Loud And Quiet 25 – Lupe Fiasco by LoudAndQuiet

LOUD AND QUIET ZERO POUNDS / VOLUME 03 / ISSUE 25 / THE ALTERNATIVE MUSIC TABLOID

LUPE F I ASC O

ON HOW HE HATES HIS NEW ALBUM

ECHO LAKE KATY B WHO KNEW EAGULLS BROWN BROGUES + DEBUT ALBUMS OF 2011

CONTENTS MARCH 2011

09 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BEGINNING

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RECORD SHOPPING: INDIE BANDS SHOP THEIR WARES LIKE HIP HOP’S GREAT HUSTLERS

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COVER PHOTOGRAPHY PHIL SHARP

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IF PRINT IS DEAD, MAGAZINE SUBCRIPTION SERVICE STACK IS FLOGGING PRETTY CORPSES

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14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LE FT O V E RS

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SOUTHEND FIVE-PIECE CLOUT! ASK JOE MOUNT OF METRONOMY IF HE’S HEARD OF THEM

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CONTACT INFO@LOUDANDQUIET.COM

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13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TH E P RE V I E W

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THE LATEST RELEASES FOR YOUR EARS AND EYES, INCLUDING CULTS AND GOLDEN GRRRLS

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10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SI NG LES / BOOKS

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EDITOR - STUART STUBBS SUB EDITOR - ALEX WILSHIRE ART DIRECTOR - LEE BELCHER FILM EDITOR - IAN ROEBUCK

RE M E M B E R TH E FI RST TI M E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

ADVERTISING ADVERTISE@LOUDANDQUIET.COM

SOME OF THE MOST PROMISING ALBUMS OF THE YEAR LOOK LIKELY TO BE DEBUTS

EAG U LLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 ��

THE HARDCORE BAND FROM LEEDS WITH A SINGER WHO CAN’T REMEMBER A SINGLE SHOW

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ECHO LAKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 ��

AMBIENT POP THAT HAS BEDDED THE MOST FRIGID OF INTERNET BLOGS

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LU P E FIASCO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 HIP HOP’S MOST CHALLENGING RAPPER TALKS ABOUT HOW HE HATES HIS NEW RECORD

W HO KN E W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 ICELAND’S ANSWER TO YEASAYER ARE TOO POLITE FOR THIS ROCK’N’ROLL GAME

B RO W N B ROG U ES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 WIGAN GARAGE IS GOING TO SXSW, PLUS A BRIEF GUIDE TO AUSTIN, TEXAS

K AT Y B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

LOUD AND QUIET PO BOX 67915 LONDON NW1W 8TH

CONTRIBUTORS BART PETTMAN, CHRIS WATKEYS, DEAN DRISCOLL, DANIEL DYLAN WRAY, DANNY CANTER, DK GOLDSTIEN, DEAN DRISCOLL, ELEANOR DUNK, ELINOR JONES, EDGAR SMITH, FRANKIE NAZARDO, HOLLY LUCAS, JANINE BULLMAN, LEE BULLMAN, KATE PARKIN, KELDA HOLE, GABRIEL GREEN, LEON DIAPER, LUKE WINKIE, MANDY DRAKE, MARTIN CORDINER, MATTHIAS SCHERER, NATHAN WESTLEY, OWEN RICHARDS, PAVLA KOPECNA, POLLY RAPPAPORT, PHIL DIXON PHIL SHARP, REEF YOUNIS, SAM LITTLE, SAM WALTON, SIMON LEAK, SIMON GRAY,TIM COCHRANE, TOM GOODWYN, TOM PINNOCK THIS MONTH L&Q LOVES BRIANA DOHERTY, JENNY MYLES HANNAH GOULD, MERLIN JONES TAPONESWA MAVUNGA THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN LOUD AND QUIET ARE THOSE OF THE RESPECTIVE CONTRIBUTORS AND DO NOT NECESSARI LY REFLECT THE OPINI ONS OF THE MAGAZINE OR ITS STAFF. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2011 LOUD AND QUIET.

TEA AND CAKE WITH THE FIRST LADY OF PIRATE RADIO

36 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ALBUMS FILMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

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IAN ROEBUCK LOOKS FORWARD TO KEY FLICKS OF 2001 AND REVIEWS BLUE VALENTINE

Project Nim

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42 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LI V E PARTY W OLF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

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If you don’t like it you’ll have to pop it back in yourself

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THE PERSISTENT WORLD OF IAN BILL GET THE LOOK AND LONEY HEARTS

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You can see my nipples because of the rain!!!

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GoOutWith MyFriend.com

I’ll give it 5 more minutes

There was a bug there but I’ve squashed it!

Jeremy

50, looking for fast love

Area: ENGLAND Children: Don’t worry about that Diet: Petrol Employment: Being a massive child

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Richard has this to say about Jeremy: Jeremy tried to kill me once. It was in a drag car race for his silly little telly show. I remember as it lifted off and shot me into the sky I could see his big hair on the ground and hear him roaring, “I never thought I’d see a hamster fly,” while the crew laughed and said, “Well done Jez, you’re the funniest man ever.” They cackled on as I flew through the air. “Hur Hur Hur,” went Jeremy as he grabbed our co-host and got him in a headlock. I could hear him saying, “You’re next floppy chops,” as he mucked up his hair. It’s okay though, because it was all just a massive joke, like his mild racism. And you can’t be offended by a joke, right?

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Jeremy responded by saying: Still the funniest day ever, that!

Aah, the good old bug trick. Well done Ian!

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Disclaimer: The representations of the persons herein are purely ﬁctitious.

LIVE REVIEWS OF JAMES BLAKE, LE SARA, ANIKA, ANNA CALVI AND OTHERS

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LONG PLAYERS FROM YUCK, RAINBOW ARABIA, BRIGHT EYES, THE DEATH SET AND MORE

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Lupe Fiasco may not be the kind of artist you’d expect to find on the cover of a music magazine usually dominated by guitars and endless sub genres of what is essentially punk rock, but then, he’s not the kind of rapper to appear anywhere or do anything expected. He’s spent five years challenging hip hop’s stereotypes and now he seems intent on slamming his own record. Happier with the fruits of her labour is Katy B, who we ate cake with when we weren’t down the working men’s club with Brown Brogues.

CONTRI B UTORS 01

P HIL S H A R P

DK GOL D S T E IN

S IMON GR AY

PHOTOGRAPHER

WRITER

WRITER / MUSICIAN

Phil Sharp began taking pictures around 2003. And y’know what, he’s done alright from himself. He’s shot many Loud And Quiet covers (your Wooden Shjips, your Mystery Jets, your Bat For Lashes), including this month’s Lupe Fiasco feature. “It was the ﬁrst time people on the street have interrupted to say hello and shake hands with the subject,” he says. “All my previous subjects, that means you’re not as big as Lupe Fiasco!” He’s also been published in The Independent, The Guardian, Time Out (London), NME, Fader, Art Rocker, Clash Magazine, The Fly and Art & Music Magazine. Phil, it seems, is a bit of a player. The cigar is a giveaway.

Danielle has been “coaxing answers out of shy underground acts” for seven years now, and she’s only 23. What a treat this issue of Loud And Quiet has been for her then. Sure, she did some coaxing (when interviewing Icelandic sextet Who Knew) but she also had tea with Katy B’s makeup artist as Katy happily chattered away. Danielle also writes about music and literature for Time Out and she still finds time to be a life model for art classes. Her top journo tip is, “Never get totally hammered before reviewing. I once described a singer’s fringe as ‘flapping like a dying sardine’. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t make the final edit.”

An old friend and a new regular contributor, Simon – as you’ll find out on page 13 – spent the late ‘90s in a band called Plaster Scene. He began penning his memoirs when he stumbled across one of his singles in a charity shop, and now he’s here, partly in the name of nostalgia, partly in the name of common sense. Of his monthly column he says: “Expect some brotherly advise subtly disguised as vitriolic bitterness and flagrant envy.” And of getting signed he remembers, “We were out drinking and in my immeasurable excitement I slid across a parquet floor on my knees and fractured my left cheekbone on our drummer’s hip.”

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BEGINNING MARCH 2011

MEIN BERLIN / DE AN DRISCOLL IS OBSESSED WITH ELEC TRONIC MUSIC. SO HE MOVED TO GERMANY

RECORD SHOPPING PUNK ROCK GOES HIP HOP IN A QUEST TO FIND WORTHY RECORD DEALS, NOTES SAM LITTLE

AN INTRODUCTION TO WHY OUR FILM EDITOR RAN OFF TO BERLIN

When it comes to getting a record deal, no one hustles like hip hop. Even now, with labels sweaty-palmed to sign the next Nicki Minaj, demos aren’t made and shopped around, full albums are. Finding someone to release the thing is a mere trifling matter once you’ve made your first album. It shows commitment and thriftiness, and record labels particularly like the latter. By comparison, punk rock has been a control freak since early ’80s hardcore suggested (and proved) that you don’t need a record label, you can be a record label. But this gung-hoe indie ideal wasn’t made for 2011, and it can fatally limit the best of the DIY lot. Forming a band is easy; booking a show easier; creating an online profile the kind of thing now taught at playschool between jabbing the round block into the triangular hole and scribbling. Song writing is – and shall forever remain – a craft. But let’s say you and a couple of pals crack that too. Then what? Then you write and record an album, of course. And then? Get people to know about it and hear it. How? Uh... Home recordings and free, digital distribution has set the musician free but wider awareness is still a door only unlocked by record labels with savvy marketing teams and pennies in the pot – those billboards you stare through at the traffic lights, those pictures on the backend of the 244 bus, they work. Fortunately, the most resourceful young bands have recently started to realise the pitfalls of releasing your own records yourself in a world of mad saturation, and have opted to take rap’s route of shopping their records around; looking for a suitable home for their shiny new discs. It’s why most of the debut albums we’re excited about hearing this year are completed but still homeless (and featured on page 16). It’s that stifling ‘sell out’ slur that’s prevented guitar bands from shopping their wares before now, no doubt. Hip hop is all about big – the cars; the chains; the bravado; the success. Mostly the success. To even a casual punk, selling a million records equals selling one arse. Theirs. Nobody wants to be manipulated by music’s ugly business end, of course not, but fear of it makes signing a record deal (especially with a major) almost as frightening as never signing a deal at all. Taking them a finished product though, that’s a sure-fire way to hold on to your creative integrity, isn’t it? It’s done! There can be no Cowellian figure barging into the studio gut first and demanding a ballad here and a Snow Patrol cover there once your album is in the can. Making a record how you want it, that’s what’s most important to a rigidly indie record, and ‘record shopping’ could result in an album getting the exposure it deserves.

My relocation to Berlin has been seven years in the making, since I graduated from university and began my first job in London. The music PR company I started out at, Darling Department, had long been one of the leading agencies for some of dance music’s biggest acts, including Leftfield, Underworld and Fatboy Slim, who, along with the Chemical Brothers, Prodigy and Daft Punk, had been among some of my all time favourite acts. It turned out to be the perfect environment to be exposed to underground electronic music. It wasn’t long before I was a regular attendee at Fabric on Saturday nights, discovering the oeuvre of the various stars and record labels that led the underground house and techno scene. As I soon realised, many of them were based in Germany. On New Year’s Eve 2005 I made my first pilgrimage to Berlin and began my love affair with the city, which has developed from that flirtatious first meeting to the full-on, heavy petting, oh-god-get-a-room-youtwo embrace it has become since I made the move here last year. So why was I so keen to ditch London – the city I loved for so much of my twenties – and what is it about Berlin that has convinced me to do so? A lot of it has much to do with the atmosphere of each city. London is an incredibly exciting place to live, but not always the most relaxing place to be. It costs a bomb and seven million people treading the greasy streets can understandably make it overbearing. Berlin is incredibly relaxed by comparison: the cost of living is fractionary, and you’re unlikely to be crammed into a standing-room-only train carriage on your morning commute. They have the right type of tourists too – Berlin suffers far less from a beer-boy/hen party onslaught that can turn the most promising of parties into Friday night at Lloyd’s Bar. It’s probably why I’m yet to see a single act of violence or intimidation in the four months I’ve been here so far. They’re the everyday differences, though. In terms of musical scenes Berlin is even more desirable, especially for a fan of electronic music. For someone whose life revolves around bands, shows and records – of any genre – London can seem fractured by people’s habits of sticking to their own groups with common musical interests. Berlin is a streamlined model, as I’ll be attesting here each month. It marches to house and techo beats, and it feels more inclusive in that respect. It’s where kraut rock laid the foundations of digital music – a virtual year zero in terms of experimental, new sounds. It’s the world’s dancefloor.

MAKING A RECORD HOW YOU WANT IT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO AN INDIE RECORD

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BEGINNING SINGLES / BOOKS 01 BY JA NIN E & L EE B U L L M A N

(COLUMBIA) OUT FEB 28

GOL DE N GR R R L S BE A C HE S / D AT E I T

M A GNE T IC S T R IP P E R E X T E NDE D P L AY- R

(NIGHT SCHOOL) OUT FEB 28

(SUITCASE) OUT NOW

When Golden Grrrls founder Ruari MacLean first released his music he found the whole experience “really underwhelming.” “It just took so long,” said the Glaswegian, “the artwork alone took about three months.” A fair amount has changed for Ruari since those early days, though. The arduous matter of artwork, for example, is now the burden of newly formed label Night School Records – an infant project of Please’s Michael Kasparis. Ruari’s no longer alone either, and with band members Eilidh and Lorna the trio have come up with this moniker’s best tracks yet. ‘Beaches’ is almost tropical in its deadened drums and high-fretted guitars while ‘Date It’ – lead by duelling female vocals – is even better, harbouring a wideeyed innocence recently mastered by fellow Teenage Fanclub types Pains of Being Pure At Heart. And while both tracks remain firmly in the bustling indie fuzz camp first set up by No Age, they are far from underwhelming.

Magnetic Stripper’s ‘Extended Play-R’ is a collection of odd and odder experimental sci-ﬁ sounds. They’re loosely moulded into four tracks, but blink between the sonar wobbles of the title track and the metallic ﬁzz of ‘Nuclear Cataracts’ and you’ll miss the handover between what is essentially two intergalactic sound recordings of complete alien nonsense. Not to worry; the b-side dials down the pretence as this San Franciscan heads for a planet a little more similar to that of Earth, where inhabitant like songs to have some kind of direction. Static-ridden electronics continue to fuel this spacecraft but the satellite squeaks of ‘Feel’ – that squeal like a dolphin chorus – are thankfully set to an industrial beat that has some intent. It almost feels sexy, in a cosmic prowler kinda way. The following ‘Another Step’ then does its best to fuck itself up by interrupting its voodoo house samples with repetitive goblin vocals. And it was getting so normal.

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T HE C E L E S T I A L C A F É B Y S T U A R T MUR D OC H (POMONA BOOKS)

The Celestial Café is the diary of Stuart Murdoch, in which the lead singer of Scottish indie stalwarts Belle and Sebastian turns mellow raconteur as he reﬂects on people, places, politics and life in the not-so-fast lane. It’s aided by sharp comic book illustrations by Graham Samuels throughout, as he covers subject ranging from war in the Middle East to Lou Reed’s mullet. As you might expect given his musical proclivities, The Celestial Café is short on Mötley Crüestyle smack’n’Jack binges and trashed rooms at the Holiday Inn. That’s not to say it’s without its own charm and sense of understated adventure though, made up of honesty, subtle humour and a distinct lack of the pretension.

I T ’ S L O V E LY T O BE HE R E B Y J A ME S Y OR K S T ON (DOMINO)

Singer/songwriter and Domino Records recording artist James Yorkston continues our Scottish musical theme with It’s Lovely To Be Here, his own collection of lovingly written tales and observations garnered from life on the road. It’s humble and funny (“…the gig hadn’t gone terriﬁcally well. Why not? Well, I was dreadful,” he writes) as it plots the change in his fortunes that follow his blagging a nationwide tour support with John Martyn, despite being woefully unprepared to undertake such a venture. Like Murdoch, Yorkston explores and explodes some of the myths associated with touring while still managing to render the mundane splendid and ﬁnd romance in the everyday. A musical biog void of the usual clichés.

