Leed’s Everyday People are one of those bands that I’ve seen mentioned in various places but never checked out. The band asking LSF to review their current single gave me that opportunity, and boy am I grateful.

The band describe themselves as ‘New-Wave Funk and Soul’ and yep this thing has a whole load of soul, a shedload of funk but it has a rock edge. And it grooves people, it grooves hard. The thing is that for much of the song the rock edge just bubbles under, it’s there but it’s not obvious. BUT at the end this thing revs up, it just rocks out. And it’s thrilling.

Musically this is a band who know their chops, the playing is just way up there. I have a particular thing about the drumming on the track but that’s just me, I always listen to the drumming on tracks. There is some great guitar, it’s absolutely fantastic. And the vocals are cool with just the right amount of laid-back. Maeve has this wonderful vocal sound when she let’s go which I can only describe as being vaguely Cher-like – except that even as I wrote that I’m now not sure, it’s somebody from the late 60s but I can’t quite recall exactly who I’m thinking of – she has this slight vibrato thing going on.

Mentioning this reminds me that the song has a feel of the late 60s/early 70s, this sounds as though it’s a retro-fest but it isn’t, it’s just that it has that feel in a good way. But it’s also bang up to date.

When I first heard the track my immediate thought was that Everyday People’s sound is similar to Sifaka. I was kinda right and kinda wrong on reflection (and much repeated listening), Sifaka are more rock in feel but there’s some points where their sound is similar to Everyday People’s, at least as far as this single goes. And the big thing that is similar is that both bands sound like bands playing live on their recorded material, it sounds organic and real, there isn’t obvious digital fx going on.

‘New Beginnings’ is a blast of groove people, go listen.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/2oXNFJsGtn2QCLsDxs07RU?si=ulatN2wJTiW4E6YkZ-suOg
Apple Music: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/new-beginnings-single/1444523486?app=music&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/new-beginnings-single/1444523486?app=itunes&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Everyday_People_New_Beginnings?id=Btp5h2acan5u4cvaub4jqo5qybi
Amazon Music: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KV5MP9W/?tag=distrokid06-20

The info

Everyday People are a New-Wave Funk and Soul 5-piece band, based in Leeds.

The group draw their influence from classic artists such as Sly and the Family Stone, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, as well as Nile Rodgers and Chic; from this they channel their own modern twist, to create the signature sound that is Everyday People. They work to fuse funky riffs and hooks with melodic vocals that are certain to keep the crowd moving.

Maeve Florsheim – Lead Vocalist
Euan Ridley – Guitarist
Jasper Exley – Keys + Backing Vocalist
Louis Willumsen – Bassist
Jay Sood – Drums

Facebook: @everydaypeopleleeds – https://www.facebook.com/EverydayPeopleLeeds/
Instagram: @everydaypeopleleeds – https://www.instagram.com/everydaypeopleleeds/
Twitter: @EverydayPplBand – https://www.twitter.com/EverydayPplBand/

Those of you that have read my reviews of Vukovar’s previous releases will know that I am somewhat of a fan of what they do. ‘Monument’ sees their first collaboration with iconic English artist, musician and composer Michael Cashmore (there’s some information at the end of the review if you want to know more about Michael Cashmore).

What intrigued me about this collaboration is whether what I’ve come to recognise as Vukovar’s signature sound wasn’t recognisable or was. And more importantly, was it still disturbing and scary. This being really important to my appreciation of Vukovar’s music (or should that be compositions?). Look I like music that leaves me too scared to go to bed, in case my night is plagued by vivid dark, disturbing nightmares, that’s just me.

What isn’t obvious from any of the information is whether Vukovar and Michael Cashmore collaborated on all or just some of the tracks. Listening there are things which seem to be more of a Vukovar thing, and some which bear a slightly different sound. I may be wrong.

Some of you – who may have read my reviews or listened to Vukovar’s previous releases – may be asking ‘is there a theme or even some sort of concept to this album?’. And the answer to that is that the album reflects the concept of a Wonderland gone sour.. The tracks appear to convey what we might call a sense of bleakness and emptiness, and even deep dark despair.

The album opens with a short spoken word piece called ‘This Brutal World’, this references Alice In Wonderland’, it’s a signpost of the direction this album goes in.

