The Tromans by now is something of a seasoned songwriter that has been subtly very prolific with his output that stretches right back to his stint fronting San Lorenzo.  After a number of solo efforts here he is once more backed by a band to great degree of success.

Early on there is a staunch Wire/Gang Of Four attached to proceedings with “The Bad One/House Of The Magicks” as a post-punk Jekyll And Hyde feel slaps/snags the track between the rails taking the listener to a very dark place as atmospherics bubble in the background while in the foreground jagged guitars and snarling vocals rule the roost.  This could weather the music of a murder in the rain as a high standard for the record gets set from the start.

As the record revolves equally the sound evolves when a whole new series of instruments are introduced on “Golden Connection” and a mesmerising tone is added like one of those acoustic tracks on a Led Zep record.  With it comes a warm trumpet that sooths the sound into some kind of graceful submission and luscious conclusion as the minor epic closes out to the sound of the coast in all its glory.

Elsewhere there a number of hook laden chants but as the album arrives at “The Dead-Eyed Man” a collective shanty feel erupts over dealings paying tribute to the traditions that came before these times.

The standout track arrives in the form of “Acre”, a genuinely epic workout that represents the sound of a man going through torture as the song distorts and descends into some kind of treasured madness but never outstaying its welcome.

By the time the disc rolls to its conclusion the overriding emotion is one of pleasance at what appears to be some of the bleakest times, this feeling is warm(th).

With a raven on the cover looking over proceedings this is a true departure with everything ventured and everything gained as the eleven tracks on display surf over many spaces and genres to create a very accomplished series of events.

Often with these tunes I feel he is singing about me.  There is a lot of depth here.

Thesaurus moment: requite.

Owen Tromans

Sacred Geometry

Created to accompany and compliment his recent “The Secrets Of Me” album here is Andy Nice again now with a four song EP to download for free featuring a quartet of electronica acts each offering reshaped and enhanced versions of tracks from said album.

The initial reconstruction comes from the hands of fellow Front And Follow recording artists Sone Institute.  To the string-based haven of “The 4^th Man” now added into the mix are further intricate atmospherics adding a new dimension of mortality.  Keys drop into the mix as vastness rules supreme and the layer affect hits home.

Following comes the remix effort of Yellow6 serving to compliment the original cello strands with a delicate bass pulse giving the track “Orangeblu Home” a new lease of energy and infusion of trait before it all breaks down in calculated method at dusk with eleventh hour female vocals emotively dropping in.  With it a submerging sensation is added to the already claustrophobic feel of the track.

Stepping up next is the Isnaj Dui take on “Dr Titan” with is a full frontal squeal of angst allowing the cello to breathe in amongst desolate whistles and mesmerising sounds that serve to further enhance the hypnotic aspects of Mr Nice’s music.

Keeping up with the Front And Follow theme/motif of the releases the final remix comes courtesy of Elite Barbarian who also take a stab at “The 4^th Man”.  This is the most full on electronic remix of the release as bleeps hang heavy over proceedings often snuffing out key textures of the original.

As an exercise in music exploration these four new renderings manage to add new textures to already fulfilling pieces of music creating a whole new identity all their own.  Awash with chilled elements none of the remixes outlast their welcome.

This EP can be downloaded for free at www.jointhecircle.net/andy

Thesaurus moment: again.

Andy Nice

Sone Institute

Yellow6

Isnaj Dui

Elite Barbarian

Front And Follow

As ever Male Bonding invade the joint with scratchy guitar and a reckless sense of adventure.  Today with their contribution to this split single of “Year’s Not Long” they up the tempo/pace from their usual trudge before winding up in some kind of circling frenzy that revitalises proceedings before the band launch into the final leg of their energy infused declaration of fuzz.  The increase in speed does not serve them well as it feels as if it dilutes their temperament gives them something of an upbeat sound that doesn’t snap as effectively as previous efforts from them.

