Tuesday, December 13, 2005  4:15 pm 

Pop musik

We know almost nothing about Multiples except they did a great song on a compilation our friend Mags was nice enough to get called “Raising mental health awareness in scotland”

20JFS2 played it at the ArtSchool Dropouts gig with Pro Forma and Fujiya and Miyagi where Russel Warrior like it, so we get him to review it.

Ignore it if you like, but you know its scary and spot on.

Multiplies - Everything is Everyone’s Fault

Glaswegian band Multiplies trick you into thinking this is going to be angular 80s pastiché - the formula for success, if success is rocketing to the bottom of the UK Top 20 singles chart, well done you - but no, this is the 80s of Marillion and Theme for Great Cities era Simple Minds.

Some sharp, icy guitars blow through the broken window of your drafty, student flat off the Byres Road. Your sifting through your Postcard Records when you hear a synthesizer and you think, Fuck It, I want to listen to Flock Of Seagulls. Then ‘81, ‘82′, ‘83, ‘84 and you’ve moved down south to find a job and wonder why the hell you chose a drafty house in Bethnal Green. It’s so far away from the Hammersmith Odeon where you see most of your gigs, Gary Moore, Gary Numan, Gary Glitter.

Everything Is Everyone’s Fault is a fun, instrumental, “hello we’re on stage now” kind of song and reminds me of Brighton’s own Coin-Op (Rick Wakeman vs Pavement). But I kept trying to imagine what Multiplies might look like; they morph out of grey, crombie coats into big shoulder padded Prince backing band members, to permed metallers playing two keyboards with each hand.

And what’s this? A drum solo!!!! No seriously, not in your post-rockin’ two piece band kind of way. Here, the other instruments stop, the drummer funks it up a bit, you think it’ll be short-lived, but no! Hello! Have another four bars, knock yourself out!

It’s the mid 80s as favoured by French house dude and Daft Punk chum Alan Braxe (check Rubicon) and it’s prog French nu-shoes outfit M83 if you got them seriously pissed and asked them to tell some silly jokes.

This means I like it.

Cheers Mr.Warrior, expect more from him soon we hope…

Islands - Rough Gem

Unicorns have the horn, and then they pass it to someone else and Return To The Sea. The boys who first made us dress all in pink and dance like we were cute indie kids again (my girlfriends words not mine) have been missing from our reality, if not our headphones for quite a while.

There is a kind of ultimate cult thing in Brighton were you can really easily tell the people who are into indie and indie, and the line is the unicorns - once you cross it you never come back. People are literally dripping over bootlegs like expectant children awaiting their garbage pail kids stickers to be born. Anyway, enough historyonics lets swim like fish to the Islands .

Islands sees Nick Diamonds and J’aime enter a much more experimental style of song structure, i mean its not Stockhausen but lets just say the first few Mercury Rev albums where you hold your breathe in excitement wondering what’s going to happen next. Your bopping around like its Paul Simon, the next your in a tunnel with some avant guard mcs having fun with your ear drums. Whispered smooth jazz Lou Reed songs meld seamlessly into skipping time psychedelic drenched delicate little numbers, and they even get heavy on your ass sometimes (but not that heavy). I’d say the word dark, but it’s more creepy and dreamy Spacemen 3 country drone than real dark.

Rough Gem is the reincarnation of welsh no hit wonders Mo-Ho-Bi-Sho-Pi played by the mini-pops on Casio’s pretending to be Prince’s backing band in Purple Rain, which obviously means it really really rules (yes the 2 really are necessary).

I often have difficulty describing how much fun something can be, but still be pretty serious.

Like the first Talking Heads album Islands seem to have a determination to be a pop band but really have far too much odd taste to manage it and fall into that space people, like you dear reader, love. This includes the determination to not play above 5, but sometimes they get a bit overexcited or maybe just have too much fun and get a rowdy, voices strain and you all go ahh…look at the little indie boys, they really rock and I’m smiling so much it hurts the sides of my mouth.

So whats in todays advent boys and girls?

I’m waiting for Test Icicles to cover this.

labels >> xxjfg