanted was to have something like YCI:M back in their lives, and instead they get this?

Dinosaur Pile Up

Next up on the main stage is another band making more than a few rumblings around this tiny island. Dinosaur Pile Up are exciting, full of energy and certainly not shy on their debut EP The Most Powerful EP In The Universe. But up on the stage tonight their music seems drained and tired, lacking a lot of the vitality that they captured on that EP. On the fairly large stage there seems to be a touch of nerves that just inhibit their performance tonight, but it’s still early days for them at the moment.

Kong

To close the night’s fandango-ing, on comes one of the UK’s brightest talents yet. You can take your Arctic Monkeys’, your You Me At Six’s and especially your Reverend and the Makers’ and insert them politely up your bottom. Future of the Left have been working this country like a maltreated dog for a long time now, and still they consistently throw all they have to offer to the baying crowds. This is a crowd that includes kids in pink shirts shouting abuse at every point the band isn’t playing their heart-pounding, stomach vibrating set, and that’s just fine for frontman Andrew Falkous, who tears petulant fashionistas like these apart with nonchalant, and devastating, ease.

Future of the Left

With a set very heavy on recent release Travels With Myself And Another, the music is punchy, violent and concise, lending itself well to a high octane combination of moshing and dancing from the various expectant faces in the crowd. Security guards tut and mutter to themselves as bassist Kelson Mattias takes over the Roland for the foundation shaking ‘You Need Satan More Than He Needs You’. The now par for the course set closer ‘Cloak The Dagger’ doesn’t end in as much destruction as usual due to the neck achingly high stage, it still sees Mattias making a run for the crowd and disappearing into the night on a wave of rapturous, and incredibly sweaty, applause. Which is quite right really, because if people hadn’t appreciated what they’d just witnessed then, well… there’d be no hope for humanity at all.

Photos by Mike Copus

The guys behind Club Fandango have announced A Fistful of Fandango 3 – the indoor festival taking place at the 229 Venue on London’s Great Portland Street. Occurring between Wednesday September 9th and Saturday September 12th , the headliners have been confirmed as Herman Dune, Art Brut, Future of the Left and Pete & The Pirates.

The full line-up looks something like this…

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH
Main Room Fandango Stage
HERMAN DUNE + EUGENE MCGUINNESS + GAGGLE
Room 2 Schuh New Blood Stage
NEIL’S CHILDREN + FACTORY FLOOR + AN EXPERIMENT ON A BIRD IN THE AIR PUMP

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 10TH
Main Room Fandango Stage
FUTURE OF THE LEFT + DINOSAUR PILE-UP + WHITE BELT YELLOW TAG
Room 2 Schuh New Blood Stage
VICTORIAN ENGLISH GENTLEMEN’S CLUB + KASMS + KONG

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH
Main Room Fandango Stage
PETE & THE PIRATES + GOLDHEART ASSEMBLY
Room 2 Schuh New Blood Stage
FLASHGUNS + VIDEO NASTIES + LR ROCKETS

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12TH
Main Room Fandango Stage
ART BRUT + HATCHAM SOCIAL + THE MOLOTOVS
Room 2 Schuh New Blood Stage
CHAPMAN FAMILY + TELEVISED CRIMEWAVE + LION CLUB

Now nine years old, Summer Sundae established itself long before the term ’boutique festival’ had become common currency. It may be family friendly, clean and urban (Leicester city centre is within walking distance, and one stage is actually in De Montfort Hall) but it stands well apart from the majority of such enterprises, partly by not being in London but also through the likeable atmosphere and the inventiveness of much of the booking. So much so, in fact, that the festival has in recent years developed a reputation for poor headliners and a lively undercard, something Sunday headliners The Zutons weren’t going to do much against this year.
As it turned out, neither were Friday headliners The Streets. A case of swine flu in his band meant Mike Skinner had to pull a weekend’s worth of gigs at 2pm, and it’s testament to the crowd it attracts that for the most part the news was greeted with acceptance. Of a sort, anyway. Plenty of the official notices were having the first two letters of the word ‘unfortunately’ scribbled out by sundown.

Idlewild stepped into the breach as opening day headliners and pulled off a solid if not spectacular set. ‘Everyone Says You’re So Fragile’ and ‘When I Argue I See Shapes’ is as good an opening one-two as you’re likely to ever get from them. If some of the more recent material doesn’t pass muster in such company though, and the crowd seem a little light and quite a bit unprepared, a charge through ‘Roseability’ and a proper stadium moment in ‘American English’ show Woomble and co can really put their all in when the occasion demands.

Elsewhere the main stage saw a lacklustre Mystery Jets include two new songs that seem more watered down from the retro-eclectic curiousities of their work to date and Beardyman‘s more than impressive beatbox skills running low on stickability ten minutes or so into a 45 minute set. More fascinating fare took place elsewhere. Wild Beasts are growing in live stature all the time, investing a set heavy on Two Dancers with life and peculiar groove. múm can come across as austere on record but live turned out to be by turns spine tingling and actively lively. The performance/spoken word venture Phrased & Confused hosted its own marquee and invited Jeremy Warmsley in for a solo set, incorporating covers of Daniel Johnston and Billie Holliday as well as introducing the secret sixth verse of ’5 Verses’ – one that bore a distinct resemblance to the chorus of a well known lachrymose break-up song by our now non-appearing headliners.

Saturday began with a storming set by the partly local Her Name Is Calla, whose dramatic post-rock slow build and crashing crescendos gradually won over a midday audience in some style. In fact the local bands the festival puts on for the experience did well more often than not. Mr Plow deals, in his own words, with “murder ballads and disaster songs”, cut from a Johnny Cash cloth with a storytelling bent as dark as its humour. The city’s current great white hopes Minnaars will hear Foals comparisons from now to kingdom come but bolt on an electronic undertow and a melodic hardcore dynamic. The main stage was too big for them now, not helped by technical issues, but keep an eye out.

There’s plenty on the second day with energy to spare. It’s too easy to say that as a female fronted trio The Joy Formidable – introduced, for some specious reason, with the third word in the French style – bring to mind prime Throwing Muses, but their cathartically dynamic fuzz tones mark out their own territory. The Kabeedies are full of youthful exuberance and silly dancing to complement their odd janglepop, Broken Records‘ Waterboys/Beirut referencing melodrama again suits the live experience more than the studio and Future Of The Left… well, you’d be well advised to stand back some distance from Falco and Kelson at the best of times. Kids down the front formed a pit, middle aged people at the back were seen grinning at the odd lyrical quirk. As it should be. The Charlatans headlined, but I was watching the ATP film in the cinema tent at the time.

It was a day when the singer-songwriters made the best of things too. Emmy The Great shook off some recent variable quality festival sets for a a confident, poised set including a cover of the Carpenters’ ‘End Of The World’ and a complete setlist rejig so she could play a request of ‘Canopies And Drapes’. Frank Turner packed out the Rising tent with devotees, but the plaudits mostly go to the genuine one-off that is David Thomas Broughton. Broughton reminds me of cult Northern chansonnier Jake Thackray, all inscrutable Yorkshire baritone and folky acoustic playing. Then again, there’s the intricate looping, the occasional dissolving into complete dissonance, the feedback solos, the studied tics and completely straight-faced expression throughout the theatrics and the songs of heartbreak. So completely apart from the rest of his supposed field, Broughton live is completely captivating.

Sunday brought another unmissable live experience, but I’ll come back to that. The early running was taken up by two local favourites from different ends of the spectrum, only connected by a love of the noise made by loud guitars. Kevin Hewick has more than thirty years’ service behind him and a footnote in one of Britain’s most covered music stories when he recorded demos with the post-Curtis Joy Division with a view to becoming singer in what became New Order. Fronting a power trio he pulls out serrated “grunge for the over-50s” (his words) like a Midlands Neil Young. Maybeshewill meanwhile take their instrumental post-hardcore/post-rock elegance to the main stage and succeed where lesser bands of the same type might have easily failed, the closing ‘Not For Want Of Trying”s quasi-metal riffs feeling like it could level the whole park. Only Micachu and the Shapes‘ static solos and odd time signatures, not to mention Mica Levi’s newly peroxided hair, is more awkward in its surroundings.

Not something that Woodpigeon will ever do, but their delicately arranged chamber folk seems to develop a new full-blooded textured life in the hall, Beth Jeans Houghton joining them (sporting a mighty blonde afro wig) for a cover of Abba’s ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’. First Aid Kit‘s spectral close harmonies enchanted in a short set including covers of Fleet Foxes and Buffy Sainte-Marie, while Teitur beefed up the awkward arrangements of his album by exposing the darker core. All these are leading up to Bon Iver, not even headlining (again: The Zutons! In August 2009!) but what he says will be his last English gig for a good year, while not as perfect in timing and reception as his celebrated End Of The Road 2008 performance, proves Justin Vernon can still tug at receptive heartstrings. Guitarist Mike Noyce can do it too, taking vocals on a stunning cover of Graham Nash’s ‘Simple Man’, but it’s ‘Re:Stacks’ solo and the now traditional singalong ‘The Wolves (Act I & II)’ that really steal the show.

