Bad Vibes by Luke Haines
I never fully got into The Auteurs but I knew people who did and with this book it has become obvious why they were. Perhaps taking a few liberties with the truth, in a way he appears to be claiming a larger grasp on his influence on Britpop but with such hyperbole and self depreciation you are happy to give him the benefit of the doubt when his undermining of bloated bands and inflated egos of that scene/movement are so scathing and spot on. Reminding me somewhat of Kill Yr Friends by Jon Niven last year this is a really accurate description of how agonising and difficult it is to deal with the machinations of the music industry and ultimately how fake and backstabbing it is. More power to him for attempting to be himself and do things his own way even if it did involve often purposely acting like an arse. In the process of puncturing egos during the course of the book it does feel as if he is acting on the side of good and representing any reader that has ever giving any aspect of music a go. When it comes to the descriptions of recording with Steve Albini at Abbey Road he pretty confirms everything you had always hoped about the man and experience and as the book ends with Haines still the butt of the joke you can’t help but feel like applauding his existence in it all. Meanwhile I continue to bang my head against the wall painfully trying to complete my second book “Gestures And Expressions.” [JGRAM]

12 Cities by John Gunther
Since quitting my job last year for a life of freelance fun, I get through an horrific amount of books. Thank god for Bookmooch. My current obsession is for out of print travel books, where some dusty academic or Oxford-educated goon wanders off on some random epic journey in the 1950s. 12 Cities was a joy to discover and I’m still dipping into it. Featuring essays on, well, 12 cities in the world, it includes such chapters as “Matters of government and such in London’, ‘Entertainment in Hamburg and Vienna’, Moscow – a few prime sights’ and ‘A sheaf of Israeli personalities’. I certainly now know a hell of a lot more about London council history than I ever expected to. [Marceline Smith]

She Came To Stay by Simone de Beauvoir
Because it evokes 1920s Paris amazingly, and is also a fabulously bitter tale of relationships gone wrong, not even thinly veiled as aimed at Jean-Paul Sartre. [Stuart Fowkes]

The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
I haven’t finished it yet but The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth is great stuff. A novel in verse, Eugene Onegin style. All about love lives in San Francisco. Not too difficult to read either. Oh and the last Harry Potter book! I’m currently OD’ing on the films and am taking refuge in my early adolescence. Fine if you want to be all cool and “I’m too sexy for the wonderful adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione” but then again I really hope you go and flush your own head down a public toilet. Are you being Sirius!? (chuckle…) The Deathly Hallows rocked! The third film ruled! And Rupert Grint (Ron) has bought his own ice cream van! Can’t argue with that – big slap on the back Rowling. Thanks for geeking up my teens so I didn’t have to. [Pascal Ansell]

The Spirit Level
Mostly non-fiction stuff. The Spirit Level brings together years of research into health inequalities to argue that abolishing inequality is a health necessity, not a moral choice. Essential (if a bit dry) reading. [Stan Tontas]

E.H. Gombrich – “A Little History of the World”
The scope of this book is incredible. Written by a German scientist back in 1935, he tried to create a book that covered the entire history of humankind in as succinct but engaging a manner as possible so that it could be read to or by children wanting to learn more about the world. I’ve never come across a book that so satisfyingly achieves its aims and is as informative (and witty) at the same time. It answers questions you never even thought to ponder or others that you were afraid of asking; all the time creating a calm and detached viewpoint on the incredible achievements (and brutality) of men and women since such a thing evolved. Even better is the fascinating worldview of a humanist German just before National  Socialism swept across his country and Hitler banned it for being too pacifistic. Everyone should read this, if only for some perspective of their place in history. [Dave Stockwell]

“Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro
I dare say I’m the last person in the English-speaking world to have read this by now, such is the praise that has been heaped on it.  I’ve only read two other books by Ishiguro.  “The Remains of the Day” was a delight.  “The Unconsoled” was a horrible chore that I’m prepared to admit I just didn’t get.  “Never Let Me Go” is very much closer to the former book, and like it the narrative voice is so strong as to disguise the author almost completely. [Alex McChesney]

Marc Masters – No Wave
Working through Marc Masters’ No Wave book and enjoying it greatly, for filling in the blanks with a ‘scene’ that didn’t really exist for more than ten minutes. It’s full of excellent photographs too, and evokes late-70s/early-80s New York with piercing clarity. [Simon Minter]

