Race Horses, Furniture review

Below is a review of Race Horses' thoroughly ace new record Furniture as it appeared in the Daily Post last Friday (Aug 31). The album is out on September 10. Buy it.

As is the precedent with Aberystwyth’s Race Horses it has become custom to expect sprawling masses of genre and style.
Although highly accomplished, 2010’s Goodbye Falkenburg was a bit of a gallimaufry. A mash of “everything [they] had listened to up to that point, all combined musically.”
The intervening years have evidently been spent grinding their pop edge until razor-sharp. Frontman Meilyr Jones has the Cocker-esque skill of injecting the everyday and the kitchen sink drama with glitz and glamour.
Pulp, in fact, are the most obvious of benchmarks. That is a Pulp flush with Sparks and glossy 80s pop balladry, making nods at Queen (see Nobody's Son), Spandau Ballet and Ultravox without the influences being contrived or too knowing.
Although the record stumbles early with the meandering What Am I To Do, elsewhere it is consistently well constructed and well realised. A trio of Furniture, Mates and Sisters is chrome-bright modern pop backed by ineffable art school pomp – a heady mix of audacity and depth.
True to the pop blueprint, the record closes with the ballad Old and New. It is a well-used formula and its results are often hackneyed. But, it is a formula for a reason and when pulled off so impeccably it is very difficult to argue with. Solid gold pop, no less.

Green Man Festival 2012 : Review

This review (a shortened version of it) appeared in the Daily Post on August 24. The photos I took aren't great. They were taken on a 300 year old camera phone... The much better videos were by the excellent Folly of Youth -- on their site you can also read a much more in depth and, basically, better review of Green Man Festival 2012. So you should probably just go there now.

GREEN Man Festival is in the middle of nowhere. Well, not nowhere, people live there. It is a beautiful place smack at the foot of the Sugar Loaf. A babbling brook here, a old oak tree there.
The latter of those, situated by a glistening pond, proved a wonderful Hot Toddy Rum Ting-influenced sleeping spot while fellow campers orchestrated a 500 person strong synchronised dance routine near the Walled Garden stage.
But beyond taking a long time to get to, the festival’s proximity to anything else is outstripped by the difference in atmosphere from almost any other event.

Mowb-a-hoop.

It was a feeling brought home with a bang when confronted with footage of the shirtless, sunburnt revellers at V Festival. Or the state thousands of sun worshippers left Brighton beach in over the same weekend.
Sure, there were shirtless people. When it wasn’t raining it was baking hot. But more often than not they were pushing a pram. Around 72% of the time they had a ponytail rather than a shaved head.
The mix of good people, beautiful surrounds and activities was one of the event’s finest assets. Testament to that is making it around 200 words through a review without mentioning music. Which was, frankly, incredible.

Brooding.

Celebrating its tenth year in ineffable style, Green Man 2012 let you in gently with the charming Greta Isaac. Who, at 16, was accompanied by a confidence usually reserved for the more battle-weary of singer songwriters.
Just as confident and almost equally as young, Penmachno’s Sen Segur then let us down the road of delightful reeled in psych and prog, making stops at Brian Jonestown Massacre and Gorky’s along the way.
Their last song has a bugle in it, which was great. Also, Mr Huw was playing with them -- he sat down a lot and played a maraca, like a tired Bez/Joel Gion type.

Sen Segur.

Unfortunately for Wrexham’s Mowbird, the worst rain of the weekend was reserved for their 45 minute slot. Fortunately for those who braved the conditions they were treated to a gloriously trashy set of jilted surf punk.

Mowbird.

A lightening fast rendition of labelmates Sex Hands’ Way No Way was enough to give you blisters. A nearby bar which provided shelter from the storm was as busy as any spot on the site all weekend. Ace.

