The Fly April 2013

NEW BANDS FRENZY: SXSW ROUND-UP ISSUE! ®

April 2013 the -f ly.co.uk

Free

“WHO K C * F E TH ” ?

S E R CA PARQUET COUR

TOUGH LOVE IN TEXAS!

THE INTERVIEW

PLUS LOCAL NATIVES SURFER BLOOD MERCHANDISE RUEN BROTHERS

TS

SKATERS

DON’T WANT YOU TO READ...

GIG MAKERS WANTED FOR NATION’S LOCAL MUSIC FESTIVAL Oxjam is one massive month of unforgettable gigs nationwide, all in aid of Oxfam.

And right now, we’re looking for outstanding volunteers to make it all happen.

Join hundreds of off-stage stars and organise an event in your town.

For your free Gig Maker pack visit: WWW.OXFAM.ORG.UK/GIGMAKERS THE-FLY.CO.UK

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2013

Tom Oldham

CONTENTS

PHOTOGRAPH:

36 06

In The Studio: Mount Kimbie

08

Announcements

14

OnesToWatch

SX SW

32

46

66

18

36

48

75

24

40

54

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2013 SPECIAL

Parquet Courts Merchandise Surfer Blood

THE-FLY.CO.UK

Local Natives Skaters Ruen Brothers

Cheatahs Wire

Reviews: Albums

Reviews: Live Fly Guide The Outro with John Kerrison

Bleached

THEFLY 3

EDITORIAL

SCAN QR CODE FOR MORE @ T H E - F LY. C O. U K

ISSUE

159

Editor

JJ DUNNING

Deputy Editor

BEN HOMEWOOD

Associate Editor (Online) ALEX DENNEY

Live Editor

LISA WRIGHT

Regional & Listings Editor WILL FITZPATRICK

Art Editor

RUSS MOORCROFT

Staff Photographer TOM OLDHAM

Staff Writers

Daniel Ross, Michael Cragg, Rob Cooke

PHOTOGRAPHY:

Tom Oldham/JJ Dunning

Contributors

Hello reader.

This month’s magazine is like a holiday romance gone wrong.

Having trekked to Austin, Texas, to bring you a special edition from the South By South West festival (with the three reprobates above in tow), we hooked up with a band we were already headover-heels for: the magnificent Parquet Courts.

Their second album ‘Light Up Gold’ is out this month and it is stupidly great. I said as much recently in a blog on our website, overzealously asking (in what I thought was a rather obvious piece of over-the-top-ism) “Is This The Best New Band In The World?”

When we met them, they had read this. They weren’t impressed and sneered witheringly “Is that the famous British wit we hear so much about?”

Turns out they don’t like hype much. Or me at all. Or having their photograph taken for that matter. Regardless, we still love them. So that’s their tough shit.

Ben Homewood has what can best be described as a “polite argument” from page 18 onwards.

Slightly more receptive to our amorous advances were our other new favourite band Merchandise, pop punkers Skaters, Surfer Blood, Cheatahs and the returning Local Natives. We also got the perspective of the very-brand-new and as-yet-unsigned Ruen Brothers. Anyway, all this is irrelevant because we have the legendary Wire in this month’s magazine too.

JJ DUNNING, EDITOR

PS: And no, we didn’t see Prince. But we did see Ice Cube playing in a stage shaped like a giant Doritos vending machine.

4 THEFLY

Scotland’s Euan L Davidson, Mike Doherty, Harriet Gibsone, Matt Glass, John Kerrison, Nick Levine, Liam Lidbetter, Emily Mackay, Chris Mandle, Jazz Monroe, Mischa Pearlman, Jamie Skey, Sophie Thomsett, James West

Photographers

Tom Bunning, Al De Perez, Jim Eyre, Louise Haywood-Schiefer, Marc Sethi, Layla Smethurst, Karen Tofterå THANKS TO: Andy Prevezer, Thom Denson and all at Warners, Alix Wenmouth, Quest Management, Adrian Read, @Crablin, Bonne Maman jam, Chris Newmyer and the irrepressible Thomas Kester Oldham.

NO THANKS TO: The annoyingly brilliant Parquet Courts.

TWITTER: @THEFLYMAGAZINE & @THEFLYREVIEWS FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/wearethefly You can also find us on GOOGLE CURRENTS.

Advertising LAURA AKAM

Publisher

DEBBIE WARD

Tel 0207 6889000 Fax 0207 6888999 Email

firstname.lastname@mamagroup.co.uk Address 59-65 Worship Street, London EC2A 2DU The Fly and OnesToWatch are registered trademarks of Channelfly PLC used under license. All rights reserved. Printed by Linney Group.

The Fly Magazine subscriptions are available for the following rates: UK (exc Eire) - 11 issues - £9.99.

Rest Of Europe - 11 issues - £25. Rest Of World - 11 issues - £40. To subscribe, please send a cheque payable to ‘Music & Media Solutions Group Ltd’, along with your address to the Subscriptions Manager at the usual address.

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THE-FLY.CO.UK

NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

in the studio

“My ears felt worn out...”

Mount Kimbie Kai Compos - one half of Mount Kimbie - tells us about the duo’s impending second album...

Title: ‘Cold Spring Fault Less Youth’ Producers: Mount Kimbie (Kai Compos and Dom Maker) Confirmed tracks: ‘Home Recording’, ‘You Took Your Time’ (ft. King Krule), ‘Made To Stray’ Studio: Band’s own studio/Press Play Studio, both south London Label: Warp Due: 27th May

6 TheFly

Hi Kai, you’ve just finished your new record!

Well done. Where was it made?

We started recording at a studio we had in south London, then we went down to [former Stereolab drummer] Andy Ramsay’s place, he’s got this really nice studio just down the road from ours.

He’s a big collector of synths and drum machines, so we ended up staying for two weeks and doing quite a lot of stuff there. It’s the first time we’ve had someone else involved in the recording process, so that’s been pretty interesting.

What was Andy’s input into the record?

Well, we never put much care into how we were the-fly.co.uk

recording stuff before, but we tried a more traditional, ‘clean’ way of working this time around. He also introduced us to the concept of doing more and more takes than we’d ever done before. If we were recording something he’d be like, ‘Yeah, let’s try it again.’

You’re normally first-take kind of guys, then?

I dunno, it’s funny. We’d just record things and try and use them any way that we could.

You’ve said before you felt a bit rusty coming back into the studio for this album, how did you get back in the, er, zone?

We started coming in during office hours. I’d make sure I came in at 9am and leave at 6pm if my ears felt worn out, whereas I used to work more in the evenings. It was just about making sure we created something every day.

How does the album sound to you?

It’s a closer record to me personally than the last one, it’s closer to an idea of an album that I would like to make one day where I can say, you know, this is our defining record.

‘Made To Stray’ features prominent vocals from you and Dom, which is a first - did you hesitate about making that leap?

Not really, because we’d been working on it live and it kind of developed from there. And actually when we came to mixing the album we realised there were five or six vocal led songs, but it wasn’t like we decided to stress that element particularly, it just felt like the right thing for the music. I asked for a lot of advice about it, actually.

From who?

Well, we were working with Archy from King Krule, he’s on a couple of tracks on the album.

He came in on a couple of tracks when they were half-finished, and we let his vocal lead how we made the rest of the song. Lyrically his imagery is really strong, he’s a talented guy!

On The Stereo Deerhunter ‘Monomania’ (4AD) Ebullient LOLsman Bradford Cox is back! As the title suggests, ‘Monomania’ is far scratchier and more lo-fi than its predecessor, ‘Halcyon Digest’.

Neon Neon ‘Praxis Makes Perfect’ (Lex Records) Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip return with a concept album about the life of deceased Italian leftie Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

Wampire ‘Curiosity’ (Polyvinyl Record Co.) If you’re sceptical of a duo whose calling card is a cover of Kraftwerk’s ‘The Model’, take another look at THAT PHOTO!

Savages ‘Silence Yourself’ (Matador) This is like being barked at through a chain link fence by a very very very very angry Alsatian.

Only really enjoyable.

The National ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ (4AD) A more contemplative collection from Matt Berninger and his Dessners this time out, though no less grandiose than ‘High Violet’.

Bonus Factoids: At least 30% of our chat was obscured by the sound of a man who started sawing wood for no apparent reason.

Kai says the group listened to a lot of experimental producer Lee Gamble while they were in the studio, but doesn’t want to single out any acts as influential on the record: “I’d say it was more of a journey into ourselves more than anything else, ha ha!” the-fly.co.uk

GUEST SPOT: KAI COMPOS Lee Gamble ‘Dutch Tvashar Plumes’ (PAN) We’re assuming [see factoids] that Kai has been listening to the latest Lee Gamble LP: a dark experiment on the outskirts of techno.

TheFly 7

“Th you ag

ANNOUNCEMENTS D E A P VA L L Y

The

2

WIN: Great Escape Tickets!

Everything Everything, Klaxons, Tribes, Deap Vally added to bill...

First SXSW... next up: Brighton. Europe’s answer to the Texas new bands blitz kicks off on Thursday 16th May, lasting until Saturday 18th and taking place in over 30 venues across the city.

More than 350 bands will be performing.

This month’s cover stars Parquet Courts are on the bill, as are Everything Everything, Merchandise, Bastille, Tom Odell, Mac DeMarco, King Krule, DIIV, Allah-Las, Deap Vally, Chris Cohen, The Blackout, Temples, Klaxons, Ed Harcourt,

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Big Deal, Swim Deep, CHVRCHES and Tribes.

Tickets for all three days are available to buy from www.mamacolive.com/thegreatescape priced £49.50.

Of course, we’re offering the chance to be there for free! To be in with a shout of winning tickets through The Fly, simply head to www.the-fly. co.uk/competitions and enter.

Competition closes 10/05.

Super Bock Super Rock: Tickets On Sale See Arctic Monkeys, The Killers and Queens Of The Stone Age this summer in Portugal...

Tickets for Super Bock Super Rock are on sale now. The three day festival is situated in Meco, a coastal resort just outside of Lisbon, and takes place from 17th – 20th July. Queens Of The Stone Age, The Killers and Arctic

8 THEFLY

Monkeys are set to headline with Azealia Banks, Johnny Marr, Kaiser Chiefs, and !!! also set to perform.

Tickets are priced at £77 + booking fee for a three-day ticket (inc. four nights’ camping) and are available from See Tickets.

Visit http://www.superbocksuperrock.pt for line-up announcements and more A zea li a B a n k s

Ed Ka Sig Jes Jes

ww

“The nearest thing you can get to watching a gig on the moon” The Evening Standard

2 July

The xx plus special guests

Eddie Izzard 3 June Kaiser Chiefs 29 June Sigur Ros 30 June Jessie J 13 July Jessie J 14 July Sold Out www.edensessions.com The Eden Project, Bodelva, St Austell, Cornwall, PL24 2SG Tel. 01726 811972 Registered Charity No. 1093070

HAIM_FLY_99x65.5mm:Layout 1 22/03/2013 11:14 Pag

EP OUT NOW INCLUDES DUKE DUMONT REMIX FACEBOOK.COM/HAIMTHEBAND

June / July 2013

The Fly DPS 287mm (w) x 210mm (h) V1.indd 1

VIVA VIVA, TRASH BAR NYC

14/03/2013 16:04

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OU sent us your questions for Slow Club @sophieadamsgd What's your most guilty x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x pleasure club tune to dance to? #beckslive on Twitter! Here are the best ones, each C: I can’t stop listening to ‘Mull Of Kintyre’. winning a pair of tickets to the Beck’s x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I do feel bad about that. Not much dancing Live show at Camden Barfly on 18th April... going on though. x @scottmolumby x x x x xyour xfavourite x x x x x x x x x x x x x What's song to R: I am not guilty about anything as a rule play live? #beckslive song by x Charles: x x We’re x Still x Alive’. x x x x x x but xI wish x thatx‘Domino’ x x x Jessie x J was x x ‘If played in the clubs more often.

Rebecca: ‘Not Mine To Love’. x x x x x x x x x x x @towebag x x x x x xwould x be in x a x What ingredients @ElliottRanAway Which can you do for longer, Slow Club Sandwich? #beckslive hold your breath or a handstand? #beckslive x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x R: Meat and cheese.

C: Hold my breath.

C: Spicy stuff with chicken and bacon. With a are x R: xBreath. x Boobs x x an xissuexwith xhandstands. x x x x x x x x x x x x side of sweet potato fries. @JonesyNumeroUno What festival are you a possibility x x x x x x x x x x x @thomasjamesr x x x Is there x x x x of x x looking forward to most this year? #beckslive incorporating a little swing dance into their live R: I don’t know if we are playing any so it is a x x x x x x x x x x x show x x in ‘Two x x x x x x x like Cousins’? #beckslive sad tale if I was looking forward to any.

R: I would love to dance more. I don’t know if C: I might go to End Of The Road! x x x x x x x x x x x Charles x x xbe upxfor it. x x x x x would @gracesimone If Slow Club were a real club, C: Nope! x what x would x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x their rules be? #beckslive @Banananey Charles, what advice would you R: We are a real club! The rules are: eat food, me forx growing facial x watch x telly, x don't x bexa fool x andxyes, Ix will x x x givexan un-hairy x x manx like x x x x hair as beautiful as yours? #beckslive see the dessert menu.

C:x When itx off x x C:xNo parents. x x x x x x x x x x x youxthinkx about x shaving x just don't do it. And keep don't doing it “WE ARE A REAL Deidre's until satisfied. grown, x @_hannah_walsh x x x x x old x x CLUB, x AND x THExRULES x x x x When x x xshampoo, x x glasses, or Deidre's new glasses? condition and enjoy.

ARE: EAT FOOD, x #beckslive x x x x x x x x x x x x R: My x light-yellow x x x xhas taken x x beard a C: Old. WATCH TELLY, few years to cultivate. I’m hoping by x R: Both. x x x x x x x DON’T x x x x time x I get x to 30 x it will x x really x x the have BEx A fool...” filled in. So, patience I would say is key. x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x @_skid If you could choose any artist dead or alive to cover one of your songs, who play next month’s Live x Tribes x x x x x Beck’s x x x x x x x x x x x x x x would it be? #beckslive show at Liverpool East Village Arts Club on doing anything x x x x x xfor the x band x onx x R:xOne Direction x x x x x soxwe can x x 15th May. Send usx questions make zillions of cash pounds.

