The best thing about Islet is that their first notes can make a Joy Collective writer break off a conversation with a shout of “I FUCKING LOVE THIS ONE!” before rushing to the front of the stage.  The best thing about Islet is that every member of the band is the best one.  The best thing about Islet is that you can’t take your eyes off any of them because they’re about to do something brilliant – wander into the crowd, switch instruments, howl wordlessly off-mic.  The best thing about Islet is that they actually play pretty uncommercial music, but with a force and presence that makes beaming converts even in early evening support slots.  The best thing about Islet is that you can feel them growing from something that “works best live” into a genuinely thrilling band without having to change a thing.  The best thing about Islet is that when there’s two of them drumming together it sounds like six people drumming.  The best thing about Islet is that the two drummers knock sticks together during solos.  The best thing about Islet is that they can work rooms the size of upstairs at Clwb and force people to get involved, and that you know they could easily do the same for bigger rooms, or festival crowds – wheeling around, spilling drinks, engaging with people.  The best thing about Islet is that Alex ends the set drumming on my back.  The best thing about Islet is the room full of grins afterwards.  The best thing about Islet is that they keep getting fucking better.

The positive response afforded Islet – even the baffled faces are smiling – gives you a feeling of cautious optimism about how Gruff Rhys and Tony Da Gatorra will be received.  Last night’s show, albeit the second to be announced and thus possibly attended by more floating voters and casual SFA fans unfamiliar with Gruff’s more out-there whims, apparently endured disappointed muttering and walkouts as it became gradually apparent that there wouldn’t be so much as a Candylion, let alone any hits for old time’s sake.  Whether or not tonight’s crowd were more savvy to the backstory behind Gruff’s link-up with the Brazilian TV repairman and home-made instrument enthusiast, there’s an air of genuine affection for our host’s typically endearing, faltering introductions and his new-found brother in rhythm (“No notes. Only rhythm”) with his universal sounds of self-expression and personal protest.

In any case, it’s not like the parameters for the evening aren’t set from the off.  Gruff’s intro explains the basis for the collaboration, the linguistic barriers the two face in working together and a little of the socio-political background to Gatorra’s homespun, almost outsider folk jams about inequality and corruption in his home country.  The two take turns to perform their songs from The Terror Of Cosmic Loneliness, each improvising on guitar, the unique hybrid Gatorra itself and vocals to back up the other.  With some noticeably wincing at the chattering, occasionally arrhythmic patterns of Da Gatorra’s instrument, Rhys’ ‘In A House With No Mirrors’ is a relief, many grasping for more coherence along those lines. 

As Da Gatorra embarks on increasingly lengthy and rhythmically complex condemnations of injustice and calls for peace, hammering away at the buttons and dials on his instrument, Rhys tapes agit-prop soundbites (Violence! Elitism! Impunity!) to the backdrop and looks on with a beatific grin before resuming his own contribution.  It’s often hard work, to be fair, but the overwhelming feeling half an hour or so into the set is not just that actually, this is great (it is), but that this is possibly the largest mainstream (ish) crowd ever to witness music this wilfully difficult, this out there, certainly in Wales.  And you start grinning too.

But while it’s tempting to view the playfulness of the cultural exchange – the Power Ranger helmet, the Wolfie Smith slogans, Gatorra’s headband proclaiming ‘PAZ!’ and his general look of Brian Hibbard doing Spinal Tap – as a conceptual joke on Gruff’s part, both men are clearly not only enjoying themselves immensely but deadly serious about the music they’ve made together, the ability of English, Welsh and Portuguese-speaking men to collaborate with no shared language other than sound and a try-anything attitude.  Those willing to share in the spirit are rewarded, if you need to see it that way, with a run through Candylion’s ‘Gyrru Gyrru Gyrru’ and, thrillingly, the old Ffa Coffi Pawb tune ‘Valium’.  The point, though, is maybe that a few minds opened to the possibility of what music can do to reach people.  “Bloody hell”, muses one chap in the gents’ afterwards, “and I thought the first lot were weird!”.  As a baffled but happy assessment of the evening, that’s hard to top.

