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Friday 6th April 2012
All Day BBQ Festival

Bands tbc

The Windmill
Brixton

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

Single/Download Review

Wavves/ Titus Andronicus/ Franz Ferdinand/ Vile Imbeciles/ Crayon Fields/ Bearsuit
Singles round-up

Article written by Ged M - Apr 2, 2009

Wavves’ ‘So Bored’ (Young Turks 7”) is ace distorto-pop, burying the sweetest girl singer beneath layers of nasty guitar grime, with a wonderfully rudimentary guitar solo to polish it off. Reminded me of the Breeders in the best way. ‘How Are You’ is a complete contrast in many ways, seemingly gentle but fuelled by a febrile energy that spills over by the end. Lowest-fi, highest quality stoner pop. (http://www.myspace.com/wavves)

The second single by Titus Andronicus shows two sides of the band. The first is the bar-room rock'n'roll of ‘My Time Outside the Womb’ (Merok Records 7”). This autobiographical childhood tale of disappointment ("I heard my daddy say: 'one mistake is all it takes'"), has a boozy New York Dolls sort of decadent delivery that works best if the listener is pissed up and a bit fractious. The second side is 'To Old Friends and New', a drunken confessional that starts with saloon bar piano and becomes just a solo hushed voice, which is actually quite disturbing. Great drinking music, but I’m left unconvinced that you can take the band out of the bar-band. (http://www.myspace.com/titusandronicus)

Franz Ferdinand’s ‘No You Girls’ (Domino Records) is a confident, stomping disco-glam rocker with an evil dancebeat. This sort of intelligent pop about the battle between the sexes, with saucy, subversive lines like “lick your cigarette then kiss me” is just what mainstream radio ought to be playing. (http://www.franzferdinand.co.uk)

Death jazz, according to Vile Imbeciles, is “Ornette Coleman’s free jazz, but metal”. The track of that name, that forms the “B-side” of the single (Tee Vee Eye Records), is the longest 30 minutes and 4 seconds of avant-arse I’ve ever heard, just blocks of unstructured atonal noise and incomprehensible time signatures. Plus a drum solo. The Queenie Was A Blonde album had some creative and inventive moments and the same is true here; ‘Jennifer’ sounds a lot like early Liars but ‘Tramp’ treads that unlamented funk-metal path. Some psy-war soldier may find a use for ‘Death Jazz’ though – in torture. (http://www.myspace.com/vileimbeciles)

Crayon Fields, from Melbourne, make a lush, supermelodic naïve-pop (not twee, no), with tinkly glockenspiels, washes of synths, choral voices and a string quartet. The epic love song ‘Voice of Paradise’ (The Passport Label) reminds me of the Magnetic Fields, whereas the delicate psych pop of ‘So Much Time’, with its delicate synth moans and jibber-jabbering guitars, is more like the Clientele. Very lovely ornate pop music that keeps rolling its big cute eyes at you until you have to give in and buy it. (http://www.myspace.com/thecrayonfields)

‘Muscle Belt’ (Fantastic Plastic) is Bearsuit taken straight, no wailing (well, not much). Full of fierce darting rhythms, and with keyboards whooshing and fizzing, plus a great chorus, that is perfect pop for pumped up dirty dancing. First ‘Foxy Boxer’ and now ‘Muscle Belt’, the lure of the gym is proving fertile inspiration for a series of excellent, energetic indiepop tunes. (http://www.myspace.com/bearsuit)

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