Our Daily Bread 349: Comet Gain, Suo, Haq, Pete Astor…
October 8, 2019
Reviews
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea joined the Monolith Cocktail team in January 2019. The cult leader of the infamous lo fi gods, The Bordellos, 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 project, Roi (with John McCarthy and Dan Shea, of Beauty Stab and Vukovar infamy) debuted recently through Metal Postcard Records.
Each week or so we send a mountain of new releases to the self-depreciating maverick to see what sticks. In his own idiosyncratic style and turn-of-phrase, pontificating aloud and reviewing with scrutiny an eclectic deluge of releases, here Brian’s latest batch of recommendations.
Comet Gain ‘Institute Debased’
Single/ 11th October 2019
I love the music of Comet Gain. David Feck is one of the finest songwriters to emerge over the last 20 years or so; his songs are full of feelings, yearnings from the past clashing with the failures of today and this, ‘Institute Debased’, the first single taken from forthcoming LP Fireraisers Forever, is a marvelous romp; a collision of 60s psych and post punk merriment – like Dylan fronting a hyped up Velvet Underground. A track of pure delight and magic.
Pete Astor ‘Paradise’
Album/ 8th November 2019
I have always enjoyed the music of Pete Astor, be it with the Weather Prophets or his solo work, but somewhere along the way I missed this. That omission has finally been put right with this rerelease, 25 years later.
Paradise is a album of well written songs bringing to mind the early nineties work of Lloyd Cole; the same slight country rock influence beginning to creep into the music – almost a bar band quality in the sound. It’s the sound of a man maturing as a person and a songwriter, cutting back in the verve and excitement of youth and replacing it with a beautiful melancholy that only comes with the passing of time, broken hearts and experience.
I am really quite taken with this album and wish I had come across it all those years ago as I have missed out on 25 years of wrapping myself in the beautiful comfort blanket of mellow beautifully crafted guitar songs.
Red Gaze ‘S/T’
(Numavi) EP/ 8th October 2019
Three tracks of early 80s influenced “anarcho” punk terror on a cassette EP takes me right on back to those wonderful days of hanging around Liverpool in the mid 80s and Newport in the early 90s – when it was known as the Seattle of the UK -; a time of darkness and political unrest, when bands used to share their energy and the spirit of unease to the gathered masses of like-minded gig goers. And it’s great to see that there are still bands sound tracking these dark times with their music.
The three tracks are much more than the under three minute thrash I was expecting. All are blessed with dark melodies and an air of dark foreboding and inventive guitar riffs that are a joy to these old weary ears, the track ‘Blister Blaster’ being the stand out. All good stuff indeed; I will have to check out their album.
SUO ‘Dancing Spots And Dungeons’
(Stolen Body Records) Album/ 18th October 2019
Stolen Body Records have released some wonderful albums this year, and here is yet another one. This is a fine pop album, all power punk chords and girl group kisses. Part Blondie part Suzi Quatro, it really has a late 70s feel to it; the kind of record you can imagine blasting from your old tiny transistor on a summer night. An LP with a lovely warm sound (maybe one of the best sounding records I’ve have heard all year) it embraces all that is magical about pop music; it is sexy, laid back, moving and fun all at the same time, an album album of extremely well written and crafted guitar pop songs with a 70s new wave twist. Dancing Spots And Dungeons is a really lovely sounding record.
Haq ‘Evaporator’
(Bearsuit Records) Album/ 27th September 2019
The new release from the fine Bearsuit Records finds us tumbling down to the spiraling sounds of Haq; 60s spy theme sexiness merges with the avant-garde dreampop of a bewitched Stereolab playing hopscotch with Delia Derbyshire whilst sucking on the feedback of a JAMC lollipop.
The obvious love and understanding of pop music in its many genres and changes throughout the decades are lovingly brought together to make a wash of beautiful tunes. Angel like vocals float over gentle beats, soulful guitars and well constructed rhythms, delicately plucking at the heartstrings. This album really is a beautiful work of aural magic that can and will take you AWAY from the drudgery of everyday life and makes for quite a moving experience: maybe there is a god after all.
The Lounge Bar Orchestra ‘The Omeroyd Sound’
(Fruits de Mer) EP
As I’ve mentioned in an earlier review previously about the opening track of this EP, ‘Washing Lines’, it is a track that I would like to live in – and that goes for the rest of the record. A land where ever night is a Saturday night, a Saturday night filled with kitsch TV shows from your past, the kind of shows that used to be big and loud presented by Bruce Forsyth or Cilla Black, the kind of show when you would witness Cilla dueting with Marc Bolan or Scott Walker with Matt Monro, and as child you would marvel at the glitzy glamour whilst sipping on your bottle of ginger ale wondering, “is this what it’s like to be in showbiz”, hanging around men in evening jackets and long legged high kicking dancers in short mini skirts or silver dresses. This quite wonderful EP takes me back to those wonderful carefree days when music was art and art was music and gave you tingles every time you turned on the radio or TV; when people had to turn on the radio or TV not just lift your laptop lid or stare at your smartphone screen.
This three track is a must have for those who remember simpler times, and for those who want to, for a brief time, return to them. This is your chance this is your time machine. The Lounge Bar Orchestra and their signature Omeroyd Sound.