Twitter @TheFlyMagazine with the hashtag Simone x x x x x x x x x x x C: Nina x x x ‘Never x Look x Back’ x x x x #beckslive by midnight on 15th April.

An independent judge will then select the best x x x x x x x x x x x Slow x Club x play x Camden x xBarfly, x with x support x x 10 questions for publication in the magazine. from Thumpers and New Desert Blues, on 18th Those questions will win a pair of tickets for x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x April.

Head to xwww.facebook.com/becksvier to x the show! get tickets. x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x This competition is only open to UK residents aged 18 or over with access to the internet and excluding employees of Beck’s and The Fly magazine. By entering the competition, you agree to our full Terms x x whichxcan be xfound atxthe-fly.co.uk/tsandcs. x x x x & Conditions, Closing date for entries for the Tribes show is 15th April. All applicants will be responsible for the cost of their own travel and accommodation x x x x theirxattendance x at the x show.x expenses incurredxin connection with

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Rebecca and Charles field your questions ahead of x x x x x x x x x x x x their London Beck’s Live show laterx this month...

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OnesToWatch Föllakzoid

14 TheFly

(bass), Alfredo (synth) and drummer Diego, Föllakzoid are far-out.

“It’s hard to explain how you feel when you’re talking about out-of-body experiences. It’s about being somewhere else while doing something, that feeling is really peaceful. You look back after playing knowing it’s happened but you actually weren’t doing it,” Domingo continues.

Föllakzoid can’t control how their songs will make people feel. Never-ending sequences

“We just want people to trip man…”

germinate and blossom into a whooshing, Technicolour forest of riffs, beats and vocals engineered to spin heads.

“We just want people to trip, man,” is Domingo’s understated explanation.

Along with fellow Sacred Bones signings The Holydrug Couple, Föllakzoid are making Santiago shine.

“If you’re isolated from where everything is happening, you have a big opportunity,” says Juan Pablo.

With their first US tour complete and Europe to come, Föllakzoid’s opportunity is bigger than ever.

Ben Homewood ‘II’ is released on April on Sacred Bones Records.

the-fly.co.uk

photograph:

We’re in AN Irish pub in Texas with a Chilean psych band.

This setting is just about warped enough to do justice to Föllakzoid (pronounced foy-akzoyd and taken from the German slang for “lighter”) and their glorious, mind-melting music.

We’re at SXSW discussing the cavernous depth and cosmic brilliance of ‘II’, an album they created in a converted monastery in Santiago.

Föllakzoid’s practice space is home to their label, Bym Records. It’s also where they go to lose their minds.

“Our music has a language. It’s a conversation - you don’t speak when someone else is,” begins guitarist Domingo.

Completed by Juan Pablo

Tom Oldham

Limitless Latino psychedelia…

h Nadine Shah

Beautifully weird, genre-resistant songstress...

“Your name’s Jazz, right?”

Nadine Shah, whose family tree branches to Norway and Pakistan, is rooting through The Fly’s family history. “So your mum just liked jazz music?!” Well, not exactly... “I’m gonna call my kid, like, Happy Hardcore. It’d be fucked up! Although...” she pauses for breath. “I’m pretty sure whatever kid I produce will be slightly fucked up, no matter what I name them.”

Nadine’s the ambassador for all things fucked-up. Appealing to your nu-soul, jazz and industrial rock inclinations, her unpindownable music attracts the kind of blind mass-appreciation that genetics almost precluded her from.

As she puts it, “[I’m] not white enough to be accepted as white,

the-fly.co.uk

not brown enough to be accepted as brown.”

Fortunately, her outlook’s bestof-both. Rejecting Newcastle’s grim showbiz prospects, young Nadine tapped her ruby slippers and entered local singing-comps: “I won quite a few,” she giggles. “I entered one for the MOBOs. I got to the final on T4, Tim Westwood compéred - I was the only white person in it! [Apart from Tim Westwood...] I was trying to be all street, singing gospel songs.”

Whitney-and-Mariah phase

“My kids will be fucked up...”

duly conquered, Nadine moved to Stoke Newington in pursuit of “real music,” a new concept to the 17-year-old. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s short stories, she and Blur producer Ben Hillier made ‘Aching Bones’ and ‘Dreary Town’, two kitchen-sink EPs as murkily promising and crushing as the capital itself. Just don’t compare them to Peej.

“I’m flattered but it’s lazy,” says Nadine. “I still feel like I’m the emperor’s new clothes, like someone’s gonna catch me out ‘Ahh, you’re not really that good.’”

She might not believe it, but Nadine Shah is an international treasure.

Jazz Monroe ‘Dreary Town’ EP is released on Apollo on 15th April.

TheFly 15

OnesToWatch

Filthy Boy

Foul-mouthed indie fantasists...

Cross-dressing and sodomy don’t feature in many love songs.

So when Filthy Boy frontman Paraic Morrissey croons about being “fucked hard in the arse like a superstar” on ‘Biggest Fan Ever’, you notice.

“If we’re going to write a song, we might as well make it interesting,” he explains. “We listen to a lot of bands and cringe at how generic, boring or just shit some of their stuff is.”

For the Peckham-based group, coming up with surreal situations for sadomasochistic characters they’ve created is much more interesting than writing songs about their own lives.

“If we were writing about ourselves we’d be writing about

16 TheFly

something that’s been written about so many times, about going out and having Red Stripe and kebabs,” Paraic’s brother Michael (bass) admits.

Instead, their debut ‘Smile That Won’t Go Down’, captures the murky underbelly of a warped vision of London, with brooding vocals, creaky guitars and knowing winks.

The band started in the Morrisseys’ GCSE music technology lessons where they, alongside

“If we wrote about ourselves we’d sing about beer and kebabs...”

guitarist Harry Weskin and drummer Benjamin Deschamps (since replaced by Ed Bernez), started “making piss-takes of bands we don’t like”.

What emerged were songs with the devilish tongue of Nick Cave, and more raunchy riffs and gritty innuendo than a porno soundtracked by Arctic Monkeys.

Filthy Boy then trawled London’s open mic nights, with mixed results.

Now safely under the wing of the marginally-more-influential James Endeacott, Filthy Boy look set to reveal their dirty minds to rooms far bigger than any backstreet boozer.

Robert Cooke ‘Smile That Won’t Go Down’ is out now on Stranger Records.

the-fly.co.uk

first»on

Glitches Sponsored by

New bands on the horizon

Destruction Unit

OnesToWatch live Binary

LULS/Blackeye Tuesday, 2nd April The Garage, London

photograph:

Taylor Brode

JAWS We’re not sure if Destruction Unit played the most shows at SXSW, but they definitely played the loudest.

At Beerland (pictured above) the project Ryan Rousseau (Jay Reatard) started back in 2000 were outrageous. Noise is one thing, the Arizona band’s explosive, expansive way with repetition and volume quite another. Experience their monstrous assault on their new LP ‘Void’, out now.

Single Mothers were also pretty loud. On the week’s sunniest afternoon, we stood round the back of a dusty pub as Andrew Thomson, the Canadians’ gaptoothed frontman, spat, screamed and threw beer everywhere. Single Mothers don’t look like they know anything other than what they do - being loud, stained, fast and totally essential. Facebook. com/singlemothersparty.

Away from raging riffs, buried under a cloud of smoke, were The Holydrug Couple. Simultaneously triggering memories you never knew you had while making your mind evaporate,

the-fly.co.uk

the young Chileans’ smouldering psych provided blissful respite.

So too did Waxahatchee.

Equal parts mournful, soulful and thoughtful, Katie Crutchfield’s (formerly of P.S. Eliot) latest project melted Austin. That Sharon Van Etten comparisons were so readily made means one of two things: either Katie really is that good, or sunstroke and hyperbole have eaten the industry. Fingers crossed it’s the former.

Some bands don’t need events like this one. LA act Papa and their bulging, wannabe mega-hits whiz past Springsteen, Interpol and The Clash on their way to the hit parade. Perhaps singing drummer Darren Weiss learnt from his time with hard-working, conventional beacons of stability Girls. ‘Put Me To Work’ is released on 13th May on Sunny Side Up. Dead Gaze look quite weird, so they fit right in at SXSW. But despite straw hats, adventurous shirting and LOLsome facial hair, they don’t sound weird. Their garage pop is accessible and exciting. Facebook.com/deadgaze.

Heavy Waves Laced Monday, 8th April Hare And Hounds, Birmingham

Glitches

Wednesday, 17th April Birthdays, London

Charli XCX Friday, 19th April Deaf Institute, Manchester

Houndmouth Sunday, 28th April Nation Of Shopkeepers, Leeds

Names to watch...

Gold Cult Diarrhea Planet Wardell The Or wells Dan Croll

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SX SW

anaw a kwa aw w rd wa 2013 SPECIAL

court

ship Not even oral sex, marijuana and margaritas could make interviewing Parquet Courts fun. Ben Homewood hears their bid to become the most difficult new band in the world...

Photography: Tom Oldham THEFLY 19

“I’m not interested in being on the cover of a magazine...”

D

o not read this article. Parquet Courts don’t want you to. They don’t want to be on the cover of this magazine either.

The New York band have no interest in us meeting them in Texas to celebrate their new record. At least, not in any way they’re not comfortable with. Posing for pictures is part of a list of things they “don’t do.” It took five hours to get the cover shot. It captures the band walking to their van after our interview. Remember, they’re definitely not posing. Bassist Sean Yeaton briefly tried to prevent all four Parquet Courts fitting into the frame. It was shot seconds before the end of our allotted time with the band at SXSW. It was the climax of months of anticipation.

We first encountered ‘Light Up Gold’’s clattering immediacy and mid-20s disillusion late last year, following its deliberately low key US selfrelease (guitarist Andrew Savage still sends mailorder LPs out from his apartment) in August.

Whispers grew louder and links to a Bandcamp page where the whole thing was available to hear for free circulated. On 9th January, Pitchfork and Spin interviews appeared and the snowball began to assume Arctic proportions.

Parquet Courts is the project of guitarists, songwriters and singers Andrew Savage and Austin B. Brown. Both Texans, they met at college in Denton before relocating independently to New York, where Savage would broach the idea of starting a “New York band”. The 26-year-old had played in Teenage Cool Kids, Fergus & Geronimo and Wiccans before he tracked Brown down in NYC and Parquet Courts was conceived with Yeaton and and Andrew’s brother Max on drums.

A single listen to ‘Light Up Gold’ instantly imprints its Larry David-meets-Bart Simpson lyricism (there actually are too many quotables), impatient structures, inescapably aggressive guitar lines, powerful sense of purpose and artistic dedication.

The debate about who to compare the band to rages on. The Strokes, The Velvet Underground and other ‘New York bands’ sit on one side, Wire, The Fall, Pavement, Guided By Voices and more (Eddy Current Suppression Ring are worth seeking out) on the other. The artwork, with its wordiness, crossings-out and sketched, notepad feel is as impactful as the record it houses. Smartness and attention to detail shone through everything we’d seen from Parquet Courts before meeting them. It felt like they were endeavouring to create something organic, unique and of artistic (as well as instantaneous musical) merit.

20 TheFly

In the Spin interview, Austin said, “When we got together to jam, it was more, ‘Well, what do we sound like?’ than, ‘What should we sound like? We just played; I think that comes out on the record.” Parquet Courts seemed free from ulterior motives and premeditation. It was that quote that stuck in the mind most before meeting them on a Friday night in Austin.

Andrew Savage is wearing a promotional cap.

He is stood beside a shelf full of promotional caps.

Parquet Courts’ tour manager Chris (we met the previous day after he sent an email saying “Will be there in 2 mins. I am 200 cm tall and look like Jesus. Green shirt.”) introduces us. We talk about shows, records, crowds, and promotional wear.

With most people this would be small talk, chitchat. With Savage it’s guarded, slow sentences punctuated by long pauses. It’s uncomfortable.

His barely-open eyes are constantly focused on the middle distance. His tone hardly alters.

“Where I’m from in Texas there were only nine guys in rock bands, I left for New York and now there are eight. I get to be anonymous,” he says, explaining the fact that he is as far as it is possible to get from being a look-at-me! presence in this sterile ‘VIP area’.

It can’t be going that badly though - he offers us outside to “burn one down” with the band. On the terrace Sean tells the story of how he watched a homeless man perform oral sex on another homeless man in exchange for an unidentified object. Max and Austin chuckle and we get the first glimpse of Parquet Courts interacting positively. We go downstairs for their set - an expectation-surpassing volley of ferocious punk bullets - excited. Andrew places his guitar down carefully as the piercing feedback at the end of erudite hymn to the munchies ‘Stoned And Starving’ fills the room. They shuffle wordlessly offstage.

At lunchtime the following day Parquet Courts are milling awkwardly backstage at the Converse-sponsored Fader Fort. The previous evening, Austin spelt out the fact that they wouldn’t pose for the camera to our photographer. Subsequently, the atmosphere has changed. The band seem hyper-aware, even as Andrew passes round Skittles and says “Wanna taste the rainbow dude?” things feel tense.

3pm rolls around and Parquet Courts play another supercharged set. As they start, tour manager Chris shouts “Don’t fuck it up guys!” If there’s one constant with this band it’s their

WHEN YOU’RE THE ONLY BAND IN TOWN, ANY PERFORMANCE SHORT OF TERRIBLE IS WORTHY OF AN ENCORE. When it came to making whiskey, Jack Daniel was the consummate professional. And when it came to music, Jack knew how to show people a good time. After outfitting a group of local townsmen with secondhand instruments, Mr. Jack’s Silver Cornet Band played gigs throughout Tennessee. While they were never very good, each performance allowed friends to share a night of music and Tennessee whiskey. That alone deserved an encore. For more music and Jack, visit jackdaniels.com.

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©2013 Jack Daniel’s. All rights reserved. JACK DANIEL’S and OLD NO. 7 are registered trademarks.

TheFly 21

live show. It makes your blood fizz. It feels vital. There’s violent desire to rip the songs apart.

They’re implausibly tight. The moment ‘Master Of My Craft’ segues into ‘Borrowed Time’ is as explosive as this sort of thing can get.

But then we sit down for our interview and that tightness unwinds into contrary belligerence, moaning and pretension. We discover over margaritas that Parquet Courts aren’t happy. The buzz band playing the buzz event, being filmed

by Noisey, reviewed by Pitchfork and interviewed for The Fly’s cover don’t believe in hype, music journalism or the music industry. Great.

“Sometimes I lock eyes with a member of the audience and make them feel really uncomfortable,” Andrew says smugly. Discussing their live show and their “moves”, they relax, but a smart comment or jibe is only ever a heartbeat away.

