Under City Lights Winter 2017 by uncl

UNDER CITY LIGHTS

Rare FM magazine www.undercitylights.co.uk

together PANGEA: “Don’t be a dick, don’t suck, and play a lot. That’s it.”

winter 2017 1

Un L C

Editors-in-Chief

Hughie-Rogers Coltman

EJ Oakley

Jamie Walker

design

Nikol Chen

Shinya Uchida

contributors Joe Bell Nikol Chen Jake Crossland Alice DeVoy Ollie Dunn Tom Edwards

Alex Hemsley Uri Inspektor Fatima Jafar Sara Knight Ben Levett Elliott Philips

Abdul Rashidi Matt Solomons Ben Von Kauffmann James Witherspoon

A special thank you to Joe Bell 3

EDITOR’S MESSAGES

ou hold in your hands the product of two solid months of blood, sweat, tears, shattered eardrums, and incredibly hard work. I wouldn’t be exaggerating when I say that overseeing Under City Lights is very much akin to raising a child – and raising this issue to become the magazine you hold in your hands right now has had its fair share of trials and tribulations, but has also resulted in a feeling of accomplishment so massive that I can’t articulate it with words alone. Now it’s time for me to play the proud mother, shedding a few tears as she waves at her child now all grown up and leaving home – and I’m sure Jamie and Hughie, its equally doting fathers, would feel the same way about the magazine finally being in print. We’ve got gig reviews galore, interviews with some stellar acts (among them the ever-so-gnarly Together PANGEA and British indie stalwarts The Horrors), and more personal slices of music discussion from our beloved columnists. We hold every bit of music in here close to our hearts, and we very much hope you’ll enjoy reading the issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Keep on rocking in the free world, EJ Oakley

rum roll please ….. And here it is! We’ve scoured UCL for its very best musical minds and the results are spectacular. After a term of co-editing Under City Lights, I’m constantly impressed by the sheer range of music that our team write about. One week we’ll be uploading a tiny gig review of cutting-edge south London punk, the next it’s an interview with Walk The Moon (yes, the ones with 250 million views on Youtube). There’s punk, R&B, jazz, and everything in between in this, our first edition of the academic year. We hope you’ll find something that tickles your fancy. Also, a particularly exciting new feature; the personal columns section. In it there’s a showcase of more personal writing, loosely related to music. I’d like to give a big shout out to all the writers and editors who’ve contributed such fantastic content, making this whole thing possible. Hughie Rogers-Coltman

new dawn has broken. Dewy frost still clings to the garden grass. A soft melody floats alongside the morning breeze. The early bird is about to catch itself that worm. Car engines begin to warm. Under City Lights lives, and it is beautiful. Thank you for coming along with us on this journey Enjoy the edition. Jamie Walker

CONTENTS Writer’s Columns Thinking Outside of the Box Anxiety, Punk Rock, And Learning To Hate myself Less I Hate Chart Music Music Video Review: King Krule - The OOZ’s Dum Surfer, Half Man Half Shark, Czech One “No More Cage! Zorn Is All The Rage!” But Is He??? Brexit, Trump, Nuclear Tensions...But Is Good Music On The Rise? In Defence Of Kanye West Critical Analysis of Father John Misty’s Pure Comedy

// 09 // 12 // 16 // 20 // 24 // 28 // 32 // 35

Album Reviews Cécile McLorin Salvant – Dreams and Daggers DJ Seinfeld – Time Spent Away From U Weezer – Pacific Daydream John Maus – Screen Memories Brockhampton – Saturation II King Krule – The OOZ Shame – Songs of Praise Baxter Dury – Prince of Tears

// 40 // 41 // 43 // 44 // 46 // 48 // 49 // 51

Interviews Together PANGEA The Horrors

// 56 // 66

Live Reviews Together PANGEA at thousand island Nervous Conditions at The Windmill Kane Strang at Oslo Hackney Benjamin Booker at Student Central

// 72 // 76 // 79 // 81

Best of the Year

// 84 5

WRITERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S

COLUMNS 7

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX COVER ART WITH JAMIE WALKER 8

’ve never written about art before. I’ll be honest, prior to university I never much thought about it. However, living amongst London’s ever revealing trove of artistic treasures – and having a culturally sound group of peers - has induced something of an artistic conversion within me. This led to the smart idea of crediting myself as an acceptable critical voice when it came to album cover art – and thus, this column was born. The days of the 12-inch record came with it all manner of artistic possibilities. Forget judging a book by its cover – judge the record by its cover! The glossy front of the record sleeve not only acted as a means of seduction to the potential buyer, but also worked as a platform for some of the most interesting artistic collaborations in pop-culture history. Prolific pop artist Peter Blake worked with The Beatles to design the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, whilst Andy Warhol produced and designed the front cover of The Velvet Underground’s debut The Velvet Underground & Nico. Alas, much to pop-culture’s demise the album cover has suffered in recent times. The rise of internet streaming afforded less space to the meaningful album cover. Savvy social media advertisement is now seen as the means towards the end of high album sales. This is not to say that the album cover has been forgotten. Its presence merely affords less attention to the beholder of the album (because that album is now carried ergonomically in one’s pocket on one’s phone, as opposed to in one’s hand). This column, then, sets forth to re-shine a light upon the proud cover sleeve album art.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Luciferian Towers Starting with one of the most interesting and impenetrable albums of recent times, the cover art to Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s sixth collection of symphonic musings is as hard to decipher as the music contained within. A brutalist, concrete façade is contained within a small box with scrawled red text set above: ‘The building chokes, folding inwards. There’s a pit inside where the beating heart of the sun expands. Dust traces its contours like a radiograph.’ This is heavy stuff. Imagine T.S Eliot in his The Waste Land days without the wry sense of humour. For an album that runs to 43 minutes in length with little to no sign of directed development despite the cataclysmic climax of concluding track ‘Anthem for No State, Pt III’, this text provides a fitting context for the album. Oblique, careful and haunting. This album cover plays its role to a tee. 9

Niall Horan – Flicker

A. Savage – Thawing Dawn Parquet Courts lead vocalist A. Savage released debut solo album Thawing Dawn this October. The alluring cover to the album see’s Mr Savage nonchalantly propped up against the corner of his (?) bedroom - seemingly mid conversation - causally plucking a small theme on his guitar. A small dish of cigarette butts lying next to a half-finished book certainly propagate a romantic image of the solo singer / songwriter. I buy into it completely – I want to be this man! But don’t be fooled by my credulity, I’m easily won over. The cover art for Thawing Dawn sees the inclusion of the witty word/letter play commonly extant on Parquet Court’s album covers. ‘A. Savage, Thawing Dawn’ is spelt out in descending formation, the familiar ‘a’ consonant highlighted in opposing colour, set slightly off-piste. The chalky reds and blue’s cuddle up to each other comfortably - aesthetically pleasurable on all accounts! Little more to be said, I love it all. The music is great similarly. 10

I didn’t want to put this album in. However, I thought it nicely sums up some of the major problems with modern day album art, alongside some faults with contemporary music as a whole. The cover of Niall Horan’s post-One Direction debut solo album is simply an all-too-close image of his face. It’s so close that they’ve had to crop out a portion of his quiff. All is face, simply face. Quite an unassuming, handsome face, but a mere face all the same. Why is this indicative of the ills pervading modern music? Well, simply because it is all about the person, as opposed to the music! This album will sell due to its relationship with the face on the front cover. That is to say, it will sell because the songs have been sung by a Mr Horan, not because they are good songs. Add to this the awful font, and the even worse album title – Flicker (?). And we have a contender for one of the least adventurous or creative album covers in recent times. He has got lovely eyes, mind.

Well that concludes that. Short, but very sweet. I feel like I have kept within the lines of what can be said by one who holds absolutely no critical knowledge on art. This has been a small handful of what has presented itself over the past three months, the excitement lies in the wait to see what will surface in the following three! Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure there will be another Niall Horan-esque full faced look-its-me / debut album affair, but that is okay. We will accept them for who they are. On the other hand, I hope to find some true artistic gems that provide at least a vague aesthetic gateway into the music itself. One can hope. See you all in the next edition!

ANXIETY, PUNK ROCK, AND LEARNING TO HATE MYSELF LESS EJ OAKLEY 12

s a law student, I was once told that the generic ambitions someone of my ilk should have would go something like this. First, the training contract – essentially obtained by the end of second year, at the risk of sacrificing your employment prospects altogether. Second, the solicitor’s training course; undertaken straight after graduation for a year, which in turn leads straight to gainful employment as a junior associate for the firm sponsoring you. Third, jostling all your colleagues out of the way and achieving senior partnership by the time you turn thirty. And then, the slow, plodding slog of corporate law work until your mandatory retirement at sixty-five, after which you’re free to use your lucrative salary to catch up on all the ‘me time’ you missed out on when you were sleeping in the office for weeks on end so that your boss would make an approving noise at you before assigning you another case. Or, I was told, you could just die. After all, nobody really cares what you do when you’re no longer a hotshot in the legal world.

Photo by: EJ Oakley Photo by: EJ Oakley

This kind of life plan didn’t really sit well with me when I was informed of the status quo last year. I didn’t have the fuzziest idea of what I wanted to be doing when I turned thirty, but neither did I want to settle for this pre-determined view of my future, eleven whole years before it was actually to come. I was overwhelmed. It was a feeling that I was all too familiar with, too. At sixteen, teachers had treated me with thinly-veiled prejudice for being unable to decide on a degree that I really wanted to do, and even now at nineteen, several members of my course often react with shock or derision when they find out that I do not intend to take up the profession that goes most naturally with our course. Nowadays, society seems to function on the idea that everything must be planned in advance, and that everything must go according to that plan – or, guess what? You’re an indecisive, entitled, snowflake of a delinquent who can’t just suck it up and step in line. 13

You think that’s untrue? Just look at the countless critiques levelled against millennials these days. Either we’re ruining everything, whether it’s boobs or the free market, or we’re lazy and spend too much money eating avocado toast to be able to afford a house (even though it’s been mathematically proven that the cost of a lifetime supply of avocado toast comes nowhere near the price of a small house). And the worst thing? These sentiments have been at play in society for a long time now, so subtly and insidiously that it’s almost impossible not to feel like a failure when there’s an aspect of your life that falls into that uncharted area beyond predictability and knowledge. This also accounted for the anxiety disorder I subsequently developed when I was fifteen, which only grew worse with every passing stage of my education. Disconsolate and feeling like a fish out of water, I did what every angsty teenager would do – I turned to music for a solution. 2013 had seen a resurgence in skate culture and the underground punk scene – plenty of bands were garnering attention for making music that can be best described as sounding like how the word “gnarly” feels. Mostly originating from Los Angeles, these garage rock bands specialised in writing hedonistic (and at times, even nihilistic) guitar anthems that revolved around one central theme – doing absolutely nothing meaningful with one’s life. Skate punk heavyweights FIDLAR talked of being “fucked on beer and staying gold”, and the permanently semi-stoned San Diego band Wavves espoused the benefits of a life that purely consisted of skating, going to the beach, and skating at the beach. And then came my idols for the next three years of my life – The Orwells, a five-piece band from a mundane Chicago suburb who had recorded their first, absolutely stellar LP when they 14

“Not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, at times, no longer felt like it meant the end of the world for me.“ were all around fifteen years old, before graduating early from high school and entering the industry full time while still ridiculously young. This was my first introduction to garage rock, and it was going swimmingly. The idea of being able to actually sit and do nothing for more than five minutes at a time was, to me, completely non-existent. Just listening to people talk about doing nothing and taking things as they came was a vision of freedom – suddenly, the idea of stopping to smell the roses on the way to some kind of vaguely defined future didn’t seem too outlandish after all. I wasn’t going to drop out of school, but neither did the need to have a defined roadmap for my life feel as urgent as it once had. Not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, at times, no longer felt like it meant the end of the world for me. I didn’t even need to start smoking weed or binge-drinking to get into the mindset that my new favourite bands espoused. It’s easy enough to point at narration like this in music nowadays and cite these as being bad influences on otherwise

Writer’s Columns

zealous, forward-looking, straight-edge honour roll students. But people who do this fail to note two things. Firstly, the concepts of narration and glorification are two very different kettles of fish. And secondly, you could be an honour roll student and still feel like the human embodiment of a garbage fire. Knowing all the answers on a test doesn’t also mean knowing whether your choice of degree would make you regret the next three years of your life. I wasn’t being told that uncertainty was bliss, I was simply being told that uncertainty was a sentiment that other people felt too; contrary to my experiences in school and the holier-than-thou attitude that most people adopted when it came to my inability to divine my future at sixteen years old. “I don’t know what to do,” sang Zac Carper on the secret closing track on 2013’s self-titled FIDLAR record. “It kinda sucks being twenty-two.” At sixteen, being twenty-two seemed almost inconceivable. Twenty-two-year-old me would have graduated; would probably be working a job. What degree would that future me have done? What job would that future me have managed to land? And most importantly, would twenty-two-year-old me be happy? I still don’t have the answer to that second question, and god knows the third question is one that anyone with remotely existentialist tendencies should be banned from asking themselves. On the other hand, neither has my anxiety magically cured itself thanks to these particular soundwaves. But there’s a certain thing about music that’s made it such a powerful presence in people’s lives – at times, it can feel like a friend who’s always there by your side. Sure, I may not have all the answers still – but boy, does it feel good to feel less alone. 15

I HATE CHART MUSIC

Photo by: Fabio Ballasina

Hughie Rogers-Coltman 16

Writer’s Columns

’ve always been a bit of a dick about music. If you’re reading this magazine, the chances are that you are as well. I’m the sort of guy who has, without even a hint irony, been known to say ‘I prefer their early work’. As a fifteenyear-old I genuinely thought Morrissey was a respectable role model. As an eighteen-year-old I remember saying with complete sincerity that Mac Demarco had gone too mainstream. I spent most of my freshers’ week complaining that ‘the music’s shit’ rather than, I don’t know, drinking or dancing or making friends like a normal person. I don’t really go out unless I like the DJ’s Boiler Room. So it probably comes as no surprise that my views on the top ten are pretty snobbish. Other than a few inescapable tunes (do people still listen to ‘One Dance’?) my knowledge of chart music is embarrassingly thin. In these days of Youtube algorithms and Spotify curation, it can be easy to ignore swathes of music and become absorbed in your own obscure bubble. With this in mind I decided to embark upon an experiment. A unique anthropological opportunity. It was time for an open-minded reconsideration. A revisionist reading, if you like (and I know you do, you UCL student, you). I would listen to the top ten, and record my thoughts in stream-of-consciousness style. Think of it less as less a music review, more a unique insight into the unbearably pretentious mind of the Under City Lights writer. I hope that we all learn something, though I can’t promise anything. So without further ado, I present my thoughts on the top ten:

10. Mabel (ft. Kojo Funds), Finders Keepers To start things off, one of the names on the list that I’ve never heard of. Intriguing. It opens with that quasi-dancehall beat that seems to be on pretty much every popular tune these days (I’m expecting a lot on this list). Yet the production seems to have extracted everything that’s raw and fun about dancehall, leaving this sort of drifty-floaty sound that’s not unpleasant, but not hugely interesting. Kojo Funds’ lyrics are pretty inane – ‘Let make take you to space/I could smell you from miles away/I wanna see you in lingerie’ – though dancehall MCs aren’t traditionally known for the subtlety of their lyricism. Maybe he’s being ironic. I am actually liking Mabel’s lyrics though, and her voice suits this style of music well. Overall it’s not something I’ll be going back to, but I’ve heard worse.

2.5/5

7. Eminem (ft. Beyonce), Walk on Water Two genuine heavyweights on this one! I don’t get my hopes up for Eminem on this, since he hasn’t produced much that I’ve enjoyed in about ten years. Predictably, he returns to the kind of boring self-mythology that has characterised his work since Recovery. ‘Bitch I wrote Stan’, he reminds us, at the end, which only serves to make him seem even more a shadow of his former self. He does still have some impressive rhymes, but as usual he chooses to rap about how tough it is for him to be an internationally famous millionaire. It’s a perfectly valid topic, but he’s talked about nothing else for about 4 albums now, and I just don’t care anymore. Beyonce’s melody is quite nice though, and Eminem’s lyrics definitely aren’t his most self-absorbed. And listening to this did make me go back and revisit the Marshall Mathers LP. And it still bangs.

