Extraneous Terrain.

Old Stones and New Beginnings: Glastonbury 2013 Preview

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:09:04 +0100

In seven days’ time, one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand people will descend on the famous Worthy Farm. That’s a city of festival goers the size of Oxford, tucked amongst the rolling hills of Somerset. It requires a feat of miraculous logistical engineering just to make it all possible, with 4,800 toilets, 3,000 megawatts of electricity and 11 million litres of water required for the weekend. But of course it’s about more than that, and there are infinitely more romantic things for us to ruminate over, ahead of the world’s most famous festival (ongoing at least) returning to action, after a summer off in 2012.

In case you live in a news vacuum with God Is In The TV as your only servant (god help you), Sir Mick Jagger and co. are playing their first Glastonbury at the ripe old age of 69. Meanwhile festival favourites such as Dizzee Rascal will stop the Pyramid stage from becoming an overly complacent site of guitar-rock-pop four pieces.

Other old-timers of note will include Elvis Costello (& The Imposters), as well as Primal Scream and Rufus Wainwright. Hyperbole is as overused as ever in music today and I would hate for enthusiasm to descend into something contrived and unadulterated on my part. But, but but. Attracting such a collection of actual real-life music icons alongside an extensive list of new talent is what has kept this massive festival going after all these years, despite controversially rising ticket prices. The list for the latter is endless (exaggeration, the list is long); Foals, The Vaccines, Peace, Ben Howard, Alt-J, Tame Impala, Bastille, The 1975, Calexico, Disclosure, Swim Deep and Miles Kane are all hot properties in the 2013 music landscape playing a part. It won’t stop them from getting criticism, but let’s be fair Richard, they’re not the only ones topping the £200 mark and it’s a real shame you had to go and blab to a national newspaper about just how much money you turned down to play the festival to so beautifully prove a point about corporate mentality taking over.

It might not be what it used to be. But at this level, in this day and age, the industrious nature of the music business and entertainment media is stapled to the acts Glastonbury will put on year after year in a bid to maintain its pulling power and relevance to modern culture. Whether that is too much to stomach for some to attend shouldn’t necessarily invalidate the swaths of other things that some will congregate together for over the weekend. In many ways, having so many young people in and amongst it because they bought a ticket to see the Arctic Monkeys, or because Dad reeled off some vague long story about sixties nostalgia that made them think the Rolling Stones were still worth catching, gives a fresh audience to those wishing to use the coming together as an arena for performing arts, political discussion and social empowerment. Never before has politics been so pertinent to our young people, and never have they been as interested or vocal. The weekend will offer the temporary inhabitants of Worthy Farm an opportunity to renew that ‘liberal lefty’ cause amid the overbearing modern context.

As the old cliché goes, it is about so much more than the music, man. It’s about forty years of history, and an unlistable list (apologies again) of extracurriculars that will pop up all over the festival site, as is touched upon by Billy Bragg’s generously courteous repost.

But I shall finish (for now) where most discussion has started. For when the Rolling Stones pick up their guitars next Saturday, even if most of us weren’t even born at the time, we can all momentarily hark back to that special decade of cultural change, from which the Stones and Glastonbury were both born, even if in slightly divergent paths. We can raise a warm can to the success and glory of all that was once counter culture, and we can look forward too.

Observations: On An On- Haus Ungarn, Berlin, 10/05/2013

Sun, 12 May 2013 11:01:00 +0100

So I’ve recently followed the tide of cultural enthusiasm now geared towards the German capital. Buried amongst the minutia of how to turn a one month trip into a potentially long-term residency in pursuit of what might be an easier lifestyle, I haven’t had enough time for music of late. Tonight’s venue is the old HBC, a multi disciplinary arts venue that has recently become Haus Ungarn (literally, Hungary House). It is part of a larger block of buildings that perch themselves onto Alexanderplatz, the home of the iconic Socialist TV Tower built by the East German government of the mid-sixties.

In truth, it is a much less interesting environment than it should be. The building itself is essentially a concrete complex of flats, with an adjoining shopping centre and parade of cafés and bars underneath. Walking up into a spacious terrace that contains what I suppose could be considered quite charming 1980s hotel bar vibes, we are then lead into an adjoining box room that in all honesty, quite underwhelms me. When in pursuit of music venues, visitors to Berlin could do an awful lot better.

But it’s not about that of course, is it? We’re here for the music, I remind myself- that sacrilegious thing. On An On have been riding the crests of popular blogging opinion and all its questionable virtues since the release of The Hunter last November (below).

They open with this, which I guess suggests a certain anxiety to push beyond this track with the rest of the set (no one wants to be a one hit wonder after a year). And, do they achieve this? I can’t say I’m convinced.

The band’s performance is certainly tight and immaculate, but where the melodies of synth and voice may at first catch my ear, I often find that as the songs wind on I get a little lost, and ultimately feel a little less compelled than I did when those first drum beats propel in that song.

The band were formed in early 2012 by necessity, when said previous band (Scattered Trees) fell apart weeks before booked studio time and Nate Eiesland found himself needing to turn to a new slate, and write an entire album again. The opportunity was taken with a fresh grasp, and a new direction carved. Where Scattered Trees was perhaps a little colder, On An On buzzes and shimmers with outward-looking exuberance, and bleeds this re-found energy. What delicacy is contained in split seconds of tranquillity and glistening pauses, is ultimately carried by the overarching power of song; a rush forth.

Nonetheless, GIVE IN was recorded in one creative push and upon the success of their singles, the band have been playing almost constantly (this is the second time they have played Berlin, after coming with Chad Valley in February). They are touring material wrote in a rush to fill a void, and whilst it shows more than enough sparks of promise, it perhaps doesn’t take you on quite that journey that you might hope. And neither really does their live show, at this point.

Personally, I’d like to see them given a little more alone time to think this one out. Whether they’ll get it or not is another matter.

The band play The Great Escape Festival later this month.

itsonanon.bandcamp.com

Conversations: James Scarlett (ArcTanGent Festival)

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:30:21 +0000

This summer sees the launch of ArcTanGent Festival in a farm somewhere in the surrounding fields of Bristol. Here to explain a little bit about what to expect, and why on earth we should part with 59 of our very hard-earned British Pounds Sterling for a ticket, is James Scarlett- also of 2000 Trees super-fame.

When 2000 Trees was born, how confident were you that it would make it to its seventh year?

I wasn’t even confident it would get through its first year! We had no master plan for this at all and if you’d told me then where we would be today I’d have been the happiest person alive – Trees just seems to get more and more popular and we’ve even started to think about our 10th anniversary! And we also have our new baby ArcTanGent which I’m very excited about.

When did the idea for ArcTanGent first come about?

We’ve been kicking the idea around for a couple of years, mainly because we love running festivals and really didn’t want to make Trees any bigger than its current 5,000 capacity. So the obvious thing was to start something new.

Did you have any doubts about launching a new festival in the current climate?

To be honest, that’s not something I was worried about at all. If we were putting on a generic indie festival and trying to book the same bands everyone else is after then I’d definitely have been worried, but ArcTanGent is really something different. There isn’t another festival out there anything like it and it felt like the UK was crying out for something like this.

You’ve based ArcTanGent around a sort of breeding ground for post-rock, math-rock etc, why do you think this particular area of music needs a new platform?

Because there is a dedicated fanbase out there that isn’t really being catered to properly. You’ll see some of these bands at other festivals but ArcTanGent is the only one where they are all in one place. It’s not all post-rock and math-rock though – we’ve got quite a few bands that sit outside of this definition like Future of the Left, Bo Ningen, Turbowolf and a few others still to announce.

One of the founding principles of 2000 Trees was featuring exclusively British artists. Is this the same for ArcTanGent, or have you given yourself licence to look beyond these shores?

I’m 100% certain that we’ll be booking non-UK bands for ArcTanGent in the future – I’ve already put the feelers out for a couple for next year so watch this space! It will still be a very heavily British focussed festival because that’s what we love and what we believe in.

Which brand of music do you yourself most enjoy, that of 2000 Trees or ArcTanGent?

