Outsideleft Week in Music Is All About That Brass

Take a forward thinking brass band from the slate mines of North Wales, an Iranian-Welsh singer with a voice to die for, and a world renowned beatboxer/rapper from Ynys Mon and you get the next James Bond theme.This is utterly magnificent.

A prolific singer-songwriter working since the 90s, Fisher's song is a tribute to his late mother, and while the simple melody and pedal steel may be ignorable Americana, his lyric and heartfelt delivery are not. I was unsure until the chorus, which brought memories to me of the passing of my own parents, and the way that your response is judged and dictated by people around you: "Nobody can tell me how to feel, I know what is real for me.." with imagery around stone and ash, "nobody can tell me how to be in the face of losing." His voice, a little Jim Croce, a little Conor O'Brien, has understated emotion, but the point of the song is that who should tell you how your emotion should manifest itself? "Couldn't even cry when I was trying to feel it all", hits too close to home. A song that may mean something to you, or may not. Link is here

Swedish act Abstract Crimewave have a very cool name (they were called Smile, but then Thom Yorke and his band of burglars broken in and nicked that name, so they had to find a new one), feature Joakim Åhlund  from Les Big Byrd, and have Chrissie Hynde guest warbling on their new LP.  Not on this track though, which, according to the video, features Maggie Thatcher on drums.  An impressive feat, given she has been dead for years.  This is an eclectically fluffy little nursery rhyme of a song.  The sort of thing you'd find popping up on a 1970's re-run of the Eurovision Song Contest.  This is not a patch on either Les Big Byrd or 'Kylie' off the first Smile album though. Lets see what the full album offers...

Guitar pop ambience is a good description for this.  Trippy and droney, with a silly video, it is a perfect Summer record.  We still have a bit of Summer left, right?  At 7 minutes, this has plenty of time to morph into different shapes, and it does.  Improvised, you get the feeling that they mostly made things up as they went along and had plenty of fun doing that. Its a mad record, like a toy box out of control if you can imagine that. Then it all stops really suddenly. I wasn't expecting that.

Melody over melody mainly produced by a so painfilled it aches organ. From the first fill and rimshots I unnaturally love these drums... more... more... more... as Andrea True would have it. So very very very cool

There are two Kims in this weeks round up, both previously members of iconic bands, with this Kim being formerly of both The Pixies and The Breeders.  This isn't quite at the level of Kim Gordon, but comes close, distorted and fuzzy, which taken together gives you a warm feeling inside.  There is an album coming in November ('Nobody Loves You More'), featuring an unfeasibly large amount of contributors, of which more later...

We love Kim Gordon at Outsideleft. With her pedigree in Sonic Youth, it is unlikely she could do anything wrong in our eyes. To be honest, if she turned up playing a kazoo it would still be brilliant.  She has that Midas touch.  She has teamed up with Washington DC experimental group Model Home here for 'Razamatazz', which is nothing like you'd imagine from that title. Throbbing and scratchy, minimal and experimental, it is effortlessly good.  How can one woman keep producing unique and innovative music year after year? I don't know, but Kim does.

There's world music and then there's the whole world shoehorned into a piece of music. Inner Space Quartet are a bit more of the latter. Wow to exotica, smooch to Turkish psych, Gregorian chanting, electric sitar breaks, fuzz guitar, Space Echo-ed flutes, David Axelrod knocking on the studio door, the engineers taking calls from Gabor Szabo and detuning zithers, all on one song. Originally released by Funk NIght Records in the US and so playing hard to get in Europe, available now from fine South of France indie, Dime. Loud they say is the only level to listen to, and dance like freaks until your neighbours can't stand it no more.

It's all about the bass... synth for me. Dreamy though too. 

The Guy Hamper Trio's latest single with additional Hammond Organ played by James Taylor (not the early 70s folkie) is another action packed slab of thumping drums, pounding bass, slicing guitars and Taylor's virtuoso playing. Guy Hamper is another alias for Billy Childish and his recent biography just about everybody interviewed comments that Taylor was the one great musician on the Medway Scene. Proper early 70s British cop show stuff. The First Creature is Jealousy is basically a slow and solid drum, and bass groove (bass played by Childish's wife Julie) with Taylor adding his finest spy movie chops to the proceedings. A great addition to the ever expanding Guy Hamper Trio catalogue.

'Pipes' is about the water crisis in Flint - Youngstown OH, a former steel boomtown in the rust belt that is slowly crumbling due to population loss and dis-investment by the US government. An odd topic for Brooklyn based Giraffes, but, like many others, they care about what is happening to the little guys getting pissed on from a great height by corporate America.  On the way they deliver a stonking tune that starts with screeching feedback (always a good sign). Think Queens of the Stone Age crossed with Jesus Lizard and a grunge version of Black Sabbath.  Does that make sense?  I thought not.  Never mind, just crank up the volume and take a listen to the video below. Its a corker.

