Posts Tagged ‘Leeds’

Beige Palace – Making Sounds for Andy

Posted: 4 November 2023 in Albums
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Human Worth – 10th November 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

I know it’s not really cool to make that you’re cool because you’re in the know or whatever. A few years ago, it was the way of the hipster, but after what felt like forever, they seems to have disappeared, probably because everyone grew beards during lockdown, so the hipsters had to shave and resort to telling people they were wearing a beard before the pandemic or something. Nevertheless, I can’t help but take some satisfaction from having observed Beige Palace from their very dawn, at their first show in the now-lost CHUNK rehearsal space-cum-gig venue way back in the spring of 2016. The place was a bugger to get to from the train station, being practically in the middle of nowhere you’d actually want to go, and to describe it as basic would be polite. But what CHUNK provided was a place where anything went. It was BYOB, pay what you can, and it was a hub of creativity which lay at the heart of the DIY scene in Leeds. And so it was that Beige Palace – perhaps not quite a supergroup at the time, but simply people in other bands (Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe (Thank), Kelly Bishop (Gloomy Planets) and Ant Bedford (Cattle)) doing something different together – came to be.

They’ve come a way since then, notably with slots at The Brudenell supporting Mclusky and also Shellac, with a personal thumbs-up from god himself, Steve Albini. There’s likely a number of reasons for this, apart from the simple fact that Beige palace are bloody good, a major one being that they make angular noise without being overly abrasive, preferring instead to push sounds that are slated, skewed, imbalanced, jarring, jolting. This is right up front at the start of this, their second long-player, with ‘Not Waving’, a scuzzy collision of Shellac, The Fall, early Pavement, and Truman’s Water. The bass is right up in the mix, the vocals down low, and everything about it is absolutely wrong in terms of conventional sound. You can imagine sound engineers all around the country shaking their heads and saying “but that bass is just booming… it’s drowning out the vocals… and the guitar, maybe you should take the treble down a bit?” But Beige palace’s sound isn’t conventional, and they’re not going for radio-friendly pop tunes.

The album’s title appears to make a nod to XTC, and calls to mind the band’s hit ‘Making Plans for Nigel’ (surely one of the greatest snappy tunes of the New wave era) and the fact that Andy Partridge was co-frontman of XTC. Coincidence? Am I joining dots and identifying references which simply don’t exist? Possibly, but then again, for all the wrongness, the off-key and the off-kilter, there are some neat hooks to be found leaping out from the rumbling basslines and loping drums. ‘Local Sandwich’ is representative: the rhythm section strolls along kicking a loose groove where the bass and drums are seemingly playing alternate to one another, the discordant sprechgesang vocals of the verses overlap one another, making for a tense combination – and then out of nowhere, pow! Hook! And then a squalling climax.

The genius of the songwriting lies in its unpredictability: for as much as the compositions are largely built around repetitive motifs, hammering away at the same nagging loop for minutes at a time, adding and subtracting elements such as keyboard or guitar, they’re prone to veer off somewhere else or otherwise change tempo or burst into a scratchy blast of noise at precisely the moment you least expect – and just when you expect something unexpected, a song like ‘My Brother Bagagwaa’ doesn’t do it. They’re as keen to explore the space in between the notes as the notes themselves, and there are numerous passages on Making Sounds for Andy where they pull things back to stark minimalism. This makes the crackling bursts of distortion and clattering drums all the more impactful.

Leeds has a habit of birthing weird bands who are nosy but not noise, with the legendary Bilge Pump and the should-have-been-legendary Bearfoot Beware providing a brace of examples – but Beige Palace are very much their own band. Making Sounds for Andy is a bold celebration of ramshackle lo-fi, delivered in such a way as to hit hard. It’s got ‘underground classic’ all over it.

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Shatner’s Bassoon / Fergus Quill / Slozbo Kollektiv – Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, 11th July 2023

Posted: 12 July 2023 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

My openness to different genres has expanded substantially in the fifteen years since I began reviewing as a ‘proper’ thing fifteen years ago, although it’s perhaps only more recently that I’ve come to truly be accommodating of, and even appreciate, overtly jazz works. It’s been quite a journey. But I still very much have limits of what I can handle, meaning I can dig Cinema Cinema’s free jazz period and the warped rackets of The Necks and Sly and the Family Drone, and recently, I’ve dug the new album by Anna von Hausswolff, but not Trondheim Jazz Orchestra & The MaXx. But I haven’t witnessed this kind of stuff live, really.

