GIITTV albums of 09 poll

09 was meant to be the year of the girl but while Florence and her Machine did her best to fly the flag for Britain after damp squibs from La Roux and Little Boots, Lady Gaga revealed her poker face and it was she and Beyonce that created most of the pop spectacles that mattered in 09. JLS proved you didn't need to win the Xfactor to really prevail, some bands shifted into the mainstream while others concentrated on their craft and all the while there was some great music being made and released just below the surface so lift up the stone look under and choose your TOP FIVE from our TOP short listed albums of 2009. A list that includes some highly commercial releases, some massively surprising comeback album triumphs, some cult releases, some barely known ones, plucked from a range of genres, from across the United Kingdom, North America and beyond, no focus groups or commercial pressures here, just a love of the long players that really moved our bodies and our souls in the past year. So get voting!



GIITTV’s Shortlisted albums of 2009.(In no particular order)

Grizzly Bear- ‘Veckatimest’
The Antlers – ‘Hospice’
Mumford and Sons – ‘Sigh No More’
The Mars Volta – ‘Octahedron’
Health – ‘Get Colour’
P.O.S –‘Never Better'
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
The Decemberists – ‘The Hazards of Love’
Animal Collective – ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’
The Joy Formidable - ‘A Balloon Called Moaning’
Discovery – LP
Manic Street Preachers – ‘Journal For Plague Lovers'
The Maccabees – ‘Wall of Arms’
Dan Deacon – ‘Bromst’
Passion Pit – ‘Manners’
Noah And The Whale – ‘First Days Of Spring’
Bombay Bicycle Club – ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose
We Were Promised Jetpacks - S/T
Atlas Sound – ‘Logos’
Grammatics – S/T
The XX – S/T
Fuck Buttons – ‘Tarot Sport’
Arctic Monkeys – ‘Humbug’
There Will Be Fireworks – S/T
Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
Dananananaykroyd - Hey Everyone!
Ramona Falls – ‘Intuit’
Blakroc – S/T
Lovvers – ‘OCD Go Go Go Girls’
Slaraffenland – ‘We’re On Your Side’
Balmorhea – ‘All is Wild, All is Silent’
Former Ghosts – ‘Fleurs’
Florence and The Machine – ‘Lungs’
And So I Watch You From Afar – S/T
Raekwon – ‘Only Built For Cuban Linx 2’
The Cribs – ‘Ignore the Ignorant’
Future of The Left – Travels With Myself And Another
Blue October – ‘Approaching Normal’
M.Ward – ‘Hold Time’
Brand New – ‘Daisy’
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – S/T
Flaming Lips – ‘Embryonic’
Madness – ‘The liberation of Norton Folgate’
Bibio – ‘Ambivalence Avenue’
The Firekites – ‘The Bowery’
Orphans and Vandals- ‘I Am Alive You Are Dead’
Frank Turner – ‘Poetry of the Deed’
Dredg – ‘The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion’
The Twilight Sad – ‘Forget the Night Ahead’
The Horrors – ‘Primary Colours’
St. Vincent – ‘Actor’
Cymbals Eat Guitars – S/T
Russian Circles – ‘Geneva’

Can’t make up your mind?Then listen to the majority of the albums on GIITTV’s albums of the year spotify playlist(including some that just didn’t make it).

Vote for your TOP FIVE now, FIVE lucky entrants will win a stack of CDs from this year. Then the GIITTV’s Readers and Writer’s best fifty albums of 2009 lists will be published together, later this month. Like any list its subjective, do you disagree with the albums shortlisted? Do you think we missed your favourite out? Then what are you waiting for voice it below!
http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=3957&type=Features

The Evolving of the Music Industry

You don't even have to be an online music nerd like me (and maybe you), to realise that the music industry is in a state of flux. Whatever your position on the digital democracy that music sharing online has fostered, whether you stand arm and arm with Reverend John Mclure who thinks the digital revolution has opened up the doors to a world of music you might never have heard, or you stand behind Lilly Allen who rather hypocritically thinks it's an evil theft of an artists work whilst sitting pretty on a major label and making her own mixes of illegally downloaded tracks, it's clear that sharing copyrighted music online is not a harmless crime.

The rise in file sharing has finally reached the point where its affecting smaller or medium sized artists and their royalties, affecting their ability to continue with music as a job, to progress as a band, and threatens independent and major labels alike. Witness the recent ad taken out by Music Week where in a full page letter advert by Andy Falkous of the band Future
of the left decries the way their second album was leaked only days before its release - as he points out it's rather like trying to slam the stable door when the horse has long since bolted over two miles away 'It feels that getting annoyed about downloading in this valueless modern age is like taking issue with water for being wet or night for gradually turning into day because ultimately the entitlement that most people feel for free music completely overshadows any moral or legal issues and conflicts that may arise in the hearts and minds of better people, people who understand that actions, on both an individual and group level, have consequences far beyond that moment of instant gratification. How far, I wonder does this entitlement for free music go? My guitars, should they be free? Petrol to get us to shows? Perhaps I should come to an arrangement with my landlord, through the musician-rent-waiver programme. Perhaps he should pay me, for his ninth-division indie-cred through association.'


What are the solutions? Find new physical products that are one reasonable, and two offer those special things that your mp3 or zip cannot, a proper piece of CD/vinyl already isn't as compressed as its digital counterpart, it's stereo sound offering a more pleasurable listening experience plus it's got personally designed artwork that you can touch hold, taste and hear a bookmark in your record collection. But that's not enough: a new generation has grown up without the habit of buying music in shops, or having that special feeling in the pit of their stomach as they endlessly search the racks for an undiscovered aural gem. Thus new formats need to offer extra tracks, first dibs on tickets, multi-media features and reasons why people should bother owning a physical piece of a band's musical work, otherwise in the ensuing years the physical format will become a small niche sold at gigs. Without the shift the future is uncertain: maybe the album as art form will die as Itunes and other digital providers increasingly offer tracks in individual and EP form. There are solutions like music streaming service Spotify that allows users to explore vast label music catalogues, whilst interrupting them from time to time with a few adverts that will fund the royalties of artists and labels listed.

So: good while it lasts, eh? Whilst there are still gaps in what Spotify offers, every major and indie seems to be signing up, but how long before they demand more? And how long before they realise that it’s a pretty simple idea really and develop their own in-house label services? Also it initially restricted the airplay of up and coming and unsigned acts too surely the web was meant to be an opportunity for them? Look at the from-the-ground-up digital success of the Arctic Monkeys or Los Campesinos who gave away their early demos to fans and bloggers to create a buzz. Belatedly Spotify is now taking a leaf out of Last.fm's books and including unsigned/small label acts in its catalogue giving them the exposure they need, maybe Last.fm will develop its own stand-alone application to do the same thing! I want royalties on that idea, ok?!

As the influence of labels begins to wane and beyond those who have always done it DIY, increasingly better-known acts are taking matters into their own hands, first there was Radiohead giving their last album ‘InRainbows’ away for as much as the downloader was willing to pay for it. While Idlewild after leaving their last record company funded their new album on fan pre-orders alone, Patrick Wolf sold shares in his work through the interesting site Sellaband. But there’s a problem: surely a new act won’t have the fanbase for such schemes? How will they fund the recording, and release of their albums? Without the mid level funding of labels this will be true in many cases. But acts like wonderful shiny pop act The Joy Formidable seek to build a special bond between their music and their fans. Releasing special edition EPs with personally created artwork, releasing their first mini album for free through their website, and staying in constant contact with their fans with blogs, videos and every means possible, thus they have created their own buzz from the bottom up. Indeed the decline of the major labels might actually be a positive thing, leaving amongst the debris those that really do it for the love of music and the connection between fan and band that goes beyond chart position and industry one up manship.



As our deputy editor Fliss Collier puts it In some ways, it could be considered a blessing that there’s been a decline in physical music sales - it means there is no longer room for the half-hearted. Looking to bands like The Joy Formidable, it’s clear to see that making the physical product count and bear meaning must be part of the deal it’s no longer acceptable to just reel off a commodity. When singles
were at their peak selling-wise, and four tracks was just a matter of course, bands were creatively prolific - bands such as Mansun who put out EP after ingenious and individual EP, coloured with loving art work or including a poster pack - these became highly collectible and part of the attraction to serious fandom. In these times of the faceless download, it’s evident that some edge is vital in order to make buying music products appealing and important again. It’s an opportunity that The Joy Formidable have seized with aplomb and made into a form of art. Their releases have been not only limited but personal with it - hand made sleeves, self-designed art work with lyrics (resurrecting the humble lyrics sheet anew), series of limited edition T-shirts sold as packages with CDs, and most recently, inviting their fans to a gig which was recorded for a live album. The Joy Formidable are still a band in their infancy, lest we forget, so these sparks of quirk and originality are vibrantly alluring and have ensured them an impassioned and dedicated fan base who follow them on tour. Touring is another opportunity bands can revitalise and make newly inviting. Recently rock stalwarts Ash headed out on a tour that was dubbed the A to Z Tour, taking in venues from each letter of the alphabet - venues that not only have the band not visited in years (since they were small fry), but that bands in general constantly overlook. Places off the beaten rock track, such as Norwood in South East London, or the provincial and generally culturally lacking Aldershot and Milton Keynes - and where even is Ventnor? The band are also set to release a slew of singles all year, which is another quirky release method.

