Labasheeda - The Twlight State (Presto Chango Records)

As far as I could tell from two visits, the average punter in Amsterdam prefers 90’s cheese, euro dance and hammer metal to the more experimental or down to earth projects. But like any city, it had to have its underground somewhere and, as usual, I had to return to the UK to find it. Labasheeda is a doorway to its gritty basement scene, one that reflects a local, more clued in angle. In a way, Amsterdam’s subculture found me.

Labasheeda formed in 2004 and since then have been recording consistently. Under a seriously driven work ethic, they’ve released nearly a record every year. Their newest, The Twilight State is warmly produced, runs beautifully from track to track and hits every goddam mark.

You can hear it all in there: Pavement’s lyrical grunge, Fugazi’s bass lines and tight acoustic punk (circa The Argument); the singer, Saskia van der Giessen, moans like Karen O, pronouncing a strange, sometimes funny version of English (for any other band, this would be a defect but for Labasheeda, it only gives them character).

Overall, the main source is extracted from Sonic Youth’s expansive exploration of guitar screams, tonality and inventive riff changes. They’ve even selected painted cover artwork suggestive of The Eternal as well as incorporating a small amount of a Kim Gordon sophistication that puts to shame most current “girl punk” attitude (the comparatively tame and superficial Paramore for example). There’s no posing, no acting, no dressing up, no falsity, no frills or flashing lights, no tactical target marketing (unless its so tactical I can’t tell) – simply rock music, with guts and realism, made by approachable people who don’t wear tight black. People you could actually enjoy a conversation with.

After an intense opening to clear your head, ‘Headquarter’, an unsettling ballad shoots ripples down the spine by building guitar harmonies over a repeated note of ‘B’. It seems to point an accusing finger: “There’s liars in this room” sings van der Giessen. ‘From You Too Me’ interweaves downcast chords with kicking rhythms and ‘White Leather’, a neat package of all their hooks, tops their myspace at the moment (trust me however, they save the best stuff for the records).

The grumpily wasted ‘Way Out’ leads into the evil, drooling instrumental epic that is ‘My First Choice’ and then to close with imprinted force from ‘Duplicated’. Playing sweet three note melodies, van der Giessen’s violin is the band’s most unique feature. It’s too bad that it appears so rarely and so timidly in the album’s mix.

Although Amsterdam is riding the 90’s, some at least have taken on the decade’s better side. The Twilight State is an impassioned and pragmatic number five from a superb rock band. Labasheeda do pain and sadness, red rage and subtle sarcasm; and, over the next few months, Labasheeda do England. Get out of your hovels and support them.

(© Copyright 2011 Brendan Morgan)

NLF 3 - Beautiful Is The Way To The Beyond (Prohibited Records)

From across the channel, NLF 3 are another group of orators helping to guide the rock band into a more egalitarian and versatile format. “[…] we like dancing on stage and singing like sorcerers, we like loops and live looping, tribal rhythms and creeping electronics”. Made possible by the ease of software and sampling, their set up recalls the shared free flow of a Jazz ensemble and has become ubiquitous of Nu-Jazz groups such as Polar Bear, Jagga Jazzist and Tortoise.

It’s an aspect that also attaches NLF 3 to the Math Rock scene. With precision guitar engineering, ‘The Lost Racer’ is a dead ringer for Battles’ particular style of Martian army marches (NLF 3 have also supported them in the past and cite them as an influence). In striking contrast to what came before, the track grinds to a halt after four minutes and falls away into the calm of a faded synth sunset and wistful guitar strumming.

It may be their finest moment but their funniest can be found in the track before. ‘Wild Chants’ features kettle drums, a quiet chorus of exotic creatures and a voice effect that resembles a drunken Alvin the Chipmunk slurring his way through a tune. Later in the album, ‘At Full Blast’ plays out as a stripped back dance number while ‘Enneagon’ could happily soundtrack the strobe graphics of the 80’s TV show Crystal Maze.

For all its charms and trinkets, Beautiful Is The Way To The Beyond feels more like a collection of early preparations and loosening jams than a band’s fourth album. “We've been doing this for 20 years and we're not done yet” they stated in an interview, and I’d agree. NLF 3 sound like a milder version of Battles and their new release rarely wavers from its perky and eccentric state of bliss. Ignoring all this however, it’s still a musically tight, colourful and spirited performance that’s sure to put a smile on your face.

