Ahead of their debut album, Little Pictures Without Sound, due out on 16th July, SENSES offer a second taste of what’s to come with ‘Drifting’. On the one hand, it’s a slice of quintessential indie, drawing heavily on the sound of the late 80s / early 90s jangle – it would be almost impossible to not mention The Stone Roses by way of a touchstone – but on the other, there’s a lot more going on here than some direct and derivative copy.
The chiming guitars emerge through an atmospheric haze and some samples of dialogue, and soar away on a wash of dreamy shoegaze vibes. The song’s certainly appropriately titled, as it floats along… it’s less about verse/chorus dynamics and hooks than it about the overall sensation, as layered harmonies lift the listener and carries them through hues of golden sun and a sense of time without time. It’s blissed-out and mesmerising, and under four minutes is nowhere near enough.
‘Elba’, the second single cut from their forthcoming second album, Small Worlds, finds alternative / post-rock act Mount Forel conjuring a shimmering sonic tapestry of atmospheric instrumentation. From a hazy mirage of shifting sounds emerges a slow-burning laconic tune that twists desert rock with country and a progressive twist.
For reasons I can’t quite pin down, I find myself thinking of The Eagles, and ‘Horse with No Name’ by America, even though it really doesn’t sound like either. What it does have, though, is a certain laid-back, vintage Americana feel that’s kinda nice. Maybe I’m getting old, maybe I’m tired, maybe I’m stressed, maybe it’s just nostalgia, but nice is alright.
I have a hunch that the ethereal, bohemian songstress may not have been born Gabrielle Ornate, but it’s certainly fitting for the kind of light, decorative, yet expansive and kaleidoscopic electropop showcased on her debut single, ‘The March of the Caterpillars’.
Yes, it has that quintessentially 80s vibe, but then that in itself has become something that’s grown beyond its origins to become a genre unto itself, meaning that this single is both of a time and timeless. Propelled by a solid beat and buoyant bassline, it balances elements of both rock and pop, it’s a perfect vehicle for Gabrielle’s vocal, which switches from quiet and contemplative to full and bold in the choruses.
Lyrically, it’s about evolution and ‘respecting one’s roots’, but said lyrics are largely oblique and poetical, spinning together a succession of thoughts and images to form a semi-abstract flow, which works nicely.
It’s a strong debut, and Gabrielle seems to have emerged in full-fluttering glory.
‘Quiet down – you’re just a voice inside my head,’ sings Tom Farrelly, presenting the crossover between the internal / external monologue that we play out to ourselves. Even when sanity threatens to slip and we find ourselves talking to ourselves, we pull ourselves back with a good talking to. Strangely, there is no contradiction here.
Is ‘I A Fire’ as deep and meaningful as it is anthemic, or is it simply a fortunate lyrical stab that hits a certain level of resonance in verses that exist as much as anything to fill the space and provide a bridge from one chorus to the next? Benefit of the doubt says that this is a genuinely soul-searching moment of introspection that’s found its way into one of the biggest, most stadium-friendly tunes I’ve heard from any act, let alone a new one on the scene, in a long time.
Comparisons to the likes of The Killers and U2 are entirely warranted, but ‘I A Fire’ equally calls to mind the early noughties, and the emergence of Coldplay and Keane, before they came to represent the face of drab musical conservatism and instead marled the arrival of a new breed of acts who placed great emphasis on songwriting and the conveyance of emotion. More than anything though, something about this – and not the title – suggests that ‘I A Fire’ could – and should – be Third Lung’s ‘Sex on Fire’, their breakthrough moment. It ought to be.
It’s been a full decade since I first encountered the surreal & fantastical world of Sone Institute, the vehicle for electronic artist Roman Bezdyk, and I’ve followed his work up to 2018’s Where Moth and Rust Consume, which was championed by 6Music’s Gideon Coe.
Bezdyk’s output has always been interesting, and always evolving, and this standalone single release, which spans a full ten minutes, is an evocative work which draws together, as the title suggests, the sea and the echoes of memory.
There is something unique about the sea and its pull, and I suspect many of us have some memory connected to the sea, be it a family holiday or a journey by boat or ferry. And because the sea is capable of such very different states or moods, from the tranquil lapping of a low ebb to the raging torment of a storm or even a tsunami, so our relationships with the sea are likely to be wide and varied, and a love of the ocean must necessarily be tempered by a certain caution.
Chiming bells ring out against a sloughing wash of waves on a beach, and ‘Memory and the Sea’ brings the more tranquil aspect of the tides to the fore instead of elevating the tempests that can destroy lives and landscapes, through a combination of field recordings and abstract wavering drones. Amidst woozy, warping electronic tones the listener is pulled back to some kind of reimagining of the sea in some almost generic form: every moment spent either building sandcastles or otherwise simple staring out across the rolling waves merge together to forge a new consciousness which may or may not be real. The colour fades and takes on a Polaroid filter, or the soft hue of a dream. Wish you were here?