Released as a limited edition vinyl EP by Fruits de Mer Records (as part of Fruits de Mer and Megadodo’s one day Thunderbolt Festival in Bristol, on November 2nd), it will be subsequently made available by Ousewater Television Recordings on the 6th of November as a downloadable computer online digital recorded music file.
James Mcarthur and The Head Gardeners ‘Intergalactic Sailor’
(Moorland Records) Album/ 11th October 2019
There is a nice 60s psych folk feel to this album that at times reminds me of the beauty caress of the Lilac Time and the slight oddness of the Beta Band covering Simon and Garfunkel. It’s quite nice to close ones eyes and be swept away by the well-written mellow pop songs that James McArthur and The Head Gardeners offer up. It makes a very pleasant change to be presented with music with such subtlety and an eloquent grace that seems to be lost in these days of wham bam thank you mam generic indie rock; here today forgotten tomorrow, or, the smartphone pop that seems to clog up the radio.
Intergalactic Sailor succeeds in the difficult task of sounding timeless. This is a album that could have been made anytime over the last fifty or so years and offers a charm that sadly one does not come across much these days; an LP where melodies are sprinkled with McCartney-esque fairy dust and a young Paul Simon lyrical cunning.
Istanbul writer, Ayfer Simms new column of music reviews.
Here’s the premise: We throw loads of new music releases at our contributor in Istanbul, the Franco-Turkish writer (currently working for the French Institute, and in the middle of writing her second novel) Ayfer Simms, and wait for the lyrical, literature-rich responses. Currently deflated, with the worse kind of despondent hangover after the results of Turkey’s recent elections, Ayfer finds sanctuary, joy, solace, sense and escape in the music of Canshaker Pi, Simon Love, Pete Astor, St. Jude The Obscure and Soft Science, on her daily journey across the Bosphorus.
Ayfer Simms:
I am far from the tumult of the western cities, buzzing with the sound of many musicians and artists trying to make it out there.
I listen to these bands on the Bosphorus, crossing from one shore to the other on my way to work each day. No matter what day of the year it is, the sea always shimmers and is for us “Istanbullulars” the mirror of all our thoughts, and therefor of those bands that arrive to me via the Monolith Cocktail.
One morning, Pete Astor transported me to a breezy afternoon, made for cups of tea and literature and love. And lightness, and hope, and grass, apple green, for melodies as fresh as the pine on a festive tree, sprayed with golden metallic dust. Pete Astor’s details, pop, clock and gentleness soothes me, you or anyone else who dares to be gloomy. Deep Wild West, regular beats, enough to go on smoothly rocking the past or present. It does not matter; just raise that glass with Pete.
Sharply intuitive Pete has a gentle soul. The guitar is reassuring, going country at times, Indie, brandy, chilling, happy and ever so romantic. “You better dream” is perhaps a mundane message for you if you’re sitting in a grey office with no hope of ever escaping your much needed boring work, yet, it works if like me you live under a dictatorship. Dreaming chases all our demands; gives courage, makes the impossible come true. I’ve looked at the shiny sea while crossing with my headset on and listened to Pete’s bright songs, and it made me jolly. Even though ‘golden boy’ rules the country, we dream away with those who rise a glass to beauty.
Days after that I was just strolling to catch the boat, and a real explosion happened with St. Jude the Obscure, the tunes capable of taking veins, like riverbeds out of their courses and through ants and bees, a sensation of fire and bites, impossible to ignore or not care, as I turned my eyes toward the sea, in the faint hope of seeing dolphins – they come out real early in the morning- but with these notes I threw the book I was reading in my bag and stood up in the middle of the boat and danced to the music: euphoric. Or could have done it very easily. In the same line, I cursed my poor Wifi connection and slid my fingers on the phone to get a non-connected version of their songs and couldn’t get to it. There’s one spot on the Bosphorus where you are not “connected” because it’s the sea and it is so vast, so I entered a stage of panic. Repeated the same tracks. Communed with nature. Got elevated. I’ve been playing them at parties (the few free Spotify tracks) and can’t get enough.
A different kind of energy with Canshaker Pi as they roll up and down on a broken escalator; they shout, with pots and string less guitars, or rave on rock n roll in your neighbour’s basement – in my case on the boat next door, to wake up everyone: rise and shine early my friend. And then the rave becomes a head shaking grunge ballad on the shore of your city, at that spot where it is ok to drink cheap wine-dog killer – and be cool. Any way you look at it, Canshaker Pi is noisy-good – and rebellious with it.
Here is a proper “pop” maker: Simon Love is a very British one (at least by the sound of it), soft voice, of that theatrical-semi comique style breed, he takes revenge on his past in the one (free) tune released on the internet. A good little listen if you don’t want to dig too far and too deep into your own mood. It’s quiet witty, and romantic in its own special way.
Ethereal, longing, serene, let yourself glide with the Soft Science’s contemplative pop rock. I found this single a perfect way of ignoring reality outside my window: Exotic and compelling melodies, enough energetic and firm guitar presence to tie your arms behind your back and stay there, waiting to learn what your fate will be. The lead singer’s voice is sweet and crispy, palatable and eatable: Yum.
Today I am not taking my usual boat. I am staying in, mourning the total end of democracy in Turkey after yesterday’s election and the re-election of the dictator. He said, “Democracy won”. What are we to do? Stay fearless and keep the music flowing.
Ayfer Simms
Monolith Cocktail Blog 