A thirst for adventure can be great thing. Sometimes a quest to try something new can push you into places and situations that you might never have expected. You can find yourself pulled towards the unknown and the familiar in unequal measures. Sometimes you find yourself where you least want to be, and savoring every moment despite yourself.

Finding yourself liking the new Rachel Stevens album can be like that, if you let it. I think I can pretty safely assume that the bulk of the diskant massive will be quick to dismiss the ice cool pop confectionary that is “Come And Get It” – to do so would be like standing up blind date that could have led to a love affair.

A small army of competing producers and writers have put together some of the best pop songs of the moment. Each aims to win you over with cool hooks, lines and electric melodies. This is not the MOR drivel of Atomic Kitten or the needless bleatings of Geri Haliwell, this is cutting edge electronic pop without a hint of the hyperactive desperation of Lisa Scott Lee.

Separation of singer from song writing means it is hard to describe this as Rachel Steven’s album. She has become a character in her own story, an at turns cynical and charming caricature of a modern pop star. The Rachel Stevens of ‘Come And Get It’ holds on to a fist full of broken promises and unfulfilled dreams but enjoys the uncertainty and intensity of trying to make them come good.

I’m not going to try and pretend that there are no cliched lyrics or deny that at times an over-reliance on the mixing desk can leave the listener cold. But then Stevens is not straining to be earnest and when compared to the emotional pornography of Coldplay and James Blunt, the very idea of a modern pop artist that is not trying to raw or ‘real’ is invigorating.

The sound of Rachel Stevens is not that of a heart breaking, it is of moving on and enjoying the adventure of modern life.

The Official Rachel Stevens

There’s a quote printed in BOLD on the press release that comes with this album.
The quote is this:

“I genuinely believe Ricky could be the new Oasis” – Pat Gilbert, MOJO Magazine.

A sentence like that fills me with dread.

There’s just nothing here.
It’s all half arsed string arrangements over Oasis-by-Alfie-by-Beatles-by-numbers songwriting.

Perhaps I just don’t understand.

Dragon Or Emperor are a duo consisting of a couple of people out of Volcano The Bear.
There is absolutely NO similarity between the two.
Dragon Or Emperor are the East Midlands’ Lightning Bolt.
Drums, overdriven bass and vocals.
The drums are HUGE.
The bass is DIRTY.
The vocals are SLINKY.
But they’re not a Lightning Bolt covers band by a long stretch.
This is more Howling Wolf fronting the Oblivians.
Down and dirty blues really.
Certainly worth checking out.

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.

If you thought the Stone Roses took a long time to deliver their second album (Stone Roses to Second Coming in 5 years), or maybe bleep pioneers LFO (Frequencies to Advance also in 5 years), then take a look at folk legend Vashti Bunyan. It’s a fascinating story: kicked out of art college in 1964 for writing songs instead of making art, Vashti released a couple of unheralded singles in the mid 60s and then set off for the Isle Of Skye in a horse drawn cart in order to get out of the city and hang out with likeminded people. Her first album, Just Another Diamond Day, was released in 1969 with little commercial success and she subsequently disappeared. Fast forward 30 years or so, and say hello to our old friend the Google vanity search. Vashti, to her surprise, discovers that she’s a highly respected cult figure and that the 21st century is clamouring for more. Diamond Day gets a reissue, and offers of work roll in. The next thing she knows she’s recording with the Animal Collective and recording material for her ‘difficult second album’. Fortunately, it’s another gem.

Just Another Diamond Day was/is a beautiful record: delicate, whimsical, deeply personal and totally refreshing. It was a hard act to follow. And the slightly underwhelming, syrupy and polished opener of Lookaftering, Lately, might suggest that it hasn’t been followed too successfully. Sure, Vashti’s voice is still exquisite, vulnerable and sweetly innocent, but the tastefully lush string and woodwind arrangements sound a little, um, Radio 2. And I’m a bit worried that this is way things will continue – straightforward, faintly nondescript 21st century radio friendly over-produced folk-lite. It’s kinda stupid to expect more of exactly the same, but still…I hope that she hasn’t lost the plot. But the gently lilting melodies and warmth of the arrangements soon eat away at my doubts, and around halfway through I realise that I’m really loving what I’m hearing. It’s a grower, for sure, and we have to wait until track 6 (Turning Backs) for the first genuine moment of spine tingling, stellar beauty – a haunting piano line, honeyed vocals and a sunburst of hammered dulcimers. In fact the second (and third) plays grow even more, and I’m even now feeling mean for having mentioned Radio 2.

