This Is Not TV

It’s been a constant source of wonder why there’s been so much fuss made over the perfectly OK Glasvegas this year when another Scottish band released possibly the finest album of 2008 yet escaped the NME’s and most everyone else’s spotlight.

In what’s been a fruitful year for great records, Frightened Rabbit’s second album, ‘Midnight Organ Fight’ was one of the strongest releases and served as a far more redolent snapshot of what affects the thought processes of the romantic modern-day Scot.

Musically, they are a charmingly tuneful lo-fi engine room of energy. Aggressively-pound drum patterns throb underneath layers of guitar; some clanging and harsh, others spooky and gently ornate. Their strength lies in having a fine grasp of beautiful vocal lines that allow frontman Scott Hutchison to peal out his superb lyrics with an alluring impassioned earnestness while his brother and drummer, Grant, harmonises with intent over the sonic swoosh that’s being whipped up.

‘The Modern Leper’ kicks in sparsely with a simple nagging acoustic strum that flowers into a raging, chugging stomper. Comparing himself to a leper (or ‘cripple’ as he says), hopelessly tortured with masochistic guilt, Hutchison suggests; ‘I’ll cut out all the good stuff, I’ll cut off my foot to spite my leg’, later laments; ‘that limb that I had lost, it was the only thing holding me up’ and futilely argues ‘You’re not ill and I’m not dead, doesn’t that make us the perfect pair?’ His lines are always fervent and sincere but also warm and familiar, delivered informally in a vulnerable-sounding Scottish lilt, in a similar way to Fat Cat labelmates, The Twilight Sad.

Somebody or other’s no longer the subject of his affections in the pounding grunge-pop gem, ‘I Feel Better’. After Hutchison reveals; ‘I see you walking round with someone new’, they’re bluntly assured; ‘this is the last song I’ll write about you.’

‘Good Ams Vs. Bad Arms’ is a gentle twinkling waltz featuring some sweetly stylised sibling singing that resonates with greater charm over a more temperate arrangement. The curious title perhaps a reference to the toned, athletic ‘good arms’ of an ex’s new squeeze replacing the flabby, bingo-winged embrace his ‘bad arms’ half-heartedly used to offer.

‘Fast Blood’ boasts an obtuse ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ groove over which waves of stun guitar are thrashed out, supplying the exhilarating power required to hold up the superbly emotionally-wrought vocal, as you experience exactly how it feels as ‘the fast blood hurricanes through me’.

Comparisons could be made with Idlewild’s more ardent moments and there are folksy elements evident throughout, particularly in the singalong campfire jangle of ‘Old Fashioned’, a sepia-tinted pledge to get ‘back to how things used to be’ by embracing the simpler pleasures of turning the telly off to vibe off the buzz of the radio and ‘do it like they did in ‘43’.

‘Head Rolls Off’ opens with a reasonable enough point (‘Jesus is just a Spanish boy’s name, so how come one man got so much fame?’) and is an unashamedly melodic charmer that, with its Caledonian Counting Crows-alike feel, could’ve fitted snugly into most daytime radio playlists. The song includes an uplifting assertion of faith in some kind of heavenly place; ‘I believe in a house in the clouds, and God’s got his dead friends round. He’s painted all the walls red to remind them they’re all dead.’

‘My Backwards Walk’ is a grim, wearisome trudge brightened up immeasurably by a shining vocal performance, a stentorian Hutchison excelling in delivering his evocative, wittily defeatist poetic pay-offs. The title refers to his desire to walk away from a relationship that has run its emotional course yet still retains a more convenient physical appeal. There’s been few better, more succinct lines uttered about a broken relationship you can never seem to get around to fixing than: ‘been working hard on walking out but my shoes keep sticking to the ground, my clothes won’t let me close the door because my trousers seem to love your floor.’

‘Keep Yourself Warm’ recalls, as the song climaxes, The Wedding Present’s harsher ‘Seamonsters’-era aural attack. It features a lazy evocation of quick-fix casual sex with the line; ‘I’m drunk and you’re probably on pills, if we’ve both got the same diseases, it’s irrelevant, girl’ but also a knowing air of caution after the event in; ‘You won’t find love in a hole, it takes more than fucking someone you don’t know to keep warm.’