For one so laid back, Stephen Black has a remarkable work ethic.  Since completing work on debut album ‘The Mighty Baboo’ in 2008 he’s barely stopped writing, readying his third full-length in January this year.  Combined with bass and production work for Euros Childs, touring the US playing with Cate Le Bon, adding bass, guitar and clarinet to Spencer McGarry Season’s Episode 2 album and forming one larkabout side project (gumby krautrockers Meanz Heinz) and one highly promising new band (Wickes, debuting live this month), it’s a wonder that his songwriting quality control has remained so constantly high.

“I’m A Dancer/Songs About Sleepin’”, the album in question, is released by Shape this month on glorious vinyl (limited to 300, with download).  The cover, one side of which is above, justifies the choice of format – it looks fantastic, kudos to designer Kirsten McTernan.  The songs within take in upbeat, countrified celebrations of love and newfound companionship,   boastful odes to drunken prowess and heartbroken, helpless songs of directionless loss, but none lose sight of Black’s core elements – unshakeably memorable tunes and a witty, self-deprecating lyrical turn to keep everything grounded.

As is his wont, he’s been playing these songs live for a while – the aforementioned creativity leads him to move on once a batch of songs have been released – recently, though, this has been as a muscular three-piece band with Huw Evans (H. Hawkline) on bass and Avvon Chambers (Spencer McGarry Season) on drums.  The resulting country-rock Baboo, replete with almost J Mascis-like soloing, is an utter treat. 

Support comes from killer math-rock should-have-beens Truckers of Husk, absent for far too long after a string of breathtakingly great gigs around 2007-08.  The line-up shuffles that have always dogged them have continued, and we’re promised a new-look Truckers from this point on with Kelson Mathias joining from Future Of The Left.  Old songs or new, this can only be a great thing.  Good to have them back.

NB:  All those booking advance tickets (see link below) will be able to pick up a copy of the new album on the night for £6.00.  Those paying on the door will have to pay full whack for the LP!

Shape Function 020

Sweet Baboo / Truckers Of Husk / Ceri Frost

A celebration of the release of Sweet Baboo’s third and most ambitious album, “I’m A Dancer / Songs About Sleepin’”. The album – songs of lost love, girls, drinking and sleeping – was recorded at his home in North Wales with the help of a talented group of musicians. Rob Jones (Voluntary Butler Scheme) co-produced and the band included musicians such as Avvon Chambers (Spencer McGarry Season), Alex Williams (Islet) and his brother, David Black.

Truckers of Husk have taken a break, reshuffled the pack and are back armed with new material. Eagerly anticipated, this will be the bands first Cardiff show this year, yikes!

Sweet Baboo’s former bandmate Ceri Frost steps out of the studio and onto the stage for the first time with solo material from his debut self released album ‘Cui’. Helped along by drums, keys and a double bass, expect raucous acoustic songs about time travel, road-trips and farmyard animals. It’s gotta be seen to be heard!

7:30pm | £4/£6 | buy tickets

• http://www.shaperecords.co.uk/
• www.myspace.com/sweetbabootheband
• www.myspace.com/truckersofhusk
• www.myspace.com/soundsfrosty

As I write, the last bank holiday weekend of the year is drawing to a close. The attendant feelings of an impending long, slow, unforgiving slog towards Christmas hover grey and morose above an otherwise sunny evening. Never fear, though, for the last rites are being read to to the festival season, the gig guide is getting ever busier and those hideous bastard kids are back in school. Everything’s rosy, right? RIGHT.

Firstly, let me make myself clear:  you need to see ACTION BEAT.  That’s ACTION BEAT, the sweaty, topless math-noise hydra who will bring an untold number of guitarists and drummers to Buffalo on the 6^th of September before pounding them into SonicYouth-shaped pieces in front of your weeping faces.  I cannot stress this enough:  YOU NEED TO SEE ACTION BEAT.  You also need to see Brandyman and Saturday’s Kids add their galloping riffing, fever-dream narratives and blackened snail-punk in support.  This is a recommendation, people.

