Dream, Dream, Dream – Vladimir E.P.

Not a lot of time this week due to work so hopefully a couple of mini-reviews to tide me over.

First up E.P. 2 by Vladimir the launch for which I went to months ago, yet I’ve not managed to squeeze many listens to the actual record since. So a mention at least is well overdue.

‘E.P. 2′ is a set of mainly up tempo tunes and seems like a step forward for Vlad as the sound is less claustrophobic than on the earlier releases. There’s a definite feel of horizons opening up.

Early Joy Division are perhaps the obvious touchstones this time around although ‘Drenched’ perhaps catches the same sort of lightning as early Interpol did.

Perhaps the only slightly adverse comment is that the E.P. doesn’t capture the full power of these songs live but that’s actually more of a testament to the live show than a criticism of the record. Certainly ‘E.P. 2′ confirms Vladimir the new(-ish) Dundee band to watch.

Here’s probably my favourite track from the record:

The E.P. is available on CD and limited edition cassette.

Upcoming dates

Cellar 35, Aberdeen – 13th July

Tramlines Festival, Sheffield -21st July

I Am The Sun – Breeders reissue

The twentieth anniversary of the Breeders’ ‘Last Splash’ is being marked in some style with a tour by the line-up that recorded the album and the re-issue of a deluxe version of the LP itself as ‘LSXX’.

Sadly, an outbreak of work related common sense means that I’m not going to be at tomorrow’s O2 ABC show (Monday 17th June) in Glasgow (where the Breeders will be supported by local heroes PAWS), but I have the recent re-issue to console myself.

When it came to choosing the version of the re-issue to purchase, common sense also prevailed. Tempting though the multiple vinyl package was, its price of a minimum of £70 was more than off-putting. So, I settled for the 3 CD reissue instead.

Let’s start with the main album itself. ‘Last Splash’ is not only the Breeders’ best selling LP but it’s also, without question, the best post Pixies album by any of its members.

It’s the best Breeders LP or two reasons. That’s down in large part to the strength of the record but also, importantly, it’s the one album that hasn’t been stifled by Kim’s favoured lo-fi production, lending it a scope that the likes of ‘Pod’ and ‘Mountain Battles’ lack.

For all that there are 7 or 8 classics on here, I feel that it stops a little short of being a complete classic. The reason for that is the more variable second side. But whilst the record undoubtedly bears some indications of being influenced by grunge it also retains a lightness of touch that grunge couldn’t deliver.

Disc 2 collects contemporary non-LP material in the shape of the E.P.s and a bundle of often prototype demos. This is where the vinyl package really comes into its own as the E.P.s are available on separate 10”s. Listening to them all gathered together on the CD however, the over-riding impression is that there’s a lot of variety but equally that the quality is very much up and down.

The final disc is a decent, if occasionally slightly scrappy, live recording from a Stockholm show which is bolstered by the addition of a BBC session (with 3 of the 4 songs not included in the live set). The inclusion of some ‘Pod’ material in the set is welcome but some slightly puzzling omissions lend it an incomplete feel. And some of the between song chat could happily have been discarded…

All things considered, ‘LSXX’ is a more than welcome reissue with the level of extras that should be standard for these releases. If it’s not quite true to say that this is all the Breeders you’d ever need, it’s certainly the best place to start.

Footnote

The other day, Pixies announced that Kim has officially left the band. For my tuppenceworth, the band will be losing an essential element but many bands have continued without a key member without necessarily losing their entire character.

Presumably also this clears the way for a new Pixies record. However I have very mixed feelings about this. Ever since the last two LPs in the early 90′s I can’t say that I’ve been anticipating a sixth Pixies LP with any sort of excitement. I’m certain that any such record would do well commercially but creatively how likely is it that it will be anything better than the sort of retread that  ‘m b v’ turned into?

You’ll Not Want Another Song After This One – Birdhead live

Birdhead / Hagana – ‘Pleasure Centre’ LP Launch – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh – 9th June 2013

So at long last I managed to catch up with Birdhead live again at Sunday night’s launch for their excellent debut LP ‘Pleasure Centre’. It proved to be the perfect place to reacquaint myself with the ‘Heid live experience, even if it was very much an LP launch a la mode (e.g. the records hadn’t actually escaped from the pressing plant in time for the show).

There’s a visceral edge to the Birdhead live sound that hasn’t, yet, quite translated to record. Perhaps it’s just down to the Sneaky’s sound but the whole thing sounds a little unruly and Stephen’s guitar, so central to the records, is less dominant live. But Dave’s drumming really comes to the fore, undoubtedly the pounding heart at the centre of the Birdhead maelstrom. The show certainly threw a slightly different light on the LP material but in a good way – and I’ve listened to nothing else since.

