Cats In Paris excite me. ‘Terrapins‘ is an instant and infinite mystery to unravel. The cats have a satisfying vagueness, a simplicity and they are enthralling. Footnotes would useful. It seems to stumble around and randomness builds, consistently, but the foundations remain solid, balanced, and effective.
It is a simple construction viewed from afar, through the trees of the deep forest. But get closer to the city and it’s possible to make out images, but difficult to understand. You see lots of startling images, dancing on the clouds, made up of brightly coloured pixels, reflecting on the rain as it falls. This all somehow reminds me of nature, darkness, and a positive, optimistic potential.
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This track has only just been put onto the Cat’s Myspace. But, you can only download it from here. I’m no closer to solving the mystery of the above track - so where’s the sequel? Answers may be found on their debut EP. Released soon @ catsinparis.org.
A folk song that cares, caresses and stumbles to reach you as you fall. Cold, and surrounded by fallen leaves, Nancy Elizabeth emerges with a misty 300 yard stare, warbling. And it starts to rain; the folk-tinged drizzle gradually becoming a post rock downfall.
Nancy is touring in November and her album came out this week on The Leaf Label.
The Great British Tune-Up. It’s not just about people writing about new British music, but people doing it really well, and writing about tunes are really good.
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The Great British Tune-Up:
Music Like Dirt has very good things to say about Adele: “As Adele skips the cracks in the pavement, her chorus soars over the piano proclaiming all the wonders of this world… a woman asks if she is lost, “no and thank you madam, I ain’t lost, just wandering“” {read more}
Chris @ Gorilla Vs Bear liked Jonquil too: “‘Lions’ is a perfectly soaring and achingly sincere (if a little too short) introduction” {read more}.
Sir Dodge in his own words “I love cover songs, and I like a lot of things others might find annoying, but even I wanted to stab myself when I heard this cover“. Girls Aloud doing Wheatus. A blogger not afraid to be a little critical now and again. {read more @ My Old Kentucky Blog}
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Gigs:
I saw Slow Club support Architecture in Helsinki and Caribou and they successfully pulled off the usual colourful and imaginative folk-pop with added percussion and glass bottles to add a little cream to the jelly. They even got the front row properly dancing (waltzing) before 9 O’clock. Slow Club who have yet to put in a bad live show in about a dozen performances, and they still don’t look tired nor any less excitable.
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Puzzle, a band I wrote about very recently played a gig at one of Sheffield’s finest venues for seeking out new bands “The Grapes” and although they have much to perfect, some songs were relentless in very indie-pop sense. It just needs to stand it’s ground, gain a little more strength and not be pushed around by the big boys. Really promising, and delightful.
Napoleon IIIrd played a fantastic solo gig, supported only by his analogue reel to reel tape player at Sheffield University recently. “The Conformatist Takes All” is one of the best songs I’ve heard in years: high-calibre, super strength experimental pop music that brings to mind Flaming Lips on protein shakes. No-one else seems to be doing it and it is a live show that you want to share and give.
A rare outing for self-consciously populist indie music on Nothing But Green Lights. Emma Pollock is first of the ex-Delgados blocks releasing solo material before the rest have a chance to summon up the strength. This isn’t the lost, and ropey lamenting that I unwisely anticipated, but a focused, eyes wide open and then tightly closed kind of inner confidence. There is little hidden in the depths of Acid Test, but it still sounds like an honest and soulful pop song.
Grandiose in a run down country house kind of way. Perhaps a lament to the old hedges carved to take the form of a pride of lions, but now, sadly but a shadow of their former sense. A metaphor that strikes me so much more the when Aslan died in The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. I never really got that.
Jonquil are, despite above literating, a band from Oxford who released an album way back last year. They sound distant, the accordian is walking away slowly from something, and taken with it a bedroom full of orchestration. It all makes me want to join them. It’s like folk music recovering from the revolution: rejuvination and lost memories of the songs that rallied them.
"...Afrobeat has gone all desert-storm, with instrumental precision: an assault of funk and drum... the sandstorm churned up behind it betrays kilowatts of energy and a solar rhythm" [11th May: more] | [Photo credit]
"Unsettled grey-skies of whispered lyrics and quietly plucked strings send us away from the dusk with ever increasing energy... electric-guitar feedback shreds the stars and moon and scatters a light causing everyone to sing..."
[16th February 2008: more]