Ernie Ball’s 10 Gauge set is tagged as ‘skinny tip, heavy bottom’ – and it’s an apt description for the sound of this Hertfordshire quintet whose blues-based classic hard rock stylings are chunky on the riffery while packing in no shortage of lead detail.
Because ‘I’m Broken’ is very much in the vein of so many other bands from the last thirty years, there’s an almost instant familiarity to it, and that’s much of the appeal. Not every band can break new ground, and nor should they want to. Moreover, certain genres seem to demand a certain adherence to trope, and as such, it’s more about how well an act does it which determines how they should be judged.
There’s no question that they’ve got a knack for a big chorus, and ‘I’m Broken’ boasts a whopper: Rob Jewson’s powerful vocal is pushed along by the crunch of a dual guitar attack. That they pack it all in tightly into under three minutes is admirable, too: there’s nothing indulgent or excessive here, just a suitably solid, focussed song that balances ballsiness and melody just nicely.
Videostore are on a serious roll at the moment, and continue to exploit the benefits of being a DIY operation, with their latest cut, ‘Anglepoise’ being conceived, written, and recorded on Saturday. Today is Sunday, and here it is, released with a promo video.
‘Anglepoinse’ reminds me of ‘A Gentleman’s Agreement’ by The Fall, not least of all because of its sparse, downtempo style that contrasts with the majority of their other material, and also because Nathan’s reflective, introspective vocal delivery is a laconic drawl. As is characteristic of their sound, the vintage drum machine sound, kicking out a simple, metronomic beat and the juxtaposition of the two vocals are the defining features of this lo-fi indie tune.
The video is another lo-fi, no-fi effort: this time, instead of the pair miming in their living room, we get to watch their sea monkeys gliding and flitting serenely around their tank, and it feels oddly appropriate as a visual accompaniment. And it just goes to show that you don’t need budget, sets, or even much by way of equipment – just an ear for a tune and a bit of imagination, and Videostore have both.
I’ll admit, of those who were highly anticipating the latest output from the ‘Chicago-based one-woman industrial army’ who is I Ya Toyah, I wasn’t among them. No-one can know all of the music, and it actually amuses me rather when obscurants give that stunned look or otherwise make like you’re utterly clueless when you haven’t heard of and aren’t into every ultra-niche act they are, as they make like the artists with maybe 1,500 likes on their Facebook page are household names.
For a cult / underground artist I Ya Toyah has a pretty healthy fanbase, but not enough to guilt me into thinking I’ve been living in a cultural void for however many years. However, the arrival of new single, ‘Out of Order,’ the lead single from the EP of the same title, is a proper punch. It’s a dark, brooding electropop affair with breathy vocals that suggest an array of emotions, and it’s accompanied by a disorientating video that’s pitched as ‘a surreal story of a gradual mental breakdown, caused by an isolation and misinformation fed by media’, which was inspired by ‘the film art of David Lynch and the pandemic’.
It’s probably fair to say we’re all influenced by the pandemic, our every thought and our every move – or lack of. Has lockdown made us more paranoid? Probably. Has revisiting David Lynch been a common and rational pastime? Probably. Lynch was twisting things before everything got so very twisted, and now, the twisted seems fairly rational, or otherwise makes sense as a metaphor for the present if nothing else. And this slow-burning tune fits nicely. It’s not an instant grab by any means, but then, nor has the impact of life in lockdown – it’s been creeping, cumulative, the result being a new kind of fatigue that’s certainly mental, but for many manifests as physical. What do you actually do with that? There isn’t actually much you can do, other than find solace in music. And that’s where I Ya Toyah comes in. ‘Out of Order’ speaks beyond what it says explicitly, and through her art, she captures something about these difficult and desperate times, and about the human condition more generally.
It’s Friday afternoon: it’s been a tough week in a succession of tough weeks because lockdown, home working and home schooling since January has felt like an eternity. But arriving at the weekend alive and intact as the rain stopped and the sky cleared felt like some small-scale event, and an uplifting one.
Cracking open a beer, I experienced a brief moment of okayness: nothing nearly as extreme as euphoria, but something above calm. In the current climate, what could be better? What more could I ask for? The answer lay in my inbox with an email informing me that ‘Today Uniform launches an ongoing series of remix collaborations with digital releases exclusively on Bandcamp. Kicking off with Uniform X Zombi, new releases between Uniform and another artist remixing each other will continue over the coming months. In this first installment, Zombi gives Uniform’s ‘Shame’ an ominous rework and Uniform gives Zombi’s ‘XYZT’ a searing spin’.
It may seem perverse that I should experience such a surge of excitement at the prospect of being assaulted by gnarly noise, but there’s an inexplicable thrill with imminent catharsis, which of course is realised with the achievement of said catharsis.
