Some news of exciting bands playing these shores:
YACHT
YACHT is a two-piece from Portland, Oregon; they’re quite well-followed in the States but we island-dwellers seem more resistant to their charms. For a duo they make a relentless racket but baby is it catchy: big disco sounds over a sultry hip-hop beat, maddeningly and irritatingly seductive chants in voices so fabulously ratcheted that pubescence must never be allowed, inventive noises (huh, ooh, wha, etc.), minimal instrumental sections on what sounds like a xylophone, and obscure and strangely delicate keyboard samples. And that’s just new single Psychic City. In fact their other efforts are slower and calmer: all in all this is a mish-mash of weirdly, wordly sounds, and the sort of revolting musical amalgamation, perhaps even abomination, that generally sinks but, on this happy occasion, floats.. like a yacht!! HAHA ha ha? You dig? Hmm.
For real (funny) comedy, read the band’s marvellously silly MySpace mission statement: myspace.com/yacht. The live date below follows a May tour supporting Patrick Wolf, and sees them pushing their new album ‘See Mystery Lights’. There are also dates in Brighton and Manchester, plus the seriously-fun-sounding Truck Festival in Steventon.
Live date:
Fri 24 July – Cargo
MP3:
YACHT – Psychic City (zSHARE)
Crocodiles
Sometimes, there’s really nothing better than some teeth-knashing, sofa-bashing guitar actions, the type forcing the type of intense glazed headthrusts and floaty eyes that give today’s youth a bad name. Being swept along by a guitar-driven epic always feels to me like being carried in rapids, fast and rhythmic, you powerless and captive, yet in this instance that’s amazing and the’s danger an irrelevance. That’s the sort of sound Crocodiles make: raw, gritty rock, with echoey, razor sharp vocals thanks to some sort of reverberator gadget, and epic instrumental sections culminating in sudden meltdowns. It’s music for dimly-lit, smoky, reflective rooms, shoegaze on several slugs of Red Bull.
There’s precious little information about the band, but plenty of songs, at myspace.com/crocodilescrocodilescrocodiles
Live date:
Tues 4 August – Barden’s Boudoir
MP3:
Crocodiles – I Wanna Kill (zSHARE)