Few people instil feelings of late-summer joy in your heart better than Cardiff’s own thirsty country-folk troubadour Sweet Baboo, and he kicks off September with a must-see launch gig for his third album with support from much-missed and purportedly reshuffled fret-tappers Truckers of Husk and bedroom pop maestro Ceri Frost (Clwb, 4th). Keep those bittersweet country feelings clutched tight to your autumnal bosom with Phosphorescent (Thekla, 7th) and Baboo’s own CSNY-style supergroup Wickes (Rockin’ Chair, 13th, with H. Hawkline) and you won’t go far wrong. Further stagger your slow withdrawal from Green Man’s bucolic mud ‘n’ folk vibes with two excellent Bristol shows; showstopping Glanusk headline turn Joanna Newsom (Colston Hall, 16th) and, even better, splendid Fairport-esque folk-rockers Trembling Bells (St Bonaventure’s, 11th, supporting Charlie Parr).  Spooked Americana and gothic country from Emily Jane White (Cube, 4^th or 10 Feet Tall with J.R., 5^th) should do the trick too.

Sweet Baboo’s not alone in showing off what he did on his summer holidays.  Twitchy post-punk scamps Joy Of Sex and freewheeling bar-room pugilists Gindrinker launch their 4-track split EP (on I Blame The Parents) at Buffalo on the 14th, and boy genius Ratatosk’s magnificent, heartworn mini-album will be shown off in support of anti-folk tag team Diane Cluck and Anders Griffen (10 Feet Tall, 26th).  Renew acquaintances with other local favourites Strange News From Another Star (Chapter, hilariously, on the 5th) and their support for that gig Circa Regna Tonat (Clwb, 24th, with Kutosis) while you’re at it. 

Plenty more noisy tackle to be found to further punish your enfeebled eardrums too, not least a blinding double-header from Lesson No. 1, returning refreshed from a summer break with a lung-bursting Liverpool/South Wales doom triple bill of Conan, Spider Kitten and Pus (Buffalo, 11th) and, van disasters notwithstanding, the long-delayed appearance of Indiana scuzz-punk reprobates Racebannon (Buffalo, 20th).  Get some.  Unhinged, belligerent noise duo Comanechi return to Cardiff alongside ace Glaswegian No Wave newcomers Divorce and mysterious grunge supergroup Drains (Buffalo, 28th) – excellent bill, that.  Clwb, meanwhile, has a third (I think) visit from Leeds tykes Pulled Apart By Horses, now remarkably a feature of the Radio 1 playlist, on the 14th; Strange News team up in support for what will be a singular evening of sweaty, crowd-bothering fun amid the gobs of shouty noise-pop and naked male torsos.  There’s a theme developing here.  More nudity will no doubt be afoot as Monotonix hit Bristol’s Croft (10th).  You will very likely be touched by one of these people.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.

This just in! Future of the Left will headline a 10th birthday show for Welsh Music Foundation at the Wales Millennium Centre (10th).  It is FREE, folks.  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.  Also FREE, and on the same evening, head to the Riverside Tavern in Newport to get up close and damagingly personal with Science Bastard.  If there’s a god, you’ll be able to catch both.

A few of those September Whirls for you to chance your arm on, now (What? We don’t just throw this together. Much).  Intriguing multi-stranded stuff at the Cube on the 18th, with spooky B-movie electronica from Antoni Maiovvi, a documentary on a legendary artist-run Sydney venue and performance space, DJs and stalls.  All for charity, too.  If that sounds like your cup of Bristol, try these…  more eccentric leftfield beats from from Paper Recordings owner Ben Davis’ down-at-heel superhero pseudonym Flash Atkins (CAI, 11th) and LA psych aficionado Gaslamp Killer (Thekla, 9th); breathless experimentation and genre-fiddling at the Qu Junktions ‘How Come’ night featuring Zun Zun Egui, Stones Throw-collaborating beatmaker Rekordah and ‘Afro-Germanic groove’ (COME ON!) outfit GNOD (Croft, 17th) and, profiled here, Deborah Withers’ Kate Bush-inspired performance/lecture piece (Chapter, 2nd).

