Liam McKahey and The Bodies -‘Lonely Road’ (Series 8 )
Liam McKahey first came to the attention of the world as the frontman of Cousteau. Deservedly so. The band were storming live (I still wear the T-shirt bought the second time I saw them, at the Cambridge Boat Race pub, in about November 2000, I think) and pretty hot on record, too. Their best known song was ‘the Last good Day Of The Year’ although for me it’s ‘She Don’t Hear Your Prayer’ which blew me away when they played it at Glastonbury and in my mind’s eye, I bought it on my way home when I stopped off in Oxford.
Anyway, fast-forward nine years, and the Cork-born, longtime London resident Mr. McKahey has upped sticks and moved to Canberra, Australia. Before he left, he and a group of friends recorded this album. According to his myspace page, they recorded the eleven tracks that make up the album in just four days. Now that’s just showing off! But it’s paid off…and how.
McKahey has a genuinely stunning voice, that has drawn deserving comparisons with the likes of Scott Walker (think Scott 1-4, rather than The Drift ), Tindersticks’ Stuart Staples and Nick Cave (think Let Love In onwards). Ian McCulloch of the Bunnymen would kill for a voice as good as this, whatever he and his ego might claim. The songs are ideally suited to this voice, and although the opening track, the title track, is gentler than much of the rest of this album, it’s a wonderfully complete album. The trumpet of John Hutchinson and Joe Peet’s violin mean that the album can draw comparison with the likes of Tom Waits, Calexico and the aforementioned Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. In fact, from the second track in, it’s almost as if the album could serve as the soundtrack for a revisit to the country explored in cave’s novel And The Ass Saw the Angel. I’ve been struggling to pick highlights, because the album is so strong, but ‘Lovers & Fools’ ‘Inscription’ and ‘Unheeded Tidings’ are particularly special. Other singer-songwriters are just not in his league.
Please, don’t let this be just another review you read and forget about. Make a note of it, listen to the myspace page and go and buy it.
Various Artists -‘A Psychedelic Guide To Monsterism Island’ (Lo Recordings)
A Psychedelic Guide To Monsterism Island has been assembled by one Pete Fowler, who has bought together a collection of some very cool and hip names from the underground (but also chart-botherers as well) to ‘make your trip to Monsterism Island an unforgettable one.’
One of the best known contributors here is Super Furry Animals; Gruff Rhys who has indeed been making wonderful out-there pop songs for well over a decade now. Other contributors include Jonny Trunk (no stranger to compilation godlike status himself), Amorphous Androgynouos (an alter-ego of members of Future Sound Of London), Luke Vibert, Richard Norris (of the Grid)…I could go on. The thing is, as impressive as the list of names is, the album doesn’t quite hit the spot.
It isn’t a weak album, it’s nice in the background, without ever becoming aural wallpaper, and nor is it offensive by its’ very inoffensiveness. It’s worth hearing…but I think the Je Ne Sais Quoi… that it lacks comes down to the fact that as irish website State pointed out, “the names that appear on the compilation however as they are about as incidental as the songs. It would be hard to tell Gruff Rhys’ contribution from Dammers’.”
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A Psychedelic Guide To Monsterism Island is out now.
The weekend of May 8-10 in Edinburgh will see all three 17 Seconds Records acts playing at Cabaret Voltaire, and I am very happy and excited about this. This is part of Tigerfest, and both us here at 17 Seconds and Matthew at Song, By Toad are ‘curating’ a night. Matthew’s night is on May 7 at the Bowery, and features Meursault, Inspector Tapehead and The Japanese War Effort.
Friday May 8 sees Aberfeldy, with support from Ex Lion Tamer, at Cabaret Voltaire. Tickets are now on sale from Tickets Scotland, Ripping Records and Ticketweb priced at £10.
Another one from the NME…and this one is helping me to clear out the nasty cobwebs left by the monstrosity that was The Boy Least Likely to album.
Back in 2005, in the final days of working in a record shop before I went off to teach, I was blown away by the sheer raw power of the Nine Black Alps debut album, Everything Is. For whatever reason, I didn’t get around to buying the follow-up Love/Hate, but I will be in line for their third album, which is due out in the summer. It’s as yet untitled, but it is produced by dave Eringa who has worked with the Manic Street Preachers, amongst others.
This will tear several people new orifices…IMHO, as good as ‘Not Evryone’ from the first album.
See what you think…then if you like it, support the band, and either way, please leave feedback!
Poor old NME, eh? They featured Graffiti Island as their free download of the day, and the majority of readers asbolutely (heh heh) hated this.
