Three Men. Two Names. One Vision. No Quarter Given.

A mere one post on Chas and Dave was never enough for any self-respecting blog, but it's so sad that this second love letter to the Peacock / Hodges songwriting gold standard and the Burt beat factory has had to wait until after Dave Peacock quit the band to mark the formal end of the C n' D production line.

Here's the comp that we cobbled together in tribute.

1. "One Fing N' Annuvver". Title track of their first album proper, a typical tale of family dysfunction with Chas's throaty tones of woe ("I carry the can / 'cos my old man / ain't bothered a damn") offset by upbeat brass arrangements of the sort that Elbow would kill for, were they not such thoroughly nice people.

2. "The Sideboard Song". Or, to give it its full title, "The Sideboard Song (Got My Beer In the Sideboard Here)". One of the greatest British singles of all time, one which invented Sham 69, Madness and Britpop / cockney Blur, amongst many others. Mick Burt strikes up a steady rhythm on the skins before the joanna weaves her usual magic and the boys narrate a tale of a riven, disfigured household from the point of view of its uncomprehending paterfamilias.

3. "Rabbit". Another hit, top ten at that, remembered for its freestyle scat chorus as well as for provoking feminist rile with its description of a henpecked suitor. Whereas the original recording of this was slow and jazz-lounge funky, with Dave's bass grindingly low, the single version rattles through at punk velocity, stopping dead at 2'15 (as many of their songs did!) to leave you very much wanting more.

4. "Gertcha". The hits rain down: this, according to Chas on the Abbey Road sessions, was the first ever punk single, and he's probably right. Again, the original version ("Woortcha") was mid-paced, deliberate, dimly funky: but by the time the Rockney hit factory was ratcheting up the chart-troublers, it had become "Gertcha": another frenetic, piano-driven joyride about a family man driven to distraction by life's daily vicissitudes. When they appeared on Top Of The Pops, the BBC (round about the same time they were giving Gang Of Four grief for "At Home He's A Tourist's lyrics) forced them to remove the references in the chorus to that well-known term of abuse, "cowson". But really, it's only half the song without them.

5. "Love And Days Gone By". A change of gear: if you want proof of how ahead of their time Chas and Dave were, check this ballad, which would have fitted snugly on the most recent Orchids album.

6. "Edmonton Green". A pearler, the best track on their "Rockney" album of '77. Another slowie, it trades "Love and Days'" faint hints of MOR for lush, warm rhythms and the soothing Hodges baritone. A simply beautiful tale of one man's memories of his local community (and, as such, a companion piece to "One Fing n' Annuvver"'s magisterial opener, "Ponders End Allotments Club").

7. "Poor Old Mr. Woogie". For every hit, there's one that should have been, but unaccountably wasn't. Over decades, Chas and Dave were pretty much unsurpassed at rattling piano-led rock n'roll, as Hodges admirers from Jerry Lee Lewis to Jack Clement would testify, and no C&D collection can be complete without this, their lament for the disco craze ("Mr Boogie") having seemingly left Mr Woogie behind to face an uncertain future in penury (actually, this might explain why it didn't sell enough copies). A record fashioned with love, and it shows.

8. "Turn That Noise Down". Frivolous ? A little. But with its early-80s sub-Shakatak / Level 42 vibe giving Dave a chance to show Mark King who his daddy was, this song about (yet another) put-upon dad being narked by ungrateful offspring ("You call that music ?... I can't stand that 'orrible row") is mucho entertaining, as well as musically nifty.

9. "I Am A Rocker". Self-explanatory: another uptempo back-to-my-roots belter. Eschewing "hippy hippy tunes" (just as they would later blast the er, de-woogieing of boogie-woogie), C&D show how pub rock could - should - have taken over the world, given half a chance and a fair wind.

10. "Ballad Of The Rich". Lummee. Another classic, kinda mournful, well-rounded song from "One Fing..." (a set which could, in an admittedly narrow field, officially be the best ever non-classical, pre-Pistols album). You're certainly unlikely to find more sweetly-plucked strings this side of your favourite adagios.

11. "Margate". Relentlessly territorial, as ever (Margate was London by the seaside, so "you can keep your Costa Brava") and still concentrating on songs about the family rather than boy / girl dead-ends, the accordion-garnished "Margate" (pronounced authentically to rhyme with "target") would later be co-opted as the theme tune for Only Fools and Horses' "Jolly Boys Outing", replacing the seminal "behave yerself, Grandad" reference with "behave yerself, Uncle Albert".

12. "In Sickness And In Health". Whereas this one was an original BBC TV theme tune commission, for Johnny Speight's sequel to "'Til Death Do Us Part". Slightly dumbed down by its Wedding March segues, this is musically more end-of-the-pier, bangers n' mash fare, but again the lyrics remind you that no-one does *true* (warts-and-all) romance more tellingly than Chas & Dave.

13. "I Wish I Could Write A Love Song". Oh, but you can. Interesting fact: when Tears for Fears wrote "Mad World", later to be liltingly caressed by the Snowdrops and then soundly smothered by Gary Jules, they were thinking of the fact that Chas and Dave could release a song like this as a single and that it wouldn't even graze the top 75. This kitchen sink gem, which invented Billy Bragg, is 100% *love*: stripped down, awkward, Chas's tribute to his wife that hits all the right buttons for useless romantics like us.

14. "London Girls". Potentially cloying, hopelessly old-fashioned, from the days when even "parochial" records cast their nets wider than Bow E3 (or Barnet, if you believe Wiley's Skepta dis). But try as we might we can't shake our soft spot for the trio's tribute to the ladies of London who, we are reminded, easily out-lovely "Deutscher girls, or girls from California".

15. "Flying". Hardly their only gorgeous instrumental, but we had to get at least one of them in here, and this is one of their most gorgeous: serene, verging on meditational.

16. "Lazy Cow". Back to the straight-down-the-line rock n' roll, boogie piano and all.

17. "I Wonder In Whose Arms". The only non-C&D penned song here, as their own compositions are so generally sterling. Included because they bring to it such a dropdead affecting depth of feeling.

18. "That Old Piano". Now. With these last three songs, we are going for a roaring hat-trick finish, starting with this mournful stroll down memory lane that bulges the back of the net with more power even than C&D collaborators Ardiles and Villa. Possibly our second favourite C&D number...

