A Distorted Reality.

I’m my three or so years of interest in photography, I have never fully understood the attraction of any of the traditionally ‘lomographic’ cameras: be it the Holga, Diana+ or the Lomo LC-A mentioned in the title. To an extent, I can understand the Diana’s and the Holga’s appeal: it’s cheap and it’s something a little different to have fun with – the fun to be had lies in the cheap construction, and that’s the entire point of the ownership of such cameras. The LC-A, however, is a different beast entirely.

With worldwide distribution rights bought from LOMO plc, the Lomographic Society possesses the monopoly over a product which was designed to be a ‘people’s camera’ in the Soviet Union. This camera which was designed to be ubiquitous is sold for £180+, and what do you get? A metal bodied though still cheaply-made and refurbished USSR throwback designed to be faulty. The fact that the vignetting of the lens is marketed as a benefit is completely and utterly offensive to anyone with an sound understanding of optics: the entire point of having a frame to fill with a lens is that the frame is filled, not cut off by bad optical design.

As for the concept of people taking snapshots with crap cameras: that is something I have no problem with. The lomography lot, however, have found a marvellous way to market their overpriced wares: a set of ‘golden’ rules for their practice; a set of rules which by their very nature require you to spend more money on film. And of course, the only way to get the ‘best’ results is to buy their heinously overpriced expired film; because, you know, the light leaks just aren’t enough for completely and utterly degrading the picture which you are taking.

Lomography’s Golden Rules

1. Take your camera everywhere you go – this is a rule that I like, I’ll concede: take more pictures, you’ll improve in the craft.
2. Use it any time – day and night - this makes sense,  taking more pictures leads to less focus on photographic gear and more pictures. It’s another than I’m a fan of.
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but a part of it – and here the downward spiral begins: there must be few phrases which could make out the ‘art collective’ to be a cult as this one.
4. Try to shoot from the hip - no, hipsters: you are not Henri Cartier-Bresson. Yes, he did shoot from the hip, but he had an innate sense of what would work in terms of composition: most people with Holgas probably can’t work out focus and composition mentally.
5. Approach the subjects of your lomographic desire as close as possible - now things start to get a little too One Hour Photo for my liking: this is pretty close to stalking. Again, it’s a method of keeping those who would fall into thefold of the Lomographic Society as loyal customers: there’s no such thing as a telephoto lens for these cameras, so telling these people that close-up is the only way is going to prevent their questioning of there being ‘another way.’ They also espouse rhetoric of of close-up shots being the only way to capture natural emotion in people: I’d argue that a 135mm lens from across a street is more likely to capture natural expressions given the impossibility of the subject seeing you and reacting to your photography.
6. Don’t think - yes, let’s just shoot, shoot and shoot without thought for artistic composition and spend all of our money with the Lomographic Society on more film.
7. Be fast – ah, I like this one: I don’t like to miss moments of what could be great photography.
8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film – ‘no, because you can always buy more from us.’
9. Afterwards either – I’ll agree with this one as well: the mystique in photographs can add to them. A little bit of abstract is alright.
10. Don’t worry about any rules - WHY PUBLISH THE PREVIOUS NINE, THEN. This is, by far, the least agreeable one: if you want to take (objectively) good photographs, you have to pay at least some reverence to, no matter in how fleeting a measure, the more traditional rules of artistic composition.

I hope to God that someone from the Lomographic Society is reading this and just thinking ‘yeah, he got us right.’

Door underarm, and with a new lock in what must have been amongst the flimsiest of plastic bags I have ever had the misfortune to have been given, I made my way back to the car in sleet commensurate to the mood at hand: the precipitation a mix of the particulate excitement of liquids and the more reserved decorum of the pseudo-solid masses therein; it perfectly followed my fear of and parallel longing for what this intruder may have been. A kindred spirit, perhaps? More realistically, just an opportunistic vandal with a penchant for underwear. I kept on coming to the same conclusion as the lock burred its way through the fraying strands of the bag constituent of environmentally-friendly, but useless for the purpose for which it was designed, biodegradable condensation polymers: was too well organised for an opportunist; it was intended. I really did have a playmate.

Another car journey which was to prove all too long: my hands trembled with the intense excitement of a new player in my game; one with the understanding of what I was, with no reservation in their acceptance of what I was. It was the same feeling which had filled me from the initial realisation, and had begun to consume me to the point of a yearning for this stranger; this wonderful stranger.