3/5

9. Zayn (ft. Sia), Dusk Till Dawn My eyes light up at the title. Dusk Till Dawn! Has the guy from One Direction made a song about Quentin Tarantino’s subversive 1996 masterpiece?! From one listen I can’t hear any notable references, only your standard Sia-ish melodrama and big piano choruses. The video is more revealing, as it’s a kind of Tarantino tribute act (gold light coming out of briefcases, etc.). Zayn sings ‘Not tryna be cool’ dressed in a bespoke suit, driving a vintage jaguar around Los Angeles. Keep it real Zayn!

2/5

being a meme. I find that pretty impressive. I just find it weird to see how far people are willing to stretch irony, to the extent that they’ll actually pay £11 to go see him live. It’s a kind of UK equivalent to the Szechaun sauce debacle. The line between irony and reality gets more and more blurred by the day. What are memes doing to us.

6. Ed Sheeran, Perfect Oh boy. I’m going to try to be open-minded with this one. I should say that I found Ed Sheeran’s early singles and first album not entirely devoid of merit. Since he reached the realms of super-super-stardom though, he really has gone downhill. I thought I’d heard the worst of it on ‘Galway Girl’, but no, this little gem somehow escaped my attention. It’s been in the charts for 27 weeks! Ed Sheeran did at least used to have some songwriting talent, but this sounds like one of those X Factor semi-finalist singles that some

0.1/5 4/5 8. Big Shaq, Man’s Not Hot What? People actually pay money to listen to that meme freestyle? I mean it was an alright meme, but are there people actually coming home from a long day and putting ‘Man’s Not Hot’ on the stereo? Do people listen to it in the car? On the bus? There’s 55 million views on Youtube! I’ll google him. He plays live dates! This man has actually made a career out of

for effort 18

poor songwriter somewhere is forced to churn out in industrial quantities. The video is worse. Watch it if you dare. 5. Marshmello ft. Khalid, Silence This style of production seems to be having a bit of a moment. It’s like EDM but a bit more ‘sensitive’, there’s a bit of a tropical house influence in there. To be honest listening to this song brings to mind a bunch of gym lads in their tank tops moshing at Tomorrowland, but in slow motion. The singing on the track is pretty remarkable: I have never heard a vocal track before that has actually left me completely unmoved. There is literally not an ounce of emotion in this song. I feel numb after listening to it. Things are going downhill in my journey through the charts. Let’s hope they pick up in the top 5.

1/5

4. Sam Smith, Too Good at Goodbyes This seems more promising. I’ve liked everything I’ve heard by Sam Smith. I’m enjoying the opening, and then I realise that I’ve actually heard this song! Look at me with my chart music knowledge. I’ve heard this being played, you can’t really avoid it. I haven’t really listened to it properly though. I like it a lot. There’s a sincerity to his voice, and, for the first time in this top ten, I feel like the artist really, genuinely cares about the music they’re producing. The fact that that is an exception is depressing, but this is still a very well-written pop song with a lovely chorus melody and honest, stripped-back instrumentation. I was starting to flag, but this has proved there’s hope yet for my conversion to the charts.

4/5

3. Post Malone ft. 21 Savage, rockstar Next up it’s everyone’s favourite Shia Laboeuf hip-hop doppelganger, Post Malone. I’ve been torn in the past about this style of mumbling trap, though there have been a few releases that have peaked my interest. I haven’t really en-

2.5/5 3/5

joyed much that I’ve heard from Post Malone, and this doesn’t buck that trend. It’s a fairly predictable trap beat. The lyrics talking discuss how mad their life is, but also how they have anxiety and pop Xanax. As I say, fairly predictable trap fair. I’m surprised how far up this is in the charts to be honest. I can’t really imagine it getting played by Nick Grimshaw, but I guess it must be.

2. Rita Ora, Anywhere This one opens up with a pretty bland vocals-over-guitar bit, before quickly moving into a benignly plodding deep house beat. It’s a decent enough piece of dancepop that seems strangely innocent when compared to the rest of the songs on this list. It’s unpretentious, which is refreshing. This sort of music will always exist. There’s really nothing more I can say about it. 1. Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug, Havana Here we are! Number 1! And I’ve never heard it before, though I feel I should have given it has over 200 million views on Youtube. I like this tune. It’s got quite a fun rumba-pop vibe to it, overlaid with a deep trappy bassline. I don’t know what Young Thug is doing on this track, he sounds completely out of place. But like all good pop music, this song doesn’t take itself too seriously, so the incongruous rapping isn’t really a problem. I think it’s fair to say that my appreciation of this song is largely down to the fact that I’ve now spent a couple of hours listening to chart music. If you had played me this in isolation I no doubt would have dismissed it straight off the bat. I suppose it just goes to show that music taste is relative. Who knew! Look at that, we’ve learned something! It’s been a blast.

4/5 19

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: KING KRULE - THE OOZâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DUM SURFER,HALF MAN HALF SHARK, CZECH ONE Alice DeVoy 20

usic videos are a troubling art form; their very name has a twang of an oxymoron, combining the visual with the purely audible. They are also relatively new; the first music video was, fittingly, the one for The Buggles’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ debuting in 1981 on MTV. This begs the question- what void was this filling, if any? What is the purpose of the music video? Some will justify them saying it is a piece of art supplementing and supporting musician’s songs, that it’s an exciting form of artistic expression, an elucidation of their music. Sceptics will refute this, claiming that they are merely lubrication for the greasy cogs of the capitalist music industry to milk artists for all they are worth. Either way however, the blend of forms inherent to music videos gives them a freedom that has the capability to manifest as wonderful creativity without boundaries. A recent contribution to the music video melee comes from King Krule as part of his new album, The Ooz. Out of his lengthy nineteen tracks, the artist has released visual supplements to three of them: Dum Surfer, Half Man Half Shark and Czech One. For these three eclectic songs, the videos are similarly different, but all retain the classic ‘King Krule style’

Writer’s Columns that he established in his earlier videos; it is a style that is hard to pin point but certainly involves low-definition filming, taints of a mood-altering colour, and a sense of disorientation. Archy Marshall (King Krule’s true identity) seems to have grown up slightly since the likes of ‘Easy Easy’ and ‘A Lizard State’ found on debut 6 Feet Beneath the Moon. (2013). The sense of youth and the touch of in-

nocence previously extant have been replaced by a thoughtfulness, leading to videos that are more complicated, intriguing, and certainly more unnerving. Starting with perhaps the most wellknown song on the album and one of the more upbeat - ‘Dum Surfer’, directed by Brother Willis. The precis of this video is an ill-looking King Krule lying on a hospital bed, wheeling along from its own supernatural momentum through the town, setting the slightly eerie tone of the video. He arrives at what can best be described as a horror-glam-rock-show with a deadpan band in a dingy pub. He 21

takes to the stage, injecting energy into the other lifeless members who slowly come out of their zombie states by degrees. The video is framed by the hospital bed that returns empty the morning after though the same streets. On a literal level, this zombie-band could be the band that are mentioned in the lyrics that’s ‘playing fucking trash.’ (Not that it really matters whether it is or not to be honest). Unlike the other two videos, Dum Surfer doesn’t seem to have decided whether it is purely an aesthetic one or whether there is more of a progression and story; it is more a combination of the two. The

the lights like a refraction, warping your vision. In all, the video isn’t mind-blowing, but it can be appreciated from the level that it achieves a vibe that is cool and complete.

tantalising promise of a progression that is never realised is slightly frustrating, but ultimately forgivable. The way the shots merge together with slow fading changes does slowly build a nice atmosphere and a blurry sense of the setting, making the experience of watching it similar to losing your way on a night out and ending up a bit drunk, confusedly lost, but very intrigued. There are nice moments when a subtle effect makes the screen wavy and slightly oscillating, which merge with

The frustration in the lyrics and the sound of the song is mirrored by the frustration in watching a scene that is distorted and partial. The music in this number contains disjointed sounds that fit together to create a musically stressful yet strangely cathartic song. This similarly reflects the aesthetics of this video, chaotic and teasing, but harmonious in its entirety.

The next video is the one for the enigmatic ‘Half Man Half Shark’. This one is an amalgamation of concert videos with a foreground of sketched animations drawn by Theo Chine. These include a growing scrawly person at the beginning, TV static-esque scrawls, scrawls, some more cool scrawls, and a climactic shark at the end. The effect of this is excellent.

The final video in this trio is the one for Czech One, directed by Frank Lebon, and

it is one of pure artistic genius. The song itself has a very different tone to Dum Surfer and Half Man Half Shark, verging on a different genre almost with a steady, jazzy sound. This time we see King Krule floating away off the ground and arriving in an aeroplane on which he seems to recall an old lover. The lines blur between the sky and the city, creating a dream-like sequence, as his realities merge with his dream. An incredible moment is when the woman we have just seen lighting his cigarette appears at the window of the plane, reaching through to repeat her action again; we are simultaneously flying and grounded. Space and time are beautifully played with to create a new ethereal dimension that reflects the entrancing music of the song. The lyric ‘where tiny men have been absorbed for questioning the sky’ seems to have guided this video, as it is one that contains distorted size and a wormhole existence. The ending scene where King Krule walks along the street again in his oversized suit is frozen, and a small square white label appears in the corner ‘TAPE 3: Night Plane’. Here, a self-consciousness of filming is drawn attention to, simultaneously contrasting with and recalling the dream-like occurrences we have just witnessed. Czech One creates a beautiful little story, that is not linear or clear, but for some reason extremely satisfying. These three videos from The Ooz are as eclectic and unique as the album is itself. All characterised by a sense of unreality, they create scenes that at once elucidate and confuse King Krule’s songs. It figures, I suppose, that the musician who seems to have no boundaries in his music would want to create something similar in his videos and, as ever, he has executed this with style.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;No more Cage! Zorn is all the rage!â&#x20AC;? But is he??? ollie dunn 24

o chanted the late American composer Tony Conrad during a 1989 performance of Cage’s Songbooks. For those who don’t know, John Zorn is – in a word – impossible. Impossible to summarise, and – really – impossible to faithfully describe. Trying to find a label for a man who has released well over two-hundred albums spanning every genre from free-jazz to classical to klezmer to flatout musical skullfuckery is (I’ve tried, believe me) always an act of futility. Alternatively described as “one of our most important composers” (Down Beat) and “a mad crock of shit”, all writing about Zorn is likely to be divisive and disagreed with – so here I go. Musical bandwagonism aside, it’s hard to disagree with the fact that Zorn, for better or worse, has largely come to encapsulate New Music’s troubled position in the modern world of musical convention and discourse. And as musical postmodernism continues to develop and fester (what was it that Cage said about living in an age of many streams?) its relationship is set to become all the more confusing. I’m jittering on a bit, but what I’m really trying to get at is this: evaluating Zorn and his ilk within the context of modern music isn’t as easy as it used to be. In an age where the ‘jazz-meets-rock-meets-experimental-meets-classical all in an urban multicultural melting pot’ aesthetic that Zorn came to pioneer is no longer necessarily radical, can it really be said that Zorn is still pushing the envelope? In short, do we still need Zorn? Is he still all the rage? Having achieved fame and (perhaps limited) fortune in New York’s fertile Downtown music scene in the 1980s, Zorn came to prominence just as the postmodern mindset began to seep into the vocabularies of music critics and composers alike. Shaking off the rust of the

collapsing Uptown scene, whose dogmatic commitment to the models and orthodoxies of European Modernism had seemingly lost all relevance, Zorn was also quick to distance himself from the pre-existing Downtown scene represented by Steve Reich and Philip Glass, who Zorn saw as complacent and uninteresting. Where the Minimalists had cultivated a tonal and rhythmic music that had gained mainstream acceptance, Zorn changed tack and began to organise the noisy, abrasive, improvisational ‘game pieces’ that brought him so much fame in the Downtown environment. Irreverent, abrasive, and deeply idiosyncratic, Zorn spat in the face of the musical establishment and all its institutions that tried to categorise and box him, choosing, for example, to use his artist’s page in the New Music America catalogue to explain why he’d always hated that bastion of New Music: “I am sick of seeing the same tired names over and over again and pompous, overblown projects put together because the names look good on grant applications…[New Music America] is no more than a convention for people in the music business who try to ‘outhip’ each other”. Fightin’ talk. But Zorn’s cultural primacy was always derived from his ability to simultaneously shun and redefine the conventions established by such institutions. By positing himself as an eternal outsider, he was able to work and composer within his own terms, all the while adopting and appropriating strands from different scenes, giving birth to an exciting, independent brand of New Music. Sure, but the institutions that necessitated Zorn’s rise to the radicalism no longer have the power to police and mould music in the way that they used to. In an age where the internet and the egalitarian nature of its various music sharing platforms has largely usurped the role previously played by bodies such 25

as New Music America and Bang on a Can, is there really such a need for nervy outsiders like Zorn to pierce through with their irreverence? As the binary nature of the Uptown/Downtown conception of music has all but ceased to exist, the field has been left increasingly open to innovation from all corners as the very notion of a musical orthodoxy struggles to gain a solid foothold in the constantly

in the politics of musical discourse and culture, it seems necessary to at least consider his work within the context of contemporary cultural chatter. My own thoughts on the subject aside, it seems that, today, the criss-crossing multiculturalism that Zorn helped to cultivate is under scrutiny from the cultural powers that be. Among musical radicals, at least, it was always a-given that Zorn’s peculiar

shape-shifting musical landscape. Given this, Cage’s aforementioned comment that we are not living in an age of mainstreams, but of many streams seems all the more pertinent: the lack of an established establishment to react against has lessened the need for radical actors like Zorn. What is there to push against anymore? What are the orthodoxies?

brand of multicultural maelstrom was to be admired in its efforts to break down barriers of genre, instrumentation, and culture. (Anyone who wants to hear what I’m talking about should check out Radio, the 1993 album by Zorn’s hardcore-based project Naked City, which counts Led Zepellin, Igor Stravinsky, and Japanese Ryūkōka music among its influences).

It’s always a bummer when music is reduced to political gesturing, but considering that Zorn’s music so often engages

But many have now come to see Zorn’s cultural borrowing in a more negative light, particularly in view of his appro-

priation (not to use the word in a pejorative sense) of Japanese cultural elements. Look no further than ‘Forbidden Fruit’ for string quartet, turntables, and female voice, the final track from his game-changing 1987 album Spillane. A childlike Japanese voice narrates a story of a sexual encounter between a young, beautiful Japanese woman and an older man – an unnamed ‘He’. Likewise, Zorn’s album covers frequently feature violent and gory BDSM art and photography that takes Japanese and Asian people as their subjects. These people seem to become, then, a space upon which Zorn establishes his own projections of what that culture represents to him. Given the contemporary obsession with cultural appropriation and inter-cultural respect, perhaps Zorn’s detached Westernised idealisation of Japanese women and culture comes off just a little bit…sleazy? Out of touch? This isn’t to say that Zorn’s use of Japanese culture is, in and of itself, necessarily troublesome, but it must be said that the attitudes one can infer from his treatment of Japanese culture seem to be at odds with the current discourse concerning the politics of radical music. Zorn’s Japan is a pidginised plane of connotation and suggestion, a landscape that can be added to and morphed as Zorn sees fit, existing irrespective of that culture’s own orthodoxies. Moving forward, and given the contemporary unpopularity of the ‘melting pot’ idea of culture and cultural exchange, one wonders how New Music will continue to engage in cultural politics.