19. "Ain't No Pleasing You" ...behind THIS. Cast from the same mould as "That Old Piano", this blockbuster, this barnstormer sold more copies than anyone in the current top 40 could dream of, all by dint of writing such a rollicking SONG that for once people forgot that Chas n' Dave weren't cool and just bought it (yes, actually paying money for well-crafted songs seems so old-fashioned and uncool now, too). If you've ever been in a relationship, "Ain't No Pleasing You" should still knock your little socks clean OFF.

20. "Old Time Song". Regrets, they've had a few, but oddly this is one of their earliest, pre-fame singles, and it's a platinum tear-jerker. With a string arrangement so decadently beautiful that even Elbow probably would kill for it, it hits right between the eyes. One of Chas's greatest vocal performances: you can feel the lump in his throat at the start of each verse.

There are many more tracks that we could have more than happily included, indeed probably would have done were we to make this mixtape again now: "Harry Was A Champion", "Give It Some Stick, Mick", "Ponders End...", oh, "Back In The Soul Days"... what a band, what a band.

Oh, and tracking down copies of C&D albums isn't as hard as you might fear, even though we could do with less of the revisionist / jokey / blokey sleevenotes making out that Pete Doherty having heard of them was the best thing that could ever have happened to Chas and Dave. "One Fing" has got a proper re-release; "Mustn't Grumble" and "Job Lot" have been compiled on to a single CD. "Well Pleased" and "Flying" (originally on Rockney and Bunce Records respectively - how brilliant are those label names ?) are compiled as the second half of the "From Tottenham To Tennessee" 'compilation' (with a greatest hits of sorts on CD1), while the EMI "Greatest Hits" includes the "Rockney" and "Don't Give A Monkeys" albums in full, plus the Live At Abbey Road sessions. Plenty of these can be found for a fiver or so, meaning that for twenty odd quid you can treat yourself to the best part of a hundred C&D tunes.

And life goes on: Chas And His Band will be playing a venue near you soon, no doubt. Rightly. Legends.

Make It Loud

Below, verbatim and unexpurgated, a post we wrote for last Xmas and, as usual, never got round to putting up, probably because it was a bit rubbish, but then we were writing as we were listening, no doubt high on yuletide sherry, the hint of glinting December frost and the promise of a home win on Boxing Day (which predictably enough didn't happen). We resurrect the post in this forum now because most of the music deserves drawing attention to, even if it also deserves rather more poised and fluid prose.

Since this was written: (1) a number of the bands referred to have come up with full-length albums, in some cases allowing us to plunder liberally from the text below in the other place; (2) the best band have (definitely) split up, albeit leaving a transcedent swansong; (3) it turns out that the band we thought were called "the Rotators" are actually just called plain Rot (the research dept have been disciplined accordingly); and (4) Paulo Sousa was sacked by QPR, and is now strolling the touchline at the Teen Anthems' own beloved Swansea City.

"This Christmas Kills Fascists

'Tis the season of good cheer, which means the Christmas card from us here at le palais d'in love with these times in spite of these times to thank you for your patience and online friendship this year is a much-delayed scribble on what you lot would call metal, but to be honest, it's all just music. We therefore give you, ladies and gentlemen, Relapse's "This Comp Kills Fascists" and "Slimewave: Goregrind Series" assortments, respectively a 51-track "power violence" collection and a 44-track goregrind primer, both compiled by Scott Hull off of Pig Destroyer and featuring in total 26 bands of varying fi levels never exceeding low-to-middling. "Comp" clocks in at a worryingly long 56 minutes and "Slime" at waaaay over an hour, meaning according to our basic GCSE maths skillz that each artist gets a generous four-minute slab of time in which to make an impression. The summaries below aim to keep things equally brief. Marks out of 10.

Record One: This Comp Kills Fascists

Agents of Satan (tracks 1-4)

Interesting aperitif, this: "Doomryder" is kinda singalonga-grindcore, suggesting that these guys don't take themselves too seriously - mebbe a kind of Casio-free Trencher from over the water: "Let God Sort 'Em Out" is both the shortest and best example of their frazzled noisecore ingenuity, a frantic landgrab of careering guitar. A solid start. 6.5

Weekend Nachos (tracks 5-8)

Ooh, much more NYHCish, these, even though the Nachos hail from Illinois - but if it turned out that they hadn't been listening to Cro-Mags or Youth of Today, we'd feel able to pronounce ourselves surprised. What's even better, they also sound like they might have been influenced by the slightly thrashier sort of bands that were on the US 12" on North Atlantic Noise Attack - you know, Desecration, Fear Itself, Emily's Sassy Lime (only joking on the last one). The guitars jump, dive, and from time to time *chug*, in all the right places. Nice lyrics, too. Excellent. 9.5

Kill The Client (tracks 9-11)

Much heavier and more metallic than Weekend Nachos, KTC have a name that those of us working in the service industry will fully identify with ("clients" being the inescapable modern term for those invariably needy short-fuse upstart members of the human race formerly known as "customers" or, indeed, "punters"). "False Flag Attack" starts things off with energy and aggression aplenty: they finish with "Shithouse Lawyer", a song we would like to dedicate to the legal profession generally for its dedication to killing music (sample clearance, pirate radio, delaying the "R Is For Razorcuts" by about a million years, making Firestation Tower change their name, you know the sort of thing). 6

Spoonful of Vicodin (tracks 12-17)

Ouch. Very little messing here from the Rochester boy / girl duo - there's happily nil that's self-regarding about the unlovin' Spoonful's messed up, lo-fi shoutcore, average track length 25 secs and sample title "Our Explanations Are Longer Than Our Songs", but they're more tuneful (nota bene, a relative term!) than other short-form shoutcoresters like A.C. These six tunes amply demonstrate that SoV have learned the essential secret of fine songcraft: a number should never outstay its welcome: so, 7

Maruta (tracks 18 & 19)

Hmm. A bit too serious, in this company, with structured albeit fairly detuned songs that are almost epically long in this context (erm, approaching three minutes), yet unable to achieve the dizzy heights that Skinless et al have managed in the past with similar raw materials). No disgrace, but just doesn't quite fit with the rampant - borderline insane - pace of much of the rest of the record. 5.5

Insect Warfare (tracks 20-23)


Fucking hell, these are amazing. This is grind of the late-80s school, a bewitching blast midway between the first Napalm Peel Sessions and some of Nasum's turn-of-century hommages to the "golden era" grindcore, um, outfits. "Information Economy" goes first, catching the touchpaper immediately before "Cellgraft" jumps aboard and fans the flames. And "Disassembler" is utterly astonishing - a touch of Terrorizer's "Fear of Napalm" simply in the sense that it's impossible not to dance to the rhythmic bursts of riffage (before they're mercilessly torpedoed by curt, brutal barrages of noise and vocals). In all truthfulness, the single best song of 2008. Finally, "Cancer of Oppression" sees the Texans mash it up a little, a towering, tottering groove before the blastbeats re-emerge. Sublime stuff, really. There seems to be a suggestion that the band have now split up, but that's too depressing for us to contemplate right now - America (and the world) need Insect Warfare. 10, and even that's a bit harsh.

