Mostyn's Music Page

	26th August 2007 If I were to make a list of specific genres of music that absolutely do *not* appeal to me, then Welsh language hip hop would be pretty near to the top. So, when Huw Stephens had Genod Droog in session the other week, I didn't go so far as to switch the radio off, but I did turn down my ears to minimum volume. However, whilst washing the pots, I became aware of this angelic voice drifting out across the kitchen and into my consciousness. It was actually the final session track from Genod Droog, a song called Breuddwyd Oer, which featured guest vocalist Cate Le Bon. This is seriously loveable. And in an era when so many pop singers want to bore us with their right-on political manifestos, just how refreshing is it to hear an introduction along the lines of: "This is a song about ... uhm ... nothing"! As for Cate herself, she is still currently giving away free digital downloads of her rather excellent single No One Can Drag Me Down.
	19th August 2007 I guess that Jesus Licks are another band that fall under the "folkey dokey" label; rather than play the traditional guitar they go for ukuleles and banjos instead. I first heard them on one of Tom Ravenscroft's "SlashMusic" downloads. It was the track Marry Me that initially caught my ear. I don't think it's actually been released just yet, although I picked up a giveaway copy from their myspace page. They played Tom Robinson's show a couple of weeks back: 3 songs including what is probably their "greatest hit" so far, Dalek Chorus. Rather than wait for the new single to come out, I just bought last year's limited edition red vinyl 7 inch version of "Dalek Chorus". I prefer the B-side, actually, which has a rockier couple of tracks, including Eternally Lonely.
	12th August 2007 I first came across Serafina Steer on Marcelle's Another Nice Mess earlier this year. Much as I admire what Marcelle does, we don't appear to have an awful lot in common in terms of musical taste! However, I was sufficiently taken with "Sefa" that I tracked down a copy of last year's very limited "Peach Heart" 7 inch single. Playing the harp and having a kind of folkey-dokey style brings inevitable comparisons with Joanna Newsom ... who is someone I've never really taken to. The A-side of the "Peach Heart" single is such a nasty pressing that it's virtually unlistenable; fortunate then, that I prefer the B-side Mano e Mano. A most fascinating lady with a classical background - but without the associated pomposity. She's just released her debut album of which the title track is Cheap Demo Bad Science.
	5th August 2007 A name which seems to keep cropping up on my screen these days is that of husband/wife duo Kevin and Anita Robinson aka Viva Voce. Apparently, they've been making music together since 1998, although they took a break for a while and made a fresh start in 2003. They haven't made too much headway in the UK and launched a bargain-priced mini "Best Of" album a few weeks back: "Viva Voce Loves You". It opens with what is probably their best tune Wrecking Ball (although this song originally appeared on their 2003 album). There's something about that opening riff reminds me very much of The Breeders at their best. Their latest full album was last year's "Get Yr Blood Sucked Out". Although I usually avoid tracks with swear words in the title (cheap attention-grabbing gimick!), I think my favourite from this album would be We Do Not Fuck Around.
	29th July 2007 CocoRosie are a band who have passed me by until now - even though they've just released their third full-length album "The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn". I gave the album a listen merely on the strength of their name - funny how I can normally tell whether or not I'm going to like a band simply on the basis of what name they choose to call themselves. It has to be said that it's not the most easily accessible of albums ... I think they usually tend to get filed under "experimental" ... or as one amazon.com contributor put it: "This is not 'different' and wonderful; this is simply annoying noise". <LOL> One of the most listenable songs is stuck right in the middle of the album, Track 7 Werewolf. I've been digging out quite a lot of their back-catalogue this week, and the most tuneful moment that I came across was a session track recorded for a Dutch radio station in 2004 - a version of Not For Sale. Now that is good. The band (sisters Sierra and Bianca Casady) put out a story earlier this year claiming that they'd been arrested when returning to the US - although it was never made clear why. But, it prompted one blogger to comment: "If you could be arrested for being pretentious, racist, shitty-music-making douchebags, CocoRosie would be lifers" <LOL> again! I always have a soft spot for artists who are a little ... uhm ... controversial ;-)
	22nd July 2007 There was a time last year when you simply couldn't turn on the radio, or browse the www without being told that Los Campesinos! were going to be the Next Big Thing. And being the kind of guy who loathes any form of hype, I instantly decided that no matter how cute and catchy "You! Me! Dancing!" was, I was *not* going to like this band. Well ... on Huw Stephens' very first radio show of 2007, he opened up with an unannounced tune, and when the first chorus struck up after a mere 15 seconds, I knew that I just had to have this record ... whoever it was! And ... it turned out to be the [then] forthcoming single by Los Campesinos! We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives. As it happened, I didn't buy the single - simply because it was one of those limited edition vinyl releases by trendy bands which gets bought out by eBay pimps on the first day of release. However, I guess that I am won over. I've been keeping an eye out since then, for any radio sessions, and finally they came in to Marc Riley's Brain Surgery last week. Sound quality is always awful from the BBC's Manchester studios, but I grabbed their session, including an unreleased(?) song called Knee Deep at ATP.
