I know very little about Cardigan Fields beyond the fact that they come from Leeds, that this is their second single and have a somewhat mysterious, but way cool, name. So all I have to go on is the music, and the music is damn fucking fine.
‘Timebomb’ is a guitar heavy rock track but, and this is the crucial thing, it comes with sass, it comes with a sneery punk edge. They kinda remind me of Hanoi Rocks (one of my favourite bands way way back) but heavy, way heavy.
This track comes with guitar – guitar that swings, guitar that screams, guitar played with an audible sneer. It comes with punky sneery vocals. It comes with an attitude that is writ large. It comes with no frills but with an ear for subtle – take some time, this is not just mindless trash.
They appear to describe themselves as alternative rock; to be honest I’m not too sure about that. It sounds like what we used to call heavy rawk’n’roll. The thing I’m trying to avoid saying here is that it reminds me of glam metal, heavy glam metal. I’m avoiding it because that comes with something of a, let’s call it, a stain.
But when it comes down to it, whatever you call it, this is rock, fucking great rock. Music to play at painful volumes, music to annoy your local neighbourhood. Music to go wild to.
I wouldn’t, because I just wouldn’t, usually review something that is being released on Christmas but you kinda expect nothing less, or should that be more, from FUS. And it’s FUS FFS, a review is almost compulsory.
For those of you who are not aware of FUS, what they do is just mad, way way way out there. It’s psychedelic/jazzy/funky/bluesy (pick any combination of those OK?), it’s just huge musical fun and slightly absurd. But you see they do this with a degree of musical ability that is, to be frank, off the scale. The first time I saw them I had to adjust my mindset at least three times before I got what they do.
Because you see, they’re a bit like Zappa, they are hugely capable but they chose to make music that is beyond left field, way way beyond. And it is incredibly wonderful.
‘Manjoe’ is a case in point, it comes across as something played ‘under the influence’. It’s an instrumental.
It is, in essence, a beast of four parts. A riffy acid-rocky funky section, a section which is basically a freeform jazz drum solo, followed by a grungy noise rock section and then it goes back to that riffy acid-rocky funky thing. There is a progression through the ‘sections’ that makes sense. But, and this is a huge but, it’s played so well it hurts. The guitar is a fucking joy, the drums are banging. And all of this is crammed into 2 ¾ minutes. They basically manage to do what some late 60s’ bands could only do in one side of a vinyl album in under three minutes.
You could spend hours, or perhaps days, asking yourself ‘why just why would they do this, and then release it?’ But this would miss the point entirely. The simple answer is ‘because they could’ and ‘why in the hell not’.
This leaves you in two, not necessarily conflicting states, one with the biggest smile on your face and two, reeling in wonderment as the sheer brilliance of the playing. Whether this was what they wanted you to feel like after listening to it, I have no idea, but this is how it left me. It’s just music for the sake of music, music that they do because that’s how they like to make music. It is fucking fantastic and an incredible joy. Play loud as you dare and on repeat people. Freak out, let yourself go.
The info
FUS are
Marc Bernard – Guitar, lead vocals
Jack Northward – Bass, synth, vocals
Joe Carter – Drums, vocals
A while ago (in September, really is it that long ago, time flies) I reviewed the title song from this EP – ‘Delete Us Forever’. This changed my mind about the band, I fell for it big time. So I was looking forward to reviewing this EP.
Title track ‘Delete Us Forever’ is in essence alt-synthy sounding pop with an 80s’ feel. I could leave it there but I’m kinda missing out the good bits. A lovely sometimes breathy, sometimes angelic, vocal from Kiera – her voice is quite quite fantastic, guitar that rips from Harry, a beat that just MAKES you get up and shake your thing. But wait there is more – yes, more of that good stuff. This song does the dropout thing – breathier vocals over a synth wash and a pulse that is to die for. The first time this happens it’s a tease (and I love a musical tease) for the second that drops out further and then the guitar rips in. And then in the build at the end the drums positively pound, in a strangely rock way that is so so yummy.
