Yeesh; bit of a weird one this one. The prodigiously talented Ms Vipers wrote, arranged, performed and produced this 6-song, 3-track, 26-ish minute “single”, which calls to mind Kate Bush, This Mortal Coil, opera singers, prog rock and god knows what else. Primarily driven by pianos and a gusty set of lungs, this release is guaranteed to sound out of kilter with pretty much everything else musical you would encounter in an average day.

Kat Vipers comes from Greece, and (inevitably enough) is very much classically trained. Trained enough to tire of just doing all that classical crap and start experimenting with songs herself, apparently throwing in “alternative rock”-influenced catchy bits (I think I must have missed those) and “jazz”y flourishes in something of an over-rich cavalcade of music inspired by many sources. The resulting mixture is certainly thick and voluminous. The tracks on the CD range from seven to eleven minutes long, each incorporating two distinct movements. The longest, closing track is one long overblown epic which goes all over the place like some never-ending story of a song. Her music is very difficult to do justice to in print – I suggest visiting her website and sampling some music for yourself if you’re thus far intrigued.

This said; I’d better make some effort to give you an idea of what you should expect though. Consider some key elements: First of all there’s Ms Vipers’ incredibly surreal, warbling voice, coming on a little like a husky Kate Bush with an extended vocal range. There’s a hell of a lot of pseudo-classical and Tori Amos-inspired piano. Ghostly wailing background vocals pop in and out, even predominating from time to time. The first song has an annoying bunch of wind chimes, and the last song has a drum kit popping up here and there to complement and emphasise sections. Oh, and don’t forget a bunch of synthesised strings popping up every so often to punctuate and unctuate with abandon. The construction of the music itself is certainly hard to pin down – there’s little pop-conventional repetition of phrases or melody, and there’s a lot of meandering minimalism and soaring vocals.

Mix together these ingredients and see what comes out: self-indulgent prog nonsense or refreshingly ambitious idiosyncratic music? Whatever your initial reaction, you’ll certainly need a few listens to digest and process such a rich soup fully. You should probably decide whether you want to risk indigestion for yourself.

www.katvipers.com
www.pyrecords.net

I would hope that anyone who listens to music a lot must fantasise about playing God and getting bands to tweak their sound so that it is even more musically satisfying to their ears. It’s what I do all the time anyway. And it’s rare that I come across a band that has a sound that I would consider perfect. The only two that spring to my mind right now are Neu! and Shellac, for hugely contrasting reasons. But anyway.

The first ten seconds of this CD got me into a real lather – someone was making some guitar vomit something akin to those amazing seasick sounds Kevin Shields coaxed out on “Isn’t Anything”, and it looked like they were going to harness them to make some great vague indie pop in the process. Unfortunately, from then on the proceedings became increasingly staid, with more ‘proper indie’ songwriting and sounds dominating. Aside from the occasional interesting textural flourish, Black Watch otherwise only mark themselves out as a very competent band playing some competent songs that are unfortunately bereft of any real melodic or catchy hooks to really catch your attention. And those flourishes diminish as the album goes on and on, getting duller as it gets increasingly singer-songwritery. It’s a shame because those blurry guitars are ultimately filler on a few tracks, disappointingly underutilised – normally to underline a part already played by another guitar in an altogether less interesting fashion. The whole thing just seems a little unambitious after a very promising start.

My personal advice would be: Pile on the effects, and get some hooks going on. Then the Black Watch would really be onto something special and ears would really prick up. That’s not to say this band could be another My Bloody Valentine clone; there is obviously talent at work here, and they could give those guitars a whole new setting with some decent rhythmic drive and songwriting. It’s just my opinion. Black Watch are not there yet, and maybe they don’t even want to be. I just wish they would, so they could properly escape that horrible label of being Just Another Indie Band.

www.theblackwatchmusic.com
www.pinkhedgehog.com

Here be a five-track mini-album by three fine men of Leeds. There be a bassist known as Stu, and there be a man economically manipulating tiny keyboards through some choice pedals known as Moz, and the drummer be Neil Turpin of Polaris/Bilge Pump fame (as well as previously heavenly rhythmic propulsion for the likes of Snail Racing and Doug Scharin’s HiM project). This minimal trio have conjured up 20-odd minutes of sublime trance-like pop songs, chock-full of bubbly and fizzing analogue synths, badass krautpoppin’, busting and droning basslines, and the obligatory smoother-than-smooth cool cat jazz of Turps’ insouciant rhythms.

I’ve been in a few minds about what I like best about this recording: the drums are predictably fantastic and infuse QQ’s every move with a wonderful restless energy and groove; but then the spare and solid basslines are the real weight behind their drive; but then the keyboards carry all the hooks and some fantastic square-wave textures and splutters and spurts that really do sound particularly lovely. Unfortunately, it looks like I’m going to have to resort to that awful music critic cliche of saying:

“The band is more than the sum of its parts.”
[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. Bring on self-immolation.]

