Outsideleft Week in Music with Starry Faces

The sound of soul-poptastic Young London Now. Lava La Rue nails the neo-funky soul vibe on Better from their colossal LP 'Starface'. The best immersively authentic British record I've heard in a while. Better is a perfect pop song, of course, and there should be every chance of that from someone who wanted to form a West London street Clash when they were 13,  half their lifetime ago. With a backstory to love, not maybe to live, Lava La Rue is breathtakingly amazing. A bit Prince-y maybe, but, goddamn steal from the greatest. Oh and Cuco sings too, but Lava La Rue gets to do the talking parts. Duncan Jones! New talking parts in a record, I know you're gonna love this.

Well, well. From the LP Bando Stone and the New World, this is a lo-energy drink o' delight.

No, Sex Week isn't a new twist on the Outsideleft theme weeks we have been doing lately, but a Cocteau Twins aping, dreamy song that rolls along mid pace, gradually getting more intense, in the same mould as their previous singles, whilst co-singer Pearl Amanda Dickson rolls around on the floor in their self directed video.  Female singers always feel the need to roll around on the floor for some reason.  Strange, that.  You'd think they would get all dirty. Confusingly, there are also three of them shown in the video, despite them being described as a duo! Setting that aside, despite the "Oooer, Missus!" name, this is inoffensive stuff really, and unlikely to set anyones pulse racing in the same way as a Sex Week would.

There are tracks you hear, and you pick apart the production, you find the flaws and you recommend heartily against others hearing them. Not so with Ancient Champion, this short interlude of music is nothing short of wonderful (my only quibble being that it is so very short) and needs to be listened to.  Why? , well,  somewhere, a small funk powered robot family are grooving their way across a meadow. They pause to watch as a Butterfly crosses their path, bouncing gently on the lightest breeze. The grown robot asks “what did you all think of that” met with a chorus of “it bounces up and down” and that exchange echoes through the air, as they carry on their journey, before fading out as they disappear over the horizon.

Thunderous riff, gloomy lyrics about the breakdown of a relationship, stoner rock ahoy! The band have disparate influences according to the press release, to be seen more on the upcoming EP I hope. This is a little plodding and repetitive, which is the point I know. Enjoy if you enjoy, I guess, my mind was wandering half way through, to the question the band pose: "How can two people find common ground when they seem to be occupying two separate realities?"

For once the name of the band gets it spot on.

Sick of the Blues is from the forthcoming LP Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me, (October, Secretly Canadian). Get it, they are fed up with being fed up and are yelling it from the rooftops. "Oh I’m sick of the blues, I’m in love with my life again, I’m sick of the blues, I’m in love, Oh I’m sick of the blues, I’m in love, I love everything, I’m sick of the blues, I love you more than anything..." One of Britain's most promising bands true to their words. They're so sick, so sickly great.

Misread this as Carnage Asda at first, assumed it was something that happens when George has a half price sale. Reminded me of my own psychedelic experiments which included consuming a unassuming looking square of paper in a supermarket and racing to get the shopping done and get home before things went weird. But Carnage Asada are a punk, jazz, psych band formed in the 90s with a considerable history and popularity in California. The song and video are a paean to psilocybin, a euphoric recall of past psychedelic trips from performers who are now mostly clean, they say. It's cool, funny and in the spirit of Captain Beefheart and Zappa, with a bit more humility.

I will be honest, it was the name that drew my eye.  But far from being a gore splattered Grindcore act, Man/Woman/Chainsaw are a slightly fey five piece from London just starting out as a band with their first EP.  They seem very excited about it, as I would be in their position.  They look incredibly young and keen, and Clio is their violinist btw.  I hope they do well, I really do.  Being cynical and jaded gets boring after a bit you know, so hats off to this band of teens with the bonkers name for making me smile.

Poor Madeline was written when Daffo (Gabi Gamberg) was 17, a plaintive reflection on their status at the time, their mental health and feelings of dislocation. This updated recording has contributions from fellow folk artist Searows (Alec Duckart) and is a gorgeous layered experience, steel guitar, harmonies and violin with piano produced perfectly by Philip Weinrobe (Deerhoof). Achingly personal, genuine and with lyrics diving into the heart of their crisis: "Can't scrub herself better, The pain is not in her pores, Not ready to give herself over to life". 

