Week #22: Revision - 11 albums to ease the process

Punch Brothers - Antifogmatic / Punch
These are two gently seguing bluegrass LPs that will definitely not distract you. Compositions and arrangements such as those in 'Blind Leaving The Blind, movement 1' may also provide fruitful ground for comment in a music essay.


Smog - Knock Knock
This is more of a personal one. 'Held' is my favourite track from one of my favourite albums of all time. It's by Bill Callahan (Smog), who is also one of my favourite songwriters of all time. That riff has become so firmly ingrained in my brain that revision can go actually ahead at full steam.


Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
This newish album from Parisian bleep-maker Nicolas Jaar is so weird and otherworldly that it kind of distances itself from you. If you have a heck of a lot of revision to do, this will help.


Mono - Under The Pipal Tree
Post-rock behemoths Mono reside in Japan. They specialise in creating ridiculously lengthy jams brimming with reverb, ambience and colour. It also happens that they're rumoured to be playing the lucrative 'Sunday Midday' slot at Latitude Fest this year... so, this tune is giving me something very special to (hopefully) look forward to after exams.


Joni Mitchell - Court And Spark
Joni Mitchell's fluttering harmonies and funky sax fit revision like an egg cup does an egg.


Sarabeth Tucek - Get Well Soon
Sarabeth Tucek's new LP resonates like a more downbeat Breeders effort. This is grunge at its most melancholic and work-friendly.


Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
Marvin Gaye's super-soft vocals, omnipresent strings and damn meaty sax solos exude similarly laid back vibes to the Joni Mitchell album. 'Mercy, Mercy Me' is one of the shorter tracks from his seminal 'What's Going On' work.


Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts Of The Great Highway
Everyone knows Mark Kozelek is a genius. But not everyone has discovered that he's also adept at creating slowly unwinding paeans that provide the perfect backdrop for a little bit of memorising, Maths practice or note-making.


Mazzy Star - Among My Swan
Fuzzy music like this always makes for a neat little revision sesh.


Isolée - We Are Monster
Isolée's 2005 album 'We Are Monster' is my final suggestion. The German microhouse producer makes creates sublime songs like 'Schrapnell', which, as you can hear, is much more upbeat than the other songs I've picked.

Week #21: Lucknow Pact / The Pear Traps / The Chain

I'm almost completely in the dark about Lucknow Pact. Google 'em and you get a wiki page about a semi-known Muslim agreement.  Facebook 'em and you get nothing. Myspace 'em and you'll find a wincey bit of information: they reside in Gothenburg and from there they evoke some pretty damn sumptuous soundscapes. Take 'Waiting In The Sun' for instance, where their vocals vaguely recall Tunde Adebimpe's in their bewildering range. The result is one truely catchy tune. The video which accompanies it is also one of the best (if simplest) promos this epoch has seen. Oscar for the director plz.

The Pear Traps utterly startled me when they arrived in my inbox last week. Who on earth was this perfectly concocted band? Their new self-titled EP was the reason for the revelation. Encompassing FX-laden vox, rolling guitar flickers and a sheer knack for sublime song-writing, it made for an exhiliratingly gloomy listen (in a great Alligator-era The National sorta way). You can stream the EP below, download 'Come Home' for free and purchase the whole EP for only $4 on their bandcamp.

Fetishize your bass really, really bassy? Your bells really, really twangy? Feel like dancing about the room like a rampant lunatic? Get a load of the new 'Lostwithiel' EP from The Chain. It definitely ticks your criteria. The now-legendary R & S label release it soon.

David Thomas Broughton 'River Lay'

Delicate darkness from David Thomas Broughton. 'River Lay' is somewhat akin to Antony Hegarty in its vocal style, but vaguely recalls Tom Waits in its gloom and starkness. Out now via Brainlove Records.

Interview w/ Arborea

Buck and Shanti in London (Cat Stevens)

Arborea create the world's most absorbing folk paeans. Red Planet, their fourth LP, is one of my favourite albums of 2011 thus far. I recently spoke with the duo about its creation, their fascinating background and career so far and their diverse influences.

Arborea, at what point in life do we find you?
 