Arrival, and the fitting of the new door began. Misplaced screws widened drilled holes for hinges; hinges which were thus to be fitted in a manner not parallel to the doorframe; a door which was further to be fitted to the hinges in a manner not straight – a single mistake catalysed by a sense of complete and utter confusion; of excitement; of longing; of sheer uncontrollable desire for the possibility of understanding leading to each further step’s accuracy being limited: it was a microcosm of the nature of life itself. How workmanship meant nothing to me, though: I needed evidence of my instinct, proof of my fellow traveller on a path infrequently followed. Lock fitted; door closed; barrel turned: tight and a little too much force was required to, but it would do. It would have to do.

Just as I went to return to my own flat, Tanya called me in that impenetrable husk of hers:

“I apologise for my rudeness earlier: you’ve been so helpful. Come in for a drink.”

A flash of the cleanest of white hopes appeared to me: as she prepared my drink, I would have at least the smallest of opportunities to search for the evidence I so desperately craved. Naturally, my acceptance of her offer was inevitable, and I walked into her dank, damp, unkempt ‘abode’, if such a lavish term could be applied seriously to such a place. The most depressing part of all of this is that she’d actually cleaned up: clothes now had homes once again, and her personal order was restored; but the flat as a whole was still an example of the most candid of fetid homesteads. It was, in a way, something perfectly reflective of her: all of these flats were sold as pristine showhomes, furnished and tidy; the very ideal of yuppie perfection. Tanya had had her days of beauty and her youth of consumerist fantasy; but she became bitter and disaffected with the entire matter. The smells emanating from her home had gradually increased in the extent of their appalling vigour as this process had continued: watching her intrigued me, as her physical decay really did occur in perfect accordance with her mental. Once full cheeks had diminished into the sunken cheekbones of a starving whore; just as any sense of my respect for her privacy was to degenerate into flagrant mooching.

She retained that ever-so elegant casual air, even in spite of her overt disturbance. She looked jaundiced now: her previous grey shading making way for a yellow accentuated by the warm cast of thirty-pence lightbulbs. Lock shattered; door splintered: her mood was made instantly explicable by the drama played out by her surroundings.

“Wha… what’s happened?”

Of course, my lack of aptitude in the perception of the painfully obvious had not failed me here: it was startlingly apparent that her flat had been broken into; her drawers rummaged through; and her belongings strewn everywhere, latching onto whatever would catch them. Jumpers on the hung paintings, coatstand and ridiculously oversized television;  one pair of jeans on the bedpost and several others strewn across the floor with a perceptible lack of care; but the underwear was far more orderly in its relocation. That isn’t to say that it was neatly laid out in folded piles, but there was far more to it than the pseudo-random launching of clothing in all directions. It was just women’s clothes; women’s clothes following what could almost be diffusion patterns, with not concentration being the factor in where everything moved to, but rather the proximity of pieces of clothing to genitalia: it was the vandalism of the sexually frustrated.

This seemed… familiar. Memories came back to me. This reminded me of myself: a focus on the clothes, with a certain care paid to the more personal of garments. He was undressing her with clothes off to begin with: the clothes which come off first had been flung furthest. Could it be that I had someone close to my heart to close to my home?

“What do you think happened? Someone’s broken into my home and destroyed any sense of order which I had in my fetid homestead.”

Taking into account her complete and utter lack of understanding of (or will to use) colloquialisms, English being an unfortunate second language in her eyes, she sounded quite impassioned and somewhat annoyed at my question.

“Is anything missing?”

“Well, no; but that’s not the point.”

“Don’t fret. I’ll fix your door and you can get to getting things back in order.”

She hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t noticed the order to her chaos: I may still have the chance of finding a new playmate, if not a protegé voyeur if the sloppiness of this operation was anything proportional to his inexperience in his, our art.

Woodworking never was a strength of mine, so the concept of any repair of the door was out of the question; but the drive to Focus for a new door and lock was more than enough of an excuse to contemplate what had happened and what it meant for me: if I was right, I was no longer alone. I no longer had to hide my more socially reprehensible act. I no longer had to act alone: I could gain an enabler in my activities; someone to facilitiate and inspire me. The premature yet inevitable splintering of rotting lignin and cellulose had afforded me such a possibility in opportunity.

This was not down to chance: this was down to some wonderful, divine cause.

