21st Century Music

Interview By Ray Finlayson

Amongst the hustle and bustle of the Edinburgh Festival, within the underground doings of Whistlebinkies, her venue for that night, I find Donna Maciocia with her guitar in case in hand. At first glance she seems distracted but introducing myself she becomes alert and interested. She was probably just pissed she had to carry her instruments to the venue (independent bands, doing it for themselves!). We luckily find ourselves some seats and exchange conversation over how The Beatles can change your life, how writing music is unnecessarily complicated to explain to people and why piano teachers fell asleep to her music as a child.

21st Century Music: So this must be a pretty exciting time for the band with the album release coming up.

Donna Maciocia: Yeah it’s exciting. I suppose it’s relieving also as the album’s been about ten years in the making. We’ve genuinely gone in the studio and set dates for release for the past two years. This is us finally doing it as people who know us are sick of hearing us talk about the release date so we kind of went quiet about it and decided not to say anything about it till its released. So yeah it’s very exciting.

21st Century: I read the also that the album has been funded by different people.

Donna: Yeah, there’s a point at the beginning of 2006/the end of 2005 when we were getting a lot of exposure on the internet because we were getting played on a lot of big podcasts, which was giving us exposure to tens of thousands of people. We were played on national public radio which was bringing in the audience. Everybody was like “we want more of your music, we want the album, where’s the album?”. We were getting hundreds of messages and we kept saying, “well it’s a bit far off as we keep running out of money” and then one day I just thought, “why don’t we ask people to donate towards it” as there’s been so many people wanting it.

So I sent an email out to our mailing list, which has about 1200 hundred people on it, and I just talked about our gigs and at the end I said “by the way, if you fancy giving us a few quid to donate to the band to make the album..” And within minutes of sending it out, Paypal starting going “you have received so many dollars”.

We did a live broadcast gig to try get more exposure and appeared on BBC Scotland and it was a success but it was also a total failure. Just because we didn’t have a PR service behind it and it could have been better. But it was a great exercise and we raised about three or four thousand pounds out of that.

21st Century: It must have been great to get as much as that.

Donna: Yeah it’s totally great. The album cover also actually looks really great. We put all the donators in a periodic table because there’s a theme of the album of Science vs. Art. We have these chemistry type elements and we stuck all their pictures in, each as an element and their initials at the chemicals details – it looks really great.

21st Century: So what music have you worked with for the album? Have you used a lot of your old stuff or does it have new songs as well?

Donna: This album, it actually feels quite old now because of the material. We’re very prolific and we had about twenty songs to work with and by the time short listed twelve songs for the album we had written a whole bunch of new stuff. So the stuff kind of old but there’s still a fresh vibe about it. I don’t hate it all…I’m just sick of listening to it all as we’ve been recording and mixing it for ages.

We’ve certainly learned from this album. We also lost our bass player half way through the album so that was a bit of a…there’s just all sorts of obstacles that get in your way and you have to overcome and it was like climbing Everest which is why it’s going to so relieving to get the album out there.

21st Century: I wanted to ask about your music. It’s really quite quirky – I mean that in a good way obviously - but it I don’t know how to describe it.

Donna: Neither do I!

21st Century: In my review I did of one of your gigs I found it so hard to write about the style you play. I couldn’t pin down a genre or say anything specific about it to cover it all.

Donna: Do you know we have the same problem. Because we’re doing this independently we’ve always had to write our own press releases, biographies and things like that and we really don’t have a clue how to describe ourselves. I don’t know what genres we fit into. I know a lot of artists say that but I genuinely don’t know. I remember reading one of those unsigned self-help books and the “How to write your biography” part and the one to ten of how to define your sound and put yourself into a genre. So it said to ask your friends, ask your family, ask people who know you and they don’t have a clue either! And you, you don’t have a clue either, do you?

21st Century: I don’t and I’m a reviewer!

Donna: I think our latest description is really quirky and…erm…[thinks] I can’t remember really. I think essentially though we are kind of alternative pop. We do have a commercial type appeal that really quite easily digestible and at the same time it’s kind of out the box.

21st Century: Yeah that’s really what I managed to bring it down to – it’s accessible but different.

Donna: That’s great because that’s we’ve always wanted to achieve but never really set out to do. We never deliberately wanted to be out the box, it’s just the way it came about.

