So after the success of the album, how is it? And was it expected for them? “Didn’t expect it at all, no. There’s been a lot of good things said about it, we were just surprised. Makes you feel quite good about it”. The band, it would seem, are almost tailor made for Sub Pop, how big a deal was it signing to them? “It was massive, it was something we never even thought might happen, but it did and it was a big deal for us, yeah. We were already fans of the label for years”... “We run a small label ourselves (Paradise Vendors), and around the time of signing to Sub Pop we had released a four-way split seven inch single by ourselves, Graffiti Island, Old Blood, and Rapid Youth. Sub Pop had actually emailed us about that seven inch and asking if we had plans to release it in America, and we said no, we didn’t. One thing lead to another and it turns out they were quite keen on us. And before we knew it, it had all gone through”. While Sub Pop still remain an independent label, it’s undeniable that they have moved closer to the mainstream, perhaps now just as synonymous with larger, more popular bands as any other large indie, or even major.
      So has the transition from being a D.I.Y. Dalston backroom band to being signed to an essentially major label been an odd one? “We’ve just kind of carried on as we probably would have anyway, I mean we now have much more support with there being a body of people there. We’ve recently got a manager because you just spend all the time doing admin stuff, and sometimes you kind of forget you are in a band. I didn’t actually realise, until we got a manager, how wrapped up in the side of things we were that has nothing to do with the music. It really started to eat into what we were doing as a band”. So with almost all of August off, and a manager taking care of administrative duties, does that leave the band free to write? “That’s exactly what we’re doing! We’re still in demo stage, where we are doing everything ourselves and sort of testing it out”. So are these current recordings likely to lead to more one-off sporadic releases such as the split seven inches and tape releases, or a new LP? “I don’t think we’ll put anything else out, I think we’ll do a record. There might be a seven inch but all we’re thinking about really is the next album”. Another Sub Pop release? “Yeah, we’re looking to record it early next year and it will be on Sub Pop”.
     One issue I was interested to raise was that of the cover song. Male Bonding seem to have a soft spot for reinterpreting other people's songs, and they have covered many over the years, even releasing a tour-only CD of covers including tracks by Flipper, G.G. Allin, Mission Of Burma, Blur, and Baby Gecko. Any other covers in the pipeline? “We were talking about this in the car about an hour ago, on the way here! We would really like to do Bodies by the Sex Pistols, just to do in sound check, because we really like the Sex Pistols”.

      We talk about their past and the emerging London scene they stemmed from, combined with where they are going now and their thoughts on it all. “I hope the whole D.I.Y. thing goes away… well not the doing it yourself part, that’s great. But the recording aspects, I hope it all goes a lot more hi-fi. It's funny how something like that becomes a style instead of just being your only means for doing something. We did it purely because we didn‘t have any money. We just did the best we could, but I hope things get bigger and more ambitious… I mean there is a certain style to it, and I like a lot of bands that have recorded really badly, but it’s the songs I like [not particularly the recording]”. So is the more polished and ambitious sound something Male Bonding will be persevering with? “Yeah, on the next record we’re going to sound like Band Of Horses! Maybe get a Casio keyboard sample too!” they jest. “We’re currently ahead of our record, which means we have time to actually write an album and think about songs, which is really exciting… as on the first record it all happened in the heat of the moment. But I think by spending more time on songs you end up experimenting more by nature. Maybe there will be some overdubs which weren’t on the first record, I’d definitely like to approach it differently”.
      So have their success and ambition drawn the attention of any big named producers? “There is someone we are talking with at the moment who we hope something will happen with, but we can’t really say who it is. Not that it’s a massive deal or anything… oh, this is quite interesting actually, we’ve not told anybody this…” They then start to discuss whether or not they should release the information, quietly quibbling as to whether people should know - eventually they cave. Although it may well be common knowledge by the time this is published, for a brief period of time the following information was a world exclusive for the press: “Rivers from Weezer emailed us about getting a song-writing session together. The band are coming over to play Reading in August and we’re hopefully going to go into a rehearsal studio with them”. I probe and prod them for more information but, alas, they are as in the dark as us about any further details. “That’s all we know. His assistant sent us an email. We thought it was a joke!”. I guess nothing should really be of shock in the Weezer world these days, but hopefully Male Bonding can reinstate some of that youthful charm, exuberance and pop sensibility to Weezer's flagging and bizarre career? (Do see Andrew Anderson’s piece on this very subject in the Features section).
      One thing that starts to sink in when speaking to the band is how false and misleading the connotations and perceptions are around their genre. While it may radiate the aesthetic of a slack and lackadaisical youth generation, the band actually almost fall over themselves when talking about anything resembling progression or development. Not merely do they appear driven, but they emanate enthusiasm and determination from every pore. The aforementioned connotations and perceptions sadly go with the fleeting and vacuous sense of fashion that has followed the band and its musical leanings. Male Bonding is not a band content with being a commodity or embodying a fashion, movement or style. They seem more than happy to leave it in its path as they persistently peruse new leanings, avenues and musical directions. Male Bonding are redefining what it is to be “lo-fi” in current times - when the label is plastered on anything and everything - and subsequently doing what is important: reassessing and re-approaching things based on music, not trends.

     What are your thoughts on the current state of music in the UK as a whole? Generally speaking, I think it lacks any sort of movement or singular ethos that it had in say the late 1970s. Since the '90s I think music has been floundering in a state of retrogressive apathy. Britpop was the beginning of the end for forward thinkers in pop music, people started picking up guitars and listening to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and totally disregarded the '80s - a time when I think pop music was progressive and interesting. From the '50s, blues and R'n'B mutated and developed naturally and did so right up to 1990 when people started looking back not forward, it's the same with fashion I guess. It seems like a lot of people want to look back nostalgically at the past without forging their own identities and ideas for the future. Someone wearing a parker and listening to The Jam whilst riding a '62 Vespa in 2010 is not a Mod.
      How does the song writing process work within the band? Do you write collectively? I'd bring in a idea, then Jonny and Ed tell me which bits they don't like or how they want to improve it, we have a big argument, go home come back and we end up working something out. Recently though we've been using the studio to build ideas and finding it much easier to get productive. We wrote the B-side of the new single in a couple of days using a drum track from another tune of ours and basically just sequencing the other parts, so we've got a few different methods, some more efficient than others!
      Are lyrics important to you in music? Not in our music, but we dont' have any do we. As a general rule I'd rather listen to 'Music for 18 Musicians' than Leonard Cohen.
      Your EP focuses on elements of repetition and has layered sounds throughout. How does this translate live for you? That's easy, I use a loop pedal. Most of the tunes are written that way, I can imagine it would be much harder writing the parts then trying to work out how to play it live.
      Is playing live something you enjoy? Or are you most comfortable in the studio? We like playing live when it's a good gig - downstairs at the Retro Bar on a Tuesday night we're not gonna be that excited about! I've just finished building a studio in my basement, so we can just go and mess about for hours on end. It’s a really great way for us to work, jamming ideas, recording them and then working on arrangements afterwards on the computer.
      What are your future touring plans, if any? There are no concrete plans for tours, but once we work out when the next release is coming out we'll be calling on contacts we've made from this EP to help us around the country. This year we have quite a few festivals to play including Green Man and Fell Foot Sound, so that should quench our thirst for playing live.
      Do you intend to release a full LP? If so, when? We're working on it at the moment, we've recorded two tracks and demoed up about 6-7 others. We'd like to say October completion and early next year release, but we'll see how inspired we are to get it done.
      Where would you like to see yourselves in one year’s time? I see us looking forward to some sweet festival spots and a tour round Europe promoting the album maybe.

      The meeting of the two minds started on The Boggs' final tour, comparing music and sharing a love of early ska, dub, roots, hip-hop, soul, classic disco, house, and a heavy dose of post-punk. These influences collide on the jumbling Blondie-meets-Caribbean fiesta of Tom Tom and the recent Foal remixed electro smash of Pigeons.
      Delving deeper, Eleanore explains the band name: “We found it in a book, 'Crazy Horse', about battles between Native Americans and the forces in the colonies”. Jason adds: “The name just popped out at us. It was a bit of Native American history, a bit of secret history. We didn’t spend all that long thinking about it, the first thing that really clicked would be it”.
      Far more considered then, is their approach to songwriting. On their MySpace, I stumbled across this: “We’re using pop-forms and structures because we like songs; Kinks songs, Beatles songs, Michael Jackson songs; abs
     orbing the lessons of the pop classics, folding the present into the past toward the future to create dub histories; avant-pop split between the austere and feverish.” I put it to Jason that he seems very directed in how he approaches his music. He eyes me curiously, then laughs: “Yeah we wrote a treatise on it, we had the whole formula mapped out”. He adds: “No, we just read a lot of stuff and we tried to figure out what would fit into that. There’s a lot of back and forth and just, writing. We like pop songs but not the freshest, latest pop songs, more like pop meaning like Phil Spector, or The Marvelettes”. Eleanore adds: “The tradition of pop songs, not, like, Christina Aguilera”.
      After the release of Dressed in Dresden, through taste-making record shop Pure Groove, they were quickly snaffled by Warp. Currently home to artists as diverse as Aphex Twin, Hudson Mohawke and Grizzly Bear, how do they feel they fit alongside their new label mates? Jason starts: “It’s a little intimidating”. Eleanore adds: “When they signed us we looked at the other acts and they were all insanely good. Stylistically, I don’t think we’re really like any of them, but then they’re not really like each other either. I kind of like that”.
      We move on to the creative video making legacy of Warp, including classics like Windowlicker. The Hundred in the Hands video for the spine-chilling Ghosts features a house trashing sequence, from the French film 'L'eau Froide' ('Cold Water'), which seems almost tailor made for the song.

      Swiftly seguing from the cinema to the discotheque, we are back to DFA artist Jacques Renault’s popular remix, Undressed in Dresden. Jason explains its origins, but not before pausing to examine his horribly broken thumbnail, for which Eleanore promptly tells him off. “I’m just more intrigued to see what’s going to happen”. He continues: “Jacques is an old friend of mine, we always talked about working together, so after we made Dressed in Dresden it seemed like the right time”. Eleanore adds: “It’s really logical because it’s kind of his kind of bread and butter, old disco”. Jason interrupts: “After we did Undressed we started pretty much going over to his house every week and just pushing tracks along. The EP is stuff that we did over the course of a month and a half or so”.
      So are there any plans in the works do anything else with him? Jason smiles and puts on his broadest Brooklyn accent: “He’s in the family”.
      Following on from May's 'This Desert' EP, they have a self-titled album out on September 20th, and they’ve also worked on remixes for fellow New Yorkers, Bear In Heaven. Jason adds: “They were a group of guys who’ve been in New York forever and I’d no idea they made music until we saw them playing with The Rapture at a secret show.”
      Along with talented neighbours like Holy Ghost and Blondes, they enjoy listening to the understated gloom of Sharon Van Etten. Eleanore says: “She’s a singer-songwriter and so beautiful. I feel like in England when you say “miserable” it means sad. It’s not sad, it’s just very delicate, fragile”.
      They have a big round of festivals coming up, including Green Man, The Big Chill, La Route Du Rock, and Lowlands, with plans to return to the UK in November. Their Tramlines show was met by a packed crowd, all curious to see if the hype was deserved. Never known to mince their words, I turned to friends for their assessment. One promptly stalked off, pronouncing it “bloody awful”, the other bemoaned the lack of a real drum kit. The crowd as a whole gradually thawed out, but the road ahead is not an easy one. With a determined man like Jason Friedman at the helm, rest assured any kinks will be ironed when they next return, but beneath his rigid exterior is a joyful soul waiting to get out. As the man himself says, this is “party music, physical music, romantic music”.

