Live Review: White Denim (GetIntoThis)

White Denim

East Village Arts Club

Liverpool, 21st May 2014

EVOL and Harvest Sun, the city’s two main promoters, seem to be involved in a frantic game of one-upmanship at the moment, with each enjoying a golden streak that has seen, or will see, the likes of Parquet Courts, Future Islands, Action Bronson, St Vincent, The War On Drugs all compete for show of the year. The real winners of course are us, the audiences, as Liverpool’s reputation as UK tour’s most high profile and frequent omission looks to be dwindling.
White Denim are a good band, the type whose mention prompts unanimous nods of approval. Even if you might have only heard Pretty Green on BBC 6 Music a last year and couldn’t name another song, you still know, for some reason lurking in the back of your mind, that White Denim are a good band. And after six albums in almost as many years, they can safely call themselves mainstays of American guitar music. White Denim’s remarkable consistency, with their inability to sit still, means that despite only being around since 2007, there is a sense of longevity surrounding them, almost as if they are veterans and tonight’s show at the East Village Arts club is some sort of victory lap.There is an astonishing level of composure about the Texan four-piece this evening. Nodding and grooving almost politely, with each riff barely oozing from Petralli’s fingertips and each melody floating wistfully from his mouth. It’s that sort of thing that makes White Denim, and this kind of bluesy, garage band rock and roll in general so enduringly popular, when it feels like you are peering your head round the door as they jam in their living room. Those piercing lead guitars on At Night In Dreams interlock perfectly, whilst those stabbed, syncopated chords that anchor their most immediate track Pretty Green, are so perfectly timed and executed that its almost as if each member has had these tunes programmed into them. There are no stompers here, no sweeping crescendos or widescreen choruses; just a technically brilliant band, playing technically brilliant songs, very, very well. Ability itself, to the right kind of fan, is often showmanship enough. Sure, there is a fine line between being calm and being well, disinterested, and White Denim certainly tread it thinly tonight, but you get the feeling that if they were all thrashing about on stage, or if they were telling mischievous anecdotes throughout, it wouldn’t sit right with these songs that don’t need to force themselves on anyone. With each tunes just knocked up casually for anyone to grab when they want, instead of charging at the audience head first, we are able to cherish the details and textures that had us spinning their records on repeat in the first place. Each guitar lick, each drum fill, each harmony, all stimulate thrilling sense of recognition and familiarity, almost like when you’re watching your favorite movie for the second time. Don’t be fooled though, this is complex, intricate stuff, and underneath these seemingly straightforward songs there are elements of jazz, funk, blues and rock and roll – all blended flawlessly into this cool and poised package on stage in front of us. The biggest compliment you can give White Denim tonight, and on record, is that despite the wide and often conventional set of influences, you could still never mistake them for anyone else. For a Southern States American rock and roll band, this is quite an achievement, and one that means they are able to release a new album almost every year whilst remaining in a slow, steady, yet enthralling state of transition.

Mike Townsend

http://www.peterguy.merseyblogs.co.uk/2014/05/white-denim-deathcrush-east-vi.html

Guest Editorial: Liverpool Sound City Daily (BidoLito!)

I love Liverpool Sound City, but like almost every gig I’ve been to in the last five years, it is a sobering reminder that the rock star dream might be dead. As one of the four hundred ‘self-taught’ guitarists in my sixth form, I assumed that the only thing between me and the moment I returned to my school grounds in the middle of the afternoon, leather jacket over my shoulder, signing autographs for the younger kids and sharing congratulatory hugs with my old classmates and teachers - was time. By some cruel, sadistic twist of fate though, it turned out that I was about as useful writing a song as I was sailing to the moon.

