Are Biffy Clyro big? If the press release sandwiched into this singles collection is to believed (and why ever not?) the Scottish three-piece have exploded thanks to the catalyst of their latest album Puzzle, so much so that this compilation has been put out for newcomers / bandwagon-liggers that are too moral to download their older bits and bobs off the Hype Machine or Limewire. Last time I left the band, with 2004’s Infinity Land, they were receiving about the same MTV2 airplay as, say, the Futureheads. Having found them generally incompatible with my tastes of the day (say, the Futureheads), I shelved that album, and never deigned to pay attention to the band again.

It’s all change on the Biffy front these days though: they’ve bagged support with the Stones and terrorized the charts both single and album, and they are no longer solely admired by that disturbingly zealous circle of supporters they based their mammoth toilet-venue tours of old upon. While only the deaf will claim the band haven’t mainstreaminated their sound on Puzzle’s singles, the band have stuck with their quite-loud-quite-loud-veryfuckingloud dynamics (as perfected by Fugazi and Pixies and their most common touchstones, Nirvana) throughout their career. While this allows a sense of continuity to this tacked-together retrospective, the quality of the band’s output is decidedly more patchy.

The included older tracks, from the band’s debut, contain about as many good ideas as a lemming’s day out at the beach. They do a good impression of sounding like Seafood, if Seafood were superfluous and snooze-inducing. The more enjoyably jerky mid-era numbers are all old school Idlewild with their big-as-the-Scottish-Highlands choruses and warped lead riffs (Toys Toys Toys Choke, Toys Toys Toys being the most entertainingly screamy song on the album). Infinity Land big hitters “Glitter and Trauma” and “My Recovery Injection” are accessible, and nigh-on danceable, without sounding compromised. Fun videos too, if my memory of the NME Chart Show hold true.

The real reason this album has been pieced together, it seems, is to save new fans discovering the more tedious and derivative facets of Biffy Clyro’s back catalogue. In this goal at least, it succeeds.

New York-based duo Ratatat have come a long way in the last few years. Two albums, two remix compilations and a few international tours have seen their profile grow and grow, and with the release of their third album, that trajectory does not look like stopping any time soon. I spoke to producer/synth wizard Evan Mast soon after the band finished a brief tour of the southern hemisphere. “It’s a crazy feeling – that’s about as far away from home as you can possibly get, it’s pretty amazing to go there, that people will actually show up to see a show.” This is not the first time that they have travelled this far: “we played there like a year and a half before that, planting seeds there, and the crowds are getting a little bigger.” In Australia the boys found themselves paired up by the promoter with “a band called Regurgitator. I don’t think they’re really known outside of Australia, but they’re huge over there, they’re like a big 90s rock band, like the Soundgarden of Australia or something.” On the other end of the scale, they supported a little known French act called Daft Punk last year. “I got to hang out with Thomas after the show, super nice guy, really cool guy.” Evan was very impressed with the family atmosphere the robots maintained backstage, with friends and family joining them on tour. Around the same time, Daft Punk produced a short mix for Luis Vuitton’s Autumn collection, in the middle of which they dropped Ratatat’s Lex. “It was amazing. I’ve been a fan of Daft Punk for years, so to have them use one of our tracks in that DJ set, yeah that was pretty huge.” Not only that, but, in an interview with Pitchfork, Daft Punk namechecked the New Yorkers as one of their favourite acts of the moment. “I was just kind of blown away by that.”

All of this couldn’t help but bring attention their way, so what better time to get working on a new album. Due out this summer, LP3 is a shimmering mixture of sounds from across the world, no doubt inspired by their extensive touring over the last two years. “I was watching a lot of movies before we went into the studio, I was listening to all kinds of music.” Mast does not necessarily look to other artists for a starting point, more than that it seems a question of listeners finding shades of influences at the other end. “I think it just comes out, it’s really hard to trace. You make songs, and there’s new sounds and new ideas coming out.” As far as the production process is concerned, it’s an organic process from start to finish. Sitting on a tour bus isn’t all about sleeping for some people, as Mast found himself putting together an assortment of drum beats as building blocks for what would become the next album. “We had all those times in the tour van, this amazing van that had a little table in the back, sit there with your laptop and work on shit, that was really cool. So I had probably 30 or 40 beats before we went into the studio ready to go.” Once the beat is there, the boys take a DIY approach to assembling the track, as they “just start playing over it, whatever instruments that are around, and when something sounds good record it, and then start playing another instrument over the top,” and so on. With LP3 however, a number of tracks have grown out of a more delicate approach: “there was a bunch of songs that we started with piano parts or organ parts or something rather than beats.”

