Nearly Perfect Albums #79

A Call and Response – The Longcut (2006, Deltasonic Records)

Some of you may remember my short lived series called ‘The Future is No Words’ in which each week I selected a piece of music with no words and wrote very little about it. ‘No Words’ you see – well I thought the joke was good – anyway I was going to feature The Longcut on there because when this band started out at Manchester University they got rid of their singer because they wanted to be an instrumental band.  Then they started singing on their new songs anyway.  I bet that just realised that the old singer couldn’t yelp as tremendously as singing keyboardist and drummer (yup a singing drummer who also plays the keyboards, beat that Phil Collins) Stuart Ogilvie can. 

Transition’ was the debut single which I think sounds a bit like Sonic Youth circa ‘Daydream Nation’.  It has this relentlessness about it as it builds (and builds and builds) with a garage rock drum beat and a fuzzy old bass before it gets all flirty and snogs your face off with its brilliance. It really is excellent.

Transition – The Longcut (2006, Deltasonic Records)

Talking of excellent, as the album draws to a close you get ‘Vitamin C’ which is the sort of song I always want to come on the stereo as the sun comes out after driving for an hour in the rain.  It never does.

Vitamin C – The Longcut (2006, Deltasonic Records)

There is also a pretty cool Four Tet Remix of ‘Vitamin C’.

Apparently the band formed after bonding over records by Joy Division and The Fall and after about twenty seconds of the albums epic opener ‘A Last Act of Desperate Men’ you can hear those influences clearly.  The opener is an anxiety charged and menacingly broody number that has a wonderfully taut bassline running through it which meanders about like a gang of bored teenagers (who have probably been shouted at for malingering by Mark E Smith) for about five minutes before going brilliantly bananas. 

The Last Act of Desperate Men – The Longcut (2006, Deltasonic Records)

Let’s go back to the singing shall we – because Ogilvie’s voice is an acquired taste I would imagine.  It is a definite yelp and one that suits the music.  In that he sounds like he is singing from inside a cupboard and they’ve recorded him by mistake.  The vocals play second fiddle to the music that much is clear. 

In fact, the songs which are more about the singing are the albums weaker spots, like on ‘Lonesome No More!’, a ballad of sorts (one that is probably accompanied by a video showing grim landscapes of wastelands of towns in the north after Thatcher closed all the mines) that struggles to be as good as the rest of this record.

Lonesome No More! – The Longcut (2006, Deltasonic Records)

The use of a keyboard allows the band to occasionally wander into something similar to what bands like The Rapture tried (and failed) to do a few years back.  On tracks like ‘The Kiss Off’ the band adopt an almost trancey feel, they almost wander into trip hop territory before dragging themselves back to good old indie post punk.

The Kiss Off – The Longcut (2006, Deltasonic Records)

‘A Call and Response’ was at the time a very forward looking record, every second was cheered by the critics and for a while until they kind of just faded away, they looked like being Manchester’s most exciting band for years.

2023 – The Year so Far Part Seven (or is it eight?)

Ah, summer, you funny old bugger.  At the start of August, my family and I huddled together in a caravan as we struggled to stay warm as the wind and rain battered the southern part of Cornwall.  We moaned as we all realised, we had forgotten to pack a jumper because it was supposed to be bloody summer.

And now as I type September is hotter than the middle bit of a microwaved lasagne.  The temperature has nudged itself about 30 degrees for the seventh day in a row.  In September.  The month when the leaves start to fall off the trees, the nights start to draw in slowly and everyone moans about having to put the barbecue in the garage/shed/bin.

Hang On…..

Sorry…. 

This isn’t a blog about the bloody weather or about watching the sun set at seven forty five however bloody poetic and romantic that looks from the shore of a Cornish Cove.  Christ its not even a blog about how exciting putting the barbecue away at of the summer is. (Just for the record, it’s very exciting, you have to go to the shed, move things around, and generally potter about, which is the very reason sheds were even invented). 

This is a music blog and a cutting edge one at that.  One that defines what’s cool and launches the careers of the hip and trendy. Perhaps.

So its about time we caught up with some of the best music released this year.

First up, here is a track about the poetic beauty of some clouds by the achingly cool Art School Girlfriend

Close to the Clouds – Art School Girlfriend (2023, Fiction Records, Taken from ‘Soft Landing’)

Art School Girlfriend is the work of Polly Mackay and when she sings she sounds like Tracey Thorn would if she was stoned (or perhaps a bit tipsy Tracey Thorn would never get stoned).  Musically she sounds like the best bits from the last XX record (hushed vocals, sedated beats, lush soundscapes, twinkling bits of genius that sort of thing). It is a very good thing indeed.

