Music EXPOSURE
JUNIP Gothenburg trio Junip – singer and guitarist José González, percussionist Elias Arya and keys player Tobias Winterkorn – formed 12 years ago, but they’ve only just recently released their debut album, Fields. So we thought we’d bend the rules of Exposure slightly this fortnight to introduce you to their gently psych-frazzled, pastoral indie- folk thing, and also to give us an excuse for a chat with González, a successful solo singer-songwriter in his own right. Your solo career probably explains why Junip have been such an on-off concern over the last decade and more, no?
Yes, I’ve been touring a lot. We haven’t been working on it each day, so in a way it’s a bit weird to say that we’ve been a band for 12 years – we just kept the name.
And Fields is all new material?
Exactly – we decided just to do new music. It’s new music with old friends. It must be quite refreshing to find yourself in a new band again all of a sudden?
Yeah, definitely. Our ambition isn’t to have super-hits. If we can fill a room with 300 people that’s perfect. Going back to basics is no bad thing. As a solo artist, you’re probably best known for your cover of The Knife’s ‘Heartbeats’, which soundtracked that Sony Bravia ad with the bouncing coloured balls on San Francisco streets. Did Sony give you a nice big TV set for your troubles?
Yes, they did actually. (Malcolm Jack) ■ The Arches, Glasgow, Sat 9 Oct. Fields is out now on City Slang/ Cooperative Music. See www.cityslang.com for a free download of Junip’s first single, ‘Always’ (Run Roc remix), or go here to watch the ‘Always’ video: www.vimeo.com/14763875.
LIVE REVIEWS
REVIEW ALL-GIRL GOTHIC BLUES DUM DUM GIRLS Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Wed 22 Sep ●●●●●
REVIEW PUNK COMANECHI/DIVORCE Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Thu 23 Sep ●●●●● REVIEW INDIE POP STILL FLYIN’ Captains Rest, Glasgow, Tue 28 Sep ●●●●●
Full style marks go to all-girl Los Angeles quartet Dum Dum Girls, all of them beautiful, dressed in black and looking like a Siouxsie Sioux convention at Paris Fashion Week. Perhaps their music isn’t quite as striking as their image, but they do a nice line in messed-up blues rock and slowed-down West Coast punk, as befits girls from their neck of the woods. Singer Dee Dee Penny (real name
Kirsten Gundred) and co sing harmonies like The Ronettes and play music like The Jesus and Mary Chain, and their lyrics combine a kind of sleazy romance on ‘Bhang Bhang I’m a Burnout’ and ‘Everybody’s Out’ with a hint of fallen angel heartbreak during ‘Baby Don’t Go’ and ‘Yours Alone’. Yet, although this headline set (with support from always pleasing Edinburgh indie-pop trio Come On Gang!), stole some of the limelight back after their MGMT support duties over the previous two nights in Glasgow, they didn’t quite grab the chance to shine. Perhaps a bit of volume and a bit less sullen rock star attitude might have struck the best balance. (David Pollock)
Glasgow punk outfit Divorce and London boy-girl garage duo Comanechi (pictured, below) call their musical ménage-a-deux a ‘marriage of filth’. That’s not a bad tagline for these increasingly inseparable bands, that boast distinctive but not dissimilar trash sensibilities and an equally ferocious live sound. They are also currently promoting their split 10” (where the bands also unite to make a right racket on their cover of Sonic Youth’s ‘Death Valley 69’). The bands’ second co-headline gig
at Sneaky Pete’s this year is just as riotous as the one in January, onstage at least. (The crowd could do with a bit more warming up than support, Run Off With Gypsies and Jackie Treehorn, were able to generate.) Nevertheless, Divorce terrorise with an ultra-abrasive workout that tries hard but fails to drown out singer Sinead Youth’s throat-shredding wail. And despite the tiny venue having thinned out somewhat for Comanechi, guitarist Brian Petrovich’s walls of fuzz and Japanese singer/percussionist Akiko Matsuura’s blistering drumming and charmingly pitch-imperfect vocals bring this honeymoon in hell to an apt shagged-out finish. (Miles Fielder)
There’s more than a whiff of something very uncool about this Moshi Moshi- signed, self-styled ‘hammjamm’ (no, we’re not sure what that means either) San Francisco-based party band, the life and soul of which is singer/songwriter Sean Rawls. But that just makes them all the more loveable. There were perhaps just 20 people in the Captains Rest – only five less than Still Flyin’ at full complement (a skeleton staff of just six members played here). But we can comfortably say we’ve never seen a sparsely-filled venue feel so full as during disco- charged epic ‘Good Thing It’s a Ghost Town Around Here’, as bodies whirled around in gleeful abandon. Resembling an awkward collision between Talking Heads in their scratchy white funk passage, and a cod-reggae jam band, they’ve got obvious soulmates in the shouty, euphoric indie pop likes of Architecture in Helsinki and Tilly & The Wall, although it does Still Flyin’ a disservice to suggest this wasn’t a thoroughly individual spectacle – gloriously upbeat, resplendently daft and bags of fun. Which is probably what hammjamm means. (Malcolm Jack)
REVIEW MINI ISLAND FESTIVAL AWAY GAME Isle of Eigg, Inner Hebrides, Fri 24 & Sat 25 Oct ●●●●●
Miami sunsets, macaroni pies, tractors-as-transport. Live death metal at 6am, beach campfires, and a bottomless hipflask of whisky. Away Game – the first Fence Records festival on Eigg, was, in short, a colossal success. Besides the idyllic island setting, the music hit a string of highs. Friday saw FOUND gee up the crowd with quirk- rock and electronica; plus Silver Columns’ frenzied tropical techno (pictured); Withered Hand’s solo neurotic majesty; and Francois & The Atlas Mountains’ stuttering rave-folk. On Saturday, Sweet Baboo (Daniel Johnston with a Welsh accent) sang under tweed bunting, before Malcolm Middleton premiered his new project, Human Don’t Be Angry. A highlight, the ex-Arab Strapper peppered his blissfully sparse ‘Midnight Noodles’, with comedy-bleak commentary. Later, King Creosote’s folk-pop soared and The Massacre Cave screamed into the small hours. Hats off to main- man Johnny Lynch – not only for fusing Fence’s strong folk strand with bleeping, doofing electro – but for dreaming up Scotland’s newest, very special, music festival. (Claire Sawers) See www.list.co.uk for the full review.
i m o c . k o o b w e v . p s i r c r a g u s : t a s o t o h p
64 THE LIST 7–21 Oct 2010
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