Another venture which has brought a lot of attention their way is their series of hip-hop remixes, something which, despite their distance from the community, is borne out of hip-hop itself: “I think the hip-hop community is open to that kinda thing, they put out twelve inches with just the acappella on the B-side, so they’re expecting people to use it as mashups in their DJ sets or whatever. I think it’s pretty much in line with what they’re expecting.” He imagines that to date most artists are unaware these remixes exist, but even so it’s not something that their labels will need to fight off. “I’m sure if we were printing up proper CDs and selling them for 12 bucks at amazon.com they would have something to say about it, but we’re not really making money off it.” Their approach to creating these remixes is a little different, as they “come together much more quickly, cause you can get away with a lot of repetition in a hip-hop track. I feel like our hip-hop remixes are like a third of the ideas of a Ratatat song.” Experimenting outside of their own material also affords them the opportunity to have more fun and indulge in a certain level of playfulness. “Making those songs a lot of times it was more about just trying to understand hip-hop production,” as well as attempting “certain things where you might pull a cheesy little drum drop, it’s sort of a hip-hop thing that we wouldn’t do in a Ratatat song, but it works in that context.”

When I asked him about how each remix came about, he was refreshingly honest: “Initially, the first mixtape, is a lot of stuff we just did for fun. A lot of it wasn’t really songs we were into, for the sake of someone rapping on the beat we used what we had. We got a little pickier with the second one but I wasn’t that into that Kanye West track that was on the second one [Diamonds], but it worked really well with the beat.” While these remixes may have slipped under most artists’ radars, there are some who have expressed an interest: “We did an interview with Beanie Sigel a couple of years ago after we made the first mixtape, and he had heard the track and I guess was really into it. And I’d heard through a friend that Bun B was really into the second volume. But I never really trust when I hear stuff. If I ever meet Bun B and he tells me directly that he likes it I’ll be happy.”

Ratatat’s last performance in Ireland came at the Electric Picnic in 2007, a bizarre experience for the band. “We arrived on the day that we played so we didn’t get to see a whole lot, we pretty much just played. It was insane, we played in Barcelona at 5 in the morning or something, and got on a plane and flew to Electric Picnic and had an afternoon set there, so we were completely delirious for the rest of that evening.” That is not to say his brief stay in Stradbally was anything other than positive. “We met some really weird dudes backstage who were just talking non-stop, it was a really weird night actually.” As for their next performance in Ireland, who knows? “I haven’t really seen the upcoming tour schedule yet, but I think there’s a pretty good chance of us coming back to Dublin. If not in July then in the fall for sure.” Here’s hoping.

When it comes to rolling out the promotional wagon to campaign for one of your label’s stalwarts, only Warp could come up with something quite as geeky and simplistically ingenuous as the rollout for trip-hop pioneers Nightmares On Wax’s new album “Thought So…”. Trust me for a second and click here, and observe the irresistable delights of the NoW online game. Not entirely unlike SNES conoisseur’s choice “Kirby’s Dream Course“, the Thought So game is accompanied by streaming, steaming tracks from the Ibiza-based two-piece’s latest offering. Strangely though, the game is decidedly more addictive than the new material.

For more tangible Nightmares action, park yourself in front of your laptop tomorrow night (20th August) about half past 7 for a live stream of the album’s Ibiza launch party, over on ibizasonica.com’s rather slick site. Or, if you’re one of our 6 readers on the Balearic island, get yer shorts on and head down to the Ibizarocks hotel for a free launch party.

Personally, I’ll be trying to beat my high score of 2,600.

That Teenage Feeling - The Genealogy Of Our Tastes In Music

Adolescence, in case you’ve either forgotten yours or haven’t actually reached it yet and have heard only frightening rumours about it, is a tough time. Not only do we have to start worrying about the daunting cosmetics aisle in the supermarket and a traumatic enough spate of Miracle Gro-like bodily happenings to put Des Lynam off his hyacinths, but we have to begin the somewhat extensive job of painting our identity from top to bottom in the hope that we can invite people in and they won’t be too put off by the Pokemon wallpaper we haven’t quite gotten around to stripping off yet. For most of you reading this wonderful issue of Analogue, and for all of those who contributed to making it so wonderful, one of the main factors in our creation of our unique identities is the music we listen to, that we obsess over, scribble the lyrics of on the back of A4 pads, listen to on the bus to our school trips to Bundoran, make CDs of for our friends and bemoan wasting our childhood without.

As I flicked through a dust-covered stack of diamond cases recently I realized what a vast pile of albums I’ve amassed over the past six years that I never so much as consider part of my current taste, let alone listen to. I scoffed at how I was fooled by the NME into buying Razorlight’s first album like a deaf twat. After putting the scratched CD on though I apprehended that no red-top magazine, no matter how hypnotically brainwashing, could force me to memorize every word of it, record tapes of it for my first girlfriend and make me feel as giddily happy as it did. At the time I discovered it I felt I was on to something nobody else was, because nobody in my year knew Johnny Borrell from the next banjax-faced longhair.

