Go Tell Fire To The Mountains – Wu Lyf

Posted on August 8, 2011 by haymoncollins


Wu Lyf  (World Unite -Lucifer Youth Foundation; but  you will know that already for sure…) feel like a bundle of contradictions. Determinedly ‘other’, mysterious and ‘apart’ but at the same time the nagging feeling that you may  have been this way before – if not for the music, then for the attitude and home-spun philosophy.

Not for them hooking up with a major label (or a minor one for that) despite the encouragements, but output on their own channel. Nor either a slew of gigs to warm people up and get their name out there, but a few shows here and there purposefully hard to find and access. Despite this ‘doing it our own way’ thing, the War God referenced on the sleeve of Go Tell Fire to the Mountains, refers to Warren Bramley, he of creative agency four23 ( Reebok, Adidas etc). Not that its a crime but, despite their urban youth movement stuff, they have rather conventional backgrounds; so perhaps this is all about taking a chance to reinvent themselves or maybe it is an echo of KLF stylee – a suggestion they dismiss.

Well whatever is behind all these efforts to be mysterious and anonymous (something which might pall and bite them on the arse later perhaps?) it’s the music that makes or breaks it – shame or shamen.

Members, Evans Kati, Joe Manning, Ellery Roberts, Tom McClung, show their attractions to  the music and philosophical influences of the likes of Black Flag, Minutmen, and Fugazi. Despite the hype , real or imagined, there is something energising and exciting about this debut album. The opening chords on the church organ begin a running motif throughout – the semi religious, not just in the musical references but the imagery of crosses, crowns, fire and mountains. This retro-conventional referencing contrasts with the faux (?) youth-speak of the track titles – Summas,We Bros etc.  

That all sounds rather negative reading it back which wasn’t really intended but does throw up the duality of my reactions to the album and it’s presentation.

On the one hand I can’t quite accept that the posturing, mysteriously anonymous styling isn’t just that, styling, designed to try and carve out a niche in an overcrowded market. But on the other hand I can’t ignore quality of the music here, the sense of urgency through it, a degree of freshness so sadly lacking in many quarters. True the lupine howl that is the vocal delivery can become wearing in it’s incomprehensibility but the fluidity of the guitar and the propulsive drumming both point to a level of musicianship not to be easily ignored for so young a band.

Throughout this web of intrigue or fog of deception cuts the fact that here we have some fine pop music, see Spitting Blood, Dirt. Their few shows to date have the reputation of ‘an event’ and so the chance to see them ought not be missed and indeed I will be trotting down go the inestimable Thekla on 25th October  to grab a slice of the next big thing or KLF for a new generation (or possibly both)

Wu Lyf – Dirt

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Flowers c/w Pristine Christine – World of Fox

Posted on August 8, 2011 by haymoncollins

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Simon Fox, who trades under World of Fox, Fox and Lonesome Fox  (indecisive?) has released a two track single, available for free download via Where its at is where you are, both tracks being covers, firstly Flowers originally by US indie band Galaxie 500 and Pristine Christine by West Brom band The Sea Urchins.

These two songs represent the final movement of Fox’s Repect project – a series of cover songs released one by one during 2010 culminating in an album at the very turn of the year. Those who bought the deluxe version won the right to submit suggestions for final tracks – the honours went to Tim Chamberlain and Dunc Vernon.

And two very fine and under-rated songs they are indeed, good choices Messr Chamberlain and Vernon, and Fox’s languid and beguiling versions are excellent full points to the Respect project – a little bit of lap steel, a few nice harmonies, lazy brush percussion, fine stuff.

