Monthly Playlist: May 2023: Delilah Holliday, Tony Allen, Alecs DeLarge & King Kashmere, Lucia Cadotsch…
May 31, 2023
CHOICE MUSIC FROM THE LAST MONTH: TEAM EFFORT

The Monthly Revue playlist of 2023; a choice selection of tracks from the last month on the blog. Curated by Dominic Valvona with Matt Oliver on the Rap Control once more, and music from reviews by Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Graham Domain and Andrew C. Kidd. Expect to hear the unexpected.
TRACKLIST//
Alecs DeLarge & King Kashmere ‘Damien Darhk’
Samuele Strufaldi ‘Davorio’
Les Dynamites ‘Pop Oud #2’
Andrew Hung ‘Ocean Mouth’
Matt Saxton ‘Freedom’
John Parish & Aldous Harding ‘Three Hours’
Lunar Bird ‘The Birthday Party’
YOVA ‘Feel Your Fear’
Atmosphere ‘Dotted Lines’
Illogic ‘Hot Lead’
Odd Holiday, Mattic & Daylight Robbery! ‘It Is Whut It Iz’
Delilah Holliday ‘Silent Streets’
Big Yawn ‘Crying’
Tony Allen ‘No Beginning’
Harold Land ‘Chocolate Mess’
Baby Cool ‘Magic (Live)’
Dyr Faser ‘This Menace’
Mekong ‘Out Of Control’
The Telescopes ‘(The Other Side)’
The Bordellos ‘Attack Of The Killer B-Sides’
Adjunct Ensemble ‘Nothing Grows/How Dare You Be Free’
Kassa Overkill, Danny Brown & Wiki ‘Clock Ticking’
Depf & Linefizzy ‘My Love’
Paw One ‘Sepekku’
Cas One ‘Silver Spoons’
Axel Holy & Badhabitz ‘Runnin’
Efeks, The Strange Neighbour & Downstroke ‘Its Only Right’
Chocolate Hills ‘Mermaids’
Orange Crate Art ‘We’re Just Innocent Men’
Tinariwen Ft. Fats Kaplin ‘Ezlan’
Cherry Bandora ‘Esy’
Danuk ‘Sewqo’
Lucia Cadotsch ‘I Won’t’
Jman & The Argonautz ‘Green Light’
Chuck Strangers & Obii Say ‘Say’
Billy Woods, Kenny Segal & Danny Brown ‘Year Zero’
Caterina Barbieri ‘Swirls Of You’
August Cooke ‘Flying Swimming Dredging’
Liz Davinci ‘I’m Through With Love’
Kayhan Kalhor & Toumani Diabate ‘Anywhere That Is Not Here’
Oceans ‘Mike Tysong’
Creep Show Ft. John Grant ‘Moneyback’
Jean Mignon ‘Canadian Exit’
GRAHAM DOMAIN’S RUN-THROUGH OF RECENT AND UPCOMING NEW RELEASES

__/SINGLES\__
THE TELESCOPES ‘Where Do We Begin’
(Tapete Records) (Download only Single)
It seems only vocalist Stephen Lawrie remains from the original group and only his voice reminds of The Telescopes classic sound!
This is the first single taken from forthcoming album Of Tomorrow. As such, it sounds a bit like the House of Love with Lou Reed – a psychedelic song about filling in the hole in your soul with more emptiness – the modern consumer society looking for fulfillment amid the waffle of internet influencers, ‘reality’ celebrity and brand name hypnosis! I await the new album with interest!
MATT SAXTON ‘Freedom’
(Bandcamp) (Download Single)
This is an electronic track with folktronica leanings that reminds me of John Grant. It’s a delight – like eating your favourite ice cream! Give it a listen while eating a Cornetto!
YOVA ‘Feel Your Fear’
(Bandcamp) (Download Single)
Unusual pop song from Yova – interesting, odd and compelling! Yova are a duo – with exposure they could be massive!
SALEM TRIALS ‘ESPERS SYC (See Your Crime)’ / ‘End of Level Boss’
(Metal Postcard) (Download Double A Side Single)
Excellent Double A Side from Salem Trials – ‘Espers SYC’ comes across like the Fall playing a speeded-up Joy Division ‘Exercise One’ – some nice jarring chords and fried bacon rhythm!
With singalongs like ‘reasonable doubt my arse’ it could become a staple at Strangeways Indie disco! The crime? Presumably using your intuition (ESP) – contravening Section 7 of the State Controlled Thought Act 2023.
‘End of Level Boss’ meanwhile conjures up the ghost of Ian Curtis dancing to James Brown after the sacked JB’s were replaced by a funky Sunn O))) – Mesmeric!
___/ALBUMS\___
OCEANS ‘Dreamers in Dark Cities’
(Bandcamp) (Vinyl/DL)

There are a few bands named Oceans but this particular band hail from Melbourne Australia. They sound like they have been listening to a lot of 1980’s indie music like the Sound, the Chameleons, New Model Army, Cocteau Twins, Pale Saints, Slowdive, The Scars.