Or at least, that particular show. For this Sunday of Summer Sundae was essentially divided into three parts: pre-Monotonix, Monotonix, post-Monotonix. Some of us were aware, pre-Monotonix, of the Israeli garage rock trio’s insane dance party live reputation, but actually seeing it unfold in the flesh for an hour – in a half hour slot – was quite another thing. People are jumped on, drinks are summarily redistributed, drums are crowdsurfed on or stood on/played while held up above everyone’s heads and a large plastic bin is brought into play before the drumkit, singer Ami Shalev and most of the crowd relocate themselves to the upper tier for an elevated dance party which is brought to a conclusion only when Shalev jumps off the twenty foot balcony into a sea of arms. He then somehow persuades everyone to sit down in silence for a brief lecture on something or other. By this stage Micachu and co are setting up on the stage behind them, or as much as they dare to before the next tsunami of a pit around the band breaks out. Eventually the plug has to be pulled. In the midst of all this I overhear a security person tell another that the venue couldn’t guarantee the insurance to let them set the kit on fire. If you weren’t there, you were being told about it for the rest of the day.

Perhaps part of their allure this weekend is how ridiculous their booking seemed on a day that also played host to the Lightning Seeds (more popular than you’d imagine) and the Heatonless New Beautiful South. But that’s the joy of Summer Sundae – an atmosphere both laid back and rewarding to the more than casual music fan.

Check out Valerio’s constantly fascinating photography blog LiveOn35mm here.

Fresh from reviewing the new second album from Future of the Left, I leapt at the chance to have a chat with the band’s frontman Andy Falkous. We talked about the writing and sound of Travels With Myself and Another, as well as the complexities of music piracy and merits of the words “ace” and “psyched”.How pleased are you and the rest of the band with the new album?

We’re very very pleased. We did the previous album two years ago, written three years ago, and we were very proud of that record [...], we were particularly inspired at that time and wondered at one stage if we were ever going to better it. But I think after about nine months of doubt when nothing was really happening, all of a sudden we had two months where absolutely everything went right and we wrote about 16 songs in a two month period. Certainly in terms of the band it’s our favourite record, there will be people who prefer the first record which they’re in their rights to do.

You think as a band you managed to top the first album then?

Yeah definitely – I mean not exactly to take it on in its own terms, because Curses is a sort of nastier, more angular record, it’s got sort of more bite to it. I mean this record is just massive, I don’t mean in terms of commercial reach I just mean in terms of the way it sounds, it sounds as if it was recorded in crumbling caverns underneath mountains or something, it’s just sort of this gigantic sound which wasn’t really what we were reaching for, it’s just the way the songs pushed us, I suppose.

It sounds to me like an anxious, sort of agitated album, where do you think that comes from?

You see I was just saying exactly the opposite in the last interview we did – I think Curses sounds like an anxious, aggravated album… I mean I haven’t listened to [the new album] that much, if I’m at my mother’s house and I go for a run or something I’ll put it on, because 33 minutes is the right sort of time to go for a run, but to me it sounds incredibly confident and it has it’s natty little moments, don’t get me wrong – stupid little lyrics about dinosaurs and the like, but anxious isn’t something I get from it, to be quite honest with you.

Fair enough… it’s funny that you mention that dinosaur lyric (on “Yin / Post-Yin”) because that’s always one of the ones that stands out for me. There are quite a few surreal moments like that aren’t there, lyrically speaking?

Yeah absolutely. And it’s the only way it can be for us really, trying to write about the things which are important to you, unfortunatelyyou can end up sounding very worthy and po-faced. And obviously there are songs on the album which are about subjects which are close to our hearts, there are love songs on there and there are songs about people which are cleverely (or not, as you may choose to look at it) interspersed with bits of pure bollocks, but it’s fun to write a song about dinosaurs, as opposed to some girl who left you and broke your heart. I mean how distinctly uninteresting and unoriginal is that? Maybe it’s the age, but I’m not interested in hearing about somebody’s heartbreak really. Maybe if it had some new and exciting spin… there’s nothing new you can say to me about that. I don’t mean you personally, I’m sure you have lots of incredibly invigorating tales of heartbreak, but the way rock bands write about heartbreak just isn’t something that interests me at all.

Less heartbreak, more dinosaurs?

Well you know that’s a little bit of a generalisation, but if it looks good on a T-shirt then let’s have that as the manifesto.

It’s a really fun song, that. You were saying that the album is quite strong in parts, it is quite strident isn’t it… it doesn’t feel overtly serious a lot of the time.

Absolutely. Like you say there are moments on “Yin / Post Yin” there are moments, there are lines in it which are very serious lines and when those particular people hear those lines they’re meant to basically sit back in a leather chair, light a cigarette and go “that’s so true about… stuff” but you know to intersperse that with little bit about dinosaurs going back to college after doing a part time job for a while is pretty much how I choose how to write songs, it’s not neccesarily true of lots of bands that I like, but our strengths are – I wouldn’t say stupid lyrics – but more inventive uses of language. The problem is of course that then you get into something of a comedy band ghetto where having a sense of humour makes you exclusive from the rest of rock bands, which isn’t true because lots of people in rock bands are funny individuals who understand and appreciate comedy, but who for some reason are scared of showing that in any kind of way in their music, and as a result we stand out a little bit more than we should for that factor, because humour is a part of our music, rather than being waved around in a plastic booby kind of way, a la the Bloodhound Gang or some shite like that.

It seems that whilst there may be bands out there that might have funny personable people in person, but they seem to see music as a serious business.

It’s a manifestation of an idea of what music should be. The bands I love, their music conveys their personalities, for better or worse, all the foibles, all the good and the bad bits. The curmudgeonly nature perhaps, the humour, the excitement, the genuine aggression, the love, the loss, the whole picture, as opposed to some quasi-gothic fucking distillation of a failed love affair. That’s not everything that life’s about, life isn’t about jumping around a stage in shorts screaming about “society”. Society’s a very complex thing and it isn’t all just about you know, singing about what “the government” does to them, fought with getting tattoos and wearing shorts on stage, which is a great way to “stick to the man”.

Just reminds me of a Bad Religion song called “You Are (The Government)” which seems like quite a good retort to that…

Well yeah it is. The power exists in people’s minds and ultimately in their hands. The problem I find with political music… I mean we’re relatively political individuals, all left-leaning, but the problem with explicitly political music for me at least is that it’s preaching to the converted and as such I choose not to put my best efforts into that direction. And also musically it can sound very po-faced. Putting a personal perspective on an issue is fine, but when a band sing about politics they’ve got to do something particularly special musically in order to engage me at least.

Besides the surreal lyrics, there are a few songs on the album and particularly titles which even very abstractly made me think of topical things as well, a bit.

Well “Drink Nike” is about branding, for example… the beginning of “Lapsed Catholics”, the final song of the record, is something of a stream of consciousness rant which was inspired by Sky News announcing that Morgan Freeman had died which reminded me again of what happened on Sky News on September 11^th when the presenter announced that the entire eastern seaboard of the United States was under attack, it’s not news really is it, it’s soap opera dressed up with occasionally convenient fact. The only really difficult song to explain on the record is “Yin / Post Yin” which is just a meeting point of surrealism and well-meaning bluster about ex-girlfriends. But “Arming Eritrea” is a very difficult song to explain, I’ve already tied myself in knots trying to explain that on a couple of occasions… but all the other songs have a much more linear sense to the lyrics, and you have stories underneath them which is a new thing for me, I’m quite proud!

One of the songs which springs to mind is “The Hope that House Built” which I believe is going to be a single is it not?

It was a single a while ago now… and it was spectacularly unsuccessful. [laughs]

That would explain my confusion then… but what would you say that one’s about?

Well musically the song comes from wanting to do something completely ridiculous. I mean personally I’m a huge Queen fan, [...] I just love the unashamed, undiluted over the top parts of classic Queen, particularly mid-70s things like Sheer Heart Attack which is one of my top 5 albums ever. And also in a totally unashamed way I wanted to write a record which part sounded like fighting music but part sounded like a series of a Klingon war chants or something, not that I’m a huge Star Trek fan but I just found that notion particularly appealing. That’s musically where that song came from, lyrically it’s about hopeless causes. We feel like a hopeless cause a lot of the time, I mean we love playing shows, the people that like our band seem to really like our band, and believe me we appreciate that but the song is about feeling that you have a pre-destined fate, that being a good person and endeavouring to succeed in the best kind of way isn’t going to be enough but shouldn’t stop you falling lemming-like off the cliff. Life isn’t always about the end, the process can be the end in itself. I think a lot of bands get that sometimes, I think records become a means to success and money or a particular tour, or getting their dick sucked by a sucession of women with low self-esteem. But it’s important to step back sometimes and realise that sometimes the process of the album can be the end in itself as well, it’s not simply a device to attain another level of existence but it is the thing it itself. Sorry that’s a little profound for one song! But that’s kind of what it’s about, we sometimes see ourselves as a hopeless cause but that doesn’t make us any less proud to be in the band.

Calling yourselves a “hopeless cause”, which is of course a phrase used in that song, reminds me of your recent anti-piracy rant on MySpace, talking about the lengths you’d gone to as a band to try to prevent the album leaking. How do you feel about that whole situation now?

