list.co.uk/music SINGLES
Records – Singles | MUSIC
GARDEN OF ELKS YOOP EP (Self-released) ●●●●● Something of a Glasgow rock supergroup with members of Bronto Skylift, Paws and the late Dananananaykroyd in their number, Garden of Elks release an EP which is pleasingly not at all what might be expected from a combination of those three. The lead and title song is a clattering, break-neck rocker all right, but the mood soon switches to no-fi acoustica on ‘Super Glue’ and ghostly, barely-there minimalism amid the sparse piano chords of ‘Asleep on the Stairs’. ‘Cleveland, Ohio’ is a weird and downbeat hip hop riff, a strangely satisfying end to a package which bears a little of Sonic Youth’s early days experimentalism. ■ Garden of Elks play Kinning Park Complex, Glasgow, Thu 18 Sep with John Knox Sex Club.
ROZI PLAIN / RACHAEL DADD Jogalong / Strike Our Scythes (Lost Map) ●●●●● Sharing the love with Plain’s label ahead of both their new albums, Bristolian friends and modernist folkie compatriots Rozi Plain and Rachael Dadd split a single here for Eigg’s Lost Map. Plain’s ‘Jogalong’ (from forthcoming album Friend) is the more relatively out there of the two, with its reserved pulse of guitar, keyboards and mantra-like vocals, while Dadd’s ‘Strike Our Scythes’ is more traditional, with a vocal echoing Beth Orton and a melody which reminds of Rotary Connection’s ‘I Am the Black Gold of the Sun’. ■ Rozi Plain and Rachael Dadd play Cowane’s Hospital, Stirling, Sat 20 Sep; Glad Café, Glasgow, Sun 21 Sep.
BAIO On&On&On&On / Missive EP (Club Mod) ●●●●● NIGHT NOISE TEAM Days (Permwhale Recordings) ●●●●●
In a career move that surely ranks at least mid-table on the list of oddest musical choices ever, it seems Vampire Weekend bassist Chris Baio (second cousin to Scott ‘Chachi from Happy Days’ Baio, a fact it’s hard to tire of) has quit New York for London and set up as a club producer under the wing of Modular offshoot Club Mod. This EP isn’t his first release under his own steam, and it’s a mature, melodic collection of house grooves, although perhaps it’s not one to get a dancefloor moving so much as a pleasant stay-at-home listen. Imagine, if you will, Four Tet with finely-chopped Balearic house vocals and a side order of generic disco grooves. Acting as a preview to Edinburgh- based, French-Irish production duo Night Noise Team’s upcoming third album Rever Electrique, ‘Days’ is possibly the first song in living history to borrow lyrically from Philip Larkin (‘Days’, of course) and musically from early-90s New Order / the Smiths offshoot Electronic. It sounds great, a louche, casual swirl of indie-funk and piano house fused together in a manner that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the Haçienda dancefloor in ’89, and while it overstays its welcome a bit, 12-inch mixes were all the rage back then. ■ Launch gig at Limbo at Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Sat 20 Sep. (Singles and EPs reviewed by David Pollock)
EXPOSURE
FKA TWIGS
At time of writing, FKA Twigs is getting dangerously close to shedding her title as one of the most interesting new artists working in the orbit of the mainstream today and instead appending the words ‘. . . girlfriend of Twilight star Robert Pattinson’ to her name for the foreseeable future. We can deal with that as long as she keeps making good music, we guess. What’s so interesting about her?
Brought up in rural Gloucestershire, Tahliah Barnett’s not a groundbreaker. But she does capture a current mood in music for something that goes beyond the pale of rhythms and sounds we might accept as traditional, and she packages it in such a way as to carry it into view of the mainstream. Her debut album LP1 made it to number 13 in the UK last month. Tell us more. It’s in the voice that the connection’s made. It’s a vulnerable, yearning, soulful thing, but she sets it against cold, glitching cut-up slices of music: see the frosty shimmer of ‘Pendulum’ or the minimal, blood- rushing-to-the-head bass rumble of ‘Two Weeks’ for an idea of what she’s about. Just don’t call her R&B. To Twigs’ mind, what she does is more a kind of modern urban punk.
What does her name mean?
A dancer (for Kylie Minogue and Ed Sheeran, once upon a time, and extensively in her own shows), she earned the nickname Twigs for the way her joints crack, but had to add the FKA (Formerly Known As, as any Prince fan will tell you) when another artist called Twigs objected to her using it professionally. (David Pollock) ■ FKA Twigs plays Òran Mór, Glasgow, Mon 6 Oct. LP1 is out now on Young Turks.
18 Sep–16 Oct 2014 THE LIST 71