‘Pure’ sounds like a poppier Pale Saints and is perhaps the best song on the album. “I just want to feel alive” he cries as the music rises in life affirming sonic radiance! ‘Apart’ reminds me of the Scars with touches of Ride and Pale Saints. ‘Feels Like You’ hints towards Slowdive, MBV and Ride.
‘Mike Tysong’ sounds like New Model Army circa ‘The Ghost of Cain’ but with vocals akin to Adrian Borland (the Sound of ‘The Lions Roar’ fame). ‘Soft’ has hints of The Chameleons guitar sound combined with vocals akin to Lush! ‘Look Into My Eyes’ employs the 3 / 4 rhythm beloved of The Cocteau Twins circa ‘Treasure’. An album of youthful energy and life affirming beauty. The songs are energetic, well-constructed and well-produced. I like the album, but the band need to bring more of their own creativity to the table so they sound like themselves rather than the sum of their influences. Once they find their own sound, they will be magnificent. They are part way there and I predict great things for them in the future.
CREEP SHOW ‘Yawning Abyss’
(Bella Union) (CD/Download Album)

Make no mistake, John Grant is a genius! As half of Creep Show he provides the moments of sheer joy! ‘Bungalow’ comes over like a song that could have been on any of his brilliant solo albums, post ‘Queen of Denmark’. It’s a fantastic vocal, the music dark, funny, sexy, – electronic music at its best and a good song to boot! Elsewhere we find him singing strange rhymes on the title track ‘Yamning Abyss’ – a song that grows on you with each play.
The band Wrangler are the other half of Creepshow. Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder sharing vocal duties on such tracks as ‘Moneyback’ – “You want your money back / I didn’t think so”! Overall, a fine return from Creep Show who are doing a short tour of the UK over the summer!
JEAN MIGNON ‘AN/AL’
(Metal Postcard) (Download Album)

Raucous debut album by New York based Johnny Steines. A mixture of high energy garage punk and high-speed rock and roll – it sounds like a live album such is the energy contained in the grooves!
‘Tackled By Men’ recycles parts of ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, whilst ‘Canadian Exit’ has echoes of Warsaw’s ‘Failures’. If he can produce this excitement in a live-setting he willsurely make his own impact! Primal Rock and Roll that screams from the speakers andexcites like a high-speed car chase!
Key Tracks: All of them!
The BORDELLOS ‘Starcrossed Radio’
(Metal Postcard Records) (Download Album)

The latest release by St Helens finest is a cabinet of curiosities containing some wonderful lo-fi gems and hitherto lost standards!
Beginning with the glam stomp of ‘Attack of The Killer B-Sides’ – name checking great B- Sides by the likes of The Smiths, Stone Roses, The Beatles, Billy Fury, Shangri-Las, New Order, Rolling Stones, Mersey Beats etc… All delivered in a Mark Smith type drawl. Like any music fan, flipping a 45 over and discovering a great B Side was exciting and would lead to more investigation of the artist’s music.
‘Never Learn’ sounds like a lost standard to me – reminding of Morrissey when he was good, the accordion sound giving it a shade of the Pogues! The nice melody is under-pinned by what sounds like a balloon deflating, a synth or a cat being slowly trod on mixed with static and silence! Experimental brilliance!
‘Free New Music Day’ meanwhile takes the sound of the Doors Texas Radio and the Big Beat and transfers it to Northern England where you can ’take a cut price trip to the stars – singing Hallelujah in Karaoke bars’ – poetry from the streets Jim Morrison could only aspire to!
Other highlights include the strange melody picked out on guitar on ‘Sunk and Screwed’, which could be the theme to a weird kids cartoon! Oddly disturbing! I’m still humming it! ‘Vicious Circle’ could be a single. ‘Hurting Kind’ sounds like a lost Beach Boys campfire surf song – Brilliant!
The album ends with the sublime ‘Life Love and Billy Fury’ – a part electronic song where the melody or maybe some of the chord changes put me in mind of New Order without actually sounding like them! Great lyrics – another ‘lost standard’!
This album is one to treasure, an Aladdin’s cave of eclectic life affirming songs. The Bordellos are the fine web that holds the stars in place!
The Monthly Playlist: September ’22: No Age, The Beach Boys, Al-Qasar, King Kashmere, Sampa The Great, Yemrot….
September 30, 2022
PLAYLIST
TEAM EFFORT/CURATED BY DOMINIC VALVONA

After avoiding Covid for nearly two and a half years (with periods of shielding) I’ve finally succumbed to the dreaded virus this week. And it’s hit me hard. But because I’m such a martyr to the cause of music sharing I’ve managed to compile this eclectic bonanza of choice music from the last month.
The Monolith Cocktail Monthly features tracks from the team’s reviews and mentions, but also includes those tunes we’ve just not had the room to feature. That team includes me (Dominic Valvona), Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Andrew C. Kidd and Graham Domain.