Next up, a song about the sun setting at seven forty five in the evening.

Setting Sun – Whitelands (2023, Sonic Cathedral Recordings)

Whitelands are signed to Sonic Cathedral Recordings.  Do you really need me to tell you what they sound like?  You Do?  Ok…they make music that is perfect for people who like the guitars to sound dreamy and the vocals to sound like they have been recorded by someone who is just falling asleep or is just waking up after not enough sleep.  They are amazing and ‘Setting Sun’ is one of the best things I have heard all year.

Talking of the best things I’ve heard all year, here is something from the new Slowdive album, in which the guitars sound sleepy and the vocals sound half asleep.  It’s also a song about things found in sheds.  Probably.

The Slab -Slowdive (2023, Dead Oceans Records, Taken from ‘Everything Is Alive’)

Next Up, spiky indie pop that is following in the footsteps of the Bee Gees – in that they originate from the Isle of Man, that is where the comparison stops., thankfully.  Here are Crawlboard, who I first heard on one of the BBC Introducing programmes and you should probably file them in your music library in the section reserved for bands that are “Very Good Indeed”.

Is It You? – Crawlboard (2023, self released)

Finally for today, some stoned art pop with post punk feel from Brooklyn duo Water From Your Eyes.  I heard them in session by accident on 6 Music the other night and was blown away by them.  ‘Buy My Product’ is taken from their new album ‘Everyone’s Crushed’ which is their first for Matador Records and guess what….? 

It’s brilliant.

Buy My Product – Water From My Eyes (2023, Matador Records, Taken from ‘Everyone’s Crushed’)

A month of Lost Indie 45’s- #20 Heaven Sent an Angel – Revolver

Heaven Sent an Angel – Revolver (1992, Hut Records, Taken from ‘Baby’s Angry’)

This series draws a close with another band who probably should have been far more successful than they actually managed to be.  Revolver were a three piece from London who I saw supporting Teenage Fanclub in 1992 (I think at least) and thought were excellent.  Within a week I’d found two of their EP’s – the debut one imaginatively titled ‘45’ and the second one called ‘Crimson’ in a shop in Maidstone.  By the end of week two, I’d declared Revolver to be the best new band in Britain to anyone who was listening, which to be fair, wasn’t that many people.  Partly because I was wrong and partly because everyone knew by then that Mint 400 were the best new band in Britain (or Suede were, delete as applicable).

Gas – Mint 400 (1992, Incoherent Records)

Metal Mickey – Suede (1992, Nude Records)

Anyway, despite those other noiseniks Revolver were excellent and were very nearly the Best new Band in Britain.  Their most popular track was ‘Heaven Sent An Angel’, which was the sort of jangly indie pop that was beloved by floppy fringed youths with stripey jumpers, and Doc Martins and a love of feedback pedals.  Or shoegaze if you want to pigeonhole the band, personally I’d never do that.

Revolver however, refused to accept that they were a shoegaze band despite every section of the mainstream press describing them as one.

Despite their frustrations and their protestations Revolver were definitely a shoegaze band.  In fact, I’ll go slightly further than that and argue that Revolver’s early singles sound so much like shoegaze pioneers Ride that if you had never heard either band you would struggle to separate the two.  In might be lazy journalism to pigeonhole bands into obvious scenes but in this case there was very little else for them to do. 

Let’s take their track ‘Venice’ for starters.

Venice – Revolver (1992, Hut Records, Taken from ‘Baby’s Angry’)

Which when I first heard, I would have said it was brilliant and thrown myself around the room to it.  Nowadays, having listened to it for the first time in about twenty years, I would describe as ‘Ride by numbers’.  It sounds identical to one of the tracks on Ride’s second EP (the one with daffodils on the cover).

And then there is ‘Molasses’ which is basically the slightly angrier brother from another mother of ‘Seagull’.   All thrashy when it needs to be but with a cautious eye centred on the chorus.

Molasses – Revolver (1992, Hut Records)

Both tracks still sounds great though to be honest with you.

Revolver were in existence for about four years but after their lack of success their record label dropped them and they split up in 1994.  Their singer, Matt Flint, did however perhaps go on to better things.  He joined Death in Vegas as a bassist and features on their nearly perfect ‘Contino Sessions’ album.

