Spacier, druggier and more (ahem, sorry) “pastoral”; full of semi acoustic strums, passages of phaser and tappety drums. A music perfect for hunting crop circles.
Archie Bronson Outfit – Wild Crush
The Amazing Snakeheads, Francois and The Atlas Mountains, Tolhuis Amsterdam 21/5/14
The singer Dale Barclay – wearing some gauzy snakeskin shirt and high-street chain bouncer’s kecks – prowled around like a dog locked up in a high rise.
Echo & the Bunnymen, Rats on Rafts, Tivoli Oudegracht, Utrecht 8/5/14
This show is one of the best I’ve seen from the Bunnymen for yonks, maybe the last decade and a half. The reason? Well, there’s just something in the air, as Thundeclap Newman so quaintly put it.
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Le Guess Who? May Day – Utrecht 24/5/14
Laraaji set up a Zen vibe – his famous “internal orchestra” no less, and matters got way out; we were lost by some rippling brook, wandering through a collective unconscious. Mrs Incendiary said “this is what cats dream when they’re happy”.
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Cultuur Barbaar Festival Leiden 15/5/13 – 17/5/13
Needless to say the room loved it; and an incredible moshpit of slumming academics, street scruffs from Amsterdam, earnest vegans, journos in love with cheap booze, rentapunks, music bizz types and Antwerp scallies threw each other around with total abandon. Jeez, even one of the academics John Robb had given an ear wigging to was making selfies behind the vortex of flesh, sweat and cheap Aldi beer.
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Islaja – Suu
Suu often sounds like some high gloss mid-eighties record – the sort of Art of Noise mash up, albeit that bit weirder, more in tune with the whacked out world of the Residents; a high gloss chart-bound Residents.
Sangre De Muerdago / Novemthree – Braided Paths
A magical dark folk record that’s certainly worth your time, especially if you are feeling meditative.
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Blood of the Bull – Bend Over
It’s this feeling of elegant, Bohemian chamber pop; the sound of suede and crushed velvet and absinthe in the afternoon.
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Quimper – Two Magpies
Two Magpies slips and slides all over the place; check out the disorientating rhythms on the title track – it’s like an elfin, modern take on Ruth White’s Flowers of Evil.
The Probes – Synesthesia
Now, normally I have a real issue with listening to bands that look like lad bands. They pop up as if freshly baked off a conveyor belt. Imagine; every day, different trainers. Bleugh.