The Magnetic Tape Band - The Subtle Art Of Distraction

(This review first appeared in issue #80 of Shindig! magazine.)

ATA LP

Pete Williams and Neil Innes are the men behind ATA Records, a soul and jazz label based in Leeds. A disused garage on the outskirts of the city serves as their recording space, housing Mellotrons and Clavinets among its vintage gear. It was here that the pair, along with vocalist Rachel Modest, recorded this fascinating LP which draws on spaced-out psychedelic soul, Library music and deep-rooted Gospel.

Modest is a gifted and versatile singer whose background singing in church is explored on the album opener 'Let The Church Say'. A fine start but there's more to come. As the album expands she proves to be an extremely gifted and versatile vocalist. Soft and pleading one minute then soaring into enchanting falsetto the next. All the while the band are laying down grooves that echo Rotary Connection and Shuggie Otis along with textures more often found on current hauntological records than on deep-cut '70s soul.

The Essex Green - Hardly Electronic

(This review first appeared in issue #80 of Shindig! magazine.)

Merge CD / LP

It's twelve years since The Essex Green's released their fourth and apparently final album Cannibal Sea. Since then all three principal members left Brooklyn, dispersed and concentrated on real life rather than harmony-infused indiepop. It's this experience of mid-life and its accompanying trials and tribulations that informs much of their new and unlikely comeback. With moods ranging from quirky and twee, to serious, sad and poignant, Hardly Electronic is proof that each member can still write catchy and engaging pop songs.

Highlights include 'In the Key of Me', a piano based track complete with Left Banke baroque woodwind, the melancholy yearning of 'January Says' and the chiming guitars and harmonies on 'Waikiki'. With Sasha Bell, Jeff Baron and Christopher Ziter now all living in different states it's not surprising that themes of losing touch, old friendships and connectivity make up a large part of this unexpected but highly enjoyable collection.

Aquaserge - déjà-vous?

(This review first appeared in issue #80 of Shindig! magazine.)

Crammed Disc CD / LP

This revelatory live album from Toulouse's sonic explorers follows last year's Laisse ça être and is as playful and arty as its title suggests, mixing French film music with afrobeat, free-jazz art-rock and whatever else takes their fancy. Played live with an “optional” horn section the tracks have a dynamic and improvised possibility that the previously released studio versions only hinted at. If the precise groove, unique vocal phrasing and wild guitar solo on 'C'est Pas Tout Mais' isn't enough to blow your mind check out 'Travelling' which hurtles along like a runaway train before morphing into a wash of drone and white noise.

Also worth hearing is their impromptu take on the jazz standard 'My Funny Valentine' and 'Tintin On Est Bien Mon Loulou' which reveals itself as a heavy duty rock monster. Anyone with jaded ears needing musical refreshment should immerse themselves in this gloriously audacious album.

Dylan Rodrigue - Cat's Game

California calling! An empathetic fusion of country, indie and alt-rock.

The “singer-songwriter” tag often carries a lot of baggage and can provoke a bunch of unwarranted assumptions. Bob Dylan's protest years and the sensitive, confessional musings of James Taylor and Jackson Browne, as good as they were, have left a mark on expectations from the term. But the truth is that singer-songwriters, much like folk music itself, represent an extremely broad church. It's a point encapsulated on Cat's Game, the debut album by Dylan Rodrigue.

Forget the cliché of one bloke with an acoustic guitar singing of personal pain (though Rodrigue is adept at that too). Cat's Game is a record that moves from full-steam indie-rock, punkish rampages, a few alt-rock shapes and even throws in a charming acoustic duet. All in all a varied musical selection box and like some of those chocolates consumed over the winter holidays it's a album with hard outer edges but with a soft emotional centre. Empathetic post-rock may be the most apt description if you're looking for caterogisation, most strongly evidenced on 'Living In Color', a call for more nuanced understanding and less polarisation. Other standouts include 'Some Kind Of Heaven' which sounds like a long-lost acoustic track by Big Star, and the downbeat indie rock of 'Minimize The Damage'.

So that's the songwriting but what about the singing? Rodrigue's voice is a distinct and unique instrument in itself. Lived-in without being overly gravelly, very likable and utterly convincing. His is a voice that favours passion over perfection. Fans of Pavement, Elliott Smith and Kurt Cobain will find in Rodrigue a similarly talented and distinctive artist.

To become a songwriter when your name is Dylan is a tough gig – after all there's a lot to live up to there! Which may or not have been at the back of Rodrigue's mind when making the video for 'Self-Love'. There's a sly nod to his Bob-ness in the video with Rodrigue using the card and caption technique pioneered by the-artist-formerly-known-as-Zimmerman on the promo film for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'. You can enjoy the video below. Enjoy!

Click here for Dylan Rodrigue's website.