And that folks is that – tomorrow we will take a peek at some more of the best releases from this year and then from Monday we welcome in October, which means, calm yourselves now,  the return of the Musical Jury and that means a new No Badger Required Countdown!!

After you’ve changed your underwear due to the sheer excitement of that announcement – here is a quick hint at what that might be all about.

Lenny and Terence – Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (1993, Chrysalis Records, Taken from ‘Post Historic Monsters’)

Norman 3  – Teenage Fanclub (1993, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Thirteen’)

Guesses on a post card unless you an actual musical jury member in which case you can send me fake guesses on a post card.

A month of Lost Indie 45’s- #19 Supermodel Superficial – Voodoo Queens

Supermodel Superficial – Voodoo Queens (1993, Too Pure Records, Single)

Back in the early nineties of course, exposure was everything, bands didn’t have the Internet, social media or streaming platforms in which to promote their music.  I kind of think if we did then riot grrrl would have been even huger because it tapped into a nerve that still runs through music.  I’m not going to sit and talk about the misogyny of the music industry and society as a whole – because despite being a white bloke in my late forties who eats far too much cake, there are better qualified people to do so (and I may message someone I know who is pretty much an expert in the matter to do just that). 

Anyway, my point is that there is back in the nineties in order to get some publicity bands had to appear on rubbish TV Programmes for five minutes of exposure.  One of these programmes was Naked City on Channel 4.  Naked City was one of a series of Channel 4 shows aimed squarely at the youth of the day.  It tried if I remember it rightly, to blend art, music and culture together on in a series of late night Saturday episodes.  I think it gave us the talents of Johnny Vaughan, so you can judge that book by its cover if you like. 

Part of the programme was its regular busking competition, where it pitched two up and coming musical acts against each other in the middle of some surburban town centre.  They would sing their songs and the one that earnt the most cash would be declared the winners.

Now, I’ve tried and failed to find footage of this on You Tube, so you are going to have to take my word for it (unless anyone can find it) but one of these busking competitions featured Voodoo Queens busking against the bunch of prancing ponies that are Boyzone.

Kenuwee Head – Voodoo Queens (1993, Too Pure Records, Single)

 Anyway,  talking of surbarban shopping centres.

I was in the luxurious surroundings of Rainham Shopping Precinct the first time that I heard Voodoo Queens (they were busking just outside the fishmongers in a direct competition against A1 – they weren’t really).  I had just walked out of the health food shop and was heading to the secondhand bookshop, when I bumped into a mate of mine called Martin (who just because I don’t have many rock stars friends and I like to boast, is now in a band with Ben Harding from the Senseless Things called The Charlamagnes).  Martin said he had a mixtape for me and then he handed me one of the greatest handmade mixtapes of all time.  Then again, Martin always did make the best mixtapes (punk, indie, krautrock, and dub reggae was his thing).  I played that tape until the tape went all warped.

The opening track on that track was ‘Supermodel Superficial’ by the Voodoo Queens.  They were an indie punk band who were linked into the riot grrrl scene largely because they were an all girl group who played punk rock I would imagine.   They were formed by Anjali Bhatia, who was previously the drummer in fellow riot grrrl scene band Mambo Taxi – who were just because I can remember it, the second act on the mixtape.

Poems on the Underground – Mambo Taxi (1993, Clawfist Records, Taken from ‘In Love With…)

By the way Martin, if you are reading I still have your Mambo Taxi seven inches in a box in the cupboard and whilst we on the subject at least one Senseless Things album (which I got signed when I interviewed them 25 years ago) and I think a Dub War seven inch might be yours as well.  You can collect them anytime you are passing Devon.

‘Supermodel Superficial’ is a tremendous three minute indie punk blast, full of attitude that kind of cemented the whole riot grrrl scene (basically a highly charged mix of politics, feminism and punk rock – and yes I’m aware that I’ve simplified that – don’t shout at me please any riot grrrls/boys that might be reading).  Riot Grrrl by the way wasn’t amazingly a scene invented by the NME.  They did champion it and really pushed a lot of the bands in the scene, like Voodoo Queens, Huggy Bear ad Bikini Kill, they were right to get behind it because the music was mostly insanely good.

Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill (1993, Kill Rock Stars Records, Taken from ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah’)

Here is the final musical clue – Brett from Stockport perhaps?

