As if it’s bloody March already?! Alongside our bumper playlist for the year (bringing together everything we’ve been loving from January through to now), the ‘Listening Post’ returns this month and it’s full of the good stuff!
Ease into spring with our March playlist – 20 tunes, old and new – featuring everything that’s been tickling our fancy of late. Be sure to tell your friends / family / pets too!
The hype for South-London-based sextet Tapir! hadn’t gone unnoticed here at Birthday Cake ForBreakfast HQ, and their brilliantly titled debut album ‘The Pilgrim, Their God and The King Of My Decrepit Mountain‘ is quite the triumph. With shades of BC:NR and Caroline in the mix, ‘My God’ is a heavenly heart-swelling piece that really hits one in the feels.
Having wooed us with their 2019 Sub Pop debut, ‘Junior‘, Montreal outfit Corridor reemerge in 2024 with a new album out next month (which rather cutely is named after the guitarist / vocalist’s cat). Whilst my Duolingo French hasn’t quite got me up to speed on the lyrics, the cinematic ‘Mourir Demain’ is a real slice of loveliness from the quartet where they ruminate on the march towards death.
How’s this for a speedy formation? Having met on a dating app in 2021, Aussie musicians Imogen Grist and Marcus Gordon not only tied the the knot in swift fashion, they also started a band too. Inspired by the likes of Nancy & Lee and Sonny & Cher, their latest single ‘Knife’ is a real hypnotic treat, like the track over the end credits of some bittersweet love story.
Having previously appeared on these very pages mid-Covid 19, around the release of ‘Lip Critic II’, New York electro-punks Lip Critic return off the back of signing to tastemakers Partisan Records with the head-spinner that is recent single ‘The Heart’. Rapid doesn’t cut it, this is one to get the heart rate up.
Four years on from the release of ‘I Am Moron’ (with collaborations with Iggy Pop and Pigsx7 in-between), two-headed Northern noise makers The Lovely Eggs return to 2024 with a new album ready to go! Lead single ‘My Mood Wave’ is properly lovely and calls to mind the fuzz-pop we loved so much from Leeds lot Menace Beach.
Wait a minute, you’re telling me Barry Hyde – him out of our favourite group The Futureheads – did an Ivor Cutler covers record?! Big Ivor Cutler fan. Massive Barry Hyde fan. What a match made in heaven. Whereas Cutler’s original was a quirky twee thing, Hyde really puts a lovely spin on it. Magic.
Now this – this is your kitchen dancing DEVO record, I reckon. Just the other evening I was cooking in the kitchen, breaking off to energetically dance with our Plummer Terrier to cuts from the incredibly 80s sounding ‘Shout’. ‘Puppet Boy’ is catchier than that 100 day cough that’s been doing the rounds.
Due to the haze of the pandemic, it feels like the last METZ record ‘Atlas Vending’ came out only a few months ago, rather than almost four years ago (!) Time playing tricks the way it does, METZ returned at the tail end of February to take our minds off it with not one, but TWO new singles from a forthcoming new album! ’99’ just clinches it for us, a raging return with a chorus heavy on the repetition that just won’t quit!
Upon hearing ‘Riding Cobbles’ for the first time, it came as no surprise to hear Cate Le Bon was involved in the making of A. Savage’s latest record, ‘Several Songs About Fire’. Full of quirks, this sounds very much like something you’d hear on a DRINKS record (the Le Bon collaboration with Tim Presley of White Fence), full of plink-plonk instrumentation and dreamy dual vocals.
I don’t know how it happened, but BBC Radio 3 is now a regular fixture in my weekday mornings and Saturday afternoons. Love that ‘J to Z’! ‘Grow’ was a recent discovery from it, a riveting jazz bopper from the team at Planet Q, the collaboration between players Kyoko Takenaka and Tomoki Sanders, two artists from the Japanese diaspora.
All this talk of artists not having released a record for three or four years – Liverpudlian lot Ex-Easter Island Head have not had a new album out since 2016! Last month saw the quartet release the title track from their forthcoming new album ‘Norther’ (out May via Rocket Recordings) and first impressions call to mind the type of instrumental wizardry that blew us away on that last Horse Lords record. Spellbinding bit of kit, this!
The Fall – No Bulbs 3 (Call For Escape Route)
Fell into a bit of a Mark E. Smith lyrics rabbit hole just the other day learning about ‘No Bulbs 3’. Is it about a junkie? Is it really about someone unable to find a belt to hold their trousers up in a messy flat? Whatever the case, it’s an infectious piece from one of my favourite lineup eras of the Northern leg-ends.
What a dream this is from British-Nigerian artist and composer TonyNjoku. From a new EP out this May (via the ever dependable PRAH Recordings), ‘La Ruée‘ is engrossing from note one, a classical piece that isn’t afraid to blur the lines with electronic and ambient leanings.
Part of the Sub Pop Singles Club to start off the year, it’s always a joy to hear new music from London based trio Vanishing Twin. ‘Life Drummer’ is a moody banger that hardly lets up, its abstract lyrics adapted from a chapter from ‘The Listening Book’ by W.A. Mathieu.
