Did you all enjoy Record Store Day? Did you buy stuff? Did you? There was a lot of stuff to buy. A lot. Perhaps too much. Still, I came home with some records I really wanted and two which, in hindsight, I may not really have needed. Ah well, I can just sling them up on eBay later (just kidding, the people who do that are a bunch of bastards). I also went and watched the London Marathon from a number of different vantage points yesterday. I tell you, it was exhausting running around all day like that. Anyway, here’s what’s happening this week.
01: Music Week Awards. The big ceremony for Music Week’s annual music industry awards bash, covering labels, publishing, retail, radio, venues and management, takes place on Thursday at The Brewery in central London. All nominations were announced back in March, though the winner of the lifetime achievement award, The Strat as it is known, will be kept a secret until the night. My money’s on Jessie J for that one.
02: GIT Award. The inaugural GIT Award, the “Scouse Mercury Prize” set up by music blog Getintothis in recognition of Liverpool’s best new music, will be announced by John Robb at a ceremony in the city this Friday. The final twelve have been chosen from over 381 entries and include Bang On, Forest Swords, Outfit and Stealing Sheep.
03: Anyone Can Play Guitar screening. The Oxford music scene, while oft referenced, has never reached the lofty reverence of, say, Liverpool or Manchester. This despite a fairly constant stream of great bands emerging from the city over the last 30 years. ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ speaks to the bands that made it and the bands that didn’t to examine the scene’s history. The film will be screened at The Social in London on Tuesday, while director Jon Spira will DJ and Ride’s Mark Gardiner will play an acoustic set.
04: New releases. There are a few big releases this week, with the return of Rufus Wainwright, Jack White‘s debut solo album, and Santigold‘s second effort. As well as that, aggressive hip hop outfit Death Grips make their unlikely debut on a major label, and there are more debuts from Jay-Z approved R&B-tinged electronica types Poliça and Finnish techno producer Ukkonnen. You still want more? Well, London indie label Communion has a new compilation out too.
It’s Record Store Day tomorrow, which is always fun. At some point tomorrow, I will wander out into the blazing sunshine that will be washing over London (I can hope) and walk to two, maybe all three of the independent record shops near my flat to spend money on some of the exclusive releases on offer.
There are reasons for why I do this every Record Store Day, and reasons why I pay regular visits to these shops throughout the year. And the reasons do not involve holding things lovingly, reading liner notes or looking at artwork.
People’s reasons for going to record shops (or not) all differ, but whenever someone is asked to give those reasons, at some point they generally seem to involve holding things and gazing at them lovingly. If I needed convincing, these reasons wouldn’t convince me that I should be visiting my local record shop, yet they come up every time.
I was reminded of this earlier today when I switched on BBC Breakfast to see 6music’s Chris Hawkins and singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot discussing Saturday’s festivities. Amongst other points, both agreed that holding and looking at manufactured products is a great thing.
And they’re right, that can be an enjoyable experience. I’m a cultured guy, I like art. A major part of enjoying art is looking at it. I tweeted a picture of some album artwork I was enjoying just the other day. But I always find it weird when people bang on about artwork like it’s the be all and end all. After all, it’s really just a thing to make it easier to distinguish one product from all the other products that would otherwise look identical to it – you only need to own two pieces of white label vinyl to know how important artwork is in this respect. And if you’re going to have to have it, it might as well look nice.
I think you can get a bit precious about these things. Music is supposed to conjure up its own images, surely. That said, really good artwork can reflect the sound of the music and is very helpful for people like me who like to buy the odd thing on a whim with no prior knowledge of the artist.
Which brings us onto point one of my personal reasons for visiting record shops. I listen to music online on a whim with no prior knowledge of the artist several times a day. It’s part of my job. I enjoy it very much, but it’s risk-free and easy. There’s lots of music out there. I could spend the rest of my life listening to music I’ve never heard of and never spend a penny on any of it. But then I’d never get that feeling of looking at some artwork and thinking to myself, “I really want to hear some music that sounds like that looks”. Nor the even better feeling when you get home, play it, and discover that it actually is as good as or better than you hoped.
That’s what I like about music – immediacy, excitement, engagement. And maybe that’s what other people mean when they spout on about looking at the artwork, but it sounds more like they sit at home stroking their records instead of enjoying the music on them.
And there we go, point two: enjoying music. I realise I’m in an unusual position of having a job where I have to listen to music all day. That’s the job I always wanted and every day of my life it amazes me that it’s actually happened. But when you listen to music all day, it does make it harder to really get into things that you like because you’re trying to digest so much.
I have friends who like new music, but pick up one or two things every couple of months and just listen to them over and over again. I have other friends who, at the age of around 21, stopped listening to new music altogether, apparently deciding that everything they’d heard up to that point was enough. I can’t and couldn’t do either of those things. If I don’t hear new music on a daily basis I start to feel peculiar.
Not that my days are entirely devoted to new music – that way madness lies. I try to strike a balance between brand new stuff, quite new stuff, stuff I might not be that into but which I feel I need to persevere with a few more times before completely writing it off (just because you hate something on the first listen doesn’t mean it isn’t your favourite album of all time), and stuff I love and have loved for months, years, decades.
Spotify, iTunes, my email inbox, the postman, various podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, SoundCloud, BandCamp, YouTube, and countless other online sources of music feed me music constantly. I never want for music. I never have to think to hard about what to listen to. Sometimes if I’m struggling to think of exactly what to put on, I just set iTunes to play me tracks at random to fill the space until I work out what it is I really want to hear. It’s great, but it also seems a bit too easy.
This is why I buy vinyl. It’s not really about the sound quality, it’s not about the size of the artwork, it’s the awkwardness I like.
I like the fact that if I want a new album on vinyl I have to either go and get it from a shop, or the merch table at a gig, or a mail-order website and can’t just have it there and then. I like that when I’m at home my choice is limited by the relatively small size of my collection. I like that I can’t put something on and wander off, because it’s not going to be long before I have to turn the record over. These limitations force me to listen to and engage with the music in a way that the world of digital just doesn’t, and never will.
Not that I’m unhappy with the limitless choice of digital music – I love it. And I love physical records as well (though I’ve stopped buying CDs because I find their position in between physical and digital makes them a joyless purchase). I’m happy for both to exist and, indeed, want both to exist.
As long as they do, I want to be able to buy my records in record shops, because I like searching through lots of records to find the thing I want. Having to look for things in that way adds an extra layer of awkwardness that the internet, for all its vastness, doesn’t do as well as having a load of racks and shelves jammed full of stuff. Especially if you don’t know what it is you want, just know you want something.
So that’s why you should support record shops on Record Store Day and all year round. Not for the hoarding of physical items that look nice, but because if you don’t, and they all die out, you’ll be making my life less awkward. And that is something I do not want.
Andy Malt
Editor, CMU
PS – Do you go to a lot of music conferences? They’re good, aren’t they? As I’m sure you know (because I’ve told you enough times), we here at CMU programme one of them – the convention section of The Great Escape. In amongst the TGE programme you will find the Yearly Music Conference Awards – the YMCAs – to recognise the very best of the many music conventions and showcase festivals that are out there around the world.
The awards will be back again at this year’s Great Escape in May, and we need you people out there to nominate your favourite conferences and festivals in the various categories, from Best Delegate’s Bag to Best Panel Near Punch-Up. Information on how to vote here.
PODCAST
The podcast is back! Or at least it will be soon. Yesterday afternoon Chris and I sat down to talk about the EC’s approval of the sale of EMI Music Publishing to a Sony-led consortium, One Direction UK v One Direction USA, new announcements from Facebook and Spotify, plus Tupac Shakur’s first live performance since his death.
The show will be available at some point this weekend – all the details on how to stream, download and subscribe can be found here.
ALSO IN THE NEWS
First this week, let me begin with a plea: Spotify, please, please, please stop holding press conferences. I’m not sure what it is that makes you think every development requires Daniel Ek to stand up and talk about it, but they really don’t.
We went over this before back in December, and now you’ve gone and held a press conference that made even less sense than that one. Just get on with making Spotify the best it can be, and stop it with the press conferences. Thanks.
Now, onto actual news stories. The EC yesterday approved the Sony-led purchase of EMI Music Publishing, giving the go ahead for the company to be controlled by former rival Sony/ATV, though it will remain a standalone company. The sale is still being investigated by regulators in the US, but is expected to go through there also, despite opposition.
Universal’s purchase of the EMI record labels is still being investigated on both sides of the Atlantic, with no decision expected before August. As Universal is trying to buy its half of EMI outright there are more concerns about the power over the music industry it will give Universal – which is already the world’s biggest music company. Head of the biggest independent label group, Beggars, Martin Mills recently re-expressed his opposition to the deal.
Away from the actual competition investigations, EMI Music Publishing staff were presumably more concerned about their jobs this week, after a leaked report suggested that Sony/ATV is planning to shed 60% of the 515 people currently working there over two years. Sony/ATV boss Marty Bandier wrote to EMI staff to reassure them, though by informing them that “it is our intention to retain the best and brightest employees at both companies”, I think he possibly just left everyone involved rushing to update their CVs.
Going back to Record Store Day briefly, the Official Charts Company this week announced that it is launching a brand new year-round chart collating sales through independent record shops in the UK. The first one has just been released and sees Alabama Shakes beat Adele to the first number one spot. Trembling Bell, Graham Coxon and M Ward come in at third, fourth and fifth respectively.