There's also a debate about the omnipresent user-generated film clip site YouTube which up to now has dominated this field, but until recently held out on paying PRS royalties to artists for the use of their streamed material of music promos and related music footage on its site. In March, Billboard reported that negotiations on rates broke down, which prompted Google to declare that it was taking down premium music videos. 'It is important that those who are creating music - the writers and composers we represent - be rewarded when their works are used,' said Andrew Shaw, managing director of broadcast and online at PRS for Music, in a statement. 'YouTube is a popular online video destination, and this new licence continues to support musical talent. This is an achievement for songwriters, composers and the YouTube community alike and it reinforces the value of our members' work.' Patrick Walker, YouTube’s director of video partnerships, added: 'We are dedicated to establishing and fostering relationships that make YouTube a place where existing fans and new audiences can discover their favourite content - whatever it might be. We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement with PRS for Music and look forward to the return of premium music videos to YouTube in the U.K. where they will join a variety of other content to be enjoyed by our British users.'

There are new pretenders to YouTube’s crown from vimeo and a new Irish based site called MUZU.TV which has been around for a few months now and growing on its own organically, but had its proper launch last month. Andrew Boyers a spokesmen for the site's PR says: 'It’s basically a video site that’s 100% dedicated to music video content – not just promo videos, but also backstage videos, live footage and interviews as well – literally everything a music fan could want.' Apparently Muzu is trying to carve out a more independent niche than YouTube working with artists and labels to build up a mass of content, and rather like Spotify its offering royalties to both unsigned and major acts, which can only be a good thing.’ Andrew continues: 'They’ve got partnerships in place with over 7,000 labels, including the four majors, which they’ve gradually been putting in place over the last few weeks (hence the launch now). It means all the content is original, licensed and high quality. It also means that artists get paid for all the content that is on there that, from their perspective, is great. It doesn’t matter if they’re unsigned or major label artists, but they’ll get a 50/50 split of all ad revenue.'



Like most new music media sites its interactive and applicable across social media platforms allowing anyone to create their own music TV channel, made up of multiple, personalised video playlists which users can watch online at MUZU.TV and share with their friends on Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and pretty much any other website. Apparently it’s even possible to sync your Facebook and Twitter accounts with your MUZU.TV. Certainly taking a tour round the site, its sleek, flashy and well designed when compared to its more stripped back larger competitor. I got stuck on videos by Jeff Buckley, Lady Gaga, Shakira's She Wolf and a Shoegaze playlist containing Lush and upstarts Titus Andronicus, but also a episode of the Tube from 1983 featuring Tears for Fears. But whether MUZU has the broad appeal of a YouTube that allows anyone to become viewed by millions in seconds, is open to debate, time and the market will tell, it’s certainly offering a interesting proposition for the artist, and a better deal. It's probably just the start of a range of sites that will converge easy to use, social media and digital music technologies under one roof.

The future of music online and offline is constantly shifting and uncertain, the way we consume music will fragment to online platforms and physical formats will converge into various sites and portal modes of consumption(Ipods, laptops, blackberry ect) that offer more and more tools to spread the word about music, take songkick.com for example that allows for streaming, recommendations, and gig listings: all based upon your listening habits.

The decline in sales worries many in the industry, but it could be an exciting development leading to another evolution in music. The punk scene that spawned many of the independent labels that we know and love today could be revisited in a new modern age where those that are in it for the love and the passion of those acts they champion will be the ones that really flourish. Of course there’s a question of how bands will survive in this new reality and whether their music will ever make any money, but perhaps many of them will go back to doing something else, those that still want to create music and art for that sake primarily will survive. Those mainstream acts that stand still and allow their label to route map their future plans will be left behind as those self same could labels allow their music to become stagnant commodity like so much of the dross that inhabits the charts. Those that see this brave new world of media as an opportunity will utilise it in increasingly interesting ways.

With the shifting modes of consumption, what is the future of the music industry? How will acts survive in this new music world? What music sites (Spotify, Youtube, Last.fm, Muzu, Sellaband, Songkick ect ect) do you use online? Do you still buy music?

http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=3865&type=Features

Egineers: interview

“It’s a little bit suspect with it (Shoegaze) coming into mainstream indie now, it looks like it might be the next thing to be mined. Then obviously there’s going be a backlash and then everyone’s going to be sneering at it again. Its like it’s cool and worthy to be a stripped down punk band but if you admit you’ve got a lot of a lot of effects pedals then you’re hiding behind it. But then I think those people don’t like their own company and just like not talking for five minutes.” Engineers bassist/vocalist Mark Peters giving his perspective on a totally different music scene from the one his band left four years ago. With all the talk of a rise in nu-gaze and rapturously received albums from M83, Maps and Kyte, along with the rise in labels like the Sonic Cathedral and Northern star and the sell out return of My Bloody Valentine there’s confirmation that excelling in sonically adventurousness is in fact something that should be applauded, not derided. Unfortunately the phrase took on a derogatory meaning during its blossoming in the early 90s, slung at anyone wielding a guitar and hiding behind a wall of sound, with long greasy hair and a lumberjack shirt on their back, but was Shoegaze as easy to pigeonhole as the mainstream music made out? Or was there something more nuanced beneath the tides in this ocean of noise: ’Something that interested me that at the time was only the press coined the term (Shoegaze) and labelled a lot of the crapper bands that came out at the time with it.’ Continues Mark ‘The ones that were just taking on the sounds of bigger acts like My Bloody Valentine or Ride when those bands were at their peak. But at the time there wasn’t really much difference between the Stone Roses, ‘Screamdaelic’ by Primal Scream and Spiritualized it was all just kind of epic, hedonistic kind of music.‘

It shouldn’t be forgotten that way back in 2005 the Engineers debut offered up an intimate record that bore its way into people’s subconsciousness, followed by a series of standout shows that saw them leading a the first wave of new acts that skilfully blurred the lines between dream pop, post rock and Shoegaze. Indeed Mark doesn’t feel that ‘shoegaze’ is a dirty word anymore. It’s been embraced by a new generation of underground bands from the sighing dream pop of Kyte to the MBV flecked indie fuzz of The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, but Mark thinks his band steps out of any crude boxes through the force and intricacy of their work, contacting the listener on different levels: ‘I think its become an accepted genre there’s a big community of people who love that music and don’t care what the mainstream press say about it, or what trendy bands want to do.’ Mark points out ‘I’m not going to be so naive to think they we won’t be pigeon holed because I know that we already are but I think there’s a lot more to us. I think if you actually listen to us opposed to just skimming through it. ‘

He’s right to be confident, returning with their startlingly new lush and swirling LP ‘Three Fact Fader’ - brought into creation via a labour of love that spun together writing, recording and production sessions over a four year period into an elegiac, multi-layered piece of work. But that’s not to say it’s birth was anything like easy. There was a danger at one point that the record that could never seen the light of day: 'We started writing this album in 2005, since the first one came out, we finished recording it in 2007. But our record company (Echo part of Chrysalis) just stopped releasing records in the traditional way.’ Mark recalls ‘We'd had quite a long intensive period of writing and recording, so opposed to sitting around waiting we thought we'd take a break. A couple of labels approached us but we didn't think it was moving on in the right way so we thought we'd wait until the right label (Kscope) to come along.'

In the intervening period the band (full line up: Simon Phipps, Mark Peters, Dan MacBean, Andrew Sweeney), released a cover of the Tim Buckley’s classic "Song to the Siren" for the 2005 tribute album 'Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim and Jeff Buckley’, worked on various different musical projects, Mark recently teamed up with German electronic genius Ulrich Schnauss, producing a single by Daniel Land and the Modern Painters. The push that finally made it possible for the album to come blinking into the light of day, was driven organically by the interest in the recordings from the fans 'We had a remix done by DJ Sasha that prompted a bit of interest on the myspace so we put up a few songs and that prompted more interest. We just got loads of really positive responses from it people asking where they could get it. Then this label (Kskope) approached us and they weren't even aware that there was another album they were just interested in us as a band because they loved the first album, and what we were doing.'