Buck: At this point Shanti and I have been touring steadily since December of 2006... performing shows, festivals and radio sessions in the US, Spain, Italy, France, the UK, and Ireland.  Red Planet represents Arborea's fourth album along with two compilations that we've created: Leaves of Life and We Are All One, In the Sun: A Tribute to Robbie Basho.  The Leaves of Life compilation was created to benefit the UN World Food Programme which included Fern Knight, Devendra Banhart, Micah Blue Smaldone, Alela Diane, Marissa Nadler.  We Are All One, In the Sun included Meg Baird, Helena Espvall, Fern Knight, Glenn Jones, Steffen Basho Junghans, Cian Nugent, and Iraqi born oud player Rahim Alhaj. The UK based label alt.vinyl will be releasing a vinyl version of the Basho tribute sometime this year.  Musically, I feel like Shanti and I are in great shape and we are really looking forward to touring in support of Red Planet.  We've also finally found the time to start making short films to go with our music.  Our love of film and photography has always went hand in hand with our music and those elements are a huge part of what inspires the music.

Shanti: I feel like we are standing at the edge of a cliff in a vast dark and endless forest. We are hungry and breathless and ragged and heartbroken and crazy in love with being alive. We will jump and fall or we will fly. It could happen at any moment. We could all jump and fall or fly.

How would you describe your music to those uninformed readers of Mane Shakin’ Folk?

B: Arborea's music is really a huge melting pot of our life experience and all our forms of creativity.  Much of the music is inspired by the places we've been or the important moments that we've shared together: our improvisations, our poetry, photography, the landscapes of Maine...our travels in Spain, Ireland, and the UK, our family life and two children.  Our melting pot is made of all kinds of musical elements: Folk forms, Blues, Rock, Experimental...musical elements from America, Ireland, British Isles, Persia and Asia.  Above all, it's about Shanti and I coming together and creating...striving for beauty with lots of space and surreal atmosphere.

S: I try to be honest with myself and hopefully it connects with the listener- I don't make ironic music and I'm not going to pay attention to trends and I'm going to keep writing and playing forever. I guess that doesn't really describe the sound though...dreamy film scores?

Tell us the ‘Arborea story’. Why did you decide to start making music together?
 

B: I've been making music for a very long time, but when Shanti and I got together I knew she had a great voice but she was painfully shy.  It took 7 years of marriage before she finally started to feel comfortable enough to sing around me.  In 2000 we moved from Virginia to Shanti's birth place in Maine.  After moving to Maine there were two primary things that happened which acted as the catalysts leading to the formation of Arborea.  In 2004 Shanti's partents gave us a recording program for our computer, and by that winter she had made me a special recording of her signing for my Christmas present.  The second important thing...that following summer, I knew an important step Shanti's musical development, would be to find her the right instrument to bond with...something that would really inspire her too take things further.  I found the perfect instrument for her birthday that summer...an open back banjo.  That first summer making music was really all about hanging out and improvising, but by the next summer we started to write instrumentals and songs which eventually became our first album Wayfaring Summer.  Most of that album, as with many of our recordings all the way up to our latest Red Planet were written at an old family cabin that Shanti's great grandfather made during the 1930's.  That cabin resides next to a lake beneath two mountains and it's incredibly inspirational to spend time there and focus on creating without the distractions of modern life.  Our latest album Red Planet really represents those pure moments where we've truly lost our selves to creativity.

S: Buck mostly answered this, but also it seemed like the necessary next step in our relationship- a sharing of our creative selves.

How did you go about recording and writing the songs on Red Planet?
 

B: Red Planet was recorded between our home studio and at the family cabin in the Mountains here in Maine.  The Tim Buckley song 'Phantasmagoria in Two' was arranged a couple of years ago, but was actually recorded in Austin while we were there for our SXSW showcase last March.  The songs were really written during different seasons... 'Careless Love' in the Spring, 'Black Is The Colour' in Autumn...even so, I think the album does a good job of sounding very consistent.  Shanti had already written a couple of the songs several years ago... 'Song for Obol' is a good example.  She wrote that very quickly after we returned from a stay in Ireland which followed our appearance at the Green Man Festival that year.  It's a song inspired by the family we stayed with...old friends of mine that I had lived with in the late 90's.  'Arms and Horses' was written after the unexpected loss of her father, during a walk with our children.  Shanti was observing the delicate patterns of the snow and reflecting the fragility of life. 