But we all have really different music tastes. When I grew up I didn’t know anything but Michael Jackson, Judy Garland and Motown. I didn’t know who The Beatles were till I was fifteen. Then when I hit sixteen I suddenly got this onslaught of Nirvana, Radiohead and The Beatles I was like “Oh my God, I’ve been living in this Michael Jackson/Judy Garland world” and then there was all this new music. I had my electronic years and I had my synths and stuff. But then I went back to this sort of organic song writing and I just wanted to get it into the songs. All these crazy influences…I don’t know. I could talk about this stuff for ages.

21st Century: So when did you start playing the piano?

Donna: I started when I was about eight or nine as I got sent to a piano lesson and I hated it. I got sent to this really old man who would smoke during the lessons and sometimes I’d turn around and he’d be asleep in his chair, with a cigarette in his hand. I’d come out of there stinking of cigarette smoke and I hated it. The way I learned was by ear. Piano teachers didn’t do a lot for me until I got one later in my teenage years – he was brilliant, he really encouraged me.

But I used to listen to lot of film soundtracks, like the Ghostbusters one. You know that bit when they’re in the library and there’s that old woman ghost looking through the books and they’re hiding behind the corner like “on the count of three…” and they go round the corner and shouting “GET HER!” and she turns round and screams. When they’re running out the library, when they’re running down the steps, there’s this boogie and blues music – [sings] “do’le do le do, do’le do le do” and I loved that sort of boogie and blues piano. Our video player was upstairs and I’d play that and rewind it and listen to it and come back down to the piano and figure it out and run back up. And I’d just do that consistently with music that I liked and I just learned by ear. I was on “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” for years and I hated that, I didn’t want to learn [the conventional way].

21st Century: I actually only learned “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” myself recently.

Donna: [laughs] I suppose when you get older its get harder to just sit down. When you’re a kid that just how you’d learn to do it, you’d just sit in your bedroom listening to stuff. That’s all I did – sounds like a sad childhood.

Recently I’ve been involved with song writing with kids and it’s really great. But explaining to someone how to write music is the hardest thing – you either know how to do it or you don’t. The kids don’t get taught anything like that at school so when I sit down with them it’s a totally fresh thing. But it’s amazing once you put people in the position where they have to write a song, it’s amazing what they come up with. I think if you’ve got an ear for music and can play an instrument then everyone can write.

21st Century: And I suppose it’s having the inspiration as well.

Donna: Yeah, true.

21st Century: Do you look upon anything or anyone in particular for inspiration?

Donna: [thinks] It totally depends. Sometimes you just get inspired just strumming away or playing away, improvising on the piano and you hit something. Sometimes I blatantly listen to a record on the radio and go “I love that drum beat”. That’s how I started writing really - just taking rhythms and drum beats and adding them into my computer, just a big loop, and then I’d fit the piano or guitar and just worked like that. Other times…I don’t know, it’s hard to say where I get my inspiration from. Just playing, just sitting about with your instrument just strumming about, jamming.

…Everything, everything I listen to.

21st Century: That’s a good way to put it, as you’re not putting anything aside.

Donna: I go through phases of things. Sometimes I just like to listen to records or songs – I remember once listening to David Bowie’s “Oh, You Pretty Things” and I wish I did that first of all as it’s amazing and then you sit and think, “I wonder if I can write an equivalent?”. I’m often pretty inspired by what other people do.

A lot of classical music too. You just hear this fifteen minute long concerto and it has all these amazing riffs. With popular music what they do is just take one tiny little riff and loop it – that’s what dance music is. With classical music you have all these amazing melodies and sometimes it might just be a case of going, “that’s beautiful” and picking it out and messing around with it and turning into my own. It really is everything.

21st Century: Do you ever feel then that you’ve merely ripped something else off?

Donna: No I don’t think so – no, never. Even if I tried to rip off somebody else’s song, it doesn’t work. Some people say I’ve ripped off songs but I’ve never heard of them. I’d never heard of Regina Spektor until somebody came on our website one day and said “Oh you’re totally ripping off Regina Spektor. Your song (I can’t remember what song it was) sounds exactly like Regina’s “The Flowers” (or something like that)” and I went and listened to her and thought “it sounds nothing like my song”. But on the plus side it was a great song and I ended up becoming a big fan of hers.

21st Century: Well at least you found new music to love through criticism.

Donna: Yeah exactly. Ripping somebody off without realising it can be good I suppose.