Joanna Gruesome later did something of a similar ilk, but blessed with much kinder weather. The results sent a few more pining looks to the halcyon days of 1992 and was considerably more indebted to the past that Mowbird. Still, they were very young and very (very) fun, it is just difficult to imagine them putting any foot forward when both legs seem so rooted in the 90s.
To close the first night, Cate Le Bon shimmered, flattening the Nico, Velvets and Fall records that formed her and then folding them into the most wonderful noise, the ghost of Syd Barrett smiling with approval at her shoulder. Equal parts hypnotic and haunting, the Penboyr-born songstress provided the best thing – myself, at least – would see that weekend. Probably all year.
It left me frothing at the mouth. Flapping in the mud like a still-live fish that had fallen off a passing truck.

The worst photo taken of a Cate Le Bon gig ever.

Later, during Mr Scruff, dancing in the mud proved a step to far for weary legs.

An early Saturday morning provided the Colwyn Bay-raised Sweet Baboo. A full band including brass section blasted cobwebs away in joyful pop blasts. The vocals were cracked and charming drawing an impressive crowd for such and early set (11.30).

Sweet Baboo.

The multi-instrumental Yann Tiersen later unleashed a psychedelic barrage of synths and strings. Set apart from the Parisian folk of the Amilie soundtrack the audience may have been used to. It was joyfully loud and accomplished. If not brash, it was powerful and kinetic.

[For some reason the site will only allow one Youtube video per post. But you can see Cate Le Bon playing Green Man in impeccable style here]

The second night was closed by Metronomy for an appropriate festival singalong. The Bay and The Look proved more than accepatable for the willing audience. You Could Easily Have me, a pogo causing peice of wonder.
Biggest, or most packed, crowd of the weekend was reserved for Alt-J. But where ths Cambridge foursome fell ever so slightly flat Cardiff’s Iselt destroyed. Unashamedly avant-garde This Fortune and A Bear On His Own battered and brised their way through a mid-afternoon lull. The performance culminated in what was the only acceptable way with one of their number perfectly executing a Klinsmann dive through the mud at the feet of the audience.
Jonathan Richman performed as only he knows how. A crowd pleasing set including Let Her Go Into The Darkness and Old World from one of music’s real and most untranished of gems.
Often funny and unabashedly lovable he is unafraid of the most simple of sentiments. His confidence was infectious and in a way summed up a weekend in the Black Mountains. Great music, good times and hardly an idiot in sight.
I very much want to go back. Now.

Race Horses, Daily Post August 17

Below appeared in the Daily Post on August 17. Race Horses' album, Furniture, is released on September 10. It is Solid Gold Pop. They also play Festival Number Six in Portmeirion in September.

THE RACE Horses of today are different proposition to the one that released Goodbye Falkenburg in early 2010. At face value, their numbers have swelled to five and they have signed a record deal.
Beyond that – and via common opinion – the Aberystwyth band have spent the last two years fine tuning their pop sensibilities. A new album, Furniture, due next month, does little to dispel rumours.
“Goodbye Falkenburg was more a collection of songs, it felt like more of a mash. This is much more direct and there’s a lot more space to it,” explains drummer Gwion Llewelyn.
“Furniture is more rhythmic and based around melodies. Meilyr, his words are quite strong and direct so we wanted to work around that.
“These days bands seem to go with what’s happening on the scene. That’s not what we want to do. It was a group thing and we’ve not worked like that before. We sat together and experimented with a lot of stuff and lot of different sounds.
“We have loads of MiniDisc full of just terrible experiments and sounds that we made in the run up to recording.”

Singer Meilyr Jones adds: “All the new music I was hearing seemed to be hidden behind reverb, behind a veneer of cool. We wanted to make something much more stark and direct.”
According to the drummer, the addition of harpist-turned-guitarist Mali Llewelyn and percussionist Dan Bradley has added an extra dimension to the band on Furniture. The album is pin-sharp, inspired by Roxy Music, Soft Cell and Dexy’s Midnight Runners – also by the disco at the youth hostel they were staying at during recording sessions.
“It was full of Spanish tourists dancing to Michael Jackson,” says guitarist Dylan Hughes. “We were there on the dance floor trying to work out why it sounded so good, analysing Quincy Jones’s production and thinking, how did he get that hi-hat sound, or that groove?”
Llewelyn adds: “It was recorded in a weird way. At some point in the studio we were quite surprised how some stuff came together. It was a really fast process, only about one week in Elephant and Castle in London.
“The result is very energetic – we recorded it almost live so you can feel that, hopefully. With the words like they are the melody has to be strong. That’s important. It’s all about getting people to move get a Michael Jackson groove on it or something. Pop melodies that people can relate to.”
On the subject of lyrics – which cover feelings of frustration and the erosion of relationships – Meilyr Jones sourced inspiration from the likes of DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy.
He says: “It’s about people that spend a lot of time together gradually starting not to see each other... If you put a picture on your wall, over time it dissolves into the background. It’s the same when you’re living with someone; they become an object over time.”
Furniture is out September 10. Race Horses Play Festival Number Six, Portmeirion on September 14..
Here is Marged Wedi Blino for your enjoyment as well.. It's not on the new album But it is great.

