Music RECORDS
LABELS OF LOVE
WISE BLOOD INDUSTRIES In The List’s conception of utopia, every good record label is inspired by shrunken cadavers and cardinal sin. In the real world, there is only one – Glasgow’s fearless Wise Blood Industries – named after Flannery O’Connor’s great American novel, and founded in April 2009 by local pop polymath Adam Stafford (musician, label boss, photographer, video director, you name it...)
What artists have you released to date? ‘Radio Trees, Size of Kansas, Burnt Island, Jamie Sturrock, Paws, The Kays Lavelle, Jocky Venkataraman, Y’all is Fantasy Island and yours truly.’ (In addition to performing with YIFI, Stafford records under his own name and recently issued an ace compendium of covers: we gave it five stars). Do you have a manifesto? Or an anti- manifesto? ‘I’d say ‘anti-manifesto’ defiantly sums up the workings of Wise Blood Industries. Ninety-nine per cent of the releases are offered on the website for free download, all artists retain copyright of their music and there is little commerce involved in running the label. The artistry is the most important thing.’
Will music fans still pay for recorded artefacts, in your experience? ‘I think aficionados will always want the product with the artwork – vinyl, for instance, will never die. I prefer buying records to downloading them, but it’s convenient for some people to access music via the web. If I had more money, I’d endeavour to make Wise Blood a commercial enterprise: I have huge respect for what I deem to be proper labels – like Dust-to-Digital and Constellation – who make every release an event and who package their music in an almost fetishistic way.’ How important is Wise Blood’s visual identity? ‘I’ve tried to retain a certain type of minimalism, just because that’s my taste. A lot of the artwork is found photos: I’m an absolute sucker for pictures of odd-looking children holding massive cats.’
What Wise Blood treats approach? ‘Jamie Sturrock’s new EP is released in September, we’ve a forthcoming EP by Bobby Womb, YiFI are recording a new album, and the amazing RM Hubbert invited me to collaborate with him. I’d love to take him up on the offer.’ (Nicola Meighan) ■ www.wisebloodindustries.com
74 THE LIST 23 Sep–7 Oct 2010
ELECTRONIC BRUCE HAACK Farad (The Electric Voice) (Stones Throw) ●●●●●
Knights of the Occasional Table released ‘Knees Up Mother Earth.’ (Neil Cooper) GRIME TINIE TEMPAH Disc-Overy (Parlophone) ●●●●●
Listening to the bizarre, bewitching and above all unique work of ‘lost’ electronic music pioneer Bruce Haack, it’s tempting to trace his influence through Cabaret Voltaire, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and any number of psychedelic electronic futurists. However, it’s hard to say if they had even heard of him, such is the obscurity of his reputation. This compilation, now one of the few places to discover his home- made, otherworldly music, is an indispensable portal into a mind-bending world of proto techno and fried pop. It’s all evidence that the time is long overdue for Haack to take his place beside Joe Meek and Bob Moog as one of the key progenitors of electronic music. (Sean Welsh) DIY ELECTRONIC WOUNDED KNEE House Music (Krapp Tapes) ●●●●●
With cassettes and CDRs being churned out by below-radar experimentalists and available online and at gigs, Edinburgh’s premier progenitor of looped vocal rounds Drew Wright is joining in. Here, he serves up a bumper-sized C-60ish collection of some 21 no-fi trad concoctions that move between whimsy and melancholy in a full-throated landscape where Brian Eno, Arthur Russell, Ivor Cutler and Rolf Harris go hiking. Recorded at home, chez Wright for his new Sam Beckett referencing label (this is his first), both title and label-name serve up the best punning stunt since
South London has just coughed up another gifted young MC in the form of Patrick Ogwugu aka 'Talk of 2010' Tinie Tempah. And Rascal needs to watch his back, Disc-Overy is a fiery first effort from the 21-year-old, packed full of intricately produced tracks all propelled by buzzing electronics, epic riffs, pianos and strings. Kelly Rowland, Luke Steele, Ellie Goulding and Swedish House Mafia all appear, but it’s the strikingly personal lyrics, wit and Tempah’s killer flow throughout that really stand out as he reflects on his staggeringly speedy rise to fame and the subsequent loves and losses it brings. A thrilling new talent. (Camilla Pia) PUNK POP SUPERCHUNK Majesty Shredding (One Four Seven Records) ●●●●●
It’s been a ridiculously long nine-year hiatus for this seminal Yank punk- pop outfit, the band members concentrating on running the pivotal Merge Records instead (and releasing a who’s who of American indie into the bargain). But goddamn it, it’s good to have ‘em back. The opening salvo of ‘Digging for Something’ and ‘My Gap Feels Weird’ contains everything that’s great about Superchunk – huge choruses, driven
riffs, joy and energy and edginess lacing every thrusting bar. The great Superchunk trick is to make it all seem easy, when in reality making rock music this affirming is anything but. (Doug Johnstone) INDIE MICE PARADE What It Means To Be Left-Handed (FatCat) ●●●●●
Attention, fellow anagram fanatics: did you realise that Mice Parade is a reconfiguration of Adam Pierce? You did? Then we’re the last to know. Pierce, of course, is the New York multi- instrumentalist who founded Mice Parade – a loose, ambrosial electro- folk outfit – around 1998. He’s also a dude who’s performed with the swooning likes of HiM, Swirlies and múm. Mice Parade’s
shimmering eighth long- player is enkindled by gentle syncopation, dreamy boy-girl vocalisms, burbling flamenco and balmy afro-pop. Its myriad, meandering highlights include ‘Even’ (a bite- sized Lemonheads- evoking anthem) and the shoestring Cyndi Lauper- style cantata of ‘Do Your Eyes See Sparks’. (Nicola Meighan)
ROCK MARNIE STERN Marnie Stern (Souterrain Transmissions) ●●●●●
If, come some dull or unfathomable morning, you seek death by blissful, virtuosic metal- pop, then look no further than Marnie Stern: she’ll brutalise your every organ with hyper-melodic axe- mastery and alt-rock. The opening triumvirate
on our New Yorker’s third album delivers a case in point. ‘For Ash’ is speedball euphoria; ‘Nothing Left’ is exemplary indie-squall; ‘Transparency is the New Mystery’ is wayward, Breeders- esque, drum-addled and brilliant. Hella’s Zach Hill is a vital co- conspirator here. Stern has long reaped plaudits for her precocious riffage and shredding chops – and rightly so – but let not this technique overshadow her capacity for skewed, dramatic, sing-a-long rock. (Nicola Meighan) INDIE HOW TO SWIM Retina (or More Fun Than a Vat of Love) (Personal Hygiene) ●●●●●
This full-length debut has been a long time coming, but Glasgow’s How to Swim have taken their time to serve up a rich tapestry of witty orchestral rock. With a vocal delivery somewhere between Neil Hannon and Jonathan Richman, lyrically Retina prefers wit to emotional insight, creating a certain distance that makes it difficult to relate to some of the more overtly emotional songs. But with tales of sword- swallowers possessed of ‘exceptional’ gullets placed alongside jaunty paeans to Genesis P Orridge, perhaps that’s beside the point. Smart arrangement and some lovely touches in the production (the vocals on ‘Ghastly Ones’ particularly) leave Retina feeling like a dazzling display of talent, if perhaps not innovation. (Sean Welsh) AMBIENT POP AGNES OBEL Philharmonics (PIAS Recordings) ●●●●●
Berlin-based Copenhagener Agnes Obel may well have just rewritten the book on ethereal pop. From