SINGLES
GEORGE BOOMSMA - Fallen (Bandcamp)
by Jay Lewis
'Fallen' sees George Boomsma take a subtle yet significant shift from his purely acoustic setting as he plugs in his electric guitar and enlists a full band. The result is a textured delight (just listen to those multi-tracked harmonies!). If either Sufjan Stevens or Bon Iver came from the North East of England, they may sound a little bit like this. Lyrics that are tender, and romantic but never sentimental (I did mention that he's from Yorkshire didn't I?). As with the single's country-tinged predecessor ('Lily Of The Nile'), this arrives as a 'Radio Edit' There's a gentle hint there - this record deserves to be played on air. A lot.
J. MASCIS - Can't Believe We're Here (Sub Pop)
by Ancient Champion
Rock royalty. There was a lovely photo of Mascis and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields in the media this week after a London show where they combined for a cover of a notable Cure song, looking like nothing more than a couple of clean living macrobiotic stoner dudes who might have mastered the guitar feedback thing, but the clothes iron and regular trips to a barbershop, dude! no way. Can't Believe We're Here, a solo record from J. is just great, perfect laconic pop. Can anyone do it better? From an album early next year. Is there a bit of a Slade holiday cadence about the chord regressions? Nothing wrong with that. And from Youtube I got a list of J's friends that made it over for the video. Such fun. Here's some help... Fred Armisen, David Cross ,Amber Tambly, Eugene Mirman, Oliver Peck, Bully, Clare O'Kane, IDLES, Damian (Fucked Up) Todd Barry, Dolly Wells, Luluc. I think I put the commas in the right place.
STERLING PRESS - Doorbell (Fear Records)
by Alan Rider
This has Blur written large all over it. Really large. We are talking capital letters in fake embossed typeface here. So nil points for breaking any new sonic ground then, but the video is chock full of good old British comedy laddishness. Like an indie pop Madness, the whole shebang is filmed through one of those fish eye door door peepholes you have in hotel rooms. Its very clever actually. Their previous video for the single 'Lots Of Noise' was also an amusing mini soap opera, but set in a pub. As I guess the videos matter as much/much more than the song these days, I'd better give it a jolly spiffing (see, I'm really getting into the old school Ealing Comedy vibe here!) four hearts then.
ADAM RUDOLPH - Timeless (Meta Records)
by Toon Traveller
SPRINTS - Shadow of a doubt (City Slang)
by Alan Rider
Every so often, along comes a single that on the face of it should be the same old Alt Punk bilge that clutters up my review in box week in, week out, but actually isn't. This has all the right bits in all the right places. Stark yet angry, spacious but full, and all quite cleverly crafted. Apparently they are quite the thing live. I can well imagine that on the strength of this.
SPEARMINT - Melodies Mother's Jam's (WIAIWYA Records)
by Toon Traveller
HEAVENLY - P.U.N.K. Girl (Skepwax)
by Ancient Champion
Okay, well, I thought Heavenly was a record label until this week. Turns out to be a really rockin' good 90s band that never quit. P.U.N.K. Girl is reissued right now and while I think a lot of the 90s bands are what another writer here might describe as indie landfill. (Hey! I've made that music.) Others perhaps like Heavenly were really a bit better than pretty good which is evident here. Has a rewarding thickness to the sound.
HERIOT - Soul Chasm (Century Media)
by Alan Rider
Dubbing themselves "The UK's most exciting new heavy band", Heriot have chosen not to use the term 'Metal', but trust me, its Metal. 'Soul Chasm' apparently "illustrates the internal struggle for peace, revealing our tendency to be unkind to ourselves and how the fear of failure can dim the vibrancy of our existence". Erm, ok. I didn't get that, I just heard a lot of sludgy power chords, OTT drumming and unnecessary geetar twiddling, with a load of grunting and screaming over the top. Its all a disjointed mess, as is the epilepsy inducing video. However much they blather on about being a landmark band and "a benchmark for a new generation of heaviness" (whatever that means), they can't disguise the lack of originality and imagination all this screaming and cod horror visuals tries to hide.
CASSETTA - Picking Scabs (Bandcamp)
ZERO s
by Alan Rider
'Picking Scabs'? Seriously? This has absolutely nothing to recommend it, and I am only inflicting this garbage on you so you can see the depths to which certain grubby corners of the music industry have sunk. People keep sending me this stuff because they think I like it. They are wrong. I guarantee that this will be the very last example of this genre of 'music' I subject your ears to.
NEVA DINOVA - Outside (Saddle Creek)
by Lee Paul
Neva Dinova are back and that means roaring guitars and introspection elsewhere. Beautiful. A song literally for all of us on the outside looking in.
