To these humble ears Cardinals are taking the route of early Death Cab meets the BSM roster and a teensy pinch of TVHC. No bad thing, you get me? Opener ‘Numbers’ has the slightly motorik and arpeggio heavy lilt that them early turn-of-century sweater-and-slacks crowd dug. And while ‘Salamander’ ramps up the ideas considerably, it’s also the best example of being just that bit too lyrically obtuse. I understand what’s going on, I just think it could be a bit more succinct.

‘Human Traces’ is a very British take on Codeine’s slowcore jams. The song really has space to breathe – not enough bands know when less is more, and Cardinals are fortunate to be among their number. These boys also know a good refrain when they hear one, and stick with it. ‘Onya.

Closer ‘XXVIV IV’ (29 4?) sticks with the ‘elongate to propagate!’ formula, creeping towards a Transatlanticism-esque crescendo, “if you are all that I wanted, then I wanted a heart attack” – yet it’s cut short. It’s moments like this that lessons really could be learned from Efrim Menuck, in that this could be their “some hearts are true” moment.

All in all, a collection of promising tunage from some guys who know what they want to do, and do it pretty bloody well. Here’s to the future, lads.

I’m here to speak to Everett True, who is giving a guest lecture entitled “What’s so wrong with dancing about architecture?”

When I first booked my interview with him, I did some asking around for what to expect. Responses ranged from ‘He’s a legend mate’ to ‘Please, please, please ask him to stop.’ But of course, he polarises opinion. We knew that already. Whether as Editor of some truly great music rags over the past few years, or as the anti-sycophant ranter working inside the mainstream (something he both admits and denies numerous times over the course of our conversation, or more commonly, as that bloke what introduced Kurt to Courtney (“humiliating”, he says).

About two and a half years ago, Everett upped sticks to Brisbane, “an entirely random decision” he claims. It wasn’t long before the Jerry Thackray soaking up the gold coast sun morphed into Everett True, ranting about the poor state of the Australian music press in his weekly Guardian blog.

Outrage was prompted, and soon the revered British music journo was an aussie-bashing imperialist pom. As it transpires, an unrepentant aussie-bashing imperialist pom. “I was really shocked by the reaction, everybody thought I was just trying to be controversial, I wasn’t – I thought I was picking an obvious target. I didn’t expect anybody to particularly care about my opinion to be quite honest with you. I was just some bloke up in Brisbane.”

Until now, Everett had the body language of a man above me. Slouched back, sipping his coffee, offering half formed, monosyllabic answers that skirted the question (actually, over  the whole interview he skirted around giving actual answers, but more on that later). As soon as I mentioned Australia, he changed. He leaned forward, halfway across what was an already small table, and developed the affectation of constantly touching his face or playing with his hair, Rain Man style.

Everett currently works on Collapse Board, a Brisbane based music blog, where his self-perceived role as a “…tastemaker, and more importantly, an institution” (his words, not mine) is diluted to nought but the occasional blog and daily ‘song of the day’. The tagline for Collapse Board is “Whatever happened to the music press?”. Well, what?

“It’s not really a question that’s meant to have an answer. Some people say the music press isn’t what it used to be, well that’s true isn’t it? of course it’s not what it bloody used to be, everything’s not what it used to be. There’s nothing wrong with that, everything changes and mutates.

“Everybody’s always like ‘oh yeah the music used to be better in the 80s. No it fucking didn’t, you just used to be younger and you used to have more energy. You know, I’ve got no time for that at all. Music in particular is always as good one year to the next. There’s always fucking great stuff. Always way more music to be discovered than anyone’s every going to write about.”

So, the press? “Alright, it might look different, and it might not be in the print titles all the time. You might have to look around for it, but it depends how you want it… But to me, music criticism is found in the comments section on Mess and Noise and DiS, it’s found in bloggers – not all of them by any means – it’s found on websites like Collapse Board, it’s found in street press titles like The Stranger from seattle, it’s found in blog aggregation sites – even though I don’t like them – it’s found in people giving talks, y’know like Chris Weingarten does, it’s found on Twitter… So the question, whatever happened to music criticism is not meant to be answered, it’s just a question.

So if music criticism is found everywhere, surely there is a dividing line between the words ‘criticise’ and ‘critique’? “Yeah, yeah, critique is what you do with food right?” Not quite what I meant. To me, I explain, critiquing something is to be constructive, and is – as far as you can be – objective. I reminded him of a quote of his, that “musicians are the dullest of breeds”, something he sticks by – the idea that his ‘art’ is of greater importance and worth than anything created by the people he writes about. That to me, is criticising, not critiquing.