Great question – ha! I’m a metalhead at heart so anything with a heavy guitar is my usual love. Having said that, as the years have gone on I like weirder and weirder music and love stuff like Fuck Buttons and Three Trapped Tigers where there isn’t a heavy guitar anywhere in sight. So… in answer to your question, the Cave at 2000trees is the ultimate for me. Although having said that, we still have something very exciting to announce for ArcTanGent that will appeal to my more metal side. I think what I’m trying to say is that I love them both!

As a festival punter, what would be the first thing you’d be sure to pack?

Sorry, but the only answer to this is toilet roll!

What’s your best memory at a festival that wasn’t your own?

The first time I saw the Mars Volta was at Reading Festival – it may sound cheesy but it was like some sort of religious experience or awakening. I was completely and utterly spell bound. They are still my favourite band to this day.

Best British band at the moment?

There is so much good stuff out there that I can’t just give you one! Although if I had to, it would be Future of the Left. The best new band I’ve seen for a long time are The Physics House Band – utterly incredible live. Also, this week I’m particularly enjoying the latest stuff by Humnafly, Bovine, Empress and The Pirate Ship Quintet too.

Did any of the trees crew know anything about festival or music management before you guys started to put 2000 Trees together?

Nope, we knew nothing! We were all professionals working mostly in London – an accountant, a lawyer, a (legal!) drug salesman, a journalist and a furniture designer. The mix of skills works quite well I think! We didn’t really know what we were doing, but what we did know is that we wanted to make a festival that was the exact opposite of the massive corporate festivals like Reading etc.

James organises ArcTanGent alongside friends and colleagues Goc and Si. It takes place for the first time this August (29th-31st), see line-up announcements here.

ArcTanGent Online.

Thoughts: My First Tooth- Loves Makes Monsters

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:25:00 +0000

Your memory’s perception of music is a funny thing; we can all get carried away with big statements when we hear certain songs and see those performances that define our summer nights because it felt at the time like it defined our lifetimes. Even Zane Lowe changes his ‘Biggest Track In The World Right Now’ tag every week, and he’s like the biggest guy in music right?

When I hear My First Tooth, and Ross K Witt’s vocals come tentatively to the fore, I feel as if a long-lost balance is restored and I of course instantly feel neglectful in my slack appreciation of this band over the last couple of years. Like a bad keeper of books, all too hastily dipped into and out of and strewn across the carpet, with corners of pages folded along the way; it’s value acknowledged but the dedication to its thorough and rightful appreciation somewhere amiss.

My First Tooth are one of those bands that you can really just sit and appreciate, as very steady and progressive song structures move on and Witt divulges a little more of his tireless prose. I guess I do find their sound to be one of instant warmth, but not in a stupid way. There is at times a kind of doubtful if a little blissful emptiness, where echoes creep out of the gaps in percussion in accordance with the gentle chills it sends seeping through flesh. Like the times you spent in your youthful and unknowing days, looking out at a darkened sky with cigarette in hand. But this is something that, without fail, I ultimately feel is eschewed by the overall steadiness that makes it not just cathartic, but trustworthy also. Like a good friend that looks over you, that makes you ask difficult questions, but re-assures you that you’re doing so for the right reasons. And of course, it is someone you believe. That’s something I could feel only grow in its distinction with this record.

In this manner the album very much sticks with what really works about the group, and the at times soft, the at times vigorous constantina of expression; enhanced by the many rich instrumental accompaniments along the way. What makes this a particular triumph, in comparison to their previous EPs, is how seamlessly they pull this off over a full-length endeavour. The time and patience spent plotting this release was indeed well spent it seems.

It is with great regret sitting here typing this that I still can’t say I’ve managed to catch this band live. The stupid technicalities that have got in my way, train fares, social plans and plain laziness make me feel silly. But right now my appreciation of this band, however too often understated, lies in a soulful singular listening experience which feels to me like it could never be beaten. That said, I’m told they’re great live.

Loves Makes Monsters is released on Monday 4th March.

You can read the band’s interview with God Is In The TV’s very own Craig Taylor-Broad here.

Thoughts: LVL UP

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:14:00 +0000

LVL UP are a really great Lo-Fi Noise-Rock kind of band. Is there a contradiction there? If so then one listen should be enough to clear up any confusion.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=”http://lvlup.bandcamp.com/track/walking-home” data-mce-href=”http://lvlup.bandcamp.com/track/walking-home”&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;WALKING HOME by LVL UP&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

There’s an ongoing abrasion throughout that ensures that the music is rooted into a sort of earthiness that won’t let the listener pass by. It’s got guts in all the right places (the kind that has served the likes of Japandroids so well); but yet this is all orchestrated with an acute sense of precision.

Amongst the ongoing instrumental collisions of each beat, we are touched by a malign expression that is ultimately rather moving in a Bukowski kind of fashion.

The dynamic that at first may seem contradictory, between raw and real to nihilistic and empty, to me is provided by an innate honesty. Their expressions are seriously thoughtful and ruthlessly trimmed to help meet an uncompromising overall aim. In this manner, it is entirely forthright. I found them to be a refreshing listen and would wholly endorse them with whatever two pennies/cents I may have to throw into the game.

See their recently released video for Nightshade below:

The band will release their second EP Extra Worlds in April, you can listen to the first track to be released off the record here.

___

This was my 50th post on this blog. Whilst by no means prolific, that is quite a lot for an inane rambler with a patchy work-ethic. A labour of love alone (by necessity), this space has allowed me to write about the artists I feel compelled to speak about, and many of the things that I may take a fleeting interest in. I continue to enjoy it a great deal and sincerely thank any of you that may have followed along with my sporadic instalments on the way.

Conversations: Lubomyr Melnyk

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:06:00 +0000

Lubomyr Melnyk is considered one of the most innovative pianists in the world. Having pioneered and defined his own genre of music from a young age, Melnyk has been unsigned for most of his career. He is in many ways considered a lost gem in the music world. Having now been brought under London/Berlin experimental label Erased Tapes, the sixty-five year old will release his forthcoming album Corollaries on April 15th with the full backing that he deserves. It was with great pleasure that I managed to get a little bit of down-time with Lubomyr before his sold-out show at Cafe Oto in Dalston last night.

You’ve been referred to as the inventor of continuous piano music. I know it may sound obvious, but I was wondering if you could outline what that is?

Yes I can try; it’s quite complex, but also quite simple at the same time. I was trained as a classical pianist, the conservatory method; I then became quite enthralled by the music of Terry Riley and Steve Reich, and that opened up a huge new world for me. I considered this to be continuous music also, but I felt quite dissatisfied because I felt that this music deserved a higher level of piano playing. The piano is the most wonderfully well suited instrument for this type of music, I thought, and so I began playing it in this way. I think ultimately they showed me a road that I could take, and I went on that road but ended up discovering a different landscape to them, even though we had a common starting-point.

I discovered as both a pianist and a composer that this rather simplistic music started to create quite a change in my body and in my mind, I discovered that the pianist can unite himself with the sound of the piano. It was a development on all fronts, it changed things for me mentally, it changed things for me physically, and it changed the sound of the piano; I feel that continuous music is the true voice of the piano. All of these things are, in a nutshell, the difference. There’s this constant and wonderful sound coming out of the piano, there’s the change in the actual flesh of the piano, and there’s the change in the mind.

I’d also say that the continuous piano always has one foot in the fourth dimension, it’s a transcendental act that cannot be done with the normal physical body. I don’t know if I’ve answered your question, but I feel I’ve touched on some of the differences.

You’ve written this music for some time now, how did you approach writing Corollaries?

I was mainly looking forward to collaborating with other musicians, which I hadn’t done before; that was the only starting point. Musically it was a totally open landscape that we could explore, it was very much an adventure.

Do you ever find it a challenge to turn a corner, and write something new?

No, I find that playing is a fountain of musical ideas that never stops flowing. The only real problem is that music takes a great deal of time to write down, and with computer notation it’s 250 times longer, these large concert pieces are impossible to notate on the computer so they can only be done by hand and that takes a long time. So I have this runaway engine of creativity that’s racing down the track with all this music, and then there’s me lagging behind with a notepad trying to write it all down.

It’s interesting to see you’ve collaborated with Peter Broderick with this record, and Nils Frahm also. I was curious as to where you most benefitted from having Peter onboard?

