fatandconfused

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Low – Drums and Guns

For a band that must have released some sixty billion albums I know relatively little about Low, I know I loved their In the Fishtank collaboration with Dirty Three (this is more than worth tracking down) and their collaboration with Spring Heel Jack but my only other encounter is that of Things We Lost in the Fire which to me at the time of purchase anyway had just one or two spectacular songs in amongst a pile of overly hyped ones equalling over anticipation and ultimately resulting in disappointment. And so it is that as and when the music press jump as a whole onto a record that by the time you can afford it and subsequently hear it you are by and large let down by what you hear.

I heard Drums and Guns without anticipation, I didn’t even know Low had a new album, someone burned it for me and handed it over amongst a pile of others, the only reason I played it was because I knew they were playing at the upcoming Dirty Three curated ATP (though weekend two’s line up seems to get better by the day L if only I could afford both. For now I will convince myself that we will see the “interesting” bands, bands hopefully to reach the giddy heights that Magik Markers and Comets on Fire did last year) and how glad I am that I did.

You will be instantly won over by Hatchet, a surprisingly poppy number for the worlds most well known slowcore artistes,name checking The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, however this is not the pattern of the album in general. Instead drum machines mix with the slow crackling embers of fires long put out, those adorable duel vocals, neither one perfect yet all the better for it. At times they remind me of a more friendly and accessible Charalambides, perhaps if they invited you back to their house, yet at the same time the house is about the fall down around you, you can hear the gunshots outside and people screaming, its dark but Low will still find a way amongst the most impossible of circumstances to give you a shot of brandy to warm your heart in these cold times. “but when we realised that we were dragonflies, we realised we had to find a way to get mortals…maybe your right” they sing on the dronelike Dragonfly.

“this time tomorrow I’ll be just one day closer/ one sunset further behind/ in the morning I’ll make up my mind” (Dust on the Window)

Much like Electrelane on this album Low seem to have hit all the right buttons, to have so perfectly captured moods and presented it so beautifully that it would be hard to believe if this album didn’t feature very highly in the end of year polls. This is one to be treasured.
www.myspace.com/low
www.myspace.com/subpoprecords
http://www.chairkickers.com/

UK Tour

Six Parts Seven- Casually Smashed to Pieces (Suicide Squeeze)

In the winter I rediscovered post rock, I also discovered that far from Constellation (of which that reminds me how surprised i was to see a plinth in Fopp entirely dedicated to Constellation!!) and Kranky and a few other smaller labels that there is indeed a healthy accumulation of bands of a similar ilk, websites and forums to cater and quite possibly spoil you for choice, the Silent Ballet top 50 instrumental albums of 04/05 and 06 read like a sumptuous menu at an expensive restaurant, band after band almost forcing you into over indulgence, one myspace page after another, one epic song after another, slowly building up before reaching the familiar but rarely tiresome crescendo, the all out assault on noise, terror and hope. Some better than others but the majority pulling it off exquisitely, yet one band that have stood out amongst the dynamics, the mystery and cardboard sleeves, long titles and pretensions are Ohios Six Parts Seven. Slightly math-y in approach, more delicate and perhaps more produced than the average partaker in this genre, the emphasis is less on noise and more on the melody. Rhodes piano, clarinet and cornet add to the familiar approach, gentle swaying melodies run like waves over your feet, each bent string on the guitar longingly calling out, reaching out for dreams and capturing them as easily as it is to float downstream with the current. Like the elusive and far too hard to get hold of State River Widening (offshoot of Phelan Sheppard, Ellis Island Sound etc) thir melodies and warm and embellished, often twnklng such as at the conclusion of Knock at my Door like an underwater Ice Cream van, melodies sewn together like an intricate tapestry. Falling Over Evening and Awaiting Elemental Meltdown are also exquisite.

All of this in eight tracks and 31 minutes.

www.suicidesqueeze.net
http://www.myspace.com/sixpartsseven

Monday, March 05, 2007