The problem is; it’s all too true. QQ is a minimal beast, but the economy of music (nothing too fancy, no pointless notes or sounds, every texture seemingly carefully chosen) makes the record a delight to stick on. It’s not too long (in fact the brevity is sublime), it’s not too produced (the sound is predictably spot-on), it’s not too ambitious or overwrought (every song progresses as far as feels absolutely right), it certainly isn’t slapdash or careless (not a note out of place). It just hits a number of buttons really, really well. Their music itself doesn’t scream maddening originality, but they do clearly revel in their influences – lo-fi synth pop, mantronic krautrock, chilled jazz, whatever – and weave a wonderful web of these sounds to end up giving you a CD that probably sounds different to everything else you’ll stick on today.

When QQ supported with Pit Er Pat earlier in the year, they made that band of (really rather good) keyboard-toting, fabuloso-drumming, quirkomatic popsters seem limp in comparison. At the time I couldn’t work out if it was to my chagrin that they blew away the headliners quite so sumptuously (and seeming so effortlessly), but now I have records by both bands I know which one I’m going to be returning to on a regular basis.

The final conclusion? A rare pleasure. Bravo, you three fine men. Now give me some more.

www.runofthemillrecords.co.uk

…is mostly due to losing access to the internet at work. My world has stopped appropriately. So I’ve been busying myself by

Listening to:
Pumice’s “Raft”
the Thai Elephant Orchestra
Aphex Twin’s “Select Ambient Works Vol.2”
Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” & “Born in the USA”
Quack Quack (review coming soon)
Renato Rinaldi’s “Hoarse Frenzy”
The Deserted Village Orchestra
The Inecto School
Devo
Harvey Milk
Charles Mingus’ “Oh Yeah”
Malcolm Middleton’s “Into The Woods”
Boards of Canada’s “The Campfire Headphase”
Lectures by Michael Foucalt on the culture of the self.
The complete Golden discography, thanks to Chris.

Reading:
Truman Capote – In Cold Blood
Audiobook of HP Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulu” and “The Mountains of Madness”
William Burroughs reading “Junky” (his voice alone is amazing)
Vulture-like column inches about Georgie Best before the poor bastard even croaked it.

Watching:
Rushmore, The Machinist, Ghostbusters 2, Mindhunters (TERRIBLE film), Tank Girl (ditto), Shaolin Soccer, Old Boy, My Name is Earl, Kingdom of Heaven, Code 46, Cursed, Layer Cake, The Grudge, Rubber Johnny.

Working on:
Trying to do something interesting at http://www.flickr.com/photos/souvaris,
Fixing and overhauling www.souvaris.com,
Fixing broken amps and pedals,
A few stupid riffs here and there.

Doing:
Stripping the finish from a guitar using just a stanley knife,
Filling in endless forms before I can start my new job,
Breaking my radiator,
Bologna Pony.

Looking forward to:
A break,
Paid leave over Christmas.

It’s hard to know exactly what superlatives to use to adequately review this album. Snowblood are a band from Glasgow and this is their second album, barely a year since their debut. But how far they’ve come on. In the space of eight tracks spanning just over an hour, they finally manage to match the intensity of their live appearance (recently glimpsed in a full-blooded tour of these isles) and give notice of their likelihood of becoming one of the UK’s most interesting and aurally satisfying bands currently operating.

Snowblood are one of an increasingly bountiful crop of bands exploring the space between ridiculously heavy metal music and the more minimalist and experimental side of “post-rock”. That is, their contemporaries can be named as bands such as Isis, Pelican, Mono (or even Botch and Converge) and how many other million bands that seem to be emerging from the woodwork of late, but comparisons to these fuckos hardly seems fair. To start with, each of these bands I have mentioned have always seemed to run out of interesting ideas (or if you’re Mono, never actually started out with any). What sets Snowblood apart for me personally at least is the fact that they are not afraid to keep pushing at any kind of normal expectations. You might read this, listen and draw comparisons to Neurosis, but it’s not like that’s a bad thing. And this is one hell of a sophomore album from a young and exciting band.

The album’s first two tracks are both sparse and quiet, creating a real sense of foreboding that manages to be earnest without being embarrassing, and when the crushing riffs finally crack open the sky and descend the power of their rage really is affecting. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but somehow Snowblood manage to keep this mood up for an hour without falling into the trap of coming across as po-faced. For someone as jaded as myself, it really is hearteningly sincere and all the for better for having the gall to be so. What’s even better is that they’re not all just foreboding and looming catharsis. Though the epic tracks – such as the all-conquering ‘Black Stars Over Glasgow’ – are probably the main thing to get all hot under the collar about, the unexpected thrashout of ‘The Year of the Bastard’ and some lovely mucking around with textures and sounds throughout the record are what makes “Being and Becoming” so compelling a listen for me.

