It turns out this band already have an album out.
I guess you all know about it.
I’m behind the times.
Put it down to me being an old-timer.
“If gold was Silver…” is a 3 track EP and it ROCKS.
Granted it rocks in a slightly off-kilter 7/4 time kinda way, but then I like Dawson so what you gonna do?
FoM are ex-members of Ganger I’m told.
I’m particularly pleased that they’re ex-members as I was never much of a Ganger fan.
But I love this.
All sexy, slightly seedy sounding ‘little girl’ vocals. You know, 20% Polly Jean, 30% Bjork, 50% Polystyrene.
And the music jerks along underneath like a rather soiled but remarkably slinky big-toothed beastie.
The guitars are jagged, the bass is liquid and the drums are broken.
My kind of record.
I’m off to buy their album.

I actually read a press release!
I read it from beginning to end and everything.
What I found out is that Los Tromos are a Greek band influenced by The Ramones and 50’s B-Movies.
This all sounded promising and, after appreciating the lovely packaging – Gatefold card slipcase about an inch bigger than it should be. Almost 7″ single size in fact – I put the CD into the machine.
Immediately I heard something that unsettled me.
Let me try and explain.
I spent a while living in Italy and visited various places around Europe duting my time there. What I found was far too many people being overly ‘serious’ about music.
You know, a kind of mindset that says you can’t be in a band unless you can play guitar solos at 300 MPH and reading from a score.
The songs on this album are actually neat little punker riffs with the odd garage-surf number thrown in. Unfortunately they suffer from being far far far too precise.
Too musicianly.
Inserting a note perfect guitar solo into a 2 minute, 3 chord workout just kills the essence of the music the band are making.
Sadly it reminds me of this anecdote from my time in Italy:
A friend came over for dinner and I played him a bunch of records.
He was particularly taken by a Jim O’Rourke album.
A couple weeks later I was at his place for a meal when he said, “I just have to play you something. You’ll LOVE it!”.
While he went to find the CD I got excited thinking I might be about to discover some Italian underground genius.
He returned from his bedroom and put the CD on.
It was Led Zeppelin 4.

Supersilent are just about my favourite band of the last 5 or 6 years, and so it was with huge excitement that I unwrapped this DVD and put it into the machine.
Just like the rest of their recorded output, this DVD is packaged and presented in the most minimal way to allow the music every possible space to breathe.
In fact the DVD is minimal to the point of not even having a menu – you put the disc into your player and the film begins. You can scan between songs but that’s all.
I guess this is basically Supersilent’s 7th album with added images.
Made up of 6 pieces of music performed at Parkteatret, Oslo on the 16 August 2004, the film is shot in black & white and is wonderfully evocative.
I remember once trying to explain to someone of just how wonderful Supersilent are and in the end taking them to see the band perform at the Purcell Rooms – an hour into the show they were convinced.
Therein lies the beauty of this DVD – being able to watch the four band members working off each other, Arve Henriksen on a wooden chair centre stage surrounded ominously by keyboards and drums, taking the size of the stage and reducing it to the bare essentials for the band.
Supersilent make improvised music that by turns glows, terrifies, enlightens, excites, but above all fills me with joy. Theirs is the sound of fjords in creation, glacial shifts of noise bursting from contemplative phases of subtle sound.
This release then is the perfect introduction for newcomers to the world of Supersilent and easy access into their live world for those already fans.

As far as explorations of sound and spontaneous music go right now Volcano the Bear are where it’s at.
For this album VtB are a duo, the songs recorded at various different venues in early 2004.
What grabs me most?
Rhythm.
Yes, sounds shift in and out of focus as you might expect with this kind of music – atmospheres drift, there are vocal yelps and sighs punctuating animal asides – there are even what appears to be the occassional lyrical structure.
And it’s all being underpinned by rhythm pure and simple.
Sometimes it’s tribal tinged, sometimes it reminds me of no-one other than The Shaggs.
And it’s so damn refreshing.
I like Hans Benninck of course.
I like improvised drums that rumble and shout and fall over and make you laugh or frown or cover your ears, but sometimes that’s just wandering in the darkness.
I’m not sure exactly what it is I’m trying to get at except that this is spontaneous music that drives like rock’n’roll and WE ALL LOVE rock’n’roll.
Did I mention wandering in the darkness?
This album is blazing in the light.