Writer’s Columns

Given the fact that the world and the structures that created John Zorn no longer exist, it’s hard to say how he can be said to relate to and exist within the unceasingly postmodern landscape in which we find ourselves. As orthodoxies collapse and cease to hold sway in the court of cultural primacy, it is hard to know what, exactly, one should revel against. Devoid of solid cultural institutions that in the past have always guided New Music, perhaps we today have no need for the radical mavericks of days gone by? The envelope keeps itself firmly afloat, even without individual ‘pushers’ like Zorn. 27

Brexit, Trump, nuclear tensionsâ&#x20AC;Ś But is good music on the rise? joe bell

Photo by: Luana Azevedo

Writer’s Columns

n the last two or three years the waves of generic popdance tracks have been rising infinitely alongside the tides of similar sounding singer-songwriters who have been multiplying in their thousands. I’ve often found myself desperately searching through my spotify ‘discover weekly’ or ‘release radar’ in an attempt to find the good stuff, or listening to various radio stations to hear something that’s not the 150th top 10 single from Ed Sheeran’s third album. The good music has always been there, but there seems to be more of it this year, or at least more of an audience willing to listen and propel it out of the dark corners of the internet. Singer-songwriters like Ten Tonnes, Tom Grennan and Yungblud have swapped inoffensive acoustic sounds for gritty electric tones, whilst bands like Superorganism and Sylvan Esso have been testing the power of 21st century synthesizers. Both lyrically and musically, things are getting interesting again. 29

Maybe it’s because the way we listen to music is changing - the increasingly catered Spotify and Apple Music playlists are getting better at noticing what we like. Maybe it’s because I’ve finally grown out of Taylor Swift. (Apart from the early albums, I still know all the words to ‘You Belong With Me.’) Or it could be that we’ve moved out of a malaise. Recent political turmoil has woken everyone up, and with more of the youth feeling something getting involved in current affairs than ever before, it wouldn’t be a long shot to say music has been influenced as well. Art thrives in troubled times – the Soviet Union produced Shostakovich whilst the tension of the Cold War and excitement of the space race influenced David Bowie. Racial inequality in the US and protests in Afro-American culture helped create jazz, and later, hip-hop. It would make sense for Brexit to produce a couple of positives right? Basically, there seems to be more to say when things are a bit shit. The black power movement brought about a groundbreaking album from Kendrick Lamar, a change of direction for Beyonce and other notable contributions from artists such as J. Cole. This year politics seems to be seeping into everyone’s music. Nick Mulvey’s second album, Wake Up Now sees the songwriter touch on themes such as the refugee crisis and fracking. Everyone seems to have something to say about Donald Trump, even Passenger in ‘A Kindly Reminder.’ Eminem burst back into the public eye after his Trump diss at the BET awards, commanding fans to choose between Slim Shady and Trump. In rising musicians the trend is even more apparent. Whilst there’s still a lack of radioplay for artists with something to say, several rising stars are talking about current affairs in their music and reaping the rewards - Declan McKenna’s debut single ‘Brazil’ took shots at the FA over the 30

“People are searching for music with real feeling behind it.” 2015 corruption scandal. Yungblud’s new single ‘Tin Pan Boy’ attacks urban development in London. Although covering seemingly niche topics, NME have just labelled Yungblud the possible ‘future’ of music. The movement which dragged out the UK youth to the voting stations has influenced musicians as well. Rizzle Kicks expressed their support for Jeremy Corbyn in recent material such as ‘Lemonade’, and The 1975 encouraged everyone to get behind the same man at their headline Parklife set earlier in the year. UK rap is also moving themes, with rappers such as JME getting political and Loyle Carner’s fantastic debut Yesterday’s Gone has shown that UK rap is moving in new directions. Quoting the NME again – ‘British hip-hop finally got serious.’ The listening trends of the BBC are also showing people are beginning to tire of the club bangers and the house-pop songs filling Radio 1s airwaves. Although Radio 1 listeners have reached record lows, 6music listeners have reached record highs, showing the migration of people who are tiring of mainstream music and looking for something with a bit more edge. People are searching for music with real feeling behind it.

There’s a certain rebelliousness seeping its way back into music as well. Sylvan Esso’s ‘Die Young’ is an unconventional love song, with the hook ‘I was gonna die young / now I’ve got to wait for you honey’ bringing back the carefree attitude which has been replaced in recent years by a trundling malaise. This is also reflected in Superorganism’s indie-pop banger ‘Nobody Cares’ which contains the lines ‘have a drink, have a smoke, do whatever you need to unload / nobody cares’. It’s great that nobody cares - it gets a bit boring when everyone does. Whilst the nice guy pop star has it certain appeal, there’s a reason outspoken, aggressive and unlikeable rock stars are fascinating and make equally appealing music. If the Gallagher’s were great guys and Kanye West was an average bloke, would they be as big as they are? There’s been a lack of genuinely interesting musicians for a while, and a decrease in artists who could headline major festivals. Instead a lot of older bands have just been recycled - Foo Fighters, the Rolling Stones, the Killers and so on. We need the next generation of fantastic musicians and bands, and by the looks of it, they’re on the way. Trump, May and Kim Jong-un can do as much as they want - at least we might hear some banging tunes.

Photo by: Mario Sorrenti

jake Crossland

In Defence Of Kanye West

Writer’s Columns

ome people get through life as a saint, others are condemned every time they open their mouths. Kanye West is such a figure, and admittedly not without reason. But if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s arguing. Even if it involves defending a viewpoint that I don’t personally agree with, you can guarantee I’ll burn that bridge when I get it to it. I’m a contrary prick. Luckily, Yeezy’s defence writes itself (he’s a godsend in comparison to those yet to grace this column) - he speaks truth to power, is refreshingly genuine, and a ground-breaking musician to boot. Rule one of cheap, off-brand polemics: before you defend, outline the offence. It’s almost painful to retread the exhaustive rhetoric against the man and his misdemeanors, but if you’ve been in a coma since circa 2005 – he called out institutionalised racism at a benefit concert, did it again at an awards ceremony, stoked old feuds, proposed a campaign for the US presidency amongst other lofty ambitions, and has remained generally outspoken throughout. Rule two: start from the beginning. It’s 2005, upcoming rapper and producer Kanye Omari West has released his acclaimed debut The College Dropout and has been invited to present a segment for a live telethon in aid of victims of Hurricane Katrina, with equally relevant Mike Myers. He’s visibly nervous. He is tight-chested, his voice breaking as he goes off script and begins to ramble about racial representation in the media. And then he says it, the line that casts him as the all-American villain for years to come whilst foreshadowing the Black Lives Matter movement 8 years early and highlighting racial inequality in action. ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’. It may have been needlessly

personal and recklessly broad, but it was

also defiantly brave and, ironically, selfless. He spoke truth, even when people didn’t want to hear it (this Yeezus/Jesus analogy is accidental). He accomplished a similar feat in 2009 when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s VMA acceptance speech to call out the bias against Beyoncé. Although superficially not as politically charged, who can remember the song, let alone the video, for which Swift had won the award? Give me a black leotard and I’ll happily perform the ‘Single Ladies’ dance routine. Kanye infuriates people twice – he confronts a happily ignorant audience and dares do it without warning to an audience with no onhand rebuttals other than anger. Finally, rule three: build upon your argument and completely convince the reader. So, yes, Mr. West could easily take his debate elsewhere, but, following that line of argument, you miss one redeeming personality feature (of many). He’s extremely entertaining, as a consequence of impulsive honesty and earnest. When he makes ridiculously outlandish proposals, he’s almost childlike in his innocent, all-encompassing aplomb. When he goes off script or intervenes in an acceptance speech, it’s because he’s too eager to wait for the official platform to say what’s on his mind. It’s not self-obsession, it’s genuine self-belief combined with a simple lack of self-restraint. But it’s also ambition and a need to see the world aligned with his vision, his eagerness a consequence of impatience. He’s running for president to execute this vision, not as a conceited, self-serving ego boost. He’s exciting to watch - a mind like his is purely unpredictable. The same unpredictability bleeds through into his music, helping to build him into an artist who’s won 21 Grammy Awards. Who could see 33

the influential 808s and Heartbreak off the back of Graduation? Or the perfect My Dark Beautiful Twisted Fantasy after that? Yeezus? The Life of Pablo...? If nothing else, Kanye West’s art alone stands to justify the means. I won’t pretend that I’m not a fan of Kanye, I am. I’d happily argue until Turbo Grafx 16 finally materialises in favour of the misunderstood man, but I’ll also do the same for any other villain in music (as I plan to do over the next few issues). Granted, my personal passion probably blurs the lines between tribute and defence, and West is

certainly no angel. He can be egotistical and reckless, and he knows how to wind people up. But on the other hand, he’s naive and motivated by personal ideals and isn’t afraid to speak his mind. The abomination of Obama’s nation, maybe. But also a potential President in 2020. One nation, under ‘Ye - wouldn’t it be glorious?

Illustration by: Alex Hemsley @bigaltown

Misty’s Manifesto: A Critical Analysis of FJM’s Pure Comedy

Tom Edwards

Writer’s Columns ‘Maybe just take a moment to be really fucking profoundly sad’. The extent of Tillman’s disillusionment with the music industry has not faltered since 2016. Tillman’s commentary on song-writing and entertainment are not to unique to his 2017 LP, Pure Comedy, nor to the music industry in general but display a higher dose of refined cynicism than has been previously heard. His relationship with his audience is interesting and unique in the sense that his lyrics cut so close to the bone or make people so awkward that the only sanctioned response is laughter. Tillman exploits this relationship; the title track ‘Pure Comedy’ is a critique of his own audience and ‘Their illusions, they have no choice to believe’. The ‘pure’ comedy of the song is the situation he finds himself in - the performance, entertaining an audience on the premise of this critique. Tillman loves to make his audience uncomfortable. The performance of ‘Bored in the USA’ a track from his 2015 LP I love You, Honeybear, on David Letterman, complete with a laughing track and self-playing piano, left the audience in stunned silence, utterly bemused. The song The Memo is a direct vocalisation of the frustration Tillman experiences in these performances and his song-writing. Arguably the most conceptual track on the album, The Memo’s country tongue & cheek tone, complete with vocal distortion and irritating sampled inserts vocalise his resignation to the fact that most people will not understand the message in his artistry. Indeed upon first listening one could describe Tillman’s music as pretentious song-writing. Tillman is well aware of this; in ‘Leaving LA’ he sings: “Some 36

10-verse chorus-less diatribe/Plays as they all jump ship, “I used to like this guy/ This new shit really kinda makes me wanna die”. Tillman’s songs aren’t written for his audience, they are self-indulgent, Tillman trying to get one up on the world by describing it exactly as he sees it. Indeed, musically they are self-indulgent; chordally Tillman’s songs are simplistic, he relies on the arrangement of others such as the composer Nico Muhly to envelope his music with strings and brass. Tillman has no need “to play the lead guitar/I always more preferred the speaking parts”. Muhly describes the record as evoking “traditions of lovely folk music with real attention to harmony but also insists on the lyrics being difficult to listen to. It’s a sort of Trojan Horse of emotional content” Tillman’s timing of the release of the record was second to none; Trump’s presidential campaign was in full swing while he was testing some of the new material off the album. According to Tillman, people were viewing politics just as audiences were consuming entertainment. For Josh this passive interaction giving rise to ‘our next potential Idiot King’. Trump and Tillman are both linked by the way they entertain, both successful due to their audience’s insatiable appetite to be entertained. Indeed this is the premise behind ‘Total Entertainment Forever’ “In the new age we’ll all be entertained”. In truth, such a sombre topic has to be satirised with FJM’s views on “bedding Taylor Swift every night inside the Oculus Rift”. Tillman’s lack of sentimentality within his music, something that people tend to expect from “a bearded white guy with an acoustic guitar” allow him to tackle themes not just unique to the modern age or individual, but other ideas not tied

to a single generation. The fear over growing old, of losing out and forgetting are addressed; “these days the years thin till I can’t remember”. Whether it is the shared empathy found in the reality of aging, some personal disappointment does quiver through in Misty’s voice. Perhaps this song should be called ‘So I’m Growing Old’ on Misty (not magic) mountain after all. Whether the persona of Father John Misty was created from the LSD micro-dosed mind of Josh Tillman or by a marketing team, created to reboot the career of a songwriter without direction, one thing sets this LP aside from his earlier work- cold sobriety. Hard work has gone into the making of this record, Tillman setting aside narcotics has enabled a newfound clarity. Pure Comedy is his wholesome manifesto. A glance at the artwork, designed and illustrated by Edward Steed, who shares Misty’s tragicomedy style, hammers home the unifying theme of the absurdity of human life on earth. FJM is set to release another full length LP at the start of next year, promising to be less of concept album for those who found Pure Comedy depressing listening.

ALBU

REV 39

Cécile McLorin Salvant — Dreams and Daggers

f Ella Fitzgerald hadn’t died in 1993, she would have been celebrating her hundredth birthday this year. Unquestionably one of the most influential jazz musicians ever, Ella recorded with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, and performed alongside Oscar Peterson and many others. Despite a particularly bleak childhood (one of her first jobs was as a lookout for police outside a brothel) and a turbulent adulthood, Ella somehow managed to make some of the most exceptional and timeless Jazz songs ever. We can be thankful that, unlike so many Jazz stars, her life was not unreasonably short, and fans of Ella can be grateful that she worked tirelessly during her professional career recording around 2000 songs and 200 albums. Yet although Ella’s music catalogue is breathtakingly immense, for a long time a part of me couldn’t help but feel depressed at the fact that the Jazz world would never again discover a voice as pure as hers. Jazz singing was all downhill from here, right? Well, that was until September 29. Unbeknownst to me, a French-Haitian woman named Cécile McLorin Salvant has been making waves in the international

jazz scene, first with the 2013 ‘WomanChild’, and also 2015’s ‘For One to Love’, recorded at the legendary Village Vanguard, (which won her the Best Jazz Vocal Grammy). Now Salvant has just released ‘Dreams and Daggers’: a 1 hr 52, double-disc album that reworks some standards (such as ‘You’ve got to give me some’, Gershwin’s ‘My Man’s Gone Now’ and Nöel Coward’s ‘Mad about the Boy’) as well as some original compositions. Her new album is jazz stripped to the basics: she’s joined by the fantastic pianist Aaron Diehl, the bassist Paul Sikivie and drummer Lawrence Leathers. ‘Dreams and Daggers’ is a far cry from the latest work of mega-star Kamasi Washington, ‘The Epic,’ with its 10 piece jazz band, 32 piece orchestra and 20 strong choir, but it would be unfair to compare the two. Cécile isn’t pushing the frontier of jazz, and she doesn’t need to pretend to be; she has an extraordinary, timeless voice that evokes Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, with elastic intonation, crystal clear enunciation, and a fantastic, operatic range. Wynton Marsalis, who Salvant toured with (Marsalis is the director of The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra) made the bold claim that, ‘You get a singer like this once in a generation or two,’ and he’s probably right. ‘Dreams and Daggers’ isn’t just a collection of beautiful songs. Throughout the album Cécile demonstrates her captivating, theatrical personality, and presents a stark, fiery message of female liberation; Cécile’s penultimate track, ‘Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues’ is a glorious rendition of Ida Cox’s classic feminist anthem, while on the first side she includes a passionate interpretation of ‘Never Will I Marry’, a 1960 track from the Broadway show ‘Greenwillow.’ With her reworking of Barbra Streisand’s ‘If a Girl Isn’t Pretty’, she makes a mockery of the shallowness of show business, asking ‘Is a nose with

deviation/Such a crime against the nation?’ After these bold, playful criticisms of society and of adulterous men, Cécile segues into the final track, ‘You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me’, a breathless testament to the madness and mystery of love: ‘Every kiss, every hug/Seems to act just like a drug/You’re getting to be a habit with me.’ It’s rare to hear a singer who can so effortlessly switch between different personas and moods, and rare too to hear someone who really can modulate her pitch from sugary highs to deep, raspy lows. Cécile has shown through ‘Dreams and Daggers’ that she has the spirit of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday, and if her next album is as superb as the preceding three, Cécile could well become the greatest jazz musician of the decade. Ben Von Kaufmann

the electronic music establishment, and a backlash against the self-seriousness that has come to be associated with house and techno, emphasising low-end production equipment and a DIY mentality, one which manifests itself in the fuzzy, compressed sound of the music, and a mischievous, subversive sense of humour that all the artists seem to share (DJ Windows XP and DJ Longdick are two of the more idiosyncratic examples of this). Thanks to big summer hits like DJ Boring’s ‘Winona’ and Ross From Friends’ ‘Talk to Me (You’ll Understand)’ a small band of bedroom producers have come to dominate festival and club lineups alike. Alongside Boring, Ross From Friends, and Baltra, DJ Seinfeld is one the biggest names that the movement has produced. His new album Time Spent Away From U is the first full-length LP to emerge from the scene and as such carries the weight of expectation on its shoulders. Many of those who have followed the rapid development of Lo-fi, myself included, have been left wondering whether it might not be a case of style over substance, and whether there is actually anything lying beneath the garish aesthetic surfaces and fuzzed-out FX that define the genre. Seinfeld’s new album, which brilliantly balances a real sense of melancholy and nostalgia (both musically and thematically) with genuinely danceable club appeal, definitely puts these doubts to rest.