“I do see what you mean, I don’t think I’m clever enough to critique something… First and foremost I’m a music fan, I don’t hold much truck with music critics to be quite honest with you, because I think a lot of them aren’t music fans. I’m always on the side of the enthusiasts.

“To be honest I wouldn’t really split the words that way. Criticism can be constructive, it can be destructive. It depends how passionately you feel about something… You see, my take on it was that I really cared about music when I started writing about it – I still care passionately about it. And so, there are two sides to that coin, and the negative side to that was if I really didn’t like something I tried to destroy it, I wouldn’t try to be constructive about it, why would I? Who cares? Somebody else can go and be constructive. I was trying to get rid of it so I’d never have to fucking hear it again.

“So, the thing is, the music criticism, I don’t understand the point of being fair. That’s what it comes down to, they’re not fair on me – they make bloody horrible music so why shouldn’t I say that?”

The legend of Everett True seems to put him in a different situation to the canonisation of the Kents, Murrays and Morleys of the world. All writers who have had a large impact on either the music press and in some cases, the music they are writing about. But in his mind, does he see himself as one of them?

“People have compared me, or mentioned me in the same breath often enough to make me think that other people see that. I never liked any of those writers, never read any of them either.” He hastily corrects, “sorry, it wasn’t that I didn’t like them, I just never particularly read any of them.

“They’ve had pretty successful careers, and I don’t see myself as having had a successful career. I certainly don’t work within the mainstream. So I don’t know where the parallels would be.”

There it is again, that refusal to be party to the mainstream. Is writing copy for Amazon part of the mainstream? Definitely so. Is writing for the two biggest selling music magazines of the past 40 years mainstream? Arguably so. Either way, I don’t get a chance to move onto this because Seattle has cropped up.

“I mean, if [people] have heard of me tend to know of me because of my association with a couple of famous people. It’s pretty humiliating really just to be known as the +1.”

Isn’t that the case for most critics though? I counter.

“Yeah, quite possibly. But at one point, that wasn’t the only reason I was known. But then again there’s a lot of people who operate from a set platform. And I guess it’s my own choice if I’m not working within the mainstream now.” He pauses for thought, then concedes, “Yeah it probably is the case, but I always contended that what I did was way more of an art than what I was writing about because I could make musicians seem interesting.”

Like mythologising them, as Paul Morley did with Joy Division?

“That’s a better parallel. Look, if Morley hadn’t just done 30 years of crap straight after his early NME stuff I would be happy to be compared to Morley when he was at the NME in ’82, but certainly not afterwards.”

By now I have him fully engaged, gutturally intonating his speech to be heard over the sound of Lady Gaga’s consistent failure to turn off her phone. This, I felt, was a good time to bring up Seattle, and his legacy with that scene. Does he miss it? And has he searched for that kind of experience ever since?

“If I did have an influence in helping break bands, it was probably because I was having conversations with these people all the time and obviously I was quite informed in my taste, so I turned quite a lot of these musicians onto bands that they might not have heard of. As far as Kurt goes, everybody knows that he loved Daniel Johnston, Half Japanese, all of these bands.

“Now why do they know this? Well I’ll tell you why they know that, it’s because of interviews he did with me. They might have come out in other interviews afterwards but it was because I’d directly asked him about those bands, because I knew what his taste was. We shared common taste.

“I think John Peel played all the records at the same time and had a lot more impact. I think it was more the fact that I was able to communicate directly with these people and I brought scenes together… For example, Courtney Love used to go on about how she first discovered Riot Grrrl. No, I had given tapes of Bikini Kill to Huggy Bear in the first instance. Huggy Bear, they would have discovered them anyway, but I was living in the same house as Huggy Bear of course I gave them the tape.”

So, I dare to say, you were effectively a scenester? Not a scenester in the pejorative sense of ‘Shoreditch Twat’, but a scenester none the less.

“Yes. I’ve always thought of that as a compliment. You can use it as a pejorative, I’m totally aware of that, but why? You’d only use it as a pejorative if you call someone a scenester because they’re not into music, they’re just into hanging out. But no, I always just used the word scenester as a fact that someone was really into a scene, because they loved it. Its as straightforward as that.”

A couple of decades on, Everett was heavily involved with both Plan B and Careless Talk Costs Lives, two magazines he remains “really fucking proud of”. As he rejects mainstream, and well, most modern music media, does he not wish there were something like that still circulating?

“Only if I were involved with it. I’m not interested in reading other people. I’ve always had severe tunnel vision about that. I’ve only ever been interested in what I do, I can’t help it – it’s just the way it is. I miss writing for a magazine like that for sure, I miss editing a magazine like that, yeah of course I do.