 

Amplifico

 

Yellow Bentines
Beanscene Haymarket, Edinburgh
29th August 2007

So yeah, just hanging with the Yellow Bentines. I felt like such a fanboy/groupie (while I didn’t sleep with Martin, I did in-adversely shout I want his babies). Free tea was exploited and a new song created out of the lumbered lack of noise. You really can’t beat the down to earth atmosphere of a Beanscene.

So the hat trick for me in attendance of Yellow Bentines Beanscene and also this as the triumphant third review. It also sees me returning to the place where I first heard the live soundings of this Glasgow (varied number) piece. And credit to the band who keep trooping on while still enjoying the process as they try again to get a limited audience to clap along (persistence does work, well it did with me anyway).

In-between festival appearances, Yellow Bentines can be found in three piece form in the already overly-mentioned Haymarket Beanscene. Now don’t be thinking that you’re about to read the same review again from me, tonight was just that bit more different (and that bit more special I say in an attempt to make you feel that bit more guilty for not coming):

First Variable – double trumpets!
Second Variable – new* songs!

*Not as such new to them maybe but not performed live to my ear before.

The addition of another horn, the sound was…well double as good – horn wise. With both Helen and Sarah working trumpets, it made for a well layered addition. But then again, two trumpets is the normal amount for the band so maybe that’s why it sounds so fitting. But then again, it just shows that your brass section can never be too big – even in a Beanscene.

Song wise it’s a treat as ever with sprinkles this time in the form of new song “In Line” and album closer “Hope” (and the two-note/one-word “Silence” if that counts). The former is a rather angry number with excessive shouts to “Go wild!” and jabs on the two trumpets while “Hope” makes for the song to sway to on the set tonight. If there wasn’t a smoking ban in the country, the people would have raised their lighters.

Even third time live they still impress me with their youthful take on their album songs. “Down And Up” is still a fun old frolic of jazzy ska with Martin’s hyperactive hand clapping while those doomy bass notes on “Pay Cheque” still tick boxes for me. You’d think I was growing tiresome of this and of having to find something to centre a review around (this one was a bit loose in comparison) but no. I’m still enjoying it and it more than due that so many more take pleasure from their music like I do.

By Ray Finlayson

 

Yellow Bentines

The Rumble Strips
“Girls And Boys In Love”
[From the forthcoming album “Girls And Weather”]
1 2 3 4 5

It’s so easy to say a track is questionable and hard to decide upon regarding your opinion of it and that doesn’t play too good when your job is to form an opinion of a song and tell people about it. Predictably enough The Rumble Strips latest single, “Girls And Boys In Love”, is a song of that confused matter in my head.

I don’t want to play down this song as really there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s got everything to say it’s fine and nothing overwhelmingly wrong to say it bad. I suppose then it’s just the consistant manner it comes across. The Rumble Strips certainly build themselves upon a style like that – a rugged, hearty song bash of a time – and this perhaps is there most exuberant example to date. Gone is the familiar brass and in its place is a piano that skips and bobs like a small girl on a jump rope. Underneath is a similarly riffed bass line and guitar and it all adds together well to create a jangly jam session sound. It’s an uplifting little number that skuttles by pleasantly that, for The Rumble Strips, is seemingly perfect. For everyone else, it’s just pretty good I suppose.

By Ray Finlayson

 

The Rumble Strips

Kate Nash
Liquid Room, Edinburgh
23rd August 2007

Oh my, what a mixed crowd. A lip piercing here, a pair of leggings there, a few obvious wrinkles and even a Jarman Brother. I can’t quite pin down who Kate Nash appeals to. Sure enough, she’s a pretty girl and that gets the boys and men going while her wearing of the earlier mentioned leggings gets the girls (and hopefully not too many women) all hyped about…well wearing leggings. I don’t even know why I find her entertaining. She amusing on a level, and for sure – that line about lemons, being bitter and some “fitter” friends still puts a smile on my face. Not because it’s a brilliant line or anything, just because I can’t believe someone who said that is getting away with it – and so damn well also.

Nash herself with her music is a bit off putting. Anyone could be rightfully sceptical of the music at first. Her opening band tonight though is only going to confuse more fans as I could never quite picture a band like The Moth And The Mirror supporting Kate Nash.

