What to do with that Richard Marx LP? Here’s the answer…

My art knowledge is as limited as my grasp on grime.  But again, I still feel like I know enough to make a recommendation – and here comes one. 

But this is a music blog, you cry…  Ahah, yes ’tis, but as Helen Edwards, curator of the East End Arts Club, pointed out, her latest spectacle is musically-themed.  It’s called Noise of Art, and sees a variety of East London artists (some of repute, some unknown) create something wonderful from one or more pieces of vinyl.  It’s colourful, witty and wonderful, an escapist mini-world of retro rascals and their liberated long-players.

Most stick to the circular piece of black plastic, imposing an image on it, cuttings bits out, or playing with the sleeve.  But others get much more inventive – witness Stinky Lincoln’s Mixed Tape, a small-square mosaic referencing the digital, sample-happy state of the current music world.  Or Michael Cranston’s T-Rex Glam Period, chopping up a Bolan record and re-sculpting it as a small dinosaur.  But my favourite, by Daniel Edlen, was simpler: a Jimi Hendrix record with a silvery, thick-oil picture of the icon positioned on the left, suggesting (to me at least!) that Hendrix’s soul is instilled somewhere deep inside the 12″, shadowy but locatable if you devote enough countless, obsessive hours to listening to that gramophone.  Think yellowy Paris bedsits and plenty of glasses of gin.

On until 2o September, Noise of Art is a small self-contained exhibition, not too overwhelming but with enough depth to easily merit a village.  The East End Arts Club’s just off Redchurch Street in Shoreditch, a fabulous arty, zesty road in itself.  The artworks are for sale, but Helen’s just as happy for you to have an appreciative nose around. 

MP3: T-Rex – Cosmic Dancer (zSHARE)

Let’s Go Surfing with The Drums

The Drums are an exciting upcoming Brooklyn band with a few London dates coming up in October.  Their songs are summery, sugar-candied and deceptively addictive – so much so that NME has declared them “New York’s coolest new band”.  But do they live up to hype?

A slice of retro heaven, Let’s Go Surfing pays tribute to the cabriolet, sun-dazed feel of  American surf-rock.  The ceaseless rapid-fire guitar beat, the happy whistling and the fun and frivolous lyrics - mainly concerned with sucking lemons – all remind of yesteryear, when songs were minimal and magnificent .  The entire texture is a bit weird and wonderful, too, bringing to mind the Stranglers – especially when what sounds like an unhappy cat starts mewing in the background. 

Meanwhile, Don’t Be A Jerk, Jonny tells a schmaltzy teenage love story in a puffily perfect-pop format.  As Jonny defends his cruelty by exclaiming “it’s out of love”, so Jenny counters in time “no it’s not”; a soap opera on record.  There’s a catchy chorus and warm feel, and normally I’d hate this… but somehow this particular pop tart has a little extra, and feels ironically kitsch.  The lone, incessant and impossibly bubbly guitar hook; the pleasingly cruel lyrics (“you used to be a pretty / but now you’re so tragic / believe in something / you’re just full of  horseshit”); the finger clicks…

Other songs follow a similarly simple-but-superb formula: I Felt Stupid is frothy punk pop with a cute keyboard mid-section.  Down By The Water is a starker, lighter-waving love-song based around thudding, syrupy bass feedback and ghostly electronics. And so it diversely goes… The band cite The Presidents of the USA, The Smiths and The Shangri-La’s among their influences, and there are dim echoes of each spread across their catalogue.

Live dates:
Mon 19 October - Flowerpot, Kentish Town
Fri 23 October – Koko, Mornington Crescent
Tues 27 October – Barfly, Chalk Farm (tickets here)

The Drums on MySpace
The Drums’ website

MP3: The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing (zSHARE)
MP3: The Drums – Don’t Be A Jerk, Jonny (zSHARE)
Pre-order The Drums’ album Summertime here

Charlotte Gainsbourg working on new album with Beck

French singer-turned-actress-turned-back-singer Charlotte Gainsbourg has announced that much of her next album – IRM, due 30 November – will feature influence from Beck.  Although not singing, Beck produced the album as well as writing most of the music and co-writing many lyrics.
 
This follows Charlotte’s working with Air, Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon & Nigel Godrich on her previous effort, 5.55.  Released in 2006, that record was her first since returning to music after an impressive dabble in acting.  Those coalitions saw her plaintive pop become richer and more soulful; lord knows what it’ll morph into under Beck’s zany influence.  Rather than speculate, let’s wait for some MP3s to show up, and instead admire Charlotte – officially this blog’s second-favourite female in the world.

For his part, the marginally less attractive Beck’s already also embarking on a track-by-track cover of The Velvet Underground and Nico – an amazing concept album in its own right, and one that I can’t wait to hear reinvented under his maverick touch.  Heroin has just been released on video.  Exciting times indeed.