Following the release of their debut single ‘The Giant‘ in October 2023, Southern lot Pencil set phasers to stun with their delightful new single ‘The Window’. The first act from Moshi Moshi Records’ relaunched Singles Club, the new single reminds us of some of the loveliness encountered on Modern Nature records. Nice to see Cai Burns in the mix too, the ex-Kagoule guitarist / vocalist whom we’ll always have time for.
Hearing this for the first time the other week, I thought Ouija Psych Pop super group TheMoonlandingz had a new single out! Sadly not, but this is just as good – a trippy, psych adventure called ‘Moon Pale and Moon Gold’ from multi-instrumentalist Jennifer Baron and all her mates.
We loved William Doyle’s ‘Great Spans of Muddy Time’ record from 2021, so were chuffed up to hear the Londoner had a new album on the way this year. The snappy ‘Now In Motion’ is a cucumber cool burst of wonky art-pop that sounds like Field Music at their best.
Yeti Bones and theOGM, the New Jersey duo Ho99o9, explode into 2024 with the nails ‘A Machine Of’, a brutal blend of hardcore, industrial and hip-hop that makes one want to punch a hole in the sun on its heaviest moments. Ahead of its release, the pair’s socials suggested we “brace for impact” – too right!
It’s getting silly now with Leeds, isn’t it? For years now, all the new and super exciting outfits seem to have emerged from Leeds and we can’t get enough of them! On ‘R&B’, taken from their forthcoming debut album ‘This Could Be Texas’, band of the moment English Teacher explore ideas of imposter syndrome on a moody post-punk number that calls to mind fellow Leeds lot Drahla.
Yet another wonk-pop winner from the forthcoming Dana Gavanski album ‘LATE SLAP’. We’ve compared the London based artist to Cate Le Bon before (and to be honest, I can see us doing it again and again), but we can assure you that such a comparison is a huge compliment. Funnily enough though, it’s actually Talking Heads that provided the influence on this one, which is just as good!
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One can never know what to expect when meeting musicians for an interview. 90% of the time you’ll get diddly squat in the refreshment stakes – which is fair, obviously – whilst some (like Anna Burch) might give you a belt of whisky to sit with or others (like Jason of Allusondrugs) might offer you a rider beer to enjoy. Occasionally some might just stand with the guitar on their person and mumble through five minutes of questioning, but the less said about that the better.
Meeting Jamie Lenman in late November, he’d graciously anticipated my arrival and made me a cup of tea, which I unfortunately had to decline (as tea is horrid). Not to be outdone, he soon knocked up a coffee (with choice of non-dairy milk) and having introduced me to his team, suggested we conduct the interview from the bunk beds backstage (lying down, Red Dwarf style) in the labyrinth of the Deaf Institute.
“There’s a lot more chin-stroking than moshing than there has been previously,” He says when we eventually get set up, sat across from each other on the same bunk bed as I put to him a line of questioning whilst trying not to scold myself. “Which took a while to get used to, but when I constructed the set – designed to showcase some of the deeper cuts of the new record – I was sort of expecting that.”
Manchester would end up being the penultimate show of a thirteen date UK tour, which included several spots Lenman hadn’t ventured to previously as a solo act. The last time he was in touring mode, for 2017’s ‘Devolver’ – shows including on stage drum battles where Jamie himself would hop behind the kit – he tells me it was the first tour to focus on a concept, whilst this time around the shows have delved deeper than ever before.
“As it goes on, I’ve done so many tours now, the way I live and the way I work, I can’t really afford to just go on stage and have a grab bag of songs and shout ‘1 2 3 4’ to the rest of the band like we used to do with Reuben. Everything has to be sort of slightly more considered, so more or less against my will, the way I tour now is to construct a show – with a capital S – and then stick to that.”
(Photo Credit: Scott Chalmers)
Whilst the old saying suggests it might be grim up this way, the North has been notably warm and welcoming for Lenman and new drummer Jack Wrench (ex-Arcane Roots), with him acknowledging that venues are packed out, particularly in Scotland (where they’ve always been kind to him). A relief no doubt given the planning and set-up.
“It’s more like a show than a gig… It is quite meticulous, we work very hard on it – I work very hard trying to work out what goes where and as a result I think this one is, like I say, a bit more for the chin-strokers than the moshers.”
Given his back catalogue and stint in a cult favourite band (“Don’t do it. Oh, you can bring it up – don’t ask me when they’re getting back together…”), one assumes that putting together a setlist for each live show can become a tall order and unsurprisingly, he suggests the construction of this and the performance itself can take even more time than actually making an album.
“…With the album you’ve only got a set of fourteen songs to consider, to construct and whatever.” He says. “But then if you’re going on tour – I’ve made six records now, counting Reuben records and my own records – you wanna concentrate on the album that you’re touring, but you don’t want it to be exclusive… You wanna try and represent something from each of your records, so everyone gets what they wanna hear.”