Everything relates back to those rules, the way they want to conduct themselves and their unbreakable resolve. With Noisey’s camera rolling, Andrew explains that he doesn’t want Parquet Courts to be cool or hyped.

“We want people to discover us for themselves.

Truly. I like things to happen organically, in an analogue manner. Nowadays there are so many auxiliary forces that function as more of the band

ourselves into every little nuance of this band, I hope people will notice,” Andrew adds.

Life in Parquet Courts sounds frustrating.

“Big time. This has been a learning experience.

It can get so busy and confusing. There are things I wouldn’t do again. It’s good to say no. Everybody has their own idea of what this band is, but the only one that matters is ours. We have rules as to what we do and don’t do and I think we need to make even more boundaries now because it’s important for us to stay cognisant,” Andrew says.

The number one rule on that list concerns photographs.

“It’s fun telling people that.” He smirks like a child who’s just seen his teacher fall over.

“The guy you’re working with said he wanted to take an interesting photograph. It’s just semantics. This is a really specific example of things we don’t like and don’t wanna be portrayed as. It can frustrate photographers because we operate in different worlds,” Austin says.

“People act like we owe it to them to pose. I don’t feel like doing it, I’m not interested in being on the cover of a magazine. If people wanna see what we look like, see us live,” Andrew says to nods of agreement.

“Your photographer’s rationale was if you don’t

than the band, if that makes any sense. I take pride in us coming up by ourselves. We come from a very DIY scene. I would rather people hear about us through word-of-mouth than a blog.”

But people are hearing about you that way.

Why do the Pitchfork and Spin interviews?

“You can only control where people hear about you at the start. That’s just not the way I hear about music, I don’t seek blog endorsements but I’ve realised a lot of people do. If that’s what you want, fine, I don’t care. That opportunity has passed for us and we did that stage pretty well,” Andrew answers before Austin notes that Parquet Courts have already completed a self-booked US tour and no longer consider themselves “a new band”. They may be that to a lot of people now, but not as far as they’re concerned: Parquet Courts are just four average looking blokes dedicated to their art.

“I don’t know if we’re trying to do anything,” Austin says, “but we definitely all take ourselves seriously.”

“It’s important for the band to be our vision, for us to look unique and be a unique band. I think people will respond to that. We put a lot of

pose then they might not print it. Who the fuck cares? We don’t do photos, why should we give a shit? We express ourselves through our music and the visual aesthetic of the band. If you wanna cover us then cover us, and if you don’t do it because we won’t pose, then you probably shouldn’t.

If you actually care about what we make and feel it’s important, then do it. You should understand that we’re our own people. I’m not saying you can’t do your job. We value how people experience us as artists,” Austin continues.

“I don’t think it’s in a band’s best interests to be really fashionable or to look cool. I think cool is really boring, or at least looking cool is. It’s much more interesting if a band focuses on being a band. Bands are rewarded too often for the way they look; I really don’t want that to be part of our equation,” Andrew clearly isn’t finished.

This mini-argument prompts a rant about the ineptitude of music journalism and the industry from Andrew. Sean has things to say too (“What is your personal investment in our band?” “Is this just an assignment for you?” “I feel like you already know the answer to a lot of your questions.”) Austin nods along approvingly. Max doesn’t really do anything.

“We don’t do photos, why s

22 TheFly

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Andrew

Austin

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hy should we give a shit?”

Not a single word has been uttered about ‘Light Up Gold’, New York or the band’s lives. Parquet Courts have made this story all about the triplecooked chip resting on their shoulder. They exist in a world they detest. This makes them obstinate and frustrating. We tell them we love their album, they call it hyperbole. Then they admit that they wouldn’t be where they are without the help of “the over-zealous side of the music industry”. The reason we’re here is ‘Light Up Gold’ - the product of their values. Parquet Courts value emotional engagement. They want their audience to connect, but they make that excruciatingly difficult. Andrew even asks mockingly, “Why do you think British people will like us? Does it matter that we’re not cool?”

In some ways Parquet Courts are simple - a band with strong values and a brilliant product.

In others they’re a knot of contradictions. They say they’re not stoners but they smoke pot (Noisey tweet during their Fader set saying the band are “probably stoned”). Andrew wore a free Converse t-shirt in London after SXSW. Austin says they “have to be aware” of industry problems, but it “would be silly to complain”, before spending an hour doing exactly that. They bemoan journalists but Sean used to write for Spin and has inter-

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viewed Steven Tyler. They don’t want to be hyped yet they put themselves in a position where that is inevitable. They want to do interviews but they don’t want to give anything away. They prefer saying no to saying yes. They delight in their own gawkish, smart alec awkwardness.

They save the ultimate contradiction until last.

“The things we’ve talked about are helping us really. The powers that be have decided that right now people are going to pay us attention. It won’t always be like this and when it’s not we’ll still be Parquet Courts,” Andrew says. Austin adds that the band’s main troubles are “everyday” before we attempt one final mood-lightener.

How important is a sense of humour to Parquet Courts?

“Do you think we’re funny? That means a lot coming from an Englishman,” Andrew says.

A sneer would be appropriate, but his face is immobile.

He shifts slightly before hammering the final nail into the interview’s sarcophagus, “Musician or otherwise, it’s important not to take yourself too seriously.”

‘Light Up Gold’ is released on What’s Your Rupture/Mom + Pop on 15th April

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cox o ox 2013 SPECIAL

Touting a new line-up and fresh songs, Merchandise decimated SXSW. With the world chasing them, Ben Homewood finds Carson Cox and co. on unmissable, defiant form...

Photography: Tom Oldham

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Y FEET hurt.”

It’s the last night of SXSW and we’re stood in a doorway with Merchandise.

Bassist Patrick Brady has sore tootsies, but the Tampa band are delirious.

After a week in Austin, the most sought-after group on the planet have enchanted the music industry to a frankly obscene extent. Their busy schedule of shows has been thrilling. It was hard to know where to look. A ferocious new drummer, a new merch-guy-turned-saxophonist, a contorting, possessed guitarist, a frontman oozing pheromones and a set of bone-crushing, heart-grabbing, crotch-slaying new songs left the

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biz very much still interested.

When we last interviewed Carson Cox in October, Merchandise were about to play CMJ. With both new music meat markets successfully navigated, where are they now? They have smarts and experience to back the songs. They know the playing field. They seem ready to explode. But as our conversation shows, Merchandise will do nothing but be Merchandise.

Stand by for more belligerent, jocular, contrary, un-ignorable brilliance, then...

Why are you at SXSW?

Carson Cox: “It’s a wonderful festival. I feel

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“Nobody can stop us...” like for us it’s good, for a lot of bands maybe it’s not. It was a way for us to do a big proper show; we don’t do it that often.”

Dave Vassalotti (guitar): “We’ve had some line up changes; it’s our chance to premiere this to the larger public.”

C: “If it was a different situation I don’t know if we’d be here. Everyone that wants us is in the same room. They know each other. We hang out with them. It’s somewhere between really fun and awkward. I didn’t realise how small the world of independent music, if you even wanna call it that, is. People respect each other; they consider themselves colleagues even if they’re competing for the same band. There is some honour among thieves.”

Has it changed your outlook at all?

C: “At first Merchandise wasn’t something I could to ‘do something’ with. So not really. We’re under no pressure.”

D: “There’s not a gun to our head.”

C: “We can do whatever we want.”

Patrick Brady: “It’s what we’ve always done” C: “We’re still doing what we think is fun and appropriate. We only do things that have dignity.

Playing for big sponsors doesn’t affect our output in any way, this was new for us and we stood up to the challenge. We didn’t succumb to anything.”

Are you any closer to a record deal?

C: “We like to tease. You gotta tease ‘em man.”

D: “We never got to be the popular guys in high school.”

C: “Most people in their 20s act like they’re in high school. We don’t think about it like that. It’s not like we’re trying to play a game, we’re always coming up with new ideas. We try to see what’s suitable. Right now something needs to change.

The way this fucking industry works is bizarre.

It’s stocks and bonds. Bands are inflated because of invisible things. It’s not to do with concrete worth; it has to do with buzz or attention. It’s very fair-weather. It’s stupid to build our house on that foundation. There are people in this industry that are genuine artists, who want to subvert it. They’re exciting to meet and work with but you still have to get an idea of how people work, how their minds fucking turn. We all want to do something that goes further than being a rock band. We do this because it makes sense, it’s part of us but this is not the end all. To me being an indie celebrity is the lamest thing ever. To be a fine artist or a creative mind, somebody that thinks about what they do and doesn’t compromise it, is very exciting. People want to put us on a conveyor

26 TheFly

belt. This review happens, this show happens, this record happens. It’s stupid, that cycle needs to be broken. We’ve broken up and started again. Now we have a drummer. We may be techno again. We have no idea what we’re gonna do. Any simple passing understanding of what we’re doing, people have that wrong. That’s the gossip. They’re surprised we know what we want and we’re not listening to other people tell us what we want.”

Which is?

C: “To continue to have a voice. To reach more people in a way that we see fit, through one conduit or another. It has nothing to do with what’s expected. We don’t need an industry telling us the next step. That’s the most frustrating thing.

We’re playing our own game; it’s nothing to do with theirs.”

The ‘Totale Night’ EP sounds great live.

C: “A lot of people expected us to become an indie rock band. That is the furthest from what I’d like to do. It’s still about expressing an idea, not feeding people some kind of shit. In a lot of ways ‘Totale Night’ was a reaction to that visibility or success. People started perceiving us in a way, putting us in a category. That’s so far away from where we grew up or how we understand music.

We perceive things differently. There’s gonna be something that inspires us about every record or every tour, something that has nothing to do with an aesthetic understanding of what the band is, the idea is to explore those places in a way that’s new. It can’t be static.”

It sounds like you’ve had fun in Austin.

C: “That’s the beauty of it. Why would you come here and take yourselves seriously?” d: “Yeah look serious in front of the giant Doritos vending machine stage!”

C: It’s not about that. Bands come here and complain and act like they’re too artistic, wear their privilege on their fucking sleeve. Anyone who gets to play music for their living is lucky as shit. The idea of being an extreme artist who can’t enjoy himself doesn’t make any sense to me. We’re grateful. That’s really it. It’s a fucking blast. No one gets to do this. We got lucky. We’ll laugh the whole fuckin’ time. We’ll have fun. We taught ourselves how to play, we cut our own records.

We do everything ourselves. No matter how good or bad the shows are there’s not really anything we can get that we can’t do ourselves. We’ll make music for the rest of our lives. Nobody can stop us. We don’t lose anything if we fail the test of SXSW. But we don’t win anything either really.” the-fly.co.uk

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troublle SX S X SW 2013 SPECIAL

a sea at Since 2010’s ‘Astrocoast’, trouble has come in waves for Surfer Blood. Alex Denney wades in to find out more...

Photography: Tom Oldham

I

N MAY last year, Surfer Blood should’ve been on top of the world. Signed to a major label, the band was hard at work on their second album in the Hollywood studio where their idols, The Beach Boys, wrote ‘Pet Sounds’. They’d been given keys to a lockup at the East West Studios on Sunset Boulevard by Joey Santiago, guitarist with the Pixies, whose distinctive axe-work can be clearly heard as an influence on ‘Demon Dance’ – no great surprise, since it was played on his loaned-out guitar.

Sounds like a dream come true for a band just four years into their careers, but in fact, the picture was a good deal more complicated than that. For starters, Surfer Blood had joined Warner Bros nearly two years previous - from a small indie called Kanine - and for a long time felt at risk of slipping between the cracks at their new major label home. Indeed, frontman John-Paul Pitts remembers being very wary of inking a deal in the first place.

“The first time their A&R guy came to talk to us, he took us out for drinks, and we were downright rude to him,” he tells us, half an hour before his band is due to play their final show of

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SXSW. “But he kept coming back to our shows, so we decided to listen to him and take him seriously. He was like, ‘We don’t wanna put make-up on you or make you write three-minute pop songs, we just wanna give you the means to make whatever record you want to make.’”

After enjoying critical success for their excellent, Shins-and-Pavement-inspired debut ‘Astro Coast’, the band signed with the label on the advice of their manager (now no longer in their employ – hmm). But Pitts recalls feeling all at sea now that the band was part of a multinational concern.

“It was a mystery going into it, and I think it was easy to take advantage of us, honestly,” he says. “I wish I could go back and tell myself a thing or two. I think we’d gotten a little used to being doted over at Kanine. But now I’m really happy because we realised hey, Warner is a huge company, they have a lot of bands to think about, if you don’t make your voice heard there’s no-one you can really blame that on but yourself. And it worked. I think it was just a matter of being communicative and not being difficult.”

But, major label jitters aside, there was

THEFLY 29

more serious business at hand. Weeks before recording was begun on the new record, Pitts pleaded not guilty to charges of domestic battery at a Florida court, after police had been called to his house in Palm Beach. The charges were brought after Pitts had returned home from a night out with his then-girlfriend, on 31st March.

According to police reports subsequently obtained by Pitchfork: “An argument pursued because she called a friend, stating she might need a place to stay.

Pitts went into the bathroom and stated he was going to harm himself. When she knocked on the door, Pitts came out, they went into the bedroom, and the arguing continued. The victim stated Pitts grabbed her and flipped her over her shoulder, he then pinned her down by climbing on top of her.

The defendant then proceeded to shove his fingers inside of her mouth. In return, she attempted to bite him and he pushed his fingers away. He continued to press his weight against her so she bit him on his chest. The victim stated this has occurred before.”

In July, Pitts obtained a plea-and-pass agreement, meaning the charges will be dropped in April this year provided he complies with a program mandated by the court. But, to the disappointment of many fans, the band has offered no comment on the situation since – a situation Pitts is not prepared to remedy today, despite being patient on the topic.

“Honestly, it’s the most emotionally troubling thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life, and it affects me every day,” says Pitts. “[But] it involves another person who has a family and friends, and it feels like it would be wrong to talk about it publically... There are two sides to every story. I’m just not willing to talk about it yet because, like I say, her mom and dad have to read this.”

Do you feel the story was reported accurately at the time?

“Not particularly, no. And that’s all I’m willing to say about it.”

Was there anything that got said or written which was particularly hurtful?

“It’s all been hurtful. There was a Stereogum article recently that compared me to Chris Brown.

I mean, it sucks. I did not enjoy reading that.”

