Kruger Issue 2.0 by Kruger Laboratories

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The Futurists

ISSUE 2.0 The Long Lost

The Whitest Boy Alive Thee Vicars Jeffrey Lewis

Portasound The Rakes

Mystery Jets

The Soft Pack And Much More

Micachu >>>>>>>> 1

THE BRONX THE BRONX CD / DOWNLOAD OUT NOW Album of the week in Kerrang! and NME, album of the month in Rock Sound and Big Cheese. THE GUARDIAN: “As rebellious and American as the Stooges or Jack Kerouac – and every bit as compelling” New single “Young Bloods” in stores now on 7" and download.

SKY LARKIN THE GOLDEN SPIKE LTD CD / LP / DOWNLOAD OUT NOW NME: “Sweet, subtle and with one hell of a kick - just like a good cocktail” ROCK SOUND: “Crammed with indie-rock anthems” SUNDAY EXPRESS: “A glorious, adrenaline rush of a pop record” Includes "Fossil, I", "Beeline" and "Antibodies"

FIRST AID KIT DRUNKEN TREES EP ENHANCED CD / DOWNLOAD OUT NOW Debut release from the latest Wichita signing. This EP from the Swedish duo now includes their cover of Fleet Foxes “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” and three exclusive live video recordings. PLAN B “Drunken Trees is near perfect, like a new born babe: sweet, lovable and infectious” Limited 7" featuring two songs from the EP also in stores now.

PETER BJORN AND JOHN LIVING THING 2CD / CD / LP / DOWNLOAD 30th MARCH The highly anticipated proper follow-up to the highly acclaimed Writer’s Block. Limited double-disc edition includes their recent instrumental vinyl-only album, Seaside Rock, on CD for the first time. New single, Nothing To Worry About, in stores on 7" and download from 23rd March. Look out for remixes from Jan Hammer, Alexander Robotnick and Zongamin.

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�ontents Page 5

Editorial

Page 7

Thee Vicars

Page 11 Portasound Page 12 Mystery Jets

The �uturists

Page 15 Connan Mockasin Page 16 The Soft Pack Page 20 The Whitest Boy Alive Page 26 It Hugs Back Page 29 Joe Gideon and The Shark Page 31 Le B Page 32 The Rakes Page 35 The Long Lost Page 36 Two Door Cinema Club Page 38 Dan Deacon

Page 41 On the Road: Micachu & the Shapes Page 43 Read The Label: Brainlove Records Page 45 Pop Will Eat Itself: Jeffery Lewis Page 46 Inside Story: The NYC Bluegrass scene

The �egulars

Page 50 Team Kruger Page 51 The Kruger Singles Club Page 52 News Page 55 Album Reviews Page 62 Live Reviews Page 65 Competition

KITSUNÉ Factory of New Talents

(Releases on Vinyl and Digital)

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TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB Something Good Can Work

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APPALOOSA The Day We Fell in Love

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�ditorial editorial, concept & design: Mike Williams (mike@krugermagazine.com) Michaeljohn Day (michaeljohn@krugermagazine.com) Joe Howden (joe@krugermagazine.com) reviews editor: Helia Phoenix (kruger_reviews@yahoo.co.uk) news editor: Susie Wild (susie@krugermagazine.com) staff writers: Jen Long Rhian Daley Ioan Morris

“The best thing about the future,” said Dave, and they all laughed and slapped each other’s thighs. “That’s the thing about the future,” agreed Simon, brushing his long blonde hair. And then they were all sick onto plates which they scraped into saucepans before emptying the contents of the pans into some open tins they found on the worktop. “The future looks like fun,” said Julie, and they let her join in. And every time they closed their eyes after that nothing happened. So they did it again. And this time nothing happened so they all decided to go back to the future. And then six animals turned up and everything else made sense. We hope you enjoy the new look Kruger Magazine. We’re now bi-monthly, and the next issue will be out on the 11th of May. In the meantime check out www.krugerlabs.com where you’ll find blogs, videos, podcasts, live sessions, free downloads and this entire magazine in digital format. Now that really is the future.

research: Helen Weatherhead advertising: mike@krugermagazine.com contributors: Words: Adam Corner, Natalie Davies, Simon Roberts, Alex Bean, Dan Tyte, Neil Condron, Greg Cochrane, Jon Davies, Steph Price, DJ Moneyshot, Adam Corner, Barney Sprague, Matt Bowring, Sophie Lawerence, Betti Hunter. Images: Skinny Gaviar, James Perou, kamil M. janowski, Jack Hudson, Tim Cochrane, Mei Lewis, Lucy Johnstone, Christopher McClallen, Jessica Long, Eleanor Stevenson, Reza Ghaniloo & Brian Farinas. thanks to: Laura, Dan & Aoife @ Scruffy, James Heather @ Ninja Tune, Lee Sullivan, Lisa Durrant @ Inhouse, James Brooke @ 9PR, Annette Lee & Rich Walker @ 4AD, Janine @ Coalition, Beth @ Toast, Will Parish, Sarah @ Fifth Element, John Rogers, Roxy @ Rough Trade, Gavin Jones, Laura Darlington, Nici Reade, Salim Virani, Tom Leach, Alexis Nugent all our contributors and all our advertisers. Bless you. Published by Kruger Laboratories, Studio 2A, The Hub, 5 Torrens Street, London EC1V 5NQ. Printed by MWL Print Group Ltd, Units 10-13 Pontyfelin Industrial Estate, New Inn, Pontypool NP4 0DG All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the kind permission of Kruger Laboratories.

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�hee �icars It should have been a regular photo shoot with one of Britain’s most exciting new bands, but that all changed when a model T-001 cyborg appeared from the future and vapourised one of the guitarists. Had it been sent to destroy them for musical misadventures that they’re yet to carry out,

or like Lennie Small, did it love them just a little too much? Who knows? Who cares? Luckily for us, Nat Davies met up with the garage punk quartet a few days earlier to get the skinny on how a band with one foot set firmly in the past could well be the sound of the future... 7

he gig has been underway for exactly twelve minutes when mayhem breaks out. The band have entered into a pact of mutually assured destruction with the rolling mass of limbs, hair and sticky spray of alcohol exploding at the front of the stage. The young, sharply-suited men creating this ruckus posture slightly, legs apart, faces contorted into a scream, before throwing themselves off the monitors into the yielding crowd below. The drummer plays slightly out of time, but it doesn’t matter. He is simply the engine to a machine hammering out the Morse code of their manifesto: ‘We don‘t care’. Like the ghost of rock and roll exhumed, pumped full of White Lightening and set amongst the living to destroy the ideals and aesthetics of 2009. They’ve looked into the dull eyes of a post Ronson/Winehouse music scene, where 40 years of experimentation and rebellion has been reduced to a hairstyle. They are Thee Vicars; a band sent to the future to spread the gospel of garage rock. They came from a tiny town in Suffolk called Bury-St-Edmunds, known for nothing more than golden ranks of wheat in fertile fields. The place could hold the headquarters for The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society - all thatched pubs, WI fetes and bowler hats. It is undeniably charming but also staid, safe and hopelessly dull. There are no grimy basement bars here, no metaphorical CBGB’s to act as a greenhouse for new music or a friendly stopover on the established tour circuit. In such an environment, the only way to hear a live band is to form one yourself. “We were tired of going to the same old gigs,” says Mike, the19year-old lead singer and bassist. “Every band just seemed to sound the same and they never really appealed to us. No other bands were doing real garage music. We didn’t have any money to go out of town to hear it so we just decided to do it ourselves.” Mike formed Thee Vicars in 2007 and began playing gigs and parties around Bury and at garage rock nights in London. After playing with a few different members he drafted in his lifelong friend Chris Langeland on guitar and replaced the drummer with 18-year-

old Will Pattenden. Chris and Mike had played together in a punk group called The Punctuals before going their separate ways. With the addition of their school friend Marcus Volkert on guitar they began fleshing out their distinctive 60s sound around the forty or so songs that Mike had written. “We all grew up listening to punk - 80s American hardcore and British 70s stuff,” said Chris. “From that we traced backwards. From the Dead Kennedys to The Clash, The Stooges, Billy Childish and The Beatles. Garage is no bullshit. It’s the DIY ethos - making the best out of your limitations rather than being a wanker and doing 11 minute solos. It’s going back to basics.” With simple distortion and pacy riffs, Thee Vicars blend elements of sixties pop, psychedelia and punk to create their own take on garage rock. Their sound positions them at the forefront of the British garage-punk revival, spearheaded by specialist garage label Dirty Water Records. As well as distributing Back From the Grave compilations, the label represents new groups from all over the UK including The Vipers, King Salami and The Cumberland 3 and The Branded. These young bands are turning their backs on the ubiquitous synth-based electro, new folk and po-faced indie to resuscitate

a harder, faster sound. It’s not just an exercise in nostalgia - it’s a rejection of modern music. “Music today is in a right state,” says Mike. “The more you hear it the more you hate it, a lot of it sounds the same and record labels aren’t even trying anymore.” “I think that’s why we listen to a lot of sixties music, because even the pop music - like The Kinks and The Beatles- is still really artistic rather than academic,” explains Chris. “There’s ideas in there which aren't really happening now as far as I can see. There’s ridiculous amounts of money involved and no one is having fun. People are taking it too seriously. If you keep the party element of it then the music comes naturally. That’s what we are trying to change I think. Just have a laugh and do whatever you want.” With their debut album Back On The Streets released in October last year on Dirty Water Records, the band have put out a record that demonstrates their blistering disregard for over-elaborate song writing. “I’m really against guitars a lot of the time, that’s why I like garage music because they’re used well in it,” says Chris. “I’m an anti-guitarist; I think there’s a lot of arrogance in guitar playing. It’s become more focused on being technically brilliant rather than

artistically relevant.” Most of the songs come in at a little over two-minutes and cover their two main pastimes: girls and having a good time. The title track is one minute and 51 seconds of lo-fi rock and roll; slamming waves of accelerated Chuck Berry guitar work with nothing adorning it other than a two metre lead and a blown out amp. Recorded live in some standard practice rooms in Bury, the album captures the raw intensity of their gigs - the only difference being ‘more microphones and less pressure’. “I suppose live it’s a bit louder and less tight,” says Will. “It’s easier to relax in the studios because you get more takes. I’m not the tightest drummer in the world so when I fuck things up I get another go at it.” But if anything the rough edges just add conviction to their sound. Their music is about power and pace rather than slick performances and their authentic sound has won over legendary fright-rockers The Mummies, who asked them to play support at one of their rare reunion shows at the Fantastic Dragon Carnival in Valencia last year. After being picked up by European mega-bookers Kiss & Run, Thee Vicars are about to embark on their first major tour of Germany, Belgium and Holland. Having built up a following amongst beat fans in the UK, the reverent four are now setting their sights on the reminding the Continent how good things were before the 80s ruined everything for everyone. “We feel out of time with modern culture,” says Chris. “It’s a general attitude about everything that is really mediocre. People just want things to be safe and everybody’s health conscious. Health and Safety wasn’t around in the sixties and as far as I know there wasn’t that big of an obesity problem. As for music, we just want to take it back to where it was. The recording process and everything about music in the 60s was spot on - I don’t know why it ever changed.” Photos by James Perou www.photosimian.co.uk

Mystic Mag

�ortasound In the future everyone will receive piggy-backs from midgets, drink yoghurt and live on a hill in south west London. Oh, and Portasound will be massive...

he Future Is Unwritten, according to Julien Temple's documentary about Joe Strummer. Not strictly true, that. In fact it's inked here in these very pages. Look! Plus south London micropop cadets Portasound have their own scripted prophecies. "We travel into the future all the time," says chief bloke James casually. "I've just been there actually. How was it? Pretty good but we spent most of our time in traffic which is a shame because everything looked pretty cool." More on that to come but, first, introductions. They are James Dow, Michael Dow and Luke ("basically a Dow"). All swap between synths, guitar, bass, laptop and whistling. By day, two of them are landscape gardeners, one is a designer, they have a song called The Terpischore Of Vegedward Sentengo (their current single in fact) about "a Greek dance revived by the Victorians". Their thoughts may be in the future but

their beginnings came in the past: "One day we were looking for something to do and we went into the countryside to a friend's old shack," says James. "We went for the weekend with a keyboard and a little bit of acid and decided on those unsteady foundations that we should do this." The stimulating keyboard in question? A Yamaha Portasound. "It has this button on it that’s an auto-bass chord," James delights. "Because me and Luke were sitting in a field quite smashed, it provided a lot of entertainment for very little interaction - I like to think that’s what we do now." Some time on, they're now making music which sounds like 2010. A chrome plated combo of Metronomy (a huge influence of theirs) and choppy copper synths of Late Of The Pier. Live they stand onstage like three pillars of light setting effects off like fire crackers.

heir frequent voyages to the distant future reveal a disturbing picture. Something along the lines of Franz Kafka simultaneously directing The Fifth Element, Arachnophobia and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids whilst on quality Calpol. "I'd like to bring back a giant

intelligent insect because I reckon humans will die out soon and it'll be the turn of the insects to go grow large and clever," begins James. "Then they'll develop their own music." Indeed, if grasshoppers playing oboes aren't scary enough, both the Dow brothers know every single word in the first Alien film. And of course there's global warming to contend with. "A lot of our future-gazing comes in warnings to the general public which can be found at different speeds within our music," says James. "Like subliminal messages." We won't lie, things beyond tomorrow aren't looking cheery. "We're predicting that in a hundred years there will only be a million people left," says Michael. "But they'll be well into Portasound." "They'll all live on a hill because Europe is going to flood," explains Luke. Of course, by this point - we're thinking somewhere around June 2009 - we'll all look like spacemen and eat crisps through our nose (s'evolution folks). "We'll be split into two forms of people," continues James adopting an indie Mystic Meg voice. "You'll have

tiny adult babies with trumpets and really tall skinny model-types." Yes, tell us more. "And, the weird babies will do all the work. All the tall people will just walk around sipping yoghurt. It's a fearful new world. "It'll probably go back to when people were carried around by little midgets. Hover boards for kids and wooden casks for the adults." Not only is this future potentially very ugly, full of midgets and string beans copulating on a stranded knoll to preserve the very race itself, but they drink Petite Filous. Bring back the safety of 1997! But on a more sensible note, the next twelve months is shaping up rather nicely for the three south Londoners. "We didn’t start this thing to make any money or be famous or anything," cooly states James. "It's a labour of love and fun." And the midgets with brass? They're just a bonus. Words by Greg Cochrane Photo by Lucy Johnston www.lucyjohnston.co.uk

�ystery �ets

If I was able to see into the future, I wouldn’t believe some of the things I saw. My fifteen-year-old self would never have considered buying a pair of pink high tops, however my twenty three-yearold self thought it was fine; thankfully my recent self saw fit to throw them away. If you could have jumped forward from the early eighties to check on Michael Jackson, your friends would never believe you when you reported back. “Honest man, he’s white and he hangs out with Liz Taylor”. Hmmm. You certainly wouldn’t expect to see a popular band release one of the best albums of 2008 then receive their marching orders from their label. This was, however, the case for Mystery Jets. While Twenty One was released to a fanfare of positive reviews and spawned some fantastic pop songs - I challenge you not to dance when you hear Two Doors Down at your nearest indie disco – their label 679 Recordings decided that the boys' services were no longer required. Fans of the band and industry observers were shocked, but surely the band had some notice? Right? Lead singer Blaine Harrison tells me that unfortunately this wasn’t the case. “Well it was shocking for us as we had just renegotiated the deal for our third album. We’d even started writing it and everyone on the English side of the label was really excited to get on with it. But what it came down to was someone in America who never even met the band, never listened to us, saying ‘who are these dudes?’”. So it seems that Mystery Jets became victims of the recession then. “That’s right. Looking at it in terms of a pie chart, I guess things didn’t match up. But then we never really saw ourselves as the kind of band that belonged on a pie chart. It basically came down to the American side of the label not feeling that they were profiting from us. Unfortunately, when you’re working in that sphere with major labels, that’s what it comes down to. If your profit margins aren’t matching up, then they have no interest in keeping you”. The band found themselves in a similar situation to former 679 employees The Futureheads. But where the harmony-fond Sunderland punks had released a second album that failed to match their debut, Twenty One was the work of a band vastly developed from the one that produced 2006’s Making Dens. At this moment the band may have predicted a somewhat rocky 2009, but they didn’t have to worry for long as Rough Trade head honcho Geoff Travis was quick to pounce.

ough Trade were one of the labels vying for the Mystery Jets’ signature when they decided to go with 679, and it’s safe to assume that the Eel Pie Islanders were slightly chuffed to see they were still keen. “Rough Trade are probably the best indie label in the world, we were so happy that they were still there for us. Geoff Travis always said to us “I will be there”, but for them to come forward at that point…. There’s often a thinking when a band leaves a label that they’re damaged goods. I think in today’s world it’s completely different; people have a different understanding. You

"We've always set out to do something as radically different as possible with each record. At the moment I'm feeling pretty widescreen."