Shitstorm (tracks 24-29)

Very impressive, this lot, following on from their refreshing split LP with Magrudergrind last year: the first five ditties, lovably brutish mini-anthems all, clock in at under 30 seconds each, the opening "Paranoid Existence" and "Burning Alive" being especially bracing, before the 'Storm conclude with piece de resistance, "Mince Meat Human", a fully-fledged 57 seconds' worth of rock. 9.5

Man Will Destroy Himself (tracks 30 & 31)

"Fuse", as it would need to be following all that, is bright as a button, the sort of song that might be ripe for "Leaders Not Followers 3", if ever we were granted that audio fantasy. 6.5

Total Fucking Destruction (tracks 32-34)

We spat a few words out on Brutal Truth spin-off TFD last year, so you know what to expect here: rather than straight-down-the-line noise power, TFD like to mess things up *a lot*, meaning these 3 tracks provide a soupcon of light and shade in what is otherwise a procession of super-bpm power. The titles - "Human Is the Bastard", "In the Process of Correcting Thinking Errors" and "Welcome to the Fascist Corporate Wastelands of America, Pt. 1" - perfectly reflect the content. 7

Chainsaw To The Face (tracks 35-38)

More unreconstructed, choppy shortcore grind. "Hating Life" and "Skewered" are like being tackled by Norman Hunter and punched by Billy Bremner at the same time as Peter Lorimer lines up a 20-yarder straight into your crown jewels. If we had to choose a favourite it would be "Burnt to Death", although "Ripped In Half" gets close with its moshworthy intro. 9

Magrudergrind (tracks 39-41)

Ooh yes. As we're coming to expect with this bunch from DC, a trio of very high quality numbers. "Heavy Bombing" tops the lot, joyful grindcore stylings whose meandering riffola culminates in a quickly-barked tribute to the many joys of graffiti. Absolutely belting. 9.5

Brutal Truth (tracks 42-45)

And talking of Brutal Truth, they're *back*, notwithstanding band member dalliances with TFD or the awesome - we use this word advisedly and in its correct sense - Venomous Concept. "Turmoil" is the pick of these Noo York gems, a kick up the Rs that could teach Paolo Sousa a thing or two. 7.5

ASRA (tracks 46-48)

Blokes with a bit of a thing about disease: "Chytridiomycosis" and "Cancer" refer. "Pig Squealer" is better, but only really because its title reminds us of the end of the first episode of Porridge. All fair enough then, but a little joyless compared to the swirly impishness of Agents of Satan or the Vicodin guys. 6

Wasteoid (tracks 49-51)

Not precisely a whimper, but nothing classic to end on. Their inspiration tends to end with the song titles ("Drink N Hand", "Bangover" and "Handcuffed and Fucked"): our inspiration dries up here. 5.5

Record Two: Slimewave

Straight alphabetical tracklist this time... thought occurs that if they'd done this on C86 it would have started with A Witness, biG*fLAME and Bogshed. Probably. Which would have been sheer heaven.

Antigama (tracks 1-3)

Mmm, more shouty blokes, apparently from Warsaw. "I Know You Want Something", they coo. And "Softer" isn't. 5

Bathtub Shitter (track 4)

Just the one track from the Japanese veterans, which seems very decadent in the circs, a bit like Civilised Society only having one on North Atlantic Noise Attack. This one's called "World Dune Hole" and it ambles along to a crusty groove, a bit like Unsane heard through a thick wall. 5.5.

Cripple Bastards (tracks 5-9)

We reckon all these tracks are on their FETO LP, "Variante Alla Morte", anyway, which is actually a pretty good LP, even if the longer tracks are actually much more disposable than the ten or so sub-five second ones - the band tend to get lost in the rather unappealing fantasies that they reflect in the drawn-out songs, while the short bursts often seem remarkably poetic aswell as recalling, yep, Napalm Death's first Peel Session, the template on which all radio sessions ever should properly be based. The Bastards have come a long way since those early demos of theirs that you can hear on "Grind Your Mind": compared to those, these productions might as well be Eno and Lanois. Of the five merry melodies on display, "Implaceabile Verso Il Suo Buio" is pretty much the highlight. In summary: slightly short of cigar, get the album instead. 6.5

Inhume (tracks 10-11)

Ooh, this is pretty neat. Very neat. Kind of lo-fi crustgrind from Holland which chugs along oddly serenely, well as serenely as lo-fi crustgrind can without overstretching the boundaris of language. The singing reminds us a bit of Mortician: it certainly isn't human, sounding more like a dog, or possibly a dinosaur. Actually, the chilling 'vocal' bit at the end of the mighty "Moulding The Deformed" doesn't sound like any creature that's ever inhabited God's earth. Hear it, believe it. 8.5

Japanische Kampfhorspiele (tracks 12 to 16)

Clean, angular, if slightly unhinged grind-type nuggets as we leap twixt borders again, this time to Germany (you'd probably guessed that much). "Der Westen Ist Geschockt" and "Das Metalcore Konzert" are the pick, probably just for having the best titles. There's also a rather pointless instrumental before things round off with the obligatory 30-second number, "Mann Dreht Mann Durch Fleischwolf". 6

Machetazo (tracks 17 to 19)

There are a lot of excellent Spanish bands out there, but we're not sure Machetazo are quite amongst them: they seem a little too fond of rubbishy horror-flick samples. We'll stick with the pure grindcore of Looking For An Answer et al. Oh, and the joyous pop of Zipper, of course. 5.5

Mumakil (tracks 20 to 22)

These are alright, and who'd have known that Geneva has been sheltering a proto-grindcore band. "Cloning The Pope" wins the war of the titles, although "Hide The Jerk" is probably the best tune to sample first. 6.5

The Rotators (tracks 23 to 27)

Off to Sao Paulo now, after all that grinding around the European continent, for some not-so-samba beach metal. The name doesn't seem to fit them - it makes them sounds more like some kind of new wave band, or maybe Riot City-style semi-crusty punkers - but this is more perfectly serviceable, slightly growling grind. "Fairytales", in particular, is as charming a way as any to spend fifteen seconds of your life. 7

Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition (tracks 28 to 30)

Oh *yes*. At last - another "find"! No prizes for guessing who inspired the band name, but these groovy three concertos from this French combo are actually pretty dynamic rather than simply sludgey - identifiable hooks etc, and a keen cantering pace, even if the vocalist sounds like he's wallowing around in a swamp of his own making. Very good indeed. 9

Throat Plunger (tracks 31 to 35)

Whereas this... isn't. Despite promising Spoonful of Vicodin-like titles, "Genre Ruiner" and "Jacked Up On China White / Steroids While Driving A Bomb Into..." are just a bit too pointless, while the other three songs live down to their charmless porno-gore titles. We do admire the Plunger's wider manifesto, which is something about ruining music, or similar. But it's not enough. 3

Total Fucking Destruction (tracks 36 to 39)

TFD obviously are sufficiently "in" with Mr. Hull to get on both these comps, which at least is another opportunity for us to witness their increasingly unrestrained aural madness, this time via "Necroanarchist", "Hammer Smashed Gore Fan" (we think they mean the genre rather than the more-than-mighty and recently recompiled Dutch Peel band) and the sweetly-titled "Fuckwound". As with their "Zen" album, we also get a bit of 'acoustic' TFD (in this case, inevitably, it's "Hammer Smashed Acoustic Gore Fan") which provides perhaps the most 'relaxed' minute or two on the whole CD. 6.5

XXX Maniak (tracks 40 to 44)

Pretty juvenile stuff, again, and not in a good way, although the sledgehammer-subtle 35 seconds of "Attending The Graduation Of Someone You Fucked 10 Years Ago" holds a certain shouty minimalist charm, aswell as an uncomfortable sprinkling of inner truth. 5.5

The Verdict

You know what all the best compilations do ? They send you scurrying in several directions at once trying to catch up with the bands that you've just been introduced to. So on that measure alone, both these CDs merit eager praise.

But it's clear from the average scores (GCSE maths again: 7.5 to 6.2083 with a recurring 3, and mathematics doesn't lie) that the US-centric "This Comp", in the end, defeats the rather more international "Slimewave" relatively easily, proving the morally incontrovertible FACT that when the day of judgment draws upon us grindcore will ultimately triumph over goregrind, despite our welcome introduction to Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition and Inhume courtesy of the latter disc.

More importantly, though, for anyone who reads this, thanks for bearing with us. Again. Happy Christmas one and all."

The Rosslyns - discography

'Singles'

February 1990: On the beach with the Rosslyns (My Secret World MSW 2)

5-track chrome cassette demo on boutique fanzine-aligned Chelmsford label, limited to 100 copies (none left). Produced by Howard Reed in Kelvedon, Essex in December 1989. Tracks: Things are different now / Sixteen / Someone's Happy / A Dream Come True [uncredited track] / Warhol. 

YouTube: here. Discogs: here.

October 1990: "Paperchase" (Rosslyns Fan Club RFC 001)

2 track cassette. Tracks: Paperchase / Kirsty. 

Almost completely lost/forgotten second demo tape, on sarcastically named 'own label' following the messy collapse of the My Secret World corporate empire.

YouTube: here.

date unknown: "Between New York & New Year" / "We're Doing It For The Kids" (white label)

Planned comeback/swansong (delete as appropriate) 7" single, was sent to a pressing plant in the US but they kept the $ and the master tapes. There might be a test pressing out there somewhere!

Compilations

16 January 1991: "Ranson Is 6/7 Of Cranson" (Kill Thatcher KT 002)

33-track C90 made for Matt's 18th birthday, in order to compile every demo and back-of-the-sofa offcut recorded up to that point. Also the master tape for at least one song. Limited edition of one, unsurprisingly: track listing unremembered. Title a football-related riff on X-Tal's "Reason Is 6/7 of Treason".

Appearances on compilations

? 1990 "Just Another... Compilation" (Flippin Ace Recording Co)

Alongside some far better bands including the Ammonites, the Cudgels, the Dentists, Fat Tulips, the Gravy Train, the Groove Farm, Panda Pops, the Sainsburys, the Sedgwicks, Strawberry Story and the Vicarage Garden...

The Rosslyns contribution, "I Can Feel My Life Slipping Away" was a rough / early mix of "Paperchase".

November 1990 "Dandelion" (label unremembered, sorry)

Again, alongside superior bands including White Town, Honey Bunch, Strawberry Story, the Ammonites again, Allen Clapp, Po! and Small Factory.

The Rosslyns also featured on other compilation tapes in 1990, sometimes with their permission, including "My Secret World", a Fragrant Lobster one and "Today Could Be Your Lucky Day". The featured song tended to be "Things Are Different Now" although we think one of them also featured "Kirsty".

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Other Rosslyns pages on the blog:

Illuvia Vapor Y Velocidad interview, 1989
The Rosslyns

The Rosslyns - Illuvia Vapor Y Velocidad interview, 1989

Taken verbatim from Illuvia Vapor Y Velocidad. Text copyright Sara Bermejo, 1990

THE ROSSLYNS 

Si hay alguien que quiere demonstrarnos el pesimismo a través de sus letras ellos son los Rosslyns. De nuevo inconformismo y desesperación impregnado de tiernas melodías. De nuevo la cruda realidad.

¿Quienes sois y cuando os formásteis ?

KIERON: Empezamos en el verano del 88, somos todos adolescentes, la línea es, Howard (bajo), Ollie (teclados), Kieron (guitarra y voz) y Andy (batería).

Mejor gira que recordéis: 

Kieron: Ehhhh... Cualquier gira con una atmósfera agradable, es siempre la gente lo que hace una gira especial. HOWARD Tocamos la primera gira (2 canciones 5 minutos) para una audienca do poco más do 12 personas para el colegio la semana de caridad el miércoles

Banda independiente favorita: 

Kieron: Ummm... tenemos muchas, pero probablemente los Razorcuts. Nos gustan mucho también los Pastels, Wedding Present, Bubble Gum Splash y las bandas de Sarah.

Howard Hum... me gustan Family Cat, Inspiral Carpets, My Bloody Valentine y los Weather Prophets.

Describir vuestra habitación: 

KIERON: Es mi "mundo secreto" donde puedo estar solo cuando quiero. Es también donde escribo las canciones, por que las canciones son sobre cosas que me preocupan y pienso en esas cosas en mi habitación cuando leo o escucho música, y también está mi cama que es donde sueño.

