I’m mentioning these three releases in one go here, as in my mind Boyracer and Beatnik Filmstars are irreconcilably connected. They were two of the bands that throughout the early to mid-nineties helped to develop my musical listening into directions away from the pure indie-pop I was obsessing about beforehand. Both bands have their roots very firmly in indie-pop; Beatnik Filmstars springing from the ashes of the dearly missed Groove Farm, and Boyracer being a mainstay of the fanzine/cassette scene that was so healthy at the time. And both bands are still producing music now, albeit with a more ‘relaxed’ frequency of releases.

Beatnik Filmstars’ ‘In great shape’ is their first album in seven years and continues in their familiar, but effortlessly enjoyable style of previous releases. Lo-fi guitar sounds, sardonic-sounding lyrics and the odd (and unfortunately, slightly dated-sounding) samples are smashed together with an unquestionable sense of melody and pop perfection. This is a band that have gone through a variety of phases in their career – from the early shoegazing of ‘Maharishi’, through the angrified ‘Laid back and English’ and the bizarro ‘Astronaut house’ to the current reversion to pop simplicity of this album. It’s almost the Groove Farm played through a slightly bitter, slightly experienced filter – quick glimpses of songs flit by in the 23 tracks here, interspersed with more reflective moments and the odd foray into lo-fi dance irony. Whilst there’s a lot to take in here, and I feel that some of the more throwaway tracks could have been, well, thrown away, it’s hard not to like Beatnik Filmstars at their fizzing best. Fortunately there’s still enough of that here to make me happy.

Boyracer’s musical trajectory started with noise-drenched pop songs, the feedback and scream-drenched days of their early singles calming down into a gliding style (yet still covered in feedback) as on ‘More songs about frustration and self-hate’, then experimenting a little in their own way before maturing into a pure, modern-style indie-pop band. ‘A punch up the bracket’ solidifies Boyracer’s status as an international pop band – rushing through 21 tracks that take in the American-style pop often released on labels like Slumberland and the band’s own 555, cutesy Japanopop with cutesy synths and squawked, girly vocals, and what used to be known as ‘perfect pop’ when it was coming out of France, Bristol, Scotland and indeed everywhere some years ago. Like with the Beatnik Filmstars, it’s all held together with an undeniable charm and a distinctive style.

Both albums are a welcome respite from the RAGE and ANGER that seems so connected with modern independent music these days…

555 Recordings
Beatnik Filmstars
Boyracer

Footnote one: I’m erasing the memory of a recent Beatnik Filmstars Oxford show from my mind, lest in damages my long-held love of the band. Seeing them looking tired and bored whilst dragging themselves through a short set in front of ten people isn’t, perhaps, the best way to experience them.

Footnote two: The 75-track compilation (75 tracks!) ‘Punker than you since ’92’ is somewhat essential to me, being in equal doses an enormous hit of nostalgia – with all of the songs on those old 7″s and flexis that I rarely dig out these days – and an impressive overview of a band that’s managed to keep it together for more than fifteen years.

While working in a bookstore, I learned that despite what the cliche says, you can, by and large, indeed judge a book by its cover. It’s not an infallible rule, but it does act reasonably well as a way to filter out crap. And so I approached IV: White Walls with some trepidation, as neither the band name nor the album’s artwork inspired much confidence. Thankfully, I was wrong about this and IV: White Walls turned out to be pretty decent.

Newagehillbilly is the alter-ego of Baltimore’s Alex Strama, a self-described “one-generator of noise, grooves, and moods”. The buzzing, spaced-out electronics of some tracks remind me of LSD-era Coil, while other songs go for a more straight forward heavy/stoner rock feel. There’s a bit of dark electro-pop and even a track that has a Gong/Hawkwind/AMT feel to it.

