The usual disclaimers apply: we can't pretend to have heard every single new album released in the UK between January 1 and December 31 of 2009, but of those we did, these were the best, and in this precise order.
1. SILENCE IS WILD - FRIDA HYVONEN 2. Fever Ray - Fever Ray 3. Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors 4. I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose - Bombay Bicycle Club 5. Thunderheist - Thunderheist 6. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear 7. The xx - The xx 8. Union - The Boxer Rebellion 9. Bird-Brains - Tune-Yards 10. It's Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs 11. Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do - Major Lazer 12. 'Em Are I - Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard 13. See Mystery Lights - YACHT 14. Logos - Atlas Sound 15. If You Were Fruit - The Lovely Eggs 16. Farm - Dinosaur Jr 17. Hospice - The Antlers 18. Post-Apocalyptic Love - The Very Sexuals 19. My Maudlin Career - Camera Obscura 20. Still Night Still Light - Au Revoir Simone 21. Blue Roses - Blue Roses 22. The Floodlight Collective - Lotus Plaza 23. Tear Ourselves Away - LoveLikeFire 24. Get Guilty - AC Newman 25. Face Control - Handsome Furs 26. Varshons - The Lemonheads 27. A Man, A Woman Walked By - PJ Harvey and John Parish 28. Survival Strategies In A Modern World - Liechtenstein 29. Me Oh My - Cate Le Bon 30. I'm Going Away - The Fiery Furnaces 31. Embryonic - The Flaming Lips 32. I Feel Cream - Peaches 33. Dance Mother - Telepathe 34. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart 35. Julian Plenti is...Skyscraper - Julian Plenti 36. II - Desire 37. Fight Like Apes And The Mysteries Of The Golden Medallion - Fight Like Apes 38. Polly Scattergood - Polly Scattergood 39. Fine Fascination - Red Light Company 40. Fantasies - Metric
Use the comments box for any gripes, observations and linklove for your own year-end lists. Happy New Year to all our readers, hopefully this site will be slightly more active in 2010!
The new Name The Pet single is a bouncy pop choon more viral than YouTube embeds, while the promo admirably promotes the healthy benefits of physical exercise, although the sheer cheerleader chic of it makes it slightly dubious safety for work.
December is usually tragic in terms of PV updates, but hawk-eyed followers can expect a humongous gig review compendium, a long linkdump and the usual end-of-year lists before 2010 hits!
We know, we've been neglecting you. More content soon, including a review of the Saint Etienne-curated first day of the Moseley Folk Festival, but until then check out 'Dancing' by Sheffield's Standard Fare. It's a purdy, poignant choon that will appeal to fans of bands like Sky Larkin and The Dirty Mittens, and the promo resourcefully makes a virtue of the no-budget D-I-Y montage format.
Standard Fare are playing The Autumn Store in Birmingham in December. We should go dancing!
The first time we played Bombay Bicycle Club's debut album 'I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose' our initial reaction was of minor deflation, but it's a record which has built and built in our hearts as something treasurable. Central to the record's attraction is the other-wordly charms of 'Magnet', a song you can really get attached to, which is due for release in single format next month.
Indietracks Festival, Midland Butterly Railway nr. Ripley, Derbyshire, July 24-26 2009.
This was Parallax View's first visit to Indietracks, now in its third year of bringing the best of indiepop to the grounds of a vintage railway station at Midland Railway, Butterly, near Ripley in Derbyshire. It was a sign of the weekend to come that the person we end up sharing a taxi with from Alfreton train station was Ian who runs the How Does If Feel To Be Loved? disco in the marquee at the event. Everything, and indeed, everyone, seemed to be connected.
Even, to some degree, our good selves, as we make re-acquaintance with Dunc from The Autumn Store and badge-bestowing Simon of Sweeping The Nation fame in fairly quick order on entering the grounds, and bump into Liz from The School not long after. And who should we be following on our way to the bar but the unmistakeable derrieres of the girls from Au Revoir Simone? It was very much that kind of festival.
Friday night's fare was entirely on the outdoor stage, with the synths of Modular washing over us pleasantly before Rosay Pipette (hitherto to be referred to, of course, as Rose Elinor Dougall) strutted her new solo stuff to mostly impressive effect. There wasn't too much on show that screamed out 'hit record' but it was all engaging enough to foster the belief that if anyone can sell Stereolab-lite to the masses it's RED.
While waiting for ARS to get into gear, we managed to catch a few words with Alice Hubley from Arthur and Martha as she chatted to Dunc, consoling her on the rather snide NME review of A&M's new album which was excessively sniping with regards to her own vocal contributions. Heads turned immediately with the arrival of Au Revoir Simone, who put on a confident and mesmering show featuring the best from their three albums. There are those that bemoan their lack of stagecraft but with presence like theirs craft is made redundant and superflous, and latest album 'Still Night, Still Light' is arguably their most consistent disc to date.
Thus followed some dancing with Dunc, his gf Debbie, and the rest of the Autumn Store posse in the Lipstick On Your Collar! disco, during which Dead Kenny may or may not have been jumping up and down rather rigorously to The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's 'Young Adult Friction' chanting 'don't check me out! don't check me out!' to anyone without an option but to listen. All in all, was a Good Friday, if not THE Good Friday, if you see what we mean.
Saturday sees our bleary blogging eyes facing the serious business of catching as many indiepop acts as possible while still remembering to cover the basics of eating, drinking and breathing. We catch the sun somewhat while waiting for Sucrette, who make up for their late appearance with some top-notch breathy J-Pop which would appeal in particular to fans of Annie's 'Anniemal'. We were less seduced by Tender Trap, whose harmonies only really tugged at our heartstrings during their newest number, but at least that means they're heading in the right direction. Also failed to be engaged by Friends on the Indoor Stage (otherwise known as The Loco Shed), while One Happy Island won us over with the sheer persistence of their energy and charm during their set in the same arena.