It was absolutely heartfelt, and it wasn’t put out there to judge people for downloading the record, I mean it’s human nature. If you can get something for free, the chances are you will. Unless you’re a morally stoic individual, you are going to take what you can for free. I was just trying to add another angle to the whole narrative of what pirating of music has become – to give a different angle in a sense that most of the argument is people who are pro-downloading going “I’m sure Metallica doesn’t need the money”. I’m sure that Metallica don’t need the money, unless you’re talking of a fourth holiday home or whatever, but it doesn’t really change the moral issue. Theft is still theft, whether it’s from Metallica, Puddle of Mudd, Echobelly, Pulled Apart By Horses, it doesn’t matter. As far as I’m concerned, if people want to steal stuff then that’s on their conscience, it’s not for me to step in and tell them what’s right and wrong, that’s their personal morality. But once they’ve taken that decision they should really run and hide in a corner and consider their ill-gotten gains rather than come on the internet and morally justify how music should be available for free. I’d say that if we were really living in this agrarian hippy fucking free-for-all there are more basic human rights than free music…. free clothing, free food, free water, free electricity, I’d say they all come before free music. As far as I’m concerned the way to end the pro-download argument now is to accuse everyone who downloads music of being middle class. It is such a convenient, middle class attitude to take, believe me there are working class kids out there making music, wanting to make a living out of it, which shouldn’t neccesarily mean that they’re artistically compromised in any way. I’ve made what you may laughingly call a living out of music for the last couple of years and it hasn’t compromised me one bit. If somebody tries to give their music away for free believe me they’ll fucking headbutt somebody. Has anybody suggested to the Wu-Tang Clan that they give their music away for free? It’s such a middle class thing to come up with ridiculous notions of how life should be. At the end of the day we live in a first-world economy, but the people I’ve met who out forward the argument that music should be free are the sons of rich financial advisors and as a result their opinion on the subject is almost invalid. But it is funny, and they should keep it coming.

One of the things I thought that was a bit different about what you had to say, was the way that you managed to communicate with a lot of people using MySpace, and that your perspective was quite different from that of the major labels.

They’ve tried to portray it as just black and white, which is never the way to deal with a problem, or an issue. It turns the whole thing into a one-dimensional cartoon debate, as opposed to a very real issue which actually affects people. It’s a real shame because it didn’t come out of nowhere, pirating, it’s not a simple matter of the technology becoming available, it comes from record labels overcharging for CDs for years – new releases, £14 or £15. Which didn’t all begin in a vacuum, maybe in that sense piracy was stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, and unfortunately that mindset imbues a lot of people these days but believe me, stealing from a band like ourselves or the kind of label we’re on, you’re not stealing from the rich, you’re simply putting the artist out of business, and it’s as simple as that. If people understand that and still steal, then well I’ve done my job. There’s an argument that they should just sit and consider the effects of their actions.

I guess there comes a point when you feel you’ve done what you can do, and you have to just let this album and everything else you’ve done stand up by itself?

Yeah absolutely. We’re very much of that mindset as a band, things rarely go as smoothly as you might like. But we put everything into our live performances, we put as much love and pride into every performance whether it’s in front of 550 people as it was in London the other week or 28 as it was in Carlisle 4 or 5 days ago. I mean I can tell you obviously which one I preferred, it was the bigger show with the great reaction, as opposed to the room full of a support band, who were Oasis wannabes and a selection of rather bemused-looking locals, but as a band you give you everything to every particular situation and the things we can’t affect, we can say about how the different ways they play out affect our lives, but there’s only so much we can let those things worry us. Expressing an opinion about downloading is one thing but then we just have step back away from the debate hopefully having added something to it and let people get on with their lives, and the formation and re-formation of their moral codes.

I think you’ve certainly added something to it, and certainly something rather different to the sledgehammer approach which is what the big labels seem to do, that whole “you’re either for us or against us” idea.

They don’t help anyone with that, and the silence of the big labels over the last few years shows that they’ve realised that doesn’t work any more.

Let’s get back to the band – do you feel like now, you can bury of the axe of being ex-members of bands and you can be seen as Future of the Left as a unit?

Yeah, to a degree. Maybe not quite yet at this early stage. I really do hope so, because it is like talking about an ex-girlfriend every day, three and half years after you split up. It’s understandable, because she had great fucking legs, and those kind of eyes which can enchant any man, but it does get a little bit tedious for a lot of reasons. We’re proud of what happened with Mclusky and Kelson’s proud of Jarcrew but all three of the people in this band have far more belief and excitement in their current endeavour which is understandable… but the consistency we’ve shown on these two records dwarfs anything that myself and Jack did in Mclusky and anything Kelson did in Jarcrew, as far as I’m concerned. Some people prefer the previous bands, and I understand if they do if they’re into a more particularly straightforward type of music. It would be nice to move on from it one day. I would suggest that even if we end up being ridiculously successful it will still never happen. People love talking about what no longer exists. They love to romanticise the past and thanks to the medium of the internet people can always find out about bands. And believe me if everyone who talks about Mclusky with such fervent love and attention had been there at the time I’d be conducting this conversation from a golden sofa on a golden phone and after I’d finished talking to you I’d take a helicopter ride to my local baguette shop where I’d get two thai sweet chili baguettes, one which I might choose not to even eat.

Maybe give it a few years and you might be there! I’m sure that’s not what you really want though…

No of course not… if everybody who wanted to said they’d seen us at the 100 Club the capacity would have been about 1,500 instead of about 300 which is what it actually is. The amount of times people have come up to us at shows and said “I love your music I can’t understand why you’re not bigger” and we say “did you buy the record?” and they say “no I downloaded it”. You think, you need to go and sit somewhere, and think about what you just said.

I think you’re right about people wanting to talk about things that are gone, despite being The Beatles, The Beatles still could never kill off the Quarrymen.

They just love it. The path of criticism follows – the new album is not as good as your old album. There are a few exceptions to that where it’s beyond debate but there’s always people who prefer the previous album. The amount of angry emails I’ve got from people over the course of my career saying “I don’t like your new album as much as your last album” and you just think, start your own band, listen to the album again, you’re not getting the same album again, grow up.

And then if they got the same album again they’d moan about that…

There’s a particular type of fan who does just want the same record over and over again. Mclusky Do Dallas was very successful in Germany, but the next album [...] just didn’t work there at all. But particularly in Germany, Curses didn’t get any following at all, and it’s only now getting a cult following and the new record is coming out, and people aren’t liking that! So it’s all about the revisionism, all about the “yeah this is good and everything, but remember when it was so much better?” I’ll tell you what shows us the mindset of this type of person… there was something on our forum the other day, which is something I only check every so often, and it was somebody saying they didn’t like the new album as much as the last album, which they’d loved. But that was the first post on our forum – their first action was to come on and criticise. Everyone talks about Mclusky Do Dallas as this classic album but believe me when it came out it was not regarded as a classic album. Because it wasn’t – it was only a classic album two and a half years later when the next record came out. It’s the way people work critically I suppose.

The people that love something just tend to shut up and not mention it…

Yeah they just tend to be drowned out by people whose only way of discussing music is by using words like “ace”. Personally the word “ace”doesn’t exist for me, an “ace” is a fighter pilot. The same if someone tells me they’re “psyched” for one of our shows… that one just passes me by. Generally speaking the people I’m going to like don’t use those words. Generally you dip your toe in the wider lexicon with me but “ace” is the kind of way that people who like twee bands talk about those bands. The bands I liked were never ace. Wire were never “ace”, Shellac – never “ace”. Different words, more human words I would use to describe.

I ought to ask you about the live shows, I know that playing live is something you’re all enthused about, how has that been going?

The shows – apart from when things break and believe me my friend, they always break – have been fantastic. We’ve just done a difficult run of shows, Carlisle, Edinburgh and Crewe… not the kind of thing you talk about unless you want to have the kind of depression which breaks the heart of most sober audiences but the tour we just did was meant to be at the same time as the album release but that hasn’t happened as the album isn’t out until June 22^nd. But the attendances generally speaking have been OK, they need to be better though if we’re to sustain ourselves as a band. But the live shows have been enjoyable, I think we’re quite lucky in that we played the songs from the last album just long enough, we didn’t get bored of them. But if we’d been on a bigger label, if they’d tried to milk that album, maybe we’d have been on tour for three or four more months playing that same set and it would have become tedious. I think we manage to turn it around at just the right time – we always approach each show with the same level of conviction and enthusiasm, like I say if it’s for 550 people or 28 people in Carlisle.

It just reminds me how long it is until the album comes out… I feel like a dirty pirate already for having heard it.

That’s the way piracy affects bands, in terms of momentum. A lot of the praise expended on [a record] in webzines or in the printed press can have dissipated. A lot of doing a record is about building a momentum between the different parts of the industry – playing live, the reaction on the internet, maybe the radio play in a fantasy land where John Peel is still alive, about all those things happening at the same time. The problem we’ve had as a bad is that people have said very nice things about us but it all happens in a really fragmented fashion, which means that there’s never really enough momentum to break through into a slightly more wide audience.

It’s really interesting to hear all that from a band’s perspective.

There’s a notion again that comes from what we were talking about earlier, that middle class ethos of pirating. With bands, you’re not allowed to say you want to be successful, whatever successful means. You’re not allowed to say you want to sell records, it’s not the cool thing to do. I have no shame about that at all. The second it compromises the music we make we should feel snowed under by shame but we want to take the music we make naturally to its biggest possible audience. Which we don’t see as being arenas or whatever… but as far as I’m concerned I can’t see why it’s unreasonable to play to a thousand people a night, and I refuse to see that as mutually exclusive to maintaining a sense of artistic credibility. Believe me, we are so informed by our pride and our innate sense of what credibility means in our own terms, that we’re not going to compromise that for something as crass as money.