‘Floating In The Forth’ has a miserable lyrical undercurrent but is polished up into a sweetly shimmering dreamy urban folk tale. Hutchison decides; ‘I think I’ll save suicide for another day’ but ponders the sorry metaphorical death of his love for another when asking; ‘Should we kick its cunt in and watch as it dies from bleeding?’ On a happier, unrelated note, that makes this the second album released this year by a Scottish band featuring both the words ‘cripple’ and ‘cunt’. The Fratellis are the other ones, trivia fans. Way to break those taboos!

Frightened Rabbit’s first album, ‘Sing The Greys’ was recorded in their own rehearsal space, giving it a fine lo-fidelity charm. This follow-up was recorded with Peter Katis (Interpol, Mercury Rev, National) and is, ‘Pablo Honey-to-Bends’-like, a substantial step forward; sonically, musically and especially lyrically. You’d be hard pushed to find a more poetic, more earthy and more honest set of lyrics on a record this or in any subsequent year. Hutchison’s gift is in achieving the most evocative of images with the simplest, most unfussy, pun-free use of language. The words he uses in his affecting break-up songs resonate because they feel real and familiar.

It’s also one of those albums that impresses more with repeated listens. That nagging keyboard refrain, those sweet backing vocals, that extra sheet of guitar, the beauty in the way he sings that line- all subtle inflections you didn’t realise were there before.

There’s real magic at work within this album and it’s a potent potion the Americans have taken to ingesting gleefully. Live, they’re a very different beast, too as their indie-folk stylings are given a powerfully cathartic makeover. I also have it on good authority that this album was given a 9/10 review in NME but was downgraded to a ‘7’ as the editor considered them not to be an NME band. Surely that’s another reason to grant them your full attention.

Popularity: 20% [?]

The French Quarter are not French. They are, in fact, Glaswegian, and this small but perfectly formed 7-track offering is not French either; I don’t know what connection this five-piece have with la belle France at all. Ah well, tant pis. It is very nice though.

Wait a minute, it does have a French accent. The opening bars of ‘Blue Light’, with its octave spanning beeps, slow beats and melotronic electronics is very Gallic – Air-like. It is only when the guitars and glockenspiels join in that you are transported back to the bohemian back streets of Glasgow (not that I have ever been to Glasgow – this is artistic license on my part). Pleasant enough, no doubt, in a bleak yet beautiful way but nothing you couldn’t get elsewhere. It is when the random element of vocals are introduced that things get interesting.

The glock takes up the lead and a martial rhythm pulsates; a voice intones ‘It’s the French Quarter’ incessantly and hypnotically. Beneath, the melody skitters about, delicately yet robustly amid broken radios. Atmospheric stuff and strangely self-deprecating but still assuredly poppist and preparatory for ‘Shed Away’. This wonderful little number reverberates around an empty warehouse like a Jesus and Mary Chain track, but has the audacity to pepper it with rim shots and new romantic riffs, like some shoulder-padded feather cut caveman smacking bones together in a cave. ‘Uni’ also has that Snow Patrol post-rock pop feel, but is bereft of chorus and possessing a voice like Kevin Shields circa early MBV. The mix is marvellous too, giving each part breathing space and room to grow. Exhilaratingly bracing.

You might be thinking that the way I am banging on, these songs are quite lengthy. Not so; this is pocket post rock, each song being barely over three minutes. If they weren’t so complex, they’d be seen as pop perfection. But they are; TR has the trance-like vocals of a mystic on mushrooms, the naturalistic evolving melody of a free form jam and the accordion climax of… er… a morris dance? It still knows when to call it a day though. Closing fittingly with ‘Time To Leave’ sees them bring on the angel choir and slide guitars, echoing the legendary KLF for parodic bombast that fades rather than cuts out. Quite so.

In essence, the French Quarter do a good magpie job. MBV, Mogwai, Jesus and Mary Chain and Sigur Ros all go into the pot but what emerges is uniquely French Quarter. But not French. Short but not sharp, moody but not gloomy, pop but not pap, FQ manage to walk the line without having to compromise. Quite an achievement, n’est ce pas?

