The Fly September 2013 by The Fly

Issue n째164

September 2013

Arctic Monkeys

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[regulars] In The Studio O4 win stuff O8 john kerrison’s graphic content 10 OnesToWatch 16 [features] arctic monkeys 22 factory floor 30 five in mind: splashh 34 MGMT 38 [reviews] albums 44 live 56 six shots 66 One question comes up in our office more than any other. (Well, one work-related question, anyway – I’m not sure “What’s that smell?” is a sound basis for an editorial.) Will there ever be another era-defining album? A ‘Screamadelica’ or a ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?’ that will skittle a whole generation? Arguably, Arctic Monkeys were the last band to do this, with their million-selling debut. Nearly eight years later, Alex Turner, Matt Helders, Nick O’Malley and Jamie Cook have written a record – encompassing 70s rock, smooth R&B, and Eric Cantona – that runs pretty close. Read about it from page 22... JJ DUNNING, editor Roses Gabor, shot by Tom Oldham for The Fly, London, August 2013

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I n T h e S t u d io

DIIV DIIV mastermind Z. Cole Smith describes the “ver y important” record he’s crafting in solitar y squalour... Producer: Z. Cole Smith Studio: DIIV’s practice spaces, New York, NY Due: 2014 Hi Cole, how is the next DIIV record going? It’s coming along pretty well. It’s in this weird crafting phase, at the same stage ‘Oshin’ was in when I made DIIV a live band. I’ve just got back from tour and I’m so happy to be home in New York. I rented another studio in the same building I did ‘Oshin’ in. It’s half the size, there’s no kitchen or shower and it feels like the ceiling is about to the-fly.co.uk

fall on me. I’m also moving into a place upstate, I’ve never seen it. I told the landlord to Google me when we spoke. I think he did. I’ll work on the record there too. Sounds brave. How different are the new songs to ‘Oshin’? I don’t know if ‘Dust’ or the other new song we’ve been playing live will end up on the record. There’s stuff that’s done and finished but I’m a perfectionist. It won’t just be the last 10 songs I wrote. I can’t make any promises on song names or the title. I want to have a weird,

elaborate long one. All of our output so far has been short and concise, mysterious. I want to break that down on the next record and have the least mysterious title of all time. Kick the wall down and then all of a sudden, there I am. Just sitting there. So it’s more personal? It’s not a ‘classic’ departure, it’s evolution. ‘Dust’ has similar energy [to ‘Oshin’], but it’s not all snappy pop songs. It’s weirder. Some songs have no reverb. The attitudes are different, there’s a lot more aggressive

stuff, and it’s a lot more introspective. It has a homemade feel; the idea of producers being important is so dated. I want to make a more personal record than ‘Oshin’, which has an almost anonymous sound; a narrow sonic spectrum was the point. I discovered a sound I thought had a place in the world, now I can depart

from that in lots of ways. It’s coming from the songs and my own production abilities. With cancelled shows and focus on your relationship with Sky Ferreira, it has been an eventful year. Are you in a stable place? [Laughs]Yeah... right now I feel happy. The band is in

a perfect place, in my wildest imagination it’s exactly where we would’ve been. I feel like there’s infinite possibility, potential. I’m sitting above the room where the band started. I’m seeing its humble beginnings, the paint is falling off the walls and there’s a window missing. Flies are circling outside. When it started I felt like it had a lot of

potential from here and I feel like it’s met that potential in every way. We’ve had every green light. Two years later here we are, one record in, poised to make a record that’s gonna be a very important record. I just know that that’s true. I feel it in me. I feel that there’s a very important record about to come out from me.

Bonus F a c toi d s Cole’s girlfriend departed his studio five hours before our call. Cole “went back to sleep”. Cole used to fantasise about having John Cale produce DIIV’s music.

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Toddla T & Roses Gabor team up for Bacardi B e g i n n i n g s ’ B e at s P e r Mi n u t e Pair’s new song must be “unlocked” by your tweets and likes. Plus, win gear and expert tuition from Toddla T himself... Photo T om O ldham On 4th September, Bacardi Beginnings’ Beats Per Minute project will see Toddla T and Roses Gabor release a song in an entirely unique and new way. At 7pm, only one beat of their song ‘Pandora’s Box’ will be released at www.bacardibeginnings.com. However, the more tweets and Facebook likes that the track receives, the more of it will become available to listen to. Once the track is fully unlocked, a remix competition will begin for budding producers. The stems (individual parts of the track) will become available for people to reinterpret and the-fly.co.uk

submit for consideration by the artists. The winner’s prize will include a production masterclass in the studio with Toddla T, remix software and, finally, the winning track will be played at the next Bacardi Beginnings event. Fans can unlock, listen to, and remix the track at www. bacardibeginnings.com. Toddla T and Roses Gabor are the second set of three established acts and three hot emerging artists that are paired together to push the boundaries of music releases as part of the Bacardi Beginnings music mentoring programme. Each pairing will be given a unique brief around the creation, production and

experience of music, while also releasing original tracks together. Speaking about the project, Toddla T says: “The main thing for me about this project is making a great song. I’m genuinely excited to see what people do with the parts. The idea that people can grab bits and do their own thing means there is no limit to creativity. That’s the reason for a remix, to take it to your own world.” Roses Gabor adds: “Toddla T is such an exciting producer. I can’t wait to see people’s response – when we release the first beat and when we throw it open for the remixing competition. If it’s remixed by a fan and it’s better than the original, that’s even cooler!”

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Toddla T does his best “impress me” face.

Tom Oldham

w i n st u ff

Win: A production session with Toddla T! Plus studio gear, courtesy of Bacardi Beginnings... Bacardi Beginnings is offering budding producers the chance to win some expert tuition. Toddla T and Roses Gabor release their new single ‘Pandora’s Box’ as part of Bacardi Beginnings’ Beats Per Minute project this month. The first part of the song will be available to hear from 7pm on 4th September at www.bacardibeginnings.com, the-fly.co.uk

with more of it being “unlocked” as it gets more likes and tweets on social media. See page six for details. Once the track is fully unlocked, a remix competition will begin – the “stems” (i.e. the individual components of the song) will be made available for you to rearrange and enter via the Bacardi Beginnings website.

The winning entry, selected by Toddla T and Roses Gabor, will be played at the next Bacardi Beginnings event. The winning remixer, meanwhile, will get a production masterclass from Toddla T as well as the latest remix software. Visit www.bacardibeginnings. com from 4th September for your chance to win.

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»John Kerrison’s Graphic content Medium? well…

Test your Psychic Ability with derek Acorah “You too can scare an ex-Blue Peter presenter of your choosing...”

You may remember renowned medium Derek Acorah from TV’s Most Haunted, where he put his psychic gift to the test by chasing Yvette Fielding around in the dark and channelling the spirits of several identical-sounding dead scousers. It was like Scooby Doo, but without the talking dogs, narrative cohesion, or plausibility. Using a recently-found copy of the book The Psychic World of Derek Acorah, I’ve developed a five-point test to help you evaluate your own mystic ability, so you too can scare an exBlue Peter presenter of your choosing. 1. When Acorah was small he was raised by his grandmother, who was a big medium. Not one to discourage, she often told the small, soon-to-be-medium, Derek that he had “a very special gift and would one day bring much peace and understanding to the world.” This makes Derek not dissimilar to Jesus… if Living TV was Bethlehem and people who have lost their remote controls can be considered disciples.

+1 point if you are small, or medium, or a medium, or a grandmother, or Jesus.

2. Derek warns that pretending to garner information through psychic means for personal gain is an insult to your integrity. Vow never to do this, and then take the moral high-ground by listing all the times Derek Acorah has pretended to garner information through psychic means for personal gain. +1 point if you remember the time he offered to help ﬁnd Madeleine Mccann.

3. “If you have a pet, do you think it can read your mind?” Acorah’s book provides a list of questions like this to help you judge the extent of your psychic potential and/or level of paranoia. I once owned a cat, but its willingness to lick its own genitals in my eye-line and disembowel mice in my kitchen leads me to assume it wasn’t completely in tune with my thoughts, feelings, and tastes. +1 point if you can lick your own genitals.

4. In order to fully open your third-eye and see what MummRa’s up to in the spirit world of Thundera, Derek suggests you meditate. To prepare for this he advises you “consider the intricate beauty of a flower’s petals” or “gently stroke a pet cat or dog.” -1 point if you’re the sort of sentimental berk who likes to consider the intricate beauty of things.

5. “There is a great deal of utter nonsense talked about opening one’s third eye,” writes Derek, before providing an entire chapter of utter nonsense as an example. Personally I’m a firm believer that if a glorified hypnotist tries to persuade you to open any part of your body then you very much shouldn’t comply. +1 point for maintaining your dignity.

Congratulations! if you have anywhere between 0-5 points you are exactly as psychic as Derek Acorah. celebrate by mentally willing your cat to walk around the house with its bum-hole on display. oH MY GoD, iT’S DoiNG iT!!!! the-Fly.co.uk

derek Acorah Fact File Queasy Listening the album ‘Derek Acorah’s Music of Spirit and tranquility’ was released in 2008 and can be heard on Spotify. (or if you’ve had a not-quite-fatal car accident and are waiting to regain consciousness.) It sounds a bit like when it’s 1992 and your friends force you to go to a Pagan nightclub and you don’t want to go in but it’s raining outside and you can’t afford to get a cab home on your own.

25% wizard’s hair like all famous wizards, Derek has silver hair, which cynics may argue is a sign of aging rather than mysticism. But what do they know? they’re only basing that on science.

25% Trustworthy diamond earring

25% Third eye

It’s rare that people trust anyone without a diamond earring these days. Nothing says ‘I’ll contact the dead and have them tell you which of these used cars to buy while you join my pyramid scheme’ like a bit of ear vajazzling.

Derek attributes his powers to his “third eye”, a terminology that’s only really interesting or funny if you take “third eye” to be a euphemism for wee-hole. unfortunately, his allseeing urethra didn’t prevent a show cancellation this year due to what the psychic referred to as ‘unforseen circumstances’. that’s not even an old joke. It’s completely true.

25% Spiritual husk

henry obasi

The King Of Pap Apparently it’s legally “fine” for Derek to make “contact” with famous dead people, including Guy Fawkes, Madeleine Mccann and Michael Jackson. the latter of the three complained live on air that he wasn’t buried next to Marilyn Monroe, though he seemed okay about being chased into the afterlife for profit by a failed footballer who can see out of his penis.