	15th July 2007 I seem to buy more 7 inch singles than any other format these days, and last week I got a copy the recent release from the Sheffield boy/girl indie-pop quintet Monkey Swallows The Universe. What an awful name for a band ... but I find it hard not to like them, despite the fact that they are also irritatingly cutesy at times. They achieved some degree of notoriety by getting their first major national newspaper coverage in the racing pages of the Daily Telegraph - the A-side of the single is named after a former winner of the Grand National ("Little Polveir"). Actually, I much prefer the B-side Hemingway myself. I also have a recording of the session they did for Gideon back in April, which included a version of Little Polveir - for some reason lasting over a minute longer than the studio version.
	8th July 2007 When I happened to spot a new album by Mary Weiss recently, I thought ... aaah yes, the drummer with Sleater-Kinney, went on to become half of Quasi ... wonder what kind of noise she's making these days? Well, when I listened to "Dangerous Game", I was a bit surprised by the apparent change in direction: this was good stuff, but a very retro girls-in-the-garage type of sound. Mmmm ... yes ... that kind of made sense when it was pointed out to me that the Sleater-Kinney drummer was, in fact, called *Janet* Weiss, and that *Mary* Weiss was none other than the legendary lead singer of the Shangri-Las ("Leader of The Pack"). If it hadn't been for mistaking the name, I don't suppose I would have bothered listening to this album. Glad I did though, although I think the best of it is packed into Track 1 My Heart Is Beating and Track 2 Nobody Knows (But I Do).
	1st July 2007 I don't feel that I've been giving Paula Frazer the attention that she deserves. I was quite an admirer in the early 4AD years, but then she seemed to disappear off into the wilderness in the late 90s. I've been revisiting her two most recent albums this week: 2005's "Leave The Sad Things Behind" and this year's "Now It's Time". Speaking as someone who likes to see records labelled correctly, I've never been quite clear whether the artiste "Paula Frazer" and the band "Tarnation" are in fact the same entity. And now, just to confuse things further, the new CD is attributed to "Paula Frazer *and* Tarnation". Whilst you have to say that she hasn't changed her style a great deal in the last 15 years, there is some nice stuff here. It wouldn't have originally been my pick from "Leave The Sad Things Behind", but I've now come to conclusion that Taken is the best track from that record, and from the current album, I'll go for I'll Never Know.
	24th June 2007 You know ... I hate to say it ... but I think that 2007 has been a pretty poor year so far, for interesting and original new music. I find myself listening mainly to what you might call "novelty" items. And I think that the latest 7 inch single I bought would come under that category. Here Ya Come Again & Again is billed as a "duet" between Milk Kan and Dolly Parton. (In reality, they've just sampled one of her old records - but I don't think it would have got as far as a commercial release without the Great Lady giving it her approval). I must admit that I hadn't heard of Milk Kan before, but it seems that they had a mini-hit in 2005 with "Bling Bling Baby", which was assisted by being played on Eastenders. I can't help comparing this record with other "duets" involving country music divas. Remember the KLF and Tammy Wynette from 1991? ("Justified and Ancient"). And more recently, there was Jack White's collaboration with Loretta Lynn ("Portland Oregon"). Listening to them again, both of these records are undoubted classics - a "quality item" as Mark and Lard used to put it. Somehow, I just can't see Milk Kan's efforts achieving the same status ... although it may well turn out to be one of the more memorable moments of what is so far ... a pretty substandard year.
