Live: An evening in Camden

Thanks to MaybeMaq for this photo

It’s surprisingly cold in Camden. What I’m led to believe is the opening to the first “cold snap” of the year is settling in and its caught most people unawares. Of course on a night time in Camden, the scantily clad and generally most eye-popping of all of London’s outfits can be found on the strip that links Mornington Crescent up to Chalk Farm.

Along that road, you have some of the finest venues London has to offer in the form of Jazz bars, boxes on the lock and at either end, the mighty KOKO and Roundhouse venues. Tonight, its’ as bustling as ever as the iTunes festival is in full swing as Andrea Bocelli brings the Roundhouse crowd to classical elation but its three small shows that have caught SI’s attention.

The first venue ventured is the Lock Tavern as Spring Offensive take to the darkened stage. The venue is filled to the brim as it takes about five minutes just to get to the bar and as the Oxford band (recently featured here) get into the swing of things with their new single “Not Drowning But Waving” which builds an otherwise passive and moody crowd into a moderate bob; not bad for a quiet London venue. Spring Offensive play a solid set, but it’s the sound that lets them down as the venue’s not so much tinny as lost in a mix of minor feedback and speakers that can’t quite cope.  Nonetheless, the five piece are in good spirits and their every-day office worker look and lyrics seem to go down well a treat, especially considering most people are only present at the Tavern for hype centric act Hey Sholay.

Instead of sticking around however, I race up the road.  Her Parents are about to rock out with the volume at 11 upstairs at the Barfly, but it’s a bit further afield to the Enterprise, a venue much less visited than the Barfly that has the set for SI. For two nights only in London and for the first time in a while, Rams’ Pocket Radio are hitting the stage. Complete with a full band and supported by live member Shauna Tohill, also known as Northern Ireland’s up and coming Silhouette.
Ram’s are on form, playing from a selection of both new and older material. It’s fresh and powerful music from the piano-led band. The bigger songs such as 1+2 should sound epic and last time we caught Rams’, they were supporting Snow Patrol at the Forum where sound comes as big as the venue, but sadly the Enterprise suffers the same problems as the Lock Tavern did earlier and the sound gets lost in a mix of overheated volumes. It’s another shame as a second good band gets lost in unnecessary noise but Ram’s power through and pull off a strong set that signals big things on the way.

Camden, cold and noisey and full to the lock with music, if only it could all sound great.

Braden Fletcher

Tweak Bird - Undercover Crops EP

Ahead of a September/October tour with legendary sludge-punks The Melvins, Illinois brothers Caleb and Ashton Bird have released a new EP of synapse-frazzling psych-metal.

The songs are short and sharp, often coming in at less than three minutes; a welcome surprise amidst a genre which tends to favour widescreen wigouts over pop sensibilities. Not that there’s very much pop about the circling, repetitive ‘Moans’, a strung-out piece of weed humour matched to swirling psychedelia. ‘People’ hits like Perry Farrell fronting Crack the Skye-era Mastodon as Caleb rants ‘So many people in the world, I don’t wanna be one’. The tongue-in-cheek ‘Bunch O’ Brains’ opens on a repetitive two chord riff, lulls you into a false sense of security with a few seconds of silence then explodes into life once more.

A great strength of Tweak Bird is that even in short bursts they still sound massive. Ashton’s drums sound like someone ramming a bulldozer through a forest whilst his brother conjures up gigantic Sabbath-like riffs up-front. Reviews of their 2010 debut tended to focus on the jazz influences, possibly in a bid to make it appear palatable to a more indie audience whose interest in anything metallic doesn’t really extend beyond pre-distressed Iron Maiden t-shirts from Topman, but even with those influences mostly absent here there is no denying that Tweak Bird offer a thrilling ride.