only need to look at The Futureheads. They proved you don’t need all this money behind you. You can make a video with an up-and-coming director and match up against these supposed ‘big guns’ really easily if you just put a bit of brains behind it. The problem with a lot of major labels is that they don’t think ahead of the game, they follow trends, analyse the market, then look around and say ‘right this is what we need to do.’” With 679 recently signing the hugely hyped Little Boots, you don’t have to look too far to back up Blake’s point. 679’s history is littered with bands that have travelled through the machine on the major label conveyer belt; ironically including Little Boots previous all-female synth rock outfit, Dead Disco. So have the band found things a lot different in their short time working with Rough Trade? “They work a lot more instinctively. They sign acts that they love and believe in, then give the band the freedom to do whatever they want, which is what’s going to bring the best out of them anyway.” Surely there must be pangs of regret at not signing with Rough Trade in the first place? “Yeah I guess there probably is. But I never felt particularly compromised during our time at 679. It was only towards the end when the label had completely disintegrated. Our label was essentially a filing cabinet on the 3rd floor on the Atlantic offices; that was never the label we signed to and unfortunately it went that way. The label suffers because of the industry suffering. I don’t have any regrets as we had a really good time there while it lasted, and we worked with some wicked people. I’m just excited about moving on, really.”

h yes, looking forward. Secure again on a label that loves them, what next for a band full of sparkling originality and gut-busting pop sensibility? Just compare the leap from the ramshackle indie of The Boy Who Ran Away to the saccharine synths heard in Half In Love With Elizabeth. What should we expect from album number three? “We’ve always set out to do something as radically different as possible with each record. At the moment I’m feeling really pretty widescreen, I just got the idea of making a driving record. Like back in the day, you’d make a tape of your favourite CD and it would be the only tape you’d keep in your car. I want it to be the kind of record that you’d put in your car and never take out until your car gets sold for scrap metal.” So what’s been leading you down this route? “I’ve been listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen, late Police records, The Cars; stuff like that”. So in a bizarre twist of events the band could be working on a record that could have more mass appeal than anything they’ve previously done? That they might be about to record their own Born To Run? “I want it to be a bold record. We’ve always gone for things that are interesting rather than big. So for us to make something big… that would be a new thing.” Words by Jon Davies The Mystery Jets photographed in NYC by Christopher McClallen www.christophermclallen.com

Album - CD, DL & Vinyl - Released 23.03.09 The new solo project of Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife ‘Fever Ray sound like they eat souls for breakfast’ The Guardian ‘Stunning... Staggeringly Elegant’ FACT ‘Perfect electro pop noir’ Plan B ‘Mesmeric... as magical as it is mysterious’ The Independent 14

feverray.com

Mystic Mag

�onnan �ockasin Predictions and I don’t get along. I will incorrectly guess the killer, lose you the lottery, and the hotel will never be ‘just round the corner’. Call it a lack of foresight, a failing battle against the future. Call it at a guess. So to hazard what the next year will hold for a man I met two summers ago, drenched to the skin and blurry at a music festival in the hills of South Wales, is a stab in the dark at best.

need to find out more about Connan Mockasin, the sweetly pitched, jaggedly adventurous mess of blond hair responsible for the kind of joyously individual pop that makes your smile widen and your heart constrict. Last time I saw the petite New Zealander, drums and bass flanked him. Now he’s more a solo act. “It was just too expensive to fly a band around the world for just three weeks” he explains from an office somewhere in London as printers whirr and keyboards tap in the background. “I’m still with different players each bunch of shows, so I really want a two piece, but I don’t know. I’m

making a mechanical drum machine at the moment to eliminate another band member. I find drummers are rarely neat and quite hard to tour with. I’m just obsessed with two pieces and I just want to make it. I’ve been thinking about it for so long. For a joke I was gonna call it Jazzbuster.” I decide to suggest some scenarios to test the lengths that 2009 may stretch to. Like the majority of musicians, I’m expecting travel will feature heavily, possibly an insane Brendan Fraser style ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’? “Well I was in Japan just before I came over, just for one night, and that was crazy” he begins, as I push for further explanation. “They just sort of… kind of stare at you. But I’m not sure if that’s coz I had blonde hair or I was walking in the rain without an umbrella. They don’t like rain at all apparently.” Romance is also a possibility for pop’s young dream. I ask how he’d feel about dating a celebrity to an instantly positive reception. When questioned who, he replies, “Maybe Scarlett Johanssen?” I should have guessed from his Teenagers cover of the same name. “Yeah, I could meet her in Japan. Although, there’s probably plenty of really gorgeous Japanese girls that would be celebrities too that I wouldn’t know of if I was Lost in Translation.”

ticking with the cinema, like The Ramones to Rock n Roll High School, or The Mighty Mighty Bosstones to Clueless, maybe Connan could star in a movie? “Oh, well I actually just did that” he fires, breaking from staccato stutter with nonchalance. “For a film called Unmade Beds. I think it’s just coming out at the festivals, like Sundance festival. I was in the film, making a music video. So yeah, I’d like to do that again actually. That was fun.” Ok, so he’s playing in a bar, it’s the opening scene, what happens? “There’d be loads of palm trees and fake sky in the background….” It’s beginning to sound like The Mask. “I could be in a mask!” His pitch heightens and speech quickens. “And animal costumes, and synchronised dancing around. I always thought it could be quite interesting if you got all of the top most respected actors, musicians, and got them to wear these animal costumes. They’re really expensive, and they’re full costumes and it’s totally normal and there’s a million people around the world doing it, and maybe the magpie is more expensive than the others, so if someone’s got that… WOAH. It would just be so ridiculous, but just to see how people would copy it, and then you’d have all these people buying animal costumes and wearing

them round town and stuff just because these celebrities were wearing them.” And who would be the ultimate celebrity to dress in such a costume? “Leo Dicaprio.” Interview nearing completion, I make my prediction: In the next year Connan Mockasin will date Scarlett Johanssen on a movie set in Tokyo where Leo DiCaprio dances in the likeness of a Magpie. Right. That said, just as a back up, just in case I’m slightly off target, I ask Connan where he would like to be in twelve months time. “I would like to be able to play in small theatres and have enough of a fan base to do that, around the world. And then have the record out and another one coming.” I begin to sense that maybe Connan’s better at this predicting game than me. Then again, “And I’d have lots of machines actually, and two people operating them.” Maybe not. Words by Jen Long Photo by Lucy Johnston www.lucyjohnston.co.uk

The �oft �ack Predicting the world’s economic changes and developments can’t be an easy task – if it was, we wouldn’t currently be stuck right in the middle of a global recession – but those high flying suits in the financial district are probably still crying into their credit crunch lunches over how they failed to see this pecuniary crisis coming.

n the music industry though, we like to think we know what we’re talking about when, in January, we write glowing hype-filled reports of bands we reckon are going to soundtrack everyone’s year. In amongst the female-fronted synth pop and New York’s newest MGMTesque offering, you might have read about the Soft Pack, currently ripping things up on their first trip to the UK. But have we got it right or will we, like the financial sector, be forced to hang our heads in shame, whilst sobbing into our soup?

irst things first, let’s get the name change thing out of the way. Formerly known as the Muslims, the group decided to rechristen themselves the Soft Pack late last year, having grown tired of “the general public making stupid comments about it”. The new name is favoured by guitarist Matty McLoughlin because “it’s the opposite end of the spectrum… the Muslims sounds like shake the system, punk political stuff and its not really what we’re about. People got upset [when we changed our name], so if they only liked us because of the band name then whatever. If they still like the band then we’re still making records.” There’s no question this move will affect their future, though, as the band themselves acknowledge, McLoughlin reasoning “It’s definitely the harder path to go. We could’ve done the whole sensational bullshit thing… If we’d kept the name we’d probably sell a lot more records but this is what we felt most comfortable with, especially now there’s so much more spotlight on us now than we ever expected so if we’re going to do it we might as well do it the way we want to.” So, armed with an inoffensive name but the same top quality garage rock tunes, the Soft Pack

have done just that, featuring in every discerning tastemaker’s list of ones to watch for this year and their live shows rammed as one and all try to catch a glimpse of the next big thing. For the band, their biggest achievement thus far isn’t the level of press attention they’ve received in such a short time but the fact that they’ve been asked to come over to the UK to play a whole load of shows, including supporting Scottish indie giants Franz Ferdinand. “I never thought this would happen,” explains McLoughlin in his laid back manner that could be natural or a side effect of a ten hour flight from LA a couple of days previous, “I’ve never been over here so its pretty cool to be able to see all these different things and play guitar. It’s crazy. We all started working these boring jobs but we got lucky.” Spending a month over on European shores for the first time (save for a weekend break to Paris for McLoughlin), the guys say they are looking forward to not just playing shows but “travelling and seeing stuff”, with Barcelona and Ireland being the places they’re most looking forward to playing – although they don’t want to “play favourites.” Once they’re finished over here, its back to America for an NME tour with Friendly Fires and White Lies (the latter of whom they’ve already played with at New York’s Bowery Ballroom), a slot that holds great honour for the four guys as, whatever us Brits might think about our last music weekly, the paper has quite a cult following across the pond. Drummer Brian Hill explains why the paper is so highly regarded in the States, saying “it’s good for hearing about new bands, cos in

"We just do what we do and as a band we just try to entertain, and entertain each other. We can't trick people into liking us." Matt Lamkin

America they don’t really cover that. [The US music press] just stick with bands like Foo Fighters.” Back over here, there’s the Night Life/Bright Side single to be released on Caspian Records (which’ll no doubt be snapped up quicker than you can say “the new Strokes but without the extravagantly rich parents”) and an album to follow later in the year, produced by Manny Nieto (The Breeders, HEALTH, Mars Volta) which, according to front man Matt Lamkin, is “in the works” with seven songs already recorded, as well as their already Stateside-released EP being made available to UK fans sometime in summer. So that’s the immediate future, but what beyond that? There’s a bunch of festival commitments to honour, including the Breeders curated ATP in May, along with Brighton’s answer to SXSW, The Great Escape and no doubt a whole host of as yet unconfirmed appearances whilst beyond that Lamkin sees them at the end of the year with the standard “album out and touring”, whereas bassist Dave Lantzman is hoping for a “better album than the last” to be written. Lamkin adds as an afterthought “all that stuff, we don’t really have control of. We just do what we do and as a band we just try to entertain, and entertain each other. We can’t trick people into [liking us]”. McLoughlin chimes in with his modest assertions that “we can’t really fake it, cos we’re not good enough. Matt and I suck at guitar so we can’t fake it.” If the hype is to be believed then they don’t suck that much, at least the first record should achieve Lamkin’s aims of writing a classic album and the Soft Pack will be huge. Some people can handle the money and the fame but what about four easy-going guys from San Diego? Lamkin answers in a suitably nonchalant way “It’s important to us to strive to be one of those classic artists who can keep doing good records forever, like Dylan and Bowie. If we get successful and we can still pull off some

good records… that’s the main goal. We’re trying not to let anything get in the way of our creativity. If I got money though, I’d buy a house. We’re not thinking about getting huge or anything. Right now we’re excited to be here and being able to make an album. Never thought we’d see that.” Lantzman backs up his band mate, declaring that it’s also about “the privilege to be asked to do another record, just to be able to do that in a studio is great. I guess we’re taking it one record at a time.” But knowing that with the industry the way it is, if the Soft Pack don’t live up to the expectations set for them there’s the possibility of being dropped. Not that this seems to bother them in the slightest, as McLoughlin doesn’t hesitate for a second to answer “We absolutely would [still carry on],

this is too far gone now. I don’t want to make burritos anymore! When Matt and I started this we thought it was going to be for two shows and then that would be it.” The hotly-tipped quartet seem to have already got things sorted for that eventuality, with ideas of recording with friends and doing it DIY style, immediately coming to the fore, with developments in music technology making it a much more viable option for the group than maybe it would have been in days gone by. So whatever happens, we’re bound to be seeing a lot more of the Soft Pack in times to come and thank fuck for that. Whilst British guitar music might not be quite in the doldrums yet, it’s certainly not at its best. The Soft Pack might be

"We're not thinking about getting huge. Right now we're excited to be here." Lamkin

the band, like the Strokes back in 2001, to give our lot a kick up the arse they need and end the ‘00s in style, or they might just fizzle out into nothing. If that happens though, let’s just hope they don’t take the rest of the world down with them and start a global music recession. At least they’d have something in common with credit crunch scapegoat Bowie, I guess. Words by Rhian Daley Photography by Tim Cochrane www.timothycochrane.com

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The Future’s Bright The Future’s White With his distinctive voice, measured lyrics and the pedigree the Kings of Convenience in tow, for many people Erlend Oye is The Whitest Boy Alive. As he prepares for the release of the band’s second album, he tells Kruger what the future holds for him, his band and the music world that they travel. Words by Mike Williams, illustrations by Skinny Gaviar www.skinnygaviar.com

Erlend Øye is always moving forward. Whether that’s the literal transition from city to city, country to country that has seen him move between his native Bergen, London, Manchester and Berlin; taking in personal and musical world excursions along the way; or the professional navigation from band to band, project to project, embracing and experimenting with new sounds and techniques, Øye is a person who doesn’t stay still. Most famously one half of Norwegian pop-folk pioneers Kings of Convenience, Øye cut his teeth in rock band Skog in the early nineties alongside childhood friend Eirik Glambek Bøe, before joining London-based Norwegians Peachfuzz. The band’s only release, Girl in the Grass, featured on the collectable Fierce Panda compilation, Cry Me a Liver, but they soon disbanded, with Øye returning to Bergen to rekindle his partnership with Bøe as Kings of Convenience. Pursuing a calmer, more subtle sound than his previous bands, Kings of Convenience were signed to Athens, Georgia- based label Kindercore following a string of successful European festival dates, releasing their debut, Quiet is the New Loud, in 2001 to warm praise and moderate commercial success, establishing the band as the figureheads of a new acoustic movement that included Elbow and Turin Brakes. Not that the ever-shifting Øye would define himself by any scene or movement. Having contributed vocals to Röyksopp singles Remind Me and Poor Leno, Øye was already beginning to diversify his sound, and following the release of Kings of Convenience remix album Versus (featuring the mesmeric Röyksopp remix of I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From), and Bøe having what Øye describes as a “Whoa! Somebody has taken the control of my life away from me!” moment, he felt he had no alternative than to leave Bergen and seek out a solo project. That solo project manifested itself in the form of Unrest, a collection of ten songs recorded in ten different cities around the world using ten different producers, including Prefuse 73 and Schneider TM, and while the fractured nature of the recording and compiling process lends itself to an album lacking cohesion, it’s also an album that demonstrates that given Øye’s gift for melody and lyricism, here is an artist with the capacity to transcend genres, retaining the ability to communicate directly with the listener with a lilt here and insight there. It was during the recording of Unrest that the idea for The Whitest Boy Alive was born, with Øye experimenting more and more with electronic music, aware that his most creative flourishes were born through collaboration, and discovering that there were certain rules which needed to be followed. With Eirik returning from his self-imposed exile in 2004 to record and release King of Convenience’s follow-up album, Riot on an Empty Street, it seemed that Øye would be able to settle back into the environment of a busy working band. Further acclaim followed, with the MTV-playlisted video for I'd Rather Dance With You exposing the band to a much wider audience, and opening the door to the opportunity of high-profile touring. But with Bøe’s reluctance to embrace the live circuit again frustrating Øye, who was by now living in Berlin surrounded by the alien sounds of techno, he turned his mind back to the electronic project he had imagined a year earlier.

he Whitest Boy Alive began life as an electronic project between Erlend Øye and Marcin Öz, a minimal techno DJ that he had met at a club in Berlin. Öz, also a producer, set about working with different electronic music styles looking for something that would suit Øye’s vocals, but Øye quickly became frustrated, bemoaning the repetitive perfection of the backing track he sang to, and so despite a handful of successful small live shows, Øye set to task, recruiting a band. With drummer Sebastian Maschat and keyboard player Daniel Nentwig pilfered from Berlin electro-house experimentalists Extra Produktionen, the band chose to leave behind their electronic origins, preferring instead to concentrate on writing, recording and performing as a band, a point they were keen to press home as they promoted their debut LP Dreams in 2006, released in the UK by Modular Records. The release created a wave of interest in the UK, with many people considering The Whitest Boy Alive to be a moniker that Øye was working under, therefore a solo project. That the band refused to give interviews prior to the album’s release cost them the opportunity to set the record straight, though any confusion surrounding the architects did nothing to affect the positivity which surrounded the album. Scoring a healthy 7.1 / 10 on Pitchfork, Dreams showed that Øye had retained the song

writing skills honed as half of Kings of Convenience, gently guiding the tracks alongside Öz’s sturdy Cure-like basslines with his whispered vocals and measured delivery. While by no means perfect, what Dreams revealed more than anything was huge potential; that The Whitest Boy Alive are capable of producing an album as big as their ideas and as forward thinking as their – or at least Erlend Øye’s – ethos. With second album Rules set for release in the UK on March 30th on their own label, Bubbles, and the band now keen to discuss and promote the project, I headed over to the Carpenter’s Arms near Brick Lane in East London to meet Erlend Øye and pick his brains about the album, the label and of course the future for himself and his band.

