First up it's Small Black's New Chain. This one (I think) largely escaped the editorial scalpel, save for a few semi-colons and hypens.
"It feels unfair to be dismissive about Small Black's first LP: there's nothing that can be pinpointed as obviously wrong; there are no unforgivable faux-pas or embarrassing missteps. The problem, if you can call it that, is that New Chain is just... okay.
Individual elements are inoffensive enough: drum machines are set firmly at 'early '80s', the synthesizers are acceptably lo- in sound fidelity, and the vocals are 'badly' recorded to the point of being largely unintelligible. When heard in isolation, some of the tracks are even quite good: 'Camouflage' packs epic drums and none-too-subtle Joy Division nods, while 'Goons' happily clatters away for two and a bit minutes. But over an album, Small Black just fade into the background. They seem to have missed the fun of the era they pastiche so faithfully; there's none of the camp sense of humour or self-awareness that still makes early synth-pop beguiling. And without this playfulness, New Chain ends up as aural wallpaper: not unpleasant, but nothing to get fired up about either."
Weekend's (rather bloody good) Sports.
"On first listen, Californian shoegaze trio Weekend's début LP Sports is kinda bemusing: it's hard to escape thinking that the thick waves of static clouding every track are somehow accidental, as if 'it just happened that way' when recording. But first impressions can wrong-foot; on second listen, one realises that the 'accidental' feedback is totally the point, and serves as counterpoint to the band's obvious knack for writing pop songs: highlight "End Times" could've been written by C86er-than-thou label-mates The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart- if it weren't for ear-splitting noise obscuring the melodies. And though not exactly a new idea, this struggle between violence and sweetness still results in a thrilling record. It does help that the Sports' 45 minutes are packed full of sly twists; it's these little touches that move Weekend from 'faithful shoegaze pasticheurs' to 'something special'. Take the breakneck, charge at the end of "Veil"; the transition from the (appropriately) droney "Monday Morning" into thrashed-out "Monongah, MV"; the tactile waves of fuzz piling over the vocals on opener "Coma Summer"- the more you listen, the more you find."
And an interview with Jimmy Smith, one of Foals' two guitarists. This is rather a long 'un, and was written under stressful circumstances (to say the very bloody least). In truth, I have no idea how it got finished, and it's probably riddled with errors, but, nevertheless...
"The Oxford-bred five piece that emerged from myspace (remember that thing?) three years ago were quite a different beast from the band we see today: back then, nervy guitars, obtuse lyrics and songs that were frankly claustrophobic prevailed. Insularity was the order of the day: indie-disco baiter "Cassius" pretty much stonewalls any lyrical analysis, for example- and this isn't even starting on Yannis Philippakis' yelped vocals, or the studio-tomfoolery heavy finished record. I mean, I liked Antidotes. I liked it a lot. But it was hard work. Two years down the line, however, and a great deal has changed...
It'd be a pretty horrendous cliché to say that with age comes maturity, especially when one factors in the fact that the time elapsed since Foals' début album Antidotes is- just to reinforce the point- a smidgen over two years. But like most clichés, it carries a certain amount of truth: the band's second record, Total Life Forever, released earlier this year, is a far less alienating affair than their first effort- as guitarist Jimmy Smith says, 'it's more open; there's more space on it'. It certainly sounds more comfortable, more assured than their début- but the reasons for the band's shift in sound, however, was actually as much by accident as design. Circumstantial factors- namely 'living together in a semi-detached house next door to a young family'- forced the group to shift their focus, 'moving from volume to sound', with various band members 'often playing quite quietly, quite late into the night, without drums', and writing songs individually.
This approach stands in stark contrast to both the recording of their previous record and demos made in the writing process: early demo track "Glaciers" involved 'Yannis getting stoned out of his mind' in a tiny studio in London, and piling tape loops on top of tape loops, which is '[what Total Life Forever] would've been like if we had been allowed to have done loads of overdubs in the studio'. The tendency to exploit the studio has hamstrung Foals before: "Big Big Love" from Antidotes 'was just totally unplayable live. Total overdub central'. The band members' desire to use anything and everything available to them when recording was something producer Luke Smith had to actively fight: 'There's a tendency in the studio to want to do everything. There are all these instruments lying around... and [when we suggested using them] he was like "there's no way you can do that live, and it'll sound fucking terrible; just leave it... Leave that space empty!"'
Instead, at the behest of their producer, they returned to basics: TLF is 'just the five of us, playing in a room'. Recording the album turned into quite a gruelling process, however- attempts to 'get the heart of the song' onto tape often meant doing 'twenty five, thirty, takes in a row... you'd start hallucinating, feeling really weird, completely out of it. Then the track finishes, and you've been playing for six minutes, and... "CRRK! Do it again!"'
Dispiriting though it may have been to record, Foals' new way of doing things is paying dividends live: their set the night before 'was absolutely mental, the crowd were going nuts'. In Bristol it's the same- and the music is of a consistently high standard, with new material often outshining the old. And for a band that once facetiously denied knowing any chords and effectively made guitar solos anathema, several moments in the set sound suspiciously lead-guitar orientated: distorted guitars duel in the segues before and after lead single "Spanish Sahara". Their new-found openness even manifests itself in the way the band plays live: whereas before singer/guitarist Philippakis and guitarist Smith faced each other across the stage, ignoring the audience, nowadays all members face front and centre. At some points they even smile.
It's not all positivity, however. A discussion of LA musician Ariel Pink's latest record quickly turns into a discussion of the state of the music industry- an establishment one gets the impression Foals are distinctly unimpressed with. 'I think the music industry needs a fucking huge revamp. It needs Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen to come in and sweep everyone away... All these traditions from the arena rock days, slapped on everything. It makes big bands really successful, but small bands have a horrible time...' Any latent teenage idealism about changing "the system" from within isn't forthcoming, however- Jimmy is adamant that, although he wishes 'the major labels would die', 'you've got to accept they never will... There are all these arseholes leeching off people, off bands'. It seems a rather curious position to be in, being supported by an institution you detest. Smith acknowledges the oddness of the situation, but says 'eventually you realise that it's about making music and playing shows, and concentrate on that'. Interpolating these statements to insinuate hypocrisy on Foals' part seems distinctly unfair, however: it's an issue faced by most musicians, and even more so when artists start to break into the mainstream. "Focusing on the music" might be ducking the politics somewhat- but it's also a pretty inevitable end-result.
And the band are doing their best to work make the process work for them- as they see it, 'the music industry is built on cycles... and once you're caught up in it, that's that'. Their next move, therefore, is 'to try and break our own cycles. Get the new album out quicker... Maybe do an EP. We've always wanted to do an EP.' This is offset, however, by an almost neurotic self-critical streak: 'we're so anal, and so worried about letting ourselves down musically... We've got a few ideas left , though. The well's not dry yet...'"
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