      One thing I personally like about the EP is that it tends to be heading in one particular direction with the first two songs, then Everytime (Oxygen) throws you a curve ball and adds a really interesting sense of diversity on the record. Was this something that was a conscious decision when making the EP? We tend to hide the melodies away in our walls of guitars and noise. Everytime (Oxygen) presents one of our songs in a stripped down setting, being as the title says, “oxygen” for the listener. We had an idea of making a kind of acoustic drone on the ep, and Everytime (Oxygen) fitted right in there.
      Would you like to talk about any particular influences when making this record? We take inspiration from so many places. Working together with local artists has been a great source of inspiration both on stage and in the studio. This EP was recorded right after our rehearsal space burned to the ground. Being in the studio without our personal equipment was definitely challenging, but also inspiring. Blank sheets so to speak.
      In reference to the above question, the guitar sounds seem to be rooted fairly deeply in the early '90s America sound, but don’t sound tacky or pastiche. How did you approach the production of the record? And who produced the record? Well, as mentioned, our gear burned to the ground. However, our guitar sound is important and based in quality stuff. Fender guitars, Fender tube amps and lots and lots of pedals. It's classic stuff from the '50s really, something that many '90s guitarists gave a renaissance after the '80s almost turned everything into plastic. It's all about making it sing the way you want it to.
      Do you have a favourite track on the record? I don't think the whole band can agree on one song... the two members present agree that Mad Mary is a strong track.
      Live, you have been described as “face-meltingly intense”. Is this something you set out to achieve when performing live?Is there a focus on brutality and noise? It needs to be dynamic. And intense. I don't think we set out to be face-meltingly intense. We do, however, get quite carried away and sometimes need to put the breaks on to create the dynamics we wish to create throughout the show. I think one of the reasons that our shows have been really intense the last year is because of the amount of 30-minute showcase gigs we have been doing.
      You are from Bergen in Norway, how is the music scene there? Much going on? Great. A lot going on. We are lucky to be a part of such great scene in such a small city. Our new studio is in a big warehouse called “Bergen-Kjøtt”, shared with a great part of the Bergen scene. Among them; Hypertext, Catastrophes, The Alexandria Quartet, Bloody Beach, Casiokids, Kathinka, Datarock, Syntax Terrorkester, Ungdomskulen, Fjorden Baby!, Duper, Kiss Kiss King Kong and many more.
      Your EP is due out September 6th here in the UK, any plans for an LP any time soon? The LP is ready! Just give us a shout and we will put it out.
      Whereabouts do you see yourselves in a year's time? Still touring and still recording. Hopefully our LP is out in the UK with a new one on the way. We want to be productive and release loads of music.
Njål and Richard - The Megaphonic Thrift

      I first ask about the tour, which kicked off ten days earlier in New York. Peggy replies: “I thought Spain was really amazing and we played one of our best shows ever in Madrid. I feel we gel together as a band now and I also feel better about our performances. The crowds in Spain are really heartfelt and enthusiastic. They are so effusively sweet.” “We had a really lovely time in Spain and then came over to England to play the Indietracks festival, which focuses on the core kind of music that inspires us” continues Kip. “The honour of getting to play and headline that festival was just… I just think we did something right in our lives.”
     We talk a bit more about life on tour and I ask them if they have any countries they particularly like or dislike when touring. “I really, really like Spain. My only complaint would be that it’s hard food-wise: it’s a lot of meat and cheese” says Peggy the vegetarian. “But people there are so warm, and true music fans. We actually judge countries on what people drink there.” “All countries like to drink,” interjects Kip, “that’s the good thing!” It’s worth mentioning at this point that both of them are sipping Pimm’s throughout the interview. “We like the UK for that” smiles Peggy. Kip is especially enthusiastic about Germany: “In Germany the beer is really good. Ah, Germany is insane! I would say, even though we had this great time in Spain, Germany always stands out. It’s almost the most hospitable place to bands like us. We’ve only been there last summer, but the level of warmth shown to touring bands is… you know, you always want to explain to your hosts that they don’t have to be that nice to you, they could be much less nice and you would still be having a good time.”
      But there must also be downsides to when you’re on tour, right? “I miss my home, that’s obvious” says Peggy. “But at the same time it makes me appreciate my home so much more. And my friends would be totally sick of me if I would be there all the time.” Kip echoes Peggy’s thoughts and then points out more positive aspects: “The opportunity to do what we get to do is so rare and unexpected. If I sat down in a room with a genie in it and it asked me ‘describe your perfect existence’, I would probably write out something very similar like this: playing music with your friends that you really believe in and getting to go to places you’ve never been before. It’s not something we would really have taken for granted. It’s an amazing feeling to tell your grandparents ‘We're gonna spend the summer travelling around.’” That genie must have listened closely then…

      Considering they are still a young band that formed in 2007, releasing their debut album to much critical acclaim just two years later, I wonder how they coped with this sudden success. Kip: “A lot of the bands we grew up loving and cared about - even a lot of our contemporaries who we really admire - often didn’t get any kind of recognition. Even bands you consider better than yourself don’t get recognised. That sort of puts everything in perspective, so much of it is just luck. I don’t know if we were overwhelmed by pressure but we realised that the opportunity we got was just falling off a tree.” So what about all the obligations that subsequently arise, like having to do interviews like this? “But that’s fun ‘cause I want to talk about music anyway” replies Kip. “You just get to know new people who wanna talk to you about music; it’s like meeting new friends.” He laughs and continues: “When I was in high school I would basically do the same but there was no microphone there, it was just a milkshake and some French fries. Me and my friends would just sit around and talk about the bands that we like.” The two of them concede that they’re happy to have not yet reached that level of success met with potential hostility from the press. “We haven’t eaten many truffle fries yet” jokes Kip, hinting at the notorious M.I.A. interview in the New York Times. “That’s like a forbidden fruit!”
      We somehow start talking about the next Strokes release (Kip is a big Strokes fan), and at that point they reveal that they also started working on a new album themselves earlier this year. Kip: “It has been really fun, it was a different and exciting experience. We're gonna be finishing the album off after our touring is done, it will come out in 2011. We’ll see if we come out first or the new Strokes album. It’s like a little friendly competition.” I enquire about the writing process, was it different compared to when the first album was written? “A lot of the songs were written after our first album when we didn’t do any touring” explains Kip. “We’ve been working on them for a while, so it’s some sort of relief to finally get them recorded. Some of them are brand new though. The writing process was more or less similar to the first one but I feel it was also more informed by the experience of playing in front of people consistently and understanding a little bit better what kind of songs you wanna play in front of people every night.”
      During the course of the interview I learn that their families are very proud of what they’re doing and are generally supportive of them, Peggy’s mum always enquires about how the record is doing in Taiwan, and Kip’s grandparents even tried to order TPOBAH t-shirts in order to support their grandson. There’s so much more I could write here on these pages, but, alas, there just isn’t enough space. The band’s music mirrors the personalities behind it perfectly. They really are nice, natural and very witty people, happy to talk about anything you can possibly think of and grateful for the positive attention they have received so far. My initial fears about doing the interview were completely unfounded as it was held in a laid-back atmosphere, marked by lots of giggling and laughter; even my little recording device did a good job. So what is left to say? Another amenity, aside from smoking expensive cars etc., is that you get to interview some really cool people.

      'The Blue Album' remains Weezer’s biggest selling record. It had a famous producer (Ric Ocasek of ‘The Cars’), and some sublime songs. But it was Spike Jonze’s gimmicky music videos that kick-started sales. Buddy Holly, the second single taken from the album, became a hit after Jonze spliced the band into the set of 'Happy Days'. The song had geeky lyrics and direct hooks. Stuff like “Oh no, what’ll I do, don’t look now but I lost my shoe,” might not be inspired, but it’s fun, and the underlying theme of losers-against-the-world carries some weight.
      The next single was Say it Ain’t So, an impassioned document of front-man Rivers Cuomo’s turbulent past. “Like father, step father, the son is drowning in the flood,” cries Cuomo, before tearing out a solo that says just as much as the words. It did not have a gimmicky video, or funny lyrics, and sold poorly.
      ‘The Blue Album’ is a mixture of these two types of song – the facile and the fiery. It has some great hooks and some intelligent arrangements like the breakdowns on Surf Wax USA and Only in Dreams. It is both sides of the band and a great record.
      Cuomo, buoyed by what he saw as artistic success, decided to expose it all and show his inner self by recording a whole album of Say it Ain’t So-style songs. The band would produce the record themselves. It was called ‘Pinkerton’, after the famous private detective agency - only Cuomo was investigating himself, trying to find answers. The result is honest, intriguing and brilliant.
      From the first line of the first track it is clear that Weezer have evolved. “I’m tired, so tired, I’m tired of having sex... I’m spread, so thin, I don’t know who I am,” sings Cuomo, his voice reflecting the weariness of the words. As self-exposure goes, it is impressive. The album is often cited as a forerunner of Emo. But what Emo band would be willing to say something so odd, so poignant, and so...well, uncool? None, as far as I am aware.
      The revelations keep coming: “I shaved my head and try to be a monk, I thought the older women would like me if I did... you see mum, I’m a good little boy,” sings Cuomo on Across the Sea, before continuing, “I wonder what clothes you wear to school, I wonder how you decorate your room... I wonder how you touch yourself, and curse myself for being across the sea”. It is all part of a short musical breakdown that passes unnoticed on your first listen, but can move you close to tears when you sit and reflect on what Cuomo is saying.
      Across the Sea encapsulates everything good about ‘Pinkerton’. The chorus is catchy, but not inane. The words are an intelligent depiction of who Cuomo is. The musical expression is astounding – reminiscent of a Brian Wilson ‘pocket symphony’, with so much detail packed so perfectly into three minutes. Cuomo has taken his musical talents as a guitar player and arranger to a height barely hinted at on ‘The Blue Album’. Predictably, the album sales were poor. No famous producer, no zany videos from the set of 'Happy Days'. There was little for the music critic to write about... or rather, there was little that was easy to write about. So, taking the lazy route, critics cut it apart. ‘Pinkerton’ received the ignominy of being named Rolling Stones worst album of the year. The first single El Scorch' flopped and Cuomo went in to a self-imposed musical exile.

      I don’t wish to dwell on the legend that has grown up around Cuomo’s lifestyle following the failure of ‘Pinkerton’. You can read about all the things he may or may not have done (like painting the walls of his room black) online. The important thing is this: when he made his next Weezer record, he had learnt his lesson.
      Five years after ‘Pinkerton’, ‘The Green Album’ was released. It featured the same style of artwork as ‘The Blue Album’, the same famous producer (Ocasek) and the same wacky videos. However, the album was inferior in every way. The silly moments, like 'Hash Pipe', had none of the charm of similar songs on ‘The Blue Album’; they were just irritating. Cuomo realised that the biggest selling songs were the dumb ones, and by writing more of these his band would be accepted. “You’ve got your big cheese, I’ve got my hash pipe,” is typical lyrical content. There is no self-confession in any of the songs. You learn nothing new by listening to this album.
      Musically, the album is flat. The sound is heavily compressed, with no highs or lows. The satisfying breakdown passages that made ‘Pinkerton’ so beautiful are absent. Every single guitar solo follows the melody, removing all emotion from the playing. It is as though Cuomo had decided that he would show nothing, absolutely nothing, about himself on ‘The Green Album’. For all these defects it is still a decent record, and if I had never heard the first two Weezer albums I would probably like it a lot more.
      When I play ‘The Blue Album’, I feel happy. It is the kind of record that you sing along to on a long drive. When I play ‘Pinkerton’ it makes me want to write or to play the guitar – to do something creative. It is the sort of album you might play to a new girlfriend or boyfriend and get nervous, because you know if they don’t like it then you will like them a little bit less. Some records are bad, and deserve to get bad reviews. But when someone has produced a record that has tried to be honest, open and interesting it is not fair to lambast it. It should be respected, even if it is a bad album. At least they tried, they took a risk. To rate ‘Pinkerton’ as the worst album of the year is a stupid act. Incidentally, Rolling Stone would cite it as the 16th greatest album of all time only eight years later.
      The sad thing is that, because of the negative response to ‘Pinkerton’, Weezer never made any more records like it. They are now famous for making cliché-filled songs and irritating music videos. They have become a horrible caricature of the fun parts of ‘The Blue Album’.
      The lesson Cuomo learnt is that you need a famous producer, a famous label, meaningless lyrics and idiotic videos in order to succeed. You can’t explore new territory, either emotionally or musically, and you can’t do something unexpected. You might not like Weezer, but I am sure you have a band you like that this has happened to. I am not saying we can’t be critical of records. I am saying that when we are, we must take care. Specific styles of journalism and specific publications can end up killing anything half decent. It has no self-examination, no conception of irony. It really pisses me off. It should piss you off too.

