Posts Tagged ‘Indie’

Watch: ‘Watching Wax’ by Berries

Posted: 30 July 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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BERRIES are back!

Today, the trio are pleased to confirm details of their new album BERRIES.

Due for release on 18th October via the Xtra Mile Recordings label, the album is preceded by its lead single ‘Watching Wax’, which is available to hear – and watch – now:

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With its scrawled-out staccato guitar licks, spidery basslines, and venomous lyrical stings, first cut ‘Watching Wax’ signals a deadly return from London trio.

Dripping with a febrile intensity and packed with scattergun hooks to match, ‘Watching Wax’ finds BERRIES reflecting on the restlessness of anxiety and the constant cloud it can cast over our day-to-day. As the band state:

“‘Watching Wax’ is about escaping your worries for the day and attempting to give your mind a rest. The lyrics touch on fears for our future selves, looming anxieties that you can’t suppress and the desire to have a perfect day without your daily stormy thoughts.”

The first indicator of how the follow-up to their acclaimed debut, How We Function is shaping up, the single finds BERRIES honing their art for the unpredictable and growing in confidence. And as its eponymous title, ‘BERRIES’, may already make clear, this is a band determined to make a statement with their second full-length outing.
While the band have never shied away from brutally honest admissions or difficult subject matters like struggles with mental health, ‘BERRIES’ finds them weaponising them into a set of fearlessly assertive tracks that seize strength from darkness. As BERRIES explain:

“This album is about battling intrusive thoughts and finding contentment in your day, however big or small those moments are. It’s a journey to finding your own space and being comfortable in it. We haven’t held back with this album – it’s raw, honest, and a true reflection of BERRIES.”

Teaming up with production legend Adrian Bushby (Foo Fighters, Muse, Everything Everything), who took on mixing duties for the record, listeners will almost certainly feel that turbo-boost coursing through the veins of BERRIES 2.0.

While veering between Riot Grrrl-esque discordance and thunderous grunge-rock anthems ripe for the big rooms, ‘BERRIES’ also finds a band spreading their wings with sonic explorations into shapeshifting math-rock (as on opener ‘Barricades’), epic post-rock nods (on closer ‘Crumpled Clothes’), through shades of Power-Pop (as on the infectious ‘Narrow Tracks’), and even tender, unadorned acoustica (as on ‘Balance’). Reflecting of making ‘BERRIES’, the band add:

“We really pushed ourselves creatively and out of our comfort zone, especially with the acoustic track and working with mixing engineer Adrian Bushby. We’re super proud of what we’ve written and created.”

Following a spate of recent shows road-testing new material in support of punk/rock legends the likes of The Subways, Skinny Lister, Feeder, and Sleeper, plus Newcastle noiseniks The Pale White, BERRIES are now ready to take their latest work out on the road for a series of headline dates of their own.

With 8 dates planned for October and November, following the release of ‘BERRIES’, catch the band performing new material and more at these fixtures as follows:

BERRIES – HEADLINE TOUR 2024
OCTOBER

23 – Brighton, The Prince Albert

24 – Nottingham, Bodega

25 – Leeds, Hyde Park Book Club

26 – Manchester, Gullivers

29 – Bristol, Thekla

30 – London, Lexington

31 – Norwich, Waterfront

NOVEMBER

1 – Southampton, Heartbreakers

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From the Vaults All-Dayer – York Vaults, 15th June 2024

Posted: 16 June 2024 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

The prospect of Objections making a return to York was incentive enough to snaffle a ticket for this some time in advance, without even paying too much attention to the rest of the lineup initially, but Teleost and The Bricks provided two strong reasons to get down early, and a fair few others clearly thought the same.

All-dayers tend to have a couple of acts people aren’t especially fussed about at the bottom of the bill, often newer acts cutting their teeth, so kicking off with a brace of well-established local talents proved to be a combination of coup, genius programming, and an indication of the quality of the bill – which, in the event, didn’t include a single weak or dud act from beginning to end.

