Idlewild – Birmingham Academy

Posted on October 30, 2009 by haymoncollins

The Lad, Mr International Decorator Supremo and I lined up a little forlornly outside the new Birmingham Academy with another couple of dozen people to see the perennially wonderful Idlewild. Alongside us were 2000 of Birmingham finest 15 year olds in all their finery waiting to get into see Calvin Harris (apparently voluntarily though heaven knows why). Once inside we took our places with childlike enthusiasm and expectation by the crash barrier up front. I am curiously thrilled and disappointed in equal parts that a band like Idlewild now play to 600 capacity halls rather than the 1500 or 2000 of old, but then I guess it’s a crowd of serious fans not the passing faddists of Calvin Harris et al.

The Olympic Swimmers (renamed from the curious Hindle Wakes of before) gave a, too brief, fine account of themselves, although apparently one down due to illness and left in the bus. Their two track CD, lovingly hand printed by front girl Susie Liddell a very modest two quid from the merch stand.

After the inevitable faffing around of roadies etc our wee Scots heroes took to the stage around nine OK and proceeded to knock out one brilliant song after another from a set list that lasted for an hour and a half. Almost impossible to pick out particular highlights but A Modern Way of Letting Go is affine exit.

I have to say the band looked like they were really enjoying the experience which is always good to see. The new album, the break from the confines of previous labels and perhaps the shows in Scotland and London doing back to back performances of the back catalogue seems to have brought them to refreshed vigour and energy.

Having remarked that you don’t see much moshing/crowdsurfing these days (maybe I go to the wrong gigs?), the exuberant crowd got pretty damned close in the second half of the show, and if I was less restrained I might have joined in…now that would be a sight!

A chap who must have been almost right next to me video’d a couple of songs and can be seen on the Facebook pages here and here– I know such clips are only really any good for those remembering and pretty rubbish for anyone not there, but there you go.

So a wonderful, uplifting gig, nothing like it when it goes so brilliantly right, you step outside the daily humdrum and into another place, bless their little beardy faces

Idlewild Facebook

Olympic Swimmers Myspace

Photo credit: International Decorator Supremo

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Editors at Colston Hall

Posted on October 21, 2009 by haymoncollins

Having looked forward for some time to see Airship as the first support for Editors it was more than a little irritating to find that the doors open time was clearly a figment of someone’s imagination and we toddled into the hall just as they walked off.It seems far from fair to have a band go on to just a handful of people – lets hope they don’t suffer the same ignominy elsewhere on the tour.

Wintersleep, the second support , were also a band on my ‘want to see’ list. Welcome to the Night Sky is a fine album and they dutifully rolicked through some of the tracks including Drunk on Aluminium, Archaeologists and the like. The lead vocals, certainly at first, sounded like a pale imitation of those on record, but they did improve through the set. A good set, well delivered, it unfortunately to my mind went out on a bit of a duff track and would have been better using a more accessible and immediate song to leave with.

Editors came on all black and moody onto a black and moody stage with an industrial scale light wall behind and went straight into the opener and title track from the new album. Straight through into another two or three songs, mixing old and new. Although not a big fan of the Dépêche Mode era synth stuff, it must be said that the additions make a welcome change and enrichment of the sound, away from what is now a little predictable indie crash and wallop. Of the newer tracks, You Don’t Know Love and Eat Raw Meat=Blood Drool stood out as of course did Papillon as the penultimate encore (should have saved it ‘til last methinks). Papillon, with its disco syth overtones and the slightly bizarre ‘Kicks like a sleep twitch’ line, got me as close as I ever come to leaping up and down in front of the stage (so inelegant and unbecoming at my age).

Stroudie Tim Smith was in fine voice, lets hope it holds up for the full three months of the tour, a strangely rich and sonorous voice.Physically he is an odd amalgam of Ian Anderson and some hybrid Dickensian character – all distorted face expressions and striking demented angular poses, throwing himself around the stage with abandon.

The whole show was at full tilt, high energy, roaringly loud, blinding lights, Smiths frantic activity counterpointed by his colleagues restraint. The relative lack of interaction with the crowd or backchat reinforced the sense that here might be a band hoping for stadium access and the detached pomp and bombast that the show leaned towards. The vacuity of some of the lyrics is all the more apparent live, however it was impossible not to leave impressed, energised and more enthusiastic about Editors than I had dared hope

Editors website

Editors Myspace

Wintersleep Myspace

Airship Myspace

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The Duke and The King – Nothing Gold Can Stay

Posted on October 7, 2009 by haymoncollins

I have come to this rather late, released this year but obviously early in the summer. Purchased now through the recommendation of our local independent record store Kanes Records in Stroud when I was wandering aimlessly looking for inspiration. The Duke and the King comprises Simone Felice (of the Felice Brothers), Bobby Bird, Reverend Loveday and Simi Stone and lay down some immensely satisfying , alt country/americana type music.

