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Pictures from some recent gigs we've hosted:

29 March 2013 - Brixton, London

Viv Albertine, VuVuVultures, Left Leg, Mickey Gloss, Big Wave, No Cars, Arthur Gunn, Simon Love (Pictures)

8 March 2013 - Lexington, London

R.Ring, Golden Grrrls, Slushy Guts and Equinox (Pictures)

On Our iPod

Deerhunter - Monomania (album)

Cosines - Hey Sailor Boy (7")

Proto Idiot - You're Wrong (album)

Goat - Stonegoat (7")

Kid Congo and the Pink Monkeybirds - Haunted Head (album)

The Fuzz - Air 7"

Mikal Cronin - MC II (album)

Mark Mulcahy - Dear Mark Mulcahy, I Love You(album)

Veronica Falls - Waiting For Something To Happen 7"

Various Artists - Polly Wally: Gritty, Buttshakin' Rhythm 'n Soul (album)

The Epstein - Murmurations (album)

Lightning Bolt - Oblivion Hunter

Robyn Hitchcock - There Goes The Ice (2x 12")

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Album Review

Dan Friel
Total Folklore Thrill Jockey

Article written by Michael H - Dec 30, 2012

Dan Friel, formerly of Parts & Labor, follows his ‘Valedictorian’ single release with ‘Total Folklore’; an album of bone scorching noise-pop, best played at skull-bursting volume.

Not really an album of nuance and discretion, ‘Total Folklore’ begins with the mighty ‘Ulysses’. This 10 minute track is an absolute killer in an almost literal sense; you could repel pirates with a targeted burst of its gloopy tortured synth madness. Held together by a beat seemingly sampled from a troll banging two lorries together, the song starts with the sound of flayed electronics, raygun wobble and screaming feedback from which a paradoxically poppish melody emerges. The fact that the noise and tune exist so well together is a sign that Friel’s songwriting chops should not be underestimated. The tune goes on and gloriously on, occasionally overwhelmed by a tide of broken drone, before taking an interlude into a breakdown that transforms the beat into halting artillery bangs. The song then enters a kaleidoscopic cement mixer of intense machine riffing, like the google algorithm turned cartoonishly evil and embarking on an infinite keytar solo. The noise Friel conjures up is brilliant; it’s something you could sink your head in and never again emerge from; a psych-rock classic constructed from junkyard electro and molten hard-drives.

The rest of the album can’t help being eclipsed by ‘Ulysses’. The tracks are still very good in themselves but function as an echo from the first track’s explosive mega-tonnage. Single ‘Valedictorian’ sounds as great here as it did in isolation, a riotous power-pop stomper.‘Windmills’, ‘Velocipede’ and the three intermissions act as tours around the tools at Friel’s disposal, ranging from howling noise to (relatively) soft harmonies.

‘Total Folklore’ is an exhausting but great record. Dan Friel has somewhere managed to combine power-electronics and analogue noise with a pop sensibility that does justice to both.

Links:
www.danfriel.com/
www.thrilljockey.com/