I’m going to describe ‘Affections’ as indie-pop; it has that bouncy bright feel to it. But as I’ve discovered Ava in the Dark add their own thing, that twist of the unexpected. You know how indie-pop songs do that drop-out bit where it gets all sparse, well in the case of this that drop-out section is so-so dreamy and atmospheric. Whether this is going to make sense to you I don’t know but Keira sings in a way that’d I’d kind of expect in a big synth-pop track. And I detect something of an 80s’ synth-pop sound in there. So it’s this fantastic mix of things that keeps you guessing the whole way through – as it shifts in feel, in tempo. And that’s a lovely thing. And there’s another lovely thing and that’s that it has the most earwormy tune
Listening to ‘Still’ all you hear is Keira’s voice – it’s angelic, it’s ethereal, it’s pure. It ‘s quiet one moment, and full of constrained power the next. It’s mesmerising, entrancing and beautiful. There is of course more than that voice but it’s sparse – a beat, clever and subtle sweeps of synth. And does this build, of course it does. It builds but fantastically not to the point it could, there’s restraint – that voice builds, the music builds but avoiding that huge swell you might expect makes it all the more powerful, all the more beautiful.
‘Bad Friends’ is pop, huge pop, pop with craft and skill. It’s dreamy. It’s somewhat dubby. It has a tune to fall in love with, to die for. It’s layers of wonderful sounds. A voice that is breathy one moment, dreamy the next. It wraps you in its velvety sound. It’s full of these unexpected sounds. It’s just too lovely for words. You must listen to it, that’s all there is to it.
The songs on this EP are different, but they all have that Ava in the Dark feel, something that says they are by the same band..I, and hope you do too, love a band that has depth, that can do different things. And nothing is just slapped down; it’s thoughtfully put together. Each sound is there for a reason, Keira’s voice is just right for each song – she has a voice I could listen to all day.
Part of what makes this quite so special is that it mixes old school with the up to date – they take the best of old school and the best of now and turn that into their thing, their sound. That’s part of it, the other part of it is that these are songs with emotion, with feeling.
There is a problem with describing music as any sort of pop, it might imply some sort of throwaway music that you’re mad about one week and the next week move on to something else. This isn’t that; it’s pop that is made with care, made with skill. It’s music that is beautiful, music that you’ll keep forever, it’s so good it hurts.
The info
A mix of soundscapes from indie dream-pop, to minimal house, electropop to alt-rock. ‘Delete Us Forever’, Ava in the Dark’s debut EP is a glimpse into the soul of lead-singer, Kiera. It’s about mental health in adolescence, people-pleasing, social pressures and self-love, presented in a nostalgic era-bound frame, sometimes ironically.
Ava in the Dark are from Leeds and are
Vocalist/Producer: Kiera Bickerstaff
Bassist/Producer: Tommie James
Drums: Thom Oliver
Guitar: Harry Walters
Nightsong is John Reed – well known to us here at LSF as a cittern playing folkish singer/songwriter, producer/musician Ali Karim Esmaiil and songwriter/musician/producer Jo Beth Young – Talitha/RISE /Yates and Young. I reviewed the second release from the album – ‘The Spell’ – a while back, and was bewitched by it (sorry I couldn’t resist that).
Their music blends urban, folk, electro and progressive music into something that they describe as Ambient Electro-folk. What does root it in folk is that the songs tell stories; and in this case these stories lift the lid on the ordinary lives of English (and sometimes Scottish) medieval peasantry,highlighting curious and resonant parallels with life in 2020.
So these are songs where the words are as important as the music, the words are meant to be listened to. They are meant to provoke thought.
Opening track ‘Pauper’s Son’ features John on lead vocal, his cittern providing the most obvious sound. Behind these there are washes of sound, Jo Beth providing eerie vocals. It’s a striking start to the album. The music is hypnotic, the feel is dark, the words are dark. Look, any song that starts ‘Sheep devour the human flesh’ is going to grab the attention, and make you want to hear the rest of it. This is a song inspired by a print depicting an attack on the house of his medieval tax collecting namesake that had been on John’s office wall for 26 years.
