Music EXPOSURE
SHE’S HIT As well as running RE:PEATER Records, Glasgow’s garage-punk upstarts She’s Hit (that’s Cameron Wilson – drums, Michael Hanson – guitar, Scott Paterson – bass, Philip McLellan – guitar and David Wilson – vocals) have a lot planned for the New Year, including a headline gig at King Tuts and their debut album, Pleasure coming out in April . . .
How did you get together? ‘With the exception of Scott we all went to school together. We started getting into the same music, and as we got more and more into it we decided to write our own material. It took time to get the sound we wanted but we’ve come into our element over the past year. Scott volunteered to play bass after he heard our songs through Iain Cook [ex-guitarist in Aereogramme; now a member of the Unwinding Hours, he’s remixed Biffy Clyro and produced stuff for The Twilight Sad] who was mastering our unreleased first album.’
How would you describe your music? ‘I guess it’s seen by most as post-punk and garage punk, it’s also been described as “dirty surf”. It’s hard to define your own music because you just go in and do what you feel is right.’ Is post-punk making a comeback? ‘I think post-punk’s been fairly constant since its inception, but with the recent success of certain bands it’s being tagged with a revival. Post- punk as a movement will never really fade because the music that defined it is always reaching new audiences.’ (Hamish Gibson) ■ She’s Hit play New Year’s Revolution King Tuts, Glasgow, Tue 4 Jan.
LIVE REVIEWS
WORLD FUSION AFROCUBISM Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Thu 2 Dec ●●●●● All power to the Usher Hall as chosen venue for one of only two UK gigs played by supergroup AfroCubism. True, the snow meant rerouting them via Glasgow, yet that only fired up what Eliades Ochoa, Cuba’s ‘king of country music’ called the night’s ‘calor humano’ (human warmth).
INDIE-FOLK/ ROCK OLYMPIC SWIMMERS AND SONG OF RETURN Flat 0/1, Glasgow, Sat 4 Dec ●●●●● The cramped interior of Bath Street’s Flat 0/1 makes for a rubbish music venue. What may normally make the bar kitschy and cute does not lend itself well to a gig setting; a bath suspended from a ceiling and a double bed only further lessen space.
There was plenty heat on display With no stage, the bands set up
with dancing in the aisles as they kicked off with ‘Mali Cuba’, evoking their historic links from the legacy of the slave trade to the post- independence 1960s when Cuban music was hugely influential in Mali. Sadly composer Toumani Diabaté was stuck in Paris and unable to appear, yet miraculously Bassekou Kouyate as ‘man of the gig’ played Toumani’s kora harp parts on his small n’goni against melodies from Ochoa’s guitar over the rootsy timbres of Lassame Diabaté’s balafon xylophone. With glorious singing from Kasse Mady Diabaté – majestic in golden robes – and riveting solos from guitar giant Djelimady Tounkara, this was a magical night of musical exchange. While they’ve not had enough outings yet to fully light the blue touch paper, Ochoa’s superb Grupo Patria’s cheeky trumpeters are showing the way. (Jan Fairley)
shop next to the front door. Anybody keen enough to squeeze up the long, narrow room to pay proper attention is interrupted every time somebody exits for a fag. Olympic Swimmers (below) tackle the makeshift sound system with aplomb. Their shoe-glancing indie translates well to the slightly shambolic set-up, reverb trails and introspective lyrical content.
Meanwhile, Song of Return’s driving, instinctive stick work and mixture of live and synthetic percussion provides a structural lynchpin for their tightly woven Nine Inch Nails-style soundscapes. Yet, despite the obvious calibre of the players involved, both bands struggle with the awkward set-up, leaving patrons with little doubt that this gig could have been much more rewarding if it had been situated almost anywhere else but here. (Lauren Mayberry)
INDIE-FOLK VILLAGERS Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 6 Dec ●●●●●
We got both Villager and Villagers at this show, the moniker serving both as the solo alias of Dublin singer/ songwriter Conor J. O’Brien and as the collective title for his band. They were contrasting experiences that complemented each other well, and underscored why a Mercury Prize shortlisting for he/their debut album Becoming a Jackal earlier this year was well-earned.
Opening the set unaccompanied, the big-eyed and severe of black bowl-cut O’Brien imbued his eerily poetic songs – performed with spare precision on acoustic guitar – with brooding intensity by staring out the audience with his fixed glare. Things relaxed a bit once his four backing musicians arrived, displaying a sage sense of when to exercise restraint in their textured playing – the dual-piano arpeggios of ‘I Saw the Dead’ being a good example – and when to layer the atmospherics on thick. The striking title track of Villagers’ LP was given added kick Radiohead-style live, though the best song of the night arrived when O’Brien was on his own again for ‘Twenty Seven Strangers’, a heavy-hearted hymn casting him as an Irish Elliott Smith. (Malcolm Jack)
MOD ROCKER PAUL WELLER SECC, Glasgow, Sat 4 Dec ●●●●● After the success of his new album Wake Up the Nation earning a Mercury nomination, it seems The Modfather Paul Weller has enjoyed a bit of a critical revival. Still, many at this packed-out, large-scale show would no doubt have been here if he was singing nursery rhymes. For many Weller can do no wrong, and these old school fans would have been in heaven with faithful covers of his own Jam tracks here like ‘Eton Rifles’, ‘Start!’, the ferocious ‘Art School’ and a disarmingly tender ‘The Butterfly Collector’. Other stand-outs included The Style Council’s ever-likeable ‘Shout to the Top’ and more strident recent singles ‘Wake Up the Nation’ and ‘From the Floorboards Up’, although there were moments of self- indulgence (‘Trees’ is shards of five fine songs compressed into an uneven whole) and an uncharacteristic lack of conviction – for example ‘Fast Car / Slow Traffic’, introduced by sometime Ocean Colour Scene guitarist Steve Craddock like he was trying to start a fight outside a football ground. The chorus of ‘That’s Entertainment’, which lingered long after the stage was empty, suggested the faithful are forgiving of such episodes, though. (David Pollock)
82 THE LIST 16 Dec 2010 – 6 Jan 2011