A botched installation of a light fitting sheds its red-filtered light over this entry: my entry always to be accompanied by the elegant paroxysm of irises contracting and relaxing relentlessly to find their new area of comfort in this weakest of electric lighting. Polyvinyl chloride trays reflect varying hues and saturations of reds back at me, to gradually shift into focus when my eyes eventually adapt to these new surroundings. Everything in this room is unnatural, forged by the hand of man: perfect in its inorganic nature; perfectly synoptic of this room’s purpose.

6 o’clock comes, and my head is back in the office: 15 minutes of work lost to the wondrous siren song of the careless fancy desired such that it approached trance. The return to the reality of my still being and hour and a half from my dimly lit refuge hits me with a force which could only be surmised as ‘crushing’. I leave; I had to leave: the journey is all that now matters. Home is all that matters, and it’s close to a crippling hunger at this moment. Never mind: right turns and traffic lights will distract me from longing for the comforts of home.

Time: that inalienable but oh-so human of constructs. Arbitrary measures of quantities which are not real; quantities which just measure that passage of events in the grand scheme of things: a second is nothing real; a second is an idea. Time just makes things seem further away: there are six traffic lights on the way home, each of which could hold me up for a maximum of thirty seconds: that’s three minutes, bringing my total journey time up to ninety-three minutes, assuming the best of conditions otherwise. One hundred and eighty seconds, essentially wasted. Pointless. To be quickly forgotten. Why can’t people move faster? Why can’t people have the common sense to look before crossing? Why can’t people take a little risk?

If I didn’t measure time, things would just take as long as they took. Things would be simple. Things would be more relaxed: the distinction between haste and speed would be an empty one.

To my delight, everything goes well; and I’m outside home in what is probably a personal best time: it’s seven twenty-five in the evening. Tanya, The Russian Neighbour, is waiting in our shared hallway: my mind races as to work out what it is that she wants, in spite of my all-consuming desire to be inside my apartment, viewing the end result of my work. She pulls me to one side in that typical way in which she always does: the sidewards head-tilt causing her fringe to fall from her eyes, an action performed in unison with a purr always hinting of a faux-desperation. She is a manipulator if nothing else; but her calibre with regard to this is something that is truly incapable of being criticised.

“Hey.”

It wasn’t just the purr which sounded desperate anymore: she looked frail, almost grey in spite of basking in the throw of this dreadful tungsten lighting: even the warm colour cast of the light was insufficient to put even the slightest of colour on the ever sagging skin under her cheekbones; the most gaunt of cheekbones. It was impressive to see this strong woman reduced to a wreck: stress truly is a destroyer of man and woman alike.

Colours splayed out over the walls: transiently going from being merged in an aesthetic symbiosis to pulling apart from one another with all of the grace of a back-alley separation of conjoined twins. Back and forth: these two binary states, each with their own infinitesimally small graduations far too gradual for any change to be noticed in small amounts; only the leaps from blended colours to distinct separations were discernible.

It reminded me of nothing but that experiment my physics teachers did with cellophane and a projector to amaze the more simple-minded, more blackbird-like students amongst my peers: they’d take this sheet of cellophane and rip it in front of the light to show the effects of this increased stress upon the material on its refractive properties. There would always be a point where the plastic ceased to be clear upon the screen and the yellow, red and green coronae would appear in their resplendent glory instantly; without no prior warning as to what was about to occur. ‘Ooh’s and ‘ahh’s accompanied this demonstration, of course, to be met with my almost trademark cynical sneer.

It wasn’t so much the opening and closing of the shutters which was bothering me: it was the separation of the colours of light. Perfect single-coloured bars were formed with each time that the shutters were closed: the red, green and yellow filtered strobes ceased to combine to create an elegantly off-white light on the wall of the office; each colour bled its diffracted light to me through usage-weathered polypropylene. Everything was unbalanced; unsymmetrical; unnatural.

The shutters opened once again, and I was bathing in my preferred pleasant beige light; capable of doing the glamorous office dogwork for which someone of my abilities and qualifications is so wonderfully suited. You know; filing, photocopying, even, on good days, the unparalleled glory of post sorting: those tasks designed for the graduate with First Honours from a top-ten university. I suppose that this is what I get for taking an Arts degree, though: a lack of definition in the job market and an overwhelming predilection for the subjective.