Another rare – and impressive – thing about this lineup is that it features just one all-male act. When you hear so many promoters responding to accusations of gender inequality and a lack of representation by whining about how they struggle to find and book bands with women, it feels like a massive cop-out. And here’s the proof. Eight bands, and only one that slots into the stereotypical white male bracket – and then again, they possibly get an exemption on account of their age bracket (that is to say, they’re probably about my age bracket). Anyway.

The last time I saw them, supporting Part Chimp, Leo Hancill and Cat Redfern were playing as Uncle Bari. Now they’re Teleost, and they’ve totally nailed their slow, sludgy sound. The guitar sounds like a bass, the drums sound like explosions, and it’s a mighty, mighty sound. Slow drumming is always impressive to watch, and hear, and Cat it outstanding, in every way, a hard-hitter who makes every single slow-mo cymbal crash count. They’re properly slow and heavy, with a doomy heft, but with folky vocals. The contrast is magnificent and makes Teleost a unique proposition.

It’s been a few months since I’ve seen The Bricks, and yet again they seem to have upped their game. Their set is punchy and forceful, led by a fierce vocal performance from Gemma Hartshorn. As a band, they’ve really hit their stride, and having got a fair few gigs under their belts now, they’re super-tight.

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The Bricks

Instant Bin are a busy-sounding indie duo who knock out short songs packed tightly, and they’re good entertainment, while Knitting Circle are very unlike the somewhat twee, whimsical and fluffy indie band their name suggests. They offer up some tense, mathy, angular noise with a hint of The Fall and Gang of Four, and are very much about tackling issues, with a strong anti-war song, and a song about menopause (‘Losing My Eggs’) while ‘I am the Fox’ which about fox hunting (and no, they’re not in favour) which takes its stylistic cues from Gang of Four’s ‘Not Great Men’.

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The Knitting Circle

Objections – who I also last saw supporting Part Chimp, but on a different occasion – are out hot on the heels of the release of their debut album. As you’d expect from a band with their pedigree, they’re seriously strong. A tight set of noise played with precision, propelled by some magnificently crisp jazz drumming and busy baselines that nag away, they’ve got everything nailed down. The three of them each bring something unique as performers, and they’re simply great to watch in terms of style and technique. Joseph O’Sullivan’s guitar work is so physical, lurching and bouncing here there and everywhere, and working magic with an oscillator on top; Neil Turpin looks like he’s in another world, a drummer who seemingly feels the groove instead of counting time, while Claire Adams is intently focused – seemingly on the vocals, while the fast fretwork on the bass seems to happen subconsciously. They are, in so many ways, a quintessential Leeds act, both sonically and in terms of cult status. They’d have made worthy headliners, but public transport dictated their much earlier slot. Then again, there seems to be a lot of merit to spreading the quality more evenly.

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Objections

After a clattering avant-jazz intro, The Unit Ama launch into some sinewy math rock with some serious blasts of abrasion interspersed with some meandering jazz discordance. They’re certainly the most unexpected act of the night. Despite having been around some twenty-three years, having played around the north and north-east quite extensively in that time, even opening for Fugazi in their early years, and releasing music on a label that also gave us music by That Fucking Tank, they’re still completely new to me. Their set is wildly varied and intriguing: deep prog with an experimental jazz element – showcasing the kind of shudder and judder, rattle and crash cymbal breaks that you’re more likely to hear in Café Oto than a pub in York on a Saturday evening, whereby it’s hard to determine at times if they’re highly technical or just tossing about like chimps messing about to see what noise they can make. It’s expansive work which makes for a compelling and intriguing set.

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The Unit Ama

Wormboys are again interesting, and varied, but in a completely different way. The four-piece present a broad range of indie stylings with some strikingly athletic vocals. In places, they’re atmospheric, haunting, moving. Elsewhere, there are some motorik sections and big blasts of noise, and visually. they’re striking, with an imposing and lively bassist centre stage with the two guitarists, who also share vocals, either side.