We’ve supplemented the original audio playlist with a video version on our Youtube channel. This will feature a slightly different lineup (the electronic music collective Violet Nox’s ‘Senzor’ primer for one).
The full track list is as follows:
Dead Horses ‘Macabro’
Grave Goods ‘Source’
No Age ‘Compact Flashes’
Etceteral ‘Rome Burns’
Al-Qasar Ft. Jello Biafra ‘Ya Malak’
Clear Path Ensemble ‘Plazma Plaza’
Antonis Antoniou ‘Syntagi’
Ocelot ‘Vanha Hollywood’
The Beach Boys ‘You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone – Live At Carnegie Hall’
Rezo ‘Soemtimes’
Blue Violet ‘Favorite Jeans’
Teo Russo ‘Novembre’
Keiron Phelan & The Peace Signs ‘Guessing Game’
Micah P. Hinson ‘Ignore The Days’
Sonnyjim/The Purist Ft. MF DOOM & Jay Electronica ‘Barz Simpson’
Salem Trials ‘Just Give Up’
The Bordellos ‘Nurse The Screens!’
Legless Trials ‘Ray’s Kid Brother Is The Bomb’
S. Kalibre ‘Hip Hop World’
King Kashmere/Leatherette ‘G-Cell’
Depf/Linefizzy ‘Rain’
Isomonstrosity/645AR/John Lenox Ft. Danny Brown ‘Careful What You Wish For’
Tess Tyler ‘Try Harder’
Qrauer Ft. Anne Muller ‘Rund’
Sampa The Great Ft. W.I.T.C.H. ‘Can I Live?’
Rob Cave/Small Professor ‘Eastern Migration’
Salem Trials ‘Jc Cells’
Wish Master/Axel Holy Ft. Wundrop ‘FLIGHT MODE’
Alexander Stordiau ‘Nothing’s Ever Acquired’
Simon McCorry/Andrew Heath ‘Mist’
Andrei Rikichi ‘At Home I Hammer Ceramic Golfing Dogs’
OdNu ‘My Own Island’
Floorbrothers ‘In Touch’
Conformist X H O R S E S ‘Heddiw’
Slim Wrist ‘Milk Teeth’
Forest Robots ‘Everything Changes Color With The Rainfall’
Noah ‘Odette’
Yara Asmar ‘there is a science to days like these (but I am a slow learner)’
Tess Tyler/Spindle Ensemble ‘Origami Dogs (Graphic Score Interpretation)’
Christina Vantzou/Michael Harrsion/John Also Bennett ‘Piano On Tape’
Yemrot ‘Big Tree’
Our Daily Bread 335: Stereo Total, Spam Javelin, Bloome de Wilde, Skyjelly, Krause, Goa Express…
June 28, 2019
REVIEWS
Words: Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Proving a highly popular roundup from the idiosyncratic Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, the cult leader of St. Helens dysfunctional geniuses The Bordellos, this regular splurge of advice/critique and pontificating is doing a roaring trade with our readers. We even love the constant self-publicising – God knows he needs it -; a constant reminder that the Bordellos have been gnawing away at the coalface equivalent of the music industry for decades without success, knocking out albums at a rate that even makes The Fall seem fucking slack – though they have lost their titan figurehead leader in recent years and grinded to a halt, that might be an unfair comparison to make. You can find a tiny portion of that back catalogue here… A new album – which Brain has aggrandised as one of the best albums ever made, period -, Bordello And Clarke, is due out next month.
Skyjelly ‘We Pull The Stars Over Our Heads Like Covers’
(I Heart Noise) 25th May 2019
This is a slandered youth of an LP, a jab in the eye with a rusty nail, a rewound coil waiting to spring the bejesus out of a waiting catholic mass of persuasion.
Slaughtered guitars and hyperactive bass makes light with the idea of topping the hit parade with reverb littered witterings of your off-the-head-neighbour trying to make sense of the backward spinning of the Brianjonestown Massacre after overdosing on the best tea served in the china cup, after being retrieved from Carol Deckers vagina.
Skyjelly are the type of band you would take home to meet your parents if they were dead or blissfully unaware of any situation; the type of boy I would love my daughter to bring home as it would mean she would be enjoying her youth and hanging out with people with a outsider view on life and art: A band that sticks two fingers up to the bland and monotone; a band with an attitude that can only be admired, and an LP that should be enjoyed by all.
Stereo Total ‘Ah! Que! Cinema’
(Tapete Records) 12th July 2019
This LP is bloody genius. Any LP that kicks off with a track that sounds like The Prodigy but played on a Bontempi organ is not going to go very wrong, and then carries on with the pure blissfulness of French lo-fi garage pop.
‘Ich Bin Cool’ lives up to its name – if only all pop could be as glorious as this I would actually walk about with a smile instead of my constant unbecoming frown.