Just as the light split into its constituent parts once again, my mind mirrored its change in state: my surroundings were no longer my mental habitat. My thoughts splintered into the realms of home: the opening of the kitschly rotting door bearing it’s gift of that unusual scent which could only be defined as that of my home; that combination of the natural smells of the innumerable amount of fruit and the chemical smells emitted so strongly from lazily unclosed bottles of ammonium thiosulphate happening in such a small studio apartment, whilst overbearing, was mine and mine alone. Esters meeting ammonia – the perfect example of the concept of neutrality: the sweet meeting the foul. This was my haven; my sanctuary.

The laziest of partition walling split that tiny room into two: a single piece of chipboard with a five foot, six inch ‘doorway’ cut into it. Thick black drapes hung from the top of this hole-in-the-wall: the perfect protector of my little voyeuristic antics from the derelictor of them that light would be. This was my true workplace.

Find the contents for the story here.

Los Campesinos! MySpace

Caustic, hyperliterate, aggressive twee pop. Seriously, even the concept is wonderful: I doubt that there could be ill-executed record of this central ideal, but Los Campesinos! really have made extended metaphor in song their hallmark. Their second album of 2008 (God bless their punk-esque recording ethic) sees a happy return for their 7-piece treble-heavy formula. Ways to Make it Through the Wall starts We are Beautiful, We are Doomed with no build-up: it’s straight into the addictive twee demonstrated on Hold On Now, Youngster…: synthesisers and guitars play over one another with a care-free air, in contrast to the serious nature of the lyrics: the song is a tale of fleeting youth executed in great style; the lyrics ‘We learn together over time that tolerance is more appealing in theory than in practice. I identify my star sign by asking which is least compatible with yours‘ showing that their edge for Eddie Argos-esque wry witticisms has not been lost in the seven months since their last effort. The male-female vocal alternation is once again out in full force, with all of the effect that it ever had. Miserabilia is a step-down in tempo from Ways to Make it Through the Wall, and shows off the more considered, more serious side of the Campesinos!’ (seriously, try to punctuate that) music. The high wails of the guitar throughout the song give rise to a chant of ‘Shout at the world because the world doesn’t love you!‘ near the end, chanted in a manner bordering on the anthemic.

The title track is, simply, a joy. The mids of synthesisers, bass of guitars and highs of violins combine to form a texture best described as ‘luscious’ – thick, but not overly dense. A new vocal idea is explored here for the Campesinos!: Gareth screams the line ‘I hope my heart goes first‘ in such a vehement manner opposed to his usual pseudo-sprechgesang (especially in light of his prior monologue of ‘I taught myself the only way to get along in love is to like the other slightly less than you get in return. I keep feeling like I’m being under cut‘ in a voice of great delicacy) is undeniably stirring. Between An Erupting Earth and an Exploding Sky is an instrumental track; and one demonstrative of the creative and instrumental prowess which the band possesses: it would not be out of place on a Jesu album, or a newer Envy release, for that matter. It’s completely possible that title is somewhat of an homage to Explosions in the Sky, and the music therein would make it one which that band would be more than happy with, I should think.

You’ll Need Those Fingers For Crossing is a return to the playful nature of the Campesinos!’ music. Their envisioning on a ’soft-porn end of the universe’ is delightful merely in terms of the imagery. The glockenspiel makes a more than welcome comeback to their music and is in good company amidst overdriven guitars. The chorus is nothing short of rousing and the last instrumental minute and a half is a wonderful foray into the realms of guitar noise. It’s Never That Easy Though, Is It? is a tale of some sort of twisted love told amongst a duck-like synthesiser, soaring violins and that unique Campesinos! guitar tone. Love as a medium of class war; the mutual visual experience of viewing pictures of dead pets and relatives; and the unavoidable debate over love for music or a woman experienced by every snob is the Campesinos!’ concept of love, it would seem.

The End of the Asterisk is the height of their ascerbicism, and that is no bad thing: assailing someone as a ‘waste of time’, a ‘tragedy’ and describing their self-deprecation as ’spot-on’ is so miraculously direct. The muted strumming connecting each phrase of each verse is basic but oh-so effective. Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1 is an elaboration upon their previously stated twee artistry: unrelenting treble with esoteric lyrical focuses. Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time is a sweeping, solemn song dedicated to a lost love; complete with the hyperbole inherent therein: ‘the way you look could seriously make nature dysmorphic‘ being a personal favourite. All Your Keyfabe Friends shows everything that makes Los Campesinos! great: the multi-instrumentalism, the wit and the poetry, and it really is a great way to finish an album.

