Listen: 11 of the best album releases of the month

Django Django 'Django Django'
Listen via Spotify
The long awaited debut from this arty four piece doesn't disappoint. Packed with tunes, some of which will be familiar to anyone who has seen them in the last few years, and rich in ideas, this is really only the start for these guys.

Francois and the Atlas Mountains 'E Volo Love'
Listen via Spotify
My review of this can be found on the 405. I concluded "Ultimately E Volo Love is a collection of pretty and occasionally melancholic tunes weaved over a backing of skilful percussion and shimmering guitars. It is remarkable as it is the sound of an indie-pop band immersing themselves in European and African music and getting it totally right. "

Guided By Voices 'Let's Go Eat The Factory'
Listen via Spotify
A fine comeback album from the 'classic' mid-90s line-up. I reviewed it here and I said "Although the prolific output of Robert Pollard and his many varied offshoot bands has kept a lot of Guided By Voices fans satisfied in the last few years, there is something pretty great about having the real band back together. I did approach this album with trepidation, but it is rewarding me with each new listen. I'm unsure if it will win many new fans, but those of us who love those mid-90s albums should find plenty to enjoy here."

RM Hubbert 'Thirteen Lost and Found'
Listen via Spotify
A collaborative effort from this Glasgow based guitarist. The list of guests reads like an A-list of Scottish indie cred, with Alex Kapranos, Emma Pollock, Alastair Roberts and Aidan Moffat all lending a hand. Moffat steals the show a bit on 'Car Song' but all of the tracks gel together as a whole.

Leonard Cohen 'Old Ideas'
Listen via Spotify
I wonder did Mr Cohen ever think he would be releasing new material at the age of 73? This is a new recording collected from some 'old ideas' that have been kicking around as long ago as 1970. His voice has actually got deeper with age, and this is his most immediately impressive album for a few years.

Islet 'Illuminated People'
Listen via Spotify
Debut full length from this Welsh band. There's a lot going on here, from abrasive indie-pop to challenging prog-style time changes, and occasionally folky vocal lines, it certainly rewards repeated listening.

Errors 'Have Some Faith in Magic'
Listen via Spotify
Probably the album I've listened to most this month, this latest release from the Glasgow band sees them adopt a more melodic approach to their music, with emphasis on anything based tunes not unlike New Order. Initial reservations that this may have softened their edges have gone, and this is well worth your attention.

Imbogodom 'And They Turned Not Where They Went'
Listen via Spotify
The most experimental release on this list. I reviewed it here. I said "This is a sinister, challenging listen, but one that stretches the boundaries of post-rock or psych-folk. However you wish to label it, these guys have taken that kind of music somewhere else and are moulding it into strange new shapes."

Darren Hayman 'January Songs'
Listen via Spotify
I listened to this double album a lot this month. I wrote some words about it here, and said "January Songs is uneven but fascinating. Anyone who enjoys the work of Hefner or the solo Hayman should investigate."

Chairlift 'Something'
Listen via Spotify
I'm not as gushing in my praise for Chairlift as some other blogs, but there are some great pop songs on this second album. Slightly wary of the glossy 80s influence, but this album will be one that we will be talking about all year.

First Aid Kit 'The Lion's Roar'
This second album from the Swedish sisters is a much more countrified effort than their delicate folky debut. Their harmonies work so well together and are a joy to behold. The album has a gloriously retro production feel, it's warm and full of reverb on the voices. I keep thinking about Lee Hazlewood's 'Cowboy in Sweden' when I hear this. Country songs set in Stockholm, no less.





The observant ones amongst you will now notice that there are 11 albums in the list, as First Aid Kit is back on Spotify. The only album I haven't got around to hearing is Gonjasufi's new one, and I will give it a review when I've finally got my hands on it. Looking forward to February and the likes of Sharon Van Etten, the Twilight Sad, and of Montreal to hear yet....

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Review: Darren Hayman, January Songs

So here I am, nearly at the end of my post-a-day effort. Some of you may think that I had a grand scheme to do this months ago and that I was waiting for New Year's Day to come so I could get on with it. In truth, although I had a plan to re-publish some old fanzine stuff, I only realised that a daily post might be possible whilst sitting in the upstairs bar of the Lexington on the afternoon of January 1st.
I was watching Darren Hayman play a short free set as part of the Hangover Lounge, and I bought a copy of his new double album January Songs. For those of you who don't know, in January 2011 Darren undertook what he now calls a 'stupid' task. He decided that during the 31 days of the bleakest month of the year he would write and record a song per day, and upload it to the internet with some visuals to accompany it. Amazingly he achieved this, and I bet his January went very fast. All of the January Songs and their accompanying videos can be found at januarysongs.tumblr.com/ and just to make himself busy this January, Darren has thrown himself into the release and promotion of the CD by playing a couple of shows and drawing each CD sleeve by hand. You can watch him doing this in the video below!

Film about January Songs Cover Art from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

One of the best things about the whole project is how Darren was able to work with different musicians every day. There's around 100 minutes of music over the two CDs, and during that time it manages to sound like the most varied band in the world. Darren even allows others to sing his songs, which just adds to the variety.
Given the fact that a lot of the songs were recorded impulsively, straight after they were written, the quality is remarkably strong. It's the true that some songs would never have seen the light of day if there had been a diligent editing process, but there are quite a few that rank amongst his very best.
The real diamond is 'I Know I Fucked Up', a beautiful song with vocals by Elizabeth Morris from Allo Darlin, although the likes of 'Shhh' (with Litoral) and 'Ventriloquism' (with Ghostwriter) are superb too. It's good to hear Darren with a band again, and even though it's a different band every track, the voice and the writing style do remind me of Hefner. This is most evident on the catchy sing-along tracks like 'Who Hung the Monkey' and 'I Can't Control Myself' although 'It Was Over' explores their familiar themes of love and regret and 'Bad Technology' recalls the Dead Media-era Hefner with it's analog synth textures.
It's not all familiar ground though; 'I Can Keep a Secret' (with Harvey Williams) is built entirely around vocal tracks whilst 'the Return' is a short spoken word tale with a jazzy backing track.

