ARTIFICIALLY YOURS: ' THE MERGER' 1-2-3-4 RECORDS Reviewed by John Robbins

To see ARIFICIAALY YOURS's video click: here

Punk attitude comes in many shapes and sizes these days, as befits something which was more of an idea and an attitude more than a sound. What is for sure, though, is whether you're talking about Sleaford Mods or Aphex Twin, it's something that is instantly recognisable. It might be hard to define, but God, you certainly know it when you hear it.

And the Colchester-based trio Artificially Yours definitely have by the truckload. Their songs are about living life in the commuter belt anonymity of M25 satellite towns being destroyed by international corporates and the sinister forces that have a stranglehold on the globe. All delivered with a derisory sneer from behind dark glasses, accompanied by the throb of cheap laptop electronics, purloined hip-hop beats and slashing, molten metal guitars.

Like another more famous Colchester band we could mention, they definitely believe that modern life is rubbish, But while they may share a slice of the bored restlessness and erudite sarcasm that informed Blur, it feels like the solution Artificially Yours have is not to observe from the sidelines, but rather get stuck with active resistance, to fight back.

So while 'The Merger', the lead track from their current EP of the same name on the 1-2-3-4 label might, on the surface, seems to be about apocalypse and the imminent collapse of society – with perhaps a nod to Killing Joke, the video splices riot scenes with North Korean military parades and mushroom clouds – there's a vibe of positive fightback lurking just beneath. Far from being a depressing thing, it seems to be saying 'the old world is falling apart, it's up to us to rebuild it in our own image.'

The music is violent but energising, built on piledriving riffs and a haze of warm fuzzy distortion, topped off with spacey wooshes and dives, evoking the days before the Pistols when John Lydon used to skulk around the back of Hawkwind gigs selling acid.

This is only one fact to their sound, as recent gigs have show they're equally adept at cheeky and very catchy hip-hop influenced grooves too. But as introductions go, it's a pretty spectacular and no holds barred way to enter the arena.

'The Merger' EP is released on 24/08/18

Live dates:
29/08/18 – Old Blue Last, Shoreditch, London
12/09/18 – Monarch, Camden, London.

Jesus on Thyface reviewed by Simone Hoffs

Several short biographies of Jesus of Nazareth went on to become the best selling book of all time. Jesus on Thyface may not sell quite as many copies as The Bible but it does contain a lot more laughs. The more familiar you are with the nonsense of Facebook the more you will laugh.

I love the timeline exchanges Jesus has with James the Less and James Zebedee:

Jesus: "What shall it profit the man if he gain the whole world and loses his own soul?"

(Sent Thursday 11th September 32AD at 4:09pm) 

James: "Oh, I know - the world!"

(posted at 4:27pm)

James Zebedee: "He was being rhetorical, dude." (posted at 4.29pm)

Yes, you guessed it - 'Jesus on Thyface' is a very silly book but if you loggeth in and signeth up you won't be disappointed. 

Other updates included: "John the Baptist has joined the group Cooking with Locusts". I also love the fact that Satan has 666 friends including Hitler and L Ron Hubbard, and his status is: "Fallen".

Text by Simone Hoffs 2018
'Jesus on Thyface' is written by Denise Haskew and Steve W Parker. The book is published by Simon and Schuster.

SIR-VERE 's new single: 'Night Time' reviewed by John Robbins

Extricate first encountered Sir-Vere when they headlined a jam-packed line up of Wall of Sound-affiliated live acts at Birthdays in Dalston. Among the many things to love about this trio of Milton Keynes misfits was the way they seemed the very opposite of the studied cool that their hipster-friendly surroundings appeared to demand of them. A shaven headed man in an x-rated t shirt stood behind the decks, one ear of his headphone clutched to his ear, as a syccession of crashing breakbeats, bleeps and rumbling basslines poured forth. To his right, cloth capped, bearded guitarist Gary Morland alternated between overdriven power chords and superfly funk licks, while front man Craig Hammond stood centre stage, throwing menacing, effect-laden vocal pronouncements into the resulting collision of sounds.

