Jah Wobble played bass with Jonny ‘Rotten’ Lydon in P.I.L. but decided to skip out on that after they made one of the best records of the post-punk era. Jah went on to have a varied solo career in which he worked with all sorts of important people like Brian Eno and Bjork but I suppose having an amazing and in demand bass style must have its downsides as he also had to work with that scary android guy with all the hats from U2 one time and ended up working on the underground in the 80’s. As in the trains underneath London as opposed to some rebel alliance dedicated to fighting the Empire. Although if there was one of those going on he’d probably make a pretty good leader. We caught up with the self styled “cockney mystic” while he was drinking a cup of tea at house in Bethnal Green.
So the new record is out on Trojan, that must be nice, from your name I guess Reggae must be a pretty big deal for you?
Of course, that was the label we all used to check for back in the punk days, one of the first records I ever bought was a Trojan compilation. To be releasing my own work on that label is very much the fulfilment of a lifelong ambition for me. They actually approached me as well which I suppose makes it even better! I have my own label 30hz that I also put stuff out on but yeah to release on Trojan is a pretty big deal.
There are some pretty crazy stories about your P.I.L. days. I once heard that you set Karl Burns from The Fall on fire during the Metal Box sessions.
That isn’t exactly true. Basically there was a lot of craziness involved in that band as you say. During those sessions we’d pretty much all moved into this big old house and someone from the management had got this Space Invaders arcade machine in. This was the 70’s you know and everyone was still crazy over them, especially Karl he loved them. There was a lot of drugs around and I think Karl was on quite a bit of Acid and he been keeping himself up for days with all this speed and well, basically he actually though that he was in the game.
Inside the game?
Yeah, he thought he was a Space Invader. Or whatever the other things are. A spaceship. Yeah, a spaceship, cos the only way we could get near him was by moving side-to-side pretending to be Space Invaders. If we just walked up to him he’d freak out. We just couldn’t get him to snap out of this reality he’d created for himself so we set off a fire in the room. We didn’t set him on fire but there was a fire.
What happened with P.I.L. why did you sack it all off?
Well I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it was a case of four emotional cripples on four different drugs. When we went out to tour in America it got particularly bad. Everyone was always on the booze and speed but when heroin and cocaine began to creep in it all became seedy and horrible. If I was to be honest the only time I enjoyed that band was when I was in the studio creating and it was just like mates making some music. None of them creeps around. Even on stage sometimes it wasn’t too enjoyable. The other major issue was the way the money was dealt with. I’m a musician; making music is how I earn my living and wasn’t seeing a penny for what I was doing. There was always a lot of drugs around but never any money. There was this sort of kitty though we had in shoebox. A whole bunch of cash, tenners the lot all stuffed in there. The day I decided to pack it in I walked straight in the room picked up the shoebox and fucked off out of there.
Wow.
Yeah, I remember thinking it was a pretty funny idea at the time.
So how did you end up working the Northern Line in the 80’s, I read somewhere you used to get a little drunk and tell people stories over the PA?
That is definite bollocks. I’ll tell you straight: when I got that job on the underground I was so happy. I had been sober six months before I even started so I certainly wasn’t on the sauce and shouting at people. I was just sick to death of the whole music industry, it felt really good holding down a job and becoming a part of society again. I would still be there you know but they gave the wrong depot to work out of. They sent me to Hainault and I wanted Leytonstone. It was great though feeling like you were in the veins of the city.
You’ve always had an affinity with London do you have romantic notions about the power of the city?
Too right, it’s a magical mystical place, it makes me feel alive walking through it, down by the river, its wonderful. That was something I felt I shared with Blake, an ability to celebrate that around me. I didn’t really get Blake to begin with but a friend gave me a book of his and kept getting at me to read it and one day I was just sitting there and it was staring me in the face so I did. I couldn’t believe how great this guy was, a fellow mystic. So I did a record with his lyrics.
What does the future hold for Jah Wobble?
I just want to carry on making music with people I love working with. The music industry is a horrible poisonous place. I remember after I’d finished on the trains and want to get back in I was shopping my albums around to the labels and sitting in this record execs office with him basically telling me to fuck off. The record came out, did really well and this same horrible prick exec is sitting there back stage after a show telling me “oh John, I knew you’d do it”. That pretty much sums it up. I’m happy with where I’m going and the people I’m working with now.
Thanks Jah!
Take care.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
April Playlouder Reviews
‘Life Embarrasses Me On Planet Earth’
Seventeen Evergreen
Lucky Number
3/5
Seventeen Evergreen comprises the San Francisco based duo of Caleb Pate and Nephi Evans. The record appears over here on London boutique label Lucky Number that bought us Sebastian Tellier’s stunningly glacial La Ritournelle last year and announces itself with an album title that would place it comfortably in the company of the current batch of skewed US college-indie popsters such as Modest Mouse and the bands of the early 90’s such as Pavement that in turn inspired them.
Although Seventeen Evergreen share a sense of woozy melody and trebly warmth with those outfits the comparison falls short due to the pairs use of ‘cognitive computers’ and multi-instrumentalism to create organic, electronic backdrops to their wistful pop that is reminiscent of early Air or even the percussive soundscape work of The Album Leaf.
Despite tales of the band being inspired by recording wedged in-between a home for the deaf and an Alcoholic’s Anonymous centre, opening track ‘Music Is The Wine’ represents the albums most immediate track, an upbeat, open paean to the redemptive power of song that is an obvious choice for single filled with catchy, harmonised backing vocals.
‘Grays’ however forsakes straightforward verse-chorus structure and the acoustic guitar/organ led sound in favour of blissed out instrumentals while closer ‘Andromedean Dream Of An Octagon’ is a beat-less exercise in minimal tones closer to Steve Reich than The Shins.
The albums standout tracks, ‘Sufferbus’ and ‘Ensoniq’, marry these two contrasting counterpoints to great effect uniting rhythmic drumming patterns with echoed ambience and controlled but frenetic guitar solos. While vocally the Malkmus comparisons being bandied around occasionally ring true, particularly during ‘Haven’t Been Yourself’, the phrasing and delivery are at times more akin to the melody infused hooks of a John Mayer.
While this record fails to shine as either a warm Califone-esque sepia-toned pop record or as an electro-pop crossover album, such as The Field recently produced to great effect, ‘Life Embarrasses Me On Planet Earth’ beguiles in it’s own quiet way and in an environment where Modest Mouse are riding the US charts roughshod and The Shins can sell The Forum out back to back don’t be surprised if it beguiles a fair few.
CocoRosie
The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn
Touch & Go
2/5
I must be getting old. It seems like only yesterday that this slightly quirky pair of sisters tumbled into view with 2004’s ‘La Maison De Mon Reve’ and a fittingly strange back-story of separation, reunion and the rekindling of their relationship through art and music. I think Devandra Banhart might have been in there somewhere as well. This was 2004 though remember and in that balmy summer of free/wierde/whatevereyouwannacallit-folk if you didn’t have quirky back-story and a bit of Banhart you were nobody. Its now 2007 and after a fair but hardly beguiling follow up in the shape of their patchy sophomore ‘Noah’s Ark’ album Bianca and Sierra Cassidy return with their third effort.
As if sensing we were all a little bored of the whole freaky-siblings factor Bianca has grown a moustache to keep us going ‘eh?’ a little longer. However, this album can only be judged on it’s merits and frankly in the company of wonderful albums by Joanna Newsom and Marissa Nadler already released this year it has hard to find many in ‘The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn’s 40 minutes.
The elements established on the duo’s previous two albums are all present and correct: the contrasting of Sierra’s operatically trained vocal with Bianca’s more intuitive and occasionally rapped delivery, the use of hip hop elements such as a beat boxed beat, some laptopy ambience, strange animal and baby noises and the clink and chime of timpani bells all laid over harp or piano arrangements.
While opener Rainbowarriors offers a rollicking introduction the album yields little to engage on repeat listens, and while moments of beauty exist in both Werewolves and Bloody Twins the album lacks the wide-eyed of charm of their debut and it is telling that the records standout track ‘Japan’ sounds like a straight impression of Newsom. Perhaps Sierra’s been saving all her good ideas for Metallic Falcons but either way there is little to recommend here.
They needn’t worry too much about nobody buying the album though as like Vashti Bunyan and Banhart they seem happy enough to licence property to perfume adverts without too many qualms. Maybe Bianca realised that moustache wasn’t such a hot idea after all…
The Fucking Champs
VI
Drag City
4/5
The Champs have always seemed a little out of step, impossible to pigeonhole in any other category than perhaps their own definition of their sound as ‘total music’. For the uninitiated, The Fucking Champs play intense, loud, melodic, riff-led music that is so close to pastiche that it exists in some singular state of perfection. They have, for well over a decade, effortlessly distilled the essence of everything that makes the bombast of Judas Priest and Maiden a joy to listen to. It is no coincidence that a track on their 2000 album IV was cheekily entitled ‘NWOBHM part 2’.