Finally, on a serious note, Darren's sleeve notes say "what I've discovered as I get older is that hard work stops me feeling nervous and that feeling exhausted is better than being frightened." I took this as a reference to what happened in November 2009 when Darren was badly beaten up in Nottingham in the middle of a UK tour. The attack left him hospitalised for three days with a linear fracture of the skull and a condition known as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo which meant that small crystals were dislodged in his inner ear, causing him to feel dizzy. He also lost some of the top range of his hearing in his left ear and was advised to rest and do as little as possible in order to recuperate. Being a very prolific musician, it was hard to do nothing and Darren found that he had to continue to write songs, although he experienced discomfort when faced with loud music. His first solution was to purchase a ship's piano for around £70 on ebay and begin to write songs on that. The resulting efforts were released a few months ago as The Ship's Piano, which I reviewed on the 405.. I think it's fair to say that he intended it to be a 'proper' album, whilst these 31 January songs were more of an internet experiment.
The other aftermath of being beaten up is of course psychological and Darren was worried that he would have difficulty leaving the house, never mind perform in public again. I've been fortunate to see him three times in the last few months and he has seemed like his old self. Amiable and amusing in between songs, and not afraid to trot out back catalogue rarities as well as showcase his new material. There still aren't any loud noises but he did play through a small amp at the Lexington, and the January Songs showcase in the Hideaway in Archway did feature a small drum kit as well.

It's tempting to see January Songs as an exercise in self-discipline; a way of turning your songwriting craft into a day job, like those of the writers who worked at the likes of the Brill Building in the 1960s. Whereas The Ship's Piano was a fine collection of songs with a uniform sound, January Songs is uneven but fascinating. Anyone who enjoys the work of Hefner or the solo Hayman should investigate both.

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review: Public Service Broadcasting, Professor Penguin at Nights at the Market, Tooting, 28th January 2012

This show is part of Nights at the Market, essentially a live band night in the heart of Tooting Broadway Market. The London based duo Public Service Broadcasting were the hosts for the evening and, rather charitably, they took the stage first.
Although local Tooting boys Bear Response Team get a good response to their set of uptempo indie pop, and headliners Professor Penguin play a thoroughly professional set complete with a horn section and a percussionist, it was PSB's night in more ways than one.
The performance space is right in the heart of the indoor market, which although it is covered it certainly doesn't keep the heat in and despite an impressively large crowd it is fairly freezing. Bear Response Team's singer wears a buttoned up coat and scarf throughout his performance and although they play a very lively set, he shows no signs of taking it off.
I think it's important to mention the venue and the high standards of performance because the organisers had a set back during the course of the gig when they had a couple of visits from the council's noise control people. Although Professor Penguin have nine people in their band, it's quite possible to carry out a conversation directly in the front of the PA without shouting so it definitely didn't feel too loud in the market. I guess they have to carry out a survey to measure the decibel level at residential areas and I hope that something can be done to stop the market leaking out sound, because it would be a shame to lose such a vibrant and interesting band night.
Anyway, back to the music. I hadn't heard Professor Penguin before so I had no idea what to expect. Their large line-up gives them the luxury to expand upon some strong songs by adding horns and extra percussion and keyboards, and they all come across as very skilled musicians. At heart I reckon they are an indie band but with extra width and colour, and they could well be ones to watch in the coming months as they release their debut album 'Planes'.
When I think about this gig though, I keep returning to the early evening performance by Public Service Broadcasting. Now expanded to a duo with the addition of drummer Wrigglesworth, their live show is just getting better all the time. Tonight the now familiar old television which sits centre stage was actually upstaged by a large projector screen relaying the same visuals, which as usual are impressively in sync with the beats. PSB began as the solo project of J. Willgoose, Esq, and live he plays guitar, keyboards, banjo, whilst triggering samples of found speech and audio from public information films which take the place of any vocals. They play an impressive half hour set which ends with the new single 'ROYGBIV'; a melodic piece of electronica which celebrates the birth of colour television. They are showing tremendous promise, and although tonight was lovely and local and intimate, I can't wait to see their audio-visual show somewhere much bigger soon.

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Great Lost Bands no 4: Loop

Today's addition to the list of lost bands is probably the most well known one yet. I'm including them as a 'lost band' mainly because of the time that has passed since their last new release (1990), but more specifically because of their huge influence on one of the best albums of last year, Wooden Shjips's 'West'. I have been met with a few puzzled expressions when I've stressed the similarlity between Wooden Shjips and Loop, but for those of us who know them and remember them, the comparison is an obvious one. Here is 'Collision' from 1988, which was practically an indie chart hit!
Collision


For those of you who don't remember them, Loop were active between 1986 and 1991. They were based in London and released three studio albums as well as a few collections of EPs and Peel sessions. The band were inspired by garage bands, Krautrock, heavy drone based rock and the minimalist side of Suicide, and were often, perhaps unfairly, thought to be following in the aftermath of Spacemen 3. The two groups didn't get on and in 1989 Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 claimed in an interview with Lime Lizard, that "they really ripped us off!! Their first record sleeves, their sound, their live shows, just about everything. Their first few gigs were supporting us. The first time they had acid was when we gave it to them. Then they started calling themselves Loop. The first album was alright but it wasn’t anything we hadn’t done already."
Obviously there were huge similiarities but I always thought Loop had enough edginess and abrasiveness to sound distinct. They built up a strong live following, and when I saw them in Belfast Art College in 1990 they were the loudest band I had ever heard. They only held that title for a few weeks until My Bloody Valentine rolled into town, but still... There are a few amateur live videos of them on the internet, and this one below illustrates the intensity of their show.
From Centre to Wave


The band were getting popular in 1990 and the album A Gilded Eternity was released on Beggars Banquet offshoot Situation Two. It was more experimental and difficult than the garagey sounding early singles, but it has proved to be a lasting epitaph for the band. The first single from it was Arc Lite.
Arc Lite

Loop ceased to be a band in 1991, although a collection of Peel Sessions, 'Wolf Flow' was released the next year. Founder member Robert Hampson went on make music under the name Main, which continued until 2006 and was based more around experimental noise and sound art. Drummer John Willis and bassist Neil Mackay formed the Hair and Skin Trading Company whose first couple of albums carried on where Loop left off, but their last release Psychedelische Musique took influences from Faust and musique concrete.

Previously in this series
No 3: Bongwater
No 2: Prolapse
No 1: Bowery Electric

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Spotify playlist: January

Slow Thrills January Spotify playlist
For the fourth in the series of my Friday Spotify playlists, I've combined the previous three and added some new stuff to make a big chunky 2 hour+ playlist. It's not a compilation of all new releases that came out this month, it's more a mixture of acts that have been mentioned on the site throughout the past month. The new additions are the new Sleigh Bells single, that Deerhoof/ Bazan collaboration, Aesop Rock, Broadcast and the Focus Group, an old one from Bongwater, a rarity by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney, and tracks from the new albums by First Aid Kit and Islet. There will be a similarly themed playlist at the end of February, but other Friday slots may well be given over to guest mixtapes which will be available on Mixcloud. Enjoy!
Listen here

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music I discovered today: Public Service Broadcasting

There is a definite buzz building around this band at the moment, and the other day I had to write 50 words for an 'established weekly music publication' about them. Well, as you may be noticing by now, 50 words ain't my style so I'll embellish it a little bit here. They are about to release a new single 'ROYGBIV', due on March 4th. It's named after all the colours of the rainbow and it skilfully manages to combine melodic electronica with some very poetic audio clips from the middle of last century which praise the birth of colour television. Phrases like "The vivid pulsating miracle that gives substance to shadow" and so on... Despite this huge dollop of retro footage, PSB still sound very much like they belong in 2012.
The lovely video is below


Public Service Broadcasting began as the solo project of one J. Willgoose, Esq, which saw him using guitar, keyboards, banjo, samples and footage from public information films for what was essentially a one man show. The live set up nowadays includes drummer Wrigglesworth and, in order to give those old films pride of place, an old television is centre stage. This video, for the unreleased song Signal 30, captures their live set really well.