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Like most people, I don’t read as much as I’d like to. So it’s a sad day when I finish a book and am anything less than enthusiastic about it. Such was the case with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The first half was great. Very strange story with all sorts of surreal events and personalities that reminded me a lot of the movie Wristcutters (which I love). But the second half/last quarter ended up diverging too much from the main story, going into things that I mostly wasn’t interested in (the exception being the one about Boris The Manskinner, that was awesome. A horrifyingly disgusting telling of somebody watching their fellow soldier being skinned alive.). I would still give it a generally positive review and would recommend it to friends, but I guess I just wish I hadn’t spent so much time with it. [Justin Snow]

Death Row Greatest Hits
The Death Row Greatest Hits compilation that I picked up for three quid in a charity shop a little while ago. It can successfully make me feel like I’m rollin’ in my Hummer, Entourage-style (more of that later), through the palm-lined streets of Hollywood – when I am in fact pootling through a rainy Oxfordshire B-road in my Ford Ka with a CD player plugged in through the tape deck. [Simon Minter]

Eating Us by Black Moth Super Rainbow
Sunny melodies, analogue synths, excessive use of the vocoder; in another dimension Air made this album right after “Moon Safari”.  Will I still be listening to it in a year’s time?  Probably not, but for now it’s the perfect soundtrack to a scorching summer. [Alex McChesney]

V/A – The World Is Shaking: Cubanismo fromthe Congo 1954-55 (Honest Jon’s)
I’ve only really discovered Honest Jon’s slew of releases made up of the best bits of ‘field recordings’ by ethnomusicologists that are stored up in some vast vaults that make up the legendary EMI archive in Hayes, but they’re all fantastic collections. This is the latest, tracking the earliest stages of “rhumba” music that would dominate the sound of African music in the ’60s and ’70s, heavily influenced by Cuban music brought home by sailors and workers and mixed with existing msuical forms to create something new. It’s all incredible, danceable, soulful stuff that sounds as great DJing at a house party as it does sitting at home and soaking it in. Totally brilliant. [Dave Stockwell]

Klezmer
Oh good lord. A record? Well… I’ve been listening to a lot of klezmer and it has got me very excited walking to the shops with clarinets and trumpets whirling around my head. Klezmer is extremely lively music with oodles of humour and sadness. At the end of some tunes it gets itself into a bit of a frenzy with speeding up and increased madness – a surreal treat well worth its weight in pretzels. [Pascal Ansell]

Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective
I might as well say that anyone who’s not bought Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective yet should do so immediately. It will definitely be my album of the year, unless someone records an album that’s literally perfect in every conceivable way before then. From this year’s releases, I’ve also been enjoying Cymbals Eat Guitars, Dan Deacon and The Flowers of Hell. [Stuart Fowkes]

Doom – Born Like This
At first I didn’t really pay any mind to the latest MF Doom incarnation and then suddenly one day I was hit with the track “Cellz” which opens with Charles Bukowski reading his poem “Dinosauria, We” and quite frankly it sounds as if the world is ending. I have never been able to work out over the years how come Marvel Comics haven’t sued a large part of the hip hop community into oblivion. Overall it’s a pretty solid record if not a perfect one but the superhero samples, old skool beats and trademark MF Doom rhymes (mouth too close to the mic, very few stops for breath, all smashed out direct in a very straight line) makes for one great episodic adventure. [JGRAM]

Everything I own
I just bought a new laptop the other month and have been childishly delighted by my iTunes play counts being reset to zero. I am now relistening to all 4423 songs in my iTunes library and enjoying every minute. Well, every two minutes at the moment as I’ve ordered them by song length. I am very guilty of listening to the same 5 albums and 4 songs for months on end so this is a real shake-up for me. I may get more bored once I hit the 5 minute mark but at the moment it’s a blast of Huggy Bear, The Yummy Fur, Lung Leg, Kenickie, bis, Gay Against You and other lo-fi joys. Hurrah! [Marceline Smith]

Continuing our tradition from the last few years, I hunted down our team of procrastinating writers and got them to tell me what they’ve been listening to, playing, watching and reading recently. Starting Monday, you can read all about it in a series of blog posts that will take us through to August.

If you can’t wait that long, you can read our catch-ups from 2008 and 2006.

If you don’t know, I kinda have a little obsession with The Skull Defekts. Especially their new album, The Temple, which totally twisted everything I thought I knew about rock music. The Idealist is Joachim Nordwall, who plays guitar and sings in the Defekts. However I Am The Fire is most certainly not rock music. Shit, there isn’t a beat to be found on this record. It’s all ambient noise drone awesomeness and it’s fucking grand.