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed should be an example to bands within the niche of Los Campesinos!: it’s an album which shows progression whilst sticking with everything appealing about yourselves. The slower songs’ inconsistencies of old have been ironed out here to great effect; the result of which is a far better rounded album.

This, kind reader, is beyond overdue: I have long been enamoured by the music of the Leicester-based Maybeshewill, and this album has been available for rather a long time now, and it’s gotten a lot of positive press from media outlets far greater in scope than this one. However, this time has done very little to dull my passions for this masterful piece of music artistry, and so this will be written and published, regardless of it being akin to our little fish playing in the realms of the sharks and whales.

There is something beautiful about bands which can (at least) claim to have a diverse range of influences, no matter how far from the truth that statement may be; and with Maybeshewill, I’m not even sure if ‘varied’ is a strong enough word to define their vast array of musical tastes. They draw parallels between the aggressive likes of Envy, Botch and Isis and the more laid-back likes of Radiohead and the Postal Service. On paper alone, this combination of influences meshed together may seem like an effort fraught with an inherent element of overambition, if not sheer impracticality; but in its practice, it is the best elements of all of the above in a package of divine execution and wonderfully displayed musicianship.

Ixnay on the Autoplay starts the album in a relaxed, synth-y manner reminiscent of Meanwhile, Back in Communist Russia: it’s one minute, forty-two seconds of keyboard work, leading into a pattern of a synthesised drumbeat. Seraphim and Cherubim, our track two, practically demolishes any predictions made as to the direction of the album to come from Ixnay through its immediate change to ‘real’ drums and a treble-heavy tremolo-picked guitar part screaming of Red Sparowes; as well as a later, heavier guitar riff being a passing nod to certain members of that band’s previous incarnation in Isis. Instrumentation remains tight, with keys, guitar, drums and whatever other synthesised sounds that they may be using blending, intertwining and supporting one another to produce a rich texture.

The Paris Hilton sex tape is thoroughly disappointing; Maybeshewill’s The Paris Hilton Sex Tape, however is a musical tour de force, with Mineral-esque hypnotic trebly guitar riffs paving the way for chugging basslines and guitar chord progressions. The drumming ability of the band is plainly demonstrated through the reduction of the song from full-band to mere drum and bass skeleton at around a minute into the song. Once again, keys compliment pounding guitar riffs in a manner incomprehensible but still amazingly simple, akin to most human expression: this is a perfect example of the emotion which can be expressed through instrumentation alone, without the pained whinings of a vocalist over it. I’m in Awe, Amadeus is a showcase of drumming ability from its start, with the fast-paced playing accompanying an endlessly falling-and-rising guitar line to the introduction of a key solo and then a more rhythmic guitar line.

We Called for An Ambulance but A Fire Engine Came demonstrates the band’s more post-metal side, with acute guitar highs meeting with obtuse guitar lows to form an all-around accessible outcome. After around a minute, this initial energy of chugging guitars and pounding drums descends into a sustained guitar chord gently fading and a key and synthesiser dream-like sequence. It’s ethereal beauty in simplicity is interrupted shortly after by a more electronic drumbeat and that wonderful rhythm guitar tone them seem to have created for themselves. Heartflusters is the first showing of the band’s vocal intentions, and it has to be said that they aren’t amongst the best of all bands: unfortunately, it does seem whiny above the delicate (and oh-so delicious) synth beats below. In fact, at three minutes in, there is a godly breakdown into a glitchy drumbeat, the likes of which I have not seen demonstrated better by even the venerable 65daysofstatic.

C.N.T.R.C.K.T is an immediate, bouncy, energy filled track which plods along by sheer virtue of its own will, it would seem from its insistent rhythm. He Films The Clouds Pt. 2 could be used as a definition for the concept of mixing delicacy with beats which could only be described well as either ‘tasty’ or ‘harsh’. Piano and strings meet with the technical drumming which has underpinned so much of this album so far in a manner bordering upon the symbiotic. The vocals which come later on in this track are wonderful, especially compared to the disappointment of those earlier, given their build up to that point. From the sole female voice to the full chant over that wonderful glitchy drum sound, the vocals are well balance and well executed in terms of tone and texture.