Pulco. Daily Post August 3

This appeared in the Daily Post on August 3. It's about Pulco.

SINCE the dissolution of his former band at the turn of the century – darlings of the Peel session Derrero – Ash Cook has plied a trade in intimate home recordings.
Going by the name Pulco, he is known as much for his music as he is for his prolificacy – so much so that many describe Cooke’s music as a document of his day to day life.
“I say throw the window open and get the kids to play in the room at the same time.” he says. “It is the bits in the background that are important, I feel. The sound of life going on behind the music. It’s normal, the sounds of your life.”
What is usually a very personal blend of lo fi folk and psychedelia, recently, has opened its doors to collaboration.
“When I was with Derrero we did a bit of spoken word recording with Patrick Jones who is the brother of Nicky Wire from the Manics. He’s like this dark poet from the Welsh valleys. That’s when I started doing it myself... At the end of last year I had a load of poetry and that’s when I got other people involved.”
The idea gave birth to The Man of Lists. Cooke sent three poems each to nine different artists for them to treat as they saw fit. Results range from drone, slow piano and synth to near-tropical rhythm.
“It’s a collection of people I’ve met in my career and through social media. I sent them the poems that I had recorded on a Dictaphone and said: ‘You can do with them what you like’.
So it is an album of nine people and I’m the tenth – my input is really quite minimal.”
He adds: “The interesting bits were new arrangements where they’d cut my words to fit. There’s stuff there that I maybe didn’t pick up the first time or, through repetition, have given the poem a completely different meaning.”
Social media has also provided him the opportunity to connect with his audience. His case is somewhat individual, but he provides a brighter, almost hyper-local, side to the argument for giving music away for free.
“Not being in a band anymore, I gave up editorial control a long time ago, I just put it out there. That’s my style, or my niche, if you will... If you’ve got weaknesses, like if you’re not particularly good at guitar, use that as your strength. There’s no point in being something your not... When I started in the late nineties, the only real way you found out about music was through sitting in the bath, reading magazines. You didn’t have to take that many risks.
“Now it’s brilliant, it is so easy to send files to people. When I give stuff away for free you see the emails of people who’ve downloaded it. After they’ve taken some stuff, you see the same address will come back and pay for something at a later date.
“The relationship is a lot closer. There are fewer fans but they’re people who are your friends. Before, I never knew who were buying my records now I know all of them. I think that’s very healthy.
“I am lucky, though, that this is not my sole job. Not everyone is in that situation. If I can make a few bob out of it then that’s good.”
For more visit pulcomusic.com

Mowbird, Daily Post July 27

Have I ever told you how good Mowbird are? There's an interview with Ben Sawin below. It was in the Daily Post on Friday July 27.
The foursome are playing Swn Festival in October and Green Man Festival before that. There is also mooted a split seven inch single with their kindred spirits Sex Hands on the Popty Ping label -- fancy that.

