For Lovvers

Judging by the baggy eyes and scowling looks I get when I raise my voice, it looks like the seniors had a good time last night. I declined their offer of a night on the tiles to see the spell checked challenged scuzz rock of Lovvers. The new single 'OCD Go Go Girls' out on Wichita is a pure slice of gorgeous lo-fi filth which has the body shaking like an old drunk. The album is of the same title as the single and comes free with a cheeky totebag (it looks pretty cool but if you don't like it girls always love a new bag). Incidently the main support act last night were The Strange Boys who have been criminally overlooked in this country since the release of their debut back in March of this year. American label In The Red have been spewing out top notch garage rock for years now and this is no exception.

The Big Pink were always a band to keep your eyes on since they won the Philip Hall Radar Award at the NME awards earlier in the spring. Since then they have been releasing a string of blissful singles, the best being the yearnfully wonderful 'Velvet' (a contender for single of year surely?). Now to coincide with the release of their debut, a single, 'Dominos' drops a week earlier. 'Dominos' is a simple enough track but ends up sticking in your head due to a chorus being the size of a London town house. This is simply addictive, good work boys.

As previously stated, my album of the month is 'XX', by The XX. This week Basic Space is delivered, the second single from the band. I've already said my piece on the four-piece before but I strongly advise you to put your life in the hands of these teenagers.

Polyester tends to be very resilient, quick drying, resistant to biological damage such as mold and mildew, easy to wash, and able to hold forms well. While polyester is often maligned as a textile, it is a new and interesting act who have conveniently added an extra L into their name. Pollyester have just issued their 'Round Clocks EP' on dance label Permanent Vacation. This EP is equally at home in a Balearic club or at your local indie establishment and it's well worth the pennies I must say.

Finally Wimbledon troubadour Jamie T is releasing EP after EP displaying new tracks before his sophomore effort 'Kings & Queens' starts September off. Something for your August Bank Holiday is 'Chaka Demus'. Wailing about blood types, scapegoats and stormy weather on the title track, Jamie and his band The Pacemakers do divide opinion as always but a small investment on this will make you love the 3-day weekend. 

Till the next time,

Martin  

  

In love with Spotify

Don't you just love Spotify.

Russel

August...A Day Early

Being the purveyors of new music here, I'm ready to give you some essential August releases...in July.

Album wise it's a mixed bag but my album of the month has to be the debut album The XX . It's a dark but pleasing record, full of simple melodies formed around spine tingling 80's indie music chucked in with some 90's R&B for good measure. The girl/boy vocals create a real atmosphere of panic coupled with a state of unease making it not the easiest of listening at times but definitely the most rewarding I've heard of in a long while. Released August 17th, pre-order now

It's a re-issue to coincide with the Mercury's in September but having just seen the video for their new single 'Kiss Of Life' (boy does that singer move around like a sexually charged eel..), Friendly Fires release their self titled debut album again on August 31st. In the office here the boys like beats and the girls love the looks, what isn't there to like? Get it with the new single included plus new remixes and live videos.

Robin Guthrie is best known for his work as Cocteau Twins principal sound designer and he releases his new album 'Carousel' on August 24th. He is currently inspiring a plethora of artists ranging from The Big Pink right through to Antony And The Johnsons. This new release is a real diamond in the rough.

Making tiny ripples in the Atlantic sea is Nite Jewel, releasing her debut album on August 24th also. Ramona Gonzalez has developed her own unique sound with the aid of her multitrack cassette recorder and goodness knows what other instruments she could find in the recording studio that day. Sounding a great crossover mix of indie, funk, disco and soul it's well worth checking out.

Black Lips, smash their way into the 7" run down with 'Drugs'. Fast becoming the nation's favourite rock'n'roll band (long overdue mind) this comes backed with a cover of their previous single 'I'll Be With You', done by none other than The Horrors. Out on August 24th it's fantastic fun I'm sure you'll agree...

New York, New York. That place always come out with a delicious slice of fuzzed out indie and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are the best example of that this year. Their new single 'Come Saturday' ends the month on August 31st and this transmission so have fun perforating your ear drums with this lot.

Martin

A Place To Bury Strangers

Current listening favourite - A Place To Bury Strangers 'Exploding Head', out on Mute in October.  Remarked to Steve that they sounded like they knew what they were doing and he told me one of them used to make effects pedals for the likes of My Bloody Valentine. Responsible for some big noise then.  A nice, loud, messy yet controlled set that feels a bit like getting your head flossed.