Danish troubadour Labrador was late finding the festival but provided soothing electro-folk to calm our savage breasts on a hot Saturday evening in The Church (a case of Pew! What A Scorcher! anyone?). This proved the calm before the storm of The Specific Heats at the same location, whose reverb mechanism blew up during the first song, amongst other technical mishaps, which did nothing but add to the feeling that this was one of the festival landmark events, with scorching surf guitar and sun-kissed melodies providing a perversely devilish good time in the 'sanctity' of The Church.
Some fresh air was certainly needed at that point, but a look at the long snaking queue of people waiting to see The Lovely Eggs suggested that we wouldn't be able to get back in a hurry. And so it proved, as we were left to paw at the Church window like poor little orphan boys on Christmas Day, to get a glimpse of the hotly-tipped popsters. From our disadvantaged vantage point, The Lovely Eggs looked and sounded un-beatable, before we whisked ourselves off to see The Frank And Walters, who were still playing mostly the same songs and (if memory serves us correctly) telling mostly the same jokes that they used to back in 1992. Pretty entertaining and endearing stuff, nevertheless.
We only really know one Speedmarket Avenue song, the pretty fantastic 'Way Better Now' so wasn't quite sure what to expect of the Stockholm collective. Perhaps the most surprising aspect was that the vocal duties were fairly evenly shared between the male and female singer, the latter's sheer blue tights certainly scorching themselves on our retinas. It was all rather lovely, much lovelier than the fact that the main toilets were in need of plumbing attention, which certainly challenged punters' temperaments in what was supposed to be the friendliest of festivals.
Our underpants tension was somewhat eased by the always comforting presence of Camera Obscura, with lead singer Tracyann Campbell looking never more glam as the band dispensed a crowd-pleasing set of gems like 'Let's Get Out Of This Country'; 'French Navy' and 'If Looks Could Kill', climaxing beautifully as usual with 'Razzle Dazzle Rose' as the sun set. Met back up with Dunc and Debbie at this stage who pass on the tidbit that Marisa from The Besties is about to do a debut solo set in the Marquee. Right on cue the lead singer from The Specific Heats then pops his head out of said tent and hollers to anything within earshot the very same headline news.
Although your bluffing blogger is aware of The Besties' cult status in indiepop circles, Marisa seems more recently and vividly familiar to us, until it clicks she played keys for The Specific Heats earlier. We just have time to congratulate The Specific Heats singer on his set (he's philosophical about the equipment blowing up as it's the last day of their European tour) before he was required to act as a human mic stand for the slightly embarrassed but genuinely endearing Marisa, who ran through some old Besties tunes and other stuff even though at least one of her keys wasn't working. The whole shebang had so much impromptu charm and bonhomie we swear if we were any more full of ourselves at this point we'd have had to empty ourselves out just for the pleasure of filling ourselves back up again.
This also served to fill the gap while (reputedly) Emmy The Great had to be rescued from some sort of motorway-related fiasco before her set at The Indoor Stage. Better late than never, as we always say here on Parallax View, and while we can't quite re-create the flush of love at first sight we initially felt for Emmy, it's a bold and entertaining show with an impressive cover of The Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?' thrown into the mix for good measure. Outside, La Casa Azul are in turns bemusing and bewitching with an undeniably odd combination of pigeon English, dancepop and balladry, to a visual backdrop of Mario Brothers, 'virtual backing band' and other random bytes and bobs. It's hit and miss for our tastes, but there's no doubt his version of John Paul Young's 'Love Is In The Air' provides one of the truly joyously unifying moments of the festival weekend.
Night-time saw Ian's 'How Does It Feel To be Loved?' pop-disco ramming the Marquee to its rafters, so we had our hearts and feet stolen by Barcelona's Bonnie & Clyde in the Loco Shed instead. TPOBPAH's 'Young Adult Friction' again gets a showing, and thus also does our crap dancing in a session of hot, sweaty fun. Rumours of ex-NME journo Tim Jonze being on site to do a piece for The Guardian permeated the night air as the contented crowds dispersed.
Sunday morning started with a call from our friend Keef to say he's coming up for the day to catch up with the evening's headliners Teenage Fanclub. After watching the entrancing (but startlingly young) Bonne Idee in the Loco Shed, we meet up with Keef on the steam train where we're completely out of earshot of the drum-and-bass from The Manhattan Love Suicides announcing the band's split. We're back on solid ground in time for The School's afternoon slot on The Outdoor Stage, where Simon from The Loves does his best to steal the show from a stunning set of stellar choons new and old, with his drunken wit and repartee and blatant-lack-of-socks appeal, but it's the impression of a band truly starting to find its feet live that's the lingering impression.
It then began to rain, which probably suited Denmark's Northern Portrait as their efficient Scandinavian remodelling of The Smiths would suggest they're more than comfortable with all things Northern Miserabilism. Happily they're not short of decent tunes and the material seems grounded and heartfelt enough to resonate more deeply than mere pastiche, and they appeared to go down well with a visibly impressed Emma from Pocketbooks who was stood next to us throughout. We wished her well with her set later that day, to which she summarily dismissed us to the merchandise stand. Still, as Confucious might have said, better a girl who only brings her business head to the party than one who doesn't bring any head at all.
Was well and truly chucking it down by this time, but it didn't stop us from heading to see Lucky Soul on the Outdoor Stage to gawp at the singer in her short little mini-dress and to remark on how one of the LS geezers is indecently rocking the Blake Fielder-Civil look, as well as sway about a bit and tap our feet to their pretty fetching pop-soul sound. Meanwhile, it wasn't just the rain that saw people scampering into the merchandise tent, as there was a bit of a Talulah Gosh reunion going on, which was nice, even though we found ourselves distracted by congratulating Liz on her set and introducing Dunc and Simon to each other (the indiepop equivalent of Frost:Nixon, we're sure you'll agree).