From the depths of outcast desolate deserts in somewhere like Arizona, you might hear the beginning of a track by The Moth And The Mirror. Then again, it could just be in a garage somewhere in Glasgow. Imagine…I don’t know what to tell you to imagine to rightfully picture what I saw and heard. One minute the muffled voice of vocalist Stacey is lost under distortion the next the ground shakes slightly in a barrage of double drums, bass and guitar. Then we move onto the chime of a triangle, the jangle of keys, the slither of a bow across the edge of a wind chime note – and all that from one person.

The music here is more like a movement, full of different stages, time lapses and in-adverted confusion. Often one instrument will dominate your listening ear while there’s a full but hollow layer beneath it. It recalls Explosions In The Sky or perhaps Do Say Make Think with its slow adulterated sections but doesn’t quite hook as well. Perhaps the vocals suffered tonight, lost under noise as I mentioned earlier. It was interesting to hear Stacey’s voice through a megaphone – altering it into something that sounded like Karen O – but it just wasn’t consistent enough in the delivery. Intriguing stuff but not quite compelling enough.

I couldn’t decide if Kate Nash was in the mood to deliver her songs with wholeful enthusiasm tonight. Oddly enough it seemed like she did enjoy performing even the likes of “Foundations” but the times between songs was uncomfortably silent. But she did excuse herself for her lack of jokes, conversation etc. And obviously with silences like that, you get the bemused and irritating fan boy shouting out about having babies and his worship for the girl sitting entertaining the audience tonight. Kate shrugs it off with a smile and a sly roll of the eyes, probably because it happens in every town she goes to.

Cutting up her recently released album, Made Of Bricks, into a different order, it’s a pretty predictable show in terms of song selection working but she only has a limited selection of songs to work with. Thankfully though, she does provide good entertainment; her giddy delivery of set opener “Mariella” and the pleasantly prolonged “Little Red”. It was enjoyable but I could never take this seriously as perhaps some people who I saw tonight did. Kate is just built around a gimmick, a style, an attitude that was about to fade away until she brought it back to our attention. She rides the bandwagon well and will probably drive it one day but you can’t say Kate’s not fed well off what she’s created here. Even if it is quite hilariously cheesy and cringe-worthy at times, it’s also almost irresistible in its simplified concept.

By Ray Finlayson

 

The Moth And The Mirror
Kate Nash

 

Kaiser Chiefs
Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh
24th August 2007

Does time fly? I don’t know but it has passed for sure. This time last year I was gorging off a 25 song set from Radiohead who made for impeccable viewing and now, a year on, though the band are that much less great than those Oxford men, there was still something in the air. It was the wind of change.

Nah, that was just corny. It was beer, toilet roll and everything else flying through the air this Friday evening. The doors open late afternoon, at 4pm, and thus a lot of waiting is inevitable. The crowd are nevertheless dim-witted, feisty and chanting away that “The View are on fire”. Me? I just stood in the middle of it all reading my Charles Dickens novel. Thom’s last words here were more suitable and fitting than ever – “I don’t belong here”.

My hair had already become soaked and dried in alcohol while my right eye look a lashing as a cup of beer found it. The crowd were singing along to music. People were even being removed from the barrier while others threw another drink. All this and the first band hadn’t even come on stage yet. It was going to be a long night.

Strutting on stage with a youthful Leeds swagger, The Pigeon Detectives roll on stage obviously taking pride in the fact XFM can’t stop spinning their records (I think they might use CDs these days though) while their album, Wait For Me, enjoys rather pleasurable success commercially. Something didn’t fit though. Something just won’t fit with them ever. Is it the fact that lead singer Matt Bowman quite simply is the band? Essentially everyone else in this five piece is deemed useless as they are energetic as they go about their fly-by pop songs. Obviously the crowd is taking well to them, singing along, jumping etc. I clap to be polite as they should know themselves – the only reason they got to where they were is because the one fateful morn a certain Kaiser Chiefs drummer said he liked them and radio. I like French electro with a German name – so what? No one listens to that. I should take up drumming.

Another patient wait and another suppressed emotion to throw my shoe at those shouting that, dear God, inane chant for Dundee’s The View. You know I hate them so this will obviously be influenced by that – heck I never clapped once, not even when they left. Another set of pointless “indie” pop – “rock” but this time with a vocalist who rapes the microphone with his mouth. Or perhaps it was the sound of the electricity dying as it took in Kyle Falconer’s pussy voice. I couldn’t get a word out of anything. The boy cannot communicate with a crowd and performs the most pointless tracks live – “Typical Time”? What’s the fucking point? Even the hit singles came out so rugged and that the crowd were a little dazed at what to think – but they just took another drink to get rid of that doubt.

