Like reading Stephen King and masturbating eight times a day, it’s probably best to get some things out of your system early. For all that Islet have been (deservedly) lighting those newhotblogbuzzband bulbs recently, into the national press and beyond, it’s the Cardiff band’s past lives in uberindie bashers such as Attack + Defend and Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club that gives things a sobering counterpoint. So much of Islet feels like an attempt to move beyond indie, of ideas splashed up the walls as quickly as they bubble up. If you can make a noise you can make a song, so why not cram it with cranky organ, whoops and shouts and every member smashing cymbals? Two previous mini-albums have shown no urgent attempt to replicate the kinetic nature of their live shows – imagine an exorcism of mad-eyed charmed snakes – which is fairly sensible: by stretching out and stitching together a hundred rehearsal room experiments and jam session fragments they’ve not necessarily reinvented the wheel for this debut album, but have made it pretty fun to take a ride on.

Previous single ‘This Fortune’ is a pretty good bridge between old releases and now: its dreamy organ beatdown melds the crackle of ‘Celebrate This Place’ to the haziness of ‘Wimmy’, and it kicks like a kung fu mule. It’s the high watermark two in ‘Illuminated People’s killer opening one-two: ‘Libra Man’ arrives on mechanized crunches and serpentine wisps of backing vocals before splurging on swollen layers of desert prog organ. You might see its nine minute length as some sort of statement; more likely that’s just the way it tumbled out.

Unforced personality is the dominant theme here. The three main vocalists make noises worthy of their own action figures: from choirboy weirdo (JT) to agitated meths tramp (Mark) to cooing banshee (Emma, slightly overused if we’re being scrupulously honest), they spar against the musical clamour with equal weight. On ‘Entwined Pines’ they take turns, blend together and jump in front of each other in equal measure. On ‘A Warrior Who Longs To Grow Herbs’, it’s Emma’s gig, as slow, rumbling bass makes lushly cinematic waves, pierced by a plaintive “please… come… home” refrain. For a fair whack of the album, downed tempos underpin songs that nail moods rather than circular structures: see the stop/start twinkling videogame rush of ‘Shores’, or the capsized, quiet guitar blues of ‘We Bow’. Easing off the intensity is alright when your sonic palette is thriving underneath.

It’s not perfect – ‘Filia’ is pretty formless and meandering, ‘What We Done Wrong’ lapses into alt rock guitar and weird baggy drum patterns – but ‘Illuminated People’s ideas gush is confidently bloodyminded, helpfully finding gold while following its own path. As ‘A Bear On His Own’ closes things, veering from lolloping fairground bounce to chanting and rising anxiety chords, before popping like a bath bubble, the freewheeling impression left is the fun you can have, just because you can.

Hardly needs selling, does it?  Last time BATTLES visited Cardiff, in August 2007, they played the Point on a Monday night to a crowd largely exhausted from Green Man (where they’d headlined a sodden Folkey Dokey tent in jaw-droppingly magnificent fashion) and still managed to round up the assembled ale-pie-and-drug-addled rabble with a breakneck set of absurdly kinetic, technical math-rock and robotic ur-disco.  They were supported by a nascent TRUCKERS OF HUSK, a year on from their debut show with Lightning Bolt at the same venue and on the cusp of becoming Cardiff’s most reliably exciting live band.  Four Bloody Years later, the two meet up again, both surviving line-up changes, both with new albums completed, both ready to give the lie to any backwards notion of experimental, instrumental art-rock being bloodless head music.

Battles’ second album proper Gloss Drop emerged after the departure of Tyondai Braxton, whose helium-pitched gibberish vocals (on ‘Atlas’) and manically bobbing David Luiz hairdo were a natural focus of the band in their rise to festival fixture status.  It’d be wrong to pin that evolution in their style to him alone, though; his own free/experimental grounding (composer dad, composition major, loop-head solo recordist) arguably made him the oddball in a line-up of veterans of Don Caballero, Helmet and Tomahawk.  Plus, just listen to how much fun the remaining three are having on Gloss Drop, stirring disparate guest vocals into an electro-rock/prog hybrid that uses their early EPs and Mirrored as equal reference points.  There’s elements of disco, techno-rock and polyrhythmic pop in there, and by all accounts it sounds breathlessly exciting live.