The bands unique nature is perhaps best explained by its member’s pasts. Original guitarist Josh Smith played with legendry San Francisco cult Black Metal act Weakling whose only album ‘Dead To Dreams’ stands shoulder to shoulder with anything Norway has ever produced. While he went on to play with supreme blues-metalers Drunken Horse fellow founding guitarist Tim Green cut his teeth with the infamous Dischord agit-Hardcore outfit the Nation of Ulysses. The combination of these two duelling, bass-less guitar sounds anchored by Tim Soete’s rhythmic drumming would form the template that The Champs follow to this day: riffs build upon riffs, changing time and direction in complex patterns furiously with a constant sense of melody.
Theirs is a wonderful and immediately recognisable sound that despite Smiths departure has continued to flourish. While a lack of development could be seen as a source of criticism in other bands The Champs’ music is so exhilaratingly, grin-inducingly, fist-shakingly wonderful you cannot help but want more. VI delivers in spades. While their collaborations with fellow riff-obsessive’s Trans Am (as both The Fucking AM and Trans Champs) and even stints programming music for computer games have seen slight deviances into electronic elements it is in these periodic numerical albums, trimmed of any fat and bearing their fangs that The Champs shine brightest.
Despite the tremendous sound that issues forth from opener ‘The Lodge’ right through to closer ‘Column Of Heads’ the band greet us on the cover looking like college rock slackers as opposed to spandex clad shredders. The record is even released by Drag City, usual home to Will Oldham and other whispery folks like Ali Roberts! The Champs subvert any sense expectation with their immensely consistent and unfaltering sound. A triumph and that rarest of things: a perfect metal record that will be enjoyed by many that do not even realise that they are listening to metal at all.
Malajube
Trompe-L’oeil
City Slang
3/5
Presenting us with an album purporting to be a trick of the eye it seems unclear on listening to this fairly derivative debut exactly who these Quebecoise kids are going to fool. People over in Canada must be pretty easy to trick though as the band have had great success in their homeland peddling their melodic-pop towards 3 Juno’s (sort of the Canadian Brits) and thus triumphing where many French language acts have failed and crossing over into the English-speaking Canadian consciousness. This success in their homeland has been followed by some riotous and rapturous reports from SXSW of life-changingly wonderful live shows.
It is always hard not to listen with a sense of expectation when these early warning beacons are flashing all over the place but first impressions upon a cursory listen are of indifference that slowly grows into affection. The general sound is one of fairly grand, melody based pop. The bands use of dynamics seems limited to the quiet build that bursts into either urgent call and reply choruses in the style of Aussie outfit Architecture In Helsinki, particularly on the hectic Fille A Plumes, or, more often than not, grand Arcade Fire moments of an epic chamber-pop nature.
The Arcade Fire comparison is an obvious point of reference both geographically and in terms of sound. Win Butler personally requested their support on international dates this year and Malajube’s Gallic delivery lends itself well to the almost choral elements of big melodic choruses.
A sense of individuality or originality seems to be the main fault in a fairly adequate overall package. It would be unfair to dismiss their fare as Arcade Fire-lite as songs such Le Crabe and St Fortunat echo glorious E6 records of years past in their melodic proximity to the Apples In Stereo and most specifically Of Montreal while La Ruse brings to mind early Modest Mouse.
With a supposedly great live show and these early missives in well-rounded pop it really only remains to be seen where Malajube can go from here. Their potential is unquestionable but transcending their influences remains a stumbling block in any attempt to carve a lasting legacy worthy of their initial hype.
Seventeen Evergreen
Lucky Number
3/5
Seventeen Evergreen comprises the San Francisco based duo of Caleb Pate and Nephi Evans. The record appears over here on London boutique label Lucky Number that bought us Sebastian Tellier’s stunningly glacial La Ritournelle last year and announces itself with an album title that would place it comfortably in the company of the current batch of skewed US college-indie popsters such as Modest Mouse and the bands of the early 90’s such as Pavement that in turn inspired them.
Although Seventeen Evergreen share a sense of woozy melody and trebly warmth with those outfits the comparison falls short due to the pairs use of ‘cognitive computers’ and multi-instrumentalism to create organic, electronic backdrops to their wistful pop that is reminiscent of early Air or even the percussive soundscape work of The Album Leaf.
Despite tales of the band being inspired by recording wedged in-between a home for the deaf and an Alcoholic’s Anonymous centre, opening track ‘Music Is The Wine’ represents the albums most immediate track, an upbeat, open paean to the redemptive power of song that is an obvious choice for single filled with catchy, harmonised backing vocals.
‘Grays’ however forsakes straightforward verse-chorus structure and the acoustic guitar/organ led sound in favour of blissed out instrumentals while closer ‘Andromedean Dream Of An Octagon’ is a beat-less exercise in minimal tones closer to Steve Reich than The Shins.
The albums standout tracks, ‘Sufferbus’ and ‘Ensoniq’, marry these two contrasting counterpoints to great effect uniting rhythmic drumming patterns with echoed ambience and controlled but frenetic guitar solos. While vocally the Malkmus comparisons being bandied around occasionally ring true, particularly during ‘Haven’t Been Yourself’, the phrasing and delivery are at times more akin to the melody infused hooks of a John Mayer.
While this record fails to shine as either a warm Califone-esque sepia-toned pop record or as an electro-pop crossover album, such as The Field recently produced to great effect, ‘Life Embarrasses Me On Planet Earth’ beguiles in it’s own quiet way and in an environment where Modest Mouse are riding the US charts roughshod and The Shins can sell The Forum out back to back don’t be surprised if it beguiles a fair few.
CocoRosie
The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn
Touch & Go
2/5
I must be getting old. It seems like only yesterday that this slightly quirky pair of sisters tumbled into view with 2004’s ‘La Maison De Mon Reve’ and a fittingly strange back-story of separation, reunion and the rekindling of their relationship through art and music. I think Devandra Banhart might have been in there somewhere as well. This was 2004 though remember and in that balmy summer of free/wierde/whatevereyouwannacallit-folk if you didn’t have quirky back-story and a bit of Banhart you were nobody. Its now 2007 and after a fair but hardly beguiling follow up in the shape of their patchy sophomore ‘Noah’s Ark’ album Bianca and Sierra Cassidy return with their third effort.
As if sensing we were all a little bored of the whole freaky-siblings factor Bianca has grown a moustache to keep us going ‘eh?’ a little longer. However, this album can only be judged on it’s merits and frankly in the company of wonderful albums by Joanna Newsom and Marissa Nadler already released this year it has hard to find many in ‘The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn’s 40 minutes.
The elements established on the duo’s previous two albums are all present and correct: the contrasting of Sierra’s operatically trained vocal with Bianca’s more intuitive and occasionally rapped delivery, the use of hip hop elements such as a beat boxed beat, some laptopy ambience, strange animal and baby noises and the clink and chime of timpani bells all laid over harp or piano arrangements.
While opener Rainbowarriors offers a rollicking introduction the album yields little to engage on repeat listens, and while moments of beauty exist in both Werewolves and Bloody Twins the album lacks the wide-eyed of charm of their debut and it is telling that the records standout track ‘Japan’ sounds like a straight impression of Newsom. Perhaps Sierra’s been saving all her good ideas for Metallic Falcons but either way there is little to recommend here.
They needn’t worry too much about nobody buying the album though as like Vashti Bunyan and Banhart they seem happy enough to licence property to perfume adverts without too many qualms. Maybe Bianca realised that moustache wasn’t such a hot idea after all…
The Fucking Champs
VI
Drag City
4/5
The Champs have always seemed a little out of step, impossible to pigeonhole in any other category than perhaps their own definition of their sound as ‘total music’. For the uninitiated, The Fucking Champs play intense, loud, melodic, riff-led music that is so close to pastiche that it exists in some singular state of perfection. They have, for well over a decade, effortlessly distilled the essence of everything that makes the bombast of Judas Priest and Maiden a joy to listen to. It is no coincidence that a track on their 2000 album IV was cheekily entitled ‘NWOBHM part 2’.
The bands unique nature is perhaps best explained by its member’s pasts. Original guitarist Josh Smith played with legendry San Francisco cult Black Metal act Weakling whose only album ‘Dead To Dreams’ stands shoulder to shoulder with anything Norway has ever produced. While he went on to play with supreme blues-metalers Drunken Horse fellow founding guitarist Tim Green cut his teeth with the infamous Dischord agit-Hardcore outfit the Nation of Ulysses. The combination of these two duelling, bass-less guitar sounds anchored by Tim Soete’s rhythmic drumming would form the template that The Champs follow to this day: riffs build upon riffs, changing time and direction in complex patterns furiously with a constant sense of melody.