To top it off some lovely artwork courtesy of Ruth Green accompanies the single. Holy moley, its for free for heavens sake, why wouldn’t you get it, and while your are at it, spend a little cash (and it is only a little) and get the Respect album too…

Flowers- Fox

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Spirit Canoes – Stag Hare

Posted on August 3, 2011 by haymoncollins

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Today was pretty much a rubbish day and I wasn’t feeling on top of the world, grumpy (again) and a tad stressed out. Then a little mail popped up from those fine people at Hands in the Dark Records who first introduced me to Sacred Harp aka Daniel Bachman. This time they were encouraging me to give a listen to Stag Hare whose latest album Spirit Canoes they are promoting, at least on this side of the Atlantic. As it turns out the enigmatically named Stag Hare provides just the sort of musical balm my day needed right then.

Spirit Canoes follows on from Sandpaintings (2010) and Black Medicine Music (2009), or so it seems and is to be released in a very limited digipack version via Hands in the Dark’s Big Cartel page, and with only fifty copies it won’t be available for very long. There is a vinyl version its seems that should be available through Inner Islands Records based in the States. Spirit Canoes is just four tracks clocking in at 44 minutes all pursuing the same drone/folk/psyche vibe.

Now some bands like Wu Lyf for instance (and more of them in another post) carefully craft their mystery and hard-to-find information in an attempt to build the hype and intrigue, but Stag Hare is a past master at being elusive. There seems to be almost no information available at all. True there is  the web site and a little write up on Inner Islands, but this presents Stag Hare in a female persona viz: “Stag hare was raised mostly by wolves in the northern woods many hundreds of years ago, she has been travelling the path for many of the years since with frequent and extended stops along the way for food and tea”. Given that Stag in in fact a chap called Garrick such  lyrical pointers are confusing at the very least.

But the Delphic information is really neither here nor there. For sure he is firmly in the hippy, folky, in touch with nature, spiritual side of things but to be honest I can think of so much worse. What matters is the music.

Here is genuinely meditative music, transcendent almost, and a long way from much of my normal listening material. That being said I find myself listening to much more instrumental stuff these days, often for its ability to envelop and surround, its capacity to submerge and isolate.

Spirit Canoes does have some whispered vocals but nothing that disturbs the long loping drone infused sound that extends and develops, with the slow progression you find in the sort of surrounding our elusive Stag inhabits, a land of lakes and forest, mountains and big skies. Indeed bits of field recordings litter these four tracks, crows cawing overhead, songbirds a-twittering and the sound of the wind in the trees.

Quite perfect stuff to lift you out of yourselves, take your brain out and forget the trash of the day, forty five minutes to centre, calm down and get your shit together (as they say).

Oh and Stag Hare has combined with White Rainbow to made a split album under the scarily sensible sounding White Hare, available through Marriage Records. More of the drone inflections but with greater propulsion via the drum lops, also well worth a check.

Stag Hare – To Coyoto To Hop

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The Goodes ft Judie Tzuke – Solid Shoulders

Posted on July 29, 2011 by haymoncollins

David P Goodes

Judie Tzuke


A bit of hurried post this I am afraid, but the new (first too, I imagine) single from The Goodes featuring Judie Tzuke has just pierced my consciousness and scattered a little joy across the otherwise dull and listless Friday morning’s work.

Sorry to bang on again about it but Judie Tzuke has been there weaving her magic these last (cough, cough) thirty years or so, from my early courting days (that’s what we used to call it back in the day) right up to now, and last year we had the great good fortune and thrill to see her in Bristol. My few words on the occasion right here triggered my busiest ever blog visits day, so I am not alone in holding her dear.

Anyway, enough of that. The Goodes it seems are (or should that be ‘is’) David P Goodes (I am rather liking the ‘P’ which feels significant somehow) who has worked with Judie for a while it seems. Solid Shoulders has Judie’s vocals woven in and around the lush string arrangements, the drum machine and dance inflected under-currents.

In time honoured fashion the theme is lurvvve and Judie’s lyrics are their usual high standard, delivered with the insistence and drama that has characterised her performances from the earliest days. She is on Tony the Tiger-esque grrrrreat form here – totally nailed.