I wrote 'Spain' while I was longing to return to those moments where Shanti and I were on tour there. Both 'Spain' and 'Arms and Horses' were recorded last summer while Helena Espvall traveled up to Maine and stayed for a week to record with us.  She travelled with Derek Moench whose photographs we used for the album.  Derek is also responsible for making the video for 'Phantasmagoria In Two' (below).  The day before we headed to the cabin, we took Helena and Derek to one of our favorite places on the Maine coast.  That's where all the imagery for the album was created.  We were all just hanging out along with our two children...having a great time and without the intention of creating something for the album.  At one point Shanti handed Derek our red filter.  Shanti had made a staff with driftwood and bark from a Birch tree and was carrying it around. The cover of the album came together from those elements.  We didn't even know that photo existed until Derek sent us a disc with all the photos.  When we were going through them, I saw that photo and just instantly fell in love with it and thought it would make the perfect album cover. 'A Little Time' started with Shanti playing that rhythmic figure on our tenor ukulele and singing a fragment of the vocal melody.  At the time I was in another room and I heard her fooling around and I ran into where she was and told her to keeping playing it.  Then I suggested a few notes to expand the melody and told her to keep playing it.  I then grabbed some paper and the words just instantly fell onto the page.  At that point the album was already finished, but we liked the song so much that we quickly recorded it and put it at the end of the record. There's also a hidden track at the end...another piece Shanti created in memory of her father.  The title track 'Red Planet' was created by me combining and mixing layers of improvisation...which included the harmonium, hammer dulcimer, electric guitar, and our friend Frederic Oberland from Paris sent us some tracks of bowed electric guitar that he improvised over the harmonium track I emailed to him.  One important thing to emphasise is that when we are recording, we're really working to create the perfect atmosphere and mood.  We are also attempting to slow time down...especially, in this digital age where information (and ourselves) end up traveling at light speed...the real goal we are hoping to achieve is almost a state of suspended beauty like you find in a painting (or in a film)!  Something you can spend a long time with... pondering all it's colours, motion, and depth.

S: We wrote the songs over the period of a few years as a reflection of our experiences and time spent with amazing people and our misadventures. We recorded the songs ourselves and with the engineering help of our friend Derek on 'Spain' and 'Arms and Horses'. We have an old cabin on a lake in the mountains in the western part of Maine. My great-grandfather built it during the Great Depression - it's just a small camp, a place for the family to go fishing and hunting and now it belongs to the whole third generation family- we share it by writing our names on a calendar when we'd like to stay there. There's a screened in porch that overlooks the lake and mountains and at night you can see all the stars of heaven and hear the loons calling out from distant lakes - their song echoing in the wilderness. I got really good at calling back to them and they would come to our lake to try and meet the strange sounding loon that I was pretending to be. I would stand on the dock with my head thrown back and making this crazy lamenting sound and I could hear them splash into the water and come swimming towards me- it was so surreal.  Helena Espvall played the Cello on Red Planet and she recorded at the cabin with us. One night we were all in the cabin and she took her cello out on the dock and sat on a stool and played to the lake, beneath the moonlight. Those moments are all a part of what inspired us during the recording of the songs.

I hear semblances of various singer-songwriters such as Marissa Nadler and Joni Mitchell in your sound, but from where do you actually draw your influences?

B: We have certain artists that we really enjoy to listen to, but the influences in our music are really based around improvisations and the exchange of ideas between ourselves.  Instrumentals might stem purely from improvisation or even the resonance and overtones of the banjo or guitars in low alternate tuning.  Songs might begin with just a fragment of a melody, which leads to one of us adding to that, and then it goes back and forth until a song or piece of music is created.  The rugged landscape of Maine and just being outside in the mountains or along the coast is a huge inspiration for our music.

As for music that has had an influence on us... I'd say that the impact others have had is more peripheral and inspirational.  The Doors are definitely an inspiration.  The sensual and visual side of their music and lyrics...dark, expansive and evocative.  Also, when I first started thinking about Shanti and I making music...the June Tabor and Martin Simpson album A Cut Above was an archetype from which I drew inspiration...the ability to creative such a dramatic soundscape through just voice and guitar.  Those songs and recordings are intensely mystical and so well done.  Tim Buckley's music has been a huge inspiration! Jimi Hendrix, Robbie Basho, Skip James, BB King, Peter Green, Chris Whitley, and Jeff Buckley.  Shanti really loved Iron and Wine's Woman King.  Gillian Welch Hell Among the Yearlings is another album that we both love.

