Month: January 2007

‘In The Countryside’ – flashes of a White Album Rocky Racoon stumbling through a cartoon Dakota woodland in a Bunny Foo Foo outfit with a box of Marc Bolan records under one arm and clutching a bunch of balloons in the other; the record’s charming dumb logic, it’s whistles and bells and its wood shack drum skills in total harmony with their shuffling, acoustic surroundings and the undisciplined behaviour of auxiliary character, Ferree – a kind of latterday Alan-a-dale. And Continue Reading

Gambling is the leisure pastime of the devil, obviously. Wicked, addictive, packed with false promise, bright colours and short-lived fulfilment, it’s the full-blown commercialisation of sin, the scourge of the vulnerable, and it’s coming to a town near you soon with bells and neon bolted on courtesy of our government. Now, say thank you. We’d never endorse the act of gambling (and that includes watching bloody ITV after midnight), but if you were going to have a bash you could Continue Reading

Released at the back end of 2006, Brainfood is the work of young man with old head on his shoulders hip-hop dude, DJ IQ. Just 20 years old and with a loyal following already attached to his credible discography, Brainfood is a smoky old brew of lo-fi jazzy cocktail minimalism, itchy and scratchy beats, Get Carter guitar capers and general woozy nonchalance; the mean and moody gansgtas having kicked off their Reeboks, rolled up a couple of fat ones and Continue Reading

They’re back. No Not The Muppets. Sessions albums. Back dividing opinion, back bridging the divides but never dividing the tracks. The first Sessions album of 2007 sees the hardy perennial Ministry melding and morphing, wheelin’ and dealin’, blurrin’ and bodgin’, tweakin’ and twatin’, beepin’ and bloopin’ and generally enjoying the kind of handsome new look that only folks like David and Victoria Beckham can usually meet the expense of. And there’s still no breaks between songs. Like one big lost Continue Reading

Their debut was a thing of crystal-clean beauty, a gentle embryonic exploration of sound and its seemingly organic evolution, entwined with man made materials. Folktronica leaving the garden like a breakaway vine. It was almost onomatopoeic too, with regards to its existence; they were dismembered, split between Texas and Manchester, UK. They sounded just like you’d imagine the long-distance exchange of idea strands could sound like – a high-altitude, weightless meeting of minds somewhere over the Atlantic. Which was fine Continue Reading

There has already been reference to my deadline-tardiness on the front-page of Crudmusic in the past month. And yes, yes, I’m aware that ‘Let Me Introduce My Friends’ already did the pleasantries last September when it was released. But bearing all that in mind, and considering I have only had the record in my possession since yesterday, such eager efficiency should tell you an awful lot about how special it is. There are two notable points that can’t help but Continue Reading

Apparently Scion is the newest line of vehicles from Toyota in the US aimed at the less than coveted youth market. And what you have here is a retail process as innovative and consumer-driven as the cars themselves. And whilst not quite as easy to handle at speeds over 75mph, it’s an album that’s just as squarely aimed at the Generation X-Y market. And for this read some of the more cutting-edge, underground hip-hop artists stacked up as rolled out Continue Reading

Kamehameha by Ponytail is the musical equivalent of a pile of bricks at the Tate. It’s all punk and freakshow, aggression and harmless fun with the ten songs falling into some weird midpoint between the Slits and Napalm Death. They have a spunky, fuck-you sound whose charm is undermined by claims that the band is a ‘conceptual art experiment’ which suddenly makes everything seem a lot less fun. No matter. They probably make a great live act – tight, ferocious Continue Reading

Yup, I too thought a ‘Supergroup’ had to be comprised three-parts Superpeople to one-part anonymous bass-player, and I too thought they had to be famous. But times they are a-changin. The success of Brakes and Babyshambles should tell you that. So what is it that makes Dallas-based ‘Supergroup’ that super? Well, even taking into account the fact that none of them were ever really that famous (with the exception of some of them having shared a stage with the likes Continue Reading

A world of arson, moonshine, loves lost and others found, fishing boats, liver failure, troubled families and dark nights spent in the embrace of a single malt. Gigs alongside equally humble pantheists, British Sea Power, the skulduggerous Brakes and the woozy Walkmen culminates in an album that sits somewhere between the wicked, confessional narratives of Nick Cave and the bookish, folkish quietude of fellow miserablist, James Yorkston. Imagine an offshore party of fishermen and artists drowning in a barrel of Continue Reading