first met Erlend Øye in Bergen late last November. I was over to watch The New Wine, a band closely associated with Øye, at the Telle Records Christmas party. The town was covered in a blanket of white, with temperatures below freezing, and as I shuffled past the potcard-perfect houses before the gig, hugging myself to keep warm, the streets were deserted, and I didn’t see a soul. No one to ask directions, water surrounding me on every side. If it wasn’t for the fact that Bergen is one of most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen, and that the hotel receptionist had drawn me a very detailed map, I would have felt pretty isolated as I stood at the top of the city centre’s steepest incline and looked out towards the mountains. The Telle Records party was of course a different matter all together. A capacity venue full of hipsters of all ages, all of whom it would seem were in a band of their own or in some way involved in the Bergen music scene, and all with a story, anecdote or an aside that involved Erlend Øye. Most of them didn’t know him personally, but it didn’t stop his name cropping up as they told me about gigs they’d played, gigs they seen, bands they liked, bands they didn’t like and so on and so on. The general opinion was of a talented man with a high regard for his achievements; someone comfortable enough in their own skin to play games with the comforts of others; the most important artist to have emerged out of the Bergen Wave. I met him at lunch the next day. He seemed interested in what everyone had to say, and excited about an afternoon sledging near the funicular railway. Eirik Bøe dropped in for five minutes, and

they chatted as you would expect of old friends, and when he got up to head up the mountain, he left with a warm goodbye and an enthusiastic handshake. And it was the same enthusiastic handshake that greeted me in the Carpenter’s Arms as he arrived for the interview, only ten minutes late and looking calm and content. After trying out a couple of chairs, he decided that a pair of stools next to a wall and a shelf would be the best place to sit, and so we did. Kruger: Let’s start by talking about Bergen. We met there a few weeks ago while the town was covered in snow, and I got a real sense of a small place that produces a lot of good music. Is this something to do with a feeling of isolation? That people feel that they want to start a band or be creative in another way because that’s the only way to reach out beyond the limits of the city? Erlend Øye: “I think so, yes.” K: I read an interview that you gave a couple of years ago where you said that you always thought that The Whitest Boy Alive was like a person that grew up somewhere that was not exactly the most interesting place in the world, and so I obviously made the link between that and your own life. Am I right? EØ: “Yes, for sure. And I feel that I have found that same character in Germany too; people who grew up in a cultural desert, growing up where it’s not a capital. There’s not really any moral or much more than that. I guess that’s it.” K: Did you feel that you were hearing about all the things that were happening in places that sounded more exciting, places like London, and New York, and Berlin? Did you feel that these places were influencing you from a distance? EØ: “For sure. It always seemed like that’s where music was coming from, that’s where stuff was going on, but at the same time, of course, the isolation of Bergen is also what makes you. Bergen imposes a frame on you, it imposes a lot of limitations on you, and you have to be really creative in order to make your life happen there.” K: How do you mean? EØ: “You can’t just expect things to be served to you; you have to entertain yourself and people around you. It’s kind of motivating when you realise that just one person can really make a big difference to how the city is. It feels worthwhile to try to do something because people will appreciate it, although it’s a pretty hard town too. Bergen is a town full of critique. A lot

of people, people you don’t even know, will come to you after a show and be like ‘that was pretty shit’, you know. ‘You can’t play together’. ‘Your bass player sucks’. People will just tell you stuff like that. It’s very, very different from other places, like London. When I first came to England I was always struck by the politeness. I guess people are more struck with my frankness.”

t’s the frankness of Erlend Øye that makes him such a stand out lyricist, managing to navigate a credible path while dealing in matters of the heart. On Rules’ stand out track Courage, Øye sings the unspectacular “No love can be guaranteed / It don’t come with no guarantee,” following it up with the fierce honesty of “So wake up, or wake up alone / If you want me show come courage,” which barges the lyrics out of the clutches of trite romance and into the jaws of brutal candour. It’s a trick he’s been pulling his entire career, from the nonchalant desires of I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From, to the befuddled repetition of Burning. K: Let’ talk about lyrics. Having heard you with Kings of Convenience, solo and of course now with The Whitest Boy Alive, it seems that that whether you’re singing over an acoustic guitar

or a Prefuse 73 production, your voice is just as important as any other sound. The lyrics are clear and crisp, and they’re always prominent. You must feel strongly about your lyrics, because you want people to hear them. EØ: “Clearly, lyrics are very important to me. I look down on other bands that I think haven’t paid so much attention to what they are saying. I think a lot of bands think ‘let’s make a band, and let’s have vocals because our favourite bands have vocals,’ and then write lyrics. That’s just completely the wrong way round for me. I think first you have to have something to say, and then you have to worry about what musical vehicle you need to get your message across. And of course, if you spend a lot of time writing lyrics, you obviously want them to be heard.” K: You say that someone needs something to say. When you first started writing as a teenager, what did you think that you had to say? EØ: “Well, it’s not so much that there is a message, something that says that this is bad and this is good. All you do is try to describe your life and describe your emotions in a poetic way, because it’s just a way that makes it clear to us

all that we’re not alone in the world. You recognise an emotion; you can recognise a situation to music. Lyrics are often used by people to say something that is so personal that they couldn’t even tell it to their best friend. In a song, you can say your deepest thoughts to the entire world. I think that’s the most exciting thing about music, it’s very deep secrets, often better shared, and you can listen to it many, many times, and every time you hear it, you can wander, and every time you can have a different opinion on what it’s about. And as long as that continues, the music always stays alive for you because there’s always the question, ‘what is the person thinking about?’ ‘Who is it about?’ ‘When did it happen?’ ‘Did it happen?’ ‘What happened after that?’” K: Do you find yourself inspired by literature as much as other songwriters when you write? EØ: “I don’t read so many books, to be honest.” K: That surprises me. EØ: “I don’t, really. And I hardly watch any movies. I guess I do listen to a lot of music. Not so much lately. There’s very few songwriters that I feel take me seriously as a listener. I am really a

lyric man and, I think that I am kind of extreme in that." K: That’s why it surprises me when you say you don’t read many books. People that are interested in how eloquently they express themselves are generally interested in understanding how someone else expresses themselves, however they do it. EØ: “But I am very social. Very often people say things, words fall beautifully into place. I think that’s mainly were I get my inspiration from, just from listening to people talk.” K: There’s a lyric of yours that I picked up on from Above You, which says, “where the young eclipse the old’. I was looking at your website, and on the shop sign on the website, there’s an illustration of a little old pot, and that’s written on the old pot on your website, and I recognised it as a lyric from the song. I wondered why that one line would reappear two years after the song. It must have a relevance of some kind. So I drew my own conclusions and thought about the band that I saw in Bergen, The New Wine, and how through your mentoring you were maybe opening up the possibility for them to achieve something even bigger than you have.

EØ: “Yeah, yeah, I can see that. It’s not a very important thing, but it’s a line I’m very happy with. It says a lot about a lot of things. That’s just how it goes, particularly in music and in art. The song is about big cities and how people move there, and how the world repays them. And they will, at some point, be the one who will be eclipsed, and I guess I feel that too. I feel that I’m at some point going to be eclipsed by people coming from behind, but that’s just how it goes. But it’s also exciting, particularly with The New Wine. They are doing something that I really, really enjoy. I’ve been to many of their concerts and had such a great time. I really, really enjoy what they do, and I don’t get excited about music so often. And knowing that they are from Bergen, and knowing that we’re going to go on tour together... we’re going to have a lot of good times dancing to good music.” K: When does your tour with them start? EØ: “In April, I think. It’s going to be fun. I just hope the people don’t like them even more than us!” K: It should keep you on your toes, making sure that the young don’t eclipse the old too soon. EØ: “Yeah [laughs]. But it’s all fine. I think that particularly with the second record now, we’re really getting our point across. We’re touring and we’re very happy with what we’re doing. We’ve done it all ourselves and the way we’re doing it feels satisfying, unique. We don’t really have so many more places to go.”

he point that Øye stresses that they’re getting across more than any other on Rules is that they’re a live band, with no pre-programmed elements. His feelings on electronic bands recruiting drummers and bassists in order to perform hit singles at festivals run deep, describing it as a “masquerade” and “just not very sexy”, and he’s keen to stress that this is something that will never happen with The Whitest Boy Alive. As far as Øye is concerned, it’s the little mistakes and the mood change that lead you to discover the real heart of a song, and it’s to this end that they ensure that everything they write can be played live by the band during the recording sessions and on stage. K: You recorded the new album in Mexico, which is interesting, because if The Whitest Boy Alive is this person from the least exciting place in the world that we mentioned earlier, then maybe Mexico is the most exciting place you

could take him. EØ: “The only reason why we went to Mexico is because we have a huge fan base in Mexico and we were touring, and we were financing the recording by playing there. And also, it was going to be warm and we were going to have a good time because recording an album can be very taxing on the group morale.“ K: Did anything happen there that you weren’t expecting, with it being such a different environment? EØ: “It was very difficult. We had so many troubles with electricity and gear. It was fun trying to get the right things, and it was an enormous amount of trouble. I don’t think any other band could possibly do it. We were just so persistent, asking people for favours, and had setback after setback, but finally we did it.” K: You recorded different versions of every song. Why? Were you looking for a big pallet to choose from, or were you unhappy with some of the early versions? EØ: “That’s how we do it, which is quite different from other bands. I think most bands go into a studio, record the drums first, then the bass, then the guitar and so on and so on. And doing it that way, everything is separated so you can move stuff around on a computer. You only do the one version. But what we do, we play everything at the same time. We have tonnes of takes. We’ll record twenty takes of a song, three or four takes every day, and then at some point feel like we have it. And that’s the big difference between electronic music and us. The big difference is that if you are working on electronic music you just open the file. You sit there and open the file and the file would be exactly how it was as you left it. But when you play and you say, ‘let’s play this song again’, someone’s mood has changed, someone’s energy has changed; the recording changes.” K: Do you play all in the room together? EØ: “Yeah, that’s the most fun way of doing it. It’s hard too because everyone’s feeling the pressure to not fuck up, but you’ve got the knowledge that you can always do it again the next day too.” K: I’m interested in your record label, Bubbles. Looking at your website, it looks like you do everything in-house. You write and record the music, you release it yourselves through your own label, and you sell it directly through the online shop. You seem in control of how everything works, making sure that it’s working in your best interests. Is that

an idea for the future that more bands should adopt? EØ: “We are definitely conscious of trying to have an idea for how things should be for bands. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I know so well the other side of the coin, the major label coin, from Kings of Convenience, so I was very curious to try to do it in a different way. For the first record we didn’t do any interviews, and you never would have been able to do that with a major label, but I think that was important. I think it’s so important that when you come out with something that people are able to discover if for themselves. That it’s not hyped up or blown up. It feels natural this time round to have thought about it a bit more and to have talked about what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it. We don’t try and do anything because you should do that. There’s so many ideas about what you should do.” K: Which can often mean ‘it would be good for me if you did this’, rather than 'it waould be good for you.' So do you think then you're providing a model of how things could be done? EØ: “Yes. I think that unfortunately all the discussion in the press about the future of the music industry is always on the basis of what the record companies are going to do. There’s very little discussion about change, just how record companies are going to keep on making money and keeping employees and so on, and so on. But if we don’t need the record companies, then it’s great.” K: So how have you embraced new technology and the new tools that are available to you? EØ: “More and more. I do hope for a future where you basically make a song, record it and put it for sale in your own little shop, or put it free on MySpace, or whatever. You just make music, you present it. People know about it, you play the songs, get excited, you make money because people want to go to the show, you sell t-shirts, you make money and you can keep on performing. Basically, there’s got to be money to come in otherwise a lot of people aren’t ever going to play. I guess we all want bands to keep on playing. Money has to come in, but a lot of money can also come in from there not being unnecessary middlemen taking half the cake. That’s what happens. We’ve been dealing with labels this time round who are suggesting, for one, that they put out the digital record. But then they want fifty percent of the money that’s made

from selling the digital rights. I could possibly understand fifty percent for distributing and producing a physical record, but just the digital rights? Don’t you realise that your job is gone? Your job is much smaller now. The job is an e-mail and a call, and a return call. Things are going to have to change. And the good thing is that basically, you sell less records but you make much more money, so all in all, you end up with the same. But we’ll see how it goes... that’s kind of exciting.” K: In the future, do you think that your label will release music from other artists? EØ: “We’ve eliminated enough unnecessary middlemen this time around. I’d rather present our options to another band. Show them the model, and say ‘do it this way.’” K: When you look into the future, do you see the Kings of Convenience, The Whitest Boy Alive, or do you just see Erlend Øye? Can all these things still exist in the future for you? EØ: “Personally, this year is going to be great because I’ll be able to put out this album, and maybe a Kings of Convenience album too, and from then on I don’t want to have to feel I have to put out very much more. I’m just excited to go around and play it live, in different ways, in different times, in different countries of the world. I definitely feel that I want to take a long break from producing records, because it really is very time- and life- consuming. It’s very important also for a musician to make sure they live a life that is made up out of something else other than just music and the music industry. You have to make sure you progress as a human being and learn new things.”

ith a career spanning so many different projects and collaborations already, that’s less of an adage and more a way of life. As Erlend Øye continues to move forwards on the perpetual lookout for fresh incentives and motivations – currently with The Whitest Boy Alive, no doubt in many other guises as the year’s pass by – let’s be thankful that this visionary Norwegian’s essentially selfish pursuit of new adventures leaves so much good music scattered in its wake. Rules comes out on March 30th on Bubbles Records. Kruger readers can download album track Islands for free from www.krugerlabs.com/blog

It Hugs Back

The road to good music rarely runs smoothly, it sticks and it stalls. Yet from these machinery breakdowns come chances to reshape and move on, better for the down time. Evolution, see, is down to embracing mutations and variety and pushing them forwards through natural selection and genetic drift. Labels and fans hearing something different, that they like, and the scene changing to accommodate this new life form – the future sound of music.

he four members of It Hugs Back have evolved from teenage bundles of boyish hormones into the stand-upproud and tall figures of a 4AD label signing. Matt, Jack, Paul and Dimitri all met at school aged 11 and were soon bound together forever by a love of the same music, from Nirvana to the smaller local bands they went to see live. Matt Simms, lead singer of the dream pop outfit, is as softly spoken as he is hushed on the album, gently enthusiastic about a world where everything is currently “good” and “nice”. He thinks those early music choices still resonate in their work today: “I think what we were listening to back then influenced us more than I first realised. When I write the songs, I don’t try to plan things too much; I’m more interested in the textures we can create. I like to listen to tracks that don’t do what you would expect.” By the time the quartet headed off to university they could play a decent repertoire of instruments between them and they decided to form a band – It Hugs Back was born and quickly garnered interest from the Beggars stable. Too Pure took all of the band’s early singles and released them together as an 8-track EP – The Record Room. The four friends graduated onto the flagship label 4AD on the back of the EP’s success. There they join Bon Iver, TV On The Radio and Stereolab. Today, three and a half years after forming IHB, here they are – still young, ever fresh and releasing their debut album into the realms of your future listening. Matt is more than happy with where It Hugs Back landed: “4AD are a really helpful and supportive label to sign to. We were initially worried about picking a record label because we didn’t want to sign to something that would

make us change our music too much. 4AD wanted us to carry on as we were and to keep producing our own work – they took a gamble and were prepared to let us do our own thing which was good of them.”

"I had my first listen to the mastered version of the album the other day. There was nothing I wanted to change, which was a relief." Matt Simms

While their eyes are fixed on the future, the boys’ musical tastes are taking steps back into the past; playing catch up with the acts they feel they should know by now. For keyboardist Jack Theedom this means: “listening to Spiritualized a lot, especially Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, and quite a bit of Teenage Fanclub,” while Matt has been working his way through: “Stereolab’s Radio 1 Sessions collection and music by The Sea and Cake.” The debut album Inside Your Guitar, released on April 6th, is indicative of the Beggars tried-and-tested grow scheme for new pop plants; taking talent, giving them time and support and watching them bloom. A year in the making it utilises a two steps back, one step forward approach that sees It Hugs Back draw upon varied influences from the past and meld them into something new. Amongst their laidback musings and fuzzy guitar you can hear tantalising traces of Wilco, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth and The Lemonheads. Matt is pleased with the end result: “I had my first listen to the mastered version of the album the other day. I needed to remember the words for all the songs because I had to write out all the lyrics for the Japanese release. It was strange to hear it after a bit of time away but luckily there was nothing I wanted to change, which was a relief. Especially as I wrote the songs and we recorded and mixed them ourselves. My favourite track is q, because of the bass line that Paul came up with; that’s the fun thing about writing the songs, I’ll write the chords and then we’ll all get together and the others will do their thing, help them to take shape.” t Hugs Back might not like to plan the music too much, but the package that they present to the world gets plenty of thought and attention. All of the artwork has been created by Matt’s friend Ffion or ffi ffi mon chee chee as she’s credited on the album sleeve. The packaging is as cute as the band’s name. It has evolved from the lovingly handmade, handstitched early recordings released as limited edition 7” singles via Tigertrap Records and IHB’s own label Safe & Sound yet it still evokes the same DIY craft ethos. The cover of Inside Your

Guitar follows the earlier collage and stitch theme of coloured strips of paper and fraying calico. This connecting thread across the work is important to Matt and the band: “I like collecting records and I like to see artists who follow themes in their creative output, for that cohesion to be there. I wanted to do a similar thing with our recordings.” Their music has already attracted the attention of Radio One’s Huw Stephens and Rob da Bank and has seen It Hugs Back record three sessions at Maida Vale Studios. Matt is eager for this all to continue: “Making music is all we really want to do so I hope that we can stick around for the long haul. We’ve already started on the next album, kicking some ideas around, having a play. So far it is going well; we’ve recorded a few tracks.”

here will It Hugs Back go next? “Forwards, rather than back hopefully,” according to Matt. “There’s bound to be some driving around involved for gigs and tours. I’d like us to do some more radio sessions – The BBC treat us best so I’d like us to return to Maida Vale because I get to learn a lot off the engineers there.” For Jack the future will take them to “Space. We’ve been to Preston, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds as being in the band means we get to tour all over, but I hope the future involves space travel and living on other planets. I’d like to see a day when people can set foot on the moon, take passenger flights across the galaxy and go and watch music on Mars.” It Hugs Back have arrived. All aboard. Next stop Mars. Words by Susie Wild Photo by Tim Cochrane www.timothycochrane.com See more of Tim Cochrane's photos from the shoot at www.krugerlabs.com/gallery

Mystic Mag

�oe �ideon and The �hark

Running a chiromantic finger along the fame line of her brother and band mate's palm, Viva - better known as the selachimorphic half of Joe Gideon and The Shark turns and gazes far into the distance, beyond this world even, her eyes glowing as the voices of future generations speak through her. "A robotic roadie," she whispers…

OK, so the above scenario may seem a little far-fetched (robot roadies don't exist – yet-, nor is Viva reading Gideon's palm when we interview the band). However, the vision of an automated kit-carrier dragging the multiinstrumentalists' equipment from van to stage is definitely something Viva would like to see become a reality. "Why a robotic roadie? Well, a) maybe it could do all the work for free, and b) we're a two-piece that uses enough equipment for seven people," she explains. "It would make things a lot easier for me if somebody would do all the lugging around. No human being would want to do it - so it would have to be a robot."