The Zombi remix of Uniform’s ‘Shame’ isn’t a disappointment, but it’s not the raging racket one would anticipate. Everything is pulped down to a murky swamp of malevolence, Michael Berden’s vocal a slowed-sown metallic slur that finds itself enveloped in slow, gloomy synths that drone and grind as the drums plod dolorously. At times reminiscent of The Cure’s Carnage Visors, it melts toward abstraction, but the atmosphere is dank and oppressive. It may not be cathartic, but it is suffocatingly dense. It’s pretty much the perfect remix in that it isn’t kind or reverent, and instead takes the original material in a completely different direction, while still preserving its essence – in this case, the bleak anguish and soul-crushing nihilism – of the original.
Uniform return the favour by mangling the expansive math-tinged progressive ‘XYZT’ from Zombi’s last album 2020. The soaring guitars and intricate ‘Tubular Bells’ like synth motif is compacted down to a grainy murk of distortion, propelled by a hectic, stammering beat that’s pure tension. Again, it doesn’t bring the catharsis, but it does bring a whole lot of shade and discomfort. It seems right for the times: nothing is certain, it’s impossible to really settle and the light at the end of the tunnel remains shaky and may yet still be just a guy with a torch who’s lost. As we all are. But at least more Uniform provides some solace.
I am, unashamedly, a massive fan of Modern Technology, and have been from day 1. And their DOIY label, Human Worth, too. Not only do they make and release amazing music of immense weight, but they have real principles, donating a cut of the proceeds of every release to charity, and being thoroughly nice guys on top is just a huge bonus.
The label’s latest release – their first 7” single – is absolute gold (despite actually being marbled silver and black) And that’s another thing: the quality of the label’s product is magnificent, from the design to the finish. With vinyl’s resurgence, we’ve witnessed a greater attention to the physical product as an artefact to behold and to cherish, for all the reasons fans of vinyl spent about 20 years going on about at every opportunity while people moved away, first towards CDs and then towards streaming. I suppose aficionados of the ‘physical product’ proffer the same kind of case for vinyl as books, but when Kindle fans counter that ‘it’s just like a book’, the common retort is that what’s even more like a book is a book, and there is simply no substitute. Streaming fans don’t even have that: all they have is ‘convenience’, but they simply don’t grasp how much is missing from the experience when interacting with a physical format.
I may digress, but it’s relevant: when presented with a gut-punching welter of noise, it always hits harder when blasting from a fat chunk of wax through some speakers with a bit of poke. And shit, is this a gut-punching welter of noise.
Modern Tech and 72% crossed paths just days before life was placed on pause in March 2020. Sharing a bill for Baba Yaga’s Hut in London, no-one foresaw the year that was to come. With the prospect of live shows remaining tentative at best, this single feels like a necessary release of energy.
It’s 72%’s ‘Drowning in a Sea of Bastards’ that’s the (nominal) A-side, and it’s a squalling, full-throttle noise attack. It’s actually the drumming that dominates, while everything else collapses in on itself to create a volcanic sonic explosion of frenzies guitars that are played in such a way as to not really sound like guitars as much as a wild cacophony. There’s screeding feedback and all kinds of chaos flying every whichway, and somewhere, buried low in the mix, are some anguished vocals. You can’t make out a word of it, but the sentiment transcends language.
Meanwhile, Modern Technology continue to go from strength to strength. The first new material since their debut album, Service Provider in September, ‘Lorn’ is a six-minute monster. The droning feedback that howls from Chris Clarke’s bass is more mid-rangey than usual, bringing a sharp, brittle edge to their dark, dingy abrasion that’s pushes forward slow and heavy, propelled by Owen Gildersleeve’s crushing percussion. When the chords hit, they hit hard, and – as is now well-established as integral to their distinctive sound, Clarke’s vocals, distorted and buried in a wash or reverb, snarl and growl all the rage, landing somewhere between Lemmy and Al Jourgensen circa Filth Pig. It’s a trudging slow-burner that builds with a cumulative effect.
Oh, and there’s more: a brace of bonus tracks, starting with a head-shredding remix of ‘Drowning in a Sea of Bastards’ by Wayne Adams (Ladyscraper / Big Lad / Petbrick). Unrecognisable against the original, it’s a pulversing mangled mess of clanging metal and industrial-strength overloading distortion. Gnarly as fuck, it’s bloody brilliant. And as a double bonus, the additional cut from Modern Technology is another new track, ‘Ctrl’. In something of a departure, it finds Clarke deliver a spoken-word piece against a backdrop of thick, booming bass and slow, slow drums. As the murky layers build, so does the crushing weight of a track that’s reminiscent of Swans circa 1984: it’s claustrophobic and suffocating, and makes you feel tense.
It may only be fifteen minutes in total for all four tracks, but to describe the experience as intense would be an understatement, and I find myself simply too blown away to conjure a pithy one-liner to wrap up. Yes, it’s absolute dynamite.
Aural Aggravation 