Singles reviews by Stuart Stubbs / John Carter

C ULT S GO OU T S IDE

Like their namesakes, New York duo Cults enjoy secrecy and mild schizophrenia. They don’t have a website or a MySpace page or a blog or any real online presence at all. They’re digital ghosts, helped by a name that retrieves seven million URLs when Googled. ‘Go Outside’ – their debut single – is the only real sign that they exist at all, and that’s where the mild schizophrenia lies. Meeting all the madmen cult associations soon to come their way head on, it begins with a recording of Jonestown Massacre nut Jim Jones announcing, “To me, death is not a fearful thing. It’s living that’s treacherous.” It’d be as sinister as the man himself was, were it not for a twinkling xylophone that has us saving our cyanide capsules for another day. Today is suddenly too perfect as the band play the kind of simple, twee pop that usually comes from Sweden rather than Brooklyn. It’s the endless chiming that makes it so giddy – impishly dancing around the vocal melody – and yet Jim Jones’ intro is hard to forget completely. Is this joyful, angelic sound mindlessly innocent or music of the great brainwashed? That we can’t be completely sure either way is what will make us keep a close eye on these distinctly un-New York New Yorkers.

BEGINNING PREVIEW

IT ’S A SHIT BUSINESS: SIMON GR AY WAS IN A BAND ONCE

Illustration by Tom Bingham

T HE B A R G A IN BIN We’ve all been there. There you are, marauding your way through the CD bargain bin in Scope in Newton Abbott, desperately trying to hold back the avalanche of battered copies of Haddaway’s existential pondering of 1993, ‘What Is Love?’, and Doop’s magnum opus of just a year later, ‘Doop’, when you happen upon something so unexpected it makes the hairs on your back stand up. Staring back up at you is a broken copy of the single that you wrote and released with your band, nearly a decade before. No? Well, never mind – have patience. Your time will come. I’m Simon Gray, and you more than likely won’t remember me as the guitarist from flash-in-the-pan, third tier post-Britpop outfit Plaster Scene. Our years active (in case anyone feels like writing a Wikipedia entry for us – I have checked every day for the last seven years) were 1996-99. The dream started mid prefect duty amidst an obligatory tour of the school gates, battling the dark arts of the lunchtime smoker, when I first met Andrew “Quinn” Clarke – future Anderson to my Butler, Strummer to my Jones, White to my Dean… no? Menswear, anyone? Anyway, back to the West-Country charity shop... In the years since the release of ‘Don’t Look To Me’, I can’t deny the fact that I have dined out on this a la carte past glory: the majority of people I have come into contact with have, at some point, suffered the vague, general boasts that yes, I was in a moderately successful, up-and-coming band in the Britpop fallout period, and yes, some of them had heard of the band, some even knew some of our songs. Most, when made to listen to various live recordings and early singles, smile, nod along and made the odd encouraging remark to break the awkwardness that surfaces when someone gets out their old wedding photos. But we are talking about a time when MySpace was a trade magazine for the warehouse industry. Will any of today’s pretenders suffer the same ignominy of finding their proudest moments being sold for 10p at the bottom of a bargain bin in a Devonian charity shop? Probably not – I am yet to find an ‘MP3 reduced to Clear’ section of any such benevolent retail outfits. Lucky sods.

PRINT. IS IT RE ALLY DE AD? MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE STACK LAUGHS AT THE REAPER It really isn’t. I mean, if print is dead how come you still only know one person with an iPad? And they’re still embarrassed to get the thing out on public transport, I bet. And it’s not so much that you know them, you just know of them, like you know a friend’s dad. The relatively slow burn of Apple’s latest heap of wires is hardly smoking gun evidence though, but indie print’s Santa Clause, Stack, is. It lives on the Internet at stackmagazine.com, but works with paper and ink rather than screens and pixels. The idea – like all the good ones – is extremely simple. Instead of subscribing to any one physical publication, only to realise that you don’t actually want to read Carp Monthly every

IT’S LIKE A WINETASTING COURSE FOR SUBVERSIVE-THIRSTY EYES

month, you subscribe to a pool of some of the world’s best independent titles. Every thirty days or so you’ll then receive one of the nineteen magazines that Stack have found operating around the globe right now. You won’t know which one is coming; it’ll just arrive, unannounced. “I started Stack because I’d realised that there were loads of magazines out there that I loved but that other people had never heard of,” says Stack founder Steve Watson. “The idea crystallised when I was talking to a friend about his t-shirts. His wife had bought him a subscription to a service that sent him a different limited edition t-shirt every month. They were all brilliant and he’d never have found them otherwise.”

The key is in the titles that Steve has chosen to work with – what they cover and how they present themselves. “They need to be innovative but accessible,” he says. “I really like to give people something that surprises them, but I don’t want people to feel alienated by the magazines that they receive.” US avant-garde noise bible The Wire perhaps flouts this rule from time to time, but you’d certainly welcome its arrival. It’s the most known of the publications involved, followed by Little White Lies – a film magazine with themed issues, snazzy illustrated covers, stringently honest reviews and a clear love for sophisticated design, which is what connects all of the art, music and fashion-heavy titles available. “The design of independent magazines is in part a function of their format,” reasons Steve. “It’s expensive to print magazines, especially when you’re printing in relatively small numbers, so the people who make magazines tend to do so because they have a real love for the physical product.” The Ride Journal is a cycling magazine for people who don’t cycle (in that it features stories over the best new pair of aerodynamic, fingerless gloves), Fire & Knives is a food magazine for people who don’t like Jamie Oliver (okay, or any celebrity chef), Zoetrope is published by Francis Ford Coppola, with the help of big name guest Art Editors like recent collaborator Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. Stack has found these magazines so you don’t have to. It’s like a wine-tasting course for subversive-thirsty eyes, even if your next sample is delivered blindly, like LoveFilm.com would be if you told them to put anything and everything on your list and ordered them to stop emailing you. “I can imagine a future in which we don’t print newspapers any more,” says Steve, “because a newspaper is primarily about transmitting information and you can do that much cheaper and quicker electronically. But a magazine is about creating a relationship with the reader, and when magazines are done well they can be about the pleasure of feeling the paper between your fingers and seeing the texture of the ink on the pages.”

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BEGINNING LEFT OVERS

CLOUT!

JOE MOU NT

LAST MONTH WE INTERVIEWED CLOUT!. THEY LEFT THESE QUERIES BEHIND FOR JOE MOUNT OF METRONOMY

What music has got you excited recently and why? Old music mostly. Because my new record is a ‘studio’ record I’ve been listening to things like ‘Aja’ by Steely Dan and lots of Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock. I’ve been revisiting ‘Rubber Soul’ and ‘Pet Sounds’ and kind of staying away from anything too ‘dancey’. Not that I’m shunning dance music, I just wanted to have a break from it for a while. What’s the best synth that you own? I would have to say it’s my EDP Wasp. It was given to me by an I.T. man from my dads old ofﬁce. I think he knew that is was as good as it is, but thought I could make better use of it than him, which I have tried to do.

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What’s your favourite bit of gear for under £50? A good question, but hard to answer. Everything that is really good is more expensive nowadays, but you can still ﬁnd bargains. I’d say anything musical, like a keyboard (old or new) or a second hand drum or a mini disc player. Anything cheap that can be used creatively is a good bit of gear. If you had to choose only one way of listening to music, would it be recordings or live performances? I prefer recordings personally. But, that’s the side of things that got me excited about music in the ﬁrst place. I always much preferred making myself comfortable at home with a record instead of going to a gig. If I go out, I end up just wanting to sit down anyway.

“I’D BE AFRAID OF DIDDY. HE HAS BAGGAGE”

Do you have a strict formulaic approach to writing new songs or is it more of a loose process? And can you give an example? I’m pretty loose, but old habits die hard. I still get stuck in my old way of doing things. The Metronomy song writing formula is thus... I sit down, record an idea into my laptop. I muck around with it for about 4 hours, decide I hate it, come back to it the next day, spend another 4 hours on it and really hate by this point. Then, I let it stew on my computer untouched for about

one month. Find it by chance when I’m bored and realise it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done. Then I repeat the above process until the record label/management start hassling me about deadlines. That is a very honest answer by the way. What’s your favourite Metronomy song, and why? At the moment it’s a new one called ‘We Broke Free’. It’s a song that I never imagined I would make. I’m very proud of it. Probably the most rewarding thing about making music is being able to surprise yourself. My favourite old song is ‘The 3rd’. I made it when I was seventeen and I have never made a better Miami Bass-inspired song. Have you heard of CLOUT!? I hope you understand if I say not before I was asked about doing this interview. I’m out of touch, but I listened to your stuff and enjoyed it. I did at ﬁrst stumble across some ’70s all female group also called Clout, but without the explanation mark. They seemed pretty cool as well. Who’s your favourite R&B singer? That can depend on my mood, really. I have a fondness for Tweet, but she only did one album I think, I might be wrong. I guess my staples are people like Aaliyah, D’angelo, Erykah Badu, Lauren Hill and Ciara. But, you can’t argue with a bit of Beyonce or Mary J Blidge. Who would you most like to collaborate with? How about Diddy? I don’t know really. I’m less excited about the idea of collaborating with someone already very established than I am about ﬁnding someone a bit fresh to work with. I remember how happy I was when I met Anita CockNBullKid. She was/ is young and a great person to work with. I think I’d be afraid of Diddy, he has baggage and is probably a bit over the hill. Just for fun I’d be happy to spend a day with Lady Gaga, we wouldn’t even have to collaborate musically, maybe we could just paint together or read Heat.

Photography by Holly Lucas / Phil Sharp

As a musician, what advantages does living in Paris offer over London? Well, I don’t actually live in Paris, but I have been spending a lot of time there because of a girl. I certainly don’t live in London anymore so can answer, “What advantages does not living in London offer over living in London?” When I moved to London it was just what I needed. Everyone who lives there is motivated and healthily competitive and for a musician or aspiring musician that is a really positive atmosphere. No one has time to listen to your complaining so the only way to make a mark is to (for want of a much better phrase) ‘get involved!’ I think the downside of that comes when one becomes very dismissive of other musicians/nights/bars etc etc. London is a very cliquey place and it is so easy to think you are not at the coolest bar or watching the coolest band. Anyway, after leaving London I have managed to regain my initial awe for the place. When I go back I love seeing old friends and going to places that I once loved... then hated... then loved again. Now, to answer the actual question, it has made me enjoy making music again. I’ve been writing things against a very different backdrop and without all the anxieties I used to have. I think it has made for a much more honest album really and I’m able to do stuff without imagining what it will sound like in the Old Blue Last.

REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME

WRITER -

JOHN CARTER & STUART STUBBS

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FAIR OHS Inspired by Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’, and bored of the breakneck hardcore they were playing as Big Fucking Deal, London trio Fair Ohs had a busy, buzzy 2009 and a quieter 2010 that saw them choose their live slots more sparingly. The band’s island rhythms and tropical, Abe Vigoda guitars swayed on last year though, in the studio rather than on a stage too small for their giddy afro-pop. In total, ‘Everything Is Dancing’ was one and a half years in the making, recorded in sporadic fits and starts with DIY producer du jour Rory Brattwell and named more fittingly than a Robbie Williams compilation called ‘Now That’s What I Call Desperate’. Of the album (which has a release date of “definitely this year”), singer/ guitarist Eddy tells us, “It’s basically a classic.” “There, I said it,” he confesses. “It’ll be uttered in the same breath as Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ by future generations, that’s for certain.” He continues: “We’ve expanded from things like East African guitar music to taking influence from stuff like West African funk, desert blues, and lots of Indian classical music, plus Brazilian tropicalia and 60s psychedelic rock. And lots of Fleetwood Mac, obviously.” What Eddy fails to point out is that all of these strange and exotic influences (and Fleetwood Mac) have been run through a garage punk mangle once or twice to keep Fair Ohs’ hardcore spirit audibly in place. Or at least we hope they have. After all, that’s how early singles like ‘Summer Lake’ wound up sounding like Billy Childish trying out for Vampire Weekend.

Photography by Dan Kendall / Gabriel Green / The Bands Themselves

AS WELL AS NEW ALBUMS FROM THE STROKES, METRONOMY, BAT FOR LASHES AND BATTLES THERE’S A HOST OF LONG AWAITED DEBUTS ON THEIR WAY BETWEEN NOW AND DECEMBER 31ST, EVEN IF SOME OF THEM ARE STILL IN NEED OF A RECORD DEAL

CEREBRAL BALLZY

VERONICA FALLS

MNDR

Unlike Fair Ohs, Brooklyn’s Cerebral Ballzy (they’re still refusing to change that name) are not bored of playing breakneck hardcore at all. If anything they want to play it faster and harder, forever, or until one of them explodes, which could be any day now. They’re like a dog with a bone – a foamy-chopped Rottweiler, probably… in a Bad Brains T-shirt... with the sleeves ripped off… Label and band are yet to swap signatures but London indie Moshi Moshi are linked with Ballzy’s yet-to-betitled debut album, which is currently being completed with Joby Ford of The Bronx (very thrash) and Rodaidh McDonald who mixed ‘The xx’ (very not). It’s slated for a June release and, from the few tracks we’ve heard, picks up where debut single ‘Insufﬁcient Fare’ left off in gnarly, surprisingly coherent fashion.‘On The Run’ is a particularly explosive chunk of belched aggression, introduced by chug-a-chug guitars and a speech about being “just a young kid doing what I want”, while ‘Skate All Day’ neatly features the sound of the band kick-ﬂipping in the car park and ‘Puke Song’ (rather predictably) features them chundering on some unfortunate patch of ground, y’know, as a reminder that Ballzy are lawless, give-a-shit gutterfuckers. What’s more interesting than shock-by-numbers tactics like the ability to vomit at will though, is how completely exciting this band’s skate-park thrash can sound when recorded properly and Joby Ford appears to have done a suitably energised job.

They may skip through it with loosely rattling clean guitars and thudding 60s girl group drums, but Veronica Falls’ world is a macabre place to be. Singer Roxanne softly coos and it all feels rather twee, until you realise she’s singing about a necro crush (‘Found Love in a Graveyard’) and tossing yourself off of Britain’s celebrity of suicide hotspots (‘Beachy Head’). Harbouring this sense of romantic doom, the London Quartet have recorded their debut album in a residential studio in the shadow of the always sinister Yorkshire Moors. Being snowed in “made the whole experience pretty intense,” says bassist Marion, while Roxanne describes the ordeal as,“like being at boarding school 20 years late.” Having made it through the thaw, with the aid of occasional “psychedelic supplies,” as guitarist James puts it, the band are now the proud owners of what promises to be a beautifully flawed, and no doubt minimal, long player. “We like how primal and immediate bands like Beat Happening and Young Marble Giants sound on record,” explains Roxanne, “and we wanted to capture that energy that comes from us all playing live in a room together. We tried hard not to be too precious and to embrace the flaws.” Now all they need to do is find a home for their dark, lo-fi child, which really should be as easy as hitting water when throwing yourself off a cliff.

“I may like to talk in abstracts, but this album will get you laid, chrome a dance floor, and make you cry... well at least I hope so.” So says Amanda Warner, the bespectacled face of MNDR, who are often mistaken as a solo act, a lot like La Roux. Well, they’re not. Amanda writes with Peter Wade, and since handing back some credibility to Mark Ronson with the co-written gift of ‘Bang Bang Bang’ in 2010, the duo have been making a debut album in New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood. It’s done and due for release this side of June, and what’s gotten us really excited about it is the recently released limited single ‘Fade To Black’: a song that slaps an FM ’80s pop melody over Chicago Junk electronics. It sounds like the first time you heard the smart dance floor hip-pop of Santogold, whom Amanda shares a certain amount of common ground with. She was also a songwriter for hire when she first moved to New York, for example, and where Santi White was endorsed by Diplo and Switch, Amanda was in turn by another named producer, Ronson.The most interesting parallel, though, is how Amanda and Peter – like Santogold – are an electro duo with post-punk influences and ideas. When asked who or what influenced their debut album Amanda reels off a list that includes Haunted Graffiti, Warpaint, Deerhoof and ‘Neu 4’, as well as Katy B, colours,The Streets, no sleeping and Boy George. The pair even write to Brian Eno’s experimental instruction aid Oblique Strategies.

“IT’S BASICALLY A CLASSIC. THERE, I SAID IT. IT’LL BE UTTERED IN THE SAME BREATH AS FLEETWOOD MAC’S ‘RUMOURS’ BY FUTURE GENERATIONS, THAT’S FOR CERTAIN” TEETH Teeth have told us that their debut album is going to be called ‘WHATEVER.’ The capital letters, they said, are essential. Once the nervous laughter had subsided and we realised that perhaps they weren’t fucking with us, we thought, yeah, why not? Nothing says teenage immortality like ‘WHATEVER’, and no band make the kind of trashy, give-a-fuck party tunes that this post-nurave trio do. Theirs is a kind of violently playful dance music still too modern for Skins, made from one laptop, a skeletal hardcore punk drumkit and J-Pop screams. ‘WHATEVER’ (if that is its real name) will hopefully be a record to damn Cameron’s ludicrous Big Society and stop kids friending their own parents on Facebook.