      Wyeth's art has for a long time been subject to criticism, despite its popularity. As a realist, Wyeth created work in sharp contrast to the abstraction of his contemporaries - De Kooning and Pollock, for example - and was for much of the twentieth century derided by some as no more than an illustrator. But his painting is not mere illustration. Sober realism it may be, but as the artist himself says of his detractors; “I think it’s hard for them to discriminate between that [illustration] and the type of painting that I struggled to do, expressions of emotion and things that happened around me, whether it’s the death of a dog or a light on a branch or a leaf on the ground. Which is a very personal thing.” Maybe his work isn't exploratory enough for some, I don't know, but I have always loved it, ever since being stopped short by Christina's World whilst flicking through an art book at school. It's his most famous painting, and it is absolutely perfect. I wish it was hanging on my wall. The loneliness in that farmhouse, perched upon the ominous, high horizon, and the yearning conveyed by Christina, whose gaze toward it is not shown, is almost unbearable. It is an intense painting. You can feel the weakness in Christina's awkward thin little arm, and you can feel the the rough dryness of the grass, prickling. The canvas radiates a dry, buzzing heat.
      Despite its emotional intensity, there is a muted dullness to Christina's World, and to all Andrew Wyeth's monumental egg tempura and drybrush canvases. The colours are washed-out, faded, and the paintwork desperately dry. It is this dull dryness that makes Wyeth's art so evocative, pulling into in the mind half-remembered recollections of emotional isolation, and of long times spent alone in fields. Mirrors release their new single Ways To An End on the 23rd August through Skint

      Just to put this in context, “The Gang”, who between them run an Irish bar, are collectively responsible for trying to pick up girls at an abortion rally, encouraging under-age drinking and subsequently dating high school kids, lying about having cancer to get a girlfriend, pretending to be crippled veterans to pick up girls (notice any common theme here?), and kidnapping and torturing members of the public in a somewhat misguided attempt to make new friends. In fact they will each do just about anything for personal gain, including screwing over their own friends and family. Thankfully, and usually quite amusingly, they are for the most part as inept as they are sociopathic, frequently failing miserably at their objectives and ending up exactly where they were before. Or worse.
      The original pilot of the show was made using a digital camcorder for nothing more than the price of a couple of videotapes. On the strength of this pilot, FX commissioned the first seven episodes. Apparently disappointed with the commercial success of this first series, FX threatened to axe the show, until salvation came in the small, lumpy shape of Danny DeVito, who was a big fan of the early episodes and was very keen to join “The Gang” on a permanent basis. Once DeVito joins at the start of series two, the show kicks into overdrive and his character Frank, father of Dee and Dennis, multiplies the other characters’ depraved moral bankruptcy with an exponential enthusiasm.
      Frank’s arrival in the series kinda changes the show’s direction a little. He is a self-made multi-millionaire and provides the financial backing for the gang to undertake pretty much whatever hair-brained scheme they can conceive of. This freedom of choice might get a little annoying but it basically mirrors what has happened in real life, with DeVito allowing the show to continue with sufficient budget to take whatever direction its creators choose. In my opinion this allows the series to really take off and the addition of large quantities of money to the equation only helps to increase the level of greed and backstabbing, which in turn equals increased LOLZ. Plus Danny DeVito, who is always at home playing a scumbag, takes to his role with awesome gusto, creating a character so insanely depraved it makes his role in 'Twins' look like he was playing Mother Theresa.
     

     It’s no real surprise that “The Gang” have been drawn to the life of bar management, and that getting completely shitfaced often seems to be their only solution to life’s problems. When you really look at it these are some very unfortunate people, and life has thrown them all some serious emotional challenges. It’s hard to say whether one is a result of the other, whether their egotistical, evil outlook on life has dealt them this hand or vice versa. Situations like Charlie’s hopeless infatuation and almost complete lack of education, Dennis and his complete vacuum of love and affection for or from anyone but himself, Mac’s petty criminal father and alcoholic mother and Dee’s miserable, lonely childhood as the “aluminium monster” would be tear-jerkers in any other context, but somehow 'It’s Always Sunny…' manages to rise above this. Moments like Charlie seriously assaulting a Mall Santa (as our American cousins refer to them), eyes glazed over, screaming “DID YOU FUCK MY FUCKING MOM?” before biting him on the neck then being dragged off with mouth and chin dripping yuletide blood, are elevated far beyond slightly insane emotional turmoil and into the realm of pants-pissing comedy. If you weren’t laughing so goddamn hard you’d be sobbing into your early morning beer.
      So anyway, I highly recommend getting stuck into a slice of 'It’s Always Sunny...', although more than two or three episodes in one go is definitely a struggle. There is only so much you can take of a bunch of assholes shouting at each other before it gets too much. Stick with it though and you will be rewarded. Meeting the milk-drinking, dressing gown clad McPoyle family is a treat of rare proportions, Honey and Vinegar the maverick estate agents are pure unadulterated genius, and when Charlie puts on the stage performance “Dayman: The Musical”, I defy you to keep your underwear dry.

      Most of the instruments were performed by Copeland himself - even the typewriter - and his music communicates exactly how much influence he had over The Police’s sound. As a percussionist, Copeland is determined to keep a backbeat - not so forthcoming with loud snare rolls or abrupt crash cymbals - but instances like 'Biff Gets Stomped By Rusty James', 'Hostile Bridge To Benny’s' and 'Our Mother Is Alive' intensify his presence, to some extent.
      At the beginning of the album is the aforementioned Stan Ridgeway contribution, Don’t Box Me In. It being the only song with vocals, Ridgeway is there to tell as much as possible, using the obvious metaphors of fish and fish tanks, before Copeland delves into the incidental sounds of the everyday, a pool table and broken glass causing an interlude midway through Tulsa Tango.
      Aside from Copeland’s telling of the story, a comment on American music lies within his construct, his decisions crossing genres but not in an obvious manner. He translates them, keeping the bare essentials intact while fitting them into his concept. It’s actually remarkable to hear something like 'Our Mother Is Alive', a howling nighttime jazz instrumental whose slow and crawling low end somehow fits into his hurried trance-like beats. Even in its most pensive moments, 'Rumble Fish' relies heavily on quickness. The folkish Brothers On Wheels, whose car horn embellishments accent an acoustic six-string, is set to a clock. 'Your Mother Is Alive' keeps a high pace despite its pensive disposition and its haunting piano demands consideration.

      There is a necessary tension underlying the album as a whole, the lives of its characters at odds with each other, and self-doubt and insecurity breaking into each song. Father On The Stairs has lighthearted xylophone and readily breaks into a drunken reprise of the score’s theme. The carefree tone of Party At Someone Else’s House, laughter and party noise added for effect, still has an air of unease to it, especially once it breaks into Biff Gets Stomped By Rusty James, whose horn/piano coupling and fast percussion create an air of conflict. Personal Midget/Cain's Ballroom begins pleasantly enough and then transitions into a piano dirge that fades in and out atop a factory churn.
      Though grand in most ways, this score is understated next to the orchestrated efforts of composers like John Williams and Howard Shore. Copeland is a rock musician first and foremost - his style wasn’t going to morph into that of stiff upper lip tuxedo-clad sophistication - and he gave Coppola a universal soundtrack, something smart but accessible and properly fitting into the world of Rusty James (Matt Dillon) and The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke); the world they’re both trying so desperately to escape.
      In certain eras of filmmaking, trends influence how a movie is going to look and sound. In the '80s, for example, synthesisers seemed the way to go, monumental technology that powered many of the day’s “it” bands and communicated the plasticity and excess of the decade. Copeland’s music for 'Rumble Fish' was written more than twenty-five years ago, but it does not sound dated. Even though its industrial accents are run by old equipment and technology, Copeland’s music is integrated into a universal platform that many can appreciate and relate to. You can smell the air; feel the hard concrete under your feet. You can drink the water, breathe the dust and wash the mud off your hands. Most of all, you can be susceptible to its spell. As soundtracks go, this is one you listen to while watching the movie, almost being more affected by its tone than by its script.

words: joe rivers
score: 4/10 Amanda Palmer

After a protracted and well-documented battle, Amanda Palmer is free from her recording contract. Is there any better way of giving the middle finger to your previous employers than a leftfield project no self-respecting record company would go near - an album of Radiohead covers, played on the ukulele, at a cut-down price? Not even ten days after its release, the limited edition vinyl release sold out and the vinyl/t-shirt/button bundle has sold out. Hell, even all six “I Painted This Fucking Ukulele Myself” bundles have sold out.
      Unsurprisingly, however, upon listening to 'APPTPHOROHMU', it soon becomes clear that it’s little more than a stop-gap: something to stay in contact with her fanbase and make a statement with. It really is exactly what the title says; Radiohead songs played on the ukulele, and little else. The novelty of hearing these well-known songs on a relatively unusual instrument soon wears off and other than the contrast of having female vocals instead of Thom Yorke’s distinctive wail, there really is nothing added to the mix here.
      Fake Plastic Trees and High and Dry are fairly dull when stripped down, and without percussion they struggle to reach the emotional peaks of the originals. Creep is performed in a lilting, Hawaiian style and, for no apparent reason, there are two near-identical live performances - one with audience, one without. Give Palmer her dues though, her attempt to recreate Jonny Greenwood’s primal guitar sturm und drang is admirable, even if it does lack the nihilistic effect on a ukulele.
      Oddly enough, the least guitar-based song, Idioteque, is one of the highlights. Although it may lack the intensity and skittering beats of the 'Kid A' version, it showcases what a melodious piece of work it actually is. The only track fit to hold a candle to the Oxford band, though, is 'OK Computer'’s Exit Music (for a Film). It features no ukulele and is probably the only non-obvious choice on the EP, but it retains the drama and tension which makes the original so compelling.
      Other than to satisfy your curiosity, this EP really isn’t worth your time. A quick listen will just make you want to go and put your Radiohead albums on to hear it done properly. It’s hard not to admire her chutzpah though - to paraphrase words constantly misattributed to Voltaire: I may not agree with Amanda Palmer releasing an album of Radiohead covers played on the ukulele, but I’ll defend to the death her right to do so.

words: daniel dylan wray
score: 8/10

A lot of people have spent a lot of time writing a lot of words about Arcade Fire’s debut LP, 'Funeral'; and with good reason. While I don’t wish to go over old ground I feel it’s important to set the tone. 'Funeral' was a special record for many reasons - many reasons that actually transcended it’s merits musically. The thing about 'Funeral' was that it caught people off guard, it caught them at their most naïve, and, most importantly, in their least cynical mindset. It was this that transformed a simply wonderful record into record that created a moment of unity and allegiance with music lovers everywhere. Cynicism undoubtedly grows stronger with age - perhaps until you reach an age where you don’t care any more - but 'Funeral' eclipsed cynicism and turned an abundance of twisted frowns into a sea of dropped jaws. It was a moment in which it seemed everybody felt the same way about a record, not because it was a current fad hammered on Radio One, or because it was safe MOR music that was “nice”. It gripped an alternative nation, and in doing so garnered a ubiquitous and unrelenting praise amongst those masses that had not been seen since Radiohead, point being: new generation, new listeners, new level of excitement.
      It was at their shows that everyone would raise their hands and scream in unison with not a thought in the world, and those reserved, timid and anxious who normally skulk in corners would have fists pumped into the air like they were clasping for the last puff of air left to survive on this planet. The power of 'Funeral' was so strong that it created that rare and beautiful thing in which people harmoniously and unintentionally allow the music to exist through them, pure unadulterated joy at what they are experiencing, everything else left at home. The album made people forget their troubles because everything was okay when you listened to it - its sweeping statement blew you away and carried you to a land of purity, naïvety and bliss.
      People seem to keep their guards up a lot more these days, and when it comes to comparing moments to those mentioned above, they just don’t happen. So Arcade Fire, perhaps more than any other band around, have made the progression of their career somewhat difficult. In many ways it is selfish of us to want another 'Funeral', but such was its blistering effect that everybody secretly craves it. Realistically, however, we know it will never come - not because of any musical inability, but because there were too many forces working outside of that LP for its effects to be recreated. In many senses we must forget their past in order to properly view their future.