(© Copyright 2011 Brendan Morgan)

Soars - Soars (La Société Expéditionnaire)

Out of a thick wash of reverb, lonely guitar lines hang overhead like silver clouds in monotone skies. Harsh mechanical drums conjure up fields of oil derricks chiselling away at decollate frozen ground. Using the local surroundings of Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania as its influence, Soars’ debut is like a union of shoe gaze texturing and Sigur Ros’ sad reflection.

The slowed-down, industrial drum track thudding away underneath may be one of the band’s characteristic features but it seems more like a heavy burden, constrictive of their creative freedom. It would explain the all-to-obvious riff changes and the strict and regimented song structure; the result of a band straining to work with a drum machine. It may have worked for Suicide because they were trying to piss people off but for deeper emotional music such as Soars, it would help to get a drummer, a real one.

The lead singer’s supersensitive, wet, child-like voice is another downer. Sung in falsetto, the lyrics are nothing more than shapes of sound floating in the murk of the overall mix. Never mind deconstructing “lyrical myth” as their press release claims (using the voice as an instrument is nothing radical) – it would give the album an extra layer if we could only hear some poetry.

When they aren’t being all morose and mopey, Soars achieve a feeling of bittersweet longing. Elegantly simple and instantly likable, ‘Throw Yourself Apart’, with its laborious beat and descending, melancholy chord pattern is an ideal single release. Another notable track, ‘Monolith’ concludes the record with a captivating guitar melody but, minutes before the end, it wastes an opportunity to extend and build up the final segment, maybe crashing into complete tonal meltdown or some other grand finish. The rest of the album is just as sedated.

At best, Soars’ debut album provides a tour of one of America’s isolated working towns and embodies some of the current feelings of hopelessness and despondency rippling through the country. Sadly, there are very little surprises among its glum-rock sound and if you’re like me an infuriatingly solemn person already, listening to too much of it would only be indulging in some miserable winter masochism.

(© Copyright 2011 Brendan Morgan)

Flowers of Hell - O (Optical Sounds)

Arranged from improvisations and recorded in one take, The Flowers of Hell’s newest release O feels like staring deeply into a milky gemstone of shape and colour. Among the swells of string and lonely trumpet, a single drifting tone evolves and reforms in the light. Respecting the law of the circle, there is no beginning or end to the piece and the meditative atmosphere is both soothing and unsettling, like something by Ligeti, only less dissonant.

For all of this however, O is stagnant and kind of tedious when compared to the epic travels of their first album Come Hell or High Water (2009). Artistic musings aside, it is essentially forty five minutes of slow moving, rhythmless ambience – mildly intriguing in construction it’s just… nothing… really… happens. The group director, Greg Jarvis, wasn’t wrong when he called it “Business Suicide”. Is forty five minutes of droning art music worth shelling out on?

Aside from the recording itself, the CD contains videos of the group performing O and four other tracks at gigs in Toronto and Prague. This is its raison d'être, otherwise the recording is geared up to be just another victim of stream and run. Watching Flowers from Hell perform is a sumptuous experience, most acoustic gigs are. It reveals much of the bands wonder: their eclectic and textured use of instruments and a strong group connection that borderlines on the paranormal. The record was born out a very simple, almost Zen-like plan imbibing the aim of German absolute music: “music that is not explicitly about anything, music that simply is”.

Despite ongoing snobbery and its stodgy stigma, the vast range of Classical Music will forever provide material for the right minds. The Flowers of Hell’s kind of Space Rock/Post Rock/Neo-Classical (classification overload) suggests a relation to the divine Godspeed You! Black Emperor who combine the grand compositional techniques of the Modern Avant-garde with the nihilism and riff basis of Rock. There have been many contenders but until discovering Flowers of Hell I’ve not heard a band that carries on this visionary style with such courage. There are a lot of phonies and tourists in the art music world, hung up on THE IMAGE or THE IDEA of making intellectual or groundbreaking music. By sharing the stage and their projects with other musicians, Flowers of Hell appear to be free of this self delusion (Come Hell or High Water featured musicians from Bat For Lashes, Broken Social Scene, Spiritualised and Spacemen 3 to name but a few).

