intro.
I don't know where you are reading this from, obviously (we'd like to know→), but if it is in a moderately sunny location, oh man, well I hadn't seen the sun in so long and it really just makes all the difference to everything. Even if there were, and there weren't bad records this week, they would still sound good once the sun comes out! Settle in and sun yourself with this week's reviews from... Lee Paul (3), Toon Traveller (4), Alan Rider (6), DJ Fuzzyfelt (5) and Ancient Champion (5).
singles.
by DJ Fuzzyfelt
Duw Neu Magic is the second single from Georgia Ruth's forthcoming album Cool Head, which will be available in June 21st from Cardiff's Bubblewrap Collective Records. Duw Neu Magic gives us a lovely skittering beat, a melody to whistle and a beautiful lyric about her family. Somebody said it sounds like rainy Paris in the 60s. I couldn't have put it better myself.
by Alan Rider
No one can have missed the fact that we rather like Miki Berenyi here at OL, and have done since the other worldly sounds of Lush ground to a halt for all the reasons set out in her book 'Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success.' The tragedy is not only her experience with the all consuming monster we call the Music Biz, but that Lush were tagged as 'Shoegaze' which lumped them in with all the other leaden dirge that movement produced. This is a cut above any of those bands now reformed and out and about on the nostalgia circuit, being a new band with an upgraded and reimagined sound incorporating electronics, which actually suite her unique voice very well. Whilst she desperately needs to choose a better name that makes the band sound less like a pub Blues act, the combination works well on the evidence of this, and with a tour with support act Lol Tolhurst (Cure) and Budgie (Banshees/Creatures) - yes I did say that they were supporting her! - about to kick off, she is relaunching herself with some style. Any others thinking of emerging out of musical retirement, and a good few who already have, could well take a lesson from her. This is very much the way to do it.
by Ancient Champion
Laps in a Drugstore is just great in every way. The result of understanding the need to be less fearful of fear. I wish I could write such an understated pop tune. Imbued with the handheld, independent ethic that fuels Outsideleft too, I feel. The guitar/drumalong Laps in a Drugstore has been gesticulating for a while, but Jess says, “Watching the relentless and preventable horrors inflicted on Gaza over the past six months has made releasing new music a dissonant experience – it can all feel so trivial. But a friend recently reminded me that, like art, joy is also resistance, and this video is really centered on that: not losing your own joy and humanity while pushing for change. I love making music videos because they feel a lot like songs or stories: I never know what I’m really making until I’m over halfway through. This one was just me with my phone and a tripod and a big rock…and my kid makes a sweet cameo too.” One of the good ones. Can't wait for the LP CARE/TAKING which arrives on June 14th.
by Ancient Champion
Remarkably mellow from the band I'd already earmarked as discobeat belters. Not bad for that. Heart throbbing not thumping. I loved their Pierre Cardin Coachella clothes. Where can I get some? Love from the Other Side is real good for the older song and dance man.
by Toon Traveller
Colombia! This song screams to me, yeah, Samba, Merengue and Salsa. Latin heat. Land in America's second highest Capital City, (nb Colombia is American). Get on that lap top, book those flights. Sort a month in winter sun, before, age, knees, insurance, and fear of narco-terrorism, intimidate me. So it's Latin. It's a sweet, street-kids skipping, soft footed grooves, it's simple percussion, it's innocent vocals, it's one big street party. It's the Northern Hemisphere's stereotypes come alive, beloved fun loving, smiling boys and girls, packaged up here in this song. Happy go lucky in the unending sun, relaxed parties, and cold pineapple sips. Of course it's all fake, false ideals, unfulfilled fantasy, but isn't that the point of some music? Other times and places, dreams and delusions.. Sure there's no pumping horns, and no cross cutting guitar. But that's not the point, it's a beckoning summer soundtrack for a sun starved Toon Traveller, currently, clouded over, rain washed, and street flooded. It's hope, it's warmth, it's tender fun in an imagined sun, that feels like it'll never come. It's a great antidote to 'The Fog on the Tyne is mine. all mine, the fog on the Tyne all all mine'. Sod that Fog, give me grilled fish smoke on Cartagena's sun blushed Pacific's Coast's luscious sands.