Obviously at this time, in front of this band, the crowd were that bit different than they were last year. In fact totally different. Gone are the emotionally arrogant middle aged men and here was striped jumpered dickery of teenagers in need of something to do while they drank their warm lager. Again; why am I here?

Well to see Kaiser Chiefs in all honesty. Something about their established, typical yet oh so tempting songs draw me in while bemused in beer soaked anticipation. I admit it, I was singing to almost all the songs here tonight. Employment was my favourite record for perhaps too long and although Yours Truly, Angry Mob didn’t stay with me, it got into my head. Although my true Kaiser Chiefs fandom came firstly as I shout the words above the singing of only Ricky and perhaps another few obsessives to “Take My Temperature” – its rare outing tonight sparked a little something in me that made me go a little giddy, which is probably what induced the second part. As Ricky finds the crowd I, very sarcastically mind you, shout in a high pitched voice “OH MY GOD, IT’S RICKY” as he got groped a few feet from my standing place. I made myself laugh and I think perhaps another in the crowd as by that time I was just sixteen again.

The set pulled in at all the usual stops like a bus going about its routine. We had the new single; “The Angry Mob”, the crowd pleaser; “I Predict A Riot” and the prolonged encore ender; “Oh My God”. Essentially it was all to be soaked up like beer on your clothes and rightfully so the crowd drank it like it was being spoon fed. The only drawback song wise was the replacement of “Caroline, Yes” (what were they thinking? – imagine a stadium of hands rising simultaneously) with new version “I Can Do It Without You” which has none of the emotion and lacks sway even though it was suggested.

The band even seemed pleased with themselves despite the vast audience the probably mediocrity of doing this to all to another crowd. Simon bounced liked a kangaroo with his bass while everyone stayed in their spot the majority of the time (with the exception of Ricky and Peanut when he came to lead the clapping for “Modern Way”) but still just did their job with respectable energy. A performance to be proud of and equally to be enjoyed – just a shame my hair felt so horrible.

By Ray Finlayson

 

The Pigeon Detectives
The View
Kaiser Chiefs

Not to sound like a hypnotist or anything kooky like that, but I put it upon you to vote for Native.tv as the Best Unofficial Music Site in the BT Digital Music Awards.

The people at Native.tv  - okay, by people I mean Suzy - are some of the best and deserve the honour of winning. Plus lets face it, what other site boasts such good web editing. If it wasn’t for them then this site would be nowhere as near as filled as it is and if you have any likeness for the doings here, then vote.

C’mon now, it’s only going to take you a metter of seconds depending on how long your email address is. Here’s what to to:

1: Click to the link -> LINK

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3. Type the security code that is shown.

4. Hit submit.

5. Be happy you’ve done some good. No really you have, if you knew how happy it makes the likes of Suzy that you’ve voted for them then you’d vote twice (hint) just to see the smile on her lovely face.

Thank you for voting if you did. If you didn’t then start questioning your motives. And then after you’ve done that, vote.

Native.tv

Tiny Dancers
“Ashes And Diamonds”
[from the album “Free School Milk”]
1 2 3 4 5

Take any ballad you like. Look and listen and you find recurring traits. The same drum beat that keep standing on a ground of consistent rhythm and occasional crashes when drama in the music presents itself. Also, you will find a guitarist/pianist soothing his/her instrument until it finds pleasure in notes. Also in ballads, those who aren’t making primary noise find themselves left behind in their level of importance. Their might well be another guitar strumming away or a bass line underneath it all but in a ballad they play second to none at best. The vocals, probably the most important part of the song should soar and climax well, all while they sing of regrettable things. But if you making pure pop you have to either make it heart breaking and depressing or you must redeem the bad thoughts first sung about and show the listener you now are happy as one can be when they are in love, got a new pet, etc.

“Ashes And Diamonds”, a cut from Tiny Dancers’ debut album Free School Milk, is as you might guess, a ballad of sorts for the 21st Century tinged with a certain indie mourning. Sure enough it’s sorrow pop when you have lyrics like “So strange how you enjoy my pain/ When I can only Endure you” but it never so much find a conclusion or reaches the top of it’s level. Still, for a ballad it’s all there and perhaps that’s why it doesn’t quite succeed.