Right, I’ve banged on long enough.  Let’s wrap up with a few more recommendations from the longlist.  I’ve not even mentioned the bloody Vaselines, whose rebirth not only sounds great live for indie nostalgia fans but which has led to a pretty snappy new album too (Millennium Music Hall, 19th and Thekla, 21st).  What else? Oh, there’s backpacker hiphop don Sage Francis (Fleece, 15th), Wolf Parade bringing return-to-form third album ‘Expo 86′ to the Thekla (11th), way underrated indie rockers Sky Larkin giving it some Throwing Muses in support of their new LP (Cooler, also 11th), hot blog faves Cymbals Eat Guitars (Fleece, 8th) and Neon Indian (Start The Bus, 3rd), bedroom pop and electronic twiddling with Ducktails (Cube, 24^th), entitled LA poppers turned 60s revivalists The Like (Clwb, 7^th, with the fine El Goodo in support) and another promising Gathered in Song night with Justin Rutledge (Le Pub), 25^th.  Most of all, though: YOU NEED TO SEE ACTION BEAT.  I’m glad we’ve had this chat.  Have a good month.

Hreda, Thought Forms + Anta

Fri 3rd Sept / 7.30pm / £6/5adv

The Cube is very happy to welcome back HREDA; a band that manage to sound crushingly heavy and heavenly crushing at the same time. Mixing elements of Prog, Post-Rock and Post-Hardcore HREDA play like a well oiled steam train; the three minds of two guitars and drums combining to sound like a single, complex entity; bringing to mind Neurosis, Isis and GY!BE at their heaviest and most beautiful.

Releasing their debut album on Bristol’s Invada Records, Thought Forms Come across like Bad Moon Rising era Sonic Youth crossed with Sunn O))) mixing in Grouper on vocals for good measure; this band are truly exhilarating and awe-inspiring live.

Anta lay on riffs like seismic plates then throw them around like drunken Gods at a birthday party. These are truly the children of King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Sleep and Isis.

Bar ’til 1am with sounds from Archeologists of America Young Team.

It’s a sad and beautiful world as someone, now dead, once sang. ‘C’est La Vie Tragique’, the debut album from Cardiff’s Ratatosk, bears this out like few others, and while mini-albums that slowly luxuriate in tales of madness, shipwreck and desolation are correctly not generally known as triple-floor party bangers, the levels of pathos and finely honed beauty here are high enough to devastate quietly and brilliantly. It’s the work of one Rhodri Viney, who since starting out as the purely acoustic troubadour Teflon Monkey (or Broken Leaf, post legal action) has wandered over the years into promiscuous collaboration (with Gorky’s, Martin Carr, Vito, a Rolodex more) and terrifically tight riff worship (check the lean Right Hand Left Hand machine). Ratatosk seems to have fermented over revelations involving loop pedals, Spanish guitar and musical saw, songs built slowly from bare guitar figures, looped and layered and filled with ghost stories. Live, it’s like being shown how a magic trick works, a blur of instruments picked up and put down, the escalating swirl cut dead by a tap on a foot switch. It’s great.

‘C’est La Vie Tragique’  collects songs whose titles and general theme suggest a reading list would be as good as a tracklisting. ‘The United States South Seas Exploring Expedition’ goes some way to setting out a stall: barely there classical guitar and faraway vocals give way to a central motif gradually loaded with acoustic, accordian and warbling saw. It’s the regreftful, sad, sepia mood of the album in excelsis, a widescreen meeting of Matt Elliott, Yann Tiersen and Ennio Morricone. The generalised loneliness runs into specific horror stories – you don’t need to know the grim historical facts behind ‘Batavia’s Graveyard’ (mutiny and shipwreck turning to murder and cannibalism off the Australian coast) or ‘Leendert’ (Dutch sailor abandoned on a tiny island keeps a journal as he slowly dies) to dig the claustrophobic melancholy seeping from the speakers. Elsewhere ‘The Dismal Science’ (word up Thomas Carlyle) squeezes in a great elliptical outro, as well as the word ‘crepuscular’, into its lilting lament, while ‘Damnati ad Bestias’ wrings genuinely spooky thrills out of a gladiator mauled by animals and only hearing the voices of his dead friends. Lovely tune too. Only the closing title track falls anywhere short, a little overarchingly earnest where the preceeding songs were effortlessly plush.