But wouldn’t it be helpful to address the situation in light of comments like that? You must have agonised over it to some degree?

“I still can’t talk about it. It still breaks my heart too much, honestly.”

30 TheFly

“It’s the most emotionally troubling thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life...”

Do you regret what happened?

“I’m not proud, I’ll say that.”

Whatever the truth of the matter, Pitts says recording the album was cathartic (“It was like I was speaking to myself from the future, you know?”). Production was handled by Pixies soundman Gil Norton (“He’s almost surgical about everything, which is good because we tend to be a bit all over the place as a band”), and Pitts reckons the end results are a step-up in songwriting terms.

“I’m not gonna pretend everything is written is good, but I do have my moments,” he says. “The more I do it the better I get, the more it becomes an extension of myself and not something you have to think about consciously, maybe.”

The record, which is inspired by Beck (especially on jaunty first single ‘Weird Shapes’) and ‘13’-era Blur, is called ‘Pythons’ - an American slang term for biceps – and features a skinny kid flexing his muscles on the sleeve; a reflection of the band’s own perception of themselves as “underdogs”.

Pitts says ‘Pythons’’ shifting moods will make people mistaking the band for a “twangy beach rock” outfit think again. Indeed, ‘Demon Dance’ (sample lyric: “The hounds of hell / Need love and care / The hounds need / organs and limbs to tear”) is described by its author as a song about “dishonesty and cruelty”, influenced by famously dark Southern Gothic novelist Flannery O’Connor.

But whether fans are willing to overlook Surfer Blood’s troubled past, and embrace the present, only time will tell.

“I like to hope that people can make up their own minds about the music,” says Pitts. “I just hope they can realise that what we’ve done with this record is something that I’m really proud of, something I can stand behind with a lot of confidence.”

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ilocal ilocal SX S X SW 2013 SPECIAL

Since 2009’s ‘Gorilla Manor’, Local Natives have suffered and succeeded in equal measure. JJ Dunning speaks to Kelcey Ayer and Matt Frazier... Photography: Tom Oldham

T

HE NATURE of our band is that we’re very honest – I couldn’t imagine not writing about something like that which has affected my life so much, so tragically, so hugely.”

Local Natives’ Kelcey Ayer is talking about ‘Colombia’, the penultimate song on his band’s second album ‘Hummingbird’. It is one of two songs that touch on the loss of his mother, Patricia – an event that paints every aspect of the record, from its cover art to its lyrics, in melancholy hues.

“Everyone was affected by what happened,” says Ayer. “Just because we’re so close and everyone knew my mom.”

“If you’re a songwriter you’ve got to write about the things that greatly affect you. At the end of the day your songs are an extension of who you are. It’s got to be different for everybody, but with us we’d have to write about what we’re going through. That just kind of made the whole album all the shit we endured.”

Hence the album’s cover art, – a hyper-real photograph of Ayer struggling to clamber onto

the roof of the band’s practise space – which drummer Matt Frazier is on hand to explain.

“Ryan [Hahn, guitars] happened to snap a shot of Kelcey struggling to get on the roof – it was a funny incident because he was floundering, but at the same time you can see he’s smiling. It neatly communicated the idea of finding the best in times of adversity.”

“The whole mood of the record is of us overcoming things – finding joy out of darker times and coming back stronger and better for it.”

The last time they were here in Austin, the Silver Lake four [then five]-piece played nine shows in three days – clearly, not a lazy bunch.

Somehow though, the consistently elegant and elegiac ‘Hummingbird’, should have been here a bit sooner. So what happened? Well, success kind of got in the way...

“At the end of 2010 we finally stopped touring [debut album] ‘Gorilla Manor’,” says Kelcey. “Our last show was at the Forum in London. That was such an incredible feeling and it felt like it was the end of a chapter in our story.”

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“The whole mood of the record is of us overcoming things – finding joy out of darker times and coming back stronger and better for it...”

Though ready to start writing and recording a follow-up album, instead the band got a succession of offers they couldn’t turn down. Far from being the end of the chapter, they found themselves trapped in an enjoyable but rather eddying narrative strain.

“We were approached and asked if we wanted to play the [2200 capacity] Walt Disney Concert Hall [in Los Angeles] with a 21-piece orchestra,” remembers Ayer, beaming. “We couldn’t say no! So we wrote and rehearsed everything from ‘Gorilla Manor’ for a 21-piece-arrangement, plus another cover [Television’s ‘Careful’ – in addition to the glorious rendition of Talking Heads’ ‘Warning Sign’ from their debut]. We couldn’t pass that opportunity up. So we spent two months preparing for that. Then we got some offers to play Mexico – we’d never been there before, so we did it – then we got an offer to open for Arcade Fire.

All this prolonged getting on with recording...”

Having been a five-piece for a long time – there is a warmness about them on stage that communicates their easy manners in person – bassist Andy Hamm departed, leaving the band for personal reasons. Was this another, more physical, obstacle to overcome? Kelcey says no, rather firmly.

“The four of us are so much on the same page that it feels stronger as a unit. I think it was a really amazing door that opened – another example of

34 TheFly

one chapter closing and another one beginning.”

Eventually there did come a clearing in Local Natives’ rather dense diary. Come summer 2011, the band – now resident in their own studio back in Silver Lake, California – prepared to commit ‘Hummingbird’ to tape under the guidance of The National’s Aaron Dessner.

“Aaron told us about The National not having a bad idea during recording – to them there is no such thing,” winces Kelcey. “When we started working with him it was different, because as far as he’s concerned, nothing is done – nothing is written – until the album is on the shelves. Out. Done. He would press record and say, ‘Do something.’ We’d be like, ‘Do what?!’”

“With us we’ll spend months and months and months working out what the guitar line is going to be on ‘Bowery’ or something - trying out a million ideas. It’s hard for us to progress without checking off that box – that’s how that bit is going to be.”

When an album’s this hard to make, and is flooded with memories from such a difficult period, does that make it difficult to listen back to?

“Well,” says Kelcey, after a pause. “I know the joy that’s in it – just having made it and going through all that stuff has been cathartic.”

In that respect, ‘Hummingbird’ is arguably the year’s biggest release.

‘Hummingbird’ is out now on Infectious Music.

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skate of mind Temporarily displaced from the skanky Manhattan streets they love, Ben Homewood finds Skaters lost in Austin... Photography: Tom Oldham the-fly.co.uk

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’you want a hat mate?” Joshua Hubbard offers us a baseball cap with the words ‘No Problem’ proudly emblazoned across the front.

If Skaters guitarist’s broad Yorkshire accent is incongruous in the Austin sunshine, so is his getup. Like his bandmates Michael Ian Cummings and Noah Rubin, the former Paddington (Hi 2005!) is done up like he’s out for pizza and a gig in the Lower East Side. Torn jeans, loose shirting and insouciant headwear (their favourite thing to wear and the inspiration behind their No Problem promo caps); Skaters’ clothes drip from their bodies like mozzarella on a loaded slice of pepperoni. They couldn’t look more New York if they tried. Which is just as well, given that they live there, they love it and they’re about to finish a debut album dedicated to it.

“We’re ready for something new...”

Skaters, who formed last year after Joshua and Michael stayed up all night at a decadent LA house party, are skulking around SXSW’s overblown, brand-heavy theme park of ridiculousness, playing shows and sucking on cigarettes.

Sprawled on a sofa on a hotel patio, against a backdrop of morning joggers and riverside hiphop DJing, Michael begins to dissect their time in Texas.

“Playing with a brand logo behind you and getting nothing back sucks. South By is getting really big and corporate; every time I’ve come I’ve felt like it’s not been worth it.”

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Ian and Noah have both been sucked up by the festival before (in previous band Dead Trees), but Joshua never made it here with The Paddingtons.

“It’s my first time, yeah. Seems alright,” he says sounding like a bored local in the pub from ‘Last Of The Summer Wine’.

Skaters left sessions at Electric Lady Land Studios for Austin, treating their handful of shows as a break before heading to LA to complete their still-untitled debut LP. “Everything about this band has always been very deliberate. I was getting stressed [with the record] so it was nice to get away,” Michael says, “Electric Lady has been great too; there’s a real history there. And the amenities! There are interns who’ll get you anything you want.”

Like what?

“Cookies...”

“Cigarettes, Corona...” Josh interrupts.

As well as countless goodies, Electric Lady also provided Skaters with white-boards.

“If we hadn’t had those we’d have written on the walls!” Noah says. “We need to draw!”

“We’re all fine artists using dry-wipe markers.”

Michael adds. “They’re disposable!”

Skaters are bent on their record being anything but. The ragged smut and grit of last year’s home-recorded ‘Schemers’ EP has already been upgraded - this month’s single ‘I Wanna Dance (But I Don’t Know How)’ is brighter, tighter and bathes in a more up-scale New York mist.

“The album is elevated from what we’ve done before. It’s way more interesting, a departure from standard rock. It’s not gonna be straightforward, we’re adding interesting elements,” Michael explains.

The Strokes, The Clash, the Ramones. All have been suggested as influences, but Skaters are not merely a punk band. There’s glitz, polish and glamour in amongst the snot. The one constant, as they continue to stress, is New York.

Our time riverside ends on the topic. Their favourite things about NYC are pizza (they show us matching pizza tattoos), its convenience and Manhattan (as worn proudly on their caps).

“It’s all New York City really,” Michael finishes, “We started there, everything on the record happened there; it’s our identity. We formed in one night and were playing shows two weeks later. New York music moves in cycles.

This one’s been long enough. We’re ready for something new.”

‘I Wanna Dance (But I Don’t Know How)’ is released on Warners on 8th April

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The Fly

A Scream and an Outrage A weekend of new sonic pleasures curated by Nico Muhly Conor J. O’Brien (Villagers) Philip Glass Glen Hansard David Lang Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire) BBC Symphony Orchestra & more 10 – 12 May Barbican & LSO St Luke’s barbican.org.uk/scream

2013 highlights Thu 16 May, Beyond Barbican: Union Chapel

Wed 19 Jun Beyond Barbican: Union Chapel

The Gloaming

Eliza Carthy & Jim Moray

The Wayward Tour

with Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman), Iarla Ó Lionaird (Afro Celt Sound System), Martin Hayes, Dennis Cahill and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh

Sat 18 May

Sun 23 Jun

Wonder of Weird + Clinic (ClubStage)

Tim Burgess and very special guests Lambchop

4–6 Jun Beyond Barbican: Village Underground

Thu 11 Jul An evening with

Neon Neon & National Theatre Wales

Fri 25 Oct

Praxis Makes Perfect Thu 6 Jun Beyond Barbican: Union Chapel

Asaf Avidan

Rickie Lee Jones Tindersticks Sat 9 Nov

Jane Birkin Arabesque Sun 8 Dec

Stornoway the-fly.co.uk

The Fly 143.5x210 Mar13 ad.indd 1

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The Residents

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Bruv SX S X SW 2013 SPECIAL

onthetracks k ks Two months ago the Ruen Brothers were being danced at by a woman with a bladder problem. Now, they’re on the verge of the big-time. Words: Alex Denney Photography: Tom Oldham

T

O PARAPHRASE an old joke: how do you get from Scunthorpe to Austin, Texas?

Practice!

It’s a piece of advice the Ruen Brothers have clearly taken to heart in making the journey from their native Lincolnshire town – recently voted the UK’s least romantic – to a place in the sun at SXSW festival, wearing the shell-shocked expressions of Dorothy just touched down in Oz. We’ve tracked down siblings Henry and Rupert Stansall – for it is they - to a dressing room trailer downtown in the city, just after they’ve wrapped up their second-ever show in the US (the first was the night before). But already talk has turned to another show the band played, some years ago now, in a pub called The Crown, just down the road from poor unlovable Scunny.

“About 11.30 at night we’re playing away,” says frontman Henry, wincing at the memory.

“There’s these two columns in front of us on the stage. And this lady in a tank top and grey tracksuit bottoms strolls up to the front.”

“Bit overweight,” Rupert adds diplomatically.

“Yeah, a little bit. Anyway she stands next to us and starts grinding – literally grinding – up against the column, looking us dead in the eye,

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and I’m feeling proper uncomfortable. But it’s basically all fine until we look down and notice that she’s, er... she’s pissed herself.”

Not to suggest that it’s all grim up north (or should that be down south?). Indeed, the band credit their early years spent entertaining North Lincolnshire’s hostelries with covers of early rockers by The Hollies, The Searchers and The Stones as instrumental in honing their craft.

Says Henry: “I think growing up in a town like Scunthorpe, you don’t get influenced by any scenes, you just take music for what it is and don’t worry about the rest. And I think that’s a healthy sort of upbringing.”

“Just playing these hits night in

“IT WAS BASICALLY ALL FINE UNTIL WE LOOKED DOWN AND NOTICED THAT SHE’D PISSED HERSELF...”

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night out, it helps you understand how great songs are written,” says Rupert. “You can’t be shit, otherwise you don’t get paid!”

For all that, opportunities to road test their own material were few and far between (Henry: “When you’re playing to these skinhead guys and you’re like, ‘This is one of our own songs!’ it’s like, ‘Fucking play something else!’”), and it took a trip down the M1 to a pokey bedsit in Finsbury Park, London, for the band’s songwriting to finally blossom.

“We hadn’t really written much that was good when we came down to London,” says Henry. “I think when you struggle you write better.”

Figuring they would concentrate their efforts on getting “just one or two things right” rather than working up a large amount of new material, Henry and Rupert came up with the track ‘Aces’, a tightly-written number that recalls the prepschedelic days of the English beat and early rock combos like The Everly Brothers. Endearingly, Henry’s operatic lead vocal – a dead ringer for Roy Orbison’s - was recorded in a wardrobe in the flat.

The boys made a video for the track featuring black-and-white snippets of old movie stars from Fay Wray to Steve McQueen (who may be responsible for the band’s turtleneck look), and within 12 hours of posting it online they’d had emails through from BBC Humberside and Nottingham.

Word soon reached the head of the Beeb’s ‘Introducing’ program, Jason Carter, who helped book them for this year’s Glastonbury and made ‘Aces’ Radio One’s track of the week.

Indeed, when DJ George Ergatoudis tweeted that “these guys are going to be huge” on 25th January – just nine days after the track was uploaded – all hell broke loose: “My phone started going mad,” says Henry. “We must’ve had about

“When you’re playing to these skinhead guys and you’re like, ‘This is one of our own songs!’ it’s like, ‘Fucking play something else!’”

30 or 40 managers get in touch.”

