God Is In The TV Zine (GeoFeed.net)

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:09:09 +0100

Fauna Valetta - Fauna Valetta

Geographical References: California / Oakland, California / Nice, California

- No idea where this band has come from, where they're going or what their story is but I know I love this debut album. It's got character and attitude bursting at the seams and a sort of twisted charm that comes about from a group who sound like they care less about the latest hip scene or developing trend and more about playing what they want to hear.


If you like your music clean cut with sharp lines and pretty colours then granted this will be a struggle to your ears, but if you can appreciate the constant unsteadiness and off kilter undercurrent running throughout you'll find yourself at home hear no doubt. Right from the off the short instrumental introduction paves the way with meandering organ, reminiscent of some aspects of The BJM's 'And This Is Our Music', giving way to the pounding Sleep By The Ocean that drives home the bands intent with deafening style, some massive, spiralling screeches of guitar and an almost British like sneer on the vocals.


First and foremost this sounds like a band who aren't adverse to a bit of volume and on first listen subtlety isn't something that springs to mind. Energy, four songs in, changes all that in an instant though. As cool as you like, it induces an instant swagger to your step with a lazy, slow rolling beat and gets away with some cheeky off the cuff licks al la mid 90's Noel. Gallagher. Nothing wrong with that in my book by the way. It's all wrapped up in the same haze the album's recorded in, loose and lived in and with an on the edge rawness you can't help but be drawn into. It's nice to hear an album cut with feeling and have some of the chaos of the recording left in for you to digest.


The bands that can capture a moment instinctively have it above those that can't or won't and on those terms Fauna Valetta are sitting pretty. Check out standout track, Wait, to see for yourself., a real head spinner, constantly shifting and rising, sounding like their lives depend on it and dragging you into the vortex in the process. Contrast this euphoria with the beautifully down and out The Flood, with it's talk of “drunken dreams” and promises to “die here with or without you”, and you've got a band who can wring the highs and lows out of life and get it down on tape seamlessly.


There's something original, natural, free and a little unhinged about this debut from Oakland, California's Fauna Valetta, but crucially the songs and structure are still strong and there's more than enough magic here to attract what I suspect could be an initially small but steadily growing audience.

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Sway - The Signature LP

- Sway is back and self-aggrandizing on the first two tracks of The Signature. Of course, it's in the very nature of hip-hop to big yourself up, so let's allow Derek a little leeway on Fit for a King and Say it Twice. Sway's inimitable style and hard work is what's brought him the attention that he so deserved. Debut This is my demo shone amongst the mire of UK hip-hop releases in 2006: two years on, has Sway learnt from his experiences?

Clever lyrics and deft beats are all present on the humourous Jason Waste whilst the grimey F UR X features a great verse from female MC Stush. Sway's best songs tend towards darker elements, particularly on the cautionary Walk away which addresses gun-crime and the emotional Letters to Heaven.


Unfortunately, Sway is still continuing his one-man campaign to stop people stealing his tunes by downloading illegally. Highlighting this seems to only encourage downloading. i.e. if you type in ‘sway the signat…' into your Google predictive toolbar – it will most probably direct you to a torrent site.


If Sway can drop the heavy chip that burdens his shoulder and stop railing against an ‘industry' that ignores him and a public that steals from him, he'd experience far more success. Or maybe he can't, because that's a big part of what his current success is built on.

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Late Of The Pier - Bathroom Gurgle

- Late of the Pier re-release a new Erol Alkan-produced version of their debut single originally out in limited numbers on Moshi Moshi back in October ‘07. You know a band are making significant inroads when the label gives the nod to an old re-release.I usually cast a disapproving gaze at bands like The Killers and Kaiser Chiefs who re-released their debut single multiple times once they'd broken. But for LOTP you can understand why this is coming out again, beyond the lazy Klaxons comparisons, only now are they getting the attention they deserve, sterling previous singles 'The Bears are Coming' and 'Heartbeat' have made a dent in people's ear drums. This release will only enhance that burgeoning reputation. Displaying their knack for creating futuristic patchworks, electro collisions harnessing samples, beats and vocals more successfully than Doc utilised the flux capacitor in Back to the Future. You see Late of the Pier have that rare thing: the imagination, skill, and an unrestrainable spirit for playful, unexpected melodies lacking in many of the UK's more successful acts.