(Photo Credit: Scott Chalmers)
The tour – his only tour of the year – came off the back of new album ‘Shuffle’, so he’s understandably had a lot on his plate. Elsewhere though, he’s had quite the eventful 2019. Following support slots for the likes of Biffy Clyro and appearances at Download and Reeperbahn festivals the year prior, 2019 saw intimate invite only performances, album listening experiences, the ‘Lenmania II’ stage takeover at 2000trees Festival, record shop in-stores, fronting Black Peaks at ArcTanGentFestival and even a showing at Glastonbury in summer.
“When you put it like that, yeah I hadn’t realised. It sort of all goes through me but yeah, the roundup – we did some big things didn’t we? I was playing with some new drummers as well, which is a challenge, but an enjoyable challenge. Yeah we did a lot of stuff didn’t we… sorry, what was your question?” He says with a laugh.
‘Shuffle’ – fourteen reinterpretations of famous and not-so-famous music from the world of film, literature, video games and TV – is an album that at the time we called “an exciting, interesting and genuinely refreshing new concept.” The genre-shifting album includes reworkings of songs from The Beatles to Cyndi Lauper, Yorkshire chansonnier Jake Thackray to a scene from short film ‘Always Crashing in the Same Car’, acted out alongside its original star Paul McGann. ‘Adamantium Rage’ – a cover of the theme music from the ‘Wolverine: Adamantium Rage’ video game, a personal Lenman childhood favourite – began to take shape back in 1995 when Jamie recorded a demo on a tape cassette recorder at the moustache-free age of 12.
“I suggested doing it before ‘Muscle Memory’/instead of ‘Muscle Memory’, because I was a little bit shy about going out with my new material on my own.” Says Jamie of its official germination. “I actually thought a record of covers – which is not why I did it – but at the time, I thought that might be quite a good way to introduce myself through sort of the guise of great songs that people might know.”
Producer Space (Idles producer, amongst others) nixed the initial ideas, suggesting ‘Muscle Memory’ and ‘Devolver’ were the best way forward for Jamie at that time, choosing the strength of original material over covers at that point in his career.
“…By the time we actually did ‘Shuffle’, that was my third bite at the cherry and I was pretty convinced that that had to be the record.” He continues. “The other times I’d been successfully persuaded to do something different, by people I trusted and I agree was the right… I’m still not convinced ‘Muscle Memory’ was the right move to make, but ‘Devolver’ definitely was. Whereas this time there was no option, because it was all that I could see – all that was in my windscreen. It would’ve been incredibly hard to turn the creative ship around to try and do something else. So I’m glad we did it when we did it.”
(Photo Credit: Joe Singh – Snap Rock And Pop)
“Lots of other people have said don’t do it and I felt pretty sure that Space would understand.” Continues Jamie, lamenting that when even Space said no, he considered shelving ‘Shuffle’ in favour of looking into other projects for a further three months. Whilst other projects did come about upstairs, he was unable to completely focus his attention, with everything coming back to ‘Shuffle’.
“That is a little bit what I felt like I was doing.” Lenman says of the potential for half arsing it.“When Space said just write another twelve songs, I was like – it’s not really how I work.” He chuckles.
“Space is an amazing animal and if you give him three months or even a month and say write me an incredible twelve tracks that run the gambit of all your feelings and sound brilliant, he could probably do it. But that’s not how I work and I sort of have to wait for inspiration to strike.” He continues. “All of my originals albums – and in fact, all of ‘Shuffle’ – As you heard from that demo when I was twelve, I have been working on ‘Shuffle’ for twenty five fucking years. It’s the same with every record I put out, it takes a long time to gradually come to fruition.”
Working with Space again was a no brainer for Lenman and when we talk of the in demand producer, he has nothing but kind words to say (regardless of Space knocking back the idea of ‘Shuffle’ on more than one occasion!)
“When we were in the studio, I probably had more fun making ‘Shuffle’ than any other record, because we were playing with all these beautiful toys that other people had gifted to us.” He says. “…There was a stressful side to it, but when we were actually in the studio making it and I had him all to myself, it was wonderful. He’s got so many strings to his bow and he’s being pulled in so many directions that quality time with Space is a rare commodity and something I treasure highly.”
In parallel to the past 12 months that Lenman has had, Space himself has been equally as busy (“He’s doing stuff you wouldn’t believe.”) From releasing debut album ‘Never Not Nothing’ for his own band, electro-punk act Black Futures, to their own headline tour, whilst balancing a period of likely exhaustion and becoming ill during the production of ‘Shuffle’ (“He turned up to the studio a couple of times when he really should have been in intensive care…”)
A few months back, Black Futures played HMV in Manchester to a small crowd of people, still putting in a shift and treating it like one of their headline shows, regardless of turnout. Discussing this with Lenman he looks as if he knew I was going to bring it up, knowing the thought process and graft Space puts into his work. Highlighting ‘Get In The Van’, Henry Rollins’ story of touring with Black Flag, he brings up the story of one instance in which the band played to a crowd of no one and yet still treated it like a huge show.
