Monolith Cocktail Blog

Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Roundup

The cult leader of the infamous lo fi gods, The Bordellos, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea has released countless recordings over the decades with his family band of hapless unfortunates, and is the owner of a most self-deprecating sound-off style blog. His most recent releases include the King Of No-Fi album, a collaborative derangement with the Texas miscreant Occult Character, Heart To Heart, and a series of double-A side singles (released so far, ‘Shattered Pop Kiss/Sky Writing’, ‘Daisy Master Race/Cultural Euthanasia’, ‘Be My Maybe/David Bowie’ and All Psychiatrists Are Bastards / Will I Ever Be A Man). He has also released, under the Idiot Blur Fanboy moniker, a stripped-down classic album of resignation and Gallagher brothers’ polemics.

Each month we supply him with a mixed bag of new and upcoming releases to see what sticks.

The Single.

Dead Rituals & Francis Moon  ‘Tangled Up’
10^th September 2021

This is actually quite a beautifully written pop song, and actually overcomes the awful bland production a lot of these indie pop songs have nowadays, the kind of production you hear on a song being played on an episode of Catfish when the person being catfished discovers that the hunk they thought they were talking to is in fact their best friends 80-year uncle who had a penchant for dressing like Touché Turtle and thrusting his pork sword at any passing stranger. This is a lovely well-written ditty and one if it came on the radio I would not turn off.

The Albums..

Hits ‘Cielo Nublado’
(Paisley Shirt Records)  17^th September 2021

Why am I listening to so much indie pop this week?! Not that I’m complaining when it’s made with so much charm, melody and melancholia as this album by Hits; an album that brings back the golden days of K Records and the charm and beauty of a Sarah Records release back into my life, but with an added spice of sex and darkness which I am very taken with, especially on the slightly discordant ‘Flat Horizon’, which I have been listening to on a loop for far too long now for one’s own good and mental sanity.

But this is an album I think could well soundtrack the soon to be with us autumn evenings and bus rides to and from work. It has a certain feel like an old friend you have not seen in a long time giving you a hug and in that instant all those memories of what you shared between yourselves come flooding back, which you momentarily bathe and lose yourself in. Guitar jangle has not sounded so Revolutionary in such a long time, and not moved me so much in such a long time. Just guitar, bass and drums: Buddy Holly did not die in vain. This is an album to buy and cherish. And C+, it has a musical tribute to Alan Vega, which is short charming and catchy: as all indie pop should be.

ONETWOTHREE ‘ST’
(Kill Rock Stars)  15^th October 2021

ONETWOTHREE are a three-piece post punk trio made up of three lady bassists from Switzerland, and the album is indeed a groovy post-punk delight. Obviously bass heavy with dashes of synth, guitar and a freshness that is welcome in this day of thawed out pre-frozen indie nonentities.

Instead of heart stopping originality and pop sass we are having music forced on us by those incapacitated with a grapefruit ear, but I’m happy to report that ONETWOTHREE have both a subtle originality and sprightly pop sass that has one sassing everywhere with indie pant shenanigans. They have tunes, melodies and a vocal charm that asks one the question, ‘why are we not hearing this on the radio more often?’ We need music with subtlety, charm and simple naive sexiness to soundtrack our daily life; the sort that ONETWOTHREE offer us.

Equinox x Xqui ‘External Combustion Tension’
5^th November 2021

Music is an art form and this album by Equinox and Xqui is a work of art. It’s an album that takes poetry, spoken word and atmospherics into an almost sci-fi territory. Ambiance abounds, if ambiance can do such a frivolity. Imagine John Cooper Clark gusting gushing and guesting on an album by a stoned tired Add N To X.

This is an album to wipe away your afternoon contemplating life and losing yourself in the beauty and intelligence and humour, sadness and anger. This well written and produced original album offers you all this. It offers you so much, and it’s quite refreshing to listen to something not influenced by Chuck Berry and his duck walk, and something that is not scared to stick out its well stroked chin and make an album that screams out: “art is nothing not be afraid of”. And to adventure your way into a new listening experience is indeed not a bad thing, like growing as a human being is not a bad thing: one can never learn too much.

This album could be an antidote to the mediocre music that lacks originality soul and art that so spoils our radio. Oasis fans should be locked in a room and force fed this record through large speakers and then see if they have grown as human beings or at least learned to walk like one.

Hanrath & Way  ‘Prismatic Illusions’
(Submarine Broadcasting Co.) 23^rd August 2021

Another album of experimental atmospheric tomfoolery from the dyed in genius label that is Submarine Recordings; an album that is soaked in humour sex and repeated listening. Each listen is repaid with another view of life seen through an unwashed wine glass; experimental jazz-tinged vignettes of cinematic explosion rubbing shoulders with long journeys through the artic coldness of synth led melodrama: an album of illicit kisses of soiled and melted hearts drawn in the snow.

Junk culture and blindfolded Art viewing where the sunken ships are just the follies of the mediocre, this is an album of reawakening’s and unmissed opportunity, an album I recommend whole heartedly.

Sun Atoms  ‘Let There Be Light’
1^st October 2021

Once again I mention Wonky Alice in a review as this is what this album reminds me of, which let me tell you is a compliment as Wonky Alice were one of the finest psych influenced bands doing the rounds in the late 80s early 90s, and this album screams of late 80s early 90s guitar-based psych. And as an early twenty something I would have loved this album. Even as a 54-year-old I’m still enjoying this album for all the same reasons I expect, but I suppose with the added attraction of nostalgia attached. Not that this is an album of nostalgia, but an album of well performed songs that hover around the Psych genre, but with a touch of Leonard Cohen drama and dry humour strangely emerging, popping its head above the pulpit waving a floppy hat casting peace signs to the embers of a dying sun. Yes, this is indeed an enjoyable well produced well thought out pop listening experience with dashes, dare I say, of its own togetherness and originality.

Will Feral ‘Hellweb’
(Metal Postcard Records) 4^th September 2021

Hellweb is a rather marvellous instrumental album, one that would make one hell of a horror film soundtrack. Will Feral could be the natural successor to John Carpenter, and one could imagine this easily being the music to the next Halloween movie, but one stuck sometime in the future in a nightclub maybe.

It is also an album that draws on past horror classics like The Sphinx, reminding me in parts of The Omen soundtrack, and at times the music from the already mentioned Halloween movies. John Carpenter is defiantly an influence. But also so is Moroder as there are definite electro dance vibes going on in some of the tracks without ever venturing into rave territory.

Hellweb is an album I would recommend to film score aficionados even if it is not a movie soundtrack. All this fine album is missing is a movie to soundtrack itself. And if this album was released on vinyl would sell like hotcakes.