Peek! An earful of Irish Underground

Side A
The High Life – Ugly Megan
Ballet Shoes – Grand Pocket Orchestra
Capogg – Supernova Scotia
The Last Bottle in the World – Dublin Duck Dispensary
Outskirts – So Cow
Glock Rock – Gran Casino
To Where is Alright – Nouveau Noise

Side B
Coat to Wear – Patrick Kelleher
Radio – Katie Kim
Breaking The Waves – Children Under Hoof
Left For Dead – Hunter-Gatherer
Typers &Trains – Colours Move

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About the bands / songs:

Side A
Ugly Megan – The High Life
Located at the confluence of gangster rap and homemade lo-fi pop, this song sees the erstwhile twee-pop duo swapping cocaine for blowjobs and living the superstar lifestyle. Who said they were sweeter than sweet? Ugly Megan are Kathi and Orlando, recently exiled from Waterford to Dublin, and The High Life is from their second release, The Gavin, Megan and Oisín EP.

Grand Pocket Orchestra – Ballet Shoes
This contribution from Dublin’s most colourful band manages to be insidiously catchy and suprisingly touching at the same time. The four-piece make their way in life peddling frantically energetic toy-pop infused with some of the innocence of childhood and most of the fun. Ballet Shoes is the lead track off their upcoming Make Happy War EP.

Supernova Scotia – Capogg
Capogg is a fresh amble through a sweet musical syrup of bubbling keyboards, lazy-day guitar and sauntering bass. Kilkenny’s Supernova Scotia manage the perfect balance of 1980s “play-at-home” Casios and general awareness of the current climate to come up with something as original as Ireland has to offer these days.

Dublin Duck Dispensary – The Last Bottle In The World
Fuzzier than a bag of chicks, this track from Dublin Duck Dispensary’s He Do The Police In Different Voices EP is as close to a single as he is likely to get. This is a two-minute dip into the strange and wonderful world of DDD’s prolific bedroom-fi recordings. There are dozens and dozens more where this came from (free on the Rack and Ruin Records site) but few are this life-affirming.

So Cow – Outskirts
“I’m not near ingenious, yeah I’m pretty much just a stomach and penis”. So Cow, Tuam’s one contribution to world culture (with “an American accent I didn’t see coming”), possesses an unusual and startling talent for describing that modern feeling of inadequacy and boredom. He also has an ear for killer garage/surf/indie-rock guitar riffs, and this one is one of the finest. Taken from the potentially never-to-be-released Wackity Schmackity Doo album.

Gran Casino – Glock Rock
This elegant, layered baroque track is a perfect introduction to one of Dublin’s more complex propositions, the twelve-piece collective that is Gran Casino. Subjects of Analogue’s first live show documentary (search for it on the website if you haven’t seen it), they bring a chemistry and communal energy to everything they play, and Glock Rock, from the Sun Music EP, is a fitting example.

Nouveau noise – To Where Is Alright
Blissed out in a way that nods to both American indie loop-merchants and European electronic artists, Nouveaunoise’s track manages to employ an accordion and what sounds like a guitar sampled off an old 78rpm record while still sounding brand new. The West of Ireland duo’s style is intricate and unique, and they do a nice line in remixing on the side.

Side B
Patrick Kelleher – Coat To Wear
Patrick Kelleher makes cold, quiet, simple songs with frozen, empty backings. And then he attacks himself with electronics, like tormented voices shooting across the song and distracting. If you cut the tension in this song with the proverbial knife, it would probably snap up at you and cut you like a string wound too tight. Coat To Wear comes from the You Look Cold EP.

Katie Kim – Radio
“Perfect swellings, slowburns, sedated distorting chaos and tickling”. Quoted from her MySpace, it’s difficult to say it better than she says it herself. Waterford’s Katie Kim sings effortlessly treacly vocals over an almost retro, swollen noir backing. But it’s the lyrics that take this beyond chill-out. “Can I be your emotional wreck?” she half-whispers on this track, and it’s hard not to let it get you.

Children Under Hoof – Breaking The Waves
Funereally paced, carefully layered and drenched in reverb, Breaking the Waves is as refined a sensory experience as you are likely to find. Nothing happens here that doesn’t sound considered, and the amalgam is lush and full, the late-summer to member Patrick Kelleher’s solo winter. A tip: give it the volume it deserves, and sit back as the ebbs and flows wash over you.

Hunter-Gatherer – Left For Dead
Starting with a peal of thunder and the sound of heavy rain, Left For Dead is a narcoleptic electronica track from the Dublin-based Hunter-Gatherer. Building gradually over the course of almost five minutes from a haunting synth pattern to a euphoric swell, the song is a dark, ambient piece from another Children Under Hoof member. Several of his EPs are available for free on last.fm.

Colours Move – Typers & Trains
This one is a banger.

