Singled Out - misadventures in post modern musings…….
Address for communications, records, death threats and marriage proposals - 105 shaldon drive, morden, surrey, sm4 4bq, uk - update type things and exclusive content and stuff - nah only kidding - www.myspace.com/thesundayexperience - in colour and stuff and replete with not so groovy play list type thing…pop music not arf…..
First person to mention the beach ball goal gets the evil eye for the evening…….
Records and things then…..
http://www.myspace.com/plumtunes - very quick mention for this while we go off into the night in search of her debut album via those nice people over at Benbecula, described in passing as a female Fourtet, Plum or Shona Maguire as she’s better known to the patrons of the enchanted hideaway she’s managed create for herself comes armed with samples aplenty, a sparsely spun acoustic guitar, a host of woo woo whirly pop electronic sounding gizmos and flotillas of trip hop beats which she slyly stirs and from out of which sculptures lilting lazy eyed aural apparitions that draw visible musical lay lines with the much admired Orla Wren. These pastel portraits and beguiling baubles are demurring wide eyed treats we suggest for starters you retune to ’the penguin and the eagle’ a delicately yearning and heart melting frosty folk gem that may well just have you weeping through smiling jaw dropped numbness.
Here’s a cute-ish video we nabbed from her site for ‘toys’ directed by David Lumsden - very ‘coffee and TV’ and not we should say all together representative of the Plum sound - still annoyingly cute ….
Here’s the video to that killer fists record we mention earlier in the week - you can sample more hello thor loveliness by going to http://www.myspace.com/hellothorrecords
More video action this time from Frightened Rabbit who we mentioned in these very pages a day or so ago…..
Two programmes scheduled for airing tonight via BBC 4 are a brace of shows celebrating synth pop. Both ‘synth Britannia’ and ‘synth Britannia at the BBC’ chart the rise of the electronic sound from their eclectic futuro appeal in the early 70’s at the hands of art pop musos, BBC radiophonic boffins and prog rockers to their symbiotic moulding and reshaping of pop at the dawn of the 80’s - from the genres pioneering architects Wendy Carlos / Kraftwerk to the pop futurists heralding the dawn of the 80’s - Gary Numan, Human League, Fad Gadget, OMD and New Order along with an hour long trawl through the BEEB archives for rare appearances by Tubeway Army, Roxy, Sparks and more -- go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n93c4 to find it on the iplayer.
http://www.myspace.com/sonicdelays - got an email from Tim out of Sonic Delays alerting us to a new single entitled ‘sleep’ culled from their debut mini album ‘Everest’ which is available as a download from I-tunes, amazon and limewire and a copy of which we’ll try and nab from the band in the coming days. Anyhow we did check out the bands my space page for a quick nose early this morning only to discover their player was suffering - shall we say - technicals - happy to say everything is up and running now. Of course this lot should be no strangers to regular patrons of these pages being that in the shape of ‘evil’ they’ve already delivered one of our favourite cuts of the year. ‘sleep’ as previously advertised is shrouded in more of what seems to be something of a trademark chilled shoe gaze aura or perhaps best described as a demurring distressed dream pop decoding that much coils and veers in similar buzz sawed bubblegum territories as the highly admired Insect Guide though here wired into its chassis the undeniable blissfully bathed tug of the Vaselines shimmer toned pop undercurrents as though meeting face on the mellowing sun scorched lilt of Chapterhouse. Expect more fond words when / if that mini album appears.
And back with Fat-Cat….