Effortless might be deceptive though. Of all the things crammed into these seven songs – electric guitar swells, feverish multitracking, constant eerieness – there’s a weird freshness here, nicely at odds with the musical and historical denseness. It’s not jolly, but neither is life. ‘C’est La Vie Tragique’ isolates great moments of beauty and sadness, and is hauntingly good.

Available from http://ratatosk.bandcamp.com or Spillers Records in Cardiff

Deborah Withers: Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory

Thu 2 Sept
8pm
Iau 2 Medi

Drawing on elements of feminism, queer theory, post-colonial theory and fairy tales, Deborah Withers uses the music, film, video and dance of Kate Bush to explore ideas of subjectivity and the body.

This performance/lecture includes material from Withers’ new book, and attempts to unravel the mystery and complexity of key themes in Kate Bush’s art, from her debut ‘Wuthering Heights’ to her most recent album ‘Aerial’.

Withers’ acclaimed work breaks down boundaries between the academic and popular, presenting theoretical interpretations that are lively, engaging and funny.

£6/£5/£4

SWN presents MV & EE with THE GOLDEN ROAD
plus KING ALEXANDER

Wednesday 25th August
The Norwegian Church
Cardiff Bay
£5 advance only from St David’s Hall on 029 2087 8500

A post-Green Man treat for those returning from the festival and those who couldn’t make it… The Golden Road features one J Mascis on drums and guitar…

MV & EE with The Golden Road: Summer Tour
UK, August 2010

For the past decade Matt “MV” Valentine (Tower Recordings) and Erika “EE” Elder (Heroine Celestial Agriculture/The MV & EE Medicine Show) have been formulating an ancient-modern universe of sound from their base deep in the Vermont woods, via their own Child of Microtones imprint as well as prolific activity on some of the most respected boutique labels in the world. Latest album Barn Nova follows two previous killer cuts on Ecstatic Peace, Green Blues and Gettin’ Gone, honestly slipstreaming peak Neil Young-esque Americana, Grateful Dead harmonix, old time front porch vibes, and time/space defying spectral jams with the help of fellow avatars The Golden Road.

In April of this year MV & EE blazed some more golden road on the Eisenhower interstate system and trans canadian highway. They rolled on the “no floor tour” as a quartet with Mick Flower (bass/japan banjo) and John Moloney (drums) on a double headline bill with Flower/Corsano duo. Mick, of course is no stranger to the MV & EE universe, doing several UK runs together both in full on electric stomps and as a transreal “folk” trio. He was also along for the ride when Matt and Erika brought a big band to primavera a coupla years back. John Moloney is contributed masterful throne work on Gettin’ Gone as well as the “Ringside seat, nosebleed tone” bootleg. He has been working with the group for 4 years now when he needs a zen wrangle away from his group Sunburned Hand of The Man.

There are a handful of deep underground records (and tapes) in the works for later this year. There is the reissue of Liberty Rose, which came out on Child of Microtones this past winter and will be birthed on LP via arbitrary signs, the imprint run by Pete Nolan (Magik Markers/Spectre Folk). There is also a follow up to the Home Comfort LP in the works for Woodsist. In addition to those two jugs of love are LP’s for Time-Lag and for 3-Lobed Recordings, both of which have been slowly simmering at Maximum Arousal Farm over the last few years now.

And that’s not all fellow sky pilots as there will be an EIGHT cassette box on Blackest Rainbow to coincide with the tour. This is the follow up to the 12 cassette road trips compendium from last year. In the great UK cassette pack tradition this will have some drum and bass courtesy of Moloney and Flower, and it will document every show, full sets in all their glory from the above mentioned ‘no floor tour’. The sound is pristine captured loud and proud in the tapers pit and there are a few guests joining in, Doc Dunn and J Mascis with freak flags flying high. This one sure is sounding sweet in the working stage and will sound really fine in the analog medium.