“That’s the attitude that I try to keep in mind and Space also keeps in mind.” He says. “I hope my energy levels or my disillusionment if I have any never gets the better of me and I hope I never deliver what is a substandard performance, despite what is happening in the audience.”
A personal highlight from the new Jamie Lenman record came with the realisation that ‘Killer’ is the title of the incredible 90’s number one hit single from Seal and Acid House DJ and producer Adamski. With that up his sleeve just two songs in, I put it to him that constructing the tracklisting must have been nearly as painstaking as a live show setlist.
“No it wasn’t that hard.” He suggests, noting that whilst a few other tracks were considered early on, they didn’t go much further due to not being particularly different to how the original had sounded. “I couldn’t think of anything that I could really add to it, so I thought there’s not really much point. So what we ended up with, the fourteen tracks, were all the ones that I really felt like I wanted to put my own flavour on.”
Two that did make the cut are the sorts that on paper may have upset the apple cart, but versions of Beatles classics ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and ‘Hey Jude’ are different enough to not warrant horror from traditionalists. Or at least that’s what we thought.
“WHO said that?” Says Jamie with a smirk. “I’ve heard nothing but complaints about ‘Hey Jude’. My managers hated it.”
Whilst his managers may have hated the original version of ‘Hey Jude’ (one even providing unflinching initial feedback at the start of a meeting – “I don’t like Hey Jude”), it does come with the explanation that the unmixed, unmastered demo did consist of mostly six minutes of lengthy freakout. “To be fair to him, he did hear a very confrontational version.” Says Jamie with a laugh.
Whilst purists might suggest The Fab Four are untouchable, Lenman tells me it was “an absolute exquisite joy” to re-work The Beatles, with no trepidation on his part – other than considerable cuts to ‘Hey Jude’ for the sake of his managers’ well being.
“I believe that it’s a live and living thing that anyone can interact with and that’s the beauty of it, so I didn’t really think about any sacred cows or you shouldn’t mess with, because everyone’s covered The Beatles. They’ve gotta be the most covered artist – I might be wrong about that. I just thought, how can it possibly go wrong with such great materials to start with? I think even if I’d tried to destroy them, it wouldn’t have been possible, so I was fairly confident. I had a whale of a time.”
With the new album, we’re presented with a fully realised journey that the listener embarks on, complete with the sounds of actual shuffling and selecting between songs, as if the listener themselves is actually skipping through artists. This was an idea cooked up by Space, acknowledging that the idea of a covers records was all well and good, but listeners might be confused with the concept if it wasn’t spelled out to them.
“I didn’t see a problem with flipping from ‘Hey Jude’ to ‘The Remembrance’ to all these different styles of music – that’s how I consume music anyway.” Says Jamie. “…In the cold light of day and on paper, I do remember that no one can hear what’s in my brain and that not everyone thinks about stuff the way I do.”
Given the brief, Lenman went away and returned with the concept in place on the album, tying this in with the concept behind the artwork in the process.
“The only potential problem is that you know, the concept of shuffling on an ipod, which is where I saw it from, is itself ten years out of date.” Says Jamie with a smile. “No one has ipods any more, apart from me. But with the rise of playlist culture and Spotify, I think that it’s still just relevant enough for people to get it.”
(Photo Credit: Scott Chalmers)
Artwork wise, rather neatly the CD edition of the album actually shuffles, with little holes in the disc which can be used against the back cover artwork to reveal different logograms. Brilliant, sure, though it’s a shame the concept was unable to stretch to vinyl, no? (“Believe me, I looked into it…”)
Namechecking David McCandless (“the guru of the infographic and the logo design”), Lenman is clearly passionate about graphic design and illustration, his CV notably listing employment for the likes of Dr Who Magazine. Having spent ten years in a design agency in London getting to grips with logo design, it’s something that has always been of interest. “I love a logo, I love an icon.” He says. “To boil down a distinct concept into one tiny image I think is a very pure art.”
Another influence came through the design work of Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons who, amongst other things, created the album artwork for Madness splinter group The Madness and their 1988 self-titled studio album. Gibbons created a series of logograms to represent each track, which Lenman cites as “masterpieces of graphic design” and something to bring into ‘Shuffle’ – a logogram or an icon or a shape or a symbol that defined each track.
“…When the ‘Shuffle’ concept got introduced, I suddenly realised in a terrifying brainstorm – WAIT, what if these images themselves are shuffled, so it’s one image within another image using only a finite number of images less than the number of tracks but they all repeat, so the artwork is shuffled?” Says Lenman, sounding ever so slightly like Charlie Kelly in the infamous ‘Pepe Silvia’ scene in It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. “That was a huge headache to pull out, but I thought I’ve got to try and make this work. Sometimes I only really made it work by the skin of my teeth, some of them are pretty vague, but they all do fit in a sort of warped way. So that was a very big ask to tie those concepts together and I’m pleased that I managed to get away with it. I think it holds up.”