A month of Lost Indie 45’s- #18 Box Set Go – The High

Box Set Go – The High (1990, London Records, Taken from ‘Somewhere Soon’)

‘Box Set Go’ was one of the first things I ever bought on something called a ‘cassingle’.  I bought it from the much missed Woolworths in Gillingham High Street for about 99p.  The cassingle was, rather obviously, a single released on a cassette.  I can’t fathom out why I would have bought this on a cassette single rather than a 7 inch.  I’ll hazard a guess that Woolworths didn’t have the vinyl version and so I plumped for what I thought was the next best thing.  Slamming my face in the door would have been a better option, because cassette singles were rubbish.  The very epitome of the last turkey in the shop.

I’ll come back to cassette singles in a second.  First let’s discuss The High, whom I am sure that most of you are aware of.  They were formed in Manchester and featured a chap called Andy Couzens, who was for a short while a member of the Stone Roses. ‘Box Set Go’ was I think their highest charting single, although I seem to remember the band being involved in some chart position rigging scandal with another of their singles – might have been this one.

More – The High (1990, London Records)

I can’t remember what the scandal was but I do recall London Records getting a hefty fine (just checked, London Records sent employees out to record shops to physically buy copies of the records, and BPI folk got suspicious, something like that anyway – and it was for ‘More’).

Anyway, The High were one of a number of baggy bands that emerged in the early nineties, as record labels scrambled to find their version of the Happy Mondays or the Stone Roses.  London Records in particular signed a bunch of acts, who sounded sort of similar (including Flowered Up and I think Candy Flip) but The High got special attention because of firstly the Roses link and secondly because legendary Manchester producer Martin Hannett was brought in behind the scenes.  The band’s debut album ‘Somewhere Soon’ was one of the last records he produced before he died.

‘Box Set Go’ was a brilliant little single, one that jangles in all the right places and has enough of an earworm feel about to keep you interested.  I think most people would argue that it isn’t quite a lost indie 45, particularly as its now quite rightly heralded as being influential in the whole Manchester sound, but for a while it was kind of forgotten about.  The High were quickly overtaken in the popularity stakes by some of their contemporaries, and by 1993, they split up.  They, like so many of the nineties bands of my youth, have since reformed, and are regulars on the ‘nostalgic’ 90s gigs circuit.

I don’t own any cassette singles anymore and I had very few of them – I much preferred a seven inch or if I had to the CD single, but I can remember owning these two on cassette single though.

Hippychick – Soho (1991, Savage Records) – which as you will know all samples Johnny Marr’s riff from ‘How Soon is Now’ – I bought this for 5p in a branch of WHSmiths in Maidstone back in the days when WHSmith’s sold records.

Ride On (Fight On) – Little Axe (1994, Wired Records) – which I got for free in a goody bag from one of the promotional copies that used to send out records to review.  Little Axe were a sort of bluesy dub band that featured Skip MacDonald and Adrian Sherwood.

Here is tomorrows musical clue….Naomi and Claudia get all self-congratulatory in New York suburb

A month of Lost Indie 45’s- #17 Rich Girls – The Virgins

Rich Girls – The Virgins (2008, Atlantic Records, Taken from ‘The Virgins’)

A few health warnings before we start off today please.

Firstly, the singer in New York indie four piece The Virgins is called Donald Cumming.  I’ve put that here so you don’t have to Google ‘Donald Cumming’ at work, and set off various work security triggers, like what I might have just done. Also please don’t Google Donald Cumming The Virgins at work

Second if you must google the song title do it this way round ‘Rich Girls’ – The Virgins (band) because otherwise you get another set of work relating alarms ringing and have to explain yourself twice to your superiors.  Unless you work on a sex chat line, in which you might have just got a bonus.

Anyway, The Virgins, were back in 2007 for about six months one of a crop of new indie bands from the USA (and in particular New York City) who surfaced and rocked our worlds, albeit momentarily.  ‘Rich Girls’ was the third single from a generally well received eponymous debut album.  Their name and the fact that nearly all their songs were about sex or girls or girls who like sex meant that they were considered to be a bit edgy.  They weren’t.  They were very much style over substance, there wasn’t a single second of originality in their music, most of it was note for note Strokes by numbers. 

