fatandconfused

Cocorosie – The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (Touch & Go)

To say that Cocorosie are slightly weird would be more than a slight understatement, they are a personification of the whole new weird folk movement yet as many of the bands and individuals that find themselves pigeonholed into the genre they have occasionally suffered from over hype, leaving you a little bit disappointed when their albums aren’t quite as spectacular as originally made out, with new album The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn they have at least to some extent delivered a work of wonder, something also truly unique. I will however state that of the 12 tracks on offer 5 are fantastic and would’ve made an exceptional EP, yet that’s not to take away from the “weaker tracks” so to speak which have their place just don’t quite stand up to the awesome folk hop of Rainbowarriors, Promise, Werewolf and Animals or the bizarre, best thing since Prozac of Japan, a song sure to make you smile if only momentarily, mixing high pitched cheeky rhymes with operatic breaks, really quite lovely. The four previously mentioned songs catch a certain sound that is so refreshing and clean amongst a genre that so often lets itself down with its determination to make bad language and violence cool, the hip hop beats are accompanied by toy instruments and half spoken lyrics covering allsorts of subjects and feelings, here we have something new and unique, something to hype over yet I hope they stay amongst those in the know, that they won’t start thinking they are Jesus just like Devendra, letting the hippy thing go a bit too much to his head, going over indulgent spoiling the illusion just like Herman Dune, lets hope.
www.myspace.com/cocorosie
www.touchandgorecords.com

A Hawk & A Hacksaw - And The Hun Hangar Ensemble (The Leaf Label)

Its hard to explain and even harder to understand how much I struggled with A Hawk and A Hacksaw, I tried so hard to fall in love with them & The Way The Wind Blows album, the one that so many people raved about, the one that was included in so many end of year polls, and rather highly too, yet it never really struck the chord, just like Beirut whatever everyone else was seeing was passing me by, I was probably staring right at it but couldn’t see for looking. So its comes as quite a surprise that the follow up that has scarcely been mentioned, I’ve yet to see any hype on the forums from the very same people that championed The Way The Wind Blows, has had such an instant appeal to me. Each track warm and inviting like an evening round a fire snowed in in a Hungarian log cabin, accordions and all sorts of weird instruments at the ready, taking in the Amelie soundtrack, the most mariachi parts of Calexico along the way and much beer from silver tankards, overflowing as they clash together in pure ecstasy. Let this soundtrack your next Hungarian disco.
www.myspace.com/ahawkandahacksaw
www.myspace.com/hunhangarensemble
www.myspace.com/theleaflabel

You can also find us in MYSPACE where you can also see a couple of great Herman Dune videos that keep messing up on here as well as hear songs from The Butterflies of Love, Horowitz, Lardpony and The Chemistry Experiment

Livejournal seems to have it in for me...i give in, it just keeps corrupting and throwing things out of order. You'll have to read the reviews in a slightly less cool format on Myspace...

The Besnard Lakes, Herman Dune, Cam Butler, Horowitz reviewed

The Besnard Lakes – Is A Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar)

Remember how much you love the new Low album, the slow drawn out vocals against waves of melancholy, then add to that the magic of Mercury Rev and you won’t be far off Disaster the opening track on the excellent Is A Dark Horse. The songs build and spiral often past the six minute mark, whipping up an exhilarating fervour of noise and feeling much like the majority of Wilco’s live album. The powerful female choir in Devastation evokes memories of The Flaming Lips Gash whereas the slow and teasing build up of Because Tonight with its yearning violins is full of beauty and emotion that comparisons to Godspeed are for once justified. It’s what you’d expect if Dirty Three and Low merged full time, the songs powerful and memorable, each instrument taking it turn to showcase a new riff or refrain.

This is the kind of music that should be filling stadiums along with the likes of Wilco and The National instead of the dull dull Snow Patrol and Idlewild, bands that have lost their passion in search of commercial recognition. At last a band that can live up the lazy comparisons we hear handed out all too often. Low, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, you have a new challenger to your thrones.
www.myspace.com/thebesnardlakes
www.myspace.com/jagjaguwar
www.thebesnardlakes.com/

Herman Dune – Giant (Source)

It’s not often that I write a bad review, that is, a negative review mainly because I find little enough time as it is to review the things I love let alone wasting time on telling people about stuff they’re not gonna want to buy, I see no point in it, lets concentrate on all the great music that is being released and in the bigger picture being ignored.