You were talking about that idea of playing to a thousand people a night, but what other things are hoping to achieve, what’s next for Future of the Left and for you personally?

There’s going to be a lot of touring over the next six to nine months [...], touring that record. On a personal level, hopefully getting in more exercise than I have over the last month or two, reading a lot of books, working some other… I’d hesitate to call them side projects but other music, until we feel ready to write a new record, that’s pretty much it really. As a band we just need to step up a level in terms of the number of people we play to. We’ve stepped the music up on the album, we did that in terms of our live performances and frankly in terms our hilariously quick-witted comedy, we just need to tally that with the number of people. And if we do that there’s no reason why we can’t sustain ourselves over the next few years until the point where it eventually becomes boring for all concerned and we just stop just like that.

I’m sure that’s not too close… it is a great album.

Thanks very much for that, maybe speak to you around the time of the next record!

]]> http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/tlobf-interview-future-of-the-left/feed/ 0 http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/future-of-the-left-travels-with-myself-and-another/ http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/future-of-the-left-travels-with-myself-and-another/#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:59 +0000 Andy Johnson http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/?p=15307

Future of the Left’s lead singer Andrew Falkous recently made a blog post on the band’s myspace page in which he vented his frustration at how early the band’s second album, Travels with Myself and Another, had leaked to the internet. I found the post interesting partly because of how it occurred to me that few people could avoid feeling some sympathy for the band’s feelings about the leak; but also because, having already heard the album, the way the post was written immediately clicked into place with the tone and style of the album itself. There’s something a little angsty about this album -  tense, tightly coiled, highly wrought, sometimes quiet but always liable to explode at any minute. They’re controlled explosions though – this is taut, cohesive noise rock, comprising an approachably concise album (under 33 minutes) which has been carefully thought out to make sure it can hold our attention from the beginning until the end.

It’s quite an addictive recipe – the brevity and controlled fury of the songs and of the album as a whole keeps you constantly coming back. This is a resolutely guitar-based album, and whilst the textures are occasionally soaring (as on opener “Arming Eritrea”), they’re most often tight, oppressive and claustrophobic. The vocals are vaguely menacing, the lyrics often observant and sometimes surreal, both modes showcased excellently on one of the album’s best songs, “Throwing Bricks at Trains”. It’s a stop-start, off-kilter thing, a story of “Reginald J. Troxfield” and “the fearsome Brown” with enjoyably out-of-place backing “aahs” and an abrupt ending. Another highlight is the closer, “Lapsed Catholics”, or more specifically its brilliant spoken-word intro, set against a quiet acoustic backdrop. “Who’s prison break is the most impressive?” it begins, soon labelling Sky News a “hysterical technicolour crapfest” and eventually breaking out one of those explosions, launching into a riotous guitar assault.

The standard is consistently high here – the sense of urgency and raucous vitality runs through all of these tracks, but it  does surface even more thrillingly on some than on the majority. “Drink Nike”, with its rapid-fire cries of “sma-lalalalalala”, the joint guitar and vocal melodies of “That Damned Fly”… it’s easy to find that the highlights rotate around the album, your favourites jumping around with every listen, and that’s testament to how strong an album this actually is. Always though, the main thing our attention is stuck to is Falco himself – there’s something about his delivery, combined with the intriguing lyrics (“but does it fuck like a maaaan?”) that’s completely riveting. Even then, those aspects are only the jewel in the crown of a very, very accomplished rock album.
87%

Future of the Left on MySpace

Aaaaaah our favourite time of the year has loomed yet again. All Tomorrow’s Parties. The one event in the calendar year where geeks mingle with beardies and hipsters hold hands with hippies. There really is no other festival like it, and for those of you who couldn’t make it or even for those out there who want to re-live the shenanigans we like to give you the best coverage that’s humanly possible.

We’ve already published John Brainlove’s diary and even ‘twittered’ our way through last weekends events.. But as ATP round 2 kicks off this afternoon we’re pleased to unveil our bumper review!

Two perspectives. Boy and girl. Adam Elmahdi and Kate Price give a detailed look at last weekends The Fans Strike Back event accompanied with the photographs of Lucy Johnston and Rich Thane.

Enjoy! And if we’ve missed anything out – don’t forget to tell us about it in the comments thread below…

Look out for a full review of The Breeders weekend, plus a massive photo feature of both events. All that’s to come next week…

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Grouper (RT)

Perhaps Grouper wasn’t the best choice to start proceedings. True, Liz Harris had to be on a plane that very evening, but her uncompromisingly sombre ambient noise was too mellow and esoteric for a Friday afternoon slot, as evidenced by the rapid audience shrinkage throughout her set. Casiotone For The Painfully Alone‘s Owen Ashworth fared a little better, although his melancholy lo-fi indietronica was little augmented by a backing band that too often came across as an afterthought. Very heavy on new material, the lack of old favourites like “Jeane, If You’re Ever In Portland” was disappointing although when he hits the spot, he’s as quietly charming as ever.

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone (RT)

Thank the Lord for Jeffrey Lewis to get things back on track. His monotonal drawl may bear little relation to the melody at hand, but that’s all part of his ramshackle charm- more important are his sharp, self-depreciating wit and his hilarious, deftly surreal cartoons. More polished but less engaging were M83, whose hazy synth-pop seemed a little lost in the Butlins food-court. The new raved-up coda to ‘We Own The Sky’ was a nice touch, but their reduced line-up made them more reliant on backing tracks, detaching them further from their audience and leaving even their most euphoric tracks uncharacteristically hollow.

M83 (RT)

But then- BAM! From the darkness of the Centre stage, a hero- nay, messiah- for our times emerges. Long of hair, earnest of speech, he preached a message of deep philosophical import; an ethos for all men to live by- to be happy, to have fun and most of all, to PARTY HARD! Yes, I witnessed the oddly charismatic legend that is Andrew WK, the musical equivalent of a Jason Statham film- objectively awful and yet at the same time, totally awesome. “Bad Brilliance,” a man with a balloon for a head came on stage and repeatedly rapped his own name, some guy from Current 93 made a cameo appearance and despite the set consisting primarily of AWK karaoke-singing over various permutations of ‘Party Hard’, I couldn’t help but be carried away by his sheer enthusiasm. Let’s just hope he never decides to start a cult…

Devo (LJ)

Fittingly, he was followed by fellow madmen Devo who, despite looking like a bunch of crazy bachelor uncles clad in their boilersuits and trademark flowerpot hats were perhaps the tightest band of the whole weekend, their jagged grooves much heavier than the uninitiated would expect. They’ve had 36 years to hone their showmanship and it shows- they know how to work an audience, and what’s more, they still genuinely come across as a band that love what they do. All in all, a fantastic set- a sentiment that, alas, cannot be levied at Pink Mountaintops. As great as their grandiose new album is, the dodgy mix at Reds rendered any subtlety imperceptible and within fifteen minutes the sledgehammer sound had me retreating back to the bar. Ah well- you win some, you lose some.

Retribution Gospel Choir (RT)

Now Saturday, *that* was a textbook example of how to curate a festival. Low side-project Retribution Gospel Choir provided the scintillating rock ‘n roll start Friday so sorely lacked, despite some tedious scrote heckling “throw us your guitar” at Alan Spearhawk. Perennial underachievers live, The Acorn seemed to have finally found their feet- with a new line-up and tighter sound, they do well to counter general hipster indifference (“could I have a little more audience in the monitor?”) with their luscious balladry and Rolf Klausener’s soaring vocals. But even they couldn’t hold a candle to the sublime Grizzly Bear. Fleet Foxes comparisons are to avoid, as both bands furrow similar harmonic veins, but whilst Robin Pecknold’s harmonies are clean, well-scrubbed and immediate, Ed Droste’s have a more wistful, delicate quality that’s ultimately much more gratifying. Balancing the new (and rather superb) Veckatimest material well with old favourites like ‘Knife’ and ‘Lullaby’, their mesmerising hour-long set seems to be over in a blink of an eye, a testament to their understated genius.

The Acorn (LJ)

They even overshadowed Pavillion headliners Beirut, whose strong set nonetheless seemed to be lacking a little something (not least the violinist I used to have a bit of a crush on). Without a doubt, it’s amazing to see how far Zach Condon’s evolved as a live performer over the last couple of years- no longer does he stand there like a deer in the headlights, and his Morrissey-esque croon, whilst still a tad wavery at times has gone from strength to strength. Alas, the same can’t really be said for his song-writing, which peaked at Gulag Orkestar and has rarely achieved the same brilliance since. Whilst the Balkan swing of ‘Elephant Gun’ and the like still have the old magic, the newer tracks blend into one and it’s hard not to crack a smile when someone responds to Zach’s call for requests with, “something that sounds a little different!”