Popularity: 6% [?]

I would just like to make it clear that, contrary to my dour outlook and appearance, I am not adverse to having a good time; some of my favourite times have involved having a good time. So I am not necessarily going to unload the scatter cannon straight away at Weezer’s eponymous ‘Weezer’ just because it is whimsical. If it is humourless whimsy and rubbish tunes, however, prepare for a shredding… actually, it’s okay. I might save the big guns for something else – is J***** H****** due to release anything soon?

‘Weezer,’ also known as ‘The Red Album’ comes three years after the mixed reception of ‘Make Believe’ and fourteen years after the catchy nostagiathon ‘Buddy Holly’… and they’re still doing a similar sort of schtick – awkward chuggy pop-punk anthems with adolescent geeky vocals and structures as rigid, rugged and predictable as a set of Bauhausian building blocks. ‘Trouble Maker’ is out of the box stuff: late nineties fun metal of a Bowling For Soup/Blink 182 variety with a very basic chug riff, a catchy chorus that is as predictable as it is eponymous but with a tongue so deep in the cheek that it is clear that they do not take themselves seriously so why the hell should you? There is a lot of this on the album: brainless fun that is good single material. ‘Pork and Beans,’ their first single in fact, is another in this category. An amiable quiet-loud anthem that mocks itself (“Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the chart/maybe if I worked with him I’d learn the art.”) whilst playing up to their cult status. Now if the album did just this sort of song, you could easily dismiss it as blah blah blah; fortunately, there are moments of more complex whimsy.

Take ‘Heart Songs’: on the outside a simple slushy three chord power ballad telling of a band’s rise to ahem, greatness inspired by the mighty Nirvana. The build to this, however, is hilariously un-rock n roll – Rik Astley, Debbie Gibson and the Fresh Prince all get a name check – and delivered with such straight faced seriousness, intoned if you will, over an acoustic. Pure Tenacious D, for sure, but less abrasive. This is followed by the ‘ooh, I’m so wild,’ ‘Everbody Get Dangerous’ a before and after prank cautionary – only the caution is: what do you say to your kids when they do the same. Even the ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ ending feels like a subtle jibe at rich-kid rockers Rolling Stones. ‘Dreamin’ hoots along nicely too, has about five words but goes all epic when you least expect it, stringing those few words out to the point of the ridiculous. Very silly indeed.

There are some serious moments, but these are usually played up and not entirely successful. ‘Thought I Knew’ is a sort of apology that starts all handclaps and guitars, like a Flight of the Conchords number, but degenerates into gloom and throw away predictability. Better is ‘The Angel and the One,’ which opens with the terrible realisation that “It’s not my destiny to be the one that you will live with,” but builds in optimism to the point that the protagonist no longer sees themselves as a victim of unrequited love – more of the narked nerd. ‘Cold Dark World’, however, is so out of character that it could either jar or refresh, depending on your mood – harder, raunchier (“angel girl in a cold dark world/I’m gonna be your man”) and with a ‘Kashmir’ beat. Nothing too taxing on the old formula front.

For me, though, the best song is probably ‘The Greatest Man That Ever Lived’. Based on a Shaker hymn and absurdly overblown, every genre is thrown at this song: prog, metal, rap, psychedelia… all rolled out like party tricks. The whole thing mocks the pompous grandeur of ‘Jesus Of Suburbia’, completely failing to justify itself and caring so much less, ending with the philosophy “if you don’t like it, you can shove it/but you don’t like it, you love it.” Stupid and loveable, epic and hymnal but self-consciously pompous – what’s not to love?

Admittedly, this album is horrendously predictable and will win no new music awards unless every single other recording is destroyed and our minds are wiped; even then, it would be close call. But it is loveable, friendly, undemanding and catchy. They’re still doing ‘Buddy Holly’ after fourteen years, but if the shit fits…

Popularity: 6% [?]

Saturday night, The Packhorse in Leeds at the wrong end of Freshers’ Week - no place of promise.

Tall, thin and Victorian, it watches as a rag-end of locals (sixty years to drink their brain cells dry) creep home and a tide of students (set to achieve it quicker) take over.