PSB Live from Owain Rich on Vimeo.

The duo are currently playing quite a few gigs, mostly around London, and you can find a list here. They are fresh from a well received support slot with Plaid and Hexstatic in Koko a few weeks ago, and this Saturday they appear at Nights at the Market in Tooting as part of a three-band bill.













Previously in this series
Django Django
Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands
Idiot Glee

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gig preview: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy aka Wolfroy aka Will Oldham

*** if you are looking for our review of this show, click here ***

Well, it looks like I'll be going to see Bonnie Prince Billy tonight at the Hackney Empire. His current album 'Wolfroy Comes to Town' is great and hopefully his gig will be along the lines of this recent French TV performance.

Bonnie Prince Billy en session privée au Trianon by telerama
This whole Wolfroy thing intrigues me though. A recent web-chat curated by the Guardian saw Bonnie Prince Billy aka Will Oldham answer his questions as 'Wolfroy', and the token weird music news item of the week is that Drag City are now selling Bonny Billy Blend coffee which comes with the "Wolfroy seal of approval" and is certified 100% organic. It comes in a half-pound bag of whole beans for $20 direct from the record company so I guess that means there won't by any on sale at the merch table tonight!
I met Will Oldham once, on his first UK tour in 1993 when his band featured David Pajo and were called the Palace Brothers. His trousers fell down mid-set and I had the memorable pleasure of interviewing him afterwards. The transcript of the interview is here, but I may as well tell you now that you will be able to hear some of that interview as part of my future plans to publish my archives. I will be banging on more about that nearer the time, though I should say the ball starts rolling on that once January's mission is over.
Meanwhile, I have a gig to look forward to....

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When musicians collaborate: a cautionary tale

Yesterday I posted a bite-size review of a collaboration between Deerhoof and David Bazan, which is the latest in the series of releases featuring Deerhoof and invited guests such as Xiu Xiu and Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. The idea is that the guest works new words and vocals around an existing Deerhoof tune.
It struck me collaborations are very much in fashion at the moment. Two of my favourite albums of last year were Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat's 'Everything's Getting Older' and King Creosote and Jon Hopkins's 'Diamond Mine'. Although in both respects the musicians involved are from slightly different genres of music, they blend together beautifully to create something unique and distinct from their other work. In Creosote's case in particular, the finished work is essentially studio-wizz Hopkins's re-arrangements of existing songs from KC's extensive back catalogue. On 'Bubble' for instance, Hopkins's percussion tracks are built from recordings of balls of paper being flicked around a table top.

The first CD I got in 2012 was Darren Hayman's January Songs, his ambitious internet-based effort from this time last year, which took collaborating to new height, enlisting the services of others to help write and record (and make a video!) every day during January. The project's tumblr has over three hours of audio and visual content.

In contrast to these efforts, there are two elephants in the room when we talk about collaborations. One is the very recent release from Skillrex and the Doors 'Breakin a Sweat', which is remarkable for the fact that the Doors are still making music 42 years after their frontman died, but also for the astonishingly poorly edited (and constantly used) sample of Ray Manzarek saying “C'mon baby light my fi”. It's just NOT GOOD!
The other one is the much talked about, and much reviled, collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, 'Lulu'. It was a sitting duck for critics and fans alike, and it has been savaged all over the media, although there is a small school of thought that thinks Lou is back at his impish streak and is delighting in pissing people off again, much like he did on Metal Machine Music, or when he reversioned his classics on his Rock n Rock Animal live album, or when he tried to rap on the Original Wrapper, etc etc...
Never mind his past efforts though, this current album 'Lulu' doesn't really work for me. Both camps are well past their best and Metallica especially just sound so compressed and slick that they bore me, and unfortunately some of these somgs are very very long. It's also unfortunate that they chose the most easily mocked tune as the lead track, here it is complete with arty video by Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream)

The View is at least amusing because he has made James Hetfield sing “I AM THE TABLE” over and over. My problem with it isn't necessarily with Lou's lyrics or monotone delivery - hell, those are two of the best things about him! - it's really to do with the way the musicians collaborate. Over the course of the album they don't sound like they are in the same room. This was exacerbated by their appearance on Later and their attempt at White Light White Heat, which sounded like a lost old man wandering in on a metal band rehearsing and playing cover versions for practice.

Anyway, It's not like me to be negative on these pages. Here are some collaborations that I actually like.

Broadcast and the Focus Group. Two distinct units coming together to do something unique.


Aesop Rock featuring John Darnielle. You can argue that these guys don't sound like they are in the same room either, and this is more of a cameo from chief Mountain Goat John Darnielle than a collaboration, but I just wanted more people to hear it. (Warning: vid is an OTT horror spoof and may make you queasy)


Gang Gang Dance with Tinchy Stryder. I just love the way these guys fire off each other, although this for me was an unlikely collaboration at the time, it totally works.