Beirut (RT)

And on the subject of “something a little different”, cult noise-rockers The Jesus Lizard‘s first show in a decade certainly lived up to the fevered expectations surrounding them. As a statement of intent, ripping off your shirt during the intro to the first song and taking a running jump into the audience is pretty hard to beat and David Yow, a balding, slightly sinister middle-aged guy resembling The Yellow Bastard from Sin City had no intention of letting the pace slacken from there on in. On stage, he paced around menacingly, barking ferociously down his mike, but more often than not he could be seen swimming aloft on a sea of hands whilst his ever-proficient band nonchalantly watched on. What a comeback.

Shearwater (RT)

Alas, Sunday ultimately seemed a little anti-climatic in comparison. Shearwater seemed unsuited to Pavillion stage, Jon Meiburg’s hauntingly powerful falsetto and their intricate orchestration dissipating in the sterile surroundings. !!! delivered an energetic, funk-fulled set, but were wasted in their early-evening time slot- they’re a band best experienced in a state of mild-to-excessive inebriation, and even the feckless alcoholics of ATP hadn’t reached that stage so early in the day. The ubiquitous Parts & Labor, spotted anywhere and everywhere throughout the weekend seemed knackered by the time it came to their own performance, which suffered from a chronic lack of volume and almost inaudible synths. When they’re on form, they’re a breathtaking live experience (they nearly eclipsed the mighty Battles when they supported them in ’07) but they seemed to squander this vital opportunity to win over a larger audience with a competent, but rarely genuinely impressive set.

Spiritualized (RT)

Spiritualized‘s performance really seemed to divide people- some found it deathly dull and meandering but their mix of the ear-obliterating fuzz of My Bloody Valentine combined with the gospel-tinged euphoria of Screamadelica-era Primal Scream ticked all my boxes. Static to a fault, they’re not the most visually arresting band and their interaction with the audience is non-existent, but in this case there was no harm in letting the music do all the talking, with an extended “Come Together” being my musical highlight of the whole festival. School of Seven Bells were rockier than expected, tweaking their arrangements for a punchier vibe whilst retaining the dreamy shoegazey production of Alpinisms, but after a while I felt the need for something a little more…energetic, a desire well-served by LA electro-punks The Mae Shi. Previously shambolic to a fault, the mentalist four-piece have finally tightened up enough to deliver a proficient set, but without losing the sense of scrappiness that lies at the heart of their appeal. ‘Run To Your Grave’ may have been the single best singalong of the weekend, and although the new noisecore-orientated material lacks the spark of old, they still know how to rouse a mosh-pit. Indeed, the Mae Shi could be a metaphor for ATP as a whole- schizophrenic, surreal, a little poncey but nevertheless a hell of a lot of fun.
Adam Elmahdi

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Parts & Labor (LJ)

As stragglers flow through the sun-scattered gates of Butlins for this year’s first All Tomorrow’s Parties muso geek-off, the first real drops of sweat hit the Centre Stage floor. HEALTH are a eardrum shattering, frenzied and seductively brash statement of intent, smashing the weekend from a pleasant seaside outing into full pelt beatfest.  Meanwhile, downstairs M83 are one of many bands this weekend to fall victim to the vacuous expanse of the Pavilion Stage, their shimmery effervescent pop floating up towards the rafters and failing to truly engage.

For Devo however, no room is too big and no face too glum. As the sun sets and the Pavilion darkens, their awkward and infectious anthems have even the most severe minds in agreement that jumpsuits, ridiculous masks and funny over-priced red hats will never go out of style. Wheeling out the hits, from ‘Gates of Steel’ to the classic ‘Whip It’, it’s alarming how many songs even the most passive of Devo fans will unwittingly know the words to.

Fuck Buttons (RT)

Jesu calm things down a bit but before long it’s time for Fuck Buttons‘ much anticipated premiere road test of their new material. Despite fear that 2008′s Street Horrsing would be too tough an act to match, all anxiety is soon relinquished by a deliriously absorbing and fever-pitched set. Embodying the spirit of ATP, Fuck Buttons’ magic isn’t brashly flaunted but quietly creeps up and enraptures, making it impossible not to dance – and dance we do.

Errors (LJ)

Saturday’s hangovers are eased mid-afternoon by Nico Muhly, if only because his illustrative soundscapes seem to lull the majority of the audience into a much needed extra half hour snooze. Later on the same stage Young Marble Giants win the award for biggest disappointment of the weekend, delivering the most turgid renditions of Colossal Youth classics, serving only to prove why some bands should never be allowed to reform. Thank the lord (or indeed ATP), then, for the appearance of Grizzly Bear whose intertwining vocals, bracing swathes of sound and journeying melodies set a precedent for the rest of the day. The 1-part stoner-metal 1-part-balls-out-rock’n'roll of Harvey Milk, explosive Balkan wanderings of Beirut and invigorating post-rock disco of Errors make for an unlikely but scrumptious trio, leaving things only to be pissed upon by Marnie Stern‘s tiresome yelping. Still, that’s nothing that a bottle of whisky and a good chalet party can’t remedy, right? Right!

School Of Seven Bells (RT)

Tearing oneself away from the free fairground on Sunday afternoon, Shearwater enchant with their ambient acoustic beauty before the usual witty banter and caustic riff-pounding of Future of the Left makes a stand-out on an otherwise quite soothing stage line-up. However, it’s the Centre Stage that plays hosts the weekend’s true gems. School of Seven Bells serve both musical and physical beauty in matching plentiful bouts with their beat-laden eerie prog-pop, wowing the crowd before gracefully leaving the stage to this weekend’s true heroes.

Marnie Stern (LJ)

It’s been 11 years and David Yow is still… well, David Yow (The Jesus Lizard) and the fact that simply shouting his name out loud feels so great is surely something telling. Clambering around, intrusively rooting out every bit of space onstage and off he physically might, age has not diminished a man who simply represents everything a front man should and could possibly be. Stage diving, crowd surfing, not to mention song upon song ofgob-smacking, eye watering punk rock meat – this is live performance at it’s very best.

Closing what, whilst perhaps not the strongest ever ATP line-up, is certainly one of the most varied and eclectic, Sleep rise to The Jesus Lizard’s bait and hold their own. Earplugs prove pointless as the room trembles and lungs rattle in chests with the sheer velocity and poweremanating from the stage. Sleep are (arguably) THE defining stoner rock band of all time and, holding a drunk and exhausted crowd in their hypnotic grip for over an hour and a half, prove how escapist and cathartic sound can be. The perfect wind-down from yet another successful Minehead adventure. ATP, we salute you.
Kate Price

Before we run our extensive review of last weekends ATP shenanigans, we asked  John Brainlove’s to jot down some thoughts about the weekends happenings.

Look out for a full review plus a bumper photo feature coming very soon!!

All band photographs by Rich Thane.

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So, we’re in Simon’s rickety car, screaming down the motorway, chasing the patch of blue sky that somehow seems to be constantly moving away from us. The moustachioed Major Matty Hall is our car’s co-pilot, having shotgunned the front seat, like a bastard. He is conducting a short seminar on the difference between nuclear and thermonuclear bombs. We are hurtling towards Minehead. The tape player is apparently frozen, so I am piping The Horrors’ new album through my tinny battery powered speakers.

It’s ATP. yayTP. The lineup this weekend was ostensibly selected by ‘The Fans’, or at the least the excitable ones who buy tickets in time to effect the voting.

Christopher Alcxxk of Internet Forever texts me. He has picked up ten of my favourite Portuguese custard tarts for me from the bakery near his house. We have a boot full of booze and breakfasts. I’ll be sleeping on a sofa in someone else’s chalet this weekend – ATP press tickets come sans-accommodation – and I’m gonna be doing some cooking to say thanks.

By the time we get onsite, we’ve already missed Grouper. Apparently she had an early slot because of travel arrangements (before people were even allowed into their chalets) and played a pretty grumpy set to a half empty room.

After some epic trundling around the chalet village with my luggage on a trolley, I make it into Casiotone For The Painfully Alone in time to catch a few highlights from his great new record, Vs. Children. I get a text – our chalet window has been smashed in while the others were at Tesco getting booze, and there’s glass everywhere, including on the sofa I’m sleeping on.

Andy Hung, Fuck Buttons

But before I want to deal with that, Jeffrey Lewis is downstairs plying his ever-engaging anti-folk, then HEALTH, who turn in one of the performances of the weekend: a battering, powerful, committed set. I’m a convert.

I pop back to the chalet to survey the damage. Butlins have cleaned up our chalet and boarded up the window. I sit down for a minute, and end up boozily sleeping through Devo.

Fail.

Back in the festival, everyone is talking about how good they were.

Double Fail.

It’s around this time that I bump into Andy from Fuck Buttons, who says their set is going to be 80% new, with a new beginning. The crowd is heaving. “The Fans” are, tonight, increasingly ‘messy’, dressed up kids staggering around with wide pupils. I’m still pretty straight at this point and feel a little bit old. Unusual for the famously ‘beardy’ ATP festival. Fuck Buttons launch straight into a new song, and don’t let up for an hour – their new set is more about beats and building momentum than their previous layered noise stuff. There’s a rhythmic, wriggling section with Andy squeezing sounds out of a Gameboy, an extended, dancey, layered up new song with softer drum and synth sounds than usual, and a new ending with some searing bassy bursts and powerful drumming from Ben. If there’s any criticism to be made, it’s that some of the transitions are a bit long, and let the build/release energy drop rather than peak, but it’s a good solid performance, and a great introduction to the new songs.