After a short, strangely church music sound interlude comes ‘The Bridge’. Referencing the decay of Roman infrastructure, it’s a story of revenge against thieves. Musically it’s layers of sounds – vocals, electronic sounds, John’s vocals, Jo Beth’s backing vocals. It’s all about a musical mood and atmosphere.that supports the words.
A song about the terror of leprosy ‘St.Mary Magdalene’ is more ambient-electro. Drones of sounds, delicate backing vocals, pulses of sound. And over this John sings the words – he sings simply letting the words do the work. The words and music are haunting, and the more I listened the more emotionally I become involved in the story of the people.
After another interlude comes the ‘The Spell’. It’s the first song on the album where we hear Jo Beth taking lead vocal. It’s mesmirising from the opening – gentle plucked cittern, Jo Beth’s vocals are spell-binding. And it gradually builds adding layers of sound, layers of voices, a sparse but incredibly effective beat. The song is inspired by the witch hunts and trials of East Scotland, imagining a persecuted ancestor speaking through the mists of time. And this makes for a song where the words compel repeated listening. Musically there is the risk of making it ‘too witchy’ – and there is a hint of ‘witchy’ – but the music supports the vocals by being sparsely complex.
‘Wharram’ is about the North Yorkshire village of Wharram Percy that was deserted due to the enclosure of the area for sheep farming. Musically it’s a track that builds from an ambient Celtic sound and then to something insistent. Sounds appear unexpectedly over a delicate but driving guitar.It’s richly complex but doesn’t overwhelm the words, and that is terribly terribly important. It’s compelling musically – every listen brings another thing you hadn’t caught before – and lyrically.
I was attracted to the song ‘Offoldfal’ – about the comparatively wealthy fenland communities = because I come originally from the edges of The Fens. Obviously it describes The Fens as they were, largely land with many waterways, isolated communities; as opposed to how they are now but there are fens that have been restored to something like they must have been before. They come with a certain atmosphere; they feel isolated, scary at times, otherworldly, prone to mists. The song describes that feel perfectly musically; washes of sound drift across the song, washes of sound that you are drawn into.
‘Bury Me Deep’ is the first of two songs on the album that are about how the medieval peasants lived and died. It has something of the feel of say Sandy Denny period Fairport Convention mixed with the sound ambient-electro. Jo Beth and John share lead vocals but the full impact is felt when their voices combine. It’s mesmirising.
‘Rushlight’ is a song about working in the dark. It’s simple, but simple – as I’ve said many times before – is hard to do. You can’t bury things that don’t sound right under another layer of sound. And simple is something the trio do brilliantly. And yet although simple, there is the unexpected; the backing vocals from Jo Beth, strange haunting sounds. It builds to something insistent, more rhythmic, in say the style of ‘Tusk’ period Fleetwood Mac.
‘The King’s Feast’ provides a commentary on forest crafts of middle England and subservience to both Lord and King. It’s complex and dynamic (honestly you should see the waveform of the preview stream). John’s cittern provides the skeleton that the song is built around; on this hang John’s lead vocal, the fantastic backing vocals, layers of electro sound. It builds and falls, builds and fall again, and then suddenly goes all doomy. Wow, just wow.
The album closes with ‘The Shroud’, the song about death on the album. Jo Beth sings over layers of sounds, there are multiple layered backing vocals. It’s compelling because it never quite does what you think it will. There are points where it feels as though it’s going to become a more obviously rhythmic folk song but it doesn’t, it breaks down into ambient sounds. It’s more poetry set to a soundpiece than a song. It’s beautiful.
The problem with reviewing is that you are forced to isolate each song; whereas with this album there is a flow, a journey. Songs are bookended by short musical interludes that both end the previous song and introduce the next. As with the songs individually where the sounds build with layers of sound, the songs build over the whole album into a story both lyrically and musically.
