Imagine you’re hungry, starving even. Then someone comes along and serves you up a delicious stew containing every flavour you’ve ever enjoyed.

It might just be that I’m peckish just now but that seems to me as good a way as any of summing up this terrific record.

The analogy, crap as it is, does genuinely stretch to explain the massive range of influences and styles Large Mound use on this album without ever sounding like they are reaching or forcing anything.

With hints of everything from Gorkys to Iron Maiden, the astonishing achievement here is that they never truly sound like anything other than Large Mound. In drawing their influences without any apparent preference or particular prejudice, they seem to have created not only a distinctive sound for themselves but a natural sounding blend of stylistic surprises, providing a genuine tonic for even jaded old souls like my own.

Lyrical content focuses on hatred of menial jobs (“I Have To Work” and “Wad Of Cash”), semi-ironic references to “rocking” and acerbic true life accounts (“I’m Being Sued By The Fire Brigade”) while the production remit seems simple, featuring mixed down vocals, a towering wall of guitars and a selection of rasping riffs At The Drive In and RATM would have been justly proud of.

Large Mound

On the basis of this new EP (recorded with Aerogramme/Arab Strap/Franz comrade Geoff Allan), Glasgow’s Cayto truly are a band of two halves. The title track is queasy prog-fuelled indie-pop that offers a very brief nod in Muse’s direction; and ‘Lost Property’ treads a similar, if more schizoid/menacing path. Interesting, if a tad bizarre, but not really my cup of tea. Their tender flipside, on the other hand, is far more palatable to my slightly-morose tastes! ‘The Thread of Forever’ is a beautifully-gloomy slo-burner that wouldn’t sound out of place on Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’. Closing track ‘The Splitting Up Song’ is nearly as good – a sombre piano ballad with touches of Hope of the States in its soggy grandeur. Cracking stuff. For the uninitiated/downright curious amongst you, the EP is available through the band’s own Rictus Records from September 5th. Where they go next is anyone’s guess.

www.cayto.com

No Hope Astronaut are new kids on the alt.rock block – “four lost souls” from Kingston-Upon-Thames who create music for “the disconnected, the isolated and the disaffected”. They’ve been lumbered with the slightly confused/confusing sobriquet ‘the pioneers of alternacore’, and this dubious tag highlights their conflicting influences. Caught between a(n edgy, indie-)rock and a (twitchy alt.metal) hard place, No Hope Astronaut may well prove to be ‘too metal’ for the indie kids and ‘too indie’ for the metalheads. Only time will tell. Anyway – a good solid demo with some nice touches of early KoRn and Deftones in the dynamics; but let’s hope they’ve got a few more bruising tricks up their sleeves to set them apart from the rest of the Kerrang-fodder.

www.nohopeastronaut.com

I’ve been listening to Joeyfat’s album The house of the fat a lot lately. It really is very good indeed. Go and buy a copy.

That is all

A short (12 songs in under half an hour), sweet CD album, with clear, intelligent, well-spoken lyrics pushed to the fore, backed with richly melodic, simplistic guitar and some perky drumming. At times it verges on the jangly indie-pop side of pop music, with hints of Heavenly – perhaps due to the presence of Peter Momtchiloff on guitar. This pushes all of the right indie-pop buttons: lyrics with an introspective touch, touches of Nico’s vocal style, musical reminders of Francoise Hardy, even a song sung in French. Whilst it’s perfectly pleasant listening, it leaves me wanting slightly more bite, something to drag it out of the background. But I’m not suggesting that they jam in some power chords.

Fortuna Pop!
Would-Be-Goods

This initially comes across as a mellow, gentle album; ever-so-slightly jazz-infused pop tunes played with finesse and that sense of playful style which comes across in bands like The Auteurs, Arco and Pulp. Indeed, the vocals are ‘very Pulp’ – dry, deep tones delivered knowingly with a cheeky edge. But then! It picks up, augmenting the simplicity of the melodies with subtle electronics and drumbeats, even horns, until all of a sudden songs build up into multilayered Flaming Lips-style swathes of depth and drama. At these points I understand that The Chemistry Experiment have big ideas and vision. I can hear David Axelrod, Scott Walker, sixties crooners… and I like it!

Fortuna Pop!
The Chemistry Experiment

Fusing sparse house and techno beats with subtle electro noise-mongering, Jacen Solo has created an album of character that is both engaging and surprising. With subtle shifts in scale and resonance this is an emotive and limitless space-age soundscape that envelopes the listener. Repeated listens have eroded my initial opinion of it being a click and whir away from pretentious knob twiddling twoddle and revealed the pleasure to be found in its dark and measured ambient techno. Virgo showcases faultless production and a masterful handling of pace and drama which can make absorbing, if not easy, listening.

Ai Records

“Zizz, buzz, trill, click, whizz, plop, flutter, splash; and all the time everywhere whisper, whisper, whisper, lap, chuckle and sigh” (The River at Green Knowe)

Some music is made for exploring. I took this album out one sunny Sunday afternoon meaning to walk one of my usual routes and instead was enticed down side streets to discover hidden wonders minutes from my door. A little-used viewing platform decorated with thickly layered ovals of glass with the river twinkling far below through the trees; a hidden corner garden full of oddly shaped tree trunk sculptures; leaf shapes silhouetted against the bluest of skies; peeks of a circular private park through the gaps in the railings; swathes of golden yellow buttercups; finally, truly, the Pink Japanese Robot Bear of our dreams sitting in a shop window; a garden gate the perfect colour of green; midges circling in shafts of sunlight. Blinded by the sun, moments from my door, I banged my face on the scaffolding and the tears seeped out while I stood in shocked surprise.

I love this album. Two Japanese girls coaxing the sounds of nature out of electronics with childlike vocals cooing and sighing throughout. Every time I listen to it I see something new.

In sharp contrast to the intense-yet-ponderous 15 minute noise-epics Detwiije are prone to crafting, i’ll keep this brief: on ‘Would you rather …’ Detwiije have cultivated an impressive bittersweet post-rock cacophony – an album easily capable of setting Mogwai quaking in their ‘blur:are shite’ t-shirts.

www.detwiije.com

Fantastically summery pop music, this. The (occasionally Chipmunksesque) vocals on this CD single stay on just the right side of sugary overload, and the clean, clear, pin-sharp music seems designed for no other reason than to get you outside, dancing, in the sun, probably with an indie kid bowl haircut, Pastels t-shirt and hairslide… whilst playing along on a variety of toy synthesisers. The music mixes the vigour of early Bis with the finesse of late St Etienne; all perky electronic drumbeats, gliding electronified pop sounds and low-in-the-mix (at least for the most part) guitar melodies. Whilst this kind of 60s-tinged electropop might not be particularly original, on this single it’s particularly effective.

Persil
Transformed Dreams