There are melodies that could melt the heart of the sternest of motherfuckers: Tin pot drum machine twangy guitars wonderful sexy French female vocals dripping with drop dead Sandie Shaw like shoeless beauty, and when the ballad ‘Methadrine’ kicks in, has there been a better song recorded this year? A beautiful offbeat ballad of sadness and humour and drugs: “nine days a week we were so high”.
This LP is so good it has pissed me off a little. I thought I had made the album of the year with the Bordello and Clark Atlantic Crossing LP, but this has knocked it into a cocked hat. But don’t mind, especially when there are bands capable of making records of such beauty; when bands can come on like Stereolab one minute and a French Velvet Underground the next – ‘Brezil Says’ is a track worthy of the Velvets at their finest: pure pop heaven.
I think the playing of Ah! Quel Cinema may become a daily event this year; an LP to lose yourself in the pure beauty of perfect lo fi pop.
Spam Javelin ‘Fake News’
(link2wales Records) 7th June 2019
In these days of blandness and political correctness I’m happy to report that there is something of an underground renaissance of the guitar band; the kind of band that actually have something to say and to bring back the feeling of ‘oh fuck off you cunts, Buddy Holly did not die so you could pitch tune the hell out of this smartphone friendly soulless money making piece of fluff.’
Leading this charge are the North Wales non stop gigging machine Spam Javelin, who have just released a fine piece of punk rock fuck offery in the shape of Fake News. Three minutes of pure rock ’n’ roll, nothing more nothing less: Do you need anything more than three minutes of pure rock ’n’ roll? If the answer is yes you do, then you are dead from the waist down and the neck up. You are nothing but a chest with arms. I look forward to the LP, The Crack Whores Of Betws Garmon, and so should you.
Bloome De Wilde ‘Soul Siren’
8th July 2019
There is beauty in life and there is life in beauty, and this single by Bloome de Wilde is brimming with both; a wonderful shimmering haze of early summer evenings wrapped in a chocolate box wish; a slow dance to the long forgotten hits of Sergio Mendes; the rapture of your first long lingering kiss, this song in under four minutes captures the magic of all this.
This lovely chime of aural pop art is the first single taken from Bloome de Wilde’s debut solo LP, which going off the loveliness of ‘Soul Siren’ could well be this years “Shoegaze Bossa Nova” – which of course was last year’s submergence in blissful if onlys by Schizo Fun Addict. If Bloome de Wilde’s debut is half as good, then we are truly in for a summer of love.
Listen download and enjoy.
Krause ‘The Ecstasy Of Infinite Sterility’
(Riot Season) 5th July 2019
Rock ’n’ roll sludge, but good rock ’n’ roll sludge.
The Goa Express ‘The Day’
5th July 2019
I like this: It has a wonderful old early 80s post-punk feel about it, like the Teardrop Explodes before they signed with a major. It’s like a ramshackle polyphonic Spree; a band erupting out of the rehearsal rooms with a willingness to share their love of pop music with the garage psych subtleties of a young Syd preferring to do lasting damage to his brain than spend time in the company of geography teachers. I look forward to the LP.
Brian Bordello of the contrary and provocative lo fi rock’n’roll group The Bordellos infamy, takes us on a track by track tour through the band’s latest album Debt Sounds.
Words: Dominic Valvona/ Brian Bordello
The Bordellos, the uncompromising bastions of lo fi rock’n’roll, have been chipping away at the peripherals of the music industry for years to no effect. Though this shouldn’t come as much of a suprise; provocative subjects including serial sex offenders Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris, and the languorous drip-fed accusations (whether through a wearing down of malaise or real attempts to shoehorn him out the door in the name of ‘blandifcation’) that the BBC ‘killed John Peel’ don’t exactly help their cause.
From their St Helens base the family band spew and regurgitate a continual flow of musings, lovesick plantive melancholy and cumdrudgry attacks on the state of modern culture. Knocking out releases at a weekly rate, the band could give the late Mark E Smith a run for his money in number of pontification packed rambles.
I’ve probably written more about this contrary group than any other in the last five years plus. Mostly because despite the basic, drone-y and cheap production The Bordellos bare their souls like all the most effectual and best rock’n’roll icons. In a nutshell: songs about broken hearts played on broken guitars. And yet despite this lo fi aesthetic, the band are ambitious; referencing a myriad of musical influences, and incorporating all manner of instruments and sounds into their music.
Their latest LP, Debt Sounds, is no different – a mix between Gene Vincent, The Jesus And Mary Chain and Rey Crayola – in this respect. Fueled once more by the acrimony of tattered relationships, family fall-outs, too many late nights and cynicism, The Bordellos indolently unburden themselves upon the audience.
As no review – and I’ve tried – can really do The Bordellos sound any justice, I’ve asked the band’s elder statesman and steersman Brian Bordello permission to share his inimitable penned notes. A sort of track by track narrative, these descriptions and articulations are worthy of sharing; a window in on the workings and mindset that produced them.
And so without further ado I hand you over to Brian…
The Cast
Brian Shea — vocals – guitar – bass – percussion.