Any, erm, feedback anyone?

Simon

The Recordstore Survival Guide

Loads of good press about our Recordstore Survival Guide.  The intention is to help other indie record store in times of crisis.  Yes, you're right, we are nice.  Here's an example of some press right here

Simon

Review: Brendan Benson - My Old, Familiar Friend (Aug 24th 2009)

Brendan Benson - 'My Old, Familiar Friend' >>> (Echo)

Chances are that the first time you heard of Brendan Benson was when he shacked up with Mr. Jack White in the White Stripes’ man’s extra marital side project The Raconteurs, a band that united White’s desire for guitar histrionics to the peerless pop sensibility of the little known Benson. It was a marriage made in heaven, giving White the opportunity to spread his wings beyond the confines of his garage rock cage whilst Benson, having already produced two near perfect power pop records (and a third valiant attempt to recreate the formula), finally managed to get his songs heard by a wider audience.

Just as Future Of The Left continue to preach to a converted few whilst delivering the most exciting punk rock this side of Nirvana, so Benson has consistently produced the finest indie-pop for a small but devoted following. Both artists are head and shoulders above their contemporaries, drawing gushing plaudits from critics and faithful fans alike, yet neither has managed to trouble the mainstream, remaining stubbornly niche despite themselves.

Maybe all that’s about to change for our Brendan on this, his fourth solo album. It’s been four years since the rather polished ‘The Alternative To Love’ (an album that only disappointed in the fact that it could never live up to its predecessor ‘Lapalco’ ) and in the meantime Benson has indulged his rock-god fantasies with the aforementioned Raconteurs, honing his song writing craft and stepping out of his comfort zone to take on the mighty Jack White in a game of “who’s the better front man?”. The busman’s holiday appears to have done the trick though, and ‘My Old Familiar Friend’ pours out of the stereo like…well…an old familiar friend. Gone are the slightly forced attempts at the “perfect song” from his third release replaced by the fuzzy warmth and timeless brilliance that permeated his first two minor masterpieces. That’s the beauty of Benson, at his best he manages to immerse himself with the classic song writing of the greats (ELO, The Cars, Todd Rundgren, even (whisper it) Sir Paul ‘thumbs aloft’ McCartney), delivering pop nuggets that contain a nagging sense of déjà vu whilst also busting out a multitude of surprises at every turn.

Kicking off with the straight up rocker ‘A Whole Lot Better’, ‘My Old Familiar Friend’ is a relentless master class in pop song writing that doesn’t let up until the closing swirl of final track ‘Borrow’ (by which time you‘ll be re-hitting ‘Play‘ to start the entire trip again). The newly acquired fame induced paranoia of second track ‘Eyes On The Horizon’, the soulful sweep of ‘Garbage Day’ and the darkly threatening ‘Feel Like Taking You Home’ (the gathering pace towards the song’s finale marks this as Benson’s ‘Gimme Shelter’) all stand out but this isn’t merely about individual tracks. As with all Brendan’s work this album is a journey through relationships and the frailty of the human condition and here it’s clearer than ever that Benson’s old familiar friend is the bitterness of heartbreak and rejection. Whether the object of his affection is trying to “show me up so everyone can see” (‘You Make A Fool Out Of Me’), or “proving to be a hard habit to break” (‘Don’t Wanna Talk’) few songwriters can match Benson’s ability to create startlingly upbeat tunes from the painful mire of imperfect love.

‘Lapalco’ still retains its crown as Benson’s majestic peak but with ‘My Old, Familiar Friend’ his status as merely “the other one” in the Raconteurs could soon be a thing of the past. It’s a bold, engaging, dream of a record that is destined to become a lifelong companion for anyone who has ever searched for the answers to love in a dusty pile of old 7-inches.

Key Tracks: 'Eyes On The Horizon’, ‘Garbage Day’, ‘Feel Like Taking You Home’, ‘Don’t Wanna Talk’

Rating: 8/10

Steve Wheeler

Click Here to buy

Further Listening:

Brendan Benson: 'Lapalco' >>>

Brendan Benson: ‘The Alternative To Love’ >>>

Paul McCartney & Wings: ‘Band On The Run’ >>>

Electric Light Orchestra: ‘All Over The World: The Best Of ELO’ >>>

I Am The Reformation

“Let’s get the old gang back together”, sounds like the beginning of a particularly clichéd heist movie yet, worryingly, it has become the sentiment which several beat combos have attached themselves to over recent years.