dj seinfeld — time spent away from u

o-fi house has, in the space of about a year, made a meteoric leap from a niche cluster of Youtube channels to being widely touted as electronic music’s new-big-thing-of-the-year 2017. The genre has been pitched as a democratisation of the occasionally exclusive world of

The album flits between club bangers and a more reflective style, often, as is the case with the title track, showing both qualities simultaneously. The result is a sublime sound, one that’s hard to put your finger on. I haven’t yet experienced ‘Time Spent Away From U’ being blasted through a Funktion-One, but I imagine its combination of big techno drums (which wouldn’t sound of place on a Jeff Mills track) with a scratchy, deep41

ly heartfelt piano melody would sound pretty bewildering, in an enjoyable, mindfucking way. The same could be said of ‘U’, in many ways a kind of sister-track to the title track. While it shares ‘Time Spent Away From U’s’ sense of reflection, it seems like a more uplifting track, one that, fittingly for its position in the running order of the album, seems to have a sense of resolution about it. It should be mentioned that, while the album is not mixed in the traditional sense, the tracks are nicely beatmatched and kind of cue into each other, which at times provides a satisfying transition from drawn-out synthy feedback into banging drums, as in the move from the end of ‘I Saw Her Kiss Him in Front of Me and I Was Like Wtf?’ to ‘Too Late For U and M1’. This provides a driving force to the album, and stops it from lagging. The aforementioned ‘Too Late’ is for me the standout club tune on the album, starting around a lovely notquite-4/4 breakbeat and building through classic deep house synth pads, before swelling into a full scale acid banger by the end. In that track alone you have elements of deep house, classic techno, acid, trip hop and breaks, all topped off with a classic disco vocal sample. This huge range of influences and references can be found throughout the album, and indeed in the genre of Lo-fi as a whole, and make it a lot of fun to listen to for lovers of this kind of music. The references run strong, as in ‘It’s Just My Luv’, where the pianos sound lifted from a cheap 90s soap theme. This constant obsession with the past, with using and reconstituting frequently parodied sounds to create something new, fits really well with the themes of the themes of loss and nostalgia on the album. DJ Seinfeld, who has also produced genre-spanning work under his Rimbaudian and Birds of Sweden aliases (which are both well worth checking out), wrote 42

“It’s in this balance of constant parody and self-awareness that Seinfeld’s real sincerity lies.” Time Spent Away From U after a particularly difficult breakup. There is a clearly discernible theme of loss to the whole LP, making it unusually thematically coherent for a dance album. He claims the name ‘Seinfeld’ actually came to him during the period after the breakup, when he spent much of his time holed up inside watching the classic 90s sitcom. The apparent light-heartedness of his name masks a deeper truth – like much of the music on this album. The names of the songs (Too Late For You And M1, I Saw Her Kiss Him in Front of Me and I Was Like Wtf?) share this self-awareness of being marginally ridiculous but still deeply heartfelt, like so much of our experience on the internet. It’s in this balance of constant parody and self-awareness that Seinfeld’s real sincerity lies. In the weird world of internet culture where most of us now spend so much time, nothing can be expressed seriously; irony is the only modern mode of communication. Seinfeld’s (as well as the legion of Lo-fi artists he represents) brilliance is that he is capable of mastering that sense of irony, in the incessant meme imagery and semi-serious musical references, and using it to create a work of art of genuine emotional depth. Time Spent Away From U feels like the most relevant album I’ve listened to this year. It’s interesting to see the distinctly anti-establishment Lo-fi scene slowly emerging into the musical mainstream. Seinfeld has proved that the genre has a lot to offer. Hugie Rogers-Coltman

would suggest that this was Beach Boys, a song supposedly serving the purpose of illustrating Cuomo’s love of a far superior band. Perhaps, like some sort of Satanist, the chanting is meant to bring them back to life? Then again, probably not. If I filmed a snapchat of a Wetherspoons, whilst yelling ‘Kubrick’ for three minutes, I’d be saying as much about the late director as Weezer is about their idols. Feels Like Summer sounds kinda like Fall Out Boy hadn’t gone through puberty yet, and decided to sing over a Fun track, and Happy Hour plays as a (very samey) surrealist dream: ‘I’m like Stevie Ray Vaughan on the stage, high on music/ Teeth grindin’, sweatin’ under the lights/ But then my boss calls and she’s crushin’ me with a 20 ton weight/ Just like in Monty Python’. Just what the fuck is this? What does it mean? Why Ray Vaughan? What has that to do with being crushed by a giant block of metal? What does Monty Python have to do with this?

weezer — pacific daydream “Hey there Weezer, this is 2006. We were wondering if we could have our album back” From the opening bars of Mexican Fender, I knew we had a problem. With grunge guitars, moany emo vocals, and lyrics such as “She got a bachelor’s degree in physics, and a job in computer programming/ That’s pretty cool for a singer in a band, so I knew we would end up jamming” I began to feel my eardrums dissolving in a vat of beige sk8r boi pop-punk, as unwelcome visions of Billy-Joel Armstrong circlejerking with the band members of Panic! At the Disco filled my mind. ‘Ah’, I thought, ‘another dull pop-punk album: just what we need in 2017’. Out of nowhere, a giant cosmic hand flies down from the sky and slaps me in the face with the line ‘walking with the Mexicans/ should I call an ambulance?’ Now, exactly what the actual fuck is going on here I can’t exactly tell you, but the fact that Rivers Cuomo is repeatedly chanting ‘the Beach Boys’ in much the same way as Lil Pump would say ‘Gucci Gang’

I’m deeply confused. Unfortunately, however, between Weekend Woman and QB Blitz (what?!), it appears that Cuomo suffers some sort of aneurism, leaving him unable to intonate even the most basic of words. He moans and stutters through a near-incomprehensible void of confusion, slurring his phrasing and sounding not unlike the walking style of a newly-birthed giraffe: tripping over himself, covered in shit. Just what is a QB Blitz, and what the hell does ‘I gotta call my QB Blitz, B Blitz/ Out on the ice fields of Hoth’ actually mean? Is that a Star Wars reference? And if so, why? Even more unfortunately (!), as a byproduct of his sudden neural disruption, Rivers Cuomo actually turns into Brandon Flowers on Sweet Mary. I’m not exactly sure why he decides to switch accents and singing styles, but essentially he’s 43

made the next Killers track, filled with lyrical gems such as ‘I am so blessed in this life/ I want to show my gratitude/ She is so beautiful when she flies… Who is she? I wanna know/ Who is she, I wanna know’. At this point, Pacific Daydream was really beginning to become too much for me to handle. Not because of some meteoric awfulness, but because of a remarkable nothingness that expands to fill the entire listening experience in a way that makes it difficult to breathe.

john maus — screen memories

I can’t really talk about the rest of the album, because I completely zoned out and lack the self-harming tendencies which would compel me to revisit it. The only thing that I can recall amongst the offwhite mush is hearing ‘I guess I want to apologise, as I look you in the eyes’, and thinking ‘I goddamn hope so’.

They say sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum, but Weezer has proved them all wrong. A summer album released in late October, Pacific Daydream leaves the listener feeling more than a little cold. The band has stated that they’re singing about the thin divide between dreams and reality, and I agree. It’s a painful mix of the most standard pop-punk from the mid-2000s, and absolutely atrocious nonsensical lyrics that your friend would probably moan to you whilst on LSD. It’s a product so radio friendly that it’s already met radio in a club and given it a sad handjob in the toilet cubicle. For all it’s relentless ‘summeriness’, we’re left in a darker place than before: just goes to show, you can take a shit in Miami and bathe it in sunlight, but it’s still a shit. Still better than Ed Sheeran though. James Witherspoon

oveable Minnesotan freak and former Ariel Pink collaborator John Maus has graced us yet again with a magnificent LP of shimmering synths, deep liquid vocals and sheer electronic prowess. Similar to his other albums, he’s thrown it into the world of music with complete disregard for the scene it belongs to or who might listen to it, he’s simply made an album that he likes… and that’s all that matters. Sure enough, he isn’t alone in his opinion - he’s managed to create perhaps his most advanced album yet, immersing the listener in a sea of enchanting gothic baroque synth-pop. Screen Memories is the 4th studio album in Maus’ discography and the first new material for 6 years since his 2011 release We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves. In this time, he’s not only been creating the album, but he also completed a PhD in political philosophy and built his own synthesiser. How can he be so productive you might ask, well, the man lives alone in a cabin within the Minnesotan wilderness - perhaps this is the key to creating such purity in his sound, nothing but him and the cool air.

The album kicks off with its first single The Combine setting the scene for the album. It starts a dark pounding beat, with lyrics signalling the inevitable industrial armageddon. ‘I see the combine coming, it’s gonna dust us all to nothing’ - a potential reference to the push for automation in our world, where machine will overtake man. The track is equipped with an epic synthesised brass band and choir which builds to an epic height before suddenly cutting to silence, making way for the rest of the album. The tracks that follow all hold a dark or melancholy feeling to them, whether it be in pace like tracks Edge of Forever and Touchdown, but also in lyrical content, for example in Pets with the repeated booming “your pets are gonna die” providing a creepy juxtaposition between the fast, glittery instrumentation and the lyrics confirming the inevitable loss of your most cherished animal friends. Whether it’s due to some past trauma or a wicked sense of humour, this is one of the many tracks in Maus’ works that further cements to us that Maus is undeniably but endearingly weird. Despite his disinterest in placing the album within social context, it seems that the dark themes of Screen Memories correlate all too well with the current state of the world. With the media completely strewn with the horrors of global politics and disasters, the final track Bombs Away appears to be an ode to the continued distrust between the US and North Korea, with nuclear warfare only an arms reach at all times. Despite the darkness within the album, it seems to provide an unusual comfort to the heavy hearted people, in the way an angsty teen might take refuge in Morrissey’s moans of misery, death and despair, but in a strangely warm retro synth-pop way. The track Decide Decide Is particularly beautiful, with its wispy synths providing a sense of longing and hope, which alongside Maus’ soft rever-

berating voice muttering “I haven’t decided” provides a comfort in its ambiguity. The lyric “to dream” echoes several times throughout the track, giving the entire song a particularly surreal, dream like sound. Similar to this is the track Walls of Silence which has an almost hypnotic effect as the words “on the walls of silence,

“It leaves me wanting to listen on repeat, feeling every last note hit my ears with such perfection” its written on the walls of silence” are repeated throughout to a fast paced bass riff accompanied by a celestial organ creating a heavenly experience for the listener. Particularly pleasant throughout Screen Memories was the use of Maus’ true voice far more than in his past work. Previously the vocals had been weighed down and changed drastically with intense reverb and pitch shift to the point of lyrics becoming unintelligible - hearing the human sound of his voice throughout this album created more depth to the album, distinguishing his vocals from the otherwise robotic, electronic sounds of the synthesisers. Overall, Maus has managed to create what seems to be an actually relevant album, placing itself within the more conventional side of the indie-pop world, and so I’d expect to see this album grow his popularity within the genre, if the music press will allow him… It leaves me wanting to listen on repeat, feeling every last note hit my ears with such perfection matched only by Kraftwerk within the 45

electronic music world. It seems Screen Memories seems to have taken the best parts of ‘Pitiless Censors’ and fashion a darker, far more refined sound which is politically charged but in a way so subtle that you could listen 20 times and remain unaware of the messages. Whilst the world is certainly burning, John Maus has remained cool and collected (unlike 2009 when he accidentally set himself on fire doing chemistry experiments in his cabin) with Screen Memories providing a cryptic commentary on the state of the earth. No doubt he will be returning to his Minnesotan log cabin to contemplate his next gift to the music world in some years time, if Bombs Away hasn’t become a reality by then… Screen Memories is out now on Ribbon Records. Alex Hemsley

brockhampton — the story so far

exas – born and California – based BROCKHAMPTON have risen over the last year from relative obscurity in rap circles to relative obscurity in the mainstream media through the release of one of the most appropriately named album trilogies for decades – SATURA-

TION. In a testament to how much filler is contained within the albums they have planned to release all three albums this year. After SATURATION came out in July, SATURATION II followed in August before I had even heard the first album properly. SATURATION III is scheduled for release before the year is up, and frontman Ian “Kevin Abstract” Simpson has announced the release of yet more demos alongside SATURATION III. One has to question the wisdom of releasing albums this sort of rate lest they lose the ability to build hype or run out of ideas, but in today’s ever impatient world it’s a constant battle to avoid becoming irrelevant. Perhaps their business model is genius, after all it’s easier to ride momentum than to recover from a dip in listeners and fans. Either way, they’ve certainly built my anticipation for how much further they can push this project and their sound. SATURATION is BROCKHAMPTON’s first album, after the release of mixtape “All-American Trash” in 2016, and it followed the release of the best songs from the album as singles earlier in the year; including their most popular song to date GOLD. Whilst it’s typical to release a single before an album, Abstract’s bold release of several before and yet another single the day after the album dropped generated enough hype for Pitchfork and Noisey images to rear their ugly heads and review the album. It received a lot of critical acclaim from various platforms, and drew a lot of attention to Abstract’s solo work as well. As first albums go, it isn’t half bad. Actually on second thoughts it’s exactly half bad. The first half of the album is exceptional, and demonstrates exactly Kevin Abstract’s vision for the BROCKHAMPTON project – a colourful, diverse group of memorable members: self-contained, self-made, in Abstract’s words an “All American Boyband”. The

other half seems to be poorly executed filler. Slower songs like SWIM and MILK are musically uninspired, mediocrely performed and lyrically platitudinous. Even the production, which at earlier points in the album floored me, seems to be lazy and lacking. BROCKHAMPTON has a lot of potential but the breadth of their ambition and experimentation left a lot to be desired in the album. I hoped for a tighter focus before their next release. Within two months they had released SATURATION II. While hardly enough time to improve their musical style, they have really impressed me with their work rate and have seemingly developed both

“The sheer genius behind these songs makes it all the more frustrating when other songs fall completely flat” as individuals and a group in a very short space of time. The album is more evenly spaced, with stronger and weaker tracks mixed in throughout rather than front loading it with the good stuff as in SATURATION. It flows better, the themes are more tightly grouped and the quality of the songs is more consistently. My favourite song by BROCKHAMPTON, JUNKY, highlights everything I love about them. An aggressive, beat driven, lyrically interesting and phenomenally produced track that blows the majority of modern rap out of the water. JUNKY, GUMMY, and SWEET are the songs that I knew BROCKHAMPTON were capable of from SATURATION; improving on even GOLD, STAR, HEAT and BOYS – the standout

tracks from their first album. And the sheer genius behind these songs makes it all the more frustrating when other songs fall completely flat. It’s impossible for every track to be incredible, and one expects mediocre tracks every now and then in every album, but no tracks should be outright bad; and mediocrity shouldn’t comprise the majority of the album. Their violent beats, the juxtaposition between the voices and flows of the members, the sometimes outstanding production and use of samples, the lyrics when they’re not reminiscent of cat posters but actually say something (like Kevin Abstract re: homophobia in his community) or at least flow well – these are the defining characteristics of a potentially amazing group. This is the sound they should be searching for and developing. And this is the danger with churning out albums, singles and demos too quickly. Imagine an 8-track album with their best songs from the first two? It would have been an unprecedented first release. Instead, we have two frustratingly inconsistent albums that are at times both incredible and abysmal; and sadly, more often the latter. If they improve between their second and third album at the same rate as between their first two, I may hold at some hope. Yet, cynical as ever, I’m preparing to listen to the same five on repeat while disregarding the rest of the album. I hope they take a year or two after SATURATION III to release something else and develop their sound, as they have the potential to become something truly exceptional. Note: BROCKHAMPTON capitalise their name, their song names and their album names in a self-fallacious way to stand out. This is not a mistake by the writer or the editor, it is a mistake by Kevin Abstract. Matt Solomons 47

directions of Krule met, fought, tumbled and eventually agreed to form 12 tracks together rather than splinter into 17, The OOZ would make for a much more captivating listen.