Bathroom Gurgle is barking genius, at first it burbles, scratches and beats out a path on the red carpet, before gyrating, propelling itself onto the dance floor like a filthy party anthem in microcosm, the stabby synths of Devo doing 'The Time Warp' ('put your hands on the baseline'). Before the whole darn edifice collapses into a swirl of blinding lights, shutter guitar chords and high-pitched notes reminiscent of the howling female interludes in Pink Floyd's 'The great gig in the sky'. So crammed full of false starts, sideways turns, dance floor moves and crushing crescendos, this is positively bursting at the seams with ideas that it struggles to be contained within its three and a bit minutes. In fact check out the remixes for more ways to skin the same cat.

Unlike some re-releases Bathroom Gurgle fully deserves another airing, its rhythm will take up residence in your headspace for days, its melody will dance you into submission before leaving you a gibbering, sweaty drunken mess on the floor. Another reason why you should get your hands on their debut album, ‘Fantasy Black Channel'. LOTP display so much promise, the ability to delight at every turn, even surprising themselves at times, so you have to wonder where they will go on album two? Wherever it is we'll be tuning in.

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John Barrowman - What About Us?

- Dear John Barrowman,


I used to quite like you as the token Yank on an early incarnation of nineties Saturday morning kids show, Live and Kicking. Safely confined to a backroom broom cupboard with a telephone line and a VT screen, playing computer games with an endless round of squeaky voices. But now you're like omnipresent slime on my TV screen, I can just about forgive you Doctor Who spin off Torchwood ( it's alright, it's camp sci-fi fun), I can even forgive your vaguely humorous comments on the BBC's Eurovision song contest 'You decide' show. But I can't forgive your weeks of judging on Andrew Lloyd Webber BBC vehicles. We all know you're a reliable West End performer (you may have seen Mr Barrowman in such shows as Jason and His Technicolour dream coat to name one), but your repetitive sickly sly judgements are just wrong wrong wrong. Your sickening solo song on the Royal Variety a few years back and your nauseating in your face sexuality, 'I'm GAY you know! A BIG GAY! I LIVE WITH A MAN!!' We all know you're gay, nobody particularly cares.

You've gone another step out of line inflicting your dire new single 'What About Us?' A sub-Cliff Richard ballad, caked in strings and a desperate chorus that grasps towards the quality torch anthem of Take That's supreme comeback single 'Patience'. Spare us your music – what about the children, Barrowman what about the children!?! In short this is an utter waste of time, although I'm sure you wouldn't see it that way John: another round on This Morning's sofa beckons.

John in some respects you are quite talented, but you don't need to hog the limelight, you know? Give someone else a chance, we don't need some desperate attention-seeking American outstaying his welcome. Which you certainly are.

Regards

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Howling Bells, The - Into The Chaos

- Taken from the forthcoming second album, due out in February, Into The Chaos is a lesson in effortless pop shot through with groove and class. I've not heard anything from Howling Bells before but on this showing can see exactly why they're tipped by many to do well in 2009.

The band go straight into an almost baggy like rhythm, you're rolling with it from the off, and there's a nice flow to it aided by singer Juanita Stein's lush vocal. She coats the track in rock and roll velvet, a beautiful voice that, you've heard before with the likes of The Duke Spirit's Leila Moss or Hope Sandoval to name a couple, but never tire of hearing. Add to the mix some well placed strings to give it a panoramic change of pace and you've got yourself a tidy little single.

They'll probably get lumped in with the aforementioned Duke Spirit but they deserve to stake their own claim in the indie pop market and if they can supply an album's worth of this next year it'll be well worth a listen.

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Take a stake in a bandRace, The

Geographical References: Indiana

- The music industry is in a state of flux, the major labels are haemorrhaging acts and jobs at a increasing rate, some record sales are down, and the digital download is taking over. Yet some acts are realising that now more than ever they have the chance to determine the methods of distributing, funding and promoting their music to their fans, in the coming months we shall look at a few, who are using increasingly ingeneous ways to get themselves heard.

Hailing from Reading and with a reputation for Epic, Heart on their sleeves guitar noise band The Race are one act determined to spread the word organically, from the bottom up, funding their new record through a stakeholder scheme where fans who in invest in it will share the proceeds.Plus they've been spreading their music using viral sample copies of their album on CD, and playing in people's houses, gyms, offices anywhere their stakeholders desire!

