Sunday, 11th July 2010

Charity indie alldayer fundraiser for Headway Cardiff

The School (Ramones-style Set!) / Gindrinker / Kutosis / John Mouse / Pagan Wanderer Lu / Houdini Dax / Lucky Delucci / Last Partisan / Ivan Moult

An indie all dayer with South Wales’s best bands in attendance, all for raising money for Headway Cardiff.

4:00pm | £5/£6 | buy tickets

• www.headwaycardiff.org
• www.myspace.com/gindrinker
• www.myspace.com/kutosis
• www.myspace.com/johnmousemusic

10 Feet Tall presents:

PARENTHETICAL GIRLS
FORMER GHOSTS
(feat. Jamie Stewart Xiu Xiu)
KITA AKITA
PAGAN WANDERER LU

Monday 17th May
8pm-3am
£6 adv from WeGotTickets / £7 doors

*Please note this is a late show – supports start 8.30pm, Former Ghosts will be performing at 10.30pm, Parenthetical Girls 11.30pm.

PARENTHETICAL GIRLS are based in Portland, Oregon and are known for combining saccharine pop with experimental elements, often compared with Brian Eno, Dirty Projectors, Philip Glass, Xiu Xiu and Phil Spector.. with smidges of Wild Beasts / Rufus Wainwright too!

“..a love note to the excesses of the past, penned in the same platinum ink as forebears like Bacharach and Scott Walker.. Penningston’s oblique and winning compositions and his bandmates’ imaginative execution manage to try at the idea of perfectly normal baroque pop becoming, just for over half an hour, just a little abnormal”.

(Photos by the great Simon Ayre)

So I’ve been reading the Luke Haines book a lot recently. His trawl through the Britpop era is pretty devastating, and after a while Haines’s sneer drills its way into your brain to merge with your own thoughts. Short sentences. Lots of distain. Anyway, Luke Haines would hate A Scholar And A Physician to the point of bloodpuke. Two floppy-haired men, possibly brothers, who play keyboard and guitar cheekiness and flounce about like Kevin The Teenager, or maybe stray members of Earl Brutus posing as kids’ TV presenters. Their opening instrumental is awkwardly epic, sort of autistic hands in the air stuff, but the rest of the set leans heavily on jokey vocals and not a little zaniness. Just far enough from the ground walked by people like cancerous shit Gideon Conn (they actually recall forgotten ’90s funsters Wubble U, weirdly), ASAAP are strangely lovable damn them, like a Valentine card drawn in felt tip.

Mat Riviere comes from Norwich, and looks it. This year’s winner of World’s Worst Jumper kneels on the floor behind a small bank of keys and computer trickery and brings… it… down. Organ notes are let out one by one, slowly, at length. Some mumbled vocals suddenly flare into random screams and a drumstick smashed against a chair. It’s like some primitive therapy session, or a nerd exorcism, and oddly compelling. Tunes are obviously a little thin on the ground but Mat Riviere’s spirit is cock on, twisted and uncomfortably so.

One lesson from tonight might be: if you have a brain, please use it. Andy Regan, the Pagan Wanderer Lu, has two fully working hemispheres and his songs bristle with self-reflexive intelligence, tunes About Stuff that double up with doubt and caustic wariness. Catchy buggers too. Ostensibly a push for new LP ‘European Monsoon’, tonight’s set varies little from previous appearances, which means it’s another dose of guitar and Lego block backing, slightly aloof and packing a delicate punch. Good stuff.

One more weirdo then. Another one-man-guitar-and-electronic-backing, Stairs To Korea‘s set passes in an agreeably slinky manner, balmy, horizontal songs that bring to mind the summery pop breeze that someone like Jens Lekman is capable of. Very little sticks in the memory, bar the fact that Will Vaughan looks like a cartoon you simultaneously want to hug and tickle, but his presence seals a heartening evening. Four acts, all at different tangents to each other, yet all connected by some crooked musical thread of awkwardness. Long may Brainlove collect these square peg weirdos.

Bethan Elfyn presents a BRAINLOVE RECORDS SHOWCASE

STAIRS TO KOREA
PAGAN WANDERER LU (new album playback)
MAT RIVIERE
A SCHOLAR AND A PHYSICIAN
followed by Bethan vs Guto SFA DJ til 3am!