Sunday became a bit of a rainy blur from this point on, catching 20 minutes of the always-entertaining The Smittens here and 20 minutes of Hong Kong In The 60s ambient pop there, and a set by the aforementioned Pocketbooks that became increasingly compelling as the show went on, and we're sure Emma (who sports a haircut that makes her look a bit like Helen Marnie from Ladytron) would thank us for pointing out that their excellent album 'Flight Paths' is available for retail and download from all the usual outlets, now.
What else? Ah yes, Stereo Total were something of a rowdy revelation, featuring an impromptu performance from Birmingham's very own David Leach on harmonising, and a vaguely riotous stage invasion providing a feelgood finale. One-man NZ act Disasteradio gurned his way gloriously through a frenetic set of electronic gloopy loopiness, keeping Keef's son Joe suitably fascinated throughout. Some fishcake and chips in Johnson's Cafe later, Art Brut are their usual entertaining selves, even though their rockstar shapes and boisterous, slightly shambolic wit does lose its novelty value after a while. Nice of them to namecheck MJ Hibbett, though.
Which just left us with the minor details of your hustling hack falling flat on his back on the wet grass and a mighty, mighty closing performance from Teenage Fanclub which included a couple of new songs (one was called 'The Falls', we think) and plenty of the best from what we sometimes forget is a splendidly impressive back catalogue. Not only is everything and everybody connected, but, as TFC remind us to a cavalcade of chiming guitars, Everything Flows.
Here lies Parallax View's pick of the best albums released for the first time in the UK in the first six months of the year. While we can't pretend to have heard all of the qualifying records (in particular, we resisted The Horrors, because we can't bear to have to say anything nice about them), of those we did, these were the best, and in this precise order.
1. SILENCE IS WILD - FRIDA HYVONEN 2. Fever Ray - Fever Ray 3. Bitte Orca - The Dirty Projectors 4. Thunderheist - Thunderheist 5. Union - The Boxer Rebellion 6. Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do - Major Lazer 7. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear 8. The Floodlight Collective - Lotus Plaza 9. Em Are I - Jeffrey Lewis And The Junkyard 10. Get Guilty - AC Newman 11. Face Control - Handsome Furs 12. It's Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs 13. Farm - Dinosaur Jr 14. Tear Ourselves Away - LoveLikeFire 15. My Maudlin Career - Camera Obscura 16. Post-Apocalyptic Love - The Very Sexuals 17. I Feel Cream - Peaches 18. A Man, A Woman Walked By - PJ Harvey & John Parish 19. Still Night, Still Light - Au Revoir Simone 20. Fantasies - Metric
Records by Experimental Dental School, The Lemonheads, Red Light Company, The Wind Whistles, Telepathe, Polly Scattergood and The Joy Formidable narrowly missed out but are all also worth exploring.
The Autumn Store Presents: Moofish Catfish/Waldo Jeffers/MJ Hibbert and the Validators, The Autumn Store, Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham, Saturday June 13 2009, 9pm. The Thermals, 02 Academy 3, Birmingham, Monday June 22nd, 9.30pm. The Warlocks/Wild Palms/Guile, The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham, Sunday July 19 2009,8pm.
You'd have to be nuts to miss an Autumn Store gathering, even though we've contrived to do just that more than we'd like, but the lure of catching some Moofish Catfish at the beginning of their UK tour proved strong enough bait on this occasion. Like a slightly poppier Liechtenstein, but with enough pirhana bite in the guitars to supply a crunchy base to their witty lyrics and soaring harmonies, they were a real find so catch 'em if you can. Also on the bill were local band Waldo Jeffers, whose set was a mixed bag, but the singer has a distinctive, velvety voice, and if they can fix a matching musical voice in terms of a distinct direction they certainly have plenty potential. Headlining were London's MJ Hibbert And The Validators, whose wry, lo-fi take on modern pop culture provided a ramshackle but undeniably entertaining climax to the evening's entertainment.
Over at The Rainbow there was more overtly serious fare where The Warlocks were headlining on a recently-redesigned stage area to a black-clad crowd. Bobby Hensher and crew haven't exactly developed their sound as much as refined it: we came for a driven set of powerful, transcendent guitars, that's what we got, and we loved it. Not that everybody was as transfixed, however: some punter with a hot girlfriend is twittering 'The left guitar[sic] looks like a right miserable git'. Sheesh, everyone's a critic these days, right?
Of the supports, we continue to be impressed by Guile, despite them having to fight against the apathy from some of the early birds in the crowd, while London's Wild Palms provided some sharp relief from the storm und drang with their relatively chirpy, choppy, rappy-chappy take on mathsrock, their best two songs bookending an uneven but diverting set. Top marks to whoever was on the decks, too: The Telescopes' 'The Perfect Needle' and Bowie's 'Heroes' (the German language version, unless our ears deceived us), you really know how to spoil us.
Somewhere in between, we managed to shoehorn an express midsummer trip to the predictably humid Academy 3 to see Portland's The Thermals, our first chance to see them and typically it fell at a time where we for once hadn't gotten round to listening to their latest material. It mattered little, as we were too busy jumping up and down to their hilariously energetic fuzzpop/rock to be taking notes anyway. The Thermals, then: sweaty, but fun.
For anyone still concerned about the Mercury Music Prize the nominations have been announced and can be found on the official site. A pretty uninspiring list by any standards, the Best British Album during an era when the best music is coming predominantly from Scandinavia and North America seems like eternal damnation by faint praise to these ears.
No strong feelings on the outcome, either, but depending on the odds, Speech Debelle or The Horrors might give you a decent run for your money.
Apologies yet again for the slight gap in transmission. As a consequence there's something of a content jam so expect a gig review ketchup and linkdump in the next few days, as well as our annual Half-Term Report on the best albums released in the UK from January to June 2009.
In the meantime, continuing a recent (accidental) animal theme, enjoy the promo video of 'Turtle' by The Wind Whistles. Like the nature that seemingly informs their lyrical content, there's a slightly sinister undertow to the band's apparently straightforward surface, making their appeal nearer to anti-folk than twee.
If you like this, you might want to try their second album 'Animals Are People Too' which can be downloaded in full, legally, and for free*, from here. There's also whispers of a UK tour soon.