EDDY - FAIR OHS

MOON DUO If ‘Mazes’ is half as darkly seductive as 2010’s ‘Escape’ EP, it’ll still be the most brilliantly psychotic drone record of the year, by a victim-strewn desert mile. Early reports of the San Franciscan twosome recording in Berlin suggested that their endless psychedelic kraut grooves would certainly remain in place, only with an added, European austere chill. But since then synth player Sanae has explained, “we wanted to do something in a more ‘rock ‘n’ roll band’ style,” and that she “grew up a huge Stones fan.” Come April 18th, be prepared for the mumbliest, most far out tribute to Mick’n’Keef, with Silver Apples instrumentations and a sense of danger last heard coming from Suicide.

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THE HARDCORE BAND FROM LEEDS WITH A SINGER WHO CAN’T REMEMBER A SINGLE SHOW HE PLAYS PHOTOGRAPHER -

We’re not off to the best of starts.After weeks of emailing, two of Eagulls have failed to show up. Called into work at the last minute, it’s the curse of the unsigned band. By way of an apology the remaining members tell me about a recent interview where things got a little out of hand. Drummer Henry Ruddel says, “We were only trying to have a laugh. It was after the gig, we’d had a few beers… she wasn’t having any of it.” Henry ﬁrst formed the band two years ago with Mark Goldsworthy. They recruited Liam Matthews on guitar, but only managed to complete the line-up a year later when Tom Kelly arrived on bass, followed by singer George Mitchell. “We were sitting there after a practice dead disheartened,” remembers Henry, “like, ‘why aren’t we gigging now?’ We wanted to be doing stuff, so we thought, fuck it, let’s phone George! George laughs. “We went out and got pissed up and they said, ‘Are you going to be the singer or what?’,” he says. “They hadn’t even heard me sing anything!” “We had faith in him ’cause we knew his character and had seen drawings that he’d done,” explains Mark. “All of that was what we wanted to project with our lyrics.We didn’t want them to be too deep or too serious. Not loads of metaphors, just something real.” They came up with their name at Primavera Sound in Barcelona. “They always play cheesy European stuff between bands,” explains Henry, “and a very long time ago Goldy [Mark] had been on holiday with his family,

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BART PETTMAN

WRITER -

KATE PARKIN

to a caravan park…” “They had this rubbish entertainer,” continues Mark, “and he sang ‘Angel’, but I thought it sounded like ‘Girl, you’re my Eagle’. I just imagined this singer with an Eagle on his arm and couldn’t stop laughing. So that song came on I started singing it and we sort of became obsessed with Eagles for the rest of the festival.” So far the band have done the Huw Stephens’ BBC Introducing thing and have recorded a session at Maida Vale Studios. And the buzz surrounding their ﬁrst single, ‘Council Flat Blues’ (released on Not Even Records), has given them speedy notoriety. Descending from postrock fuzz into a heady, sprawling punk breakdown, it’s a master-class in agitated song-writing that could become as classic as Rancid’s ‘Olympia WA’. Mark says: “A lot of our friends still play in underground hardcore bands and they’re all really happy for us, not that we’re going mainstream, but the fact that things are happening for us.” Their songs carry a raw, anthemic quality. Live, singer George seems completely unaware of everything around him, pacing the stage like a caged dog. Combining the charisma of Billy Bragg and the snarl of Johnny Rotten – minus the political agenda of either – he’s reluctant to engage with, or even acknowledge the crowd. George surveys me carefully, then cracks a grin.“Nah, that’s just how it is. As soon as we get on stage, it doesn’t matter how many beers have gone on – it’s nothing to do with that – I go into a different zone. I can tell you

now that I can’t remember any gig I’ve ever played. “People try to take pictures of us and I always think it’s funny as fuck,” he continues. “When there’s loads of people with a camera in your face, I turn around. ‘Take a picture of that!’” Despite being labelled ‘hardcore’, thanks to Mark and Liam’s previous bands (Liam played guitar in Fast Point and Mark in Hordes), they owe their origins and much of their influences to UK punk. “I got into music through skate videos when I was little,” says George’. “I told everyone I was into punk music, so my uncle made me a mint CD. I’ve still got it. I wrote True Punk on it. It’s got all the best UK stuff, like PiL and all that. We weren’t there, but we’re fucking influenced by it.” Eagulls previously self released a cassette EP too, cheekily titled ‘Songs of Prey’, and have plans to record a split single with local band Bhurgheist. Guitarist Liam is also working on a new band called Teen Rebel Dope Fiends, which Mark describes as “a bit in your face, rough around the edges.” This month they are about to embark on a UK tour with fellow noisy bastards Serious Sam Barrett, and they retain their modern day approach to ‘punk ethics’ by keeping their presence on networking sites to a minimum, in part baffled and annoyed by kids Tweeting during gigs. “I think it’s stupid that people sit there texting instead of watching a gig that could be the best gig they’ve ever seen in their lives,” says George. “If you’re not there, you’re not there.”

AMBIENT POP THAT’S BEDDED THE MOST FRIGID OF INTERNET BLOGS PHOTOGRAPHER -

Thom drums his fingers incessantly on the table, keeping time with Linda’s bobs and sways. The two of them are gently bouncing around Echo Lake’s stratospheric ascent into the blogosphere. “Are we wary of our Internet presence,” ponders Linda. “Well, I don’t know if wary is the right word, but we know how to search for Echo Lake on Twitter if that’s what you mean?” she laughs. “I didn’t until yesterday, actually,” says Thom. “When I finally did I wished I hadn’t.” “I think we’ve been kept in a safety bubble of nice words on the blogs,” says Linda, “and now the EP is coming out it’s starting to get a bit scary for us.” Self effacing and ambitious at the same time, Echo Lake surf this disparity in charming fashion. Feted before they’d even played live, their intuitive take on ambient pop caused quite a stir amongst the Internet elite; Pitchfork, Gorilla vs. Bear and 20 Jazz Funk Greats all throwing flirtatious looks before a guitar had been plugged in. “It’s cool because it gave us a big confidence boost,” enthuses Thom. “We thought, fuck yeah, let’s just keep writing; we must be doing something right. We’ve got tons of new stuff now as it’s motivated us to work.” “All I ever wanted was to release one little 7 inch,” he continues,“one A side split with another band, and now we are doing it, out of the blue.” Echo Lake’s rise has been speedy, even by today’s fast and loose digital age standards. Within a week of the

OWEN RICHARDS

WRITER -

IAN ROEBUCK

band posting new tracks on Myspace, after a particularly bleak Monday, London indie label No Pain In Pop had boarded Echo Lake’s boat and the ‘Young Silence’ EP was in motion. ‘We were having one of those days weren’t we?”Thom wryly smiles at Linda. “Yeah,” she says, “we just didn’t care, we thought let’s just get these out there, even if they sound shit!” And there they go again with the self-deprecation. But there’s reasoning behind the modesty. Echo Lake’s visceral soundscapes are steeped in reverb and awash with layers and tones – theirs is a sound welcome to criticism just as much as glowing praise, perhaps party to finding an authentic sound. “Well, we had a bit of stick for the set of tracks we mixed for the EP from the people around us saying they’re hard to listen to,” explains Thom, “so I got a bit obsessive with it and we couldn’t be happier now.” The subject is definitely close to his heart.“It’s not just reverb I like,” he continues.“I like playing with ambient sounds too – how much can we add for a pop song? What other drones can we add to this? And other textures.” Glad someone brought up the P word. Echo Lake’s pop sensibilities intertwine through their lo-fi palette to create something striking, but when you hear Thom and Linda’s influences everything falls into place. “I’m listening to a lot of Four Tops at the moment,” says Thom, “and Godspeed, always been into Godspeed,” he intones, another fitting contrast in a conversation full of them.“We consider our music to be pop music – it’s our

version of it.” “…And we just want to make recognisable songs,” says Linda to Thom’s tap tap tap. Every pop song must have a pop video – it’s in the rules, and Echo Lake are no exception. So to coincide with the ‘Young Silence’ EP comes three minutes of pioneering vision. Pulling in a favour from 20 Jazz Funk Greats’ Dan Nixon, the sometime film-maker created the first Microsoft Kinect music video. Like Radiohead’s promo for ‘House of Cards’, or Avatar if it wasn’t shit, the band are visually breaking ground. “We do try and form our own visual identity,” says Thom. “The new video literally just came up online today, I haven’t seen it yet! Are we even able to talk about it,” he whispers. “Yep. If it’s up on the Internet we are!” giggles Linda. “If you’re not a nerd it’s hard to explain what it’s like – it’s sort of us as 3D dots. It captures a 2D image and our bodies react in a 3D environment... erm, I’ll ask Dan!” Riiiiggght. It’s probably best to catch it online. Judging by the blog world’s proclivity to a bit of Echo Lake, it’ll be hard to miss. As thoughts turn to other members of the band (there are five of them when they’re onstage), old friends and even older hometowns, a sense of calm settles on Thom and Linda, a duo propelled forward by industry buzz. “Thom’s up and down about it all,” Linda tells us. “He’s always saying,‘I’m not sure I can be bothered with this anymore.’” She looks at Thom.“‘No way,’ I say back. This is the best fun we’ve ever had!’”

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BLINDED BY THE LIGHTS

LUPE FIASCO ISN’T RETIRING, BUT THE MAKING OF HIS THIRD ALBUM, ‘LASERS’, ALMOST MADE HIM WISH THAT HE WERE

PHOTOGRAPHER -

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PHIL SHARP

WRITER -

STUART STUBBS

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“I HATED MYSELF TO THE POINT WHERE I DIDN’T GO TO THE RECORD LABEL FOR A SOLID YEAR; I WOULDN’T STEP FOOT IN THE BUILDING”

re we still rolling?” asks Lupe Fiasco.We are. “I will always say that I hate this album.” It’s Valentine’s Day, two days before Lupe turns 29, twenty-two before the release of new album ‘Lasers’, and that is not what we were expecting to hear from a rapper on the promo trail. Born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, in Chicago, Illinois, Lupe has challenged every hip hop cliché going since Jay Z got him a record deal and he released debut album ‘Food & Liquor’ in 2006. Now, it seems, he won’t even allow himself to talk up his latest release. It must be ironic, I think. “That’s modesty,” I say. Lupe lifts his chin again to check the tape is still spinning. “It’s anger.” What follows is sixty minutes of Fiasco face-time where ‘that is not what we were expecting to hear’ could gleefully follow almost everything he says. Having followed ‘Food & Liquor’ with the supremely sophisticated ‘The Cool’ in 2008 (a concept record that questioned every superﬁcial bell and whistle attached to the aspirational world of hip hop), ‘Lasers’ (which stands for Love Always Shines, Every time Remember to Smile) is Lupe going over ground: swinging at the mainstream and trying to hit a Bieber. But it wasn’t his decision; it was his record label’s. And Lupe Fiasco, right now, is not their biggest fan. “They said that ‘The Cool’ wasn’t successful,” he exclaims,“and I was like,‘How the fuck did that happen? What map are you using?’ We got four Grammy nominations, we got 700,000 records sold, we got a single that went platinum; like, ‘What the fuck are you talking about!?’ “What I wholeheartedly believe is that they thought, we’ve had nothing to do with your success since we

signed you. Like, ‘everything you’ve accumulated so far has nothing to do with us, and that has to change, or your records are not coming out! Ha Hah, take that, you little bastard!’ So it was that and just the traditional relationship between the record company and the artist, which has been worse through certain periods of time, and at the moment we have cookie-cutter acts, and also these 360 deals that are taking over the industry, where they want to be involved in everything you have, and that creates this immediate bias where you have the artists who aren’t 360 artists put on the back-burner because they’re not going to sell as many t-shirts as this guy who they have a t-shirt deal with.” I remind Lupe that he still has three more records to make for Atlantic Records before they will release him from his six-album deal. “I’m learning to deal with that,” he says,“I don’t give a fuck. I’ve said this in a couple of other interviews so it’s nothing groundbreaking or fresh, but while trying to figure out how to stay alive and keep my scruples and testicles in tact I realised that the only way to do it was to not give a fuck – to not care.” That – and perhaps the jetlag from having flown to London from LA this morning – explains something. It explains why Lupe’s frustration at ‘Lasers’ is so calmly expressed. He never lets his rage excite him; he definitely never raises his voice. He’s cool like only a beaten man can be: comfortably numb in his acceptance. But he’s still pissed. “It wasn’t about buying a bunch of cars to get over it,” he says. “It wasn’t flying here or going there or throwing your phone in the ocean and running away. It’s better to throw away your attachment to the situation, because the situation doesn’t really care about you, to be honest. “There’s a certain section of your fanbase who don’t really care about you either,” he continues, “they care about the image of you. They’ll go away tomorrow. I could say some shit on the radio or in this interview that’ll piss off ten percent of my fanbase so much that they’d never buy my records again. So I have to stop caring, because I have always really cared about what these people think, and what these magazines think, and if I get this Grammy or not. I care about this shit too much. The goal now is to stay alive; the goal is to stay with your wits.” From his horizontal position on a couch, Lupe then says something wholly shocking. “I’m talking with a smile on my face, but I contemplated suicide,” he says. “I had deep, deep depression, y’know? In the midst of this record I had people dying – all of this extra stuff and then I’d go up to the record label and it was like sitting in an office with Lucifer’s minions. So when I look at this record there’s a certain level of, ‘I’ve achieved it!’, because I’m still here and this record is coming out and the music is positive, but it’s bitter sweet, and the bitter bit came first.This shit hurt.There was a part of me where I hated myself, to the

point where I didn’t go to the record label for a solid year; I wouldn’t step foot in the building.” Today, Lupe has graced Atlantic Records with his size nine biker boots, jewel-incrusted timepiece, indoor shades and obligatory low-slung jeans. We ﬁnd him in the label’s velvety artists’ lounge, high above Kensington High Street, west London. And while he is lying on a sofa rather than in a Jacuzzi, alone and unarmed rather than surrounded by string bikinied girls and semi automatic weapons, he looks unquestionably like an international rap star. He’ll not stand for the gloriﬁcation of pimps, pistols and shiny things, but he clearly enjoys some of the materialistic perks that come with being Lupe Fiasco. His gun collection is easily explained – Lupe’s father was a military man who taught his son to shoot at an early age.“It wasn’t for the sake of robbing someone else or defending your turf in a drive-by,” he insists, “my father introduced me to guns by means of defending your family, but also by means of sport.”As for the Ferrari collection, that might take a little more explaining. “I do have the things that a ‘conscious rapper’ shouldn’t have,” he admits.“My cheapest Ferrari cost me $13,000 dollars and it’s a piece of trash, but at the end of the day it’s still a Ferrari.” And because it’s still a Ferrari that must fuck some people off. “Certainly,” he nods. “It funny because I walk this line. There are some things that I’m challenging and there are some people who are on my side when challenging these things that would be adverse to what I have. Like, ‘you shouldn’t have that because you’re conscious of it…’ “It’s weird because there’s a duality in it all because there’s some things that I relate to, because I come from the streets; I come from the ghetto; I come from the have-nots. And I’ve been at the have-somewhat-more, AND I’m part of the haves! So when you put that scale

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on it there’s some things you aspire to and want that are grossly material, just for the sake of saying you have it and driving up in your car and saying, ‘Heeey, look at me!’ But there’s a difference between that and it being something that consumes you and takes over your whole life. Because there are some things that people can’t afford, and there’s a certain kind of injustice that is being done by dangling that in front of peoples’ faces, because some people will do anything to get that.” Lupe admits “there’s a hypocrisy with me” but also notes that it’s a trait that lives in all human beings from all walks of life, not just in young, earnest rappers who then make enough money to buy the things they’ve always wanted.“Part of my responsibility is to say,‘Look, I’ve got this and it’s not worth it,’” he says. And he points to his biggest single yet as an example of what it is he’s trying to achieve with his bitch-less lyrics. “The stories I like to tell are about the non glamorous side of the glamorous things,” he explains. “Take ‘Superstar’, where, yeah, it is about fame and fortune and blah blah blah, but it’s also the black, dark side of it that they don’t tell you on the videos.You see the video girls but you don’t see the heartache and pain and the destruction and the drug abuse and alcoholism.”

t ﬁve or six Lupe was ﬁrst introduced to NWA (again, by his father), which he hated. As ‘Hurt Me Soul’ from ‘Food & Liquor’ attests, it was “because the women were degraded.” He much preferred his dad’s curse-free Queen and Foreigner records, and Ravi Shankar. But by the time he was in Junior High, the group Lupe mimicked was none other than that of Dre’s and Ice Cube’s, so much so that he rapped under the name MC Ren, his rap partner called himself Easy-E and they even called themselves NWA. “We had a DJ Yella,” he says. “We had the whole click.” But it wasn’t the lyrics and themes on ‘Straight Outta Compton’ that Lupe was paying most attention to – it