Acorah was once on the books at Liverpool Fc. his speciallity was presumably dead ball situations.

A voice haunted by the spirits of 40 B&h a day helps Derek communicate the thoughts of those from the other side, as long as they are able to do a scouse accent that’s similar to his, only a bit huskier.

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x x

x x xWhat’s x your x favourite x x Cornish x x @lukedoman Pasty filling? x x x x x x x x Traditional steak. Why mess with perfection?

@deangmoore about x x x How x do xyou feel x x x smaller boating vessels? Like canoes/ feel like xpunts/rowing x x xboats? x Doxyou x x x you’re missing out?

Because a well-executed skinny dip x x x x x air/sea x temperature, x x x (comfortable beautiful location, clear sky, spontanex x x x x x x x ity, good company etc etc) is one the closest things you can have to a religious experience x x x x x x x x x without believing in god.

x x x

x x

12x x 12 x

x x

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asked x@iamtheol x x Sayxyou’ve x been x x xto dox

x x x x x x x x Tall Ships play Camden Barfly, supported and September. xby Tellison x x Warren x Cahill x on 11th x x x x Head to www.facebook.com/becksvier to get tickets.

x x we xall suffer x x x x Ironically, from seasickness. It would be a horrible show for everyone x x x x x x x x x involved.

‘Ocean Drive’ by The Lighthouse Family. xThatxchorus x and x trumpet x x x x x solo combination… It just soars.

x x

x x x Any x plans x to xdo axgig on x a x @WillTomMoss rather tall ship?

a cover version for a nautically-themed x tribute x x x What x would x x x x album. you play?

x x

Why did x @tjeffery123 x x x x you x take x

off all of your clothes and run x naked x x x sea? x x x into the

At a house party in Falmouth, at our friends’ x x played x x on x x place. We inxtheirxlivingx room Hallowe’en. Matt was dressed in a homemade x x x x x x x x x bin bag costume. It was horrific.

xNope. x

@gtat You inx a cow x x recently x x played x x barn x at Truck Festival. What’s the smelliest / xsweatiest x xgig you’ve x x ever x done? x x x

Cloud Control Live x x x play xnext month’s x x Beck’s x x x show at East Village Arts Club, Liverpool, x 18thx October. x x xus questions x x for xthe x on Send band on Twitter @TheFlyMagazine with the x x x xby midnight x x on Friday x x13thx hashtag #beckslive September. An independent judge will then x x x x x x x x x select the best 10 questions for publication in the xmagazine. x xThosex questions x xwill win x thex x lucky poser a pair of tickets to the show.

the-fly.co.uk x x x

and clichéd. We love corny stuff like that.

WE ALL x x x x SUFFER FROM x SEASICKNESS...” x x x

x Tall x Ships x arexby far x the xbest sailing x x ves- x Nah. sels. They were built for epic adventures. x x x x Canoes x xare OK, x but x punts x canx do one. x We’re indifferent when it comes to x x x x x x x x x x x “iRONICALLY, rowing boats.

Red roses. They’re so obvious, lazily romantic x

x x

x we’re x x discussing x x politics, x xart orx phi- x When not losophy, time is mostly spent talking in stupid x x x making x x x CDx compilax x voices and/or horrible tions. Other than that, we like trying out new x x x x x x x x x service stations we haven’t been to before. That always provides a cheap thrill. x x x x x x x x x

x x

@SnaggyJake How do you keep yourselves entertained Magnetic travel x x xon the x road? x x x x x chess?

By a long, long way it’s our keyboard x x x x 15-20 x x player Jamie.x He averages minutes minimum. We do wonder x x x x x x x what he gets up to in there… [Don’t you guys watch Soccer AM? x x x x x x x – Knob Gags Ed]

x x

Not at the moment we’re afraid. We really x x tourx Ireland x x xbut wanted to onx our xfirst album it just didn’t happen for some reason. We’re x x xour second x x though x x will x defi-x busy writing and nitely come over to tour it!

x competition x xis onlyxopen toxUK residents x xaged 18xor overx This with access to the internet and excluding employees of Beck’s and The Fly magazine. By entering the competition, x x x x x x x x youxagree x to our full Terms & Conditions, which can be found at the-fly.co.uk/tsandcs. Closing date for entries is 13th September. x x willxbe responsible x xfor thexcost ofxtheir own x travel x Allxapplicants and accommodation expenses incurred in connection with their at x attendance x x the show. x x x x x x x

No-6x

@steoreilly Any plans to do shows in Dublin? x x x x x x x x

Tall Ships

x x

x x x Ric x x x x fields x x your x xabsolute x x x x x Frontman Phethean rubbish...

x x x x HOW ITx WORKS

x x

preferred flowers to be throw x x x x x x x onstage?

x @borges_mybbv x x x x x x What are your

x x

@Jknowd Who’s the longest in the x shower x xon tour? x x x x x

x x

The Fly Promotion

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Picks of 2013

Swim Deep, Citizens! & Toy Jack Daniel’s ® J.D. Roots announces three nights featuring some of the hottest UK bands of this year... In May and June this year JD Roots took Maximo Park and Miles Kane back to the tiny venues in Newcastle and Liverpool to celebrate the importance of home and the places where it all began. The series of homecoming gigs also celebrated emerging artists from across the nation in their own neighbourhoods. The Family Rain, The Ruen Brothers, Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs and Loom were given the chance to play shows in their own back yard on the J.D. Roots homecoming tour. Since then, Jack Daniel’s the-fly.co.uk

has scoured the summer festivals and beyond with a notepad and pen, all with the aim of bringing you J.D. Roots Picks of 2013 – a minitour featuring some of the very best recent British talent. J.D. Roots Picks of 2013 will take place this October, and will see three shows in three UK cities on three consecutive nights. Swim Deep kick things off at Edinburgh’s Picturehouse on the 23rd and the following night ﬁnds debonair popsters Citizens! at the Garage in London, while the closing night (25th) is in Manchester

at the Ritz, featuring psych fivesome TOY. Support acts each night will be local bands, reaffirming J.D. Roots’ commitment to music scenes at their grass roots. Tickets are priced at £10 in London and £8 in Edinburgh & Manchester (incl. booking fee). Tickets for all shows are on sale from 2nd September. Go to www.jackdaniels.com/ music for a full line-up, to buy tickets and to find out more about J.D. Roots. Know when to unplug. Please drink Jack Daniel’s responsibly. For the facts: drinkaware.co.uk

TOY play Manchester Ritz on 25th October.

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o n e s to w at c h

TRAAMS Do give up your day jobs, lads… Words R obert C ooke Photo J ames K endall

Turns out that being in a band and holding down a bog-standard day job is easier than you might think... “I’ll tell you what’s really weird, is how accommodating people are. When I told my boss I wanted to go on tour, she was just like, ‘Brilliant! Follow your dream!’” ...at least that’s been the experience of Stu Hopkins, who sells shoes by day, but by night fronts grungy post-punk trio TRAAMS. “Even [bassist Leigh] Padley didn’t have any trouble getting time off. And he works for a proper company! He kept saying, ‘I’m gonna get fired, I’m gonna get fired’, but when he went to his line manager about it, they said, ‘Tremendous! How much time do you need off?’” But should we really be surprised to find that TRAAMS’ nine-to-five employers have been so supportive? After all, the band the-fly.co.uk

have clearly been putting their hours outside the office to excellent use, making a debut album, ‘Grin’, that throttles and hypnotises in turn with its economical, taut riffage. “I think we always wanted it to be small,” Stu explains about the band’s straightforward set-up, evidenced in the wiry, hook-heavy ‘Mexico’ from the ‘Ladders’ EP, and the fuzzy, slacker stylings of album tracks ‘Flowers’ and ‘Sleep’. “It has always been about keeping it tight, keep it really lean, and make it neat and simple-ish.” The trio of Stu, Leigh and drummer Adam Stock formed TRAAMS in sleepy Chichester in the summer of 2011, having met at a club night Stu used to run in Bognor Regis. They’ve taken inspiration from far beyond their Sussex surroundings though, and their album (recorded by indie production glitterati

Rory Attwell and MJ from Hookworms) has a distinctly European feel. Opener ‘Swimming Pool’, for example, has gritty guitar tones that put us in mind of Scandinavians Holograms and Iceage, while ‘Head Roll’ and ‘Klaus’ could only have come out of hours of Krautrock experimentation. It’s these longer tracks that stand out at live shows, where expansive riff cycles have been having an incredible effect on audiences across the country. Stu: “If you do it for four bars it sounds a bit lame, and then at eight bars it sounds a bit long, but if you do it for 22 bars, you actually see people in the audience go past that point of thinking, ‘When’s this gonna fucking finish,’ to the point of, ‘Fucking hell, I don’t want this to finish!’ It sounds like TRAAMS are on the right track. ‘Grin’ is released on FatCat on 16th September

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o n e s to w at c h

NIQAB Free-spirited psychedelia veiled with noise... Words B en H omewood Photo S ophie H all

Next to a burnt-out disposable barbecue on the rooftop of their rehearsal space, Niqab are content. They’ve recently played their fourth-ever show and they’re about to do their first-ever interview. Rag-tag but stylish, Niqab (it rhymes with ‘kneecap’) were conceived as a “quiet acid-folk thing” at home by bespectacled singer/guitarist Edgar Smith and fledgling bassist Ruby Mariani last the-fly.co.uk

Christmas. Since augmented by drummer Tim Garratt and guitarists Danny Stead and Koichi Ymnha, fragility has been supplanted by languid fuzz and melodic drone. Laced with a psychedelic attitude, Niqab’s songs burn with spirited freedom. “Bands can be too brandconscious and on message. There’s no problem having different people in every photoshoot and being less

managed,” says Edgar, whose last band Advert made light of bands flaunting themselves. Advert disbanded after creative satisfaction was compromised and “it was better to not get pissed off, be friends instead.” Niqab, founded on nothing fancier than fun and pushed in a louder direction by Ruby (“We turned up and haven’t turned down”), seems a much happier entity. “Playing together here is really nice. The thrill you get from ‘doing well’ in journalistic terms is like what insurance salesmen get out of doing coke and playing poker, that feeling of fortune. The one we get from our music is different and special,” Edgar explains. He knows more about rock writing than most, having

TWIN PEAKS Chicago’s gnarliest rock‘n’roll teens in their own words... Words C adien L ake J ames Photo D avid L ibman Singer/guitarist Cadien Lake James explains his band... Twin Peaks are not a punk band... “I like to just call us rock‘n’roll because I’m opposed to labelling too much. It’s broad enough to include all of what we do.” Twin Peaks are fun on tour... “It’s vacation. In the city we’re still goofy and loud, but our days are a bit more lax.” Big plans are afoot... “We’re touring in September and we have a 7” out on Mom+Pop. In the winter we’ll record a new album. Then we’ll conquer the world!” Living with your parents is fine... “I live at home and don’t work a job right now, I’ve been lazy... Jack [Dolan] and Connor [Brodner] live at home too, and Clay [Frankel] lives in a house-venue, he’s the closest to growing up.”

moonlighted as a journalist. “It’s a fantasy, and if you remember that, it’s good. Lots of bands can find interviews and stuff annoying.” You get the impression Niqab would be difficult to annoy. Edgar is happy with their evolution from fingerpicking to face-melting. The image of five friends engrossed in music and ideas is indelible. They play with other bands (most notably, Danny with Charlie Boyer). They’re planning their first release for the end of the summer. “What makes bands hard is being a total mess, not turning up and losing stuff,” Edgar sums up, “We’re not being too precious about anything.”

