Despite heavy reverb obscuring much of George Mitchell’s between-song
speech, body language and delivery indicate the vocalist is not in the
best of moods. It seems the culprit is a snarl-up on the M6, and as Eagulls kick
off their set 25 minutes later than scheduled, the traffic-induced
irritation is writ large. But, from a punter’s perspective, the
aggravation brings its own silver lining, with Mitchell’s extra-surly
demeanour amplifying the palpable tension at the core of the Leeds
quintet’s noisy post-punk squall, underscoring its raw impact.
Parquet Courts, by comparison, exhibit a more
playful disposition, introducing themselves from behind cardboard
emoticon masks. “WOOOooooOOOh! We are a Parquet Courts cover band! Happy
Halloween!” the four-piece joke, their faux-ghostly wails subsequently
echoed in the copious feedback that judders forth at regular intervals.
A hesitant start aside, the set proves as scrappy and charmingly
effective as their lo-fi costumes, barrelling along with rough-edged
élan and shout-along lyrical smarts. The lickity split energy of tracks
like Borrowed Time receives a suitably enthusiastic reaction, while
coupling the deadbeat drawl of N Dakota with its Light up Gold
partner Stoned and Starving makes for a dynamic finale. Forget the
aforementioned masks: this Halloween, Parquet Courts came dressed as one
of the most exciting live acts around, and found the guise a perfect
fit.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Monday, 4 November 2013
next bottle rocket............>>>
We like to keep things fresh round BR way, and November's event comes to you with a EXCITING TWIST. Your regular hosts won't be there, so we'll be passing the indiepopnewwavepostpunk baton on to a couple of surprise guest DJs. This means you might get some good music for a change.
Here's the deal:
BOTTLE ROCKET!
FRIDAY 15 NOVEMBER!
FLYING DUCK!
11PM - 3AM!
FREE! (before 11pm, £5/£3 thereafter)
INDIEPOPNEWWAVEPOSTPUNKETC!
Sunday, 3 November 2013
album reviews: Son Lux, Chantal Acda, OvO
Son Lux - Lanterns (****)
Some albums wantonly thrust their virtues upon the listener; others guard them like a secret to be teased out over time. Lanterns, Ryan Lott’s third album as Son Lux, achieves both: on first encounter, the melodic intelligence and invention lassos attention, while a dozen listens later there’s still much to discover.
Ascribing genre is next-to-meaningless, though comparisons could be drawn with Lott’s S / S / S bandmate Sufjan Stevens: both are classically trained, and serve their abundant ambition with orchestral flourishes and imaginative, layered production. But Son Lux emphatically takes a path of his own making, mixing up haunted hip hop beats and choral moans on Pyre; offering dystopian-edged mechanical minimalism with a lullaby lilt on Enough of our Machines; and rupturing a hushed digital waltz with heartbeat horns on Easy. In sum, Lanterns is the sound of a maverick talent edging ever-closer to his full, stimulating potential.
Out 4th November
Though billed as her first ‘real solo record’ (following a trio of softly sumptuous slowcore releases under the Sleepingdog moniker), Chantal Acda’s Let Your Hands Be My Guide comes courtesy of a raft of esteemed collaborators, including composers Nils Frahm and Peter Broderick and Múm cellist Gyda Valtysdottir – all figures well-practiced in the subtle-yet-soaring arts in which Acda is specialist.
Her unhurried compositions aren’t afraid to fade to near-silence, exhibiting such gentle poise that listeners would be forgiven for nodding off mid-song – not a charge of tedium, but an acknowledgement of the lullaby effects of Acda’s refined songwriting, with minimalist arrangements allowing her attractively light voice the muted spotlight. Pushed for highlights one might identify the twinkling ether of My Night or the duet at the core of Arms up High, but it’s as a delicate whole that Let Your Hands… conveys its true gossamer beauty.
Out 11th November
OvO - Abisso (***)
Halloween may be done with for another year, but there are plenty of long nights ahead; plenty of inky witching hours crying out for a suitably unsettling soundtrack, preferably one with a daft edge so as to keep the demons from taking over. Italian doom-sludge-drone-etc duo OvO are specialists in such matters, and latest LP Abisso proves as dark as its namesake but with moments of silliness that depressurise the oppressive atmosphere.
Whether the latter trait is wholly deliberate is another matter, though Grand Guignol titles like I Cannibali and a final track of squeals and screeches (plus drummer Bruno Dorella’s tendency to perform wearing a luchador mask) all suggest awareness of the absurdity underlying their ghoulish façade. As on past releases, Stefania Pedretti’s idiosyncratic vocals are key: whimpering, growling, gibbering and screaming, her range stops their simple setup from growing repetitious, though also earns the album its ‘approach with caution’ epithet.