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Wormboys

The crowd had thinned a little by the time Cowtown took the stage, meaning a few missed out on their brand of buoyant synthy indie with good energy. Another frequent-gigging stalwart act on the Leeds scene, they provide another reminder of the quality of the scene between Leeds and York, and this magnificently-curated event showcased that quality.

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Cowtown

That a number of the bands took time out during their sets to speak out on political issues, from giving praise for bands pulling out of Download, espousing people power, encouraging people to vote, and trans rights  – to use their voices, in any capacity, and even simply providing a ‘fuck the Tories’ call of disenfranchisement, it’s heartening to feel that we have bands who are politically engaged and using their platforms for more than mere entertainment. In bleak times, that there is a real sense of artistic community among such disparate acts gives a sense of hope. That hope may be misplaced, but to just step sideways from all of the shit for a few hours, immersed in a bubble, with beer and live music is the perfect escape. We should do this again sometime.

Percy – New Phase

Posted: 24 May 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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10ft Records – 24th May 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Percy have been going since the mid-90s, but didn’t get to release an album till 2013. They’ve maintained a steady flow since then, particularly since the solidification of their current lineup in 2017 with New Phase being their fifth album in and their fourth in six years.

‘Workmanlike’ isn’t a criticism when it comes to certain bands, when their solid and consistent output and regular gigging is central to their way of working and to their identity, and while it’s not an exclusively northern thing, The Fall and The Wedding Present are bands which immediately spring to mind as acts who deliver albums like it’s a job. Said albums may all share a certain commonality, but push those tight parameters each time, and if Percy can be guaranteed to sound like Percy, then it’s all to the good.

New Phase is an apt title for an album which sees them take a lunge into darker territory, both sonically and lyrically. A fair few of the songs have featured in their live setlist over the last year or two, giving a fair indication of the direction they were heading with the new material, but to hear these songs all together and as full-realised studio recordings has a different kind of impact. On New Phase, they sound invigorated, vivified, but also tense, paranoid, embattled. Colin Howard’s lyrics are less given to social critique and instead present scenes of horror, of personal torment and heightened anxiety. Whatever the fuck’s been going down in his life or neighbourhood, or whatever grim stuff he’s been streaming on Netflix, the resultant art is powerful. The musical accompaniment captures the same uneasy mood of high tension and darkness.

‘Sink Estate Agents Satanic Rites’ is – remarkably – their most Fall-like track to date, a jagged paranoid spasm that’s dragged from the space between Grotesque and Slates. It’s tense, uncomfortable, and there’s something weird about the production that pulls in different directions and renders it even more difficult, and vaguely gothic in the early post-punk sense, too.

‘Blackout’ has hints of early Arctic Monkeys lurking amidst its clanging mess of guitars and panic-filled lyrics which narrate a bleak tale of alcoholic excess ‘there’s bloodstains on the floor / there’s bloodstains on the wall / and someone’s banging on the door… and then it hit me’.

Narrative is a strong feature of the lyrics, as is nowhere more evident than on the nightmarish ‘I Can Hear Orgies’. Are these auditory hallucinations or is weird shit going down round Colin’s way? Or is it a side effects of the meds?

The title track is raw, ragged, angular, more Shellac or Bilge Pump or even Part Chimp than The Fall, bringing a new level of aggression and noise to Percy’s repertoire.

More conventional Percy territory is covered in ‘Thinking of Jacking It In Again’, ‘Do You Think I’m on the Spectrum?’ and ‘Last Train to Selby’, delving back into the world of work and sociopolitical matters and delivered with powerhouse drumming and choppy, clanging Gang of Four guitars – and of course a dash of Fall-like rockabilly, because it’s Percy. ‘Wah-wah-wah-wah’ Howard signs off. ‘Greedy People’ is a classic Percy swipe at an obvious target, but as Colin spits ‘It’s not about the money / it’s about the principle’, there’s a palpable anger, articulated as much though discordant guitar.