Sounding vaguely similar to the Frank Sidebottom code that was recently uncovered with the release of a film about the late Chris Sievey and his papier mache headed alter ego, I queried if there had been any similar sleuths with the ‘Shuffle’ concept and uncovering hidden meanings.
“I haven’t actually had a lot of feedback from people re the artwork, especially things like the CD where you can shuffle it. I mean, it’s useless really because it’s not like you uncover any secret messages.” He admits. “It’s window dressing really, the artwork, I just want it to be as good as possible. The record is the main thing, but as a designer it’s nice when I’m able to combine the two.”
With artwork still being such an important factor, talk turns to artists putting out any old tat and not caring about what the artwork looks like (have you seen some of The Fall discography or that first Fat White Family album?) Whilst he isn’t a fan of disappointing artwork otherwise, he does see how these things can come about.
“I think there’s a purity in that and sometimes I wish that I could just let the record go out with whatever. The fact that I’m such a control freak makes me unable to…” He admits. “I’d be interested to see what kind of career I would have if I was so focused on just the music I can imagine being in a place where it doesn’t matter what the sleeve says… But I’ll never know that, because I’m so wired into it.”
Holding onto every creative aspect is something to be admired, with a DIY attitude to creative control being something seen more and more these days. For Lenman though, it almost wasn’t the case.
“I had a weird phase at the start, when we did ‘Mississippi’ and just before I signed with Big Scary Monsters, when I sort of launched Jamie Lenman version 2.0 or whatever. I got to the point where I thought it would be nice if someone else did this for a change.”
The idea of having someone else take the reins was attractive for Lenman at that point and he shopped around for a label with an art department, meeting with a number of these labels with a view to develop a theme. Working with Space in a collaborative way and farming the artwork out to others fit in with the ‘Devolver’ period and allowing others in.
“I just thought at that point I’d done it myself for so long, especially after ‘Muscle Memory’, which was a huge artistic mountain to climb, similar to ‘Shuffle’. I was a bit exhausted…” He adds. Ultimately the creative aspect was taken back during the production and promotion of ‘Devolver’ (“Which is in no way impugning the great work that the artists I worked with at the start of the campaign did”) though it clearly offered learning points moving forward.
“My music is so personal.” Adds Jamie. “It’s almost selfish to say to someone else – you figure out what my soul looks like and take a photo of that.”
(Photo Credit: Scott Chalmers)
“What I love about this album is how you don’t know what’s coming next.” We said of ‘Devolver’ at the time of release and the same can be true of the career of Lenman as a whole. Whilst there are inklings as to what may be on the horizon moving forward (new material is in the works, with Manchester being treated to some of it later that night), there’s the small matter of tracking down and arranging time with Space first. Whenever they do get together, one thing is for certain – it likely won’t be a full studio album in 2020.
“I think most people actually – and I’m very grateful for this – have excepted ‘Shuffle’ as my third solo album, not like a bit of fun. It’s album number three, which I always considered it as.” He says. “…Next year would be too soon to bring out a new twelve, thirteen track studio record, so whatever happens to this new material, I don’t wanna do a full LP. The idea of an EP or a mini-album is attractive to me. A nice little *smacks lips* something to mop up the gravy of ‘Shuffle’ and then give me a couple more years at least to make another definitive statement. I think full studio albums should be a definitive statement of where you are at a time. Even though ‘Devolver’ and ‘Shuffle’ occupy a similar sort of space, I wanted them to be sister records, which is why I went with Space again, ‘cus I wanted to have a similar sound. They are their own definitive statement and I think I need a lot more time to properly brew and stew my next one. Does this sound pretentious? A little bit? That’s fine.”
With ‘Shuffle’ being accepted as his third, I put it to him that it now feels like he’s gone beyond the ex-Reuben moniker and after all the hard work, is seen as his own man.
“It’s funny because ‘ex-Reuben’ has started popping up in the descriptions again. It went away a bit, before ‘Devolver’. Just before ‘Devolver’, the Reuben stuff was reaching a fucking fever pitch that was pissing me off and I thought – man, it’s been ten years. I sort of hoped that ‘Muscle Memory’ would stop it all, but it didn’t.” He says. “If I said I wasn’t disappointed, I’d be lying because as much as I love… I’m Reuben’s biggest fan, I don’t think people realise this about me. Reuben was and still is my favourite band of all time, because we made it to be our favourite band. We were huge fans of bands, real band groupies – you know, nerds – we would talk for hours about other bands and every decision we made in that band was designed to reflect what we would like our favourite bands to do. So I love that band, I love playing the songs and I love it when people ask me to sign the cover of ‘Racecar…’ or whatever. I think people get the idea that I want people to shut up about it, but I do want to be Jamie Lenman. I don’t want to be ‘Jamie Lenman (Reuben)’. So that’s what I’m working towards. It feels at the moment like it may have taken a bit of a back step.”