Listen to them:

Read about them:

IN October of last year, Mowbird were recording a radio session at the BBC’s famous Maida Vale studios. A picture of the White Stripes gazed down on them as they prepared to play on what singer Ben Sawin describes as ‘the world’s smallest drum kit’.
It was, perhaps, a fitting scenario for a band that walks the line between brilliant and shambolic with such aplomb – and despite appearances, that is a compliment.
“Maida Vale was a great experience,” says Sawin. “It was a case of just thinking ‘how on earth did we get here when so many of our peers haven’t?’
“We weren’t thinking we had made it or anything. The picture of the White Stripes looking down on us – playing in exactly the same space we were – kind gave you a bit of perspective.”
Since their inception as a bratty and abrasive punk band, Wrexham’s Mowbird have developed through line up changes, a clutch of excellent EPs and shows at the likes of Swn and Camden Crawl. The essentials are the same, jittering wedges of off-kilter surf pop are all present and correct. They are, though, more toned and glossy, like some pulp fiction magazine. But progressing and leaving the past behind leaves Mowbird little room for sentimentality.
Sawin continues: “We have a low tolerance and get bored easily. First off, we always aim to make it interesting for us. Once songs stop meaning something we stop playing them. We don’t want to carry on in the same furrow.
“It’s hard to let go sometimes, every song has a meaning but some get stagnant. It’s like re-reading the same book. One week you might read the first chapter and it doesn’t really work. You might then pick it up a week later and it’s different.”

An interesting footnote, around the time of the BBC session, found the band playing to bemused diners in a Harvester Pub. An experience, like all the others, that Sawin says added to the band's dynamic.
“Some of us have played gigs to 10,000 people, well, just one of us [drummer Ben with his other band Camera]. Some had never played a gig before being in Mowbird. We’re all different.
“Our gig at Telford’s in Chester was definitely a highlight. Any gig where it’s been tiny and worked. The big moments are just important as the little ones.
“I feel we’re becoming a singular unit. The important thing is that we hang out outside of the band. That means a lot.”
He adds the past year caught the four piece of Sawin, Mike Smith, Sue Dempsey and Ben Trow standing off guard.
“It’s been a little, well, it’s been a huge surprise. I suppose being from Wrexham it’s ingrained in us not to expect too much. Maida Vale and Swn Festival kind of came out on nowhere. We got caught up in that but there was a little bit of disbelief that people were genuinely interested.
"It still does surprise me. We’re playing Swn again this year and before that Green Man Festival. All that’s based on a band that’s recorded in basements.”
Mowbird play Green Man Festival in Brecon on the weekend of August 17. To listen visit mowbird.bandcamp.com.

Pulco, Man of Lists

Pulco (Ash Cooke) releases his record Man of Lists on the worldwide public on July 30 -- Monday. Below you can listen to some of it and below that you can read wot I gon writ bout it in the Daily Post as long ago as May. Remember May? Those heady days.  http://pulco.bandcamp.com/

NORTH west Wales’ Pulco releases a lot of material. With such a broad array of genres it is a credit to Ash Cooke that he maintains a fairly level standard of quality.
Man Of Lists is, for the most part, spoken words over musical backdrops ranging from slow piano and synth to near-tropical rhythm then to what sounds suspiciously like an eastern European fiddle. There are a lot of collaborators across the record’s 25 tracks. Perhaps this is what contributes to the record’s slightly stretched feel.
As a collection of tracks, it is by no means a mess. But as an album, in the sense of a package, it maybe spreads itself a little thinly. It is encouraging that Pulco’s lo-fi experiments in folk and electronica never lose their charm.
The Downside of Things is a SFA techno workout that alone would be lovely. In these surrounds it jars ever so slightly. Ultimately, Ash Cooke is an artist we should all be very glad exists. The sheer amount of music he puts out turns over every stone of his creative process. It gives you a distinct and unique picture of a distinct and unique musician. He has created an open-ness that is all too vacant from music today.
If you don’t like one thing, there will always be something nearby that you will love.
Pulco: Man Of Lists (out now) folkwit.com/artists/pulco

We Are Animal newydd

There are some new We Are Animal tracks! They've been around for about 13 days.
Bombastic isn't the word. Well, it is. It is more of the gnarled, battered and bruised brooding psych rock we have come to expect from the band. Every melody and riff dragged up and down Snowdon, through the mud and muck, before eat reaches our ears.
They are playing RJ's in Bangor tomorrow night (July 27). Get down.