MASSINO SILVERINO - Jeva (Okum)
by Toon Traveller
RIOVAZ - crying at the Orgy (Geffen Records)
ZERO s
by Tim London
A young man with some kind of Tourettes of the hand mimes the most head-fuckingly stupid lyrics to a stupendous beat… what do you do? What do I do? Zero for the adenoidal singing and lyrics, five for the beat? Can I do that?
HALO MAUD - Terres Infinies (Heavenly Records)
by DJ Fuzzyfelt
If your like your songs big, French with a touch of film soundtracks, Stereolab and an irresistibly catchy nonsense chorus that ends in the word 'Pam!' then this one is for you. Coupled with a video in which Halo Maud appears to be having a scrap with her net curtains this is rather lovely
AMARO FREITAS - Encantados (Psychic Hotline)
by Sofia Ribeiro Willcox
The epic Encantados single is out now, but Sofia Ribeiro-Willcox says the Amaro Freitas LP 'Y'Y' will be the real big astonishing thing. See Sofia's preview here⇒
RUBY DOOM - Medium Sized Sweater (Streaming Platforms)
by Alan Rider
A song about a sweater. Now you're talking! Great cavernous sound too.
Long Playful Things
THE RAKERS - Quicksand (Mid-City)
by LamontPaul
From Baton Rouge, in their tenth great year of providing stellar garage rock, alt country, power pop and deep-fried southern soul, The Rakers let their electric guitars unspool from the getgo and you just know everything is going to be alright. Theirs is several walls of sound collapsing at once into an impenetrable sonic stew. It's thick and gooey. And out of that songs form and take shape and shift that shape around. It's like a Pep Guardiola tactical masterclass. Dizzying. The curveballs are going everywhere that you least expect them to go. And guess what, it all sounds amazingly great. Over 12 songs and five interludes The Rakers tear it up and turn it out. This sounds like what Harry Crews would sound like if he'd made rocknroll records in the south. SO many tracks I could call out. What about just one, The Punk Rock Reunion Show; or this one Middle of Nowhere; or this one Conquer My Heart... Or, or, or... Oh man, Quicksand is a relentlessly epic LP.
MARTIN REV - The Sum of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85) (Electronic Sound)
by Alan Rider
The trend of resurrecting old cassette demos and pushing them out to the faithful/gullible on limited edition vinyl (or if you are The Beatles, beating everyone over the head with them in every possible format) continues with 'The Sum of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85)' a collection of often rather ropey early demo sketches by the synth prodding half of Suicide, Martin Rev, comprising what later became full tracks on Suicide albums, along with a bunch of half ideas wisely taken no further. They are every bit as basic and low fi as you'd imagine, and without the Suicide connection, would never otherwise have seen the light of day. Some are decent-ish, many are less so. I've heard a lot better early 4 track recordings from others though and a liberal coating of nostalgia and retrospective mystique does little to improve the quality here. Demos should stay demos and 'The Sum of Our Wounds' is a case in point. For obsessives and retro nerds only I'd say.
SWAMPMEAT FAMILY BAND - Polish Your Old Halo (PNKSLM Recordings)
by Ancient Champion
I was lucky enough to hear this set live at the Swampmeat Family Band record release party for Polish Your Old Halo, earlier this week and boy do these dudes rip it up a shitstorm on stage. I would say take your dollar down and your friends and go get out to see them and get some fun. With this band. They're about as contemporary sounding as say, well, imagine you're burying your dad and along the way you gotta clear his stuff out, and you're gonna begin with the records of course, and slipped in amongst them, you just get amazed by his handful of copies of H&E magazines that your mum probably hadn't seen. He wasn't known as a naturist. So that's how they did it back then? And so Swampmeat Family Band aren't going to be giving too much credence say to the conventions of EDM. They're much, much more like Electric Crickets, which is where they wanna be. They sound like making allowances for stereophonic signal processing might be the cause of some consternation within the band. Woe betide the guitarist if he suggested he'd like locking tuners or a two point trem on his Strat. Authenticity ain't easy and Swampmeat Family Band have it. Pedal steel, deep swooping lead lines and there it is Americana's bastard son. Dan Finnemore crafts songs with seemingly effortless ease and grace and in Why Do You Care, vocalist Joni Coyne provides a total Exene Cervenka-esque edge. Masked with jeopardy. That great. Quite brilliant really. Oh wow! Swampmeat Family Band have it and they have it in the very right now.
(love everything about this...)
JENYA KUKOVEROV - Walk: A Pedestrian Guide (Topot)
by Ancient Champion
So there it is. In this fucked up world beauty is still possible in simple things. Wood and wires. Russian-born, France-based, urban romantic Jenya Kukoverov harmoniously blends acoustic sounds, gorgeously. He is a musical geopoet. I'm going to list what you should look out for here... Harmonica, percussion, clarinet, xylophone, tambourines. It's ambitious, it's light and it is airy and it has such emotional resonance I have to question whether it is proper or right to enjoy this, to find respite in this music, right at this moment. But that's just me. I am as fucked up as the world is fucked as this is quietly brilliant and unmissable. Weird review I know for a wholly exceptional and beautiful piece of music. Seek it out and you will find. I'm a writer I could listen to this and write all day.