Presented with a rare opportunity to get out for some beer and live music, and with travel options rather limited, I found Leeds and York offering slim pickings for tonight, and since I wasn’t on the market for third-generation ‘nu’ metal, I elected to make a trip to Hyde park Book Club, a venue I know and like, despite the long hike from (and back to) the train station, and haven’t visited since August 2020, when Talkboy played an acoustic set. Those inter-lockdown socially-distanced seated gigs where going to the bar was against the rules were strange and feel like another lifetime now.

It’s also been a long time since I spent any real time in Leeds, with recent trips being confined to car / train – gig – home: today, I got to spend an afternoon wandering between pubs, and sitting and reading and people watching over a few leisurely pints. Living in the rather conservative, white, middle-class and socially un-diverse York, I’d forgotten about Leeds, fashion… There are still hipsters, lot of hipsters… and beards, lot of beards… and also mullets… Above ankle drainpipes… Cropped vests… Flat caps… and moustaches: lots of moustaches.

Leeds trio Slozbo Kollektiv are first up, and they serve up a set of the kind of clean, crisp, technical noodling that never really seems to get going or take form. or find a groove… Initially, I’m struck that the drumming is as tight as fuck and the way he handles his sticks is something worth watching. He uses an array of broken cymbals to create a whole host of far-out percussive effects, laying one atop the snare to create a different kind of clatter… But then how tight is the playing when there are no rhythms to speak of, only rattles and bursts of percussion? The set is defined by so much discord and busyness… I find my thoughts becoming as fractured as the compositions. There are, it would seem, extremely tight structures here, but they’re chaotic, esoteric, and non-linear…. Playing two guitars and a horn simultaneously… How many notes can they fit into a bar? Vocals seem fairly redundant, and I come to thinking that they sound like shit musicians pretending to be good ones by playing as many notes as fast as possible and not knowing when to stop. It made for the longest 40 minutes ever.

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Slozbo Kollektiv

Fergus Quill’s ensemble features the same fascinating drummer, and the bassist from Slozbo Kollektiv is the keyboardist, and again he removes his sandals to play. Compared to Slozbo Kollektiv, this lineup brings more groove, more noise, and a bit of space rock, but still a lot of wanking with the added ‘bonus’ of some big ska overtones. No. Just no. And using your thigh as a mute for a sax? Also no. It does kinda work, but looks ridiculous. Fergus’ counting on of not only the tracks, but each section after a meandering detour gets tiresome and predictable, too.

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Fergus Quill

Selecting lineups for gigs is not easy: a little bit of range can make for great energy and an interesting night, but too diverse and it simply doesn’t work. A lineup of similar bands is sure to draw punters who will likely appreciate all the bands on the bill, but can lead to a surfeit of sameness, something which can happen in any genre, but was particularly prevalent during the post-rock explosion circa 2004. By the time you’ve stood through three instrumental post-rock acts with their extended passages of chiming guitar interspersed with crescendos, you’re weary of it all by the time the headliners take the stage.

And so it is when Shatner’s Bassoon take the stage. I’m flagging, all jazzed out. Their material – and tonight they’re airing new material ahead of recording it for their forthcoming album – is more structured, atmospheric, building and forming shapes. There are some solid rhythms, moments where they actually settle into something for a time, instead of a constant explosion of sound in all directions all at once. They’ve clearly put the rehearsal time in, and there are all the tempo changes, enough to give you whiplash as they leap and lurch from one segment to another. People are really wigging out down the front, albeit mostly members of the support acts. It all starts to get a bit much after a time: they deal in discord, and the guitar sounds like twanging elastic bands. It’s when I see a guy nonchalantly bopping along from one space to another while clicking his fingers by way of applause I decide I’ve had enough.

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Shatner’s Bassoon

There’s no knocking their musical proficiency or adeptness in their field, but there’s noise and there’s noise, and it’s just how I’m wired that once thrills me and the other bewilders, and when you’ve got a bunch of people on stage all playing as hard and loud as they can but not, seemingly, all playing the same tune, I find it hard to dig. For all that, it was good to get out, and they definitely put on a show.

Benefits / Scrounge – The Lending Room, Leeds, 22nd April 2023

Posted: 23 April 2023 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

It’s been quite a week for Benefits. Kicking off an extensive UK tour in the same week as the release of their debut album, which has landed to universal critical acclaim, they’ve come a long way, and they know it better than anyone. It’s small wonder they’re fired up for this return to Leeds, which is where it all started in terms of their journey as a live act, and which has seen them transition from a homespun lockdown project into a national act with a following that’s growing by the day, due in no small part to their formidable live performances.