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new releases update: Islet, DeerBazan, Lambchop, Leonard Cohen

January is gradually getting busier and I have lots of bits and bobs to share today; a review of the Deerhoof/ David Bazan split 7", a couple of (very different) album streams and a free download of a new Lambchop track. First of all here is a stream of the new Islet album, released today. The album has already been getting great reviews like this one on the 405. Judge for yourself below.

album stream: Islet 'Illuminated People'
Illuminated People
Illuminated People by shaperecords

review: DeerBazan, limited edition 7" collaboration between Deerhoof and David Bazan

Limited to 2000 copies on translucent blue vinyl, this is the latest in a series of collaborative releases featuring guest vocalists singing their own vocals and words over a Deerhoof composition. Previous releases in the eries have included collaborations with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Xiu Xiu. This time it's turn of Bazan, which is essentially the band of David Bazan, formerly of Pedro the Lion and Headphones.
The Deerhoof song they are working with is 'No One Asked to Dance', which was originally an atmospheric and pretty acoustic piece from Deerhoof's last album 'Deerhoof vs Evil', featuring gentle guitars and something resembling a harpsichord. Here they have kept the distinctive guitar parts but Bazan's new words and baritone delivery transform it into something very different, hence the re-titling - 'No One Asked Bazan to Dance'.
The flip side is a cover version of the old Headphones song 'Gas and Matches', which sounds more angular and, well, it sounds more like Deerhoof than the original synth-based tune.

free download: Lambchop 'Gone Tomorrow'
Another track has surfaced from their forthcoming album Mr. M, and this time it's available as a free download from soundcloud.
Lambchop - Gone Tomorrow by cityslang

album stream: Leonard Cohen, 'Old Ideas' via NPR

A brand new album from the 73 year old legend, available as a first listen via NPR and sounding pretty good so far. Click this link to listen

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Great Lost Bands No.3: Bongwater

This week's great lost band are Bongwater, who were essentially a psychedelic noise band formed around 1985 and dissolved acrimoniously in 1992. The core of the band was vocalist Ann Magnuson, a professional actress who had been in such movies as Making Mr Right, starring opposite John Malkovich, and guitarist and producer (Mark) Kramer, who ran the Noise New York studio and was the founder of the highly regarded Shimmy Disc label.
Magnuson's musical adventures prior to Bongwater had involved the band Pulsallama (try to find their song "The Devil Lives in my Husband's Body"), whilst Kramer had formed Shockabilly with Eugene Chadbourne and had toured with a mid-80s incarnation of the Butthole Surfers.
The early Bongwater albums sat fairly close to those of the Buttholes in terms of sound and weirdness, as you can hear on these two tracks from their 1988 double album Double Bummer.
Jimmy/ Lesbians of Russia

Their sound was sludgy, abstract and trippy. I'm not going to overload the page with unauthorized video clips, but you should investigate 'Dazed and Chinese' which is a fairly faithful interpretation of Led Zeppelin's 'Dazed and Confused' except Magnuson's grating vocal is in Mandarin. There was also a very edgy sexual side to their music, and one of their most memorable early songs was 'U.S.O', which features the refrain, "give me a marine and some bloody sex."

Bongwater's masterpiece 'The Power of Pussy' was even more sexually charged. I bought it when it came out thanks to hearing it on John Peel and reading a fascinating review of it by Everett True in Melody Maker. Unfortunately I can't find his review, but in his book Nirvana: The True Story, he writes "The Power of Pussy has an undeniable sadness, as well as a rampant carnality, obscenity and pornography." Almost all the songs are about real or imagined sexual adventures, but any playfulness that rears its head is immediately checked against the spectre of AIDS. Magnuson's brother Bobby had recently died from the disease. In twenty years since it's release I have listened to it maybe more than any other album. There really isn't anything like it, and some days I think it may be my favourite album ever.
The band made a video for the title track, which was funded by the Playboy channel and is therefore age-restricted on youtube. I'm not going to embed it but, unless you are offended by women in lingerie and animated hand-drawn cocks, please watch it here.
I could go on all day about 'The Power of Pussy' and maybe I will retrospectively review it here someday, but time is against me today (this post is part of a January post-a-day mission folks). I'll leave you with two fan-made clips. The first one is for 'Junior' where a woman films herself lip-syncing along with the track,

and the second is Magnuson's tour-de-force, the 9-minute plus 'Folk Song'. There are some howling spelling mistakes in this amateur video, but what an incredible song.

Bongwater made one more album, 'The Big Sell Out' in 1992, but they had a hard act to follow. The duo split acrimoniously soon after, with Magnuson suing Kramer for over $4m, and although they settled out of court some years later, they never worked together again. Some of Kramer's solo records, such as the epic 'The Guilt Trip' are well worth hearing.

Previous posts in this series
No 1: Bowery Electric
No 2: Prolapse

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Spotify playlist no.3

The one regular feature on this site that I have managed to stick with is the weekly Spotify playlist. The third instalment features acts that have been mentioned on the site over the last week. There's a live track from the National, Josh T Pearson plays an electric version of a song from his album, there's another Guided By Voices album track, new releases from The Shins, Francois and the Atlas Mountains and Django Django. This week's token oldie is from Prolapse. Next week's selection will have 30 mins and join up with the others to make a 2hour playlist of highlights from the month on here. Listen up!

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Review: Imbogodom (via the 405)

I couldn't do a post-a-day in January without sharing some of the material I've written for other people. The site that got me back into music writing was The 405 and I'm continuing to enjoy writing for them. So today, my post for the day is simply a link through to my review of the new Imbogodom album on the 405.
For those of you who don't know the name, Imbogodom is the collaborative project between Alexander Tucker and Daniel Beban. Also, for those of you who don't me, I should say that Dan and myself have worked together in our 'proper' jobs and some of this album was recorded in my workplace - I've seen the physical piece of tape they made some of the loops on! I think I've kept my distance with this review, I hope I have anyway. Have a read and find out.

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Watch: Django Django, 'Default'

In my great blog plan, Thursday is new music day. So far this has involved searching the recently played list of my last.fm friends to discover Idiot Glee, and trawling through the shortlist for Ireland's Choice Music Prize to chance upon the impressive but new to me Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands.

Today is a little different, because although Django Django are new to some people, they have been around a couple of years and have released some decent singles. Their last show in Hoxton Bar & Kitchen was a sell out and I raved about it here. If there's any justice, by the end of 2012 they will be very well known.

I need no excuse to write about Django Django, and I'm including them today because they have released a stunning video for new single Default, which is easily the best promo video I've seen this year so far. It must have been a headache to edit, as it includes over 4000 stop-motion images which have been painted over. You can view it below or at www.nowness.com

Django Django: Default on Nowness.com.

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The National to curate ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas 2012

***UPDATED INFO - here - in brief, this is now at Camber Sands and is no longer the sole December ATP event***

Whilst some of us are still waiting to go to last December's Jeff Mangum curated event, the finest festival promoters in the land have announced plans for this year's Nightmare Before Christmas. The event will run between December 7th-9th, 2012 at Butlin's in Minehead and will be curated by the National. This will also be the National's only UK performance in 2012, therefore almost guaranteeing a sell-out. Tickets are on sale from Friday 20th January at 2pm.
I'm pretty excited about ATP announcements in general and I've definitely got a buzz out of this one too, despite hearing a pretty strong rumour about it last Friday. I see there are a few grumbles from regulars already on various threads but I reckon the National will put together a good ATP. The line up so far is
The National
Kronos Quartet
The Antlers
Owen Pallett
Boris
Tim Hecker
Sharon Van Etten
My Brightest Diamond
Wye Oak
Lower Dens
Megafaun
Suuns
Dark Dark Dark
Buke and Gase
with many more to be added. Also, after the panic surrounding the Mangum event being rescheduled I reckon ATP needed to nail someone with a huge fanbase who could shift tickets quickly. So enough of the moaning folks, you wouldn't want ATP to go under now, would we?