Click here for Dylan Rodrigue on Facebook.

Click here for Dylan Rodrigue on Instagram

Clickhere for Bad Paintings Records.

Nick Nicely - All Along The Watchtower

Nicely does new stuff to Hendrix doing Dylan! And then presses it onto 7” vinyl!


Another ace 7” single in the latest batch of releases from Fruits de Mer is this newie from Nick Nicely, the dude behind '49 Cigars' which we wrote about some time ago. Not one for doing covers this take on 'All Along The Watchtower' comes as a surprise albeit a very welcome and rewarding one. Take a sneaky preview via the video below. And here's Nick with a summary of how it came to pass...

“I don't do covers generally, but for one of Pete Bingham (Sendelica) and Keith FdM's festivals I thought something familiar might prevent people drifting off and be an opportunity to swap guitar licks with ol' mucka Paul Simmons from The Bevis Frond, on a twin lead section. Never made the festival and anyway the Frond were there on a different day, so all dreams turned to ashes...til Keith suggested releasing the 'irreverent' Watchtower backing tapes plus studio vocals, guitar and effects. 'Doors Of Perception' is similarly constructed with tapes from my current live show plus studio vocals and guitar, so the pair connect well. We all have boundaries but when it comes to making Fruits de Mer Records I feel duty bound to go to the edges of mine...two tracks born out of live, flying their freak flags along my sonic borders!”

When you think of the stature that artists such as Dylan and Hendrix have, you'd have to be either very foolish, brave, talented or secure in your own artistic vision. Fortunately it's the latter two traits for Nicely. His re-imagining of 'Watchtower' owes little to either the Dylan or Hendrix version, is heavy on textures and effects and comes with features stellar guitar wig-outs and vocoder vocals.

The single's flipside is a similarly glorious sonic excursion. 'The Doors Of Perception' is like a gospel song given an electronic makeover, if you can imagine such a thing. Best listened to loud with headphones on and the lights low. Nicely does it indeed!


Click here for Nick Nicely on Facebook.
Click here for Fruits de Mer Records.

Elfin Bow and Gary Lloyd – Who Knows Where The Time Goes (7")

LOVE this record! Late contender for single of the year!

Never a label to do things by the book, Fruits de Mer Records release this 7” single on the final day of the year. Quite fitting given the record's title track and the fact that the year has (for me anyway) flown by. I've written about Elfin Bow before. Her delightful debut album was self-released in 2017 and is well worth tracking down. Blessed with a beautiful voice and great songwriting skills, it turns out she's also a fine interpreter of other people's songs. For this version of Sandy Denny's 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes' she's collaborated with composer and producer Gary Lloyd and is backed by the Scottish Session Orchestra, an amazing ensemble of hand-picked principals from Scotland's top orchestras.

It makes my list as one of the finest 7” singles released this year. A sublime reading of a classic song. No surprises, no bells and whistles, simply a beautiful song, sympathetically performed and with a vocal and arrangement that gets right to the song's emotional core. The B-side is awesome too, a re-working of 'The Wisdom', a track from her eponymous debut album made all the more sumptuous by Gary Lloyd's orchestral arrangement. This single marks Elfin Bow's debut as a FdM artist though on it's strength I'm hoping there will be more records to come. Well done and thanks to all concerned.

Click here for Elfin Bow.

Click here for Fruits de Mer Records.

Various – It's Briiiiiixmaaaaaas!

Celebrate Christmas with the Brixton Hill All-Stars. Superb alternative Christmas anthems to warm and amuse you. And all for a great cause!

Let me start with a traditional seasonal cliché - there are not many shopping days or sleeps left until the big day. Cue rolling of eyes and shaking of heads out there in cynical cyberspace. Another line that gets trotted out by seemingly everyone at this time of year is how fed up people are with hearing the same old Christmas records over and over again. You know the ones – Slade, Wizard, The Pogues, Band Aid, Shakin' Stevens, John and Yoko, Mariah Carey et al. It begins around the beginning of October and last to the end of the year. You can't walk into a shop or turn on the radio without hearing at least one of them within five minutes. I should stress at this point that I'm not one that shares this view. Personally I love hearing them and retain a special fondness for Paul McCartney & Wings' 'Wonderful Christmastime' which brings back happy memories of simpler times.

But as much as I love the classics the thrill of hearing new Christmas songs is equally if not more appealing. Recent years I've enjoyed Christmas records by great artists such as, Sufjan Stevens, She and Him, and of course Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings. This year my award for the best Christmas music goes to a beautifully haphazard bunch of misfits and renegades centred around Brixton Hill Studios/Brixton Hillbilly Records in South London. The label/collective has just released a various artist mini-album featuring six brand new Christmas songs, each with their own unique modern perspective on what we call the most special time of the year.