‘My Continuous Monument’ is a sound piece with spoken vocals (the vocals are covered in echo and other effects) and dark brooding synth sounds. But in there is this simple piano like sound that is just beautiful. With a backing vocal line that is just haunting. The whole is disturbing. It leaves you with a sense of dread. Or in my case a sense of joy, Vukovar never open up with the truly scary stuff, they work up to it, so dread is good.

Up next is what we might refer to as a song ‘Little Gods’ is gothic post-punk. It has hints of Bauhaus, it even has hints of dirty period Depeche Mode. It has a tune people that is curiously earwormy and you can even hum it. I’m getting a little carried away here, it would be more accurate to say you can hum it in places. And you can dance to it. It is a rather glorious thing.

And then we are back to sound pieces – there are three Visions In Silence I – Utrique Cosmi Et Sic in Infinitum, Visions In Silence II – Exist As I Exist and Visions In Silence III – The Concrete Fantasy. These gradually increase the dread, they become increasingly disturbing. The first is sound only. The second is sound, spoken words, random sounds of screaming and fear, if you weren’t dreading turning off all the lights before and going to a dark bedroom, you’re going to now. The third sounds as though it isn’t as disturbing, it’s actually a piece of music not purely a sound piece, but what I found was that given the state I was in after the second, even this sounds disturbing, it has this slight sense of off-kilter-ness, of something wrong.

‘Hover’ might be loosely defined as a song. The vocals are sang not spoken. Musically it’s sparse drum beats, synth sounds. But as the song progresses it becomes more a song, a song with a hauntingly beautiful melody in places. It is strangely weirdly almost folky (something that isn’t as much of a surprise as it may sound, Vukovar make music like this sometimes). And then it becomes something else with loud bell-like sounds, but this only lasts a short while and it goes back to being almost sweetly melodious. And then it does that loud thing again, and does that for the remaining part of the song’s 11 minutes. It leaves you feeling drained, it leaves you with a strange pressure in the top of your head, it leaves you feeling disturbed and shaken.

I can’t even begin to describe ‘Their First Apocalypse’. It sounds like some sort of mutant horror film theme. It sounds vaguely Depeche Mode. It has these horribly disturbing weird sounds that run through it.

‘The Last Goodbye Happens Everyday’ sounds a little like early Human League, if you really need a ‘sounds like’. It is remarkably ‘straight’ for this album. It has a tune, it follows the verse/chorus structure. It’s a blast of lovely light relief. But it isn’t lightweight.

And then the disturbing sound is back ‘The Duty Of Mothers’ is almost post-punk but it has this strange elastic sound, the drumming is all over the place, there are vocals overlaid all over each other. Weird toy like synth sounds. I’ve listened to this lots of times but it still doesn’t make any sense sonically, but even though I can’t make sense of it I love it. It has a sense of dark joy. A darkness that leaves you unable to shake it off.

‘Paradiso’ is a epic almost poppy thing. In that classic 80s’ synth pop way. It’s gloriously wonderful and leaves you with a smile on your face,

But never a band to leave you feeling quite that happy the final track is this very strange and disturbing spoken word piece called ‘Nein, mein Engel, nein …’

The first time I sat down and listened to this as a whole it left me somewhat confused and frankly overwhelmed. This isn’t because it’s a collaboration but because I just didn’t get it. The thing is that having listened to it again twice as a whole I started to get it, and then got it – Vukovar’s music isn’t easy, it demands attention and effort. It’s way more difficult than their previous albums. This may indeed reflect Cashmore’s involvement or just where Vukovar are right now. For me this is a Vukovar album I can dip into it, play what I feel like listening to and move on. Previous Vukovar albums demand that you sit down and listen to the whole thing.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t sit down and listen to the whole of it, you can (and should). It’s just that the changes in feel sonically can be jarring (and indeed this may be exactly what the band had in mind, I wouldn’t put that past them). It is a bit of a rollercoaster journey. This of itself is disturbing.

I know that there are already things from this album that I really like and others that are going that way, and that in time (more time than I have with an album I’m reviewing) I’ll grow to love it as much as I love the previous releases (which I liked on the first listen). But I’m somebody who already is a fan. For people who Vukovar are new to this actually might be a good way into the band. It has enough of the dark but it also has those songs that are just glorious and sometimes danceable (‘Little Gods’ and ‘The Duty Of Mothers’ deserve to played at some sort of appropriate club). Although when I say glorious I mean that sonically or musically not lyrically.