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/mveebummerroad
Ecstatic Peace site: http://www.ecstaticpeace.com/mvee

On SATURDAY 21st AUGUST FAG club will be collaborating with Pride Bristol by organising a few acts for the after party at this year’s event.

This will take place from 9-11.30 in the Boneyard Bar, the Island,
Bridewell Street.

Playing for you we have…..

Ste McCabe – one man politico pop punk blazing a trail against homophobia
across the globe. http://www.ste-mccabe.co.uk/

Peepholes – reverb dream disco with punk edges http://www.myspace.com/wearepeepholes

Two Tears For Barbarella – Riot grrrl grunge pop on tour from Koln,
Germany http://www.myspace.com/twotearsforbarbarella

+ DJ Cupcakes!

Ste McCabe is Manchester’s political queer pop-punkster, blending big punk guitars and 80s-style beats with a snarling, sarcastic view of the world. Ste’s been playing at various queer, riot grrrl and DIY events in the UK since summer 2006 and the “Pink Bomb” EP, his debut release, wowed musos and audiences around the country full to the brim with homophobe-baiting, pro-feminist, anti-church, fun and angry pop music. The follow-up full-length Hate Mail continued the trend, with its stinging indictments of stereotypical gay culture and men who are a complete waste of space to right-on-the-mark sniping at Daily Mail readers and the hopelessness of Party politics. Ste’s second album, Murder Music, was released on Cherryade in October 2008, lauded as being even more biting and polarising than the first!

Ste McCabe is rallying against the walking clichés in the gay village as much as venting his anger against the rest of the world. Be prepared for the many rants of Ste McCabe cos soon you wont be able to escape it –  Designer Magazine

Sarcastic, in-yer-face, witty punk-pop from a gay scouser with a chip on his shoulder and a drum machine by his side – BeatYourArtOut

—–

Wonderland | Sat 21 Aug | The Old Fire Station

Wonky and MUTiNY take over the Old Fire Station to present Bristol’s biggest alternative Pride Party in 2010

Wonderland
Sat 21 Aug
The Old Fire Station
9pm – 3am
£8/£6

Tickets

£8 cheap advance list available here:

 And from Bristol Ticket Shop

A night of fun & frolics with music & entertainment across 4 spaces.

The Indie-Pop Parlour

indie/decent pop / electro pop / alt 80s& 90s / synth

Bernie & Nat 3D (WONKY)
DJ Gareth (MUTiNY)
Dog Ruff & Charlie (WONKY)

The Bedroom

hip hop / dupstep / grime / bassline / dancehall

Diss Miss (DUTTY GIRL)
Safesoul (DUTTY GIRL)
MC Sarah B
MC Kash Honey
b-more / garage / house / electro / uk funky
MAX DMC (Other People’s Property)

Boneyard Bar

FAG Club present:
STE MCCABE
PEEPHOLES
TWO TEARS FOR BARBARELLA
DJ CUPCAKES

 AL DARE
SWEET MILKING

The Courtyard

 Cosmic disco / italo / vintage house

VAST & BULBOUS (I Feel Space)

Art & Decor

Wonderland decor has been specially created by talented local multimedia artists, Jay Ski and Fraser Cook.

After fun had down in the basement of Jacobs Market, we thought we’d have another party.. this time its for Twisted (from Leeds/Porthcawl) on Art For Blind who are in town on their summer tour!

This time the awesome Soundspace studios have let us use one of their rooms! So lets get hot & sweaty! Spread the word & bring your friends.

Friday 20th August
…
Twisted
Ace garage power pop from Leeds/via Porthcawl
http://www.twistedleeds.org.uk/
http://artforblind.b…om/track/relief

Death Of Her Money
Heavy Heavy Chords.
http://www.myspace.c…deathofhermoney

What Price, Wonderland?
Jerky time signatures & twinkly guitars!
http://www.myspace.c…pricewonderland

Meat Bags
1st show. 2 piece…think Shellac with goofy lyrics feat members of Saturday’s Kids

All Happening at Sound Space Studios,
Unit 4, East Moors Business Park, CF24 5JX (Near the Magic Roundabout!)
http://soundspacestudios.co.uk/

Seriously Limited Spaces!!!! For the Saturday’s Kids Jacobs Market we had 100 people show up if that happens this time alot of people will be seriously disappointed!

