Gyratory System: The Sound-Board Breathes

Ok so, again, massive apologies for the lack of posts recently. I've got a treat for you here now though in the shape of the entire Gyratory System album 'The Sound-Board Breathes'. The brain child of Dr. Andrew Blick, described as an 'effects trumpet player and producer', it's a crazy mix of improvised synths, electronica and brass combining to create a unique sound. Blick himself describes the influence of artists who do "what they do with live instruments where you can’t tell what the instruments are" and it would certainly take more than an expert ear to pick out the individual elements within this album. The album itself has been gaining great critical reviews and is embedded below.

The band have also made their track 'Splurge Gun' available for a free download, which can be found here.

Interview: I Was A King

Ok, so I haven't posted for a couple of weeks due to some personal reasons but now I'm back with a whole host of treats for you and first up is this 'Getting to Know' interview with Frode from I Was A King...

Hi Frode, can you introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
We are a Norwegian group called I was a King. First time name was used to name a recording was in 2004. It started out as my home recording project back then, and has taken a lot of different directions since then. The first album entitled “Losing something good for something better” came out in 2007. We actually then did two shows in UK which was a lot of fun. The current line up has been together since January this year, which actually is the longest lasting line up.

It must be quite nerve racking when you set out to try and make it in a different country. How do you handle that?
I mostly just try and focus on the fun part of it. We are really lucky to be able to travel around, see new places, meet new people and of course play music in front of people.

How different is the music scene in the USA and UK to the one in Norway?
Both USA and UK has a lot stronger musical traditions and history, which also means that scenes are a lot bigger. Norway is a small country and the different scenes aren't really big.

The album was recorded over such a short period of time, does that mean that a lot of the music was almost improvised?
Yes a lot of the songs on the album are first or second takes. I’ve been recording both IWAK albums starting out with just me on guitar and my friend Emil on drums. The way we’ve worked every time is that I go through the song once, so he gets an impression of structure, then we hit record, and takes what comes out of it. I tend to get very impatient working in the studio, so this is the best way to work for sure.

You worked with a lot of collaborators on the album, the most notable perhaps being Sufjan Stevens. How did that come about?
The reason we went to Brooklyn to record was that I really needed to get out of Oslo to find new inspiration, and new surroundings. Also I have a lot of friends who live there, wich includes Sufjan Stevens, Gary Olson and Daniel Smith who all helped out making this album something I’m really proud of.. It was so inspiring to work with all these amazing people in the same room.

You’ve said before that you don’t like keeping your style too similar. Have you got anything in mind stylistically for the next album?
I have been thinking a lot about what will come next, but haven’t had time to write very much lately. But I know for sure that next one will be different.

What three tracks of yours would you recommend for people to look up?
My 3 favorites of the album, i think are Not Like This, Breathe and Weighing Anchor. I guess they give a pretty decent impression about our sound and music.

And finally, what’s the plan for the rest of the year?
We’re doing a week of shows in UK now in November, which includes opening for one of my old favorites Swervedriver in Oxford. Can’t wait to see them live.

Origins

While I'm in the habit of posting up largely irrelevant articles I thought this might be an appropriate time to tell you all where I got the name of the blog from. There's this great little band from London called This Is Radio Freedom and they released a four track EP last December called 'Strike Sparks Anywhere EP'. The opening, and title, track, opens with a classic riff, the kind that makes you stop to think where you`ve heard it before, follows that up with a punchy verse before mellowing in to a more thoughtful chorus. It's a great piece of song writing and the name just struck a chord with me. You can find my original review of the EP here, and the song is below for your listening pleasure.

Better luck next time

Nothing new for you here I'm afraid. I'm feeling down and this song is beautiful. Just thought I'd share it with you.

Bon Jovi....not sheep

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a huge Bon Jovi fan so imagine my disgust when I realised they have a new album out in a few weeks and I knew nothing about it. That's all changed now and 'The Circle' will be released on November 2nd and 'We Weren't Born To Follow' will be the first single taken from it. It would be fair to say that the New Jersey band have mellowed over their last few albums, culminating in an interesting, if disappointing forray in to Country music on 'Lost Highway', especially after 'Have A Nice Day' had marked a real return to form following the seeds laid down on 'Bounce'.

