The worlds of heavy metal, Hard Rock, squealing guitar solos and testosterone-fuelled vocal histrionics are kind of a mystery to me. In my varied forays into these worlds – through the NWOBHM Satanic seriousness of Venom, the odd dabble into Norwegian black metal and the doom-laden sounds of Sunn o))), the metal-for-indie-kids of Le Force and The Fucking Champs, not to mention hours of sitting in pubs with Iron Maiden, Metallica or System Of A Down rumbling away in the background – I often find it hard not to listen without a certain sense of irony and cynicism.

That’s in part how I first react to this eleven-track album. It seems to tick all of the boxes: chunky, monolithic riffs; amazingly adept guitar solos thrown into any available space of each song; pained-sounding vocals that speak, I’m sure, of the ills of the world. However, despite my instinctive aversion to some of the softer, more ‘sensitive’ aspects of Breed 77’s sound – as on the piano-led ‘Look At Me Now’ (sounding to all intents and purposes like a Boyzone-go-heavy out-take) and the flamenco-tinged ‘So You Know’ – I have to admit to a certain sneaking enjoyment in most of the remaining tracks here. When Breed 77 are doing their uptempo guitar-twiddling aggressive metal thing, it’s strangely satisfying. To my uneducated ears I have to admit it sounds, at times, remarkably cliched and unoriginal, but who knows. The addition of Spanish lyrics and a few Spanish and eastern European musical flourishes make for a few interesting twists. So what I’m saying is, I suppose, that this may well be good music for you heavy metal people out there. For you pasty indie kids like myself, it might also push your buttons.

Breed 77
Albert Productions

The other night I was sitting in a pub with Rob Lloyd, catching up on news and gossip and discussing a project that we’re getting involved in.
“I got a copy of the Manicured Noise retrospective in the post this morning”, I slurred.
“You know – when I knew those guys back in the late 70’s I thought they were a theoretical band. You know, a bunch of friends who pretended to be in a group cos it sounded cool”, RL replied.
“It wasn’t until I was given a copy of the CD last week that I knew they’d even recorded anything.”

Last night I got round to listening to the album for the first time and it’s a gem.
New label on the block Caroline True have released it in a beautiful 6 panel digipak with lots of lovely photos and words and stuff – in fact it’s almost worth buying for the wrapper alone.

But I’d best talk about the music.

Manicured Noise were a 4 piece from Manchester – they existed between 1978 and 80 and made, I think, 2 EPs and recorded a BBC session.
They played a bunch of gigs at venues like The Factory in it’s Russell Club heyday and had some recordings produced by David Cunningham at This Heat’s studio, Cold Storage.

Now that’s a pretty neat bunch of info right?
Does it make you think “this might be interesting”?
Well it should.

Manicured Noise really liked Talking Heads.
And they really liked Ornette Coleman.
They were also partial to Chic and Northern Soul.

What the 18 songs on this retrospective do – what they certainly did for me – was make me smile.
A huge grinning, stupid-faced smile.
MN were a fantastic band – full of energy, nerve-y as hell, they do bear a remarkable likeness to early Talking Heads but there’s that Manchester violence seeping through.
The sax playing in skronky sex and the tunes stick in your brain.

So why weren’t Manicured Noise huge and famous and revered?
God only knows they should be.

Manicured Noise
Caroline True Records

This 7″ has been out for a month now, so apologies for the tardiness of the review. I can give you a one-line review though:

ANOTHER WINNER FROM A FANTASTIC LITTLE LABEL. HOORAY!

Run of the Mill don’t release a lot of records, but their series of 7″s (and a CD by Quack Quack!) have been uniformly excellent. They are always satisfyingly weighty, beautifully packaged and, most importantly, the music is *always* interesting and entertaining. And this one is just as good as the others!

Man Aubergine are a brand new band to come out of Londinium and this is their debut release. A predominantly guitar/bass/drums trio that excel in breezy harmonies and quirky lyrical themes, this 7″ contains a song per side and works fantastically well as a showcase for their bubbling promise. Drummer/occasional banjo player Steve Blake apparently has a history in the local American Old Time music scene down there, and this influence is the primary drive behind Man Aubergine’s music. Ably flanked by guitarist Will Saunders and bassist Richard Gledhill, Blake leads the trio down a mazy path of old timey music infused with a wonderfully perverse sense of humour. It’s an endearing and wholly successful combination, and the performances are incredibly assured and relaxed for such a new band, which just makes the music more welcoming. It’s all great stuff.