It’s a brave and brilliant move by FatCat – had this been released on a less hip label, perhaps one dedicated to contemporary folk music, it might have slipped under the radar – filed away quietly and unjustly in Borders next to Kate Rusby and Eliza Carthy, and only being detected by those in the know. But Lookaftering deserves much more, and certainly deserves to be heard by more people than are currently hearing Jamie C*ll*m and Jim Moray, two current darlings of paid-for-by-the-marketing-meatheads daytime-TV spots. FatCat don’t necessarily have the power to put Vashti on the National Lottery show, but they’re certainly allowing a whole new generation of appreciative music fans to hear something wonderful. Plus, in these times when Finnish rural psychedelia is becoming so ubiquitous, it’s a breath of fresh air for the songs not to be buried under 100dB of tape hiss.

So, then: marvellous. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another 30 years for album number 3.

Vashti Bunyan
FatCat Records

If you are looking for a madcap amalgam of The Walker Brothers, Neil Hannon and The Rezillos (and lets face it, who isn’t?) then Misty’s Big Adventure are the band for you.

Full of enthusiasm and humour, this is an album full of great lyrics, strong songs and killer arrangements, with an obvious grand vision at play.

Featuring serveral obvious singles like “The Story Of Love” with its Boo Radleys style radio-friendly perkiness, simple verse and killer hooks, the more overt tracks are blended very well with much more interesting stuff like the glorious, Wire-esque “Smart Guys Wear Ties”, “Evil” and the intoxicating “It’s Not That Important”.

“Never Stops, Never Rests, Never Sleeps” features some hilarious battle scratching effects at the beginning while blending Jacques Brel and The Divine Comedy and along the rest of the way there are hints of Johnathan Richman, The Kinks, Julian Cope and The Polyphonic Spree, while strong references to the glory days of Cud and The Frank and Walters also abound.

A lot will depend on whether you enjoy the voice and humour of vocalist Grandmaster Gareth (not a moniker to conjure much confidence I know) but if you do, you’ll find “The Black Hole” delivers a more than diverting experience.

Misty’s Big Adventure

Parisienne/Mancunian 4-piece The Clerks offer up 5 self-assured slices of fizzy, fuzzy pop on their new demo. It’s a lo-fi blend of Factory cool and Gallic insousiance as befitting their origins. They’ve played with Mercury Rev in the past, but their own sound is essentially a low-budget blend of bubblegum pop and drone-rock.
Best tracks: ‘The Dissidents” narcotic groove is The Velvets-as-remixed-by-Beck; ‘Get Off Stage’ is slurred cowboy angel blues like the Dandy Warhols after a nervous breakdown. Good stuff.

“They are so very proud of their music it’s almost indecent.”
So they should be.

www.the-clerks.com

“Catnap was conceived sometime in early 2003 in Zone 5, North London, and was delivered to the world a year later in Brighton – where all its members currently reside.”

Now Catnap have been thrust, kicking and screaming into the big, wide world, what do they sound like?
Unorthodox.
This is woozy, talkative Sonic Youth-derived pop – at once dark ‘n’ twisted and bubbling ‘n’ playful.
My favourite track is: (deep breath) ‘One Day We Will Grow So Tall That Your Institutions Crumble Beneath Our Feet Like The Spineless Pests They Are'(phew)- which, slightly bizarrely sounds like my old favourites Urusei Yatsura.

“Catnap is still a child, but it is growing up”.
Heaven help us when they discover alcopops, bostik and underage sex…

If you’d like to be part of their grubby, freaky little art-rock riot check out www.catnapmusic.co.uk

It’s been a while. If you remember the deep dark beginnings of diskant you’ll remember the diskant bands – The Oedipus, the Gringo lot and of course The Hypotheticals, the band of diskant stalwart Greg Kitten. Back in those days the Hypotheticals were a fun indiepunkpop band but now they’re back, they’ve ditched their The and they’re a bit angry. Opener Feel (Felt) has some duelling guitars, screamy vocals and a good dose of pissed off that lets you know things have changed round here and you best just get used to it. It’s always good when a band finds some attitude. These new songs have much more of a riffy, punky thing going on bringing Hirameka Hi-Fi to mind, mainly due to the sulky, shouty Essex vocals but also in the frantic drumming and sharp, sparky scrapey guitars. Klobber is the catchiest by far with a weebly twiddly bassline and a fantastic EEP guitar bit that you know they do synchronised moves to onstage. Let’s hope they can keep up this kick-ass attitude and get themselves a new record out.

more info: gregkitten at gmail dot com