 
Charlotte Gainsbourg on MySpace
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s website
Beck on MySpace
Beck’s website
 
MP3: Charlotte Gainsbourg – Morning Song (zSHARE)

Sunday 6 September, Bandstand Busking – Peggy Sue and Sons of Noel & Adrian

The latest installment of Bandstand Busking is taking place in Clerkenwell* this coming Sunday.  For those of you unfamiliar with this coolest of concepts, it sees up-and-coming musical acts take to the bandstand in Northampton Square, off St John Road (map), for just under half an hour.  It’s old-fashioned, acoustic, charming and completely free.  And appearing this week are…

3.00 pm: Peggy Sue
A threepiece comprising 66.6% females, this likeable Brighton act offer up guitar-based folksy melodies imbued with a refreshing lack of flashiness.  Some end in cacophany while others never get above a gentle simmer, but each is slightly different and very likeable.  The forlorn, autumnal feel of Lover Gone feels especially appropriate in these days of cooling climes and all-too-easy melancholy. 
Peggy Sue on MySpace
MP3: Peggy Sue – Lover Gone (zSHARE)

3.30pm: Sons of Noel & Adrian
Also from Brighton and recently supporting the mighty Mumford & Sons, SONA boast as many as 12 members when playing live.  That’ll be one busy bandstand – but this is a dozen who really could delight… Fiddle-fuelled and whistle-enhanced, The Boat is Not A Wreck is very much a song for a Sunday, its wistful air conjuring up a lost land of barley squash and pick-your-own farms. Sulkier and slower, Damien is a rangy, witches’ potion of a song, full of delicately-sung, heartfelt duets and mesmerising guitar work.
Sons of Noel & Adrian on MySpace
MP3: Sons of Noel & Adrian – 30 Boys With Bats (zSHARE) (the only song I could get)

* The exact area that Northampton Square is in is open to question.  Bandstand Busking has it as Islington, but I live round here and to me this is Clerkenwell, or even Finsbury.  Not that it really matters…!

Maxsta – East London is Back

I don’t listen to a whole lot of grime or hip hop, but I do at least know when I’ve heard a bumping tune.  And East London is Back by Maxsta is surely that: it’s witty lyrics seem to paint a similarly comic picture of the capital’s outskirts as fellow London rapper Skinnyman, and a dubstep techno ripple over the top lends the track a wicked rhythm.  Most impressive is Maxsta’s delivery, though – he’s only 17, and yet he can already MC as well as the best of them, at least to my unexpert ears – including grime grandpa Dizzee Rascal, to whom inevitable comparisons must (unfortunately) be drawn. 

Maxsta’s currently recording his debut album; as such, he’s refusing to provide MP3s at present.  C’est la vie.  To listen to East London is Back, then, you could try his MySpace page, but strangely all that’s there is a radio version with a typically annoying BBC DJ blathering at either end (although there are some other great-sounding full-lengthers there – including the funky Our Brand and more soulful The Reason).  A better bet is the trusty Dazed’s August playlist – the buggers somehow seem to have snaffled a remastered, polished version of ELIB.   You’ll need the most recent version of Flash to hear it.

More news of Maxsta when I have it…

Maxsta on MySpace

Memory Tapes – unpredictable, limited-edition magic

Last week when talking about The Cribs, I mentioned how my personal musical boat is floated by unpredictability.  Obviously there need to be great sounds too, but along with those I adore not knowing if I’ll hear the chorus again, and what the chances are of a bassoon solo anytime soon.  Step forward, Memory Tapes.

Thanks to Rough Trade,  I know that he’s a one-man band based in New Jersey who’s long been remixing (as Weird Tapes and Memory Cassettes) on the fine gorillavsbear blog and is now releasing debut album ’Seek Magic’. It’s limited to 1,000 copies, available solely via Rough Trade outlets.   And, judging by the tracks available, it’ll be just the merry, maverick chaos I cherish…

Take Bicycle.  It begins by motoring along via a jazzy intro that oozes class and fine rum, before pop melodies momentarily deign to hitch a lift, and a bouncey electro rhythm swiftly follows.  Suddenly pandemonium breaks out: low aaaaaaghs from the singer and boisterous beats from a potent keyboard.  Then quietude again, just as sudden, then more mayhem: a patient, bongo-type throb in the background, the vocalist confessing to being in love with ‘you and your sister’; a mesmerising guitar solo; distant psychedelic screams.  And then it all ends, heartbreakingly, leaving you dishevelled, delighted and desperate for more.

And thankfully, more’s at hand.  Equally bonkers and brilliant is Plain Material, veering from a dutiful indie anthem to sample-happy, mind-bending Ibiza chill-out with magical grace, and providing more call for ass-shaking than any bout of food poisoning ever could.   If I was a name-dropping, reference-intent clown writing for Metro or the like, I’d say this was Kraftwerk via Kasabian mixed in with the soul of Daft Punk and a lick of New Order.   But, really, comparisons shouldn’t be made – this is music with its own free personality, and what bigger compliment can there be but that?

Completing the MySpace playlist is Pink Stones – entirely electronica-dance this one, with percussion beats so clear and true it sounds like King Kong’s thwacking a giant xylophone with a treetrunk he’s just unearthed in Central Park.  Or something like that.

Buy Seek Magic here (Rough Trade)

Memory Tapes on MySpace
Memory Tapes’ (and other projects’) blog  (with recent mixes)

MP3: Memory Tapes – Bicycle (zSHARE)
MP3: Memory Tapes - Plain Material (zSHARE)