Given Jake Bugg’s recent chart-topping success, the attention is hardly surprising: over time, the band could end up doing for early rock ‘n’ roll what the surly Nottingham teen has done for skiffle and rockabilly. But how do a pair of early 20-something lads get to playing this kind of music, anyway?

Unsurprisingly, their dad’s record collection has plenty to do with it, but less expectedly, said father also had a brief spell singing with the Sex Pistols, albeit in their ignoble ‘Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle’ phase. While the Ruen Brothers are a long way from the filth and the fury of punk, they’re not especially fased by accusations of revivalism, either.

“I think to progress in music you have to have a good understanding of everything that’s gone before,” says Henry. “If all you ever listen to is the past five years you don’t really get that understanding.”

As we’re ushered out of the trailer into the warm Austin night by someone from the venue, Henry and Rupert chat excitedly about how they’ve now got “eight or nine” songs together which they’re happy with for an album. Scunthorpe, you feel, must seem a very long way off just now.

“It’s about the feel of the music,” says Rupert of the band’s home recording techniques. “I dunno, the best music I love and have grown up on... If you listen to a song like ‘Blue Velvet’ or ‘Crying’ by Roy Orbison, it touches you, I think emotion is the key thing in a recording. If you haven’t got that, you’re gonna struggle. Songs have to be honest.”

Walk Like A Man is released on Ruen Records on 6th May.

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BLONDDE SX S X SW 2013 SPECIAL

A year after being one of the festival’s buzziest bands, Bleached release their debut album. Mischa Pearlman catches up with Jennifer Clavin... Photograph: Tom Oldham

J

ENNIFER CLAVIN might be from Los Angeles, but she’s no stranger to the searing Texas heat.

She was here last year, when her band Bleached – completed by sister Jessica, Jonathan Safley on drums and Micayla Nestor on bass – were one of the hottest buzz bands of the festival. 12 months later, and just weeks before the release of their debut album, ‘Ride Your Heart’, she’s back, standing outside and across the road from The Scoot Inn, where Bleached earlier played their fourth gig of the festival.

“Last year,” she says, “we played 15 shows.

This year, we’re playing nine, so I’m able to enjoy watching some other people. I mean, it’s still pretty intense, but we’re doing it in the span of four days.

I’m sure by the last day I’ll be like ‘Oh my God, I don’t understand how I’m alive right now!”

But last year Bleached did more than just survive – they pretty much conquered Austin.

Thriving off the pressure of so many shows in such a short space of time, they managed to succeed despite the hype that followed them around everywhere. Of course, things are different now – with that debut album out this month, there’s a lot of expectation, too.

“We played so much last year, and now our record is about to come out, so it seems a lot of people are excited to see us. I feel last year I was just playing a bunch of shows and I don’t know if people even knew who we were, because we just had the three 7”s. I was just happy that people were coming to see us. But now we have the new

record coming out I feel that this time people know who we are. It’s funny, though, because I think last year I was much more nervous. This year, I’m just excited, because we have so many new songs to play.”

Although Clavin admits that the unofficial house parties they play are wilder than the official shows, Bleached dispense with the industry bullshit with their DIY punk ethos, but also manage to play it to their advantage.

“When we play more industry shows,” she admits, “I feel like I’m performing because I have to. But at party shows, when our true fans are there, I get totally into it. People are there because they really want to be there, instead of just being there to hear what the buzz is about.”

And how was the Scoot Inn show? Well, they managed to convince the boys in the crowd to remove their trousers, before someone set a firework off.

“They ended up getting fined,” she chuckles, “but they said it was worth it.”

“WHEN OUR TRUE FANS ARE THERE, I GET TOTALLY INTO IT...”

AMBITIO ION THE-FLY.CO.UK

‘Ride Your Heart’ is out now on Dead Oceans.

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With their debut album in the can, London foursome Cheatahs are about to sprint across the States...

Words: JJ Dunning Photograph: Tom Oldham

i

’ve discovered I need to be drunk,” says Cheatahs’ James Wignall. “I’ve had jet-lag and not the greatest stomach for the last couple of days so I’ve not been drinking; playing gigs sober is something I’ve never done before and I don’t really want to do it again. I like to be anaesthetised.”

This afternoon, in the thin shadow of a wizened tree stump, next to a jumble of food trailers and stalls selling iffy-looking vintage gear, Wignall and his bandmates are reconvening after various late breakfasts. Tacos have been eaten (though they looked more like waffles, inexplicably) and Wignall has spilt maple syrup on himself, leaving unfortunate glistening globs down the front of his trousers. So far, so music festival hangover.

Three of Cheatahs’ four shows have been played, a fairly pedestrian amount in the melée of Austin, leaving just one more between them and a six-week US tour – a 20-odd date odyssey that starts the moment South By is finished. For now, they’re just hoping that their stuff isn’t broken.

“The first show was sketchy as shit,” grins Nathan Hewitt. “My pedals didn’t work because

cat

SX SW 2013 SPECIAL

Immigration went through our over-sized luggage. They must have checked all the wires because when we got it and plugged it in it didn’t work anymore.”

The resulting kit-fail meant they weren’t able to play a proper show. Though bassist (and the band’s producer) Dean Reid drily notes that they delivered a “solid three-song set”.

Reid – a genial slow-talker and the only Cheatah who’s managed to find some shade – is responsible for recording both the band’s EPs to date – ‘Coared’ and ‘SANS’ – and therefore also the guy in charge of massaging their fissurecracking fizz and melodic nous.

So far, ‘The Swan’ (the lead-off on ‘SANS’) has been the yardstick for what makes Cheatahs such an exciting new band; its spindly intro and slip-sliding riff are leant a bleary dreaminess by Dean, Nathan and James’ vocals. But does it set the tone of the debut LP? “The record is sounding good,” says Nathan.

“But I’d say it’s darker and heavier [than ‘The Swan’]. It’s pretty dynamic – there are lighter moments too – but on the whole it’s a bit more intense than the other stuff.”

But the record needs another “couple of weeks” before it’s finally done. In the meantime, there’s that massive American roadtrip to undertake - Cheatahs sharing a bill with Wavves and FIDLAR along the way.

“I saw FIDLAR for the first time two days ago,” says James, brushing syrup off his crotch. “It really made sense seeing them live. The record’s good but seeing them live shows you that they’re just having too much fun.”

Touring with a band whose most articulate chorus bellows “CHEAP BEER!”? Sounds like at least one of Cheatahs will be in his element.

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W IRE : STILL IN THE PINK 37 years on from their classic debut album ‘Pink Flag’, legendary post-punkers Wire are still a powerful force.

Words: Alex Denney. Photograph: Tom Oldham.

W

ithout doubt, Wire are one of the more brilliant and contrary voices to emerge from the UK punk scene. On 1976 debut ‘Pink Flag’, they sounded taut and angular way before post-punk made being taut and angular the cool-kid thing to do. Their songs were concise and eloquent, sometimes running to a mere 30 seconds in length if they felt that was all that was merited.

‘Chairs Missing’ and ‘154’ delved more fully into complex, prog and pop-inspired waters while retaining the chilly surrealism of their first album - but in 1980 the band’s members went their separate ways, returning for a spell between 1985 and 1992, and again from 1999 to the present.

For their latest project, ‘Change Becomes Us’, Wire took material left over from just before their first hiatus as a platform for a new record – odd choice, perhaps, from a group who once famously employed a covers band to play the hits at their own shows, such was their hatred of rehashing the past. We spoke to frontman Colin Newman and bassist Graham Lewis to get the full story...

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How did the idea for ‘Change Becomes Us’ come about?

Colin: When the band exited stage left in 1980,

there was some material that was neither demoed or recorded in any form, but we had played some of it live. Some of it was finished, some of it was barely started. We’d always thought maybe one day we’d return to it, but the context was never right. When we came back in the mid-80s, everything had changed in music. Rock was basically finished, there was just American indie rock which wasn’t so exciting. We were more interested in electronic music. But then [in 2010] we did ‘Red Barked Tree’, which was based around songs we’d mainly written on acoustic guitar and applied production to. But we didn’t wanna come straight off touring that record and do another album, we wanted to try something different. So I said, ‘Why don’t we make the record, but not the one we would have made 30 years ago?’

Graham: We’d also started touring with Matt [Simms, from It Hugs Back] as guitarist, and things had changed. So we started with seven of these things from 1979/80, and took them out

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on tour - they made up maybe half the set and it just went really, really well. So we thought the only thing to do was to continue with the concept and attack another six or seven songs [on record] with the same approach. It was a good starting-off point, rather than being in the position of having to start completely new material.

Colin: A band at this age could be very content to rest on its laurels, but I don’t know how many people are interested in that anymore, to be honest.

Plenty of bands seem to do quite well out of reforming nowadays, though...

Colin: Yeah but it’s like, they do the tour so you

can see them before they die. And you can only do that once. As an older act you’re judged much more harshly than a younger one. So if you have the arrogance and front to say, ‘We’re a contemporary band, we don’t care about the antique market, we care about now’, then you have to back it up, you have to be fucking good.

Graham: This period [79-80] represents one of the lowest points of our existence, but it just so happened that we left two albums’ worth of material lying around. So we turned that into a positive as well.

Colin: I mean, at the time there was no band to make an album. So this is really not what the fourth album by Wire would have sounded like. The songs are like seeds, and some of them we have changed a lot. If you’re an artist you’re an inveterate fiddler, you can’t leave things alone.

Could you have envisaged this whole revivalist industry springing up when you started out as a band?

Colin: I dunno, everything comes around. I

think very young artists like Jake Bugg sounding like Lonnie Donegan is just daft, I’m not sure anyone could have predicted that. For someone of my age it just seems too weird. But I’d argue, I don’t think Wire... we’re genuinely ourselves, we’re not deep roots genre or anything like that.

Graham: ‘Authentic’?

Colin: Yeah, ha ha. We’re authentically ourselves.

Is it harder for bands to be original nowadays, especially ones with traditional guitar-bassdrums set-ups? Or is that the wrong way of looking at it?

Colin: I think it’s the wrong way of looking at it.

I guess there came a point in the middle of the last decade where most of new music was challenged by the fact that a lot of new things sounded like the old things only not as good, which was kind of depressing, but I think we’ve gone beyond that now. Ultimately it’s about finding your own voice. You have to find your own way. The problem with a lot of bands is that they do a record with a mediumsized indie label, and the album will come out and it’ll do OK but it doesn’t really cover the cost so they never really see any money, and they don’t get paid much for live shows. After a while it starts to feel like a hobby, and that’s a complete killer. You’ve got to be in a situation where you can engage with it full-time, you can’t do it for nothing.

“Very young artists like Jake Bugg sounding like Lonnie Donegan is just daft...”

Did you get tired of the whole post-punk thing when you went on hiatus in 1980?

Graham: Post-punk didn’t actually exist!

Colin: It only existed at some point in the 90s,

people of our generation don’t give a fuck about genre. It’s a late 80s-early-90s thing, bands being defined by genre so strongly. Like back in the days of MySpace, there were always three categories, and you could always tell the most interesting groups ’cos they’d always choose three categories that made no sense whatsoever. Me and Graham were just talking about this new band The Strypes – they’re 15, 16, and they sound like they’re from 1963. And they’re completely for real! They’re putting Jake Bugg out to pension, they’re so young.

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That’s what strikes me as weird about a site like The Pirate Bay’s whole argument, they always sound so righteous but they don’t seem to understand that everyone loses if people can’t afford to make music.

Colin: It’s the artists in the end who suffer,

because they don’t see anything out of it. So then you have a cat playing the piano on YouTube with 7 million hits. How can you compete with that?

You can’t. It’s a perpetual problem.

‘Change Becomes Us’ is out now on CD and digitally, with a special Record Store Day vinyl release due on Pink Flag on 20th April.

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TheFly 51

Stop‘N’Chat No-23

charlotte church The steak-munching singer talks Hoovers, bowling and trying to get into Bill Clinton’s drawers...

Hi Charlotte, where are you right now?

In my kitchen. I can see a badass steak sandwich I just made myself and a drawing of a stegosaurus. A girl called Gemma drew it, she’s not a child.

Is that your favourite dinosaur?

No, pterodactyls are. Flying things are cool.

Would flying be your superpower then?

No. Time travelling is INCREDIBLE. Back to the sandwich...how good is it out of 10?

I’m pretty good at cooking but it’s a little on the rare-side. I’ve done it with aioli and some rocket. I’d give it 6.5, it’s just too rare. I’d usually have steak medium/well.

Do you always cook?

No. My partner does. He’s much better than me!

Is he better at all household chores than you?

[Emphatically] Er, no!

What’s your favourite chore?

I love hoovering, I gotta tell you. I love Hoovers and I love hoovering.

What’s your weapon?

[Laughs] I’ve got a bit of a Hoover graveyard at the minute; I’ve got a Dyson and a Sebo which are both dead. I’m really excited about going to get a new one.

What’s your most embarrassing music-related memory?

I went to see a Smash Hits tour because Peter Andre was playing. I found his plastic six pack incredible, which is quite wrong.

Have you met him?

Yeah. I didn’t tell him how I used to feel, I tried to get out of his way.

Who’s the best celeb you’ve met?

Robin Williams was awesome. I met him in Las Vegas at a benefit gig for Andre Agassi’s charity.

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I did a press conference with Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Robin Williams and Andre Agassi.

Wow...

Also I really liked Jeff Bridges. I met him the first time I went to the White House to meet Bill Clinton. Danny Devito too, he was really cool.

What can you tell us about The White House?

They’re pretty free and easy with you in the Oval Office. The drawers are all locked.

I tried opening them. Sat at the President’s desk, you’ve got to. See if you can find a button or something.

They’re cool with you having a good snoop. I’d like to meet a trilogy of Presidents. Obama would make it three, and I’d like to meet him anyway. He’s a G. Would you like to be a First Lady?

No. That would be horrifically stressful. Bugger that for a laugh!

What’s your worst quality?

I’m really nice, I think.

Then what’s the nicest?

People say I’m very open and accepting of people.

That’s nice.

Thanks.

Have you ever been in a near-death situation?

[Gasps] No. Oh actually, on my 9th birthday we had a big car accident in my mother’s Fiesta.

We’d been bowling and we crashed on the motorway. None of us had a scratch on us thank goodness!

Lucky! Who won the bowling?

Not me! I’m flukey at bowling. My technique is pretty shit.

Do you have the bumpers up?

What do you take me for?

