The Male Nurse were this amazing Fall-esqe spiky lo-fi band that hit the DIY scene around the same time as Bis, The Delgados, Urusei Yatsura and Mogwai et al.  Sharing a guitarist with The Country Teasers they sported one of the scariest and most awkward looking frontmen around.

They put out a few singles but when they recorded a session for John Peel in June 1997 it revealed them at their most demented as the stand out track “My Own Private Patrick Swayze” describing a scenario that could only be derived from the most disturbed recesses of the human mind.  The whole season was great but it really was this song that stood out and astounded and set The Male Nurse several pegs higher than the latest crop of The Fall wannabes.

Proceedings begin with the singer Keith Farquhar declaring that he has his “own two feet high Patrick Swayze living under his bed at night.”  Through the ensuing verses what happens to this little man gets described in great depth, not least the reality that the two foot high Patrick Swayze would get regularly measured and if he grew he would be in trouble.  Next the narrator describes how his favourite item of clothing for the two foot high Patrick Swayze is the “Elvis gear.”  Finally at night Swayze would apparently be found serving cocktails “wearing men’s but women’s stockings and suspenders” but eventually being wrapped up in gaffa tape and being the prize in some demented game of pass the parcel.  Fantasy in indie never got so explicit or spectacular.  You can bet neither Pete Doherty or Kasabian ever wrote songs like this.

Tapes of this session/performance rapidly circulated and in my own experience occasionally served as car singalong music in a decrepit Wayne’s World style.

Sadly the band missed the boat on this momentum and by the time the song was finally released as a single it was long after the enthusiasm for the Peel session had died down and even then it felt as if this version of song (unsurprisingly inferior to the session version) was laboured and rushed out.  The band never even released an album.

Elsewhere on the record “Deep/Fried” is a real departure from the band away from their original scratchy guitar roots moving onto tinny drum machine beats and keyboard hopscotch pierced by nonsensical repetitive lyrics.  In many ways this would prove to be their song most in the spirit of The Fall.

As the news of Patrick Swayze’s passing on the same day as Keith Floyd filters through here is my backwards tribute to a very bad actor.

Thesaurus moment: inspired.

The Male Nurse

Guided Missile

Sounding like the Weezer take on grunge this is a relatively clean affair when I had been led to believe that this would be the return to superfuzz.

Believe it or not once upon a time circa the early nineties a hell of a lot of indie bands sounded like this, bands that were too clean for Kerrang but packed enough punch in order to alienate themselves far enough away from the charts and too much mainstream coverage.

There is an air of a good Senseless Things song and a sharp Mega City Four one attached to this one sided seven inch (one side for reasons known only to the band and their label).

You would like to think that the “Traynor” reference is to Todd Trainor, which would be cool, but there is nothing really in this record that would suggest anything so savvy.  Instead all signs appear to point to a sound that will eventually soften and have any nasty, rebellious edges ironed out as the band, if they are lucky, will find themselves being picked up by good management and a major in the style of say a Nine Black Alps only to find themselves being dropped one record later.  At least it is not pop punk or dad rock.

For a band sending out such negative vibes you really do not sense any such malice in their delivery or voices.  Suck it in, toughen up.

Yours sincerely.

