The world of grind core has long been an impenetrable spiders-web of small towns with cheap back rooms for hire, where souls who’ve been stationed together since year zero can express their discontent via the tightness of jeans.
The world of grind core has long been an impenetrable spiders-web of small towns with cheap back rooms for hire, where souls who’ve been stationed together since year zero can express their discontent via the tightness of jeans.
rolo tomassi’s eva, givin it some’daddy-oh
Bobby Mcgees – S’amuser Com Des Fous (Cherryade) http://www.myspace.com/thebobbymcgees
Jimmy and Eleanor Mcgee are tripping over toy soldiers, ukuleles, plastic melodica, jews harp, gingerbread-man patches and the very concept of twee to bring indiepop’s strange beauty back to the people. This, their second EP for Cherryade boasts all the back and forth dialogue about Parisian film starlets and MP3 playing Daleks huddled beneath baffling track titles like Danny Baker / Bob Marley and of course the ever-present theme of L.O.V.E. that the Mcgees’ adoring fan base have come to expect.
Thing is, the band have moved forward. The debut was an abrasive blast of unexpectedness in which this sweet couple from Brighton yapped "kill yourself, kill yourself" over rag-tag instrumentation (the Antifolk UK way) and anyone could be forgiven for pleading ‘do this again and again forever’. But by the pulsing saxomophone-tinged oom-pah skiffle of side B closer Au Suivant! any doubts should have blooming well dissipated, yeah?
Rolo Tomassi – Digital History / Beatrotter (Holy Roar)
http://www.myspace.com/rolotomassi
The world of grind core has long been an impenetrable spiders-web of small towns with cheap back rooms for hire, where souls who’ve been stationed together since year zero can express their discontent via the tightness of jeans. Now popular (but only as popular as, say, Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps) culture has embraced the whole shebang thanks to the likes of Trencher, Gallows, Bring Me The Horizon and (because this is becoming a bit of a sausage party) Rolo Tomassi, whose frontlady Eva shrieks the blues with all the psychotic panache of a Yorkie Polly Styrene being dumped over the phone at the end of a very long day indeed. Last time I checked into That London it was no challenge to find sounds moving marginally too fast for the human brain to decode and assign designated bust-a-moves. In fact, it seemed to be more or less ‘in’.
So here we have two tracks of dirty start-stop riffage, digital scrawls and silky smooth passages where fingers sweep gracefully over keys. Somehow Rolo Tomassi’s shtick is different from the rest. It seems deep and passionate in all the right places, but also funny as hell. Structurally, one might as well be listening to The Goons’ Ying Tong Song. It’s about unexpected sound combinations and hiding behind the door, extending precious seconds before jumping out at the listener.
Alan Titmash – Sexy Fart / Turgid Gabba (Blunt Force Trauma)
http://www.myspace.com/alantitmash
Mashcore’s latest young hopeful Jonny Pelham dishes out a double A of The Winstons’ drummer falling down endless stairs (an upward bound escalator perhaps). At it’s heaviest, Pelham’s racket feels like the Market Rasen earthquake tearing under a house full of gab stabs and wooden buckets piled high on rickety shelves. But this isn’t a dark record. Samples abound, bringing delight somewhere on par to that chocolate man from the Lynx advert unexpectedly strutting past.
Actually I don’t think the plunderphonic side of this record can be emphasised enough. You might half expect a cuddly toy to come lumbering out of the mix. Alright then Brucie, I remember hearing Ivor Cutler, Queens Of The Scissor Age and someone belching God Save The Queen. Surely that’s worth a colour telly, or at least a run-out groove with the English language’s single most offensive utterance repeated ad infinitum.