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was how they put the songs together.The same went for prolific gangsta rapper Spice 1,who Lupe says unwittingly taught him how to make a concept record when he released ‘187 Proof ’ – a track through which bottles of alcohol were turned into characters in the street. “I was like,‘Wow!You can do that?!’”Lupe remembers. “I lived across the street from the liquor store so I knew all of these names he was saying. It was inspiring. It taught me how to tell a story. Without Spice 1 and ‘187 Proof ’, you could argue that I would have never made [debut single] ‘Kick Push’.” This love/hate relationship with aggressive hip hop is something that remains with Lupe to this day. He thinks that Rick Ross – “the most gansta of gangsta rappers” – is “dope.” But that didn’t stop him from following Ross’ track ‘B.M.F. (Blowing Money Fast)’ with his own version called ‘Building Minds Faster’. “Gangsta rap is entertaining,” says Lupe, “and I come from that, so I can relate to what Rick Ross is saying. Do I combat it? Yes. When he made ‘Blowing Money Fast’ did I make ‘Building Minds Faster’? Yes I did. Because I don’t want my son saying that he wants to be [Detroit drug lord] Big Meech or [Chicago gangster] Larry Hoover, and I don’t want your son saying that. I want him to have the opportunity to say,‘I wanna be Malcolm X or Martin Luther.’ Let’s give them both options to choose from, because if kids only want to be Larry Hoover he’s serving a 150 year prison sentence!” ‘Building Minds Faster’ was more than a smart reply to a track that made heroes of infamous gang bosses, though. It also served as a thank you to Lupe’s fans who had petitioned Atlantic Records to finally release ‘Lasers’ – an album that they were first told would be released in late 2009. “At first people would ask me when ‘Lasers’ was coming out and I’d say, ‘It’s coming soon,’” says Lupe, “but then it got to a point where I had to say, ‘I don’t know’. And then I’d say, ‘Look man, ask Atlantic Records.’” People did and the response they got was one they’d already heard – ‘Lasers’ will be coming soon. Well, that wasn’t good enough anymore, so an online petition was started by two teens from New Jersey and within six hours 5,000 people had signed it. CNN, MTV and VillageVoice all reported the story as the signature count rapidly rose (at last count it had garnered over 32,000 names) and message boards started to talk of a protest outside the label’s headquarters in New York City. “You could watch it happening,” remembers Lupe. “Some dude posted on a message board, ‘Yo, we should protest!’ Next post: ‘What do we need to protest?’ Next post from another kid: ‘I know we need a permit.’Then: ‘Ok, where do we get that?’ Then, up pops an address. Then: ‘We need a lawyer…’ And it just snowballs into a website and a thousand people are suddenly planning on flying to New York, and car pools are being organised…” Lupe laughs. What became known as Fiasco Friday (when fans did protest at Atlantic Records on October 15th 2010) is clearly a proud moment for him; proof that his music has instilled a sense of activism in young music fans, just like he’s always wanted. But he believes that it wasn’t a song or album that did this – it was a manifesto he posted online a couple of years ago. The fourteen-point ‘Laser Manifesto’ is what inspired his third album. It’s ‘Lasers’’ concept, and includes points

“I DO HAVE THE THINGS THAT A ‘CONSCIOUS RAPPER’ SHOULDN’T HAVE. MY CHEAPEST FERRARI COST ME $13,000 DOLLARS AND IT’S A PIECE OF TRASH, BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY IT’S STILL A FERRARI.”

like We want an end to the glamorization of negativity in the media and We want clarity and truth from our elected ofﬁcials or they shall move aside. “The album was supposed to insight social activism and get people out there doing things in the real world,” explains Lupe, “but they did that without hearing it; because they couldn’t hear it! It was all because of the manifesto, which has been looping online for two years.” What’s more, the petition had worked, and way before Fiasco Friday took place. Atlantic took note of the petition and announced a release date of March 8th, but that didn’t stop the demo on their doorstep – “It became a celebration/protest,” says Lupe, “and they still wanted to do it because they felt that a social injustice had been done.”

e entered this interview sure that the topic of the day would be Lupe Fiasco’s retirement at the grand old age of 29. After all, as ‘The Cool’ wrapped in 2008 he did announce that the next record would most likely be his last. It was even going to be called ‘LupE.N.D.’. It was the ﬁrst thing cleared up as we walked through the door; our grand plans for a ‘This Was Your Life’ skip down memory fame obliterated. Yes, by ‘Lasers’. Send home the forgotten voices of the past; scratch that killer ‘Now that you’re on the dole…’ question. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Lupe had said. “And even when there was talk of it being the last record, it was more so… like, I had four more records with Atlantic Records, and my thing was that I was gonna do an album that was three records released over

a period of time, but all under the same title, like Star Wars. This was ‘LupE.N.D.’ – Everywhere, Nowhere, Down Here, was going to be the thing. It’s something that got canned, but it was going to fulﬁl a majority of my contract, and then I could have done a greatest hits record or whatever, and then I’d become Lupe Fiasco 2 or something like that. So it was never that it was going to be no more records, just that I would be out of my agreement with the record company.” Isn’t that a bit like saying, ‘This next burger will be my last… at Burger King… after three more’? Anyway. Then Lupe told us that he hated his new album, seemingly due to pressures from his label to give it a radio-friendly slant. “The music is good,” he’d said. “Some of it is great, even.There’s a song on there called ‘All Black Everything’ that is one of my favourite songs of all time, and I didn’t have that with ‘The Cool’. On this record I’ve made a masterpiece. But apart from that…” But while Lupe wasn’t purposefully being modest or ironic, he was still selling ‘Lasers’ short. It’s unquestionably his most commercial album to date – all party bangers that are heavy on synths, like Tinie Tempah’s ‘Discovery’ and even guesting Eric Turner on ‘Break The Chain’ – and in many ways his self-criticism that it sounds “like everything else on the radio, only Lupe Fiasco’d” kinda rings true. It’s a little mad on the auto tune and ends on a couple of slowies, one of which features John Legend, of course. But it’s worth remembering that the radio – especially in terms of hip hop and urban tracks booming out of the wireless these days – is no bad place to be. From Rihanna to Drake to Tinie Tempah, hip hop is as mainstream as it’s always wanted to be, and an artist as challenging as Lupe Fiasco deserves a piece of that. It’s just a shame that he doesn’t want a piece. Because ‘Lasers’ is going to be a hit and those fans that have waited four years and picketed Atlantic Records are not going to have to kid themselves that it’s been worth the wait. Even Lupe is coming round to the idea. Kinda. “I’m comfortable with having ‘Words I Never Said’, ‘All Black Everything’, ‘Coming Up’ and ‘Beautiful Lasers’, on there,” he says. “Those are songs that I know are my best efforts and that I know people are going to love. I don’t know what it’s going to sell, and I don’t give a fuck. I gave them what they wanted from me and I’m happy with my pure editions to the record and there’s nothing else that I can really do except for move on to another record. People are going to like it… or they’re going to hate it.”

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“IT’S PRETTY HARD TO BE A ROCK STAR WITH A CONSCIENCE” PHOTOGRAPHER -

LEE GOLDUP

“I have to tell you about one accident,” offers up Jón Valur, the blonde, baby-faced drummer, leaning forward from a six-strong scrum of testosterone. “We were playing in a club in Iceland and when I was packing up I was also looking and talking to somebody so when I bent over to pick up my drum stick I accidentally went so straight down that my high hat stick went right up my nose and poked me in the inside eye! I saw everything blurry for a second, pulled up and everything was bloody. The strangest thing ever,” he notes in his excited, cutand-paste English before quickly remembering another anecdote.“And after one gig in Germany I dared Hilmir – Ármann was talking to a girl – so I dared him to puke in front of them and he did! What became of the girl, Ármann? She went away pretty fast I think.” He chuckles as he reminisces about embarrassing the band’s bearded frontman. “I thought it was really funny,” admits Hilmir, the synth player in question, “but I did it and it was not so funny. I kinda messed up the mood.” “That’s not true,” counters Ármann, “you went partying in the hotel room.” “We did our rock star thing and pretty much fucked up a balcony in Bremen.We felt really bad afterwards. It’s pretty hard to be a rock star with a conscience,” says Hilmir, shaking his head. “Actually,” guitarist Snorri adds, “that night they were being so rock star, but I wanted to go early to bed and I accidentally got a big hole in my head and there was loads of blood. I was just the man going to sleep. They were rocking hard and I got injured,” he states incredulously and they collectively sigh in mock sympathy,conﬁrming our assumptions that this emerging Reykjavik six-piece are all about fooling around. “We don’t take us in person very seriously, you know?” asserts Jón. “We’re just friends having fun.” Having known each other since they were teenagers at school, they tease each other with ease, but back then they weren’t making the intricate, Yeasayer-like

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soundscapes they set about creating when they formed Who Knew in 2005. “Around puberty I rebelled,” explains Ármann, “shaved my hair off and was going to be straight edged. I didn’t really know about metal, but I bought a drum set and I wanted to do metal, except we weren’t meanlooking enough to pull it off; we were small and skinny.” “Everybody was playing metal and we wanted to be part of it,” Snorri justiﬁes as Ármann continues. “We just wanted to create music and have fun while doing it,” he says, “but we hated our old style and that’s the story I think.” Another thing that went out with the metal was their previous name.“We had an old name that was horrible,” Jón begins,“but it’s so bad I’m not gonna say it.” Smiling coyly they all refuse to divulge the information, but assure us it was so confusing that people had a hard time saying it. “They were like, ‘And next on stage is…er…who knew?’ and that’s how we got our name,” states Jón. “It’s like, what’s the band supposed to be called?” Ármann adds. “I don’t know, who knows, who knew? Like a question.” Last spring the band released their debut LP,‘Bits and Pieces of a Major Spectacle’, in Europe and Iceland, but it’s not available in the UK yet, unless you want to fork out twenty English to a private seller on Amazon. Coming in at a full 11 tracks, it incorporates sharp Interpol-styled riffs with an almost glam rock Bowie falsetto to generate echoey, synth-accompanied atmospherics. Single ‘We Do’ is a cacophony of six instruments, all of which sound like they’re being played in different rooms and the listener is the only one to hear the delectable crash as they come together. This is something that follows throughout the record, only varying in pace. Second track ‘Made Belief ’ is more of a gentle clamour, with soft cooing harmonies in the background.

“I BENT OVER TO PICK UP MY DRUMSTICK AND MY HIGH HAT STICK WENT RIGHT UP MY NOSE AND POKED ME IN THE INSIDE EYE”

When these guys approach writing they all bring ideas to the table and encompass their combined inﬂuences, from Ármann’s operatic interest – “my sister was all about opera” – to Jón’s Deep Purple obsession – “already at six I was listening to Deep Purple” – and bus rides. “I don’t know what it is,” he admits with a thick layer of innocence in his tone, “but all the different kinds of people riding together and you’re looking at the scenery outside and getting so much information at the same time, you know? Then some ideas pop up in my head.” They practice in their homemade studio, which they pulled together in an old garage with stolen supplies and a door from a brothel. “It’s called Studio Crooked,” Snorri tells us, “because we had no skills at all. It was supposed to take two weeks to build, but it took six months.” Jón owns up to getting the materials from building sites around the area. “We didn’t have any

money but we really wanted that studio,” he confesses. “We had hoodies and running shoes,” jokes Ármann as Jón utters his worries of getting sued and Snorri tells us that their door was from a “hooker house.” “It had suspicious stains and stuff in the velvet and we bought it!” exclaims Ármann, pretending to be horriﬁed. “But it was really good to have our own studio because we didn’t have money for endless hours of studio time, but there we could ﬁgure out what we wanted to do.” Snorri describes these sessions as a case of someone bringing a riff or synth line to the table and the others taking it on board or completely shooting it down. “Sometimes it’s awesome and sometimes you say, ‘Oh that’s horrible man, we have to get something new’. So it’s often a compromise.” “There’s six of us in the band and we all have our opinions, so you can imagine we argue constantly, but in the end it collapses into a song,” announces Baldur Helgi

Snorrason, Snorri’s older brother and Who Knew’s second guitarist, who’s equally as beardy as the frontman. “Imagine having two brothers in one band,” states Snorri, wide-eyed,“it’s a lot of arguments and it can end up turning into a competition sometimes.” As for lyric duties, that’s down to Ármann, who says he always has a song going around his head, which Snorri describes as his “theme tune.” And despite being Icelandic, Ármann chooses to write in English. “It’s more ﬂuent I think, more accessible,” he ponders. “And also…” He pauses for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts. “I don’t know. I’ve had dreams since I was a kid in English as well as in Icelandic, so it’s my language as well.” Who Knew played their debut UK show last month, but to get a real sense of these guys, ask Snorri.“Someone once said it’s like a musical orgy,” he says. “I think it’s quite ﬁtting.”

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FROM WIGAN TO TEXAS PHOTOGRAPHER -

It doesn’t take intensive listening to figure out that the savage and raucous noise that two-piece Brown Brogues create is probably influenced somewhat by American garage bands, and also that a lot of these bands probably come from Texas. So it seems fitting that our encounter takes place only weeks before they head to the land of bands, beer and BBQs for this year’s SXSW festival, to show them how it’s done, erm… Wigan style. The band was initially a three-piece that was streamlined when “the drummer quit about a week before a really big gig in Leeds,” states Mark, the band’s singer and guitarist. “I had to learn drums for that show and I’d never played them before,” adds the now permanent drummer, Ben. The band, due to “other people’s laziness” and “inability to commit” have now remained a visceral duo, although they are clear to make the distinction from several other bands who share the same set-up. “People used to think we played blues-rock and everyone thinks because we’re a two-piece we sound like The White Stripes,” they frown. In reality, Brown Brogues emit a ferocious surge of forward momentum garage that has more in common with the Coachwhip’s confrontational – but laced with pop songs – style, or the gritty gnarl of The Cramps than anything particularly blues orientated. They clearly know how to have fun too, both off and on stage, which is something that lustres through most when speaking to them. “Fun has always got to be the priority when playing,” says Mark,“and people pick up on it when it’s not…We like to play house parties in tight spaces where people are drunk and dance around. Everyone is too cool in Manchester – they never dance, they just stand around on Twitter.” A look at their new video for ‘Treet U Beta’ will serve testament to their lust for fun, as it sees them sit in a corner of a Wigan working men’s club downing an ungodly amount of rum and black before going on a staggering rampage through the club, kissing one another in front of bewildered looking punters, kissing the punters themselves and tearing up the dance floor in front of a compere. “We didn’t want to take the piss,” explains Mark. “That wasn’t our intention; just for it to be fun.” Surely the kissing must have drawn a bit of attention? “I think we just did it quickly and got away with it,” says Ben. “The compere did have a word with me though,”

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DANIEL DYLAN WRAY

adds Mark. “He sent out two bouncers and they said, ‘He wants a word with you’, so he sat us down and asked what we were doing and I explained we were a band making a video. He warned us off his stage stating, ‘That’s my stage, keep off it’, and demanded royalties if any of his songs were used in the video. I was like, ‘mate, you’re singing covers! They’re other people’s songs!’” Perhaps America will be more receptive to a kiss and a dance to the skeletal drums and mega-phone cracked vocals of Mark and Ben.The band’s debut stateside tour (before a debut UK tour, no less) is fast approaching. “We’re sorting shows at the minute,” says Mark. “We’ve got some in New York and Chicago then we go over to SXSW and play a bunch there.” “It was total luck really,” says Ben. “We had been planning to travel to the US anyway, but all the timings just fitted in perfectly.” And does the trip hold any expectations? Mark ponders for a second. “We think, or hope, it will be more open and friendly than Manchester,” he says. “People seem to open up a bit more over there I think, be less self-aware.” “A bit more of a community, I guess,” adds Ben. “I think we should go down okay.” “Less people on Twitter!” quips Mark. The riotous output and minimal set up the band possess leads me to think that this may be the kind of band who are content to set up anywhere and everywhere to play a show.Weeklong street party SXSW particularly seems made for them. “Definitely,” they both nod in solid agreement. “I actually used to bring a second amp with me, so I could run a guitar through one and my vocals through the other,” says Mark.“It meant we could set up and play anywhere. But I got sick of carrying two amps around.” While playing noisy garage with no bottom end is perhaps not the most refreshing thing you’ve heard, Brown Brogues good humour is. It’s what makes them so enticing – confident but not arrogant, sure but without egos, which is more than can be said about new Slough hotheads and general morons Brother who got a bit of a kicking all round during this interview. “Have all we done is give you vague answers and slag people off?” asks Mark at the end of the interview. In many senses Brown Brogues seem to embody the spirit and essence of the very certain genre they work within, so catching them in an environment that has bred and nurtured some of the greatest will no doubt be explosive and unmissable. If you’re going to Austin this March, seek them out, otherwise just look for the nearest working men’s club.