Being popcult bloggers and wannabe hipsters, we're feeling a little sheepish about admitting that, yes, we too, love the Dirty Projectors' new album Bitte Orca, and that 'Stillness Is The Move' is quite possibly our favourite song of the year. The recently-released promo, featuring as it does caped girls dancing with wolves and a random llama farmer, emphatically seals the deal.
Bristol Dot-to-Dot Festival, various venues in Bristol, Saturday May 23 2009.
This was Parallax View's second visit to Bristol's Dot-to-Dot Festival, 2009 seeing some venue changes (converted prison and church respectively Fiddlers and Trinity making way for The Cooler and additional rooms at Thekla and Academy), two days now compressed into one, and much better weather (hello, sun!). Effectively the event is a glorified pub crawl with some of the globe's hottest-tipped new bands playing at every turn, so c'mon, what's not to like? Although all that relentless gigging and ligging was bound to take its toll on our critical faculties by the end of the evening (wasn't it ever thus, dear reader?).
And yet, in the beginning, there were false starts, with Official Secrets Act pulling out, and Marina and the Diamonds having the 24-carat excuse of being stuck in traffic. So it was Flashguns to the rescue to get things started with some welcome flair upstairs in the moored-boat venue that is Thekla. These four lads looked young enough to be found in your local underpass sniffin' glue, but put in a polished, professional performance that saw them search for the missing link between Arctic Monkeys, Interpol and, erm, Larrikin Love. Possibly not the most original band of all time, then, but they have enough dark energy and a knack for a tune to see them fire up the charts.
Did somebody mention fire? Because, some moopie and groovy later, we were back in the upstairs of Thekla to be suitably impressed by LoveLikeFire, fronted by the stunning Ann Yu, all blunt bangs, darkpool eyes and startling cheekbones, and an intelligent, compassionate vocal style that recalled Emily Haines. Metric are probably a good point of comparison to the San Francisco outfit, with their rock music comprising powerful surges of guitar noise complemented by fetching female vocals to tuneful, moving effect, particularly on the epic closing number which definitely had sea legs.
While waiting for friends, your confident correspondent caught sight of the delicious Ms Yu wearing a splendid pair of big sunglasses, and managed to grab a few minutes of her time outside the venue, during which she was as cool, polite and patient as anyone could hope an indie-superstar-in-waiting could be while being probed by a beaming blogger. She revealed that the new LoveLikeFire album is due for UK release in August, although our Stateside cousins may have to wait a while longer while a deal is hammered out. We predict great things for the band, and just hope Ann's pie and groovy didn't get too cool while we talked...
Having duly met up with friends, we headed over to Louisiana (the venue, not the state) to see Polly Scattergood, someone we've been following on Mitherspace for some time, but has attracted a fair amount of attention since the release of her eponymous debut in March. Polly looked terrific in a spangly dress but the set took a fair while to warm up during which some casual observers sloped off. Their loss, though, because she left her best 'til last with a devastating coda of 'Bunny Club' and 'Nitrogen Pink' snatching victory from the jaws of disaster. Downstairs, meanwhile, Liam Finn was winning over lots of friends with his feelgood folk with just enough spice in the gumbo to keep things interesting.
Had Thekla actually set sail or were the beers kicking in by this point? Or maybe it was Duchess Says rockin' the boat with their uproarious electro-funk that resembles Crystal Castles buccaneered by the anarchic spirit of The Mae Shi, the lead singer climbing the ceiling of the boat from the stage to the bar with the helping hands of a sweaty crowd to the visible jawdropping of the beer vendors.
The beers were definitely kicking in now, so where better to head than The Cooler where The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart were kings for the day? The Cooler is a pretty big venue but it was ridiculously packed, and 'Young Adult Friction' was the order of the day both on-stage and off during a lively and tuneful set. Things then descended into a bit of a blur as we rushed to The Fleece to catch the second-half of AC Newman's performance which was strong on good humour (Newman threatens to fire just about every band member at some point) and belting tunes ('The Heartbreak Rides' track of the year to date? Discuss). Then it was a swift swagger back to Thekla to see a fierce, bracing set from Baddies that supplied a needed caffeine jolt for your woozy writer at that point.
Our zigzagging path continued with a stroll back to Fleece to see The Soft Pack who we were very impressed by without the wherewithal at that point to illustrate these vibes with wise words. We think we just liked the hard, clanging sound of their guitars, and at the end of a long session of drinking/gigging, what more do you want? Nineties indie sorts My Vitriol were the following act, but we weren't really paying that much attention at this point, and we'll let you, dear reader, decide whether this was our fault, theirs, or a mutual deficiency of sorts. As for The Hold Steady, let me tell you by this point we were doing nothing of the kind...
Parallax View Health Warning: Binge Drinking is neither big nor clever, and makes clear nonsense of any aspirations towards serious rock music journalism.
PS. Thanks to VV Brown who patiently waited for your clumsy cameraman to take a picture of friends Ray and Deb either side of the stunning singer (fuck, she's tall).
PPS. Just two sightings of Big Jeff - at the front (but of course!) to The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Flashguns (the centre-stage Flashgun's double-take when he first saw him was priceless).
Who said you can't rely on Banks in a recession? Interpol vox Paul Banks's solo project Julien Plenti sees fruition with the release of debut album 'Skyscraper' on August 4, so this sneak peak of 'Cellophane' (complete with unofficial DIY montage) should ensure things are kept nice and fresh in the meantime.
The Dot-to-Dot review is undeniably late, but will be imminent. In the meantime, Katie Stelmanis supplies Single Of The Week with 'Believe Me' (out to buy on June 22 but the mp3 can be downloaded from NME), coming on like an electropop Frida Hyvonen to credible effect.
This week's Single Of The Week is on a totally topical tip, so as Britain swelters away in a welcome heatwave, Swedish stunner Name The Pet offers a hymn to sunshine, shimmering pop loveliness given suntan motion by some delightful disco propulsion.
