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Friday 6th April 2012
All Day BBQ Festival

Sparrow and the Workshop
6 Day Riot
The Nuns
Singing Adams
Y Niwl
Colours
Dignan Porch
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The Windmill
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On Our iPod

Golden Grrrls - New Pop 7”

Chris Devotion & The Expectations - Amalgamation & Capital (album)

Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester (album)

Throwing Up - Mother Knows Best 7”

Howling Wolf - Complete Chess Masters 1951-60

The Ketamines - A Rotten Bond/1 Yr (from Oddbox Singles Club Pt 2)

Cardinal - Hymns (album)

Proper Ornaments - Taking the Gamble Out of Buying 12”

Darren Hayman - January Songs (album)

Various: Marshall Teller EP 12”

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Album Review

Avi Buffalo
Avi Buffalo Sub Pop Records

Article written by Ged M - Jun 1, 2010

Avi Buffalo

It’s slightly sick-making when you find out that Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg hasn’t left his teens behind yet and his drummer hasn’t even left school; slightly more envy-inspiring when you consider the quality of his woozy-pop compositions that sound something like the Shins, Wilco and the Flaming Lips. From Long Beach, California, he writes the prettiest sort of thwarted love songs (all apparently inspired by the band’s keyboardist Rebecca Coleman who he nearly, but never quite, went out with), the melancholy counterpointed by glorious melody. He admits in a Guardian interview that “the songs are more about being sexually frustrated”, which seems quite true when you listen to ‘Five Little Sluts’ and particularly the dirty-minded ‘Summer Cum’, but a frustrated romantic is what he really is.

The majestically woozy opener ‘Truth Sets In’ sets the template for his hazy Californian surf-pop. Melody is what he does best, gorgeous swooning melodies and skyward choruses. In ‘Remember Last Time’, following his promise “I’ve never written a love song/ but I will for you”, the song dissolves into waterfalls of guitars, first as scintillating pop, then as soaring psychedelia. It’s a three minute pop song with an extra four and a half minutes of blissful guitars. The dreampop gem ‘What’s In It For’ is another song that adds guitar to elongate the ending; in that laidback Californian way, it seems that, once he’s created a mood, he doesn’t like to break it. Whatever the length, the quality of the shimmering pop melodies he incorporates makes his songs fly by; if sexual frustration inspires him to write such great songs, I hope he never gets laid.

Links:
http://www.subpop.com/artists/avi_buffalo
http://www.myspace.com/avibuffalo