SURVIVING SXSW A guide to Austin by our man in Texas, Luke Winkie If you’re not sure, South by Southwest marks a certain universal pilgrimage for emerging American and world bands. Every year thousands of musicians, artists, and acts flock to the cultural centre of Austin, Texas, to play dozens of gigs, do plenty of interviews, and generally get as much attention as they possibly can in front of the world’s press. It’s a wonderful, exhausting, and incredibly surreal week of unhinged art. Two years ago a Brooklyn duo performed a few shows in front of one of Pitchfork’s contributing news writers, for example; we now know that band as Sleigh Bells. If you’re planning on making it out for the festivities, here are a few tips on maximizing your stay in Austin. Early morning snacks The late nights and constant partying that comes with SXSW requires some early A.M. refreshment. Luckily Kerbey Lane sits right along the heart of the city and offers 24-hours of fresh, organic, and vegetarian dining. Its location right across the street from the college campus makes it a favourite for students and professors – a great spot for postconcert reminiscence. There are more bands than you think Just because a band isn’t on the official SXSW list, doesn’t mean they aren’t in the city somewhere. The festival literally takes over Austin; you’ll find performances going on in houses, in department stores, on street corners, in coffee shops – everywhere. Keep an eye out all day, and remember the Lamar Foot Bridge 3am show we reported last year. It’s the ultimate gorilla gig location of the week. Drink Drink Drink (cleverly) Pace yourself. SXSW goes all day and all night, and if you’re going to the right parties you won’t have to pay for a drink until 7 P.M. Sure, that’s fun, but it can be a tad overwhelming so make sure you’re not debilitated by the time your headliner of choice comes on. It’s all about discovery SXSW is all about seeing future favourite bands. Don’t show up to the club just for James Blake or Erykah Badu or whoever – the opening acts are the real magic of the festival.

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KATY B’S DEBUT ALBUM ISN’T OUT FOR ANOTHER TWO MONTHS, BUT SHE’S ALREADY MANAGED TO BREAK THE CHARTS WITH HER PIRATE RADIO PARTY TUNES. TWICE. PHOTOGRAPHER -

Last summer saw her first solo single,‘Katy on a Mission’, shoot straight to number five in the charts, followed by a number four hit with ‘Lights On’, on which she collaborated with Ms Dynamite, so there’s no doubt that you’ll have heard the goods, but did you know that the young, doe-eyed Katy B is behind them? Born Kathleen Brien in Peckham, London, 21 years ago, Katy is the latest hot ticket in the underground dub-come-funky house scene and it’s nearing impossible to hit a club without hearing her tunes, but the underground is rising and filling the airwaves. The likes of club/house duos Count & Sinden, Chase & Status and Nero have been getting some serious mainstream action for several months now, taking some of the spotlight off the conveyor belt of indie. “Everything comes in cycles, doesn’t it?” Katy states as she gently nurses a cup of lemongrass tea. Her hair is half up in rollers and she has a light brush of blue on her eyelids. We’ve interrupted a session with her make-up artist, Gemma, who she always has with her. Katy doesn’t mind our intrusion though, or at least she doesn’t show it beneath her smiling, soft demeanour. “The director who was doing my video on Wednesday was like, ‘Wow, this sounds like the stuff I was raving to 20 years ago’,” she continues, “and he said it was too soon for that to come back around, but then he was like, ‘Oh wait, it’s

GABRIEL GREEN

WRITER -

DK GOLDSTEIN

not. God that makes me feel old’. So I guess it’s just that time, it’s what people wanna hear. It’s refreshing because they haven’t heard it in a long time, but I’m guessing it won’t be long before another indie band resurgence comes about.” From the age of 16 Katy knew that what she wanted to do with her life was to sing. So she began offering her vocals to anything and everything that needed it, while attending the prestigious BRIT School in south London, followed by a pop music degree at Goldsmiths University, which is famous for turning out the likes of Blur, the fast-rising post-dubstep producer James Blake and Placebo’s Brian Molko. However, before she got to university she’d already had her ﬁrst house track out (the DJ NG tune ‘Tell Me’) on which the then 17-year old featured as ‘Baby Katy’. The track was picked up by Ministry of Sound, and then Rinse FM boss man Geeneus, who went on to produce Katy’s debut album ‘On a Mission’, which is set for release on April 4th. But taking a step back, Katy explains why she ﬁrst fell underground. “The thing that was easiest for me to do was to work with people who made music in their bedrooms,” she says, “do you know what I mean? I did more house, garage and grime tracks because that was what was available to me – that was the sound that people were

making when I was that age. So, one thing led to another and it snowballed.” Katy blushes as she tells us that she never expected to hit the mainstream market.“No, no, no, seriously, because the stuff that Rinse and Tempa have put out before – like Sweeney’s album, Benga’s album, things like that – obviously they’re big, they’ve always been massive at what they do, but it hadn’t been in the charts, so I never thought that was going to be an option. And ‘Katy On a Mission’ wasn’t an expensive video, just ﬁlming a rave basically, and it went to number ﬁve! I remember them [Geeneus and Benga] calling me up and saying, ‘I’m really sorry Katy, but I think you might be a pop star, like, tomorrow’.” She grins at us incredulously before admitting that she’s always wanted to be a successful singer, but never in the public eye.“But I can’t complain,” she shrugs,“I get to gig and sing to make my money and that is the most wicked thing, so I don’t really mind. It’s a bonus I suppose.” Although it hasn’t quite reached the stage of fans running after her for pictures and autographs in the street, she did recently get recognised by a shop assistant selling her a pair of Uggs. “This girl was talking and then half way through she was like, [here Katy gasps and rushes her words to give us a good impression of the girl in the shop] ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t hold myself together any more,’ and then she asked me twenty

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“THE ALBUM IS ABOUT GOING OUT DANCING, PARTYING WITH MY FRIENDS, LOVE AND EVERYDAY THINGS... I THINK IT’S JUST ABOUT GOING OUT, ACTUALLY” questions in the space of two minutes and didn’t let me answer any of them,” she laughs.“It was really weird, but I think I’m in a bit of denial that anyone might recognise me until they do, but it’s always lovely and really nice.” By the time Rinse contacted Katy – Geneeus sent her a message over Myspace – she was already a regular in the clubs, singing with DJs.“How it was ﬁrst, actually,” she describes,“was they were gonna get all the producers from Rinse to put together a compilation of unreleased stuff and they wanted someone to sing over all of it to link the tunes together. But then it suddenly turned into my own thing, because it was a bit disjointed using a different producer for every single tune and we really enjoyed working together – me, Geeneus and Zinc – so it turned into my album. It’s cool, because it kinda happened naturally. It’s been a great journey.” The journey she speaks of is one that began almost four years ago because Katy had to juggle studio time with university, the clubs and the gigs with her band, The Illersapiens, who play with her on stage now. “And you’ve got to imagine,” she starts, “Geeneus, who produced it, runs a radio station, he’s a DJ, a producer, he runs a record label, he’s a promoter, he has something like ten different jobs, so it was really hard. Sometimes it seemed like it was the bottom of priorities,” she confesses. “But actually, now has been the best time for me as I’ve ﬁnished my degree. So, even though it did take quite a while, it was good because it allowed me to progress.” Like her singles, the album is a party record and most of the tracks on there are about going out dancing and not wanting to go home. “It’s about those years from 18 to 21, while I was doing my degree, while I was recording the album and all the issues that were going on in my life,” she explains. “So, from going out dancing, partying with my friends to love and everyday things…” She pauses here to rethink her answer for a second. Katy is one to gesticulate wildly as she talks, so it’s easy to read her emotions.“I think it is just about going out, actually,”

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she lights up with a chuckle. “It’s just what it’s like to be a young woman. But deﬁnitely, yeah, I was a little raver. I still am.” Smiling away, she digs into some cake before offering us some and we can see exactly why the music scene has become completely enamoured by Katy B. She’s young, rife with talent and unmarred by the ugly side of the industry. Wiping the crumbs from her lips, Katy happily chatters on, revealing how she approaches writing music. “Because I work with a lot of producers, they usually give me templates ﬁrst. I’m not one of those people who could be on the train and an idea comes. That has happened a few times, but I don’t get loads of creative, spur-of-the-moment ideas where I have to write all the time and every day. Like I said, if a producer gives me a beat, I’ll sit down in my room – I have to be in that space to focus – and it’s whatever the beat makes me feel. If it makes me feel like I wanna dance, if it makes me feel happy or frustrated or sad then that’s what I’ll write about, genuinely. But the only time I do it is when I need to, so if I do need to make an album or a song then I’ll make the time for it, but I haven’t really just genuinely written for a while. When I was younger and there was no reason to write any songs, I suppose I would do it more just for fun.” As soon as these words have left her mouth she looks shocked and blurts, “Well, I still do it for fun. Sorry,” she giggles, “I don’t want it to sound like I’m a machine or anything.” Before she had even released her debut single, Katy was in the studio recording ‘Lights On’ with Geeneus and Zinc, and it just so happened to be at the same time that garage singer Ms Dynamite – best remembered for her 2002 ‘Dy-na-mi-tee’ single – was in he building. She overheard it, loved it and asked to be a part of it. “I was star struck,” Katy gawps. “I’m a big fan of hers and ‘A Little Deeper’ [Dynamite’s debut LP] is amazing. It was really good because that was before any hype with ‘Katy on a Mission’ so it was good to know that she genuinely

liked what I was doing.” As well as Ms Dynamite, the album also features collaborations with Magnetic Man (‘Perfect Stranger’) and Benga (‘Katy on a Mission’), but Katy tells us that she would love to work with Neptunes. “I just think they’re wicked,” she clarifies. “They can turn something like Britney… come on, ‘Slave for You’ and ‘Boys’ are big tunes, whereas ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ isn’t necessarily a good pop song. And all their stuff with Kelis – I’m a massive Kelis fan, I worship that lady and I love all her albums, especially the first one ‘Kaleidoscope’, which they produced.” Among her other influences, lies the likes of Destiny’s Child, Faith Evans, Mary J Blige, TLC, neo-soul like Erykah Badu and of course the sounds of pirate radio stations. “From grime like Wiley to drum ‘n’ bass, to lots of vocals on house records and garage, where you might not necessarily think ‘who is that singer?’,” Katy says, “but that kind of vocal has definitely influenced the way I write. I don’t necessarily think Crystal Waters is my favourite singer, but all of those unsung heroes.” So, how does she feel to be recognised for something that so many people don’t get attention for? “I don’t know,” she answers, “because before I wasn’t always a featured artist on a lot of house and garage tunes, so I feel like it’s good. I’m doing it for them, you know?” She laughs as we ask her if she’s excited about the album finally being released.“I can’t wait,” she beams. “Do you know what? I haven’t even thought about the fact that it’s going to get reviews. It just hit me this week and I just was thinking, shit, oh my God, what if someone does say it’s pissy shit? But I still listen to it now and I like it, so you can’t be nervous really, there’s no point, is there? I didn’t intend for it to be put out on such a massive scale, it was supposed to be an underground thing. We’ll just see what happens, I’m excited, yeah, definitely excited.” Now there’s just an empty plate where the cake once was and leaves left in the bottom of our teacups, but there’s still one thing we’re dying to know, and that’s what we can expect from Katy B down the line. “The future?” she asks with a furrowed brow. “The problem with me is that I never plan for the future, I don’t even plan for tomorrow.” She gives us one last charming smile and we leave the velvety-voiced club singer, just a little bit in love.

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AL BUMS

YUCK YUCK (Fat Possum) By Chris Watkeys. In stores Feb 21

06/10

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Yuck are being bandied about on almost every forum, new band section, ‘tips for 2011’ feature and indie-lover’s website you’ll have seen in the last couple of months.The superlatives are ﬂowing copiously, the blogosphere is buzzing like a broken fridge and the band are attracting tags like ‘the new Strokes’ and comparisons as wide-ranging as Sonic Youth,Teenage Fanclub and Dinosaur Jr. The quintet are London-based but have an international line-up which includes members from the US and Japan, alongside the Londonborn core duo of ex-Cajun Dance Party bods Max Bloom and Danny Blumberg.There’s little stylistic similarity though between CDP’s spikily adolescent indie-pop (which, in its infancy, garnered a similar level of buzz-band mania) and this new project. Superﬁcial it may be, let’s divert for a

moment to talk about Yuck’s choice of moniker. It’s bad. And until the band reach that level of iconic status where the word itself has no relevance and the name takes on its own associations, it’ll stay bad. Now, having heard this,Yuck’s debut album, do we believe the hype? Kinda.Though they formed in late 2009, the four-piece sound something like the archetypal indie-rock band of the early to mid nineties, caught between grunge and Britpop. Passing swiftly over the opening ‘Get Away’ (because it feels uncomfortably like mid-career Ash – not a good start) we move into the meat of the album: a slow-brewing concoction of shoegaze and underwater melody. My Bloody Valentine are clearly an inﬂuence, most strongly on the submerged fuzz of ‘Operation’, but in amongst the densely layered, fuzzily melodic haze, there are moments of simple, straightforward clarity, like ‘Suicide Policeman’, over which the spirit of Elliot Smith seems to hover like a ghost at the feast, and the gently tuneful ‘Shook Down’, which sounds like Buffalo Tom covering Pixies

whilst heavily stoned.Vocals stay low in the mix throughout and are often subject to fuzzy FX, but the standout track is the instrumental ‘Rose Gives A Lily’, which washes back and forth like Mogwai. As for the comparisons being thrown around, well whilst there is an occasional passing resemblance to The Strokes, this record doesn’t have either the immediacy or the sharp pop hooks of ‘Is This It’, and the likelihood of Yuck’s eponymous debut having the same commercial impact as Casablanca and Co.’s first and finest has to be pretty remote. And yet ‘Yuck’ is by no means a bad album. It moves fluidly from song to song, is not at all bereft of hooks, and often rattles along at a pleasing indie-pop pace. And if you’re yet to see them played live know that these songs sound their best in a pokey pub somewhere. Yuck are a long way away from being anything to get rabidly excited about but they’ve produced the kind of music that has the potential to inspire a cultish devotion, if enough people latch on to its understated charms.

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Sonic Youth

Cut Copy

The Dears

Kurt Vile

Ducktails

Simon Werner A Disparu

Zonoscope

Degeneration Street

Smoke Ring for my Halo

(SYR) By Tom Pinnock. In stores now

(Modular) By Tom Goodwyn. In stores now

(Dangerbird) By Sam Walton. In stores Mar 14

(4ad) By DK Goldstein. In stores Mar 8

Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics (Woodists)

The meandering, moody jams and ominous drones that have punctuated many of Sonic Youth’s best songs seem perfectly suited for ﬁlms, so it seems bizarre that ‘Simon Werner A Disparu’, the band’s reworked score for the French thriller of the same name, is only their second ever full soundtrack. A lot less freeform than some of the mangled experiments that have also been released on the band’s own SYR label, this instrumental album of ﬂighty riffs and droning textures is less noisy and more atmospheric than you would expect. Standout tracks like ‘Les Anges Au Piano’ evoke the more sinuous jams on ‘A Thousand Leaves’, while Kim Gordon’s magisterial harmonics suggest ‘Massage The History’ from 2009’s ‘The Eternal’. It all hints at what the band’s long-lost piano album (yes, it honestly nearly happened) would have sounded like.Thrilling.

Cut Copy’s third album is what you’d call an epic dance record. And that’s epic in every sense.The songs are particularly lengthy, more often than not breaching the ﬁveminute mark, and in the case of the closing ‘Sun God’ you can times that average running time by three. There’s a notable panoramic view of the world too, with every shimmering refrain and breakdown suggesting that the whole record was laid to tape at dusk in the Mojave Desert. But it’s in its classic disco rhythms (or lack there of) where ‘Zonoscope’ differs most from the band’s 2008 album ‘In Ghost Colours’.They’re in place for ‘Take Me Over’ and ‘Pharaohs And Pyramids’ but most of what you’ll ﬁnd here is ambient and discreet in its compositions. It makes ‘Zonoscope’ a record for post-club listeners rather than Cut Copy party fans of three years ago, but who wants the same LP twice?

On paper, there’s nothing new here. But all the great bands that are filtered through ‘Degeneration Street’ – post-‘Kid A’ Radiohead, TV on the Radio, late-period Blur, even bits of Muse – engender a familiarity around which The Dears build their own identity, and with that comes a warmth and soulfulness that so many modern rock records lack terribly. Indeed, listening to ‘Degeneration Street’ is a little like looking at a completed crossword: there’s no deciphering left to do, no challenge or puzzle, but quelling that frustration is an equal but different satisfaction derived from observing so clearly the craftsmanship and passion that has made something so perfectly complete. Indebted but never derivative, soulful, passionate and unique in its own combination of flavours, this is one of the most self-assured, fulfilling indie-rock records to be released in years.