There was a strange sense of recognition of these tracks from the first listen, almost old favourites somehow.

Melancholic I think sums up the vibe throughout, a little weary and careworn. The short suite of ten songs all has a sense of longing, loss, of time passing, people making choices and finding themselves or those close to them in a place they hadn’t foreseen or imagined.

Driving across the lower Cotswolds towards Burford, all autumnal and changing, the end of another season, another summer gone, leaves turning golden and amber, seemed a highly appropriate context for hearing this wistful album for the first time. Maybe I am reading too much into it all but recognition of all our mortal destinies seems to resonate, perhaps a sense of regret even.

The Duke and the King Myspace

The Duke and the King Label

The Felice Brothers Myspace

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The Twilight Sad – Forget the Night Ahead

Posted on October 5, 2009 by haymoncollins

The second full length offering from the Twilight Sad sees them, if anything, darker and more unsettled than on Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters or the intervening EP’s. Titles like I Became a Prostitute, The Neighbours Can’t Breathe are testament to that. So too are the snatched lyrics – ‘There’s people downstairs’, ‘You’re the bearer of a womb without love’, ‘ They put up no fight.. we’ll bury them all’ – all lay down an underpinning but still opaque sense of threat and foreboding.

All sounds pretty gloomy stuff but there is something I can’t stop listening to here. James Graham’s vocals are in a heavy Glaswegian brogue that adds an urgency and directness to the already oddly threatening lyrics, Andy MacFarlanes sundry noises, accordion and signature guitar sound (reminiscent of the Kitchens of Distinction sound) are under scored by the bass lines and squelchy drum sounds from Craig Orzel and Mark Devine. Given the uncompromisingly miserabilist lyrics you do feel that a night out with Mr Graham might be quite a depressing affair.
Although so far it seems to be the early tracks of the album that have burned their way into the memory – especially I Became a Prostitute and Seven Years of Letters, I am sure that the later tracks will inveigle their way in, perhaps That Birthday Present for example (that really does sound like a very grumpy and miserable Kitchens of Distinction somehow)
Well really surely the clutch of Scottish bands must be complete now? Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit, We Were Promised Jetpacks and There Will be Fireworks – to a man all with enigmatic band names. Worth a mention too that on the day of this new Twilight Sad album comes the official release of those other Scottish heroes Idlewild’s latest and self released album, Post Electric Blues
Twilight Sad website
Twilight Sad Myspace
Idlewild website
Idelwild Myspace
Kitchens of Distinction Myspace
Stephen Hero/Kitchens of Distinction website
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David Sylvian – Manafon

Posted on September 23, 2009 by haymoncollins

A long time fan of Mr Sylvian, the owner of possibly one of the most beautiful and affecting voices, many of his albums are right up there with my long terms favourite recordings – Gone to Earth, Dead Bees on a Cake, the Nine Horses output and the Robert Fripp collaboration

I still get excited by the news of a new release but latterly I have to be more circumspect about my enthusiasm. Not because he isn’t still in fine voice and clearly immensely able and talented but albums like Blemish don’t swing it for me – too raw and personal, I feel like some sort of voyeur into a hideously painful episode of his life. Added to this the super minimal quality, the merest fragments of melody make the tracks both hard work and difficult to reward with multiple listens.

Aware that his personal life has been taking continued hits, the announcement of his new album Manafon means that I wonder if the bitterness and hurt shown through the Nine Horses project, beautiful and listenable though it was, is still there to the fore. All the signs from the limited listening available are that yes, and perhaps more exposed than ever, together with the fact that the music is back to the bare, minimal style that I find so hard to warm to. I appreciate that artists, especially those with a capital ‘A’ (much like Scott Walker and his recent projects) will want to push their music, stretch the boundaries, it s just that sometime it makes it wretchedly hard to travel with them. I find myself yearning for the richness and complexity of past music, the high quality playing, the fabulous vocals, I don’t mind if the subject matter is either opaque or transparently harsh but I need something to hook onto, something I can return to without feeling either stupid that I don’t ‘get it’ or aurally brutalised.

