NEW RELEASES - Edition 19
April 2005
Albums
Dance To The Radio
Various Artists (DTTR)
A cracking statement of intent from an ambitious new label. This was made available in a limited quantity at the launch night (see p.15) and should be compulsory for anyone into the local scene.
Considering there are 18 tracks here there is very little dross and that which is shall go unnamed since this is such a positive act that it doesn’t deserve irrelevant criticism. So to the good and great; iLiKETRAiNs aren’t going to be everyone’s puppies but the eight minute plus ‘Stainless Steel’ comes over like Whipping Boy as played by Sigur Ros. It’s a stone cold gem and is immediately followed by The Somatics ‘Mercury Rising’. Nuff said. Elsewhere This Et Al, O Fracas, Napoleon IIIrd and Baby Food give it their interestin all while Robochrist should really have a telly programme to himself.
As far as it being a definitive Leeds’ album it’s got some way to go: There’s some obvious names missing (nothing’s easy anymore when deals have been signed and bueracracy takes over) and the essential genre is guitars that err to the left of centre, but as a genuine, heartfelt collection that gels and shows off a raft of talent bubbling away below the miniscus of corporate vision you’d have to go a low way to beat it. Go Leeds.
Jack Tractor
www.dancetotheradio.com
Outroads
Goodbye To All That
The first thought when you slap this album on is Gomez, as Outroads’ gravely blues starts up. This soon subsides though, it’s rootsier, with more substance and less vibes, and while the vocals are reminiscent of Gomez at times, singer Geoff’s voice is a versatile one that can go from gentle to full on growling when needs be.
Great use of harmonica, violin and acoustic guitars gives the album a traditional feel, as well as a harder edge with electric guitars, and the recording makes you feel it captures the live show well. Some of the tracks, such as ‘Sleeping Sun’, are lighter-waving ballads that you can imagine a room full of Guinness drinkers sobbing into their pints to, while others, such as ‘Heads Up’ and ‘Room Service’, are real stompers.
In a former incarnation, Outroads toured their wares successful round Australasia, and it’s about time they got a bit more recognition closer to home, as this a very good debut album indeed.
Pete Mella
www.outroads.co.uk
Shaun T Hunter
Flying Not Falling (Local Nobody)
Nice job by Shaun here. Amost an old fashioned singer / songwriterly approach when you consider a lot of the Stephen Fretwell / Damien Rice stuff is deliberately left a little unpolished.
This is a smooth, superbly executed (there’s some good musicians on this), well produced and, yes, well crafted album that, musically, has little to do with current trends.
Shaun’s in good voice and lyrically, despite dealing with the classic tropes of doubt, redemption and a heavy lean to the spiritual side of things, there’s some interesting stuff going on.
Critically speaking it is perhaps too smooth, a matter of taste perhaps but soul music works because it’s laid bear. Otherwise, fair play.
Paul Bissett
www.shaunthunter.com
Intricate Maximalis
Various Artists (Audiobulb)
Sheffield based, although globally inclined, label Audiobulb are classically anonymous in artist terms yet seem to be consistently mining a rich seam of gentle, fuzzy experimental electronica.
Apparently culled from artists all over the world Intricate Maximalis offers up a less frenetic alternative to the likes of Squarepusher or Autechre while sharing a similarly inclined indisposition to common form.
Plenty of this sort of music can come across as sinister, deliberately fractured to put the listeners teeth on edge for no other reason than an adolescent desire to shout ‘boo!’ IM doesn’t slip into this rather obvious area.
In comparison to previous compilation Switches, which was almost pastoral in nature, this is positively belting, more beats are apparent, drifting in and drifting out amongst the clicks and occasional vocal jab. The volume never hits ten however.
This is perhaps one of the few areas of contemporary music where the listener is challenged by more than simply volume or obscenity. There’s little linking this stuff to pop either. It’s interesting, gentle and not difficult to listen to while never indulging in useless hippy whale music. It’ll never sell newspapers though, and why should it?
Jack Tractor
www.audiobulb.com
PsychoAcoustic Soundclash - Vol 3
Dr Universalis - Music For Chip Shops
(Un! Recordings)
Un! Recordings is a Sheffield label that produced sporadic releases until its tenth anniversary a couple of years ago. Now its output can practically be described as almost prolific. The label’s a kind of haven for the City’s legions of dark boffins, who you can almost imagine clad in white coats, scouring the Maplin catalogue for new methods to bombard the listener with their warped electronica.
The third PsychoAcoustic SoundClash album is thirteen tracks of enjoyable noodling, ranging from experimental pissing around to some rather good dance music (‘Canned Beat’ being a highlight). As a whole the album sounds like the soundtrack to some rather bizarre computer game, but without being anywhere near as shit as that should be.
I’m yet to visit the chip shop that would play tracks from the Dr Universalis album, but its chirps, bleeps, synths and doomy ambience would make popping down the road for battered haddock a much more frightening experience. Little in the way of tunes, but effectively dark mood music.
Both experimental electro-wizardry that, while not being to everyone’s taste, show that the Sheffield art of making something different out of a bunch of odd gadgets is still going strong.
Pete Mella
www.unrecordings.co.uk
The Wedding Present
Take Fountain (Stickman)
A welcome return from the band who….never totally went away really. Cinerama being Gedge flavoured enough to keep most Weddoes happy enough in the meantime.