Dan Shea — vocals — keyboards – violin – percussion.
Gary Storey -bass – guitar.
Ant shea – vocals – percussion – harmonica – pitch pipe.
plus
Brendan Bannon – lead guitar on Rolf Harris, Merseybeat Memories and She in The Sun.
Jade — harmony vocals on seal head on Honeypie.
Leslie o’Brien –harmony vocals on Cloudsounds.
produced by Brian Shea
These are the rules and background:
The idea behind the LP was to get back to basics, so I set down these ground rules, all recorded on old tape 4 track, using microphones and recording equipment bought from pound shops and cash converters [under £5].
1. all tracks recorded on 4 tracks only: no overdubs
2 all vocal tracks would be first take only even if disaster struck whilst recording ,so a lot of these songs have only ever been sang once.
3 all songs recorded would have been written that week. So the rest of the band would never have heard them before recording.
4 every song started would be completed that night so no going back.
It was recorded over 10 consecutive Friday nights. During which there was two romantic break ups – the two ex girlfriends actually sang on some of the tracks to add to the spice. Just before the start a marriage had also just broken up…there was lots of alcohol consumed lots of madness, it is the sound of four people going out of their minds, looking back I wonder how Dan managed as he only turned 17 during the recording of this album, but his teenage angst mixed with our midlife crises made for a very dark work of art.
This was supposed to be our third Brutarian records release , but a label that boasted in its bumph of releasing uncommercial uncompromising music refused to release it as it was too… uncompromising!
I have very fond memories of this lp recording it was a experience that was only matched in madness when recording our Ronco revival sound LP.
The Tracks:
A song inspired by the frustration of being in a band that had released two fine albums that had sold bugger all and the problems that arise from dealing with the music industry and all its evil ways. This subject has reappeared many times over the years on Bordellos LPs . This was the first. “Each night I dream of rats of record contracts.”
When this song was being recorded there was a huge Summer thunderstorm and rain started to pour through the roof and down the walls of Ants living room. Due to the bad state of his brickwork. So as I was trying to get my best brokenhearted vocal performance, whilst Ant was running around the house with buckets. Muttering the immortal line “Life is too short for guttering”. This was another no show night from Gary so he is not on it ,and Dan recorded harmony vocals but because of the only one vocal take rule the mic did not pick them up very well ,if you have the hearing of a dog you may hear them. “I look in the mirror and my curse has been reversed.”
There was originally 4 verses written for this song as each verse was meant to be sung by a different band member but this was another Gary no show night so we just replaced his verse with Dans fine garage punk influenced keyboard solo. The Seeds where a huge influence on this track. “I felt so alive I feel dead now.”
This song was written many years before Rolf Harris became a known sex pest ,but I always thought there was something slightly sleazy about the man. My irish cousin who was over visiting Brendan plays the lead guitar on this track and it is he you can hear laughing in the background when I sing the line Rolf Harris is my sexual hero. This was a very drunken night; Gary turned up already pissed as a newt and proceeded to lay down the bass even though he had never heard the song and we were drunk enough to let him, so it was recorded in one take. Dan was the only sober member and told me the story of Gary insisting in cleaning up Ants house after I left and before Ant got home from a gig which consisted of him just extending all the mic stands fully pointing at the ceiling, after doing that he proceeded to record a 20 minute bass instrumental, which sadly has been lost in the mists of time. “I cum before two little boys comes on so I can sing a long.”
Brian – vocals/ guitar. Gary – electric guitar. Ant- pitch pipe. Dan percussion/harmony. Jade- harmony vocal.
Brian -vocals/guitar. Gary- bass. Ant – percussion.
Another song written on the subject of being in a unsuccessful struggling band trying to make ends meet, at this time I was wrapped up with dealing with business with our then record label Brutarian and their distribution worries and the lack of success in getting reviews, radio play and such [nothing changes]. “I suffer for my art though they won’t stock it at Walmart.“
Probably my fave Bordellos song and many other people’s. A song of tender reflection. I remember recording the vocals as Gary and his young son Tom came crashing through the front door. The look I gave them must of been daggers like as they stopped in their tracks – for obvious reasons it cannot be heard on the recording. This song is made by Dans excellent keyboards. We have tried this song many times and never recaptured the magic on this first version. There was magic in the room that night. “Every smoking chimney my statue of liberty.”
Yet another song about the music business and predicting its decline and the sorry state it is in today. One of my favorite lyrics, I remember being astounded at Dans vocal, his first ever lead vocal and being so impressed with his delivery: he was only sixteen at this point. I remember Ant sulking because there was no room for a bongo track, us deciding a lead guitar track would be more effective, there only being 4 tracks. “The stroke of my quill just ain’t paying the bills.”
Brian – vocals/guitar. Dan – percussion. Ant – harmony vocals/ plastic whistle. Leslie- harmony vocals.