Not for Want of Trying, as well as being the title track, is the only song on the album I can even venture at the concept behind: the sampling of the 1976 film Network points at an acute socioeconomic awareness: Maybeshewill knows about our global recession. Musically, it is demonstrative of their dichotomic, loud-soft dynamic usage of their keys and guitars separately and is a constant ascent and descent rollercoaster of musical amazement. Takotsubo rounds the album off quite nicely much in the way that it started: delicacy once again is the order here.

This band is a revelation for the West Midlands area: they experiment with sounds that other local bands seem to be afraid to. We have glitching, chanting and piano solos all one album, and that is an achievement sofar as demonstration of diversity in music is concerned. It’s a wonderful combination of the best elements of post-rock (like Envy’s Chain Wandering Deeply), experimental electronic music (just think Aphex Twin) and even hardcore in some of the chord progressions and harmonic usage (think pageninetynine). All in all, this album demonstrates music visionaries in the early stages of what I hope to be a long career. If the sound can evolve from the originality which it already displays, I can see no upper bound for the potential of this band.

I hate how the more prevalent local scenes develop. You have one band which does something semi-original, and then you get the emulating hoards who will follow objectivelessly: they just want the benefit of the peer validation of being part of this sprawling ‘community’ of the bands of said scene. Innovation dies off and you get a group bouncing ideas only off of one another. External influence becomes a taboo: and ‘us and them’ attitude is bred.
This is why I love the idea of Stella Dawes. It takes strength of character in a group of individuals to go off from our fair city’s current largest scene of the pseudo-indie/pseudo-pop ‘creatives’ following in the footsteps laid out by the likes of Editors and do something so distant from this prevailing mood. Thick distortion, chugging riffs and harmonics which should sound awful find their homes here in contrast to the almost expected treble-loaded tremolo that has become the order of the day: it’s for this reason that it is fitting that ‘Contrasts’ is the album title. I must say, before the true meat of the review is started, that the packaging of the album was top-notch and probably would have put me in a mood good enough to enjoy any music, but in the interests of journalistic professional conduct, I put it to one side and didn’t listen to the album for a couple of hours: just long enough for me to get over the excitement which, essentially, four pieces of cardboard had brought into my day.
Mouth starts the album with fifty-six seconds of noise: a simple but effective introduction of the mood of the music to come. Happy Ever Afternoon rises from the ashes of this noise introduction with an almost unrelenting ferocity: the immediacy of pageninetynine is meshed with the sheer brutality of Orchid to produce a post-apocalyptic soundscape. Even in its quiet parts, this song is incapable of subtlety: its production is raw, with vocal falterings left in and feedback adding to, rather than detracting from, the overall texture of the track. The refrain of ‘more beautiful for tomorrow’ is guttural and strained in its execution and it adds true character to the song: this isn’t art, it’s a true emotional outpouring. The lyrics in other places border upon the divinely socially conscious: ‘We polish shit but, like it or not, nobody here is perfection, but we’re coming close’ is a blatant nod towards the misled interpretation that perfection is achievable, if at all desirable.
With Dichotomy, I was expecting a simple half-half quiet-loud dynamic, but it would appear that I project song titles onto the content of songs a little too much. The song gradually builds up for a minute, and then ascends into chaos with sonic bombasticity of the most endearing kind, and unparalleled by all that I can think of with the possible exception of Russian Circles. Distorted vocals are experimented with here to great effect: it’s not about the words, per se, but more about the position and role of vocals in the song. This distorted sequence serves to fill the void left by the descent of the guitars into a relative quietness and cleanliness. Shifting dynamics and textures are used on Dichotomy to produce a very unique and identifiable sound.
Investment Intercourse: A Deposit is the most conventional track so far on the album, showing nods towards the likes of Norma Jean through its initial minimalist instrumentation and then full-band blowout. Cowboys Become Folk Heroes would be enamoured by the vocals on display here: screams fluctuating in and out of the ’screaming’ band of singing and into the standard bounds of conventional ’singing’: this just adds to the sincerity of the music. Nothing is forced: nothing has been completely and utterly bastardised in ProTools. This is honest music. Everything Happens to Eeyore starts off with a calm, almost freeform jazz aesthetic (reminiscent of a couple of tracks from I Would Set Myself on Fire for You’s Believes in Patterns), but soon reaches the climax of churning guitars with the almost overbearing cataclysmic drumming drilling the pictures of their artistic vision into your head.
Gut is another exercise in instrumental experimentation from Stella Dawes: the guitar tone is similar to that of an ’80s Metro struggling to turn over. This gradually fades out and becomes the noise of a solitary detuned guitar. It’s yet another wonderful foray into the realms of noise as an art form. Investment Intercourse: A Return follows on from the drum outro of Gut but soon finds its own place with the introduction of an infectious lead part over it, with bass joining in later. This is a change from the generally ‘hardcore’ music pursued thus far, and shows a leaning towards the realms of post-rock. It’s a nice break in the middle of the album to cool down a little: angry, angry music is prone to make one angry.
Track eight is Sleep is for the Week, a progressive post-rockesque romp starting with a simple plucked 2-note guitar line leading into a more complex multifaceted full-band performance. It climaxes in a manner which could well be considered both ‘epic’ and ‘brutal’, both in the ironic and non-ironic senses. Fifteen Hour Drive takes a different tack to everything on the album prior to this point: clean guitars leading into a crescendo of distortion and strained vocals. It’s almost like a laid-back Explosions in the Sky song.
When the Tiger Lost His Voice sees a plodding heaviness which somehow manages not to be dull through the latent yet apparent emotion of the vocals. Their mystical chainsaw tone is present here, replete with a background chanting which is reminiscent of Lion of the North. The Unspeakable is a straight-up hardcore song, with chants, octave chords and sequences which shouldn’t be bearable, but are through some divine musical magic. The cries of ‘Is love enough?’ can do nothing but endear the band to the listener: this is once again social commentary of the highest order.
The album ends on a raw, unprocessed high with Decay: it’s a completely unmastered track with a small spoken section at the beginning which explores their recording and musical technique quite nicely.
Overall, this album is superb: it’s intellectual hardcore. It’s brutal, yet subtle; artistic, yet emotional. It is the embodiment of the DIY ethic through its production method: all of the mastering was done internally. Listen to it. See them live. You’ll love it.

