Do you spend sleepless nights wondering what your favourite records would sound like if you stuck your finger on them so they slowed down and shuddered? No? Well for those of you who do, toss and turn no longer because Dinosaur Pile-Up is your Pull Tiger Tail record in jerky-slow motion. It’s your Ben Kweller seven inches on 33 speed. It’s your…well never mind all that. What matters is that Dinosaur Pile-Up is your new favourite noise and it comes in the shape of 22-year-old Matt Bigland from Leeds. Matt writes gloomy songs to watch the rain by and has a weakness for Back to the Future and a good cup of coffee. Matt also pairs grunge-filled Weezer riffs with breathy Graham Coxon-harmonies that hang in the air after each line. In other words, this is isn’t music to take lightly. So make sure you’ve geeked up on ‘80s sci-fi and fill your head with blissful thoughts before approaching this songster.
A guy with a peacock feather wedged in his afro is having a dance-off with a blonde girl next to a huddle of tipsy office workers who are proceeding to steal the percussion instruments from the stage. As far as gigs go, this one is pretty surreal, and Leeds four-piece O Fracas have no intention of upping the rational stakes as they start playing odd pieces of rope with wooden shells on.
The band skips straight into ‘Moth to a Flame’ with offbeat rhythms and angular riffs. Could it be that we’ve unearthed the new Foals? After all, they share the same throbbing beats and cutting guitars. They even flop over their guitars like Foals do. But they have a far more melodic vocal tie-in to balance out their jerky, tug-o-war tempos.
They battle through ‘Factfinding’, notes flying in all directions, and climax on ‘Zeroes and Ones’ with help from the audience, who have all acquired maracas, bells and tambourines because O Fracas are a band you can’t go to see with getting a little rattled.
“Esser is a person not a band,” proclaims his Myspace. Well, Esser is also a flurry of electronic beats and East End rhythm. Esser is your new favourite toy and he’s not ready to be put down yet. This 23-year-old, jerky-tempoed Essex boy started out on the Butlins circuit aged 11 and drummed in the now defunct Ladyfuzz before unwrapping his solo project. He’s like a more electronic Daniel Johnston (Texan song-manipulator). His vocals are just as lazily drawn but with a cockney tinge. “You got me acting like a desperate youff” he slurs in ‘Headlock’, like a moody kid. While ‘Satisfied’ rings of a dance hall throw back from a Caribbean band. The clattering steel pan greets a waltz-y piano and off-beat hand claps.
Disjointed ‘oohs’ and arcade-game blips bring things to and end before he storms off, giving things a stroppy shove on the way, butwhile Esser’s throwing his toys out of the pram, you want to make sure you’re there to catch them.
On the market as a shiny (glistening with sweat anyway) new manic-punk trio, Johnny Foreigner should be America’s latest gift to the music industry. After all, they play with the confidence that all American’s carry and they’ve got that trademark American whine. But they’re from Birmingham - the home of reggae-popsters UB40 and metal thrashers Black Sabbath. And though they may not carry the novelty of the former or the demeanour of the latter, they’re clearly positive that they’ve got the formula spot on…
Take caution when approaching three Parisian guys who write about the dreams of men in stained raincoats and were signed before they played their first show. Teenagers stem from a drunken joke in 2005, except someone forgot to draw the line and as a result they’re playing to a couple of hundred, er, teenagers under glittering chandeliers. But it’s not as glitzy as it sounds. The room is just about three quarters full and the monotone vocals from frontman Quentin Delafon leaves Teenagers with just abut as much charisma as Boris Johnson’s bob.
‘Love No’ is a stroppy lover moaning against building guitars and skewed beats that fail to escalate. Five young girls then mount the stage to sing back-up to debut single ‘Homecoming’ while Delafon utters the lines “I fucked my American cunt” repeatedly. It’s a cringe-worthy site that isn’t alleviated by the impending gauche lyrics of ‘Feeling Better’. And having shelled out your pounds for a ticket you leave with the feeling that the ironic-pop joke just isn’t funny anymore.