Dinos un objeto que describa tus cualidades.

KIERON: Me temo que no tengo realmente ninguna cualidad.

Howard: es una pregunta dificil, diría que un fusible de 12 amperios. La última cosa que comiste o bebiste.

KIERON: bien, me tomado una taza de té... an y también una espléndida manzana. Comemos muchas fruta, somos vegetarianos.

Si pudieses cambiar el mundo que harías ?

KIERON: una gran pregunta, Amaría un mundo donde la gente no se preocupase del estilo, pero si de cada uno, plantaría millones de árboles y el campo, estaría lleno des animales, habría iglesias y molinos de viento en vez de pubs y discotecas, oh... y chicas con vestidos de flores. No ocurrirá pero me gusta so[]ar.

H: Probablemente no mucho porque no sabría por donde empezar. Definitivamente que se marchase Thatcher. Aparentemente la señora Thatcher cae bien en el extranjero, no creas una palabra de esa escoria insensata. En EEUU haría lo mismo con Bush y los remplazaría por alguien con sentimientos humanos, en China devolvería la sanidad al país, también reservaría unas vacaciones para el grupo en España donde somos más conocidos que aquí gracias a gente como VOSOTRAS!!! La primero que haces cuando te le vantas.

KIRON: Pienso que mañana más bonita y espero un día soleado. Normalmente llueve aquí en Inglaterra.

H: Miro el reloj y vuelvo a dormirme otra vez.

Fetiches:

KIERON: Mi secreto más intimo, no soy fetichista, alguna gente dice que tengo como fetiches las flores, pero prefiero llamario una obsesión de salud, me gustan las orquídeas, los narcisos, las rosas.

HOWARD: el mazapán!!

Planes futuros. 

KIERON: ¿Para los Rosslyns ? Sólo queremos ser amados, realmente no hacemos planas, hacemos cosas. Con suerte más discos y giras pronto, en calquier tiempo en cualquier lugar.

* * * * *

Other Rosslyns pages on the blog:

Discography
The Rosslyns

The Rosslyns

The Rosslyns, Central Park, Chelmsford, 1990: photo © Matt Rowson 

@YouTube here: @Discogs here.

Unbelievably obscure band alert. The Rosslyns were an (un)popular teenage beat combo from Billericay, in Essex who were all at school at the time and in other bands too (primarily the Albinos and Casual Death, later Xabbortschz). Think proto-pop scrambled bedroom impro mess on baby guitar amps and you're probably there, the sort of music where you know they should be doing their maths homework instead but the textbooks are still sitting, unopened on the floor.

They did get featured in a couple of international fanzines - Spain’s Illuvia Velocidad Y Vapor and Massachusetts’ fantastic Incite! A scan of that interview by Tim Alborn, who also founded Harriet Records, can be found in issue #18 here, with a knowing but perhaps overly generous review of their "On The Beach" tape in the previous issue. This fanzine's all-too brief nod to Harriet’s legacy, btw, is here.

Casual Death, live at Danbury Village Hall, 1990

We thought the Rosslyns should be documented somewhere - nobody else was going to do it, so we've put up the Spanish interview and 'discography' ourselves. (Edit: the YouTube and Discogs came later, so now we're not completely alone). Enjoy, if you're one of the 100 people who owns Rosslyns 'product' - or who once owned it, and donated it to landfill...

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Other Rosslyns pages on the blog:

Illuvia Vapor Y Velocidad interview, 1989
Discography

Ain't No Pleasing You

I must confess to a little discomfort living in a world where it seems socially acceptable to like Abba both ironically and unironically, yet we reviewed a Chas n' Dave record positively, and this was construed as somehow odd. Anyway, this review, from July 2001 (hence the general election reference) touched on the reasons why CnD are a band who deserve much - unironic - love.

"chas 'n' dave "the best of chas 'n' dave" (music club)

well here's a quiz question for you. which combo successfully straddled pre and post-punk years ? who first adopted the mockney "kids are alright" tone later adopted by shameless plagiarists ranging from sham 69 to blur ? who managed to mix elements of pop, twelve bar blues, hip-hop, rock and funk into their goodtime showcase yet dilute this with a touch of the "we don't care" anarchy of the pistols? well now it's 2001 and here comes the definitive collection.

from the dextrous freestyling of "rabbit" to the unreconstructed avant-funk of "turn that noise down", chas 'n' dave had a mastery of the pop canon, which in my eyes peaks with the unsurpassed "blank generation" strum of "the sideboard song", in which our cheery bearded protagonists, pre-empting the 42% of the electorate on june 7, announce that "they've got their beers... and [they] don't care". and yet even in the face of this thom yorke can eulogise george monbiot without acknowledging his greater debt to charles, dave and, lest we forget, "mick", the most forgotten and under-rated of sticksmen.

shorn of the mystery of the early deaths of hendrix or curtis or the self-serving populism of brett anderson or the gallaghers, music like this has been dismissed simply for standing the test of generations. yet from the mcalmont and butler-style string arrangements on "ain't no pleasing you" to the folk groove of "gertcha", chas 'n' dave were setting aural standards. the beautiful "wish i could write a love song" is the ballad that billy bragg was always about to write but never got round to, even down to the melodramatic narrative. you want sex ? try "massage parlour". you want violence ? try "wallop!" you want drug references (in which case you are probably the nme) - how about "miserable saturday night" - itself a smithsian nomenclature - in which chas laments how their mates are out smoking dope and generally enjoying themselves ?

there are many tunes on this 24-tracker which overdo the formula and end up falling into the self-congratulatory pearly king whimsy of blur's "country house" or sham's unselfconscious "the cockney kids are innocent". the medley of "when i'm cleaning windows", "any old iron", "run rabbit run", "the laughing policeman" and "knees up mother brown" probably goes too far towards the awkwardness inherent in the cockney rejects' otherwise impassioned take on "i'm forever blowing bubbles". but with chas 'n' dave still going, this is a welcome overview of their ouevre. it's not art, but it's several times better than anything the nme is listening to this week."