Thesaurus moment: lambs

Dinosaur Pile-up

Friends Vs Records

Okay, okay, so this album came out way back in the distant past – well, 2008 at least – and it’s totally remiss of me to have taken until now to get around to writing even these bare few words about it. In all honesty though, that’s one aspect of ‘being a reviewer’ that I can never get my head around: the need to act hastily and be constantly at the mercy of release schedules and whatnot. Nuts to all that, I say, music’s supposed to be timeless, isn’t it? Surely that should stand for reviews, too. Especially in these days of digital downloads and blah blah blah. Anyway. Suturee – ie ‘one who has been sutured’ – have put together a lovely album here. It’s sleepy and slightly blurred in the way that Galaxie 500 once were – soft rhythm tracks with clear guitar lines ringing through, and almost whispered dual male/female vocals. A sense of relaxation and bliss permeates. It’s a really clean production, too, with lots of space left open by the dulled drums, allowing for echo and reverb to ring out on the vocal and guitar lines. There’s something of the Low about Suturee, but without being so dramatically sparse. This is more lush (with a lower-case l), with some of that post-MBV subtle strummed-chords-being-bent guitar stuff going on. What sets it apart from being yet another nu-shoegaze recording, though, is a sense of exploration and differentness that comes through from time to time. The banjo that ramps up the emotion on ‘Afraid Of Hands’, or the piano-led sad whimsy of ‘Wait Less’, suggest more than simple copycatting going on here. It’s also beautifully compact – nine tracks in just over half an hour. Yep, it took me maybe a year to listen to just over half an hour of music. Luckily, it was very much worth the wait.

Suturee website

With screwy sounding surf guitars and vocals delivered in the style of a teenage Mark E. Smith the relentless brawl of Male Bonding is a fun step back to the lo-fi scene of the late nineties that felt capable of taking on all comers using instruments akin to items made from cereal boxes.  In a world that sometimes appreciates raucous, loud and distorted guitar explosions when soughting a pay off, this is the stuff of kings.

The comparison that immediately springs to mind when considering Male Bonding is The Yummy Fur crossed with an aggressive Vampire Weekend; I think they might more appreciate a nod towards the No Age element of their stylings.  Regardless any band that states that the Drowned In Sound forum is “like an indie British National Party” (as in Loud And Quiet magazine) cannot be all bad even if the jibe just stretch Mick Hucknall.

On the flipside Cold Pumas provide something altogether more atonal.  Caked in white noise with machine drums straight from the nearest factory pounding its way to dysfunction, piercing shards of jagged guitar then arrive and enter the mix as a device to confront.  These people playing on this record are not men, they are a well oiled machine pumping out sounds in a most efficient fashion on a production line of noise with the sole purpose and intent of putting the listener at ill ease and to make them move (convulse) involuntarily.  Health never sounded this good.

Thesaurus moment: noisome.

Male Bonding

Cold Pumas

Faux Discx

It is always a relief to discover that a legend of the scene still “has it.”  Split over a sexy side and a noisy side Lydia Lunch once unveils yet another set of vocal styling.  Spread over six songs this beautiful piece of twelve inch vinyl is a nasty and distinct return to form.  With James Johnston and Terry Edwards on board there is little chance of this sounding bad.

Proceedings open up with “Another Man Comin’ (While The Bed Is Still Warm)” and the greatest song Royal Trux never recorded.  Herein Lunch is almost rapping as she sounds more like a hip witch than ever and dirty with it.  The collision is heavy bass, dark Hammond and jagged guitar stabs make for a funky soup .

Soon saxophones are added to mix as a nightmare smoky lounge scenario broaches proceedings all in a Bad Seeds setting.  By the time the Sexy Side comes to a close the saxophones sound as if they are initiating some kind of rabid violent act of female empowerment.

The Noisy Side lives up to its billing providing a more dynamic threesome starting with the aural drowning that is “Baby-Faced Killer”.  The sentiments do not improve any as a distortion heavy cover of Lou Reed’s “Kill Your Sons” attempts to melt my stereo.  Soon the reality of proceedings hits that the quality of the music is far outweighing the standard of the words being spoken.  Regardless of this fact it still falls/comes together as positive but hostile musical act.

It is now Sunday night and I am still writing this fucking review long after I have purchased it.  In the distance some bozo is playing “Radio Gaga” by Queen at some ridiculous volume and it is making me sick.  With view to drowning it out and representing on my own behalf I am playing this at a creasing volume and plainly it just work.  Now I await the feeling of a boot being thrown through my open window as the person that just turned off his Queen record retaliates.  Oh course that person needs to finish borking their partner first.

Thesaurus moment: decadent.

Lydia Lunch

Sartorial Records

Right. How the hell do I go about describing this? John Mulhearn is a Scottish musician, brought up touring around the highland games circuit as a solo piper of traditional folk music. He is also extremely interested in electronic and experimental music and has crafted an album combing these interests. Yes, that’s right, this is an album of experimental and electronic adaptation of traditional bagpipe music (with one exception).