The idea behind O is compelling enough to warrant a listen. It completes its task of being anyway (heh heh). But in the end, it only serves as a blank canvass for future possibilities. Being their first solo record, it makes me curious as to what their next project will be and who it will be with. All I ask is that they hold on to their edgy quality against a demanding environment for “relaxing” Classical music. So no pressure guys.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Teebs - Ardour (Brainfeeder)

Blooming with abstract colours and melodic detail, Ardour is a record cultivated out of art. A skateboarder turned painter turned musician, Mtendere Mandowa (aka Teebs) composes his music in the way he approaches his paintings. Many seemingly isolated fragments melt together in energy and expression. Ardour is a translation of his artwork to music.

The record was a project put together during two years of unemployment. While the rest of us would be groaning about job opportunities, Teebs just got busy and the freedom of electronic music seemed to suit his tastes. The production techniques like time shift and chopped sampling (possibly relayed to him under the watchful eye of Brainfeeder) are ubiquitous of folktronica and the likes of Gold Panda or Four Tet. His ethnic rhythms are off balanced and threaten to blow away if not for the weight of some hip-hop influenced beats. Acoustic samples of twinkling bells and various wind-chimes unite with cosy synths swelling in waves and pulses. It all simulates natural movement like wind gently tugging at clothes on a line.

When these fragments resolve into a more recognisable form – heard during the excellent groove of ‘Gordon’ – its drifting feel satisfyingly takes shape like a scrapbook of grainy photographs. ‘Double Fifths’ the albums first stand out track empolys a magical pitch-bending harp over wooden percussion and later on ‘Moments’ employs a cascading piano and ‘Wind Loop’ a sweetly rising chime melody.

Ultimately, Ardour’s impressionistic quality works itself into the background and into obscurity. As you begin to fall into the mood of a track it dematerialises and lurches to another. I imagine every one these 18 incidental tracks, the bubbly ‘Double Fifths’ for one swelling to a grand strings section or some kind of further elaboration. Instead they jaunt off like a shy bumble bee. Even the album’s end is flighty and inconclusive. This will either instil a sense of longing in the listener or struggle to make a mark.

Just like Modern Art, it goes for impact and for concise and polished expression. In this way Ardour is at odds with its enveloping atmosphere, though I doubt it was intentional as Teebs has allowed the record to take on its own home-made form. Ardour is definitely an experimental album; an exposés of his creativity set loose in a different medium. But it is the sights and sounds of his travels and experiences, as well as a blurring of art and music that make this a busy, beautiful record.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

The Black Angels - Phosphene Dream

God bless the Acid Rock scene. Coming back in small waves since its 60’s heyday, it gave punk wings, fuelled the club era and gave countless bands inspiration and scope along the way. Its problem, like any bygone scene, is that it has a way of digging itself into a hole. Following the success of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, a flavour of bands have been touting the same neo-psychedelic trip for years now.

But there is something different about The Black Angels music: its wild spirit, sinister atmosphere, now driven by a will to seek new horizons. Their new album released tomorrow is an altogether more flowery affair, with bright rhythm and riff changes vaguely reminiscent of early Floyd, though their hallmark droning blues is clearly here to stay.

‘Bad Vibrations’ kicks it off with pounding drums and pulsing organ, throbbing like a memory murdering hangover. Already their familiar droning, evil-eye guitar riffs and foot stomping Rock settles in like a heavy mist. Then suddenly, three minutes into the track, a scream blows it away and we find ourselves running for our lives. Even the catchy ‘Yellow Elevator’ ending with a slow jam and a mystical effect on Alex Maas’ voice doesn’t allow the mood to settle for long. ‘True Believers’ begins like a Jefferson Aeroplane jam, falls into stoned reverie and takes off again with the punchy Kinks-come-The Doors ‘Telephone’.

Behind these tinted fragments of a revered counter-culture, danger also lurks in the echoing lyrics: “He takes his pill so he can kill, praise the Bible” This mixture of religion and violence represents a nasty side of contemporary America. It's almost as if The Black Angels are carefully decoding American mythology. In Passover it was the popular myths: The Road Trip, The Vietnam War; this time it’s the oldest and most powerful hypocracy in God’s Country.