7.8

Max Sefton 

Competition: Win Two Tickets to Kyla La Grange in London

We're fans of Kyla La Grange here at Sound Influx. The dark-pop songstress has been on many of our individual speakers for months now since the likes of the gorgeous Vampire Smile and Walk Through Walls (below) made it into our ears for the first time.
Right now, she's on tour and will be playing her biggest headline show to date in London at Scala this coming Tuesday. We've been given a pair of tickets to give away to one lucky Sound Influx reader and all you have to do email bradenfif@live.com (that's me) with the subject as SCALA LA GRANGE and include your name and number and we'll get in touch with you if you win. Remember to tell your friends to maximise your chances of winning and tweet/share this post around.
The competition closes at 7pm on Monday and you will be informed by 9pm, 24 hours before she takes to the stage.
Good luck



Braden Fletcher

How To Dress Well - Total Loss

After The Weeknd’s triumvirate of great records, introspection, ghostly falsetto and Class As are once more back on the menu for RnB. A development which plays right into the hands of Brooklyn via Cologne philosophy graduate, Thomas Krell aka How To Dress Well.

As the curtain rises on opener ‘When I was in Trouble’ a distant train can be heard passing through a station but the gentle clip of wheels on the track seems far away, as though you’re walking a dark street and feeling the vibrations beneath your feet. It hardly counts as the calm before the storm, when so much of this follow-up to the acclaimed ‘Love Remains’ is hushed and downbeat but it serves to usher in a record which like The XX is all about the subtle shifts in mood.

Throughout ‘Total Loss’ there’s a tremendous sense of the space between notes; like snatches of melody fleetingly glimpsed from a moving vehicle. Krell’s Prince-ly falsetto is impressive but never showy, merging seamlessly with the sleek electro-soul arrangements. Track five ‘& It Was U’ also adopts Prince’s penchant for dropping letters but more than makes up for its incorrect orthography with cleverly layered vocals and heavy bass drum while ‘Cold Nites’ piano and clicking rhythm track recall the XX as Krell wraps his vocal chords round a vaporous melody.

At the centre of the record the otherworldly instrumental ‘World I Need You, Won’t Be Without You (Proem)’ could easily pass for Sigur Ros, with gorgeous visions thrown up like puffs of snow by little more than strings and a few touches of percussion. You don’t get this with a Chris Brown album.

For a record inspired by the death of one of Krell’s best friends often there is little in the way of concrete imagery, instead relying on icy string samples and echoing drum machines to cover the gaps between his haunting vocals. One of the weaknesses of ‘Total Loss’ is that if don’t you approach it in the right mood, the down-tempo sonics coupled to helium vocals can be difficult to embrace but persevere and you’ll be treated to an album which turns the pains of depression and loss into a creative triumph.

Overall ‘Total Loss’ is a haunting and intelligent album that will play well with a particular type of intellectual pop fan even if it won’t quite knock Frank Ocean off his throne this year.

7.4

Max Sefton

SBTRKT - Terminal

Ahead of his mammoth tour starting tomorrow, the masked dance master that’s captured the imaginations of the mainstream Aaron Jerome aka SBTRKT has launched new track Terminal out across the internet today. After a series of releases including last year’s huge self-titled record; which made our top 10 albums of 2011.

Listening to this new track however signals something of a step away from this, however. With the kind of sound you’d expect to fill a DJ set rather than the kind of shows SBTRKT pulls off with the likes of Sampha live it’s not so much a curveball as a floor filling, ostinato heavy SBTRKT half-way house.

Everything we’ve come to know as trademark for Jerome is there, the pulsing bass line, the like for sparcity and insanity at the same time and the want to be commercially acceptable without pushing too hard for pop. Counting in at under three minutes however, it’s more of a sampler for future beats than it is a ready-to-go release though so for now, that’s our appetite whet.

Braden Fletcher

Tweak Bird - People

Tweak Bird are the answer to question "What would Oasis sound like if they smoked way too much weed and decided to pay homage to Spiritualized rather than The Beatles?"

With psychedelic wailing harmonies and swathes of reverb-laden guitars, the Illinois homegrowns have made quite the comeback on 'People' following from their self titled effort back in 2010. It's one of those tracks that sounds effortlessly cool as you suspect that despite their image, these guys might actually give a shit about making good music. And remarkably for a stoner-rock outfit, it's not disposable and throwaway like so many other male duos in the field that have fallen off the hype wave in recent years (Who are Bleeding Knees Club again?).

This is good stuff, and is generously available for free download from their soundcloud.
Look out for their forthcoming mini album 'Undercover Crops' on October 9th too, if it's as good as this track we could be hearing a lot more from these two.

Toby McCarron