Theirs is a wonderful and immediately recognisable sound that despite Smiths departure has continued to flourish. While a lack of development could be seen as a source of criticism in other bands The Champs’ music is so exhilaratingly, grin-inducingly, fist-shakingly wonderful you cannot help but want more. VI delivers in spades. While their collaborations with fellow riff-obsessive’s Trans Am (as both The Fucking AM and Trans Champs) and even stints programming music for computer games have seen slight deviances into electronic elements it is in these periodic numerical albums, trimmed of any fat and bearing their fangs that The Champs shine brightest.
Despite the tremendous sound that issues forth from opener ‘The Lodge’ right through to closer ‘Column Of Heads’ the band greet us on the cover looking like college rock slackers as opposed to spandex clad shredders. The record is even released by Drag City, usual home to Will Oldham and other whispery folks like Ali Roberts! The Champs subvert any sense expectation with their immensely consistent and unfaltering sound. A triumph and that rarest of things: a perfect metal record that will be enjoyed by many that do not even realise that they are listening to metal at all.
Malajube
Trompe-L’oeil
City Slang
3/5
Presenting us with an album purporting to be a trick of the eye it seems unclear on listening to this fairly derivative debut exactly who these Quebecoise kids are going to fool. People over in Canada must be pretty easy to trick though as the band have had great success in their homeland peddling their melodic-pop towards 3 Juno’s (sort of the Canadian Brits) and thus triumphing where many French language acts have failed and crossing over into the English-speaking Canadian consciousness. This success in their homeland has been followed by some riotous and rapturous reports from SXSW of life-changingly wonderful live shows.
It is always hard not to listen with a sense of expectation when these early warning beacons are flashing all over the place but first impressions upon a cursory listen are of indifference that slowly grows into affection. The general sound is one of fairly grand, melody based pop. The bands use of dynamics seems limited to the quiet build that bursts into either urgent call and reply choruses in the style of Aussie outfit Architecture In Helsinki, particularly on the hectic Fille A Plumes, or, more often than not, grand Arcade Fire moments of an epic chamber-pop nature.
The Arcade Fire comparison is an obvious point of reference both geographically and in terms of sound. Win Butler personally requested their support on international dates this year and Malajube’s Gallic delivery lends itself well to the almost choral elements of big melodic choruses.
A sense of individuality or originality seems to be the main fault in a fairly adequate overall package. It would be unfair to dismiss their fare as Arcade Fire-lite as songs such Le Crabe and St Fortunat echo glorious E6 records of years past in their melodic proximity to the Apples In Stereo and most specifically Of Montreal while La Ruse brings to mind early Modest Mouse.
With a supposedly great live show and these early missives in well-rounded pop it really only remains to be seen where Malajube can go from here. Their potential is unquestionable but transcending their influences remains a stumbling block in any attempt to carve a lasting legacy worthy of their initial hype.
April Vice Reviews
Battletorn
Terminal Dawn
Mad At The World Records
9 We featured Omid from Battletorn waaaay back in the Obsessions Issue as he owns the largest collection of Runaways memorabilia in the world. He also plays in the best Thrash-Punk band in the world. 16 songs in 12 minutes that sound like Hellhammer, Dropdead and DRI raping each other. Essential.
Lovvers
A Good Book EP
Johnson Family Records
8 The Murder Of Rosa Luxemburg should have been like an English version of the Blood Bothers but a million and one time better. Shame they split. Here is Shaun who used to scream with the Murder Of playing puerile spazzed out punk that hits all the right notes. Like Antioch Arrow on bad drugs. The sleeve has a nice painting of horses on it.
Dungen
Tio Bitar
Subliminal Sounds
5 Like Les Claypool guesting with Phish but with annoying whispered vocals that you won't understand. Unless you are Swedish. It's pretty much like the last one except they've gone all Joanna Newsom on the breakdowns.
Kicks Like A Mule
Gravity’s Rainbow
Me & My Brother Records
7 In some weird zeitgeist inverting twist of fate the debut release from this chic new London micro-venture is rave-pensioners in hiding Kicks Like A Mule covering the Klaxons only real out and out dance number. KLAM haven’t touched a studio in about half a century and it shows but its still good fun and will no doubt get battered to death everywhere as of right now.
Simian Mobile Disco
Attack Decay Sustain Release
Wichita
6 This is OK in a middle of the road electro-house kind of way and everything but I thought these guys were meant to be like Paul Epworth version 2.007? All the kids are going be mighty bummed when they buy this CD and discover an attempt to make a ‘serious’ dance record without a ‘We Are Your Friends’ in sight. Where are the hits? Way to lie to us all guys…
V/A (Mixed by G-Ha and Olanski)
Sunkissed
Smalltown Supersound
9 Coming on the label that bought us last years pretty much perfect Lindstrom solo collection is this exquisite mix by two Scando jocks who are probably old enough to know better. It showcases the spectrum of Norwegian dance from Rune Lindeback through to his cosmic heirs via remixes of spaced out rocker guys like Sareena Maneesh. Imagine Optimo but in Norway. There you go.
Malajube
Trompe-L’Oeil
City Slang
6 Why do people wet themselves about bands like this just ‘cos they are from Canada? These guys even sing in French so they are really playing the race card for all it’s worth. Good thing really because their self-conscious bash at quirky, melodic pop falls far short of Of Montreal or pretty much any E6 band ever.
Coley Park
Rhinoceros
Big Potato Records
7 Sometimes when you are having a bad day and you hear something a little nice it will pick you right up even if it isn’t really all that great in the same way that if you do shitty ecstasy all night a pretty average pill will have you fisting the roof. This is a pretty average album but compared to some of the shite it’s swimming with at the moment it’s like a nugget of gold amongst the Monday morning diahorrea.
Black Helicopter
Invisible Jet
Ecstatic Peace
8 When the first chords of this rang out I almost came in my pants cos it sounded just like the beginning of Green Machine by Kyuss. This record is not as good as that warped, fuzzed-out behemoth of desert perfection but it isn’t a million miles away either.
Asobi Seksu
Walk On The Moon
One Little Indian (single)
5 Like a crap Cure song but with a girl singing instead of a creepy overweight old guy in badly applied make up. They are probably going for some sort of emotive MBV thing but this will probably end up as muzak in a credit card ad as opposed to changing anyone’s life.
Plastic Operator
Different Places
Fine Day Records
7 Some Belgium guy and a kid from Canada form like Voltron to produce one of those insanely catchy laptop-pop affairs that is already selling Coke and replacing the Postal Service in your girlfiends I-Pod.
Viva Voce
Viva Voce Loves You
Full Time Hobby
5 What’s with all this love and happiness and sunshine coming out of bunnies asses pop at the moment? I just don’t buy it that all these earnest American indie types are happy all the time. Maybe they are happy because they are selling so many records. In a world where Modest Mouse are shitting all over the Billboard chart and Jonny fucking Marr has started playing guitar for them shit like this is a pretty safe bet I suppose.
Holy Hail
Born Of A Star/I Owe
ACTH Records
6 Competent, bleepy, synth-led indie-electro sort of thing. You know. The original is sort of amusing cos the singer chick sounds a bit like a female Scatman John. Seriously, give it a listen. The Shir Khan and Bonde Do Rlole remixes are both a lot more fun than the original and will make people dance. Probably.
Battles
Mirrored
Warp
8 Not as clever as it thinks it is but a pretty amazing rock record nonetheless. John Stanier still drums like Desperate Dan on heat while, skinny, speccy dudes make confusing loops and delayed, syncopated rhythmic patterns pop up all over the place around him. Warp weren’t wrong signing these guys up.
Terminal Dawn
Mad At The World Records
9 We featured Omid from Battletorn waaaay back in the Obsessions Issue as he owns the largest collection of Runaways memorabilia in the world. He also plays in the best Thrash-Punk band in the world. 16 songs in 12 minutes that sound like Hellhammer, Dropdead and DRI raping each other. Essential.
Lovvers
A Good Book EP
Johnson Family Records
8 The Murder Of Rosa Luxemburg should have been like an English version of the Blood Bothers but a million and one time better. Shame they split. Here is Shaun who used to scream with the Murder Of playing puerile spazzed out punk that hits all the right notes. Like Antioch Arrow on bad drugs. The sleeve has a nice painting of horses on it.
Dungen
Tio Bitar
Subliminal Sounds
5 Like Les Claypool guesting with Phish but with annoying whispered vocals that you won't understand. Unless you are Swedish. It's pretty much like the last one except they've gone all Joanna Newsom on the breakdowns.
Kicks Like A Mule
Gravity’s Rainbow
Me & My Brother Records
7 In some weird zeitgeist inverting twist of fate the debut release from this chic new London micro-venture is rave-pensioners in hiding Kicks Like A Mule covering the Klaxons only real out and out dance number. KLAM haven’t touched a studio in about half a century and it shows but its still good fun and will no doubt get battered to death everywhere as of right now.