Both songs on the 7″ are short and sweet, getting to the point and ensuring that some wonderfully breezy melodies and harmonies get firmly embedded in your head before stopping. After flipping over and playing through both sides you’ll find yourself thinking that it’s awfully short. In actual fact, it’s a perfect length: you’ll keep coming back to this 7″, and I, for one, am eagerly anticipating future releases from both Man Aubergine and Run Of The Mill. GO TEAM!

P.S. You can hear both sides of the 7″ and two new songs at Man Aubergine’s Myspace site: www.myspace.com/manaubergine

www.runofthemillrecords.co.uk

Hark! What’s that noise? Well, it’s a fairly new compilation from Housepig records, and it really is noise. Housepig are an established ambient-electronica/experimental label from Minneapolis, and this compilation is a sparse listen with each song averaging 11 minutes of atmospheric synths, throbbing soundscapes and minimalist bruumpling, for need of a real word.

It starts of gently, Unicorn’s ‘Sleeper Wave’ lulling you into a false sense of security with a beautiful three note synth line strung out to barren echoes, but from then on it’s pretty daunting stuff. Japanese maverick Aube kindly offers us ‘Shackle’ – 5 minutes of cicada noise and scraping metal, then another half of piercing blips which gently slice the eardrums in a strange, almost seductive way. Contrary to what you may be thinking, this is oddly inspiring. The song reaches places in the sonic spectrum of which I have never heard before. It’s not just inspiring. This is fantastic, the song “tickles the ears” in a sense. Noise terrorists Bastard Noise unleash pure rage to terrifying extent on ‘Flesh Near Automation’ – like ‘Come to Daddy’ stripped to the vocals and background noise. Lovely ambient telephone bleeps with radio static and dark soundscapes disperse the remaining 3 songs, and the description may not sound incredibly appealing but it definitely is interesting. Pressing ‘stop’ on the player shocks you, this album becomes part of the background, filling the room with dense waves.

This album forces you to consider the possibilities of music without, err, the music. This then prompts the question: is this actually music? After all, Aube – real name (big breath): Akifumi Nakajima agrees: “I don’t think of myself as a musician or an artist. I’m a designer. I therefore consider my sound works to be designs as well.” They do say that music is ‘organised noise’ and this, in my opinion, is indeed noise but masterly pieced together, with a huge emphasis on space.

Reviewing this was like trying to describe something awful but equally attractive at the same time, and I really think there is something to get out of it. This compilation comes highly recommended to anyone with serious horizon broadening to do, or anybody with an open mind looking for a whole new way of listening to music.

http://www.housepig.com/index.php?audio

Now, I’m a fucking huge Maher Shalal Hash Baz fan, so forgive me if I nerd out about their new record L’Autre Cap for a minute. Tori Kudo and his shambolic followers make perfectly visceral, charmingly elemental folk-pop that literally falters at every step, jingles and bounces just enough to stay alive, pauses for a minute to let you catch the breath you never lost, then falls apart while staying the single most cohesive idea in pop music today – the desire to stay naïve about music, yet create something so beautiful it hurts to listen to. It’s cute and sad; it’s minimalist, yet complex beyond belief. And the true test? It never grows old, and never will.

I’ve been paying attention to Maher since their days with the legendary Org Records in early ’90s Japan. And while Jagjaguwar snapped up Org-mate Nagisa Ni Te, Maher opted for the more community-based Scottish label Geographic, where they released their sprawling epic, the 41-track Blues du Jour, easily one of my favorite records of all time. Alas, I cheat when I say “sprawling epic.” Everything Maher does is sprawling and epic. L’Autre Cap is no exception. Over 27 tracks, there are parts where the music is basically non-existent. There are jumpy pop numbers that evoke a broken marching band as sung by a lost weekend-era Harry Nilsson were he from Tokyo. There are doomsaying instrumental dirges. There are actual blues riffs. There are randomly blown horns offset by Tuvan throat singing. By the 19th song, where a swirling crescendo finishes “Dove,” you half believe the record doesn’t exist because there’s no way so many musical ideas can be pushed into a record that sounds so distinctive and unique, yet so much like one band.