With better song crafting and a superb production from Blue Horizon Records The Black Angels are working hard and pushing on. Phosphene Dream displays increasing energy and a widening direction for them. Drawing material from nearly every psychedelic band of the 60’s The Black Angels were never hugely original or even ‘far out’ in its truest sense of the phrase. But these days there are few that will come close to this kind of Californian freak Rock and hypnotic cool. A word to the wise.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Fang Island - Fang Island (Sargent House)

Fang Island’s fast paced debut, layered with big boisterous guitar, fits like a glove in the current American scene. Describing their music as “everyone high fiving everyone”, they are so much happier than you or I. It’s the prog-metal equivalent of Bastian from The NeverEnding Story raising his fist and triumphantly yelling “YEEAAH!”

I like music that takes on simple, child inspired philosophies and what drew me to Fang Island was a recorded video on their myspace page where they perform to a kindergarten class. The jubilation and wide eyed expressions on the kid’s faces as they hop about to the hardcore jams was wonderful stuff. It was funny to think of a parallel between these classroom antics and that of any adult Rock club filled with immature goofballs (the sad difference is that children express themselves truthfully, don’t have horrendous egos and don’t smear crap in their hair to be cool. They do it because… well… they just do it.)

Stop-and-start rhythm changes between the band are expertly controlled and the four guitarists display impressive skill and sweet solos that Boston would be proud of. It warrants the use of great phrases such as ‘head banging’ and ‘kick ass’, especially in tracks such as ‘Careful Crossers’ with its tricky rhythms and battling riffs. Unfortunately the collective vocal chanting found in their single ‘Daisy’ and later in ‘Davey Crockett’ ruins it. These sing-a-long brayings of ‘ooooh’s’ and ‘woah woah woah’s’ get old very quickly; ultimately becoming banal sighs in the place of, you know, actual words. Their goal to draw grand, truthful emotion from us seems all too familiar.

Graduating from Rhode Island School of Design (the origin of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lightning Bolt and Talking Heads) they throw out any evidence of art school subtlety. It doesn’t take long to figure Fang Island as feel-good teenage thrash pop propelling a single, continuously chipper mood. Sometimes, just sometimes it brings to mind those god-awful mobile phone advertisements where hoards of douche bags sing with each other in false unity. Hey everyone! Come on! Let’s get together! Groan.

Compared with their predecessors, Fang Island have moved in an altogether different direction. Their achievements are their glorification of the present moment, the way they capture the manic excitement you used to feel before a trip to a theme park. Their compact album is in touch with a youthful exuberance and contains some masterful musicianship and hum-worthy melodies. Too bad then that its upbeat tone, great at first, reveals no further dimension beyond ludicrously happy. And please, no more Arcade Fire vocal choruses. They’re loosing their allure.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Tobacco - Maniac Meat (Anticon)

Every so often a record comes along that is so filthy, so depraved, it’s impossible to avert your attention. Tobacco’s newest venture, Maniac Meat is one of these. All sixteen tracks, arranged in a mosaic of derogation, drug nightmares and 80’s video nasties; told of course with a pinch of wit, could quite easily soundtrack Naked Lunch: The Videogame.

Ronaldo Fauntroy straddles his role as the front man for Black Moth Super Rainbow with the Tobacco solo project, sharing material between them both – his habit for vocoder vocals being one. The chubby grainy synths and tacky drum pads had always lent itself to a club atmosphere. But what club? Where would you hear something with such a dubious sexual subtext? It’s not S&M or bestiality being suggested; no, the halarious horror and revulsion one feels can only be compared to accidentally bursting in on someone performing cunning lingus on a sweaty bulbous monster.

*Cough* … or watching a zombie film. Don’t let my crass interpretation put you off. In all seriousness Maniac Meat is a great record elaborating on Tobacco’s taste for retro electronica and his love of the grotesque, as related two years ago in an interview with Kotori “There’s something seriously fucked about workout tapes from the mid 80s, and just about everything obscure on beta tape. They make me feel awful, but really good and curious at the same time. […] I’m trying to translate that feeling.”

Besides which, the release contains many, more family friendly moments. Two tracks featuring the familiar ramblings of Beck (‘Fresh Hex’ and ‘Grape Aerosmith’) are certainly two of the albums finest additions, even if they are too short. Elsewhere, the depraved imagery and slow groove in ‘Heavy Makeup’ twists and turns and slithers under your skin. There are times, mainly towards the end, when its unsettling tone is somewhat forced, verging on exhausting – a disjointed album structure doesn't help – but on such excellent tracks as ‘Sweatmother’ (an evil and infectious blaze of distortion bass and squealing pitch bends) and ‘New Juices From The Hot Tub Freaks’ (a prime example of his hip hop tendencies) it is flawlessly executed.

