If being vegetarian in South America doesn’t automatically strike you as being music-related, take it from me that the Moshi Moshi Singles Club is like my colon after a fortnight’s worth of eating rice and beans in Ecuador – it simply does not put out shite. Dalston outfit Teeth are the latest band honoured to have their work released thru this most desirable of marques, and are fully deserving. Purveying what seems initially a synth-punk sound, they seem an odd choice for Visions of Trees and Dolby Anol remixes, however upon repeated listens, a warmth emerges from their robotic, automated style. There’s an endearing and genuine heart at work here. For all that their slightly glitchy electronic noise is currently purveyed by everyone and their dog, Teeth come across like the cousins-slightly-removed of The Flaming Lips or Money Mark – a stumbling soul under an outward shine. Where this differs from most Moshi Moshi 7” releases is that it’s not instantly grabbable; however a bit of perseverance reveals it to be equally as strong as their impressively burgeoning catalogue.
Yay! A remix album – there’s always loads of point to these! (well, paying Fat Bob’s pension, now that ‘Close To Me’ soundtracks EVERY telly advert, I suppose). I never quite know why artists bother with these things – satiating fans till next LP proper? Vanity? However, they all seem to follow a strict template – 3 or 4 tracks worth bothering with, and the rest filler. On this level, ‘Night Light’ doesn’t disappoint. Jens Lekman’s take on ‘Shadows’ is wonderful; it showcases the vocal perfectly and swoons like a sunny walk down the Seine. Jensen Sportag manages to turn ‘All Or Nothing’ into a game show theme tune written by Curtis Mayfield, and if Dam Mantle don’t add anything to ‘Knight Of Wands’, they make it sound pretty well like a Dam Mantle track, which is never a bad plan. Ditto Your Twenties taking ‘Anywhere You Looked’ into 80’s soul territory. However, Montag’s ‘Trace A Line’ is simply St Etienne done badly, and I’m not going into the dub mix of ‘The Last One’, other than to say COD in huge big letters. Just like that there. COD. Not really an essential purchase other than for rabid fans…who’ll probably like the originals a lot better….hey ho…
If you’ve ever seen the most hyped commodity since Florence’s shock of red hair infiltrated our peripherals then you’ll be wise to waifish frontman Jonathon Pierce’s endearing amalgamation of cult icons. He dances like a chic Ian Curtis with chiselled bone structure a cat walk model would remove your eyes for. Then there’s his dark lyrical murmurings akin Morrissey in his resourceful prime. And this, their eponymous debut LP sees them snatch a fisful of songs, well two to be exact from their recent EP ‘Summertime’ including the 60s surfy jaunt ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ and the achingly naive promises of ‘Down By The Water’ are well worth the theft. ‘Best Friend’ pens a heartfelt story about a dog waiting for his dead owner which continues in melancholy fashion and ‘We Tried’ exhibits a meandering Marr-esque guitar line. Throughout there’s a playful poise to Pierce’s downbeat tenders of goodbyes and unhinged promises that will “all end in tears”, one that makes the music flippant yet pleasant. In ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ Pierce croons “Oh mamma I wanna go surfing, Oh mamma I don’t care about nothing” and frankly that’s the overriding feeling The Drums have upon you. Now show me the beach.
After being talent scouted by the Moshi Moshi label, Fins Juho Paalosmaa and Tomi Hyyppa are here to give us Brits a taste of how electro-pop sounds filtered through the cold of the Nordic countries; it turns out that what we’re left with is a more reserved sound than we’re used to via the likes of Chew Lips et al, littered with laid-back grooves and tinkling, frosty keys. ‘Running On’ is a slow-burner, lingering keys leading the way as the track builds momentum; gradually, archaic synths ease their way to the foreground. As a love song, B-side ‘Moving On’ lacks romance, sounding detached and too spaced out; as dreamy pop, the song has more success. ‘Ways To Be’, meanwhile, combines pulsating synths with strong vocal lines, producing what could be the soundtrack to a club night in the Himalayas: kinetic yet also offering aural glimpses of the ice of Villa Nah’s homeland. A trio of songs that won’t set the world on fire, but score points for offering a chilled out take on a genre fast becoming saturated.