We were promised jetpacks ‘its thunder and its lightning’ (fat cat). Through the haze of shell shocked smoke a distant rumble is heard. Barely audible its march like some crusading army sighted just within the eye line on the horizon is approaching at pace. The intensity burns the rumble once heard slowly readjusts into focus. Its splintering. The clamour is ratcheted up several notches. The ceremony of the skin tingling chest beating drama is unravelling with pulse throbbing verve. A gathering storm is swirling, gathering and converging on one predefined point. Soon the intensity penetrating, cuts and blisters with teeth gritted angst the tolerance levels at sapping point. Welcome to ‘its thunder and its lightning’ a barrier battering slow burning epic that quietly shifts in stature and majesty much like a fired up I like trains trading blows with an overcast Decoration, the inevitable breach occurring 2.40 in - as colossal and it is bruising, as scathing and scarred as it is witheringly beautiful. In a word - immense. Flip the disc for ’ships with holes will sink’ - maybe not as sapping as its lead partner but still pointedly framed with an against all odds rallying cry that’s bleached and threaded by an eye poking sinew popping hollowing angst - no need to say more just buy the blighter. www.fat-cat.co.uk
Jonny Cola and the A Grades ‘out of focus’ (BBA Highland). Apologies - albeit disgracefully late and overdue - to Jonny Cola and the A Grades whose ultra limited - and incidentally - long sold out debut mini album ‘the yellow mini’ we recently discovered - in fact as recent as this morning - tucked under a thought lost pile of CD’s. Alas no sign of those ’disappearing act’ and ’another summer burning’ releases the latter of which we suspect is lying in a spam box on our email account. Look don’t even bother asking - mention emails around here - and blood quickly chills. Anyhow this lot were elevated to the ‘band to watch’ echelons when their debut outing ‘we’re all going to die’ was found to be doing seriously beautifully bad things on our hi-fi instantaneously having us all a swoon and in all a kafuffle - so when this babe plonked itself on our door mat we knew in an instant that it needed - nay deserved - immediate listening space on the turntable. ‘out of focus’ if memory serves me right - was actually mentioned during the course of one of these missives when I’m certain we eyed the blighter on their my space player singling it out for special attention. Still blessed with that ability to make you weep uncontrollably as it hits time and time again your tender spots with all the accuracy of a sourly tipped bow firing archer, its all head bowed tear stained stuff that by rights should come accompanied with tokens for tissues being that it’s a widescreen weepy which if we didn’t know better would have had us imagining a downcast Pulp seeking a consoling arm from Gene while attending crisis management sessions hosted by a youthful Suede. Gloriously equipped with moments of swooning euphoria tweaked with trace elements of a glam glazing, vocals sounding not unlike Peter Gabriel and crisply drilled with a strangely alluring seasonal wintertime homeliness - hell -better flip the b-side before we drown ourselves in our own tears and start getting a hankering for putting Christmas trees up. To the b-side then - ‘budget flight to faro’ is by all accounts a cut rescued from their ‘another summer burning’ EP a bit of a sweetie it is to that will go some way we’re sure in breaking a few hearts, a beautified day-glo pop gem whose reference markers appear to take their cue from Blur’s ‘modern life is rubbish’ and the criminally overlooked pop magnificence of Ooberman, exquisitely detailed and despatched with a hazily honeycombed lazy eyed glam psyche shimmer and with that quite possibly the slyest slice of sherbet pop perfection currently about. www.jonnycolaandtheagrades.net
Cyanide Pills ‘suicide bomber’ (damaged goods). Another welcome return to these pages this time from the Cyanide Pills, this two track transistor taunting three chord throb rocket comes pressed up on seven inches of blue wax and continues the bands want for nailing pogo primed new wave nuggets at the drop of a hat. ‘suicide bomber’ is your prime portioned spiky topped bubblegum blast of the Ramones ‘blitzkrieg bop’ flung through the punky pop mixer on a hot wash cycle and left to run creating a day-glo dyed dansette damaging sub three minute slice of knee knocking tastiness that to these ears sounds not so dissimilar to a frenetic love in between the Rezillos and the Dickies. Flip the disc for more speed freaked chugging tuneage courtesy of the hot rod riot twang of the wired 50’s styled ghost riding coffin coughing ‘black lightning’ - more please. www.damagedgoods.co.uk
The Silt Vs. Various Productions ‘how can you stand’ (fire). Already celebrated around these here parts for putting out that rather sublime Georgia’s House full length a few weeks back which all good homes should have about their personage, this particular 7 inch release comes part of Fire’s ongoing and ad hoc series of remix face off’s featuring the very talented Various Productions crew. Apparently the fifth instalment (we already featured their Pumajaw rephrase in an earlier missive - word has it there’s another imminent pairing that’ll feature the much loved Virgin Passages being the chosen subject matter). For now though Silt have their ‘come back to the willow’ cut re-adapted as ‘how can you stand it’ and in the process sumptuously retuned and re-wired into something of a teasingly tender and seriously smoked slice of sophisticatedly chilled dub groove laced with spiralling calypso kaleidoscopic hues all threaded by fat throbbing mooching accents. Flip the disc and you get Silt’s original mix of the same track - bloody hell how did we miss this originally - its feckin lovely - admittedly I feel as though I’ve gone back in time to an era of flock wallpaper, flares, three day weeks, power cuts, 6 million dollar man and lounge music heaven, sexiest thing we’ve heard since those soulful imps the Panda Gang - these days called the BDI’s who incidentally have a new album out, smooching stuff, dead laid back and this isn’t bad to - boom boom. Alright who put the lights out - anyone got 10 bob for the meter? www.firerecords.com