New Phase marks a step up for Percy, and in many ways. They sustain the tension across the duration of the album’s ten tracks, with only the six-minute closer, ‘Afterlife’ calming down and taking a more synth-led dimension, but still presenting a bleakness and heavy melancholy that fits with the album as a whole. The production is tight and solid, bringing to life the album’s sonic and lyrical tensions.

New Phase is a magnificently awkward, challenging, angular set, and perhaps Percy’s least commercial, least overtly ‘indie’ album to date. But for my money, it’s also their best-realised, most authentic, and most exhilarating album yet.

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Pale Blue Eyes / British Birds – The Crescent Community Centre, York, 18th May 2024

Posted: 19 May 2024 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Sheffield (and Totnes) shoegaze quartet Pale Blue Eyes may not have had the kind of meteoric ascent to the stratospheres enjoyed by The Last Dinner Party, but they’ve certainly come a long way in a short time for such a young band. Following a similar trajectory to Hull’s BDRMM, they started out in 2021, as we were emerging from lockdown, as a geographically distanced duo, expanding to a three- and then four-piece, releasing their debut album in 2022. No-one would likely have foreseen that two years on, they’d be opening for Slowdive. And now, here they are, on their own headline tour, playing to substantial crowds in 300+ capacity venues in places they’ve never been before. Small wonder they spend the set beaming at simply being here.

To revisit a favourite topic of late, this is why we need grassroots venues. I first saw BDRMM at the Fulford Ams (capacity c. 125), then a year or so later here at The Crescent. Now they’re headlining at the 1,000-capacity Stylus at Leeds Uni, where I’ve seen Swans and Dinosaur Jr. And on the strength of tonight’s performance, I could imagine Pale Blue Eyes there after the release of their forthcoming second album. But, even if not, it’s clear they can’t quite believe they are where they are at this moment in time.

British Birds are a sound choice of support act. There’s next to no sonic resemblance, and visually, presentationally, they’re worlds apart, too, and it’s appreciated. It gets boring watching bands who are too alike back-to-back, and there’s always the risk the support will steal the headliners’ thunder.

They seem to have had about a dozen different lineups already, and while the music press have seemingly struggled to categorise them, with descriptions ranging from ‘indie’ to ‘psychedelic’ with ‘rock’ and ‘garage’ and ‘pop’ all being lobbed their way, but it’s not prevented them getting airplay on 6Music.

Their female singer / keyboardist, centre stage, first gives us first cowbell, then tambourine during first song. Throughout the set, she seems to spend more time bouncing around with the tambourine than playing the keyboard, and behind her, some dynamic and enthusiastic drumming defines their sound, which is a bit Dandy Warhols at times. I have never seen anyone attack a cowbell with so much force, but it makes them absolutely great to watch, being a band positively radiating energy centre stage. Stage left and right, the guitarist / lead singer and bassist are rather more static, focused on their instruments rather than presentation, but this dynamic works well. The three-way vocals add some really sweet harmonies to some lovely indie pop tunes in a varied and entertaining set, where the penultimate song goes a bit rockabilly. Definitely worth seeing.

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British Birds

Pale Blue Eyes take the sound up a notch, not only in volume but quality. It’s clear, crisp, dense, with good separation and clarity, particularly in the drums and vocals, while they crank out dreamy shoegaze tunes with some rippling keyboards and lots of heavy tremolo. ‘TV Flicker’ landing second in the set provides an early highlight in a set that builds nicely, and it’s clear they’ve put some thought into this.

Early Ride make for an obvious comparison, but there’s more to it than that. The drummer plays motorik rhythms focused around the centre of the kit (incomplete contrast to the rolling, expansive style of British Birds’ drummer), barely bending an elbow, confirming movement largely to the wrists and just holding tight, steady beats.