The music is reason enough to buy this CD/download but by doing so you'll also be supporting a great cause. All proceeds will go to Brixton's Soup Kitchen who have been doing amazing work helping the areas's homeless since 2003. So what are you waiting for? Head over to the links below to discover six superb new Christmas tunes to make your alternative Yuletide party a happening event. Artists include HD faves Hot Sauce Pony, Alessi's Ark, Ham Legion, Bad Parents, Scud FM, and Black Fendrix Jersk Midi. Full track-listing and more info via the links below.

Click here to buy It's Briiiiiixmaaaaaas!

Track-listing

Black Fendrix Jersk Midi – Ice Cream

Alessi's Ark – Winter's Grace

Ham Legion – We'd Better Start Dinner

Bad Parents – Christmas Present

Scud FM – Christmas Crime

Hot Sauce Pony – Christmas In Prison

Links

Click here for Brixton Hill Studios' website.

Click here for Brixton Hill Studios on Twitter.

Click here for Brixton Hill Studios on Facebook.

New Band Alert - One-Way Song

Culturally-aware, artful indie-rock. Manchester collective release their debut EP!

A new band on my radar recently is One-Way Song, a band/collective from Manchester formed by lyricist Luke Gilfedder and vocalist Angus Macalister. What's refreshing about them is that they steer clear of any generic indie norms (difficult when you're from Manchester!) and seem determined to set their own musical path. And it's not just the music that's impressive, their choice of subject matter reflects their interests and passions. History, religion, class, films, books and other cultural references abound. It's a similar mindset to that other bunch of cultural-historians from the north-west - British Sea Power, albeit the music made by One-Way Song contains a more youthful brio and experimental edge. Any band that cites Wyndham Lewis, Colin Wilson and Lou Reed among their influences has to have something worth checking out right?

Given such diverse influences it comes as little surprise to learn that the group originally worked together at a theatre workshop they'd set up, writing and touring their own productions. The decision to branch out into music was made after having written songs to accompany one of their plays. The influence of other mediums is present on the band's debut EP, entitled 'Passionate Leave'. It's released on 27^thNovember via Hilltown Records and features lead single 'Billy Fisher Fitzgerald' a track partly inspired by the story of Billy Liar, it features impressive drumming and spoken word lyrics that highlight the modern day relevance of Billy Liar's prevailing themes.

The band have also made a video for another track from the EP. 'Riviera Nightmare' is a song about the Germanwings Flight 9525 disaster of 2015. Not an obvious choice of subject matter for a pop tune but it shows how the band think outside of the box.

**For more on the band check out the links below and look out for tour dates to be announced soon**

Click here for One-Way Song on Twitter.

Click here for One-Way Song on Facebook.

Click here for One-Way Song on iTunes.

Click here for One-Way Song on Bandcamp.
Click here for Hilltown Records.

SonLosGrillos - Garden Of Clouds

(This review first appeared in issue #79 of Shindig! magazine.)

Discos Monterey LP

Acid-folk's roots may lie in the mist-clad British Isles of the late '60s, or in the grooves of Californian private press LPs but its shoots sprout everywhere. The latest come courtesy of Spanish duo SonLosGrillos who return with their third LP, following 2013's Darkness Turns To Light. Vocalist Marta Rodríguez and multi-instrumentalist Mauricio Mora have created an album of soft and sensitive musings centred on compassion, healing and environmental concerns. Equal parts Pentangle, Mellow Candle and early Joni Mitchell, their largely acoustic sound is fleshed out with occasional flute, cello, trumpet and violin.

Whether it's the lilting melody of 'You are Everything' or the fairground waltz of the title track, you're guaranteed a journey into the mystic and a respite from the stresses of the modern world. Alongside the nine original songs is a neat cover of Linda Perhac's 'Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding', laced with chiming 12-string guitar. A fresh and welcome flowering.

Michael Rault - New Day Tonight

(This review first appeared in issue #79 of Shindig! magazine.)

Wick CD / LP

Having revitalised the contemporary soul scene, Daptone Records' new rock imprint hopes to do the same for guitar-based music. With Rault as an early signing they're off to a cracking start. Much like Daptone's take on soul, there's nothing particularly new about Rault's latest record but it is a glorious and joyful reaffirmation of music's ability to lift spirits. Full of clever catchy songs, decorated with baroque guitars and layered harmonies that steer clear of cliche and constantly surprise, New Day Tonight possesses the kind of mellowed-out powerpop not heard since Supertramp and Wings ruled the FM airwaves. To cement the '70s vibe there's also Stylophone and New York soul strings on several tracks.

Recorded at Daptone's Brooklyn studio with Wayne Gordon producing, the album has precise arrangements yet still has that all-important human feel. With its themes of renewal and optimism, it's the perfect early summer soundtrack for fans of grown-up feelgood pop.