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Album review: Guided By Voices, Let's Go Eat The Factory

For me, one of the best live experiences of 2011 was a show that I only saw streamed on the internet; it was Guided By Voices so-called 'classic' mid-90s line-up at the Pitchfork music festival in Chicago last July.
Disappointingly they have cancelled their planned European dates for 2012, allegedly due to a fear of flying, this line-up are planning on releasing two albums in the first half of the year.

The first of these, 'Let's Go Eat The Factory', is a sprawling 21 track affair. I was a huge fan of this incarnation of GBV and the more I listen to this album the more I think it fits in well with the likes of 'Alien Lanes' and 'Under the Bushes...'.

The trademarks of mid 90s GBV are here. Lots of short songs that tease you with a great melody then end suddenly ('God Loves Us'), sweeping psychedelic tunes that sound like they have fallen off a lost 1960s recording ('Laundry and Lasers'), and some curious little oddities that are more sonic experiments than songs ('The Things That Never Need').

The two tracks that were all over the internet prior to release made me think that this album would deliver. 'Doughnut for a Snowman' is pretty and REM-like and 'The Unsinkable Fats Domino' has classic GBV written all over it. This isn't just a case of a band finding a winning formula and sticking to it though. 'Hang Mr Kite' sees Robert Pollard singing in a deeper voice accompanied only by a string arrangement, while 'Big Hat and Toy Show' is a strange bluesy tune not unlike Captain Beefheart. Although it's hard to choose highlights from the 21 songs, the two standouts for me at the moment are 'Spiderfighter', a song built around a cyclical grinding riff which changes tack into a wistful piano coda, and 'Waves', a droning throbbing tune which sounds like a collision between the best of Guided By Voices and someone like Wooden Shjips.

Although the prolific output of Robert Pollard and his many varied offshoot bands has kept a lot of Guided By Voices fans satisfied in the last few years, there is something pretty great about having the real band back together. I did approach this album with trepidation, but it is rewarding me with each new listen. I'm unsure if it will win many new fans, but those of us who love those mid-90s albums should find plenty to enjoy here.

Here's a clip of them performing 'The Unsinkable Fats Domino' on the late show with David Letterman recently.

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Great Lost Bands No.2: Prolapse

Great Lost Bands No.2
The second in this occasional series is the Leicester based band Prolapse, who were active between approximately 1992-2000. Despite having the worst name, they first came to my notice in 1994 when I heard them on Radio 1's Evening Session.
The tune was "Pull Thru' Barker" and I wrote the name down with 'Stereolab, The Fall, Huggy Bear' scribbled beside it in case I forgot what they sounded like. They also sounded like a couple having a row over a krautrock-backing track, but I didn't write that down at the time.

Pull Thru' Barker (vid goes dark after a while, but the track is pretty rare so I'm sharing it!)

I managed to find a copy of their debut album, the excellently titled "Pointless Walks to Dismal Places" and it clicked with me immediately. 1994 wasn't a great year for me, and Prolapse sounded exciting whilst managing to come across as depressing and intense, so they suited me perfectly. I played it a lot and for me it became one of my favourite albums of that entire decade.

Doorstop Rhythmic Bloc (single release from Pointless Walks)

I tracked them steadily over the next year, when they played a blinder at the Reading Festival culminating in the mock violence of "Tina, This Is Matthew Stone" which was so convincing one friend thought it was for real!
They released records on all sorts of labels, mostly singles like the brilliant 'T.C.R', including a mini-album called "Backsaturday" which is worth tracking down alone for the epic side-one-filling "Flex".

T.C.R.

Prolapse proved so popular with the fanzine that I edited at the time ("The Weedbus") that they actually won Best band in our reader's vote. I attempted to interview them; a messy activity co-ordinated by Linda from the band vis post. It ended up like this.
The band signed to Radar records and were given a decent recording budget and some money for promotional videos. They released a fine second album "The Italian Flag" in 1997 which increased their profile and got them some radio play. It was produced by Donald Ross Skinner (of Julian Cope fame), who actually joined the band for a while. Unfortunately the album never sold in the quantities required and they parted company with the major label soon after. Their live shows were still a sight to behold, and I have fond memories of a dream double bill with the Delgados in Dingwall's in Camden, and a superb headline show in Highbury Garage, which in retrospect must have been near the end of their life as a band.
This chaotic clip of them performing Flex is probably my favourite amateur gig footage ever.

In my memory, Prolapse gigs were always like that! The band made one final album, The Ghost of Dead Aeroplanes, in 1999 on Cooking Vinyl records, which failed to make much of an impression but it still hit the spot for me. The band drifted apart, Scottish Mick moved to Norway and went back to being a field archaeologist, Linda got a proper job as a journalist with the Leicester Mercury, whilst guitarist David Jeffreys is a professor at the Art College in Savannah in the USA. They are fairly obscure to today's music fans, but there is still a hardcore fanbase that would love to see them reform. This thread over at ILX is always worth having a read if you are curious for news of the band. All I can say is that, for a large period of the mid-90s, I LOVED them, and I still listen to them regularly now.
I nearly forgot to link to Pointless Walks blog, which is your main resource for Prolapse facts and fun

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A word about today
As a few of the regular followers of this blog will know, I am in the middle of a post-a-day effort this January. However, today I was overwhelmed by the response to my piece about Head Records closing so I felt that I couldn't go on with my regular schedule. Yesterday's page has been viewed over a 1000 times and shared all over twitter, facebook and even google plus! I will endeavour to keep you all up to date on any news about the shop returning, and if you don't already know about the Save Head Facebook page then check it as well.
Head is now closed and Tom McShane posted this heartbreaking photo on twitter earlier. Sometimes a picture says it all....

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Trying to save Head in Belfast: why did a successful record shop have to close?

Last year for Record Store Day, I wrote a blog post about the records shops I grew up with in Northern Ireland, and how they helped me gain a sense of identity through my teens and into my twenties. None of them that I mentioned exist now, but recently there was a glimmer of hope for Belfast's record buying public with the emergence of two new shops - Dragon records, which is small and independently run from a first floor space above a tattooists - and Head, which is much larger and part of a small chain of shops, and until today it was leasing a large space in the lucrative Victoria Square shopping centre.