'We Weren't Born to Follow', in line with a mellower Bon Jovi, is slightly more radio friendly than their older stuff but it's a welcome return to proper rock. It's an uplifting little number with a chorus reminiscent of 'Born to be My Baby' and one of Richie's special miniature solos. If the rest of the album follows this formula then we should be in for a bit of a treat.

Wolves at the Door

With Wolfmother set to release their sophomore LP 'Cosmic Egg' on the 26th October, despite only singer Andrew Stockdale surviving, it seems only right to see what the other two have been up to since their departure. Teaming up with Kid Koala and Dynamite D (Eric San and Dylan J. Frombach respectively) they set out to create a rock record to soundtrack a documentary that was never made. The Slew is the result and their debut album '100%' is all set for a commercial release on the 9th November. Fusing a mix of stombing blues riffs, reminiscent of early Led Zeppelin, samples and the innovative use of several turntables they've managed to create a unique sound that will appeal to the rock purists as well as the fusion, crossover demographic. To whet your appetite you can see the track 'It's All Over Below'.

Saying that, if you fancy a free download and let's face it, who doesn't, then you can get the album from here until the 1st November.

Breaking the Mould

Apologies for the lack of posts recently but a nice way to kick off the new week here. French band Plastiscines release their debut single 'Barcelona' on the 2nd November and it's an infectious three minutes of indie pop. I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of female guitar bands and it's easy to see how Plastiscines, with their easy on the eye members, might attract criticism or might not be taken seriously, but they've aspired to make garage-rockesque indie and that's exactly what they're doing. They could well be ones to keep an eye on. The video for 'Barcelona' is below. Oh, and here's a nice little freebie for you...a remix of the track by Rory Phillips, which can be found here.

Screaming Lights Hit The Road

Having released their debut album in October this Liverpudlian quartet have announced a mini tour through the first half of November. Playing a select few venues across the north-west their live shows have been described as 'superb' and, despite looking like they should still be playing with tambourines and triangles in primary school, they certainly know how to pack a punch. Channeling the sombre spirit of other Liverpudlian bands like Echo and The Bunnymen they look set to enjoy a degree of success in the near future. You can catch them in the following venues...

OCTOBER
25th Blackburn - 41 King Street

NOVEMBER
2nd Liverpool - Alma de Cuba
3rd Bristol - Louisiana
4th Reading - Oakford Social
5th Birmingham - Flapper
11th Edinburgh - Electric Circus
12th Stoke - Sugarmill

And, just so you know what to expect, here's them performing former single GMN at Reading. I'm too good to you people.

A is for Ash

Ash have been teasing us for months now about their ambitious A-Z singles project but now we can finally see 'A' for ourselves. 'True Love 1980' will kick off the year long collection and, true to its title, it's a wonderful slice of 80's style pop. Starting things off with a cracking keyboard line it takes Ash stylistically back to their 'Free All Angels' sound; a kind of mellower 'Shining Light' or 'There's A Star'. It's the kind of song that you can see being played at the Prom in some cheesy 80's high school film (in a good way). It's a great way to start the project and, even if you find yourself hating it, you've only got two weeks to wait until the next one!

If you want to find out more about the singles project you can check out my interview with Tim and Mark here, when I caught up with them at this summer's Hop Farm Festival.

Interview: teenagersintokyo

teenagersintokyo (who also write it as TEENAGERSINTOKYO) are one of the brightest up and coming bands in Australia. I caught up with Samantha from the band ahead of the release of double A-side, 'Isabella/Long Walk Home'...

So you’re not teenagers and you’re not from Tokyo, but....if someone could wave a magic wand over you and transport you to Tokyo as teenagers would you do it?
YES! We would totally do it. That would be so much fun! We could dress like all the amazing Harajuku kids that you see in FRUiTS Magazine as well as eat fresh Japanese food constantly. It would pretty much be a dream come true.

There seems to be an endless stream of talented bands coming out of Australia right now. Do you think it’s becoming harder to get noticed over there?
Actually, I think it’s great because it demonstrates that audiences are becoming more responsive to more younger and independent bands. It seems like in the last five years there have been more outlets for people to stream their demos or have them played on Australian radio and that people are excited to discover and support new local music. At the same time, I recently heard that some of the local venues in Sydney are facing being shut down. These are places that we as a band loved to play and used to frequent a lot as soon as we were legal enough to enter a pub, so it’s really sad that younger artists and audiences will miss out on these opportunities.