And as “Up All Night” spun through it’s hackneyed and half-arsed pop-rock a sadness that I couldn’t attribute to the masochistic audience I was granting the music began to come over me. The more I reminisced about this album, and about the pile of albums in front of me (including oeuvres from Franz Ferdinand, The Thrills, Keane, and that seminal teenage-dreams band Ash) the more and more I felt a niggling echo in my chest: I have connected with so few albums and so few bands the way I connected with those in front of me. It wasn’t a case of sepia-tinted glasses, where I hyperbolized my affection for long-forgotten listening experiences - I truly obsessed about these bands and about their songs, every aspect of their songs in a way I have done with only the most extraordinary of bands since my taste became less singularly devoted to what Conor McNicholas and his evil hack-drones dictates. I’ve swallowed up Kraftwerk, Funkadelic and Jurassic 5, sure, but these are bands with massive catalogues of even-more-massively acclaimed albums. Keane were, on the other hand the sound of wet paint drying. And yet I was as zealously attached to their Hopes and Fears as I am to Trans-Europe Express now.

Why has my attachment to bands faded as my infatuation with music as a whole has grown? Is it a case of casting too strong a critical eye on anything remotely hyped as better-than-decent? Was my early experience of music just a giddy headrush that has worn off over time? Growing cynicism, adaption to the instant gratification culture of the internet, too much music and too little time? I had to find out what other’s experience from their adolescence up in their relationship with their music is. And who better to ask than the most zealous of the zealots, the other Analogue writers themselves.

Q. Do you feel you had more of an honest, or a more direct connection with music when you were younger than you do now?

A. “Yes and no. While there was a youthful playfulness of listening to and enjoying the chart hits of the time, I can’t escape the fact that I was mainly listening to the music I was being force fed by radio playlists. There may be an element of snobbery to my tastes nowadays, but at least I know I’m seeking out and listening to the music I want to hear, rather than blindly accepting what’s shoved in my face (or ears).”

“Not when I was a young teen (13-14) but when I was 15-16 I used to get really caught up in albums, so much so that’d I’d listen to them over and over again. I got a real emotional response from them, which I never really get anymore (or at least very rarely).”

I remembered buying every single CD I flicked through; the shop I bought it from, the reason I bought it, the excitement listening to it the first time. I remembered scrounging enough pennies to buy the Killers’ Hot Fuss the day it came out on the back of “Mr. Brightside”, and poring over Anton Corbijn’s artwork, picking up the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds because Interpol’s Antics was delayed and I needed something to review for a Transition Year project, and being venemously irksome when the shop assistant behind a Golden Discs counter had no idea who Editors were, let alone why their album wasn’t in. I have very few CDs or vinyl from the bands I’ve been turned on to over the last year or so, as the internet has become my choice outlet. There’s no sense of hype generated by a magazine or by a pre-release video on MTV2, by Jenny Huston on 2FM or by a massive shop display because I tend to find the songs weeks before their release. Blogs, band’s sites, Myspace, the Hype Machine, and Last.FM recommend something I like the sound of, and I’ll have it within half an hour. Was my earlier appreciation of music more devout because of the channels through which I discovered it?

Q. Who introduced you to the bands and the music you liked then?

“My parents never “forced” much music on me – neither of them were what you’d call enthusiasts – and my brother had his own tastes but kept them to himself, so mainly I found music on the radio. By my mid-teens I was buying dance music magazines, but back in the days before blogs music wasn’t as easily accessible.”

“Friends were pretty important, but I read Q and occasionally NME and Hot Press from 14 on, so I was building my own immature picture of what was cool and what wasn’t cool to like. That gave me the notion that a finite number of deadly bands exist, and that the way to get to them is through buying music magazines.”

Of course, not every album or band I loved four or five years ago has left me. I have progressed from the bands I loved to the bands they loved. My love for Franz Ferdinand has transferred directly onto Gang of Four, the Fall and Wire, every second I spent on “Is This It” I have replaced with a minute of “Marquee Moon”. The type of song that appealed to me in my early music-listening history has graduated greatly, as it takes more and more to hold my interest. Very few of those bands I listened to survive outside of my iPod’s shuffle mode, but I can recognize that little pieces of what I loved about them, whether witty lyrics or fat-arsed synth sounds, crop up in the songs I love now.”

Q. Can you trace elements in the music you listen to now back to the music you listened to way back when?

A. “When I was growing up, you were either a raver or a grunger. If you
were a “raver” you listened to Cypress Hill, NWA and Body Count - none
of which could under any circumstance be termed rave. Grungers
listened to rock, grunge, sixties and indie. Though my musical taste
has been well crowbarred open since, I guess I still listen to much
more instrumental than electronic music, and my knowledge of hip hop
is limited to early and ‘underground’ acts.”

“Yes. A good hook, a stupid lyric always gets me”

There are some CDs in the less dusty, beside-the-bed-for-easy-access pile that I bought four or five years ago. Eels, Low, and Modest Mouse remain. These survivors are strangely predominantly those I picked up as the least-favoured of a three-for-one deal, or a half-price sale I couldn’t say no to, but I realized I enjoyed at least as much as, erm, Kaiser Chiefs. Some loves, like Bright Eyes and Grandaddy sprung up from emoticon-heavy MSN conversations, or recommendations from my tastemaking English teacher. The fanboy-like collection of Bruce Springsteen bits and bobs are direct inheritances, both taste and material-wise, from my mother. I loved him as a kid, loved him as a teen, and still love him now (still as a teen, though only for another six months). Why are some acts timeless in my taste while others have worn thin? Personally, I still discover layers of sounds and new levels of meaning, and appreciate different aspects of the artistry of bands more multi-faceted like Low and Grandaddy that I didn’t have the capability of picking up on when I was more used to in-yer-face guff like Hard-Fi. I rarely listen to bands for the memories they evoke, but approximately one night in every three months I’ll throw an older album on for pure nostalgia (can I be nostalgic when I’m only nineteen? Course.)