While Parallax View unscrambles its brains sufficiently to write up a review of Bristol Dot-to-Dot, please entertain yourselves by watching the promo for 'Young Adult Friction' the highlight of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's set at The Cooler.
Single Of The Week, and you'd be a numbskull to disagree...
Experimental Dental School/Even Atlas/Dream Dreams The Dreamer, It's Just Noise @The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham, Tuesday May 12 2009, 9pm.
An ominous start to the evening when on arrival at the venue there appeared to be no-one about other than the extremely pleasant girl on boffo duties. A quiet start, then, soon to be interrupted by Dream Dreams The Dreamer the new project by Matt Snowden (ex-Esquilax, Doom Patrol), that has developed into a 'sonic orchestra' specialising in experimental, droning post-rock of some portent. When it worked it was pretty terrific, but there was also a few longeurs where your chin-stroking correspondent didn't seem to be the only one shifting about a bit uncomfortably. And while we more than welcome the re-introduction of the trombone into the modern rock canon, we struggled to discern the point if it could rarely be heard above the squalling guitars?
Even Atlas represented something of a shift towards more conventional rock tropes, although with enough of a healthy whiff of pretension (not to mention some discernible Radiohead and Fugazi influences) to keep the serious-minded music fan from frothing in their pint at the hint of a tune. Was an interesting and enjoyable set, but perhaps a bit too eclectic for their own good in terms of a particular style or song really sticking in the mind on first listen. A work in progress, then, but worth keeping an eye on.
Capping these two local noiseniks were Portland, Oregon's Experimental Dental School here on touring duties to promote their second album 'Forest Field', which can be downloaded in total for free from their official site. This is probably a good a way as any of getting a grip on their sound, which is reassuringly difficult to define in these subgenre-heavy times, although their own LastFM blurb as 'really nerdy, dirty jazz punk' is probably as good a stab at it as we could muster, with bruising riffs and gentle noodling establishing an uneasy but eventually pleasing friction.
Something had to give sooner or later, though, and eventually it proved to be Jesse's bass string. He asked for any comedians to make themselves known (a dangerous call in Brum pubs, in our experience) to plug the gap, and right on cue a rogueish-looking gent lurched on stage who just happened to have reams of his own poetry stuffed in his back pocket. Things soon went went back from bard to verse, however, with bass string fixed and the experimental tooth doc tutors resuming their rumbling brilliance to a stirring conclusion. Leaving the only gripe from tonight that such a fine band and a well-drilled bill by It's Just Noise didn't tempt more second-citizens out on an otherwise humdrum Tuesday evening.
To compensate for the promo for last week's Single Of The Week being pulled by the YouTube user, we offer a bonus video for your perusal and entertainment, a tight, moving little toon to accompany the rather fine 'Hotblack' single from Oceanship. Let's see how long this one stays up...
We haven't done a Parallax Jukebox for a while, which as good a reason as to do one now as any, headed this time round by our favourite new band, from Portland Oregon, it's The Dirty Mittens, who produce the most delicious sound since someone last said they loved us.
1. The Small Things - The Dirty Mittens 2. Young Adult Friction - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart 3. Bugs and Flowers - Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard 4. 18 Wheels - Evening Magazine 5. Beeline - Sky Larkin 6. April - John Parish and P J Harvey 7. A Song For Our City - We Are The Storm 8. Yours To Share - Moofish Catfish 9. Jazz Serenade - The Artisans 10. The Sweetest Thing - Camera Obscura 11. Dull Life - Yeah Yeah Yeahs 12. Doubtful Comforts - Blue Roses
Dirty Mittens, then: who knew fun without fingers was so easy?
Here at Parallax View we're not totally convinced yet by the hype surrounding the new St Vincent album, but we are suitably impressed by the spookily brilliant video for 'Actor Out Of Work' to promote it as our Single Of The Week.
Missed the chance to see Polly Scattergood live a few weeks back due to an unfortunate set of circumstances (she's playing Bristol's Dot-to-Dot, though, so we should catch up with her then). 'Please Don't Touch' isn't our favourite cut from her really rather good debut album (that'd be a toss-up between Bunny Club and Nitrogen Pink), but it is perhaps the catchiest, and is thus a pretty astute choice for single, and gives this Bank Holiday week the bouncy kickstart it needs.
Bombay Bicycle Club/Tantrums, The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham, Saturday April 18 2009, 8.45pm.
In the interests of fairness and accuracy we should report that we attended this gig after a steady day's drinking before and after attendance at the Hammers' valiant draw at Villa Park and thus witnessed the event through an attendant fug of post-match euphoria and stealthily enveloping stupour. So if you're looking for a detailed analysis of chord changes and other such muso musings this review isn't likely to be particularly enlightening. But we enjoyed both bands so some sort of mention of this fact should be recorded, if only to enable the dear reader to look out for the aforementioned groups next time they're in town.
Tantrums are a local Birmingham band and in fact play the This Is Tomorrow all-dayer at The Victoria tomorrow (3rd). They helped stamp out tunelessness with a set drenched in harmonies, sounding a bit Britpop here and there but with vocal stylings perhaps more in keeping with the more radio-friendly end of emo. And yet, as desperate as that reads, it somehow worked, mainly thanks to some better-than-average choons and a healthy down-to-earth attitude ensuring there was no tears before bedtime on this occasion.
Crouch End's Bombay Bicycle Club looked impossibly young for a band who've been knocking around for long enough to be one of our top tips from the beginning of 2008. If theirs has been a slow progress to the point where they're headlining gigs like this, we witnessed first-hand from our unfamiliar stage-front positioning the frenzied excitement they've started eliciting from their peer-group following.
While you couldn't argue that the (lazy acronym alert!) BBC bring anything startlingly original to the table, you can't help but admire the way they mix the ingredients with such confident dexterity they can present a finished product that still feels fresh, vibrant and feelgood. Jack Steadman has the studied cool and easy arrogance to give Alex Turner a run for his money as the bookish fresher's heart-throb of choice, with tremulous vocals that occasionally recall the likes of Brett Anderson and Peter Perrett, while the band even get away with dropping in PV's pet hate (the token laboured ska-inflected song) and just about pulling it off without looking like prats.