S: Mostly just by getting out and taking walks, listening to the world around us. I've actually listened to more Tori Amos than Joni Mitchell, but I can hear those elements too. I think there's a collective consciousness - we're all drinking from the same well.
 

You use a whole host of instruments on the record. Which piece of musical gear do you hold most dear to your heart?

B: For me, Shanti's voice is the dearest instrument.  Her voice is the most important not only for songs that she creates, but even for my own song writing, as I tend to write many songs that are not suited for my voice, but specifically created with Shanti's voice in mind.  The next two things of great importance is the banjo and guitar.  I use the guitar as a voice...thinking in terms of creating dynamic tonal colors with the use of alternate tunings and slide.

The other thing is that Red Planet features a guitar that I designed and made.  I built it extremely light and responsive and the instrument truly has a voice of it's own.  Depending on what tuning I have it in, the notes and various overtones that arise from it inspire music...'The Fossil Sea' and 'Black Is The Colour' being great examples of the sound of this instrument inspiring the performance and music. Shanti's open back banjo and the open minor tunings are similar to my guitar in the way it resonates, so when when the two are combined they sort of create their own orchestra of sound.  We also have a harmonium made in India that is featured on songs like 'Black Is The Colour' and 'Red Planet'.  That instrument is otherworldly sounding.  All of these instruments, with their tonal complexities and the space we put in the music really helps shape and define our sound.

S: My voice is my most beloved instrument. It's a part of me and it convey my feelings, distills my emotions more effectively than any other instrument I have. It's also temperamental and demands to be cared for. It doesn't like it when I yell or cry or stay up too late or drink too much or hang out too long in smoky places and sometimes it just doesn't work at all and I don't know if I will ever have it again-which  leaves me feeling brokenhearted and desperate. I can't go out to the corner music store and buy another one if I break this one. It's that kind of relationship to your instrument that means that you will never take advantage of it and you will always be grateful for it.

What’s in store for Arborea in the remainder of 2011? Any UK tour plans? 
 

B: We are coming to the UK in June after an extensive Spanish tour.  We'll play a show in London, then off to play the Body And Soul Summer solstice festival in Ireland, followed by several shows in Scotland with Two Wings (Hanna Tuulikki and Ben Reynolds). We love travelling in the UK, so we are definitely looking forward to coming back.

S: I would like to endlessly wander, maybe you'll meet us in some quiet corner but I do know that we are playing in London and Scotland in June.

Finally, are there any particular artists/records/labels/etc that you especially love at the moment?

B: More so than music...again, Shanti and I are inspired by films and the ideas of films.  Some of the gorgeous movies made in Japan in the 60's...combining music, sound, film movement...poetry and painting in film .  Kaneto Shindo Onibaba, Hiroshi Teshigahara - Woman of the Dunes, Ingmar Bergman films.  The music we love to listen to includes Tim Buckley, Ornette Coleman, Robbie Basho, Sand Denny, The Doors, The Police, Led Zeppelin, Chris Whitley, Tori Amos, Anne Briggs, June Tabor, Martin Simpson, Nikhil Banerjee, John Coltrane, Peter Green, Cameron de la Isla, Gillian Welch.  Contemporary artists that we love to listen to...many of who are friends and artists we play shows with: Meg Baird, Helena Espvall, Two Wings (Hanna Tuulikki and Ben Reynolds), Fern Knight, Teddy Thompson, Marissa Nadler, William Tyler, Allysen Callery, Plinth, Eric Carbonara and Jesse Sparhawk, Dave Olliffe, Frederic D. Oberland, Matt Bauer, Vetiver, Jeff Zentner, Jeanne Madic, Denise Dill, Glenn Jones, Jack Rose, Sean Smith, The Changing Colors, Micah Blue Smaldone, Jakob Battick, South China, The Pleasants..