It’s classic Gedge. He’s split up with his girlfriend and in a series of neat, simple lyrics he gets to the grit of the thing without ever becoming a bore.
He’s been around long enough that the most obvious comparisons are the band’s previous incarnations. Soundwise it’s a bit like Seamonsters Weddoes, Gedge’s voice gets better as he gets on and there are two classic tracks which will go on most fans all time compilations, the gloomy driving swirl of Interstate 5 and recent single ‘I’m From Further North Than You’.
Jack Tractor
www.scopitones.com
The Yards
The Yards (Snapper)
After some delay, here's the Yards debut album and it's a good 'un. Apart from stomping opener, Forget Your Regrets, and rare old screamer, The Devil Is Alive And Well In DC, this is a warm and mellow sounding affair without ever sliding off into stoner tedium.
Naturally enough the key component to this album is Helme's voice. It's got the same sort of qualities that Richard Ashcroft used to have, northen, soulful and sweet, with the additional benefit of being able to slide up into higher plains than the former Verve man.
Definitely an ensemble piece the playing is old school, musicianly in the best sense and you’d reckon that they’d be a pretty handy jamming machine. Most people seem to go on about the 60s when they're referencing The Yards but I reckon the vibe is more 70's, like the Faces could be on more melancholy tracks like Debris and the design of the album reminds of country rockers like the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynrd even though the Yards don't tend to wander off into boogie territory.
It’s good to hear an album that’s not chasing trends but goes off on its on sweet way. There’ll always be an audience for music of this quality.
Pete Roberts
www.theyards.org
Singles
iForward, Russia! / This Et Al
Nine / He Shoots Presidents (DTTR)
First single from the Dance To The Radio stable. Two very different bands split a piece of vinyl and come up with a pretty handy whole.
iF,R! seem to have that handy knack of balancing on a thin line which separates discordant (and difficult) art rock and sensible (and boring) indie without ever toppling over into either camp. There’s screaming and melody and nifty guitar lines in equal measure here and the whole thing is pretty beguiling.
On the other hand there is little ambiguity in This Et Al’s music. It’s big, big, whirling guitars with a singer who shares the same sense of absolute investment as the previous geezer.
A great start for a new label.
Jack Tractor
www.dancetotheradio.com
The Glitterati
You’ve Got Nothing On Me (Atlantic)
I wonder about the record industry sometimes, I really do. By the time you read this The Glitterati will have played the coveted South by South West festival in Austin, Texas and this single, backed by heavyweight label Atlantic Records, will probably have sold a fair number of copies. Good luck to ‘em I say, because this is a perfectly reasonable record, I just don’t see what there is about either the band or the single to get in such a lather about.
If the dictionary expanded to two word entries, rather than the traditional one word, then this would be the dictionary definition of Quite Good. It does all sorts of rock ‘n’ roll things in the usual places and the singer does a good line in pouting on the front cover, kind of half way between Mick Jagger and Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose.
This probably some A&R man’s idea of Dangerous, although truth be told this is about as formulaic as rock ‘n’ roll gets. Thrashy bits, sinister bits, silly lyrics, shout along chorus and guitar solo copywrite Eddie Van Halen circa 1986. Oh, and the B side sounds like the first track. Except not quite as shout along. Not bad, not fantastic. All in all, erm… Quite Good.
Rob Paul Chapman
www.thegliteratti.com
Pink Grease
Peaches (Mute)
Excellent linear thinking going on here as Pink Grease get a remix of their album track, Peaches, by……Peaches! Shame it doesn’t really work.
The original (and A-side) is one of the more laidback and sunnier efforts by this stomp and glam brigade and perhaps lacks a little of the sheer pop thrill of their Top 40 debut ‘Strip’ (no kidding the chorus coulda been Abba). No harm done though.
The re-mix seems a bit hurried and cut’n’paste with the lady in question muttering some pleasantries over a clap and minimal bass bit while Rory Grease’s vocals are spliced and inserted as a counter point. It might sound alright on an electro club night but both parties have done better and more exciting work.
Jack Tractor
www.pinkgrease.com
Mama Scuba
El Shake
“El Shake” sits pretty neatly next to all it’s spiky comrades on the Scuba’s awesome debut CD “You’re a Long Time Dead, So What’s the Hurry?”, but it’s a peculiar choice for a single. Lifted out of context it sounds like a song that’s always building up to something and never quite gets going. The additional, non-CD tracks are a mixed brace, too. While “Lazy Belay” sounds uncannily like Suede and is therefore very suspect, “Sweet Girl” starts and ends in a pulverising swirl of feedback and percussive hammering between which is suspended a taught and nervous diamond of a song.
Johnny Ersatz-Culture
Stoney
Soap In A Bathtub (Transistor)
Record companies can be a little short sighted, and the dropping of Mark Stoney’s former incarnation Stoney Lacuna before he had chance to do much for them borders on the tragic. Surely it’s better sense to nurture your new acts than toss them aside when they don’t make you an immediate profit with their first single?
This is a glorious single, with a great chorus in the Beach Boys and Beatles vein, but coupled with a heavy guitar riff and some squelchy electronica and basslines that prove Stoney’s thinking outside the usual singer/songwriter box, but without losing the song in gimmickry.
The b-sides are bluesy and ballady respectively and show the range of Stoney’s songwriting skill. Let’s hope some executive somewhere’s listening and regretting their decision, this is great song by an artist with all the potential in the world.
Pete Mella
www.stoney.mu