So, 'The Suburbs'…
      It is grand, but not in a way we know - illustrious and extravagant, but understated and well thought through. When I first heard lead single The Suburbs, I thought it was mediocre and almost throwaway, however, after repeated listens it has seeped into my consciousness without me knowing, like a stealth ninja, revealing its modest beauties and subtle delicacies. This can be said of the LP as a whole; it’s a creeper-upper. Most surprisingly for me are the album's nods to Springsteen, but for a band who deal in grandiose, thumping choruses by the bucket-load (much like the Boss himself) it’s the reserved, heartfelt and generally slower moments that seem to be under the influence, the unassuming yet wonderful Modern Man is a fine example of this.
      The album feels a little more at ease with itself than 'Neon Bible', which in retrospect - while it has its moments - feels a tad rushed, more like an album Arcade Fire expected Arcade Fire to make, rather than one they wanted to make. More is on offer here, in terms of palette and texture, and consequently the songs dip and swing between genres, from the throwaway garage-esque Month Of May to the rousing and synthetic Sprawl II, which sounds like it was lifted straight from The Knife's 'Deep Cuts', Regine’s voice almost matching that of Karen Andersson.
      The lyrics, while intended to be scathing, at times just come off as patronising and a little bit whiney, but that said there are also tender and honest moments that add a depth and beauty not quite displayed to such an extent on previous records. The decision to book-end the album is an interesting one, giving a sense of finality and accomplishment to the record and trapping its contents within the restraints of ‘the suburbs’.
      Much like the suburbs, all is not how it seems, and with its understated fragility, the record already feels like one that will sound better, more accomplished and more appreciated in years to come.

words: graeme’s greens
score: 8/10

Etchogon-S. y7. pce freeze 2.8i. rew(1). nth Dafuseder.b, iris was a pupil. no border. M62. ylm0. Cep puiqMX.
      A language showing the futility of the written word. If this be the reluctant dialogue when the taciturn Autechre speak, then how respond? If what they have created is unique and alien, why attempt to tether it with the drab words of an outmoded language? If they have moved so far past convention they inhabit a voiceless world, why call out to them? If they liberate us, why crawl back into our cells? Their words are a natural evocation of their music. M62 even gives us a geographical location to charge our imaginations, although how that stretch of tarmac butcher's block ended up here is anyone's guess - perhaps a slight ballast telling us that even such committed travellers, such unapproachable strangers, walk the same streets we do.
      Autechre are all problems and ideas even when as accessible as 'Move Of Ten', a record perhaps influenced by time on the road promoting the two month old 'Oversteps'. Even when riding a capricious beat and including familiar sounds, their defences are still high and require time and patience to overcome. Still sounding like the future, Autechre speak from an isolated distance without losing the detail and depth of what they create. Ruptures, sparks, decompressions and, most importantly, a host of previously unheard electronic sounds expand the horizons of their music. Melody is present in abundance, almost overwhelmingly so, but never mellifluous, always perverted. A true example of innovation, dedication and an unerring, questing artistic spirit.

words: jim flanagan
score: 5/10

It is often said that Romanticism, with its championing of folk art, arose as a response to the Industrial Revolution. A celebration of the non-professional “art of the people” seemingly untainted by the big, bad technology and creeping modernism seen to be swallowing Europe. What, then, are we to make of one of the biggest historical trends in recent music history? A desire from many artists to try and find a workable dialogue between folk art and technology. Many under the manta of the alt-country movement have dipped their toes (Wilco’s Jay Bennett period springs to mind), not to mention the ever increasing number of artists searching for a meeting point between folk music and blip-blip electronica.
      Canary Islands export El Guincho pushes this contradiction further than most on previous releases, but there is a markedly different focus on his new EP 'Pirates De Sudamerica Vol. 1'. His first two records found a successful way of incorporating Afro-beat, Tropicalia, the minimal folk traditions of Spain and South America, calypso, techno, and systems music into one largely irresistible melange of strangely hypnotic party music. If there was a criticism, it was that proceedings tended to sound a little single geared after a while – largely because they were – but there was real craft in the way Diaz-Reixa disassembled and reconstructed his myriad sound sources into something so easy on the ear; a bit like a Martin Denny record with its BPM increased rather substantially.
      The five tracks on offer here, however, are all covers of obscure or mid-level South American (mostly Cuban) songwriters of the 20th Century. This is a bit of a problem. The main attraction of his previous work was the way he applied his huge range of stylistic influences to achieve an almost trance-like state while actually employing only the most basic melodic and rhythmic material, but in choosing instead to cover other people’s more conventionally structured work, his ability to convey this disappears in a puff of (Cuban cigar) smoke. Stripped of this, Diaz-Reixa is left with little to do other than filter these admittedly lovely songs through a swath of effects and sprinkle his off kilter, self-consciously flat vocals across them.
      It’s not that the results are particularly poor, it’s just that, in denying himself his natural working methods, the interest is pretty minimal. He obviously possesses a formidable knowledge of the music of the region, and his taste is immaculate, with Cuerpo Sin Alma and Mientes particularly lovely. Unfortunately, though, it’s little more than an exercise in ethnomusicological window dressing.

words: daniel dylan wray
score: 9/10

I hate the whole “if so and so had a lovechild with x y and z and then dropped acid it would sound like this” bullshit, I really do, it's low. But for this interpretation, imagine if the quainter moments of Galaxie 500 and Mazzy Star had made a record together and how it would have sounded. Well, Lower Dens have come mighty close to making that element of wonder a tangible realisation with their debut LP. It’s such a soft record that it feels like it may dissolve in your CD player - like it’s held together by frayed cotton.
      This is a delicate, haunting and beautiful record. A rarity of a record, unassuming and reserved in its approach and yet persistently challenging and progressive - even if the tempos are a perpetual tease that leave you slumped waiting for the big chorus that never comes, being tormented has never sounded so sweet. Sadly, the album may suffer from the meteoric rise of Beach House following the release of 'Teen Dream' earlier in the year, as the comparisons are unavoidable and the songs on offer here are less digestible. However, if it’s oddities such as fractured guitar work and a palpable sense of dense atmosphere you crave, then this record may be for you.
      The production hums like a generator and carries the record to a higher level than the instrumentation and vocals have already. It’s sparse, subtle and surreptitious in all the right ways, and leads as much as it evades, leaving you in its grasp to study, observe and analyse - it's like being stuck in a thick fog all around you, infectious but unnoticeably so. The gorgeous Truss Me evokes the more stripped back, repetitive and poignant moments of The Velvet Underground, but with the lush, lingering vocals of Jana Hunter.
      However, for those thinking it’s all sugar sweet and whimsical, they also have a song called A Dog’s Dick which sees the guitars, bass and drums all turned up - the results sounding something like a lost Pixies B-side. The guitar play on Holy Water also displays a more visceral side of the group; the haunting cloaked hood of the band is almost taken off during the piercing guitar work. On balance, 'Twin-Hand Movement' owes as much to the influence of its predecessors as it does to the influence it will bestow upon its successors - a real gem of a discovery.

words: norbert roth
score: 8/10

Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam, a.k.a. M.I.A., is clearly a troubled person: first, her Born Free video was removed from YouTube shortly after being released due to its depiction of nudity and graphic violence, then came the feud with the New York Times Magazine in which she was portrayed as a pampered hypocrite at odds with her own radical political views, and now, on her new album ‘/\/\ /\ Y /\’, she has finally succumbed to conspiracy theories about the internet being connected to the government via Google. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the film ‘Conspiracy Theory’ in which Mel Gibson plays Jerry Fletcher, a lonely and paranoid taxi driver who lives in a world of self-spun, well, conspiracy theories, but for obvious reasons ‘/\/\ /\ Y /\’ reminds me of exactly that film.
      The album starts off with The Message, a short intro that informs you about said connection between “the Google and the government”, followed by Steppin' Up, a track that is heavily indebted to dubstep and features M.I.A.’s typical clattering sounds - drilling machines in this case - showcasing once more her affinity to the UK underground scene. Teqkilla and Story To Be Told are similar in their atonality, with beats which are as thick and dark as tar, and come closest to her signature sound.
      Yet while M.I.A. is eager to prove to the rest of the world that she hasn’t lost touch with the base, she reaches out into more radio friendly territories at the same time. XXXO, the first official single, is a massively catchy tune with Top 40 written all over it, while the plastic reggae of It Takes A Muscle proves that there is a lighter side to M.I.A.’s otherwise intense persona. In It Iz What It Iz, an unusually introverted and melancholic track, she’s at her most vulnerable, revealing “they all got issues but I got a bit more”. Yet, as if she wants to conceal a moment of weakness, it is immediately followed by ‘Born Free’, the punkiest, angriest track on the record. It doesn’t really matter in the slightest that it rips off Suicide’s Ghost Rider, as it is grittier, punchier and more danceable than the original.
      Yes, M.I.A. might be paranoid, even outright schizophrenic - so what? At least she has something other to say than the usual drivel abundant in today’s pop. And, just as I liked Jerry Fletcher in ‘Conspiracy Theory’, I like M.I.A. on ‘/\/\ /\ Y /\’. After ‘Arular’ and ‘Kala’, this is another remarkable album by a remarkable artist.

words: dan russell
score: 9/10

Bearing in mind how joyfully brilliant the songs on Magic Kids' debut 7” 'Hey Boy' were, and how Superball off their recent split single with Smith Westerns almost reached the same heights, after hearing the first song off their LP I was getting ready to ring the editor to run the possibility of a perfect score by him.
      All in all, they just fall short, as it’s not quite a flawless album. Indeed Magic Kids have a wide repertoire based around a pure pop template, from the orchestral to the sing-along, via an obligatory panty-peeler of a ballad. It’s just that, because the bulk of the songs have so many facets and ideas that a couple of others seem marginally weaker. Still, it’s a 100% listenable, happiness-inducing album all the way through. After the tracks that kick start side B, it is immaculate; the flow of the record throughout is perfect and conjures up all the feelings, from the wistful to the blissful, that accompany a meandering summer.
      A friend of mine asked “is this the Beach Boys?” whilst I was playing it on repeat, and in a band with at least one member mega-obsessed with the intricacies of that band’s entire discography, I’m sure it’d be taken as a pure compliment. The art of sweeping, soaring songcraft has been studied, honed and used to full, impressive effect here.
      My girlfriend said it sounded like the god awful American TV show 'Glee', which I’m less happy with, but I can sort of see her angle. The eleven songs here do have sweet vocal harmony choruses and the uplifting summer dream factor, true, but what sets them apart from 'Glee' is this: they aren’t total shit. The only bit that reminds me of TV at all is a distinctly Red Dwarf-esque turnaround in Sailin.
      Finally, calling such a glorious, uplifting, celebratory record 'Memphis' was a master stroke, given the scene they have grown up with. Whereas Jay Reatard’s Lost Sounds declared 'Memphis Is Dead' ten years prior, Magic Kids seem to have breathed new life into it - or at least exposed it to some more optimism.
      Comprising members of various Memphis bands whose common ground is their excellence - including Boston Chinks, Kazalok, Girls of the Gravitron and The Barbaras - Magic Kids have picked up where they left off. The Barbaras released one single, Summertime Road, that was a slice of pure Spector-in-overdrive joy. I wondered what they’d do next, and waited for an album. And waited. And waited. It never arrived, but luckily this record more than compensates for that, removing the fuzz and exposing polished pop perfection.

words: graeme’s greens
score: 8/10

'Infra'. A series of movements away and beneath rises from an endless static sea, a lone pianist bringing forth Schubert's 'Winterreise'. He meets mournful strings unperturbed by bird mass oscillations cavorting in their weightlessness. A brief distance from the swarming brings clarity and allows our pianist to bare his soul in a strident and plain spoken manner, a simple and familiar emotional barrage belittled not by these qualities. Following his confession, a darker, confined ambience envelopes, the humanity of strings is suffused, and a rhythmic, rising tear of compression accelerates. This is lent grace and movement by woven violins, and a soul by a cello.
      “A piece on the theme of journeys, like a road movie or a travellers notebook, or like the second unit in a film when the scene has been played and the image cuts away to the landscape going by.”
      A darker place is encountered, tighter static, possibly malevolent but still unable to suppress a resonating warm ring; both gradually lessen, leaving nought but one human sorrow held aloft by others like it. A sparse, distant interference occurs through a passage of fragile and tired expression before the mountain of history and human plight is seen, always growing. Its size cannot be taken in concurrently. A foundation for feeling old and new. Soaring grandeur and flailing sadness. Our protagonist collides with another before falling, crumbling into the static sea, cracked and consumed by the wind of sonic by-product. After the heat and solitude, familiar faces reappear but are changed by the shadows of the heights that were scaled. Here, movement is examined not ridden before everything is laid bare in a final, resolute but scared sinking.
      A meeting on the road of an old traveller in and with a new world. He's shone in an aged light and beautified modernity.

words: stagger lee
score: 8/10

The Megaphonic Thrift may sound like a range of vibrators that could be found in your local sex store, but they are actually a bunch of Norwegians in a band who are also members of Casiokids, The Low Frequency in Stereo and Stereo 21.
      Opener Acid Blues conjures up some rather wretched images based on its name alone, but is thankfully positively misleading. Instead of the sprawling and bloviated mass of obtuse noise you may expect, you get 2:38 of something that could literally be lifted straight from a Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr LP. The odd thing is, despite it being beyond derivative, there feels something invigorating in its delivery. It feels fresh and so, although it shares more than a few similarities, it does result in homage rather than pastiche. Exploding Eyes continues in the same manner, the vocals strangely sitting directly in between Thurston Moore’s and Kim Gordon’s. The pop undercurrent ravages through the song almost as ferociously as the delivery, and the sparse melodies that echo in the background are pure My Bloody Valentine.
      Just when you think things are heading down a one track path, the road forks and we have Everytime (Oxygen), a slow lamenting acoustic number that oddly enough resembles the baritone creak of Willy Mason - remember him? It’s a much needed and welcome departure that opens up the EP to a sense of diversity. Thankfully the following number, Mad Mary, also adds a sense of depth and texture to the EP; a subtle, enchanting nod to Built To Spill or even Yo La Tengo, it encompasses that fuzzy guitar that somehow remains simplistically and sweetly melodic the whole way. The EP has gone from guns blazing to modest understatement in just a couple of songs - it’s a pleasure to be taken on such a journey in such a short space of time. Mad Mary then bursts into flames and reignites the EP before the song dies.
      Son of J then continues with a ferocious blast of garage punk, again seeping '90s US alt from every orifice, but done with an intensity and conviction that really allows the listener to connect rather than turn their nose up. The EP is a gust of fresh air and a discharge of both sonic annihilation and reservation. It is revitalising and stirring to hear an EP that is as thought out and relaxed as it is full-throttle and cacophonic. A lesson in introvert intensity from the Norwegians' debut.

