Music
EXPOSURE FACTORY FLOOR Fuck Buttons heard this London trio play once. Once was enough, and they asked them along as support on their UK tour. Factory Floor (who renamed themselves 'FF' for a brief heartbeat, before, enigmatically, becoming Factory Floor once more) are Gabe Gurnsey (battering drums within an inch of their life), Dom Butler (creating a wall of noise with synths and effects) and Nik Colk (attacking guitars with drumsticks and violin bows, and singing). They make intense, pummeling, dark synthy noise, along similar lines to Sunn O))), Throbbing Gristle or Sonic Youth. And, before you ask, no, the name's got nothing to do with Factory Records. . .
'We always bloody get that,' laughs Gurnsey. 'The name's more about democracy, you know? No leader, like on a factory floor, we all share the roles.' How would you describe your music? 'Probably industrial dance. We like it when the crowd gets into it and starts dancing – it's better than staring at us like we're a bunch of freaks. It can sound quite aggressive, maybe. Repetitive, relentless and bloody loud. I think me and Dom are a bit deaf actually – we need everything turned right up.' And what did Fuck Buttons have to say about them? 'It was just really driving, really powerful stuff,' says Benjamin Power. They totally blew us away.' (Claire Sawers) ■ Supporting Fuck Buttons, The Arches, Sat 24 Apr. Their debut mini album, Untitled is released on blastfirstpetite on Mon 3 May. www.myspace.com/factoryfloor
REVIEW AMBIENT SOUNDTRACK 7VWWVW WITH WOUNDED KNEE Whitehill School, Glasgow, Thu 25 Mar ●●●●● REVIEW INDIE THE DRUMS Classic Grand, Glasgow, Mon 29 Mar ●●●●●
Sometimes the ‘where’ is just as important as the ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘why’. So the setting was a key player at this beautifully oddball one-off show; where a high school lecture hall in Dennistoun hosted Edinburgh analogue synthesiser collective, 7VWWVW (or Mammal, out loud), performing ‘Here is Where’, a specially composed tribute to bobble-hatted Scots rambling legend, Tom Weir. Dressed in woolly socks, tweed blazers and rucksacks, and swigging from a hip flask while playing, the four were joined by Edinburgh voice artist Wounded Knee, wrapping his peaty, mossy brogue around their glowing ambient soundscapes, while a screen showed wee Tam bouncing up hill- sides or grinning over stone dykes. ‘Aye, it’s a rare view!’, he beamed from the top of Arthur’s Seat; the end of 40-odd minutes of rainbow visuals of hot air balloons, soaring mountain panoramas and drizzly glens from Weir’s Way. Vintage technology, Scots riddling (Wounded Knee did a spec- tacular tongue-twist around Edwin Morgan’s ‘Canedolia’) and gently throbbing, mesmerising electronica. Aye, rare indeed. (Claire Sawers)
Fresh from the recent NME Awards Tour, this bunch have clearly either bought themselves a one-way ticket to ignominious obscurity or they’ll be one of the biggest bands in the nation by this time next year. Whichever way it goes, though, plain old good quality means that The Drums’ career doesn’t deserve to end here. It’s not entirely heartening to see
such a modest crowd turning out for such a touted, Moshi Moshi-signed band, but the enthusiasm on display helped make up for it. Of course, applying the law of diminishing marginal returns to the medium of four handsome boys with guitars (from Brooklyn, in this case), no-one is original these days. Still, this lot use their influences so impeccably it’s hard not to warm to them.
Singer Jonathan Pierce is as feyly cheerful as Robert Smith on ‘It Will All End In Tears’ and ‘Submarine’; as wounded as Ian Curtis on the lovely ‘Down By the Water’; and he dances as if he were a member of Flowered Up during ‘Best Friend’.
In other words, If UK indie of the 80s
is your thing, then this is your band. (David Pollock)
REVIEW CITY FESTIVAL HINTERLAND Various venues, Glasgow, Sat 3 Apr ●●●●● REVIEW INDIE THE TWILIGHT SAD O2 ABC, Glasgow, Fri 2 Apr ●●●●●
Perhaps the life of music festivals should be measured in dog years, in which case this one-ticket, multi- venue affair, returning for a second year albeit reduced to one day long, makes it a rowdy teenager. Over six busy venues – seven if you count both stages at the Arches – there were thirty artists in nine hours, most of them of the guitar-wielding variety. Among the notables were Panda Su, the Fife singer-songwriter in cute panda facepaints whose set of melancholy acoustic longing at Pivo Pivo was standing room only, or the garage-heavy Pulled Apart By Horses, whose singer Tom Hudson finished the set windmilling on the Admiral’s floor. Over at the Arches – HQ for the night once the smaller venues had resumed their regular service – big draws Mystery Jets and British Sea Power were beaten in the quirky indie stakes by Jeffrey Lewis (pictured, below). The New Yorker played a solo set which featured film of his comic book animations set to music, before DJs from Hot Chip and Friendly Fires showed up to put such feyness to bed in energising style. To reach middle age next year would be well deserved. (David Pollock)
The Twilight Sad occupy shadows and angles; space and darkness. They delineate a rare silhouette onstage, and on our musical landscape: for all their Scottish indie references, bleak local folklore and Lanarkshire diction, their live performances often conjure vintage American alt. rock.
There is something in singer James Graham’s imperative, side-on presence that revives the awkward magnetism of REM’s Michael Stipe; and something in the band’s epic rhythm section – on capacious guitar anthems ‘I Became a Prostitute’ and ‘Reflection of the Television’ – that suggests canyons and sizeable things to come.
Despite the gig’s quadraphonic sound – it’s a cool diversion, but they’re thunderous enough without it – our senses are assailed by impending melodies, imposing self-possession and a pummelling light-show. A deluge of red is a vivid portent for signature pop-lament ‘Cold Days from the Birdhouse’; while a flash of brilliant white illuminates TTS. We glimpse its origin amid the fragile clamour of ‘The Room’: its shafts, as bright as solar flares, radiate from Graham’s heart. (Nicola Meighan)
64 THE LIST 15–29 Apr 2010
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