No doubt I will gather the album in, but I do hope that his life picks up soon, a spot of happiness wouldn’t go amiss now and then, give us something to transcend the greyness of our daily lives. It doesn’t have to be happy clappy but maybe something with depth, richness, something that rewards the listener. Maybe its just me…

Well here are two vids from past days, Darkest Dreaming and the utterly sublime Orpheus


David Sylvian website

Samandisound website

Manafon website for samples and explanations

David Sylvian fan Myspace and another

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Volcano Choir – Unmap

Posted on September 21, 2009 by haymoncollins

Well this was all a bit of news to me til a friend of the lad sent a link over. The one track on the Myspace, Island IS, was an intriguing and teasing one that promised good things to come. Well the CD was released here today and its in my grubby hands and been through the car player a few times already.
As you might expect the influence of Monsieur Bon Iver is strong, the falsetto voice to the fore, with even more impossible to decipher lyrics than on For Emma. The sound too is very familiar – laid back meandering, fleeting glimpses of a hook and a tune from chaps from Collection of Colonies of Bees, but richer and more obviously ‘peopled’ than Bon Iver
After only few listens there are as yet few tunes to hum along with, although more may emerge slowly, and there is a sense of greater experimentation, almost an art-rock album with only a slight taste of the rock part
The first five tracks are all fine affairs, rather beautiful concoctions of sound an voice, woven together in an almost hypnotic fashion the later tracks have yet to impress to the same extent but maybe they need more time and space.
Some wags are hailing this as one of those genre defining/changing albums, well I have my doubts about that, but none the less it is good piece of work that suggests more rewards the longer it is given. To be honest it might serve as a goof introduction of the possible delights of Collection of Colonies of Bees (what a fine elliptical name they have)
Volcano Choir Myspace
Volcano Choir Jagjaguar
Volcano Choir NPR
Collection of Colonies of Bees Website
Collection of Colonies of Bees Myspace
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Wheat – White Ink Black Ink

Posted on September 20, 2009 by haymoncollins

After a couple of months rather vainly searching for the next musical obsession it seems like its here. OK I know it came out earlier this summer but it seems absolutely absent in UK stores, but now I have an mp3 download and a hard copy on its way for the US.

Wheat’s White Ink Black Ink is frankly a rather wondrous affair. I rather knew that unless it was an absolute stinker then it would be a favourite, I am afraid that they can do little wrong in my book – after all a band who produces the practically perfect in every way Don’t I Hold You (despite the odd video) can be forgiven many a slip along the way
Beset by label problems and a less than prolific output; Hope and Adams and Medeiros seem a long time ago and the more recent Everyday I Said a Prayer was a little hit and miss, there has been quite a wait for this bit of product
White Ink Black Ink is a real return to top form, hook laden tunes, quirky bits and bobs and the characteristic vocal delivery of Steve Levesque that works for me every time. the album seems more focussed on the listener with its more tightly drawn songs clocking in around 3 minutes, more immediate without being slight or fleeting
HOTT (Half of the Time) kicks it all off rather excellently setting up expectations for the tracks to come, followed by Changes Is – vid below – (no matter quite what ‘changes is the better part of me, boom boom’ really means, tho I kind of get the sense). My Warning with its great bass line and the layered harmonies working their magic and then El Sincero and its almost out of tune vocals, destined to be a classic. A personal fav though is Living To Die with the great loping drum and an almost self-perpetuating chorus/verse thing – honestly this cold roll on for 30 minutes and I wouldn’t get bored
Another half dozen three minute gems and all too soon its over. Never having had the chance to see them live you wonder how they might reproduce this on stage – the great sound, seemingly slung together, holding on by the skin of its teeth, an almost fragile, chaotic quality to the songs and playing, the vocals that could so easily simply sound rubbish but end up sounding so right all combining to make for heart-warming, fabulous stuff

Wheat web site
Wheat Myspace
Express Night Out Track by Track
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There Will Be Fireworks