Compared with his other work, solo or otherwise, Maniac Meat’s nuances come at no surprise but they do seem to have taken on a higher class. No other artist can replicate Ronaldo’s particular analog fetishism and skuzzy beats as it crawls through your mind grinning its shit eating grin. In the words of an old friend of mine “How could it be wrong if it feels so right?”

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

Washed Out - Life Of Leisure EP (Mexican Summer)

Every year, there are a variety of musicians and bands eager to provide us music geeks and dull romantics with a summer soundtrack. And with all that goes on: the festivals, the travelling, the beer; it’s the optimum environment in which to release a memorable and lasting record.

Just a month away from the season of hedonism, Washed Out’s Life of Leisure takes this to the next degree. Using his own equipment, Earnest Greene recorded his debut while staying at his parents place in Georgia. The result is an example of the effect that time, isolation and nature has on creativity. Life of Leisure is a complete experience: a package of well devised mood music wrapped in a DIY charm. Written during the summer for the summer, its sense of escapism could not have been realised during the pressure of his current tour.

Each track blends effortlessly together as one. Under four minutes long, their simplistic structure may be a downside but, overall, with the impression that ‘Get Up’ and ‘Feel it All Around’ leave behind, nothing feels more natural than to play it again and again. Rehashing the techniques laid out in the three tracks before it, ‘Lately’ takes this simplicity into the mundane and is the only duff track on the EP. It’s promptly forgotten when ‘You’ll See It’, with its ethereal groove and resonating euphoria concludes the record.

The 80’s keyboard pop and shoegaze fuzz are easy to detect but bizarrely nobody (except Greene himself) mentioned the obvious disco vibe. From the pulsing electro thuds in the bass, to the sibilance in the vocal harmonies (identical to the silky harmonies of 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’), right up to the album cover; it all simulates a swirling heady high like no other. Comforting yet awakening, like cool water on hot skin; we know how the girl on the cover feels.

Without loosing itself too much in nostalgia, Washed Out harps back to a familiar and colourful rave innocence while capturing a piece of the zeitgeist. Look no further, your summer soundtrack is here. Original and sonically stunning, it’s a rare sparkle of a record – one that that could illuminate Greene’s career or, in its bright intensity, blind him from doing anything this good again.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

The Scottish Enlightenment - Pascal EP

It’s only been a few months and already The Scottish Enlightenment have released another record. Each one is followed close behind by an assortment of nodding respect – the kind of respect reserved for established local legends, murmurs shared between people in the know. Once again, their new EP Pascal displays a further growth of their studious and noble soft Rock.

Since their amalgamation three years ago, the band has been repeatedly likened to Pavement and this connection has followed them around the blogsphere like a phantom limb, though not without an element of truth. Their simple mix and slacker guitar style are sometimes identical to the original American losers. However, David Moyes’ slurring baritone marks them out. His leadership and what the rest of the band can do with so little is impressive. In an interview he talks of their progression over the last three years: “the kind of enforced maturing that comes from coming home from a gig with your ears humming and finding your wife up with a screaming baby.” His song writing is just as real and down-to-earth – none of your contrived Rock n’ Roll lifestyles here. The focus is on their surroundings and on celebrating normal life which, as we all know, is complex stuff.

Pascal’s sombre tone doesn’t exactly fire poetry from my fingertips but no matter. The EP is best explained by its confessional and dreamy flow. The opening title track, with its warm guitars and intimate reverb, is the musical equivalent of a comforting hug. Next, ‘If You Would Just Try a Bit Harder’ drifts gently like a boat through sleepy seas and after the rippling piano of ‘Riverbed’ comes ‘All Homemade Things’, a touching number that showcases their tuneful guitar arrangements. Unfortunately, even with a rising guitar solo and an appearance of harp, ‘To The Dogs’ is a long, drawn out ending and I found myself cutting it short.

Scotland seems like one of the only places left that still puts faith in the good ol’ four-piece; a structure that will never die, so long as some hard work is gone into stretching its capabilities. Besides a maturity and authenticity, you can hear a wise resignation in The Scottish Enlightenment’s music. It feels good to know that even in our fast moving world, there’s a band out there that have settled down with a family and don’t care if they don’t keep up.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)