Simian Mobile Disco
Attack Decay Sustain Release
Wichita
6 This is OK in a middle of the road electro-house kind of way and everything but I thought these guys were meant to be like Paul Epworth version 2.007? All the kids are going be mighty bummed when they buy this CD and discover an attempt to make a ‘serious’ dance record without a ‘We Are Your Friends’ in sight. Where are the hits? Way to lie to us all guys…
V/A (Mixed by G-Ha and Olanski)
Sunkissed
Smalltown Supersound
9 Coming on the label that bought us last years pretty much perfect Lindstrom solo collection is this exquisite mix by two Scando jocks who are probably old enough to know better. It showcases the spectrum of Norwegian dance from Rune Lindeback through to his cosmic heirs via remixes of spaced out rocker guys like Sareena Maneesh. Imagine Optimo but in Norway. There you go.
Malajube
Trompe-L’Oeil
City Slang
6 Why do people wet themselves about bands like this just ‘cos they are from Canada? These guys even sing in French so they are really playing the race card for all it’s worth. Good thing really because their self-conscious bash at quirky, melodic pop falls far short of Of Montreal or pretty much any E6 band ever.
Coley Park
Rhinoceros
Big Potato Records
7 Sometimes when you are having a bad day and you hear something a little nice it will pick you right up even if it isn’t really all that great in the same way that if you do shitty ecstasy all night a pretty average pill will have you fisting the roof. This is a pretty average album but compared to some of the shite it’s swimming with at the moment it’s like a nugget of gold amongst the Monday morning diahorrea.
Black Helicopter
Invisible Jet
Ecstatic Peace
8 When the first chords of this rang out I almost came in my pants cos it sounded just like the beginning of Green Machine by Kyuss. This record is not as good as that warped, fuzzed-out behemoth of desert perfection but it isn’t a million miles away either.
Asobi Seksu
Walk On The Moon
One Little Indian (single)
5 Like a crap Cure song but with a girl singing instead of a creepy overweight old guy in badly applied make up. They are probably going for some sort of emotive MBV thing but this will probably end up as muzak in a credit card ad as opposed to changing anyone’s life.
Plastic Operator
Different Places
Fine Day Records
7 Some Belgium guy and a kid from Canada form like Voltron to produce one of those insanely catchy laptop-pop affairs that is already selling Coke and replacing the Postal Service in your girlfiends I-Pod.
Viva Voce
Viva Voce Loves You
Full Time Hobby
5 What’s with all this love and happiness and sunshine coming out of bunnies asses pop at the moment? I just don’t buy it that all these earnest American indie types are happy all the time. Maybe they are happy because they are selling so many records. In a world where Modest Mouse are shitting all over the Billboard chart and Jonny fucking Marr has started playing guitar for them shit like this is a pretty safe bet I suppose.
Holy Hail
Born Of A Star/I Owe
ACTH Records
6 Competent, bleepy, synth-led indie-electro sort of thing. You know. The original is sort of amusing cos the singer chick sounds a bit like a female Scatman John. Seriously, give it a listen. The Shir Khan and Bonde Do Rlole remixes are both a lot more fun than the original and will make people dance. Probably.
Battles
Mirrored
Warp
8 Not as clever as it thinks it is but a pretty amazing rock record nonetheless. John Stanier still drums like Desperate Dan on heat while, skinny, speccy dudes make confusing loops and delayed, syncopated rhythmic patterns pop up all over the place around him. Warp weren’t wrong signing these guys up.
Thursday, 22 March 2007
Battles Live Review
Battles
The Purcell Rooms
12/03/07
It is not every day that a progressive math-core band sign to a gold-standard UK dance stable or headline a night at the furrow-browed, chin-stroking Ether Festival on London’s South Bank but hey, Battles aint just any prog/math/loop-core act. ‘Mirrored’ their latest record for Warp builds on last year’s collection of their early EP’s and finds a unique band comfortable in their singular skin and able to distort and fracture their sound in new and unexpected directions.
While the album can initially perplex and confuse with it’s excursions into looped soundscapes, to see Battles in the live arena is to truly witness the coherent sum of their vision. While John Stanier’s almost unbelievably tight precession remains both an anchoring counterpoint and driving rhythmic force it allows Tyondai Braxton, Ian Williams and David Konopka to spin webs and loops of sound almost at will from the mammoth bank of instruments and equipment that surround the spartan drum kit centre stage.
Having practically invented math-rock’s syncopated repetition in Don Caballero Williams builds riffs and keyboard patterns simultaneously that Konopka builds on with guitar or bass as Braxton plays out refined versions of the ‘orchestrated loops’ that feature prominently in his solo work either on guitar or organ and occasionally utilising the modified vocals that characterise the new albums lead off single Atlas that is rendered in terrifying fashion tonight at the heart of an extremely impressive set.
Jumping straight into new recording Tijj it is apparent from the outset how much these four guys from New York are enjoying playing this new material. The infectious energy that spills off stage is channelled into both the new songs and into interesting re-interpretations of earlier work such as their debut single Tras and while the core of the set is comprised of selections from the new record (no B+T from EP C alas) such as the aforementioned Atlas as well as Tonto and the frantic Race:In the addition of the warped and frankly smurf-like vocals adds another layer of unifying to sound the heady brew throughout and by the time closing number Dance draws to its conclusion a theatre that is usually reserved for considered performance art is on it’s feet applauding a great live spectacle. For a band that spend so long precisely crafting sound in the studio the stage seems to give Battles the energy to re-interpret their work into it’s most potent form. They are back in May; in this form miss them at your peril.
The Purcell Rooms
12/03/07
It is not every day that a progressive math-core band sign to a gold-standard UK dance stable or headline a night at the furrow-browed, chin-stroking Ether Festival on London’s South Bank but hey, Battles aint just any prog/math/loop-core act. ‘Mirrored’ their latest record for Warp builds on last year’s collection of their early EP’s and finds a unique band comfortable in their singular skin and able to distort and fracture their sound in new and unexpected directions.
While the album can initially perplex and confuse with it’s excursions into looped soundscapes, to see Battles in the live arena is to truly witness the coherent sum of their vision. While John Stanier’s almost unbelievably tight precession remains both an anchoring counterpoint and driving rhythmic force it allows Tyondai Braxton, Ian Williams and David Konopka to spin webs and loops of sound almost at will from the mammoth bank of instruments and equipment that surround the spartan drum kit centre stage.
Having practically invented math-rock’s syncopated repetition in Don Caballero Williams builds riffs and keyboard patterns simultaneously that Konopka builds on with guitar or bass as Braxton plays out refined versions of the ‘orchestrated loops’ that feature prominently in his solo work either on guitar or organ and occasionally utilising the modified vocals that characterise the new albums lead off single Atlas that is rendered in terrifying fashion tonight at the heart of an extremely impressive set.
Jumping straight into new recording Tijj it is apparent from the outset how much these four guys from New York are enjoying playing this new material. The infectious energy that spills off stage is channelled into both the new songs and into interesting re-interpretations of earlier work such as their debut single Tras and while the core of the set is comprised of selections from the new record (no B+T from EP C alas) such as the aforementioned Atlas as well as Tonto and the frantic Race:In the addition of the warped and frankly smurf-like vocals adds another layer of unifying to sound the heady brew throughout and by the time closing number Dance draws to its conclusion a theatre that is usually reserved for considered performance art is on it’s feet applauding a great live spectacle. For a band that spend so long precisely crafting sound in the studio the stage seems to give Battles the energy to re-interpret their work into it’s most potent form. They are back in May; in this form miss them at your peril.
Monday, 19 March 2007
March Reviews
The Lodger
Kicking Sand/Centuries
Angular Recordings Single
4 Ugh. Proof that the supposedly ‘spot-on’ London micro-indie A&R’s get it seriously wrong sometimes. These two sound like some forgotten Ocean Colour Scene B Sides: boring, banal jangle indie about drinking pints and other shit I can’t believe that I just spent 5 minutes listening to. They can carry on kicking sand with The Basement downstairs in the Buffalo Bar forever for all I care.
Tiger Force
A Wasp In A Jar
Marquis Cha Cha
7 Who’d of thought a year ago that ‘post-Testicicles’ would be a term you could legitimately bandy round? These guys check all the boxes: funny coloured guitars, falling apart bits, screamy multi-tracked vocals, and hell they’ve even worked with Lethal B. I would bet a hefty wedge that their live show is ‘chaotic’. I wonder what all these bands would do if we made them sit in a room and listen to the Three One G and Skingraft back catalogues? Might be a bit cruel to make ‘em realise that a bunch of spoilt yanks did all this almost a decade ago.