Perhaps if debut album Harum Scarum, which was released on March 9th, becomes the intergalactic bestseller which it sounds like it should be, then her dream could yet come true and Bronzerat Records may just cough up the readies for a fully mechanised, unquestioningly loyal member of the Joe Gideon &The Shark road crew. Much depends on whether the world at large is ready for the noise made when two sonic adventurers attempt to alchemise the direct, laconic delivery of the blues and country with the gritty power of The Cramps and The Birthday Party... Recording of the album took place in a two-week blitz with producer Head (PJ Harvey, Massive Attack) at the helm last spring, though mixing wasn't completed until the back-end of the year. With the first copies now in his palms, guitarist and vocalist Gideon is quietly confident that the band achieved what they set out to do. "It's quite original - you probably haven't heard anything like it before," he laughs. "It's certainly indebted to the great heroes of music, people whom we hold dear to our hearts. There's a bit of gospel and country, and it's mainly blues-driven. It's alien blues, perhaps." Aside from the howling guitars and the sight of Viva playing drums, guitar and piano all at once, one of the most

popular elements of Joe Gideon &The Sharks' music seems to be the humour that Gideon instils in his lyrics. Fans of the duo's previous band Bikini Atoll are likely to be more surprised than most by this contrast in styles, with a desire to entertain now central to the duo's aims. "When the last band split up and this one was formed, my song-writing had taken on a different direction, a lot more narrative-based," recalls Gideon. "That brought about a whole stylistic change, I guess, as a result. It was a happy accident. We just found this vein of humour that I didn't realise was there before." Viva had by this stage picked up the drums and was looking to incorporate this into the live show. "I had to convince my brother that I could play drums, keyboards and guitar all at the same time," she admits. "He doubted it - but I proved him wrong!" hile creating Harum Scarum has taken up large parts of the siblings' past year, there has also been a fairly constant stream of gigs, including tours with label mate Seasick Steve and spiritual cousins Archie Bronson Outfit (who produced the video for single DOL, and whose drummer is Viva's other half ). Best of all was supporting their

heroes Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds last autumn. "They were standing on the side of the stage watching as we did our show - that was much more nerve-wracking than the fact that there were 3,000 people out in front of us!" says Viva. And what of Mr Cave himself? "He's certainly that enigmatic, charismatic character you'd expect him to be," she continues. "Gideon talked with him, but I couldn't! I became like a star-struck teenager. To share a stage with him was the highlight of my musical career, or life, even." If you can please Nick Cave, then pleasing the crowds at venues across the globe - regardless of their size - should be a doddle in comparison. But getting all that gear set up? Perhaps less so especially without that much-needed robo-roadie. Let's hope Joe Gideon & The Sharks' backs hold out long enough for one to be invented. Words by Neil Condron Photo by Lucy Johnston www.lucyjohnston.co.uk

For centuries, myth and mystery were passed on through song and strum from campfire to campfire, village to village, entertaining and empowering in equal measure.

ut today we don’t have to get ash on our arse to get the latest skinny. New communication tools spring up before we’ve had a chance to master the last one. And while this smells of progression, maybe we’ve taken our eye off the ball. Word of mouth? Fuck that, I’m Facebooking and Tweeting. But too much emphasis on the medium has left the message distorted. We may get poked but we eat meals-for-one at night. We’ve got 36 followers but no-one to go for a pint with. With the embers on their last flickr (sic), a new female folker is blowing life back into the fire, telling us sometimes you’ve got to take one step backwards to take two steps forward. For the past seven years, Laura Elizabeth Bryon, more concisely known as Le B, has been shouting herself hoarse with noisy fuckers King Alexander over ‘obscure lyrics’ that ‘people have to put their own interpretation on’. But the Cardiff chanteuse has realised sometimes

it’s best to be up front about these things. It’s the same with the way we interact these days - misread a bit of textspeak and you won’t know if you’re meant to be at Megabowl for 3 o’clock or if you’ve been dumped. “I always used to find it really hard to write about perennial themes like love and loss and all the things that have inspired people to be creative over the centuries. It was finding that I could write songs that I was comfortable with and being able to sing a bit more honestly that made me start performing by myself.” After Plan B founder Everett True heard her songs and booked her to play Huw Stephen’s Swn festival, Le B’s been causing ripples in the folk pool. While there’s nothing genre-defying about the folk form of the five songs on Le B’s soon-to-be-released EP, Good Fortune Sounds (there’s even a cover of standard The Trees They Do Grow High - a song about a medieval princess and an illfated arranged marriage), it’s her hearton-(woolen)sleeve honesty which could well point towards the ideal for a happier future. “When you’re up front and put yourself out there in your work then you

�e �

hope that people will respond in kind. I’m lucky to be surrounded by creative people and people willing to share ideas and try something new and I hope that if you’re enthusiastic then people will be enthusiastic back. Let’s set up a barter system where we exchange ideas. We need to think of new simpler ways of doing things because the present is a bit shit. To succeed in the future we’re going to have to go back to less complicated ways. I’m going to get an allotment soon to prepare for the end of the world.” And the more she enthuses about it in her kinetic yet knowing way, the more Le B sells the idea for an alternative back-to-basics future: “It’s sounds cheesey but my motto is ‘Made for Adventures’. Adventures aren’t just about the obvious like going to Australia or something like that. I believe it’s really important to find adventures in the everyday like watching something on telly and it being great or going to the park and flying a kite. I try and make everything an adventure and let that inspire me in my music. I don’t want to sound like a hippy, but when you think of life like that, even when you’re having a rubbish time and you’ve got no money or you don’t really know

what you’re doing, if you can think about having some kind of adventure then you’ll end up doing something really fun.” Now you’ll have the chance to have a smile-off with Le B when her debut is released in March on Twisted Nerve and Finders Keepers head honcho Andy Votel’s Bird Records imprint. You’ll find her haunting voice envelop you in its slurs, burrs and purrs leaving you warm and woozey by the time the needle stops. Less folky dokey, more folky smokey. Listening to it might just stop us hurtling towards a dystopia where fear, oppression and alienation abound and get you talking, touching and loving. This is a sharing place. In the future, community is king. Words by Dan Tyte Photo by Mei Lewis www.missionphotographic.com www.myspace.com/monnomestleb

The ďż˝akes

Tomorrow's World 32

Do you remember BBC1’s scientific bonanza,Tomorrow’s World, a weekly window to the future complete with fold up cars that would fit in a briefcase, robotic lollypop men and computers bigger than your fridge? The show provided a glimpse, nay a teaser, of the possibilities our future world would hold. And frequently featured watches with calculators too. This Thursday night gem didn’t bypass The Rakes either. “Ah yeah, come home from school, have your beans and chips and settle down to see the latest gadget they’d try and attach to your wrist. TV remote, breathalyser, telephone - which has actually happened now so it wasn’t completely laughable all the time.” In fact, lead singer Alan Donohoe lets slip that: “After watching the show for sometime as a child I decided that my Dad needed to get me a subscription to New Scientist magazine, which he did and which I was very pleased about. Obviously taking it into school made me look very cool.” Just in case you’ve been too busy with your own scientific daydreaming, here’s a bit of history on The Rakes - pay attention at the back. Arriving in our indie discos and subsequently the mainstream radio in 2005, Alan, Jamie, Matthew and Lasse cut a dash in their Fred Perry polo’s and knocked out a series of cracking singles including 22 Grand Job and Strasbourg. They played hundreds of shows, won many hearts and apparently never enjoyed a hearty meal between them. This was followed by a second album in 2007, 10 New Messages, which made them household names in France, Australia and large chunks of Asia. There were songs about Tom Cruise crying, soundtracks for Dior shows and still no sign of having ever consumed a good pie. Matthew even had time to begin a masters in Philosophy, but notes he’s still in the process of finishing it. “I’m yet to see if I can combine studying and the extravagances of The Rakes’ rock n roll lifestyle.” Fast forward to the present day and we join the band poised at the release of their 3rd album, Klang, returning irresistibly to their raw-immediateearly sound, name checking Jack Bauer (awesome) and having hitched their

amps and sticks over to the suburbs of Berlin in search of inspiration. And they’re still so very thin. “We recorded Klang in a disused, former soviet radio station that in its day was used by some well-known heads of state with even the East German national anthem recorded there. When the Berlin wall fell, the staff just upped and left everything behind, and we ended up using a lot of the equipment abandoned there, like their mics. The place had really special acoustics which produced interesting sounds, but it had a very eerie feel to it, which somehow has found its way on to the record.” It’s within this sound that lays the essence to what makes this their best album yet. Gone are the guest vocalists, the over-dubs and raps about racial tension on the tube. It’s just The Rakes captured in a room, playing with all the ferocity and passion that makes them a fantastic live band. You can almost hear Alan’s infamous dance moves in between his lines. I mention that I loved how the vocal is left raw and unpolished, which is interrupted incredulously by Alan: “Excuse me! No you’re right, and we wanted to capture those ‘happy accidents’ and mistakes in the recording. In an album making process you can

take your four best takes and cobble them together with a line here, and a line from there, but it loses something in that - let’s keep the magic in the music.” Whilst The Rakes’ lyrics have previously been heavy on the wry references to the London grind and the woes and wares of East London nightlife, there’s a distinct shift in tone, just as those once lauded city boys are finding that their 22 grand jobs aren’t as alright as they used to be. Just to make this point crystal clear, the album’s opening line is: ‘Sometimes you can’t small the shit until you’re in it.’ Oh dear. What happened? “We feel that the London music scene’s gotten so boring, it’s like wading through a sea of shit. When we came out five years ago it felt like there was a real explosion of bands and loads of energy, now it’s so bland. Everyone seems to be in a band with the sole purpose of getting on Skins.” To which Alan interjects wistfully: “It was all about Hollyoaks in our day. If you got on that you were king of the world for an afternoon. But to be fair, I don’t really listen to that many new bands, I might really like them. I’m being a bit miserable aren’t I? They may well be the future.” Ah yes, the future. With those watch-calculator hybrids now a reality, what kind of world do The Rakes see themselves, those ‘bland London bands’ and us all populating? More specifically what will Alan with his undeniable pull towards social commentary be singing about? “I’m not sure how it’ll work into songs yet but you’ve got to be thinking about environmental damage when we look ahead. Being in a band is really bad for that, actually, if you consider all the airmiles you rack up doing tours and promotion, travelling to different countries just for one show...” With this album released internationally and a promotion scheduled stretched out for months, do the band fall victim to middle-class carbon footprint guilt? Alan is very quick to answer: “No, because I’m a vegan and apparently a vegan in a four by four does less damage then a meat eater on a push bike. So I’m alright. And I ride a bike, so I can go around pouring oil in my local pond guilt free if I like. In fact I’ve an invention that if they bring back Tomorrow’s World, should definitely be on it. What it is right, I’ve designed this bike mechanism...” To which he goes off into a ridiculously complex, mathematical and lengthy description of a gear system, whilst his band mates look on bemused. You can tell he really studied those New Scientists. A good five minutes of animated mechanics later, finished off with a warning of “patent pending, Alan Donohe, 2009,” Jamie replies thoughtfully: “I just wish someone would invent beer without a hangover.” With the invention wish-lists out, Lasse offers that’d he’d like to see “a teleporter, for getting to gigs. But seems unlikely as I guess people are more concerned with renewable fuels then teleporters.” But there’s no stopping Alan now, who’s been deep in thought: “Or I’ve got another one! The landlord of this pub I worked in whilst I was studying biology had an idea. He said ‘why don’t you lot’, like I was part of the secret science establishment, ‘why don’t you lot develop a cure for lung cancer and the mode of the administration is through a cigarette?’ Which actually when you think about it is genius.” I enquire as to if he ever looked into that? “Nah. Was too busy with my bike project, still am.” Keen not to let Alan’s invention lose momentum, its suggested that as long as all goes well down the patent office, it might be ready in time for the 2012 Olympic Games. “Actually, Jamie’s Dad is on the board of the people that designed the Olympic logo and I was chatting to him down the pub and he reckoned that as a London band we’d be a bit ahead of the game, and that we should compose the theme for the Olympics. "With that idea in mind I wrote an alternative one, which slowly turned into the last song on the album, Final Hill. But we haven’t submitted it as it’s a bit subversive; there’s a lot of swearing, it’s a bit negative and actually it’s not exactly about the London Olympics. But it could still be adopted by the disenchanted youths of East London.” Matthew looks on longingly with a sigh: “It could have been our World In Motion”. And maybe, just maybe, it still will be. Only the future will tell. Words by Alex Bean Photo by James Perou www.photosimian.co.uk

The

�ong

�ost

Legend has it that if you close your eyes and wait long enough, Joanna Newsom will arrive, stir up a legion of plaudits and impersonators and then leave – and your heartfelt misadventures in bohemia will stop being the past and become the future.

r so it was with husband and wife couple The Long Lost – better known as dapper avant-hip hopper Daedelus (AKA Alfred Darlington) and sometime Flying Lotus vocalist Laura Darlington. Alfred and Laura have spent the best part of the past decade disconnectedly amalgamating a shimmering, beguiling album of romantic, unsettled, yearning laptop folk music, in which time “the nu-folk movement kind of came and went”. According to Laura Darling, the decision by the childhood sweethearts (turned married couple turned musical collaborators) to release an album about love was “not a quick decision – in fact it was ten years in the making. It took so long because it was so personal”. “Electronic music is easier to do singly” says Alfred. “Putting this together was something that took a lot longer. It felt like when we started the project, big beat was everywhere, the echoes of drum and bass were still around, and there was no place for quiet music.”

As anyone who enjoys taunting the hard of hearing will tell you, there’s always a place for quiet music. Although most of us aren’t cool enough to make an album with our wife. Maybe someone else’s wife…but whoever’s wife it ended up being, it definitely wouldn’t sound like an enchanting Victorian melodrama. What Laura and Alfred manage to coax out of bare arrangements of oboe, plucked guitar, and intertwined vocals is something special. With echoes of fellow husband and wife team Low, moments of Tunng-esq harmony and the ghost of a less-verbose Joanna Newsom hovering over proceedings, it’s a stylistic departure for both Daedelus and Ninja Tune who have bravely ventured into the folk abyss. Luckily, the man with the dandy sideburns and FX box to match was always an instrumentalist at heart: “Some of the melodies on the album were hanging around for years, they were some of the first things that I composed when I used to just pluck things out on strings” says Alfred.

And, according to Mrs Darlington, the skewed beauty of the finished album comes from the passionate, combative, but ultimately cathartic process of working with your loved one: “We disagreed on almost every little thing, but fundamentally shared the same vision of what we wanted it to be. Our studio is in our house, which could sometimes amplify the situation! But it was nice that we recorded it at home, because it meant that over the years, we had quite a diverse range of opinions on the material on the album from people who would call past the house.” Of course, this being the Darlington’s house, the opinions ranged from those of Flying Lotus to the Anti Pop Consortium – the alt-hop Wu Tang Clan that serve as representatives on earth for hip hop futurist Beans. “Beans was really into The Long Lost material”, says Alfred. “Each year he would ask how it was progressing. It was kind of weird to show him such personal music, Beans is coming from a different place. But it was that sort of interest that kept the project alive all that time – the kindness of strangers I guess.” And in a funny sort of way, The Long Lost offer the kind of musical freeze

frame that appeals to the futurist Beans as much as the classicist Newsom. Their songs ebb and flow, one moment getting remixed by man-of-the-moment Flying Lotus, the next revelling in ancient melodrama: “We’re obsessed with Penny Dreadfuls – sad stories in serialised forms” enthuses Laura. “They’re kind of like Victorian soap operas, where something terrible happens in each episode.” If that’s not the basis for a long and happy marriage I don’t know what is. Deep in enchanted Los Angeles, the Darlingtons fed fairy stories into a wooden mangle, and taped the results. They courted in an LA High School, and honeymooned in rural Wales. The Long Lost waited so long to release this album that the future came and went before they even got going. Now that (as the marketing executive said to the focus group), is forward thinking. Words by Adam Corner www.myspace.com/findthelonglost

�wo �oor �inema �lub Jen Long heads Bat to the Future with the gleaming synth-pop trio, discovering a

world of four key guitars and strange tunnels that lead all the way to France.