Which begs the questions as to why should we care?  Well we probably shouldn’t, but the thing with The Virgins is that they didn’t care either and that means that despite everything I have written about their lack of depth, their shallowness and their lack of originality, they made the odd cracking tune.  Which sort of puts us all in a musical quandry. 

Their shallowness appals me, their hipster style still irks me fifteen years after their sunken cheekbones first shimmied into view but damn it ‘Rich Girls’ is still the catchiest song you’ll hear all day.

Its all funky riffs that basically sounds like what you would get if you forced Vampire Weekend and MGMT into a studio at the same time, and somehow recruited Danny Zuko as a wise cracking singer with an erection problem. 

If that wasn’t enough of a quandry the buggers had form for this sort of thing with their debut single ‘A Private Affair’, which is a tribute to the 80s skin flick of the same name about a lad who shags his teacher (it might not be that but it might as well be).  That folks has a riff running through it which will make your knees buckle like an illicit night time encounter in a back alley.

A Private Affair – The Virgins (2007, Atlantic Records)

Sandwiched between those two blasts of ‘New York Cool’ was the bands second single ‘Teen Lovers’ which was again, pretty bloody good.

Teen Lovers – The Virgins (2008, Atlantic Records)

Five years after their first album The Virgins returned with a second album ‘Strike Gently’ which was released on a record label founded by Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, which is hardly surprising given that The Virgins were basically a Strokes tribute band.   They split in early 2014 and two of the band formed the very excellent Public Access TV.

In Love and Alone – Public Access T.V (2015, Terrible Records)

Here is tomorrows musical clue A band at the very top of it all

50 12 inches – #11 Pop Will Eat Itself

Karmadrome – Pop Will Eat Itself (1992, RCA Records, Taken from ‘The Looks or the Lifestyle’)

I’m going to try and be dramatic here (this is to try and delay the obvious crushingly disappointing anticlimax that follows).  When my daughter shouted STOP at the annoying loud level that we have all become accustomed to, my finger was touching two records.  Largely because my twelve inch copy of PWEI’s marvellous ‘Karmadrome’ single is so thin because I have long lost the outer sleeve to it and just have the inner bit, but it is double touching.  Luckily for us, the record that my finger is touching at the same time is also by Pop Will Eat Itself, sadly for us its my copy of ‘Box Frenzy’, their gonzo grebo debut album and therefore disqualified from selection by the fact that its an album.  Although as you are here and I have undoubtedly whetted your appetite for it, you can have a listen to this.

There Is No Love Between Us Anymore – Pop Will Eat Itself (1987, Chapter 22 Records, taken from ‘Box Frenzy’)

I can never work out whether or not early Pop Will Eat Itself is genius or shamelessly brazen piss taking by a bunch of chancers.  I think the fact that I still own ‘Box Frenzy’ on vinyl and in all likelihood will never get rid of it probably means its genius. 

What is definitely genius is ‘Karmadrome’, which marks a period in the Poppies career where they were dragged into the offices of their record company and told to buck their ideas up as white blokes doing half arsed ‘rapping’ over samples and drum machine beats whilst guitar noise flies all over the place are a bit passed their sell by date.

To combat this, they committed what was considered in some fans eyes heresy.  They recruited a drummer, a chap named Fuzz Townsend (who now folks in true Pop Will Eat Itself style is a renowned tv presenter for the National Geographic Channel). Ironically the introduction of a drummer lead the band into a more dance related direction, although that was very much an industrial dance direction. 

More irony in that the Poppies considered this new material to be less commercially sounding that the work that had preceded it – which included this little belter

X, Y and Zee – Pop Will Eat Itself (1990, RCA Records, Taken from ‘Cure for Sanity’) – which is also in the cupboard on picture disc.

And yet the tracks gave them one of their most commercially successful periods and even went top ten in the first week of 1993, with this:

Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies – Pop Will Eat Itself (1993, RCA Records)

Although saying that, it was released in that record buying lull between Christmas and the second week of January, when frankly anyone could have a Top Twenty Hit (yes I’m looking at you Frank & Walters, you did this too with that ‘After All’ monstrosity).

‘Karmadrome’ is ace and it and the album that followed it (The Looks or the Lifestyle) marks what I think is start of their finest period as a band.  ‘Karmadrome’ was actually a double A side – here is the other side, also tremendous by the way

Eat Me, Drink Me, Love Me , Kill Me – Pop Will Eat Itself (1992, RCA Records)

Nearly Perfect Albums #78

Odelay – Beck (1996, DGC Records)

There is nothing out there quite like ‘Odelay’.   It was supposed to be a laidback collection of ballads and left field folk (like his previous album ‘One Foot in the Grave’) but then he invited the Dust Brothers into the studio after hearing their work with Beastie Boys.  They add some chilli powder and spiced the whole thing into the rich buffet we now know and love (or should know and love).  It is literally overflowing with brilliance.