Song-wise there was a surprising amount of new material for an LP launch with the balance was 60/40 in favour of the new record. Within thge main set most of the first side of the album got played, as well as ‘Inertia’ from the second, although (unless I’m much mistaken) the show was opened by a tease of the intro from ‘Trojan’ before heading instead into ‘Tourist’.

The new material ranged from the rocky ‘Tesseract’ to an untitled instrumental which sounded like a perkier cousin of ‘Time Lag Accumulator’.

The end to the main set was rather sheepish with Dave not even bothering to get off his drum seat. Whilst Stephen did manage to escape from the stage it didn’t take too much persuasion for him to return for a searing ‘Seamus Notdog’. It was the perfect way to round things off in time for the Sneaky’s curfew.

I’m a bit puzzled by the lack of attention that the album seems to be getting. Too often for me electro-rock is disappointing, just stadium rock with bleeps, but Birdhead have managed to carve out their own thrilling identity by incorporating the best elements of both rock and electronic music. If I may be so bold, you need to check these guys out.

The show had been opened by hard rocking power trio Hagana. I must confess that a couple of minutes into their set, I was pretty much expecting them to be the sort of rock band that I can watch for half an hour or so without any great desire to explore their records.

That judgement proved to be premature. Whilst Hagana are heavier than a lot of stuff I listen to, there were some great songs in there too. I didn’t catch its title but the fifth song blended melody and riffs in the way that Bob Mould occasionally does and was my favourite of their tunes. Some of the other up tempo stuff worked nearly as well but the “slowest” tune of the night (all things are relative) ‘Ryan Seaquest’ was pretty bloody good too. So all in all a good way to start the show.

‘Pleasure Centre’ is available on Gamma Proforma Records – hopefully from a record store near you, very, very soon.

More photos from the show here.

Please Don’t Make Me Cry – Adam Stafford live

Adam Stafford

Adam Stafford / Billy Letford / Sonny Carntyne / Robbie Lesiuk – Wiseblood Industries Showcase – Non-Zeros, Dundee – 7th June 2013

So another quality Dundee show and another poor turn-out. Sometimes I despair.

Opening act was Robbie Lesiuk whose solo acoustic performance reminded me a fair bit of Beerjacket. Nice, friendly stage persona too.

Sonny Carntnye

Next up were Sonny Carntyne, whom I’d quite enjoyed the first time I saw them. On Friday though they seemed to have grown as a band and were much stronger. The full band dynamic in particular seemed to have been developed since last time giving them an extra dimension.

There was poetry next with a short set from Billy Letford. I’m in no way a connoisseur of spoken word performances but his material switched from short and sweet to longer and more inventive.

Billy Letford

Talking about invention takes us to the headliner. Adam Stafford has completely changed his set since the last time I saw him to concentrate on material from the upcoming LP ‘Imaginary Walls Collapse’.

If anything it’s a stronger set than last year’s even if the basic elements of voice, guitar and loops are largely the same. But the final number is his most ambitious live performance so far, building up a wall of sound from more than a dozen different vocal loops.

It’s a performance that confirms Stafford as one of Scotland’s unique talents. And almost guarantees that the new LP is going to be another fantastic 2013 record.

Robbie Lesiuk

Finally a word about the venue that used to be Dexter’s. Friday was, shamefully, my first visit since the venue had changed hands and I confess that I hadn’t really expected to find that anything was different.

In fact, new owner Dave has made a significant improvement to the visibility by increasing the height of the stage to the same level as the old lip on which the monitor sat. Additionally it feels like there’s a wider view of the stage all of which is to the good. The end result is to make Dundee’s best small venue, even better.

Photos from the show here.

Iain Banks (1954-2013)

When it comes to reading, I owe Iain Banks a hell of a lot.

Difficult though it is to believe now, there was a spell in my 20s when I’d got out of the habit of reading. Iain Banks was my route back into contemporary fiction.

Staying at a friend’s after a wedding and waking early, I picked up a copy of ‘The Bridge’ from the bookshelf the morning after, before anyone was up. I didn’t get very far but was sufficiently intrigued to get the book myself shortly afterwards.

It seems unlikely today but there didn’t seem to be much in the way of contemporary Scottish fiction at the time. Other, of course, than Iain Banks. Suffice to say that I bought every one of his novels in fairly short order.