Whether I was looking forward to hearing an album of songs about medieval peasantry I’m not sure. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to relate to it. But actually I found the songs had resonance with now, and provoked thought. And the thing is that there is always the music to draw you in. The music is frankly beautiful; whether it is drawing you into the story of a song or providing the mood and atmosphere.
Yes, I guess we could label the album as a ‘concept’ album but I don’t find it to be that. It’s a set of songs that are linked by theme but make sense taken individually. There is a power in hearing all the songs at once but a different kind of power in hearing the songs individually.
If the word ‘folk’ in the musical description is putting you off taking a listen, it shouldn’t. While perhaps rooted in the roots of folk being songs that told stories musically it isn’t folk as such; it’s inventive, unexpected, compelling and mesmirising music. Beautiful songs played and sang beautifully.
The Peasants’ Revolt releases with a live listening party and performance on Youtube on 21st December at 6pm UK time via the NIGHTSONG YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/zWD0jIa45d8
The info
2020 brought together an unusual and beautiful folk collaboration in the form of Ali Karim Esmaiil, John Reed and songwriter/musician Jo Beth Young. Creating Nightsong distantly during lockdown, the trio have worked diligently in both the UK and Ireland on 10 tracks of folk tales and 6 interludes that resonate with our times.
The album blends urban, folk, electro and progressive music, lifting the lid on the ordinary lives of English (and sometimes Scottish) medieval peasantry, highlighting curious and resonant parallels with life in 2020.
Collaborator John Reed says: ‘Medieval life is often portrayed through its pageantry and costume, its battles and political machinations, its intrigue and its danger. Yet most people (between 80% or 90%) lived off the land. Winters were long and hard, cold and hungry. In the summer months, they would wake at first light and work until the light faded. Peasants were mainly tied to the service of a local lord: the church, a baron, and through them to the king’.
Luka has dropped a video for her beautiful single ‘Past The Point of No Return’. Our writer – Frank – said in his review:
‘This is a beautiful, an intensely beautiful, song. Words, music, her voice all combine into something magical, something where it’s so much more than the sum of its parts. A song that is beautiful and is about something important, something difficult and painful. And that makes it extraordinarily special’
On 26 June 2021, Kaiser Chiefs will be headlining a huge gig a Doncaster Racecourse.
This special show will invite audiences to enjoy an entire day of racing at one of the UK’s most prestigious arenas, with the added bonus of a full live set by the Leeds indie titans late into the evening.
Established as one of the best loved guitar bands to emerge this century, the Kaiser Chiefs will be heading to the races with a winning set-list of bona fide indie belters in their arsenal.
With top 10 hits like ‘I Predict A Riot’, ‘Ruby’, ‘Oh My God’, ‘Never Miss A Beat’, and ‘Everyday I Love You Less & Less’ all cementing the band’s penchant for penning contemporary pop classics like few of their peers, the many highlights to be found on their acclaimed #3 charting 2019 album ‘Duck’, illustrate a band that have no intention of slowing down soon.
With a reputation as one of the best live acts in the biz, if there’s one safe bet to place all day, put it on a hit-packed set from the Kaisers…
On 15 May 2021, York’s premier Britpop poster boys will be headlining a very special show at Doncaster Racecourse.
This unique show will invite audiences to enjoy an entire day of racing at one of the UK’s most prestigious arenas, with the added bonus of a full Shed Seven set late into the evening.
Rising to fame as one of the leading lights of the Britpop scene, some 30 years since their formation in York in 1990, Shed Seven have established themselves as one of the nation’s favourite alternative rock bands. Turning heads with the release of their classic debut album ‘Change Giver’ in 1994, the Rick Witter five-piece unfurled a flurry of smash hits that would come to define the period and amassed an impressive fifteen Top 40 singles and four Top 20 albums over the next 5 years.