They really brought a new dimension into my music, there are places where the piano is no longer the sole instrument and we become a trio. I think they’re quite used to playing with other people, but for me it was a real first, to sit down and let the piano go and have these other people adding other dimensions to the piano sound, it was truly exciting.

Lubomyr with Peter Broderick.

You’ve spoken in the past about focussing on the sounds of the individual notes, perhaps the more sensuous aspect of the music. Do you see composing music as a precise science or more of a sub-conscious intuitively driven feeling?

It’s both a precise science and a freedom, to let the music run somewhat on its own. Continuous music is different from other kinds of music because the pianist becomes this motor which is driving this music, you point it in a direction but beyond that its never so clear cut. The scores may be written down but there’s always a sense of it being new each time it is played, the motor makes the notes rush forward, creating their own wind like a flock of birds, and though you may point them in one direction they will always weave off track each time you play. So I have the notation but sometimes a beautiful new sound will occur and I won’t kill it because it’s not on the page, I’ll let it go and continue in the music.

Have you always been interested in minimalist music and the piano too?

Well piano music has always been my interest, since childhood. Minimalism was an enormous revelation when it first came out, but I don’t listen to it anymore, I’m quite busy with these pieces. I find that minimalist is a small segment of continuous music, and there is often a misnomer about what that is. There is true minimalist music where the sound is changing minimally or hardly at all, that’s minimalist. But some things by Steve Reich, I wouldn’t call them minimalist and I certainly wouldn’t call my music minimalist at all. It’s a different form that we don’t really have a word for. Minimalism is such a bad misuse of the word, because originally it meant music with very few elements that were sustained through time. It’s like the word ‘icon’ for example, which originally meant a sacred and holy painting representing a saint, or the divinity. It has nothing to do with computers or stars. So I find it very sad when people start to misuse words. It breaks my heart, because their descriptions then become false.

Is your music intended to move people, is there an emotional engagement in the writing process?

Yes there is, the music has an emotional affect on me and I’m hoping it will on other people too.

How much control do you have over that, because it’s just the instrument?

I think a lot of people will respond to the emotional aspect of the pieces. I received a beautiful email just three days ago from a person who was at a concert and said that the music had created a huge catharsis in their heart and soul and that it had changed things for them. I know that it does that for me, often. As I say, this music reaches from other dimensions to the human person.

The artwork for Melnyk’s forthcoming album Corollaries has been designed by Gregory Euclide.

Conversations: This Town Needs Guns

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:48:00 +0000

I went to a cocktail bar in Shoreditch to talk to the delightful members of This Town Needs Guns prior to the launch show of their newest full-length, 13.0.0.0.0. Whilst professionally sipping over glasses of Coke, they had the following to say…

It’s great to see you guys back in London. Was there any reason in choosing to have the album launch at the Old Blue Last?

Henry Tremain: Well we decided we wanted to do a launch show pretty late in the day, and we got in contact with our friend Haruna who is a wonderful promoter. We asked her if she was up for putting a show on, and I think it was her suggestion to do the Old Blue. But personally, having been a Londoner, I really appreciate the Old Blue just for the fact that they have cheap and often free shows on, which in London is pretty rare.

Seeing as the new album comes out tomorrow, it makes sense to talk about that. I was wondering if you could outline when and how the new material started coming about?

Tim Collis: It’s been quite a long process in some ways. The ideas for some of the songs, and certain sections of songs came up to about three years ago. But we do have some stuff that was written more recently, like last year just before recording the album, and some of it during recording the album. We’d be experimenting and playing with stuff as we were in the studio.

Henry: That was the most fun really, most of the inbetween tracks on the album were quite often an idea Tim would have, that was no more than some chords or a riff, and we built it up in the studio together and that collaborative process with Ed Rose (Producer) was thoroughly enjoyable. I think that’s when he enjoyed the session the most as well, getting to be creative himself rather than simply managing the mechanical process of recording pre-written songs.

Having listened to it through a few times, do you think it’s fair to say that it’s perhaps more varied and eclectic than previous works?

Chris Collis: Yeah I think we tried to do that, because some of the criticism for Animals was that it all sounded like the same kind of song. So we wanted to make it an album that went on a… not a journey, that sounds really cheesy…

Henry: It took you on a musical trip to another dimension!

Chris: But actually did something, so we’d hope that people listened to it in the order that it’s in.

Tim: Yeah we released a flock of herons live in the studio.

Henry: Yes, it’s very difficult to pick up, but if your ears are trained enough you can just about hear the flapping!

Well I was going to ask, if you did anything radically different this time round?

Chris: With Animals we did the whole thing over about four weekends, where as with this we had a full block of three weeks. I also think we had a much better idea of what we were trying to achieve, and we understood what our sound was a lot better than we did when recording Animals.

Tim: I think with Animals we actually had very clear ideas because the songs were somehow simpler, in regards to instrumentation anyway. So we had songs that were written and rehearsed, ‘let’s just go record them like this’ kind of thing. So what was different this time round was going in and with some of the stuff, as Henry was saying, just having a riff or one idea that we developed while we were there. Henry’s done a lot of recording in different bands before that, so I don’t how he found it…

Henry: It was incredibly different; apart from anything else, it was a lot more serious than anything I’d done in the past. We were flying Ed Rose out from America and he’s one of my production heroes, so I had soiled my pants well and truly before going into the studio. Which was awkward… They are really cranking the tunes in here tonight!

Do you think that your music’s principally optimistic?

Tim: It depends who you are really, you can listen to a sad song with sad lyrics that is most definitely sad and yet find yourself feeling strangely uplifted by it. In this album there’s certainly some moodier bits of instrumentation, perhaps darker than the poppy-ness of Animals, but for me at least they’re not negative or linked to an upsetting experience.

Chris: People will always relate differently to the same song, which is kind of what we want I think.

Tim: Also, if a band has a sad song and it’s a song everyone can relate to, that experience in itself can be optimistic and uplifting.

Chris: We’ve had people write to us in the past and tell us that our music’s helped them through some really difficult times, and to know that is incredible.

Henry: It’s interesting because when you’re writing music you’re not really thinking about the function of it, you’re just interested in the artistic nature of it, so to hear afterwards how people have been influenced by it is wonderful.

Tim: I know I’ve felt quite pessimistic listening to chart music that is definitely supposed to be clearly uplifting party music.

Stu left in 2011, and you brought Henry in, and then Jamie left soon after then, both to fulfil other life commitments. Looking back over that, have you yourselves at points found it difficult to continually make the sacrifices you have to make?

Tim: Actually they were both physically removed from the band, bad guys. No not really, the sacrifices go with the territory really. If one person in a band doesn’t really want to do it anymore, it is going to effect the other people, but it shouldn’t necessarily stop them from carrying on. I think that’s how we felt when Jamie was leaving, it never felt ‘how are we going to do this anymore?’ it was just ‘okay, how are we going to carrying on doing this, because we want to do it’.

You guys have had quite a lot of success in far flung places like Australia and Asia. Do you think there’s a reason for that?

Henry: In the nineties they discovered this thing called the internets! Without the internet, no one would have really heard of us. Well there are always these really interesting small scenes where really obscure bands from different places get known, but only in small cliques. But with the internet, it’s kind of expanded those cliques.

But it seems that you guys have been particularly successful elsewhere, more than a lot of other British bands…

Chris: It might just be word of mouth, we’ve relied on that really heavily.

Henry: The main principle that we think about when it comes to musical promotion, is that it’s not important to the band, and what the band should do is focus on writing good music, so that the quality of the art will help it spread naturally. Hopefully the reason we’ve been so lucky as a band is because people have enjoyed the music, not because we’ve shoved it in their faces.

Plans for the rest of the year?

Henry: Sit back, relax and watch the money roll in! No, we’re off to do a little tour quite soon, our good friend Guillame’s booked us a tour round Germany and parts of Scandinavia as well. After that we hope to spend some time doing some writing, and then we go to America to do a tour with our label mates Tera Melos, who are incredible so we’re stoked about that… Then after that we’re breaking the band up yeah?

Tim: Yep, time to get some new guys in!

This Town Needs Guns also blog here.

Thoughts: Houses

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 11:30:00 +0000

Meet Dexter and Megan; they are Houses.

