This month sees the release of Cola’s debut, Deep in View, on Fire Talk Records, and the trio have unveiled brand new single ‘Degree’ to further whet our appetites. A song which continues the mechanical vibes of the previous song, each of its elements working with a kind of automatonic harmony. “I wanted the beat to feel like the opening and closing of a mechanical valve,” Cartwright explains. “The guitar riff supplies this relentless propulsion and I thought that the drums should act as a stiff regulator: aggressively blocking, then releasing the heavy flow that comes pouring out of the guitar.”

But within this functional system lies a sense of experimentation too. A blurring of genres which incorporates psych and electronic styles, as well as the varying sensibilities of each of Cola’s members. “‘Degree’ is based on a 2-step kinda track I produced while trying to do the fabled and well-trodden path of using guitars in electronic music,” Stidworthy adds. “I came up with this psych-drenched outro that I really enjoyed so I decided to base a song around that chord progression.”

If Stidworthy’s input feels a step away from the machine-like efficiency of Cartwright’s vision, then Darcy’s pushes through the other end of the spectrum. “The character in ‘Degree’ is cycling in and out of these dreamscape states (movie theatre, meditation, etc) and then trying to catch up to something in their day to day life,” Darcy explains. “I picture what it feels like running to catch the bus when you’re in a daze and suddenly have to sprint.” A dream-like, conceptual lyricism which pushes the track into new territory. The sense that the machinations might not be mechanical at all, rather the complicated apparatus of brain chemistry.

Have you been to the movies lately?
Did you read the marquee?
It’s not even started and there is a push to leave
In the midst the alley I had a foggy notion
Hounds nipping at the wheels of the bus
Quite a commotion

Check out the video directed by Rapapawn below:

Deep in View is out on the 20th May 20th via Fire Talk and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.

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Whether Garth Risk Hallberg lived up to the hype is up for debate. I’d suggest there is a certain ‘hype threshold’ past which people will ensure you get a fair share of criticism regardless of what’s between the covers. What is not up for discussion is the beauty of the writing on show, nor is the sheer scope of the world it brings to life. Here we find a network of characters linked by blood or love or sheer chance which grows through schizophrenic POV changes and creative interludes. To give you some idea: There’s Mercer, a man struggling with being gay and black in 1970s New York and his relationship with punk musician/artist William, heir to the Hamilton-Sweeney fortune who’s music with the now-defunct Ex Post Facto “seemed to promise complete freedom, on the condition of complete surrender”. Then there’s William’s estranged sister Regan and her troubled relationship with husband Keith, who are themselves caught up in the Hamilton-Sweeney machine, plus loser-loner Charlie and his friendship with punk cool-kid Sam, and their link to the Post-Humanist Phalanx. That’s not to mention the police detective, the art dealer, the shock jock radio presenter. The investigative journalist, the firework-setter, the transvestite keyboard player. The anarchistic, arsonist cult leader.

So… yeah, it’s all too detailed to review properly, though the key plot is strangely simple. Packed with the sort of suspense/drama you might expect from a film or television show, the book is not as challenging (difficult, ‘literary’) as you might expect. What Hallberg does achieve is to conjure New York at a specific time. The web of characters produce a panoramic snapshot of a generation, palpable nostalgia and a good sprinkling of well-used topics (troubled artists, drug addicts, traumatised and/or damaged lovers) creating a view of the seventies perhaps as we’d like to remember them. The spirit of the book is captured nicely near the beginning, when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Day :

“For a second the city seemed to lean forward and make contact with a future self: ruined, de-peopled, and nearly still. In a sealed hanger, forensic economists move around numbered lots with scales and callipers. Believing themselves to have evolved beyond delusion and loneliness, beyond illness and longing and sex, they hum distractedly and wonder what it all meant”

As books go, City on Fire is pretty easy to soundtrack, so this playlist could have been a hundred songs. But anyway, here are twenty songs which go some way to capturing the time/place/mood Hallberg created. I’ve included a mix of classics and newer stuff to keep things interesting, and the order isn’t important.