Rolf Klausener, The Acorn

Saturday morning, and I still haven’t got those damn tarts off Chris. We keep missing each other. It’s turning into an ongoing custard tart saga. Me and my chalet-mates play crazy golf. The Cave Singers are audible coming from the main stage. The golf isn’t at all crazy. It’s just small.

The Acorn is my favourite show of the weekend. They’re perfect on the pavillion stage. Their warm sound fills the space, resonant and embracing. The two-drummer rhythm section fill every space with sensitively played taps and beats, carrying along the wonderfully emotional and engaging songs. The hairs on the back of my neck go up, and my body feels suddenly ablaze with adrenalin, and I breathe in the sound. Connection: made.

We bowl. I win. Win!

Beirut play the electronic songs from the new album as traditional arrangements, and they stand up well. “Would you prefer it if I put on a donk on there?” asks Zac. I’m half surprised that my answer is no.

Sarah Pickles of team ATP is having a big wedding party on the Saturday night, so we head over. Marnie Stern is there! I croak out a feeble fanboy “hello Marnie Stern!”, much to the amusement of my so-called friends. The Pontin’s 5-0 descend at 5am and disperse us. Chalet parties till dawn, then the seaside for a blue light sunrise. A man with a musical backpack goes spinning past us, to the strains of “North American Scum”, wheeling down the beach and into the surf, followed by a flock of dancing hippy kids. I fall into bed satisfied that as much fun as humanly possible has been squeezed out of Saturday night at ATP.

By the time I’m capable of functioning again, the Sunday lineup is sparse. The headliners are repeated with both Sleep and The Jesus Lizard playing again, even though neither of them were full to capacity on Saturday. Doubling up the headliners was understandable when there was a queue around the block at the Camber Sands site for someone like Sonic Youth, but here it seems excessive, especially considering the ever-escalating ticket price.

Jason Pierce, Spiritualized

I don’t know if my mood is something to do with it, but Parts & Labour seem really weak. I can’t get into Killing Joke, but then I’ve never liked them much really. Spiritualized play a bludgeoning, unsubtle steamroller set of gospel-tinged stadium rock that sounds more Oasis than Spaceman 3. It’s a big, satisfyingly large and solid sound – but size isn’t everything.

It takes the sheer happiness explosion of The Mae Shi to get the blood pumping again – their odd mixture of jerky guitar lines and screamo, and their chubby-faced emo-tinged manboy 90′s pop-punk sound is accompanied by all kinds of ace theatrical stage antics, including their trademark move – covering the crowd with a giant rainbow-coloured cloth canopy. Fun times.

Custard Tart Saga

Chris finally catches up with me – the box of tarts has congealed into a solid mass of soggy pastry and warm custard. The rest of Sunday night is spent playing poker and making a dent in the last tray of beers. I’m too exhausted for the party/melee/dance-off/bro-down down at the Crazy Horse bar this time around.

The next day, I hang around a bit longer than usual as Simon steels himself for the drive after 72 hours of sleep deprivation. Within hours, the hall is full of extended families, and the shutters have gone up on confectionary stalls, and the bouncy castles have been blown up. The main hall is full of Lego-coloured plastic furniture, and the only soundcheck that’s happening is for bingo. I finally fall into the car, and fall asleep, and wake up back in London a few hours later.

Brainlove Records

After launching to critical acclaim in 2008, Offset Festival returns to the beautiful Hainault Forest Country Park – just a short 30 minute commute from London by tube – on September 5-6^th.

The first announcements for 2009 are The Horrors, with a performance that will draw upon their critically acclaimed new album Primary Colours. Legendary post-punk group The Slits are the first of a number of influential bands to be announced, alongside pioneering punk-funk band A Certain Ratio – Factory Records’ second-ever signing. Welsh alternative group Future of the Left join these names, with over 150 new and iconic artists to be announced. Hardcore pioneers Rolo Tomassi are in, as well as Sheffield quartet Holy State and Factory Floor, who are supporting the Horrors all summer. DJs will include Douglas Hart from shoe-gaze legends Jesus and Mary Chain, plus guests from the UKs most innovative and exciting club nights.

Earlybird tickets are on sale now and priced at  £45 with camping. For more information visit www.offsetfestival.co.uk

Future Of The Left have announced details of their forthcoming album.

Travels With Myself And Another boasts 12 new tracks (including latest single ‘The Hope That House Built’, out now) and is set to be released on 22nd June ’09.

Tracklisting:
1. Arming Eritrea
2. Chin Music
3. The Hope That House Built
4. Throwing Bricks At Trains
5. I Am Civil Service
6. Land Of My Formers
7. You Need Satan More Than He Needs You
8. That Damned Fly
9. Stand By Your Manatee
10. Yin/Post Yin
11. Drink Nike
12. Lapsed Catholics

The band will also embark on a headline tour of the UK ahead of the album’s release, playing at the following:

May
08: All Tomorrow’s Parties (The Fans Strike Back), Minehead
13: Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
14: Sallis Benney Theatre (Great Escape Festival), Brighton
18: ABC2, Glasgow
19: Rainbow, Birmingham
20: Jailhouse, Hereford
21: Academy 3, Manchester
23: Dot To Dot Festival, Bristol
24: Dot To Dot Festival, Nottingham
25: Clwb Ifor Bach (Swn Festival), Cardiff
26: ULU, London

The band are also scheduled to play the Camden Crawl festival on Saturday 25th April.

Photography by Simon Godley

Tom Waits @ Le Grand Rex, Paris, July 25
The smoke of 1,000 Gauloises curled round Le Grand Rex’s art-deco facade in anticipation of Tom Waits, who was in Paris for two nights on his Glitter & Doom tour. Waits prowled the specially constructed circular stage like a demented carnie, injecting all of his 58 years of experience into a remarkable performance that swung from gypsy-folk to vaudeville to gentle jazz crooning. Sawdust billowed around him as he stomped his way across a circus ring of his own making. Skipping effortlessly through an extensive back catalog, Waits prompted the crowd to croon along with “Innocent When You Dream” before morphing into a human mirrorball, simply by swapping a hat, for “Eyeball Kid”. When a shower of glitter fell around spotlit Waits at the climax of “Let It Rain”, it felt as though the audience had been transported into the ringmaster’s own peculiar, magical universe. An outstanding showman giving his all in a beautiful venue on a warm summer’s evening – I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get better than that.—Ro Cemm

Wave Pictures @ the Borderline, London, July 30
The most striking thing about seeing the Wave Pictures live is just how amazing – as in, virtuoso level – a guitarist David Tattersall is. On record it’s easy to be sidetracked by the sharp, funny lyrics and almost overlook the musicianship, but live, it practically smacks you around the head. Nearly every song in their set had a brilliant guitar solo – always a genuine, worthwhile musical addition, never an excuse for a show-offy noodle. David was so engrossed in a particularly captivating break during “Tiny Craters in the Sand” that he didn’t notice when his whammy bar fell off, and looked most surprised when it was handed back to him afterwards. Part of the delight of the Wave Pictures is that they are such unassuming individuals, yet produce such a lyrically and musically brilliant performance. They are a band that can renew your waning faith in live music and leave you dashing for the last train home with a huge, foolish grin on your face.—Jude Clarke

Björk @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, April 14
The problem with being such a prolific attender of gigs is the inevitability that they stop being as special as they used to be. So it is pretty unprecedented for me to stagger out of a venue open-mouthed with incommunicable wonder, but that is exactly what I did on this unforgettable April night. Clad in a headdress made of multicoloured pom-poms, the irrepressible Icelandic pixie queen skipped onto stage to the tribal percussion of “Earth Intruders”. It was a spellbinding introduction to a show that, flat Antony Hegarty duet apart, was never less than enchanting. It’s hard to pick highlights from a night comprised almost entirely of them, although Toumani Diabaté’s stunning kobe on “Hope”, a bewitching rendition of “Hunter” and a glorious “Who Is It” all deserve special mentions, as does Björk’s fantastic 10-piece all-female brass section The Wonderbrass. But it was the unabashed techno-singalong of “Hyperballad” and the sheer jaw-dropping spectacle of “Declare Independence” that made the night transcendental, the latter’s mix of earth-sundering bass, silver confetti and arching lasers one of the finest closing numbers I’ve ever seen. Björk, I know you’re old enough to be my mother, but will you marry me?—Adam Elmahdi

Photography by Fleur Neale

Neil Young @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, March 8
In hindsight, I can’t believe I debated whether to go or not. Sure, the ticket prices were a bit steep, but you got some history for your cash. On the night, the set was split in half: first acoustic, then electric. I never thought I’d prefer the acoustic set, but to hear “A Man Needs a Maid”, “Harvest Moon” and “Ambulance Blues” so crystal-clear and in the flesh surpassed all my expectations. There were too many spine-tingling moments to distill into one paragraph. “Mr. Soul” sounded as fresh as it must have 30 years ago – God only knows what it was like then, because even now it sounds like a tear in the face of music. That was before I was floored by “Down by the River”: a wall of guitars cut through the years, trashing my sense of awareness and sucking me inside the sprawling anthem. It was only then that I truly realised I was in the presence of a living legend.—Rich Hughes