Q. Which are the acts that you have stuck to liking since you were young? What makes these so durable, do you think?

A. “Dandy Warhols-they’re like musical family. You can fall in and out of love with them but youre stuck to them.”

“Well I never listen to Smashing Pumpkins anymore, apart from the odd rare b-side or two. Or any other bands from that time for that matter.”

Unsurprisngly, everybody’s backstory and how they got to the hetereogenous cocktail of what they drink up today is completely different. It is clear that there are direct links between the DNA of those bands at the top of our music-listening family tree to those alive today. Like all family gene pools, of course, there are some molecules we’d rather delete. As Razorlight finished rotating I could embarrassedly find nothing to appreciate the album, or trace any function it has in my life now other than to allow me to distinguish between an aural pile of excrement and what to me is now “good music”. While in another five years I may well be writing about how nausea-inducing Animal Collective are to me and disparaging my once-upon-a-time love for Built To Spill, I feel while I may have sometimes a less emotional response to the music I listen to know, but a far greater sensoral and intellectual connection to it. And I’m still looking forward to Franz Ferdinand’s third album.

Q. If you could erase the memory of one band you liked when you were
young right now which band would it be?

A. “Stone Temple Pilots” “Simply Red” “Eternal” “Bon Jovi” “Muse” “Limp Bizkit” “Sasha” “Arcade Fire” (!)

Those ever-admirable champions of art rock in Ireland, Skinny Wolves, have lined up a wonderfully noisy October for Dubliners. Having already showcased acts like No Age, Mika Miko, Magik Markers and Les Georges Leningrad before their popularity burgeoned, be sure some of the upcoming acts appearing on SW posters around town will be gracing blogs and hype-sites a-plenty in the future.

Things kick off on the 3rd of October with the screechings of “based nowhere and residing pretty much everywhere” no-wave outfit Lovvers. Surfing the crest of the current wave of melodic noise-punk, they stir up familiar influences like the Minutemen and old-school Sub Pop with a distinctly British edge. Not to mention their seriously screwed-up EP artwork. Their blank generationisms will be on show in the Boom Boom Room with support from popular-with-earplug-manufacturers Bats and the nicely rhyming Weil Rats.

Probably the biggest name on the SW calendar is Telepathe upstairs in Whelans the next night. A tear through their hypnotic song “Chrome’s On It” is pretty much worth the ticket price alone, and horror-movie “Sinister Militia” would be a nice bonus. We won’t even hold the fact they’re mates with These New Puritans against them. Support comes from Jenny and the Deadites, who have sweetly named songs like “Amongst The Piss” and “Throne Of Blood” (Kurosawa reference?), and work some thumping industrial hip-hop beats. Think dark anticon, like Sole, except Irish, and you’re about there.

The Creeping Nobodies have been slugging out post-punk trips since 2001, so it’s a bit unfair to compare them to Liars. But they sometimes sound quite like Liars, circa 2001, but a lot more layered and erratic. Nevermind cowbells, their track “Your Likeness” utilizes samples of bovine mooing over a break, before fucking your head over with a brass breakdown towards the end. It’s not going to be a laidback ride, in other words. The faint of heart might be more comfortable with supporting violaist Anni Rossi, who has supported the Ting Tings (never heard of ‘em) on their tour amongst other plaudits. Both do a good line in percussion, and both are worth your second trip to check out the new Boom Boom Room on the 11th.

Rounding off the month’s lovely line-up on the 17th are Mahjongg, a band with a clear appreciation of Liquid Liquid, Brian Eno and David Byrne. For once I find myself agreeing with a promo sheet: “Mahjongg have chewed up their influences, spitting back a sinister musical polyglot that will reward the curious and infuriate the impatient”. They mix their sound up with some obscure African elements, but not so tokenistically as most experimental bands tend to, and sound as if they’re pretty much impossible not to dance to in a live setting. Sure we’ll just have to head up to Whelan’s to find out, won’t we?

Have a goo at the Skinny Wolves Myspace for some tracks from the upcoming artists.

Get your own - Open publication

The Irish press stalwarts have been unsurprisingly slow to react to the recent media revolution that has completely altered the manner in which we discover new music, and learn about the bands we love. In this blog-dominated landscape the most ardent music fans have grown used to a new journalistic attitude- talk to the readers, don’t talk down to them. Thus, when Analogue Magazine launched last October as a student-run publication in Dublin city centre it inherited an eager audience. Analogue transplants the energetic zeal of bloggers with none of the associated amateur design or attitude. As a magazine aimed mainly at 18-35 year olds, we’ve worked out that it maybe should be actually written by 18-35 year olds. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Galvanized by our “People’s Choice” award at the recent National Student Media Awards, we started set our sights on the rest of the island.