Tracklisting:

1. Blank Generation – Richard Hell and the Voidoids
2. Art is Hard – Cursive
3. To Hell With Good Intentions – Japandroids
4. Kimberly – Patti Smith
5. Chinese Rocks – The Heartbreakers
6. Roar of Nothingness – Sun Organ
7. Docking Guard – Northern Primitive
8. Today, More Than Any Other Day – Ought
9. Aloha Steve and Danno – Radio Birdman
10. The Kids – Lou Reed
11. Orphans – Teenage Jesus and the Jerks
12. Stevie Nix – The Hold Steady
13. Who Do You Belong To? – The Spirit of The Beehive
14. You Can’t Hold The Hand of a Rock and Roll Man – Okkervil River
15. Our Lives Would Make a Sad, Boring Movie – The Hotel Year
16. Using – Sorority Noise
17. Fireworks – Radiator Hospital
18. Your Own Place To Ruin – Rivulets
19. New York Hardcore – Talons’
20. This Heart’s on Fire – Wolf Parade

City on Fire is out now via Knopf Doubleday (US) and Jonathan Cape and is available from all good book shops. Quiet, Constant Friends is available digitally and on cassette via the Wake The Deaf Bandcamp page.

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Mitski/Eskimeaux/Elvis Depressedly/Dude York

“Try as we might to describe why a night of live music can comfort us, relieve us, inspire us, confront us or sometimes even change us entirely, the actual phenomenon is something you have to be present to fully understand” – Erika wrote about the Mitski/Eskimeaux/Elvis Depressedly/Dude York show in Seattle, and drew some pictures too.

Daytime TV

“Lo-fi, psych-tinged, rock music, fusing the DIY indie rock ethos with mid 2000’s British garage rock” – Our thoughts on the self-titled EP from Daytime TV

Ought

Canadian rockers Ought have a new album coming very soon on Constellation Records.

Don DeLillo

“Don DeLillo is a hero of mine. The finest writer of our times… ” – We made a playlist of songs to soundtrack DeLillo’s White Noise, together with some gushing words.

K. Adem

“If further evidence was needed, Beautiful Dreamer confirms Adem’s eclectic songwriting abilities” – Our thoughts on the latest release from K. Adem.

Oh Pep!

“What should perhaps be labelled multi-instrumental indie pop, something akin to Sylan Esso meets Vampire Weekend” – We previewed the upcoming EP from Oh Pep! with some words about first song ‘The Race’

Sorority Noise

“Teenage, I’m-so-misunderstood melancholy is doubly effective, providing a sense of connection to anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in the throes of an adolescent heartbreak, while proving immensely gratifying to everyone else in the way that manufactured grief is always gratifying – a distracting and digestible simulacrum of suffering, a romantic and wistful removed-from-Real-Life pain, like watching an episode of The OC with your name in the main credits. But the thing is, anyone listening closely will soon discover that Sorority Noise are different…” – we explained why Sorority Noise are more than just another emo band

Typhoon

“Let it be known, the stripped back, piano led performance of ‘Prosthetic Love’ is gorgeous” – Typhoon put out a seven-inch featuring some lovely alternate versions of songs from White Lighter

National Museum Cardiff

Finally… We told you about the exciting things coming up in July at the National Museum Cardiff

The post Week in Review: #9 (6th-10th July) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“maintains the band’s tight, twitchy, economical sound. Ought pursues an artistically apposite austerity in committing these new songs to tape, referencing the arid and unvarnished production of no-wave and early indie rock “

If you’re still undecided, why not check out the first single, ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’, in the player below?

You can pre-order the album now via Constellation Records.

