Racking Around The Christmas Tree

Rack and Ruin is the fantastic net label that the prolific Dublin Duck Dispensary release their albums through. If you haven’t already downloaded DDD’s latest offering, the tongue twisting ‘Luanqibazao’, you really should.

Anyways the main man behind Dublin Duck Bobby Aherne has compiled a brilliant folky lo fi Christmas compilation featuring his fellow Rack and Ruin label mates.

Tracklist:
1. Dublin Duck Dispensary - Christmas Thesis
2. Gnouli Monsters - Are You Serious, Santa?
3. Jason the Swamp - Snow
4. Light Aircraft on Fire - On Silver Globe (The Earth is Golden)
5. The Macadamia Brothers - Let in Snow
6. A Series of Dark Caves - Novelty Xmas Song
7. Slothbear - White Christmas
8. Lil Dean - Silent Night

Download it here.

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

Download it.

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.

Hard Working Class Heroes: Friday

I said it before, and I feel compelled to say it again at the start of this review. Hard Working Class Heroes is the worst name for a musical festival. Ever. True story: my flatmate who has a passing interest in music, deliberately did not go to this event since its inception for the (admittedly fairly fatuous) reason that it has a shit name. So think about it organiser dudes, rename your festival and get at least one new punter.

My review of the weekend will be a single snapshot of the few bands I saw. There are some acts such as Fight Like Apes and Frightened Rabbit, that I intended to see but didn’t make it to, however. Ian Thrillpier gives some comprehensive reviews , including bands I didn’t see, here, here and here.

Day 1

Dublin Duck Dispensary: The Academy.

They make a wonderful racket do the ‘Duck Dispensary. Bobby dressed up as Santa. Guitarist/keyboardist Karl dressed up as an employee from a 1960s biscuit factory in Manchester. They have a bubble machine stage right. Sadly, they only play for what seems like 30 seconds and at an earlier time than billed, meaning that a good few interested punters land down just as their slightly shambolic, energetic and good-humoured set rocks out to a close. Dublin Duck Dispensary are a band to watch. Think early Pavement crossed with Guided by Voices. Guided by Ducks perhaps?

The Revellions: The Academy.

I stick around to watch The Revellions. With their winkle picker shoes and glossy pudding bowl haircuts, these guys all look like they were cloned from bits of Brian Jones. Unsurprisingly their music is as retrograde as their outfits. It’s competently played, organ driven garage rock that fetishes its influences: The Chocolate Watchband, The 13th Floor Elevators, all that sort of stuff. Its hard to watch something so studiously appropriated without feeling its all a bit of a pastiche.

Super Extra Bonus Party: Meeting House Square.

The biggest downside of the weekend quickly becomes apparent during Super Extra Bonus Party’s gig in Meeting House Square. The sound is freaking terrible. They sound like they are playing through a sponge. Later, Northern Ireland band Fighting With Wire get very disgruntled and make as if they are going to walk off because of this problem. For a group like Super Extra Bonus party, who rely on a noisy party vibe, the poor sound leaves the crowd underwhelmed in spite of their best efforts. It is a shame, and a bad portent for the other big gigs of the weekend.

Days 2 and 3 available here