Chinese Stars
Listen To Your Left Brain
Three One G
6 And almost on queue this pops up! I actually preferred listening to the Tiger Force thing as these dudes have basically been plying the same vein from Six Finger Satellite through Arab on Radar and onwards. You know the deal by now: funky Make Up style bass-lines, guitars that seemingly bear no relation to each other and anguished lyrics about things that make no sense at all unless you live in a warehouse in Providence and dedicate your life to like ‘art man’. The first EP that was shaped like a shuroken star is still the best thing they’ve done.
Kit
Broken Voyage
Upset The Rhythm
8 This sounds like the good bits of Deerhoof condensed down into 60 seconds then sped up from 33 to 45 rpm. Off the wall spazz attacks that somehow retain a demented sense of melody and structure. This is what I imagine the soundtrack to that new Magic Roundabout film should be. It probably won’t but you know, dare to dream.
Hey Colossus
Project: Death
Johnson Family
9 The problem with so much ‘heavy’ shit now is that really it is a load of bed-wetting hipster fags pretending to be something that they’re not. Witness the rise of bands like The Sword. These guys are from London and are balding and wear glasses and they wouldn’t really know what a hipster looked like so they’ve been able to craft behemoth sized riffs in a merry, maniacal vortex for a good few years now that consistently destroy audiences indiscriminately. Shit, if it didn’t sound like Thor shitting thunderbolts the title wouldn’t really fit and this sounds like Fudge Tunnel raping Kyuss so all good anyhow. One of the most overlooked UK acts out there, ‘I am the Chiswick Strangler’ is worth admission alone. Great artwork too dudes.
The Fucking Champs
VI
Drag City
9 The Champs have basically made one record several times. The thing is that it is one of the most amazing, fist in the air, shit-eating-grin inducing records ever cut. Mathy, precise, riffing metal that gets away with being ‘arty’ cos it kicks so much ass. It’s like a whole record of that bit in the solo of Reign in Blood where the guitar goes ‘whoooop, duh, duh, duh, duh’. Never mind. If it aint broke don’t fix it.
Less Self Is More:
A Benefit Compilation For Tarantula Hill
Ecstatic Peace!
10 OK so if you don’t know what Tarantula Hill was and you pretend you are into Noise you are a liar. For all you liars out there and people that plain don’t give a shit here’s the breakdown: TA was pretty much the original East Coast freaky hang out spot for all the various art collectives and noise units that passed through Baltimore and was lived in by the guys from Nautical Almanac, Nate Young’s pre-Wolf Eyes outfit. While they were out playing No Fun last year the space burnt down destroying their studio, archives and a space integral in the creation of the scene, as it is known today. Buy this comprehensive doubled CD to help some dudes out or simply to have a compendium of every important noise artist in your i-pod at once. Either way you win.
No Neck Blues Band
Nine For Victor
Victo
9 The whole freak-folk thing is dead. Get over it. Banhart and Vashti Bunyan are licensing properties to advertisers quicker than Moby can bend over and beg for it. However there are some guys out there like the NNK cats that are so weird that if their music was put out on TV it would probably cause mass epilepsy. In fact they’d probably like that. Fuck knows what’s going on in these nine songs recorded live a couple of years back but there is a bit ‘Brain Soaked Hide’ that rages harder than Comets at their best and rather than sing about ‘mocking birds’ they are all more likely to get naked on stage and bleed on each other while wearing buckets on their heads like the Knights who say: Ni.
Ben Frost
Theory Of Machines
Bedroom Community
9 I would have given this top marks if it weren’t for the totally unnecessary ‘interpretive’ liner notes. The music contained on this disc is a stone cold 10. It marries ambient-Aphex swathes of warmth and static with the compositional complexity of Arvo Part and the sonic nothingness of the New Blockaders or their heirs apparent Wolf Eyes and somehow manages to make all of these disparate elements work perfectly, complementing rather than distracting from each other. Yes, it is that good. I have listened to it almost every day since I got it and any album with a track entitled ‘I Love You Michael Gira’ should probably be owned by everyone, everywhere immediately. This is music even the grumpy old Swans dude himself might enjoy. Brilliant.
Dubstep Allstars Vol 5
Mixed by DJ N-Type
Tempa
8 Ok, so if you are the sort person who goes to FWD every week and listens to Rinse all the time you will know the vast majority of these but for everyone else these compilations from Tempa remain the Gold Standard in terms of marking points in the evolution of Dubstep. Compared to Youngstas Vol 2 which defined the halfstep era in 2005 in a mere 13 tracks this mix brims with the myriad directions the genre has taken since then. From b-line wobblers to vocal anthems to clipped minimalism somehow everyone’s favourite excitable baldy has managed to fit in 38 tracks mixed swiftly in the manner of one of his show stopping party sets that made him last years DJ of the year. If you still don’t know about dubstep buy this now and start pretending.
Rush In Rio
Anthem DVD
10 There are some bands that are so good you just can’t deny it. Fleetwood Mac, Gabriel era Genesis, it doesn’t matter that your dad likes them, you see these are examples of artists who stumbled past good and bad and into genius whether you like it or not so quit worrying whether people notice that you have Tusk or The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in your CD collection and just accept that they rule. Rush are very much one of these bands and this DVD is like a living breathing testament to the fact. Watch in awe as Geddy, Neil and Alex play to approximately 60 billion people in one of those megadomes that only the South Americans can fill and play communist allegories about trees and mutant space operas abut Viking Vallhalas and thank whatever weird Canadian God of rock decided to allow this band to exist. Thirty masterly missives that take you Closer To The Heart,
Jandek On Corwood
Unicorn Stencil DVD
7 When Jandek appeared unannounced at the 2004 Instal festival it was sort of like the second coming of Christ for the sort of people that read the Wire and think Stockhausen is a little too accessible. Although this isn’t exactly Newlyweds in terms of access it does give a valuable insight into one of the few true enigmas of the last thirty years of popular music. With over 35 self-released albums on his own Corwood label Jandek has maintained a Fahey-esque elusiveness that has cemented his legend far beyond his output in outsider circles. This recent DVD and a handful of live shows maybe indicate he’s become a little worried that he’ll be left a pedants footnote but even a cursory listen to the soundtrack of this weird old dudes days should convince you he’s worth a little effort.
Kicking Sand/Centuries
Angular Recordings Single
4 Ugh. Proof that the supposedly ‘spot-on’ London micro-indie A&R’s get it seriously wrong sometimes. These two sound like some forgotten Ocean Colour Scene B Sides: boring, banal jangle indie about drinking pints and other shit I can’t believe that I just spent 5 minutes listening to. They can carry on kicking sand with The Basement downstairs in the Buffalo Bar forever for all I care.
Tiger Force
A Wasp In A Jar
Marquis Cha Cha
7 Who’d of thought a year ago that ‘post-Testicicles’ would be a term you could legitimately bandy round? These guys check all the boxes: funny coloured guitars, falling apart bits, screamy multi-tracked vocals, and hell they’ve even worked with Lethal B. I would bet a hefty wedge that their live show is ‘chaotic’. I wonder what all these bands would do if we made them sit in a room and listen to the Three One G and Skingraft back catalogues? Might be a bit cruel to make ‘em realise that a bunch of spoilt yanks did all this almost a decade ago.
Chinese Stars
Listen To Your Left Brain
Three One G
6 And almost on queue this pops up! I actually preferred listening to the Tiger Force thing as these dudes have basically been plying the same vein from Six Finger Satellite through Arab on Radar and onwards. You know the deal by now: funky Make Up style bass-lines, guitars that seemingly bear no relation to each other and anguished lyrics about things that make no sense at all unless you live in a warehouse in Providence and dedicate your life to like ‘art man’. The first EP that was shaped like a shuroken star is still the best thing they’ve done.
Kit
Broken Voyage
Upset The Rhythm
8 This sounds like the good bits of Deerhoof condensed down into 60 seconds then sped up from 33 to 45 rpm. Off the wall spazz attacks that somehow retain a demented sense of melody and structure. This is what I imagine the soundtrack to that new Magic Roundabout film should be. It probably won’t but you know, dare to dream.
Hey Colossus
Project: Death
Johnson Family
9 The problem with so much ‘heavy’ shit now is that really it is a load of bed-wetting hipster fags pretending to be something that they’re not. Witness the rise of bands like The Sword. These guys are from London and are balding and wear glasses and they wouldn’t really know what a hipster looked like so they’ve been able to craft behemoth sized riffs in a merry, maniacal vortex for a good few years now that consistently destroy audiences indiscriminately. Shit, if it didn’t sound like Thor shitting thunderbolts the title wouldn’t really fit and this sounds like Fudge Tunnel raping Kyuss so all good anyhow. One of the most overlooked UK acts out there, ‘I am the Chiswick Strangler’ is worth admission alone. Great artwork too dudes.
The Fucking Champs
VI
Drag City
9 The Champs have basically made one record several times. The thing is that it is one of the most amazing, fist in the air, shit-eating-grin inducing records ever cut. Mathy, precise, riffing metal that gets away with being ‘arty’ cos it kicks so much ass. It’s like a whole record of that bit in the solo of Reign in Blood where the guitar goes ‘whoooop, duh, duh, duh, duh’. Never mind. If it aint broke don’t fix it.