Studying for a degree in Popular Music (I know) here in Liverpool lead to a position at Ditto Music, an independent digital music distributor based in the Baltic Triangle. I mean I don’t sign any autographs, but I can at least pretend to idiots in Heebies that I’m a talent scout for a record label or something. I actually asked my bosses why they chose to set up their head office, for what is very much a global company with locations in Nashville and Melbourne, here in Liverpool as opposed to say London or Manchester. Their response was something I recognised almost instantly, having wrestled with the same sort of decision as an eighteen-year-old music fan looking at prospective universities. They suggested, with absolute assurance, that as a music company, this was the place they needed to be. This was the place where they could establish an identity for themselves, where they could thrive off the enormous pool of local artists and local enterprises, whilst retaining that sense of individuality and personal pride that Liverpool’s arts and business culture so often celebrates. And one look around today is all the vindication they’ll need.

More than this though, and what makes Liverpool an almost unrivaled city for fan and curator alike, is a striking notion of collaboration and fellowship that underpins operations. Of course Liverpool has always been renowned for a fierce sense of community. But the way Sound City brings in bookers and promoters from all corners of the industry, the ridiculous range of venues that gleefully play host for the weekend, as well as the huge range of local business (like ourselves at Ditto) who are invited to contribute to the conference, is indicative of a scene functioning not in competition, but in unison, all working towards the idea that this is our city and this is our scene, the success of which, whatever the source, is ours to share. I’ve always regarded this festival - with every photographer, every booker, every journalist, every sound tech, and every other volunteer - as a fantastic, and deserved celebration of this.

Mike Townsend

Liverpool Sound City: 10 Must See International Acts (GetIntoThis)

Liverpool Sound City 2014: Top 10 international bands to watch

By Peter Guy on Apr 24, 14 11:00 AM in Sound City

Liverpool Sound City 2014 welcomes a deluge of overseas talent from May 1, Getintothis' Mike Townsend selects ten of the best.

From its Australian BBQ to emerging superstars to buzz bands and Korean showcases,Liverpool Sound City is never short on delivering an insight into fresh new international music.

As is customary, Getintothis has sifted through the exhaustive line up and delivered our not-to-miss offerings from this year's international offerings.

1. Courtney Barnett at the Zanzibar on Thursday May 1, 12.15-12.45am

From Melbourne, Australia, Courtney Barnett's deadpan drawl has shuffled it's way across the world in the form of the astonishing 2013 single Avant Gardener. Don't be fooled by the whole slacker thing though, her late night appearance at the Zanzibar on the Thursday will be one of the tightest, and most earnest you'll see all festival.

Låpsley Awarded One To Watch Prize at the GIT Awards: Feature (GetIntoThis)

Photo: Adam Johns

The ability to prick the ears of those beyond your hometown is something of a holy grail. And if you’ve spent long enough going to gigs in any City you’d know that for most artists, it never really happens. Some, like The Tea Street Band, have spent years gigging and are finally reaping the rewards. Others, like fellow GIT Award nominees Evian Christ or Forest Swords, have spent equally as long shaping and refining their craft in private. Låpsley, the recipient of this year’s inaugural One To Watch award, has condensed the generic career path of an exciting new artist into the space of just a few months. And whilst her absolutely stratospheric rise from small acoustic shows in Parr Street to Radio 1 and the pages of NME speaks volumes for her raw talent as an artist, it also speaks volumes for the Liverpool, that one of our own was able to connect with all corners of the country without even leaving the city.

Holly Lapsley Fletcher is a seventeen-year-old singer/songwriter, come producer, from Formby. Having spent a couple of years crafting songs with an acoustic guitar - the products of which can still be seen on her Soundcloud with songs like Crosses – she started to experiment with electronics as a way of carving out a sound that she could call her own. What emerged from this period of discovery, and what can now emphatically be referred to as her breakthrough moment, was the delicate, touching track Station. And let’s get this out the way – believe the hype with this one. I actually met Holly on New Years Eve last December, as she spoke shyly about a new song she ‘hoped people would be into’. Nursing a crippling hangover the following morning, I visited her Soundcloud and played Station. Then I played it again, and again, and again, until that stirring refrain of ‘I’ll walk you back to the station’ had permeated my mind irreversibly.  There are two vocal parts playing alongside, as she pitch shifts her vocals right down to the point where it sounds like a male and female singing together. This is a technique she is becoming synonymous with, and it works because the vocal lines are always distinct enough in tone and personality so that they move in the same direction, rather than as if they were two people singing at one and other.