However, this is not simply another story about the slow death of the high street music retailer. Instead it's a tale about how a large shop filled a gap in Belfast's cultural community and became a commercial success in the process. Unlike most record stores in the current climate, Head had traded very well over Christmas and the management are on record as saying that it beat its performance targets.

For those of you who don't know Belfast, I should explain that Victoria Square is a very upmarket shopping centre right in the centre of the city. It cost £400m to build and opened in March 2008. It has the largest House of Fraser in the UK and has approximately 17 million visitors a year, a figure which places it in the top 10 shopping centres in the country. Even if you don't go there to shop, its distinctive glass dome offers the highest public views across the city.

On a visit back home last year, I was delighted to find that there was a brand new - and very large - record shop trading there. I wandered in and expected to find the usual bland mix of CD and DVDs that is so common in the remaining high street music retailers. Instead I found the widest range of specialist music and DVDs I have seen outside London in a long time. I spent over an hour there, talking to the staff and buying so many hard-to-find CDs that I needed a basket.

That was January 2011 and Head had only been open for a month. The shop quickly established itself as a place to find almost any release, and, unusually for a chain store, it became a focal point for the local music scene. It stocked local releases whilst only paying the VAT, thereby passing the profit straight back to the artist, and it was happy to publicise small gigs and music and film club nights across the city. They arranged in-store performances and signing sessions from both local acts and visiting bands of the stature of Bombay Bicycle Club and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club; though the real scoop was getting Josh T Pearson to play a song from inside that glass dome!
Although they were only in their first year of trading they won a Best Record Store in Ireland award, and were recognised by Mojo magazine as their record store of the month.

So what went wrong? Well, it reads like a case of the big company squeezing the little company out of its space, as Head's lease had come to an end and a large clothing company had made a better offer. The management had put in offers for other spaces in the city centre, including one that was only a third of its current size, but all of them were rejected. It seems crazy in the current climate with units sitting empty, but these landlords were expecting the store to commit to a five year lease with full rent and rates and service charges, which is all but impossible for a CD retailer. Belfast is now without a specialist music shop, and not through any lack of demand.

In fact the passion to save Head was so strong that it led one customer, Tracey Gibson, to set up a Facebook page dedicated to that cause. Like many of its customers, Tracey was impressed with Head's hugely varied stock and its knowledgeable and helpful staff, and with around 1500 joining that Facebook page in less than a week, it is obvious that she is not alone.

It seems Head had reached that point where it was more than just a shop. The staff had been recruited for their musical knowledge and a lot of them felt at home there. When you have a job like that, not only are you fortunate, but you just don't want it to end. It's sad fact that in Northern Ireland they could struggle to find something similar. Good luck to them, because in one year of trading they helped to change the cultural life of the city, and they can all be proud of their achievements.

words by Jonathan Greer
pics taken on the last day of trading by Tom McShane

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Slow Thrills weekly Spotify playlist 002

Slow Thrills list 002

The second week of this, and it's a good one! It's compiled by myself (Jonathan) as I haven't got quite got on top of the contributions just yet. I think I will do a longer list on the last Friday of every month as a bit of a round-up. Again, I've just featured music that's been relevant to my week, hope you enjoy. The playlist includes new singles from Real Estate and Dad Rocks!, a track from the new albums from Guided By Voices and Darren Hayman, plus Eleanor Friedberger - a live review of her went up this week - and Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands - who were my new music post this week. There's also Gonjasufi remixed by Oneohtrix Point Never and a track by Blanck Mass, who have bagged one of the support slots to Explosions in the Sky later this month and have just been added to Jeff Mangum's ATP

Listen to Slow Thrills list 002

Last week's edition is here

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Music I discovered today, no.2: Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands

Music I discovered today, no.2: Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands

As you may have read, I am using this series to talk about music that is brand new to me; not necessarily a new release or a fledgling band. Last week I trawled through my last.fm friends lists for bands I hadn't heard of, this week I was reading about Ireland's Choice Music Prize shortlist which aims to find the best Irish release from 2011. As I am Irish I knew most of the acts, and my initial favourites for the prize would be Cashier No.9 or Jape (whose album I reviewed for the 405) but I spotted a couple of names I didn't know on that list. One was Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands so I searched spotify and delved straight into the nominated album 'Golden Syrup'. (There's another album on there called 'You Look Cold' which is credited to Patrick Kelleher only, I will investigate that one later.)

I'm amazed that these guys were never on my radar before. I like to think that I am fairly aware of what is happening in the Irish music scene, and, even worse, they actually played one of the Upset the Rhythm events in the Bussey Building in Peckham last year. This is bad because I'm on UTR's mailing list and I actually went to one of those events. Must try harder!

Anyway, google Patrick and co and you will find a lot of reviews lumping them in with 80s bands like Visage and A Flock of Seagulls, and whilst there is an undoubtedly huge synth-pop influence, these guys are closer in sound to the likes of John Maus, Ariel Pink and Dan Deacon; there is much more of an abrasive edge and psychedelic twist than those lazy '80s comparisons suggest. 'Miracle Candle' (below) is a cracking tune, although in contrast songs like 'Broken Up Now' go into downbeat lo-fi territory, and 'Contact Sports' combines that vibe with a strong melody. I've only listened to the album twice but it has clicked with me immediately. There's an arresting spoken-word style piece called 'I Don't Remember' and the closing track 'Still in School' is a spooky little acoustic song.
If a music prize is good for anything, it's that the shortlist can introduce you to something you have missed.



Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands - Miracle... by BangOn


Previous posts like this:
Music I discovered today, no.1: Idiot Glee

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Watch: video for Colin Stetson's Those Who Didn't Run

Colin Stetson is a name that cropped up in a lot of album of the year lists for 2011 with his 'New History Warfare Vol II; Judges'. There was a two song EP which came along later in the year, which I reviewed here
I hadn't seen the video for lead track "Those Who Didn't Run" until a few hours ago, so here it is. Take ten minutes and let it hypnotise you. You may like to go full screen on this one!

Colin Stetson "Those Who Didn't Run" from Isaac Gale on Vimeo.

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Live review: Eleanor Friedberger Band

Live Review: Eleanor Friedberger Band/ Weird Dreams

[explanatory note: this review was intended for publication elsewhere. It never appeared, but I found it on my hard drive today and whilst it is well after the date, I thought it was decent enough to share]

Eleanor Friedberger Band/ Weird Dreams
London Bethnal Green Working Men's Club 1st December 2011

This is Eleanor Friedberger's first visit to London with her new band. Since the release of her solo album Last Summer whilst on a break from her main band The Fiery Furnaces, her earlier two shows in the city had been solo efforts. Tonight she and her band are in the cosy surroundings of this Working Men's Club in London's East End, a venue which has a touch of faded glamour about it. The stage backdrop is a giant heart-shape lit by coloured lightbulbs, some of which are missing.
Before Eleanor though, we have half an hour set from Weird Dreams, a four piece firmly in the classic indie pop mode, fresh from supporting Stephen Malkmus on some of his recent UK dates. They are quite open about having a David Lynch influence to their music, they even play a song called Weird Dreams which is about Blue Velvet, but the rest of the live set owes more to 60s Northern Soul and 80s bands like Orange Juice and the Smiths. Some songs which stand out are the single 'Holding Nails' which has some bright Marr-esque guitar lines and closing song 'Suburban Coated Creatures'.