Their first album was great.
Their second album was OK
Their third album was dull
This,their fourth album is desperately bland.
Last year their singer Grian Chatten released an excellent album called Chaos For The Fly. Go buy that instead... Oh,and while you're in your local music retailer,grab a copy of Fontaines D.C.s first album called Dogrel.
One star for the track Bug which sounds like something off Chattens solo album otherwise avoid.

The whole remix experience... I can't tell anything. I liked Nameless initially and Domnique is always so cool though, so why not?

Alan Rider says, "Sometimes the idea of a band is as important, no, MORE important, than the music they produce...  Forget modern ‘Industrial’ bands - amateur Heavy Metal all. This is what Industrial was really all about and why if it hadn’t happened by itself, you’d have needed to step in and make it." See what he means over here

Def Leppard.  That's a name from the past isn't it?  Not really.  Music doesn't work that way any more.  Bands resurrect and are bigger than they were before.  White haired they may be, but bands like Def Leppard still pack out stadiums and know how to put on a show.  Putting on a show is really all that matters now, as some ticket prices could buy you a second hand car.  This 'intimate' gig at Sheffield Leadmill at the back end of last year shows that they still have it, despite their advancing years.  Retirement isn't a thing now.  Keep going until you drop is the mantra, in all industries, not just music.  This is decent enough, if not especially my taste,  and they get an extra point for sticking with their drummer all these years after he lost an arm in that car accident.

Many of the OL folks have been excited about this retrospective, so much so, it has been Fire Engines Week all week at Outsideleft. DJ Fuzzyfelt has the final word with a review right here.

More feel good than Feelgood! The Dirt Road band can even get Alan Rider listening to the blues. See what Alan has to say about that, right here

'Sinsation' was originally released in 1995 on Nothing Records, the label established by Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor, that also issued records by Marilyn Manson, Squarepusher, Autechre, Meat Beat Manifesto, Pop Will Eat Itself, Einstürzende Neubauten and Plaid, as well as NIN themselves.  Its been out of print for almost three decades, so they have dusted it off and pushed it out as a double album ahead of a North American tour (as you do).  Basically, if you like early NIN, you will like this, as its pretty much a carbon copy of that sound.  Having said that, its a very, very, good copy.  Videos always include the usual guitar posturing that is interchangeable with any Heavy Metal or Hair Rock act.  Its a misnomer to call this 'Industrial' really, as it has little/no relationship to Industrial music proper a la Throbbing Gristle.  This is adrenelin fuelled rock, pure and simple, complete with all the iconography that comes with that - leather basque clad girls, guitar waving, sweaty long haired men in leather waistcoats and studs, and so on. Its a lot of fun though, and PIG do it really well.

Nick Cave is obviously setting great store by this album. Big interviews in the US, UK, Australia and Europe. Much is being made of it being a Bad Seeds album as opposed to just Cave and his main latterday collaborator Warren Ellis, however, as the album is drowned in strings and the almost inevitable arrival of a choir around two thirds of the way through every song, even the one thats only just over two minutes long, it doesnt' sound much like a band album to these ears. Sometimes it sounds amazing. The title track itself is almost on a par with Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vanniers greatest songs without Gainsbourg's creepy lyrics, however an almost whole album of it wears thin. It reaches its nadir on the track O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is) which is a tribute to Caves former lover and wonderful musician in her own right Anita Lane who died in 2021. The track is replete with a voice mail from her. It could be a loving and deserved tribute but ends up being overblown and not a little uncomfortable. Cave is not one to hold back on the personal but this gets a little too close. The sparsest track is Long Dark Night. Mostly just Cave and his piano plus a few strings. Maybe if the rest of the album had held back on the endless overdubs it would be as lovely as this. My only conclusion is that now Cave is an arena artist he feels he has to make big music for the big stage. A stripped back/demo version of the album would be nice without all the bells and whistles though.

Ever since sisters Lisa and Naomi Grimm broke up Moany Sis because Naomi borrowed Lisa's lipstick without asking, we've been expecting them to put their handbags down and reform and to no ones surprise, here they are again. Ticket prices for a porta-loo in a field 5 miles from the venue start at £100 and rise steeply from there.  Form an orderly queue. We couldn't find a current video but we did find something that closely approximates their sound and look.  Enjoy.

This is from 1976 or something. You've heard it a million times. They're playing in Walton on Thames next weekend... You just want to thank them really for the joy they have brought.

Imagine if you didn't know what OMD looked like?  Imagine if you had never seen Andy McClusky playing his bass too high in a tank top or check shirt with his sensibly coiffured hair, always staring too hard into the camera, with Paul Humphreys smirking away on keyboards behind him like a bankers son living off his trust fund. Imagine that there was no 'Enola Gay', no documentary films, no endless recounting in interviews of when they met Kraftwerk, and no tales of how they bought their first synth from a catalogue. Imagine all you had was this one single, on Factory Records, with just that mysterious name to go on, as I did when this first came out.  Wouldn't that be just perfect?