Let’s start at the beginning (largely because it’s a good place to start), with ‘Devil’s Haircut’

Devil’s Haircut – Beck (1996, DGC Records)

It is a fearless, confident start, from the half spoken narrative with its lyrics about “heads hanging from the garbageman trees” to that stuttering strum of guitar that runs through it via the obvious hip hop beats, ‘Devil’s Haircut’ totally shows that Beck means business on this record. ‘Devil’s Haircut’ still sounds like nothing else, anywhere, even 25 years after its release.

Judging by ‘Devil’s Haircut’ you would expect the rest of ‘Odelay’ to at least sound kind of similar or at least somewhere in the same chapter but you’d be totally wrong.  Because what follows that is a song that starts off as country tune (complete with banjo solos) but them somehow turn into one of the greatest West Coast rap songs ever.

Hotwax – Beck (1996, DGC Records)

The point was that ‘Odelay’ took all those conventions and expectations and twisted them and added a layer upon layer of excitement in the form of scratches, samples, beats, thrashy guitars, distorted vocals, the occasional sax solo and on ‘Where’s It At’ a duet with what sounds like a robot.  Because he could.  ‘Where’s It At’ remains to this day, Beck’s most playful track, completely radio friendly but bonkers and left field enough to keep his fans happy.

Where’s It At – Beck (1996, DGC Records)

Elsewhere on ‘Odelay’ you also get ‘The New Pollution’ which is basically an old Beatles track with an added sax solo that turns it into something that wants to be a jazz record but is way too cool to be anywhere near one.  This sudden juxtaposition of sounds and the way that ‘Odelay’ shifts from style to style (‘The New Pollution’ is followed by the blues folk of ‘Jack Ass’ for instance) kind of became its thing and kind of became its beauty at the same time.  Almost like Beck grabbed the songs threw them up in the air and went with however they landed. 

The New Pollution – Beck (1996, DGC Records)

Jack – Ass – Beck (1996, DGC Records)

It is kind of lucky then that the songs on ‘Odelay’ are so good.  ‘Odelay’ is the sort of record that whenever you play it, in whatever order you play it, gives you something that you hadn’t realised the first time around.  For instance I hear new samples on this album every time I play it or I hear bits of dead pan humour that I missed originally.  Its an incredible record and one that more than 25 years after it was release still sounds as fresh as a daisy.

A month of Lost Indie 45’s- #16 Relentless Fours – Grammatics

Relentless Fours  – Grammatics (2009, Dance to the Radio Records, Taken from ‘Grammatics’)

I wanted to call this series Remarkable Songs by Unremarkable Bands.  The problem was most of the bands I have featured so far were not unremarkable they were actually pretty good.  However a bunch of the bands on the playlist definitely fall into that category which is where we find the Leeds based indie band Grammatics languishing, somewhat unloved I would imagine.

Grammatics, were unremarkable.  Almost the dictionary definition of it in fact.  You know when a journalist (or a wannabe one or even just someone who is writing about music for fun) has run out of things to say about a band when they start meandering around a sort of related topic.  Kind of like I’m doing now.  Anyway, Grammatics were an Unremarkable band.  

They formed in the late noughties and were the sort of band who unashamedly wore their influences on their sleeve.  The singer howls in a way that can only be described as being ‘a bit like Brett Anderson’, as overly theatrical indie pop rages away behind them  in a way that can only be described as being ‘a bit like ‘His N Hers’ era Pulp’.  It’s heavy on production, big on instruments which give them something else from all the other identikit bands out there, in Grammatics case it is a cello carving its way through the verses, majestically in some cases it has to be said.

Here are couple of their singles

Shadow Committee – Grammatics (2009, Dance to the Radio Records)

D.I.L.E.M.M.A – Grammatics (2009, Dance to the Radio Records)

Of course officially they did none of the above, their music would have been weaved around the complex songwriting of their singer Owen Brindley and the amblings involving the cello would probably be described as introverted by their record company in an attempt to make them interesting.  I can almost see the meeting room now.