S: I wouldn't say I'm in love with anything in particular, but there are lot of bits and pieces that float around in my subconscious. I like the new PJ Harvey record and I'm rediscovering some of the older Tori Amos tunes, and there's a Teddy Thompson record from a few years back that I'm enjoying. I also like the music my friends are making, Jeff Zentner, Fern Knight, Denise Dill, Marissa Nadler, I know so many wonderful people that are making amazing music. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to be surrounded by this kind of creativity and beauty. Also these days we are so bombarded by the outside world (since we are all so connected.) I feel like I am most inspired when I turn it all off and just listen to the sounds of the wind and the birds singing and water trickling over rocks or even off our own breath, taking a deep sigh.... In and out. And in again. 

Red Planet is out now via Strange Attractors Audio House.

Boring Girls 'Kill Your Friends'

I labelled these guys 'the most visceral Cambs proposition since Bomb Factory' the other week. But you can scrap that — THEY'RE ACTUALLY THE SCARIEST. The epiphany came yesterday evening when I heard 'Kill Your Friends', their delightfully entitled new single. It's a massive freakout — a little bit Mary Chain-recalling, but with huge chunks of that lo-fi pop-punk sound of bands like Wavves. It's really miasmic. I Love that riffage. You can purchase it on bandcamp.

Week #20: Elles Infanit / Jodie-Marie

Forget Odd Future! Here comes Elles Infanit, a hip hop group so DIY, fresh and swagged out, it's as if Tyler and his raucous troupe of vagabonds never really existed. These are the REAL rappers.

Residing in Austin TX, they've just released a fantastic new LP entitled Take 1 Leave Some. Each and every one of its songs demonstrates dope rhyme after dope rhyme. Take opener 'Somethin' withs its slick wordplay (typically explicit in nature): 'Some say that s***'s lame n*****, f*** it anyway', neatly integrated alongside its infectious piano loop, pounding beat and sampled croon. The album is full of glaring beasts like this. The whole thing's a free download too.

Now onto a rather more subdued affair: a Welsh singer-songwriter named Jodie-Marie and her lovely debut single entitled 'Single Blank Canvas', which is so polite, Radio 2-friendly and altogether very Mum-ish that we can almost visualise Chris Evans drowning in abundant delight in the corner. Now you might remark that these should all be shocking attributes. But not this time. For this tune is a luscious, sleep-inducing lullaby that deserves a heck of a lot of attention. And I'm sure she'll get it.

Bonjay 'Creepin'

I really love this. Torontonian synth-pop duo Bonjay release it on June 6th via One Bird Records. Sparse, whomping auras are overlaid with ethereal vox.

Interview w/ Chris Laidler

I recently quizzed Chris Laidler, innovative Scottish knob twiddler and member of metal band Nuke The Whales, about his unique brand of twisted dub-house, his debut LP and his influences.

Chris, how are things? 

Exciting, to say the least! Kaiju is in its final stages of production, and it wont be long until it's hitting iTunes and Beatport. This is my first proper release, unless you count some free downloads on my Soundcloud account, so it's a little bit nerve-wracking.

How would describe your music to those uninformed readers of Mane Shakin' Folk?

I find it difficult to define. It's sitting around the tempo of most house music, but sometimes it is much more erratic, and sometimes a lot more tranquil. It's a good balance between digital and analog sounds; the percussion is usually relentless and blatantly electronically produced, but some of the other sounds are much more organic, with lots of real life samples, choirs, violins and the like thrown in.

Tell us about your musical upbringing. Why do you make the music you do? 

I played piano when I was super young, for a good few years. Then it kind of just stopped... I lost interest in my early teens, and tried other instruments such as the trumpet. I eventually stuck with drums, which I still play (in a metal band tastefully called Nuke The Whales, check us out on Facebook), which is where the heavy percussive influence in my music comes from. Once I started playing with electronic music and using DAWs, I got back into composing music. With my piano background, it was easy to make things fit and sound how I wanted them to.

Jazzstep by Chris Laidler

What was the creative process behind Kaiju, your new release? 

Most of it came from ideas in my head. I know how I want the songs to sound going into the recording process, and then it's generally a load of trial and error, playing with different VSTs and effects to get the sounds I desire. For the more chilled out, emotive sections, it was better to sit down behind a keyboard and work out the note progressions until I could play them with my eyes closed, then transpose them to a DAW. As for some of the samples, I never really had a general idea of what samples I was going to use in each song. If I heard a quote on a film, or an interesting sound outside I'd just think "That sounds good... let's put it in a song!"