There’s nothing vile, unpleasant or remotely rotten about Kurt, but he still manages to ﬁll each of his songs with a sense of someone coughing up bile.That’s not a bad thing: it balances out his sweetly melodic tunes with an intense melancholy so that even his upbeat songs sound sincere. ‘In My Time’ winds along contentedly, but Vile’s voice is a little grisly and you know it’s slipped from the corners of a down-turned mouth. His songs are like tuneful Dylan-esque tales with a hint of Ben Kweller’s Texan drawl to them, despite him being a Philly boy through-andthrough. In ‘Runner Ups’ his guitar picking builds an intricate web of smug satisfaction while his weathered vocals moan lightly and he sounds sad, but his lyrics are anything but - “My best friends are all gone but I got runner ups,” he brags. Still hardly radical,Vile remains pleasingly accomplished.

By John Carter. In stores now Something tells us that Ducktails has only been given a second thought by anyone because they are a he, he is a guitarist in a hip, East Coast, technophobic guitar band, that band is called Real Estate, and the music that Real Estate make is very Pitchfolkapproved right now. But for Matthew Mondanile to have reached his third (!) album by playing the kind of spindly, semi ideas that make up ‘Arcade Dynamics’ you have to applaud the audacity of the 22-year old and stand agog at the stupidity of everyone else.What makes this album so frustrating isn’t simply its mono level of focus, akin to that of a toddler with alzheimer’s, but rather that it ﬂeetingly proves Mondanile to potentially be a master of warmly hallucinogenic back porch folk pop. It’s a real shame that ‘being lo-ﬁ’ has taken precedence over realising greatness.

Rainbow Arabia Boys and Diamonds (Kompakt) By Reef Younis. In stores Mar 7

09/10

It begins with a world music melange of keyboard swathes and Enya filtered through Lady Black Mambozo, half-speed Foals’ guitar rhythms and Fever Ray enunciation. It’s not immediately impressive but as title tracks go, it’s totally compelling, and ‘Boys and Diamonds’’ initial intrigue quickly turns up regular flashes of genius. Away from the barracking tribal rhythms, bongos and drizzling synth, singer Tiffany’s treated vocals add a breathy, sultry quality to husband Dan’s lush Casio-based build-ups. It’s a combination used to striking on effect on ‘Mechanical’; with bleak, sparse intent on ‘This Life Is Practice’; and to echoing, anthemic pop brilliance on ‘Without You’. Self-billed as ‘ethnotronic’ and drawing on inspiration from the sounds of Cambodia, Sumatra, India and Iraq, Rainbow Arabia, unsurprisingly, have a firm foundation in the cultural and obscure.That their name intimates a sense of global inclusion is apt.That their debut album is simply otherworldly is a real joy.

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AL BUMS 05/10

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J. Mascis

Bearsuit

Ringo Deathstarr

Wild Palms

ISVOLT

Several Shades of Why

The Phantom Forest

Colour Trip

Until Spring

(Sub Pop) By Chris Watkeys. In stores Mar 14

(Fortuna Pop) By Nathan Westley. In stores Mar 14

(Club AC30) By Kate Parkin. In stores now

By Daniel Dylan Wray. In stores Mar 7

A Disaro Witch House Compilaiton (Robot Elephant)

‘Dinosaur Jr. frontman releases long awaited solo record’, runs the headline.You might expect this album to be deliberately low-key, and so it is: almost entirely acoustic, with little of the raw fuzz of its fossilized bigger brother. ‘Listen To Me’ has shades of Evan Dando’s bittersweet pop melodies, while the country-tinged ‘Not Enough’ weaves boy-girl harmonies together with a melancholy campﬁre vibe. It’s Sunday morning hangover music; inoffensive strumalong fare. Listen to any of these ten songs in isolation and you’d prick up your ears, but over the course of an album there’s far too little variance to keep you engaged. If you knew nothing of the musical stature of this man, and the respect he should be accorded for a long and great career, you might dismiss this album as the plaintive musings of yet another ten-a-penny bedroom troubadour.

With it now being a decade since their formation it would be easy to assume that Norwich-based, sickly twee-pop renegades Bearsuit would be comfortable to relax within a snugly knit indie-pop niche; yet ‘The Phantom Forest’ serves as proof that this is a band unafraid to move out of their comfort zone. Maybe it can be partly down to the shift in rhythm section personnel that has led to a musical re-evaluation, whereby boisterous pop songs, rich in their hallmarks of stop start dynamics and sugary melodies, now often have an added low brow kitsch ’80 synth pop edge, which makes this album feel like they’re a band who are making a step into a new territory while also keeping a foot ﬁrmly in their past. Inventively genius this album isn’t, but by being immensely fun it proves that this youthfully spirited group have lost none of their sparkle.

Saccharine but covered in static, Ringo Deathstarr’s vocals often creep through a fog of dry-ice like She and Him getting loaded with Jesus and Mary Chain, while ‘So High’ dips headlong into dreamy bubblegum pop. It makes for a sweetly gothic listen on this, their debut album.With the popularity of Belle and Sebastian’s curated festival Bowlie 2, and the resurgence of bands like The Vaselines, shoegaze has been having its second bite at the cherry for over a year now and Texans Ringo Deathstarr are convincing new gorgers at the feast, hitting the nail on the head with ‘Kaleidoscope’ (a perfect twominute slice of distortion that craves endless repeats) and ‘Other Things’ (which is more like Telepathe set to crunking beats). It’s scrappy and far from perfect, but ‘Colour Trip’ will be essential listening by the summer.

When Wild Palms were calling themselves Ex Lion Tamers, comparisons to Wire were justiﬁed in more than a name.They had an angular twang and a youthful snarl to them; indebted to the world of post-punk.The band still sound like Wire now, only they have more in common with their ‘154’ album than say, ‘Pink Flag’; the initial paroxysm seemingly subsiding. But ‘154’ radiated and pulsed whereas this merely ﬁzzes a bit.Wild Palms follow in the footsteps of Wild Beasts and Foals in that they seem driven to overshadow and enhance their earlier, more primitive work by taking a giant leap into the world of instrumental intricacies.The problem is that this approach often results in a murky, overcast and at times tedious listen – sounding like a band grasping for something unattainable, perhaps following expectation rather than intuition.

(One Little Indian)

By Stuart Stubbs. In stores now People of the good, Christian, free world, lock up your daughters… preferably to an inverted cross in the garden and come and worship at the alter of Witch House: the most perfectly named sub-genre possibly ever.Why ‘Witch House’ is so brilliant is because – as its macabre pioneers Salem proved last year – there is something strikingly supernatural about this brand of electronic music that lays industrial, otherworldly drones and static twitches over slo-mo hip hop beats and mutters. ‘Misery Walk’ by †‡† (pronounced ‘Ritualzz’ ) particularly sinks into your grey matter on this comp, while it’s the subliminal whispers of White Ring that are most likely to take the wrap for the next US high school shooting. And while it’s not for everyone – and it’s certainly not for every hour of the day – when you want to succumb to the occult there’s nothing like it.

Warm Brains Old Volcanoes

07/10

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The shadow of a former band can loom for a lifetime. Just ask your nearest Spice Girl or Beatle. Rory Attwell – once of London’s ‘Fab Three’,Test-Icicles – has been making light work of shaking off his much loved Raary Deci-hells alter-ego though, known now as the drummer of Kasms and as the country’s top DIY producer almost as much as Screamo Spice.Warm Brains sees him leap even further towards independence, helped by the fact that this is a solo project in the truest sense. A guest vocalist here and there aside, Attwell recorded and produced every grungy, dreamy sonic on ‘Old Volcanoes’ himself to create an album that partly suggests he’s wasted behind the mixing desk (the Pavement-esque, smart musicality of the title track offering particularly damning evidence). Mostly, though,Warm Brains is a product of years experimenting with the likes of Male Bonding, Veronica Falls and countless other punks and shoegazers. It’s a concise compendium of new grunge.

Photography by Phil Sharp

(Marshall Teller) By Stuart Stubbs. In stores tbc

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Toro Y Moi

Those Dancing Days

Grouplove

Daydreams and Nightmares

Heavy Days

Grouplove

(Car Park) By Sam Walton. In stores Mar 21

(Wichita) By Sam Little. In stores Feb 28

Erland And The Carnival

Jeff The Brotherhood

Underneath The Pine

Nightingale (Full Time Hobby) By Tom Goodwyn. In stores Mar 7

(Stolen) By DK Goldstein. In stores Feb 21

(Atlantic) By Laura Davies. In stores now

You’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve heard this record before. That’s not to say Toro Y Moi’s second LP is one of those replica sophomore albums (although the musical progression here is more subtle shift than drastic clang), but simply that much of its sleepily lustful, featherlite wash is so wonderfully evocative of a bygone era that it leaves you convinced it must be the product of some misremembered past. It’s not all hypnagogic haze though – ‘New Beat’ is delicious disco straight from Chic’s playbook, and ‘Still Sound’’s organ stabs and understated drums perfectly underpin the Brian Wilson-esque melancholy of the vocal. But as a whole, this is a faded shoebox photograph of a record: ghostly and endlessly intriguing, sure, but without the accompanying detail or explanation to put it in context it’s also slightly insubstantial.

Swedish quintet Those Dancing Days are like a sweeter Girls Aloud who play guitars. By that, I mean their second album, ‘Daydreams and Nightmares’, is full of the kind of high-end chart pop that could easily have ‘real music boffs’ proudly claiming to be fans... and there are ﬁve of them. And like Girls Aloud, pop-rocker Kelly Clarkson or Pink (who singer Linnea occasionally sounds like, which at least means she’s deepened her nasal wail that made the band’s adolescent debut ultimately grating) this album has some tracks that are miles better than others.There are ‘Sounds of The Underground’s ( like the uncharacteristically bolshy ‘Fuckaris’) and there are forgettable album ﬁllers (like ‘Dream About Me’ and ‘Forest of Love’). Unlike real factory-line pop,TDD’s ratio of good tracks to dull is 60/40 in their favour.

The second album by London trio Erland and the Carnival has a range of inﬂuences concreted in the years preceding 1977. Recorded on a creaky canal barge on the banks of the River Thames, it channels early Pink Floyd and other such proginess with some ‘Sgt. Pepper’-era Beatles and a decidedly folky take on Fleetwood Mac thrown in. If you overlook the game of spot the inﬂuence (which the album has you instinctively playing from fade in to fade out) it’s certainly passable, and even gets off to a decent start with the rollicking and slightly demented ‘So Tired In The Morning.’Trouble is, when you start off at such a furious pace you have to take it gently, whereas Simon Tong and Co. decide to do an emergency stop and spend the rest of the album dishing up stodgy folk songs. It’s not terrible, but not worth repeated listens either.

German architect Ludwig Mies always said that ‘less is more’ and since then minimalism has played a huge part in our lives, from phones to cars to the food we eat.Why make dinner when you can microwave it? Why not combine your phone, music player and camera? Why use six guitar strings when three will do? On their debut LP, brothers Jamin and Jake Orrall have proved that with a stripped down drum kit and an even more stripped down guitar, you can make one incredible racket. Single ‘You Got the Look’ is a fast, in-your-face, catchy-ashell number that moulds quickly into the fuzzed-up ballad of ‘The Tropics’, then rolls into the soprano coos of ‘Bone Jam’.There’s so much going on, from Sonic Youth-y soundscapes to Sabbathesque riffs that you’ll be hardpushed to ﬁnd it anything but gripping.

Grouplove are here to put a smile on your face.They’re from California, see? And that’s what Californians do.This debut mini album starts with slow-burner ‘Colours’, but its soft lullabies soon meet a tougher – yet wholly indiepop – sound head on. ‘Naked Kids’ takes us on a laid-back surfer trip that keeps that puss grinning, even if “cruising down the highway with my friends, top down, and we’re all on our way to the beach,” just brings on a bout of weather envy. Still, “Dodging tramps on Shoreditch High Street with my drunk mates... we’re all on our way to the kebabby” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. ‘Getaway Car’ nearly changes the upbeat vibe as English bassist Sean snatches the mic along with the band’s female force, Hannah, but her Moldy Peaches vocals hardly make for a gritty, real listen. Grouplove are clearly just happy folk.Yuck.

The Death Set Michael Poiccard (Counter) By Laura Davies. In stores Feb 28

08/10

After a three-year hiatus that saw Baltimore noise punks The Death Set overcome the sudden death of founding member Beau Velasco, ‘Michel Poiccard’ is an impressively on-track tribute to their much missed friend. Opener (if you can call ﬁve seconds that) ‘I Wanna Take This Tape and Blow up your Fucking Stereo’ sets out the bands typical brattish punk stall early on, before single ‘Slap Slap Slap Pound Up Down Snap’ introduces dubstep to the trio’s sonic arsenal, in keeping with the record’s loud, riotous and addictive ethos. It’s hard to pick a highlight (or where one track ends and another begins) when the noise is ﬂying at you this fast, but Beastie Boys-like anthem ‘A Problem is a Problem, It Don’t Matter Where You’re From’ is a contender. So is the bass-heavy ‘Too Much Fun For Regrets.’ All 90 seconds of it. Add to that a 30-second Jurassic 5-style interlude of remixed meowing (yes, cats meowing), and The Death Set return to their unique, nutty, possibly silly best.

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AL BUMS 07/10

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Alice Gun

Bright Eyes People’s Key

Cloud Nothings

(Ambiguous) By Stuart Stubbs. In stores Mar 21

(Polydor) By Daniel Dylan Wray. In stores now

Frankie & the Heartstrings

Cloud Nothings

Blood & Bone

Hunger (Wichita) By Nathan Westley. In stores Feb 21

(Wichita) By Matthias Scherer. In stores now

Le Corps Mince de Francoise Love & Nature (Heavenly) By Matthias Scherer. In stores Feb 21

We’ve all got to pay the bills somehow and Alice Gun – a bewitching, classically trained Bat For Lashes type – does so lending her vocals to anonymous house tracks that you’ve no doubt pilled yourself mad to in some club or other. ‘Blood & Bone’ is more contemplative, full-bodied merlot than mindless straw-pedoed WKD, though. It’s dark and gothic and highly personal; full of deep cello moans and minor chords.The opening ‘Horrible Soul’, which sees Alice scornful of an ex lover, and the following ‘The Swimming’, which sees her turn on herself with the help of some Nick Cave-ish backing vocals, set a telling, troubled tone than never gets much chipper. But misery and anguish for sophisticated music make, and new single ‘Metal Spider’ is particularly beguiling, even if Alice Gun remains less multi-facetted than her peers.

Conor Oberst, even in his meekest, quietest, most sombre of moments has been able to exude a degree of passion that is at times breathtaking – transcending the form of song writing itself and penetrating deep into the social and political consciousness, while all the while stabbing deep at ones own heart and fragility, creating a seamless coexistence of beauty and anguish. Understandably, this intensity and foray into genius is not something that can be controlled, contained or, ultimately, become consistent. ‘The People’s Key’, then, feels like a middle ground between a watered down ‘Digital Ash…’ and an attenuated ‘Lifted Or…’. It’s a welcome departure and undeniable advancement from the recent Mystic Valley band LP, but is ultimately a scattered glimpse into what Bright Eyes are capable of, rather than an immersion in their undeniable talents.

It wouldn’t take a member of Mensa to ﬁgure out why this dapperly dressed, literate mob would gain comparisons to fellow North East residents The Futureheads, but to peg them as mere pretenders would be doing them a grand disservice. Far from paperclipping together remarkably stale ideas of what a young rock’n’roll band should actively be, when they hit full stride, such as on title track ‘Hunger’, with its ‘oh’ vocals, Frankie & The Heartstrings have the vigour of Josef K or Orange Juice, with a 21st century style makeover. At the heart of it (mind the pun) is the driving spirit of Frankie Francis’ who yelps in his heavy, northern accent, and together with his tightly bonded gang they have created a debut album that may be easily bracketed as straightforward guitar pop, but sometimes the simplest of things can be the most enjoyable.

There are only so many lo-fi guitar pop records you can listen to before your brain implodes from lack of properly processed information. It’s a bit baffling that bands still regard the C86 ethic as the pinnacle of audio production when decent recording quality has never been cheaper to achieve, and it would be interesting to hear why Dylan Baldi, aka Cloud Nothings, thought his carefully honed compositions would still benefit from employing the same scuzzy, rubbish-bin-for-a-snare approach of every goddamn guitar band of the last two years. But whatever. The songs on his first album proper are catchy in a more leftfield Weezer way and charmingly insolent in a way Frank Black would approve of, and that’s good enough for us.Whether it’s better than the keenly awaited Smith Westerns LP (another lo-fi guitar record) remains to be seen.