by Alan Rider
N.S.M.L.Y.D stands for 'Nothing Satisfies Me Like You Do'. So why not just say that, then? It may just be laziness, as evidenced by the video which is mainly comprised of Parisians SCHØØL pushing a shopping trolley around the aisles in a supermarket, standing in a car park, eating noodles, or just walking along the street. That's unlikely to win them any awards. Neither is the song, which is a drawly shoegaze effort that proves that, despite it's bizarre new found popularity, it was always the most tedious genre in rock, and first time around Slowdive and the rest of them (Lush excepted) were rightly regarded as dull, dull, dull.
by Toon Traveller
Someone's found their grandad's vinyl collection, worked out how to access the 'solid floppy' they read about in history class, discovered Joy Division, and spawned this. Strictures of Bauhaus, Echoes of the Bunnymen, but it's hardly The Cure for music's malaise. Sure there's the welcome minor chord miserablism, a racy rat-a-tat-tat of sticks on the drum's rim. There's even that deeper in the mix, a tad anxious, slightly desperate, depressed world worried vocal. There's nothing inherently bad here, but nothing to sit up and listen to all excitedly neither. If you want late 70s, English post punk, guitar band miserabilism, this will float your boat, all the way to the next Cure gig.
by DJ Fuzzyfelt
A taster for Louis Cole's forthcoming album Nothing. Everything about this is epic. Big music but at the same time Cole's vocals make it sound quite intimate. Ably assisted by a vocal chorus led by his Knower co-conspirator, Genevieve Artadi, his usual trio of backing musicians plus Dutch based Metropole Orkest conducted by Jules Buckley. Things Will Fall Apart is still led by Cole's distinctive drumming style. This bounds along until the last 90 seconds where a beautiful outro, straight out of a 30s movie dream sequence takes over. Playful as ever...I Love Louis Cole as the Thundercat song says...
by DJ Fuzzyfelt
The title track from Portugal's Ana Lua Caiano recent album which translates as 'I Will Stay In This Square.' It's about people who prefer to stay in their safe place, certainly not what Caiano does with layers of looped vocals, drum machines with the occasional muted synth stab and brief melody. It doesn't sound promising but it is an utterly charming 2 minutes 38 seconds. I love it!
by Toon Traveller
A real unusual sound and mix. First of all Hair. Long hair. Then crotch mounted guitars, thrash, bash, smash in noise terrorism. Drummer modelled on Animal from the Muppets, total commitment to his art. Sure there's no melody, but wtf, there's some deliciously harmonic dueted female voices, floating above a wall of raw, unadulterated, cross cut buzzsaw guitar drone. Like Shoegaze on uppers. Combinations that just shouldn't work, but the mix of violent noise and calm harmonies work, totally out there and totally weird and totally wired me.
by Alan Rider
Raymond Watts, aka PIG, started out as a member of the mid-1980s industrial giants KMFDM (who are still at it). He has been a busy boy since then, having released fourteen albums as PIG, toured supporting his old band KMFDM, Nine Inch Nails, Einstürzende Neubauten, and others, written music for fashion and film, and provided sound design for the exhibition 'Punk: Chaos to Couture' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This is a real slice of classic old school guitar driven Industrial. He has got this sound pretty much nailed, as any one Pig song sounds much like any other, but you can't deny, it certainly kicks ass.
by DJ Fuzzyfelt
I wrote in my preview of this coming weekend's Focus Wales Festival that the Adwaith gig on Friday night will be the hottest ticket at the entire event, and this new single, MWY (More) the second from their as yet unnamed third album is clear evidence to that effect. Built on a great bass groove and a thumping beat, on first hearing it sounds a little slight but my goodness does it get its claws into you.Catchy as heck with trademark Adwaith vocal harmonies and crashing guitar chords. If this is any indication of how their new album will sound, it'll be even more stunning than their first two!
by Lee Paul
Thee Marloes, by way of Surabaya, are Natassya Sianturi on vocals, Sinatrya Dharaka on guitar, and Tommy Satwick on drums. Perak is from 'Perak' their forthcoming LP on Big Crown. Their unique sound mixes elements of their local culture and music with influences of Soul, Jazz, and Pop. Big, Big, but mellow joy. I am so high right now.