Lastly, do you really have the voice of an angel?

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Phil Jones for Edge St Live and MAMA Present

MAY

SAT 18 EDINBURGH PICTUREHOUSE

JUNE

SAT 01 YORK GRAND OPERA HOUSE FRI 07 BRISTOL COLSTON HALL SUN 09 LONDON PALLADIUM THEATRE

With Special Guests

EDINBURGH: LUKE WRIGHT, MIKE GARRY MIKE GARRY, YORK: JOHN SHUTTLEWORTH, SIMON DAY, FRAN SMITH DAY, BRISTOL: KEITH ALLENS' GROW UP, SIMON THEA GILMORE, MIKE GARRY N, MARK THOMAS, LONDON: BARRY CRYER & RONNIE GOLDE BERTINE JOHN SHUTTLEWORTH, SIMON DAY, VIV AL

ELL, LUKE WRIGHT, MIKE GARRY, MARTIN NEW LLS JOHNNY GREEN, SALENA GODDEN, TIM WE

PLUS MORE VERY SPECIAL GUESTS

IN THE SHOPS AND ONLINE FROM APRIL 1st

For Box Office details go to www.johncooperclarke.com

reviews APRIL 2013

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James Blake ‘Overgrown’ (ATLAS/REPUBLIC RECORDS)

★★★★ It seems weird now, in 2013, to think that two years ago James Blake finished runner-up on the BBC Sound of Poll to globe-straddling, unitard-bothering pop behemoth Jessie J. Perpetually hiding behind his fringe and generally looking like a posh schoolboy in detention, he always seemed completely at odds with the hoop-jumping and back-slapping that goes into selling albums. So, when his self-titled debut – an album that featured 11 bruised, dubstep-tinged torch songs - crept into the Top 10 it felt like a brilliant anomaly.

At times, that record slowed everything down to a heartbeat pulse, showing off Blake’s incredible, indelible vocals. It was an unsettling, almost claustrophobic listen and one that confounded some of the early fans who were expecting a dance producer instead of a singersongwriter.

On ‘Overgrown’ James Blake seems to have relaxed into this latter role, crafting fully-formed songs as opposed to barely-formulated ideas encased in sonic experimentation.

Perhaps the best example is the opening title track, which offsets a simple metronome beat with a tense string arrangement that just hangs there before snapping shut and wrapping itself around Blake’s mournful vocal as it intones “So if that is how it is, I don’t want to be a star”.

Other highlights include the squelchy ‘Life Round Here’, which twitches and contorts around an almost modern R&B-esque framework, and the pairing of the percussive Brian Eno collaboration, ‘Digital Lion’, and the ridiculous ‘Voyeur’, which opens out from its hushed beginnings into an unexpected dancefloor anthem complete with false ending.

Elsewhere, RZA pops up for some anglophile rapping about fish and chips on ‘Take A Fall For Me’, while it’s remarkable that, in a project of this undertaking, only the slight ‘DLM’ feels unfinished.

Unlike his contemporaries in minimal (mainly nocturnal) dance music The xx, Blake hasn’t further-minimised his sonic palette or thrown the baby out with the bath water with this second album.

Instead, he’s absorbed new influences into the unique framework he creates around his songs, pulling in aspects of house, gospel and R&B to create something alluringly strange yet pleasingly palpable.

MICHAEL CRAGG DOWNLOAD ‘O VER GR OWN ’, ‘L I F E R O U N D H E RE ’, ‘D IG ITA L L I O N ’.

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reviews [ A L B U M S ]

The Flaming Lips ‘The Terror’ (BELLA UNION)

★★★★★■

What’s clear about The Flaming Lips’ 13th album is that it was recorded by a different band than the one that headlines festivals and fires glitter cannons at its euphoric audience.

‘The Terror’ sees the Lips’ core duo of Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd out of their minds on drugs (with varying degrees of control), scrabbling around in the dark attempting to find out why we aren’t in control of our own lives - the central conundrum in ‘The Terror’. The third

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eye cannot be closed. It looks directly into the abyss and will not blink until it has fallen in.

Despite that difficult sell, it could be the greatest album they’ve ever recorded. They’ve been whacked-out before, but this is fully-exposed, intentional difficulty. Among the precious fragments of melody - ‘Be Free, A Way’ is the most accessible - you’ll hear machined scrunching, a constant reminder of an impending dystopian atrocity, scuttling around beneath Coyne’s ever-cracking vocals.

Crucially, these apocalypses are never worldly. They are purely personal, willing the listener to have an epiphany of their own rather than suggesting a global collapse in spirit. As such, ‘The Terror’ is to be celebrated for its readiness to embrace a singular, horrible concept.

DANIEL ROSS

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Alessi’s Ark

Bleached

Cold War Kids

(BELLA UNION)

★★★★■

(V2)

‘The Still Life’

★★★

‘Ride Your Heart’ (DEAD OCEANS)

‘Dear Miss Lonelyhearts’

★★★★■

Live, Bleached (with their core sisterhood of Jennifer and Jessica Clavin) feel like watching Thelma and Louise. Similarly, that runaway-Runaways punk-spirit permeates ‘Ride Your Heart’. ‘Next Stop’ is a wind-in-the-hair race of Ramones-indebted three-chord kicks, whilst oldie ‘Searching Through The Past’ shows the simplicity-is-key approach that anchors their appeal.

Criticism? Well, between the moments of brilliance, ‘Ride Your Heart’ sometimes feels a little too flimsy to be considered anything more than just plain fun. Then again, Thelma and Louise weren’t in the market for more than that, either.

There’s something fantastically up-front about the production on Cold War Kids’ fourth LP, something that makes every instrument sound like it’s an inch from your brain. And that’s the best way to listen to these 10 increasingly dour and diseased songs of love - with no other distractions and only the clanging grandeur of the arrangements. Some of the more electro-indebted tracks falter as a result, but if you pay special attention to the wailing magnificence of the gospel choir on ‘Tuxedos’ you’ll feel your back arch with delight as they soar above the band. Magic.

LISA WRIGHT

D A NI E L R O S S

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The Black Angels

British Sea Power

Sky Ferreira

★★★★

(POLYDOR)

A niggling feeling of déjà-vu persists throughout the latest full-length by Alessi’s Ark. The playful changes in tempo and cadence of the vocal on tracks such as ‘Big Dipper’ are reminiscent of 2012’s ‘The Lion’s Roar’ by First Aid Kit (as is closer ‘Pinewoods’), although ‘The Still Life’ doesn’t hit the satisfying heights attained by the Söderberg sisters. While Alessi LaurentMarke is an undoubted talent, this third album is just too slight and whimsical. In the end, ‘The Still Life’ may just be a little too, erm, well, still.

E D WA R D D E V L I N

‘Indigo Meadow’ (BLUE HORIZON)

★★★

‘Machineries Of Joy’ (ROUGH TRADE)

‘Everything Is Embarrassing EP’

★★★★

This is what the late 90s sounded like – a rich platter of psych, post-punk and krautrock; pumped full of ideas and teetering on the high wire of cheap weed paranoia. The Black Angels are dab hands at teeth-clenching tension (the dub-fuelled ‘Holland’ clearly has the keys to Clinic’s car), but they come unstuck with the sheer banality of ‘Don’t Play With Guns’.

Good taste proves to be the trouble with this sort of record-collector rock: these individually distinctive flavours don’t half taste bland when you smoosh ‘em all together. Still, Primal Scream fans will love it.

We got the message pretty early on that British Sea Power were great. But that doesn’t stop their fifth album ‘Machineries Of Joy’ being a welcome reminder of the awesomeness underpinning their post-punk. Who else can find common ground between pulsing, mechanical motorik and graceful, naturalist melody (‘Machineries Of Joy’), make a surreal Gary Numan pastiche sound uncompromisingly cutting-edge (‘Loving Animals’) and devastate the listener with a gorgeous guitar solo without sounding cliché, or even appearing to make an effort (‘A Light Above Descending’). This is showing off at its most sophisticated.

Model, actress, one-time friend of Michael Jackson, and, of course, singer – Sky Ferreira has done a heck of a lot in her 21 years on this earth. She’s maddeningly young, but ‘Everything Is Embarrassing’ has been a long time in the making: since being signed at 15, she’s scrapped two debut albums and the residue of her abandoned bubblegum pop career is stuck all over the internet.

Forget about that, though. With this twinkling, sultry, downbeat R&B (under the guidance of producer Dev Hynes), Ferreira’s finally found a sound that fits. Debut album attempt no.3 might well be a gem.

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W I L L F I T Z PAT R I C K

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S OP H I E T H O M S E T T

THEFLY 57

reviews [ A L B U M S ] Filthy Boy

John Grant

The Holydrug Couple

(STRANGER RECORDS)

★★★★

★★★★

‘Smile That Won’t Go Down’

★★★★■

‘Pale Green Ghosts’ (BELLA UNION)

‘Noctuary’ (SACRED BONES)

Print off Filthy Boy’s lyrics and they might win the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award. At their best, however, like the Arctic Monkeys, these literate scallywags neatly reproduce the Pixies’ dark eroticism, Morrissey’s erudite cheek and Nick Cave’s unhinged fantasies, conjuring the odd dancefloor-bound, indie-rock banger. Musically, more or less, this offering has ‘Humbug mk II’ etched all over it. Even the ‘Crying Lightning’-like ‘Naughty Corner’ mirrors Turner’s fancy for a lascivious pick ‘n’ mix metaphor: “So behave and be a big boy/And a lollipop awaits.”

Filthy indeed!

Expectations are justifiably greater for John Grant’s follow-up to his breakout debut solo album, the critically-lauded ‘Queen Of Denmark’. What on first listen sounds like a radical departure, with its icy electronica and 80s new-wave dance beats, gradually reveals itself to be a bold companion piece to its 70s soft-rock predecessor; another painful (but wryly funny) examination of the wreckage of Grant’s life, complete with Sinead O’Connor warbling.

While it’s certainly not as easy to love as his Midlake-backed debut, the lush melodies, caustic one-liners and self-deprecating misanthropy remain in abundance. A rich, roughhewn and challenging gem.

J AM IE S K E Y

E D WA R D D E V L I N

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Föllakzoid

The Growlers

‘II’ (SACRED BONES)

‘Hung At Heart’ (FATCAT RECORDS)

Daniel Johnston & Various Artists

★★★★★

★★★★

Something must be the matter in Chile. Ostensibly a young emerging psychedelic band, Santiago-dwelling Föllakzoid make foreign equivalents, like TOY, appear clueless fops when it comes to truly trance-inducing sound. ‘II’’s cuts bleed into one another; it’s a five-part exercise in mind control, cerebral expansion and sonic hypnosis. ‘Rivers’ really does make your eyes heavy and ‘99’ hatches from a lonesome riff into a heavy, soporific ooze. Guitars float and evaporate, bass displaces your bones. And all of this before ‘Pulsar’’s never-ending reverberations - the 15-minute closer delivers lobotomy after lobotomy.

Whilst there’s certainly a wealth of bands currently plundering the 60s for their vibes, The Growlers might just be one of the best. Brooks Nielson’s cracked, occasionally Dylan-esque vocal makes for a completely perfect foil to the sepia-soaked organs on ‘Naked Kids’ or the rambling, late-night-on-theranch appeal of ‘One Million Lovers’, whilst ‘Burden Of The Captain’s dulcet, intricately-picked riffs should only ever be allowed to exist on vinyl. ‘Use Me For Your Eggs’ (ooh er) treads a Doorsier path, whilst opener ‘Someday’ is all kinds of surfy brilliance. Alongside follow revivalists Temples, The Growlers are making us pretty sure we were born in the wrong decade.

B E N H OMEW OOD

LISA WRIGHT

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Like their friends Föllakzoid, The Holydrug Couple make music for all senses. ‘Noctuary’ isn’t just there to be heard, but to be touched, inhaled and seen, too. Yes, it’s best absorbed by floaty, imaginative souls, but even Alan Sugar would struggle not to be moved by the Chileans’ vivid dreaminess. ‘Noctuary’ evokes the weird mustiness of a vintage clothes shop.

Listen to ‘Paisley’ and you’ll feel the sun on your back, ‘Follow Your Way’ and you’ll feel doped out by Mary Jane. But the biggest hit is meted out by ‘Willoweed’, a gorgeous marriage of stupefying warmth and entrancing guitars.

BEN HOMEWOOD

‘Space Ducks’ (FERALTONE)

★★★★■

Is there a danger that Daniel Johnston records are now just a line of indie kids queuing up to muck about with one of their heroes? A quick look at the track-listing for this concept album about ducks in space suggests so Jake Bugg, Eleanor Friedberger and Unknown Mortal Orchestra all crop up for solo songs - but fortunately Johnston’s voice is so recognisable that he becomes the through-line.

Some of the guests fare better than others (the Fruit Bats over Jake Bugg, for example), but Johnston’s increasingly Van Dyke Parks-esque songwriting is the real draw.

D A NI E L R O S S

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Parquet Courts ‘Light Up Gold’ (WHAT’S YOUR RUPTURE?/MOM + POP)

PHOTOGRAPH:

TOM OLDHAM

★★★★★

Sorry, but Parquet Courts don’t like you. It’s not personal. Their scepticism of anyone other than immediate band members (and possibly their wonderful tour manager, Chris) is universal. (And possibly down to some very strong weed.)

But is this blanket rejection a bad thing? ‘Light Up Gold’ proves that it absolutely isn’t. An album of urgent art-punk verve and rattling brevity, its 15 songs pass in 33 raucous and immediately re-listenable minutes.

By turns they bear the gawky judder of The Feelies’ ‘Crazy Rhythms’ (‘Master Of My Craft’), the loafing of

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Pavement at their most louche (‘N Dakota’) and the mark of Guided By Voices’ Bob Pollard at his dislocated and melodic zenith (‘Picture Of Health’).

‘Borrowed Time’ shows off Austin Brown’s hurtling guitar skills between false endings. ‘Stoned & Starving’ finds Andrew Savage rambling about the perils of foraging in a funk over a racing riff.

It’s a pitching and yawing listen, and it’s compelling and punchy in a way that’ll have you bouncing straight out of your chair.

They may be disdainful and obtuse, but for this record, and this record alone, Parquet Courts should gain your unfettered adoration. Not that their manners, to be frank, quite deserve it.

But since when have manners been rock’n’roll?