You can grab a ticket at Saturday’s Kids big cartel below to make sure you get in!

http://saturdayskids…ndscape-studios

Action Beat are legendarily gonzoid noise bastards from Milton Keynes, playing skronky and fun guitar abuse with anywhere up to 14 members at a time. For this tour they’ll be an eight- or nine-piece, which means three or four drummers, a million guitarists and maybe the odd sax or violin dude. Signed to Southern imprint Truth Cult, they released sweet album ‘The Noise Band From Bletchley’ last year but live is where things take off – 60 date tours with no days off, playing toilet cubicles, windfarms, bridges or anywhere that will have their itchy, Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth-worshipping racket. Lots of great stuff here:

http://www.myspace.com/actionbeat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztnaRT6-Tss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLsB8CHDpag&feature=related

BRANDYMAN

Barely a few gigs old, Brandyman are already a dense and rocking mixture of black humour, metal riffing and tricksy stop/start dynamics. Featuring ex-members of Truckers Of Husk and Joy Of Sex, and with DC Gates of Gindrinker on black hearted vocal duties, Brandyman have no MySpace but you can download a recent, utterly great Adam Walton radio session for free from this here link:

http://brandyman.bandcamp.com/

SATURDAY’S KIDS

Totally great and still mutating mix of squally post-hardcore, strung out slo-mo creepiness and yowling metallic clang. Giant evolutionary steps at every gig. New 7″ on Art For Blind Records follows a split release with Evariste Galois.

http://www.myspace.com/saturdayskidsuk

Plus hot DJ ‘action’ from Lesson No.1

————————————

A zillion peachy topless boys whooping it up around a giant concrete triceratops in front of some 1930s semis … ‘High Action’ is what you might call paradigmatic of Action Beat’s getting-pissed-in-the-adventure-playground take on minimalism, if you were a bit of a twat – the ten-strong band take a see-sawing Glenn Branca riff and whack the Banana Splits theme tune atop it, making for a scrappy, good-natured pileup between pop and no-wave skronk. Similar three-minute blasts populate much of the album, and are what Action Beat do best: simple, fast, pounding pop jams like ‘Manic Face’ and ‘Daddy Pesty’, on which the repetitions – often just a bunch of two-note riffs – sound both focused and feral, and with a Krautrockin’ drive.

http://thequietus.com/articles/01043-action-beat-the-noise-band-from-bletchley-album-review

Action Beat is an improvised noise/no-wave punk band from Bletchley (Milton Keynes), heavily inspired by early Sonic Youth, The EX, Glenn Branca and other avant guitar ensembles to create high-energy blocks of sound like sugar-and-alcopop-crazed kids, faces smeared with Sunny D and sherbet dip. Hailing from the culture-hole of Milton Keynes, the endless roundabouts to suburban boredom, Action Beat is a logical, couldn’t give two-hoots conclusion. Reward for their hefty touring schedule, which has seen them drop deeper and deeper into debt after their van died in Norway, came by way of their album released by Truth Cult, an imprint of Southern Records. With a core of around five musicians, their cast can expand to as many as fourteen for the live shows – at least three guitarists, a bassist and between one to four drummers, plus the occasional smattering of sax, violin or trumpet if they can get their hands on it. The whirlwind shows are the band’s secret weapon, and so far they have gained much recognition in the UK and Europe, by doing things in the only way they know how, by doing it themselves, and in it for the thrills. (Chinchillafest)

Buffalo Bar
Windsor Place
Cardiff

Monday 6th September
8pm
£5

Great poster by Adam Chard of Croatoan Design: http://croatoandesign.tumblr.com/

http://www.myspace.com/actionbeat

http://fortissimorecords.co.uk/

http://www.southern.net/

http://www.southern.net/southern/label/TCX/

http://www.thejoycollective.co.uk/

http://www.businessmanrecords.co.uk/

http://lessonnumberone.blogspot.com/