Dexter Tortoriello is a twenty-five year old producer from Chicago who has been plying his musical trade with a solo project called Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross for a little while now. When not working on that, Tortoriello now makes music with partner Megan for this new title Houses, which is of course the whole point of this post.

I came across Dexter the human being before the group, which is a rare and quite novel way to find out about someone’s music these days. I started reading his residency diary (an artist writes a journal entry about what they’ve been up to every week for one month) on an American group-run music blog (which by the way is a fantastic website). I gained a view of someone with a gentile and inquisitive mind, that was whilst a little melancholic, quite at ease with its own expression; talking about different things that were happening around him, his cats, places he’d been, the music he’d listened to and haikus he’d attempted to write. There was a cerebral steadiness to it all. I was intrigued enough to go and find out more about his music, and found there to be a great many reflections.

It would be unfair to say that Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross is entirely atmospheric, but it does certainly come across as that sort of ongoing aural sound-scaping personal endeavour. What is really refreshing listening to Houses is how the entry of a second subject into Tortoriello’s playground seems to have added a healthy sort of pressure to the music. The dynamics are more focussed on a singular, immediate moment, and meeting point between these two voices. It is a seamless collision in which together there seems to be less doubt. It comes across as holistic, rather than fragmentary.

The songs currently available have comparatively less tracks and layers, but with a more instrumentally substantial approach, to some of it at least. This breeds a deep sense of purity, from which I think much of its life springs from. There is indeed placed a great focus on nature, as Dexter explains; “I got laid off from my job at the end of last year and decided I needed a change. Megan put in her two weeks and we moved out to a little cabin in Papaikou, Hawaii. It’s a pretty remote place outside of Hilo (i.e no plumbing/electricity/gas). We worked for meals during the day cultivating indigenous microorganisms and learning the basics of sustainable living. We drank showered and cooked with rain water. It was a beautifully simple experience. In our downtime, she would paint and I would record. We’d have to light candles in an effort to save solar power to keep my computer running. We inspired each other a lot out there, and I think it shows in the music. She sings on a lot of the tracks on All Night. The music comes from a place of love and ease. The video for Endless Spring was shot there in our spare time, and the music was sketched out loosely over the course of a few months. We just kind of melted into one person.”

From all that has been released so far, it is a deeply hopeful experience.

Houses are set to release more tracks online today, and a full-length album All Night is to follow in April. Watch a video preview of the album below.

Find out even more about them here.

Thoughts: [Art] Ian Breakwell- Keep Things As They Are

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 14:37:40 +0000

Curating the streams of work produced over any person’s career into a digestible exhibition is a challenging task; but none more so than an artist like Ian Breakwell. A man fixated with studying infinite documentations of the most mundane items that populate every-day reality, Breakwell assembled his ongoing notes with a mass of numbers and dates that mark their space in the eternal flow of time; he was instinctively obsessed with the material of modern life.

Contrasting his work to that of a scientific journal of ‘logical and progressive argumentation’, he talks of himself striving through chaos towards an end-product of deliberate and wholesome ambiguity. In the end he finds himself struggling through his own nihilistic void to find something that he can attach hope to. ‘Keep Things As They Are’ documents in never-before-seen completeness, the uncompromising process and end-result of this life-long struggle.

The multiple disciplines and medias on show, from painting, photography, music, speech and television recording, give the collective works a multi-sensory allure that is cohesive in its complex and ongoing dichotomy of human order and chaos. It is also great testament to the broad expanses within which Breakwell conducted his work.

Amongst it all, one immediately notices a recurring theme of tedious repetition, and oscillating fragmentation, as his diaries attempt to numerate the vast and innumerable depths of detail in every-day life. The most iconic representation of this is demonstrated in his 1974 Diary and The Walking Man Diary where he writes his notes for the day repeatedly over the same image. Having observed the same man walk past his office every day for many years, Breakwell begins a list of all the objects the man passes on his way to wherever he may or may not be going.

His work focuses on such minutia with what feels like a very self-consciously structuralist and subversive approach. His more intensive studies of human activity such as Ghost Dance and The Walking Man reveal a more desperate void at the heart of day-to-day life that instantly casts a chill on its audience. Ghost Dance plays vividly on situational ‘reality’ and inner emotion, ‘public proof of having a good time… of having existed… a plot we can only imagine’.

Ultimately though, what makes Breakwell’s work so important and attractive amongst his avant-garde peers is, particularly in his later work, the way in which he strives to find a peaceful equilibrium amid the torrid flux he explores, to ‘keep things as they are’. The famous face portraits seem to me to capture this humanised neutrality and utter acceptance at the heart of Breakwell’s work.

Indeed the more vivid explorations of mortality that take place in his later works, such as the X-ray images of a dying man in The Hinge, are accompanied by prose that delicately reveal a sense of ambiguous hope behind an immediate darkness; ‘Last Day in Winter, First Day in Spring’.

Elsewhere he goes on, ‘I lie back and think of what George Brecht once said to me, that nothing is necessarily gained by getting out of bed’. Breakwell proceeds to name fifty such things, including a dawn chorus and a full pint of Guiness left on the side of the bar, and so despite the ensuing darkness of his advancing death, he gets out of bed, ‘and then another day, such as it is, begins.’

Breakwell both finds and assigns value to the items that populate his days, and no matter how meaningless each may seem, there is a sort of collective meaning for him to hold onto in this struggle. It is the pleasure that the little things give him; that can be lost amid a larger pursuit of life order and fulfilment. It is a sort of liberated nihilism that is in many way’s quite faithful to the reality of existence, and its infinite horizons.

The warmth of this sentiment is best encapsulated in the separate installation upstairs, a large screening of Breakwell’s 2002 piece The Other Side filmed at the De La Warr itself, where we see the ambling slow-dance of the local aged community, accompanied by the slow breaths and sighs of the sea.

Breakwell’s greatest triumph was in turning an existential despair into a quite warming story of kindred individual solidarity. This is explored most intimately in his later diaries, often written with both spirit and humour. Finally speaking of the lung cancer that would eventually end his life, he said ‘I never chain smoked. Each cigarette was a pause in time’s flow. I made it my point to never give it up.’

The exhibition remains open at the De La Warr Pavilion until January 13^th.

A track for the day.(Not that I’m going to bore you to...

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:38:00 +0000

A track for the day.

(Not that I’m going to bore you to tears by posting one every day).

I love where JF took everything on this album.

Observations: Tall Ships and Tellison- XOYO, Shoreditch, 22/10/2012

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:08:43 +0100

There is nothing but chemistry here; but dreams do still come true?

Photograph by Braden Fletcher.

Amid what was just another wet Monday night in Shoreditch, Tall Ships marked the biggest date of their album release tour with perhaps the biggest realisation of expectation, hype, delivery and ultimately audience reciprocation in their careers to date.

The debut full-length has been a long time coming, and in many ways it feels like the tying of loose ends more than the injection of new direction. Maybe the autumnal season we now find ourselves immersed in has too much influence over my perception, but as hearing songs like T=0 and Gallops takes me back to the band’s performances in festival tents in the warmth and flurry of early summer, they already feel a little bit retrospective for me in the cold of late October. Elsewhere on the album, long-time favourites such as ‘Books’ and ‘Ode to Ancestors’ are given the big(ger) budget studio do-over. It does seem like a lot is set straight and let free to the winds of the past in this record, which does of course inevitably lead us somewhere; forward. But more of that later.

Tall Ships’ special date at XOYO had the emphasis of occasion given to it by the appearance of Tellison, who perform the most rapturously exuberant support-set I’ve seen in a long time. I can’t help but anticipate seeing the boys struggle to do justice to the emotively stirring, wry-smile-placing potential of their music in a half-hour showcase to those who are not (necessarily) fans. I didn’t conduct a survey of others, and didn’t really look around me at all, but I definitely had a blast in that half-hour.