Aside from the singles Always Like This and Evening/Morning, our favourites on the night were Ghost and Cancel On Me, and there certainly seemed enough strength in depth to suggest their debut album (due soon, we reckon) will be an impressive calling card. Although future records seemed the last thing on the audience's mind as they lost themselves in the here and now of crowd surges and stage invasions that saw your wobbling webmaster adopt the Bristol Jeff pose of shaking his mane while steadying one hand on the sound monitor throughout. And fashion pundits wouldn't forgive us for not mentioning the drummer's top-notch shiny parka, because surface coating is important, dontcha know.
Handsome Furs/Dan Smith, 93 Feet East, Brick Lane, East London, Wednesday March 8 2009, 8.45pm.
This is the third time in London for Handsome Furs' Canadian singer-guitarist Dan Boechner, perhaps better known thus far for one of his other bands Wolf Parade. The first time he got food poisoning, the second time he got roughed up, so will it be third time lucky on his debut gig here in the UK with the project he's set up with his wife/keyboard-drum machine oppo Alexei Perry?
Before we find out, there's the little matter of Dan Smith whose brand of folk left your patient pundit a little cold, with efforts to jazz things up with elements of ska, rap and even at one point some nu-metal, while welcome, only really serving to highlight the 'trad dad' lack of inspiration in the rest of the material. To end this part of the review on a positive note, however, the best song was announced as the newest and thus suggests this might be a work in progress, Radio2 listeners will undoubtedly love him, and the string section were kinda hot.
Whether its local fans of Londoner Smith lingering about, or a lot of internet buzz, or a combination of both, but the venue is pretty packed by the time Handsome Furs take stage. For the uninitiated, sonically they're kinda the musical intersection between The White Stripes and Bruce Springsteen, with some burbling electronic trimmings thrown in for good measure. Boechner is skinny, tattoo-ed and edgy with Perry supplying a kind of chipper curviness as well as huge amounts of bouncing energy to her instrumental duties, rotating her left arm so rapidly at one point your concerned correspondent thought she might take off helicopter-style.
The result is a big, loud noise but accessible, mainstream and pointedly unpretentious, each tune not forgetting to throw in an anthemic chorus and/or head-bobbing rhythm. Second album 'Face Control' is effectively a concept album inspired by a trip to Eastern Europe (the title refers to a superclub vetting policy where even exhorbitant pre-payment doesn't guarantee your entry if your physiog doesn't fit) although such lyrical concerns seemed to trouble the crowd little as they responded so warmly to the punchy radio rock of 'I'm Confused'; 'Talking Hotel Arbat Blues' and 'Evangeline' that Boechner admits he's gonna have to reassess his attitude to the capitol city after all. And despite his 'Mexican Fender' disintegrating and Perry's equipment having meltdown at various points through the show, it's perhaps no real surprise that huge fun travels so well.
Your chaotic correspondent has been threatening to make a Loose night in Cardiff for some time, and finally got his act together to make this eclectic and engaging bill, albeit one artiste short with the disappointing absence of Lily Green with throat problems. When in Cardiff, use your Brains, so your ruddy-cheeked rogue sampled some of the brewery's ales in a few local taverns beforehand, the pick being the Reverend James as available in the best of the bars, The Cottage, on St. Mary's Street.
All this exhaustive research already had your stewedshrewd scribe in a jolly mood by the time he made it upstairs at the popular Buffalo Bar, further enhanced by seeing the lovely Liz Hunt from The School on the door, dispensing some Parma Violets and a free compilation CD as she ushered your timeous tinker into the venue to catch the opening moments of East London's Muarena Helena. They're a good introduction to the evening's entertainment, as they combine folk, classical and rock instrumentation but with enough added edge and strangeness to offer a frisson of curious menace to proceedings. Sample song title: Gangland Hand Gesture, so listen to your creaking consigliore when he says watch out for this lot.
Duo Gnu And The Shrew hail from Manchester, and come to Cardiff fresh from Marc Riley's seal of approval on his 6Music show. 'Look at the scary puppets!' points out Liz, as the pair not only deal with found sounds but also a fascinating, mottley collection of vintage/retro bric-a-brac including the afore-mentioned finger furniture. Singer Jennifer Kay has a rasping delivery which may prove an acquired taste, but for your intrigued interloper added to the sense of theatrical oddness that give their predominantly acoustic ditties a distinctive appeal. CD 'Time For Tea', on sale at the gig for a mere six quid, is definitely worth rummaging for, with 'Gasboard Fraud' and 'Bingo' standing out on first few listens.
Headliner Midori Harano is a petite Japanese solo musician whose made her home amidst the electronic scene in Berlin. She offers predominantly keyboard music which produces pretty, pastoral, hazy soundscapes but with enough beats and glitches to add some swooning movement to the ambient electronica. Midori had also arrived in Cardiff entirely free of entourage, which made me rather fancifully think of her like a William Gibson character, a tough cookie in vulnerable guise, trotting the globe with her particular brand of techno-alchemistry. The result was even more intoxicating than the Brains' beers.
In conclusion, a roaring success for Loose, with three apparently very different acts making some logical connections with each other, a friendly, civilised vibe permeating throughout and all the artists concerned proving approachable, even to your Brains-dead blogger's blether!
Next day, had another wander around Cardiff before heading home, getting an 'above-par' cappuccino in Starbucks, taking a walk up and down the impressively reconstructed Roman castle that is slap-bang in the city centre (the audioguide is voiced by the BBC's Huw Edwards) and sampling the Wheat Ale at the nearby Zero Degrees microbrewery that is located opposite from the Millenium Stadium. Don't think it'll be too long before your restless rascal will be gig-going in this neck of the woods again.
