list.co.uk/music Records – Singles & Live Reviews | MUSIC
SINGLES & EPS
S T E V E G U L L C K
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PREHISTORIC FRIENDS Wisdom Tooth (Yetts Yeti) ●●●●● ATOM TREE Clouds EP (Hotgem) ●●●●●
MOURN Silver Gold (Captured Tracks)●●●●● HOOKWORMS On Leaving (Domino) ●●●●●
More Casiotone for the painfully alone, or something like that, as Yetts o’ Muckhart by way of Glasgow’s finest tease their self-titled debut album – due next year – with a second single therefrom. Lush, mournful fiddles slum it with dreamy budget keyboards to a sloping beat, as Liam Chapman sings in his Tim Smith ex-of-Midlake kind of way about growing pains and procrastination. There’s a graceful plaintiveness to Prehistoric Friends’ songs that gets right under your skin. We’d tip this trio as Glasgow’s next band most likely to ‘do a Chvrches’, but then Chvrches came out of nowhere like a breath of air, minty fresher than the rest, and for all its lovely cascading crescendos, Atom Tree’s latest EP of similarly choppy electro-pop with added John Hopkins piano ambience and xx gloom feels a touch stock. Singer Julie Knox might well have a fine yearning voice, but mixed in the timid middle-distance as it is, it’s hard to be certain.
The first Spanish signings to Brooklyn’s consistently on-it Captured Tracks are disgustingly young Catalonian punk quartet Mourn, and they describe themselves rather brilliantly as ‘four nerds playing music and shit at the doors of hell’. Whatever that means – and you get a decent idea from this three- minute cudgel of brittle PJ Harvey guitars and ghostly wailing from dual frontwomen Jazz Rodríguez Bueno and Carla Pérez Vasecho-y – we’ll have plenty of it, thanks very much.
Six-minutes long in its full album version, shadowy Leeds psychedelic rock five-piece Hookworms’ latest single sets the template for the kraut-gaze menace to be savoured on their new album The Hum. Organs wheeze and drone, guitars howl with feedback, the drums sound like they could walk through walls. Singer MJ’s yelped vocals are cloaked in echo and all but unintelligible save for the runic phrase ‘I figured it out’. Horizontally driving gloom for dark, wet winter nights ahead. (Singles reviewed by Malcolm Jack)
LIVE REVIEWS
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T N E C C A S M T
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ELECTRO POP FUTURE ISLANDS ABC, Glasgow, Tue 4 Nov ●●●●●
There’s a fun drinking game to be played at Future Islands shows based around frontman Samuel T Herring’s idiosyncratic repertoire of dance moves – the pogo, the chestbeating, the drowning man, the Frisbee ninja – but even at one sip per step, there’s a danger of being royally pissed by the end of the first song, such is his commitment to the performance.
Herring is an oddity – and odd is to be embraced. Nevertheless, with the crowd whooping whenever he busts a naff but seemingly uncontrived move or modulates his voice from a perfectly reasonable pop rasp to a sudden death metal growl, this show feels more like sport than a gig.
The music? Well, it’s okay – mostly efficient driving electro pop with the occasional new romantic inflection but several longueurs before they bust out the blithe ‘Seasons’. Much of the rest of the set sounds like the tracks they were trying out along the road to getting it right with the song Bono has dubbed ‘a miracle’. And without Herring for company along the way, this would have been a rather dull encounter. (Fiona Shepherd)
PUNK / SPOKEN WORD SLEAFORD MODS Broadcast, Glasgow, Wed 5 Nov ●●●●●
TOWNSHIP SOUL THE SOIL Summerhall, Edinburgh, Thu 6 Nov ●●●●● AWARDS EXTRAVAGANZA MTV EMAS The Hydro, Glasgow, Sun 9 Nov ●●●●●
‘It’s all so fucking boring’: just one of many spit-spattered phrases to be gobbed on one’s face courtesy of Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson. But it’s true. Or feels like it sometimes. In these times of constant information and ‘trending’, what actually means anything anymore in terms of truly affecting, personal music? What sticks? When does the hype end and the genuine impact begin? Ask these questions to anyone
at this gig and they’ll say ‘Sleaford Mods’. Two men from the Midlands. One plays homespun punk grooves off a laptop while skulling a beer, the other reels off 21st-century British frustrations with a style and intelligence that is at once commanding, hilarious and utterly rousing.
Williamson convulses like he’s speaking in tongues, and he may well be given that everyone packed into Broadcast’s dungeon-like crevice shouts every word back in return like it’s gospel. This isn’t the ‘next big thing’ and they aren’t ‘ones to watch’. This is just Sleaford Mods. And it’s fucking exciting. (Ryan Drever)
Since their hit 2013 Fringe run, the Soil are no strangers to Scottish music-lovers. Tonight, they envelop Summerhall’s dissection room with a bewitching blend of soaring vocals, slick beatboxing and cheeky patter. The trio that make up the Soil –
Master P, Da FanArtistic and Buhle – are symbols of modern South Africa’s blend of past and present. They present themselves as the heirs of Sophiatown (the black cultural hub in Johannesburg that was destroyed in the late 1950s) and their tunes blend influence from that era’s musical icons, such as Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, with contemporary urban sounds to create a distinctive form of township soul.
There’s maybe a touch more mention of God than British audiences are generally comfortable with, but the Soil’s music certainly has a heavenly quality. The convivial audience spans several generations and communities, each one rapt at the trio’s infectiously loveable tunes and itching to jump out of their seats for the dance-filled finale. (Yasmin Sulaiman)
Watching the MTV EMAs live is to witness not just the graceful, if loudly honking swan which the worldwide audience will have seen at home, but also a frantic scrabble under the smooth, shiny surface. And whatever one might think of the ragbag performances, it has to be said that these guys are utter professionals when it comes to putting on a circus performance.
Sadly there was no equivalent of the Kanye West stage-invasion moment nor a twerking Miley comic nightmare, just a well-drilled glossy machine with barely enough time for Ariana Grande to gush about her awards haul (for which we are truly thankful). Royal Blood rocked it in their efficient, economical way, U2 were surprisingly subdued, Ozzy O was Ozzy O Global Icon, and Alicia Keys plus unborn child were pure class at the piano.
Hostess Nicki Minaj managed to chuck in a few cultural references – including a well-aimed putt into a hole shaped like her ample buttocks – while jumping in and out of a succession of sculptural outfits. (Fiona Shepherd)
13 Nov–11 Dec 2014 THE LIST 73