“We come from very far north of here…” explains one of the cooler-than-anyone-else-here elderly chaps onstage “and in the winter the sun goes away for months… and when the sun comes back we have a party, for 40 years we play this song about it…” – it’s a brilliant piece of proto-Spacemen 3 drone psychedelia, and during its ebbs and flows the sun does come out again. Sublime. And then they do one that sounds like Galaxie 500 which is absolutely fucking incredible. Who’d have thought that a bunch of 60-year old Swedes could set the bar so high for the rest of the day?
Continue reading “Springtime in Barca – Primavera Festival 2008: part one”
Springtime in Barca – Primavera 2008 : part two
Always as much about the theatre as the music, during signature tune Are We Not Men they (Devo) strip down to T-shirts, shorts, long socks and, err, knee pads. It looks like a slightly gay senior citizens’ aerobics class.
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Mogwai – Mogwai Young Team (remastered)
What is particularly worthwile are the five live tracks. Showing not only how damn good the band can be when performing at their peak, but just how ear-splittingly, thrillingly and astoundingly loud they can be.
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Scarlett Johansson – Anywhere I Lay My Head
For years I’ve taken for granted that this flurry of idolisation, the famous candlelit invitation from Scientology and half the world noisily wanking itself inside out must somehow have been justified by Ms Johansson’s work. It was genuinely a bit difficult not to expect some kind of a masterpiece from my first encounter.
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Spring Rave Round-Up; Your Quarterly Guide To The Empty Dance floor
Mr Hands’ boundless energy is a wonder to behold, and there’s something wholly appropriate about the entire ritual: a more accomplished parody of rock music than the likes of Steve Coogan or Christopher Guest ever quite managed. With extra bong hits.
Continue reading “Spring Rave Round-Up; Your Quarterly Guide To The Empty Dance floor”
Edwyn Collins – Edinburgh Queen’s Hall – 21st April 2008
‘I want to take the pleasure with the pain’ he wrote and sang. For so long we thought that it might only be the pain Edwyn would get. But on this night he took his pleasure and we took ours.
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Eugene McGuinness – The Early Learnings of Eugene McGuiness
“Weird bubbly noises float in and out whilst McGuiness tests the bounds of his sanity by singing his stream of consciousness lines. Sometimes they are fey beyond belief, but you just can’t help thinking that he’s staring madly and uncomprehendingly at a poster of Ronnie Corbett as he does so.”
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Robert Pollard – Robert Pollard is Off to Business
“The old GBV aggrandisements seem to have worn themselves down into a crackled reflection. Still the songs are boss; as always he has a way with uplifting chord changes and knows exactly when to use a riff to its maximum effect. ”
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Wild Beasts – Limbo Panto
“…it’s actually quite a brilliant thing that the singer has room to emote to his heart’s content; (words like ‘conundrum’ are used in the lyrics: an act that normally would lead me to random acts of violence on my house plants. This time not). ”
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Michaela Melian – Los Angeles
“It’s incredibly confident music; the opening two tracks take seventeen minutes to play out, putting your notions of what is and isn’t allowed by a recording artist firmly in their place. ”
Continue reading “Michaela Melian – Los Angeles”