video interview & EP review, Oct ’18
Here’s a stranger to daylight, staring back at a camera and talking to Mass Movement about his 10 favourite LPs. I now understand why vloggers do that thing of having loads of apparently pointless fast cuts even if it’s just them talking (to edit out all the times they blew their lines or dried up. Try giving a semi-improvised speech for a quarter hour without deviation, hesitation, repetition or several annoying facial tics… even the most glibly confident would struggle. Still, interesting to try – although I don’t think I could make a “career” out of it). These aren’t the definitive 10 – more the ones that seemed significant that day – but I hope this small addition to the huge reef of pop cult lists is entertaining, anyway. And it’s nice to be asked.
From abundance to rarity – here’s a review of Disquiet from Issue 8 of Plugged In Brighton:
…Reproduced here because it’s bootleg as fuck – a paper zine with minimal web presence, and if you don’t live in Brighton you’re unlikely to see a copy. Both ends of the magnet!
[EDIT: as of July ’19, PiB now has a website – check here]
Back soon with gig news…
Unpeeled album review + TOUR NEWS
The 13th August update of Unpeeled has very positive things to say about Glow in the Dark – “once in a blue one, you come across something of genuine interest”, for a start – and I’ve taken the liberty of quoting the entire review somewhere on here. Go to the site, though, it’s all good writing (and they clearly have excellent taste).
Tomorrow sees the first date of MINOTAUR – South Seas Live in Sheffield. Facebook pg for that specific gig here.
Wish me luck – or a gloriously messy death. x
GLOW IN THE DARK out today – reviewed by Whiteboard Project
GLOW IN THE DARK – album #2 – is now available from Bandcamp, Amazon, Spotify & the rest. My advice is get it from Bandcamp, where it comes with extras.
It’s been reviewed by Whiteboard Project, here. (Scroll down, it’s the second or third item.) It “will infuriate some and delight others […] Highly recommended”. Amen to that.
On top of this, I’m part of a brief tour from 15th – 19th August.
Brighton Souce & Ringmaster Reviews: Glow in the Dark x2
Two more reviews for Glow in the Dark, first from Stu Huggett in Brighton Source magazine:
…And second from Ringmaster Reviews, here. An ambivalent one, this – “at times not easy to get a handle on”, but “to ignore it would be a mistake”… and “a sinister caress with less than healthy intentions which leaves one rattled but needing to feel its shadows again”(!). Still, it’s in-depth, which is aces with me. And uncertainty isn’t a bad thing… I’ve evoked some colourful images in the writer’s head: my work is done.
a(nother) blast from the past: Misfit City lives again
inlay for a long-dead cassette, designed by the estimable Marko Nardini
As mentioned before, in a previous life I had a band called Empty Vessels. It started off as a duo with – hard as it seems to believe now – a heavy but mildewed drum n bass influence. What can I say… we were young, we were foolish, and guitar-based music seemed even deader than it does at present.
Anyway, it was a short-lived but intense period which we moved away from – inevitably, with hindsight – to become a very guitar-chord-based, oafish art rock trio; and even to make a tiny commercial dent. But at the time I speak of, we met a… polarized response. Some people loved us, some absolutely hated us; I just got off on the ructions, being a kid at the time. Very rarely, we’d get an insightful review from someone who might not’ve gone for the music, but appreciated what we were trying to do.
Such a review appeared on a literate and thoughtful site called Misfit City, which has been inactive for quite a while but recently started up again. Here’s the re-issued and updated article on EVs circa 2000…
It’s true what they say: be it ever so obscure, you never can escape your own past. But in this case, there’s nothing to run away from, and maybe something to be proud of. See if you agree.
more press & BBC session news
Here’s another write-up for Hard Science from is this music? Good again: I’m a punk poet prepared to push the boat out, it sez. Damn right.
The BBC Introducing: South session takes place next Sunday, 24th June – more details as soon as I have them (probably tomorrow).
GLOW IN THE DARK album: first press coverage/BBC gig
Here’s a nice write-up for the upcoming album at indiebandsblog.com …
And here’s one at withguitars.com
Appreciated, as ever. Live, the gigs are gradually pencilling in, circling like corner-of-the eye spectres… Also, just been offered a BBC radio session, so more news on that soon.
God Is In The TV reviews Hard Science, 10th May
Good ink…
Here’s a review of forthcoming single Hard Science on God Is In The TV’s site.
It’s a good one: “If these two avant-pop tracks are anything to go by then the album should be, at the least, intriguing.”
Read the article, listen to the tracks when they’re released at the end of this very month, and see if you agree. (In fact, Hard Science can be heard on the Bandcamp player at the top of this page. If you like, you can watch the video, too.)
[sic] Magazine reviews This Mucky Age
A positive write-up for This Mucky Age from individualist journo Indie Dad. It’s on the [sic] Magazine site here.
(Seem to recall he quite liked Episodes when it was first released in 2008, too – did I mention it’s just been re-issued by any chance…?)
A review’s always appreciated – even more when it’s favourable. So far, I’ve been very lucky.
short film hosted on God Is In The TV
In the run-up to the album release, a series of short films I made are being hosted by God Is In The TV zine.
Here’s the first one:
The second part will be up around Tue 24th May, and so on in fortnightly installments.
I might have described these vids briefly in an earlier entry, but anyway, they’re filmed versions of previously-published stories.
By saying “filmed”, I don’t want to write cheques I can’t cash (for younger readers, those are pieces of paper – paper – that the older generation used to transmit a sum of money. It sounds crazy, but it’s true)…*
They’re lo-fi, minimal – in the strictest sense of the term – but no less entertaining for that, hopefully. Have a look.
*Note to self: be more careful with the cheap sarcasm