Debut album ‘Sunken’ is an honest listen... “I think some is pretty, some is angsty, some is deep. It definitely encompasses where a lot of my emotions were at last year melodically, if not lyrically. The songs are about relationships with friends and family, excitement of youth, fear of growing up... senior year of high school sorta shit.” It’s OK to drop out... “I don’t regret it. I’m very grateful to be able to travel and play music as a young dude, and the experience is worth more than college at this point of life for me.” ‘Sunken’ is out now on Autumn Tone.

Niqab play Gun Club in Loughborough Junction, London on 21st September.

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GAPS Seaside electronica springs from the void… Words W ill F itzpatrick Photo V ic L entaigne It’s the seagulls that’ll get you first - subtle squawks permeate GAPS’ debut single, before slowly melting into the glare of the horizon. the-fly.co.uk

These reunited Midlands schoolfriends aren’t your average boy/girl duo. “We’d both moved down to Brighton independently of

each other,” explains producer Ed. “Later Rachel showed me some ideas that she’d recorded, and we just played around with them. Neither of us had done this sort of thing before.” “I’ve been a drummer since I was about twelve,” singer and guitarist Rachel continues. “Writing and recording was kind of like a secret little hobby of mine. It’s a totally different experience –

the main thing is having your heart and soul in it.” The subsequent revelation led to a spectrally beautiful collaboration. Blending Rachel’s haunting, minimalist songs with Ed’s vast array of manipulated found sounds, they swiftly amassed a collection of recordings before deciding to post them online. “We didn’t think we’d need a name at first,” Rachel admits, “but when we put the songs up we thought we’d best think of one. You know when you try on shoes, trying to find the right fit? ‘GAPS’ just came out of nowhere. It just felt right!” Word spread swiftly, and before long the everreliable Sexbeat label were on hand to release their first 7”, the double A-side ‘Keep You’/‘Cascade’. Recalling the bucolic folk of Vashti Bunyan, as reconstructed by futuristic tech-heads such as Four Tet or Animal Collective, it’s a tumbling collision of ideas both modern and classic. The results are stunning, adroitly illustrating their evident closeness, which sees them finishing each other’s sentences and collapsing into fits of giggles every thirty seconds. When we request a oneword description of their work, Rachel is incredulous at Ed’s reply. “‘Soul’?!?” she splutters, causing his infectious laugh to take over. “‘Soulful’, that’s what I meant,” he affirms, inadvertently nailing their most compelling quality. ‘Keep You’/‘Cascade’ is out now on Sexbeat

first o n 1.

5. 1. Tobias Jesso Jr 2. BANKS 3. COP 4. Amadels 5. The Wands

He’s got tousled hair, a beautiful voice and his song ‘Just A Dream’ tugs purposefully at the tearducts. Canadian kid Tobias Jesso Jr’s hook up with former Girls man Chet ‘JR’ White should produce heavenly results. Their Facebook page pegs them as ‘blues nyc’, and Amadels’ self-titled EP (download on Bandcamp) evokes a pleasurable simplicity. Prettier than Crystal Stilts stroking The Drums’ hair in a Greenpoint dive bar. LA singer BANKS finds herself in the same breathy sentences as Lana Del Rey, Jessie Ware and The

Weeknd, but it’s her latest track, the surging SOHN-produced ‘Waiting Game’, that’s most impressive. Raleigh Ritchie has toured with Kendrick and is introspective like Frank. Spacious, enigmatic and lush, the free-to-download ‘Middle Child EP’ uncovers an exciting new UK R&B talent. raleighritchie.com. We’ve been spoiled for psych this year, but dapper Danes The Wands aren’t letting a glut of competitors bother them. Experience their mazy, dope-strong songs at Liverpool Psych Fest this month.

Meet punk rockers COP, who emerged from the ashes of Advert alongside Niqab. Of their demos, the muddy ‘Hard Cell’ is our favourite. It’s perfectly crusty, listen at facebook.com/ coptheband.

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NBURY ORNIA

F I E L D ON... ARCtIC MONKEYs are all over the place. And yet, as JJ Dunning discovers, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re more together than ever before... Photography: T om o ldham

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Arctic Monkeys

Alex Turner has a problem. He squints into the mirror, then sweeps his leather jacket off his hip, delving into his jeans back pocket to remove a comb. With two-hands, he scoops and sculpts his hair onto the top of his head. There’s a moment of appraisal. Has that fixed it? Hmm. Yep, that should do it. With a tug on his upturned collar, he swivels and strides off to rejoin the rest of his band. Though it is 36 hours after they headlined Glastonbury, the Arctic Monkeys do not look like they’ve been anywhere near a farm. As Turner will impart to us later, the band has a “wardrobe case” that follows them everywhere they go; ergo, they always look slicker than a BP spillage. Clean shaven and pristine, together they look like a collection of 50s dreamboats. Turner, the de facto ringleader and inevitable

“It’s THE FIRST TIME WE’VE BEEN LIVING IN THE SAME TOWN FOR EIGHT YEARS...”

poster boy, set in his role as the Danny Zuko of the piece. Along the line, Nick O’Malley and Jamie Cook wear pressed denim shirts, a coarse counterpoint to his and Matt Helders’ smooth leathers. If the five o’clock shadows seen around the time of last album ‘Suck It And See’ feel a long time ago, then the Adidas t-shirts and mushroom-bob hairdos belong to a different epoch altogether. Though Helders and Turner are fresh faced, during our 40-minute interview in a private members’ bar over the road, the odd yawn or somnolent pause belies their weekend in Somerset. But it’s the fact that they’ve spent so much time even further from home that’s first on our agenda. Having recorded their last two records on the west coast of America, is the most British-sounding band of the last the-fly.co.uk

ten years now officially staffed by ex-pats? Or is their past year there more like an extended working holiday? “All those boundaries are a bit blurred these days,” says Alex sleepily, like even the notion of America has given him jetlag. “We were/are living there, but then again we kind of live here. Weirdly, you feel at home on the road with all the crew. It’s like some travelling family or something.” Such a dislocated existence ricocheting back and forth across the Atlantic might explain why the band’s fifth album, ‘AM’, sounds like it has hoovered up everything from smooth R&B to 70s metal. But far from suffering an identity crisis, the band see their own image more clearly than ever before. Recording in a desert in California has, at least in some ways, brought them closer to home... “It’s all come back stronger since we’ve been there,” says Alex. “I’ve been hanging around with Jamie a lot. It’s the first time all four of us have been living in the same town for eight years. It means we’ve hung about a lot with each other – spending more time talking about [Sheffield] Wednesday than we ever have.” The album closes with a moment that feels distinctly British, involving the reappropriated John Cooper-Clarke poem ‘I Wanna Be Yours’. It references “Ford Cortinas”, and “leccy meters” and although the Mancunian’s words are ever-so-slightly modified by Turner, the languid pace of the ballad makes it feel nostalgic, and very much like a postcard home. Not that he sees it that way... “That was just me being a smart arse,” grins Alex. “Being a smart arse and wanting to put a twist on things. If a band’s going to do a Johnny Clarke poem as a song, you expect that it’ll sound like The Fall. A lot of these tunes on this record we made as instrumentals. I had my headphones on listening back and I started singing that poem and thought ‘Oh, that’s quite a good juxtaposition - this smooth melody and his words’.”

JACK DANIEL NEVER KNEW HIS BIRTHDAY.

SO THE ENTIRE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER SEE MED LIKE A REASONABLE COMPROMISE.

Blame it on lousy record keeping or forgetful parents. For some reason, Jack Daniel never knew what day he was born. But he did know which month. And in the long run, that proved a more rewarding option. Raise a glass to the man and his Tennessee Whiskey. And celebrate Mr. Jack’s birthday all September long.

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Arctic Monkeys

Such conflicting styles are the defining character of ‘AM’, and yet it’s an album that slots together like mortise and tenon – something that sounds as slick as its creators look. Where ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ lolls along on Alex’s baritone and falsetto harmonies, ‘Arabella’ cribs its tight-crotched guitar thrusts from Black Sabbath. “To me there are two sides to this record,” says Alex. “One side’s got this 70s thin drum stand, blue-screen, big scale rock to it – Sabbath, Groundhogs, that kind of thing. The other side is these kind of operatic, big, cosmic melodies that sort of float around and drift into almost an R&B liquid light show.” “The R&B thing came from experimenting with different styles of backing vocals,” says Matt. “Trying falsettos and different melodies opened up those doors for us.”