by Lee Paul
Homer's sidehustle from a dayjob as one of the most in demand drummers in the world (Amy Winehouse, Solange, Adele, Silk Sonic + way more...) His first solo record, with the samples and horns, it puts me a little in mind of Money Mark, with big epic beats. Oh, and vocals from a girl called Golden. All exceptional.
ep's.
by Alan Rider
Composer, producer, and visual artist Elizabeth Bernholz – aka Gazelle Twin – is a force to be reckoned with, and performs with an excoriating intensity that is rare. Following the release of her last album, the five heart rated Black Dog, she played the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton, in November last year, as part of her Black Dog tour and recorded four live tracks there for this EP, two of which also have video of her astounding performance. Opening with the spine chilling 'Two Worlds', the downward spiral into wrenching pain and suspense continues with the jittery 'Fear Keeps Us Alive' before 'A Door Opens' sees Elizabeth in torch singer mode, restrained, yet tightly wound. The EP closes with the aptly named 'Unstoppable Force'; stomping, nightmarishly pulsating, an eerie synth grinding away like an infernal machine as she intones over the backing, twitching and lunging until its abrupt end. More performance art than gig, Gazelle Twin certainly has a dark vision. We are hopeful of getting to ask her about that for OL soon.
long plays.
by DJ Fuzzyfelt
DJ Fuzzyfelt revisits Austin Peralta's Endless Planet. He does that right over here→
by Toon Traveller
Toon Traveller gets into getting back to 7th Avenue South with Jon Gordon, right here→
by Ancient Champion
You don't need much information from me for this LP. You can hear it on every spin of the record. Furious guitars, all the more lethal for being barely bridled. Grumbling bass and lumpen drums, with a lite cymbal touch to aid in the racing along. Olew Nadroedd has all of the madness you heard the first time you listened to 'A Catholic Education.' Maybe more so. Wild! And so... Love! SYBS have everything. Come to Bearwood! Perhaps only the young can dare to make music this great. The Sound of Young Wales! Ha! This is one great record.
so, have you got anything else.
by Alan Rider
Its almost summer and B52's 'Rock Lobster' is still THE sound of any party, but reverse it and it turns into a creepy nightmare, yet strangely, is still easily recognisable as them. I dare you to put this on at the next House Party you go to and see if anyone dances to it (and not just the drunk girl, either).
by Lee Paul
From the all-time great record LP, The Blue Moods of Spain. Josh Hayden was unironically going slowly before anyone was going slowly... Oh wow!
by Ancient Champion
Nadine Khouri begins a UK tour with Barry Adamson this week. Like a one woman Tindersticks, Song of a Caged Bird is the sound of Nadine Khouri in 2022 from her wayfinder of an LP, Another Life. The voice of course, the tension across the piste, watch out! This Caged Bird and the entire LP are going to take ownership of you. Very, very, beautiful from beginning to end. Don't miss the tour.
by Ancient Champion
Ahead of Howe Gelb's new, superb, contemplative solo, sole piano record, Weathering Some Piano, out on May 31st, here's just one of my favorite pop songs of all time. Giant Sand's, 'Yer Ropes'. I feel pretty sure my great friend, the writer, Lake introduced me to this band. He's done better things for me sure, but the Giant Sand is a good one. 'Yer Ropes' has everything and seems to go everywhere and then not that far, all at once at all. Listening is a blissful experience. Now I'm gonna go and try to stick my pick to my guitar just like Howe does. See how that goes.
by Alan Rider
2005's 'Tender Buttons' album by UK indie 'Dreampop' band Broadcast, their third, is a deal better than that tag usually throws up. This is undoubtedly their best, having a more stripped back sound than the previous two, is reminiscent in some places of Velvet Underground tinged psychedelia (especially the title track), electronica on others, and is worth your hunting it out on Youtube for a spin.
essential information
main image is a screengrab from Gazelle Twin live in Brighton, UK.
Previously 'Outsideleft Week in Music. Purps.' can be found here→