In the time between albums the Engineers had grown as people, musicians and producers, learning new production techniques on different projects and bringing a different slant to the recordings that had been lying dormant, bringing new ideas to the table and jamming them out. That working with renowned producer Ken Thomas (M83, Maps, Sigur Ros) sounds more like collaborative processes ‘He’s more of a counsellor than anything else; he's not really a nob twiddler, although he can do that. He just brought an impartial aspect to it, more of a philosophical approach. He did the M83, and the Maps album after he did our album he didn't even know what shoegaze was. We just wanted to make a great album and that was his opening gambit. We properly recording in 2006 we were touring, we started off at a place where Ken did his apprenticeship here in Surrey where ‘Meat is Murder’ (which both of us agree is the best Smiths album) was recorded; we were the last band to record there actually. Then we went to Rockfield in North Wales.’

Perhaps surprisingly to some there are propulsive Krautrock elements new to the world of the Engineers. Samples from Harmonia’s Watussi provide new single and opening track ‘Clean Coloured Wine’ with a disarming familiarity, and yet at the same it time manages to sound fresh and modern. It's a rich vein of influence that’s carried into the axis of the album with the track ‘Crawl from the Wreckage’ a crashing, haunting slice of modernistic pyschedlia ‘We were just listening to a lot of Neu!, Harmonia and Can was a big influence on the album just in terms of an artistic idea of music, opposed to just write a song.’ remembers Mark. There are more up to date flourishes too the bleeping wide screen electronic harmonic rushes of ‘What Pushed Us Together’, ‘By What You Are’ and ‘Emergency Room’ influenced by the likes of Panda Bear’s ‘Person Pitch’ and The Animal Collective’s ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’, recording in different locations seems to have brought a different colour to each track ‘Most of it was recorded in this lockup in a industrial estate when you're in a big studio you're more tempted you've got the vibe a bit more.’ Mark points out ‘but I wouldn't have liked to record the whole thing there coz I think you're not truly yourself in a big studio because you can do it whichever what you want it, why would you want to lose your personalities to that?’

‘Three Person Pitch’ is a personal record: with the cascading cautionary ‘Song for Andy’ and the grand string led ‘The Fear Has gone’ that’s contains hypnotic looping vox, and the sighing ‘Brighter As We Fall’ with it’s Nick Mcabe-esque shimmering guitars that are ‘so-cavernous-you-feel-like-you-could-step-into-their-world’ while the heartbreaking Pink Floyd ‘Dark Side of the Moon’-esque vocals brings you down to earth with a bump. These are just a few of the myriad of moments on this long player that ring with a wistfulness, but as Mark points out they’re careful not to call into a trap of being saccharine and overtly commercialised. It’s a fine line to tread but Engineers navigate it with ethereal majesty: ‘Anything that's got a slick manufactured sound loses the personal touch. But there's also this horrible thing where its a pared down sound, that's intentionally emotional, that’s seen by some as almost a fast ticket to being worthy and real, that later gets used for a car advert.’ Before he reveals ‘There's so many people like that you meet when you’re out, they might be thirty five but they're pretending to be teenage girls.'

Carefully and deliberately avoiding the commercial cynicism of mainstream ‘elevator acts’ that lack real heart, the Engineers create finely tuned sonic patterns dappled by harmonies that attempt to reflect their own voices, always trying to move the listener with their music. In turn taking them to places filled with rushes of misty melancholia and epic epiphanies, and creating a bond between musician and listener much like emotional heartache of Spiritualized and Chapterhouse. It’s an aim that apparently seeps through both the recording and writing processes “It’s quite personal from the point of view of the lyrics and vocals, musically we start off trying to tap into an otherworldly vibe and the lyrics always take it back to a personal experience, whether that’s something going on in our lives at the time, or something we've seen in the news or read in a book but its always best to have something to relate to because otherwise it can just be vague. We do sometimes approach it as instrumental but we do bring the lyrics in as the focus of what we build the music around, an intimacy, it acts as though one person can have enormous ideas but then at the end of the day they’re just one person and a vocal can portray that, but then music can portray that your imagination is endless.’ Mark laughs apologising for his pretension, but continues ‘The music can take you to places, a place you remember someone who’s gone, there’s a kind of elegy about it I think that’s how we are as people really. But I think it’s important, that the material that will come next will have more of a forward of approach about it.”

Since 'Three Person Pitch’ was four years in the it’s influences can seem disparate this is reflected by Mark’s listening habits that are as eclectic as any modern music fan 'The last thing I listened to ‘Lux supreme’ by John Coltrane that's one of my favourite albums, whatever’s lying around I'm surrounded by CDs or on Ipod Shuffle. I really got into Deerhunter last year; I'm waiting for them to do their brilliant album.’ Of the newer acts was he’s enjoying ‘A band I really love are this act from Baltimore called Beach house. And although I really love the Animal Collective stuff, I really love the Panda Bear one that became before it. Someone said the rest of them heard that album and got that their ideas from that. I think its really interesting that they got a hip hop producer in they totally not only went into Panda Bear territory but they also took that a step on as well. Aside from the experimental side to it I think they’re just great songs...' Perhaps burned by experience, Mark’s suspicious of much of the music being pushed by larger label, rightly pointing out the cynical commercialism at the heart of decisions that sees huge big label marketing machines back the likes of Florence and the Machine, La Roux, Little Boots et al, looking hopefully to a future where most bands and music is driven by artistic, personal forces rather than commercial ones: 'We’re at the end of an era where big labels dictate the trends now.’ Mark smiles ‘A lot of the big labels have all got a young, pretty, 80s electro girl at the moment to me that should have been three years ago, really! It's weird that these so called partially indie acts are being pushed so hard because Girls Aloud did it last year. Like anything with big labels its not necessarily or what they think is amazing it just kind of ticks the boxes, its just kind of the lowest common denominator of indie’ before sarcastically adding ‘Oh that'll be OK because we can relate it to that, is it actually that special? No.'

Yet you really get the sense of redemption when Mark speaks, thankful that 2005 will not be there only crack at catching the attention of the music loving public, but he’s keen to make the point that it’s still an album constructed for them and their loyal fans: ‘Before we had a break we did two gigs and one of them was at the Sonic Cathedral and it was definitely the best gig we’d played in four years because we had nobody telling us what to play and then people on our message boards saying it was the best gig they’d ever been too and it was just like ‘shit why didn’t we just listen to our own’ you know. I think its just growing up really; I just think you should take your own opinion as the one to listen too.'

With such a long gap between albums, and a gap in live performances of over two years surely there’s a tour to follow up their recent Sonic Cathedral date? ‘I think the first album was kind of a staying in late at night album, dare I say chillout. We wrote the songs for this album with a view to having something more exciting for us to play live. There’s a strong possibility that we’re going to support this band Porcupine tree in October, so that’s going be good, bigger gigs are better for us because we tend to need a bigger sound system to get the music across in the best way. And going to different places especially abroad is more inspiring than anything else, it just writes songs for us those kinds of experiences.’ It will be fascinating to watch these returning Sonic Engineers forge more new ground.

FREE NORTHERN STAR SAMPLER

Following up last year's hit compilation of exciting shoegaze / psychedelic music 'Psychedelia Three' which even made it into GIITTV zine’s poll of the best albums of 2008, now Northern Star release a new compilation entitled a 'REVOLUTION IN SOUND' this August.

According to the Scott Causer the man behind the label it's 'The next great Northern Star compilation - 17 tracks from 17 of the most exciting bands on the planet, for those who really have no other option than to rock ‘n’ roll...

To celebrate we've caught up with Northern Star main man Scott Causer, to delve a bit deeper into the past, present and future of his label. Plus he's very kindly given GIITTV zine an exclusive free sampler featuring five downloads from artists (Arrows Of Love, The December Sound, The Electric Mainline, The Nova Saints, and Young Team)who appear on the new album, scroll down to grab your free tracks!

When did Northern Star start?

The seeds of Northern Star were sown back in Manchester around 2001. I went to see this band of 18years old lads down the Atlas Bar in Manchester. They were playing as part of In The City. They blew me away. I couldn’t believe they were unsigned! It was after seeing them I wanted to start a label. I didn’t know how and I didn’t when but I got hold of a copy of their demo and held onto it for future reference. That band was Pioneer 4. Solid plans for what was to be Northern Star didn’t come around till 2005 - that was when we started the groundwork. Northern Star started functioning as a proper label in March 2006 with the release of Psychedelica Vol: 1.