Less Self Is More:
A Benefit Compilation For Tarantula Hill
Ecstatic Peace!
10 OK so if you don’t know what Tarantula Hill was and you pretend you are into Noise you are a liar. For all you liars out there and people that plain don’t give a shit here’s the breakdown: TA was pretty much the original East Coast freaky hang out spot for all the various art collectives and noise units that passed through Baltimore and was lived in by the guys from Nautical Almanac, Nate Young’s pre-Wolf Eyes outfit. While they were out playing No Fun last year the space burnt down destroying their studio, archives and a space integral in the creation of the scene, as it is known today. Buy this comprehensive doubled CD to help some dudes out or simply to have a compendium of every important noise artist in your i-pod at once. Either way you win.
No Neck Blues Band
Nine For Victor
Victo
9 The whole freak-folk thing is dead. Get over it. Banhart and Vashti Bunyan are licensing properties to advertisers quicker than Moby can bend over and beg for it. However there are some guys out there like the NNK cats that are so weird that if their music was put out on TV it would probably cause mass epilepsy. In fact they’d probably like that. Fuck knows what’s going on in these nine songs recorded live a couple of years back but there is a bit ‘Brain Soaked Hide’ that rages harder than Comets at their best and rather than sing about ‘mocking birds’ they are all more likely to get naked on stage and bleed on each other while wearing buckets on their heads like the Knights who say: Ni.
Ben Frost
Theory Of Machines
Bedroom Community
9 I would have given this top marks if it weren’t for the totally unnecessary ‘interpretive’ liner notes. The music contained on this disc is a stone cold 10. It marries ambient-Aphex swathes of warmth and static with the compositional complexity of Arvo Part and the sonic nothingness of the New Blockaders or their heirs apparent Wolf Eyes and somehow manages to make all of these disparate elements work perfectly, complementing rather than distracting from each other. Yes, it is that good. I have listened to it almost every day since I got it and any album with a track entitled ‘I Love You Michael Gira’ should probably be owned by everyone, everywhere immediately. This is music even the grumpy old Swans dude himself might enjoy. Brilliant.
Dubstep Allstars Vol 5
Mixed by DJ N-Type
Tempa
8 Ok, so if you are the sort person who goes to FWD every week and listens to Rinse all the time you will know the vast majority of these but for everyone else these compilations from Tempa remain the Gold Standard in terms of marking points in the evolution of Dubstep. Compared to Youngstas Vol 2 which defined the halfstep era in 2005 in a mere 13 tracks this mix brims with the myriad directions the genre has taken since then. From b-line wobblers to vocal anthems to clipped minimalism somehow everyone’s favourite excitable baldy has managed to fit in 38 tracks mixed swiftly in the manner of one of his show stopping party sets that made him last years DJ of the year. If you still don’t know about dubstep buy this now and start pretending.
Rush In Rio
Anthem DVD
10 There are some bands that are so good you just can’t deny it. Fleetwood Mac, Gabriel era Genesis, it doesn’t matter that your dad likes them, you see these are examples of artists who stumbled past good and bad and into genius whether you like it or not so quit worrying whether people notice that you have Tusk or The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in your CD collection and just accept that they rule. Rush are very much one of these bands and this DVD is like a living breathing testament to the fact. Watch in awe as Geddy, Neil and Alex play to approximately 60 billion people in one of those megadomes that only the South Americans can fill and play communist allegories about trees and mutant space operas abut Viking Vallhalas and thank whatever weird Canadian God of rock decided to allow this band to exist. Thirty masterly missives that take you Closer To The Heart,
Jandek On Corwood
Unicorn Stencil DVD
7 When Jandek appeared unannounced at the 2004 Instal festival it was sort of like the second coming of Christ for the sort of people that read the Wire and think Stockhausen is a little too accessible. Although this isn’t exactly Newlyweds in terms of access it does give a valuable insight into one of the few true enigmas of the last thirty years of popular music. With over 35 self-released albums on his own Corwood label Jandek has maintained a Fahey-esque elusiveness that has cemented his legend far beyond his output in outsider circles. This recent DVD and a handful of live shows maybe indicate he’s become a little worried that he’ll be left a pedants footnote but even a cursory listen to the soundtrack of this weird old dudes days should convince you he’s worth a little effort.
Sunday, 11 March 2007
Battles Interview
Here's an interview I did with Battles, John Stanier used to play in Jehovahs Sickness and Helmet and Ian Williams used to play in Don Caballero and Storm & Stress so it was a pretty big deal for me.
You’ve all played in pretty influential bands prior to playing in Battles, has that affected your approach to Battles or have you come to it with a completely fresh approach?
John: With me, the only way that it has come to play in Battles is that I played for a really long time in Helmet, for ten years. But that’s it, playing in that band for ten years obviously caused me to develop a style but from day one of Battles the whole purpose was to do something that none of us had done before. I’d say for the most part our previous bands have little effect apart from maybe a technique.
Ian: Totally. Also, different ideas turn you on 10 years ago. Don Cab and Storm & Stress were fun at those points in time but it’s good to set yourself up in new situations musically. It keeps it fresh and it keeps it honest.
Tyondai: For me there was a real desire to get beyond my past, to create a new sound with new ideas. In a way reacting against what I’ve done before. In Battles, I’m way more interested with ideas of solidified, cohesive song structures. You can never escape yourself completely but you always want to evolve and all of us have come into it with that exploratory philosophy both as individuals and as a collective. My Dad [legendry avant-garde composer Anthony Braxton] obviously had an influence on me but mainly in terms of inspiring me just to be fearless in my approach and work like hell.
How did you guys all meet up?
Tyondai: I’m originally from Connecticut but I met Ian when we were both living in New York and we played around loosely at first for about a year getting used to each other then we met Dave and the idea of it formally becoming a band appeared on the horizon but it was really when John came along that it became clear that we really had something and that was at the end of 2003.
Was there any reason why your initial releases were singles and EP’s only?
John: The honest answer is that the band was beginning to gel and sound like a band so we wanted to tour but we had to have something to tour with so we did Tras the single and two EP’s but they were all actually recorded at the same session. They were released really early on and we had a period of two years of touring and playing together working stuff out as we went along.
Tyondai: All those early releases though were really documents of us struggling to find our sound. There has never been an end goal as in: at the end of the road we want to sound like this or that. The question mark has always been the journey and the EP’s kinda charted that, the new record is us playing around with the sounds established on the EP’s; a more refined version of that early sound.
Is there any reason why you went for Warp Records over here in the UK which is more commonly associated with dance music?
John: Weirdly I think they parallel our growth, that attempt to diversify there sound is sort of the same path we’re on, it just made sense from the get go.
Dave: It was cool, they were looking not to be pigeonholed and that was exactly the same thing we were looking for, we’re both evolving in tandem.
How did you hook up with DJ Koze for the remix on the new single?
John: My girlfriend lives in Cologne so I just bumped into him over there, we were mixing the album and it was actually all just done over the phone but it worked out really well I think.
There seem to be a lot more vocals on the new record, what’s up with that?
Tyondai: I know from the outset that this band has been viewed as an ‘instrumental’ outfit but internally we never saw it that way, it made sense on the EP’s to be more reserved in a way as we were still trying to sculpt our sound, there are vocals on there but on the new record I thought it would be cool to introduce that element more heavily and play with the stereotypical vocal structure. Take it on in a Battles mode.
Do you think you’d ever write a pop song?
Dave: I thought we already had!
John: I don’t think that this band will ever on purpose be that direct in terms of a focus prior to writing something. If that happens it would happen naturally, we don’t write in such a pre-meditated fashion.
Ian: We are only really shooting for the same thing anyone is shooting for from the Flaming Lips to whoever, just to write a good song. Something like Stockhausen can be like pop to me, just the catchiest thing ever.
Tyondai: The immediate association with any of the labels like avant-garde or even something as simple as just being instrumental is alienation. Anything can be catchy or infectious but if it is presented in that way of being beyond you then obviously it can alienate, we hope that our music can have the characteristics of that experimental stuff we like but remain inviting.
Does it piss you off being branded indulgent muso’s?
John: I can understand the average kinda dude thinking that but you can’t get mad at them at them for it. That said there will always be a part of being an ‘artist’ that will be very selfish, to dedicate my whole life to pleasing myself and showing people what my self-indulgence creates is kind of weird. But that isn’t the goal of our music.
Tyondai: It’s not like we sit there when we record saying: I can’t wait to write this song just to make people feel weird and alienate them.
Can I just say that listening to the new record made me feel terrified, I felt like I’m a goblin inside a green castle living in the middle of a lake of psycho’s.
Dave: That’s pretty much what we were going for.