World Leader Pretend

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDhOKNlbuwM]

As the world watches Governor Palin fluff answers to serious questions, muddle more answers than Bertie “Smokes and Daggers” Ahern and generally continue to realise that helping to run The Free World is more difficult than hunting a wolf from a helicopter, my thoughts wander. There was a time before, after eight years of Republican government, that American bands made good, fear-infused music about politics. And for a couple of albums in the late eighties (Life’s Rich Pageant until Green, say), REM got pretty good at it. In the video is a song called World Leader Pretend from (in my opinion) the peak of their powers as a live band. From a time when they were actually good, shall we say.

“This is my mistake/I will make it good/I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down”. – Michael Stipe

“In 1998, the Clinton Administration and we in Congress agreed to abolish the United States Information Agency and put its public diplomacy functions inside the State Department. This was a mistake. Dismantling an agency dedicated to promoting America’s message amounted to unilateral disarmament in the struggle of ideas. Communicating our government’s views on day-to-day issues is what the State Department does. But communicating the idea of America, our purpose, our past and our future is a different task. We need to re-create an independent agency with the sole purpose of getting America’s message to the world” – John McCain

Heavy enough for you?

Can’t think of a noughties band who’s done fear/politics/rock music as well as some of the stuff from the 80s, but maybe they don’t need to when Tina Fey‘s around:

Jeremy Jay

Here’s an homage-artist with a back story to back himself up. Jeremy Jay loves Francoise Hardy, both her music and her sense of style. He borrows her reverb-soaked sensibilities, and he probably weighs just about as much as she did in the 60s with a few fashionable layers included. He is also into the French New Wave (film, not synthy post-punk). He’s an American Francophile, playing to the era of the chanteuse what Adam Green plays to the Reno crooner.

But here’s the thing: Jeremy Jay grew up in Monterrey, California, speaking French as the primary language of his household. Weird, isn’t it? This obviously doesn’t absolve him completely from accusations of derivation. But it adds another layer to his oeuvre. And it makes for a great catch-line doesn’t it?

Honestly, it’s not just a chanteuse fanboy playing around. The real invocation here is Bowie. Jeremy Jay inhabits that post-gig, stale cigarette territory that pops up so poignantly on Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. ‘Beautiful Rebel’ particularly strikes that chord, and despite the fact that Jay himself cites Buddy Holly and Richie Valens as direct influences, it’s hard to believe that he hasn’t spent any time with the 1970s Bowie that channelled those acts originally.

Jay’s debut album, A Place Where We Could Go, is out now. I’m not sure if it’s out in Ireland. But it does exist.

Listen to Beautiful Rebel here.

And then put the 10th October in your calendar, because that’s the date that Jeremy Jay comes to Dublin to play the upstairs of Whelans, supported by Analogue’s favourite ever thing from Waterford, Ugly Megan.

Como Te Llama – Albert Hammon Jr

With his second album since The Strokes, Albert Hammond Jr’s seems to be establishing his solo career as a day job. Unfortunately, Como Te Llama lacks much of the charm of its predecessor. Although Yours To Keep was criticised for being too effete and indebted to the Beach Boys, it sparkled with undeniable personality. Como Te Llama drops the twee touches, and prefers to experiment elsewhere. A cheap drum machine and dubby bass are employed on ‘Lisa’, while ‘Borrowed Time’ is straight reggae complete with tinges of an affected Jamaican accent at points. However, both songs drop the conceits and move back to conventional rock in time for the chorus. This is indicative of the world in which Hammond is working. The Strokes shot to power on a back-to-basics platform way back in 2001, but since then, guitar music has moved on significantly. There was a time when a touch of “world music” flavour on a rock album was considered commendably broad-minded, but in a post-Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa world, Hammond’s efforts seem a little half-baked. ‘Victory At Monterrey’, sounding like a more sinister version of Spoon with a sleeper chorus, is a bright spot.

Ballet Shoes Make The News

Grand Pocket Orchestra are, to borrow the oldest cliché in the arsenal of the music journalist, going from strength to strength. Saturday at Hard Working Class Heroes saw them come out and play their usual four million songs (give or take) over the course of half an hour and force joy and amazement from the assembled crowd. And without even playing the most played song on their MySpace. Which, y’know, is kinda impressive for a pre-debut album band.

The rest of the standards, like Odd Socks and Get Go, were present in all their toy-pop splendour, and sped up about 50% for dramatic effect. But the really interesting thing about the gig was the newer material. Previously thought to be a little twee and childish for some tastes, they’ve started to come out with songs that still have that sense of fun and major tonality, but that sound lots more mature and considered than what they’ve done before.

Last year they were frantic, and really smile-inducing. This year, frantic and… I’m not quite sure. One song sounded like Sunset Rubdown to me. Sunset Rubdown! Who would’ve seen that coming?!