These guys hail from Canada though as soon as the s-l-o-o-o-o-w opening track, “The Large Glass” starts you’d swear they lived in the swampy deep south of the USA.
I guess that’s not such a strange thing when you consider it – Cajun music and the music of French-Canada must have roots in some pretty similar history.
If I’m missing something obvious here please let me know.
Anyhow, I digress.
Mon Electric Bijou then make some good, sturdy, less-chords-is-more rock’n’roll.
There’s some nice vocal harmonies going on too. Just enough to add flavour rather than showmanship.
I’m not making much sense am I?
Let’s try again. The nearest comparison that springs to mind is the Magic Numbers though that’s based solely on the one song I’ve heard by that particular musical unit.
I’m listening to the record for the first time as I type this and the further into the album I get the more I like the understated nature of it all.
Any of the songs on this record could be BIG rock numbers but MeB hold back in just the right ways. The bass is nicely overdriven – just enough to create some dirt without becoming dingy. The guitars are all recorded pretty clean but still they rock.
You know what? I think I like this.
Buy one from them I guess: www.monelectricbijou.com

Now this is where it’s at.
I know absolutely nothing about Like a Stuntman – I’ve not bothered googling them even. I don’t really care about the details.
All I know is that this is an astonishing record.
Let’s get the usual lazy journo nonsense out of the way: Like a Stuntman nod towards Pavement circa “Brighten the Corners”, but it’s only a nod. There’s so much more.
The opening song, “We’re not in Brazil”, comes over all post rock tunefulness. It’s playful, the lyrics daubed across the melody like a Jackson Pollock (Jeez, look at me coming over all pretentious!), a good song.
But then it does something interesting.
There appears to be a glitch-core geek hiding in the corners of the studio feeding everything the band does through his little laptop and messing with it.
While ‘the guys’ play on this nerd breaks everything up with clicks and splutters and IT WORKS!
This album then is the sound of Pavement at their most avant or Gastr at their most tuneful mixed by someone who prefers Ratser-Noton releases to anything that’s ever come out on Drag City.
Further into the album the glitch takes over.
For a short time, as on “Kingkongs”, the nerd seems to be winning the fight only to have control wrestled back by the band.
I don’t want to find out more about Like a Stuntman.
I want to carry on believing that after recording, the band hunted their studio space for the little sod who fucked everything up.

The singer of the songs on this album reminds me a lot of the wonderful Andrew Beaujon.
That’s a fantastic place to begin.
The Floating City have a lot in common with The Lucksmiths (reviewed in the same pile of records as it goes).
Simple, sparse arrangements of guitar, organ, drums and bass – the sound is breezy, wide open.
The whole album sounds like it’s been recorded live in the studio. Actually it sounds more ‘live in the library’.
In places I’m sure I can hear shelves creak and there’s definately someone reading Brautigan in the corner.
And that brings me back to Beaujon – The Floating city make me think of a very particular kind of mythical Americana, that place that Brautigan goes, that Hunter Thompson goes, that Andrew Beaujon goes. It’s not that the band are in any way attempting a Pavement-esque oddball thing.
Not by a long chalk.
But they do make music that feels like Trout Fishing in America. And that’s a good thing in my book.
“You are a weapon in the hands of your enemies”, they sing in “Oh Laughing Girl Upon the Brinke of Death”.
Now there’s a line I wish I’d written.

I won’t go on again about all the things that make Th’Franz meaningless.
BUT.
This single is being pushed by the label using such phrases as, “The finest parts of […] Franz Ferdinand”.
What this record actually is is a band that may as well be a Franz covers band. It really is that close a call.
A record of no importance.

I wasn’t expecting this at all.
Before pressing play and sitting down with a cigarette and yet another coffee I decided I might just read the press release for this album.
There are A LOT of words on the press release.
A lot of very flowery words.
I’m not one for huge tracts about music.
Let the record speak, maaaaan.
So it was with some trepidation that I did eventually press play.
And I’m damn glad I did.
This is a beautiful, melancholy, uplifting album.
From the opening “A Hiccup In Your Happiness” (a good title, no?) I began to get excited. There’s a certain something that antipodean bands do incredibly well. I’m not even sure what the something is (I’m not sure that the bands in question would realise they do it), but it’s there in The Cannanes, Ashtray Boy, The Go-Betweens, and it’s there in the NZ pop of The Chills, The Verlaines and The Bats.
The Lucksmiths’ arrangements are sparse and fragile.
Guitars chime.
Minor chords ring out.
Drums shuffle under the foggy quality of the lilting vocal.
Later in the album “The Chapter in Your Life Entitled San Francisco” is a subtle monster with string arrangements added to great effect.
I don’t know what else to say.
This is a thing of gentle pop loveliness.
Now, what was I saying about flowery writing?

This is the first Sub Pop release I’ve heard for a whole bunch of years.
I thought the label might have moved on a little from the stodgy pub rock of the early 90’s, but oh no.

This is yet another three-piece playing 1st graders rock’n’roll.
We listened to it in the car this afternoon and it was only seeing the track counter move on that gave us any idea that we were listening to different songs. It’s that staid.

Unimaginative bass rumbles, erm, rumble, guitars slash half-heartedly, the drummer keeps a nice and steady 4 beat and the singer has discovered one tune which, when half spoken, can work throughout any Thermals composition.

Sub Pop always promised so much more.