Remember that this was written before the last few years' semi-ironic (agh that word again) C&D renaissance, before the Libertines et al decided to rehabilitate them and the trio (remember they haven't been a duo since the 1970s!) ended up rocking 30,000 at Glastonbury... but trust us, Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock will be remembered long after Pete Doherty's name is ground into dust and powder. Since the review above, we've had the immense pleasure and privilege of witnessing the band live, too - hence our comments on the swoonsome yet two fingered salute to journous and sceptics alike, "Ain't No Pleasing You", thus:

"The second greatest chart conspiracy of all time was when the BBC and the forces of law conspired to keep "God Save The Queen" off the top spot in silver jubilee '77. The greatest, however, was when MI5 and other agents of darkness and anti-Rockney agitators saw fit to relegate this particular crowdpleaser to no. 2, when everybody knows it was flying out of record shops left right and centre. And, as anyone who saw them play this at the 100 Club last month knows, they've still got it..."

- and of developing a wider love of their back catalogue. Check out the delectable "Edmonton Green" and then tell us they don't deserve respect: check out the "Mother's Sorted Out" remix of "The Sideboard Song" and tell us you can't dance to them. They even manage to be the only band in history to boast backing vocals from both Ossie Ardiles and Willie Thorne. The *only* thing impeachable about CnD - then and now - is their love for the chancer and waistrel denizens of White Hart Lane.

Oh, and Chas has recently released his / their autobiography, "All About Us". It's a ghostwriter-free zone, a WINNING book, most obviously because of something that absolutely *shines* through it, which is that the guy is just a worshipper of *music*... so much so, that when he says "It makes you feel so good that you wonder why it ain't illegal" you can only agree entirely, because that's the whole reason you've battled on forever writing blogs that no-one reads. And kudos untold for the fact the book reveals that they refused to do a Coldplay cover version...

My Hood (3)

Only one review to complete our three part trip down memory avenue, but it's a long one, of two comps that came out on Misplaced Music. Indeed, a onetime member of Hood popped up on our messageboard at the time to describe the descriptions below as "worringly" in-depth, which was probably the right adverb. What it does do though, is set out my fairly undying affection for the band in minute detail, and make crystal how we'd obsessed over so many Adams Brothers incarnations over the years. It also returns to a theme we haven't given up on yet, my unrepentant fetishisation of both obscure 7"s and the thrill of the(ir) chase.

"hood "singles compiled" (misplaced music): hood "compilations 1995-2002" (misplaced music)

"sometimes your arms... are like a weight around my neck"

on one of the early hood releases that we plucked from a cobwebbed existence in a local indie store's 7" rack a half-decade ago, a good old-fashioned paper insert noted wryly, "there's plenty more where this came from". as we well know now, that wasn't the half of it. but then again, wetherby's most adaptable combo have fashioned a career (of sorts) from understatement in all its forms. while we lament once more the lack of pylons on the sleeves of these timely reissues (the band choosing to spurn the traditional telegraph poles and wire stacks, leaving these two rekkids bedecked only in images of northern fields blinking in early-day sunlight) everything else about "singles compiled" and "compilations", from the unassuming typewriter track list to the comforting chunky band logo, is 100% authentik h-o-o-d: the real thing, the hood that this website remains obsessed with. what more could a boy or a girl need than two new compilations showcasing three more glorious hours of hood's sonic fumblings over 79 (listen to 'em) trax ? don't answer - it's a rhetorical question.

so let's tuck in to the banquet properly, picking from the feast of thought-fragments that constitute blissful mid-period hood, "singles compiled" first. the chinstroking arrivistes who have only just latched onto west yorkshire's finest rustic-altpop quartet (on the merely trifling grounds that "cold house" happens to be potentially a landmark english "rock" album) will be maxi-flummoxed. cd1 especially will send these fairweathers scurrying back to their post-rock primers - it is rough and tumble not very-fi of some class as a host of demos and 4-track segments collide drunkenly, reversing into each other constantly like the time we went down the fair at la condamine and blew 200F on an insane number of jetons for the dodgems. if you're not going to like this album you will know within seconds of the opening "a harbour of thoughts" as a no-fi hidden vocal cowers behind an epileptic strum but pours out as much tangible human emotion as one should ever need. in and around the scuffed, self-conscious half-songs there are still a few palpable steps forward towards the modern all-conquering, genre-straddling hood - the title track of the 555 ep "(the) weight" nicely hid a charming pop song inamongst a stop-start, glitch-influenced arrhythm, and its companion piece "impossible calm" suggests in its fifty-odd seconds the electronic direction that the band would move to in places on future albums.

"i swear i'll finish the bottle / i'll stumble outside..."

tasty morsels like "biochemistry revision can wait", "forehead" and "dismissed army brought us knives" between them sum up every teenage feeling we ever had: and the first "accessible" a-side ("i've forgotten how to live", which got compared to the wedding present by the papers of the day) is included too, together with its preview in rougher form on the "lee faust's million piece orchestra" ep (oh, if only reissues could translate the joy of buying a record whose sleeve was a scrap of photocopied paper pritt-sticked on to a brown paper bag). meanwhile, pristine tunes like "clues to our past and future existence" profit from an outing on digital simply because their pressing plant-challenging use of quiet / loud dynamics asked an awful lot of the 7" format [having said that, this cd has been mastered from vinyl, so perhaps the problem was really our pre-jurassic hardware]. then there's "the year of occasional lull", a whispered near-instrumental single that shepherded them yet more forcefully into the promised land of indie-dub, like "(the) weight" revisited in mellower climes - and do you remember the single "filmed initiative", every copy of which came with its own photograph, still so fresh from prontaprint that you could still smudge it with your icky fingers ? well it's here in full effect too. (it is probably redundant to point out that our copy has a photograph of the sun breaking over a few telegraph poles...)

"singles compiled" also documents how in longer, spaced-out songs like "as evening changed the day" (the b side and alter-ego of "filmed initiative", later remixed for a 555 compilation) hood laid down, as we may have mentioned before, a prototype for much of what came later, including the songs that made up the spine of "cold house". on "i know what to squander" we also hear an early use of the single-note violin sound that crops up on their later albums. and this double-cd set is finished off with no less than 15 unreleaseds (yaay!), many of which are as good as their back catalogue: take "innocence of brittle days" whose focus is "to rid myself of the city" (reprising the "oh how the city gets me down" sentiment of "70s manual worker") or the halkyn-like fragility of "leaves across the road". and in all of these songs there is also a real mindset that only exceptionally is there any need to go too far above the one-minute mark: so even though on their two lower-fi albums "cabled linear traction" and "silent 88" there were plenty of strong 3 or 4 minute indie guitar tunes ("british radars", "the field is cut") inamidst the short songs, here we are very much in the realm of minimalism. witness "crow blown west" (almost a single, repeated thought, "i don't know why i bother with you") à la "silent 88"'s "i hate you now". it seems very adolescent but for that, all the more affecting.