It was a thing of beauty: slim, black, and sophisticated. It was perfection in the palm of your hand. And the things it could do… All the features under the sun crammed into mere inches of slick casing and bright colour screen. And now it sits in a bag of rice, lying hopelessly atop my radiator in a desperate attempt at salvation. Yes, I spilt a glass of wine on my phone, my futuristic technical dream, and it is now royally fucked.

o here I am, sat in a steamy coffee shop somewhere in a mess of rain ebbed streets and hassled commuters, trying to record down a crackling line on the piece of crap I discarded into a bottom draw five months ago. Through the worn handset I try to explain to Kevin, one third of gleaming popsynthers Two Door Cinema Club, that he shouldn’t worry about the piercing beep which interrupts our conversation with profane regularity; I had a mishap. And so I tell him the story, apologise for my unprofessionalism, and beg understanding. Kevin, currently cramming his life into a single bag within the confines of a transposable Travelodge, understands. “We generally record all on the one laptop and run our drums live all on the one laptop so pretty much, if that gave in we’d be really, really in trouble” he laughs with a light and slightly charming accent. “It’s broken before.” But wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to the basics. Apart from writing the kind of ace new shimmering pop that bounces from ear to tongue, to snag in the back of your mind until the world self-destructs, who are Two Door Cinema Club? “There’s 3 of us in the band and we come from a place called Bangor, a wee seaside resort on the east coast of Northern Ireland” he limps through a sleep cloud. “We don’t have a drummer, we use a laptop to programme all our beats.” It’s funny to think that just a couple of decades ago, anyone with a keyboard could prepare themselves for harsh accusations of not being a ‘proper musician’. And now, as technology progresses, so do the capabilities and scope to make the most innovative, and ultimately ace music ever heard. “I think like, it’s a lot different

using a laptop for your drums than it is a drum kit” he begins, an air of collectiveness gathering in his narrative. “Because a lot of people who do it just have a laptop that sounds like a drum kit, and that’s not using it to its full potential. We still have our basic sounds and then we’ll build on that and add in different kinds of percussion sounds and different beats, and we sample stuff from different kinds of styles of music so we’ve got an African drum beat in some songs, and a bit of Spanish samba rhythms, and we just kind of experiment and if it works out well then we go with it, but if it doesn’t we start again.” I argue that while there are some artists who don’t use their new tricks to full advantage, there are also some who hide behind their screens, heads down and eyes glazed. “We only use our backing track as just straight drums” he jumps in quickly, with assurance. “Everything else is live. So the vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards; everything is live. I think a lot of bands would double up their vocals or double up their guitars. We just made it a real important thing to us that people will hopefully realise that we don’t double up all our stuff in the backing track. As long as people know we’re not cheating. We’re trying to keep it as live as possible.” So, what’s the most amazing piece of the future that you’re harnessing now? “We’re getting this new bit of technology to run our drums. It’s like a flip switch. It’s like a button and it triggers a different drum track, and that’s pretty impressive.” At our current rate of technical advancement, where does Kevin think music will be in ten years time? “I think it’s gonna be all digital” he begins, quite matter of factly, before continuing. “There’s gonna be guitars but they’ll be USB’d into laptops, somewhere down the line to this Marshall amp plug in, and they’ll have four keys. It’ll be like Guitar Hero, basically, and that’s what we’ll play.” Talk turns to the Internet, and the ease with which anyone around the world can discover new, ace music, as well as create it. “That’s kind of how we started getting gigs” he enthuses, tone reeling. “We did the free recording ourselves and we stuck two tracks up on Myspace and just put them up for download, and no one had ever seen us live or anything before, we were just booked on the basis of these two demos from Myspace.” I assert that Myspace is a grandpa’s game. At our current rate of progression

we’ll be 88ing this DeLorean dream into a time where only the freshest entry on Hype Machine will be considered relevant. How long does Kevin think it’ll take before Two Door Cinema Club are considered classic dinosaurs of the near pop past? “I don’t know” he muses, tongue in cheek. “It’s hard to tell how things are gonna go, but I think we might go classical. All three of us play a classical instrument… I can play the trombone; Alex can play the clarinet and Sam can play the clarinet as well. We tried one thing once, but it didn’t really work. For an intro into one of our songs for the EP we were doing and yeh… It was just real bad.”

n light of this revelation, maybe all that’s brand spanking isn’t entirely amazing. I ask Kevin for the worst new thing that’s occurred in his life. “I’m a big Neighbours fan and they’ve changed the credits for Neighbours recently and it just doesn’t really work for me, you know what I mean?” I do, and concur profusely. “Also, there was a character that they just replaced for one episode with a different person. It was a pretty major character, it was Libby Kennedy, so that kind of shocked me a bit. So no, I wasn’t very cool on that one.” Equally appalled, I change the subject and bring us solidly into the present, asking Kevin his plans for the day. “We’re on our way to Paris so we’re driving to the Euro Tunnel today. I’ve never been to Paris as a tourist or a musician.” As a new band, in a new city, I challenge him to try something new, to roll with our theme. He offers to play the set in hot pants, all of them, and the crew. And then my phone recorder cuts out, and I curse my dependency upon all that is new, my lack of attention to the old, my inability to short hand. But then, without new, there would be no Two Door Cinema Club, and that’s something not even a bag of rice could remedy. Forget the old, it’s in the past. Photos by Kamil M. Janowski www.kjanowski.com

�an �eacon In space, they say, no-one can hear you scream. In Llandaf, Cardiff, it’s exactly the same. I’ve been shouting at the top of my lungs at Dan Deacon but he hasn’t heard a thing. He’s in Australia and sound doesn’t travel as fast as the scientists are making out. It’s slower than my Sky Broadband Internet connection.

nd that’s why you see so many Aussies in Britain. I bumped into some in town and asked them straight. ‘Why are you here and not there?’ They said, ‘It’s me fuckin’ broadband connection mate, it’s got a slug trail like, Martin ‘ere’s bed sheets... dirty gala.’ I asked them if they knew Dan Deacon. They said ‘yeah’, but he lost his phone in one of a kangaroo’s two vagina’s. I asked ‘Which one?’ They asked, ‘Roo or Vagina?’ I said don’t worry about it and we started talking about Sciencebot Stephen Hawkings. Dave the Aussie said that Hawkins theorises that for every positive electron, proton and neutron there’s a negative. Stephen knows where all the positives are but we can only find some of the negatives. Stephen is suggesting that the absence of the negatives could mean there could be parallel dimensions, doppelgangers and all sorts of other weirdness. I instantly asked ‘how do I get there?’ Dave suggested I take some of his aboriginal fungus. I asked, ‘How long will it take, I have work in the morning?’ He said, ‘Ages.’ Although a 26hr trip to OZ is probably a lot worse than a little flight into the netherworlds of cranial space, I started thinking how objective is this journalism? The Doppelganger Deacon’s environment will have constructed his

identity and subsequently affected his decisions, his thoughts and feelings. And this is all supposed to be about our future and our space. Negative Deacon can’t hypothesise without identifiable parameters. And we can’t really deal with negative predictions. The human race needs hope. When we were kids, you’d have to be a mini Charlie Manson to want it to be like this. I just didn’t want to be overrun with talking apes, prodding and poking me, talking about Orangu-Jesus smiting me because I was the Beast, Man. All I wanted was a roof over my head and some people around me. I got to be a lecturer with hundreds of screaming teenagers, and only get commissioned telephone and email interviews these days because I never leave my house. But maybe it’s because of the frosty relationship I have with other human beings. I’m no Nostradamus but it’s taking the piss really. It’s always Irony and never Karma. Seemingly, we don’t need objectivity in modern society. Kruger’s own Emily Payne is writing for The Sun now so I thought, fuck it. . Gonzo is dead. He shot himself in the face and wanted his ashes shot from a canon and if the media can create Fake Wars, Paedophiles of Paediatricians and portrays Jade Goody as a despicable racist and then, almost instantly, don

her as the new Princess Dianna, then we, the people, can create Black Presidents, Lesbian Prime Ministers and Female Sperm Donors. If Dan Deacon can’t do his own PR because he is stuck in the wilderness, then we, the people will have to do it for him. To represent Dan, I asked 30 Anglican Deacons who had been for a Balti more times than 30 1st Dan Karate Kids, to answer on his behalf. All of our subject group were ginger and balding and were completely inept with modern communication devices. None had ever used a telephone, mobile or otherwise, or had ever used a computer, the internet or ever sent or received emails. The transcript that followed was retrieved from our legal team and we are forbidden to publish. Dan Deacon is now being hunted by Interpol for a number of undisclosed misdemeanours, which are contrary to modern humanity’s moral structure. Deacon is believed to be somewhere between the Australian outback and New Zealand’s mountain ranges. And it’s shame. You get the slightest bit tabloid and people end up shot. he world needs a Dan Deacon. The kids need him. He’s approachable like a human Jesus. He’s in the pits with his people, he doesn’t believe in pedestals. His last album was loud, electronic, abrasive and individual. His new one, Bromst, has introduced acoustic instrumentation to the electronic; an Animal Collective harmonic, a full on live Dan Deacon band. He is now his own collective, a human, ginger, balding, Super Jesus. It’s like Obama running Bush’s Christian America. Someone is going to get shot. Jesus can be Italian or Jewish but he can never be ginger. And why not? If he wants to smash on some electro-ivories and have his mates bash on guitars in the middle of the crowd, why not let him? The kids are off the streets, they only use knives to cut their diarylea triangles so we really shouldn’t care about his hair colour. Isn’t this enough? It’s better than the only other alternative, to become a Stalinist Tescommunist. They’ll fucking eat you if you don’t conform, comrades, i’m telling you straight.

o for the time being, let him play his lovely songs for the lovely people. He may not know how to open email attachments or use predictive text, but neither did Jesus. Peter did all of that for him on his Blackberry. Jesus was always lost in the wilderness because he couldn’t use the GPS on his Donkey. Same thing happened to Dan a few years back so he used a greyhound and got all around America without a phone, laptop or Delorean. But if Deacon remains at large or is apprehended, I will not apologise for my part in his misfortune. He will be canonised as a modern martyr for an unknown cause. When journalists are left to create an interest in a subject unattended, the rumour mill starts turning and the publicity it creates can catapult a person into the public eye and people only like Eastenders, Porn and High School Musical reflecting into their retinas. Anything else will be eaten by the cancer and they’ll shit on you all the way down. Whether you think Jade Goody is a racist or a modern saint, we’ll see her autopsy live on Living and Hello! will publish the images, photoshopped appropriately, masking the corpse whiteness as an angelic seal of martyrdom. What does this really tell us about society?

don’t really know what this has to do with Dan Deacon. There are no real semiotic connections between Princess Jade and Deacon but that’s what you get when you let someone write about you without any input. Total bullshit. You may want the truth but it’s fucking boring. Jade was an idiot housemate in Big Brother, said someone smelt of curry, then she got cancer and has now married a man who is in prison for beating up a 16 year old before she dies. Dan Deacon is a musician whose music I really like who did not answer my email questions whilst on tour in Australia and I got drunk and wrote an article an hour before deadline. Simples! Words by Simon Roberts Illustration by Jack Hudson www.flickr.com/jackhudsonillustration

HOXTON SQUARE BAR & KITCHEN MARCH FAVOURITES SUNDAY 8TH

WEDNESDAY 11TH

DICE CLUB: CLASH LIVE: (LIVE) Kasms + Vile The Answering Machine + Imbeciles + Teeth Of The Sea Casio Kids + Flashguns (DJ’s) Heidi Heelz + £7adv. £6NUS Dee Fodor + Phil Good. www.clashmusic.com www.seetickets.com £3 with membership. £5 without.

THURSDAY 12TH LIVE NATION PRESENTS: Phantom Band + One Eskimo. www.ticketmaster.co.uk

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MONDAY 16TH

THURSDAY 19TH

WEDNESDAY 25TH

POPULAR PROMOTIONS: (LIVE) Dinosaur Pile Up + Little Death + Japanese Voyeurs Tickets £6 8pm. www.crowdsurge.com/ dinosaurpileup

POPULAR PROMOTIONS: (LIVE) The Irrepressibles + Orphans & Vandals. £7. 8pm. www.ticketweb.co.uk

TOPMAN CTRL CURATED BY METRONOMY: (LIVE) Kamerakino + Your Twenties + Koko Von Napoo + (DJ SET) Metronomy. www.seetickets.com £6

SUNDAY 29TH

MONDAY 30TH

TUESDAY 31ST

SJM PRESENTS: (LIVE) Jonathan Richman (Modern Lovers) + Guests. www.gigsandtours.com SOLD OUT

NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE CLUB: (Live) Laura Marling (special solo show) + support from Polly Scattergood & SixToes. £12.50. 8pm. www.myspace.com/ notinkansasanymoreclub SOLD OUT

MTV STAYING ALIVE: (LIVE) Esser + Lissy Trullie + Odd Squad + Dan Smith. (DJ) Plugs www.seetickets.com £7. (All proceeds go to global HIV/AIDS Awareness!)

On The Road

�icachu & The �hapes

It’s been a breakneck start to 2009 for Micachu and the Shapes, releasing their debut album to much critical love and supporting Late of the Pier on a string of high profile dates. As they prepare for their first headline tour, frontgirl Mica speaks. So, you’re about to head off on tour... what’s the first thing that you make sure you pack into your case? My Sharks t-shirt, probably. And what’s the thing wthat you’re bound to forget? Shit, loads of things probably. A toothbrush is usually the one. How do you travel? Van, car or big tourbus with toilet paper? We normally travel in a car but this time we’re sharing a van. What’s the biggest tour you’ve done so far? The most recent on, supporting Late of the Pier. Have you ever tried to kill any of your band mates while on tour? No, no. We’re all very polite. I did have a fight with my manager but it was more of a scrap. A good scrap, though. A happy scrap Have any of them ever tried to kill you? I don’t think so, not that I know of anyway. I’m getting paranoid now! If you could impose any on-tour rule, what would it be and why? Raisa says she’d impose a no farting in bed rule. Where are you most looking forward to playing? Scotland. London’s always a good show as well. Where are you least looking forward to playing? We don’t really not look forward to playing anywhere, but I suppose Derby is the one we’re least excited about. There isn’t a reason for that. Who’s been your favourite band to tour with so far? I don’t know, they’ve all been really fun. Late of the Pier are really good fun. What are the best and worst shows you’ve played? The worst show was definitely Glastonbury last year when I had a chest infection and came up with a really horrible rash. Raisa’s keyboards didn’t

work and the whole set was only 15 minutes long. It was worse than our first rehearsal. The best was either Hamburg or Amsterdam. The crowd was amazing in Hamburg and the sound and atmosphere in Amsterdam was really good. It felt really professional. You don’t have a traditional live setup, what with your Hoover and other homemade instruments on stage. What’s the general reaction from soundmen when you turn up with that in tow? I think some of them enjoy it and see it as a challenge! We know how we want it to sound though so we try and be nice about it and help them. Do you use your Hoover to clean the tour bus between cities? No, there’s not much Hoovering gets done on tour, although there definitely should be. You’ve got your first headline tour in April. Who’s supporting? We’ve been thinking about supports lately. We don’t want them to be supports really, have it as more of a double gig. We’re really excited about it though. Who would you most like to either support or have support you in the future? I’d like to play with Toddla T because I really want to see him DJ again. Give us a tip for a band about to head out on tour, Well, Raisa’s studying Italian so I would recommend a side project, like learning a language. It doesn’t have to be something that takes a lot of thought, just something to do, to keep you busy. I’d also say find out how long you’re going on tour for and pack appropriately. What’s your tour motto? I don’t have a tour motto… I don’t really have much of an imagination, sorry. I guess that could be my motto: Have More of an Imagination.

Read Micachu’s exclusive tour diary online at www.krugerlabs.com/blog from March 25th. Full tour dates @ www. myspace.com/micayomusic

Photo by Tim Cochrane www.timothycochrane.com

Thank you to everyone who helped make the first 19 issues of Kruger possible.

