The Kills: Tape Song

‘Time ain’t gonna cure you honey, time don’t give a shit’ sings Alison Mosshart on the new single Tape Song by The Kills, released on the 24th of November. The bitter rock song is back, and The Kills are doing it in their dirty, sexy way.

Taken from The Kills‘ third album (Midnight Boom) released back in March, Tape Song features Mosshart’s American vocals over British guitarist Jamie Hince’s spurting guitars.

Mosshart’s voice is double layered and breathy in the verse (almost like Madonna) whilst it cracks in the more wild chorus (more like Duke Spirit’s Leila Moss). Hince’s guitars, meanwhile, are sparse and the bass simple, before becoming Franz Ferdinand-esque in the chorus.

All of this is set over laptop drums, which finally break out into resonating snares as the other instruments explode.

The contrast in The Kills‘ Tape Song is fascinating, yet even more interesting is the way that despite the burgeoning  expression that the chorus promises, the mechanical drums and vocals never fully disappear, and always appear to be repressing full out emotion.

This all creates a resignation, echoed in Mosshart’s insightful lyrics and her poetic way of playing around with her own phrases  - ‘Tape ain’t gonna fix it honey, it ain’t gonna stick’.

Tape Song is backed by London Hates You, where the lyrics are less insightful, but where another, softer side of The Kills is shown, with the strong influence of The Velvet Underground becoming apparent.

Visit their MySpace. Tape Song is released on Domino Records on 7″ and digital download.

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Clinic, the Liverpudlian band who have for a long time been valiantly plugging away somewhere between the underground and the mainstream returned back in April with their new album ‘Do It!’.  Clinic’s latest single from that album, “Tomorrow” is released on the 24th of November.

The single is released to coincide with the start of their new tour ‘Planetarium of the Soul’, Clinic’s collaboration with the animator Clemens Habicht to create stunning live shows.

Clinic are well known for their slightly quirky songs, that are not unlike fellow Domino labelmates Archie Bronson Outfit. They are stomping, off-kilter songs based around repetitions, vintage keyboards and strong pedal drum.

‘Tomorrow’ is precisely this. The beginning sounds like guitars being detuned and this loose-stringed sound and warping tonality continues throughout. Clinic make use of basic chord backings that are more about the throbbing rhythm than the complexity of guitars. In fact, it is really the repetition of the chords, rhythm, lyrics and tune that is the make-up of ‘Tomorrow‘.

Yet Clinic are completely hypnotising. The bitter snarl of the vocals that nasally reiterate the sentiment of doing things ‘before tomorrow comes’ is compellingly cool and, sounding like a stuck Pavement record, it has a typically laissez-faire air about it.

The B-sides are a trademark DFA remix and a brand new song called ‘Hijack’. Visit Clinic’s MySpace.

‘Tomorrow‘ is accompanied by a video by Wiz:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoHd8uy9vqw

These are the full live dates:

18 Nov: Deaf Institute Manchester
19 Nov: The Arches Glasgow
20 Nov: Factory Club Birmingham
22 Nov: The Brudenell Social Club Leeds
23 Nov: The Scala London, London

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The Boat That Rocked is a new film written and directed by Richard Curtis

The Boat That Rocked is a new film written and directed by Richard Curtis of Four Weddings & A Funeral & Black Adder fame.

The film includes a great ensemble cast including Nick Frost, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, the wonderful Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Gemma Arterton.

The Boat That Rocked is an ensemble comedy in which the romance takes place between the young people of the ’60s and pop music.

It’s about a band of rogue DJs that captivated Britain, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred jazz.

The Boat That Rocked - Synopsis

In 1966, arguably British pop music’s finest era, the BBC played only two hours of rock and roll every week. But pirate radio blasted rock and pop from the high seas 24 hours a day. And 25 million people, more than half the population of Britain, listened to these pirates every single day.

The Boat That Rocked is an ensemble comedy in which the romance takes place between the young people of the ’60s and pop music. It’s about a band of rogue DJs that captivated Britain, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred jazz.

The Boat That Rocked looks set to be one a big British comedy next year. The film also stars Kenneth Branagh, Tom Sturridge, Jack Davenport, Ralph Brown, Chris O’Dowd and January Jones.

The Boat That Rocked will be released in UK cinemas on 29th April, 2009.

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The Black Angels will cap off their incredible year in style with their new single Doves released on December 8th and an accompanying autumn tour.

Doves shows The Black Angels as a band who since their sophomore album ‘Directions to See a Ghost’, released in May, have hypnotised and mesmerised their fans with their invented genre ‘Native American drone ‘n’ roll’.

The Black Angels hail from Austin, Texas, and although their name may well evoke images of heavy-metal scream-rockers, this is not at all the case, with the band instead creating drone-based psychedelic rock experimentations.