What a joy to have a new piece of material here, if tales are true and DJ’s are picking up on this, then maybe The Goodes and Judie will get some much deserved exposure and remind people what an extraordinary talent we have in our midst and how grievously under-rated has been her canon these last few years. Judie is recording a new album for which pre-orders can be placed in the shop to help the expensive process along (and maybe win a gold disc of the seminal Welcome to the Cruise).

A sample of Solid Shoulders is below and on the Big Moon Soundcloud. But the whole track can be bought for a mere 79 of your earth pence from itunes , oh and that Amazon as well – go buy and see if Mr Goodes and Ms Tzuke can get some well-earned success.

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This is Broken Lines – Honour Before Glory

Posted on July 23, 2011 by haymoncollins

 

Well the name may say honour before glory but this is a glorious set of stuff from the fabled Whiskas. It has taken quite a time, around four years since the demise of the wonderful Forward Russia, but at last we have This is Broken Lines – it can (and should) be purchased in its various forms and bundles through the Bandcamp site. The ten tracks are the result of ‘messing around’ and adjusting to no longer being within the structure of a band. A while ago German audiences got to hear some early, acoustic, versions of a some tracks when Whiskas played a couple of shows there, and there was a resulting three track EP comprising Broken Bottles Empty Hearts, Lions  and sleeping/Dreaming (which didn’t make it to the album), there has also been the odd one two shows back home, but apart from that the faithful have had to hold on rather.

Of course throughout is Whiskas trade mark guitar sound, so redolent of those long lost Forward Russia shows, but this is no re-make of former times. In truth its hard to categorise the sound of Honour Before Glory and so I won’t bother. But there is a surprising and welcome variety in here – the sumptuous and dreamy like Shadow Into and the opener Monochrome in Sunshine, the warm blanket of synth that is the wonderful Maison, the almost poptabulous Lions and Broken Bottles and the triumphant swagger of Breaker.

All the songs here were written by Whiskas who played everything with the exception of drums (Simon Fogal), violin (Hannah Want) and the additional vocals (a slew of chums but including the talented Sam Airey who is himself worthy of investigation via his FB page, website, Bandcamp or Soundcloud spaces). Should the artwork intrigue then check out Fran Rogers on her web site.

If truth be told it has been a bit of a wait but well worth it now that This is Broken Lines has arrived – the download can be made now whilst artefacts will be mailed out in October. Do yourself a favour (and Senor Whiskas also) grab the download and order the ‘real’ thing for later. All we need now is the promise of a few dates to hear this all live…..

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The Irish Are Coming

Posted on July 22, 2011 by haymoncollins


Alarmist 

Friend?  

Overhead, the Albatross

Rather quietly there seems to be an Irish ‘thing’ going on. The unspeakably wonderful album of last year that was Halves, It Goes, It Goes has claimed it’s place as one my favourites of these last few years. Rather lazily and unquestioningly I assumed it might be a one off, a bit of an aberration.

But a tweet from Halves drew me to Elis Czerniak’ other band, Alarmist, who will be issuing an EP  through the small and bijou Dublin label Eleven Eleven (they also of course have a FB page). Eleven Elevens roster is compact but focussed with three bands with similar preoccupations – instrumental music with a whiff of post rock about it but with a lightness of touch and variety of instrumentation that lifts it clear of that cliché.

Overhead, the Albatross (whose name immediately makes me think of the lyric from Echoes from Pink Floyds’ Meddle album – coincidence or super-smart old me?) are six Dublin lads Joe, Vinny, Stevie, Ben, Luke & David with cello and violin played by Eoin Kenny and Tadhg Byrne (not sure how they qualify for surnames, but…) who have a a rather fine four track EP, Lads with Sticks downloadable from their Bandcamp site. Overhead, the Albatross are perhaps the most readily ‘post-rock’ of the three bands on the label, and none the worse for that, but the strings lighten the mix and the rather endearingly titled Lads with Sticks is worth anyone’s effort to download.