Read The Label

Brainlove Records

Kicking off in 2003 as an extension of the webzine of the same name, Brainlove release records by bands too arty, weird, fucked up or far out to fit in anywhere else. We caught up with kingpin John Brainlove to get the low down on this much-loved label. What’s the first record you ever put out? A compilation, Sympathetic Sounds Of The Wild West Midlands. I was living in Wolverhampton and frustrated by how little attention the DIY scene was getting. I asked every good band I could think of in the area for a track, from The Telescopes and Pram through to local indie heroes Copter and Misty’s Big Adventure, and right down to tiny über obscure local noise bands like Bureau De Change and End Of Level Boss. It was a good way to start, and the ethos of inclusion is still the same now. What labels inspired you in the beginning? Kitty Yo, Tomlab and Sonic Mook. But it was more organic that that. It wasn’t like I thought ‘right, let’s start a record label’. It was more like, 'everyone around here is awesome, maybe I could help somehow.’ So which labels inspire you now? Still Tomlab. I fucking love those guys. Everything they put out is worth listening to, and the range is incredible. What’s the best 5 records you ever put out? I’m going to speed answer, in no order: Napoleon IIIrd - In Debt To. Our first national CD release, and in my opinion a genuine classic. Pagan Wanderer Lu’s Fight My Battles For Me. Intelligent, warm, creative and heartfelt. Keyboard Choir’s Mizen Head To Gascanane Sound is one of the best electronica records I’ve ever heard. Our 2000&ACE compilation was amazing fun, and felt really significant. And from the back catalogue, Bishi’s Bitpop EP was pretty shit hot. What’s the shittest record you ever put out? The $hit, obvs. What will be different about record labels in the future? I think labels are becoming more of a supporting structure for a band than a traditional rights-owning manufacture

& sales organisation. Brainlove is definitely more that way. We design, book, make websites, send stuff to the press - we kind of do everything. It’s different for every band, but I try and help out in any way they need helping. What quantifies a successful release for Brainlove? Sales aren’t the ultimate goal by any means. I don’t really rate things that way. In all honesty, if we manage to help the artist to create the best possible record they could at that time, and use all our energy and skills to put it in front of the widest possible audience, I’m happy. What’s your next release going to be? Hideki Yukawa by Napoleon IIIrd. Have you heard it? It’s really fucking great. After that, we have Pagan Wanderer Lu’s album. We also have a new compilation coming. I was thinking of calling it FEAR OF A WACK PLANET. What do you think? Wack. Does Brainlove have a motto? “I’LL HAVE A GIN AND TWO EGGS, PLEASE”. Actually true. I don’t remember why. Okay, remember this. What’s the first record you ever bought? The first 7” was either The Frog Chorus or The Living Daylights. The first album I actually bought with my own money was probably some Stock, Aitken & Waterman bullshit. Which new band are you most excited about? Micachu. She’s the most “Brainlove” artist who isn’t on Brainlove. She’s more Brainlove than Brainlove. She’s Brainlovely. Also, Mice Parade, Hunches, Dälek, Casiotone For The Painfully ALone’s new stuff... I keep a blog about this you know. Brainlove dot co dot you kay. Famous last words? Start an indie record label. Lolz.

Win a bag full of Brainlove back catalogue. Go to www.krugerlabs.com/competitions to enter.

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Pop Will Eat Itself

Jeffrey Lewis

If what they say is true, and you are what you eat, then anti-folk hero Jeffrey Lewis’ has one foot in tradition while the other taps a more individual beat, pushing the envelope and delighting the traditionalists in equal measure. Or maybe he just likes curry. Where are we? In Rasa. It’s a curry house in Stoke Newington. What are you eating? Bagar Baingan. It’s aubergines with yoghurt and cashew nuts. What’s the last thing you ate before this meal? One of those little circular Portuguese tarts. I forget what they’re called. When I was in Portugal doing some shows a couple of years ago, I couldn’t stop eating them. I had like 5 a day. Are you a good cook? I’m not bad. Nothing spectacular. My drummer is actually a really good chef. He studied in a number of different places, including India. Have you got any special dietary requirements? No food allergies that I know of. I’m the world’s worst vegetarian. I’ve been mostly vegetarian for a few months now. For a while I was doing one week on, one week off. Any vegetarian who looked at what I ate would be appalled. What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in your kitchen? When I was a kid I put one of those Nerf footballs in the oven, and it melted all over the oven. I vaguely remember doing it. I was about 3. Back when you were releasing your own records and times were maybe hard, what did you used to eat? A lot of pancakes. Apparently it was national pancake day over here recently. I didn’t know there was such a holiday. Also, there was a burrito place in Manhattan, where you could turn up at 11pm and try and score some of the excess plates of food that people had ordered. I was a starving artist! And now you’ve been with Rough Trade for 7 years, what do you eat? I’ve done a lot of touring, so I’ve eaten at a lot of gas stations. You’re much better off doing that in Europe than you are in the States. In the States it’s slim pickings

for anything nutritious or even edible at gas stations. If you had to eat a member of your band, who would it be? One band member is my brother, and the other is not my brother. So I’d spare my brother’s life. Where is the best country you’ve ever played? Touring the US is always really fun. I get to see a lot friends and relatives. And I’m about to tour Australia for the first time, which is exciting. And where is the best country you’ve ever eaten? I’m big fan of the English breakfast. And beans on toast too. You don’t get that in the US. Have you got a favourite song about food? Pumpkin Soup and Mshed Potatoes, by The Fall Have you ever written a song about food? I have a song called Jesus Fucking Christ Sells Pizza 50c a Slice, which is a true story. What should we expect from your new album? The song writing from my earlier homemade albums combined with some of the more creative methods of recording that I tried when I was doing the covers of Crass songs. It’s probably the best sounding record I’ll ever produce. After this I might go back to the more punk rock sounding aesthetic. What’s the recipe for a long career? Lou reed said “If you let people know from the get-go that your creativity means you’re going to be doing a lot of different kinds of stuff, then you’re free to be creative for your entire lifetime, whereas if you start out by doing one kind of thing and then years later switch to doing something else, people will take it as desperation and that you’re out of ideas.” I like that.

Jeffrey Lewis’ new album, 'Em Are I, is released on April 20th on Rough Trade. Thanks to Rasa: www.rasarestaurants.com

Photo by Jessica Long www.jessicalongphotography.com

�nside �tory

The �rass is �lways �lue-er on the East Side

In the first of our series of articles looking at some of today’s most interesting and exciting music scenes, Steph Price delves deep into the burgeoning New York City Bluegrass culture, discovering a world of traditions and progress and remembering why she fell in love with music in the first place.

t’s a Tuesday night at the Rockwood Music Hall in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Your run of the mill, slityour-wrists singer-songwriter type has just finished her set when out comes Michael Daves. He’s tall, wearing jeans and a broken in pair of Converse. Oddly attractive despite crooked teeth and glasses that are equal parts hipster and Floyd from the Andy Griffith Show. He says a quick hello, takes a sip of tequila and then proceeds to blow my face off. Believe. Sure, I’m not an expert but I have never seen anyone go to town on an acoustic guitar quite like this before. Let alone while belting out standards in an old-fashioned yodel-meets-wounded dog-singing style. Two things go through my mind. One, is that Glenn Close sitting over there? (It was.) And two, what the hell is this? 46

This, my friends, is bluegrass. And after being blown away by Michael that night, I was on a mission. I decided to dive head first into New York City’s growing bluegrass scene and see where it might take me. I wanted to dig deep and learn what happened to a genre that many assume only lives on back porches somewhere in Appalachia. What happens when an indie rock kid opens her mind (and ears) to something totally unfamiliar? Well, after many a jam, many an interview and many a beer, I’m happy to report that I’ve fallen in love. And not just with bluegrass, but with music. All over again. Here’s what happened.

irst, a brief history. So what exactly is bluegrass? Well, instrument wise it’s traditionally made up of an acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, stand

up bass and the occasional dobro. It was introduced in the 40’s after Bill Monroe and his band “The Blue Grass Boys” mixed Irish folk with jazz and blues. Then they played it louder and faster and gave it a gritty soul. Michael Daves puts it this way. “Bluegrass is what you get when you combine Scotch-Irish music that’s festered in these rural areas for hundreds of years, with this twisted back woods hillbilly craziness. Early bluegrass was undeniable, unhinged. Totally primal and very new at the time. If you listen with the ears of someone who also appreciates Iggy Pop or something then you hear, okay wow, these guys were really going for it.” As someone with no previous attachment to this music, I get that. Despite the cultural, polished associations people have with bluegrass there is a certain real and raw quality to it; that’s part of what attracted me. And Michael says I’m not alone. “That’s part of why kids who like rock and roll music are connecting to it now, because there’s actually this dark underpinning to bluegrass music. The southern bluegrass world has tried to clean that up and say ‘no we’re dignified now, we’re not this twisted, hillbilly past.’ But the rock and roll kids are all ‘no, give us the twisted, hillbilly past!’”

There’s also something to be said for learning about bluegrass in an environment like NYC where most people are stumbling upon it for the first time and realizing how much they actually like it. “I feel like New York is setting an example that bluegrass music is a lot more universal, that the texture of it is a lot more pleasing than people who really haven’t allowed themselves to enjoy it, believe.” This is Chris Thile. You might know Chris from the Grammy winning, -not officially bluegrass but kinda- group Nickel Creek. He lives in New York now and has a new -officially bluegrass, but kinda classical- group called Punch Brothers. Thile is a damn fine mandolin player and he’s also a bit of a rock star within the bluegrass community here. This is probably because he’s one of the few names people outside of the community have ever heard of. And it’s fair to say he’s responsible for bringing in quite a few new fans. “I can’t tell you how many people come up to me and say, ‘This is the first bluegrass show I’ve ever been to, I love this!’ It’s really exciting for people. I think it just shows you that when people decide they’re going to put themselves in front of things with an open mind, and really participate in

music, they’re going to find a lot of stuff that they really like that they wouldn’t have bet on liking.” Another reason I think people like myself are drawn to it is also about just how accessible it is. I mean, you can go out any night of the week and find great music being played by unpretentious people in these unique, welcoming atmospheres all over the city. And apart from specific shows like Michael’s there are tons of bluegrass jams to stumble into. Jams where people just show up with their instruments and play with complete strangers. The biggest of these, is the Sheriff’s jam. That’s right, Sheriff Uncle Bob (Saidenberg) and he is a character. A retired, born and bred New Yorker; he wears a cowboy hat and vest with a badge that years ago earned him the nickname, “The Sheriff of Good Times.” Everybody knows this guy and even when he flirts

are simple, the energy is high and they’re songs that tell stories and I think people like that.” lright, so right now I’d like to A shift the conversation a bit. Are you ready? Okay, we’ve shifted. Up to this point I’ve been talking about the bluegrass community in NYC. Clean, traditional bluegrass, which is great and fascinating and totally worthy of an article. But, I’d be remiss not to mention another type of music, which is equally great but much harder to define. I’m talking about guys who take bluegrass instruments but play them so hard and so fast it becomes an entirely different beast. O’death is one of these bands. These dudes are nuts. Yes, they’re named after a Ralph Stanley song and yes, they play the banjo, fiddle and acoustic guitar. But they also wail away on drums and electric bass, have sweaty redneck

“I get away with a lot because I’m the Sheriff. And I’m older than everybody here.” with girls half his age, it’s somehow more charming than creepy. “I get away with a lot because I’m the Sheriff. And I’m older than everybody here.” The Sheriff’s Wednesday jam is infamous and has been going on for years. It draws crowds of tourists, fans and players who range from guys like Thile and Daves just trying to have fun, to people for whom this is their main musical outlet. Their only chance to perform and ‘get their rocks off’, if you will. It’s loud, it’s chaotic and with multiple jams happening at once it can feel more like a bunch of drunken Irishmen than a refined bluegrass act. But the purity of the music isn’t always the point according to the Sheriff. “To me, it’s not about how good you are but how much fun you can have with the music, and as long as you can follow simple rules, by 1 o’clock I don’t care what you play.” Although the jam is not always a good example of the music, it does, however, exemplify the spirit. There’s a kind of no holds bar, everyone sings along and feels welcome vibe that’s universal. ”People who’ve never heard it before, hear it and like it. The harmonies

facial hair and are prone to taking their tops off. Not exactly standard bluegrass behavior. Gabe Darling, their banjo player describes them this way. “At first we felt like we had a responsibility to be more traditional because of our instrumentation and we sort of wrote in a country, bluegrass vain. But then we just started getting louder and louder and now we just play whatever the hell we want.” And they do. It’s loud, it’s fast, as much punk as it is bluegrass with fans that range from goth to granola. By comparison, at a Punch Brothers show there are chairs, at an O’death show there’s a mosh pit. O’death is caught in between two worlds. Rock fans see the instruments and freak, and bluegrass fans hear how they actually use the instruments and freak. “At first people are usually like ‘what the fuck is this?’ But after a few songs they’re generally with you because they see that it’s not what they expected at all. It’s nice when someone has expectations and then you sort of throw it back in their face.” I love this. I love how a band like O’death forces us to rethink what makes music good and why we like it. Maybe staying too defined by a genre 47

is dangerous? Well, if you ask a lot of bluegrass players, they’ll say there’s nothing wrong with defining it; to them staying narrow is actually the point. One banjo player I spoke to confessed that, “The greatness is in how true to the spirit of the way it’s supposed to be played, it is. That’s what the fans really want to hear, can you play it as good as it was back when Bill Monroe was playing it?” Although many agree with him, that evolving bluegrass ruins it in a way, Michael Daves is quick to point out that bluegrass itself is actually an evolution. “I feel like if Bill Monroe or Ralph Stanley were starting out now they wouldn’t be playing bluegrass, they’d be doing something new.”

to nod, that’s universal. Knowing that I could like bluegrass this much make me think like, man, what else do I like that I just haven’t exposed myself to? Recently I’ve been getting into Balkan music and hip hop and classical and well, anything I can get my hands on outside my beloved indie rock world. This experience taught me to see music in a new light, with a new found appreciation for the power it holds over us. And for that, I owe bluegrass a debt of gratitude.

his debate could go on and on. But I’ll stop it here. As I mentioned in the beginning, this quest lead me to fall in love with music, not just specifically bluegrass music, but music in general. What I mean is that in exposing myself to a genre I was completely unfamiliar with I had to take a step back and think about what exactly makes music good. How much of the music we like stems from an identity we find in it? Isn’t it true that often we relate to a certain genre for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual music

Oddly attractive despite crooked teeth and glasses that are equal parts hipster and Floyd from the Andy Griffith Show. itself? We like where it’s played. We like who plays it. We like the other people who like it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Hell, you’ve heard me talk about the bluegrass culture as much as the music itself and that’s a valid part of it. But going into this, I never thought I’d be the type of person who likes bluegrass. And yet I do. And that my friends, is the power of music. In the words of Chris Thile, “Good music is good music and it’s good for the same reasons that any music is good. If it has a strong melodic, rhythmic, harmonic and structural foundation. That’s why music is ever good.” That sounds lame but he’s right. The way that music moves people, the way it gets your foot to tap or your head 48

Words by Steph Price The Sheriff and Michael Daves photographed by Christopher McLallen. O'Death photographed by Brian Farinas.

Find out more: www.myspace.com/michaeldavesmusic www.myspace.com/punchbrothers www.myspace.com/sheriffunclebob www.myspace.com/odeath

�EAM �RUGER A monthly night of ace new music from the best bands you've never heard of. The 3rd Tuesday of every month, at The Social. Coming up... March 17th : Playdoe + Chrome Kids April 21st : La Shark, + Tin Can Telephone + Connan Mockasin May 19th : Kid A + Francois Virot + Thee Fair Ohs

Thee Vicars photographed at Team Kruger by Reza Ghaniloo

Free entry!

Every month

Also at The Social : Monthly nights from Chess Club, Broader Than Broadway, Huw Stephens (Radio1 Introducing), Hip-Hop Karaoke, Goldielocks, Platform Live, 1965 Records, Sonic Cathedral and lots more. The Social, 5 Little Portaland Street, London - Nearest Tube : Oxford Circus - www.thesocial.com 50

The Kruger Singles Club is a free download record label, releasing a free download single on the first Monday of every month. Members of the Singles Club also get access to six months worth of archive singles to download, with the full archive available to stream at www.krugerlabs.com/singlesclub It’s free to become a member, and anyone can join. Go to our website and sign up today.

www.krugerlabs.com/singlesclub

t Download Ou w No TIN CAN TELEPHONE

Now!

Canaries

“Every single is a winner in its own way; Kruger finds some of the most exciting, freshest new music around” Huw Stephens - Radio 1

Silver Gospel Runners

In April we head stateside, returning with a West Coast classic-in-the-making from a band so new they’ve still got creases on their sleeves. Californian 4 piece Sweaters are perfect hangover folk rock. Lazy guitars and piano with raucous gospel vocals. Find out more at -

www.myspace.com/sweatersdontjudge

Portasound

“It’s an amazing free music system. You can always rely on Kruger for good stuff”

Lauren Laverne - 6Music

6th

SWEATERS

The March release on the Kruger Singles Club is Recycling is Cool by London-based Tin Can Telephone. The band is the brainchild of former Tiger Force main-man Andy Duckett, who sneaks in his five best friends to accompany him while he sings his lo-fi bedroom confessions. Above all else, it’s great pop music.

www.myspace.com/tincantelephoneband

t OuApril

OTPMD

“Free music chosen by people with great taste, that’s the reason why The Kruger Singles Club is so good”

John Kennedy - XFM

Cats In Paris

DiY Label Of The Week!

Radio 1 Introducing

�ews

Sometimes interesting things happen in the world of popular music.