Many disparate influences from many different eras are audible in your songs, but where do you actually draw your influences from?

That's a hard one... I listen to such a ridiculously large pallet of music it's hard to say what artists are my influences. Without sounding too pretentious, I don't want to sound like anybody that much. I mostly listen to a lot of hardcore punk, metal and hip hop. I just so happen to make electronic, house-esque music.

Natalie Portman (Chris Laidler Remix) by Team Sleep (free download)

What is your live show like? Any tour plans?

I'd love to do a tour. I might book some shows through the summer to help promote Kaiju. At the moment I have Dudestock to look forward to. It's a charity event in York, with T-Rex headlining. It's a little daunting knowing I'm the only electronic artist on a rock-dominated bill, but I think I can hold my own. I'd like to see my shows as more intense than people just standing there bobbing their heads; It'd be great to see some bodies fly!

Finally, are there any specific albums/records/labels/etc that you're particularly enjoying at the moment?

XL is looking pretty strong as a label right now with the release of Radiohead's "King of Limbs" and Tyler, The Creator's "Goblin". For electronic music, definitely check out the artists on Inspected Record's roster. That stuff is great. Oh, and check out Boring Girls. You interviewed them last week, and their album is definitely worth a listen.

Kaiju is out later this year, and man should you be looking forward to it. Here are some previews:

Week #19: Cold Showers / Blithe Field / The Bell Peppers

As you might be able to tell from the bleary-eyed bleakness of the picture above, Cold Showers are pretty much the epitome of contemporary post-punk. As the latest addition to Mexican Summer's wonderful roster, these abrasive renegades have come equipped with colossal riffage, swathes of distortion/feedback/reverb and (oddly) snarling boy-girl harmonies. Sonically, they are as-scary-as-hell. To describe their bloodcurdling aesthetic with a little analogy: the band would be the by-product of Sonic Youth's remains after visiting hell and discovering The Birthday Party. You can listen to 'I Don't Mind' below.




Blithe Field began as a solo project back in 2006 to make 'instrumental music that had more of a full band sound', making use of instruments as diverse as melodicas, acoustic guitars and Rolands. The outcome was confounding: hypnotic amalgams of folk and electronica i.e. folktronica. 'Crushing', a newbie, is built around simple yet enrapturing guitar loops and overlaid with the sounds of children's screams. It's his best work yet. Think a mellower, more enchanting post-rock outfit comprising just one guy. Download for free below.




Being named after a vegetable is not quite as rubbish as being named after an animal with a job (*ahem* that's you Pigeon Detectives), but it's still pretty awful. Fortunately, The Bell Peppers' lyricless music is exemplary, and that more than makes up for it. Led by rolling basslines, infused with intricate axe solos, their unique surf-pop overtly hearkens back to the 60s.Their new EP 'Cooking With The Bell Peppers' is a fantastic listen, and also a free download:

Interview w/ Boring Girls

Boring Girls are the most visceral Cambs proposition since Bomb Factory. I spoke to Maxwell and Ollie from the band about lo-fi, their fantastic debut LP and the future.

Boring Girls, at what point in life do we find you?

M: At college, exam season. I would find that awful, but we have study leave in a couple of weeks so it doesn't seem that bad. Probably not the best attitude to have in the world though. I'd rather be focusing on music stuff.

O:  I'm going to university in September, assuming I get the grades. I want to go out in a blaze of glory, and Boring Girls is the obvious way to chart success, and tons of drugz and bitchez.

M: Hasn't worked yet.

For those uninformed readers of Mane Shakin' Folk, please give us some idea of the music you create.

O: We want to be like Wavves but aren't.

M: Because we aren't American.

O: We want to be like Odd Future but don't have enough swag. So we made some white boy music.

M: We wanted to sound like Pissed Jeans but didn't have the balls so we sorta tried to sound like Cloud Nothings but failed that too.

O: And we're too southern to sound like The Cribs.

M: Yeah I don't know... we just make loud, simple music that we like and have fun playing, and hopefully people with similar taste will like it too.

Why 'Boring Girls'?

O: It's a song by Pissed Jeans.

How on earth did you go about writing and recording the tunes on the 'Boring Girls' LP so quickly?