Wendy James used to front Transvision Vamp.  Yes, THAT Wendy James.  I'd consigned her to the 'Where are they now?' file, but it looks like she kept going all that time, this track being from her tenth album.  Yes, she has released ten albums since Transvision Vamp folded!  Who'd have thought it?  This is a bit of fluff of course, but bowls along insistently enough and not unpleasantly either.

Any band that describes itself as a "Punk Rock Supergroup" is just asking for trouble.  That's a high bar to set.  Boasting members of Screeching Weasel, Ashers, Bombpops, and Mixtapes, none of whom anyone would describe as superstars, if you had even heard of them, 'Obvious' is out-of-the-packet US Pop Punk in the mould of Green Day/Blink 182 (aren't they all!) with an amusing video and a back story about Semi Famous being based on a band in a children's book written by one of them.  Its not taking itself at all seriously, even down to suggesting a comparison with The Clash (in your dreams!!), and as such, acts as an apt metaphor for the status of punk music these days as the modern equivalent of Teddy Boys and Showaddywaddy back in 1977, only punk is of course now a lot older a genre than the music of Bill Haley, or even Glen Millar at the point punk first appeared on the scene.  A sobering thought, and just in time for that musical Jurassic Park, the 'Rebellion' Festival and its collection of ancient punk museum exhibits.

It breaks my heart to say that somehow I expected more. I mean, there's Tony Allen and I liked the Foals. And I don't like this much at all. Maybe I'm becoming one of those guys I overheard who thinks... No synths whenever there's African percussion. Or maybe just not the soaring souring synth types. The EP is called Lagos Paris London and that's a good part of it. And I don't like the suit either. I shouldn't listen to the suit right. What's up with me. It's me. Not them.

Stuart Moxham has a new solo LP through the label Tiny Global who make good records but somehow remind me too of watching the sequel to This is 40, This is 60. Is that abstract enough for you? Fabstract the album ends in silence, well all LPs do, but this record calls the silence 'YMG Unused Organ Riff'. Is that funny? That's funny right but you'd have to tell me when I am not feeling so tired. Oh no wait. I am completely wrong, there is organ, delightful, lots of orgain, I'd just forgotten to press play before shifting to another tab. It do feature the unused organ riff, which I hope Stuart makes open source and lets other people like me make something more, or less of. Anyway. Stuart is the able to make few words, few sounds go very far, he always could. Fabstract is an LP of indubitable quality, fun, melody and moments of musical sadness. It stretches out across the room and across the house. It owes no single thing to anything else I have heard. I know precisely which radio show I will hear this on. But not enough of them. I wanted to like this, but I didn't want to have to call Stuart Moxham a maverick genius of music. I don't always get what I want. Fabstract is gently, relentlessly great.

Maybe it is just me, but to my ears every track on this album sounds almost exactly the same.  That's just dull.  This type of Lush style Shoegaze (or 'Dream Pop' as its now called) has already been done better by..er, well, Lush!  File under 'S' for Shoegaze, then best forget you ever heard it.  Trust me, it won't be too hard to do that.

This one is taken off their 2018 'Art of Doubt' album, but I'm only including this as an example. They are also known for performing a track on stage in the film 'Scott Pilgrim Vs The World', albeit with an actress on vocals for that, plus festival appearances and snazzy videos (this one is a masterclass in lip synch, even down to the breaths between verses, if you look carefully), but my point is - where do bands like Metric spring from?  (I know, Toronto in this case!)  They are so damned professional, and catchy, and good looking and write great songs which they perform with ease.   How do people manage that?  Its all a bit of a mystery to me and  is impressive.  Anyway, enjoy!

Most will know John Carpenter as the Director of Halloween, Escape From New York/LA, Assault on Precinct 13, and others.  Some will also know that he was responsible for co-writing and performing the iconic soundtracks to those films too.  He no longer directs, instead focussing full time on creating his music, which, unsurprisingly, sounds a lot like the soundtracks to his films.  Working with his son, Cody, on 'Lost Themes', he has created something here that hangs together a lot better though than the soundtrack albums to any of his films, without the need to include all the incidental music and dialogue snippets that clutter those up.  This is the first Lost Themes album, and the best.  There was a follow up, imaginatively titled 'Lost Themes II',  but that wasn't a patch on this.