SXSW 2009 – March 18-22. Return to Austin.

y the time you read this, all of the UK music industry will have decamped to Austin, Texas for a week of one-upmanship, beer swilling and hog roasting, trying to catch a whiff of the next big thing before the person they were masturbating next to in the hotel pool last night signs them first. Why? Because it’s South By South West time again, the annual fuck fest organised purely to make everyone who can’t go feel sickeningly jealous, and everyone who can, massively superior. Of course, there’s a lot of art and culture on show too, such as a guest lecture from funk legend Quincy Jones, and a stack of amazing bands hoping that they’ll be the ones everyone is cooing about on the long flight home. Potential highlights include Dent May, Mika Miko, hello seahorse! and AIDS Wolf. There are also rumours of performances from Billy Joel and Elton John. To find out who actually does play, who you should be checking out, and who everyone is going to tell you check out once they’re back in front of their macs, follow Jen Long’s SXSW Diary at www.krugerlabs.com/blog

Gabriel delivers message to Metronomy: I'm off. One third of discerning electro-pop group Metronomy, Gabriel Stebbing, has decided to switch off his push light and hang up his synchronised dance moves for good, leaving his friends Oscar Cash and Joe Mount to soldier on without him. There’ll be no drunk calls at 4am from the pair begging for him to come back, sobbing into their phone and making the screen all wet, as Stebbing’s departure is on amicable terms and with the full blessing of his former cohorts. In fact, it’s so cordial a decision that Metronomy are even allowing Gabe’s new group, Your Twenties, to play at their forthcoming Topman CTRL event in the capital later this month. So don’t worry comrades, this isn’t last we’ve seen of the Stebbing. Metronomy and Your Twenties are both booked in for The Great Escape in Brighton this coming May. For more visit www.myspace.com/yourtwenties

Undiscovered Elliot The powers that be - the labels - are forcing awesome online jukebox www.spotify.com to remove certain tracks due to territorial licensing laws, another pitfall of this web being worldwide and all. No information has been given out on which tracks are to be removed and from which countries, although Spotify has promised to try to replace songs in existing playlists with alternative versions wherever possible. If you share your music then friends overseas may find some tracks are unplayable. It’s not all gloom though, as Spotify bosses explained in their blog: “From this point on there are no plans to remove any more music and our catalogue will only grow from here.” They assure: “We have not lost any licenses and no labels have stopped working with us, this is just a matter of updating our catalogue to be in line with the agreements we actually have.” Hurrah.

Spotify vs. The Labels The powers that be - the labels - are forcing awesome online jukebox www.spotify.com to remove certain tracks due to territorial licensing laws, another pitfall of this web being worldwide and all. No information has been given out on which tracks are to be removed and from which countries, although Spotify has promised to try to replace songs in existing playlists with alternative versions wherever possible. If you share your music then friends overseas may find some tracks are unplayable. It’s not all gloom though, as Spotify bosses explained in their blog: “From this point on there are no plans to remove any more music and our catalogue will only grow from here.” They assure: “We have not lost any licenses and no labels have stopped working with us, this is just a matter of updating our catalogue to be in line with the agreements we actually have.” Hurrah. 52

Yeah Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah Yeahs release album and tour They’ve been away for the best part of two years, but finally Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back. New York’s finest garage punk trio drop their much-awaited new single Zero on April 6th with their suitably capriciously titled third album, It’s Blitz!, following it on Easter Monday (April 13th). Alas, there’s no word on whether the follow up to Show Your Bones (2006) and Fever To Tell (2003) will come with hollow chocolate figures of Karen O and co. Better than waking up to an O-shaped Easter treat though, is the news that the YYYs have announced a brand spanking new UK tour for late April – if indeed a tour consists of three dates in two cities. Nonetheless, tickets are on sale now for those based in London and Manchester, or those willing to brave public transport. The trio will also play Coachella festival on April 19th. Visit www.myspace.com/yeahyeahyeahs for more information.

15 year old Panda still Fierce 2009 heralds the anniversaries of a lot of things – it is 200 years since the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, 100 since the first time OAPs were given a pension whilst, more recently, 15 since the launch of one of the UK’s best indie labels, Fierce Panda. February saw the label celebrate reaching its mid-teens by throwing an almighty party at Kings Cross venue, The Scala, with a brilliant line up including Hatcham Social, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump and headliners The Walkmen. In their short life-span, Fierce Panda has released 200 singles, 60 albums, 7 t-shirts and sadly only one mug while working on behalf of bands such as Art Brut, The Maccabees and those lovers in a trashcan, The Raveonettes. That’s a shedload of good music, so here’s to another 15 years of Panda action and, hopefully, a few more mugs. www.fiercepanda.co.uk

Nappy Dread: M.I.A. has a baby Mamma M.I.A. – UK hip-hop artist M.I.A. gave birth to her first child – a boy - on Feb 11th. The Sri Lankan born singer told fans she went into labour after enjoying a night out at the Grammys where her song Paper Planes was a nominee for the record of the year award. She performed at the ceremony without incident, but began the early stages of labour at 2am. Posting on her MySpace blog, M.I.A. wrote that her son was: "healthy, fine, beautiful, and the most amazing thing on this planet…” She also assured fans that motherhood wouldn’t be stopping her music making: “Me and baby are putting our tour dates for 2010 together and making mixtapes, and figuring out a way to break out of the hospital!” MIA is engaged to the baby’s father, Exit frontman/Green Owl Records founder Benjamin Bronfman (the son of Universal Music CEO Edgar Bronfman).

Bands on Film Not content with just recording the music for their ninth album, fuzzy Welsh popsters the Super Furry Animals have also recorded themselves making the as-yet-untitled record. Using four handheld cameras they are recording 21 daily episodes of life in the studio inspired by Mike Figgis’s film Time Code and are hoping to "document events as they unfold, hopefully with as little drama as possible." So far they have succeeded in representing the tediously banal nature of studio time with early episodes including the band playing a lengthy game of darts while Gruff struggles to perfect a vocal part and plenty of sitting around and staring. All can be viewed at superfurry.com while the album is released in April. Elsewhere, The Rumble Strips have also been playing at movie making, recording a series of short films while creating their second album. You can watch the moving pictures over at www.therumblestrips.co.uk.

Download your dues for Lux Interior. Everyone by now must have heard about the sad passing of Lux Interior, who died from an aortic dissection on February 4th. Real name Erick Lee Purkhiser, the Cramps frontman appropriated the term Psychobilly from a Johnny Cash song, and proceeded to produce some of the most trashy and brilliant punk of the last 30 years. Over at www.voodoovillage.co.uk you can pay your respects by downloading 6 volumes of music that inspired the Cramps, each containing almost 30 tracks from the likes of Donald Woods and the Belaires, Versatones and The Blenders. A quick read of the blog comments suggests that up to 12 volumes might actually exist. But they might not. These 6 definitely do though. Go to http://tinyurl.com/b8tktb for the direct link.

First few acts announced for Øya 2009 August 11th-15th sees the Medieval Park in Oslo, Norway transformed into an arena for musical, visual and cross-cultural performances. Described as “a festival put together by music lovers, for music lovers, and with a focus on presenting a cuttingedge bill with a big, Scandinavian heart” Øya 2009 promises to be special. Set on the very same site on which the capital was founded a thousand years ago, the line-up includes Datarock, Artic Monkeys, Röyksopp, Band of Horses, Wilco, Bon Iver, Crystal Antlers, Chairlift, Erol Alkan, Grizzly Bear, Jay Reatard and The Bronx, with more announcements still to come. The event has a 70,000 capacity and a strong ethical and environmentally conscious stance. The festival organisers also claim that their event is: “the largest and coolest outdoor music festival in Oslo.” See for yourself at www.myspace.com/oyafestival. 53

Album �eviews DOOM / Born Like This / Lex Records

Veteran rhyme animal, and man behind the man behind the mask, MF DOOM is back. He’s dropped the MF, or Metal Face, and he’s just straight DOOM on Born Like This, his latest studio creation. This largely self-produced album is in parts post-millennium tension, parts beat poetry and NY crime drama over dope beats, and simply part of the complex DOOM universe. As always, it’s a world populated by the heroes and madvillains of Daniel Dumile’s sprawling imagination. It’s Tales From The Crypt 50’s comic book scripts told in the gruff tones of a Frank Miller graphic novel character. Like Marv from Sin City, if he had visions of the walking dead, and was nice on the mic. In mid January the first track Ballskin appeared on his Myspace page, and has been whetting fan’s appetites for the BORN LIKE THIS set since. Produced by Rhymesayers affiliate Jake One, and groaning with samples from what sounds like a gospel jam sessions of 10cc’s Dreadlock Holiday, it’s a standout track. In it, as elsewhere, DOOM’s delivery has the pounding pace of a man walking in the shadows, keeping the beat as shoe soul seeks stained subways and pavements. He always likes to keep you in dark as he takes you on a journey with his words. Multi-layered references and images flash by viewed from badly lit windings. It’s not until you reach the end that you’ve seen where you’ve been, or what the clues in his lyrics add

up to. Thankfully the consequences are an afterthought as you ponder the meaning of it all from the safety of your own earphones: “Don’t believe the hyperbably / It’s like a murder spree, get sniped verbally / Beat in the head with led pipe languages / For street cred, leave ‘em for dead.” It’s a captivating world of double speak and double crosses that continues throughout the whole album. Angelz features Wu Tang’s Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, in his aptly comic book-related guise Tony Starks, spitting made-for-TV street scene stories of gunplay, villainy, innocents and retribution. DOOM makes three company, weaving with Shaolin’s Finest over afternoon medical drama string samples and crisp drum snaps. Fans of Ghost’s Fishscale album, with its DOOM beat textures, will nod. Cellz opens with Hammer Horror on the sample pads. The world weary voice of DOOM-favourite Charles Bukowski, whose work inspires this album’s title, reads aloud: “We’re born like this…into a world of…” as he lists modern society’s hypocrisies. Separating the rich from poor, mad from the sane, as if from some preface to a nuclear survivalists handbook. Concluding that there will be “open and unpunished murder in the streets. It’ll be guns and roving mobs.” Imagine Michael Jackson’s Thriller, but with Christopher Lee recast as an ex-junkie gumshoe setting the scene. Then DOOM takes the mic. It’s close to midnight, and something is stirring in the dark: “Revelations in Braille / Respiration, inhale / View nations fail in the shaking of a snake tail.” Most rappers grace a track after an infectious bassline takes hold of the listener. DOOM stalks onto his beats like they were infected wastelands and he a woken B-Movie monster emerging

from its cave. No wonder he cast himself as King Geedorah, a Godzilla universe creature on previous solo albums. Other high points include Lightworks, in which the ridiculouslymissed J-Dilla matches DOOM’s lyrical complexity with equally dense programming practices. The sampler sheds snatches of 50’s housewife ads for magic, cure all blemishes creams, to build up to a bubbling laboratory of spooky Come Clean-era DJ Premier sonics and Bomb Squad-style layers. It’s like he’s rigged the SP-1200 to a lightning pole to kick-start the rapper’s reanimated body. Like Frankenstein’s monster DOOM seeks his purpose over pure Donuts beats: “Curled up beggar, laying in the canvas / Instead of in a ready position like praying mantis.” The mad scientist beat pops and bursts like stitches and captures two unlawful creations in their prime. Each fading lightning strike drum hit peels through an open window, framing DOOM and Dilla in that moment like a paparazzi camera flash

for all time. Further lyrical assaults come in the form of That’s That, a DOOMproduced gem that sees him set about the task of taking down Simple Simon rhyming MCs over a loop not far from a small-screen remaining of a tripped out Macbeth. He gets anatomically correct on weak rappers: “Give an MC a rectal hysterectomy / Lecture on removal of the bowels / Foul, technically.” He might have dropped his Metal Face on this vital next instalment of rap sagas, but he’s picked up a finely carved range of tragic and dramatic masks to see the world’s murky pedestrian dwellers through, as his next guise comes of age. Spark up a candle, get under the covers and sneak on the headphones. It’s time to relish in the next age of the DOOM-iverse. Words by DJ Moneyshot Illustration by Eleanor Stevenson

Born Like This is out now on Lex Records. Word has it that further DOOM material is planned in 2009.

�lbum �eviews Various Artists

Papercuts

Omar S

Dark Was The Night You can have what you want

Fabric 45: Omar-S – Detroit

Prefuse 73 Everything She Touched...

4AD

Memphis Industries

Fabric

Warp

Compiled by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, this 31-song collection is not so much a record as a definitive aural document of the very best North American independent artists from the last five years. Covers, collaborations and original material from a mixture of big names and lesser-known musicians ensure that highlights are numerous and that favourites change continually. Among the best are The Books & Jose Gonzalez’s bubbling, rhythmic take on Cello Song, Bon Iver’s Brackett, W9 and Antony Hegarty’s graceful rendition of Dylan’s I Was Young When I Left Home. Not that you should need an excuse, but all proceeds go towards AIDS prevention and awareness – just another in a long list of reasons to get this beautiful record. Ioan Morris

I’ve got a song in my head and it’s really distracting me from tryingto review the new Papercuts album, coming out on Devandra Banhart’s Gnomonsong label. It’s just that opening track, Once We Walked in theSunlight, has reminded me of the vocal refrain from something else,but I can’t remember what, or who sings it. The light, envelopingdrums are suggesting Broken Social Scene, but the downtrodden vocals, is it Grizzly Bear? The warm distortion echoes Beach House, but then adarting guitar cuts through and slices my comparisons back to a loose stab at anything with a Fleet Foxes stamp across it. And then I giveup caring, because I don’t really need comparisons. This record speaks for itself. Jen Long

I wish I’d been raised in Detroit. It’s not that Southampton is lacking in musical cool: we claim Craig David as a local hero. And it’s not that there was no scene to speak of – I spent many Friday nights drinking and listening to car stereos in the Asda carpark before heading to any scummy gig that would admit the underage. Admittedly, it lacked a little Detroit cool. Omar-S – who only puts out music on his label by artists from Michigan - has put together this Detroit mix for Fabric, consisting of entirely his own productions, because he hasn’t really been ‘feeling’ anyone else’s recently. This Detroit mix blends the rules of techno and house, and offers a glimpse into the complex world of this prolific DJ. Helia Phoenix

Prefuse 73’s music has arguably never been more relevant – make no mistake, he’s an electronic hip hop veteran, but what with Flying Lotus swarming all over the place, and Hudson Mohawke raising eyebrows, he’s got some high-calibre label mates on Warp. In a sense, this is moreof-the-same from Prefuse 73 – but when you make elegant instrumental hip hop that is this innovative and unique, more-of-the-same is just fine. With most tracks clocking in at under a minute, interludes become songs which become themes which then disappear as quickly as they arrived. It’s psychedelic beat making, and needs to be listened to in one smoky session. A vital and masterful trip through hip hop’s cosmic underworld. Adam Corner

Bat For Lashes

Peter Bjorn & John

Thunderheist

Handsome Furs

Two Suns

Living Thing

Thunderheist

Face Control

Parlophone

Wichita

Big Dada

Sub Pop

Rabbits on BMXs usually piss me right off but I just hadn’t met the right rabbits. I suppose it’s just another form of racism, like calling paedophiles the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Not all of them are, some of them are paediatricians who look after young souls. Miss Lashes is one of these. A beautiful, tragic movie, which begs a simile but only gets the childhood of Bjork in the Jean Cocteau era. So, a year on, underplayed and anorexic, this little lovely will curing the pains of the Clifton suspension bridge massive for little more than a MTV2 back slap, so rather than paying the toll to cross into the ether, buy the records and save your parents the trauma. Simon Roberts

The Swedish Trio behind whistling hit Young Folks, kick off Living Thing with The Feeling, a track that contains the hand clappy catchiness that gained the band popularity, but the pleasant pop mould cracks and breaks into a more playful, experimental fusion style. Drums crash in and yet the charm remains; Living Thing brims with life and joy. The first single Nothing To Worry About is a sun-splosion of laid back Beckishness; a loveable track full of children’s choirs and a guaranteed hit. Darker themes of madness and solitude slide in with the echoing Losing My Mind and wistful Blue Period Picasso. Following Young Folks was always going to be difficult; Living Thing not only lives up to expectations but exceeds them. Susie Wild

If you’ve been to the movies recently you’re probably already familiar with Thunderheist, whose single Jerk It is in The Wrestler. Grahmzilla and Isis have created a monster that sneaks up on its bmore counterparts, whispers seductively in their ears and boots them in the face. Placed over hand claps, offkilter drum beats and deep, buzzing electronic rumblings, Isis’ breathy rap style is sassy, engaging and less abrasive than much crunk. While the album is consistently good, top tunes are Freddie and single Sweet 16. With high-profile fans in Annie Nightingale, Pete Tong and Rob Da Bank, this is bumping sexy electro booty funk hiphouse fidgit bmore crunk disco bassheavy partypop-rap that will be soundtracking your summer. HP

This is the sophomore album from Montreal duo Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade’s frontman) and Alexei Perry on synth and drum machine. Their 2007 debut Plague Park was made when Alexei was Dan’s girlfriend, at their home. 2009’s effort sees Alexei promoted to Dan’s wife and a more equal musical partnership. Press shots for Face Control show the couple cavorting about hotel rooms in glam-sleaze-electro-art-pop poses to prove that they may be married but Handsome Furs still fuck like it’s their honeymoon. The music has a fair amount of fuck-you to it as well – all 80s tinged dance, fuzzed up reverb, heavy bass drumbeats, static electricity and petulant indignation. New Order meets Bruce Springsteen. SW

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�lbum �eviews Bonnie Prince Billy

Samba Lucas

Phoenix

Various Artists

Beware

Samba Lucas

Kitsune Tabloid

Domino

Unsigned

Kitsune

Caravan

There’s no such thing as a bad Bonnie Prince Billy review – it just depends how much you miss his wispy lofi records of a few years back, and how much you embrace big, bold alt country á la Neil Young. Continuing with the jollity of last year’s Lie Down in the Light, Beware is richly hewn and sumptuously arranged. Whether it’s the jangling guitars of My Life’s Work or the flutes and finger-picking of Afraid Ain’t Me, it’s a definitive career statement that the same Will Oldham that once gave us Master and Everyone now packs out concert halls on London’s South Bank, and loves doing it. Barney Sprague

Way back in Issue One of Kruger we reviewed lo-fi Cardiff experimentalist Samba Lucas’ debut album, Fuck off Mum, declaring it a work of unhinged genius. Since then he’s recorded and released three more albums of Lexington Avenue punk and off kilter rock, the highlights of which are collected together and re-recorded in this neat little package. Perennial favourite I Feel Better appears polished and tuned, and while I’ll always prefer the lo-rent original, it sounds great, while stand out track Don’t You Do As You’re Told sounds like the song Lou Reed forgot to record before the giant bats carried him out to sea. Lyrically it’s uneven, but that doesn’t detract from a great retrospective brought bang up to date. Mike Williams

Kistune’s previous compilations have been out and out banger-thons, showcasing the latest in cutting edge electro tracks intended for consumption only on party nights. Yet Tabloid’s curation has been handed to the woefully underrated Parisian band Phoenix, who have riffled through their 12”s and dug out a series of mellow gems from artists including Elvis Costello, Kiss and D’Angelo. It’s very lounge and skips a fine line between uber-hipster and Sunday afternoon Radio 2, but it works as you genuinely believe that these are the tracks that have shaped Phoenix’s own soaring sound. Any comp that can match Lo Borges with Roxy Music’s Pyjamerama gets a ‘Zoot Alor!’ of approval from me. Alex Bean

I listened to this album on repeat while wandering through the deserted industrial wastelands in north Sheffield, where the legacy of recessions past is visually acute in abandoned building sites where plaster flakes slowly from metal framework, and long, empty roads blow brick dust and flap plastic sheeting. With the simple edict of collecting ‘music of this time’, Bristolbased October has gathered together work from global artists working with his Caravan label. It’s a varied collection, held together by digital narratives of minimalism, abandon, and hope, and has parallels with Francois K’s Deep Space project. With tracks from Jilt Van Moorst and October himself, this is a great collection from a consistent label. HP

Dananananaykroyd

Black Lips

The Duloks

Various Artists

Hey Everyone!