I think it’s great. Lo-fi as you like, a fantastic anyone can do it -but we’re doing it sortaway, that evoles both Beat Happening and The Vaselines. Which is a good thing.
Howvere, if you think that ‘Human’ by the Killers is the most amazing song, or you think that Nickleback, are like, rilly, rilly great, then this will terrify the life out of you. Daddy, what does ‘no-fi’ mean?
The Boy Least Likely To -‘The Tour Of the Playground’ (Too Young To Die)
Rolling Stone magazine reportedly commented that “If all your childhood stuffed animals got together and started a band, it might sound like the boy least likely to.” Now, call me cynical, but a) this is (probably, I’m guessing after all) very accurate and b) NOT.A.GOOD.THING.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a lot of twee-pop, c86, old-school indie…call it what you will. I think a lot of the music produced then and now that comes under this banner is great. I love the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and I can’t wait for the new Camera Obscura album. But this album is horrific. It is so sweet that it makes the recorded output of Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears’ early stuff sound like Sunn o ))) or Earth. It’s the audio equivalent of force-feeding a diabetic insulin and chocolate. It starts to be unkind. I listened to this album once a week ago…and put it to one side to try again. My view remains the same.
Set in the playground (for goodness sake!), thirteen songs about life in the primary school playground. What kind of warped mind thinks this is a good idea and then inflicts this on listeners? I’d heard stuff before by this band and liked them. Now I never want to hear them again. It’s one thing to be anti-machismo and it’s a stance I’m not unsympathetic to. But by the same token, please grow a bloody spine.
There is no way on earth that these guys are the spiritual heirs to Belle and Sebastian, who could be quite acerbic in their lyrics (go and listen to The Boy With The Arab Strap). Hopefully this will actually wake Stuart Murdoch and co. up from writing a musical or whatever the hell it is they are doing, and come back and kick these guys’ lily-white butts.
I’m off to play Slayer. Very, very loudly.
*1/2 (and that’s being generous).
Check these links to make up your own mind if you think I’m being unfair.
For fans of gorgeous blissed of, drone meets shoegazing, love Galaxie 500/Luna/Spaceman 3 etc.. imagine if such a project could involve members of both bands…an impossible, have your cake and eat it dream, right?
Umm, wrong, as it happens.
One-man band Cheval Sombre emerged in the early 2000s, writing and recording songs in an apartment studio on the Hudson River, NY. After sending his initial demos to Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 and Spectrum fame, recording sessions with Sonic took place in March 2006, in Jersey City, New Jersey. Further sessions followed over the next two years, both in Rugby, England and in New York City, with guest musicians Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham (of Galaxie 500 and Luna) , both of whom operate the Double Feature label. The record was produced by Sonic Boom, who contributes drones and effects.
I have responded to the email that this arrived with saying that, yes please, I would of course like one of the remaining review copies. The self-titled debut contains eleven tracks including all six which make up the rare as hen’s teeth limited singles released so far: “It’s a Shame”/”Little Bit of Heaven”, “I Found It Not So”/”Where Did Our Love Go?” and “I Sleep.”
It’s always been the nature of the music business that releases are almost never simultaneous worldwide, but as the music business increasingly gets digital, I don’t know how much longer thatwill remain the case.
Today the Yeah Yeah Yeahs release their third album It’s Blitz! in the UK, it’s already out in Australia and will be out in the US on April 14. This is the lead single ‘Zero’ and I have already played it about ten times this morning and not got bored of it.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs seem like they have reached the stage where they will be reaching everyone with this single. It’s like the impact of a song like Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’ – cool enough for the indie snobs, but immediate and catchy enough for the pop kids. In the video Karen O comes on like a cross between Chrissie Hynde and Siouxsie Sioux. She looks like she’s having fun, even if Nick Zinner is looking worried at points in this video!
My favourite song of the year so far. Please go and buy it.
Some years in music are pivotal and utterly steeped in meaning and resonance.
1992 was not one of them.
It was summed up by the sheer awfulness of Undercover’s ‘Baker Street’ cover, a hideous dance version of Bryan Adams’ ‘Run To You’ by a band called Rage and the fact that Madonna unleashed a stinker of an album called Erotica, and very possibly showed that you could be over-exposed when she released the infamous Sex book around the same time. It was topped off when Whitney Houston topped the charts with ‘I Will Always Love You’ at Christmas.