“It’s funny, the NME had a little slide show up at the end of 2010 of 20 music magazines from the past 2 decades. 16, sorry. And 5 of them, I’d edited. I was like ‘fucking hell, I don’t think anybody else has got that record, Jesus’. Because I never think of myself as being part of the establishment, or having been successful. I think I’m a complete failure at this. I haven’t earned a living from this for years and years and years. And that’s part of how I judge it.”

Throughout this whole interview, creeping paranoia kicks in. Why is he being so evasive and off topic? What he’s saying is interesting, for sure. Is it the sign of a fragmented middle-aged mind battered by too much speed and acid? After all, his writing can be concise when it needs to be – at its most acerbic.

As I wrap up, I try my hardest to get a straight answer. Was he ever part of the establishment? I think he was, he says he was, yet in the same breath says he has nothing to do with it.

“To me, Pitchfork is the establishment, and I’ve never really had much truck with the establishment, I’ve always looked to change it, if I can. But then again I’ve been part of the establishment so what is that all about? The way you abuse your position when you’re there. If you’re part of the establishment you try to abuse your position.”

So do you hold onto that potential to abuse your position when feeling guilty about writing for a mainstream press?

“You use your power, you take advantage of your situation and you just do everything you can to try to turn people onto something that’s new. You don’t just write about everything else, if you’re in a position where you can write about whatever you want you do! You just don’t follow a heard, you write about whatever you want… You’ve got to know what you like. Most music critics don’t, it’s the weirdest fucking thing. Most music critics are reading other music critics to find out what they should like.”

Finally, closure. Is that the issue with the music press today? “I think when anybody sits down to review a record these days, they look at all the other reviews that are online, particularly Pitchfork, and they look at 8 different reviews and go “oh, ok, alright now i’ll do my review”. I’m sure that’s what happens. Absolutely certain. And nobody’s thinking for themselves. Somebody must be. Somewhere.”

I’m feeling drained now and shaking from too much coffee. I thank him for his time, and he apologises, “Sorry I didn’t answer your questions, that’s what you wanted though”. In a way, I say.

We pop outside so I can smoke, and in a moment of flippancy I ask, “Who made that dancing about architecture quote?

“Some cunt… I would fucking love to dance about architecture. Or see architecture inspired by dancing.”

Later on, when he is regaling a semi-full lecture room full of aspiring music hacks with tales of acid, L7 and Courtney Love (and most of my interview); he makes a statement which to my mind, perfectly sums up Everett True – the persona and Jerry Thackray, the person.

“You must have no perspective. Assume that what you are doing is the most important thing in the world, but it isn’t. But you have to ignore that second half of the sentence.”

Which worried me, because without perspective, where are you as a human being? But, maybe that’s less important than music. Just maybe.

But bring it they do, with the balls of a bullock dragging along in their wake. Free E.P. PEEKAY does what a good hardcore short player should, cocking its leg thricely and marking its territory on your ears, all in about five minutes.

Opener “Virus” is a statement of intent as good as any, setting the tone of the punk novella. Relentless pounding and no bullshit anthemia (but in a good way) do the job a treat. ‘OK, these boys like the noise. Lets see if you can keep the pace up’, you think.

Title track “PEEKAY” responds by slapping its great big dirty cock around your face, saying ‘yes, yes we can’. The grinding bass overloads into spasms of feedback, as static modulation layers the melee, and Matt Pickering-Copley implores you to ‘spread the word, SPREAD THE WORD’.

And then it all close with the wham-bam-cheers-mum of “Throw Nothing at the Sea”, an orgasmic mash up of Lightning Bolt’s “Assassins” and Blood Red Shoes’ “It’s Getting Boring By The Sea”.

All in all, it does exactly what it’s supposed to. Comes along, punches you in the face with some excellent hardcore, then fucks off.

No Messin’.

run,WALK! on Myspace.

Download PEEKAY for free, HERE.

But Ultraphallus it is. Straight out of Belgium, “Sowberry Hagan” is Album the Third since their 2002 formation, and it ticks all the right doom/sludge boxes – with that added bit of P.E experimentation that sets Riot Season bands apart from the hipster Hoi Polloi of noise.

“Sowberry Hagan” itself (regardless of what the press release says) is rather utilitarian in form. The ethos seems to be “Make what you can with what you’ve got” (Banjo aside). And I don’t mean that as a detraction, because they fucking kill it. Sonically, the static buzzsaw-fuzz layers over the songs disembowel you like a rusty knife through tripe. ‘Proper’ hardcore wailing (think more Refused than pig squeals) steer the songs through a rancid canal. Watertight rhythmic plodding menaces.