Doves is very much in this style, though remains tuneful, the reverb on the drums and the quietness of the vocals in the mix gives them a distant sound that locks in your subconscious and plays, by means of the psychedelic influences, on dark and obsessive, and light and floating parts of the emotions.

The pounding drums and relentless, frayed guitars behind which the mantra-like voice of lead singer Alex Maas sings his drawn out words place this song in a similar style to The Velvet Underground & Nico (after a song of whom The Black Angels named themselves) or The Jesus and Mary Chain, or even, less distinctly A Storm in Heaven era Verve, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and even an American Teenage Fanclub.

In any case, Doves is a fantastic single from a great band for which it is well worth the expenditure of your finest English pennies. Take a listen to them on their MySpace.

You can see The Black Angels live in the UK in:

Manchester, Ruby Lounge – 15th December

Glasgow, Stero – 16th December

London, ULU – 18th December

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Cold Water Kids - Loyalty to Loyalty

The Cold War Kids’ Film, ‘02.08 to 06.08‘ is airing on YouTube this week until Friday, so watch it for free while you can.

Directed by Vern Moen, 02.08 to 06.08 is a 34 minute film about Cold War Kids and the making of the album, Loyalty to Loyalty.

The film will be featured exclusively on Youtube for one week only and is available for purchase with the Deluxe Edition of the Loyalty to Loyalty CD release.

It’s a beautiful film which includes insight on the history of Cold War Kids, loads of behind the scenes studio footage, and interviews with the band and their families.

Loyalty To Loyalty is out now.

Watch 02.08 to 06.08 now

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ6KIW5UPdo

For more information visit the Cold War Kids website.

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Back in May I had the pleasure of reviewing the album Wild Streaks & Windy Days by The Boxing Lesson, an enormous album from the Texas three piece and one that I am still playing now.

The opening track of the album is Dark Side Of The Moog and the band have now released a wonderful animated video to accompany the song. The video is directed by Eric Power and is reminiscent of The Beatles Yellow Submarine style animation, where the band are seen as cartoon characters on a psychedelic journey to the back drop of the track.

The opening bars bring to mind Echo & The Bunnymen, before the song takes off into a trip of psychedelia and ultimately a fantastic noise that sets the tone for the rest of this excellent album.

Drummer Jake Mitchell Jailed

The Boxing Lesson’s drummer Jake Mitchell was arrested after the album was recorded, for growing marijuana, but has been jailed and branded by the US government as a Terrorist.

Jake Mitchell, drummer for The Boxing Lesson and most importantly, a
dear friend, will be put in Federal jail at the beginning of Sept
for some marijuana growing charges.  What makes this story unique and
what has enraged every single one of our close friends, is that Jake
has been branded by our government as a Terrorist under the Patriot
Act.   In fact, they have thrown the Narco-Terrorist tag on him.
What this does legally for a defendant is mind blowing in terms of the
new laws waged against them.   If you are branded a terrorist, your
wife doesn’t get spousal protections and will go to jail.  If you are
branded a terrorist, each party involved in the crime gets full
responsibility for the scope of the crime.  Then there are strict sentencing
minimums.  And remember we are talking about Marijuana here.
It is obvious from anyone who has ever met, hung out with and gotten to know
Jake Mitchell that he is anything but a terrorist.  This incorrect and unfair
branding on our own US citizen and friend, Jake Mitchell, is a disgrace
and this has caused untypical hardships on his life.  He has sold his house,
lost his cars, and his freedom.  We are  asking our friends in the media,
in bands, in t-shirt screen shops and really, anyone who can help, to send
the message of his story to the public eye.  We know there was a crime
involved but branding him a terrorist has set unfair sentencing guidelines on
a person who is anything but a terrorist.

The latest news is that Jake is currently waiting for an appeal date to be set.

You can keep up to date on The Boxing Lesson and Jake at their MySpace page.

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The cover of March of Incurable Workaholic

Writing music under the name of The Retail Sectors since 2000, Kentaro Togawa, the Japanese multi-instrumentalist takes as his primary inspiration Japanese video game and film music and incorporates this into guitar-driven melodic sound explorations in the same vein as Steve Reich. The experimentation of sound, though, whilst leaning towards the abstract, shows an acute sense of musicianship, a deft touch for rhythm and a passionate understanding of dynamics.

Don’t be fooled into thinking, though, that The Retail Sectors’ newest release “March of Incurable Workaholic / Song About A Girl Who Killed Herself Yesterday” is some blippy electronic release. These are carefully worked soundscapes and subtly crafted compositions. The Retail Sectors’ drums, for example, are something very special. Reflecting the title of the first piece, they are incessant and brutal, but the sound of the snare penetrates everything with a resonating warmth and devastating reverb.

Then there are the layers of sound. Mixing both distorted and chiming guitars, The Retail Sectors creates the musical landscapes previously associated with bands like Sigur Rós. Yet this is instrumental, and so the dynamics do all the talking, the piece appearing to be being held at bursting point for so long that finally the guitars drop out, seemingly exhausted from the exertion.