Why did you start a label?

I had my own band called The Electric Mainline and I wanted to bring a record out. However I was realistic enough to know that no-one was ever going to buy a record by a band no-ones ever heard of so I hit on the idea of a compilation CD of like minded souls. At the time we had a fairly big myspace presence and were in touch with any number of bands such as The Black Angels, the Dolly Rocker Movement and The Stevenson Ranch Davidians. I then asked the Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Telescopes who both agreed to appear and that gave the project a massive boost. There was really no looking back after that. Incidentally, the initial incarnation of The Electric Mainline went by the wayside on the release of Psychedelica One as Northern Star went forward, but we’re back with a vengeance on Revolution In Sound with a brand new line-up.

One man against the music industry are you big enough?

Hahaha Oh hell yeah… it may be seen from the outside that I’m punching above my weight, but I know full well what I’m doing. I‘m Muhammed Ali coming in to take the crown off the big guns. The future heavyweight champion of the world. How can I lose with the stuff I use?

On a serious note, I should be careful what I say here. I’m often accused of being competitive, however, the reality of it is I don’t have a competitive bone in my body. I really don’t give two fucks what anyone else is doing. I have my vision and my vision alone and its served me well so far. In the music industry you can upset people just by having some element of perceived success. People try to shut you out but the more they try, the more I get in there. This however does not bother me, its just people running scared. I have no time for negative thinking. Many people have fallen by the wayside since I started on this path. I’m still here and Northern Star is getting bigger and bigger and making more of an impact with every release. I just keep looking forward.

How do you choose the acts that appear on your comps?

Its simply down to whether I like their music or not. There’s no magic formula to it. I have no regard for ‘names’ or trends. I don’t care for image or haircuts, I don’t care who hangs out with who or who says who’s good. Doesn’t mean fuck-all to me. Its purely about the music and the music only and will always be that way. I’ve refused high profile acts because I don’t like their music. I won’t have has-beens living off past glories on my albums. Every act I feature is totally and full on relevant and is absolutely NOW! Bands know this and that’s why they want to be be on the compilations.

Best find so far?

I guess in terms of success it would have to be The Black Angels. It has worked both ways - people have found them through us, and people have found us through them. I got them for Psychedelica One when they were unsigned. They then signed to Light In the Attic and the guys there loved what we did with the compilations and we have continued to work together ever since. I knew they were going to be massive – you could see it in their approach, their music, everything… cracking band!

Why do you think your compilations have had such a good response?

I believe this is due to many reasons. I believe its due to the enthusiasm of our approach; because we’re a voice for independent bands; because we’re putting out great music you’d otherwise never hear of. Most importantly I believe its because we put out undeniably great music without regard for anything other than the music itself. We put out great records and people love them. If you put out shit records, people won’t buy them. The general public aren’t stupid, they won’t part with their hard earned cash for rubbish. People buy into Northern Star because the records we put out are great!

Favourite track on this album?

Thats so difficult. It really does change from day to day. Today its Tape Check by Delicasession but yesterday it was No Heaven Like Hell by The December Sound. There’s some bands I’ve wanted to work with a long long time here like The Manhattan Love Suicides, Punk TV, Delicasession, Laboratory Noise, Screen Vinyl Image, Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element and Revolution In Sound has given me the opportunity to work with these bands. There’s also some new bands come through very recently like Mint Ive and Maribel and people who have worked with me before like The Nova Saints, The December Sound, The Voices and Youngteam who have all given me mindblowingly good tracks for this. This is the beauty of the compilations, they’re of such a high standard, people naturally want to go on there and represent themselves in the best way they possibly can.

Favourite Northern Star act?

This again is really difficult but three bands who came instantly came to mind when you asked this question are The Nova Saints, The December Sound and Youngteam. They’re three very different bands, but the one thing that links them in my mind is their dedication to the cause. I’ve watched them develop and grow over the last couple of years. They set their aspirations high, they only care about their music and are unconcerned about what everyone else is doing. I believe this undiluted concentration and focus on their music sets them apart from other bands. All three have been responsible for some of my favourite songs of recent times. This is not to demean any other bands I work with in any way whatsoever. All the bands I work with I rate very highly. If I didn’t I wouldn’t work with them.

Future plans

Revolution In Sound Part 2 is in the works and I will be also working with individual bands on releases, something I’ve wanted to for a long time. Can’t say too much on this now, but whats in store is going to blow people’s minds. So much so I’d recommend a helmet.

What do you think the future is for small labels with the digital revolution that's going on: good or bad thing?

I think its been great for small record labels and independent bands. The digital revolution has brought back ‘song culture.’ The days where the majors put out an album with 2 good tracks and a bunch of filler are now well on their way out. People go to ITunes and download the 2 tracks they like and fuck the rest and rightly so. The majors have had it far too good for far too long and now its payback. Most small record labels only release the music they feel passionate about and often do not have the resources to release anything other than what they love, so when they do it, they have no choice other than to get it right.

I sell EPs and albums by independent bands at www.northernstarrecords.co.uk - the download facility enables me to put music out there which would otherwise become lost on ITunes and Northern Star has a regular fanbase by which people simply come to listen to great new bands. I have a policy on there whereby if the band does not have the Northern Star ‘seal of approval’ then they won’t go on. That way people can cut through the bullshit and get straight to the great stuff. You can’t do that on ITunes!

REVOLUTION IN SOUND
for rockers, ravers, lovers & gazers
Tracklist:

1) MARIBEL - Deflowers
2) THE MANHATTAN LOVE SUICIDES - Clusterfuck
3) THE NOVA SAINTS – Lights
4) DELICASESSION - Tape Check
5) PUNK TV - Vala Svala
6) THE DECEMBER SOUND - No Heaven Like Hell
7) URSULA MINOR - Sick Fuzz
8) THE ELECTRIC MAINLINE - All Too Much
9) LABORATORY NOISE - You Created A Storm
10) THE VOICES - When The Black Sun Sets
11) HOT ZEX - Insecure
12) YOUNGTEAM - Introducing Mr Gladstone
13) DEAD LEAF ECHO - Pale Fire (Ulrich Schnauss Mix)
14) MINT IVE - Paint A Picture (Of The Broken Hearts)
15) SCREEN VINYL IMAGE - Slipping Away
16) SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT - I Love You Everytime You Smile
17) KONTAKTE - Motorik


GIITTV'S FREE REVOLUTION IN SOUND SAMPLER:

ARROWS OF LOVE- BURN THIS TOWN-MP3
THE DECEMBER SOUND - KILL ME- MP3
THE ELECTRIC MAINLINE- DRIFT AWAY(LIVE)-MP3
THE NOVA SAINTS- SUGAR COATED- MP3
YOUNG TEAM- YOUR LOVE-MP3


Revolution In Sound can be pre-ordered via the following links:
www.northernstarrecords.co.uk

http://www.northernstarrecords.co.uk/productDetails.cfm?ProductID=463

This album won’t be in the shops till August BUT but you can receive yours well in advance exclusively from Northern Star Records. The first 50 pre-orders will receive the limited edition CDR NORTHERN STAR SAMPLER II. Remaining pre-orders will receive the sampler as a free download. Please note that this free offer is only available from Northern Star.



Orginally appeared here:

http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=3446&type=Features

Chamber & Cherry Red new music programme

Chamber nights(in association with www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk) have linked up with the rather fine people from Cherry Red TV to put together a programme highlighting alternative underground music. You can see the first in a series of programmes below- featuring:

V.E.G.A.S.Whores (a recent Guardian New band of the Day and Camden Crawl festival closers at Koko)
Not Cool
cc-sb
Kuffar

Interview: Orphans and Vandals

“Do you ever get the urge to run, run get gone gone/and a lot of things get abandoned along the way don’t they?!”

“With a lot of the produced music you hear, its hard to hear the real person in it” points out Orphans and Vandals intriguing front man Al Joshua “I was really keen to keep it more alive: that's why we did the album ourselves in our front rooms, we set up the microphones and that's were we recorded ‘Strays’ and ‘Terra Firma.”

The genesis of London based multi-instrumental five piece Orphans and Vandals was borne of Joshua’s similarly frustrating fruitless musical situation, the grind of playing in dead end bands peddling the same old same old, constrained by the hackneyed melodies repeated every night in the same clichéd form. Orphans and Vandals front man AL Joshua talks passionately about a band that changed his life, its birth inspired by a trip from London to Paris – his own pilgrimage to retrace the footsteps of poet Arthur Rimbaud. With this new found lust for escape he let himself off the leash, starting to record songs that ”we're for him” Joshua explains "I wrote and recorded the first few ‘Christopher’ and ‘Headful of Tears’ in my house at the beginning, and just gave it away when people asked for it. ...They were done my bathroom, our neighbours were constantly on cocaine fuelled porn marathons, and I liked to keep the sounds that fall through the cracks in the background...

