Baker Island - Always, 1995 (Philophobia)

There's always something about the sound of Baker Island that manages to combine the new and familiar, which I suppose is the chief reason why they stand out from the many outfits working in an indie pop idiom.  The new EP works off that premise to give us 'Always, 1995' - the triumphant final track from last year's Restless Legs album - alongside three previously unreleased tunes

 

What makes this Newcastle band a consistent delight is their ability to take a central indie pop motif into interesting new places and the three new tracks here are no exception.   The screeching, rusty nail on metal opening to 'Badly Assembled Focus Group' is the gateway into a majestic piece of guitar pop.  It's followed by the brief, chiming 'Stretch Model' before the EP's finale 'Low Cost Locust' offers a straight fist-fight between pop melody and discordant noise.  Despite that, they somehow work off a template that appears to owe very little to early JAMC or MBV while still crafting something wonderful.

 

Although it's been around for some time, it's the title track that I've chosen to feature in my Dandelion Radio show this month, purely for the reason I usually select tracks for the show: it's so good and it worries me that people might not get to hear it.  If you missed it first time around, consider it also a reminder that you should also get round to checking out Restless Legs while you're about it.

 

It's available in cassette form from Wakefield's Philophobia label, though last time I checked there weren't many of those left.  You can also download it from all the usual places, including the label's bandcamp site, where you can also find a digital copy of the album. 

Mi Mye - The Sympathy Sigh (Philophobia)

Jamie Lockhart, the creative force behind Mi Mye, possesses a lightness of touch in his songwriting that doesn't administer any rough treatment to stop you in your tracks, still less does it grab you by the balls, but that's not to say that within its delicate tapestry it isn't capable of delivering punches.  And stop you in your tracks is what The Sympathy Sigh certainly does.

The punches meted out in The Sympathy Sigh are subtly delivered but carry an emotional impact that stays in the mind long after more visceral approaches have faded into harsh memory  The narrator's static reflections in the archly titled 'I Think Everything's Going To Be Fine' reveal much about the depth you're going to find here, the final, blankly stated title loaded with potential meanings, unfulfilled yet pregnant with possibilities

There's rich variety in these possibilities.  The evocative images of 'Methadone Church' and 'All Fin' rub up against the stark realism of 'Your Handwriting', while there's something almost celebratory in the mood of 'Night City Air'.  This is an album that can peel away layers of your life to reveal the starkness of nature, while offering up perspectives that fluctuate between the troubling and the (almost) comforting.

Probably my favourite track is 'Nightswimming and the Snow', which I'm playing in my Dandelion Radio show this month.  Its lingering fade-in takes us into a narrative that verges on the spoken word as it recounts snowy scenes played out to an REM soundtrack.  Here, not buying a wide-screen TV means a reason to sit closer together.  A foot curled around the back of an ankle is the prelude to an embrace.   

All of which is emblematic of a collection that so unerringly digs beauty out of harsh reality only to reverse the process in a musical heartbeat with a deft lyrical twist.  That said, listening to The Sympathy Sigh can scarcely be called an unsettling experience: rather, its plaintive harmonies and lightly intrusive instrumental strains look set to provide a perfect counterpoint as the dark autumn nights begin to gather.

Best get hold of a copy fast then.  It's available now in vinyl, CD and download from here. 

Chloe Juliette Beswick - Seven Sewers Away (Philophobia)

 

Formerly of indie pop band Chat Noir, Chloe Juliette Beswick's debut solo release sees her opting for a stripped-down approach that imbues those indie pop sensibilities with a sub-Velvets spirit of repetition and in doing so takes them somewhere else entirely.

 

On top of it all are Beswick's gorgeously fragile vocals that sound close to falling apart on the EP's title track in a JAMC 'Cut Dead' kind of way, held together by a melody that's simply close to fracture but gloriously engaging for all that.

 

It's a spirit that's present throughout the whole EP, five tracks all of which sound close to collapsing in on themselves but whose foundations have somehow been manoeuvred into a position that keeps them standing - somehow - and in the process enables the construction of something gloriously unique.

 

Stand-out track is unquestionably 'Bust A Move', a track that holds the aforementioned edifice together for more than five minutes.  Frankly, its straining vocals and bare, repetitive strum could go on forever and you wouldn't mind.  It's one of the best things 2016 has coughed up so far and I've been playing it this month in my Dandelion Radio show.

 

You can get the release as NYOP here.  Get it and keep an ear out for more from Chloe Juliette Beswick.  I sense this is merely the start of something very interesting indeed.

WTVR - Acid Fight

 

Some years ago, I like to think my previous, now defunct blog proved (loosely speaking, anyway) that Brighton was the most fertile musical city in Britain.  Whatever the status of that claim, there's certainly been no letting up since in the quality of what comes out of there since then.