If you’re from the Alan Hansen school of “You can’t win anything with kids” ideology a quick flick through the newly-revamped pages of the magazine should soon have you converted. Firm believers in the power of positive writing, we treat the bands we cover the way most magazines forget to - as the very creators of art and entertainment that we’re so passionate about. Intensely personal at times, our writers still never let the focus fall from the music and the artists we love. And fortunately we love some very loveable artists. Of the acts that have already graced our glossy pages Deerhoof, Animal Collective, Final Fantasy, The Shins, LCD Soundsystem, Broken Social Scene, Radiohead, Arcade Fire and CSS are just a few. Always keen to promote the bands close to our heart, but perhaps far from an Irish audiences’ ears, we’ve also set aside plenty of space for bands deserving of more attention, whether from our fair island or elsewhere.

When we’re not blagging backstage passes for a quick ten-minute chat with a visiting band we spend our time writing album reviews, retrospectives, and features covering topics as far-flung as negative space in Japanese electroacoustics or the appreciation of Scandanavian pop. Such diversity is no surprise given the mixed bag of music aficionados (read: nerds) that make up our team. Some vow by French electro, while others are noise-rock fetishists. Thankfully this leads not just to inter-writer fights over the merits of our favourite bands, but to an overall vast range of tastes catered for in the magazine.

Forever forward-thinking, Analogue is not happy to remain just a magazine. Our online presence has already received massive plaudits. Rather than simply digitizing our print articles we write even more content just for our .com, and the site’s popularity has already picked up shout-outs from massive sites such as North American taste-makers Pitchfork. The launch of the magazine will coincide with two new projects from under the Analogue umbrella. Firstly a very-specially filmed vidcast of baroque pop multi-instrumentalist outfit Gran Casino in action will be making its way to our aforementioned wonderful website. Our second exciting new means of getting fantastic new music into your ears is the inclusion of 1000 copies of “Maple Drive”, the debut album of the inimitable Irish electronica artists Storkboy Choons and Colours Move, dispersed throughout our 10,000 magazines to be distributed nationwide.

Oh yeah. And it’s all completely, utterly, and uncompromisingly free of charge. And it always will be. Viva Analogue, the future of Irish independent music journalism.

This weekend past was something of the foreplay to next weekend’s orgiastic meltdown of Dublin’s gig overload. With Deerhunter, Dan Deacon, Fleet Foxes, Beach House, White Williams, Jape, High Places and some lad who ripped off that Jack L song “Hallelujah” all vying for attention on Saturday alone. Last weekend was a gentle stroke on the leg and coy look in comparison to this forthcoming veritable laneway ride. But as any glossy mag will tell you, sometimes the build-up’s the best part.

Providing the aforementioned coy looks on Friday evening in the soon-to-be-a-pile-of-cement Andrew’s Lane were five Swedish ladies that, rather frighteningly, are actually younger than me. Those Dancing Days is a particularly suitable band name for the Scandavian troupe, as they ply their trade in the nostalgia-steeped shiny-happy-people songs that one can dance like a camp badger to. And indeed a frenzy of camp-badger-dancing was on show as the girls tore through their simplistic, though instantly memorable catalogue of killer choruses and melancholy lyrics. You’ve seen this all before, and certainly prominently from Sweden (see Shout Out Louds and PBJ for reference points), though possibly never pulled off with such charming exuberance as guitarist Cissi Edraimsson (who receives an extra cheer upon leaving the stage) and keyboardist Mimmi Evrell seep. The band are visibly thrilled with each song they complete, as if the whole show might fall apart any second. Given the rough edges shown live that aren’t on show in their super-smooth single releases to date perhaps they’re right to be so worried. The band ooze potential, and will no doubt enjoy swooning previews with words such as “twee”, “uplifting” and “please let me elope with you” upon their second Irish visit (whereupon they may realize they’re not in Scotland. Bless.)

Saturday night is more serious business. Given that the Notwist are commonly referred to as the “German Radiohead”, their Button Factory gig coinciding with their Oxford counterparts is somewhat problematic calendar-wise. Nevertheless, the venue was nigh-on filled out with Neon Golden-devotees. The Radiohead comparison, it must be said, isn’t a lazily-made one. The Notwist’s balance of intelligent beats and attention to texture, combined with their tendency to rip three shreds of shite out of their guitar at the most spontaneous moments is their calling-card. The gulf between older, more guitar driven noise attacks sit somewhat awkwardly with newer, IDM/ambient tracks is stark at times, though within songs the melding of synth, sampler, guitar, drums and vocals fold together as organically as imaginable. Their set is surprisingly bare of tracks from latest album “The Devil You + Me”, though Boneless is a highlight. The band mined Neon Golden dry, and also dug up some gems from earlier albums. These were the ones that lasted two minutes and left one with a mild headache when finished. A fluid and funky version of Pilot saw the band at their darkly glorious best in a somewhat toploaded set that meant interest may well have dropped off for the non-ardent fans of the band towards the end. There was something detached and somewhat personality-free about the band, communicating as little as possible (although electronics man Console’s use of a Nintendo Wii remote to trigger his pedals and samplers clearly makes him too cool to have to talk to anybody, ever.)

