Keep Mother is a series of limited edition ten-inch singles that come out when they feel like it, and follow the letters of the alphabet. In truth, we've never heard any of the buggers before, but someone kindly sent us a copy of the latest instalment because, we reckon, it involves Liars. Yup, Angus Andrews shakes whatever state his remarkable facial topiary is in at the moment to a cover of Led Zepellin's 'How Many More Times'.
As you'd expect there's juddering and fractured rhythm aplenty, while Andrews' shrieky vocals would make the unsuspecting Led Zep fan think one of Robert Plant's groupies had made off with his balls. Needless to say, it makes Wolfmother look even more stupid than they manage to do themselves. But even better (hey, original material is always going to win out over a cover), is Scottish poet Gerry Mitchell reciting his 'Feasting On My Heart', accompanied by a band known as Little Sparta.
Now, if you're one of those people who thought Arab Strap could be a tad on the gloomy side, then this is certainly not one for you. Mitchell's deadpan vocals are layered over a fiddle that scratches thin and bare, as if not quite sure whether it's time to give up the ghost, a foggy drone urging it over the edge in the background. The closest thing we've heard recently to compare it to is the sun-blasted alienation captured by Warren Ellis and Nick Cave on The Proposition soundtrack, but even that doesn’t come close.
And that's because the lyrics of lost hope, a "chronicle of these nightmares...
of ghost bodies who've somehow lost their skin" and "eating the dirt from the side of my grave" are so bleakly evocative that it is impossible not to listen to this timeless piece without being moved to the core. In a powerful and emotional record that stops the room and distributes shivers like a generous Jack Frost, Gerry Mitchell and Little Sparta put this week's releases from better known artists week to shame. On the cover of his generously thick cardboard sleeve Luke Toms has a picture of the kind of gentleman I would love to have been in a former life.
Ruffled of cuff, jaunty of tie and draped in a fainting unfortunate who no amount of smelling salts will revive, he twirls a quill with devilish aplomb, quite unaware of the quiet tragedy that, very soon, he will perish in some ghastly foreign war. Unfortunately, Mr. L.
Toms Esq. himself is rather more restrained than his cover art promises, a sort of major label, highly polished Ed Harcourt moaning lustily about "girls who go for fools", or the curse of a particularly stinking hangover - "the smell of tequila is making it worse," he wails. You want one of my batman's snifters, old boy.
Dev-formerly-of-The-Testicles must be one of the most hyperactive men in screechy indie rock today. Not only did he manage to answer and return PlayLouder's email questions in about 0.4536 seconds last year, he's got himself a solo deal with Domino for his Lightspeed Champion project AND found time to bugger off to Michigan to record a couple of tracks with Whirlwind Heat.
Now, we at PlayLouder have always found t'Heat to be one of the best live bands around, but utter bobbins on record, which is why we're very pleased that the input of Mr Dev seems to have done them a world of good. 'How Do You Do?' is an amalgamation of all your favourite raggedy-jeaned US indie guitar groaners sliding luxuriantly into a hot tub, while 'In My Dreams' is in a similar vein, but lovelorn and loaded with wistful charm and the noise of a very small spaceship flown by bees.
Bass-bashing oblong noggin Jamie T warms up to the release of his debut album with new single 'Calm Down Dearest'. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot about the musicality in this that's more than agreeable, decent strings popping in here and there, a jolly gathering-nuts-in-May rhythm, thoughtful bits of keyboard, an excellent chorus that sounds like it would rather like to snog Lily Allen… but really, that voice in the verses. Never mind referring to Marmite as the epitome of love-it-or-hate-it divisiveness, this is chowing down on live dung beatles just after they've finished their tea.
"Awwwmm jaaahhst a laaahhhttwaaayyyyt", Jamie gawbles, sounding for all the world like he's spent his formative years locked in a coal cellar being taught his diction by Dick Van Dyck in down-time from shooting Mary Poppins There we were thanking Simon Amstell for reading an extract from Mrs. Preston's "a reprint of Mein Kampf would have been preferable" autobiography on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, thus winding up The Ordinary Boy sufficiently that he stormed off in a pathetic huff… but it turns out that the curly haired cheeky chap has only gone and given the Big Brother profiteers a bucket of free publicity a week before their new single is released. What a bastard!
'I Luv U' (gulp) is so nondescript in shade and execution you could paint a Daily Mail reader's sitting room walls with it, though being acoustic it's preferable to your standard Ordinary Boys fare. Still, you know people are going to buy this record because they'll think it sweet that the song's written for his dollybird wot wuz on telly, and in a language that she'll understand. Grim.
Although they might omit the personal pronoun, at least Little Barrie can spell rather better than the Ordinary Boys. But that's not to say that 'Love You' is anything especially new or invigorating, chugging tints of rockabilly that wants to be played in the back of an old banger during a Technicolor cop show that flopped like the arresting officer's moustache. Ah, that's better.
Like going down a razorblade helter skelter on a sack made of cellophane, Seattle's Blood Brothers offer up the harshest, most uncompromising, provocative single of the week. Taken from the Blood Brother's new album 'Young Machetes' the inflammatorily brilliant title of 'Set Fire To The Face On Fire' refers to two minutes and twenty two seconds of pummelling shark's tail noise under Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney's vocals that race each other the top of a beanstalk with knives in their teeth. "What's the sound of a cashing cheque?
" they scream. Given that Blood Brothers now signed to a major, this is weirdly it. Put that in your punk pipes and smoke it, schmindie purists.
Brilliant stuff. Bloody hell if it isn't a new release from Nude Records, AND done out in a cardboard sleeve that's almost the same shade of brown as the cover of Suede's debut album. But anyone popping open the brown in hope of something reviving the androgynous and woopsy-shirted thrill that Suede were all those years ago is going to be disappointed.
The Procession's double A-side UK debut skips with the hips of a sprightlier Ray Davies, with a bit of frond-wafting West Coast USA breezy multi-instrumentalism thrown in for good measure. Appropriate, really, given that they're a two-thirds Yank, one-third Brit line-up. It's early days, but on this evidence there's every chance we'll see The Procession marching forward in the year to come.
Ain't never been cool? You're having a giraffe, mate. This kind of Spectorish girl fronted pop'll be amazing when we're all gulping for oxygen under melted icecap soup, so long as it's done properly.
So it's with great pleasure that I can tell you that Lucky Soul do it more than well enough to scare the dots off of the Pipettes polkas for fear of this monstrously proficient pop machine sneaking up behind them. Rather than being cut from purely retro cloth, Lucky Soul add an indie-pop frisson and an eyelash that flickers under the weight of modern mascara. The only flaw is that Ali Howard's vocal on 'I Gots The Magic' is rather cloying, but that gripe aside this EP bodes well for the Lucky Soul's 'The Great Unwanted' LP, forthcoming in April and surely badly named.
Sadly not a comment upon the alienating architecture peddled by Mr. Barratt and his shoebox-erecting chums, but a great single courtesy of the North West's often underrated (though certainly not in these parts) Field Music on the fount of wonderful eccentric pop that is Memphis Industries. 'A House Is Not A Home' displays a wonderful maturity of songwriting; each beat a well-laid foundation, strings that make for windows with a verdant outlook, vocals as the particularly fetching guttering.
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