How have you found recording the album? Have there been any songs that have been particularly tricky to get down?
Overall it’s been an amazing experience. We bonded quickly with our producer David Kosten, on how to develop the songs from demos to album tracks as well as through our ridiculously crude senses of humour. Recording previously recorded tracks like `End it Tonight` has proven to be quite the challenge. As it was one of the earlier songs we ever wrote as a band, it’s been an interesting process trying to update it with a fresh approach but still maintaining the essence of the song.


What do you get up to when you have some time off? Anything outrageously exciting?
If you consider grocery shopping and doing laundry outrageously exciting then yes, we have a riot of time. Aside from that absolutely debaucherous activity, we like to enjoy the multitude of art galleries in London as the collections and exhibitions here are far more comprehensive than at home. We also don’t hate the idea of going out for a drink and a dance if the evening calls for it.

What was the last CD you bought, the last film you watched and the last book you read?
The last CD would be The xx album, which I’ve been enjoying. It’s really sweet and grows on me the more that I listen to it. The last book that I read was `The Beautiful Fall` by Alicia Drake, which chronicles the lives, loves and characters of Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld through the opulent 1970s French fashion scene. I found it quite fascinating as you get a really interesting insight into their careers and you also feel slightly hedonistic just reading it as you get a sense of living vicariously through them both.
Oddly the last movie I saw was Monster-in-law with Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez. It happened to be on TV the other night when we were having dinner and by the end of us finishing our meals, Linda and I were hooked. It’s a pretty decent Hollywood rom-com script, but the dynamic between Jane Fonda and Wanda Sykes makes it worthwhile. Also, I realised about 5 minutes in that J.Lo is like the grown up version on Hilary Duff in terms of acting mannerisms and speech phrasing. It’s uncanny.

Apart from recording your album, what’s been your highlight of the last year?
Probably moving to London and discovering where to get a decent soy latte. Nude Espresso in Spitalfields if you’re keen. Also high on the list is meeting our Manager, Sulinna. She’s the best.

A few stereotypical Aussie questions (sorry):

Beach or BBQ? BBQ. I can’t stay under the strong Australian sun for too long. I’m weak, I can’t take the heat!
Kangaroo’s or Koala’s? Koala’s are cuter and less aggressive.
Can any of you make a boomerang come back? I managed once but then made the mistake of trying to catch it....
Ha! Last year when we were touring here, we gifted Chris from our label a novelty boomerang. We went to the park to demonstrate our skills but failed miserably.

What’s your favourite part of Sydney?
I was going to write about this really beautiful heritage park/beach called Nielson Park, but I honestly have to say the food, specifically the dumplings in Chinatown. We often sit around and list off all the places we miss and Noodle King in Chinatown is always one of the first. I can’t even think about it anymore without crying. And don’t get me started about the four-cheese melt at Single Origin…

What can we expect from the album and what do you think is the best song on it?
I guess you can expect to be surprised? It’s not quite finished, there are a few more tweaks we want to make, so I don’t really know what to expect people to expect just yet. As of this moment my favourite track is `Long Walk Home`, but this is always changing as I love all the tracks equally. It’s hard to choose a favourite, they are like our kids!

Imagine its early 2010, you’ve just had a successful album launch....what comes next?
Hopefully we’ll be touring for as long as we can and as far and wide as audiences will want us. Also having a bunch of new tracks in the incubator ready for album two. And it would be nice to go home at some point to see family and friends.

RSS Feed

Hi all, just a quick note to say that I've branched out to a stream of this, so all of you who are following can now subscribe to the blog.

The link you need is here.

Alternatively there should now be a little RSS symbol in your browsers search bar.

Thanks a lot.

Review: Editors, In This Light And On This Evening

We were offered a tantalising glimpse of what this album could hold in store when ‘Papillon’ hit the airwaves, the band themselves declaring that they were making an album that would split opinions. They haven’t failed to deliver. Album opener and title track, ‘In This Light and On This Evening’ is certainly a bold choice to kick off proceedings with its repetitive and darkly atmospheric vocals gradually building to an explosion of synths and bass. I have to admit that this song took many, many listens before it started to click and with its simple brooding, despite the endless comparisons, it’s the only moment in three albums worth of material that they’ve actually sounded like Joy Division.