National press picked up on the song almost immediately, with Pigeons and Planes naming it among their favorites of the year and Lineofbestfit calling it ‘exquisite’ and suggesting that she was among the brightest female talents in the country. Within a couple of weeks it had eclipsed 100,000 plays on Soundcloud, then 150,000, then 200,000, as her Twitter went into Retweet overdrive as blogs and sites from all over the world staked a claim and pinned their colours to this strange enigma from the North of England. Throughout her brief body of work so far, Låpsley has demonstrated an ability to touch on conventional emotions, like heartbreak and loneliness, but in a way that stays short of maudlin or melodramatic. The composure, both lyrically and musically is striking, and has rightly lead to any mention of her age in the media being preceded by a statement of disbelief.

Monday, the four track EP is available on online platforms right now, and whilst it doesn’t include Station, it does offer interesting glimpse into an artist trying to figure out what being a musician means to her and what it should mean to her listeners. These songs, like the loose Blue Monday cover, are almost wrought with fragility and sentiment, but they are never oversold, as Holly works enough space for her vocals so that they sound weirdly, but affectingly distant.

Last month, Låpsley played her debut show in her current form at Leaf Tea Shop as part of the Ace Liverpool showcase. Even if you were one of the few journalists in the North West not to have been there, you only had to keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook to see what should have been a small, inconspicuous debut gig had turned into an event. Managers, labels, Publishing and PR Agents; all shaking their Gin and Tonics and chattering hurriedly as they compared stories about how they first heard Station, who they were representing and where they saw her this time next year. “I was aware that they were all there, but it didn't really phase me”, Holly explains. “I did try to chat to as many people I could in the short space of time, but I was more excited about playing and eating falafel than meeting people to be honest. I felt like I had finally found my niche, performing an electronic set is so much more exciting, I even had to apologise to the audience for my two-step shuffle on stage”. It was a strange evening, certainly nothing like anything I’ve ever seen in Liverpool. It’s the sort of show you imagine only happens in downtown Manhattan or in Tony Parsons novels, where the entranced whisper of the crowd combines with the sound of camera flashes and notepad scribbling to make the excitement almost tangible.

 On the 16^th March, a whirlwind 2014 for Låpsley culminated in a Radio 1 airing on Sohn’s (who’s management she now shares) Bedtime mix for Annie Mac, as the wheels turned even faster, moving Holly from regional to national talent as the rest of the UK started listening. Further Radio 1 plays followed, as NME eventually featured her alongside comparisons to Kiwi megastar Lorde. With a three track EP due out later this year, and with label deals currently in the works, the future is shaping up pretty smartly for Låpsley. “I put pressure on myself to produce the best music I can, but other people's expectations don't bother me”, she explains confidently as she considers the next twelve months. “I think music is different to each individual and so whatever I release I’m going to be judged. Whether or not the response is positive depends on the listener. I'm just going to carry on how I am now. I feel the moment you change for the sake of other people, especially critics, is the moment you lose what you had and what made people like you in the first place”.

This time next year we might all be talking about her through a series of I was there moments. Or maybe she’ll still be playing gigs at Leaf. What’s certain though, and what makes her choice as this year’s One To Watch almost indisputable, is that Merseyside hasn’t had an artist connect so quickly, so widely and so emphatically with the rest of the country in the best part of a decade. And in case you need reminding, she’s only seventeen

http://www.peterguy.merseyblogs.co.uk/2014/04/introducing-lapsley-the-git-aw.html

Feature: Drohne (BidoLito!)

The first time came across Drohne, the live electronic duo of Luke McCulloch and Richie Craddock, was as they supported Factory Floor at The Kazimier last December. Vocalist McCulloch growled over a frenetic, warped collection of sounds that almost resembled a beat, whilst the jarringly silent crowd fidgeted awkwardly in some kind of confused trance as they tried to get their head around what the fuck was happening in front of them. Like myself though, every pair of eyes was fixed firmly on the two shy, sketchy looking lads nodding their hood-enclosed heads assertively on the stage, at one in our intrigued, fascinated and mesmerised bewilderment. “Yeah, that’s exactly right”, Luke laughs, recalling the gig warmly. “People do seem to know us as that band Drohne with their heads down and our hoods up”.