Impersonality is not an accusation that can be levied at Evangelicals, who brought their fucked up psychadelia to an almost-empty Whelans on Sunday night. With a singer that could well be Rich Hall’s acutely camp twin brother, a guitarist with a sparkly cape and seriously intriguing altered trousers, a bassist who is Johnny Borrell (is), a drummer who might just well be their dad and some well-placed soft porn on their equipment, the Oklahoma-based band wear their singularity on their sleeve. I found their recent album, The Evening Descends, esoteric at first, enthralling after a second listen, and an entertaining, though not always attractive experience thereafter. Their live show was much the same, minus the “first listen” part. Clearly not phased by the fact the crowd was tiny, or that their equipment was banjaxed (”D strings are for pussies!” quoth frontman Josh Jones) bounced through their spasmodic, disorientating and often downright delirious songs with all the excitement of a caffeine-fuelled guinea pig. The melody that sometimes has to be searched for on record came through more clearly live, and the raw power even more potent. Proof as if we needed any, that oddballs are always the most entertaining

One final thought from a certain Tripod gig on Monday night: How in the name of Guus Hiddink does Stephen Malkmus know who the fuck Ruud Van Nistelrooy is?

Photos courtesy of the lovely Cait Fahey, Turgidson and Loreana Rushe respectively.

In my inbox this morning was a heartwarming Monday-morning surprise. Analogue under-rated indie favourites The Antlers are free-releasing a new EP, New York Hospitals to coincide with the NY-based After The Jump Fest this 21st of June. In ringleader Pete Silberman’s own press-released words the EP consists of “Two covers from New York-ish bands from around 1999 surround an original, entitled “Sylvia (An Introduction)”, intended to introduce the focus of the soon to be completed Hospice LP.” Last time we talked, Silberman chatted about his burgeoning My Bloody Valentine affections, and their influence can be heard seeping through the EP, as the three songs absolutely drip with reverb and ethereal vocals. Yet the New Yorker’s high-frequency vocals and increasingly orchestral compositions lend a particularly singular sound to a record with more cover material than original.

“Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing”, from the Magnetic Fields seminal 69 Lovesongs filters the song through some Mazzy Star aesthetics to spectral effect (get used to thesaurus-ized versions of the word “haunted” for this blog entry… comes up quite a bit). It is a deceivingly hopeful opener, and one look at the lyrics set the song up for an impending darkness. Silberman’s lyrics complete the Herculean challenge of matching the haunted chill Merritt’s own words invoke with second song “Sylvia (Introduction)”. He sings in his Elliot Smith-like vibrato ostensibly about Sylvia Plath (It made you crawl under that house/And stick your head under the stove), possibly from the point of view of Ted Hughes. Rather though, it seems like a personal allegory for a Plath-like person in his own life, and the spectres they carry through their lives. Their inability to cope with mortality at an early age “makes you sting/…makes you want to kill“, and Silberman, or Silberman’s character struggles to understand his Sylvia’s morose pain. Set against the same sea of reverb “Sylvia (Introduction)” is otherworldly enough to keep Yvette Fielding in business.

The closing Yo La Tengo cover, “Tears In Your Eyes” from And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out acts as a sort of desperate attempt to save the aforementioned Sylvia, with it’s assurances that “Darkness always turns into the Dawn.” A beautiful rendition, if not somewhat unmemorable, rounds a short EP off with the commendable feat of actually engaging with the source material of the songs Silberman has produced here, and is a promising opening salvo from forthcoming sixth album Hospice. Mind you, if it’s this macabre in the New York Hospital, I’ll be needing a much bigger thesaurus for the Hospice…

Get the EP here.

In Rainbows: However much you want (read: free)
Radiohead ticket: €70.70
Ticket charge: €3.50
Transport to Malahide Castle: €1.05—> €25
Merchandise (incl. “Yorkie: Not For Girls” t-shirt and ironically empty “In Rainbows” wallet ): €10—-> €100
“Chips” and “Cheeseburger”: €9
Inflatable sofa (for the less able-bodied fan): €20
Token Bat For Lashes headband so you fit in: €7.50 (try Claire’s Accessories)
Booze: €Whatever’s left in your wallet x however many times you want to use a portaloo.

Free Jape instore gig in Tower Records at 6 o clock: Fucking priceless.

Ciaran Smith, chief of Dublin-based three-piece Crayonsmith, is an excitable man. His tongue trips over itself as he tries to relate all his ideas and his answers, and he worries sometimes if he’s said the right thing. His thoughts can be seen effervescing like a roughly-shaken can of Club Orange after each question and he answers everything insightfully and sharply, referencing Gaudi as easily as Les Savy Fav while not coming across like, well, a wanker. He has reason to be excited of course. His sophomore effort, White Wonder, does not suffer from a slump but an upsurge of refreshing ideas and masterful execution, and the band are about to set off on a transatlantic flight to tour with Islands in America. We recently talked about the upcoming tour, anticon, inspiration, Out On A Limb and that album cover.