That’s the real trouble with this album. A lot of it takes a while to click and a lot of people won’t have the patience to sit there and listen to it 10, 15, even 20 times. They’ll dismiss it as being crap. However, when Editors get it right they really get it right with ‘Bricks and Mortar’ and ‘You Don’t Know Love’ sitting comfortably alongside the best stuff that they have written. The former is THE Terminator inspired song, its synth line seemingly lifted straight from the film, and is the closest that we get to an anthemic ‘Smokers...’ type song on the album. The latter is the album highlight with a steady build up, complete with ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’, before bringing Tom’s increasingly emotive vocals over a rare example of their signature guitar riffs.

Next comes ‘The Big Exit’, which I would describe as poor, but others have described at brilliant. A further example of opinions being split. After that we have lovely, melodic ‘The Boxer’ and ‘Like Treasure’, which features their most commercially appealing synth hook, after ‘Papillon’. To close the album we are given to vastly different songs. ‘Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool’ is full of dark energy and is the heaviest we have ever seen Editors whereas the album closer, ‘Walk The Fleet Road’ is a beautiful, layered track; certainly the best album closer we have seen from them so far.

All in all, this could prove to be a pivotal record for them. It’s impossible to predict whether they will lose or gain fans but we see them growing in to themselves both in terms of inhabiting a record and in terms of ambition. We’ll have to wait until the next album to see where all of this takes them.

Good? Bad? Ugly?

Ok just a little post today to tell you about a crazy band that I recommend you check out, just so you can say you've heard them. So I came back from work tonight and caught the end of 'Later...with Jools Holland'. Say what you like about him as a guy but his show is a great way of discovering new talent. Anyay, I stumbled across this little gem of a band called the Spaghetti Western Orchestra who seem to fuse a mixture of whistling, chanting, dramatics, costumes, mouth harps and the like, all to recreate their favourite spaghetti western themes. Largely pointless and arguably a waste of some obvious talent, but undeniably entertaining, I'd love to get your views on these guys.

Good? Bad? Or just plain ugly?

Oh, and so you can judge for yourselves here's them performing, appropriately enough, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

Interview: The New York Fund

I’ve been following this band called The New York Fund for a few years now and they’re a great little band, very talented guys. I recently caught up with the singer, Joe McAdam, for a chat about their roots and what we can expect from the album.

For me, The New York Fund are one of the most exciting up and coming bands in the UK at the moment after winning over fans and critics alike with a string of festival appearances over the last couple of years. Having formed in 2005 the band have been busy building their reputation in intimate venues such as The Borderline and the 100 Club as well as broadening their appeal with high profile support slots alongside the likes of Ash and The Hold Steady. After bringing their style of swaggering country-rock to public attention 2007, despite their unsigned status, saw the band producing and distributing their limited debut release, the ‘Guns EP’, which was received well and gained them critical acclaim, noticeably from Dermot O’Leary on his Radio 2 show. Now, two years down the line, the artistic integrity of the band and the importance that they place on having control over their output has ensured that they remain unsigned but that hasn’t restricted their desire to succeed and they’re now on the verge of releasing their debut album.

Displaying a soft-American lilt to his vocals, a desire to have grown up in the American south masks singer Joe McAdam’s Glaswegian roots. So is this desire to visit America responsible for the name of the band? “We're named after my 'New York Fund'” he replies, “which is a collection of jars and bottles and tins, sitting on top of my fridge, full of pennies which I've been saving to buy a ticket to New York... The idea is to get to New York using only money that, if you dropped it on the floor, or you just saw it lying there, you wouldn't even pick it up... I think that'd be kinda cool, to be stood in New York knowing that you basically got there for free...” Having been to New York myself I know that getting there for free would definitely be kinda cool!

