Far more restrained and almost traditional compared to Tiny Pushes vol.1, I think I prefer this. It seems to show a more considered approach to songwriting, with a combination of guitar and keyboards delicately mixing with samples and sequencing. The ten songs on here total less than thirty minutes, meaning that none of them outstay their welcome. Whilst vol.1 seemed to be more about almost random snatches of tune and sound fading in and out of a sometimes messy whole, this is more of a Complete Album: the songs, however short, pack a real emotional resonance, and their subtle textures remind me of Low and, at times, recent Hood records.

It’s an album which is available free to download, and I can’t complain about that value. Not that this is this some kind of quickly knocked-out freebie, it’s cleanly and nicely put together, reflecting – it would seem – a genuine altruism in trying to share some high quality music with whoever wants to hear it.

Calamateur
Autoclave

Weird-ass dancing music – a combination of kranging guitars, jerky rhythms and sex-tinged vocaaals. I can’t tell if I like this or not. Something like a cack-handed Beck without the expensive studio trickery, or a garage-bound !!! with some dubious hobbies. Gets the toes a tappin’, which ever way you feel about it.

No-Fi Soul Rebellion
Wäntage USA

This review’s being posted slightly later than originally anticipated, because I’ve had the album stuck on my turntable for a good week now, and not tired of repeated plays. This could either mean that in five years’ time it’s a record I’m thoroughly sick of and never play, or that it’s a rich and rewarding record which grows and intensifies with each listen. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter; ask me in five years’ time.

Comparing this with early Hood records is interesting – gone are the ultra-low-fi scratchy smears of disjointed pop; they’ve mutated into deep, layered and textured sound which, alongside artists like Bark Psychosis, stands alone from the current glut of aggressive noise which is out there. Hood’s very distinctive vocal style fits perfectly with effortlessly processed instruments. The processing is so subtle as to be almost invisible; but listen closely and there are loops of drums and guitars repeating, echoed sound holding them together to give the impression of straightforward plaintive melody. Listen even more closely and the careful arrangement of tracks becomes evident. Hood are pretty much out there on their own with this kind of blend of electronics and acoustics.

Hood
Domino

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4391955.stm

Make money by compromising your lyrical integrity – you might get some free Big Macs

There are some albums where each track is very different, and this makes the album seem like a disorganised mess from a band who can’t decide what they’re doing. Then there are some albums where each track is very different, and this serves to reinforce a band with almost more ideas than they can handle. Luckily this one is from the latter camp, and whilst Last of the Juanitas seem all over the place in terms of song structures and styles, they hold it together with an odd sense of noise, paranoia and aggression which is both captivating and exhilarating.

So this album starts with a brooding, doom-laden sludge of a tune which sounds like Low trying to pull off a Part Chimp cover. Then as tracks go by, there are elements of all kinds of other bands hurled into the mix: Prolapse’s relentlessly tense dual-gender vocals; the Nightblooms’ sharply carved guitar chaos; Quickspace’s pop-under-a-pile-of-rubble tunefulness; American Heritage’s heavy angular rock’n’roll shapes. The combination is enriched with a strangely hallucinogenic feel and a foreboding sense of anger, making for a great and surprisingly original-sounding album.

Wäntage USA

I keep writing about Wäntage USA releases on here, don’t I? But they keep releasing great things. What am I to do? (Well, admittedly, widen my listening spectrum a little bit. And I will. I will.)

Anyway. Fireballs of Freedom rock like crazed fuckers! This CD is invigoratingly fast-paced, and dumb-ass simplistic. For the duration of listening to the album, I’m convinced that you can keep your complex mathematical rock, your inward-looking folkesque strummings and your skittering electronica experiment. The people want WAILING, my dudes. And this band wails with the best of ’em.

They’re one third Kiss showmanship, one third Ramones chugachug rockaway freneticism, one third Mudhoney late-80s style grunge and one third Superchunk melodical lyricism. They’re dumb-ass rock enough to care not that that adds up to more than a whole. And that is the way you should like it. And will like it. Fat chunks of raw bleeding meat guitar chords, cross-song widdling solos and brief bangbangbang structures. A band for the early 1980s mid-American flannel shirt-wearing slackers amongst us.