	17th June 2007 Did she jump, or was she pushed? I was hugely disappointed to hear that Charlotte Hatherley had left Ash. I doubt that the band will be half as good without her, and Charlotte's second solo album ("The Deep Blue") only seems to be about half as good as her debut. The most interesting song on the album is the track that was chosen for the first single, "Behave". It's not really a great tune, but it has this amazingly distinctive guitar riff running through it. She appeared live on Marc Riley's show last week and played a version of Behave, and revealed that the trick behind that unique sound is that she uses a non-standard guitar tuning. Having played the new album a few times now, I'd nominate the closing track Siberia as the best. In this case, there's nothing distinctive about it, just a good solid hard-driven no-nonsense rocker.
	10th June 2007 Emma Pollock's "eagerly awaited" debut solo album has been eagerly awaited for so long now, that it seems certain to disappoint ... me, at least. I picked up a recording of Emma playing Paper and Glue at the SxSW Festival (thanks to thedailygrowl) a few weeks back. Now, that is one truely outstanding piece of music ... but it's almost 2 years since she played it on Tom Rob's show - why is it still a (non-progressing) work in progress? I bought her debut 4AD 7 inch ("Adrenaline") last week. The A-side is instantly forgettable; the B-side A Glorious Day is better, but it barely rates 2 stars. Sorry, but I've got a bad feeling about this one ... although I'll be delighted to be proved wrong!
	3rd June 2007 I first came across The Watson Twins when they did the "Rabbit Fur Coat" collaboration with Jenny Lewis towards the end of 2005, and sad to say that I took an instant dislike to them as soon as I saw the album cover - the picture where they look like a couple of over-officious Amazonian librarians. I disliked it so much, in fact, that I refused to even listen to the album for several months! Eventually, I did get around to listening to the odd track, and soon came to love the glorious harmonies that they add to the songs, particularly on "Rise Up With Fists". I completely missed their debut EP which was released last Fall, but they have a full length album coming out later this year and recently did a promotional appearance on KEXP, Seattle, which I managed to stream over the interweb. They mainly played stuff from the previous record, rather than the next, and I particularly liked their version of the title track Southern Manners.
	27th May 2007 This week, I've really been trying hard to learn to love moody LA indie-rockers Midnight Movies, but I've yet to hear anything on the new album "Lion the Girl" which would justify promoting them from my B-list; Coral Den is currently my favourite track from the new LP. They had the dubious distinction of making it to No. 67 in my Pick of the Year 2005 with a version of "Love or A Lesson" they recorded for a Tom Robinson session and I've not heard any newer material which betters that yet. They played a lot of the new stuff on a live set for KCRW a few weeks back, but the most interesting song from the session was a French version of "Nights In White Satin", which is given the alternative title of "Mes Rêves De Satin".
	20th May 2007 I've always had an admiration for Melt-Banana, simply for surviving, and managing to build a long-term career out of making an unholy racket. But ... in truth, I never really considered their music to be pleasant listening .. until the "Cell-Scape" album, that is. I think they changed direction slightly here (some would say 'sold out', I guess) and started to structure their noise around genuine tunes, even melodies, maybe. When I heard they'd got a new album out ("Bambi's Dilemma"), I decided to take the plunge and buy it unheard. And whilst they haven't quite gone as far as to be filed under "easy listenin'", they have definitely mellowed a little. So far, I've only digitised the first side of my vinyl copy, but there's plenty of good stuff already. I'm currently undecided between Track 1 Spider Snipe and Track 5 Cat Brain Land as the Pick of Side 1. Also, last week, I went back in time and dug out my 2003 recording of their live set at the Brighton Concord. They were promoting "Cell-Scape" at the time, but also played a lot of earlier stuff, including Free The Bee" (from "Teeny Shiny") - arguably the first Melt-Banana song to incorporate a tune! And they also did a version of Lost Parts Stinging Me So Cold - power chords just don't get any heavier than this!
	13th May 2007 Whilst I've always been quite keen on *folk-tinged* music, I've never been much of a fan of traditional English folk. I've got a lot of sympathy with the sentiments of John Hegley - as expressed in "Olde England". ;-) Going back to last Christmas, when I heard that Huw Stephens had got Lisa Knapp in to play at his Xmas Party, I recorded her set more out of curiosity than anything. But, I soon realised that I'd bagged a real gem in the closing song of her mini-set There U R. This is a first rate composition, and a wonderful musical arrangement - which I believe should be credited to her fiddle player Gerry Diver. And as for Lisa's singing ... oooohhhh that high note at 02:19 just turns me to jelly. Last week, I finally decided to buy her debut album "Wild and Undaunted" and uhm ... while she doesn't actually do a "hey nonny no", it is very clichéd traditional stuff, with references to "olde London Towne" and walking on Salisbury Plain and all that. Apart from "There U R", the only other song I really liked was Little Bird. Hmmm ... these are the only 2 songs on the album (at least partly) written by Lisa; seems to me that she ought to write more of her own material.