“I suppose as time goes on, the more records I release under my own name, it will be Jamie Lenman and not ‘Jamie Lenman (Reuben)’, which isn’t to say that I don’t look back on those years oddly fondly, because they were painful and depressing and I had an awful time.” Continues Jamie, adding with a smile. “But I’m happy to say that most of my memories of that period are very positive and I enjoy listening to the records and I enjoy hanging out with John and Guy when we see each other.”
Read our review of ‘Shuffle’ here!
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It’s been an absolute whirlwind of a month! With the festival season wrapping up and the weather finally hitting sorchio, it’s also been a massive month for new album releases. As we enter September, there is still one day of the month left and with it brings three cracking album releases that we are about to get stuck into! As always, these records are out to purchase on loads of killer formats, so get to artists online stores or hit up your local indie shop, ya dig?
It’s been seven years since we last heard from The Futureheads and I’ll be honest, there was a moment where I was worried we’d never hear from them again. But lo and behold the start of the year brought us the news that Sunderland’s indie punk heroes were back together working on live shows and new music. After some well attended comeback gigs and a smattering of teaser tracks, we finally have album number six! Comeback single ‘Jekyll‘ offered a dark and angular edge that harked back to the brooding nature of second album ‘News and Tributes’. With this opening the record in a blistering fashion, this certainty sets sets the lyrical tone for ‘Powers’.
Guitarist/vocalist Barry has very openly battled with depression during the bands down time, which naturally leads to pensive and personal words as he recalls past memories, thoughts and feelings (‘Electric Shock‘ definitely hits hard emotionally for me). Musically this combines the urgency of the band’s first two records with the big pop melodies and crisper production that informed their last two full band records (the signature four part harmonies that drove them to make acapella LP ‘Rant‘ are strongly present throughout). It makes sense that after a long creative gap they would write a set displaying all the different sides of the band and this is to the albums strength, that it swerves through several well balanced dynamical shifts. The main thing here is that all four members of this band are brilliant, but what they do as a unit is beyond magical; the vocal interplay, the strength of the melodies, the tightness of the playing – you cannot deny the connection this band has. As expected, ‘Powers‘ is a triumph, it’s their most thoughtful and honest record yet and my lord is it good to have them back.
I’ve been waiting for this album since I first heard Black Futures back in 2017. They’ve spent the past year touring every bar, field and venue going whilst releasing single after single. As an avid follower of the Industrial Punk duo’s movements this past year, it feels like this album is a kind of greatest hits, with only a small number of previously unreleased tracks. It does strike me that this album was completed quite a while back as it works extremely well as a complete piece. The fact that it also works as a set of singles too is really impressive. Musically, this has everything; it’s got the smash and grab rave energy of TheProdigy, the balls out riffs of Royal Blood mixed with the sonic ambition of Nine Inch Nails and Primal Scream (Bobby Gillespie even leads some spoken word vocals on ‘Me.TV‘).
Although most of these songs have been around for a while, they still sound fresh, P.O.S’ verse on ‘Love‘ is still an ace little twist on a huge opener, while the drop on ‘Trance‘ is so incredibly euphoric it still makes me wanna run into the sun. I’m happy to hear that the newer material reaches the same highs as the older singles; ‘Youthman‘ in particular is an excellent mix of M83 style pop and a Chemical Brothers inspired beat down. Recent single ‘Body & Soul‘ is also a similar smash of sounds, with a glam-rock stomp in the verses before late 90’s dance drops in and blows you to smithereens. It strikes me that Black Futures are trying to make the boldest statement they can make with ‘Never Not Nothing‘ and I can safely say that they have fully succeeded; this is the ultimate party soundtrack to the apocalypse.
Having been thoroughly impressed with their two EP releases, I was chuffed to hear that Brighton’s Gender Roles had a debut album in the bag. For a three piece guitar band, they bring a lot of musical depth; at the forefront they write catchy indie rock songs, but listen in and there’s loads more at play. Opening track ‘You Look Like Death‘ begins on a guitar driven build before bursting into a snappy indie pop verse, slowly teasing you into what becomes a proper grunged up chorus, guitars full of fuzz and crash cymbals getting battered. Every song comes up with a different way of catching you off guard, mixing punk-pop pomp with indie rock angularities but always coming in with a huge chorus (there’s actually too many good choruses to mention because every song has one).
You can tell that all three members have studied their vast alt-rock record collections. With them being a younger band, I can hear potentially teenage influences from Tubelord all the way to We Are Scientists, but there’s also a tip of the hat to contemporaries such as Dinosaur Pile-Up, Tigercub and Paws. There’s a strong balance of different rock and punk sub genres embedded that the band blend perfectly and rather effortlessly. But on top of all this, Gender Roles feel like they have their own thing going on. You can tell they’ve worked hard to get their formula right and come up with fresh melodic and dynamic ideas on every track. This is an extremely promising and catchy debut and with a closer as compositionally interesting and genre bending as ‘Bubble‘, Gender Roles are a band you need to back now!