Fireballs of Freedom
Wäntage USA

The first I’ve heard from both this Spanish band, and this fantastically-named Leeds-based label. The album starts out with some vaguely rockabilly-sounding numbers; nicely lo-fi sounding guitar twangs over simple, plodding drums, and wandering melodic basslines. All very pleasant. After several songs, though, what could have easily stayed a twangy pop album becomes something more accomplished, and a Hello Cuca sound begins to emerge.

That Hello Cuca sound, to me, is part rockabilly; jaunty and stylish guitar playing. It’s part Liliput; yelped vocals and relentlessly repetitive rhythm. It’s part Le Tigre; female confidence and brazen poppiness. It’s part Clinic; clomping drumbeats and circular riffs. It’s part Girls in the Garage; a feeling of happy misfits. And it’s part Come on Pilgrim Pixies; knowing-sounding Spanish lyrics.

I’m worried that I’ve just described Hello Cuca as such an obvious blend of other things. Make no mistake, they’re not pure copyists or unoriginal bandwagon-jumpers by a long way. I really enjoyed this album – the fact that it reminds me of other things, whilst also holding off from going too far down any influence’s path, is a fine balancing trick to perfect.

Hello Cuca
GoJonnyGoGoGoGo

More quiet, knowingly introspective, refined pop music here, on this album of quiet and delicate songs. I seem to be hearing a lot of quiet and delicate music of late; is there more of it about than there used to be? Or perhaps I’ve become more sensitive and prone to getting ‘all emotional, like’ over the lazy strum of an acoustic guitar and the tug of a sad-sounding vocal.

Like a lot of this kind of recent music, there are smatterings of samples and electronics mixed in with the traditional core of singer-songwriter-style tunes. These are never used here as a diversion or as a needless ‘extra’, rather they add to a well-recorded set which I imagine could work beautifully as a solo live act. Some of the guitar lines here are fantastic folk pickings, which add a (good) country feel to things, and the lyrics have a somewhat ironic and harsh twist to them at times. Things never descend into martyr-style ‘why am I so misunderstood’ simplicity, and I’m left with the feeling that this album will stand the test of time well. I have been falling back into a love of effortless songwriting lately, almost rejecting at times music which is desperately trying to sound new and clever, but which can fall short so easily. The attraction of a well-turned-out song can never be underestimated.

Frankie Machine
Artists Against Success

However much I musically digress into drone rock, fractured guitar noise, improvised folk or anything else which tickles my fancy, I can still never get enough of good ol’ sweet-natured indie-pop. To me there’s something magical about pure, non-cynical, non-ironic melodic pop music, and I’m glad that people still continue to stay ‘true to the path’.

Thee Moths I know next to nothing about, so I’m pleased to say that the four tracks on this CD line up in my mind alongside a legacy of records which I own – anything from early 80s Cherry Red acts like Tracey Thorn or Felt, through the tweer side of Sarah Records’ output, on to (often American) modern indie pop. At the beginning of the first track, ‘Universe Prayer’, there are Robert Wyatt-esque vocals humming gently over gentle, folky-sounding melodies which remind me of the quieter moments Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. And so it continues through the rest of the CD – plaintive, simplistic guitar lines and almost whispered female vocals adding to a feeling of warm introspection. This music has a nicely ramshackle feel to it, but backs it up with simple, but accomplished songwriting.

Thee Moths

Total Gaylord Records

This was a very pleasant surprise; somebody I know gave me the album with their recommendation and, as I often do, I took their recommendation with a pinch of salt and placed the CD on my slow-moving ‘things to listen to’ pile. But now with my new capacity for listening to CDs in the car, I spent a happy trip to and from work today, listening to ten lovely, warm-sounding tracks of very vaguely electronic, very vaguely indie-pop, very vaguely sad, very vaguely uplifting melody.

I like this because of its simplicity and effortlessness. The vocals remind me very much of Broadcast – clearly enunciated and odd in tone – and that band’s dark side is here too, albeit with a sweeter edge and a less dense sound. The lyrics cover the usual boy/girl/love lyrics, but in a combined honest and tangential way which adds to the charm. What at first seem like straightforward pop songs bear repeated listening with their slightly oblique lyrics, melodies and structure.

Guther