words: russell warfield
score: 7/10

PVT (formally known as Pivot) have changed a lot more than their name since we last met them. Their previous album ‘O Soundtrack My Heart’ was a collection of post-rock instrumentals built largely from guitar and drums. ‘Church With No Magic’ is comparatively more abstract, and the individual components of the songs a little more difficult to untangle. The new record swells and contracts with a more fluid sense of structure, while thicker mixes of synthesisers signify a vast musical overhaul for the band. It would seem that when PVT ditched their vowels, they ditched their guitars also.
      But just because this album is a little more abstracted than its predecessor doesn’t mean that it’s dehumanised in any way. As Timeless swells into its rave of a climax, we hear the unmistakable sound of musicians locking into a groove rather than of one person working alone on a laptop. Despite the veil of all the album’s new found electronics and filters, the listener never loses sight of the three men jamming together in a rehearsal space, cultivating and shaping these songs.
      None of this is to mention the most striking change between this album and the last: the inclusion of vocals. By and large, PVT choose to smoothly assimilate the voice into their music – employing the vocal as a lyrically meaningless layer of texture in their pulsating soundscapes. Occasionally, however, PVT throw a full on pop number at us, like the fantastic lead single Window. Opening with a voice accompanied by nothing more than a beat tapped out on a keyboard, PVT build the layers of the song up – both instrumentally and vocally – as they showcase the album’s strongest vocal refrains. After collapsing in on itself with a false ending, the song suddenly redoubles its efforts by kicking into deeper grooves and syncopated backing vocals for an infectious rush to the finish.
      This album is another small stitch in the patchwork of the post-'Merriweather Post Pavilion' musical landscape we have found ourselves inhabiting. As with so many other bands over the last year or so, PVT have realised that a record doesn’t have to be deliberately obscure to be interesting, and that accessibility and disposability are not synonymous. As a result, PVT take a large stride sideways and a giant leap forwards with 'Church With No Magic' – a record which is at once more inviting than PVT’s previous output, as well as being markedly more mature and engrossing.

words: andrew hirst
score: 8/10

Almost four years in the making, 'Disconnect from Desire' is a strikingly coherent return for a band which originally began as a one-off collaboration between Secret Machine’s Benjamin Curtis and On!Air!Library!’s Alejandra and Claudia Deheza. Given this, and the critical praise heaped on their debut 'Alpinisms', it was always going to be intriguing to see how their sophomore effort turned out. Thankfully, they don’t disappoint. 'Disconnect from Desire' feels like the product of a settled, mature band, and a worthy successor to their debut.
      The haunting dual vocals of twin sisters Claudia and Alejandra have always struck me as something akin to siren song; listening to School of Seven Bells often leaves me in a vaguely trance-like state, unthinkingly drawn into the sisters’ sweet musical embrace. There is nothing particularly outstanding about what School of Seven Bells do - their brand of sweet, shoegaze-y electro-pop has been overdone of late (Dust Devil begins very much in The Knife's territory, and ILU bears a striking resemblance to M83) - but those vocals, those strangely beautiful melodies drifting over the music... they do something to me. I almost feel sorry for Benjamin Curtis. He contributes to the overall sound as much as Claudia and Alejandra, but he doesn’t really seem as important. He seems to work tirelessly in the background, wilfully allowing the siren song to come to the fore and draw in unsuspecting listeners.
      Aside from the vocals, School of Seven Bells succeed where many similar bands fail, in that they seem to have mastered the art of the catchy hook. 'Alpinisms' is, at heart, an album with very strong pop sensibilities, but on 'Disconnect from Desire' the songs are less immediate and the hooks take a while to sink in. This has the effect of making the dreamy shoegaze elements more prominent, as we end up focusing less on the melodies and more on the overall sonic atmospherics of each song. Furthermore, it is much more obvious on 'Disconnect from Desire' that Curtis was a member of rhythm-obsessed Secret Machines - many songs feature prominent pounding rhythms coupled with skulking synth basslines in an aesthetic almost totally absent from 'Alpinisms'. Whether you consider this a successful development or not will depend on what aspect of their sound you prefer. For me, this aural shift feels like a natural development from their debut, and I applaud them for trying something slightly different.
      'Disconnect from Desire', then: dirtier, dreamier, fewer obvious hooks, but equally hypnotic.

words: graeme’s greens
score: 5/10

What to do with an album which fails to assert itself onto you. When you have respect for an artist's music you find yourself searching within it, grasping at phrases and sounds which never quite bypass your mind and mingle directly with your emotion. Perhaps, if the quality is seen but not felt, the release should be filed away, but that doesn't silence the nagging doubt that you've missed something; that it's not the music that is incomplete but your appreciation of it. To me 'Treasure State' is this kind of release.
      Matmos are a little flat here, reserved maybe. At times they create well but what they hold in character they lack in weight, perhaps out of deference for So Percussion's part in the proceedings; a smorgasbord of unsurprisingly percussive elements through which, whilst enjoyable to hear (the steel drum openings in particular), there always lingers a sense of something missing, an empty seat or a unifying idea which could pull the whole project together into something more timeless. That is an unfair criticism, as these records have their place in the fabric of musical culture, but you can't help hear that missing element, long for it to appear. I'm left with the feeling of witnessing the selection of a palette, a laying out of the tools - not that the music is demo-like, it just feels like suggestions rather than resolutions, with lots of avenues open but none walked down far enough. A curious feeling when you are presented with eight tracks of undoubtedly finished material.
      Essentially non-essential but well worth a listen, 'Treasure State' recalls an instrumental Super Furry Animals less familiar with the Beach Boys, and holds a fascinating missing element - something I last experienced listening to the Sparklehorse and Fennesz collaboration, 'Fishtank'.

words: jim flanagan
score: 7/10

Men in nice shirts playing guitars and singing songs aren’t exactly an endangered species in the universe, and as popular music has splintered off into an ever increasing number of genres, sub-genres and micro-genres, the iconography of acoustic guitar clad males has become increasingly difficult to place. For the music critic, this is a dangerous state of affairs. We are essentially an indolent lot, all too keen most of the time to apply a haphazard generalisation, lazily associate an artist with a wholly inaccurate genre, or skew of supposed kindred spirits. Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek is a good case in point. Ostensibly, he is to be thrown in with the Will Oldhams, Bill Callahans and Samuel Beams of this world. See, there we go again: lumping three hugely distinctive singer-songwriters together, all of whom share little apart from a literary, predominantly acoustic approach to songwriting.
      This is particularly pertinent when reviewing the music of Koselek, an artist for whom the usual iconography is hugely misleading. He was of course the chief songwriter and vocalist of the much loved Red House Painters, but then they fell out and so he went solo. He released a few albums then formed Sun Kil Moon, but the new Sun Kil Moon record features nothing but Koselek’s solo guitar, original songs and vocals. But it’s not a Koselek solo record - it’s Sun Kil Moon. Make sense? Not a whole lot.
      Fortunately the music of new record 'Admiral Fell Promises' speaks for itself, a highly deceptive collection of songs that indicates an abrupt departure from previous recordings under the Sun Kil Moon name, stylistically as well as in the personnel involved. There is none of the driving '70s period Neil Young muscularity here, in its place is a sophisticated guitar technique sitting somewhere between Paco De Lucia, Richard Thompson and Giant Sand. It provides a fluid and textured backdrop to Koselek’s limited but hugely evocative voice and lyrics - the latter overwhelmingly concerned with internal domestic dramas usually occurring in large cities. There are nice contrasts at play here between the warmth and pastoral overtones of the playing and the quiet urban drama of the lyrics. If it’s all a little mannered and lacking in dramatic shading, that’s no bad thing. The kind of miniaturised storytelling Koselek trades intentionally avoids drawing direct attention.
      This is deceptive music largely devoid of fireworks and exceedingly difficult to categorise, in the best possible way. Just a collection of carefully crafted pieces designed to reward those patient enough to delve into Koselek’s unique musical landscapes.

words: michael waters
score: 9/10

The latest instalment in The Books' library is tinged with a more prominent sense of humour than previous output. Although past work has seen such priceless comedy-poignancy collisions as Motherless Bastard and All Our Base Are Belong To Them, this record is more openly playful. This is demonstrated in no small part by A Cold Freezin’ Night, throughout which adorable children’s voices spew threats of violence, to hilarious effect, whilst quick quasi-improvised clacking drives the track toward its comedic close: “I’m gonna rip your hair off, you’re gonna be bald, and everybody’s gonna think ‘Ahh, look at Meredith, she’s an idiot!’”. Another overtly tongue-in-cheek number is The Story of Hip-Hop, which I shall refrain from spoiling.
      Group Autogenics parts I and II - which take spoken samples exclusively from old autogenic therapy VHSs found in thrift shops - open and close the album, introducing the comedy element without hesitation. Although one could argue that the unconcealed humour exemplified by lines like “the average human being only uses about 5% of their brain; the other 95% is available for... food” constitutes a flight of subtleties, there is no question the duo are having a lot of fun.
      This album highlights more than ever the band’s uncanny finesse for matching the rhythms and pitches of the music to those of the found samples - a treatment arguably first explored in Steve Reich’s 'Different Trains' and certainly one appropriated by The Books from the get go. 'I Am Who I Am' sees stonking rave-like bass and wooden clatters brutally attack each syllable of archaic oration with startling accuracy, and the results are inspiring and menacing in equal measure.
      The use of found audio was at the forefront of their work until 2005’s 'Lost And Safe' on which it stepped back, if only slightly, to make room for Nick Zammuto’s breathy, exacted vocal. The band’s escapist placing of lo-fi, anachronistic samples reclaims the throne on this record, but thankfully we still get to hear Zammuto’s voice on We Bought The Flood on which he silkily whispers existential lyrics reminiscent of Smells Like Content from aforementioned 2005 record.
      'The Way Out' may be the most refined and fascinating work yet from an unashamedly cerebral act. The Books have consistently been nothing short of sonic architects, and any attempt to stylistically place their music in relation to that of other artists quickly becomes both problematic and useless. The see-saw of intellectualism and chuckling indulged in by the band is highly engaging, and it can perhaps be encapsulated by Paul de Jong’s claim, during their Manchester show this May, that the universe is in C#, but 79 octaves down.

words: norbert roth
score: 9/10

There are certain bands who seem to manage effortlessly what most bands miserably fail to accomplish, namely combining musical styles which should, in theory, be incompatible. The Chap are one of these rare artists, and although they aren’t exactly a band whose output is easy to digest, they far from cause you headaches either - on the contrary. Their blend of obscure pop, angular rock, electronica and whatnot is refreshing and works surprisingly well.
      ‘Well Done Europe’ is The Chap’s fourth full-length album (their 2008 mini-album ‘Builder’s Brew’ not counted) and easily their most accessible to date. While earlier releases were full of dissonant chords, experimental song structures and weird sounds, the London five-piece go for a more straightforward pop approach on their latest offering. Of course, given this is The Chap, “straightforward” here is relative. Opener We’ll See To Your Breakdown makes it clear from the get go who you’re dealing with: trademark dadaistic lyrics over a rugged beat, with sparse yet accentuated violins building the framework. Nice, but something you’d expect from them.
      But hang on, a real surprise comes as early as song number two, Even Your Friend, which is unashamedly catchy and poppy. A proper summer hit from The Chap? Oh yes! It takes some time for this little gem to sink in, as it seems so unremarkable at first, but hear it a second and a third time and the chorus will fully unfold, making you addicted to one of the stand-out tracks of this album. We Work In Bars and Obviously continue this flirtation with pop, adding to the already prevalent summery and breezy feel of the record.
      As soon as you get used to this newly found pop sentiment though, The Chap, with their desire to surprise and confuse, manage to sneak through the back door unnoticed and reveal themselves once more as masters of quirky, intelligent music. While Gimme Legs, for example, begins as a chilled out track carried by a relaxed beat and bassline and boasting a truly remarkable surf-rock guitar riff, the tension builds and it culminates in lots of distorted guitar and screaming.
      Although The Chap’s music might have been diverted into more commercial regions, their lyrics certainly haven’t. They are sharp observers of modern life, cleverly mocking everything from love to corporate speak and back, all dryly delivered. ‘Well Done Europe’ makes for highly entertaining listening and never fails to surprise on every level. Well done The Chap!