The set that Tall Ships go on to give us in this evening of triumph is a well-considered smorgasbord of old and new. The band start with T=0, a song that I maintain is, in regards to standards of musicianship and artistic expression, their most impressive song to date. It is a cohesive attempt at everything, pulled off with spectacular grace and power. There is still plenty of time left for the more steadily cathartic album tracks such as Oscar to make an appearance, ‘And I love you more than you know’, Ric sings as his eyes begin to appear slightly damper than normal. I’m not sure if the band would openly admit it themselves, but in these songs in particular a lot of the math-rock elements of their sound have now disintegrated amongst a series of more polished atmospheric progressions. It’s always difficult for artists to re-capture the invigorated fearlessness of their adolescent starting points, and so it’s probably wise that Tall Ships make a deliberate departure from this, laying those days to rest on record without the compromising of retrospective attempts to re-kindle it. Whether this necessitated re-modelling older classics such as ‘Books’ and ‘Ode to Ancestors’ to fit the new mould is another argument altogether.

When I suggested an absence of newer direction in this record, I was of course wrong, this is the new direction, purposeful and resolute striving towards a more expansive plain of musical maturity. However it may take a little time for the dust to settle on this tour for that to really come to the fore. But for now they can consider themselves a fully established band, three adults with no excuses when it comes to what they do from now onwards; this is it.

On this of all evenings, it seems only right that they should conclude procedures with ‘Hit the Floor’. All talk of the future and past put aside for one moment, these were three young lads from Falmouth who stole a small space under the streets of our great capital city for what was a little over an hour tonight. And for just that small time, it was all theirs. ‘You don’t know how much this means to us.’ Clichéd as it may seem, surely that’s the kind of thing that you could never forget?

Probably the best, and most consistently exciting, individual...

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:06:49 +0100

Probably the best, and most consistently exciting, individual music blog I’ve ever had the joy of stumbling across.

awdcastles:

This will be my last post here, at least especially until the end of the year, where I’ll re-evaluate what I want to do. We’ll see, but for now I’ll still be doing things at PORTALS, because collaboration is instantly much more satisfying than just about anything. Thanks to everyone who ever read a single word.

And it’s not all bad news - I was able to get a teen suicide guest mix for this indefinite final post. Sam wrote me last night that he even included several exclusives throughout. Special shoutout to the second track; “flowers’ is of a new project out of College Park, MD, tentatively titled sam + caroline.

The rest of this mix is really cool all around too. Favorites in Attic Basement, The Microphones, Terius Nash, and Cuddle Formation are even included, but there’s also a lot of new stuff for me to get excited about. I can’t thank Sam enough and I really hope you all enjoy this one. ⇒ ❦ D/L

01. Alex G: “why do you”
02. sam + caroline: “flowers”
03. Attic Basement: “Cry and Cry”
04. Blanche Blanche Blanche: “Runny Day”
05. Dragger: “Shoobie”
06. Foot Ox: “Dizzies”
07. teen suicide: “spooky ghost”
08. cuddle formation: “sitting from a window w my legs dangling”
09. The Microphones: “Ocean”
10. Birch Tree Bicycle: “Novel Ideas”
11. home and water: “one”
12. YYU: “your hands/ moo.3”
13. Terius Nash: “1977 (Miss You Still)”
14. pill friends: “klonopin”
15. Laurel: “HCC Girls D.A.R.E.”

Thoughts: Guilty Ghosts- Trespasser

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 09:34:31 +0100

‘Guilty Ghosts’ is the work platform of Brooklyn-based Tristan O’Donnell, who released his new EP ‘Trespasser’ this month. What I immediately loved about these tracks was the way they use relatively straight-forward and familiar instrumentation to much longer effect.

It is not self-consciously experimental; managing to craft its ambience without over-indulging in decadent heaps of synth and reverb that smother over the cracks of each other. Rightly or wrongly, this approach feels a little more organic and trustworthy on first listen.

I enjoy its off-hand steadiness, flowing with what feels like the most natural of paces, building a tapestry of hums and beats, moving with grace, and a collaborative force.

Dynamics are uncovered in the instrumentation, and the dualities that play themselves out across the record. The beats and claps of ‘Wailing Wall’ are deft but gentle, while the guitar’s tight but refined weeping adds direction, as well as colour. What at first may sound simply inoffensive, develops into something that is just brilliantly understated.

As the EP goes on, we begin to hear more tone seep from the guitar, a little more echo bleeding from the notes. As if it were an air of doubt emerging in its own dwelling, or perhaps whilst sitting on its own accomplished rhythm section, it now tries to let loose, and reach for slightly more analogous acoustics. In this manner, the progression of the EP works marvellously.

The penultimate track Rendezvous marks perhaps the most notable shifting point, as it injects a punch more pace and vigour into the tonal wanderings, before slipping into the aching sleep of ‘Infinites’ and eventually, silence.

Conversations: Yoni Wolf [WHY?]

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 09:50:00 +0100

I got the opportunity to fire some questions at the WHY? front-man freestylist in the aftermath of their album launch show at London’s Electric Ballroom. This is what came of it…

When was the last time you guys played in London?

Last fall (autumn) at that big cathedral (union chapel).

How do you find it performing the new material live?

I very much enjoy certain songs. It’s nice to have a wide variety of songs to pull from.

Do you ever choose specific songs for specific places?

Oh absolutely. If a room feels mellow, we will play a mellow set. If its a rap room we play rap… etc. London got a wide array of the WHY? stylings.

Your new album is called Mumps etcetera. Did you actually get Mumps?

I normally think of titles late in the construction of an album. This one came to me quite early. It just made sense for the batch of songs.

Do you believe there’s a purposeful direction through the flow of the album?

Do you mean is there reason behind why the album is put together the way it is? Absolutely. Not always a tangible reason that I can articulate well… Sometimes its just a feeling, but there is always much thought and effort put into the layout. Lots of trial and error.

What is the significance of cards to you?

It’s just an image like any other. Usually signifying chance, or fate.

You introduced some new members to your live group recently. How did you choose the successful candidates, was there an auditioning process?

You just know when someone feels right and fits in. Sense of humor (humour), playing/singing style, how quick they can pick stuff up. Do they have a good ear? Etc.

Will the recently recorded documentary, from young documentarian Gerrek Reid, be available on DVD?

Not that I am aware of. I think it was a net endeavor. That said, there is a real documentary being made about the making of Mumps, etc. and surrounding times and issues.

What do you think was the most important thing you guys did in the break between Eskimo Snow, in 2009, and Mumps etcetera, in 2012?

I got sick and moved to Cincinnati. Josiah and Liz got married. I got better. We took a vacation one time.

Thoughts: Embracing the tides of change in music press

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 12:02:00 +0100

I haven’t uploaded any self-righteous opinions in a little while. That will soon change, but in the mean time I thought I’d share a feature I wrote earlier this year on the current state of affairs in music press.

My own opinion has changed on these matters a lot, mainly because of the many different things to consider, though I think I’ve arrived at somewhat of an equilibrium about it now. I often found myself a little disgruntled when repeatedly reading the same opinion of music professionals on things like music piracy, which I often think is misleading in its one-sided crusade of self-entitlement. I therefore felt compelled to try and present what I considered to be a series of more balanced observations about the music industry, to try and draw conclusions and perhaps even positives about the many great things that these tides of change have brought to us.

The article was written as part of the Arts Media Contacts catalogue, published in July.

___

It isn’t any great secret that print magazines have been up against it for a while now. The broad economic picture remains as murky as ever, whilst our most cherished publications continue to be undermined by relentless advancements in mobile technology and social media. Nowhere else is this more true than in music journalism. Consumers are now given free and immediate access to their favourite artists, as well as up to the minute coverage of all the latest news stories making a splash on the web. Alongside this, the traditional magazine now looks like a bulky, far too quickly outdated and altogether unnecessary expense for the modern day music fan.

This is of course indicative of a much wider crisis. Thrust into a time of difficult change by the explosion of the internet, the music industry is still in the process of reconfiguring how it functions commercially to reward the work of its most successful artists. It has been fighting a losing battle against online piracy for over a decade now, and in the last year or so we have also seen the bubble begin to burst on the country’s music festivals too, where similar over-saturation of consumer choice has made it increasingly difficult for people to make money from music.

Well, no one likes change! Or so they say, for while this troublesome flux remains a matter of grave concern for record label bosses and media tycoons leaking lost revenue all over, there are some groups of people out there for which this unsettling of the music establishment has landed them in a swarm of new opportunities.