But to step back a moment and consider the album, of which myself I wrote a suitably efficiently enthusiastic review of just the other day: ‘universal critical acclaim’ is no mere hyperbole. Sometimes, a release by a major artist will receive a set of (very similar) reviews in the major press which almost feel like there’s been some kind of advance agreement on a consensus that this is one of their ‘good’ albums or a ‘return to form’ or whatever, with only one or two outliers, more often than not in more alternative channels. These moments strike as somewhat suspicious, since you clearly can’t please all of the people, even some of the time when it comes to something as subjective as music.

And yet Benefits have defied all of everything with the reception for Nails. Sure, an interviewer for Louder Than War suggested that the album was ‘depressing; and admitted it wasn’t something he envisaged listening to much, but the site’s review was roundly positive.

This unanimity is testament to the band’s unifying message: while some may find the barrages of noise challenging, there is absolutely no denying their sincerity, passion, or the power of the truth spoken in the lyrics, making Benefits THE voice of the disaffected here in Shit Britain. You might think that having just expended nearly a thousand words on the album the other day I’d be all out of words for benefits, but I’m just warming up, because the more I see and hear them, the more I have to say.

As the place packs out and the queue at the bar packs as deep as the clamour for the front, guitar / drums duo Scrounge entertain us with a vigorous set. They’re a pleasant surprise who start out suggesting that they’re ramshackle punkers with a murky distorted guitar sound, before, over the course of their set, revealing that they’re so much more. Unexpectedly melodic, with some chiming guitar tones, they deliver some proper songs with tunes and choruses, and incorporating both acoustic drums and drum pads, they vary the sound and style throughout the set. They’re indie, but with guts, and remind me in places of A Band of Susans.

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Scrounge

Something has changed since Benefits last came to Leeds, and it’s not just the drummer – although Cat Myers is stunning, and her contribution can’t be overstated. This is my third time seeing the band, and the third drummer I’ve seen them with, and Cat really brings a rare level of sonic articulation to the dynamic of the sound. She doesn’t just drum: she drives the colossal walls of noise blasted out by the Major brothers. They’ve never sounded better: the dual-synth noise assault is crisps and clear and subject to perfect separation tonight, meaning the tones and frequencies really hit hard; the bass shakes the bowels while the treble vibrates the nostrils (I take it’s that’s not something only I experience) as they blast through ‘Marlboro Hundreds’: just as it’s the perfect album opener, it’s the perfect set-opener, too, and following with ‘Empire’ again delivers that antagonistic blast of noise and rage that’s utterly flooring.

But as I said, something has changed. They seem more confident – not cocky by any stretch, still as humble as ever – but assured, while the crowd – perhaps there are more here who’ve been swayed by the acclaim – is a but chattier in pockets, which is irritating, but contrasted by the number of people who are shouting the lines back to the stage. There are more calls out, too – not heckling, per se as it’s not critical, but a keenness to engage, bantz (perhaps not best recommended, but indicative of the level of exuberance in the room) and even hands out for high fives (perhaps not best recommended, but indicative of the level of exuberance in the room).

‘Divide and Be Conquered’ delivers a deep dance groove while Kingsley throws rockist mic stand poses, before they take it down a notch with ‘Shit Britain’ with its shuffling beats and splashes of samples.

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Benefts

As I said, the more you listen, the more you discover: they’re not just shouting and walls of noise, and the set’s variety is something that stands to the fore, perhaps more so with the benefit (boom) of familiarity: ‘Warhorse’ is a raw punk, while ‘Council Rust’ is sparse; ‘Thump’ brings a white noise blitzkrieg ahead of a muscular rendition of fan-favourite ‘Flag’, which is utterly devastating.

Kingsley sits, slumped on the drum riser or on all fours between songs later in the set: he pours every ounce of energy and emotion into every line, and while there is clearly an element of performance about a Benefits show, more than anything, it’s about giving it all to every show, every song, every line, every word. This is fucking real. And that’s what people respond to. The music may be aggressive, harsh, delivered right in your face, but it’s unifying.

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Benefits

Hall can barely stand after an extended and ultra-intense rendition of ‘Traitors’, but still just finds the juice for the (not really) encore of ‘Taking Us Back’, which swings into arena rock and which shouldn’t work, but does in fact provide the perfect finish to a set which eschews genre limitations and showcases a band channelling by whatever means, and doing so with colossal force. The experience leaves me too socked in the mouth to wrap up with a pithy one liner or anything smart. Just… fuck, yeah.

Lo Egin – Volumancer

Posted: 8 April 2023 in Albums
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Panurus Productions – 5th May 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

What is this? Sludge-jazz? Avant-doom? It’s certainly not quite like anything else you’ve ever heard.