A Norwegian friend told me once, rather emphatically, that, “Finland sucks”.This was before they’d heard LCMdF, a trio from Helsinki that specialises in a hyperkinetic brand of electro pop so in your face it makes Lady Gaga seem like a wallflower. After perking up the ears of blog-perusing music nerds a few years ago (with the messy anthem ‘Cool and Bored’), their debut album comes packed with outrageously cheesy tropical guitars, life and party-affirming lyrics, and hooks the size of Britain’s budget deficit – ‘Hard Smile’, for example, is a bootleg pop hit worthy of Passion Pit. There are echoes of other international hipster crews like CSS and Crystal Fighters (the accented English, the raveinfluenced synths), but the sound that LCMdF have created on this album is thoroughly their own. Suck on this, Norway.

Banjo Or Freakout Banjo Or Freakout

03/10

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Alessio Natalizia, aka Banjo Or Freakout, boasts the inﬂuences of Caribou and Deerhunter, which should have him in my good books practically by default, and yet his debut LP gets me about as stirred up as a neglected pot of Greek yoghurt.The record comes across as a tepid fog of guitar loops, blurred vocals and drifting, sketched melodies. Unlike BOF’s early Animal Collective-esque efforts, it has a constant whiff of the bleak about it, but not enough to truly qualify as bleak, which, ironically, enhances the bleakness, but, again, not enough. Apparently, it’s all deeply personal and, according to Natalizia, “…it works when you want to be taken over, encompassed by music, when you’re looking to lose yourself in something,” and perhaps that’s true – having never felt even the slightest urge to immerse myself in a sun-warmed lagoon of aural ‘meh’, I couldn’t possibly refute this particular point. However, if blissful, lush melancholia was what Natalizia was aiming for, I’d say he missed. Meh.

Photography by Elinor Jones

(Memphis Industries) By Polly Rappaport. In stores Feb 21

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LIVE

Blake Heaven

JAMES BLAKE

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Borderline, London 04.02.2011 By Sam Walton Photography by Lee Goldup

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“Next big thing?” asks James Blake, reading the large backdrop behind him advertising the series of gigs in which he’s the main attraction. “No pressure then,” he adds with a grin.Wry or not, though, his smile suggests he knows tonight might be the one night when the pressure’s off – although the venue is heaving, the crowd are rapt and rapturous, and so well-welcomed is Blake on stage that one suspects he could slather ‘The Birdie Song’ with his trademark Auto-tune and still send the audience home happy. Of course, he does nothing of the sort, although what he does produce is just as astonishing. For most of 2010, Blake made a name for himself constructing classically composed electronica, weaving super-addictive fabrics out of Aaliyah samples and intimate recordings of a battered piano, all sliced and diced with the precision of a sushi chef.Tonight, the techniques of those experiments remain, but are now applied to Blake the soul singer, and the results are spellbinding.With quiet conﬁdence, enormous musical subtlety and eye-popping

technical skill, Blake spends forty minutes ﬁltering songs (that in normal circumstances would sit comfortably on the songwriter spectrum somewhere between Randy Newman and Bon Iver) through throbbing sub-bass and sinewy vocal distortions, creating a soundworld that is rich, textured and expressive in the most abnormal but organic of ways. His ﬁrst vocal draws gasps from the crowd – that voice should not come from that head – and the contradictions don’t end there. Modern singer-songwriter R’n’B shouldn’t sound like this; electronica shouldn’t be this moving; someone dressed like a physics student, with bashful stage presence and little in the way of chat, shouldn’t be this charismatic.Then, when Blake reaches into Joni Mitchell’s songbook for a cover of ‘Case of You’, he wrong-foots everyone, deconstructing the rhythm of the original and rebuilding it with a push and pull and spaciousness that almost makes it his own. But in essence, this is still a singer-songwriter gig – a man, at a piano, playing songs – but with

the tricks of one genre, namely UK bass music, applied to another in a way no one seems to have thought of before. Accordingly, Blake’s songs are littered with beautifully pregnant pauses, a device that not only allows the tracks to breathe but also accentuates the deep reverberations of the low frequencies and the decay of endlessly echoing vocals. He builds songs layer over layer, mutating them as he goes, until they wash together, intense and melancholic. “Always listen to music alone, with the lights out, before you read reviews,” Blake insists after another round of adoring heckles, in response to the reaction his music is gathering from both within and outside the walls of the venue. It’s wise advice, and Blake’s is perfect late-night lights-out headphone music. But to enjoy it only like that would be to miss live performances like this: his ability to extract and twist the essence of beautiful songs so magically, and perform so technically with such soul, is a rare delight.

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LE SERA White Heart, Madame Jo Jo’s, London 01.02.2011 By Olly Parker Photography by Pavla Kopecna ▼

The clear message from La Sera’s debut album of 2010 is that Katy Goodman (also of Vivian Girls) has been gunning for what can only be worryingly described as a more “mature” sound.That’s not to say I don’t like it; I do. Maybe I’m more mature now. I mean, I have cats, but the last thing I’d want to see is Katy sat on a stool crooning through some folky guff to a professional backing band. As well as being dull, that kind of reminder of my own mortality and overdue departure from youth is the last thing I need. Fortunately I needn’t have worried. Tonight Katy is as bouncy and charming onstage as ever, and her band walk the line of ramshackle professionalism with ease. My brain doesn’t once drift off to ponder whether or not I have remembered to feed

the cats. “We’re La Sera and we’re from California,” announce the band, and as throwaway as that sounds it’s actually quite significant. On record, they plough a particular vein of indie pop influenced by classic west-coast 60s music, but live, without a backing vocalist and a guitar duo not really able to recreate the texture of the recordings, it all starts to sound a little flat. It’s a shame, as when it goes right, like when the band break into ‘Devils Hearts Grow Old’ – a beautiful Cocteau Twins and Pixies sprinkled tune – it manages to completely lift itself away from its influences and sounds incredibly special. So, you may have noticed that I complain about the band being too mature, before slating them for not being mature enough, but I think that about sums it up. La Sera are neither the lo-fi pop of the Vivian Girls, nor the west-coast lushness of their record.They could develop into something great, but it takes commitment to make a project as ambitious as La Sera work. Maybe they should get some cats together.

ANIKA The Lexington, Angel, London 26.01.2011 By Stuart Stubbs ▼

Willowy, blonde, German (in part, at least) and purveyor of a deep, European warble: Anika is likened to Nico with good cause, but many seem to have ignored the fact that that makes her backing band – Geoff Barrow’s Beak> – a modern day Velvet Underground, which is a comparison fully realised in a small, dark club. Anika is no doubt the star – coyly only opening her mouth to sing and seduce, dressed in black and frozen centre stage behind a very Velvets & Nico monochrome projection – but it’s Beak> who are the architects; it’s a Beak> production. Having made sinister tracks by Yoko Ono, Bob Dylan and Nina Gordon, with motorik drums, dub bass and ﬂourishes of odd noise, it’s these elements that are ramped up tonight – Matthew Williams’ distorted slide guitar loudly squeals over ‘The End of The World’, making the band’s disturbing take on a sweet classic even more experimental and troubling. It’s the kind of thing John Cale would no doubt do, and a highlight accompanied by a cover of Ono’s ‘Yang Yang’ (still wailing but also picking up the set’s plodding pace) and Anika’s own, endless ‘Masters of War’. Needless to say it’s all extremely cool to look at, and to hear too. And even when the evening sags and drags, there’s little denying that this project only works because of that voice.

ILLNESS The Albert, Brighton 28.01.2010 By Nathan Westley ▼

Huddled on the narrow Albert stage, it would be easy to assume that drum’n’guitar duo Illness must have their backs ﬁrmly against the wall in more ways than one. It’s a fact that limited options often lead to predictable outpourings, yet it’s a trap that Illness are determined to avoid with their unique brand of instrumental math-garage.They demonstrate tonight that they don’t feel the need to dress their songs up in uncalled-for fanciful decoration, preferring to base their

music on simple, well structured principles and unleash a twentyminute, two pronged attack of twisting noise pop riffs and stuttering drums that bounce around veraciously like a lyric-less, breakdown era Wavves. As the crowd bunch forward, the band run through a series of calculated movements that encapsulate the underlying technicality on which their being is built, and in fairness, the lack of vocals would render the offerings largely impotent were it not for the fact that it is delivered with an unrestrained verve. Twisting as they jam out these acute, fuzzy sound-beds, it turns out that Illness don’t have their backs against the wall, physically or creatively.

ANNA CALVI Hoxton Hall, Hoxton, London 27.01.2011 By Sam Walton ▼

Fifteen minutes before the lights go down for Anna Calvi’s album launch performance, a smoke machine perched high on one of Hoxton Hall’s balconies starts billowing its wares into the venue. Accordingly, when Calvi and her band arrive, the stage is thick with rent-an-atmosphere, white spotlights dramatically slicing through the vapours. It’s an impressive scene, but one whose artiﬁciality is impossible to ignore. The same could be said for Calvi’s performance.The triumph of her debut record lies just as much in its breath-taking musicianship as in its wonderfully immersive melodrama and intensity, and those latter characteristics are few and far between tonight.The playing is invariably virtuoso – not just from Calvi, but also her mind bogglingly multitasking guitar-percussionharmonium player – and a joy to watch and to hear. But the venue, mysteriously billed as sold out weeks in advance, is only half full and the sound is ﬂat and so quiet that audience coughs are frequently audible mid-song. On the occasions that Calvi overcomes the environment – on an exhilarating ‘Desire’ and ‘Blackout’ in particular – there’s a tantalising glimmer of the album’s glamour, but otherwise this is little more than well played pop-noir, and no way as special as it should be.

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LIVE ▼

iLiKETRAiNS The Hope, Brighton 02.02.2011 By Nathan Westley ▼

Allo Darlin. Pic: Matt Baxter

Free Energy. Pic: Max Lipchitz

Halfway through tonight’s performance, iLiKETRAiNS singer Guy Bannister informs us that whenever the Leeds band play Brighton the venue seems to permanently shut down shortly after.With Brighton now shamefully short on live venues, it’s a curse that should strike fear into both promoters and venue staff, so much so that it would be understandable if we never saw the band in the city again. Maybe we should allow them this one last curtain call before exile though; otherwise it would mean robbing a three-ﬁgured audience of the band’s hauntingly expansive postrock repertoire that encapsulates the sound of an entwined Interpol and Sigur Ros.What iLiKETRAiNS offer in this reliable egoless performance, cantering along without encountering any drastic obstacles, is a magnanimous sized break from tired bands rolling out tiresome clichés over and over again. As soundwave after soundwave of chilling reverb-laden soundscapes merge together and ﬁlters through the room it becomes more and more clear that their songs – which often cleverly deal in concept – are a class above far less impressive bands who continue to be unfairly lauded above this lot. Even if iLiKETRAiNS are cursed, having them in your most beloved venue is well worth the risk.

JAPATHER Tufnell Park Dome, London 11.02.2011 By Danielle Goldstein ▼

Japanther. Pic: DK Goldstein

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“Life is fucking everything, so have a party!” yells Matt Reilly from beneath a mountain of curls – that are as frazzled as the riffs emanating from his bass – into his yellow telephone that’s wedged into a mic stand.Together with drummer and singer Ian Vanek, this New York duo aren’t exactly what you’d call conventional when it comes to performing live. So far are they from ‘normal’, in fact, that they cut in random sound bytes and hip hop shorts between songs,

and Vanek plays naked, save for his sweat-drenched pants – something he regularly urges the audience to do too. As they run through the surprisingly mellow and incomparably catchy pop tones of ‘She’s the One’ and ‘Surﬁn’ Cofﬁn’, the audience proceed to party surreally harder than the tracks sound and gradually invade the sides of the stage until the closing notes of a cover of The Cure’s ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ alongside Blink 182’s ‘Josie’. It’s a stark contrast to their clear recordings, but their high-speed, fuzzed-up attitude on stage is a garage rocker’s wet dream, and even when The Beach Boys begin to tunnel through the speakers signalling the end, you can’t wake these happy punks into leaving.

CLOUT! Hoxton Sq Bar & Kitchen, London 06.02.2011 By Stuart Stubbs ▼

There’s only one moment tonight when Southend five-piece CLOUT! don’t look like the most original and enviably learned band you’re likely to come across all year. It’s when wearing the influence of hip-hop on their sleeves (something that they do proudly and often) results in a couple of choruses of “Heeeyyy, Hooo”.Tawdry like ’80s rap 101, or The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air once you’re older than twelve, it’s a blip made minute by the band’s surrounding mix of abrasive noise and laconic dub grooves. Most impressive are the early industrious tracks that soon berate the Led Zep thunder drums of opener ‘Maybe Another Day’ with a squally of precise feedback and zombie vocals, like LA’s HEALTH. But, then, the semi-skanking joints (there’s no other word for them) are largely no mid-set fillers either. They have sometime-singer Bradley leading the busy room in a baggy ol’ dance, winding and twisting to the band’s break beats, loose limbed and soft at the knees. And this is on a Sunday night! There shouldn’t even be this many people here; nobody should be enjoying themselves enough to move.They are because CLOUT! take a number of subversive influences and mash them into all kinds of wonderful shapes.

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Sometimes they’re baggy little pop songs that pull in reggae, dub and hip hop; other times they’re controlled sonic experiments. Always they’re more unique than most of what you’ll hear right now… minus a “Heeeyyy, Hooo” or two.

FREE ENERGY Emo’s, Austin, Texas 02.02.2010 By Luke Winkie ▼

Free Energy are one of those bands who are forced to keep their charm alive on a stage rather than on record. No disrespect to debut 2010 album ‘Stuck on Nothing’ (it’s full of sticky guitar hooks and ﬂuffed-up pop-rock sweetness), but it will always be the case that they don’t really have a direction upwards.When they’re performing though, they practically look like cartoon characters: glitzy, shameless, and absolutely ﬁlled with joy – never a scrap of cynicism or a hint of sneer.When the songs swell to one of their many guitar solos, Scott Wells takes centre stage, lights bouncing off his instrument, the long notes held even longer, exactly how Slash would’ve done it. Paul Spranger’s constant frolics disarm any pretence, throwing his lanky arms around like his bedroom door was locked.The crowd reciprocate graciously. Uber-tight jeans and semi-ironic moustaches aside, Free Energy are about love, fun, and dancing, just like the contents of their songs, and their name suggests. By the end of the night we’ve all regressed to wide-eyed preteens, beautiful and un-jaded, completely enamoured with the spectacle – a feeling that for most of us wore off ages ago. And that was even before they played a ‘Funky Town’ cover.

S.C.U.M. The Garage, Islington, London 12.02.2011 By Chal Ravens ▼

In high-waisted wide trousers and a dandyish pale waistcoat, S.C.U.M. frontman Tom is like Christmas-come-early for uninspired Topman designers, his

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greasy dark locks just the right side of spiv to be on trend. No wonder he’s attracted a certain ‘celeb’ girlfriend, whose 100,000 Twitter followers must be delighted to receive daily photo updates of their budding love story. Is that unfair? I wish I could say so, but tonight S.C.U.M. are thoroughly failing to live up to their early potential, when they took their performance cues from the alienation-asspectacle style of Suicide or Atari Teenage Riot. Having been on east London’s gloomy goth-pop scene for a couple of years now (remember 2008’s almost sub genre New Grave? That was them), it seems S.C.U.M. have smoothed off the abrasive noisenik prickliness of their early shows, played amidst a mini-zeitgeist of London bands associated with Offset Festival, like O Children and the late Ipso Facto. Heck, this gig is even part of a series called Next Big Thing (oh, the irony).What we get is a performance that’s very nearly commercially viable, but all the more boring for it, with the detail and atmosphere of the band’s recorded material impossible to discern in this sterile mishmash of New Wave synth and industrial rhythms, while Tom’s almost vaudeville vocals seem lost in the mix entirely. S.C.U.M are just a lot better on record, as the 40-yearold D.A.F. shirt-wearers in the audience would agree.Their debut album, provisionally titled ‘PostSexuality’, is out on Mute this year: a sure sign that they deserve a second chance to prove they’ve got some substance to match the style.