It's a sound that could only really have been concocted away from London and its legions of subcultural tribes, where every sub-genre is catered for. Sir-Vere sound more like the product of that one alternative space that exists in most towns and smaller cities, that bar or pub or club that acts as the only refuge from mainstream pop culture. Where you'll hear Prodigy or Kraftwerk on the jukebox one minute, AC/DC or Metallica the next, where Kraftwerk and Killing Joke rub shoulders with James Brown or Parliament on the playlist.

All of which is particularly relevant when it comes to their latest single 'Night Time', the teaser for their September-scheduled 'Psychoballistic Funk' album. The lyrics revolve around a weekend spent embracing smalltown delights to the full – jumping in taxis, hitting dancefloors, getting wasted and pursuing objects of desire, in this case a mysterious woman just back from Milan who plays her Rickenbacker “like Johnny Marr.”. The simple pleasures in life, basically.

View Video

That's all set to a soundtrack that's every bit as riotous and unrestrained as their live show. Rampaging live drums processed with precision, guitars that sound closer to explosions than melody and vocals with just a whiff of the late, great Mark E Smith. It’s an irresistible combination whatever time of the day or night you encounter it, and one that’s got us salivating at the thought of their impending long player. Sir-Vere, we salute you Sir!

Text by John Robbins July 2018

Photo by Frazer Waller

All For You by Lara Smiles reviewed by Ben Willmott

The tag singer-songwriter brings certain images immediately to mind – acoustic guitars, floral dresses or beards (sadly, never together) and a misguided prioritising of navel gazing self-examination over good old-fashioned entertainment.

Luckily for us, these are all cliches that London singer-songwriter  Lara Smiles appears more than capable of neatly sidestepping.  Enlisting the production skills of Killing Joke bassist, McCartney collaborator and super-producer Youth, this is the first fruit of the sessions for her forthcoming debut album and it's quite the stonker.

'All For You' kicks off by laying down a slinky, tight funk groove – the press release namechecks ESG but to these ears it's more like their fellow NYC comrades Liquid Liquid – and then throws itself headlong into classic pop chorus in a hail of crunchy guitar crossfire.  The ghosts of the Big Apple's legendary punk petri dish CBGBs in general, and Blondie and Talking Heads in particular, seem to be coming out to play as the barriers between dance and rock, pop and punk, headbanging and footsto9mping all dissolve in front of our ears.

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Which, from what we've heard. is very much the modus operandi of the album to follow.  While it won't all sound like this – Smiles is just as fond of twisting the templates of electronic music to her needs as this guitar-heavy sound - it will doubtless show a similar disregard for convention, which is just how we like it. In the meantime, we challenge to hear this and not catch yourself humming it all next week.

Text by Ben Willmott 2018

Burnt Ends by Hot Sauce Pony reviewed by John Robbins

As Wiley mockingly asked in his hilarious, pigeonholer-mocking song of the same name.... 'Wot U Call It?!'

Well, that's not an easy one. A quick listen to 'Burnt Ends' – and at one minute, ten seconds, a quick listen truly is the only way to hear this song –reveals the following... A distorted bass intro that could be Lemmy in a particularly grumpy mood. A lurching groove that's so implausibly heavy it makes a good case for being included in the periodic table of elements. A rising wall of feedback fed through an array of mysterious pedals, and splintered guitar notes that sound like glass shattering. It's way too weird to be metal, too clever to be punk and it would have the average wimpy indie kid involuntarily evacuating their bowels in fear.

And above this amorphous explosion of sound, arrives the voice of Caroline Gilchirst, as pure and heavenly as her accompaniment is grimy and hellish. Just to add to the lovely confusion, you understand. 'Burnt Ends' is a teaser for this South London four piece's self-titled debut album, and in many ways it raises more questions than it answers, not least 'when can we have some more?!' Whatever it contains, we can only really be certain that it will be like nothing we've ever heard before.

On closer inspection, their promotional bumph reveals that the band themselves have created a name for it – avant hard. It makes total sense, even if you're unlikely to find a section devoted to it in Rough Trade. So take up their challenge and immerse yourself in the sonic equivalent of a star collapsing on itself or the atom being very violently split Go on – come and have a go if you think you're avant hard enough.