To some extent Herman Dune fit into the bracket of “great music” in that when they get it right they get it spot on, they are almost untouchable, moments like Seven Different Cities, Not on Top (both from Not On Top) and the glorious single I Wish That I Could See You Soon are in their own league, so much so that when they played the aforementioned I Wish That I Could See You Soon last night it instantly became one of my favourite gig moments ever, the clever lyrics, the angelic backing from “the angels” the music so simple and well knitted together it was like being transmitted back to the sixties, not the Beatles sixties, no instead someone’s hazy memory of a decade spent strumming guitars on the beach before a pile of embers and a rising sun. Yet this is the very same thing that I hate about them.
As often as the lyrics are mumbled genius "And you know hoe people shorten other peoples names/ to show their affection/ like if you called me Ray if my name was Raymond/ well your name aint Susan but i would call you Sue to show you how bad i like to be with you" they are prentenious post university travelling hippy, hateful pretentious mumbo jumbo "he switched to Bavarian when he saw her/ a good sign that they really knew each other/but the weather and the music were bad/ so we stick to the table we had/ we all wore reading spectacles/ but didn't get too political/ one of us was back from Israel/ I had spent a night in the jail"
You see when we first played with them back in 2001 they wouldn’t leave the stage despite several request from the venue owners and a very disinterested audience and whereas now they are able to command the attention of a much larger crowd they still suffer from an almost vain self indulgence, for instance the support received ½ an hour to their 1 ¾ hours. Perhaps its just me but I struggle with any band playing that long.
If you love Herman Dune and always have then you’ll probably fall instantly in love with Giant and its slightly more than normal Jonathan Richman influence, if like me you’ve always felt there are normally ten too many fillers on the album you may struggle which is a real shame as they really are capable of great things.
www.myspace.com/therealhermandune
www.hermandune.com

Cam Butler – Go Slow (Broken Horse)

The distant sounds of Calexico, picking out and treating each note with a heavy dose of delay and tremolo mixed with the elation, jubilation and joy a string section has the ability to conjure, those feelings of ecstasy and exhilaration, out and out euphoria and relief no matter how temporary. Seeing a friendly face after a bad day, making it to dry land after shipwreck, being with that special person, no matter what the setting is, no matter how grim the surroundings, no matter how bad things will be once this moment is over, for now troubles seem far away.

There are weak tracks on this EP, songs that don’t really go anywhere but the ones that do, the ones enlist the help of the delicately named Shadows of Love Orchestra shine and shimmer like a nugget of gold amongst a hand full of grit. Today, Troubles Seem So Far Away carries the same feeling of well being that Eluviums Prelude For Time Feelers constructs so majestically, almost noble and ceremonious in sound. Likewise the working mans slog of Brothers & Sisters and closer So Long Friend manage to again successfully mix the worlds of Dirty Three, Max Richter and a whole host of other hopelessly romantic musicians, the strings so gentle on the ears, caressing your ears like the gentle lapping waves do your feet on starlit nights walking on sandy beaches, like Godspeed had they not such a loathing for government .So reassuring that perhaps today troubles will indeed seem far away.

www.brokenhorse.co.uk
www.myspace.com/cambutlermusic
www.cambutler.com

Horowitz – Frosty Cat Songs (Glo-fi/Kitchen)
Some kind of twisted, rugby tackle collision between two of my best demo discoveries since starting this zine back in 2001, Robots and Electronic Brains favourite philosophising home recording Trilemma and Japhy Ryder & His Band front man Ian join forces to form the really quite marvellous Horowitz.
Singing songs about Chilwell Olympia, (I have just this minute returned from playing football there) twinkies, curious paper tigers and frosty cats it should not surprise you that there is a slight Sparklehorse influence, not the slow deliberate Sparklehorse but instead the exciting, fuzzy vocaled Sparklehorse of tracks such as Rainmaker, Someday I Will Treat You Good, Pig etc.
Horowitz would quite happily fit in with Stewart Andersons awesome 555 records label were it still in existence, songs so clearly recorded in the bedroom, treble-y guitars and sweet broken hearted boy lyrics, the kind of a lovelorn idiosyncrasy you’d expect from a “twee pop type”, more concerned with the bands she likes than the way she looks (perhaps the way it should be) 
Sister tumbles and shakes about in their own words “like a robot dancing in tumble dryer”, Audrey Post It Notes opening mess is so charming it may well become my indie pop anthem of the summer “Ooo sha lalalala sha la laaaaaa” Or perhaps it’ll be the besotted skip along of my current favourite West London Postcard Club “Ooo you cut me right in two/ yet I don’t know the first thing about you/ I guess you must have been pretty bored/ with your haircut and your car/ all we cared about was the all girl summer fun band/ redefining values as the old world melts away…blowing kisses in the summer sun/ thank God we’re happy drunks” 
And I’ve hardly scraped the surface to be honest, Meet Me After Dinner and Need a Blanket also get me shaking my head like any great indie pop song should, I imagine this will remain on my stereo for the majority of the summer and yours too if you even half like bands like Boyracer, Comet Gain, Lardpony, The Radiator Experts (sorry) and everything those bands stand for.
www.wearehorowitz.com
the_mittens@yahoo.com
www.myspace.com/horowitzband