Sunshine Reflects From Glass Buildings

I know this is a quality electronic tune so I whack it on, as I head out from under an archway, over cobbled streets, as the glass of sophisticated restaurants form a precursor of city visions to come.

The morning walk is short, the track is by Northern Ireland’s only dub step artist, Boxcutter, it's called "Sunshine vip". A pleasant scene begins to unfold.

The music starts with a plush piece of ambient loveliness, pan pipes swell over fizzing electric guitars from 2020. Something else sounds like tension. I cross the road carefully avoiding bikes on the inside lane − all the while electronic music oozes, turning right through a small lane lined with Chinese Restaurants, then left as the percussion really kicks in. The jazz groove combines with drill 'n bass sensibilities, as tall glass buildings line this non-descript street of clean lines and BMW. Cool as ice electronic sounds (emotive) appear to bounce from glass and reverberate down a street towards one lonely traffic light. Greek restaurants with tall empty chairs, shiny bars and windows are light reflectors too. Fizz! fizz, fizz, Fizz! Fizz! The sounds go fizz.

Pure urban scenes of morning urgency play by as music allows me to step outside normal fields of perception without being late for lectures i.e. hung-over. Bass from the Amazon River pulsates, wet mysterious sounds appear and disappear, the creatures of a jungle-dark, enchant the hot evening.

They relate their cognitive energy through technological sounds of nature, and occasionally dub reggae. Then sounds of static, the more electrified drill combines with bass as this superb piece of work fades out nobly over green rooftops in New York.

It became a vision of humans living in harmony with nature − so good I didn’t listen to another song all day.
(© Copyright 2008 - James Labous)

Cloud Culture From A Plane Window (A Gonzo Music Journalist's Account)

The view from a plane window is a rare insight into how our little world really is.

Houses and cars can be seen for what they are – merely little boxes – roads become arteries, and fields are sweeping plains of truth.

Then there are the things we usually gaze up at– with the morning or evening light, beauty can emanate infinitely from clouds like some ultimately tranquil drug trip. There are mountains, lakes and the sea to view from the plane window too, even the most mundane landscapes at ground level can provide fitting backdrops for the sky and the strange creatures of cloudland.

And so the green and lush landscape of North West Ireland formed the particular setting for this musical adventure. At six am on a Saturday morning, as the air gushed over metal, as hostesses inhabited poses not all that far away from 2001: A Space Odyssey, I did think it could be a good time for an Autechre record. But this morning chemicals in my brain were telling me that I wanted to transcend the very technology keeping me afloat magically in the air, to become timeless, to wonder at sweeping gullies, geysers of chemistry and hills of mist. Wordsworth would have been proud.

I’ve never been to Iceland but people tell me that the geysers and hills are like no where else in the world. It's home to active volcanoes, an economy effected most unfortunately by the world credit crunch, and a band called Sigur Ros.

Dawn broke and I found myself listening to this band – their Brackets album in fact. I was greeted by pleasant piano's and a strange voice and slowly, very slowly (because they really like to build things up first these guys), crescendoing guitars descended upon my ears and the Captain’s announcement on the tannoy became just another part of the art. The clouds and the tangible energy of music merged into one outer body experience. From my window seat, with the small reinforced plastic panel providing a portal to interzone, I became just another molecule in this massive but still tiny entity in the sky of a small planet in the corner of a universe. Normal reality and the instinct to survive slipped away and the music took over.

The virtue of Sigor Ros is their patients. The sparse drum rhythms, the smooth sliding transitions of bass notes, subtly driving the sound, beautifully simple keyboard melodies and guitars which soar like a graceful phoenix. Mood is established through such minimal means that the mere striking of an extra drum, or additional melody can strike deep into the soul. That voice of course, like Thom Yorke on ketamin, and speaking ancient Icelandic. The combination is like being transported to a historic land of hills and tribal battles fought between oddly gentle warlords, who worship Viking gods. A land where people suffer from the same worries and woes, but in different, more mysterious forms.

Samskeyti from the Brackets album is both melancholy and buoyant at once. The soundtrack to the end of a life or a brilliant tribute to the fragility of existence. Ah the world of Sigur Ros.

To be an ancient minstrel wondering magical lands or not to be. That was the question running through my head when the air hostess so rudely interrupted to inform me that my ipod could be interfering fatally with the landing equipment of this little flying machine. Rudeness.

Ouch! Bumpy landing, scared the living day shits out of my poor big sis. Ireland was a lovely hospitable place but the buildings were sometimes ugly as hell at ground level. Donegal lamb is succulent and fresh.
(© Copyright 2008 - James Labous)

Future Of The Left - Manchasm

The word ‘punk’ means many things. Before the 1970s, on the streets of San Francisco it meant a young hoodlum, a hustler. Punks, like lots of things need to evolve however, and the problem with a lot of modern punk rock is that it hasn’t.

When Future of The Left released their debut album ‘Curses’ in 2007, some were dismayed, others delighted, that the band had moved towards the occasional use of lead synthesisers to replace guitar.

The thing is, if you were a Mclusky fan, then you might have wanted Andy "Falco" Falkous, and Jack Egglestone (formerly of Mclusky), and Kelson Mathias (frontman of now defunct experimental electronic/punk act, Jarcrew) to just carry on in the same vein. Being true musicians, they were never going to do that though. Future of the Left’s sound is firmly entrenched within Mclusky’s unique tradition of hardcore indie music – but with a little something extra, and the little something is Mathias – his heavy bass sound and enthusiasm for electronics.

After the success of ‘Curses’, the band has emerged with a brand new single, entitled ‘Manchasm’. And it’s a corker, employing the new electronic synthesiser approach to full effect – Kelson’s now trademark hard hitting distorted fuzzy bass is the driving force, complimenting Falco’s distinctively harsh and political vocals. This isn’t punk, but everything that made punk good in 1970 went into this single – in the words of Tommy Ramone, direct pure and stripped down, no bullshit rock and roll. With synths.

iLIKETRAINS - We Go Hunting

Traditionally a historian is more like a detective than an artist, investigating past events and using hard evidence to reconstruct our past in a truthful fashion. The members of iLiKETRAINS would disagree though – they’re clearly history nuts! The inspiration for the Leeds bands’ music lies with re-imagined historical characters and events, and is portrayed through a powerful mix of baritone vocals, sung over potent post rock melodies.

The music is not the sounds of the past, rather the band use the past as an inspiration for their modern music. It’s epic, but not forced - the emotional focus is on the depiction of often harrowing events so Dave Martin (vocals, guitar) has the perfect excuse to be melodramatic.

The new single, ‘We Go Hunting,’ portrays a paranoid Massachusetts of 1692, steeped in religious fervour. It was here that nineteen women were accused of witchcraft, and hung at the hands of the church. The event became known as “The Salem Witch Trials” – Arthur Miller famously depicted the events in his play of 1953, ‘The Crucible’.

Through a dark post rock sensibility, the Leeds band is once again able to achieve an ominous sense of foreboding. Simon Fogul’s pounding, tribal drums compliment epic delayed guitars – the excellence of this single is in the way it builds tension, through a combination of clever lyricism and instrumental wisdom.

Martin’s vocal style is undeniable influenced by Morissey, as well as being comparable to Paul Banks of Interpol. The singer has said that he wanted iLiKETRAIN’s music to have a "sense of location" that was lacking in music like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós, and they’ve have achieved this – there’s a downside though. Out of context, this band might appear pretentious, in a thoroughly British way, and well just plain miserable.