ALLO DARLIN Oporto, Leeds 27.01.2010 By Kate Parkin ▼

Smiling shyly at each other, their sudden surge in popularity seems to have taken Allo Darlin’ by surprise. Combining the delicacy of shoegaze with the effortless catchiness of ’60s doo-wop, songs like ‘Polaroid’ seems to be tapping into a mood that’s slowly spilling out into the wider arena. Unashamedly happy, they turn self-conscious shufﬂers into armtwirling loons in just a few short chords tonight, taking an irreverent approach to the cover songs as they incorporate a sneaky dash of

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Weezer into ‘Kiss Your Lips’ and conduct the crowd to sing-along through ‘Call Me Al’.Wide-eyed singer Elizabeth gently rails against “Shoreditch hipsters” and “Morgate bankers” before inviting us all on a picnic outing. It’s very twee, but as she bounds around stage to the afro beat strains of ‘My Heart Is a Drummer’ it’s hard not to get carried along. Later on the band take the party out into a nearby alleyway, hunched in a small crowd before the police get too close for comfort. Rebellious, but sweet enough to take home to meet your mother, Allo Darlin’ are sparking some serious indie nostalgia. Go see them for the kind of innocent fun that predates the Internet.

STRICKEN CITY The Drop, Stoke Newington 10.02.2011 By Danny Canter ▼

However much the vicar says, “It’s a celebration,” a funeral is a funeral. It’s hard to not get bummed out. Tonight then, at Stricken City’s final ever show, there’s a palpable sense of the glum as the London four-piece call it quits five years after they first mixed Bow Wow Wow with Bjork and the angular pop sass of The Long Blondes. At well over an hour, it’s probably the longest set the band have played, in the smallest venue they’ve ever filled. And for the mourning congregation, they’ve saved the best for last; a swan song of greatest would-be hits and new tracks from the band’s second album, which was released today, from their deathbed.The latter point to Stricken City’s stubborn perseverance that has had them last half a century, fuelled by the fumes of modest success; the singles and most hook-heavy tracks remind us that that success deserved to be excessive and broad. ‘Tak O Tak’ is particularly well yodeled by singer Rebecca Raa, who insists, “I’ll need some help on this one,” even though she clearly doesn’t, and ‘Five Metres Apart’ – played at a hundred miles an hour – is so pro TOTP circa 1984 it makes us feel sad for our loss again.The vicar finally has his way though – the closing ‘Animal Festival’ is a euphorically spiritual ending: a celebration almost worth the death

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of a band who probably didn’t quite do the business because of fashions in indie pop rather than their own ability to craft a perfectly spikey pop ditty or two.

SMITH WESTERNS Emo’s, Austin, Texas 07.02.2011 By Luke Winkie ▼

If you’re like me, when you ﬁrst heard the lighters-in-the-air anthem ‘All Die Young’ – the centrepiece of the Smith Westerns’ second album ‘Dye it Blonde’ – you probably wondered how the Chicagoan youngsters ever expected to pull off a song like that in a rock club.Well, when they rev up their keyboards and frontman Cullen Omori remarks an inelegant “this is a song to slowfuck your girlfriend to,” they actually come close. No, it’s not ‘Wonderwall’ or ‘Heroes’, it’s not even ‘The Passenger’ really, but there is a brief, unexpected moment of euphoria. Cameron Omori’s guitar swoons with impassioned ache, the organ tones have a full-bodied tremor, and the band are there; they are their idols. Of course the songs go on and the mix gets muddier and they rev back up into the jaunty glam-pop only a few minutes later, but it represents a ﬂash of something deeper.The Smith Westerns are handsome, likable, and talented enough to bring back stadiums. They’re a ‘great American rock band’, if you will – the sort of group that make the teenagers scream out lyrics they don’t really understand.They’re on their way, and the patchy progress of their live persona proves it.

JEFFREY LEWIS AND PETER STAMPFEL Brudenell Social Club, Leeds 26.01.2011 By Kate Parkin ▼

Banjos are twanging, feet are thumping and the crowd whoops and hollers.This isn’t a scene from Deliverance; it’s Jeffrey Lewis’ latest touring incarnation with psychfolk elder statesman, Peter Stampfel. Joined by Franic from

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The Wave Pictures, they play a mixture of their own songs and delightfully rowdy collaborations, interspersed with a wealth of story telling from the former Fug and Holy Modal Rounder. Like the eccentric uncle who passes joints at weddings, Stampfel’s ‘Stick Your In The Ass The Air’ is laugh-outloud (that means lol) funny, while he and Lewis duet on the mindmelting ‘Hoodoo Bash’ – a song that inspired the younger of the two to write – to show us just how delighted Jeffrey is to be on stage with his childhood hero. Showcasing his cartoon drawing talents with slideshows of new songs, ‘French Revolution’ and Part 5 of his ‘History of Communism in the Soviet Union’ keep the crowd enthralled. Sparring off each other, ‘banjo duel’ style, the pair make the perfect duo of folk anti-heroes. Ending on a shambolic version of ‘Bird Song’ – famously featured in Easy Rider – that is mixed in with a psychotic cover of The Trashmen’s ‘Surﬁn Bird’, this pairing of psychedelic journeyman and comic book geek deserves repeating.

KXP The Lexington, Angel, London 19.01.2011 By Edgar Smith ▼

With their debut album dropping this March, you get the feeling that Finland’s KXP have arrived in London about twelve months too late for a media orgasm.The band’s black-clad Germanic disco channels the essence of yesteryear’s ‘edgy’ clubbing and would’ve sounded so very au courant in a Dalston basement in, say, April of 2010.This year though, leather ear-muffs and slave-wear are out, with cruciﬁxes reverting to their upright positions and, going on the evidence of the crowd tonight (not to mention the drummer’s oneglove-two-watches combo) this band will stay resolutely unfashionable; the object of affection for music fans who couldn’t care less. Obviously that’s a good thing and it’ll mean a good deal less distraction from tracks that deserve close attention. Whether KXP are provoking instant air-punching in ‘18 Hours (of Love)’ or in Gary Numan-

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meets-Suicide mode for ‘Pockets’, these minimal, motorik numbers maintain a balance between danceable simplicity and deep-iferratic wealth of screwed-up ideas. For the live show, their songs are re-shaped into slow-building monoliths that reach heights of Kaos-pad fuckery and ﬂirt with GABBA rhythms. Again, not so cool, but considering the praise they’ve garnered from Optimo DJs and the audience tonight, they

THE WALKMEN Concorde 2, Brighton 26.01.2011 By Nathan Westley ▼

Perhaps The Walkmen are forever destined to be the perfect example of a ‘nearly’ band; one that flirted outrageously with the mainstream, teetered on the edge of crossing over by having a relative sized indie-hit before then sinking back down to a comfortable level of regular semi-obscurity.There’s plenty of them out there, sitting at Idlewild’s table with Von Bondies and The Cooper Temple Clause. Many people may glance with a glossed gaze towards career highlight ‘The Rat’, a song that hangs like a dead weight round this quintet’s neck, and one that is, perhaps understandably, held back until the penultimate song this evening.Yet where sometimes anticipation can grow to an unhealthy level that sees the audience being enticed into a frenzied, panting glob before it’s gleefully put out of its misery, this evening, when the band’s ‘hit’ is finally unleashed, the reaction is subdued, because tonight the audience have already been firmly pegged back and happily molested by a legion of ear-friendly, wideeyed songs of epic proportions, even if they are the kinda of atmospheric, slow-burners that won’t make you local indie disco’s playlist.This well stocked arsenal, consisting of brooding choruses and chilling vocals, offer the New Yorkers a chance to demonstrate why they may be one of the most underrated bands currently functioning, and if tonight proves anything, it’s that The Walkmen should be looked on with as much fondness as fellow city slickers Interpol.Their touching, icy rock is definitely more varied.

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CINEMA REVIEW

FILM By IAN ROEBUCK

BLUE VALENTINE Starring: Michelle Williams Ryan Gosling, Faith Fladyka Director: Derek Cianfrance

9/10

Project Nim

Cinema Preview A look at what 2011 at the movies holds in store for us -----It being Oscars month, and with the award’s season in full balleric flow, we thought a sidestep right of Colin Firth’s perpetually sad face and a neat pirouette around Natalie Portman’s increasingly hysteria-laden performances would be in order. So instead of weeping for Michelle Williams and Jesse Eisenberg (let’s face it, they’re not going to win) we’ll just crack on with a preview of 2011’s best and worst. The year has broken brightly with the Sundance Film Festival continuing to court the documentary after the commercial success of films like Catfish in 2010.Where the Facebook doco had little to do with the animal kingdom, Project Nim most definitely has. James Marsh’s subtle but powerful commentary on a chimpanzee raised in a human household is showing form and after the dizzying Oscar success of Man on Wire it’s nice to see a director settle for a simple subject like human nature. But with no release date in sight we’ll have to settle for a poetic start to 2011 as flavour of February James Franco stars in Howl. It’ll be counter culture chronicled in style with Franco playing a young Allen Ginsberg on the cusp of the greatest work in his career, and if it doesn’t already sound like the hippest movie this decade, check out the supporting cast that includes Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) who’ll add rhythmic touches to the beat generation. Also of note this year is the fact that spring becomes summer as two blockbusters blow both ends of April wide open. Zack Snyder may not be everyone’s favourite director but the underrated Watchmen

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indicated he’s handy with a superhero. Sucker Punch lines up an all female cast and a ludicrous concept that has fingers crossed but hopes muted.The same could be said for Thor: Marvel’s Nordic powerhouse that’ll smash onto screen at the end of April.With Kenneth Branagh taking the helm of a sci-fi fantasy for the first time since 1994’s Frankenstein, and Anthony Hopkins playing the masterful Odin, this could be a more cerebral take on the comic book than Snyder’s leatherfest earlier that month. And that brings us to June, July and August, where comedies rule the roost. Notably The Hangover 2 looming large on Hollywood calendars, but come September it’ll be a Tinseltown great dominating our screens. War Horse touched Steven Spielberg enough on stage for him to bring the story to cinema and his mainly British cast and crew look exciting if predictable on paper. Housewives hold your breath as the asexual Sherlock Holmes grows a pair as Benedict Cumerbatch plays Major Stewart and Richard Curtis inevitably provides the script. Spielberg’s not done though – his September continues with The Adventures of Tintin:The Secret of the Unicorn: another British lovein with Andy Serkis, Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig all providing their bodies for the blue screen. Herge himself said if anyone could do his books justice it was Spielberg, and for many their cinematic year depends on this being the case. Sandwiched between the two comes yet another gem in what hopes to be a landmark year for British film, but is it altogether homemade? Tinker,Taylor, Soldier Spy will be directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) but should retain a British sensibility that John Le Carre would be proud of. Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy and Colin Firth will make sure of that.

Not many films are brave enough to confront the dying throws of a passionate marriage.Take Sam Mendes out of the equation and Hollywood directors rarely stray into such downbeat territory, but the riches are there for all to see in Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine. An achingly romantic, poignant and surprisingly funny film, this unflinching account of Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy’s (Michelle Williams) disintegrating relationship is as honest a piece of film-making you will see all year. Where the film truly excels though is its brevity in content. By exploring the couple’s initial meeting and then subsequent break up Cianfrance removes all weight from the process.What we are left with is sparks, chemistry and sadness as the film jumps from Dean and Cindy’s charming hook up to the painful sincerity of their heartbreaking split. Unfussy direction and a sparse, moving soundtrack (Grizzly Bear contribute some gems, pleasingly from the album ‘Yellow House’) allow the characters space to develop, and despite not seeing the bulk of the relationship both points of view feel rounded and real. Gosling seems to relish playing Dean’s blue collar brashness and he’s a revelation here – whether it’s charming Cindy’s socks off with his ukulele or touchingly decorating an old timer’s place in his removal man job, the 30 year old endears throughout. In fact, it’s tough to see Cindy’s reasons for splitting up, but William’s portrayal of a woman maturing beyond her years feels incredibly personal, particularly in a revealing scene in an abortion clinic that’s worthy of her Oscar nomination itself. Criticism has been thrown about labelling Blue Valentine an actor’s project serving an indulgent cast, and certain scenes feed this logic. Locked in the ‘future room’ of a themed hotel, Dean and Cindy thrash it out, sexually and verbally. With the cinema squirming as the camera gaze holds firm we’re trapped in with them, vulnerable and emotional. If this is an actor’s project then it’s a successful one.

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NORTH ACTION RECORDS 46 Church Street, Preston ALT. VINYL 61/62 Thornton St, Newcastle Upon Tyne CRASH RECORDS 35 The Headrow, Leeds COMMON 39-47, Edge Street, Manchester FACT 88 Wood Street, Liverpool HMV Headrow, Leeds HMV 5 South Johns Street, Liverpool, Merseyside HMV 90-100 Market Street, Manchester HMV Arndale, New Cannon St, Manchester HMV Northumberland Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne HMV 14-18 High Street, Shefﬁeld, South Yorkshire ISLINGTON MILL James Street, Salford, Manchester JUMBO RECORDS 5-6 St Johns Centre, Leeds MELLO MELLO 40 – 42 Slater Street, Liverpool PICCADILLY RECORDS 53 Oldham St, Manchester PROBE RECORDS 9 Slater St, Liverpool RAIDERS VINTAGE 38 Renshaw St, Liverpool, Merseyside RESURRECTION 17-19 Bold Street, Liverpool WALL OF SOUND 42 John William St, Huddersﬁeld

SCOTLAND AVALANCHE GLASGOW 34 Dundas Street, Glasgow AVALANCHE RECORDS 63 Cockburn St, Edinburgh HMV 113 Union Bridge, Aberdeen HMV 129-130A Princes St, Edinburgh HMV 235 Buchanan Street. Glasgow KANES RECORDS 14 Kendrick St, Stroud MONORAIL MUSIC 12 Kings Court, Glasgow ONE UP RECORDS 17 Belmont St, Aberdeen

SOUTH/SOUTH EAST APE 79 Mount Pleasant Road, Tunbridge Wells EDGEWORLD RECORDS First Floor, 6 Kensington Gardens, Brighton HMV 48-50 Churchill Square, Brighton HMV 12/15 Lion Yard, Cambridge HMV 43/46 Cornmarket Street, Oxford HMV 13 Holy Brook Walk, The Oracle, Reading HMV 56/58 Above Bar Street, Southampton PEOPLE INDEPENDENT MUSIC 14A Chapel St, Guildford, Surrey RESIDENT MUSIC 28 Kensington Gdns, Brighton ROUNDER RECORDS 19 Brighton Square, Brighton SOUNDCLASH RECORDS 28 St. Benedicts Street, Norwich

SOUTH WEST BLACKCAT RECORDS 42 East Street, Taunton, Somerset HMV 24-26 Broadmead, Bristol JAM RECORDS 32 High Street, Falmouth, Cornwall RISE Unit 19, Beechwood, Cheltenham RISE 70 Queens Rd, Clifton, Bristol THE DRIFT RECORD SHOP 91 High Street, Totnes, Devon

WALES DIVERSE MUSIC 10 Charles Street, Gwent HMV Unit 4 53-57 Queens Street, Cardiff SPILLERS RECORDS 31 Morgan Arcade, Cardiff TANGLED PAROT 15 Bridge St, Carmarthen TOM’S SHOP 13 Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye

PARTY WOLF PHOTO CASEBOOK “The Persistent World of Ian Bill”

If you don’t like it you’ll have to pop it back in yourself

GET THE LOOK One word to describe this look of mine:TIMELESS. A red thong will never go out of fashion, like violence and Stephen Fry.You’re probably wondering about the cheeky grin in this photo.Well, that can be explained by the fact that I’d just left a cheeky present in the boot of Ronnie Wood’s Ford Escort, for a joke, like. I’m not saying what it was, but let’s just say that no amount of magic tree air-fresheners could make that set of wheels the same again once my gift was delivered.The car had to be scrapped shortly after this photo was taken. Anyway! Fashion! Yeah, to get this look it’s easy and cheap, and it suits anyone, from short fucks to talk blokes over 5ft 3”, like me! If you’ve got the cash, pick up the thong from Classy Chicks on the Kilburn High Road, or from C&A, or wherever. Otherwise, do as I do and sellotape a pair of boxers up at the sides.Then, for a double smash of irony, wear fuck all else but a woolly scarf and wave around the ﬂag of a nation that you’re only slightly more connected to than any of the others on the planet. As you can see, I’ve gone for Scotland. See ya!

You can see my nipples because of the rain!!!

LONELY HEARTS “It’s not weird, it’s a sexy Facebook”

Jeremy

50, looking for fast love Area: Children: Diet: Employment:

“

Jeremy responded by saying: Still the funniest day ever, that!

Aah, the good old bug trick. Well done Ian!

WWW.LOUDANDQUIET.COM

ENGLAND Don’t worry about that Petrol Being a massive child

Disclaimer: The representations of the persons herein are purely ﬁctitious.

There was a bug there but I’ve squashed it!

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]

GoOutWith MyFriend.com

I’ll give it 5 more minutes