There was much chatter after the first of the Coachella festival’s two outings this month after Tupac performed with Dre Dre and Snoop Dogg. Nate Dogg appeared too, but it was Tupac who most people concentrated on. Neither were actually back from the dead, of course, but appeared as computer animated ‘holograms’. There’s now talk of the possiblity of ‘Tupac’ going on tour, which I think is one of the signs of the apocalypse.
But while Tupac and Nate Dogg were fighting death to get back on the stage, the still very much alive Axl Rose refused to join with his original Guns N Roses bandmates to be inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame. Having written a lengthy open letter announcing that he would not attend the ceremony and did not want to be inducted in his absence, Rose followed it up this week with another letter apologising to Cleveland and calling out anyone who thought his no-show made him look like a bit of a dick.
It was quite a week for sad stories in the music world, kicking off with news that The Bee Gee’s Robin Gibb has fallen into a coma after contracting pneumonia. Later in the week it was also announced that The Band’s drummer Levon Helm was in the final stages of cancer, followed by the announcement of his death yesterday. As well as this, American television legend, who hosted what might be called the original pop music show ‘American Bandstand’ for 30 years, Dick Clark, Men At Work’s Greg Ham and guitarist Bert Weedon all past away. An obituary for the latter will appear in Monday’s CMU Daily.
But to end on a more positive note, this week AIM chief Alison Wenham donated 3000 CDs to a music library at the Royal Hospital For Neuro-Disability in memory of her late husband, Nick Wenham, who was treated there. The collection will help in the rehabilitation of people who have suffered brain injury or disease, being made available to other charities working in this area as well as residents at the hospital itself.
FEATURES AND NEW MUSIC
Our playlist this week was put together by Visions Of Trees, and delighted me by featuring not one but two black metal tracks. If that’s not up your street, then rest assured their eclectic selections will have something you will like too. Eddy was talking about things he likes in his column this week, specifically record labels and some of the inspiring people who run them.
In the Approved column we featured a brand new track from Major Lazer, featuring Dirty Projectors vocalist Amber Coffman, plus My Tiger My Timing, PINS, and Monster Rally & RUMTUM, all of which are worthy of a few minutes of your time (and more).
Then there was also a free EP from Pixies featuring four tracks form their 2004 Coachella set, a stream of the new album by Death Grips, a short film from Stay+, and new tracks from Doldrums, Outfit and Hooray For Earth.
Playground pecking order’s a funny thing, isn’t it? There’s always a bigger, meaner kid ready to put down the one you’re already scared of. So discovered One Direction this week.
According to TMZ, and I hope this story is true, at the point in the clearly manufactured feud between The Wanted and One Direction before The Wanted had come out and said it all existed in the imaginations of the British tabloids, 1D were apparently genuinely scared of their rivals. And being young, naïve boys with nice haircuts and fresh faces, One Direction might well be frightened of a band like The Wanted, who look they were plucked for stardom after being discovered in an alleyway kicking a tramp.
So, anyway, One Direction were rehearsing for their appearance on ‘Saturday Night Live’ at CentreStaging in Burbank, California when their security were alerted to the fact that The Wanted were due to arrive in the same studio complex to rehearse for their performance on ‘American Idol’.
Afraid for their lives, One Direction quickly packed up to leave, but before they could grab all their stuff and run out of the door, The Wanted arrived. Quick as a flash, their security guards (yeah, that’s right, they were apparently scared of being beaten up even though they had security guards – stop doubting the validity of this story, would you?) went and had a quiet word with The Wanted’s security guards.
I imagine the conversation (which definitely happened) went like this:
1D security dude: Hi Dave, how are you?
The Wanted security dude: Oh, I’m good thanks Johnny. How are you? How’s the wife?
Johnny: Ah, you know, can’t complain. The kids are driving me up the fucking wall though.
Dave: Yeah? Well, they’re at that age I guess. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have twins that old. Especially when you have to work such long hours.
Johnny: Yeah, and now Sarah’s had to take on a part time job too. It’s hard, man. Anyway, look, we’re looking after these guys called One Direction. I’m not really sure who they are but the girls, they love them. To be fair, they do have really lovely hair. But anyway, they’re really fucking scared that your boys are going to come over and fuck them up, so could you make sure that doesn’t happen?
Dave: Really? I don’t know who the fuck these Wanted guys are, they’re just some skinny British guys. They couldn’t even kick a tramp to the floor in an alleyway.
Johnny: You haven’t seen the ones I’ve got. Seriously, they cry when they see me, and I’m supposed to be looking after them. Honestly, I don’t know why we put up with this shit. It’s not worth the hassle. All this fucking dancing and singing all the fucking day. Fuck! Oh well, it’s a job I guess. Gotta feed those twins!
Dave: Yeah, you’re right there. Well, nice to see you. I’ll make sure nothing happens. Ha ha ha! These skinny British kids, they crack me up. But, God, the loneliness I feel in my heart when I go to bed at night. Oh well, see you soon.
Then Dave went back to The Wanted and told him that some guys called One Direction were scared that they were going to beat them up and were trying to run away. The Wanted found this hilarious and Max from the group immediately ran over to his rivals’ studio so that he could laugh at them. Laugh at them right in their faces. Except Liam from One Direction, who he apparently hugged instead. Because apparently one of The Wanted and one of One Direction are friends, which kind of makes you wonder why anyone was scared (because remember this story definitely happened).
Anyway, The Wanted were the bigger kids in that situation, but there are always bigger kids out there. The bigger kid in this case is Tyler, The Creator. As a guest host of MTV’s prank show ‘Punk’d', the Odd Future leader was tasked with making life a misery for The Wanted. Something he seems to have done gleefully.
“They’re big in the UK, but this is their first time in America. And I’m about to fuck that up”, Tyler tells the ‘Punk’d’ cameras in a clip that appeared online this week. And fuck it up he did, sending some actors dressed as police to ‘arrest’ them and generally not be nice to them. “He’s about to cry”, Tyler chuckles at one point as he watches them in secret from a nearby van.
My Tiger My Timing’s return to the pages of CMU is long overdue, and when they arrive on the doorstep with a song as good as ‘Wasteland’ it didn’t exactly take long to find them some space in the Approved column. Taken from their forthcoming debut album ‘Celeste’, it’s three and a half minutes of slightly melancholy but bouncy pop rounded off with a late rush of euphoria to finish.
Following on from last year’s ‘Written In Red’ and ‘Endless Summer’, which made more of the band’s highlife and reggae influences, it bodes well for ‘Celeste’, which is due out via Snakes & Ladders on 2 Jul. Ahead of that you can catch the band live at The Lexington in London on 28 May and grab another track when they release their next single, ‘The Gold Rush’, on 25 Jun.
So, on Saturday I went to restaurant where a guy who looked a bit like Jon Bon Jovi sang some songs in Portuguese a bit too loudly for the setting. You don’t really need to know this, but other than playing a few records it’s the only music-related thing I can remember happening this weekend. Of course, I don’t need to talk about music-related stuff here, but telling you about a visit to the butcher or the very nice roast my sister cooked yesterday seems even less relevant. Anyway, I’ve filled this space now, so we can get on with the Five Day Forecast.
01: Record Store Day. Having grown in huge leaps every year since it began, Record Store Day has now established itself as a major point in the musical calendar. This Saturday it returns to fill independent record shops around the country (and indeed the world – there are now participating stores in over 40 nations) with exclusive releases and, hopefully, lots of people. There’s always a good atmosphere, numerous in-store performances, and lots of records. I like records.
02: Fierce Panda’s birthday party. London indie label Fierce Panda is eighteen years old. Happy birthday, Fierce Panda. Actually, the company’s date of birth is apparently 24 Feb, so we missed it by some distance. It’s alright though, the birthday party is taking place on Tuesday night, so it won’t look so weird when you hand over your card to founder Simon Williams (which I insist you all do). The bash at Cargo in Shoreditch will double up as the launch party for Hatcham Social’s second album, ‘About Girls’, which was released earlier this month.
03: Bob Marley documentary in cinemas. A new documentary about Bob Marley, entitled ‘Marley’, is released this week to coincide with the 30th anniversary of his death. For the film, director Kevin Macdonald (best know for ‘The Last King Of Scotland’) was given access to the Marley family’s archives, pulling out hours of previously unseen footage and unreleased music, which he mixed with new interviews with the people who knew the reggae star best.
04: New releases. Well, as we’ve already established, there are a lot of new releases coming out this Saturday for Record Store Day, but there are a few others making more traditional entries into record stores both physical and online that you should take a look at too. Amon Tobin has a brilliant-looking boxset out, while Spiritualized‘s latest album and Oberhofer‘s debut are also available, plus there’s the new single from Strangers.
Don’t forget (as if you would) that the CMU podcast is back this week. Chris and I will be chatting about all the latest happenings in music. Ready yourselves by signing up to receive new episodes and maybe listening to a few older ones here.
Monster Rally (aka Ted Feighan) and RUMTUM (aka John Hastings) are two producers from Cleveland, Ohio over there in the US of A. That’s America. Bonded not just because they both have very silly stage names, they also share similar tastes in music. Having made some headway with their solo work already, their latest project sees them combining their talents for the ‘MR&RT’ EP, which is available now through Bandcamp, and on CD next week through Lefse/Waaga.
In the space of seven tracks, the duo meld everything from instrumental hip hop to psychedelic pop, establishing a distinct sound and style for themselves in the process. The EP is, Waaga’s website assures us, just a taste of more to come, which is a tantalising prospect. This record is great, but it definitely feels like the start of something, rather than a one-off. There’s plenty more to explore in the world they’ve created.