When I finished the ‘literary’ novels, with nothing else to buy, I turned, with a little trepidation, to the Iain M Banks SF books. And enjoyed them just as much.

So having got me back into the reading habit, Banks was also my route back into written SF for the first time in over a decade.

Over the years, we went to a good number of his book events and were always struck by his larger than life persona. The last event we saw him at took place at Dundee Central Library last year. The abiding memory of that night was hearing him getting micced up beforehand, blissfully unaware that the mic was live and that his commentary on how much he disliked the mics was being broadcast to the gathering audience!

I also had the pleasure of a couple of brief chats with the man in recent years at events that my wife had organised, most recently when he launched the Sci-Fife series of events in Glenrothes.

That night I asked him which of his SF novels he thought would be most appropriate for the then 14 year old MPK1.

“None!” was his quick response before reconsidering on the basis of the materials that teenagers are exposed to through games. (If you’re interested, ‘The Player of Games’ was his eventual recommendation.)

Others will write far more eloquently and more knowledgeably than I can about his novels and the impact that they have had. However, on a personal basis, a new Banks every year or two was an event to look forward to.

The news in April that he had terminal cancer was a terrible shock. He seemed to be one of these cultural icons you imagined would be around forever. His statement announcing the grim news though seemed typical of the man, facing the worst of situations the only way he knew how – with humour.

His last statement, a couple of weeks ago, tapped the same vein. He announced that he had returned to driving gas guzzling cars to zip around the Highlands for the sheer joy of speed on the grounds that he was saving 20-30 years on his expected carbon footprint.

It turns out his carbon footprint was to be cut short sooner than we could have imagined.The news that he had died this morning was nevertheless still a shock.

The world truly is a poorer place for his loss and my thoughts tonight are with his family and friends.

Every Single Time Will Be Twice As Nice – Woodentops reissue

There seem to have been a lot of reissues recently, which isn’t helping me kick the record buying habit. I’m going to look at some of what I’ve been buying over the next wee while and thought I’d start with ‘Before, During, After’ – a reissue of the Woodentops back catalogue.

A three CD set, the first is based around debut LP ‘Giant’, the second features second album ‘Woodenfoot Cops on the Highway’ whilst the last collects together various non-LP tracks including tracks from the early singles.

In terms of the substantive releases ‘Giant’ has aged well. After the energy of the early singles its pop sheen was something of a surprise back in the day but there’s little doubt that, with the benefit of hindsight, it was the correct approach. It works particularly well on the slower material such as ‘Everything Breaks’, Give It Time’ and ‘So Good Today’ whilst the likes of ‘Good Thing’ proves that they could still bring the noise when necessary.

Despite including none of the early singles, it is a really strong collection of songs. If there’s a criticism of the record it is that the production tends to smooth out the differences between some of the tunes. But overall ‘Giant’ is probably a bit better than I remember it.

The extra tracks include several remixes and in general these are amongst the better examples of 80s remixes. Arguably ‘Good Thing’ is the best of these even if it amounts to little more than an extended version. There’s a slightly annoying breakdown in the middle of the song but the extended crescendo at the back end of the song is wonderful.

Initially I was thinking that ‘Woodenfoot Cops On The Highway’ was going to be better than the inconsistent LP that I remembered. The first side is pretty good, even if it’s not quite as good as ‘Giant’, and the second gets off to a great start with ‘Stop This Car’.

But thereafter it dips significantly in quality, perhaps not surprisingly since the sleeve notes state that the whole thing was written in a few short weeks. Again the remixes fare well particularly the beautifully constructed extended version of ‘Stop This Car’ which makes the LP version sound unnecessarily truncated.

There’s also a handful of songs for what would have been the third Woodentops album. Not unexpectedly they’re a mixed bag – ‘Surely’ would have made a terrific single (surely) but the rest are not nearly of the same standard.

The rarities CD is all over the shop. It starts with the absolute brilliance of the early singles, all four of which are included here (albeit one or two in slightly different mixes). I can never make my mind up which is my favourite – they all have a claim. There’s the bonus addition of three B-sides including the just as good as the A-sides ‘Have You Seen The Lights’.

Inevitably the rest of the CD doesn’t live up to the same standard. Indeed it ends up with some frankly quite ropey techno with assorted (good) remixes and live tracks in between.

Ultimately ‘Before, During, After’ provides plenty of proof that the Woodentops were creatively restless and constantly on the move. Even if their artistic  decisions were not necessarily always the best.

Given the price though this is a fascinating document of one of the 80s most underrated acts which is well worth investigating.

Not really a video …