If It's Tuesday There Must Be A Gratuitous Belgian Link At The End Of The Dump
We meant to go to see LaRoux and The Electrilickers at The Rainbow back in February but it was snowing and we're fairweather fans so point you instead to a review by the hardier and more local Baron.
In other news, we really like the album Embrace by Sleepy Sun, trippy but undeniably powerful stuff, and they'll be playing ATP on May 8.
Still with time to spare? Try to unravel the in-jokes over at Power To The People! and Awesome Pals. Co-conspirators at the latter site, Los Campesinos!, also have their very own blog where they ask the very reasonable question 'so what do you want to know?'
For fans of Bob Dylan there's an mp3 of the cheerfully-entitled 'Beyond Here Lies Nothin' from his forthcoming album available for free download from the official site. Bob's voice is more cracked than ever but the choon chugs along rather nicely and successfully whets the appetite for the full record.
And finally, we know it's getting harder for music promoters to tempt punters to part with their hard-earned but the organisers of the recent Kraak Music Festival in Belgium appear to have taken a possibly literal and certainly NOT-SAFE-FOR-WORK approach with their invitational poster...
You can download the debut album by Eindhoven indiepop/shoegaze outfit The Very Sexuals, 'Post-Apocalyptic Love', from the band's website for free, so we'd recommend you do this, not just because it's gratis, but also because it's one of our favourite records of the year to date. Check out their promo to 'Carla' below if you still need convincing not to look a gift horse down its' gobhole!
We interrupt this deadspace to give you a brief rundown of some of our favourite choons we've been listening to this year that we've hitherto not referenced on this 'ere blog. Most of these tracks are available through the usual download/retail outlets - use and enjoy.
1. 1901 - Phoenix 2. World News - Local Natives 3. Seven - Fever Ray 4. Enemy Within - Frida Hyvonen 5. Anti-Valentine - The Very Sexuals 6. magicweather - Alessi's Ark 7. Snore Bore Whore - Fight Like Apes 8. San Francisco - Jill Sobule 9. Outlaw Pete - Bruce Springsteen 10. The Last Of The Melting Snow - The Leisure Society 11. A Threaded Needle - Lotus Plaza 12. Flicker And Flutter - Future Islands
More updates soon (famous last words, we know, but...)
The Boxer Rebellion/Guile, 444Club@The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham, Saturday March 14 2009, 9pm. The Get Out Clause/Out In The Crowd/StRANGEtIME, Dragon Bar, Barfly, Birmingham, Saturday March 7 2009, 7.20pm.
If The Boxer Rebellion were dumped by Alan McGee's Poptones for being bedwetters does that make them Britain's Best Kept Secretions? In an era of 'landfill indie' the multinational group's strobelight anthems have proved stubbornly non-biodegradable, but there's a danger in these over-blogged times that the backstory (self-financed record is released digitally and breaks into Billboard Top 100 and ITunes Top10) obscures the fact that the music ('Union'), no matter what the format or means of distribution, is arguably the most impressive presentation of contemporary rock since Kings Of Leon's 'Because Of The Times'.
The weird thing about their live show is that stirring lead single 'Evacuate', despatched early on in proceedings, has possibly the most muted impact, with the slower-burning material like 'Soviets'; 'Forces' and 'Misplaced' seeming to fire the imagination of an interested crowd. We almost started smoking just so we could wave our lighters, and even minus the female backing vocals 'Flashing Red Light Means Go' still accelerated our emotions on the night.
If the headliners supplied big enough music to headline Glasto (or at least earn a Mercury Music Prize nomination) mention should also be made of main supports Guile, who hail from Cannock and knocked the Staffs out of us with their hypnotic, hard-driving rock music providing regular surges of melody and mayhem to glorious effect. If somebody would be as good as to give them enough time and money to make great records, these guys have it in 'em, we reckon.
The week before, we visited the Dragon Bar (upstairs in the Barfly building) for the first time, to catch a varied bill and get our first fix in 2009 of StRANGEtIME's mad dog rock. Kate Finch & Co. are definitely becoming more prog-metal show-by-show, an approach suiting some songs better than others, but overall the progress is undeniable. Elsewhere on the bill, a young female trio Out In The Crowd played radio-friendly harmonies and nuanced song compositions staggeringly proficient and mature for their years, more like 'Celebrity Skin' era Hole than 'the female McFly' their MySpace page promised/threatened. Even better were The Get Out Clause, whose powerful guitar noise was as impressive as their headgear was lamentable (we'd gladly take our hats off to 'em, if they promise to do the same), so there's really no excuses for not catching up with 'em soon.
The Walkmen, Barfly, Birmingham, Wednesday February 18 2009, 9.30pm. Popfest All-Dayer, The Macbeth, Hoxton Street, London, Saturday February 28 2009 4pm. Future Islands, The Old Blue Last, Great Eastern Street, London, Sunday March 1 2009, 10pm.
Sometimes a great and memorable gig is all about the peripheral details - the company; the ambience; the chance encounters and the general craic. The Walkmen's gig at Barfly was not like that at all. A nightmare journey (packed train, only seat available saw your puce-faced peacemaker caught in a ruckus between a reeking drunk and two wannabe gangstas), a heaving crowd and under-resourced, apparently under-trained bar staff made for one of our less comfortable gigging experiences for some months. So it's good to report that The Walkmen were in good enough form to make you realise why you bother.
Their fondness for vintage musical equipment is well recorded, but it's Hamilton Leithauser's voice that's the truly distinctive instrument at their disposal. No-one can hold a roared note quite like the grizzled frontman, and the band play with the confidence of knowing their latest record (You&Me) has defied all expectations and proved every bit as essential and revelatory as their earlier triumphs. Hamilton's academical background clearly didn't include local British accents though, as his improvised Brummie micktake sounded like Dick Van Dyke at his most hackneyed. Though we'll concede 'One more song, then we'll skedaddle' was a great closing line.