A quick mention that this CD will also be coming out as a double LP on heavyweight 180gm vinyl in a very limited edition of 500, which I would thoroughly recommend splashing out on.

www.snowblood.com

Hello, regular readers of this ‘blog (you sad bastards) may remember a post on here back in July about the infiltration by media giant Clear Channel into the United Kingdom’s shores. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, click here.

A small part of the original version of this post contained speculation over reports that our indie zine brethren Drowned in Sound were backed by some subsidiary of or a company associated with Clear Channel. I did stress at the time that this was far from hard fact and merely something I had been told. However, I am pleased to report that Colin Roberts, editor at DiS has contacted us to clarify that they are in no way funded by Clear Channel, and nor is their record label. From the horse’s mouth:

“Drowned in Sound Recordings is a wholly owned part of Drowned in Sound, owned and managed by Sean Adams, founder of Drownedinsound.com.”

Colin also went on to confirm reports about their involvement at the CC-funded Wireless Festival that took place earlier this year:

“Yes, we ran a stage in conjunction with the CC-run Wireless Festival and were well-and-truly fucked over. We had very little say in the artists that played, but did manage to use the corporate might of one of the world’s largest media companies to draw a few more people to our web-site – essentially using the rich to bring something to the ‘underground’.”

The lesson to be drawn from this? I’ll let you form your own opinion about that. My personal opinion is that every single one of you motherfuckers should go and buy Universal Sound’s reissue of “Children of Fire” by Hannibal Marvin Peterson & The Sunrise Orchestra. It’s absolutely amazing stuff and the best album I’ve heard this year. No question.

Some music courtesy of our recent Talentspotter interviewee John Brainlove under the moniker of Junkplanet here. John used to be in an electro-punk band called The $hits, and he’s continued in a similar mindset here, creating slashed-up and spattering electronica that brings Kid606 let loose in a child’s bedroom to mind. Pelting a dizzying number of samples familar and unfamilar at you whilst snarling expletives in a familiar accent, or pausing to pay tribute to Aphex Twin’s ode to Pacman, or catching you unawares with a lull of acapella crooning, the one thing you can expect from this “album” is to be taken by surprise.

I say “album” because its ten tracks last for barely 17 minutes. A decent length, for any more brainmelting splatterings than offered here might well cause some kind of spastic fit. Lovely.

www.brainloverecords.com

The Open Mouths are two guys from East London who come across more like cabaret than a band. Making music in their bedroom, they’re a bizarre amalgamation of the Buzzcocks and the Moldy Peaches. Taking simple songs and strumming barely-in-tune guitars, they then proceed to tell gratuitously potty-mouthed lyrical stories that are either funny or annoying, depending on how you feel about hearing little ditties about internet sex, domestic abuse and being nasty to your family. All with incredibly annoying American accents. Bah.

The sound is appropriately lo-fi for a couple of guys having some fun with playing some music – there’s some incredible bad production on the third song “Sadistic Top”, which features the grunge staple of a guitar and some soft drums in the verses before “kicking in” on the chorus with some really distorted guitar and clattering drums that should obviously be about twice the volume as the verse. Unfortunately here the “huge” guitar and drums are about half the volume of the instruments on the verse. Oh well. It sounds shit, but it’s kind of amazing as well. Which is pretty much what can be said about The Open Mouths as a whole. Pretty shit, but sort of good as well. Or great, but terrible too. Like a Roger Corman film, or a Poppy Z. Brite book. Or a really tangy kebab from a skanky takeaway. You may well find them to be a guilty pleasure.

www.brainloverecords.com

Remarkable. Captain Wilberforce is supposedly a two-man band, but the sleeve notes mention but one Simon Bristoll as the guy who wrote and performed everything (except drums on a couple of tracks) on this nine-track, 32 minute CD of jaunty jangly indie pop. I’m sure the press release that I accidentally lost for this thing mentioned Radiohead at least twice, yet with all the harmonies and bright guitars playing major chords going on make me think of the mid-nineties, and Teenage Fanclub in particular. Impressive stuff for just one guy, especially as he’s tighter and more inventive than most of all those big indie guitar pop bands that Captain Wilberforce is so reminiscent of. He’s got a nice line in droll lyrics too, reflected in the song titles. My favourite is “Singer Wanted, Preferably Dead”. All the layers of instruments are well-constructed and everything locks together like an efficient machine of indie mayhem.

All very good, but Cpt. Wilberforce also managed to create 32 minutes of music without a particularly memorable hook to stick in your mind. Which is a shame, because everything else about this record is perfectly fine. Keep on going Captain, in this vein you’ll soon reach that treasure ye be seeking.

http://www.captainwilberforce.com/