Look I’m going to recommend this album, I’m going to say listen to it as a whole or just dip into the tracks that sound as though they might appeal to you from my review, and then listen to it all the way through. Do that, go back to their earlier albums and then work through them in order. This album will make more sense then I promise.

The info

Cashmore is revered by music lovers as one of Britain’s most influential and inspiring composers. In the mid 80’s Cashmore came into contact with David Tibet (ex-Psychic TV) of the group CURRENT 93, which he later joined in 1990. For the next 20 years Cashmore wrote almost exclusively all of the music for the group including the seminal albums ‘Of Ruine or some Blazing Starre’, ‘Sleep has His House’, ‘Soft Black Stars’ and ‘Thunder Perfect Mind’. Not only is he responsible for influential songs like ‘A Sadness Song’, ‘Whilst The Night Rejoices Profound And Still’ and ‘The Bloodbells Chime’ which are long considered classics in the progressive folk and industrial genre, he also has written music for British wave legend Marc Almond (Soft Cell) and avant garde sensation Anohni (Antony & The Johnsons). An artist renowned for his eclectic work and poignant nature of his music, Cashmore has also collaborated with the likes of Nick Cave, Bill Fay,Tony Visconti and many more.

Vukovar formed in 2014 in a crumbling placefiller town in the North West of England and set about creating their own world within an otherworld. In their short yet eternal time, they have been relentlessly productive; ‘Monument’ being the 6th full LP after their highly well-received previous 5: ‘Emperor’, ‘Voyeurism‘, ‘Fornication’, ‘Puritan‘ and ‘Infinitum‘. They have had amongst their ranks Rose McDowall (Strawberry Switchblade/Psychic TV/Coil/Current 93), collaborated with and 80’s b-movie star Dawn Wildsmith, worked with world renowned hyper-realist Andrzej Klimowski, and actor, TV writer and man of all round good taste Graham Duff and others.

Information about ‘Monument’

The album:

• is available in magenta 180g 2×12″ vinyl
• is mastered specially for vinyl by Bricoleur (CURRENT 93)
• is a high quality, super-audiophile disc – German pressing!
• with sumptuous gatefold sleeve
• with wrinted inner sleeves
• with vinyl labels printed in colour

All artwork by Michael Cashmore

Included CD contains the new studio album ‘Monument’
CD in slipcase

Strictly limited to 500 copies

Available from https://www.fantotal.de/de/nature-and-organisation/cd2x12-vinyl-vukovar-monument.html Amazon, HMV and all sorts of online retailers (you takes your choice and pays your money).

This is my third attempt at writing this review. The first two were, to say the least. a little rambling. That said there were sections of the first two versions I wanted to somehow use, my solution is to use footnotes of a kind which you can either choose to ignore or read, up to you really.

I’ve been accused of raving in what might be described as a fairly incoherent way about jellyskin’s music in the past. Can’t help that, I’m a fan [Note 1]. So I’m going to try and stay relatively coherent, I will try. Can’t guarantee it though.

I gave up trying to work out quite what jellyskin’s songs are about some time ago so let’s concentrate on what this track sounds like. The first thing is that the vocals are luscious, deliciously luscious. The vocals on their other music are great – oh who I am kidding? Wonderful – but this track has the most yummy layered vocals.

The start of the track had me thinking ‘so OK this is going to continue on from where ‘Judder’ (their last release) left off’, it has a similar feel and Will is kinda taking lead vocals. It has that dubby broken beat thing going on. Oh, and this isn’t the very start of the track which is this short choral vocal section. But suddenly it becomes something else entirely, over this juddering drum pattern it’s suddenly all, well the thing that came into my head is ‘really Mamas and Papas?’ but that’s replaced by rolling piano, and then a bit later there’s something slightly proggy (not entirely sure that they’ll thank me for that) on an organ, with something that I can only describe as really really earwormy tune. The problem with describing their music is that it just sounds confusing [Note 2].