Yet another no show night from those part timers Gary and Ant. They where not a fan of the lo/fi recording method and the slapdash one vocal take rule, they much prefered recording in the 32 track barn studio we recorded our previous two albums. I think the tension actually added to the feel of Debt Sounds. I remember Gary saying we needed a new mic and me replying just gaffer tape the fucker it will do. So for this session it was just myself Dan and cousin Brendan; a song written after having a long conversation with former member of The Big Three and Faron’s Flamingos, the man Faron himself and how never making the big time still haunted him. “Oh how the memories linger just want to be Faron’s Flamingos to be free.”
Brian – vocals/guitar.
This track was recorded towards the end of the ten weeks if I remember correctly, and we were at the stage of equipment falling apart, and part of the percussion on this was Dan beating Ants settee with a broken mic stand whilst I was strutting around the room with the other part of it in a Freddie Mercury type way recording the vocals. “But I kept my shirt on.”
I did not play on this as Gary was a much better guitarist than me. Another case of the vocal mic not working and it kept cutting out as we recorded it, but due to me insisting we stick with the only one vocal take allowed we have this strange slightly scary take. Dan was as mad as hell by the end of it as you can tell with the last line; probably the only line that is fully audible. This is one of my fave tracks on the LP. “As my pathetic life unfurls.”
Another song with cousin Brendan on lead guitar. Recorded the same night we did merseybeat memories – not my fave song on the LP, my vocal really is quite poor. The percussion is Dan playing a Wok with a wooden spoon: just give me some of that wok n roll music. “She walks in the summer rain and confuses my religion.”
This was another no show night by Gary. Ant was there with his soon to be ex girlfriend. A song about the coming to the end of a relationship was ideal for this nights recording as the atmosphere was pretty hostile around Ants that night. I recorded the vocal whilst accompanied by Ant and Leslie giving each other death stares. They had an argument in the kitchen which myself and Dan recorded on one of the tracks unknown to them and we used it very quietly running throughout the finished song. A work of true darkness. “There’s no passion anymore just friction. When did this habit turn from a addiction.”
Brian/vocals/guitar/percussion. Gary – bass. Dan- percussion/screams/violin. Jade- vocals.
This was my LP really: like Brian Wilson used the Beach Boys to make Pet Sounds, I used the Bordellos to make Debt Sounds.
NEW MUSIC REVIEW
WORDS: DOMINIC VALVONA
Featuring: The Bordellos, Diagnos, Eberhard Kranemann & Harald Grosskopf, Lucy Leave, The Telescopes and Terry.
More eclectic sounds from across the whole spectrum and from around the world in this edition of Dominic Valvona’s ramshackle reviews roundup, including the disarming snappy punk and cool pop of Melbourne’s scenester gang Terry, Oxford’s elastic new wave funk and math rock trio Lucy Leave, the pastoral pagan psychedelic and folky Kosmische Swedish duo Diagnos, St. Helen’s most dysfunctional lo fi rock’n’roll gods, The Bordellos, paragons of the (rather missive termed) Krautrock epoch, Eberhard Kranemann & Harald Grosskopf, and sonic vessels of the void, The Telescopes.
Terry ‘Remember Terry’
Upset The Rhythm, July 7th 2017
The Terry gang is back in town. The disarming world-weary punk and quirky pop touting quartet of Melbourne scenesters, banding together under the ubiquitous titular moniker, follow up a prolific run of 2016 EPs and their debut LP with another acerbic witted, snappy melodious release of profound disenchantment and wistful “wish fulfillment”.
Continuing with the shared girl/boy dynamic of lulling, placeable idiosyncratic vocals and flexible punk, country and new wave bubblegum backing, Terry look to expand their repertoire on Remember. The combined musical savvy and experiences of band members Amy Hill (of Constant Mongrel and School Of Radiant Living), Al Montfort (UV Race, Dick Diver, Total Control), Zephyr Pavey (Eastlink, Russell St Bombings and also Total Control) and Xanthe White (Mick Harvey, Primo) push the quartet into all kinds of nonchalant mischief. The gang embraces nonplussed French new wave chanteuse vibes on the brilliant breezy, mosey country lilting, Toy Love meets Serge Gainsbourg Take Me To The City (one of the tracks of the summer), and snappy, bouncy indie synth pop on Rio. At their most raucous, rough and ready to tumble, Terry softens the edges of The Damned on both their keystone kops rave-up Start The Tape and spiky frazzling Give Up The Crown.
Suggesting nothing more rebellious than a cheeky smoke behind the bike sheds, the group’s knockabout catchy hooks and charm cloak a personal profound response to the political and personal anxieties and dramas of the times. And they do this with a certain aloof coolness and adroit ear for a great tune, making this a most melodious and catchy album of knowing pop slanted punk.
Lucy Leave ‘The Beauty Of The World’
15th June, 2017
Venting opprobrious discourse at the result and ongoing shambles of Brexit – though I’m waiting for creative responses from the “leave” camp to materialize – the burgeoning Oxford trio Lucy Leave put forward an ennui fit of 80s downtown white funk and erratic polyrhythm bendy protestation on their latest EP’s opening diatribe, Talk Danish To Me.