You’re supporting Why? this week and Islands on their American tour, which are pretty big coups- How do you feel supporting bands that influence your own sound?

It’s an honour, I guess. You’re delighted that somebody out there, either somebody in the band, or their promoter, recognizes the similarities between the music and thinks “Yeah, these guys would fit.” With Why? it’s Foggy Notions that picked us, and we’re totally grateful for that, and with Islands it was Nick Thorburn, we kinda know each other from the last time they played here. We hung out in Whelans afterwards, and stayed drinking at the bar all night, and he said he’d love to do a tour. We talked about different producers we liked, and different filmmakers, and records we loved and stuff and found we’d similar interests.

And is that the same thing that happened before with the other bands you’ve supported in America?

Yeah. It’s like, if you like somebody’s music, get in touch with them and tell them you love their music, say thanks for the positive influences, and ask if it’s OK for you to send an album, as a thank you or whatever. That’s what happened with Sparklehorse, and Casiotone For The Painfully Alone. It’s great with the whole Myspace thing that there’s no entourage between you and another artist, it’s just human-to-human.

Regarding Why?, anticon’s influence is all over your new music. What is it about anticon that you like, that you want to carry over into your music?

Between the last album and the new album, when it came to doing the beats, the guy I worked with is George Brennan, who’s in Deep Burial. He had this AKAI MPC sampler. We’d seen this DVD, this anticon tour DVD with cLOUDDEAD and he’s just hitting out beats with his fingers. It’s great if you’re into making drums sound different, or detuning things, giving it a different texture. It goes back to Beck with Mellow Gold. If you’re into that kinda stuff there’s a whole label making that music, and that’s where the template for the album came from.

The first album was quite slacker rock-influenced, did you feel sick of that kind of music in between, or did feel like you had to make yourself move on?

I think what it is, right, is you have your first album and all the bands that have influenced you up to and during the last album come out, and you kind of purge it. You’ve got all of that out of you. There’re certain bits that stay with you. In my case I’ll always veer towards melody and an interesting beat. So then when you move on to the second album and you listen to bands like Why? and Of Montreal, and Mice Parade and think “wow, this is influencing me on top of all the old influences”, and because it’s fresher you absorb all those in, and they’re there when you go to make your next album. I’m sure it’ll be the same way with album 3 or 4. It’s like Bruce Springsteen and Nebraska. He comes to the band with the songs, and they’re like “we’re not going to play on that. There’s no room, there’s no need for us to play.” You just go with the feeling at the time, and the circumstances. Also, you look back to what you’ve done before, and you don’t want to repeat yourself so you’re always trying to do something new. You have to keep yourself interested as well as everybody else.

Do you take inspiration from outside of music as well?

Yeah. I’m mad about nature, about movement. Gaudi said “Everything comes from the book of nature”, and it’s true. Whatever has been produced has occurred in nature, now it’s just documented. The Microphones use the studio so that you hear things like wind going through the music, it’s anything to represent what’s around you, what turns you on in the world.
Socializing is another one. Going out and drinking. But, that’s not in a… not in a…

Not in an Arctic Monkey’s way?

No, exactly. More like the idea of people releasing, they get their lives back at the end of the week and there’s a giddiness with people within this free time, they get to be fully themselves. There’s a certain energy when people get together. It’s how bands happen. People want to do something with their free time. I’m into how people integrate, and bounce off one another.

Is there any difference between Irish and American audiences, do you find, from having played extensively over there?

On the American tour with Mt. Eerie and Casiotone it was 14 dates from Vancouver down to LA, and the gigs were everywhere. In a house, in a clothing store, in venues. From my experience from there compared to here, there’s more of a can-do attitude there. Whereas here people associate quality with a certain established venue. We’ve played house gigs here in Ireland and I thought they were great, and they don’t happen enough. Ireland is so small that we’ve played pretty much every venue, and we don’t get offered house shows. Whereas in America you get offered to play and the gig can happen anywhere. That’s why we’re going to do these shows with Islands, and if we weren’t doing them, we’d be going back ourselves. I guess it’s because America’s so much bigger that you can have houses big enough in different towns along the coast. Here you’ll be lucky to get a house show every few months. There’s that whole scene in Kilcoole though they have house shows all the time.

The DIY hardcore punk scene?

Yeah, so I don’t know that our music exactly fits that. But I’m amazed by it. 16 and 17 year olds are putting on these gigs, and it’s totally independent of Dublin. They won’t pay more than 10 quid for a show in Dublin, which is how it should be I suppose.

Steve Shannon produced the album, what was it like working with him?

Very good, very good. Before we even recorded the album we’d been playing the songs for a year, just to make sure everything was ready to go, everybody was happy with their pieces. So we brought the beat tracks that we’d made with George to Steve, put them on the computer, and he tracked them. He’d make suggestions then, like to play certain things an octave higher. He helped us realize our ideas. He’d know if something should be put through a certain filter or whatever. He had the know-how we needed, and suggestions that we brought into our songs. You can definitely hear touches of Steve on the album. There was always room for criticism both ways. It was a great experience.