Laser synths and repetitive riffs edge into space rock territory, locking into mesmeric grooved with Hawkwind vibes. In this combination of shoegaze and psych, I’m reminded if second-wave shoegaze act The Early Years circa 2005.

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Pale Blue Eyes

The audience demographic is split largely into two camps: twenty-somethings – the band’s peers, as you’d likely expect – and middle-agers who came to this stuff when they themselves were in their teen and early twenties. I have to confess to falling into the latter bracket, having discovered Ride and Slowdive via John Peel and Melody Maker, and seeing the former at Wembley at BBC Radio 1’s ‘Great British Music Weekend’ supporting The Cure in January 1991 (which I’d have enjoyed more if I hadn’t been coming down with flu, and the three-mile walk home from the coach drop-off back in Lincoln at 2am, in sub-zero temperatures did me for a week). But, consequently, lots of insanely tall middle aged blokes swarmed to the front, busting moves, lofting their arms, and dancing like they’re swimming with their hands behind their backs (or in their pockets) while simultaneously shooting shaky videos on their phones like wankers. I mean, who’s going to want to watch those?

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Pale Blue Eyes

Most of the between-song dialogue was about how awed the band were to be playing the city and venue for the first time, and judging by their expressions, this was a genuine sentiment. But rather than allow that awe to overcome them, they fed off the exuberance of the substantial crowd and amplified it back. The bassist in particular looked like he was having the time of his life.

Their hour-long set culminates in blistering climactic sustained crescendo. There doesn’t need to be more, and there’s nowhere to go beyond this point for an encore. It’s a satisfying and natural-feeling conclusion to a joyous performance.

Listen: ‘I’ll be your doctor’ by Argonaut

Posted: 18 May 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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The thing about Argonaut is that they’re continually evolving, continually pushing themselves, striving to do something different, and to create something new, constantly. No sooner had they completed their track-a-month ‘open-ended album’ project, Songs from the Black Hat, which saw them try out a range of styles, than they’re back to banging out new tunes at a remarkable rate.

Having deadlines or other set parameters doesn’t work for a lot of artists, but Argonaut seem to thrive on targets and goals, and ‘I’ll be your doctor’ is testament to that.

They describe it as ‘A song for the companions and for everyone courted and wooed with promises of excitement and adventure. A reminder to those making such vows to continuously reinvent, strive for greatness and never grow complacent. Musical nods to Depeche Mode, Nine inch Nails and Pink Floyd, lyrically inspired by Dr Who and the Velvet Underground. Delivering on our promise.’

It certainly incorporates an array of elements in its four and a half minutes, with some dark, stark post-punk electro vibes paired with some driving chords and some exploratory guitar work, all brought together with, of course, a strong hook.

Listen here:

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The Lost Letters – The Lost Letters

Posted: 20 April 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Coju Recordings – 1st April 2024 (CD & digital)

Cruel Nature Records – 29th April 2024 (Cassette)

Christopher Nosnibor

Letters and things lost have an almost mythical status in the field of literature. So many volumes are dedicated to the reproduction of exchanges between authors of revered status, and are poured over, clawed over, by both fans and academics. Many writers of great novels were also great letter-writers, and the letters often serve to build not only biographical depth and detail but also shed light on the development of the novels, that mystical ‘creative process’. Much of history exists in letters – the rich primary source material from which we piece together the picture and assemble a coherent narrative. It may be a construct, but it’s a necessary one when it comes to understanding the world and how we collectively came to arrive at the present.

The fact no-one writes letters anymore is a great loss. The same thought and effort simply doesn’t go into emails, and they tend to be considerably shorter, too, especially in the last decade or so. In fact, the quality of communication has slumped through the floor in recent years. Emails volumes – at least, ones that aren’t transactional in some way, have plummeted in favour of WhatsApps and messenger missives via FaceBook, Twitter, etc. It’s hard to really articulate just what’s been lost over the last few years, besides simply the art of in-depth, detailed longform communications, but with anything more than five lines long likely to be dismissed as TL;DR, it’s significant. I digress… because there are rare avenues open to expand on these matters.

