new history warfare

The Stars in his Head (Dark Lights Remix) - Colin Stetson

Colin Stetson sounds like factories in dystopic novels. In particular he sounds like the factory in Boris Vian's Foam of the Days (yes that was a reference to an obscure French book, but the two are so inextricably linked in my head that it had to be said). This song is everything he specialises in in their perfect measures so far as my ears are concerned: jarring wails over alarming too-quick too-regular rhythms, more variety than solo saxophone should be able to muster.

I like to see him as Arthur Russell's renegade sinister saxophonist twin.

And as Wikipedia so helpfully sums up: Stetson has brought his unique voice on winds and brass to stage and studio with dozens of artists, including Tom Waits, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio,Feist, Bon Iver, My Brightest Diamond, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Jolie Holland, Sinéad O'Connor, LCD Soundsystem, The National, Angelique Kidjo,Kevin Devine and Anthony Braxton.

(img = colin, from google. thanks again big g.)

enough of this silence + IWD

We are back for you, hello there.

Happy International Women's Day! Today's Guardian decreed that Lady Gaga is one of the world's most influential women, and while I in no way dispute this, I feel that she has done more for performance art/pseudo performance art than she has music. I could talk all day about wonderful women in music, but instead I will stay current. This is, of course, a roundabout way of shouting about my current favourite lady. Said lady happens to be one Polly Jean Harvey - purveyor of beautiful raw songs and recent aspiring war musician. A few weeks ago I decided that I should probably listen to something other than PJ, but she went and released another album (yeah old news, I know), meaning that my abstinence was delayed further. I've read some reviews which seem to be a little wary of the more conceptual/thematic leanings of her new album, and though some of the tracks seem to stick out a little uncomfortably, I still LOVE it. 'The Words That Maketh Murder' is particularly compelling.

Tracks will follow.

(img = pj, thanks google)

MEGABACK

It's all over university-wise and NBN is staging a return. Despite the exams we've got ourselves out to a few gigs over the last month. Notably:

Pavement at Brixton Academy. Probably nothing has ever made so many men so happy as Pavement's reunion shows. There were a few girls there too though and we were amongst them and have rarely felt more like everything's okay in the world than we did leaping around to their unabashedly greatest hitsy sets.

Wolf Parade at the Borderline (still goin' strong, although we say no bad words about anything involving Spencer Krug anyway) supported by Joensuu 1685 who completely lived up to the hype we'd heard about their psychedelic stormy live shows

Yeasayer at Koko, since which point neither of us have listened to anything except their second album Odd Blood (buy). We've seen them in practically every venue in London over the last few years (probably) and this was up there with the first time we saw them at the Brixton Windmill. If you've had any doubts about album number two listening to it three times whilst sunbathing topless in your garden did the trick for us, DO THE SAME IT WORKS. Also watch their endlessly terrifying and nonsensical video for ONE here.

And finally we reach the main point of this post. Our dear friend Heathcote had a bunch of his friends' bands play Catch for his birthday last week and we had to leave early but doubt anything surpassed second band The Murder Act anyway. Dark and loud with krautrocky leanings and brilliant lengthy songs that in varying measures wallow in distortion, unleash hellish noise, reel themselves in to simmeringly slow driving rhythms and explode into full blown rock outs. Yeah yeah yeah whatever all those words mean go to their MySpace and have a listen and far more importantly get yourself down to see them at the Stag's Head on June 16th.

(img = Chris Hipkiss)

it's not supposed to be this way

GOODBYE GORDY, GOODBYE




...but hello there, new album by Phosphorescent.

Matthew Houck writes some of my favourite lyrics. His little linguistic trips probably wouldn't look great if I transcribed them here, but they work brilliantly in the songs. Aw Come Aw Wry is an album which centres around the phrase 'Aw Come Aw Wry', and also features the lines

I could curl through the water
Naked, swirling like otters
You know how they are
(you know how they are)

Bahaha.

First time I saw Phosphorescent he wore a jacket made of fairy lights. Obvs love at first sight. I already loved him, too. Below you can watch him in a stairwell. Last year (I think last year?) he released an album of Willie Nelson covers which wasn't as good as it could have been, and nor were its accompanying live shows. Get rid of the band, resurrect the fairy lights and put him in a stairway, that's what I say. Also I think I saw him doing a wee when we were in Brooklyn but he was quite far away and I was drunk. We just saw Pavement! It was ace, as a Pavement fan would undoubtedly say.






Anyway go buy the new Phosphorescent album, it might be good but I don't have it so I don't know. Alternatively, go and buy Aw Come Aw Wry, or one of the other albums, but don't buy the Willie Nelson covers just listen to Willie Nelson in stead (do that)

love Emily (let's not blame Sophie for this splurging of words)

(Img = Matthew Houck, snow, and a horse, and some peasants brandishing flame)

doing it for jeremy

So we've gone strangely nostalgic and then disappeared altogether... it can only mean one thing. EXAMINATION TIME WOOHOO. Sophie's in the library as I write, finishing her dissertation, and I've just got back. All I can talk about is WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE VERY LOUDLY AND VERY QUICKLY and all Soph can talk about is mad people, so this neglect is definitely, definitely for the best.

PROMISE.

In the mean time please go out and have fun for us.

THANKS!

(img = Jeremy Bentham, reposing as is his wont in his death-cupboard in UCL)

it's a cliché, but it's joy stuff

The love affair that Dawn Parade fans had with The Dawn Parade was incredible. I remember seeing them for the first time at the Buffalo Bar with my dad, and hardly being able to believe that something so spectacular could be drawing so few people in the middle of London. And then the subsequent year or years of trawling about Cambridge, Ipswich, godknowswhere with no maps finding scummy pubs brimming with devotees and hoping to find someone to buy us a drink, and the band seeming play every day and never falter in endless excitement

The annotated lyrics on their website, the manifesto which was everything you could ask of an unsigned band, all of it all of it was part of a sort of devoted perfection which drew people from miles around to all and any middles of nowhere to buy into the relentlessly anti-humdrum rock'n'roll of it all. The website's still there like a weird magical nostalgia trip http://www.angelfire.com/band/thedawnparade .





(img = me and georgie in a fountain, the album cover YEAH)

what a crying shame