Three Second Kiss "King of The Air"
I presume this is an Albini production job. Further proof of the everyday household maxim 'Albini production jobs don't work on CD'. Totally lacking in the warmth vinyl (or a live set) would generate. Shame, as this is a strung-out, bass-heavy chop through all the tricks in the Touch & Go rulebook.

Threnody Ensemble "Tha Roman (Formerly Valerie White) Part II"
All-acoustic and vocal-less, guitar/piano/cello extravaganza. Sorta like the more 'early music' tracks from Magnetic Fields '69 Love Songs', but heading away into Rachel's territory. The only track on this CD that might make me buy an album.

The Upper Crust "Eureka - I've Found Love"
Big hair rock, appropriately enough given their onstage '18th century powdered fop' appearance. Initial impression suggested Aerosmith, but they're lacking the vocal grit this implies. So I'll plump for AC/DC instead.

Versus "Shangri-La"
Fey indie rock. The vocalist strays worryingly close to Manic Street Preachers territory at times, in both his delivery and lyrics ("high rise utopia, maybe there's still hope for you"). Having never heard Versus before, I am somewhat mystified by the esteem certain circles bestow on them.

Wire "In The Art Of Stopping"
In, churning straightahead guitars and workmanlike drumming, out. Stops and starts at regular intervals but nothing changes in between. Maybe someone should buy them the new Six By Seven album - they seem in need of a 'how to do intense' lesson.

Shannon Wright "Less Than A Moment"
Didn't register at all the first three times I played the CD. Shame, as it's considerably more enjoyable than much of the rest. Albini's drum sound, circular bass and guitar melodies, topped with a glace cherry and (is she from London?) post-punk vocals.

Zeni Geva "10000 Light Years"
Starts with the fizzing hiss of an amp turned up to 34. Menacing riffing. 40 seconds in, the drums blast everything into orbit. Heavy on the math, light on the subtlety. Doomy spoken vocals. More riffing. It is utterly pointless to play this at anything less than the limit of your hearing and your stereo. Preferably beyond.

review by Rob Strong

Stuart Fowkes wanted to review this SO MUCH that we've let hm do an alternate review. This is not because we didn't trust Rob to finish his on time. ahem...

CD 1: 17 tracks. CD 2: 18 tracks. CD 3: 7 tracks. Spot the difference. It's as if halfway through compiling disc 3, Steve and the boys either realised they didn't have enough tracks to fill completely three CDs, or just thought 'we can't follow Zeni Geva with ANYTHING. Fuck it, let's go down the pub.' Either way, this is basically an EP with the stragglers and extras from the first two, meatier CDs. And, of course, the mighty Zeni Geva. Might as well give you a track-by-track, then...

Italian three-piece, err, Three Second Kiss sound like the kind of band you'd expect Shellac to have put on: three members playing guitar, bass, drums, vocals, nothing left to waste. It's a sparse, repetitive sound that has its effect by making you really notice when any one of the three instruments drop out, rather than by any spectacular melodies. There's a great, great part when only the bass remains and the other instruments smash their way back in like drunk rugby players breaking into an all-girl school, with about as much elegance. Three Second Kiss were never about elegance, though.

At first listen, Threnody Ensemble sound like they might be playing versions of Rachel's' more 'upbeat' tunes, but on second thoughts, they're much more than that. The main part of 'Tha Roman (Formerly Valerie White) Part II' would actually be at home backing scenes from a BBC1 costume drama if it weren't for a minute of so of bizarrely off-kilter fast piano-led stuff that could have come out of this week's fascinatingly-patronising look at the Algarve in Wish You Were Here. Full of ideas and fascinatingly pretentious, but just on the right side of not taking themselves too seriously (I hope).

On entirely the wrong side of not taking themselves too seriously are The Upper Crust, who I also have to admit to not seeing at ATP. The roped-off seating areas and medieval costumes don't come across on the CD too well, so we might have to - shock! - judge them on their music. The fact that the CDs didn't come with any case meant that I didn't know which band was playing when the tune came on, and immediately assumed it was Cheap Trick. In fact, having checked, I'm still almost certain that this is a Cheap Trick song. The lyrics are all about studying the classics, and how this matches to studying, like, the classic lines of a chick's body. I'm sorry, I tried not to take this seriously and enjoy it for the party music it's intended to be, but I think even Bill and Ted might have found this hard going. It's like Slade meets SpÔnal Tap in a rubbish dump, and is no doubt MASSIVE in rock-starved Eastern European republics.

Versus are wholly more considered, playing lo-fi woolly jumper songs that leap out into, ahem, 'life-affirming' guitar breaks at a second's notice. Bob Weston was right on the button when he said of Versus in the ATP programme that even when you hear one of their songs for the first time, you could swear it's been one of your favourite songs for years. Genuinely rather lovely, and that's not something you'll get me to admit every day.

And now Wire (or rather WIRE!), who get hold of a classic post-punk riff and keep hold of it for five minutes, only stopping when their fingers get tired. The playing's obviously tighter than their cracking loose live versions of their songs, but the guitars still sound like the production booth must have been full of wasps, pneumatic drills and vacuum cleaners all playing paper-scissors-stones with each other. And the great thing is that the guitars just seem to get louder after every break, until by the end of the song, my house has fallen down. I love Wire.

Shannon Wright's 'Less Than A Moment': if you took any fifteen-second bit of this song and played it to someone, it would sound like something special, but the song as a whole doesn't really hang together as well as it could. I want to like her, I really do, but this song always sounds like it's building into something really great and then letting me down. Wish I'd seen her live.

Closing proceedings are Zeni Geva, Japanese noise terrorists who were the band of the weekend for those seeking more ROCK for their hundred nicker. Their live set was 45 minutes of classic riffs, so as you might expect, this is six minutes of classic riffs. It's like the Fucking Champs without the histrionics and soloing, but with the same utter, honest love of and belief in the power of the Flying V. It's like the Oxes without the cowbell and all those pesky time changes and stop/starts. It's RIFFS, dammit, and RIFFS are what make rock music exciting. I want a statue of Zeni Geva in my living room.

review by Stuart Fowkes

ATP CD 1 by Ady Foley
ATP CD 2 by Jason Graham