Written whilst on holiday in the Danish capital, this discordant yet highly elastically funky number is as complicated as it sounds; the group reflecting the Brexit vote of 52% for leave with irrational dissonance and a whole tone scale flourish. Yet, despite this, that opening tumultuous track is surprisingly flexible and even melodic; tracing a path back through The Rapture, Liquid Liquid, ESG, A Certain Ratio, American alt rock, grunge and Oxford’s own synonymous – well made famous by – “math rock” scene.
The press one-sheet may have other ideas on where the trio’s influences lie, citing Deerhoof, Tortoise and The Minutemen. But on songs such as the spasmodic disjoint title track they channel PiL (the bass lines most definitely deftly sliding and dipping towards Jah Wobble), and, of all groups, the Red Hot Chili Peppers (though don’t hold that against Lucy Leave, as they sound a whole lot more credible), whilst it’s the floating semblances of Pink Floyd coupled with the slacker mumblings of grunge in the ascendance on Josh. Their appetite for sounds is as omnivorous as it is pliable.
Lucy Leave’s siblings Pete (on drums) and Mike Smith (guitar), and Jenny Oliver (bass and occasional succinct saxophone jazz gestures) all take it in turns to sing. Each bringing a subtle distinct tone and phrasing, especially Oliver who sounds like a submerged Vivian Goldmine or Dominique Levillain of Family Fodder, on the watery reggae gait and psychedelic swelling car crash inspired NIGHTROAD.
Hurtling without a map but a studious head for music theory and figures through The Beauty Of The World, Lucy Leave produce a magnificent bendy chaos. Without a doubt one of the most interesting new bands and among the most unpredictable releases of 2017 for me.
The Telescopes ‘As Light Return’
Tapete Records, 7th July 2017
After thirty years of tuning in and out of the void The Telescopes – or rather the only founding member to have endured this sonic travail, Stephen Lawrie – suggest there might be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel on their ninth drone behemoth album, As Light Return. Don’t get your hopes up just yet though. The miasma caustic discord still hangs like a millstone around Lawrie’s neck; a heavy weight that all but keeps him from clawing out of the vault towards the surface for air: the shoegaze melodious elements and audible vocals of yore all but dissipated and recondite.
If there is any kind of let up in this latest album’s unrelenting sustained waves of abrasive and searing feedback then its very subtle one. Whilst not quite daemonic and not quite as bleak as the visions of Sunn O))), As Light Return is still unyieldingly dark.
Relief is hard won, with any emerging semblances of a Mogadon induced Spector motorcycle gang doo-wop and Spacemen 3 redemption – most notably on the opening lament You Can’t Reach What You Hunger – being obscured and dragged under the ominous efflux of guitars. Just as the fuzz, squalls and unflinching bed of drawn out drones resemble anything moodily melodic they meet a stubborn indolence of gnawing white noise. As usual Lawrie’s vocals remain cryptically veiled in the gauzy production: detached in a stupor as the overpowering seething vortex of layering consumes all.
Using a revolving door policy of guitarists and continuing to change set ups, though Lawrie once again indoctrinates band members from St Deluxe on this album, As Light Return shares much musically, within the perimeters of anyway, with the previous drone suite album, Hidden Fields. However, the tone is even darker and serious, despite the light referenced title; sonically turning the cursed ashes of unheeded augurs into an atmospheric malaise and sound experience.
Diagnos ‘Diagnos’
Control Kitten Records, July 14th 2017
Building on an initial music project stemming from Marcus Harrling’s filmskills (one half of the Diagnos duo) this extended eponymous soundtrack of concomitant mystical ambient electronica, folk and psych is the perfect accompaniment for an imaginary 1970s set pagan horror: a kind of Scandinavian Wicker Man if you like.
Harrling, a graduate filmmaker of The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, originally developed Diagnos with Per Nyström to score a number of his super 8 camera shot travel films. Both stalwarts of their native Swedish independent music scene; members of The Concretes, Monsters, Mackaper, and Sons Of Cyrus; the duo ask a number of compatriots to contribute to their debut (proper) album. The roots of which first emerged in 2009 when Daniel Fagerström of The Skull Defekts arranged a “one-minute-festival” show for them; a performance that led to the creation of the incipient radiant synth and swooning incantation When The Sun Comes Up: a full version of which now closes this album.
Made up of instrumental passages, vignettes and cooing, psychedelic folky vocal tracks, Diagnos uses a backing of suffused sampled sounds, keyboards, purposeful attentive drums and guitar loops to create the right dreamy esoteric and folkloric atmosphere. Guest collaborators Nadine Byrne, Tove El, Maria Eriksson, Niek Meul, Oscar Moberg and Felix Unsöld add wafting, swaddled saxophone, lulling and supernatural pastoral lush vocals and hallucinogenic inducing tones to this magical journey.
