Outsideleft Week in Music Brooks the Horns

How is it that the best lyrics of the week are in English written by Belgians based on the story of a 12th century Christian cult and that the chorus, which is a killer, is only sung twice? Riddle me that. Now, tell me, wise person, how are bands meant to promote themselves if everyone is still using nazi-supporting Twitter and Facebook and Instagram? I know, it’s a real bind. I don’t know. Who jumps first? There are no handy comparisons from the past - did lefties stop advertising in the nazi-supporting Daily Mail in the 1930s? But then, they had alternatives, like the The Sketch. What do we have? There’s bluesky.com but it’s not an industry standard yet. How does it become an industry standard? What to do? What to do? Carry on using nazi-supporting Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or… not? What do you think?

David O'Byrne ponders the new single from Sparks right here

So no Grammy then for Tiger's Blood. The revenge of Waxahatchee is to put out an outtake from the album that is way better than so many of the grammy winners, since you're in the giving gong mood there's mine. Mud is concise, musically, lyricially, swinging round the corners into places I didn't see. Delightful really.

What's not to love? Like... Nothing. Nickolas Mohana is a New York based sound sculptor and composer, Night Horses has been corralled  from the forthcoming full length 'Speaker Rotations' which will be available on March 7th, from the esteemed AKP Recordings. Speaker Rotations provides an audacious and mesmerising arrangement of guitar, trombone, and piano. The atmospheric loop di loops are underpinned by layered field recordings, abstractions  of depth and colour. The record is wholly immersive, demanding attention at each subtle shift. Nickolas Mohanna sounds like he must be seen to be more throughly heard. I believe, but still I want to see. “There is a refusal to genre in this recording that I've embraced in my studio practice where feeling becomes the catalyst,” he says, “and these pieces were made in that mode—with an expressionist frame of mind, exploring the dissonance and impermanence of the sounds.” A little like true joy.

Enjoyable but couldn't help thinking it as unfinished. Don't let that put you off, I just yearned for a crescendo moment to rise above HER effortlessly beautiful vocals. Elegiac lyrics and emotive sounds always impress. And with musicians paying tribute to Classic Pop Pasts, she can't lose. A social worker for preschool kids, I'm completely bowled over. Could aim even higher next time!

Canadian Tanika Charles makes this retro soul malarky sound effortless. She's been streamed millions of times on there where that happens, for her trouble. Nominated for numerous awards. What matters? Don't Like You Anymore is out now on Record Kicks which is so often a recommendable data point.  

There is something absolutely onomatopoeic about the very sound Divide and Dissolve make. The LP 'Insatiable' will be out in mid-April and I can only suggest you hold your breath until then. Provenance opens with a couple of minutes of aural shape setting, with a will they won't they work visuals the are both beautiful and superfluous. More than most, this music is about materiality of shifting volume. Takiaya Reed's band are legends on the international doom metal scene, and Provenance is as relaxing as a being taken to a deep water quarry in heavy old concrete boots. There are reasons to feel anxious in this situation. It might not end well.  "Provenance is an examination of where things begin and how they can end.” The album promises sludgy guitars and Takaiya’s deft and wondrous saxophone. Holding my breath.

The title track from mssv's 3rd LP, out in March. The band is a collection of long-time left-field luminaries with Mike Baggetta on vocals and guitar, drummer, Stephen Hodges and firehouse founder Minuteman Mike Watt on bass. Or Thunderstick as he might have it. There are trace elements of the American underground indie rock greats, there's ghosts of them. Are they ghosts if they are them? I'm hearing a bit of Replacement Husker Du... Bit of Bob Mould and no small bit of brilliance nonetheless. More about mssv, they're going on a mssv tour that most likely passes your front door, here.

Maybe I need to go and plug this darn thing into my bigger speakers because this is Valerie June, this full of vividly coloured visuals, great boots, super jacket sleeve fringes, and giant hair, M Ward on guitar and Valerie June. And Velerie June and a white SG. (If I am seeing them everywhere does that mean I need one? I'm really beginning to think that I do but...) Is it my hearing or summat? I don't want to be portentous, but maybe the lug 'oles ain't doing so well and this is the beginning of the end of them or something because I am not really getting the joy joy I would have hoped for out of this, when I put all of the above together. And I know it is way better than I know. So.