And it may sound like a ‘forcing together of things that shouldn’t be together’ (as my terribly unenlightened friend described it when I played the track to them [Note 3]) but it isn’t. That’s the thing about jellyskin they put things together and because they know how to arrange them, how to make one section lead seamlessly into the next, it works. Although sometimes the ‘transition’ is abrupt and somewhat surprising and it’s fine, it’s absolutely fine and a great thing. And other thing is that, they suddenly surprise you, you think you know where something is going and then, they just throw something else at you, something you didn’t expect. That people, is a beautiful and thrilling thing.

So, if you’ve read my feature on jellyskin you may be asking yourself is this still darkly joyous or something else. Yes it’s still dark, it sounds dark, and as I can testify after listening to this song on repeat for around an hour – there’s so so much going on in this song that you don’t get bored, there’s always something you didn’t hear before – it started to take me to a wonderfully dark place. And yes there’s a joy there. But it’s beautiful, it really is. And it’s mesmerising, it really is. jellyskin just get better and better.

Notes

1. In fact I’m so much of a fan that my friend has a sort of private bet on how it will take me to mention jellyskin in a conversation about music – for the record the shortest time was around three minutes but that was during a chat about classic funk. Quite how I managed to insert a mention of jellyskin into that I can’t recall.
2. Looking back at my other jellyskin reviews this is a theme. I have tried, I’ve really tried to come up with some other way of doing this but I’ve given up, trying to describe what it sounds like is what I’m stuck with. Other things I tried included attempting to describe what I see visually when I play the song or coming up with some sort of weird descriptive scheme based on shapes and colours. Neither of these really worked if I’m honest.
3. My friend also said it sounded as though it was working on a level he didn’t understand. My response to this was that he was just being way too analytical in his approach to jellyskin’s music, and he should just let it wash over him and react on a purely emotional level. His response, best described as a snort. If I’m honest we don’t always see eye-to-eye on music.

So while Backspace might describe themselves as an alt-pop band what this doesn’t do is to prepare you for quite how rock their sound is.

The EP opener really sums up alt-rock with a pop thing. Rosie’s vocals, which are great people, are pure pop but the track takes off on that rocky kick in the choruses. It’s all horribly catchy, very horribly catchy. This thing earworms like crazy. So I’m hooked, on to the next.

Oh boy it looks like my attempt to label this band has, to some degree, fallen apart; for ‘Sick And Tired’ actually features horns. That’s right horns. What this actually reminds me of, only slightly mind, is The Real Ink. It’s weirdly slightly soul-y, slightly ska-y at points. Think No Doubt in an alt-pop-rock vein. And then just for the hell of it it throws in some classic 80s’ pop keyboards. The problem for me is that I really really like this song but for the life of me I can’t quite pin down why – sure it’s hugely catchy, those horns rock (well they don’t rock at such, you know what I mean), it has this enormously toe-tapping beat that after the third listen through kinda forced me to get up and throw some shapes, I rather like the 80s’ keyboards. But it has something when taken as a whole that somehow is more than the sum of it’s parts.

‘Winging It’ is so obviously Backspace but it’s different again. It’s more 80s indie/Brit Pop. Look it’s the vocals which are so damn loose, on the edge of falling apart. I love a vocal like that. Musically it mines the deep veins of Brit Pop. But then just for the hell of it they throw in this crazy guitar break. This is mixed back, which sounds strange, but on the track it really works. And it has a tune that never dies. Rather strangely, and I include this just for information, it reminded me very very slightly of False Advertising at a few points (it’s in the vocals should you really want to know).

What Backspace has produced is a hugely impressive set of songs, there’s not a dud amongst them. What is even more impressive is that this band are young, I mean like way young, a fact I hadn’t actually picked up on when I agreed to review the EP (scroll down to the bio after listening to the songs people). I just judged it on what I heard, I suggest you do the same. Do I recommend this EP, hell yeah.

The info

BACKSPACE are a Guiseley based indie Alt-Pop band, formed by school friends Harry, Alex, Rosie, Miles and Harry.

Conceived to the sounds of early 80’s new wave, BACKSPACE suckled on the rich milk of Brit Pop before being weaned on their first solids of The Libertines and Artic Monkeys. Now sick of a life drowned out by household appliances they’ve broken loose and want to regurgitate their mixed up childhood diet in your earholes.