I think the best way to tackle this is on a song by song basis because each one is so drastically different than the rest. It starts out with the comparatively short “The Knives Are My Eyes” and tricks you into thinking The Fire might be a shimmery blissful record. Well, you’d be wrong. The rest of the tracks are dark almost-but-not-quite doom drone. “To Make Exact Copies Of Every Mistake Ever Made” is 17 and a half minutes of throbbing, pulsing, rumbling beasts in the pitch black night, never changing course. The beginning is the same as the end and it could go on forever without you even knowing it had killed you in your wide-eyed hypnosis.

“I Am Not Here” is 100% oscillation, totally fucking with your sense of direction and perception. One minute you’re face down in the dirt and the next you’re standing gazing at the stars. The latter half of the song continues the mind fuckery but in a more static way. The kind of thing that you probably wouldn’t hear if you were in a car or train, even with headphones on.

My favorite track is “The Cranium” which is absolutely terrifying. It sounds like capital punishment via an electric room, which would be similar to the electric chair except this room would be more like a Tesla laboratory and you’d die from lethal amounts static electricity. I’m pretty sure this is what that room would sound like on the inside (minus the agonizing screams).

And then there’s the weird as fuck “The Declaraaation Of Indeeependence” which sounds like it was recorded in the ’30s by some batshit insane swamp hermit who used his swamp gas and swamp frog friends to accompany his ultimate manifesto. And there’s almost 15 minutes of that stuff. Just some guy ranting and babbling in a blown out language that I’m pretty sure is neither English nor Swedish. This is the sort of thing you’d find playing on a phonograph in the back room of a legit haunted house.

I Am The Fire finishes off with the appropriately titled “My Head Is On Fire.” Appropriate because if you are the fire, then clearly your head is also the fire. It’s a nice closer because it cleanses your aural palate from all that crazy shit you just heard. It’s the motionless thunder before the tornado hits. The white noise you hear when you all else is silent. Preparing you for round 2.

The Idealist
Nosordo

Earlier this year I got a record by the name of Zomes and it was the solo project of Asa Osborne of Lungfish. I went certifiably insane over that record. I could not stop listening to it. It was full of short little fuzzed out drone loops, usually no longer than 2 or 3 minutes. Like a bunch of cold fresh juicy plump grapes, I couldn’t stop and always wanted more.

Well, Ilyas Ahmed’s Goner is probably the closest thing I’ll ever get to more Zomes. The songs on Goner are at times up to 9 minutes long and they sound like the Zomes bits fleshed out into actual songs with riffs, lyrics, and choruses. But everything else sounds so similar. Drenched in lo-fi echo crunch and laden with loops. These tracks have the hypnotic quality of drone while still retaining some of the traditional song structures.

The closest thing I can compare this to (other than Zomes, obv) is some sort of garage folk. Occasionally chilled acoustic Americana, occasionally sped up amplified rock tunes, but always always focused on the guitar. Ahmed has made a superb guitar record. Not like he’s trying to hide it, though. Sometimes guitarists are modest or bashful and try to make it seem like any old thing. Not Ahmed. He doesn’t necessarily brag about his skillz but it’s also fairly obvious that this guy can play.

Goner’s really got my attention on Ilyas Ahmed. Never heard of him before, even though he’s put out stuff on Time Lag and Digitalis. But now I know. And knowing is half the battle.

Ilyas Ahmed
Root Strata

Despatched dark and dusty, a small part of the Australian outback has found itself transplanted and captured in London for this release.

Almost like a post-rock (spit!) take on Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds soliciting The Pogues with a little pinch of the Tiger Lillies this is a true soup of string drenched compositions being pierced by jarring Australian vocals sung in a near shanty style about topics such as murder and honour amongst thieves.  The orchestration of the songs is such that you find yourself removed from your surroundings and driven to hell.  If you have ever been to Australia and felt miniscule when faced by the darkness of nothing but hot stinking hateful territory then this is where this music is at.  Flight Of The Conchords this most definitely is not (bloody Kiwis).

Of the four songs on offer the epic “Dorothy Handland” with its extended instrument section at dusk would not feel out of place sitting on a Dirty Three record.

As the release draws to a brooding conclusion it is with a sadness echoed by none and a future that feels uncertain depending on the conduct going forward of the band that judging by the lyrics may or may not scupper their fortunes.  Personally I await their return/response with real anticipation.