The Eat Skull effort sounds as if it has been recorded from a television using a cheap cassette player.  It is a real spinning top of an affair of warped funfair surf guitar music that almost sounds like a Hammond organ and vocals delivered in an equally dizzying fashion and crashing expletive.  This is fat person go-go dance music, made to look ugly when really under the masks are clean faces and stupid but cool hairstyles.  “Heaven’s Stranger” would make good theme music to a camp television show about a one legged crime fighter.

A nuisance to the industry.

Thesaurus moment: haze.

Male Bonding

Eat Skull

Tough Love Records

The sound of Times New Viking is truly fucked up.  They are out of tune and they don’t even sound as if they are playing actual instruments, more using appropriations of what instruments should sound like.  All in all this is a record that sounds as if it were made out of cupboard.

As a result of this the reality that there is a drive behind proceedings says a lot about the determination of the band and the apparent strength of their songs in the sole/soul, bloody minded desire to see things through until a hook is found.  I guess this has been what lo-fi ingenuity has always been about.

With drums that sound like they are boxes falling down stairs, the hardest hook to arrive first is the chorus refrain of the title track “Born Against Revisited” as the song descends into true dementia, a refreshing voice from the back raises her hand and lends the song a kiss.

In sounding so bad and awful there is true invention in the process.  The fact that the sound has been rendered so sharp and nasty but yet remains (just about) listenable indicates that there is no off switch on the genius button here.

Ultimately it feels as if this muck is some kind of response to the horrible slickness that no comes with the digital age, the bland anonymous cold feel of listening to music through a computer.  As we now reach the Skynet era of music and how Kraftwerk appeared to once predict songs being manufactured by robots this is in many ways as pure a statement of/in music as you can get as they purposely apply a recording technique akin to the playing technique of The Shaggs.  With its transgression this is a true blessing.

To be found are genuinely rocking joints that come in the form of the optimistic sounding “Move To California” and the Germs echoing opening “I Smell Bubblegum”.  It’s definitely not all great but certainly is fun.

This is the sound of what Guided By Voices would be like if they were hoodlum kids packing more than just guitars and sticking scissors into open electric sockets.  Any band that has a 36 second song called “Take The Piss” cannot be bad or wrong.

These songs were born to be heard on vinyl.

Thesaurus moment: scuff.

Times New Viking

Matador Records

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

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

Sometimes it takes the most traditional of instruments to make the most personal statement of music.  The depth of one man not relying on the lazy method of speech to communicate is one that surprisingly speaks volumes in this case and example, echoing lost moments of pleasure and pain in a very non stifling or exclusive way.

In modern music history often the cello has appeared on the recordings of some of the greatest acts ever but only in a sneaky saboteur type role that fills out and lends weight and strength to the sound.  Often it can appear to be something of a lazy gesture for an act to introduce a string section as it exploits the reality that it is an instrument that sits very uneasy in the centre stage, especially in more modern settings.

With this in mind seldom in modern composition, away from soundtracks and generic classical recordings, has the cello been given the breadth to lead in such a context and manner (indie/alternative).  As a result Andy Nice stands out in this field inhabiting a similar sort of territory as the Dirty Three but in a more direct manner.

The comparatives that echo most in mind are a nod to the Penguin Café Orchestra at their most beautifully downbeat as well as the kind of score music that you will fortuitously often come across by accident in Asian movies such as In The Mood For Love and Sympathy For Lady Vengeance.

Spread over seven tracks Andy Nice is a true professional and dedicated veteran to his trade and has worked hard to earn his stripes as a master of his instruments.  Currently part of the string section in The Tindersticks his musical resume includes Baader Meinhof, Cradle Of Filth and Sade.

The reflective nature and journey of the music on show serves as a perfect calming companion to the most contemplative of moments.  Prozac on ice.

Thesaurus moment: meditative.

Andy Nice

Front And Follow

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