The Race's vocalist Dan Buchanan told me more ‘its a plan whereby we get the album funded at the level we think it deserves and people get to join us in sharing in its profits for the next five years, hopefully the shared ownership of it all will help in its promotion through word of mouth and perhaps contacts in a similar way to the Pass It On campaign.' From pop stars to family members everyone got in on the act ‘We have some very interesting stakeholders,some of them quite celebrated, others are alot closer to home/earth like my sister.'


STAKE: IN MY HEAD IT WORKS.

Their label Shifty Disco came up with the idea, one of Shifty crew, Dave takes us through the process the idea in a little more depth;

'The thinking behind the In My Head It Works Stakeholder Fund is to create a pull-down resource to fund the recording, mixing, mastering, manufacturing and marketing of the next The Race album. Based on the costs of the debut album, “Be Your Alibi”, we estimated that a fund of £25,000 would guarantee a full campaign encompassing the album release plus two promotional singles.

The Stakeholder Fund consists of 1000 £25 stakeholder units. Each stakeholder unit will be a 5-year loan to Shifty Disco with repayment (and profit) paid back to the Fund based on a fixed commission rate on album sales around the world during this 5 year period. Repayment and profits will be distributed bi-annually. The funds stay in the Stakeholder Fund bank account and are transferred to Shifty Disco as needed.

The most innovative part of this plan, perhaps, is that we're not intending to raise all £25,000 in cash. A significant portion of the Fund will be raised in "kind" with those attached to the release (band, publishers, press team, radio/TV plugger, distributor, producer, mastering engineer, artwork designer, video director,) encouraged to trade-up part (or all) of their fees for Stakeholder Units - literally giving them a vested interest in the success of the album'.

The Race's DIY efforts weren't just limited to the funding of their new record, taking matters into their own hands they usurped the bloggers by issuing a hundred cds with five album tracks on it, and urged the listeners to pass them on to other interested people. In the hope that a bit like Jamie's ‘Ministry of food' but with music, the word would spread. Dan explains:

PASS IT ON.

‘We finished recording our second album IN MY HEAD IT WORKS in May, as we'd been out of the loop in the UK for about a year we were really excited by people hearing it and not just through the usual (often a little lazy) way of just sticking some songs on the internet. We made 100 little brown packages which contained a cd with 5 of the album tracks on it. We numbered them 1-100 and sprayed 'PASS IT ON' on the front and attached a label to the back which said, ' I passed it on to; who,when,why (a bit like a library book sticker). The instructions was to have a listen and then pass it on to someone you think might like it as well as someone you trusted to pass it on and not just keep it or copy it. We gave out the first 100 largely by hand over the course of about a week. Since then people have been writing in to our website to say where they are and who they are passing them on to. They are currently all over the world and totally out of our hands/control. Its been fun.'

The band headout on a unique Winter tour, that capitalises on their stakeholders by playing gigs for them quite literally wherever they want! With interesting results:

COME ON OVER TO MY PLACE WINTER TOUR.
‘We currently have around 150 different stakeholders in this album (with space for more). Rather then always expecting people to travel to our gigs we have offered to come and play a free gig wherever they want us to, all they have to do is give us a sandwich on arrival and then introduce their latest investment to their friends a little later on as we play a gig. We've asked the stakeholders to get thinking of places they might like us to play and so far we've had offers for gigs on a barge, in a windmill, a coffee shop, an ancient church, a gym, an office, Terminal 5 at Heathrow, someones lounge, a prison,a car park and a school. In a couple of weeks time we'll have a look at what we've got and then get cracking, it should keep us busy for the winter and we shall film it too.. We also have regular stakeholder meet ups, the last one was in a pub in London, the next one shall be in Andy's back garden for a bonfire and firework and beer evening, we also aim to partake in a little maggot racing and apple bobbing perhaps. We hope that there may even be weddings/romance that occur off the back of these gatherings.'

The Race's new single 'I Get It Wrong' is out now(video below).Their David Eringa produced album ‘In My Head It Works' is due out in February.



With a shifting music industry is the future in more acts funding their own records, or asking fans to help out?Taking even more control of their future direction? How is the live music scene going to evolve since this is where most acts make any revenue at present?