king krule — the ooz

rriving 4 years on from his debut, The OOZ – Archy Marshall’s second album under his King Krule moniker, finally satiates fans’ ever increasing hunger for new material. Whilst it’s not quite the Krule we knew then, the foundations of his strange art-rock-triphop patchwork are still solidly in place. It’s a sprawling, swampy document of Marshall’s path to 2017, in much the same way his contemporaries have approached their most recent albums. The lengthy tracklist mimics Frank Ocean’s Blond and James Blake’s The Colour In Anything, and like those albums, the longer tracklist has looser cuts that could easily have been used elsewhere. The OOZ’s painful downfall stems from Marshall’s reluctance to combine ideas from track to track, which unfortunately leads to a bloated body of work that an audience can struggle to chew through. Songs are deflated to gimmicks and labels - there’s the typical angry ones (‘Vidual’, ‘Half Man Half Shark’), the minimalist beats (‘Logos’) and the jazz-inspired numbers. Half-drawn sketches of songs are left to stagnate unsupported in the foggy production which tenuously holds the project together. Had the fractured 48

That aside, the album is easily digestible in a few sittings, with spoken word interludes ‘Bermondsey Bosom (Left & Right)’ portioning the fragments of Marshall’s genre into shorter chunks. When consumed as two or three tasty morsels, the beauty-with-bite hidden in the miasma, behind brass and reverb, surfaces and encourages repeated investigation. Born from heartbreak and writer’s block, the evident frustration and pain reveals

“Born from heartbreak and writer’s block, the evident frustration and pain reveals itself through melancholic guitar twangs, distorted drums and multiple narrators.” itself through melancholic guitar twangs, distorted drums and multiple narrators. The anger which characterised 6 Feet Beneath The Moon occasionally rears its head to break the hypnotic opiate of blanketing synths and woozy white noise. Marshall blends the sound of fellow South Londoners the Clash with his beloved jazz on ‘Dum Surfer’ and invites an angry mob-turned-chorus to protest with him on the swirling ‘Half Man Half Shark’. A montage of genres where the edges are never quite fully blurred, The OOZ greedily plays with a glut of ideas but struggles

to combine them into a truly cohesive album. The opaque and comprehensive production, rife with references to both jazz and dance, welcomes you into Archy Marshall’s south London and offers a soundtrack for lonely strolls in the early morning, combining the paranoia of inner city life and the frustration of wide-ranging dead ends. It captures the mindset of its self-assured creator but struggles with formatting it into something to easily swallow. Like its titular ooz(e), it’s a stream-of-consciousness spitball that Krule has organically and perhaps reluctantly forced into the public sphere, refining it to a point where it’s palatable and in line with his vision, though sadly not for others to readily access. Thematically, it conquers; structurally, it flounders. Jake Crossland

‘relatable not debatable, relatable not debatable’. Songs of Praise, in the same manner as Shame’s live performances, thus aims to overturn the audience’s reliance upon the relatable. Instead, Shame want to antagonise, provoke and excite. I was hesitant upon entering into my first listen of this album. On one hand, it was a privileged treat to hear a collection of songs which in previous experience had been confined to a fuzzy old sound system in a dingy small venue space - listening opportunity reduced to a fight for footing amidst a frantic and ever-moving crowd of sweaty limbs - fine-tuned and manicured under professional mixing. An acute attention to detail and professionalism revealed the true punky depths of these tracks. The six-stringed skills of Eddie Green and Sean Coyle-Smith are given full light to shine, whilst Josh Finerty’s guzzly bass lines amplify in equal measure. Most importantly, this refined rendering of Shame’s music gave Steen’s 21st Century moanings the full clarity of voice they deserve. On the other hand, I had my reservations as to whether the frenetic and kinetic power of Shame’s live performance could be adequately, let alone successfully, translated onto recorded tape. I wondered if a band such as Shame, a band which has proudly championed the post Fat White Family Brixton centred music scene, known for their vociferous political stances and riotous live performances, wouldn’t have better suited a lo-fi ad-hoc recording style. A style which would have lacked finesse, but would have guaranteed a continuation of that principal ‘sleazy’ sound.

shame— songs of praise

harlie Steen, the head-shavedbaby-faced frontman who has captained the meteoric rise of South-London post-punk band Shame, reiterates on standout track from the album ‘The Lick’ that we, as a generation, want music that is

On Songs of Praise, Shame have leant towards artistry over image, and the album comes off a whole deal better as a result. Opening track ‘Dust on Trial’ releases an 49

ominous aura which settles over the entirety of the album. It’s opening riff cracking like a lightning bolt sent by Zeus himself. Shame are masters of creating an impenetrable soundscape, and whereas slacker bands such as Homeshake and

“The guitars don’t hide behind a chorus pedal; the vocals don’t hide behind auto-tune or a voice modifier” Soft Hair are interested in the relationship and space that exists between different instruments and melodies, Shame work to squeeze all living space from their musical compositions. They then build and control tension by supplying or withholding this noise. Their music is a digital signal - it is either a 1 or a 0 – noise is either delivered or suppressed; all to Shame’s control. Many of the tracks on this album are staples of a Shame live set. Songs such as ‘Concrete’, ‘Friction’ and ‘Tasteless’ are tried and tested and retain their live punch. The back-to-back chanting heard on ‘Concrete’ between Steen’s severe tone and Finnerty’s animated, impassioned echo (howled live through a thickset, ear-to-ear smile as he attempts, and often fails, to maintain his level footing as he springs about the stage) nicely sets up the duplicity that exists within the band. Heavy riffs and guttural vocal melodies work behind a veneer of the jocular. 50

In interviews, it is often only Steen who takes himself seriously, the other members actively working to take the piss out of their frontman or each other. Boil the band down to their roots - overlook the communist rhetoric from their Facebook posts and the heavy handed anti-Tory messages from their tour art - and they’re simply a group of mates having a laugh and making music together. The album cover art is a perfect representation of this: five sprightly young lads cuddling piglets. This jovial tone, it must be said, does little to affect the power of their music, on the contrary it merely foregrounds the lack of pretence the band has as a whole. ‘Donk’, despite being the shortest song on the album, is an early contender as my favourite. It has this amazing post-hardcore vibe to it, a slight departure from what has been heard of Shame in the past. It is doused in this Fugazi-esque lusciousness, revelling in an arm-swinging recklessness, with particular credits to Charlie Forbes on drums. Skirting the taboo when it comes to lyricism and song content has become a familiar trope amongst bands and performers wishing to shock and impress in South London. Kick-started by Ben Wallers (AKA The Rebel) and Country Teasers - who throughout the 90’s wrote songs from alternate, risqué perspectives as a means of checking the moral inclinations of their audiences - and transcending into the Fat Whites who wrote songs that would ‘make your skin crawl’ (quote from their interview with The Guardian, 2013), left-of-field subject matter has become more and more prevalent on the small stage. Despite of this, lyrics such as those found on ‘Gold Hole’ still carry an element of shock. As Steen speaks in salacious tongue: ‘Shake me up / pop my cork / feel me drip / as

I hear you talk’ - the line feels more akin to a Migos track. The song showcases the lurid relationship between a young female and her sugar daddy. The lyrics are debauched and uncomfortable to hear. It’s inclusion acts, almost, as a piece of performance art – its aim lies in making the viewer (or listener) uncomfortable – it succeeds. It is clear that a desire to be filled permeates the entirety of Songs of Praise. I believe that this continued suggestion of emptiness across the album, and the subsequent craving of fulfilment, gives a nod towards Shame’s belief in the current state of society. A sense of an inner void comes from continued gentrification, a line of inept politicians and their failed policies, and the devastating closure of many small-venue performance spaces in London. London’s 99% have suffered at the hands of the insatiable conglomerate of bankers and politicians, as Steen tastefully points out on ‘Lampoon’, appropriating the voice of the elite – ‘I’m so needy / I’m so greedy / I’m so hungry / Won’t you feed me’. Shame provide a voice to the masses who feel an anger, but also a sadness, towards the distance that is growing between how their community was, and what it is now morphing into. Songs of Praise isn’t a radical, or revolutionary album. It does, admittedly, feel slightly outdated at times, and the scope of variety in sound isn’t all that expansive. What it is, however, is a fucking impressive debut album for a group of musicians who have only just entered their twenties. The guitars don’t hide behind a chorus pedal; the vocals don’t hide behind auto-tune or a voice modifier. They haven’t hidden behind personas or adopted the all-too-popular stoner kid, baggy t-shirt aesthetic. They don’t shy away from politics, instead they are outspoken and use their platform as a means

to incite change. For this they deserve the highest credit. I’m not sure if Songs of Praise will be remembered as an important album, but I do believe that it will achieve the band’s aim to antagonise, provoke and excite. Jamie Walker

baxter dury — prince of tears

isery attracts the muse and has inspired all the greats. Baxter Dury’s newest release, The Prince of Tears, provides a suitable soundtrack to the horrible and confusing feelings that dominate life after love. At 29 minutes, this album is the musical equivalent of ripping off the plaster quickly; there’s no joy in pain and self-pity. He seems to say: dry your eyes, mate, and get on with life - or rather climb aboard an emotional rollercoaster. And what a ride it is! In under half an hour, Baxter Dury manages to include a wide range of different styles from summery, synthy vibes, to full orchestral power, and from melancholic piano to foul-mouthed Cockney spoken word. Entertaining and oddly fitting contrasts in individual songs make each tune unique and interesting. 51

The opening track, ‘Miami’, starts off with a slick bassline amidst old-school, synthy sounds, evoking images of men in white suits, and ladies barely covered in garish shades of shiny metals singing and slowly dancing in the background. Then it is as if one of those men clad in white rudely interrupts with a Cockney spoken rant. When listening to the song for the first time, I laughed out loud and still snigger and shake my head at the explicit lyrics

“He seems to say: dry your eyes, mate, and get on with life - or rather climb aboard an emotional rollercoaster” (the album review might be one of the only articles in The Guardian featuring the word “motherf*cker”). Baxter Dury’s lyrics are hilarious and clash exquisitely with the imagery and expectations set up by the intro and background track. Yet as in any roller coaster ride there are downs as well as ups. Unfortunately, the second track, ‘Porcelain’, is a bit of a letdown. One of the longest, and definitely the most boring, track on the LP is as bland as its name indicates and disappoints in virtually every way. Not only does it lack the energy Baxter Dury has in the other tracks, it even lacks the man himself. It’s a pale track that isn’t even saved by the enticing orchestration and Rose Elinor Dougall’s singing. Luckily, ‘Porcelain’ is a lone dip with the interesting sound picking up again immediately with ‘Mungo’. All is forgiven and forgotten with ‘Listen’, which sounds like a Kinks or Madness track, and is a lot of fun. Dury proves his lyrical mastery on 52

songs ‘Letterbomb’ and ‘Oi’ - the hilarious and absurd angry energy of these songs is reminiscent of Sleaford Mods, whose very own Jason Williamson fittingly features on ‘Almond Milk’. In ‘Oi’, Dury confronts a former bully, to a background of circussy synths. But despite the hard whacks, there are no hard feelings and instead only hope: a beautiful message with lots of swearing. ‘August’ revisits the heavy bass of ‘Miami’, but with none of its swagger. The song conveys the melancholy feelings of isolation, like being alone during rainy summer. ‘Wanna’ continues in this vain, portraying a man broken by love, contemplating missed opportunities. His introspection is completed by the chorus: ‘I would say something nice to you / But I don’t know how / I’m just waiting for myself / To say something I believe’. A perfect summary of the apathy and paralysis provoked by the sudden distance of a breakup. The title song, ‘Prince of Tears’, sees the prince stand alone on his driveway, wiping away his tears and smiling when he realises that even though his love and former life are over, there is more to him. It is the perfect closing track, with the over-over-repeated chorus losing meaning and slowly fading out into nothingness - like love lost. Prince of Tears is Dury’s fifth album and the first to enter the UK top 50. I hope getting over the breakup has been equally successful. “Prince of Tears” is available everywhere now.

Sarah Knight

Un L C

IN TER VIEWS 55

words by: EJ Oakley illustration by: alex hemsley @bigaltown

TO GETH ER PAN GEA 56

T Photo by: EJ Oakley

interviews

ogether PANGEA are a band that have come a long way, in more senses than one. Hailing from the sunny shores of Los Angeles, California, the moniker PANGEA was initially given to a solo project created by Keegan in 2005, who would record demos in his Santa Clarita bedroom. Eventually, PANGEA became a full band with the addition of Bengston on bass and drummer Erik Jimenez, and solidified their up-and-coming reputation in the garage rock scene with the release of their first two albums – their debut, Jelly Jam, and their iconic sophomore effort Living Dummy. With these records came their raucous live shows, performed around the CalArts campus – where Bengston had studied for a degree in fine arts – and local venues around southern California where the likes of FIDLAR and Wavves also made their names. Then came their signing to Harvest Records, a label whose lawyers forced them to change their name, resulting in their being dubbed ‘Together PANGEA’ as we know them today. With this came their third full-length record Badillac, an album that MTV (!) dubbed “one of the most anticipated indie releases of 2014”, and one that saw their music take on the glossy sheen of high production value without losing any of the catchy guitar hooks or the vitriolic, tongue-in-cheek lyricism that had propelled them into the limelight. 57

ow, after a three-year wait – which saw the addition of lead guitarist Roland Cosio to the band’s ranks, as well as Bengston’s self-admission into rehab after a long struggle with alcoholism – their fourth full-length effort Bulls and Roosters was finally released in August. No less sincere or captivating than their previous records, Bulls and Roosters sees Together PANGEA diversify their sound even further; moving from sparkling, melodic guitars on tracks like ‘Peach Mirror’ to their fuzzed-out roots on lead single ‘Better Find Out’. Even as we sit ourselves on the cold, faux-wood floor of the venue below the stage they are meant to play later that night, William Keegan and Danny Bengston are incredibly laid back, and never once do they seem at all aloof or disinterested – sentiments that one wouldn’t be too hard-pressed to see from musicians renowned within garage rock as heavyweight stalwarts on the scene, with whom every concert is a sweat-drenched, mosh-filled party. Hi there – it’s nice to meet you guys! How has the tour been going so far? William: It’s been fun; it’s been great being on the road with Thee MVPs. They’ve been opening our shows, and we’ve just been having a ball hanging out with those guys. Danny: They showed us Spoons. William: Yeah, they took us to Spoons – Wetherspoons? Spoons is everywhere. William: Oh, yeah. 58

Danny: They actually just texted us asking if we wanted to go to Spoons for dinner! I don’t think we can do it tonight. William: It’s interesting – we went to one where there was a bunch of gambling machines? Oh, yeah, there’s tons of them all over the place. William: And you can gamble at… all of them? Not all of them, but a fair amount. Both laugh. There are some really classy Spoons though. Danny: I think the one right here might be a little classier. Maybe. Is there one across the road, or something? Danny: Yeah it’s like right across from us. I walked by on my way to the pharmacy and it looked a little bit nicer than the one we went to. William: I really like shitty chain diners, so I’m like, “Wetherspoons is the place to go.” Well, they’re not really a chain in the sense that there’s no identifiable thing that binds them together, you just know cause it says ‘Wetherspoons’, and they’re all owned by this big pub conglomerate. Danny: I’m trying to think of what you could compare it to in America. Like, Applebees, or something? But I feel like it’s better than Applebees. William: TGI Fridays? Danny: Maybe. 59

TGI Fridays is overpriced here. It’s actually considered classy. Danny: Actually, Wetherspoons isn’t that bad. I think it’s kinda like Hooters without the ladies. Food-wise, it’s kinda similar. William: I’ve only been to one Hooters before, so I don’t really know. So what do you guys think of London? How’s it been treating you, besides Spoons? William: We just never have enough time on tour to really explore any city that we go to. We’ve been here a few times but we haven’t spent enough time to get a vibe for the city; we haven’t done any touristy stuff. It’s always just – drive. Venue. Show. Bed. Drive, venue, show, bed, drive, venue, show bed. And you get no days off? Danny: With the exception of the fact that we did have a couple days in Newcastle. William: Yeah, we flew in early to Newcastle. Newcastle is actually nice. The people were really nice. Danny: There were a lot of rowdy college kids, though. William: I didn’t get into any trouble, though. I was drinking at pubs and nobody…

just saw so many groups of young, early-twenties boys running around, super wasted. Is that a hobby? Up north there’s lots more club culture and drinking culture, so that’s the vibe. Danny: Makes sense. So… we saw that. We really saw that. Hopefully you guys have some time to check out London in the future. It’s a really great city. William: I would love to just come visit. That would be cool. Like, if we started in London we could fly in a few days early and just hang out. I’ve just never had the time. So, talking about the new record – lyrically it’s quite a lot more sombre than your previous albums, and its release happened around the time [Danny] went sober. Are the two linked? Is that your private struggle made public, in a way? Danny: A little bit. I guess ‘Kenmore Ave.’ is the only real sort of bummer song of mine. I don’t really see this album as being more of a downer than Badillac was.