words: norbert roth
score: 7/10

I have to admit, when the The Hives’ ‘Veni Vidi Vicous’ was released a decade ago, it was one of my favourite records for the following years to come. It was played so many times in our house that eventually even my two nieces became big fans; they were only eight and ten years old at the time. When the younger one was once asked what she wanted to be when she grew up she replied “a punk rocker.” This, I can assure you, can all be blamed on The Hives. I spoke to my niece again recently, now a grown-up punk rocker, and she told me about her disapproval of their last record, ‘The Black And White Album’, as it was too experimental for her liking.
      My niece had a point though: ‘The Black And White Album’ felt a little bit forced in its effort to expand The Hives’ sound, and there were indeed some awkward moments on it. Whilst it is okay to try and progress and develop, it wasn’t done very convincingly. I have good news for her now, because the band are back on track with ‘Tarred And Feathered’, an EP consisting of three cover versions.
      The first track, a cover of Civilization’s Dying by Zero Boys, suits this Swedish five-piece just perfectly. In fact, it could easily pass as one of their own compositions; a fine two minutes of pure, blistering pop-punk with a catchy and cheeky chorus about “the pope and the president and the big rock star”. In their rendition of Early Morning Wake Up Call, a song by Australian new-wavers Flash and the Pan, they prove that they are, and always have been, more than merely a garage rock band. It’s successful in that it keeps the right balance between the original pop version and The Hives’ very own sound, showcasing that they haven’t only been raised on a diet of the Stones, the Sonics et al. The last song on this EP, Strange Secretary of Joy Rider & Avis Davis, is a bit of a let down though. While the original is a primitive yet charming NYC three-chord punk-rock stomper mainly dominated by Joy Rider’s female vocals, it is here just a primitive three-chord punk-rock stomper. Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, well, howls and the band simply fails to achieve what made the song so special in the first place.
      Nonetheless, this EP is fun, albeit clocking in at just over eight minutes. My niece will be pleased about The Hives’ return to form.

words: juan edgardo rodríguez
score: 7/10

Nathan Williams, everyone’s favourite thalassophobe, makes a big case about transmitting true feelings to his most faithful listeners. There’s no denying that his straightforward and catchy tunes are appealing to a niche audience, whether they're about drinking with the buds, smoking some dope, or touching upon privileged kids’ oh-so-serious preoccupations. If music is about creating little inarticulate vignettes, then Williams truly deserves to be dubbed an overlord to the young and disillusioned.
      Even if 'King of the Beach' dazzles with sheer stupidity, Williams balances his nonchalant musings by delivering some catchy hooks from time to time - broken down in third grade sentence structures to fit the impulsive verses. Even if his callous, male bimbo expressions prove differently, Williams really seems to be duelling with his personal crossroads. Aloof as he may aspire to be, he’s painfully self-aware of his expectations, knowing that keeping his screws too loose could potentially end his career. With some Tylenol in hand, those morning downer sessions must totally be about how overwhelmed and gleeful he feels with all the praise he’s been receiving, intent on passing through the day with the prerequisite of having fun.
      Musically, Williams’ hook-driven delivery works when he’s at his most rambunctious. His speciality remains blasting through some hyper-catchy surf-pop that mimics Jay Reatard’s sharp arrangements. This time, to abandon his GarageBand induced lo-fi beginnings, producer Dennis Herring adamantly ditches the demo quality of his past work to give the songs a brighter allure, switching Williams’ harmonies to the forefront. Though tracks like Super Soaker and Post-Acid are listenable munchies of sun-soaked pop, the rest of the production is overcast with awkwardly executed stomp-along sonic textures that drought his merry parade. Williams definitely plastered Panda Bear’s fidgety breakdowns throughout the forthright compositions to present them with more appeal.
      'King of the Beach' is full of self-deprecation from an overgrown child who still can’t fathom that the mid-twenties are knocking on his door. Williams’ songs can be occasionally contagious, especially when he brings to life child-like references from his upbringing that only function inside the context of his own psyche. It is difficult to admit that if you take his on-screen (not to mention, true life) persona out of the equation, then 'King of the Beach' could really hit a nerve, if you make an effort to feel empathy for his inoffensive sincerity. Joke or not, that’s beside the point.

words: sean caldwell
score: 8/10

Revivalism seems to suit Jack Tatum well, his stint as Wild Nothing a veritable mixtape of his musical fascinations, which seem purely bred by Manchester’s Factory’d brethren. His Wild Nothing debut, “Gemini,” attempts an appreciably Americanized translation of this era, crafting light and airy notes of thanks to the likes of Johnny Marr (Our Composition Book) and New Order (Bored Games).
      Immediately, the problem with “Gemini” is that it follows a path free of impediment, Tatum’s ease of exploring established terrain a possible distraction from his actual songwriting. Songs like Drifter and Confirmation move so clearly backward in time that an act of reminiscence or response to familiarity is triggered without effort, even from songs didn’t exist thirty years ago.
      From that perspective, you can accredit Tatum as a musician that knows what he’s doing and knows what he’s going for. There is genuineness to “Gemini” in that it sounds of its time, albeit to a fault.
      But, “Gemini” also benefits from a general enjoyment factor, a pop sound that fulfills its requirement of sounding “agreeable” while maintaining its necessary indie cred. Once Live In Dreams fades in, it is one pleasantry after another: lovely melodies and atmosphere thick with vocal harmony and layered guitars.
      Summer Holiday is hard not to like, an up tempo shoegazer that appropriately couples hints of six-string atonality with a lushness of mood. It’s the type of song that can make you involuntarily smile. It just sort of makes you feel good.
      With Pessimist, Tatum moves off the page a little bit and experiments, though not to any extreme that disrupts the album’s cohesion. An organ and mild pulsation its selected devices, with a minor passage of bell play in between, Pessimist is notable but interlude-worthy, similar to Of Montreal’s Sink The Seine from “Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?” It provides pause from the indie pop until O, Lilac, which is synth pop for folk fans.
      Tatum also gets inventive with The Witching Hour; high-timber strings follow the vocal above guitar-oriented fluttering in the background, meshing persistent yammer with careful phrasing. The effect is interestingly understated despite how crowded it should sound.
      “Gemini” is something you’ve heard already, an unfair assessment being that all art is inspired by what came before. But, on the surface, Tatum’s homage seems more than just homage and that, unfortunately, is what’s going to keep “Gemini” from being as great as it could be. Having said that, “Gemini” is also beautifully crafted and smartly aware. Looking deeper into Tatum’s marriage with nostalgia, Wild Nothing could be more than the byproduct of fandom. It could be the wish for a better mainstream.

words: adam boult
date: 8th August 2010

The Dandy Warhols have been around for 17 years now; a pretty good innings for a band who's most notable achievements have been soundtracking a mobile phone advert1 and appearing in another band's documentary2. Nearly two decades into their career they've produced a handful of great singles and some average albums that have won them a pretty dedicated fan-base - a fairly modestly sized one, but nevertheless substantial enough to sell out the 1400-capacity Koko on a Sunday night.
      Never a band to go in for audience interaction (or even acknowledgement) in a big way, the first several songs are reeled out in an almost perfunctory manner, and it feels as if they're treating this more as a practice than a gig. Their apparent ennui is probably more to do with tiredness than disinterest - tonight is the final date in a tour that has taken them all over western Europe - but there's nary a hummable chorus for the first half hour or so, and a few mutterings at the back of the venue suggest the evening might be turning out to be something of a washout.
      Musically they turn in a slick but undistinguished performance, with little to differentiate it from gigs they were playing to support the release of 'The Dandy Warhols Come Down' in the late '90s3. It's no great shakes visually either, the band apparently not having managed to develop much stage presence in their years of touring.
      However, things do pick up around half way through. Frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor introduces some special guests in the shape of the horn section from The Specials. The addition of newcomers to the stage apparently adds enough frisson to get the band visibly more engaged. At last they play some hits. The naysayers at the back stop their muttering as three come along in rapid succession - Every Day Should Be A Holiday, then Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth, then Bohemian Like You. “This is brilliant!” shouts a refreshed concert-goer at the bar at the back. It's not, but it's good enough.

1. Their single Bohemian Like You became a huge hit after appearing in a Vodafone ad screened across Europe and Australia.
2. Ondi Timoner's excellent 'DiG' focussed primarily on the Brian Jonestown Massacre, early contemporaries of the Dandys.
3. The first time this reviewer saw them was on this tour, at Southampton University 29/4/98. A large proportion of the audience had only bought tickets after the NME told them that keyboard player Zia McCabe usually got her boobs out on stage. She didn't that night.

words: daniel dylan wray
date: 25th July 2010

My previous experiences of Echo & The Bunnymen live can be split into two camps: awful and amazing. The awful occasion being Glastonbury years ago, Ian McCulloch being painfully obnoxious and drunk to the point of tedium. The amazing being at Benicassim festival, his voice soaring through the muggy Spanish air and wrapping itself around the ears of anybody in its path. So, I approached tonight with some trepidation, especially with the length of time since they put out any strong material growing by the day now.
      Opening with Lips Like Sugar, McCulloch skulks and scowls behind his shades, a trail of cigarette smoke and a flailing trench coat in his wake. Oddly enough it’s the visceral, thrashing, piercing sounds of the early post-punk Bunnymen that really steal the show tonight, Will Sergeant seamlessly emitting a wall of noise that lies somewhere between the late, great Ron Asheton and sparkles of Thurston Moore. The keys tonight are pure Doors, and it is still clear how indebted to them they are as a band, however, it’s the brutal cut throat performances of All That Jazz, The Cutter and Do It Clean that eclipse the more psychedelic leniencies, and even the beautiful The Killing Moon falls somewhat flat. Perhaps reinvigorated by their current tour of old albums, it has surged a new life into that aspect of their music. For their encore, they come out and play a cover of The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting For The Man accompanied by Richard Hawley on guitar. Guess which douchebag thought the show was over, decided to beat the crowds, and subsequently missed that bit? I hear it was good, but I’ve never heard a decent Velvets cover to this day, so I remain unconvinced. But for tonight they proved there is still life in the old bunny yet.

words: robert george saull
5th August 2010

“We're gonna start with a song in seven time, and if any of you try to clap along in four we will immediately stop playing and leave the venue.”
      As opening statements go, Jeremy Barnes does not seem to be wanting to ingratiate himself much with the crowd. Not that the obsequious and diverse clientèle in the Harley seem to mind. The venue is packed full of musos, hippies, world music fans, and indie kids who fell in love with Barnes' old band, Neutral Milk Hotel. Onstage, the five members of A Hawk and a Hacksaw draw in folk instrumentation from all over the world, with accordion, trumpet, a Turkish darbuka, a Greek Bouzouki, and Barnes' wife Heather Trost, alternating between violin and a stroh violin (a bizarre Romanian folk violin with a metal trumpet horn, featured famously in the Tom Waits album 'Alice').
      The band are not, however, “world music snobs”. Musically they channel a desperate fervour and glorious musicianship which is unparalleled in the “indie” world. Indeed, many of the aforementioned NMH fans seem slightly taken aback by the combination of Balkan gipsy-folk, klezmer, and middle-eastern melody. At their core, however, these songs strike a natural chord in the heart, and very early in the set, the front row of nervous hippies start shuffling and swaying in time (in seven time, that is).
      In considering the band, it is very difficult to resist referring to the band's old compatriot Zach Condon of Beirut, the man who almost single-handedly brought Balkan folk to the Western pop consciousness, but AHAAH have always been a more interesting, and, for better or worse, more authentic group of musicians. In fact, over the last few years, the band's sound seems to have migrated further south from its Balkan roots, drawing in Greek, Israeli and Turkish styles, and these new styles seem to have enhanced the almost hallucinogenic feel of the previous albums. The material played is almost exclusively from latest album, 'Délivrance', which isn't a bad thing. While previous records 'Darkness at Noon' and 'The Way the Wind Blows' set out the band's stall well, it is in the more recent compositions that they are really looking forward, producing a more cohesive synthesis of various traditional sounds.
      The reason A Hawk and a Hacksaw make such an engaging and enjoyable live show is not so much to do with the other-worldly feel of foreign scales and melodic interplay, nor is it even really to do with the style and finesse with which they all handle their instruments, but it is more the dance party atmosphere that hums through the venue. Like a clash of whirling dervishes, Jewish wedding dancers and intoxicated Romanians, the room sways and undulates with aeons of international folk dance, directed by the hearts and hands of one of the most interesting American bands around.