Out 4th November
Saturday, 2 November 2013
Public Images Unlimited: An Interview with Public Service Broadcasting
With a DVD of debut album Inform – Educate – Entertain due shortly, J. Willgoose Esq discusses Public Service Broadcasting’s sounds and vision, and ponders their history-steeped style’s future
Inform. Educate. Entertain. With these three principles, John Charles Walsham Reith laid down a remit for a fledgling BBC that would go on to influence public service broadcasting the world over – and, 90 years later, Public Service Broadcasting, the creative outlet of one J. Willgoose, Esq and his dependable drummer Wrigglesworth.
After some well-received singles and calling card EP The War Room, the band titled their debut album after the Reithian ideals – and entertain they did, with a high-concept, high-impact sound combining motorik rhythms, propulsive, hook-filled melodies and an array of archive-sourced samples. It’s the latter that provides PSB their USP: they’re neither the first nor only band to utilise spoken-word snippets in such a manner (the haunted/haunting work of The Advisory Circle and other Ghostbox artists come to mind), but they’re the only contemporary practitioners to bring these voices from the past to within a hair’s breadth of the top 20. Factor in keen radio support and a strong showing on the festival circuit and the duo emerge as one of the year’s true musical success stories.
This month, the band consolidate their annus mirabilis with a new single (Night Mail) and a DVD originally intended to accompany the album on its initial release, but pushed back when a self-imposed May deadline meant there was “physically no time to put it all together.” Alongside some newly filmed extras (Willgoose in conversation with the BFI, a mini tour diary, live footage) are all of the band’s promo videos and other visuals. Like the music, they’re drawn from a variety of archive material, ranging from US road safety films to 1930s naval newsreel to George Lowe’s 1953 feature documentary The Conquest of Everest, celebrating Hillary and Norgay’s landmark ascent.
The collected clips not only complete an audio-visual experience previously reserved for live performances (where they’re screened on vintage television sets – both prop and authentic – for added retro appeal); they also enhance the album’s charm by rounding out the concepts underlying each track – for instance, the aforementioned Night Mail is made more romantic and rousing by the attachment of footage from the GPO documentary of the same name, while ROYGBIV – an ode to the arrival of colour broadcasting – is given extra sparkle by the accompanying montage of tinted rainbows and flowers in bloom. Additionally, a commentary from Willgoose makes good on those other two legs of the Reithian triumvirate – to educate and inform – by offering details about his creative process, and background to the footage that facilitated it.
“The commentary is basically just me rambling on in a hot room in the summer,” laughs Willgoose, speaking over the phone ahead of this month’s tour, which begins in Aberdeen the day of the single and DVD releases before winding its way southwards. “It’s just to give a bit of context I suppose. I think a lot of people are quite interested in the stories behind [the songs], and with a lot of our stuff actually having quite a definite origin, this seemed like a good way to do that. Most of it ended up being about the footage, probably because the music kind of speaks for itself… but with stuff like the instrumental [Qomolangma], it’s nice to be able to explain what I was trying to do… It’s not intended to ram anything down anyone’s throat or treat people as if they couldn’t possibly have realised it themselves; it’s just nice that it’s on record, as it were, for people who are interested.” Whether pointing out that Lit Up’s borrowed three-note motif spells B-B-C, likening Late Night Final’s closing drum effect to Mogwai, or self-effacingly responding to online complaints about the use of Hurricane aircraft in the Spitfire video, it’s a modest trove of insights that fulfils the self-described brief to “not just whack out 11 videos and say ‘there you go it’s a DVD.’ We wanted to make sure that some time, thought and consideration had gone in to it.”
What the DVD is not intended to do, however, is put the visuals on a level-pegging with the audio. Exempting the trio of clips cut by others (“the best ones”), Willgoose describes the eight self-edited pieces as “very functional. They don’t have a great deal of flair to them.” He names DJ Shadow as an example of someone “doing amazing stuff with their visuals,” but insists the influence there was purely musical – going so far as to label the project’s initial premise “a kind of mini-homage” to the pioneering hip-hop sampler. It was while formulating this homage that Willgoose caught wind of newly available archive footage from the BFI (a purely coincidental discovery – “I don’t have a sort of long-held, burning admiration or love for 1940s documentaries or anything,” he laughs). “The two ideas married together quite well, and it was really once those things were sitting together that the wider concept came in: an album where each song was based on a different public information film. But then the album ended up being something quite different from that anyway, because we used feature films and documentaries and all sorts really.”