This release of creative freedom saw him giving away these nascent recordings to anyone who asked, and was swiftly followed by the union with Orphans and Vandals bassist and song writing partner Raven. They then set out with a rough idea of what they wanted from the remaining members Francesca and Quinta on strings, percussion and glockenspiel, and Gabi on drums that would form the crux of a very different kind of sophisticated rock band, one that attempts to skew expectations of form, meter, and song. A spontaneity of creative process that big label bands who take months to produce and over dub, to over think to quite frankly shine shit before its ready for your mass consumption might baulk at, thus all Orphans and Vandals sessions were recorded live: 'I like to keep the mistakes in the recordings most of my favourite albums have them.' Joshua notes 'the thing with producing is you only get exactly what you planned on doing, there’s no accidents that bring in unexpecteds, I try and leave room for slight accidents or random chance.'

Maybe that's why the songs he written in the last eighteen months documented in their superb debut album ‘I am Alive You Are Dead’ stand out so much in a sea of rock pastiche, skinny boys with their guitars, and vacuous two dimensional 80s revivalists, they live and breath with life, snippets of dreamlike imagery, brutal autobiography, literary couplets and warm instrumentals that rattle with aggression, melancholia and euphoria: a reflection of the people that crafted them and the modern world that seeks to suck the humanity from our veins.

The album’s finest moment is the emotionally exhausting epic ten-minute symphony Mysterious Skin, which is stupendous and life affirming. Cinematic instrumentation that rises and falls like the wild tide, below Joshua's sprawling stream of consciousness. It pierces your heart and calls to mind the seedy urban poetry of Lou Reed, the sexual ambiguity of Rimbaud, and the half spoken/half sung working class humanism of Jarvis Cocker, moving from intricate emotional details to the huge foreboding underbelly of the city, back to a stranger's bed (a boy or a girl? Who knows.) Toward a literal sexual climax, into sky scraping chanted refrains, propelling rambunctious rhythm sections, huge stirring violins musical saw, and harmonium, flailing to a cacophony.

The twitching opener Strays hints at the satellite town frustration of New Model Army singer Justin Sullivan: and the stirringly life affirming choral epics of the Arcade Fire. Their last double aside single Terra Firma/Christopher from Summer '08 confirmed the strength of their material - plaintive, pared back, Bowie-esque balladry telling tales of urban decay fleshing out characters that seethe with passion, anger and disenchantment. The wonderful twinkling instrumentals of ‘Argyle Square’ gently opens its eyes, and onto London’s streets, where dizzying images of the past and present collide. While closer ‘Head full of tears’ shows another side a downtuned, intimate, delicacy.



The Arcade Fire and Pulp have often been drawn as modern comparisons, maybe a resurgence in the intelligent lyrics of Cocker, and the acceptance of multi instrumental groups like the Arcade Fire might mean there’s more of a place for Orphans and Vandals right now, but Joshua surprisingly reveals to “not listening to bands at the moment, I’m bored of all that at the moment” he claims to have never heard the Canadian troupe and even the references to Pulp leaves him a little cold “I couldn’t stand any of that Britpop stuff really.”

A veracious consumer of poets like the aforementioned Rimbaud, the songs of William Blake, the work of William Burroughs, a year spent obsessing over Francis Bacon, the sheer literary quality of his lyrics, shifting effortlessly from dreamlike, to intricate detail, and back to naked brazen honesty of the kind that you rarely here within popular music. Listen to their superb debut album, and it’s best moments Strays, Terra Firma, Christopher and Mysterious Skin you'd be forgiven for thinking that Al Joshua painstakingly, constructs each lyrical piece before he enters the studio, but like everything else about Orphans and Vandals the creative process is spontaneous and led by an instinct to keep it alive, to keep it fresh to the ears ”Everything has got to be one in one take or one performance, unlike mass produced that is the finished product whereas I've got no interest in the finished product at all: I'm more interested in the process. That was the performance of that day, if it was recorded another time it could sound very different, its all on instinct and chance.”

This is reflected in their raucous ever evolving live performances, where sometimes not even the band know what journey the next song is going to take them next: ”Every time we play a song live its different, plus I like to change it up, play with the band, it keeps it fresh They're all brilliant musicians and It keeps us all on our toes. Nobody knows what’s going to happen, if we fuck up a small part of a song nine or ten times, the tenth time could be really special… We’ve been booed before but how often do you get the opportunity?”


Central to the Orphans and Vandals experience is Al Joshua’s unique vocal style: a starkly original new voice combined with emotionally complex streams of consciousness, a half spoken, half sung Estuary English it’s a style that allows him freedom to roam within, and astride his band's multi-layered oscillating orchestral sound, it’s drawn favourable comparisons with some of his own musical touch points Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Steve Reich, for him it's all about turning himself on and challenging the listeners preconceptions of the rock vocal, his approach inspired by poets and the spoken word: ”That’s the thing that keeps it interesting singing and using your voice in a different way, listening to(Jack)Kerouac reading his poems set to music I'd just listen to him without any real interest in what he was saying..., when you hear someone with a real interesting voice you can here the melodic metre, you get all the tonal things and all the notes between the tracks, which you aren't going to get on a standard rock song.” Some lyricists like to create oblique imagery, allowing you to draw your own conclusions, or characters they can hide behind, Joshua’s work is intimate yet spliced with imagery, yet he is reticent about defining it, preferring to keep the mystery (get the pun?) behind the words, leaving you the listener to draw your own conclusions. “I would never be interested in writing a autobiography, it’s certainly intimate ... It’s like putting yourself out there naked at times, there are plenty of images and I suppose you could call certain things true. But everything becomes a movie once it’s written down, everything becomes a lie the moment someone talks about it.”

Orphans and Vandals are a rapidly emerging band you must hear in 2009, an act that will challenge your preconceptions of what a modern rock band can be. Creating music of the street, thrillingly dangerous, sometimes brutal yet rather like life intensely beautiful and human all at the same time. Looking to the future, Joshua excitingly reveals that’s he’s already constructing songs that will make up their next record ‘When we’ve finished with this album I’ll get back to writing. The songs I’ve started are quite different. I suppose they will decide how we’re going to play them’ and he’s aware of not repeating a formula, though ‘I don’t want it to be the same. They’re quite different everyone in the band plays various instruments and is capable of reinventing themselves.’ We look forward to the journeys they will take us all on next …

The Orphans and Vandals album 'I am Alive You Are Dead’ is out now on Fourth Floor.

THWFOS- SPRING - GIVEAWAY

SPRING’ – Part Two in Series of Four Seasonal Releases featuring the tracks: The Coming of Spring/Lullaby of London which will be FREE to Download Exclusively from www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk from 13th APRIL 2009. It's accompanied by a Two-Track Limited CD in hand-screened sleeve – Available Exclusively at Live Shows. From snowdrops to daffodils here comes the follow-up - Double A-Side Single, ‘SPRING’. Once again, available to download for free exclusively via God Is In The TV [from 13Th April] and once again, in print and available only at shows courtesy of Strange Torpedo Records/// [from 11thApril].

FREE DOWNLOADS:

A – The Coming of Spring
(L.Jenner/V.Roccoforte/M.Safer/G.Andruzzi)From the 2003 album ‘Echoes’ by The Rapture. Suggested for the project by Nicholas Miller.Vox - Maeve, Emmet, Vicky, Matth, Ian, Markus Acoustic Guitar - MarkusElectric Guitar - Emmet Violin - Vicky Bass - Ian Drums - OskarPercussion - MaeveA - Recorded by Their Hearts Were Full of Spring and Robert King in February 2009 at Z-Noise and Bedrock Studios. Produced byMarkus.

AA – Lullaby of London
(S.MacGowan)From The Pogues’ 1988 album ‘If I Should Fall from Grace with God’. Suggested for the project by Jacqueline Martins.Vox - Markus Guitar - Emmet Accordion - Vicky Synths - MarkusAA - Recorded by Their Hearts Were Full ofSpring in February 2009 at Bedrock Studios. Produced by Markus.