Friend? (with their slightly confusing name – do you spell it out like in their twitter name or is it a symbol? am guessing the later) also have an EP to be downloaded from their Bandcamp page. Their sound is a little more reminiscent of Halves (no slight intended) as in the opening of Dan 2 with the violin and satisfyingly ‘ping-y’ drums. Having not always been a massive fan of the violin I have been re-educated by the likes of Yndi Halda , the fair Sophie Green of Henameiscalla and the lush strings of Message to Bears not to mention Halves themselves. Friend? use their strings to a similar effect as Darryl Way used to back in the day with Curved Air (anyone for a late 70’s trip?) this quartet of songs sounds crisp and tight with a refreshing space between the instruments (sorry if that sounds abut like a wine review, it’s nearly lunchtime) avoiding that rather muddy overcrowding that a band like this could be prey to.

Alarmist, comprising Neil Crowley, Elis Czerniak ,Osgar Dukes and Barry O’Halpin have an EP due out in August of which a couple of tracks currently stream off their Bandcamp site and bode very well for the final offering. There is of course a little of the Halves sound in there as you would expect given Czerniak’s presence, but more than this there is real flavour of Tortoise in there – maybe its the impulse drums or perhaps the use of the glock or the staccato affects. But  whatever the influences I am looking forward to the whole set when that is released and the prospect of the, yet unannounced, dates in the UK.

Well here is a trio worth pursuing in my books and all neatly tucked up into one label to boot. I will have to well and truly park my unhealthy stereo types of Irish music being the vomit inducing U2, or whafty Enya-esque vocalists. Here is some fine stuff and if they could ease over to the UK for a date or two, all to the good.

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Turin Brakes and Tom McRae – Frome Festival

Posted on July 12, 2011 by haymoncollins

Turin Brakes

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Tom McRae

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After living for goodness knows how long ‘down here’, last Friday night saw the first sortie of Mr & Mrs HC, the Lad and his fair Natalie into the heart of Frome to mark the first night of the Frome Festival with Tom McRae and Turin Brakes at the Cheese and Grain.

But first a very honourable mention must go to The Garden Cafe. We stumbled across it quite by chance being strangers in these ‘ere parts. We partook of some most commendable food (and no meat! who would have thought it?), the Lad using up their last piece-a pizza dough the rest of us with bean and cashew patties, pitta and salad – anyhow decidedly worth a visit – part bistro, part veggie shop and garden.

The Cheese and Grain is an over sized village hall of a place capable of holding some 800 souls as it did this night. Despite being later than is my want we still got a decent place up front. I have been a Tom McRae fan since the get go but somehow had never got to see him live before. I suspect I am irresistibly drawn to the slight whiff of anger mixed with the inevitability of loss – that’s grossly unfair to his oeuvre but you get the drift. In truth he must be one of the UK’s most underrated song smiths, his five albums so far a collection of fine songs. Tonight he technically occupied the support slot but that does a great injustice to his skill, set and performance. Mr McRae and TB go back a way and make a rather brilliant pairing.

The set was a sort of best of, only serving to show how  many excellent songs are spreadacross the albums. Of course I cannot recall the set list but it opened if I recall with For the Restless from All Maps together with Ghost of a Shark and Line of Fire from Just Like Blood and some welcome reminders of the first eponymous album with Hidden Camera Show, Boy with the Bubblegun and a topically adjusted End of the World News renamed End of the News of the World in celebration of the collapse of that loathsome rag.

The crowd had a solid contingent of McRae fans despite his gloomy protestations that only a dozen of us new his music. He got the crowd behind him singing along and the fact that he was one solitary chap up on stage was quickly forgotten. A great little set strengthening my resolve to see him at one of his own shows.

After what seemed an age , Turin Brakes sauntered on and proceeded to blow us away for the next hour and a half. They seemed genuinely pleased to see so many out to see them, but I guess many like me have been fans since the early days in 2001. TB were the first band I took the Lad to at Bristol Academy in 2005 and we have seen them many times ever since and they never disappoint, but tonight they seemed at their most relaxed and happy.