ABC - Beauty Stab (Universal Music)
by Jay Lewis
Jay feels the Beauty Stab after 40 years. See whether you are getting the same vibe over here⇒
RANDY NEWMAN - Shining Bright -Live San Francisco 1972 (Raygun)
by Jay Lewis
Occasionally I need to be reminded of what I hold most dear! Sometimes, all it takes is for an obscure live recording released on a made-up label and with a shonky sleeve to pop up on a streaming service, and I'm transfixed. And this is where I find Randy Newman, it's 1972 (pre 'Short People' , 'I Love LA' and way before 'You've Got a Friend In Me') with just a piano and some exceptionally dark and biting songs. As it's a live album you can revel in all of the inappropriate laughter at 'You Can Leave Your Hat On' and 'Lovers Prayer' and then feel the silence descend when he performs 'I Think It's Going To Rain Today' - one of the loneliest songs ever written. Whoever operates the 'Raygun' label, I love you for releasing this.
PREDATORY VOID - Live at Dunk!Studios Pt one (YouTube )
by Toon Traveller
INNER SPACE QUARTET - Perspex Capitalism (Dime Records)
by Lee Paul
Some of the funkiest sounds ever fitted onto a Fostex, it's fair to say. The Inner Space Quartet's Perspex Capitalism is a compendium of fourteen previously released & unreleased & hard to collect tracks. The record includes their first four 45s, Soho Radio sessions, dub versions, and outtakes from the future. It is true. A debut LP slated for 2024 won't feature some of the tracks here. The cavalcade of stars making this record reads like the Who's Who of indie, indie experimental dance funk... Lee Skelly (Discodor, The Prescriptions), Aaron Fletcher (The Bees, 77:78), Shawn Lee (Young Gun Silver Fox, Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra), Marc Zeriat, Leila Khaloub, Michael Stuart (The Prescriptions, The Mike Lee Sound), Snuffy Miller and Isabelle Monier. These are the dudes that made me the Vibraslap person for hire I've become and inveterate searcher for all used reasonably priced Latin Percussion detritus in car boots online and off the world over. If only I could buy a sense of time. Perspex Capitalism by the way is brilliant from beginning to end.
Other Materials
ELECTRIC SIX - Panic! Panic! (Metropolis)
by Alan Rider
The pandemic may be fading in memory for many and is rapidly being airbrushed out of history by firms and politicians keen to reinstate the Rat Race, or as they term it, "get back to normal", but we are still feeling the effects of it on musicians who were forced to separate from each other when they would otherwise be getting drunk together and travelling the world on tour. Many took advantage of the enforced downtime to do things starting with 're'; reflect, re-set, re-charge, and record. A multitude of lockdown albums resulted, but Electric Six' responded with the 'Panic! Panic!' single, their 2020 telling of the paranoia and hysteria that gripped the world and had us all scrubbing every surface and ourselves, queueing up to get jabbed with untested vaccines, poking swaps painfully up our noses several times a day, and looking like bank robbers whenever we dared to venture out. Composed and recorded in separate cities over two continents, and opening with a sampled cough, its a jolly little ditty all told though, despite its subject matter.
BILLIE JO SPEARS - What I've Got in Mind (United Artists)
by Ancient Champion
This is incomparable... This is how I ponder where my life went wrong. In intimate conversation with Billie Jo Spears in a small cafe out of the way... Love this, because what she doesn't have in mind at all, is "A small cafe out of the way..." And I got here this week while I was reading Meave Haughey's Behind Closed Doors from the recent Digbeth Stories collection. You'll be familiar with the Charlie Pride hit of the same name, maybe I'll add it here. Both Behind Closed Doors and What I've Got in Mind were written by Kenny O'Dell, both top ten smashes the world over. Kenny also wrote that other country standard, Trouble in Paradise for Loretta Lynn. While Billie Jo had a massive hit too with Blanket on the Ground. Oh man.
ELMER BERNSTEIN - A Walk on the Wild Side (Mainstream Records)
by Ancient Champion
In the canon of Western film, Saul Bellow's opening credits to Edward Dmytryk's 1960s movie version of Nelson Algren's Walk on the Wild Side, which actually had John Fante's hands on the screenplay, is regarded as the greatest opening title sequence of all time. Better even that Dan Perri's De Niro/Raging Bull? Well, the cats. And Bernstein is epic and restrained in these three minutes. Saul Bass did plenty of good titles. But, I like cats and this is great. All music should sound like this though. I tell people that. No one listens to me anymore.
Essential information
Main image: colourized eyes screengrab from Saul Bass' title sequence for the movie A Walk on the Wild Side