words: andrew hirst
date: 25th July 2010

Playing to a packed out Corporation, Future of the Left are one of the most eagerly awaited bands of the whole Tramlines festival (that is, for those of us who aren’t overjoyed at the thought of seeing Craig David or Tinchy Stryder) and so the excitement in the room is positively brimming. This gig is part of the post-Kelson Matthias tour, and so many of us are also waiting to see how the new line-up performs. It’s good, then, to see that new bassist Steven Hodson fits into Matthias’s shoes rather well, joining in with Andy Falkous’s snarling cynicism and bouts of insulting the crowd (and, more importantly, playing the bass parts rather well).
      This gig turns out to be full of surprises. Firstly, Falkous unveils the new fourth member for a few new tracks. These tracks, however, prove to be uninteresting for the most part, with little of the madcap angularity or the deceptively catchy hooks we’ve grown to expect. Instead they mostly consist of straightforward hardcore thrashing, with little rhythmic or melodic deviation. The exception to this is the refreshingly bizarre destroywhitchurch.com, which features everything we expect from a FOTL song before mutating into a sparse rant for its final 3 minutes, filled with nonsensical rambling centred around spelling out the song’s title letter by letter. Secondly, there is no Manchasm, the keyboard having broken the week before. The band make no mention of this, however (I only found out from my girlfriend who saw them in Manchester on the day of the keyboard’s death), and just play on as if the song never existed. Thirdly, in a shocking move, they play three McLusky songs: Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues, To Hell With Good Intentions, and Collagen Rock. This makes one half of the audience squeal with glee and the other look nonplussed, illuminating the difference between the FOTL fans who are essentially hanging on after the demise of McLusky and the newer fans who regard the older band as an inferior version of FOTL. The decision to play these songs is a particularly surprising one, given Falkous’s previous public slatings of McLusky. Perhaps he’s finally started to like his old band again?
      Despite all this, the main thing that has stayed in my mind since this gig is how much Falkous sweats on stage. Seriously, he is like a tap. He just GUSHES. I’ve seen my fair share of bands who throw every last bit of energy they have into their performances; screaming, jumping, dancing, hitting, running etc., sweating copiously the whole way through, but nothing quite prepared me for the sweaty onslaught of Andy Falkous.

words: andrew anderson
date: July 16th-18th 2010

What makes a good music festival? Good bands, cheap booze and nice weather…anything else is a bonus. For KATP I travelled to Pitchfork music festival - held in Union Park, Chicago - to see whether it could provide me with these things. They couldn’t. Here is my report:
      Pavement played and Pavement were great, really great. But one band doesn’t make a festival. The other major act, LCD Soundsystem, headlined on Saturday night. I expected everyone else would be as appalled as I was by this booking, but no. “They aren’t really an electro group when they perform live,” said one festival-punter that I was eavesdropping on, “they are more of a rock band live.” I heard this sentiment repeated by several different people. Had they all gone mad? What is the definition of a rock band these days? LCD Soundsystem are not a rock band, nor did they rock on Saturday. They were no better than their records, which depending on your taste are either “genius” or “irritating as hell” (I fall into the latter). I was genuinely disappointed with almost the entire line-up. Having said that, Kurt Vile was pretty good, so was The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. I can think of no other acts of note.
      The thing that really pissed me off was the all-inclusive-lifestyle bullshit that Pitchfork insists on pedalling. Listen to these bands, wear these t-shirts, buy this beer: An all in one cool-credo. Everywhere I looked I saw hats with small brims, vegan food, imported (well, not really, but the name is foreign) beer, T-shirts with piss-poor attempts at irony. In fact, Pitchfork had erected a tent that catered to every element of personal expression - be it clothes, posters or home-made jewellery - that pretends to be one-of-a-kind but really isn’t. It was like a farmers market of fashion, as though Vice had developed some horrible cloning machine that was unleashing pretentious wankers on the world.
      I hate to say it, but I actually missed the look-how-zany-I-am dudes with dreadlocks, fifteen-year-old Goths and sweaty metal-heads that frequent other corporate gatherings of generic bands. However, the price gouging was exactly as I remember it being at other festivals. They made me turn over all my currency for “tickets”, which I could exchange for food and drink. A small glass of beer was $5. A burger was $6. For fuck's sake.
      The weather, however, was nice. Pavement, as I said, were the highlight. But the unquestioning acceptance of the lifestyle that Pitchfork want to sell made me very angry. It is sameness being sold as individuality, blandness as character. It is not what I expected from a company that is supposed to unearth new and interesting music talent.

words: norbert roth
date: 29th July 2010

When The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart released their self-titled debut album last year, it was generally well received across the music world, even earning them a ‘best new music’ tag from the behemoth of indie itself, Pitchfork. And rightly so: their take on fuzzed out shoegaze combined with sugary sweet melodies was indeed enthralling. However, there has always been another dimension to this band that sets them apart from contemporaries like, say, Crystal Stilts: a youthful, romantic, almost naïve exuberance that exhales from every guitar chord and chorus, and that even comes across in their elaborate band name. So let’s see if this young bunch from Brooklyn can hold up live to what it seems to promise on record.
      First on are Yuck though, who start playing to a room that is only gradually swelling with punters. In Daniel Blumberg and Max Bloom the band comprises two former members of the now defunct Cajun Dance Party. Unlike their first band, Yuck make music that owes a lot, hell, almost everything, to American bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. Yes, they are loud. Yes, the music is alright. Yes, the other members, a Japanese girl on bass and a drummer with a massive ‘fro, look quite cool, too. They tick all the right boxes, yet in doing so they somehow untick them all at the same time. Everything’s too safe and predictable, and already the band seems to have noticed this themselves, judging by their limp performance tonight.
      By the time TPOBPAH enter the stage, Heaven is fully packed and the air electrified with anticipation. Starting off with Young Adult Friction, they have the audience immediately at their feet and continue to do so throughout the rest of the set. Contender, Come Saturday and This Love Is Fucking Right all follow in quick succession and even get the notoriously lethargic London audience moving. The middle of the set is surprisingly marked by a new song, The Heart In Your Heartbreak, which is a much noisier and altogether rockier affair than anything from their debut. Kip, Peggy and co. clearly have a good time on stage and seem to enjoy every minute of it. That’s the thing about this band; they all come across as so unpretentious, natural and… pure. They finish their joyous set after 45 minutes, returning for an encore of two more new songs. Afterwards, Kip mingled with the crowd, happy to talk to anyone around; judging by the constant grin on his face, it wasn’t only a great night for me.

words: daniel dylan wray
score: 1/10

Go for a walk, take a shit, run a bath, have a really good long hard think, read a book, bake some fresh bread, stare at a tree, stare at a wall, masturbate, play solitaire, sit in silence, dance, listen to static, clean out the fridge, learn swearwords in a foreign language, write a short story, stick a finger up your anus, crawl around on all fours pretending you are a dog, reorganise your sock draw, have a good cry, call your mum, start a cult, draw a really good picture, have a glass of tap water, eat some tofu, commit bestiality, shoplift something, do some star jumps, shout really loudly, turn off all the lights, meditate, learn the banjo, examine your testicles thoroughly, mow the lawn, look directly at the sun, go to a concert, stare at an empty stage, chop some vegetables, go on a chat room, listen to running water, make some eggs, crow like a rooster, setup booby traps in the style of home alone for your housemate, watch home alone, smoke a joint, drink some rum, have a tickle fight, play hide and seek, read kicking against the pricks, start a fire, eat sand, lock yourself out of the house just so you have to try and get back in, make farting noises with your armpit, dress up as your old favourite wrestler, eat some fruit, make prank phone calls to random businesses, light a candle then blow it out and repeat, turn the oven on and stick your head in it. ALL of the above are wiser things to do than spend an hour and a half in the company of Adam Sandler and his bumbling moronic pals in this coming of (middle) age abomination of a film. It’s crass, soulless, sickening and wretched filmmaking at it’s very worst.

words: ed attlee
score: 6/10

Women, poetry, cigarettes and music. The life of Serge Gainsbourg was made for film. This is, after all, a man who had sex on Salvador Dali’s sofa.
      Joann Sfar’s biopic is not just about sex. We are also served a slice of Gainsbourg’s dark and prurient psychological state. If Freud had ever got his hands on the chain-smoking Frenchman, he might have come up with something like this. Parts of the young Lucien’s psyche are peeled from inside his head and brought to life as puppets or animation. There is the rotund head-body that captures his reaction to the anti-Semitism of the day, the childishly inked line drawings of red haired, naked women, and there are even smoking fish. The star of this unconscious gang has to be the sinister Monsieur Phillipo, a nine foot, spindle fingered doppelganger who is forever luring Serge away from familial responsibilities. It is Phillipo who orchestrates the photo shoot that depicts Gainsbourg sprawled in bed smoking and drinking just after a heart attack... he is like a malevolent, media savvy Jiminy Cricket.
      Aside from the puppets and the music, the main theme of the film lies with Serge’s love affairs. Philanderer doesn’t even come close. This is the man who had his then wife drive him to a rendezvous with another woman because he never learnt (“you can’t drink and drive and I have chosen”). Perhaps reflecting life, the film never strays too far from the surface of these infamous relationships. We get the froth and glitter of Bardot and Birkin, but are not left with any greater understanding of what actually happened. Instead we are offered a salacious montage of long legs, long hair, the occasional nipple, and Serge chain-smoking. Bardot is suitably egotistical and sensual and Jane Birkin is played to gamine perfection by the late Lucy Gordon.
      The film does not falter in its renditions of his music either, all songs are the originals, and all are featured effectively. From the touching and comic Russian folk song played to Jewish orphans as Gainsbourg dances at the front of the classroom, to the eyebrow raising embarrassment of when he and Jane first play Je t’aime to their manager. Éric Elmosnino is sexy, stubborn and ultimately tragic as Serge, and renders his relationship with his parents with particular tenderness. The film peters out rather disappointingly, but this too could be said to echo life. It is still an extremely pleasurable and charming watch.

words: gregory hilton

This film follows independent filmmaker Mark Borchardt, and his attempts to fund and finish horror short “Coven”. It also stands as a quietly affecting study of friendship, faith, and second chances.
      Some facts about Mark Borchardt: he qualified for the gifted schooling system in his native Milwaukee. He dropped out of high school. He has been making films since the age of twelve (sample title: “The More the Scarier IV”). His brother believed he would grow up to be “a stalker, or murderer - or do something where he would try to plan someone’s death, you know”. An autodidact, he is, in his own words, “a failure...this time it’s most important not to fail, not just to drink and to dream but rather to create and complete”. This opening statement of intent provides us with an early clue to the films central leitmotif: the redemptive power of the American Dream. It’s presumably Borchardt’s keenly felt need for this particularly Western brand of salvation that armours him with his almost supernatural levels of self-belief – a personality trait that proves invaluable when attempting to persuade his friends and family to part with their spare time and money: meet octogenarian Uncle Bill, seduced into stumping up funds for the production after being presented with photographs of possible (and conveniently pretty) female cast members; genial Mother, unwilling extra, and trainee camera operator Monica; and, possibly the true hero of the piece, Marks best friend, ex party-animal Mike Schank. Whether cheerfully discussing the merits of scratch cards over alcohol, playing guitar blindfolded (he also provides the incidental music for the film), or simply slurping on a beer-substitute-soda, he remains a wonderfully benign presence throughout, and serves as the warm, calm heart to Borchardt’s manic mind.
      Great credit must go to editors Jun Diaz and Barry Polterman for their consistently neat work: every last drop of humour (of which there is much) and pathos is extracted from the 70+ hours of footage Smith filmed – scenes are often structured like an elegant joke; build, followed by underplayed punch line. What’s crucial, however, is that at no point are we encouraged to mock anyone concerned. A lesser filmmaker would’ve chosen to offer the viewer an ironic wink, to poke fun at Borchardt’s unfashionable haircut, or provincial accent, but every scene here is handled with honesty, and filled with obvious affection for its subjects.
      By the end of the film, Borchardt seems less of a deluded no-hoper, and more a victim of circumstance. His commitment and passion cannot be doubted, and there are signs of an unvarnished talent beneath his slightly eccentric persona. Most importantly, he believes in something. And how many people can you say that about? As his stoic, fittingly named father, Cliff, states: “Columbus took a chance. Lindbergh took a chance. Have faith”.
      Indeed. Please go buy this film. And then go create something of your own.