Late last month, Odd Future made a trip over to London to perform a show and preside over the running of a pop-up store. And in doing so, they gained the sort of media attention reserved only for the most controversial of pop culture phenomena. Such is the collective’s notoriety now that they can receive a three star review in the Financial Times and appear on ‘Newsnight’.
If the FT review is anything to go by, it doesn’t sound like many audience members at the live show had time to actually pay much attention to what was happening on stage. The paper reported that, as people shuffled out of the Brixton Academy after the show, other matters occupied post-gig chatter. “A young woman complained of men grabbing at her throughout the show. A youth talked about knocking someone out. A young man looked at his white T-shirt and groaned: ‘Why do I get blood on it every time?’”
This, you might be thinking, is exactly what you would expect from a performance by a group who promote such anti-social views through their lyrics. Surely one of their shows is just an event where the corrupted come together to act out the violence and misogyny they have learned from Tyler, The Creator et al.
Though actually, elsewhere the FT’s reviewer, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, noted that the audience largely resembled the same “white suburban teenage boys” who lapped up gangsta rap in the 90s and that they “weren’t tremendously corrupted by the experience”. Instead, he concluded that, despite “much aimless banter between songs and a relentless undercurrent of sexism”, Odd Future are “an electrifying live act”, if perhaps something of a “guilty pleasure”.
‘Newsnight’ had less time for them however, right from Jeremy Paxman wearily referring to the outfit as “Odd Future, or as their aunties know them, the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All expletive expletive”. Whether the expletives were Paxman’s own isn’t clear, given that he’d finished reciting their name by that point.
The feature that followed, I think, was looking at how artists are coping with declining record sales. Odd Future are an interesting case study in that domain, I suppose, because, although they do release records (and charge money for them, whatever ‘Newsnight’ might tell you), they also shift a lot of merchandise. The pop-up store just off Brick Lane mainly sold t-shirts, with some handmade items sold at up to £100 a piece.
But while that was the angle the feature was hanging on to, you sensed the real point of the piece was to go: “Look at these fucking idiots who we’ve heard of and everything”. After all, it’s not as if urban artists (in particular) making a killing from fashion lines and merch is really news, in the US or here in the UK. Much closer to home, it’s several years now since Tinchy Stryder made his first million off selling t-shirts.
So much so, a lot has been said online about how utterly pointless the ‘Newsnight’ feature was. Many noted how, at one point, as the whole feature desperately grasped for a purpose, ‘Newsnight’s presenter hilariously quizzed the group’s manager Chris Clancy for proof that the outfit pay tax, mainly in an attempt to make it look like something newsworthy was happening. But, for what it’s worth, I thought the whole segment was great. It was a brilliant piece of television and I would like to see more features just like it. And not just on TV – across all media.
The FT, while perhaps raising some fears amongst its readers about what their children get up to, set out to provide balanced criticism of the group’s performance. Ultimately, it aimed to understand them and their fans. ‘Newsnight’, on the other hand, merely paid lip service to attempting to understand anything about the group and instead gleefully maintained its ignorance. Never going so far as to even reference what sort of music they might make, presenter Stephen Smith eventually wrote Odd Future off as “old wine in new bottles, or maybe that’s old dope in new bongs”.
Smith wasn’t about to get into a debate about the influences or reference points in their music, because what’s the point when they’re not even the first act to write offensive lyrics? But while for the ‘Newsnight’ man the fact ‘outrage’ has been done before makes Odd Future irrelevant, as The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis rightly pointed out, when briefly interviewed by the news show, presumably for balance, that fact is something to be celebrated, the group being part of “a grand tradition of creating outrage”.
And this is exactly what teenagers should be listening to. Teenagers shouldn’t listen to anything that makes any sense to their parents, or any other adult they might come into contact with. Especially ones who insist “it’s all been done before”. If your child listens to Mumford & Sons or Noah And The Whale or Laura Marling or anything else that you might consider putting on while you sit down for Sunday lunch then there is something wrong with them. They are broken. You should return them to where they came from and demand a refund.
The problem is, there isn’t enough music out there that jams a divide between the generations any more. Not in the way Odd Future do, anyway. When generations argue about music these days, it’s too often about whether or not the music is boring, rather than whether the range of emotions it provokes are constructive or not.
Not that there isn’t antagonistic music out there (and much of it far more offensive than Odd Future’s), but few bands now are able to make it as far up the industry ladder as Odd Future have without having their edges smoothed off. Of course there is an element of them playing the game too, but the same could be true of any band that has sparked moral outrage over the decades; and it doesn’t make it any less funny.
Now, you might argue that a big problem with Odd Future compared to past outrage bands is that they don’t actually have anything to say. Asked about what message he aims to put across in his lyrics, Tyler, The Creator snaps at Smith: “Nothing. Shit to piss old white people off like you”. At least The Sex Pistols pretended they had things they needed to tell everyone.
But punk emerged at a different time. The offensive music of the day, whether it be metal, punk, rock n roll, jazz, or whatever, is always a reaction to what has gone before, not just musically, but socially and culturally (and occasionally politically). It’s a way of telling the previous generation that things are going to change around here.
Therefore, Odd Future are the product of my generation – the people who let the focus of popular culture become how fat or thin people are, or what they look like without make up. People are famous because they were on TV once. Not because they did anything, they were just there. The antithesis of this is Odd Future, a group of kids reeling off offensive lyrics for no reason other than to be noticed, even if the more mainstream media largely gives them a wide berth as a result.
Well, not exactly. Being offensive is actually just a mask really. Behind all that is a wealth of creativity. The collective have a hugely diverse output that spans many genres, ranging from hip hop featuring scattergun misogyny, violence and homophobia in its lyrics, through to incredibly innovative work, both musically and lyrically, like that of The Internet and Pyramid Vritra. But for the purpose of this piece I’m too old to like or listen to any of it, so fuck all that.
And it’s not really what the fans who queued up outside the pop-up shop cared about anyway. “They don’t give a fuck” is more or less the stock answer generally given when fans are asked why they like Odd Future, and this line of followers was no different. Though the real answer is that listening to music that deals in violence, rape and a lack of control in general feels dangerous, a long way from their tedious lives, and has the added bonus of probably annoying their parents.
For all the suggestion of wild savagery conjured up in the opening of that FT review, the Odd Future loving kids interviewed by ‘Newsnight’ all seemed nice, intelligent, and more aware of what they were listening to and why than those behind the camera. Of course, once night falls and they become part of a crowd things can change, but for the most part that just turns them into idiots like this.
True, some of them will turn into idiots with wandering or punchy hands, but that’s not something exclusive to Odd Future shows. Those sorts of idiots are everywhere, and plenty of them are old enough to know better. Those people who have grown up to be violent misogynist idiots weren’t corrupted just by listening to offensive music. Or even by offensive music at all, because that’s not really how it works.
Music that perplexes and petrifies the older generations is necessary to instil teenagers with a feeling that they are on the cutting edge of something new, something so different that no one else can understand it. That feeling is what inspires people to create art of their own that will eventually feed into the rest of popular culture. If something exists that no one but you and your friends seem to understand, then that’s a powerful feeling. Maybe you can find more stuff like that, maybe you could MAKE it. If you’re listening to the same stuff as your parents, then what’s the point of trying?
So, let’s have a feature on ‘Newsnight’ once a week where Jeremy Paxman listens to new music and sighs. Even better, make it prime time. Why not stretch it out to 30 minutes, put it on at 7.30pm on a Friday and call it ‘Top Of The Pops’?
Andy Malt
Editor, CMU
PODCAST
There’s no podcast again this week, as it’s still on its extended Easter break. How are you bearing up? It’s OK, we’ll be back next week. For now, console yourself with our first 50 episodes, which you’ll find here, and don’t forget to subscribe in iTunes, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, or just via good old RSS.
ALSO IN THE NEWS
Let’s start with some Great Escape news, shall we? Yes, we shall. This week we announced more additions to the programme of the CMU-curated convention section.
Amongst the newly added panels, Drowned In Sound’s Sean Adams, This Is Fake DIY’s Stephen Ackroyd and Vice’s Dan Miller will discuss the changing nature of the music press, while Record Of The Day will lead a debate on the role of music reviewing in the digital era, involving Q’s Paul Stokes, The Sun’s Jacqui Swift, The Times’ Will Hodgkinson, The Line Of Best Fit’s Josh Hall and The Guardian’s Caspar Llewellyn Smith.
Outside our conference-organising bubble there was lots going on too. The big news in the music media this week was the announcement that NME editor Krissi Murison is moving on to become Features Editor of The Sunday Times Magazine. A replacement has not yet been found, though NME publisher IPC Media says it has already begun looking.
After weeks and weeks of speculation about whether or not the original line-up would come together to accept their induction to the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame this Sunday, one time Guns N Roses member Duff McKagan was quietly confident earlier this week that it could happen, saying in his ESPN column that, despite the bad blood in the past, it was time everyone grew up and did the sensible thing for their fans.
It’s possible McKagan had forgotten that one of his former bandmates is Axl Rose, because just as a warm, fuzzy glow was beginning to spread in the wake of McKagan’s article, the band’s last serving original member issued a lengthy statement saying that not only had he decided not to attend the ceremony at all, but he didn’t want to be inducted into Hall Of Fame either. Being grown up and sensible has never been Axl’s strong point. Everyone else will be there, at least.
