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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
+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”

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Single/Download Review

Spectrals/ Fair Ohs
various singles Captured Tracks/ Sex Is Disgusting/ Tough Love Records, all 7”

Article written by Ged M - Mar 11, 2010

Fair Ohs/ Spectrals split 7" (TLV035)

Separately or together you should catch up with Yorkshire’s Spectrals and London’s Fair Ohs.

Spectrals is a one-man band, Louis Jones, who played in hardcore bands when younger. Now he’s making a sound like a twisted Phil Spector production of 50s/60s pop – but even weirder than Ol’ Wiggy Phil ever was. ‘Leave Me Be’ (Captured Tracks 7”) filters Eddie Cochran-ish rock’n’roll through a deliberately opaque wall-of-sound filter with slightly out of tune/time instruments, while ‘Suit Yourself’ has a fabulous woozy 50s rhythm that sounds as if the turntable is slipping. You might know where these songs came from but you also know they’re not heading back there.

The Fair Ohs are an ex-hardcore London three-piece, frantic proponents of what’s been dubbed “tropical punk”. I’d call it a post-punk take on African rhythms, but before you think you’ve heard enough white Brooklyn bands playing high-life rhythms and juju music, get your ears around the Londoners' ‘Summer Lake’ (Sex is Disgusting 7”). It’s a brilliantly catchy flash of call-and-response vocals, chiming guitars and bubbling rhythms with a gripping punky chorus: “I keep waking up by mistake/ at the bottom of summer lake!” ‘Almost Island’ starts with the same jangly rhythms and percussive intent but resolves into an ambient noise of steel drums and field sounds, showing that their African inspiration doesn’t replace their native feel for noise.

Both bands appear on a great split 7” single from Tough Love Records. The Fair Ohs’ side fizzes like the fuse on an Afrobeat bomb, bright, beaty and burning supernova hot on ‘Hey Lizzie’ while ‘Himalayas’ scatters restless and jerky African guitar figures everywhere. Spectrals’ contribution is very weird. The dreamy ‘Birthday Kiss’ swathes a song that could have been conjured up from the 1920s in waves of reverb to woozy effect. ‘Keep Your Magic Out of My House’ is clattering 50s Gene Vincent pop as heard through a ghost receiver. It’s slightly less satisfying that his solo Captured Tracks effort but the weird production style always keeps you guessing. Highly recommended, especially as there are 500 only of these gems.

Links:
http://www.myspace.com/spectralsound
http://toughloverecords.com/
http://www.myspace.com/theemightypharoahs