Thursday 29th April
8pm-3am
£4 entry / £3 NUS

BRAINLOVE RECORDS is an independent record label aiming to unearth and present exciting new music, supporting musicians who exhibit creativity, spirit, intelligence and imagination regardless of genre, commercial potential or technical ability. As such, Brainlove is very much a label with the artistic rather than commercial value at its core.

The label has run parties and live music events with ICELAND AIRWAVES FESTIVAL, WHITE HEAT, CLUB NME, WOOLFIRE FESTIVAL and it also runs Brainlove Club and an annual Brainlove Festival in London.

Current acts on the label include NAPOLEON IIIrd, KEYBOARD CHOIR, MATT RIVIERE, STAIRS TO KOREA and Cardiff wonky electronic lofi favourite PAGAN WANDERER LU. Brainlove has also been responsible for several one-off singles and compilations featuring acts such as CATS IN PARIS, RETRO SPANKEES, BEARSUIT and MISTY’S BIG ADVENTURE.

Brainlove Records website
Stairs to Korea MySpace
Pagan Wanderer Lu MySpace
Mat Riviere MySpace
A Scholar & a Physician MySpace

How many goddamn cool people are here in a heaving Clwb tonight? Well, none, but then this is an evening celebratory of music that will always remain uncool; what you may call twee and I might call heartfelt or beautifully awkward. Pagan Wanderer Lu, or Andy as he’s also called, could theoretically be some sort of nerd leader, essaying wry lines and chopped guitar over the chunky, fidgety hometronica coming from his iTunes. He might be too fatalistic though; a lot of these tunes dwell on failure and insignificance, though with enough wit and Duplo beats to banish any danger of navel gazing. Indeed, there seems to be a knotty heart to each song, circled by an esoteric braininess and some killer one-liners that I signally fail to write down. There’s also great dicking around with a mini Monome, but we’re getting into slash fiction now.

Allo Darlin’ could take even the blackest, coal-ridden cynic’s heart and squeeze a diamond smile out of it, such is their ridiculously firm grip on grinning pop dynamics. Their bassist, allegedly borrowed from a metal band (definitely the only Dischord T-shirt in the venue), grins hardest: it’s obviously a blast richocheting amongst the band’s ukelele bounce tunes. It’s perhaps music that shouldn’t work – januty, whirling, winsome indie – but there’s something about Allo Darlin’ that resembles pop scrubbed clean of all artifice or knowing, leaving dazzlingly pure music, played laughing, falling down a hill. Huge-footed singer Elizabeth Morris’s Aussie accent adds further clean-sheets appeal. File next to: trips to the zoo and films with happy endings.

But this is the School‘s night, and time for the underdog to dance around and bop you on the nose. After their last official Cardiff appearance, supporting Lisa Milburg to around eight scumbags, it’s weird and excellent to see them in front of people who are pressed up front and literally screaming for their favourite members. A new album, extra musicians and a stadiumful of guestlisters makes for a drunken group hug of a gig: strings and brass add chocolate to the School’s already classically lovelorn tunes, dropping into songs that already revolve around finely-crafted melodic charm. Strong songs with killer moments: the the bridge of ‘I Want You Back’, rushing up the keyboard; the staccato ending to ‘Valentine’ or ‘Let It Slip’s oblique second verse and high-register pinpricks. More soppiness in reviewers please.

THE SCHOOL (Album Launch)
ALLO, DARLIN’
PAGAN WANDERER LU
& Helen Love’s Bubblegum Killers djing between bands
followed by Bethan Elfyn’s Vinyl Vendettas until 3am!

Saturday 6th March 7.30pm
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff (upstairs)
Ages: 18+
£5 adv from TicketWeb / Spillers / Diverse
**This event is also part of International Women’s Day celebrations**

THE SCHOOL are a female-fronted indiepop group from Cardiff for fans of Camera Obscura, Belle & Sebastian and 60s girl groups. The band are celebrating the release of debut album ‘Loveless Unbeliever’ on Elefant Records.

This event is also part of International Women’s Day celebrations.