inevitably and despite all the joys packed in, things are still frustratingly incomplete - we accept that the canadian label happy-go-lucky's "structured disasters" cd homed in on the "sirens" and "opening into enclosure: a disused post-mill" eps and some choice out-takes, so those omissions are justifiable (even though, by the same token, a clutch of those tracks reappear here). but then the definitive version of "silo crash" (from the "harbour of thoughts" ep) is missing, while "i've forgotten how to live"'s dramatic flipside "dimensions t.b.a." is wrongly reduced, apparently at the band's insistence rather than just for time purposes: in its full form, it was a wonderful song, 3/4 of which was down to the magical, haphazard, intro that starts with random single notes and works up imperfectly but imperiously to emotional implosion - the edit here gives us the implosion but excises the intro, and thus sacrifices so much of the power of the song. it's perhaps also a shame, although we're confident it will be addressed at some future date, that their debut 7" for domino recordings, "useless" isn't exhumed, as it was a top shambler, perhaps this time vaguely justifying wedding present comparisons with warm-guitar sincerity, and far removed from the ambient patterns of album "rustic houses, forlorn valleys" that soon followed it and emphasised their versatility.

and then there's "compilations (1995-2002)". this has a little bit more variation overall - it's a free-range curate's egg in which, par exemple, "sound the cliché klaxons" is simply a beautiful should-have-been single despite its jokey title, "i have it in my heart to jump into the ocean" is one of those many sublime variations on "as evening changed the day", "a shot across the bow" with its church organ and dub echo is a sinking companion for squarepusher's "our underwater torch", and "cross the land" is just one of those brilliant tracks that starts as a moving, heartbreaking soliloquoy but eventually transmutes into the sound of a grand piano being pushed down the stairs while meat whiplash tune up on the adjacent balcony.

all those good old recurring hood lyrical themes are here - memories of childhood, deep insecurity, the passing of time (or as they would later have it, "the cycle of days and seasons") - and they were never without some self-mocking humour, either - a.c. would be proud of titles like "we'll never live up to the first l.p." (a tongue-in-cheek j&mc tribute ? the backing is "just like honey" and there's a hell of a lot of feedback, man), "rocck ? i can't even spell the word" (a slurred rehash of "disappointed" from the "harbour of thoughts" ep) or "killing the band" (knee deep in the realm of ambienteca, but a reference to prolapse, presumably, unless we are rather overestimating prolapse's importance in the scheme of things).

these records sum up the appeal to many of us of "indie" music and what it really is. there's not a song here that isn't warm, honest and refreshing and the fact that many of the earlier songs could have been recorded by any bright, earnest teenagers on to a 2-track is neither here nor there. yeah, the tunesmiths will listen to the frailer stuff and say "oh, anyone could do that" (as if that was actually a reason for not liking something, and the thought hadn't occurred to them that if they were that bothered they could ac.tually have located the courage of their convictions and gone out and done it themselves), but the reality is that most labels that hood recorded for (and there are approx 6000) will never have released anything better."

My Hood (2)

What followed the records mentioned in the last post was pretty amazing. It was "Cold House".

"first thing is that although this album was described by splendid e-zine as being "as subtle as a former subtlety lecturer and head of the Subtlety Department at Oxford University that has left the subtle world of academic subtlety for a lucrative career in private-sector subtlety" it is in fact much more commercially accessible than more or less any of their previous works consisting as they did either of sub-weddoes lo-fi indie mixed with white noise and spoken words or piano or junglist excerpts ("cabled linear traction" and "silent 88") or neo-classical swathes of flute, clarinet and guitar ("rustic houses, forlorn valleys" and "the cycle of days and seasons"). after all, this time there are a round 10 tracks; no instrumentals; no odd interludes between songs; no sub-one minute or supra-ten minute numbers. commer-cial!

and notwithstanding that virtually all the songs here are, at least when stripped down, 'standard' hood compositions (rustic indie pop with a little bit of depth - oh, and violins - exemplified by the perfect a-side "home is where it hurts" earlier this year) "cold house" is still an astonishing album. for the reasons below.

first track "they removed all trace that anything had happened here", a lament(possibly) for a lost way of life, builds as carefully as any other hood morsel, and really takes off when the quick fire rap checks-in. it is followed by the immaculate "you show no emotion at all ", a remote viewer-style arsenal of clicks which slowly builds into a more traditional guitar construct, the words washing over ("will we survive ? i know we will"). really modern and really effective. judging by the lyrics, i think that "branches bare" is the pseudo-title track; this time driven by a huge loop of bass, it again comes into its own when the rapping, this time a slow mantra, picks up the slack and starts to echo low in the mix. "the winter hit hard", underpinned by crackle, builds from a murmur and as claire pointed out (after 3 glasses of red), it's an almost doorsy kind of thing - drums and bass refracting upwards into a musical storm.

"i can't find my brittle youth" is the intro to side two - a straightforward-ish indie tune, beefed up from the version on the otherwise ropey "jonathon whiskey" compilation cd and ending in a haze of percussion so dense it almost sounds like a shoot-out. but suddenly, in "this is what we do to sell out(s)" the beatz are strictly minimalist - that warp/skam thing, almost - before, again, the vocals and guitars pull everything together without ever losing that nervy, tense feel as the breaks edge around the mix. "lines low to frozen ground" is another fantastic number, again strongly in the vein of past pastoral mini-epics like "as the evening changed the day", a pivotal hood moment in which so many of their melodies were distilled. and to close, "you're worth the whole world" in which the fantastic vocal interplay of the singer and the narrator strikes the mood. a fine closer.

as i think other reviews of "cold house" have noted, the most extraordinary thing about this album is that while describing it makes it seem almost avant-garde, listening to it, it just sounds controlled and natural, avoiding the usual traps of cross-genre pollination whereby you kind of wish the band had stuck to what they're good at. because what hood are good at is generic, organic development, and studio album no. 5 (i don't think we can even start to count the various eps, etc) is another step closer to greatness. in the past, the more conventional guitar-driven songs like "i've forgotten how to live" and "her innocent stock of words" were amongst my favourite hood songs - now, i'm learning to prefer their bolder, darker textures."

There had then followed a clumsy attempt to compare and contrast Hood with Radiohead - my heart was in the right place, but the prose wasn't. The point that still stands though is that Hood should have been more feted.