'Boxed' is a seven song digital reissue of the EP originally included as part of a sold-out box set version bundled with their 2022 album, ‘Hunger'. Consisting of two songs in Spanish, two instrumentals, two remixes and one outtake from that album, it is an apt illustration of why Then Comes Silence need to be separated out from the crowd of Goth Rock bands.  In fact, lets not call them a Goth Rock band at all (despite that forming the core of their audience base and visual style). They are a highly inventive rock band, and a very, very good one at that, as evidenced by, well, every track on here.  My personal favourites off this are the two instrumental openers, 'Spökenas Intåg (Walk-In)', and 'We Only Have So Long (Outtake)', which are both unexpected and atmospheric.  I am guessing the inclusion of Spanish language versions here is a nod to guitarist Hugo Zombie's home country. It works.  To date, Then Comes Silence haven't put a foot wrong.  On Bandcamp

The epitome of pitifully desperate attempts to wring the last pennies from the long dead corpse of punk by corpse wringer specialists Cleopatra Records, this supposedly is a " bold collection of blistering anti-love love songs that will put a safety pin through the heart of even the most die-hard punk rock fan", featuring serial punk compilation album contributors The Damned, Iggy Pop ,The Vibrators, UK Subs, Dead Boys and others I can't be bothered to name, and is (they proudly boast) "The first ever love-themed compilation to feature so many punk rock legends in one place".  That is a very niche accolade and there are also several very good reasons that no one has done this before.  I will leave you to fill in the blanks for yourself on what those might be.

I love an audacious classical record.  A number of quirky salon arrangements of John Dowland's medieval choral pieces, exaggerating their mystery and eerie and airy laser-cut harmonies to bely their solemnity. The solo voice tunes are a little like Serge Gainsbourg doing his best Laurie Anderson. Then, a time-stopping strings reading of John Cage's Five that is like watching your hometown slowly being consumed by fog, followed by perhaps the most romantic reading of the radical composer's chamber works. And then a spook-out lute madrigal with Sting of all people. Set the wicker man ablaze, I am ready!

Bella Schütz has grown up in public. 23 or something now, or maybe less not even. She has fingers of molten gold of course. Her debut LP Chiaroscuro (Evidence Records) was released at the end of January. It's been sitting between my ears ever since. This is as you can plainly hear, a little excerpt from Bach's Chromatic Fantasia. If Bach and Chopin are your deal and your able to look beyond Glenn Gould, Bella is brightest with the most brilliant Bobby Crush sleeves.

Somehow, every song I’ve ever heard has been put through a blender, then gently simmered with a liquor of ingenuity, every cupful poured forming a new track. If you hurry it, you’ll likely burn yourself and be left wondering what the fuss is all about. My advice here is take it slow, savour this peculiar musical soup and it will not disappoint. There’s a cacophony of sounds waiting to be heard, and if you get past the occasionally ‘too whispery’ vocals, and resist the parental urge to dismiss things as “just a lot of noise” this album really does grow on you. It’s possible to momentarily think you’ve lapsed into a world where Tally Hall have made a comeback just to cover a few pixies tracks, which I assure you is no bad thing. An album which has great potential to grow on you, leaving a t/k in the appreciation corners. (a poog-lee review)

Released on his own Mesh label, On Being is audio-visual artist and electronic musician Cooper’s seventh studio album and the latest piece of an impressive portfolio of work stretching back to 2007. Over a two-year period he mined his audience for inspiration, collecting together hundreds of anonymous quotes, posing questions such as "What would you like to express which you cannot in everyday life?" and "What is it like to exist inside your head?".  His goal: to understand what it is truly like to be human right now.  That's a tall order and an aim that it is virtually impossible to achieve.  The resulting album is thirteen pieces of atmospheric instrumentals of the style Underworld used to specialise in, with titles like ' I Am In A Church In Gravesend Listening To Old Vinyl And Drinking Coffee' and 'When I Am Alone With My Thoughts I Am Crushed'.  Disappointingly, none of those hundreds of collected quotes appear in the music.  Maybe they are in the titles themselves or subsumed as background sounds, which you can occasionally catch a glimpse of in a track. "Grief, hope, regret, joy, hurt and love form the basis for each track" he says.  The end result doesn't fully achieve that goal (how can it?), but is a brave attempt for sure. There was an interactive exhibition of the same name you probably missed, held in London in November last year, but he is taking a 3D/AV live experience around various European cities in March - May (see here for booking details) which promises to be quite an event.

Predictably the first song that came to mind for many after hearing of Faithfull's passing. Nothing to do with her but always good to hear. Thinking more, the subject of this song had more in common with her than at first thought. So long, Marianne, I will return to Faithfull: An Autobiography asap.  

Recorded by Adrian Boult in 1945. You can hear the synesthesia I think. Holst might have been the one record in my school music library. I was always intrigued by the beginning, Mars with it's overt heavy metal tones, before mellowing out throughout. Maybe that says so much about the Midlands and our music and our one record record libraries. It has informed more fears about Mars than an reality right? Tense and terse but definitely more chilled after the histrionics of Mars, the rest of the suite is a meandering dream fugue woozily coming in and out of aural focus. There's no, say ,Dvorak epic romance, there's none of that. There's the sound of stasis being reborn after the calamity. Listen on and you'll hear. Originally written over several years in the second decade of the 20th century, during the war to end all wars. Is it the most famous British classical composition of all time? Maybe.

Having completed a support slot with Idles and currently playing major Japanese cities, will we see a new LP from Otoboke Beaver this year? Hope so. Am sure they played new song New Album, Mada Desu at a recent gig. Is it a tease? It could be. Or maybe I'm deluded, stuck in a dream state. Hope not!