The Leeds act – who despite several years of hard-gigging to refine and hone their sound, I’ve not previously encountered – describe their debit long-player as ‘a modern doom tome in which thrashings of drums, bass and guitar find kindred spirits in larynx-shredding vocals and lamenting horn arrangements, delivered on trombone and saxophone.’

It’s the lamenting horn (I often find myself lamenting my horn, too) and grainy guitars that greet the listener at the opening of the album, the first crushing bars of ‘Accursed Land’ offering a strange sonic experience – strange because it’s neither one thing nor the other. And when it drops down to just bass, the rasping vocals are the sound of purgatorial torture. The bone-dry vocal chords sound like sandpaper in a desert, before the instruments return to conjure some sort of doom rendition of a Hovis advertisement. It’s circa 2004 post-rock with the most pungent metal overdrive, the track’s explosive finale a punishing experience, like a Satanic I Like Trains or Her Name is Calla as dragged through the flaming bowels of hell.

The riffery steps up several notches on the heavy grind of ‘Arise’, but it’s the manic brass that really messes with your ears and your head. Brass isn’t a new feature in metal: These Monsters, another Leeds act from back in the day who pitched noise and psychedelia with mental sax are obvious precursors and possible influences, but Lo Egin scribble all over the template and make everything louder, gnarlier, messier. And yes, Volumancer is seriously fucking messy, mangling everything together all at once ins a genre-crunching morass of disparate elements which coalesce to create something utterly mind-warping.

Half the time, you find you’re utterly revved and raving, marvelling at the ingenuity and the enormous weight of Volumancer; the other half you’re baffled and bewildered , wondering how much you’re actually enjoying this while feeling dazed after the relentless punches the album lands. The album’s centrepiece is the ten-minute ‘The Things His Highness Overlooked’ and it’s a magnificently mellow slow-drone jazz piece which borders on a chamber-orchestra arrangement, where layers of brass overlap one another, until about three minutes in when the guitars and drums crash in and it scales the heights of epic while bringing crushing weight.

This album may only contain five tracks (six if you get the cassette version with a bonus cut), but it has a running time of nearly forty minutes, and it’s a beast.

Brutal, ugly, yet beautiful and glorious, Volumancer is something else. What that something is, I have no idea.

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RSJ / Beyond All Reason / Disinfo – The Crescent, York, 25th March 2023

Posted: 28 March 2023 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

The best local bands tends not to stay local, so for RSJ to play a one-off reunion show seven years after calling it a day and singer Dan Cook replacing John Loughlin in Raging Speedhorn in their hometown is a big deal. Precisely what prompted this return isn’t clear, but it’s extremely welcome, as the near-sellout crowd indicates.

It’s busy early doors, and those who are present are rewarded with a killer set from York / Leeds metal act Disnfo. They’re young, loud, attacking and abrasive, pissed off and raging -against the government, society, the world. And too fucking right: there’s much to rage against, and it’s uplifting to see a band channelling that rage creatively, especially via thick, chunky low end riffs powered by some five—string bass action. The singer makes the most use of the floor in front of the stage. They lob in a Deftones cover about two-thirds of the way through the set, which gets progressively more melodic and overtly nu-metal toward the end of the set, but it’s supremely executed, and the interplay between the dual vocals is really strong and tightly woven.

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Disinfo

Beyond All Reason are also tight and proficient, but also quite cringeworthy in their straight-faced and immensely earnest performance of some epic but highly predictable hair metal with all the fretwork. They’ve been going for almost twenty years now and clearly have a substantial fanbase, meaning that I’m in the minority when I say I just can’t get onto it. Combining the po-faced thrash of Metallica with the vocal histrionics of Rob Halford, they’re every inch the band who did the ‘Shepherd’s piiiiiiiiieeeee!!!!’ Oxo ad from 2004. There is, however, something amusing about a support act playing a 350-capacity venue like they’re headlining Knebworth.

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Beyond All Reason

RSJ don’t look or sound like a band who haven’t played a gig together in donkeys and it’s full-throttle high-octane stuff from the second they hit the stage. There’s a lot of love for RSJ, and rightly so. Active between 2002 and 2017, they garnered significant acclaim in Kerrang and elsewhere, and knocked out four albums, while playing festivals such as Bloodstock and Sonisphere, as well as playing support slots for Slayer, Funeral for a Friend, Raging Speedhorn and Orange Goblin.

The band took their name from the construction term Rolled Steel Joist, and yes, they play some ultra-solid metalcore with no letup, whipping up a mega moshpit, but one that’s friendly – shaved heads and long beards hugging.

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RSJ

Leaning forward, bass dragging on the floor, the bassist hits all the lows and underpins a harsh, heavy guitar assault that just keeps on coming.