 

The latest Brighton band to make themselves known to me are WTVR, who display that modern contempt for vowels that's a common element in band naming these days, but everything else they do is very much their own and makes for one hell of a listening experience.  They've also evidently been doing it for quite some time and frankly I'm annoyed at myself for not finding out about it sooner.

 

Anyway, now's a good time to be picking up on them, because all four tracks on their recently issued Acid Fight EP are great.  Rather than take a single great concept and spread it across all the tracks, which works perfectly well for many people,  WTVR come across as one of those bands who treat their musical ideas pretty much like tissues: you can use one a second time, but the results are often far less appealing after that first good blow. 

 

The result is that the tunes here, while all very enjoyable, stand as separate and unique musical accomplishments in their own right, whether that's in the organ hook of opener 'Meatcure', the squalling moan of 'Gin Paradise 66' or the audacious Stump-like confessional that is 'Wedding Night Erection Failure'.

 

It's 'Till Jockey' I've chosen to play in my Dandelion Radio show this month, however, because it's frankly one of the best things I've heard this year.  Its wild tempo-changes and frantic declarations of minimum wage ennui ride the back of another delightful organ motif until you find yourself never looking at the guy who serves you in the local Co-Op in the same way again.

 

On the whole, as you've probably guessed by now, it's a distinctly lovable experience.  All the more lovably, you can get it as NYOP here.   

Diane Marie Kloba - Ghost in the Museum

It's been well over two and a half years since we last heard an album from Diane Marie Kloba, the excellent 'It's is All an Illusion', so inevitably news of this new collection was greeted with a keen sense of anticipation.

I certainly haven't been disappointed.  The warmth and intimacy that lay very much beneath the surface in her last album is much more prominent here.  There's an emotional honesty that gives her a clearer musical voice on Ghost in the Museum and perhaps this will bring the broader attention her music so richly deserves.

Thankfully, that's not diminished the angular quality that makes Diane such a unique artist.  'Ancient Art', the album's opener, works as a title track of sorts, enticing us into the museum and 'making you imagine what you never knew you knew'.  Which is as good a description of her music as you'll get: in Kloba's hands, ancient pre-existing musical notes are dragged into the world and twisted into new, enticing shapes.  'The answer is already in your mind' we're reminded in 'A Thousand Pretty Strings', one of the album's many highlights.

Among the tracks here are two re-workings of tunes Diane recorded in session for my Dandelion Radio show in July 2014. One of these, 'Rescued', features in my show this month.   It's significant, perhaps, that the track then was called 'Rescue': the past tense here allowing it to pick up again on the album's theme of reclamation, this time via a rush of remembered images of a perfect love glimpsed, clasped and ultimately given powerful new life via memory.

 

You don't just listen to a Diane Marie Kloba album: you live with it and absorb it. The reason there's a danger of that sounding like pretentious bollocks is that we're so familiar with artists who declare that kind of intent invariably failing to live up to their own professed vision.  Kloba makes no such claims: the music does the talking and the pointed whisper of Ghost in the Museum is the most beautiful articulation we've heard from it yet.

Get it as CD or download here. 

Nine Tons - No Frills

You may remember Duncan Lovatt from the early Ten Benson.  Now he's the guitarist and vocalist with Nine Tons, alongside Yin Mo (guitar), Dylan Wake (bass) and Mark Cliff (drums).  If you liked that early TB stuff, you'll find many of its more treasured elements here, and a lot more besides.

 

Nine Tons gave us a preview of their No Frills debut album in the autumn with the distinctly hummable 'Every Song I Know'.  It worked a treat as a taster but didn't get anywhere near to hinting at the depth of this collection.  Opener 'Listen' offers sub-Lydon accusatory snarls atop  an uncompromising barrage of guitars: you probably can hum it, but it'll probably give you a sore throat.  The tempo doesn't drop for 'Serpent Motors', but it slides effortlessly into a compelling, anthemic country chug from somewhere else entirely.

'The Boar' is a cracking slow burner, a prowling stunner that thrills while dripping its guts all over the recording.  You feel its pain but want more, much more, and it gives.    I'll be playing 'Bullpup' in my February Dandelion Radio show - another wonkily hummable gem that you think has ended the album before an unnamed instrumental 'ghost track' drifts in at the end to offer a further reminder of how much this album enjoys messing with your preconceptions.

 

All of which hopefully tells you much about the irascible charm of this collection.  Its full frontal attack never wavers, while a rambunctious spirit of unpretentious enjoyment and underlying contempt for musical boundaries hold sway throughout the whole thing.  It's an absolute joy from start to finish and already one of the best things you're going to hear in 2016. Get it here. 

 

 

 

Ramalama Codex & The Universal Unconsciousness - Looming

First release of the new year from my Unwashed Territories label is also the first from this duo, combining the very considerable talents of Mike Seed, formerly of The Chasms, and Neil Whitehead of Vert:x.  Although Looming is their debut release, keen-eared listeners to my Dandelion Radio show will recognise some of what's here as three of the seven tracks were first heard in session on my show last year.