When they were picked up though - with interest from the BBC setting up a gig at Hackney Ocean on 17 January 2001 - we were, of course, horrified, curse us. Ain't no pleasing us, then (more on that theme later).

"we still don't regard hood as post-rock: we are faintly bemused that the esteemed radio 3 can select them to headline a left-field evening at the ocean, thus securing an audience of painfully earnest and trendy fashion-conscious types with bright new designer labels and laboriously-gelled "scruffy" hair who would have been equally at home in the dispiritingly trendy bar beside hackney central which on our arrival in e8 we found to our horror had usurped the rough charm of the former lord amhurst pub.

because hood, in our eyes, are a fine indie guitar band, albeit one with incredible range and versatility. to lump them in with the space-rock types who have helped cram the proverbial emperor's wardrobe to saturation with new clothes is so unfair - who else in that scene can have produced songs as feral and fearless as hood classics like "the field is cut" or the exploratory "dimensions t.b.a." ?

when we saw hood the first time, it was at the bristol louisiana, wedged on a bill between a visceral third eye foundation and the rather more dulcet movietone. in the tiny upstairs room, hood had stumbled through a 25 minute set of tuning up, exchanging instruments and occasionally embarking on unrecognisable song structures before everything just fell apart. tonight, apart from still looking so young, and a few exchanges of instrument between personnel, hood were displaying their new found maturity, calmly despatching selections from their new album "cold house", which we may just have mentioned before. although the five songs, starting with the album's first track "they removed all trace that anything had ever happened here" represented all too short an opportunity to bathe in the luxurious melange of indie (yes, say it loud and proud) guitar and vocals, throbbing dub-influenced sequencer and bass, and, in the flesh, frenetic and immaculate live drumming.

we also see (and hear and feel) the bulbous "it's been a long time since i was last here", from the "home is where it hurts" ep: a huge booming bass sound seemingly coming from nowhere as richard adams stands motionless to the left of the stage, before his own electric bass is called into service to bolster the instrumental mist; and "lines low to frozen ground", another soundtrack to early morning dew and low-lying fog over desolate moors. it's pop as thomas hardy.

however, our highlights tonight were "you show no emotion at all" (the repetitive sequencer motif gently and deliberately diluted by hood's trademark guitar picking) - when chris adams sings, almost in a whisper, "i heard the phone ring / so late at night / i thought someone had died... but your voice was filled with love" it is impossibly heartrending. they also finish with a brilliant version of "you're worth the whole world", also the last song on "cold house": again, it is the vocal which seems to make proceedings complete: although the words are still hard to divine, the singer's voice is edged with fragile emotion.

we will continue to regard hood with no little respect and as of meriting immense importance in the scheme of things. their current f(l)avour (of the month) with journalists notwithstanding. we still think they're wonderful, and there's nothing they can do to change that."

My Hood (1)

A bit of a statement of the obvious that Hood are one of my favourite bands in everdom, but because their output has been sporadic of late one suspects that hasn't been adequately reflected over in the other place. Indeed, there's only really this post from 2005, which plays up the Wetherby roots of both Hood and the mighty fine Boyracer (to whom tributes in the other place are rather less rare). But at least that post ties in nicely with 555's recent - recommended! - "Wetherbeat scene" compilation and booklet, which documents exactly how both bands grew from a fecund Wetherby (High School!) "scene"... the photo of Wetherby Town Hall above echoes one of the pics from that terrific package.

Anyway. When I reviewed "Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys", on Domino, back in the 20th century, it was a relatively short piece, compared to some that were to come:

"After the most wilfully disparate back catalogue yet (fiendishly) devised, Hood have been anchored to a contract and are now settling down. Hence the follow-up to the twentysomething-track lo-fi “Silent ‘88” and the Wedding Present-style taster 45 “Useless” is the six track ambient soundscape “Rustic Houses”.

The bad news is that the big bad label boss appears to have put a stop to their shambling popsongs and junglist experiments. The good news is that Hood have had to focus; they have moved piano and clarinet to the fore, calmed everything down and let their intrigue with, er, the cycle of days and seasons, take centre stage. “S.E. Rain Patterns” opens proceedings, a ten minute excerpt from the weather cycle in which different melodic strains slowly appear before dispersing again, leaving the fields strewn bare once more. “The Light Reveals The Place” builds on a more conventional bass-led structure, culminating in feedback echoing like the wind around the mix, recalling “The Field Is Cut”’s devastating denouement on the last album.

Lastly, “Diesel Pioneers”. A quarter of an hour of your time. Disembodied segments from Third Eye Foundation’s remix of “Eyes” are gradually layered with guitars and percussion until – for the first and only time – erupting into a chaotic, volcanic, sonic plateau. “I don’t know where the hours go…” screams the singer, “…why can’t you leave me alone” and the intensity, the rush, is almost Joy Division circa “The Only Mistake”. Then, as before, the anger and panic peter out, the wall of guitars subsiding back to an intermittent synthesiser pulse.

This band are good, you know. I’ve been saying it for years and it is a truth ye shall yet know. Promise."

This may sound a little excitable, but I still remember early days in London, living in a West Kensington bedsit, and that "The Field Is Cut" and other tracks from "Silent '88" were never off my personal stereo, soundtracking those trepidation-filled journeys to work, even before the blossoming of Hood with "Forlorn Valleys..." and "Cycle of Days and Seasons".

So when "Home Is Where It Hurts" came out, I was *back* on the case, for real. By now, the website had dispensed with capital letters entirely, of course.

"i have been raving about hood for some time now... the latest instalment of their ascent to being the best band in the world is, as ever, carefully and almost imperceptibly gradual.

the title track is their most accessible effort yet, a gentle bass pulse caressing the trademark hood guitar sound, the usual trebly single notes slightly muted by the production and some breathy, urgent vocal intonation.

on track 2, which i think is called "the fact that you failed", there are no vocals but just a network of guitar sounds, pulled along to make them their most joy division-ish yet, and ending in shrieks of feedback which could have been transported in from moods like "the light reveals the place" (from "rustic houses...") or even the early, stuttering but wonderful "sirens" single.

the rest of the single (at 26 minutes effectively a mini-album) registers more as a collection of ideas, as hood in their usual way experiment, this time with patterns of dub inamongst the rustic soundscapes of recent albums and the kind of whey-faced vocals that hovered above the pastoral shapes of "as evening changed the day". don't take your ears off hood for a moment, kids."

I didn't, as I fear you will discover with the next coupla posts. Believe me, these were succinct compared to those.