The Liverpool FC team of the 1980s was one of the most perfect footballing machines in the modern game yet you won’t find them all back on the training ground looking for a stab at the Premiership crown. The founding fathers are unlikely to be resurrected anytime soon to bemoan the bastardising of their beloved constitution by the recent political regimes of the US. So why, do bands like Led Zep, The Police, The Specials and Limp fucking Bizkit feel the need to dust off the Marshalls and head back out on the road? They had their time and in many cases they screwed it up, let it go you old fuckers – you’re ruining the memories for everyone.

Over the past couple of weeks two of my favourite bands have had rumours and confirmations of their reformations littering the press. I have mixed reactions to both. Firstly Faith No More, a band I have loved for as long as I have cared about music. I never got to see them live (except a lucky invitation to watch them record a session for Radio One – their brief cover of ‘Live Forever’ really was quite stunning) and I’ve always been slightly underwhelmed by their various solo projects, so the prospect of a full band live return (and even the possibility of new music) does give me goosebumps of pleasure. However, I know I’m destined to be disappointed. Live they won’t play all the songs I want to hear (Mike Patton has been quite critical of their early output) and on record they’ll never reach the highpoints of ‘Angel Dust’ so why bother? They’ll sully the legacy and leave thousands broken hearted. Secondly, The Stone Roses are rumoured to have buried the hatchet and will head out on the road again for a 21 date tour. These boys, more than anyone, have something to prove. The end of the band was mired in acrimonious splits and painful gigs, the solo work of Ian Brown has overshadowed everything bar the classic debut album and the thought of them getting back on stage has been greeted with snorts of derision. In many ways I’d like to see them get back out there and finish the job they started, to prove the naysayers wrong – but I doubt they can pull it off and it’ll just leave a bitter taste for those of us who believe that, at one point, they were the greatest band in the world.

So why do these crinkly rockers insist on one last hurrah? Money? Yeah...probably. Many of our former heroes have been forced out of retirement to pay off dealers, wives and plastic surgeons. To prove they can still cut it? Just like Hugh Hefner and his bevy of busty beauties, the older gentleman still wants to believe they are as skinny, vibrant and as sexually alluring as the young pretenders. But unless you’re Mick’n’Keef (let’s not forget the longest serving band in history have never split) you can’t get away with the leather trousers and the porn star girlfriend at the age of 50.  To continue the legacy? Why not preserve it by not fucking the whole thing up with terrible gigs and below par records (I’m looking at you Motley Crue). Robert Plant had it right when he refused to tour with Led Zep after their brief reformation, but part of me just wished he’d never stepped on stage at all. I didn’t go to the gig – couldn’t bear to see a bunch of geriatrics run through some of the dirtiest, raw rock’n’roll ever written (it just didn’t seem right), similarly with Pixies – I had no desire to see a formally great band just go through the motions (and plus, they hate each other. Why the hell would they want to go back on tour?).

So why are the general public lapping up the prospect of these former greats strutting across the stage again like nothing has changed? Some reformed bands have been enormously successful and critically lauded – The Verve, Dinosaur Jr, My Bloody Valentine (to name just three) have continued in a similar vein to where they left off, the intervening years blinked away like a fleck of sleepy dust from a drowsy eye after a decade long snooze. The answer probably lies in the current state of the music scene where albums have been reduced to the price of a tin of beans and label bozos are constantly after the next three minute wonder. A quick fix to plug the industry dam that leaks money like a teenage cock spurts semen during a dream involving Frankie from The Saturdays and a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs. The general public are beginning to see through these shallow products as the junk food of musical invention that they are. Who wouldn’t want to see a reformed Spandau Ballet knocking out hit after hit on stage rather than the prospect of 60 minutes in the company of Metro Station?

So there’s the crux on the problem – loads of new bands are shite and we are forced to search out relics of another era like Paul Gambaccini guest-hosting Time Team. What’s the solution? Keep searching out and supporting new, innovative bands (not the mass marketed schlock that we get spoon-fed by Radio One, MTV etc – you know the culprits) – buy their records (don’t just rely on Spotify), go to their gigs (there’s a plethora of DIY gigs in every city throughout the country) and above all tell everyone you know how great they are. That way we’ll kill two birds with one stone: no landfill indie and no pension pop – spread the word like a musical gospel.

Still I’d much rather go see a reformed Shed Seven than listen to an album by Joe Lean and The Jing Jang Jong.......

Here’s to kicking out Jimmy Page’s zimmer frame

Steve