If you caught the session, you'll know what to expect: slickly meandering psychedelic riffs rub up against Mike's distinctive vocals or just against each other, at times playfully undulating around your lugholes, such as on the eerie 'Ganymede', and at others yielding occasionally surprising rhythmic intensity, as on the new track 'The Wrong Salute'. I'm playing 'Sleeping Beauty' in my January show on Dandelion Radio, a track that isn't new to me (I played it on my show several months ago) but which has the fascinating temerity to appear so.  That's the case with the whole collection: you'll play it again and again and find astonishing things you'll swear weren't there the first time.

There have, of course, already been many fascinating spin-offs from the members of The Chasms and I understand there'll be more to come.  For me, this is the best yet and the seven tracks here have a vibrancy and eclectic resonance that suggest Ramalama Codex have enough in the tank to take us on a long and fascinating journey.  Hold onto your hats.

Get it as NYOP here.  

Origami Horses - Velvet Rock

 

I've always been a sucker for record sleeve designs that have a picture of a broken doll on the front.  Such images rarely disappoint and, given that the words on the front also include 'Origami Horses', the chances of this single failing to please instantly reduced still further.

I caught onto what was going on with this intriguing duo towards the end of last year, when their In Monochrome EP found its way into my ears and into my life.  I included them in my list of favourite new bands at the end of the year and we featured a track from them on our Unwashed Territories Into The Light compilation.  Now, their 'Velvet Rock' single is out, available from the Origami Horses bandcamp site and also via the Magnetic Eye label, who've had the solid good sense to pick up on the enticing vibes emanating from this quirky, engaging and surprisingly original outfit.

I say surprisingly because the raw materials that go into making Origami Horses are really quite traditional.  John sings and plays guitar and bass, while Matt drums.  What comes out of the other end is easily definable as a song and yet the collision of the elements therein come across like a mad boffin taking them into an illegal laboratory, dosing them with chemicals extracted from his collection of Velvet Underground, Seeds and Standells records, dusting them off against the hairs of his arse and throwing the results out of the window to reassemble themselves in any manner of semi-random and unexpected configurations.

'Velvet Rock' is no exception.   At heart it's an uncomplicated garage belter, but beneath the surface things happen that set the track well apart from other mutations of the species I've heard recently.  There's an enticingly manic quality to Matt's drumming, and as the tune proceeds John's guitar starts doing that thing where it appears to acquire a life of its own, careering off to copulate messily with the drums in some area of the stratosphere occupied only by them.

Or, if you prefer, this is an absolute stormer of a tune on which you can gorge mind and body in roughly equal degrees.  Amazingly, it comes in at under three minutes, leaving me to wonder, once again, at the strange dimensions of a rock and roll universe that can allow this timespan to cram so much into its relative brevity.  Not all bands can do this, of course, and most fail immediately or else disappear up their own arse trying to avoid their fate.  Origami Horses court neither possibility and can justifiably claim to have released the most remarkable single of its type so far this year.  Hear it in my March Dandelion Radio show this month and head over to bandcamp, or Magnetic Eye, or both, and grab a piece of it for yourself.

'Five Years' Volume One, Track 7 - Trembling Blue Stars

Trembling Blue Stars - River And Rail

Fronted by Bobby Wratten (formerly of The Field Mice and Northern Picture Library), Trembling blue Stars have continued to showcase Wratten's remarkable song-crafting talent. His eye for detail and uncompromising reflective honest - as exemplified in tracks like 'Abba On The Jukebox@, which made John Peel's festive fifty in 1996 - set Wratten's bands apart from their many contemporaries through the decades.

Trembling Blue Stars remain a favourite band of many Dandelion DJs. They contributed an acoustic session to Mark Whitby's show in the Peel Legends month of October 2009, featuring tracks later to appear on their 'Fast Trains & Telephone Wires' album.

Sadly this album appears to be their last, as the band confirmed their break-up last year. We're very grateful that they've contributed 'River And Rail', an acoustic demo from 2002, and a hitherto unreleased track, to this compilation.

(NB: apologies that this track was wrongly entitled 'Road And Rail' in early downloads of the album).

www.elefant.com/bands/trembling-blue-stars
www.myspace.com/tremblingbluestarsmyspace

Vert:x confirmed as next release on Unwashed Territories

I'm pleased to confirm that the third Unwashed Territories released will be an EP of the Dandelion Radio session recorded by Vert:x and broadcast in my November show. While you wait for that, do yourself a favour and hear more from Vert:x here. The band also have a track coming out on a forthcoming Fruits De Mer compilation. Incidentally, there are three tracks from a 'not available for sale' Fruits De Mere compilation in my January Dandelion show.

Just a reminder of other releases available at Unwashed Territories, digital copies of which you can get here:

UT-001 Beggars Belief - The Hogarths
UT-002 Perfection Is Boring - Hehfu