“a swaying, winsome tune with some of the Phil Spector lushness of Lucky Soul, the Belle & Sebastian-style modesty of Camera Obscura, and the airy, girl-group vocals of both” – Pitchfork

“they do enough to at least light up (if not part) the greying clouds into blue sky as a musical and meteorological Moses with their floaty, shimmering and often clip-clapping tunes” – DrownedinSound

“indie pop sweetness blended with heart-lifting girl group harmonies, punchy Northern Soul beats and lush Brill Building strings” – AllMusic

“infectious, hyper-melodic pop you can simultaneously cry and dance to” – Rough Trade

“On bubblegum pink vinyl, the sixties-saturated sound of The School is indiepop par excellence. ‘All I Wanna Do’ conjures up the aching hearts of Mary Weiss and the Ganser sisters as Liz Hunt’s little-girl-lost voice pours on the passion to describe an angelic innocent’s first big crush. ‘Valentine’ is like a pixie-booted Eurovision entry with a stomping piano-led tune that’s swept aloft by heavenly strings. Douze points pour Le Pays de Galles: c’est magnifique!” – SoundsXP

“The joint best Welsh pop band EVER” – Adam Walton, Radio Wales

ALLO, DARLIN’ is singer-songwriter Elizabeth Darling, originally from Queensland, who plays beautiful songs on ukulele and guitar about subjects from Stephen Hawkin and Henry Rollins to the Grease Megamix and her Fugazi-loving boyfriend.

Her first EPs on cult CD-R label WeePop! sold out within weeks, and now ALLO, DARLIN’s debut LP will be released on Fortuna Pop! in March.

“the best indiepop song for years” – The Guardian

“like Hefner got a brass section and got cute too..” – Unpeeled

The School MySpace
Allo, Darlin’ MySpace
Pagan Wanderer Lu MySpace

DARREN HAYMAN AND THE SECONDARY MODERN

Darren has also just released a split single with The Wave Pictures on Where It’s At is Where You Are (WIAIWYA) Records, which comes with a free Wave Pictures CD. Darren and The Wave Pictures also contribute 2 songs to the double CD Bruce Springsteen tribute compilation ‘Play Some Pool, Skip Some School, Act Real Cool’, also out on WIAIWYA.

Support comes from Bristol’s POPPY AND FRIENDS and PAGAN WANDERER LU.

You can also get a pound off entry to Twisted by Design on Saturday 19th September when you watch Darren Hayman at Clwb

Yes the lovely peeps at Twisted are letting you all in for £2.50 when you show your Clwb stamp after the Darren Hayman gig.

Saturday 19th September 7.30pm
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Ages: 14+
£7 adv WeGotTickets / TicketWeb /spillers/diverse/£8 doors

PAGAN WANDERER LU
Pagan Wanderer Lu is a solo artist from Cardiff playing indie-pop with an electronic/experimental twist. A menagerie of obscure electronic instruments and effects like omnichord, monome, and kaosillator make his DIY-pop show an intriguing spectacle and a pleasure to behold.

‘In the world of big bland bands and groups trying so hard to sound like each other, artists like Pagan Wanderer Lu are a breath of fresh air.’ – Huw Stephens – BBC Radio One

- Plays and support from Huw Stephens and Bethan Elfyn of BBC Radio, John Kennedy of Xfm, and Adam Walton on BBC Radio Wales
- Featured by Drowned in Sound, Artrocker, Bearded Magazine, Subba Cultcha, This Is Fake DIY
- Gigs with Green Man Festival, Truck Festival, Small Town America, Woolfire Festival, Pineapple Folk, This Is Fake DIY, Radio 1, Xfm
- Support shows with The Research, Max Tundra, The Blow, Jamie T, The Maccabees, Apples in Stereo, Bearsuit and many more

His new album, “Fight My Battles For Me”, comes out on May 25th via Brainlove Records, who also release Napoleon IIIrd and Keyboard Choir, and worked with Cats In Paris, Gay Against You, Capitol K, Misty’s Big Adventure, Modernaire and many more.

also appearing

MEWGATZ
Named after a child’s mispronunciation (or is that misconception) of music, Mewgatz make delicate yet damaging electronica. Based out of an abandoned electro graveyard in Bristol and armed with an arsenal of home-made instruments, from modified 80s Casios to keytars and kids toys, Mewgatz makes schizophrenic and chaotic yet beautifully subtle and fragile music.

Mewgatz’ new album ‘Love Songs and Car Boot Electronica’ is released in June on OIB records.

STAIRS TO KOREA
From North London via Reykjavik, Will Vaughan makes budget anthems through slipshod use of modern technology and a dinky white guitar. It’s wrongpop Heaven – right here on Earth.

THEM SQUIRRELS
Live debut for a new project from JT of Cardiff’s Attack + Defend.

18/05/09 8pm – 11pm
Dempseys, Cardiff
Door: £4
Hosted by Cardiff’s legendary Freakshow night run by Graf of Gindrinker.