THAT LINE-UP, though.  Truckers, you could say, have tried the patience of the faithful in the last few years, but their debut full-length Accelerated Learning is finally finished and will be played in full at this gig.  If they can remember how it goes, the cheeky scamps.  If a replica of the 2007 line-up isn’t good enough, then how about adding the freewheeling percussive magic of ISLET to the equation?  Bolstered by Huw Evans on guitar/drums/everything else, the now five-piece live Islet experience will offer new songs, frazzled, sweaty good vibes and huge, memorable shoutalong moments of pure joy.  It’s already one of the best nights of the year before the headliners even come on.  Miss it and be laughed at in public, basically.  Oh, and don’t look for it in Millennium Music Hall, you won’t find it anymore.

SWN presents

BATTLES
ISLET
TRUCKERS OF HUSK

Sunday 26th June 2011
Solus, Cardiff University

7.30pm
£14 advance

swnpresents.com
wegottickets.com
seetickets.com
ticketlineuk.com
cardiffboxoffice.com
bristol ticket shop
Spillers Records
Derricks Records

This is a 14+ show / please bring ID

“When you see a band you really like, the reason you really like them is because you wish you’d had that idea. And when I saw Battles I thought, “Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?”
Brian Eno

You can often spot the best bands – the truly once-in-a-generation type – by their names alone. The all time greats usually come ready made with nomenclature that encapsulates their sound and ethos effortlessly.
BATTLES are no exception. They are a rock group locked in conflict with the very limitations of what it means to be a rock group; conducting an all out assault on mediocrity and waging a fearsome campaign against genre conventions and pigeonholes. Their sound is that of an elite guard engaging in a series of complex sonic skirmishes. This is the sublime noise of equally talented musicians pushed to their limit – as interested in conducting synchronized audio attacks and ambushes on the listener as they are on each other.
GLOSS DROP is an astounding album born from resolve and resilience. It features the UK’s dark synth pop pioneer Gary Numan; Chilean born Kompakt minimal techno producer Matias Aguayo; cult indie rocker Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead; and Yamantaka Eye, the messianic
dreadlocked front man of Japanese cosmiche future beat unit, the Boredoms.

“When we’re writing songs, no one in this group has ever said ‘Wait, we’ve gone too far. This isn’t a BATTLES song.’ Because what is a BATTLES song? We don’t know. All I know is that there are noparameters and no boundaries. That is the whole point and has been since day one.”

Battles’ John Stanier, 2011

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SHAPEFUNCTION023
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ISLET
SWEET BABOO
H. HAWKLINE & THE DIZYGOUS TWINS
FAILED NASA EXPERIMENT
TIDAL BARRAGE (DJ SET)

VENUE: Upstairs in Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff.
DATE: Monday 13th December 2010.
TICKETS: £7 in advance from Spillers and Ticketweb

A party to celebrate the Shape Records releases of 2010.

Islet’s is a very particular, deceptive form of chaos.  Much has been written on this site about their exultant, inclusive live set; it’s the sort of you-had-to-be-there intensity and sweaty fun that makes people muse at length on whether it can be captured on record.  Vivers noted the futility of “attempting to bottle lightning” in his Celebrate This Place review; Islet’s second mini-album in four months demonstrates that it’s not even necessary to try.  The short-format releases are perfect for the band at this stage; enough room to stretch out and develop ideas without needing to curtail any tendency towards drawn-out, spacey jamming, yet concise enough not to frighten off the casual listener.  CTP and Wimmy, though, offer by stealth nearly an hour of music, a more than generous album’s worth, and you can bet most of those who gamble on one will end up with both.