A bit of paper stuck to the door signals a clandestine upstairs meeting, FoS vs GZH.

Local promoter, Forest of Sound and local label Gizeh (as in “Gizeh Record”, geddit?) fielding four bands apiece.

But all is not well. Winter North Atlantic, having spent seven hours failing to fix a broken computer have pulled out. Winter North Atlantic, is actually Ed Carter of Sheffield, and it is sad to miss him because doing homework for the gig I loved his myspace quite enough to buy his records.

As it is, the night kicks off with Manchester’s Spokes, two of whom live in the “rough part” of Salford, (possibly an overfine distinction). They make a fine noise do Spokes, in the “Explosions in the Sky”, “God is . . .” tradition. But that is the trouble: they are copyists.

Of course it sounds good, it sounds right. Because who in their right mind would copy rubbish? But they bring nothing new. And that is a waste.

We shuffle across the landing to t’other room (five minute changeovers observed to the dot) for Phantom Dog Beneath the Moon, half of whom, “multi-instrumentalist / spooky electronic dude Scott” is absent for the trivial reason of a PhD viva. This leaves Garfunkel without his Simon. Aaron won the prize that night (and it was a close run thing) for the most wayward hairdo and (more easily won) the shyest stage presence. But he has a voice. The voice does thin, glassy, ringing, but the voice also does dire, abrasive, barking. Here, you think, is one soul who may not see out the year intact. Ghosts stalk the songs of Phantom Dog . . . I am not being metaphorical. When not busy thinking about equations, Aaron spends his time writing songs about ghosts.

Which I suppose leaves little time for the hairdressers.

Chantal Acda (Dutch) playing as SleepingDog confesses a preference for horses and rabbits to people and has two podgy red ponies perched on the monitors and two fluffy white rabbits nearby. But is one of the rarest of things, a real woman. Her songs: sad, intense and beautiful, natural as breath, hold the room still. She has been on tour with Glissando, thinks they’re nearly as nice as horses and pinches their violinist, Sophie, a happy collaboration, for two songs.

Downstairs, students dressed as schoolgirls, shirts and faces covered in felt-tip pen, clog the bar.

Across the landing it is Pan Am Scan, who are three: two blond, one oriental, all male. One applemac, one vibraphone, one drum set plus etceteras.

This is only Pan Am Scan’s fifth gig.

They improvise.

Neither of these facts is apparent !

The applemac person samples and re-jiggles. A human pedal! At one point the wee chap at the vibraphone (you could pop him in a pocket) lies a large chain over the keys, the percussionist pulls a thread up through the drum skin, beats small copper bowls with woolly sticks and generally works himself to a frenzy over tiny tiny sounds. They make curtains of sound coalesce like Northern Lights in that dark Leeds night.

Downstairs, students dressed as clowns crowd out the bar.

Back across the landing, Glissando, who everyone in Leeds knows, settle down to produce elegant music with breathtakingly awful lyrics. Maybe the Cocteau Twins knew a thing or two.

Cramming eight bands into four and a half hours was always going to be a challenge, especially as many of them are musicians. (!) But all goes tickety boo till The Boats. The Boats look to have fetched along some bloke they’ve found propping up the bar as their singer. The rest of the band’s shambolic efforts make him look a consummate professional.

The Boats spend loads of energy making little scritch-scratchy noises only to fall in bits over an unearthed lead offering all the scratchiness they could ever want – free.

If it were not for the appalling reality of the first years downstairs, you’d be tempted to say The Boats act like a load of students. Here, for sure, are men who drop their underpants on the floor at bedtime. But the sounds they make. Oh. Like a curlew over a marsh, mist over a river, autumn leaves in a dry wind are, luckily, much prettier.

Downstairs, tigers with black whiskers, (by now VERY drunk) lurch on the rolling deck of the pink marble floor.

Rather late, and with audience attrition having taken its toll, it is Rothko’s turn. It is rather nice that, in the week Rothko return up north, the Rothko exhibition kicks off at theTate. Both are simply magisterial.