We’ve seen ‘WINTER’ come and go, bringing with it: Over SEVEN THOUSAND unique downloads via God Is In The TV. An overwhelmingly positive embrace from the breadth of the blogosphere. A completely SOLD OUT physical release through Strange Torpedo Records. And more gushing praise than should be permitted amongst strangers...“Some of you might remember The Pixies doing a rather good version of this Neil Young track some years ago. Well this version is better...”“...evokes the chill winds of December...” we now jointly present the SPRING downloads

THWFOS lead singer Markus talks about the choice of covers for SPRING:

Choosing the songs for our SPRING single was a much harder task than we’d anticipated. For a long time the two front-runners were Nirvana’s In Bloom and our signature tune Their Hearts Were Full of Spring. But in the end the latter seemed too obvious a choice, and both tracks - despite their obvious differences - posed us a similar problem: how to make a new version that’s different, interesting, and not justa pointless and inferior version of the original? We couldn’t come up with an answer to that question, so we ditched those two songs and instead chose a brace that leant themselves much more willingly to re-interpretation and the playfulness that’s at the heart of the idea behind this whole Seasons project.[Art by Sophie Rautenbach]

The Coming of Spring///Originally by The Rapture

This song might not have been an obvious choice for us, but the sparseness of the original’s arrangement – just drums, bass, one guitar, two vocals - gave us loads of room to fill in the space however we pleased and take it somewhere totally different to the original. I’d just bought a box -set of Sergio Leone DVDs and was immersed in Spaghetti-Western-World, so the Ennio Morricone-style outro - which was the initial spark of the idea for our take on the track - kind of suggested itself (the original has something of that in it already, but we played it up a lot more strongly). From there I could work out what the instrumentation had to be (lots of voices, acoustic guitar, bass, strings, percussion) and apply that to the rest of the track. I’m still not quite sure how the versescame to be some kind of East-European folk / calypso hybrid, but I think it works, so I’m happy to take the credit and call it my idea!I hadn’t decided how to arrange the vocals before we started recording, but once Maeve had sung hers it was obvious that itwould be the lead. There’s a certain ennui in her delivery that has a calming effect on the track which could otherwise have felt pretty frantic with all that percussion going on. But as it’s her job to play all that frantic percussion when we play live I think I might have given her a tough job to try and pull it off at our next show…

Lullaby of London///Originally by The Pogues

“Can we get rid of all the folk?” The answer to Ian’s question, as we tried to decide how to approach this song, was not quite, but nearly. The Pogues’ original is so rich and colourful and dense with it’s instrumentation that there was no room to do anything new or different with it without first stripping away all those layers and starting again with just the bare bones of the melody and chord structure. From there we tried to add as little as possible, making sure that what we did add didn’t reference the original in any way. So although our foundation still sounds pretty folk-y on paper –Emmet’s finger-picked acoustic guitar and Vicky’s accordion (its recorded debut, we think, although she did buy it second hand, so who knows for sure?) – we kept it simple and unfussy enough to do nothing more than support the vocal melody, which takes centre stage. And when the wobbly synths appear it definitely doesn’t feel like you’re listening to a folk song any more.I also attempted a little experimental production technique on this track that I’d always wanted to try out. I remember reading an interview with Jason Pierce of Spiritualized in which he talked about recording Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. He said that his intention from the outset had been to record a different mix for the separate left and right stereo channels - each speaker would play a different and complete version of the song, but playing both together would give you a third version made of the other two combined. In the end it proved too expensive to make the album that way. But I thought I’d give it a try on this one simple track. So I got Emmet to record the guitar twice and panned one performance hard left and the other hard right. Same thing with my vocals. I played in two tracks of the synth arpeggios - one with just the odd notes (panned hard left) and one with just the even notes (panned hard right). And, finally, two takes on the accordion to finish the job.Try it out at home - turn the balance on your stereo all the way right or left and you'll be listening to two completely differentperformances of the same song! Markus x

Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring Myspace

The Muscle Club- Hail Joe Hale

Watch the super new video from up and coming Cardiff types The Muscle Club, it's for their upcoming single "Hail!Joe Hale" it's directed by GIITTV's very own Ryan Owen and Alex Skinner, no less!


The Muscle Club - Hail! Joe Hale! from Ryan Owen on Vimeo.

Orginally published here:
http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/news/news_detail.php?id=1752

Butcher Boy's "React Or Die" Track By Track

Glaswegian act Butcher Boy came to our attention in 2007, with the release of their first album "Profit in Your Poetry".



It was a real treat, a excellently realised indie folk pop album, full of literate, heartfelt lyrics about wistful memories: it’s tender, organically produced sound drew favourable comparisons in my own mind: "Think early Belle and Sebastian haunted by a real past, the precise poetic pop of the Smiths tinged with a heavy Glaswegian sensibility. Think the tunes of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions matched to the intimacy of Arab Strap, most of all think wonderfully dark pop music, for nights out or those long dark midnights spent alone by your turntable, reading the inlay, and submersing yourself in the sound."

They followed this up with the single "18th Emergency" later that year, a stately ballad it was like being allowed to read someone's secret diary entry, each line consumed with poetic heart tugging imagery that conjures up moments in time, lovers lost and real kitchen sink drama.

Their new album "React or Die" is preceded by a single "Carve a Pattern" which you can download here(from the folks at Stereogum):

Butcher Boy- Carve A Pattern

It reflects a progression a more buffed up, musically expressive sound that still bares the emotional brevity, and bittersweet vocals at the heart of Butcher Boy. We caught up with their lead singer/lyricist John Blain Hunt (who is also the famed DJ behind the National Pop League nights) for an exclusive insight into each of the tracks that make up their second work "React Or Die."



Butcher Boy's "React Or Die" Track By Track



WHEN I'M ASLEEP

I wrote the main melody one Sunday night after watching The Dream Life of Angels on BBC2. Rue des Cascades by Yann Tiersen is over the closing credits, and the film has an incredibly savage and sad ending. I could barely speak the day after watching it. The final frame is still and calm
but it is heaving with regret. It's like a sob caught in your chest, grief.

Originally, the song was a duet with a completely different vocal melody but when Maya joined the band I went back to it and worked on a stronger cello line, something to suit Maya's style of playing which is very confident and strident. The rest of the song fell into place around the cello. I watched
The Dream Life of Angels again and I re-wrote the lyrics to read like a nursery rhyme.

Basil plays ten mandolin tracks on three mandolins at the end. Brian, the engineer, said that the last "I never feel..." was a Leo Sayer moment, which I'm quite proud of.

I love playing this live - it breathes and it feels very powerful.

CARVE A PATTERN

I bought a rattly old piano in 2003 and I came up with the melody for "Carve A Pattern" the day I got it - I don't think I ever wrote anything else on that piano. Butcher Boy aren't really a band for jamming but we used to rehearse this song a lot, just because it was such good fun to play. I've
got a ten-minute long recording of us playing it in my old front room and by the end of the song we were hamming it up so much it's like the finale of a Broadway musical.

This was always going to be the most pop song on the record - I wanted it to be really sharp and snappy. The last chord originally rang out for twenty seconds, like A Day In The Life, and there are lots of little nods to different songs I love in it. Brian said that the backing vocals in the chorus are like Satellite Of Love but I think they're more like Mr Sandman
by the Chordettes. They're both odd and unsettling songs though; either one is good enough for me.

YOU'RE ONLY CRYING FOR YOURSELF

I distinctly remember humming the melody for this one afternoon while we were recording our first record. There seemed to a big leap between the verse and the chorus melodies and I originally thought it could be a call
and response song.

This song was pieced together in the studio much more than the others. We ended up trying to lighten it a lot, as it had ended up sounding very ominous and serious. We swapped from upright piano to Rhodes and chopped out a lot of the strings.

I used to see a man busking on saxophone around Glasgow a lot and, for a while, I harboured a fantasy I would ask him in to play some chops and then open up with a solo at the end. We never did it, but I maintain it would've worked! We had a whistle signalling the end section too, which was meant to
be a little nod to Felicity but we decided to cut it.

We used Brian's Moog for the end section - the overall feel of the song was meant to be like Del Shannon's Runaway and we were trying to get close to that high organ sound.

ANYTHING OTHER THAN KIND

This was, mostly, a really old song I wrote at the end of 1998 called Sugar Shock, but we changed a lot of the arrangement and the vocal melody and lyrics are different.

I wrote it when I was living in Sheffield. I had the attic room and you could see for thirty miles out of the window - it was really magical. I used to write songs on an old keyboard called an ARP Quartet - it was very limited and unreliable but had a really beautiful, gentle piano tone. Everything came out sounding like it was recorded in the woods.

I wrote the words to this sitting in Queens Park. The music is very gentle and so I wanted to unsteady it a little. I'm happy that it can read as a piece of prose - it sits beside "There Is No-One Who Can Tell You Where You've Been" from our first record.