While the archive-raiding lends the project its distinctive flavour, Willgoose doesn’t want to become defined exclusively by it, emphasising that the PSB aesthetic has plenty of untapped potential. He takes note of critics that paint the band a one-trick novelty, but argues that “the concept is a lot broader than some people seem to have realised.” Does it bother him when people misread the historical sampling as a gimmick? “I think the novelty thing is definitely something we’re open to as a criticism, or exposed to anyway, just because it is slightly unusual,” he responds. “But I think you have to trust that people have more than one idea up their sleeve. I mean at first it was a bit of a novelty – I was putting songs together without a great deal of thought about the wider concept and what it all could mean and stand for and what we were about. It was only after playing live for a bit that I decided I wanted to write something a bit more hefty, something dealing with a trickier subject matter. And I think with The War Room we took a definite step away from novelty. We showed that we wanted to write music that had depth to it, that it wasn’t just a case of getting some samples and whacking them over any old rubbish.” He lets out a wry laugh. “I mean, some people do think that’s what we do” he sighs; “but they’re entitled to their opinion I suppose…” Their second album, Willgoose promises, will be “a progression, in terms of it relating to a later period – it takes us into the 1970s, so it’s a bit more up to date I suppose. I think if we leapt from this album into contemporary footage it would be a bit jarring, but as long as we consider where we’re going and how we do it, we’re not particularly limited in what we can cover.”
Finally, with several of the institutions exalted across the PSB oeuvre weathering political pressure (the BBC), experiencing severe budget cuts (the BFI), undergoing seismic changes (the Royal Mail’s privatisation) or already dismantled (the 2012 closure of the Central Office of Information, i.e. the agency responsible for all the UK’s post-war public information films), we wonder whether Public Service Broadcasting has a political element. Earlier, when discussing the unsavoury side of patriotism, Willgoose expressed his hope that, despite referencing a certain type of nationalist, stiff-upper-lip British Empire iconography, they always manage to handle the material “sensitively enough and intelligently enough that people don’t ascribe to us political beliefs that we definitely, definitely don’t hold.”
Which raises the obvious question: what political beliefs do they hold?
“If there’s a political message behind it, it’s probably a rather wishy washy liberal one,” Willgoose replies. “It’s probably about the power of ideas, and the power of people coming together and doing extraordinary things – whether that be coming through times of extraordinary stress in the war, or whether it be conquering Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world.” He pauses. “It’s a positive outlook I suppose, and hopefully not a cynical one. I think when a band call themselves Public Service Broadcasting you can probably tell they’re leaning slightly to the left on most issues – it’s not like we’ve called ourselves BskyB Incorporated or anything horrific like that. But I don’t necessarily think that our political inclinations are that important to the music – it’s more about the spirit of optimism, I suppose. The spirit of hope.” In its sincerity and idealism, it’s enough to bring a tear to a monocle-sporting eye.
[feature written for The Skinny]
Inform. Educate. Entertain. With these three principles, John Charles Walsham Reith laid down a remit for a fledgling BBC that would go on to influence public service broadcasting the world over – and, 90 years later, Public Service Broadcasting, the creative outlet of one J. Willgoose, Esq and his dependable drummer Wrigglesworth.
After some well-received singles and calling card EP The War Room, the band titled their debut album after the Reithian ideals – and entertain they did, with a high-concept, high-impact sound combining motorik rhythms, propulsive, hook-filled melodies and an array of archive-sourced samples. It’s the latter that provides PSB their USP: they’re neither the first nor only band to utilise spoken-word snippets in such a manner (the haunted/haunting work of The Advisory Circle and other Ghostbox artists come to mind), but they’re the only contemporary practitioners to bring these voices from the past to within a hair’s breadth of the top 20. Factor in keen radio support and a strong showing on the festival circuit and the duo emerge as one of the year’s true musical success stories.
This month, the band consolidate their annus mirabilis with a new single (Night Mail) and a DVD originally intended to accompany the album on its initial release, but pushed back when a self-imposed May deadline meant there was “physically no time to put it all together.” Alongside some newly filmed extras (Willgoose in conversation with the BFI, a mini tour diary, live footage) are all of the band’s promo videos and other visuals. Like the music, they’re drawn from a variety of archive material, ranging from US road safety films to 1930s naval newsreel to George Lowe’s 1953 feature documentary The Conquest of Everest, celebrating Hillary and Norgay’s landmark ascent.
The collected clips not only complete an audio-visual experience previously reserved for live performances (where they’re screened on vintage television sets – both prop and authentic – for added retro appeal); they also enhance the album’s charm by rounding out the concepts underlying each track – for instance, the aforementioned Night Mail is made more romantic and rousing by the attachment of footage from the GPO documentary of the same name, while ROYGBIV – an ode to the arrival of colour broadcasting – is given extra sparkle by the accompanying montage of tinted rainbows and flowers in bloom. Additionally, a commentary from Willgoose makes good on those other two legs of the Reithian triumvirate – to educate and inform – by offering details about his creative process, and background to the footage that facilitated it.