Floating between flute-y synthesizers, primal tribal reverberation percussion and more drawn-out, but softened, drones, this suite weaves progressive and Kosmische influences into a gauze-y bed of spiritual and ominous layers; recalling the dissipating echoes of early Popol Vuh, Kluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Sonic Youth, Land Observation, Air, and on the languid trip-hop like Reflections, the soundtracks of Basil Poledouris.
Eberhard Kranemann & Harald Grosskopf ‘Krautwerk’
Bureau B, 28th July 2017
Stalwarts of Germany’s influential late 1960s and 70s experimental transformative Kosmische and Krautrock music scenes, Eberhard Kranemann and Harald Grosskopf join forces to celebrate a legacy. Representing two of the country’s most important epicenters and incubators of electronic music, Berlin and Dusseldorf, the duo glide and ponder through all the various iterations from that era on the pun-intended Krautwerk album.
Provenance wise Grosskopf drummed on a number of early Klaus Schulze albums (reverberations of the legendary electronic composer can be found throughout) and recorded thirteen albums with the Ashra incarnation of the iconic acid transcendental Ash Ra Tempel originators (again, traces of which can be heard here). Kranemann’s travails in Krautrock took the usual course, studies in more classical music at the Dortmund Conservatory and art at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf (studying under the behemoth of European conceptualism, Joseph Beuys), followed by a baptism of fire, propelled into the earliest developments of German electronica, co-founding such giants of the scene as Kraftwerk, Neu! and Pissoff.
In the aftermath of that most important decade in German music history both artists went on to release numerous solo projects. Their paths however didn’t cross until 2016, and by chance; both solo artists booked to perform at the very same music festival, where they planned this melding of minds project.
Two schools of thought and conceptualism, Krautwerk is a sophisticated, sagacious sextet of analogue (featuring of all things an Hawaiian guitar and, not so surprising, a cello) and synthesized peregrinations and moods. Channeling a wealth of experience and influences this congruous partnership combines the graceful transience and stirring futuristic ambience of Cluster and Tangerine Dream with the tangled, industrial guitar playing of Manuel Göttsching and the progressive kinetic beats of the Pyrolator and Kraftwerk. Clandestine romanticized reflections captured at midnight appear alongside mystical cello etched beasts in the Tibetan mists, on the Deutsch Nepal trail, and more nonsensical Japanese phonetic silliness to cover a swathe of Dusseldorf and Berlin inspirations.
Though there’s also a strong nod in the direction of the musical styles that evolved from and ran parallel to Krautrock/Kosmische with Moroder style arpeggiator propulsion and 80s drum machine percussion on the vortex sucking and reversed hi-hat Basic Channel transmogrified Be Cool, and Jeff Mills cerebral techno on the Tresor club turn Banco de Gaia trance journey Happy Blue.
Every bit as erudite as you’d expect; finely tuned and considered, Kranemann and Grosskopf celebrate a full gamut and heritage. Yet sound relatively contemporary at times and fresh despite the fact that these musical genres were created in the 60s. Fans of Kosmische and electronica music in general will lap it up.
The Bordellos ‘Life, Love & Billy Fury’
Recordiau Prin, 16th June 2017
Prolific, if haphazardly, dropping albums upon the unsuspecting, and quite frankly undeserving, public, St. Helen’s greatest dysfunctional family bring us one of their most ambitious collections of cynical derision and honest yearned anxiety yet: a kind of Joy ‘de vive’ Division.
More or less The Bordellos love songs collection, this latest lo fi affair – that makes even The Fall sound professional – is a raw opening of the heart, and in some cases, the veins. Transmogrifying Spector’s voices of the beehives (The Crystals to The Ronettes), the Spacemen 3, The Cure and, of course, The Velvet Underground, The Bordellos eulogize the nearly man of British rock’n’roll, Billy Fury, craft (perhaps) one of their most beautiful ballads, Starcrossed Radio, and pen a “speeding train” metaphor themed ode to breakups.
That signature mumbled and pained expression of malaise and the miserable backbeat and tambourine jangled foundations, we Bordellos fans love and find so endearing, prevail but are joined by meandered detours and passing fancies of inspiration: on the heavily medicated Secret Love it’s a touch of (would you believe it) Lee Hazlewood and Nick Cave, on the breezier “what’s cooking” kitchen sulk Brief Taste it’s a conjuncture of Siouxsie Sioux’s Banshees and The Clean, and on the Adriatic wooing Signomi, Arketa!, I can hear Talk Talk beating out a military tattoo rhythm on Adam and the Ants Burundi drums.
Romancing the stoned, the life, loves and failures of rock’n’roll are laid bear and as usual, ignored by an unsympathetic, disinterested public. But despite mostly alluding recognition and validation (because that seems to be all that matters in the social media age: affirmation from the echo-chamber of peers), The Bordellos mope and grind on, producing some of the most important diatribes and, in this case, scuzzy, dirge-y and primal garage band spirited love-pained grievances.