After an extended hiatus in 2003, the Sheds surprised and delighted fans and critics alike as they returned with their first new studio album for 16 years: ‘Instant Pleasures’. Demonstrative of a band back at the top of their game and rippling with ideas once more, ‘Instant Pleasures’ delivered exactly what it said on the tin. Rightfully rewarded with a Top 10 UK chart position, rave reviews and national radio playlistings, the band are more in-demand than ever.
A hectic 2019 schedule saw them release their ‘Going For Gold’ greatest hits on gold-coloured vinyl for the first time, plus thrill audiences nationwide on their packed-out ‘Shedcember’ tour (an extensive tour of capacious venues that also included their first ever headline arena show at the Leeds First Direct Arena). Showing no signs of slowing the pace any time soon, the Sheds now look on to their huge Doncaster Racecourse performance in Summer 2021
With anthemic hits spanning three decades and energy in spades, few bands could be better suited to long summer evening show to a Yorkshire county crowd than Shed Seven. Currently celebrating the 25th anniversary of their first album release, expect a mix of Sheds classics including ‘She Left Me On Friday’, ‘Dolphin’, ‘Disco Down’, ‘High Hopes’, ‘Where Have You Been Tonight?’ and more, plus choice cuts from recent album ‘Instant Pleasures’, including fan favourites ‘Room In My House’ and ‘Better Days’.
Shed Seven – ‘Live After Racing’ at Doncaster Racecourse, Yorkshire
15th May 2021 (Rescheduled from 15 August 2020)
Flawes have dropped ‘What’s A Boy To Do’. Drummer Josh ‘Huss’ Hussey explains “It’s about believing in yourself, going for a goal and knowing that even if you fail, you’re still proud of yourself for seeing it through.”
The accompanying video for the track is linked to the previous visual for ‘Holding Out For The Win’. The boys return to perform in the same room as before and JC again undergoes a surprise transformation. As the song explodes into life, he hits a big red button which transports the boyhood version of himself to the present day. It’s a trick which keeps on giving, fast-forwarding Huss to middle-age and switching guitarist Freddie Edwards’ gender. And that’s all before things get really weird.
‘Love Goo’ is another example of Bull’s ability to combine sweet pop melodies with a core of ramshackle jangle rock. Laced with spritely xaphoon lines (a kind of pocket saxophone), tin whistle, and piano it’s a brilliant slice of indie maximalism.
“Love Goo is a song about getting along with people” Tom explains. “It looks at my relationship with my family as well as my own feelings of ‘sticky love goo’, when thinking about people in my life and from my childhood. It’s about the difference between people, universal truth, gender fluidity, peace & love, understanding and all of that stuff”
The Love Goo EP comes at the end of a stellar year for the band and compiles the 3 singles they’ve released in 2020, alongside ‘Love Goo’. Including the catchy as hell fuzz-rock of ‘Disco Living’, the Noisey pop of ‘Bonzo Please’ and the summery vibes of ‘Green’, it’s a brilliant portrait of the band and their music.
Formed in 2011 by vocalist and songwriter Tom Beer and guitarist Dan Lucas, Bull’s mission is simply to make the music they wanted to listen to, inspired by their 90’s heroes such Pavement, Yo La Tengo and the Pixies. The rest of the band came together through a mix of friendships and happenstance. Drummer Tom Gabbatiss joined after he and Tom jammed together in bars while they were back-packing round Thailand, and Kai West had previously used to jump up on stage with the band and “Bez” (verb meaning to dance badly while intoxicated) before they eventually let him play bass.
A unique group within the city’s already eclectic scene, the band’s sound mixes together their alt-rock influences along with Tom’s down-to-earth song writing and a particularly wry sense of humour that comes naturally to the four Yorkshiremen.
The band will also be played a special live streamed gig on the 16th December. The Snow Global tour will be a paid for stream coming from a special winter wonderland location. Each ticket not only guarantees access to the stream, but fans will also receive a special screen-printed t-shirt or poster to commemorate the occasion.