The lead singer of Baltimore's Future Islands has a similar impassioned angst-ridden drawl as The Walkmen vocalist, but it's allied to a frothy synth-and-bass backdrop to create a surreal vibe like the musical equivalent of 'Twin Peaks'. At the end of a long, great day which included a football match, catching up with friends and attendant beers, maybe it was our tired, emotional state that left us seduced by their woozy late-night ruminations, but later inspection of 'Wave Like Home' reveals gems like 'Beach Foam' and 'Old Friend' would resonate vividly on even the gloomiest of evenings.
The previous day we'd been round the corner celebrating all things bright and shiny-eyed at the Popfest All-Dayer. This allowed us to reacquaint ourselves with Sweden's Liechtenstein, who have trimmed down to a three-piece since last year's Autumn Store gig and delightful singer Renee's gained a blonde rinse and a Mo-dettes t-shirt into the bargain. Electrelane's harmonies are pleasingly grafted to an early 80s bed-sit pop feel to diverting effect, we recommend you buy their new Everything's For Sale ep now and start salivating for the debut album due later this year.
The Scandinavian presence didn't end there, with Action Biker proving the other revelation on the night, a pretty young lady in a beautiful dress cooing conversational melodies to pre-recorded music that would have strong appeal to fans of Saint-Etienne. Suppose it could be glibly dismissed as 'laptop karaoke' but she had the presence and charm, not to mention voice and hooks, to coax something magical and entrancing from the simple set-up.
Elsewhere on the bill The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut offered barbed topical popcult anthems in the mould of Half Man Half Biscuit; Town Bike delivered a lively but surprisingly melodic set that would appeal to fans of HMHB and Helen Love; The Loves brought a harder, druggier feel to proceedings with some driving rock songs and no popfest is complete without a spirited, entertaining set from the marvellous Smittens. Only Help Stamp Out Loneliness failed to ignite our passions, but this emptiness may have had more to do with our hunger at this point than the band's lacking - with no food on the premises even the most inimitable indiefans need refuelling and as hard as we tried, sustenance by Guinness alone didn't quite see us through to the end of the night.
We know little about Yelle other than that they're French and Ce Jeu is the third single taken off their album 'Pop-Up'. You can sit there berating us for our lack of research or just take in the colourful fun of their video, which apparently contains a brief nipslip at 2:09 so might not be safe for work if your boss has 20:20 vision. We described this elsewhere as 'a generous slice of Eurovision cheese sizzling on a beefy electropop patty' but this was possibly just us getting carried away with ourselves...
There will one day be a time when this blog once again contains more than YouTube embeds, but until that time feast your eyes and ears on a live performance from Vienna's Soap&Skin who will inevitably draw comparisons with Kate Bush and Bjork but perhaps more accurately resembles the lycanthropic mid-transformation from Joanna Newsom to Danielle Dax. Her debut album ships in the UK later in the spring.
Hippychick fuckyou anthem to chugging quasi-Strokes chords? We're in!!! And while we're at it, can we ask that all promo videos from now on feature someone playing the piano with stiletto heels? We're referring of course to 'My High' from Jonna Lee, the lead single from her upcoming sophomore album, which has a tender acoustic cover of The Killers' 'Human' on the flip (note: the lyrics still make no sense whatever).
Parallax View Single Of The Week, unless our highs deceive us!
Not one, but two Singles Of The Week to compensate for the paucity of PV content so far this year. The Boxer Rebellion have been a band I've happened across on record and live here and there, but recent single 'Evacuate' raises their game several levels, probably the best new rock song for racing the pulse since Kings Of Leon's 'Sex On Fire'. Their second album 'Union' can be downloaded via ITunes for £4.74 which represents excellent value-for-money during the economic downturn, offering as it does widescreen mainstream guitar choons with post-rock trimmings that complement but never obscure the melodic flow of the songs. Nothing on it however quite matches the adrenalised momentum of 'Evacuate'...
If you're looking for something less obvious and mainstream, Fever Ray the new solo project from Karin from The Knife offers considerably more slower-burning thrills if taster single 'If I Had A Heart' is an accurate reflection of the rest of the album. The intriguing video certainly adds to the overall unsettling vibe.
Finally, another budding offshoot worth keeping an eye on is Lovers Love Haters which has Deborah Cohen transplanting The Organ sound into her new project with impressive results (found via Totally Twitterpated).
From the ashes of Million Dead, Frank Turner has carved himself a cultish solo career that could break into the mainstream with the creditcrunch-crushing wisdom that lies within 'Reasons Not To Be An Idiot'. This idiot's guide to not being a dummy is sunny enough to light up the life of the SADdest person this winter, and thus perks up Parallax View with a well-deserved Single Of The Week.
First up, Parallax View is a personal site, and the views expressed herein (unless stated otherwise) solely belong to the webmaster (see below) and do not represent the views of past, present or future employers, or that of the web hosting company.
This site shares nothing but its title with the 1974 paranoid thriller The Parallax View. This is NOT the official site for that film and the views expressed herein do not represent the views of Warren Beatty or anyone involved in producing the film. Neither does this site have any connection with the electronic group The Parallax Corporation.
What Parallax View is:
It's a weblog, updated invariably daily, with links and references to music; film; pop culture; pub culture; football (or soccer, if you will); sports; TV/Radio; modern art; sex and gossip. Preferably, all of them at the same time.
That list isn't exclusive though. This is a personal site, so I reserve the right to talk shit about anything/everything I want. Just try stop me.
This page refers on an occasional basis to adult material, and contains some use of strong language. I don't set out to offend but if you don't like it, I won't be offended if you don't come back.
About the boy
Although this is a personal site, the point of the project isn't me, it's to refer you to sites/stories/pictures/games etc. of interest. Occasionally, there will be references to my private life but this isn't a diary page. I can't stop you making assumptions about me based on the content of this page, as long as you don't mistake those assumptions for anything remotely resembling fact.
Parallax View is the work of a shadowy, mysterious character by the name of Dead Kenny. That's me. Am I really dead? Take a guess. Why use a pseudonym? I have my reasons. Let's just say that using a doppelganger allows me optimum flexibility in expressing myself.