O: Maxwell has a lovely shed and neighbours who didn't follow through with threats of violence when we were recording, so we managed to record everything in the easter holidays and still have time to, er, revise.

M: Yeah I dont really know how. I only got an electric guitar and properly learned guitar at christmas (I'm a drummer), so its not like i've been stockpiling crappy songs since I was twelve or something like most musicians. I think it's too much free time really.

Favourite tune on the record?

O: 'Ocean Dragon Fridays', personally.

M: Because I sing I find it pretty hard to enjoy hearing my own voice, which is the reason why I like 'Bambinos', because it doesnt really sound like me, it sounds like a crazy tramp or something. But I think im most proud of 'Revolving Doors' because it was the first song I really wrote and it's so simple that it just manages to work for me

I can hear slight resemblances of a bewildering range of groups in your sound (be they recalling Royal Trux, Los Campesinos!, Bo Ningen, No Age, whoever...) But the question is where do your influences actually lie?

M: We could list bands forever here really, it'd probably get boring. I'd say like Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon mostly, not really as an influence but as an inspiration, then like Wavves, No Age, The Cribs, Deerhunter, White Denim, The Replacements and bands like that are all influences. It makes me sad how few of those are British.

0: Pissed Jeans, Wavves, Cloud Nothings, Black Flag, Times New Viking, Eat Skull, Male Bonding, Sonic Youth and loads of other bands we listen to but don't really sound like.

You certainly experiment with a DIY aesthetic on the record. What do you use (or not use) to give your music this effect?

O: We don't use money.

M: I don't know if you can call it experimenting; it's recorded with a bass drum mic I got for £30, a Shure sm58 that's my brothers and a 2 input audio interface I got on ebay for £50, with Squier instruments and second hand cymbals. I mixed it on a pirated copy of ableton that i dont really know what to do with all in our sheds (not kitted out big music room sheds - sheds, we aren't rich). We really genuinely dont know how to record, I even dropped my music technology A-level a year into the course. We can pretend we tried to be lo-fi to be cool though, does that work?

How do you find playing live? Have you done it much?

O: Once so far, and I couldn't hear anything clearly through the monitors, so it was terrifying. I had to look at Maxwell and guess where we were in the songs, but apparently it ended up alright.

M: Yeah, it wasn't bad. We have a gig coming up at the Portland Arms (12 May), so it was good practice for that. It was a blur though, I don't remember it.

You're from Cambridge. As am I. What's your favourite hangout?

O: The Regal is cheap but awful, The Portland Arms is great, Clowns is a nice cafe. But generally we just sit on spare patches of grass and drink whatever beer we can find cheapest.

M: Haha, that sounds about right, cheap is good.

Finally, are there any particular records/artists/labels/etc that you're especially enjoying at the moment?

O: Dirty Cousins/Tread Water/F.U.C.K. Grouper's new double album is great too, This Will Destroy You's is mindblowing as well, and Let's Wrestle's is probably excellent judging by the live stuff.

M: Yeah, shout out for our friends' music from Cambridge - Four Undercover Kings, Dirty Cousins, White Label, Tread Water, all great stuff. I'm listening to loads of the Beach Boys at the moment and Animal collective/Panda Bear. It's really interesting to hear how they passed on their sound. Bradford Cox has crazy amounts of music, and its all fascinating too, so that as well.

You can download Boring Girls' eponymous debut on bandcamp for free.

AlunaGeorge 'We Are Chosen'

What's this? Part of the brilliant post-dubstep-goes-pop backlash. Obvs. It's out now as a double A-Side release alongside 'Analyser'.

Interview w/ Tom Eddy

Tom Eddy is certainly no stranger to upbeat pop music (see), but as it turns out, he's also rather adept as a creator of his own beautiful acoustic paeans. I talked to Tom about his work with Beat Connection, 'The Art Of Escaping' and his dream band.

Tom, how would describe your music to those uninformed readers of the site?

Its kind of rusty indie-folk from your back porch. I would say my music comes from two places: first, the blues, not that I play the blues straight up, but blues music is, in my opinion, the most concise and emotional portrayal of the human experience, and I try to remember that when I’m writing.  Second, from Seattle, growing up surrounded by such a rich indie music heritage has definitely colored (or coloured for my Lymie friends!) my tunes.