I guess they just harass smaller people.

William: I actually don’t… yeah. Danny wrote the lyrics for three otf the songs on the album, and on some of the songs he addresses sobriety.

William: [laughs] Me!

Danny: Mostly ‘Kenmore’.

Danny starts laughing. And me. I think if I went to Newcastle I’d get into a whole lot of trouble. Danny: We were sitting in a bar and I 60

Yeah, I got that vibe. William: ‘Alison’ doesn’t exactly address it but… [looks to Danny] it influenced your writing?

interview: together pangea Danny: Yeah, it’s a little bit about getting older, that song.

sober and just having all this extra anxiety and anxious energy.

‘Alison’ is actually one of my favourites off the record. I was meaning to ask about that – what’s the story behind it?

William: And ‘Southern Comfort’, the title, has nothing to do with the alcohol. Danny: It has to do with the South. I spent some time there after we finished our tour for The Phage, cause my family’s out there. Again, just… y’know, girl… stuff…

Danny: It’s about a girl I grew up with… yeah, we went to elementary school together and then we became good friends when we were in high school. She’s just a girl I’ve known since I was a little kid that I’ve had a long, long crush on. And then, out of nowhere, we met up about a year ago in Portland and ended up kissing for the first time after knowing each other for like, sixteen or seventeen years. That is wholesome content. Danny: [laughs] Yeah, it’s a very wholesome love song. More like an admiration song for her. I think she’s great, and we’re still very good friends. I actually saw her a few weeks ago at our show in Portland. What about ‘Southern Comfort’? That’s another one of my favourites – I think the best one off the album. Danny: Oh, thanks. That’s me too. William: Wow. [laughs] Danny: That one is about… again, that’s under the sobriety thing, but different. It’s like the flipside of ‘Kenmore’. ‘Kenmore’ is about realising that you fucked a lot of shit up, and that maybe there’s ways to fix it. ‘Southern Comfort’ is about after you’ve gone through that. That song was about me getting out of rehab and being

William: A lot of girl stuff. Danny: Girl stuff. That’s a constant theme. Both laugh. So, about touring – you guys are pretty well-known for touring with bands like FIDLAR and similar bands from Los Angeles. Do you have any wild tour stories to share? William: We always get this “wild tour story” question. I know, but I’ve still gotta put it in! William: I know! It seems like it’d be the most fun question, but… I think we’re pretty low-key, mildly responsible guys. Danny: The wildest thing that happened on the tour we did with FIDLAR and Meat Market a long time ago was that everyone got sick. [both laugh] There was a lot of sleeping going on and drinking lots of hot toddies. William: When you play loud and kinda crazy rock n’ roll, people assume that that just bleeds out into every part of your life, and to some extent it does, but I think for 61

the most part, we just like to hang out with our friends and have a few drinks and chat. Nothing ever gets too crazy. Danny: We did some dates with The Black Lips the first time we were in Europe. The craziest thing we did was having a pool tournament – bassists against drummers at the Mines in Amsterdam. That’s it. William: It’s just… y’know, we just hang out and talk about rock n’ roll. Danny: I think the Twin Peaks tour we just did was probably the wildest, in a lot of ways. But there was no story that stands out as like, “whoa, some crazy thing happened!” It was more just us like… me and Cadien [Lake, of Twin Peaks] going to Target together in Vermont. William: And then staying up till 4 at the bar or whatever. That happens a lot. Danny: And then back at the hotel, we’ll just be in someone’s room, drinking and playing cards or dice or some shit like that. It’s nothing too wild, really. William: I’ve got wilder home stories than tour stories. That makes sense; I guess you already play really energetic shows and just want to chill out after. William: I mean, I just wanna hang out and talk. Fair enough. Do you miss home when you’re on tour? Danny: Right now, yeah. Just cause this has been pretty long.

William: This is week… six? Or week seven? We got a week at home in between. Danny: We started our US tour on, what, September the 14th? So… no, this is exactly two months, this is week eight. William: I mean, it’s not that crazy – some bands tour a lot more than that, but… I mean, right now, at this moment, I don’t miss home at all. I’m happy to be here. I like being in London. I’m excited to play the show and go have a drink afterwards. Is there anything from LA in particular that you wish you could take with you, or are you a more take-it-as-it-comes guy? Danny: Mexican food. William: June. Danny: He’s got a dog. He’s got a good dog. Oh, what breed? William: A Weimaraner. They call them “grey ghosts”. They’re like medium-sized… Danny: Hunting dogs? William: It’s like a sport dog. Do they call them lurchers here, or am I mistaken? William: I think they’re just Weimaraners. They’re German. I think you say it ‘Veimerainer’. Danny: This is a Weimaraner. Danny proceeds to show me several pictures of Weimaraners off Google Images.

interview: together pangea That is majestic. Danny: It’s a very beautiful dog. They pretty much all look like that. Like, that looks like June. William: She’s very pretty. Both laugh. You guys were once sponsored by Taco Bell, I hear? William: Yeah, on Feed the Beat. Danny: We call it Pack the Beat now. [laughs] We were just on tour with Daddy Issues, this band from Nashville, and they just got on Feed the Beat. It’s a thing they do once a year for X amount of bands. William: They just send you a bunch of gift cards.

Danny: Yeah, you just get a little thing with a hundred $5 gift cards. That’s $500 worth of Taco Bell. William: And then you don’t even use it, because after you use the first $100 you’re just like, “I never want to eat Taco Bell ever again.” Danny: But you also do kinda use it. Back when we had it, we weren’t doing that well as a band. We were more tight money-wise, so we’d be driving to a show and we’d be like, “We’re hungry, what do we wanna eat? Oh, shit. Taco Bell…” William: “Again…” Danny: “Guess we’ll go to Taco Bell… It’s free, so…” I guess too much of a good thing… Both laugh.

William: I mean, people still get it and people still use it. I don’t know what the appeal is. Are the coupons valid for life?

line for it too. We were on Stratumseind, which is this big party street in Eindhoven, and my friend that I was staying with was just like, “Taco Bell. Check it out! Right there!”

Danny: I don’t know! I was cleaning my room before we left for this tour, cause my buddy is staying in my room, and I found three of those gift cards from four years ago. I think it was 2013, when we were on Feed the Beat?

William: That’s funny to hear, that it’s like a myth here.

If you’ve got some on you, I’ll gladly take some.

Both laugh.

William: We’ll ship you some. Both laugh. William: I remember they did it for SWMRS, right? Danny: Yeah, they did. I feel like there’s always one band we know that’s getting it. And then we have a lot of friends who try really hard to get it and then don’t get it.

We have Chipotle all over the city here. But if you say ‘Taco Bell’, everyone’s like, “…wait. Are they opening?”

Danny: Del Taco’s the real deal, though. That’s the best one. William: The best of the crappy Mexican food joints. You only get those in LA, though, right? Danny: You get them all over. My mum and dad live in Atlanta and there’s one by their house.

I felt like I had to ask – Taco Bell is a kinda mythical thing here in England.

I was on holiday in America in the summer, but I only went to New York and Chicago, and they didn’t have Del Taco there.

Both laugh.

Danny: Oh, yeah, probably not.

William: Taco Bell?!

But I have had Taco Bell.

Danny: They have one here now, right?

Both laugh.

There’s one Taco Bell in Chelmsford, which is a small city half an hour out from London. Nobody goes there for Taco Bell.

Danny: Del Taco is so much better, though.

William: I see…

William: It is a step up.

William: Did you try it?

Just to finish off, then – most of our readers are students and aspiring musicians. Do you have any advice for people who are just starting out playing music?

Danny: [laughs] No. There was a huge

William: My advice would be… I don’t

Danny: I saw one in the Netherlands.

interview: together pangea know! I get this question sometimes–

Don’t be a dick?

Danny: Just do whatever the thing is that you feel comfortable doing. Stick with it and do it.

Both laugh.

William: Do it and take it seriously. Don’t fuck around. I mean, make what you want to make as well as you can possibly make it.

Danny: Don’t be a dick, don’t suck, and play a lot. That’s it.

Sorry, you probably get this question a ton of times.

Pretty sound advice. Thanks for your time!

William: Yeah, don’t be a dick, ever.

William: And care about what you do.

William: I actually only get this question from fans outside of shows who are like, “Hey, I’ve got a band, what do I do?” And I’m like, “I don’t know. Just play shows and be nice to the people that you meet, and the bands that you hang out with.” Just be nice. Danny: If there’s a scene that you’re trying to get into, like if you’re playing music and doing something in some scene, just be around. William: Don’t try to be cool. Don’t try to be cool, ever. Danny: [laughs] And just be around, and be helpful and positive; part of that scene. Just show up. A lot of it was, for us, when we were starting out in LA, just playing every show we possibly could. A lot of it was at The Smell; hanging out at The Smell or The Echo or wherever our friends and the bands we liked were. So just do it, and try not to suck. William: I mean, it’s basically being nice to people. It’s just…

Hardly Horrifying: An interview with

TH E H OR RORS words By: ben levett illustration by: alex hemsley @bigaltown

head of the band’s sold out show at Camden’s KOKO, Ben Levett talked to The Horrors’ guitarist and UCL Physics alum Joshua Hayward about snooker, Belgian buns and Ryan Gosling’s arms. Your image seems suited to Camden, what’s your relationship with the area? I don’t think we’re particularly Camden-y! But when I was 14 I used to come to Camden to buy all my clothes, like Scandinavian jeans and stuff like that. I’ve also lived near here for the past 15 years. I don’t really come to Camden any more, except to The Elephant’s Head which is really cool. It has changed a lot. Have you played Koko before? Yes, it was one of our first shows actually. It was the first time we got strobes and we turned them on the entire time and played for about 15 minutes. Are there going to be more strobes this time? I hope so, but we’ll probably play for about 5 times as long, with only 15 minutes worth of strobes. A bit like cricket really, a very short game over a long period of time. Your new record sounds dirtier and more industrial than your previous material. Does that affect your live show? It makes it more fun, I’ve really enjoyed playing on this tour. 67

Do you have a favourite song to play? ‘Machine’ has been good fun, it’s very dance-y. It was the first song we played live from the new record so it feels nostalgic. ‘Something To Remember Me By’ has been getting the best reaction. We play it at the end of the set, so everyone’s really excited by this point… after an hour and 15 minutes of awesome music. I love the video for ‘Something To Remember Me By’. What’s the meaning behind it? The celebrity as a commodity is the basis of it, it’s all meant to be taken very tongue in cheek, not a very serious thing. It’s about how much of yourself you have to give away - it was the director Max’s idea. It’s like part of the soul of the celebrity being taken away and made into commodities If you could have a part of a celebrity as a commodity, who and what would it be? It’s such a weird thing! I would probably have Ryan Gosling’s arms on my shelf, constantly flexing. He basically has no arms in Blade Runner 2049 as he wears a jacket through the entire film, I couldn’t understand it. I was just thinking, ‘When is he going to get his arms out? What the fuck are wardrobe doing?’ My favourite memory of The Horrors will always be of The Black Tubes in The Mighty Boosh. How did you end up doing that? We’d done an interview with The Boosh for NME beforehand and we got on because they’re hilarious and we’re good at laughing, and they asked us to be on the show. Well, Noel Fielding of The Boosh is now presenting The Great British Bake Off. 68

What would be The Horrors’ signature bake? Well my favourite baked good is a Belgian Bun, and the best ones come from Nobbie’s in Southend because I think they put half a pack of butter between layers which makes it so good. I used to get them every Sunday morning when I was off my head the night before and they always used to make me feel a lot better. Actually maybe I should apply to be on the show, but I can imagine me and Noel pissing around and getting drunk… and probably end up ruining his career. I read that you always ask for a surprise in your rider. What have you received on this stretch on the tour? The weirdest one was a small stuffed goat which Tom slept with every night. We also got Travel Monopoly, but we haven’t played it yet. I’m a bit worried about playing it with people as it definitely brings out the worst in me. I become a really scary capitalist and always win. I end up starting my own bank and lending money at ridiculous interest rates. Maybe I should run a bank… So you do never play board games on tour? We don’t, but I need to get better at chess so I can beat Faris [Badwan] - he’s really good at it. I love playing chess, it’s really fun… I just don’t know my openings. How do entertain yourselves on tour? We just naturally wind each other up. It’s like Christmas dinner when you get bored and start poking your siblings. We did go bowling in Bristol because Rhys [Webb] was djing - it was really good fun. I won Most Entertaining, but didn’t win with the numbers.

So if you got be a professional in any sport, what would it be? Bowling? Chess?

We got rid of 50 of them. The good ones rose to the top.

I was discussing this with my friend the other day. If you were a master snooker player like Ronnie O’Sullivan, that would be pretty cool. You can be a bit of a maverick and still be good at the sport. I’d hate to be footballer, because of everything that surrounds it.

So how do you manage to change style with each album?

How was working with Paul Epworth (who’s also produced Adele, Florence and the Machine, FKA Twigs)? What influence did he have? We were both keen to make it ‘horrible’ sounding. I actually asked him for a job 15 years ago at a time he was doing sound for LCD Soundsystem. Paul has some incredibly punk roots - he used to be in a punk band! He is very loud and headstrong. He doesn’t like people waiting around too much and always wants people to be doing stuff all the time, a good driving force. He didn’t want us to think about things but to just do it. That was his vibe. When we were producing records ourselves, we used to talk about things and fine-tune for hours. We made about 60 songs - it was important to do this other way of working. So how did you cut down from 60 songs?

With V, the methods we used were completely different - different environment, different people. You’ve been in the industry for a long time. Do you try and cater for the way people consume music now? We’ve never thought about that, like ‘what if you were streaming or listening to the album in a random order?’ I’ve never really liked singles. I think listening to records is amazing, leaving it for 20 minutes and stopping to have a breather. Do you think that streaming has ‘devalued’ music in any way? No, music is just more accessible now. What value can we put on music? Music has always been for entertainment. 30s blues was originally music to drink to, not to be played in played in concert halls now it’s just more high brow to like it. You can’t expect everyone to like something the way you like it.