Olly and Gale were, as so often, accompanied by the Animal from  the Muppets look-a-like that is Eddie Myer on bass and Rob Allum on drums (with more than a hint of Nick Frost about him), and ripped their way through their really rather wonderful back catalogue. Hearing stuff from across all the albums you again get a real sense of just how much good stuff they have produced – how come they aren’t more widely recognised as the great singer-songwriters that they are?

As I have already established, I am rubbish at catching set lists but  along the way were Underdog, Emergency 72 and long-term mortgage paying Future Boy all from the Optimist album, there too were Pain Killer, Stone Thrown and Long Distance from Ether Song; Fishing for a Dream, Dark on Fire and Sea Change from the most recent album Outbursts.

A great version of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game saw Mr McRae back on stage to share vocals with his lyrics on a paper plate. Soon we were into the encore phase – ‘just call us if you want some more’ was the exhortation and back they came, again and again. There was a real sense that they were enjoying themselves and could play all night if allowed – what a change from those bands who do their set, a brief encore and are gone.

This year sees the tenth anniversary of The Optimist LP and they will be back out on the road playing it through ( plus some other stuff I hope). Its not always a good thing to go all nostalgic but it is a fine, fine album and well worthy of an extra outing or two. Dates can be found on the TB web site and tickets will be bought for the Bristol Thekla show in November.

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Morning’s Pass – Umber

Posted on July 6, 2011 by haymoncollins

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The sterile and impersonal download is not my music source of choice. I appreciate why it gains some favour for the hard pressed and busy music lover, a couple of clicks and there you are, for artists maybe it’s a much cheaper way to get your stuff out there, but for someone who mourns the triple gate-fold sleeve with its notes and inserts, the stickers and posters, a digital ‘blob’ isn’t enough.

All the more reason for joy to be unbounded when there is the sniff of a hand crafted artefact, the chance of a bit of stuck on labelling, the merest hint of late nights round the kitchen table assembly mullarky. So bless his cotton socks, Alex Steward, aka Umber, has released his six track EP, Morning’s Pass, not only as a download from his Bandcamp site but also for purchase from Big Cartel in the choice of Ivory or, (my personal option) Pale Lilac sleeve colours.

I guess Morning’s Pass gets stuck with the ‘ambient’ label, but its a bit more than that, as the PR material says , there’s bits of drone, post-rock and the whiff of folk in there as well. The six tracks, clocking in at just over 37 minutes makes this more of an album than an EP, but it’s a set of tracks that are best played as one, from start to finish. There is a natural cyclical feel to the set, each track building on the last, a little more added each time, peaking at around track five, Spark Mountain, before gently sinking back into itself with the closer, Mellow Drizzle.

There is a temptation perhaps to read too much into the music but it would be a perfect accompaniment to those (very) rare occasions when I have risen super-early and taken a walk out across the common, through the shin-high summer grass and between the wakening cows, as the sun  climbs above the horizon of dawn and casts it first light on the silver strip that is the Severn and out to the Welsh hills beyond. All very bucolic and rural idyll I know, but for me there something inescapably rural and calming about the whole set.

Now this may not be entirely unintended what with the title and the misty cornfield photo on the cover courtesy of Martin Kimbell whose rather lovely pix should be given some time over on his web site. Frankly the track names are no help at all as they are perversely obscure, but no matter.

The whole kit and caboodle is by Alex Steward who wrote and recorded everything here, with some mastering help from Tom Morris (he of Her Name is Calla fame). Indeed there is a certain family cosiness here – Alex’s brother Cameron has done the EP design and also produces fabulous screen-print posters under the aegis of twoducksdisco for many bands including Calla, Ghosting Season and Worriedaboutsatan, Gavin Miller and Sophie Green connect through the same bands and are giving some support through their The Sound is Not Asleep PR enterprise.