What? Why are you running away?! This is ace, honest.

No seriously, it really is very good indeed. John has spent vast tracts of time to craft interesting textures and timbres as settings for traditional melodies, mucking around with their arrangements and styles to create an experimental electronic music album that manages to break new ground by looking at its distant past. There are bagpipes on here, but you’d barely notice them for the digital shudders, samples, MIDI pipes and horns.

All tracks are arranged, recorded, performed, mixed and produced by Mr Mulhearn, but he has numerous collaborators assisting with snare drums, french horns and other of their ilk. Undoubted highlights on this record come from the piobaireachd (go look it up) vocal contributions of Allan MacDonald on “Lament for Own Roe O’Niall” and “The Desperate Battle of the Birds”, the latter featuring some tenebrous horn drones, gorgeous plucked acoustic guitar and lilted (yes, lilted) pipes. It’s absolutely gorgeous and probably the best cut of the 9 tracks on offer here.

I was lucky enough to visit the Outer Hebrides this summer as part of a pilgrimage to some of the most desolate and beautiful countryside these isles have to offer, and every time I chanced upon an all-too-rare place to refuel with nutrition or culture they were playing fucking Runrig on the stereo. I should have brought a dozen copies of this with me and shoved them in the faces of everyone I encountered. This is true traditional music: embracing the present and looking to the future.

John Mulhearn at Myspace

You gotta respect a band named after the heart-searing autobiography of a Vietnam veteran helicopter pilot. I assume that’s what they’re named after anyway, as any self-respecting band should be. Unless they’re Fucky Disease. Or Bathtub Shitter. I digress.

Chickenhawk are now 4 chaps, having been just 3 for their releases since their formation four years ago. Another Leeds band seemingly destined for great things, they specialise in making a terrific riff-tastic racket that now sounds nicely filled out with another guitar added to the mix. Another band who have the chops and aren’t afraid to show it, their songs veer all over the place between rhythms, tempos and timbres, generally with a lot of shouting and hollering over the top. I haven’t got a clue what they’re singing about on any of the 3 songs on offer here, but who cares?

First up is “I hate this, so you like it?”, 5 minutes of frantic rock madness that starts with some manic guitar shredding before evolving into a series of riffs and passages so complex that no man would dare write them down. Actually, it’s almost dancey during the verses, but the choruses do the half-time breakdown like all your favourite classic hardcore tracks. It’s a shame that the middle-eight suddenly devolves into that incredibly boring ner-ner, ner-ner, ner-ner, ner-ner cliche riff that all boring rock bands resort to when they can’t think of anything more interesting to do, because everything else adds up to a pretty sweet track.

Middle track “Son of Cern” has a similar mix of prog-tastic chops and changes, all the while retaining a totally rockin’ vibe throughout. I wonder if all Chickenhawk start going a bit batshit during the middle eight so that  any discernable song structure goes out of the window, as this one does stuff similar to the first one. It’s still great though, with some usefully horrible FX’d guitar “solos” thrown in for good measure.

Last track “NASA vs ESA”, seemingly about dreaming about being an astronaut but not knowing which space agency to go for, finishes up proceeds with some more dance-friendly riff-frenzies that veer about all over the shop in a very exciting manner indeed. Drumming in this band must be exhausting with all the rolls and cymbal work involve, let alone memorising all the changes, stops, starts and whatnot. Impressive stuff.

I’m told that Chickenhawk will be touring and playing one-off gigs all over the country between now and the end of the year and I’d definitely recommend checking them out if they’re playing anywhere near you – check out their October tourdates on their Myspace page below.