The last two tracks are a bit of an about-face, however. The unsettling ambiance hinted at on the majority of the record is allowed to consume completely. Oxbow’s Eugene Robinson (somewhat of a ‘voice-of-nightmares-for-hire’) wipes toxic scum from the top of an effervescent vat of sludge and found-sounds, yodelling ‘It rains on the just and the unjust alike’. Grim.

This form continues into album-closer ‘Torches of Freedom’, which echoes some of Content Nullity’s more unsettling and contemplative moments. A sampled monologue reinforces the ‘abandon hope, all ye who enter’ dogma, albeit exasperatedly.

A solid album, is ‘Sowberry Hagan’, with tantalising hints of the next long player. I’ll be waiting.

Ultraphallus Myspace

Riot Season

It has come to our ATTN: that Sunday night is All Hallows’ Eve/Samhain/Hallowe’en/Fright night on Film 4.

Yes, there will be parties galore. At these parties students shall mistake the traditional ‘traditionally scary’ (Frankenstein, Nosferatu, Mummy et al) for the more ‘Paris Hilton-esque scary’ (playboy bunny, crack whore, heiress et al).

But fear not and step away from the leotards, for there be scary musics galore at Bumbles – Nightclub of Dreams.

That proper good chap Alan Read (of Krayon/Sunshine Republic fame) has a stellar cast of psyche-folk/drone/kosmiche brain-meltery ready to liquidate your thinking-muscle into a puddle of small grey viscous liquid trickling out your lugholes (in my mind it looks like Mushroom soup but with more lumps).

And, as he has done a cracking job of listing and describing the bands, a-copying and a-pasting I shall go.

Fast-forward two years and, now staring down the gleaming black barrel of a dissertation I revisit the band with their second long player, “Public Strain”. It would be unfair to say that the last album was a mixture of odd sound collages surrounding ‘Black Rice’s’ brilliance, but anyone looking for a two-minute gem on the new album will have to work harder for their reward. However – when you do, it’s totally worth it.

On most tracks there’s a brooding menace, created by dissonant staccato slashes of the guitar. This sets them apart form their sunshine’n'flowers so-cal contemporaries – for the better. The album is interspersed with glorious droning ambiance, especially on the track “Bells”, over three minutes of having your head wrapped in silky cotton wool. The underlying tape hiss creates a warm, authentic and lulling soundscape.

Underneath the often jarring dissonant stabs and atonal layers of strings – think Sister-era Sonic Youth – there lies classic pop writing in the style of Spector’s 60s gems.

But maybe Phil Spector is the wrong comparison. After all, it really is cheating to name check him in reference to any band that uses lashing of echo in its sonic arsenal. No, what I think of more when I listen to this album is the giddy slapback of Billy Fury – king of the fairground – and his influence on Morrissey and, by default, the Smiths

The album kicks in with “Can’t You See”. Not so much a hint at what is to come, more of an itemised list of every sonic weapon about to be thrown at your head. Strings clash in the background which modulators wrap their selves around a plodding bassline. This morphs into the stompy 5/4 rhythm clash of “Heat Distraction”, with paranoid vocals softening the trebly guitar.

Elsewhere, “China Steps” wouldn’t be out of place on Gang of four’s “Entertainment” – had they been in New York and shooting up dodgy smack at the time. In fact, that would be a good layman’s description of this album, “If Andy Gill, Faust and Thurston Moore got drunk one night… It wouldn’t be half as good as this, yet sound similar.”

“Drag Open” is straight out of No New York. Guitars played so destructively they chime with pain, and a thumping motorik rhythm section. “Venice Lockjaw” is the best song Brian Wilson never wrote, full of yearning, metaphor heavy lyrics and a bleeding heart.

“Eyesore” perks up a bit to close the album, which (and this is pretty much the only criticism I have of the entire album) feels like an anti-climax. After “Venice Lockjaw” you are locked into somnambulism, head fuzzy, cockles toasty, id soothed.

All in all “Public Strain is a collection of gorgeous songs, and I’d bet my soul that in time it will be remembered with the same reverence as any classic art-rock record you care to mention.

Women – “Eyesore”

Eyesore

Myspace

For over 30 years, that someone has been Billy Bragg. A beacon of social grace, with a rapier wit and tender heart, his songs eloquently describe the agony and ecstasy of day-to-day life. All with a cheeky smile and humble apology.