You don’t seem to get an awful lot of press in Ireland considering the success you’ve amassed, I think. Do you agree?

With this album we’ve got good reviews, wherever it’s gone. We’re going to do our thing anyway, and if people are coming to our gigs that what matters. Press can help and all, but if they’re not into it we still have the Myspace and stuff. Since we told people about the Islands support our profile views have jumped double, we’re getting comments from Americans and there’s no press there. It’s hands-on, DIY work, like sending bulletins to fans of Islands and stuff. You do your thing, and if the press want to get on board, cool, if not, if it’s not their cup of tea and that’s cool. If both the press and the people aren’t into you, then you have to ask yourself questions, you know?

You’re on Out On A Limb, what’s that like as a label to be on?

It’s great. In terms of our band dynamic, they’re like the business band-members. It’s totally candid, nothing is not said. If something has to be dealt with, it’s dealt with. Nothing’s put on the backburner. It’s always moving, it’s like a 24 hour shop, somebody’s always chipping away.

Do you ever feel like if you wanted to get bigger you’d have to move on from the label?

We’re totally happy where we are at the moment. If the time comes when we’re asked to make a jump, we’ll ask how we can keep Out On A Limb onboard, how can money go to them, because we love their way of working. That’s probably totally idealistic, but I’ve heard too many horror stories of bigger labels where the person who signs them loves them, but then when they’re moved on the person who takes their place doesn’t like the band. It fluctuates. Whereas with Out On A Limb the lads love every band that’s on the label. Grassroots is all we know for the moment, we seek refuge in that because it’s workmanlike. A needs to be done, B needs to be done. Has it been done and has it been done? If you call somebody you get an answer straight away, there’s no waiting on emails or anything in between.

Was the helmet D.A.D.D.Y’s idea?

Yeah! The day before the photo-shoot the guy who was doing it, Mike, told me he had this idea to do a lo-fi version of a high-brow painting, like a goofy version of Joan of Arc. So they brought me into the prop room of D.A.D.D.Y. and they had this white kind of bunny suit, and it had been made from bathmats. Mike had just been in Smyths and he brought back a rubber sword and helmet and breastplate and stuff. I didn’t even question it. I said he could do whatever he wanted, as long as it’s not a standard Irish album cover. It’s one of those things that sticks, I suppose. So at the album launch I wore the suit and helmet and it was a pain in the whole. It’s so sweaty. These things flap all over the place and hit you and… But it adds a mania to the gig. If you’re just about holding the whole thing together it adds excitement. Pavement were famous for it.

Are you going to continue wearing it?

We’re debating whether to bring it to America with us or not. The other lads aren’t in costumes so it’s a bit like the Super Furry Animals or the Flaming Lips. Or maybe it can be like Les Savy Fav, where the lead singer Tim Harrington can just do whatever he wants and the other bandmembers are just in their shirt and jeans, it could work from that angle. So I’ll keep you posted about that.

We could do a tour diary from the helmet…

Exactly, that’d be great.

So where to from here?

We’re working our jobs for the next month to get money together for America, for the tour with Islands. Then we’re going to try and focus on America for the next year or so. We’ve been given this golden opportunity. We’ll be playing to over 12000 people over those 14 dates and hopefully we’ll get offers from other bands to do tours with them. We’ll do a tour in between in Ireland to bolster the profile. People will be coming on board hopefully having heard the album since the launch, around September or October.

Do you feel like you do need to break internationally? Is Ireland too small?

It is, yeah. You do your first year or two of gigs here, and see how that goes, and you might get offered Oxegen or Electric Picnic. But at the same time, I don’t see what the point is to just be big in Ireland. Nobody makes music for exclusively one country, it’s meant to be universal, international. You have to push yourself. Each country is a new challenge. We use Ireland like our base, do our tours here, but try to play in other countries as much as here.

Do you think it’s a case that Irish acts are too comfortable being successful in their little clique, or is it just genuinely so difficult to establish a foothold in Europe or America?

I don’t know. Jape is doing well. He’s broken out in Europe. It’s the whole “who-you-know” thing I suppose, in a sense. But some acts are just satisfied to fill out Whelan’s every couple of months, and that’s all cool and all, but don’t you want to go somewhere else? Look at the Redneck Manifesto. They cut their teeth here, and then went off and did an amazing tour of America, and I think they’re going off to Japan next year. You have to see yourself as an export, that you can compete, or that you’re music is as good, as other bands out there. It’s not about you being the big fish in the small pond.

Jump into the ocean?

Yeah. You have to push yourself forward, or you get complacent. You can make loads of money and yet nobody in Europe or America will know you. You push and push and your music gets better, since you have more to play for.

Crayonsmith play their last Irish gig before embarking on their American tour on the 26th of May in Crawdaddy, with Mae Shi. White Wonder is available from yer usual outlets now.
Check them out at: www.myspace.com/crayonsmith