“Do you really wanna know the answer to that?” In particular, ‘Knee Socks’, has a vocal break that sounds uncommonly close to something Gnarls Barkley might do. “That’s my favourite bit of the record,” says Alex. Even though it’s uncharacteristic of the Monkeys? “Is it? The words on that bit seem really us. I think that that’s the most interesting 30 seconds we’ve ever stumbled across. It was also accidental. That’s the bit where Josh [Homme] is on it too. I really get a kick out of that bit.” Where its predecessor, ‘Suck It And See’, arrived in the studio almost fully-formed (Alex’s summation is notably rock-star: “I wrote pretty much all of it sitting on my couch in New York on an acoustic guitar,”), ‘AM’ was more of a communal effort, with beginnings rooted in Alex’s birthday present – the-fly.co.uk

a four-track tape recorder. “I believe that certain bits of equipment have songs in them,” he says. “This four-track has a quality to it – that you play something back on it and you hear it differently. That process leads you off through the door...” Equally responsible was a Vox Starstream 12-string guitar. Bought on the last day of recording for ‘Suck It And See’, the teardropshaped instrument gave Alex the central riff for ‘Do I Wanna Know?’, the song that opened their second Glastonbury headline set. Along with that song, Alex and Matt cite ‘R U Mine?’ – released for Record Store Day in 2012 – as the impetus for the whole album. “The definition of what a song like ‘RU Mine?’ is got kicked around a lot,” says Alex. “In the end, there’s something about this record – it’s the closest we’ve got to the blueprint we had at the start of the thing. We always set off with an idea and then it spirals out... This one’s kind of stuck to the plan.” “I always think of records in two halves. I still think of it as being that you listen to the first half and then turn it over. I’m completely aware that most people aren’t going to enjoy it that way – that’s up to them. As a starting point as an artist – let me use that word – I want to have that structure in my mind. I like it when things make sense, and this album makes the most sense in a while.” There are two ballads in the centre of ‘AM’ that form a breakwater. By Alex’s definition, ‘No. 1 Party Anthem’ ends the first side, while “‘Mad Sounds’ seems like coming back around, turning a corner.” Which brings us to his lyrics. The former carries the imperious line “leather jacket collar popped like Cantona”, while the latter seems to contain something a little less frivolous – hinting that it might be nailing something more personal and uncomfortable. Though it happened a long time ago, ‘AM’ is the first full release since Alex split from his longterm girlfriend Alexa Chung in August 2011. Should we be reading into ‘Mad Sounds’’ assertion that “Love buckles under the strain

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Arctic Monkeys

of those wild nights”? Alex’s face is arrested between affront and disgust, “Erm... I don’t know if it matters whether it is or not. I always feel ‘Do you really wanna know the answer to that?’” “What I will say about that is that it’s a song about other songs. It’s about them songs that sympathise with how you feel or bring you out of some rut, and hopefully in turn it is one of those songs. When you put on a record – my examples will be different to yours – but there are certain tunes that when you hear them for the first time they seem to understand what you’re going through. One of those two-in-the-morning songs; a John Cale tune, or Nilsson or something. There’s this record by Michael Chapman called ‘Fully Qualified Survivor’ that I became obsessed with for a

“I’VE GOT NOTHING AGAINST THEM OLD SONGS...”

time. It has these mad sounds on and it makes you understand something you don’t even understand about yourself.” “But the main line from [‘Mad Sounds’’] chorus is actually taken from this tune that a chap called Alan Smyth wrote. He used to record the Monkeys when we first made demos. He had this weird tune that was a wasp synthesiser, he had it on a cassette and he played it to us. There’s a voice going [sings] ‘Mad sounds in your ears, make you get up and dance, make you get up and dance’ and it stuck in my head...” These days, is he more preoccupied with twisted love songs than the social commentary of something like, say, ‘Fake Tales Of San Francisco’? “For me, that’s like ‘Did I ever do that deliberately?’” he shrugs. “I never thought of the-fly.co.uk

it as social commentary. If that’s what it was, then what was I actually saying?” But you did paint caricatures of people. Was that all they were? Caricatures? “We’ve been playing a few of them old songs and I’m standing there singing it and thinking ‘What am I on about?’ It was just pointing at things. Quips - people get a kick out of them. I’ve not got nothing against them old songs, but I wasn’t passing comment. It was more deflecting away from myself. I think we start off by doing that. When I was writing about things I was looking at something going on, I’d be in the corner of the pub, but eventually, you run out of things to point at so you look somewhere else. Eventually, you turn inward.” Do your lyrics change naturally, because you’re out of that environment? “I think that ‘Why D’You Only Call Me When You’re High?’ could lyrically, in a weird way, have been on the first record. So, I still want to try and do a bit of that thing.” “It’s strange, even though you’re not in the same places, you still sometimes find yourself in a situation that the first batch of songs were about. Obviously, I don’t really want to repeat that again, but I think maybe it’s cool to have a bit of that sometimes. I don’t want it to all be like, ‘Haha! Look at that...” he flounders for an example, “Taxi?’” Speaking of taxis, the band’s is here, waiting to carry them off to their next appointment. Today’s task list – photos, interviews and a nocturnal video shoot – can hardly be a welcome workload for the Monday after a festival, can it? “I’m sure this is nothing compared to some people’s schedules,” says Alex, leveraging it all with a predictably wry line in Yorkshire common sense. “Some of those pop acts get worked like mad.” He gives a grin and straightens his collar again. “It’s not like I’ve got owt else to do, d’you know what I mean?” ‘AM’ is released on Domino Recording Co. on 9th September.

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19/08/2013

14:48

@WeAreTheMU in association with Primary Talent

Buzzed-about Danish duo earning props from Jay-Z, Adele, Tyler The Creator, Mark Ronson, Raphael Saadiq and more

the debut single from Latimer House out now on Honk Records

coloured 7" vinyl | digital

latimerhouse.com

This Is Pop / Shake!

+ special guests

TUE 12 NOV • LONDON XOYO Doors 7pm • xoyo.co.uk • ticketmaster.co.uk • seetickets.com • ticketweb.co.uk NEW ALBUM ‘Avalanche’ out now on Vested in Culture / EPIC

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What the hell are Factory Floor doing? Daniel Ross finds out... Photograph: J im E yre

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factory floor Serious bands make serious records, look serious on stage and take themselves too seriously. And on paper, Factory Floor couldn’t get any more serious. Born in an east London electronic scene that they’ve now fled, they’re as comfortable playing a warehouse party as they are doing a three-hour improvisation at the Tate Modern (which actually happened, you know). Their self-titled debut album is finally ready after a few years of occasional EPs and transcendental live shows, and it’s brimming with confident, assured electronic filth, rugby-tackle percussion and a notinconsiderable dollop of murkiness. Why has it taken so long to arrive? Vocalist Nik Colk gives a rather practical reason: “Building our own studio took some time, but that was probably the turning point. It’s got quite a large living area which we

“WHEN WE PLAY LIVE I CAN’T WORK OUT WHO’S MAKING WHAT SOUND...”

turned into our live space. It is literally an ex-factory building within a complex of other factories that are still going.” Man of synths Dominic Butler concurs: “I think that was the point we felt confident with our sound.” “We kind-of live there as well,” continues Nik. “It’s in north London, so it’s away from that east London scene we were in before, we wanted to get out of that and be in our own bubble.” The album does indeed sound like the product of three people clustered in a room for several months at a time, not needing to leave until they have something worthwhile to show for it. Opening track ‘Turn It Up’ is daringly sparse, made up only of fragments of vocal and rhythm and possessive of a Prince-like neglect the-fly.co.uk

of an actual bass line. How valuable is restraint in Factory Floor’s sound? “Very valuable,” says percussionist Gabe Gurnsey without a second of hesitation. “I think ‘Turn It Up’ was an opportunity for us to test the sparseness. It took a while to accept that doing little things is enough and it’s really important to keep things minimal.” Dominic concurs: “It’s like negative space in an image, we’re focusing as much on the emptiness.” As a result of that sparseness, there’s an exhilarating sense with the album that it’s the work of three very distinct voices, all jostling for precious attention. But with that, brilliantly, comes clashes, musical and otherwise. “That’s kind-of the point, isn’t it?” reasons Dom. “That’s what makes the shape and the interesting points in what we do.” Gabe thinks back to that epic Tate Modern improvisation: “I left the room at points and left Dom and Nik on their own, and the same went for them. Sometimes you need to leave room for the other people to breathe. But when we’re all hammering it together on stage it’s such an amazing sound.” Do those clashes sometimes bring about undesirable results? “Sometimes when we play live I can’t work out who’s making what sound…” says Nik, dreamily. “I don’t think it’s undesirable though.” It would be tempting to think that there’s a level of telepathy involved in their live show. Indeed, when you see them, the sound is incredibly affronting, but the three figures on stage barely move. What kind of communication goes on? “There’s a lot of snare-hitting,” laughs Dominic knowingly. Nik seems to feel the same: “People think we look really serious on stage, but it’s just because we’re concentrating.” So there’s no magical telepathic bond? It’s all just instinct and guesswork? Gabe nails it: “It’s bafflement.” Serious and brilliant, it’s comforting that Factory Floor are as confused as the rest of us. ‘Factory Floor’ is released on DFA on 9th September.

FIVE IN MIND:

SPLASHH Scuffed-psych stoners reveal the things that inspired their debut album ‘Comfort’… Words: R hian D aly Photograph: L ouise H aywood -S chiefer A collection of songs documenting the group’s first 18 months together, Splashh’s debut record is full of jagged, lo-fi thrills - blazing summer vibes masking a throbbing heartache and the rage of emotions that come with that. Frontman Sasha Carlson, drummer Jacob Moore and guitarist Toto Vivian pick five factors that helped make ‘Comfort’…. Toto’s London Bedroom Toto: “We did it all in my bedroom so it was quite easy for us.” Sasha: “It was exciting, even just being in London. We were excited to be there.” Toto: “Even though it was winter when this all started, we wrote most of the album then. I guess that helped as well.” Sasha: “Me and Toto would be inside the whole day recording. We had this new bond that we’d found through guitar pedals.” Toto: “Those delay pedals, man. It was so easy - it wasn’t like a massive process of going to the studio and setting up for hours. We could just plug in, record and there it is.” Sasha: “It was kind of about longing for home as well though. Longing to get out and then longing to go back.”

dance too, I guess.” Toto: “Some of the best songs we wrote on the album were written when we were seriously hungover. You envision walking into club and hearing your songs. We always used to do that: “Imagine walking into a club and hearing this. I’d be liking this!”” WANTING People TO Clap Toto: “The thought of playing festivals was very inspiring. I think our music is very fitting for festivals, too. Jacob: “I think towards the end of making the record, the idea of crowds clapping started to feel like it could happen. The first few songs obviously, we didn’t think about that at all. But then you start thinking ‘How would this sound on the stage to actual people?’” Sasha: “You start picturing yourself and dreaming about it. It kind of becomes really exciting.” Toto: “Yeah, you always make sure there’s a bit where people can start clapping. A strong snare sound for people to clap to [laughs].”