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Since exploding back into our lives six years ago, Jamie Lenman has reemerged as one of the most exciting and uncompromising artists in the UK. Always one to push musical boundaries, his first solo effort was a Jekyll and Hyde like double LP, while its follow up was an industrial pop banger. With Black Futures frontman and Idles producer Space back at the helm, Jamie returns with a new full length but with quite the twist.
It would be really easy to call ‘Shuffle‘ a covers album, I mean, at its core – yes, it is – but it’s so much more than that. To me, a covers record usually acts as an in between album cash cow where artists chuck together a few half baked acoustic covers, but with this, Jamie Lenman throws any notions of this off a big old cliff. To me, this is an album of interpretations and re-workings of things that have inspired and interested Jamie. I say things because this isn’t limited to music.
With ‘Shuffle’ we get an insight into Jamie’s mind, not just as a musician, but as a lover of comic books, video games, literature and film. I can’t think of ever hearing a record that does what this does, one minute he’s tearing apart the ‘Popeye’ theme in planet imploding fashion, the next he’s pouring his heart into a tense reenactment of his favourite scene from a short film.
We flicker from these moments of atmosphere and gloom, with takes on films and video game soundtracks, to these moments of pure, unadulterated fun. Whether it’s the bass driven grooves of ‘Killer’ and ‘She Bop’ or the heavy ass reworking of not one but two Beatles tunes, Lenners covers all bases. Now, It’s been said that covering The Beatles is a big no no, but Lenman puts that now cult post-hardcore spin on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and gives ‘Hey Jude’ a doomy breakdown of a makeover and comes out a champion.
And if that’s not enough to draw you in, the whole album acts as your every day listening session as we listen in to someone actually flicking through their device, hearing their choices and even getting a commentary on these choices. The gypsy folk rendition of ‘A Handsome Stranger Called Death’ by short lived grunge pop act Foe gets introduced with “this is a fucking tune”; it’s the icing on a cake to an already unique record.
‘Shuffle‘ really is an engulfing listening experience. With it, you are sucked into a whole different world, not only are you hearing someone’s personal listening journey but you also get to swim into the creative mindset of Jamie Lenman, go to places that you’ve not been allowed access to before as well as re-familiarise yourself with the very fabrics that make this man such a treasure. I’ve always seen Jamie as an entertainer but this is him pushing that envelope even further than before and coming up with an exciting, interesting and genuinely refreshing new concept.
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As we sprint towards the mid-way point of 2019 (I know, right) the first week of May has some scorchio new releases to kick start the spring. Here is our rundown of the best records released this week, May 3rd. These three picks are all released through amazing labels that you can find online and in selected stores. Please support your local indie or take to the net!
Probably the hardest working rock band in the country, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes have wasted no time in preparing their third album in four years, ‘End Of Suffering‘. For this, The Rattlesnakes aim for a slick rock ‘n’ roll sound that immediately brings to mind latter day Arctic Monkeys. Some of the guitar work could belong in the ‘Humbug’ era; simplistic and full of fizz, while its sleek production exudes the same swagger that made ‘AM’ a modern classic.
Of course, The Rattlesnakes inject their own individuality, adding a punk edge, led fearlessly by the distinctive vocals of Frank Carter. There is no denying that Frank has an excellent voice but he really brings his A game with his most powerful vocal work to date. Combine this with guitarist Dean’s sharp riffery and you have an unstoppable force that clubs together some big rock hits, from the explosive chorus in ‘Heartbreaker‘ to the fist pumping glam rock of ‘Tyrant Lizard King‘, featuring a crazy ass solo from guitar hero Tom Morello.
This is not a straight up rock record by any means, with the albums title track and recent single ‘Anxiety‘ bringing in heady themes of mental survival. The general message I got from the record was the importance of being able to share experiences with those loved and trusted. What The Rattlesnakes have done here isn’t easy to do; they’ve made a heartfelt rock album that turns heartache into hope and still manages to bring in fun-loving arena sized hooks. With even snappier melodies and an even bigger message, ‘End of Suffering‘ will be a breakthrough for Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, bringing them a step closer to taking over the UK rock scene.
For a band based in New York, Big Thief sound so far removed from the so called city that never sleeps. But you could say that they are the perfect antithesis of this perception with their hazy folk sound. Although previous album ‘Capacity‘ smashed the end of year polls back in 2017, my introduction to the band came from hearing guitarist and vocalist Adrianne Lenker’s sublime solo record ‘Abysskiss‘ late last year.
It’s interesting to hear re-imagined versions of two songs from that record on the quartet’s third LP ‘U.F.O.F‘. Not a million miles away from the understated solo stylings of Adrianne, Big Thief bring in graceful instrumentation into the beguiling melody of ‘From‘ and expanding the dream-like gaze of ‘Terminal Paradise‘. There is a strong sense of poise and mystic that Big Thief carry that makes you sit up and tune in and I find myself completely lost in its beauty, especially on the bewildering title track.