Alison plays piano strings on this, and Alison, Basil and I wrote the oboe part together one Sunday morning... the song really needed an oboe! It sounds like woodcuts to me, and ink, and a very heavy sky.

THIS KISS WILL MARRY US

We were going to call the album this - it's like an unwritten Burns poem.

This is another old song - I recorded a version of it at Ca Va in 2001 along with I Know Who You Could Be (which was on Profit In Your Poetry) and two songs we¹ve not released yet called Juicy Fruit and Mouchette. Again, the ARP was a key part in writing it - originally, the little piano riff
repeated over and over again. I recorded the first demo on Halloween 2001 and I've got lovely memories of that.

We recorded the sea sounds at Irvine beach on New Year's Day, 2008 - we got about 15 minutes worth, inciting the seagulls with a goat's cheese tart. I also wanted to get the sounds of sails slapping against masts but, strangely, all the boats were out of the harbour that day.

The introduction to This Kiss Will Marry Us was originally another old song- one I'd forgotten about and found going through cassettes when I was moving house. I used to catalogue the songs I wrote but this one had no title or date - I think it was from the same times as When I'm Asleep though, when I was trying to write sea shanties on melodica.

Alison plays the piano strings again, and the Rhodes too... I wanted it have the feeling of uneasiness you get from the gentler songs on the Assault On Precinct 13 soundtrack, which are warm and incredibly cold and detached at the same time. That's how the song feels to me - being aware of the structure and purpose of emotion but not knowing how it works at all.

A BETTER GHOST

Musically this was, by far, the easiest song to write for the record - the whole song fell into place in about five minutes. I was watching the 2007 Scottish Cup Final in the house with my pal Iain at the time, and we'd got sandwiches and coffee and cake from a place called Espresso, which is one of
my favourite places to eat. I was probably feeling pretty happy and satisfied.

The lyric to this one is my favourite on the record - I wanted to use the phrase "a better ghost" for ages but couldn't exactly work out what it would mean. It came eventually though... I remember reading that birds can flock
and fly in formation because they have magnets in their bones. I don't know if that's true or not but I liked the idea.

We made a video for this song with our pals Keith and Allison. There is a real feeling of tenderness between them in the video which I really love. The song tries to be tender, but stoic too.

CLOCKWORK

I can barely play piano and Alison and I more or less got here by trial and error and me humming everything. There is a chord change in the instrumental section that's consciously All Of My Heart by ABC and the general feel I was hoping for was Vince Guaraldi.

This is definitely the most complicated song for us to play! Findlay is an incredible drummer - we're constantly in awe of how quickly he can pick things up, interpret them, and then make them entirely his own. We ended up with a samba current all the way through this, blocks, congas... I was playing a guitar rhythm I'd cribbed off the Miracles and Basil is playing this really beautiful, bluesy little riff... It's on our agenda now to learn how to actually play it together.

The cornet players from Kings Park Brass Band play on the second half of this song - when we'd completed the instrumental I couldn't quite believe we'd come up with it all.

WHY I LIKE BABIES

This is another old song - I wrote it in the summer of 2000. It's changed a little musically since then, but oddly for me the lyrics are pretty much intact. I like the line "I watch with tired eyes as you seduce yourself" -that's the mood for the song.

As a band we were actually playing this before much of the material for our first record was finished, but we struggled to get it to hang together properly. We tweaked the drums though - it's got a little stutter and roll from The Train From Kansas City by the Shangri Las in there now - and it suddenly worked.

Originally, the song started with guitar and vocals but we worked on a different introduction... We wanted it to sound like the Carpenters. Basil's guitar makes it more Candy Says... and we managed to get some use out of the studio Mellotron in the middle eight.

We gave the clock we used at the end of this song to Ulla, who did all the artwork for the record.

SUNDAY BELLS

I wrote this, as Sparks, in about 1999 in a batch of about six songs in two weeks. Originally it was a real rant - I couldn't get the words out fast enough. We started working on it again when we were on tour in October 2007 and actually got round to sound checking it a few times.

I rewrote the words last summer. I always found the sound of Sunday Bells quite ominous - they remind me of being little and having the quilt pulled up to my eyes.

Basil's guitar reminds me of Don't Fear The Reaper; the Hammond reminds me of I Will Die With My Head In Flames; Findlay's drumming is as precise as disco and we put in a deliberate little nod to Blue Monday going into the
last verse.

REACT OR DIE

Again, this song was written and pretty much ready before "Profit In Your Poetry" but I wanted to save it for a second album.

The song started out as a poem I'd written about a Diane Arbus photograph. It was of a couple of married kids in Washington Park Square in New York...
They were babies, but furious and utterly defiant to the camera. The poem was more about how I imagined that type of person.

I wrote it when I was on holiday in Philadelphia in 2005. I had a rare moment on that holiday - it was Halloween and I was walking. It was warm, I was just off the campus at Penn University. It was about 4pm and the sun had started to drop and suddenly the angle of the light and the shadows on the building opposite was perfect. It was so beautiful and still and it literally felt I had spent my whole life waiting for that moment. And it felt like the end of something... it's not explicitly connected, but because I was working on this song at the time, this song reminds me of that moment. It's apt that it's the last song on the record.

When the brass band come in it's meant to sound like the lights of miners' hard hats appearing over the hill. Alison arranged that little piece and it brings a lump to my throat.
I really enjoy songs that are less than two minutes long.

React Or Die is out in the UK on the 6th of April 09 viasmashing indie/club imprint How Does It Feel To Be Loved? The album comes with a 16 page booklet and liner notes by John Blain Hunt. Here's a tracklist:

"A Better Ghost" will be the second single, out 23/03/09.
Orginally published here:
http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=3149&type=Features

Orphans & Vandals- Mysterious Skin

Orphans and Vandals are an epic indie/folk poetic five piece from London. With a bit of luck, this year they could take over your airways. Led by the ridiculously talented singer/guitarist Al Joshua and song writing partner bassist Raven, with Francesca and Quinta on strings, percussion and glockenspiel, and Gabi on drums, the band are adept at painting vivid string augmented worlds influenced by their disconnection, confusion, of their experiences in modern life, J G Ballard and The Velvet Underground, the brutal inner lives at the heart of their London home and their journeys to Paris. Their finest moment so far is the emotionally exhausting epic ten minute symphony Mysterious Skin, which is stupendous and life affirming cinematic instrumentation that rises and falls like the wild tide, below Al's sprawling stream of consciousness. It pierces your heart and calls to mind the seedy urban poetry of Lou Reed, the sexual ambiguity of Rimbaud, and the half spoken/half sung working class humanism of Jarvis Cocker, moving from intricate emotional details to the huge foreboding underbelly of the city, back to a stranger's bed (a boy or a girl? Who knows.) toward a literal sexual climax, into sky scraping chanted refrains, propelling rambunctious rhythm sections, huge stirring violins musical saw, and harmonium, flailing to a cacophony.Orphans and Vandals create romantic music of the street; harsh, dangerous, melancholic yet heartbreakingly euphoric all at the same time. It has the ability to transport you into a scene of deep personal introspection and back out into the universal within a few literary couplets. They are seeking to add a whiff of realism, emotion and humanity to modern rock music in 2009, which would be a special feat indeed. Orphans and Vandals will release their debut album in April 09.

KASMs Interview

Fearsome self styled "Shriekbeat" act KASMs are London-based Rachel Mary Callaghan, Gemma Fleet, Scott R. Walker and Rory Brattwell. All four members have been other bands: Rachel was the singer in spazzcore band Sin o the East, along with Rory on guitar; Gemma was in London based grunge-pop band Wolfie; Scott was in an ethnic/improv band called Aum Sahib and Rory was in quite a few bands, the most well known being short-lived NME favorites Test Icicles.

During their first year together they have played in New York, Paris, Berlin, Milan and toured the UK with contemporaries Televised Crimewave. They signed to Trouble Records (birthplace of acts such as Crystal Castles) in April 2008 with their first two singles 'Taxidermy' (which sold out all 2000 copies, touching number 12 in the charts) and the primal suggestions of recent single 'Bone You' convinced us that KASMS were a band to be reckoned with, At one moment grasping at the juddering Halloween punk of The Cramps, and allying it to the progressive aggression of Sonic Youth and shaking you out of your stupor.

GIITTV's Bill Cummings and Fliss Collier caught up with KASMs hypnotic front-woman Rachel Mary Callaghan who has been accused of making "assaults on photographers and members of the audience" (The Guardian, January 2009) for a chat about life in one of Britain's most propulsive new noisy bands.