Break-up Revenge Sasha: “It sounds a bit cheesy but I guess that’s what the songs are about. I had a bit of a bad break up and just had to get out of Australia. It’s kind of like “I’ll show her”.”

Naughty Fags Sasha: “You want the druggies to like your music, don’t you? I guess when we wrote the songs we were just hanging out, smoking joints.” Jacob: “Yeah, you want the stoners to like it. You want some dude to put it on and be like [mimes putting on headphones and lighting a joint]. And you want yourself to like it.”

WANTING To Make People Dance Sasha: “There was just an urge to go out and have fun. We wanted to make people

‘Comfort’ is out now on Luv Luv Luv. The Fly Presents… Splashh on tour from 3rd October, coming to a town near you.

the-fly.co.uk

S u b - S o n i c Li v e R e t u rn s Reggae legend David Rodigan MBE curates an amazing line-up in London this autumn...

Fred Perry Sub-Sonic Live returns to the Garage in London this October. Focusing on reggae and British reggae – two of the most significant subcultures of the last forty years – this month’s event is curated by Britain’s foremost reggae authority, David Rodigan

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MBE. Famous throughout Britain’s reggae dance-halls for over 30 years, Rodigan’s extensive knowledge of every Jamaican artist, song and rhythm track makes him the perfect choice to curate this very special SubSonic Live. On the bill alongside David is Lee “Scratch” Perry. A recording pioneer of the reggae world, Perry built an experimental recording studio in his back yard in Jamaica and produced early recordings for legends including Bob Marley & the Wailers, Junior Byles, The Heptones,

and Max Romeo. Both will be appearing in the main room at the Garage this month, alongside a hand-picked line-up including live dub from Resonators (heralded by Rodigan as “British Reggae at its best”, but also drawing praise from Mark Lamarr, Lauren Laverne and Craig Charles). Fred Perry Sub-Sonic Live, featuring David Rodigan MBE, Lee “Scratch” Perry and Resonators, takes place on 10th October at the Garage in London. For ticket info, visit fredperrysubculture.com

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MGMT They dodged the 27 Club, now MGMT return with a record that’s out of this world... Words A lex D enney Photography T om O ldham

Selling a million copies of your debut album would not, it seems fair to wager, be considered a problem for most bands. But Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyndgarden – who, as MGMT, all but stole the summer of 2008 with the monster success of ‘Oracular Spectacular’ - might almost have been forgiven for wishing it never happened. The pair must’ve known that its followup, the consciously arty, experimental ‘Congratulations’, would disappoint those who’d come for the synth-pop singalongs, and sure enough, they cut cagey figures in interview. After its online release left more than a few people scratching their heads, Ben actually went as far as to apologise for lead single ‘Flash Delirium’, while the band made it the-fly.co.uk

clear they didn’t want singles to be lifted from the record at all (though their label swiftly put paid to that idea). In the event, ‘Congratulations’ (by no means a bad record) went on to sell more than 60,000 records in debut week in the UK, and 11,000 in the following 18 months. Clearly, these were testing times for MGMT. But three years down the line - and with another album in the can - the pair say they wouldn’t have it any other way. What’s more, you can actually believe them. “At this point I really feel like we did the right thing,” says Ben. “If we had tried to take our blueprint from the first album to make the second, I think it would’ve come across as fake, and would’ve probably hurt us more in

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MGMT

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“If we’d tried to take our blueprint from the first album to make the second, it would’ve hurt us in the long run...”

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MGMT the long run. And now I think people know to expect the unexpected from us.” For their third record - self-titled, in part, for its rock-cliché comedy value – the unexpected comprises a set of richly textured, playful songs culled from long hours spent jamming out ideas at a cabin in the woods with producer Dave Fridmann. While not a record likely to woo back the festival girls with flowers in their hair that dug the first one, ‘MGMT’ does sound much more comfortable in its own weird skin, a fact that Ben says was borne of their improved mood going into recording. “We didn’t really wanna start working on a new album ’til we’d had time to put our heads back on our shoulders a little bit, and just feel normal you know?” says Ben. “I think it really shows in the music, we’re coming from a much more grounded place.” For Andrew, seeing the band’s difficult past few years as part of a bigger overall picture was

“Everything around us is alien-like and strange...”

key in allowing them to loosen up going into the new record. “Writing the first album we were 24 and kind of bright-eyed and naive and fantastical,” he says. “There was this feeling that anything can happen, the world’s this beautiful big place - and then we go and tour on it and the second album is this sort of disillusioned, withdrawn and cynical thing that has a darker mystical feeling than the first one. And now we’re 30 it feels more like, uhh... comfortable watching it all happen, and not feeling this push and pull of needing to do this or that. “It was a difficult experience for us, dealing with people who said [‘Congratulations’] was difficult. Because to me it was influenced by almost easy-listening folk rock, this kind of softer sound, so for people to say it was the-fly.co.uk

challenging I thought was odd. But what I see is just a natural progression of ageing, of getting older and sounds that reflect the fact. ‘Congratulations’ came out when we were 27, which archetypally is Saturn’s return – I mean, not that I believe in astrology necessarily, but you know, there’s like the ‘27 Club’ with people like Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin or whatever.” Maybe, in the end, it’s a shared feeling for the absurd that has allowed MGMT to prevail. The band has described the new record as good for people who feel like aliens, a feeling Andrew and Ben have shared as far back as their college days, and their first mushroom trip spent contemplating a limestone wall and how it was made up of all these “tiny little fossilised things”. “We realised we had a shared appreciation for the bizarreness of everyday things,” says Andrew. “It’s just taking a second to think about stuff we take for granted that is actually strange. Everything from the names of animals or even animals themselves, it’s alien-like and it’s all around us. And the feeling translates itself into feeling like an alien in certain situations, like when we go to the offices at Sony in Midtown Manhattan, and there’s this whole world that’s just business and people in suits. I guess it’s a common feeling.” Who knows what the suits would make of the new album? But, once you accept the band on their own terms, there’s no denying that ‘MGMT’ – Andrew describes it as a “synthesis of our playful, silly initial spirit with the more serious side of the second album” - offers thrills in abundance for the cosmically attuned. Is it weird, thinking back on your early days as indie rock heartthrobs? There was a lot of semi-nudity in those early press shoots... “That happened in one photoshoot,” laughs Andrew, “then everyone was like, ‘Yeah, why don’t you take your top off?’ And all of a sudden we’d be covered in money and naked. But it was fun... There were times when maybe we weren’t the most comfortable, when people thought we were one thing and we were something else. But we survived, you know?” ‘MGMT’ is released on Columbia on 17th September.

PLUS SUPPORT

GUARDS

12 October Glasgow ABC1 13 October Wolves Civic 14 October Manchester O2 Apollo 16 October London Forum SOLD

OUT

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NEW ALBUM ‘MGMT’ OUT 16 SEPTEMBER WATCH WHOISMGMT.COM FOR ALL INFO 43

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alb u m of t h e mo n t h

Haim ‘Days Are Gone’

HHHH

(Polydor)

Having toured with likes of Florence & The Machine and Rihanna, and appeared on albums by Kid Cudi and Major Lazer, the sisters Haim are a more interesting proposition than the Fleetwood Mac-copyists they were initially tagged as. But it’s also left them with a bit of an identity crisis, which appears to have spilled over into their muchdelayed debut album. While their live shows pitched them as a straight ahead rock band - all flailing hair and extended guitar workouts - their early singles also exposed a love for sleek, early noughties R&B productions. Thankfully - with the help of producers James Ford and Ariel Rechtshaid - they’ve managed to streamline both sides of their personality into eleven meticulously-produced songs that the-fly.co.uk

veer from the odd, blues-meetship-hop stomp of ‘My Song 5’, to the delicious, 80s teen movie soundtrack rush of ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’. In fact, it’s when they let their lustrous hair down that things really take off, specifically on the excellent title track - co-written by Jessie Ware - which re-casts Danielle as a falsetto-ed soul singer sighing wistfully over an eruption of bubbling beats. Alongside the slinky ‘Falling’ and current single ‘The Wire’, it’s also another example of the band employing the old trick of burying sadness in upbeat melodies, the only problem being that it’s often buried a little too deeply. So while snatches of melancholy shine through - the “if you say the word then I’ll say goodbye” line that pierces ‘Forever’, for example there’s a sheen to much of ‘Days Are Gone’ that can prevent you from delving further. But it’s a minor quibble on the whole, chiefly because the songs are strong enough to keep pulling you in for repeated listens, each hook burying itself deeper and deeper. Michael Cragg Download: ‘Days Are Gone’, ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’, ‘The Wire’

Louise Haywood-Schiefer

Sleek R&B and muted melancholy on sisters’ glossy debut...

Sister Hedge: Haim left to right, Alana, Danielle, Este.

the-fly.co.uk

Tom Oldham

In slickness and in health: Nick, Jamie, Matt and Alex.

Arctic Monkeys ‘AM’ HHHHH n(Domino Recording Co.) Monkeys’ fifth is a sensational, smooth transition... Arctic Monkeys have never been the stale types. It’s no surprise then, that fifth album ‘AM’ continues to push things forward. Where ‘Suck It And See’ was crooned and swoonsone, ‘AM’ takes cooler cues from the band’s lives in California, tinged with the grooves of Dr. Dre and west coast hip-hop. ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ sets the tone with pounding beats, Matt Helders’ simpering falsetto and lyrics that cast Alex Turner as a lustful lothario. ‘One For The Road’ sees Jamie Cook’s slinking guitar lines and club-worthy drum beats cushioning the-fly.co.uk

Alex’s semi-raps ,while ‘Arabella’ continues the theme, as the impressively quiffed frontman details an intergalactic beauty with a “Barbarella silver swimsuit” and a “seventies head”. Things return to the style of ‘Suck It...’ momentarily on middle pairing ‘No.1 Party Anthem’ and ‘Mad Sounds’ and later, as if in one final attempt to convince us they’ve not forgotten their roots in all that LA sun, Alex - using craggier than a cliff-top wordsman John Cooper-Clarke’s poetry coos about a leccy meter (‘I Wanna Be Yours’). It’s the romantic last dance of an album that shows that they’re still the same old Monkeys. Just dressed up slicker and sexier. Rhian Daly Download: ‘No.1 Party Anthem’, ‘Arabella’, ‘I Wanna Be Yours’

alb u m r e vi e w s

Babyshambles Body/Head ‘Sequel To The Prequel’

(Parlophone) Listening to Babyshambles’ horrible third album is like being stuck on a roundabout with no exits. Worse still, this nauseating Wurlitzer endlessly laps a man who has been playing the same song for nearly ten years. His patter is running out too, to the point that the lines “I really don’t like your boyfriend’s face/I’m gonna try and take his place,” sound grimly lecherous, rather than natty or dashing. Strung together, these sicklyfeeble drug ballads constitute a half-paced, dreary, out-of-date, boorish, indulgent, vapid, and turgid whole, arrested in 2004 and mired in self-reverence. Pass the sick bag... JJ Dunning Download: Fruit Ninja or something.