***** (and stripes)

words: ed attlee
score: 3/10

Catherine Breillat has a reputation for being provocative. I’m afraid 'Le Barbe Bleue', however, provokes only boredom, bemusement and mild nausea. I wasn’t meant to be seeing the film, it was thrust upon me, which I think is the only way it might chance upon any of you. I wanted to see French froth ‘Heartbreaker’ (reviewed scathingly by our very own mchael watts here) but the projector was broken. The only other film we could see, suspiciously, was 'Le Barbe Bleue'. Breillat might be using guerilla projector-wreckers to get her film seen; it may be her only hope. As the medieval music began and shots of hilariously garbed young girls hit the screen, my mother whispered to me that we didn’t have to stay for the whole thing. But stay we did.
      We open in a convent, where a stern-faced nun tells two snot-nosed girls that their father is dead. The girls are inexplicably dressed as nuns; their costumes formed artfully from the plastic cones animals wear after visiting the vet, and a couple of sheets. They are sent packing - too poor now it seems, even for the convent - and begin the long carriage ride home. On the rickety route (throughout which they cry continuously) they pass a great castle and ask the driver who lives there. “Ah”, he says with relish, “that is the home of Lord Bluebeard, the richest man for miles”. The younger of the sisters stops her whimpering and swears that one day she will marry a rich man and live in a castle just like that. The driver looks aghast; she wouldn’t marry Bluebeard, “he has had seven wives already and all of them have disappeared without trace”.
      And so begins Breillat’s retelling of Perrault’s seventeenth-century fairy tale 'Bluebeard'. The younger sister gets her way and finds out just what became of his previous wives; it’s not a pretty picture. Breillat has said this film is about sisterly rivalry but, while the sisters do provide a fraught picture of the petty bitterness and jealous love that can be shared between girls, neither sister is particularly likeable or interesting. And neither of them can sing, which they do incessantly. The near-paedophilic relationship between Bluebeard (who does indeed have cerulean follicles) and his child bride is far more interesting. The film as a whole feels incredibly false and amateur - you never quite get away from the sense that here is a group of people dressing up in costumes and playing at fairy tales. For the grim violence and genuine suspense of Perrault’s tale, far more realism was needed to make a successful retelling.

words: russell warfield
score: 9/10

Being born in the late eighties, I watched the first 'Toy Story' movie through eyes of innocence and the final through eyes of maturity - the ideal way in which to have absorbed a series which draws its deepest themes from the tensions between these two states of being. The films have always deftly blended a playful innocence with a mature and worldly sadness, but 'Toy Story 3' manages to outshine its staggering predecessors by striking the balance more perfectly than ever.
      Whilst the second instalment deepened and darkened the series’ themes by exploring issues of abandonment, belonging, and the importance we attach to things, 'Toy Story 3' takes us further into the shadows by going full on Orwellian and apocalyptic on us. In terms of both story and themes, it’s the most ambitious of the series yet (it is essentially a prison escape flick set to the thematic tune of class system politics). The mere premise of the movie is markedly more melancholic than the other two of the trilogy: Andy is now grown up, moving to college, and deciding whether to keep, throw out, or donate his toys to a day-care centre. Early in the movie, we are hit with an uncharacteristically heart-wrenching gut-punch when Woody casually informs us that Wheezy, Etch and – no! – Bo Peep have all been lost to yard sales since the last movie; the first of many lump-in-throat moments.
      But this underlying atmosphere of sadness and darkness doesn’t stop this from being by far the funniest of the series yet: I would wager that the scenes between Barbie and her new love interest (no prizes for guessing his name) will be some of the funniest material you’ll see all year. At every turn, the animators playfully explore the comedic distance between toy-as-character and toy-as-object, delivering the most glittering comedy the trilogy has to offer.
      Because Pixar handle dualities and complexities so brilliantly, the distance between toy-as-character and toy-as-object isn’t just comedic; it’s also thematic and emotional. As the movie goes through its truly moving final moments, we are reminded that these toys are essentially objects, and that these objects have been brought to life (for over fifteen years now) by the imagination of their owner Andy, the imagination of Pixar, and the imaginations of the audience who have adored and embraced them. 'Toy Story 3' closes the series in a pitch perfect manner, not only by being the out-and-out funniest and most action-packed of the trilogy, but also by being a genuinely heartening and mature reflection on the power of imagination and the value of friendship.

words: stagger lee
score: 6/10

You may read about Nick Whitfield as being the “British Charlie Kauffman”, which is not only a gross misjudgement and overstatement, but perhaps a sad reflection of the stale perception of British filmmaking. Why as a rule are we so formulaic and stern, in terms of narration, that all it takes is for someone to approach a British film from an American perspective and he is heralded the next Charlie Kauffman - who is not simply a quirky American filmmaker, but one of the most visionary and important figures in cinema of our generation. So, while the director may have watched 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind' endlessly (his own admission during a Q&A I attended) he has not managed to emulate it in anyway.
      'Skeletons' is far from a bad film - it is original, witty and at times engrossingly emotive - but it lacks certain elements that really separate it from the pack. The humour is too formulaically ‘quirky’, often feeling contrived, and the relationship between the two protagonists is at times irksome. They are salesmen traveling from house to house extracting skeletons from people’s closets by placing themselves in their past scenarios, uncovering love rats and lost love ones along the way. Existentialism runs through the film's core, and the premise raises interesting issues and bold moves, cinematically. Jason Issacs, as the duo’s (Will Adamsdale, Andrew Buckley) boss is simply superb and steals the show in a heartbeat, equally terrifying and engrossing. His character reads something like Daniel Day Lewis’ Bill the butcher, in the form of an angry farmer - however bewildering, he is a delight to behold. The film struggles to balance comedy with drama in some respects, and seems to use comedy as a means to break up the flow of things when they get a little too heavy - instead of treating it with a sense of fluidity it feels like someone is hitting a ‘funny dialogue’ button every thirty minutes or so. However, 'Skeletons' is a refreshing piece of British cinema, and one can only hope the adventurous take on narrative is one that we see more often.

words: graeme’s greens

Geeta Dayal's contribution to the 33 1/3 series, a piece on Eno's 'Another Green World', is as digestible in length and content as it's possible to be, a light tour through some aspects of the world of Brian, choosing to focus on the broader picture rather than trawl through the artistic rubbish bins. Little controversy, personality or innovation is offered by the author, a disappointment considering an early reference in the introduction to the use of the 'Oblique Strategies' that Eno first put to work in the creation of this album - a creative system capable of building caprice and loss of control here seems to have been used to overcome traditional problems in a personal, less extroverted manner. Certainly the results are in no way as beguiling as the music that inspired them.
      The piece is littered with some choice quotes and anecdotes from all the right sources, no reinvention of the wheel but the usual illuminations are always welcome, especially when they contribute towards a picture of how the creation of this album differed from average studio sessions both then and now. The alien nature of Eno's approach to this record is well worth discussion and documentation, not only is it fascinating and illuminating but completely relevant to culture today. This is the album's strong point and Dayal does well to bring forth some interesting aspects of the process and their philosophical implications in the context of the average creative environment found in the seventies. From this starting point I imagine most readers will look further into the implications of Eno's techniques and interests which is sufficient to justify the book's existence, a stepping stone to other Worlds rather than a destination in itself.
      I can't help but wonder if the work couldn't have been odder, what would have happened if this tome was more experimental, if it moved with the same magic as that of its subject? See its truth in its question and its answers in its language. Without that this book never moves beyond a companion piece but still serves as a decent, short form introduction if you don't want to plunge headlong into the deeper, more detailed, literate productions that abound on the subject of Eno.

words: joe rivers

Type “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” into Google and you get well over 800,000 results; not bad for a quote that’s patently untrue. It’s a sound bite that’s taken on a life of its own, principally due to its inflammatory nature and “quotability”, rather than anything remotely fact-based. At its finest, writing about music is a wonderful thing; a great review, article or opinion piece can be persuasive, invigorating, challenging and entertaining, much in the same way music itself can be. One of the great things about music is that it’s near-indefinable and certain tracks mean different things to different people. This means that music doesn’t lend itself too well to academic appraisal, yet that is what Oxford Brookes lecturer, Dr. Dai Griffiths, seeks to do in his book on Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’.
      This isn’t at all to suggest that academia and pop music can’t be bedfellows - for instance, analysing a particular album and its place in the canon of the history of recorded music would be a more than valid study. However, ‘OK Computer’ was only released in 1997, and while Dr. Griffith’s thesis is as engagingly written as you’d expect, it’s debatable whether breaking down each song into its constituent parts with details on bars per section, tempo and key signature is going to advance anyone’s appreciation of the album.
      The books in the 33 1/3 series examine “classic” albums in detail and tend to be written by journalists or musicians rather than academics. I find it difficult not to take issue with the style of the ‘OK Computer’ book, as the music I love is all about the way it makes me feel, and while I’m keen to know more about the making of a record and the circumstances around it, dissecting it as if it were a scientific experiment seems impersonally anodyne and leaves me cold. The fact that the average song length on ‘OK Computer’ is greater than that of ‘The Bends’ is immaterial; the reasons I like ‘OK Computer’ are likely to be different to the reasons you like (or dislike) ‘OK Computer’ and grouping the lyrical themes into nine distinct headings isn’t going to alter that one jot.
      That said, Dr. Griffiths’ prose is very readable, and the section on the difference between CD and vinyl albums is incredibly interesting. Unfortunately, the conclusion he draws is incredibly sweeping and rushed, and his over-confident tone can be grating and smug. It’s a decent enough book and worthy reading for ‘OK Computer’ obsessives, but it ultimately comes across as the wrong approach to take. With a style like that, you may as well be dancing about architecture.

words: micheal wheeler

I was big on Tom Waits before I read ‘Innocent When You Dream: The Collected Interviews’, but afterwards, in my eyes, his status was elevated ten-fold, not only down to the abundance of wit and wisdom proffered in every conversation, but because he would only give away enough information to whet the appetite. This ensured the myths were kept firmly in place, or enough versions of the same myth were offered up to guarantee that you never settled on the truth, so the man in front of the tape recorder was never too far removed from the persona on stage and record. I had to stop reading Barney Hoyskins’ biography of Waits for fear that I would learn too much and shatter the symbiosis between performer and audience. I was happy to keep hearing the tall tales, and it seems Waits is happy to keep telling them. Luckily, David Smay understands this completely and addresses it in the opening line of his analysis of Waits’ career-changing record, his ‘creative rebirth’, 'Swordfishtrombones'. ‘Don’t expect me to tell you the truth about Tom Waits…[his] liberties with the truth, these inconsistencies, are not a flaw. He intends to confound you’.
      What follows over the next one-hundred-and-twenty-six pages unfolds like a playful fever-dream. Smay ostensibly set out to follow the path of the album’s track listing, with each song representing a chapter, but cultural references, facts, myths, analyses, metaphors, gags, quotes and interviews are threaded into each “song” without too much thought to a definite plot. Seeing as the book can be finished in one enjoyable and informative sitting, this feels less like a fault than a strength, and you are always happy to let Smay guide you up whatever path he feels it is best to go next.
      Some brief highlights, from a book littered with them. Smay tackling the perpetual cliché whereby Waits’ voice is described as ‘gravely’: ‘The first ground rule in this book will be forbidding the stale cliché…if you dropped a cherry bomb down a fibreglass clown’s painted mouth, that would sound like Tom Waits. But that’s just one of the voices he inhabits’. (For my money, Wait’s children have given the best description of his voice, asking him ‘were you going for a Cookie Monster-in-love thing on that, dad?’). Smay positioning Waits as Audrey Hepburn, an actress that would inspire total love and awe in all that worked alongside her: ‘He changes musicians when he wants to take a new approach. His old musicians sound wistful when they talk about working with him… Gavin Bryers… said: “I spent one afternoon working with Tom Waits in a studio in northern California. It was probably one of the most sublime musical performances in my life.”’ You almost feel sorry for Bryers, sounding, as he does, like Bernstein in 'Citizen Kane'. ‘One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl’. Smay emphasising what this album meant for the relationship between Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan, who inspired and encouraged so much of his newly developed sound: ‘Neither could’ve possibly imagined what was in front of them: writing 'Swordfishtrombones' on their belated honeymoon in Ireland… they both took a huge leap. You can see the little crack that followed in her wake, splitting time into two parts - before and after. The crack split and raced beneath her feet, shooting up the door as she raised her hand and knocked. And he opened the door on the woman who came from Story. “Kathleen helped me feel safe in my uncertainty. And that’s where the wonder and the discovery are.”’ And finally, the sharp assessment from Kathleen of a track from a previous album, Heartattack and Vine, that Waits loved to quote so often: ‘What is this bullshit?’