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SoundsXP Presents

Friday 6th April 2012
All Day BBQ Festival

Sparrow and the Workshop
6 Day Riot
The Nuns
Singing Adams
Y Niwl
Colours
Dignan Porch
+more tbc

The Windmill
Brixton
Price tbc

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”

Latest Forum Posts

Gig Review

I Was A King/ Smile/ We Buy Gold
Windmill, Brixton

Article written by Ged M - Mar 2, 2010

I Was A King

Frode Strømstads of guitar-poppers I Was A King has us Londoners blinking in bemusement from the off. While other bands thank the crowd for coming out on such a vile winter’s night, the Norwegians thank us for the weather and complain that after six months of snow, it feels like spring to them. That positivity in weather-appreciation is replicated in their music, a generous and jangly sound that owes much to Guided By Voices, Teenage Fanclub and Dinosaur Jr in all their 80s ‘Freak Scene’ finery. The loud and raucous guitars ensures that the sound isn’t purely a retro 60s one, but they can tone it down as required, as on the sumptuous janglebomb ‘Norman Bleik’. The fact that the bassist (on loan from Loch Ness Mouse) is wearing a classic Ladybug Transistor t-shirt only strengthens our connection with the band and regardless of whether you’re facing Norwegian blizzards or driving London rain, you really should make the effort to catch this fine band.

Set list: Still/ A Name That Hurts To Say/ Wild Boys/ Breathe/ Weighing Anchor/ California/ Golden Years/ Norman Bleik/ Fading Summer/ best Wishes/ Break Away/ So Shy/ Step Aside/ Finally You’re/ Not Like This

Smile from South London begin as awkwardly as their sockless singer looks, before both of them settle into their grungy groove. It sounds as if they’ve grown up on a diet of Nirvana and bands like Jesus Lizard, where noise and melody are strange but acceptable bedfellows, with the exception of the drummer whose rabid pounding makes him a direct descendent from the Muppets’ Animal. They keep things loose and on the edge of chaos but in their last song they show they can build and maintain a strong rhythm, with the singer wailing over it like some like some strange hybrid of Tom Meighan from Kasabian and Thurston Moore. They’re odd, probably drunk, and inexplicably compelling.

We Buy Gold’s music is as asymmetrical as the singer’s haircut. With trumpet and bass taking lead parts, and the guitar filing in behind them, it’s post-rock in intent, as is the division of the set into three blocks. The first section works best, when they have the feel of Pavement (same Malkmus-style non-seqiturs) and Sonic Youth; later they go off on atonal digressions that made my head throb as a result of an allergy to jazzy noodling.

Links:
http://iwasaking.com/
http://www.myspace.com/iwasaking