The band are not ashamed to wear their influences on their sleeve and when asked about them Joe replies, matter-of-factly, that “you can probably hear them”. It’s a list that further shows their debt to American country music... “I suppose the big ones on me” he continues, “are: Ryan Adams, Neil Young, The Band, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Teenage Fanclub… We’re all different though. The ones I mentioned are probably universal to all of us.” Indeed, The New York Fund have found themselves equally adept at slow tempo, Ryan Adams like songs as well as showing an ability to carry off the sheer exuberance of a band like Teenage Fanclub. As with many bands who display a wide range of influences it seems impossible to pinpoint any one person or event that could definitively be said to be the main flashpoint behind the music. “I don't think I could [pinpoint it]” says Joe “But I can definitely remember the first time I got 'into' music, which probably led to me learning to play guitar, then writing songs and so on and so forth... I was 12 years old and this guy called JF, who's kinda my uncle through marriage, gave me Led Zeppelin 4, a Jimmy Hendrix best of, and Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. I doubt that all the rest would have followed if this hadn't happened... I mean, all the kids I was at school with were into shitty dance and 'euro'-techno-bollocks. It was definitely a turning point.”


So, having avoided the descent in to the world of ‘shitty dance’, Joe moved down to London where he met Adrian, the band’s virtuoso guitarist, drummer Reuben and bassist Jim and their first incarnation, Cherryfalls, was born. After a brief stint with Island Records they were dropped from the label, Reuben left and The New York Fund was born. Although integral to their development, the band are keen to leave their Cherryfalls days behind them. Their reluctance to talk about this time in their career is understandable after working so hard for four years to cement their reputation as The New York fund and now, with the imminent release of their debut album, 2010 could finally be their year. Having spent so long battling with potential labels over artistic integrity it’s understandable that the feeling of finally recording their debut album is “Amazing.”

“It's been a long process”, Joe continues, “but that's entirely down to the fact that we've done it all ourselves. No big budgets. No big producers. No big studios (well except for KONK, which we got on the cheap when it was empty...). Everything you hear is us... Played, recorded, produced, mixed, the whole lot.” (The band also recorded, produced and mixed their debut EP in 2007). “That's why it took a long time, but that's also why it sounds like us. There weren't any external pressures, no boxes to tick. We just made the songs we wanted, the way we wanted to make them.” So, with this creative control, what can we expect from the album? “I dunno... It sounds like us. Like all our favourite bands, but still, just ‘like us' really.”

The New York Fund’s album, ‘Wine, Women and Song’ is due to be released in spring 2010. I can vouch that their latest material is even better than on ‘The Guns EP’ with a mature and more ambitious sound. It’s also well worth catching them live as the energy they put in to their shows is fantastic!

You can find out more about the band at their myspace.

Men Behaving Badly

Adam Green was brought to my attention this morning ahead of the release of his second album 'Minor Love'. The first track, 'What Makes Him Act So Bad' has been released and is available on his website, or you can listen and download it from the widget at the bottom of this post. I quite like it. He has a very old voice for his age, sounding a bit like Andy Williams, but it's a toe tapping slice of folk with a brilliantly old school solo. I think I may have to seek out his other stuff.

Biffy Clyro set to storm the charts.

I've been listening to Biffy's latest single almost every day since I got it a couple of weeks ago. If that's not enough of a recommendation then I don't know what is! It's thoroughly infectious and will have you singing along in next to no time! The song looks set to storm Radio 1's playlist and will soon be unavoidable. Pop over to Culturedeluxe to have a look at my review.

Listen to it now, while you still have a choice...

Powderfinger return.

Everyone's favourite Aussie band return after 2007's 'Dream Days at the Hotel Existence'. 'All of the Dreamers', the first offering from 'The Golden Rule', which is scheduled for release in November, sees them return to a slightly rawer sound, reminiscent of their work on 'Vulture Street' and 'Odyssey Number 5' and sits comfortably alongside tracks such as 'Like A Dog' and '(Baby I Got You) On My Mind'.

I'm really excited about the new album, especially if the rest of it follows the sound of this single. 'Vulture Street' and 'Odyssey Number 5', as well as 'Dream Days...' actually, have quickly become three of my favorite albums. I don't know why they haven't done better over here to be honest with you. After going to Australia and having the radio chuck them at you everywhere you go it's a shame to come back and struggle to even find their albums, let alone hear them on the radio. Hopefully this will be the album that finally establishes them in the UK.

Beginnings

Hello all. This is my first attempt at blogging so go easy on me.

I'll be aiming to keep you up to date with some music news, reviews, opinion pieces and so on. I don't think there are enough of these blogs out there on the net and mine will undoubtedly shine brightest amongst them. It will shine like a ray of light in a dark cave and definitely won't be a needle in a haystack. Oh yes.

Let it begin....