The thing that ties it all together – other than the perfectly imperfect and spontaneous musicianship – is Kudo’s voice. Not his actual singing voice, though his not-quite-fluent-English warble is inviting like a friendly practicing foreigner. No, it’s his vaguely holy, heartfelt parables. But the crazy thing is, sometimes you can’t even hear what he’s saying. But you think you do, so you make up your own stories. “I might project you,” he sings, “as a chaste virgin.” But he might’ve said protect. Then he breaks into Japanese.

Recorded for K Records in Olympia, Washington with Old Time Relijun’s Arrington de Dionyso (the aforementioned throat singer) and Tori Kudo’s American counterpart Calvin Johnson, L’Autre Cap is a perfect invocation for Maher into the DIY world of the American Northwest. Basically L’Autre Cap picks up where Blues du Jour left off, which is just fine with me. This record makes me happy.

– Maxwell Williams

K Records

Blueboy and Trembling Blue Stars were always the Sarah Records bands that weren’t afraid to put Casiotones at the front of their songs. It’s no surprise then that the new limited edition CD single Sleepydust from Keith Blueboy’s new band The Snowdrops places a sweetly descending synth line bridge in between some mushroomy beats and stutterstep faux-handclaps and Keith-sung lyrics about Diana Ross and “eyes like signals.” Gives the whole thing a rather Trembling Blue Stars feel actually, like an updated version of “Doo-wop Music,” without such ringing guitars.

The b-side is really awesome too. The vocals are handled by longtime collaborator Dick Preece, who’s worked with Keith in the beloved Matinée band Lovejoy. “The Boy with the Hummingbird Eyes” is a whispery ode to a boy who’s flitting his eyes to stop from crying… or maybe one of Douglas Coupland’s Gen-Xers’… I think. Regardless, it’s very pretty and blissed out.

The extended remix of the single that’s tagged on at the end is notable for the added intro vocals from the (indie-pop) legendary Pam Berry, who always sounds like she’s singing in 1986 Paisley in a polka-dot dress with a cocktail in her hand.

This is perfect for sullen afternoons thinking about someone you miss.

– Maxwell Williams

Matinée

Drugs are bad, of course, but for the immense potential creativity it yields we have another band to thank the acid/LSD club: Animal Collective’s Grass is a stunning release off the sublime ‘Feels’ album. Nostalgic memories of warm summers wash over to the intro of the title track, in comes the perpetual tribal drumming and distinctive Beach Boys-esque harmonies. ‘Grass’ bounces along like the show-off hare from the tortoise race fame, jolly and rambunctious. Alien electronics and strange Arabic bagpipe rasps fill the atmospheric ‘Must Be a Treeman’ while ‘Fickle Cycle’ does even more to impress: drummer snaps fill out trance pulses and tremelo’d guitars, Avey Tare & co shouting polyphonic harmonies from dense treetops.

The artwork is a vivid collection of tie-dyed faces and quavers popping out of static air. Videos of the singles and also ‘Who Could Win a Rabbit’ from the equally impressive ‘Sung Tongs’ LP come on the bonus DVD and prove a charming and a perfect visual representation of Animal Collective’s blurry genius.

This CD makes you want to stop taking baths, start growing your hair, renounce your detox life and instead take up daily bouts of flower painting and costume making. Animal Collective work in sudden layers, falling denser and deeper – an immense effort to produce surely and one that will always remind me of a blissful, carefree childhood.

http://fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/release.php?id=168

The Fuzztones have been ploughing their determined furrow through the, uh, fields of 60s-styled garage punk since the early eighties. It’s fitting that this tribute is in the form of a compilation, as so much of the freakbeat, psychedelia and caveman-stomp garage that will have influenced them will, I’m sure, have been filtered down to them by way of countless other compilations. Nuggets, the Pebbles and Rubble series, and so many more in an endless stream of collected musical ‘artyfacts’ have brought an avalanche of once-unknown acts to new audiences.