Wimmy is perhaps more low-key than CTP, at least at first, as if side 2 of that would-be album.  ‘Powys’ wrong-foots the listener with bracing FX-as-percussion interference, playing the noise as another instrument like Black Dice or We Were Wrong era Liars.  You’re soon on familiar ground, though, a delirious four-way percussive attack and unsettling vocal declamations giving way to unhinged chants reminiscent of ‘Iris’ from the first EP.  ‘Ringerz’ is the “hit”, if Islet do “hits”, a teasing, drawn-out Les Savy Fav intro building up through hollered verses before pulling the rug from under your feet with a sweet, rockers’ dub-paced chorus.  This is the giddy beauty of Islet on record at its most overt, freeform percussive sections alternating with echoey, almost MIA vocals.  It’s utterly infectious, and along with the irresistable Afrobeat stew of ‘Living In Manila’, all spidery basslines, fizzing noise, wordless chanting and dubby FX farts, it’s Wimmy‘s high-water mark.  ‘Horses and Dogs’ is its centrepiece though, the mantra-like refrain of “Got me with my boys boys boys boys” a highlight of recent sets.  More dub slackness and rattling percussion, building and easing back – these are common Islet tropes but effective every time, and if the skeletal structures on Wimmy sound like an unlearning of how their old bands wrote it’s not regression; they’re better for it.

Where Wimmy does build on noticeably from CTS, rather than sounding like the second half of one epic recording session, is in two tracks where they sound, for the first time, like a genuinely different band.  ‘Dust Of Ages’ carries an air of Lynchian unease, Emma and JT cooing over tippy-tappy percussion with an almost This Mortal Coil glacial cool.  Quasi-religious incantations glide over reverberating chords from Broadcast’s 1970s dreamworld.  ‘Obtaining’, meanwhile, is as low-key an ending as ‘Powys’ is an opener, a swinging, see-saw rhythm and strident drumming emerging into bluesy guitar and vocals murmuring unspecific unease into your ear like Ade out of Clinic.  This is the stuff of Proper Bands, not the sort of formless, drum-circle posing that other bands of their ilk can fall into.  Those bands don’t do it with this sure-footed touch and measured quality, though.  That’s the reason Islet on record are every bit as exciting as Islet the live turn; seriously good musicians playing with purpose, confidence and sheer polyrhythmic dancefloor joy.  Shall we say another one in three months’ time, then?

Islet play Sŵn 2010 this Saturday 23rd from 11.15pm-12.15am, upstairs at the Model Inn.  Get there early.

October 3rd, 2010

DHP PRESENT: ISLET

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.

Given the hair-on-fire intensity of Islet gigs it’s probably for the best that ‘Celebrate This Place’ isn’t purely an attempt to bottle lightning; even so, opener ‘We Shall Visit’, with its slow accumulation of weirdo vocal lines, sounds initially like a red herring. After a few listens though its great itchy momentum reveals itself, as well as a luminous three note guitar hook. ‘Iris’ is your pop art money shot: room-filling low end keyboard crankiness like Oneida, mangled, buzzing guitar and genuinely strange banshee vocals splurge in and out of a killer, lopsided jam. By now you can see the Islet components: all members pitching in frazzled instrumentation and vocals like a collective (or a cult), odd noise explosions and clattering percussion everywhere. So we have ‘One Of These Worlds’, which fits in a trippy, enveloping intro, reedy psych organ, shrill guitar and a carny waltz section; and the awesome abstract monster called ‘Jasmine’, mutant autistic disco bassline and ghostly wailing bringing to mind ace krauty boogie boys Tussle. Everything crackles with homemade charm, a million ramshackle pieces held together by mad-eyed determination. ‘Celebrate This Place’ is a mad and brilliant junk shop trawl, and you should scrabble over dead indie kids to get a copy.

http://www.isletislet.com

http://www.shaperecords.co.uk

http://www.turnstilemusic.net

Three songs into Team Brick’s set I sent Vivers a text saying that they sounded like Nazi Germany. He replied saying that he’d seen them before and they (well, he, it’s one bloke) were good when not being deliberately shit. This made sense eventually. The first part of the set was mainly noise, not music, just noise, with a man making weird vocal noises over the top. It was horrible. Halfway through the set though he started playing drums and it all began to make sense. It still made Fuck Buttons sound like Girls Aloud though.