As you’d probably expect from something so stylistically diverse, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Personally, I think that his electronic tracks are better than his rock tracks (with the exception of “Ghost”), though that may be in part my aesthetic preference. He sounds like he’d be a lot of fun to watch live.

http://www.newagehillbilly.com/
http://www.mt6records.com/

So if my maths aren’t complete shit, there are a mere 89 shopping days left until Christmas. That means that it’s probably time to finally review Cwistmas Twee on the aptly-named Total Gaylord Records. The songs on this compilation range from multiculturalist liberal rubbish from Colin Clary (“Meow, Meow/If you don’t believe in Christmas/I still respect your holiday/I still respect your holiday”) to flat-out lies (According to The Specific Heats, “Girls look cuter in winter clothes”, when everyone who has endured hard winters knows that they look a lot cuter when they start wearing sun dresses after the spring melt) to self-pitying nonsense (for instance, “If I get buried by this winter/Who will ever know” from the Snoozer song). The other contributors include The Icicles, Spoilsport, The Lil’ Hospital, Shumai, The Smittens, The Sheets, The Diskettes, and Thee Moths, and it’s largely sentimental jangly indie tripe about snow, rosy cheeks, parkas, snow forts, and so on. Personally, I’m sticking with The Fall’s version of “Jingle Bell Rock”.

www.totalgaylordrecords.com

There is a party happening out there in the wilderness. A small house with a few close friends. Enya knocks on the door. Everyone is milling around, most are on the couch contemplating the same math problem. An overhead projector bulb pops, a strategically placed microphone catches all of this on magnetic tape. The phone rings, it’s on there. Who is on the line? “I want this looped and put a beat I can dance to around my head!” They all comply. I am having trouble breathing. The first thing that comes to mind is all the mistakes I’ve made in the last twenty minutes. This is the many moods. This is the many moods. I’m not in the mood. I’m not in the mood. I should get up and leave this party. In closing, you open that yogurt and the bottom of the lid says “Try Again.” You throw it away.

Keser website

You are alone in the basement with what’s left of the Allman brothers, they keep playing a tape over and over again. They ask you questions like:
“What do you think of this one?” “What do you think of that one?” “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Your head keeps telling you that the outtakes from the Karate Kid soundtrack or some self help book’s lost chapters is no way to build an album around. A sharp pain hits your foot. The dead Allman brother is repeating himself. There are moments when things feel allright but the majority of the time, you feel not so good. I want to hear some fury and power coming out of my amplifier, maybe when my moods change, this will come back like an old friend and we will talk and find out how much we have in common, but right now…I need some time to myself.

Jolly green forest giants with feet as heavy as lead and hands that find a chord and stick to it, like wolves these fingers mate for life. I see folks in a sweaty garage…who’s gonna play keyboard? Who’s gonna play guitar? Who’s gonna save me and who’s gonna save you? I hear a chord, one chord and then maybe one more, rammed into the ground till the tape runs out and starts to flip flip flip. Third track has Thom Yorke covering his good eye and hoping to hell they don’t come back here again, somebody’s doing his act and doing it better, much better. Small fires are breaking out in the distance, the arsonist stares at his yearbook photo and reads what his English teacher wrote years ago…”You’re gonna be famous someday…” Someone somewhere yells drunkenly GBV! GBV! GBV! Not much argument here but baby, his accent is REAL. Happy birthday. All in all, to qoute Meatloaf….2 out of 3 ain’t bad…..2 out of 3 ain’t bad. Tell me once again what constitutes failure….

Akin to scoring a ride home from high school with that cute punk rock girl you’ve had your eye on since the first time you roamed the hallways feeling those teenage kicks getting you out and over what was left of the dial. Bumming a few licks from the Sonic Youth vocal training school and the Mark Arm technical academy. The message I hear is loud and clear, at some parts not quite there all the way but enough to have you turn to her as she drives you home and you ask Who is this? She tells they’re called Blood on the Wall. She tells you they’re good, she’s seen them play. Your ears perk up and record every word, sound and inflection coming out of the speakers. Your street, your house and your goodbye come quicker than you planned. You thank her for the lift, grateful for a handshake, (you got to touch her at least, and you’re never washing that hand again.) You get out and walk inside. You pick up a pen and some paper. You write Things to Do at the top. Number 1: Get Blood on the Wall. Number 2. Bum ride from her tomorrow.

With a name like that, I was expecting an MOR indie band with their eyes on the major label stardom prize, for some reason. Turns out, to my immeasurable joy, that Perfect Blue are in fact creators of abstract, blissed-out soundscapes that recall the less beat-y moments of Seefeel, the floating repetition of Pink Floyd’s ‘Live at Pompeii’ set and the subtle, intricately textured layers of Main.

The four tracks here shift in and out to form a blurred whole; multilayered planes of sound building up a many-frequencied core that’s reinforced by occasional, muted beats and vaguely human sounds. At times it threatens to go full-blown into ‘Loveless’-style lysergic overload, especially on ‘In Fear of Fear’ which twists up the tension rating a notch with carefully looped sounds of (perhaps) heavily treated strings or feedback.