	6th May 2007 I really don't know who I would describe as my favourite band/artist right now; it could be Lali Puna, The Detroit Cobras, Laura Cantrell, Emma Pollock ... it really depends how good their next record is. Electrelane were big contenders, after topping my Pick of the Year in 2005, but ... the new album "No Shouts No Calls" isn't quite as spectacular as I was hoping for. I keep finding myself saying - yeah, nice tune, but you've already done this one on the last record. Anyway, this week I've been occupying myself with digitising my limited edition 7 inch vinyl version of the current single To The East. And not only that, but I also processed the live session they did for Gideon Coe back on Friday 13th of April. As it happened, whilst the broadcast was going out, I was actually flying over the Sahara at the time. But, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, it was all sitting waiting for me on my PC when I got back home. They played a version of "To The East" for Gideon, and another tune from the new album In Berlin.
	29th April 2007 Ever since I began subscribing to this Audioscrobbler/last.FM thingy, the band Low have been up towards the top of my charts. It's not that they really are one of my absolute favourite bands, it's just that they've been around a long time and have released a lot of records ... and here's another one! The "Drums and Guns" album has a quite bizarre production, full of electronic beats and one-sided vocals. At the moment, my favourite track is the closing song "Violent Past". They played on Marc Riley's show last Friday, and although they did a version of "Violent Past", I don't think it came over quite so well, probably another track from the new album Murderer worked better with the toned down small scale production. I believe that's the first time they've played stuff from the new album on UK radio, but I also blagged a copy of their set last month for Minnesota Public Radio - exactly the same bunch of songs, but with the addition of Breaker.
	22nd April 2007 I don't recall exactly where or when I first heard Brooklyn synth-pop trio Au Revoir Simone. It might have been nothing more than I liked the sound of their name, and grabbed a couple of mp3s whilst randomly trawling the interweb. They've recently released their first [proper] album "The Bird of Music", and although I haven't heard all of it yet, there's some nice stuff on it: my favourite of the tracks I've heard so far is A Violent Yet Flammable World. I also caught their appearance on Gideon's show a couple of months back. They played a version of the current single "Fallen Snow" ... which sounded a bit limp ... the second song Dark Halls came across a lot better.
	15th April 2007 Actually, I was in Egypt on the 15th April, and the album I listened to most whilst sitting by the lagoon at El Gouna was the new release by Shiina Ringo - "Heisei Fuuzoku". And frankly, it was a big disappointment. Sadly, she seems to be drifting more and more towards an MOR/lounge-jazz sound. There are one or two flashes of the old Shiina - probably the opening track Gamble is the best it gets. I think it's fair to say that there are several of my chums who are slightly baffled as to why I listen to her so much. Well ... I'm reminded of a little anecdote that John Peel used to tell in relation to the footballer Chris Waddle. You could watch him for 89 minutes of a soccer game and he would appear to be a very ordinary footballer. But, at some point in the match he would get the ball and he would do something with it that no-one else could. That's how I feel about Shiina Ringo. Take Tsuki ni Makeinu from the "Shousa Strip" album for instance; there is simply no-one else in popular music who can make a noise like this.
	8th April 2007 New Young Pony Club are a band who I've really been trying hard to like over the last few months, but I've not totally succeeded. Not too dissimilar to Cansei de Ser Sexy, they look good on paper: a five-piece boy/girl "death disco, avant-funk, neo-electroclash, robo pop, synth-indie" outfit, but when it comes down to it, they come across as being more style than substance. And I see that both bands have been heavily hyped by the NME ... although I'm trying not to hold that against them. There are several versions of current single "The Bomb" doing the rounds right now, and the one which I prefer is "The Teenagers Crush LOU Remix" - probably their most convincing piece of work to date. They did a short promo set for Gideon Coe a couple of weeks back, which included a version of "The Bomb", plus an earlier song called "Hiding On The Staircase".