“The commentary is basically just me rambling on in a hot room in the summer,” laughs Willgoose, speaking over the phone ahead of this month’s tour, which begins in Aberdeen the day of the single and DVD releases before winding its way southwards. “It’s just to give a bit of context I suppose. I think a lot of people are quite interested in the stories behind [the songs], and with a lot of our stuff actually having quite a definite origin, this seemed like a good way to do that. Most of it ended up being about the footage, probably because the music kind of speaks for itself… but with stuff like the instrumental [Qomolangma], it’s nice to be able to explain what I was trying to do… It’s not intended to ram anything down anyone’s throat or treat people as if they couldn’t possibly have realised it themselves; it’s just nice that it’s on record, as it were, for people who are interested.” Whether pointing out that Lit Up’s borrowed three-note motif spells B-B-C, likening Late Night Final’s closing drum effect to Mogwai, or self-effacingly responding to online complaints about the use of Hurricane aircraft in the Spitfire video, it’s a modest trove of insights that fulfils the self-described brief to “not just whack out 11 videos and say ‘there you go it’s a DVD.’ We wanted to make sure that some time, thought and consideration had gone in to it.”
What the DVD is not intended to do, however, is put the visuals on a level-pegging with the audio. Exempting the trio of clips cut by others (“the best ones”), Willgoose describes the eight self-edited pieces as “very functional. They don’t have a great deal of flair to them.” He names DJ Shadow as an example of someone “doing amazing stuff with their visuals,” but insists the influence there was purely musical – going so far as to label the project’s initial premise “a kind of mini-homage” to the pioneering hip-hop sampler. It was while formulating this homage that Willgoose caught wind of newly available archive footage from the BFI (a purely coincidental discovery – “I don’t have a sort of long-held, burning admiration or love for 1940s documentaries or anything,” he laughs). “The two ideas married together quite well, and it was really once those things were sitting together that the wider concept came in: an album where each song was based on a different public information film. But then the album ended up being something quite different from that anyway, because we used feature films and documentaries and all sorts really.”
While the archive-raiding lends the project its distinctive flavour, Willgoose doesn’t want to become defined exclusively by it, emphasising that the PSB aesthetic has plenty of untapped potential. He takes note of critics that paint the band a one-trick novelty, but argues that “the concept is a lot broader than some people seem to have realised.” Does it bother him when people misread the historical sampling as a gimmick? “I think the novelty thing is definitely something we’re open to as a criticism, or exposed to anyway, just because it is slightly unusual,” he responds. “But I think you have to trust that people have more than one idea up their sleeve. I mean at first it was a bit of a novelty – I was putting songs together without a great deal of thought about the wider concept and what it all could mean and stand for and what we were about. It was only after playing live for a bit that I decided I wanted to write something a bit more hefty, something dealing with a trickier subject matter. And I think with The War Room we took a definite step away from novelty. We showed that we wanted to write music that had depth to it, that it wasn’t just a case of getting some samples and whacking them over any old rubbish.” He lets out a wry laugh. “I mean, some people do think that’s what we do” he sighs; “but they’re entitled to their opinion I suppose…” Their second album, Willgoose promises, will be “a progression, in terms of it relating to a later period – it takes us into the 1970s, so it’s a bit more up to date I suppose. I think if we leapt from this album into contemporary footage it would be a bit jarring, but as long as we consider where we’re going and how we do it, we’re not particularly limited in what we can cover.”
Finally, with several of the institutions exalted across the PSB oeuvre weathering political pressure (the BBC), experiencing severe budget cuts (the BFI), undergoing seismic changes (the Royal Mail’s privatisation) or already dismantled (the 2012 closure of the Central Office of Information, i.e. the agency responsible for all the UK’s post-war public information films), we wonder whether Public Service Broadcasting has a political element. Earlier, when discussing the unsavoury side of patriotism, Willgoose expressed his hope that, despite referencing a certain type of nationalist, stiff-upper-lip British Empire iconography, they always manage to handle the material “sensitively enough and intelligently enough that people don’t ascribe to us political beliefs that we definitely, definitely don’t hold.”
Which raises the obvious question: what political beliefs do they hold?
“If there’s a political message behind it, it’s probably a rather wishy washy liberal one,” Willgoose replies. “It’s probably about the power of ideas, and the power of people coming together and doing extraordinary things – whether that be coming through times of extraordinary stress in the war, or whether it be conquering Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world.” He pauses. “It’s a positive outlook I suppose, and hopefully not a cynical one. I think when a band call themselves Public Service Broadcasting you can probably tell they’re leaning slightly to the left on most issues – it’s not like we’ve called ourselves BskyB Incorporated or anything horrific like that. But I don’t necessarily think that our political inclinations are that important to the music – it’s more about the spirit of optimism, I suppose. The spirit of hope.” In its sincerity and idealism, it’s enough to bring a tear to a monocle-sporting eye.
[feature written for The Skinny]
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