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Displacements, The

- The Displacements are a sprightly young bunch of upstarts from Leicester, resurrecting the Stiff Records legend (home of Madness, and all things Ska and two-tone, founded in 1976) and giving it new life with their brand of sleek, sometimes ska-esque, guitar pop ruckus. Live, The Displacements have as much sheen as The Killers, with seductive hooks and jaunty rhythm. For a band so young, they are one tight and profession unit. They've been tipped by one Peter Hook, and had glowing praise from ex-Factory Records' Kevin Hewick who said 'one day people will boast of seeing them in this magical early era'.

GIITTV's Miss Fliss had a chat with Nicholas Paul Eversfield whose role in the band is 'bass and occasional vocal cries' who describes himself as 'angry and great looking'.

Why the name Displacements?
Andy (singer) saw it in a science lesson up on the board and liked it, he interpreted it as the new pushing out the old, aha!

How would you describe your sound and your musical aims?
We love The Clash, Tears for Fears, Springsteen, Primal Scream, Ride, Motown and Trojan Compilations, loads of it, We want a big sound, that's going to blow roofs off venues.

How did the Stiff Records signing come about (I didn't know the label was still going until I saw you were signed to them!)? Are you fans of their legacy and does it influence you?

The legacy at Stiff is unbelievable, and the label has only recently been in operation again with some new bands that they loved and thought would be right for the label. Since they have been putting our singles out they give us free cds of bands like Any Trouble and Wreckless Eric who we had never heard of before that they thought we would like and they began to influence us, that's without a mention of Costello, Madness or Desmond Decker!

What was it that drew you to music and to each other?
When me and Andy were in high school, we got fed up of all our mates listening to Craig David and Scooter so we started listening to a little known band called The Clash and since then The Displacements were born.

What's Leicester like in terms of its music scene and local bands supporting each other?
Since Kasabian broke through into the mainstream we have seen a lot of new bands formed trying to put Leicester on the map. There are a lot of good bands but not a specific scene like Manchester or London has.

Do you think the culture of Myspace/free music online is healthy for music or does it have a detrimental effect?
Myspace is really good for letting people listen to new bands music, its great for organising gigs and for getting unknown artists recognition, just like that. It's more illegal download sites that are detrimental to the selling of music and the industry.

How do you see the future, and what are your hopes?
Learn how to play, live the dream, and keep playing and writing music.

When is your album out?
Last track on MBV Loveless, aha. (He means 'soon'!)


The history of Stiff Records on Wikipedia

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Mercury Rev, Howling Bells, TheShepherds Bush Empire, 13th Nov 2008

- Tonight is somewhat special. Kicking off with a slide show projecting images of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Neil Young, and the Flaming Lips circa 1993, various political and philosophical messages flash before us, all to the euphoric strains of Lorelei by the Cocteau Twins. So I've got goosebumps already.

As Lorelei fades out, people start clapping hopefully and shouting, until the awesome synth loop of Snowflake in a Hot World emanates through the venue. According to frontman Jonathan Donahue, such a loop was discovered after hours and hours of playing around with a random sound generator. So out the band enter, glowing, holding bottles of beers and wine, and they get straight down to business.

After entering into a frantic, driving pre-jam which seamlessly wanders into the song, everything calms down.

Don't let them tell you.. you're all the same, Donahue sings to us. Not to the ceiling, or the air above, but to us, a trait which he follows throughout the performance, picking out random members of the audience, and staring at them, pointing at them, smiling at them to the extent where people didn't know whether to smile back and stare him out.. or look away nervously.

Before long, the piano/synth combination of Holes comes into earshot, and when people start to applaud, Donahue smiles, as if he genuinely can't believe people like it so much.

And so the pattern emerges. A barely interrupted set (with the exception of a girl screaming Goddess on a Hiway!, and Jonathon shouting Hello friends! It's so great to be back! after which he turned to look at his band, cueing them for the sonic explosions that followed.

In terms of performance, the songs themselves represent quite a contrast to the nature of the songs of the previous album, The Secret Migration [2005]. Rather than being four minute offerings of simple loveliness, Rev gave lengthy mutations of their widely set songs that found themselves on the setlist. Tides of the Moon gets an eerie intro which erupts into a powerful bass driven groove before Donahue echoes: The threads, that run through your life, hang from your sleeves.. before transcending into an intense outro that you won't have heard on the album it emanates from [All is Dream, 2001].