The second band were called Yuck and this review is the conversation I had on note paper with members of Islet who were on the merch stand.

Me: I know some of these were in Cajun Dance Party but the bloke on the left sounds like the singer of Future Kings Of Spain. Any ideas?

Emma: I’m not cool enough to know who these people are.

Me: They’re Irish and had a really good first album that sounded like a cross between Pavement and Dinosaur Jr.

Alex: I have spoken to the gentleman in question and he doth not have an Irish accent…yet.

Me: Balls.

Me: Actually, these are great. I miss the mid nineties. Do the kids like this?

Scotty: I’m a massive fan of the Mojave 3.

Now I think this gives you a totally accurate and in depth analysis of Yuck’s set.

And now Islet.  This is the fourth time I’ve seen them (I think) and there’s always been the wild ambition there and I’ve always thought they were brilliant but with so much going on it was easy for it to be slightly shambolic.  The fact that they’ve now been on a couple of tours is evident.  If there’s instrument swapping, it’s done without breaking stride, the flow isn’t broken and with a band like this, that’s important.

I watched Faust at All Tomorrows Parties recently and decided I hated them.  I hung around because my friends wanted to see them and found myself getting drawn into to their groove once they’d got going.  They just started every song bellending around with a sax and making a horrible noise.  Islet dispense with the bellending and get straight to the groove part.  This isn’t to say it’s not broken up with howling, shouting and hitting things.  There are generally comparisons with Faust’s fellow Krautrockers Can and also with Os Mutantes.  Both have merit.  The drumming is a massively important part of their sound, this shows through more in the live set that it does on their mini album.  Quite often there are two drummers or at least someone else twatting something with a stick.  It probably shouldn’t work but whether the percussion is overlaid with loud choppy guitar or sixties sounding organ, it does.  The four members all sing and all have very different voices that compliment the different feel of the songs.  There’s a lot going on but all of it necessary.

For all the Krautrock similarities, Islet probably have more in common with 3 EPs era Beta Band.  Invention, melody, being bonkers – check.  Having mad flowery artwork – check.  There’s no reason why they can’t cultivate that band’s cult following, it just remains to be seen whether their unhinged genius can cross over to a wider audience in a world that think The Cribs are the best band in the country.  Here’s hoping they can.

The hardcore kids look wary of Islet. Jumping on chairs and banging percussion instruments over the whole venue could equal zany hipsters I guess. In their fevered intensity and devastating noise attack though they have no equal; the best band in South Wales, easy. Islet make a dense and hard to categorise racket: lots of wailing and shouting going on, bursts of angular din, bass like an angry Zeppelin, rudimentary keyboard and guitar holding it all down. They take it up several levels by playing like a cult channelling demons, like their hair’s on fire – yeah, I think they mean it.

Anything less is, well, less. Harbour are dedicated to their grumpy hardcore for sure, but without the killer fun element of someone like Shitty Limits, they force me into an anthropologist’s outfit, splitting the crowd along tribal lines (I know, I’m a twat). People who appreciate gruff barking via classic attack pose dig it, subtlety lovers look elsewhere. Harbour hit hard in short diamond bursts, and their bassist wields his guitar like a crazy scimitar, but it’s a set that only sporadically impresses.

Lovvers somehow manage to synthesise all of tonight’s rock elements into one stupidly good wave of fun, while essentially playing the same song over and over. Having singer Shaun strap on a guitar for almost the whole set limits the audience molestation aspect  little, but the sexy, drunk zombie component remains: eyes rolling and head lolling over endless slices of garage fuzz goodness. It’s deceptively shambolic, with oddly classy vocal echo, but mostly it’s unstoppable party pop, a weird cloud of yob tunage and snot cool. They bash through an awesome cover of ‘What Do I Get’ by the Buzzcocks to finish, but that’s just rubbing it in really.