On to Eleanor and her Band - this time comprising Matt Asti from MGMT on bass, James Eatherley (ex- Be Your Own Pet on guitar) but not not featuring regular drummer James Canty (the Make-up, Ted Leo's Pharmacists). He is replaced by Ahmed Jalil who I know nothing about, other than he is playing only his third show with Eleanor, although you would never know from the way this band gel tonight.
She opens with 'My Mistakes' - her first single and a giddy reminiscence of her early days in New York - although in contrast to the recorded version which goes straight into the story song, they play a two minute instrumental intro. This song is one of quite a few from the album that gets re-arranged, a habit that the Fiery Furnaces often had, and one which occasionally didn't quite come off. Tonight though, any reversioning works a treat. They slow down current single 'I Won't Fall Apart Tonight' and make 'Glitter Gold Year' sound like the bleak New Year message it was intended to be, whilst 'Early Earthquake' is performed almost solo by Eleanor and is very lovely indeed. 'Roosevelt Island' may not have the big arrangement of the recorded version but it is definitely one of the highlights of the set.
Should anyone think that Last Summer is a one-off, she introduces many new songs tonight, songs with simple titles like 'I don't want to bother you' and 'I'll never be happy again', which on first listen can hold their own with the material on Last Summer. She performs a Dylanesque new song 'Don't let it Worry You' solo whilst the guitarist attends to some re-stringing. Best of all the new ones is 'When I Knew' – which is instantly catchy and a future classic, although the main set closer 'Stare at the Sun' runs it close. She comes back out for the encore without her lime green stratocaster and sings Bob Dylan's 'True love tends to Forget' and leaves us with a fast version of 'One Month Marathon', yet another highlight from Last Summer.
When Eleanor and her brother Matthew decided to do their own projects this year, away from the Fiery Furnaces, some may have assumed that the classically trained musician Matthew may outshine the efforts of his untrained sister. Thankfully her stage presence and knack of writing some incredibly strong tunes have made sure that she can hold her own with anyone. Tonight she reminded us what a great debut Last Summer is, and gave us a glimpse into her bright future by unveiling those new songs.

review by Jonathan Greer
photo by Liz Lawes

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New War on Drugs track Don't Fear The Ghost streaming on Soundcloud, plus Fallon performance

I like it when the War on Drugs go a bit ambient and shoegazey, which is pretty much what they are doing on this new track, 'Don't Fear the Ghost' which is streaming below. It will get a physical release at the end of January as the B-side to 'Come to the City'. The band are playing quite a few dates in the UK and Ireland in the last week of February.
23/02//12 Livepool, UK - The Kazimier
24/02/12 Dublin, IE - Whelan's
26/02/12 Glasgow, UK - Stereo
27/02/12 Manchester, UK - Sound Control
28/02/12 London, UK - Electric Ballroom
29/02/12 Brighton, UK - Concord 2
01/02/12 Bristol, UK - Thekla

The War on Drugs - Don't Fear the Ghost by DOJAGSC

I've edited this to include the War On Drugs fab performance from late night US TV show Fallon last night. Their extended line-up featured Questlove from the Roots on drums!

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Gonjasufi: teasers from new album

Gonjasufi teases new album release/ download track 'Nikels & Dimes'

*UPDATED* now you can download an mp3 of 'Nikels and Dimes' when you submit your email at Warp Records site

I was struggling for something to write about today - well, it is still January, but lovely Warp records dropped some teasers for the forthcoming Gonjasufi mini-album MU.ZZ.LE here

As well as lots of choices of format and artworks, they released a stream of "Feedin' Birds", a short but perfectly spooky duet between Gonjasufi and his wife, which hopefully sets the tone for the album

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Great lost bands: No.1 Bowery Electric

Great lost bands: No.1 Bowery Electric
It makes sense to kick off this series with Bowery Electric as they are the band that gave this blog its name, their epic tune 'Slow Thrills' seemed to perfectly describe the kind of music I wanted to get lost in around the time I set this up. (For those who don't remember, we used to have a .com address and posted content between 2001-2003, some of which can be waded through at slowthrills.blogspot.com.)

Bowery Electric were essentially a duo from New York City, comprising Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener, who released most of their work on Kranky and Beggars Banquet to little sales and a lot of credibility. They straddled the washed out end of 'shoegaze' and got lumped in with the music which was getting labelled 'post-rock', but they had a wide range of influences behind their sound, in particular trip-hop beats and electronica, and they were one of the first to integrate a laptop and samples into a live rock band set up. I have no idea where they went or what they do now, and their wikipedia entry doesn't give a lot away either.

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Slow Thrills Gig Guide (7th-13th January)

Monday January 9th MILAGRES, Vadoinmessico the Old Blue Last, 8pm, £7
Milagres come from NYC and released their debut 'Glowing Mouth' on Memphis Industries last year. Tipped to be very big this year, catch them while they are still playing venues this size. Listen here.


Thursday 12th LANTERNS ON THE LAKE, Cargo, 8pm, £10
From Newcastle-upon-Tyne, this ambient folk six piece are touring on the back of a very positive reception for their debut album 'Gracious Tide, Take me Home'.

Friday 13th DARREN HAYMAN, The Hideaway, 7pm £10
Part one of his January Songs shows, this gig will feature songs from the first 16 days. Next week he will play songs from the last 15 days. There are different supprot slots on each night and you can buy a combined ticket as well. Click the link for details.