They switch to their original drummer halfway through the set for a handful of songs, and things get even heavier and more brutal: ‘Gordon’s Alive’ is a hundred-mile-an-hour frenzy.

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RSJ

It’s probably about half a dozen songs in that Dan announces that the next song is the last, which seems unfeasible. But if he announces it once, he announces it a dozen times over the next half hour, and it feels like a running joke in a good-natured set which reminds me why metal gigs are so often the best and the more brutal the music, the more docile and community-minded the band and crowd alike. The songs are all-out, but in between, the rapport between the band and their fans is heart-warming and a truly life-affirming scene.

In times of deep social division and shit on shit, we need more of this. And we certainly need more RSJ. Let’s hope this reunion isn’t the last.

Grub Nap – God Pile

Posted: 17 March 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Human Worth – 17th March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

God Pile is the debut release from Leeds duo Grub Nap, a duo consisting of Dan Barter (Dvne, Joe Pesci) on guitar and ‘back mouth’ and Steve Myles (Cattle, Groak, Thank, Khuda) on drums and ‘front mouth’. As if their joint pedigree isn’t recommendation enough (and having witnessed the majority of the aforementioned acts playing life for myself, I can vouch for that), it’s being released on Human Worth, and the limited run of fifty tapes has gone in advance of the release date.

And being Human Worth, 10% of all proceeds are being donated to charity, in this instance Leeds Mind, promoting positive mental health and wellbeing and providing help and support to those who need it most.

Now, I’ve mentioned this variously before, but for mental health and wellbeing, music can be – and certainly is for me – an immense help, and it’s the gnarlier, noiser stuff I often find provides the greatest comfort, especially in a live setting. It’s all about the escape, the release, the catharsis of raw emotions pitched against raging noise.

And Barter and Myles, who, according to the band bio ‘first played together in a hardcore band in their late teens and have teamed back up to churn out sludgecore for folks with short attention spans and no interest in wizards or flag waving’ definitely bring the noise, and the describe God Pile as ‘a golden brown, 15 minute, crumbly, introspective riff lattice. Snappy(ish) songs about greed, crippling anxiety, suburban nuclear mishaps and flagellant rozzers. 6 knuckle dragging clods of down tuned insolent rage.’

The longest of the six songs on here is three minutes and eighteen seconds long: the rest are all between a minute and two-and-a-half minutes long.

They pack a lot of action and a lot of noise into those short spans. The guitars are so thick and gritty the riffs churn your guts, so you don’t miss the bass, and Myles’ hard-hitting drumming is dynamic and varied, with shifts in both volume and tempo keeping the songs moving well, and the Raw-throated vocals are absolutely brutal. There’s a late 80s / early 90s feel to their brand of dingy noise, landing somewhere between early Head of David and Fudge Tunnel, then going full grind on the minute–long ‘The Daily Phet’.

Slowing to a downtuned crawl and ending with a howl of feedback, one suspect the title of the last track, ‘Crowd Pleaser’ is likely ironic – you can’t really have a go-nuts mosh to this. But then, after the intensity of the preceding cuts, you’re a knackered sweaty mess already – and that’s just sitting at home listening. Oh yes. Grub Nap hit the spot.

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Watch: ‘White Rose’ by La Costa Rasa

Posted: 16 March 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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‘White Rose,’ the new track from Leeds drum machine-driven racketmongers La Costa Rasa, is about the ‘White Rose Group’ in WWII Germany and specifically about Sophie Scholl.

A German student and anti-Nazi political activist, she was She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother, Hans. For her actions, she was executed by guillotine.

Never Forgive, Never Forget.

Cliché Cult – Slippy

Posted: 25 October 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Blaggers Records – 28th October 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

I thought I was pretty much abreast of happenings on the Leeds scene, but seemingly since lockdown put paid to live action for two years and since then reduced rail services and skyrocketing rail fairs have capped my forays over the county border significantly, it transpires I’ve missed out on a lot, including the emergence of post-punk influenced indie quartet Cliché Cult. They’ve banged out five singles already since forming in 2020, and this, their first with Blaggers Records, home to JW Paris, who have found favour on 6Music and on these virtual pages also.

‘Slippy’ is kinda loose-sounding, rough ‘n’ ready Northern indie with some chiming guitars that see it land somewhere in the region of Turn on the Bright Lights Interpol and Gene and Marion in that way that nods confidently in the direction of The Smiths but avoids the maudlin self-pity and whiny nasal vocals.

You wouldn’t describe them as typical Leeds, but it’s not hard to discern why they’ve built themselves a following, and fast, and if you’re looking for a song that fits the description of ‘indie anthem’, look no further.

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