Week #10: Warm Brains / Boats / Daphni / Christopher Paul Stelling

This is Warm Brains, the latest project from Rory Atwell. You may already know him as an ex-member of Test Icicles and KASMs, or as a renowned DIY producer for many a noise/lo-fi/rawk act (Male Bonding, Fair Ohs, S.C.U.M., Cold Pumas et al...)

With this new solo endeavour he's got a kinda fuzzy shoegaze thing going on. Think a reinvigorated, revitalised Ride.

You can expect a debut full-length entitled 'Old Vocanoes' in May, released on Marshall Teller records, but in the mean time you can listen to a selection a cool cuts from it below. Highlights come via 'Old Vocanoes', the epitome of the Ride similarity, and 'Marble Arch', a drone-rock anthem in a similar vein to These New Puritans' earlier material.


 

Boats create rowdy ramshackles that subtly veer from a ear-piercing punk attitude reminiscent of The Thermals to a freak-folk style akin to a fantastical collaboration between Marnie Stern and Neutral Milk Hotel. The band sonically fire their insides into our ears. They overwhelm us with the sheer racket, yet leave us unsure as to whether they are serious or not. It's this ambiguity which is alluring. Indeed, last month they became the latest occultists to join the ranks at prolific US alt-label Kill Rock Stars.

In 'TV Scientist' we receive a simple melodica line, some fiddly riffs and a clattering disco beat. It's all overlaid with jocular Canadian accents and some neat little whistling. It needs repeating. It's great. What we get is confounding fun. Pure musical fun. Please let there be more of it.

Next up is another Canadian project, but this time from a man named Dan Snaith. Sound familiar? Well, his dayjob is as brains behind and frontman of Caribou, whose underground hit 'Odessa' was placed in the higher reaches of my top 60 songs of 2010 countdown and whose latest album, Swim, was awarded the accolade of Rough Trade's album of 2010, so I wouldn't be surprised if it does. 

It now turns out the man's gone all retro electro/house/funky on us as Daphni. 'Yeye', his debut release under the moniker, is a kaleidoscopic club hybrid of all things electronic and chic: the shuddering bass drums, the eerie effects and the slightly sinister 'Yeye's act as a stream of perfect moments in which you are required to 'put yours hands up'. The song hardly develops, but who cares. This is 6 minutes of blissful electronic harmony in which you can gloriously lose yourself all the same.

 

The other day I came across this awesome live session a man named Christopher Paul Stelling did for NY's Breakthru Radio. Set against the apt setting of a stables near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the man looks at home, eyes looking into the distance for the duration. He taps his foot, deftly handles his acoustic axe and lets his divine vocals ring out. The song is entitled 'Flawless Executioner', and, yup, you guessed it, he executes this unique performance flawlessly: