Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Gestir

It's a long way from the Faroe Islands to the Hope and Anchor. One of London's seminal venues, its 70s pub rock and punk pedigree is legendary. The list of bands who have played there is endless .. Madness, U2, The Damned, XTC, The Stranglers, Spandau Ballet ... it's pretty much the smallest venue with the smallest stage I can think of still hosting regular shows. If you get 50 people in there, they're shoulder to shoulder.



I found out about Gestir about a year ago when some of the very learned music fans on the forum of West Ham's fans website Knees Up Mother Brown. To the lazy and uninitiated it would be easy to compare them to Iceland's Sigur Ros, as they both create beautiful landscapes of sound and soft vocal harmonies. But there is more than a bit of Radiohead involved and I am sure I can detect a bit of early 90s shoegaze too, although no one else in the small but appreciative crowd would admit it (possibly because they're too young to remember ...)



The band played a shortish set of six songs, including two new compositions in English, It's Over and Crashing. A new album is planned and will feature more songs in English rather than their native Faroese.

Recommended listening: Gestir's one album to date, Burtur Frá Toftunum, with the stand out tracks being Sum Urt, Mitt Í Verðini and Dogg. You can see them at www.myspace.com/gestir.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Bloc Party - Mercury (new single)

Bloody hell, where's the guitars?

 

New single premiered for the first time on some BBC station today.  It's "out" on 11 August.  Hope I manage to get it after a few plays because I haven't got it so far ... it's a good song but a bit different to the first time I heard Little Thoughts playing.

 

http://www.uploadjockey.com/download/8011212/bloc_party_-_mercury.mp3

Friday, July 04, 2008

Glam Chops (Art Brut / David Devant spin-off) live on BBC 6music

It sounds good on paper and it sounds good on, erm, digital ones and zeroes so far too.  This is an "indie supergroup" whose main proponents are two not-quite-so-super superstars in the terms of record sales a la U2 or Coldplay, but we still have nine of them including the wonderful Eddie Argos from Art Brut and The Vessel from David Devant And His Spirit Wife (or Mr Solo or whatever madness he calls himself these days). 

 

Both bands are great live and I'm sure that this lot, a PROPER GLAM ROCK outfit apparently, will offer more of the same - I should be finding out at the Offset Festival in Hainault, Essex at the end of August.  For now here's the three tracks they played for Marc Riley last night on the BBC.

 

http://www.uploadjockey.com/download/363813/glam_chops_6_music_session.rar

 

Other links:

 

Splendidly-titled official Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/paranoiddogbark

http://the-eddie-argos-resource.blogspot.com/ (not sure if this is official or not, but it's clearly got a lot of insider knowledge)

 

 

 

More of my stuff

• Red Penguin bandphotos
• Brentwood's Only Alternative
• My Audioscrobbler stats
• Gigs I Can Remember

Other good stuff to read

• Good Weather For Airstrikes
• Like Flies On Sherbert
• No Rock & Roll Fun
• Obscure Sound
• Silence Is A Rhythm Too
• Take Your Medicine
• The Torture Garden
• Unarocks
• Whatever's Left

Previous Posts

• WE'VE MOVED
• Gestir
• Bloc Party - Mercury (new single)
• Glam Chops (Art Brut / David Devant spin-off) live...
• British Sea Power at Glastonbury 2008
• Young Knives at Glastonbury 2008
• Ting Tings at Glastonbury 2008
• Foals at Glastonbury 2008
• Radiohead cover Portishead's "The Rip"
• Dan le Sac, Scroobius Pip and I Shouted Gun

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