By Ray Finlayson

 

Tiny Dancers

Amplifico
Whistlebinkies, Edinburgh
19th August 2007

It’s Sunday and the night is falling upon Edinburgh yet still the city still has a hurried buzz within its air. It’s not often I get out on Sunday evening so I never quite know how busy the town will be. Yet, despite it being the day for rest, the people are still in need of a place to go, a person to see and a drink to drink.

And like a review repeating itself, after having set a little benign scene, I now go onto the part where I describe the venue that I’ve not been into until now. The venue in description tonight is as you’ve glanced at above – Whistlebinkies (that name is in fact genuine). It’s a narrow underground pub with a homely feel. The tables are sticky and the walls are peppered with images of Hendrix, Davis and anyone else you might think revolutionary. The stage is located at the back, next to the ladies bathroom (go figure) and is hardly elevated but plays well to a crowd who can sit by the sidelines or stand in the way of the women in desperate need of releases of their….moving on…

Before tonight’s gig, lead singer of Amplifico, Donna Maciocia tells me of how the venue is a favourite of hers and in true fashion she supports her words with a performance to be proud of. Taking the same form as when supporting Candie Payne, Donna and Andy the cellist take the stage, delivering their cut down versions of the bands most lush, catchy and engaging numbers all with a jovial and casual attitude.

In my seat by the side I get confused as to whether Donna is mixing her songs together but I’m ignorantly unaware the fact that her and Andy are in fact just sound checking. But I suppose when your sound check is that temptingly teasing, the show is only set to be stronger. The run of songs is similar to that of their last show together with the mellow guitar vibe of “This Stuff Cuts Like Thorns It Does” and the enchantingly subtle Björk cover “Who Is It” which is followed by more increased pressure for the audience to listen to the original (rightfully so though).

Unlike her last supporting slot, Donna doesn’t take time to ease herself into her set and this time performs with comfort from the start most likely from familiarity of the venue. From a distance Donna envisages the shadow of her former touring partner KT Tunstall while her voice spans so many levels and ticks multiple boxes it really is (and I repeat this because emphasis is needed) impossible not to fall in love with her voice. If she didn’t play her piano so passionately then it might just be lost underneath her vocal melodies.

Let’s not forget the soothing cello layer Andy provides, his skills are perhaps regrettably overcome by Donna’s playing but when she makes use of her guitar, the real reason he’s supporting come apparent. But when she stomps out the stop/start jazz of “Logic Kills The Fire” or the sweaty and thick bass range of “The Red Song” is hardly surprising women who just wanted to use the toilet ended up staying at the front to watch.

By Ray Finlayson

 

Amplifico
Andy the Cellist

Arthur & Yu
In Camera
Rating: 7.1

There’s one predominant reason as to why this record plays well to my ears. You know when you get a song that reminds you of another song or artist and you quibble over yourself as to whether the band in question have merely ripped off someone else or are playing and sounding like bands they appreciate. Well the reason I enjoy Arthur & Yu’s debut album In Camera is because they never cease to amaze me in the amounts of bands they bring to mind when I’m listening to them. And I mean that in the good way.

The album comes to us (well Americans at least) through new label Hardly Art which is the little sibling of Sub Pop and it’s hardly surprising that the influences and personal reminders come in the form of bands and artists from the original and now well established label. If you look hard you’ll find the readiness and recent concentration of The Shins, the elegant wistfulness of The Album Leaf, toe tapping rhythms of Iron & Wine and of course remnants of Rogue Wave (but when one half of the vocal duo here used to be Rogue Wave’s bassist, that’s hardly surprising).

Beyond their label friends, the influence are still coming smooth and freshly and don’t overdose themselves. Opening track “Absurd Heroes Manifesto” is full of Beatles like steadiness with non exaggerated pop and switching of vocal leader while for some reason reminding me of Danielson (a more curious reminder to be honest). “Black Bear” is a Grizzly Bear song (possibly slyly referenced in the title) if there were ever one missing from their last album with the distant starting vocals and deep, terror-some attacking notes of the electric guitar while “There Are Too Many Birds” recalls Julie Sokolow due to the balanced and composed opening then Andrew Bird (another sly pun?) with its vibrant glockenspiel which introduces itself romantically.

It’s full of jangly melodies throughout, it’s a record which doesn’t take much effort to listen or get through and thus becomes to seem like time is bouncing off the walls in many of the tracks, such as “Afterglow” with its 3 beat undergrowth holding the track together. The vocals, Grant Olsen and Sonya Westcott respectively, sooth at times when the music moves minimally and play along with the rhythms when they present themselves. Naming themselves after their childhood nicknames, Grant “Arthur” and Sonya “Yu”, it’s again hardly surprising that they sing over younger times when it “goes without saying”, though, this time it might just be worth saying something.

By Ray Finlayson

 

Arthur & Yu

Stephen Fretwell
Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh
17th August 2007

The atmosphere around the Liquid Rooms is a much more relaxed and casual one than that of Edinburgh’s other two venues. The Corn Exchange boasts vast, if not too vast, space where you get your dedicated fans finding the barrier with ease as they arrive while everyone else struggles to know where to stand in an attempt to seem unbothered by their confusion as to what to do. Cabaret Voltaire is pretty much the exact opposite in size but finds the audience scared to approach the anything but elevated stage until who they came to see have arrived to perform.

The Liquid Rooms I suppose is the intermediate venue in Edinburgh with reasonable yet sturdy size along with a stage that prevails a good height above the crowd while at the same time not distancing the artist from the audience too much.

The venue plays much more in favour of bands that like to have fun on stage, to move around and generally make use of the narrow yet spacious floor beneath their feet. It’s the venue of choice for those with a comfortable sound level, ones who know and can reproduce their songs with ease and reassurance that the audience will listen with intent.

With all that said, support bands are set to suffer since the majority of audiences won’t be there to see them. But that doesn’t mean those in second place cannot end up another mere backdrop of noise before the main act. I recall Men, Women & Children supporting iForward Russia! who visually and musically outplayed both my expectations and the main act. But as I remember their spirited and enthusiastic set, I find the reason they stick in my mind is because they not only came and did what they love to do but were all full of confidence and used that not only to let their songs shout loud but also to play around and experiment with stage props (who could forget the Indian!).

Onto tonight’s rather brief and unmemorable support set from the husky beard and suit from Evan Crichton. His lone guitar strums are unenthusiastic, minimalist and pointless at best. The audience find more entertainment and movement in the drink in their hands as they chatter among themselves and occasionally give a glance to be polite. It’s not just the audience who seem tired and slouchy, Evan’s backing band, who are pretty much defunct until the last two songs, find quiet conversation among themselves.

Evan also doesn’t seem to be one for conversation, except when it comes to telling us the bare minimum about his new album which, as I remember, he failed to tell us the title of. Then again, I might have had to do something important like check the time so I could have missed him mentioning it. In an attempt to redeem himself, his last two numbers are surprisingly loud chunks of uncatchty power-pop which shows us that he can actually make a recognizable noise with an electric guitar along with letting his band members do something instead of not regretting choosing to drop out of that university course.

Stephen Fretwell knows his audience and knows how to go about pleasing them. Sadly for him he will always be credited as another voice with a guitar and he knows he has to accept that that is what he is built upon but as he introduced some of his new album material, he strays beyond his typical roots by playing with new noises of definite promise. Going it solo, some new numbers such as “San Francisco Blues” and “Darling Don’t” initially seem to have fared better back at Henry’s Cellar’s close and compact closeness but still manages to make a sweet and harmless impression upon the larger audience tonight.

The likes of “Emily” are set aside in the first half of the set so he can move into expressing the more instrument heavy new songs. “William Shatner’s Dog” gets added bass and slowed down too half its speed to excruciate the harsh lyrics while “Bumper Cars” moves more initially at a sluggish pace and doesn’t quite grab you as well. However the most intriguing number here comes in the form of “Comedy”, a song as musically playful as the title suggests but like a lot of his new works, is more of a twisted tale than a resentful ballad.

As momentarily memorable as Stephen’s shows are through his music, he himself is also rather amusing to watch. His delivery of certain notes and lines puts some questionable faces upon him as he balances his guitar on a raised thigh. But he knows what he’s doing, he knows his material is open to criticism (even telling us one of his lines is terrible but still got him laid) however he doesn’t try and recreate himself under a polished ordinary layer of nonsense and mediocrity. Instead he moves through music steadily and reveals it when it’s ready in his mind.

By Ray Finlayson

 

Evan Crichton
Stephen Fretwell

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