Drohne have nearly a years worth of demos available on their Soundcloud. And even if Luke is keen to remind me that these are old songs, and not necessarily a strict reflection of the band in front of me, they do still act as interesting signposts for how the duo have progressed and what form their music might take in the future. T.M.R (The Mother Road), which gave them their first taste of radio airplay with the help of an excellent Harvey Brown remix, uses cloudy and saturated textures to enclose and swallow the faint residue of a melody. Suppression, equally as restless and deliberately uncoordinated, simmers contently as parts slip in and out of line with each other with controlled abandon. Throughout these songs, McCulloch’s vocals are so impossibly singular that they sound profoundly alone, drenched in despair as if they are the last cry from a man who has resigned himself to madness. It’s a powerful and moving display of humanity from a genre where technology so often dominates. “I don’t just see myself as the guy who sings in the band though”, Luke quickly reminds me, keen to move away from the idea of his voice as a structural centerpiece. “With our new songs, I like the idea of my vocals being more murmured and ambient, almost blending into the soundscape rather than jumping out at you as they have done in the past”. The effects of this can be seen already, in the grooving, more immediate track Soul-Jo. It is certainly the closest Drohne have come to danceable, with a rolling beat and twinkling synth work creating a tranquil, summer’s afternoon atmosphere. Everything is so gorgeously calm and lo-fi that you’ll hardly even notice the brittle vocals of McCulloch nudging the song gorgeously towards a conclusion in the closing moments. The musicality of Soul-Jo in the midst of all the dissonance and tension that underpins their body of work is almost jarring, and highlights their ability to expose the contrasts between the digital abrasion of their production and the natural warmth provided by tone and melody with disarming consequences.

With limited recorded material available online, Drohne have gathered most of their support based on a handful of live shows around the city. Support slots for the likes of East India Youth, Slow Magic and the aforementioned Factory Floor have enabled them to present themselves as a live electronic act, rather than just a production duo. And whilst workstation software obviously is obviously important, they are keen to remind me that first and foremost, they are a band: “We don’t really consider ourselves as producers”, Richie explains cautiously. “We get bored of it quite easily, as its just there on a screen. Making the music has to be a more visceral experience for us I think. The way we write a song is that we’ll have an idea and just jam with it for a while, lay it down, build on it, tweak it, add and change some vocals or guitar, and then until it just emerges into this sort of brainchild. It’s a very natural process”. It’s telling that Drohne don’t consider themselves producers. It’s not that any note that isn’t strummed, plucked, bowed or blown is a purer form of expression than say, one produced from a box of wires. Richie’s idea that songwriting needs to be visceral though, that they need to feel each tone and melody before they subject it to digital manipulation, is essential to their musical backbone in the sense that it provides them anchorage to the strange, unpredictable results that emerge at the end of their creative process.

Despite aforementioned demos and a healthy collection of live performances, we’ve still yet to see an official release from Drohne. Their future is far from uncertain though with an EP due out imminently, and this concept of using your live show to shape your recordings has allowed them to develop it around how they want it to be experienced, rather than how they want it to sound. “We’re planning on going to Amsterdam for a bit”, Luke says confidently as he explains their plans for the next twelve months. “There is a place we’ve got our eye on right in the center of the city. It’s a huge brickwork building, and you can pay to rent out one of the floors for a month. It’s unbelievably big, like one hundred meter squared of this open space. We would just set up all our equipment over there and write an EP. It would be a different vibe completely living over in Europe, which would have an interesting effect on our music and the way we sound”. Whilst it may sound ambitious, that notion of locking yourself away in isolation as a means of creative stimulation has shaped some of the best albums of our time. And you get the feeling that, given the emotion and care they clearly invest in being Drohne, this kind departure from reality that will allow them to harness it into a singular piece of work that they feel can adequately represent them.