Elsewhere in dispute news, TuneCore boss Jeff Price hit out at Grooveshark, accusing the often controversial digital music service of “knowingly and willingly using a legal loophole to steal from artists and songwriters”, while over in the States a US band going by the name of One Direction sued Syco for promoting the UK band of the same name under the same name in America. If you follow. Then there was Frances Bean Cobain saying that Twitter should ban her mother – that’s Courtney Love – from using the social network after she made some more of those outlandish claims she has a habit of making.
Spotify launched a new feature this week, the Play Button, which allows websites to embed playlists, rather than just linking to them. Upon inspection, it turns out that the embedded playlists still work in much the same way as a link though – launching the software in order to actually play the music and asking non-users to sign up for an account (and also requiring them to sign up to Facebook if they aren’t already on the social network, due to the streaming service’s silly log-in requirements).
Still, plenty of media were on hand to talk up the new feature, including The Huffington Post, whose founder Ariana Huffington wrote a glowing article, in which she seemed to admit to pirating thousands of music files.
In this week’s Approved column, we had classical composer Will Dutta collaborating with Plaid, ascending producer Bullion, and Danish indie outfit Choir Of Young Believers.
One month today we will be at The Great Escape. Actually at it. Hopefully you’ll be there too, attending one of the many talks, debates, panels, networking sessions, keynotes and parties the team here at CMU has laid on in the convention section. Then in the evening, you can join us at a gig or two. That’s if you can keep up with us, because with over 300 bands playing there’s a lot to get through.
To lend you a helping hand in spotting us as we dash between Brighton’s many venues, we’ve put together a series of playlists featuring bands we’re particularly excited about seeing. Take a look at the first here and the second here, then make your way through the third below.
01 Blanck Mass – Chernobyl
For his Blanck Mass project, Ben Power takes the long drawn out synth sounds of his other band Fuck Buttons and turns the volume way down, resulting in something akin to Brian Eno’s ‘Apollo’ album. His TGE show should provide a calm amidst the frenzy.
02 Halls – I Am Not Who You Want
The release of his ‘Fragile’ EP, from which ‘I Am Not Who You Want’ is taken, saw producer Halls move away from his purely synth-driven sound, incorporating classical instruments such as piano and strings into the mix to great effect.
03 Us Baby Bear Bones – Rain
One of our favourite discoveries of last year’s Great Escape, Brighton outfit Us Baby Bear Bones return this year for a trio of shows as part of the Alternative Escape. Having been away working hard on tightening up their sound, they have new EP due out on Love Thy Neighbour in July.
04 Paul Thomas Saunders – Appointment In Samarra
Young singer-songwriter Paul Thomas Saunders has a piercing voice that is incredible on this recording and jaw-dropping when witnessed live. Very highly recommended.
05 Junkie XL – Off The Dancefloor (Trippple Nippples Remix)
Junkie XL isn’t playing this year’s Great Escape, but Trippple Nippples are and they’re pretty near the top of the list of bands we’re looking forward to seeing. This electro duo have been banned from two venues in their native Tokyo due to their over the top live shows, and with two Brighton shows lined up, well, I like those odds.
06 Keep Shelly In Athens – Our Own Dream
Having successfully kept the buzz around them at arm’s length throughout last year, Keep Shelly In Athens continue to put out high quality atmospheric pop. Their TGE show will bring to a close a brief UK tour as they make their way back to, would you believe it, Athens.
07 Tall Ships – T=0
Signed to the excellent Blood And Biscuits label, Brighton-based rock outfit Tall Ships are due to officially release their latest single, ‘T=0′, next week, although it’s already available digitally, which is good news for us because it means we can all sit here now and listen to its spiralling guitar lines.
08 Riz MC – All Of You (feat Aruba Red)
As well as being one of the UK’s brightest young actors (best known for his role as the lead in ‘Four Lions’), Riz Ahmed is also an accomplished rapper. His debut album, ‘MICroscope’, was released last year cementing his own musical vision, which was further established with an innovative live show.
09 Lapalux – Moments (feat Py)
Taken from his ‘When You’re Gone’ EP, which was release earlier this year through Brainfeeder, this track features in demand vocalist Py, who perfectly complements Lapalux’s experimental R&B sound.
10 Philco Fiction – Finally
Norwegian trio Philco Fiction are due to release their debut full-length EP ‘Take It Personal’ in the UK later this year. The first single from it, ‘Finally’, shows off the more heart-melting end of their diverse sound (and has a great accompanying video too).
School Of Seven Bells released their debut album, ‘Alpinisms’, in 2008 to much acclaim. Then a trio fronted by identical twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza with former Secret Machines guitarist Benjamin Curtis, they released the follow-up ‘Disconnect From Desire’ in 2010, picking up yet more fans along the way.
In October 2010, it was announced that Claudia had left the band citing “personal reasons”, but Alejandra and Benjamin resolved to continue as a duo. They then began work on their third album, ‘Ghostory’, which was released via Full Time Hobby in February.
Last month, School Of Seven Bells played a one-off show at The Garage in London, and CMU Editor Andy Malt caught up with Alejandra to ask a few questions.
AM: How did becoming a duo change the way you work together?
AD: Benjamin and I have always been the main songwriters in the band, so the songwriting dynamic didn’t really change. So I knew that, if anything, the change would be from the outside looking in, ie the way that people would perceive the band. But the fact that people would be expecting something different was exciting. And we did just that. We created something different.
The approach for writing this record had more to do with timing. We had about a month break between two tours and we knew that the bulk of the writing had to happen then. We were super inspired and still carrying the live energy from the shows we’d done. We just channelled all of it into the writing. Every day going in at the same time and writing side by side, summoning inspiration instead of waiting for it.
I had always been so scared of losing inspiration, or it never finding me again – but not any more. I realised that it’s fully in my control. It’s incredibly liberating.
AM: Did you consider bringing the project to an end when Claudia left?
AD: I love School Of Seven Bells, and why would I stop doing what I love? The band began with and Benjamin and I wanting to write songs together, because we love what we do. And now it’s back to Ben and I after a few line-up changes. I think we’ve been through every change you could imagine! We started as two, and have had as many as five members at one point. The only constant has been the songs that Ben and I write. I’ve always found change to be an inspiring thing. It definitely keeps thing moving and evolving.
AM: Tell me a bit about the story running through ‘Ghostory’. How did you go about writing it? Did you plan it out before you wrote the lyrics?
AD: When I sat down to write the lyrics for what would become ‘Ghostory’, I found myself writing these letters to people from my past, my different selves included. In the story, Lafaye [the protagonist] is the girl looking back. She is the girl writing these letters. She’s writing to herself just as much as she is writing to the others that shared experiences with her. She is the victim and the villain.
‘Ghostory’ is something of an exorcism. These experiences all have a voice, several even. They’ve been moving her, influencing her, possessing her until now. She’s never addressed them until now. These undesirables are screaming for recognition, for validation, for an audience. They won’t leave until she gives them that chance, until she let’s them say what they need to say.
I wasn’t aware that there was a concept unfolding until halfway through. But when I did, I ran with it. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.
AM: How long did it take to develop the story and write the music? Did you go into the studio with a clear vision of what you wanted to record?
AD: We wrote the majority of it in about a month. The production took a bit longer. Benjamin definitely had a clear idea of the mood for the record. He took a lot of care with making sure the energy was right, and that it was sending a clear message.
AM: How do you feel your sound has developed on this album?
AD: I think every statement being made is very clear, sonically and lyrically. We really discussed what each song was about and made sure that we were saying exactly what we were trying to say. Simple as that.
AM: What other artists are you listening to at the moment?
AD: For this past week, it’s been Active Child and Joni Mitchell.
AM: You’ve just played a one-off London show. How does playing London compare to elsewhere? Do you plan to come back to the UK soon?
AD: I love playing London. I only get to maybe twice per record, so it’s always special.
AM: How would you like to see School Of Seven Bells develop in the future?
AD: I’m sure changes will keep coming I think that’s where we thrive. We’ll keep evolving and pushing ourselves creatively. As longs as that happens, I think I’ll be in love with it forever.
Frida Hyvönen released her second album, ‘Silence Is Wild’, in 2009. Which means it’s been three years without any new examples of her brilliant songwriting and unique approach to writing lyrics. Four if you go back to the record’s 2008 release date in her native Sweden. That is too long. Too too long. Happily though she’s back with a bolder, poppier sound on new single ‘Terribly Dark’, the first to be taken from her new album ‘To The Soul’.
The highlights of ‘Silence Is Wild’ were ‘London!’ and ‘Scandinavian Blonde’, the former an unrequited love letter to our capital city – “the way you want to get rid of me makes me weak at the knees” – the latter a gentle, slightly weary mockery of the stereotypical view of blonde Swedish women outside Northern Europe. Both are at the same time simple and clever – simple enough for you to curse yourself for not thinking of them, clever enough for you to know you couldn’t have.
‘Terribly Dark’ offers another juxtaposition – familiar enough to feel comfortable, but enough of a departure to make you sit up and take notice. The piano that had driven all of Hyvönen’s songwriting to date is still there, but where it was once at the forefront of her recordings, it’s now hidden amongst slick pop production (recorded at former ABBA star Benny Andersson’s new Riksmixningsverket studio in Stockholm).
While on the older songs mentioned above she looked at the world outside Sweden, ‘Terribly Dark’ is more introspective. Sweden gets terribly dark in winter – that’s your basic lyrical premise right there. The winter is dark and she’s so desperate to see sunlight again that she’d be willing to set herself on fire for the heat and light it would bring. There’s a hefty amount of metaphor running through all that, but, fuck it, it’s just a great pop song, I’m not going to sit here reading things into its meaning when I could be enjoying it instead.