With the demise of Starve in Heaven, I felt that this deserved a repost.

James Summerfield’s MySpace

Birmingham seems to be at the forefront of a new wave of folk- and country-inspired music, with the likes of Sam Bentley, Friends of the Stars etc. coming to the favour of ourselves and other local media. And here, in James Summerfield, we could have another sign that the next ‘Birmingham sound’ is going to be closer to Saddle Creek’s current definition of the ‘Omaha sound’ than the metal of the ’80s.

The album starts with an almost painfully cliché country-esque song title in Another Day With You’s Like Torture – it just screams of the likes of I Beat My Wife to Dull the Pain mid-Western America songwriting – but (luckily) it finds its salvation in the content of the song itself. It’s a delicate number of strings, acoustic guitar, slide guitar and drums accompanied by the sort of pained, spiderweb-thin vocal delivery paralleling that of the late Elliott Smith. The lyrics are full of sweet little references to the limitations of knowledge and the transience of relationships, throwing back memories to late-era ‘everything is a ballad’ Dr. Hook. And that is quite possibly the only time that that particular comparison has been made favourably.

Heads Down and Eyes Up is a song which I can immediately love, if only for the passing theme of ‘I can’t stand theists for whom God only exists in their hours of need.’ It’s just delightful commentary on a breed worthy of hate. Again, Elliott Smith comparisons seem necessary: the delay on the voice is reminiscent of Independence Day, and works to thicken out the texture of the song in the same way, alongside the far more minimal backing of slide guitar and strings.

The third song on the album, Stuck in the Mud, is probably the most indicative of the minimalism of his music: voice and guitar. It’s a simple combination which works, especially with the contrast between the harsher highs of his vocal chords and the clean sounding mids of his accompanying guitar. Count to Ten is, simply, wonderful: soothing vocals tell the story of a stalkerish distant desire, but in terms so pure. Chinese food, independent films, cashews and cheap wine are truly the more base components of a successful relationship. The sudden-onset swell of the instruments at the end of the song at the point of ‘I’m thinking of you even though we have not met’ seems so earnest that the song cannot be construed as anything but earnest by anything possessing a heart. The descent into a whisper from this just compounds the effect. The subsequent instrumental of Jelly Bones demonstrates the technical proficiency of James quite well.

Getting thoroughly hammered because of a loved one: it’s so passé, but so wonderfully adaptable to music. What’s on Your Mind shows a struggle between whiskey and wine brought on by the perceived distance of another, and its wonderfully executed with vocals which for the first time on the album seem strained, and it’s a strain of a most appealing nature. It’s an emotional strain. It’s genuine. Delusions of adequacy and grandeur are also great concepts for songs, and Films tackles this, again, with great aplomb. The vocals and guitar mesh to form a whole, rather than just being the sum of two parts.