JJ D UNNI NG

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reviews [ A L B U M S ]

The Knife ‘Shaking The Habitual’ (RABID)

★★★★★■

Fittingly for a band that co-wrote an opera on Charles Darwin, The Knife’s evolution has been fascinating to observe. Starting life as a mildly eccentric synth pop group, it wasn’t until 2006’s ‘Silent Shout’ that the Swedish duo stretched out fully, with a sublimely icy set emphasising Karin Dreijer Andersson’s oddly detached introspection, subsequently explored on her Fever Ray offering of 2009.

Operas aside, ‘Shaking The Habitual’ arrives as the band’s first proper studio album in seven years, and it’s by some distance their weirdest to date. Crudely, this 60 THEFLY

100-minute epic can be split into ‘pop’ tracks and longer stretches of sinister ambience - but given that the former category harbours more daring than most groups muster in a lifetime, maybe not. ‘A Tooth For An Eye’ adds dense polyrhythms and steel drum to their repertoire, ‘Raging Lung’ does drowsy, bass-led psychedelia, and ‘Full Of Fire’ shows that, while some folk use acoustic guitars to express their feelings, The Knife make do with poundingly visceral, industrial techno.

And while some of the abstract material here is frustratingly opaque, how many other ‘pop’ acts can you name that would have the brass cojones to drop a near 20-minute track right in the middle of their record? Astonishing.

A L E X D E NNE Y

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Junip

Milk Music

Mudhoney

★★★★■

★★★★■

★★★★

‘Junip’ (CITY SLANG)

‘Cruise Your Illusion’ (FAT POSSUM)

‘Vanishing Point’ (SUB POP)

Still the highpoint in José Gonzalez’s folkrock offshoot Junip’s career is their stunning cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Ghost Of Tom Joad’ (Spotify it – your day will measurably improve), but on their second album proper they have managed to come closer than ever to matching its magic intensity. The stony-faced directness of opener ‘Line Of Fire’, with its canyon-filling fuzzed-out strings is the strongest song, but the sloweddown groove-sensitive krautrock that dominates elsewhere suggests that this is, more than their last record, a very different José Gonzalez to the one you think you know.

HERE BE GUITARS. Milk Music’s debut LP relies almost exclusively on the atmosphere between frontman Alex Coxen and Charles Warring. Mainly it breaks down like this: Coxen does the racing rhythms, while Warring’s squeals entertain the idea of J Mascis and Built To Spill’s Doug Martsch joined by a glowing-hot weld. Inevitably, given the EIGHTYFIVE minute running time, ‘Cruise Your Illusion’ (as you read this, Milk Music’s bassist is honestly in prison – maybe as penance for coming up with that pun?) contrives to meander. Regardless: applaud their giddying scale.

“I LIKE IT SMALL!” declares Mark Arm, and well he might.

Despite starting out as major players in grunge’s big league, Mudhoney’s feral howl was always better suited to sweat-sodden mosh-pits than the empty echoes of arena rock, and twenty-five years into their career, they show no sign of letting up. ‘The Only Son Of The Widow From Nain’ demonstrates that gleefully stoopid is the way to go, ditto the full-throttle goof-punk of ‘Chardonnay’. Meanwhile Steve Turner’s snarky riffage now comes with added sass, loosening hips like the best rock’n’roll always should.

See? It’s the little things that matter.

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D A N I E L R OSS

JJ D U N N I N G

W I LL F I T Z PAT R I C K

Lapalux

‘Nostalchic’ (BRAINFEEDER)

★★★

Lapalux is the work of 25-year-old Essexborn producer Stuart Howard. Signed to Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label after a speculative email a few years ago, Howard, like his boss, enjoys plunging the listener headlong into a befuddling mix of chopped-up vocals, big R&B drum claps and skittering beats. It’s a trick that works best on the tetchy ‘Flower’ and the distorted jazz of ‘Kelly Brook’. While the sonic experimentation is impressive, it’s the songs where he takes a bit of a breather that work best, especially the gloopy, Jenna Andrews-assisted ‘One Thing’ and the clammy ‘Dance’.

Sometimes less is more.

JUNIP

M I CH A E L C R A G G

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THEFLY 61

reviews [ A L B U M S ] Phoenix

The Pigeon Detectives

Bill Ryder-Jones

★★★★

(COOKING VINYL)

(DOMINO)

★

★★★★

‘Bankrupt!’ (ATLANTIC)

‘We Met At Sea’

‘A Bad Wind Blows In My Heart’

As the opening strains of ‘Entertainment’ give way to gleeful synth-pop, you question if Phoenix have progressed in the last four years. Well, though the backbone of ‘Bankrupt!’ may be atypical – effervescent, jaunty, and other dirty words – what lies about it is supreme.

Flashes of Supertramp power pop here, flickers of ‘Hong Kong Garden’esque oddities there, fucking massive hooks strewn literally everywhere.

Then there’s the buff harmonies of ‘S.O.S. In Bel Air’, the poolsidechillax of ‘Trying To Be Cool’ and the title track, which veers from glitchy instrumental to pared-down balladry.

With ‘Bankrupt!’, Phoenix show that sprightly doesn’t mean stupid.

‘We Met At Sea’ is the fourth album by Leeds blokes The Pigeon Detectives. This raises a question: there was a third Pigeon Detectives album? Because we’d forgotten they’d made a second one, but press play on this and the sour dregs of 2006 flood back in.

We remember all this – the naff choruses that are the same as the verses but with more “swagger”, the laddish pauses before every outro, the vomit-inducing discoparty number that reeks of WKD and quid-a-pint Fosters. The best thing we can say is that one song sounds like a crap Kubichek.

Terrible.

L I S A W RIG H T

R OB E RT C OOKE

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The Phoenix Foundation

Psychic Ills

‘Fandango’ (MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES)

‘One Track Mind’ (SACRED BONES)

SULK

★★★

★★★

Following up the instrumental ‘If…’, Bill Ryder-Jones pulls out this fragile debut album proper. ‘A Bad Wind…’ proves the ex-Coral guitarist to be a skilled arranger with a keen eye for detail.

This surprisingly assured collection of songs sounds like the work of a seasoned songwriter. The cathartic lyrics paint vivid pictures and emotional scenes throughout, while the grandeur of the compositions and stirring melodies lift the confessional bedroom ballads from potential despair to salvation. An intimate and very British release to cherish and hold close; it also happens to be one of the year’s best so far.

E D WA RD D E V L I N

‘Graceless’ (PERFECT SOUND FOREVER)

★★★★■

New Zealand’s relaxed pace of life seeps from every pore of The Phoenix Foundation.

The Wellington prog-pop six-piece honed their laid-back fusion of Byrds-like harmonies and Fleet Foxes breeziness for well over a decade before going mainstream with 2012’s ‘Buffalo’. Newbie ‘Fandango’ is equally nonchalant, although this time round there are glitterball synths and elastic bass - see the Hot Chip-sounding ‘The Captain’.

However, they’re at their best when channeling Reichian minimalism, as on the psychedelic ‘Modern Rock’.

‘One Track Mind’ is immersive and trippy.

It provides welcoming, soothing consolation.

But, is that what a psych record should deliver? ‘One Track Mind’ is an instantaneous scene-setter, laying out the framework for the throbbing, gauze-like structures that follow, and ‘Western Metaphor’ and ‘FBI’ dismantle your consciousness with colourful flair. But too often the New Yorkers’ fourth album becomes warm and stale, ambling and falling over where it should slither with unpredictability. Unfortunately, that title is all too appropriate.

Sure, SULK are essentially a glorified Stone Roses tribute band, but with Ian Brown dragging his out of tune ass around for another summer of inevitably out of tune gigs, fact is this quintet are probably a more appealing proposition than the originals. Between the baggy guitar lines, singer Jon Sutcliffe’s northern lilt and the fact that ‘Graceless’’ first three tracks all sound like a perfect hybrid of ‘Made Of Stone’ and ‘Waterfall’, their devotion to the cause is so brazen it’s admirable. The majority of SULK’s debut is actually a more than decent addition to the Madchester canon – albeit twenty years too late.

B E N H OME W OOD

L I S A W RI G H T

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J AMIE S K E Y

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Kurt Vile ‘Wakin On A Pretty Daze’ (MATADOR)

★★★★ What’s eating Kurt Vile? His last album, ‘Smoke Ring For My Halo’, was adored for how Vile nailed his signature sound – the coolly apathetic angst of grunge with the timeless authenticity of classic Americana. Yet on the ambitious, immersive ‘Wakin On A Pretty Daze’, you get the sense that there’s still something nagging at Vile, and it’ll take more than a casual spin of this 70-minute sprawl for you to figure it out.

Don’t let languid, wandering opener ‘Wakin On A Pretty Day’ fool you. The sense that all’s well shatters under the THE-FLY.CO.UK

weighty riffs of ‘KV Crimes’, and Vile’s demons soon rear their heads. ‘Girl Called Alex’ is a fog of jealous fantasy and ‘Pure Pain’ drowns itself in trad folk terror before ‘Too Hard’ has Vile making half-hearted promises to better himself, with a stench of regret and the feeblest attempt at sincerity. Even the jaunty ‘Snowflakes Are Dancing’ seems fixated on escape, while the ten-minute closer ‘Goldtone’ feels unfulfilled, Vile complaining about being misunderstood in that inimitable drawl of his.

But despite its length and moments of lyrical selfloathing, ‘Wakin…’ neither bores nor depresses. Vile lets us gaze into his soul so we can wallow in his easydrifting, unquantifiably miffed genius.

R OB E RT C O O K E

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reviews [ A L B U M S ]

Yeah Yeah Yeahs ‘Mosquito’ (POLYDOR)

★★★ First, the good news: the fourth Yeah Yeah Yeahs album is better than its cover art, which looks like a still from a homemade horror movie shot after a coke and Haribo binge. Next, the not-so-good news: ‘Mosquito’ doesn’t match the New Yorkers’ last LP, 2009’s brilliant ‘It’s Blitz!’.

It begins strongly, as the gospel choir climax of ‘Sacrilege’ gives way to a gloomy, ambient ballad called ‘Subway’, on which Karen O sings about “murder on the 64 THEFLY

metal” over a looped sample of a chugging tube train.

Third track ‘Mosquito’ makes it three hits out of three: it’s a classic YYY stomper with O at her most cartoonishly vampy.

Sadly, the album then slips into a dingy mid-tempo haze. ‘Slave’ and ‘Under The Earth’ have lashings of Siouxsie-style atmosphere, but ‘Always’ and ‘These Paths’ feel aimless, and none has the spark of Yeah Yeah Yeahs at their incendiary best. In fact, after that terrific opening triptych, only two tunes really stand out: the Iggy Pop-in-space thrills of ‘Area 42’ and ‘Wedding Song’, which is as cheesy as its title but still pretty irresistible.

So, all in all: not a bad album, but most of the time it’s more harmless midge than lethal mosquito.

N I C K L E V I NE

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Suuns

Tartufi

Lewis Watson

★★★★■

★★★★■

(WARNER)

‘Images Du Futur’ (SECRETLY CANADIAN) Suuns’ second LP is inspired by a science and technology expo the band visited while growing up in Montreal. We can only think it was curated by Philip K Dick in a bad mood, since ‘Images Du Futur’ is a quietly suffocating set that tosses and turns like Clinic under damp bedsheets; heavy on the sci-fi paranoia and light on the stoner-rock catharsis that was the yang to ‘Zeroes QC’s yin. As a result, it’s far more focused than its predecessor, but also more boring; full of clever instrumental touches that ratchet up the tension without ever quite landing the killer blow.

‘These Factory Days’ (SOUTHERN)

‘The Wild EP’

★★★

PROG IS BACK! Not the overblown, Tolkienobsessed caricatures of Rick Wakeman’s interminable wet dreams, you understand. Just imaginative, forward-thinking ambition. Sure, take any individual section of Tartufi’s complex compositions – the circular motifs of ‘Eaves’, for instance – and you might be reminded of any number of familiar favourites (Pinback, Arcade Fire... hell, even Kyuss). There’s more to these songs than simple hooks, though; they unfold mysteriously.

Initially, this brain-battering density can be somewhat overpowering, but total immersion certainly pays off.

Lewis Watson has done the YouTube thing, now he’s got to do the proper songwriter thing. Luckily, there’s charm and nous on this, his latest and most professional-sounding EP. However, the next steps are key; he’s in danger of being swept away on a wave of young female attention when he should be trying to work out exactly what kind of artist he is. It would be very easy for Watson to continue to churn out sweet songs about youthful entanglements with the fairer sex, so the real test will come when he starts tackling subjects with greater substance in genuinely new ways.

W I L L F I T Z PAT R I C K

G R A E M E D E G G I NS

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Sweet Baboo

Vondelpark

Wiley

ALEX DENNEY

‘Ships’ (MOSHI MOSHI)

★★★★■

Sweet Baboo’s Stephen Black is the sort of lad you could take home to your mum. He’s the type she’d like to stuff full of Sunday roasts and even let your sister date.

His new album, ‘Ships’, is full of enchanting indie-pop about romantic ladybirds and lovely mermaids, with the surrealist streak of Gruff Rhys and the heartbroken guitars of Slow Club (who Black plays bass and saxophone for on tour, fact addicts).

Don’t let mum hear it though – she’ll want to write Steve into her will.

R O BERT C OOK E

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‘Seabed’ (R&S RECORDS)

★★★■

Chillwave may be a fast-fading memory for some, but its offspring live among us in the likes of How To Dress Well, Active Child and Autre Ne Veut, artists transferring the genre’s hazy template from 80s synth pop to 90s R&B soundscapes. Vondelpark, the project of London-based Lewis Rainsbury and pals, trod similar turf on a pair of EPs in 2010/11, and now ‘Seabed’ expands on their sound, with ‘Quest’ a weird mix of Durutti Column and Bone Thugs-N Harmony, and ‘Come On’ a meltingly lovely, shoegaze slow-jam. Still, you’d struggle to blaze up an incense stick to this, let alone a ‘fatty’.

ALEX DENNEY

DOWNLOAD ‘C OME O N ’

‘The Ascent’ (WARNER BROS)

★

Wiley has chucked his menacing appeal away like the final grease-filmed bone in a bargain bucket. ‘The Ascent’, bar the deluxe edition’s urgent, bristling ‘Rubicon’ (lol!), isn’t worth listening to. ‘Tomorrow’ features the line “Describe yourself in one word: grime”.

If Wiley’s talking about himself, that’s a lie. A few lines later: “How are you feeling right now?: fine.” Also a lie. Additionally, the song is wetter than Coldplay, drowning. In wetsuits.