Apparatjik was formed in 2008 by Coldplay’s Guy Berryman, Mew’s Jonas Bjerre, A-ha’s Magne Furuholmen and songwriter Martin Terefe. Not that they’ll tell you that. Appearing in public hidden behind an array of masks and communicating with fans via the mysterious ‘eYe-on committee’, they use the project to experiment wildly, and with very successful results. Little trace of any of their main bands can be found in the music.
For their second album, ‘Square Peg In A Round Hole’, the follow-up to 2010′s ‘We Are Here’, the quartet gave away the initial version of the record for free, inviting fans to rework and make suggestions for further recordings. Numerous drafts of the album were released before settling on the final version, which was released as an iPad app last month and in more traditional downloadable form on iTunes yesterday.
Eager to find out more, CMU Editor Andy Malt got in touch to ask a few questions. The responses don’t make for a conventional interview, with the band refusing to say which of them was providing the answers, claiming to speak as one. Unusual their answers may be, but they also gave some interesting insights and ideas. Plus they revealed a collective love of skiing, which may or may not be an exclusive.
AM: How did you guys come together as a band? Did you have a clear idea of how it would work from the beginning?
A: Thank you. In the beginning we only wanted to ski together. You know the old saying. Actually, we still really only want to ski together, but art and music comes in the way constantly. Yes, we did have a clear idea to begin with, but when we tried to put it into words it sure was a tongue twister! Then we tried to put it into action, but this was even more confusing. So we concluded that idea = confusion.
AM: How would you describe the overall ethos of the project?
A: We would never let ethos describe the overall project! We leave this to Arthos, Aramis and F’Artagnan.
AM: Are you able to get together in the same room to rehearse very often? How do you go about writing your songs?
A: It is difficult to explain so pay attention. Rehearsal is absolutely central to Apparatjik. And rehearsal is not a preparation for something else, it is the thing itself. Das ding an sich, as the Germans say. They always say that. So annoying. We do prepare for rehearsals though. Unless we rehearse the preparations. Damn… see what I mean?!
AM: How has your sound developed from your first album?
A: Has it? We think of sound mostly as a social sphere. It is a place we often go just to be together. These albums are fuelled not so much by ambition as by an obsessive need to document everything. Everything is equally important. You could say that is an ethos, but that would upset the other three (ref question above). On this last album we were given a lot of input from people outside the cube, through the beauty of crowdsourcing. People very different from each other and even more different from us sent in stuff altogether different. The end result is an album no one really wanted to make just so. We are extremely fortunate to be part of something so naturally botched up and jumbled.
AM: ‘Square Peg In A Round Hole’ was initially made available within an iPad app. Did putting that together shape the composition or the recording of the songs at all?
A: Yes, we had to make it sound a certain way to infiltrate the rich. We already had the famous, you see. The original business idea was to make a lot of money by giving something away for free. It did not work too well, but we have not yet given up. Just because things are impossible, they can also be a challenge, I can tell you that for nothing!
AM: You invited fans to contribute their own ideas to these recordings. How did that shape the subsequent versions of the album leading up to the final release? Did it push you in surprising or unexpected directions?
A: Originally we wanted to make an album we could not make, and together they made it possible! We released new drafts of potential albums every week for what seemed like a very long time. Especially for the draftees. Instead of choosing a direction, we just ate the roadmap and drove from the backseat, much like grandma used to do back in the day. As a consequence, the kids were left free to experiment in the boot (ah, now that brings back memories!).
AM: Would you work in that way again?
A: Yes. You have to understand that work is what other people do. We travel. We travel so much it looks like work from certain angles. Then we combine travelling with the result of other peoples effort, and what comes out is… sometimes a book.
AM: You also collaborated with Pharrell Williams for a track on the new album. What did he bring to the recordings, and what was he like to work with?
A: You are referring to auto goon, the entity known as Pharrell in a parallel universe. It was a beautiful relationship: he had talent, we had hope. We wanted to piggyback on each other, but could find no piggies.
AM: You’re preparing a series of live shows later this year. What can people expect from those shows?
A: We would like to know too! If you have any ideas, please submit them to apparatjiks@voluntaryslavelabor.com. All we know is that the old ‘be there or be square’ idiom no longer holds.
AM: Finally, how do you see the project developing in the future?
A: We see skies of blue, clouds of white. Bright blessed days, dark sacred nights. And we think to ourselves… it’s APPARATJIK WORLD!
Manchester-based duo Gavin Miller and Thomas Ragsdale may already be known to you as the excellent worriedaboutsatan, but currently they’re focussing on their other project, Ghosting Season.
In fact, they’re focussing particularly hard at the moment, as their debut album under this name, ‘The Very Last Of The Saints’, is due to become the first release on Sasha’s Last Night On Earth label on 14 May. And even sooner than that, they’ll be holding a launch party for the record this very Thursday.
Ghosting Season’s first release was the ‘Far End Of The Graveyard’ EP last summer, showcasing a sound more ambient than worriedaboutsatan’s. There’s an interesting juxtaposition of light and dark to it – the music sounds like it’s thought long and hard about itself and decided that everything’s actually alright, but all that introspection means it’s not quite able to express that to you fully right now. Instead it transmits a heartbreaking wave of indescribable emotion straight through your body.
You can catch Ghosting Season live at Electrowerkz in London this Thursday, with an excellent supporting line-up of Raffertie and The Slow Revolt, plus a DJ set from Graphics, while new single ‘A Muffled Sound of Voices’, an edit of which you can hear below, is due for release on 23 Apr.
Hello everyone, I’m back from my holiday. I’m hoping my luggage will join me later today, but otherwise I had a very nice time. Anyway, you don’t need to know about that. You don’t want to know about me lazing around in the sun for seven days, because (like me now) you’re stuck in the UK and need to know what’s going on in the music business this week. Well looky here…
01. Florence Teenage Cancer Trust gig live stream. This year’s Teenage Cancer Trust gigs at the Royal Albert Hall kicked off last week and are now all but over, with the Florence And The Machine headlined finale due to take place tomorrow night. Should you be a fan of hers without tickets to the show, you’ll be able to catch it all in HD via HP’s YouTube channel, with the ability to switch between seven different camera angles, if you wish. Support will come from Big Deal, who are good.
02. Mark Ronson’s ballet. The Royal Ballet will premiere a new show at the Royal Opera House this Friday. Entitled ‘Carbon Life’ it features a score composed by Mark Ronson and Miike Snow’s Andrew Wyatt. Devised by Wayne MacGregor, the RB’s resident choreographer since 2006, Boy George, US rapper Wale and Jonny Pierce of The Drums will all perform as part of an on-stage cast that also includes The Kills’ Alison Mosshart, alt-pop soloist Hero Fisher and American MC Black Cobain.
03. 4Music Pop Power List. Who are the most powerful people in pop? A withering look for anyone who just said “Coca-Cola”. 4Music began a series of shows at the weekend under the Pop Power List banner with tedious sounding looks at popstars on Twitter and the “most extravagant celebrity splurges”. But tonight at 6pm the digital station will focus on the biggest brands in music, which could be more interesting. Then on Saturday there’ll be a show dedicated to “power partnerships”, with a full rundown of the 50 most powerful people in pop (as decided by media researcher Media Measurement) on Easter Monday.
04. New releases.East 17 have a new single out today. East 17. Now sans Brian Harvey, they’re experimenting with a Kings Of Leon-influenced sound perhaps more becoming of men their age. Also this week, Björk begins a new series of remix releases, Dems have a new single out and Weird Dreams‘ debut album is released. As well as that, you can get your hands on new releases from Lostprophets, Cypress Hill and Rusko, The Wave Pictures, Orbital, Toro Y Moi and The Futureheads.
As you may already know, the CMU podcast is currently on a three week break, which means this is the perfect time to catch up with the now 50 episode strong archive at www.thecmuwebsite.com/podcast/
Hello. Right now you’re probably expecting me to reel off 300 words about something that’s happened in the music industry this week. Or moan about something that was on TV perhaps. But no! There will be none of that, because I’m on holiday and I have absolutely no idea what’s happened in the last seven days. I definitely haven’t been frantically checking emails, RSS feeds and tweets on the hotel wi-fi at every opportunity. I’m relaxing and shit.
Anyway, this space still needs filling, so inspired by Eddy TM’s recent CMU column running down some of his favourite new music in celebration of the Vernal Equinox and the beginning of spring, I thought I’d just copy him and do exactly the same thing.
So here are ten new(ish) artists who have new(ish) music out that I love. I hope you like them too.
Suzanne Sundfør
There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you completely fall for a song on the first listen, and ‘White Foxes’ was one of those moments. There are few songs I’ve listened to as much this year and it runs excited chills through me every time I hear it still. The album it is taken from is available on iTunes now, and while you’re frantically downloading that, her previous album ‘The Brothel’ is also very much worth checking out.
John Talabot
Released through Permanent Vacation last month, John Talabot’s debut album, ‘Fin’, has been getting some heavy play in the CMU office of late. Taking his strong songwriting skills and drawing heavily on house, bringing to mind acts like Pantha Du Prince and fellow Spaniards Delorean, the record is filled with standout moments. Here’s one, ‘Destiny’, the first of two collaborations with Pional on the album.
Sleep Party People
The solo project of Scarlet Chives member Brian Batz, Sleep Party People’s music is slow, twisted pop that sits somewhere between dreamlike and nightmarish – mainly due to the heavily-effected vocals that are melted almost beyond recognition. This feeling often comes through in SPP videos too, particularly the one for the track below, ‘A Dark God Heart’, which slowly morphs from innocent to morbid. New album ‘We Are Drifting On A Sad Song’ is due out via Blood And Biscuits next month.