Hello, how are you today?

Hey, I'm great thanks. Had a really long lay in.

Why the name KASMs?

Because we are deep maan, well we were gonna call ourselves VOM, which is not so deep but we had an argument about that and we half heartedly agreed to call ourselves Kasms.

Who plays in Kasms and what do they do?

Gemma Fleet plays bass, Rachel Callaghan on vocals/noises, Rory Brattwell on drums/guitar and Scott Walker on guitar/drums (not at the same time).

You met each other at a gig; do you recommend this as a place to find musical accomplices? Or are internet band classifieds a better route?


I never really understood the classified ad thing, I only ever see ads like: "band with upcoming gigs requires guitarist influence include: Slayer, REM, Oasis and Stone Temple Pilots." I don't see the attraction to join that band. I think you are much better off starting a band with friends who you have a similar music taste to, regardless of their musical ability.

What makes Kasms different proposition from other acts you may have been a part of?

Kasms is a lot more natural to other bands that we have been in. There is not one person writing the songs and a big masterplan, we all go into a room and make a big racket and it just works itself out. We have a pretty relaxed approach to the way we write our stuff.

What gives you the impetus to go so wild on stage?

They lock me in a dark box and the only time I see the outside world is for gigs so I get a bit excited and like to make the most of it.

So far I believe you've been recording your work live, what do you think this brings to the recordings? And do you tire like us of over produced music that's had the guts removed from it?


That’s the reason why we tried to keep it as live as possible, we wanted our record to be a document of how we are and how we sound live. All bands first records should be like this. Spending two months getting every instrument take perfect then taking the song to pieces and jigsawing it back together and finishing it off with a slab of auto-tuned vocals doesn't make a very exciting listening experience in our opinion.


There's a few good noisy new bands about at the moment - any favourites?

Male Bonding, Not Cool, Health, The Pharoahs, Cold Pumas, HTRK. The list could go on, there seems to be a lot of good bands at the moment (all with
varying degrees of noisyness) it makes a nice change.

What do you make of this so called 'Goth' revival people are tagging onto you and various other new acts?

Its not really something we want to be a part of, our music has certain dark elements but I would never call us a goth band. When we started out playing gigs we tended to play with a lot of the same bands each week, bands which they now say are part of this gothic/ darkwave movement or whatever you want to call it. Out of all of those bands there are probably only one or two which you could call 'gothic'. We definitely like goth and it's not insulting to be described as gothic but we don't sound anything like the Sisters of Mercy.

Are there enough women in music right now? Does/ should gender matter?

I think there is a hell of a lot of women in music today and gender is really not an issue these days. Obviously woman in bands will always struggle with pervy old dudes trying take photos up their skirt but I don't see any reason why girls can't make music and as far as I can see there's nothing holding them back these days.

Is music a healthy occupation these days – what things would you like to change to make things better for the artist?


Haha I don't know if the word health would spring to mind. If anything my health deteriorates with each gig, I counted 7 bruises on my leg the other day after a gig. Obviously if you are looking to make a lot of money then a career in music is probably not your best bet. It’s a shame that no one buys records anymore but on the upside at least the majority of people will be making it for the love of it and not for the cash.

Are you ambitious to express yourselves and get yourselves heard, or to sell loads of records? Or maybe both at the same time eh? It might be nice.


We want as many people as possible to hear our music, that’s what we made it for. If we sell anything on the way that’s a bonus!

So you've got this new single out 'Bone You' it's really primal, it grabs you round the throat from its first bar, was that your intention? Is there a sexual inspiration behind the track? Or Have I completely misread that if so I’m currently blushing?

I guess the sexual connotations are obvious, Kasms is a very primal sounding band, we like that you noticed that. If it was any more primal we'd have to get a gorilla on timpanis!



How far along are you with the album? When can we expect it to be released?

DONE! It's called 'Spayed' and its gonna be out April 27th on Trouble Records.

Many Thanks

KASMs release their much anticipated debut album 'SPAYED' through Trouble Records on May 4th.

See KASMs live:
March
14th Reading Oakford (Plan B night)
28th London 93ft East
April
16th Nottingham Radar
17th Winchester Railway
24/5th London Camden Crawl

http://www.myspace.com/kasms

Orginally published here:
http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=3130&type=Interviews

AKIRA THE DON VS STREETFIGHTER

GIITTV's Bill Cummings spoke exclusively to ace Welsh rapper/remixer Akira The Don(born Adam Narkiewicz).

His second album 'The Life Equation" is released later this year, which he promises is 'a massive pop record - massive and pop like New Order, or Meatloaf, or The Supremes'In advance he's put together an exclusive free track to celebrate the release of Street Fighter 4.

Appropriately named 'Street Fighter', another idiosyncratic joint from the magician of samples, featuring three rappers skitting on Childhood fights it's a grimey slice of old school hip-hop containing mashed up sound bites from the classic 90s arcade title.

If you ever played Street Fighter back in the day, at home on your SNES or in a grubby seafront arcade, this is going to be a big nostalgia trip - check it out here:

http://www.akirathedon.com/2009/02/music-akira-the-don-ft-big-narstie-littles-lickle-p-streetfighter-i-will-f-u-up/


Why the love for Streetfighter? What's your favourite character?


Street Fighter was the second beat em up I ever played. the first was some Karate Kid thing, which pretty much Sucked Balls... So discovering Street Fighter, and the Spectrum version adapted for the Sam Coupe at that, was something of a revelation. It was all animey-ey, like Ulyses and those cartoons that were on at the time that I loved. It was just dope... And for some worrying reason (probably the same one for which I gravitated towards Voldo in Soul Calibur), I was big on Dhalsim. He was just the sickest thing. Levitating and punching you in the balls from six feet and shit.

So how did the Streetfighter track come about? Did they approach you or did you always hanker after remixing the sound effects on the game?

They got in touch to see if I fancied getting my hands on the sound effects and parts and stuff, and I totally did. Weirdly (or not, depending on how much faith you have in Idea Space, or Collective Consciousness, or whatever you call it), I'd been doing a bunch of computer game themed/sampling stuff for a rapper called Pixel, and I'd wanted to get the Street Fighter parts for a while. The music was this brilliant, epic, pop stuff, totally synthetic but still warm. I was always drawn to that sort of thing.

What was the lyrical set up?I heard you took inspiration from school yard fights?

Yeah, exactly. Littles, Narstie and Lickle P were round, listening to music and chopping up bags of weed with my hairdressing scissors, and we got to talking about all the fights we got into at school, and that became the song.


Tell us about the rappers that appear on the track?

Well, there's Big Narstie from Brixtol, who I've been making music with since 2004. He's brilliant, a very funny, very genuine, very talented guy. We've just finished recording his debut album here at Don Studios. It's a beautiful, tragic, horrific future-pop record, which I believe he's titling An Exceedingly Good Cake.

Littles is a good friend of mine, and a dope emcee. We've made a lot of music together these past few years... I recorded both his mixtapes here. He's been on tag for about 5 months and has to be home for 7, but we've still made a load of music regardless. he gets on with stuff, whatever. He's ace. Lickle P is a mate of his, we only met recently. He's part of Juelz Santana's Skull Gang thing. I love his voice, it sounds double tracked when it isn't.

How about the new album when is that due to drop now?I heard you lost a hard drive?

I lost three hard drives in a week! 6 years of work! Dead to dodgy electrics and poverty! I am ZenNinja-fied though so I didn't even swear. I just made new stuff. The album wasn't too affected anyway, cos its all on Stephen Hague's machines, and he's old school so he backs everything up fifteen times and ships one drive off to California to be locked in a wine cellar and that sort of thing.

Anyway, the record is awesome, thanks for asking. Its called The Life Equation. I wanted to make a massive pop record - massive and pop like New Order, or Meatloaf, or The Supremes, and we've more than achieved that. Its being mixed right now, by the aforementioned Dr Hague, and I'm working on the mixtape that comes before it, which is called The Omega Sanction. That drops in March.

Could you give us a direct link to the track?

Here ya go. AKIRA THE DON FEAT BIG NARSTIE, LITTLES AND LICKLE P- STREETFIGHTER
We're doing a remix competition for the thing - I've upped all the Street Fighter sounds and effects and the acapella on my site, for people to play with. I am excited to hear what people come up with, cos my peoples' stuff is always awesome.

Good luck and thanks

Thank you brother!

Akira The Don releases his new album "The Life Equation" later this year(its preceeded by the mixtape in March).

Street Fighter 4's released on 20th February

Orginally published here:

http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=3113&type=Interviews