200 Million Thousand

Best Before

Vice

Tent Street Records

Lo Recordings

I have a shakey relationship with Dananananaykroyd. My introduction was a live set during Swn festival, where they made me bleed my own blood. I didn’t even see them, they were over an hour late and when i’m faced with the boredom of waiting, I bolt red stripe like a weedless yardie, whereupon I fell over and did myself testicular injustice. Dananananaykroyd are a band for a neo-Mclusky generation who have no idea what Grange Hill is. These youth don’t eat sausages, they are too enlightened by the Dali-Oliver. They eat organic cuts not scabby pig anus, and with their bellies full, have produced a mythical pig of an album, with bacon, ham, gammon and pork and they’re ten times more charming than that Arnold from Green Acres. SR

Leave it to the Black Lips to deliver 14 well-produced rock gems that still sound like they came from your parent’s basement. 200 Million Thousand has a muffled, lo-fi quality mixed with drunken wailing and pubescent screeching. It might sound annoying... if you were old. The album, like the band itself, screams young. Not amateur, but young in that loud, fun, F-you way. While The Drop I Hold is slower and more soulful and Trapped in a Basement (aptly named?) has a weathered classic rock feel, for the most part Black Lips stay true to form. Form being damn catchy short tunes (most under 3 min) that make you dance like it’s the 60s. Stephanie Price

“BUT the artwork and packaging is the BEST bit” types Mar Dulok as I ask her to mp3 me her debut album, Children of the Sea. And in truth, it’s the best way to explain why you need to own this record. Sure, I could tell you about the nautical theme, the cartoons and sportswear. The staccato drums, commandeering vocals, and jerked, dancing keys. The songs about socks; the songs about unicorns. BUT, until you’re there, you can’t grasp the size of this compact disc. Much like you don’t watch The Duloks (you see them), with this record, you need to hold it in your hands, read the inlay, smile at the Photoshop, and understand just why they’re such a necessary part of your music. JL

Pitched somewhere between a soundtrack to the greatest children’s TV show never made and the most fantastical of cheese dreams, this is the latest volume of music from the multi-coloured shores of Pete Fowler’s Monterism Island. Fowler is best known for his work with Super Furry Animals (Gruff Rhys appears) and this compilation is a spot-on musical representation of his art. Belbury Poly, Tremortex and Batfinks impress, while Johnny Trunk’s oddly spliced jazz, Marc Shearer’s opulent synth pop, and Wolf People’s Village Strollin’ are stand-outs. It’s a handful of tracks too long (21 instrumentals plus spoken-word links) though few outstay their welcome. This is a curio of the highest order. IM

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New album 'The Snake' out 13th April

�lbum �eviews Camera Obscura

Marissa Nadler

The Wave Pictures

My Maudlin Career

Little Hells

If You Leave It Alone

4AD

Kemado Records

Moshi Moshi

BPitch control

Camera Obscura’s fourth album sees the band’s first release for the Label 4AD on what could be quite a coup for arguably one of the Britain’s finest indies. It’s a slice of Spectoresque cherry pecan pie, Traceyanne could sugar coat sulphuric acid to make it sweet. It’s 100% heartbreaking, it’s beautiful and brutal, at times it feels like a remedy for the lonesome, drudgery of life. My Maudlin Career marks a line in the sand and says “there, you wee radge, top that”. The band have developed an understanding and have moved closer to indie pop perfection. See, this is what your mother always talked about, about working hard and getting there, wherever “there” may be. Obviously, this could be as contentious as Marmite. Matt Bowring

So I’m pretty sure Marissa Nadler is the official voice of the afterlife. That dreamy, ethereal voice that accompanies the white light on your way to the final resting place. The 10 reflective songs on her latest album hint at what one might be thinking when looking back at life. The Ghosts and Lovers of your past, the years spent Brittle, Crushed & Torn. All the tracks are kind of sad (aptly named Little Hells) but also hopeful. And although songs like Mary Comes Alive and River of Dirt feature Nadler experimenting with more beats and instrumentation than normal, it’s her voice that captivates you. No matter the subject matter, Marissa’s beautiful, Mazzy Star-meets-angel singing style can only be described as one thing: heavenly. SP

Swiftly following last year’s debut, Instant Coffee Baby, The Wave Pictures have produced another stunning record of soft, sweet love songs that could defrost even the coldest of hearts. Although it was recorded in Berlin, If You Leave It Alone captures more of a twee British “anti-folk” vibe than that of a European city linked with 80s electro. Dave Tattersall sings his oh so intimate poetry over delicately picked guitar, working his way through a variety of subjects from yoghurt (Bye Bye Bubble Belly) to depression (Bumble Bee), before ending on a charming and disarming version of Sam Cooke’s Nothing Can Change This Love, while maintaining the spine tingling beauty that makes the Wave Pictures so special. Rhian Daly

Moderat – Modeselektor and Apparat (see?) – are not a new DJ supergroup. These two forces initially joined back in 2002, working on an EP for Ellen Alien’s BPitch Control label. Working together was an exhausting process, and when it came to working on an album, Moderat split. Since then, both acts have released albums and played over a thousand shows globally, before finally deciding to put raveheads out of their misery by reforming for the group’s debut album. It’s a varied venture into all things deep and technoflavoured, less immediately accessible than Modeselektor’s releases, but it’s a definite grower, that rewards with fresh listening. Also available as limited edition DVD, produced by the Berlin based artist collective Pfadfinderei. HP

Dan Michaelson & the Coastguards

Moderat Moderat

The Leisure Society

Miss Kitten & The Hacker

Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve

Saltwater

The Sleeper

Two

Re-Animations

Memphis Industries

Willkommen Records

Nobody’s Bizzness

New State Music

Absentee singer Dan Michaelson has gone on vacation. At least according to his MySpace page, anyway, where he describes his new side project as “somewhere to go when he feels like a holiday”. Saltwater isn’t the sort of sun, sea and sand package your fake tanned girlfriend or laddish mates might opt for though; it’s more of an exploration of different cultures, driving with the wind in your hair on open, foreign roads, a voyage of self-discovery – earnest, open-minded and mature. Recorded with a host of musicians including members of the Rumble Strips amd Fields, Saltwater is a coming-of-age musical road trip, with Michaelson’s distinctive gravely voice acting as a comforting, guiding hand through unknown territories. RD

The Leisure Society present an album to warm your chilly spring souls, combining skilfully crafted lyrics, intense harmonies and countless instruments. Comparable to Fleet Foxes, the country-chugging hymnal quirks flow like a lingering film soundtrack. Last Of The Melting Snow is particularly haunting, and Nick Hemming’s vocals bear an uncanny resemblance to Jose Gonzales. Expressive piano and expert percussion compliment the fast picking, beautiful narrative and well-sculpted harmonies. Several tracks could transfer easily to film, and perhaps they will, considering Shane Meadows and Paddy Considine are ex-Leisure Society members. A wintery album with everything you could ever need. Sophie Lawrence

It’s almost been a decade since Caroline Hervé and Michel Amato released Miss Kittin & The Hacker’s debut Album. Both have been busy since, DJing and releasing solo material, but their solo projects lack something of the comprehensive set of balls the partnership provides. Two is a glistening, androgynous gloss of techno pop space disco, ranging from minimalistic bleeps (1000 Dreams) to angry, industrial robotics (Indulgence) to the most 80s-electro pop you’ve ever heard (Party In My Head). Kittin brings the stompy techno, Hacker coaxes electro-pop sweetness: together, they’re formidable. Look out for live shows across Europe this year, which promise to be the cat’s whiskers. HP

For the unaware, Beyond The Wizards Sleeve is the moniker adopted by uber produer/DJ Erol Alkan and his muso chum Richard Norris. As well as releasing a run of essential 12 inches, the pair have been slowly adding their psych tinged touches to a variety of artists over the past few months. This compilation contains all of the pair’s Re-Animations, including Franz Ferdinand, Late Of The Pier and Simian Mobile Disco. The results sound like the soundtrack to an evening where you find yourself six in the morning, holding a Tesco carrier you swore contained all the secrets of the world. While you’ll quickly rid yourself of the useless bag, this compilation will remain in your clutches for a while. Jon Davies

�ive �eviews First Aid Kit - The Enterprise, London - 23/02/2009 Appearances can be deceptive, as anyone who’s been lured into a Facebook date with only tempting headshots and promising poke can confirm.

Photo Kamil M. Janowski

A sultry stare or alluring pout will never be enough compensation for hands like Robin Williams. The same theory can be applied to sounds, and upon hearing First Aid Kit’s outstanding Drunken Trees EP, you’d be forgiven for making certain preconceptions. Lyrics such as “You cooked his dinners, you raised his children and still he’s not satisfied” hint at lives that have seen their fair share of tears on pillows and plates hurled against walls, and after a quick Google of their name you’d be well within your rights to think you’d typed out the wrong band name. Surely the angelic faces of Johanna and Klara Söderberg couldn’t deliver couplets as crushing as those contained in Our Own Pretty Way’s? “Let’s not spoil the truth, its easier being alone”. Ouch. Well get over it Granddad, it’s true. Siblings Johanna (19) and Klara (16) are as young as they are talented. Equal parts Juno and Joanna Newsom, the pair, hailing from Stockholm, first started writing songs when Klara received her first guitar aged 13. Fuelled by their love of Britney and Dylan, the girls quickly started to compose parts that blossomed into the songs played tonight. A demo of Tangerine, recorded at home, found its way onto the playlist of a Swedish radio station and into the ears of Swedish pop royalty The Knife; the pair then released the girls debut EP on their Rabid Records. Being the clever buggers they are, Wichita Recordings picked up on the EP and promptly planned a UK release of Drunken Trees. Listening to the EP you can’t help but be gobsmacked by the level of maturity and depth of influences that shine through. Klara admits that Bright Eye’s music, in particular First Day of My Life, inspired her to write.

While the girls clearly owe a small debt to Saddle Creek’s most successful export, theirs is a musical line that stretches right back to Sun Records. So now I find myself in the, suitably crammed, attic of a small pub in Camden. Full of curious bods waiting to see if these two polite, shy girls sitting in the corner will really deliver. After chatting at a table the girls casually shrug onto the stage with mannerisms echoing the leads in Ghost World. At first glance they look no different to average teenage girls. But then they start to sing. The harmonies that emanate from this pair could turn the most hardened cynic into a blithering wreck. With a minimal stage set up, consisting of an acoustic guitar, keyboard and Autoharp, their live show is carried by the stunning vocals. While their lyrics touch on heartbreak and loss, these are by no means a pair of moody Goth teens. In between songs they giggle and whisper to each other when choosing what songs to play. As to be expected with a band so early into their career, tonight’s set is pretty short. Covers of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Fleet Foxes accompany moving laments such as Tangerine and Perligo. In a bizarre example of synchronicity, while this gig is going on Fleet Foxes are over the road playing to a sold-out crowd in the Roundhouse. Dedicating the song to its original owners Klara wistfully ponders if Fleet Foxes themselves are playing the same song at this time as well. Unfortunately no one is on hand to confirm or deny. However, one could quite confidently assume that the legions of Fleet Foxes attendees over the road will soon be lavishing their praise on this young duo. Jon Davies

�ive �eviews Metronomy - Koko, London - 24/02/2009

hen it comes to reviewing Metronomy, I always worry about fawning. You see, they make me want to do bedroom dancing wherever I am when listening to them, be it the street, supermarket or library. Tonight though, I get to unleash my “killer” moves without fear as the push light-adorned kings of electro/ indie crossover take hipster joint Koko by storm. The atmosphere is electric as the trio treat the pumped audience to near flawless versions of almost all of breakthrough record Nights Out, a couple from first album Pip Paine, plus extra special little touches like the beats’n’animation introduction to the show. Front man Joe Mount plays out his awkward-yet-endearing rock star image perfectly as he and band mates Oscar Cash and Gabriel Stebbing reel out future classic after future classic to rapturous response. Holiday and Black Eye/Burnt Thumb kick things off with a bang, whilst the screams before Heart Rate Rapid and Heartbreaker

are enough to both deafen you and make every hair on your body stand on end. Throughout, of course, there’s the choreographed dance routines (which incorporate the now traditional push lights attached to the band’s uniform black t-shirts) and the slightly geeky edge to the performance that makes Metronomy so charming, but there’s also pre-programmed Billy Joel “covers” (to fill the gap whilst a technical hitch is solved) and a small group of dancing girls who join the group for the last four songs, including a phenomenal You Could Easily Have Me. With sweat dripping from every pore, both band and fans give it their all one last time, Those who thought the Metronomy live show was a gimmick that would get old fast have been proved extremely wrong. RD

Right Hand, Left Hand

Wild Beasts / Napoleon III

Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff

The Harley Sheffield

20/02/09

25/02/09

20/02/09

19/02/09

Right Hand Left Hand don’t do gimmicks. Neither do they revel in extravagant showmanship, or partake in any sort of audience banter. Instead, they shuffle quietly onstage and rock – modestly, intensely, majestically. Their epic, frivolity-free sound works perfectly as a live set, the sinuous loops and soaring crescendos captivating the audience and creating the equivalent of an aural orgasm. The two members seamlessly move from instrument to instrument, sampling melodies here and there to build a sound that is part Sonic Youth, part Arcade Fire and part bloody impressive. Inspiring stuff, for sure. Betti Hunter

Have venues always been so clean, I wonder. No wading through a sea of undefined rave scum, no toilets overflowing with shit or puke - nothing. Napoleon III takes to the remarkably clean stage with more gadgets, gizmos and toys than I have space on my pad to note down, using (amongst other things) a keyboard, sampler, guitar, distortion pedals, reel to reel , trumpet and toy piano to take the crowd on a sonic journey through undulating tunnels of warped noise. Wild Beasts seem subdued when they take to the stage, but their set picks up and leaves The Harley full of bopping moshers. Honourable mention to local band cats:for:peru, whose ukulele-driven stoner rock makes for a warm and fuzzy – and equally clean - opening. HP

“Does anyone have a firewire?” Keyboards line the front of the stage, support bands crowd the back, and panic fills the space between. Leaning forward, Michael Angelakos, the heart of Passion Pit, takes stock of the crowded eyes staring back. “We’re gonna have to resort to our back up plan” he frowns. Headphones are found, a line check performed, and cheers erupt as the opening clunk of I’ve Got Your Number explodes through the venue. We push forward as the band crash into Better Things, Michael’s face contorting through pitches with epileptic expressionism. Some tracks from Chunk of Change feel heavy at times, but only in comparison to the newer material which swoons and spills in a gush of emotion. And we melt. JL

Few bands find themselves in the position where their first hometown gig is also their debut single launch, but that’s exactly the spot Help Stamp Out Loneliness are occupying tonight. Eyes are immediately drawn towards chanteuse D. Lucille Campbell, who cuts a statuesque presence between duelling keyboard players as they launch into Torvill and Dean. A backline that includes members of former janglers Language of Flowers is joined by one-time Smith Craig Gannon, but this is music that owes as much to European Moogdriven pop as it does to an English indie heritage. As the circling riffs of a closing blast of krautpop (Copyright HSOL) spiral to a close, I begin to feel a little in love. Neil Condron

Photo James Perou

Passion Pit Help Stamp Out Loneliness The Cooler, Bristol Deaf Institute, Manchester

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