The Americans decided that they’d had enough of twelve years of Republicans and elected Bill Clinton to the White House. The Brits were convinced that the Conservatives could not possibly win, and then proceeded to hand them a mandate to rule Britain for the next five years. The big film of the year was Wayne’s World, which led to everyone making statements and then going …NOT! at the end of it. I buried myself deeper in NME, Melody Maker and tippexing my school folders with band names instead of doing as much school work as I should have been. Ah well…
This track was no.1 in John Peel’s Festive Fifty that year. It has to be one of the most requested tracks ever on 17 Seconds. It’s sublime – now watch the video and if you want the mp3 look elsewhere!
Bang Bang Machine -‘Geek Love.’
Some bands are derided for ever. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin’s time must surely come. Part of the Stourbridge scene (along with Pop Will Eat Itself and the Wonderstuff), this was probably their biggest hit. This was also part of their music compilation Lunatic Magnets which was linked by various clips as the band attempted to do their own version of Reservoir Dogs which was the cult film of the year.
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin -‘Not Sleeping Around.’
…and boom! The word ‘Britpop’ had yet to enter the lexicon of the cultural landscape and the so-called ‘scene that celebrates itself’ wasn’t ever going to be a household name kind of thing, but Suede suddenly arrived, looking pretty damn perfet. The music press loved them. Morrissey covered one of their b-sides ‘My Insatiable One.’ Smash Hits claimed David Bowie had invited them to his wedding. Lead singer Brett Anderson claimed he was ‘a bisexual who had never had a homosexual experience’ and was soon being spoken of in the same sentence as both Bowie and Morrissey. In the face of grunge coming in from the US, Suede looked likely to lead the next British assault. In another galaxy their story would have ended far more happily.
Suede -‘The Drowners.’
They say history is written by the victors. ‘They’ may have a point. In the 20/20 perspective that is hindsight, this was Blur’s best single to date. It has been perhaps a little forgotten that at this point Blur were in the doldrums -far more than they would be after The Great Escape three years later seemed to show that they had been overtaken by Oasis. This single limped to no.32, their second album was about to be rejectedby their record company, but Blur knew something we didn’t…
Blur – ‘Popscene.’
…a weird sense of deja vu: at the tail end of 2007, the Black Kids were being hailed by many (including yours truly, less we forget) as being the next big thing. When their debut album was released, the press seemed to turn on them. So it was with Curve, whose first three EPs were far more feted than their eventual debut LP Doppelganger was when it arrived in 1992. A shame, because they were still firing on all cylinders as far as I was concerned…
Curve -‘Fait Accompli.’
I have kicked myself for missing out on a lot of nineties dance culture -too busy listening to Morrissey at the time, as well as going through a ‘I hate everything’ phase, for which I have no-one to blame but myself. However, this DID filter through to me. I only recently realised that Future Sound Of London had been connected with Humanoid, whose classic acid house track ‘Stakker Humanoid’ had made it onto Top Of The Pops four years previously…
Future Sound Of London -‘Papua New Guinea.’
I’ve always had a soft spot for Michael Franti, and as frontman of Spearhead, he was the first Hip-Hop act I ever saw live. It could have been this or ‘Television, The Drug Of The Nation’ but thistale of how a homophobe gets his comeuppance is pretty groundbreaking. And as at this time rap was becoming ever more confrontational (which was fine) but also displaying aspects of prejudice (which is not fine), it was good to see an act showng it wasn’t all about the benjamins.
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy -‘The Language of Violence.’
As has been well-documented, in 1992, The Wedding Present issued a new 7″ every month, the a-side being an original song and the b-side being a cover. This saw them make Top Of The Pops several times, have seven entries in that year’s Festive Fifty, rack up twelve top thirty hits…and then get dropped by their record company.
Wedding Present -‘Sticky.’
I wasn’t much into R&B in the nineties, much of it came under the heading of New Jack Swing, a genre that left me cold, mostly. But this track wasn’t like that, and like En Vogue, gave a glimpse of just how big the genre would be in the decade to come…
Shanice -‘I Love Your Smile.’
This wasn’t supposed to happen…or maybe it was. This is actually the track that first brought Bjork into the Top Forty in the UK, being a sizeable hit, even with the mad shoutyness going on, as ever. But by the end of the year the band hd called it a day, with Bjork going off to make a solo album…and actually put the avant garde on Top Of The Pops.
The Sugarcubes -‘Hit.’
Should also be featured here: Ride -‘Leave Them All Behind.’ Jesus and Mary Chain -‘Reverence.’ Primal Scream -‘Movin’ On Up.’ The Cure -‘Friday I’m In Love.’ The Orb -‘Blue Room.’ Faith No More -‘Midlife Crisis. En Vogue -‘My Lovin.’ Boo Radleys -‘Lazarus.’ (Actually, there were good tracks it just felt horrible…)