‘Coming Apart’

HHH (Matador)

Cloud Control

Crystal Stilts

‘Dream Cave’

‘Nature Noir’

HHH

HHHH

“Do you belive in life after love,” Cher once asked. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, who earlier this year broke up with longterm partner in noise and husband, Thurston Moore, clearly does, judging by her fierce, pitiless noise bounceback Body/Head. Featuring strangled guitar courtesy of Boston avant-garde shredder Bill Nace, by no means is ‘Coming Apart’ a break-up album in the traditional sense; no tearspattered ballads emerge here. However, anger, bitterness and scorn spike the discomfiting atmosphere at every turn, like on the dark yowl of ‘Last Mistress’ and ‘Actress’, whose discordant jabs echo Gordon’s alma mater. Jamie Skey

(Infectious)

(Sacred Bones)

Everybody loves a harmony, and Cloud Control’s debut offered woozy folk-pop with some killer displays of vocal prowess. This time round though, things have gone a bit awry. Attempting what fellow Antipodeans Tame Impala do so well, Cloud Control have wandered into the realm of trippy psychedelia. But instead of vivid colours, ‘Dream Cave’ offers a frustrating splatter of sounds. The nauseating Beach Boys pastiche of ‘Moonrabbit’ and the bizarre Abbagone-EDM stylings of ‘The Smoke The Feeling’ are an unfortunate distraction from moments of brilliance such as ‘Promises’. Sophie Thomsett

Crystal Stilts’ previous records crackled and thundered like electrical storms, but this latest effort heads for more subdued pastures. Slow-burning opener ‘Spirit In Front Of Me’ steps carefully into this brave new world, fuelled by stuttering guitar chords. It’s possessed by a dreaminess which subsequently drifts across the remaining tracks; briefly illuminated by the Velvet Underground sparkle of ‘Future Folklore’. The darkness has descended on this Brooklyn outfit. It’s intimidating at first, but once your eyes adjust, you’ll relish joining them in the shadows. Will Fitzpatrick

Download: ‘Last Mistress’

Download: ‘Promises’

Download: ‘Future Folklore’

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Delorean ‘Apar’

HH (Matador) Delorean probably hate being compared to other dreamy electro acts – but we’re going to do it anyway. Because while the likes of Animal Collective and Yeasayer can sound like they’re from other times, places and planets, Delorean sound more like they’re making music for a lacklustre university recruitment video. ‘Unhold’ paves some interesting common ground between Cocteau Twins and the Cranberries, and ‘Keep Up’ shares a sun-kissed quality with the incredible Chromatics, but the preppy, all-too-easy-toignore ‘You Know It’s Right’ makes it clear why Delorean’s peers don’t tread the same paths. Robert Cooke Download: ‘Unhold’

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Factory Floor

Holograms ‘Forever’

HHHHn

‘Factor y Floor’

HHHHHn

(Captured Tracks)

London Grammar ‘If You Wait’

HHH

Factory Floor have been toiling away for years now, lighting up grotty venues with their unclassifiable concoction of industrialpost-punk-acid-krauttechno excellence. This debut cements their shift from post-industrial beginnings towards more danceable fare, while still maintaining that aggressive edge. ‘Turn It Up’ is crisply minimalistic, while ‘Here Again’ has a bash at pop with a gargantuan, Donna Summer-echoing pseudo-chorus, while ‘How You Say’ sounds like a cross between oldschool acid house and a broken radio. This is music that demands to be played loud and often. James Ubaghs

Four Scandinavian dudes making super-pissed postpunk. Who had Iceage on their indie bingo card? Hang on though: whereas the furrowbrowed Danes lean further towards hardcore, Sweden’s Holograms pull harder on icier influences (the Joy Division-esque ‘Attestupa’ is enough to make you wonder if you’ve accidentally stuck on ‘Unknown Pleasures’). Happily, it’s rewarding stuff, and their attempts to make ‘Forever’ feel like “a mass… or eulogy” inspire a sense of ritualistic grandeur, not least when the monastic chorus of ‘Wolves’ kicks in. An unholy marriage of the brutal and the brilliant, fuelling suspicion that their best is yet to come. Will Fitzpatrick

Ask a young band the question “So what are your influences?” and chances are they’ll throw around some names from decades gone by. But in the case of London Grammar, the spectre of a group that appeared relatively recently - The xx - hangs heavy. In the minimalism of their atmospheric pop there’s a niggling sense that we’ve been here before (and not long enough ago), which is further heightened by the fact that Hannah Reid’s warble bears strong resemblance to Florence Welch. Still, London Grammar’s polished take on trip-hop is quietly dramatic and sometimes beautiful. Sophie Thomsett

Download: ‘Here Again’

Download: ‘Lay Us Down’

Download: ‘Stay Awake’

(DFA)

(Metal & Dust/ Ministry Of Sound)

Middle of the Road-eo? Kings Of Leon: Jared, Caleb, Matthew and Nathan.

Kings Of Leon ‘Mechanical Bull’

HHH

(Columbia)

Can the Followills take their career by the horns? Are Kings Of Leon back? ‘Mechanical Bull’’s front end is grimy and thrusts, frots and perspires like it’s 2004. ‘Supersoaker’, with neon-American imagery and ‘Taper Jean Girl’-referencing percussion, is uninhibited. ‘Don’t Matter’ and ‘Rock City’ offer motorcycle-ready rock and lascivious moodiness. There’s sex, familial chemistry and beardy manliness – things people cherish Kings for. But they’re snatched away. ‘Beautiful War’ is wantonly epic; a stab at a U2 mega-ballad that whooshes away like Christian Bale’s Batman, ‘Temple’ is lamentably drive-time.

Bizarre centrepiece ‘Family Tree’ brings revival. Caleb – flawless throughout – croaks “A-ha” heralding an exercise in bravery that is simultaneously amazing and awful - guitars a 57-year-old would term ‘funky’ and a chant-a-long breakdown (think Sister Sledge). Thereafter, ‘Tonight’ aggressively reimagines ‘Use Somebody’, before cheese-heavy pair ‘Walk A Mile’ (built for a Heinz soup advert) and ‘On The Chin’ (you’ll taste the dry ice) close ‘Mechanical Bull’ ostentatiously. The return to form many crave has proved impossible, but this is the sound of youths grown into their manhood. Ben Homewood Download: ‘Supersoaker’, ‘Don’t Matter’, ‘Family Tree’

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V. Average: CHVRCHES Lauren Mayberry, Martin Doherty and Iain Cook.

CHVRCHES ‘The Bones Of What You Believe’

HHHn(Virgin)

Electro trio lacking spark... CHVRCHES’ unstoppable rise is one that simultaneously makes perfect and absolutely no sense. On one hand, the Scots deal in undeniably massive, accessible hooks - the kind that sit equally happily on Radio One, an eccied dance floor or on your mum’s car stereo. On the other, however, there’s literally nothing about ‘The Bones Of What You Believe’ that sounds in any way new. Save for, perhaps, The Naked And Famous (arguably a more sonically-varied proposition), CHVRCHES sit in a space of their own in 2013. It’s the-fly.co.uk

easy to see why. ‘TBOWYB’ begins with ‘The Mother We Share’, singer Lauren Mayberry’s delicate vocal cooing over synth stabs and a sing-along, festivalfriendly chorus. It’s catchy and it’s all very ‘nice’, but it falls sickeningly close to the Foster The People school of improbably big singles (read: a bit ‘blah’). The rest of the record follows suit. ‘We Sink’ starts promisingly but never really does anything, ‘Recover’ follows the formula but with a higherpitched vocal, whilst slowie ‘Tether’ is the only real diversion. It’s hard to be really horrible, because there’s nothing actively bad about CHVRCHES. But it is hard to care too much about something this safe. Lisa Wright Download: ‘Tether’, ‘Lies’, ‘The Mother We Share’

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Love Inks ‘Generation Club’

HHHHn

(Monofonus Press)

Manic Street Preachers

Mazzy Star

Moby

‘Seasons Of Your Day’

‘Innocents’

‘Rewind The Film’

HHHH

(Little Idiot)

(Rhymes Of An Hour Records)

(Columbia)

No longer salaried by constant advert licensing, baldy vegan whale expert Moby is back to paint the airwaves with his office-friendly psychedelic electronica. Shades of his previous work still exist (those blues vocal samples are still there), but for the first time he’s more interested in actual songs - hence the appearance of folk like Damien Jurado, whose turn is the best here by a distance (Wayne Coyne fares less well). Also notable is ‘The Dogs’, a plaintive, solemn little closer that ends Moby’s journey from bedroom to television and back to bedroom again - small, quiet emotions, effectively deployed. Daniel Ross Download: ‘Almost Home’

When Sherry LeBlanc purrs “Oh, you’ve got grey eyes,” on ‘Hearts Up’ it’s at once a neat reference to the New Order classic ‘Temptation’ and an immediate surpassing of all that Love Inks have done before. Although debut LP ‘ESP’ is something of a cult favourite, ‘Generation Club’ could be the catalyst to spur the Texan trio on to greater things. Building on that airy sparseness, this is an album with more force and gravitas, the likes of ‘Outta Sight’ and ‘Secret Tattoo’ dressed up in glittering synths and fuller, weightier percussion. Simultaneously nostalgic and fresh, it’s a bold second coming. Rhian Daly