Header image by Brett Davis

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Tracklist:

1. Deserter – Siskiyou
2. Pill – Ought
3. There’s a GIrl In the Corner – The Twilight Sad
4. Kill What You Love – Scotdrakula
5. PS You Still Do This To Me – Kissing Fractures
6. Walls – Two White Cranes
7. Lifetime Warranty – Cyberbully Mom Club
8. The Great Big World – R.L. Kelly
9. Misery Loves Company – Gorgeous Bully
10. Blah Blah Blah – Girlpool
11. My Song – Spencer Radcliffe
12. Summer Lawns – Mike Pace & The Child Actors
13. Crossroads – Sally Fowler
14. Sweet Isolation – Nathan Reich
15. Home At Last – John Statz
16. Our Town – Chalk
17. Mole – The Mountain Goats
18. Easy It Goes – Eric & Magill
19. Slow Thickening – German Error Message
20. Cabin Lights – Lung Cycles
21. The Day is Past and Gone (Variations) – Sarah Louise
22. Holding – Grouper

November 2014 Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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Opening song ‘Pill’ is by far the most restrained track on the EP, so much so that it could almost be described as a slowcore song, weaving an abstract tale of drugs that meanders in a tranquillised haze. The lyrics are formed of half-remembered details, a hypnagogic mix of highly specific images and sweeping phrases:

“That day in May
I stole your father’s car
and took it to the beach,
buried that fucker deep.
Hey, where did it go?
Where did you go? 

‘New Calm Pt.2’ plays out like the ramblings of an extremely energetic man shouted over the noise, which is just as good as it sounds. Weird, seemingly unlinked phrases come tumbling forth (“Who invited Paul Simon?” “To the left. To the left!” “Da da dada da!” etc.) and you can just imagine Beeler strutting around the room in a world of his own, caught up in a dream-like and extremely personal logic. He whips the band up into a frenzy as if his energy is contagious and by the end the listeners heart is beating a little quicker with an urge to join in too.

‘Pt.3’ sees the tables turned, with Beeler adopting a deadpan delivery that is all but drowned out by menacingly discordant instrumentation. Again the lyrics seem to adhere to some arcane logic that only Beeler is privy to and the long stretches of plucked strings and feedback loops add to the unsettling sense that Ought are operating on a different plane to the rest of us. Some semblance of normality returns with the final song ‘Waiting,’ a far more traditional rock song, raucous drums and guitar supporting Beller’s wail to produce a sound akin to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

Grab the EP now on Constellation Records.

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If you’ve missed the previous editions, then check out January and February right now.

March Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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If latest album More Than Any Other Day is anything to go by, Montréal’s Ought do not follow these rules. The band, shaped by the Printemps d’Erable Quebec student general strike (and following months of protest against neo-liberal austerity measures), are definitely not ignorant. However, their music possesses an exuberant earnesty which is maybe at odds with their roots.

And it is this that makes Ought stand out as a band – it would be all too easy for a group interested in/affected by political issues to become an angry protest outfit, but instead they channel things into a much more positve energy. ‘Today, More Than Any Other Day’ opens slowly but builds up into a jubilant celebration of life. I’ll quote at length so you get the idea:

‘Well today, more than any other day, I am excited for the milk of human kindness.
And today, more than any other day, I am excited to go grocery shoppping.
And today, more than any other day I am prepared to make a decision between 2% and whole milk.
And today, more than any other day, I look into the eyes of the old man across from me on the train and say “Hey! Everything is going to be okay!”’

‘The Weather Song’ (listen below) is similarly buoyant: a messy slice of rock ‘n roll with a chorus that would make it a summer radio-hit in any just society. Other songs are more experimental in sound and across the album the band explore different styles, never dwelling on any one too long. Attempts to nail down clear comparisons are difficult. Sure, you could cite Pavement, Sonic Youth, Cap’n Jazz, Gang of Four, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, etc. etc., but as soon as you pin down an influence for one part of the album, it moves in a different direction, leaving you chasing after it, breathless and delighted.

More Than Any Other Day is to be released by Constellation Records on 29th April, and you can pre-order it here.

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