MUSIC preview
Avalanche's frontman Philip Kane (centre) has not always been the
luckiest man alive
ROCK Avalanche
'l’m on the Side of the 1.: king; ri'=r;i"s.' ann0unces Philip Kane, frontman for London five-piece Avalanche Kai‘e is sitting in one of the three bars in Camden that he's riot ltaried from rle is trying hard to stay off the bottle but it's not easy Hrs partner of ten years recently threw him out of the house Chronic drunks can seem romantic At first As for the crack cocaine addiction, Kane is over it now but for two years it didn't really help matters. It’s fair to say that life has not been. entirely kind to Kane He is 32 and looks considerably older His face is like a saddle bag that's been dragged over ten miles of scrub When he cackles
ROCK Fu Manchu
Glasgow: Cathouse, Tue 24 Mar. During their four years as TGCClerltg artists, Orange County quartet Fu Manchu have kicked up a lot of dust, to say nothing of an almighty seismic racket With their knowrng take on the untamed spirit of late (SOs/early 70s monster rock.
Their latest opus The Action Is :52; is an unrestrained celebration of bomber raid strength riffs and earthquake- rnduCing rumble It also reveals an unhealthy fascination wrth all things 70s and obscure. The artwork, for example, features a vintage action shot of the bandana-wearrng, headphone- clad, seriously afro'd 70s skateboarder Tony Alva.
Fu Manchu's souped-up, nitio-fuelled take on reality is defined by excessive infatuation with speed, power, custom cars, synapse impacting heavmess, an impressive array of vintage effects pedals and limited contact With the outsrde world The Action ls Go is
42 THE LIST 20 l.1ar-—2 Apr 1998
u Mnchu: speed. action 9
he does often, his skin tarrir‘kles {!'.‘l1f‘(," his eyes ti'rtil
it looks like -t :r‘ritour map of a particularly steer: rticvrintain
Kane is Just Hangover Square, Avaliir‘.._he’s debut album and the lyrical distri'atron rrf Kane's dissolution Produced by Cat‘w‘il Coughlan of Fatima Mansions, rt comes from the same musical pit of despair as some of Brel's grimmer moments or Leonard Cohen s introspective musings. it's the sound of self-hate, sordid self-degradation and regret. It's also rather good,
'What we do is poetic, angst-riven and about doubt.’ explains Kane ‘It's not music as therapy, Just a genuine desire to express things. You know that period between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one when you're racked wrth doubt? I've not outgrown it. People regard a successful live band as one which causes the audience to clap. We can Silence them.’
If all this sounds too self-pitying then fear not, for Kane has retained a healthy ability to laugh at the worst situations ‘I don't find my song bleak,’ he explains while referring to an album that contains tracks about sexual explortatror: and has sleeve artwork featuring a naked body in a hood being strung up ‘lt's rust that they’re packed wrth self-satire and parody ' (Jonathan Trev-x)
i Hangover Square IS released on Corri'da Records on Mon 30 Mar
"-‘l'ii‘ lallfi‘l‘m. v.l~.-: T".
IO Teletz‘x’?
b! Apparently.
fjffll/mz’f sinner fare (ragged klikl'ig and SCi'Galllll‘i’) from the darkest corners of the lard that rock forget. Approach wrth caution and dCTTII expect anything wserrrbhng a prnfOri'td insight into the great unsolved questions of Lie If‘lS is a hand whose preferred choice of sultrect matter is cars and UFOs r i‘-fi' more cars and lT‘.'."'@ 'JFCs Fri March: "trivia". Scott Hill
explains 'A I): .' s‘. g: fy iCs sti.tt ayes. up with The title
The Action is St; ia'rre from an old 70s dirt-biking ii‘t'fnvie called On Any Sunday explains a worryingly enthtismst'f Hii' 'S:"t'e riiiy iiist sad "The action is grill" and l thought "C-K -- that’s a (col title’” With Fu Manchu what you hear is what you get, We're
not trying to change the world or .
