This wild electricity turned static by industry. Like a bird in an aviary, singing to be free.
Things are just awful at the moment: simply put, I can't think of anything I'm succeeding at. What with work unhappiness and with Coybito going nowhere, depression has set like a cloud around a valley. I'm sure it's merely fleeting, change of season, end-of-financial-year stress, bla bla bla. But ugh, it's not pleasant. Even the Internet's no fun, what with Covscene polluted by nonsense. Thank God for Kyly and for a few decent wrestling shows, eh?
In other news, we went to see Euros Childs in Wolverhampton. Have a review of that.
The Little Civic displays bizarre incompetence as we enter, not having the slightest idea who's playing their own venue as we buy tickets. Going upstairs, the bouncers ask us "who we're here to see" then react with bafflement as we name the HEADLINE ACT, and we enter an almost-empty room, the only sound in which is a band who aren't even on the posters playing on a stage set up next to the toilets.
An inauspicious start, maybe- it's a good job that the aforementioned band who are playing, Inertia Blooms (****), are terrific. Coming across like Explosions In The Sky with vocals, they have the same glacial prettiness as EITS, with a willingness to break into Pelican-esque heaviness. They'd probably rate even higher had we seen their entire set- that said, we saw three songs, which went nearly 20 minutes. Outstanding.
It's hard to forget Telegramme (0) as well, but for all the wrong reasons. They rant here about how everyone was there to see them (partial truth here) and that they were cut off after just four songs, but this doesn't hide the fact that their performance was absolutely terrible- their guitarists have the charisma and the guitar-tuning ability of a doorpost, and their singer, alas, cannot sing. There's certainly potential buried there, as their MySpace suggests they might actually be a decent Killers-ish prospect, but this was an awful performance capped off by the soundman turning on the between-sets muzak WHILE the band were announcing their last song, leaving them to shamble off, baffled.
Conversely, it's EASY to forget Radio Luxembourg (*1/2), whose name is unmemorable enough to start with before they turn out to be a clone of third album Gorky's and don't appear especially interested to be there.
Ten years in Gorky's Zygotic Mynci clearly crushed the spirit of tonight's headliner, Euros Childs (****); certainly his contributions to their final album, the awful 'Sleep/Holiday' were completely unmemorable in comparison to, e.g., 'The Game Of Eyes'. Bizarrely, his solo career has attempted to reverse that slide: while 'Chops' was a half-finished and inevitably patchy collection of demos, new album 'Bore Da' is as barking as Ankst-era GZM. And it's all in Welsh, which means Wichita will probably lose interest any moment.
Anyway, this set blends the two albums' highlights, with Childs and his keyboard battering the sole visual focus amongst the mannequins he's picked as his backing band- that said, the members of Radio Luxembourg who join him look more animated here than during their OWN set, which says it all about them. Highlights are the demented 'Henry A Matilda Supermarketsuper', which combines 'Patio''s creepy spoken-word mutterings with synth-bass and explosive guitar; 'Warrior', a noisy avant-rock number featuring screaming (!!!) and 'Outside My Window', an organ-led torch song containing the lyric "Write a song and send it off/Sign a contract and get ripped off". All in all, a pleasant surprise that, at 31, Euros is still as wacky as ever- it's just a shame it got buried for the last few years of GZM's career.
This weekend, working endlessly. And hopefully, other stuff. On Monday, Coybito play Leeds. Be there, Northerners.
In other news, we went to see Euros Childs in Wolverhampton. Have a review of that.
The Little Civic displays bizarre incompetence as we enter, not having the slightest idea who's playing their own venue as we buy tickets. Going upstairs, the bouncers ask us "who we're here to see" then react with bafflement as we name the HEADLINE ACT, and we enter an almost-empty room, the only sound in which is a band who aren't even on the posters playing on a stage set up next to the toilets.
An inauspicious start, maybe- it's a good job that the aforementioned band who are playing, Inertia Blooms (****), are terrific. Coming across like Explosions In The Sky with vocals, they have the same glacial prettiness as EITS, with a willingness to break into Pelican-esque heaviness. They'd probably rate even higher had we seen their entire set- that said, we saw three songs, which went nearly 20 minutes. Outstanding.
It's hard to forget Telegramme (0) as well, but for all the wrong reasons. They rant here about how everyone was there to see them (partial truth here) and that they were cut off after just four songs, but this doesn't hide the fact that their performance was absolutely terrible- their guitarists have the charisma and the guitar-tuning ability of a doorpost, and their singer, alas, cannot sing. There's certainly potential buried there, as their MySpace suggests they might actually be a decent Killers-ish prospect, but this was an awful performance capped off by the soundman turning on the between-sets muzak WHILE the band were announcing their last song, leaving them to shamble off, baffled.
Conversely, it's EASY to forget Radio Luxembourg (*1/2), whose name is unmemorable enough to start with before they turn out to be a clone of third album Gorky's and don't appear especially interested to be there.
Ten years in Gorky's Zygotic Mynci clearly crushed the spirit of tonight's headliner, Euros Childs (****); certainly his contributions to their final album, the awful 'Sleep/Holiday' were completely unmemorable in comparison to, e.g., 'The Game Of Eyes'. Bizarrely, his solo career has attempted to reverse that slide: while 'Chops' was a half-finished and inevitably patchy collection of demos, new album 'Bore Da' is as barking as Ankst-era GZM. And it's all in Welsh, which means Wichita will probably lose interest any moment.
Anyway, this set blends the two albums' highlights, with Childs and his keyboard battering the sole visual focus amongst the mannequins he's picked as his backing band- that said, the members of Radio Luxembourg who join him look more animated here than during their OWN set, which says it all about them. Highlights are the demented 'Henry A Matilda Supermarketsuper', which combines 'Patio''s creepy spoken-word mutterings with synth-bass and explosive guitar; 'Warrior', a noisy avant-rock number featuring screaming (!!!) and 'Outside My Window', an organ-led torch song containing the lyric "Write a song and send it off/Sign a contract and get ripped off". All in all, a pleasant surprise that, at 31, Euros is still as wacky as ever- it's just a shame it got buried for the last few years of GZM's career.
This weekend, working endlessly. And hopefully, other stuff. On Monday, Coybito play Leeds. Be there, Northerners.