Photography by David Emery

Bon Iver @ St Giles Church, London, June 4
By June, Justin Vernon had watched the Bon Iver phenomenon flicker into being, ignite and roar through the music world. Still, through months of media and audience hysteria, he remained steadfastly modest. For a man concerned with all that is solid and enduring, a church whose history stretches back 900 years was a fitting venue for the last performance of his first UK tour. Three hundred lucky souls squeezed into pews and aisles, crammed into corners and dangled off balconies. Three hundred rocked back and forth, shivered and clasped hands with their neighbours to the strains of “Skinny Love” and “Flume” as Vernon’s crystal-clear vocals reverberated with an otherworldly significance; 300 filed out shiny-eyed and with a catch in their throats. Early Bon Iver gigs had left me with the thrill of discovery and later ones with the warm satisfaction that comes from a display of brilliant craft and flawless delivery, but that night has earnt an eerie, mythological place in musical memory, as though marking the time that Vernon crested an unfeasibly high peak and looked down on the world below with serenity and joy.—Emily Moore

Photography by Mike King

Photography by Chris Boland

Leonard Cohen @ Glastonbury Pyramid Stage, June 29
Forced out of retirement because of an evil manager who reportedly embezzled him out of $5 million, Leonard Cohen was back, literally performing for his livelihood. Most acts would struggle on the 80,000-capacity Pyramid stage, but Leonard Cohen immediately transformed the rubbish-soaked field into an intimate coffee house, performing one classic after another in his trademark whispered, weighty way. Each song was triumphant, from a singalong-to-the-heavens “Hallelujah” to a gorgeous, haunting “Suzanne”. Cohen lowered his cap and bowed to the audience after each song in gratitude. It is difficult to describe precisely how, but it transformed me. I have never seen a gig like it and quite possibly never will again. Kudos to you, Leonard.—Shain Shapiro

Photography by Valerio Berdini - another date, same tour

Elbow @ De Montfort Hall, Leicester, October 16
“We haven’t played a gig this good in years,” Guy Garvey said as Elbow left the stage, and you could well believe him. That night, every song was played to its utmost strengths – the brass stabs at the beginning of “Starlings” were never more fanfare-worthy, “Mirrorball” never so cascadingly lovely, “Newborn” never so heart-wrenching and “Grounds For Divorce” never so vituperative. Everyone in the room sang along, attempting to restrain themselves from punching the air as Garvey cajoled them and himself into greater vocal heights. Some artists struggle with the leap from small venues to huge halls, but Garvey thrived on it: swapping banter with the crowd; leaning forward on the mic stand as if to make a physical, literal connection with the audience; projecting that voice of bruised experience and heart right around cavernous De Montfort Hall. On their post-Mercury Prize victory lap, Elbow had nothing to prove and they played as though they were on top of the world. (Which, to be fair, they were.) The crowd knew it, too, singing back on the mini-anthems, deathly quiet on the wracked ballads. Guy passed on a marriage proposal before “Mirrorball” and, on receiving the good news afterwards, declared, “Thank fuck for that!” He bid the happy couple, “Congratulations – now here’s a song about gut-wrenching heartbreak” before launching into “The Stops”. Like pre-encore closer “One Day Like This”, whose televisual ubiquity has not dented its emotional heft one bit, the whole set was at once gorgeous and triumphant.—Simon Tyers

And the rest…

2. Radiohead @ Roskilde Festival, nr Copenhagen, July 3
3. Tindersticks @ End of the Road Festival, September 14
4. The Acorn @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
5. Neil Young @ Roskilde Festival, nr Copenhagen, July 5
RC

2. Envy @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 18
3. Betty and the Werewolves & The Research @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, November 5
4. Fleet Foxes & J Tillman @ the Junction, Cambridge, November 11
5. Holy Fuck @ 100 Club, London, April 8
6. Melt-Banana @ Soul Tree, Cambridge, June 24
7. Port O’Brien @ Concrete + Glass Festival, 93 Feet East, London, October 3
8. The Resistance, Holy Roller & Fuck Dress @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, October 11
9. The Death Set @ Reading Festival, August 23
10. Volcano! @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, November 16
JC

2. Sigur Rós @ Latitude Festival, July 19
3. Sunset Rubdown @ Luminaire, London, May 22
4. Joanna Newsom @ Latitude Festival, July 20
5. Wolf Parade @ Electric Ballroom, London, December 1
6. My Bloody Valentine @ Roundhouse, London, June 20
7. The National @ Olympia, Dublin, May 15
8. Of Montreal @ Koko, London, October 16
9. Wildbirds and Peacedrums @ Luminaire, London, June 5
10. I’m From Barcelona @ Scala, London, November 25
AE

2. Jens Lekman @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 17
3. Fleet Foxes @ the Junction, Cambridge, November 11
4. Band of Horses @ Shepherds Bush Empire, London, July 8
5. Rolo Tomassi @ Portland Arms, Cambridge, September 29
6. Elbow @ Corn Exchange, Cambridge, October 6
7. Johnny Foreigner @ Barfly, Cambridge, May 6
8. James Blackshaw @ CB2, Cambridge March 29
9. Fuck Buttons @ Barfly, Cambridge, February 7
10. Battles @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 17
RH

2. Young Marble Giants @ Primavera Festival, Barcelona, May 28
3. My Bloody Valentine @ the Roundhouse, London, June 23
4. Shearwater @ St Giles Church, London, November 22
5. Edwyn Collins & Roddy Frame @ the 12 Bar, London, July 29
6. The War on Drugs & Bowerbirds @ the Windmill, London, August 20
7. HEALTH & Skeletons @ Luminaire, London, May 1
8. David Thomas Broughton @ Red Eyed & Blue, the Wilmington Arms, London, May 13
9. Wave Pictures @ the Enterprise, London, March 11
10. Fanfarlo @ the Nash Room, ICA, London, April 25
EM

2. The Gaslight Anthem @ LA2, London, December 5
3. Sigur Rós @ Westminster Central Halls, London, June 24
4. Bon Iver @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, September 11
5. Shearwater @ Bush Hall, London, September 17
6. Frightened Rabbit @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, New York, October 17
7. The Revival Tour @ Blender Theater, New York, October 13
8. Hauschka @ King’s Place, London, November 11
9. Billy Bragg @ the Roundhouse, London, March 4
10. The Hives @ Brixton Academy, London, April 18
MP

2. The Burning Hell @ Cafe Zapata, Berlin, October 15
3. Jeffrey Lewis & Los Campesinos! @ Lee’s Palace, Toronto, May 29
4. Stevie Wonder @ O2 Arena, London, September 11
5. Slayer & Mastodon @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, October 30
SS

2. Johnny Foreigner & Dananananaykroyd @ the Charlotte, Leicester, October 1
3. Bon Iver @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
4. Dirty Three @ End of the Road Festival, September 12
5. Okkervil River @ Truck Festival, July 19
6. Of Montreal @ Summer Sundae Festival, August 10
7. The Acorn @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
8. Future Of The Left @ This Ain’t No Picnic weekender, KCLSU, London, September 27
9. The Mae Shi @ Summer Sundae Festival, August 8
10. Ballboy @ Indietracks Festival, July 27
ST

“Music is magic. You know this already. You’ve known this from the first time a record sent a divine shiver down your spine or a band changed the way you dressed forever. How does something that’s just noises arranged in sequence do that? No one knows. It’s just magic. Everyone knows that. It’s just that some realise that it’s also more than metaphor.”

Such is the pitch behind Phonogram, a wry, affectionate cult comic set in the world of indie music that has built up a devoted following since its launch in 2006. It’s not the first comic to trade on musical references: the pop culture-heavy Scott Pilgrim is being developed as a live-action film starring Michael Cera and directed by Edgar Wright, while Belle & Sebastian earnt themselves a comic-strip anthology/homage, Put the Book Back On the Shelf, but Phonogram is the first to examine the physical and emotional experience of listening to music. It is a love letter to what music does to us.

Phonogram’s first volume, Rue Britannia, followed phonomancer (someone who uses music to effect change just as a wizard casts spells) David Kohl as he searched modern-day England for the goddess Britannia, who was thought lost 10 years ago. It was a picaresque story of quest and discovery filtered through the warm nostalgia of Britpop. Each of art director Jamie McKelvie’s covers was a visual tribute to a classic album of the era, from Elastica’s debut to It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah.

Inside, though, the references were as much Kenickie and Luke Haines (who wrote the foreword to the six-issue compilation published last year) as Oasis and Blur. Phonogram earned the immediate admiration of fans including Tim Wheeler of Ash and Gareth of Los Campesinos!, who borrowed a line from the first issue for We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed’s opening track “Ways To Make It Through the Wall”. Phonogram’s second volume, The Singles Club, broadens the scope. Set in an indie disco in late 2006, each of the seven issues focuses on a different character in a series of interlinked stories.

Kieron Gillen, who writes for both PC games magazines and Plan B, co-founded Phonogram alongside McKelvie. It remains a two-person labour of love, with Gillen on words and McKelvie on imagery. TLOBF caught up with Gillen recently to find out what drives the Phonogram world.

Rue Brittania covers, issues 1, 2 and 5

Why is it that “music is magic”?
It’s just a really strong metaphor. There’s no scientific underpinning for why music affects us profoundly as it does. There are a few ideas about how it works, sure – but no “why”. Something like music, which does everything from changing your day to changing your life for no reason, may as well be magic. It’s certainly the closest thing in real life to it.