Benjamin Heal, one of those multi-faceted, polyartistic individuals who is hard to pin down due to the sheer range of his output, has, through the years, pursued an academic career with a focus on William S. Burroughs – a prodigious writer of letters – and performed experimental noisy indie under the guise of Cowman, sharing stages with the likes of Trumans Water and Gum Takes Tooth, as well as his more electro-centric vehicle Coaxial.

Now resident in Taiwan, his latest project seems to bring together these elements of a diverse life. The material on this, the debut release from The Lost Letters – which finds Heal working with Fulia, is a calm and calming collection of delicate songs. The duo offer a quite gentle and melodic set of tunes in which is mostly centres around mellow acoustic-led indie, and slow, sparsely-arranged, soporific shoegaze and it’s not merely projection on my part in detecting a wistful, vaguely nostalgic air permeating the songs. The songs effortlessly drift and weave, Fulya’s vocals adding a layer of sound rather than easily audible lyrics.

The seven-minute ‘Cecille’ has, by its trilling gentility, nothing to do with The Walking Dead: it’s a graceful exploratory work which is mellow, melodic, and carries heavy hints of The Cure circa Disintegration thanks in no small part to its fulsome, airy bass sound and crystalline guitars, and it’s fair to reference Cocteau Twins at this juncture, too.

Things take a turn for the darker and more discordant on the lugubrious, plodding ‘Cut’, which scrapes and scratches for another seven minutes. With its muttered, monotone vocals and insistent sparsity, it offers hints of Shellac and latter day Band of Susans, in contrast to the soft acoustic instrumental work of ‘Route Rute’. These songs are on the longer side by necessity: repetition has greater impact over duration, and if the literary allusions and lifts by means of the deployment of the cut-up technique devised by Burroughs and Gysin are largely lost in the mix, the overall effect of discomfort and disjointedness remains strong throughout the set. ‘Crystal Skies’ is murky, with a drifting ambience spun through with a softly picked guitar, before ‘Sails and Sou’wester’ brings the album full circle to its nautically-themed beginning. While inviting comparisons to Slowdive and Cranes, it cascades dreamily into a mesmerising sea of sound, so richly evocative that you ache as it drifts on toward the horizon, leaving you reaching for something intangible.

Critics often write of craft, but the most moving music often comes from intuition and feeling, and this is moving in the subtlest of ways. Quite simply, The Lost Letters is a beautiful album.

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Argonaut – As Cool as Fightmilk

Posted: 31 March 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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24th March 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Ironically, it’ll take more time to upload this review of the latest single by lo-fi indie / alt act Argonaut than it will take to play it, let alone write about it.

For a band who really pushed themselves in 2023, releasing a track a month to evolve their ‘open ended’ album, Songs from the Black Hat, which wound up featuring thirteen tracks, and who may have been expected to ease the pace a bit while they took stock and began to assimilate the practicalities of a new lineup, they’ve really surpassed themselves so far this year.

The video is pretty slick in relative terms, but the song itself is a classic and quintessentially Argonaut lo-fi cut with big, thick, buzzing bass and guitar, and the dual vocals which really do define the band’s sound – Laura’s hyper-bubbly pop tones contrast with Nathan’s monotone drawl, and here they really do exploit the quiet/loud dynamic form over the course of an explosive and thrilling minute and a half. Yes, a minute and a half: sneeze and you’ll miss it. But in that time, they still pack in a strong, hooky chorus, and I’m assuming the song is a reference to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia rather than the band, Fightmilk – and while they may never be as cool as the former, they’ve got a clear edge over the latter. So that makes them pretty cool, really.