At one point an unopposable wall of sound bears down and it seems succumbing to drowning might be soft as a falling into a little sleep. Mr Beazley, head Rothko honcho has a habit of expecting things of his bass most basses have not even dreamt of. And he does not take no for an answer. Unmistakable as a Rothko painting, hear one note from a bass and you can tell when Mark Beazley is playing. Chefs have signature dishes, Mark a signature touch. In a set of a mere five pieces their wine list is by turns: coarse, noisy, abrasive, rich, plummy, rotund, sharp, acidic, blackcurranty.

Vodka drinkers – schoolgirls, clowns or tigers – need not attend.

The billing Forest of Sound vs. Gizeh, implies a competitive element.

Judges, your cards please!

FOS

fall at the first hurdle, losing Winter North Atlantic NULL points

handicapped by losing ½ of Phantom Dog . . . 2 points

hit a winner with Pan Am Scan 4 points

choose an unreliable steed in The Boats 3 points

total 9 points

Gizeh

take an unimaginative option with Spokes NULL points

sign SleepingDog 3 points

play their solid card: Glissando 3 points

persuade royalty to attend: Rothko 5 points

total 11 points

*** Winners Gizeh ***

(and hence, perhaps, for want of a PC, a night is lost.)

Thanks to Wendy Cook for this review.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Summer is over; the rains of August have become the rains of September have become the rains of October. Time to put away those summer hits (ermmm… not that I can name any off hand) and look to the falling of leaves, the starting of terms and the awakening of bands, touting their own particular brand of (insert sub genre here) rock to the eager young freshers high on independence, student loans, cheap booze and random meaningless sex. Sigh. Anyway, in the resulting aftermath, the consequential break-ups will be requiring some sort of anthem, so rather than some wallowing Coldplay misery-chord, why not live it up? Enter Rod Thomas – saviour of the newly singleton.

With an opening twinkle of banjo and glockenspiel and the confessional “well I know I’m not amusing,” you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d hit the tweecore, but with a quick dash of accordion, handclaps and… girly laughs it all becomes a lot more chirpy and amiable – like a mobile phone advert, but talking about break-ups, not make ups. The fully fledged chorus, with it’s backing singers cheerfully chanting ‘bored, bored, bored’ and “it’s not you, it’s me, it’s over” combined with Rod’s Brian Molko-esque mid-atlanticish twang make for a simple but appealing refrain. If your grasping for a comparison of a happy dumping scenario, think of Dylan Moran in Black Books talking about her summer girl. Obscure, but if you track it down, you’ll see what I mean.

Along with the obligatory electro remix (Human League with emotion) there is the heavily overdubbed ‘Make Myself Desire,’ a schizophrenic piece of electrofolkery that is charming and quirky – but having a distorted theremin in the mix will do that. It’s an interesting sound space with just a smidgeon of Enya – not enough to completely balls it up – that hints at a possibility of complexity beyond acoustic pop. On the whole, if he can escape from Bluntness, he might be quite good actually.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Glasgow’s Mogwai, seminal post-rocksters and shunners of lyrics, have been responsible for more than their fair share of incidental music, so it is nice to see them return the favour and pen this tribute to the cartoon within a cartoon character from ‘Charlie and Lola’… (whispering and muttering in background followed by the loud exclamation “are you sure it’s nothing to do with that? Okay, but I’ve written it now, so it stays in.”) Ahem. Taken from the new album, ‘The Hawk Is Howling’, John Cummings song that has nothing to do with quirky Cbeebies cartoon is as dense as a new born black hole or your average BNP supporter… see if that doesn’t upset someone.

Making up the core of this five minute plus stoner epic from John Cummings is a huge barrage of fuzzed up guitars and Kyuss heavy bass – a real Brontosaurus of hardcore noise that betrays their My Bloody Valentine influences but also demonstrates an ability to wade in belligerently that most climax-rock bands lack.

Around this core flutter less heavy but still weighty riffs a la Pelican, skirting the event horizon before being sucked into the atom crushing heart. The pulse, however, is not as ponderous as you’d expect – the bpm’s are light, almost poppy, lending the track some unexpected lightness – a corona if you will. But the critical mass is inescapable and, quite frankly, inviting. Wall of sound? Hole in sound, with a melody on the edge of forever.

Popularity: 8% [?]