What you bare witness to at an el Guincho show is an absolute mind-fuck. Don’t go expecting to form an opinion of each track. Expect to either love it or hate it, because if there’s one thing about this Brazilian, it’s that live, his songs don’t have an end or beginning. His set is one big whirlwind, sucking in world beats, chants and general clatter, and spitting out the funkiest globule of a carnival you’ll ever work your limbs to.
In bright red trousers and dark wayward curls, el Guincho takes to the stage with a floor tom, a closed hi-hat and one four-track sampler. He loops steel pan rolls as he taps hurriedly on the rim of his tom, while bobbing his head and bellowing repetitively. A mind-blowingly worthy experience we think you’ll agree.
The Maple State are set to release their new download-only single, ‘Temperate Lives’, through High Voltage Sounds. You can treat your ears to the barking harmonics from April 28, but if you can’t wait that long you can watch them multiply like musical clones in the video for the single below…
What do you get when you put five Manchurians in a room and pump through some American Football, The Format and Hot Rod Circuit on a continuous loop? Well, five distressed Manchurians no doubt, but perhaps if you’re lucky you’ll get The Maple State. Made up of Greg and Christian Counsell, William Pearson, Richard Higginbottom and John Goodwin, these guys have been spreading their distinctive pop-racket for four years. Now in their early twenties the boys have shed the raw indie guitars of debut EP, At Least Until We’ve Settled In to make way for light distortion and erratic pace…
Where better to start 2008 than a blockade in central London with hundreds of strangers, trying to bribe your way in to a night club? Well, inside obviously, watching Joe Flory, better known under his pseudonym Primary 1, grease the walls with his mind-boggling hipster funk. A newly graduated film student, Flory has traded his bedroom experiments of juxtaposing quips and quivers for a studio equipped with its very own music mogul, Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, The Rapture), to spill his rhythmic disco juice into the mould of a debut album. His first single ‘Hold Me Down’ is set for release on Monday under Erol Alkan’s new label, Phantasy Sound and it’s full of slap bass, snare snaps and novel riffs that morph with kaleidoscope-cool, flipping out, back and around, while Flory’s vocals skip across it in an awkward Calvin Harris-talking-style. So dig out your best battering rams and be ready to catch him on tour with Metronomy next month.
Defaced by lashings of red paint that stem from his face in long tentacles, a model rests at the top of the stairs. “These shoes are my wives,” he remarks. “Anyone who mocks them will suffer in unusual ways.” The goings on inside Noel Fielding’s head splashed out onto paper, or china plates, or whatever material he could lay his hands on it would seem. Even the walls are scrawled over in manic marker pen, poems and descriptions nestled among the lighting fixtures. “When I was a moth for a day,” declares the back wall, “I danced under a lamppost by the motorway.” The adjacent walls bare paintings of Brian Ferry, or ‘Wogan Josh’ because one came out looking more like Terry Wogan and a curry.
It’s no secret that Noel Fielding has one of the most eccentric personalities in TV. Parading around in mirror ball suits, mutant costumes and goth chic on a regular basis in The Mighty Boosh with his partner in crime, Julian Barratt. So it’s unsurprising that he’s chosen to exhibit his work in a Soho tearoom rather than the conventional art gallery. Though, Maison Bertaux is just as extravagant as the paintings. Colourful cakes line the entire window and pink lace drapes from the ceilings, turning this into a café cum boudoir.
The paintings are placed around the winding stairs, right up to the top, spilling out into the second floor seating area in a sea of colour and madness. Pop art versions of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards stare each other out while foxes in surreal Rousseau-esque jungle scenes shoot menacing glances at the skull-adorned plates. The inhabitants of ripped up magazine pages lay mutilated on their canvases. “The crackfox is our special friend,” claim two bathing children while their wholesome parents look blithely on. Drinking tea amid them is somewhat disconcerting, but the dreamlike situation you put yourself into will give you more of a rush than speed on a rollercoaster.
The pictures are on sale from £360 and will be shown at Gallery Maison Bertaux, 28 Greek Street, London W1 (020 7437 8382) until 29 February.
