list.co.uk/music Records – Singles | MUSIC
SINGLES, EPS & DOWNLOADS
TEENCANTEEN Honey (Neu! Reekie! Records) ●●●●●
BOOK GROUP Victory Lap / The Lowdown of a LOUD Sound (Gerry Loves Records) ●●●●● ROB ST JOHN AND TOMMY PERMAN Water of Life (edinburghwateroflife.org) ●●●●●
HOLY MOUNTAIN Luftwizard (Chemikal Underground) ●●●●●
Sir, madam, for the format fetishist in your life, may we present to you this scented and coloured cassette replete with miniature flowering garden and – hey! – some vintage indie femme-pop, in the vein of the Revillos or Thrum, courtesy of the debut single from Glasgow rabble TeenCanteen, whose colourful idiom and kamikaze tempos are bright and sweet and irresistible. Like honey. ■ TeenCanteen play the Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Sat 16 Nov, see teencanteen.co.uk for more info.
The megaphone is a neglected device in the pop toolbox, but Edinburgh riff-pop gunslingers Book Group buck this trend with the drum- straddling ‘Victory Lap’, a bullhorn- toting live favourite, now noising up their debut single (they self-released an EP in April). It’s backed by the axe-chiming,
Sugar-y alt-rock of ‘The Lowdown of a LOUD Sound’, which embodies its title, and then some. ■ Book Group play The Roxy 171, Glasgow, Thu 28 Nov with Pinact, and Teviot, Edinburgh, Fri 29 Nov, with Adam Stafford, Gav Prentice (Over the Wall) and Carbs. See gerrylovesrecords.com for more info.
This beautifully packaged 7”, replete with prints and literature, is part of the Water of Life collaboration between alt-folk diviner Rob St John and pop-art visionary Tommy Perman (ere of FOUND). Exploring and reflecting Edinburgh’s fluid landscape, it blurs field recordings with folksong, vintage synths and ambient electronica to create something at once natural, unnatural, and in perfect harmony with its source ■ Listen at soundcloud.com/ edinburghwateroflife. Rob and Tommy will be discussing their Water of Life project in an artist talk at Analogue Books, Edinburgh, Fri 6 Dec.
All hail Glasgow’s six-legged sludge-rawk behemoth, as riff exponents Holy Mountain return with the heroic, prog thundering first single from their second album, due to drop (with colossal weight) on Chemikal next year. The hypnotic, mind-melding, walloping narrative of ‘Luftwizard’ (a typically brilliant title) is backed by a mammoth, loin-searing assault on Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’. As ever, they win. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Find out more at chemikal.co.uk/ artists/holy-mountain/
EXPOSURE
UBRE BLANCA A filmic vintage synth-duo whose lineage spans Remember Remember, DIVORCE and Shitdisco, Ubre Blanca invoke Ballard, Kubrick, Vangelis and Blue Mustard, as only a group named after an ideological bovine could. ‘Who doesn’t love a socialist super-cow?’ muses tech-overlord Joel Stone. Who indeed? Who does what in the band?
‘Andy Brown’s kingdom is the drums: he’s by far the best musician I’ve ever played with, and has a freakish instinct for rhythm. My “instrument” is a big evil rig made of computers, interfaces, midi controllers and synths. I do the visual art stuff too.’ What music rouses Ubre Blanca?
‘Wagner. I once heard “Ride of the Valkyries” played incredibly loud through an enormous soundsystem calibrated for pounding techno, and it changed my whole perspective on music. Holst, Rachmaninov, Philip Glass, gospel. We fetishise the sounds used by Giorgio Moroder and John Carpenter, plus contemporary stuff like Zombi, Zombie Zombie and Umberto.’
Ubre Blanca was a Cuban cow famed for its prodigious milk production. What liquid would you have on unlimited demand? ‘A wine cow would be great for parties, a mescaline cow good for the occasional psychedelic experience, but the best scenario would be the oil cow. Oil sheikhs – they’re the real rock stars.’
You make music inspired by 70s/80s synth soundtracks – do you write songs with film scenes in mind? ‘Absolutely. We imagined our debut EP, Polygon Mountain, as an early-80s sci-fi-horror based on a journey to a planet where silicone is the primary building block (see page 74 for a review). There are vast valleys and canyons of heat-blasted bismuth, deserts of glass . . . then we discover alien life forms.’ (Nicola Meighan)
■ Polygon Mountain is out now on Clan Destine. Ubre Blanca play the Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, Sat 16 Nov. soundcloud.com/ubreblanca
14 Nov–11 Dec 2013 THE LIST 75