	1st April 2007 There's been a whole stack of live recordings circulated from last month's South by SouthWest festival. Trouble is ... I've not been able to locate anything from the artists that I *really* wanted to hear (such as Emma Pollock, The Detroit Cobras, Dengue Fever). On the other hand, all the stuff that *has* been made available is by bands I'm not really too bothered about. In fact, I took the time to listen to only one live set - by Apples In Stereo. I've listened to most of the records they've made over the years, but they've never made in onto my A-List. They've recently released a 6th(?) studio album "New Magnetic Wonder" which has a few tracks I've marked up with 2 stars. At the moment, I'm undecided whether "Sunndal Song" or "7 Stars" is the best track on the album. Neither of these featured in the live show at SXSW (or at least, the chunk that got broadcast by KEXP), and I'd say that the pick of that set was the closing song "Open Eyes". I'm usually a huge fan of live/underproduced music, but Apples In Stereo are probably one band who really need a BIG studio production.
	25th March 2007 I think it must have been Huw or Rob who played a track by Candythief very early in the year. I liked what I heard, and when I spotted that she/they were doing a live spot for Tom Robinson the following week, I made sure of getting a recording of the set. Three good tunes including the excellent "Catholic Blues", all with very nicely constructed vocal arrangements; there seem to be so few people in pop music who can handle multiple voices. Her debut mini-album was released in very limited numbers last year by the Fence Records Collective, but was supposedly to be re-released in February this year. I had a copy on order with Rough Trade for several weeks, and when there was no sign of it, I decided to have a second attempt to buy it from Smallfish Records - who sent me a copy the very next day. No sooner had it landed on my doorstep than ... yup, Rough Trade sent me a copy as well! So, not for the first time, I have ended up buying the same album twice. Well worth the money though, for songs such as "Satellite" - even at double the price.
	18th March 2007 I've always admired the wayward and utterly unpredictable nature of Deerhoof, but it has to be said that most of their tunes are not exactly hummable. I just managed to get hold of a 192k archive of the live session they did for KEXP a couple of months back. And true to their wacky nature, they chose to promote the new album "Friend Opportunity" by playing only one song from it (out of five). But the song they included was the very very hummable "+81" - a most insanely catchy little number! And in fact, the rest of the set was filled with some of their more listenable stuff, including "Twin Killers" from "The Runners Four". As for the new album, well ... it has to be said that there aren't many other songs on there which are destined to make it onto Top of The Pops. Apart from "+81", the most easily accessible piece is probably the opening track "The Perfect Me".
	11th March 2007 Tilly and The Wall were a huge, cuddly bundle of fun on Radcliffe's show last week. The only negative aspect for me was that they're still flogging the "Bottoms of Barrels" album. Yes, it's a great album - I even put "Lost Girls" at No. 3 in my 2006 Pick of The Year - but, you know, 10 months down the line, maybe it's time to move on a bit. The tap dancing percussion business really needs good acoustics to work properly, and in the BBC Manchester studios, the girls were trying to do their stuff on what sounded like industrial wooden pallets. Still, all good fun, and of the three songs they showcased, I think that "Rainbows in The Dark" was the one which came over best, incorporating not just three-part ... but do I detect four-part harmonies in there at times?
	4th March 2007 Well ... what a week it's been for radio fans: Gideon's had live appearances from Au Revoir Simone, Cansei de Ser Sexy, Broken Family Band, J Mascis; Radcliffe's had Tilly & The Wall and Piney Gir in the studio, WFMU had a session from Mahogany, but my Pick of the Week goes to Lavender Diamond's session for Rob da Bank. I'd never actually come across the band until Rob trailed them a few weeks back. I did a quick scour of the Interweb and came across the song "Rise In The Springtime" from their debut EP "The Cavalry Of Light" - recorded a year or two back, but re-issued early this year. Now, that's what I call pretty darned good. For Rob's session, they previewed a couple of songs from the forthcoming debut long player "Imagine Our Love", including the opening track "Oh No". By all accounts, singer Becky Stark is somewhat bonkers, in a very loveable kind of way - in which case, I can happily forgive her for all the hippy-dippy love and peace bollocks. And just as I push Young People off the bottom of the page, I notice that I commented on Jeff Rosenberg quitting the band. Well ... where do you think he ended up!