Big Thief are not one trick ponies by any stretch and sonically they seem at their most playful and ambitious. The blood curdling screams towards the end of ‘Contact‘ are sure to wake you up, while ‘Strange‘ is a masterclass in ethereal space-pop bliss. It’s easy to immerse yourself into these dreamy indie-folk gems but there is a lot more to sink your teeth into if you listen in close. ‘U.F.O.F.’ is one of those records that reveals itself on each listen and there is no doubt that it will be the best sun basking soundtrack this summer.
Boston alt-rock outfit Pilehave been on my radar for some time now without me really delving into their fairly extensive back catalogue. Now on their seventh album, I feel the need to jump in, particularly with this being touted as the four piece at their most ambitious. Clocking in at 50 minutes, ‘Green and Gray’ spans across a whole arsenal of contrasting sounds and moods designed to keep your mind working.
‘Firewood‘ sets the tone with a spiky guitar hook and a crashing drum track led by the intoxicating vocals of band leader Rick Maguire. Dynamically, this is such an enticing opening especially towards its end, as a pretty, hushed strings section saunters in to then burst into a ripping guitar solo. From then on, we’re thrown through glimpses of majesty (‘Other Moons‘) and utter chaos (‘The Soft Hands of Stephen Miller’) that keeps you well on your toes throughout its 13 tracks.
But it’s when the band combine those elements together that this record really starts to shine. ‘A Labyrinth With No Center‘ is a total highlight, with its sweet and sour guitar melodies entwining together perfectly as Rick comes in again with another thrilling vocal track, full of range and character. There is quite a lot to take in on ‘Green and Gray‘, but oh man it’s one hell of a discordant, expansive and damn right beautiful trip!
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It’s usually a sign of a fun night when you go to a gig unsure of the support and it turns out to be a band you’re super excited about. The elusive Black Futuresopen up this small and sweaty show for the mighty Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes as part of a three week club tour. Black Futures are a band that we’ve had our eye on over the last year, especially after a steady stream of ace singles and some pretty crazy live shows this past festival period. I’m only a fan of bands with gimmicks if it’s done well and Black Futures sure have definitely put a lot of effort into theirs. Firstly, two boiler suited up characters enter the stage, faces covered with masks and sunglasses as they wave two huge flags over the front row. The two members of the band then follow in their own uniform of branded overalls complete with matching caps.
But it’s not just about the visual representation of this band that feels unique, they also have a pretty mad sound. Probably the best way to describe them is like Nine Inch Nails covering Prodigy with the dude from Royal Blood on bass. They mix chunky riffs and catchy vocal lines into this blistering blend of industrial pop, dance and rock. Needless to say, the people of Liverpool are fully on board, with the crowd all jumping about within the first minutes of the set, the two boiler suited characters soon jumping into the crowd and hyping everyone up as the show progresses. You can tell that Black Futures have thought long and hard about creating something that is exciting to both see and hear and with tracks like ‘Trance‘ and ‘Riches‘ offering up moments of pure euphoria, I have a feeling this lot are on the cusp of something a lot larger.
Now onto the main event. So I think it’s fair to say that the rise of Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes has been pretty fucking quick. They’ve achieved a hell of a lot in the four years they’ve been a band and their popularity is growing by the minute. As mentioned previously, tonight sees Frank and co give back to their fearlessly dedicated fan base by hitting up some of the UK’s smaller venues in order to test out new material from their forthcoming third album.
The set opens tonight on comeback single ‘Crowbar’ which has the same chest out, blues rock infused swagger that Arctic Monkeys displayed so well on ‘AM‘. Of course, it’s delivered with a bit more of a punk rock edge and that riff sounds pretty huge in the Arts Club tonight. It’s great to see everyone fully on board with the bands slight shift into a bigger rock n roll vibe – we’re only one tune in and there’s already sweat dripping off the walls.
We get treated to five new songs from ‘End of Suffering’ and as expected, they’re a mix of the heart wrenching (‘Anxiety’) to the damn right riffy (‘Tyrant Lizard’). The crowd are already singing along by the time the last chorus of the latter comes in, sporting a proper Pulled Apart By Horses groove which I dig. The former track is a proper 90’s guitar inspired ballad that deals directly with Frank’s personal mental health problems and on its intro, implores the crowd to speak out if they’re struggling with anything.
Frank has come a long way from the obnoxious punk front man he was and these days comes across with a lot of sincerity and gratitude. There’s no denying that he’s still an amazing front man, as he jumps around the venue, usually carried by his fans as he preaches about love and equality, smiles ablaze.
This is such a great live show, not only is the message right and energy sky high, but the mix of previous records is perfect. From first album ragers like ‘Fangs’ to second album anthems like ‘Lullaby’, the Rattlesnakes hit a spot on balance of tracks to jump and sing in euphoria to or simply scream and mosh the fuck out to! I’ll be honest, this band work best in a small, sweaty venue, but with a new album sounding as massive as it does, the only way is up. I’d say at this point in their career, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes could take on the world.
(Photo credit: Daniel Harris)
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