And so it is here across these two CDs . Whilst there are some better known (nay, legendary) carriers of the garage flame on here – Jayne County, Plasticland, The Morlochs and Nikki Sudden, for example – they’re mixed in with a pile of other, less familiar names. The original 60s compilations were inevitably uneven in parts, with varying levels of songwriting skill, recording quality and experiment, and this is also true of Illegitimate Spawn. However, the 42 tracks here are shot true with an irresistible spirit and unwavering adherence to a world of psychedelic mini-skirts, whacked-out organ licks and drug-damaged mayhem.

There are many highlights for me across the two CDs. Mad Juana’s ‘Idol Chatter’ is a raga-drenched foray into mystery and stoned eastern vibes, a style continued with tracks from Gondolieri and Special Agents. There’s freaked-out punk and keyboard-heavy madness with Fuzz Faces, She Wolves and The Sextress. There’s even authentic horror-style desperation (in the vein of The Monks, The Sonics and early Seeds) from Staggers, Blues So Bad and Ravens.

There are artists from around the world featured here – representing France, Brazil, Austria, Italy, USA, England, Argentina, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Germany, Finland and Peru – and it’s impressive to know that there are so many likeminded groups still out there. This is a great compilation, and the highest praise I can give it is to say that it lines up totally comfortably alongside my Pebbles, my Rubble and my Chocolate Soup For Diabetics records. These bands are totally out of step with modern music, and they’re all the better for it.

Sin Records/The Fuzztones

After listening to this album by the London bass and drums duo Shit and Shine (think Merzbeat, not Lightning Bolt) a few times, I can say the following about it: Jealous of Shit and Shine contains a one-riff, thirty minute long cover version of “Practicing To Be A Doctor” by the Strangulated Beatoffs.Sure, this is obvious to anyone looking at the track listing on the CD, but this fact alone tells you pretty much all you need to know about what you’re about to hear. About ten minutes into that song I wanted it to be over; by the end of it, I thought it ended too soon. There’s a fuckedness here that only rarely makes it to record.It makes me think of the VU on “Sister Ray”, the band barely managing to keep it together but the song working precisely because of this, or perhaps the sheer pill-induced audacity of Dylan Carson and Dave Harwell letting a single chord ring out for half an hour at the end of Earth 2, or maybe the monotonous riffery of Skullflower’s Exquisite Fucking Boredom. Not that Shit and Shine sound like any of these bands, but they share the same mentality as them.It’s sloppy, it’s dirty, it’s probably completely unlistenable to most sane people, it certainly doesn’t belong in polite society, but somehow, buried somewhere deep within there, there is the pure essence of rock n roll in all its retarded glory.

www.riotseason.com

Following on very much in the style established on their previous album Alone In The Bright Lights Of A Shattered Life, this new set from Library Tapes is outstandingly bleak, minimal and intimate. I imagine that Library Tapes’ David Wenngren and Per Jardsell have never heard the theme from Oliver Postgate’s Bagpuss, but the twelve tracks here share its childlike, eerie sense of atmospherics, of loss and of glimmers of hope.

In terms of developing the musical themes from the first album, there is nothing revolutionary or particularly new at work here – both albums are made up of brief glimpses of melody; circular, echoing piano lines laid simply and effectively over a variety of scratchy, time-worn found sounds. But as part of a continuing meditation on the purity of melody, it’s hard not to be affected by these scribbles of music. At worst, the tracks pass by and leave me with nothing more than a melody hanging in my mind. At best – on the sinister, piano-less swells of sound of ‘Departures (Burning Saints For Your Own Sins)’ for example, sounding like an offcut from Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, Volume Two, and the beautifully chilly ‘Feelings For Something Lost (pt. 2)’, Library Tapes are almost unbearably heartbreaking and effective.

This is true winter music in the same way that Rachel’s and Hood are winter music – lonely, emotional sounds that reverberate deep within. I don’t know what’s in the water at Library Tapes HQ, but it brings out some of the most honest and heartfelt, yet simple, music I’ve heard in some time.

Library Tapes
Resonant