LIVE

REVIEWS 71

TOGETHER PANGEA @ THOUSAND ISLAND 14.10.2017

words by: james witherspoon photos by: ej oakley

hat would compel someone to love Thousand Island dressing so much that they’d name a venue after it? That’s not a rhetorical question. Filing in under the neon pink bottle, floating in a garish Kool-Aid sea, we were greeted with some sort of nightmare vision of the 1970s: sparkly magenta walls, sticky vinyl flooring, and a hellish cornucopia of disco balls scattered haphazardly across the ceiling as if discarded in some sort of funky mass grave. Reliably, I pay £4.50 for a pint of ownbrand beer. I hate London. The ambiance of Thousand Island, despite its tackiness, is rather endearing: it feels like people want to be here, having trekked to Highbury and Islington tube station to see Together PANGEA play London. Opening act Thee MVPs provided a barnstorming first set. It certainly helped that the crowd seemed to be unusually large for an opener, but, all the same, they put on a truly good show. There seemed to be a lack of build-up, with the MVPs slamming on the punk from the get go, and never letting up till the end. It’s a warm venue, and sweat dripping off the musicians was visible – with the frontman in particular flailing around all over the place as if in some sort of music-induced fit. Thousand Island lacks the lighting or effects to really lend the harder-edged stuff an additional texture, but this can’t really be attributed to fault by either party: the act managed to do

live reviews a fantastic, loud-ass job of getting the crowd reared up and ready to go. The crowd, by this point hopelessly drunk and uncharacteristically violent (some mad ginger dude kept on trying to attack everyone), were practically baying for Together PANGEA to come on stage. Again, this review seems increasingly to be a review of the crowd as opposed to the damn band, but I think it really helped that the people in attendance seemed to be genuine fans of Together PANGEA, yelling all the lyrics in time with frontman William Keegan and refusing to give up the moshpit bloodlust throughout the set. A sedate crowd definitely has the power to ruin a gig, so it’s definitely worth mentioning that the one in attendance here was excellent. Unfortunately, this was somewhat dulled by the imbecile in a baseball cap who seemed determined to get his ass on stage as much as physically possible – to the point where Keegan had to tell him to “make sure he stayed down there” – but apart from that it was excellent. Together PANGEA followed up their mega-loud, crazy openers with an even louder, even crazier set which refused to let up for its one-hour duration. They’re a band that can certainly be recommended as a bona fide live fixture, whose hard-rock and punk tendencies are greatly heightened by deafening speakers and a lively crowd. Featuring fan-favourites such as Too Drunk to Come, River, and Sick Shit, Keegan and co. provided a pretty relentless show, barely ever stopping to provide the occasional humorous aside to a legion of fans hungry for more. All four band 73

members seemed on top form tonight, with Keegan’s trademark rusty vocals really adding some depth to the grungy basslines and guitar white noise. Perhaps this was further boosted by the fact that it was PANGEA’s last stop on their UK tour, having pulled out all the stops (and even inviting the audience members round to Wetherspoon’s afterwards for a post-show drink) to deliver one final hair-raising set before they headed to Europe. If I had something to complain about, it’d be that the tracks were all a little samey. Sure, for the purposes of a onenight hour-long blast, it works super well, but on a more long-lasting level, Together PANGEA’s output begins to feel a little stale, or at least repetitive. Indeed, not being a regular listener of the band, this was most clear to myself during the transitions between songs, as the next song occasionally sounding disarmingly like the previous song. However, I do acknowledge that this can often be the byproduct of the live setting – the nuances of a composition tend to only show their faces in an album context. All in all, it was a pretty damn good night. An excellent crowd, an energetic and incredibly talented opener, and a crazy main set all added up to one sweaty, fun, and mental concert which, although admittedly inconsequential, was a good time in a pretty whack place.

nervous conditions @ the windmill 18.10.2017

words by: jamie walker photo by: Isabella Tjalve

hat made this night at the Windmill of note is that a rough five miles heading north of Brixton, Shame were playing their sold-out headline slot at Scala. ‘The South-London Scene’, the catchall term for the collection of bands who centred their performances around the very venue I was standing in tonight, had over the past-year accumulated a cultish degree of hype and dedication. With bands such as HMLTD, Goat Girl and the aforementioned Shame leading the frontier, a whole aesthetic and political charge had amassed and was cultivated with pin-stripe extravagance within the four walls and squat-like exterior of The Windmill, Brixton. Tonight, however, felt different. First up was Jerskin Fendrix. His recorded music is choppy with heavy electronic chords cut together with snippets of samples. ‘Onigiri’ is quite reminiscent of Ratatat, for example. In a live setting, bathed in a purple hue, the heavily bearded, sharp suited individual delved into his moody lyrics – the affect was unsettling, but I appreciated the stage presence. Second on stage was Hussy. Refreshingly female fronted with credits on vocals and guitar, Hussy provided a fresh take on the grunge genre, providing serpentine guitar lines in place of the stolid chugging generated commonly in pure grungy idleness. Lead singer Sophie Nicole Ellison channelled the immediate energy of a Kim Deal incarnate, whilst guitar partner Sona Koloyan breezed in flowery joy behind. A comfortable

live reviews sound which would have been aided by a sounder sound system, yet the performance fit the Windmill to a tee. Next up was Black Midi. Reminiscent of HMLTD’s 100 Club performance in March of this year, Black Midi materialized on stage to a thundering soundtrack of what in recall sounded like some Old Skool happy hardcore track. Going on the precision of their performance, I am all but certain that their walk-on music was picked with the utmost intention. Black Midi are the one of the most impressive and exciting bands I have seen since those early, small venue Shame / HMLTD performances of the past years. Frontman Geordie Greep pranced about the stage in his over-sized crimson-coloured trousers in the manner of a giraffe-on-ecstasy – but trust me, this is a positive description, I’m merely finding it hard to put his movements into words. Drummer Morgan Simpson amazed in equal measure. One could argue that such a talented drummer is wasted on a post-punk (?) band - yet the sheer virtuosity of the three other musicians, alongside the complexity of the performance itself called for complete proficiency when it came to the rhythm section. With the band ambiguously announcing on social media what seems to be a support slot at the upcoming Crewel Intentions gig (Sebright Arms – 9th November) it appears that Black Midi are already making waves around and inside the London scene – and how worthy! In opposition to Black Midi, headliner’s Nervous Conditions appeared onto the stage in small drips and pieces – a drummer here, a violinist there. This 77

mode of entry is seemingly appropriate for a band formed of eight musicians, including two drummers with two separate drum kits. Stumbling onto stage half way through the first song is the conductor of this mess of arms, legs and mixed-metal - Connor Browne - beguiled poet; arrayed toothed vagabond. He stands, eyes taut. Nervous Conditions are characterised by discord. Their sound is abrasive, and sharp. Georgia Ellery plays the tight strings of her violin off beat in pizzicato whilst saxophonist Lewis Evans screams through his mouthpiece in avant-garde tongue. Yet one senses cohesion, this band have obviously rehearsed these songs, yet the very act of performance drives the viewer to question each songs stability – the beginning and end hinging on the command of Browne’s upheld clenched fist. As a jazz lover, the fusion of the two genres – jazz and post-punk - was extremely exciting, however I yearned for the ticker to fall slightly more in favour of the jazz corner. Such an abrasive set would have welcomed a few more melodies to entertain the brain on the train home. Yet their set worked, and I imagine a livelier crowd en-masse would have aided the performance. With the recent sad news that small-venue stalwarts Dead Pretties had ceased their punkfaced-gallivanting and called it a day, I can’t be the only person wondering who will fill their place. A solid, tightknit crowd of bands have quite securely controlled the bills at the most exciting nights at such venues as The Moth Club, The Lock Tavern and the now reputable Windmill over the past handful of years. However, with a number of these bands moving on to European / North American tours alongside deserved album 78

deals and record contracts, it feels as if it is time a fresh new wave of bands to take to the small stage. It is too early to stake a claim into who these bands are going to be, however the performances seen tonight at The Windmill certainly gave them impression that bands are beginning to seek a slight diversion from the well-trodden path – a welcomed move! These new performers must aim for something aside from what has already been presented, unless they want to fall into the slipstream of what has preceded them.

kane strang @ oslo hackney 13.10.2017

words by: elliot phillips photo by: dan kulpa

ew Zealand indie rocker Kane Strang played to a small, yet enthusiastic crowd of fans at the bar and venue Oslo in Hackney on Monday night. His live performance was a refreshing re-examination of his studio sound, losing in perhaps some of the emotional nuance and mordant wit the singer, songwriter, and guitarist is known for, but gaining in intensity and excitement. At times, Strang sounded unrecognizable, replacing the gentle New Zealand drawl of his albums with vitriolic, hoarse shouting reminiscent of Pixies front man Black Francis. This contrasted somewhat awkwardly with the serene and disengaged expression on his face and bashfully quiet stage banter between songs. However, the music affected the audience powerfully enough to render theatrics unnecessary. His 2016 album Blue Cheese, released on legendary indie New Zealand label Flying Nun, managed to marry a reverb-heavy and punchy lo-fi sound to his melancholy and melodic songs. This style brought together the attitude and production quality of punk to the introverted and shimmeringly lush sound of indie rockers like Real Estate and Mac Demarco. At times, the influence of neo-psychedelic groups such as Animal Collective were detectable, with radiant harmonies echoing around the synthesizer and guitar-driven music. Strang achieves a much cleaner sound on his 2017 effort Two Hearts and No Brain, where pounding basslines and crunchy guitar leads predominate over the jangly guitars that the formed the backbone of his previous one. The slow, churning heaviness and latent anger of the music on this album puts the moodiness of The Pixies in mind rather than than the relaxed optimism of Animal Collective. The lyrics convey a bitterness and self80

pity that at times is less than winning, like Smiths or Weezer lyrics lacking the self-aware wit. On ‘My Smile is Extinct’, he sings “I heard there’s a chance at an afterlife / I might not get let in [to heaven] / But at least I won’t be living.” The listener is impressed by his ability to convey these torrid emotions, but one feels that he stops at the point of drawing meaningful conclusions or self-reflection at them. In spite of this, he succeeds in creating an album that strikes it’s listeners with poignant melodies and lyrics that honestly, if somewhat shallowly, portray the pains heartbreak, alienation, and depression. Strang sandwiched material from his first album between his more recent work, reminding the audience of where he’s come from musically, but gesturing towards the heavier sound he is now developing. While the band managed to better the already aggressive energy of Two Hearts, at times even seeming to reach the cacophony of noise rock, they retained a tightness and cohesion that paralleled their timidity and charming awkwardness as performers. The dynamics of anger and meekness, restraint and recklessness, thoughtful lyrics and violently powerful music were a large part of what makes Strang such an interesting live act. While Strang is not much of a frontman, he seemed to be having fun and the audience certainly was as well. To find such enjoyment in music so involved with feelings of deep suffering was a reminder of the catharsis we look for in pop music and all art and that the expression of such painful emotions as Strang admits in Two Hearts and No Brain is perhaps the first step towards moving beyond them. From the smiles on the faces of the band and crowd, it certainly seemed to be the case.

benjamin booker @ student central 14.10.2017

words by: uri inspektor photo by: russ borris

live reviews

enjamin Booker is a frog prince. His rough-cut yet piercing good looks, coupled with a lunar glaze of postnatal sweat and, of course, his other-worldly, utterly enchanting voice - that has retained the most intricate remnants of its past froggy croakyness - make me sure of it. You can taste this capacity for metamorphosis in his music. In an emotionally intense hour, Booker visibly transforms from a restless youthful punk in ‘Always Waiting’, to gospel preacher and polemicist in ‘Witness’, to aged forsaken blues mourner in ‘The Slow Drag Under’ reminiscent of Robert Johnson. His show at ULU on 14th November was an intricate and vigorously heartfelt dance between ethereal vocals and the indefatigable lament of the guitar. Booker says very few words to his audience throughout, yet at the same time does not feel distant, instilling an intimacy through his confessional yet uplifting lyrics that is more visceral than the record listening experience. We are also treated to electric renditions of otherwise acoustic songs, such as in the case of ‘Motivation’, which packs a needed energy into what is usually a somewhat trite folk ditty. Booker’s tight, versatile backing band orbit symbiotically around him, yet it is only in the second half of the show where his own talents at guitar come out in full force. Solos are transferred from a well-meaning but middling lead guitarist to Booker’s own fretboard with intoxicating results.

Yet Booker’s songs are more than just scintillatingly warm and hypnotic. In ‘Witness’, the title track from his latest release, a frustrated Booker rails against his own powerlessness in the face of institutional racism in the US: ‘Am I just gonna be a witness?’. He places himself with mockery in the mind of the White oppressor: ‘See we thought that we saw that he had a gun/ Thought that it looked like he started to run’. There is something unavoidably poignant about his singing this to a predominantly white crowd in Bloomsbury who seem to be swaying along to its groove oblivious of its political import. Late in the show a drunk audience member shouts ‘Chuck Berry’s long lost grandson!’. This simplistic, slightly racist statement sums up the attitude of the happily entranced audience at ULU, as they are treated to relentlessly energetic old crowd favourite ‘Violent Shiver’ and the classic soul of new track ‘Believe’. Support came from Palma Violets bassist Chilli Jesson’s latest vanity project ‘Crewel Intentions’. Forcefully kicking up some vague degree excitement around small London venues, usually supported by much younger and better bands, they orchestrated an uninspired year-7-battleof-the-bands-esque opening. Strutting clad in a suit, like a laughable Alex Turner impersonation without the songwriting talent, Jesson wriggled his hips melodramatically in front of an embryonic Tuesday night crowd. Some of their riffs could well have been found in an ‘Introduction

to the guitar’ songbook. They certainly brought energy, but the kind of energy that issues from hyperactive children after excessive consumption of halloween sweets, that irritates rather than convinces its lookers-on. A band that earlier that week had headlined above the likes of Hotel Lux and Black Midi, Crewel Intentions, the pitiful dregs of UK garage revival, seemed a confused choice of support for Booker. As for Benjamin, though I enjoyed the convenience of walking over to him from the library 10 minutes before the show, he belongs at Scala on a Saturday, not in the vulgarity of ULU on a Tuesday. A disappointing sound system used to playing trap to drunk students (and next year will project the sweet sweet music of none other than Honey G) didn’t bring out the best in his sound, and he seemed to know it. Nevertheless, a soothing encore of his indisputable greatest song ‘Slow Coming’ succeeded in its desired effect. Though somewhat tainted by a trite support act and unsuitable venue, Booker’s capacity to enthral shone through.

BEST OF THE

YEAR

Abdul Rashidi Daniel caesar - freudian

“I

f the world’s on fire, why do I feel so at ease?” asks vocalist William Keegan on opening track ‘Sippy Cup’, which sets the mood for Bulls and Roosters – the LA garage rock quartet’s fourth studio release. In between bouts of self-reflection – “She says that living with me is bringing her down / I know this shit that I’m on is bumming me out,” goes third single ‘Kenmore Ave.’ – the record still brings plenty of heady, youthful enthusiasm to the table. From the hopeful, lovestruck strut of unforgettable earworm ‘Alison’ to the semi-stoned, almost nihilistic musing of ‘Gold Moon’, it’s clear that growing up doesn’t equate to calming down for Together PANGEA. Lead single ‘Better Find Out’

Stand out tracks include “Blessed” and “Best Part” - a vocal harmony lesson by Caesar and H.E.R. If you are unfamiliar with this style of music, Freudian is a great introduction. For fans, Daniel Caesar could be the artist that fills the void that Frank Ocean leaves between albums.

also sees a return to the band’s fast and furious lo-fi roots, and there’s even some psych-rock experimentation on ‘The Cold’ and ‘Peach Mirror’. As a whole, all thirteen tracks meld perfectly to form the kind of well-honed, raucous mess you’d expect from a rock band matured to their prime. “If it took this long, no it can’t be wrong, am I right?” Keegan sings on ‘Alison’, as the album comes to a close. He might as well be talking about the strides his own band has made. Bulls and Roosters is cold, hard proof that they’re only about to go even farther from here.

ej oakley together pangea - bulls and roosters

eo-soul and RnB are currently undergoing a thorough renaissance. There is a new sound emerging that not only translates to traditional fans but has also introduced a wave of new followers who prefer more futuristic styles of music. Canadian artist, Daniel Caesar exemplifies this in his debut album, Freudian. Working alongside amazing artists such as singer/songwriter H.E.R and alternative hip hop artist Syd, the album is a true gem. The album contains an eclectic mix of contemporary and alternative RnB glossed with gospel vocals coming from his upbringing in church, adding intricate details to each track.

“Get You” is a great introduction to Daniel Caesar as both a creative artist and vocalist. The track is laid back and the simplicity of the instrumental provides a space for Caesar to flourish. The track features Kali Uchis who has worked with Diplo, Jorja Smith and will be supporting Lana Del Rey on tour next year.