Tyondai: That’s cool you get that, some other people have said it sounds really happy so I guess for it provoke such different reactions is cool.
John: Some guy even said that the vocals sound like sped up Kanye West samples.
Would you say it’s more accessible than your early EP’s?
John: Well it has vocals, which immediately give people something to latch on to.
Do you think maybe some people came to the new single and album because you guys don’t subscribe to any generic band type or conform to any genre and seem to shy away from any sense of image?
John: People always kinda want something familiar like that AC/DC beat or whatever and we don’t really give them that. In general our stuff needs a few listens and the overall reaction we get from a lot of the ‘average’ people that we play our music to is: I like it but I don’t know why. We aren’t making instant music, the kind of bands that make that sort of music you gobble the record up like candy but you aren’t gone be listening to that shit in a years time, it’ll be your favourite record for a week then you’ll throw it on the pile and never listen to it again. The records that last demand your effort and they will last over time.
Ian: For sure, I still listen to Sister and love it.
Tyondai: The flip side of that is like a House record or something that you want to smack you round the face immediately, you listen to that with a different head on though, it’s not really for us to say that one record is more valid than the other or that every band has to be hyper-creative all the time.
Dave: Maybe it has something to do with that weird questing impulse to find the new thing that is interesting. The internet has changed the way it used to work, when I was younger it was either what my brother listened to or maybe if you were lucky a cool record shop in the town you were in maybe buying up records on a certain label like SST or whatever and from there maybe finding a magazine like MRR. Now you can just Google it and almost instantaneously find out what we’re all about. The kid that is bored of Nickleback in the Midwest now just has this whole network of connectivity that he can explore.
The video is cool what’s the deal with that?
Tyondai: It’s weird to me how much people are freaking out over it, it’s a great video but the single hasn’t even been released yet and people are going crazy over it on Youtube.
John: It’s weird for me 'cos I’m so fucking old I’ve seen the whole video thing come full circle from it being a thing of no importance to MTV making it more important than the actual record then it kind of died down when MTV became a network and videos were hardly shown but with things like Youtube the video is out there again.
David: If it was solely an MTV culture then there would be little point a band like us making a video cos it would never get fucking shown but the internet has made it a valid medium again. It almost increases the incentive for people to listen to the actual song; they can sit at their computer and watch this cool little thing that has been created to go along with it.
Ian: It’s the same with the single, releasing mp3’s and stuff.
Where did the name come from?
Ian: It looks good on paper.
Tyondai: It can just be interpreted in a bunch of different ways.
What do you hate at the moment?
Tyondai: Err…Turbulence?
Dave: I hate that I’ve hardly answered a fucking question.
Ian: I hate coming over here and being served Czech beer, what the deal with that?
John: And I hate coming to London and never getting fish and chips in newspaper. I want that shit wrapped in newspaper.
They don’t really do that anymore. Have you been attacked by instrumental-prog-mathcore groupies since you got here?
John: Shit yeah… Not really.
How about guys?
Tyondai: I guy did try and kiss me at ATP.
Who do you think will succeed Bush?
John: I have a feeling that Gore is gonna pop up out of leftfield.
Do you think that music and politics can be done at once?
Ian: Not really, even when I listen to all those old English bands it just sounds funny to me, like: ah…they’re singing about the dole. It just doesn’t really sit so well music and politics.
Dave: Try telling that to Bono and Eddie Vedder.
You’ve all played in pretty influential bands prior to playing in Battles, has that affected your approach to Battles or have you come to it with a completely fresh approach?
John: With me, the only way that it has come to play in Battles is that I played for a really long time in Helmet, for ten years. But that’s it, playing in that band for ten years obviously caused me to develop a style but from day one of Battles the whole purpose was to do something that none of us had done before. I’d say for the most part our previous bands have little effect apart from maybe a technique.
Ian: Totally. Also, different ideas turn you on 10 years ago. Don Cab and Storm & Stress were fun at those points in time but it’s good to set yourself up in new situations musically. It keeps it fresh and it keeps it honest.
Tyondai: For me there was a real desire to get beyond my past, to create a new sound with new ideas. In a way reacting against what I’ve done before. In Battles, I’m way more interested with ideas of solidified, cohesive song structures. You can never escape yourself completely but you always want to evolve and all of us have come into it with that exploratory philosophy both as individuals and as a collective. My Dad [legendry avant-garde composer Anthony Braxton] obviously had an influence on me but mainly in terms of inspiring me just to be fearless in my approach and work like hell.
How did you guys all meet up?
Tyondai: I’m originally from Connecticut but I met Ian when we were both living in New York and we played around loosely at first for about a year getting used to each other then we met Dave and the idea of it formally becoming a band appeared on the horizon but it was really when John came along that it became clear that we really had something and that was at the end of 2003.
Was there any reason why your initial releases were singles and EP’s only?
John: The honest answer is that the band was beginning to gel and sound like a band so we wanted to tour but we had to have something to tour with so we did Tras the single and two EP’s but they were all actually recorded at the same session. They were released really early on and we had a period of two years of touring and playing together working stuff out as we went along.
Tyondai: All those early releases though were really documents of us struggling to find our sound. There has never been an end goal as in: at the end of the road we want to sound like this or that. The question mark has always been the journey and the EP’s kinda charted that, the new record is us playing around with the sounds established on the EP’s; a more refined version of that early sound.
Is there any reason why you went for Warp Records over here in the UK which is more commonly associated with dance music?
John: Weirdly I think they parallel our growth, that attempt to diversify there sound is sort of the same path we’re on, it just made sense from the get go.
Dave: It was cool, they were looking not to be pigeonholed and that was exactly the same thing we were looking for, we’re both evolving in tandem.
How did you hook up with DJ Koze for the remix on the new single?
John: My girlfriend lives in Cologne so I just bumped into him over there, we were mixing the album and it was actually all just done over the phone but it worked out really well I think.
There seem to be a lot more vocals on the new record, what’s up with that?
Tyondai: I know from the outset that this band has been viewed as an ‘instrumental’ outfit but internally we never saw it that way, it made sense on the EP’s to be more reserved in a way as we were still trying to sculpt our sound, there are vocals on there but on the new record I thought it would be cool to introduce that element more heavily and play with the stereotypical vocal structure. Take it on in a Battles mode.
Do you think you’d ever write a pop song?
Dave: I thought we already had!
John: I don’t think that this band will ever on purpose be that direct in terms of a focus prior to writing something. If that happens it would happen naturally, we don’t write in such a pre-meditated fashion.
Ian: We are only really shooting for the same thing anyone is shooting for from the Flaming Lips to whoever, just to write a good song. Something like Stockhausen can be like pop to me, just the catchiest thing ever.
Tyondai: The immediate association with any of the labels like avant-garde or even something as simple as just being instrumental is alienation. Anything can be catchy or infectious but if it is presented in that way of being beyond you then obviously it can alienate, we hope that our music can have the characteristics of that experimental stuff we like but remain inviting.
Does it piss you off being branded indulgent muso’s?
John: I can understand the average kinda dude thinking that but you can’t get mad at them at them for it. That said there will always be a part of being an ‘artist’ that will be very selfish, to dedicate my whole life to pleasing myself and showing people what my self-indulgence creates is kind of weird. But that isn’t the goal of our music.
Tyondai: It’s not like we sit there when we record saying: I can’t wait to write this song just to make people feel weird and alienate them.
Can I just say that listening to the new record made me feel terrified, I felt like I’m a goblin inside a green castle living in the middle of a lake of psycho’s.
Dave: That’s pretty much what we were going for.
Tyondai: That’s cool you get that, some other people have said it sounds really happy so I guess for it provoke such different reactions is cool.
John: Some guy even said that the vocals sound like sped up Kanye West samples.
Would you say it’s more accessible than your early EP’s?
John: Well it has vocals, which immediately give people something to latch on to.
Do you think maybe some people came to the new single and album because you guys don’t subscribe to any generic band type or conform to any genre and seem to shy away from any sense of image?
John: People always kinda want something familiar like that AC/DC beat or whatever and we don’t really give them that. In general our stuff needs a few listens and the overall reaction we get from a lot of the ‘average’ people that we play our music to is: I like it but I don’t know why. We aren’t making instant music, the kind of bands that make that sort of music you gobble the record up like candy but you aren’t gone be listening to that shit in a years time, it’ll be your favourite record for a week then you’ll throw it on the pile and never listen to it again. The records that last demand your effort and they will last over time.
Ian: For sure, I still listen to Sister and love it.
Tyondai: The flip side of that is like a House record or something that you want to smack you round the face immediately, you listen to that with a different head on though, it’s not really for us to say that one record is more valid than the other or that every band has to be hyper-creative all the time.