The next single, Ballet Shoes, has been on their MySpace a little while, and it sounds like all kinds of clever American bands. But still like Grand Pocket Orchestra. Their self-stated purpose is to write happy songs about not-happy things with the intention of making the bad seem not so bad. Up till now, they’ve been making the happy seem happier, or the boring seem more fun. But on the evidence of Saturday, they could be on the way to full-fledged deadliness. Could be to do with Paddy cutting his hair, maybe.

Elbows out, lads

Mercury Prize time again, and this year Elbow have walked away with the award. I’ll have to be honest, I was expecting and hoping for Radiohead, but I doubt they’ll be too put out. Maybe it’s for the best that someone like Elbow, a while into their career, have received some major critical recognition. Not to say that the Mercury should turn into a career-recognition thing, like the Oscars do occasionally. But still.

In this blogger’s humble opinion, Radiohead, Burial and possibly even Estelle made better albums, but I’m not going to begrudge Elbow this one. Here’s their video from Grounds for Divorce, which Andrew posted a while back.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXBS_Xansag]

Psycho Psychedelic Robotnik vs. Horse Video

A short one today. I’m not even sure that this is going to work, but I’ll give it a go. The fine folks at MUZU are in the process of making videos for anyone playing Hard Working Class Heroes (which is on next weekend, by the way). I was in their towers today, and I was very impressed. The videos look great, the staff are very professional, and Nialler9 was silently present in their office, for a reason that probably isn’t as mysterious as it seemed at the time.

What I want to direct you to, if at all possible, is Robotnik‘s video for ‘Puddlestarter’. As far as I can tell, I wouldn’t be able to embed the video anywhere unless I actually was Chris Morrin, and I unfortunately amn’t, so a link will have to do.

But I have to impress on you: DO click this. The song’s pretty catchy, but the video (especially just after the second chorus) is just weird. In the best possible way.

GO HERE AND CLICK PUDDLESTARTER LIVE

New Roots Manuva Is Deadly

Just a quick one: I’ve been listening to Roots Manuva‘s new album Slime and Reason for Analogue. It’s seriously good stuff. Have a listen to the infectious opening track ‘Again and Again’, complete with cricket-themed video. Most of it isn’t this fun, but hey, it’s still summer for a few days.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRxYNTH-5Go]

Like Karaoke But Good

I spent last Saturday morning on the bank of earth outside the Alpha tent at Lowlands in Holland, watching the largest crowd of the weekend go crazy for a retrospective of Dutch pop music. It took place not long after noon, but still the crowds came in their droves. They packed the tent, and sat all around outside in their thousands too, having the first beer of the day, or the first joint.

What the retrospective consisted of was this: contemporary musicians came onstage with the house band and did interpretations of the classics of the last fifty years of Dutch pop music. The performers ranged from the singer in Holland’s stadium punk gods Heideroosjes to a collection of other people you’d have to have grown up near a windmill to have heard of.

And the music ranged from this song about driving a motorbike by a man in a pirate hat, completely in Dutch, to Little Green Bag from Reservoir Dogs. It was like the afters of a wedding in the middle of the day with 10,000 people at it, in the sun in Holland. It was deadly.

As it came to an end, my friend turned to me and said “if they did that in Ireland, it would be terrible”. Would it? I think, for a backwater, we have quite a proud little history in the noble field of kitsch pop music.

Here are some of my suggestions for what songs could be done and by who:

Joe Dolan – Beautiful Woman
Covered by: Grand Pocket Orchestra – imagine it double speed, the horn parts on melodica, and the random piano plinks on toy glockenspiel… perfect!

Dana – All Kinds Of Everything
Covered by: Róisin Murphy – “things of the night” indeed.

B*Witched – C’est La Vie
Covered by: Fight Likes Apes – all of this makes so much sense in my head!

Wade in, disagree, suggest loads more, and we’ll make it happen at the next Analogue night. Maybe.

Port O’Brien – All We Could Do is Sing

You know how your English teacher in school told you not to start your story with waking up? Well, Port O’Brien don’t care what your English teacher says. All We Could Do Was Sing opens with a fantastic, cathartic track called “I Woke Up Today”, sung (or shouted) by everyone in the band in unison. It’s one of those songs that turns into the only thing you can think about for a couple of weeks. Communal and celebratory. Other than this, Port O’Brien do a good line in nautically-themed folky indie. From ‘Moby Dick’ to ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, the ocean has always been an excellent paradigm for the more solitary emotions in the spectrum. Port O’Brien sell the sea myth pretty hard, but the fact that main songwriter Van Pierszalowski genuinely does commercially fish for salmon makes for heightened fascination with his lyrics. ‘Fisherman’s Son’ is a particularly salient example of this, expressing the conflict that arises from having to drop real life and go to sea for several months. The closer, ‘Valdez’, is a short, sleepy ditty that begins with the line “Exxon, Exxon, clean it up” and sounds like it was recorded on a dictaphone buried under a large pile of laundry. The album is varied enough to be continuously interesting, and if ever you wanted a break from the stresses of real life, there are worse places to look for it than Port O’Brien.

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