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Friday 6th April 2012
All Day BBQ Festival

Sparrow and the Workshop
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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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Single/Download Review

Viv Albertine
Flesh EP Ecstatic Peace!

Article written by Ged M - Mar 10, 2010

Viv Albertine: Flesh

Looking at the videos embedded on the CD, you’d never have thought that she’d been a flatmate of Sid Vicious, knocked around with the Clash and been guitarist and main songwriter in the Slits. She looks pretty radiant, which might be the effect of 25 years away from music, as aerobics teacher, TV director, scriptwriter and full-time mother. Now she’s back with the ‘Flesh EP’, four songs of feminine energy and introspective intensity. The Slits never tried to match the blokes and Viv’s songs continue in that mould, building moods rather than exploding head on; “I wish I was Neil Young so I could explain my heart” she sings on ‘Never Come’ but then she does a pretty good job of it anyway. ‘I Don’t Believe in Love’ is whispery and dark, an out-of love song: “I don’t believe in love/ all in love’s not fair…I believe in concrete”. Love’s also the theme of ‘If Love’, the EP’s best song, where she recites the qualities of love in mantra-line repetition. Her voice and the nagging guitar figure are subtly done but create an almost hypnotic melody, while the line “love is a temporary madness” reminds you of her live act Limerance, the meaning of which is “obsessive love”. The Slits are back with Ari-Up and Tessa Pollit but Viv Albertine’s music seems to capture, in a slightly more concise, contracted and personal way, what the Slits were producing 30 years ago. When her label boss says “it’s everything you’d want to hear from the Slits 2010”, you find yourself agreeing with the aging beanpole.

Links:
http://www.vivalbertine.com
http://www.myspace.com/albertine