The second track on the record “Song About A Girl Who Killed Herself Yesterday” is darker and more abstract. The guitars progressively work in several different ways – evoking solitude, fury and devastation at various different points.

The tracks are released by Distraction Records on 8” clear square 150 lathe cut numbered vinyls, presented in cotton paper, photoetched with miraclon letterpress (pretty special to see a label care about their releases) on the 17th of November. The vinyl also comes with a free download code for the MP3-minded. See here.

Here is the video for March of Incurable Workaholic:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFjlWMZgpBw

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In the past, a lot has been made of Deerhoof’s eccentricity, with many finding that whilst the group’s song writing may be incredibly original, it can be rather difficult to swallow. However, there is something compelling about Deerhoof that brings listeners back to them time and again.

Deerhoof fill a gap in the market that no-one really knew was there: minimalist rock, quirky song structures, even more quirky lyrics of mixed English and Japanese, and a weird ability to place something catchy amid the squall of other-worldly, yet in fact very earthly, sounds.

The first listen to Offend Maggie, Deerhoof’s second album in consecutive years (last year’s Friend Opportunity was a critically acclaimed success) is a baffling one. How did anyone come up with this music? Why were such strange lyrics ever conceived? Why are the songs apparently governed by the words and not the tunes and rhythms?

But much like a lot of Deerhoof’s work, it is because there is something of the conceptual here. Offend Maggie’s cover, a black and white drawing of a faceless man with his foot posed on a chair on a blank white background pretty much says it all. These are songs with a warm human touch, placed on a very harsh and cold background minimalist background. Various objects relieve the solace, but never is there truly something more than temporary to fill the void, or satisfy the despairing mind.

Album opener “The Tears Of Music And Love”, (one of Deerhoof’s many great titles on Offend Maggie) is a perfect example. There is little more than drums and a guitar riff at most points, and even these sound vulnerable at times. Yet then Satomi Matsuzaki places a catchy pop melody over the top – singing to herself in Japanese about valleys and forests.

There are, however more playful songs too, like the very poppy “Chandelier Seachlight” and “Fresh Born”, where Satomi’s Japanese high-pitched accent makes the songs sound like the crazy Japanese television shows you sometimes see on Tarrant on TV.

Offend Maggie, then, ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. The more conceptual songs in themselves “Buck and Judy”, “Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back” – where the drums are made to sound like bouncing basketballs – can be fairly irritating to listen to. But the album as a whole contains such moments of searing human warmth juxtaposed against blank, cold backgrounds that it is once again a fascinating and compelling listen from Deerhoof.

You can hear their songs here. Deerhoof will be performing live at the University of London Union on the 2nd of December.

Offend Maggie is out now on ATP records and is worth buying for the artwork alone.

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Ulysses will be released on January 19th 2009 on Domino, a week before the release of their third album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand.

The single was produced by Dan Carey and the band as part of the album sessions which took place at the band’s own HQ in Govan, Glasgow and Carey’s South London studio.

Additionally the band have announced a remix competition with the website Beatport, www.beatport.com.

Remix parts of Ulysses will be made available to buy on Tuesday 4th November 2008 allowing people to put together their own unique version of the track well-ahead of the track being heard on any radio station.

These remixes will then be judged by Beatport and the Beatport community and the overall winner will then be picked by the band. The winning entries will then be released digitally to coincide with the single release in January.

Currently about to embark on a run of European dates, U.K. shows will be announced shortly.

Franz Ferdinand are: Alex Kapranos (vocals/guitar/keys), Nick McCarthy (vocals, keys, guitar), Paul Thomson (drums/guitar) and Bob Hardy (bass).

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The Kills release new single - Tape Song

Tape Song is the new single from The Kills, released on 24th November, and is taken from their critically acclaimed third album, Midnight Boom.

Tape Song is a rock n’ roll anthem featuring tantalizing vocals from Alison Mosshart and disjointed guitar playing from Jamie Hince, with a highly infectious and explosive chorus.

The 7” is backed with London Hates You, a dreamier 60’s inspired track portraying the band’s more gentle side.

Tape Song will be available on 7” and via digital download.

After an extensive US tour with the Raconteurs, The Kills will embark on a full UK headline tour throughout November and will play the Astoria in London on November 20th.

UK Tour Dates:

Sat 8th November: Sheffield - The Leadmill
Sun 9th November: Stoke-On-Trent  - The Sugarmill
Mon 10th November: Nottingham - Rescue Rooms
Sun 16th November: Coventry - Kasbah
Mon 17th November: Norwich - The Waterfront
Wed 19th November: Cambridge - The Junction
Thu 20th November: London - Astoria Theatre
Fri 21st November: Brighton - Concorde2

Watch the promo video for Tape Song by The Kills

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