You see, anyone can start a music blog, and as more of us have gone online to read about our favourite artists, we have found a vast sea of new places to find out about music. No longer held back by the costs entailed with printing, distribution and large headquarters, independent online blogs have flourished in the last five or so years. Initially developed for, and indeed by, the more particular listener, these online ‘zines’ typically present you with more choice and variation, often focussing on smaller music scenes where they are unafraid to plug unsolicited material from new and unheard artists. This grassroots approach helps local bands and venue owners as well as providing a healthy alternative to our favourite print publications that have all too comfortably nestled themselves into our shop shelves for the last fifty years. Jeremy Leslie from magculture.com recently aired his opinion that ‘mainstream publishers have let down the industry and individuals are trying to create better publications.’

In more recent times the most innovative online developments have centred around allowing websites to plug into social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and SoundCloud, as well as mobile feeds and news syndication sites, allowing for a much greater potential for exposure, consumer choice and audience interactivity. This is what has helped invigorate this re-awakening of music; it has moved us some way on from the days of just flicking through page after page of general music news in a mag. Leslie explains that, ‘a lot of people have discovered their opinions and voices writing blogs and sharing in social networks.’ Therefore, perhaps we should instead be asking whether this new online environment allows for a more democratic and healthy sharing of opinions. With the broadening of the journalistic pedestal to somewhat more of a step, consumers need no longer rely on the word of cast-iron industry opinion formers, all with a myriad of vested corporate interests, to keep them up to date. We now have free reign over what we read, and what we listen to.

Elsewhere, we have also seen the emergence of YouTube ‘vlogs’, with various different recordings in interesting acoustic settings becoming the new fashion. Market leaders include ‘La Blogotheque’, recording sessions with the likes of Bon Iver and Arcade Fire, attracting over 90,000 subscribers and an equal number of views for each video (As of 28^th Jun). Whilst attracting half the amount of subscribers as ‘La Blogotheque’, ‘WatchListenTell’ have averaged a massive 319,000 views per video. As the commercial credibility of these once grass-roots projects take off, so does their ambition and the chance that they can secure the future of music journalism in new, exciting and multi-disciplined ways. It is an encouraging demonstration of the modern empowerment of the every-man blogger.

This re-shaping of the industry dynamics around social media and consumer choice has also proven very beneficial to advertisers and PR campaigners, as it offers a much more efficient way of communicating directly with their audience. Whilst often controversial, such levels of targeted marketing do in the same vein help the consumer get in touch with a much fresher and more exciting range of products every day. Music platform turn social media outlets such as SoundCloud and Bandcamp help make new and upcoming music instantly accessible to wider audiences, and have, along with Spotify, helped make listening to music a much more social and inclusive experience. Venue owners and event organisers, as well as music PR managers, can now use Facebook and Twitter to broadcast details of upcoming shows directly to the pages and groups that their target audience subscribe to. By socially connecting with other blogs and organisations, music professionals are much less likely to let a big opportunity slip them by.

Social Media statistics taken on 28th June 2012.

We can see in the Twitter and Facebook graphic above that, considering their infancy and reduced profile, the independent and online only blogs (Marked in red) have had a lot of success in getting in and amongst some of the smaller print publications that have thus far struggled to translate their magazine appeal into an active online audience, such as Mojo and The FLY. Furthermore, we should note that these magazines do not necessitate attracting such large followings in the first place because of the scaled-down nature of their business. With much smaller overheads, online blogs reflect a much more sustainable modern day business model and present the trend for the future, diverse and efficient business.

However, there is no hiding the fact that this graph, along with the monthly user figures, also prove the significant advantage that some of the famous print brands still maintain in their mass appeal. In moving across to the online market they are given an instantaneous merit of stature and credibility that many blogs could only wish for. NME is no exception to the trend of publications that have experienced a continuing downturn in print circulation figures in recent times. However, what it has done in the last couple of years is make a significant push towards re-focussing its business model around the internet, to try and keep ahead of the pack as the UK’s biggest commercial music press enterprise. It has made almost all of its content available online and as a result, has recently boasted reaching an eye-watering 7.7million people a month through its multi-platform online operation.

Monthly Unique User figures are taken as an average from 2011.

The FLY and The Stool Pigeon are examples of other magazines that have adapted to the transition by publishing a free print edition that helps increase advertising revenue, supplement their online content and raise their profile whilst also holding onto all that is sacrilegious about the music magazine in traditional paper form.

Whilst none of us enjoy seeing some of the most heralded magazine publications of our teenage years run out of print, it would be a mistake to suggest that this is any way the death of what still remains the most lucrative and widely coveted art-form out there. Instead our media moguls need to work hard to make the most of the transition that we have recently seen to a web-dominated media sphere, by understanding the way it changes how they engage with audiences and generate revenue. The constant flux of the music and arts media industry is best embraced as exciting and challenging, those who see it that way will be the ones who adapt, survive and ultimately prosper.

Observations: Cy Twombly, Gagosian Gallery [Art]

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:49:00 +0100

The colours, whilst exuberant, don’t really merge, and so can seem quite brash upon the eye. The works are all effectively the same in pattern and colour, which is what makes their contrasts particularly absorbing in the observer’s visual study. The background to the works is always green, but in the more chaotic pieces this appears lost amid a more startling visual experience. The circulatory motions also reflect a particular angst and tension in their energy. What I enjoy most is the way that these chaotic human motions are offset by the consistent long drips of gravity. Similarly to the work of Frank Bowling, these reveal the constant sucking force of gravity and nature upon the human endeavour, in the dribble and drab of paint down canvas. These give birth to a fascinating dynamic in his work, that is actually quite separate from Bowling’s, where it was gravity alone on show.

Attached to this exhibition are a large series of Twombly’s photographs, taken in the fifties, as well as some from just prior to his death last year. The 66 photographs on show are worth seeing in themselves.

The grainy nature of many of the photographs seems important to the ultimate image they present. Whilst consciously revealing a more archaic and aged method of photography, it is something that is in itself, wholly artificial. It is strange to think that this effect on what are often very natural images, was never actually there. But yet it feels so organic. This makes me pause to wonder where the ‘beauty’ is actually found? Truly in the eyes (or camera) of the beholder it would indeed seem…

Find out more about the exhibition (On until the 29th Sept) here.

Conversations: A preview to Alain Rodier’s ‘New Paintings in Series 2012’ [Art]

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:43:00 +0100

Alain Rodier’s story is one of thorough and enduring adventure. Brought up in Saint-Julien-en-Genevoix, on the brink of France’s alpine border with Switzerland, a young Rodier first moved to Paris in 1980 to study Economics. There, he befriended a photographer who was in need of an assistant, and from this his, perhaps most unlikely, career in modern art began to unfold.

First experimenting in film and photography as a student, his eventual position as a fashion photographer for Vogue magazine took Alain around the world, with stints in France, Australia, the United States, Italy and finally London, throughout the nineteen-eighties.

It was not until reaching the latter in 1989, that he would give up his position at Vogue to focus full-time on the potential of his own artistic endeavour, first in collage, and then in paint. From this, he then begins to mix the two, and experiment with his method of composition, including expansive silkscreened photographs as the starting point for larger paintings. His first ever solo exhibition takes place in London, and from here he once again moves around North America and Europe, fuelled this time by his own creativity.

His ‘Paintings in Series 2012’ exhibition, showing at the SW1 Gallery in December, will mark his first return to London since 2003. It will collate twenty-five of his most recent works, taken from over the last year or so, and showcase them across the four main series within which they were conceived, ‘Cities’, ‘Women’, ‘Burn Cash, Buy Paintings’, and ‘Entanglement’.

Like much of the work Rodier has produced in the past, these pieces are composed through the duality of setting forth contrasting forms and elements into one another, most notably silk-screened photography and acrylic painting. They achieve an abstract whole, endowed with a powerful and stark ambiguity. They give rise to new and contemporary aesthetics through the boldness of their own surreal dislocation. The end-result bears an influence on the eye that is powerful and sharp, potent and evocative. Rodier explains, “my work is based first on a painted background, then a photographic collage is produced, which is then printed onto the painted canvas. This has become my language of sorts.”

‘Women’, by Alain Rodier.