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Nine O’Clock Nasty – Smash Grab & Go

Posted: 17 February 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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17th February 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Writing on their single ‘Existential Dread’ in these virtual pages in October, James Wells was hugely enthused by the track, but made no bones about the fact he wasn’t keen on the band’s name. But listening to this, it makes perfect sense: with a filthy, serrated bassline that grates away like a rusty saw, it’s nasty alright, and probably best not to be aired pre-watershed. It’s punky, but also owes an immense debt to The Fall, not least of all with the delivery of the sneery, snarky vocals, chewing on the refrain and spitting it out, mangled and messy. The there’s the thumping repetitive drumming and, appearing unexpectedly, some quite buoyant 80s indie synth work. But it’s not just some cheap Fall rip-off – although its lo-fi fizz is integral to its appeal – but brings elements of The Pixies into play as part of its grungy four-chord stomp. They’re not wrong when they describe it as ‘Simple. Direct. Violent.’ And say that they’ve made ‘a song that sounds exactly like the adrenaline rush when you realise that life will never be the same again.’ Clocking in at two minutes and fifteen seconds, there’s no space for mucking about.

They add: ‘We made a song about something complex and difficult. Identify. Surveillance. Scrutiny. Or maybe it is a song about sending dick pics or shoplifting? Really, it means whatever you want to mean. In Crowland you decide what something means. What is truthful.’ One may argue that this is something of a cop-out, but by the same token, it acknowledges and accepts that songs take on meanings which are personal and individual to each listener, and to impose meaning is likely futile – or a likely cause of disappointment to some. There aren’t many lyrics to unravel, as it happens, with the verses consisting of the lines ‘Pixelate me! Hide my face!’ between choruses consisting of the title repeated. Its simplicity is its genius.

Shannen Bamford – Addicted

Posted: 16 February 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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16th February 2024

James Wells

US singer-songwriter Shannen Bamford trades in melodic rocky indie, and despite being a solo artist in name, delivers a full band sound. If the title brings connotations of anguish, agony, conflict, and distress, the song itself steps meekly in and looks at its shoes as it ponders what to confess.

With an acoustic guitar and Shannen’s easy, floating vocals to the fore, and with a picked guitar running through it, ‘Addicted’ is tuneful and accessible, as well as layered in its sound. While there’s no real musical resemblance, in terms of sound and production, I’m vaguely reminded of Natalie Imbruglia, but Bamford’s delivery is altogether more subdued and introspective, and perhaps less enunciated, more breathy. ‘I’m addicted to the pain’, she sings in this song of sadness and loss, on which the mood is more melancholy than anguish or agony.

Structurally, there’s no real separation between the verses and choruses, with the song instead favouring a cyclical repetition which rises and falls along with the vocal melody. It works, not least of all because of its sing-song nature, and her vocal delivery balances confidence with an intimate feel.

So far, so much ok but nothing particularly special, but half a minute from the end, it bursts into a big, big climax, where everything gets louder and the guitars overheat and suddenly, from nowhere, it’s a rush, and the preceding four and a half minutes of ‘nice’ proves to have been suspense while she was holding back.

I’m a sucker for a slow-burner, a climax, a crescendo, and find the fact that a large majority of listeners won’t give a song more than thirty seconds before skipping – because they’re missing out. The final thirty seconds of ‘Addicted’ are explosive and transform the entire song.

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(Clicking image launches song)

Robert Poss – Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust

Posted: 27 January 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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25th January 2024

With Band of Susans, active between 1986 and 1996, Robert Poss curved an arc from the New York noise scene towards more of a shoegaze sound. With releases on Blast First and Mute, and featuring a pre-Helmet Page Hamilton on second album, Love Agenda, not to mention a reputation for eardrum-shatteringly loud live performances, the band unquestionably achieved more in terms of influence and cult cred than commercial success (something their final album, Here Comes Success (1995) seemed to acknowledge in its title). But what qualifies as success? Capitalist culture and media tell us that success is a career, promotion, cash, holidays, cruises, bug house big car. But that’s because these are the status symbols capitalism tells us we should aspire to. How about having enough to be ok, a home you like and feel comfortable in, having friends, knowing yourself and being comfortable in your own skin, and having the freedom to do things which give you pleasure? It’s a question of values: what do you value more, time, or money? Status, or the satisfaction of being true to yourself?