Volume 2 of Moshi Moshi’s singles club compiles their last 14 releases, and paying tribute to their love of the 7”, offers up 14 nuggets, none of come below 6/10. If it doesn’t hang together so well as an LP, then that only reinforces their eclectic signing policy, and certainly shouldn’t stop you buying this if you’ve missed any of the individual cuts. Casiokids stood right at the front of the queue when the Scandinavian knack for making perfect pop was dished out; their ‘Gront lys I alle ledd” a sunny slice of summer joy. Bless Beats’ ‘Sex In The City’ kicks off all Sergio Mendes with a huge piano riff, and rapper Janee Bennett drops in to make perhaps the best commercial dance track this side of ‘Bonkers’. He’s already scored a number 1, having produced Wiley’s ‘My Rolex’, and should be booked for the Saturday afternoon slot for every festival in this country. He’ll charm the sun out. The Drums continue to justify most of their hype with ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ and Signals ‘Silverfish’ is wonderful; gonzo-punk like a bunch of 10 year olds overdosed on Lucozade meeting the Ramones. There’s too many highlights for this review. Just go buy.
Coming on like Belle and Sebastian covering the Shangri-Las, the lead track finds Slow Club at that former band’s seventies working-club disco best, with a melody straight out of the Brillo building. The great production provides a bright, giddy, racket, the guitars scratching electric over incessant tambourines to create a jittery, trebly, almost C86 take on Spector’s ‘Wall Of Sound’. And with the break-up lyrics at odds with the first-love excitement of the music, the band continue that great British tradition of the subversive pop song, singing with jubilant spite to a crescendo reaching a whiter-than-whiteboy gospel yell of: ‘giving up on love!’ The flip, meanwhile, begins with a joyous dual boy-girl vocal harmony accompanied only by a gloomy organ, joined by a vibrant electro stomp, again spiked with lyrics contra to the beach-lounging vibes of the sonics. Death by a willow tree at the end of a life of dreaming, ‘take my body, put it in a boat’, they sing, ‘light it on fire, send it out to sea’. When it all comes together, this blissful resignation is really quite beautiful.
Like stumbling zombies, the acoustic beardy buskers of the post-Brit Pop malaise have risen once again, gnawing at our brains with all their bluesy, folky, dullness. The EP begins with the boring, most likely discarded, lovenote of ‘Sweetheart’, while the next track is a horrific car crash that even Ballard’s perverts would be ashamed to look at. With lyrics like ‘we’ve got time to kill, we are only kittens / I can’t wait anymore, baby lift up the paw, and your nail on my chest’, you wonder whether a Richman-esque irony just isn’t coming across, but then with the hook and the drama of the backbeat, you realise they’re actually serious. But the EP does get much better. The Wave Pictures are at their best when committing misdemeanours; the dalliances with other people’s lovers in ‘Ditchdigger’, the aptly off-kilter vox of ‘Blind Drunk’ that reminds of Evan Dando’s lush tales of discord. Elsewhere, ‘Cinnamon Baby’ and ‘American Boom’ take on the quiet howl of the Violent Femmes, and you can imagine they’re a lot of fun live if they cut loose with the racket, and the volume.
The Drums resided out of Florida until their musical voids became too much. Up rooting to the lively musical cauldron of New York City seemed the obvious progression. Crafting an oeuvre of 50s surf melting into New Wave, The Drums cohesive sound is a mere toe-in-the-water-dip before their highly anticipated debut LP is released next year. The ‘Summertime EP’ however, is a introductory montage of breezy pop songs which effortlessly transports surf to the present day via tracks such as ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ and ‘Make You Mine’ that rein act The Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds’ days. ‘Don’t Be A Jerk, Johnny’ has many a Cure-ism within in its make-up, vocalist Jonathon Peirce achingly sings “You used to be so pretty, but now you‘re just tragic”. A Cure lyric if ever we’ve heard one. And the eerily, synth swirls and chugging basslines of ‘Submarine’ points towards their heroes’ New Order. ‘Down By The Water’s watery guitars and hypnotic harmonies steal the show. ‘I Felt Stupid’ harmonies came out of the Los Campesinos way of thinking and the similarities continue throughout. And although it may not be totally unique, it acts as a tardis to the surf resurgence you may well yearn. Bittersweet pop you can dance to and, you can weep to amicably. Bring on the full length LP.