In the phonomantic sense, we make that observation real – any musical interaction in the world is a magical interaction. There are people who are aware of this and use their knowledge to jimmy with reality a little. The key thing is that we only make the magic work in ways that are vaguely analogous to what music can do. So we don’t have people throwing fireballs or any of that nonsense. It’s all about changing your sense of identity or altering other people’s states of mind: oracle-like self-knowledge or plain old hedonism. Phonogram is basically these urban-fantasy plots based around a magical system that is mainly a device for talking about what music does to people.

How would you precis The Singles Club?
The first series, Rue Britannia, was basically about a single character’s journey. It was probably the key story in his life – an epic thing; he’ll never do anything comparable again. The Singles Club steps away from that. It’s basically phonomancers in their… “down time” isn’t the right word, but it’s certainly the sort of thing they’d be getting up to on a Saturday night. They go out and try to have some fun. “Try” being the operative word. It’s seven stories, each following an individual phonomancer through their evening, all set in the same club. So they all interlink and feed back into one another in a fancy structural way.

The theme of the first series was how personal memory, history and nostalgia all fight one another. The theme of the second is something like “individual subjective experiences of a shared communal event”. The idea is that they’re all in this same tiny club but their nights are profoundly different.

What did you want to achieve with Phonogram?
I wanted to make a comic that dramatised my beliefs about pop music. What it’s for, what it’s not for and why it’s so incredibly compelling. I wanted to do that without falling into any of the usual “music in narrative culture” traps – avoiding that moment when you wince because a writer just doesn’t get it – while being primarily about music, so not cheating and making music do stuff that music simply doesn’t do. I wanted to write something that, if I was decapitated by a precariously balanced piece of vinyl after I’d finished it, I’d be fine with it being my sole testament to the world.

From "Pull Shapes"

For TLOBF readers, their sole reference point in the cult comic universe might be something like Ghost World. How does Phonogram fit into that sphere?
Ghost World and similar creations are in the “art comics” wing. A common way of viewing the medium would be as two poles. On that side, you have the commercial action/romance/fantasy pulp, whose aim is to raise your pulse. On the other side, you have the equivalent of the art-house movie or non-genre novel, whose aim is to raise your IQ – or, at least, the chance of other people thinking you have a higher IQ. One way of describing Phonogram would be that it fits into a middle ground. It’s a comic that uses much of the pulp idiom but is trying to engage with more philosophical topics. File next to things like, say, The Sandman, The Invisibles or Transmetropolitan.

“Middlebrow” would be the term some would use, but I’d reject that dichotomy as hard as I’d reject anything, and I consider people who view the world in that way as my active aesthetic opponents. I think of Phonogram as “anti-brow”. I hate the polar dichotomy in all art, and Phonogram’s merging of pulpy tropes and literary nonsense was my attempt to try to mirror pop music itself. Music is something that, if looked at objectively, is terribly hard to take seriously. But within that three-minute pop single, people try to cram the world, and by the sheer pressure of ideas and thought in the space it transmutes into something else. I wanted Phonogram to feel the same way, if you see what I mean.

Does that answer the question? I suspect not, but it does capture what the comics world is like. I don’t think people from the outside really need to know about what it’s like in our little corner of the world, except that it’s actually quite fun down here, as I discovered. I was a latecomer to the form. To people coming to Phonogram from the outside, they’re going to reach for comparisons from things outside of comics, and even if you come from inside, it’s not really that helpful. Phonogram is an awkwardly singular object. I won’t use the word “original”, but if you look at Singles Club, there are not many music journalism/soap opera/urban fantasy hybrids in existence.

Is there a deeper meaning behind the eras in which the stories are based?
There are deeper meanings to all the choices that go into Phonogram, because we’re well wanky. But the question is kind of back to front – your subtext is that I’m trying to say something about the eras. It’s more that the eras are just a particularly good example of what I’m trying to talk about. Rue Britannia’s story wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if it was set in a movement that was worth a damn. If there had been any kind of lasting ethos that created positive change in the world, our key point about the inherent worth of your own experiences of anything that made you wouldn’t have come across as firmly. For Singles Club, we wanted something that was the opposite of Rue Britannia, so as contemporary as we could get it, but still far enough in the past to be a period piece.

A big chunk of it is verisimilitude. Phonogram requires a knowledge of a period and situation as complete as possible to work in the slightest. Jamie [McKelvie] and I came through the Britpop wars and fell over in dodgy indie clubs in 2006. It’s something we’re comfortable with talking about convincingly.

Phonogram is a dark fantasy story but set in the real world. Is that significant?
This is a fantasy story, but it isn’t. This is a fantasy story set in the real world. It’s perfectly acceptable for people to think about themselves in their own terms. It turns our abstract philosophies practical.

What do you think it says about the nature of fandom and/or criticism?
Everything.

How do you and Jamie intersect?
We have a load of overwrought metaphors about our working relationship. Our standard one was that we were the Pet Shop Boys of comics – terse McKelvie and me playing hyperverbally pretentious. And we’re the Smiths you can dance to, too.

Jamie and I coming together is one of those random flukes I can’t quite believe happened. At a comics thing – my first, selling photocopied comics I’d done, the equivalent of my atonal bedroom demos – he wanders up, says hi and shows me his pages. I ask him to do Phonogram. Look at us! We’ve formed a band. Very lucky.

Both series include plenty of back matter, with the last few pages featuring themed essays and, for Singles Club, two shorter “B-side” strips by other artists. What’s the thinking behind this?
Desperation. When I started doing Rue Britannia, I suddenly discovered that Image, our publisher, does things in 32 pages. So our 22-page story – standard for an episode – left us with 10 pages left over. Most people would lob in a few adverts or whatever, but when we were two unknowns from Blighty doing a comic about a 10-year-dead pop movement, we thought that would be obscene. Or at least taking the piss. So I started dumping my brains on the page to fill the space and justify the space.

Even though it was improvised, we were aware of it adding extra value to the singles. This stuff won’t be in the trade, so people following the singles would have something special, just for them. The model we were thinking of is singles and albums. Hardcore fans would buy the singles and get all this assorted minor stuff. More casual people would pick up the collected album and be fine with that. We’re pushing that metaphor even further with the second series, as each issue has a stand-alone couple of backup stories, with art supplied by peers and friends of ours. They won’t be in the trade either, but in true B-side manner, maybe a few years down the line we’ll do our Hatful of Hollow. It’s a chance to make each issue an artistic statement in itself, which we figure is the best way to sell enough to allow us to reach the end of the series. The problem with a narrative medium is that you need to do stuff like that. Pah!

And to finish, a TLOBF favourite – please make us a mixtape of five tracks with a theme of your choice.
God, I hate this High Fidelity nonsense. The thing is, mixtape-making is totally a phonomantic art. I haven’t written a character who does so as a magical act yet, but it can only be time. But the magic only really works with a mixtape if you’re aiming it at someone. It’s about getting under their skin. If you do it for a larger audience, well, that’s not really mixtaping at all. That’s doing something a little more like DJing.

I digress. And I’m tempted to do this in the voice of one of the characters. But I’ll just do one about my current mental state.

Of Montreal – “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse”
Future of the Left – “The Hope That House Built”
Los Campesinos! – “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed”
Amanda Palmer – “Runs in the Family”
Earth, Wind and Fire – “Boogie Wonderland”

It’s been one of those weeks, so it’s best to wallow into it and then have disco save your life.

“Pull Shapes”, the first issue in The Singles Club, is published by Imagine on December 11.

http://phonogramcomic.com

Here’s some rather good news to mull over your tea and cake this morning.

Future Of The Left are back and are to embark on a UK headline tour this November. Those dates look a little like this:

November
7th The Junction, Cambridge
8th Lazarette Festival, Southsea
9th YHA, Manchester
15th Faversham, Leeds
16th Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
21st Rainbow, Birmingham
22nd Astoria 2 (Mean Fiddler), London
23rd Xscape, Castleford
24th Nice And Sleazys, Glasgow
25th Cluny, Newcastle
26th Jailhouse, Hereford
27th Amersham Arms, London

The band will also be releasing a live album Last Night I Saved Her From Vampires which was recorded in part at their shows at London’s Water Rats on 20th August 2008 and at Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach on 13th August 2008. PLEASE NOTE “Last Night I Saved Her From Vampires” will only be available to buy on the aforementioned UK tour (and the US one they’re embarking on shortly).

The album features four brand-new and previously unreleased tracks “Drink Nike”, “Distant Jabs At A Soul”, “V.D.F.A.” and “Cloak The Dagger”, the latter two songs having been a regular fixture of the band’s live set throughout the summer. The full tracklisting is as follows:

1. The Best Laid Plans
2. Wrigley Scott
3. Plague Of Onces
4. Fingers Become Thumbs
5. Drink Nike
6. Distant Jabs At A Soul
7. Manchasm
8. V.D.F.A.
9. Dancing Etiquette
10. Fuck The Countryside Alliance
11. Olympic Ideals
12. Small Bones Small Bodies
13. The Lord Hates A Coward
14. London Shoes
15. My Gymnastic Past
16. Encores Explained
17. adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood
18. Auf Wiedersehen Pet
19. Cloak The Dagger

There’s lovely.