Quarterly Revue Playlist 2019: Part Two: Apparat, Cairo Liberation Front, Tinariwen, Sampa The Great, Seba Kaapstad…
June 25, 2019
PLAYLIST
Compiled: Dominic Valvona/Matt Oliver
Art: Gianluigi Marsibilio
From an abundance of sources, via a myriad of social media platforms and messaging services, even accosted when buying a coffee from a barristo-musician, the Quarterly Revue is expanding constantly to accommodate a reasonable spread that best represents the Monolith Cocktail’s raison d’etre.
As you will hear for yourselves, new releases and the best of reissues plucked from the team – me, Dominic Valvona, Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Andrew C. Kidd and Gianluigi Marsibilio (who also put together the playlist artwork) – rub shoulders in the most eclectic of playlists, with tracks as geographically different to each other as Belem and Palermo.
Digest and discover as you will, but we compile each playlist to run in order so it feels like the best uninterrupted radio show or most surprising of DJ sets.
Our Daily Bread 327: John MOuse, Sue, Delta Mainline, The Pinheads, Earth Tongue, The Blue Orchids.
May 16, 2019
Reviews Roundup: Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
John MOuse ‘There’s A Hole In My Heart (An Area The Size Of Wales)’
(Keep Me In your Heart Records) 24th May 2019
John MOuse and the wonderfully titled ‘There’s A Hole In My Heart An Area The Size Of Wales’ is a rampant romp through the indie pop hills of blissful wanton love. A song that could bring the smile to the face and polish the soul of even the most miserable of curmudgeon gits: it made me smile anyway.
Orange Juice guitars and Neil Hannon like vocals erupt from the speakers to nudge radio programmers to add the ode to forthcoming playlists…if there is any justice in radio land that is. A fine pop single.
Sue ‘It Will Never End’
Out Now
Stooges and Sex Pistols riffs abound as Sue put in their claim for the for leaders of the wannabe kings of the new guitar movement – as there certainly are a number of fine guitar bands forming and releasing records at the moment, and Sue are indeed up there with a fighting chance of making their way To the top of the pile.
What gives Sue the edge is that they have a fine vocalist; he has the Lyndon sneer perfected, and when he screams “I gotta get outta here” in ‘Gotta Gotta Gotta’ you somehow believe him. This boy has soul. Anybody can scream but not everybody can scream with such style – he has a wonderful early Marc Almond quality too his voice (listen to Soft Cells Last Night In Sodom and see if you disagree).
I await with interest to see how this band develops and grows over future albums as they certainly show that they know how to knock out a decent tune and know their way around the art of songwriting, and am sure more influences will show as they progress with their career and yes they are indeed fine enough to have a career. Mark out as ones to watch.
The Pinheads ‘Is This Real?’
(Stolen Body Records) 24th May 2019
I love how the first track is called ‘Pure Hate’, it is a fine way to start a rock’n’roll LP and the song in itself lives up to its title; a song that has a subtle spite and fuck you quality that all the best Stooges tracks have. This is the sound of a band at the top of its game. The world, us, theirs, it’s there for the taking and the great thing about it is they know it is theirs.
It really is a joy to listen to guitar music as joyous as this: What is it about guitar bands that come from Australia they all seem to have a certain magic with a melody that we Brits seem to have discarded in a fit of generic apathy: maybe it’s the lack of sun. For this is what it sounds like to be young. Well, in a rock’n’roll road movie kind of way.
What I really love about this album is how it makes me want to be young again myself; it makes me want to experience hearing these riffs for the first time as they have been played so many times by so many bands over the years but when it is played with so much passion energy and enjoyment as this the pleasure spits itself out of the speakers. This LP should be forced into the lives of today’s teenagers and maybe then they will take their eyes off the screens of their fucking Smartphones and start listening to music and going to gigs and experience life instead of posting a “selfie” on instagram.
Is this real? is a fine LP, and indeed, is the real deal.
Earth Tongue ‘Floating Being’
(Stolen Body) 14th June 2019
Is Stolen Body Records quietly, or not so quietly, becoming one of the best record labels on the planet at the moment? It has not only just released the fine new LP by The Pinheads but also this wonderful album by Earth Tongue. [I wonder if they fancy releasing a Bordellos LP?]
If you have ever wondered what the sound of the d&a of the B52’s, Bongwater and the Cardiacs would sound like if they were melted down and stirred in a big rock n roll pot then purchase this fine album and find out, even if you haven’t ever wondered, still buy the LP anyway as at the time of writing it has stormed right into my 5 faves of the year already.
This is what real psych punk should sound like; distorted fuzz bass and guitar colliding with the chiming guitars with beautifully stomping drums. I never knew ethereal vocals could sound so enthusiastic, like an angel after drinking too much fizzy pop.
Floating Being is a beautifully produced rock’n’roll psych punk rock gem that could be destined for bigger things. I love discovering new exciting bands.
The Blue Orchids ‘The Magical Records Of The Blue Orchids’
(Tiny Global Productions) 7th June 2019
The Blue Orchids doing an LP of obscure 60s garage rock covers and an unrecorded song written with Mark E Smith, what is there not to like.
A quite beatastic affair in fact, I do like The Blue Orchids and am very passionate about 60s garage/psych music so it is pretty obvious I’m going to like it. It doesn’t matter that the versions are not quite as good as the originals as they are all performed with enough style and panache and love for the music for the album to be a huge success.
Something else I like about the album is that it sounds like all the songs could have been written by the Blue Orchids in one of their poppier frame of minds, and to hear Martin Bramah play garage rock riffs as sublime as these is quite heavenly, like for example, ‘Painted Air’, a stand alone wonder of a version.
This album is a nothing more or nothing less than a gem of a listen, go and give your ears a treat.
Delta Mainline ‘Bel Avenir’
3rd May 2019
This is quite a pretty record at times, resembling a quite not as heartbreakingly dark or as special Sparklehorse – a band I have a deep love for -, and at other times, it resembles Wilco. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it is a most pleasing way to spend forty minutes or so.
Bel Avenir is one of those albums I’d love to hear stripped right down to the bone; to take away as much of the production as possible and see if it would stand up on its own two feet, or whether it would wither and diminish. Production sometimes can be the enemy of song and I feel as well produced as this LP is and as commercial as it sounds it may actually take the genius away from the song: as they are all in fact, very fine songs.
Although I think the LP may flow more if it wasn’t interrupted by soundcloud ads for just eat and car insurance, but I am sure they will not appear on the compact disc or vinyl version, or maybe they will. If so, an original and groundbreaking money making idea selling advertising space on your album. But back to the album. Delta Mainline are a band that wear their influences on their sleeves, but wear them pretty well and with great style. For example, ‘Mountain Music’ is a fine country lament that brings Spiritualized to mind – my favourite track on the whole Album. Bel Avenir is an album I would recommend to all fans of the above mentioned in this review.
Brian Shea is the maverick patriarch bandleader of the infamous St. Helens family cult lo fi band, The Bordellos.
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