MUSIC | Reviews
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FOLK-POP BLOOD RELATIVES King Tut’s, Glasgow, Sat 7 Sep ●●●●● INDIE-PUNK SKATERS King Tut’s, Glasgow, Fri 30 Aug ●●●●●
On their first proper tour since rebranding themselves (they used to be Kitty the Lion, don’t you know), Glasgow’s folk-pop favourites Blood Relatives are using this hometown stop as a launch for new single ‘Deerheart’.
The band’s on top form, despite the absence of Callum Wiseman and Stewart Brock (who’re off gallivanting in other band Prides), with newly recruited keyboardist Mick Abubakar and guitarist Ryan Joseph Burns executing the a cappella harmonies beautifully. Ahead of its October release, the band perform
their debut album, also called Deerheart, in its entirety, showcasing the body positive ‘Bone Idol’, eerie hoedown number ‘A Murder of Crows’ and infectious anti-stoner single ‘Dead Hip’. Throughout the set, frontwoman Anna Meldrum’s soft voice simultaneously melts souls and warms hearts.
Logically, the band end on the bright and shimmering ‘Deerheart’, further showing their live versatility when it comes to style and dynamics. A positive nod to the support brewing for their album launch next month. (Nina Glencross) ■ See video for ‘Deerheart’ at blood-relatives.com
Don’t be confusing these New Yorkers with James Ferraro and Spencer Clark’s experimental noise project namesake. Nor actual skaters, seeing as they don’t own a board between them. Frontman Michael Ian Cummings picked the moniker because it conjured for him a certain essence of misspent youth.
So far, so more-Brooklyn-hipsters-with-a- retro-fascination. But it’s the trashy Manhattan underbelly from which Skaters draw inspiration, which could spell a suitably sleazy antidote to your typical Williamsburg indie territorial pissings, were the quintet not so woefully generic.
‘I Wanna Dance (But I Don’t Know How)’ has the dubious distinction of resembling the secondhand Strokes, the Vaccines. The much more creditable ‘Armed’ is a kind of Clash-style dubby punk thing, with an electronic drum beat and scratchy guitar line, but it proves atypical, with a head-scratching cover of Supergrass’s ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ – an encore no more demanded by the audience than the ever- oversubscribed indie middle-ground craves Skaters’ uninspired shtick. (Bruce White)
POP NEON NEON Òran Mór, Glasgow, Wed 11 Sep ●●●●● ROCK ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Sat 31 Aug ●●●●●
Gruff Rhys claims that not enough songs have been written about how left-wing Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli smuggled the manuscript for Dr Zhivago out of the Soviet Union and then hid it under his mattress while he went clubbing in Berlin. To redress the balance, he’s done two. It’s anecdotes like this that hint at the potential of what Neon Neon (Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip’s pop lovechild) are doing in this show, a stripped- down concert version of the biographical theatrical production the group made with National Theatre Wales earlier this year.
But the transition from the bells-and-whistles multimedia experience to touring gig means that the undoubtedly fascinating film footage is relegated to backcloth, mostly obscured by band and kit. Soaring space-rock instrumentals like ‘Neon Theme’ are the highlights of the show, which ultimately fails to deliver on their revved-up, cinematic promise.
Sadly there are too many weak links to make this
a satisfying experience. (Laura Ennor)
The point in the midst of ‘Roosevelt Island’s squelching funk where the line ‘it always kicks in’, er, kicks in is where resistance becomes futile, for anyone of a mind to offer it. Sometime Fiery Furnace Eleanor Friedberger isn’t even here with her own band, having enlisted a group of ‘people from the northwest of England’ (ie members of Field Music, Hyde and Beast and the Cornshed Sisters) to play with her for this week only, but you can’t hear the join. Friedberger, the Illinois-born owner of one of rock’s greatest fringes, is two albums into a solo career of depth and quality, and over a bit more than an hour here she exercises an array of styles and delicately drawn emotional resonances, from the lively pub rock of ‘Tomorrow Tomorrow’ to the sparse, two-timed waltz of ‘Other Boys’ and the sharply evocative romance of ‘When I Knew’. As the closing ‘My Mistakes’ grinds to a halt she leaves the stage and strides through the audience, trailing quiet but deserved triumph in her wake. (David Pollock)
LOCAL DIY CELEBRATION MUSIC LANGUAGE FESTIVAL 2013 Various venues, Glasgow, Fri 6–Sun 8 Sep ●●●●●
FRIDAY: In the past few years, it seemed the annual celebration of Glasgow’s ever-diverse music scene had been well and truly plumbed but it still comes up with the goods. Both Anak- Anak and Daniel Padden take their respective ethos and run with them, Padden arguably winning out with a creepily avant-garde take on wedding standard 'Agadoo', but Trembling Bells rule the opening festivities with a heady speedball of 70s psych and spirited folkisms. (David Bowes) SATURDAY: The early afternoon session in vegan cafe-bar 78 offers the rousing a capella folk of Muldoon’s Picnic preceded by avuncular bass maestro Howie Reeve. A cross between punk hero Mike Watt and eccentric theatre legend Ken Campbell, the former Tattie Toe delights with his knotty acoustic prog-punk.
Over at SWG3, an early evening slot is
perhaps not ideal for Dalhous’s nocturnal ambient techno, but they create a suitably dank and spectral soundscape. To a backdrop of 1960s dancing girls, Ela Orleans constructs otherworldly pop transmissions. Expanding on the folk-tinged avant-punk of their excellent Sycamore project, Jer Reid and Stevie Jones recruit Rafe Fitzpatrick (violin), Aby Vulliamy (viola) and George Murray (trombone) for an elementally beautiful set. A weekend highlight. The dada performance art of Asparagus
Piss Raindrop sees members hopping on one leg while reciting bird names. An agreeably crackpot amuse bouche between musical courses. Louie of hip hop duo Hector Bizerk’s monotonous flow doesn’t lend itself to an a cappella set, but the increasingly impressive Cosmic Dead deliver with a mesmeric excursion into heavy space rock. (Stewart Smith) SUNDAY: Andrew Paine's set sees sparse pseudo-industrial textures and haunting vocal manipulations flirting with dark ambient sonics. Bill Wells’ National Jazz Trio of Scotland’s pre-orchestrated laptop intrusions are a welcome addition and the wounded voice of Aby Vulliamy keeps the tears a-coming. In the Grand Ole Opry, eagleowl do their very best Low impression but have such a great grasp of tender, wispily nostalgic indie songwriting that you can’t really hold it against them. With the spectral lilt of Zola Jesus, Hausfrau is the day’s biggest surprise while Wounded Knee and Big Tajj’s folk-hop mashup is as innately entertaining as their obvious camaraderie. Echoing Parliament and Hawkwind’s wild creativity as much as Factory Floor’s stomping rhythms, Golden Teacher (pictured) provide a high-energy surge of circadian chaos to bring the night to a sweaty, gleeful climax. (David Bowes)
78 THE LIST 19 Sep–17 Oct 2013