anything like that There's no secret agenda or significant messages hidden in our lyrics —‘ cars and UFOs rust seem to be the easiest thing to write about.’ (Lax-rile lrcrnas)
5“ The Action Is ’5.) is out {PCLV
music
record reviews
ROCK
Human Waste Project E-Lux (Hollywood) * * *
The name might suggest some kind of brain-shreddineg heavy industrial act or something way too hideous too mention in polite company but, in fact, LA quartet HWP owe their sound more to a post grunge jigsaw of miscellaneous rock influences, served up with a highly strung ethereal edge. Fronted by Aimee Echo — who looks as though she could be the scary sister of Trana Satana's Tarrie B — the enchanting Ms Echo has the strangest habit of coming over like a curious baby doll hybrid of Cyndi Lauper and SiOUXSie Si0ux in a foul mood. The band, for their part, muster a sound not a thousand taco stands from fellow Los Angelinos Jane's Addiction on this feisty yet moody twrlight world of a debut album. (LT)
The Dirty Three
Ocean Songs (Bella Union) *‘***‘* Beyond the busy little world, the desperate machinations of the music scene, there stretches a larger field, a raw place where the wind blows the
; dirt — and it is here that the Dirty Three ‘ wordlessly operate. Or, at least, it used 1 to be, With this fourth album, we find
that beyond the field there heaves the stretching ocean, and it is here that, for the moment, they make their home Following the occasional rushing violence of their last, Horse Stories,Ocean Songs presents a blue Surface calm stretched over black, unknowable, squalling depths; this is a sad slumbering whirlpool of a record and the temptation to give up and be swallowed is powerful (DL)
Various
Erotica Italia (Bistro) at a: at
Billed as 'the Kama Sutra of erotic musrc', this is an album of curious cuts from the soundtracks of dodgy Italian 60s and 70s skinflicks. Jumping from aural thrill to sticky spill like a dilletante at an orgy, Erotica Italia veers from the sublime (GP. & (3F. Reverberr's Sitar 'n' hammond-led 'SeQuence Six’) to Franco Micalizzi's
ridicule-assed 'Crescendo', a four minute bore-fest of increasrngly speedy bongos and gasping. Worth it for Ennio Morricone's ’Ho Messo Gli Occhi Su Di Tre’, which could easily score Clint, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach at a hot tub party. (PR)
Tort0ise
TNT (City Slang) i it *
Ten years hence, when they're compiling The Best Post-Rock Album In The World. . . Ever! you won't find much from TNT alongside Slint’s 'Good Morning, Captain' or Tortoise's own ’Died‘. This is not a bad record — check out the drum 'n' bass 'n' Krautrock 'Almost Always ls Never Enough' — but it lacks ambition and tends toward blandness. Swinging from hypnotic loungecore, through cinematic pieces, to screw-brained jazz, indrvrdual tracks are fine, but merge into aural wallpaper that c0uld see TNT replacing Portishead as the background music of chOice at trendy-parents dinner parties. Must try harder. (PR)
Autour De Lucie
Immobile (Le Village Vert) * t it Now that the French, via Daft Punk and Arr, have a virtual monopoly in cool music, as well as in the more traditional realms of cinema, clothes and Cigarettes, any Gallic group which looks like it might boast a modicum of style are being pounced on With alacrity. So it is that Autour De Lucie only have to exist to be pronounced attractive. French lyrics — formidable! Female vocalist — she'll sound like Francorse Hardy, then. While the trio don't exactly overturn these stereotypical expectations by emerging as a hardcore metal combo, their mildly alternative pop is no more sophisticated than your average Everything But The Girl recording. But it's gorng to look great on your coffee table. (FS)
FunADaAMental
Erotic Terrorism (Nation) i: ‘k * They’re back and they’re still angry, as if it could be any other way with Fun/‘DaAMental. While their proteges Asian Dub Foundation have taken on the mantle of the nation's foremost incendiary Asian rappers, Aki and co have, if anything, become more extreme in their presentation of their