Tides of the Moon was not an exception to the rule. You're My Queen stretches from two minutes and a half to around the ten minute mark, throwing out invigorating, albeit slightly drawn out riffs. But hey, to each their own.

Two songs on the most recent album were performed beyond beautifully: Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower and People Are So Unpredictable, both transforming and moulding themselves back and forth, from freaky breathing and ambience, to orchestrated synth, to pumping and grinding beats.

After relentless song transition after transition, the band reveal Opus 40 as their closer, which runs quite nicely into an epic cover of Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime.

Sweaty, exhausted and slightly drunk, Donahue shouts How did I get here!?!... How did I get -here-, how did -I- get here?

As their goodbye, the band line up, laughing, bowing and clapping, before playfully returning to boldly treat us to three encores: The blissfully sad Goddess on a Hiway, the glimmer of hope, that is the extremely well sung The Dark is Rising and a heavy, very piercing rendition of Senses on Fire.

So, the question ‘Were the band tight?' is as irrelevant as ‘Did they cover Scouting for Girls?', because I heard someone say after the Birmingham show, Well… That was very sonic! I think for the most part, that's the best explanation that can be offered. Mercury Rev live is an intense, joyful - but at times sad - experience, with the true potential to actually, genuinely make your hair stand right on end.

Setlist:

Snowflake in a Hot World
October Sunshine
Holes
Black Forest
The Funny Bird
You're My Queen
People Are So Unpredictable
Frittering
Tonite It Shows
Tides of the Moon
Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower
Opus 40
Once in a Lifetime [cover of Talking Heads]

Encore:

Goddess on a Hiway
The Dark is Rising
Senses on Fire

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Quarter After, The - Changes Near

- The Quarter After won a lot of fans with their self titled debut released back in 2005, a wonderful record full of Byrds influenced jangle and West Coast harmonies complete with it's very own epic psychedelic wonder 'Too Much To Think About.' Changes Near steps up to the plate and takes on the baton passed from that impressive debut, mutating into a varied and altogether more interesting record.

It still sounds like The Quarter After but they're flexing their musical muscles, introducing elements into the fray that compliment their ever present focus on melody and traditional song craft. There's the subtle use of tablas, journeys into country with some choice pedal steel, gospel backing on one song and Rob Campanella paints an even brighter picture marking him out as surely one of the most underrated lead guitarists around. This bloke's a fan of John Squire and it's a joy to hear the influence come out to play, check out Turning Away for a brief nod to The Stone Roses B Side The Hardest Thing In The World.


Rob's brother Dominic seems to have grown in confidence as a lead singer as well, striding out with an air of quality and clarity, free of macho posturing and bringing to mind rock bands like Buffalo Springfield where Stills and Young took the songs into a whole other territory. The Quarter After do beautiful music, it seems natural they've got a front man who appreciates the finer points of singing.


The intuitive interplay between the band, evident on their debut and even more so on this follow up, means they elevate themselves above places where other more generic bands might rest. Sanctuary, the album opener, does just that. Thundering into a bass heavy rock and roller, before slipping into the ether with a stoned swirl of piano, slide guitar and falling drums, it picks up the pace again as easily as it was dropped. A piece of almost casual brilliance.


Having proven producer Rob Campanella in the ranks has certainly done no harm either, the Quarter After are a formidable live act and getting that sharpness onto record was obviously a chief aim. The essence of a band in flow comes across and it plays to their strengths well.


Show your support for this band. They've gone quietly about their business but they find themselves up there with the heavyweights of the scene and their next album could be something truly special.

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Buraka Som Sistema - Black Diamond

- Hotter than Nando's, sexier than the Algarve and dirtier than Big Phil Scolari's tactics – it appears that Portugal have finally given us something worth celebrating.

Featuring a horde of Portugese guests that you will most likely never heard of and a couple of British stars that you should have (Kano and M.I.A), Black Diamond is filled with scuzzy synths and African rhythms wrapped up in house grooves to jack your body to.

Variation on the album appears on IC19 which features some heavy dubstep winding up to some old school rave beats and the guitars on General conjur up the spirit of a digital Africa. There's some abrasive MCing all over the album and though delivered in Portuguese, it never fails to detract from the carnival spirit and overriding exuberance that is integral to Black Diamond. This record will set your pulse racing – and at this time of year, that's no mean feat.

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Special Thanks to Google for their wonderful mapping api.