Drohne aren’t afraid to dodge convention, happy to arrive not fully formed, but in a state of constant development. And I don’t just mean in the literal sense – they have shaken off two former members over the last year – but musically as well. Their brief collection of songs, like their live shows, sound strikingly incomplete, as if they are a collection of ideas rattling around like loose change at the bottom of a bag. They wilfully resist cadences and conclusions, pushing their music into gentle spins that slow down, speed up, slow down again but never quite stop. In age of constant output and reproduction, Drohne are embracing the negative space between expectation and reality to ensure that their relationship with their audience, and with their own music, remains in an ongoing and enthralling state of flux.

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/d-r-o-h-n-e

Mike Townsend        

@townsendyesmate

http://www.bidolito.co.uk/issues/issue-43

Live Review: Metronomy (GetIntoThis)

Metronomy

O2 Academy

13^th March 2014

Metronomy, alongside the likes of Foals and Bombay Bicycle Club, have slowly and unassumingly found themselves among the biggest bands in Britain. Just as comfortable on the front cover of NME as they are on the bedroom walls of sixth form girls, they’ve joined this new breed of mainstream youth culture icon based on a combination of great, populist leaning songs and just the right amount diversity, at least musically, to make them worth shouting about. Three albums in now, you can safely call them a mainstay in British guitar music. They will probably never be the type of band who will headline Leeds festival or play at The O2, but could bet your life that in six years time they’ll still be nestled comfortably between Jools Holland and Zane Lowe’s playlist not breaking new ground, but sitting contentedly on paths already laid out.

New album Love Letters, as the title might suggest, is about love, lust and all the rest. The accompanying polo necked riddled press shots that supplemented the launch lends itself towards a more nostalgic, schmaltzy kind of love though, as they turn down the beat and turn up the new wave to present their idea of romance through a soft-focus lens. The O2 Academy feels different for their show - which is the first of their UK tour – this evening. The drum kit is colourfully illuminated, the backdrop is a fuzzy pink set of clouds, the lights are dimmed to a deep shade of red as the whole thing starts to feel an eighties porn movie director’s attempt to make things cinematic. Metronomy have always played with the notion of being cool and iconized with an obvious, self-reliant indifference that balances them between reluctant icons and cult heroes tenuously, but effectively. The matching burgundy suits they wear tonight ridiculous, of course they do, but like almost everything with these guys, you feel like you’re in on the joke with them.

This is reflected musically as well, eptiomised by the excellent The Bay, as Joseph Mount lingers on Berrrlin as if he is coaxing a cat towards him whilst smoking a cigar in a velvet dressing gown. The Look, another highlight from second album The English Riviera edges up the tempo, demonstrating their ability to strip funk and disco right down to their bones into something bracingly thin whilst remaining impossibly catchy.

And you wouldn’t go so far as to call Metronomy minimal, but throughout the three albums - all of which are generously dipped into tonight - their music has been characterized by a simplicity that makes it entirely effortless to listen to. This allows the finer, yet absolutely essential parts of their songs to act as centerpieces throughout the records and throughout tonight’s performance, like that noodling synth on Reservoir, or the ‘Shoop-doop-ahhh’s in current single I’m Aquarius. These are little touches and nuances that are so distinctly and indisputably Metronomy, where not a single note feels waste or forced, graciously offering themselves to anyone who wants them like a show dog that enjoys affection but doesn’t rely on it. Great music doesn’t always have to sound complicated, even if is.   

Metronomy’s coherence sounds remarkably consistent tonight. I mean, I remember seeing them at Korova in 2008, as they struggled to pair two parts of the same song together in one of the messiest and loosest performances this side of a psytrance rave. It very much feels like a victory lap here in the Academy this evening, both for EVOL - who are celebrating their tenth birthday - and for Metronomy, who are reaping the rewards for being gleefully, completely and unflinchingly themselves.

Mike Townsend

http://www.peterguy.merseyblogs.co.uk/2014/03/metronomy-proper-ornaments-o2.html