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SoundsXP Presents

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

Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (album)

Antony Harding - Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear (album)

Black Angels - Indigo Meadow (album)

Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin (album)

Still Corners - Strange Pleasures (album)

Savages - Silence Yourself (album)

Mikal Cronin - MC II (album)

Can’s Ege Bamyasi played by Stephen Malkmus and Friends(album)

Victoria and Jacob - Festival 7"

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City (album)

Sauna Youth - False Jesii Part II 7”

Lightning Bolt - Oblivion Hunter

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

Latest Forum Posts

Album Review

Viv Albertine
The Vermillion Border Cadiz Music

Article written by Ged M - Nov 12, 2012

Viv Albertine was one of the faces of punk – friend of Sid Vicious, went out with Mick Jones – and her band remains hugely influential – on Sonic Youth, Massive Attack, Warpaint and the Beastie Boys to name but a few - but she left music when she gave up the Slits. She only picked up a guitar again in 2007 when her marriage ended but 2010’s Flesh EP demonstrated that the creative spark was still alight and her full length solo debut is all that EP promised and more.

It’s not the Slits in 2012, first off, although the clanging guitar and menacing air of ‘Little Girl in a Box’ suggests that Viv has rediscovered the sound that made the Slits so memorable. She’s older, somewhat wiser, still with a biting sense of humour. All the way through you’re listening either to her mischievous, very personal, passionate lyrics or you’re feeling the rhythms; she used different bass players on every track (including Tina Weymouth and Glen Matlock) and the interaction of her spindly guitar playing and their basslines makes things interesting – ‘The Madness of Clouds’, featuring Jennie Lee Lindburg of Warpaint, is hazy and shimmery while the edgy wails of ‘Becalmed (I Should Have Known)’ are anchored by Dennis Bovell’s strong rhythms.

‘Confessions of a MILF’ is, as the title suggests, a ‘fessing up - “I chose being an artist over being a wife” – and is especially memorable for the raw personal nature of the lyrics and for its driving rhythms. ‘Hookup Girl’ might be an angry or sad breakup song but it’s also freighted with a ballsy humour, incorporating the childish rhyme “milk, milk, lemonade” but with disturbingly adult overtones. The feminist fury of the Slits at sexual injustice is still on display but in a more subversive undertones, as in her hymn to English culture ‘Still England’ where she rhymes “Cosi Fanny Tutti” with “Women’s Institute-y”, set to a jazzy feel imparted by the legendary Danny Thompson.

Like Vivian Westwood. Viv maintains a punk sensibility while keeping up with fashion; The Vermillion Border preserves the revolutionary spirit of the Slits without the aging effect of old punk, the effect being a seriously exciting new project that could be as inspiring as her original band.

Links:
http://www.vivalbertine.com/
http://www.cadizmusic.com/2007/index.php
http://www.facebook.com/vivalbertine