A Little Time’s guitar part is wonderfully playful, and it’s an infectious riff. It could be considered danceable, as far as that term is usable in country. I’d be a Helpless Friend is a song, once again, of James Summerfield’s more minimalist side: guitar plucking accompanied by slide and the most gentle of percussion. At 1:59, it’s a nice break from the rest of the album.

Once is a sad song, simple as: the debate of love as a once in a lifetime experience versus a constant one just doesn’t lend itself to jolly music. His melancholy is an enjoyable one, though: the vibrato on the vocals becomes gradually more and more unrestrained as the song goes on, just giving the feeling that the performer is close to tears. It’s wonderful.

9 Lives and Paper Bags are a stylistic departure from what was the formula laid down up to now. 9 Lives sees the introduction of clean electric guitars and a far more staccato vocal style. Paper Bags, on the other hand, is the polar opposite to this. The song brings with it a delightfully fragile piano intro and a gentle climb to full instrumentation. The only lyrics in this song, which are sung towards the end, serve as a closing to this album wonderfully: it’s a synoptic account of the themes of the entire album.

I must say that this album is, in a little way, a little hackneyed, but only in a thematic sense; and I’m not quite sure as to how bad of a thing that is. Sure, the songs are about love, about life, about the day-to-day: and all of that has been done before ad inifitum. But who cares? These themes cut to the very core of the human condition.

It’s out in August. Buy it.

Commercially Inviable Records, the record label at the helm of what I see as the folk revolution in Birmingham, are really pressing the concept of ‘art for art’s sake’, and I can truly respect that. I hope that their lineup grows exponentially with a maintenance of quality.

Yes, Ben Marwood is yet another British singer-songwriter; yes, Ben Marwood is yet another pretty boy who can play guitar; and yes, Ben Marwood does sell his records in HMV (call me an indie snob, I do not care). All of this perceived negativity, however, is mere prejudice and doesn’t even hold up to the most brief of listens: even though the voices of his influences can be heard, he intermingles their ideas with those of his own to form a very cohesive individual voice. Question Marks opens with a marvellous plucked guitar sequence which underpins the song to its end, and a wonderful progression it is: the song is packed with what I can only see as playful snipes at Sam Duckworth of Get Cape fame – it seems that Ben isn’t too keen on his contemporary’s socioeconomic commentary, as demonstrated by the lyrics ‘I will not preach revolution, ’cause I’m not as dumb as to think that I have the solution‘, as well as his insistence upon telling us how ‘Get Cape. Wear Cape. stole [his] sound‘. Five Little Secrets is something altogether more dark: a more sombre but still endearing acoustic guitar line forms the non-vocal backbone of the song; whilst the raspy, almost aggressive vocals of Ben keep the song chugging along with a renewed momentum with each exhalation. I Know What I Did Last Summer carries on this vocal theme: it’s a piano-introduced denouncement of the poor little rich girl as venomous as any that I’ve ever heard before: not even the tra-la-la-ing can detract from the vehemence of his voice in the lines ‘every time you start your flowery speech, I expect to hear Death Cab start three feet behind me‘ and ‘it feels like you’re living The fucking OC’. Even in the midst of this, a certain frailty which could only be described as ‘cute’ is exposed; his ascension into the higher pitches accentuates the greatest asset of his music: honesty.

Track four, Heathens, sees more venom being spat: seemingly this time over transient Christians and faith merely to spite others. Once again, the Marwood’s gritty voice over simple, bright acoustic guitar dichotomy is on display in the most apparent example of its implementation yet. This fury in Ben’s voice spills over into Claire: a song clearly of a tale of a jilted liar, and as such, a wonderful place for the proliferation of his growl. In spite of his previous admonishment of the we-can-fix-the-world attitudes of the likes of Duckworth, Fake It sees demonstration of anger over the lack of difference perceived by some between him and the boy and girl bands so prolific on the television. This is righteous anger: this is the good kind of hypocrisy. Like it or Not finishes the album on a high note: the bitterness inherent in his voice seems to be gone, and the major key of the music is not deceptive as it had been previously.

To conclude: it’s £4.99 from HMV. It’s amazing. Buy it.