Stoned haze, LSD binge, or heroin party: One of the above, or perhaps a conglomerate, was used in the songwriting and recording of the Crocodiles’ Summer of Hate. There is simply no other way to explain how the San Diego duo’s music is just so…..out there, maaaaannnn. Dreamy soundscapes like ‘Here Comes the Sky’ – a dead give away for how stonerific this album is – and ‘Sleeping with the Lord’ can’t be concocted any other way (read: sober). Reverb-drenched keyboards and synths swirl here and there like an acid flashback while vocalist/programmer Brandon Welchez wafts in the air alongside the pot smoke. Think Jonas Åkerlund’s “Spun” but without all the cartoonish paranoia.
Beside the Vangelis-esque dreamscapes, Hate also features some rather noisy rockers.

“Rockers,” of course, is loosely used here, as the typical rock song’s agenda – guitar, bass, drums – is devolved into simply a sped up version of the slower numbers. But it works, probably because of, um, outside influences. Most notably, for the wrong reason, is the second track, ‘I Wann Kill.’ Many publications have pointed out its similar melody to a certain Jesus and Mary Chain song. So what? If it’s really that big of an issue (it isn’t), then JMC can sue. Til then, ‘Kill’ is just a great, uptempo track featuring the most inspiring performance of Welchez on the whole record. Also of note is ‘ Refuse Angels,’ the fastest song of this collection and the band’s take on Killing Joke if KJ wasn’t always pissed off about being pissed off. It’s obvious that this was thrown in after some sweet rave party in the Valley, and for good reason. No worthwhile drug binge is complete without strobe lighting or a spirited run from the cops.

That isn’t to say that the album blows its load early on ‘Kill,’ or any of the quicker songs. No, more than likely the Crocs snort, shoot, etc. at the beginning and then use the rest of the album as a come-down – and so can the listener. Case in point, the album’s final lyric, fittingly found in a song called ‘Young Drugs,’ is “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” It’s endlessly repeated over an ‘80s 1-2 beat, glossy keyboards and a guitar that can only be described as “wavy as hell.” It’s clear by the end of the song that the line isn’t a statement of fact, but a sobering lament. Then again, maybe it’s just the drugs talking. Pass the joint, I gotta play this again in order to figure it out.
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Crocodiles on Myspace

London’s Sonic Cathedral clubnight has been quietly perpetuating a psychedelic shoegaze renaissance for almost five years. The nights, which have played host to such luminaries as the Mary Chain’s Jim Reid and Damo Suzuki, as well as then-up-and-coming acts like Howling Bells and Autolux, spawned a label in 2007. Cathedral Classics Volume 1, lovingly/shamelessly housed in a Loveless-aping yellow sleeve, collects the highlights from the label’s first 11 singles.

The Tamborines’ irrepressibly summery “Sally O’Gannon”, also proves to be Sonic Cathedral’s most enjoyably straightforward moment, a dazzling emulation of the Warhols at their Dandiest. The Early Years’ fascinating “Like a Suicide” also lives up to its name at first – give or take the indefinite article – kicking off with harsh analogue synths and motorik beats; the track soon careers into a melange of skronking guitars and cold Bowie-in-Berlin vocals, right down to a reference to crashing cars. In fact, it’s when the bands follow a more trad-gaze path (I’m looking at you, Daniel Land And The Modern Painters) that the compilation falters.

As well as exposing newer artists, the label also plays home to some more established names – ex-members of Ride, Slowdive, Galaxie 500 and Spacemen 3. M83′s revelatory remix of Maps’ “To the Sky” is the first time the label lives up to its name; a celestial collision of choral vocals, sweeping church organs, and a lone piano entering stage right, it’s the compilation’s most breathtaking moment. Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie, meanwhile, somehow manages to make School of Seven Bells’ “My Cabal” sound even more ethereal, remixing it into a reverb blitzkrieg which could have sat comfortably on Heaven or Las Vegas.

Unfortunately the CD, clocking in at just under 80 minutes, finds no room for the original versions of many of its remixed tracks. Perhaps the label did this in order to cram in as many of the scene’s big names as possible, living up to the old shoegaze epithet of being “the scene that celebrates itself”. In some cases, such as Ulrich Schnauss’s mix of a Mark Gardener track or Japancakes’ unfocussed My Bloody Valentine covers, the results are less than stellar. Still, when they’re as lush as Sonic Boom’s shimmering, countrified reworking of “White Horses” by Dean & Britta, it’s hard to argue.

Taken together with Rob Da Bank’s exemplary recent compilation Sci-Fi Lo-Fi, Cathedral Classics, mixed bag though it is, serves as proof that whatever you want to call it – shoegaze, dreampop, drone rock – it’s a scene that needn’t just be celebrated by itself.
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Sonic Cathedral Official Site

I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence or not, but it looks like the Jesus and Mary Chain’s desire to match the Velvet Undergound biography is continuing. It begins with their music that, undeniably, tried and succeeded on transposing the ideas of Reed and Cale from the 60′s Warholean New York to the 80′s Scottish landscapes. But the parallel goes further than that. Similar to the VU, the JAMC also made two fantastic albums, which went practically ignored by the public yet defined a sound that was the influence for many other bands since. From the Sonic Youth to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, their credits are countless.

Their musical recipe has got the simplicity of genius. Guitar noise and perfect pop songs are dosed in unbalanced ratios from song to song. Whilst Psychocandy contains music-scapes of feedback and walls of distortion that overlap to create beautiful songs, Darklands preserves that mysterious tension although emphasizing the melodies and the singing. This year JAMC reunited somewhere around their 25th anniversary and completed their VU mimesis.

So leaving VU to history and moving to JAMC news. This Brixton show, the second in London following the all-seated Royal Festival Hall gig as part of Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown festival, was eagerly anticipated. The Academy is a rock venue that fits their proto-indie-guitar music much better than the jazzy RFH.

After a quite energetic, noisy, screamy and more efficacious than usual set by the Horrors, for the joy of the few teenagers and the skepticism of the elders, followed by the “as usual” monotonous set by Evan Dando… Baby, we know you’re bored but trying to bore us as well is not the solution… the headliners arrive.

The Brothers Reid enter the stage showing that brotherhood is not only a genetic issue. While Jim is perfectly fit and is here to demonstrate that the research claiming rockers have shorter life is basically wrong, Williams looks much less fit and is a little more rotund. His frizzy hair a caricature of his cool 80′s haircut. But, despite their look, I’m here for the music. And that music is alive and unperturbed by the years. Always following their successful recipe, this time they’ve dosed the set with a large proportion of beautiful songs and a minor amount of strident feedback.

The 20 song set contains 13 of the “21 singles” the band released and leaving out the less interesting of them. After an hour set, a homage to Syd Barrett with his Vegetable Man introduced the Psychocandy end of the set with the immortal Just like Honey and the beautiful You Trip Me Up. It’s the best moment for the enthusiastic and thrilled audience, which was still singing when the band quickly came back for an encore dedicated to their second album. Starting with the atmospheric Darklands and followed by the lovely Nine Million Rainy Days (Scottish humour!). Both songs, not previously played as part of their reunion, sang by “fit Jim” who took all the vocal duties for the night. The concert closed class(icall)y with Reverence.

Oh, a last note. Among the hit fuelled set JAMC played a new single All Things Must Pass. Solitary as it was it didn’t spoil the stream of music, but as a signal that an entire new album might be on the way, it’s a bit worrying. Please, can someone remind them that it was the Eagles and not the Velvet Underground that released a new album after their reunion tour…

Links
Jesus and Mary Chain [official site] [myspace]
Photos [valerio berdini]