It’s not only the bird that feels doomed at the outset of this record.

You call that a knife?

Thesaurus moment: guilty. 

The Doomed Bird Of Providence

Laily Recordings

So, those kerrazy sick rock fucks KONG are back with a full-length debut album. Featuring the previous singles Blood of a Dove and Leather Penny, if you’ve already heard them you’ll know what to expect: twisted, brutal early-’90s Chicago-style punk rock with a Manchester accent. There’s no denying that the twin influences of The Jesus Lizard and Shellac reign high in their list of favourite bands, but Kong revel in showing their full range of sick spastic chops  over the space of these 45-odd minutes.

Getting both the old a-side single tracks out of the way in reverse order, Kong immediately stop mucking about and start ripping any idea of a definition of a standard verse-chorus-verse song format with third track ‘Wet Your Knives’, primarily by aping the rhythmic interplay/pissing about that Shellac occasionally enjoy employing on occasion, with the bass and guitars playing in different meters, before evolving into a fully-fledged recognisable ‘song’ for a bit, only to then integrate the earlier rhythmic workout into the song proper.

‘Gwant’ follows, and is a special pleasure – especially the final minute or so, which is mostly just an incomprehensible phrase spat out time and time and again whilst the same riff hammers out as accompaniment. Unfortunately, this then segues into the album’s weakest track ‘Good Graphics’, which is obviously designed to give a break from the ‘standard’ rock songs by offering some pseudo-jammed drums and bass workout alongside manipulation of keyboards/electronics, but it’s pretty boring to be honest. Still, it probably beats having an acoustic track. Just.

The second half of the album kicks off with ‘Nih’, which doesn’t feature any knights, but does feature some good ol’ kick-ass riffing and shouting based around the classic diminished-third power chord (check ‘Black Sabbath‘ by Black Sabbath if you havent’ a clue what I’m talking about). ‘Sport’ continues in a similar vein, though features some guitar chords that made me wish they were going to break into This Heat’s ‘Makeshift Swahili‘ (one of the greatest, most upsetting songs ever written). Unfortunately they don’t, which is a damn shame, but the rest of Kong’s song is suitably brutal and intense anyway. Old b-side ‘Hint of a Rennit Innit’ follows, which you probably won’t recall was described as “exploring some atonal scale runs and off-kilter rhythmic changes” when I reviewed it last year. It still does, and is probably really fucking annoying if you’re not in the mood.  By this point, if Kong have completely got you in the mood, you might as well give up, because this song, possibly more than any other, revels in its complete and utter BASTARDNESS.

Two long songs run out the album: ‘Count To Nine’ starts with some distorted old recording of some people pissing about before kicking in with yet another rockin’ riff that Duane Denison would be proud of, before the whole thing becomes so slathered in distortion that everything just seems to get broken up and descend into feedback and random drum patters. It’s almost proudly shambolic and illustrates quite how effectively Kong can veer between tight technical workouts and total chaos within a few seconds. This segues into closer ‘K(l)ong’, which immediates winds everything down to a quiet guitar riff that repeats itself interminably against some restrained percussion for over 5 minutes with very little variation before everything suddenly kicks in for the last 3 minutes and Kong make one final attempt at ripping your head off. Yes, it’s like a low-rent mostly instrumental version of Shellac’s notorious marathon ‘Didn’t We Deserve a Look at You the Way You Really Are‘, but at least it’s got a slightly better payoff. Nasty.

A DVD featuring one hour of documented madness and a bunch of coverage of live shows will accompany the music CD of the album, but I can’t tell you anything about this because I haven’t seen it. With 3 hours of extra footage/music though, it seems like a bargain is to be had.

“Snake Magnet” will be released on Monday 13th July 2009.