The Manics have always had a tortuous relationship with nostalgia. ‘Rewind The Film’, their 11th(!) album, shows just how well the subject suits them, lyricist Nicky Wire serenading his Welsh roots and railing against his shortcomings as a middle-aged man. The music, avoiding the knackered-heavyweight bluster of ‘Postcards From A Young Man’, is relaxed and enjoyable, from the Dexys pastiche of ‘Show Me The Wonder’ to the poignant reverie of the title track, a duet with the crown prince of faded nostalgia himself, Richard Hawley. Alex Denney

For American gothic dreamers Mazzy Star, time is not of the essence. 17 years since their last album, ‘Among My Swan’, the Californians still play ethereal tunes that could waft on forever. Indeed, the passing of time has barely altered core members Hope Sandoval and David Roback’s floaty, melancholic mood. Country-tinged opener ‘In The Kingdom’ an elegant slow train of yearning organs and slide-guitar lyricism. Elsewhere, ‘Spoon,’ featuring the late Bert Jansch, is an easternsounding drone jam whose lines presumably resonate in the shadows of the great beyond. Jamie Skey

Download: ‘Hearts Up’

Download: ‘4 Lonely Roads’

Download: ‘In The Kingdom’

HHHHn

HHH

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Moon King ‘Obsessions’

HHHHn

(Tough Love)

Jonathan Rado

Seams ‘Quarters’

HHHn

‘Law And Order’

‘Motto’

HHHHn

HHHH

(Full Time Hobby)

(Wichita Recordings)

(WOODSIST)

Sky Larkin pilgrimaged from Yorkshire to Seattle (essentially their second home) for album three. Vowel-stretching singer Katie Harkin, a sometime Wild Beasts keyboardist, sings gnomic couplets with sinister relish. While she’s grimly poetic enough to entice, it’s the giddy spectacle of watching loopy Pavement-schooled doodles and Les Savy Fav glitter-riffs explode that really rewards. Songs like ‘Loom’ and ‘Motto’ dart, wind and taunt before vamoosing double-speed down rhythmic trap-doors, giggling at their own craftiness. Though ‘Motto’’s wind-down phase drags, you’ll still be high from the party. Jazz Monroe Download: ‘Motto’

Tambourine-slapping and flapping like a salmon, Daniel Benjamin cuts quite a figure in Doldrums’ live setup - but it’s fronting Moon King that he really lets loose. Since disbanding indie-pop clan Spiral Beach, Benjamin and co-pilot Maddy Wilde have carved a pummelling melodic niche as Moon King, slaying everything from Cocteau Twins ballads (‘Crucified’) to low-rent, early Sugarcubes fuzz rock (‘Sleeping in My Car’). Two early EPs comprise this makeshift debut: ‘Only Child’ is the single, a pop-rocket that soars; with a few more like that they’ll be in orbit. Jazz Monroe

Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado once based a song on a dream about being chased to his death through an office by a VW Beetle full of aliens. This chameleonic and often excellent debut is no less outlandish. ‘Law And Order’ careens from pensive, classic-leaning tunes (‘Faces’, ‘Hand In Mine’) to deep-fried rambles (‘Looking 4a Girl Like You’, ‘Dance Away Your Ego’). The latter sounds alternately like Austin Powers credits and a climactic scene in a Disney film, yet the mop-headed 23-year-old steers it all masterfully. He’d have no worries going solo should the ever-wobbly Foxygen ever go tits up. Ben Homewood

It seems Seams’ James Welch has achieved the improbable: making Detroit-influenced minimal techno sound even more minimal. Largely stripping back the Four Tetlike restlessness he displayed on 2012 split EP ‘Tourist/Sleeper’, here Welch zeros in on beat and texture. As such, with chopped-up, repetitive rhythms at the forefront (‘ClapOne’, ‘Sitcom Apartment’), he has concocted tunes more likely to ignite Berlin dance floors than to inspire headphoneson bedroom sessions. In so doing, however, Seams has lost a lot of the immersive, foundsound-flaunting charm of his previous work. Jamie Skey

Download: ‘Only Child’

Download: ‘Faces’

Download: ‘ClapOne’

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Sky Larkin

Tom Oldham

Space cadets? Ben Goldwasser, left, and Andrew VanWyngarden.

MGMT ‘MGMT’

HHHH (Columbia)

Back from deep-space, with answers... MGMT love a think. With second album ‘Congratulations’, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser convinced us that they weren’t the band we thought they were. Since then, they’ve been trying to show us the path to enlightenment. For this pair of cogitators, it’s apt that their self-titled third album contains a song called ‘Introspection’. Even moreso when you learn that it’s a cover of an obscure, late-60s psych nugget penned by Long Island guitarist Faine Jade – here the real MGMT is becoming clear; ‘Congratulations’ wasn’t a left-turn, it was a starting gun.

Beginning with the relative sing-along of ‘Alien Days’ (a song VanWyngarden described to Rolling Stone as “about that feeling when a parasitic alien is in your head, controlling things”), what follows is a dash for the lightless depths of the outer galaxy, propelled by the band’s discovery of Aphex Twin. Moody, bass-and-treble-heavy (‘Your Life Is A Lie’, ‘A Good Sadness’) and gloomily portentous (‘Mystery Disease’), ‘MGMT’ is propelled by half a universe’s worth of dark energy. Where ‘Congratulations’ tried to kill off ‘Oracular Spectacular’ and its supernovae of bawdy synths, ‘MGMT’ makes sure the memory is forever consigned to the void. Progressive thinking. JJ Dunning Download: ‘Alien Days’, ‘Mystery Disease’, ‘Introspection’

the-fly.co.uk

The Strypes left to right: Harry Styles, a Victorian girl, Justin Bieber and Ken Dodd’s grandson.

The Strypes ‘Snapshot’ HH n(Virgin) Blues-lovin’ teens play rock’n’roll dress-up... Reaction to The Strypes: either distinctly effusive, praising the Cavan teens for their adherence to the strictures of rock’s most basic components, or shockingly negative - for exactly the same reasons. In truth, it’s only partially an issue of genre. Throwbacks are throwbacks, and those who love throwbacks won’t mind a bit that The Strypes are only about 11 years old and have no physical connection to the period they’re aping. The real issue is that, even in this fantastic time of generic pantheism, they’ve plundered the tombs of rock’s forefathers and come back with relatively little to the-fly.co.uk

show for it. Musically, ‘Snapshot’ is pretty redundant. It’s by no means bad (guitar solos arrive precisely when expected and are played maturely), but it’s pointless to the point where it irks. Ultimately, this is never anything more than simply dressing up like rock stars. Terminally fresh-faced, they might provide an uncanny live performance, but they sure as hell won’t be inserting a mud shark into a groupie any time soon. No amount of trilling harmonica and perfectly executed 12-bar-blues circuits can erase the fact that they’ve aimed for ‘Meet The Beatles’ and ended up about a mile short of Kula Shaker. Daniel Ross Download: ‘Mystery Man’, ‘You Can’t Judge A Book By The Cover’

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Splashh ‘Comfort’

HHHH (Luv Luv Luv)

Summer Camp

TRAAMS

Younghusband

‘Grin’

‘Dromes’

HHHH

HHH

HHHHn

(Fat Cat)

(Sonic Cathedral)

(Moshi Moshi)

Euan Hinshelwood penned the majority of ‘Dromes’ while “living alone in a former drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre on the cheap” and the result is tellingly desolate. The baggy psychedelia of ‘Comets Crossed’ and ‘Left Of The Rocks’ tag the lonely musings of early Stone Roses, through a rain-spattered hostel window as swirling guitars and dizzy keyboards fill the air. But while there are moments of Manchesterinfluenced bounce, ‘Dromes’ is, for the most part, a beautifully sullen lament to the passing of time; like a deserted fairground begging for the attention of a grey, lifeless city. Matt Glass Download: ‘Comets Crossed’

‘Summer Camp’

Imagine, if you will, a world in which Tame Impala laid off the weed and started mainlining coffee, blinking and twitching their way through a permanent caffeine high. That’s exactly how Splashh’s debut album feels; a thoroughly jittery interpretation of modern psych that’s supremely compelling. Synths wail like sirens throughout the power drill pop of ‘Need It’, while the rest of the record kicks and punches frenetically through hook after irresistible hook with barely a pause for breath. Best of all is opener ‘Headspins’, where their hearts race dreamily across the surf on the Pixies’ best board. One helluva rushh. Will Fitzpatrick

Where once Summer Camp represented an almost twee homage to 80s indie-pop, on their self-titled second album they’re adding sequin sparkles to their sound. Opener ‘Control’ sets out their revamped stall strongly, Elizabeth Sankey telling us “there is no control” over spiralling synth motifs whilst ‘Fresh’, beginning with grand string samples, shows an inventive side with a disco bassline and slick pop melodies intertwining. ‘Fighters’ takes a more delicate, piano-led approach before ‘Pink Summer’ climaxes with finesse, closing a record that casts its makers as pop stars in the making. Rhian Daly

TRAAMS paint so many shades of postpunk that it all seems slightly blurred until you get really close up. Hints of Wire’s art school sensibilities roll into dubby Fugazi grooves and Les Savy Fav eccentricities, occasionally falling into a kraut/psychpop ditch and getting thoroughly mucky. As with any selection of confectioner’s treats, it’s heavy on the tastebuds in one go, but whether smart and subtle, a la ‘Sleep’, or transcendentally sweet (the Peter Hook-esque bass coda of ‘Head Roll’ is hypnotically sublime), this Chichester lot have taste and style in abundance. Will Fitzpatrick

Download: ‘Headspins’

Download: ‘Fresh’

Download: ‘Hands’

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Franz Ferdinand by Burak Cingi

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Franz Ferdinand London, Brixton Electric 20/08/2013

Franz reunited: Al and co play first London show in four years... The saying might state that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone, but with Franz Ferdinand it’s more a case of not knowing what you’ve got ‘til it’s back. Whilst there’s been little chat as to where the Glasgow quartet have been in the four years between ‘Tonight: Franz Ferdinand’ and new LP ‘Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action’, tonight makes for a timely reminder that, ten years since they arched their first eyebrow, they remain peerless. Taking to Brixton Electric’s nonetoo-large stage for their first London show since 2009, the atmosphere in the crammed and heaving room is rabid. Franz

repay the energy pound for pound. From the opening cavort of current single ‘Right Action’, through the louche eyelashflutter of ‘Tell Her Tonight’ to an anthemic ‘Do You Want To’, an animal-print-clad Alex Kapranos and co are on fiery form. Newies ‘Evil Eye’ (playfully sardonic), ‘Love Illumination’ (sassy and strutting) and ‘Goodbye Lovers And Friends’ (the perfect setcloser) already sound classic, whilst the likes of ‘Michael’ and ‘Ulysses’ are welcomed back like old friends. Franz Ferdinand’s mission was always to write music to make girls dance. Tonight: mission accomplished. Lisa Wright the-fly.co.uk