This method is at its most daring, and perhaps most impactful, in the ‘Women’ series. The last in the series, entitled ‘Women’ itself, presents perhaps the most profound dichotomy between elegance and abrasion, in a manner that approaches a sort of traumatic urgency. “I like the completely different energies that they both put out. One is obviously physical, and the other more mental. They are two of my favourite models Sveta and Marusha. Both sides of the image reflect both facets of the women I paint.”

The ‘Cities’ Series collects images of iconic landmarks to produce expansive urban collages of some of the world’s most recognisable cities. We see pieces of the famous New York skyline, with buildings that appear to vertically sprawl, and sway across each other, as they forever extend beyond themselves. These are again accompanied by colourful shapes and patterns that manipulate and expand our perception of the modern metropolis. The series tells an intriguing tale of a very twentieth century brand of modernity. “Cities are places where I get my inspiration; I find their energy fascinating. The collages are an interesting way to show different aspects of each city, mixing images that would not normally be together. For me it is something very positive, but because of the way that I do my collages, I could see how they could be viewed as subversive, because they are fragmented by definition.”

In ‘Burn Cash, Buy Paintings’, we see Rodier take on more explicitly topical subject matter, “‘Take the money and run’ was the first in the series; I started by wanting to show how much cash one million Euros really is, and it is a lot! It puts a very real image to a very abstract sum for most people.” This playful exploitation forms a cold reminder, of the deep madness that manifests itself in the western world’s modern corporate culture, something that appears to add a particularly severe undertone to the representations made in the ‘Cities’ series before it.

“Then I also started working on ‘The Banker’ which, once finished with its drawing of the face, gave me the overall direction for the series. The character with his suit and attaché case open full of cash came naturally in the idea of the ‘banking crisis’.” Rodier goes on, “even though events around me obviously influence my perception of the world, I usually tend to paint through feelings more than a conscious will to say something relevant to the world around me. I think that the ‘Burn Cash Buy Paintings’ series is the first time I have actively tried to make my work pertinent to my environment.”

‘Entanglement’ is the collective title of a work spread across two different paintings. The chaotic result helps tell the troubling and difficult story of disarmament after the Lebanese civil war, “all the pictures of this collage were taken using the extensive gun collection of one Lebanese individual.”

There will also be other works featured at the SW1 exhibition, in addition to these four collections. “The work going on show at the SW1 Gallery is a collection of paintings that reflect a certain period of my life, so in this way they are all quite closely connected to each other. I hope people will enjoy discovering and looking at these paintings and collages as much as I enjoyed producing them, and now looking at them again myself.”

Find out more about Alain Rodier here.

Thoughts: JAWS

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:33:23 +0100

JAWS are one of those bands that just seem to have everything required to be a hit. They’ve got a modestly cool ‘London’ teenage appeal akin to ‘Bombay Bicycle Club’, threaded into a sound that, whilst having apparent chill-wave and surf facets, is still very much accessible pop. They’re just so damn likeable.

But this doesn’t mean that the music they present is superficial or devoid of excellence, these guys are genuinely very good, I think. The scattering of material they have thus far released reminds me of the first (and let’s face it, probably best) Surfer Blood record, though perhaps slightly less guitar driven, and a touch more atmospheric.

They’re a 2012 band that have already found air time on Radio One, and mentions across a smorgasbord of other music publications. You could say it’s a little too late for us at GIITTV to be telling you about them and pretending we’re on the pulse with these things. This may be so, but it’s certainly time we wrote something about them, and if you’re yet to give them a listen, then maybe give the track below a whirl, it’s probably my personal favourite, just saying.

Check them out online: www.jawsjawsjaws.co.uk

The Morning Waffles, with Lucy Rose

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 08:56:00 +0100

Earlier this summer, I tried to arrange a meeting with the lovely acoustic singer-songwriter wonder-lady, Lucy Rose. We organised it online, through email, I was told where to go and when we would meet to discuss my wonderings, in question and answer format. She would use her soothing voice to delicately put my qualms about this brutish world to bed (or so I thought). Needless to say, I felt a little bit nervous. How would it go? What would Lucy think of me? What if I said something she didn’t approve of? Which one of us would be the more uncomfortable?

I have a ritual before these sort of things, one beer (a little but not too much courage), stretches, and delicate hair arranging. Well somewhere in between seeing to all of this, I heard from Lucy’s tour manager, apparently the gear box had blown, and they would be late for the show. As it turns out, they were too late for the interview, but still in time for their performance, (convenient ‘ey?) So whilst I guess the vast majority of Green Man attendees were left happy and untouched by this mechanical error, blissfully unaware and (presumably) uncaring, I was left with an emptiness at the core of my weekend. Not that I want to bang on about it or anything, but let’s just say her gear box wasn’t the only thing left broken and dysfunctional that evening…

As soon as I returned to normality, and resumed contact with my email account, I managed to arrange that Lucy would see to my thoughtfully prepared queries via email, when she got the time. Below is what transpired from this remote, online encounter. The in-person chit-chat will have to wait for now I guess…

:_(

N.B. Morning Waffle protocol has been broken by asking a couple of real questions just in this instance, because I felt bad. Back to normal next week.

You’ve played a string of UK festivals this summer, have you been to any where it hasn’t rained?

Most of the festivals this summer have been completely soaked with non-stop rain. 2000 Trees was especially muddy for the load in trying to carry amps in over a foot of mud but the crowd were insane.

I remember Hop Farm being particularly dry and I was amazed at how dry Reading and Leeds were.

As a person, do you consider yourself introverted or extroverted? Do you think this influences your musical self?

I was unsure what I was so me and my whole family did the Myers Briggs personality test (it’s great!) Both my sisters and my mum were extroverted and me and my dad were introverted. I suppose this must have something to do with my music and what it is. But I’m not good at thinking about it all, but maybe because I don’t talk about my emotions in real life it comes out in my music.

Tell us a bit more about the album (out next month), will there be any unheard material on it?

I’m so excited about releasing this album, obviously terrified as well but I enjoyed recording every song immensely. We recorded it at my parents house in Rowington, and me, Charlie (producer) and Bjorn (guitar player) lived there. The rest of the band and my friends traveled up and down the country to be on the record. Most of the songs on it we play live but there are a couple that I haven’t worked out how to do it but there are clips that people have put up on youtube. We’ll see how it all goes, I hope some people like it.

What’s your favourite drinking game?

Fuzzy Duck

If Lucy Rose was a rapper, what would your rapper name be?

Juicy Hoes

Do you believe in the Higgs Boson?

I’m not really informed enough but I don’t think that it’s a question of ‘believing’ in it

Are you religious?

Students received their A Level results yesterday (Let’s pretend it’s still Fri), if you were an examiner, what grade would you give Green Man?

A* I absolutely loved it!!!

If you were Prime Minister for a day, what law would you enact/repeal?

Drugs being legal.

Do you think it’s better to devote your life to one undivided cause, or a thousand fleeting ideas?

Each to their own, but I’d definitely throw at least one starfish back into the sea.

The Morning Waffles will be back again soon, check out the last ‘episode’ with The XCERTS front-man Murray MacLeod here.

Conversations: Tom Rogerson and Matt Calvert [Three Trapped Tigers], Green Man Festival

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 08:58:00 +0100

An interview with Tom Rogerson and Matt Calvert.

What’s top of the agenda at the moment, the live show or new material?

Tom: We’re just about to stop focussing on the live show actually. We’ve been putting it off for a while now because we’ve all been doing our own things, but I think we’ve played enough festivals this summer that we’ve become tired of playing the same stuff, it’s still fun for us, but we’d like to have more to dive into.

Matt: Yeah I think by the close of 2011, playing a lot of songs for weeks on end in various places, it had definitely got to the point of thinking, ‘if we have to play any of these songs again, I’ll fucking kill myself’. But the release from earlier this year was a compilation of all our old E.P.s, and to celebrate that we did some gigs just playing that record through in chronological order, and even though we’d played all the tracks within our live set before, to do it like that almost felt like we’d never played it before, and instantly freshened it up.