THEEsatisfaction
There’s no denying that THEEsatisfaction’s music is ambitious, but its success is in sounding effortless. Allowing hip hop, jazz, funk, Afro-Futurism and psychedlia to run together is not something that has never been attempted before, but to balance it so perfectly is no mean feat. ‘QueenS’ is taken from the duo’s debut album proper ‘awE naturalE’ which is out this week via Sub Pop.
Clean George IV
Clean George IV, aka George McFall, first emerged in 2007, releasing the brilliant ‘First Blast Of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous Regiment Of Women’. But the project went on hold for a few years, in which time he began a classical music degree and got sued by Kraftwerk (I’m not sure if these two things are related). He returned last year with debut album ‘God Save The Clean’, sounding like Andrew WK on a bad comedown.
Julia Holter
Last year Julia Holter found herself with an underground hit on her hands with debut album proper ‘Tragedy’. Quickly snapped up by RVNG Intl, she released the follow-up, ‘Ekstasis’, earlier this month. Her sound is unusual and experimental but also warm and welcoming, never attempting to block the listener out with its weirdness. Even her FACT mix, which was largely made up of field recordings with the occasional track dropped in amongst them, manages to pull this off. Here’s the opening track from ‘Ekstasis’, ‘Marienard’:
Bernholz
It’s occurred to me now that I’ve started writing these blurbs, how much of the music here is experimental but with leanings towards pop. Bernholz is no different, although he stands out because while his early releases were completely abstract, latest single ‘Austerity Boy’ sees him attempt to step almost completely over into pop by creating a three minute update of Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ for modern Britain.
Asbjørn
I first discovered Asbjørn at last year’s SPOT Festival in Denmark. Wandering into his show for no clear reason, he turned out to be very popular amongst his home audience already, performing to a capacity crowd of around 1500 people in the middle of the afternoon. It was clear to see why too. Still in his teens he makes highly polished, infectious pop and knows full well how to perform it.
Team Me
I bang on about Team Me quite a lot, so forgive me if I’m covering old ground here. They are my favourite indie-pop sextet of the moment though. Their debut album, ‘To The Treetops!’ was released earlier this month and features ten unashamedly poppy songs, including the wonderful ‘Dear Sister’, which first appeared on their eponymous 2010 debut EP.
ScHoolboy Q
‘There He Go’ by ScHoolboy Q has spent extended periods of time jammed in my brain since I first heard it on Jon Hillcock’s New Noise podcast back in January. His second album, ‘Habits & Contradictions’, was released the same month and, while maybe not treading much new ground in hip hop terms, it nonetheless does it well. It also features a roll call of other up and coming rappers, including that A$AP Rocky fella.
BONUS TRACK: 99% Invisible
This isn’t a band, it’s a podcast. Still, it’ll only take up a few minutes of your time and I promise you it’ll be worth it. Coming in at about five minutes per episode, I think it’s the only podcast I’ve ever downloaded the entire back catalogue of based purely on one episode. Each week, presenter Roman Mars looks at elements of design that usually go unnoticed, answering questions like ‘Why do space shuttles have dining tables?’ and ‘Why do cul de sacs exist?’ This episode, which was that first one I downloaded, looks at the sounds made by the aging escalators of Washington DC’s Metro.
So there you go – I hope you enjoy that little lot. Next week there won’t be an Editors’ Letter because – while I will be in the office doing what we CMU editors do from Monday through Thursday, I won’t be around on Friday, and neither will you. It’s that most Good of Fridays see. But Chris will do a Week In Five on theCMUwebsite.com, to rap up the week in the music business, so that should keep you going amidst the Easter madness. Then I’ll see you back here with another of these letters the following week. Hurrah.
Andy Malt
Editor, CMU
PODCAST
There’s no podcast this week, partly because I’m on holiday (as you know – you did read the first paragraph, right?), but also because we figure the Easter school holidays begin around about now, and that’s sort of when proper serious programmes go off the air and you end up watching Timmy Mallett and ‘Flipper’ re-runs (that still happens, right?). The podcast will return on 20 Apr – but you can still tune into last week’s on the website right now.
Actually, I hear there have been problems with our iTunes feed this week, so those of you who subscribe might only be receiving it around about now anyway – so just imagine the last week didn’t happen and that I’m not on holiday, and listen in to last week’s edition. I seem to remember that we discussed at least three rapper’s penises, which was pretty good going for one edition. Stream or download that, or any of the fifty editions of the podcast so far, or sign up for future editions, at www.thecmuwebsite.com/podcast
On the Sony side of the EMI saga, the Sony/ATV publishing company offered some concessions to the EC regulator, in a bid to get approval for its bid to buy EMI Music Publishing without having to go into a second phase inquiry. It remains to be seen if that works – the EC will tell us on 19 Apr. Elsewhere in Sony Corp, the entertainment giant confirmed some rejigs at the top of it’s American division – into which both Sony Music and Sony/ATV report – all of which had been rumoured last week.
The MegaUpload story also rumbled on once again this week, with the news that two US rights owners were about to launch civil proceedings against the shut down file-transfer service for the copyright infringement it allegedly enabled – criminal proceedings against the Mega companies and bosses are ongoing of course. And in related legal news, MegaUpload competitor RapidShare, which has faced various infringement lawsuits in recent years, announced it would take its ongoing legal battles to Germany’s Supreme Court, which it hopes will confirm it is doing all it has to do to combat piracy in the eyes of European law.
On the live side, LIVE UK magazine provided some extra nuggets of information about the recently revived secondary ticketing debate, though the big news story in live circles was the cancellation of the UK edition of Sonisphere, initially announced by headliners Queen. There’s been lots of speculation as to what all that might tell us about the fortunes of co-promoters Kilimanjaro, the state of the wider festival market, and why booking Queen and Adam Lambert as headliners for a metal festival might not be a great idea.
The CMU Approved column this week featured a mix by Ukkonen, new music from Haim and Fanzine, and the rather good split-screen video from Katy Goodman of Vivian Girls’ solo project La Sera. At the release end of things, there was a Weird Dreams album stream and previews of new LPs from Sigur Rós, Peaking Lights and Maximo Park. Ah, and how we’ve missed them all. Birmingham grunge youths Swim Deep debuted their ‘King City’ video, while Brooklyn troupe The Men announced eight minutes’ worth of Record Store Day compilation perfection in sort-of-new track ‘A Minor’. Oh, and that Jack White gave away the universe’s first ever 3rpm record. Well, of course he did.
Having formed in 2004 after the demise of respective bands Cat On Form and Lady Muck, Brighton alt twosome Blood Red Shoes, aka Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter, released their debut album ‘Box Of Secret’ via Mercury in Spring 2008. It was immediately well received and soon bred a sequel in 2010′s ‘Fire Like This’, after a considered return to the pair’s original label V2.
A document derived from constant touring, petty crime and debauch (“From getting arrested, Laura fighting bouncers… twice, to the two of us breaking up on stage or me being found in the street robbed by prostitutes”, says Ansell) third album ‘In Time To Voices’ is proof of the duo’s punk rock ‘coming of age’. Out this week via V2/Co-Operative Music, the LPs campaign will see BRS play their largest capacity show to date at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire on 18 Oct, part of an international tour whose British section begins on 27 Apr at Concorde 2 in Brighton.
As the band limber up for said live labour, CMU Editor Andy Malt approached guitarist and co-vocalist Laura-Mary Carter to ask – amongst other things – about her ambitions for the new record, past/present triumphs and regrets, and her thoughts as to the vicious rumour that “rock is dead”.
AM: How has your sound developed on ‘In Time To Voices’?
LMC: The biggest change on ‘In Time To Voices’ is the development of the songwriting. We really wanted to focus on writing great songs and once we had the backbone of that we could embellish things in whatever way we felt fit. That way behind all the guitar distortion and heavy drums you could play the songs on an acoustic guitar and they could still stand up on their own.
We also decided before we started to write this album we would not limit ourselves to the guitar/drum set up only. So, for example, if we felt like strings or keyboard would work in a song then we should put it in. Which we did. We still like to keep our sound real and not too over-produced, but we did put more layers on than the previous albums, though each part really has a place.
Our voices have been a huge step forward for us as we are really learning every day about how to sing better and how our voices complement each other.
AM: Given you have more layers and production going on this time – how will it translate live?
LMC: Like I said, the backbone of each song is there without the production, so it will be a more stripped back version live. We will not be using backing tracks or have extra members, which is something we feel very strongly about. At the moment we are rehearsing the songs, and although there is a lot more to think about for both of us, I think there are ways we can work it out. A few songs on the record may not fit in our live set but we can play them acoustic for sessions and various other things.
I have way more pedals now and Steve has to take singing and drumming to the next level, but we are confident we can pull it off. Playing live is what we are known for and it’s so exciting to be able to mix up all three albums in a set now.
AM: Have you always wanted to experiment more with your sound? Why start to impose fewer restrictions on yourselves now?
LMC: Yes, we have always wanted to experiment, but we were conscious not to run before we could walk. I think if we had made this record a few years ago it would have been shit as we wouldn’t have known how to execute it in the right way. Once we had two records under our belt we felt the need to change and progress and will continue to do so in the future. I really think that ‘In Time To Voices’ is just the beginning of experimentation in our sound. We have learnt a lot even since finishing this album.
AM: Do you have any particular favourite tracks on the new album?