Dave: Maybe it has something to do with that weird questing impulse to find the new thing that is interesting. The internet has changed the way it used to work, when I was younger it was either what my brother listened to or maybe if you were lucky a cool record shop in the town you were in maybe buying up records on a certain label like SST or whatever and from there maybe finding a magazine like MRR. Now you can just Google it and almost instantaneously find out what we’re all about. The kid that is bored of Nickleback in the Midwest now just has this whole network of connectivity that he can explore.
The video is cool what’s the deal with that?
Tyondai: It’s weird to me how much people are freaking out over it, it’s a great video but the single hasn’t even been released yet and people are going crazy over it on Youtube.
John: It’s weird for me 'cos I’m so fucking old I’ve seen the whole video thing come full circle from it being a thing of no importance to MTV making it more important than the actual record then it kind of died down when MTV became a network and videos were hardly shown but with things like Youtube the video is out there again.
David: If it was solely an MTV culture then there would be little point a band like us making a video cos it would never get fucking shown but the internet has made it a valid medium again. It almost increases the incentive for people to listen to the actual song; they can sit at their computer and watch this cool little thing that has been created to go along with it.
Ian: It’s the same with the single, releasing mp3’s and stuff.
Where did the name come from?
Ian: It looks good on paper.
Tyondai: It can just be interpreted in a bunch of different ways.
What do you hate at the moment?
Tyondai: Err…Turbulence?
Dave: I hate that I’ve hardly answered a fucking question.
Ian: I hate coming over here and being served Czech beer, what the deal with that?
John: And I hate coming to London and never getting fish and chips in newspaper. I want that shit wrapped in newspaper.
They don’t really do that anymore. Have you been attacked by instrumental-prog-mathcore groupies since you got here?
John: Shit yeah… Not really.
How about guys?
Tyondai: I guy did try and kiss me at ATP.
Who do you think will succeed Bush?
John: I have a feeling that Gore is gonna pop up out of leftfield.
Do you think that music and politics can be done at once?
Ian: Not really, even when I listen to all those old English bands it just sounds funny to me, like: ah…they’re singing about the dole. It just doesn’t really sit so well music and politics.
Dave: Try telling that to Bono and Eddie Vedder.
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Fall Out Boy Interview
This caused a bit of fuss.
Fall Out Boy Love Anal Sex
So I was feeling really sick and was laid up in bed with a fever and stuff and I got a call asking if I could go interview Fall Out Boy at their swanky Kensington Hotel. It seemed like too much fun too pass up. I got there at 9pm as appointed and was met by a really nice press officer in the reception where there were loads of tour lackey’s and hangers on loafing round and told we had the last interview slot of the day. It also became apparent that it would be singer/bassist Pete Wentz on his own as doing interviews with the whole band was “unwieldy”. OK. It was also made clear that Pete had had a long day. To this end I decided to go for a quick fire 20 questions approach to try and get some stuff the dude from MTV2 with the six strong entourage and video camera that had the slot before me probably wouldn’t. I had a Polaroid camera and a temperature.
Vice: Hey Pete, ready?
Pete: Sure.
Vice: On a scale of one to ten how much do you enjoy anal sex?
Pete: (without hesitating) Ten.
Vice: Staying with that what is your worst ever sexual experience?
Pete: When I was about 16 I had this girlfriend who wouldn’t let me get past like first base so I used to just dry hump her to try and get her into it but she wasn’t having it. I went at it so hard that I rubbed all the skin off my dick and balls. It was raw man…
Vice: Wow. What is your favourite Vice? Other than anal bashing and dry humping.
Pete: Sloth. Just lying around. Doing nothing.
Vice: Have you ever had a fight with your Mum?
Pete: A physical fight! Nah man! Well, she once ground me for all of Spring Break. That one almost came to blows I suppose.
Vice: Ever been in a fistfight?
Pete: Sure. I usually loose but the other night over in Europe somewhere this bouncer guy smacked one of our stage crew and I had at him man. I dropped him, it was cool.
Vice: Any other good tour stories?
Pete: Err; you know the usual, nakedness, beer.
Vice: Cam on you’ve sold like 36 million records. Specifics. Like you wanted your Coke died black or something.
Pete: Err, well the other night we got back to the hotel and I had a lady friend back with me.
Vice: Anal?
Pete: No no! I was a little drunk and had taken a few downers to get me to sleep and we’d ordered a load of room service that just didn’t turn up so I went down to the kitchen to try and see whet the deal was and got really lost. I made my way back to the room somehow and was knocking on the door but no one answered. I got kinda mad and started kicking the door down cos I thought the chick was like robbing me or something and all of a sudden her head pops out of the door opposite and she’s like freaking out going: ‘ah, you’ve just kicked down 602, we’re 603’.
Vice: I was gonna ask when you last disgraced yourself but that should cover it. Right, Frankenband?
Pete: Cool, err. Bonham on Drums, maybe me on bass and then Robert Smith and Morrisey on guitar and vocals, can you imagine that combo! It would totally implode!
Vice: Who is the most successful person you know.
Pete: Jay Z
Vice: You know Jay Z?
Pete: Sure, I mean we don’t go to sleepovers together but if we’re both in town we’ll catch dinner or something.
Vice: Cool, finally, over here Emo as a genre has come to be typified by yourselves and bands like My Chemical Romance. How do you feel about the tag. To me Emo is bands like Moss Icon, Heroin and Christie Front Drive.
Pete: Sure, exactly. I mean I grew up on Rites Of Spring, Cap N Jazz, all that. My first band just used to rip off Fugazi but now we do what we do and whatever the music press feels like calling it that’s up to them.
Vice: Thank you very much Pete, it’s been cool to hang out.
Fall Out Boy Love Anal Sex
So I was feeling really sick and was laid up in bed with a fever and stuff and I got a call asking if I could go interview Fall Out Boy at their swanky Kensington Hotel. It seemed like too much fun too pass up. I got there at 9pm as appointed and was met by a really nice press officer in the reception where there were loads of tour lackey’s and hangers on loafing round and told we had the last interview slot of the day. It also became apparent that it would be singer/bassist Pete Wentz on his own as doing interviews with the whole band was “unwieldy”. OK. It was also made clear that Pete had had a long day. To this end I decided to go for a quick fire 20 questions approach to try and get some stuff the dude from MTV2 with the six strong entourage and video camera that had the slot before me probably wouldn’t. I had a Polaroid camera and a temperature.
Vice: Hey Pete, ready?
Pete: Sure.
Vice: On a scale of one to ten how much do you enjoy anal sex?
Pete: (without hesitating) Ten.
Vice: Staying with that what is your worst ever sexual experience?
Pete: When I was about 16 I had this girlfriend who wouldn’t let me get past like first base so I used to just dry hump her to try and get her into it but she wasn’t having it. I went at it so hard that I rubbed all the skin off my dick and balls. It was raw man…
Vice: Wow. What is your favourite Vice? Other than anal bashing and dry humping.
Pete: Sloth. Just lying around. Doing nothing.
Vice: Have you ever had a fight with your Mum?
Pete: A physical fight! Nah man! Well, she once ground me for all of Spring Break. That one almost came to blows I suppose.
Vice: Ever been in a fistfight?
Pete: Sure. I usually loose but the other night over in Europe somewhere this bouncer guy smacked one of our stage crew and I had at him man. I dropped him, it was cool.
Vice: Any other good tour stories?
Pete: Err; you know the usual, nakedness, beer.
Vice: Cam on you’ve sold like 36 million records. Specifics. Like you wanted your Coke died black or something.
Pete: Err, well the other night we got back to the hotel and I had a lady friend back with me.
Vice: Anal?
Pete: No no! I was a little drunk and had taken a few downers to get me to sleep and we’d ordered a load of room service that just didn’t turn up so I went down to the kitchen to try and see whet the deal was and got really lost. I made my way back to the room somehow and was knocking on the door but no one answered. I got kinda mad and started kicking the door down cos I thought the chick was like robbing me or something and all of a sudden her head pops out of the door opposite and she’s like freaking out going: ‘ah, you’ve just kicked down 602, we’re 603’.
Vice: I was gonna ask when you last disgraced yourself but that should cover it. Right, Frankenband?
Pete: Cool, err. Bonham on Drums, maybe me on bass and then Robert Smith and Morrisey on guitar and vocals, can you imagine that combo! It would totally implode!
Vice: Who is the most successful person you know.
Pete: Jay Z
Vice: You know Jay Z?
Pete: Sure, I mean we don’t go to sleepovers together but if we’re both in town we’ll catch dinner or something.
Vice: Cool, finally, over here Emo as a genre has come to be typified by yourselves and bands like My Chemical Romance. How do you feel about the tag. To me Emo is bands like Moss Icon, Heroin and Christie Front Drive.
Pete: Sure, exactly. I mean I grew up on Rites Of Spring, Cap N Jazz, all that. My first band just used to rip off Fugazi but now we do what we do and whatever the music press feels like calling it that’s up to them.
Vice: Thank you very much Pete, it’s been cool to hang out.
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