The ‘A. Or Not?’ EP is released on Wednesday 9th September 2009! Chickenhawk: Decent chops. Total rock mayhem. Oh, and here’s a zombie-themed music video for your delectation:

www.myspace.com/chickenhawk

www.brewrecords.com

Cast your mind back to the glory zine days of the late 1990s when pretty much everyone in the UK wrote a zine. You probably wrote one too, or at least stuck some pound coins in a SAE and posted it to some random stranger in the hope they’d send you back something awesome. Of course, diskant grew out of this zine scene – I first met all of the original diskanteers through zine-related shenanigans.

And it’s not just rose-tinted nostalgia speaking here – those zines were AWESOME. I still have 3 boxes of the things which I re-read on occasion and every so often I get a little sad about all the zines I never owned or knew about at the time. Sometimes people like Al Burian or Cometbus get a book compilation of their zines but, for the most part, these zines are only available to the handful of people who bought them at the time. This is a sad state of affairs.

Luckily, enterprising folks like Roger Simian still exist. Roger was in weirdo-mentalist band Dawn of the Replicants and also co-ran the much-missed Scottish magazine Sun Zoom Spark as well as writing his own zine dumb/SULK trigg-er. He now runs his own label Shark Batter while playing in new band The Stark Palace and has just put out a compilation of the best bits of his zines and writings. This is great news for me, as my sister was the one who bought all the original zines, so I haven’t read them in ten years.

It’s still all good stuff – long interviews with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, Lisa Carver and Traci Lords, fiction, a letters page featuring half the UK zine scene (and our own JGRAM)  and one of my favourite articles ever, where Roger goes to a Prolapse gig in Glasgow and hassles every minor lo-fi scenester of the time with a dictaphone. Nostalgia ahoy. You also get a tiny minizine and a free mixtape CD featuring The Stark Palace and their favourite songs.

I have no idea how much Roger wants for this but I’m sure it’s a bargain. Hit him up on sharkbatter AT googlemail  DOT com and tell him diskant sent you!

And if everyone else who ever wrote a zine could do a compilation of the best bits and send it to me, that would be great, thanks.

There’s a few different Treetops bands out there but this particular tape is from Mike Pollard, the dude who runs Arbor. Knowing that, it seems a bit strange that this tape came out on Monorail Trespassing. I’m sure he was just spreading the love.

Eternal Sky is suuuuuuper minimal. Though not quite as minimal as, say, Phill Niblock or Yoshi Wada. But this is still some bare bones drone. The opening track, “Hope Always,” sounds like the wind is breathing and “Voice Of Man” could be the sound of clouds meditating. Everything has a strong organic quality to it, even though I’m sure the only instruments used are synthesizers. But I’m pretty sure synths are one of the only ways you can make such stretched out, blob-like drone.

This is some special stuff. It’s not exactly blissful, but it’s certainly elevating. Simultaneously dense and airy. You close your eyes and lose yourself in it for long enough and you’ll wake up finding yourself levitating in your seat. Absolutely gorgeous. Highly recommended.

Treetops
Monorail Trespassing

Some stuff we’re up to:

– Tickets are now on sale for Simon and Stu’s annual charity event Audioscope. It takes place on Saturday 17 October at the Jericho in Oxford and has a pretty cool line-up so far: MAPS, THE LONGCUT, REMEMBER REMEMBER, BRONNT INDUSTRIES KAPITAL, TALONS, UTE, CATS & CATS & CATS and BITCHES. Get your tickets here.

– Simon also took part in Antony Gormley’s One & Other a few days ago, becoming a “living monument” on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. You can even watch the whole thing here should you have a spare hour.

– Chris Summerlin has all but ditched us for his own blog but he’s also selling off a load of his lovely gig posters – buy 3 and you’ll get a fourth poster for free. Find out more here.

– If you haven’t picked up a copy of JGRAM WORLD, Jason’s entertaining book of the blog that got him sacked then you can now buy it from my shop right here for a mere £6.

– You can also find me and my ever-growing stock of kawaii products at Duckstock next weekend (Sunday 16th August). It’s an all-dayer at The Flying Duck club in Glasgow (sister to Mono and Stereo) and promises about 20 different acts plus DJs and other fun. It starts at 1pm and it’s FREE! See you there!

Did I miss anything? Post it in the comments!