LMC: Yes, I think ‘Silence And The Drones’ is our favourite track on the album. It was the song that set up the mood and feel to the record for us. We wrote it really fast and it kinda just fell out of the sky. We always wanted to write a song like that, so for us it’s our personal greatest achievement.
AM: Are you looking forward to starting your tour next month? What can people expect from the shows?
LMC: Yes, we are looking forward to touring. They can expect an energetic and real rock n roll performance, mistakes and all…
AM: You’ve had a bit of a convoluted route though the major label system, originally signing to V2 but then releasing your debut through Mercury. This is now your second album for V2. What led you back there and are you pleased with the team around you now?
LMC: We signed to V2 way back when they were not owned by Universal. We thought of many things to put into our contract but we didn’t think about putting in a clause to say if the label is bought out then we reclaim all rights and are free to walk. Silly us… massive schoolboy error there.
So V2 was sold to Universal three months after we signed, and the labels within the major were able to take their pick of any of the bands. We never in a million years thought Mercury would want us. And I can say hand on my heart, it was one of the worst feelings I have ever had hearing that they were picking us up. The experience was how you would imagine if you were to write a stereotype of major labels. They don’t have a clue and we took great pleasure at telling the boss of Mercury just that in a meeting before we parted ways.
I think that major labels should stick to their big pop stuff as the track record in the last however many years with anything guitar based has pretty much mostly been a disaster (Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong is a prime example there).
Once we were back to the re-established V2 with the guy who actually signed us in the beginning, it was like going home, even though we were still technically within the Universal empire. We like working with actual ”music lovers” and a forward thinking label. We have a close relationship with all our label throughout Europe. However, we actually license our albums to them, so we don’t have a conventional deal any more. So we tour a lot to be able to put our earnings into making the next album. That way we have complete control, so it’s better all round.
AM: If you could go back and give one piece of advice to yourselves as you were preparing to release your debut album, what would it be?
LMC: Don’t let anyone make you dress up in silly outfits for photo shoots, to be more confident, and to just be yourself.
AM: What’s your view of the current state of the music industry? Are you optimistic about the future?
LMC: The music industry has changed a great deal since we first started being involved in this world. The ways of breaking bands these days into mainstream is totally changing. I think major labels still have not quite grasped what’s actually happening and are still signing loads of bands that are clearly gonna go nowhere in the hope that one of them will make back all the millions of pounds they have lost.
It is interesting when you think about the fact that one of the biggest artists in the world right now, Adele, is on an independent label. If that doesn’t speak volumes I dunno what does.
Another thing I have noticed is that there is no method to what is popular. I didn’t really see Ed Sheeran or The xx getting big, or Two Door Cinema. But people just like them! It’s a real guessing game as to what people will like, and I think that is an exciting prospect. On the other side of things the internet and the way of hearing music has got so saturated that many artists’ people don’t know where to look.
Attention spans are not the same, and the mystery in bands has all been taken away with things like Twitter. It’s all about content and everyone is fighting to be heard. I think maybe at some point people will get sick of this too and maybe it will regress back.
I also have the opinion that the success of bands like Mumford And Sons and Adele is a lot to do with the fact that they write classic-sounding songs with a great voice, something that is lacking within a lot of mainstream music, so it sticks out amongst the vast amounts of new stuff out there.
I have so many conflicting opinions on this subject I could talk for years. But I guess who knows what will happen. I stay optimistic about music in general, I think great music will always prevail.
AM: You’ve said elsewhere that you see most modern bands as “way too clean-cut and sensible”. What are bands doing wrong, and how much do you think this has led to recent claims by some media that rock is dead?
LMC: Rock is dead comments are rubbish! Rock will never die, people need to proactively find it! If you’re just waiting for it to go mainstream and come to you then you might be waiting a while as bands being signed at the moment are not necessarily good guitar bands. There are plenty of great rock bands I can think of about at the moment – maybe not as many as there used to be, but as long as there is underground music, there will always be guitar bands.
AM: What bands are you enjoying at the moment?
LMC: I really am enjoying St Vincent, Tame Impala, True Widow, Grizzly Bear, Mark Lanegan, Peggy Sue, Pulled Apart By Horses, and The Dodos as they are new things on my iPod. Then the oldies like Queens of The Stone Age, Radiohead, Fleetwood Mac, Autolux, Hotsnakes, Mogwai, Television, Blur, PJ Harvey, Trail Of Dead and Pixies.
AM: What’s next for Blood Red Shoes?
LMC: Tour for the next year and beyond …our plan is to take over the world!
Hello everyone. Did you have lovely weekends? I hope you did. I mean, statistically you can’t all have, but I still hope you all did anyway. That’s optimism at work there. Drink it in. Anyway, in the unlikely event that your weekend wasn’t superb, there’s a whole new week here now. It’s Monday – everyone’s favourite day of the week! Think of all the things that could happen over the coming days. Actually, don’t think, just read about them here.
01: Great Escape Pre-party. Tomorrow night the seventh Great Escape festival and industry convention will officially launch at an intimate party in Shoreditch hosted by this year’s TGE international partner, the Insititut Ramon Llull. Representing music from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, the organisation will kick things off with a DJ set from Barcelona’s Guillamino. At the same time full details about this year’s festival line-up and a full outline of the CMU-curated convention programme will be revealed. Look out for more info on both of those later this week in your CMU Daily.
02: AIM Women In Music event. The Association Of Independent Music’s Women In Music & Entertainment event will return tonight at Proud Cabaret in London, with a keynote speech from 2Point9/Jayded Records founder Billy Grant, plus interviews with NME Editor Krissi Murison, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Harriet Harman, and the legend that is Annie Nightingale. A panel debate will then tackle the tricky issue of “gender inequality in the board room”.
03: Music Techpitch 4.5. Tomorrow night EMI will host this event throwing the spotlight on music-tech start-ups in Europe, putting the projects of techie entrepreneurs in front of industry experts, and potential partners and investors. EMI UK CEO Andria Vidler will also discuss what “EMI has learnt from its culture, heritage and people to define its approach to innovation”.
04: New releases. Top of the tree of new album releases this week is Madonna‘s ‘MDNA’, but there are some more interesting ones I’d urge you to check out first. Top of my list is the latest album by Norwegian musician Susanne Sundfør, which you should be able to find on iTunes, and you should also definitely track down THEEsatisfaction‘s ‘awE naturalE’, which is sublime. You can also get hold of new albums this week from The Mars Volta, Rusko, Miike Snow and Blood Red Shoes (look out for a great interview with guitarist Laura-Mary Carter later this week), plus there are new singles and EPs available from Rolo Tomassi, Azealia Banks and Lone out now. Oh and Iron Maiden have a new live DVD out.
05: Gigs.The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn will be selling bottles of his new Signature Brew beer at a solo show at London’s Hoxton Bar & Kitchen on Thursday night, while Guillemots will be inviting an array of guests to perform with them by candlelight at two shows at Village Underground just round the corner on Friday and Saturday. And, of course, it’s the return of Nordic showcase night Ja Ja Ja this week, but I’m sure that’s in your diary already. On tour this week are Feist, Odd Future, Korn, Drake, Breton (whose new album is brilliant, by the way), and Those Darlins.
And that is your lot for now – have a good week now.
This week videogames retailer Game filed to go into administration, not long after suspending the trading of its shares “pending clarification of the company’s financial position”. The speed with which the clarification came was some indication of the company’s financial position. A quick glance at Game’s share price since the beginning of last year is probably not much more than it took to decide to call in the administrators.
This is not, of course, a music business story. And not that long ago it would have received little more than a cursory glance from this side of the entertainment industry. But these days any entertainment retail brand disappearing from the high street is cause for concern for everyone involved in the sale of physical entertainment products. And in this case, video game retail might be about to go the way the record industry fears its own real world presence could go, reduced to a few stand alone independents and a shelf or two in the bigger supermarkets.
Of course for that to happen in music, only one retail chain would now need to collapse, HMV. There was a point last year when many thought it might beat Game in disappearing off the high street. It weathered that particular storm, though the water in which HMV sales is still choppy. Game’s demise, should it occur in the coming weeks, will help His Master’s Voice, making it more or less the last man standing in gaming as well as music. Perhaps recent moves at HMV to reduce shelf space for its flagging games departments will have to be reversed.
Given that DVD and then video game sales initially helped the traditional music sellers like HMV when CD sales first started to tumble a decade ago, it’s perhaps ironic that it’s likely to be what was originally a record shop chain that keeps DVDs and games available on the high street.
High street gaming revenues were booming when sales of physical music releases first started to fall, but the decline of high street games retail, although arriving later, has happened a lot quicker. That’s not really surprising, given that even mainstream gamers are more tech savvy than most casual music fans, so once digital distribution in gaming got off the ground, it was always going to make a bigger impact sooner. And the recent rise in tablets and smartphones has also played its part, mobile being the fastest growing platform for gaming.
Though, a faster move by consumers over to digital isn’t the only reason why Game looks likely to collapse while HMV has managed to hang on. The differing attitude of the two companies’ respective entertainment providers – ie the record labels v the games publishers – has been signifcant.
Game’s situation became all but fatal when it found itself with similar levels of debt to HMV. But while, when the latter was on the brink, the record companies and DVD distributors rallied around, and offered better deals and vocal support, desperate to ensure their one last home of the high street survived, the games publishers have been much less forthcoming, for both HMV and Game.
In fact, with Game the publishers did the opposite of rallying around. When things started to look bad, a number of big suppliers stopped distributing their games to the store, fearing their stock might get caught up in any liquidation. Losing access to a couple of big EA and Nintendo titles was what sent what was left of the company’s share price plummeting earlier this month. Some in the gaming sector are now fearful of what impact Game’s demise could have on their sales, though others believe their industry has moved beyond any dependence on the high street.
