Dutch
Suicidal Birds are Chay and Jessie – two girls from northern Holland. With a name like that though, and with album titles like Spend Your Life in Serious Misery, it’s clear this duo didn’t have much time for their europop compatriots like the Venga Boys and 2Unlimited in their youth. Instead, this is Kim Deal teaming up with Kim Gordon in some dirty Dutch basement with cheap electric guitars, second-hand amps and some fierce vocal chords to create a decadent distortion fit for any kid into the underground. The girls came to the surface though to answer some questions from The List.
(more…)
Only one member was paying attention to the photographer
Think of St. Andrew’s and it’s most likely that it will be golf, students and the worst weekend ever that spring to mind. Okay, that last one may just be my own personal experience (far too much gin) but Kid Canaveral are making their own attempts to usurp such features of a centuries old town with their vibrant four-piece Fife pop. Now relocated to Edinburgh their roots in the imaginative folk of the celebrated Fence collective of their home county still sneak through as the indie rock of the central belt threatens to take hold. It’s a worthy mix, and Kate Lazda (vocals and guitar) and David MacGregor (vocals and guitar) explain how it all came about. (more…)
Two men. One hat.
Arriving in L.A via Munich, Memphis, the islands of Greece and Liverpool, Chris and Thomas create a delicate folk pop scented by an English rose and dusted by a mid-western desert. It was a journey of experiences too – from studying film compostion at the same school as John Lennon, to cooking for the man who burned a million pounds, they’ve developed the skills and lived the life to write songs to rank along with Nick Drake, The Shins and the rest of the Garden State soundtrack. Thomas Hien spoke to me. Also called Thomas. (more…)
Future of the Left – Travels With Myself and Another
The second album from the masters of punk with wit, hooks and rhythm is another stripped, simple, impassioned affair that clocks in at just over half an hour, keeping to a well-expressed point, with no chance for reflection along the way. God, more bands should be like this.
Travels With Myself and Another is an album that knows Newton. All notions of resistance and friction forgotten, as each joule of potential energy stored in Jack Egglestone, Andy Falkous and Kelson Mathias becomes so powerfully kinetic, with these three guys having the dynamism of Hoover Dam. (more…)