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The Knife By Johannes Granseth

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Way Out West Gothenburg, Sweden 08-10/08/2013

The Knife, Grimes, Cat Power and some choice language in southern Sweden... Last year, a Gothenburg tabloid gave away free sausages and meatballs to punters at Way Out West in protest at the organisers’ decision to keep the festival entirely meat-free. The veggie agenda returns, unbowed, for a second year in 2013, but the (delicious) food is just one of many reasons to come to this most serene of 30,000-capacity weekenders. Taking in the pleasant surrounds of Slottsskogen, a public park in the heart of Sweden’s second city, at night the festivities spill over into the bars and venues of the surrounding neighbourhoods, with tram-loads of refreshedsounding locals getting the words to popular Anglophone hits ever so slightly wrong at high volume. This year’s event offers a hipster’s wet dream of a line-up and is strong enough to survive a string of high-profile cancellations — Neil Young, Azealia Banks and Solange, to name just a few. The Knife emerge triumphant from their Friday-night headline set, despite

banter that’d make a Gothenburg dock-worker blush (“There’s been too much cock on stage tonight, it’s time for some PUSSY!”). Earlier in the day, meanwhile, sees goodnatured sets from Haim, Bat For Lashes and Grimes, ensuring that, even if “pussy” is in short supply on the main stage, there’s plenty to be found elsewhere. After-hours, we take a trip to Pustervik bar to see Unknown Mortal Orchestra, who are by turns tender, soulful and far-out. Saturday brings a jaw-dropping performance from Cat Power, whose smoky Memphis phrasing takes us to places other indierock songwriters can only dream of reaching. Not sure about her hairdo, mind. Kendrick Lamar’s low-key charisma makes him shine, while Disclosure’s hook-heavy house and garage sets a sea of blonde bobbing heads in motion. Meat-free it may be, but Way Out West will satisfy the heartiest of musical appetites. Alex Denney the-fly.co.uk

1. Telegram by Danny Payne 2. Fucked Up 3. The Horrors by Daniel Mackie

Visions Festival London, Various Venues 10/08/2013 One day festivals are an increasing concern for fans of esoteric and antithetic music. Previously, visionary promoters Sexbeat gave us Radfest and they return in summer 2013 with a honed and toned version: Visions Festival. We start the day at the capacious Oval Space to see doomy electronics emissary The Haxan Cloak. Shrouded in smoke, this mysterious character soon fills the packed space with his supernatural and ominous noise. It seems at odds with the festival party barbecue vibes at first, yet he lulls the crowd into a dark, reflective reverie. Then it’s off to Cloud the-fly.co.uk

Nothings, the US indie slackers whose distortion-heavy racket radiates throughout the windowless concrete box, creating enough excitement and anticipation for the headliners, the mighty Fucked Up. The Canadian five-piece have been ripping it up around the globe for over ten years now, and their non-hierarchical approach wins out (lead singer Damian Abraham often performs in the crowd, hugging and kissing his audience). The mosh pit erupts within the first song ‘Queen Of Hearts’, whilst the roaring along, crowd surfing and sloshing beer lasts for an energetic hour. Fucked Up really give their all and Visions is crowned as the visionary event its title promises. Jessica Charlotte Crowe

Green Man Glanusk, Wales 15-18/08/2013 Being pessimists by nature, we arrive at Green Man in a cagoule, instantly rueing our decision as the sun starts to roll over the green hills and the sweat begins to trickle into our wellies. This year’s freakishly summery summer lingers on long enough to make the weekend a mostly mudless affair (apart from a few drizzly hours on Saturday, when a stormy set by Girls Names seems to summon some Belfast gloom). The atmosphere at the family-friendly festival is as warm as the weather - organic cider flows, ear-protected children run free, you can even handle a fluffy chick at a stand dedicated to the activity, if the mood so takes you.

Bucolic pleasures aside, musical highlights from a diverse line-up include a statically charged set by Fuck Buttons on Friday, an irresistible show by Melody’s Echo Chamber - giving it their all for the final show in support of their debut - followed by an offering of synth-funk disco cut with protohouse by respected selector Erol Alkan on Sunday. But the standout act is The Horrors, whose Saturday headline set, radiating chilling gothic cool and flawless confidence, suggests their next album could be something quite, quite spectacular indeed. Anna Coatman

Oya Festival Oslo, Norway 06-10/08/2013 Putting a festival site on the bank of a river is a

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brave move. In the UK, it would almost certainly result in public urination, skinny-dipping and other general chaos. In Oslo, however, the crowds are more polite, the security more ferocious, and the setting far prettier. Welcome to Oya Festival. Headliners include Blur, Kraftwerk, Kendrick Lamar and The Knife, with the latter’s already-

legendary stage show seemingly desperate to outdo itself. Preceded by an androgynous pirate leading an aerobics lesson, what follows is lunacy and is difficult to explain. In as short a way as possible, we’d describe it as Sweden’s answer to Stomp, reimagined in the year 3000. Only weirder. The smaller stages carry a bounty of

highlights - Unknown Mortal Orchestra bring swaggering, headnodding cool, Ruban Nielson’s wizardly guitar work bewitching the crowd, while Local Natives and Beach House delight. It’s not until the last day, however, that we see some true spontaneity in the form of Haim’s sisterly chaos. Danielle has lost her

voice, meaning Alana and Este take over the singing. Both girls more than hold their own especially on a strippedback version of ‘Falling’ – but by the end of the set, Este’s dress is off and Alana is rolling around on the floor. Oya: the festival where the bands are more crazy than the punters? Seems so. Rosie Lord the-fly.co.uk

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NORWICH ARTS CENTRE WEDNESDAY 25

LONDON DINGWALLS THURSDAY 26

NOTTINGHAM SPANKY VAN DYKES FRIDAY 27

HEBDEN BRIDGE TRADES CLUB MONDAY 30

NEWCASTLE CLUNY OCTOBER TUESDAY 01

NOVEMBER 14 SHEFFIELD QUEENS SOCIAL 15 NEWCASTLE REDS BAR 17 GLASGOW KING TUTS 18 MANCHESTER RUBY LOUNGE 19 LEEDS BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB 20 OXFORD O2 ACADEMY2

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

BATH KOMEDIA BIRMINGHAM INSTITUTE NOTTINGHAM RESCUE ROOMS LONDON HEAVEN BRIGHTON CONCORDE 2 SOUTHAMPTON JOINERS BRISTOL THEKLA

EDINBURGH CABARET VOLITAIRE

WEDNESDAY 02

GLASGOW KING TUTS WAH WAH HUT FRIDAY 04

MANCHESTER RUBY LOUNGE SATURDAY 05

LEEDS COCKPIT 2 SUNDAY 06

PORTSMOUTH WEDGEWOOD ROOMS

SEETICKETS.COM - 0870 264 3333 / TICKETMASTER.COM - 0844 844 0444 GIGSINSCOTLAND.COM - 08444 999 990 A METROPOLIS MUSIC, SJM CONCERTS, DF CONCERTS & KILIMANJARO PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL

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A METROPOLIS MUSIC, SJM CONCERTS & DF CONCERTS PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL

TOUR ANNOUNCEMENTS & PRIORITY BOOKINGS • FIND US ON

Tue 03 Sep £7.50

NEW CITY KINGS Plus Support

Wed 11 Sep £8

KAMP!

Plus Support

Mon 16 Sep £12

JAY BRANNAN Plus Daisy Guttrige

Tues 17 Sep £12.50

GIANT DRAG Plus Support

Wed 18 Sep £8

STU LARSON & NATSUKI KURAI

Plus bluesmix + Corinna Greyson (DJ)

Thurs 21 Nov £12

THE BRIGHT YOUNG FOLKS

Featuring The Carrivick Sisters, Gilmore & Roberts, Philip Henry & Hannah Martin

Sat 23 Nov £15

SON OF DAVE Plus Support

Sat 30 Nov £14

THE FRANK & WALTERS

Plus Support

Fri 06 Dec £18.50

JOE PUG 19/08/2013 11:04

Plus Support

THE MISPERS Plus Support

JAH WOBBLE IN DUB FEAT PJ HIGGINS

Sat 28th Sept £10

Mon 09 Dec £9

Mon 23 Sep £8.50

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS

Thurs 19 Sep £10

Plus Support

Untitled-13 1

Weds 06 Nov £11

TRACE BUNDY Plus Support

Tue 01 Oct £12

LAKE STREET DIVE Plus Support

DEER TICK Plus Support

Tue 08 Oct £13

DANA FUCHS Plus Support

Wed 09 Oct £8.50 SEPTEMBER 2013 MON 23 LONDON TUE 24 MANCHESTER WED 25 GLASGOW THU 26 BIRMINGHAM FRI 27 BRISTOL

XOYO DEAF INSTITUTE KING TUTS HARE AND HOUNDS START THE BUS

BUY ONLINE AT: TICKETMASTER.CO.UK | LIVENATION.CO.UK NEW ALBUM ‘DREAM CAVE’ OUT SEPTEMBER 16

Plus Support

Sat 19 Oct £12.50

AHAB

Plus Ben Folke Thomas

Tues 05 Nov £8

LIFE IN FILM

CLOUDCONTROLBAND.COM A LIVE NATION, DHP AND DF PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CAA

CC fly 1.4.indd 1

CAGGIE DUNLOP

Plus Support

16/08/2013 17:37

Every Thursday 11pm-3am 1st August Launch Party

Who: Julia Holter When: 20/08/2013

si x s h ots

Where: Cecil Sharp House, London Photography by J im E yre

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I N NEX T MON T H â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S I SSUE . . . In stores, cafes, venues and record shops from Tuesday 1st October. Find your nearest stockist: www.the-fly.co.uk/stockists

DAYS GONE DAYS ARE ARE GONE debut album The debut album 30.09.13 30.09.13

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