 “We like your sound but we need to make it sound interesting, let’s call it introverted and complex in the bio, otherwise some 90s throwback will describe you as unremarkable in terrible blog in fifteen years time”

‘Relentless Fours’ wasn’t released as a single so technically it shouldn’t have been included in this series but it is the only song in their cannon that is any good.  It is put simply their best song by about 6000 miles and they should have released it as a single.  It builds slowly, the vocals at first at tender and restrained as strings (that cello again) float away in the background and then suddenly the songs explodes, the Brett Anderson vocal becomes a Brett Anderson growl, the guitar throbs, the backing vocals sound insane and on top of all that you get a cello solo. A.  Cello.  Solo. 

And that break in the song around four minutes, is sublime.

Remarkable.

The band released one album to an ok critical response, there were a series of EPs and singles but in 2010 about a year after the debut album was released the band split citing the financial and geographic constraints as the reason.  The world gave a collective shoulder shrug. 

Here is Mondays musical clue. Two sixteen year Star Trek fans visiting a finishing school in the Dordogne.

A month of Lost Indie 45’s- #15 Commercial Breakdown – The Sunshine Underground

Commercial Breakdown – The Sunshine Underground (2006, City Rockers Records, Taken from ‘Raise The Alarm’)

The sub title for the piece could well be the third instalment in the ‘Scenes Invented by the NME’ series, which I really don’t have the energy to turn into a full monthly series.  The scene in question this time is Nu Rave.  Nu Rave was something the NME called a “call to arms, a DIY response to the sensitive indie rock pedalled out by bands like Bloc Party”.  It then stuck bands like the Klaxons on its cover, who, in an almost two fingered celebratory salute released a cover version of one of Perfecto Records finest moments.

It’s Not Over Yet – The Klaxons (2007, Polydor Records, Taken from ‘Myths of the Near Future’)

Of course, some of the older readers amongst you, will remember the first time (might have been the second or third to be honest) that the NME embraced dance (and more specifically rave culture).  They shoved Altern 8 on their cover aside a burning guitar and the slogan “GUITAR MUSIC IS DEAD”.  It then declared love for bands like Spiral Tribe and a few others and reviewed a couple of Whirlygig nights and called them “bangin’” (probably).  Guitar music wasn’t dead of course, it was just sleeping the off the effects of the Scene that Celebrates Itself.  Three months later Kurt Cobain told us all to load up on drugs and Altern 8 were forgotten about because guitar music was reborn.

Nu Rave was essentially fast paced electronica infused indie music that (the NME thought at least) celebrated the late 80s Madchester and rave era.  The bands dressed in neon colours (or at least The Klaxons and the wonderfully named but musically dodgy Shitdisco did) and their music was squarely aimed at the nightclubbing market.

Which is kind of where Leeds band The Sunshine Underground come in.  A band who the NME loved (they told its readers to ‘beg, borrow or steal a copy of ‘Commercial Breakdown’’) and who were one of the first bands to be labelled Nu Rave and went on an NME sponsored tour called (wait for it) “The NME Indie Rave Tour” with The Klaxons and some other bands.  Somewhere, Bill Drummond seethed quietly I suspect.

It was easy to see why The Sunshine Underground were part of this Nu Rave thing, musically they sounded like a mash up of the best bits of say the debut Utah Saints album and the debut Stone Roses album (bloody great in other words).  They were perfect for the scene, I mean they were even named after a Chemical Brothers song, it was almost too perfect.  They charted with their debut single ‘Put You In Your Place’ (which was actually reissued from its original 1000 only release) which climbed all the way to number #39.

Put You In Your Place – Sunshine Underground (2005, City Rockers Records)

Then a while later, the debut album ‘Raise the Alarm’ followed and the NME shouted “This is the first great Nu Rave Album!”, which considering Nu Rave had been apparently going for about a year and had seen releases from a whole of so called Nu Rave bands, seemed a little odd.

Regardless of whether it was Nu Rave or not (and here is a clue, it isn’t) ‘Raise the Alarm’ was actually really good and was on constant rotation on my stereo when it came out for a good few months.

Borders  – Sunshine Underground (2006, City Rockers Records)

Nu Rave limped on for a few more years, in 2008, the NME killed it off just after the release of the debut album by Crystal Castles ( which they called “The first post Nu Rave Record” and subsequently killed the scene).

Here is tomorrows musical clue – the result of me bowling tame off spin at Harry Brook.