H alex hemsley alex cameron - forced witness

t’s been quite a year for 88rising, the management-agency-cum-record-label-cum-Youtube-channel that brought us Rich Chigga and Yaeji. 2017 has seen the label’s ‘Soundcloud aesthetic’ pushed into the mainstream of hip-hop and electronica, with its distinctive brand of ethereal lo-fi gaining much wider exposure. But no one on the label has made as big a splash as Joji – aka George Miller, aka Pink Guy, aka Filthy Frank. In Tongues sees Joji (the man whose previous ditties include ‘I eat ass’ and ‘Please Stop Calling Me Gay’) in his first official foray into “serious” music, coming very much into his own with this heartbreakingly sombre album. Heavy, moody, and melancholy, ‘Will He’ – the album’s opening track and single – sees Joji’s soft, sensual vocals bitterly pining over an ex (‘Will your shadow

aving followed Alex Cameron since before he’d released his first LP Jumping The Shark, I’ve observed his growth as an artist, and whilst the debut LP was fantastic (another favourite) it’s in this new album Forced Witness that he’s really found himself and proved his undeniable skill as a musician. Cameron presents a sleazy alter-ego, also named ’Alex Cameron’, through which his skilled, gently raspy voice (unlike Jumping The Shark’s Nick Cave-esque crooner) provides a commentary on the world’s dirtiest of happenings; oozing with sleaze and filth from a satirical, egotistic-autobiographical perspective, accompanied by jazzy synths, smooth saxophone and other musical thrills. Via inherently creepy lyrics, topics such as underage desires and pornography addiction are referenced, which through first-person telling is made all the more shocking by Cameron’s awareness and casual nature about such topics. What’s so impressive about the album is that despite its crude lyrical content, each track is both musically exceptional and contagious. The album is a synth-pop danceable masterpiece, accompanied by his tight band and ‘business partner’ Roy Molloy on sax, the album shows a blossoming of Cameron’s talents and career through technical prowess and upbeat catchiness – a strangely beautiful album.

remember the swing of my hips?’), as a swaying, nostalgic piano sample underlines his midnight-regret. His biting resentment is dealt with later in ‘Bitter Fuck’, where a dry guitar riff pounds away as Joji laments his reputation as ‘A bitter fuck / …Because of you’. In ‘Pills’ – a personal favourite – the pain and heartbreak endures. Swooning falsetto backing vocals underpin Joji’s plea ‘Please don’t run away’, before crying ‘So I’ll fly away / Zoloft, Xanax’ in a climax of emotional despair.

ollie dunn joji - in tongues

Joji has made a break from the memes, and it has certainly paid off. 87

joe bell loyle carner - yesterday’s gone

oyle Carner moves away from the stereotypes of what a rap album should sound like on this impressive debut. Dealing with subjects such as alcohol abuse, family issues and life in 21st century Britain Carner’s way of words and laid back, poetic style creates a fantastic narrative which flows

jamie walker (sandy) alex g - rocket

midst casually featuring on Frank Ocean’s Blonde and maintaining his reputation as one of the nicest and most easy-going musicians in the intergalactic music sphere, (Sandy) Alex G released new album Rocket to critical acclaim. (Sandy), or plain Alex, or even just G, maintained on Rocket all of the characteristic traits that led his past albums (at 24 years of age he has five albums officially released with a whole discography of unreleased songs floating around in 88

through the record. Carner shines over jazzy old-school beats reminiscent of A Tribe Called Quest or Wu-Tang Clan. The moody saxophone of ‘Ain’t Nothing Changed’ and the familiar sound of Tom Misch on ‘Damselfly’ bring a musicality to the album hard to find in much of the UK rap scene today. ‘No CD’s’ is an upbeat triumph, whilst Carner deals with more personal issues on songs such as ‘Son of Jean’, featuring piano from his late father and spoken word performed by his mother. With many proclaiming the album to be a dying format, Loyle Carner shows the appeal of having more than just singles, creating a cohesive and enticing piece of art. Sensitive, brooding and emotive, ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ is intensely personal and carries the listener with it. It will be interesting to see where Carner goes next.

undiscovered pockets of the interweb) to become lo-fi gems. (Sandy)’s traits of meticulous story-telling, often jarring compositions and short instrumental skits placed both himself and his music beyond the reach of the all-consuming beige indie rock black hole. Rocket is (Sandy) Alex G’s most complete album to date, and features some of 2017’s finest song writing. Amongst the country-esque ballads of ‘Bobby’, ‘Proud’ and ‘Powerful Man’ that make Rocket so listenable, Alex (my G) revels in a tenebrosity left unexploited on previous works. On ‘County’, pitched in falsetto over a succession of warbley synth keys, my G muses in an ambiguously placed vocal melody: ‘Turns out the kid had a / Few bags of heroin / Deep in his stomach / He swallowed a razor / See I got some stories / Hey why don’t you write that / Into a song maybe / Your fans will dig that’. My G.

nikol chen brockhampton - saturation ii

hen it came to picking my favourite album of the year, I discovered that I hate everything. Scrolling through what seemed to be an endless list of albums that came out in 2017, then only thing that I had on my mind was “meh”. Finding an album that I can listen to through and through, is awfully rare - I either give up halfway or listen to it once and never go back to it (call it a one-listen stand).

‘D

eath is real/Someone’s there and then they’re not/And it’s not for singing about’. If you think these opening lines are bleak, wait till you hear the rest of A Crow Looked At Me, Mount Eerie (aka Phil Elverum)’s stunningly devastating meditation on his wife’s death. In the six months after his wife’s unexpected death in July 2016, Elverum put together a collection of songs as a way of coping. The result is a heartbreaking, unflinchingly direct narrative of grief and loss. Though death has been an important theme to many singer-songwriters (Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night, or Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie and Lowell, for example), few have explored it in as real and raw a style as Elverum achieves on this album. Perhaps due to the incredibly short space of time

Let’s just say that Saturation II and I had a very rough start. I remembering listening to QUEER and SWEET and thinking “Wow, this is shit”. A bit ironic that these two are among my top favourites now. Maybe I’m just bipolar. I can’t even point out how I came to love this album - I think it was the mellow chorus in QUEER that really got me, and the rest is history. But once I started to like it the album, I really committed to that fucker: I listened to it in the shower, on my way to lectures, while writing essays. You could literally create a montage of my life, layer TOKYO on top and it would be accurate. My life just wouldn’t be the same without Merlyn Wood’s wild vocals and JOBA’s falsetto, man.

hugie-rogers coltman mount eerie - a crow looked at me between the death and the album’s release, he approaches the subject with unwavering focus; every lyric on the album is addressed to his deceased wife. It’s as if it would be impossible for him to express his feelings in any other way than sparse, unrhymed lyrics over completely stripped-back instrumentation. It feels strange to call this a ‘good’ album; it is not an easy listen, either musically and emotionally. Yet once in a while you come across a work of art that genuinely makes you step back and look at the world in an entirely new way. A Crow Looked At Me will do that for you. 89

uri inspektor willie j healey - people and their dogs

rca’s self-titled album is the third brilliantly executed entry into his self-made genre, but the thirteen tracks tunnel deeper into the restless core than any of his previous output. Alongside the abrasive, skittering percussion and acidic string stabs, his haunting vocals finally grace the recordings in native Spanish, aligning two halves of Arca that have never been fully united - it’s personal and conflicted. It inhabits the space between genres and never stands still, constantly in flux. It’s dark and challenging. It’s soothing and romantic. Playfully toying with chamber pop and industrial EDM, Arca crafts expansive sonic tapestries that stretch his sound into uncom90

jake crossland arca - arca

was recently told by someone from Oxford that the town’s starved music scene is desperate to find its “next Radiohead”, its next force of genius set to drag its musicality out from under the overshadow of the cacophonous metropolis. Apparently most residents impulsively label any promising fresh face on the scene the successor of Thom Yorke and his clique. 22-year-old Willie J. Healey doesn’t exactly fit the bill. His goofy grin, scruffy caps and baggy shirts style him more as small town England’s answer to Canadian slacker rock than the brooding inheritor of Radiohead’s intellectual rigour. What we get from his debut, however, is far different to the Mac DeMarco idolatry we might anticipate having glanced at Healey’s image. The masturbatory lushness of chords and Fender-worship from across the pond is replaced with the guttural revivalism of 60s Danelectro tones reminiscent

of The Kinks. Willie, a sensitive, practical songwriter - gives us a 45 minute intimate exposition of millennial adolescence, angst and romance in all its particoloured complexity. After bravely opening the album with the escapist tenderness and slowly unfolding introspection of ‘Subterraneans’, he drowns us head first with his gruff voice in his own rapturous, abrasive, tortured teenage longing in the explosive ‘Love her’. ‘Greys’ – my personal favourite – is the type of entrancing rock n’ roll that brings out the most primal, roll-your-eyesto-the-back-of-your-skull exhilaration in humans, the very same feeling that made us fall in love with it in our childhoods. ‘Marie’s Balcony’ is a genuinely romantic, beautiful ode to young and hopeless love. Though his lyrics are at best middling and at worst pastiche, Healey has the capacity for moments of brilliance in imagery. It is his take on the guitar that makes this album such a compelling listen. He is a victim of an unpoetic mind, and of British rock’s longstanding ersatz Americanisation. Nevertheless, he is a promising songwriter of depth and scope that delivers an undoubtedly special debut which is already close to my heart.

fortable bliss. The release saw the producer catapulted to justifiably lofty heights as he headlined London’s Roundhouse coupled with the eye-catching visuals of Jesse Kanda, and produced Björk’s Utopia. Graceful strings and dense production ultimately contribute to the most impressive and enduring trick of the album: it pulls intoxicating beauty from the jaws of distortion, casting Arca as an icon in the process.

over the course of 10 minutes into a raging tempest of aggressive synth tones, melodic electronica in the vein of John Carpenter, and wailed lyrics about drug abuse.

james witherspoon lcd soundsystem - american dream

hut Up and Play the Hits, screamed the title for 2012’s eulogy to LCD Soundsystem: a lengthy, drifting opus of a concert film shot through a dream-like haze of melancholy. What a surprise, therefore, to learn that James Murphy and co would be returning in 2017 to drop American Dream, an album as surprising as it is satisfying. Drugged-out disco opener ‘oh baby’ unfolds onto an expansive, murky, and funky A-side which engulfs the listener in a viscous cloud of screaming guitar riffs, cowbells, and devastatingly heavy bass. Midpoint scene-stealer ‘how do you sleep’ begins with sparse production and Murphy’s muttering tones, before building up

fatima jafar lorde - melodrama

elodrama, Lorde’s sophomore album, is a testament to being young, in all its painful and powerful glory. It’s fueled by lipstick-stained plastic cups, smeared eyeshadow, and pure

But it’s the breathtaking B-side of the LP that really hammers in the true brilliance of the band. The one-two-three punch of ‘tonite’, ‘call the police’, and ‘american dream’ drags us through genres and emotions like nobody’s business: beginning with a Talking-Heads-esque spoken word meditation on contemporary music trends, before launching into a thumping rant against societal inequality, and finally waking up after the hedonism in a stranger’s bedroom, dissolving into a fractured nightmare of longing and regret – LCD Soundsystem are here to stay.

vulnerability. Lorde takes listeners through the stages of a house party to represent growing up in the Internet Generation, from the initial excitement of the night, to getting a bit too drunk, to the deflated sense of loneliness that strikes at 4 AM. Lorde’s lyrics flow like poetry, a mature step-up from her equally endearing but less refined writing on Pure Heroine, her debut album. ‘Green Light’ is a pop powerhouse; a defiant expression of rage at her ex. ‘Liability’ is a bleeding, hurts-to-look-at declaration of her loneliness. ‘Writer In The Dark’ is as heartbreaking as it is powerful, an embodiment of Lorde finding strength in her vulnerability. She punctuates her songs with glitchy video-game sound effects, the shred of metal and swelling string accompaniments to construct her very own synesthetic world. Melodrama is Lorde’s unabashed acceptance of being young and making mistakes, and is all at once raw, shattering, and triumphant. 91

BY: EJ OAKLEY

BEST EPs OF 2017

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – The French Press Guitar music certainly isn’t dead, or at least not in Australia. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s six-track offering from the start of the year is a perfect slice of sparkly indie rock, complete with glimmering guitar riffs and lazy, nonchalant vocals on the likes of ‘Julie’s Place’ perfect for a casual stroll under the low winter sun. It may be the start of a long and unrelenting cold season for us, but it’s currently summer in Australia – and likewise, this EP is bound to bring some cheer to these dark wintry days ahead. Key track: Fountain of Good Fortune

husky loops – husky loops

This Italian art rock outfit have been on my radar ever since I saw them smash out a solid live set in support of TRAAMS, and they have certainly delivered on the studio recording front this year. Their debut EP, all jagged fuzz and angular guitar licks, is far superior to most other alternative rock releases this year in terms of its originality and how strangely catchy all four songs are. If you won’t take it from me, take it from alt-rock legends Placebo and Spoon, both of whom have recruited the Loops on their UK/EU tours this year. Mark my words, this band are going places – one distorted guitar hook at a time. Key track: Tempo

the magic gang – EP three Self-proclaimed melody makers and vibe crafters, The Magic Gang have created what may just be the most enjoyable EP of all time. Consisting of four feel-good earworms, including the smash hit single ‘How Can I Compete’ (that was once on repeat on my Spotify for three days straight), the Hampshire band have really hit their stride at last, and are undoubtedly set to take the UK by storm next year; having already garnered widespread attention from DIY and the NME among others. But until their first album drops, or until they tour the country in March 2018 – whichever comes first – I’ll be happy to just have this on repeat once more. Key track: How Can I Compete

the garden – u want the scoop? What music does The Garden grow, exactly? Nobody really knows. The Minnesotan twins have hopped from genre to genre since the inception of their enigmatic band, and on U Want The Scoop? they appear to have settled (for now) on a blend of post-punk, trip-hop electronic music, and rap. This five-track EP boasts much better production (and creative control) than their magnum opus, The Life and Times of a Paperclip, and their new musical direction, as eccentric as it may be, does have a certain kind of oddball charm to it. By the time you’re done with the magical journey that is U Want The Scoop?, you’ll be convinced that perhaps The Garden do indeed have the Scoop – at least, musically. Key track: U Want The Scoop?

polkadot stingray – dai-seigi

Polkadot Stingray’s very existence is enough to prove that you don’t need to be a weeaboo to enjoy Japanese music. Weaving together math-rock polyrhythms, classic indie chord progressions, and some totally sublime vocals from their frontwoman (known only as Shizuku), Dai-Seigi is a true, unadulterated joy to listen to. The band’s roots in J-rock only show through on the closing track, ‘Honjitsu Mimei’, and even then, it’s hardly your typical anime opening or closing theme stock. According to Japanese music bloggers, the band is underground even in their home country – here’s to hoping they make it much, much farther in the coming year. Key track: Beni Kurage

animal collective – the painters

Best seen as the companion EP to 2016’s Painting With, Animal Collective have managed to squeeze some more stellar songs out of their flirtation with quirky tropical electronic music. While Painting With may have been hit-and-miss as a whole, The Painters is undoubtedly a much stronger offering. All four tracks boast the best elements of the group’s break-all-boundaries, take-no-prisoners style of experimental electronic music, and cornerstone member Noah Lennox’s residual influences from his previous critically-acclaimed solo album as Panda Bear ring loud and true, in a mix that makes for one of the best eras in Animal Collective’s illustrious catalogue. Key track: Goalkeeper

thee mvps – receiver

Move over, Ty Segall, there’s a new band in town that can churn out the hooks like they’re going out of fashion. Garage punk has found a new hope in Thee MVPs, a four-piece that will hopefully bring heavier guitar music out of the rut it has currently fallen into. Receiver sees the band collate both new songs and older material from their five-year history (such as the six-minute behemoth ‘US Airways’), now re-recorded for that extra bit of zing. If you like your tracks hot and heavy; fast and furious, then Receiver is the EP for you. Key track: Slimelord

pins – bad thing

Riot grrl music has a new voice in PINS, and hard-hitting femme punk has never looked or sounded better. The Manchester fivepiece are proof that girls just wanna have fun, albeit while cranking out some top notch, bassline-driven punk tunes. Bad Thing even hosts Iggy Pop as a collaborator on cutting-edge spoken-word/ post-punk track ‘Aggrophobe’; the newest (and one of the best) addition to collaborations in this vein, a la Lee Ranaldo and The Cribs on ‘Be Safe’. Even their cover of Joy Division’s ‘Dead Souls’, the EP’s closing track, manages to lend a certain sort of grace to the dark new-wave song that Ian Curtis could never imbue it with himself. The future is full of promise for PINS, and this new EP is hardly a ‘Bad Thing’ at all. Key track: All Hail

death grips – Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber)

Seven new tracks from everyone’s favourite hip-hop noisemakers sounded like a dream come true to any and every purveyor of the harsh noise scene’s slightly more mainstream offerings, and it certainly is one of Death Grips’ most ambitious outings to date. Steroids pretty much sounds like what an overdose on the eponymous drug would feel like – a brutal barrage of pure noise and frontman MC Ride’s tortured, half-shouted verses; all mashed into a twenty-two minute megamix. If you’re inclined towards the hardcore side of hip hop, this will be your breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the remainder of the year to come.

ross from friends – don’t sleep, there are snakes

Do you like deep house, or chill electronic music in general? Tired of the same old tinkling synths and panpipe noises on repeat on the radio? Fear not – Ross from Friends, aka producer Alex Brown, is all set to be your messiah. Having burst into the mainstream just this year, his most recent EP delivers an emotionally-charged collection of loops and samples straight to your ears; a welcome respite from both the over-produced tripe on the radio these days (Kygo, I’m looking at you) and other, fairly boring electronic projects that suck the life out of the genre itself. Key track: In An Emergency 94

Un L C 95

www. undercitylights.co.uk

ÂŠ under city lights mmxvii the views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, rare fm or uclu. 96