These days, aside from collaborating with Wilco, Kate Nash, Johnny Marr and Florence + The Machine, Billy has busied himself ridding the streets of Essex of the BNP, and promoting his Jail Guitar Doors initiative – teaching inmates of over 30 prisons how to play guitar as part of their rehabilitation, alongside Wayne Kramer of the MC5 and Tom Morello.

Oh, and he curated the entire Left Field stage at this year’s Glastonbury.

Still riding high off the success of 2008′s “Mr. Love and Justice” Billy will be appearing for a night of songs spanning his extensive back catalogue. Here’s to hoping he plays “Levi Stubbs’ Tears”. I may just lose my shit if he does.

Billy plays the O2 Academy Bournemouth on Sunday December 12th.

Tickets HERE.

Losers are the combined talents of Eddy Temple Morris (he of XFM fame) and Tom Bellamy (he who played a shed-load of instruments in The Cooper Temple Clause). Both (at separate times) very big on University club scenes – though admittedly, in different ways. I’m sure if I described the above scene to either, they would have no trouble providing a mental image. Hell, maybe even a watercolour.

“Beautiful Losers” in a way, represents everything that I adore and abhor about that rock/dance crossover. Sometimes, the balance never seems to be found between tracks which should last two minutes, and those which should be a mix on their own. When it is done right, you have the recipe for either the most perfect, compressed sense of hyperactivity or the best hour you will ever spend lying on a bean-bag looking at Rorschach pictures. If it’s done badly, then you are left with naught but an anti-climax and the acrid stench of Amyl Nitrate clinging to your nose hairs.

There are moments of beauty and genius to be found here. Opener “Three Colours” will transport you to heady reminisces of Creamfields, “Nothing Will Die” mixes samples from David Lynch’s “Elephant Man” and Hi-Rankin’s less speaker-busting moments. “Azan” takes a glorious Middle Eastern colour palate, all ocher and terracotta shades, and spikes it with the heavy reds of Massive Attack’s “Mezzanine” – basslines that rumble and soundscapes that tumble.

Unfortunately, the album has definite low points. The annoying-as-herpes tit-for-tat vocal spat on “Flush” doesn’t quite have the brassy sarf-lahndan cheek it aims for. “Talk To The Hand” is pretty much a sexual invasion of everything good about Justice and “Sirenna” doesn’t quite know what it is.

The album does, however, close in style with a lazy, hazy reworking of Jane’s Addiction’s “Summertime Rolls” – with Brian Molko on guest vocal duties. Legend has it he threatened to kill anyone who got the job instead of him (which is good news for The Music’s Robert Harvey).

Bellamy’s slowburning guitar is everything that’s right and good in the world – made even better because Dave Navarro isn’t wanking all over it every 30 seconds. Brian Molko’s adenoidal whine is close enough to Perry Farrell’s to evoke the original, yet distinctive enough to flow. Even when the track drops into a tempo that is (at first listen) annoyingly fast – you feel yanked from a blissful reverie – it just seems to work.

Which is a good analogy for this record. When it works, you’re not sure why, but it does. When it doesn’t, you head for the skip button.

“Beautiful Losers” is released September 13th on Gung Ho! Recordings.

Myspace

Sonically, it’s a nice big wall of sound a la Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – whose noise-pop leanings they seem to be aping. All thumpy drums and scuzzy guitars and adenoidal vocals and that.

But alas, try as I might, I fail to warm to this. It starts so well! Like a mission statement, yes! We are here, fuck your intros! This is the song! If only it could end with a bit more oomph than a sparkler that’s been pissed on.

This kind of backs up a theory of mine – that the more obscure and leftfield your influences, the more interesting music you can make. Relying on bands who are nigh-on impossible to rip off will never make your music equal to the sum of its parts.

Sorry, fellas.

Fleetwood from The Minutes on Vimeo.

As the interwebs has informed me, “This is a slightly anglicised form of the German-Dutch-Flemish locational name Loo or Loos, both being recorded heraldically, with Arms being granted by all three countries.”

I digress.

The DeLooze in question are an homme/femme electro duo, Stacy DeLooze and Robin Rigoulet. “Too Heavy To Stand Up” – their first release on Gash Digital – is pretty good. It ticks all the right doom’n'gloom electro boxes with stabbing strings and waves of micro-crescendos.

Stacey’s vocals have the operatic range of Zola Jesus, without all the rough edges (I’m assuming this will be a good thing for some, unfortunately not me), and I hope people take notice of the band in general. They’re the perfect antithesis to the bubblegum-electro saturating all aspects of humanity right now.

Dom Morley’s production, it must be noted, is (as ever) rad-tastic.