How long have you been playing music?

About Ten Years.

Tell us about 'The Art Of Escaping', your new EP. What are the songs about?

'The Art of Escaping' is about the push and pull of my life and life in general, the comings and goings, the way we move around in search of an independent identity, often times only to realize that nothing is independent. That’s what its about but that sounds complicated, and its not all that complicated, and I think that realization itself is maybe what the EP is really about.

How do you go about writing the music?

I don’t really have a method. Inspiration is a fickle mistress.

Who would be in your dream band?

My dream band would probably be a band with my good friends, there’s nothing like gettin’ funky with your homies. But if your talking about an all-star team, I’d have Levon Helm on drums (The Band), Chester Thompson on Keys (Tower of Power), Aretha Franklin singing, Bill Withers singing backup and playing Rhythm Guitar, and me on tambourine giggling in the back left corner of the stage.

Are those your key influences as well? Or are there other people who mean a lot to you, musically or otherwise?

These are definitely influences of mine, and all musicians with shelf-life, the one true goal of any self-respecting musician.  Paul Simon is a hero of mine as well.

You sang on some of the Beat Connection tracks. How do you guys know each other? And what was it like working with BC?

I live with my good friends Jordan and Reed in a big house with six other friends in Seattle.  It’s as fun as it sounds. Jordan asked me to sing on some tracks, so we busted out the mic and it turned out great. Those guys really have their ducks in a row; I’m really happy for them and grateful to have been a part of it.

What are your plans for the rest of year?

I want to play a lot, shows and such, and just get in front of as many people as I can. Also, I’m putting out an EP with the rock band I’m in called “The Doldrums”. I got to say, we’re almost done mixing and it sounds really good. We cook.

Finally, are there any records/labels/artists/etc that you're particularly enjoying at the moment?

I’m deep into Taj Mahal right now.  The man’s a stone cold boss. “Naches Blues” and “Giant Steps/ De Ole Folks at Home” are two records I think everyone needs to hear.  “I used to be down… Now I ain’t down no more!”. So good.

You can NAME YOUR PRICE for 'The Art Of Escaping' on bandcamp.

Week #18: Phill Most Chill / Various Cruelties / Debukas

These weekly posts are usually reserved for relatively new-sprung and unestablished acts looking to build upon their burgeoning success. I'm fairly certain Phill Most Chill is never going to be famous, however. It's a shame, because he's possibly the most underrated hip hop artist of all time. I feel incredibly stupid for only having discovered him last week.

The track which enlightened me was 'Neva Stop Diggin' (above), a superbly funky Paul Nice collaboration driven by an old skool beat, overlayed with some slick wordplay: 'people think I'm a weirdo, I don't care though'. The outcome is too retro for words. I love it. Rather impressively (to me, at least), he's been making lo-jams out of Philadelphia since the late 70s. He is, quite literally, a long lost hero. A new LP entitled 'All Cuts Recorded Raw' in due in June (trailer below). You can also check out his uber-cool blog 'THAT REAL SCHITT' here.

London's Various Cruelties are a completely different proposition altogether — indeed, they only formed a few months ago. Their songs veer from dynamic, Motown-lite boogie woogie ('Cold As You') to downbeat surf-pop ('If It Wasn't For You') to stadium-sized anthems ('Chemicals'). They're certainly all-encompassing.

The tune which really hits the spot is newbie 'Neon Truth'. It's the most overtly RAWKING of the lot, but also the catchiest. Led by Liam O'Donnell's soulful harmonies, suffused with deep instrumentation, the band parade a heck of a lot of promise. It's released as a single on May 23rd via Almanac Recordings.

Finally, I introduce Debukas, the latest solo outing of a Glasgow-based experimentalist whose real name I cannot ascertain. This man may be a deliberately illusive little bugger, but he also conjures up some pretty groundbreaking jams. Blending retrospective sounds akin to influences as varied as Carl Craig and Yello, his music oozes a warmth and depth that's very hard to find elsewhere in contemporary electronica.

His new EP is fantastic. At some junctures it's eerie, at others jazzy, others even hypnotic. 'Set Myself On Fire' is the standout. You can stream the entire EP (released May 30th) below. I also urge you to check out his remix of Wild Beasts' 'Hooting & Howling' — it's sick.