Elsewhere, Tulisa, Emeli Sandé and Far East Movement lead a catalogue of heinous cameos. If Wiley was honest, he’d choose one of these words: insipid, tasteless, chart-pandering.

BEN HOMEWOOD DOWNLOAD ‘R U BICO N ’

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reviews [ L I V E ]

66 THEFLY

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THE FLY & FIELD DAY PRESENT...

KURT VILE

Barfly, London

PHOTOGRAPHS:

JIM EYRE

07/03/2013

THE-FLY.CO.UK

Kurt Vile is out of sight. Not in the hippy, toogood-to-quantify sense. No. The Philadelphia guitarist is kneeling on the stage – and therefore obscured from view in this condensed venue – looking for batteries and plugging stuff in.

After some lengthy dithering – about 15 minutes – Vile’s solo acoustic set finally begins.

It’s here, though, that the languorousness really starts in earnest: in another 15 minutes he’s only through two songs. This is thanks to the nine-minute opening track from new album ‘Wakin On A Pretty Daze’ being given a comprehensive airing, in all its wending wonder.

Shorn, for obvious practical reasons, of its two wandering electric guitar solos, it morphs from an unmanageable song that seems too big to pilot, into one that seems too puny to cope on its own. Kurt’s growly “Yeah, yeah, yeah”ing, though ostensibly a vacuum of expression, somehow manages to communicate exactly whatever it is we’re supposed to be feeling.

Adrift? Delighted? Randy? Not sure. Yet he’s still nailed it.

Inevitably, given the technical restraints, the songs from 2011’s ‘Smoke Ring For My Halo’ come across stronger still. ‘Jesus Fever’ and ‘Baby’s Arms’ are grand, gentle and intense all at once, delighting and rewarding the crowd’s earlier patience, while Vile delves into 2009’s ‘Childish Prodigy’ for his final flourish.

Ending with ‘He’s Alright’, Kurt sweeps his mop from his face for the first time and lopes off stage. And there you go. It’s over as casually as it began.

Out of sight, then, but not the sort of thing you’d forget in a hurry.

JJ D U NNI NG

THEFLY 67

reviews [ L I V E ]

LOOM Stockton-on-Tees, KU Bar

68 THEFLY

PHOTOGRAPH:

Up-and-coming Leamington Spa four-piece Loom are terrifying and invigorating in equal measure the perfect yin to the sleepy North Easterly yang that is Stockton-On-Tees.

Having already garnered a reputation for onstage bravado, vocalist Tarik Badwan (yup, he’s Faris’ brother) channels a darker punk persona that’s very different to that of his sibling.

Tonight Badwan Jr. swings around, stands precariously on top of the railings that surround the stage and even starts fights with the crowd, his screams bouncing around KU Bar’s intimate venue.

Musically, Loom are startlingly confident too.

New single ‘I Get A Taste’ fizzes, while ‘No Control’ shows off their grungy, Nirvana-esque side with dirty riffs courtesy of guitarists Matt Marsh and Joshua Fitzgerald. (Those Nirvana-isms aren’t totally unfounded; the quartet used to have a different name and were for a brief period quite-literally “in Bloom”).

The rhythmic, punchy licks of Neil Byrne on drums keep everything hurtling along, most notably on unpredictable debut single ‘Bleed On Me’ which dashes through tempo changes, endless reverb and one hell of a crashing chorus.

Better than this, the North East crowd responds: the front row is fully involved from the off, which is pretty good going for a band with near-enough zero web-presence.

Whilst they may end up looming large, for the minute Badwan and co. seem intent on remaining as mysterious as possible.

In an age of fast-forgotten blog sensations getting premature evaluations, their teasing tactics leave us wanting much, much more.

H A N N A H J D AV I E S

BURAK CINGI

09/03/2013

THEFLY 69

Liverpool, O2 Academy 20/03/2013

Don’t you wanna be relevant? Johnny Marr’s crystalline jangle has served as foil to many a bon mot over the years, but tonight The Cribs’ words are amongst the most prescient: 49 is a tricky age to (re)launch a solo career.

Admittedly, he looks the part. Dashingly dapper in blazer and jeans, his quietly-confident demeanour suggests ‘carpe diem’ is the underlying objective. Accordingly, new album ‘The Mes-

70 THEFLY

senger’ is despatched with aplomb, especially the swooping elegance of ‘The Right Thing Right’ and a cocksure ‘Upstarts’. Nods to his past lives notwithstanding, this is 21st century new wave and good fun too.

The truly transcendental moments are inevitably pulled from The Smiths’ catalogue: ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ inspires delirium, while existential hymn ‘How Soon Is Now?’ is transformed into a euphoric clap-along. Marr may be one of rock’s perennial sidemen, but he’s far from lost in centre stage. He suits 2013 just fine.

W I L L F I T Z PAT R I C K THE-FLY.CO.UK

PHOTOGRAPH:

JOHNNY MARR

DAVID HOWARTH

reviews [ L I V E ]

[ L I V E ] reviews

SUEDE London, Barfly

PHOTOGRAPH:

KAREN TOFTERA

04/03/2013

The idea of seeing a band as big as festivalheadlining, O2-conquering, fucking Britpop heroes Suede in a place as small as the 200-capacity Barfly is so bonkers that it takes a good half hour to get your head around what’s happening. What’s happening, however, is clearly a complete victory – against those that wrote them off after ‘A New Morning’, against those that doubted their deciTHE-FLY.CO.UK

sion to release new material (‘Barriers’ and ‘For The Strangers’ sit comfortably alongside any of the hits) and, fundamentally, against anyone who’s ever questioned Suede’s place as genuine musical royalty. You don’t need us to tell you how good the likes of ‘The Drowners’ or ‘So Young’ sound – that much is written into the history books. But the fact that Brett Anderson and co. can still feed off the atmosphere of these intimate surrounds in such a primal way proves that Suede’s continued existence is more than justified.

L I S A W RI G H T

THEFLY 71

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LIVE ANNOUNCEMENTS & PRIORITY BOOKING • FIND US ON

fly guide [

WHAT'S GOING ON IN A TOWN NEAR YOU THIS MONTH...

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[EDINBURGH]

Wide Days festival takes place at Edinburgh C I T Y University’s Teviot Union from 10th-11th April. Now in G U I D E its fourth year, the event has an impressive track record of booking breaking bands. This year is no different: Washington Irving recently toured with Frightened Rabbit, while Siobhan Wilson, Fatherson, DIY noise-makers Garden Of Elks and Dundee’s Fat Goth all play. The event always features a young act – in this case 18-year-old Saint Max – before proceedings come to a close with Roman Nose; a Glaswegian techno trio with a nifty line in masks (www.widedays.com).

Also worth noting: innovative Edinburgh label Song, By Toad launch their Beer VS Music experiment on Record Store Day. They’ll release eight songs on beautiful vinyl, with micro-brewery Barney’s Beer releasing another eight songs via a four-pack of custom beer with accompanying download codes. Do music lovers prefer beautiful musical mementos or MP3s and a pint? First to 250 units wins (www.beervsrecords.com).

D E R I C K M A CK I N N O N THE-FLY.CO.UK

VENUES 1

Liquid Rooms

2

The Electric Circus

3

The Picture House

4

Sneaky Pete’s

5

The Bongo Club

Victoria Street, 9C www.liquidroom.com

Market Street, www.theelectriccircus.biz

Lothian Road, www.mamacolive.com/thepicturehouse Cowgate, www.sneakypetes.co.uk

Cowgate, www.thebongoclub.co.uk

THEFLY 75

fly guide [ BELFAST]

BASTILLE

Easter is gone and we’ve all eaten way too much chocolate. So what now? Let’s burn off the guilt at some gigs! Kicking off April for us Belfast types, chart conquerors The Vaccines play Ulster Hall on the 3rd, before Gabrielle Aplin brings her sensitive strummings to Mandela Hall (4th). Diaries out, indie kids: Bastille also pop along to Mandela on the 6th, while the thoroughly infectious Fang Island visit Bar Sub as part of their European tour (10th). Local lads Ed Zealous launch their new single ‘Medicines’ in the Stiff Kitten (12th), with suport from Wonder Villains, Go Wolf and a Not Squares DJ set. Also worth mentioning – Lower Than Atlantis rock emotively at Mandela Hall (13th) and Hornets launch their new EP ‘Truth’ in Bar Sub (20th). But if you fancy something a bit more banging, why not check out SBTRKT (DJ set, 27th) at the Stiff Kitten?

E MMA -R OSE M C G R A D Y

JAMES YORKSTON

[CAMBRIDGE] Drenge roll into Cambridge on 9th April at The Portland Arms. Support on the night comes from local post-punk upstarts Breedlings. Elsewhere, Kate Nash plays her new album at Cambridge Junction (4th), with said venue also playing host to the legendary Edwyn Collins (22nd) and Long Beach rockers Rival Sons (16th). There’s something kinda excellent about James Yorkston and The Pictish Trail on the same bill – hands down the best gig the Junction has on offer (15th), though the authentic goodness of Jamie N Commons (23rd) and Fossil Collective’s rich sounds (16th) are also worth your time and money. Finally, there’s the melodic folk and flowing prose of Rob St John at the intimate CB2 (28th), which promises to be rather special.

J OR DA N W ORL A ND

Don’t be a stranger… Jordan@slatethedisco.com 76 THEFLY

THE-FLY.CO.UK

[KINGSTON]

MINUS THE BEAR

An excellent double bill of Minus The Bear and Axes hits indie club night New Slang (25th), while Vinnie Caruana (ex-Movielife) and Masked Intruder play The Fighting Cocks (18th). The 20th, of course, is Record Store Day – visit Banquet Records to see why HMV are going into administration and everyone’s favourite indie store isn’t. If you’re not too tired from carrying RSD special releases home, it’s worth saving yourself for 1st May, when emo/punk night New Noise hosts local faves Arcane Roots’ album launch. New Noise is fortnightly Wednesdays at Bacchus, New Slang weekly Thursdays at McClusky’s. BOOM! D E L N OBL E

[LIVERPOOL]

EDWYN COLLINS

THE-FLY.CO.UK

Spring’s officially underway, pop-pickers! Liverpool’s gig schedule is as busy as ever, so you may as well mark a few selected highlights in your diary. Droned-out psych types Hookworms kick off the month in some style, bringing their brand of glorious fug to Camp And Furnace on 4th April, and that should nicely warm up your dancing shoes for Fang Island’s heart-swelling dance party (Kazimier, 11th). Enter Shikari lovers might fancy a trip across the Mersey to catch their heroes at New Brighton Floral Pavilion, while fans of jangly indie classicism should be in seventh heaven when Veronica Falls (Kazimier, 17th) and Edwyn Collins (Philharmonic, 20th ) hit town. Finally, anyone interested in what we’re calling ‘batshit mental post-pop’ might want to head to Mello Mello to catch Bastards Of Fate (29th)… well, that’s what //we// would do.

W I LL F I T Z PAT R I C K

@willfitzpophack

THEFLY 77

t h e o u t r o with J o h n K e r r i s o n

Baby, Comeback So far 2013 has been the year of the comeback – a lesser known element of the Chinese calendar often found sandwiched between The Year Of The Horse and The Year Of The Last Take That Album. Whether it be Justin Timberlake buying MySpace to convince everyone it’s still 2002 so he can release songs again, or every boy band you’ve ever forgotten crying and singing with the frequency of a catholic schoolboy on ITV’s The Big Reunion, these 12 months will forever be known as the year lots of acts did a really bad job of fucking off. Here’s the Outro’s guide to perfecting your comeback.

Don’t Go Changing – The S-Club after Party

Origins

Think Dumb, Marry Smart

Comebacks can be traced back to biblical times when a man named Jesus defied expectation by coming back from the actual dead. Today, in an era where only plausible things happen, we celebrate this return by eating enormous chocolate eggs delivered by a cerebrallyadvanced, ultra-efficient bunny rabbit. Normal, aren’t we?

Shake What Your Mama Gave You Years ago David Bowie was famous for writing songs and kidnapping a baby that he whisked away to an M.C. Esher drawing for the sole purpose of pissing Jennifer Connolly off.

This year, at the age of 66, he’s released a new album and had a sell-out exhibit at the V&A proving beyond a doubt that if anything will keep you in the public consciousness it’s meggins that really show off your junk. Readers born after 1990 should probably have skipped this paragraph.

78 TheFly

A short time after Jo went on reality TV to be a bit racist and Bradley joined the Manchester United midfield under the name of Anderson, the two S-Club Seven-ers, plus one other, fancied having another crack of the whip and briefly reformed as ‘S-Club’. Four members short of the original line-up and without any new material, they knew the key to their comeback would be keeping the name and set lists exactly as they were so the existing fan base… ah, I can see why this didn’t work.

Just 12 short years after he first appeared on our screens with his oversized hockey shirts, cascading creosote curtains and poetic descriptions of the female form, Peter Andre, against all odds and theories of societal

advancement, now makes up around 97% of the ITV programming schedule that isn’t Ant, Dec or Adrian Chiles. Starring roles in ‘Peter Andre: My Story’, ‘Peter Andre: The Next Chapter’, ‘Peter Andre: Going It Alone’, ‘Peter Andre: Look At My Fridge’, ‘Peter Andre: Here I Am Wearing A Shirt’, and ‘Peter Andre: Peter: Andre’, have proved that although ‘mysterious girls’ are all well and good, marrying the loud one with a gigantic fake rack will probably get you a lot more TV work.

So, Do Go Changing?

“Isn’t it great how Madonna keeps reinventing herself?!” said everyone, ever, for about two decades. Obviously the answer to this is “No, it’s not great, no more so than when a virus constantly evolves to prevent an antibiotic cure”. But she has sold a lot of records, so what do I know?

Timing Your Comeback I'm sorry, who?

Right, might as well settle down for another decade of Take That then.

Really? 'Girl Power' is still a marketable concept? Fine.

Hey, I remember you. Weren't you in ...ah man, help me out here.

Okay so you're not in Busted anymore, but still...

You're just wearing less denim, B*Witched.

5 years

7 years

10 years

12 years

20+ years if you're not Bowie

the-fly.co.uk

In next month’s issue...

Philadelphia’s mane man...

KURT VILE Plus:

Great Escape 2013 preview and much more...

Where do you get it? Visit www.the-fly.co.uk/stockists for a full list of stockists.

Want to stock the magazine? Contact the Editor: jj.dunning@mamaco.com