Tom: … But yes, you may be disappointed to hear that none of the material we released this year was new material, just to clarify! Writing new material is a long, drawn out process for us. There’s also extra pressure on this one because there is a sub-conscious awareness that there’s more expectation on this one because more people know about us, and also we’ve had some breaks this year that could really help us with this new album, and all of us are keen to develop the sound as well in some way. I also think in a band like ours where we’re already being experimental and pushing boundaries in some way, there becomes a pressure to carry on doing that.

Right, and as an instrumentally focussed band, how do you try to turn the page and do new things, is there still a conceptual idea to how you do that?

Tom: Yes, I’d say so, there are targets in mind, and an individual track, for example, could be trying to rip off a sound or track that we like, or it could be thinking ‘wouldn’t it be interesting if we tried to do something like this?’ So I think conceptualisation is always important, to discuss it between the three of us.

Have any particular ideas come to the fore, whether it be more electronic or more instrumental?

Tom: Right, well we had that with the last album as well (Route One or Die) and it went off in a completely different direction. So I think it’s important to have goals in mind, but as anyone will tell you, the second you begin that creative process, it goes off in a completely different direction.

Matt: There’s also now this big expectation for us to be this big live powerhouse, especially with Betts with us. I think that was really in mind with the arrangement of the last record, we really took liberties with the production of that, because the more we played it, it just felt like a band playing in a room, so that’s what the album ended up sounding like. So I think if we then made an album that was really interesting sonically, and production wise, it might be a really rewarding headphone listen, but might not be the most spectacular thing to watch. So I guess now trying to go forward from here, what we think about is trying to break out of the fear of that I think.

Tom: That’s a really key point, because from the very first day the band was originally about being an amazing live project, and ripping off the warped style in a live context. To that extent it started as an exercise, ‘what would happen if you tried to do that live?’ From there it developed into something altogether different, but that’s been the guiding principle for so long even when we’ve tried to get away from it at certain points and develop the sound. Now that the first album is fully out, I think we’ve bought ourselves the space to now go further. I think an interesting area to explore would be to think, ‘well fine, let’s go away make a record as best we can, let’s not care about what it sounds live’, but then when you come to play the songs live, how do you then go about re-creating something live that sounds amazing, and I think that will be the key.

Matt: And feel amazing too, because you see so many people who are producers and they do a live set, which is basically a bit of a button bash, and it might sound great but it’s nothing to look at. So I think if we were to now set out to make a really production-y album where we do non-shreddy drums, and take out all the Guitar, will it still sound and feel like Three Trapped Tigers? And so how comfortable will we all feel with the end result?

Tom: Route One Or Die was completed 18 months ago, that’s a fuck of a long time to do nothing, we’ve written not a note of music in 18 months.

Matt: In all honesty, I haven’t actually given much thought to this next album because we’ve all been doing other things, and I’ve been thinking about doing a solo album. But I do feel it could probably sound however we want it to, and so when I have had passing thoughts about it, I’ve thought that well, even if we are still to include some ridiculous drum stuff for example, I think there’s ways that we can make it exist in a different context, to change the overall scope.

Have all of you guys always been on this end of the musical spectrum?

Matt: No. Not to sound full of it, but I think if you’re capable on an instrument then it means you can play a lot of different music if you want to, and I think we have all enjoyed playing loads of different music growing up. However not all of the music we play would be considered a representation of ourselves, so for example Tom has played with ‘Emmy the Great’, which is really different and whilst there is still definitely artistry in it, I don’t know if that’s what Tom would ever call his thing.

Did you still find it fulfilling?

Tom: Oh totally yeah, I loved it because it was all about playing in the fewest notes possible! But I also helped with the production and arrangement, and that’s kind of how I got started with all of this, because originally I was doing more jazz and classical stuff, and that’s how we all know each other really, is through the jazz scene in London, and I think actually if you know that it helps make the band make a bit more sense. And as we often used to say in the early days, the band is sort of in the intersection of a venn diagram of the three of us, Betts is far more into metal than Matt or I, Matt’s more into American Hard-Rock than me certainly, and I’m probably more into classical stuff, but that’s what’s cool about being in a band right? It’s not like we hate each other’s interests.

What’s interesting is that Matt has been doing solo stuff for ten years, some of which does sound like this, because him and Betts have been partners in crime for years, but he’s also working on some electronica right now, which is way more sound-design-y, may not have any Guitars, and has also done an acoustic project with 8 or 9 stringed instruments, and I would definitely do a piano record if I could find a way of doing it that made me happy. So I definitely don’t see Three Trapped Tigers as all we can do. I was thinking this the other day about Steve Reich, who at the age of 72, is still making minimalist music. That’s fine, you invented it, that’s your thing, but he’s stuck with it for 42 years now, and he can blatantly could sit down on a piano and play something else, it’s strange.

Matt: That’s the thing though, just because you can do something, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what you want to present as yours. As a piss-take we play loads of ridiculous shit in rehearsals, we do it really tongue-in-cheek, and I do really enjoy playing certain other people’s music, but I don’t think it’s ever what I’d want to go down in the annals of time having done.

Tom: That’s true, and maybe you don’t want to present that but individually I do want to present quite a few different things.

Matt: I think, trying to wrap up that question, generally the things we have done have been at the more adventurous end of whatever it happens to be. Generally, it makes me writhe in awkwardness when this band gets described as ‘Math-Rock’ for example, it makes sense for us to be lumped under a large umbrella with a lot of those bands, but I feel like we are at another end of that. And then there’s another band I play in where I basically just use a laptop and then there’s some instruments that I live sample and process, and fundamentally it is influenced by Jazz. That band is called ma (http://soundcloud.com/ma-music).

If you were prime-minister for a day, what law would you repeal/enact?

Matt: You’re the more suitable candidate Tom, you being the political ignoramus… Here’s your soapbox Tom, let’s go!

Tom: That’s a crazy question, I don’t know, I could email you about that after a week or so maybe.

Matt: Tax laws Tom?

Tom: Yeah. Maybe the budget 2010, the budget 2011, the finance bill 2011, the coalition agreement? Oh, the Railway privatisation act, that’s a good one from 1994! I’d repeal that one. In terms of enacting one, God knows, I wouldn’t ever want to be in the position where I had to do that.

Matt: All I know is, you can’t please every one.

Tom: Ha, if Three Trapped Tigers has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t please everyone.

Are any of you religious?

Tom: I have a religious upbringing, but I wouldn’t say I believe in God. Though I was at a Christian wedding yesterday, and it’s great to sing, they’ve got the best hymns. I think the Church of England has a lot to answer for in the development of British rock music, there’s some powerful shit…. Sorry ‘there’s some powerful shit’ is going to look woeful in text.

Do you think it’s better to devote your life to one undivided cause or a thousand fleeting ideas?

Matt: I think you’ll never know until you progress through life itself, you might wake up one day and think ‘man, playing this fucking inward music is just the most wholly self-satisfying thing, and I’m actually going to start a charity, or teach, or go round the world, and live on an island in the Phillipines, or just find other causes.’ At the moment I don’t have any plans to do that.

Do any of you do other things, life things or artistically, outside music that you seek fulfilment in?

Tom: I do yeah, I used to write quite a bit, I did English at University. I’ve been involved politically with quite a lot of things, and that stuff I do enjoy because it gives you a better perspective on things. But I think for all of us, music was the thing we were always going to do.

Matt: For me, it was just that I wasn’t interested enough in anything else. There are other things I’m interested in and could become more interested in, History especially. But everything I do outside of music is on a purely hobby level, but find really satisfying, Cooking being an example of something that I could go really deep into, if I had the time and the inclination.

Tom: I think ultimately, it’s just obvious. I was discussing this last night with someone, I was at my cousin’s wedding, there were lots of posh middle-class people there, because that’s what my family is, and so many of them just look at you with astonishment that you’re a musician. They’re delighted to meet you, and so excited to talk to you.

Matt: That’s why Tom’s such a rebel! Some kind of left-wing artisan!

Tom: Yeah, it’s crazy! But I was being grilled by this lovely guy who was sixty and a GP from Cambridge, and he just couldn’t get his head round the fact that I didn’t have financial stability, or that I wasn’t earning over twenty grand a year or whatever, but I don’t see it as some lifestyle choice, this is just clearly what I was always going to do from as early as I can ever remember, the idea of not doing it is totally absurd. If I lost my hands, I really don’t know what I’d do.