Any which way , here is an EP (or maybe a mini album) of luscious music, calming and tranquil, indeed rather beautiful, and no home should be complete without a copy, so pop along and spend a modest few quid getting a copy.

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What the Night Delivered – Scott Matthews

Posted on June 29, 2011 by haymoncollins


I have had the good fortune to live with the new Scott Matthews album, What the Night Delivers,  for a little while (courtesy of signing up for an early copy as a result of being at the superb Wolverhampton show a couple of weeks ago) Its official release on San Remo Records isn’t due until September when it comes out alongside a raft of shows around the UK. It can however be ordered now through his website for those who, understandably, can’t wait until then.

Having heard a few of the songs from the album at earlier shows, and hoping they presaged a set of songs that engendered the excitement of the first album, I didn’t want to rush into comment for fear of letting my hopes run away with me. But now I know the whole set a good deal better and, without being a retrograde step,  they are a return to the things that first grabbed me about Scott Matthews.

Gone is what was, in hindsight , the slightly over-blown band sound of Elsewhere and here is a determinedly intimate and up-close album, concentrating on the Mr M’s vocals and guitar work, an album of rare delicacy and lightness of touch. After hoping for an album like this, what a triumph, what a relief!

Although the band takes more of a back seat, there are none the less some most excellent supporting musicians – Sam Martin on drums and percussion,  Greg Stoddard on lap steel (even more rewarding in a live situation), the fine Danny Keane on cello and Danny Thompson on double bass.

As suggested by the title, What the Night Delivers, is in many respects music made for the dark, the quiet, the solitary long drive on night-time country roads – not an album to get them out and dancing in the aisles, and thank goodness for that.

There are tantalising echoes of the first album Passing Stranger – not just in the atmosphere, but some of the structures, perhaps not quite so overt this time, but still there – the almost-tracks such as at the very start before Myself Again and once more the last minute of Bad Apple leading into So Long, My Moonlight –  musical cameos, perfect in their own way but also creating a little more space and air between songs.

Also in evidence is the Indian influence of before – notably in the beautiful walking Home in the Rain, but fleeting glimpses elsewhere in rhythms and intervals, the tabla on Bad Apple for instance.

To my mind there is not a weak track here, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few particular stand-out tracks, for me these include Ballerina Lake, Head First into Paradise, Echoes of the Lonely, the aforementioned Walking Home in the Rain.

The album gives off the same vibe that you get from Scott’s more intimate and stripped back shows (such as the two Wolverhampton shows at Newhampton Arts  – in 2011  and 2009 ). These are personal and direct, uncluttered by unnecessary effects and additions, and similarly here on this album everything has a place and a purpose. A joy and delight form start to finish, anyone yet to catch him live should make the effort for the dates in the autumn, you cannot fail to be impressed. I hope Mr M doesn’t mind but below I have popped my own little vid of The Man Who Had Everything from the Wolverhampton show just recently – apologies for the light level – should he not want it here I will happily remove, but it does give a hint of how the new material comes over live.

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Indietracks Festival and Compilation Download

Posted on June 27, 2011 by haymoncollins

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Indiepop Festival  is what sounds like a delightfully eccentric festival that combines a list of some forty artists from UK and beyond with the delights of  playing on the Midlands Railway Butterley kit and caboodle is set for July in deepest Derbyshire.

In addition to the head-liners (no, not Beyonce and her ridiculous wiggle, nor Coldplay and their predigested lift music) but Edwyn Collins and Crystal Stilts, there is a slew of, frankly, intriguingly named artists such as Milky Wimpshake (Newcastle upon Tyne) , the rather fine Maths and Physics Club (Seattle), the splendid Simon Fox (Birmingham), but with top prize for inspired names going to Moustache of Insanity (London)

For those of us who can’t get there the splendid chaps at MakeDoandMend Records have made a forty track sampler of bands at the festival available through their Bandcamp site for whatever amount you see fit to cough up – how can you refuse?

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