Of course Game may as yet be saved in one form or another by a buyer. But if not, its demise will help HMV and the record companies who have put much effort into keeping the record retailer in business. Though, let’s be honest, as when Zavvi and Woolworths went down, any post-Game boost will be temporary.
The record companies are probably to be congratulated for helping rather than hindering their last big retail friend in its moment of need, though perhaps they too should be thinking beyond the era of the high street. Either that, or be putting their heads together to imagine what a successful real world music store might look like once the CD has become a niche product. I’m still not convinced HMV’s grand gadget selling plan is the answer, and perhaps there are lessons to be learned from those indie retailers beating the gloom that is hanging over the high street that could be applied to a bigger retail chain.
Or, perhaps, just perhaps, the answer really is pies. Perhaps Greggs could put in a bid for both Game and HMV.
Andy Malt Editor, CMU
PODCAST This week’s podcast is the last for three whole weeks, so make the most of it. On the latest edition you’ll find Chris and I talking about Game’s demise, various developments in digital music (including rumours that HTC has bought MOG and Spotify’s new apps), Tulisa’s sex tape, and Peter Waterman’s musical inventions. Track it down later this weekend at theCMUwebsite.com/podcast
In return, the US gave us another secondary ticketing website to play with. Launching just in time to get in on all the public anger about such things, stemming from Channel 4′s recent ‘Dispatches’ documentary, the eBay-owned StubHub went live in the UK late last week. The company was keen to stress that it isn’t one of those bad secondary ticketing sites people are talking about, claiming to be “a very different proposition” to Viagogo, Seatwave et al.
On Wednesday the government’s copyright consultation, which was launched after the publication of the Hargreaves Review last year, closed. The government claims that proposed changes to copyright law will boost the British economy to the tune of £7.9 billion – a figure which UK Music chief Jo Dipple said there was “scant evidence for and MP Pete Wishart called “bonkers”.
The European Commission’s investigation into Universal’s bid to buy EMI’s record labels was due to enter phase two today. In anticipation of all that, there was talk this week that some in the EC had privately expressed “serious doubts” about Universal’s bid, which pleased those who want to see the whole thing blocked. EMI, meanwhile, was busy suing Cash Money Records over unpaid royalties. Cash Money, for the record, is affiliated to Universal. Awkward.
Over in MegaUpload land, Kim ‘Dotcom’ Schmitz was awarded a monthly allowance of about £30,000, which he’ll have to scrape by on for the time being, poor lamb. Although it’s possible he’ll get back all the assets that were seized from him when he was arrested earlier this year, due to the New Zealand police applying for the wrong sort of warrant before they swooped. In other dodgy download site news, it was announced that the original funder of The Pirate Bay, Carl Lundstrom, will serve his four month prison sentence for his involvement in it under house arrest.
By far the biggest bringer of traffic to theCMUwebsite.com this week were Google searches for a video of ex N Dubber and now ‘X-Factor’ judge Tulisa Contostavlos performing a lewd act. Every single one of them was no doubt disappointed to find that we weren’t hosting the sex tape, but hopefully they left amused at Dappy’s claims that he had positively identified his other bandmate Fazer’s penis in the video, and therefore could authenticate the video.
It turned out that Dappy was right to say that the tape was genuine, though he was incorrect about the owner of the penis. Clearly his memory for such things is not as good as he thought. Despite initial claims by her lawyers that the footage was fake, Tulisa made a brave statement on Wednesday confirming that it was her who had been caught on film and expressing anger at another former boyfriend for selling it.
Have you been sitting there, week after week, waiting for us to make some tenuous reference to actual beef in the Beef Of The Week column? Well today is your lucky day! This week we’ve got some real life cows pitted in a head to head battle with Noel Gallagher.
Animal rights organisation PETA has suggested that Gallagher may be in need of “empathy counselling” after he said in an interview that he was looking forward to taking his two sons, Sonny and Donovan, on holiday to Ireland so that they can “throw stuff at cows”.
What’s wrong with just throwing things at good old British cows, I’m not sure. Though seemingly this is how Noel used to spend his holidays as a child, so there’s an element of nostalgia involved here. Kids had simple tastes back then didn’t they? Not like now when they just want to shoot cows in a video game and then watch ‘X-Factor’.
Gallagher told The Sun: “At my grandma’s in Mayo we’d run around throwing stuff at cows. See, we don’t get cows in Manchester, so if you see one you just throw stuff at them. I’m looking forward to bringing my sons over so they can throw stuff at cows as well”.
Referencing the award recently given to him by the NME, while possibly failing to spot a sense of humour when they see one, PETA issued a statement saying: “A father whose idea of a family vacation includes traumatising animals who are minding their own business should undergo empathy counselling. It doesn’t take a ‘godlike genius’ to realise that parents have an obligation to teach their children respect for all living beings and that they are creating monsters if they don’t teach understanding. If Noel Gallagher wants his sons to grow into decent adults, he would do well to remember that”.
It’s true. Actually I reckon you can probably trace the petty fighting that caused Oasis to split right back to a childhood spent terrorising cattle. And it’s well documented that Steps split in 2001 largely due to the poor moral code adopted by H after pulling the legs off daddy long legses at primary school.
Becoming Real last appeared in the Approved slot in November 2010 with his ‘Spectre’ EP, a collaboration with East London rapper Trim. Having enjoyed an acceptable level of reverie since then, he ended 2011 by supporting SBTRKT on tour, but over the last twelve months he’s been a little light on new music. It’s alright though, you can release the arms of your chair and wipe the cold sweat from your brow, he’s back with a new single, ‘Snow Drift Love’.
Taken from ‘Solar Dreams/Neon Decay’, his forthcoming mini-album, ‘Snow Drift Love’, it shows he’s not been resting on his laurels since his last release. From its ominous opening loops, which runs underneath it throughout, it quickly becomes a skittering rush of cut up vocals and warm synths. It may be his most positive sounding work to date, but it still has that outdoors-on-a-dark-street-at-night feel that runs throughout his productions. Just on this occasion it’s summer rather than winter and you’re nearly home.
It’s not due for release until May, but you can stream and download the track right now and for free here:
Pip Brown first became known as one half of Teenager, with Nick Littlemore of Pnau and Empire Of The Sun fame, before leaving to work on her solo project Ladyhawke. She released her eponymous debut album under that name through Modular in 2008, seeing it go to number sixteen in the UK charts.
This week she released ‘Black, White & Blue’, the first single from her second album, ‘Anxiety’, which is due for release on 28 May. A notable departure from ‘Ladyhawke’, ‘Anxiety’ features a much more guitar-centric sound, though it keeps the strong pop songwriting of her earlier work.
As she prepares for the release of the new album, CMU Editor Andy Malt caught up with Ladyhawke to find out more. But before you read that, check out this album sampler video, which gets its premier here on CMU.
AM: When did you begin working on ‘Anxiety’?
LH: I started working on the album around mid-year 2010, then finished around mid-year 2011.
AM: The album is more guitar-heavy than your debut? How did this sound develop? Was it always your intention to move in that direction?
LH: It really just felt like a natural progression for me. I was excited to experiment with different sounds and had no intention of repeating myself, so the sound sort of evolved, and ended up still poppy, but a lot darker and definitely more guitar heavy.
AM: You worked with just one producer, Pascal Gabriel, on this album, rather than several as you did on your debut. Did this help to focus the overall sound of the record? Why did you decide to work in this way this time around?
LH: This was something I really wanted to do. Pascal and I have known each other for quite a few years now and we get along really well. He really gets me as a songwriter, and having just the two of us the whole time was really important to me because I was able to shape the album exactly the way I wanted, there was no moving around from place to place and having to deal with different human dynamics.
AM: Was the recording process on this album particularly different to the first?
LH: Yeah it was, quite a bit. There was a lot more of me experimenting with instruments and different sounds, and the fact that it was just Pascal and I in the studio meant that the whole environment was a lot more chilled. I felt more free and more confident to express myself how I wanted to.
AM: A lot of the lyrics on this album seem very personal. Are they more so this time around, and did that influence (or was it influenced by) the more abrasive sound?
LH: Yeah definitely, it wasn’t a conscious decision for it to be more personal, it was just the space I was in at the time. It really did come out in the sound and the lyrics though, and ended up being quite a cathartic process for me.
AM: The artwork for ‘Anxiety’ is again created by Sarah Larnach. It’s a really striking image. How closely do you were with her on your artwork?
LH: Sarah and I have been friends for years, so when it comes to working out ideas for all the artwork we do work very closely on it. The artwork is hugely important to me, and Sarah is such a versatile artist, she always manages to interpret my rantings and babblings into something very cool and unique!
AM: Are you looking forward to touring again?
LH: Yeah I really am, it’s been a while since I’ve done a UK tour so I’m really looking forward to getting out there again and playing new material!
AM: Do your songs take on new forms when you play them with a full band?
LH: Yeah they do actually, they end up sounding a lot bigger and heavier than on both records. But I love that aspect of live performance, people come to see a live gig and to soak up the whole experience, if it sounds exactly like a carbon copy of the recording you sort of feel like you’re missing out on a unique live experience.
AM: What other artists are you listening to at the moment?
LH: You should check out a guy called Willy Moon, he’s quite new but has a really cool vibe, I’m quite excited about his new album, it won’t be out for a while though I don’t think, but he’s one to check out!