Kong at Myspace

Preorder the album

Brew Records / White Drugs

Forthcoming live dates to promote said album:

15th Jul 2009 Mad Ferret Preston
16 Jul 2009 The Ruby Lounge Manchester
17 Jul 2009 Buffalo Bar Cardiff
18 Jul 2009 The Macbeth (Hoxton) London
19 Jul 2009 Freebutt Brighton
22 Jul 2009 The Flapper Birmingham
23 Jul 2009 Chameleon Cafe Bar Nottingham
24 Jul 2009 Brudenell Social Club Leeds
25 Jul 2009 The Tunnels Aberdeen
26 Jul 2009 Nice and Sleazy Glasgow
5 Sep 2009 Off The Cuff Festival Birmingham
10 Sep 2009 Artrocker New Blood tour! Fistful of Fandango NEW BLOOD ROOM @ 229 London
11 Sep 2009 Artrocker New Blood tour! Fistful NEW BLOOD Tour @ The Cavern Exeter

Over the course of today’s listening I’ve had the debut album by Joe Gideon & The Shark, Harum Scarum, on quite a few times. It’s scratching an itch I didn’t know needed scratching, by fulfilling my desires for a band that sounds like a combination of Nick Cave, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Sonic Youth. Or a beat poet freestyling over PJ Harvey’s music. Or something. Anyway: buy the album. It’s a goodun.

Here’s a rather cool video for ‘DOL’ from the album:

Here’s a Myspace page. Joe Gideon used to be in Bikini Atoll, which cannot be a bad thing.

It’s going to be difficult not to mention the influence of Sonic Boom on this album. There’s a clear line that can be traced from Spacemen 3’s more somnambulant and hazy output, through the electronic recreations of psychedelic states of Spectrum and Experimental Audio Research, to arrive at a collection of songs here that uncannily refers to and builds on the feelings of drug-damaged bliss that Sonic Boom has been wandering through for years. Indeed, the Rugbyite ex-Spaceman himself has his fingers entwined with those of Cheval Sombre here – playing organ and ‘effects’ and contributing his formidable production skills to create a crystal-clear sound where every guitar twang and electronic throb has its own space to exist.
Cheval Sombre seem to have friends in high places. There’s not only the Sonic Boom connection, but also the guest musicianship of Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips – aka Luna, and the man who started Galaxie 500 – on several tracks. Double Feature, who released the album, is the label of Wareham and Phillips. So there it is; a close-knit unit of musicians with a pretty impressive heritage.
The question is, does it work? Is this album the beautiful, lost offspring of a union between Spacemen 3, Spectrum, Galaxie 500 and Luna? To some extent, yes it is. The whole album exists at a slow pace, with blissfully soft guitar strum floating gracefully above an almost constant hum of electronic tones, and long arcs of feedback forming a sitar-like background to much of the work. At times – ‘Troubled Mind’ and Doors cover ‘Hyacinth House’ for example – the drone core to the music is lost, giving the music a lift into the stratosphere to add a further layer of dreaminess. There’s a careful maintaining of ‘feel’ at play here; the result, as a whole, is as if the band are collectively winding down after a previous heavy night. With a vocal style very much like the small, reedy, blues tones used by Spacemen 3, there is sometimes a fear that the music is so light that it might fall apart. It just about holds it together, capturing the listener in the eye of a very gentle storm, but it might be good to hear some of the chaos that surely existed before this type of bliss can have been attained. That was always one of the attractions of Spacemen 3 – their ability to dive headlong into mayhem – and so perhaps Cheval Sombre could expand their sound into these more heady areas. As it is though, I’m satisfied enough to drift away for a while with this album.

Cheval Sombre live in New York:

Cheval Sombre at Myspace
Double Feature at Myspace

This Pittsburgh duo played a noise show in Boston back in April and while they’re not anything like what I would call “noise” they’re still pretty intense and after they destroyed onstage, I had to pick up the only recording they had for sale, this short self released (possibly tour only?) CD.

Nature is mostly a guitar/drums band, although the guitarist has a plethora of electronic shit to mess around with and the drummer (at least live) does some sort of processing of the percussion. The drummer also sings into a giant pair of headphones, that reminds me of the vocals from Lightning Bolt or the occasional Neptune song where the drummer sings.

But Nature is so much better than the dime-a-dozen bass/drums duos. They’re a bit more metal and really into the groove. Lots of repetition that oozes the stoner doom vibe without being too cliche or ridiculous. But they do share some similarities with their duo brethren with some noise punk infiltrating the songs every now and then. When you take all of that and add in a dose of fuzzy industrial pounding and a blast of chaos, you got yourself an awesome record.

However, you might be thinking that you’re way past the whole drum/whatever duo. That is SO 5 years ago. But you know what? I’m totally OK with Nature doing this. Mostly because they’re so fucking great at it but also because they started doing it about 7+ years ago. Then they took a 6 year hiatus before coming back to it. That means 1) they’re not some new imitation band and 2) they’re enthusiastic and sincere about it. So any haters can just take hike.

Nature