Posted on July 26, 2009 by haymoncollins

Warning – I am really rather liking this alot. Another band from north of the border, down Glasgow way, inevitably bundled up with the likes of Frightened Rabbit, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Twilight Sad and so forth. Whilst its great to have a such a clutch of new bands from this fertile caledonian patch, I do hope they don’t get bogged down with that as they are very much their own band.
This eponymous album was released at the start of July despite the band, incredibly, not being signed to a label. Although they are all hideously young blades there is a maturity in approach and sound, a complexity that grabs the attention and marks them out. Not simply another climactic band sound but one that seems prepared to take some chances. The opener, Columbian Fireworks, does this from the off. With apparently specially lyrics/poetry written and read by Kevin MacNeil, the Stornoway poet/writer/musician, the track is scarcely what you might expect from the first track from a first album – no disernible melody but high on atmosphere.
The album rolls through quiet almost delicate tracks interspersed with harder, angrier tracks with Nicholas McManus spitting out the words, not really singing, off key with emotion. Midfield Maestro is a fine fine track (the vid below is blessed by the fabulous Barra landscapes) and contains some evocative lyrics – ‘we’ll set these tapes on fire, as your heart breaks in my car, you’re unravelling in my arms’. Off With Their Heads sees McManus at his least musical vocally but still highly affecting.
If there is any justice TWBF should have a successful second half of 2009, especially if people drop by their web shop and spend the paltry £8 on this fine piece of work (and rather beautifully packaged too with splendid photos from Jonathon Pritchard)
Next question is – how would they translate this to a live show? Well fix some shows where I can get to them and maybe we’d see…

‘Midfield Maestro’ by There Will Be Fireworks from Peter Gerard on Vimeo.

Buy the album !

There will Be Fireworks Myspace

Kevin MacNeil Myspace

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We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls

Posted on July 21, 2009 by haymoncollins

Another rather late set of comments on this Scottish bunch of lads. The debut album, out on Brighton based Fat Cat Records has been with me a while and has earned a nice little warm corner in my heart.

I think that rather strangely I first heard them via the KEXP posts from Seattle when DJ Shannon got onto them on a trip to the UK. Nothing was available for some time unless you managed to get to one of their gigs, usually north of the border. But the album is now here and well worth geting hold of.
They sit in that clutch of new Scottish bands that includes Frightened Rabbit, Twilight Sad as well as There Will Be Fireworks (of whom more later when their debut hits the mat). In addition to the always alluring Caledonian-ness of the band they have that wonderful energy and immediacy that often gets lost with the passing years. But right now the chaps are young and eager and Adam Thompsons vocals are full throated and uninhibited, in the sort of way that, for example, flamenco singers really let rip, and even if the notes are sometimes not quite nailed, that isn’t the point, the point is in the delivery and the gusto behind it.
That said, alongside full ahead stuff like Quiet Little Voices and Ships With Holes Will Sink, there are other sides to the Jetpacks like Conductor and This is My House, This is My Home which is both quieter and stranger.
The chaps are out on tour later this year in the UK (over the summer in the US alongside Frightened Rabbit), and I shall be trekking along tothe dubious delights of The Cooler in Bristol to experience them live and firsthand.
Fat Cat Records website
We Were Promised Jetpacks Myspace
Frightened Rabbit Myspace
Twilight Sad Myspace
There WillBe Fireworks Myspace
Photo credit: Neil Thomas Douglas
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Silversun Pickups – Swoon

Posted on July 20, 2009 by haymoncollins

I am not sure why it has taken me quite so long to get around to this album. I have had it since its UK release a couple of months ago but haven’t really gotten into it til these last couple of weeks. Maybe I had one of my fifty quid man moments and bought too many at the same time – always a bad move despite the brief enjoyment of scooping up a bundle of things at the same time. The trouble is they dont all get the time and attention they deserve and I suspect that Swoon suffered this ignominy.

Anyhow its now been on repeated play for a while and I am well in love with it. Despite the rather odd vocal delivery from Brian Aubert, I have grown used to it and even see it as part of the albums charm.
The opener is still not a favourite but The Royal We, and Growing Old Is Getting Old certainly are. Panic Switch is a great blast and Draining represents one of the calmer, quiter tracks that punctual the later stages of the album. Indeed Aubert thinks the quiet /loud contrast is a defining charactersitic of the album. Overall there is something wonderfully melodramatic about the whole set, sweeping soundscapes with for me some particularly impressive and endearing bass lines from Nikki Monninger.
The album artwork is fabuluous, apparently courtesy of Darren Waterston, his piece, ‘St Clair’ being the basis for the cover with two more pieces featuring inside. Mmm I do regret not getting into the album sooner and so spurring me to get tickets to their Thekla gig which I missed ‘cos I was too darned slow… let that be a lesson
Silversun Pickups Myspace
Silversun Pickups website
Darren Waterston website
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