Just staying on the right side of lame chill-out blandness, Perfect Blue inject enough darkness into their relatively sedate music – sinister echoed tubular bell sounds here, shifting bass sounds there – to maintain the attention. Like some of the finest music for relaxing to, it relaxes you in a way that’s slightly frightening and intimidating.

Perfect Blue

Not so much a review this, as an admission of befuddlement. Also maybe a little mainstream for Diskant, but if Alasdair can get away with gushing all over Rachel Stevens (so to speak) then I’m sure I can discuss Muse with impunity.I have been living, somewhat uncomfortably, with Black Holes and Revelations for more than a month now. I bought it reluctantly, deterred by the overt prog-ness of both title and cover artwork, and by an instant dislike of the first single Supermassive Black Hole. I concluded that Muse, who had always dallied perilously close to their own anus had finally taken up permanent residence therein.

But see it gaze at me every time I went into Fopp, i began to soften. I mean, I love Muse. I love them for their weirdness, their willfully absurdity, their refusal to embrace indie cool, punk-ethic lo-fi or any other restriction on their BIG GRAND (daft) ideas. Of course they’re silly, but in these days when a Simon Amstell haircut and some big soulful eyes do an indie band make, don’t we need Matt Bellamy’s demented stare more than ever?

So anyway, the album. I’d read that they’d given up any pretence of being able to play the songs live and was half expecting over-produced mush, so opener “Take a Bow” – a pointless three minutes of of loops, arpeggios and grand build-up to nothing – came as no surprise. Elsewhere we hear new influences – Morricone movie scores and Arabic-sounding strings – creeping in alongside such such classic Muse album tracks as the big neo-romantic piano melodrama wank-off (here, Hoodoo). Results are mixed: Hoodoo’s a hoot, while their take on barbershop easy listening (Soldier’s Poem) falls a bit flat. Starlight’s a pretty tune marred by a shockingly banal chorus. It’s a mark of how much conviction they play with that, on repeated listening, Supermassive Black Hole for all its Darkness-esque “ooh baby” falsetto vocals and cheesiest use of vocoder since S Club Seven’s “Don’t Stop Moving” almost begins to work. Back at Rachel Stevens. How did that happen?

Maybe they’re best when they just all-out rock, as they do very effectively on “Assassin” and “Exo-Politics”. But then, just as you’re opting for the “great rock band ruined by over-production” version of events (let’s call it the Smashing Pumpkins theory), you hear Knights of Cydonia without doubt the most ridiculously over-the-top and best track on the album. Like Pink Floyd in a spaghetti western with a riff outta hell and Queen-style three-part vocal harmonies (and I hate Queen), it embodies everything you’ve got to love about Muse, the sheer shouldn’t-work-but-does-ness of them. It’s cool the way space is cool when you’re a kid.

So what’s going on? Are Muse too preposterous or not preposterous enough? Hmm, might have to get back to you on that one…

More in the endless stream of middling independent-hoping-for-majordom music that I seem to get sent for review at the moment. Seven Days Awake are deftly running the marketing treadmill before they walk the fanbase-building walk, with a nifty/’edgy’ Flash website, street team and the ubiqitous Myspace page with ‘adds’ ahoy. There used to be a time when a band would make its ‘brand’ known by building a fanbase through regular gigging and carefully put together demos, sent in hope to reviewers and promoters. These days, with a few mouseclicks, a band can make themselves look entirely established when they’ve only been together five minutes and have only released one CD single.

Not that I’m levelling accusations of audience-hoodwinking at Seven Days Awake in particular; their familiar-as-old-socks take on a polished hard rock/emo/nu-metal style is at least passably musical, well put together and pushes the right buttons. Smoothly-produced, buzzing riffs tie together the vocal histrionics to result in four songs here that may well be ‘for real’ and from a band that ‘means it’. It’s just hard to tell, as they’ve been presented as such a finished product. It’s nice to make your own mind up about a band, rather than to have it polluted with marketing schtick and a supposed slick professionalism that should develop naturally, not be created prior to an initial release.

Good luck to ’em, but when a band positions and markets itself in the same way that 1,000 similar bands are doing at the same time, it’s hard to distinguish the individuality or creativity; traits that unfortunately seem to come at the back of the queue in the current musical landscape.

Seven Days Awake