There seems to have been a fair bit made of fellow BoS alumni Karen Hagloff’s return to music making in recent years, but not so much about Robert Poss’ sustained output since the band called it a day. But then again, Poss has spent a career being somewhat overlooked and vastly underrated. Both his songwriting and style of playing is quite distinctive and unusual – quirky seems a reasonable adjective, and is certainly not a criticism. The notes on bandcamp note that ‘The release is dedicated to composer/filmmaker/photographer Phill Niblock, a long-time mentor, colleague and friend.’ The timing of this certainly renders this dedication particularly poignant, and also highlights the way in which exponents of avant-gardism feed off one another and evolve one another’s ideas in different directions.

The Niblock connection certainly sheds additional light on Poss’ approach to composition and sound, favouring drones and repetition over rigid verse/chorus structures and progression, and Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust does very much contain, as the title suggests, a miscellany of bits and pieces, ranging from exploratory wanderings to fully-formed songs using conventional ‘rock’ format of guitars, bass, and drums – and on some, there are even vocals, notably the punchy post-punk cut ‘Your Adversary’, which marks a change of style with its murky production and blustery drum machine backing.

The first of these, ‘Secrets, Chapter and Verse’ is a title which could easily be on a Band of Susans release and the song carries that Band of Susans vibe – jangly indie but played loud – and I mean LOUD, with strolling bass running back and forth and up and down beneath the layers of guitar, the vocals low in the mix and serving primarily functional capacity – sonic placeholders.

‘Out of the Fairy Dust’ combines jangling indie and ambient drone and in many respects does carry echoes of ‘Here Comes Success’ – but also Love of Life era Swans – at least until about halfway through where it takes a sudden turn into deeper folk territory. It’s quite a contrast with the deep, ultra-droney sonorous ambience of ‘Foghorn Lullaby’.

Like the epic solo workout that is ‘Hagstrom Fragment’, which comes on like some legs akimbo 90s rock, ‘Skibbereen Drive’ lunges into rock mode, and follows the chord sequence of ‘Flood II’ from The Sister’s of Mercy’s Floodland – and sounds very like it, with its cold synths and crisp drum machine, but without the acoustic guitar detail and lead guitar line. It’s a real contrast to the epic dronescape of ‘Into the Fairy Dust’, on which the drums are a million miles behind the drone as they clatter and roll away, onwards, ever onwards, but also almost entirely submerged in the mix. Elsewhere, with its snarling synth grind, ‘S Romp’ sounds like Suicide doing dirty disco, and ‘Trem 23’ – well, it takes us back to the 23 enigma.

Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust showcases a remarkable diversity of styles, and it’s neither as dry nor as dark as all that, with ‘Imaginary Music On Hold’ presenting a most whimsical feel. As a collection, it never fails to be interesting, or enjoyable, and showcases Poss’ eclecticism and range, and there’s pleasure to be had from listening to a collection of work by an artist who never feels constrained or compelled to confirm to a given genre or mode. It’s something that seems to trouble many people, not least of all labels and critics, that an artist’s creations are based on the pursuit of creative endeavour and interest rather than assigning themselves a category by which they must live. The flipside of this is that it may not feel particularly like an album it its own right, but more like a collection of demos and ideas – and just as the title summarises the contents as three separate elements – Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust – so it feels like it contains the seeds of three separate and distinct projects – a droney one, an indie one, and a dark rock-orientated one. It would be exciting to witness those three projects realised, but what we have here, regardless of future intent, is a document of forward-facing music-making and an artist whose sole priority is doing his own thing. This is, ultimately, the ambition for any artist: to create without concern for commercial matters. And Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust is an exemplary product of creative freedom.

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