Formed in 2016 the band have doggedly grown their reputation as a tour de force with performances on the local circuit including being crowned winners of the Kirstall Festival Battle of the Bands in July 2018.

BACKSPACE ARE:

Rosie Weston (13yrs): Vocals
Alex Turner (13yrs): Guitar
Harry Adams(14yrs): Guitar
Miles Addie (14yrs): Bass
Harry Turner (15yrs): Drums

Twitter: @BkSpaceBand
Facebook: @BkSpaceBand
Website: https://backspace.band/

Tricky things Christmas songs, there have been some really great ones and some, speaking frankly, I feel should be removed from my head using bleach or something rather more caustic on the off-chance that some small bit of it will drift into my head if it isn’t removed completely. You, the reader, will obviously have your own personal ‘best loved’ and ‘most hated’ lists.

On the one hand you may be asking yourself why The Harriets have decided to record not just one but two Christmas songs, but on the other it sort of makes complete sense. They strike me as the sort of people who actually enjoy the festive season (unlike myself, unfortunately I’m not a fan, and strangely even as I say that I feel I should be apologising for feeling that way). Luckily the band actually explain how they ended up with two Christmas songs

“Last Christmas, when our songwriting duo Dan and Ben went back to their family houses for the holidays, they composed a Christmas song each, without the knowledge of the other. To celebrate this festive miracle we decided to record both tunes and release them as a double A-side for Christmas 2018”

So on with the review. ‘Anyway, It’s Christmas’ is one of those ‘Christmas songs’ that uses Christmas as a basis for something else completely – ticking one of my boxes for a good Christmas song. What we have is a rather sad tale of winter romance. It actually make me feel somewhat emotional if I’m honest. The thing about this musically is that while it may sound rather jaunty, there is actually this great melancholic feel to the music that really compliments the lyrics. And by the way – as though you needed telling, it’s The Harriets – the lyrics are really great. They certainly have a way with words.

Listening more closely, for some strange reason, although perhaps not so strangely, much of the drum track uses something rather military in feel although slowed down. This is actually rather clever – I’m going to leave you to come up with the reason I might find this clever. I may of course be reading stuff into this that isn’t there at all. I’ll leave you to decide whether I’m trying to be a musical smart-arse or not. Anyway for the rest of the musical arrangement it actually sounds both wonderfully sparse and beautifully layered at the same time, which is really clever. There are layers of acoustic and electric guitar that just inter-twine in this great way.

By, say around the third play through, I realised that this track was seeping slowly but surely into my head and and I didn’t want this thing to leave me forever.

‘A Christmas Box’ is a different thing entirely. It’s a Christmas song about Christmas. And it sounds like a Christmas song, look you know what I mean by that. It has this great rip-roaring chorus that we’ll all be singing, it’s covered in all those sorts of Christmas song instruments. It has layers and layers of vocals. I made the mistake of connecting my laptop to my stereo and turning this way up before I clicked the play button and it filled the whole room, and probably the street, with this uplifting huge sound. Although my cat Maisie (aka The LSF Cat, aka Fat Cat – she’s always been rather on the large size, when the notice saying somebody had a rescue cat for rehoming they thought she was pregnant, not pregnant just fat. I usually call her Pritty Kitten, she’s is very pretty) found it rather scary and left the room faster than I’ve seen her move for quite some time. Still she’s not a huge fan of some of the music I like at all, she usually prefers cheesy Europop. Although she has this weird thing about Rolo Tomassi, should I play something by them she rushes into the room I’m in and sits really really close to the speaker.

Sorry I got a bit sidetracked there.

So back to the song. But listen rather more closely and it’s actually a rather romantic thing. It’s a song about wanting Christmas to be like it used to be. It is, although it might appear to tick all the boxes for a Christmas song I don’t like, a Christmas song about Christmas that I actually like a whole heap. It almost got me feeling festive, quite an achievement there, especially on a damp November Sunday evening in Huddersfield.

Look I was lucky enough to be at the single launch – they only played ‘Anyway, It’s Christmas’ live (‘A Christmas Box’ for obvious reasons they had to play over the PA at the end) and I noted that ‘Anyway, It’s Christmas’ was an instant Christmas classic. Still think that by the way but ‘A Christmas Box’ is equally as fantastic. Should you be choosing your Christmas songs ready for this year look no further, quality stuff.