'Burnt Ends' is out on Brixton Hillbilly on June 22. 

Text by John Robbins May 2018

PAUL SCHUTZE - The Sky Torn Apart reviewed by Ben Willmott

Paul Schütze has worked for over thirty years on the fringes of the field of experimental music – alongside parallel work in photography, video and installation – and he shows no signs of selling out yet.

Hailing from Australia and a founding member of cult bands Laughing Hands and of Phantom City, he’s worked with everyone from Bill Laswell and Lol Coxhill to Max Eastley, Jah Wobble and David Toop.  His latest offering has an environmental theme, apparently drawing on the Nordic myths of Ragnarök in which the earth is subsumed by water as a consequence of divine conflict, which although is an anoient tale seems to have much relevance to the planet’s plight as the global warming catastrophe begins to take hold.

There’s only one, epic 56-minute track, and, as you might expect from someone whose label is called Glacial Movements, it moves almost imperceptibly along with its narrative while being eerie listening throughout.  Using sound to paint pictures, Schütze seems to have confined us to a claustrophobic jungle cave at first, where water drips down the walls and noises of great foreboding happen at sudden intervals.  Eventually it moves into more wide open territory, but even then, the long, searing synthesiser notes – there are echoes of Vangelis’ ‘Bladerunner’ score here – seem to have a note of discord and imminent jeopardy.  Trouble in paradise, for sure.

It’s what you might call ambient music except that far from being sonic wallpaper or even a reassuring, calming presence, this unnerving symphony creeps into your consciousness and twists your mood without mercy.  Play it in a chill out room and you’ll have the casualties running for the St John’s Ambulance!

Paul Schütze might be a strange cause to champion on a site devoted to more punk rock sensibilities, but ‘The Sky Torn Apart’ is far from hippy dippy thinking.  It’s sharp and undiluted, and all too easy to get sucked into.  Uneasy listening anybody?!

Cover photo by Bjarne Riesto

 Sleeve design by Rutger Zuydervelt

Text by Ben Willmott

The 30th Anniversary of R.E.M's best album Green by Denni Rusking

Micheal Stipe: "The buzz words for Green were 'crunchy' and 'angular'; anything jangly or comfortable was out."

Music journalist: "A lot of people would say that you are mad"

Micheal Stipe: "A lot of people eat bacon and crisps for breakfast."

I never thought R.E.M was a great name for a band and when I was told R.E.M stood for "Rapid Eye Movement" (a physiological term for the stage of the sleep cycle at which dreaming begins) I liked it slightly less. I think the band have made more bad albums than good ones and I wasn't sad when they split up. And yet, credit where it's due... 30 years ago R.E.M (who were nearly called "Slut Bank") released a fucking fantastic record called "Green". I've been listening to "Green" a lot recently and I've decided it's the band at their absolute peak and I agree with both Kurt Cobain and The Times newspaper that "Green" is one of the best albums of all time.

"Green" was the band's 6th studio album and their first for a major label. 
Peter Buck: "R.E.M is part lies, part heart, part truth and part garbage". 
"Pop Song 89" and "Stand" are Big, dumb pop songs. They're so dumb they're kind of smart.
Orange Crush is probably about the Agent Orange chemical warfare programme in Vietnam

41:01 (11 tracks) first release on a major, Singer Michael Stipe had reportedly told his bandmates to "not write any more R.E.M.-type songs". Larry Graham 5 star review in Q The Times included it in their list of 100 best albums of all time

 “Run a carbon-black test on my jaw/ And you will find it’s all been said before” — “Hairshirt”

"World Leader Pretend" is one of the great R.E.M. songs.

 “It was the first song I felt so confident about that we printed the lyric on the sleeve, allowing people to read it before they heard it,” Stipe tells me a few days later, in a London hotel. “I realised it was my take on Leonard Cohen. I was trying to be as smart as he was in his lyric writing.” The band had formed in 1980, “so you could say it was eight years in the making”, he adds.

Text by Denni Rusking 2018