If you would like to have your gig mentioned email slowthrillsj-blog@yahoo.co.uk

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Slow Thrills weekly Spotify playlist

Slow Thrills list 001

This is going to be a weekly fixture, usually on a Friday. I'm doing today's list but I'll be inviting others to compile lists from now on, hopefully I will only being doing every fourth week in the interests of variety.
There is no set criteria for this playlist, it simply has to be something you want other people to hear. I've chosen some new releases, and just some stuff that was in my head this week. Both Peepholes and Darren Hayman are new releases, Young Magic and Idiot Glee are new to me this week, and I'm probably going to see Lanterns on the Lake and Fuzzy Lights next week. Apologies for starting off with a 10 minute song, but the Bowery Electric tune is the song that the site is named after. I had a bit of trouble deciding on the order, but you can always shuffle it of course - enjoy!
Listen to Slow Thrills list 001

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Music I discovered today: no.1: Idiot Glee

Music I discovered today: an occasional series

During this period of increased output I am trying to write about a 'new' band every week. If you know anything about music blogs you will know that there is often a rivalry to try and write about the latest 'buzzband' first. I find that annoying; discovering music that's new to you shouldn't be a race or a contest. In fact it doesn't even have to be new, though the shame of titling a post 'new band of the day' and finding they were in some people's top 10 of 2011 would have some bloggers dying with embarrassment 
I find new bands all sorts of ways. Obviously I pay attention to other blogs, people I know on twitter recommend new music to me and when I go out to a gig I try to make it time to watch the support bands. If I get emails from bands with links to soundcloud or bandcamp I will listen, and I regularly search spotify for 'what's new'.
I think it's significant that I rarely use the two methods I used when I was growing up – printed media and the radio – as time's tide has turned against them.

I'll tell you one thing that I like doing which proves very useful, is looking at what other's listen to on last fm. I've 27 friends on it, not many, and there are only a handful I actually know, but we are friends because we have initially similar tastes. I looked at it this morning and the last 7 people who had listened to something had played something I'd never heard of! So for the first 'new music' post I decided not to list an up-and-coming act – many other music sites have already done this for 2012, and many of my choices would be duplicated. Instead I am posting something by an act I have just discovered today by looking through my last.fm friends list, listening to music I didn't know and choosing the one I liked best. Which is....

Idiot Glee. This came out in April 2011, but I only discovered it this morning. It seems to be the solo project of a Kentucky based guy called James Friley, and it has lo-fi echoes of the Beach Boys and Eno's Another Green World, as well as a ghostly, hymnal quality. Fans of Animal Collective and Perfume Genius should go for this, I reckon, but then I have only heard of him today.

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An excuse to buy a print magazine
Over the last two years I've almost completely stopped buying printed magazines and newspapers. In 2011 I bought one copy of the Wire, mainly because it had a new Wire Tapper CD included. Now, in the first week of 2012, I have an excuse to buy Mojo, as they have included a tribute to New Order's classic album Power, Corruption and Lies as a cover mounted CD in the new issue. Amongst the acts involved are Errors (who cover 'The Village'), Tarwater ('We All Stand'), S.C.U.M ('586'), Walls ('Ecstasy'), Fujiya & Miyagi ('Your Silent Face'), whilst Biosphere have the unenviable task of covering 'Blue Monday'.
As you can hear below, Destroyer has done a great job with 'Leave Me Alone', which is a decent cover version which also sounds like it could easily have come off his last album Kaputt. Enjoy...

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Help!

I have formulated a plan for my production drive and I will need your help. I reckon I am going to post something every day in January and see how that goes - if it goes well I will also consider a redesign very soon. To make this happen I am working around a weekly template which will consist of regular content for 4 days a week, leaving 3 days free for new posts, although one day a month will be reserved for my archives project I posted about on January 1st.
The regular content will consist of...

A New Band of the week, and by that I mean 'new' to me; it's not an attempt to trump other blogs by being the 'first' to hear something. I'm too old for that nonsense to be honest.
A dedicated Spotify playlist day. For the first one I will build a 30-40 minute playlist, which I intend to do every month. The in-between weeks I will throw open to you guys, the only criteria is that it should be music you want others to hear, and it should be under 40 minutes in duration.
A Gig Guide - a round-up of forthcoming gigs over the next week,
and an Extinct Band of the week. This will feature a band that time (and maybe the internet) has forgotten. I've been at this a long time and I may as well share some of my rare goodies with you youngsters.

So, if you have anything you wish to contribute or suggest anything please email me at slowthrillsj-blog@yahoo.co.uk.

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A resolution broken
I had this idea that I would go to less gigs in 2012 and concentrate more on multi-band bills and festivals. This plan didn't even last a day, because by late afternoon on New Year's Day I found myself at the Hangover Lounge event in the Lexington, watching Pete Astor and Darren Hayman.
I hadn't seen Pete Astor for years, not since he was active as the Wisdom of Harry. In contrast to a lot of his work with his various bands, today's set was so intimate that he performed without amplification. It was just him, his acoustic guitar and a notebook full of lyrics, but the intimate nature of this reminded me how good his songs are.

Lack of amplification has been a feature of Darren Hayman's shows for quite a few years now, and today is a tiny bit different in that he is using a tiny Vox amplifier (I'd say 5W output) so he can use his four string semi-acoustic guitar. He now has such a huge catalogue of songs that he plays a completely different selection than the last time I saw him a few months ago. 'Little Arrow, Little Squirrel' - the charming song about the dogs in space - is the only overlap from the Ship's Piano set.
Today is also about January Songs, the project that he undertook this time last year when he succeeded in writing and recording a brand new song every day during January 2011. He only includes a couple of these in the set as the 'proper' January Songs shows are a couple of weeks away, but he does get Elizabeth from Allo Darlin to sing on I Know I Fucked Up, which may actually be the best song of the whole album and it was a definite highlight today. The really special thing was that he had brought a box of the January Songs CD, with each cover hand illustrated by himself whilst sitting downstairs in the Lexington. We could choose between pen and ink sketches of the Lexington's decor or Darren's lunch, but I have to say I'm very pleased with the hand drawn chandelier on my copy!

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Hello 2012: A tentative plan
I'm going to make myself busy. I almost hate to say it in public, but I actually think that I could do a post every day this year. I have a ton of new music to wade through and I will be continuing to write for the 405 and The Huffington Post, but I have some archive material to deal with as well.
Due to a slight flicker of interest from a a few people, I will be putting the majority of my old fanzine The Weedbus online in the form of scanned PDFs. There are 13 printed issues and a final 14th one that never got as far as the friendly neighbourhood copy-shop. As the first five issues really see us just learning as we go, I'm not going to share all of that content, and anyway, issues 1 and 2 are no longer in my possession! So the plan is to combine issues 1-5 as a single PDF release, whilst the other later, stronger, issues will have a PDF to themselves. The new development with this is that the PDF releases will be accompanied by some sort of audio companion which will feature rare tracks (largely from the period 1993-98) and, where technically possible, some audio from a major interview in each issue. These will come out at the rate of one a month in 2012 and will run up until October I reckon.
I can tell you now that the audio files will definitely feature myself talking with Martin Carr from the Boo Radleys, Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, Will Oldham, Michael Gira of Swans and the late Vic Chesnutt, as well as a few others. Coming very soon!

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